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April 11, 2011 The Arab Spring <http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/authors/id.200/author_detail.asp> Gary H. Johnson, Jr. Print This <javascript:%20printVersion()> E-mail This <javascript:%20emailVersion()> <javascript:void(0);> http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/images/share.png ShareThis <javascript:void(0);> Comments (0) <http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/comments.asp?id=9211> http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/imgLib/20110327_LibyaFlagMap.jpg Ernest Hemingway was right. Bringing order out of chaos is a tall task for a writer and a superhuman task when the chaos is multiplying. Nowhere is this reality more evident than in the current upheaval rocking North Africa, the Middle East, and Central Asia. In America, three schools of thought are battling for dominance in the analysis of the Arab Spring. The New Realists http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/imgLib/20101029_DennisRoss.jpg Dennis Ross. The most influential of the three schools is the Obama Administrations new realists, led by Dennis Ross. The new realists are a number of handpicked White House executives and advisors drawn from the academic and military cadres of NGOs like Washington Institute for Near East Peace, the Center for a New American Security, the Council on Foreign Relations, the Brookings Institute and the Center for American Progress. President Obamas WINEP, CNAS, CFR, and Brookings advisors, coupled with Secretary Clintons CAP think tank cronies hold to the maxim that accommodating the Muslim World is possible. To the new realists, negotiations are but one tool of statecraft that can add leverage toward a favorable end game, so long as the partner of those negotiations is a rational actor. Iran, according to Dennis Ross, was just such a rational actor. Indeed, the June 2009 Cairo speech of President Obama was aimed at setting the table for Irans rise as the superpower of the Greater Middle East. The bloody crackdown upon enraged voters in Irans Green Movement chilled the proposal. However, Ambassador Richard Holbrookes contact group methodology in Afghanistan and Ambassador George Mitchells hopes of settling the Israeli-Palestinian question meant bringing the Islamic Establishment of Iran into line with Americas interests while painting al Qaeda as our joint enemy. Iran, positioned between Iraq and Afghanistan, with military proxies such as Hezbollah and Hamas on Israels northern and southern flank, to the new realists, served as the key to <http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/may/24/books-myths-illusions-peace /> Finding a New Direction For America in the Middle East. Holbrookes AfPak contact group was designed to bring all the nations bordering Afghanistan and Pakistan to the negotiating table as stakeholders in the affairs of the region. The Holbrooke strategy would require ending 30 years of Americas isolation of the Iranian regime in Tehran. The logic of the necessity for negotiations on the contact group front recognized that a rational actor would have natural security concerns. The nuclear question, then, was seen by the U.S. State Department in terms of the right of the Shia muslims of Iran to self-defense from a possible nuclear attack by neighboring majority-Sunni Pakistan. Moreover, with President Obamas public push for a drawdown of nuclear weapons, globally, the focus on Irans lack of compliance with the IAEA and NPT was steered to place a question mark on Israels long-held strategic ambiguity on the question of its nuclear capacity to wage war. In this, the supposedly stunning revelation that Iran had a secret nuclear site at Qom was of little consequence. George Mitchells presence on the Israeli-Palestinian fault line was due precisely to his proven diplomatic strategy to soften the terrorism of IRA activists in their battle with the royals of England. By negotiating with the political wing of the organization, the militants were reined in from violence. Using the same model, Ambassador Mitchell, under the advisory of Dennis Ross, would aim to negotiate with the political wings of Hamas, Hezbollah, and other militant terrorist organizations in the region. The aim was to bring the militant factions into line with the political arms of their organizations; but, the supposition that the political arms of Hamas and Hezbollah were rational players served only to legitimize the political aspirations and militant jihads of these Wahhabi and Khomein Fundamentalists. The aim of George Mitchells diplomatic strategy in Jerusalem was to pacify the situation so that Dennis Ross could stabilize the Greater Middle East by enabling Iran to rise as a rational player and call off his dogs. The Ross gambit was a complete failure. The goal was to utilize a sophisticated ambassadorial statecraft of negotiation to leverage a change in Irans behavior so that Iran could see to Americas interests in the region as it drew down forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. As it became apparent that Irans behavior would not be bridled by a proposed alliance of interests in the region, a sanctions regime was imposed on Iran in late 2010. In an <http://www.politico.com/blogs/laurarozen/1010/Ross_talks_Iran_Israel_with_A IPAC.html> October 2010 speech at AIPAC, Ross remarked on the failure of the engagement policy, Irans own behavior over the past two years has demonstrated that it prefers defiance and secrecy to transparency and peace. Previously, in May of 2010, the Obama Administration released its <http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/rss_viewer/national_security_ strategy.pdf> 2010 National Security Strategy, which completely institutionalized the removal of the phrase Islamic radicalism from the lexicon of the U.S. Government. Crafted by Global Engagement Directorate head <http://www.cnsnews.com/node/63838> Pradeep Ramamurthy, the document noted a shrinking worlds demand for more muscular international institutions to help build the capacity of emerging states and to effectively isolate states engaging in bad behavior. Notably, as the Arab Spring let loose, Ramamurthy, the GED chief, has maintained a decidedly low profile. Taking the lead, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has utilized what she refers to as <http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article5510049. ece> smart power to bring comprehensive American multilateralism efforts to a beefed up international coordination on crises such as <http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/id.9037/pub_detail.asp> Libya. Putting smart power to work began on <http://www.usglc.org/2009/10/14/putting-smart-power-to-work-dialogue-on-qdd r-â??-october-14-2009/> October 14, 2009 and brought roughly 400 companies and NGOs together to chart a way forward in a group known as the U.S. Global Leadership Coalition. The effort was to fully integrate USAID and the State Department. The result was the QDDR, the Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review. It should be noted that the charge was led by Jacob Lew, who is currently spearheading the Office of Management and Budget. Interestingly, the USGLC membership roster includes General Electric, AIPAC, and Deloitte LP. An American business giant with huge interests in the Middle East, a powerful Israeli interest group, and the largest international accounting firm in the world that just happens to have a Shariah Compliant Advisor or three on its staff are all working in a coalition alongside the likes of Raytheon. Raytheon was just awarded a contract to develop mid-range missile technology for President Obamas <http://www.raytheon.com/newsroom/technology/rms11_sm3_tsc/> Phased Adaptive Approach to European defense. The choice by the Tea Party energized the Republican Establishment to focus on cutting foreign aid in the 2011 and 2012 budgets as Secretary Hillary Clinton rose to the center of the Libya crisis was a complete misread of the influential winds blowing in DC. With Jacob Lew in the directors seat at the OMB, the Democrat base circled their wagons around Secretary Clintons 400 revenue streams for PAC re-election funds. In light of these realities, it should be dwelt upon that the new realists of the Obama Administration responded to the failure of its open-hand policy of engagement with Iran by attempting to buy three months of negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians of the West Bank and Gaza. Yakov Katz of the Jerusalem Post noted on November 15, 2010: Israel signed a contract for 20 F-35s a fifth-generation stealth fighter jet made by Lockheed Martin in early October in a deal valued at $2.75 billion. Under the offer made to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu during his meeting last week with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton Israel would receive a second, free squadron of the advanced fighter jet if it agrees to impose a three-month freeze on settlement construction. The jet contract, which would be available in 2016 and 2017 represent a massive financial windfall for Lockheed Martin, who also just happens to be on USGLCs member roster. But, besides this obvious interest group influence peddling, what should be taken away from the affair by the American people is that President Obama was willing to spend $2.75 billion of U.S. taxpayer money to purchase a change in Israels behavior. The move to buy Israeli behavior modification with future aircraft promises followed Saudi Arabias agreement to spend $60 billion on aging F-15s and F-16 fighter jets from Boeing, with ongoing talks on increasing its capacity to square off with Iran. According to defense analyst <http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=129861216> Loren Thompson, They have been putting together a program called the Eastern Fleet Modernization program that will probably buy a next-generation warship, air defense radars and missiles and probably helicopters also to patrol opposite the border with Iran." It is unlikely that the Islamic Establishment of Iran read the Obama Administrations play as anything but weakness. The September/ <http://articles.cnn.com/2010-10-20/us/saudi.arms.deal_1_saudi-arabia-f-15-a ircraft?_s=PM:US> October deal to arm Saudi Arabia was the final salvo in the Dennis Ross strategy of behavior modification aimed at Iran. The stage was set for the Arab Spring. Liberalization The attempt to frame Irans Islamic Establishment as a rational actor was the natural result of an evasive statecraft of dhimmi-politik which has wide-ranging consequences. The choice to overlook the Iranian funding of Hamas and arming of al Qaeda in both Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as its violent crackdown on Green Movement protests on the streets of Tehran, meant that the Obama Administration refused to see the world as it is in order to advance a long-term strategy dependent on Iranian acquiescence. The new realism of Dennis Ross, which posited that al Qaeda was the enemy of a rational Iran, was the linchpin of the Holbrooke contact group in the AfPak and the strategic Afghan drawdown of July 2011. Without Iran at the negotiation table, the fulcrum of leverage for a final solution on Hamas radicalism in Mitchells drive to foster Palestinian statehood did not exist. Worse, with the troop drawdown in Iraq in full swing, Irans de facto control over the Shia Street in Najaf and Baghdad was perhaps already too entrenched to reverse. In response to this chain of evasion, two schools of thought have emerged to combat the failed new realist policies of the Obama Administration. The Islamic iron curtain school of thought emerged during the Arab Spring. Pro-democracy advocacy organizations of the neoconservative worldview like the American Enterprise Institute and The Foundation for the Defense of Democracy immediately recognized Egypts Tahrir Square overthrow of Hosni Mubarak as proof that President Bushs Freedom Forward agenda was making gains despite the Obama Administrations diplomatic failures. The neoconservative belief that democracy in Iraq would change the landscape of the geopolitical environment of the region was largely attacked by the new realist scholars currently in position to influence the Oval Office. In his book <http://www.amazon.com/Myths-Illusions-Peace-Finding-Direction/dp/0670020893 > Myths, Illusions & Peace, co-authored with David Makovsky, Dennis Ross coins these thinkers phony realists. The chief champion of this re-emerging school of thought in the opening days of the revolution in Egypt was FOX News analyst Walid Phares. His recent book <http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1439178372?ie=UTF8&tag=familysecur08-20&li nkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=1439178372> The Coming Revolution highlighted a streak of <http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/id.8800/pub_detail.asp> liberalization in the activism of the Arab Street. Phares book argues that Islamists and jihadists working in association with absolute rulers throughout the Greater Middle East constitute an iron curtain of Islamic Supremacy. Unfortunately, in that equation, the quest for stability rather than liberty guides American policy which supports corrupt dictators. The fall of the Tunisian dictatorship gave currency to this reasoning. Egypt changed everything. Any possibility of true democracy arising in the Arab world would hinge on Egypts anti-Mubarak movement. Mubaraks decision to establish an internet blackout at the onset of the demonstrations answered the question of whether or not a dictatorship existed in Egypt. The Israeli leadership, recognizing the Muslim Brotherhood as the most organized and likely successor to the Mubarak regime, supported the <http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/feb/3/muslim-brotherhood-seeks-end -to-israel-treaty/> cold peace with Egypt. The Obama Administration chose to support the universal rights of the demonstrators, noting that <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RR1n_7GN2vw> consent rather than coercion was the standard of legitimacy for governing. It was at this point that the Dennis Ross diplomatic policy of U.S.-Muslim Engagement came home to roost. The association of President Obama with Muslim Brotherhood activists, starting with his delivery of the June 2009 Cairo address, was now in play. The ouster of Hosni Mubarak from power on February 11, 2011 was greeted by those seeking the roll back of the Islamic iron curtain as an event as cataclysmic as the fall of the <http://www.aei.org/article/103166> Berlin Wall. Another school of thought, led by the Center for Security Policys Frank Gaffney, saw the trends toward liberalization in Egypt and the Greater Middle East as a red herring. The banned Muslim Brotherhood was in position, with the Obama Administrations nod, to assume power in Egypt. America had possibly lost an ally. Israels security had been compromised. Hamas had won an internationally legitimized election in 2006 to come to power in Gaza. The Opportunists http://morganinterviews.zoomshare.com/files/ShariahReport.gif In response to the Obama Administrations refusal to recognize Islamic radicalism as a threat to American and Israeli security, the <http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/id.7376/pub_detail.asp> Team B II report was born. After 6 months of intensive study, <http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/docLib/20100915_Shariah-TheThreattoAme rica.pdf> Shariah: The Threat to America was released as a PDF in September of 2010 just as it was becoming clear to Obamas advisors that the Dennis Ross-led U.S.-Muslim Engagement was largely failing. The aim of the Center for Security Policy-led <http://www.rightsidenews.com/2010091611637/us/islam-in-america/shariah-the- threat-to-america.html> release of the exercise in competitive analysis was to advise those in Washington D.C. unwilling to conform to the lexicon shifts of the U.S. Government on the topic of Islam. The authors of the Team B II report abandoned long-term speculations of a confrontation to focus on an immediate threat. They framed the Muslim Brotherhood chapters of the world as opportunists, determined to gain a legitimate political presence by overthrowing American influence in states like Egypt, Tunisia, and Libya. The America first school of the Team B II report identified democracy as a vehicle that could be hijacked. Frank Gaffney presents the <http://bigpeace.com/fgaffney/2011/01/30/the-muslim-brotherhood-is-the-enemy /> problem in two sentences: In short, the Muslim Brotherhood whether it is operating in Egypt, elsewhere in the world or here is our enemy. Vital U.S. interests will be at risk if it succeeds in supplanting the present regime in Cairo, taking control in the process not only of the Arab worlds most populous nation but its vast, American-supplied arsenal. <http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/id.8714/pub_detail.asp> Andrew McCarthy bottom lines the Egyptian chapter of the Arab Spring: Now, Mubarak is gone. And with President Obamas penchant for both engaging Islamist organizations in the U.S. and indulging even the ruthless Islamist leaders in Tehran, the Brotherhood knows the current administration wont dare use the lush U.S. financial support of Egypt as leverage to deny the Brotherhood a powerful role in the new government. Countering Four Propaganda Campaigns http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/imgLib/20110301_Libyawomen.jpg As a young American observer, I am caught somewhere in between the romantic ideals of the iron curtain school of Walid Phares and the immediacy of the threat matrix in the America first school of Frank Gaffney. I am struck by how wide a chasm exists between these two groups over the UN intervention in Libya. The placards of Libyas anti-government protestors were written in English, as was often the case in Egypts protests. This virtually screams of iron curtain repression of the natural rights of Libyan citizens. By February 25th, news reached Arab and American intellectuals of Gaddafis genocidal plans to kill upwards of a thousand protestors, to retain his power. These intellectuals consequently called on national and international institutions to impose a no-fly zone. While this happened, peaceful protests escalated into armed insurrection. On the other hand, the flag of the opposition movement represents an era of Salafist fundamentalism, and a number of the rebel fighters were members of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, which worked with al Qaeda to fight Americans in Iraq in 2006 and 2007. What is certain is that Muammar Gaddafi is a serial mass murderer, who has funded terrorism and guerilla militia jihadists for four decades. Though Gaddafi is a terrorist sponsoring dictator, the America first school of Frank Gaffney has rejected Americas support of the rebellion. These question whether some rebel fighters, who have raided weapons depots with their countrymen, have provided surface to air missiles and other sophisticated supplies to jihadist ratlines. The three schools of American thought on the Arab Spring converged on the Benghazi intervention. The influence of the new realists within the Obama Administration has set a stage in which the United States acts as the vassal of the United Nations. The Obama Administration, via its 2010 National Security Strategy, has <http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/06/paralyzing_american_power.html> paralyzed American power. The result of this paralysis has been the advance of a three-pronged propaganda campaign mounted by the Islamic Establishment of Iran, the global leadership of the Muslim Brotherhood and al Qaedas expanding base of operations throughout the Greater Middle East. The Obama Administrations propaganda campaign known as the U.S.-Muslim Engagement Initiative aimed at isolating al Qaeda by winning the hearts and minds of the Sunni Islamists of the Muslim Brotherhood and the Shia Islamists of Iran. Tragically, this plan has backfired. Rather than isolating al Qaeda extremism in the Greater Middle East, American influence has been sidelined. Moreover, the Obama Administrations choice to bolster the G-20s influence in world economics promises the normalization of Shariah Compliant Finance as an ethical alternative to capitalism. Cut off from the channels of influence, the iron curtain school of Phares and the America first school of Gaffney must recognize their strengths and weaknesses as they unite to actively win the future. Forging ahead, the United West must navigate four propaganda streams to achieve American and Israeli security in the short term. It must salvage American exceptionalism in the medium term, and defeat Islamic Supremacy in the long term. The Phares school yearns for Freedom. The Gaffney school yearns for Security. Taken together, these concepts could yield Peace. The New Realists see these notions as phony. The nearly ten thousand victims of Libyan civil strife and the bulk of Western thinkers are largely unaware of this American backdrop to the events of the Arab Spring. As the drama of the Arab Spring 2011 unfolds day by day, competing in the war of ideas will require unity of purpose. The growing ranks of the Gaffney and Phares camps must find common cause in combating the anti-Zionist propaganda of the coming May Day marches. These marches will preface the coming flotilla, which aims to reach Gaza by sea. The waves forecast to crash against Israels weakening flanks in May of 2011 must be fought back by the intellectual vanguard of an energized counterinfluence movement in America. Interestingly, for the United West to compete in the war of ideas effectively, it needs an awareness of the Tea Party movements growing sway on public opinion. Winning the future in the Greater Middle East begins with charting a coherent foreign policy strategy for prospective Senate candidates who are sympathetic to the Tea Party movement. <htp://familysecuritymatters.org/> Family Security Matters Contributing Editor Gary H. Johnson, Jr. is the Senior Advisor for International Security Affairs at the Victory Institute and is host of The Elemental Struggle on the Radio Jihad Network at 6pm every Wednesday. [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] ------------------------------------ -------------------------- Want to discuss this topic? 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