ACL: Middle Eastern History

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The Anti-Communitarian League: Grassroots Research & Analysis of the Ultimate Third Way

Middle Eastern History

by Niki Raapana, Revised 2/29/04. This page is still under construction

US to Hit Syria With Sanctions, by Janine Zacaharia, February 12, 2004, in the Jeruselem Post.

Operating America From a Bingo Hall, By Ahmed Amr, Editor, NileMedia.com on January 22, 2004.

Afghans for Civil Society.

Towards a Democratic Communitarian Settlement in Cyprus

Muslim Heritage by Islam Online. "Discover 1000 years of missing history and explore the fascinating Muslim contribution to present day Science, Technology, Arts and Civilization." For links to Arab history books:Arab Gateway:Arab-Islamic History

In the Name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful. A review of Daniel Pipes, (appointed by President Bush to the United States Institute for Peace) by CAIR, Council on American-Islamic Relations, 453 New Jersey Avenue, S.E., Washington, D.C. 20003

The Muslims are Coming! The Muslims are Coming!, by Daniel Pipes, National Review, November 19, 1990

Campus Watch, Monitoring Middle East Studies on Campus. Daniel Pipes program for watching Middle Eastern professors and identifying the ones who disagree with the Israeli-U.S. war party line. This is for real.

A Christian American's Defense of Middle Eastern Culture and its People, by Mark Glen, forwarded by Israel Shamir on 9/03/03.

The Israelisation of America by Ahdaf Soueif, " posted by Al-Ahram (Egypt): The US's unqualified backing of Israel goes back a long way, but, writes Ahdaf Soueif*, 9/11 was the neo-cons' chance to take it one step further: full identification."

The Washington Report on Middle Eastern Affairs has the facts and figures of U.S. Financial Aid to Israel since 1948.

The Website of M. Shahid Alam, Professor of Economics at Northeastern University.

“Glocalised” Democracy and the Challenge of Comprehensive Security", by Heba Ezzat, August 15, 2002, Political Science Dept. ,Cairo Univeristy, posted by IslamOnline. Middle Eastern view of the evolution of politics. A discussion of re-inventing democracy globally, Ezzat includes a summary of modern communitarianism.

The Muslim Claim to Jerusalem by Daniel Pipes, Middle East Quarterly, September 2001

This is a rough, unedited transcript of a talk by [Noam Chomsky] at [Columbia University] in [New York City] on April 4, 1999:U.S.-Middle East Policy.

The Zionist Plan for the Middle East, Translated and edited by Israel Shahak, on Radio Islam.

See also the April 15th email forward from Peter Meyers.

More from Peter via The Guardian, UK:

The US withdrawal from Saudi Arabia will not save the regime
http://www.guardian.co.uk/alqaida/story/0,12469,954756,00.html

Saad al-Fagih

Tuesday May 13, 2003

The Guardian

If the decision to pull US forces out of Saudi Arabia had been announcedbefore the war on Iraq, it would have been seen, correctly, as a majorvictory for Osama bin Laden and his supporters. Al-Qaida began itscampaign with the demand for a withdrawal of American troops from thecountry. Timing the announcement for the aftermath of the war has beenclearly calculated to minimise that perception.

The Americans discovered soon after the 1991 Gulf war that the presenceof their forces in Saudi Arabia was doing them more harm than good.Alternative locations would have been sufficient for their purposes. Butthey did not want to leave because their departure would have been seenas a political breakthrough for Bin Laden.

The invasion of Iraq provided an ideal solution. It broke the linkbetween the presence of US forces and the threat from Saddam Hussein. Atanother level, it eased the American crisis of confidence after theevents of September 11, which made the US avoid any decision that mightmake it seem weak. The removal of Saddam in such a dramatic manner hasalmost treated this obsession. The decision to leave Saudi Arabia cannow appear to have been taken from a position of strength.

Al-Qaida sympathisers see it differently. But the majority would concedethat invading and occupying Iraq has made the presence of a few thousandtroops in the kingdom a less significant issue. It is also clear thatthis will not be a real departure. Although troops in uniform willleave, the overall establishment - including bases and non-uniformedpersonnel - is to stay. More important still is the green light that hasbeen given for the troops to return without fresh Saudi approval.

Nor is the decision to withdraw likely to reduce Muslim hostilitytowards America. Many Muslims regard US actions since the Septemberevents as far more oppressive to them than the presence of their forcesin Arabia. The invasion and occupation of Iraq will never be seen as aliberation. The sight of US tanks in Baghdad has been regarded as themost humiliating event for Arabs and Muslims since 1967. Baghdad, thecapital of the Islamic Caliphate for 600 years, occupies a central placein the Muslim memory and means more even than Riyadh or Cairo.

After 1998, Bin Laden had in any case gone beyond the aim of expellingAmerican forces from the kingdom to full-scale confrontation with theUS. Bin Laden and his supporters can now be expected to see his war asmore justified than ever because of the occupation of Iraq.

The US invasion of Iraq has been a gift to Bin Laden. He had argued thatMuslim countries are the main target - and Iraq was attacked, not NorthKorea. Bin Laden argued that the US was bent on occupation, not simplyintimidation - and that has proved to be the case. He argued that mostArab leaders, and especially the Saudis, would side with the US againsttheir fellow Arabs - as it has turned out. He argued that Ba'athism andArab nationalism do not work and that only Islam and jihad can deliverfor the Muslims and Arabs. The collapse of the Saddam regime hasstrengthened that argument.

The course of the conflict also bore out Bin Laden's view that only"asymmetrical warfare" can be effective against such highly advancedmilitary power. US ruthlessness in killing civilians, destroyinginfrastructure and the encouragement it gave to the destruction ofvaluable heritage and public records has also bolstered the al-Qaidamessage. The same goes for US public support for the invasion of Iraq,because Bin Laden has said his problem is with all Americans, not onlythe government.

What effect will this step have on the stability of the Saudi regime? Asis well known, the regime depends on religious legitimacy. It has alwaysbreached Islamic teachings, but got away with it by exploiting a loyalreligious establishment. The regime thought it could do the same overthe presence of American troops. But the result was that the religiousestablishment itself lost its credibility. That was because Islamicteaching is unequivocal on this issue: non-Muslim troops are forbiddento settle in Arabia. Helping non-Muslims to attack Muslims also makeswhoever does so a non-Muslim or "infidel" themselves. The Wahhabi schoolof Islam, dominant in Saudi Arabia, is particularly unyielding aboutthese two points.

So, given the fact that US forces have been in the country for over 12years, their departure is not real and that Saudi bases have been usedto attack Afghanistan and Iraq, it is now impossible for the regime torecover legitimacy. Prince Sultan, the Saudi defence minister, stupidlydestroyed any slim chance of benefit from the US withdrawal byattributing the decision to the US itself.

Saad al-Fagih is a leading exiled Saudi dissident and director of theMovement for Islamic Reform in Arabia

saad@islah.org