Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

‘Regional conflict formations’: Is the Middle East next?

2007; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 28; Issue: 5 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/01436590701371660

1360-2241

Reinoud Leenders,

Politics and Conflicts in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Middle East

Abstract As Iraq is plunging into civil war, politics and violence in the Middle East are increasingly perceived to be highly interconnected and entwined. This article offers an attempt to understand the nature and scope of this regional interconnectedness involving three of the region's states—Iraq, Syria and Lebanon. Its approach takes advantage of the work by scholars of other regions than the Middle East, more precisely those analysing the 'new wars' and 'Regional Conflict Formations (rcfs) of primarily Central and West Africa and the Balkans. The article suggests that, provided some methodological problems are addressed or at least acknowledged, the rcf model offers a useful approach to studying and addressing this region's multiple conflicts. Its assessment of the rcf model's utility in reference to the Middle Eas—broken down along the suggested levels of military networks, political networks, economic/financial networks and social networks—suggests that its emphasis on material – physical linkages neglects important symbolic – political resources that easily cross borders and are equally determining in fuelling and framing conflicts. This lacuna is echoed in US policy making toward the Middle East. The article concludes that, in order to avoid myopia in both analysis and policy making, such more discursive processes ought to be integrated into and made complementary with the rcf conceptualisation of conflict-related cross-border traffic. This will also allow for better analysis of the complexity of identity politics and it underscores the fallacy of assumed Western exogeneity to this region's conflicts. Notes 1 Mary Kaldor, 'Old wars, cold wars, new wars, and the war on terror', International Politics, 42, 2005, pp 492 – 493. See also Mary Kaldor, New and Old Wars: Organized Violence in a Global Era, Cambridge: Polity Press, 2006. 2 Peter Wallensteen & Margareta Sollenberg, 'Armed conflict and regional conflict complexes, 1989 – 97', Journal of Peace Research, 35 (5), 1998, pp 621 – 634; Mark Duffield, Global Governance and the New Wars: The Merging of Development and Security, London: Zed Books, 2001; Andre Armstrong & Barnett R Rubin, Conference Summary: Policy Approaches to Regional Conflict Formations, New York: Center on International Cooperation, New York University, November 2002; and Barnett R Rubin, Andrea Armstrong & Gloria Ntegeye, 'Draft discussion paper I: conceptual overview of the origin, structure, and dynamics of regional conflict formations', presented at the conference organised by the Africa Peace Forum and Center on International Cooperation, Nairobi, 22 October 2001. 3 Armstrong & Rubin, Conference Summary. 4 Ibid. For a more detailed discussion, see Michael Pugh & Neil Cooper, War Economies in a Regional Context, Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2004, pp 25 – 35. 5 Pugh & Cooper, War Economies in a Regional Context, p 39. 6 Kaldor, New and Old Wars, pp 150 – 178; and Kaldor, 'Old wars, cold wars, new wars, and the war on terror'. 7 See, for example, Daniel L Byman & Kenneth M Pollack, Things Fall Apart: What do We do if Iraq Implodes?, Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, August 2006. 8 Author's interviews in Aleppo and Damascus, November 2003. See also Washington Post, 8 June 2005. 9 Author's interview with Anwar al-Bunni in Damascus, 2 February 2005. 10 The US and Iraqi governments used their own media-outlets to air detailed claims about Syrian involvement, including footage of purported confessions. See, for example, Al-'Iraqiyya tv, 23 February 2005; and Al-Hurra tv, 24 December 2004. 11 As exemplified by Abu al-Ghadia as-Suri, a Syrian national who is believed to have acted as prime fundraiser for Zarqawi. See Sami Moubayed, 'Abu al-Ghadia to build on al-Zarqawi's legacy in Iraq', Global Terrorism Analysis, 3 (26), 5 July 2006. 12 Brookings Institution, Iraq Index: Tracking Variables of Reconstruction and Security in Post-Saddam Iraq, 21 September 2006, p 19, at http://www.brookings.edu/fp/saban/iraq/index.pdf. According to US military sources, between January and November 2006 US and Iraqi soldiers killed 425 foreign insurgents and captured 670, 20% of whom were Syrians. Cited in the Daily Star, 21 November 2006. 13 Daily Star, 21 November 2006. 14 See Anthony Shadid, Washington Post, 12 June 2006; International Crisis Group, Lebanon: Managing the Gathering Storm, 5 December 2005, p 13; and Tom Masland, Newsweek, 8 November 2004. 15 Al-Mustaqbal, 18 January 2007. 16 Los Angeles Times, 4 April 2003; and Washington Post, 9 April, 24 November 2003. 17 Author's interviews in Beirut, August 2004. 18 Nasrallah, cited in As-Safir, 22 May 2004. 19 See Haytham Mouzahem, Daily Star, 21 July 2004; and New York Times, 5 August 2006. 20 Senior State Department official David Satterfield interviewed in Al-Hayat, 21 June 2006. 21 New York Times, 28 November 2006; and author's interview with Faleh Abd al-Jabar, Director of the Iraq Institute for Strategic Studies, in Beirut, 28 November 2006. 22 Author's interview with Ibrahim al-Hamidi, Al-Hayat correspondent in Syria, Damascus, December 2004. 23 On 17 – 18 September 2006 Al-Jazeera aired a documentary about this new development. 24 See audiotape of a message purportedly read out by Zarqawi, broadcast by Al-Jazeera, 8 January 2006. 25 afp, 1 June 2006. 26 Al-Hayat, 27 July 2006. See also Zawahiri's statement broadcast by Al-Jazeera, 11 September 2006. 27 Cited in Al-Hayat, 13 November 2006. Shortly afterwards another statement appearing on a website used by al-Qaida's branch in Iraq called on Lebanese Sunnis to confront (Shi'ite) Hizbullah. Cited in the Daily Star, 18 November 2006. 28 Al-Hayat, 15 March 2007. 29 Seymour Hersh, 'The redirection', The New Yorker, 25 February 2007. In contrast to Hersh's earlier reports, this article contained very little evidence for its sweeping accusations. 30 Imad Mustapha, Syrian ambassador to the USA, proclaimed: 'Seventeen of the 25 members of the [Iraqi] Interim Governing Council … once carried Syrian passports!'. Interview by Helena Cobban, 31 January 2007, at http://justworldnews.org/archives/002368.html. 31 Fouad Ajami, The Vanished Imam, Musa al Sadr and the Shia of Lebanon, London: I B Tauris, 1986, pp 214 – 215. 32 Hala Jaber, Hezbollah: Born with a Vengeance, New York: Columbia University Press, 1997, p 54. 33 For a discussion of Fadlallah's role see International Crisis Group, Hizbollah: Rebel Without a Cause?, icg 30 July 2003, pp 12 – 14. See http://www.crisgroup.org. 34 The call was made by Hamza Mansur, the leader of the Jordanian Islamic Action Front. See Al-Ra'i, 1 June 2006. 35 This interpretation was given by an unnamed Iraqi security official cited in Al-Hayat, 6 April 2004, as quoted by Michael Young, Daily Star, 10 April 2004. 36 See Iraq Office of the General Inspector, Taqrir as-Shafafiya at-Thani: Tahrib an-Naft wa al-Muntajat an-Naftiyya, 2006. For an English translation see http://www.iraqrevenuewatch.org/reports/052206.pdf. 37 Ibid. 38 Author's interviews with Iraqi oil tanker handlers in Basra, May 2004. 39 See James Glanz & Robert F Worth, New York Times, 4 June 2006. 40 The classified report was leaked to the New York Times, 25 November 2006. 41 See imf, Iraq Country Report, August 2006, p 9; and Washington Post, 15 April 2006. 42 IMF, Iraq Country Report, August 2006, p 9. 43 See Bilal A Wahab, 'How Iraqi oil smuggling greases violence', Middle East Quarterly, Fall 2006. Facing corruption charges, Al-Juburi fled to Syria, where he openly runs a pro-insurgency satellite television station, Az-Zawra, and a website. 44 See Al-Hayat, 11 March 2006. 45 Author's interviews with Syrian economists and businessmen in Damascus, January 2005. 46 See An-Nahar, 25 January 2007. 47 See Barnett Rubin, 'Central Asia and central Africa: transnational wars and ethnic conflicts', Journal of Human Development, 7 (1), 2006. 48 New York Times, 15 October 2005. 49 Cited in the Washington Post, 8 December 2004. 50 See Vali Nasr, 'When the Shiites rise', Foreign Affairs, 2006. 51 See, for example, Sarah Kenyon Lischer, Dangerous Sanctuaries: Refugee Camps, Civil War, and the Dilemmas of Humanitarian Aid, New York: Cornell University Press, 2005. 52 Byman & Pollack, Things Fall Apart; and Kenneth M Pollack & Daniel L Byman, 'Iraq refugees: carriers of conflict', Atlantic Monthly, November 2006. 53 unhcr, Statistics on Displaced Iraqis Around the World-Global Overview, April 2007. Available at: http://www.unhcr.org/cgi-bin/texis/vtx/home/opendoc.pdf?tbl = SUBSITES&id = 461f7cb92. 54 Ibid. 55 Cited in the Guardian, 24 October 2006. 56 See Az-Zaman, 6 March 2007. 57 Author's interviews with Syrian businessmen in Damascus, March 2005. 58 Yasmin Ahmed & Nassme Muhammad, 'Home from home in Syria', iwpr Iraq Crisis Report, 16 March 2007. 59 Ibid. 60 On Iraqis in Syria's sex industry, see unhcr, Strategy for the Iraq Situation, 1 January 2007; unhcr, unicef & wfp, Assessment on the Situation of Iraqi Refugees in Syria, March 2006; and irin, 28 October 2006. 61 Author's conversation with Peter Harling, icg Syria and Iraq analyst, in Beirut, November 2006. 62 See, for example, International Crisis Group, The Next Iraqi War? Sectarianism and Civil Conflict, 27 February 2006, recommendations 10, 11, p iii; and Testimony by Robert Malley, International Crisis Group, to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, 23 January 2007. 63 See Byman & Pollack, Things Fall Apart. 64 See James Baker & Lee Hamilton, The Iraq Study Group Report, Washington, DC: December 2006, recommendation 8, 9, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16. For a similar but earlier approach, see International Crisis Group, Syria under Bashar (I): Foreign Policy Challenges, 11 February 2004, recommendation 19. 65 Rubin et al, 'Draft discussion paper I', p 7. 66 The observation is borrowed from James Ferguson, The Anti-Politics Machine: 'Development', Depoliticization, and Bureaucratic Power in Lesotho, Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 1994, p 16. 67 See Barnett Rubin, 'Central Asia and central Africa'. Such crude conceptualisation of ethnic politics seems to go against the author's own advice expressed elsewhere. See Barnett R Rubin, Blood on Our Doorstep: The Politics of Preventive Action, New York: Century Foundation Press, pp 11 – 12. A more dynamic—but case- bound—approach can be found in Stephen Jackson, Regional Conflict Formation and the 'Bantu/Nilotic' Mythology in the Great Lakes, Center on International Cooperation, December 2002. See http://www.cic.nyu.edu. 68 Pugh & Cooper, War Economies in a Regional Context, pp 24 – 25. 69 Kaldor, New and Old Wars, p 81. 70 Author's interviews with Syrian opposition activists in Damascus, November 2002, January 2005. 71 In reference to early Islamic history, columnist Abdul Bari 'Atwan compared the conference with the 'Darar Mosque in al-Madina where the hypocrites conspired against the Prophet Muhammad … and his faithful followers. See Al-Quds al-'Arabi, 22 November 2004. 72 Author's interviews in Damascus, November 2004. 73 Author's interview with Syrian opposition activist in Damascus, December 2004. 74 Ibid. 75 One Syrian political analyst conducted interviews with political activists and local notables all over Syria at the time of the US invasion of Iraq. His main finding was that his interviewees all speculated about the Syrian regime's durability through an Iraqi lens. Author's interview in Damascus, November 2003. 76 See, for example, the op-ed by Buthaina Sha'aban, then Syria's foreign affairs spokesperson, in As-Sharq al-Awsat, 18 April 2003. 77 Much of the details on the Qamishlu events below are derived from the excellent paper by Julie Gauthier, 'Les événements de Qamichlo: irruption de la question kurde en Syrie?', Etudes Kurdes: Revue semestrielle de recherches, 7, May 2005. 78 No doubt for the same reason, Syrian state television did not broadcast the famous footage of the removal of Saddam's statue. Instead it interrupted its news broadcast by showing documentaries on archeology and submarine wildlife. 79 See, for example, the views of Riyyad at-Turk, the leader of the clandestine Syrian Communist Party, cited in Gauthier, 'Les événements de Qamichlo'; and the op-ed by opposition lawyer Akram al-Bunni, Al-Hayat, 24 September 2003. 80 Hassan Haydar, al-Hayat, 12 October 2006. 81 Author's interview with senior Syrian official in Damascus, January 2005. Trustful that no Syrian would see a shining example in the Iraqi elections, the Syrian regime even allowed election information to be broadcast on state television and radio. 82 Interview by Charlie Rose at pbs television, 29 March 2006. 83 Ibid. 84 See op-ed by 'Abd al-Fattah al-Awad in the Syrian regime's mouthpiece At-Thawra, 20 February 2007; and op-ed by the Syrian ambassador to the USA, Imad Mustapha, Washington Report on Middle Eastern Affairs, March 2007. 85 Interview by Charlie Rose at pbs television, 29 March 2006. Bashar later remarked in the context of recent arrests of Syrian political activists: 'We are not operating in a normal climate. No one, Syrians or others, doubt that there are daily attempts to interfere in Syria's domestic affairs. We cannot be naive and say, everything is ok, everybody is patriotic. This is not a matter of good intentions.' Interview on Dubai Television, 23 August 2006. 86 Ali 'Ammar, cited in As-Safir, 22 January 2007. 87 For instance, Ghassan Salaméh, a former Lebanese minister and advisor to the late Sérgio Vieira de Mello, UN envoy to Iraq, lambasted the 'Iraqization' of Lebanon in a critique of Lebanon's 2005 elections, which were riddled with sectarianism. See An-Nahar, 16 June 2006. 88 For details see Reinoud Leenders, 'How the rebel regained his cause: Hizbullah and the sixth Arab – Israeli war', mit Electronic Journal of Middle East Studies, 6, 2006, at http://web.mit.edu/cis/www/mitejmes/intro.htm. 89 Earlier Hizbullah had argued that the USA had an 'Israeli policy' towards the region. Amal Saad-Ghorayeb, Hizbu'allah: Politics and Religion, London: Pluto Press, 2002, p 91. 90 Anthony Shadid, Washington Post, 15 August 2006. 91 Witness, for example, Hizbullah's al-Manar TV's soaring viewing rates across the region. Jerusalem Post, 25 August 2006. 92 See Amr Hamzawy & Dina Bishara, Islamist Movements in the Arab World and the 2006 Lebanon War, Carnegie Paper, November 2006. 93 Sateh Nur al-Din, As-Safir, 29 July 2006. 94 Sibley Telhami, cited in Jim Lobe, 'Arabs less worried about Iran', Inter Press Service (ips), 9 February 2007. The poll was conducted by Zogby International and Telhami, a senior fellow at the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution in Washington. 95 New York Times, 5 August 2006. 96 Al-Manar tv, 1 August 2006. 97 See, for example, the commentary by Diya al-Shakarji, Al-Bayan, 23 August 2004. 98 Ghassan Salaméh equally used the notion of 'Lebanonisation' in his warnings against regional military interference in Iraq. See his keynote speech at the 'Iraq, Oil and Money' conference, London, 4 November 2003, at http://www.energyintel.com/om/pdf/2003/Salame.pdf#search = %22lebanonization%20iraq%22. 99 Author's interview with Iraqi officials and politicians in Baghdad and Basra, May – June 2004. See also Raad Alkadiri & Chris Toensing, 'The Iraq interim Governing Council's sectarian hue', Middle East Report, 20 August 2003. 100 For one such typical critique of Iraqi corruption in reference to Lebanese-style muhasassa, see Az-Zaman, 26 February 2004. The Iraqi media's fragmentation along sectarian – ethnic lines has also been dubbed the 'Lebanonisation of the Iraqi media'. See Paul Cochrane, 'The "Lebanonization" of the Iraqi media: an overview of Iraq's television landscape', at http://www.tbsjournal.com/Cochrane.html. 101 Author's interviews with Iraqi diplomats in The Hague, 14 February 2007. 102 Ghazi Yawar, cited in The New Republic, 22 December 2003. 103 Author's interview with Iraqi diplomat in New York, 2 May 2006. 104 See, for example, the op-ed by Imad Mustafa, Syria's ambassador to the USA, Los Angeles Times, 4 August 2006. 105 A Lebanese pro-Syrian commentator duly reported on the December 2003 Iraq conference held in Damascus: 'It reflects Syria's leading role in the region's politics at this critical stage. This in itself is a message to the US saying that given the latest security breakdown, no security is possible if Iraq's neighbours are ignored.'As-Safir, 1 November 2003. 106 Asked whether Syria would place demands on the USA in return for its hospitality to Iraqi refugees, one senior Syrian official said: 'If the burden placed on us becomes a problem, we will certainly raise the issue'. Author's interview in Madrid, 12 January 2007. An announcement by the Syrian authorities in February 2007 that they were imposing restrictions on Iraqi refugees—revoked only days later—may have been designed as a reminder to the USA and others that Syria's continued hospitality will not be free of charge. 107 In January 2006 13 persons were arrested on suspicion of plotting attacks on behalf of al-Qaida. Hizbullah was widely perceived as having been instrumental in these arrests. Author's interviews with Lebanese observers of Hizbullah in Beirut, November 2006. The suggested logic attributed to Hizbullah was commented on by some Lebanese and international media. See, for example, Al-Diyar, 14 September 2006; and upi, 7 March 2007. 108 The Lebanese Defence Minister, Elias Murr, referred to undisclosed intelligence reports pointing at possible attacks against UN peacekeepers by al-Qaida-affiliated groups. Cited in As-Safir, 9 February 2007. unifil officials have been equally concerned about this possibility. See interview with former unifil commander Alain Pellegrini, Monday Morning (Beirut), 9 October 2006. 109 A Pentagon assessment found that 75% of Iraqi Sunnis supported the insurgency. Cited by abc News, 20 September 2006. 110 Author's interview with European diplomat in Beirut, November 2006. 111 Admittedly Rubin and his colleagues argue that 'labelling [rcfs] as "regional" should not obscure their links to global actors and structures'. Yet their own work fails to put such advice at centre stage, except when it comes to policy advice related to conflict resolution. Rubin et al, 'Draft discussion paper I', p 3. 112 See 'Iraqi letters', 24 July 2006, at http://iraquna.blogspot.com/2006/07/war-in-lebanon-iraqi-perspective.html.