The Modern Middle East - A Political History Since World War I (Third Edition)

by Mehran Kamrava

  On the surface, mukhaberat states look civilian. The military’s control over and presence within the state have become less erratic, more subtle, and, despite an apparent decrease in the number of army officers within the state, more pervasive. From a Weberian perspective, one might say that the military’s rule has become routinized, having assumed a “pattern of normative rules” that have bestowed it with a new and seemingly permanent sense of “legality.”25 The state has retained its essential dependence on the military. But it has also increasingly civilianized itself, thereby enhancing its legitimacy among the population and ensuring its permanence. Virtually all heads of state in this category come from military backgrounds: presidents Hafiz Al-Assad, Ben Ali, Zeroul (Algeria), and al-Bashir (Sudan) all held the rank of general within the army. Before becoming Sadat’s vice president in 1975, Hosni Mubarak was the commander of the Egyptian air force. But apart from special occasions, hardly any of these leaders were seen or photographed in their military uniforms.26 There was also a notable decline in the number of other policy makers from military backgrounds. In the wake of the 1967 War, for example, 65.4 percent of President Nasser’s cabinet members came from the military. By contrast, fewer than 13 percent of all Sadat’s cabinet members had military backgrounds, and the figure for Mubarak’s cabinets was only 10 percent.27

  The once highly visible, active presence of the military in the higher echelons of the state gave way to pervasive reliance on the military in more subtle, often nonpolitical ways. Beyond weapons procurement and small-arms manufacturing, the armed forces of Syria, Iraq (before the U.S. invasion), Sudan, and Egypt all became involved in a variety of economic ventures, ranging from fruit processing to running outlet stores and construction.28 Even after the 2011 uprisings, the armed forces still received the largest share of the national budget, retained a strong and visible presence in the country (on street corners, highways, and intercity roads), were generally viewed positively in society, and continued to enjoy special privileges (in the form of housing, special officers’ clubs, and cooperative shops). The mukhaberat, meanwhile, were everywhere, or at least were thought to be everywhere, although the state went to considerable pains to maintain a semblance of democracy. At times, even loyal opposition parties were allowed to function. The parliament met regularly and discussed peripheral policy issues. And pro forma presidential elections were held according to the cycle mandated by the constitution.

  Despite these states’ pretense of being democratic, they all tended to be remarkably paranoid about the loyalty of their subjects, especially those in the middle classes. The state ruled not so much by inducing fear among its subjects as by constantly fearing them, frequently worrying that what passed as an innocent act might be a cover for a sinister political plot. Thus state operatives and agents were everywhere—among university students and teachers, colleagues at work, bankers, industrialists, fellow soldiers, pharmacists, journalists, physicians, and even clergy—keeping an eye on potential troublemakers or anyone else who might disrupt the country’s forced political tranquility. This suspicion went both ways: just as government agents looked for troublemakers in every circle, every individual feared a government agent in his or her circle. Mutual mistrust and suspicion accounted for much of the relations between the state and society. Therefore, what kept these mukhaberat states in power was the authoritarianism that lay just beneath the surface. Fear became the great political stabilizer at the disposal of the state. As one observer of Syrian politics has noted, even under normal circumstances, “the ordinary citizen feels virtually defenseless vis-à-vis the state. However prosperous a man might be, or however eminent in his profession, he could be summoned for interrogation by one or another of the security organs, and, in the worst case, he could lose everything overnight. The notion of citizens’ rights is not well developed, nor does the judiciary provide any real safeguards.”29

  At different times, civil wars pushed political repression in Algeria and Sudan to new extremes. In both countries, the military-led state battled armed enemies—the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) in Algeria and the Sudanese Liberation Army in Sudan. By 2000–2001, the Algerian state had effectively succeeded in eradicating the FIS, and gradually the state reverted to becoming once again a mukhaberat state. Political tensions and repression, or the threat of repression, remain ever present. In these cases, most pretenses of democracy are dispensed with, although there are promises of elections on the horizon. In Algeria, in fact, presidential elections were held in April 2009, in which the incumbent, Abdelaziz Bouteflika, was elected to a third term. A few months earlier, the president had overseen a change to the constitution that removed a two-term limit on the presidency. Despite elections, in both Algeria and Sudan, the state, and along with it the military, considered itself locked in a struggle for survival. In November 1995, for example, Sudan’s state-run radio announced that “the Armed Forces are courageously and heroically continuing to foil all attempts being made by the aggressive forces.”30 Whereas mukhaberat states seek only to depoliticize their subjects by breaking down their political spirit, military-based states actively try to find and eliminate their armed enemies. In mukhaberat states, the regime’s active adversaries form only a small and often informal underground group. This was precisely the case with the Gamaʿa in Mubarak’s Egypt and the Muslim Brotherhood (Ikhwan al-Muslimeen) in Al-Assad’s Syria.31 In Tunisia, Al-Nahda was for all practical purposes eliminated by the Ben Ali regime and was resurrected only after its collapse.32 But in both Algeria and Sudan, the armed opposition is (or was) far more extensive and organized, actively engaged in rebellion against the state and encouraging others to join its side.

  In sum, the exclusionary states of the Middle East are invariably republican (i.e., they have presidents), and they hold regular but largely meaningless elections for the presidency and the legislature. They rely extensively on the military as the subtle foundation of the regime, and they have allowed their intelligence services to become pervasive in various government and social institutions (the civil service, schools, mosques, etc.). Repression and violence are implicit in the state’s approach to society, all the while thinly veiled under a democratic guise. Consequently, when the exclusionary states have been faced with important political or economic crises, their most frequent impulse is to tighten the reins of repression rather than to adopt liberalization as a survival strategy. In Tunisia, despite much initial excitement over the prospects for democracy in 1987 and 1988, by the 1990s there were widespread reports of arbitrary arrests, torture, and extrajudicial killings.33 In Egypt, Mubarak’s reign saw frequent violent clashes between government forces and the underground Gamaʿa, resulting in regular mass arrests and detentions. The Syrian state under father and son Hafiz and Bashar Al-Assad was by far the most repressive of the three mentioned here, as the residents of the city of Hama first discovered in February 1982, when an estimated ten thousand to twenty-five thousand people were massacred by government forces.34 The state again showed its brutal face beginning in March 2011, when, confronted with a mass uprising, it reacted in a most violent fashion that resulted in tens of thousands of deaths and hundreds of thousands of shattered lives.

  INCLUSIONARY STATES

  At the opposite end from exclusionary states are the inclusionary states of Khomeini’s Iran, Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, and Muammar Qaddafi’s Libya. Up until the 1970s, before the steady depoliticization of public life throughout the country, Algeria also belonged to this category of ostensibly “revolutionary” states.35 In one form or another, all such states consistently and over time strive to include “the masses” in the political process through the theater of the streets, neighborhood committees, youth groups, “councils,” and other similar organs designed to give the larger population a sense of political inclusiveness. There are three crucial differences between the inclusionary and exclusionary states of the Middle East. These involve the institutional makeup and nature of state institutions; the way state insti
tutions deal with various groups and segments in society; and the state’s larger approach to and attitudes toward cultural norms and practices. But there is also one crucial similarity: when faced with crises—whether economic crises or those of political legitimacy, or both—inclusionary states, like exclusionary ones, are more likely to resort to repression than to liberalize. This is because of the pervasiveness of authoritarian institutions alongside populist ones, whereby popular inclusion in the political process is ensured through forceful repression. Mukhaberat agencies exist alongside a variety of “revolutionary” organizations. The leader—whether Saddam or Khomeini or Qaddafi—must be loved, and his directives must be carried out to the letter. Those showing insufficient devotion are dealt with harshly. Not surprisingly, many of the military-based states discussed in the previous section were “revolutionary” and inclusionary not too long ago. And it is likely that the former populism of the Iranian, Iraqi, and Libyan states was really a ploy to prolong the lives of repressive, authoritarian states.

  The institutional makeup of inclusionary states differs from that of exclusionary ones in several important ways. In exclusionary states, an elaborate network of bureaucratic and intelligence agencies supports a presidency that tries to deemphasize its military roots and promote a civilian image instead. Consequently, while pictures of the president adorn most city squares, boulevards, and buildings, the state does not actively seek to promote a leader’s cult of personality.36 In inclusionary states, however, the leader is the state. He is “elevated into a demigod towering above the people and embodying their historical roots, future destiny, and revolutionary martyrs.”37 Not only does he personify the state; he is portrayed as the central means by which the will of the masses is translated into the power of the state.

  The leader’s indispensability to the state is guaranteed both objectively, through institutions, and subjectively, through the representation of the state to the people. In Iran, the Islamic Constitution of 1979 was revised in 1989 to strengthen the already powerful position of the Leader (velayat-e faqih—jurisconsult) at the expense of the powers of the presidency, the parliament (Majles), and even popular sovereignty.38 That same year in Libya, Qaddafi declared that all institutions had been put directly under the control of the masses (jamahir), paving the way for a perfect jamahiriya, “a political system purportedly marked by popular rule but without political parties or their representatives.”39 The implications are clear: institutions mean little, but the masses express themselves through their leader (i.e., Qaddafi). In Iraq, although the 1970 constitution called for the creation of a national assembly, the 250-member body did not meet until 1980. But within only a few months, soon after the invasion of Iran in September, the assembly once again became a meaningless appendage devoid of any real powers.40 The devastating consequences of the Gulf War and the subsequent de facto partitioning of the country prompted Saddam Hussein to rule the country more single-handedly and repressively than ever before.

  Whereas charismatic rule by nature involves few institutions, the inclusionary states of the Middle East are highly bureaucratized. Complementing the personal autocracy of the leader are three separate but reinforcing sets of institutions: the armed forces, the bureaucracy, and various mass mobilization organizations. In Iran, with the death of Ayatollah Khomeini and the emergence of the Second Republic, primacy was given to an increasingly professional and less doctrinaire and militarized bureaucracy.41 Instead, a “general de-ideologization of the machinery of government” occurred in the late 1980s and the mid-1990s, with no military personnel being appointed to President Rafsenjani’s 1989 cabinet.42 However, after the 2005 election that brought Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to power, a steady remilitarization of the state got under way. In President Ahmadinejad’s second term, in fact, the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) became a far more visible force in the affairs of the state than at any time in the past.43 Throughout, the persistence of numerous “revolutionary” organizations and individuals across the system has impeded a radical break with the populist past. Consistent with its efforts at expediting the revolutionary transformation of society—and after 1988 the reconstruction of war-ravaged areas—the Islamic state has established a number of gigantic institutions, many called bonyad (foundation), that replicate the functions of parallel organizations.44

  Figure 21. Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Corbis.

  Comparatively, the Iraqi state’s classification as inclusionary before its overthrow by the United States in 2003 is somewhat problematic. With Saddam Hussein as its ruthless, paramount leader, this “Republic of Fear” was often likened to an Orwellian totalitarian state.45 Exclusionary as far back as the 1960s, the Iraqi state reverted to populism only belatedly, when its war with Iran failed to bring a quick victory and turned instead into a costly stalemate. Although its leadership was ostensibly civilian, the Iraqi state never actually abandoned its military base, instead expanding it constantly. From 1981 to 1988, the government spent an average of 22.7 percent of its gross domestic product (GDP) on the military, compared with an average of 10.5 percent for most other Arab countries.46 By 1988, Iraq had almost one million men in uniform.47 This was in addition to an undetermined number of individuals belonging to the “popular militia” (also called “people’s army”), which was run by the state mukhaberat.48 Equally pervasive was the Baʿth Party, which was estimated to have a membership of twenty-five thousand and another 1.5 million “supporters.”49 Beginning with the first purges of 1979, shortly after Saddam’s assumption of the presidency, the party lost some power and relevance in the decision-making process, but up until the very end it remained an essential venue for career advancement and security for civil servants and military personnel.50

  In Libya, the personality of Muammar Qaddafi also overshadowed all institutions, both civilian and military. In contrast to Iraq, however, to the bitter end the Qaddafi state considered itself to be embroiled in a revolutionary, transformative process that started with the 1969 coup. To this end, Colonel Qaddafi periodically engaged in a new grand experiment to enhance and perpetuate the underlying populism of the body politic. Recent Libyan political history illustrates the point, with a variety of “people’s” organizations—the General People’s Congress, revolutionary committees, later replaced by the Ministry of Mass Mobilization and Revolutionary Leadership, and the like—created to take over such formal institutions of power as the cabinet and the legislature.51 Given its economic structure and a much smaller population base, the Libyan state found it easier to engage in populist experiments of various types than either the Iranian or the Iraqi state. Few Libyans, of course, bought into the state’s theatrics, especially as Qaddafi’s behavior and initiatives became more bizarre and erratic as his reign was drawing to a close, as when he sought to claim leadership over the revolution that was gathering steam to overthrow him. Not surprisingly, therefore, in Libya as in the two other countries repression was a frequently used option in the state’s exercise of authority.

  Equally pervasive in all three states was the leader’s cult of personality. With political centralization in the person of the leader comes the cultivation of charismatic authority, in some cases more successfully than in others. The leader enjoys charismatic legitimacy during his rule (Khomeini), or is constantly trying to portray himself as charismatic (Saddam Hussein), or was at some point highly charismatic but later refuses to acknowledge his loss of charisma (Qaddafi). But by nature charisma is hard to come by, is impermanent when it does exist, and is insufficient by itself to run a modern state. Therefore, the inclusionary states of the Middle East have created personality cults instead, portraying the leader as larger than life in every possible way. Monuments, art, postage stamps, giant portraits, and national holidays commemorate the leader’s accomplishments large and small.52 In Iraq, “al-Hussein” missiles were used in the Iran-Iraq War, which the Iraqi government referred to as “Saddam’s Qadisiyya” after the 637 A.D. battle in which Arab armies
decimated Persian forces.53

  But there is more to the cult of personality in inclusionary states than the mere glorification of repressive autocrats. Through the leader, in his image and in his name, the masses are pulled into the political system, forcibly if need be. The deeds, accomplishments, and agendas of the leader, and by implication of the larger state, are used to mobilize the masses in support of various state-led projects. Thus the people are given what they are told is a historically significant project in which to participate. People are made to feel indispensable to the political process. In this way, the inclusionary state hopes to reinforce the emotional ties that bind “the masses” to their leader (the state). Projects have included experiments in mass empowerment (the jamahiriya polity in Libya); “liberation” and “national” wars of various kinds (against historic enemies by both Iraq and Iran; against Kuwait by Iraq; against Israel by Iraq, Iran, and Libya); and the elimination of foreign and domestic enemies (the munafiqin [regime code word for the Mujahedeen opposition group], the “Great Satan,” and later the author Salman Rushdie by Iran).