Echoes of the Cold War in the current Saudi world-view
Mamoun Fandy writes opinion pieces for Asharq al-Awsat, the Saudi-funded pan-Arab newspaper based in London, and the fact he is close to Saudi king Abdullah bin Abdulaziz (see prior post) gives us a chance to try and understand the Saudi regime's current worldview. A good place to start is his piece on the "triangle of destruction" (meaning destruction of "modern Arab states") in Asharq al-Awsat for Monday Oct 2, 2006. Main points can be summarized as follows:
There are three sides to this triangle. First there is American pressure for democratic change. This is potentially destructive of Arab state and civil institutions, but it is in the final analysis merely pressure "from the outside", meaning there isn't any real internal constituency.
More serious is the second side of this triangle, and this is the pressure from inside Arab states for breakup, examples including Hizbullah in Lebanon, Hamas in Palestine, and the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. All of these movements are created and fostered by Iran. Some might say the MB is Sunni so it isn't controlled from Iran, but this isn't true, Fandy says, as people understand who observe all the trips the Egyptian MB people take to Iran. Same the visits to Tehran by Hamas leaders. This laser-like focus on Iran as the sole cause of these movements is startling. In fact Fandy calls this the "Iranian project to destroy the Arab state from within." For me it reads like a throwback to the Cold War days when McCarthyites and others attributed any progressive movement at all to meddling by Moscow. At the very least, it suggests an extremely Iran-centered focus to the current Saudi mentality.
The third side of this "triangle of destruction" is what Fandy calls in a negative way the "dialogue of cultures" movement. The cartoons, the Pope, and other hot topics are taken up not on a nation-by-nation basis, but as cultural issues, with the undesirable outcome that Islamists like Qardawi and Turabi, and Egyptian MB leader Akef come to be regarded as spokesmen for all of the Arab or Islamic world, when they are not. In fact they come to regard themselves as "substitute leaders", substitutes, that is, for the legally constituted state. Moreover, what is more dangerous still, is that issues and problems that are issues of civil law between nations, have a tendency to be regarded in the "dialogue of civilations" light, and thus to become "Islamized" when they are not religious issues at all but secular issues. Thus we hear demonstrators in Cairo calling out the name of Ahmedinejad, and demonstrators in Sudan calling out the name of Nasrullah. Young Moroccans go to Iraq to participate in struggle together with the "Association of Muslim Scholars". Issues that originally were civil and secular issues are in these ways Islamized. And Fandy adds quite suggestively, even the issue of nuclear bombs is Islamized. This latter expression indicates one of the clear motives here. Iran is Islamic, so this tendency to "Islamizing" of issues, in addition to undermining the state generally, more particularly works against the idea of Iran as the enemy.
This little essay by an intellectual close to the king shows the overall anxiety: The state is being undermined from three directions at the same time. By the United States via demands for "reform"; by Iran via the fostering of internal movements to split the society from within; and finally by the whole "dialogue of civilations" movement, which encourages people to think in terms of an irrelevant Islamic unity at the expense of a focus on the legally-constituted institutions of the state.
There are three sides to this triangle. First there is American pressure for democratic change. This is potentially destructive of Arab state and civil institutions, but it is in the final analysis merely pressure "from the outside", meaning there isn't any real internal constituency.
More serious is the second side of this triangle, and this is the pressure from inside Arab states for breakup, examples including Hizbullah in Lebanon, Hamas in Palestine, and the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. All of these movements are created and fostered by Iran. Some might say the MB is Sunni so it isn't controlled from Iran, but this isn't true, Fandy says, as people understand who observe all the trips the Egyptian MB people take to Iran. Same the visits to Tehran by Hamas leaders. This laser-like focus on Iran as the sole cause of these movements is startling. In fact Fandy calls this the "Iranian project to destroy the Arab state from within." For me it reads like a throwback to the Cold War days when McCarthyites and others attributed any progressive movement at all to meddling by Moscow. At the very least, it suggests an extremely Iran-centered focus to the current Saudi mentality.
The third side of this "triangle of destruction" is what Fandy calls in a negative way the "dialogue of cultures" movement. The cartoons, the Pope, and other hot topics are taken up not on a nation-by-nation basis, but as cultural issues, with the undesirable outcome that Islamists like Qardawi and Turabi, and Egyptian MB leader Akef come to be regarded as spokesmen for all of the Arab or Islamic world, when they are not. In fact they come to regard themselves as "substitute leaders", substitutes, that is, for the legally constituted state. Moreover, what is more dangerous still, is that issues and problems that are issues of civil law between nations, have a tendency to be regarded in the "dialogue of civilations" light, and thus to become "Islamized" when they are not religious issues at all but secular issues. Thus we hear demonstrators in Cairo calling out the name of Ahmedinejad, and demonstrators in Sudan calling out the name of Nasrullah. Young Moroccans go to Iraq to participate in struggle together with the "Association of Muslim Scholars". Issues that originally were civil and secular issues are in these ways Islamized. And Fandy adds quite suggestively, even the issue of nuclear bombs is Islamized. This latter expression indicates one of the clear motives here. Iran is Islamic, so this tendency to "Islamizing" of issues, in addition to undermining the state generally, more particularly works against the idea of Iran as the enemy.
This little essay by an intellectual close to the king shows the overall anxiety: The state is being undermined from three directions at the same time. By the United States via demands for "reform"; by Iran via the fostering of internal movements to split the society from within; and finally by the whole "dialogue of civilations" movement, which encourages people to think in terms of an irrelevant Islamic unity at the expense of a focus on the legally-constituted institutions of the state.
posted by badger at 8:00 PM
2 Comments:
My respone to Mr. Fandy’s report:
1. “First there is American pressure for democratic change. This is potentially destructive of Arab state and civil institutions, but it is in the final analysis merely pressure "from the outside", meaning there isn't any real internal constituency.”
This is not ture. The only pressure from the US is to conform to US policies. There is no pressure for Saudi Arabia to be come ‘democractic’ or the ‘fig-leaf’ democracies of Egypt and Jordan. The US is perfectly comfortable with those states and will not act to promote the “destruction of [these] Arab state and civil institutions”, and other non-democractic Arab states that conform.
2. “second side of this triangle, and this is the pressure from inside Arab states for breakup, examples including Hizbullah in Lebanon, Hamas in Palestine, and the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. All of these movements are created and fostered by Iran.”
Again, this is a generalization not supported by a significant body of documentary evidence. Hizbullah, Hamas and Muslim Brotherhood are indigenous organizations that have come into existence and evolved in response to the conditions within their respective ‘states.’ The US and their Arab allies would have us believe that they are foreign agents. But, this is just a rationalization for the aggression that is promoted by the their foreign policy establishment towards these non-conforming Arab groups.
3. “Third.. issues and problems that are issues of civil law between nations, have a tendency to be regarded in the "dialogue of civilations" light, and thus to become "Islamized" when they are not religious issues at all but secular issues.”
It is not uncommon for people in the “West” to talk in terms of “Western Civilization” and its culture vis visa other cultures. This is not construed as being destructive to the repsective nation states in the west. Why is talk of Islamic culture considered anti-state?
On the whole I do not find much in Mr. Fandy’s article that is reality based. It is just the usual opinion forming journalism meant to created support for US its Arab allies policies.
I agree with the previous comments. For several years now, the Saudis have been trying to blame their internal problems on the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood. I find it hard to believe that they're actually "created and fostered" by Iran.
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