The upshots of ecological changes may cause the movement of more than 25-30 million people in the coming decade. How can this be handled?

It is known that ecology‐correlated security challenges are intercontinental in form, driving many countries to progressively hinge on international organizations and corporations for a solution. However, this rings the alarm bell as climate is changing drastically and more natural disasters are projected due to extreme heat variations.

The significant matter is that climate security-related issues should be addressed at the highest levels as this is a transnational issue which affects the stability of the world. How can the international community respond to this new challenge?

The concerned entities and apparatuses should prepare recommendations for world leaders to extend people’s understanding on how to address such challenges which, due to climate changes, would cause instability to some countries unless crafted effective global solutions to these challenges are implemented to control any further exacerbation of eco-refugees who escape disastrous areas in their countries, seeking refuge in other states.

Thus, such structural disparities should be mainstreamed into ecological adaptation processes in order to enhance inclusion and inhibit vehemence. This requires considering two major dynamics into the process. First, structural disproportion and conflict-wise tactic as both methodologies entail customisation and inclusion of refugees in the new community.

Climate change connection

However, the more natural disasters we have due to climate change, the more eco-refugees host states will have. The issue that would rise later on is their adaptation and inclusion in their new communities where many people would be coming from various regions and countries. This will promote ethnic and race heterogeneity, increase insecurity and produce more anarchy and clashes among those groups with the citizens of host nations.

Therefore, buttressing a constructive synergy between these migrants, fashioning a unified structure, and upholding upright governance, considering interlinkages and correlations between climate alteration, exodus and security should be the next top topics at any United Nations conference or meeting because every country is expected to face these challenges which will be a real contest and trail for world cooperation and coordination to tackle such topics.

The more natural disasters we have due to climate change, the more eco-refugees host states will have. 

– Shehab Al-Makahleh

With some countries pulling out of the climate agreement, this would be another trigger not to be able to address such challenges as they don’t want to be involved at the international level to handle these predicted movements due to climate changes.

If we collectively fail to put an end to climate changes, this would drive millions of people to escape their homelands seeking shelter in safe havens in other countries. In other words, this would cause a larger wave of asylum than what man-made disasters trigger which included amongst others the Libyan and Syrian refugees. If so to happen, there is a dire need to cultivate a charter to ensure the required shelter for eco-refugees, who would be a potential risk to their host nations.

The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) is witnessing a severe climate change with the worst drought waves in decades in places like Jordan, Syria, Iraq, Iran, Egypt, Libya, Lebanon, Algeria, Morocco and Mauritania. Many farmers who live on cultivation of their lands will suffer from this wave, forcing them to leave their countries due to drought without even waiting for a regional war to break out.

What happened in Syria and Libya due to wars will happen in other places in the MENA, but this time due to drought due to heat waves, millions of eco-refugees will flood Europe due to its proximity to the region. Recent studies showed that even developed nations such as the US is not safe and immune to such natural disasters which would cause huge eco-refuge from some states to others or from the US to Mexico and Canada or from both to the US.

Because of this, the number of eco-refugees will be hiking every year, a prelude to political, social and economic strains. Thus, unless human beings unify against such wave, we will face an existential threat to people’s culture, civilisation and stability.

Europe which is close to Africa and Asia, will be badly affected by migration problems in the near future, mainly from countries in North Africa which is adjacent to Europe. In 2015, a conference was held in Bonn, Germany, regarding climate.

The developed countries decided to insure 400 million migrants from the developing world who are expected to flee their countries to Europe due to climate change. They used for the first time a terminology: Insure-resilience, which aims to secure a shelter for those refugees and to include them in the communities before they turn into a source of risk to hosting nations.

Oxfam has issued a report previously about the waves of displacement due to climate change. The entity expected that the number of eco-refugees recorded during the period of 2008-2006 stood at 21.8 million people. Some of these movements were caused by Fiji Hurricane, volcanos and heat waves.

The recent fires in Greece displaced hundreds of thousands of people. Such eco-refugee influx will pose a social risk as unemployment amongst these would exacerbate the host countries’ security and stability to a great extent due to cultural, linguistic and ethnic differences.

The world should address the climate issues on one hand and should address the eco-refugees predicaments on the other. Thus, addressing them in an integrated way is therefore of utmost importance to secure a sustainable future. Since climate changes are deemed the worst ecological threat, all countries, mainly the developed, should recognise that migration waves from states which are badly affected such transformations as this poses a high national security threat and would be a catalyst to anarchy and a tension multiplier later on.

Article published in Al Arabiya: https://english.alarabiya.net/en/views/news/middle-east/2018/08/04/Is-the-world-ready-for-eco-refugee-waves-.html

Perhaps the most significant element of the socio-political life of the region during those years, at least to the outside observer, was violence.

The Syrian Civil War has claimed between 200,000 and 500,000 lives. As many as 70,000 people have lost their lives as a result of two civil wars in Libya. And the Yemeni Civil War counts several thousand among its victims, with the humanitarian catastrophe it is leaving in its wake has affected millions.

Terrorism has become a part of everyday life in the “calmer” countries in the region, Tunisia, Egypt and Turkey. While the number of victims of terrorist attacks in these countries is hardly comparable to the numbers of lives lost as a result of the armed conflicts mentioned above, the very threat of another attack means that people live in constant fear. And this provides the authorities with ample justification for introducing the most severe repressive measures.

We have worked ourselves into a situation in which an enormous region, one that stretches “from the Ocean to the Gulf” and counts hundreds of millions of people among its inhabitants, lives in never-ending fear of violence.

Equally damning is the fact that this is precisely how the region is beginning to be perceived by the outside world.

This perception is largely unfair.

Turkey, Egypt and Tunisia are not the only playgrounds for terrorists; so too are Barcelona, Nice, Paris, Berlin, Boston, St. Petersburg and many other ostensibly safe cities.

The majority of the political regimes in the Middle East are perfectly stable, and the reforms implemented in Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and Jordan following the events of 2011, have had a positive effect on the development of these countries, especially against the backdrop of the misfortune that has befallen the region as a whole.

Even the most problematic countries – Syria, and even Libya and Yemen – have not experienced a complete of statehood. What is more, modern mechanisms (elections, multi-party political systems, etc.) are becoming increasingly important for regulating political life in the powder keg that is Iraq, and also in Lebanon, which seems to transition endlessly from one crisis to the next.

Despite this, the feeling of all-encompassing violence remains. The problem here is not just the negative information environment, which paints a picture of the Middle East as a region of out-and-out chaos, but also the fundamental change that has taken place in the social and political mind-set of Arab societies. Perhaps for the first time in history, violence has become a problem for them.

To be sure, in modern western (and Russian) socio-political discourse, minimizing violence is a given and is barely even questioned. Nobel Prize winner Douglass North believed that reducing the level of violence is the main criterion for determining the development of social order.

Although this has not always been the case. Not by a long shot.

It is noteworthy that in European political philosophy, the problem of violence as such did not exist until the late 18th century. Plato, Aristotle, Augustine of Hippo, Machiavelli, Hobbes, Locke – none of these spared a thought for violence, per se, in their meditations on politics. They were more concerned with civil unrest, war, turmoil, rebellion, etc. In other words, the things that disrupt order. But not violence.

It was only with the writings of Immanuel Kant that the imperative of nonviolence started, rather tentatively, to take root in European social thought, at the same time that the diametrically opposite notion – the poetization of violence spearheaded by Hegel – began to spread.

While two world wars may not have been enough to put an end to such romanticism, they certainly took the sheen off for its most ardent followers. In terms of the philosophical analysis of political life, violence became almost a universal category in its own right, one that set the parameters of philosophical thinking for several generations of thinkers, starting at least with Michel Foucault. North’s theory emerged as a consequence of this process, and the requirement of nonviolence came to be seen as a natural in political science. Documents such as the Responsibility to Protect (for all its imperfections and divisiveness) were created as a projection of this this approach onto international relations.

However, this approach, generated by European experience and Western consciousness, cannot be considered universal. It has not fully taken root even in Russia, where technological breakthroughs and the victory in World War II are often cited as justifications of Stalin’s repressions.

Middle Eastern societies have never seen violence as an essential problem. We could name hundreds of works by 20th-century Arab thinkers on the problems of the nation, the state, democracy, justice, etc. But how many works are dedicated to the issue of violence? Not many.

The Iran–Iraq War took two or three times the number of lives that the Syrian Civil War has.

Nobody knows how many people suffered as a result of the repressive policies of Saddam Hussein and Muammar Gaddafi. The murder of 1270 prisoners at the Abu Salim prison in Libya in 1996 was just one episode. Nobody knows exactly how many such incidents actually took place.

The suppression of the Houthi insurgency in Yemen in 2004–2010 (i.e. before the Arab Spring) resulted in several tens of thousands of human casualties.

All this caused a barely audible murmur of discontent outside the region, but it was never a reason for the de-legitimization of regimes within the societies themselves.

Today, however, we are seeing the issue of violence becoming increasingly important in all the countries in the region. And this increases the demands on political regimes.

While there are political prisoners in many countries – in some cases tens of thousands – the authorities are being forced to spend ever greater efforts justifying the situation. Sometimes this is simply impossible.

From Violence to Consensus

The growing significance of violence as a problematic issue is overlapping with another important social change that is taking place in the region, namely, the strengthening of civil society.

In some countries, this is the result of reforms passed by the respective governments in response to the challenges that have appeared during the past decade. In others, it is the consequence of weakening statehood and the emerging need for socio-political self-organization of society.

The number of non-governmental organizations in Tunisia has more than doubled since 2011, and by almost 2.5 times in Morocco. The number of such organizations remains small in Jordan, but has increased by 1.5 times nevertheless, while there has only been a slight increase in Algeria, although the figure was rather high in that country to begin with. The newly established non-governmental organizations in these countries (which have managed to avoid mass violence) make it possible to involve more and people in civil. In this respect, it is not really important where they get their money – from the government (as in the case of Morocco), or from outside sources (Tunisia).

Civil society nevertheless makes itself known in states that are embroiled in armed conflicts. In Syria, the development of civil society is connected with organizations that work with refugees, as well as with numerous structures in Damascus-controlled territories and with local councils operating in the liberated territories.

In Libya, the need for self-organization among the people has forced them to form local authorities along both tribal and territorial principles.

A more active civil society, coupled with the problematic issue of violence, leads to the development of the principle of consent or compromise (taufiq), which assumes that political decisions are adopted not as the result of the victory of one side over another, but through a process in which the sides search for an agreement together.

The principle has been developed most successfully in Tunisia, where the Tunisian National Dialogue Quartet was able to bring an end to the civil confrontation of the government and the opposition.

The idea of Special Representative of the UN Secretary General for Libya Ghassan Salamé to hold an inclusive National Congress and his putting forward of the Libyan municipalities as the basis for the restoration of the country is another indication of movement in the same direction.

The proposal once put forward by Turki bin Faisal Al Saud to arrange a Second Syrian National Congress was also based on a commitment to taufiq. The subsequent dynamics of the conflict prevented the idea from becoming a reality, however.

The roots of taufiq can be traced back to entirely different political traditions that existed in the region. The principle can be considered an element of democracy, one that involves the search for compromise between competing parties. However, it can just as well be seen as the embodiment of the foundations of Islamic political culture. The principle of consultation (shura); the primary role of experts in political decision-making; and the consensus of opinions (ijma) – all these principles have become part of Islamic political thought and point to the recognition of its “culture of compromise.” The origins of taufiqcan be found in the idea of a corporate state that was once very popular among Arab nationalists. They can also be found in the traditions of tribal self-government, if one so desires. This kind of universality makes the principle acceptable for all political powers operating in Arab societies.

At the same time, it is clear that in mature democracies, as well as in political systems based on Muslim law, regimes built by Arab nationalists and tribal societies, the culture of compromise has not always been followed.

Moreover, practice has shown us that it can only be successfully implemented when the sides in a political confrontation (armed or otherwise) have no reason to hope for a decisive victory, or if the risks of continuing the confrontation are seen as unacceptably high. This is why it was impossible to reach a compromise in Bahrain and Yemen, and why it has thus far been impossible to achieve a compromise in Syria.

Nevertheless, continued tensions, the development of conflicts in these countries and the weakening of the guardianship of the all-powerful political elites over society, coupled with the pervasive fear of violence, may very well act as an impetus for the formation of a political culture of consensus.

Article published in RIAC: http://russiancouncil.ru/en/analytics-and-comments/analytics/the-arab-world-between-violence-and-consensus/

Photo credit: REUTERS/Goran Tomasevic

Article by Maria Al Makahleh Dubovikova and Shehab Al-Makahleh

Russia is finding it difficult to gain a foothold in the Middle East.

At a time when tensions between Moscow and Washington are on the rise, Russia is determined to have a greater say in global affairs, particularly in the tumultuous Middle East. At present, Russia considers itself as a major serious, honest and active player in the region and blames the United States for the chaos unfolding in the Middle East. Russian President Vladimir Putin seeks to recreate the former Soviet Union in a new form on the world stage, particularly in the Middle East due to its proximity to Russia.

On the other hand, Washington is committed to Gulf states’ security as well as Israel’s stability and full protection from any aggression. Yet Russia has strong relationships with Middle Eastern and North African states that could function as a springboard for future influence. Indeed, Russia has become a magnet for Middle Eastern leaders who seek a new balance of power, as illustrated by the Jordanian and Saudi monarchs’ planned visits to Moscow in October.

The start of Russian intervention in the region dates back to the fall of the Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, with whom Moscow had historically enjoyed warm ties and mutual cooperation. The collapse of the Gaddafi regime happened as a result of non-involvement as Russia refrained from voting against the 2011 United Nations Security Council resolution against Gaddafi. This had been a wake-up call for Russia, driving it to re-engage in the region and to take a stronger stance on Syria.

Today, Russia bets on the end of the Syrian conflict before the year’s end. The Amman-based Military Operations Center (MOC) that was established by the US and its allies to monitor and train armed opposition groups, including the Free Syrian Army and the Tribes Army, has finally been shut down. With the return of the Syrian Army to the south of the country, near the crossing point with Jordan, there are mounting signs that the conflict is drawing to a close, especially given that America is no longer backing the opposition, which now finds itself in disarray.

As a result, Moscow is driven to focus more on Libya, where it plans to build a strong presence and establish a base from which to control North Africa. To emphasize Tripoli’s renewed importance, Moscow is giving due concern to the country and its affairs. Indeed, on August 13, the Libyan military commander Khalifa Haftar met with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu in Moscow. Because Russia supports both Haftar and the Libyan Prime Minister Fayez al-Sarraj, who along with his government is recognized by the UN, the visit to Moscow appears aimed to broker a peace agreement to end the conflict in Libya, which has become a source of high risk to many countries in North Africa and Southern Europe.

This is the second time Russia received the two Libyan leaders in Moscow in 2017. Such meetings serve as a backdrop for Putin, who seeks to exert more pressure on the West to get more concessions regarding Ukraine and Syria.

Though Moscow wants to establish stable ties with many countries in the Middle East, it is difficult for Russia to find a strong foothold in the region, especially compared to that enjoyed by the US. This is because other players are trying to distract Russia by involving it in conflicts near its borders such as in Georgia and Ukraine. However, the Russian government has been planning, since the beginning of the Arab Spring, to build a presence in the Middle East at the expense of the Americans, the British and the French, benefitting from its impressive arms sales to the region in recent years.

Russia is not only affecting politics in Syria, Iraq and North Africa, but also those in the Arabian Peninsula, such as the crisis between Qatar and the other Gulf Cooperation Council members and the war in Yemen. Moscow tries to balance its policy toward Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Oman and Bahrain with non-interference. On the other hand, Moscow considers Tehran as a key player in the region and a main pillar of its stability. Russians view Iran as being influential in the Gulf, in the Caucasus and in Central Asia. Thus, this qualifies Russia to play the role of a mediator between Riyadh and Tehran to solve their regional dispute. In 2015, a meeting was held for Arab leaders in Morocco that set the stage for the UAE to align with Moscow, while Saudi Arabia would align with Washington.

In sum, Moscow has started to change the anti-Russian sentiment in the Middle East through its political, economic and media influence by partnerships, economic assistance, military assistance and strategic cooperation. Russia learned from previous lessons in Yemen, Iraq, Algeria and Afghanistan that, in order to be effective, it needs to be symbolically present without being extensively involved in these Middle Eastern affairs, as long as there are representatives or proxies that can help achieve the objectives with fewer harmful repercussions for Moscow.

Article published in Fair Observer: https://www.fairobserver.com/region/middle_east_north_africa/russia-role-middle-east-politics-syria-yemen-gulf-latest-news-16531/

Photo Credit: capitanoseye / Shutterstock.com

The mid-August visit to Moscow by Gen. Khalifa Hifter of the Libyan National Army (LNA) did not stir a lot of interest. It appeared to be just one among numerous visits by international guests to the Russian capital. Several articles on Russian policy in Libya and even a Kommersant interview with Lev Dengov, head of Russia’s Contact Group for Intra-Libyan Settlement and a man who seldom talks to journalists, failed to break through the overall monotony and routine. Arguably the most significant event of the visit was that Hifter was met at the airport by Libya’s ambassador to Russia. Hifter, based in Tobruk, is vying for control of the country against the Tripoli-based so-called unity government, or Government of National Accord (GNA), which the ambassador represents. The standard diplomatic routine of Hifter’s visit has clouded the major question about the aim of his visit earlier this month.

The general said he had traveled to Moscow to focus on lifting the UN-backed international arms embargo, to establish ties and to promote military cooperation. This explanation, albeit interesting, does not appear to be plausible. Moscow has already voiced its view on these issues, and repeatedly affirmed its commitment to international obligations, and is therefore unlikely to change its position. Speaking off the record and on the condition of anonymity, some sources close to senior officials in Hifter’s LNA have said the purpose of the visit was to inform Moscow about matters addressed at the Paris peace talks in July.

Mohamed B. Almontaser, a London-based Libyan political analyst, thinks Hifter’s visit will undermine the peace process. “Hifter feels emboldened by the new wave of high-level contacts with Paris and Moscow, and he will certainly use that to further his sole ambition,” Almontaser said, referring to Hifter's desire to become Libya's version of Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi. “His remarks after both meetings seem to indicate his disagreement with and dislike for [Libyan Prime Minister] Fayez al-Sarraj and his categorical refusal to work under a civilian political leadership,” Almontaser told Al-Monitor.

Almontaser’s sympathies lie with the Tripoli government, but still, his reasoning makes sense, as the Moscow trip allows Hifter to score political points back home. Hifter's attempts to strengthen his position by parading Moscow's support — though such backing has not always been apparent — have been central to the military commander's strategy in the international arena.

In turn, Moscow had its own reasons for inviting the strongman for a visit. The Kremlin is looking to pave a way toward building a solid foundation for further interactions with French President Emmanuel Macron's administration. As Moscow sees things, Macron’s pro-active stance in the Middle East along with his common sense and clear-headedness, which distinguish him from his predecessor, Francois Hollande, suggest a brighter outlook for future relations.

Meanwhile, the Libyan peace process is apparently deadlocked. If this were not the case, Tripoli and Tobruk would have jointly appealed for lifting the arms embargo. Instead, the parties directly or indirectly accuse each other of torpedoing the peace process.

Hifter told France 24, “Sarraj is a good man,” but added, “He cannot implement what he agreed to.” In eastern Libya, which Hifter controls, people often describe Sarraj as a weak politician. They cite his failure to eject the Muslim Brotherhood and al-Qaeda from the areas his government controls.

There is, of course, an opposing view. As Almontaser notes, “There are many obstacles to the peace process and even to a dialogue at the moment. The eastern bloc in [the legislature] was and still is strongly opposed to the [Libyan] Political Agreement,” the pact signed in 2015 that created the unity government.

Thus, supporters of one party, are in essence criticizing the other's leader as weak and unable to consolidate power. Even Tripoli’s supporters, however, acknowledge that Libya’s western regions still pose a deadly threat to the peace process.

Almontaser said, “There are also a number of militias in the west of the country — who are afraid of losing their influence and of becoming targeted by the law for their crimes — who are taking a tough stance against any process or reconciliation that does not include them.” As it turns out, far more players would rather see the peace process derailed than move forward.

Another part of this picture that must be considered is the Misrata militias. Despite their absence at the peace talks in Abu Dhabi in May and Paris, the militias remain of crucial significance in the Libyan military and political arenas. Sarraj’s proponents have consented to a key role for the militias in any inter-Libyan dialogue, but Hifter does not welcome it.

The militias’ ties to Moscow are of particular interest, along with the positive assessment Dengov gave them in his Kommersant interview. A lot is riding on how Moscow approaches the militias, according to LNA-allied sources who spoke with Al-Monitor off the record.

An LNA-allied source told Al-Monitor, “Iit depends on who makes contact with Misrata from Moscow. If it’s the Foreign Ministry, it is normal, as [the ministry] usually stands in the middle and opens links with everyone. If it’s the Defense Ministry, or military agencies, it will be not accepted on LNA's side, and it will cause a huge problem. The Misrata forces have recently paid a visit to Qatar to announce their decision to amass their own army. Moreover, they have refused to make an apology to eastern Libya. This is aggravating the situation on the ground.”

Moscow seems cut out for the task of bringing about a rapprochement between Hifter and the Misrata militias. Its diplomatic role in sponsoring an inter-Libyan dialogue could emerge as an indispensable factor for success. Russia could also assist in accomplishing another mission.

Though the scenario seems inconceivable in Libya’s current poorly institutionalized and extremely pluralistic political system, Hifter may well be pursuing presidential ambitions, or at least some people from his inner circle think so.

It is questionable whether Tripoli, the Misrata militias and some of the other players would accept him as head of state. It is not just about the blood already shed, but also about anti-Islamism, which has become the ideological cornerstone of Hifter’s army and scares many (basically moderate) politicians from regions in western Libya.

Meanwhile, the negotiating process could allow the military commander to evolve into a political leader, if he’s able to present a more-or-less clear political platform. It could actually provide the basis for a dialogue with other stakeholders.

Considering all this, it appears Moscow’s support could positively contribute to the Libyan political process.

Article published in Al-Monitor: http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2017/08/russia-moscow-strategy-libya-hifter-national-army-policy.html

Photo credit: REUTERS/Sergei Karpukhin

The head of Libya’s United Nations-backed government, Fayez al-Sarraj, undertook an official visit to Moscow to meet with top Russian diplomats and officials March 2-3. Russia has been stepping up efforts in Libya, which seems baffling outside the wide regional context. There is a popular opinion that Russian foreign policy, including planning in the Middle East, may sometimes be tactically impeccable but lacks strategic thinking. Some believe that unpredictability has been a hallmark of the Kremlin's foreign policy.

Russia’s revived interest in the Middle East goes back to Vladimir Putin’s second presidential term (2004-2008), and for a long while the authorities have focused on economic development and the need for most diversified economic ties. Their attitude has been typified by blunt pragmatism.

The well-known discord in 2011 between Dmitry Medvedev, who was then president, and Putin, who was then prime minister, over UN Security Council Resolution 1973 on Libya may also be illustrative of Russia's pragmatic stance. Russia then abstained from the vote in the Security Council, thus avoiding the image of being the dictator's benefactor and of being engaged in the conflict. At the same time, Putin called the Western policy "a new crusade" while referring to US damage inflicted on Iraq, which was consistent with the assessments that pervaded Russian society.

Neither the Kremlin reshuffle nor the Arab Spring drove Russia to refrain from its reserved pragmatism. Even the 2012-13 rule in Egypt of Mohammed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood, an organization declared extremist in Russia, did not stand in the way of stronger bilateral ties, even at the top level.

Following the notorious events in Ukraine, which led to a further escalation of tensions with the West, politics and security began to prevail over the economy for Moscow. Still, it failed to devise any clear foreign policy strategy except its own “pivot to the East.” Even the start of the military operation in Syria in September 2015 did not clarify whether Moscow aspires to replace the United States as a new “Middle East hegemon” or just uses the region in its contest with Washington. It was a head-scratcher.

The missing strategy seems to be a conscious choice of the ruling political elite rather than a sign of its confusion. Postmodernity is characterized by the absence of a reliable strategy. The United States and Europe's numerous failures in the Middle East testify to the fact, while the ill-fated, futile and disastrous Libyan venture in 2011 is its graphic illustration.

Therefore, the abolition of strategic objectives requires a new analysis of the values and principles of world politics and Russia's place in the world.

Since the 1999 NATO bombing of Yugoslavia, the Russian political establishment has strongly distrusted the West, as the latter has been manipulating human values to its advantage. The mistrust along with the elite's idiosyncrasy to any ideology that was bred in the late Soviet era has conjured up an image of a profoundly cynical capitalist world.

However, the ensuing confrontation with the West, whose leaders turned their back on Russia, and the need to identify Russia as an alternative project rather than part of the West have led to deliberations over world politics premised on Russian historical experience. The approach of these deliberations seems to be based on seven principles: Security prevails over development; only stability can provide both security and development as revolutions are always destructive; stability is based on strong state institutions; institutions cannot be imposed from outside, socio-political engineering is inefficient; only a strong sovereign state can deliver security and development; unilateral steps on the world stage are destructive; and international law is the only means of creating a sustainable world order.

Looked at in this light, Russia is largely pursuing national security interests in the Middle East. Meanwhile, the events in 2015-17 showed that steps driven by the need to ensure security could produce new interests, with a new stable regional system of international relations being the major one.

This allows for an understanding of both the causes of Russia’s stepped-up efforts to deal with Libya and Moscow’s approaches to settling the country’s conflict. 

Even though Russia’s existential interests are not at stake in Libya, one can emphasize four contexts providing rationales for its moves.

First, the list includes Moscow’s general line aimed at stabilizing the region. Not only does the policy contribute to Russia’s security, but it also throws into sharp relief its effective and attractive methods.

Second, add to the mixture Russian-Egyptian relations, which require specific measures to transform mutual affinity into a solid alliance, with Egypt’s regional position being strengthened. A weak Egypt, Moscow argues, will further destabilize the Middle East, as historical, geographical and demographic forces have predetermined the country’s key role. Assisting Egypt in handling Libya constitutes a means of bolstering Cairo’s regime.

Third, the agenda encompasses Russia’s Mediterranean policy and the country’s ties with European Union member states. According to an informed source, Europe has but once given signals to the Kremlin that the refugee-affected countries are seeking Russia’s active involvement in Libya’s affairs, which in the long run could improve relations between Moscow and Brussels.

At the same time, a friendly or loyal regime in Libya could emerge as part of the Russia-dominated axis of Damascus, Cairo and Tripoli. 

Fourth, economic interests of Russian businesses striving to gain a foothold in new markets must also be considered.

All these factors may account for Moscow’s interest in Libya rather than its marked bias in favor of Gen. Khalifa Hifter. Given the particular episodes in the commander’s biography, which should instill mistrust among Russia’s policymakers, their sympathetic attitude toward Hifter is especially awkward.

Yury Barmin, an analyst of Russia’s foreign policy in the Middle East, suggests the Kremlin perceives Hifter as a new Col. Moammar Gadhafi. Although Barmin may have a point, the two leaders and the surrounding contexts are strikingly different. Gadhafi has never had to forcibly unite the country, with his political system originally resting upon the then most popular ideology in the Arab world. Gadhafi, along with his young supporters, articulated the interests of the most modernized groups of generally traditional society. (Now it is much more modernized.) This does not play into Hifter’s hands.

Nevertheless, the Libyan marshal may have been chosen as an ally by Cairo rather than Moscow. In this view, it is the dialogue with the former that represents the latter’s paramount interest. Hifter’s and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi’s ideological affinity, which concentrates on confronting the Muslim Brotherhood, makes them even more attractive to Moscow.

Finally, the Kremlin’s willingness to act as appropriate, thus refusing to impose its own will, gives another explanation for its focus on Hifter. Indeed, the marshal has objectively proved to be Libya’s most powerful figure. Amid the chaos, his personified power makes him more appealing, with individual groups being unreliable and weak. Fierce opposition to Hifter and prioritizing the Government of National Accord mean standing in the way of natural processes and fueling the ongoing war. It is the West’s ideologically driven policies and its reluctance to recognize the imperfect world that cause Moscow’s considerable irritation.

However, this does not imply that Russia intends to ignore other Libyan actors. Amid the lack of developed institutions and overmilitarized society, the establishment of a resilient system entails a necessary broad consensus. Given the Syrian experience and Moscow’s general approaches, one can assume that as a mediator in Libya, the Kremlin will follow a regional track of the conflict resolution involving Egypt, Tunisia and Algeria as the key players. 

Initially published by Al Monitor: http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2017/03/russia-libya-sarraj-foreign-policy-putin-hifter.html#ixzz4aa9Ts6qf

More and more terrorist groups swear allegiance to the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and the international attempts to bring down ISIS seem in vain.

The strongest extremist organization gains the terrain, both on the ground of Syria and Iraq and in the minds of people far from the Syrian and Iraqi borders. ISIS challenges the Security Services all over the world, as the way it spreads is extremely difficult to be cut and controlled.

ISIS spreads primarily through the Internet, using it as a sophisticated instrument of propaganda, recruiting and expanding, along with personal contacts of its recruiters. Spreading over the net, they create cells as metastases, far from the Syrian and Iraqi borders – in Nigeria, in Libya, in Yemen, in Afghanistan, in Algeria, in Tunisia and others. The list is already long and is becoming longer.

The alarming message has come from a Russian senior security official after a session of the SCO’s regional anti-terror body, saying that some warlords of the prohibited Emirate of Caucasus have pledged their allegiance to ISIS. This trend challenges not only Russia, over 1700 citizens of which have joined ISIS, and who fight in Syria and Iraq (this figure is an estimate, the real numbers could be higher still), but for the whole Caucasus region and the neighbouring countries.

To read the whole article: http://english.alarabiya.net/en/views/news/middle-east/2015/04/14/ISIS-takes-its-fight-to-Russia-s-backyard.html

In the terrorist attack last week that took the lives of 21 people, most foreign tourists, at the National Bardo Museum, Tunisia itself was under attack. And it will remain so because it is a secular democracy in an Arab world that is not democratic and, with the exception of Lebanon’s power-sharing arrangements, has never known democracy.