By Barry Rubin
Happy New Jumblatt! What’s a Jumblatt? Well, it’s a joke that tells us a lot about Middle East politics. A friend of mine created the “Jumblatt” as a unit of time, one complete rotation in the political maneuvers of Lebanese Druze leader, Walid Jumblatt.
For example, during the previous Jumblatt, he moved from being a stalwart client of Syria to join the March 14 Coalition to push Syrian troops out of Lebanon. At the peak of the last Jumblatt, he gave a rather unforgettable interview which I will paraphrase here (note: this is my wording not a precise quote):
Interviewer: Is it true that you called Syrian President Bashar al-Assad a dog?
Jumblatt: Yes, I did. But I want to apologize to all dogs for comparing them to Assad.
But like all Jumblatts the last one came to an end. Threatened with death, facing a powerful Hizballah militia, and knowing full well that he and his coalition allies couldn’t depend on the United States or France, Jumblatt surrendered in August 2009, deserting the pro-democratic alliance and joining Hizballah’s coalition! He made his peace with Syria, going to Damascus and bowing to Bashar al-Assad.
This was not something easy for a man whose father was murdered by Bashar’s father.
I’m not suggesting that Jumblatt is a coward or a buffoon though, certainly, his life has given him a sense of irony. After all, Jumblatt is the feudal hereditary leader of the Progressive Socialist Party. See, names don’t necessarily tell you what’s really going on, a good idea to keep in mind when examining the humanitarian-style slogans of “Moderate Islamists.”
No, Lebanese politics are a life-and-death matter. Said Hariri, the main leader of the March 14 coalition also knows his own father was killed by Bashar, yet he had to bow down for a while, too, to survive.
What’s the lesson here? Middle East politicians must respond in some way to threats and opportunities. When the United States overthrew Saddam Hussein in Iraq, Libyan dictator Muammar Qadhafi suddenly decided to stop being aggressive and cozy up to the America (little good it ultimately did him). When the United States seemed weak, eager to coddle its enemies and bash its friends, the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood decided to overthrow President Husni Mubarak, a U.S. ally (little good it ultimately did him).
But now that Bashar is under assault from a revolution, Jumblatt has taken heart and made a dramatic speech criticizing Syria and asserting Lebanese sovereignty. In other words, he’s changed sides.
Happy New Jumblatt!
Among his complaints are Syria’s use of Lebanese security forces to arrest Syrian oppositionists in the country and ship them back to Syrian prisons; Syrian troops entering Lebanese territory; and the use of torture by the Syrian regime.
Perhaps this will mark the revitalization of the March 14 Coalition. But can it hope for Western help? Can the democratic Iranian, Turkish, and Syrian oppositions depend on Western—especially American—help? How about the real moderate parties in Tunisia and Egypt (and perhaps soon in Libya)?
No. The Obama Administration is too busy helping the Islamists. It isn’t hard to understand the reality of how international affairs work: The more aid, encouragement, and support given to the anti-Islamist forces, the braver they will be and the more they will achieve.
This is not a mere matter of the “enemy of the enemy is my friend.” True, some of those allies are repressive dictatorships like the Saudi monarchy. Yet most of them are “good guys” in themselves, or at least the best you’re going to find in the region. Why encourage their enemies and ours?
If the United States and Europe had a better policy there would be many more “New Jumblatts” moving in a good direction, and they would last longer. Now that would be a real Arab Spring.
Thanks, Mr Rubin…..excellent presentation of the Hall of Mirrors of some of the life and death struggles of Lebanese, and Middle East, politics in general. The scenes shift and become blurry, then explode, settle down a bit until the next eruption of shifted allegiances. It’s no wonder our Governmental reactions are…….just reactions…..until the next one is a pop-up “application”.
We’d best be close observers from a discreet distance. Look after our selves first, not be the world’s constabulary riding in to promote, or try to buy, our alien ideas’ some traction in that Teflon-esque region.
It is instructive to align the head lines du jour, as my nuns taught me, to compare and contrast. The open mike dialog between Obama and Nicolas Sarkozy, the brain freeze of Gov. Perry in the Republican debate, and the Penn State sex scandal should be aligned for recent press coverage. Which changes the life and death struggle for masses of humanity? Perhaps ten Pennsylvania boys, savaged by an apparently known serial pedophile, will see some just retribution via prosecution and firings. Gov. Perry may, or may not recover, from his gaffe. But the life and death terror, throughout the Levant has been increased. The major defenders of Israel, have now clearly conveyed to the world, that they despise the free selection of the Israeli nation. Every other neighboring nation selected their leader with a gun. Yet this gets page 47 treatment, one news cycle, in the US press. This coverage does not go unnoticed in Damascus or Teheran.
Bizarre would not be too strong a word. Islam is boiling mad, both within its nations, and at Israel. The Iranians are getting close to a nuclear bomb. Given these existential threats, and an honest insight to the thinking of their “ally”, what should Netanyahu conclude? How does Israel avoid another war, perhaps a nuclear war?
Jumblatts are common in American politics, but it is difficult to discern where we really stand, among our enemies, or our ally. From reading the news.
There’s no way Israel can prevent a war. It’s possible that the Islamists will decide they’re not yet strong enough to go to war, but Israel doesn’t have any influence on their thought process, except perhaps projecting what they interpret as weakness. If they’ll get the bomb it will surely embolden them. According to the film the Iranian regime is disseminating in the region the death of the Saudi king Abdallah will mark the beginning of the era that precedes the coming of the mahdi, an era of chaos and bloodshed. If that’ll happen any time next year it will reafirm all their predictions, so we should hope the Saudi king lives long…
And the West has become jam packed with educated idiots, and there’s nothing Israel can do about that either. But there are no American Jumblatts. There might be American opportunists, but Jumblatt acts like this out of genuine and justified fear which Westerners don’t even begin to understand. It just occurred to me some time ago that everyone in this region lives in fear, even the dictators. They fear the people, the Islamists and the democrats. The democrats fear the Islamists and the dictators. The Islamists fear the non-Islamist dictators and Western ideas. The people fear the dictators and the bogeyman Jew. The Israelis fear Arab terrorism and the Iranian bomb. Countries fear their neighboring countries. Non-Arabs fear the Arabs. Arabs fear the non-Arab identities and national aspirations. Non-Muslims fear the Muslims. The Muslims are paranoid about non-Muslims. Everyone here is scared to death of something, or else they’re idiots or insane.
Your title cracked me up, though it’s quite tragic, but so is every joke in the Middle East. Jumblatt has a nickname in the region – I don’t know the English word for it, my dictionary says it’s weathervane. You can tell by his behavior which way the wind blows.
To some extent it’s true for the Druze community in general. This is how they survived here for a thousand years. As a Jew I can’t help but have a huge sympathy for them even though many of them don’t say the nicest things about Israel. They’re a tiny religious minority of maybe 2 million people (estimates range between 1 and 3 million), most of which live in Syria and Lebanon, about 100,000 in Israel and tens of thousands in the West. Traditionally they live in mountain areas, obviously because they’re easier to defend (though they might have additional justifications for it, I don’t know). Their religion is secret even to most of the Druze. But when the French conquered Syria they uncovered some of their scriptures. Parts of their religion are still unknown. Though they splittered from Shia Islam their religion is radically different from Islam. And if you look at their traditions, including the secrecy, you can easily see layer upon layer of survival strategy and wisdom. According to their religion they should be loyal to the country they live in, whoever rules it. In survival terms it means they would be seen as less threatening to the ruling group. It also means they have to try and predict who is the stronger horse. And they are good warriors, which in survival terms serves two purposes – to be a pillar the rulers depend upon and to be more capable of self defense when necessary. Sometimes it backfires if the rulers or dominant group think the Druze have become too strong.
They don’t proselytize, and you can’t convert to their religion even if you wanted to. It has a religious justification – they believe in reincarnation, therefore everyone living today already had the chance to embrace their religion in the past and declined. But there’s also a practical explanation. In the beginning of their religion they did proselytize and were heavily persecuted, which is why they immigrated here. It’s far safer not to allow people to convert to your religion, so you won’t be seen as a threat by the dominant religion. Doubly so if the dominant religion is Islam.
They also practice Taqiya for purely defensive purposes – and believe me, it’s sometimes really necessary for survival in this region. With their religion being secret they can claim it to be anything. They can say they’re Muslim. One Israeli Druze minister even claimed they’re one of the lost tribes of Israel. Under French rule there were French reports that some Druzes pretended to convert to Christianity. The French who wrote about it were understandably pretty negative, but they just don’t understand. You do what you think you have to do to survive. You shouldn’t judge this kind of behavior when you don’t understand where it’s coming from, if you don’t know or already forgot what it’s like to be persecuted and often be in mortal danger for your beliefs.
The West should be doing everything in its power to back all forms of Syrian opposition. All forms. Of course, it is only doing this in a half-hearted way. Not smart.
If Syria overthrows Assad, some form of Sunni-dominated government will take hold in Syria. It will probably not be friendly to Israel. Big deal. The key is it won’t be friendly to Iran. That will be a huge set-back to Iran, and Hezbollah. Now, that really is a big deal.
Obama should advise the Iranians to stop their nuclear efforts at the point of break-out. Their model: Japan. If they test a nuclear weapon, they will suffer absolute isolation for the forseeable future. Plus, we will shut down all transactions with the Bank of Iran. That will cause financial suffering with some of our allies. We should make plans to mitigate this suffering in advance. But it will really hurt Iran – the first really serious punishment by the West. We must make sure they understand this.
With the right U.S. president, Canada and the U.S. could out-produce Iran’s oil production by a long-shot in ten years. That’s penalty number two: keep your stinking oil. We don’t need it. Let the Chinese have it. And let the Chinese assume our current headaches re reliance on Iran.
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