Mother Jones Special

Mother Jones: "Everything in my life
is destroyed now, so I will fight them."

Daily Dispatches from the War-Torn Lebanese Capital

Dahr Jamail
July 26 , 2006

Wednesday, July 26

"I am in Hezbollah because I care," the fighter, who agreed to the interview on condition of anonymity, told me. "I care about my people, my country, and defending them from the Zionist aggression." I jotted furiously in my note pad while sitting in the back seat of his car. We were parked not far from Dahaya, the district in southern Beirut which is being bombed by Israeli warplanes as we talk.

The sounds of bombs echoed off the buildings of the capital city of Lebanon yesterday afternoon. Out the window, I watched several people run into the entrance of a business center, as if that would provide them any safety.

The member of Hezbollah I was interviewing—let's call him Ahmed—has been shot three times during previous battles against Israeli forces on the southern Lebanese border. His brother was killed in one of these battles. It's been several years since his father was killed by an air strike in a refugee camp.

"My home now in Dahaya is pulverized, so Hezbollah gave me a place to stay while this war is happening," he said, "When this war ends, where am I to go? What am I to do? Everything in my life is destroyed now, so I will fight them."

That explains why earlier in the day, when driving me around, he'd stopped at an apartment to change into black clothing—a black t-shirt and black combat pants, along with black combat boots.

A tall, stocky man, Ahmed seemed always exhausted and angry.

"I didn't have a future," he continued while the concussions of bombs continued, "But now, Hassan Nasrallah is the leader of this country and her people. My family has lived in Lebanon for 1,500 years, and now we are all with him. He has given us belief and hope that we can push the Zionists out of Lebanon, and keep them out forever. He has given me purpose."

"Do you think this is why so many people now, probably over two million here in Lebanon alone, follow Nasrallah?" I asked.

"Hezbollah gives you dignity, it returns your dignity to you," he replied, "Israel has put all of the Arab so-called leaders under her foot, but Nasrallah says 'No more.'"

He paused to wipe the sweat from his forehead. The summer heat in Beirut drips with humidity. During the afternoon, my primary impulse is to find a fan and curl up for a nap under its gracious movement of the thick air here.

Earlier he'd driven me to one of the larger hospitals in Beirut where I photographed civilian casualties. All of them were tragic cases… but one really grabbed me-that of a little 8 year-old girl, lying in a large bed. She was on her side, with a huge gash down the right side of her face and her right arm wrapped in gauze. She was hiding in the basement of her home with 12 family members when they were bombed by an Israeli fighter jet.

Her father was in a room downstairs with both of his legs blown off. Her other family members were all seriously wounded. She lay there whimpering, with tears streaming down her face.

I think I won Ahmed's trust after that. I walked out the car, got in and sat down. He asked me where I wanted to go now.

Ahmed put his hand on my shoulder and said, "This is what I've been seeing for my entire life. Nothing but pain and suffering."

A photographer from Holland who was working with me was able to respond to Ahmed that maybe we could go have a look at Dahaya.

Ahmed had told me that it was currently extremely dangerous for a journalist to try to go into Dahaya. Before, Hezbollah had run tours for people to come see the wreckage generated by Israeli air strikes. All you had to do was meet under a particular bridge at 11 a.m., and you had a guided tour from "party guys" (members of Hezbollah) into what has become a post-apocalyptic ghost town.

A couple of days ago I went there, without the "party guy" tour. A friend and I were driven in by a man we hired for the day to take us around. I was shocked at the level of destruction—in some places entire city blocks lay in rubble. At one point we came upon the touring journalists, all scurrying to their vehicles. Everyone was in a panic.

"What's going on?," I asked our driver. "A party guy who is a spotter said he saw Israeli jets coming," he responded, while spinning the van around and punching the gas as we sped past the journalists lugging their cameras while running back to their drivers.

While driving we were passed by several Hezbollah fighters riding scooters. Each had his M-16 assault rifle slung across his back and wore green ammunition pouches across his chest.

Ahmed told me he'd captured two Israeli spies himself. "One of them is a Lebanese Jewish woman, and she had a ring she could talk into," he explained as new sweat beads began to form on his forehead, "Others are posing as journalists and using this type of paint to mark buildings to be bombed."

I doubt the ring part, and also wonder about the feasibility of paint used for targeting, but there are no doubt spies crawling all over Beirut. In Iraq, mercenaries often pose as journalists, making it even more dangerous than it already was for us to work there.

Nevertheless, war always fosters paranoia. Whom can you trust? What if they are a spy? What are their motives? Why do they want to ask me this question at this time? These types of questions become constant I my mind, and so many others in this situation where normal life is now a thing of the past. I think they are some sort of twisted survival mechanism.

We drove back near my hotel and parked again. People strolled by on the sidewalks. Ahmed said, "I will never be a slave to the United States or Israel."

Dahr Jamail is an independent journalist who spent over 8 months reporting from occupied Iraq. He maintains his own website at dahrjamailiraq.com.

This article has been made possible by the Foundation for National Progress, the Investigative Fund of Mother Jones, and gifts from generous readers like you.

© 2006 The Foundation for National Progress

http://www.motherjones.com/news/featurex/2006/07/among_hezbollah.html

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In Pursuit of Peace in the Middle East

An Israeli peace activist and former politician discusses the conflicts in Gaza and Lebanon.

Paige Austin
July 26 , 2006

Within the tumultuous world of Israeli politics, Naomi Chazan has been a remarkably steady voice for peace and civil rights throughout her thirty-year career. As a young professor of African Studies in the 1970s, she was one of the first Israelis to denounce her country's growing alliance with apartheid South Africa. In 2004, she broke ranks with many of her allies in the Israeli peace camp by opposing Ariel Sharon's policy of acting unilaterally in Gaza and the West Bank. In between, she served in the Israeli Knesset as a member of the leftist Maaretz Party from 1992 and 2003, helped found several women's organizations, and participated in the drafting the 2003 Geneva Accord, a detailed blueprint for a peace accord between Israelis and Palestinians.

Chazan's most recent peace initiative is the International Women's Commission, which she co-founded last year. Like the Israeli and Palestinian activists who drafted the Geneva Accord in 2003, the Israeli and Palestinian women on the IWC are putting forth their own proposed solutions to the conflict that has roiled their region for four generations. Among other things, the IWC has called for Palestinian statehood and a greater role for women in the negotiations process. After the group met with Condoleezza Rice this past May, Chazan explained its significance to a reporter: "In a situation where everyone is claiming there is no partner, you have Palestinian, Israeli and international women working together with one voice."

Mother Jones recently talked to Chazan to get her take on the current crises in Gaza and Lebanon, on the future of Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, and on the beliefs that have kept her firmly rooted in the peace camp for all these years.

Mother Jones: How do the current conflicts in Gaza and Lebanon relate to Israeli domestic politics? Are Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Defense Minister Amir Peretz trying to bolster their own popularity by bearing down so hard on Hezbollah?

Naomi Chazan: I'm not sure that that's their motive but definitely I think the immediate result—and I stress the immediate result—has been to strengthen support within Israel for both Olmert and Peretz. How long that's going to last I don't know: it depends on the outcome of the war.

MJ: A poll from last week showed that roughly 86 percent of Israelis support their country in Lebanon. From your perspective in Israel at the moment, does that seem accurate?

NC: Yes, but that was last weekend. And you know there's a dynamic to these things. Initially when you're attacked, there's solidarity, but that begins to erode as it becomes more difficult to explain what the policy is, what results it's bringing and why it's not succeeding.

A week ago on Sunday there was the first demonstration against the war, and maybe 500 people attended. Last night there was another demonstration and you could add another zero to that number. And if this continues much longer, the opposition will gather momentum. We've been there before; we know this process quite well. In the first week and ten days you heard almost no criticism; now you're getting a substantial number of op-eds and even opponents of the war appearing on television. So slowly the solid wall of support is beginning to crack.

MJ: Have you helped organize any of the recent peace protests?

NC: No, but I've been in them!

MJ: And the public reception of those protests has been warming?

NC: I think that people are more and more open to stopping, at least, and thinking, because the Israeli military is bombing Lebanon indiscriminately and it's not leading to anything. When you start to realize that there's no military solution—and people should have realized that from the start—then the question is how we extricate ourselves from the situation. Some people feel that Israel has to step up military action. I think that's ridiculous and silly. It's beyond ridiculous; it's totally untenable. But if there's no military solution you have to explore diplomatic options and when you explore diplomatic options, things begin to look different.

MJ: And surely no one wants to see Israel re-occupy Lebanon for long? Israel’s 18 years of occupation there seem a bit like your Vietnam—something no one wants to see repeated.

NC:Yes, that’s right… That's something that—though it may sound odd—I think is almost a restraining factor, even though the situation doesn't seem to be very restrained. No, there's absolutely no desire to re-occupy Lebanon among the public.

MJ: Can you explain what you think the Israeli government is doing in Gaza right now? What are its aims?

NC: I think once again we're getting this knee-jerk military reaction to try to stop the rocket attacks on southern Israel through the use of military force and not by dealing with the root cause of what's going on. I actually see the situation in Gaza as much more serious than the one in Lebanon; Lebanon is at least getting attention, but the fighting in Gaza is going on full force.

MJ: You wrote in February of 2005 that unless a "concerted effort" were made to resume negotiations within a few months, "the door will close firmly on a workable two-state option." Do you think that has happened?

NC: No, but I extend my hope because I keep being active. We established the International Women's Commission and I actually believe that out of this mess that we're in now it's still the only solution; I don't think that any alternative is viable or feasible. But the situation is getting increasingly complex. We need a much more concerted effort, and as of now, none has been made.

MJ: And you think that the window of opportunity could soon close because of the ongoing construction of Israeli settlements and the dismantling of Palestinian infrastructure?

NC:Yes. Although in a sense, the withdrawal from Gaza and popular support in Israel [for measures such as the construction of the barrier on the West Bank] has already created a de facto separation between Israelis and Palestinians. But that is different from a negotiated solution. The current separation is not on the [pre-1967] boundaries, it's not agreed upon by both sides, and it doesn't settle some of the hard issues like Jerusalem.

Still, most Israelis are definitely willing to give up more settlements or even all of the settlements for a negotiated end to the conflict. So somewhere deep down, what's going on there is, I think, a rational voice, a voice of reason, saying that it's possible.

MJ: Do you think the principles embodied in the Geneva Accord—including Palestinian statehood within the pre-1967 boundaries, a limited right of return for refugees, and the disbanding of all terrorist organizations—are alive and well and will remain the ones that define a final agreement?

NC: If there is a negotiated agreement, those principles will probably be the model for it.

MJ: The alternative would be a one-state solution—that is, the creation of a single, bi-national Palestinian-Israeli state. And this idea is reportedly gaining popularity among Palestinians. Do you think that it is viable?

NC: No, I don't see that as being viable. It's not an immediate solution. It brings no respite. And frankly it's a way of avoiding figuring out what to do tomorrow morning. What we have to do is find a way out of the conundrum. Finding a way out of the conundrum means giving full and equal sovereign rights to the Palestinians alongside Israel, to be done within a state framework. What happens in 30 years is a different issue.

MJ: What is the status of the peace movement in Israel right now, vis-à-vis the occupation? Does it have any traction, given the present crisis and the Hamas victory before that?

NC: It doesn't have as much traction as I'd like to see. But I think in a sense, the Lebanese situation, and the Gaza situation before it, has ignited some awakening. [The movement] is still malformed but I'm beginning to feel a momentum which I can't say that I felt six months ago.

MJ: It seems like the traditional parameters of the Israeli left are shifting these days—some people supported Sharon's withdrawal even though it was unilateral, now others support the attacks on Lebanon. Have these events changed the composition of the Israeli peace movement?

NC: I think what happened is that initially the disengagement from Gaza actually shrunk the peace camp and put it in a bind. The more mainstream peaceniks supported [Sharon's plan] and frankly didn't understand the connection between unilateralism and the perpetuation of occupation and conflict—because unilateralism is by definition coercive and therefore cannot be a mechanism for achieving any kind of resolution. I think that in a sense the Lebanese situation, on top of what's going on in Gaza, has underlined the fact that unilateralism is not the way to go; one has to sit down to negotiate.

MJ: Now on the other side, what about the Palestinian left? Are you working with the same people now that you did years ago?

NC: Many of the same, though not all, as well as many new ones. On the women's front, the biggest breakthrough we've had is the creation of International Women’s Commission for a Just and Sustainable Israeli and Palestinian Peace. This commission is composed of 20 leading Palestinian women, 20 Israeli women, and 20 international women who are really devoted to a negotiated settlement, the end of the occupation and a just two-state solution. This doesn't include all of the Palestinian women's leadership but it's a substantial portion. It doesn't extend to Hamas. And on the Israeli side it extends to the Labor Party but not much further into the mainstream. But it's a very hopeful beginning to something much more serious and can maybe offer a different perspective.

MJ: With regard to these commissions, what is it that women can do alone that they can't in a mixed-gender group?

NC: First, I think it produces a tendency to try to analyze the situation and try to see how it can be resolved without necessarily a resort to the use of force. Number two is to think of the kinds of solutions that will encompass the entire population, over fifty percent of which is women.

MJ: You have seen the light on so many issues over the years that have confused or divided other segments of the left. You were ahead of everyone else on criticizing Israel's alliance with apartheid South Africa in the 1970s. In hindsight that may seem like an obvious decision, but it wasn't at the time and nor was the decision not to support unilateralism. What are the principles you have applied to each of these new developments in order to decide where you stand?

NC: It's always the same principles: The basic right of human beings to live in peace and dignity. That your own freedom cannot come at the expense of others. Tolerance and respect for the other; tolerance and respect of yourself.

As for the Gaza withdrawal, I was really very uncomfortable with unilateral disengagement. I'm for withdrawal from the occupied territories. I'm for dismantling of the settlements. But I felt that any withdrawal that wasn't a springboard to negotiations was a terrible mistake. It's still a terrible mistake. If you want a settlement, you have to talk to the other side. The trouble with the disengagement in Gaza is that it made Palestinians invisible; it was coercive, and you cannot make the other side invisible and expect any peace or quiet.

MJ: So you would prefer to see Israel rely much less on military solutions?

NC: I think that in a sense, the key quest should be for some normality—letting people live normal lives. I think that's what Israelis want, I think that's ultimately what Palestinians want, and I think it's what Lebanese want. If we can use that as a guide to the way we act and treat each other, that's not a bad way to go.

MJ: How do you counter the Israeli government's claim that it has the right to defend itself?

NC: I don't argue the point of whether it's right to defend yourself: the question is how you do it. I believe that the best defense for Israel is to negotiate. You don't have to argue whether you have the right to defend yourself, the question is how you put yourself into a situation where you have to do so, and what you can do to avoid those situations.

MJ: You've spent a lot of time addressing American audiences. Do you find Americans receptive to this idea?

NC: Audiences are sort of self-selected; anyone coming to hear me probably agrees with me already. But I found I was making a dent in the American Jewish community, definitely. And I don't think what I'm saying is unreasonable or in any way radical.

MJ: Do you find that the Jewish Diaspora in the United States is more hawkish on Israeli foreign policy than the Israeli public?

NC: Yes, but it's more liberal on domestic issues. And therefore you can sometimes speak to the very progressive strain that exists in the American Jewish community in matters other than Israeli foreign policy. You can then suggest that these same principles and values be extended to the debate over Israel.

MJ: A lot of people here and in the Arab world argue that the United States is losing its influence over Israel. Do you agree with that? And if that's so, can enough pressure be generated within Israel to broker an agreement with the Palestinians and in Lebanon?

NC: That's a very good question. There's an element of American foreign policy now that could be very dangerous because of its implication that the conflict in Lebanon can extend to Syria and other areas and that's exactly what we don't want to happen. We don't want to extend the conflict, we want to contain it and then resolve it. So there are certain dangers. But on the other hand, Condoleezza Rice has in the last few hours been talking almost from the International Women's Commission talking points and that is go back to the root causes, go back to the negotiations. And that is important. I think Israel cannot afford to be totally isolated; it has to pay attention to the United States.

Paige Austin is an editorial intern at Mother Jones.

This article has been made possible by the Foundation for National Progress, the Investigative Fund of Mother Jones, and gifts from generous readers like you.

© 2006 The Foundation for National Progress

http://www.motherjones.com/interview/2006/07/naomi_chazan.html

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Israel Is Winning the Battle, But Not the War

Only by exchanging its occupied territories for peace will Israel be able to overcome the challenges posed by Hamas and Hezbollah.

Ivan Eland
July 26 , 2006

Article created by The Independent Institute.

Conservatives, especially neoconservatives, (and even some pro-Israeli moderates and liberals), admire Israel’s use of muscular tactics to safeguard its security. Many conservatives also admire Robert E. Lee’s aggressive, offense-oriented tactical victories in the U.S. Civil War. But like Lee, who ultimately lost the war, the Israelis are exhibiting enormous strategic ineptitude.

Lee, using the Napoleonic tactics of the offense, won many brilliant victories by attacking the superior forces of the Union Army. But Lee lost sight of the most basic strategic factor. Although he inflicted many Union losses, such aggressive tactics also caused his own casualty rates to be very high. Lee simply ran out of men before the larger Union Army did. When the Union eventually installed a general opposite Lee who was competent in both strategy and tactics—Ulysses S. Grant—the North took advantage of superior troop numbers to grind down Lee’s rebel forces. Grant often lost tactically on the battlefield, but relentlessly advanced toward Richmond, the capital of the Confederacy, using attrition to destroy Lee’s army.

Like Lee, the Israelis are winning the battle tactically—destroying fighters and projectiles of Hezbollah and Hamas. In Lebanon, they may even succeed in backing Hezbollah away from the Israeli-Lebanese border and establishing a buffer zone patrolled by the weak Lebanese army and some sort of multinational force. But the Israeli offensives in Lebanon and Gaza will destroy neither Hezbollah nor Hamas, nor the motivation for violence that underlies these groups. Because the Israeli public still remembers the 18-year quagmire that resulted from Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon, Israel probably will not again launch the full ground invasion of Lebanon needed to finally crush Hezbollah. Israeli air strikes alone cannot kill all Hezbollah fighters and destroy all of their weapons and infrastructure. Similarly, since the Israelis just withdrew their forces from Gaza, it is unlikely that they would permanently reoccupy it in order to fully eradicate Hamas. In fact, Israel’s grossly disproportionate collective punishment of Lebanon and Gaza for the killing and capturing of a few Israeli soldiers will only fuel the anti-Israel fire in both places and the larger Arab world. When hatred has been stoked, lost fighters and weapons can be replaced—and rather easily.

The aggressive Israeli policy of an offensive “defense” created the threat from these groups in the first place. When Israel invaded Lebanon in 1982 to get rid of the Palestinian group Fatah, its invasion and occupation of southern Lebanon ultimately led to the radicalization of parts of Lebanon’s Shi’ite community and the creation of Hezbollah. In Palestine, Israel originally supported Hamas as a counterweight to Fatah. As Israel’s continued occupation began to radicalize the Palestinians and Fatah’s corruption became exposed, Hamas gained support. Today, it runs the Palestinian Authority.

Strategically, Israel’s disproportionate use of military force will not wipe out these groups or the support that they receive from their respective populations. Only a comprehensive negotiated, not unilateral, Middle East settlement—in which Israel gives back all of the occupied territories in exchange for peace and normal relations with its Arab neighbors—will choke off popular support for these radical groups. Instead of futilely trying to drain the swamp of terrorists militarily, Israel should concentrate on draining their motivation for violence using political means.

Although the Americans have run into a quagmire in Iraq, they finally realize, at least theoretically, that they can’t defeat the Iraqi insurgency through military means. They are attempting to negotiate their way out, but it may be too late. (The Sunni insurgents deliberately attacked the Shi’a in order to start a sectarian civil war, which is now raging.) Unfortunately, the Israelis are even further behind the slow Americans in coming to terms with reality. They still fail to realize that military solutions, as well as unilateral political actions, are not the answer to guerrilla war and terrorism. A comprehensive negotiated “land for peace” settlement is the only way to make support for Hezbollah and Hamas evaporate. The more Israel pounds Lebanon and Gaza with its own acts of terrorism, the less likely a negotiated settlement—and an end to terrorism by Hezbollah and Hamas—becomes.

Ivan Eland is a Senior Fellow at The Independent Institute, Director of the Institute’s Center on Peace & Liberty, and author of the books The Empire Has No Clothes, and Putting “Defense” Back into U.S. Defense Policy.

This article has been made possible by the Foundation for National Progress, the Investigative Fund of Mother Jones, and gifts from generous readers like you.

© 2006 The Foundation for National Progress

http://www.motherjones.com/commentary/columns/2006/07/battle_not_war.html

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A New Frontier of Jihadi Islam?

The future bodes ill for Somalia, however tolerant and moderate its Islamists may have been in the past.

Najum Mushtaq
July 26 , 2006

Article created by Foreign Policy in Focus.

Somalia today is very much like Afghanistan was in 1996. In the wake of years of civil war, chaotic rule by warlords, and the death and displacement of countless Muslims, a ragtag Islamic militia has moved in to take control of much of Somalia.

After running off some prominent warlords from their entrenched strongholds, the Islamic militia has sought to establish and expand its writ and has threatened to dislodge an internationally backed transitional government made up of veteran warlords with limited authority. Businessmen, clan leaders, and the general public, having tired of seemingly interminable factional violence and lawlessness, have lent support to the al-Qaida-aligned, fiercely anti-American Islamic militia, which draws legitimacy from its plans to restore peace and order. The militia has purported to do so by enforcing a court system based on an ultra-orthodox version of the Sharia (Islamic law) and tribal social norms.

The parallels between the predicaments of Somalia today and Afghanistan in 1996 are striking. Unless neighboring countries and the international community take this “Afghanistan” scenario seriously, Somalia will become the next frontier of jihadi Islam. Unless the United States changes its policy of funding an anti-terrorism alliance of Somali warlords, it will face a second Taliban. And unless Ethiopia rethinks its July 20 military intervention to prop up the transitional government against the Islamic Courts, Sunni Muslim sentiment in Somalia will turn even more radical.

Taliban-II?

Many analysts underestimate or simply dismiss the potential of Somalia becoming the Afghanistan of Africa. The Somali tradition of “religious moderation and tolerance” is cited as a deterrent to a Taliban-like, medieval administration that could destabilize the region and provide support for militant Islamic movements worldwide . For instance, in his July 11 testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, former U.S. ambassador to Ethiopia David Shinn noted that the rise of Islamic militias “does not mean, however, that Somalia is likely to become a major al-Qaida base or that it is headed toward a Taliban form of government. The vast majority of Somalis follow a moderate form of Islam and they are highly suspicious of foreign influence.”

An International Crisis Group report says that “Somalis in general show little interest in jihadi Islamism; most are deeply opposed. Somali militant movements have failed to gain broad popular support, encountering instead widespread hostility. The most remarkable feature is that Islamist militancy has not become more firmly rooted in what should, by most conventional assessments, be fertile ground.”

Still others point to the diversity of Somalia. The Islamic courts, Somalia observers say, have yet to venture into areas outside the Hawiye belt and, even within this clan, ideological and intra-clan differences are sharp. Some of the Islamic courts and Islamic leaders are seen to be more moderate than others. It remains to be seen if their radical Islamic rhetoric can keep the disparate Union of Islamic Courts united. Conventional Somali wisdom says clan affiliation comes before anything else.

Yet a look at Somalia's recent history, the events of the past few months, and the geo-strategic context in which the Islamic courts have gained ground all point to a more ominous future.

The Rise of the Courts

Since the fall of General Siyaad Barre's military regime in 1991, Somalia has been at war with itself, fragmented and carved up by warlords and clan-based militias, and without central rule. No less than fourteen attempts to restore statehood through internationally brokered national governments have failed to bring order or stem the violence. The Barre government had suppressed the Islamic movements of all hues for over twenty years. In the political vacuum and power struggle that ensued after Barre's fall, militant Islamic movements resurfaced with a vengeance, working on all fronts ranging from commerce to the judiciary. Islamic leaders had first earned legitimacy by assuming and effectively administering court functions in lawless areas in the greater Mogadishu region. These clan-based courts also kept militias and have since been major players in internecine fighting.

After a successful campaign earlier this year against the pro-U.S. warlords in the capital city, militias of the Islamic Courts now have direct control of Mogadishu's sixteen districts and three other strategic regions in Somalia's heartland and are looking to forge alliances in others. New Islamic courts are being established in areas under the nominal control of the internationally backed transitional government. The government's own militiamen are joining the courts—as they did recently in Buur Hakaba, in the Bey region. Despite inner wrangling for power, the Union of Islamic Courts has made a bid to speak with one voice to the international community and in negotiations with the warlord-led transitional government. In terms of manpower and weaponry the militias are as formidable as any other factional force in the country. And unlike the warlords, the Islamic militia seems to enjoy popular legitimacy. In addition to offering the prospect of peace after relentless bloodshed, the Islamic movement derives much of its legitimacy from its anti-American stance. Like the Taliban, the tone and tenor of the victorious Islamic Courts in Mogadishu evince a religious self-righteousness that, when translated into political power, will have implications far beyond the immediate local Somali context.

In his first interview after taking over Mogadishu, Shaykh Sharif Ahmed, one of the founding leaders of the Supreme Council of Islamic Courts, told the UN news agency IRIN: “ I think it is the American government that is against the Somali people. It is they who attacked the Somali people. It is the U.S. government that gave a lot of money to fund the faction leaders … We believe that the American government was responsible for the fighting. It is the Americans who are against the Somali people. We are not against them.” Al-Qaida, court leaders say, is a figment of the American imagination.

However, in areas already under the Islamic Courts' control, a process of consolidation of power is underway. Sharia laws and a Taliban-like code of public behavior are in force. Although almost all Somalis follow the more tolerant versions of Shaf'i school of thought, the surging Islamic movement in Somalia is a departure from the traditional structures of religion. Rather than being introverted and beholden to traditions, the movement is inspired by radical modern thinkers likes Syed Qutab of Egypt and Maududi of Pakistan, both of whom had envisioned Sharia-based societies.

To complement the power of the Islamic courts there has been a phenomenal growth of charities, NGOs, and businesses with radical religious credentials. Islamic schools, where traditional religious texts and scriptures form the educational core, have filled the vacuum created by the devastation of the school system. Islamic movements dominate most of the universities and educational institutions. More than 300 Quranic schools in Somalia prepare indoctrinated clerics. Segregation of women, symbolized by the sweeping spread of the veil and the forceful advocacy of the Islamic code of conduct on modesty, seem irreversible trends. Many Somalis see it as an Islamic revolution that has been brewing for decades and has already Islamicized the culture and education system of Somalia.

The perceptions of a moderate, tolerant Islam in Somalia are far removed from a present reality shaped by internecine violence and the post-September 11 international environment. America's insistence on the al-Qaida connection may not be misplaced. Somalia could well be a refuge for some suspects in the Nairobi and Dar-es-Salaam bombings. Hasan Daher Aweys, the new leader of the Supreme Council of Islamic Courts, is on America's list of supporters of terrorism. Osama bin Laden, too, has claimed to have worked in tandem with the Somali militants. Like the Taliban toward Osama bin Laden, Mogadishu's Islamic courts also argue that any terrorist suspects in Somalia should be tried by local courts rather than extradited to other countries . And al-Qaida is certainly not a prime concern for the Somalis who seem willing to tolerate and even back a union of militant clerics in return for a semblance of stability and normalcy. For the people of Mogadishu and other regions, the terrorists they have known over the last decade and a half are the factional warlords and their forces from whom they have gained respite due to the Islamic courts. So far, other than the cornered warlords, public resistance to the rise of the Islamic courts has been conspicuous by its absence.

Regional Response

Direct and indirect involvement of regional actors in Somalia's civil war is another complication it shares with Afghanistan. The emergent power and popularity of the Islamic courts has evoked a hostile response from its neighbors, many of which have sizeable Muslim minorities. Ethiopia, a longstanding supporter of Abdullahi Yusuf, a warlord now leading the shaky transitional government in Bidoa, is wary of an Islamic administration in Mogadishu. Ethiopian worries are rooted in its troubled “Fifth Zone,” a Somali-dominated Muslim region whose separatist movement has old ties with Somali Islamic movements. Ethiopian forces have conducted exercises on and, at times, inside the Somali border.

As Islamic leaders started to establish new courts in towns close to Bidoa, Ethiopian troops took over the town on July 20 to save the besieged transitional government. Ethiopia's military intervention then extended to the town of Wajid a few days later, and the people of Mogadishu were up in protest. A rally on July 22 to denounce Ethiopia captured the prevalent mood among Somali Muslims. The breakdown of Arab League-sponsored Khartoum talks and rigid policy positions of all sides make war a likely outcome of this standoff, unless Ethiopia withdraws its troops. The wave of radicalism among Somali Muslims will only gather force as the sentiment against foreign military intervention rises.

Kenya, burdened by more than 50,000 refugees, also has cause for concern. More bloodshed and violence, a likely outcome of the Islamic courts' ascendancy, will increase the flow of people across the border. The strong suspicion that al-Qaida fugitives implicated in the American embassy bombing of 2002 and other acts of terrorism in Kenya are in Somalia reinforces the perception of threat. Moreover, Kenya was a key actor in setting up the transitional government that the Islamic courts now threaten.

The Islamic-minded government in Khartoum, on the other hand, has on a number of occasions in the 1990s tried to unify the disparate religious movements of Somalia to form an Islamic emirate. After the Islamic courts took over Mogadishu in June 2006, Sudan also facilitated an agreement between the Islamic militia and the transitional government. With the Ethiopian military propping up its client warlord and by extension the transitional government, the agreement increasingly seems to be in jeopardy.

The U.S. Factor

To add to this complex, volatile, but clearly drawn-out regional scenario, U.S.-led coalition forces are anchored in Red Sea waters off Somalia, for the purpose of blocking off international Islamic networks' support systems. Though formally disengaged from the Somali conflict since the Black Hawk Down episode in 1993, the United States has been siding with the rivals of the Islamic militias—a policy pursued with more vigor since September 11. The rise of Islamic extremism in Somalia is a direct consequence of the desultory conduct of America's war on terrorism and its Somalia policy over the last two decades. In fact, the failed American attempt to influence the outcome of the civil war by funding an anti-terrorism alliance of unpopular warlords has left the Bush administration's ideological Somalia policy in shreds and further tarnished the U.S. image in Somalia. Washington insists on pursuing a multilateral process of negotiations and supporting the anti-Islamist transitional government. Realities in Somalia are changing but the American policy, defined by its anti-terrorism zeal and its antipathy to anything Islamic, will ultimately lead to a wider regional conflict, and perhaps at some later stage, direct confrontation. The nascent Supreme Council of the Islamic Courts is therefore under severe constraints in terms of expanding its initial gains to the rest of Somalia.

Diplomatically Washington prefers engagement through the Somalia Contact Group, which also includes Norway, Britain, Sweden, Italy, Tanzania, and the European Union. (The African Union, the Arab League, a group of East African countries, and the United Nations have observer status.) The contact group supports the transitional government as “the legitimate framework for continued dialogue and the reestablishment of governance in Somalia leading to a successful transition to an elected, representative government at the end of the transitional period in 2009,” according to its July 18, 2006 joint communiqué. Given the pace of events, this attempt to artificially prop up transitional institutions will soon be redundant and already seems out of touch with ground realities in Somalia. Persisting with its policy of funding and openly backing discredited warlords has been and will remain counterproductive for the United States. At the same time, an aversion to Islamic rule and the terrorism connection will make it hard for the United States and the Contact Group in general to continue to accept the Islamic courts' rule in Mogadishu and its expansion. Proxy wars, regional military conflicts, and a new pattern of Somalia's fragmentation are in the cards.

However moderate and tolerant Somali Islam might have been in the past, the future bodes ill for Somalia. It might eventually be irrelevant whether or not the Islamic forces succeed in setting up something resembling a nationwide state structure in Somalia. All over the Muslim world, militant Sharia movements have proved that they do not necessarily require formal state structures to recruit populations for militant causes and entrench themselves in society.

Again, the Taliban are a prime example. Since the defeat of the Taliban government in late 2001, the movement has gained new momentum and continues to inflict heavy damage. The Taliban ideology has virtually taken over the tribal areas of Pakistan and remains as potent within Afghanistan as ever. The Islamic courts of Somalia and the ideology they espouse are also here to stay. They have deepened the fissures within the larger Somali society, sharpened conflicts with regional powers, and stoutly defied America's war on terrorism. With them a new era of jihadi Islam and violent confrontation in the horn of Africa has set in.

“ Let what is on this side of the bank be washed out by the flood,” says the Somalia proverb, “and what is on that side of the bank carried away by the wind.” Caught between Islamic Courts on the one hand and the Ethiopian military on the other, Somalia indeed faces the twin plagues of flood and wind.

Najum Mushtaq is a Nairobi-based journalist.

This article has been made possible by the Foundation for National Progress, the Investigative Fund of Mother Jones, and gifts from generous readers like you.

© 2006 The Foundation for National Progress

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