The Washington Post reports that some in the administration see the Lebanese Hezbollah as a possible model for transformation of the Taliban. Describing the Taliban as a movement “deeply rooted” in Afghanistan, much like Hezbollah is in Lebanon, proponents of a Hezbollah model for the Taliban see a scenario in which the Taliban participates in Afghan politics, occasionally flexes its military muscles to benefit its political positions at home, but does not directly threat the United States even if it remains a source of regional instability.

According to the Post, while the idea has been discussed informally “outside the Situation Room meetings,” it has not yet been presented to President Obama. That’s a good thing because the notion is deeply flawed, and its implementation would have dire consequences for Afghanistan, the region more broadly, and U.S. counterterrorism efforts all.

Hezbollah in Lebanon is a destabilizing force, as is the Taliban in Afghanistan. Not only does Hezbollah maintain an independent militia in explicit violation of United Nations resolutions, it uses this private army to create semi-independent enclaves throughout the south of Lebanon and the Bekaa Valley where Lebanese Armed Forces are not allowed. In these spaces, Hezbollah maintains training camps, engages in weapons smuggling and drug trafficking, and maintains tens of thousands of rockets aimed at its neighbor to the south, Israel. Hezbollah collects intelligence on people traveling through Beirut international airport, and has built its own communications infrastructure beyond the reach of the national government.

In Afghanistan, an independent Taliban militia that controls territory of its own; maintains bases and training camps; facilitates weapons smuggling; and engages in every aspect of the narcotics production pipeline from poppy cultivation and processing to taxing delivery and smuggling abroad, would certainly seek to maintain its control over its own territory. Indeed, an increasing number of major Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) arrests over the past few months have targeted drug kingpins closely tied to the Taliban, like Haji Juma Kahn and Baz Mohammad.

Neither will Hezbollah today nor a similarly modeled Taliban tomorrow tolerate government challenges to its private army or other sources of power. In the words of then-Principal Deputy Director of National Intelligence Donald Kerr, such groups are out for themselves, and will turn on their fellow Lebanese or Afghan citizens, respectively, when under pressure. “Events in Lebanon since May 7 [2008] demonstrate that Hezbollah—with the full support of Syria and Iran—will in fact turn its weapons against the Lebanese people for political purposes,” Kerr explained. “Hezbollah sought to justify its attacks against fellow Lebanese as an attempt to defend the resistance against attacks by the government.” Scores of Afghan civilians have been killed in Taliban suicide bombings, including the most recent attack outside the Indian embassy which claimed the lives of 17 Afghans, including 15 civilians and two Afghan police officers. It is all the more difficult to imagine a scenario in which the Taliban play a stabilizing political role in Afghanistan in light of the fact that, unlike Hezbollah, the Taliban adhere to a strict salafi-jihadi doctrine which is anathema to secular politics and requires the strict implementation of shariah law.

Commenting on the philosophical distinctions some in the administration make between the Taliban and Al Qaeda, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs distinguished between the Taliban as an Islamist element in Afghanistan and “an entity that, through a global, transnational jihadist network, would seek to strike the U.S. homeland,” like Al Qaeda. But in the assessment of people like Bruce Reidel, an Al Qaeda and Taliban expert who oversaw the administration’s policy review regarding Afghanistan and Pakistan, the Taliban’s ties to Al Qaeda run deep. “It’s a fundamental misreading of the nature of these organizations to think they are anything other than partners,” said Reidel. “Al Qaeda is embedded in the Taliban insurgency, and it’s highly unlikely that you’re going to be able to separate them.”

Here too, Hezbollah—a group involved not only in politics in Lebanon but in terrorist activity worldwide—is the wrong model. Even as the Hezbollah-led March 8 coalition campaigned ahead of Lebanon’s June 7 elections this summer, the group was forced to contend with the unexpected exposure of its covert terrorist activities both at home and abroad. At home, Hezbollah stands accused of playing a role in the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri. Abroad, law enforcement officials have taken action against Hezbollah support networks operating across the globe, including in Egypt, Yemen, Sierra Leone, Cote d’Ivoire, Azerbaijan, Belgium, and Colombia. Just this past week, a court in Azerbaijan found two Hezbollah operatives guilty of plotting attacks on the Israeli and U.S. embassies in Baku, among other plots, and sentenced them each to 15 years in prison.

The Taliban is primarily involved in attacks in Afghanistan and Pakistan, though it has been tied to at least one plot in the United States and another in Europe. In the United States, a group of eleven jihadists in Northern Virginia were found to have connections with Al Qaeda, the Taliban, and Lashkar-i-Taiba. In Europe, the Pakistani Taliban—distinct from but closely allied with the Afghan Taliban—claimed responsibility for a failed plot to bomb subway trains in Barcelona in 2008. And while historically the Taliban was an adversary of Iran’s, the United States believes since at least 2006 Iran has arranged frequent shipments of small arms, RPGs, explosives and other weapons to the Taliban. The Qods Force also provides the Taliban in Afghanistan with weapons, funding, logistics and military training, according to the U.S. government.

As National Counterterrorism Center director Michael Leiter made clear in his congressional testimony last week, Hezbollah is a very poor model for a future Taliban. According to Leiter, the U.S. intelligence community holds the following to be true:

While not aligned with al-Qa’ida, we assess that Lebanese Hizballah remains capable of conducting terrorist attacks on U.S. and Western interests, particularly in the Middle East. It continues to train and sponsor terrorist groups in Iraq that threaten the lives of U.S. and Coalition forces, and supports Palestinian terrorist groups’ efforts to attack Israel and jeopardize the Middle East Peace Process. Although its primary focus is Israel, the group holds the United States responsible for Israeli policies in the region and would likely consider attacks on U.S. interests, to include the Homeland, if it perceived a direct threat from the United States to itself or Iran. Hizballah’s Secretary General, in justifying the group’s use of violence against fellow Lebanese citizens last year, characterized any threat to Hizballah’s armed status and its independent communications network as redlines.

Modeling the Taliban after Hezbollah is a recipe for failure. It would doom efforts to promote democracy in Afghanistan and engender long-term instability in both Afghanistan and Pakistan along the traditional Pashtun tribal belt that straddles the country’s shared border. It would embolden one of Iran’s newer allies in the region and empower a salafi-jihadi organization with close and ongoing ties to Al Qaeda to firmly establish control over parts of the country from which it would continue to produce massive quantities of drugs that ultimately make their way to the West. Looking to Hezbollah as the model for a future Taliban displays both ignorance of Hezbollah and naïveté regarding the Taliban. No matter how you slice it, that’s a dangerous combination.

MESH Admin: There is an Arabic translation of this post.

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Israel America Academic Exchange (IAAE) is a new organization that sponsors educational missions to Israel for American scholars in the fields of political science, international relations, international law, international economic development, modern history, and Middle East studies. By special arrangement, participants in the inaugural mission (June 22-29) have been invited to guest-post their impressions and assessments. Bruce Jentleson is professor of public policy and political science at Duke University. He is also a member of MESH.

From Bruce Jentleson

Central to our discussions was the debate over force and diplomacy as Israeli strategies, so I’ll focus on that for this post.

Is it the case that the lessons of the last 10-15 years are that force has worked, both as compellence and deterrence, and diplomacy has not? This was the dominant argument we heard from Israeli speakers. While the speaker selection was short of representative, I know from other interactions and reading that this perspective has become more prevalent. It also is a view our American group debated among ourselves.

Four main parts to the argument:

1. The Gaza war was intended to impose substantial costs on Hamas and to deter further attacks on Israel. It achieved both; e.g., attacks from Gaza are down since the war.
2. The same regarding Hezbollah and the 2006 Lebanon war: Look at the northern front and how quiet Hezbollah has been, and how weakened the recent elections showed it to be in Lebanese politics.
3. Oslo didn’t work; Camp David 2000 was another instance of the Palestinians never missing an opportunity to miss an opportunity; unilateral withdrawals, both Barak in Lebanon and Sharon in Gaza, gave land but didn’t bring pace; plus the recent stories swirling about Olmert ostensibly offering even concessions on Jerusalem. Arafat was an essentialist; his successors may have more will but lack capacity; Hamas is ideological.
4. The status quo is not great for Israel, but it’s tolerable. Risk aversion, both security and politics, says keep relying on military power. Be sufficiently willing to negotiate to check off that box for the United States and the international community but not much more. Don’t antagonize the political coalition on which your power (read Netanyahu’s) depends.

An alternative analysis:

• Gaza: The evidence is more mixed and uncertain than claimed. On the one hand we were told of how few rockets had been launched, on the other of how there’d been a recent uptick. At minimum, six months is hardly enough of an empirical base on which to attribute durable deterrence success. The criteria for durability is not some out-there notion of the long-term, but it also can’t be so short term as to need to be “serviced” again with anything close to a comparable operation in the next year or two. Moreover, gains made need to be part of a net assessment that also takes into account costs incurred and gains made by the other side. One can see a strategic logic for Hamas by which the price it paid had value as (a) diversionary war, detracting attention from problems of its governance and re-igniting the enemy on which to increase its appeal (so lowering a negative source and increasing a positive one), and (b) playing into Israeli politics in ways that strengthen the Right, which in turn makes for strained relations w/the United States. The net assessment may still come out positive, but less dichotomously.
• 2006 Lebanon War: We do have three years of data, and it is a fact that the northern border has been quieter than in many years. That goes in the plus column, as does the demonstrated capacity to impose costs. But in the negative column: the Israeli military’s failure to prevail in this nonconventional warfare as a deterrence-weakening message; the failure to bring captured soldiers home alive; the political disarray that helped doom the Olmert government; and the further loss of international legitimacy as an instrumental and not just normative matter. Moreover, the causal link to Hezbollah’s June 2009 election performance is questionable. Hezbollah came out of the war strengthened. But it then overplayed its hand by unleashing its militias into Lebanese politics in 2007-08. Then as intervening variables in the run-up to the election, Saudi money for the coalition and, I’d at least postulate, the Obama effect made it more politically legitimate to at least not be anti-American.
• Lessons of Oslo, other diplomacy: George Kennan made the distinction between flaws of execution and flaws in the concept. The former means that the policy could have worked but was done poorly; the latter that it was inherently flawed. Oslo, et al., did have elements of the latter, but also plenty of the former, and on all sides (United States, Israel, Palestinians, others). It didn’t work—but that doesn’t mean it couldn’t have worked. What would have happened if Rabin was not assassinated, given his domestic credibility and that he was having at least a degree of success in dealing with Arafat? And if the 1996 election, which Netanyahu won by less than 1 percent amidst the spoilers who got going on both sides, had come out differently? If the Clinton administration had been less accommodating and firmer against both sides playing both sides of the street? In the end, Arafat was the major problem, a Gromyko-like Mr. Nyet. He was never going to be a Mandela, but the essentialist analysis is too straight-line and dismissive of decision points and interactive dynamics along the way. As to Hamas, while it’s shown plenty of essentialism, it’s not clear that even this is fixed; see, e.g., the analysis of Khaled Meshal’s recent speech by Brig. Gen. (ret) Shlomo Brom.
• Deteriorating status quo: The domestic opportunity costs to Israel from the status quo were more graphic to me than ever before. See the economic analysis by Professor Dan Ben-David, Tel Aviv University and head of the Taub Center for Social Policy Research. Walk around and see and feel the rising societal power of the ultra-Orthodox, abetted by continuation of the Palestinian conflict both directly through the political utility of the enemy and indirectly as a distraction from the nation focusing on the threats to its balance of secularism and Jewish identity.
• Shifting regional strategic dynamics? While much is too soon to tell, there are signs that the strategic dynamics in the region may be shifting. Anti-fundamentalism is pushing back on many fronts in the Arab and Muslim worlds. The U.S.-Syria relationship has some traction. Perhaps Iran will come out of the current crisis more flexible. The Saudis and Arab League may be ready to make their peace initiative more than a piece of paper. Don’t know for sure, but the alignment of forces may potentially be more favorable than in a long time.
• Palestinians as a credible peace partner and viable state: This may not be the world’s hardest case for state-building, but it’s up there. Among the many challenges their leadership faces is better synching their maximalist positions on terms of a peace and their more limited capacities as yet to function as a viable state. This is tricky politically as well as in substantive policy terms. It likely will require various roles for various third parties. Plenty of work to be done here: the PA-Hamas talks being run by Egypt, security forces, the economy, lawlessness, spoilers. Not to be underestimated.

I’m still not ready to bet the next mortgage payment (non-subprime) on peace and security in the Middle East. But nothing we saw or heard has been sufficient to counter the Churchillian sense of a peace process still being the worst strategy except for all the others.

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If early returns hold up and the March 14 coalition emerges victorious in Lebanese parliamentary elections, sending a resounding defeat to Iran’s proxy, Hezbollah, then one of the most important “unsung heroes” in the vote will have been… Vice President Joe Biden.

Biden’s surprise visit to Beirut on May 22 was not just gutsy. By reminding Lebanese voters that Washington will review financial assistance and other aspects of our relations with Lebanon depending on the outcome of the election, Biden played Middle East hardball. Lebanese voters—especially the critical swing Christian voters—seem to have gotten the message. They cast their ballots in droves for candidates opposed to the Hezbollah-backed alliance and, in so doing, appear to have turned the tide in the election. (Of course, those voters had ample reason to say “enough” to Hezbollah and its Aounist allies, but Biden may have pushed them over the top.)

Biden’s Lebanon foray is a salutary reminder for the Obama administration in its overall engagement with the Middle East. Elsewhere in the region, the administration seems to be directing a policy devoid of sticks (except toward Israel’s settlement policy, which is another story altogether). The President’s Cairo address to the world’s Muslims, for example, included not a single hint of “negative incentive”; while he eloquently made the case for religious freedom, democracy, women’s rights, and peaceful nuclear energy, there were no suggestions of negative repercussions for any country that rejects the President’s entreaties. After the polite applause is forgotten, the result is likely to be indifference on the part of most Arab and Muslim leaders (except, again, on settlement policy).

In Lebanon, Biden’s timely reminder to locals of what they might lose by cutting deals with radicals and extremists suggests that Chicago politics is alive and well in the Middle East. The Chicagoan in the White House should pay attention.

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On June 7, Lebanon goes to the polls to elect a new government. Just over a week out, the race is too close to call. The stakes couldn’t be higher. Either the pro-west March 14th coalition, in power since 2005, retains power; or the Iranian- and Syrian-backed March 8th coalition led by Hezbollah gains de jure control over the state, and with it the Lebanese military.

The Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) is an important, understudied and perhaps the sole respected national institution in a divided country. The LAF possesses a legitimacy and widespread support that are virtually non-existent in other Lebanese institutions. That said, there are serious questions regarding the potential of the army—and of other domestic security agencies—for enhancing state sovereignty.

Despite my reservations, since the end of the Syrian occupation of Lebanon in 2005, I have supported U.S. efforts to build a strong LAF that is loyal and accountable to the state, a project I worked on while I served at the Pentagon. Since 2005, Washington has provided over $400 million to improve the capabilities of the force, which languished during the years of Syrian suzerainty. Despite the significant infusion of U.S. assistance, however, there is little indication that, to date, the LAF—or other U.S.-funded security institutions—are moving in this direction. At best, it’s going to be a long-term project.

The LAF remains a consensus institution, only able to implement the decisions of the Lebanese government with the tacit approval of Hezbollah. A few examples provide insight into the nature of the problem, with both the LAF and other national institutions:

• Perhaps the best example of this dynamic is what happened following the Fatah al-Islam takeover of Nahr el Bared in May 2007. Hezbollah leader Hasan Nasrallah initially opposed the operation—terming LAF entrance into the camp as a “red line”—but he later relented, according to Hezbollah sources (likely due to overwhelming Lebanese popular support for a military response following the massacre of two dozen LAF troops), allowing the operation to proceed.
• There is some pretty convincing evidence of freelancing within the LAF in support of Hezbollah during the 2006 Summer War between Israel and the Shi’ite militia. While the LAF was largely a non-combatant in the hostilities, Hezbollah fired a Chinese-made, Iranian-provided C802 land to sea missile that hit and nearly sank the Israeli SAAR 5-class missile cruiser, the Hanit. According to Israeli sources, the missile provided no early radar signature—allowing the ship to employ countermeasures—because it relied on LAF naval radar. Israel responded by destroying LAF naval radar stations.
• The LAF did not implement the government’s decision in May 2008 to remove LAF General Wafiq Chucair, the Hezbollah-sympathetic officer in charge of Beirut airport. Hezbollah had responded to the personnel decision, and the edict of the government to dismantle the organization’s dedicated fiber optic network, by invading Beirut. The government’s decision was in fact later overridden by then-COS Michel Suleiman, who later became President of the Republic.
• During Hezbollah’s May 2008 invasion of Beirut, the LAF did not oppose the organization’s military assault on the capital. In fact, evidence suggests the LAF colluded with Hezbollah in the operation, leaving areas as Hezbollah entered and returning to accept transfer of responsibility after Hezbollah withdrew. Moreover, there were complaints that the LAF did not arrive early to protect March 14th ministers from the onslaught.
• More recently, and equally problematic if true, were reports recently leaked by Cairo that Lebanon’s Sureté Générale (Al-Amn al-’Aam) provided the doctored passports to Hezbollah operatives apprehended by Egypt.

Washington’s provision of weapons is an important factor in the development of LAF capabilities. In the long term, however, it might be equally if not more useful if the United States and other western states provided civil affairs training geared toward building unit cohesion and developing a primary allegiance to the state, a loyalty that trumps sectarian allegiance.

Of course, depending how the June 7 elections turn out, the discussion could be moot. Hezbollah already exerts a preponderance of influence over the LAF, and has long been believed—in coordination with its Syrian allies—to have significant sway within the military intelligence (G2). However, should March 8th win, the U.S. Congress and the Obama administration should rethink the current level of funding for this “national institution.”

This interview with Timur Goksel (click here if you don’t see the embedded clip below), a former political advisor to the United Nations Interim Force in southern Lebanon (UNIFIL), is interesting in two regards. Goksel is someone intimately familiar with Lebanon’s Shi’ite community, and his observations (many of which I happen to agree with) are worth listening to. But he is also someone who, to me, often appears so taken up by the domestic narrative of the Hezbollah-Shi’ite relationship, one that he has witnessed from up close, that he underplays broader, equally significant, aspects of Hezbollah’s behavior.

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As I said, much of what Goksel says here is accurate. Don’t expect the Shi’ites to push Hezbollah to disarm, because the party’s weapons are tied into the community’s sense of strength and revival. Hezbollah has also, for the moment, indeed taken a more pragmatic approach to the idea of an Islamic state. This no longer seems to be a priority, as the party has opted for a much more effective strategy, one it developed after it successfully participated in Lebanon’s first postwar parliamentary elections in 1992: namely, integrating its supporters into the state and using this as a means of preserving its political, military, and geographic autonomy—in other words, and paradoxically, joining the state to better keep the state at arm’s length away from Hezbollah’s vital interests.

I also agree with Goksel that to truly understand Hezbollah, one must understand the sociology of the Shi’ite community. However, where I think he comes up short is in the larger picture (at least in this video), particularly with regard to the party’s regional links, interests, and calculations. Only once, I believe, does Goksel mention Iran, in the context of the Amal-Hezbollah deal negotiated in Damascus in 1990 under Syrian and Iranian auspices. Otherwise, his tendency is to talk about Hezbollah as a largely Lebanese Shi’ite phenomenon.

Is there any real doubt, however, that Hezbollah, as a military and political organization, is an extension of Iran’s security and intelligence apparatus and, more broadly, serves Iranian regional interests? Iran’s achievement was certainly to anchor Hezbollah in the Lebanese Shi’ite reality, but it is not that reality that explains why Hezbollah is arming Hamas and Islamic Jihad in Gaza and elsewhere; why it possesses a military capacity, including long-range missiles, that cannot conceivably be justified in a Lebanese context; why it is helping train the Mehdi Army in Iraq; why its youths are being sent to Iran for military instruction and political and religious indoctrination; and why Iran can rely on sympathetic Shi’ite networks in South America and West Africa.

Yes, Shi’ites fear that Hezbollah’s disarmament will again lead to their marginalization, even if Hezbollah has been instrumental in heightening this utterly unrealistic existential fear. But let’s reverse that. Would the community agree to surrender Hezbollah’s weapons in exchange for greater political power in Lebanon? In fact, I believe Hezbollah would consider this excellent idea the kiss of death, which is why it has so strenuously sought in the past three years, after the 2006 summer war, to maintain the community in a state of near permanent hostility towards its political foes in the country—including a vast majority of Sunnis, the Druze, and a sizable portion of the Christian community. Hezbollah best retains authority over the community in times of polarization, allowing it to set the communal agenda and block out dissenting voices.

Repeatedly, Hezbollah has expressed its refusal to hand its weapons over to a sovereign Lebanese state. Those who criticize the state, particularly its past shortcomings with respect to the Shi’ites, may be justified in doing so. But this is really just a vicious circle, so you can turn back that question against the critics by asking: What kind of state does Hezbollah desire when it has spent years politically, geographically, and ideologically separating Shi’ites from Lebanese society, even using their hold over certain state institutions to reinforce this? There is an overriding explanation: If Shi’ites embrace the Lebanese state, Hezbollah would lose much of its power, its justification for retaining its weapons, and its regional usefulness to Iran, which defines the party’s strategy.

That’s the other side of Goksel’s comments, and one that somebody with his knowledge surely can tell us much more about. Perhaps he did; he just didn’t happen to do so in this particular segment, which requires some necessary counterpoint to make the whole more intelligible.

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Earlier this month, the United Kingdom announced that it is reopening dialogue with the political wing of Hezbollah. Unlike the United States, the United Kingdom has only banned Hezbollah’s terrorist (External Security Organization) and military wings. The ban on the terrorist wing came in 2000, while the ban on the military wing only came in June 2008 in response to Hezbollah’s “providing active support to militants in Iraq who are responsible for attacks both on coalition forces and on Iraqi civilians, including providing training in the use of deadly roadside bombs,” for plots to kidnap British security workers in Iraq, and for its support for terrorist activity in the Palestinian Territories.

Meanwhile, the European Union has not yet designated any part of Hezbollah—military, political or otherwise—although it did label Imad Mughniyeh, the late Hezbollah chief of external operations, and several other Hezbollah members involved in specific acts of terrorism.

But despite the differences between U.S. and European perceptions of and policies toward Hezbollah, there is one critical area where all parties’ mutual interests converge, namely law enforcement. Regardless of divergent political considerations or definitions of terrorism, combating crime and enforcing sovereign laws are straightforward issues. More than any other Islamist group, Hezbollah has a long record of engaging in criminal activity to support its activities. The United States and its European counterparts have a particularly strong shared interest in combating the group’s increasing role in illicit drug trafficking.

Just this past week Admiral James G. Stavridis, the Commander of U.S. Southern Command who has now been nominated to head NATO troops as Supreme Allied Commander Europe, testified before the House Armed Services Committee about the threat to the United States from the nexus between illicit drug trafficking—”including routes, profits, and corruptive influence”—and “Islamic radical terrorism.” While Hezbollah is involved in a wide variety of criminal activity, ranging from cigarette smuggling to selling counterfeit products, the connection between drugs and terror is particularly strong. According to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), 19 of the 43 U.S.-designated Foreign Terrorist Organizations are definitely linked to the global drug trade, and up to 60 percent of terror organizations are suspected of having some ties with the illegal narcotics trade.

Hezbollah is no exception to this statistic, and in recent years has augmented its role in the production and trafficking of narcotics. Hezbollah has utilized the vast Lebanese Shi’a expatriate population, mainly located in South America and Africa, to its advantage. According to Michael Braun, former assistant administrator and chief of operations at the DEA, “Both Hamas and Hezbollah are active in this [Tri-Border] region [see map at right], where it is possible to make a profit of $1 million from the sale of fourteen or fifteen kilos of drugs, an amount that could be transported in a single suitcase.”

For example, Admiral Stavridis’s testified that in August 2008, the U.S. Southern Command and the DEA, in coordination with host nations, targeted a Hezbollah drug trafficking ring in the Tri-Border region of Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay. In August 2008, the United States, in cooperation with Colombian investigators, identified and dismantled an international cocaine smuggling and money laundering ring based out of Colombia. This operation, which was made up of a Colombian drug cartel and Lebanese members of Hezbollah, used portions of its profits—allegedly hundreds of millions of dollars per year—to finance Hezbollah.

Such revelations should not surprise. Back in December 2006 the U.S. Treasury listed Sobhi Fayad as a Specially Designated Terrorist. Why? Because, Treasury informed, “Fayad has been a senior TBA [Tri-Border Area] Hezbollah official who served as a liaison between the Iranian embassy and the Hezbollah community in the TBA. He has also been a professional Hezbollah operative who has traveled to Lebanon and Iran to meet with Hezbollah leaders. Fayad received military training in Lebanon and Iran and was involved in illicit activities involving drugs and counterfeit U.S. dollars.”

Africa is additionally becoming an area of concern regarding terrorist groups engaged in drug trafficking. According to Admiral Stavridis, drug traffickers have expanded their presence in West Africa as a “springboard to Europe.” Hezbollah has long maintained a strong presence in Africa, and has utilized Africa as a strategic point to from which to raise and transfer funds and to engage in criminal enterprises, such as diamond smuggling.

The nexus between drug trafficking and terrorist activities—specifically those of Hezbollah—represent an immediate law enforcement challenge for the United States and its European allies. While the Europeans may not view Hezbollah as a terrorist organization, they are certainly eager to prevent Hezbollah from running criminal enterprises within their borders. Countries are particularly determined to prevent the importation of illegal narcotics across their borders, whether by organized criminal networks, terrorists groups, or the hybrid narco-terrorist networks that DEA officials describe as “meaner and uglier than anything law enforcement or militaries have ever faced.”

So while there is no common understanding between the United States and the United Kingdom on whether or how to engage Hezbollah or even how to classify Hezbollah and its various component parts, there is no “gray area” as to whether drug trafficking is illegal. The United Kingdom and other European nations are no less eager than the United States to combat the flow of drugs into their countries and to prevent Hezbollah from operating criminal enterprises within their territory.

The British decision to openly engage Hezbollah politically is misinformed, to be sure. But do not be surprised if the Brits talk to Hezbollah “political” leaders on the one hand while arresting some of their cohorts involved in illicit narcotics on the other. Officials may openly describe these actions as targeting criminals, not Hezbollah, but the effect will be much the same.

Even under geographic siege and financial sanction, Hamas was still able to smuggle some 80 tons of explosives, roadside bombs and longer-range rockets into Gaza over the course of the past ceasefire. Were it not for that success, Hamas would not have been able to continue firing rockets at southern Israeli communities, let alone effectively control Gaza. Denied access to regular trade routes and international banking, Hamas developed alternative mechanisms such as an extensive network of smuggling tunnels, taxes and custom fees, and increases reliance on charitable front organizations.

But Hamas is not the only terrorist group proactively looking for ways to evade international sanction. Today, the Treasury Department designated the Waad Project (logo pictured) as a terrorist entity, describing it as a Hezbollah-run construction firm. According to information released by the Treasury Department, the Waad Project built underground weapons storage facilities and other military infrastructure for Hezbollah in Lebanon. Its website directed viewers to telephone numbers for those wishing to donate aid to Hezbollah, Jihad al-Bina, and the Martyrs Association, the latter two both previously designated as terrorist entities for providing material support to Hezbollah. The Waad Project has tried to hide its affiliation with Hezbollah, employing deceptive means to seek funding projects from international development organizations, according to Treasury.

This should not surprise. As my colleague Michael Jacobson and I wrote in our recent study “The Money Trail,” terrorist front groups often respond to the exposure of their activities by attempting to distance themselves from the alleged illegal activity and engage in otherwise legitimate endeavors to paint themselves in a more benign light. Against international efforts to combat terrorism, in which much of the information used to designate individuals and organizations as terrorist entities remains classified, such legitimization campaigns take on even greater importance and utility.

Hezbollah, for example, employed deceptive means to seek funding for projects from international development organizations for its construction arm, Jihad al-Bina. According to the Treasury Department, “In cases when intended solicitation targets were thought to object to the group’s relationship with Hezbollah and the Iranian government, the organization employed deceptive practices, applying in the name of proxies not publicly linked to Hezbollah.” Similarly, in September 2006 the Treasury Department designated two Hezbollah-controlled financial institutions as terrorist entities, Bayt al-Mal and the Yousser Company for Finance and Investment. Bayt al-Mal served as a bank, creditor, and investment arm for Hezbollah, according to Treasury, and used the Yousser Company to secure loans and finance business deals for the group’s companies. And in November 2006, the Italian press reported that a ship said to be carrying refrigerators to Lebanon was impounded in Cyprus after it was found to contain eighteen trucks with mobile anti-aircraft radars and other vehicle-mounted monitoring equipment.

Given that its proxies Hezbollah and Hamas engage in deceptive financial practices to fund their illicit activities, it should not surprise that Iran itself engages in similar deception to conceal the nature of its sponsorship of terrorist groups. Iran has used Bank Saderat as a preferred means of transferring funds to terrorist organizations such as Hezbollah, Hamas, PIJ, and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine–General Command. The Treasury Department revealed one case in which Iran sent $50 million to a Hezbollah-controlled organization between 2001 and 2006.

In terms of the current fighting in Gaza, dealing with Iran’s parallel support of Hamas—be it through smuggling tunnels, “charitable” front organizations, or otherwise—will have to be a central focus of any international ceasefire plan.

The Israeli-Hamas ceasefire, signed on June 9, 2008, had long been a porous one. While Hamas, for the most part, until November 2008 did not fire its own rockets at Israel, it permitted other groups, such as the Iranian-supported Islamic Jihad, to do so. These limited rocket attacks, while clear violations of the ceasefire agreement, did not precipitate major Israeli responses, other than periodic limited closures of the border crossings into Gaza, through which Israel supplied food, fuel and other humanitarian aid to Gaza. Whether Israel should have allowed any humanitarian aid into Gaza in the face of the rocket fire is a very open question: Israel was in fact in a state of war with Hamas, an organization pledged to destroy it, and the rockets fired at Israel simply underlined Hamas’ long term objective by demonstrating its “resistance” to the Jewish State. Under these circumstances, a full border closure might have brought home to the people of Gaza, the majority of whom voted for Hamas in the 2006 Palestinian Legislative Council elections, the costs of supporting Hamas.

In any case, fighting between Israel and Hamas intensified in November when Israel found and destroyed a tunnel between Gaza and Israel which the Israeli military thought would be used to kidnap another Israeli soldier, much as Gilad Shalit had been kidnapped in 2006. Ironically, the kidnap attempt was not aimed primarily at Israel, but at the Palestinian rival of Hamas, the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority on the West Bank headed by Mahmoud Abbas. The kidnap attempt appeared timed to occur as Hamas and Fatah were jockeying for position before the start of what proved to be abortive Palestinian unity talks in Cairo. Had Hamas been successful in capturing another Israeli soldier, it would have shown that Hamas was demonstrating greater “resistance” against Israel than Fatah, which had been engaged in fruitless peace talks with Israel.

Following the Israeli attack on the tunnel, the number of rockets fired at Israel from Gaza escalated, reaching a new high after Hamas announced it would not extend the ceasefire unless Israel fully opened the border crossings and stopped arresting members of Hamas living on the West Bank—the latter demand not included in the original ceasefire agreement. When Israel refused to agree to the new Hamas demands, Hamas further escalated its firing of rockets, hoping, apparently, to force Israel to accept the new ceasefire terms in return for restoring quiet to southern Israel. Hamas may have also believed that Israel’s ruling Kadima party desperately needed a ceasefire so as to remove the issue of the rocket firing from the ongoing Israeli election campaign. It had been Kadima that had undertaken the unilateral withdrawal from Gaza, and presumably it did not want to remind the Israeli electorate that the withdrawal had resulted in the firing of rockets from Gaza into Israel.

If this was indeed the thinking of Hamas, it was gravely mistaken. Kadima leader Tzipi Livni, as early as November, had called for strong military action against Hamas because of the rocket firing, and she also stated at the time that she was prepared to eliminate the Hamas threat against Israel once and for all. Meanwhile, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak, of the Labor party, was taking a more dovish position, resisting the use of force. In initially opposing an attack on Gaza, Barak may have hoped to win votes from the dovish spectrum of the Israeli electorate consisting of the Meretz party and the parties that had broken away from Labor because they were dissatisfied with his leadership. On the other end of the Israeli political spectrum, the right of center Likud party, led by Binyamin Netanyahu, was attacking Barak for his judgement in unilaterally withdrawing from Lebanon in May 2000—a step which had led not to peace, as Barak had hoped, but to rocket fire into Israel from Lebanon, the kidnapping of Israeli soldiers, and finally the Israel-Hezbollah war of 2006 from which Israel did not emerge victorious. In addition, of course, Netanyahu berated the Kadima party for its unilateral withdrawal from Gaza, which, as in the case of Lebanon, did not bring peace, but rather rocket firing into Israel in its wake.

Given these circumstances, with Netanyahu’s Likud party leading in the pre-election polls, Livni’s calls for more action against Hamas grew more difficult for Kadima’s lame-duck leader, Ehud Olmert, to resist. For his part, Barak saw his Labor party dropping precipitously in the polls, as his dovish position was not resonating among Israeli voters. The end result of the Israeli deliberations—a major air assault against Hamas bases, missile factories, and arms smuggling tunnels in Gaza—was a compromise between those who wanted a full-scale military assault on Gaza and those, most likely including Olmert, who had been badly burned politically by the 2006 war, and who continued to counsel restraint. The Israeli military action was an effort to show Hamas that not only would the Israeli political leadership not be intimidated by the Hamas rocket attacks into weakening its position on the ceasefire terms, but that Israel too could use force—considerably more force than Hamas was using—and that if Hamas had hoped to use rocket fire to get better ceasefire terms, it was badly mistaken. The military action was also a signal to Hamas that if it still wanted a truce—a very big if—then all rocket fire would have to be halted.

Prior to examining the alternatives available to Hamas after the Israeli military operation, I will now turn to an analysis of the possible repercussions of the Israeli military action in the Middle East, because this will affect how Hamas will respond.

Repercussions

In analyzing the possible effects of the Israeli military operation throughout the Middle East, one has to consider several different Arab and Middle Eastern states which are players in the Arab-Israeli conflict. These include: Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah organization which currently controls the Palestinian Authority on the West Bank; Egypt and Jordan, the two Arab states that have peace treaties with Israel; Syria; Iran; and Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf states.

• Mahmoud Abbas. With Palestinians being killed by the Israeli attacks, Abbas has no choice but to publicly condemn them, although he has also been critical of Hamas for not agreeing to extend the ceasefire. It should also be noted that many members of Abbas’ Fatah organization have bitter memories of their colleagues in Gaza being murdered by Hamas thugs—some tossed off the rooftops of multi-storied buildings in Gaza—during the Hamas seizure of power in Gaza in June 2006. Consequently, many will greet the Israeli drubbing of Hamas in Gaza with great satisfaction. While there are likely to be riots by Hamas sympathizers on the West Bank, the test of Abbas’ newly strengthened security forces will be how successful they are in containing the rioters. Since Abbas has been systematically cracking down on Hamas operatives in the West Bank since June 2007 (as has Israel) it is not clear how much strength Hamas retains in the region, and the ability of Abbas’ forces to quell the rioters will go a long way toward answering this question.

While Abbas has broken off peace talks with Israel in the name of Palestinian solidarity—he has to be concerned about a sympathy vote for Hamas in the forthcoming Palestinian Legislative Council elections (if they are held,as tentatively scheduled,in April 2009)—-nonetheless if Hamas is badly weakened politically as well as militarily in Gaza by the Israeli attacks (a very big if), then Abbas will gain politically in what has become a zero-sum-game struggle between Hamas and Fatah for leadership of the Palestinian movement.

• Egypt and Jordan. As the two countries which have signed peace treaties with Israel, both Egypt and Jordan face similar problems in responding to the Israeli military operations in Gaza.

The main opposition force, which is represented in parliament in both countries, is the Moslem Brotherhood (in Jordan it takes the name “The Islamic Action Front”), and Hamas itself is an offshoot of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood. Thus the Palestinian issue has been used by Muslim Brotherhood organizations in both countries to accuse both Mubarak of Egypt and King Abdullah II of Jordan of not being tough enough against Israel.

Yet while both Mubarak and King Abdullah II must be sensitive to the public opinion in their countries, which the Muslim Brotherhood is trying to stir up against them, they are also aware that the United States, their main supplier of economic aid ($2.2 billion for Egypt and $500 million for Jordan on an annual basis), has been strongly backing Israel during the crisis. U.S. Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice has gone so far as to say: “The United States strongly condemns the repeated rocket and mortar attacks against Israel and holds Hamas responsible for breaking the ceasefire and for the renewal of violence in Gaza. The ceasefire should be restored immediately.” Consequently, assuming the Israeli military operations are concluded in a relatively short amount of time, it is doubtful whether either Egypt or Jordan would break diplomatic relations with Israel or even recall their ambassadors as they did during the Al-Aqsa Intifada. Indeed, a defeat for Hamas would politically benefit both Arab leaders.

• Syria. The first response of Syria to the Israeli attack on Gaza was to freeze the current low-level peace talks which Syria has been carrying on with Israel under the mediation of Turkey. As the home of one of the most militant branches of Hamas, led by Khalid Mash’al who has just called for a new Palestinian intifada against Israel, Syria has long championed the organization as Damascus has sought to exercise influence over the Palestinian movement. Yet the Syrians have to be careful how they behave during the crisis if they want to preserve the possibility of a peace process with Israel—and the link to improved relations with the United States which they hope to emerge from it. It should be remembered in this context that the initial post-Madrid conference talks between Israel and Syria collapsed in 1996 when Syria not only did not condemn the Hamas terrorist attacks on Israel that took place in February-March 1996, but Syrian state radio actually justified them. If Syria chooses to support Hamas during the current conflict in a major way, it may well jeopardize peace talks with the next Israeli leader, be it Livni or Netanyahu. While Syrian leader Bashar Assad may assume that neither Livni nor Netanyahu puts peace with Syria high on their priority lists, strong Syrian support for Hamas may also call into question Syria’s relations with the incoming Obama administration.

• Iran. Iran, like Syria, faces a choice in responding to the Israeli airstrikes. It could urge its ally, the Lebanese–based Hezbollah, to fire rockets into Israel in support of Hamas. Such an action might be problematic, however, for three reasons.

1. There is the question as to whether Hezbollah would wish to jeopardize its rapidly improving political position in Lebanon by launching rocket attacks against Israel, since Israel has threatened to retaliate against all of Lebanon if Hezbollah launches rocket attacks, not just the southern part as it did in 2006, because Hezbollah is now part of the Lebanese government.
2. Such a call by Iran might hasten an Israeli airstrike against Iran’s nuclear installations, a development which Iranian leaders, despite their bluster, have sought to avoid.
3. An action of this type would make it far more difficult for Iran to have an improved relationship with the incoming Obama administration, assuming, of course, the Iranian leadership wants such a rapprochement. Consequently, Iran may limit itself to spinning the Israeli attack, much as it has done with the Israeli siege on Gaza, by claiming that the Arab world has not done enough to aid the besieged Palestinians because the leaders of the Sunni Arab world are the lackeys of the United States.

• Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States. In the minds of the leaders of Saudi Arabia and the other members of the Gulf Cooperation Council (Kuwait,The United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Qatar and Oman), the main threat in their region is not Israel but Iran. Consequently, if Iranian-allied Hamas suffers a military defeat at the hands of Israel, particularly in a brief conflict before the passions of the so-called “Arab street” are fully ignited, the leaders of the GCC states will not be unhappy. Indeed, for similar reasons they gave tacit support to Israel at first in the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war, turning against Israel only when the war was prolonged and heavy civilian casualties occurred. If the Israeli military action is relatively limited in time, it is unlikely that the Saudis and the other Gulf states will take strong diplomatic action against Israel, such as removing the Arab Peace Plan from the diplomatic negotiating table.

The Future

In looking to the aftermath of the Israeli military action, there are several possibilities and they both depend on how Hamas reacts to the Israeli attacks. First, if Hamas follows through on its threat to restart suicide bombings and continues to launch rocket attacks of Israel, then additional airstrikes against Hamas can be expected, along with additional “targeted assassinations” of Hamas leaders, and possibly a full-scale military invasion as well. If, on the other hand, the Hamas leadership decides that the airstrikes and the real threat of an Israeli ground invasion may jeopardize its hold on Gaza before it has consolidated its power there, then it may agree, if only tacitly, to another ceasefire by stopping its rocket attacks on the expectation that Israel would reciprocate by stopping its attacks, in an agreement possibly mediated by Turkey. Were this to occur, Israel would certainly emerge as the victor in the conflict with Hamas, Iran and Syria the losers.

Consequently, one might expect that Iran, and possibly Syria, will urge Hamas to continue its “resistance” against Israel, much as Hezbollah did in 2006, and wait for pressure from the “Arab street,” Europe, Russia, the United Nations, and possibly (if the fighting last sufficiently long) the United States to salvage the situation. Whether Hamas will be in a position to do so, however, remains to be seen, and its fate may resemble more the PLO which was besieged in Beirut in 1982 and forced into exile, than Hezbollah in 2006.

In looking at the impact of the Israeli military action on the February 10 Israeli elections, there are also several possibilities. Since Livni had openly been calling for strong military action against Hamas, and that action was in fact taken, it is likely that Livni’s Kadima party will have an improved position in the polls and in the election, now little more than a month away. This will be the case especially if Hamas agrees to the tacit truce, as mentioned above. Similarly, if the military action proves successful, Barak may cement his position as the indispensable Defense Minister, no matter who wins the election.

On the other hand, if rockets continue to fly into Israel from Gaza, Livni may be blamed, along with Barak, for their inability to stop the missiles. Under these circumstances, Livni and Barak may well urge a full-scale invasion of Gaza. Assuming that the Israeli Army is now better prepared for ground combat than it was in the 2006 war with Hezbollah, and Hamas does not have the weaponry possessed by Hezbollah in 2006, and the invasion is preceded by heavy artillery barrages as well as continued air strikes, a softened-up Hamas may not be a major threat to the IDF, no matter how many tunnels it may have dug. Once Gaza is recaptured, and any surviving Hamas cadres imprisoned, the Gaza Strip can be turned over to Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah organization, and then genuine peace talks, now covering both the West Bank and Gaza, can take place. Whether such an optimistic scenario will actually take place, however, remains an open question.

Lindsey O’Rourke’s recent op-ed in the New York Times, “Behind the Woman Behind the Bomb,” is an interesting attempt to describe some of the issues surrounding the use of female suicide bombers in Iraq and elsewhere. As she points out, many of the groups that have utilized suicide terrorism have employed female suicide bombers. As such, her attempt to study the issue seriously is welcome and could significantly contribute to scholarship in this area.

Unfortunately, her piece contains a few misconceptions about suicide terrorism and the existing literature that deserve clarification. As someone also interested in questions surrounding suicide terrorism, I offer these comments in the spirit of helping build our knowledge in that area.

First, she states that “we are told” female suicide bombers are driven by “despair, mental illness, religiously mandated subordination to men, frustration with sexual inequality and a host of other factors related specifically to their gender.” At least in the literature on suicide terrorism, this does not seem to be the case. Robert Pape’s work on suicide terrorism, which she approvingly cites, does not come from this perspective. Neither does work by Mia Bloom, Bruce Hoffman, Assaf Moghadam, Ami Pedahzur, Marc Sageman, and others. So, while I agree with her argument that “feminine” motivations do not seem to be driving female suicide bombers and female suicide bombers have similar motivations to men, most other scholars of suicide terrorism agree as well.

Second, it is unclear whether her goal is to de-emphasize the “female” element of female suicide bombers or to argue they do deserve independent consideration. As many argue, she states that “there is simply no one demographic profile for female attackers,” something true for male attackers as well. If there is no demographic profile and the motivations of female suicide bombers are similar to male suicide bombers, why do they deserve study as a separate category? Her answer is that female suicide bombers are used more frequently for a specific type of missions—assassinations—because they have an easier time getting close to hard targets due to cultural and societal norms about treating and handling women. This is a very interesting and an important finding, if true, for it points out a shortcoming in security screening procedures around the globe. However, that means we should not necessarily study female suicide bombers as an independent category, but as part of the larger category of suicide bombings designed to assassinate leaders.

Third, her focus on occupation as the cause of suicide terrorism is misplaced. Whether the feeling of occupation is accurate or not in the eyes of the West, perceptions of occupation likely play a powerful role in influencing the propensity for groups to engage in violent resistance. However, occupation is less likely to impact the choice of a particular tactic within the decision to engage in violent resistance. While Pape has shown that many of the groups that adopt suicide terrorism perceive themselves as occupied, many other groups that perceive themselves as occupied have not chosen to adopt suicide terrorism.

In fact, it makes more sense to think about suicide terrorism as a special case of a military innovation, one strongly influenced by diffusion dynamics. The extensive direct and indirect linkages between groups that have adopted suicide terrorism suggest that the probability of suicide terrorism is not an entirely independent choice, but one influenced by the knowledge and skills that groups gain from direct and vicarious learning. Moreover, we have to study both those groups and people that adopt suicide tactics and those that do not in order to gain the full picture. As Scott Ashworth et al. recently pointed out in the American Political Science Review, studying just the universe of suicide terror groups or female suicide attackers selects on the dependent variable, making it hard to draw causal inferences from whatever correlations might exist. Things that are similar within the universe of suicide terror groups or the universe of female attackers might also be true of non-adopters as well, meaning those similarities do not actually predict behavior.

A more fruitful way to study the issue is to compare the groups that have adopted suicide terrorism and group members that have become suicide bombers with those that have not. Comparing adopters like Hamas, Al Qaeda, and the Tamil Tigers with non-adopters like the Provisional IRA and ETA, the Basque terrorist group, reveals the critical importance of organizational dynamics in driving adoption or non-adoption. Since, as O’Rourke points out, demographic profiling of potential suicide attackers does not seem promising, it makes more sense to evaluate group characteristics and focus on what makes adoption more or less likely.

Regardless of potential issues with her academic analysis, however, her policy prescription to improve screening of women at “key security checkpoints” is sensible. While I disagree that “occupation” is a primary cause of suicide attacks—as described above, it influences the probability that a group will adopt terrorism, not the choice of suicide tactics—hopefully ideas like the “Daughters of Iraq” can be more than a stopgap in the effort to decrease the number of suicide attacks against American and Iraqi forces, as well as ordinary Iraqis. I applaud O’Rourke’s attention to this important topic, and hope to see more analysis of this kind in the future.

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Much of today’s backlash against democracy promotion in the Middle East can be traced to the Hamas victory in the Palestinian parliamentary elections of 2006, and its effect of reinforcing the “Algerian nightmare” complex among nervous Washington policy makers about the prospect for political takeovers of Arab countries by illiberal and anti-American Islamist movements.

While many would see Hamas and the Moroccan Justice and Development Party, for example, as occupying two points on a spectrum, I reject this view and reject the notion that Hamas’s victory has much to tell us about the prospects for Islamist behavior in (hypothetical) democratic elections elsewhere in the Arab world. In a recent piece for the Journal of Democracy, I argue for the importance of seeing that there are differences in kind, not just degree, among Islamist movements in today’s Middle East. I describe three distinct categories of Islamists, and focus on the last of the three as the only one from which a potentially democratic Islamist politics might emerge. In evaluating this final category, I argue that the democratic credibility or capacity of a given Islamist movement can only really be tested and assessed in a more open political environment, and that ultimately the quality of Islamist political discourse will hinge on the quality of the political system in which it resides.

Others, however, would argue that these distinctions are not meaningful, on either philosophical or pragmatic grounds. The philosophers might argue, like my friends Hillel Fradkin and Hussein Haqqani, that the common ideological roots of today’s Islamist parties present them all with a rather high bar to clear before they could act as “normal” political factions. This is because their founding ideology doesn’t draw a basic distinction between the Muslim umma and the political state, and thus sets up all kinds of bars to basic principles of democratic politics. Pragmatists, for their part, might say that all Islamist political groups evident in the region today are really some form of hybrid, exhibiting elements of violence and of “normal politics,” and aspects of religious movements alongside of political parties. Even those that don’t engage in violence themselves, they note, either have violent pasts or condone/celebrate the violence of others.

Below I lay out the three categories I describe in the Journal of Democracy.

The first category—and the easiest to dismiss for the purposes of this discussion— comprises the relatively small but important group of radical, ideologically driven movements that we can call takfiri, for their readiness to label other Muslims heretics, apostates, and therefore justifiable targets of violence. Such groups include Al Qaeda, of course, along with its affiliates and allies in Algeria, Iraq, and elsewhere. These groups take no interest in formal politics save for the strict pan-Islamic state that they envision setting up once they have toppled their region’s existing governments. They glorify violence as a religious duty and reject democracy as a violation of God’s sovereignty. Such violently irreconcilable groups are irrelevant to the question of whether Islamist movements can be successfully integrated into a democratic Arab future. The takfiris will endanger that future, just as they endanger the present.

A second category includes what we might call “local” or “nationalist” militant Islamist movements, like Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Palestine, or the Shiite militias of Iraq. Two characteristics set this type of Islamist movement apart. First, they combine their Islamist ideology with a specific set of local political demands that are the focus of their activity and the core concern of their supporters—unlike the takfiris, they seek and benefit from the vocal support of a given local community. Second, they all exist in weak or failing states (or non-states, in the case of Hamas), where the central government has proved incapable of providing basic security for all its citizens or where the state itself is an arena of contention between competing groups in society. The lack of state capacity enables these movements to wield their weapons with a good deal of support from their local communities. Their armed activities serve not only to advance the ideological cause, but also to protect local constituents from depredation at the hands of the state or communal rivals.

Thinking of Hamas and Hezbollah primarily as Islamist groups rather than as nationalist militants obscures the search for solutions to the problems these groups pose for democratic politics. The fundamental challenge that these groups pose to Arab democratization is their use of violence, not their Islamist character or ideology (although the latter is used to justify the former). Such movements could not have emerged into this dual role of militant political party in a strong state like Egypt; indeed, whenever the Muslim Brotherhood or its offshoots in Egypt developed violent capabilities, the government crushed them mercilessly. Only regimes with insufficient capacity to enforce their monopoly on violence and with weakened capacity in their political institutions are compelled to allow such compromised groups to participate in politics with their weapons in hand. Hamas is a perfect example. According to the formal rules of the Palestinian Authority (PA), Hamas was not qualified to participate in the parliamentary elections because it did not accept the signed agreements with Israel. But the PA could not enforce this rule.

That groups like this choose to run in elections is itself evidence of the extent to which electoral legitimacy is becoming a norm among Arab citizens. A role in formal politics helps the Islamist-nationalists to hedge their bets should they ever need to put away the gun. But they do not view political processes and institutions as authoritative, and have often shown themselves ready to threaten or even use force when it suits them—witness Hezbollah’s takeover of Beirut in May. As long as the region’s Lebanons remain too weak to control its Hezbollahs, there is little hope that full democracy or meaningful equality under law can blossom. States that can barely function or make their writs run throughout their own lands will never be robust candidates for democratic consolidation.

In the strong states that one more often finds in the Middle East, however, the forces of political Islam are a different breed from Hamas and Hezbollah. This third and largest category of Islamist movements—the category most relevant to discussions of democratic change in the Arab world—comprises groups that eschew violence (at least locally) and aspire to a political role in their respective countries, without voicing any revolutionary goals. Such groups may operate as legal parties, such as the Islamic Action Front in Jordan and the Party of Justice and Development in Morocco, or they may be excluded from formal political recognition but still engage in the political process, like Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood (MB) or Kuwait’s Islamist “societies.” They all want to transform society and government into something more “Islamic,” but aim to do so “from below”—that is, by persuading citizens to adopt Islamist ideas, demand Islamist policies from government, and behave as more closely observant Muslims.

There are, of course, a lot of questions to be raised and discussed about how to assess the democratic “credentials” or relevance of Islamist groups in this third category. But my point in this post is simply that Hamas and Hezbollah are not the same animal as the Egyptian MB, and we should not generalize from one to the other. The 2006 Palestinian elections indeed set back both peace and democracy for Palestinians and Israelis—but those elections have little to tell us about the prospects for Islamist politics elsewhere in the Middle East.

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