Arab Moderation Murdered: The Meaning of an Assassination in Tunisia
“The only thing necessary for evil to triumph in the world is that good men do nothing.” –Edmund Burke
And if the good men are murdered by the forces of political evil than they certainly cannot do anything. Hence, the outcome is assured.
Thus, the “Arab Spring” has just been murdered with bullets and hijacked amid bloodstains. Here is the list of countries in the Middle East area currently ruled by Islamists: Egypt, the Gaza Strip, Iran, Lebanon, and Turkey. Syria will probably join them soon. Qatar has a pro-Islamist policy. Morocco technically has an Islamist government though the king neutralizes it in practice. Saudi Arabia is ruled by a strict Islamic regime but opposes the revolutionary Islamists though its money often spreads their doctrines elsewhere. Everyone is being forced into Sunni or Shia Islamist camps, backing radical forces in other countries so that their religious allegiance can conquer.
In this situation, only in Tunisia could the non-Islamists win fairly conducted elections. But an election isn’t fair if one side uses violence to ensure its victory and its ability to transform the country into a social-political dictatorship afterward.
I know that whenever I write an article on Tunisia it will have fewer readers than other topics. That’s understandable from the standpoint that Tunisia is a small country with little international impact and limited U.S. interests.
Yet Tunisia was the country where the “Arab Spring” began. And Tunisia is going to be the place where the Middle Eastern equivalent of the Spanish Civil War will be fought. In other words, it is the only place where moderate and “secularist” forces are going to fight and the only country where the moderates have a majority of the population — though not a majority of the guns — behind them.
Given that bellwether factor, they have just suffered a massive defeat which is simultaneously a major victory for the Islamist forces.
Briefly, what people who believe the Arabic-speaking world is heading toward democracy don’t understand is that they have helped unleash forces quite willing to engage in violence and that will not stop until they’ve achieve a total triumph. It’s sort of like Pandora who opened the box to unleash its spiritual whirlwinds and said, “This ought to be interesting!”
That’s why the assassination of Choukri Belaid is so important. He was leader of the Democratic Patriot party and a leader of the Popular Front opposition coalition. While the story will be obscure in the West it is devastating for Tunisia, the Arab liberals, and the future of the region. Belaid was the single most outspoken and determined anti-Islamist leader in the country, and indeed the most important openly anti-Islamist politician in the entire Arabic-speaking world. He wasn’t the only moderate politician in Tunisia but he was the main one who rejected Islamist rule and warned against Islamist intentions.
And how did the Islamist-dominated coalition react? The moment the leading opposition figure — the man around whom an anti-Islamist coalition might have been built following the next elections — was murdered it called for new elections.
Get it? The Brotherhood’s moderate coalition partners didn’t want elections now. And if you eliminate the tough moderate those remaining may be more pliable about caving in. It was quite conceivable that the non-Islamists would get a majority in the next elections–as they did in the previous one. But a majority divided among four parties isn’t enough. Last time, the moderate parties got 60 percent but their disunity allowed the largest single party, the Brotherhood, to take control of the government coalition with only 40 percent of the vote.
But a man like Belaid might have forged a moderate coalition government that would keep the Brotherhood out of power. In other words, though he led only the fourth largest party, Belaid was the key to forcing the Brotherhood out of power by convincing the four moderate parties to work together against the Islamist threat. His elimination isn’t just a crime, its a political strategy.
As I predicted a few days ago, destroying the left is going to be the Islamists’ priority and Tunisia is the only country where the political left poses a danger to them. Elsewhere it is too weak, confined to isolated individuals and publications.
Some decades ago, the killing of a left-wing leader by what Marxists would have called “clerical-fascist” forces would have provoked an outcry from the Western left. Nowadays, they don’t even blink — as we also saw in Iran — unless some misdeed can be blamed on the United States or Israel.
While Belaid stood firm, the two other main moderate parties were willing to try working with the Muslim Brotherhood, Belaid said “no” and warned — just as we have — that the Islamists were determined to create a dictatorship. He was the man to kill, an event which also has an intimidating effect on the other moderates. As Belaid’s brother put it: the killing was “a clear message to Tunisians… Shut up or we kill you.”
I don’t think the assassination was the result of a high-level conspiracy and especially not from the Brotherhood itself. Most likely, it was done by a small Salafist group.
But that’s the point. The Obama Administration views the Brotherhood as the bulwark against the Salafists. In fact, it is their big brother, often using the Salafists as shock troops to attack Western embassies, oppositionists, secularists, moderates, churches, and women who seek equality.
Ideally when the leader is going to be murdered the masses stand up and say, “I am Spartacus.” In reality, particularly in countries with anti-democratic political cultures, it doesn’t happen that way. Even if the four moderate parties do well in elections they still have to cooperate, having to face a wave of Salafist violence, too. Now if the Tunisian army were to stage a coup that would make a difference. But what do you think would happen if the generals went to the U.S. embassy and asked for America’s support to overthrow the Brotherhood? In Egypt, we do see a sort of uprising against the regime. But without the army’s support it doesn’t seem to have a chance of taking power. Still, one must keep an open mind and see what happens.
Few in the West will be aware that Belaid is the second moderate opposition leader killed in Tunisia during the last three months in Tunisia. During decades of Arab nationalist dictatorship Tunisia-style, murder was rarely employed.
The Islamists have no such inhibitions. They are the people to be afraid of. Consider that in Libya, the most obvious American client in the Arabic-speaking world, there’s no hint of arresting anyone for the murder of the U.S. ambassador and three American officials which happened five months ago! Don’t hold your breath.
A similar strategy to what has just happened in Tunisia took place in Lebanon a few years ago, where the Syrians and their Hizballah and other local allies murdered opposing parliamentarians, journalists, and judges until they came close enough to a legislative majority and to intimidating critics that they won the election and currently form the Lebanese government.
And what about Syria where Islamists are headed for power with America’s blessing? Or Washington where the main lobbyist for supporting the Brotherhood is becoming head of the CIA? And what about Egypt where dozens of demonstrators have been murdered by the Muslim Brotherhood regime as the West still proclaims that government’s democratic credentials, the international institutions negotiate the supply of billions of dollars and the United States sends advanced fighter planes and tanks as gifts?
The tide is only going in one direction and Obama’s policies are raising, not lowering, these sea levels.
Update: The leader of the Tunisian Muslim Brotherhood has now attributed the murder to certain forces that want to destroy Tunisian democracy. This statement is intended to make supporters blame the United States, Israel, and/or Saudi Arabia. Once again this situation shows how the Brotherhood will never suppress or punish the even more radical Islamist forces (Salafists) that it finds so useful both politically and to use their violence for its own benefit.
****
image courtesy shutterstock / Vepar5
In the west we are so much more civilized. We have the media to do political assassinations bloodlessly.
If I may, a few questions.
With Islam expended all this energy killing each other, isn’t the rest of the world presented with an opportunity to: Exploit the divisions, run a PyOps campaign denigrating Islam, and make inroads into managing the region?
Would a Neo-Colonial era be a good idea? Divide the place up by spheres of influence and have a DoOver? I thing Russia, NATO and India could each have a piece.
When will this Arab unrest spill over into the rest of Islam? Indonesia and the Philippines most specifically? What effect will that have in the current China-US-Phil-Japan-Taiwan tensions?
Besides the destruction of the US, just for the hell of it, what is in it for O and his ilk? I still don’t see why anyone who seeks power as their raison de etre would rather be the leader of a second class state than the head of the lone super power…
thnx for listening
ta
More than once the pages of Rubin has referred to Obama as “pro-Islamic”. Are there any conjectures as to why? The D’Spouza thesis or the years with Frank Davis or ??? I would like to read an opinion.
Uh, I don’t know, maybe the evidence of what Barack Obama’s policies have wrought in the Middle East is why Barry Rubin calls him ‘pro-Islamist’.
Alas, Mr. Doubter, you tell me nothing new and miss the point of my question (which is one I have tried to get Rubin to consider–I have the term “pro-Islamic” from Rubin). There is no problem in determining that the deeds of Hitler indicate(d) a genocidal hate for Jews and other “Untermenschen”. But, what is the “moral imperative” directing overall the specific acts in to a coherent whole? After years of documentaries, I now understand the imperative as “unwertes Leben”. Anyone who had understood this principle early in Hitler’s career, such as Chaimberlain did NOT, would not have undertaken “appeasement” acts (e.g., attending the 1936 Olympic Games or the non-enforcement of the Treaty of Versaille re German rearmament as earky as 1935). In 1943 the American military commissioned a group of pychologists to work out a profile of Hitler in order to be able to anticipate his future moves–> with success. Failure to understand the directive values of Hitler led to false tactics re nazism. I do not want that repeated with Obama and his pro-Islamic course.
Chaimberlain held Hitler for uncouth, but capable of making deals, thereby overlooking the moral imperative directing Hitler’s activities. I would like to have an integrated profile of Obama including his basic values. D’Souza has tried it with his de-colonialization theory and claims to explain aspects of Obama’s behavior. I know that Obama is undertaking acts that have the effect of being pro-Islamic. Is the coherence behind such acts rooted in liberal, leftwing or some specific Obama imperative. So, I reverse you answer to me: The fact that Obama realizes policies that are pro-Islamic is not enough. I would like to understand the directive values that lead Obama to enact pro-Islamic policies in the first place.
Your suggestion is being deliberately thwarted by O and his captive propagandists. Several, you mention D’Souza, have tried but are limited by the amount of available personal information needed for a decent analysis.
His narcissism was ferreted out reasonably well, but not much else.
Depending on your particular level of paranoia (lol) the theories abound, from Manchurian Candidate, created by and for the use of dark spirits, or simply personal evil, O has resolutely been a ‘nobody’.
Hitler, you remember told everyone what he was up to in Mein Kampf and had a 15 year political career full of speech and statements, not to mention the 10 years in power from 1933 to 1943, for the WWII analysts to use.
Leonard, you are known as an academic. Why aren’t you researching him? You have the time, and since, IIRC, live outside the USA, you may have access to data not available here.
Finally, this is the real reason why CIA head is crucial… the CIA does have a dossier.
ta
M
“The Obama Administration views the Brotherhood as the bulwark against the Salafists, In fact, it is their big brother, often using the Salafists as shock troops”
I could understand the president having an idealist viewpoint of the MB, but surely our State Department & intelligence agencies have other assessments as well. Are not any of the policy makers in the administration open to these assessments? In short, are there no adults in the room?
The George H.W. Bush administration (1989-93) was the last time there were any adults in the room as far as foreign policy goes.
What I don’t understand is this: why is the left who say they’re for democracy, gay rights, women’s rights, separation of religion and state supporting Islamists who are diametrically and radically opposed to the said human rights that the left says it holds dear?
Well, not all leftists suport Islamism, although more than a few do.
I am a supporter of democracy, the welfare state, gay rights, womens rights,
evironmentalism etc and I dont understand it either. I think in some cases its guilt and self-hatred on the part of a faction of the left and in some cases
a type of ignorance and naivete. I know people in America who are busy and
dont know a lot about the Middle East – they mistakenly believed the Muslim Brotherhood is moderate and they are (rightly) turned off by those on the right
who are genuinely Islamophobic and/or believe that Obama is a Muslim or a socialist.
I am so sorry for you.
Thomas has it right, George H Bush understood geopolitics.
George W Bush was weak and listened to PNAC war bunnies infesting his administration. Invading Iraq was Monumental error, which the United States will pay for at least another generation. H. Bush stopped at Iraqi Border for good reason, something lost on inexperienced W. Bush.
The “Arab Spring” is what happens when Inexperienced adminstrations invade countries and attempt to spread democracy without coherent strategy.
Rubin provides the only cogent reporting on the arab world other than occasionally the Stratfor. As to why obama favors the muslims, all i can say is keep that mental block up and in good repair.
“Morocco technically has an Islamist government though the king neutralizes it in practice.”
Agreed, but that’s not the whole truth. The PJD islamists may have won the largest part of the votes and therefore the prime minister post, but thankfully, they are not an absolute majority and needed the conservative Istiqlal (PI) party as coalition partner… which does a lot to neutralize the islamists.
And please don’t diss the left there. The USFP may very well rebounce shortly.
Well, the left in the Maghreb countries don’t agree with the islamists… even though they had a very small flirt with them long time ago when both were in the opposition. As to the left in the West, I don’t know what clouds their judgment. Naivete or wishful thinking perhaps?