Robert Dreyfuss Devil's Game

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INTRODUCTION

I

I r rEnE ts AN unwrit tenchapter n the historyof the cold war and

the New World Order that followed. t is the story 9f how the lnited

States-sometlmesovertly sometimes overtly-funded and encour-

agcd ight-wing slamistactivism.Deuil sGameattempts o fil l in that

vital missing ink.

Vital becausehis it t le-knownpolicy, onducted versix decades,

rspart ly o blame or the emergencef ls lamist error ismasa world-

u. idephenomenon.ndeed,Americr t s ould-beenrpire n the Middle

F_ast, orth Africa, and clentraland S0uth Asia was dcsigncd o rest

i1 part on thebeilrockof pol i t ical slam.Atleast hat s what i tsarchi-

rcctshoped. But it proved to be a devil sgamc. c)nly too late, after

September r , 2oor, did washington begin o discover ts strateglc

nr iscalculat ion. Ihe UnitedStates penrdecades ultivating slamists,manipulating

and double-crossinghem, cynicallyusingand misusing hem as Cold

\\rar allies,Only o find that it spawneda force hat turned against ts

sponsor, nd with a vengeance. ike monsters mbued with artificial

life, radical imams, mullahs, and ayatollahs stalk the landscape,

rhunderingnot only against he united States ut against reedomof





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Introduction

of Islam. It is, in fact,a perversionof that religious aith. That is th e

mutant ideology hat the United States ncouraged, upported orga-

nized,or funded. It is the sameone variously representedby the Mus-

lim Brotherhood, by Ayatollah Khomeini's lran, by Saudi Arabia's

ultra-orthodox'$Tahhabism, y Hamas and Hezbollah,by the Afghan

fihadis,and by Osama bin Laden.

I I

The United States ound political Islam to be a convenientparrner

during eachstageof America'sempire-buildingproject n the Middle

East, from its early entry into the region to its gradual military

encroachment, o its expansion nto an on-the-groundmilitary pres-

ence,and finally to the emergence f the United States s an army of

occupation n Iraq and Afghanistan.

In the r9jos, the enemy was not only Moscow but the Third'World's

emerging nationalists, from Gamal Abdel Nasser n Egypt toMohammed Mossadegh n Iran. The united Statesand Britain used

the Muslim Brotherhood,a terrorist movement and the grandfather

organization of the Islamic right, againstNasser, he up-and-coming

leaderof the Arab nationalists . n the clA-sponsored coup d'6tat in

Iran in 1953, the United Statessecredy unded an ayatollahwho had

founded he Devotees f Islam, a ianatical ranian ally of the Muslim

Brotherhood.Later n the samedecade,he united statesbegan o toy

with the notion of an Islamicbloc led by Saudi Arabia as a counter-

point to the nationalist eft.

In the 196os,despiteU.S.efforts ro contain it, left-wing national-ism and Arab socialismspread rom Egypt to Algeria to Syria, raq,

and Palestine. o counter his seeming hreat, he United States orged

a working alliance with Saudi Arabia, intenr on using its foreig n-

policy arm,'wahhabi fundamentalism.The united states oined with

King Saud and Prince Faisal (later, King Faisal) n pursuir of an

Islamic bloc from N orth Africa to Pakistanand Afghanistan.Saudi

Arabia founded institutions to mobilize the \Tahhabi religious right

and the Muslim Brotherhood. Saudi-backedactivists founded the

IslamicCenter of Geneva r96t), the Muslim \forld League 1962),





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Introduction . s

and confused.During the r99os, the United States aceda seriesof

criseswith political Islam: In Algeria, he United States ympathized

with the rising forcesof political Islam, only to support the Algerian

army's crackdown against them-and then \Tashington kept open a

dialoguewith the Algerian Islamists,who increasingly urned to ter-

rorism. In Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood and its offshoots, nclud-

ing a violent undergroundmovement,poseda dire threat o PresidentMubarak's regime;yet the United States oyed with supporting the

Brothers.And in Afghanistan, shatteredafter the decade-longU.S.

jihad, the Taliban won early American support. Even as Osama bi n

Laden'sAl Qaeda ook shape, he United States ound itself n league

with the Islamic ight in Pakistan,SaudiArabia, and the Arab Gulf.

And then came9lrt.

After zoor, the Bush administration appearedto sign on to the

neoconservative eclaration hat the world was definedby a "clash of

civilizations," and launched ts global war on terrorism, targeting Al

Qaeda-the most virulent strain of the very virus that the United Stateshad helped create. Still, before, during, and after the invasion of

Iraq-a socialist, secular country that had long opposed Islamic

fundamentalism-the United Statesactively supported Iraq's Islamic

right, overtly backing raqi Shiite slamists, rom AyatollahAli al-Sistani

to radical Islamistpartiessuch as he SupremeCouncil for Islamic Rev-

olution in Iraq and the IslamicCall (Al-Dawa),both of which are also

supportedby Teheran'smullahs.

I I I

The vauntedclashof civilizations, hat tectoniccollision between he

'Westand the Islamic world, if that's what it was, began inauspi-

ciously.Amid the wreckage of \forld'War

II, America stumbledwilly-

nilly into the Middle East, nto a world it knew little about. If the

United Statesmade mistakes n dealingwith Islam in the secondhalf

of the twentieth century, it was in part becauseAmericans were so

profoundly ignorant about t.

Until r94r the Middle East, for young America, was a fearsome

and wonderful place,a fantasylandof sheikhsand harems,of turbaned



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sultans, f obscene ath houses nd seraglios, f desert ases, yramids,

and the Holy Land. In early literature-novels, poems, ravelogues-it

was a placeof mysteryand intrigue, nhabitedby the unsavoryand theirreligious. ts peoplewereoften portrayed asscimitar-waving ,Mussul-

men" and "Mohammedans,"uncivilizedand uncouth. It was the landof pirates and "Turks," a term that retains ts pejorative connotation

today.

Since ts appearancen r 869,Mark Twain'sThe rnnocentsAbroad

hascome o symbolizea peculiarlyAmericansort of naiveblundering

overseas.Yet few realize hat Twain, perhaps America's most acute

satiristand observer, sed he book to describe months-longsojournin the Mediterraneanand the Middle East. t was hugely nfluential

among nineteenth-century .s. readers.But Twain unfortunatelycon-tributed to, and took advantageof, built-in prejudiceagainst hingsIslamic. Meandering hrough TurkeyoSyria,

Lebanon,andpalestine,

Twain seemso be air ly holding his nose,marvelingat the barbarismhe s surveying.Dwellingsare "tastefully rescoed loft and alow withdisksof cameldung placed here o dry. Damascus "How they hate

a christian in Damascus ") s the "most fanaticalMohammedan pur-gatory out of Arabia." He added: "The Damascenes re the ugliest,wickedest ooking villainswe have seen."comparing the Holy Land

to a classical ngravingof Nazareth,Twain wrote:

But n the engravingherewasno desolation; o dirt; no rags;nofleas;no ugly features; o soreeyes; o feasting lies;no besotted

ignorancen the countenances;o raw placeson the donkey'sbacks; o disagreeableabberingn unknown ongues; o stenchof camels; o suggestionhat a coupleof tonsof powderplacedunder heparty and ouchedoff would heightenhe effectandgrveto the scene genuinenterest nd charmwhich t would alwaysbepleasanto recall.

By the early twentieth century-with the advent of'world 'war

I,

the forced disintegrationof the ortoman Empire, and the start of theBritish-sponsored Arab Awakening," led by the likes of winston

churchill, T. E. Lawrence "of Arabia"), and GertrudeBell-the mod-





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worldwide superpower. ts activism then was naive in the extreme-endearinglyso for its partisans,and frighteninglyso for others.Thepost-\forld'v7ar II generation f U.S. eaders elievedwholeheartedlythat the Americanspirit would conquerall, figurativelyspeaking-otif necessarS n the ground in real life. This was. after all. HenrvLuce's American Century."

The Middle Eastwas then emergingas the most strategically italarea outside he industrial

westand Japan.Though it lackedexper-

tise, anguage kills,and cultural amiliarity with the region's omplexcivilization, he united Stateswas called o its imperial missionby thevery logic of its immensepower. n Norman Mailer's The Naked andthe Dead, General cummings prescientlydescribed he inexorablegrowth of Americanpower that would be unleashed y \7orld'v7ar I:

I like to call it a process f historicalenergy saysCummings].

Therearecountriesharhave arentpowers,atent esources,heyare full of potential energy, o ro speak. . . As kinetic energyacountry is organization,coordinatedeffort. . . . Historical ly, hepurpose f thisrvar s to translate merica's otentialenergynt okineticenergy. . . \(hen you'vecreatedpower,materials,armies,theydon't witherof theirown accord. ur vacuumasa nation sfil ledwith releasedower,and can ell you that we'reout of thebackwaters f historvnow.

But as America'senergy lowed into the Islamic world, the unitedstatesbegan ts long-running engagementwith little or no compre-

hensionof the forces r was dealingwith.

Until after the second world \Var, Middle East studies in theunited stateswere virtually nonexistenror relegated o a subsetoftheology. Partly sponsored by the government, centers for MiddleEastern affairs began springing up after 1947, when princeton uni-versity created he first Near East cenrer n the united States.But itwould be many yearsbefore he United Stateswould havea cadreofacademicexpertswho had a grasp of Islamic politics, currure,andreligion.

From FDR on, leading u.S. politicians were prisoners of mis-

guided srereotypes. hey seemedentranced bv the almost other-



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Introduction

worldly appearance f their Arab interlocutors.FDR, after meeting

Ibn Saud, eturned o'Washingtonand could not shake he imageof

the hawk-like Saudi monarch, ensconced n a gold chair and sur-

rounded by six slaves. Harry Truman, two years ater,describeda

leadingSaudiofficialasa real old biblicalArab with chin whiskers'a

white gown, gold braid, and everything. And Eisenhowerdismissed

the Arabs as,,a

very uncerrainquanrity,explosiveand fullof preju-

dices.,,The official record is full of such uninformed stereotyping f

Arabs and Muslims by u.S. officials.For the next sixty years, he

handful of American Arabists who actually knew somethingabout

the Middle East would try to combat those stereotypes.But they

would fail.

V

The American attachment o a romantici zed fantasyof Arab life and a

racist-fed, religious disdain for the Arabs' supposed heathenism

proved a deadly combination when the time came for America to

engage tself politically and militarily in the Middle East. Perhaps

thosestereotypesed Americanpolicy makers o seeMuslims as ierce

warriors. Perhaps hey believed hat the fanaticismof their religious

renetswould lead hem ro resistatheistic ommunism.Perhaps t was

the notion that in southwestAsia the traditional religiousestablish-

menr was a bulwark of the statusquo. But it never dawned on u.s.

officials that Islamist organizationssuch as the Muslim Brotherhood

wefe a qualitativelydifferentphenomenon rom the comprador cleri-

cal establishment.Certainly, as the Cold'Vfar progressed, he bi g

enemy, the uSSR, and its alleged accomplice, Arab nationalism,

seemedo havea common enemy: slam.

In someways, he cold war itselfbegan n the Middle East.Presi-

dent Harry Truman proclaimed u.S. responsibility or Greeceand

Turkey, eplacingGreat Britain in that role, in 1947, and confronted

the soviet Union in northern Iran's Azerbaijan. England's mperial

presence as shrinking:London abandonedGreece nd Turkey, hen

India and Palestine, nd the retreat was on-with only the United



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States to fill the vacuum, an allegedly tempting target for Soviet

expansion. (Later scholarshipwould show that neither Stalin nor

Khrushchevhad either he intention or the caoabilitv o seize ontrol

of the PersianGulf a nd theMiddle East.)

The strategicmportanceof the Middle Eastwas obvious o all: it

was (and s) the indispensable ourceof energy or America'sallies n

Europe and Japan.At the time, the United Statesdid not dependon

the Persian Gulf for oil, relying instead on Venezuelaand Texas,

Louisiana,and Oklahoma. But Europeand Japandesperately eeded

the Gulf for day-to-daysurvival. t is no exaggeration o say hat U.S.

strategists cahzed hat the defenseof'Western

Europe was inconceiv-

able without a parallel plan to control the Gulf. Despite mportant

internal tensionsamong the'Westernpowers, they forged a serie sof

alliances n the region: NATO, the abortive Middle East Defense

Organization, he Baghdad Pact, CENTO-all directedagainst he

USSR.More quietly \Tashingtbnand London supported he Islamic

right against he left in country after country and encouraged he

emergence f an Islamic bloc.

For those who knew little ab out the religion and culture of the

Middle East-presidents, secretariesof state, CIA directors-the

Islamic ight seemedike a sensible orse o ride. They could identify

with people nspiredby deep eligiousbelief,even f the religion was

an alienone. n their search or tacticalallies, slam seemedike a bet-

ter bet than secularism, ince he left-wing secularists ere viewedas

cats'-paws for Moscow, and the centrist ones were dangerously

opposed o the region'smonarchies nd traditional elites. n the after-math of

'World'WarII, the list of nationsruled by kings ncluded not

only SaudiArabia andJordan,but Egypt, raq, Iran, and Libya.

By the r95os, the military-intellectualcomplex of Middle East

studies was up and running in many U.S. universities,producing

Arabists and O rientalistswho were called on by policy makers for

advice n grappling with the region'scomplexities.The CIA and the

StateDepartmentgobbled up Ivy Leaguegraduateswho spokeAra-

bic, Turkish, Farsi, Urdu, and other Middle East languages, nd a

core of U.S. governmentArabists emergedwith at least a working

understandingof the region. Yet, by their own testimony, ew of them

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Introduction II

learnedmuch about Islam or Islamism,concentrating nsteadon the

nuts-and-bolts conomicand political questions.Most of the Arabists

were secularists, nd did not havemuch sympathy or fundamentalist

Islam. Many, in fact, insteadsympathized roadly with Arab nation-

alism.Many of them saw Islam as he bygonesymbol of a pastera.

As the Cold'War unfolded, however,StateDepartment and CIA

officerswho sidedwith Arab nationalismwere increasingly gnored.Their viewswere attackedby Cold'Warriors,and by the supporters f

Israel,who were determined o undermine anyone who considered

himself or herself pro-Arab. By the r97os, the very term Arabist

had become ndelibly tainted. Since hen, pro-Zionist activistshave

piled on, waging an ideologicalblitzkrieg against hoseArabistswho

remained n government or academia.Robert D. Kaplan's tenden-

tious 1993 book, The Arabists: Romance of an American Elite,

marked the high point of this effort. Ever since ts publication, attack-

rngArabistshas becomea cottage ndustry.Virtually all of them were

ercluded from prewar planning on Iraq. To a man, most Arabists\\.erestrongly opposed o the preemptivewar. But by excluding them,

the Bush administrationguaranteed hat planning for the war would

becarriedout by know-nothings.

VI

Somemay argue hat the United States reatedneither Islam nor its

fundamentalist ariant, and that is true. But herewe need o consider

an extendedanalogywith America'sChristianright.

Conservativeand evangelisticChristians have beenpresent in

Large umbers n Americasince he colonial era.But in anothersense'

rhe emergence f the Christianright in the United States an be dated

ro the late r97os, with the formation of the Rev. Timothy LaHaye's

California allianceof churches, he creationof the Moral Majority by

LaHave and Jerry Falwell, and the role of those wo men and others

:n rhe riseof the Council on National Policy, he Christian Coalition,

-lnd organizations ike Pat Robertson's broadcast empire and Dr.

T-rmes obson'sFocuson the Family.Until then, conservativeChris-

::-rns \'erea politically nchoate orce.Relentlessly rganizedover the



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past three decades, hey have become a self-conscious. oliticallv

powerful movement.

The same s true for the Islamic right. The reactionary endencywithin Islam goesback thirteencenturies. rom Islam,searliesr ears,obscurantists, nti-rationalists,and Koran literalistscompetedwith

more enlightened,progressive,and moderate tendencies. n morerecent imes, Muslim reactionaries ave beena drag on moderniza-tion, opposingprogressive ducation, iberalization,and human rights.But it wasn't until the creationof the pan-Islamicmovemenrof JamalEddine al-Afghani in the late r8oos, the founding of the MuslimBrotherhood n Egypt by Hassanal-Banna n .9zg,and the crearionof Abul-Ala Mawdudi's Islamic Group in pakistan in r94o that theIslamic ight had its LaHayes, ts Falwells,and its Robertsons. hoseearly Islamistssharpened he culture wars in the Middle East ust astheir christian right counterpartsdid in the United States, nd for the

same easons.Just as the christian right found support from wealthy right-wing

donors, especially il men from Texasand the Midwest, the Islamicright won financial supporr from wealthy oil men, too-namely, theroyal familiesatop SaudiArabia and the Gulf. And just as the chris-tian right formed a politically convenient alriancewith right-wingRepublicans, he Islamic right establisheda similar understandingwith America's right-wing foreign policy strategists. n facr, supporrfor the christian right and the Islamic right convergedneatly duringtheReaganadministration,which eagerly oughtallianceswith both. so

blindedwere someAmericans by the cold \far that militant christian-right activistsand fervent zionistpartisans of IsraercheerilysupportedIslamist anatics n Afghanistan.

The analogybetweenchristian and Islamic undamentalists oldsin other areas, too. Both exhibit an absorute certainty about theirbeliefsand they tolerateno dissent, ondemningaposrares, nbelievers,and freethinkers o perdition. Both berieve n a unity of religion andpolitics, the former insisting hat America is a "christian nation,', thelatter that Muslims need o be ruled either by an all-powerful, religio-political caliphate or by a systemof "Isramic republics" under an

ultra-orthodox versionof Islamic aw (sharia).And both encou asea



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Introductictn r3

blind fanaticismamong their followers. It 's no accidenr hat amongfollowers of both christian and Islamic fundamentalism, he world

indeedappears o be engagedn a clashof civilizations.

VII

A war on terrorism s precisely he wrong way to deal with the chal-

lengeposedby political Islam.

That challengecomes in two forms. First, there is the specific

threat o the safetyand securityof Americansposedby Al eaerta;and

second, here s a far broaderpolitical problem createdby the growth

of the Islamic ight in the Middle Eastand SouthAsia.

In regard o Al Qaeda, he Bushadministrationhaswilrfully exag-gerated he sizeof the threat it represents.t is not an all-powerful

organization. t cannot destroyor conquer America, and it does notposean existential hreat to the United states. t can kill Americans,

but it has never had access o weapons of massdestruction,and it

almostcertainlyneverwill. It doesnot possessargenumbersof cells,

assets, r agents nside he united States, lthough after9lr r the u.s.attorney generalmade the unfounded charge hat Al eaeda had as

many as 5'ooo operativesn America.None of the many hundredsof

Muslims arrestedor detainedafterglrr were found to have terrorist

connect ions.n threeand a half yearsaf ter 9lt . . , not a single iolent

act by Al Qaeda-or any other Islamic terrorisr group-occurred in

the united States: o hijackings,no bombings,not evena sho t fired.

No ties were everproved linking Al eaeda to Iraq-or ro any orher

state n the Muslim world: not to Syria,not to saudi Arabia, nor roIran. In shorr, he threat from Al Qaeda s a manageable ne .

using the u.s. military in conventionalwar mode s not the way ro

attack Al Qaeda, which is primarily a problem for intelligenceandlaw enforcemenr. he war in Afghanisranwas wrongheaded: t failed

to destroy Al Qaeda's eadership, t failed ro destroy the Taliban,

n'hich scattered, nd it failed to stabilize hat war-torn nation more

than temporarilS creatinga weak centralgovernmentat the mercyofn'arlords and former Taliban gangs. 7orse, the war in Iraq was not

onlv misguidedand unnecessary,ut it was aimedat a narion that had



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r1 Drvrr s Gel . r

absolutelyno links to bin Laden sgang-as if, saidan observer, DRhad attackedMexico in response o pearl Harbor. The ham-handed

useof the armed forcesagainsta nonstateactor like Al eaeda is use-lessand self-defeating. ike somegrotesque ncient egend, or everyhead oppedoff by laser-guided issiles,Marine-led aids nto Islamistredoubts, sraeligunship attackson Hamas and Hezbollah enclaves,and cruise missile aftacks on remote strongholds, hree new headsgrow in its place.Bur becausehe Afghan and Iraq wars fit nicely withthe Bushadministration s roaderpolicy of empire building and pre-emptive war, and becausehey allowed the United states o consrrucr

a vast political-military enterprisestretching rom East Africa deepinto central Asia, those two wars went forward. A problem thatcould havebeendealtwith surgically-using commandosand specialForces,aidedby tough-mindeddiplomacy indictmentsand legalaction,concerted nternational..efforts,nd judiciousself-defense easures-

was vastly nflatedby the Bushadminisrration.

Still,Al Qaedacan be defeated. fhe largerproblem, that of the growing strengthof Islamic unda-

mentalism n the Middle Eastand Asia, s far more complicated.NaturallS the first problem is related to the second.unless the

Islamic right is stopped, t is possible hat Al eaeda could resuscirareitself. or, as n Iraq after the u.S. invasion,new Al eaeda-styleorga-nizations might emerge by drawing on anti-American anger andresentment. r, oneof the other Islamic-right errorist groups,suchasHamas or Hezbollah, might metastasizerom a group with a mostly

local focus o one with larger, nternationalambitions.The violence-prone and terrorism-inclinedgroups n the Middle East draw finan-cial support, theological ustification, and legions of recruits fromamong the more establishedslamic fundamentalist nstitutions ha rhave sprung up in the past three decadesn virtually every Muslimcountry.Like a kettleof water boiling on a stove,out of which only asmall volume of steamsteadilyescapesnto the air, n the Middle Eastthe forcesassociated ith political Islam are kept simmering.out ofit a steadystreamof radicals s constantlyemitted-extremists whoare immediately absorbed by one of the already existing rerrorist

groups.



* .:: ,rbserver, DR

: {- Qaeda s use-

: -' : ie rtd, for every

- : , ; . into Is lamist

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: , rd. Unless he

Introduction . r i

So what can the United States o ro turn down the heat?To lower

the political temperatureunderneath he Islamistmovement?

First, the United Statesmust do what it can ro remove the griev-

ances hat causeangry Muslims to seeksolace n organizations ike

the Muslim Brotherhood.Not all of thesegrievances, f course,ar e

causedby the United States, nd not all of them can be sofrenedor

amelioratedby U.S. acions. At the very least,however, he UnitedStatescan take important steps hat can weaken the ability of the

Islamic right to harvesr ecruirs.By joining with the UN, the Euro-

peans,and Russia, he United statescan help settle he Palestinian-

Israeliconflict n a manner hat guaranteesustice or the palestinians:

an independent tate hat is geographically nd economicallyviable,

tied to the withdrawal of illegal Israeli serlemenrs,an Israeli return

roughly to its t967 borders,and a stableand equitabledivision of

Jerusalem. hat, more than any other action, would removea global

casusbelli for the Islamic right.

Second, he United Statesmust abandon ts imperial pretensionsnthe Middle East.That will require he withdrawal of u.s. forces rom

Afghanistan and Iraq, the dismantling of U.S. military bases n the

PersianGulf and facilit ies n Saudi Arabia, and a sharp reduction n

the visibility of the U.S.Navy, military training missions,and arms

sales.Many U.S.diplomatswho lave worked in the regionknow that

the provocative U.S. presence n the Middle East fuels anger and

resentment. he united States as no claim to either he persianGulf

or the Middle East,whose uture economic iesand political relation-

shipscan and must be determined olelyby the leaders f the region's

states, ven f it redounds o the detrimentof U.S. nrer:ests.Third, the United Statesmust refrain from seeking o impose ts

preferences n the region. Since zoor, the United Stateshas done

incalculabledamage by demanding hat the grearer Middle East

conform to American visionsof democracy. o be sure, or the more

radical dealists n the Bushadministration,Bush's all for democracy

in the Arab worl d and Iran is seenprimarily as a prerext for more

intrusive u.S. involvement n the region. Even taken at facevalue,

however, he initiative gnores he fact that the nationsof the Middle

Eastmust find democracyat their own paceand in their own time. An

..uld resuscitate

l---eda-style rga-

: : - ' . ln anger and

): groups, uchas

,-: n'ith a mostly

: . . . The violence-

Elst draw finan-.i recruits from

: -nsr i tut ionshat

. . . r ' er-eryMuslim

r: of rvhichonly a

. : rheMiddle East

: : rmer ing.Out of

-ertremists who

-xrsting terrorist



I6 Dnvrr s GettE

obsessive rive for democratic eform in the region is self-defeating

and insulting to the statesand peoplesof the Middle East. Someof

thosestatesmay be ready or reform, and somemay not. Democratic

changeshat end up empowering he Islamic ight and catapulting he

Muslim Brotherhood to power in Cairo, Damascus, Riyadh, or

Algiers will not serve heir intendedpurpose.They will only deliver

additional states nto the hands of the Islamists.The United States

should adopt a hands-offpolicy in connectionwith democracy n the

Islamicworld.

And fourth, the United Statesmust abandon its propensity to

make bellicose hreatsdirectedat nations n the Middle East, nclud-

ing those-such as ran and Sudan-that are still under Islamist ule.

The wave of Islamismmay not yet have crested.Other nations may

succumb o its tide before t rec edes, ince t is a force that has gath-

ered momentum for decades. ut the United Statesmust get used o

the fact that threatsof force and imperial-sounding iktats strengthen

Islamism.They do not diminish t.

The true emancipationof the Middle East will require action by

the secular orces n the region to uplift, educate and modernize he

outlook of peoplewho havebeencapturedby Islamism. t is an effort

that will take decades, ut it must beginnow. There s nothing about

Islam that requires t to remain mired in the seventh-century elief

that the Koran must govern he world of politics, education,science,

and culture. It means changing a culture that allows millions of

deludedMuslims to think that back-to-basicsundamentalism s some-

how an appropriateanswer o twenty-first-century roblemsand con-

cerns. Fundamentalism,whether it takes the form of Islamism, or

whether t appears n the form of America sChristian right or Israel s

ultra-Orthodox settler movement, s always a reactionary orce. In

the Muslim world, a rational division of the secularand the divine is

far from unheardof. Tensof millions of Muslims are able o separate

their religious beliefs,held privatelS from their politics, ust as mil-

lions of Muslims, Christians,and Jewsdo in the United States. t is

they-the true silent majority-who must seize the initiative from

the fundamentalists. hey may ask for, and should receive support



- : i I l 'a t ln$

.: \ i t l l le of

: :l-; iC f t1tlC

: , : :Lng he

: . : ' .- - . .1h. r

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: : : States

-- .,- ' . n the

- : ' .J l lon by

' : . :n ize the

. :n ef for t

: : - . .ag bout

:- , t l belief

science,

- : : : : i l ions of

: : l l lS SOITIC-

: . : ' . i . lnd con-

, . . . ' . : I tsm, or: - : , . ) r Israel 's

, : ' , lorce. In

: ' . . d iv ine is

: : ' r SeParate

. lsr as mil-

Introduction r7

from civil society n the West: from NGOs and universities, rom

research entersand think tanks,and more.

The peoplesof the Middle East must engagenot only in nation

building but in religion building. As the hothouse emperaturesn

Middle Eastpolitical discourse re lowered, Muslim religiousschol-

ars, philosophers,and soci al scientists an come together n a great

debate to hammer out a twenty-first-century vision of a tolerant,modern Islam, o createa new culture no longer held hostageby self-

dealingmullahs and ayatollahs.A consensus an emergeorganically

in the Muslim world that reinterprets ncient extsand traditions n a

manner appropriate o an enlightenedworld outlook, and then that

consensus ust ind ts way into everynook and cranny, eginning n

the major cities-Istanbul, Cairo, Baghdad,Karachi, Jakarta-and

spreading o every village and mosque. t will mean reforming the

educational urriculum n the Muslim world, deemphasizingeligious

universities nd so-calledmadrassasn favor of m odern education. t

will requirenew mass-media utlets n placeswhere hey can flourish,and the use of radio, satellite elevision,and the Internet to reach

placeswhere they cannot. All this will take many years. t cannot

occur unless he armed conflicts hat roil the region are ended,an d

unless conomicconditionsmove steadilyupward. Religionbuilding,

like nation building,can take a long, ong time.

I t is

: : , r t i l 'e f rOm

SuPPort



THI AMIRICAf\ IMPIRTPRl|JTCI

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Metropol i tan Books

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Publ ishers ince 866r75 Fif th Avenue

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Distr ibuted n Canadaby H. B. Fenn and Companv -td.

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p. cm.-(American empireprolect)

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o: o-8o5o-7652-z

c178-o-8o5o-7 5z' 1countries-Rel :rt ions-Uni ted States.2. Uni ted States-Relat ions-

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=



IMPERIAL PAN-ISLAM

IN r 8 8 5, EXACTLv one hundred years before off ic ials of theReagan administration made a secret nitiative toward Ayatollah

Khomeini srran, a century before he united States pentbil l ions of

dollars n support of an anti-soviet ihad in Afghanistan ed by Islamic

fundamentalistmujahideen,a peripateticPersian-Afghan ctivistme t

in London with British intelligenceand foreign policy officials to put

forward a controversialdea.would Br itain,he wondered,be inter-

ested n organizinga pan-Islamicallianceamong Egypt, Turkey,per-

sia, and AfghanistanagainstczarisrRussia?1

It was the era of the Great Game, he long-running mperial struggle

between Russiaand England for conrrol of central Asia. The British,owners of India, had seized onrrol of Egypt in r88r. Turkey,sOtto-

man Empire-which included, among other lands,what is now Iraq,

Syria, Lebanon,Jordan, Israel,SaudiArabia, and the Gulf states-was

wobbly, too, and important piecesof it wereup for grabs,althoughthe

final dismantling of Turkey sholdings would await \World War I. The

biggest imperial land rush in history was under way in Africa and

southwestAsia. And the British, mastersof manipulating tribal, ethnic,

and rel igious f f i l iar ions, xperrat set t ingminor it ies r one anorher s



2 o . DEvrr 's GeuE

throats for the greater good of Her Majesty's realm, were intrigued

with the ideaof fosteringa spirit of Islamicrevivalism-if it could serve

their purposes.Both Russiaand Francehad the same dea,but it was

the British, with their tensof millions of Muslim subjects n rhe greater

Middle Eastand SouthAsia,whohad the advanrage.The man who, in 1885, proposed he idea of a Br it ish- led an-

Islamicalliancewas Jamal Eddineal-Afghani.From the rgTos to ther89os, Afghani was supportedby the United Kingdom, and at least

once, he record shows-in r882, in India, according o a secret ile

of the Indian government's intelligence service-Afghani officially

offered o go ro Egyptasan agentof British ntelligence.2

Afghani, the founder of pan-Islam, s the great-great-grandfather f

osama bin Laden-not biologically, ut in ideological erms.'werewe

to constructa biblicalgenealogy f right-wing slamism, t would read

like this: AfghaniG838;t897)

begat Mohammed AbduhGB+S-r905)' an Egyptianpan-Islamicactivistwho was Afghani'schief dis-

ciple and who helped spread Afghani's message.Abduh begat

Mohammed RashidRida (r865-r935), a Syriandiscipleof Abduh's,

who moved to Egypt and founded a magazine,The Lighthouse, toadvocateAbduh's ideas n support of a systemof Islamic republics.

Rashid Rida begat Hassan al-Banna (19o6-1949), who learnedIslamism from Rashid Rida's The Lighthouse, and who founded the

Muslim Brotherhood n Egypt n .'928.Banna begatmany offspring.

Among themwere his son-in-law, aid Ramadan, he Muslim Brother-hood's international organizer,whose headquarterswere in switzer-

land, and Abul-Ala Mawdudi, the founder of the Islamic Group inPakistan, he first Islamistpolitical party,who was nspiredby Banna's

work. Banna's ther heirssetup branches f the Brotherhood n every

Muslim state, n Europe,and in the united states.Another of Banna's

offspring, a Saudi who took part in America's Afghan jihad, was Al

Qaeda'sOsamabin Laden, he family'sblackest heep.

In the half centurybetween 875 and t9z5,the buildingblocksofthe Islamic right werecemented n placeby the British empire. Afghani

created he intellectual oundation for a pan-Islamic movement-with

British paffonage and the support of England's eading orientalist,E. G. Browne.Abduh, Afghani'schief disciple, ounded.with the help



, : : .- inrr igued

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Imperial Pan-Islam zt

of London's Egyptian proconsul, Evelyn Baring Lord Cromer, the

Salafiyyamovemenr, he radical-right,back-to-basicsundamentalist

current that sti l l exists today. To understand the proper role of

Afghani and Abduh, ir i s imporranr o see hem as exper imenrsn a

century-long British effort to organizea pro-British pan-Islamicmove-

ment. Afghani, a quixotic and slippery ally,shoppedhis services o

other imperial powers, and ultimately his mysrical, semi-modernistversion of fundamentalist slam failed ro rise to rhe level of a mass

movement.Abduh, his chief disciple,attachedhimselfmore firmly to

the British rulersof Egypt and created he cornerstone f the Muslim

Brotherhood,which dominated he Islamic ight throughout he rwen-

tieth century.The British backedAbduh even as they launched wo

other pre-'world war I schemes o mobilize Islamic fervor. In the

Arabian Peninsula, the British helped a desert band of ultra-

fundamentalistArabs, ed by the family of Ibn Saud, reate he world's

first Islamic fundamentaliststate n SaudiArabia. At the same ime,

they encouraged he Hashemitesof Mecca, a secondArabian familywith a spurious claim to be descended rom the original prophet ofIslam,whose sonsLondon installedaskingsof Iraq andJordan.

originally, the Hashemires, s guardiansof the Arabian holy cities

of Mecca and Medina, were supposedo haveassumedhe eadership

of the entireMuslim world, with the dea of establishing pro-British

caliphate o replace he falteringone n Turkey.That plan neverquire

came together,but a parallel one did. From the rgzos on, the new

Saudi state merged ts'$Tahhabi

orthodoxy with the Salafiyya,no w

organized nto the Muslim Brotherhood-and the resurgence f Islam

was underway.It was Afghani, however,who started t all. Like many of his prog-

eny, Afghani made common causewith the imperial powers as theycompeted for influence over the vast swath of territory betweeneast

Africa and china. Yearsafter his death,many-but not all-of his

biographersand chroniclershave painted him as a believer, onsis-

tently advocatinga renaissance f Islam;as an anti-imperialist, hun-

dering against he great powers;and as a lib eral reformer,seeking o

blend medieval slam with the scientific ationalismof the Enlighten-

ment.while elemenrs f all this arepresent n Afghani'scareer, e was





::dopted the

-. , : 1au'asborn

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:'. L.ranchof

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.: : -: i ' . rsexpl ic i t

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approved-

rhe method', . ' .devot ion. 6

Imperial Pan-Isldm )1

In fact, although he preached Islamic orthodoxy ro rhe masses,

Afghani was a closetatheistwho railed againstnot only Islam, but all

religions, o more esoteric roupsof listeners:

ReligionswroteAfghani],whatever heyarecalled, esemble ne

another.No understanding nd no reconciliation s possible

betweenhese eligions ndphilosophy. eligion rnposests faith

and ts creedon man, whilephilosophy iberates im from them

whollyor in part .

Howeveq Afghani concluded: [But] reasondoesnot please he mass

and its teachingsare understoodonly by a few choicespirits. TThe

elitism of this passage s an essentialpart of Afghani's mysrique.

Throughout his life, Afghani had one messageor the mass and

another for the choice spirits : for the masses, an-lslam; for the

elite, an eclecticbrand of philosophy.And while he posedas an anti-

imperialistwhen it suitedhis purposes,Afghani and those n his inner

circle engaged n conspiratorialalliancewith those very impe rialists.

Many historians,however, ake the Afghani story at face value:

that as an Islamicactivist,he helped o createa movement hat would

restore slam o its former glory, o recapture he pristine,goldendays

of the Prophet's ule in Mecca and Medina. Much conventionalwis-

dom portrays Afghani as a crusader..gainst mperialism, and as a

reformerwho sought o bring enlightenment nd rationalism o a fog-

bound Islamic i ntellectual tradition controlled by a stodgy clergy.

Sadly, hat is the view propounded by some of the leading Anglo-

American Orientalists.H. A. R. Gibb, aurhor of the classicModern

Trends n Islam (tg+Z), wrote that Afghani believed n a stategov-

ernedby sound Koranic orthodoxy 8 mixed with a modernisticout-

look, while Wilfred Cantwell Smith called Afghani the complete

Muslim of his time. In his andmark work, Islam in Modern History,

Smithwrote breathlessly bout Afghani'sallegedanti-imperialism:

He [Afghani] saw the Westas something rimarilv to be resisted,

becauset threatenedslamand he community. . .He was vigor-

ous n incitinghis Muslim hearerso develop eason nd echnology





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ATcHANI AND HIS FoLLowERs

Afghani spublic life began n r869, when he eft Afghanistan.Little is

known about his ife before hat. He claimed o have been nvolved n

Afghan politics in the r86os, and according o a leading scholarhe

did so while act ingasa Russian gent.r3 ut his ast ing mpactbeganonly in 1869, when he undertook a rernarkable, uarter-century-long

odyssey.

Even in brief outline, it is dizzying. He r vent irst to India, whose

British-led olonialauthoritieswelcomed he Islamicscholarwith hon-

ors,graciously scorting im aboarda government-owned essel n an

all-expenses-paidoyage o Suez.After visiting Cairo, he traveled o

Turkey,where his unorthodox religiousviews causeda furor among

the religiousestablishment,eading he Turkish government o expel

him unceremoniously. ack in Cairo, Afghani was adopted by the

Egyptian prime ministeq Riad Pasha, a notorious reactionary an denemyof the nascent ationalistmovement n Egypt.Riad Pasha er -

suadedAfghani to stay n L,gypt, nd allowedhim to take up residence

at Ca iro s 9oo-year-oldAl Azhar mosque,considered he center of

Islamic earningworldwide, where he receivedodging and a monthly

governmentstipend. t was Afghani s irst official post as an lslanric

scholar, nd the first (but not last) ime he would be on the payroll of

oneof the mperialpowersor their stand-ins. fghani spenteightyears

in the midst of Egypt s umultuouspolitics,up to the eveof England s

shellingof Alexandriaand the Britishoccupationof Egvpt.

Fetedby the British n India, transportedby l,ondon to Egypt,andsponsored y England s gentsn Cairo, Afghani patiently aid the cor-

nerstone f pan-Islam.But the vicissi tudes f Egyptiancolonialpolitics

wcre not alwayskind to him: as nationalism n Egypt gainedstrength

(until crushedby the British),Afghani s nfluence ecl ined. n r879,he

u as expelled rom Egypt,beginninga sojourn hat took him to India,

London,Paris wherehe stayed hreeyears),Russia where espent ou r

lears),Munich, and Iran. In Iran, the shahmadehim war ministerand

then prime minister,but Afghani and the shah soonparted ways, and

-\fghani beganagitatingagainst he Persianmonarch.Foreshadowing



Dpvtr 's GalrE

Ayatollah Khomeini's r97os revolurion, Afghani took refuge in amosqueand organized he clergy o supporthim, until he was arrestedand deported o Turkey. n r896, his followerswould assassinateheshah,ending hat king's fifty-year eign.Afghani died n tgctz.

Always t was Afghani'ssecrer ctivities hat sethim apart.In the r87os, in Egypt-while outwardly professing o be a pious

Muslim-Afghani frequented the lodges of the Anglo-Egyptian andFranco-EgyptianFreemason ocieties. e delved nto mysticism, nclud-ing sufism. on his expulsionfrom Egypt, the British consur-general,nan intelligence eport, said hat Afghani "was recentlyexpelled rom theFreemasons' odgeat cairo, of which he was a member,on accountofhis opendisbelief n a supremeBeing."According to Kedourie,Afghaniwas a member of the General ScotchLodge,lawhich was organizedaround the allegedmysreries f the Egyptianpyramids and the so-calledGrand Architect, the Fr.eemasons'onceptof a god. Many British andFrenchofficials n the nineteenth enturywerecaughtup in an obsessivefascinationwith the "orient," the pyramids,Masonic lore, and assortedcults of secretbrotherhoods,and used hese raternitiesas channelsofimperialpowe ofrencompetitively.

It was in the late r87os that Afghani met the man who wouldbecome his chief disciple, Mohammed Abduh. As a fixture at ArAzhar,cairo's historic mosque,Afghani gatheredaround himself aburgeoninggroup of acolytes, one more attached o him personallythan Abduh. Born in Egypt n tg4g,Abduh was raisedby a family ofdevout Islamic scholars, nd by the ageof ten he had memorized heKoran and was able o recite t in the precise, ingsong ashionvener-ated by the elders.Like Afghani, Abduh was alsodrawn to the mysrr-cal Sufi brotherhoods,with their rranscendenr iew of spiritual life.sufism, an ancient current within Islam, challengedmany orthodoxMuslim beliefs n favor of a meditative, ntrospectiveapproach to"oneness"with God, and the movementgave ise to many tartqa, orbrotherhoods, some organizedas tightly bound secrersocietiesandothers as hierarchicalmassmovementsspreadover vast geographicareas.

Abduh was rakenwith Afghani almost nstantry,and theydevelopeda bond.According o Kedourie, he biographerof Afghaniand Abduh,



in a

lrrested

the

il prous

andnclud-

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of

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Imperial Pan-lslant 27

WhenAbduh met Afghanihe was some wenty-two ears ld, an

ardentyoung man going hrougha crucialphase n his spiritual

life, and this no doubt madehim impressionable;ut Afghani

musthavehad a powerfulmagnetic ersonalityo haveerercised

over Abduh then and for many yearsafterwardso strange nd

tenacious n nfluence.he i nk betrveenhem s verymuch hatof

themaster nd disciplen some ecret. soteric ult.l5

For eight years,between 87r and 1879, the two men worked

closely ogether.They organizednot only in Egypt, but throughout

the region, and built a diverse collection of followers, some of

whom-including a group of mystical Christians from Syria who

were attracted to Afghani's offbeat message-founded the Young

Egypt secret ociety.Gradually,Afghani and Abduh amassed coterie

of devoted ollowers around Al Azhar. n r 878, Riad Pasha, heprime

minister and Afghani's protector, went out of his way to appoint

Abduh to a prominent post as a history teacherat Dar al-Ulum, anewly aunched slamicschool,and asprofessorof language nd iter-

ature at another institution. Eventually,when Riad Pasha'spower

ebbed,Afghani and Abduh left Egypt. In Cairo, nationalists n the

army were gaining momentum, led by the famous Egyptian hero,

Ahmad Arabi, a coloneland war minister,who led an uprisingagainst

the British role in Egypt. Arabi's movement*as crushed, he British

completed heir occupationof Egypt,and Arabi was exiled o Ceylon.

Abduh opposed he military's resistanceo the British, advocatinga

middle ground, decryingviolence,and trying to arrange a compro-

mise between he army's fierce nationalism and London's imperialdesigns.Abduh's chief acolyteand biographer,Rashid Rida, summed

it up: He was the opponentof the military revolution even hough he

was a directingspirit to the ntellectualmovement.He hated he revo-

lut ion and was opposed o its eaders. 16

There was a pattern here hat would endear ight-wing Islamists o

Western mperial strategistsor generations o come.The opposirion

of Afghani and Abduh to Egyptiannationalism,and their support or

vaguenotions of an Islamic state, oreshadowed he Muslim Brother-

hood'sopposit ion o President amalAbdelNasser n the r95os, he



Drvrr . 's Gavp

resistance f the Musiim Brotherhood-ledHamas in Palestineo the

nat ional ismof the Palest ine iberat ionorganizat ion,and count less

other instancesn which Islamistsopposednationalismand left-wing

movements uring the Cold tX/ar.

Afghani and Abduh did not confine hemselvesmerely o intellec-

tual theorizing and Islamic scholarship.When Afghani was finally

expelled rom Egypt, he and Abduh were accusedof organizing a

secret ocietycomposedof 'young thugs, ' apparentlya referenceo

unruly members f the Masonic odge hat Afghani ed,r7 oreshad-

owing the paramil i tary organizat ionestabl ished y the Muslim

Brotherhood n the r93os. LeavingEgypt,Afghani endorsed bduh

as his it slrccessor:I leaveyou ShaikhMohammed Abduh, and he s

sufficient or Egypt as a scholar. l8Abduh was remporarilyeriled to

his village n Egypt, though he woulcl later join Afghani in Parisand

then return to Egypt n triumph, with the full support of the represen-

tativesof Her Majesty's mperial officers.

Upon leaving Egypt in rtl79, Afghani wenr to Arabia, rhen to

India. Soon afterward Afghani, later joined by Abduh, migrated to

Par is,where he two men began heir most product ive ol laborat ion.

It was in Par is, n the mid-r88os, hat Afghani and Abduh buil t the

network hat would cont inueafter heirdeaths.n r88a. the wo men

beganpubfishinga weekly newspaper alled The IndissolubleBond.

Though it lastedonly eighteen ssues, he paper had great nfluence.

Exactly how it was financed s unclear, hough Kedouriesuggestsha t

it was supportedsecretlv y thc Frenchgovernment, o which Afghani

turned after his formal offer in India to becomea British agenrwas

rejected.re . C. Adams,who in r933 wrore he most complete iog-

raphy of Abduh, notes hat The IndissolubleBond was rhe organ of

a secret rganizat ion ear ing hc samename, oundedby [Afghani] ,composedof Muslims of India, Egypt, North Africa and Syria, he

purpose of which was to 'unite Muslims and arouse hem from the

sleepand acquaint hem rvith the dangers hreatening hem and guide

them to the way of meeting hesedangers. '20 fghani alsoorganized

a pan-Islamicsociety n Mecca that had as ts goal the creation of a

singlecaliphate o lead he entireMr-rslimworld.

WhetherAfghani and Abduh wereactingon their own initiatrveat



: . : rne o the

. t cOunt less

: ' , r e r-wing

: , rntel lec-

. ' . . i ' hnal ly

_-, . : r izrnga' : l i ' fC l ' lCe tO

-:oreshad-

' ' \ lus l im

..J Abduh

r. rnd he s

: ' . r r i led to

:r I ' r r is and

. - : 1'upreen-

:- t -1.hen to: : t lgri l ted to

..r .orirt ion.

- . : r l .ui l t the

i l - r ' t\\ 'O ITICII

. : t )r l r 'Bond.

, , tnt l l rence.

-, : -{.sts that

- i r. \ fgl-rani. - - lqentwas

:: . ' :1cte iog-: : ' . i ( ) rganof

' \ tghani l ,

:-.1 r 'r ia, he' : : : t f rom the

:::r rr-rdguide' . , ,

r t rganiZed

-: .cJt ion of a

:- ini t iat ive at

Imperial Pan-Islam L9

this time, or-more likely-in cooperationwith London or Paris, s

unclear. Immediately afterward, however, the French government

haltedpublication r>fThe IndissolubleBond, and Afghani and Abduh

traveled to London, ostensibly o discuss he crisis in the Sudan,

where they proposed he notion of a pan-Islamicalliancewith Great

Britain. The proposal was advanced n the midst of a tribal-religious

rebellion against the British in the Sudan, led by the charismaticMohammed Ahmad, a Sudanese heikh who proclaimedhimself he

Mahdi, or savior,and ed a puritanical slamic evolt. Two versionsof

Islarnism carne into conflict: the Mahdi's, a feral, angry revolt in

which nationalist sentimentswere in part disglrised y religious an-

guage,and Afghani's,an Anglophilic versionof Islamism hat viewed

the Mahdi asprimitive and uncouth. n r 885, the forcesof the Mahdi,

calling hernselveshe Helpersof the Prophet,defeated nd killed the

celebratedBritish general,CharlesGordon, and capturedKhartoum.

Afghani sought to maintain his pan-Islamiccredentialsby paying

lip service o the Mahdi, but-continuing to cultivate his Britishpatrons-he opposed he Sudaneseebelbehind he scenes.I fear,as

all wise men fear, hat the dissemination f this doctrine [mahdism]

and the increase f its votarieswill harm Englandand anyonehaving

rights n Egypt, wrote Afghani. n a separate iece,entitled England

on the Shoresof the Red Sea, Afghani argued hat the Mahdi was

attracting the support of the simpleiminded. He suggested n

anotherarticle hat the Mahdi's revolt could be met only by an oppos-

ing challengehat used slam as ts organizingprinciple. The strength

of an Islamic preaching, he wrote) cannot be met except by an

Islamic resolution,and none but Musl im men can strugglewith thispretender nd reducehim to his proper stature. 21

Afghani, in other words, proposed ighting fire with fire-Islam

with Islam.The British, apparently, id not take him up on this pro-

posal,a rejection hat angeredAfghani, houghAbduh remained aith-

ful to I-ondon. In going their separateways, Afghani went to Russia

while Abduh journeyed o Tunis, n North Africa. From there,Abduh

then traveled ncognito n a numberof other countries, trengthening

the organizationof the society hey had founded. 22 heir message,o

the masses t least,was oneof pan-Islam n its purest orm:





i : : t ]s of a l l

: ' . , . .The

.- : ' r t re. nd

: :1:sciences

-: - rnonal l

r : Is lamic

,in.l th e

: ^. ' regin-

: .--,: l i lority

- , : .Jbe taken

-. Q:eda com-

-- ' , r lut ionary

:r'new heir

' r : rJ the mes-

. 3 , t t t l ,about' . : : l \ Iusl imr

- \ : ,11n. entral

- : - . . : tLf\ . r Othef

. i .. 'ize T. E.

:.:.-.i.Bureau n

. ' . . .1\ ' ook up

: ,i ne\t'caliph-

i : r rk ish emPire

: ;isguiseduring\\'crescattered

-.: ior r .v i th ord

l r r 888, with

:, ok the first of

pokequietlY

- rrq l-ris ollected

-: :sclear hat . ' .

: :ree hinker,like

)mperial Pan-Islam 3r

his master. On returning o Cairo, Abduh forged a partnershipwith

Lord Cromer, who was the symbol of British imperialism in Egypt.

Born EvelynBaring,hewas a scionof theenormously owerful Baring

bankingclan of the City of London, and he had servedn the r87os as

the first British commissioner of the Egyptian public debt office and

then controller general. After London crushed Arabi's revolt, Baring

returned o Egypt n r883 as British agentand consulgeneral'and heservedas the virtual ruler of the country until r9o7. Abduh and

Cromer became riends and confidants, he militant Islamistand the

aristocratic British empire builder who became his patron. With

Cromer'sbacking,Abduh was named o leada committee o reorganize

Al Azhar, became the editor of Egypt's Official .lournal, and was

appointed o Egypt'sLegislative ouncil,wherehe became its leading

memberwhoseopinion on everyquestionwas heardwith respect.He

was chairmanof its most mportantcommittees. li

FinallS in 1899, two years after Afghani's death, Abduh was

named mufti of Egypt. As mufti, he was the suprementerpreterof

the canon aw of Islam (thesharia) or the whole country' and his fat-

was, or legal opinions, touching any matters that rvere referred to

him, were authoritative and final. 26 t also gave him significant

patronagepower, sincehe helped oversee he rich religiousendow-

ments, or waqfs.

As Abduh's influence n Egypt grew, Afghani spent a few years n

Russia,where he had gone to sulk after London rejectedhis offer to

help build a pan-Islamicalliance.According o Kedourie,Afghani, fo r

a t ime at least ,was a cl ientand subsequent lyn agentof Russia. r -

He reportedly triedto sell Moscow on the idea that he could help

sparka revolt n India, the very heart of the British Empire.According

to a British intelligence eport from r888, Afghani had impressed

upon someRussianofficials he prospectof a generaluprising n India

rvhenever he Russians hose o give the signal. 28 t seems hat th e

Russians idn't buy what Afghani was selling,and soon afterwardhe

i'u'as ack n London.

Afghani's London contacts r,l'ere iverse.He plunged into a world

rhat ncludeda swirlingmix of freethinkers,Masons,Gnostics'mystics,



Dr:vrr 's Gevn

sufisand other experimenrersn religion and the divine, blendedwithwriters' travelers, nd orientalists fascinatedwith the so-calledNearEast. t was a heady ime. London in the lare ninereenth enrurywasIike a gigantic neltingpot of religiousacrivism.Many British ntellec-tuals, and not a few irnperialists,were seizedwith a desire

o find asort of holy grail, a unified field theory of religiousbelief.Rerigi.ussvncretismwon followers amo'rg the elites,along with the idea thatperhaps omenew cult, somenew system f belief,would emerge, nethat could unite the empire'smany cultures.Experimental eligions,some of whose roots went back into the earry nineteenthcenrury,began o flourish-and Afghani, whose view of Isramwas temperedbv a deeper commirment ro mysticism, the Sufi brorherhoocls.Freemasonrgand philosophicalskepticism,was open o it all.

one of Afghani's most important contacts n London was therenowned British orientalist Edward Granville Browne. Br,wne,

acambridgeuniversity professor,s perhaps he godfatherof twentieth-century orientalism, especially n the area of persian and religi.usstudies,and he exertedenormous nfluencenot only over academicsbut pol icy makersas well , unt i l his death n 1926. As we shail see,E' G' Browne was a teacherand friend to the powerful, ncruding woleadingBritish intelligence perarives,Harry st. Joh' Bridger philby

and r. E. Lawrence, uring Britain's ntense ngagementn rheMiddreEast n world war I ' In the rggos and rB9os,Browne raveledwidelyin the Arab world, Turkey,and persia,and he speciarizedn cultlikemovements,Sufism, nd the alternativemystery eligionsspringingupin the Middle East.

Browne'sPersian eacherwas Mirza Mohamrned Baqir. ,.Having

wandered through half the world,', wrote Browne, ,.learned(andlearnedwell) half a dozen anguages, nd beensuccessively shiiteMuhammadan, a dervish,a Christian, an arheisr,a Jew, [Baqirl hadfinishedby elaboratinga religioussysrem f his own, which he called'Islamo-christianity.' 2eThe two men becameclose, and Browne,inspired by the works of an eccentricspecialist r the religionsofcentral Asia, Josephde Gobineau, delved nro movements ike theBaha'is,developinga lifelong ascinationwith that odd relieiouscurt.



.tt'cl rvith

. c. l Near

l - iL l l ' \ ' W2 S

. ' ' intel lec-

- : ' r hnd a

i ic l ig ious

: : 1c'lrha t" ' : .1

9e OI1e

: . r l tqtons,

. ' . .a l t turv,

. :-nrpered

-J l i loods,

. , .'- \\ ' .1She

- , ; , u 'ne,a

:..\ 'r .]t ieth-

-. :-c lrgious

- .h.r l i see,

,. .1ingwo

:r ' r Phi lby

: rc \ l idd le

. ..1n'idely

:r cult l ike

up

: ' .Having

(and

. r a Shiite

ir . iq ir l had

hecal led

. i ig ions of

l ike the

ul t .

ImperiLt lPan-lslam J1

Like Mirza Baqir's slamo-Christianity',he Baha'ispromoted an odd'

syncretistic aith based n Persia,with outposts n Haifa and else-

where. For years, he Baha' iswere viewed with suspicion n the

Middle East, with many conspiracv-minded olitical and religious

leadersaccusing hem of Masonic connections nd t ies to Br i t ish

intelligence. ut the Baha'iswere openlyAnglophiles,and after$7orld

\Var , oneof the Baha' is ' ounders, bdul Baha,was knightedby thegovernmentof GreatBritain.Browne became erhaps he chiefpubli-

cist in the West for the Baha'is,and he apparentlybelieved hat the

Baha'i movementwas destined o play a shaping ole in the future of

religion n the N{idcile ,ast.

Both Afghani and Abduh had multiple contacts with Browne,

Mirza Baqir , and the Baha' is.According o Kedour ie,Abduh and

Baqir debated heologyand the Koran in Parisduring the time when

Afghani and Abduh were publishing The Indissoluble Bond, and

Afghani sent he newspaper o the Baha'i movement's eaders n their

Middle L,ast eadquarters. nother personwho played animportant

role in furthering Afghani's ncreasing nvolvement n Persia-where

he would eventually become prime minister-was Malkam Khan'

Malkam Khan was the Persian ambassador o London for many

years, he son of the founder of the PersianSocietyof Freemasons.

Like Afghani, the Baha'is,and Baqir, Khan believed hat a reformed,

universalist religion of humanity" was the prerequisite or political

action in the Middle East, especiallyn Persia.Even though Afghani

never abandonedhis rhetorical support for a fundamentalist ersion

of Islam,under Khan's nfluenceAfghani formed the "Arab Masonic

society."30he chameleon- l ikefghani seemedo bel ieven combin-

ing a simplist icversionof Is lam for the "simple-minded,"or the

masses, ith a top-down, syncretistic ne-worldreligion above t.

Br:t Afghani'scareerended,paftially at least, n failr-rre.With

the

supportof Malkam Khan,he spentmostof his inalyears n Persia, s

war minister and prime minister,but his ideasdidn't succeedn win-

ning over either the shah or the Iranian elite. Tired of Afghani's

appeals o Iran's mullahs, he shah acted."The Shah inally violated

the sanctuaryof the mosqueand had Jamal arrested,although on a



)+ Dr,vrr 's Gal, . r .

sick bedat the time, and conveyed o the Turkish border. 31 e would

bounceback and forth betweenTurkey,Afghanistan,and Persiadur-

ing the r89os, attractingr Kedour ie ays, the affention... of secu-

rity and intelligence epartments. 32 t the very end of his life, the

Britishbailedhim out oncemore. In r895 Afghani, then at Istanbul,

some two years before his death finding himself in Sultan Abdul

Hamid's bad books,and hreatened ith extradition o Persiawherehe

was wanted or subversion, pplied o the BritishAmbassador or pro-

tection as an Afghan subject. -r3he British consulate aveAfghani a

pass, llowinghim to leave he sultan's erritory.He eventually eturned

to Turkev,where he tinerantpan-Islamist ied of cancer n r 897.E. G.

Browne ensured hat Afghani's amewould last ong beyondhis death

by lionizinghim in his rgro classic be PersianReuolution.

But Lord Cromer,ever he practical mperialist,wrote perhaps he

ultimate epitaph for Afghani, Abduh,and the

firsr generation of

Islamic revivalists. They were much too tainted with heterodoxy o

carry far along with the conservativeMoslems. Nor were they suffi,

ciently Europeanizedo win the mimicsof Europeanways.They were

neithergood enoughMoslems,nor good enoughEuropeans. Like a

scientist losing he books on an experimenr hat failed,Lord Cromer

concluded hat the pan-Islamof Afghani and Abduh neededa major

revision. ts Masonic-tinged, niversalistmodernismdidn't blend well

with a call to return to seventh-centuryslamic purism, and so it had

failed to win the allegianceof either the clergy or the modernrzers.

Eventually,Afghani's deas,preserved y the journalist Rashid Rida,

who founded The Ligbthowse, he publicarion rhar brought Afghani

and Abduh's ideas to the Egyptian Salafiyya and the Mus-

lim Brotherhood,would find more fertile soil. In the meantime, he

British would turn to a much lessambiguousversionof Islamist adi-

calism n the next phaseof their colonial policy in the Middle East:

SaudiArabian'$Tahhabism.

I



dur-

the

hepro-

a

ne d

F". .

.lerrth

i the

Of

sl l f f i -\ \ 'ere

a

'ell

r rhad

Rida,

- \ lus-

r i ld i -

F-ast:

ImpeidlPan-lslam i 5

AeouLLAH PHITBY's BRoTHERHooD

From 1899 through the aftermath of \7orld'V7ar I, Great Britain

embarkedon one of the most remarkable mperial gambitsevercon-

ceived.The Ottoman Empire, the nineteenth entury's sick man of

Europe," was inally n its death hroes.The riseof the mperialnavies,

railroads, and finally the developmentof the internal combustion

engine and the automobile created an insatiable demand for oil.

Despite he growth of Texas,Romania,and Baku ascenters f oil pro-

duction, t had also begun o dawn on i mperial strategistshat Persia,

Iraq, and Arabia had untold petroleum wealth. Hard-headed mpe-

rialists saw southwestAsia as a giganticchessboard, and they were

playing or keeps.London'sgambit was to make a play for the loyalty

of the world's Muslims, not by appealing to the Islamic world's

enlightened,modernizingMuslim elitebut to its traditionalist-minded

masses nd autocrats.While fending off the French n the Middle East, he British had

simultaneously o dealwith three other powers.The Russians, eem-

ing to press nexorably down from the north, were one concern.The

Germans,whoseglobal power was expandingunder the Kaiser,were

fast building ties o Turkey while making plans o constructa rail Iine

from Berlin o Baghdad.And the Turks,whose'empire'sife force was

ebbing, still had an ace in the hole, namely, the existenceof a

caliphate n Istanbul that, nominally at least, could cl aim the alle-

gianceof orthodox SunniMuslims everywhere.

Londonwas firmly in control of India (including,of course,what

is now Muslim Pakistan),and thanks to Lord Cromer the British had

lockedup Egypt and the SuezCanal as heir lifeline o India. They had

significant,evendominant influence n Afghanistanand Persia.And

they had important surrounding real estate' from Cyprus to East

Africa to Aden that could be used o bring power to bear n the Per-

sian Gulf. For their gambit to seize ontrol of Iraq and Arabia, they

neededa force to challengeTurkey'scontrol of that vas t expanseof

sand-coverederritorl'.

The first step in accomplishing hat feat was the forging of an



J6 Dl l ' I t- 's Gel tP

alliance or the English hrone wrth the future king of SaudiArabia-

and with the long-establishedwahhabi slamicmovement.To under-

stand how the British-Saudialliancedeveloped'we must first take a

stcpheck nto the cighreenth entt lrv 'when rhe entente etween he

Al Saud, he future royalfamily, and the Al Shaikh, he Wahhabi am -

ily of the Islamists,was first cemented'

In the middle of the eighteenthcentury' an itinerant Muslim

preacher, ort of an Arabian Elmer Gantry, begancrisscrossinghe

northern reachesof the peninsula and the Fertile Crescent' rom

Meccaand Medina to the al-HasaOasis n the east o Basra'Baghdad'

and Damascus.Mohammad ibn Abdul \ (ahhab, born in r7o3) was

not a city dweller,and he didn't bother with the kind of learning ha t

occurred in the Arab world's intellectual centers' Spreading the

Islamicversionof fire and brimstone,Abdul \wahhab hundered ha t

the Nluslims nee.dedo purge themselves f everything hat had been

learnedsince he daysof the Propheta thousandyearsbefore' t was a

revivalistmovement n the classic ense'with eager ollowerspacking

tents hrown up by Abdul'Wahhab'sorganizers'

Abdulwahhab,smost lmportantconvertwasthefounderof theAl

Sauddynastv,Mohammed ibn Saud' bn Saudapparentlysaw himself

as an eighteenth-century ersion of the Prophet Mohammed' con-

quering ands or Islam and imposing his faith on the conquered'To

reinforce heir message, bdul'Wahhab, bn Saud'and their followers

had the unfortunatehabit of slaughtering nyonewho disagreed it h

them and demolishing heir cities, heir mosques, nd their shrines'

Abdul wahhab was called the Teacher, or al-sbaikh n Arabic,

and from then on the descendants f the Abdul wahhab clan were

called he Al shaikh.3a he alliancebetween he Al saud and the AI

Shaikh families evolved nto the saudi state n the rgzos.It wasn't

without its ups.and downs, however; from the rToos through the

r9zos, the Al Saud epeatedlyoundedstateshat would' in turn' be

swept awav either by the more worldly, and less anatical' Ottomans

and their all ies n Egypt,or by rival Arabian tribes'

In standardaccounrs f the riseof thesrahhabis,it is usuallysaid,

often with respect, hat the \Tahhabiswere reformersand moderniz-

ers. or that they united the Arabian Peninsulaaround the idea of



lhe

th e

\ \ 'as

t l lat

the

thl t

COn-

1.TO

vith

\vere

the

be

said,

f

Imperial Pan-Islant J7

tauhid, or monotheism. (The term rXlahhabismis considered ome-

what insultingby its adherents,who prefer he term IJnitarians, rom

unity of God. )35And Wahhab s often described sa thinker,whose

philosophical work and interpretation of the Koran were ground-

breaking. Not so. Hamid Algar, aurhor of lwahhabism:A critical

Essay, otes that the Arabian desertand Abdul Wahhab'sso-called

theology had something n common. lts topographicalbarrenness

seemsalways to have been reflected n its intellectualhistory, he

wrires.36n discussing what might charitably be called he scholarly

output of Muhammad b. Abd al-Sfahhab, Algar says hat his works

are simplisticand superficial, omprisedmostly of reprinted collec-

tions of the Prophet's ayings nd containing ittle or no elucidation

or commentary. Even the custodiansof'Wahhabism,notes Algar

wryly, are embarrassed y the sl ightness f [his] opus. t- A great

thinker he was not.

But Abdul \Tahhab was a master at hurling polemicai thunder-

bolts at moderateMuslims, accusinghem

ofabandoning slam, of

apostasy, f heresies, nd worse.Joining forceswith the Al Sar-rd,he

\Tahhabisassembled mighty army of followers,who spentcenturies

wreaking havoc acrossArab territory. They were, in t he words of a

nineteenth-century nglishwriter, notorious or preferring slaughter

to booty in their conquests.38 he slaughter never ended. In the

r7oos, the Saud-\il7ahhabilliancebegana campaign of killing and

plunder all acrossArabia, first in central Arabia, then in Asir in

southernArabia and parts of Yemen, and finally in Riyadh and the

Hrjaz.3en r8oz they raided he Shiiteholy citl' of Karbala in what is

now Iraq, kil l ing mostof the city'spopr-rlation, estroying he dome

over the grave of a founder of Shiism, and looting property,

weapons,clothing, carpets,gold, silver, and] preciouscopiesof the

Quran. 40 n fact,Wahhabismwould be weirdly marked by a signa-

ture activity of dome demolition. 4l Domes n Mecca, oo, would be

destroyed n the early part of the nineteenth entury. It is a practice

that continues oday. n the former Yugoslavia,SaudiArabia would

demand adicalchanges n Islamicsites. Saudi aid agencies, wrote

John Esposito, have beenresponsible or the destructionor recon-

struction of many historic mosques, ibraries, Quran schools,an d





hhabi

CltI

was

of

grew

pro-

wah-

n

' . | - '

he

and i t

ected

n

or l in

qreat-

Slte.

in a

.

their

Imperial Pan-lsldm 39

burgeoning oil interests n southern Persia, Iraq, and the Gulf.

William Shakespear,he felicitously named British officer who was

appointed political agent n Kuwait, became he first of several eg-

endary British liaisor-rso the Al Saud,and he forged the first formal

t reatybetweenEnglandand SaudiArabia,which was signed n r9r5.

Punctuatinghis accomplishment, hakespear ied in battle alongside

the Al Saud n a desertconfrontation wrth the rival Al Rashid ribe.But the treaty he designedbound London and Arabia, years before

SaudiArabia was a country. It formally recognized bn Saud as the

independent uler of the Neydand its Dependenciesnder Britishpro-

tection. n return, Ibn Sau dundertook o follow British advice. 47

With the outbreakof war tn r9r4, Great Br i tain saw a golden

opportunity to oust Turkey from Arabia. As the Ottoman Empire

wobbled, two British teams backed two drstinct-and opposing-

Arab players n the barren,desertstretches f the Arabian peninsula.

The first team was led by Harry St.John Bridger Philbg a British

operativewell schooled n thepolitical

utility of religious belief bynone other than E. G. Browne. Scion of a modestly distinguished

British family with ties to Ceylon and India, Philby was a product of

England'smost prestigious chools, ncluding Testminster, here he

was a Queen'sScholar,and Trinity College, Cambridge, where he

became disciple f E. G. Browne's.aEt the dawn of the wentiethcen-

tury, Cambridgewas a training ground for empire builders,and he

rubbed elbows herewith England's and he world's) bestand bright-

est. Grounded n the ties betweenchurch and state n England,and

with an intimate familiarity with the Anglican establishment, hilby,

though an atheist, xhibrted strongappreciation f religion's nfluence

on politics,and he described eligiousbeliefas of all conv entions he

greatest , . . .so strong n its resistanceo all opposit ion. 4e t Cam-

bridgehe studiedphilosophy,oriental anguages, nd Indian law, and

then oined he Indian Civil Service. hilby-who would later undergo

a sham conversion o Islam, adopting the name Abdullah -would

carry Browne's essonswith him to India, where he servedas a minor

functionary,and then to Arabia, where he succeeded hakespear s

GreatBr itain's iaison o Ibn Saud.

While Philby's eam, Britain's India Office, backed the Al Saud,



DpvIl 's Ger,tr

their friendly rivalswere based n Cairo at the Arab Bureau'a branch

of British intelligence,which sponsored he famous T. E. Lawrence

( of Arabia ) .The Arab Bureaubacked heShar ifof Mecca,Hussein,

head of the Hashemite dynasty,and his sons,Abdullah and Faisal.

They were the rulersof the Hijaz,the province n westernArabia that

included Mecca and Medina. The Al Saud, meanwhile, controlled

most of central Arabia's Neid from Riyadh, which is now the Saudi

capital. n the end, of course, he Al Saudwould conquerArabia and

name the counrry after their family. The Hashemiresons,Abdullah

and Faisal,having ost to the Saudis,would be installed ike replace-

ment parts as kings of two other nationswhose borderswere drawn

up by Winston Churchill:Abdullah asking of Transjordan,and Faisal

as king of lraq.

In both cases-the Al Saud and the Hashemites-the British

sought to mobilize {slam. The Hashemitesboasted hat their family

was directlydescendedrom that of the ProphetMohammed, a claim

madeby any number of s currilouswould-be rulers n the pastcentury.

The British, naturally,saw the Hashemites spotential claimants o a

new, and pro-British, caliphate based n Mecca. The Al Saud,pro-

pelled by the warriors of \Tahhabism, were a formidable Islamic

strike orce hat, the British believed,would helpLondon gain control

of the westernshores f the PersianGulf.

Initially,around t9t6,it seemedhat the Hashemites ad the upper

hand. Because f their position atop Mecca and Medina, the British

believed hat Husseinand his sonscould rally Muslims from North

Africa to India to the Britishcause. t the time, he totteringOttomans

controlled a decrepitcaliphate,which nominally exercised way over

religiousMuslims worldwide. But the Ottomanswere besieged n all

sides, nd the British took the lead rying to use slamic oyaltiesas a

forceagainst he Turks. t was a policy cookedup by London'sMiddle

East team: Lord Curzon, the ultraimperialist foreign secretaryand

former governorof India; the aristocraticRobert Cecil,and his cousin,

Arthur Lord Balfour,who with RothschildbackingpromisedPalestine

to the Jews;Mark Sykes, he duplicitouschief of the ForeignOffice's

Middle Eastsect ion; nd David George D.G. )Hogarth, the head

4o



e

n,

sh

a

f

rtll

2

lnryeridl Pan-lslam - 4l

of the Arab Bureau, the author of The Penetration of Arabia, and an

archaeologist, Orientalist, and keeper of the Ashmolean Museum at

Oxford. Churchil l, Arnold Toynbee, and other leading lights of

Br i t ish imper ia l ism joined in. Out l ining the pol icy, Lawrence said:

If the Sultan of Turkev were to disapp ear, hen the Caliphate by

commonconsentof lslam ,vould all to the family of the prophet,

the present epresenrarive f which is Hussein, he Sharifof Mecca.

Hussein sactivit iesseembeneficial o us, because t marcheswith

our immediate aims, the breakup of the Islamic bloc and the dis-

ruption of the Ottoman Empire, and because he stateshe would

setup would be as harmless o ourselves s Turkey rvas. f properly

handled the Arab States r,vould remain in a state of polit ical

mosaic,a t isslleof jealousprincipalit ies ncapableof cohesion,an d

yet always ready o c ombine againstan outside orce.

The ideaseemed impleenough.The Hashemiteswould srage n anri-

Ottoman revolt, complete with swashbuckling, omantic imagesofArabs led by Lawrence charging across he sand to liberate them-

selvesrom Turkish rule. Behind he scenes, ritain would try to forge

an alliance between he Hashemitesand the Zionists, with the goal

of installing a pro-British Jewish state in Palestine,and with th e

Hashemites uling present-daySyria,Lebanon, raq, Jordan, and th e

Hijaz along Arabia s west coast. Uniting it all would be a Mecca-

based,and Brit ish-control led, rab cal iphate.Egypt and Sudan,of

course,would remain n the British camp, oo.

Philbn meanwhile,was working the easrern lank. Sir PercyCox,

the political representative f the India Office n the PersianGulf, wasthe man in chargeof England s ffort to securehe preciousoil rerrito-

ries,whosepotentialwas ust beginning o emerge.PhilbX then a jun-

ior officer,worked with Cox and with the legendaryexplorer and

superspy,GertrudeBell,whose ntimate knowledgeof Arabian tribal

lore and the genealogies f its families,alongwith her experr inguistic

abilit ies,made her an essentialmemberof the team. Cox dispatched

Philby to meet Ibn Saud n r9t6. While London was mobilizing the

Meccansagainst he Turks in westernArabia, Philby was assignedo



4z DEvrr- 's Genp

marshal he Al Saudagainstanotherwarlord clan, he Al Rashid,who

had the misfortune o ally itselfwith the Turks n easternArabia.

Beginning n January r9r7, Ibn Saud was put on a f5,ooo

monthly retainer, nd Philby was thebagman.50 ff and on after hat,

Philby would serve as Ibn Saud'sBritish handler,and met him on

dozensof occasions. n 1919, he escorted bn Saud's ourteen-year-

old son, the future King Faisa lof SaudiArabia, on a tour of London

that included visits to Philby's old Pied Piper,E. G. Browne, and to

\Tilfred ScawenBlunt, perhaps England's eading advocateof pro-

Britishpan-Islam.

Britain's mpe rial exercisen redrawing he map of the Middle East

and building a new caliphate oundered,however.Great Britain, of

course, emained he dominant player in the region by virtue of its

sheer mperial power. But the Arab-Zronist deal didn't quite work,

and lraq proved roublesome, nd deadly, or British troops. Further-

more, the French insistedon booting the British out of Syria an d

Lebanon, and the Bolsheviks ook over Russia and revealeddetails

about secretAnglo-French understandings hat proved exceedingly

embarrassing o London. And, though London placed most of its

chipson Hussein'sHashemites,IbnSaud'segionsswept hrough Ara-

bia, conqu ering all before them-including Hussein'smini-realm in

the Hijaz . Gertrude Bell, speakingof Iraq but in a manner hat could

have referred o Britain's entire Middle East policy, said, 'We have

made an immense ailure here. -51

Philbv,still in British service,maintainedhis connection o the Al

Saud. ndeed,he seemed lmost o worship the uncouth Ibn Saudand

his Bedouin hugs, he Ikhwan:

The Arab s a democrat wrotePhilby],and hegreatest ndmost

powerfulArab ruler of the present ay s proof of it. Ibn Saud s

no more thanprimus nter pares;his strength ies n the fact that

he has or twentyyears ccuratelynterpretedhe aspirations nd

will of his people.52

Though Phi lby oftenposturedas an advocateof democracyand Arab

republicanism, e neverwavered rom supporting he brutal Al Saud

t- r- .

-\

1: J.

. . ' : :



who

-r -,ra.l- ^^ ^-1 l ) ruuu

'- .i .- . tL^+,1 t L \ r tr ta t,

: ' - t him on

_.: : -en-year-

: r f London, : 'e and to

pro-

of

: rue of i ts

- , r i te \vork,

: . . Further-

: ivr i t r and

detai ls: rccedingly

t tL)St of i ts

r r r ( Ih Arr-" t- '_^_*

: - . : - realmn

: ir . r t ould

"\ \e have

:r ro the Al

S.rud nd

J rltost

i lLrd is

-...rr ha t

, : ls rnd

end Arab

: : . r lAl Saud

lmperial Pan-Islam +)

dynasty.'t3 vensomeof Britain'smost hard-core mperialists, nclud-

ing D. G. Hogarth, saw the Al Saud,and in particular their'vfahhabi

warriors, the Ikhwan, as rather unsavory. "To men [like Hogarth]

with experienceof Islam in India, Egypt, Syria, Turkey and the

Htjaz, the proselytizing of Ibn Saud's khwan was a menace,and\x/ahhabisma fanaticalcreedunsuited o most of the Islamicworld."

wrote Philby'sbiographer.taIn the rgzos conquest of Arabia, philby's ,,democrats,"

the Al

Saud, eft 4oo,ooo dead and wounded,carriedout 4o,ooo public exe-

cutions, and ordered, under its strict interpretation of Islamic law,

35o'ooo amputat ions. t iThe scorched-earth at t les by which the

Ikhwan conqueredArabia for the Al saud gaveBritain an unbroken

chain of vassalstatesand colonies rom the Mediterranean o India.

Yet evenas the Saudistatewas beingestablished,he bloody Ikhwan

were seenby some n London, and by someArabs, as a double-edged

sword. A Lebanese riend of Ibn saud's described he Ikhwan thus:

"Today a sword n the hand of the prince,a dagger n his back tomor-row."-56Hussein, the British-backedSharif of Mecca, pleadedwith

London to force bn Saud o dismantle he Ikhwan. In a missive o the

British Agent in Jeddah n r9r8, Husseinwrore: "whar concernsme

aboveeverythingelse . . is that H.M.G. shouldcompel [Ibn Saud] o

abolishand disperse hat hecalls he khwan-the political society n

the cloak of religion. The Britishcoolly refused.5T

Ibn Saud ried to maintain that the Ikhwan were an independent

force,but the British knew otherwise,of course. He doesnot want it

to be known that he himself s at the bottom of the whole thing, and s

fostering and guiding the movement for his own ends," cabled aBritish official n t9zo. Yet, other, ar lesswell informed Br:itishoffi-

cials warned, rather stupidly it would now seem. hat the Ikhwan

were Bolshevik-inspired58

Theoretically,at least, bn saud still had the option of creatinga

secularstate,one in which fundamentalist slam would not have an

official part. But he was propelled by the momenrum of his alliance

with the \Tahhabisand with the Ikhwan, asrhe shrewd British politi-

cal officer PercyCox realized:



Drvr l 's Ger,tr

In late r9r5 or ear ly 9r6 Ibn Saud ound hat Ikhwanismwas

definitely aining ontrolof affairs n Najd.He saw hat hehad o

makeoneof two decisions:ither o bea temporal ulerand crush

Ikhwanism,or to become he spiritualhead of this new'Wah-

habism. . . In the end he was compelledo accept ts doctnnes

and becomets eader,esthe shouldgo underhimself.5e

The Islamic fundamentalistmovement hat Ibn Saudrode to power

was essentialo the origin of SaudiArabia. He util ized slam to break

down tribal loyaltiesand replace hose oyaltieswith adherenceo the

cult. In a desert, ribal society,where the family was an individual's

security, dentity,and legitimacy, he renunciationof all this was no

light matter, wrote John S. Habib. It underscored he degree o

which Ibn Saudwas able o su bstitute he brotherhoodof Islam domi-

ciled n the hiira60 or the protection,security, nd identity which they

surrenderedwhen they eft the tribe. 61

When the dust had clearedafter'World'War , and after he varrousimperial conferenceshat established he boundariesof the Middle

East's states, the Ottoman Empire had been dismantled, Britain

reignedsupreme n the region, and Ibn Saud controlled the bulk of

Arabia. According o Philby, bn Saud's khwan numberedmore than

5o,ooo by the r9zos.6z o the west, n the Hijaz, the Hashemites till

ruled, but their time was running out. In 1924, the new Turkish gov-

ernment under the modernizing Mustafa Kemal Ataturk disdained

the backwardness f official Islam and shocked onservativeMuslims

worldwide by peremptorily abolishing the caliphate. Hussein, the

Anglophile Sharif of Mecca, tried to capitalizeon Ataturk's acrion.Perhaps ememberingT. E. Lawrence'sgrand design,Hussein pro-

claimedhimselfcaliph, but unfortunately or him, no o ne was listen-

ing. The British had essentially bandonedHussein by then, having

chosen o ride with Ibn Saud and another up-and-comingMuslim

fanatic, Hajj Amin al-Husseini, he mufti of Jerusalem. Philby,

wrote Monroe, returning from Syria in this moment of Muslim

uncertainty,entered n his diary that Hussein'spower in Arabia was

confined o the Hijaz coast,and that his gestureabout the caliphate

was meaningless hen set against he bright light of Ibn Saud'sstar

11

-u::





DEvtt- 's Getrao

Bedouinwho were only too eager o enforce he literal prescriptions

of prayer,and the closingof shopsduring prayer ime, in addition to

the prohibition o f smoking and other 'immoral' habits. 55 t still

CXIStS,

For the British, the emergence f the stateof Saudi Arabia gave

London a foothold at the very heart of Islam, n Mecca and Medina.

For the more pfagmaticamongBritain's mperial strategists,t seemedthat Ibn Saud's rmed orcesproved hemselveso be of greaterworth

than the mystic-theological urrentsadvancedby Afghani and Abduh

and their secret societies.And clearlS London's experiment with

Afghani and Abduh wasnot completelysuccessful. fghani, n partic-

ular, proved to be an elusive mperial asset, nd while his vision of a

pan-Islamic alliance might have appearedattractive to the British

elite, t failed o capture he imaginationof the masses nd it met with

determinedopposition rom rulers n Turkey and Persia.

The creationof the Saudistateby the British gave slamisma base

out of which it would operate or decadeso come'For England,and

then for the United States,SaudiArabia would serveas an anchor or

imperialambitions hroughout he twentiethcentury.Yet'Wahhabism,

for all its power, was still primarily a religious,not political, force. It

could win the devoutallegiance f Saudis, nd it could be proselytized

to Sunnis ar andwide. But n the modernsense,ruepolitical slamhad

not yet emerged.Missing was a mass-basedslamist political force

that could hold its own against he new century'smost attractive anti-

imperialist ideologies,communism and nationalism. Yet the seeds

planted by Afghani and Abduh were about to sprout. r'X/ateredand

carefully tendedby Saudi Arabia's \Tahhabis and the British intelli-

genceservice)a new Islamist force was about to ariseon soil sown by

Abduh. For the first time, a true grassroots slamic fundamentalist

party would begin n a city on the SuezCanal,not far from SaudiAra-

bia: smailia,Egypt.







. -stvle

\ fohrni'_- ' ' - - '

England's Brotbers 10

trying to balance he king, the tribal leaders, he emergingmiddleclasses,he armg and theclergy n eachof these tates, lwayswith aneye toward preservingBritish power. sometimes he king would gettoo srrong,and form an alliancewith the army; n that case he Britishwould try to break he allianceof king and generals y favoring ribalchieftains nstead.somerimes, f the tribes or ethnic groups gor roo

uppitS the Britishwould deputize he army to crush hem.The Islamic ight emer:gedmid this shiftingbalance. t provideda

vital counterweight o England'schief nemeses:he nationalistsan dthe secular eft.

Is lel , . 's ANTI-NATtoNALrsrs

The Muslim Brotherhood, ounded n .'gzg by Hassanal-Banna,wasthe direct outgrowth of the pan-Islamicmovemenr of Afghani and

Abduh. The transmissionbelt for that influencewas Rashid Rida, aSyrian who had arrived in Egypt in fi97. Rashid Rida, who ha dreceiveda religiouseducation n Tripoli, in what is now Lebanon'sSunni stronghold, had been an avid follower of The IndissolubleBond, Afghani and Abduh'sweekly,and when he arrived n cairo hesought out Abduh, rhe soon-to-bemufti of Egypt, and becamehi schief acolyte. In 1898, Rashid Rida founded the publication TbeLighthouse,l a weekly eight-page newspaper that was explicitlyaimed at carrying on the tradition of the pan-IslamicBond. UnlikeAfghani and Abduh, who operated hrough secretsocieries, nder-

ground groups, and the Masonic movemenr,Rashid Rida advocatedthe establishment f an aboveground Islamic Society, with its head-quartersat Meccaand with branchesn everyMuslim country.2

Though Rashid Rida never managed to found the society her.vanted-that would awair Hassanal-Banna-he created he SocietyofPropaganda nd Guidance san early orerunnerof theMuslim Broth-crhood.At the time,Abduh enjoyed he patronage f Lord cromer, heabsolute uler of Egypt at the rurn of the century,and the work ofRashid Rida could not have occurredwithout British acquiescence.

,nrpler .

. : r Br i t -pol i t i -

' . 'c-fSe n

S tlSe

, rnd ts

and

. lrCh, t

, r 'er heSer-

rr-hen

rs alscr

Tl e

kings

lTl l l I l -

I raq,l l lOi l i l f-

\vere

' l lCh lf

to take

r 94 5



50 . Dsvrr- 's Gaur.

According o C. C. Adams, The Ligbthouseconsisrenrly ttacked he

nascentnationalistmovement n Egypt, which was secular n nature,

and the nationalistshit back at R ashid Rjda. The Lishthouse also

welcomed he growth of Saudipower:

A new star of hope has appeared ith the rise of the Wahhabi

dynasty f Ibn Saud n Arabia.The Government f Ibn Saud s he

greatestMuslim power in the world today,since he fall of the

Ottomandynastyand the transformation f the Government f

the Turks nto a government ithout religion,and it is the only

governmenthat will giveaid to the Sunnah nd repudiate arm-

ful innovations nd anti-relieionism.3

Nationalists, n both Egypt and T urkey, were deemed atheistsan d

infidels by RashidRida.a

The Societyof Propaganda nd Guidance,and its related nstituteof Propagandaand Guidance,were establishedn Cairo with financ-

ing from wealthy Arabs from India. Irs enrollees ncluded studenrs

from as far away as Malaysia, Indonesia, ndia, Central Asia, and

EastAfrica. They formed a secondwave of the internationalcadre or

an Islamistmovement,after the secret ocietiesied to The Indissolu-

ble Bond. Prominent Egyptian sheikhs and orher religious leaders

formed what came o be known as the Lighthouse Party, made up

of followers of Abduh and Rashid Rida collectedaround Al Azhar

and including various leadersof the mysrical Sufi brotherhoods. n

opposition to the new NarionalistPartS they helpedestablisna sec-

ond Egyptian political formation called the PeoplesParty, which

included followers of Abduh and Rash id Rida. The PeoplesParty,

reputedlycreatedwith British supporr, openly supported he British

occupation of Egypt, and it won plaudits from Lord Cromer, who

describedts membersas a small but increasing umber of Egyptians

of whom comparatively ittle is heard. In his 19o6 Annual Report,

Lord Cromer wrote: The main hope of EgyptianNationalism, n the

only true and practicable ense f the word, lies, n my opinion, with

thosewho belong o this party. 5

RashidRida'schief acolytewas Hassanal-Banna.

It is mpossible o overestimarehe importanceand legacyof Hassan



l l - .ealso

the

Of

rtr l lv

and

h hnanc-

\ t l ldentsand

;lclre for1l

le irders

\l Azhar

n

a sec-

Party,

wh o

Report ,

with

)tHassan

England'sBrotbers . 5r

al-Banna. The twenty-first-centuryWar on Terrorism is a war against

the offspring of Bannaand his Brothers.They show up everywhere-in

the attorney general'soffice in Sudan,on Afghanistan'sbattlefields, n

Hama in Syria,atop SaudiArabia'suniversities,n bomb-making acto-

ries n Gaza,asministers n thegovernment f Jordan, n poshbanking

centers n the Gulf sheikhdoms, nd in the post-SaddamHusseinsov-

ernment of Iraq .To get the Muslim Brotherhood off the ground, the SuezCanal

Company helpedBannabuild the mosque n Ismailia hat would serve

as its headquartersand base of operations, according to Richard

Mitchell's The Societyof tbe Muslim Brothers.6The fact that Banna

created he organization n Ismailia s tselfsignificant. smailia, oday

a city of zoo,ooo at the northern end of the canal, was founded in

r863 by Ferdinandde Lesseps,he canal'sbuilder.For England, he

SuezCanal was the indispensableoute to its prize possession,ndia,

and in t9z8 the sleepybackwater own happened o housenot only

the company'sofficesbut a major British military basebuilt duringWorld'War I. It was also, n the r9zos, a centerof pro-British senti,

ment in Egypt.

Mitchell reports that Banna was closely associatedwith Rashid

Rida.7Banna's arher,an influentialscholar,was a studentof Abduh's,

and B anna himselfavidly readThe Lighthouseas a young man, larer

calling Rashid Rida one of the greatest nfluences n the serviceof

Islam in Egypt. 8 The relationship between Afghani, Abduh, and

RashidRida was seenby Banna as a kind of Blessed rinit,v.Accord-

ing to Mitchell: Afghani was seen [by Banna] as the 'caller' or

'announcer'and Rida as he archivist'or'historian.' . . . Afghani seesthe problemsand warns, Abduh teaches nd thinks ('a well-meaning

shaykh who inspired reforms in the Azhar'), and Rida wrires and

records. eThe Lightbousehalted publication soon after the death of

Rashid Rida in 1935, but in 1939 Banna revived t in tribute to his

mentor.lo

The political program of the earlyMuslim Brotherhoodwas hardly

complex.Banna nsisted hat Muslims should erurnro the simpledays

that prevailed during the era of the Prophet Muhammad and his

immediate successors,ejectingmodern scholarly nterpretationsof



5z DF.r ,r r . 's Cievr .

Islamic a w and what he saw as he \Testernizedmpurity of thought

that had started o beguileMuslims, especially outh. For Banna, he

Koran was enough. Confronted bv the Egyptiannationalistsof the

Ir9zos]-who demanded ndependence,he departureof the British,

and a democratic onstitution-the Brothers espondedwith a sloganthat is still current n the Islamistmovement: The Koran is our constl-

tution. '1r Indeed, he Koran and the Sunna(the tradition associated

with the prophet'sway of life) were enough to guide society,and

Islamic law (sharia)could replaceman-made,secular urisprudence.

Yet Banna had a very weakly developed onceptof an Islamic state,

whose elaboration would await his heirs: Sayyid Qutb, Pakistan's

Abul-Ala Mawdudi, Khomeini,et al. According o Mitchell, or Banna:

The politicalstructure f the lsl amic statewas to be bound by

three r inciples:r) theQuran s he undamentalonst i tut ion;z)

government perates n the concept f consultation shurdl;3)the executiveuler s boundby the eachings f Islamand hewill

of thepeople.r2

Islam, for Banna,was an all-encompassing,ultlike systemof belief.

Referring o the Salafiyya,he back-to-the-basicsurists,and the Sufis,

the mystical,Freemason-like ovementwithin lslirm,Bannadescribed

his movement hus: a Salafiyvamessage, Sunniway, a Sufi ruth, a

political organization, n athleticgroup, a culturai-educational nion,

an economic ompany, nd a social dea. l

In 1932,Bannamoved o Cairoandestabl ishedheMuslim Broth-

erhood in the Egyptian capital. For the next twenty years,until the

revolut ionof 1952, he Brotherhoodwould serve s an anchorof the

Egyptian ight, allied o the palace, o the right wing of the nationalist

\fafd Party, and to conservativeofficers n the Egyptian army. In

1933, Banna convened he organization 's irst national conference,

which took place n Cairo. Soonafterward, youth clubs and athletic

associationsied to the Muslim Brotherhoodbegan o form paramili-

tary units, first called he Rovers n ry36. Erplicitly organizedalong

the lines of European ascistmovements, he Rovers (later called he

Battalions),14 ere a uniquepresencen Eg ypt: disciplined,menaclng,



)

England'sBrothers 5l

and utterly devoted to Banna. In r937, at the coronation of King

Farouq, he Brotherhood's hug s were enlisted o provide order an d

security or the king'sceremony.l'5

The Muslim Brotherhood'schief rival between he wars was rhe

nationalistDelegation \7afd) Party.Assembled rom the ranks of the

pre-'STorldWar I anti-Britishpolitical movement, he'Wafd Partywas

named for the delegation led by SaadZaghlul, who attended hepostwar conferences t which the victorious mperialistsdecided he

future of the region, reat ing nt irestates nd assigninghem ro var i-

ous Europeancapitals.The'Wafd, as a coalition, had left-, center, nd

right-wing components,and it variously aligned tself for or against

the monarchy and other Egyptianpolitical forcesover rhe years.The

Wafd left would eventually oy with an alliancewith Egypt'scommu-

nists,while the smaller ight wing o f the \7afd often maintainedsecret

relationswith the Brotherhood.

For the next decade,Banna played a complex game of three-

dimensionalchess n Egyptian poiitics.He enjoyed ntimate relationswith the royal entouragearound King Farouq, getting inancialsup-

port and political assistance nd providing the king with intelli gence

and shock roops against he eft. Certainly by the 194os he Ikhwan

has an on-and-off close relationship with the palace,and a lot of

money was changing hands, and the British would be involved in

that, says |oel Gordon, a Muslim Brotherhood expert. Anything

the palacedoes s linked to the British. 16Bannaalso developed lose

ties o two key Egyptianofficials,PrimeMinister Ali Mahir, an ardenr

advocate of pan-Islamism,and General Aztz Ali Misri, the com-

mander n chief of the Egyptian armed orces.Through variouschan-nels, mostly secret,Banna was connected o the palace,sometimes

through the king'spersonalphysician, r through variousgovernment

officials or the army. He was consultedby the king on the appoint-

ment of Egypti anprime ministers,and at leastonce receivedan offi-

cial invitation to a royal banquet.

The Society f the Brothers, wrote Mitchell, was obviouslycon-

ceivedof as an instrumentagainst he Wafd and the communists. l T

Right-wing Tafdists, rimarily big landownersand capitalists, iewed



j4 'Dp.vrr ' . ( i r r r r

the Muslim Brotherhood as an ally, while the mainstreamwafdists

consideredhe Brotherhooda reactionarv orce.ts

THs BRoTHERHooD'sSscnET AppARATUS

During world \il/ar II, the Muslim Brotherhood first established ts

intelligenceservice and a secret, errorist-inclined unit called the

SecretApparatus. The intelligence ervicegathered nformation atmilitary installations, oreign embassies, overnmentoffices,anclsoon, a r95os analystwrote. leThis clandest ine nit is what gave he

Brotherhood its well-deserved epuration for violence. created in1942,over he next twelveyears unt i l t was smashed y Nasser) ,t

would assassinateudges,police officers,and governmentofficials,

burn and ransackEgyptianJewish businesses, nd engage n goon-squad attacks on labor unions and communists. Throughout this

period, the Brotherhood operatedmostly in alliancewith the Egyp-

tian king, using its paramilitary force on his behalf and against hi spolitical enemies.As the king began ro lose his grip, the MuslimBrotherhooddistancedtself rom Farouqwhile maintainingshadowyties to the army and to foreign intelligenceagencies-and always

opposed o the left. According to Mitchell, the Apparatus operaredprecisely he way an Egyptian ntelligenceunit would: ,,ln t94q th esecretapparatusalso began o infiltrate the communist movemenr,

which during the war had taken on new life and whichthe MuslimBrothersconsideredo be one of their principalenemies. 20

without doubt, rhe vast majority of the membershipof the Mus-

lim Brotherhood was zealouslydedicated o the creation of a right-

wing Islamic governmenr, and they were militantly opposed toimperialism.Yet the leadership f the Brotherhoodplayedpolitics atthe highest evel, collaboratingwith the palace, he secularpolitical

parties, the army, and the imperial powers. rfhether the MuslimBrotherhood's eaderswere indeed true believerswho decided tomake their own temporary dealswith the world's Great satans,orwhether hey were cynicalpoliticiansand evenoutright agentsof for-

eign powers, s not known for certain. But there seems ittle doubt



i t sthe

at

alnd SO

the

in

i t

, f f ic ia ls,

gOOn-

his

i l-gyp-lrst his

\ lus l im

r ln'ays

r-14he

c[tCt-]tr

rr dists

,se tO

l t icsat

tO

Of

for-

doubt

England's Brctthers j 5

that while some eaders f the organizationwere sincere, therswere

double-dealers nd agents.

The Brotherhood existed n a kind of political netherworld. Its

overt branch, and its political stars-above all, Banna himself-

hobnobbedwith kings and generals,while its covert branch engaged

in espionageand assassinations. s long as the Brotherhood 'svio-

lencewas aimedat the enemies f the king and the British, t managedto operatewith impunity.'$fhen t crossedhe ine,as t did from time

to time, the governmentwould crack down on it or ban it temporar-

ily. At other times, when it was either useful to the palaceor to the

army, or when it was simply too powerful, it was toleratedand even

supportedhy the regime.Throughout i ts entire cxistence.oo, the

Muslim Brotherhood had an ace-in-the-hole, amely, the political

support and money it received rom the Saudi royal family and the

Wahhabi establishment.

The Muslim Brotherhoodwas organized nto cells,or families,

groups of five to sevenmembers who underwent indoctrinationand systematic, ometimesextendedmilitary training in the various

branches f guerrillawarfare to qualify as activebrothers.'When the

training was completed, hey were nstructed o pretend hat thevhad

givenup their membership n the Brotherhoodand to join someother

organizationactive n religiousaffairs or sports. 2l

The British, with two centuriesof deep ni.olvement n religious

and ribal politics,were well aw areof the power of Islamism.A British

intelligence fficer ied to t he king recognizedhe power of the Islamic

revivalat the endof WorldVfar

II. MI6's David Archie Boylewas iai-

son o Farouq'schef de cabinetHassenein asha, British ntell igence

asset.Boyle sensed he 'murmuring resurgence f Moslem renais-

sance,which as n 1919 was again n t946 commencing o affect he

-\'tiddleEasterncountriesas a whole. This time it was to be coupled

u.ith the race for oil.' 22 The British embassy,and later the U.S.

imbassy n Cairo, had regularcontactwith Banna'sBrotherhood.

After World rWarII, the falteringFarouq regime ashedout against

rhe left, in an intensecampaign of repressionaimed at the commu-

:r ists. he Cold'War was beginning.Pr ime Minister Ismail Sidqi of

Eg)pt, who was nstalledashead of the governmentwith the support



56 . Drvrr 's Gaur

of Banna, openly funded the Muslim Brotherhood, and provided

training camps for its shock troops. Its sweepinganti-left campaign

was enthusiastical ly ackedby the Brothers:

In this campaign he Muslim Brotherhood, itterly antagonistico

the communists, ould join wholeheartedly. heir press eportedthecourse f the governmentalampaignn a dailycolumnenritled,

'The Fight AgainstCommunism.'The 'intelligence' f the Society

passed n information useful o the governmenrn its continual

nrund-ups f realand suspectedommunists, speciallyn labour

anduniversity ircles.2s

In addition, the Brothers organized ight-wing tra de unions, under-

mined strike actions, and bitterly opposed the Wafd nationalists

(often secretly in conjunction with the'Wafd's

right). Concludes

Mitchell: For the momgnt, he palace, he conservative eadsof gov-

ernment,and the Muslim Brotherhoodsharedcommon foes:commu-

nism and the \fafd. 2a

Anrvar Sadat, he future Egyptianpresident,was a key member of

the Muslim Brotherhood n the r94os. During World'War II he was

associated ith a looselyorganizedmovementof junior officers hat,

in t949, rvas formally estabiishedby Nasser as the Egyptian Free

Officers n the wake of the Palestinewar and who seiz ed ower from

the king in 1952.The FreeOfficers ncludedmen from a wide variety

of ideologies, rom communistsand left-wing nationalists o l Tafdists

and membersof the Muslim Brotherhood, all united in their belief

that Farouq was hopelessly orrupt and servile.England's mperious

treatment of Farouq during the war by British ambassadorMiles

Lampson-who reportedly2s alled the young Farouq boy to his

face-had enraged hem, and they maintainedcontactwith one another

in the postwar years.

Sadat, a right-wing member of Nasser'sFree Officers movement,

was the liaison between he dissidentmilitary officers and Banna,and

during the war Sadat conductedregular rere-e-rCtes ith the Brother-

hood founder. In his autobiography, n Searchof ldentity, Sadatpro-

vided a detailedaccountof his relationship o Banna.26 adatwarmly

praisesBanna: His understanding f religion was]profound, and hi s

del iverympr..

be a rel igioLr.

decent, nd:, .

Musl im Brot:,

which the 5,:

arrangeX ll- : :

Rashad, l .

meeting rc::

Banna, thg', .

BannaStrlrtr-

$u1 11-.1r ..

t ra t ing t i I : . :

I t was 2 CLl , t .

l t was a p- l - . -

that was r, ' . : :

What is c lc, , :

Soviets h: - : -

manY rlgn: - ' .

including : . .

man Ni lzt :

Cent r i r l I r : : .

ing Worl. l \ ' ' .':

In te l i igen; . - .

perhi rps ' I . . : *

the r9:c: . :^

Is l . rmists: : . . -

c es. stt .t.i. ::-

n hen \ i . . . -

.eaUf l t r . : : . - Soun. l : ' : . , :

, r r re tcJ : : : .

: r r ted. . r t r :

iC11CCr-i ' . - : ' .

r lou n -- :.\ . - - -\ i - a-..

. r )u ld : r : - - . -



provided

campaign

fepofted

entit led,

nder-

Concludes

of gov-

,eS:COmmU-

f

I he wasid -^-^ -L^-i l I l ( - t5 Lll<11,

^.;.-E.--

l 'L lar lr r l l

,,. 'idevariety

io V/afdists

iheir bel ief

: imper ious

Miles

to his

, ne lnother

l l lOYement,

and

:he Brother-

..S.rdirt ro -

warmly

.rnd. nd his

England's Brotbers - j7

delivery mpressive. e was ndeedqualified, rom all pointsof view, o

be a religious eader.Besides, e was a true Egyptian:good-humored,

decent,and tolerant. . . . I was struck by the perfectorganization of the

Muslim Brotherhood, and by the respect, venextraordinar,v evercncc,

which the SupremeGuide commanded. 27n 1945 Sadat tried to

arrangea meeting betweenBanna and King Farouq, through Yusuf

Rashad,a contact of Sadat'sand the king's personalphysician.Thatmeetingdidn't happen,but in a frank discussion etweenSadatan d

Banna, they agreed o cooperate n building the Free Officers, and

Bannastarted ecruiting military officers or the group.28

But was Banna recruitingmembers or the FreeOfficers-or infil-

trating it? It isn't clear.The Brotherhoodwas more than a movement.

It was a cult, it was a revivalistparty, t was an intelligence peration,

it wa s a paramilitary unit, and it was an international organization

that was rapidly building branches n many Middle East countries.'What

is clear s that during the r94os, the British, he Nazis, and the

Sovietshad thoroughlypenetrated

he Brotherhood. In the 191'os,many right-wing Arab nationalistsand many on the Islamic right,

including the Brotherhood, ound succorand support in ties to Ger-

man Nazi intelligence.According to Miles Copeland, a legendary

Central IntelligenceAgencyoperativewho spentyears n Egypt, dur-

ing'World'Vfar I Banna'sorganization had beenvirtually a German

Intelligenceunit. 2e In saying so, Copeland no doubt exaggerates,

perhapswillfully, though countless slamistshad Nazi affiliations n

the r93os and r94os. After \7or ld 'War I I , many of the Nazi- l inked

Islamistsmigrated back to British,and then nto Anglo-Americancir-

cles, sometimeswith generous inancial inducements. n the r9 jos,

when Nasserarrested he leadership f the Muslim Brotherhood,his

securityservicesound out how tangledwere the organization's ies.

Sound beatingsof Muslim Brotherhood organizerswho had been

arrested evealed hat the organization had been thoroughly pene-

trated, at the top, by British, American, French, and Soviet ntell i-

gence ervices, ny one of which could either make activeuseof it or

blow it up, whicheverbestsuited ts purpose, wrote Copeland.30

As it became vermore clear o London and Washington hat Farouq

could not survive, he search or an alternative egimedeveloped.The



Drvrr 's Gelrr,

main optionswere irst, he combinationof the Wafd and rhecommu-

nists;and second, he secretive lliancebetween he Muslim Brother-

hood and the military officers.Neither the British nor the Americans

wanted the'sfafd-communisroption; the British seemed nsisrenton

propping up the monarchy,while the Americans opted for supporting

Nasser'sFreeOfficers.The Brotherhood,with ties o both the monar-

chy and the FreeOfficers,playeda doublegame.

The \Vafd Party itself was divided into competing factions and

plaguedby corruption.Yeran importanrsectionof the'Wafdsoughtan

alliancewith the left and the communists,which worried the palace, he

British-and the Muslim Brotherhood. The Brothers worked hard to

destroyany possibilityof a \Wafd-communisraxis, and the \Vafd struck

backat the Brotherhood,portraying Banna's hugsas being n the pay of

the British and the pro-British prime minisrer,Ismailsidqi. The commu-

nists and the'wafd accused.theMuslim Brotherhood of being rools of

the imperialists. The \Vafd charged that phalanxes of the Muslim

Brothers were carrying out acts of fascist error. It called for disso-

lution of the Brotherhood's (government-funded)paramilitary unirs,

and it documentednume.rousnsrances f strike-breaking y Muslim

Brotherhood goons.31But the Brotherhood would gain strength from

an unexpected irection n r948: thewar in Palestine.

BaUNA AND THe Mur,rr

The Arab-Jewishwar strengthenedhe Muslim Brotherhood mmensely.

It was a chaoticmoment in the Middle East,as a n ew Jewishnarion

establishedtselfon part of the territory of British-occupied alestine.

The war, the defeatof Arab armiesby paramilitaryJewishunits, and

the creationof Israel forever changed he dynamic of politics in the

Middle East,and it spurredpolitical Islam in severalways. First, the

Brotherhood created paramilitary units during the war itself, forces

that won official backing rom Arab srares-and, like the Afghan jihad

of the r98os, created egions of battle-hardened slamist veterans.

Second, he Arab defeatdiscredited he Arab reg imes, ncluding the

monarchies. t created space for new political forces such as the

-\ lLrsl inr :

, : rhc r: :

: : i : i . : : : . -





6o . Dp-vrr . 's G.q.r .rn

Americans, t was hard to know where to placeone'sbets.The pales-

tinewar had vastlycomplicatedheAnglo-American alculations, ince

both the left-nationalist orcesand the Islamistsblamed the \(/esr

for the Israelidebacle.

The Brotherhood grew by leaps and bound s in the lare r94os.

Banna's on-in-law,SaidRamadan,helpedorganize hapters n P ales-

tine and Transjordan.Under coverof arming themselvesor war with

the Zionists, he Brotherscollectedand storedstockpiles f weap'ns,

often suppliedby membersof the SecrerApparatuswho had ries to

the Egyptianarmy. And the Banna-Haj Amin alli ance, orged n rhe

crucibleof the Palesrinewar, helped he Brotherse-xrendheir reach nto

Syria, ordan,Lebanon,and Palestine.

To say Haj Amin al-Husseinihad a checkered areer s an under-

statement.His paranoidworldview, centered n fiercehatredof Jews,and his opensupport for Hitler makehim an objectof scornby histo-

rians. But from the beginningHaj Amin was a British creation. He

exercised spell over generations f British spooks, ncluding Freya

Stark, a legendaryBritish intelligenceoperativewho describedHaj

Amin in almost reverential erms: The Mufti sat there all in white,

spotless nd voluminous, a man in his early forties,wearing his tur-

ban like a halo. His eyeswere light blue and shining, with a sorr of

radiance, sof a just al lenLucifer . 3. l

Hal Amin's careerbeganmodestl,v,o say the least.A scion of an

important Arab Palesrinian amily, he studied at Egypt's Al Azhar

Islamicuniversity,br-rt idn't do well and failed o finish.After \7orld

\Var I, he took a job with the Reutersnews agency n Jerusalem, s a

translator-Gradually,he immersedhimself n Palestinian olitics,bu r

he showeda flair both for violenceand for fanatical,anti-Jewish on -

spiracy heories,among them the Prorocolsof the Eldersof Zion. He

was arrested or his role in anti-Jewish iots, but in t9zo, Sir Herbert

Samuel, he Br it ish High Commissioner or Palest ine and a Jew),singledhim out for a dramatic specialpardon, and then engineered

his spectacular ise o power. 3a hough Haj Amin's credentials s an

Islamicscholarwere nil, Sir Ronald Srorrs, hegovernorof Jerusalem,rigged an election on his behalf and then appointed Haj Amin as



The Pales-

s lnce

'rhe N(/est

.1tr- g4os.

Pales-

,rn-irr with

r \ \ 'eapons,

:rlcl t ies to

: .ged n the

nt o

under-

o1- ews,

.r 'histo-

He

: ir re FreyaHaj

in u,hite,

his ur-

,t srtrt of

Ot an

\1 . \zhar

Vor ld

sa

. r ics, ut- ' , ' , ' rshon-

: Zion. He

- Herbert

.r a Jew),

san

J:ruSalem,

-\ r l in as

England's Brothers ot

Jerusalem'smufti. According to the Political Dictionary of the Middle

East n the zoth CenturY, mufti is a

Muslim religiousofficial who issues ulings (fatwa), n general

in responseo questions.n most Islamiccountries he mufti is

government-appointed.mufti hasa highly espectedtatus nd

great piritual ndsocialnfluence, ut playsno executive r polit-

icalrole.An exceptiono thiswas hemufti of Jerusalem, ai Amin

al-Husseiniappointed 9zr, dismissed937), who exploited is

position o consolidateispolitical eadership.ss

A year ater,Herbert Samuelestablishedhe SupremeMuslim Coun-

cil, which assumed ontrol of Palestine'sich religiousendowments,

and namedHaj Amin president.The two postsgave he erraticMus-

lim demagogue normouspolitical power.35

Parallel with the establishmentof the Muslim Brotherhood, in

t93:. Haj Amin convenedan Islamic Congressn Jerusalem nd trav-

eled o India, Iran, Afghanistan)and other Muslim countries' aisingfunds and building support.He enioyeda modicum of British support

and protection even as he veered nto a political alliancewith Ger-

many; when sixty Arab militants were arrested n Palestine n 1936

clur:ing n anti-British ebellion,Hai Amin-who'd taken part in the

revolt-went free.37 ventually, is Nazi sympathiesorcedhim to flee,

lirst to l-ebanon, hen to Iraq, then to lran, and inally-after pledging

.\dolf Hitler his loyal collaboration n all sphere5 38-toBerlin. In

Germany,Haj Amin oversaw Axis propagandabroadcasts nto the

\Iiddle East, directeda network of espionage gents,and organized

.r l l -Musl im nitsof theNazi SS,made

upmainlyof Bosnians.

With the collapseof the Third Reich, however, he mufti quietly

iclt Germany via Switzerland,settling in France' where the Allies

lcfused o zlrrest r detain him. The British, n particular,declined o

.crk his extradition, and Great Britain's undersecretaty ot foreign

,'.tt.rirs adea point of saying: The mufti is not a war criminal . se n

r u46. Haj Amin al-Husseiniarrived in triumph in Egypt, where he

',i'ls u,elcorned s a guest of the king. The new shrine of political

I'ierrr s the mufti's house,Villa Aida, near Roushdy PashaStationof



*tli

6z I) r .v i r 's Gar.rs

the street car line that runs out from Alexandria to the suburb of

Ramleh, a lrlew York Tintes report in August 1946 proclaimed.

There is an Egyptian soldier about everyeight or ten yards around

the garden,and the mufti has private bodyguards nside. a0 nother

report said hat the mufti's political work was lavishly financed bySaudiArabia'sKing Abdel Aziz andEgypt'sKing Farouq.ar

Apparentl5 the British didn't hold a grudge against the mufti,

becausehey soonhiredhim as a propagandist.n Cairo, British ntelli-

gence ad establishedhe Arab News Agencyand theNear EastBroad-

castingStation (NEABS),whose first director was Squadron-Leader

Alfred Marsack,a devoutMuslim who h ad served n the Middle East

before he war and who h ad devoted he bestpart of his life to Arab

affairs,and had evenconverted o Islam. 42Perhapsmpressed y his

experience s a Nazi broadcaster,he MI6 outlet hired Haj Amin. The

man who oversawNEABS, hrough MI6's Near EastAssociation,wasSir Kinahan Cornwallis, an aristocraticBritish banker who'd headed

the Arab Bureau, he Cairo headquarters f British ntell igence uring

World'Vfar and T. E. Lawrence's aseof operations.a3

ln t946, the mufti and the Muslim Brotherhood ointly organized

a paramilitary force in Palestinecalled the Rescuers,with up to

ro,ooo men under arms.a4The Rescuerswere eithe r tolerated or

ignored by the British authorities. n Egypt, meanwhile, Banna and

the mufti establisheda working relationship. One of the Muslim

Brotherhood'smilitary units, stationed n Gaza,was put under the

command of a Sudaneseide o the mufti.ai And in Cairo, Hassanal -

Banna backedHaj Amin as rhe head of a new Palestine overnment.

Perhaps he high point of the mufti's careercamewith his triumphant

return to Gaza n September 947, where he proclaimed he stateof

Palestine nd himselfas Presidentof the Republic. a6With the Arab

defeatby Jewish orces,however,Haj Amin's fledgling statewas no

more. But Haj Amin would survive,prosper,and return to battle in

the r95os.

Banna, meanwhile,was nearing he end of his fiery li fetime. The

regimeof King Farouq was on its last legs,and the political vultures

were circling. The r948 Palestir-rerisis atally underminedFarouq's

regime,making it difficult for any of Egypt'spolitical forces o ally



of

lround

Another

y

muft i ,ntel l i -

)n-Leader

ast

Arab

by his

The

as

headed

dur ing

rrrganized

up to

or

and

'Iuslim

under the

f f l lT lef l t .

of

Arab

was no

baft le n

The

vultures

Farouq's

to al ly

England'sBrothers 6j

with the king. An economiccrisis, oo, engulfed he country, accom-

panied by riots, demonstrations, trikes,and growing violence.Th e

accordbetween he Muslim Brotherhoodand the palacebroke down,

and both nationalists and Islamists sought political advantage by

blaming he corrupt and feckless egimeof King Farou q for the Pales-

tine defeat.Finally, n December 948, the Egyptiangovernmentout-

lawed the Musiim Brotherhood, and weeks later, a Brotherhoodassassin urderedPrimeMinisterMahmud FahmiNuqrashi.

Two months ater, n January 1949, Banna's areercame o a sud-

den end. Hassanal-Bannawas assassinated,hot to death on the

streets utside he Young Men's Muslim Associationheadquartersn

Cairo, apparentlyby Egyptiansecurityofficers.aT

Banna'sdeath provided an exclamation point for the end of the

first era of the Muslim Brotherhood,and the beginningof another. n

the wake of Banna'sdeath, various factionsof the Muslim Brother-

hood competed or control, and the party itself drifted in and out of

legality, irst bannedand then tolerated.The new supremeguide,suc-ceedingBanna, was Hassan Ismail al-Hudaybi, an Egyptian judge

whose brother was chief of Farouq's royal household, and whose

appointmentwas engineered y a wealthy andorvner n Upper Egypt.

(Fifty years later, Hudaybi's son would also serve as the Muslim

Brotherhood's supreme guide.) The Brotherhood's factions w ould

eachmaintain ties o parts of the Egyptianbbdy politic, keeping ines

open o the palace, nfiltrating the army and the police,and establish-

ing covert contactswith the burgeoning movement of Free Officers

who, in r952, would seize ontrolof Egypt.

Despite he factionaldivisions,however, t was clear hat the Mus-

lim Brotherhoodwould outlast Banna.Thanks to SaidRamadan, he

Brotherswere extending heir rangeand influenceworldwide, and in

Egypt they remained a potent force with hundreds of thou sandsof

adherents.Money from Saudi Arabia helped sustain he movement

when other Arab governments, special lyEgypt 's,moved against

them. And thanks to the Cold'Vfar, the Muslim B rotherhoodwould

draw energy rom the globalcrusade gainst ommunism. ts combina-

tion of elite nsiderpoliticsand underground iolent militancy marked

the true start of what we now call "political Islam." The Islamist





tO POWer

3' , 'uld make

stfetching

to

h.t t set the

as ISLAM MEETS THE COLD WAR

rhe vorld's.

- - .1f

UulI.

CENTO

Com-

Unfor-

rom the

natlon-

To

nopposi- I r rnsr MEI Hassanal-Banna n SaudiArabia, recal lsHermannour to the Eil ts, hen a young Americandiplomat n Jeddah,who says hat he

knew Bannareasonablywell. He used o c ome to SaudiArabia for

mone,v, ctuaily, he says. l ntet him at the home of the then-Saudi

deputy minister of finance,who was a man who was himself very

pious and who handledBanna.His name was ShaikhMohammed

Sorour Sabhan], ho was a slavewho had'beenmanumit ted, nd i t

was Sorourwho handledmost of the major financialmatterswith the

Muslim Brotherhood. e was a black.and he was rom Sudan. r

It was : '948, ust a few monthsbeforeBannawas assassinatedn

Cairo. Eilts would often seeBanna n Sorour'shome. He rvasa fre-quent visitor,because audiArabia was his principal sourceof financ-

ing, Eilts remembers.Since ts founding twenty years earlier, he

Brotherhoodhad becomea powerful, even rightenir-rgorce n Egypt,

with a secretparamilitary arm that sponsored errorism, infiltrated

the Egyptianarmy and intelligence ervices, nd intimidated ts politi-

cal opponents. l found him to be verS very friendly, says he former

U.S. diplomat, who would becomeone of America's eadingArabists

and ambassadoro Egyptand SaudiArabia. Therewasno hesitat ion

rn meetingVesterners.



66 Dnvrr 's Gavr

Eilts didn't discussBanna'smovemenr with him, but U.S. politicalofficers n cairo in the r94os did so on a routine basis. ,I

know rhatsomeof my colleagues t the American embassy n cairo had regularmeetingswith Hassanal-Bannaat the dme, and found him perfectlyempathetic, he says. we kept in touch with them

especia'y or report-ing purposes,because t that time the Muslim Brotherhoodwas oneele_ment that was viewedas potenrially politically important, so you keptconta* with them. don't think we wereararmedby them, hough therewas concernwhen the Brotherhood'ssecretApparatus assassinatedheprime minisrer fof Egypt]. we wereconcernedabout stability,primarilyand our judgmentwas that these ssasstheydid rorJor.. r, eriousolitical, rlX',,t#,Iere

worrying ut hat

It 'snot surprising hat u.S. diplomats n Egypt and saudi Arabia inthe r94os would maintain , g.rr , conractwith the Muslim Brother-hood' despite ts violence-pronenature and fascist

orientation. Theregimeof Egypt'sKing Farouq was on its last egs,and it wasn,tclearwhat might replace t. According to Said Aburish: ,,The

growrngMuslim Brotherhood,which by then had r.5 million members, epre_sented he only potential challenge o the ruling establishment.,,2ermany earlyu.s. representativesin the regionwereattractedby rtsmil_rtant anti-communistoutlook.

The Brotherhood, he broadercommunity of the Islamic ight, andthe underlying nstitutionsof traditionar slam in the region srood arthe center of a swirling debate n rx/ashington: wasIslam a bulwarkagainstgodlesscommunism?or was organized sram a

backward-looking, ultra-conservativeforce whose nherent anti-western outrookmade it receprive o_ he class-warfare oritics of the reft?could theUnited Stateshelp shape slamic nstitutions hat could be the back-boneof a new civil society n the Middre East,or did America,s nrer-est ie in allying tselfwith the region,s ecularmodernizers?

The united srateswas just beginning o feer ts way around theMiddle East'FewAmericanofficialshad any experiencen the region,u's' universirieswere abysma'y weak on Middre East studies,anddespite ts leading ole in winning rfforld \far II the U.S.military hadvirtually no significanrpresencen either North Africa or the persian

Gulf' The fledgling centrar IntelrigenceAgency, which was gobbling



poli t ical

know that

regular

for report-

oneele-

f 'OU kept

he

^-;-^-;1.,I ' l

r l l rdrr l )r ' t

but that

Arabia n

rother-

The

lear

growing

2 Yet

ts mil-

and

StOOd at

a bulwark

hackward-

OUtlOOk

Could thethe back-

nter-

the

he egion,

and

Persian

gobbling

Islam Meets the Cold \Yar . 6t

up Ivy Leaguegraduatesand virtually anyonewho coul d speakAra-

bic,was nexperienced t best.From its founding n t947 until at least

the r95os, the CIA took a backseat o British ntelligence.

Our attitude, according o Miles Copeland,a CIA officer wh o

served n the region in those years, was one of let's-wait-until-we-

know-what-we're-doing.

The Middle Eastwas British urf, and the British wereexceedinglyturf conscious.Egypt, Iraq, and Iran, though nominally independent,

were under de facto British suzerainty.Palestineand Transjordan

were officiallyBritish mandates.The states hat make up Kuwait and

the other Gulf sheikhdomswere British colonies,as were India and

Pakistan.Yet the British hold on the region, and on its oil, was erod-

ing, and America'spost-World War II engagementn the Middle East

was growing fast. t beganwith SaudiArabia, the country that would

be he entrypoint and anchor or the Americanpresencen the region.

But that country's policy of supporting and financing the Muslim

Brotherhood would forever entangle he United Stateswith funda-mentalist slam.The U.S.connectionwith SaudiArabia and the Mid-

dle East was spurredby the desire or oil and the logic of Cold NTar

containment.Yet U.S. inexperience n the region, and its near-total

lack of understanding f the region'sculture, ncluding Islam, bedev-

iled Americanpolicy from the start.

According to standard histories, he official U.S. entry into the

region s said o havebegun n t945, on a yacht anchored n the Great

Bitter Lake astride he SuezCanal.There, n February,on his ourney

back to \Washingtonfrom Yalta,Franklin Delano Rooseveltmet King

Abdel Aziz bn Saud, he first meeting between an American presidentand a Saudimonarch, setting he stage or a half century of relations

between he two countries.

But two other crucial eventspreceded he FDR-Ibn Saudencounter.

First came he signing, n t933, of the U.S.oil concessionn Saudi

Arabia that would grow into that global petroleum superpower, he

Arabian-AmericanOil Company (Aramco). And the man who bro-

kered that all-important deal was the British spook, Harry St. John

Bridger ( Abdullah ) Philby, he operativewho had helped bn Saud

and his \Tahhabi Brotherhood take power during and after World

-Jg



68 DnvrL's GatrE

\Var I. In the ate r9zos, philbn trading on his saudi connections,ef tofficial government employ and went into business or himself.Increasingly ied to the Al Saud,philby distancedhimserf-at reastpublicly-from British policy. To the bemusement f his friends andthe consternation f his wife and family,

he converted o Islam, akingthe name Abdullah. His conversion,however,was a lark_or asubterfuge. n his diarg he wrote jocularly how nice t would be forme when I becamea Muslim and could have four wives. 4Havingbeen an atheist sincecambridge, it was clear that Abdullah philby neededslamnot asa faith but as a convenience,,,nd he tord friendsexactlythat. Yethe plunged nto Islam,visitingMecca, aking multiplewives,and marrying a slavegirr who was a gift from Ibn saud.His realinterest,howeveqwas making money, and in Jeddah t was said thatPhilby should becallednot Abdullah,srave f God, but Abd al-eirsh,slave of halfpence. 6..he born-again wheeler-dealer

an businesses,becomingFord Motor's official represenrariven SaudiArabia (thoughhe said: I hate the sight and sound of motor cars,,).7 ventuallyhebecame n agenr or standardoil of california (socar)and, usinghi sfriendship with the king, philby sealed he deal for socal,senrry rntowhat would become ts ultimateEl Dorado, achievedat a bargainprice:{5o,ooo ($z5o,ooo)down and annual ent of just f5,ooo in gold. Theconcession as to lastsixty yearsand cover36o,ooosquaremiles,halfagainas argeas all of Texas.8 or a pi*ance, the king had signedawayhis country's richest treasure.And the United States, epresentedbyStandardoil of california-eventualry joined by Texaco, hen

Exxonand Mobil, the four Aramco partners_was n.eFDR'sproclamatio , in r9 43, hat SaudiArabia would henceforth

fall under: he U's. defense mbrella was the secondcrucial develop-ment. I hereby ind that the defense f saudi Arabia is vital to th edefense f the United States, lu he presidentannounced.

Roosevelr's mbrace f SaudiArabia had multiple aims.Therewasthe obvi.us one,namely, hat its oil was a precious esource. herewasa strategicone, in which the threat (remote though it was) of sovietencirclement f the PersianGulf was a concern.And therewas a rac'-cal one,aimedar America'sallies,especiailyhe British.Although Lon-



le f t

and

a

for

real

ha t

)5c5,

e

^. ;^^.yrr 1,

he

al f.. , ,^ . ,rr lva/

the

\v2S

Wa S

tactl-

Lon-

lslam Meets the Cold War ' 6s

don was dominant in the region, including southern Persia and Iraq,

therewas a sometimesbitter rivalry between he United Statesand the

British-and to a lesserextent, France and Italy, too-over oil in the

Middle East.All jealously uarded heir companies' dvantages.

Four yearsbeforehis shipboardencounterwith the king, FDR had

seemedwill ing to let SaudiArabia be handledby Great Britain, since

London was virtually all-powerful n the region,and the United Stateshad little experiencehere. "Will you tell the British I hope they can

takecareof theking of SaudiArabia?"FDR askedan aide. This is a

little far afield or us."11But StandardOil of California and the Texas

Oil Company, partners in what would soon be renamed Aramco,

would have none of it. They convinced Interior SecretaryHarold

Ickes,FDR's right-hand man, and then FDR himself, ha t the United

Statesmust stand up to the British, who, the y said, were "trying to

edge heir way into" SaudiArabia.12n the midst of \forld'Vfar II, the

two allies eventually struck a deal, carving up the region's oil.

Roosevelt old Lord Halifax, the British ambassador,Persianoil . . 'is yours.

Weshare he oil of Kuwait and Iraq. As for SaudiArabian

rr l l

oll . r t s ours. ' '

To rX/instonChurchill, FDR cabled: "Pleasedo acceptmy assur-

ances hat we arenot making sheep's yesat your oil fields n Iraq and

lran." Replied Churchill, who'd almost single-handedly uilt Lon-

don's overseasoil empire, "Let me reciprocate by giving you the

fullestassurancehat we haveno thought of trying to horn in on your

interests r property in SaudiArabia."la (Both men, of course,were

lying. The British had long covetedSaudi oil, and the United States

would soon elbow its way forcefully into the oil concessionsn Iranand raq.)

FDR's meetingwith Ibn Saud did mark a consummationof the

U.S.-Saudi artnership.To transport the king, who'd neverbeenout-

side of Arabia before, he United States undled him onto the U.S.S.

Mwrphy, complete with familS retainers, servants' and sheep fo r

slaughter, nd the desertpotentateset up a tent on deck for sleeping.

Elliott Roosevelt, he president's on,described DR'sencounterwith

Ibn Saud,as he king was known, aboard the Quincy:



7o DEvlr 's Ga,l ,r r

Discreetly'my sisterAnna had taken her leaveof Father that da yfor a trip to cairo, out of a.r.r.n.. for the Moslern custom ofsecluding h. yo,-.1 of the family. . . . Father ended up by prom_ising Ibn Saud that he would ,an.tron no American move hos_tile to the Arab people. . . And Ibn Saud, looking enviously arFather's wheelchair,wassurprised when Father promptly madehim a presentof it.1i

Actually' it was a spare wheelchair, and it was roo smalr for the bulkymonarch' But it was enough for the saudi king ro decrare himserfFDR's rwin, and it symbolized he formar beginningof the u.S.-Saudialliance'c' L. Sulzbergeq riting in the rJew york.rimes,wa sexcitedat the prospe* of the United Srates etring rs handson saudioil: The immenseo, deposits n SaudiArabia alonemake thar coun_try more important to American diplomacy than armost any other

smallernat ion 'he wrote.15Roosevelt , oo, i t is crear, areda lotabouroi l , andnot muchabout slam.FDR's r943 procramarionthar America wourd iiefendSaucri ra _bia would be reaffirmed by

u.ryA..rican president,mosr promi_nently in the rg57 Eisenhower Doctrine and the rggo carterDoctrine' rn t944, the united statessent ts first miritary mission rosaudi Arabia, and in t945 the United statesand saudi Arabia signeda military cooperarionagreemenr har established major u.S. Ai rForcebaseat Dhahran in the persianGulf, a facility rhat would serveasan Americanbaseuntil the rg60s. That agreemenr as quickly fol-

lowed by a t949 accord, which provided for a u.S. surveyream tocover he entireArabian peninsura,with recommendationsfor creat_ing a U.S.-equipped,43,ooo-man armyand air force, and a r95raccordsettingup a permanenrU.s. Military Training Mission in thecountry. 7

From the beginning,America's elationshipwith SaudiArabia wasa no-nonsenseone' nvolving a rapidryexpandingoir output, bilaterardefense rrangements,and a vast nflux of Texans,okrahomans, an dLouisianans nro the kingdom. The United States, oined by GreatBritain as a rival and junior partner,u g r, to surround saudi Arabia

with rr :

posed ,

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72 . Dr,vrr 's Gavs

bankrolled the Brothers but offered its territo y as a sa fehaven. A

series f saudi kingswere preoccupiedwith the threatof communism,

and they saw the Muslim Brotherhoodand otherson the Islamic ight

as he leadingedgeof the anti-communisrmovement.Equally mpor-

tant, perhaps,SaudiArabia saw Egypt'sNasserasa dire threat, since

Nasser-ruling impoverishedEgypt-coveted saudi Arabia's oil. Sofor reasons of both anti-communism and anti-Arab nationalism,

saudi Arabia encouraged he growth of the Muslim Brotherhood nEgypt and throughout the Middle East.

RamADAN AT THe 7trrre HousE

In the late summer of t953, the oval office at the white Houseserved..ashe stage or

a little-noticedencounter betweenpresident

Dwight D. Eisenhowerand a young Middle Easrern irebrand. n themuted black-and-whitephotographle ecording he event, he grand-fatherly, balding Ike, then sixty-three,stands gray suited, erect, hiselbowsbent and his fistsclenched s f to add muscle o some orcefulpoint. To his left is a young, olive-skinnedEgyptian n a dark suit,with a neatly rimmed, full beardand closelycroppedhair,clutchingasheafof papersbehindhis back.staring ntently at the president, e sjust twenty-seven earsold, but already has more than a decadeofexperience t the very heart of the Islamic world's violent and pas-sionatepolitics. Alongside him, some

dressed n

'western

attire an dotherswearing obes,shawls,and Muslim headgear, re membersof adelegation of scholars, mullahs, and activists from India. syria.Yemen,and North Africa.

The president's isitor that September ay was Said Ramadan,amilitant official and ideologue of the Muslim Brotherhood. Theyoung man evenhad a claim to semi-royalty n Brotherhoodcircles,since he had married wafa al-Banna, Hassan al-Banna'sdaughter,making him the son-in-lawof the organization'sounder.As he stoodat the president's ide,Ramadanappeared espectable nd harmless.Yet he Brotherhoodwas known throughout the Middle East,

sincearleast he late r94os, as an organizationof fanaticsand terrorists. ts



Islam Meets the Cold \Yar . -7

acolyteshad murdered severalEgyptian officials, ncluding a prime

minister, and just five years before Ramadan met Ike, the Muslim

Brotherhood was declared llegal by the faltering regime of King

Farouq of Egypt. But it didn't disappear.Over the nexr fifty years, he

Muslim Brotherhoodwould stage epeated omebacks, lowly build-

ing its power and influence, preading ts ideologyand building chap-

ters in Jordan, Syria, Kuwait, and beyond. And until his death, inSwitzerland, n t99 5, SaidRamadanwould be its chief nternational

organizer.

Despite the fact that Ramadan was angr).,violence prone, and

openly ntent on remaking he Middle Eastaccording o Islamic un -

damentalist specifications, e wasn't regardedas a threat. In fact,

based on a secretevaluat ion by the U.S. ambassador n Cairo,

Ramadan was viewed as a potential ally. It was the very height of

McCarthyism and the Cold \Var, and the Muslim Brotherhood was

bitterly anti-communist.Not only that, but Ramadan'sallies n the

Muslim Brotherhood,Pakistan's slamicGroup,20 nd similar organi-zationsacross he region were vigorouslyopposed o Marxists, left-

wing activistson campuses,rade union organ izers, rab nationalists,

"Arab socialists," he Baath Party,and secularists f all kinds. In the

latter category were pesky upstarts like Egypt's president Gamal

Abdel Nasser,whose loyalty to the American side n the Cold \Var

was in doubt even n 1953, ust a year af terhis FreeOff icersmove-

ment had ousted he corrupt and despisedmonarchy.

SaidRamadanwas born in 1c126 t Shibinel Kom, a vil lageabout

seventymilesnorth of Cairo in the EgyptianNile Delta.21 s a young

teenager, e encounteredHassan al-Bannaand he joined the move-ment immediately.After graduating from Cairo University, n :-946RamadanbecameBanna'spersonalsecretary nd right-hand man. A

vear later, Ramadan was named editor of Al Shihab, the Muslim

Brotherhoodweekly.

Besides elping he Brotherhood'seader: ith organizarionalasks,

the founder'sson-in-lawbecame roving ambassadoror the Muslim

Brotherhood,amassing vast network of internationalcontacts ha t

the more parochial, and Egypt-based,Banna didn't have. In 1945,

Ramadan raveled o Jerusalem,which was rhen a British-controlled



74 . Dnvtr 's Geue

city under the PalestineMandate, where the storm croudsof the wa rbetween the Arabs and Jews were beginning to gather. Over thecomrng years' Ramadanwould spenda greatdeal of time travelingbetween Jerusalem,Amman, Damascus,and Beirut, building theBrotherhood's hapters.

On October 26, 1945,Ramadanopened heMuslim Brotherhood's first office in Jerusalem,22ounding the orga-nization that, by the r98os, would becomeknown as the IsramicResistance ovemenr (Hamas).By ,947, twenty-fivebranches f theMuslim Brotherhood existed n palestine,with between z,ooo and2o'ooo members.23n t948, Ramadanhelped o organizetheMuslimBrotherhood'ssymbolically significant slamic force that battled the

Jewish orces hat establishedsrael hat year.

Ramadan also made the first of many visits to pakistan in the late194os' aking part in the first meetingsof the

'worldMuslim congress

in Karachi inry 49

and.95

, wherehe flirted with becomingsecretary-generalof the organization.24lThe congresstself was denouncedby

the Pakistan eft as having beenorgan zedby Anglo-American impe-rialism. ;2'rPakistanhad achievedndependencerom Great Britain ayear earlier, and as the first Islamic state it became a magnet forIslamist deologues, rganizers, nd scholars.A young IslamistnamedAbul-Ala Mawdudi-who'd founded a Muslim Brotherhood-stylemovement n Pakistancalled the Islamic Group-was transforminghis movement nto a political party. For the next decade,pakistan

would becomea kind of secondhome for Ramadan. The fledglingIslamic stategaveRamadana broadcastslot

on Radiopakistan,

an dhe enjoyed good relations with the \Testern-leaning overnment ofPakistan, ncludingwith PrimeMinister Liaquat Ali Khan, who wrorethe preface o one of Ramadan,s ooks.26

Ramadan'ssray n Pakistanwasn't entirelyvoruntary.The Broth-erhoodhad beenbanned n Egypt,and Hassanal-Bannaassassinated.Ramadan returned to Egypt in r95o, when the Brotherhood madeone of its many comebacks,but he would periodically spend ongperiodsof time in Pakistan,where he worked croselywith Mawdudiand his IslamicGroup. Ramadanalsoworked with pakistan,sMuslimLeague,and with official Pakistanisupporr he traveledand lectured



war

the

and

at e

impe-

fo r

mlng

zfld

of

\\rrote

rnade

long

Islam Meets tbe Cold'War .7 5

throughout the Arab world. At the time, politics n Pakistanwas split

among radical slamists,moderate slamists, ecularnationalists, nd

the left. Meanwhile, the country was being drawn into pro-Western

military alliances.During several ears n Karachi, Ramadan helped

Mawdudi organizea muscular phalanx of fanatical slamic students

that battled Pakistan's eft, especiallyon university campuses.Th e

so-called Islamic Student Society,known by its Urdu initials asthe IJl27 modeledon Mussol ini's fascistsquadristi,was a Ramadan

project. "Although organizedunder the supervisionof the [lslamicGroupl, IJT was greatly influenced by the Muslim Brotherhood of

Egypt. Between 95z and 1955, Ramadanhelped JT leaders ormal-

ize an administrative structure and devisean organizational srraregy.

The most visible marks of the brotherhood's nfluenceare IJT's study

circle' and all-night study sessions, oth of which were means of

indoctrinating new members and fostering organizational bonds,"

according to one expert, Vali Reza Nasr. The often-armed IJT thugs

clashed repeatedlywith left-wing studentson campus. "Egg ross-ing graduallygaveway to more serious lashes, speciallyn Karachi

and Multan," wrote Nasr. "Antileftist student activism had become

the IJT's calling and increasinglydetermined ts courseof action. [TheIJT becamela soldiersbrigade which would fight for Islam against

its enemies-secularists and leftists-within. the government and

without."28

In betweenhis trips to Pakis tan,Ramadanalsoapparentlyworked

with Arab fundamentalists, specially mong Palestinians nd Jorda-nianswho founded he so-called slamicLiberation Party.2eLater, he

Liberation Party metastasized, elocating its headquarters o Ger-many and then spreading through Muslim Central Asia. It wa s

increasingly upportedby SaudiArabia. By the r99os, it had become

an important violence-proneorce allied to the IslamicMovement of

Uzbekistan nd to Al Qaeda.)While in Jordan n the r95os, Ramadan

also helped ound the Jordanianbranch of the Muslim Brotherhood.

The leader of Jordan's Muslim Brotherhood was Abu Qurah, a

r.vealthyordanianmerchantwith close ies o King Abdullah and the

British-backedHashemite monarchy. According to Marion Boulby,



,, :

76 Dtvrr 's (l . lv r

BannasentRamadan o Amman for the express urposeof getting he

Muslim Brotherhoodof Jordan off the ground, and the king granted

the Brotherhood legal status as a welfare organization' hoping to

securets supportagainst he secular pposition, i'e', against he eft'

As in Pakistan, heBrotherhoodbecame tool for suppressinghe ef t

and Arab nationalists.Ramadanand Qurah argued hat in the twen-

tieth centuryEgypt and the restof the Islamicworld wefe threatened

by the onslaught f communistand nationalist deologies hich denied

the supremacy f sharia n society. 30

Ramadan'spresencen the Oval Office that day in 1953 was no

accident.Officially, Ramadan was in the United States o attend th e

colloquium on Islamic culture at PrincetonUniversity,with a side

trip to \ffashington.The Library of congress oined Princeton n put-

ting together he nine-day program. It was an august event' full of

pomp and circumstance' eld under he eafygreenery hadingPrince-

ton's Nassau Hall, in the high-ceilingedFacultv Room' Among the

speakers nd attendeeswere some of the leading orientalists of the

era, men like Philip K. Hitti, T. Cuyler Young, and Bayly \X/inderof

princeton, wilfre<l cantwell Smith of McGill university, Richard

Nelson Frye of Harvard Universit-v, arleton Coon of the University

of Pennsylvania, nd Kenneth Cragg,editor of the journal The Mus-

lim'world, from the Hartford SeminaryFoundation. Directing the

conferencewas Dr. BayardDodge, he venerable ormer presidentof

the AmericanUniversity n Beirut.

According ro the official recorcl, he conference ortuitously took

advantage f the fact that a number of celebrated ersonagesrom the

Middle Easrwere visiting. But the participantsdidn't iust happen

to have crossed he Atlantic. The colloquium was organizedby the

U.S. government'which funded it, tapped participants t considered

usefulor promising,and bundled hem off to New Jersey'Hitti' per-

haps he dean of the or iental ists, is i tedcairo, Bahrain,Baghdad,

Beirut,New Delhi, and other cities cl scoutparticipants'and supple-

mentary funding for the colloquium was sought from U'S' airlines'

including Pan Am and T\7A, and from Aramco, the u.S. oil consor-

tium in Saudi Arabia. Like many of the participants, Ratnadan, a

hard-edgeddeologue nd no scholar,was visit ing he confercnce s



Islam Meets tbe Cold Wttr . 77

an all-expenses-paiduest.And the U.S.governmenrwasin the dark aboutwho hewas.

not exactly

Paying or the ssnfslsncs-including rheexpensesbr transportrngrlttendeesr:orn he Middle East-r.r,as he International 'formarr.nAdministration, a branch of the StateDepartment,with roots i, theLI.s. ntelligence ommunity.The IiA had a brief exisrence, f l icially

scr . rpn tg5z and hen ncorporated,n rg5i, into theclA-con'ectedu.S. Infbrmarion Agency.Among its responsibilit ies,he IIA oversawofficialU.S. cultureexchange rogranrs, suchas he princetoncolkr-c1r-riurl.t 's also clear rhat a primary purposeof the colloquiunr r,r,aspolitica[.A declassifiedIA document abeled conficlential-Secur:ity

Informat ion, says: on the surface, he co'f lrence l.oks i ike anr ' \ercisen pure earning. his n effect s he mpression lesirecl. heconference,t goeson, was designed. bring togetherpersonsexert-rng great influence n formularing Muslim opinion in fields such aseducation,science,aw and philosophy ancl nevitably, herefore,on

poli t ics. ts gral was sweeping. Among the va.r iousesuits x;rectedfrom the colloquiumare he mpetusand direct ir ' that may begive.ro theRenaissance ovement , i thin slam tself . ' , i l

America'sambassadorn cairo at the time was the veterancliplo-

'ratJeffersoncaffery, a Louisiana awyer then nearing he end of a

.tellar foreign service areer hat spanned our decades. e'd.been nL airo since 949, ultinately servingsix years n the anguidcapitalon:he Nile. In July ry53 caffery penned a classified abresuggesring:hat Ramadanbe nvited o the princeronconclave. affery'sdispatch:ro'ides a revealingglimpse into how much u.s. intelligencehad

:iready gathered on the Muslim Brotherhood and its leadership,ir.1ch,and activities.caffery's dispatchprovidesa capsulebiography'r Ramadanand a thumbnail sketchof the Muslim Brotherhood.But,

::-rd in full, it is eerily sanitized,making no mention of the Brother-',,od's involvement in terrorism and violence, and nowhere does

-:ffery cite their commirmenr o an Islamic stateunder the Koran.rffe'v',a highly experienced iplomat, is not naive, and it is clear

:',p ]1itaccounr hat he (and perhaps he cIA) were will ing to over-''rk arrr violence ied to the Brothersand were targetingRamadan

- :' recruitmentas eitherally or agent:



76 Drvrr 's Ga.lap

SaeedRamadhan is considered to be among the most learned

scholars of Islamic culture in the Ikhwan el Muslimin (Moslem

Brotherhood). A graduate of the Faculty of Law from Fouad

University in Cairo in r945, he takes but few casesand devotes

rnost of his t irne to the study of Islam. Born in 1925, he is young

in years but old in erperience.

At present he is engagedas editor in chief of El Musliman, a

monthly magazine now in its second year, which publishes arti-

cles on Islamic law and culture by scholars hrough the Muslim

w'orld. Its circulation is about ro,ooo and subscribers each rom

Tunisia to lndonesia. As General Secretaryof the World Islamic

Conference,he travels extensively hroughout the Islamic States

and has recently returned from conferences n Pakistan.'When n

Egypt he gives weekiy radio broadcasts n Islamic culture an d

interpretation of the Koran.

In r 94o Ramadhan beganhis studiesof Islam under Hassanal

Banna, former Supi'eme Guide of the lkhwan el Muslimin, andbecameeditor of El Shihab, a magazi ne ntroduced by the latter in

v147.It was a monthly magazine or articleson Islamic law and

culture but ceased ublication after five ssues nder pressure rom

er-King Farouk's government. Shortly thereafter the Brotherhood

was outlawed and upwards of zrooo of its members arrested.

SaeedRamadhan left for Pakistan in t ime to prevent possible

detention. He lived there about a year during which time he had

fivo radio broadcasts weekly which were beamed to the Arab

States, ncluding Egypt. Late in r949 the Muslim League of Pak-

istan requestedRamadhan to give a seriesof lectureson Islamtc

Culture in many parts of the Middle East. Startingin Sudan, he

gave talks rnainly in universities through Egypt and ending in

Turke-v.12

Caffery had been contacted by an unnamed American agent, on

behalf of Mohammed el Bakay of Al Azhar, the centuries-old Islamic

center of learning in Cairo. Bakay, who also traveled to Princeton,

described Ramadan as a distinguished member of the Muslim Broth-

erhood and suggested hat he be invited to attend the Princeton gath-

ering, adding that the Society of Muslim Brothers was will ing to help

pay his erpenses.s3Concluded Caffery:







Islant Meets the Cold War . 8 r

and the like-were increasinglydrawn to left-wing movemenrsand

parties.Among the masses,herewas more reluctance o abandon he

Koran for Das Kapital, especially among ill-educated peasants,

Bedouin ribesmen,and pro-capitalistmerchantsand bazaar eaders,

making them harder to mobilize ctn behalf of Marxism and Arab

socialism.So the questionwas:What

sort of ideological ramework

might be able to attract both the Arab and Muslim masses n onehandand to capture ome mportantsegment f the Arab eli teon the

other? For some analysts, he "new lslam," led by intellectualsan d

poli t icaloperat ives uchasBanna,Ramadan, nd Mawdudi, seemed

made o order.The X,luslimBrotherhoodwas having somesuccess n

r-rniversityampuses, ttracting students-especiallyengineers, cien-

tists,physicians, nd management nd business tudents.Could such

a movement,especiallywith the support of the SaudiArabian royal

family, counteract he Marxist-nationalistbloc? And could U.S.pro-

p:l€ianda, tressingAmerica'sown religiousvalues n contrast o the

atheisticSoviet Union, draw the Muslim masses nto the Americancamp-or at leastaway from Moscow? t seemedworth a try.

One who seemed o think it might be worthwhile was Bernard

Ler,vis,he inventor of the phrase "clash of civilizations." For five

tlecades, ewis, who is currently an emeritusprofessorat Princeton,

hirs been arguably the singlemost influential theorist in the field of

Islamic cholarship. et, or all that time, Lewis hasbeen ntense)y on -

troversial,argelybecause e has akena highlypartisan, 6nss1y21iys-

lrrcl ater, neoconserv"ri,r."-point of vieq and because f his strong

.rffinity or israel.A ty j3 essay y Professor ewis, "Communism and

Isi;rm,"s an important exampleof the then-current hinking on the

-rcr t haf t le f ideologies.

Lewis made t clear that the people of the Muslim world seemed

intent on creatinga string of authori tariangovernments nd that, if

:ire West'sobjectivewas to oppose he spreadof communism, ha t

'.rouldn't be so bad. "If the peoplesof Islam are forced ro make a

.frright choice, o abandon their own traditions in favour of either

\ ()mrnunism r parliamentarianism,hen we are at a greatdisadvan-

.-rge."he wrote. "It is fortunate, both for Islam and for the \il/estern

'...,rr1d,that the choice s not restricted o these wo simplealternatives,



8z' Dsvtt- 's Genr

for the possibility still remains or the Muslim peoplesof restoring'

p.rh"p, in a modified orm' their own tradition; of evolvinga form of

gou.rn-.nt which, though authoritarian' and perhaps even auto-

cratic, is nevertheless ar removed from the cynical tyranny of

European-styleictatorship.

t6

After endorsing he..fortunate,'likelihood of authoritarian Mus-

lim regimes, ewis went on to suggesthat, indeed' slam would ulti-

matelyprove nfertileground for Marxist ideas:

communism s not and cannotbe a religion,while Islam, or the

greatmassof believers,t i l l s; and hat is thecoreof the Islamrc

resistanceo Communist deas'Though heir belief n libertybe

too weak o sustain hem, heir belief n God may yet be strong

enough. he Islamicpeoples re still profoundly eligiousn th e

d..p.rt andsimplestmeaning f theword' Islamasa religion sno

more anti-Gommunisthanchristianity; n fact, as I have sug-

gested,ather ess o.But t is morepotentasa torcealtectlngne

iiu., u,-td houghtsof its adherents' iousMuslims-and most

Muslimsare pious-will not long toleratean atheist reed'no r

one that violates heir traditional eligiousmoral principles' ' '

The present evolt of the Muslims against he immorality and

opportu.tir- of their own and of some Westerneadersmay tem-

porurlly avor the Communists, ith their appearancef selfless

devotion o an ideal,but will work againstCommunismwhen

Muslimscome o see he realities ehind he propaganda' et us

hope hat heywil l not ake oo ongover t '

At the Princetoncolloquium, heid the sameyearLewis'sessaywa s

written, a marker was aid down by a Pakistanischolar'Mazheruddin

Siddiqi,afel lowatthelnst i tuteof ls lamicCultureinLahore'Afor-

mer government otficial and prolific writer, educatedat the university

of Madras n India, Siddiqiwas the author of Islam and Communism'

Marxismandlsla.m,^ndHi"o' icalMater ial ismandlslam'Inhis

address o the Princetongathering,Siddiqimade t clear hat commu-

nism could be resisted nly if its oppositionwas faith-based nd built

onlslamicfundamentals.Siddiqiat tackedMuslim..author itar ian-

ism," but alsounleashed bitter salvoagainst he Islamicworld's sec-

ularists, "the pseudo-scientists nd half-baked intellectuals who

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^/ DEvtr- 's GenE

Marxism: "With Islam, as countlessmodern writers have explained,

[the perfect societyl s the true Islamic society-some would say the

true Islamic State."And he concludeswith a hopeful vision: "May it

not b e that by virtue of this common need o givea worthy answer o

Communism he two faiths, slam and Christianity,have he opportu-nity of a fruitful relationshipwith eachother?" Craggcitesa comment

from the Princetongathering, n which the occasion f Turkish troops

fighting in the Korean \Var was evoked, o conclude:"Now at last

after r,3oo yearsof largely ruitless ontroversy.men of the rwo great

monotheistic eligionsare struggling houlder o shoulderagainstgod-

lessmaterialism."

Yet, n the r95os, he idea hat Islamwould join the "Chr ist ian"

\Westin a jihad-crusade gainst godlessmaterialism"was decidedly

minority point of view. On one hand,many hard-headed trategists-

who might be called "realists" today-felt that Islamismwas too

weak or uncertaina force o be relied upon. A secondpole of opposi-

tion came from some of those who believed hat Islam could never

serve he anti-communistcausebecause t was ir-rherentlyoo anti-

Western.

Hermann Eilts recalls he dea hat Islamwas an ally in the struggle

againstMoscow as an "overstatement."

"There was a view that lslam and communism were simply anti-

thetical," saysEilts,who beganhis servicen Iran and SaudiArabia in

the r94os. "Very few people n governmenteven hought very much

about Islam. . . . There were thosewho said,It 's helpful to keep he

communistsout.' But no one really ook it very seriously. he general

view in the U.S. government and in the academicworld was that

Islam was becoming a shrinking political factor, and sharia law,

Islamic aw, was being relegated o personalstatus.And I remember

so well American economicspecialists oming out to the countries n

which I servedand making the point that the quicker you get rid of

Islam, the more quickly you are going to develop,becauseslam was

seenby them as a barrier o economicdevelopment."

John C. Campbell, or decadeshe Council on ForeignRelations'

chief Middle East strategist, ed a CFR task force, aunched n 1954,

tl:

" i

i ' i

" :

'T

-{l

"t'

, ' :

1

iii

]L





86 [ )nvrr . 's Ger,rr

That idea fizzled,and subsequent oricies ocused esson Islam an dmo'e on direct Anglo-Americanpower. Stilr,during the Truman andEisenhower ears' he united statescarried out a seriesof efforts tomobilizepolitical slam n the cold war, and ro use slamasa weaponagainstSoviet nfluence.Someof them were serirus,minded.otherswereclums.y, venhilariouslymisguided.

Consider he ,,Redpig,' program. part of the American approachtoward poli t ical slam n the r95os was ro rry ro win propagandapoints by emphasizing hat the United States as a piuu, narion arndthat the SovietUnion persecuredeligion. n r95r, the U.S. nforma_tion Service n Baghdadproudly announced he lar-rnch f a pr:opa_ganda campaign designed o win the hearts and minds of IraqiMuslirns by a comparisonof the srateof religion n the United Sratesand in 'a communist state. ' A posrerwas created ,which showedthe communisr stateas a big bully martreatinga man labeled Reli-

gion. ' A second oster

tells he storyof the GreedyRedpig anclhow he came o a badend.The fact that the pig is wearinga Red Staron his arnrbandand hasat his rear nstead f the normall,v iggycurl a hammer_and-sickleail hasnot escapedhe observers.. . Others ernarkedon the suitability f making he Communist il laina pig becauseof the resistanceppeal t has or Moslems. il/efeel har a wholeseries f cartoon-posrersan be developed, sing he Redprgasthecentral igure.al

Edward S' crocker, the foreign service fficial who helpeddesign hecampaign,helpfully included thirty-two illustrations of the Red pi gcampaignwith his dispatch.

The fledgling centrar IntelligenceAgency also erperimented withcreative,f half-cocked, aysof conne-ing with the slamistmovemenr.Some of rhem are told in the raucously funny book The Game ofNations by Miles Copeland, he CIA operationsofficer who, during ther95os, servedas a liaison to Nasser and who spent many yearsembroiled n Arab politicar skullduggerl,. operand retired earry fromthe cIA but maintainedcrose onn*io,r, to dozensof its current and

former operatives, speciallyo Kermit and ArchieRoosevelt, randsons



Islam and

and

efforts to

i a weapon

Others

pproach

and

Informa-

a propa-

of |:aqi

rc.dStates

showed

ed 'Rel i-

. : rnd

Piq as

he

Red Pig

with

Gtme of

the

t\- years

from

and

Islam Meets the Cold V/ar 8z

of Teddy Roosevelt.A back-slapping outherner,Copeland used his

good-ol'-boy charm to mask a sophisticatedunderstandingof the

Arab world. He reported hat around the same ime as he Red Pig

campaign, he CIA cameup with the Moslem Billy Graham proj-

ect . In r95r, Secretary f StateDean Acheson borrowed Kermit

Roosevelt rom the newly formed Central ntelligence gency o head

a highly secret ommitteeof specialists-some rom the StateDepart-ment, some rom the Departmentof Defense, nd somebrought n as

consultants rom business oncernsand universities and none from

the CIA except Roosevelthimself)-to study the Arab world, said

Copeland.At the gathering,an operationdesigned o mobilize slamic

religious sentimentswas launched. Someoneadvanced he idea of

promoting a 'Moslem Billy G raham' to mobilize religious ervor in a

great move againstCommunism and actuallygot as far as selecting

wild-eyed raqi holy man to sendon a tour of Arab countries. The

identity of the Iraqi wasn't revealed.But Copeland considered he

entire effort to be a learning experience. The project did no harm,and the managingof it taught the committeemuch about what was

wrong with their basicplanning assumptions-lessons hat were pu t

to good use later when [Saudi Arabia's] King Feisal'sadviserspu t

Feisalup to much the samekind of project,with Feisalhimselfas he

holy man. 42

Another, essambitious CIA project nvolved some sardonicpro-

pagandaaimed at the USSR's nfluence n Egypt. The CIA unearthed

somepre-'WorldVar I anti-Islamic racts with titles lke Mohammed

Neuer Existed, The Harmful Consequencesof Fasting during

Ramadan, andAgainst be Veil,andreissued

hem, his time attribut-ing them to the Sovietembassyn Cairo.a3

The CIA alsoexperimentedwith usingEgypt as a cen ter or reach-

ing out to Islamic activists n the Middle East and Africa. The vehicle

ior the effort was none other than Anwar Sadat.SinceWorld lWarII ,

Sadathad beenclose o the Muslim Brotherhood,servingas the liai-

son between he organizationand Nasser's reeC)fficersmovement n

t l- re 94os and ear ly r95os.Sadat pproached asserwith the deaof

.reating an Islamic Congressand, when Nasser agreed,Sadat was

.rppointed to lead it. According to Mil es Copeland, Religious



U8 . Dr,vrr- 's Gaur,

attach6swere sent o various Egyptian missionsabroad and assigned

the task of watching for opp ortunities o usecommon religious nter-

ests o achieve t least actical union.' . . . The AmericanGovernmenr

at first gave imited encouragemento the program. 4aLater,when

relationsbetween he United States nd Nasser eached he breakine

point, the CIAs support or the venturewas withdrawn.

More seriouslS he United States e gan o explorewith SaudiAra-

bia the possibility of creating an Islamic bloc, whose porential wa s

noted by someU.S. officialsand diplomatsbeginning n the r94os. It

was still too early for the U.S.-Saudi slamicalliance o take concrere

form as t later would. However, he questionof whether slamcould

serveas a barrier against communism, Marxist ideas, and radical

Arab nationalism occupied he thoughts of many academics, olicy

makers,and foreign service fficers.

. . In r95r, rWil l iamA. Eddn the U.S. consulgeneral n Dhahran,

Saudi Arabia, wrote a detailedaccount of di scussions e'd had with

variousMuslim leaders,ncluding he king of SaudiArabia, the mufti

of Jerusalem, n Islamic eader n Egypt, and an Arab L eagueofficial

suggesting strategy or the Christian, democratic'Westoining with

the Muslim world in a common moral front against Communism.

According to EddS the mufti, Haj Amin al-Husseini, he British-

linked Palestinianwho'd been a supporter of Nazism during the

L93osand r94os, spokeof Russiaand Communismwith the deepest

hate, nsisted hat we we re on the wrong side n the last war [World\WarII] and should havebeenallied with GermanyagainstRussia. . .

He spoke cordially of the cooperation which would be offered by

Muslims to promote a joint propagandawith Christians o make this

danger clear. Regarding Saudi Arabia, Eddy explicitly noted the

power of the fundamentalistWahhabi movement:

While n an audience ith theKingof SaudiArabia,AbdulAzizal

Saud, hisweek, he King addressedimself trongly o the same

point.He affirmed hat both Christranity nd slamare hrearened

by Communism, heir commonenemy. . . Muslims n the East,

and Christians n the \fest, should be allies n this trouble to

defendheirhistoric aith. . . As headof thepuritanicalWahhabi

movement o restore he pure faith and Dractices f Islam. he



lslamMeetsheColdV/ar . 8.r

King swithout any doubt he mostrepresentativend nfluential

\{uslim in theworld today.as

Eddy sentcopiesof the etter o three officialsof Aramco, the consor-

rium made up of Exxon, Mobil, Texaco, and Chevron, and to

BrigadierGeneralRobert A. McClu re, director of psychologicalwar-

fare,Departmentof Defense.

Eddy was more than a low-level consular official. During World

War II, Eddy had been an intelligenceoperative for the Office of

StrategicServicesOSS),where he'd gotten experience singpolitical

Islam on America'sbehalf. Born in Sy ria of missionaryparents,he

spoke fluent Arabic and was a di stinguishedscholar and war hero

rvho had lost a leg in the First'World 'War. With great derring-do,

Eddy conductedoperations n parts of German-occupiedNorth Africa.

''Eddy formed chainsof informants o gather ntelligence, preadsub-

versive ropaganda, nd organizea resistancemovement. That resis-

tance, however, would include a Muslim secret societS led by

collaborators nown only by the nicknames Strings and Tassels.

Stringswas the leader of a powerful Muslim brotherhood n north-

ern Morocco. a6

A year ater,an unsigne r9 5z diplomatic report entitled Conver-

sationwith PrinceSaud, abeled Secret:Security nformation, said

that Aramco was paying for a print shop and a broadcasting tatron

in R iyadh for the propagation of religious racts. Prince Saud,wh o

rvould soon becomeking, declared hat SaudiArabia was a leader

among the Arab statesbecause f . . . the presence f the Holy Cities

rvithin the Kingdom. And Saudhad anotherpoint to make, he U.S.

diplomatadded:

Some ay,hesaid, ewasgoing o give angibleorm o this eader-

ship.He said hat hehad planswhichhe did not wish o discussn

detailnow to sparkpluga pan-Islamic ovement. e said t could

do a greatdealof good n theMuslimcountries y causinghem o

work together sa unit but again e epeatedhat hewasnot ready

to discusshe plan in detail. . . I told him that his information

about slamic nitywasvery nterestingndwewould beveryglad

to know moreabout t whenhisplans vere learlyormulated. . .



Dnvtr 's Gaur.

I told him that we would welcome such a movement under his

leadership becausewe were sure that it would be friendly.aT

\fhile some foreign policy functionaries had their doubts, efforts

to encourage aisal n this directionwere undertaken entativelyany-

way, without a real grasp of either the politics or the culture of the

Muslim world.

David Long, a retired foreign serviceofficer and specialiston Saudi

Arabia and the Gulf, says hat in the period after'World'War II the

United Stateswas operating blind. 'We didn't know anything, he

says. When we get up to the period after'World'War

II, yes, here

were imeswhen Islam was usedasa rallying cry for the political ssue

of the day. But, saysLong, U.S. policy lacked an understandingof

historicalprecedent. \7e were trying a replay of what they'd tried a

thousand years.ago, he says, referring to the caliphatesof old.

Their ideology s ancient. Well,we neverheard of any of this when

we jumped nto this r)3oo-year-old aga,simply because e were the

biggestplayer n the game. SomeAmericans,saidLong, had a rudi-

mentary amiliarity with the Middle Eastand Islamicculture. It was

usuallysaid hat the oil companykids and the missionarykids knew a

little. But I've talked to them, many of them, over the years.They

lived in their own little world, and what they knew was in fact very,

very imited.'Wewanted oil, and we wanted to fight communism,bu t

we weren't really all that interested n all that crap about Islam. We

were neophytes-way, way behind the curve of what the British and

Frenchpicked up after all the time they'd spent here' Askedwhether

the United Statesactively supportedpolitical Islam as an alternative

to communism n those days,Long says, 'Weencouraged t' But we

didn't create t.

Adds Long:

The dealwas, he Saudis erevulnerable.We would provide ecu-

rity for them, and hey would provideoil for us.\Whenit came to Nasser,Faisal reviewed he bidding and

opposed an-Arabism. e decidedhat they were socialists nd

that they were against slam. So, while we and the Israelis

9o



r . . r -

I the

" ho

ssue

nf

e the

was

very,

IWe

and

we

d

Islam Meet s the Cold V/ar . 9r

were demonizing asser, erewas Faisalopposing im. He was

worried hat Muslim youthwould turn to socialism nd abandon

Islam.We didn't understandhar-we didn't understand aisal's

motivations.We ried o setup an alliance etween audiArabia

and Tunisia, orgetting hat Bourguibawas a secularist.We

said,

'Hey, you're all moderates.'But to Faisal,Bourguibawas an

apostate.

Sowe weregoing n the same irection, ut we didn't under-stand t. We

tried o give t a different lant, hatof powerpolitics.

To the Saudis, owever,t was based n the dea hat theyare he

defendersf the aith,of theMuslim holy places. ut we saw t in

a powerpolitics ramework.a8

As Long suggests, he American "neophytes" stumbled nto an

allianceof sorts with Islamic fundamentalismalmost without realiz-

ing what was happening.Very few American diplomats and scholars

had studied the relationship between slam and politics, and rhose

who did were often muddled. n 195r, the Middle East nsriturecon-

vened a two-day conferenceon "Islam in the Modern \World," at

which Philip'\X/.

Ireland, a senior State Departmenr official who'd

servedas U.S. charg6d'affaires n Baghdad,deliveredan addresson

the relationship of Islam, democracy,and communism, wondering

"whether present rends will carry Islam into the camp of Commu-

nism or into that of Democracy."After noting that "Commsnism"-

actuallS he was referring o nationalism-was making gains n Syria,

Iraq, and Jordan, reland noted:

In SaudiArabia, he Yemen,and the Hadramaut, he primitive

and austere haracter f Islam has ndeedproven,practically swell as heoretically. barrier o Communism.ae

Ireland did not put much stock in the theocratic version of Islam,

expressing he hope that somehow Muslims would be able to blend

Islamwith modern political theories.LeadingU.S. strategists orried

that as slammodernized,Muslims would abandon heir faith for sec-

ularism, and that such a trend would open the doors o the spreadof

Marxist ideas n the Middle East.BayardDodge, he highly nfluential



L)2 . Dlvrt. 's Gal ln

ex-president f theAmericanU'iversity in Beirut Ggz3 to r 94g), toldthe sameMiddle East nstituregroup:

Tcrday ationalism f a materialisticype sbec<tmingsrrong le -ment n Islamic houghtand society. nd that, of course,works

directlyagainst he old idea 'f pan-lslamor the caliphate, fIslamasa greatorganized rotherhood. o a largeextent, atio.-al ismhas aken he place

' fthe rel igi .us ideof the pan-Isranr

movement. eedlesso sa)',t is heyoungMuslim,uninteresteclnIsla'r as a greatsvsrem,who is particularl,vikely to becomeCommunist .. . The eact ion f theMuslims f the is ing enera-tion is an exceedingly nfortunate ne,as so manv of them ar ecasti'g aside heir religio', their moraliry,or their oyalty o thecult .They ive icent iousives, r inking, . . gambling, . . amus-ing hemselvesn cabarets nd houses f prostirution.

If Is lam sundermined,f mater ial isrnnd adical isnrome n,with

eommunist houghtperhaps errneatingt, rheourcomewillcertainly ea rnajor ragedy or the vorld.50

Loyalty . the cult ? L iv ing l icent ious ives. . . in houses f prost i-

tution ? Dodge, he scior-r f Protestantmissionaries ith roots in theMiddle East of the ninereenrhcenrury, s.unds more like a Bible-thumping revivalist han a foreign policy analyst.Ancl, n fact, in hisaddress, Dodge praised the Muslim Brotherhood, Turkey,s anti_Ataturk religi.us revival, and Persiansunder Reza shah whr ar e finding that they musr go back and havemore religion f they are ocombat communism. 'i1 Dodge here expressed lmost exactry thesought-after hristian-Muslimalliance hat so manyu.s. policymakersdreamedof, regardless f how impractical t seemed.forse, though, twas preciselywhat the Middle East didn't need,as it struggleilnithmodernity, nd asseculareaders verywheren theregion exceptSaudiArabia) sought ro reduceor elirninate he role of Islam, the clergy, herilTahhabis,and the Muslim Brotherhood.

S7hatDodge, and many

others, eared s that communism,and not western-stylecapitalism,would win the hearrsand minds of Arabs, Turks, persians.ancl ndi-ans reedof the shackles f religiousbelief.

Many Americandiplomats,of course,equally concerned bout

promot ingU.S. nterests verseas nd combat ingcommunism, ook



d

[slam Meets the Cold Wdr qz

the sensible iew that the United States ught to concentrate n eco-

nomic development n the Middle East, and that facilitating the

region's ransition away from backward religious undamentalism o

modern, and Western, deasclf organizingsocietymight not necessar-

ily benefit he SovietUnion. Many, too, bel ieved hat Isl am should not

be anything more than a systemof personalbelief,not a political or

socialsystem.But as the r95os wore on, their voiceswere lessand less nfluen-

tial. Nasser'snonalignment,or positive neutralism, began o look

more and more ike a communistTrojan Horse to the Dullesbrothers

and their Cold'Iil7ar

co-thinkers.So. oo. did the nationalismof Prime

Minister Mossadegh n Iran. In both cases, s he Eisenhoweradmin-

istration moved to confront these egimes, t reached or one of the

most dangerous mplements n its tool box: Islamrc undamentalism.

f l t t -- +





Tbe War against Nasserand Mossadegh 95

rerness, nd anger n the Middle East, eedingwidespread, ingering

.rnti-Americanismo this day and evenproviding fuel for Al Qaeda's

recruiters.Yet it was a folly compounded by yet another massive

error: the U.S.decision o supportSaudiArabia as he counterpole to

-\rab and Persiannationalism, and to tie itself to a worldwide net-

u'ork of Islamistssponsoredby the Saudis. t was a decisionwhose

consequencesed, indirectly, to the rise of A,vatollahKhomeini'srheocracy,he destructionof Afghanistan,and Osamabin Laden's er -

rorist international.

THE, BROTHERHOOD AGAINST NASSER

From 1954, when Nasserconsolidated ower over his r ivals,unt i l

r97o, when he died, Nasser garneredunparalleled,even egendary,

support n Egypt, and throughout the Arab world. Andr6 Malraur,

:he Frenchwriter, said,of Nasser: He will enterhistory as represen-:ative of Egypt, the sameas Napoleon of France. r \WilliamR. Polk,

an official at the National SecurityCouncil in the r96os, said: He

n-as the John Kennedy of the Arab world. 2 Five million people

:urned out for his funeral, and that doesn'tcount the tensof millions

,rf Arabs who mourned privately, the ones who wept in coffee-

i-rouses,t home, alone, n groups,silently, oudly, through prayei, n

;.rrs in faraway California, or who suffered he pain of his death n

:rozennumbness. 3Yet over and over, n the 195os and again n the

r96os, the United Statesstiff-armedNasser,and worse. Behind the

).enes, he CIA schemed o topple him. 'Wewere trying to overthrow Nasseq saysEd Kane, a CIA opera-

:ions officer who was stationed n Cairo in the late r95os and early

.r ( )os. The Agencywas nvolved n a covertoperat ion-a very nept

rr-re, might add-relying on membersof the ancienr6gime,who had

'rl.solutelyno power.'We were attempting to find elementswho could

, \-erthrow him, mostly figures tied to the old regime-landowners,

:ndustrialist s, nd other old enemies f Nasser's.t was a futile project. a

Half a century ago, Nasser symbolized Arab revoiution, self-

letermination, and independence. he seizureof power by the Free



96 . DE,vrr s Gaun

officers in Egypt cameduring an erawhen the entireArab world, fromMorocco to Iraq, was ocked n the grip of a political iceage.Morocco,Algeria,and Tunisiawere Frenchcolonies;Kuwait, eatar, Bahrain, theUnited Arab Emirares,oman, and yemen were British colonies. raq,

Jordan, and saudi Arabia were kingdomsruledby monarchies nstalledby London. And Egypt,under the wobbly King Farouq, was the politi-

cal and economiccenrerof the Arab world. By taking power in Egypt,Nasserelectrified he political class n the Arab world, inspiringa host ofwould-be imitators, iberation-mindedpolitical parties,and army revo-lutionists.From 1954 onward, through agenrs, olitical supporr,andthe powerful Voice of the Arabs radio in cairo, and by virrue of hischarismaticappeal,Nasser ed the independencemovement n the ArabMiddle East. From 956 to 1958, Lebanon,Jordan, and Iraq wererocked by rebellions, raq s king fell, and Syria united with Egypt inNasser s nited Arab Republic,a short-livedbut exciting

experiment nunifying the Arab world. The Algerian evolurion drew moral and mate-rial support from cairo, beforewinning independene n tc)6z,thesameyear that Yemenunderwent a Nasser-inspi redevolt, triggeringa proxywar pitting SaudiArabia againstEgypt. Even as lare as 1969, a yearbeforeNasser sdeath,Libya s king was overthrown and Sudan,s ight-wing regimeeliminatedby military leaders oyal to Nasser.

In the Manichea , with-us-or-against-usworld of the cold rwar,

Nasserwas loathedand demonizedby London, \Tashington,and TelAviv. Around the world, from Guatemala o the congo to Indonesia-and in Iran-the cIA was busygetting id of leaders ot becauseheywere communists,but because heir independentstreak made themuntrustworthy interlocutors in the war between the superpowers.Nasserwasno except ion.

unlike other leaders n Latin America or Africa, however, Nasseqwith his revolutionaryoutlook, threatened he very heartof America spost-\7orld \Var II srrategy:rhe vast oil fields of saudi Arabra. Notonly was Egypt a potentialmilitary rival to SaudiArabia, not only didcairo clash with Riyadh in a shootingwar in yemen, not only di dNasser nspireArabs in saudi Arabia with republican deals,but theEgyptian eaderevenwon over some of saudi Arabia s royal family.



The War against Nas-<er nd Mossadegh

...ro. ed by PrinceTalal, ormed he so-called FreePrinces,"defected

: , F,gvpt, nd demanded he establishment f a republic n Arabia.

-\s rhe United Statesbuilt its network of alliances n the Middle

i-...r. relying more and more on non-Arab states, ncluding TurkeS

i- :n. irnd srael, heredeveloped n "Arab cold war," with Egypt at

, r re ndand SaudiArabiaat theother.Superf ic ial ly,t seemed s f the

. : rLrggle ithin the Arab wor ld pit ted Soviet- leaning rab countr ies

. , .sr inst merican-al l ied nes, ut in fact he SovietUnion had no t rue

r rres nd few fr iends n the region.T'he ealdynamic hat plavedout

:-enveen954 and r97o occurredbetween ompet ing isionsof the

-.irLrre f the Middle E,ast.On one hand, there was Nasser's ecular,

: : r , rdernizing,ndustr ialArab wor ld of independent ut cooperat ive

rr.rb republics.On the other was SaudiArabia's semi-feudalarrayof

: : r , ,narchies,i th their natural esourcesut at theWest 's isposal,n

.rhich the royal families'ace-in-the-hole as the Muslim Bro therhood

,,.n.1he Islamic ight.

A contingentof America'sArabists ejected he strategyof isolat-.:rqNilsser, nd someevensaw him as he Arab world's savior. ln the

:.eqinningNasserhad somestrongsupport rom the Agencyand from

::rcembassy," aysKane, eferr ing o the per iod rom r95z to r954.\

\ccording to one widely cited account, by Miles Copeland n The

(,ttrte of I'Jations, he CIA evenencouragedhe FreeOfficers n their

-* oilrtion, after first trying to get King Farouq to modeihize Egypt.

Thc legendary ermit ("Kim") Roosevelt ,he man who would coor-

l inate the r953 CIA coup hat restoredhe shahof I ran to his hrone,

. ; - rct lv vis i tedFgypr n r95z:

His mission, pecifically,vas irst o attempt o organize "peace-

fLrl revolution" in Egvpt wherein King Farouq himselfwould

supervisehe iquidation f theold and ts replacementy thenew,

therebydefusinghe revolutionaryorceswhich CIA agents ad

rclentifieds nuchas wo vears arlier.t '

But . according o Copeland,Farouq was too "bird-brained"Tand

orrLlpt to respond,preferring to engage n or:gies nd troll Cairo's

{iG 58



98 Drvrr 's Gaur

Red Light district in sunglasseshan to take responsibility or Egypt.

Kim Roosevelt hu s

. . . agreedo meet he officerswhom the CIA hadspottedas ikely

leaders f thesecretmilitarysociety nown to beplottinga coup.Thishe did in March r952, our monthsbeforeNasser'soup. . .There were three such meetings, he third attendedby one ofNasser's ost rustedieutenants.8

Roosevelt eturned to \Tashington o convince he U.S. government

that it must accept he removalof Farouq.

There is no way to corroborate Copeland'saccount. Declassified

archivesdon't provide any help, and no one elsehasstepped orward

to endorseCopeland'sspecificasserrions. et the United States ni-

tially enjoyedgenerallygoodrelationswith rhe new Egyptiangovern-ment. In his excellentbook, Nasser's lessedMouement,Joel Gordon

reports that declassified records do substantiatechargesof close

links between he U.S. embassy n Cairo and the new regime. The

British,on the other hand, though resignedo following the U.S. ead,

seethedwith angerat'Washington, earing hat Nasser's ise o power

threatened he SuezCanal, ts bases, nd its path to India.e

But more was at stake han the remnantsof the British Empire. The

emergence f Nasserwas an existential hreat to the oil kingdoms-to

Saudi Arabia, to Iraq, and to the British-ownedsheikhs n th e Gulf.

The British, and then the Anglo-Americans,opposed Nasser not

because e was a communist,or because ewas susceptibleo commu-

nist influence; in fact, Nasser suppressed he Egyptian left and the

variouscommunistpartiesvigorously. n addition, he Egyptiancom-

munists were poorly organized and divided, w ith support primarily

among he ntelligentsia, nd had no chanceof taking power exceptas

a minority stakeholder in a \fafd-led nationalist government.What

was intolerable o London and'VTashingtonand to Paris, oo, until

1956)was that Nasser efused o be controlled,was adept at playing

the superpowersoff against each other, and inspired loyalty among

Arabsoutsideof Egypt, ncluding hosesittingon rop of the oii.\X/hat especiallyworried London and 'Washington was the idea





roo . Dr,v It . 's Gamn

Miles Copeland. 'While the Egyptian public and the outside world

were cheeringNaguib, the embassy,hrough Lakeland,had begun o

deal with Nasser as the one who really made the decisions. l0Bu t

Naguib, though lesspowerful than Nasser,had close ies to Hassan

Ismail al-Hudaybi, the man who had succeeded assan al-Bannaasthe leaderof the Muslim Brotherhood. Ultimately, a power struggle

between Nasser and Naguib would develop, and Naguib-with

British support-would reachout to the Brotherhoodashis chief ally.

Nasser's wn early relationshrpwith the Muslim Brotherhoodwas

tricky and nuanced.rl On taking power in t952, the Free Officers

were very careful not to alienate he Muslim Brothers.Severalmem-

bers of the officers' movement were members, and most of them,

including Nasser,had extensivecontacts with the organizatrongoing

back to the r94os. At the start he military junta faceda diverse oali-

tion of opponents, ncluding the'Wafd

and the left, the monarchists,

the fascistYoung Egypt party, and the Muslim Brotherhood.Nasser,

who personallyoversaw he military's delicate elationshipwith the

Brotherhood, decided at first to co-opt and neutralize the group

rather han confront it. When the new Egyptian egimebannedpolit i-

cal parties n t953, it exempted he Brotherhood.

There was, however, ittle chance hat Nasser and the Muslim

Brotherhoodwould ever seeeye o eye.The Brotherhood wanted an

Islamic societSNasser a secularone. Perhapsevenmore important,

Nasser wanted reforms, including land reform and educational

changes, hat the Muslim Brotherhood bitterly opposed. n conversa-

tions with U.S.ambassador effersonCaffery-the sameCafferywh o

recommended hat the Brothers' Said Ramadan visit Princeton and

the'White

House in r953-Hudaybi, the Brotherhood's chieftain,

said h at he would beglad to see everal f the [FreeOfficers] elimi-

nated. '12At around the same ime, a seniorBritish diplomat, Trefor

Evans, he oriental counselor at the British embassyn Cairo, held

at least one meeti ng with Hassan Ismail al -Hudaybi, the supreme

guideof the Muslim Brotherhood-a meeting atercited as reasonby

Nasserwhen he cracked down on the organization. Both British and

American officials maintained an ongoing relationship with the

group.





Tra \ , ; ' :rvr l 's Gens

According o Robert Baer,a former cIA covertoperations pecial-ist, the cIA also endorsed he idea of using he Muslim Brotherhood

againstNasser. n Sleepingwith the Deuir, Baer describeshe roughoutlinesof a top secretU.S.effort:

At the bottom of it all was his dirty little secretn rwashingron:The \x/hiteHouse ookedon the Brothers s a sirent ily,a secretweapon against (what else?) ommunism.This covert actionstarted n the 195oswith the Dullesbrothers-Allen at the cI Aand John Fosterat the StateDepartment-when hey approvedSaudiArabia's undingof Egypt'sBrothers gainstNasser. s faras Washingtonwas concerned, asserwas a communist.He'dnationalizedEgypt'sbig-businessndustries,ncluding he Suezcanal.The ogicof thecoldwar led o a clearconclusion:f Allahagreedo fighton our side, ine. f Allah decided oliticalassassr-natlonwaspermissible,hatwas ine, oo,as ongasno one alked

abour t in pol i re ompany.Like any other truly effective overt acrion, his one was

strictlyoff thebooks.Therewasno cIA finding, o mem.randumnotificationo congress. ot a penny ameout of theTreasuryofund t. In otherwords,no record.All thewhite Househad 'dowas give a wink and a nod to counrries arboring he MuslimBrothers,ike SaudiArabiaand Tordan.17

while both Britain and the United srateswere prayingwith fire,mobilizing assassinsrom the Muslim Brotherhood against Nasser,there s also evidence hat the Brotherhood was cooperatingwith a

violent, assassination-proneslamist group from Iran, the so,calledDevoteesof Islam, one of whose founderswas an Iranian ayatollahwho worked with the cIA in toppling Mossadegh.BernardLewis, aformer British ntelligence fficerand a leadingorientalist, nored ha tthe Brothers'decision o engagen outright opposition o Nasserwastied, n part, to its connectionso the Devotees.t was, eportedLewis,a visit to cairo in t9 14 by the eaderof the Devotees f Islam hat rris-gered he Muslim Brotherhood's 954 uprisingagainstNasser:

The same combination of idealism and violence, of piety an d

terror, can be seen in the Persian organization known as th e

Fidail 'an-i Isldrrt-

rows a term usecl -

Mountain' Tho' '

simi lar to those

contacts.On \ l ' - '

Persian Prir-rre'-

Fldal leader. \

touched off rl-' ' -

hood and [\-: ' -

The r95,1,Brt ' : . ' ' -

eveninthe IIr i - '

reachedacl ' t , : '. -

fanatics rvirl-r -' ''

i te ones in I r- - - : -

'nvhetherthet^-

forces thc-r'. : '

r ight in f .g' 1. .

shaclou'r'. ' . ' '

pick ar-r.1'' -

alse-l . r ' -c-l t : : ' '

: tc-t l I t1.J ' l ' - ' ' l

t - l \ f i rr - l ; ' ' . ' ' : '



- )pcrt t ions pecial-

Brotherhood

:cscr ibes he rough

:n \\rashington:

::rf .t l lr ,a secret . covert action

-. ien :rt the CI A

rhev approved

.: \asser. As far

: l r runist . He d

, . i .1ing he Suez .- iusion:I f Al lah

: ir l111an1ssassi -

i i no one talked

. th is one was

: ,nrenorandum

: :te Treasur\ o

i i r rusehad to do

:: : tq fhe Musl im

r plil\ ing with fire,

,,,.1 rgainstNasser,

. r iops. t , t* with a

Ir.rn, the so-called

: : I r irnianayatol lahr. Ilernard Lewis, a

r:nta1ist ,oted hat

t : ton o Nasserwas

-rs. eportedLewis,

, : of Is lam hat r ig-

n t Nasser:

of piety and

-. kriorvn as th e

The.Vldr

against Nasser ttnd Mossadegh ro l

Fidaiyan-i slam-the devoreesf Islam,which,significantly,or -rowsa rermused y themedieval missariesf theold Man of theMountain.ThoughShiites,hey h.ld pan-Islamic pinions arhersimilar o rhoseof the Egyptianbrorhers, ith whom theyhavecontacts. n \,,larch LL) , oneof theirmembers hotand killedPersianPrirneMinister GeneralRazmara. t was a visit of theFidai leader,Nawab Safavi, o Egypt in Januarn 19_54,hat

touched ff the firsrserioLrsnd openclashbetweenhe Brother-hoodand Nasser s] ilitary egime.18

The r954 Brotherhood-Devoteesink reveals he exrenr to which,

even n the r95os, slamic undamental ism as truly internat ional.t

reached crossnational borders n the Arab world, it connectedArab

fanaticswith those n Pakistan,and it l inked sunni militantswith Shi-

ite ones n Iran and elsewhere. ven half a century ater, t isn t clear

whether he cIA understood he nternationalscopeand power of the

forces hey were dealingwith. Did they understand hat the Islamic

right in Egypt, in Saudi Arabia, in Iran and elsewhereoperated ashadowy,worldwide fraternity-or did they believe har they could

pick and choosewhen and where ro support the Islamic right, on a

case-by-caseasis? he fact s that by the r95os he slamists ad cre-

ateda transnationalorganism,whoseexistence ppeared o elude he

cIA for decades.nstead,American diplomats and cIA officialspre-

ferred o see slamicacrivistsonly in relation to the country in which

they were stationed.

During r954, relations between Nasser and the Brothers grew

more tense.Though now officially outlawed, the Brotherhood still

maintaineda powerful presencehroughout he country.Nassermovedfirst against Naguib. In a prolonged struggleduring February and

March, Nasser marginalizedNaguib, shunting him asideand deftly

neutralizing he Muslim Brother:hoodn the process.n April, Nasser

brought o trial the first of severaleadingBrother:hood fficials,and a

finalconfrontationwith the organization eemednevitable. he Egyp-

tian policebeganwatching he organization s ctions,even aiding ts

mosques nd imposingcontrolson sermonsby radical mams. n Sep-

tember, he Egyptiangoverrment stripped ive Muslim Brotherhood

officials of their citizenshipwhile they were on a mission to syria.

-d



,,ii=ri*,&i*ffiryre

ro 4 Dsvrr 's Gaur

Among them was SaidRamadan, he Brotherhood'schief deologue.The five men were attendinga conferencen Damascus t which theyorganized Muslim Brotherhood members from Iraq, Jordan, andsudan to denounceNasser.le eading membersof the Brotherhood.including Hudaybi, wenr inro hiding.

Finally, on October 26, a member of the Muslim Brotherhoodfired eight shots at Nasser.The facts surrounding the assassinationattempt are somewhat murky, but in most accounts he shots atNasser were fired at point-blank range by a Brotherhood memberwho was immediatelyarrested. il/asthere a larger conspiracy? were

the British putting the Brothers up ro kill ing Nasser?certainly, therecordshows, he deawasn't beyondEden.

During the mid-r95os, in acrions hat foreshadowed he arremptsto kill Fidel castro by John F. Kennedy'scIA, the British hatchedinnumerableschemes o murder the Egyptian eader,some

of themharebrained.They funneledmoney into Egypt to bribe Nasser'sdoc-tor to poisonhim, concocteda plot to inject lethal poison nto somepopular Egyptian Kropje chocolates destined or him, creared a

JamesBond-like modified cigarettepacket which fired a poisoneddart ' and tried to slip a poisoned pill into Nasser's coffee.(copeland' who learnedabout the latter scheme, ays hat he joked

with Nasserabout it. Turn your head,Gamal, and let me see f I canput this poison in your coffee. l2o et all of this British skullduggerywas not funny,and it givescredenceo the norion that the Britishmayhave ried to use he Muslim Brotherhood's eteranassassins,oo.

Reprisalsagainst he Muslim Brotherhoodwere swift and deadly.More than a thousandBrotherswere arrested;many were sentencedto long prison terms,and six were hanged.Assets f the organizationwere seized, nd its officesand welfarecenters aken over by govern-ment agencies.Naguib, with his credibility among the army fadingand his Brotherhoodalliesscattered, as ousted rom the governmententirely in November, eading c. L. sulzberger o describehim as Kerenskywith a fez inthe New york Times.2l

To help round up the Muslim Brotherhood'seading ights,Nasserplayed a secret ard, using a jujitsu-like maneuveragainsta clique offormer Naziswho had takenroosr n Egyptafter forld'war II. During



hey

^Â u4r t, 4 l lu

shots at

d member

fere

the

attempts

hatched

of them

doc-

nto somea

r poisoned

coffee.

he oked

I can

may

tOO.

deadly.

govern-

Nasser

clique of

Dur ing

The tYar against Nasserand Mossadegh r o5

the war, many right-wing Islamists and Brotherhood activists-

including Haj Amin al-Husseini, he mufti of Ierusalem, who had

settled n Cairo-had intimate ies o the Nazis and to German ntelli-

gence.After the war, many former Naziswho escapedhe Nuremberg

trials and other dragnets led to safehavensaround the world, and

Egypt n the r94os was particularly welcoming.By then, he CIA and

MI6 were fast recruiting former Nazis to the Cold

'Vfar

struggleagainst he SovietUnion. \Torking with Rein hardGehlen, he former

Nazi intelligence hief, he CIA and theU.S.army helped o setup the

famous Gehlen Organization, the associationof ex-Nazi spies hat

was usedby JamesCritchfieldof the CIA as he core of theWest

Ger-

man intelligence ystem.Someof them, no doubt, infiltratedEgypt on

behalfof eitherU.S.or British ntelligence; therswere simplymigrat-

ing to what they hopedwas a hospitableenvironment.

One of the ex-Naziswho endedup in Egypt was Franz Buensch,

Germanwhose claim to fame was the publication of an anti-Semitic

tract calledSexualHabits of theJews,and t was Buensch hat Nassermanipulated n order to ferret out Brotherhoodplotters.According o

Miles Copeland,Buensch roposedan outlandish scheme o use or-

mer Nazis to organizean international slamic underground n con-

junction with the Muslim Brotherhood.Nasser ei gned nterest n the

gambit, then, saysCopeland,had his securitychief use t to round up

Muslim Brotherhoodmembers:

Buensch . . did develop ne project hat quicklygainedEgvptian

interest: plan o collectNazi diehardsrom their varioushiding

places ll over he world (Argentina, razll, reland,Spain, tc.)andgive hem slamicnames,oir-rhem o "underground ssets"

developed y Egyptduring he SecondWorld War,build a subver-

sive ntelligence rg combining he best n Germanand Eg1'ptian

ralenr, nd "put i t at thedisposal" f GamalAbdeiNasseror his

internat ionalar egainst ommunismnd mperial ism.

The plan was presentedo SaadAfraq, the General ntelli-

gence gencv fficer henresponsibleor administration n d sur-

veillance f theGermans. aad,whosegenialmanner overed ne

of the shrewdest rains n Egypt,affected reat nterest n the

plan, but insisted hat he must hear much more about these



Drvrr- 's Geur:

underground ssets. uensch, ho until then had been ulking

at Egyptianndifferenceo hispetsubject, egan o feel hat at last

he was beingappreciated nd that perhaps e was on to some-

thing big.With SaadAfraq'sencouragement,e produced ll the

ir.rformationn the subject ecould emember,henpumped ther

members f the German olony or what they remembered.he

resultwasenough videnceo hanghalf heMoslemBrotherhood,

plusenough eads o keepEgyptian ecurity fficers usy or the

next wo years stablishingheextentof influence f the organiza-

tion not only n F,gypt ut throughout heArab world.22

In r954, Egyptand the U nited Kingdom had signed n agreement

over the SuezCanal and British military basing ights. It was short-

lived. In r956, Clreat Britain, France, and Israel concocted a plot

against Egypt aimed at toppling Nasser and seizingcontrol of the

SuezCanal-a conspiracy n which they enlisted he Muslim IJrother-

hood. When the gathering British-H,gyprian howdown erupted in

r956, the organizat ion ad been argelydismant led nd its members

jailed, driven into exile, or forced underground n Egypt. But that

didn't stop London from reachingour ro its old allies.The srory of

Suez asbeen old count lessimes:how Nasser oughtU.S. inancial

help to build the Aswan Dam and was rebuffed nsultingly;how the

United States efused o sell arms to Egypt; how the Soviet Union

stepped n to supply aid and sell Czec h arms to Nasser; how the

British stonewallednegotiationsabout handing over rhe canal; an d

how London and Parisplotted with Israel o go to war. Eden'shatred

for Nasserhad reached everpitch. Lesswell known, however, s the

fact that as the plot unfolded, he British held secretpowwows wirh

the Muslim Brotherhood n Geneva.According o Dorril, two British

spooks,Col. Neil Mclean and Julian Amery, helpedMI6 organizea

clandestineanti-Nasseropposition in the south of France and in

Switzerland. They also went so far as to make contact in Geneva,

where the MI6 head of station was Norman Darbyshire,with mem-

bers of the Muslim Brotherhood, informing only MI6 of this

demarchewhich they kept secrer rom the rest of the Suez Group

[which was planning the military operation].Amery forwarded vari-

ous names to [Selwyn] Lloyd, the British foreign secretary.23he

ro 6



e

short-

r n ln t

the

that

Of

th e

and

is the

With

a

in

mem-

this

var i -

The

The'War

against Nasserand Mossadegh . ro7

exactnatureof MI6's contactswith the Muslim Brotherhood n Europe

during this period s not known, but it may have anged rom organiz-

ing a secret ssassin ationffort to as sembling secret overnment-in-

erile to replaceNasserafter he Suezwar.

The Anglo-Frenchplot that unfolded in 1956 reads l ike a

nineteenth-centurymperialist scheme.London and Paris arranged

for Israel o launch an unprovoke d war againstEgypt. According tothe conspiracy, he British and Frenchwould wair a decent nrerval,

perhaps omedays,and then ntervenemilitarily to imposea truce on

Egypt and Israel, meanwhile seizing he SuezCanal in the process.

\lasser, hey hop ed, would fall-perhaps be overthrown. And the

,\ {usl imBrotherhood,houghweakened, aswait ing n the wings. n

the end, President isenhower-fear ing hat the SovietUnion would

reap untold rewards by capital iz ingon the Anglo-French- lsrael i

r rggression- joined i th other nat ions o foi l the plot . For a r ime, t

scemed s f the UnitedStates ad an opportunityonceagain o bui ld

rr positive elationshipwith Nasser.Almost immediately, owever, heopportunitywas ost,and the Dullesbrotherswent back o the usual

pir t tern f confront ingboth Nasser nd Arab nat ional ism.

There were those Statc Department and CIA officialswho wcre

cl ismayed y the administrat ion's ef lexivelyant i-Nasserposit ion.

One of those was Copeland,who was an unabashed drnirerof

\asser. Wrote Copeland,mixing praisewith tongue- in-checkcold-

ing, He is one of the most courageous,most incorrupt ible,most

Lrnpr incipled,nd in his way, most humanitar iannat ional eaders

hirvccver met. 24Yet as he r95osworc on, Copclandbecamemorc

.rnd morc a minority voice, as\il/ashington

Cold \Tarriors turned) iasser nto the devi l ncarnate. he StateDepartment 's rabistswere

sof t on Nasser, Copeland ays,but this tendencywas more than

offsetby the opposit ionof the commercialcommunity, espccial ly

the big U.S. oi l companiesand banks. As the t ide turned against

( .opeland's iew of Nasser, e was pulledasicle y a joking CIA col-

league isit ingCairo. I think we've inal ly€aot ou Nasser overson

rhe run, he said. n t954, Copelandnotes ueful ly, he CIA chief n

C.iriro abled Tashington hat it should persuade srael o emphasize

the Brotherhood's ommendable apability o overthrow Nasser. 2'5



rot3 . I) r -vr r . 's Ci aur ..

John Voll , a noted special ist n Is lam,saysmatter-of- facdyhir t

CIA support or thc Muslir r Brorhcrhood ur ing the Cold \7ar was

the r ight thing to do. " l t was a slnart ntel l igenceehicle," aysVrl l .

" [ t was hc only alternat ivco Nasscr. he C_]orrmunistarty n Egypt

was a nonstartcr . n tcrrns of intcl l igencc rndpolicy planning we

would havcbeen tupicl ot to havehad I rel: r t ionship ith rhcm."l( '

In retrospect, owever,t is hard o think clf rnything norestupicl.

The United States idn't needan altcrnat ive t l \xsssr-- i t or-rght<r

havc embracedhim, ancl hel; rccl im undernr ine lrc Is lamic r ight .

Insteacl, .S.pol icy hirrdcrred gir instNrrsscr,r incd thc Saucl i oyals

and their Is lamic undamental ist l l ies, rnd aunched decadcs- long

cf for t to uscpoli t ical slamas A conrerstonc f Arncr ican nf lucncc n

thc Middlc East.

Morcove , he cleologicaligic l i ty f Amcric irn orcignpolicyel i tes

wasn'tconf ineclo F.gypt.While the U.S.sought o r- rndermineasscr,

i t took ou trnothcr egionalnat ional isf ,Pr imc Ministcr Moharrrmed

Mossirdegh f I ran. That ef for t would culrninaren Anrcr ica's .nosf

famousCIA covertoperat ion, he r9,5j cor-rp l '6tat n lran-and, as

in lJgypt, ight-wing slan-r istsoLr ld lay a prominenr olc.

TsE CIA eND KrroMElNt 's GoDFAIHL.u

I t is one of the ironies n regard o both Nasser nclMossrrdeghhat

both rncnhada modicurnof American upportclur ing heir nit ial r isc

to power,unt i l the er igencies f the Cold War rurnedU.S.pol icydeci-

sivelyagainst hem. At f irst , he United States cnrat ivcly upported

the raniar-rat ional istsedby Mossadegh, arr lyour of Washington's

ear ly bel ief hat l iberal Third World nar ional istsmight be able to

modernize heir nat ionswhile, at the samc ime, keepirrghem n the'Western

orbit. But the Eisenhower dminisrrarionwasn't buying t. Its

view was: You areeitherwith us-that is, Third World leaders ad tc r

al low mil i tary bases,oin al l iances, nd make economic oncessions

while implementing ree-marketpolicies-or you were agarnstus. In

a lesspolar izedworld Mossadegh,ike Nassel might havebeenable

to reacha long-termaccommodationwith \il/ashington.

As n tgr p: .

Nasser, rarr ' . :

against Nlos..t

topplcd hc .r:.,

Mossadr ' : : :

was a cot l l l l -J\ .

hefore r9i: . - .

Qajar c l rnr. : .

t ion wit i r t l : :

Pahlavi r1r t . .

elected t( ) : ' . : .

l r i ru 's oi l l r-. .1. '

leum. \1, , . . . ' . - .

l l l lsstol l . . i :1,. -

\ r r t ion.r l l : ' :

1..,1;I, thr ' - ,- l

J:1 ' r1-1111.'1" :

, , i thc. \ : r- ,

' i . ] rru t , , F: ' - . "

Bri t r:h i ' . :

l l fr t l l l l :'

tr \ ' :tt: l i ,r- .r "' --

' .,,() l : l \\ l ,- : I -

, ,' ' ' .1,

, " . .: ' ---





I )uvr l ' r ( laur

tw, intelligence gencies orked closelywith Iran'sclergy, he ulema,

to wcakenand ultimately o overthrow Mossadegh. critical ole wasplavcdby streu mobs,bought and paid for by the CIA and mobil-

ized by rabble rousers icd to thc ulema,who demanded he ousrer

of the prrime'rir.risrcr

and thc rerurn of the shah. Ayatollah Seyyed

Ab,lclassemKashirni, he chief representative f the Muslim Brother-

ho.cl in lrnr'r nclAyirtollahRuhollahKhomeini'smentor and predeces-

soras r:rn's cading slrrnrist leric,wasa central igure n the campaign.

Acc.rdi.g tr f .r r rcr lr r r r r iang()vernmentoff ic ials, Khomeini

hir - tsclf ,her r . nr .re thau rrn bscure,middle-aged ullahand a fol-l .wcr ' f Kashani 's,ook part in the ClA-organized, ro-shah emon-

stratior-ls grrinstMossaclcgh.2Tt is a supreme rony. Twenty-five

ycirrs ater, r r r97[], hat sar leKhorneiniwould onceagain eada rel i-gioltsurob, his irne o Lurse:r thc shahand create he slamicRepub-l ic of Imn.

Ayatol lahAbolqassem(asl-r :r r r if t82-t962) wasKhomeini 's od-

father.He was clui ' r tcsscnr ial ly. l i t ical, havingstartedhis pol i t ical

crrrecrrr lrc r9'os by serving n thc lranian par l iament. n Iran, heclergyhad a repr,rtati<-rnor stoppingat nothing to protect heir status.In the r92os, hat nrciu-r that t l- re stablrshmentlemawould vocifer-

ouslyveto hc creationof an Irani irn epublic.Rezapahlavi,the mil i -tary stro'gnrar who took controlof lr i rn n the ear ly r9zos, admiredI(crnill Ataturk, rhe scculirrTurkish rcpublican eader, nd wanted todeclarerar ir repr-rbl icn rheTurkishmodel.But the mullahs, nclud-i tg Kirshirni, eared hat a secular epubl icwould fatal ly underminetheir p'wer, irrd sr they clemandeda m.narchy. princessAshrafPahlavi,heshah'swir sisteqwrote n hermemoirsabout heclergy'sreslstlu'lcco republicanism: My father avoreda republic ike that of

Turkey, rndhc pr.posed this idea o the eadingshiitemullahs.Bur ara meetirl; in the holy city of Qom, the clergy-staunch supportersofthe feudal system, he monarchy,and all tradition representing hestatusquo-told my father they would opposeany plan for a repub-lic. 28Not ready to challenge he powerful religious establishment,

Rezaabandrned rhe idea of a repr-rblic nd proclaimedhimselfking.The young (ilshani was oneof the kingmakers.

over the next twenty years,Kashaniwould have wo enemies:he

I

j|,

i$1l



d

e

The tilar against Nasser and Mossddegh

communists nd the shah.Like Islamists verywhere,he ulema eared

and hated he communistsand their Tudeh Party,and used heir reli-

gious muscle against he left. But for the mullahs, rhe real threar rcr

their power in Iran came rom the shah,who disdaineclhe clergyas

medieval-minded elicsopposed o his efforts o modernize he coun-

try. Beginning n the r93os, fol lowing the Ataturk model, he shah

acted orcefully against he clergy.He brought the backward shariacourtsunder statecontrol and nat ional ized omeof thc clergv's el i-

giousendowments,educing he clergy's inancial owcr ancl cnrov-

ing an mportantsource f their ncomc.He inst i tuted Westcrn ornr

of dress, anning slamicgarb, ook control of marr i : rgc ncldivorce

proceedings, nd batt led the Islarnistsover the cmrrncip:r t i txof

\ \ 'omen.The shahordered hat public pl irccs c opcn to wol.nen ncl

out lawed the vei l and the oppressivc haclor. n r919, the shr lh

banned he horr i f ic pract iceof self - f lagel lat ion,1 xut i l i r t ing iturr l

pract iced y some undamental ist hi i tes.re he nrcasurcs crc wcl-

comed by lran's modernists,Lrut hc clergy fLrnred.Often or-rtflankecl[ - ,vhe shah,Kashaniquiet lybui l t up poli t icalpower.

Justas he Muslim Brotherhood n F.gyptn thc latc r 94osc:rrr iccl

out actsof terror ism, n I ran, Kashar-r inclhis i lk fomer-r teclcrror ist

violence gainst he shah. n r94-; ,Kashanihelpcd ouncl l- rc noff i-

c ial I ranian branch of the Muslim Brotherhoocl,he l)cvoreesof

I ' l rm, ledby a rrdical rnul l lh r t r tncclNrtv: tbSrr fevi. 'A t , r ir .si tcrror-

rst at tacks by Kashani 'smovernent ncludcd .- t tL)41)rssassinnt ion

.r t temptagainst he shah,carr ied out by a mcmber of thc Is lrnr ist

,,rnderground ffiliated to a publication calleclThc I'lag rf lslam. ln

r 9_io, ne of the Devotees f Is lamassassinateclbdul HusseinHair .

rhe shah'sministerof court , and in r95r i l l rother )cvotce nurdcrccl

rhepr imeminister,GeneralAl i Razrnara,ust rrs ran wi ls relrce() t ir l t -

rng he r ights o i ts oi l resources ith [ ,onclon.{ i tzntar ir . i r ic lhe shah

:n hi s memoirs, had the agreement i th thc Anglo- lrani irnOil ( ir rn-

:env in hispocketwhenhedied. ' r0Most eclucatcdralr i i rns,r<;m hc

.hah on down, suspectedhe Brit ishof having ies o lran'sclergyand

:o rhe slamistmovement,f not to the actualactsof tcrror ism.

The Britishwanted o keepup their empire,and the bestw'ay o cio

:irar was to divide and rule, saysF'ereydoun oveyclir,who serveclrs

d

f

f

-



[ )rvrr. 's ( ievr

Iran'sambassadoro the UnitedNations until the r979 revohtion, and

whose brother, Amir Abbas Hoveyda, Iran's prime minister in the

rL)7os,was executed y the Khorneini egime. The British wereplay-

ing all sides. hey weredealingwith the Muslim Brotherhood n lrgypt

and he mullahs n lran, but at the same irr-rel-rey cre dealingwith the

army and he royal amil ics. He says hat heBrit ish aw hc Islamists

as ust another ool thror-rgh hich their power coulclbe extcnded:

They had financi:rl ealswith the rnullahs. hey would fincl hc

most mp()r tant nes nd heyw<lr ldhelp hern. ncl hemullalrs

weresm.lrt: hey kncw tlrat the Britishwcrc thc most rnportant

power n the world. It w:rsalsoabout n()ney. he Britishwoulcl

br ing uitcasesullof cash ndgive t to thcsc eoplc. orexanrple,

people n the bazaar,he wealthymcrchants, ould eaclrhave

theirown ayatol lahhat heywor: [d inirnce. rrclhat 'swlrat he

Brit ishweredoing.rr

Ashraf , n her nenroirs, roteabout Br itain's nholy ies o the clergy

in l ran:

Many nf luent ial lergymenormedall ianccs i th representat ivcs

of fclreign owers,mostoften hc British,and herewas n facta

standingoke n Persi: rhat said f you pickedup a clergyman's

beard, ou w<luld ee hew<lrds Made n England tam;redn

theother i de. hese hii tc nul lahs xercisedrpowcrfulnf luence

over he mindsof the mrrsses.t times hevclice f God seernedcr

bc speaking ith a Br it ishor Russian ccent.t wasdif f icult or

thepeasanto decipher here el igioneftof f andpoli t ics cg:rn.r2

Ashrafadded hat aftcrWorlclWar

II, London bolsteredhe Islamic

right aspart of its Coid Wirr stratcgy or the region. 'With the encour-

agementof the British,who saw the rnLrllahs s an eff'ective ounter-

force to the Communists, he elcrnents f the extreme eligious ight

were starting o surface gain, rfteryearsof beingsuppressed. ls

The shahhirnself, n merut-rirs ritrelr yustbeforehis death n exile,

notes hat the man who killed his ministerof court n r95o, Fakhr Arai,

had ties both to the l)evoteesof Islam and to the llrit ish. Arai wa s



e

s

y

-

The'V/ar dgdittstNassarand Mossadegh

involvedwith an ultraconservativeeligiousgroup that was comprised

of the most backward religious anatics," he wrote, adding that he

may also have had indirect ies to the Brit ish embassyn Teheran.

"The British had their fir-rgersn strangepies.The British had ties to

the most react ionary lergy n thecountry. ' ' ]a

By the ear ly rg5os, Br itain'sstake n Iran was threatened. ince

World \WarI , the Brit ishhad enjoyed xclusive ights o Iran'soi l ' So

it wasn'tsurpr is ing hen theUnitedSt i l tes t f irstv iewedMossadegh

favorably.Mossadeghwas seeking o renegot iatehe lran-L] .K.oi l

agreement n rermsmorc favorable o Teheran, nd the Brit ishwere

rat t l ingswgrdsarrdmaking hreats.wirslr ingt<ln, t oddswith l,on-

don gvcr Middle East ) i l ,providcdaid rndsoldarrns g Mossadegh's

laovernmentnd, n rg5 , Moss: ldcgh isitcdwirshir lgton. President

Truntanselt i t note rrrplot ' inghc l lr i t ish lot to invadc ran," wrote a

lcacl ir rg isror ian.r5 ut when Mossadegh eiccted n At.ner icarrlan

to al lgw U.S. oi l contpaniesnto Iran, the United statesswitchcd

coursc,and turncd rrgainsrMossaclegh. r , rddcnly,he f lcdgl ingclA

ar-rdlr i tain'sMI6 joined ogethcrn a plot to toppleMossadegh.

lrnterKlshani.

l ]nt i l r9 5z, Kashani osed san allyof Mossaclegh'srr hc Nat ioni. r l

Frgnt . hc nat ignal ist gal i t iorrhat governcdr irn Ll l lderhe shah'BLrt

as lre Jnitecl trrtcs rrd hc BritishnlovedagainstMossadcgh, ashani

rtbrtlcftrncdirn and ovccl int<l<lpposition. ashani naintained ovcrt

t ics 9 the Islamist- terror istt rdcrgrt luncl,ut in publicheadr<l i f ly is-

tancecl imself rorn he Devotees f Is lamand thcir i lk. The ( l lA was

well awareof Kashani 's owcr. n rr cport n octobe l9-tz, "Prospects

for SurvivalOfM0ssr ldeq egitnen Iran," thc CIA notccl:

Sirrcc ossrtcleclcturncdo p()wer n Julv r9,52 l ' rercrave een

c() l t t l l lu()gscp()r ts f ; r lots <l lver thrr lwhir l l . Klrshlrni rnd artny

<lf f icers rc frecluent lvment ionecl rs crlders. . . . A c<l r l testr l the

strccts bctwcen the forces sr-rpportingMossadecl rrnd K:rshani

rvott l . l ' . rc i t tc' r 't t t t l l t 'strt tctvc '' '

Ar-t.rong

incluclecl

thc forces hat could be rnobil izedby Kashani, he CIIA

"thc Bazaarmobsand the bandsorganizcd y his son" and



Drvtr - 's Geul,

the Fedayan errorist organizationof Moslem extremists. Even as

that report was beingwrimen by the CIAs analysrs, he CIA's covert-

operat ionsunit was alreadyworking with Kashani o mobil izehis

forcesand to provoke exactly hat contest n the streets. na rL)Sz

StatcDepartmentmemo,one of Kashani 's l l ies s quotedpredict ing

violence, aying hat i t might be necessary. . to punish he commu-

nistsphysically. rz

In r95z-53, the CIA and MI6 approachedKashaniand half a

dozen othcr key lranian religious eaders,offering money and other

inducements o break with Mossadeghand supporr he shah. Reli-

gious eaderswere encouragedwith funding to a dopt a ntore funda-

rnental istine and breakwith Mossadeq, ccording o Dorr i l .38 he

British ook the ead,using ts vast n telligencc etwork in lran, includ-

ing the resources f theAngkr-IranianOil Company,which maintaincd

its own, private secrctservice, he Central Informati<lnBureau.The

British,of course,wcrc active n covert operationsagainstMossadegh

krngbefore he UnitedStates ameon board, but the Americans eport-

edly had the chief pipeline o Kashani.Ann Lambton, a professorar

Oxford's Schoolof Oriental and African Studicsand a former British

intelligenceofficer,played a behind-the-scenesole in the action rcr

undermineMossadcghand, in a report at the time, she noted that

Kashani has received arge sums of money from somewhere an d

noted hat it may havebeencoming rom theCIA.3e

brom t946 to r953, the man who ran U.S.covert operat ions n

Iran was John'Waller,

a veteranof the American clandestine ervlce

who joinedthe Officeof StrategicServicesOSS)during World'Vfar II

and then servedwith the CIA until the r97os. He spent much of

World War lI in Cairo and Teheranand as a very young man was

given a leading esponsibility. Here I was, 'Waller ecalls, head of

counterespionageor the Middle East at age nineteen. n 1946,

barely nto his twenties,he opened he first American ntelligence ta -

tion in postwar Iran, recruiting former German spies o assist he

United States n the Cold \Var and working w ith Iran's tribal chief-

tains, ncluding he Qashqai, he Bakhtiari, and the Kurds.

.We, n the field, iked Mossadegh, says'Sfaller, ow in his eight-

ies. In fact, his niece married a [CIA] case officer. But soon the

l* :



s

his

r95z

a

Rel i -

The

at

that

'i l i ld

lt l

VlCC

II

of

of

946,

Sta-

The War against Nasserand Mossadesh rr 5

Americansbegan o side with the British, who despisedMossadegh. We had an obligation to our old ally, the British, and oil was anissue. According to'Waller, one of the main props holding upMossadegh were the mullahs and the bazaar. ,,The

bazaar and themullahs were very, very close.And the mullahs had control of thepeople,especiallyhe ower classes, e says.a0

of all of the religious eaders, he most important was Kashani,says 7aller,who as he cIA srarionchief,developed warm relation-

ship with the fiery ayatollah during the sevenyears hat he was sta-tioned n Iran. I did a porrrair of Mullah Kashani, n pastels, wallerrecalls,with a smile. or, I should sar Ayatollah Kashani.He sat forme for a bit, and I finishe d t from photographs. waller insists ha tKashanineverbecamea full-fledgedclA agent -*you don't make

an ayatollah your agent, he says-but adds that the United states

and the Br:itishhad several mportant agents n the anti-Mossadegh

coalition, someof whom wereextremelyadroit at handling both the

bazaarand the mullahs. And

'Waller

savs:

It wasobvioushat he clergywere mportant. . . Kashaniold mewhy hewasdropping ut of the Mossadeghoalition. ecauseheTudehPartywasbeing olerated y Mossadegh.heyweresynony_mouswith the Russians,nd religiousmendon,t ikecommunism.

Kashaniwirs he headman of his god,which gavehim politi_cal power. t's ike he Christian ight here.He was heayatollah,the Khomeiniof the day.He had poweroverrhechurch.He hadpowerover he poor people,which wasmostof the people n thes<tuthernartof thecity.And, from time mmemorial,he mullahswere loseo thebazaar is.

Did the CIA fund Kashanidirect ly? Yes, according o'Waller . , I t

\\ 'asmoney both to Kashaniand to his chosen nstruments,money tofinancehis communication channels,pamphleteering, nd so on torhe people n southTeheran. waller adds,with a wry grin, that even

r'atollahs are, well, corruptible. choosing his words carefully, he..1'S, l think he was truly rel igious,but forgiveme for beinga cynic.

Berng eligiousdoesn'tdistractyou from political or commercial eal-I t \ ' .Or rom Sex.



[ ) rvr r - 's Ci ,rv l

\ f i th Kashanion board, he CIA and MI6 for-rndt easier o stage

street iots ancldernonstrar i( )nsgainstMossadegh nd against he

communists.Kashani 's ower among he masses f Teheran's lums

and in the nosclucswas ccx'rs idcrableThe mil i tary col lp that oustcd

Mossadcghwas coupledwith clemonstrat ionsinancedby the CIA,

using he crowds oyal o Kashani nd organized y the clergyar-rd y

gangsof thugs r-rhe pay of nrobstcrs.Waller rcturned o \iTashingtor-r

to oversce hc cor-rp '€'tat rorr-r caclclLlarters,nd in thc field the lcg-

ertdaryKcrrnitRoosevclt : rn he opcrat ionon the grouncl. wo lr irn-

ian brothers, he Boscocs, under ( l lA control, and thrcc ot l ' rer

I rani irn brot lrers, he Rashicl ians, nder MI6 corr t rol, oined with

Shaaban faafar i , farnous ranirrnathleteancl pcrfornrer,o work

with Kashani n assemblinghc rnobs. Orreof our ir l ie l l tswrrsa man

called' the Brainlcss nc, ' recir l ls f lal ler . Hc was a sportshcro, t

juggler-get t ing hirn o work with us wrrs ike gett ingBabe Luth.He

couldgct a r-nobogethcr ast .We paid for those.

Through he Rashidians, rr) te )orr i l , hc C] lAand M16 cstab-

l ishedcont irctwith conservrr t ivclcr ics uch as Ayir tol lahs <lrujerdi

and Behbchani,who feirrcd that Mossaclccl'sleftist aclvanccswere

endanger ingnat ioni l l sccur ity; ' r r r rd dissidcnt rnr. r l lahsrom the

Nat ional Front,Kashaniand Makki, who clr inrcd hat the ministr ics

were ful l of 'Kremlin-control ledrthcists. 'a lRecallsWaller , At thc

time Islar n ildn't raiscd ts hcrrd n an orgl.rrrizeday. BLlt ornmunisnr

and slamhavenevcrbeen ornpat ible. al

An important part of thc ClAs worl< n lr i l r . r n the ear ly r95os

involvedeffor ts o rnobil ize rani irn cl igiorrs ent inlent gainst he

USSR. t camedur inga t ime when thc UnitedSt ir tes as exper lment-

ing with Is larnist nt i-communistervor n Egypt,Pakistan, nd else-

where. In lran, much of the ( l IAs focus was directedagainst he

communist Tudeh Party,although the Tudeh was never really a serr-

ous hreat.Mossadeghwas no communist , avingcome o power rn

part with U.S.support .But oncehe was placedon Washington's ne-

mies ist , he CIA went al l-out o discredit im by portrayinghim as

communist-control led,special lyn propagandaaimed at the mul-

lahs. The propaganda effort was coordinated by two CIA officers

whom we shallmeet ater.Donald Wilber and Richard Cottam.



he

eg-

rern-

with

WOfk

i ' t n lan

He

cstab-

ru erdi

were

l l l th C

\ t the

I9- tOS

thc

ncn t-

lse-

the

r r ser i-

n

e ' .|e

him as

e mul-

The -V/aragainst Nasser and Mossadegh . r r 7

At times, the propaganda was heavy-handed:

The next move was to bring out the psychologicalwarfare assets.

In a lurid effort to totally disc redit he left, Ayatollah Behbehani,

who receivedmoney from the Americans,sent out lettersbearing

the insignia of the Tudeh Party, and containing grisly threats

wri t ten in red ink to hang al l the mul lahs rom the lampposts f

vrrr ious raniancit ies. al

. \ccording to Dorri l , the CIA used journal ists Kenneth Love of the

)' lew York Times and l)on Schwind of the Associated Pressas agents

to ci rculate thei r propaganda.aaNot only did the CIA use ayato l lahs

such as Behbehani to spread falsif ied thrcats fnxn the TLrdeh about

hanging mul lahs, but i t paid vio lent agcnts provocateurs to r i le up

Iran's rel igious community. The ( l lA and M16 paid thugs and rabble-

rousers to pose as Tudeh fol lowers in violent strcet demonstrat io ns

at tacking I ran 's Shi i te establ ishment :

The rnobs calre ()ur onto the strccts. . . A key aspectof the plot

was t() p()rtray hc rnobs as supportersof the Tudeh Party n order

t<l proviclca suit:rblepretext for the coup and the rcsumption of

power by the shah. M16 rrgents l i rcd: r fakeTudch crowd, com-

prising an unusual mixturc of pan-lrarrians nd Tudeh mernbcrs,

paid for with f ifty thousand clollarsgivcn to them by a CllA officer.

Richarcl (lottaur observed hat agcnts working on behalf of the

Bri t ish saw thc opportunityand sent he pcoplewe haclunderour

control into thc strccts ( ) rrct21sf theywerc Tr-rdeh.hcy were more

than jr-rst r()vocatcurs,hey were shock r(x)ps,who actecl s f thcy

were Tuclehpeople throwing rocl<sat mosquesanclImul lahsl.The pLrrpose anotherwriter saidl, w:rs o frightena majority of

Ir:rnians nto believing hat a vicfory for Moss:rdcc1 ould be a vic-

tory for the Tr rdeh,he SovietUnion, and irreligi<ln. a5

After thc restoration of the shah, efforts were madc to put the

Is lamist genie back in the bott le. But the force of pol i t ical Islam,

repressed n I ran since he r92os, had now revived, thanks in part to

the assistance f th e CIA and MI6. I t would not be so easy o quiet i t

down again, and in a very literal sense hc forces that toppled the shah



l )pvrr- 's ( i AMlr

in t97c)werecxact ly hoseunleashedo returnhim to power n r 95 1.In the r95os, he shahand his SAVAKsecrct crvice t r 'ovcmight i ly o

keep he Islamistsn checkancl o buy of f , corrupt ,or otherwtsclcu-

tral ize he mcdievalmullahs, ncluding (honrcini. l )ur ing the shah's

reign, hc governrncnt aid he clergy, oo, s: tys ereydor.rnovcycla.

the fornrer Iranian UN ambassador, hose brother scrvcdas the

shah's r intenr inister or n-ranyears. Sonre f the moncycarnc ronr

rnybrother,rncl orne f i t came rornSAVAK, he says. And SAVAK

had ts own people n thc clcrgy. a6 ct thc shahpreferreclo cl ismiss

Islamrrsa rel icof the past.And so when the movernerr t gainst he

shahbegan n earnestn the micl-r97os, ' rc i thcrhc shahnor rnost ) l

hissyco;rhant icideswoulcl ccognizct for what i t was.

After r95 , Kaslranigraduallv aclcclror.n iew. t lut his ircolytc

would introduce t vinr lentnew str i t i l rof pol i t rcal s lam.He wrrs Lrsr

beginning is r ise o powcr.

The r94os rnd r95oswerest i l l f i r rnrat ive ears or Khorreini.His

pol i t ical iewswerc n f lux,althor-rghhonreini 's r i t ingsdur ing Trrr lc l

War II reflected listrstcor thc dark dictatorship of RczaShah,whosc

reign ndedwhenhewasclcposecln r94t.ot By nst inct , homeiniwrr .

pronc o denouncchc compliant ,Shi i tc lcr ical stabl ishmentn lran.

He gravitatecl oward Kashani, Navrrb Srrfavi,ancl thc l)cvotccs of

Islam,and began o refinehis radic:rl iews. Khomcini'sowu politicrrl

positionduring this periodwas somewl rereerween har of thc clcric.rl

establishnrentnd the Feddiltdrz, rote l(homeini'sbiographcr,Baqcr

Moin. He supportcd he fairly conservative yatollahBorujerdi,br-rt

hewas adical ly pposeclo secular isr . r . r ,el ievecldirrnant lyn the

ruleof t l te hdr id,rncl adact iv istenclencies.e hadabsorbed,n

otherwclrds, omeof the deasof the Fedir iyan erhapsn thecourse f conversat ionsith NavvabSafavi l . ro, ccordingo the

latter'swidow,wasa frequent isitor o Khomeini's clme.as

Kashanibegan o actasKhomeini 'smentorat thispoint .

Another indicat ion

was his admirat ion

196z), who f rom

of the Khomeini 's pol i t ical idea sat the t ime

for Ayatol lah AbolqassemKashani (r882-

r94j was closely l inked ro the Fedaiyar-r-e



Tbe rXlaragainst Nasserand Mossadegh . r)9

to

U-

he

he

of

st

Islam. . . . Khomeini was a frequent

admired his courage and stamina.

visitor to Kashani'shome andHe shared his views on many

iS

Of

rssuessuch as ant i -colonia l ism,

act ivism,and popul ism.ae

Is lamic universal ism,pol i t ical

i )Lrr ing he r953 coup, Khomeini was involvedwith the rerro'st-i 'c l ined

Devorees. f Is lanr,evenafter Kashanidecided o keep his. i istance. et Khomeini and Kasha' i remained rose, nd Khrmeinii . l l .wed Kershani 'sdvice r breakwith Mossadegh nd supporr hererurnof the shah.St i l l , Khomeini maintaincd ies r ' rhe r)evorees,rncl he ntcrvenedn ir vain ef f r r t to prevent he execut ion f Navab:.r favi n the micl- r9jos.Br-rrhecarcr-rrat ingyat. lrah carned grear

' lcrr lr .nr his expcr icnccn r953. Kash.ni : rncrhc l)ev. tees,he fert ,

\ \ 'cre oo p' l i t ical, and l.st the al l- importantcon'cct io 'r with thecsrabl ishurenrlem:.rn the h<llv i ty. f eorn. Borujerdi, .n the othcrh.rnd' h.ugh adrnirccl y Kh.meini for his rer igioLrsch.rarship, asr. . c l istant

r 'm poli t ics.Repair ing o eom, Kh'mcini spcnf he nextrer ycarssceki.g o unite he p. l i t ical and the rel igioLrslcr 'ents fI rer 's Shii tenrovenrent. c would next cxploclconto the sccne nrty61-64.mount inga f ront : r l ha l lengeo thc shah.

The Unitedst i l res,ncanwhile, .uld torgetal l ah.ut Is lam n lran.Thc shahwas reinstal led,nd secure.rvashingt 'nhad w'n a healthvchunl<. f he ranianoi l industry or U.s. . irc,nrprrr ics, ncl heuniteistatcswas busi lyhelping he shahbuircr isarmy,hispol icc orce,andhis nruch-fearedntel l igenceervicc,he sAvAK. Despitc he help ofs.nrc r f the r 'ul lahs n topplingMossadcgh,he rnper ial hahwas rn

' .nr 'od t. share owcr

with anyrne- l iberals,businessmen,r clergy.s ' the Islamistseethedndsimmered eneath im, unnot iced.The st. ry of pol i t ical slam rnd its burge'ning al l iancewith thc

U. iteclStates ow shif ted , the Ara[rw,r lc1.Nasser, ict . r ious afterthe SuezWar of r9;6 anclunbowed,was prcsent lng n ever moreser i 'us challenge ' the cold \ far ideologues f- thc Eisenhowerrrclministrat i .n. gypt 'sMuslim Brotherhoodwas crushed nd forcedint<lexi le.To stop Nasser, nd fo supporta' t i -c.mnrunisr anclant i-nir t ional ist , rccs across he ent ire Arab world, the United Statestrrrncd o Srrudi rahir .



5

THE KING OF ALL ISLAM

Tl-regenius of you Arlericans is tl-rat ou never makc clear cut

stupid rrroves,only complicatcd stuylidmoves which make us

wonder at thc possibi l i ty that fhcre may be sonrcthingwe ar c

nr iss ing.

-Gamal Abdel Nrrsscr ,957

Dwrcsr Dnvro ErsEnHo'f fER was a good general,a modesr

prcsiclcnt,rncla poor studentof lslam.

In thc imrnediate f termathof Suez n rL)56, f ter ke had intcr-

vened o force Israelout of the Sinai and ro undo the Anglo-French

conspiracy gainstGamal Abdel Nasser 's lgypt , rhe United Srate,

had a chancc o improve elat ionswith Nasscrand Arab nat ional isnr.

Instead, , isenhowerpted or an al l iancewith SaudiArabia,makins

the reactionary bastion of Islamic fundamentalism nto Americ:r',

chief al ly in the Arab world. Unt i l Nasser 's nr imelydeath n -r9zc.

SaudiArabiawould serve s he bulwark of American nf luencen th.region. Like Franklin Roosevelt before him, who had announce.i

America's laim to a strategic take n Saudioil, Eisenhower remisc.i

friendiy relationswith SaudiArabia on rhe importanceof that coun-

try's petroleumwealth. But he expanded hat relationship o include r

utilitarian alliancewith SaudiArabia'sbenighted ersionof Islam.H.

set a course hat continuedunder the Kennedy, ohnson,and Nixon

administrations.



States

rnaking

ln | 97o,

n the

prcmised

include a

Nixon

The King of All lslam . Lzr

The cornerstoneof the administration'sMiddle East policy was

the EisenhowerDoctrine. Echoing FDR, Ike proclaimed America's

imperial goal of incorporating the Middle East into its permanent

sphereof influence. The existingvacuum n the Middle Eastmust be

filled by the United Statesbefore t is f i l led by Russia," proclaimed

Ike. l In a messageo Congressn January 957, the president rom-

ised hat the United Stateswould providemilitary and financialaid toany Middle East countries"requestingsuchaid againstovert a€igres-

sion rom any nat ion control ledby internat ionalCommunism."l To

support he doctr ine,EisenhowernvitedKing Saud o makean of f i-

cial statevisit to'Washington,

emphasizing he importanceof Saudi

Arabia by personally oing out to the airport to meet hc rrr iv ing

monarch.Evergrateful, hc king endorsedhe lr isenhowcrDocrr ir re.

I t madesenseo Eiscnhower o vicw SaudiAr:abia rs he ult imatc

pr ize,sinceone-fourthof the world's oi l lay beneath ts sands.Br-r t

L, isenhowerawSaudiArabiaas tore than a t reasureo bc protccted.

Its role as he worldwide centerof lslam suggestedo Washington hatIs lam-and Islamism-could be wieldcdas rswordagainst he Soviet

Union and against ef t - leaning at ional istsike Nasser.

l l isenhower,CIA Director Al len l)ul les, and Sccrctaryof State

. |ohnFosterDulles r lsosought o bui ld an al l iancewith Saucl iAra-

bia'sWahhabipan-Islermic ovement, nd Al len Dulles'sCl lAsecret ly

encouraged audrArahia o rchui lc l he Muslim l3rothcrhood grr inst

Nasser. he presidcnt eared hat the SovietUnion wils t ry ing to use

Egypt ian residcntNasser s hc "headof an enormousMoslcmcon-

federat ion."Fl isenhowerecal led:

Tircheck nym()vementn thisdirect ion ewanted o explorehe

possibi l i t iesf bui ldingup King Saud rs ' r counterweighto

Nasser. he king wasa logical hoice n this regard; e at least

professecl1nt i-Communism,ndheen oyed, n rel igiousrounds,

a highstandir-rgmong r l lArabnat ions. l

It w as a flawed dca.

First, E,isenhower'sear that the SovietUnion was on the vergeof

making major gains n the Middle Eastwas great lyexaggerated,nd

the not ion the USSRmight try to embrace slam was wildly of f the



tzz . Drvrr 's Gaut

mark' True' Moscow was trylng to leapfrog the anti-communlstNorthern Tier srares f Turkey, ran, and pakistan.It did so by seek-ing influence n the Arab world, especialryby cultivating ties toNasser nd,af ter r95g, hoping hat the revolut ionary overnment fIraq would form a pan-Arab alliance with Egypt. But neither thelrgyptian nor the Iraqi g.vernment was pro-communist, and anE'gypt-Iraq llianceneveremerged.an addition, although the SovietUnion may have ooked with favor on pan-Arabism,with its empha-stson nationalism,Mosc'w feared he rise of Islam within its ow nborders n central Asia and had no intentionof fosteringpan-rslam nthe Middle H,ast. et none of this deterred ke from prrrJ'g a fatefulal l iancewith Riyadh.

Moreover, the notion of a U.S.-saudi alliance built on Isramignored he fact thar King saud did not exactly enjoy much presrrgeamong.Muslims. ,Saudwas weak, stupid,and corrupt ,and he wassurrounded y Levant ine ourt iers, aysJamesAkins, a veteranU.S.diplomat who served s ambassadoro saudi Arabia in the r97os..Ilesideshe fact that hewas hopelesslygnorant,with only the foggiest

understanding f the modernworld, Saudwas alsowidely seenasdis-solute,a sex addict ,a drunk, and an all-aroundseeker f pleasure,servedby pimps and procurersof alcohol in ren avish palaces.withmore than a hundred children5 rom an endless eriesof wives andconcubines, e was also, quite literally, he father of his country.Al lin al l , saud was a less-than-sor idoundar ionupon which to build aMiddle Eastempire,and especially ot if one

-ishedto appeal o the

conservativesn the Muslim world.

Yet as king of SaudiArabia, whose territory includedMecca andMedina, the holiestcities n Islam,Sauddid embodyworldwide pres-

tige as custodianof Islam's wo shrines.As the cold war matured,SaudiArabia's ole as he centerof worldwide Isramwould loom everlarger in U.S. straregic hinking. Saud-cynicallS some might say_sought o porrray himself as King of All Islam, and that ,ra, ..ro,,ghfor Eisenhower. Arabia, wrote Eisenhower, is a country that con-tains he holy placesof theMoslem world,,, and he reasonedhat ,,the

King could be built up as a spiritual lead,er. 7ccording to Nathancitino, the effort to build up King saud as he eaderof Islamwas Darr



-t ,:CrN-

of

the

Jl l

f

OWn

in

tO c

WaS

dis-

d

Al l

a

the

nd

LJ-

TheKingof All Islam . rzz

ot a ,ornt strategywith Great Britain called "omega.,, Eisenhowerinsisted hat "our efforts should be toward separati; the saudi Ara_bians from the Egyptians."sThe presidentand the Dulres brotherswere even more encouragedwhen King Saud requestedan IslamicIegal ruling from the wahhabi clergy forbidding Musrims fromaccepting id from the Sovietbloc.

An effort to cobble ogetheran ,,lslamstrategy,, mergedearly n1'257. Fol lowing the saud-Eisenhowerummit, the administrat ioncontinued o cultivate slamas a bulwark againstcommunism,and aspart of this policy it soughtopportunities o overcome he social rag_mentation that affl icted the Middle Easr," wrote citino, who con_ducteda study of u.s.-saudi erar ions ur ing the Eisenh.weryears."In IareJanuary, he Nati.nal Secur itycor-rncir taff estabr ishedworking crmmittee on Isramicorganizationshat compireda l ist . fMiddle Easrernand North Afr ican s.cial, curtural, and rel igi .usgroups' suchas sufi brotherh.ods, which the United states nforma_

tron Agencycould targetwith propagancla.,,eThe cIAs chiefspeciar istn Isramat the ime wasnone ther than

l)onald Wilbea heoperativewho had hetped rganizehe r953 coupd'etat in Iran. "xTilber knew a lot about Islam," saysJohn $'ailer, aretired cIA official who oversaw he coup from crA headquarrcrs.r0But in his memoirs, Aduentures n the Midcile tasl, Wilber rafhermodestlydescribes is work on lslam at the time:

one subject 'n which wasc.ntinualry ctlvewas sram nd heMuslims f theMiddreEast. . r lackof anyone etter uar i f ied,becameheAgency'special ist

n Islam. n the spr ing'of t957was heCIA member f an inter_agencyorkinggroupon lslanr,and hen heco-author f thegroupstudy. n the ielcrlndat heacl-quarrers reviewedilesandalsoc.llectedpublication,

",.,dnf,rr_

mationon tr ips,and authored everal tudies:. ls lamin Iran,,,

" Is lam n pakistan," .Is lamin Afghanistan,,,lerc. l .Moreexhaus_

tive hananypublishedmaterial,hesewere o serve sguiderinesfor workingwith Muslimgroups.l l

Wilber also ncluded n hi sthe Central Asian Muslim

surveys esearch nto the extent to whichpopulation inside he SovietUnion could



t2-a. . Dtvtr- 's (i , t l , t t t

be rrobi l ized against he USSR, and he coordinir tcdpropaganda

effor ts n the late r9-5os exposing he SovietClonrmunistr t t i tudc

toward Is lam. l l

Eisenhower lso sought npr: t rorn non-CllAspecial istsn Islam,

inclr - rc l inghoscwithin acr ldemia. eadrngOriental ists, ol.ne f whonr

hacl ighl ightcdhc Pr inceton olloqr-r iunru which he Muslim Broth-

erhoocl 's aid tarnadan ook pit r t , werc tappecl or their cxpcrr isc.

Wrote Cli t ino:

Thc Eiscnhorvcrclrninistrati()npor.rsorcdcorrferenccn Wrsl'r-

instolrof lcacling istoriirns f the Miclcllc ,irst,ncluding, lnrolrs

tnrtnvothers, he pronr incntOftonrrrnhist< l r ianlncl r l ter Urt iver-

si ty <l fChicrrgo r< l fessorlal i l Inalcik. Nirt ional SccLrri tvl l r rnci l

staff-ers outirrelv attenclccl rcaclernic onfcrcr.rccs ncl collectecl

scholarlyprrpers n the c()lrtcnrporilrlMiciclleF-ast.rr onc r.tot,rbl.:

cxanrplc of Midcllc F.rrstcrn cl.rolarsl 'ripith (blcl War rrrnrif icrr-

t ions, f i lccl tway n the NS(. staff prrpers t the F.iscnl'rower'-ibrrrry,

I lcrnrrrc l.cwiscxpl r r ins o lv Naclshbandi uf is rv i r rg r r he (] rucrr-

sus rcgion rr ight bc usecl rs a f i i th colunrn insic lc he Sovier

ernpi rc. l

Two close aclv isers f Kins Sirud-Yusuf Yassin ancl Mohrt . t t tnccl

Sorour S: lbhan-concluctcd the negot iat ions with Secret rr ryof Statc

. fclhn Fostcr Dul lcs. la Yassin, a Syr i i rn frorn l- i r tarki i l , n thc colst of

the Medi tcrraneiln, was r l s ly, wel l -connectecl nember of thc k ing 's

cntourage who hacl f i rst come to Saucl iArabia on thc rccommencla-

t ion of r ight -wing Syr ian pol i t ic i i rns. - Ic rcprcsenteclbn Srr . rd 'sinan-

cia l in terests in l )amascus. Making use of Saudi money and his Syr ian

connect ions, Yassi r . r lot ted to subvert or destabi l izc that count ry.

Beginning in r956-57, the (i lA, too, launchcd a covert operat lon

aimed at toppl ing the Syr ian government. 5 In r95l l , Yassi r . rwrrs

impl icated in a Saudi conspi racy to assassinateEgypt 's Presidcnt

Nasser,who was f ly ing into Damascus. The existenceof the plot wr ls

announcecl by the Syr ian army's chief of intel l igence, who revealecl

that Saudi Arabia had offered hi rn a br ibe of f r.9 rni lLon to heip

carry i t out. I t would not be the last U.S. -Saudi conspi racy againr t

Arab nat ional ist leaoers.



.. 1C

rn t

. i t-

() f

\Vl lS

TheKingof All Islam . rz\

More interesring, or our story, s the role of Mohammed Soroursabhan.sorour was rhe freedslavewho, while servingas saudi Ara-bia'sdeputy inanceminister n the ate r94os, was rhesaudrpaymas-rer for the Muslim Brotherhood n Egypt. In the r95os, sorour hadbecrmeministerof financeand one of King Saud,s losest dvisers. nthe r96os, he would assume powerful posit ion overseeing audiArabia's

worldwide effort to promore the Muslim Brotherhood a.crother radical Muslim fundamentalistgroups, r.m Africa to Indone-sia. t isn' t known if at ai l , or to what extent ,sorour and Duilesdis-cussed he Brotherhood.But in support ingan alr iancewith saudiArabia' then the Brrtherhood's chief financiarsupporter, he UniteclStateswas in fact enlisting he Brothers n the Cold War.

Askedabout America's ecision o supporrSaudiArabia,s slamicbl'c against Nasser,a former senior crA officiarrwh' scrved n thcMiddtc Eastsummarizeclhe ciold \war:rat ionare: ,what

other porcwas here?King Hussei '?" heasks. The.pt ic was he cold war The(l.ld war was

rhc defining crarity of the time. we saw Nasser associal ist , nt i-western, nt i-Baghd:rd act ,and we were rooking orsorle sorr ,f c.unterf il. Saucliefforts to Islamicize he region werescenas powerful and cffectiveand likely ro l-re uccessful. e lovcdthat.We had an ally against ornmunisrn."r( ,

ore crrsequence.f Eisenhower 'sf for ts n the r9sos to build upsnrr t ir 'h ir r rs bulwarkagr instc.nrmrrnism ai th. r iseof the binLaden farnily.seeking , enhanceSirr-rdirestigeas custodiansof thcMuslim hr ly placesn Meccaand Medina, ke aurhrr izedhalf a mil-l i .n clol l i l rsor SirudiArabia ' str - rdyhec.nstruct ion f a rai lroad 'carry pilgrirns o Mecca, part

of an cffort to refurbish Mecca as thcccnrcr f Is larnic ulrure. ( ing saud hireclSheikhMoharnmedhinLaden to undertake hc reconst. rct ionof the Great Mosque rnMccca. t wirs hrough his prum contr .ct that the bin Ladensbega,, ,to accumulateheirvastwealth.



Dr.vr t , 's Ciavr

THs BROTF{I iRFrooD's Snuor R11 UcE

Init ial ly Sirr rdirabia supplied hc Muslim Brotherhoodwith money

only.Af tcr r 9.y4, owevcr,he c()Llntrytselfbecame chiefbase f i ts

oprerat ions. hen Nasser racked own on the Muslim Brothcrhood

in Flgypt,Sar-rdi rabia provided rn mportant re uge or the organtza-

t ion, and mirny of i ts mernbers lockccl o the dcsertkingdom.This

rnigrat ion ccurrcd ust as he Unitcd Starcswesgivingup on Nasser

ancl urning to SaudiArabia. The Brothers et t led n Jeddah,wherc

t l- rey ent into business, nd in Riyaclh,Mecczr, nd Medina,where

they r irdical izcdhc Wahhabimovcnlcnt .For thc next half century,

SaLrdi rabiawould be hc l l rothers'ult imir te edoubt,providingsuc-

cor and support ,alongwith vir tual lynnl ir l i tecl inar-rcing.

Onc of the slupiclcst hings l- 'ais ir l vcr did was to invite the

Ikhwrrr-r isnto SaLrdi rabia, saysDavid [-or-rg, ho'd served n the

State )cpirrtrnent'slurear.r f Intelligence nd l.esearch.But it seemed

innocuousat the tin-rc.At the timc, cverybodywas fightir-rg ommu-

nism,and so wcrc we. And so wrrsF:r isal. l7 aisal,he crown pr incc,

woulc ' ln ' t ecomc ing of SaudiArabiaunt i l he r96os,whenheousted

Sirud n a palace oup, but hc was widely seen s morc sophist icated,

rnoreenlightened,lncl ar shrewderhan hedissolute aud.

The Muslim Brotherhood,a highly pol i t ical organizat iondedi-

catecl o creatinga worldwide caliphate-baseclslan-ric tate,was both

an al ly and a threat to SaudiArabia. The SaLrdis eren't terr ibh

hrppy with the Muslim lJrothcrhooc'I ,ut i f you-and the Saudis

were-scared to death of Nasser, he Mr-rslimBrotherhoodwas still

the only game in t{)wn, saysJol-rnVoll, a GeorgetownUniversin

professor.rsn its foreign policy, Saudi Arabia r-rtilizedhe Brother-

hood againstL,gypt,Syria,and Iraq, built its power in Sudan,encour-

agcd t in Afghanistan nd Pakistan-where t al l iedwith Abul-Ala

Mawdudi 's ls lamic Group-and even toyed with support ing t in

SovietCentralAsia. But internal ly, he royal family did not tolerate

Muslim Brotherhood action. The Saudiswere very tolerant of the

Muslim Brotherhood, and they encouraged t in Egypt, Sudan, and

elsewhere, ut they were adamantly opposed o fBrotherhood]actir'-



TheKingof All Islam Lz 7

irv inside Saudi Arabia, says Ray close, who servedas the clA'schiefof stat ion n SaudiAr:abia rom r 97o to 1977. le

The Saudis,as you know, oppose all pol i t ical part ies, saysHermann Eilts, one of America's most experiencedArabists, wh o

served sambassadoro saudiArabia. And theSaudi egime ad he

erper iencen the ate rgzos with the khwan, not exact ly he Muslirn

Brotherhood ut the tr ibesmenwho wcre becomrng ather anat ical.Now what Hassan l-Banna nd hc Muslim Brotherhoodwercdoingin Egypt,and in Syr ia,was somerhinghat was general lyn l ine with

Saudi hinking on the irnportance f Is lam,as opposed o nat ional-

ism, as a uniting factor.Nevertheless,hcy were not eagcr o have hcMuslim Brotherhood,or any other pol i t ical force, organize hem-

selvesn saudiArabia.Thcy wereunwi l l ing o al low anypoli t icalpar-

t ies, ncludingMuslim poli t ical parr ics. 2l)n facr, n r946, whe'Hassanal-Banna r ied to opcr 11Muslim Br. therh' .d branch in

Mecca, he Saudiauthor ir ics lunt ly refusecl.zr

Though the saudis . 'k str .ng meesureso preve't the MuslinrBrotherhoodrom beconr ing force nsidcSaudiArabia. heBrothers

operated here n a scnr i-undergroundashion.Many of thernwentinto business,stabl ishir rgslan-r icanksand corporat ionshat made

them wealthy.c)rhcrsbecame nflLrcntialn rhc- nassmeclia. lbse, the( l lA stat ion hicf , ecal lshat RichardMitchcl l , hc auth.r of thedef in-itive book, The societyof the Muslim Bruthers, ntr.duce-cl inr o on e

key personali ty. l t was rhr,ugh Dick Mitchel l that I rnct the rnlymember f the khwarnhat ever new,MohammcdSir lahr-rddin,a1,s

close. He was the cdit . r of Al Medhr l newspaper. e wrrsb.rn in

Suclan, nd spentsome r inre ' L,gypt , 'ew all the lkhwanis. Hispresence irs toleratecl s long as he wrotc things againstcommu-

r-r isn-r . nd st i l l otherswelt t nro acadcmia,nf i l t rat ingSaLrcl irabia's

nctwork of ls lamicuniversit ics. et thcy opcratedasa sccret ociety,

kept heirmembership idclcn,rndmaintained clandest ine resencein manySaudi nst i tur ions.

I t was in thc univcrsitysystem hat the Mrsl im Brothcrh.od

wor-r ldind tsmosrsecure erch.Saucl i rerbia adneverhadmuchof

a system f highereducat ion, r-rd hir t i t did havewas overwhclm-

ingly dedicated o rraining cler icsand inculcar inswahhabi values

:frIEb*+-rc



r28 . Drvr l 's ( lavr ,

among he country 's outh. n the r96os,SaudiArabiacreated pair

of inst i tut ions, he Is lamic Universityof Medina (rc.6t) and King

Abdel Aziz llniversity ( r,)67), which became ntellectualcenrers or

the Islamic ight . rhe IslamicU' iversity of Mcdina beganwith Paki-

stan'sMawcludi, ar mil i tant Is lamist , ls one of i ts t rustees,who

wanted to make it into the fundamentalistalternative o ciairo'sAI

Azhar, he thousarnd-year-oldepositoryof thc mainstrea'u slamic

tradit ior-r .2.he Muslim Brotherhoodand i ts wahhabi al l iescon-

vinced he royal family hat Al Azharwas oo close o Nasser, o hey

lavishly unded he Isla'-ricuniversity .f Medina. l).zcns of Egyptia'

lslamicscholars ffiliatedwith or sympathctic o the Muslinr lJrother-

hood took up postsat the university.

The vicepresidcnt f thc university als manwh. would f igurc '

hard-r ight ls lamic pol i t ics i ' saudi Arabia frr the'cxr

scveral

decades: heikh Abdel Azizbin Baz. ]lind sinccyouth, bin Bazwas il

fanat icalwahhabi who woulcl resisrmodernizar i .n n saudi Arabia

and f l ir t with violence nd terror ism.111 966. bin Baz nsistcd hat

the copernicanvicw of the universe as heresy,hat the sun evolvecl

around he earth,and rhat the earth tsclfwas f lat . Anyonewho clis-

agreed,said bin I laz, was guil ty of falsehood oward Cod, the

Koran, and the Prophet. 2rHis views angeredKing Faisir l ,but ir r

r974 bin Bazwould be appointedpresidentof the official Direcrorarc

of ReligiousResearch,slamic Legal Rulings, slamicprrpagar ior ,

and Guidance.2a

The IslamicUniversityof Medina was conrrol ledby SaudiAra-

bia'sGrand Muft i Mohammed bn Ibrahim Al shaikh,a chiefof thervahhabiAl Shaikhclan. Ful ly f l5 percentof i ts srudenrs ere no.-

Saudi, coming from virrually every Islamic country in the world.

Through this institution and its sisteruniversiriesn SaudiArabia, the

Muslim Brotherhoodwas able o spread ts deologyeverywhere. t hr

addition, tens of thousands of young Saudis were indoctrinated

through the saudi sysremof higher education.The Saudi universin

system xpanded xponent ial ly,rom 3,625studentsn r965 to more

than rr3,ooo students y t986. Half of i ts six universit ies ere rel i-

gious in nature and, according o one study, nearly one-third of ali



The King of All lslam . t z. )

' - ,- . . l is f,dentsmajored n Islamic tudies;or the other 7o percenr,: r . : .r l i theircoursework wasrel igiousn nature.26

lr 'es Aki 's, who served s U.s. ambassadoro SaudiArabia in. : : fer l \- r97os,was troubleclby the emphasis n rel igion,but the

- ' ' , ' . r larr i ly t . ld hirn o keepout of i t . They told me, ,r t ,snor yo,r

: ' .r r iness, 's: lys kins. Thcre wasn't much we could cloabout t .\^ irs. alrng with more prolrressive audis,was upsct

hat the Saudi-r ;r r 'crsi ty ystemwasl-r ' trainingadministrators,rranagers,cicntists.- , ;r .1 ngineers. I talked to them about trzr ir - r ingnorc doctors,

- .crn is ts , ngincers, nd fewermul lahs, ccal lsAkins. ,ButI was et

: ' kr<)$r hat I was bey.ncl ry colrpetence, nd that I was meclcl l ing' , ' ,herc I wrrsn'rwanted. I th.Lrght t wns rark str-rpidity.r was anr i.sol i ,r te ir t i rstrophe,raining al l thosc rrrul lahs. lrurnlrcrof thc: ' r i .cesurgeclmc to ta lk t ' the p.wer str l lc t l r re . T i r

' 'ava i l .The

: . rLrc i ir in istryof cducar ionwrs conrrol lcdby the Al Shaikh,and ts:roic l vcr hat partof govcrnrrcntwi ls urrshakable.

l-hc rclar i .nship rctwcenheAl Sirr- rc l ,heAl Shaikh, ndhe Mus-.rr r Br ' ther-swirs a c'mplex onc. S.mc rncrrbers f the r.yal far-ni ly

*erc 1-r iousrnclor thoclor , irncl s irw wahhalr isn as the r ighteousi. l .r r . icpath.others, f c.urse-Kirrg S:rLrclr rd I( ing F'ahd. nd hun-. i ccls f pleirs 'rc-seekinscsscr r irccs-we re l ibe ti .es, wh.sc rcl:r -:r rnship o wirhhabi clcologvwi ls fenuousat bcst.The Al shaikh,Lrsurr l lyr c l ist inct loodl ine, lsobegrrnnarrying he Al Saucf, rcatingt.rnr i lvboncls het pul led parts of both clans n two cl irections,heroral r rnclhc rcl is ious.KingFaisal 'snother,or instirncc, as ronr he\ l shaikh rrrni ly, iv irg Frr isalrna.r ir

' fp ict,vhrt .rhcr s.ns f Abdel

.\z izcoulclr ' taserrsi ly lainr .) ccorcl ingo F) i l ts,hcrewas r .consranr

t t ig f war bctwce' he .yal fa.r i ly rnclhercl igi .us anr i ly:

( )ver r i ' rc, ' .e rr ls. <lu'd hat : l ong thc Al Sharkh,n.re arrclnr()rcwerc crrving,rrd rvere ot g<l ingnt. thc rcl igi<lLrseaclcr-ship,b' t i . r . thc arury rrcl hings.f rhar.r l ture.S, the sacralni l tr r rc i thc Al Shrr i l<hanti ly ante()bccl i l r r tccl,onruch <lhrtttr r r isal,n tL)7, when lrcGrandMuft i drecl, l i 'n i 'arcd hc n<lsrf ' r a prer i 'c i r rc l srabl ishednr inistrv. i usr ice, hich ,,r r . . , ,r rs werrkeningf this <lng-standing,wo-century-oldelat ionship



t3 0 Drvr l 's Gavn

betweenhe Saudis nd the religiouseadership. he ministryoflustice emained, ut the king ater eestablishedhe muftiate, ndnamed member f the AI Shaikh amily o it.

The ulema clergy]werepowerful,and the Al Shaikh amilycould ontrol heulema. utas heAl Shaikhamilyweakenednits influence, ith only somemembers oing nto the clergy, ndyoungerpeople omingup and many of them becoming lerna,therel.tionshipbetweenheSaudi amilyand he Al shaikh am -ily cracked omewhat. oy.u get o thecurrent ituation,wherea

largenumbcr of youngerpeopleobject to their elders, o theulema, nd o theSaudi .yal familyandareseekingo g. their()wnway,ar.rdathermilitantly.2T

As strainsberween he Al Saudand Al Shaikhbegan o show, he Alshaikh began o exhibit the effects f prolongedexposure . rhe Mus-lim Brotherhood.whereas he Al shaikh wereestablishment-orienred,morc religious than political, and above all committed to stabilin.(especially.r thc Saudr hrone), he Muslim Brotherhood'smemberswere often brash, highly political, and as often as not, revolutio'-

mincled. f ter r954, as more and moreBrothers et t ledn saudiAra-bia, the Al Shaikh

'atural lybecomemore mil i tant . f the Al Shaikh

had interests hat diverged rom thrse .f the Al saud. the MuslimBrotherhooddid so evenmore strongly.

According to Martha Kessler, former cIA Middle East analystwho hasstudied he Muslim Brotherhood, he oyalty of the vahhabiestablishmentn Saudi Arabia ro the royal family wenr only so far.and that was even truer for the Brotherhood members n the king-d.m. The Egyptian Brothers in Saudi Arabia were even furtherremoved[than the Al shaikh] from any sense f loyalty ro rhe House

of Saud ' shesays. It 's not clear hat they wanted to overthrow th eregime, but inside the Brotherhood, there was always a debatebetween hosewho wanted to overthrow what they saw as the cor-rupt regimesand thosewho wanred to spend heir time organizing.developinga base n the community. 28

The delicate elationshipamong the Saudi royal family, its vah-habi establishment,he Muslim Brotherhood,and the evenmore rad-ical Islamic terrorisr groups would continue to evolve.The balancr



TheKingof All Islam . r 3

:-j shift, dependingon their relative strengths,power struggles

-.n the royal family, and regionalpolitics.This balancewas made

:r irof€ complex, hanks o the role of Islamiccharities,often con-

- : - : :d to one or more Saudipr inces, hat wit t ingly or unwit t ingly

- i :J. rS conduits or money to terror istgroups.The situat ionwas

, .;erbated by the fact that individual princesoften acted ndepen-

- : ' rv of the king, the government, nd othermembers f the family.

. : . . Sirudi oyal family is not a monoli th by any means, saysRay

.: . There s alwayssomebody eady o givemoney o someone.- - . -e s a lot of freeenterprise oing on in royal family politics.

-,. the Muslim Brotherhood gained influence n Saudi Arabia,

' . Saudand then King Faisalskillfully incorporated hc organiza-. -- rnto the kingdom'sofficial foreignpolicy. n the r96os, two land-

' . . i eventsmarked that grand design: he creat ionof the Muslirn

, : . .1League n t96z and the establ ishment f the Organizat ion f' - , I r lamic Conferencen r969. Under Faisal,SaudiArabia vigor-

. . . . . n 'c lrked o set up an Islamic bloc, completewith Amencan

::ort. which ultimately succeededn eclipsingEgypt'sNasser.

Klr . rc Falsnr 's IsLAMrc Br-oc

, ' : . r rEisenhower ad helpedset n mot ion in thc r95os cont inucd

.- : rn hedecadehat fol lowed.

i ' .usal, ing f rom t964 to r97S,wasa more modernmonarch han

' -- Saud t957-t961, and had a clearvis ionof SaudiArabia's or-

: policy. Faisal, saysC)harles reeman, veteranU.S. oreignser-

-: Lrfficer ho servedas U.S.ambassador o SaudiArabia. made a

-: rcrdte decision hat Islam was the antidote o Nasser. 2et was a

-: . lopment hat 'Washingtoniewedenthusiast ical ly.l thoughsome

.,--.rr-minded U.S. diplomats and intelligence officers registered

- :.tions from time to time, the U.S.-Saudi lliancewas set n stone,

-- so SaudiArabia's slam-based oreign policy worried few. Even

-, '.ates of the U.S.-Israeli lli ance,who gained momentum i n th e

- -:s. were ar more worried about Nasser han about SaudiArabia.

The foundation of the Muslim'World

League n 196z marks the



r lz l) rvt l 's ( 'avl

formal beginning of the resurgence of radical-right polit ical Islam.

F<runded n Mecca in t962, the Musl im World League was a \Who's

Who of the lslarnic right. For the first t ime the movemenr had a

central nervous system more organized than the clandestine Muslim

Br. therhood. The virtual ly unl imited abi l i ty of Saudi Arabia to fund

the organizat ion gave it enormous ckrut . Among the founding mem-

bers and officers of thc League3, were virtually all of the lcader:s f th e

Islamic rcsurgence, ncluding:

SardRarnadan, he son- in- lawof Hassanal -Banna, he fc lunder f

the Musl i r r Brorherhood. and thc Bnrtherhood's chief inrcr-

rtat i<lrral rganizer,who'd spent years n Syr ia, fordan,pakistan

and elsewherebeforc oper.ring he Islamic Center of Cler-revan

r96 r, with SaLrdi upport .

Abul -Ala Mawdudi , the founder of Pakistan 's adical - r ight

IslanricSocicty (. lamaat-e slami), who is the single most impor-

tant r t rchi rcctof the not ion of an Is larn ic Repuhl ic, and who

playeda crucia l ole n batteringPakistan 'seft-secular pposi t ion

lnoventent and in pushing Pakistan r-rto he hard-r ight Is lanr icc: rnrpunder Zia ul-FIaq, he dictator who seized ower in t977.

Haj l Amin al -Hussein i , he pro-Nazi nruft i of . ferusalern,who'd beenan agenrof B ri t ish intel l igence ince he rgzos and

who, after Worlc lWar l l , became Saudi- funded nt i -Nasser ro-

pagandist .

Muhamrnad Saciiqal-Mujaddidi of Afghanistan, who marn-

tained CIA c<>r.rt:rctsn that unfclrtunate ountry in the r 96os an d

rvhosedirect heirswould form rhe core of the r979-8c;anti-Sovier

Afghan ihad backedby r he CIA, SaudiArabia, Egypt,and pakistan.

Muhammad ibn Ibrahim al-Shaikh, he government-appointed

Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia and the titular head of the Wahhabi

movement,who had enormousclout within the Saudi oyal family.

Abdel Rahman al-Iryani, the militant Muslim fundamentalist

who would take power in Yemen n 1967 and lead that formerly

pro-Nasser epublic nto the Saudicamp aftera long civil war.



TbeKingof All slam ' r3 i

In all, a coupleof dozenof theworld's leading slamists ame ogether

rn theLeague.3l

The rWahhabivision went international n the r96os in response

ro the threat posed by Arab nationalism and socialism, wrote

CieorgetownUniversity'sJohn Esposito. Saudi Arabia and other

monarchieswere hreatenedn particular by Nasserism nd in general

bv radicalArab social ist overnments.. . The Saudis hampionedprrn-Is lamic ol icy againstNasser 's 'secular,ocial ist 'pan-Arabism

u' i th ts ies o 'atheist ic ommunism. ' . . The Saudigovernment lso

.icveloped lose ies with the Muslim Brotherhood and the Jamaat-e

Islami.Despitesigni l icant i f ferences,hey shared anl ant ipathy o

a()r l l rnonnemies-Nasser ism,ecular ism,ommunism. 12

The Muslim \ for ld l,eague entout missionar ies, r inted propa-

qrrnda, nd doled out funds for the bui lding of Wahhabi-or ientecl

ln()s( luesnd lslamic ssociat ions:

The lcague dentifiecl orthy bcr-reficiaries,nvited hcm to Saudi

Arahia,andgave hern he recommendati<>ntazkiya) hat would

latcrprovide hemwith largesserorna gener()usrivatcdonor,a

rnernberf t l re oyir l amily, pr ince, r anordinary usinessnran.

The eaguc as nanagedyn'rembersf thcSaudi c l igious strrb-

l ishment, orkingwith otherArabswho eitherbclongedo thc

MuslimBrothcrs r wereclose o them,alongwith ulenrr ls. f rorr t

thc Indian ubc<lnt inent<lnnectedo the )eobandSch<lolsr t tr

thep:rr ty ounded y Mawdudi. r r

The CIA was only vaguelyawareof the Mr.rsl imWorld League's

rnrportance, nd off ic ial Washington-commit ted to winning the(.olc lWar regardlessf how unsavory ts al l ies-didn' t ask he CIA to

ini 'est igatet . \7e saw t al l in a short- term erspect ive, aysa CIA

off icerwho servedn SaudiArabia. 'Weweren't ookingat long-tern-t

Jonscquences. ccording o this of f icer, n thc ear ly r97os hc CIA

rr ied o placean agent nsidc he Muslim World l.etrgue.l ran a pen-

r ' t rat ion f Rabitat , he says, s ing he Arabicname or the organiza-

r ior r .I t wasconsidered,n Washington, soneof the east mportant

rhings 'd done. Headquarterswas interestedn wars, coups,and

qunrunning n the PersianGulf , not in the act iv i t ies f the Lcague. I



r 11 [ ) lvrr . 's ( iaur-

found t fascinating, nd mportant, ' e says. I didn' t seeRabitatas

an effor t to expi lndSaudiArabia'sown inf luencenternational ly, ut

asa way to expand slam'snfluencen the Arab world irndbcyond. t

wasn'[SaudiArabiasctmuchas,well, kind of a 'Varican'-typc rganism.

It's almostas f it werean operationbeing un in spiteof the Saudis.

Yet,he says, t certainlywasn'tseen sa threat,or somcthing f geopo-

lit icalconccrn,and washingtonwasn't nterested.The soundof snor-

ing, he says, was deafening. he covertoperatiorrwasdrclppcd.sa

Char les Waternran,a CIA Arabist who spentmany ycars n the

Middle East and Lr l t imately ccarnehe agency's hief of st:r r ion '

SaudiArabia,says hat to the CIA the Musl ir l World Lcaguc ooked

innocentcnough n tlre r96os and r97os. l t lookcd l ike anothcr

Muslim organizationworth rnonitor ing, ut not somcthing () worry

about, saysWaterr ,an. [ f theyc-nded p supp'r t i rg ls larnic tudcnt

nloverncnts omewhere, nd they got involved n somcconfl ictwi th

lcft-wing studcnts,ol lr reactionwas, 'Okay, 6nc, anothcr benign

action ntendcd o control hc left. ' was thc ( l IA wror. ls t thc t ir -nc

ftr not focusing n these roupsand thcse haracters?'rhey secrrecl

l ike theywcrc ust Is lamic har itable rganizations,nd so wlrat? l5

Ray Close, he former CIA chief,agrees. skedwhether hc CIA

haclany worr icsabouf t ies betwccnMuslinr Jrotherhood nd wah-

habi clcrgShe si lys: We didn'r folkrw it. l f a 'yone is at fault, r rwas

me. $7e ustdidn' t see hem asa threat.Thcy wercn'ta targetof ours.

I'd get tarflet ists-but no one in washington wils irskingnre o look

at them. . . I t d idn ' tentcr nto our corrsciousness.

Ninety-ninc percenrof the fur-rdingor the Muslin-rVorld Lcague

came rom thc government f saudiArabia. ts t ies o rhesaucl i stab-

lishment were manifold. One of the League'ssecretary-generals,

Muhammad Ali al-Harkan, was a leadingWahhabi and ex-Saudi

ministerof justice,who would later serveas de facto grand mufti of

SaudiArabia. Besideshe ministry of justice, he \fahhabis and the

League nterlockedwith the Saudiministry of educationand thepow-

erful ministry of pilgrimage and religiousendowments,which con-

trolled the enormous annual Muslim pilgrimages o Mecca and the

vast funds available or charitiesand proselytizing.All that, in rurn,



The King of All lslam . r I j

meshedwith the universitysysrem, speciallyhe Islamicuniversities.

The League worked cl'sely with the militant'world

Assembly of\Ir-rslimYouth (\7AMY), establishedn tL)72,which wourd later berrccusedf sustainingerrclr ist ct iv i t ies verseas.36

During rhe r96os, he struggle etween gyptand saudiArabia-in effect, a proxy fight in which the United States ook the saudi

side-unfolded in two direct ions: irst , n yet another lare-upof the\ ' lusl im Brotherhrod n Egypt;and second,n a shoor ingwar that pit -ted Nasser gainst aisaln Yemen, t iny nat ionat the southwesrern

corner of the Arahian Peninsula.rr both cases)he t ies inking theMuslim llrotherho.d, the Muslim W'r ld l.eague,and the Arabrvor ld'sconservat ivc ronarchies rovidcd Riyadh with a pclwcrfulrcgional pparatuso wield againstNirsscr.

Ramaddn and thc Return of thc Brct thers

A centralorgarr izcr f the Saudi slanr ic krcwas the rnanwhom lkehaderc.unte'redn thc oval of f ice n r9,y3:SaidRarradan.Acc.rcl ingto ir Swiss cport , dLrr inghis per iod Ramaclanwas believedo l- ravelrcenar Amcricanagcnt.Hc alsog.t help fro' \westciermarry, irsbackcclinarcial lyby SaudiArabiaard earar, anclscrvecl sJ.rdan'sreprescntat iveo the UnitcclNaf ions in ( lcneva.At the same.t in- lc,Ramadan servedas thc intcrnat ionalmastcrnr indof the MuslirnIJrotherho.cl, nd i ' r965 he was allegecl lynv. lvcd in a seconclassassinat ir )n:r t tcmptagainst Nirsser.Tl-react ion against Nasscroccurrcd n the niclst of yct rrnother evolt by the Brothcrhclodn

Irgypf, d-r is ir rc aicledby Rarnadan'swell-organizecl pparatus fexi les.Part of his rnachiner as based n Saucl iAr irbia,anclDirr t n( ieneva,whcreRanradan adsct t led.

compirrcd t. its pre- 9.t4 strelr{rth,he .rganizi,rtirr in h,gyptwirsa shacl.w.f i ts formerself . t had bcen 'rcccl o operate lcep nder-ground since hc | 95os. t t r iecl o establ ish ront organizat ions ndpoli t icalsalons o nraint : r ints organizat ional resence, ut Nasser 'ssecur ityserviceswerc effect ive u repressingt. By the rnid-r96os.

howe er,manyof the p. l i t ical pr is.nerswho had reen rrcstcdn the



| 36 DEvrr . 's ( i ,qr , tr_

post-r9i4 crackdown on the movementhad been released. nceagain hey tried to organize gainstNasser.

From Geneva'Ramadanwas pull ing many of the organizat irn'sstr ings. n 1954,Nasser ad str ipped im of his Egypr ian it izenship,and he went into exile.with help r.nr the west Gernrangovernmenr,which was angry at Egypt for having recognizecl ast Ge'nan5 ancrtravelingon a rwestGermandiplornaticpassport,he went to Munich,west ciermany,beforeg.ing to swirzcrrand.There,bankrolredby th eking of saudi Arabia, Ramadanestabl ishedhe Islamic crenterofGenevan r96r, which would serve sa headquartcrs.r the MuslimBrotherhood.Ramadan would l ivc therc for thc next thir tv- fouryears, nt i l his death n r995.

The center bccameau ,rganizar ionarnerve ccntcr,publ ishingh.use, and meering lacc 'r the Islamic ight and Muslinr Brr thcr-hood .activists rom across he Muslim w.rld. Accordi.g t. I{ichardLabeviere, journal istwho l-ras r i t ten irbout he Muslirn Br. ther-ho'd's t ies o terr . r ism, Ramada' n. t .nly rnanagedhe organrza-t ion's unds but, alo.g with yrussef Nada, a Brotherho'd f inancier-

helped o establ ishhegroup'sbank,Al Taqwa. iT1v11c162, amadan helped SaucliArabia establ ish he Muslim

world League. My fatherwasn'r usroneof the eadersf the founcr-inggroup of the ea13ue, aysHani Ramadan, aid's .n and thecur-rent director f the Islamiccenter in Geneva. .He

had the or iginalidea for the creationof an Islamic eague,which eventuallybecameparal lel hannel houghwhich he could communicate is thoughts. , ,According o Hani Ramada., the Islamiccenter was well receivednSwitzerlandwhen it was firsr established. There was nothing liketoday's slamophobia, he says. The first reactions o my father,s

activity and to the presence f an Islamiccenter i ' Genevawere posi-tive, both within Switzerlandand more generallywith the E,uropeanpublic ' But Hani Ramadanadmirs hat the whole purposeof theventure was to promote the Muslim Brotherhood. .,The

creation ofthe Islamiccenter was supposed o realizemy father'sdesireof creat-ing a center rom which he could spread he teachings f Hassanar -Banna, a place where studentscoming from various Arab countriescould meetand be rained n the message f Islam.',rs



TheKingof All slam ' r 17

Scatteredn exile,and underground n Egypt, he Muslim Brother-

hood grew evermore radical n the early r96os. n Cairo, the Brother-

hood was gathering strength for another showdown with Nasser.

Elsewhere,political Islam was growing. Saudi Arabia was increas-

ingly makingan aggressiveid to act as eader f the Arab and slamic

blocs;Ayatol lahKhomeiniwas beginning o st ir n lran; I raqi funda-

mental ist Shi i teshad createda conspirator ialpol i t ical party,

theCall ;3e nd Mawdudi 's movement n Pakistanwas gainingmomen-

tun-r .When the r965 cr is isover the Brotherhood xploded n Egypt,

I {amadanand thc Brotherhood's hief dcologue, he mil i tant eader

SayyidQutb, both of whom werc nr l legedlyehincl n at tempt o ki l l

Nasser, ereat the cerr ter f the cr is is.This t inre,Nasscrwas better

prcpared,and he callcd on fr iencls ncl supportcrswithin Egypt 's

Mr.rsl irnlergy o backhim, while paint ingR:rmadan nd the Muslim

Brotherhood s U.S.agents. Otr jo August lgypt ianpublicopinion

lcarncd, through ir spcechNasserclcliverccl rorl M<tscow, hat the

SocictyofMuslirn l] rcthrenwas the forcc behind a gigant ic plot

erproscd y the ntcl l igencc erviccs. hcir i rccomplices,aid he presi-

clent , ncluclecl ustaphaAmit t , a leading ibcral iournal istarrested

on z Septernbern charges f 'spying or the Urt i tedStates. ' f ter the

raids, the regime's cl igious unct ionar ies, pokcsmen, ncl wr itcrs

were mobil izecl o clenouncc edit ior"rslcments, . . condemnitrghe

Muslim Brcthrenas 'urecl ievalerror ists, ' wr i tes ( i i l lcs Kepel,one

the world's foremostanalystsof pol i t ical Is larn. The ncwspapers

exposcd he orcign inksof thc rel igi t tusanat ics' : aidRamadan, l-

Banna's on- in- law,was said o bc pr 'r l l inghc str ings rom Amman,

. fordirn,n orclers rom CIINTO."a0Rat ladi lr r nayor may not have

beena U.S.agcnt,br . r t hcre s t ro doubt thir t hc had alignedhimself

c loselywith thc axisof nat ions- inclLrcl ing rrkistan, CIENTOmem-

ber, ordan, rndSaucl i rabia- that theUnitedStates nrs upport ing

againstNasser.

According to Le Temps, tgypt witst-t't hc only governmenf ha t

considcred aidRamadan o bc an Americana cl- l t . hc government

of Switzer land, oo, bel ieved hat l{amadan was working for the

United States. n 1c266, t the heightof cr is is n h,gypt, high- level

n-rceting f Swiss officials, including diplomats, the Swiss federal





TheKingof All Islam t39

impact on U.S. Middle East policy is told in some detail in \Tarren

Bass'sSwpportAny Friend, an account of the Kennedy administra-

tion's flirtation with Nasser.Vfith

the departureof Eisenhowerand

his uncompromising attitude toward nonalignment, rhe Kennedy

administration offered an oli ve branch to Egypt. Under Kennedy',

someU.S.officialsacceptedhat Nasserwas ndependent, ot a Soviet

pawn, andthat

lfashington would have o reachan accommodation

with him. Optimists believed hat Nasser,who was no communist-in

fact, he ruthlessly ocked up members of the Egyptian Communist

Party and other leftists-might be convinced o abandon his ties to

the USSR.More realistic analysts elt that Nassercould at least be

persuaded o reacha modus vivendi with the United States.And, of

course, t i l l others, special ly art isans f Israel, aw Nassermuch as

SaudiArabiadid, as he devi l ncarnate.

Our relationswith Nasserwere difficult, recallsTalcott Seelye,

who headed he StateDepartment's rabian Peninsula eskduring the

Kennedyyears. We saw that his movement onstituteda threat o the

Saudi egime,and there was a react ion n SaudiArabia, oo. Pr ince

Talal Ione of the so-calledSaudi Free Princes']defected to Irgyptl,

and two Sau dipilots did, too. So we were veryworricd about the sur-

vivalof the Saudi egime. aahe CIA prepared Nat ional ntel l igence

Est imate NIE) cal led Nasserand the Futureof Arab Nat ional ism,

which old theWhite House: Mil i tant nat ional ism il lcont inue o bc

the most dynamic force in Arab political affairs,and Nasser s very

likely to remain its foremost eader and symbol for thc foreseeable

futurc. It went on to warn the young president hat the long-term

outlook for the conservative nd Western-alignedegimes s bleak,

and that the Saudi egimewas ikely to be sweptaway.45

Kennedy hought it worthwhile to explore an opening o Nasser,

to the chagrinof both Israeland SaudiArabia, and he begana series

of exchangeswith the Egyptian eader, hrough diplomatic contacts,

letters,and personalmeetings. o Kennedy,Nasserwrote: Why does

the United States,a country established n foundations of freedom

and by meansof a revolution, oppose he call of freedomand revolu-

tionary movements, nd line up with reactionary orcesand enemies



r4o . Dlvrr . 's ( ,aul

of progress? '16y react ionarvorces, f course,Nassermeanfabovc

al l Sar-rdi rabia,and his quest ionwas a g.od rne. Unlikc Ike, who

ref ler ively aw ndepenclent-mindcdhirclWorld counrr icsrs ommu-

niststooges,JFK waswil l ing o cxplore hepossibi l i tyhat suchmovc-

mentswerenot neccssar i lyncompat ible ith U.S. ntcrests.n f lrct ,as

a senatorn the r9.5os, ennedy blasted he F. isenhowerclministra-

t ion's 'head- in- t l- re-sand't t i tude oward Arab nat ionrt sm. 4-

But the Kenncdy-Nasser uet faltered,and . lr imatcly fai lcd. r '

september 962, pr.-Nasser .rces ovcrthrew he' 'cdievaI

grvern-

mcnt of Ycrnen,which occr-rpiedcrucialpicceof rcaIestatc tr ir rcgi-

cal ly posit ionedon rhe sourhern lank of saucl iArabi: r astr ic lc he

Red Seaand the Indian Ocean.Ar thc r ir lc, I (cnnedysaid, .1don't

cven know where t is. a8The leacler f Yemcn n t962 was Imrrrr . r

Ahr-nad, decrepit , oo-polrnclautocratwith a reputat ion r lr brutal-

i ty.Hc. thought f hi 'self as he protect . r of ( l .d 's rel igior-r , rc l he

den'unced Nasser 's c()nomlc rol lram as u.- ls lar . r ic. 4eWhen he

died, cbelsbackedby Nasser verthrewhis eclual ly eact ion,ryson,

Mohammeclal- I ladr.According . Seelyc,Nilsscr was behincl he

overthrowof the regime, lnd SaudiArabia wrrsvery,vcry Llpsct . t0

The rcvolut ion n Yemcn, oonbackedby the arr ivalof thousands f

F.gypt ianroops,posec' l threat o theverycxistencc f saudiArabia.

RobertKonrer, he whitc Hrusc aide ' r Middlc Flast ol icy,war 'red

Kennedy, Thc H.use'f Sar.rd el l knows t c.uld be.exf . , l Sirucl i

Arabia, alarmecl,ent arms a.cl m.rey t ' the ycme' i mclnarchists.

The suhsequent ar lef t zoo,ooodeacl n ncar lya clecaclef 1igl- r t ing.

Kennedyhad alreadybeenwarned, by the CllA and othcrs, har

SaudiArabia's egimcn-r ight or lasr or-rg,nd rhar Nasserwas ikcly

theArab world's urure. nit ial ly, c tr ied o beevcn-handed,ecogniz-

ing the new government f Yemenand sendingEllsworthBunker omediatea sett lement etweenEgypt and saLrdi rabia. But pressure

mountedon Kennedy rom all directions.The British,still clinging o

their precarious er:chr the Arab Gulf anclAden, were again (asdur-ing the Suezcrisis) apoplecticabout Nasser.Prime Minister Harold

Macmillan, who'd been n the Britishgovernment uring Suez,wanted

to tear Nasser's calpoff with his fingernails. 52 hey immediately



o

Tbe King ctfAll Islant

deviseda schemewith Israel'ssecretservice, he Mossad. to aid the

i.rnti-Nasserorces n Yemenby supplying hem with arms and finan-

cial help. MI6's fornrer vice-chief,GeorgeYoung, who was now a

lrankerwith KleinwortBenson, i ls approached y Mossad o f inclan

F-ngl ishmanccepttrbleo t lre Sirucl iso rul l a guerr i l lawar against

the fYemeni] epublicans nd their Egypt ianbackers, wrote l)orr i l .

' l can { ind you a Scotsrnan, 'epl ied Young. He t l- renntroc' lucecl\ lc l-ean to Br gadier )an Hiranr, the Isracl ic lefensc t tache whcr

promised o supplyweapons, Lrnds, ncl nstrurctors ho cotr ldpass

rhemselvesf f asArabs,a sfrr t teg),l taf hc Saucl is ager ly raspecl. 53

Israeldrew on its popul:rtiouof Yct-ncnifews, vho had irnrnigrateclo

Israeland who could prasshernsevesot l-as Yerncrr i r i lbs,and dis-

t r ' ratcheclhem to t l ' rewar zonc wlrcrc hcv scrveci s rni l i tary nstruc-

tors.According o Dorr i l : Thc ( l lA helpeclhc Israel isnf i l t r r r tc t rck

rnto Yemensomc of these fews o tr i l i l t the gucrr i l l r rsn the usc of

r .nodern eapons. he t rainers,natural ly, ool< arc o cl isguiseheir

f r lrenat ional i ty. Both ran'sSAVAI( ccret crvice nd SaudiArabianintel l igcncc erewit t ing nrembers f the ant i-Nasserront in Yemcn.

Isr irc lalso contr ibuted ln.ns o the rebels, ncluding Soviet-madc

\\reelpoust haclscized r-r onflictswith the Arab states. 'fhe CIA and

MI6 rel iecl n . . . 'pract ical-mindcd-nembersf the Saudi oyal farn-

r ly ' to dcvclopa covert al l iancebetr ,veensrael,SaudiAr i lbia, ran,

rrucl fordan. 5aAccording to Howard Teichcr,a tr',r<',-lsr,rclil.S. offi-

c ial, thc Israel iair force also ntervened n behalf of Saucl iArabia

rrgairrst gypt ,dr-rr inghe war in Yemen. lsrael iwarplanes, wrote

Teicher, f lew southover lreRed Sca o signalunamlr ignor-rslyo the

Egypt ianso keep hcir distar-rcerom SaudiAratr ia. 5tIrr

Washington,the British urged Kennedy o takc a stand against

Nirsser. urtherpresslrre n Kennedy ame)of course, rom lsrael.Dur-

ing he war in Yemen, hc Israelis ried o reinforce hose n Washington

rvho saw Nasseras a tool irr a S ovietscheme o control the Persian

(iulf, and lsrael cast tself as Americir's nost rcliableanti-communlst

al ly n the region.

Yetmorepressureame rom thebig U.S.oi l companies, ho were

,rlarmedover the threat that Nasserposed o their cash cow, Saudi

t

t .

cl

y



| 4z DEvrr- 's Geur,

Arabia. Aides to Kennedywere swampedwith lobbying from the

Aramco partners nd Gulf Oil . The lattercompanywas represented

by Kerr l i t Roosevelt, ho told the White House hat U.S. nterests

and Nasser ' 'sarc simply ncompatible. FK senta former Aramco

executive,Terry Ducc, to meet with King Faisalon his behalf.56 nd

Kcnnedy began to rLnr opereti( )ns gainst Egypt in and around

Ycrncn. Kennedy, says ormer ambassador har lesFreeman, was

screwing rround with all sorts of covert operationsand the Green

Bcrets n Arabia. 57

Kenncdy's vertllre o Nirsserwasover.More important, he United

Statcs ad sclr-rarclyet tselfagainsta centralgoalof Arab nationalists:

to unite lrgypt ancl othcr oil-poor Arab nations with SaudiArabia's

vastwealth. The Saudikingdom hasalwaysbeenwary of any Arab

unificirtior-r chenre. wrotc Shirccn Hunter. The Aratr nationalists

bel ievecl,or rxanrple, hat the oi l of SaudiArabia and other oi l- r ich

Arab states clongeclo theArab nation anclnot only to the oil produc-

ersand shouldbc used or Arab economic evelopmcnt nd be at the

servicc f :rchievir rgts othergoals. . . Thus the Arab radicals osed

irn existentialhrcir t o SaudiArabia. 58n retrospect,t is possibleo

ask: What nr ighthavehappenedf the UnitedStates ad supported r

folcratecl asscr, nclhad r l lowedSaudiArabia o fa l l to Nasser?n

the r 96os, n the rnic lst f th e Cold War, t wasan r:nthinkable ption.

The -f hnsonadnr inistr r t ion igorously ei nforced he U.S.-Saudi

al l iance. ing Faisalwas ionizedby LBJ,who offeredmil i tary assis-

tanceand technicalhelp to the Saudi uler ,who'd replaced he dis-

crcdited King Sar-rd t the start of the Yemen war. A $4oo mill ion

Anglo-Amcrican ir defense rogramwas aunched n SaudiArabia,

along with a massivcscheme o build military bases nd other infra-

structurcand a $roo mil l ion U.S.program to supply SaudiArabia

with trucksand n-r i l i taryransport ehicles.5e

The U.S. support for Saudi Arabia t acitly backed a vast inter-

national effort by King Faisal to rally Muslim support in the Cold\il/ar.In r965, Faisalbegana frenetic our of Muslim countries o find

allies,describingMarxism as a subversive reedoriginatedby a vile

Jew. ooHe was evermore determined o stamp t out. He joined th e

shah n calling or a grand slamicalliance,and visitedJordan,Sudan,



e

TbeKingof All Islam ' r t3

Pakistan,Turkey, Morocco, Guinea, and Mali in ry66 to drum up

support.

In Jordan,he wailed that "the powersof evil haveplanned o fight

Islam and Muslims wherever hey are" and are "trying to kill every

sign of Is lamic nf luence."61n Sudan,he proclaimed: As for the

communists,hey are at tackingus becausehe Islamicmovement s

going o destroyall that communismstands or, r-r articular,

disbeliefin the Almighty God." Not ing that the USSR ontainedMuslirn err i-

tor ies,he added: The Communists ear hc expansion f our movc-

mentbecauset wi l l reach he slamic err i tor ieshat havc al lenunder

their oppressive ominat ion."62n Pakistan, e issuecl cl ir r ioncal l

for an Islamicbloc despite he fact hat Is l ir rn is facingmany uncler-

currents hat are pull ingMoslems cft and r ight ."r ' rPakistan, r ight-

wing Islamic state hat was part of two formal ir l l i i rnces i th thc'West,

sent troops to stabilizeSaudi Arabia fronr both intcrnal ar-rd

external hreats.Beginningn the eir rly 96os,Pakistani rr r ry f f iccrs

had taken up posts n SaudiArabia'sarued forces, rs raincrsancl

commanders.One of them was Cleneral ia ul-Hac1,who in r977

would mount an Islamist oupd'6tatagainst ulhqar Ali Bhutto.6a

Though Faisal 's ampaign or ls l i r rnicsol idrrr i tydrcw slrpport

among r ight-wing slamic states-cven thc shah, no f r rnof Is lamic

fundamental ism,avored t- i t was seen y Egypt,Syr ia,ancl raclas

threatening. ut Faisal 'sslamic bloc was viewcd dvorablyby Lon-

don and Washington. n r 966, t t pol i t ical of f icer in the Br it ish

crnbassyn SaudiArabia expl ic i t lycndorsccl aisal 's f for ts,aclcl ing

that the United Stateswas n accord. oo:

I take the relaxed iew of F:r isal 'sct iv i t ies. . . . 'hc Anrer icrrrr

embassyere,with whonrwe havediscussedhe srrbjectrt severi.rl

levels, hare hisview.That s o say hat hec()nccpr f Is lar las

an aggressiveorce has completely lisappcareclxcept rlm()n l

some lderSaudis.65

After all, he wrote approvingly, he Saudi enrnity was directedonly

against ommunism, ionism,and a handfulof Chr ist ianmissionar ies.

As Faisal 's tar rose)Nasser 's el l . The crushingend to Nasser 's



r4 4 I ) rvr l 's Gnur-

appeaf came in t967, when, in six devastatingdays of war, Israel

defeatedrgypt, Syr ia,Jordan,and their al l ies,occupying ferusalem

and partsof al l threecountr ies,ncluding he Sinaipeninsula. asser

would l ive for another hree years,but the r967 war sappedArab

nat ional ism's ital i ty. Nasserwas able o retoolant i-colonial ism nd

excitepecrple, ut the t967 war blcw that myth total ly,beciruse e

krst ,and not only ost ,but ostmiscrably," aysDavid .ong. "I was n

Jeddah, nd my boss, he poli t icalcounselor, aid o me: That 's hc

end of Nasser."'6('

Faisal, ow with clearAmericanbackir-rg,ecloubleclis ef for ts o

org:rnize bloc of Islamicstatcs, our ing as far af ieldas Indonesia,

Alger i ir ,Afghanistan, nd Malaysia."Faisal, " wrote the authorsof

'fhe Houseof Saud, had bccornc rore dementcd han ever rbout he

'Zionist-Bolshcvist ' onspir ircy."67 is ef for ts canler o fruit ion in

rc16c1,n pi lr t thanks o thc act ionsof a ment ir l lyunlralanced us-

tralian who attemptecl o set fire to .ferusalenr's l Aqsa mosque.

Whcther his was a convcnienr r()v()cat ion r del iberatcly tzrgeds

an excuse o rnobi l izc slamic ni l i tancy, ing Faisal ager ly cized n

it , suntmoning eadcrs f the Islamicworld to Rabir t ,Morocco, for

what woulcl bc thc wor lcl 's irst Is lamicsummit conference. ecausc

thc inr: rgcry f Al Aclsawas so strong,even Egypt fcl t compelled

to rr t tendFaisr l 's r iumphirntgrr ther ing.6slthough Syr ia and Iraq

boycotted he rneet ir rg,wcnty-f ivc nat ior . rs t tended.The sumnrit

resolved o crcatc thc Organizat ionof the Islanr ic lonference, n

ever-expancl ingnini-LInitcclNat ions for the lslamic wor ld, which

rapidly movccl s l ir r l isrrro thc centerof the rrgenclan country af ter

countr) ' : n Pakistan,n Afghanistr lr . r ,r . r LrrkeS nd among lreArabs.

Norninal l f i r r t i - lsrael,Faisal 's eal goal was to forge a broad

Isl irn'r icront against he SovietUnion. " l ly thc latc r96os wc're st i l l

f ight ingcornrnnnisrn,o we reinforccdFaisal 's l lppolt fc lr he Mus-

l im l lrothcr lrood nclpirn-Islarm,"aysDavid l-ong. 'Weneededhem

againstar-ryr l l ies hat Moscow coulclconjure Lrp. f Saudi Arabia

coulc'l elp createan institutior-ralizedslan-ric onsensus, o nruch he

better.

l,ong, a perceptiveanalystwith a strong sense f irony, says hat

despite he fact that it was glaringlyobvious,most U.S.policy makers

.1 l t 1 . . . :

11 l I . :' r

. \ r . r l ' .

I i r . . : . .

T:r . .



The Kingof All Islam r '+

and analystshad little or no appreciationof the potentiallyexplosive

nature of the Islamic esurgence.We didn't see slam.We

saw Saudi

Arabia," hesays. Pan-Islamwas not, to us,seen sa strategichreat.

Therewere bad guysdoing bad things o peopleon rhe eft, o Nasser.

They were fighting the pinkos. So we didn't see pan-Islam as a

threat.

ln r97o, working as an analystat the StateDepartment 's ureauof Intel l igence nd Research, ong had an inkl ing that the cnergyof

pan-Islarnmight bc channclcdnto ant i-Arner icanismnc day,but no

onewas istenine:

I wrrs r t NR in 197o, tncl t r ied o r,vri tc bout s lam.But herewas

no lnarket for it. I felt that there was sti l l a boclvof clisenchirnted,

c l isaf fcctcdcoplewho wcrc st i l l focused n ant i-c<l lonial ism,ven

tlr<rrrgh he t.)67 rvar had shattered he myrl.rof Nasser. silw

incrcasing l isi l l t rsi<lnrncnti t l ' rArab nat iorra l isnr , ut rn()st eop[e

clicin't ee t. Sooner )r lrlter, felt that thcscgr-rvs oulcl atcl.r n t<l

solrething, rrclhat that sorret l . r in enightbe Is larr ,s ince hey wcre

str l l cl isaffected.just fel t that Is larrrwor-r ld e the new paradrgrn,

bur dre h ighcr-upswcrrc t i l l fo l lo lv ing he o lc lscript . was scl rs i r rg

that cl isi l lusionnrcntv i th Arab rrat ional isnr nd Nasser isrrwas

sett ing n. I becrrrner<l founcl lv uspic ioushat fherewor-r lc lot bc

a f<ll lorv-<lrro Nasser, () crerlte he transnational nr<lvementha t

would appcal to the nralcorr tents. c l ic ln ' tsce anyr i r recol lnnl l

along, except slar.r'r.t" '

Thc Arab ciefcirt n the r967 war encouraged i rn Is l i tmic resur-

gence.The Arabs' crushing loss ra iscd cr i t ica l quest ions about the

future of the Arab world. l t provoked inchoate anger among thc pop-

ul i rt ion of the coLlntr ie s nvolvecl, and it lcd to enornlous turmoi l i rr

Arab prol i t ics.On thc onc hancl,between t967 ;tncl r 9Zo, severalArab

regimes el l to l ef t - leaning nat ional ists . Hafcz Assacl ook over Syr ia,

Muamm: l r Qaddal i oustcclL ibya's k ing, Jaafar Nr, rmci r ise izedpower

in Sr. rc l i rn,he Arab Bi r : r thSoci i r l is tParty rose o power in Iraq, and the

Palest in ianscanre c lose to toppl ing Jorclan 's King Hussein in the

upr is ing culminat ing in Black Septeml ' rer 97o. Some of these eaders

ci tcd Nasser as a hero and rolc model .





6

THE SORCERER'S APPRENTICE

lN rsr . r97 os, guidedby Kamal Adham, SaudiArabia's hief ofintelligence, nwar Sadatbrought the Muslim Brotherhood back to

Egypt.The United States, ccustomedo working with SaudiArabia,

\vasuntroubled by the rise of Islamism n Egypt. In fact, Washington

was so eager o work with Anwar Sadat o bring Egypt over to the

U.S.side n the Cold \Var that pol icy makers,diplomats, nd intel l i -

genceofficersviewed Sadat's estorationof the lslamic right benignly

or tacitly encouragedt.

But Sadat had openeda Pandora'sbox. Once freed, he Brother-

hood knew no bounds. Back in their ancestralhome, the Brothers

rvorked feverishly o spread heir influenceworldwide. The conse-quenceswereprofound, and deadly-not least or the Egyptianpresi-

dent himself.

C-loncurrentwith the growth of the lslamic right in Egypt, Sadat

helped engineera dramatic expansion of America's power in the

^\'liddleEast.Under Nasser,Egypt was a nation at oddswith the United

States.Twenty thousand Soviet troops, technicians,and advisers

L.racked gypt'sarmed forces; a war of attrition was under way along

the Egypt-Israel order; and Egypt and the United States ackedeven

normal diplomatic ties. But Sadat established covert relationship



r4t3 . I) lvr r . 's ( i . r r ,r ,r r -

with Adham, he clA, and Henry Kissinger,he U.S.nar irnal secur iry

adviser.n tc)7r,within a year f assuming ontrol,Sadat.usted he

Egypt ian eft f r .m thegrvernrnent, rnd n r97z he stunnedMoscrw

by expell ing he Soviet orces.Afrer he r973 RarnadanWar-waged

in conccrtwith SaudiAr:rbiaa'd'rsanized

ar.und Islamic hcmes

rather han Ar irb nat ional ism-l igypt and thc Unitcd Srareseesrab-

l ished ies. n r977, Sadat lew tr Jerusalern,pl i t t ing he Arab w.r ld

and opening

'eg't iat io 'rs

with lsracl that lcd to the camp David

Egypt- Israel greenrenr. y r9f lo, I lgypt was Anrer ica'seacl ing ral-r

al ly,engagedn supportrnghc U.S. ihacl ' Afghanisrar rndprovid-

ing a base or U.S. nf lucncen thc oi l- r ich )crsian lulf . l -or cven hc

most cynical U.S. N,licldlc ,ast pccialisrs,l-rc hirngc n l]gypt, frorn

foe o ally.wesdrzzyirrg.

At thc beginning, ew expectcd erv r nuchrom Sirdat . or thir ty

years'he haclopcr ir tecln Nasser 's hadow.He'cl becna memberof

the Muslim lJrothcrhood nclplaycd hc role of intermccl iaryn the

intrigue between hc pi:rlircc,he l]rothcrhoocl,ancl hc Freeofficers

movenent.Af ter Nasscr 's or-rp, irdrr t erved s he Egypt ian eader 's

l iaison t ' the l lrotherh. 'd, then funct i .ncd as L,gypt 's noff ic ial

ambassadoro Isl ir rnists or ldwide.Br-r to L,gypt iansrnd o U.S.of f i-

c ials,sadat ncver scemecl. bc r ' . re than a scc,nd b; lnana.After

Nasser 's e:r th, n Octobe r 97o, Sadatwas widely sce' as a placc-

holder who would be ,usted afrer a hchinc'l-thc-scencstruggle or

power in cairo. ln the UnitcciStates, xpect : r t ions f Sirdatwerezip, saysDavid [ . .ng, a f . rmer U.S. ,reign service' f f iccr . .He

was

the bumblingv icepresident. l

In his autobiography, n Search f ldentity, Sadatwrore that when

American envoy Elliott Richardson returned home t' rx/ashington

after visiting cairo to offer condrlenccsrn Nasser'sdeath, he pre-

dicted hat sadat wouldn't survive n power for mrre than four orsix weeks. z nsideEgypt,Sadat aced ormidableopponents,nclud-

ing Nasser-style ationalists,who were deeply suspiciousof Sadat,

and communist- leaningr pro-Soviet f f ic ials. adat himselfhad no

real political baseor constiruenc.v.et not only did Sadatsurvive,he

succeededn engineering completeabout-facen Egypt's oreign and

domesticpolicies.Where Nasser had forged ties to Syria, raq, and



he

he

Tbe Sorcerer'sApprentice . r49

Algeria,Sadatembraced he conservativemonarchies f SaudiArabia

and the Gulf.'Where

Nasser elied on the SovietUnion for arms and

maintaineda nonalignedposture nternationally,Sadatbroke Egypt's

ties o the USSRand enrolledEgypt n America'sCold War b loc. And

where Nasser promoted Egypt as a Third World leaderalong with

Yugoslavia, ndia, and African and Latin American nations, Sadat

implemented n Egypt-centered, o-it-alone oreign policy.

Sadatconsolidatedhis shaky rule by unleashing he power of the

Islamic ight as a hammer against he left, with the generous inancial

irssistancef SaudiArabia.Though Nasserhad suppressedhe Mus-

lim Brotherhood and fought to reduce the power of right-wing

Islamism n F,gypt,Sadatwelcon-redhe cxiled Muslim Brotherhood

back to Egypt, reinvigoratedhe organizat ion, nd bui l t i ts inst i tu-

t ional presence ithin the universit ies, rofessional ssociat ions,nd

the media.BeforeSadat, he lslamistswere or the mosr part f r inge-

dwell ing,marginal izedadicals; f terSadat, he Muslim Brotherhood

ilnd ts cvcnmore radicalyouth wing were part of mainstream ol i t i -

cirl discoursen Egypt.

Peoplcwho traveled ven asually o Egyptdur ing he r97oswere

struck by this thoror-rghransformation. n the schools, n thc streets,

in themosqucs,n thc press,herewcre manifestat ionsf thegrowrng

presence f Islamic fundtrmental ism. ichael l)unn, editor of the

Middlc East lournal, says hat he could not help but be amazedby

the shif t dur ing the mid-r97os. In F)gypt hings changeddramat i-

cal ly, he says. Peoplewcre wear ingbeards verywhcre. herewerc

thingscal leclMuslim Brotherhoodmagazines r newspapers. eople

were wearing white djelldbas.The mosqueswere overflowing,with

people pi l l ingout into the streets. r tudentslocked o join Islamist

groups,and thousands f new mosqucswcre constructed.Muslim

Brotherhood- l inked anksand businessesprouted, nd phalanxes f

Is lamist hugsemergedo int imidatepoli t icalopponents.

But for Sadat. t wrrsa fatal erntrrace.

Init ial ly, he Islamic ight served s Sadat 's l l ies.Ciradually, ow-

ever,more and more of them turned againsthim, especially fter the

H,gyptian-Israeli ccord. In Egypt, Sadat underestimated he depth

and virulence f thegrowing slamist pposit ion, special ly mong ts

of

thc

tor

hcn

prc-

no

l - lnd



r \o . L)nvrr - 's ( i a,vr ,

terrorist factions. n the United Srares,he State )epartment and the

CIA fai led o pay suff ic ient t rent ion o rhe clangerrom the Islamic

right in Egypt, relying nsteadon assurancesrom thc Egyptians ha r

i t was under control. By the t irnc Sadatw:rs assassin:r tecln r9[ i r

by membersof a mil i tant Muslinr Brotherhoocl f fshoot,a violelr r

Is lamistundergroundwas fkrur ishing.C)thcrEgypt ianoff ic ialswcre

assassinatecl,ouristsmassacrccl,lhristiarrsttacked, nd sccularEgyp-

t ian ntel lectualsnurdcred r si lencecl.

Onceagain, -gyptwor,r ld e he Muslim Brorherhood'shiefbrrscof opcrat ic lns.

S,qonr [JNcAGr, ]s r r rE Bno'r 'HERS

No onc was r loreclosely onnccfedo Anwar Saclat 'scconstruct lon

of Egypt ian ol i t ics han KanralAclham, hc chiefof Saudi ntel l igcnce

Adham, sccrct lyworking thc back chirnnclso l- lerrryKissinger, .S.

sccretary f stirteanclnatir-rnal ecurityaclviser, as busily settir-rghc

sttrgeor Amcrica'sCold War empire n the Micldle rirst.Even beforc Nasser 'sdeath, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait , ancl other

wealthyCltr l f tates ad steppcdn after rgypt 's efeir tn t967, ct f ler

ing promisesof f inancialaic l to the bat tcredcounrry tS i1 wily of

strengthening oli t ical ies.SaudiArabia cluier ly egan o back thr

I lrotherhooc' ln F.gypt.Thc Muslim Brotherhoodhlamed Nasser ' .

al legedackof pietyand suppressionf Is l irm or the reversesufferc. l

in thc war,and they beganagitat ing lgainstNasscr. The Saudi ir r r -

paignmade tself elt at a t ime of studentunrest n Cairo n the sum-

mer of t96c1, wrote ReinhardSchulze. For the f irst t inc in yei lrs.

opposit ionists penlyappeared s'Muslirn Brothcrs' nd demandedrmoredef inite ightagainst ef t -wingand communistact iv i t ies. a

After Nasser died, Faisal mainraineda linger ing suspicionoi

Sadat,but Adham worked hard to convince he king, ever on thc

lookout for Zionist-Bolshevik onspiracies, hat Sadat was nor

anotherNasser. dham hadclose ies o both Faisal nd Sadat.As th.

brother of Faisal'swife Iffat, the spychief ed a group of senioradvis-

erswho argued hat Sadat'smembership n the Muslim Brotherhoo.l



rhe

hat

I.S.

, ()f

rhc

ser's

a s,

of

the

I ' lOt

he

The \r 'rcerer's pltren ce r5r

indicated,at the very east,a "right-wing temperament. t At the same

t ime, he wily Adham had businessies o Sadat, ecognizinghat the

L,gyptianpresidenthad a taste or the finer things in life and letting

Sadat now that SaudiArabia could provide hem. n the r96os, he

Saudi ntel l igencehiefhad ormeda ser ies f prof i tableoint business

vcntureswith Anwar Sadat 'swife, Jihan, giving rhe new Egypt ian

lc:rdcrpersonal

takc n bet ter iesbetweerr airoand Riyadh.6 ingFaisaldesignated dham as his go-between, nd less hirn a monrh

after Nasserdied, Faisalsent Adham to Clairo.Apparent ly,Adham

arr ivednot only with promiscsof Saudiaid, but also with a secrct

Americanassurancehat Washingtonwould help F.gypt et irs land

back rom Israel, f Sadatwould only breakwith Moscow anclorder

the withdrawal of the Soviet orces rorr-r .gypt.7

By ear ly r 97 r, Adharn haclbecomea ubiquitousprescncen thc

Egypt iancapit r r l .Moharr-rmedlcikal, he pro-N:rsserournal istand

ecl i t<rr >f l Abram, who was appointednr inister f informat ion n

rc;7obut resigneclrr , rugovc'nrmcl ' l tn tL)74overdif ferences ith

Sirdir t , bscrvccl,This was not somcthing o reassurehe Russians."s

Not only wasAdham tct ingas ln ntcrmediaryor Faisal, ut hewas

alsosecret ly orkins asa concluit or corrnrLl l t icf t t ionsctweenSadat

ir r rdKissingcr.en his mcmoirs,Kissinger lcscr i lrcshe conncct ion,

not ing hat thc Saudi o le al lowcdSadatand Nixon to stay n touch

while "bypassing oth foreignnr inistr ics. ' r0 r rhe r ir -ne,he Llnitccl

Statcs ad uo embassyn Cairo; rgy;r t , ikc mostArab courr t r ics, acl

lr r<rkeniplornat ic elat ionswith t lreUnitecl tatcs f ter he rc167 ar.

SaudiArabia had not. So n ef fect ,SaudiArabi irwas the broker for

U.S.-Egypt ianelat ionsn the crr ly t97os.

In May r97r, Sadat ook the f irststep n consolidat ing ower and

purging he governmcnt f i ts Nasser ists. laiming o haveevidence

of a plot to assassinateim by Nasser-eraf l ic ials,whom Sadat al led

"Soviet agcnts," Sadat struck. Joined by Ashraf Marwaln, a wily

Egypt ian bureaucratwho was a closc fr iend of Adharn's,Sadat

arrested hc spezrkerf the Nat ional Assembly,he war minister , he

informat ionminister ,he rninister f president ial f fairs,membcrs f

the ClentralCornmit tee,and other senior of f ic ials,whose "inane

social ist logans"were "at var iancc. . . with our rel igior-rsaith." l l



r52 . f) l ,vt l 's Gavn

Sadat called it the Secor-rd evolution. A year later, coordinating

with Adharn, Sadatordered he expulsionof Soviet orces.

Kamal Adham persuadedSadat to kick the Russiansout of

I-gypt, says the CIA's Raymond Close, who worked closely with

Adham.r2Sadat,of course,was alre:rdypredisposedo do so. But

Adham offered ashancl slamist acking.

On Sadat 'snvitat ion,arrdwith Kamal Adham'sand King Faisal 's

support ,kcy membcrsof the cxi led MLrsl imBrotherhood eadership

bcgan eturning o Egypt. n addit ion,af ter r97t Saclat reed arge

numbers of Brothcrhoocl;rrisoncrs.Many of thern were angry illrcl

evenmorecommit ted o violence nd secref ive nclergr<tundrganiz-

ing, and irnrnediately l isappearedo build their rnovetncnt. ) thers,

part icul ir r ly hoscof the oldcr l ler lerat ion, ought o estrrbl ishhem-

sclvcs sovcrtal l ies f thenew L,gypt ian resicient . tnarTclmrssat l i ,

frced n r 97 r was a lawyer rnd uture editor ctfTbe Call, theMuslim

Brotherhood'sournal, who would eventual ly ecomc he orgatt tza-

t ion's suprcrne uide. Upon his release, c went dircct ly to Sirdat 's

president ial alace o inscr ibehis thanks,aloug with thoseof other

membe s of the Muslim Brotherhood,n the public registry.r i

Th c Is lanr c ( )r r r tm ni I1 '

Throughout thc decade, hc Muslim Brotherhoodmetastasizednd

divided nto var ious act ionsand compet ing urrents.On thc surface

at least , he old guard irppearcd o put a premium on modcnt ion.

Many of the older Muslim Brothcrhood ff ic ialswho'cl led o Saudi

Arabia returned o Egyptasprosperous nd well-connectedusiness-

men. In contrast, fiery younger members,especially hose <tn cant-

puses, pun off mini-Muslim Brotherhood lubs and organizat lons.

These roups,with the ul l supportof Sadat nd heEgypt ian ecur ity

and intelligence services,proliferated rapidly. Soon they became

known as the Islamic Community.14Because adatdid not formally

legalize he Muslim Brotherhoodorganization, he movementspread

willy-nilly, with no central eadership.

For the Egyptian leader,supporting the growth of theseproto-

IslamicCommunity groupson campuses as merelyone more way of





Drvr l 's Gaue

muscularRoversand the terrorist SecretApparatusgrew out of ath-

letic camps or boys and young men, the r97os-era s lamic Commu-

nity organizedgovernment-sponsoredummer camps. The first one

was heldat Cairo University n r973, whereSadatsenta high govern-

ment officialto signal he regime's upport.The campswere heldwith

increasing requency over the next several years. In 1974 Sadat

reorganizedhe rulesgoverning he EgyptianStudentUnion, to allow

the Islamic Community to take over thar important institution. One

governmentdccreedeclared hat henceforth he chief purposeof the

StudentUnion would be to deepen eligiousvaluesamong the stu-

dents. The takeoverof the StudentUnion would be only the first of

many: professionalassociations f doctors, lawyers, engineers, nd

other guilds would soon fall, too, and, of course, he redoubt of Al

Azhar would be capturedby the right once again, ending the role it

had been dgvelopingas a more balanced,and non-fundamentalist,

Islamic center. n t971, the Muslim'World

League, hat powerful

instrument of Saudi lslamization efforts, concluded a pact with Al

Azhar, pulling that venerable nstitution into the orbit of the Wah-

habis.reThat sameyear,Sadatalso created he post of deputy prime

minister for religious affairs and established SupremeCommittee

for Introducing LegislationAccording to the Sharia. slamists ntro-

duced bills in the National Assembly to prohibit alcohol, to use

sharia-based unishments, nd for mandatory teachingof religion n

schools.20

An astuteobserverof that period, Abdel Moneim Said,director of

Egypt'sAI Ahram Center or Political and StrategicStudies, ays hat

the nfluence f SaudiArabia in Egypt during the early r97oswas per-

vasive.Many Egyptianswent to work in SaudiArabia, and returned

having imbibed conservative,'WahhabiheologS he says.Saudi Ara-

bia also avishly funded Egyptian nstitutions,desperateor funding.

It movedAl Azhar to the right, and to publish extremelyconserva-

tive views. Many Saudi Arabian NGOs donated money to Egyptian

mosques,and that was also moving them to the right, says Said.

And many Egyptian ournalistswere on the Saudipayroll, secretly,

of course.

According o Said, he Saudi nfluencealso had an effecton Egyptian

15 4



TheSorcerer's pprentice . rs 5

1aw. Egyptian judicial thinking changed-from the rgzos ro rhe

r96os it was so moderate,enlightened, he says. But by the r97os,

thosewho'd been o the Gulf startedcoming back and brought with

them a narrow-minded interpretation of the law. Egyptian percep-

tions of SaudiArabia were changing, oo. S audiArabia always eared

rhe impact of Egypt on Saudi Arabia, but now ir was working in

reverse.Habits began o change,ways of th inking about life, aboutseparat ion f malesand females, e says.21

The Ramadan War

In October r973, Anwar Sadat auncheda surpr iseattack,coordi-

natedwith Syria,on Israeli-occupied gyptianand Syrian erritory. t

turnedout to be an abjectmil i tary fai lure,but a resounding oli t ical

success. nd, becauset was ladenwith Muslim themesand begun

during Ramadan, he holiest month in the Islamiccalendar, he war

ratchetedup the evelof Islamist ervor in Egypt.After some init ial battlefield victories, during which Egyptian

troops crossed he SuezCanal and advancedagainst sraeli orccs n

the Sinai peninsula,Egypt suf feredmassive everses hen Israel 's

Ar iel Sharon struck back. The lsrael issurroundedand cut of f an

ent ireEgypt ianarmy on the western ideof the canal,prccipitat ing

U.S.-USSRonfrontat ion, wor ldwide nuclearalerr ,and a cr is is hat

was perhaps he closest he world came to Armageddon during the

CloldWar-

But for Sadat hc war had important consequences. irst, t led t< r

an engagementwith the United States o arrange he ceasc-fire nd

then the disengagementagreements,which cemented the U.S.-

Egyptianallianceof the t97os. Second, t confirmed he ties berwecn

Egyptand SaudiArabia,which led o the Arab oil embargo >f 977-

74. With its newfound, Croesus-like iches from the OPEC price

increases f thoseyears,Saudi Arabia suddenl y ound itself with vir-

tually unlimited resources o advance he causeof Xfahhabi funda-

mental ism.And third, the r973 Arab-Israel iwar burnishedSadat 's

Islamiccredentials nd bolstered he ability of the believer-president

to cloak himself n the garb of a Muslim holy man fightinga holy war.







r5l l . Drvrr . 's ( l , l , r , r r - .

hearrived n CairoSirrrya egan requentingheMuslimBrerhren,especial ly upreme uideHudaybiand Zaynabal-Ghazali ,herl()vement'sltassirnaria. e won her confidence nd had regulardiscussionsith hcr.2. '

Accorcl ingo Said,when rgypt ian nvest igatorsxamined he events

at thc col lege, hey found disturbingsignsof profound, under ly ing

slr i f tsarnong he cadets. \7hen they did a revicw, he says, . rhcy

for-rndhingshad becnchanging r rhcTechnici l l ' l legc: rnuchmore

praying, epar ir t ion f groups, igns f extremism. BLlt o ntentwas

Sadat n r 'obi l iz irg Islamic crvor that .c irher L,gypt 's ntel l igence

scrvicc or theolA pickcd -rp n the rrcnd. lT Thc lcaderof thc Mus-

I im Brotherhood t thc t ime w: ls 2rmiln namcdTelmassani, ho had

becn n jai l , wh'm Sadathad frccd,and f recdon rhe undersr: rncl ing

thilt thcy wo uld-well, let me Llsehe ternt behave, ' si.lyslilts. ,.And

thcy did. occasio.al ly hcrew'r-r ldbean art ic le n one of the Muslim

I lrotherhoodpLrbl icat ionshar would cr i t ic izc hegovernment,rnd r

woulclbeclosecior a month, and Sadat elt that the quest ion f con-

trcl l l ing he reemergencef the Muslim Brotherhoodorganizat ion

was no grcatproblcrn. 28

But while he.f f ic ial Musl im Brorherhooclcmained stensiblyoc-

ile, he undergr'ur.rdr.d stude.t-basedsla''ric ,mmunity groupsand

offshootswcre preparir-rgor war. C)ver he next ycars, hesemilitants

woulclpat ient lybui ld thcir forces n lrgypt ,occasional ly ngagingn

spectacular iolence r assassinat ions.Many Islamists cgan o l ive

alone, o go out to the desert , o bui ld thcir movemcnt, saysSaid.

I igypt ian ntel l igence isseclt . le In rr l77, ls lamic crror ists ssassi-

nated the L,gyptianminister of religiousendowmcnts,and began cr

face repressionand arrest, yet they continued to proliferate. WhenSadat tunnedEgyptby going o Jerusalemn t977 ro seek dealwith

Menachem Begin, the lsraeli prirne minisrer, Irgypt's lslamists-

including the Brothers and the Islamic Community gangs-would

move toward evenmore militant oppositron.

Many of Egypt's slamic radicalswere followers of Sayyideutb,who was hangedby Nasser n t966. Dur ing the r96os, eutb had

deveioped a radical theory that compared Muslims who did not



events

they

more

was

had

And

\{usl im

i lnd i t

of con-

zat i on

doc-

nd

to l ive

Said.

i lsst tss i -

to

When

Qutb,

had

not

The Sorcerer'sApltrentice . r59

follow the ultra-orthodoxviewshe espousedo the barbariannomads

of Arabia who existed n a stateof ignorance before he arrival of

the prophet. Qutb and his followers used this theory as a justifica-

t ion for assassinat ionf Arab leaderswho were less han devout.

Aithough Qutb's heorieswere confusedand inconsistent, ome West-

ern C)r iental istsai ledhim as a thoughtfulcr i t ic of secular ismn the

Middle East. t was Qutb, and his book, Signposts,hat inspired hemost adical and he most violent)Egypt ian slamists, osr lyoutside

thepurviewof both Egypt ian ntel l igence nd he CIA.

According o F. i l ts, adat ai led o seeany danger n encouraging

radical-r ight s lamicgroups,but someothers n h is imrnediate irc le

did, ncludinghis wifc, . f han. Sadat,who haclbeen, f tcr al l , r Mus-

l im Brotherear l ier ,c lok he view that the growirrg nf lucnce f Is lam

and thc Muslim Brotherhood, special lyn thc universit ies, ASno

more than young peopleerprcssing heir views, saysF- i l ts. Lr the

adds: I rcmcmbcrmanypeople, ncludinghiswifc, s iry ing, 'Ytru ave

to watch thesepeople, 'and saying hat they are clangcrol ls, nd hcwould just wave his hanc' l nd say, 'Oh, they arc just young pcoplc. '

He simply did r-rot c l ieve hat their ntcrest n rel igionand the Mus-

l im Brotherhood epresenteclthreat ,and -rc ould not hc persuaded

by someof his r l in isfers hat theywerc. r0

So, oo, few U.S.diplomatsor Cl lA off icers ruly understood hc

. .1epthf thc Mrrsl imBrotherh, ,ot l 'scnctr i l t i ( )n, f l-gypt ien ocietyrr

the late r97os, nor dicl hcy grasp he fuz'zy elat ionship nrong hc

off ic ialMuslim Brotherhood,hc lslamicOomrnunity,rncl he undcr-

ground groupsand fol lowersof Qutb. I r i l ts,along with Li.S. ntel l i -

genceoff icers n Egypt, observed he Is lamicizat ion f Egypt, hutfound it hard to read. Af ter al l , Sadatwirs enc()ur. rgingt, irncl hc

Egypt ian eaderseemed o bcl icve hat i t was both usefuland Lr l t i -

matelyharmless.Therewas an awarencsshat somcelenrents f thc

rel igiousmovementwcre t roublesome, ays i l ts. l took the r. iew

that i t was something hat had to be watchcdcareful ly. But Fl i l ts

bel ieved hat the Egypt iang()venrrcnt cor r ld ontrol thc phenorne-

non, and that the more establ ishcd,onservat iveeaders f the N'Ius-

l im Brotherhood, uch as Telmassani, ere avcrsc o violent i lct lcs

and mil i tant act ions. Telmassani enounced the radicalsl,but did







DEvrr 's Geue

Evenafter the stunningeventsof the next severalyears-the revolu-t ion in lran, the seizure f the GrandMosque n Mecca,sadat 's ssas-sinat ion,Hezbollah's ruck bomb in Lebanon hat ki l led zar U.s.Marines-the Islamic right was still viewed as an ally. aboveall dur_ing theAfghan1ihad.

Part of rhe reasonwhy Islamismcontinued o have appear n theWestwas the riseof Islamiceconomicsn the 1c17os.any of the vervsamemilitants whose acolytesengaged n terrorism also wore surts.

built busi'esscs, .unded banks,and appeared ' all the world to bcnothing more ha' prosperous,f pious,citizens. et the businessesndbanksgenerated orhprofitsand exrremist <rllowers f thc prophet.

The Brotherhood's Bank

Besidespolitics, econrmics played a critical role in rhe spread ,fIs larnismn Egypt n the r97os.WhenSadat ame o power n r97o.fhe clam'rous vested nterestsof the pre-Nasserancien r6gime-the

very same orces hat the clIA had tried and failed o mobiljzeagainsr

Nasscr n the ate r95os-saw an opportunity o restore heir wealth

and poli t icalconnect i .ns.Many of rhem,especial lyhe semi-feuclal

land.wning famil ies,whosepower had been educedbut not el imi-

nated, rnaintaincdclose ies to the Islamic right. Indeed,across hcMiddle Easr, rom Pakistanand lran to Turkey and Egypt, the bi glandowning families and the bazaar, he wealthy merchanr amilies.

had intimate ties o Islamists. n many cases,hey were family tics: awealthy [andowner, 'trbazaari,might have a brother or cousin wh owas an imam, mullah,or ayatol lah.And they worked hand n hand.

The Brotherho.d became ig supporters f Sadat,s lan to expand

freeenterprisen Egypt,and they enthusiasticallyoined n support ofsadat'snew economicpolicy of opennes , or infitah. From the out-

side, he inlitah was driven by the austeriry-minded emandsof theInternationalMonetary Fund. During the r96os and r97os, he IIVIFforcedbrutalchanges n many Third world economies, sa conditio'

for receiving nternational oans.Theseso-called onditionalities edto severeeconomicpain in country after countrp as subsidieswere

eliminated, obs lost, and industriesprivatized. often, IMF policies

t6 z

led: .

E^, ^-

f rec -:

, - .- -t \11,.

qLtl , \

I f :-

BL:. .

,:u.-

-

::-.

_



The Sorcerer's 'Drentice ' r6 3

led regimes nto confrontationswith the left and with labor unlons.

Egypt was no exception.The IMF's strict demands or austerityand

cutbackswere the direct result of vigorousU.S. efforts to encourage

free-enterprise conomics n the Third'STorld and to combat social-

ism. In E gypt, right-wing Islamistsand conservative usiness wners

quickly found common cause.

The Call, the magazineof the newly liberatedMuslim Brotherhood,receivedsubstantial inancial support from wealthy Egyptian rightists.

Businessesapitalizingon Sadat'snfitah policy provided the bulk of the

magazine's dvertising. Out of the total of nearly 180 pagesof color

advertising n al-Datua lThe Calll, 49 were bought by real-estate ro-

moters and entrepreneurs, z by chemicaland plastics ompanies, o by

automobile mporters, z by'Islamic' banksand nvestment ompanies'

and 45 by food companies, ccording o GillesKepel.Forty percent f

the magazine's ds came rom iust three companiescontrolledby Mus-

lim Brotherhoodmemberswho'd made ortunes n SaudiArabia'rn

lnterviewed in an Egyptian weekly, the MuslimBrotherhood'sTel-

massaniwas forced to admit that most of the commanding leversof

the policyof economic pening infitah)arenow in the handsof former

Muslim Brethrenwho were n exileand havenow returned o Egypt. 17

ln t974, the Muslim Brotherhood ormally issueda declarat ion

commanding ts members o support Sadat's ro-lMF infitah-Suchan

action was true to form for political Islam.Throughout their history,

Islamistshave always been militantly pro-capitalist,opposing class-

strugglepolitics on principle. Rarely did they rally support for the

poor, the disenfranchised, r the downtrodden. In Egypt, espccially,

the Islamistsdid notmake common causewith aggrievedworkers or

farmerswho failed o benefit rom Sadat's conomicpoliciesor whose

livelihoods were thrown into turmoil by the infitah; instead, they

engagedn strikebreaking, nthusiastically pposing rade unions and

intellectuals llied o the left.

The rise of so-called slamic bankswas central o the Islamization

of Egypt's economy.Organized on the questionableprinciple that

ordinary commercialbanks do not operateaccording o Islamic aw,

especially ecausehat law supposedlydoesnot allow interest o be

chargedon loans, Islamic banks often disparaged heir non-Islamic



t :64 Devtt- 's Galrn

comperitors or being rreligious,and even,most offensively,or being

.,Jewish.,'They used an insidious tactic to market their servtces.

warning that usersof conventionalbanks were anti-Islam and were

thus destined o go directly o hell. -18

The development f an lslamic economy n Egypt urther encour-

agcd the spreadof political Islam. Members of the Muslim Brother-

hood drew on the financial and business esourcesof its wealthr

supporrers o srrengrhents socialand political organizing.wealthr

membersof the Islamic right and Muslim Brotherhoodoperarives rr

financial institutions directed funds to mosques,small businesscs.

friendly media outlets,and other ventures hat bolstered he commu-

niry. Bccausehe Brorhcrhoodoperarcs s a clandesr inc raternit r .

some of this could be done secretly,with a wink and a nod' E'gypt's

Islamic ight st i l l drew on Saudisupport ,but i t was becoming inan-

cially independent.Saysa leading Egyptian analyst, They created

many businessesnd banks,and they had solidarity with eachother.

A Muslim Brotherhood member s happy to give half his income tc r

the Muslim Brotherhood. 3e

The creat ignof the Faisal slamicBank of Egypt (FIBE) n t976

reenergizedhe Muslim Brotherhood n that country, n tandemwith

Sadat's fforts o mobilize he Islamic ight. The bank was the corner-

stone of an empire of Islamic banks run by Prince Mohammed al-

Faisalof SaudiArabia, a son of King Faisal,and it played a decisiye

role in the Islamizationof Egypt and the region'

By all accounts' Prince Mohammad was not a member of the

Brorherhood, n keepingwith the policy of the Saudi oyal family to

use he organizationas an arm of its foreign policS but to avoid get-

ting too close o it. The prince ended o rely more on establishment

figures, ncludingEgypt'sgrandmufti, to gain egitimacy or the bank'

And he won sadar'ssupporr for a special aw to charter he FIBE.a

Among the founders of FIBE were former Egyptian prime minister

Abdel Aziz Hriazi. who would move on to become a leader of the

Islamiceconomicmovement,and uthman Ahmed Uthman, an ultra-

wealthy industrialist known as the Egyptian Rockefeller who

played a key part in bankrolling the Muslim Brotherhood's esur-

gence in the rg7os.a1 nfluential Muslim Brotherhood members.



TheSorcerer 's pPrentice ' r65

includingYusuf al-Qaradawi,Abdel-Latif al-Sharif,and YoussefNada

all joined FIBE's early board of directors.a2 ach one of thesemen

rr,ouldplaya critical role in the growth of Islamismnot only in Egypt

but throughout the region.And eachone, n later years,would hover

on the fringes of the most extremewlng of the Islamist movement.

The most notor iousof FIBE's ot tnderswas the bl ind Islamicscholar

, rnd abble-rouser )marAbdul Rahrnan.Abdul Rahmanw:rs spir i-tr-ral dviscr to IslamicJihad, he fundamentalist rollp whose mt:m-

bers would murder Sadat.Later, Abdul Rahman wotr ld help thc

C.IA recruit martyrdom-seeking oly warr iors for the ant i-Soviet

Afghanistan ihad. He would then imrnigrate o the United States,

rvhcrehe would bc arrested nd convictcclor his role in the r993

bomLring f New York'sWorld Trade Ccnter.

The Faisal s lamicBank was givcn unprecedentedtetc lssist irncc

rrt ts four-rdir rg.he spccial aw that ruthor izec' lt guaranteedhat thc

bank could not be nat ional ized,hat i t would not be subiect o stan-

clarcl tatcbanking egulat ions,hat i t would bc excmpt rorn t lanyt i lxes,and that i t could operatc n total secrecy.4lhc of f ic ial who

presentcdhe law to the Egypt ianpar l iamentwas not the econorr l ics

nr inister ut the minister f rel igi<t t tsndt lwments'fhepassi lgc f thc

lr rw sir i led hough par l iarnent ecausc ven eft-wingdcput ieswerc

airaic l o appear o be vot ir tgagainstAl lah. aa

Al-Shar if ,who woulclbe ai ledby Egypt rr he r99os,wltsa nt l tor i-

ous wheeler-cleler who trade on his connect ions o rni l i tant

Islan-rists.rom his position at FIBI'I, e becamc nvolvedwitlr the fast-

rrnd- looseslamicMoney Managemctr t ompanics, hich cmcrgccln

the r9[3os ls go-go, frcc-markct nvestment irms, offcring rates ofreturn o investorshat werc signif icant ly igher han thosepr<lf ferecl

by tr t rdit ional anks.An IMMC typical lyof fered 2-tperccnt cturn,

cloublehe usual atc at a bank.Orleof thc l irst ,and nlost mport irnt ,

r ,v irshe Al-shar if ( iroup, which had t ies o the Muslim Brothers. a5

The IMMCs wcrehighlypol i t ical,and covert ly ntervencdo support

Muslirn Brotherhood- l inkedcandidates n Egypt 's par l iamentary

elect i<rns,special lyn t . )87.The high-f ly ing MMC system hattered

in the ate 98os, hreateninghevery oundat ionof the slamicbank-

ing ne twork, and Faisal 's IBE in part icular . I t was rumored that



166 . Dr:vr i . 's Cler ,r r -

Pri 'ce Mohammed al-Faisaloadedplaneswith bi l l io 's , f U.s. d. ilars,with orders hat the bc sentdirect ly rom clair ' ar irp 'r t o Faisir lBank bra'ches n .rder t . meet he withdrawal demands f dcp'si-tors, wrote sol iman.a6n r.)r )1,salehKanrel

' fAl-Barakabouehr

theAl-Shar ifGroup for g r 7o rr i l l ion.

Yusuf al-Qaradawi, he EgyptianMuslim Ilrotherhrod acivist i.

Qatar,wasanorhcrFIBI, ou.der.earadawi is widclykrrw' i ' theAral.world for his militant, ablc-thurnping pcc-chcs,hich circularc n cr.ls-settes. e is r vocrrl upporter f suiciderombers gainst srael ncl, ftethc LJ.s.nvasion f I raq,hc ssueclroclanrat ionso just i fy henrurcler . fU.S.civiliilns here.But Qaradawi tonesdown his cxtrcmist rhetorrewhc'r talking to \westernaudicnces.n zoo4 hc was nvited o attcnclaB.rkings lnstitufirn-'rganized rrternation:rlorurn ' Islam.

Perha; ls hc m.rsr rrp'r tant , f the l. lBE Mrsl inr Br ' thcrhr. . lf 'unders is YoussefNada. Nada,

'ne. f the ,r igirar , prc-Nasser.

mernbers f the Br. therhood,was nrpl icatcdn a r 95,1 ssassinat i .nat tempt againsr he lrgypt ian cadeqand likc SaiclRarnadan.Naclrcscaped gypt, lccing ' clerr ,ary arcl her t ' I taly. Ar 'ng wit l- r

' thcr-Muslim Brrtherh. 'c l vuerans, Nada hclped fou'd the l la 'k AlT:rqw:r l 'car ' f c iod ) , with cc' ters in the Bahamas, taly, ant lswitzer la 'd. Al Taclwa s secnas the Muslim Br. thcrh. 'd 's scnr i-of f ic i . l bank.Abclelkader hoheib,a' Egypt ia ' journal istwho spenrycars ol lowing Nada, observcs, lnit ial ly, A.T. I lank was c.ncei 'et las r centrelecononr icnstrument f the Muslim I lrothcrhood, n p;rrt icular ts interrat ionalbranch. Thc internat i .nalbra'ch was l ' rqassociated ith SaidRamaclan, ho is the sorr- in- law f Hass:rn r l-Banna, f 'under of the MLrslrmBrotherhood r Ge'eva. and wh.f .unded the Islamiccenrer in ( ieneva,switzcr la.d. Al Taqwa u,a,

directedby YoussefNada, said Shoheib. lT c.nf ident ial ist . tBank Al Taqwa's ounders ncluded eaders f the Muslim Brrrher-hood n Syr iaandTunisia, longwith yusuf al-earadawi,who Se\reias presidentof A.T. 'sof f iceof rel igiousaffairs. asMany of thoscconnected o the FIBE-Taqwa ircleswould later rurn up in the in'.es-t igat ionof Al Qaedaand its al l ies. n zoor, Nada was designated rthe U.S.Departmentof the Treasuryas a terrorist inancier.ae

FIBE'sconnecion to radical Islamistswasn'r the only thing rh.rr



The Sorcerer'sApprentice . r 67

helped r ing t down in the r 98os.The bank alsoenjoyed n inr imate

rclationshipwith the infamousBank of Credit and Commerce nter-

n:r t ional BCCI).otherwise nown as he Bank of Crooksand Crim-

inals nternational. BCCI, owned by Pakist anianclGulf invesrors,

rr .rs oror iouslynvolved rrhelp ing o finarrcccrror ism, ,urrrunning.

.irug trafficking, and unadulte rated inancial chicaneryuntil its spec-

tr rcular ol lapse n r988. The CIIA was a frequentBCCI customer,tusing hc bank to deposit U.S. and Saudi funds to f inance he

.\tghanistan ar- funcls that suppl ied rtremist slarnicmil i tants ied

to the rnujahideenhcrc.BClClI,hough not of l ic ial lyan Islamicbank,

nrrrde rtensiveuseof Is lamichank creclentials,anguage, nd sym-

lrol ism. Whenit crashed,nvcstigatorsound lrat l( l ( l l had $589mil-

l ion in unrecorded cposits, of which $245 nr i l l ion be ongcd <r

rhc Faisal s lan-r icankof } rgypt . t

After Sadat'sassr lssinetior .r ,rany of thc racl icalswho'c ' lbeen

plrrccd n senior posit ionsat FIBE were ousted, ncluding Nadir ,( ]araclawi,

ancl Al-Shar if . rgypt 'sStatc Sccur ityOff ice spccif ical ly.rskedPrincc Moharnrred hrr t t l rcy bc removecl.s l et thc clamage

r i ' r ts ione.Pr inceMohar-nmcd'sank had helped nsti tut ional izehc

Islr rnr iccvival n F.gy1rt,hich fostcrcd violcntunclergrounclf ter-

ror ists. )ur ing the rgl los r .rncl99os, his network would resistal l

t i for ts by thc govcnrment f Husni Mr-rbar:rko cl ismantlct .

Saclat 's eath was thc cnclof thc roacl or the bel iever-presrdent.

P,ut y thcrr , ran wrrsnncler he swayof I(homeini 's ersior-rf Is larn,

rheU.S.-backcdihad n Afghanist irn as n fLr l l wing,and Is larnism

hirclbecornc he c'lefininudeokrgy of activists rorn North Africa to

tleep n Soviet ClentralAsia. This cxfraordinaryser iesof devclop-lrcnfs were uradepossiblc n part by Saclat 's nd America's evor i tc

.r l ly,Saudi Arabia. Now awash n tcns of bi l l ions of pctrodol lars,

thrrnks o thc Ic)7os i l-pr icc ncrcirscsrnposed y thc Organizar ion

of Petroleun-r.xport ingOountr ies,he Saudis sed old,hardcash o

l ' 'u i lda pro-American mpireof Is lamicbi lnks and financial nsr iru-

t ions in Lgypt, Sudan,Kuwait, Turkey, Pakistan, rnd elsewhcrc. t

nirs the marr iagebctwcen he M uslinr lJrotherhood'sdeologyand

the powcr of Is lan-r ic anking that f inal ly catapultecl ight-wing

Islamism o wor lc lwideDower.



7

THE RISE OF ECONOMIC ISLAM

IN r t tE r97 os poli t ical slamwas bolsteredry the explosion f r r

parallel force: economic slam. Part of thc virst wealth pourirrg nt o

the Arab oil-export ingcountr ics ound i ts way into a network ol

banks and investment ornpanies ontrolled by the lslarnic ight ancl

the Muslim Brctherhood. n country af ter country these slamic

banks did much more than serve as money-changers. omct imes

openly sometimessecr:edy hey supported sympatheticpoliticians

and army officersand funded activistsand political parties slamist-

run mediacompanies nd businessesontrol ledby the Brotherhood.

From r 974 onward the Islarnicbanking systcmservcdas thc finan-

cial backbone or the Islamic ight.

And throughout it all the Islamic banking system-which went

from zero to global powerhouse n the two decadesafter 1974-

depended heavily on the advice and technological assistance t

received rom a host of American and European nstitutions. nclud-

ing suchmajor banksas Citibank.

To \Testernbank executives nternational Monetary Fund offi-

cials and free-market deologues he Islamicbanksseemeddeal.Thc

Islamic ight had long made clear hat it preferredcapitalism o athe

istic communism. None of the important Islamist movements ronr



The Riseo{ Economic slam ' L6 9

the Muslim Brotherhood n Egypt to Pakistan's slamicGroup to the

Shiite undamentalistsn Iraq, preachedsocial and economic ustice.

Instead, heyopposed tateownership, and reform, and socialwelfare

programs.

Like the Muslim Brotherhood tself, slamic banking was born in

Egypt, financedby SaudiArabia, and then spread o the far corners

of the Muslim world. At first it seemed nnocuous, a free-market-orientedsystemof financialpower that professed ealty o the Koran

but delivered old, hard cash o its many supporters; oonenough, he

Islamist ol i t icaldimension f ls lamicbankingmade tself el t . Even-

rual ly, he Islamicbankingmovementbecame vehicle ot only for

cxporting political Islam, but for sponsoring violence. Often the

Islamicbanks had direct or tacit support from \iTesternbanks and

governments.

At t he beginning, he growth of economic slam seemed o fit per-

fectly with \Tashington'sClold War design for thc Midd le East. It

cmerged sa marr iage etweenmil i tanteconomicheoretic ians

f theIslarnic ight n the Arab wor ld and the echnology nd know-how of

se-veraleading$Testern anks, inancial nstitutions,and universities.

It began lowly n the r95os,asMuslim Brotherhood conomists nd

rrvo leading Iraqi clergymcn developed hc early prototypes for an

Islamiceconomy. t gatheredmomentum n the r96os,when a Mus-

lr rnBrother:hoodinancier ounded he irst s lamicbank.And i t took

off in thc rL)7os, i th the ful l supportof Sar.rdi, uwait i , and Ar:ab

( iulf potentates, special ly fter oi l pr icesquadrupled n r977-74.

PrinceMohammed rl-Faisal,he brother of the Saudi oreignminister,

finallybrought t all togetherJ reating he first multibillion-dollar net-

rvork of Islamicbanksand building a reputationas Islam's prince of

tithes. Throughout theseyears, he Islamic banking netwttrk was

organized, taffed,and often controlledby wealthy Muslim Brother-

hood activists, ho used he banks o finance ight-wingpolitical rans-

formations n l rgypt, Sudan,Kuwait, Pakistan, urkey,and.fordan.

Economic slam operated n two levels n the r97os.First,Saudi

.\rabia itself,wieldinghugedollar surpluses, angled hese iches n

front of poverty-strickenMuslim nations suchas Egypt,TurkeS Pak-

istan, and Afghanistan, offering aid in exchange or a pronounced



r7o . Dr,v tr - s Genap,

political shift to the right. Second,a tightly disciplinednetwork of

Islamicbanksset up shop n Cairo, Karachi,Khartoum, and Istanbul.

where they not only became mportant financial playersbut quietly

funded he growth of the Islamic ight.

In Egypt, Islamic bankers oined Sadat o support that country s

transition from A rab sociali sm o Sadat snfitah (economicopening)

to restore ree-marketpolicies,and in the process hey helped build

the political momentumof the Islamic ight. ln Kuwait, the royal fam-

ily invited Muslim Brotherhood-linked bankers o fund a political

forcc againstnationalistsand Palestiniansn that tiny oil emiratc. n

Sudan,Jordan, and Turkey, he Muslim Brotherhoodand right-wing

politiciansbuilt financialempireson the foundation of lslamic banks

and used their wealth and connections o advance he causeof the

Islamic right. Often, as n Egypt, they identified heir economicpoli-

cieswith economic eforms demandedby the InternationalMonetarv

Fr-rndand by inviting in multinational corporations and foreign

lenders.

Thanks to economic slam, herewas now a direct ine from ultra-

wealthy Saudi,Kuwait i , and Qatar i sheikhs, r inces,and emirs to

Muslim Brotherhoodbusinessmennd bankers o street-levelhugsof

the lslamic right-all of it fueledby petrodollars. t was a force that

transformed he Middle East.

Isr-elt rc BeNKS AND THn Wn,sr

Big banks, oil companies,and U.S. government nstitutions eagerly

encouraged he Islamic bankers n the r97os.The ry73 OPEC price

increases ade he Gulf important not just because f its oil wells, but

for its financialclout as well. Vast quantitiesof U.S. military goods

poured into Saudi Arabia, Iran, and other Gulf countries. Egypt

joined traditional U.S.all iessuchas Israeland Turkey as outpostsof Western

influence.And the United Statesand Great Britain began

constructingand expandingair and naval bases nd bolstering leets

in the Indian Ocean, he Horn of Africa, southernArabia, and the

easternMediterranean.







cll t

. l theoryLls ing

in Lon-

wcre

\ ,Vhen

l l l Cfe-

rrl

-

and

lr tcrna-

usccl

\7est-

i lncl.r i

othcr

Ot-tt 0f

with

eco-

and

t views

Tbe Riseof Lconomic Islam . r 71

openly embracedneo-liberalism,"wrote \X/arde."In Sudan,between

r99z and the end of 1993, EconomicsMinister Abdul Rahim

Hamdi-a disciple of Milton Friedman and incidentally a former

Islamic banker n London-did not hesitate o impl ement he harsh-

est free-market remedies dictated by the International Monetary

Fund. He said he was committed to transforming h e heretoforesta-

t ist economy according o free-market ules,becausehis is how anlslamic economyshould unct ion." '7 Similar ly ' ,he radic:r lAlger ian

Islamist moverrrent,which would force that n irtiou it 'rtoa ;lrotracted

civi l war in the r99os, openly backccl l- re ntcrnir t ionalMonetr lry

Fund's harsh prescr ipt ion or Alger ia. "When foundecl n r9[J9,"

wrote Clement -{cnry,an astuteobserverof ls lamic inance, the

Alger iarr ront Is lr r rnic lueluSalut FIS)aclvocrr teclrarkct e olnrs n

its party prograrr- inclucl ing r l igning hc cl inar Algcr ia 's urrcrrcyl

ir t inferni l t ion:r lmrrkct r : r tes rs he IMF was insist ing t fhe 1i111c-

lr rd ls lr t rnic' tanl<rtg. \

Cl i t ibankwrrsa pionccr. ( l i t ibank bcc,r t rc lre lrstVestcrn bankt() setLlpau Islr rnr ic i t rdow,"saysWarclc. ' rt would cont inue ()pay

dividends. haukLrt ziz,who scrvccl n t lrc boarcl f c l i recturs l ( l i t i

ls l i lmic Jirnk ncl hc ( l i t ibank-conttectcclaucl i rner icarrlr tnk.artc l

who spent hir ty vcarsasan Islarnic at tkcr , c tup Cli t ibank'sslamic

barrking rol lranr n lJahrain. to z, iz.<lr r lr l rvert t r - ral lyise o bcconrc

r-ninister f f inance rncl c<lnotr ic r f f r r irs, i Pekiste'r nt l , i r r zoo4,

Aziz would he nrrrncci akistan's r inreministcrby l)resiclent ervcz

Mr"rsharraf.

What excited Westcrnfree trtirrkctgllruls vils l're otion thrrt b1, ts

r . ratureslanrwasa capital ist c l igion.Mohanrmed, hc Prophet,wasacapital ist rncl rof i t -seekingraclerwho bel ievedn ireemarkcts, ow

taxes, r ivateenterpr ise,rnd he absence f regulat iol ' ts,nd hiscar ly

Islan-r icegime n Meccaobeyed ules hat woulclmake a neo- l iberal

economist mile-or ir t least hat is the portrait paintcd by Islamic

fundamentalists nd by free-market deologues rotn the West. t was

a portrait that not only just i f iedWestern upport for thc cconomic

projects f the [slarnic ight but providedyet anothermeans o at tack

Arab social ism, tate-run uterpr ises,nd dir igisme s "ant i- Is lamic."

Though the deaof drawing upon seventh-centuryeligious ractsan d





eco-

in

rvhich

FMI

th e

The Riseof Economic lslam ' r 7 5

stopconservativeWestern conomists rom saying t did, and it didn't

stop Muslim clergy, ncluding well-known Iraqi and Iranian ayatol-

lahs, from issuing egal rulings (or fatwas) to codify such narrow-

minded nterpretation.

Graham Fuller,a former CIA officer who headed he Middle East

deskat the CIA National ntel l igence ounci l n the ear lyr9Sos, ater

argued hat America's nterests re not incom patiblewith the rise offundamental ists lam. n the mid-r98os,asa CIA off ic ial,heauthored

a controversial at ional ntel l igencestimate NIE) hat proposedhat

theUnitedStates eek loser elat ionswith Iran'sayatol lah- ledegime

in order o preventSoviet ains, pJper het contr ih trte . lo the nitra-

t ive by the Reagan dministrat ion's l iver North and Wil l iam Casey

that became nown as lran-contra. Ful leq now a prol i f ic author,

has alsowrit ten extensivelyhat the econttmic is ion of the lslamic

right is friendly to free-marketadvocates. There is, he wrt)te, n{ )

mainstream slamist organization . . with radical s<lcial icws. l2

Continued Fuller:

Is lamdoes ot favor, n pr inciplc, eavy tetc t l tcr ' , ' t ' r l r iontr hc

marketplacer in the cconontic r<lf i le t fsttc ietv... .Strangely,

Is lamistsernain luite mbivalent botr t r evclthosti le o s<tcial

revolut ic ln. lJ

Islamists strongly opp()se Marxist i l l tcrpreteti(lt ' tsof soci-

ety. l ' l . . ls lamists are : lmbivalentol t the rt t le of the st r r tc n rhc

economy-a disparity between lreory ancl pract icc. . . (l lassical

lslamic heoryenvisageshe role of the st i r te s i rn i ted o faci l i ta t -

ing the wel l -beingof markets rnd merchal t ts i l thcr thrr t tcot r t r< l l -

l ing them. ls lamistshave alwayspowerfu l ly obicctcd o socia l isnr

and communism. . . Islam has neverhi rd problemswi th thc ic lea

that weal th s unevenly ist r ibutecl . r5

Is lamic banking grew ast ronomical ly. According to thc Cieneral

Counci l of Is lamic Banks and F' inancia l nst i tut ions, by zoo4 thert :

were more than z7o Islamic banks wi th assetsof $z6o bi l l ion and

deposi tsof $zoo bi l l ion. r6 Chief credi t belongs o an I raqi clergyman,

an Egyptian banker, a Saudi prince, and a cluster of Kuwaiti royals.

Their stories follow.

n

s

d

se t

r

a

be

nter-

cer -





f1

or

u-

to

The Riseof F,conomic slam

hundredsof young Shiites,especiallyon universirycampuses,were

abandoning heir allegiance o Islam and joining the socialists, he

communists, he Baath, or the pro-Nasser orces.Led by Ayatollah

Hakim's son, Mahdi al-Hakim, he Call "was organized long str ict

party lines. . . The party functioned in secrecy,with small cells,

anonymity, nd a str icthierarchy." le

Many of Iraq's eading ler ics ad long-establ ishedies o Br it ishinteiligence. 'ormore than a century, -ondon had maintained ies o

the Shii teclergyof I raq and Iran, especial lyhosebased n the holy

crtyof Najaf , I raq. From r85z ur-r t i l the ar ly 9jos, througha clever

l inirncialmechanism allec' lhe Oudh Bequesr,mper ialEnglandand

its intel l igence ervice ep t hundredsof I raqr Shii teclergy n Najaf

and Karbalaon thc Br it ishparyrol l .z0f ter he overthrowof England's

Iracl i ing n r 95 ],manyof thoseayatol lahs egan rganizing ]arnsr

thc Iraqi lef t and the I raqi CommunistParty,and i t was dur ing this

per iod hat the Is lanr ic lal l was foundcd,with direct ics o thc Mus-

l irn l l rotherhood n Egypt (dcspite he fact that the BrotherswereSunnianc l he raqiswereShii tes). t ' n 1c16o joint Sunni-shi i te ec-

lar ir t ion represent inl l omethingcal led thc Is lamic Party issueda

strong r l t t i tck<ln he I r irc l igovernment nd i ts communistal l ics, rn

at tack that was cndorsecl y Ayatol l i rhHakim. Cioncluc' ledirzhak

Nirkash, he author of Thc Shi ' is f l rdq, "Hakim nor only supported

the memorandlrm, Lrthimself ssr-redfatwa attacking onrmunlsm

by namcand asscrt inghat t was ncompir t iblc i th ls lam."22

Thc rrnt i-communist rganizingand cconomic hcor iz ingof the

two Iraqi Shii teayatol lahs nspiredan iconoclasr ic oung Saudi o

bui lc l he f irst Is lamicbankingemprire: r inceMohammed al-Faisal,son of the late King Faisaland brotherof Pr inceSaudal-Faisal, he

Sirr-rc l ioreignministcr .Pr inccMohammed, hc "pr inceof t i thes"and

founder of thc Faisal ( iroup, thc wor ldwide network of Is lamic

banks, along with SalehKamel, the brother- in- lawof then-Saudi

ClrownPrinccFahdand a bi l l ionaircwho createdhe Al Barakabank-

ing empire, ioneeredhe rapid expansion f economic slam.

Pr inceMohammed,Saleh amel,and heiral l ies ot only aunched

the Is lamicbanking movement,but changed he faceof the Middle

East.Not al l Is lamicbankerswerepoli t ical, nd even ewergravitated



r7a DE.vt l 's ( leun

roward the violent slamic-right ringe, but in practice t was hard to

te l l hcnraparr .Some slamicbanking ircles ere un by non-act iv ist '

piousMuslimswho simplyspiedan opportunity to makesomemoney'

Many more were activists,who saw lslamic banking as a means c)

advance hc causeof militant, political Islam, and who used their

banks o supporr he Brotherhoodand its allies.And still otherseither

founded slamic banks,or utilized existing )nes, s inn<lcent-looking

fronts for terrorism, arlns trade, and other skullduggery'Unfortu-

nately or the CIA, and for Cit ibank,knowing which waswhich was

all but impossible-and often, al l threeworked togethercheekby

jowl: thepious, hepoli t ical,and he perpetrators '

M:rnyof the eading slamistact iv ists f the ast our decades ere

involved with Islamic banking both in theory and pract icc ' of ten

under hewing of Pr inceMOhamn]ed l-Faisal.Many wereconnected

to the Brotherhood.SayyidQutb, the extremist rom Egypt who was

hangcd s 1c166,wrote ocial ustice n Islam,purporting to be a blue-

pr int for how fundamental ist usl imsought o look at ecclnomiche-

ory. Yusuf al-Qaradawi,an Egypt ianscholarof ls lamic law' who

sert led n the vahhabi Gulf sheikhdom )f Qatar, par layedhis rel i-

gious credent ialsntO seatson the board of several slamicbanks.

Mohammed al-Ghazali, norher rgyptianMuslim Brotherhood eader

who found a haven n the Gulf , wrote tractson Islamicecont lmics,

including slam and EconctmicQuesti<tns'

In Egypt, he man who got i t al l star tedwas Ahmed al-Naiiar 'a

German-trainedEgypt ian banker who, in t963, created he Mit

Ghamr Bank, describedas the first Islamic bank in tlgypt and the

world. 23Mit Ghamr was begunwith German banking assistance

and, through Najiar's family, with the support of forceswithin the

Egyptian ntelligence ervice' t was done covertly'Neither the public

nor the Egyptiangovernmentwere told that it was intended o be an

lslamic bank.2aAt the time, in Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood wa s

Nasser'snemesis, nd Najjar took steps o distancehimself, at least

publicly, from the violent underground movement' But Najiar was

certainlyconnected. he foreword to a book that he wrote describing

his experience s he pioneerof Islamicbankingwas written by Jamal

al-Banna, he brother of Hassanal-Banna, he Muslim Brotherhood's







TheRise fEconomicslam . r 8

leading Muslim Brotherhood member,3a nd its branches n Sudan,

Turkey,and elsewhere orked closelywith the Brotherhood.

Throughout the r97os and r 98os,both DMI and Al-Baraka ound

strong allies n London, New York, Hon g Kong, Switzerland, nd off,

shore money centers n such placesas the Bahamasand the Cayman

Islands. brahim Kamel , DMI's vice chairman and CEO, told an

Islamic banking conferencen Baden-Baden,West

Germany, hat thevery existenceof DMI's Geneva operations center could not have

occurredbut for the assistance MI received rom PriceWaterhouse:

The peoplewho explained IIslamicbankingl to rhe SwissBanking

Commissionare Price Waterhouse, ho have beenaudit ing us for

ovcr threeyears. Literal lydozens f conferencesook place n West-

ern moneycenters n Islarnic anking, nd prestigious cademicnsti-

tutions got into the act. h,ventually, ven Harvard University would

yoin n, with its Harvard Is lamicFinance nformationProgram, up-

ported financiallyby Westernancl slamicbankingcircles.

Is lamicbankingprovideda mechanismo br ing togetherwealthy

conservatives,slamistactiv ists, nd r ight-wing slamic aw scholars

in an environment hat empoweredall three. s lamicbanking pro-

vidcd the engine hir t made Is lamic evival ism o. Dur ing the Cold\War,no thought was given o the notion that Is lamicbankingmight

havea cleleter iousmpacton MicldleEastsocict ies, nd that i t mi ght

boomerangagainst he West.Timur Quran, the Turki$h author of

ls lam and Mammon, points out now that ls lamiceconornics has

prornoted he spreadof anti-rr-rodernrnd n some espects eliberately

anti-Westernurrents f thoughtal l across he slamicwor ld. r5

The most vivicl description of how Islarnic banking fostered he

expansion f pol i t ical s larn rppearsn the wr it ing of Monzer Kahf, a

radical s lam ist rom Syr ia.Kahf, who received Ph.D. n economics

from the Ur-riversityf Utah, gradr-ratedrom the Universityof Damas-

cus and studied slarnic ur isprudence fiqh). From r975 ro r98r,

Kahf ran the inancial r f fairs f the IslamicSociety f North America,

a mil i tant Musl im fundamental ist rganization asedn Indianawith

close ies o the Muslim Brotherhood.After a stint as a banker n New

York, Kahf went to work for the IslamicResearch nd Training Insti-

tute of the sl:rmicDevelopment ank (IDB) n Jeddah, rom r985 to



lrl|

,li

l ) r .r ' r r . 's ( lAMr:

r999. Since hen,Kahf hasbeena consultant nd ecturer n ls lamic

f inancen Cali fornia, nd haswrimenwiclely n thc subject .

ln a paper presented o the zooz Harvard Forum cln Islamic

Financc nd Banking,Kahfdescr ibesow thebig slan-r icranksorged

a poli t ical-ccor.romicl l iance ith thc Muslirnclergy,lrc ulcnra.

The ormalsystenrat icont irct cnvecn ankers nc' l har i ir ch<l l-arsc:urc ' ur ing healurosr ( )ncLlrrcntreparr l t ionor theesta[r

l ishmetr t f ls larnic anks n Egypt rnd. jorclann fhc scconclalf<lf he l97os.

\When the new species )f internet ionrrl s la ln ic Invest rncut

Funds emcreecl ,hough nt r tnagcclty Western bankers,br< lkcrs,

and houscsof f inance, hey hacl o sct s l rar i r r cholarson b<larcl ,

t ( )o, n order t<lg: r in cccptancc: rnci egi t i rnr . rcy.hc mr.urv ernr-

l lars, meer ines, onfercnces, nclsvr t rp<ts ial rat ensuccl ince he

rnic l - r97osn the four c()rners f thc wor lc l have ur thcr enharrcecl

th is r tew l l iance between slanr icbarrkes rrndshrrr ia cholars ncl

clcveopcd nru u:r y rerv,rcl ng rvork ng rcla ionsl.rps .

Frorn he point of vieu,of the ulerna, his ncw rr l l iance r ings

thern balck () thc frt refront<lf he pol i t ical sccneat i r t ime whcn

they nccded his boost vcry rnuch.. . . This al l i i rncc r lsogives he

ulenra a new source <lf inc<lnre ncl a r.vinclt)w o r ' rnew lifestyle

that incluclcs r i r t r i rvel,s()met imcsl r pr ivrr t r crs, t r ry ing n f ivc-

st :rr hotels, beir. rg nder the focus of rncdia attent ion, provic l ing

thei r opin ions to peopleof high socia l anclccorrorn ic ank, wh<l

cotre runrring for l istenirrg,being cor.nrn issioneclo uncler t r rke

paid- for f iqh rescarch.. . . They in f : rct bccrrme elebr i t iesn their

respect ivc <tnntr ies, nd evenoutsic lehei r borders.

The al l iarrcecrcatesrrn atnrosphercof f resh pol i t ica l rap-

prr>chenrenty the Is lamicnrovemenr nd thc governmentsn thc

Musl im, :rncl specia l lyhe Arab, countries. . j . '

By rapprochement , Kahf me: lns the Islarnizat ion of socia l and pol i t i -

cal society in the Is lamic wor ld. Kahf adds that the shar ia scholars

who were picked for thc advisory boards irnd other posts were carc-

ful ly selected. Those who were too radical , and who wouldn' t be

accepted by moderate government officials and'Western

bankers,

were avoided; at the same time, the government-cheering ulema



The Riseof Economic Islam . r 83

were similarly exclud ed.3T he process reatedan entire new classof

wealthy, ight-wing Islamists,with accesso moneyand media.

Tne DESERTTzA troN oF KuwArr

The exper:iencef Kuwait providesa classic ase n point of how theIslamicbankschanged he Middle East.

There is a distinctivepattern to the political evolution of Islamic

banking.One or more slamicbanksestabl ish beachheadn a par-

t icular capital. The bank servesas an economicheadquartersclr

Muslim Brotherhoodbusinessmen nd other ls lamistact iv ists. he

bank bui lds a baseof devout ol lowers,while establ ishingucrat ivc

al l iances i th pol i t ic ians, oth rel igious nd secular.slamist rgani-

zations then draw strength from the bank s economic power, and

Islamist nst i tut ions- includingmosques, har it ies, nd businesscs-

prosperas a result .And a new classof wealthy slamistsmergeso

hclp inance he MuslinrBrotherhood nd slarnist ol i t ical ronts.

Unlike SaudiArabia,which is strongly nf luenced y the Wahhabi

sect , he t iny, wealthystatelct f Kuwait is t radit ional lymore iberal

and freewheeling. ut in the r97os, the I(uwait i royal family, he

Islamic ight , and Islamicbankinggroups oined hands o do batt le

with a r is ingnat ioni l l istmovement. s a result , he Persiar i ulf emi-

rAtewas fundamental ly ransformed.The centerpiece f the effor t

was an lsl irmic ank cal led he Kr-rwait inanceHouse.

Kuwait was ncver especially haven or the devout.The Wahhabi

militancy hat seizedArabia for the Saudisand had influencenQatar,rncl irrtsof the UnitedArab F.mirates ever ound a foothold here. ts

playboy-dominatcd oyal family; maintained n power by force of

tlrit ish arms,seemedmostlycontentwith its ot. Yet t wasa shaky, rti-

flcial nation, carvedout of Iraq ssouthernprovinces nd the Ottoman

F.rnpire, reated trictlyas a Britishoutpost n the (lulf that doubledas

an oil field or British Petroleum nd Gulf Oil. A series f Iraqi govern-

rnents aid claim to it, and its fragi le existencewas preserved gainst

Iraqi irredentism t least wice, by British orces n r96r-when it first





a-

by

r

a

The Riseof Economic slam r85

Many of the most progressive alestiniansn Kuwait had emerged

from the ranks of the Arab Nationalist Movement, founded in the

r94os by GeorgeHabash,who would later create he Popular Front

for the Liberation of Palestine PFLP).The ANM, which was liberal

and secular, eceived ome backing from Nasserand from the Arab

Baath SocialistParty,and it bu ilt a significant ollowing amongPales-

tinians n Beirut,Amman, and Kuwait.ln

r968, when the PFLPwa sformed, they were all ANM, says another CIA official, who often

dealt with Palestinian eaders. l talked to a lot of the ANM people

back then. 40The ANM was only one expressionof Arab national-

ism and pan-Arabism,which began o gain adherents n Kuwait dur-

ing the r95os and r96os, f irst among erpatr iateArabs working in

Kuwait, then spreading o privileged Kuwaiti nationals, and even

gaining support among somemembersof the oligarchicKuwaiti rul-

ing family. By the mid-r97os, the strengthof Arab nat ional istsn

Kuwait alarmed he dominant branch of the Al Sabahclan, and likc

Sadat n Egypt, heyreachedout to the Islamists.

For the story of how an Islamicbank helpedchangeKuwait , we

are ndebted o Kristin Smith,author of a brilliant and instructive .lse

study of how right-wing Islamist money and a threatenecl ligarchy

joined forces.al The Kuwaiti government,alarmedover the volatile

mix of the opposition's hetoric and the large Palestinian xprrtriate

communityworking n Kuwait , dissolvedhepar l iament in rr176l <>r

the first time since iberationand begancastingabout for new allies o

counter he Arab nat ional ists, wrote Smith. I t found them in the

Islamic orces.42

In reachingout to the Islamists,he Kuwaitis hadJordan

n mind,

where he Muslim Brotherhood ad helpedKing Hussein rusha Pales-

tinian insurgency. hat small state,whose monarch was descended

from the Hashemitedynasty nstalled n Amman by T. E. Lawrence,

Churchill, and the British Arab Bureau,hosteda huge population of

Palestinianefugees. fter yearsof tension,a civil war erupted here n

r97o. ln a massacreemembered s BlackSeptember, ing Hussein

mobilizedJordan'sBedouinmilitary to defeat he Palestinian prising.

The Muslim Brotherhood of Jordan, which had long supported he



I IJ ( i Duvr l s Gnl. t- :

Jordanian monarchy, threw its weight into the battle against th e

PalestineLiberation Organization in support of the king So, th e

Kuwaiti rulers must have reasoned, he Islamic right might also pro-

vide important leverage gainst he Arab and Palestinian ationalists

in thc Clulfsheikhdom.

At the t ime vir tual ly no Kuwait i women wore vei ls. n mosques,

most ly the elder lyprayed. n Kuwait i universit ies, en end women

attended lassesogether.Most Kuwait is bel ieved hat rel igionwas

important n pr ivate i fe and in culturalact iv i t ies, ut not in pol i t ics.

I ol i t ical slam n Kuwait had only a tenuous oothold,although he

small Musl im Brothcrhoodwas eff ic ient lyorganized hrough the

SocialReformSociety, hich had been ormcd n t96z

But beginningn the mid-r97os, he Al Sabah nd Islamistsoined

hancls. s the poli t icalpressurcmounted rom nat ional ists, l ,C) up-

portcrs,and restiveKuwaitis excluded rom power by the royal fam-

i ly, hc Al Sabah lamped own, el iminat ing he noisy egislature. he

cl issolut ion f the par l iament y the ruler wasapplauded y theMus-

l im Brotherhood nd the SocialReformSociety, hosechairmanwas

br<tughtnto the governmcntas minister9f rel igiousendowments.

That ministcr , n turn, encouraged nd helped reatean intercst- f rec

banking nst i tut ion, he Kuwait FinanceHouse KFH) n t977 Based

on discreditedheor ies hat the Kgran prohibits ntereston loans a

thesis hat modern Is lamicscholars idicule, slamists n Kuwait-

backccl y thc Muslim Brotherhood n Egypt-had been obbying fo r

the establishmentof such a bank since the early tg7os. Almost

clvernight,KFH grew into Kuwait s second argestbank, under the

patronage f the Al Sabah.

KFH was established ith a 49 percent overnment hare n thecapital,and it hasenjoyed erksnot affordedotherbanks most

significantlyreeclomrorncentralBank egulation ndprotected

monopoly tatus sKuwait sonly slamic ank . KFH is a con-

crere xpressronf the de actoalliance erweenhe ruling amilv

and the Islamicmovement. . Islamic inance n Kuwait, then,

embodieshe growing slamization f public ife n Kuwait under

the benigngaze ftheKuwaiti government.4r



e

e

e

he

or

he

The Riseof Econctmic slam ' r87

KFH had anothereffect, oo. It bypassed uwait's merchantelite, he

private traderswho resented he Al Sabah's ominance of the mini-

nation. Many in the merchantclasshad gravitated oward the Arab

nationalists n opposition o the Al Sabah.But they were barred rom

involvement n KFH; instead, he Kuwaiti governmentmobilized he

desert-based edouinsagainst he merchants. he tr ibal Bedouins

were he force hat King Husseinusedagainst he Pl,O, and they pro-vided he coreof themost rcact ionary orces n SaudiArabia.

A leadingKuwait i professor, hafeeq . Ghabra,cal led he r is ing

inf luence f the Bedouin n Kuwait "desert izat ion":

The n-rarr iagee ween Bedouinconservat ivealuesand thc

Islamicl movementmilturecl. . . . l rc lnaior i tvof thc relat ively

depr ivcd edouinr ibe havcmoved ronr hesidcl incso thc orc-

front n dem:rndingocietalecognitiot.tnd equalitl,,he basis or

which s ound n Islarn. everalnf l t rcnt ialopul ist sl irmistsave

r iscn rom heir anks. . . . Thispr()cessf "desert izat ion,"s he

BahrainihinkerMuharnmad nsar i abclst , is amot. tghc mostdestruct ivcrocesscsn the Middle East. t underminesrodern

society y br ingingnto urban ocietyheult raconservat ivcalucs

of thedcsert rrcl r ix ing henrwith Islalnic opul isrn.aa

The Al Sabah werc prepared o r isk evcrything o cncol lragc

Islamismagainst he lef t . I t workccl.Whert hc Al Sabahclecidedt

wasszlfeo restore ar l iament,slamists uickly ook advantagc, in-

ning wo seatsn r98r and steadi ly ainingafter hir t . 'Wrotc ih: lbra,

"In the elect ions of r9t3r l , the secularp:rn-Ararbistorccs wcrc

dcfcatedby the Islamists,ho bccame he only organizedpoli t ical

group in Par l i i rment." '+' ione of this, of colt rse,was the resultof

some nat ive, egit imate slamist upsurgc; athcr, t was thc dircct

resultof a conscious lccisior-rakenby the Kuwait i rulcrs,and it was

backedby the Kr-rwait inanceHouse.

The deeppockets f KFH bankrol led he growth of the slamistsn

Kuwait f rom 1977 forward. I t was widely reported n Kuwait that

KFH "repays Islamistpol i t ic ians n kind, put t ing its considerable

resources ehind their elect ion campaigns." KFH, Kr ist in Smith



' ' i . ' .i,lr,,.ir.,.i,r

rU8 ' l ) l .v t t . 's Cnvl

wrote, used money, eal estate,obs... to inf luence lections. a6ts

real estatewas reportedlyused or ralliesand demonstrations, nd it s

huge workforce enl isted n ls lamist campaigns.KFH also becamc

home to more than a hundrecl slamic char it ies,usual ly t ied tt r

Is lamist lroups. omeof the KFH-basedmoneywas divcr ted o sup-

port radical Is lamist groups in Egypt, Afghanistan,and Algcr ia.

Is lamist ash rom KFH alsodirectlysupportcdKuwait i char i t ies nd

socialgroups run by Islamists, nd at leastone <lf he KFH-l inked

char it ieswas reportedly ied to Al Qaeda.aTnsidc he bank, KFH

inrposed tr ictsegregationf the sexes, rnd utsidc t created Islami-

cal ly run buildings, hoppingmalls,and sch<tols trganizcdcctlrc l-

ing o ultraconservativer inciplcs. ts entacles ereeverywhcre:

KFH hasbeen special lynterestedr l educatiorr ,portsor ingield

tr ips' toKFH, scholarshipsnctlr .r ragingtl ldentso study slarnr ic

econclmics,slar-nicompeti t ionsKoranicmemorizationrncl he

l ike) ,and the establ ishmcntf pr ivatc sl i l r l r ic chools . . . .KFH

reaches ut to society t large hrough ts nlclntl-rlynagazinc, /

Nr.,or,which has a circulat ion of over to,ooo.4E

The presence f the KFH, which bccamea $ r bi l l ion insti tut ion,

accelcratedhe spreadof r ight-wing slamism n prcviouslysecular

Kuwait.The teachcrs' ssociat ion nd the ministryof educationwere

takenover by Islamists, ndcurr iculawerechangedo reflect henew

rel igiosity. he rninistry f informationalso el l under he nfluence f

Is lamists, nd televis ionbroadcasts ecamemore conservative nd

sublect o censorship. ooks, oo, were censored,while pamphlets

and audiotapeseflectingslamist iewsand revival ist-sty lereachers

flooded he country.ae

The desert ization f Kuwait is ust one exampleof how the mon-

eyedpower of the new Islamic right extended he movement's nflu-

ence.But what appearedbusinesslike n the surface-to the CIA an d

even o many rulers n the Middle East-had a dark side, n the sur-

reptitious growth of an Islamist underground whose wrath was

directednot solelyagainst he left and the nationalistsbut against he

United Sta tes, he West, and its Arab and Middle Easternallies.The





T. i

-:

8

ISRAEL'S ISLAMISTS

Amr,ntcR's posrrroN tN the Micldle East never seemed nore

secure han d ur ing the lerte r97os. Only a handful of so-cal led

reject ionist tates- lraq, Syr ia, . ibya, ar-rdhe Palest ine ibcrat ion

Organiz-ation-51e1;61utside America's nascent empire. And the

United Stateswas on the offensive.Along with its allies, ncluding

Israel,Egypt,.Jor:dan,nd the Gulf n-ronarchies, ashington ought cr

weakenand isolate he rernaining eiect ionists, inimizing heir role

in the regionand even eekingegime hanges, singa combinat ion f

threats, ersuasion, nd br ibes.Two mernbers f the ant i-U.S. loc'

Syria and the PLO, found thernselvesacing simultaneous ivil wars

against orces ed by the Muslim Brotherhood and the Islamic right.

ln turn, the Muslim Brotherhoodwas supp<tr ted y two U.S.al l ies,

Israeland Jordan.And the United States acit ly backed ts al l ies n

promoting Islamist unrest against Damascusand the PLO's Yasser

Arafat.

The Israeli-Jordanian ffort in supportof the Muslim Brotherhood

took off in the late t97os, and it continuedwell into the r98os. Dur-

ing that time, the Islamic ight would begin o exhibit the radical and

anti-American characteristics hat would later mark its Osama bi n



Israel's slamists

Laden-linked terrorist phase.A hostile Islamist takeover n Iran' a

maior Islamist revolt in Saudi Arabia, and the murder of Sadat by

Muslim Brotherhood-linked terrorists all erupted in ry79-8r' Bu t

before,during, and after theseevents,Amman and Jerusalemwould

continue heir reckless olicy in supportof Brotherhood-allied roups

in Syriaand Palestine.Although there s no evidence hat the United

Stateswas directly nvolved n the Israeli-Jordanian fforts,accordingto U.S. officialswho served n the Middle Eastduring this period, he

CIA reportedon thesedevelopments nd U.S. officialswere aware of

what Israeland.fordan were doing.At no t ime did the UnitedStates

dissuadehem.

I t might seemsurpr is ing hat a Jewishstateand a secularArab

monarchywould join forceswith Islamic undamental ism. ut both

in Amman and n Jerusalem,hc Muslim Brotherhoodwas seen, yni-

cally, as a weapon againstSyria and the PI-O. ln Syr a, thc Brod-rers

carr iedout systemat ic t tacks, error ism,and upr is ingsn a civ i l war

that lef t thousandsdead.And beginningn r967 through the late

r98os, Israelhelped he Muslim Brotherhoocl stabl ishtself n the

occupiederr i tor ies.t assisted hmedYassin,he eader f the Broth-

erhood, n creat ingHarnas,het t ing hat i ts Is lamist haracterwor-r ld

weaken he PI-O. t did, though t backf ired n a way that the Israel i

supporters f Hamasdidn't count on, evolving nto a terror istgroup

that n the r99oscarr iedgut suicidc ombings hat ki l ledhundrcds f

Israel i ews.Togethcq srae and fordanunleashed monster '

Isnnn L's TRAINE o Zr, l ' t '

lsraelstar tedHamas, saysChilr les reeman,heveteranU.S.diplo-

mat and ormerU.S.ambassadoro SaudiAr:abia. l t was a projectof

ShinBet the srael i omest icntel l igenceplencyl, hich had a feel ing

that theycoulduse t to hem n the PLC). r

In Arabic, Hamas-an acronym for the lslamic Resistance

Mt;vement-means z.eal. hough t was ormallyestablishedn 1987,

the foundersof Hamaswere all members f the Muslim Brotherhrlod,



t9z DEvrr- 's Ceur.

especial lyn the GazaStr ip. n the wake of the t967 war, and Israel 's

occupation<tfGazaand the WestBank, the Islamists lourishedwith

support from both lsrael and Jordan. Officially, the Brotherhood in

the occupied territories fell under the supervisi on of the Muslim

Brotherhood f Jordan,and Hamas was a wholly owned subsidiary

of the organization.

The roots of Hamas go back to the r9jos. Beginningwith the

activitiesof the pro-Nazi (and pro-British) mufti of Jerusalem,Ha j

Amin al-Husscini, alest inian ct iv ismhas al l along had a minor iry

Islamist component.The mr rftimet Hassanal-Banna's missaricsr- r

r935. A forerunnerof the Muslim Brotherhood n Palest ine,he

Makarem Society f Jerusalem, as setup in r943.2Many Palest in-

ian nationalistswho wcluld [Joon to become eadersof the sccular,

non-lslamistmovenlent or a Palestinian tate were attracted o the

Brotherhood r the t ime,as branches egan o prol i feraten Amman,

in the Syr iancit icsof Alcppo, Hama, and l)arnascus, ncl n Gaza,

Jerusalem,Ramallah,Haifa, and elsewhcrc. hc Muslim Brothcr-

hood's irstof f ice n Jerusalem as opened n r945 by SaidRamadan,

and by 1947 herewere wcnty-fiveMuslim Brotherhoodbranches n

Palest ine ith as many as 25,ooo mcmbcrs.s n Octobcr r946, and

again n L947,theMuslim Br:otherhoodelda regional onvent ionn

Haifa, with delegatesrom l-ebar-ronnd Transjordan,calling for the

spreadof MuslirnBrotherhood haptershroughoutPalest ine. a

In the early days, he movementwas bifurcated. n Gaza, he Mus-

lim lJrotherhoodwas affiliated with the organization'sheadquarters

branch n Cairo. On the \fest Bank, he areaof Palest inehat came

under .fordanian administration after 1948, the Brotherhood was

attached o the Jordanian branch. In r95o, the West Bank ancl for-

danian branches f the Muslim Brotherhoodunited o form the Mus-

lim Brotherhoodof Jordan. It was a docile, conservative roup that

developed ncreasinglyclose ties to the monarchy, and which was

scorned by nationalists.sThe Hashemites, n turn, enc ouraged he

activitiesof the Brotherhood,seeing t as a force to counterbalance

communist, eftist,and, later,Nasseristand Baathistsentiments. he

founder and organizational eaderof the Brotherhood n Jordan wa s

Abu Qurah. a wealthy merchanrwith no interesr n upsetr ing ny



n

theaj

n-

the

-ll ,

t ir t

he

he

Israel's slamists ' r c)

apple carts. Qurah had close ies to Syrian businessmenn Amman

and to Banna and Ramadan in Egypt. King Abdull ah granted the

Brotherhood egal statusas a welfare organization,hoping to secure

its support against he secularopposition. 6The king regarded he

Brotherswith somesuspicion,but he hoped hat by coopting hem he

could enhancehis legitimacyas an Islamic leader.His father, T. E.

l.awrence'sSharif Hussein of Mecca, maintained a well-publicizedbut spurious claim to be a direct descer-rdant f the Prophet

Mohammed,and although he aura was dimming,Abdullah and his

grandson,he utureKing Hussein,would do what theycould o keep

i t a l ive.

The Brotherhood, ike the Islamic ight everywhere, as strongly

anti-communist, rguing that in the wentieth enturyEgyptand he

restof the slamicwor ld were hreatened y the onslaught f comntu-

nist and nationir l ist deologieswhich dcnied the supremacyof

shdr ia. 7The Muslim Brotherhoodwas a loyal force n support of

King Husscin, nd bitter lyopposcclopan-Arabism.

ts socialbarsen

.fordirnwas rooted n the wealthy,EastBank andowning amilics vhtr

saw social isrn nd land reform as existential hreats.When Jordan's

left- leaning r ime ministerSuleiman ll-Nabulsi,who was influcnccd

by Nasscr, hal lcngedhc monarchy n a showdown n r.) 7 that can-te

close o toppl ing t , thc Brotherhood idedwith theking and saved is

throne. Frorn hispoint )n, wrt) teBoulby, thire existed n unn'r i t-

ten understarndingf coeristcrtce etweenKing Husseinand theBroth-

crhood. 8Yusafal-Azm,a lcader f the Brothersn.fordan,said: Wc

agreedwith thc king bccauscNasscr was ir rat iona l n his ir t tacks

againstim,

lancl lo protectourselves, ecauscf Nasser 'sol lowers

had r isen o power in .fordan, hc Muslim Brotherhoodwould have

been iquic'lated, s thcy werc in llgypt. 'r The Brotherhood's upport

for the king came at a cr i t ical moment. Nasscrand his al l ieswere

ascenclanf,he king of Iraq (a el lowHashemitc)wasoverthrown, nd

U.S.pol icy had shifteddecisivcly gainstF.gypt.n r95tl , U.S. roops

wcre sent o l.ebanon nd the Brit isharmy to .fordanand Kuwait, <r

halt the national istupsurge, nd the Brotherhood oined in. While

communist, Baathist,and Nasseristparties were suppressed y the

king, the Muslim Brotherhoodwas encouragedo run candidatesn



r94 Dr- :vl r - 's Gnl,rn

elections or .fordan'ssham parliament, winning seats n Hebron,

Nablus,and otherWest Bankcities.TheJordanianarmy alsoprovided

military training o Brotherhoodparamilitary orces.10

In Gaza, later a stronghold of Hamas, the Muslim Brothcrhood

took root among Palest inianstudents coming from Cairo and

Kuwait . The Brotherscreated he Lcague of Palcst inianStudents,

many of whose eaderswould latcr abandon he Is lamists nd form

the corc of the Pl,O, including YasserArafat, SalahKhalaf, and thc

Hassanbrothers. In Gaza, hen underEgypt ianadministrat ion,he

Brotherhood ouncl tself eel ing he heat when PresidentNasserof

I lgypt crushed hc organizat ion n Cairo. ln .July r957, Khali l al-

\flazir, l future PLC) eader,wrote a paper proposing hat the Pales-

t inian Brothcrhoodestabl ish specialorganizat ionalongside heir

own which hasno visible slarnic olorat iorr r agencla ut which has

thc sta. ted oal of l iberat ingPalest ine. rom this momcnt on, the

Ptr lcst iniannoverrentwascl iv idcd.On one sidewere he nat ional ists.

thosc who ilgrced with Waziq who wcnt on to forrr-r he Palestine

Nat ionir lLiberat ionMovement,or Fatah, n r958-59. On the othcr

sic lcwcre the Islamists,hosewho prcfcrred o rernainkryal to the

Muslim Brother lrood, ho did not join Fatahand, rr 1960,cxpl ic i t l r

o1-rpclsedhe ncw organizirticln.

Fatah-which beganguerr i l la artacksagainst srael n r965-

wor-r ldembody Palest inian at ional ismand al ly irself , somcf imes

uncomfortably, i th Nasser 's is ionof Arab nat ional ism. he Broth-

erhood,on the other hand, emaincd n the camp of the Arab conser-

vat ives, l l ied o theJorclanian irrg, nd supported y SaudiArabia.

Kuwait , and the soon-ro-be- independentulf sheikhdoms.The

Brotherhood'smembership mong Palest inians, hich had reached

many thousandsn the r94os, decl ined harplyas Arab nat ional ismbecame he rallying cry in the Middle East. Pro-Nasserparries, he

Baath, communisrs,and Farahall gained.The Muslim Brotherhood

had a membershipof less han a thousandon rhe WestBank, and a

thousand n Gaza,before he rr)67war with Israel. n the WestBank.

the Brotherhoodwas toleratedby the Jordanianauthorities,while in

Gaza t was repressed y Nasser'sEgypt.

It is during this period that Ahmed Yassin irst emerged s he fun-



Isrdel s slamists rc)5

damentalist irebrand who would win Israeli backing in the r97os

and r98os and who would found Hamas n r987.r3 n r965, Yassin

was arrestedby Egyptian ntelligencen one of Nasser s rackdowns.

Alter ry67, with Israel n control of theWest

Bank and Gaza, hi ngs

changed.Yassinwas freed.According to ShaulMishal and Avraham

Sela, sraelischolarswho wrote The PalestinianHamas:

Israelwas more permissiveegarding ocialand cultural slamrc

activity, rnd he very act that the WestBankand he GazaStrip

were under one governmentenabled a renewed encounter

betweenslamicactivists f both regi<tns.his in turn paved he

way or thedevelopmentf jointorganizat ionalndeavors.. . ln

the ate 96os, joint organizaticlnf Islamic rctivity or theGaza

Str ipand he WestBank-the Unitecl alest ini: rnMuslim]Broth-

erhood Organizat ion-was ounded. . . The I97os witnessed

growing inks betweenhe Muslim Brotherhoodn the Israel i-

occupiedcrr i tor ies nd srael s rabcit izens. hus e:rcl ing us-

l im Brotherhoodiguresrom the West lank and Ciaza, ike

SheikhYassin, is i ted srael i Musl inr cornnlunit iesrom rhc

( lal i leeo theNegev o preach nd cadFrid:ry rayers.ra

Soon sraelwould begin o seeYassin, nd the Muslim llrotherhood,

as valuableal l iesagainst he PLO. ln iL)67 he Muslirn Brotherhg6cl

began o create ts infrastructure, ndcr he tolcranteyi of the now

all-powerful srael i author it ies.Char ity organizat ions rol i ferated.

The religiousendowments waqfs)grew richer,controlling I o percent

of al l the real estaten Gaza,hundreds f busincsses,nd thousands

ofacres f agr iculturaland.And, l ike Egypt,Sudan, nd othercoun-

tr iesaf ter 1c167,hePalest inians erc being slamized. rom r967 t<t

1987 henumbers f mosquesn Gazagrew rom 2oo to 6oo, and on

rheWestBank, rom 4oo to z5o. l

ln r 97o, the PLO was expelled rom jordan after beingdefeatedn

the civi l war that erupted n September.he Muslim Brotherhoodn

Jordan supported he king and his Bedouinarmy against he PLO,

and IsraelhelpedKing Hussein, hreateningaction f the Syrianarmy

moved o help the PLO. That sameyear,Ahmed Yassin , eaderof the

Muslim Brotherhood n Gaza,asked he Israelimilitary administratign



196 . Drvr l s GauE

for permission o establishan organization.His appealwas rejected,

but three years arer,under the watchful eye of the shin Bet, yassin

founded he Islamiccenter,an Islamistgroup rhat wasonly thinly dis-guised as a religious nstitution. Yassinbegan to establisheffective

control over hundreds of mosques.Many of these mosques,along

with charitiesand schools,servedas recruiringvehiclesand political

organizingcenters or Islamists. n r976, Yassin sslamiccenter spun

off the Islamic Association, a membership group with branches

throughout the GazaStrip, and the movemenrgrew.

Israel sormal support for the Islamists ccurred after 977,when

MenachemBegin sHerur Partyand the Likud bloc stunned he IsraeliLabor Party n nat ionalelect ions.n r978, Begin s ew government

formally licensed hmed Yassin sslamicAssociation. t was part of aful l-courtpressagainst he PLo. civi l war was raging n Lebanon,

where lsraeli-backedMaronite christian militias were battling thePalestirrians.n the west Bank and Gaza,Begin ried to undermine hePLo s prwerful influence n two waysrby fostering he Islamistmove-

ment, and by the crearionof so-called illage Leagues,ocal councils

run by anti-PLO Palestinians ho were carefullyvemedby the Israeli

military authorities. Yassin and the Brotherhood won significant

influence vcr the Village .eagues. p ro zoo membersof the Leagues

were given paramilitary training by Israel, and Shin Bet recruited

many paid informers hrough the nerwork.r6The leagues hemselves,

run by quislings,were desrined o fail, scornedand ridiculedby pales-

tinians in the occupied errirories.But the Brotherhood would con-tinue to gain, at the expenseof both Fatah and the more left-wing

Palestinian roups, such as the Popular Fronr for the Liberation ofPalest ine.

David shipler,a former reporter for the New york Times,cites heIsraeli military governor of Gaza as boasting that Israel expresslyfinanced he Islamists gainst he pLO:

Politically speaking, slamic fundamenralists ere sometimesregarded suseful o Israel,becausehey hadconflictswith thesec-ular supportersof the PLO. Violencebetween he two groupserupted ccasionally n WestBankuniversity ampuses,nd the



Israel's slamists r c) 7

Israelimilitary governorof the Gaza Strip, BrigadierGeneral

yitzhakSegev,nce old mehowhehad inancedhe slamicmove-

mentas a counterweighto the PLO and the Communists' The

IsraeliGovernment avemea budget nd hernilitary overnment

gives <t he mosques, e said. n 1980,when fundantental ist

protestorset ire o theoffice f theRedCrescent ocietyn Gaza,

headed y Dr. Haider Abdel-Shafi, Communistand PLO sup-

porrer,he sraeli rmydid nothing,nterveningnlywhen hemol'rmarchedo hishome ndseemedo threaten impcrsonally ' I '

Israelwas not the only suppctrter f Yassinand the Muslim Brother-

hood.Religious lenrentsn Sar-rclirabia, (x)' wanted o undermirrehe

secularPl.C),ar-rd ealthySaudibusinesseaclcrs elped inanceYassin,

althgughhis ability to operate n Gazaclependedn the goodwill of the

Isrzreli uthorities. assil't 'stieswith the Muslim Brothcrhogd n Jgrdan

were nstrutnentaln enabling hem to forgc close elationswith Islamic

institr-rrit;nsn SaudiArabia, which in the 1c17osnd rgtios providcd

gcnerollsinancial id to Islamicassociations. ls till, hegtlvernment fSaucliArabiir remainedsuspici<lusf Yassin,and cventually t would

seek o halt evenprivateSaudiaid to the Yassin-led ovcment.Perhaps

to cgrry favor with conservativeSaudi Islamists and Wahhabi-

influencedmenrbcrs f tlre royal farnily, he Brgthcrhgodattacked he

PLO for its irreligior,rs utlook. The Brothcrhoocl aic'lhat thc I']I-O

.,dgesnot serveGocl, and Yassilr eclarcd: Thc' pt.() is secularist.t

cannotbe accepted sa rcprcsentativetrlesst becomesslanlic. 'r

At the t ime, ir scemedunlikely that thc Muslim Brothcrhood

would gainmuch of a footholcl rmongPalest inians.irstof al l , manv

PalestrniansereChrist ian, nclwould haveno truck with an organi-zat ion pledgecl o creatc an Islamic state. Palest inians erc alstr

among the Arab world's nrost modern, educated, nclWesternized

populat ions, nd asa diaspora hey werewell t r i rveled nd well con-

nected hrgughout he Arab world, the UniteclStates, nd lurope, no t

ro ment ion he USSR.Aboveall , heywerenat ional ists. n the other

hand, the very nature of the Palest inian slamistswas to oppose

nat ional ism, nd o oppose hecreat ion f a stateof Palest ine,nstead

focusingon the necessity f f i rst Is lamizingPalest ine nd the Arab

world. But amongPalest inianshe appealof Is lamism rew as srael 's



r9[ l Dpvrr- 's Galt l

relentlessepression f the PLO causedpeople n the West Bank and

Gaza o look for alternat ives.

U.S.diplomatsand CIA officialswere aware hat Israelwas foster-

ing lslamism in the occupied territories. \(/e saw Israel cultivate

Islam as a counterweight o Palest inian at ional ism, saysMartha

Kessler, senior analyst for the CIA who early on was alert to thc

importance f the Islamistmovementand the threat t could posc o

U.S. interests n the region.20 ut neither the CIA nor the State

Department ried to sto p it. Throughout the foreign serviceand the

national securitybureaucracy n Washington, herewas divisionas o

the signif icancef Palest inianslamism. ome aw t as benignor use-

ful, someas possiblyharmful,and st tme imply bel ievedt wouldn't

catchon, that Is lamismwouldn't at t racta fol lowingamongPalcst ini-

irns.SaysKesslcr :

Radical s lamandextremism idn'tconte nto play lsmuchwith

thePalest iniansselsewhere,t least ar ly<ln.Many arnonghe

Palest inianiaspor i lwere cducated, oplr ist icated,nd sccular.

Their noveoward slamicadical ismidrr ' t akcplace nt i l ater .The Israelisencouragedt quite a bit. Although they weren't

resporrsibleor it completely,hey dicln'tcrackclownorl it. They

allowed hem o f lour ish.Where heycould iddlearoundwith

events o elevateslamistso thedetrir-nentf Fatah, heywtluld'

They'd reat eligiousigures ith deference.2l

I thought they were playingwith fire, saysDavid Long' a formcr

Middle L,astexpert at the StateDepartment'sBureauof h-rtelligence

and Research. I didn't realize hey'd end up creatinga monster.But I

don't think you ought o mess roundwith potent ial anat ics. zz

Meanwhile, n Syria, sraelandJordanweredoing ust that.

TencET: DAMASCUS

In the r97os,Israel and Jordan were technicallyat war with each

other,but they had a complexand cooperative elationshipbehind he



he

ls rael 's ls lamists ' r9c)

scenes. ing Husseinwas on the CIA payroll, and Israel'sand Jor-

dan's ntelligence ervices ad a relationship h at, while it co uldn't be

characterized swarm, was at leastprofessionally orrect. There s a

long tradition of complex covert relations between he Hashemites

and the Zionists, over many years, according o Philip Wilcox' an

experienced .S. oreignservice fficer.Z3sraelandJordan also had a

commonenemy:Syr ia.The Syr ian uler,HafezAssad,was vulnerable n Islamicgrounds.

He was.of course. seculareader nd a Baathist . ut Assadwas also

a memberof a rel igiousminor ity n Syr ia, heAlawites,a quasi-Shi i te

secf hat was viewed with disdain by the ult ra-orthodoxMuslim

Brotherhood nd which was considcred n- ls lamic y \Tahhabicler-

ics.Perhapsmore han in other Arab countr ies,hc Mr-rsl im rother-

hood rrSyr iawashighly act ional ized, i th kaleidoscopical lyhif t ing

power centersboth in Syr ian Sunni strongholdssuch as Alcppo,

Hclrns,and Hama ilnd amongMuslinr Brotherhood eaders n exi le n

Ciernrany,witzer land, nd London.The Syr iar-r usl im Brotherhoodwas also an ear ly of fshoot of

Hassanal-Bantra'smovement n Egypt. Thc Br:otherhoodn Syr ia

drew tsmembersronr hc ranksof Syr ian tudentseturning rom Al

Azhar in Clairc n thc nr id- t93os,and it formcd hranchcs n Syr ia's

nrajor cit ies under the namc ShababMuhammed (Young Men of

Mr-rhammed). lcppo, n northernSyr ia,scrved ls hc he, ldcluarters

of the Muslir - r - rrotherhoodbeginr-r ingn r9j5.r4 [n r944, i ts head-

qlrar tersmoved o Damasclts, nd t was edby MustafaSibai, grad-

uate of Al Azhar and fr icnd of Hassanal-Banna. n the r9-tos' as

Nassercracked down on the movement ' a signif icantnumber of

IJrotherhoodnrembers ook refuge n Syria. lut rrsSyria moved ntcl

the nat ional ist amp, irst oining Nasseras part of the UnitedArirb

Republic nd hcn under he Baath n the r96os, he Muslim Brother-

h<rodound Syr ia ess ospitableln t964, theBrothersecl nt i-Baath

r iots n Syr ia,under heslogar-rIs lam or Baath. n t967, dur ingand

afterSyr ia's efeat n thewar with Isr : rel,he Brotherhood's ostmil-

i tant fact ion declared i ihad against he Syr iangovernment. heir

animosityonly intensif ied f ter r973, when Assadproclaimed new





Israel's slamists ' 2o r

run by a charismatic rebel military officer, Major Saad Haddad. In

1978, n the midst of the Lebanese ivil war, Israelsent 2o'ooo troops

into I-ebanon,and in withdrawing, left paff of Lebanonunder the con-

ffol of Major Haddad'sFLR which remainedallied with Israeluntil the

mid-r9Sos. In a seriesof communiqu6s n the early r98os, Haddad

boasted f training he Muslim Brotherhood. or example:

Yester:dayhe Free Lebanon commander,Ma1. Sa'd Haddad'

opened he seventhrainingcamp for the Muslim Brotherhood

somewheren Free .ebanon.About 200 persons,most of them

Syrians nd ncluding ome ebanese,reat tendinghiscourse.n

a speech, aj. Haddadurged he raineeso t rainot ' t ommandrr

operations o hat heyand heircolleaguesiberate yria rom the

fact ionalAlawi regime. . . The Major said: The trainingyou

wil l receive, hich sof highstandardsnd ncludesheart of sur-

prising heenemn s not available nywhere lse n the regionor

evt 'n t t hewholeworld. l-

Actual ly, he t raining hat the Israel i-backcd addad provided he

Brotherhoodwas avirilable n at least wo other placesat that exact

moment: northern . fordan,and the Maronite Chr ist ian enclave n

Lebanon,where he Phalangists, fascist- l ike i l i t ia run by the pro-

Nazi Gemayel lan and supported y Israel, an Brotherhood amps

for war in Syr ia.

The camps n Jordanopcrated lorc or less pcnly. n r 98r, Syr ia's

foreign minister denounccdKing Husscin: The king's pol icy has

driven him to transform Jordan into a base or the gang of murder

and cr ime, he Muslim Brotherhood'n order o exertpressure n andconfuseSyr ia. 28 wo weeks ater,Assad cl ivcred lengthy peechn

which he bit ter lycr i t ic ized |ordan or support ing he Muslim Broth-

erhood nsurrect ionn Svr ia:

Problems reafed y the Muslim Brotherhoodhavebegunl o

emergencreasinglyn Syria.Of course,he Muslim Brotherhood

is an essentialistoricalink in thechainof reactionary-imperialist

relationsn theregion. . . It wasnatural or theJordanian egime

and he Muslim Brotherso exchangeupport' . . It wasnatural



Loz . Dgvtt - 's Gaur:

for the Muslim Brotherhood ang o i mplement he ordersand

for that gang o find all the necessaryrms, raining,and finan-

cial facilit ies n the Jordanianarena. . . We arrested rirninals

belonging o the Muslim Brotherhood ang n Syriaand at the

. fordanian-Syr ianorderwho told us they had been n Jordan,

lwhere hey receivedl umsof money,weapons, nd forged den-

t i ty cards.2e

And a month later,Abdullah Omar, a leadingBaath Party official nSyr ia, aid hat Syr iahad evidencehat the Muslim Brotherhoodwas

backed yJordanandby the Phalangist angsn Lebanon, upported

by Isr : rel nd U.S. mper ial ism. 'r0 f ter the explosion n l)amascr-rsn

rgt lr that ki l led hundrcds,Syr iaaccusedhe Muslim Brotherhood f

act ingas agents f Israel. s l

Al l of Assad's nd Omar'scharges ere rue

The scalc f the attacks n Syr iawas harely cported n the United

Statcs.A rare cxceptionappeared n I,Jewstuceft.C)ver hc past five

years he Brotherhood asassassinatedundrcds f Alawitemembers

of Assad' s ul ing BaathParty,alongwith their relat ivcs, ssad's er-sonal dcrct<rr,nd a nurrrberof Sovietadvisers, ,lewsweek eportcd.

Assadhas rccusedJordanof providingshelter nd t raining or Syr-

ian Brothcrs. l l But for thc most part , the Brotherhood error cam-

paign n Syr iawas nvisible o Americans. ot so to U.S. ntel l igcnce,

however. We knew about he Muslim Brotherhood here,a lot more

than what was n the papers, saysDavid Long. I was the divis ion

chief or Near Eastat INR lthe Bureauof lntel l igence nd Researchl.'We

looked benignlyupon it. We knew it was risky, but li fe is risky. 3l

I'or Assad, he Muslim Brotherboodpresented n existential hreat.

Martha Kessler,he former CIA a nalyst, ays hat IsraelandJordan

. . . were playingwith fire, and I don't think they realized ow

dangeroust would become. ut or Assadt wascritical.He spent

nearly ive years rying to dealwith the Muslim Brotherhood,o

accommodatehemor co-opt hem. n the end,he'dvirtually os t

controlof the northern hird of the country.He wasgoingdown

at the ime.He was eallv n trouble. 3a









206' l )Evl t. 's Gaup.

momenturn. n the ear ly rgt los sraelsupported he Islamists n sev-

eral f ronts. I t was, of course,support ing he Gaza and \WestBank

Islamists hat, i r - r 987, would found Hamas. I t was, with Jordan,

backing he Muslim IJrotherhood ar againstSyr ia. n Afghanistan,

Isracl luiet ly upported he ihad against he USSR, acking he Mus-

l im Brothcrhood- l inked undamentar l istsho led the mujahideen.

And Israelbackcd ran, thc rrr i l i tant eartof the Islamistmovement,

dur ing ts ongwar with I raq.

Not cveryonc n Israelwas happywith the policyof col laborat ing

with Islanists. From all accounts, t was prirnarily srael's ar right-

Begin, PrinreMinistcr Yitzhak Shamir, and DefenseMinister Ariel

Sharon-who pr,rrsucdhis policy most aggrcssively.he Labor Party

in Isrirel endcd o sec he PLO asa viablepartner or negotiations n a

final scttlerncnt.Jut he Israeli ight opposeda settlement n principle

rrndwantcd o hold on to the occupied WestBank,cit ingbibl ical ea-

sons or want ingcontrol ovcr f clea nd Samaria,he ancientnames

for thi.rt isputecl ealcsfate.

The fact s hi l t Israel 's ol icywasa mistake n the ong run, says

Patrick [.ang, hc forrnerMiddle F.ast ircctor for the Defense ntelli-

ger-rcegency. .angs:rys hat the not everyone n the Mossad, srael's

intel l igence crvice, greed hrr t support ingAhmed Yassin'sMuslim

Brothcrhoodwas a good idea. Especial lyhose n the Mossadwho

were most knowlcdgeableabout Arab and Islamic culture were

opposed. Thc Ari lbists n Israel isecur ity ervices idn' t l ike i t . But

the lsrael i eaders igured hey would ki l l of f the PLO terror ists, nd

then they coulc'l lcalwith Hamas.They misunderstood he phenome-

non. The Israel is,most of them, were secular ists,oo, and they

thought these eligious erronsts were a flash n the pan. They were

trying o defeatArab nat ional ism singMuslim zealots. 45

Victor Ostrovsky,a former Mossad officerwho left the agencyand

became strongcritic, s the author of two books on the Israelisecret

service.a6 ccording to Ostrovsky, right-wing elements n the Mos-

sad feared that the popularity of L,gypt'spresident Anwar Sadat

might force srael o giveup territories hat it wanted o hol d on to, so

they backed undamental istEgyptiangroups under false lags, ha t

is, by disguising he fact that the aid was coming from Israel.aT nd



on sev-

Bank

Jordan,

Mus-

- :^L.rr l i i l r -

Ariel

n a

ea-

names

says

who

were

t . But

nd

theywere

nd

ecret

Mos-

Sadat

tor so

hat

Israel's slamists ' zo7

Ostrovsky leveledcharges hat the Israeli right deliberately ostered

Islamic undamentalism mongPalestinians.

Supporting he radicalelements f Muslim fundamentalismat

well with Mossad's eneral lan for the region.An Arab world

run by fundamenral istst tuldnot he pert) t ( )er lvncg() t i i l t i ( ) r r \

with the West, hus eavingsrael gainas the onlv democrat ic,

rat ional ountry n the region. nd i f the Mossad ouldarrangefor Hamas . . to takeover he Pirlestiniantreetsrom the PLO.

then hepicturewould becotnplete.aE

During most of thc r98os, he Muslim Brothcrhoocln ( laza :rncl

the'WestBank did not support resistanceo thc Isracl ioccupr lt ion.

Most of its energywent into fighting he Pl-O, especi:rllyts morc le r-

wing fact ions, n university ampllses. assin'scl l lowers sedcluLrs,

chains,and evenguns in violent c lasheswith pro-P[.O Palest inian

nat ional ists. he Is lamicUniversity n Ciirza as he siteof nunrerous

batt les,with PLO supporters eckingo

secular izehe university nclthe Muslim Brotherhood rying to prcserve ts [slirrnist haracter. n

one clash akrne, on .fune4, rc)83, l tore than 2oo studentswere

injured. Similar confrontat ionsoccurredat Birzcit Univcrsity and

Najah University n the WestBank.a Fatah, he nraincomponentof

thePLO, r ied o co-opt heMuslim Brotherhoocl,eekingo arrange

workable ompromise. he MuslirnBrothcrhoocl,owcvcq cnrandcd

nothing ess han the complete slamizat ion f the P[,O, ncl uding hc

el iminat ion f the P[-C) 'sef t wing. The Muslirn Brothcrhood caclcr-

shipurgedFatah o purge ts ranksof Marxist elements,o be alvit re

of the fut i l i ty of secular ism,nd to cooperatc loselywith the Is lemic

Efroups.'50

In r983, there occurreda cur ious and st i l l unexpl ir inednciclent

which has ed someof Ahmed Yassit't 'sritics to sllspect hat he hacl

secret ies to the Shin Bet. Itarly in the year, Yassinwris arrestcdby

Israel iauthor it ies f ter he ordercdmcmbersof l the IslamicCenter l

to secretly gather firearms, which werc then clistribr-rteclrlons

selected perat ives. 5l omeof the weaponswere stored n Yassin's

own house,and he was ailed.At the t ime, Palcst inianesistanceo

lsrael was far more subdued han dur ing the two t tpr is ings,or



2oB . Dsvtt- 's GANIE

intifadas, of later years,when armed Palestinian ighterswere com-

mon. In 1983,however,a collectionof deadlyweaponry would have

beenseenas a very seriousoffense.Although Yassinwas sentencedo

thirteenyears n prison, he was released fter only a yeaLCompound-

ing PLO suspicions,Yassin claimed that the weapons were beinggatherednot to attack Israeli orcesbut to combat other Palestinian

factions.

In t986-87, Yassin ounded Hamas. Even then, as the intifada

began o develop, here were reports hat Israelwas backingHamas.

There were persistent umors that the Israeli secret servicegave

covert support to Hamas, because hey were seenas a rival to the

PLO, saysPhilip Wilcox, a former U.S. ambassador nd counterter-

rorism expert, who headed he U.S. consulate n Jerusalemat the

time. I have neverseenan intelligence ocument o that effect,but I

wouldn't be surprised f i t were true.

'Wilcox

says hat U.S. officialsin Jerusalem ealt regularly and intensively with Hamas n the late

r98os, cal l ing t a complex organizat ionwith dif ferentstrains. . .

There s a more moderateelement,which we've always hought might

be amenable o negotiations,and then there are the fanaticsand th e

mil i tants. 52

Although Hamas won support from Kuwait and from some

wealthy Saudis, he Saudi government was suspiciousof Hamas.

SaudiArabia didn't want money going to an Israeli ront organiza-

tion, saysCharlesFreeman,who was U.S.ambassadoro SaudiAra-

bia. So they pulled in Prince Salman, hegovernor of Riyadh' an d

madehim the headof a committee o stop the collectionof money n

the mosques that might go to Hamas. Eventually, however, as

Hamas seemed o grow more independent of Israel, and as the

intifada gathered momentum, the committee stopped functioning

and SaudiArabia began o look the other way. Probably there ar e

membersof the Saudi oyal family who give money to Hamas, says

Freeman.53

Not everyone n the U.S.governmentwas h ppy about the emer-

genceof Hamas, particularly the Arabists and the more anti-Israel

centersof power in the Pentagon.The Defense ntelligenceAgency,

alarmed at the strengthof the Palestinian slamists,begancollecting

data ,

us. ]t :

the r: ; -

Est i t t t

the r: :

F. --







ls rael 's ls lamists ' zr r

Israeli Likud-inspired errorist murdered Prime Minister Rabin. The

deathof Rabin eft a vacuum n Israelipolitics,and the continuingsui-

cide attacks by Hamas panicked he Israelielectorate,eading o the

electionof Netanyahu'sLikud in ry96. The tough-talkingNetanyahu

launchedan unsparingcampaignof repression imed at all Palestin-

ian groups, and in 1997 he ordered a bo tchedattempt to kil l a top

Hamas officialin

Jordan.But Yassinproved

to be a survivor. n theaftermath of that debacle, srael and Jordan reachedan accord that

freed SheikhAhmed Yassin rom prison, where he'd languished ince

his r989 arrest.SuddenlyYassinwas back n action n Gaza, hunder-

ing againstOslo and building opposition o the PLO.

The pattern repeated tself in zooo. Netanyahu fell in t999, and

was replacedby Barak,who reengagedhe PLO in negotiationsand,

with PresidentClinton'shelp,cameclose o reachinga comprehensive

deal.Once again,however, he Israeli ight provoked the Islamists. n

September ooo, Sharonmade a heavy-handed, rovocativevisit to

an Islamic holy site, the Haram al-Sharif/TempleMount, an action

calculated o provoke the Muslim Brotherhood undamentalists, nd

it did. The result was the second intifada (zooo-zoo4). Suicide

attacks n Israel murdered scoresof Jews, and stampededsecurity-

minded Israeli voters into Sharon'scamp. Sharon was overwhelm-

ingly electedprime ministeq dooming any chance of a Pl O-israel

deal. Longtime observers f Israeli politics werb stunned hat Israel

would be ed by a man who conducted errorist attacksagainstPales-

t inians n the 195os, sheadof the nfamousUnit ror , and who bore

responsibility or the massacre f hundredsof Palestini an efugeesn

the Sabraand Shatilacampsnear Beirut by Israel'sPhalangistall ies,

during the r98z Israeli nvasion of Lebanon.Called the Bulldozer,

GeneralSharon aunched an all-out effort to destroy both the PLO

and the Palestinian uthority. Arafat wascaughtbetweenHamas and

Sharon: he Islamistswould carry out an atrocity,and Sharonwould

hold Arafat responsible, etaliatingagainst he PLO.

Both Sharonand the Bushadministration efused o talk to Arafat,

marginalizing he PLO leaderand creating urther room for Hamas o

grow. The result was predictable.Polls show that in t996, only r5

percentof Palestinians acked he Islamists;by zooo, it was still only

as

a

an d

ears

nn\

of

to

f



zrz . Drvrr 's Gerar

r7 percent.By zoor, however,27 percentof Palestinians upported

Hamas, and by zooz, aBirzeit University poll revealed hat 42 percenr

of Palestinians upported he Hamas idea of an Islamic state.This

was, Roy says, totally unprecedented. 5e

At times t seemed s f Sharonwas ntent on demolishingany pos-

sibility of a PLO-Hamas agreement, ven hough the Israeligovern-

ment ostensiblywas demanding hat the PLO end Hamas'scampaign

of suicideattacks. n zoor, when the PLO secured Hamas pledge o

halt its terrorist attacks, Sharon ordered the assassination f a top

Hamas official. \Thoever gave he green ight to thi s act of liquida-

tion knew full well that he was thereby shattering n one blow the

gentlemen's greementbetweenHamas and the PalestinianAuthor-

ity, wrote AIex Fishman n the Israeli newspaperYediotAchronot.

Again, in zooz, only ninety minutes before Hamas's Yassinwas to

announcea.cease-fire,sraelbombed a Hamas headquartersn Gaza,

kil l ing seventeenpeople, including eleven children. lil/rote Roy:

Some analystsmaintain that while Hamas leadersare being tar-

geted, sraeli s simultaneously ursuing ts old strategyof promoting

Hamas over the secularnationalist actionsas a way of ensuring he

ultimate demiseof the [PalestinianAuthority], and as an effort to

extinguishPalestinian ationalismonceand for all. 60

Yassin, nd several ther top Hamas officials,were assassinatedy

the Israelimilitary and secret ervicesn zoo4. Yet Hamas continues

to grow. In zoo4, Sharonannouncedplans to withdraw unilaterally

from the Gaza Strip. After yearsof violence here,Hamas is report-

edly the most powerful presence n the ground, and if Israel does

withdraw, Hamas will make a play to emergeas the leading force in

Gaza,especiallyn the vacuum eft by the deathof YasserArafat.

The story of Hamas-from an Israeli experimentalpet project to

the PLO's chief nemesis o the main sourceof anti-Israeliviolence n

Gaza and theWest

Bank-ran the gamut of Islamistpolitical expan-

sion from the r96os to the r99os and beyond.From an Israelistand-

point, the growth and transformation of Hamas over thesedecades

was an earthquake,and it si gnaled o many in Israel that political

Islam was not a force to be trifled with. But the radicalization of the

Palestinian slamistmovementwas really not an earthquake o much











t ,

Hell's Ayatollah zr7

abandoning he shahhad clea rly underestimatedhe Islamist evolu-

tionaries,and now they counted on the emergence f a democratic

successoregimewith a slight slamist inge,not a dicratorship.Those

who had argued or a coup, which would have ed to tens of thou-

sandsof deaths,had also underestimatedhe depth and power of the

Khomeini movement.Their view was often colored by the insistenr,

though absurd,belief hat the USSRwas behind the trouble in Iran.How could so powerful an American ally as the shahof Iran be top-

pled f it weren't Moscow's doing?

American policy wasn't any clearer after the revolution. The

United States ad precious ew expertson Iran's Islamistmovement.

The U.S.diplomatswho went to Iran after he revolutionwere mostly

not Iran specialists,and they knew little about Islam or about

Khomeini and his ilk. Many of them worked hard to implement he

official policy of trying to work out a modus vivendi with the Islamic

republic, but that policy camecrashingdown when the U.S.embassy

was invaded by a mob in November ry79. The'Western-educated,suit-wearing aides to Khomeini-men like Ibrahim Yazdi, Sadegh

Ghotbzadeh, and AbolhassanBani-Sadr-were swept away in the

"second revolution" that followed the embassy akeover, and the

Qom-based lergyand Khomeini asserted ear-dictatorial ontrol.

Meanwhile, U.S. hard-liners were not ready to give up on lran.

Somesaw Iran's slamicor ientat ionas a threat o rhe SovietUnion.

They countedon Iran's ear of its Russianneighbor o the north and

on the Islamists' hostility to communism to move Iran back into

accordwith the United States.Supportersof Israel-and, of course)

Israel tself-saw even he militant mullahs as potential allies. Evenduring the U.S. embassycrisis, Reagan and the neoconservatives

made overtures o the mullahs. By the mid-r98os, the neoconserva-

tives, sraeli ntelligence, nd Col. Oliver North of the National Secu-

rity Council oined Bill Caseyof the CIA in a secret nitiative reaching

out to the strongmanof Iran, Ali Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani.

The religious evolution in Iran did more than kick the props ou t

from underneathAmerica'smost important outpost in the region. It

crystallized a fundamental change in the character of the Islamic

right, one that had been taking shapesince he rise of the Muslim



2r 8 Dnvtl 's Gaun

Brotherhood decades arlier.As it gained strength n the r97os) the

Islamic right grew more assertive, nd parts of it were radicalized.

Violence-prone ffshoots, ypified by the emergence f an Islamist er -

rorist underground n Egypt, emerged o challenge'STestern-oriented

regimes, and the terrorist Hezbollah movement gained force inLebanon.Even he more mainstream slamistgroupswere nspiredby

the example of Iran, and many Muslim Brotherhood-linked otganiza-

tions took on a more pronouncedpolitical character.

The errors that the United Statescommitted during and after the

revolution n Iran were almostShakespeareann their tragicscope.An

enormouspart of the blame alls on the U.S. ntelligence ystem.The

fall of the shah was the most significant ailure of U.S. intelligence

betweenPearlHarbor and the attacksof September r' zoor. As the

United Stateseagerly ent support to the Afghan jihadistsand reached

out to supposedlymoderatemullahs n Teheran,almostno one n the

intelligencecommuniry was looking ar the big picture. To the Ameri-

can public, the dark-eyed,scowling visage of Ayatollah Khomeini

symbolized the emergenceof a threatening new force on the world

scene.But for U.S. diplomats and intelligenceofficers, right-wing

political Islam continued to be profoundly misunderstood.Even as

Islamism'spower made itself felt-in the violence n Mecca, civil war

in Syria, Sadat'sassassination-theUnited States ailed to grasp its

implications.Even after Iran, Islamismwas not seenas a worldwide

movement inked by fraternal bonds and secretsocieties, ut as a frag-

mented, country-by-countryideologicalmovement. The narveargued

that Iran was a uniquecase, conservative ictatorship hat had fallen

to a peculiar form of Shiite militancy that would have no resonance

among the Sunni Muslim majority. Others, naive in a different and

more dangerousway, were seizedwith the notion that Iranian-style

Islamism and the Muslim Brotherhood could be mobilized in

Afghanistan and Central Asia as a tool for dismantling the Soviet

Union. Despite the pronounced anti-American feelingat the heart of

Islamism, key officia ls-from Jimmy Carter'snational securityadviser,

Zbigniew Brzezinski, o Ronald Reagan'sCIA director, Bill Casey-

would aggressively ursue the idea that pol i t ical Is lam was just

another Dawn on whatBrzezinski called "the Grand Chessboard."

L)i-.

lr '

o::

:-_

-1--

, : .





z2-o . Dr,vrr 's Geltp

Khomeini had returned o Iran, from Paris,on February r, just a

day before Lambrakis'smemo was written. Nine days ater, he interim

government f Iran collapsed nd the mullahscreated he dictatorship

that has asted more than a quarter of a century.PresidentCarter wel-

comed he new Iranian governmentand optimistically eachedout toits leaders, ut ominouslSon February 4, a Khomeini-inspiredmob

seized ontrol of theU.S.embassyn Iran, only to withdraw after ense

negotiations. Nine months later, a similar mob invaded the embassy

and held scores of American personnel hostage for more than a

year,precipitating oneof the greatestdiplomaticcrises n Americanhis-

tory. By the end of i t, Khomeini reignedunchallenged s ran's dictator.

How could Lambrakishavebeenso wrong? fhy did a seniorU.S.

governmentofficial-and he was not alone-believe that Khomeini

and his clerical mafia would cedepower to political leaders ather

than mullahs ? \fhy would he describe heKhomeini movement as

enlightened ? \7hy would he expect that something closely

approachingWesternized emocraticprocesses ould emerge?

There is plenty of blame to go around. Neither the StateDepart-

ment, nor the CIA, nor the vauntedcommunity of foreignpolicy think

tanks,nor academia ot lran right. Most of the blamemust go to the

U.S.government, or mixing blind ignorance f Iran with sheer ncom-

petence.But the blindnessextended o many leading U.S. academic

specialists n Iran. Several-the Universityof Texas's amesBill, the

Universityof Texas'sMarvin Zonis, and the Universityof Pittsburgh's

Richard Cottam, the former CIA officer-acted as semi-official con-

sultants o the \fhite House and the StateDepartment n r978-7r1.

Bill, whose book, Tbe Eagleand the Lion, is often cited as a definitive

work on U.S.-Iran elations, uthoreda major piece n loreign Affairs,

the ournal of the Council on ForeignRelations, n late r978 that, l ike

Lambrakis's missive, also completely missed the mark. Even as

Khomeini hunderedagainst he shah rom Iraq and then rom France,

and mobs carried photos of the ayatollah down the streetsof every

major Iraniancity, n Iran and the Crisisof t978 Bill concluded ha t

. . . themostprobable lternativef thePahlavi ynasty houldbe

destroyed y force and violence s that a ieft-wing,progresslve



Hell 'sAyatollah ' zz r

group of middle-ranking army officers would take charge. . .

Other future possibil it ies nclude a right-wing military junta, a lib-

eral democratic systembasedon Western models, and a commu-

nist government.2

Nowhcre in the piecedoesBil l even ment ion the possibi l i tyof an

Islamic epublic,even hough by then Ayatol lahKhomeini was the

clear lyacknowledgedeader f the revolut ion.Bi l l , one of the United

States' ew experfs on lran, was not the clnly one to misread ran's

f-uture.As the wave of lran's revolutioncrested n Novemltsv 1c;78,

high- level neet ing t the StateDepart lrentwas called o irnalyzehe

unfolding crisis. I-Ienry Precht, the departrncnt's ran desk officeq

rccal ls ow-despite al l thc intel l igencc vai lable o him-he got his

an:r lysisrom a handfulof lr : rnian fudents c nret he night before:

Latc n November 978,we cal lec' lr ral l heexperts n I ran,of f i-

cerswho'dscrvedhere, thers, ndwehad hisbigconfab o cl is-

cusswhat o cloabout ranandwhatwasgoing o happenhere.Well , he night before 'd gr:est- lecturedt a class t American

Universitp nd t turnecl ut therewerea lot <lf r : rnian tudcnts

there.And whcrr asl<ed hat they houghtwirsgoing o happcn

in lran, heyal l saicl:s larnic overnnrent.'hcnext clay, t our

confcrcnce,e wentaround he <lont l l sayirrg hatwe hought

rvould .rrrppen,rr . rdeople cresayinghings ike, Thepe il l bc

a I ibcral ()vernrncnt,i th thcNat ionrr l rout ,andKh<lmcini i l l

go o Qonr. 7hen ny r lnrcatne said, ls larnic overnment.

was heonlyone. '

J 'he act hc U.S.government ot lran so wrong cannotbe seen s

anythingbut a massiventel l ige ce ai lure But thc fai lurewas not due

to a lack of informat ion, for thc revolut ion was unfolding in the

streets.and Khomeini was not an invisible actor. Yet the United

Statcs, hich nit ial lyhad supreme onf idencen the shahof lran, was

convinceclhat I ranwasstable nd not suscept ibleo rcvolut ion.Even

as he revolut iongaineclmomentum,and t sectnedncreasingly lear

that the shah could not survive, he United States efused o believe

that Khonrciniancl he clergywould seize ower for themselves,re-

ferr ing o believehat some ort of rel igious-secularybr iddemocracy



[) lv l t- 's Ga,vtl '

would emergen the chaos hat fol lowed he fal l of the shah.Thomas

Ahern, he CllAstat ion hief n lran in r979, arr ivedmonthsafter he

revolut ionand was akenhostagc y the Khomeini-directed ob that

seizeclhc embassy n November4, spcnding444 daysas a capt ive.

According o Ahcrn, he revolut ion houldhavebeenplain o sce, or

anyonewho cared o look out the winclow n tc)78.He recal ls hat

when hc rcturneclo CllA headquartersn r98r, ir f terbeing reed, he

irgency asbentoaningts ai lure o ant ic ipatehe revolut ion. Aftcr I

got back, hcrcwas a seniorpcrson rr hc Near I tastDivis ion amcnt-

ing t lre ntel l igcnceailr - r rcrbout hc fal l of the shah," recal lsAhern.

"Ancl lookedat him anclaskccl irn f he hadn'tbeen ookingat what

rnu,asoingon in the strccts "Thc C. lA,Ahcrn said, rcated he prob-

lcrn of pre-revolut ionaryran in t radit ional spy-versus-spyashion,

t ry ing to cl iscover ccrcts bout he Khomeinimrlvernent nd the sta-

bi l i ty of the slr irh.But,hc says, he CIA fai lcd o draw obvious nier-

cnces rom what was going on in day-to-claylf f : r i rs, nd so i t str - rck

with its scemingly afepredict iotr hat the shahwas gt l i t ' tgo survive.

"We joincd he restof the govcrnrncnt pparat lrsn tel l ing he White

Housewhat it watr ted o heaqwhich is that this was ust a nuisance

and hat the shahwas ust ine,ancl hat with ur-r l imitcdupport ronl

thc UnitedStatcs e would wert l . rerhc storm.Therewasa fai lureat

theworking level o speak ruth to power."+

In the r97os, hat powcr restedwith drrec actions n U'S.policycir-

cles, achof which approachedran in differcntways,and-each in its

own way-didn't sccKhomeini'svictory cttnting.For each,Ayatollah

Khorneiniwas like a Rorschachcst, 1dark figure n whom specialists

on lran and seniorpolicymakers oulcl eewhat theywanted o see.Al l

mademistakes, nd n doing so helpedKhomeini succeed.

Firstwere heKissinger- ledealists, ho guidedU.S.pol icy oward

Irarr n thc f irst half of the decade. or them, Khomeini was near ly

invisible. hey'd spent he r97os bui lding ran into a regional ower,

the policeman f the Gulf , and America's ulwark against he USSR

and Arab nationalism. Their allies ncluded the CIA, from Richard

Helms, the CIA director appointedas ambassadoro han in r973

rvho as a boy had gone o schoolwith the shah n Switzerland n the

r93OS. () :

mit, thc -

veteran \\ :

hattatr l l-,

| . | - - -nlg () l l .r--

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l ran gr. ' ' ' '

and sc.: : '

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morc i i : ' -

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eXPel . l : l :

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ncss.: - . -

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he

hat

5gg, f61

that

th -LrtL

After I

Ahern.

whilt

prob-

sta-

nfer-

from

at

ci r -

in i ts

l l

USSR

rL)73

in the

Hell 's Ayatollah ' Lz 3

r93os, o the veterans f t953, including he Roosevelt rothers: er-

mit, the covert operator extraordinaire, and Archie, another CIA

veteranwho was a seniorofficial at David Rockefeller'sChaseMan-

hattan Bank. Kissinger,Helms, the Roosevelts,Rockefeller, nd the

big oil and defense irms had spent years urning Iran into a virtual

American colony, especiallyunder PresidentRichard Nixon. They

grumbled at the shah'soccasionalefforts to assert ndependence sIran grew stronger, nd they were annoyedat the shah'sextravagance

and seemingmegakrmania. hey br ist ledat the shah's eadinesso

make business ealswith thc Sovict Union f rom t imc to t ime. I lut

more importantwas the bottom line: ran was host ing ensof thou-

sandsof U.S. mil i tary advisers. t was the numbcr-oncmarket for

expensive eaponssystents, nd could be countedas : rn al ly in thc

Cold War everywhere. nd it was a very prof i tableplace o do busi-

ness.ran was anAmericanoutpostat the heartof thc world'soil supply.

Dur ing the Clarter clministrat ion, bigniew Brzezit tski,he nat ional

secur ity dviser,mostcloscly ppror imated hc Nixon-Kissingericw

of Iran.

Second erc heClarter dministrat ioniberals. or hem,Khon'reir t i

was not invisible, ut hc was a vague orce n thc background, eem-

ingly less mportant than ir diversecol lect ionof intel lectuals,cf t -

liberals, eformcrs,and former National Front activists.Thc Clarter

liberals n Wershington cre wary of the shahanc] onccrncd bor.rthe

armsbuildup n lran. Not ashawkishasBrzezinski,heywere roublccl

by the Nixon-Kissingcr i l l in lanesso allow the shaha blank chcck n

building up hismilitary.They wcrealso rnhappy ith thc shah's ecord

onhuman rightsanclwith the author itar ian atureof the regime. n

keeping with C:rrter'soft-spoken desire to promote hurnan rigl-rts

abroad, heyprcssedhc shah o l iberal izchc rcgimc.Some lear ly el t

that wholesale cform, and even he end of the shah's cgimc,wits rut

importantgoal of U.S. oreignpolicy. n that conncct ion, homeini 's

forceswere seen ot asa threat, 'rutasa suitablyanti-communistunittr

partner in a broad Iranian national reform moventent. )uring the

administration, he liberalswerc represented y the StateDepartment,

particularly he Iran deskand he human rights eam.



zL4 . Dtv lr - 's Gnur

Third were the hard-right advocates f cold war supremacyandAmericanmight.Toda6 theywould becalred he "neoconservat ives."

Dur ing the carter adrninistr ir t ion,he r ight was most ly n'pp.sit ion,and it graduallyc 'alescedaround candidateRonald Reagan n the

later97os.cl.sely al l iedwith Israel-which, i ' rurn, was oineclwithIran in an axisagainst he Arabs-the ne,c.r . rservat ivescre' ' t fazcdby Khomeini.Though they supported he shah, hey didn't hcsitate odevelopcl'se, though covcrt, connecti'ns with thc I(h'rnei'i rcginrc

af ter r 1179. ln r98o, Rcagan'seam engagedn sccret alks on irrmsand hostages ith Teheran's yatol lahsn a calculateclf f , r t to urder-minecarter , n what hasc'me t. beknown as he "oct . lrer Surpr ise"scandal.Besidcs rms, Israel als ' pr .v ided ira' with intcl l igencethroughout tswar with Iraq.And, together,sr : rc l nd he

'eoconse-

vat ives, long with Bil l casey, r irugurated he Iran-c.ntra scandal,involvingyct addit lonalarmssales o Khomci' i 's regime, ro'r bothIsrael nd he UnitedStates.

Carter dndthe Shah

The inaug'rar i . r r of Jim' iy carter aspresidenr larmeclhe shaha'dencouraged he Iranian opposit ion, f rom the intel lectr-ralsrr thcNat ionalFror.r to rheayatol lahs f the Is lamic ight . c lar ter 's 'augu-rat ion in r977, for many Iranians, r iggered nemories f an ear l ierper iod n U.S.- I ran elat ions-nrt the cl lA's 95l coup d'6rar,whichrest . red he shah o power,but the ear ly r96os,when the Kcnncdyadministrat io. oyedwith the idea

'funsear inghe shahand rcplac-

ing hirn with a lessaurhoritarian regime.The carrer white F{ouseplacedgreat ernphasis n human rights,ancl many admi'r ist rat ion

of6cials bjectedo theold pol icyof bui ldingup thc shah's ower.Both the monarchy and the mulrahs remernbered he Kennedy

administration,and they saw it as a prececlent.)uri'g the Kennedyyears' John Bowling, the Iran specialistat the State Deparrmenr,wrote a paper analyzi'g lran's opposition forcesand "discussing headvantages f a sTestern olicy shift of supporr or a narionalist,morepopular lybased,Mosaddiqist oup.". tBut the doubtsabout he shah

didn't st :

of{icial ri :

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226 . Dsvr l 's Geur,

The shahhad nothing but disdain or the clergy. n a January 1963

speech, e sputteredwith rageat the Khomeini-ledmullahs:

They werealwaysa stupid and reactionary unchwhosebrarns

have not moved [for] a thousandyears.Who

is opposing theWhite Revolutionl? Black reaction, stupid men who don't

understandt and are ll intentioned. . . It was rheywho formed

a small and ludicrousgathering rom a handful of bearded,

stupidbazaariso makenoises. hey don't want this country o

develop.e

Such alk didn' t endear he shah o the clergy. n r963, Khomeiniwas

arrcstedby SAVAK. Rumors circulated hat he was to be tried and

executed.But it was unprecedentedo impose he deathpenaltyon an

ayatol lah. n r964, Khomeiniwas expelled rom Iran, f i rst o Turkey

and then to l raq, settling n the hol y city of Najaf, where he would

rcmainunt i l r978.

ln t977, recalling he Kennedyyears, he shahand thc clergyboth

anticipated hat the new U.S. r:egimemight begin to put pressure n

the monarchy, reating oom for the clergy o organize. ndeed, t did.

According o the Iranian ambassadorn London, the shah feared

that . | immy Carter might have Kennedy-type retensions. ' '10 he

shah had crackeddown on his cler icalopposit iononceagain n the

early .17os,arrestingmany of Khomeini'sallies, ncluding Ali Akbar

Hashemi-Rafsanjani,he future strongmanof rhe Khomeini regime.

But the electionof Carter,whose commitment to human rights res-

onated n I ran, st ir red he clergy once again. n May 1977, Cyrus

Vance, he U.S. secretaryof state,visited Teheran o see he shah.

After Vance's isit, the word spreadquickly through the extensive

Iranian grapevine hat the shah had just beengiven his orders from\Tashington: iberalizeor be removed, wrote Bill. It soon became

accepted act in Teheran. . . The opposition . . concluded hat they

could now operateunder an American protectiveumbrella that had

been aised y CyrusVance. 11

According to CharlesCogan, a former CIA official who headed

the agency'sNear EastDivision, Vance oresawa peaceful evolution

in Iran leading o a regime hat might even ncludeKhomeini:



963

brains

[the

o don't

tO

was

tried and

on an

ro Turkey

would

clergyboth

n

t did.

the

Al i Akbar

regime.

Cyrus

he shah.

L-xtensive

rom

beCame

they

that had

headed

Hell's yatollah zz7

Vanceand,shallwe say' he StateDepartmentn generalooked

forward towards he possibility f a smooth ransitionwhereby

themonarchywould cede ome ower o the dissidents ho were

consideredo be not iust Khomeinibut moderates roundhtm'

and hereweresome,and this couldbe a successfulransition o

theparliamentaryonstitutional onarchy.l2

Slowly at first, and then accelerating s the rebellion against he

shah gatheredmomentum, U.S. embassyofficers,visiting American

officials, he CIA, and semi-officialenvoys rom \il/ashingtonbegan

making contactswith the opposition. The shahwas very angry n the

late rc)7os ver the fact that opposition figuresand membersof the

clergywere going in and out of the U.S' embassy, aysJuan Cole, a

Universityof Michigan professorand expert on Islam.13 hat view is

confirmed by Charles Naas, a senior political officer at the U.S.

embassy n Teheran,who worked under AmbassadorBill Sullivan.

Sullivan,a tclugh-talking rishman who served n some rough-and-

tumble posts, including l,aos during the cIA's covert war in that

country,arrived n Iran in r 977, replacingHelms.According o Naas,

Sullivan aggressively ought contactswith the anti-shahopposition:

'When Bill Sullivanwent out, I told him that I'd never worked on a

country where I knew less about the politics there, says Naas.

When hegot there,he startedencouraging he political section o go

out and meetmore people,and they talked to young technocrats nd

National Front people, ncluding a few people who had a good fecl

for the rel igiouseaders.ra

The shah,saysNaas, was aware hat we had changed ur m.o.

and had startedencouraging he opp6sit ion. n his memoirs, he

shahput it this way: The Americanswanted me out. . . . I was never

told about the split n the Carter administration norl about the hopes

someu.s. of f ic ialsput in the viabi l i ty of an 'Is lamicRepublic 'as a

hulwarkagainst ommunism.

The key player n bridging he divide between he secularNational

Front and the clergywasMehdi Bazargan, he founder of the Liberation

Movement,a religious,pro-clericalparty.Destined o become he first

prime minister of Iran after the revolution, Bazarganhad a long



2.28 . DEvrr . 's GenrE

history of worki ng with the mullahs, but he also maintaineda long-

running dialogue with U.S. State Department and CIA officers. n

fact, Bazarganhimself was a quasi-mullah. Bazargan," saysan ex-

CIA operationsofficer who served n Iran, "was basicallyan ayatol-

lah, or what they cal led an 'ayatol lah without a turban. ' r6

Inevitably, he U.S.effort to reach out to the opposition not only dis-

rnayed he shah but emboldened he opposition, especially ts reli-

gious conponent. "These signalswere mistaken by Bazargan and

othersr" saysNaas. "After the revolution, Bazargan old me, 'You

have no idea how encouragedwe were by PresidentCarter.'This is

oneof thosesignalshat goeswrong."

From his post at thc United Nations, FereydounHoveyda, Iran's

ambassador,watched as thc C arter administration undermined the

shah. A coal i t ion was emergingbetween he opposit ion iberals,

Bazargan's eli gigus movement, and the Khomeini-led clergy. "The

.\mericartswerc in eonstantcontact with the l iberals n Iran af ter

r977." he says. They told these iberals, special ly azargan nd he

NatiorralFront. that the time had come to comeout with dissentan d

protest.That I know for sure.Someof them told me at the time: the

Americansare telling us, It 's time to protest.' . . I told [Americansl

that it was like playingwith fire. You are bringing n the worst possi-

ble enemyof the West." A top official n the StateDepartment ecalls

a meet ing n 1977dur ingwhich he used hevery samewords. "Jessica

Tuchman and some of the other people on the National Security

Council staff were arguing against supporting the shah, arguing

against supplying him with tear gas to use against he demonstra-

tc)rs,"he says. And I told them: You don't know what you are alk-

ing about. You haveno ideaof the political dynamicsof Iran, because

nobody does.You're playing with fire."'17

U.S. Intel l igence and Iran

Ayatollah Khomeini's revolution unfolde d in slow motion' over sev-

eral years.Only the most obtusecould be surprisedat its outcome.

A string of U.S. intelligence eports on Iran were wildly off the

mark. A \:

even hcr,_ .. .. i l ._..

UeSr c1 t \-

Thc ::

oll - :

atl r : ' - :

n.1 \ i

dcc-'

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:

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a long-

officers. n

SaYSan eX-

yatol-

l l l rban." '16

only dis-

i ts re l i -and

me, 'You

This is

ran's

the

l iberals,

] ran after

and the

i isSCnt and

time: the

possi-

reCal lS

".fcssica

Secur i ty

arguing

Ltare ta lk-

because

OVef SeV-

off the

Hell's Ayatollah ' zz9

mark. A StateDepartment analysis written in May t-972 suggests ha t

even then some diplomats saw Khomeini as embodying "liberal val-

ues," albeit with diminishing appeal :

The Shahof I ran mainta ins r postureof publ ic p iety and champi-

ons Is lamic cal lses even though lranians . . are not great ly

attractedby pan- ls lamic ent iments. he I ranian c lergyno lc lnger

have major polit ical influence. . . They have been, for the past

decade, ighting a rear-guardand losing action against he grow-

ing t ide of : r secularstafe. . . . Ayato l lah Khornein i , arrestedand

exiled to lracl n tL)6q rsa resultof his anti-g()vernment ctivit ies,

i rspi reso lead rani i rnMusl ims, br-r t isc lose oopcrat ionwi th the

Governmentof I r : rc1n ant i -Shahpropagandaand :rct ivi tv harve

ruled out any chance<lf rec<lnci l iat ion i th rhe prescntshah and

reduced is appeal o many Iri lniat tMtrs l i rnswho might otherwlsc

shi r re omeof his basical ly iberalvalues. rs

CharlesNaas, who served irs the State l)epartment's dircctgr of Irar-t

af fairs f rom r L)74 o r97t l , and thcn servccl rs eputy chief t l f n ' r iss ior l

i r - r eherandur ing the rev<t lut ion, ays hat throughout the pe iocl ead-

ing Lrp <' t 97c;, LI .S.governmcnt analysisof l ran was poor, espccia l ly

when i t came to so-cal leclNat ional lntcl l igerrceEst imates NlF.s),pre-

parcd by thc CllAs Nat ional Intel l igence Counci l . " In clo i t - tg IF.s at

the tin"re, l-re cr-reral iew was that thc rcligious right clidn't representa

threat to the regime," Naas st rys. Therc was pract ica l ly no report ing

on thc Is lamic groups in the count ry, so we were caught re lat ivc ly f lat-

footed." In the August r977 National Intel l igence lst imate on I ran,

" l ran in rhe r98os," thc Cl lA concluded that " thc shah wil l be an

elcr ivepart ic ip i rnt in I r i ln ian l i fe wel l into thc r98os" and that "therc

wil l be no radical change in I ranian pol i t ica l behavror in the nci l r

future." A year later, n August 1c178, second( i IA report concl r" rded

that l ran seemcd o be headed or a smooth transit ion of power i f and

when the shah left the sccne.The CIA went on to say: "lran is not in rr

revol l r t ionary or even a 'pre-revolut ionary ' si tuat ion."t ' ) By t . . . .78,

President Carter, who rvas watching lran disintegrate on televisiorr,

cornplained in writ ing to the national sec urity bureaucracy, saying that





was

n t977,

The

d t .

-' lJut l f

' i r tual ly

an desk

frorn

as

inr

wasn't

f any of

under-

have

ab<lut

t rusted

sys-

st r<tnSly

ergy ancl

n

then i t

i t wi rs

There

and

off icials

was

Hell's Ayatctllah ' zJ 1

focusedprimarily on Cold War objectives,keeping rack of Soviet

bloc personneln I ran and overseeinghe U.S.survei l lance pparatus

aimedat the USSR n northern ran.

A seniorCIA officialwho served n Iran said hat becausehe shah

was an al ly who didn't want U.S.spiesmeddlingwith the clergS he

rel igious pposit ionwas of f - l imits.2lPrecht ndicates hat U.S.con-

tactswith theclergywere beingcarefully r:acked y Iran's ntelligence

service. At one point , the embassy ol i t icalof f icerhad arranged o

go talk to a mullah, saysPrecht. And the ambassador ot a cal l

frurm he mil-rister f the coLlrt,saying, Your political officer has an

appointmcntwith so-r lnd-so. 'We don't think that 'sa good idea. ' 24

Bcginning n thc rnid- t97os,howevcr, ur nbl ings erepickcd up,

remotelyat f irst , by the Li.S. r t tel l igenceorr l t tunity.Accorcl ing o

sevcralU.S.of f ic ials, he f irst to senst :roLlblewcrc thc Br it ish,who

wercable o draw on t lreircctr t t r r ics- longresencett the c<turr t ry,nd

the Israel is,whosc secrct crvice, he Mossad,was pluggcd nto the

bazaar. The bestsoLrrcesl-racl erc he lr i t ish, saysPrecht. Thcy

werc rnuchmorc informed, t t l lch nore nsight ful.And their report-

ir rg, heir assessmcntsere not upbe:rt . srael, oo, senscdhat the

shirhwas f inished ong bcforc he Unitcd Statcs id. Around r.)76.

saysPrccht,while hc wirscscort ing U.S.senator n a tour of I ran,

thcy beganwith a br ief ir tg rotn AtrLrassador clns, who told the

scni l t ( ) rhat lran w. ls sccure. Well , wc wcnf to see Jr i LLrbr irni,he

nran n chirrge f represent ingsrael t t ratr ,anclhe said hat theshah

was facinga ser ious roblctn rom his rel igious pp<tsit ion.hat was

the irst t imc I 'd hcarcl hat . No one n the entbassy as saying hat.

Two ycars ater, tccorcl ingt l Precht, hc wilrnings rom Israelwerc

nroreLrrgcnt.ln rc|78,an sracl i orcignservicc f{ icer ame o secus

at thc Department, nd he said: 'Wcarealreaclyn thc post-shah ra' '

He tolc l us, we shoLr lc ' lreparcoursclvcs. 25 t the timc, most U.S.

government f l ic ialsbel icvec' lhat the shahwould weather hc storm'

Start ing n the nicl- r97os, t began tt dawn on policy makersand

U.S. ntel l igencc f f ic ials hat the shahwould f ir l l . You could ake a

calendarof r977 arrd r978, sltysHarold Saunclers, ho was then

the assistant ecretary f state or Near L,ast nd SouthAsian af fairs,







; '34 . Dr,vrr 's Gene

My efforts o penetrateurther nto themysteries f Shiismwere

constantly rustrated. . . Neither our political officersnor our

intelligence fficerswereable o satisfymy interestn obtaining

further nsightsnto theworkingsof the Shiamind.la

Ricbard Cottam and the " Americans"

One formerU.S.officialwho purported o understandhe "Shia mind"

wasRichardCottam. n theearlyand mid-r95os,Cottamservedn Iran

as part of the Cllfs covert operations eam. "He was a caseofficer of

mine," says.fohn\)7aller,

the station chief in Iran in the late r94os and

early r95os.35Cottam becamea Universityof Pittsburghprofessor n

r958, but didn't leave ither heCIA or skullduggeryar behind.During

the r96osand r97os,Cottammaintained lose ies o Iraniandissidents,

from the National Front to leading eligious igures.He was especially

close o two men who woul d serve,n t978, asKhomeini's losest ides

during his exile in Paris,while the revolution n Iran was unfolding:

Ibrahim Yazdiand SadeghGhotbzadeh-nicknamed"the Americans."

Both rnenspent many years iving in or visiting the United States,and

both worked with the Muslim Brotherhood-linked Muslim Students

Ass<riation,which Yazdihelped o found n t963. Cottamhad irst met

Yazdi n Iran in the r95os,while working as a CIA officer, nd the two

men became lose riends.During the r96os, Yazdi raveledback and

forth between lran, Paris, and the United States, working with

Ghotbzadehand many other religious-mindedranian activistswho sup-

ported Ayatollah Khomeini. ln 1967, Yazdi settled n Houston, Texas,

taking up a research nd teachingpostat Baylor Medical College.

Early n 1978, Cottam'snamebegan o show up in secret r confi-

dential StateDepartmentand CIA dispatchesrom Iran. In May, John

Stempel rom the U.S. embassy n Iran met with a leaderof the pro-

Khomeini movement,Mohammad Tavakoli, who "asked if Stempel

knew Professor Richard Cottam." According to a dispatch from

Stempel, avakoli asked if Stempel ad someway of proving that he

was a StateDepartmentofficerand whetherhe would mind his name

being checkedwith ProfessorCottam."36A fe w weeks ater,Stempel

met Tavakoli with Bazargan, he leader of what was now called the

Nat ional l , :

to Cottirnl-

rate chanr l

"He not. 'J

Richard ( '

ued o dtt '

for th visr l .

Ghotbzac'

tcl Hcnrr i

Richard

tact for t:'-

to conhr: :

i lbttut t, ' .

embat." : -

"T(r thc :- .

i t i f Dcr.:

But : ' '

betu'cc:',:

off iglri " 'r

that ( { : : '

c i rc le , : : :

"sait ' l : :- '

ought : :

idert L, -:

DEC.ILi : :

t i t t . ta:. : : - :

lv t t l ' t : : ' : -

did , , : : : -

Shlh: ' .l ' . ] l - l>.

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h.rr ' .

. , ' , . ' t- - -



Hell's Ayatollah ' zJ 5

National Liberation Movement, and Tavakoli-obviously referring

to Cottam-curiously asked f the Carter administrationhas a sepa-

rate channel into the embassyoutside StateDepartment channels.

He noted that the Movement had supplied much information to

Richard Cottam when he was a StateDepartmentofficer and contin-

ued o do so, wrote Stempel.3Tottam continued o make back-and-

forthvisits o Teheranand Paris,where he met Khomeini, Yazdi,an d

Ghotbzadeh.n June 1978, Char lesNaas of the U.S.embassywrote

to Henry Precht, he Iran desk officer: '$ile ind it fascinating ha t

Richard Cottam, as several f us had thought, is sti l l a principal con-

tact for the [Liberation Movement] in the U.S.,and they were willing

to confirm this. 18By December, hen the revolutionwas clear ly

about to succeed, confidentialStateDepartment dispatch rom the

embassy oted rumors that Cottam had secretly raveled o Teheran.

To the bestof our knowledge,Cottam is not here.Would appreciare

it if Departmentcould discreetly onfirm his presencen Pittsburgh.

But by then Cottam was seeking o establishovert connections

betweenYazdi,Ghotbzadeh, nd others n the Khomei ni c irc lewi th

official Washington,outsidc StateDepartment channels.Precht says

that Cottam rcpeatedly ried to open a dialogucbetweenKhomeini's

circ le and the U.S. iovernment. n late 1978, saysPrecht,Cottam

said that Ibrahim Yazdi was coming to Washington, nd that we

ought o meethim. And hecal ledGary Sickat the NSCIwith the sanc

idea. But Cottam was persona non grata at the State )epartment,

because e had al l thosecontactswi th Iranian dissidents.. . Some-

times, he people n the human rights office,under Steve lohen, dealt

with them. Eventual lyPrechtand other StateDepartmentoff ic ials

did open a dialoguewith the revolutionar ies,ncluding Yazdi ancl

Shahr iarRouhani, Yazdi 'sson- in- law.The meetingscontinued n

Paris,and in TeheranCottam introducedU.S. embassy ff ic ials o

Ayatollah Beheshti,who was Khomeini's official representative n

Iran in the months before he revolution.The Iraniansassured he

U.S. officials hat Khomeini was not to be feared,and that he did no t

havepoli t icalambit ions or himself.re

A few months later,Khomeini had seizedpower,and he began o

construct the institutions that would guarantee hat power would

of

nd

ln

'b

s.

nd





the

r'rt r i<tus

fevolu-

the

Hell's Ayatollah ' L37

enough o know what suspicionexistedabout the Russians. thought

that we could handle he possibility hat the SovietUnion might try to

increase ts influence,because f the strengthof Islam. . . If vou're

looking for common interests, ur sharedconcernabout Sovietpene-

tration of that part of the world was one.

But Cut ler never reached ran. A congressionalesolut ioncon-

demning Khomeini itt rL)79 nfuriated the ayatollah, and, accordingto Cutler,Yazdi later told hin-r hat Kho meini wanted to break r:ela-

tions with the United States ntirely. nsteadYazdipersuaded home-

ini to take just ir half step and to refuse he arnbassador. ut lcr 's

appointmentwaswithdrawn.4rBut otherU.S.of f ic ials,most of them

fated o be akencapt ivc n November, regan rr iv ing.Some, ut not

al l , had served n Iran bcforebut vir tual ly none haclany expcr icncc

with or knowledgeof Islar-nisrrr.

Bruce l,aingcn, who headed l rcernbassy n thc abscuceof :rn

anrbassador,acl wo br icf st ir r tsn I ran be orebut snrysrankly, I am

no cxperton thc subjcctof Is lam. Hc was pluckecl ronr an assl l l l t -ment hat would have akcnhirn o. fapanauclhust lcclo lran, bcc:ruse

the StateDcpartmcntwas cast ing rrounclor avi l i l i rblc, l isprcnsable,

t ransfcrable SOs forcigr t crvicc f f icersl. ) ic lhe get a l( ) tof plcp-

arat ion o clealwith ls lanr tncl (honreini 'sdcology? No, hc sirys.

Alrnostnonc. 4l ' l -horrrashcrn, he uew ( l lA strr t ion hief , al ls r is

appointment burertucrrr t ic: tccic lcnt , r rds'ayshat he receivcclcl

help from the U.S.govemmcnt hat enablcdhir n o undcrstanclhe

clynamic f I ( l- ronrcir t i 'sslamicnt()vcrncl. l t .Yru crtn ' luotc c assiry-

ing that therewas no instruct ion f an rrcaclcmicort on the poli t ics,

culture,andeconomics f lrat t , he says. l t was str ict ly a t r : rc le-

school ypc of thing,prepar ir - rgne o take overr cr t lr in r . rnct iorrsrncl

certain ontacts. 4rf hn l . i rnbcrt , utothcr etcr i l l t J.S. iplornatwho

spoke luerr tF' i l rs i ,espondcclo a voluntccrcirble, aying omething

l ike, ' \Wcneedpcople o go to lrr rn o help rebLr i l t l , r salvagc orre-

thingout of these vents. ' arveas wils, and rany of rnycol leagues

felt that now we coulcl inal ly establ ish healthy elat ionshipwith

Iran. But did Limbert , .aingen, r tc lheir fel low off icers ndcrstand

lslam, or the nature of Khomeini 's el igior . rs-r ightol lowing? We

didn't know it , says Limbert . We didn't understand t. aa By

nor-

q<lt

Waltcr

g() ()Ut

1

ith the

\4y

\\ 'h() lC

Vrtncc

r i ic ln ' t

te rrl

(;reat

n

sitys







L4o . I) lvr r . 's ( inr ,rn

wils a ncw experiencc or rne,suddenlybeing nvcllved n the intel-

l igence idcof d ip lornacy.as

While the Unitccl Statesprsseclon intel l igence o d-remr. r l lahs,nclud-

irrg Behcsht i , i t graclurr l lybccanc c lc: r r that the' Bazargi rns,Yazdis,

and Ghotbzi rdehs hacl v i r tual ly no powcr, and thirt the Shi i tc c lergy

corr t ro l lcc l verything. That was cspecial ly rue in e()nncct ionwith the

rni l i tary. T l rerc was no coorcl i r rat ir )n ctwccn l lazargi rnand the rni l i -

tary. I l<now this for i l i r lct , s i rys r forrncr C,tA off icial . The nri l i tary

was uncler the i roncl r rc l control of thc nrul lahs. Ancl the rnr-r l lahs

div ided l ran into scventcenvi l l r rgcs, rnd assigrred coplc to run each

one, th rough thc komitch s. 4' )

F iven so, a hrrndf r r lof LI .S. pol icy nral<ersbegan to scc lran's

Islarnist oricntat ion as threatcninq to thc LISSI{ .One oi thc rrrostsur-

pr is ing to reach l - rat onclusion wrrs l rzezinski , t l rc hrrc l - l ine nat ional

sccur i ty aclv iscrwho'c l bccn an advocrr te or using a rni l i tary colrp ir. r

I ran to stop Kholnein i's revolut ion. Ci racl r - ra l ly ,rzezinskichangcd his

mincl , cuvisioning whet hc cal lecl ln Arc of cr is is st retching f rom

northci rst Af r ic i r to cent lal Asra. l t was a high-stakeszonc of conf l ict

bctwecn thc two sLrpcrpowers,and i t subsumed a region cnt irely

inrbr . rccl i th the Islamic resurgencc.Henry Precht , who l - rad een one

of the U.S. off icials most opposecl o thc shah and who favorcd t ry ing

to cstabl ishgoocl rc lat ions wi th the Is lamic Republ ic, recal ls he s i t r - ra-

t ion in thc micld le -r f1c17c. . :

After the revolution, we sti l l considered ran to be territrly impor-

tant to U.S. nterests. t one point Hal Saunders assistant ecrc-

tary of state or Near Eirstaffairsl went to the White House for a

meeting, :rnd when he came back he told n.re, You'l l be very

pleased. 7e're going to t ry to devclop new relat ionswi th Iran.

There was this iclea hat the Islamic f<-rrcesould be used against

the Soviet Ur.rion. Ihe theory was, there was an arc of crisis, an d

so an arc of Islamcould be mobi l ized o contain he Soviets. t was

l Brzezinski t . ,neept.o

Brzezinski, n his memoirs, says hat he began to press or an all-

encompassing .S. securitypolicy along the arc of crisiseven before

the lr.l:

U.S. r :

Musl i : :

Sotl l , : . :

lncli.r:-

' l l l 'C ( l

fCt l : . r i i

I i : .

L.ttt I-- , : :

t l l t( ) : '

tl l t . : ' :

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. \ _ - :

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L4z . I) r . :v t t- 's GauP

alongside he official one. Vladimir Kuzichkin, the KGB stationchief

in Teheranwho defected o the West a few years ater, had direct

information on who organized he terrorist operation. " 7e knew

from our sourceswho it was who sanctioned nd then carriedout the

seizureof the etnbassy,"wrote Kuzichkin. "The seizurewas sanc-

t ioned at the very summit of the Iranian eadership, nd was carr ied

out by a t rained eam that consisted xclusively f membersof the

(.orpsof Revolut i( )nery uards." '

The Carteradministrat ion ad not the sl ightest lucabout how to

deal with Khomeini af ter the cmbassy akeover.Coundessbooks,

memoirs,and scholar lypapershavebeenwrit ten about thc hostage

crisis.Br.rt othing sumsup the futility of Carter'scfforts better han a

passagerom thementoirof Hamilton. fordan, hc president 'shiefof

staff,who had a lead responsibility or resolving he standoff.Jordan

dcscribes eeingCarter at his desk,writing:

"Seeme ater f you don'tmind-l'rn writinga etter o Khon-reini."

I wasamused t the deaof theSouthern aptistwriting o the

Moslem anat ic.What wil l he say o theman? thought.Maybehc' l ls ign he etter The CreatSatan." . .

"lf Khomeini s thereligiouseader epurports o be," Carter

said, l don'tsee ow hecancclndonehehcllding f our pe ple. 54

It was the beginningof the end of the Carter administration, oo .

The seizureof the U.S. embassy reateda sustained risis hat Presi-

dentCartercould not extricatehimself lsm-no1 by negotiations, ot

by threats, ot by a bungledmilitary rescuemission.Although Teheran

engaged everal imes, often using dubious middlemen, n talks with

Washington, t was clear that Khomeini had an internal political

agenda hat precluded he release f the hostages ntil he was ready.

" ln January 98o, saysHarold Saunders, a prominent slamicstates-

man said: You won't get the hostages ack until Khomeini puts in

placeall the elements f his Islamic epublic."'

That proved o be he case.

The revolution in Iran changed everything.For Washington, t

eliminated reliableally, istening ost,and baseof operations. or the

other big player n the Cold War, the revolution in Iran was perhaps

even mor-

States, h-

terms th::

that tu' t ' :

in partL; :

I ran 's st . ' .

bi l i tv or : :

of f . F t , r :

worr\ ' -l

i t had ., :





10

JIHAD l: THE ARC OF ISLAM

TsE nEVo LUTIo N I N Irancol lapsedhemore mpor tanfof the wo

pillars holding up the Americanedifice n the PersianGulf-thc other

being SaudiArabia-and sent Pentagonplannersand Central ntell i-

gence Agency an alystsscramblir-rgo calculate ts impact on other

U.S.all ies,on the region,and on the overall Americanpresencen the

Middle East.From SaudiArabia to Morocco, Americanexperts ranti-

cally scannedhe horizon to determine f, or when, the Khomeini phe-

nomenonmight replicate tself n other Middle Eastmonarchies.

But alongwith the threat rom Khomeinism, omeU.S.policy mak-

ersalsosawopp()r tunity.

The emergence f hard-core slamic fundamentalismas a govern-

ing force n Iran worried all of lran's neighbors-including its biggest,

the SovietUnion. The Khomeini regimewas a volatile,unpredictable

new factor in the region, and someanalystsbelieved hat the Islamic

resurgence ed by the Iranian ayatollah could inspire sympathies

inside he SovietUnion's Muslim republics.That ideagavenew impe-

tus to long-held deasabout using he Islamic ight to undermine he

SovietUnion in i ts own empire, deep n Central Asia. At the same

time, planswere under way to useMuslim Brotherhood-linkedorga-

nizations n neighboringAfghanistan o undermine he Sovietstake n

that cott l: : :

of inflr.rcr

inspi re l Z

adviser. . i :

Is lam-rr t -

war i r t . \ : :

l l - tcL

e al hu: : :

wi th Lrt : :

Unt i l . \ - r

tht r t P, . :

Afgh. rr - :

i-lccltttt. -

pt t l rcr :

Sltu,-lr : .:

Al thr , . . '

brr t . t . t - : -

Is l r r r l - . : ' :

Cfr l i ' . :- :.

thrL,. .--

l ' . - -

( ) f i : -- : -'

$ i : : - . -, ,-





L46 . Drvrr . 's ( ia,v tt

threatened o capturc Egypt and Alger ia. The foundat ion for Al

Qaedaancl ts error istundergrouncl as aid n these cars.

Someof this, perhapsmost of i t , was ignoredby or invisible tr

U.S. ntel l igence nd policy makers,who were starry-cyeclbor r thc

prospect f deal inga body blow to thc SovictUnitx 'r n Afghar-r ist rn.

Not only that , hut thc more radicalarnongLJ.S. f f ic ials irwCjentral

Asia ls the sof t Musl im urrderbel ly of the SovietUnion, and pic-

tured thc disintegrat ion f thc USSRbeginning n its ClentralAsi irn

rcpublics.

Final ly, n the broadcst t rategicenrs, thc Afghan ihirc l ncrgizcd

what unt i l the rgt loshad beerrr erclya rtc()c()nscrvxt ivcipc clrcaln:

the mil i taryoccr-r1-r i t t ionf the PcrsianGulf ancl rsoi l f ic lds. hcre s r

direct inc bctwccn he war in Afghirnistr t t trncl hc currcntU.S.nr i l i -

t i r ry presence eep nto Kirzakhstr-rn,Jzbekistr tn,rnd othcr pr lr tsoi

oi l- r ich lcntral Asia. t wirs rconf l ict hr t brougl-r thc Unitcd Statcs

into ir part of thc worlc l which, unt i l thc Igf ios, rryot- t ts ic lchc U.S.

sphcre f inf luerrcc. hat began n the r9[3os, hen Afghan ihacl ists

took U.S.,Cihinese,srarcl i ,nclothcr weaportso f ight he tcclArrny.

It cont inucd nto the r99os,whcn thc LJnitccl tates ooperatccl i th

the r isc of thc mil i tar-r t al iben movernent. t lastedon into the

prcsent,when yct anothcr Afghan war has f irc i l i tateda l l l r lssive

U.S.entanglernentr-r he newly indeperrclent usl irn (- lerr t ral s ialr l

republics. he UnitedStrr tes asscarnlcsslyinked ts Middle L-astrncl

Persian iulf cnpire, conrplctewith :rn archipelago f rni l i tarybases

in the Gulf , thc IndianC)ceirn,ndpointswest,with a new necklace f

bases ncircl ingrac1, fghanistan, nclClcntral s ia. f the conf l icts f

the twenty- f irst enturypit the Unitcd Statcs gainst i therRussia r

China, or both, n a struggle or control of the oi l and gas resources

of southwest sia, he UnitedSt:r tes lrcadyhas he upperhirnd.For,

bcgirrning i th the Afghan ihad, he U.S.mil i t : r rybegan o assemble

a proto-occupation orce or the Clulfand surrounding eal estate.

None of this existed t the t ime of the Iranianrevolut ionand the

startof the ihad n Afghanistan. ut the war in that countryal lowed

the United States, or the Iirst time, to begin to proiect U.S. military

forcesdirectly nto southwestAsia and the Gulf. It led to new military

relat ionships i th Egypt,SaudiArabia,and Pakistan,he creat ionof

theRaPidDc:

e tabl ishmcn.l

lust weeKS -r-

when, in Jr l l l ' -

be cal led t l ' ' '

claims ttl ri-.

Delano Ro. ' ' t '

posit icln [. ' . ' ' '

forcc to q.l :'

assaul to l l : : ;

SovietUr l r '

I r t r 9[3o. l ' .'

repel ,rt r r : : '

seal i f t th. -

Soviet L r-' -

rclucrrt t . t t : : -

c lcfet ts i r - '

Irlrrr.nist . ' :

there erl ' : t :

intcrt l r i . : ' '

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: l () l l (r l :'

J-111.1 -

l ' . iZ- l t: ' j-



for Al

, - rnvisible o

cl about he

\fehanistan.

. srru' lentral

: .n. anc- l ic-clt t r : t lAsian

plPe cl rc i rm:

.1 . fhgrs 1* ,

LJ.S. ni l i -

: cr prrr ts of

l . n i re l States

l - rcLJ.S.

r . rnj ihedrsts

l tcc l Arrry.

..rrrrteclwit lt

rn into the

.: . r r rassive

::nt l ' l l l Asian

lc l.-asr ncl

bases

nccklaccof

. conf l icts of

or

TCSOTtTCCS

hrrncl. Frtr,

() asser.nblc

,t cstate.

anCl hC

ll lowed

r l i l i tary

y

arcat i< ln )f

l ihad : The Arcctf slam" . 247

the Rapid DeploymentForceand the U.S.Central Command, and the

establishment f new bases urrounding he region.The process egan

just weeks after the Soviet Union moved troops into Afghanistan,

when, n January 98o, PresidentCarter proclaimedwhat hascome o

be called "the Carter Doctrine," a forceful restatement f earlierU.S.

claims to the Persian Gulf that had been enunciatedby Franklin

DelanoRoosevelt rc+l) and Dwight D. Eisenhowerry57). "Let ourposition be absolutclyclear,"said Carter. An attempt by any outside

force o gaincontrolof the PersianGulf regionwi l l be regarded s an

assault n the vital interests f the United States."Aimed mostly at the

SovietUnion, Carter'sannouncement as, or thc most part, bravado.

In r9[ io, hc Unitecl tates id not havceven oken orces n the Gulf to

repcl rn at tackby the USSR,and i t lacked he abi l i ty to air l i f t and

seali f t he U.S.mil i tary to the Gulf in an emergency. f course, he

SovietUnion had no intent ionof invadingor occupying he Gulf . ts

relucternt ove into Afghanistan n rc)7c) as taken as ar ast-ditch

dcfensive ct ior l againsta careful lycalcr"r latedhreat f rom Afghanlslarnistprovocatcurs ackcdby the United States nd Pakistan. f

thereexistcdany threat o U.S. ntercstsn the ( lulf , i t was ent irely

internal,but even n this arcnaU.S.cirplc i t ieswcrc suspect. l iould

lran or I raq go to war against hc Arab Gulf states r shoulcl n-r i l i -

tary coup n SaudiArabiaunseat he royal arni ly,Anrer ica's bi l i ty o

reacteffcctivelywirs ar from certain.

l-rxrg 'reforc he crisis n Afghanistan, here had been alk in the

UnitedSt.r tes bout a U.S. nvasict t ' tf SaudiArabia and the occupa-

t ion of i ts oi l f ic lds.This began n the mid-r97os,af tcr the Arab oi l

ernbargond ourfold ncreasen the pr iceof oi l imposed y the Orga-

nizat ion of Petrolcum Flxport ingC<;untr ics n r 973-74. Stratcgic

thinkingabouta U.S.mil i tary nove nto the Gulf or iginatedwith Sec-

retaryof StateHcnry Kissinger.n r975, an art ic leheadlined Seizing

Arab Oil" appearedn Harper's.The author,who used he pseudonyrl

Miles gnotus,was denti{iedby the magazine s "a flashington-based

professor nd defense onsultant i th int imate inks o high- level .S.

pol icy makers."Reputedly,he author was Edward Lut twak, a neo-

conservativemilitary analystat theJohnsHopkins Schoolof Advanced

Internat ionalStudies though Luttwak deniesbeing ts author) . At



z4l l . I )nvr l_ 's Clanar

around the samc ime, anotherHopkins professor,Robert \f. Tucker,wrote a similar piece or the AmericanJewishcommittee,scommen-tLlry nagazine, nd other articlesadvocating he seizureof the Saudioi l f ic lds beganpopping up elsewhere. ccording o JamesAkins,the U.S.amb:rssadoro SaudiArabia n the n-r id_r97os,heHarper,sart ic leout l ined how we could solveal l of our econornic nclpol i t i -cal problemsby takrngoverrheArab oil f ie ldslandl br inging n Tex-ans and oklah.mans to operate hem, saysAkins, wh. trok . . te

' f the suddenepidemic f such arr ic les: I kncw that i t had t<rhavebecn he result f a deepbackgrrund br ie6ng.you don,r haveeightpcoplec<;ming p with thc samescrewy deaat the same ime.independet ly. l

Then Akins madewhert eci l l lshis fat ir rnr istake, r rdt eventu-al ly got hir -n iredas u.S. ambassad'r . r saidon terevisi.n hir t any-one who would propose hat is eithera madman,a cr iminal,or anirgent ' f the Soviet jnio' . S'on afterward, e earned hat the back-ground br ief inghad beenconductedby his boss,Hcnry Kissingcr.Akins was f ired ater har ycir r .Kissir - rgerasneverackn.wredgecl is

.le in errc<rurirginghesearticles.But in an intcrvicw with Business\x/eek hat sameyear,he delivereda thinly veiled hreat t, the Saudis.rnusingabour br inging oi l pr icesckrwn through mAssive or it icalwarfareagainst ountr ies ikc SaudiArabia and Iran to make thenrr isk thcir pr l i t ical stabi l i tyerndmaybe heir secur ity f they did norctoperatc. Something

'fthc flavo.f Kissinger'sattitude towarcl

saucl iArabia and the (]ulf sraress alsocaptured n a story old by af, rmer senior clA rf{ ic ial wh. served n rhe persianGulf in thct97os. Determined o make a show of f.rce in orcler o intimidateSaudiArabia'Kissinger ummoned cIA execur ive ho washeading

out to the Middle East .n an unrelatedmission. .'wehave to tcacirsaudi Arabia a less'n, Kissinger old the cIA man. , .pick

one ,tthosesheikhdoms, ny of them, and .verthrow the government here.as a lesson o the saudis. According to the crA official: ,.The

iderrwas o do it in Abu Dhabi or Dubai. But when rny bossgor out to thcGulf, and met with all the cIA stationchiefs rom rhe region,nor oneof them thought it was a good idea.So t was dropped.And Kissingernever brought it up again.',2



Commen-

the Saudi

Akins,

pol i t i -

n Tex-took note

i t had to

have

ime,

eventu-

hat any-

or an

back-

Kissinger.

is

IJusiness

Saudis,

ol i t ictr l

thenr

did not

toward

a

the

cl tcach

one of

The idea

out to the

One

Jihad: The Arcof slam . z4 e

Until Afghanisran'swar, U.S. military planners knew that th eunited statesdidn't have the capability to rapidly dispatch tens orhundredsof thousandsof U.s. forcesro rhe Gulf in the r97os, andAmerica's naval presence here was only a token force, despite hebravado about occupying Arab oil fields. Along with announcingthe carter Doctrine,President arter took steps hat began o give he

United states he ability ro inrervenedirectly nto the persianGulf, ifonly in rudimentary form. carter ordered he creation of the RapidDeployment Force (RDF), an over-the-horizon military unit capa-bleof rushingat leastseveral housandu.S. troops o the Gulf in a cri-s is.Under President onald Reagan, he RDF would be expanded,transforming tself nto the central command, a brand-newu.s. mil-itary structurewith authority for the PersianGulf and the surround-ing region, rom East Africa to central Asia and Afghanistan.k wasthe central command, or centcom, that fought the first persianciulfwar, the 2oor war in Afghanistan,and the zoo3 Iraq war.

But in r979, a massive .S.mil i tary presencen the Middlc lrast,the Gulf, and central Asia was jusr a gleam n the eye f ZbigniewBrzezinski. For the national security adviser, he solution to theseething arc of cr is is was he arc of ls lam.

EysrNc Moscow's IsLAMrc . .UNDERBF_LLy ' ,

The deaof mobil iz ing slamagainst heUSSRhada longhist ' ry dur-ing the cold war. F.r the most part, it was viewed skepticaily bymainstream

.s. strategisrs,special ly ur ing the r9_5os nd r96os.$Torkingagainsr he notion that SovietMuslims might be nducedorcncouraged o revolt against ule by Moscow was the fact that theSoviets seemed o have succeeded n pacifying its central Asianrepublics,colonizing Russiansettlers here, orcibly relocatingMus-lim ethnicpopulations,and suppressing uslim religiousmovemenrs.

In addition, it was a remote region, imiting united Statesaccessothe population. But in the r97os several acrorscombined o provide

strongerarguments o thosewho, for many years,had sought o playthe Islam card againstMoscow. n t97o, a census aken n the Soviet



z5o . Dpvrr- 's Ge,up

Union showed hat the Muslim population of SovietCentralAsia was

growing far more rapidly than the populations of the other Soviet

republics, particularly the Russians.Then revolution in Iran cata-

pulted militant Islam to the forefront of regional politics, in

Afghanistanand in Azerbaijanand other Soviet epublics.And sud-

denly, he Soviet-leaningegime n Kabul seemed ulnerable o a rag-

tag coalition of Islamistforces,and Afghanistan tself emergedas a

potential battleground.

At least hat's how it looked to a small fraternity of U.S. officials

assembled y Brzezinskiand the CIA.'$Tithin the Carter administra-

tion the NationalitiesWorking Group was the organizationalc enter f

rhisstrategic lanning. hc NWG was a rump organization. n infer-

agcncy ask force createdwith the expressapproval of Brzezinski's

NSC and including officials rom the CIA, StateDepartment,Penta-

gon, and other agencies. he chairman of the NWG was Paul Henze,

a Brzezinski ide and a former CIA official,who worked with a close-

knit group of outside players and consultantswho'd long believed

that restive Soviet minorities would be the undoing of the USSR.

Many of them had beenassociated ince he r95os with the creationof Radio Liberty, a CIA-supported broadcasting ystem-parallel to

Raclio Free Europe-that beamedpropaganda nto the Soviet bloc

during the Cold War.

Radio Liberty's o cuson Central Asia got off to a modeststart in

the r95os. According to James Critchlow, a longtime Radio Free

Europe/RadioLiberty (RF'E/RL) xecutive nd author of Nationalism

in Uzbekistan,Radio Liberty began ts first broadcasts nto Central

Asia through the Turkestandesk n Uzbek,Turkmen, Kazakh, Tajik,

and Kyrgyz,along with other broadcastshrough ts Caucasus esk n

Georgian,Azerbaijani,and Chechen.The broadcastswere limited tohalf an hour a day n each anguage, nd they containeda mix of news

and editorials. Commentaries riticizing he Soviet egime, ncluding

especially ts repres sivepolicies toward Islam and other religions,

were a major componentr saysCritchlow. But, he says, n keeping

with the program's modest goals n the r95os, the broadcasts on -

tainedan explicit ban on secessionistgitation,a prohibition that was

resented y someof the staff. 3



Asiawas

Soviet

ran cata-

in

And sud-

to a rag-

as a

officials

enterof

n inter-

enta-

Henze,

a close-

bel ievedthe USSR.

creation

to

bloc

tart in

Free

Central

Tajik,esk n

tc t

of news

including

rel igions,

keeping

con-

that was

Jihad: Tbe Arcc:f slam" . 2s

From time to time, hard-line Cold \Tarriors would call for an inren-

sificationof the U.S. propagandaand even subversionaimed at the

Central Asian republics.For example, n r958, Charles'W'. osrler,a

former u.s. intelligenceofficer, wrore in the Middle EastJournal that

"the sovietsactively ear combined anti-Sovietaction by the Turkish

peoples" n Asia, that NATO-linked Turkey could inspire heseMus-

lims to "political independencerom the Soviets,"and that "the rWestmust interest tsel f more in thesepeoplesand their aspirations."He

called or an expansionof u.s. radio broadcastsn central Asian an -

guages nd an expansionof U.S.government unding for "research n

the CentralAsianand Caucasian eoples, reas, nd anguages."4

In the 196os,Brzezinski imself oined he ranks of thosecall ing

for strongerU.S.support or CentralAsian Muslims. GeneSosin, or-

mer director of program planning or RFE/RI,,noted:

Zbigntew Brzezinskiwas a c onsistent upporterof Radio I.ree

Europe nd RadioLiberty.But hedid not always greewirh someof our pol ic ies.hisbecame videntn ear ly 966,whenour CIAsponsors skedhim to join [ inl a conf idenr ialnalysis f borhradios. . . Professorsrzezinskind MIT'sWill iamlGriffithcrit-icizedRadio Liberty's ationalitypolicy,which they elt wasroopassive. heyargued or adopting moremilitant ine n rhcnon-Russian roadcasts,hichwouldst imula(e nt i-Russianntas()-nism.5

As a scion of a P.lish elite family, Brzezinskiwas a militant a'ti-

communist who saw the Soviet Union as a powerful but fragile

mosaic of seethingethnic and religious minoriries. Ar the NSC, heassembled team of aidesand consultantswho wanted o exacerbate

conflicts nside he SovietUnion in order ro hasten ts fall. According

to Robert Gates,a senior CIA official who later became he CIA,s

director, he StateDepartmentwas cauriousabout getting nv'lved in

supportingdissidentminorities n SovietCentralAsia. "Brzezinski,on

the other hand, was deeply interested n exploiting rhe Soviets'

nationalitiesproblemr" wrote Gates, n his memoirs. "He wanted tr,r

pursuecovert action. 6

The core of the Brzezinski-Henze \WG wereacolyres f Alexandre



z1z . l )Evrr- 's ( le,ra l

Bennigsen, count and ruropean cademic ho was a prol i f icwr iterand the guru of the scho. l that viewed slamas a p.werful threat oSovietauth.r i ty. Bennigsen'samily backgr.und gavehirn a narural

af f ini ty or Brzezinski. e was born n St.petersburg,Russia,he son

of a Russian ounr whr foughr on rhc side rf thc ant i-Bolshcvik

whites in thc civi l war that fol lowed he Russian evr lur ion. n ther95os l3er-rnigsenstabl isheclimsclf f i rsr ar thc Ecole des HaurcsEtr-rdesn sciences ocialcs n Par is,and later at the lJnivcrsityof

chicirg' . His rnanyb.rks and art ic les'n

Islam n ccntral Asia f .s-tereda nrovemcnr f scholars nd publicof f ic ialswho belicveclrr rheviabi l i tyof thc Is lamic ard,and who took up residcnce t the Univer-sity f chicago, he RAND oorporat ion, n think tanks, r 'd i n parrs

of the nat io'al secur itybureaucracy.Tm'ng thosc inf lucncecl yBennigscr-rereBrzezinski, aulHenzc,anclS.Enderswimbrsh, wh<rlaterservecl s a RAND Srvict special ist nd as a Radi. Liberryof f i-

c ial n Munich.

From the late r95os on, Bennigsen roducecl rstcadystreamofb. 'ks, arf ic les,and research apersadvancing he n. t ion that a.

underground rovement f Is lamistswas gainingstrength nside hcussR. In Thc lslamic Thredt to thc souiet,srale, rennigsen aid that

the movement harkcd back to armed rcl igious resistancclthat lbcgan n the lirtecighteenrh enrury . . spearheadcd y mysticalSufihrotherho.ds (tariqa) ighting o cstablish he reignof God rn earrh

and opposed r thc Russian mperialpresence.sespite rcmencj.us

Soviet eff.rts to fracturc and suppress slam, says Bennigscn, rthr ived. Even dur ing the r95os, when Nikita Khrushchev rackcddown on Islam, far from destroying orever he religious eelingsofthe Muslim populat i ,n, t only gavea new impulse o the fundamen-

talist, conservative rend represented y the 'parallel, ' undergroundSufi slam. eBennigsen laimed hat these ecrer ufi brotherhrods edthe resistanceo the soviet authority in broad swarhsof central Asia:

Sincehevictoryof theBolsheviks p to the present ay, he onlvserlolrs, rganized esistance ncollntered y the Sovietsn theMuslim territorieshas come from the Sufr ariqa, what Soviersources al l the paral lel, nonoff ic ial, r , .sectar ian

Islam. Parallel slam is more powerfuland more deeply ooted han



\ \ -nter

to

atural

son

lshevik

In the

of

fos-

parts

by

. rvh<r

off i -

of

an

fhc

that

l rhat l

SLrt i

it

<tf

ed

t

libad I: The "Arc of Islam" L53

official slam.The Sufibrotherhoods re closed, ut not whollysecret,societies.. . Soviet sourcespresent Sufi brotherhoodsas "dangerous,anatical, nti-Soviet, nti-socialist, nti-Russianreactionary orces," but they recognize heir efficiencyanddynamism.lo

According o Bennigsen,he mosr significantof the sufi brotherhoodswas a secret ociety al led he Naqshbancl iya, Freemason-stylera_terniry closely ied to the elite of Turkey, which had long-standingconnect ious n central Asia. The Naqshbandiyawere especial lystrong n chcchnya,Dagcstan, nd partsof centrar Asia, ncrudingsouthernUzbekistan. The Naqshbandiya deptshavea long tradi_t io ' of 'Holy \ f far ' against he Russians,"wrote Bennigsen. is c'n-clusionwas thaf nat i 'nal isrn n central Asia was nextr ic irbly orrndup wrth radicalpol i t ical slam:

Siucc w<rr ld far I I I sorne.rders :rve ecomem()rcand rn'reinfr- rsecli th

'at i" : r l isrn,with thc result hat irny nat i 'nal ist

m()vemert-cven rogressivc-whichs bound o emerge il l besrrongly ' f luencedby the tradit i .nar ist onservat ivecrea.fSuf isnr.harsuch l movemcnt i l l cnrergesbey' 'c l c loubt. l l

I lennigsen,and'thers

in hrs circle, urged rl srrorger U.S. effort toencourage olitical slan-rn thc Soviet epublics o revolt,even hough,as Bcnnigsen rotc, the most l ikely

'r tcomcwould be ..pr 'bably,

aconsevaf ivc slamic ardical ismomparablco thrr tof the present_day' ls lamic Rev' lut i . ' ' in lr : l r r . " l2Bennigsen's

ather cavir l ierat t i tuclet .ward theemergence'f

radical-rs lamistl lovernmentsn centralAsiaprccisely aral leled rzczinski 's el ief hat the unitcclStates ught ofoster he sprcad f Islamisrnn Afghanistanwithout worrying ab'utthe conseclr-renccs.

"In the t97os1Bennigscn nd I taught rseminar.n Soviet at ion-ality affairs," saysJererny Azrael,auth.r of Emergent NationalityI'roblems in the u.t,sR ( rc)77).The university of chicago programproclr"rced cohorr of expcrts on soviet central Asia and Islam,mostly followers of Bennigsen's ontroversial the'ries, ano some,includingPaulGoble,became otedcrA analysts.n

he opic. Azrael



: .54 . Dr.vrr_,s ( i nvE

himself oined the cIA in r97g as a guesranalysr. once r was onboard there, became chartermemberof the SovietNat ional i t iesworking Gr.up. During the Brzezinskiera, efforts were at firstrestr ictedo smallgesturcs,uchas he distr ibut ionof K.rans in cen-tr : r l Asian languages ncl stepped-up ffor ts, n c.ordinat ion withsaudiArabia's ntel l igenceervice,o contactSovietMuslimsvrsrt ingMecc:r or the hajj , accorcl ing. Azrael.* But the revolut irn in Iranst imulatcd he nraginat ion f cveryonenvolved.

I br.ught Bennigseno the cIA t, givea recturc t the timc'f

the

'verthr .w'ftheshah, ecal[s zrael. t w.s an excit ing 'd chalre'g-

i'g m'mcnt. By toppling hc shah,Kh.rnei'i hird rewritten he rulesofwhat Islan-r

'rightaccrmplish, and c.lcr \7ar anarystsn rhe United

Strrtes ercalivewrth the prssibilit ies. hc neoconservatives,n particu-lar ,al.ng with . ther cr lc l war hard- l incrs, irwan

'peni.gfor an ant i-

S'viet ihad,n. t just n Afghanistan, ut rhrrughrut the region.Afterthc S<rvict nvasioir of Afghanistan n Dccember r979, ZalnayKhalilzad-a neoconservative 'alysr, RAND strategist,and futurcU'S. rrnbassirdor. Afghrrnistan-wrote a paper n whrchhe suggested

thc prrblcms thirt Khrmeini's regimehad created or the uSSR. .ThcKhomeirr i egimealso poses isks to the Soviets, , , e wrote. . ,Thechange rf regimc has encouragedsimirar movements n lraq andAfghanistan,rnd nightevenaffe* SovietMuslim centralAsia. , , ra eadded:

Thecost or theSoviet nioncould nclude . . possibleomesr icunresr n rhose egirns

'fthe USSR eferred ' by rhesovietsas

their interralc. l .ny - the Islamic .pulat ior-r' f

S'v ietcentrarAsia,which might rcachroo mil l ion by the yearzooo_wheredespitc f f ic ial a*emptsat assirnirat ion,sramic onsciousress

forns a kind of cclunterculture'cr rnaybesusceptibreo Muslimagitatio'r f the Sclviets,ntinue t. makewar on theirethnicandreligious ounterpartscrosshe border. . . Hostility o thesclvr-etsmay ncre:rseeneral lyn Muslimcounfr iesndgroups. ls

It was, of course, traightout of Bennigsen.Henze, he chairma of Brzezinski's ationalitiesworking Group,

was himselfa longtimeadvocateof the Bennigsen iew.Henze,whose

career l l la

r97os.h.-

aS Ol lC { :

USSRn:

t ion of i '

Henzc '.:

r ing to .,

Russii l l l 'r

Shamil : :

coulcl . . .

I t r' :

c ( )1 : .

( ) \ \ : -

sh, . i -l--l l .1 \ . :- i

t l ' :--

u:: . '

I l l -Lt_ :

Bv t i r . .

IJrzc :-.- '.. ldt t , . . , : .

{ \ '.1\1.l l l

i r . rc lr . r . l

L9\ \ :

I)rr t .1. '1 '

t t l { t- : . . =

i 'cc: ' . -

: ; ) ' -



was on

at first

n Cen-

with

isit ingn Iran

of the

halleng-

ules f

United

plrt iCu-

an ant i -

After

Zalmayfuturc

"Thc

an d

He

l1fld

Sovi-

Group'

WhOSe

Jihad: The Arcof slam" ' 255

careerincludeda stint as CIA station chief in Turkey in the rnid-

rgTos,held adicaland offbeatviews'He earned enown n the r98os

as one of the leading advocates or the discreditednotion that the

ussR and Bulganan ntelligence ere behind he attemptedassassina-

t ion of PopeJohn Paul II by a Turkish fascist ' r { 'As ar ly as t958'

Henzewrotean artlcleon the SovietUnion's "shamil problem"' refer-

ring to a nineteenth-centuryMuslim resistanceeaderwho opposed

Russianexpanslon n Asia' Henze' ike Bennigsen) as inspiredby

Shamil and believed hat eventually he collapseof the SovictLlnion

couldbegin n CentralAsia' n his r95t l ar t ic le 'Henzewrote:

It wi l l be extremelv if f icult or SovictCommunists 'owevcr 't l

cont inueheiract ive ro-Arab ant i-colonial" ol icy or several

yearswithou'" 'n"tni

thc r isk of provoking nrcstamong heir

own Caltcastanncl l t ' l t t " l Asianpeoples' he Shenr i l c lrate

showshatar.r t . l r , p. , rua, ar ional isr ic: r l lyncl ir redntel l igentsir

l-ras gilindevelopecll'n()n hesc e<lples'' ' The Soviet Jniotls

nt t t mmune rornAlger ian ituat iotrsf i ts <lwt l ' hough heclay

when ssues hicharest i l l n an rrcipienttagcmigl. r teach uch

ProPort i( )nssst l l ferof l -

By the latc r 97os, i t no lt lnger scemcdso far of f to Bentt igscrr '

Brzezinski,andHenze.Theyjt l inedft lrceswithRichardPipes, l l t lothcr

advocateof the lslarnic card' who hacl becrrwritirrg about Central

Asiar-r usl ims and the threat o the SovictUnion since he l9' 'os'

including",* . , -oo, .analysispublishecl ir - r theMiddleLast. |ournalt r t

r 955 cnt i t led: "Muslims of Sovict Central Asia: Trcrrds and

Prospects."n it , Ptpes rote "Thc ent ircareaof Clentral s ia' nclud-

ing ChinescTu'kt ' t 'n with which RussianCentralAsia has always

beenclosely.n'-t '-tttttd'may well tend to movc with time in the direc-

t ionof independentstatehclod. [ t isnt l t incclnceivablethat thisvast tcr-

ritory may someday bc enconrpa::t-tl" a new Turkic' Muslim state

or iented oward he Middlc East ' lsPipes'who oncewrote hat Soviet

Muslimswould. . . "plud. into genocidalury" againstMoscow,le ls<l

wrote extensively n the nationalities roblem in SovietCentralAsia'

and when pte' identReagan eplacecl artcr n rgt lr ' Pipes ssLlmed

chairmanship f the NationalitiesWorking Group'



LS6'DPvtr, 's( iAME

Many other scholarsand expertson the SovietUnion disagreed

with Bennigsen nd his followers' and in any caseno suchanti-Soviet

Muslim revolt.- ';;; ' * dical political Islamwas not a factor n the

clissolutionof the uisn uftt' pt' 'troika' the collapscof the Berlin

Wall, and the establishment f Ct'-tt ' I Asia's reRublicl' The (lentral

Asian regimes hat emerged n the I99os were not t inged with

Islarnism. nstead hey found themselves attling militant Islamists

from Al Qaeda tt' tht Islamic Liberation Party' and a casccan be

made hat, i f anything,America's upport orpol i t ical slanr n Asia

hasaided hegrowth nfo' i ' t

ls lamistundergroundn Chechnya'

Uzbekistan, nd othercountr iesn the region'

Tns CIA rN ApcHANIs'rAN BEFoRE 197' )

that Is lam might undermine he USSR n Asia

ln r97.1, he theorY

becamepracticc'The UniteclStates'Pakistan'and SaudiArabia offi-

cially launchecl he t'lu*l't jihad that thrcatened he governrnerrtn

Kabul, provoked he SovietUnion intoinvadingAfghanistan'ancl

spawned he ten-yearcivil war' The Afghan war' for Brz-ezinski'ied

two concepts ogether'The first was his idea of an arc of Islam in

southwest Asia, as'

bu it ' argainsthe USSR' As Fawaz Gerges'

author rtfAmericaand Political Islam'wrote:

Containing SovretCornmunisn.r' aid Brzez'irrski' ictare ar r

avoidance r nnyrni,a-thut r-,ight plit Israrnic pposition o th e

Soviets,rpttiutty n fj'S'-ttnni- rr-rilitary<l.rfrontation:It now

seemedo me'io -tt-'O ttant

to forge an anti-soviet slamic

coali t ion. s n the r95osandr96os' heUnitedStatesoped o

use slamugui -'uaiii,tul 'forcesând

theirathtistlllt '

tn '

SovietUnion' Carteradministration fficials ow recognizedhe

new possibilit iesor cooperationw.ith Islamic resurgence nd

hoped o harnessts icleoiogical nd material esources garnst

Communtstexpansionisrn' ppermost n U'S' officials' nrinds

were the lessons f the r95os and r96os' when Islam was

employed s an icleological eapon n the fight against ecular'

pan-Arab ationalism'20



in the

Ber l in

cnt r?I

wi th

n Asia

ff i-in

i lnCl

t ied

n

Sr

Jibad : The Arc Of Islam' /57

The Bennigsen-Brzezinskiotion of mobilizing Islam as a weapon

againstMoscow's Asian underbelly was the secondsalientof this

strategicPlan.yet the Afghan Islamistsdidn't emerge uily developed,out of

nowhere, when they began receiving official cIA support. l,ong

before rg7g, the Islamic right had emergedas a potent force inside

Afghanistan, here, rom the rg5os on, t did batt lewith progressive,left, and secular orces n Kabul. America's onnection o the Muslim

Ilrotherhood-linked Islamic undamentalistsn Afghanistanbeganat

leastas ear ly as rhe rg,5os, nd u.S. support or the Islamic ight 's

pol i t icalmovement n thecountrybegan s ar backas rc)73'

Although the CIA did not havea greatpresence1 Afghanistan n

the earlydecades f the Cold \i7ar,it did dispatcha team herc hrgugh

thc officcsof the Asia Foundation,a CllA fr6nt 11rganiz:rtign.)uring

the r95osand r 96os, heAsiaFoundati<tr trovic led ignif icant upport

to Kabul Llniversityand had severalmodestproiccts hirt dcalt with

Afghanistan's rganizcdMuslirn community. According o Johrr an dRgseBirnnigan,ongtimeAsiaFoundationofficialswho wgrkccl or the

foundatiorrr- r gth Pakistan nd Afghanistann the t96os, he6rg.rni-

zatign helpecl he Islamic Research nstitute n l.ahore, Pakistrrn, o

pu$ish the Urdu Encyclopedia f Islam. 'Wewere also nvolveclwith

the maj6r ur.rivcrsities,hrough the departments f Islamic he<llog5

.johrr hrrniBr ln rys. n hoth Prkist lr rend Afgherr isten.he Brlnr l i l ]r l r ls

wgrked with studentgroups to combat pro-Sovietstudentorg.tniza-

t igns. Thc studcnts cre argetnumberone, he says.n Afgh.rnisten,

according o RoseBannigan, he Asia founclation stablishedelirtions

with the Muiaddidi family, hat country's eading slarnicclericallm -

ily, and with thc minisrryof iustice,which was headed or ir timc by a

MLrjaddidi. he oundation lsosentShafiq amawi, hedeputyminis-

ter 9f justicc, o Henry Kissinger's eminaron internationalaffairs at

Harvard,shesays. A lo t of people n theministry9f justicewerenru[-

lahs, ncluding he egal dvisero theAsiaFoundation'

It is not clear o what extent he CIA maintained egularcontacts

with Afghan slamistsn the I96os,sinceAfghanistanwasnot a priority

for U.s. policy until well into the followingdecade. when I was there

in tg57, Afghanistanwas alreadya Sovietclientstate, saysa former

i l ll

t( )

th c

t l . re



258 . I) rvr l 's GauE

senior CIA official. They wanted me to find out everything could

about the Sovietpresencen Afghanistan,because resident ,isenhower

wanted a study of the importanceof the country to U.S. strategyand its

relevance n Washington. But the study proved only that Afghanistan

was not vcry important. We concluded that there wasn't any rele-

vance, he says. Even f the Sovietsook it over, herewas no great isk

to the United States. 2lStill, n the r96os, the Asia Foundationmain-

tained a presence n Afghanistan,with two or three permanent U.S.

staffers nd perhaps dozenor moreU.S.advisers nd consultants.22

During the r96os, the Islamistmovement n Afghanistan under-

went a slow but steadypoliticization.Although Afghanistansociety

had alwaysbecna conservative,raditionalone n which Islamplayeda

central ole, the versionof Islam hat prevailed n the country,at least

until the r 96os,was piousbut not political. slam n Afghanistanwas a

faith and not a sociopolitical redo.But under he influence f outside

religiousand intellectual orces-especiallyEgypt'sMuslim Brother-

hood, Pakistan'sslamicGroup, and the internationalorganizationof

the Brotherhoodbased n Cleneva nd led by SaidRamadan-Afghan

Islarnunderwent a critical transformation,becomingpoliticizedand

more militantly anti-communist.LeadingAfghan Islamist organizers

and scholarsbegan o return to Afghanistan rom Egypt, where they

had come nto contactwith the heirsof Hassanal-Banna'smovement.

According o O livier Roy, a leadingFrenchOrientalistand expert on

Afghanistanand Islam, the origin of political Islam in Afghanistan

beganwith a semi-secret liquecalled the professors, who came o

prominencen Afghanistanafterstudyingat Cairo'sAl Azhar mosque,

where hey hobnobbedwith the Muslim Brotherhood.The movement

in Afghanistancoalescedn r958, when a leading Afghan religious

scholarclashedwith Muhammad Daoud, the king'scousinand future

leaderof the Afghan republic.Many Islamistswere arrested, nd the

nascent organization was forced to operate underground. It called

itself he IslamicSociety.23

By the mid-r96os, the Islamic Societyand its offshootswere fol-

lowing in the mode of Islamist organizations n Egypt, Pakistan, raq,

and elsewhere, hysically assaulting eft-wing and communist stu-

dentsand :

by manr. ' :

ies of thc

'W'roteRo'.

The ::

yeilr , :

dent. ; .

tr l . :

Polr l : - :

mua: ' -

f igh: . :A r l -

n is l . . : :

n1.11'. :



could

and ts

isk

maln-

u.s.

.a

least

WdS 2

and

hey

nlent.

to

ir.rture

the

raq,

stu-

lihad : Tbe Arcof Islam ' ;-59

dentsand threateningviolenceagainst heir political opponents.Led

by many of the samemenwho would tn :l979,become he beneficiar-

ies of the cIAs largesse, hey also began open political agitation.

Wrote Roy:

The professors reatly nfluencedheir pupilsand n r965' the

yearof the foundationof the communist arty, he Islamist tu -dents emonstratedpenlyby distributing leaflet ntitled . . the

tractof theholywar. Theperiod rom :.965 o t'972wasoneof

political turmoil on the campusat Kabul' ' ' They were verv

much opposed o communism, nd a great numberof violent

fightsbrokeout on Kabulcampus etweenhemand he Maoists'

Althoughat thebeginningheywereoutnumbered y thecommu-

nists, he Islamists'nfluence teadilyncreasednd heygained

maior i ty n thestudent lect ionsf t97o'24

As early as June r97o, a confidentialStateDepartment dispatch

from the u.S. embassy n Kabul identified Afghanistan's eligious

leadership, n particular the clerical family of the Mujadiddis' as a

strongnd

,.tiu force. It concluded hat agitation by the mullahs

.,setback the leftist cause) t least n thc countryside and that rcli-

gious conservatism, or the first time in many years' vividly demtln-

strated that it remains a force with which .the government must

contend..,The mullahs are reliably reported o haveagrced o con-

tinue the good fight in the provinces, wrote the embassy's olitical

officer. Here, in Kabul, there have been some efforts to keep the

flameof religious ervor burning n the bazaat..,He added,with some

irony given future developments: It will probably not be known fo r

some ime how much stayingpower the clericalmilitancy has' 25

Among the leadersof the Afghan Islamist movement n the early

r97oswere Abd.,l Rasul Sayyaf,whose organiz-ation as affiliatcd

with the Muslim Brotherhood and SaudiArabia; Burhanuddin Rab-

bani; and Gulbuddin Hekmatyar,all of whom led maior components

of the jihad forces n the r98os' According to Roy' The movement

functioned on an open level, he Muslim Youth' and a more secret

level,centered pon the professors. 'The leaderof the professors,



260 . Devtt . 's Gaus

and the man who led the semi-secret rganizationof Muslim Youth,

was ProfessorGholam Muhammad Niyazi of the faculty of theology

at Kabul UniversitS a major beneficiaryof CIA support through the

Asia Foundat ion. n 1972, Rabbani,Sayyaf,and later Hekmatyar

formed a guiding council for the movement,and Hekmatyar super-

vised its secret military wing. The entire organization operated n

srnallcellsof five members,and in the early r97os-again, following

the pattcrnsetby the Brotherhood n Egypt and Pakistan-they began

to inl l f t rate he armed forces.26n r972, declassif ied .S. embassy

documents evcal,a member of the Muslim Youth met a U.S.official

several imes o request ssistance,describing n somedetail he anti-

communistact iv i t iesof his group ( including hc murder of four

lef t ists )and equest ingcovert .S.aid to buy a pr int ingprcss.But i t

was too earl y for direct CIA help, and the embassyofficial turned

down the request,while expressing ympathy or the group'sgoals.27

Beginning bout this time, he CIA began o take a more active ol e

on behalfof the Afghan Islamists.Previously,he ClAs assistance as

modest, rnuch of it funneled hrough the Asia Foundation to Kabul

Universityand more establishmentslamic orces.But then in r971,

PrinceMuhammad Daoud-with the assistance f the communists-

toppled the king and establishedan Afghan republi c. Caught of f

guard, bitterly dividcd into factions basedon ego and ideology, he

Islan-ricight in Afghanistannevertheless oved nto open opposition

to Daoud. They soon ound a plethoraof friendsabroad.

The CIA, Pakistan-first underZulfrkar Ali Bhutto, and then under

the IslamistGeneralZia il-Haq-and the shahof Iran beganurgent

efforts to undermine the new Afghan government. t was yearsbefore

the Soviet nvasion of Afghanistan, ong before he r98os jihad, bu t

the momentum or an Islamistholy war in the andlockedAsian nation

was alreadygathering-with the full complicityof the CIA. Years ater

a Pakistani government official working for Bhutto's daughter,who

was then prime minister, admitted that the CIlt's support for the

Islamists n Afgha nistanbegan mmediately afterDaoud's r971 coup.

Prime Minister BenazirBhutto's SpecialAssistantNasirullah Babar

reportedly stated in a press nterview in April t989 that the United



he

in

t

was

the

but

1l-r

l ihad : Tbe Arc of Islant ' z6 r

States ad been inancingAfghan

taken [Islamic PartYJ chieftain

umbrella' months Prior to Soviet

one account.28

dissidents ince 973 and that it had

Gulbuddin Hekmatyar 'under its

military intervention, according o

Diego Cordovez and Selig Harrison, drawing heavily on recently

released soviet archives, described in detail the effort by the United

States, ran, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan to rnobil ize the Islamic right

inside Afghanistan:

I t was in the ear ly tL)7os'with oi l pr ices r is ing ' t l - ratShah

Mohammed Reza Pahl i rv i of I ran embarked on his :rn.rbi t ious

effort to ro l l back Soviet nf luence n neighboringcount r iesand

createa nrodcrn versi<>nf tl.reancient Persiarlernpire. . ' Begin-

ningintgT4,theshahlaunchedadetcrminedeffort todraw

KabLrI nto a \rVestern-ti lted, eheretn-centeredcgiotraIecon<lnlic

and security sphere err.rbrircingr-rdia,Pakistiru and the Persirrlr

ciul f states.. . . The unitecl States rct ive lyencouraged his ro l l -

brrckpol icyaSpart t l f i tsbroaclpartnershipwiththeshahinthe

economicand secur i ty pheres swel l as n c<lvert ct io l l hrough-

out s()uthwest s ia.2 ' )

The goal of the U.s.- l ranian effort , which was also supported by saudi

Arehi t rncl lhkisten. wts t() strenl l thcn r ight -wing , rnd conservr l t iv( '

forces n Daoud's moderate government, in order to pul l Afghenisrar l

out of the Soviet orbit. According to Clordovez and Harrison:

Savakand the CIA workcd lrand in h:lnd' s<lnletimesn lt lt lscc<ll-

laboratior-r with undergrr>und Afghan Islarnicfr-rndanrentalist

grotlps that shared heir anti-soviet obiectivesbut had their ow n

..g.ndo,aswel l .TheAfghanfundarnental istswerecloselyl inked, in

turn, to the Cl:riro-baseclkhwan al-Muslimeen (Muslim Brother-

hood) and the Rabitat al Alam al lslanri (Muslirn \wtrrld .eague)'a

leadingexp()nentofsaudiWahhabi<lrt l -r<ld<lxy.Ascl i lprt l f i tssky-

r<lcketed, missariesr<lm hesenewly affluentArab fundamentalist

groups arrived on the Afghan scenewith bulging bankrolls' Like

i u k, they hired informerswho artempted o identify cjommrrnisr

syn-rpathizershroughout the Afghan governmentand armed orces'



262 . DEvrr . 's Gavr.

The authors added that lran's intelligence ervice ed weaprns a. dother assistanceo undergroundgroups n Afghanistan ied to theIslamic r: ight ,while pakistan'sInterservicesntel l igence rrecforare( lSI)helped oordinate aicls n Afghan argers. .s: lvak,

the crA, anclPakistani gentswere als. involved n the abort ive, undame'tar ist -backcdcoup attemptsagainstDa'ud rn Septe'rberand Decemlrer1.173 ndJune 974., i0

In r975, Afghan's slarnistsert that they had enoughpower ro

Iaunchan all- .ut rebel l i rn againstDa.ud, who, t lrough wave'rg,wasst i l l a l l ied . Afghan's 'rnmunists.But thc r-rpr is ingirscrushed,many of the rebelswerearrestec] 'd executcd, nd others-such asHckmatyarand Rabba'r i- f led intr exire,nrost ly o pakist : rn,whcrethevbcga' to gersignif icant upporr rorn he pakistaninr ir i tary nter-l igence crvice. . r the ncxt f 'ur years, hc ISI crevcr 'pecrn incrcas-inglyclosc elat ionshipo rhenr 'r reycoali t i 'n

' fAfghanisranebcrs,

cspecial lyts Islamist . rc. A c'nf ident ial StatcDepartnrent 'arysist f the cr is is rr Afghanistan n r97; specif icai lyirkcd thc Mr-rsr inrBrothcrhood ncl SI:

\x/hatwent alrn'sr unnrt icecln trrcexcltementf alresccl i lk-istani nvolvenrc-nt as fhc fact that DaoLrdwi ls IrLrrr i l l l l , r1y1l rrnar.r i festat iclnf " intcrnat ionir l" lslarn. Afgha' nat io l ra lswh'werc r ingleaders' the insurge'cy, n addit i .n to being pers()rsallegeclly ubverted by pakrstani ai'rs, werc rcp.rtedry rncnrrrers. f ' ' ' the Musl im Br ' therhrrd, and i t was the l lr ' rherho.d aspart ()f a largergroup that was said to haveenterecl n agreementrvi th Pakistan 's hiefof inte l igence,Cieneralai lani. t l

Inside Afghanistan' however, the vacil lating Daoud began to ti ltright, under pressure rom the United states, he shah of lran, and paki-

stan. Between r97S and r97g, Daoud swi tched sic les, reakrng deci_sively with his left-wing supporrers and embracing the army an dAfghanistan's conservative establishment. In r976, Daoud met withthe shah and Prime Minister Bhufto, and in response he began roinstall right-wing officers and other pro-wesrern leaders n key posrs.By r978, Afghan government death squads started assassinating eftist

and comnt ' . :

f ron theK.- ,

to a small . - .

ing to (.or . :

by SAVAK.:

Muslinr i : ' :

Mohanrr t t - - -

sigltccl il ::. :

SLlppOI-tcr: -

assl1ss l l l . l i -.-

attlrck rS.:

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et-t t l t r tssi. '

thrt t thc ' ' -

gl 'ot lp\ . l ' :

1r27r.; th. ' . :

i l fot l l l t : ' :

i t r r r lct t . : : .

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CCl l tf r l L. : . '

rcbcl , ' : -

JS ll l l -11.' . -:

Brtirir ..-.

refcrr . . - :

l ) L i : -

tunfol . l . , - .

.1i,-l ' . t-r :

l .1.e. t ' ,

( rIrrr, . ' . : -

LC.1 i , -

l . lLl l lvl : -







lihad I: The Arc of Islam ' 26S

In March r979,the CIA completed ts first formal proposa l or direct

aid to the Afghan Islamists, oincidingwith the revolt in Herat. Accord-

ing to Gates, some in the CIA believed that Soviet involvement in

Afghanistanwould encouragea polarization of Muslim and Arab sen-

timent against he USSR. Not only that, bnt therewas a practical side,

too: the CIA had surveyedAfghanistan as a possiblesite o replace he

listeningposts hat U.S. ntelligence ad in Iran untll t979, according oGates.37 t the beginningof r979, the United States egan o consider

active, overtassistanceo the ihadis,and both Pakistan nd SaudiAra-

bia were asking he United Stateso get more nvolved. In SaudiAra-

bia, a seniorofficial . . had raised he prospectof a Sovietsetback n

Afghanistan and said that his government was consideringofficially

proposing hat the United States id the rebels. rsEven hough some

U.S.analysts,ncludingsomeCIA officials, elievedhat directU.S.sup-

port for the Afghan rebels ould lead o a Sovietattack on Pakistanand

a worldwide showdown between hc United Statesand the USSR, he

U.S.government ent ahead. he CIA contacted audiArabiaand Pak-istanaboutprovidingaid to Afghan ebels nd,asBrzezinski sserted,n

July r979 PresidentCarter signed he first presidential ecision,or

finding, to have he CIA supply nonlethal aid, ncludingcommuni-

cationsequipment,o the slamic ight n Afghanistan.

In the Nouuel Obst'ruatcur ntcrview,Brzczinskiadmitted hat hi s

intcnt ionel l a longwas ro pr<lvoket Sovict nvrts ion f Afghanistan-

even hough, after: he Sovictaction occurrcd,LJ.S. fficialsexpressed

shockand surprise. 'Wedidn't push he Russianso intervene, ut we

knowingly ncreasedheprobabil i ty hat heywould, saidBrzezinski.

'Whenhe was asked f, in retrospect, c regretted upporting he riseofIs lamic undamental ism nd providing arms ancl raining to future

terror ists, c answered:

What s more mportant o the history f thc wor ld?TheTaliban

or thecol lapse f theSoviet mpire? onre t ir red-up usl ims r

the iberat ion f Central urope nd heendof thecoldwar?

No*, he told President ar ter n t979, we can give he USSR ts

Vietnamwar. 39



266 . Dpvrr 's Gaun

By the end of r979, more han three-fourths f Afghanistanwas n

open evolt.JustbeforeChristmas, he RedArmy invadedAfghanistan

to shore up the beleaguered fghan government.

One of the quirks of the American ihad in Afghanistanwas that

from the start the United Statesallowed Pakistan's SI and General

Zia to control the distribution of aid to the Afghan muiahideen.

Zia,wrote SteveColl, a

journalist whose book Gbost'Wars

is a

definitiveaccountof the Afghan ihad, sought and obtainedpolitical

control over the CIAs weaponsand money.He insisted hat everygu n

and everydollar allocated or the mujahideenpass hrough Pakistani

hands. He would decide which guerrillas benefited. . . The CIA

accepted SI'sapproach with little dissent. 40 rinceTurki al-Faisal,

then the headof the General ntelligenceDepartmentof SaudiArabia,

visited Tashington,metBrzezinskiand the CIA, and agreed o match

U.S.contributions o the Afghan ihad dollar for dollar.

What unfolded, n the yearsafter r98o, was an alliancebetween

Pakistan's SI, GeneralZia, and he Islamists n Pakistan,on the one

hand, and a nexus of Saudi Arabian government and private net-

works, from Saudi intelligence o the Muslim'World

League to

Osama bin Laden,on the other.SaudiArabia and Pakistanhad been

close or years; his includedclosemilitary ties,with Pakistani roops

and mercenaries eingdispatched o help protect he Saudi oyal fam-

ily and train Saudi forces. Pakistan's elations with Saudi Arabia,

and with other Gulf Arab states,dated to the early t96os, wrote

ShireenHunter. Pakistanimilitary officers, or example,had trained

the S audi and Gulf militaries.One such officer was GeneralZia ul-

Hnq.'ot ln addition, n the r97os first Bhutto and then Zia depended

on Saudiaid, especially ince he OPEC oil price ncreases f ry73-74

drained the Pakistan reasury of hard currency to pay for oil. The

Saudi aid came with political strings attached. The growth of

Islamism n Pakistanwas directly ied to Saudiaid to Islamabad.

For the United States, he Saudi-Pakistani lliancewas made to

order, since both countries were staunch U.S. allies that could be

counted on to join in a crusadeagainst he USSR.The fact that both

Saudi Arabia and Pakistan had ulterior motives and their own

grand designswas ignored or overlookedby the Carter and Reagan



\\ 'as tn

hat

iS a

- BUII

CIA

onenet-

to

been

t fOOpS

am-

r:rined

ul-

The

Of

to

be

both

Jihad: The Arcof slam . 267

administrations, who were eager to bloody the Soviet Union in

Afghanistanwhatever the cost. Pakistan,always concernedwith its

main foe, India, saw Afghanistanas strategicdepth and an ally in the

subcontinentagainstNew Delhi, and GeneralZia envisioneda kind

of Greater Pakistan. SaudiArabia had its own interests, oo, an d

saw he conflict n Afghanisranaspart of its broadercompetirionwith

Iran, whose Shiite fundamentalist egime was threarening raq andthe Gulf states.Saudi Arabia saw Afghanistanand Cenrral Asia as a

flank in the strugglewith Iran, and Riyadh wanred ro strengrhen he

orthodox Sunni Wahhabi forces in Afghanistan and beyond, ro

weaken ran.

Brzezinski, nd then Casey, mbraced he Pakistan-Saudi xis. But

both Pakistanand SaudiArabia had their favoredclients n Afshan-

istan.

For Pakistan, t was Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, he mil i tant Is lamist

whosegroupwas called he Is lamicParty Hizb- i s lami) .Hekmatyar

had a well-earned eputation or beinga brutal fanatic:

Gulbuddinwas he dar l ingof Zia and the Pakistanntel l igence

service. ikc other nujahideeneaders, ehadbeenworkine with

the ISI since he ear ly r97os,whenPakistan ad begun ecrer lybacking undamentalisttudents t the University f Kabul whcrwere ebelling gainstSoviet nfluencen the.Afghan overnment.

Back hcnGulbuddin asverymucha partof theemerginglobalwaveof Islamicadical ism.yal l accounrs,ewas esponsibleorthe practice f throwingacid n the faces f Afghanwomenwh ofailed o cover hemselvesroperly.a2

Hekmatyar 'sspecialtywas skinning pr isonersal ive.as igbhatul lah

Mujaddidi, an Is lamist of somewhat less radical srr ipes,cal led

Hekmatyara true monster. 44 ut Representat ivehar les'Wilson,

TexasRepublicanwho was the eadingcongressional dvrcate or the

Afghan ihad,approvingly ored hatZia was toral ly commit ted o

Hekmatyar,because ia saw he world as a conflictbetweenMuslims

and Hindus, and he thought he could count on Hekmatyar to work

for a pan-lslamicentity that could standup to India. a5

Hekmatyar's slamicPartywas oneof the six to eightAfghanparries



; -68 . DEvtl - 's Ga'vE

that made up the anti-Soviet esistance.t was the largest,and it also

was reputed to have the fiercest ighters,which increasedts appeal o

the CIA. We didn't think, at the beginning, hat we would defeat he

Soviets, aysa CIA officialwho helpedoverseehe ihad. But we did

want to kill asmany Russians swe could,and Hekmatyarseemedik e

the guy who could do that. 46His bone-chiliing uthlessness as il

plus.The

CIA officers n theNear EastDivisionwho wererunning he

Afghan program also embracedHekmatyar as their most dependable

and effective lly, according o Coll. At leastHekmatyar knew wh o

the enemywas, the CIlt 's officers eassuredhemselves. 4Tor those.

like Casey and Brzezinski,who envisionedAfghanistan as the key to

weakening he SovietUnion among ts Muslim republics,Hekmatvar

had appeal, too, since he wanted to expand the war beyond

Afghanistan.Hekmatyar,according o Dilip Hiro, talked of carrying

the guerrilla aidsbeyond he Oxus River nto SovietCentralAsia and

rolling back communism by freeing the Muslim lands of Bukhara.

Tashkent,and Dushanbe.48

SaudiArabia's avoredclient was Abdul Rasul Sayyaf, he Afghan

Muslim Brotherhood leader.As the war evolved,both Hekmatyar anti

Sayyafwould emerge s heAfghan eaders losesto the egions f for-

eign, mostly Arab, fighters who flocked to Afghanistan to join the

iihad. By the end of the r98os, it would be theseso-calledAralr

Afghanswho would graduate o becomeeaders f the militant and ter-

rorist Islamists n Egypt,Algeria, SaudiArabia, Iraq, and elsewhere-

including Chechnya and Uzbekistan. Hekmatyar and Sayyaf, hough

not allies,were alsoclose o Osama bin Laden,whose rise o promt-

nencebegana5earlyas t979-8o, when he enlistedn the Afghan ihad.

Once in Pakistaniexile, Hekmatyar]gatheredaround him the most

radical, anti-Western, ransnational slamists ighting in the jihad-

includingbin Ladenand otherArabs who arrivedasvolunteers. 4e

So he stagewas set o r a climacticshowdown between he United

States nd the SovietUnion in Afghanistan. n the wake of the Iranian

revolution, the United States ontinued o pursue he chimera of ar-r

Islamic bloc against he USSR, eading Pakistan,Saudi Arabia, and

Egypt nto battle n the remotemountains of CentralAsia. Hundreds

of thousandsof jihadis, electrifiedby the holy war, flocked to wa r



.1nd t a lso

l l i i lppeal to

defeat he

But rve d id

c-Cn-redik e

WaS a

rLlnninghe. lependable

whcl- l-or those,

key to

Hekmatyar

cyor-rd

of carrying

siaand

of l lukhara,

Afgh:rn

i rncl

of for-

to join thc

-er l leclAra[ ' r

trr t irnd ter-

lsewhcre-

fh<lr-rgh

proni -

j ihad.thc nrost

the j ihad-

t t J( l

the Uni ted

the Ir:rnian

tt f an

Arabi . r , and

Jihad : The Arc of Islam . 26 9

camps along the Pakistan-Afghanistanborder from all over rhe

world. The United States ad little comprehension f the forces hat it

was unleashing.But that did not prevent he Reaganadministration

from pushing he war in Afghanistan nto the SovietUnion itselfand

trying to enlistevenKhomeini's ran in the jihad.



1l

JIHAD II: INTO CENTRAL ASIA

: : - - - . . : - -

\wsE N rur AurnrcAN- spoN soREojihad

n Afghanistanegan

in t979,it took placeduring a criticaltransformation n the history of

political slam.

From r945 until r979,the Islamic ight seemedirmly attached o

the Western,and anti-communist, amp n the Cold War During this

period, t was understandableor many analysts o haveseenpolitical

Irlu* n, docileand, if not pro-American, hen at leastsympathetic o

American political and economicgoals n the region In the Afghan

mountains, iercemullahs expressedheir hatred of communism; n

the saudi deserr, he \wahhabiestablishmenthunderedagainst eftist

and nationalist orces n North Africa, theMiddle East,and Pakistan;

and on campuses rom Kabul and Islamabad o Baghdadand Cairo

theMuslimBrotherhoodbatt ledsecular istsandpreachedagainst

Marxism.

Startingrn r979, however, hings changed Ayatollah Khomeini s

revolution n lran was a frontal challenge o U S interestsMoreover

the Islamic right had begun o spawn deadly errorisf offshoots ha t

attacked U.S. interests and pro-Western eaders from the Grand

Mosque in Mecca o Anwar Sadat o Hezbollah spredatory error in

Lebanon.The united stateswas exceedingly low to grasp he essons



f

o

his

o

n

lef t ist

that

ror in

Jihad II: I nto Ce ntral Asta L7 I

of these developments.First, it failed to concentrate esourceson

Islamist terrorism after t979, despitepleas rom Arab leaders ik e

Egypt's PresidentMubarak to do so. More important, the United

Statesailed o understand he arger esson: hat the Islamic ight was

not just anti-communist,but fundamentallyopposed o the West and

to its most reliable ong-termpartners n the Middle East,namely, he

secular, emocraticnationalists.Despite he mount ingevidencehat the Is lamic ight was a devi l-

ishlydangerous l ly, he Reagan dministrat ionoined heir ihad.

The scope f theU.S.- Is lamistl l iance hen s hard o imagine ow,

in themidstof what the Bushadministrat ion al lsa globrr lwar on ter-

ror ism againstAl Qaedaand its i lk. But, ust as n r9-yj, when Said

Ramadan of the Muslim Brotherhoodwas ushered nto the C)val

Office o seePresidentEisenhower,n r9t3 Rcagan'sough-mrnded-

and often neoconservative-nationalsecurityofficialsand intell gcnce

professionals ursued the Afghan jihad with a vcngeance. n fact,

the sameneoconservat ivesho today ead he charge or a clashofciv i l izat ions -style ar on terror henpresscdhe harclestor an al l i -

ance with the Afghan lslamistsand, at the same i mc, rcpeatedly

reached ut for a dealwith the ayatol lahsn Teheran.

The U.S.- Is lamist l l ianceof thc r98os was r . rndcrtaken ith al l

del iberateness.nrm rgTc) o r9[ iz, thc (]ar terand Reagan dminis-

t rat ionsconsideredhe existence f a threat f rom right-wing slarn,

and decided o ignore t .

Following the Iraniar-r evolution, Ciarteradministrirtiorrofficials

conveneda government-widemeet ing o analyzepoli t ical Is lam. t

includedStateDepartment xperts,ntcl l igence

nalysts, nd ambas-sadors rom the Middle East. Therewasa big analyt ical f for t , says

Harold Saunders,who was rssistantsccretaryof state or Near L,ast

affairs, and it centeredon the conservativeArilb statesatndmonar-

chies. The main focuswas to gain an understanding f whether t

could happen n Jordan, n Egypt, n SaudiArabia, or perhaps his

was sui gener is o lran. According o Saunders, nd to other U.S.

of f ic ialsand intel l igence f f icers, he conclusion f this reevaluat ion

was that pol i t ical Is lam was not threatening. 'We real ized hcre

would be a ratchet ingup of pol i t ical Is larn, saysSaunders. Thc



z7z . Dsvtt- 's Genr

questionwas, could the exi sting governmentsdeal with it? I pushed

pretty hard on Saudi Arabia, and I couldn't get anyone o say that

Saudi Arabia would fall. In Egypt, at the time, we thought Sadat

couldhandle t . 1

Certainly, no effort was made to discourageSaudi Arabia from

pursuing ts long-heldnotion of a foreign policy basedon right-wing

Islamism.No effort was made o discourage adat rom cozyingup tothe Muslim Brotherhood. No effort was made to discourage srael

and Jordan from supporting he Muslim Brotherhood'scampaignof

terrorism against Syria and the PalestineLiberation Organization.

And, of course, n Pakistan he United States umped into bed with

GeneralZia ul-Haq, whose Muslim Brotherhood-linked regime and

ISI ntel ligence ervicewere organizing he Afghan jihad.

In the end, he Islamistmovementwas seenasa force hat could be

containedby existinggovernments. o real effort was made o under-

stand how those governmentsmight be changed,how it might affect

the societieshesegovernments

residedover,and how the Islamists

were organizedacrossnternationalborders.Policymakerscontinued

to believe hat Islamismwas too diverse o be ooked at globally,and

insisted t could be dea lt with on a country-by-countrybasis. 'W e

concluded hat we couldn't have a policy toward political Islam,

recallsSaunders.2

In the wake of the Iranian revolution there was a brief flurry of

directives rom \X/ashingtono CIA stationsoverseas o provide an

evaluation of Iran's mpact. Intelligenceanalystsat the CIA and the

StateDepartment ook a look at countries hat might be threatened

with Khomeini-style revolution, and concluded that the internal

threat seemedminimal. As long as existing,pro-U.S. egimeswereno t

at risk, almost no U.S. officials raised alarm about the growing

strengthof political Islam, ts effectswithin countriesplaguedby it, or

the eventualpossibility hat radical Islamistsmight turn against he

United States. At first, therewas the assumption hat it was going to

spread, hat it was going to happen n Morocco, Jordan, and Saudi

Arabia, that the monarchieswere an anachronismr says a former

CIA station chief n Morocco. I got to Morocco and found nothing

like that. There was a very small Islamist movement. In the CIA's



that

Sadat

i irom

-\\ ' lng

israel

Of

l l l ld

e

r l f fcct

lncl

WC

an

I l i l l

he

tO

Saudi

former

othing

. l ihad l: Into CentralAsia ' 27 3

field manual for Morocco, there were eight pageson Islam and poli-

tics, he says. I'd tell my caseofficers:Know it cold. And when they

were alking to an Islamist, told them to say: I don't underst and his

or that. 'And then isten. 3 heconclusion eachedn Morocco,as or

other states,w21shat therewas nothing to worry about.

At the CIA, Martha Kesslerwas one of the few analystswho con-

sistendy aidattention o political slamand the Muslim Brotherhood.In the ficld, shesays,many CIA operativesmissed t, becausehe most

militant Islan-rists ere organizingunder the radar. rWehad a'World

War il-era systcmof just plopping our officialsdown in capital cities,

irnd the Islamistmovementwasn't happening n thosecit ies, t was

happerr ing ut in thc countryand in small owns. In her opinion, t

was taking on a decidedlyanti-American haracter. he wrote an

rrnalysis t the time wirrning hat when governments uchas Egypt,

Sudan, nd Pakistan egin o play bal l with Is lamists,t would have

profoundconseqllenccs.I said hat whcn governmentsn the region

stirrtecl naking efforts to co-opt the Islamists, t would change hecharacter f t l roseaovernrncnts, hcsays. l was of t hc school hat t

woulcl be largelyanti-Westernn tone. a Necdlcss o say,Kessler 's

analysis ic lnot dissuacleol icymakers rom theAfghan ihad.

The samcview prevai led rnongU.S.government ounterterror-

ism professior-rals.After thc Sadatassassination,was in the coun-

terterrorisnrcentcr, srlysRobcrt llacr, a former CIA operative. l

c i lme lcross omedocumcnts, ontc r ial transcr iptsor l thc assassins

of Saclat l , nd I star ted:rskir rg,Who arc thesepeople?What's heir

irgcncla? hat's hc connection? startedkroking or clocuments lr

theMLrsl irnBrothcrhood. Sut, e says, It just wasn't n our con-

sciotrsncsso go rt ter thcscpe<lp le.'

Sadat,who had used he Muslim Brotherhood nd the f inancial

rcsoLlrcesf i ts Is lamicbanking network to strengthen is gr ip on

power after becomingprcsidentof Egypt in r97o, was leastof a l l

awarc of how dangcrous he Islamic ight might be. Within daysof

the Soviet nvasionof Afghanistan, adir t nthusiastical lyoined he

United States,Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan n sending ihadists o

Pcshawar. nd war.

So he ihacl n Afghanistan rpanded nto a ful l-scale ar.And the



274 . Dn.vrr 's Gavr,

Reagan eam, preoccupiedwith the Cold'Sfar,

struck a deal with

Iran's ayatollahs n r98o, winked as Israelarmed Iran from r98o to

1987, gave Khomeini's regime secret ntelligenceabout the Iranian

left, and finally, n the Iran-contra affat, actually sold U.S. arms to

Iran in searchof mvthical Islamist moderates.

Tns Anae ATcHANS

The war in Afghanistan was fought, for the most part' by the

mujahideen f the fractiouscoalition backedby Pakistanand madeup

mostly of guerrillas ssociated i th on e of four fundamentalist rgani-

zations. In Afghanistan, says a former CIA official who ran the

covert operation, there were about 3oo,ooo fighters,all of whom,

with the exceptionof about r5,ooo moderates,were Islamists. 5 he

vast majority were Afghans, but some were jihadists drawn to the

fighting rom other parts of the world, especially rom Egypt,Jordan,

Saudi Arabia, and the Gulf. These would be the raw material fo r

Osamabin Laden and the fledglingAl Qaedaorganization hat grew

out of the jihad. The so-calledArab Afghans ncludedbin Laden him-

self, Ayman al-Zawahiri of Egypt's Islamic Jihad, Al Qaeda'ssecond-

in-command,and tensof thousandsof jihadists rom the Arab states,

Indonesia, he Philippines,Chechnya,and other far-flungcornersof

the Muslim world.

They were the guerrillaswho, after the war was over,went home

to Algeria, o Egypt, o Lebanon, o SaudiArabia, and to CentralAsia

to continue the jihad,.Many, of course, earned terrorism skills-

assassination,abotage, ar bombs-at the handsof the United States

and its allies.

In January r98o, Brzezinskivisited Egypt to mobilize Arab sup-

port for the jihad.'Within weeksof his visit, SadatauthorizedEgypt's

full participation, giving permission or the U.S. Air Force to use

Egypt as a base,supplyingstockpilesof Egyptianarms to the rebels,

and recruiting, raining, and arming Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood

activists or battle. Sadatand his governmentbecame,or a time, vir-

tual recruiting sergeants nd quartermasters o the secretarmy of

zealots c- :

U.S.carg, i

supplies, :

Fqvnr' r ' - '-D. r ' - - _

2IITIS tO : r :-.

eventu.r i i ' .

F,-.--.- .

-5. ' f'

- \ numb; :

dent ro : : : -

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with

to

up

to the

for

grcw

him-

' t feq

l f

home

Asia

States

use

ebels,

Of

lihad ll: Into Central Asia . 27 \

zealotsbeing mustered o fight the Soviets n south and central Asia."7

U.S. cargo planes took off from Qena and Aswan in Egypt, ferrying

supplies o the ihad basesn Pakistan, nd, according o John Cooley,

"Egypt's military inventories were being scoured for Soviet-supplied

arms o send o the ihad. An old arms actory nearHelwan, Egypt,was

eventually onverted o supply he same ind of weapons.,'8

Egypt-and other Arab counlliss-supplied more rhan weapons.A numberof counrr iesn the Musl im world decided t would bepru-

dent to send slamist militants to rhe Afghan war, perhaps hinking

that they were killing two birds with onestone: heywere pleasing he

United States,which was looking for recruirs,and they were geting

r id of some roublemakers.adat, ike other eaders, erhaps elt hatmostof them would be ki l leddur ing hc ihad. "Musl im governmenrs

emptied heir pr isons nd sent hese ad boysover here,"says CIA

officialwho spentseveral earsas srationchief n pakistanduring rhej ihad. 'Nrt only were hcypackaged nd shipped o Afghanisran, ur

they eceived xpert raining rom U.s. SpecialForces.By rhc endofr9flo," wrote Cooley, U.S. mil i tary trainerswerc sent o Egypt cr

impart the ski l ls of the U.S. SpecialForces o rhoseEgyptianswh<r

would, in turn, passon thc training o th.: I igyptianvolunrcersly ing

to the aid of the mujahidecnn Afghanisran.l0

The British, for whom Afghanistan was thc playground for the

Great Game of the nineteenth enturyand who had long-standing

colonial ics o Pakistan, ad an cxtensive istoryof deal ingwi th thc

tr ibes and rel igirus leaders f thc Pakistan-Afghanisranrea. Gus

Avrak.trs, a cIA official closely nvolved with the jihad f'r years,

reported that the British "have guys who have Iived over there fortwenty yearsas ournalistsor authorsor tobaccogrowers,Iandl when

the Soviets nvaded, MI6 activated hese old networks." Added

Avrakotos:

The Brits were able to buy things hat we couldn't, becausctinfringedon murder,assassinationnd ndiscriminate ombings.Theycould ssue unswith silencers.Wecouldn'tdo that becausea silencermmediatelympliedassassination-and eavenorbidcar bombs No way I couldeven uggestt, but I co uldsay o th e



276 . Dr,v tr 's Ger lE

Brits, "Fadlallah the radical Shiite eader] n Beirut was really

effectiveastweek.Theyhad a car bomb hat killed3oopeople."

gaveMI6 stuff n good faith.What

they did with it was always

theirbusiness. lr

Much of this training in assassination,ar bombs, and the like

found its way to the Arab volunteers who eventually became Al

Qaeda's oot soldiers.Somemujahideenwere even rained o organize

the low-tech,Afghan versionof car bombs. "Under ISI direction, he

mujahideen eceived raining and malleableexplosives o mount car

bomb and evencamel bomb attacks n Soviet-occupied ities,usually

designed o kill Soviet soldiersand commanders,"wrote SteveColl.

"ICIA Director] Caseyendorsed hese echniques espite he qualms

of someCIA careerofficers."12 nd it was not just Sovietsoldierswho

were blown up by such devices. In at least one instance, the

mujahideen arriedout an extension f the battles hat ragedat Kabul

University during the r96os and r97os, when a briefcasebomb

explodedunder a unive rsitydiningroom table.13This is a rough busi-ness," said the CIAs Bill Casey. If we're afraid to hit the terrorists

because omebody's oing to yell 'assassination,'t 'll never stop."14

Soon, he CIA and ISI were providing stealthlikeexplosivedevices o

themujahideen.ncludingbombsdisguised spens,watches. igaret te

lighters,and tape recorders.l'5Do I want to order bicyclebombs to

park in front of an officers'headquarters?" skedAvrakotos. "Yes.

That's what spreads ear."16 mong the targetsof mujahideenbombs

were soft targets uchas Kabul cinemas nd cultural shows.

Although the Afghan mujahideen ebelled at the idea of suicide

bombs,Arab volunteersdid not:

It wasonly heArab volunteers-fromSaudiArabia, ordan,Alge-

ria, and othercountries, ho had been aised n an entirely iffer-

ent culture, spoke their own language, nd preachedheir own

interpretations f Islam while fightingfar from their homesand

families-who later advocated uicideattacks.Afghan ihadists,

tightly woven nto family,clan,and regional ocialnetworks,never

embraced uicideacticsn significant umbers.lT

Afghan muj. r r , -

beginningn r9s- ;

ties on the East t- ,

deadly secrets \ :. , -

numbered o\-er : ..

timers and e : .

ammunit ion. . - r : .

(later used n ti-..

[and]strategic,. :

The Afghar ' .-

over he f irst ' . . - .

to defeat the > :

bleed he US:F1..'

- '

however, pf( ) t lu:- -

astic support. '- - -. -

grants-rosa :-..: -

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L78 . Dnvtl 's GRvr.

find militant fighters,bring them to Pakistan,and then smuggle hem

into Afghanistan or a jihad. Many wereoffered rips to Pakistan or

religiousstudies, wrote Cooley:

Usually, uringaboutsix weeks' eligious tudies,henew adepts

were not offeredmilitary training mmediately, r evenbriefed

about he ihad against he Russian nd Communist enemies f

God. This cameat the end of the six-week eriod. SI officers,usually n mufti, would then appearand offer opportunitiesor

training. [Trainingv,,asprovided orl thousandsof Algerians,

Egyptians, udanese,audis, nd others.22

According o Ahmed Rashid,a Pakistani ournalist and author of Tal-

iban, between r98z and t99z j5,ooo radical Islamists rom forty-

three countries ought alongside he mujahideen n the war and its

aftermath,and tens of thousandsof additional iihadis trained in the

madrassas hat General Zia createdalong the Pakistan-Afghanistan

border. Eventuallymore than roo,ooo Muslim radicalswere o have

directcontactwith Pakistanand Afghanistanand be nfluenced y the

i ihad. 23

Some of the recruiting for the mujahideen ook place inside the

United States, n Arab and Muslim communities.At the Al Kifah

Afghan RefugeeCenter n Brooklyn, many Arabs signedup for the

iihad. There were hard-to-trace uitcasesull of cashand anonymous

bearerchequesor bank drafts, from the Muslim'STorld League. he

Tablighi Jamaat,and other missionaryand charitableorganizations

located n Pakistan. 24 ne of the key individuals nvolved n the U.S.

recruiting effort in the mid-r98os was Abdullah Azzam, a radical

Palestinianslamistwho was bin Laden'sprofessorand who would be

the co-founderof the predecessor rganization o Al Qaeda, he Ser-

vices Bureau, which was establishedby bin Laden and Azzam in

Peshawar, akis tan, n r984. The innocently named Services ureau

played he central ole n moving Arab and oreign ihadis nto the war.

Azzam, orn in Jenin,Palestine,n rg4r,joined the Muslim Broth-

erhood as a Palestinian outh in Syria,where he studied slamic aw

in the early r96os, when the Brotherhood was leading the anti-

Nassermovement n the Arab world.2-tAlthough he nitially belonged



them

for

.r .1cpts

Of

. lccrs,

l ' l ] t l S,

dl,

for ty-

n thc

cto have

by the

hc

\ i Ki fah

f t l r th c

th e

zrt t io l . lS

r l reU.S.

. l racl ical

l 'oulcl be

Ser-

in

1[g 1Y31' .

Broth-

l i rw

the ant i -

belongcd

l ihad II: lntu CetrlrnlAsia . 27 ,

to the Palestine iberation organization, he split with the pl-o during

the showdownwith King Hussein n BlackSeptember,97o, when theBrotherhood backed rhe monarchy.He spenr time ar the Al Azhar

mosque n cairo, during the time that Anwar sadat was bringing th eMuslim Brotherhood back to Egypt, and ended up as a teacherofIslamic aw at King Abdel Azizuniversity in saudi Arabia, where bi n

l-adenwas his studenr.The Muslim world l.eague ired Azzam tohead tseducati .nsection, nd n r98o he irst raveledo pakistan.Int c184,n addit ion o founding he Services ureau,Azzam stabl ished

Al I ihad magazine nd wrore prol i f ical lyon rhe dutiesof Musl ims.

Pr<rviding n carly roird map tr hrs plan f'r a global jihad, Az.zam

wrotc the oft-quotecl al l to arnrs: - f ihadwil l remainan individual

.bl igati .n unti l a l l other larndswhich f ' rmer ly were Muslim comeback t ' us and Is lam reignswithin thcm once again. Bef're r-rsiePalestine,lukharar,.ebanon,Clhad, r i trca,Somalia,he phil ippines,

Burnru,S<luthYemcn,Tashkcnt,And:r lusia. 'J2r,i ) sweeten he prt,

Azzam .ld potential ihad recruirs hat osama bin l-adenw.uld payg3oo a monrhro Ar irbswho wanred o f ight n Afghanistan.

Mikc scheucr s r lre cl lA off ic ialwho, in laterycars,w.uld bc in

ch:rrgc f U.S.e forts ' hunt d'wr.rosama bin Ladcrr . n zooz, under

the nanrc An.nym.us, hc wrote Tbrough ()nr Enemies,Lyes,adetai lcdelccounr

' fthe r ise

' f-bin l-adenand Al eaeda. In i t , he

descr ibedhc role of t l ie Serviceslurcau,also knowrr by its Arabic

acronyn MAK:

Bi ' l -aderr . t in . r rhe ground lo'r r f thc developmentf

Is lanr ic ( los f.r nr i l i tary-supporrct iv i t ies henhe .i 'ed withShaykh Abdullah Azzarn o found thc Makhtah at-Khidimdt(MAK)-or ServiceBureau- in Peshirwarn rhe rnic l-9f los.While rhc MAK providec' lel ief o Afghanw:rr v ic ims, i t als<rreceived, rganized,rnd rnoveclnt<lAfghanistanhe v<llunteers,arnrs, tnclmoney lowing . t l .remujahideenrom thc MLrsl irnw<rrlcl.n the financial ealnr,Al-tMatdn l-Arahi h.s said thrrtbetween1.17.2 nd 19[39 bout $6oo mil l ion was sent o binLaden'srga'r izati .n hrough har itablensti tr - r t i .r .rsn the Gul f ,especial lyhose n Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Oman, the UAE,Bahrain,rncl at ir r . lT



z8o . Drvt t - 's G,q.ur

According o Scheuer, in Laden and Azzamwerewell connected o a

host of other Islamic-rightcharities, ncluding IIRO and the Muslim

'srorldLeague.According o cIA officials nvolvedwith the ihad, the

cIA did not directly engagewith Azzam and bin Laden n recruiting

Arab volunteers,although the cIA did not oppose he effort. Robert

Gates, hen the CIA director, evealed hat the CIA examinedways

ro increaseheir participation. Although no actionwas taken,noth-

ing was done o discouragehe Arab Afghans, either'28

As the CIA began o figureout long after he Afghan ihad was his-

tory, the joint U.S.-Saudiunding for the war was not the only source

of cash or the muiahideen,as he $6oo mill ion that Scheuer efers o

indicates.Privateand semi-private onations rom the Muslim Broth-

erhood and its apparatuspoured into the iihad, and none of it was

subject to even the minimal oversight that Pakistan's SI provided

over the distribution of the U.S. and Saudi largesse.According to

Afghanistan:The BearTrdp, arivetingaccountof the ihad pennedby

a former Pakistani ntelligence fficeqMohammad Yousaf' a parallel

war supply systemdeveloped utsideofficialchannels' ompletewith

freelancers nd wheeler-dealers,nd a significant art of it was funded

with private Arab donations. It was largelyArab money that saved

the system, wrote Yousaf. By this I meancash rom rich individuals

or private organizations n the Arab world, not Saudi government

funds.'s7ithout hese xrramill ions he flow of armsactuallygetting o

the Muiahideenwould havebeencut to a tr ickle.The problem s it all

went to the four Fundamentalist arties'not the Moderates' 2e

In particular,Yousafwrote, a lot of the cashwent to Abdul Rasul

S yy i, the chief.MuslimBrotherhoodactivist n Afghanistanand one

of the slamist professors who helped o organize he secret ociety

that emerged n the tg6osand early r97os' t was Sayyaf'along with

Gulbuddin Hekmatyar-the fanatical muiahideen leader whose

Islamic Party was the largestand fiercestof the organizations n th e

jihad-who were closest o Osamabin Laden'

Sayyaf,Hekmatyar' and other fundamentalists ot the lion'sshare

of the Arab money because large part of it was transferred o the

mujahideen hrough the Muslim Brotherhood-linked Islamic Group



o a

i ' r . -Musl im

jihad, he

r l recruit ing

r[ . Robert

ways

oth-

vashis-

rr t l t 'Source

rcters rl

Broth-

of i t was

providcd

<l

J penned y

rr parirlleli th

\\ ' i ls fundecl

thrrt savecl

incl iv iduals

goVernlTlent

lv ge t ing to

is i t al ll r9

-

Rasul

nd onesociety

along with

whclse

n the

ion 'ssharc

o thc

GrouP

Jihad II: Into Central Asia . z8 t

of Pakistan, he Islamistpolitical party that was createdby Abul-Ala

Mawdudi.3oThe Islamic Group (Jamaat-eslami), founded rn r94o,

had spentmuch of the r95os and r96os battling Pakistan's eft and

secularists.n the r97os, he IslamicGroup becamemore powerful as

it absorbedsurpluspetrodollars unneled ts way by the Gulf Arabs,

and it helpedpush Pakistan o the right in the r97os, under Prime

Minister Zulfi.qarAli Bhutto and GeneralZia ul-Haq. The MuslimBrotherhood was s preading ts money around, saysSeligHarrison,

an expert on south Asia and the co-author of Out of Afghanistan.

According o Harrison, the headof the IslamicGroup was related o

Zia, andhe worked closelywith them and helped hem, and many of

the key players n the ISI and the military weremembersof the Islamic

Group. Through the Muslim World l-eague nd other Muslim Broth-

erhood elementsn the Gulf, money had started o flow to the coffers

of the mujahideeneven before the Soviet nvasion of Afghanisran,

saysHarrison. It was all done through Pakistan,with the help of

Rabitat theLeaguel, nd heJamaat-eslamiwasgett ing ich, oo. r rAt the time, virtually no on e sensed he importanceof bin Laden

and Az.zam, nd the non-Afghan ihad volunteers eemedike a minor

part in the mobilization of several hundred thousand Afghan

mujahideen. he CIA was so ixatedon its ColdWarjihad that it never

stopped o consider he consequences f .empoweringa worldwide

Islamistarmed orce.And, in the meantime,Bill Caseywas busyopen-

inpla second ront, pushinghard to expand he Afghanistanwar into

CentralAsia-with resourceshatZbigniew Brzezinski nd Alexandre

Bennigsen <luldneverhavedreamedof just a few yearsearlier.

Acnoss rHe Al.u RrvER

In carrying he Afghan lihad into the SovietUnion itself,Caseyexhib-

ited both a messianic,eligiously nspiredversionof anti-communism

and a high-stakes, igh-risk approach to foreign policy. S(ithin the

Reaganadministration, herewere at least wo competingschoolsof

thought: The first, hewing to the traditional rules of U.S. diplomacy,



z8z . Dr,vt r 's Gaue

saw the SovietUnion as a mig hty competitor that needed o be chal-

lengedworldwide, in order to prevent Sovietgains;and the second,

which included he neoconservativesnd Casey, dvocated policy of

rolling back he SovietUnion in the Third'World, easternEurope,an d

Central Asia. The real split in the Reaganadministration was not

between iberalsand conservatives, aysHerb Meyer,who servedas

Casey'shief

of staffat the CIA

in the r98os. The real split was

between hose who wished not to lose he Cold War and those who

wished to win it. 32 Casey was in the latter camp, and for him

Afghanistanwas the key.

In order to win the Cold'War,

Casey believed, it would take a

strong working allianceamong the countriesof Brzezinski's arc of

Islam -including Egypt, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia-and Casey'

paid specialattention to Saudi Arabia as the linchpin of the effort.

The CIA director saw SaudiArabia asmore than a financial esource

to support the jihad, and as more than the centerof ultra-orthodox

Islam. According to Meyer, Caseyalso mobilized Saudi Arabia's oil

weapon against he USSR n the r98os. The Saudiswerevery helpful

to us n winning the Cold War, saysMeyer.Becausehe SovietUnion

was so dependenton oil exports to earn hard currencSCaseyasked

Saudi Arabia to ramp up its oil output and collapse he price of oil.

Bil l played a key role in working with the Saudis o get the price of

oil down, says Meyer. They hated the Soviets. Saudi Arabia

expandedproduction, he priceof oil dropped o historic ows, fall ing

from $28 per barrel o $ro per barrel n a matter of weeks,and Soviet

income was severely urtaile d. It was a body blow to the Soviets. t

was the equiv4lentof steppingon their oxygen ube. 33

Casey,a devout Catholic, combined a fierce belief in the power

and importanceof religion with a Machiavellianattitude toward the

political util ity of religious belief. He was a deeply religious man,

and he had a good working relationshipwith the pope, saysMeyer.

Casey, wrote Coll, in Ghost'Wars, saw political Islam and the

Catholic Church as natural all ies n the 'realisticcounter-strategy' i

covert action he was forging at the CIA to thwart Soviet impe-

rialism. 3a n this view,Caseywas encouraged y his chief ntelligence



,be chal-

SeCOndt

Pol icY f

nd

\\ 'ASno t

ierved as

iPI i t was

who

ior him

take a

arc of

CaSey

effort .

esource

oi l

helPfu l

Union

.15cv sked

of oi l .

Pr ice of

Arabia

al l ing

Soviet

Soviets. t

thc Power

toward the

man'

i l \ 'SMeyer.

and the

of

impe-

intel l igence

Iihad II: lnto Central Asia . Lg j

adviseron the Middle East,Robert Ames,who was the CIAs leading

regionalexpert. n a speech,Casey reditedAmeswith havingempha-

sized o him the importance of efforts by the Soviet Union and its

all ies n the Muslim world to extirpateorganized eligion, because f

the threat that it supposedly osed o communist or nationalistparty

control. The communistswanted to uproot and ultimately change

the traditional elementsof society, said Casey, iting Ames. Thismeant undermining the influenceof religion and taking the young

away from their parents or educationby the state. For that reason,

the world's two great religionshad to cooperate. Becausehe Soviets

saw all religious aith as an obstacle, hey suppressed hurchesan d

mosques l ike. Caseywas convinced hat mil i tant Is lam and mil i-

tant Clhr ist ianityhouldcooperaten a commoncause. l t5

Inside he CIA, Caseyoften nfur iatedprofessional ol leagues y

his nonchalantview of the growing power of pol i t ical ls lam. l

worked with Casey, saysRichard Krueger,a formcr CIA operative

who spent he last several earsof the shah's eign working r ightinside he shah'sown office. After the revolution, I sponsoredwith

Casey nd the heads f al l the ntel l igcnce gencies futur istcxercise

at Camp Perry to analyze he lslan-ricmovcmcnt. According to

Kruegeq ohnMcMahon, Casey's eputy, lashed i th Casey vcr he

issue. I can remembermajor,major unpleasantr iesctweenCasey

and McMahon over he ong-term mplicat ions f the Islamic cvolu-

t ion, with McMahon taking an almost alarmistposit ionand Casey

taking a couldn't -carc- lessosit ion, recal lsKrueger. Caseywrrnted

to justwave t of f , and uncharacter ist ical lycMahon jumped n. He

wasagitated,alkingabor.r tow Islamic undamental ism asgoing ospread o Indonesia,he Phil ippincs. e bel ievedhe movementwas a

natural to internat ional ize,hrough all sortsof rel igiousand social

connect ions, nd that i t wouldn't appear o be state-sponsored. ut

Crseydi t l not egree. ln

Casey's iews on rel igion and poli t icsdovetai ledwith President

Reagan'sown rock-ribbed faith, and together he two men had n<r

trouble seeing he Afghan iihad as a rel igiouswar in which Chr is-

t ianityand slam wereal l ies gainst he atheist ic ovietUnion.Fawaz



284 . Drvrr 's Gevr.

Gergeswrote that Reaganconrinued he U.S. radition of supporting

Islamic eligious orces n the Middle East:

UnderReagan,U.S.policyremainedwedded o supporting on-

servative eligiouselements gainstsecular, ocialistand third

world nationalist orces. il/hereasthe administrarion's ublic

statements ere exceptionally ostile,no correspondinghanges

marked tsactualbehavior oward henew slamists. . . Reagan'sflirtation with the Islamistmujahideen actions n Afg hanistan

shouldbe situatedwithin the contextof the second hase f the

Cold War.Like hispredecessorsn the r95osand 196os, resident

Reagan llied heUnitedStates ith Islamist roupsand srates-

Afghanistan,Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan-ro combat what he

calledhe evilempire'and ts hird world clients.3T

Sometimes, Casey's willingness to encourage political Islam

seemedstrictly cynical. That was especi ally rue when Casey dealt

with SaudiArabia'sKing Fahd.Gus Avrakotos recounted he srory of

a discussionabout Casey's isitto Saudi

Arabiato

naildown thatyear'sSaudi matching contribution to the iihad fund. I told Casey

that he should talk to the king about 'your Muslim brothers,' about

using the mone y for food for families, for clothing, weapons, for

repairing he mosques.You should alk to him about being keeperof

the faith. ' Casey eplied: Jesus, uck, I like that-'keeper of the

faith.' Oh, fuck, I like that-'keeper of the faith. '38 A former CIA

official nvolved n the ihad confirmed hat srory. We would tell the

Saudiswhat a good thing it was that the religious Afghans were

expelling he atheistic ommunists, he adds. It was rhepolitic thing

to say o King Fahd, 3e

Starting rn t984, Casey pushed the Saudi-Pakistanalliance to

undertake a much more explosivestrateg5 launching propaganda,

sabotage, nd guerrilla activity across he Amu River into the Soviet

Union's Muslim republics. The borders n that part of the world are,

well, sort of sloppy, saysMeyer, Casey's ide. So all sorts of inter-

esting hings happened. 40 CIA officia l who worked with Caseyat

the time says: There were occasional orays that took place within

the territory of the Soviet Union, w hich scared the crap out of

Moscow. 4l In taking such provocativesteps,Caseydrew on covert



nubl ic

0f the

.r.rt he

dealt

Of

thatCasey

or

of

CIA

tel i the

were

, l r i ,- th in o

.^..^^-t^

the Soviet

\ \ 'or ldare,

of inter-

Casey t

within

Out of

t

lihad II: Into Central Asia z8 5

action plans that had originally been developedduring the Carter

administration,but which had been ejectedbecause f the very real

danger that the USSRwould counterattack n unpredictableways,

including either a di rect strike at P akistanor an effort to foment a

rebellion n Pakistan's nstableprovinceof Baluchistan.

The ISI'sYousafprovides he most detailedaccountof the jihad's

move acrossAfghanistan'snorthern border. The people on bothsideswere Uzbeks,Tajiks, and Turkomans, he wrote. They shared

a common ethnic dentity and, despite he communistclampdown on

religious activities, hey also shared he same aith, Islam. 4 2Casey

declared,according to Yousaf: This is the soft und erbelly of the

SovietUnion. During a visit to ISI's headquarters,Casey was the

first personseriously o advocateoperationsagainst he Soviets nside

their own territory. . . . He u'as convinced hat stirring up trouble in

this region would be certain o give he Russianbeara bellyache. At

first, the effort was restricted to smuggling propaganda into the

USSR'sMuslim republics, eeking o stir up Islamic ervor.During ther98os thor,rsandsf Korans were printed in Central Asian languages

and covertly moved across he Afghan border. Some of the Ko rans

were printed in SaudiArabia, othersby the CIA itself, using Muslim

connectionsn ntrestern uroPe.

SaudiArabia, especially, as interestedn Central Asia becauset

saw ran, and the new Khonteini egime irere. s a compet itor ry ing

to spread its version of Shiite fundamentalism nto Central Asia,

againstSaudiArabia'sultra-orthodox'Wahhabibrand of Sunni slam.

A former CIA opera tionsofficer who worked closelywith SaudiAra-

bia says hat Saudi ntelligence fficers old him about their idea of colonizing he'Stans :

Theywanted o get n thereandsteal marchon the ranians, nd

undercut he Russians,nd makesure hat Sunni slamprevailed

over Shia slam.The Saudiswere eady o go. Theysaid, \(/e've

got to get n there, nto the stans, e'vegot to work together, se

Islam o break he grip of communismn the 'stans,n Kazakh-

stan,Uzbekistan, ll through here. t wasopenseason. ifferent

Saudi rinces ndclericswould go up thereor send tuff up there,

Koransandothermaterial.a3



; -86 . Drvr l 's Gerrr

Beginning n 1984, however, t was more than just Korans and

Islamist books and propaganda. "The United Statespur in rrain a

major escalationof the war which, over the next three years,culmi-

nated n numerouscross-border aids and sabotagemissionsnorth of

the Amu," wrote Mohammad Yousaf. "During this period we were

specifically o train and dispatch hundredsof Mujahideen up to zj

kilometresdeep nside he SovietUnion. They wereprobably the most

secretand sensitive perationsof the war." He added hat the Soviet

Union's "specificworry was the spread of fundamentalismand its

influenceon Soviet Central Asian Muslims."aaThe ISI official was

prepared o "send teams over the river to carry out rocket attacks,

mine-laying, derailment of trains or ambushes."45 eams that did

cross he Sovietborder soughtcontactsamong Muslim activists n the

region. "I was impressed y the number of reportsof peoplewanting

to assist,"wrote Yousaf. "Some wanted weapons, some wanted to

join the Mujahideen n Afghanisran, nd others o parricipate n oper-

ations nside he SovietUnion."46Accordine o Yousaf:

These ross-bordertrikeswere at their peak n 1986.Scores f

attackswere madeacross he Amu from Jozjan o Badakshan

Provinces. ometimesoviet itizensoined n these perations, r

cameback n to Afghanistano yoin he Mujahideen. . . That we

werehittinga sorespotwasconfirmed y the erocityof the Sovi-

ets' reaction.Virtualiy every ncursionprovokedmassive erial

bombingand gunshipattacks n all villages outhof the river n

the vicinityof our strike.aT

It was, of course, an offensive that not only risked inflaming latent

Islamistsentiment nside he SovietUnion but which could have pro-

voked Moscow to retaliate against Pakistan tself, something hat

could lead to a U.S.-Sovietglobal conflagration-and all of this

unfolded secretly,without the knowledge of the American public.

According to various accounrs of the Afghan conflict, and from

Yousaf'sown testimony, eventually cooler heads in \Tashington got

the upper hand,and the cross-border ttackswere halted."By r98 5, t

becameobvious that the United Stateshad got cold feet," mourned

Yousaf. "Somebodyat the top in the American administration was

c'Frr ' . ' . '

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Jihad II: Into Central Asia . 287

getting frightened. But, he asserted, the CIA, and others,gave us

every encouragement nofficiall y to take the war into the Soviet

IJnion. 48

In the end, the Casey-lSloffensive nto the SovietUnion failed to

provoke a Muslim uprising. The Brzezinski-Bennigsenheory of a

restiveMuslim population chafing to revolt against ts Sovietover-

lords, and loyal to an undergroundnetwork of Sufi slamists, rovedflawed, at best.Yet there is no question that the Casey-ISIactions

aided the growth of a significant network of right-wing Islamist

extremistswho, to this day,stil l plague he governments f the former

Soviet epublics,now led by regimes f varyi ng authoritarian,but not

Islamist, character. n particular, the Islamic Movement of Uzbek-

istan, the Islamic Liberation Party (Hizb ut-Tahrir), the powerful

Islamist $oups in Chechnya and Dagestan,and the shadowy Al

Qaeda presencen Central Asia all gainedmomentum in the r98os,

thanks o the spilloverof the Afghan ihad.

No END ro JrHao

The Afghan jihad did not end when the Sovie t Union withdrew its

forces. The United Stateshad no exit strategy and no plan for

Afghanistan n the wake of the war. Most pol icy makers n \ Tashing-

ton believed hat the weak pro-Sovietgovernment n Kabul that was

left in place would collapse n short ordeq but i t lingered on. Th e

mujahideen,who fractured into factions after the war and fought

amongst themselves,ontinued to fight. And Pakistan, which saw

Afghanistan as its partner in a coalition against ndia, heavily sup-

ported the Islamists n the shattered ountry.

None of this seemed o bother top U.S. officialsat the time. 'We

knew we were involved with Islamic fundamentalis ts, said Caspar

\Weinberger,who servedas PresidentReagan's ecretaryof defense.

\7e knew they were not very nice people, and they were not all

people attached o democracy.But we had this terrible problem of

making choices. . . Rememberwhat Churchill said, If Hitler invaded

Hell. I would at leastmake a favorable reference o the Devil in the



288 . Dnvrr . 's Gaur ,

Houseof Commons. ' 4et was an apt character izat ionf U.S.pol icy

toward Afghanistan, Central Asia, and the arc of Islam in the

r 98os.

There is no question that the U.S. support for the mujahideen,

most of which went to the hard-core slamists,was a catastrophic

miscalculation. t devastated fghanistan tself, ed to th e collapseof

its government,and gave ise o a landscape ominatedby warlords,

both Islamists and otherwise. t created a worldwide network of

highly trained Islamist fighters from a score of countries, linked

together and roughly affiliated to Osama bin Laden's soon-to-be

established l Qaeda organization. t left behind a shatterednation

that playedhost to Al Qaedaand other assorted errorist ormarions.

And it set up conditionsunder which Pakistan's SI could encourage

the growth of the Talibanmovement n the rgc)os.

Yet advocatesof the jihad, even those who in 2ooj are rhe

staunchest roponentsof the globalwar on terrorism directedagainst

Islamist groups, assert hat it was correct policy. I think it was the

right thing do to, saysDaniel Pipes, he prolific campaigneragainst

political Islam and son of Richard Pip es, who coordinated the

NationalitiesSTorkingGroup in the earlyyearsof the Reaganadmin-

istration. During those years,Daniel Pipeswas a StateDepartment

and National SecurityCouncil official. \WesupportedStalin against

Hitler, he says,echoing Teinberger's heory of dealing with devils.

These are real-world choices. The most militant among the

mujahideenwere the best ighters,according o Pipes. If anything,

the radical slarnists ere seenas more vehemently nti-Soviet. 50t is

a view echoedby numerousU.S.veteransof the Afghan war, includ-

ing many CIA officialsand policy makers. The people we did sup-

port were he nastier,more fanatic ypesof mujahideen, said Stephen

P. Cohen, who was a top StateDepartment official in the r9Bos. If

you want to win the Cold rVar and defeat he Soviets n Afghanistan,

you can't use he SalvationArmy. -it

Needless o say, he fanatic types did not fade away after the

Soviet Union decided o withdraw from Afghanisran,although the

people sponsoring hem changeddramatically: Bill Caseydied, and

both GeneralZra and the head of ISI were killed in an unexnlained

^loao ,-r , .

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Stephen

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died, and

Iihad II: Into Central Asia . z8s

planecrash.But the Islamic ight was entrenchedn both Afghanistan

and Pakistan.The Isl amic Group of Pakistanwas rich and powerful,

and well connectedwith the Muslim Brotherhood'sworldwide net-

works. Most of the top ISI officials were now confirmed Islamists

with Muslim Brotherhood inks. The IslamicGroup and the Brother-

hood, in turn, maintained strong ties to Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and

the other militant Islamists n Afghanistan, and ro the burgeoningmujahideennetwork from dozensof countrieswho came and we nt

freely though the madrassa ystem.The Sovietwithdrawal was cele-

brated as a tremendous ictory at the CIA and the Pentagon, nd for

the most part they turned away from Afghanistan, assuming ha t

the pro-Soviet regime that still ruled in Kabul, led by President

Najibullah, would quickly fall. The CIA drew an analogywith how

quickly the government of South Vietnam fell after the U.S. with-

drawal there, and they assumed hat Najibullah would collapse n

short order. Still, an odd sort of morning-afterqueasiness eveloped

in U.S.government irc les.At the StateDepartment,and evenat the CIA, therewas somedis-

quiet over the prospectof Hekmatyar and other fundamentalistsak -

ing over in Afghanistan. Soviet officials were among rhosewarning\Washingtonof the dangers nherent n the Islamistmovement.Soviet

Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadzeried to feel our Secretary f

StateGeorgeShultzabout the possibiliryof a U.S.-Soviet enrleman's

agreement n the terms of a soviet pullout, and he asked or Ameri-

can cooperation n limiting the spreadof 'Islamic undamentalism.'

However, other than Shultz, the adminisrration was unsympathetic

and no high-levelReagan administration officials ever gave muchthought to the issue.They neverconsidered ressingPakistani ntelli-

gence o begin shifting support away from the Muslim Brotherhood-

connected actions. Moscow was exceedinglyworried about Islamic

fundamentalism aking root along ts southern rontier, however,an d

evenVladimir Kryuchkov, the head of the KGB, sat down with CIA

Director Gates o explai nwhy Soviet eaderswere fearful about the

rise o power in Afghanistanof another undamentalist overnment,

Sunnicomplement o Shiite ran. -52 o no avail.

By default, the United Statesallowed Pakistan and the ISI to



z9o . Drvrr 's Gaue

maintain control of the political levers n Afghanistan.The official

Saudi spigot for cash had largely shut down, but the unofficial,pri-

vate sourcesof funding-through various wealthy princes, hrough

the Muslim'World League, hrough the Muslim Brotherhood'snet-

works-were still up and running. According to two U.S. ambassa-

dors who served n Saudi Arabia at this time, the United States

handled he end of the war badly. \fhere I was, nobody was ooking

aheadat what would happen o theseunemployed reedom ighters,

says'WalterCutler,who was U.S. ambassadorn SaudiArabia during

most of the r98os. I don't recal lany discussion bout, Gee, won-

der if theseguysare going to poseany threat?'We

didn't really focus

that much on political Islam. Ir wa s the Cold'S7ar.

The fact that you

had these ealots, rainedand armedwith Stingers, idn't come up. -53

\7e start wars without figuring out how we would end them,

saysCharles Freeman,who was ambassador o Saudi Arabia at the

end of th e 198osand during the first Gulf'$Var

rn rggr. Afghanistan

was lurching into civil war, and we basicallydidn't care anymore.

Adds Freeman:

The Afghan struggledidn't stop. Someof us were concerned-I

was,and sowas [Robert]Oakley U.S.ambassadorn Pakistan],

who wasconcerned bout he SI screwing round n Afghanistan

and Kashmir,and that the Saudiswere complicit n this. Yo u

couldn't eally igureout if the Saudiswere beingused,or were

witting. talked o [Prince] urki [theheadof Saudi ntelligencel

about t, and o the ClA, and my message as, basically,hat we

need o start hinkingaboutdisentanglingurselves.ut herewas

somequestion .bout hetherSaudiArabiahad been aptured y

the ISI. The ISI would take heir moneyand start mplementing

things,and we didn't know what theyweredoing.Certainly lot

of Saudimoneywas going o Hekmatyar.But we couldn't eally

figureout what the Saudiagendawas.There'dbeenup to $3 bil-

l ion a year flowing nto the war, in all, from the United States,

Saudi Arabia, and others.You can'r just turn the spigot off

overnight.Both Boband I thoughtwe shouldhavea serious ia-

logueabout t, but we couldn'tgetanyone lse nterested,nclud-

ing [Robert]Gatesand [\X/il l iam]Webster both CIA directors].

Part of the attitude n \Tashingtonwas, 'Sfhy shouldwe go out



Jihad II: Intc.tCentral Asia

there and talk to peoplewith towels on their heads?"So we

weren'teffective.5a

According to Yousaf,who had a bird's-eye iew of the end of the

war from his post at ISI, as the dust cleared n Afghanistan some

Americansdid becomealarmedat the prospectof Hekmatyar and hi s

fellow fundamentalistsaking power. "The Americansbegan o lookat an Afghanistanwithout the Red Army," he wrote. "'What they saw

alarmed hem." But, he said, Gen. Akhtar Abdel R ahman Khan, the

ISI architect of the jihad, managed o counter the ineffectual U.S.

efforts to strengthenpotential Afghan non-fundamentalistgroups,

including he forcesallied o the exiled king,Zahir Shah,and to other,

less slamistpartiesand ndividuals. GeneralAkhtar understood the

Americans'] aims and methods and opposed their every move."

Akhtar alsoopposedwhat Yousafcalls "the Americans'bright ideaof

bringing back the long-exiledZahir Shah o head a governmentof

nat ional econci l iat ion.55

Even had the United Stateswanted to exert itself to minimize the

power of the fundamentalists fter the war, and to enhance he strength

of the moderates, entrists, nd secularists,t would havebeendifficult-

for the simple reason hat most of them were dead. At the same ime

that the largelyIslamist mujahideenwere battling the USSR, hey were

alsokilling potentialpostwar Afghan opponenti by the thousands, n a

little-known second ront of the jihad directedagainstnon-communist

Afghanis. "In Afghanistan,we made a deliberatechoice," saysCheryl

Benard,a RAND Corporation expert on political Islam, who is married

toZalmayKhalilzad,who served s U.S.ambassadorn Kabul. "At first,

everyone hought, There'sno way to beat the Soviets.So what we have

to do is to throw the worst craziesagainst hem that we can find, and

therewas a lot of collateral damage.We

knew exactly who thesepeople

were, and what their organizationswere like, and we didn't care," she

says."Then, we allowed them to get rid of, just kill all the moderate

leaders.The reason we don't have moderate leaders n Afghanistan

today is becausewe let the nuts kill them all. They killed the leftists, he

moderates, he middle-of-the-roaders.They were just eliminated, dur-

ing the r98os and afterward."56

)-9

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292 . Dnvr l 's GeuE

SgcnET DEALS IN/ITH THE AYAToLLAHS

The wreckage eft behind n Afghanistancould havebeenevenworse

had the Reaganadministration'ssecret nitiatives oward Iran from

r98o to r986 borne fruit. There are three episodesn regard o Iran

that paralleled America's alliance with fundamentalist Islam in

Afghanistan: he so-calledOctober Surprise n r98o, Israel'ssecret

relationship with Iran during the r98os, and the ry84-86 covert

Reaganadministrationapproach o Ayatollah Khomeini's ran.

In r98o, as Carter administration officials frantically tried to

secure he release f the U.S. hostagesn Iran, it appears ikely that

membersof the Reagancampaign eam, ncluding CaseSestablished

contactswith Iranian officials, n an effort to postpone he hostages'

release ntil after the election.

Gary Sick,a U.S.Navy officerwho served n the National Security

Council staff under Ford, Carter,and Reagan,concludedyears ater

that the Reagan-Bush ampaigndid in fact enter nto secret alks with

Iranian leaders o prevent he release f the hostages nd to promise

to ship U.S. and Israel i arms to Iran in r98r. He penneda detailed

account of his findings in the book Ocrober Surprise:America's

Hostages n Iran and the Election of Ronald Reagan.In it, he con-

cludes: The Reagan-Bush ampaignmounted a professionallyorga-

nized intelligenceoperation to subvert the American democratic

process.57

Sicksuspectedhat the basis or the GOP-Iran alks was a promise

that a Republicanadministrationwould look with favor on the ship-

ment of Israeliand other arms to Iran, possibly ncludingU.S.stock-

piles of weapons that the shah had ordered and paid for. Iran

desperatelyneededweapons or its fight with Iraq, which erupted nto

a full-scalewar in September 98o. Israel,which had a long military

relationshipwith Iran going back to the two countries' first major

arms deal n 1966,was eager o supplyTeheran's lerical egimewith

weapons,despite he hostagecrisis. Israel'salmost frantic efforts to

reopen an arms relationship with Iran were being thwarted by Presi-

dent Carter, who stubbornly refused o acquiesce o even oken Israeli



.lihad II: Into Central Asia

arms shipmentsuntil the hostageswere free, wrote Sick.s8nterest-

ingly, the key Iranian broker for arms talks between sraeland Iran

was Ahmed Kashani, the son of Ayatollah Seyyed Abolqassem

Kashani, he cler icwho receivedCIA payments n r953 in order to

organize mobs demanding the overthrow of Mossadegh and the

return of the shah.Kashanivisited srael n r9t3o,according o Sick,

who adds hat other channels etween sraeland Iran were unction-ing long beforehe arrived. In the springof r98o, a small sraeliarms

shipment rr ived n lran. 'o

Sickprovidesa detailedaccountof contactsand meetings etween

Casey, ther Reaganofficials,and a host of Iranian go-betweens, ev -

eral of whom would turn up as part of the ry84-86Iran-contra scan-

dal.60Someof them, in turn, had closecontacts n Israel,and Israel

and Iran beganclosermilitary cooperation n late r98o, including-

most spectacularly-Israel's June 7, r98r, air raid that destroyed

Iraq's Osirak nuclear acility,only daysafter he outbreakof the Iran-

Iraq war. Israelprovided ran with information on how to attack henuclear acility but . . . the Iraqi air defense as too good for the Iran-

ian air force, eportedSick.nlSo sraeldid i t .

Casey,according o Sick, helped ran break the U.S. embargo on

Israeli arms for Iran. 'sfilliam Casey struck exactly the kind of

unsentimentalbargain with the Iranian clerics hat the Iran lobby in

Israelhad been ooking for, wrote Sick. Isriel was approached n

Augustnot only by Caseybut by officialswithin the CIA who encour-

aged srael o cooperatewith the Republican nitiative as a meansof

freeing he hostages. 52t theNSC, Si ck wasgetting eportsof Israeli

arms deliverieso Iran, in defiance f Carter'sopposition.The Israeli

leadership, t the very highest evel,had deliberatelS lmostcontemp-

tuously turned its back on Jimmy Carter'sadministration. 6s n the

end, the hostageswere freed, but only on January zo, t98r, minutes

after Reaganwas sworn in asAmerica's ortieth president. Few sus-

pected, wrote Sick, hat the release f the hostages was the denoue-

ment of an elaborateplot that had been hatched months before by

\(iilliam Casey. 64

The secretReagan-Caseyontactswith Iran in r98o-8r foreshad-

owed effortsduring the Reaganadministration o maintain covert ies

z.)

Se

rom

to

later

con-

ship-

an

nto

to

Presi-





)pposed

-ro l l rf^

es o

lihad Il: [nto Central Asia . L9 \

Middle East section.6'5They were dealingwith the samepeople hey

dealtwith under he shah.During these ears, he Israeliswere having

meetingsonce a month in Europe with people from the Iranian air

force. According to Lang, these srael-Iranmeetings ook place or

many years. Israel, he said, would ask Iran what sort of arms it

needed,hen take Teheran's hopping ist to seewhat it could provide.

At the time, the Reaganadministrationhad institutedwhat wascalledOperation Staunch n r984, to cut thearms low to Iran and Iraq, but

the Israelis louted it and Reagannever usedAmerica's nfluence n

Israel o get them to halt the arms deliveries. The Israeliswere doing

this all along, Lang says. At the Defense ntelligenceAgency,we

found out about it when an Iranian air force colonel defected o us

and told us about t. Stil l,saysLang,PresidentReagan'seam ooked

the other way. My impression s that we didn't try too hard to stop

it, says Lang. In just the immediate period after the release f th e

U.S. hostages, srael supplied ran with $3oo mill ion worth of mili-

tary equipment.The shipments ncludedspareparts for U.S.F-4 air-craft,M-48 tanks,and M-r r3 armoredpersonnel arr iers.66

An important incident n r983 reveals he extent o which Casey's

CIA worked with Iran's ntelligence ervicewhen it was n both coun-

tries' mutual interest o do so. n t982, Vladimir Kuzichkin,u'ho had

servedas he stationchief n Teheran or the SovietKGB, defected o

Great Britain. During the r:evolution, uzichkin had ably represented

Soviet nterests n Iran, but in fact the Sovietpresencen Iran was

quite small, and did not threateneither he United States r the shah.

According to Kuzichkin, who later wrote a book a bout his experi-

ence, he KGB had agrand otal of two

agents ngovernment

and offi-cial Iranian circles. I could not believemy eyes, ut it was a fact,and

facts do not go away, he wrote. I was very surprisedat the small

number of agents n Iran. 67Kuzichkin also wrote that the USSRval-

ued the stability of Iran under the shahand that Moscow never had

any contactswith either the Islamist revolutionariesor the so-called

Islamic Manist groups that briefly made common cause with

Khomeini.6s ut the KGB stationdid support he small and ineffective

Tudeh CommunistParty n Iran.

When Kuzichkin defected,he decided to win favor in Anglo-

) l lc lesat

torvard

t i l t

in the

includ-

backed

sup-

t fOOp

o get

he shah

nv and

-re nOW

Iran

he suc-

mer-

V2-

ays



296 . DEvrr- 's Gaur

Americancirclesby givingMI6 and the CIA everything e knew about

the Tudeh and its members. He provided the British with a list of

severalhundred S oviet agentsoperating n Iran, wrote JamesBill.

Almost immediately,MI6 and the CIA handedKuzichkin's nforma-

tion to the Iranian ntellisence ervice:

Kuzichkin'snformationwas sharedwith the Iranianauthorities,

who arrested ver r,ooo Tudehparty members,many of whom

had already been under surveillance. hose arrested ncluded

NureddinKianuri [theTudeh eader,who admittedl hat he ha d

maintained ontactwith Soviet gents ince 945. This dramatic

destruction f theTudehparty n r983 completedhe dismantling

of the ranian eft.6e

None of this, of course,was madepublic at the time. Americans new

nothing about the CIAs sub rosa cooperationwith Khomeini's ran,

nothing about Israel's ngoing armssupply o lran, and, ater,nothing

about the Iran-contra nitiative oward Iran, until it was revealed y a

Lebanesenewspaper.Mel Goodman, a former CIA analyst who

headed he agency's eam analyzingSovietpolicy in the Third World,

confirms that the CIA was part of the Kuzichkin-Ml6 connection o

Iran. The CIA was involved in that, too, saysGoodman. They

were working with the ayatollah to wrap up the Tudeh Party. There

was a lot of lcable] traffic on it. Kuzichkin was being run by th e

British and he provided a lot of information. According to Good-

man, the CIA and MI6 were working with Iranian intelligenceoffi-

cials who had been part of the old SAVAK organization,and who

simply shifted oyalty to th,e ew Islamic epublic.T0

Most n otorious among he former SAVAK officialsnow cooperat-

ing with the new regimewas HosseinFardoust.Fardoustwas a child-

hood friend of the shah,who had attended chool n Switzerlandwith

both the shah and future CIA director Richard Helms. Fardoustha d

risen to a high position in Iranian intelligence n the r97osr and in

r976he was named o head he Organizat ion f Imper ial lnspect ion,

which was reconstituted by the shah. In his memoirs, the shah

describes he inspectorate s a modern versionof what the ancient

Persians ad ;'-

keep rack o: :

c lergy.But F. . :

Pr incess sh:, : :

her memoir . : : ,

what the nr .:



l is t of

Bi l l .

r r r forma-

s'horn

he h:rd

. lmatlc

r,.r l inq

knew

ran,

othing

y awho

World,

tO

"They

There

bY the

to Good-

f f i -

and who

cooperat-

vasa chi ld-

i th

ad

and in

InsPect ion'

the shah

he ancient

Jihad II: Into Central Asia . zs7

Persians ad called the eyesand ears of the king.'"71 Its lob was to

keep track of political currents n the country, ncl uding among the

clergy. But Fardoust joined the pro-Khomeini opposition, secretly.

Princess shraf, he shrewdand ruthlesssisterof the shah, ecalled n

her memoirs hat Fardoust ailed, deliberately,o inform the shah of

what the mullahswere doing:

Curiously, AVAK-the supposedlyll-seeing,ll-knowing ntelli-

gencesource-made no reports on the extent and manner in

which the mullahswere now using he sanctityof the pulpit to

underminehe hrone. . . Eachdaymy brothermetwith Hossein

Fardoust, . . the sameFardoust f childhood,whoseassignment

was o gather, valuate, nd distillall intelligenceeports. . . I am

convinced hat Fardoustmust have withheld vital information

from the S hah and was, in fact, in active negotiationwith

Khomeiniduring he lastyearsof the regime. think the events

following the revolution supportmy view; at a time when anyone

remotely onnected ith the Shahwasbeing ummarily xecuted,

HosseinFardoust emainsalive and well, prospering nder he

new administrationas one of the headsof SAVAMA (which is

Khomeini's ame or SAVAK).72

'Whetherit was the mysteriousFardoustor someone lse,both the

CIA and the Israelishad channels nto Iran's ntelligence ervice rom

the first days of the revolution through the start of the Casey-North

conspiracy n the mid-r98os. Seen n this context, the Iran-contra

affair is not some strangeaberration, but simply an extensionof a

preexisting elationship hat dated back to ry79.Vithin the Reagan

administration,a small clique of conservatives, nd neoconservatives,were most intimately nvolved n the Iran-contra ni tiative,especially

thoseU.S.officialsand consultantswho were closest o the Israelimil-

itary and intelligence stablishment.

The record of the han affaft has been told and retold in various

books, memoirs, and official government eports.T3 he entire busi-

nesswas complex and multilayered,and it tied U.S. and Israeliarms

shipments o Iran to illegal financial support for the Nicaraguan

guerrillas backed by the Reaganadministration. Critics of the U.S.



: '98 . Dr 'vrr 's Ger ln

approach o Iran accuseReaganand his advisersof seeking o trade

arms with Iran for the releaseof U.S. hostages n Lebanon held by

Hezbollah,an Iranian cat's-paw. ndeed, o PresidentReaganhimself,

the dealwith Iran may haveappeared o be simply an effort to get he

hostages eleased, l though he president in later estimony)said hat

he could not recallapproving he arms ransfers o Iran. To his advis-

ers,however-especially to the neoconservativesnd Casey-it had a

much broaderpurpose,namely,an attempt to reengagewith Iran, in

direct opposition to the official U.S. policy of supporting raq in its

resistanceo Iranianexpansionism.

The context for the secretCasey-Northapproach o Iran was the

National SecurityCouncil's :r984 reevaluation f U.S.policy toward

Iran. That reevaluationwas pushedby a small clique of U.S. officials

opposed o the American ilt in favor of Iraq during the Iran-Iraqwar.

Robert McFarlane, the national security adviser,ordered the NSC

review,and severalofficials-including Howard Teicherand Donald

Fortier at the NSC, Graham Fuller at the CIA, and others-began a

two-year-longcampaign to shift U.S. policy in favor of Iran. Their

effort dovetailednicelywith parallel sraeliefforts o isolate raq and

connect with Iran. At the time, Israel was s upplying arms to lran,

backing he riseof the Islamic ight in the occupied erritories, ueling

the Muslim Brotherhood's ivil war in Syria,and fiercelysupporting

the Islamistsn Afghanistan.

In 1985, Fuller-working along with Teicher and Fortier-

produced an infamous SpecialNational IntelligenceEstimate SNIE)

that called for the United States o provide arms to the ayatollahs'

regimeand a draft policy paper hat said hat the United States hould

encourage Westernallies and friends to help Iran meet its import

requirements . . including provision of selectedmilitary equipment. Ta

Both Secretaryof State Shultz and Secretaryof DefenseWeinberger

strongly opposed he idea, but CIA Director Caseybacked t. In the

midst of this internal battle, srael stepped n, using ntermediaries o

proposea joint U.S.-Israeli ffort to approach ran and sellTeheran

weapons. The U.S. contact for the Israeli intelligenceschemewas

Michael Ledeen,a neoconservative SC consultant,who was sent o

Isr .

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Israel by McFarlane o discuss he idea. Specifically,sraelwanred o

ship HAWK antiaircraft and TOW antitank missiles o the Iranians,

weapons consideredcritical in Iran's war with Iraq, along with a

U.S. commitment to resupply sraelwith the missilesonce hey were

sent. Israel's ationale was the releaseof the U.S. hostages,but of

course srael-and elementswithin the Americanadministration-had

broader,pro-Iranian strategicconcerns,not related o the hostages.Teicher, n particular,vehementlysupported he Iran initiative. In

r98o, when Iran and Iraq went to war, l renewed my campaign

against he nascent ilt toward Iraq, wrote Teicher n his memoirs.

He added hat someU.S. officialsviewed he war as a way to under-

mine the Islamist threat from Iran, which at the time was holding

fifty-threeAmericanscaptive. The Arabists n the U.S. government

saw the lraqi invasionas an opportuni ty o el iminate he growing

threat of Iranian-sponsoredslamic undamentalism. T's

Advocates or sellin garms o Iran made wo seriously lawedargu-

ments. The first was that there were moderates nside Iran whowanted to deal with the United States,and who would look with

favor upon a U.S.goodwill offer to replenish ran'sdwindling arsenal.

The secondwas that Iran was internallyweak and unstable,and ripe

for a Soviet akeo ver hat could bring the USSR nto the Gulf. Both

argumentswere wildly inaccurate-and so was the belief hat token

arms shipments ould win freedom or U.S. hostagesn Lebanon.At

the start of the Iran initiative, an Israeli intelligenceofficial told

McFarlane hat the Israelis lanned o provide somearms o moder-

ates n Iran who woul d opposeKhomeini. The idea hat somepow-

erfulfaction

ofIranian moderateswould

emerge o greet he UnitedStatesand Israel with open arms and take action againstKhomeini

captivated many of the U.S. participants n the lran-contra affair,

including Caseyhimself. But it was a mirage.According to a former

seniorCIA official, t took a lot of doing n the mid-r9Sos to convince

Casey hat the chimerical moderates were not there. There were

no moderates o speakof in t986, says he CIA official.When

Ollie

North, McFarlane,and other U.S.and Israeliofficialswere planninga

secret isit to Iran to try to make a deal, he official says,Casey-who





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Is lamic epublic n pr inciple. 78n his controversial NIE and orher

analyses, uller insisted he United States vould drive Iran ir-rto he

soviet camp unless t allorved sraeland other allies o arm tl'remul-

lahs. t said hat to the extent hat American all ies, ncluding srael,

can fil l a military gr,rpor Iran rvill be a critical *easure of the \rvest's

abi l i ty o blunt Soviet nf luence. 7

Fuller'sanalysiswas hotly disputecl y .ther: ntellige.cc officiirls.Fuller'sSNIE said hat the Iran revoluri.n rvasphony, hat it was ed

by a bunch of agricultural reformerswho didn't really care alrour

Islam and that they would make common cause with the Soviet

LJnion, says he DIA's Lang. I got another NIE started,which was

finished five months later. And it said exactly the opposite, but it

didn't have the same mpact. In the rneantime,Fuller,Teicher,and

otherspressed head o rranslareFuller'sSNIE into U.S. policy,seek-

ing to draft a presidential irective hat called or a vigorous policy

designed o block Soviet advances n the short-term while trying to

restore he U.S.position in Iran r,', 'hich xistedunder the shah. 'Ihedirective, ouched n anti-Soviet,Cold'War rerms,virtually called or

an alliancewith the IslamicRepublicof Iran against he USSR, nclud-

ing continued ranian resistanceo Sovietexpansion in particular, n

Afghanistan). The draft enc ouraged srael and other U.S. allies to

arm Iran, and it called or the United Srates o esrablish inks with,

arrd provide supporr o. I ranian eaderswho might be recept ive o

efforts to improve relationswith the United Stares. t also calledon

the Voice of America to increase efforts to discredit Moscow,s

Islamiccredentials.

Iran still represented he strategicprize in the modern GreatGame, wrote Teicher. McFarlane agreedwith Fuller'sanalysisand

directedFortier and me to draft an NSDD [National SecurityDeci-

sion Directivel. The NSDD was basedon Fuller's analysis and it ]

argued that . . . the United Statesshould establisha dialogue with

Iranian leaders. he proposal ncluded he provision of selectedmili-

tary equipment o I ran as determinedon a case-by-caseasis. 80

The Iran initi ative proceeded ur was later shot down by Shultz andlVeinberger.The latter scribbleclhe word absurd on Teicher's raft



3oz'Dpvtl 's Geun

NSDD.,,I

also added hat this is roughly like inviting Qaddafi over

for a cozy unch, said'weinberger.8l ccording o Teicher, ice Pres-

ident Bushand CIA Director Casey strongly supported t.''82

By the end of the Reaganadministration, he Iran-contra initia-

tive had come to light, and it was being nvestigated y journalists,a

special rosecutor, nd congressional ommittees. he olive branch o

the Iranians had failed. Only a single hostage had beenreleased

during the initiative, and not necessarily ecauseof it. No Iranian

moderates spoke up, and those who cooperatedwith the Reagan

administration and Israel in secfet, such as Ali Akbar Hashemi-

Rafsanjani,a future Iranian president, overed heir tracksby appear-

ing to becomeevenmore bellicose.

The Afghan jihad ended-or appearedo end-with the withdrawal

of Soviet orces.But the legacyof that conflict, including well-trained

terrorist operativesand a worldwide Islamist machine,would continue

to plague he UnitedStates nd he'West.n the r99os, Afghanistan el l

to the \Tahhabi Taliban movement;Algeriawasengulfed n a civil war

against the Islamic right; and Islamist terrorists wreaked havoc in

Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Lebanon; and Osama bin Laden put AI

Qaeda ogether.Through it all , the United Statesstruggled'unsuccess-

full,v, o adopt a coherent policy toward political Islam. The conse-

quencesof its failure to do so, and its continued benign view of the

Islamic ight, would become ainfully obviouson SeptemberI' zool.

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CLASH OF CIVI LIZATIONS?

TnB coro \7en ended n t99t . But, i f the cold war was worldwar III, does hat mean,assomeconservatives rgue, hat the unitedstates s now engaged n world \Var IV, this time against slam? sIslamic undamentalism he "new communism"? s the war on terror-ism the twenty-first-century quivalentof the global struggleagainstthe soviet union? How serious, eally, s the threat of Islamisr error-ism?And how-if at all-did America's elarionship o polirical slamchangewith the end of the Cold \far?

The central hemeof this book is that the Islamic ight was seenasa valuableU.s. ally during the cold war. rwasthat alliance super-

seded,or renderedsuperfluous,by the disappearance f the u.S.-soviet rivalry?

s7iththe elimination of its communisrenemy,did the

Islamic right direct its wrath instead oward the Great saransof thesecular

west?Is the united statesnow facing a worldwide enem),,

comprisinga hydra-headedmonster ied to a network of srates-Iran,syria, Libya, sudan, and saudi Arabia-that Michael Ledeen. heIran-contraveteran, alls he "terror masters"?

Since eptember r ,2oor, the not ion that the United States ndthe Muslim world are on a collisioncoursehasgainedcredence.f the6rst Iraq war in t99r marked the start of the short-lived New world



30 4 Drvt t . 's ( ierr t

Order, does the second Iraq war in zoo3 symbolize an entirely

different era: the Clash of Civilizatio ns?Proponentsof this view-

popularizecl y BernardLewis and SamuelHuntington-see President

Bush'swil: on terrorism not as a struggleagainstAl Qaeda and its

radical allies,but as a titanic strugglepitting Judeo-Christian iviliza-

tion against he Muslim world. Fittingly, n the Pentagon, he Global'War

on Terrorism is kn own by its acronym, G-WOT, pronounced geewhat, thusneatly hymingwith j ihad.

I-eadingneoconservatives,uchasJames$7oolse1',he former CI A

director and Commentary'sNorman Podhoretzproclaimed hat the

struggleagainst slam was indeedWorld'Sfar IV. Joinedby key Bush

administration officials , they com pared the power of the Islamic

right-and sometimes, he religion of Islam itself-to that of fascism

or communism. t was, they said, a globe-spanning pponent whose

existencehreatenedAmerica'ssurvival,and because f it, previouslr'

unthinkable stepshad to be taken. To fight World'S7ar

IV would

require a new U. S. doctrine of unilateral,preventivewars,an offen-

siveposture that included wars againstAfghanistan, raq, and then

other nations, and vast increases n U.S. military and intelligence

budgets. t would mean the creati on of a surveillance tate at home.

with the Departmentof Homeland SecuritS he USA Patriot Act, the

Pentagon's orthern Command for deploying he armed orces nside

the United States,and new JusticeDepartment rules giving the FBI.

the police, and Joint Terrorism Task Forces n fifty-threeU.S. cities

signif i antnew author i ty.

On closerexamination.however. he clashof civil izations,he war

on terror,and the Bushadministration ampaign o reshapehe Middle

Eastwere rife with paradoxes, ontradictions, nd outright ies.

The enemy hat attacked he UnitedStates n September r wasno t

Islam,nor was t Islarnic undamentalism , or was t theMuslim Broth-

erhood,Hezbollah,Hamas,or any other group of violence-prone ili-

tants on the slamic ight. Rather, t w as Al Qaeda.Osamabin Laden'.

organization s not a global power,and it doesnot posean existentrt,

threat o the UnitedStates.t is a group of fanaticswith a tightly discr-

plined comrnand structure demandingmafia-stylc,blood-oath o1'al-

ties. ts attack on New York and'Washinetonin zoor outraged hc

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Clash of Ciuilizations? .3o j

entire world, and an effective ounterattack-using intelligence,egal

action,political and diplomaticpressure, nd highly selecrivemilitary

strikes-could have weakenedand then destroyed t. Unquestionably,

the destructionof Al Qaeda could have been accomplishedwithout

a war in Afghanistan,without a war in Iraq, and without a "war on

terrorism.

But the Bushadministrationdeliberately nflated he specifichreatfrom Al Qaeda tself. Certainly,bin Laden'sgroup has proved itself

capableof inflicting severe amage.Since9/r r, it hasstruck targets n

Saudi Arabia, Spain,Turkey, and elsewhere.DespiteAttorney Gen-

eral Ashcroft's unsubstantiated laim in zoor that thousandsof Al

Qaeda operativeshad infil trated the United Srates, owever, n the

almost four years after glrr not a single violent act by Al Qaeda

occurred n America.And there s no shredof evidence hat Al Qaedahas acquiredor is about to acquireany nuclear,biological,or chemi-

cal weapons. n short, while bin Laden can launch terrorist strikes,

and may do so again, he actual hreat hat Al Qaedaposes s crrcum-scribedand manageable.Many other nations, ncluding Israel, re-

land, and Italy, haveweathered ar more serious errorist hreatsover

many years.

Equally, neither Al Qaeda, nor its ideologicalcomrades,nor the

Islamic right as a whole-nor, for that matrer, the entire Muslim

world-present the kind of challenge o America'sglobal hegemony

that the Soviet Union clearly did. No combination of Middle East

states,most of which areweak, impoverished, nd wracked by inrer-

nal divisions, s able to mount a threat to rhe United Statesn a man-

ner that would justify an enterprisecalled "'World \Var IV." But bydescribing he Islamist hreat in such an exaggeratedway, the Bush

administrationand its neoconservative lliescreateda pretext for an

imperial expansionof the U.S. presencen the grearerMiddle East,

including Pakistan,Central Asia, and the easternMediterranean/Red

Sea/IndianOcean egion. t is fair to ask f the virtual U.S.occupation

of the Middle East s related o goals other than anti-terrorism. s i t

because eoconservatives ant to anchor U.S. global hegemonyby

planting the flag in that vital, but unstable egion? s ir because s

much as wo-thirds of the world's oil is in SaudiArabia and Ira<r Is it



106 Drvrr s Ger,rr

becausehe Bushadministrationhas orged such ntimate ies o Ariel

Sharonand the Israeli ight?

The notion that Islamist errorism is really the U.S. government s

target is con tradicted by the targets of the Bush administration s

Middle East policy. \7hy, if the enemy s Islamist errorism, did the

administration invest so much energy against raq, Syria, and the

PLO? Both Syria spresident,Bashir Assad,and the late chairman ofthe PLO, Yasser Arafat, were implacableopponentsof the Muslim

Brotherhood,but they found themselves dded ncongruously o the

list of Al Qaeda sallies.By attacking lraq, the Bush administration

also found an inappropriate arget. Sincecoming to power in t968,

SaddamHusseinwas a determinedenemyof the Islamists, rom lran s

Ayatollah Khomeini to terrorist Shiitegroups o Al Qaeda tself.Th e

Arab Ba ath SocialistPartS in both its Iraqi and Syrian branches, s

resolutelysecular, nd the Bush administration sefforts to link Iraq

to Al Qaedawere ridiculed by the CIA and the StateDepartment. n

fact, in i nvading raq, PresidentBush made common causewith the

Islamic ight: before,during, and after the invasion, he United States

supported he Iraqi National Congress xile coalition, in which two

Shiite fundamentalistparties, the SupremeCouncil for the Islamic

Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI),and the Islamic Call (Al-Dawa), played

prominent roles. Both SCIRI and Dawa had close ies to the Islamic

Republic of Iran, and after the war, both worked closelywith Ayatollah

Ali al-Sistani.

Not only did the Bush administrationpick the wrong targets,bu t

its military-run war on terrorism s exactly he wrong way to reduce

the appealof the Islamic right. Putting AlQaeda,

slamicJihad,

and

similar terrorist groups to one side, he far broader constellationof

right-wing Islamic groups, institutions, and political parties in the

Muslim world does n fact represent significant hreat-not to U.S.

national securitybut to governments, ntellectuals, rogressives, nd

other freethinkers n the swath of nations from Morocco to Indone-

sia. From Algeria sFIS to Egypt sMuslim Brotherhood o the Pales-

tinian Hamas to Iraq s Shiite fundamentalists o Pakistan s slamic

Group, togetherwith the support of ultra-orthodox \Tahhabi clerics

in SaudiArabia, organizatrons uchas he Muslim \WorldLeague,and





3o8 . Dpvt r 's Gaur,

the Cold'War, the United Statespropped up dictators,kings, emirs'

and presidents-for-lifen the Middle East and around the world. In

the Arab world-in Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt, and the Gulf-

many of theseautocrats ul ed in part by forging an alliancewith the

Islamic right, with the support of U.S. policy makers. Throughout

theseyears,opposition to the region'skleptocracies nd right-wing

regimescame exclusively rom the left-fromAmerican liberals, from

the European eft, from the SovietUnion. Certainly, he eliminationof

dictatorshipsand the establishment f fledgling democraciesn the

Arab world,Iran, Pakistan,Afghanistan,and Muslim Africa ought to

be a valuedgoal.

But the Bush administration'sversion of democratic reform is

suspect.

First, it is opportunistic. Much of the momentum for the Bush

administration'semphasison Arab democracycame only when the

zoo3 invasion of Iraq belied the'sfhite

House's statedobjectives n

launching he war: to find Saddam'sweaponsof massdestructionand

to uncover raq's supposed ies to Al Qaeda.'Whenthose wo ratio-

nalesproved o be ictional,PresidentBushshifted o a new one-that

America's aison de a guerrewas to bring democracy o Iraq.

Second, he Bush administration cynically distinguishes etween

pro-American dictatorships n the Middle East and anti-Ameri can

ones,concentrating ts pressure or democracyon the latter. n the con-

text of the Bush administration's mperial Middle EastpolicS its call

for imposingdemocracycan only be seenas a spearheador intensified

U.S.political and military involvement n the region.True democracies

in the oil-producing countrieswould pursue bold, nationalist nitia-

tives hat are almost guaranteed o run afoul of the Bush administra-

tion's long-rangeplans for the region. Only the naive believe hat the

United States,n pursuinga regime change strategy n a part of the

world that contains wo-thirds of the world's oil, desires he emer-

genceof governments hat might resist U.S. regional hegemony.Cer-

tainly, the Bush administration does not favor the developmentof

Arab or Iranian democracies hat would forge closer ties with, say.

Russiaor China at Americanexpense.nstead, ts calls or democratic

change n the Middle East allow the Bush administration o apply



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Clash of Ciui lizations? . 7os

greater or lesspressureselectively n governments n the region in

order to achieve articularU.S.national securitygoals.

Thus, Syria s now squeezed etween sraelandU.S.-occupiedraq,

and Iran is positionedbetween raq and NATO-occupiedAfghanisran.

since zoor, the united stateshasachieveda position of unparalleled

supremacy n the region. The neoconservatives ho arguedsuccess-

fully for war in Iraq want norhing more than a calibratedAmericaneffort toward forcible regime change in Syria and Iran, in order to

createa block of new states n combination with Israel,Turkey,and

Pakistan-but organized nd managedunderU.S. utelage.

And what about the pro-Americanautocracies uchas SaudiAra-

bia,Jordan, and Egypt?To the exrenr hat PresidentBushextendshi s

pressure or imperial democracybeyond Iraq, Syria, Iran, and the

PLO to the pro-\Testern governments n the region, the effort must be

taken with a grain of salt. Becauset is comprisedof constituencies

with differing perspectives,he administrationhassenrmixed signals

in regard o its two most mportant Arab allies.MainstreamU.S.pol-icy makers,officials at the CIA and the StateDepartment,and rheir

allies with vested nterests n the region-the oil companies,banks,

and defense ontractors-want the Bushadministration o go slow on

pressingCairo and Riyadh for change.Others,more deological, eem

to exhibit the messianicbelief that the experimenr n Iraq musr be

forcibly replicated n both Egypt and SaudiArabia. And some adical

neoconservatives,uchas RichardPerleand Michael Ledeen, oughly

lump Saudi Arabia with Syria and Iran as a supporterof Al eaedaand demand hat Riyadh be added o the president's xis,of-evilene-

mies' list. All of them overlook the fact that both Egypt and SaudiArabia havebeenunder both internaland externalpressureo liberal-

ize heir regimes or decades, nd from rime to time both haveexperi-

mented,cautiouslSwith democratic eform-only to pull back. The

need or delicacy n dealingwith these wo counrriesoften escapeshe

Bushadministration'smore ideologicalpartisans.

But in the context of examin ingU.S.policy toward the Islamicright,

the twin casesof Egypt and SaudiArabia are fraught with dangerous

possibilit ies. ressingoo hard for liberali zationn eithercounrrycould

result n bringing the Islamic right to power in both Cairo and Riyadh.



J IO Divrr 's Ga,r t r :

As during the Cold'War,

however,when the United Statespre-

ferred slamism o Arab nationalism, he Bush administrati onand its

neoconservative llie s have sometimes xpressedheir preference or

the Islamic right, too. If forced to choosebetween egimes n Egypt

and SaudiArabia led by left-leaningArab nationalists r right-leaning

Islamists,Washingtonwill pick the Islamistsevery ime. Despite heir

rhetoric about a clash of civil izations, he Bush administratio n has

not beenaverse o seekingalliesamong he Islamic right. In Iraq, the

Bush administrati onafter the war found itself in a partnershipwith

Ayatollah Sistani, wo lranian-connected arties, and the forces ol

organized hi i te undamental ism. eadingneoconservativeslsosup-

ported the Shiite right elsewhere,ncluding in Saudi Arabia, where

they went beyondcalls or democratic eform to demand he breakup

of SaudiArabia and the creationof a Shi i testate n SaudiArabia's

easternprovince,where Shiites omprisea majority. n Gazaand the

West Bank, Ariel Sharoncontinued o toy with usingHamas, slamic

Jihad,and Hezbollah to undercut he PLO, and in zoo5 Hamas

emergedas the most powerful electoral orce in Gaza. t seems ha t

even hose who issue he most dire warnings about a titanic, Islam-

vs.-Christianit v truggle eadily manage o find accommodationwith

right-wing Islamists.

Stil l, for purposesof pu blic relations, he Bush administrationhas

beencontent o allow its Middle Eastpolicy to beportrayedas a clash

of civilizations.Someof its allies,especiallymembersof the Christian

right, explicitly disparage slam as an evil and violent religion. Pro-

claiming that Islamic undamentalist s nd bin Laden "hate our free-

doms," rather han U.S.policies,Bushhas ramed he war on terrorism

in the starkest erms, as a showdown betweena God-fearingAmerica

and an "axis of evil." Despite he paradoxes f the war on terror, t is

safe o say hat mill ionsof Americanshave beensold on the idea hat

the Christianand Muslim worlds must battleeachother o t he end.'What

happenedbetween r99r and 2oor to transform Islam from

an ally to a malignantevil?

The easyanswer s blame he shock hat followed Al Qaeda's oor

attacks.But 9/r r was preceded y a decade f confusion n the United

States. o follow the transition from the New World Order to the clash

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of civilizations, t is necessaryo touch on rhe three crisesof political

Islam during the nineties:Algeria, Egypt, and the rise of the Taliban.The twelve years rom the first Iraq war to the secondwas a period ofdizzying change for the Middle East. In Algeria, the Islamic rightplunged he counrry into a brutal civil war when it was denied he fruitsof an electoralvictory in r99t.In Egypt, a terrorist underground, dis-

creetly supported by the Muslim Brotherhood establishmenr,nearlytoppled Mubarak in the mid-r99os. And then, in Afghanisran, rhePakistan-backed aliban movement seizedKabul and imposed theworld s strictest heocracy.

During thesecrises, he administrations of George Bush and Billclinton failed to develop a coherent policy toward political Islam.Even though the Muslim Brotherhood and right-wing political Islam

had seizedcontrol of Iran, Afghanistan,Pakistan,and Sudan-and

threatenedAlgeria,Egypt, syria, and the PalestinianAuthority-neither

Bush nor clinton grasped he implications.The u.S. inteiligence ys-

tem and ts vauntedcounterterrorismmachinery irst missed he riseofAl Qaeda and then, when the organizationmade ts presence nown

with a series f spectacular ttacks n the late r99os, failed o stop t.Had they respondeddifferently, had they realized the significanceofthe Islamist movement hen, and had U.s. intelligenceanalystsand

operativesmore carefully tracked the violent offshoots of the Brother-

hood and the Taliban,perhaps he eventsof zoor and beyondwouldnot have occurred. certainly had the united Statesmapped out acoherent policy toward Islamism during the r99os, the dangerous

notion that America is facing a clashof civilizations would never have

gained raction.The U.S. government,academia, nd the world of policy-oriented

think tanks were divided over how to respond o the Islamic resur-genceat the end of the cold

war.some wanted to developa compre-

hensivepolicy toward Islamism,others demanded hat it be treated

on a country-by-country basis. some wanted to confront theIslamists,others o co-opt or placate hem. pragmatistsbelieved ha tu.s. policy ought to stick with support for the existing regimes n

Cairo, Amman, Algiers, and elsewhere, ut idealistssupported theidea hat democracyhad to flower in the region,even f the Islamists



3t z Dsvrr- 's GnnE

were positioned to win elections. n the decadebetween t99t and

zoor, U.S.policy toward the Islamic right was confusedand contra-

dictory.S7hen

not ignoring t, everyone greed hat Islamist errorism

was bad, but that'swhere he agreement topped.The end of the U.S.-

Sovietstruggle n the Middle East eft the United Statesacinga region

in which political Islam was a major player.The Islamic ight covered

a spectrum rom the conservative slamist regimes n Pakistan and

Saudi Arabia, to the radical regimes n Iran and Sudan, to extra-

governmental organizations such as the Muslim Brotherhood, the

Taliban and Hezbollah, to radical-right terrorist cells such as Al

Qaeda.Somewere allies,some were vaguely hreatening,some dan-

gerouslyhostile.But how to tell friend from foe?

THnrE CRTsES rN THE r99os

During the r99os, the United Statesdealt uncertainlywith flare-ups

by the Islamic right, first in Algeria, then in Egypt, and finally, once

again, in Afghanistan. n all three cases, he Islamistswere able to

draw on battle-hardenedveterans of the U.S.-sponsoredAfghan

jihad, who applied he skills acquired n that war-including bomb-

making, assassinations,nd guerrilla-style ttacks-in their struggle.

As the SovietUnion melted away, he Islamic right began o emerge

as a threat to stability, securitg and U.S. nterests. One yearafter Mus-

lim rebelsousted he communist government n Afghanistan, the long

Afghanistan war reverberates hroughout the Islamic world, as veter-

ans of the conflict take up arms to try to topple governments n Algeria,

Egypt, and other Arab countries, the New York Times reported in

t993. Vestern diplomatsand Arab officialssay housands f Islamic

militants engaging n clandestine, iolent campaigns o overthrow gov-

ernments n Algeria, Egypt, Yemen,Tunisia,Jordan, Turkey and other

predominantly Muslim statescurrently use Afghanistan as a base. 1

Imbued with a new consciousness nd the belief that their insurgency

had defeateda superpower n Afghanistan, he Islamic right tested he

limits of its newfound power.

Alger ia

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Clash of Ciuilizations? J 1. 3

Algeria

The t99z-99 crisis in Algeria triggered the first government-wide

review of u.S. policy roward political Islam since he Iranian revolu-tion. And, during rhe seven-year ivil war in Algeria, u.s. policy waspulled this way and that by contradictory views-amid charges n

Parisand elsewheren Europe hat $Tashington as cozyingup to theAlgerian slamists n order to advance ts own oil, gas,and industrialinterestsn North Africa, at Europe'sexpense.

The conundrum for the united States n Argeria was having tochoosebetweenan Islamist nsurgency hat had gainedan electoraladvantage nd an entrenched,military-dominatedbut secular egimethat then suspended emocracy n order to block the Islamists'vic-tory. The issuewas not whether the united statesshould inrervenedirectly-neither side n Algeria wanred that, and it was impracticalin any case.But'vTashington ad to choosebetweenaffirming ts sup-

port for Algeria's experiment in democracS thus aligning it with aradical slamistmovemenr,or sidingwith the Algerian army.ThoughrJTashingtonlooked for a middle ground, in the end,correctly, t toler-ated the army's suppression f the Islamists. t was not an entirelyhnppy ourcome.Yet had the united statescondemned he Algerianregime and thrown its diplomatic support ro the Islamic right, theconsequences-in Algeria, and across he region-could have beencatastrophic.

The usual version of the Algerian crisis srarts n r9g9, with theestablishmentof the Islamic Salvation Front, known by its French

abbreviation,FIS. n June r99o, the FISwon a resoundingvictory inlocal elections. hen, n December 99r, FISstunned he ruling party,the National Liberation Front (FLN), winning rrg parliamenraryseats o the FLN's r6. But before he second ound of the vote, andbefore the FIS took power, the army intervened to annul the vote,arresting o,ooo FISmembersand supporters.Denied ts victory, heFIS unleashed campaignof terrorism. The presidentof Algeria wa sassassinated, inistrieswere bombed, and hundredsof securityoffi-cials and policemen were killed by FIS gunmen. civil war began.



3r4. Dnvr l 's Gelr r

During the decade,a secondorganizationcalled the Armed Islamic

Group (GIA) emerged,with a murky relationship o FIS. As the vio-

lence ntensified,slamistvigilantesand shadowyparamilitary groups

carried out a campaignof horrifying slaughter, ecimating villages,

massacringwomen and children.Tensof thousandsdied.2

But the FISdid not emerge uddenly n 1989. As happened n Pak-

istan, Egypt, Syria, Sudan,and Afghanistan during the Cold \Var, the

Islamic ight built its power by battling he left and Algeriannational-

ists, especially n campuses.As in Afghanistan,where "the profes-

sors" tied to Egypt'sMuslim Brotherhood built a secretsociety of

Islamistsn Kabul in the r96os and r97 os, in Algeria a host of profes-

sors and teachers rom Egypt, many of whom were membersof the

Muslim Brotherhoodand who had studied n Saudi Arabia's slamic

universities, ere mported o teachArabic to the francophoneAlgeri-

ans. Mohammed al-Ghazali and Yusuf al-Qaradawi, rwo of Egypt's

leading slamicscholarswho had fled to the Gul f, and who "were fel-

low travelers f the Muslim Brothersand very much in favor with the

oil monarchies andwho encouraged] he 'Islamicawakening' at work"

in Algeria in the mid-r98os.3Throughout the 198os, this cadre of

Islamic-rightactivistscarried out a seriesof terrorist attacks against

the Algeri an government.Many of the terrorisrs nvolvedhad been o

Afghanistan,or traveledback and forth to the ihad, and one of them,

Abdallah Anas, oined forceswith bin Laden andAzzam in the pre-Al

Qaeda "Services ureau." \7hen Azzamwas assassinated,nas took

over.

By the time the FISwas created, t had seized ontrol of thousands

of mosques cross he country and built a political-religiousmachine.

Like the Taliban,whereverFIScontrolledmunicipalor provincialgov-

ernments t instituted ts versionof Islamiccultural restrictions, orc-

ing women to w ear theveil, closing iquor and video stores, nd often

persecutinghosewho did not go along.The FISdenouncedAlgeria's

educated,secularmiddle classes nd announced ts intent to "ban

France from Algeria intellectually and ideologically."4One monrh

before the Decemberelection hat catapulted he FIS to victory, in

November r99r, a supposedlyndependent r renegade and of Alge-

ria's slamists hocked he country with an outrageous ct of terror:

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Clasb of Ciuilizations? ) r 5

Their irstspectacularperationwasa bloodyassault n a frontrerpost, n the course f whicha groupof "Afghan" veterans ut offthe headsof somewretchedarmy conscripts.. . The date wascarefully hoseno celebrate ithin four days he second nniver-saryof the martyrdomof Abdullah Azzamn peshawar.It markedthe beginning f a ihadon Algerian oil.5

Many Algerians eared hat an Islamisrgovernmentwould insti-tute a reign of terror. Arab g overnments, ncluding Egypt, Jordan,Tunisia and Morocco, were alarmed, fearing that an Islamist-run

Algeria would be infectious.And for the united Srares,he Algerian

army's action poseda delicatepolitical problem: would \fashington

endorse he army's suppression f the election esults,or defend he

FISand the Islamic ight?

For the Bush adminisrration, preoccupied with the New \forld

order, it was a puzzle.Bush and secretaryof StateJamesBaker were

uneasy bout the prospectof Islamism n Algeria,and they sidedsemi-

officially with the Algerian army, adopting a position that a Senatereport called "somethingof a wink and a nod."6 Baker,explaininghi s

position later,said:"\7hen I was at the StateDepartment,we pursueda

policy of excluding the radical fundamentalists n Algeria even as we

recognizedhat this was somewhatat oddswith our supportof democ-

racy."7But many other U.S. officials, including CIA officerswho had

contactwith the FIS,did nor agreewith the Bush-Baker olicy.

According o RobertPelletreau, former u.S. ambassador nd sen-

ior official at the state Department, there was seriousdisagreement

about the Bush-Baker olicy of blocking the Islamists n Algeria. "In

the mmediateaftermathof the military'sdecision o block the electionresult, we were very critical," says Pelletreau. ,Twenty-four

hours

later,we reversed urselves, nd took a much more nuanced iew"8

The Bush administration,uncerrainabout how to deal with the

Islamist challenge n Algiers, undertook a policy review. But it was a

hodgepodge,an effort to forge a consensus bout how to deal with a

phenomenon ittle understood venby expertsand about which politi-

cians, top administration officials, and members of congress were

utterly ignorant. Battle ines had nor yet hardened,but at least wo cur-

rents had already started to emerge.one was an accommodationist

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point of vieq whoseadherentsargued hat the United Stateshad noth-

ing to fear from the Islamic right and that U.S. diplomats and CIA offi-

cials ought to begin a worldwide effort to open conracts with the

Islamistswho werewilling, for the sakeof dialogue, o eschew iolence.

A second (still nascent) point of view was rhe clash-of-civilizations

school,which believed hat the Muslim world was unalterablyand fun-

damentally hostile to the'West.

According to them, the enemy of the

United Stateswas not just Al Qaeda,and not even right-wing political

Islam, but the very nature of the Muslim faith, the Koran, and Islamic

civilization as it had evolved over thirteen centuries.Throughout the

r99os, these wo schoolswould gain momentum and confront each

other. Two leadingacademicswould come to represenr he two sides:

for the accommodationists,John Espositoof Georgetown University;

and for the clashof civilizations,Bernard Lewis of PrincetonUniversity.

In t992, a decisionwas taken o haveEdward Djerejian, hen assis-

tant secretaryof state for Near East affairs, spearhead he effort to

invent a policy toward Islam,and he was chosen o delivera speechn

June 992, at Meridian House n'STashington.The StateDepartment

came o me and said, \X/e eedan Islam policy,"' saysDavid Mack,

then Djerejian's deputy. According to Mack, rhe speechwas parrly

designedo counter administration officials who werestarting to argue

that the UnitedStates hould reat slamasa new globalenemy. Some

of the folks, especiallyRichard Schifter of the bureau of human rights,

were saying hat Islamwas dangerous, nd of course his was the time

when the thesisof the clashof civilizationswas starting o surface,"

says Mack. "'Well, we prerty much managed to head it off.'We

had

a big, in-house conference,with people from [Near East affairs],

[the Bureau of Intelligenceand Research], uman rights, and a lot

of outside expertson Islam. And I drafted a speech or Djerejian.

\7e brought it to Jim Baker, who said, 'Okay, fine, if you want to

do this." 'e

Schifter, he assistant ecretary f state or human rights,says hat

he adheres o JeanneKirkpatrick's distinction between"authorirar-

ian" and "totalitarian" regimes. n the Algeriancrisis,he says hat he

supported he view that the United Stares ught to back the Algerian

army's suppressionof the Islamists.But for Schifter,and for many

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hard-liners and neoconservatives,he issue was much larger thanAlgeria. "what I saw was the developmentof a movementsimilar tocommunism," he says. "It 's the third totalitarian attack on democ-racy, after ascismand communism."l0 According to Mack, schifterwanteda much rougher ine n the speechhan was adopted. ,schifter

and the bureau of human rights felt it was a soft-mindedapproach,"

saysMack.11In the end, Djerejian's peech aid down some mporrantmarkers,

but it also avoided crucial quesrions.Djerejian rejectedout of handthe clash-of-civilizationsdea. "The u.s. governmentdoes not viewIslam as the new 'ism' confronting the \7est or threatening worldpeace,"he said. "The Cold $Var s not being eplacedwith a new com_petition between slam and the west. The crusadeshave beenoverfor a long time. Americans recognize slam as a historic civilizingforce among the many that have influenced and enriched our cul-ture." But he went further:

Much attentions beingpaid to a phenomenon ariously abeledpolitical slam, he slamic evival, r Islamic undamentalism.. .In countries hroughout the Middle East and North Africa, wethusseegroupsor movements eekingo reformtheir societiesnkeepingwith Islamic deals. . . 7e detectno monolithicor coor-dinated nternationaleffort behind hesemovements.fhat we dosee are believersiving in different countriesplacing renewedemphasis n Islamicprinciples nd governmentsccommodaringIslamistpoliticalactivity o varyingdegrees nd n differentways.

Djerejianwenr onto add that the united Stateswanred freeelections

and enhanced ivil rights in the region,but said, n an obviousrefer-

ence o the crisis n Algeria: "\7e are suspect f thosewho would usethe democraticprocess o come to power, only to destroy hat veryprocess n order to rerain power and political dominance.,'And hesaid that the United Stateswas opposed o thosewho engagen vio-lence, epression, r "religiousand political confrontation."l2

In other forums, Djerejian spoke favorably, but vaguely, about"moderate slamists,"although he failed to definewhat he meant by"moderate."l3 \fhile Djerejian condemned errorism and noted that

hat he

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_lr8 Drvrr 's Gaur

the United States asgood relationswith countries whose systems f

governmentare firmly grou nded n Islamicprinciples, such as Saudi

Arabia and Pakistan,he completely avoided any discussionof the

Islamic right itself and its manifestations. Unfortunately, Gerges

wrote, the Meridian addressdid not clarify the Bush administra-

tion's approach oward thosevery Islamistgroups.

If Djerejian's speech ailed as an ourline of American policy

toward political Islam, t worked well as a more particular response

to events in Algeria, where the United States acitly supported the

army'ssuspension f democracy.But the situation went from bad to

worse,as Algeriawas engulfed n a cycleof violent attacksand coun-

terattackspitting the army againstbattle-hardenedihad veterans.

In r993, the Clinton administration ried to encourage dialogue

between he Algerian authoritiesand elements f the Islamistopposi-

tion. But'Western

Europe, particularly France, accused he United

Statesof using its dialogue with the Algerian Islamists o securea

political and commercialadvantage n Algeria in the wake of what

many expectedwould be an Islamic evolution. The Frenchattacked

Americanmotives or meetingwith Islamists, uspectinghe U.S.gov-

ernmentof favoring the FIS over rhe Algerian regime, according o

Gerges,who reports hat CharlesPasqua, he French nterior minister,

accusedTashingtonof harboring fundamentalist errorists. laThat

was a reference o Anwar Haddam, the FIS representativen Wash-

ington, who maintainedon-and-offcontactswith U.S. officials n the

early r99os. The Frenchwanted us to expel he FISguy here, says

Pelletreau, ho served nder Clinton asassistant ecretary f state or

Near Eastaffairs. But,we neverhad any callto expelhim. 15

The loudest voice calling for a reconciliation with Algeria's

Islamistswas none other than Graham Fuller, he former CIA analyst

who had worked with Casey o build a justification for the ry84-86Iran-contraapproach o Teheran.Then ensconced t the RAND Cor-

pcrration,Fuller wrote a book entitled Algeria: The Next Fundamen-

talist State? n it, he virtually endorsedFISasAlgeria'snext rulersan d

urged he United States ot to worry. The FIS s unlikely to presenta

massive hallenge o U.S.and'Westernnterests, wrote Fuller. Is th e

United Stateswilling to inaugurate democratic processesn which the

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Clash of Ciuilizations? . 1re

Islamistsstand a very good chanceof gaining a significantvoice npower? 15Fuller admitted that FIS would suppresswomen's rights

and spread he gospel abroad, emboldening other Islamist move-

ments n Egypt,Tunisia,Libya, and Morocco [with] asylum, inancial

aid, evenweapons. 17 ut he argued hat its momentum was unstop-pable. Ir will be very difficult, if not almosr impossible, o srop

Islamist orces, saidFuller. Islamistgovernmentsn the Middle Eastare likely to multiply in the yearsahead, aking numerousdifferent

forms.They,and the'west,aregoing to have o learn o live with each

other. 18 uller argued hat FIS is likely to welcomeu.s. privatesec-

tor investment n Algeriaand to undertakeclosecommercial elations

with the united srares. . . The FIShas ong had good tieswith saudi

Arabia and received a great deal of Saudi funding until recentyears' 1eFuller'smonograph was written for and sponsoredbv theU.S.Army.

To Fuller, the FIS movement in Algeria was a grand experiment,

and one that the united States ught not to turn away from-and hi sviews were certainly influential during the clinton administration.

But many Algerians,especially eteransof the revolution that endedin 1962, were not so ready to abandonsecularism nd socialism or

free-market slamism. It's fine for others o talk about conductingagrand political experimenr n Algeria, said Maloud Brahimi, former

head of Algeria'sLeagueof Human Rights. .,Burwhat do we look

like-white rats? 20

EgvPt

on the heelsof the Algerianexplosion,a dire Islamist hreat to Egypt

emerged n the rggos, creating another dilemma for the clinton

administration.was

Egypt, he original home of the Muslim Brother-

hood, about to fall to an Islamist evolution?And if so, what should

U.S. policy be?The Bush administration's 99z review,and the taskforce that Djerejiancreared,did not provide much guidance.unlike

Algeria, which after all was on the periphery of the Middle East,

Egypt was ts very hearr-and PresidentMubarak a staunchally.

In the r99os, Egyptian slamistswagedan assaulton the Egyptian



3zo. Dnvrr 's GevB

regimestrong enough o threa ten he country'sstability.Hundreds of

peoplewere killed by armed militants, ncluding military and police

officers,governmentofficials,and leadingEgyptianwriters and intel-

lectuals.Despite heavy repressionafter the death of Sadat n r98r,

and periodic crackdowns n the r9Sos, the Brotherhood had made

steadygains,especiallyn civil society. he organizationwon control

of many of Egypt'sprofessional ssociations-doctors, awyers,engi-

neers,and, of course, student groups, ts traditional stronghold. In

r99j, the Sunday Times of London reported that the CIA issueda

National IntelligenceEstimatewarning that Islamic fundamentalist

terrorists will continue to make gains acrossEgypt, leading to the

eventual ollapseof the Mubarak government. 2l

James'Woolsey as the CIA director at the time. 'Wewere verywor-

ried, and as rememberwe offered Egypt whatever assistance e could

reasonably rovide, he says. Generallyspeaking, herewas a substan-

tial amount of support in the U.S. government,certainly in the intelli-

gence ommunity, or Mubarak doing whateverhe had to do to prevent

an Islamist akeover. 22 he United Statesprovided securityassistance

to Egypt'spolice and intelligence ervice. In Egypt we'd trained a Spe-

cial Operationsgroup among the Egyptianauthorities,with the help of

the CIA, saysEdward \J7.\falker, the U.S. ambassador tom 1994 to

1997. They wereused n cleaningup a few of thesecells. 23

The truth, however, s that even hough the United States ooper-

ated with Egypt to a degree n combating slamist errorism n Egypt,

that cooperationwas far le ss han it ought to have been, or several

reasons.First, within the U.S. government, here was a persistent

belief hat the Muslim Brotherhoodwas a potentially usefulpartner

in efforts o bring democracy o Egypt, and throughout the r99os that

belief undercut U.S. assistanceo Egypt's security and intelligence

agencies.Second, he Mubarak regime'soften very heavy-handed

repression f its opponents, ncluding arrestsof all manner of dissi-

dentsand the useof torture againstprisoners,made he United States

skittish about help ing Cairo. Both'Woolsey and'Walker say that the

United States ad strong eservations bout the harshness f Egyptian

methods. They were very aggressive, ore aggressivehan we were

willing to su pport. Someof the people they sei zedwere found shot

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of theEuropean arliamentn Strasbourg.Weknew a lot by then:

that the internationalcenters or this movementwere n London,

New Jersey, rankfurt,with othercentersn Hamburg,Geneva,

Copenhagen.heywerenot at all sensitiveo this n Europen the

r9Sos nd 99os.25

The two U.S. ambassadorso Egypt during this period had con-

flicting views about the Muslim Brotherhood.$falker,

who servedfrom l994 to 1997, was skepticalof the Muslim Brotherhood an d

mostly sympathetic o Mu barak's crackdown. Pelletreau'who served

in Cairo from t99l to 1993,was more apt to see he Brotherhood n

a favorable light-even il it attractedthe attention of Egypt's intel-

ligence service."Ned [\Talker] and I had different policies," says

Pelletreau. I felt we had to be talking to membersof the Muslim

Brotherhood. I did [talk to them]." Pelletreau's ontacts with the

Brotherhood angered Mubarak. "At one point I received a very

strong message rom the [Egyptian]government,demanding hat I

break off those contacts. said that I would not. I didn't meet withthem myself,but people rom the political sectiondid' \7e developed

peopleas contactswho were inside he movement.But in Egypt you

have o be very careful,becausehe Egyptianshave a very' very effec-

tive counterintelli genceapability.26

Pelletreau ecallsa visit to Washingtonby Mubarak in which the

Egyptianpresident ost his temper overU.S. naction:

Soonafterward,Mubarak came o Washington, nd the secretary

of statenvitedhim to lunch. Warren hristopher skedMubarak

about he bestway to dealwith the slamists.' l l never orgetwhat

happened ext. Mubarak sat up sharply, igidly."This is not anewphenomenonn Egypt,"he said, etting ngry. These eople

killed my predecessor " hen he raised his huge fist, and he

slammedt down on the tablehard, and everything n the table

jumpedand rattled.Bang 'When heycomeout, we have o hit

them "27

But Pelletreau ays:"I told Mubarak that it was the right policy to

crack down on terrorists,but not on the Muslim Brotherhood." Th e

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Clash of Ciuilizations? . 1;-1

questionof how to rell the differencewas something hat u.s. intelli-gencecould not answer,according o U.S. diplomats and intelligence

officers.The line between he overtly terrorist organizationsand themore establishmentMuslim Brotherhood was not a clear one. TheBrotherhood ran clinics, socialwelfare centers,and mosques,had apowerful presenceamong professionalgroups, and set up a semi-

official political parry.According to Pelletreau nd'walker, the link berween he official

Muslim Brotherhood and the underground errorisr cellswas prob-

ably organized hrough independentmosquesand Islamiccenrers nEgypt run by "emirs." They apparentlymaintaineda membership nthe Brotherhood,which was a secret ociety,while giving encourage-ment, support, and theological ustification to the terrorists. "The

Egyptiansclaimed that they discovered ome inks, and I guessyou

could say that the whole line becameblurred between he Muslim

Brotherhoodand the armed groups," sayspelletreau."A lot of inde-

pendent emirs start popping up here and there, n various parts ofcairo, and some of the clericsdevelop a group of folrowers.They

don't usuallyengagen acts of violence hemselves, ut they can con-done violence.Say,someonewill come to them and say, Is it permit-

ted to do such and such?' and they will say, ,yes,according to

Islam. '"

walker, who fol lowedPelletreau, ad a somewhatdif ferentview."\fe'd realized t was a much bigger problem,', he says. ,,'We

werevery close o the Europeansn cooperating o roll up these hreats.

we

created low chartsof how thesegroups nreractedwith eachother.A

lot of the eaderswere n places ike Italy and London, and we'd coop-erateby interceptingcommunicationsback into Egypt, and then theEgyptianswould roll them up." But,'Walkersays,Egypt was not sat_isfiedwith U.S.and Europeancooperation. I can't count the number

of times hat Mubarak yelledar me about how the British were giving

the Muslim Brotherhoodand other Islamists afehaven,,,he says. .In

Egypt, everybodyseemed o see t as a problem, but they couldn't

convince s."28

Like Pelletreau,'Walker aintaineda relationshipwith the Muslim



Jz4 Dpvi t- 's GatvtE

Brotherhood.,when I was there n Egypt we engagedwith members

of the Muslim Brotherhood, as individuals, on the level of the

embassypolitical counselor.But it was an illegal organization,so it

was sensitive. he Muslim Brotherhood was more acquiescenthan

someof the other groups,suchas slamicJihad.The Muslim Brother-

hood had a lot of sympathy rom somepeople n Washington,wh o

held it should be accommodated, he says. For manyof thosewh o

support bringing democracy o the region, the Muslim Brotherhood

was seen as a legitimate domestic opposition force.'Walker,

an d

someCIA officers, idn't agree. Terrorism had two sources.One wa s

the Palestinians,and one, the Muslim Brotherhood. They had a

checkered istory.One day you're friends,and then they try to assas-

sinateyou, \Talker says. Our intelligence eoplesaw t asa kind of

international fraternity of terrorists. Some specific mosques were

involved. t i s not a coherentorganizationalstructure.But if someone

comesalong, hey help them. 2e

Mubarak repeatedlyslammed the UnitedStates n public, too,

especially fter he Islamistsmountedan assassinationttemptagainst

him in rgg5, murderedseveralEgyptiangovernmentofficialsabroad,

and bombedEgypt'sembassies.o Americanswho urgedhim to coop-

erate with moderate Islamists, ncluding the Muslim Brotherhood'

Mubarak dripped with scorn. ,,'who are the moderates? he said.

.,Nobody has succeededn defining hem for me. He ridiculed the

effectivenessf dialoguewith the Islamists. Dialogue with whom? It

will be he dialogueof the deaf.We

had a dialoguewith them for four-

teen years, and every time we engaged hem, they becamestronger.

Dialogues old-fashioned. he oneswho are asking or dialoguedo

not know [Islamists].'Wenow them better. 30

The shadow of Iran's .-979 evolution haunted Mubarak. Again

and again, he accused he United Statesof conducting secret alks

with the Brotherhood. You think you can cofrect the mistakes ha t

you made in Iran, where you had no contact with the Ayatollah

Khomeini and his fanaticgroupsbefore hey seized ower) Mubarak

said...But, I can assureyou, thesegroups will never take over this

country, and they will never be on good terms with the United

States. 31 o a large extent,Mubarak was right that many U.S. offi-



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ClashofCiuil izations? . 32 s

cialsexpected hat the Islamistswould seize onrrol of Egypt, and so

they soughtan inside rack with the Islamic ight. Foreshadowing heneoconservative reamsafter zoor of reshaping he Middle Eastandimposingsomenew democraticorder here,an officialat the National

security council said in early r995 that Egypt's slamistswere rhewave of the future:

TheexistingMiddle Easternegimes, aid hisofficial,arebound odisappearn the future becausehanges inevitable; ne of

's7ash-

ington'smajor policyobjectivess to managehe ransition o anewMiddle Eastern oliticalorderwith minimalcost.TheUnitedstatesviewsIslamists s integralplayersamong he broad social orcesoperating n the region.Thus, o survive, he dominant ulingeliteswill have o broaden heir socialbaseby integratingslamistsntothepolitical6eld.Thisrealityexplainshe rarionaleor the clinronadministration'sarlydecisiono maintaina discreet ialoguewiththeAlgerianand Egyptian slamists.32

Neither Algeria's government nor Mubarak thought much of that

reality, however,and they acted to crush the Islamist nsurgency.

Following the t995 assassination mempt, Mubarak launched an

assaultagainst he Muslim Brotherhood that recalled he r954 an dt964-66 crackdowns by Nasser.Hundreds of Muslim Brotherhood

leaderswere arrested, heir institutionswere dismantled,professional

syndicates losed,and show trials held. some U.s. officialspredicted

that the repressionwould backfire,but instead,during the second al f

of the r99os, the Islamic right in Egypt retrearedwith one glaring

exception: a seriesof spectacular errorist acts directed against

tourists n Egypt n t997. The Islamic ight in Egypt had, once again,

been beaten nto submission.But it did not go away. Its violence-

oriented underground scattered,or went into hiding. Its moderate-

seeming deologues,preachers,and politicians sought alliance withEgypt'sdemocraticopposition,declaring heir support or elections o

replaceMubarak. Many u.s. governmentofficials,sympatheticori-

entalists, nd think tanks-from the Brookings nstitution to rhe u.s.

Institute for Peace-insisted that the Muslim Brotherhood was apromising partner in a reformed Egypt.



3L6. Drvrr 's Ger lp

The Tal iban

The third Islamisteruption to confront U.S. policy makers was the

meteoric ise of the Taliban n war-shattered fghanistan.

The most incisive account of the founding, growth and victory ofthe Taliban is Ahmed Rashid'sTaliban: Militant Islam, Oil, and Fun-

damentalism in Central Asia. A veteran Pakistani reporter, Rashid

spent years covering Afghanistan and Pakistan's ISI. According to

Rashid, from the start the Taliban had strong support not only from

SaudiArabia, which financed t, and from Pakistan,whose SI intell i-

genceservicewas the primary force behind the Taliban'sconquestof

warlord-dominated Afghanistan, but from the United Statesas well.

"Between r994 andr996,the U.S.A.supported he Talibanpolitically

through its all ies Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, essentiallybecause'sflashington

viewed the Taliban as anti-Iranian, anti-Shia, and pro-'Western,"he wrote. "Between t995 and ry97 U.S.support was even

more driven becauseof its backing for the Unocal project [for an

energypipeline rom Turkmeni stan hroughAfghanistan]."Many U.S.

diplomats,he wrote, "saw them as messianic o-gooders-like born-

againChristians rom the AmericanBibleBelt."33

The U.S. support for the Talibanwas strategic. t precisely choed

Brzezinski's arc of Islam" policy and Casey's reamof using slam o

penetrate the Soviet Union. Even in the post-Cold l$far world, the

United States ought o gain advantage n oil-rich Central Asia, and

throughout the r99os

'$Tashingtonjockeyedfor position' In the

Americanview, ts all ieswere SaudiArabia and Pakistan,and its com-

petitors were Russia,China, India, and Iran. A ry96 StateDepart-

ment memo, written just before he Taliban capturedKabul, warned

that Russia, ran, and India-all of which fearedSunni undamental-

ism n the region-would backan anti-Taliban orce n Afghanistan,3 a

and that is preciselywhat did happen,as the Ahmed ShahMassoud-

led Northern Allianceemerged n the ate r99os as he chiefopponent

of the Taliban's anatical egime. Ironically, t would be the Northern

Alliance hat would be the chief ally of the United Stateswhen, after

the attack on the \7orld Trade Center andthe Pentagon, he United

StatesnvadedAfehanistan.)

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Graham Fuller, in The Fwture of political Isram, accurarely described

how the Taliban threatened narions compering with the united Stares

in Central Asia:

Important external forces that shared a stake in Afghan eventswere disturbed at the implications of a Taliban takeover: Iranbecause he Taliban were fiercelyanti-shiite and treated he ShiiteHazara population with extreme harshness;and Russia, Uzbek_istan, and Tajikistan because hey feared the Taliban would turntheir sights oward expanding slamist movementsnorth into cen-tral Asia. India, too, geopolit icallysought to deny pakistan strare-gic dominance in Afghanistan, which a Taliban victory wouldrepresent.washington was init ially neutral and hoped, with paki-

stani urging, that the Taliban had no anti-U.S. agenda,could atlast unify the country so long wracked by civil war; could facili-tate the passage f Turkmen gaspipelines hrough Afghanistan othe Indian Ocean, skirt ing Iran; could impose control over rherampant poppy production, and crack down on the presenceof

Muslim guerri l lasand training camps n the country since he anti_Soviet ihad.35

cold'war or nor, the united Sratesexplicit ly stated its intenrion to

challenge Russian hegemony in cenrral Asia and Afghanistan. u.s.

policy, said sheila Haslin, an NSC official, was to. promote the inde-

pendence of these oil-rich countries, to in essence break Russia's

monopoly control over the transporrarion of oil from that region, and

frankly, to promore'western

energy security through diversity of sup-

ply- se unocal, the prime backer of plans for a pipeline to guarantee

that diversity,hired numerous former U.S. officials to promote rt s

scheme, rom Henry Kissinger o zalmay Khalilzad, the future u.S.ambassador n Kabul. Khalilzad, a specialist t the RAND corpora-tion, said n t996: The Taliban doesnot practice he anti-u.S. styleof fundamentalism raciced by Iran-it is closer o rhe Saudimodel.

The group upholds a mix of traditional Pashtunvaluesand an ortho-dox interpretationof Islam. 37

Besides audi Arabia and Pakistan, wo orher u.s. ail ies oinedin the regional straregy for ousting Russia and containing Iran:Israel and rurkey. In the r99os, Turkey-which was increasingly





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Qaeda, was escortedby Gouttierre on a tour of Mount Rushmore.3e

You sit down with them and they are relatively regular Joes, said

Gouttierre, according o the Omaha.World Herald.a0'Vfhen he United

States nvadedAfghanistan n zoor, one of its taskswas to purge and

replaceGouttierre'sTaliban-endorsedand ClA-funded) Islamists ext-

books in the schools. The primers, the-Washington

Pos/ reported,

were filled with talk of iihad. a1

A Cr-asH oF CIVTLTzATToNS?

By the end of the r99os, a tense stalemateexisted respecting he

power of the Islamic ight in the Middle Eastand southAsia. n Egypt

and Algeria, he Islamistshad been beaten nto submission, ut they

maintaineda low-levelpresence.n Afghanistan,Iran,and Sudan hey

held the high ground, controlling radical Islamic epublicsunder dic-

tatorial regimes. n Pakistanand SaudiArabia, the Islamistsexercisedextraordinarypower in allian cewith ruling elites,although the royal

family in Saudi Arabia and the army in Pakis tanwere increasingly

edgyabout their respective ealswith the devil. slamismwas making

unprecedented ains n Turkey, whose seventy-year ecular raditio n

reaching back to Kemal Ataturk was threatened by right-wing

Islamists ied to the Muslim Brotherhood and the Naqshbandi Sufi

secretsociety.

In the United States, rom the Iranian revolution until the late

r99os, almost no one gavea thought to the problems n the Middle

East caused by Islamism. Even that violent subset of Islamism-namely, slamic terrorist groups-was essentiallygnored, according

to'Woolseyand other CIA officials,with the exceptionof Hezbollah.

The CIA and U.S. counterterrorismofficials finally responded o a

seriesof wake-up calls (the t996 destructionof the U.S. military's

Khobar Towers acility in SaudiArabia, the r998 car bombing of U.S.

embassiesn Kenya andTanzania,and the zooo attack on the U.S.S.

Cole off the coast of Yemen)by creatinga series f task forcesdedi-

cated o Osamabin Laden,Al Qaeda,and its allies,who becamePub-

lic Enemy No. r.



330 Dr,vrr 's Geus

But the U.S. effort to find and eliminatebin Laden was laug hably

incompetent.A 27 billion U.S. intelligencesystem, with perhaps

roorooo employees preadamong a dozenagencies, ith a vast array

of satellites, urveillance evices, pies,agents,and informers, ailed

to find him. At the same ime, however, ountlessournalists rom theUnited Statesand Europe, ncluding television eporters rom CN N

and Frontline, found him with ease and conducted lengthy inter-

views.N7ould-beerroristswith questionable ona fides,suchasJohn'Vfalker

Lindh, managed to get close to bin Laden, but the CIA

couldn't replicate he feat. Cruise missileattacks againstallegedbi n

Ladenhideouts n Afghanistan ailed miserably, nd attackson facil i-

ties in Sudanallegedly ied to Al Qaeda efforts to produce weapons

of massdestructionmanaged o destroy hat country's only factory

for producingmedicines. schemeo kidnap bin Laden,meticulously

planned,was aborted.

Then, on September r, zoor, thosewho believed n the clashof

civilizationsgot the opening they needed.Their views, until then con-

sideredodd at best and extremistat worst, won a far wider following.

And the Bushadministration,while not endorsing he idea of a struggle

betweenChristianity and Islam, seized he notion of a clash of civiliza-

tions to propel the United Statesnto an unprecedented xpansionof its

imperial presencen the Middle East.

Lewis and Huntington

Until that date, he two men most responsibleor popularizing the idea

of a clash of civil izations,Bernard Lewis and SamuelHuntington,

were regardedas curiositiesby mainstreamnational securityand for-

eignpolicy experts.Their Ivy Leaguecredentials nd accesso presti-

gious publications such as Foreign Affairs, and the edgy radicalism of

their theories,guaranteed hat they would generate ontroversy, nd

they did. But few took their ideas seriously,except for a scattered

array of neoconservatives, ho, in the r99os, residedon the fringe

themselves. he Lewis-Huntington hesiswas hit by a withering salvo

of counterattacks rom many journalists,academics, nd foreignpol-

icy gurus.



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ClashofCiui l izat ions?' 3j r

SamuelHuntington, whose controversial book Tbe Clash of Ciui'

Iizationsamounted o a neoconservative eclarationof war, wrote that

the enemywas not the Islamicright, but the religion of the Koran itself:

The underlying roblem or the'Wests not Islamic undamental -

ism. t is Islam,a different ivilizationwhose eople reconvinced

of thesuperiority f theircultureand areobsessedith the nferi-

ority of their power.The problem or Islam s not the CIA or the

U.S.Department f Defense.t is the West,a different ivilization

whose eople reconvinced f the universality f th eirculturean d

believehat heirsuperior,f declining ower mposes n them he

obligation o extend hat culture hroughout he world.a2

'$fhatfollowed from Huntington's manifesto,of course,was that the

Judeo-Christianworld and the Muslim world were locked in a state

of permanent cultural war. The terrorists-such as Al Qaeda, which

was still taking shapewhen Huntington's book came out-were not

just a gang of fanaticswith a political agenda,but the manifestation ofa civilizational conflict. Like a modern oracle of Delphi' Huntington

suggested hat the gods had foreordained the collision, and mere

humans ouldnot stop t.

Huntington acknowledged-without mentioning the role of the

United States-that Islam had beena potent force against he eft dur-

ing the Cold War. "At one ime or anotherduring the Cold'War many

governments,ncluding those of Algeria,Turkey,Jordan, Egypt, and

Israel,encouraged nd supported slamistsas a coun ter o communist

or hostilenationalistmovements,"he wrote. "At leastuntil the Gulf'War,

SaudiArabia and other Gulfstates rovided massive unding to

the Muslim Brotherhood and Islamistgroups in a variety of coun-

rries."43But he had a neat explanation of how the all iancebetween

the West and the Islamistsunraveled. The collapseof communism

removed a common enemy of the West and Islarn and left each he

perceivedmajor threat to the otherr" he wrote.aa In the r99os many

saw a 'civilizational cold war' again developing between Islam and

the'West."4sHuntington, who is not an expert on Islam, observeda

"connectionbetween slam and militarism,"46andhe asserted:Islam

has rom the start beena religion of t he sword and it glorifiesmilitary



3jz. Drv i t- 's Genrr ,

virtues. 47 ust to make sure that no one could miss his point, he

quoted an unnamed U.S. Army officer who said, The southern

1is1 -i.s., the border betweenEurope and the Middle East- is rap-

idly becomingNATO's new front line. 48

Huntington quoteshis guru on matters slamic,BernardLewis, norder to prove hat Islam presents n existential hreat o the very sur-

vival of the'Sfest:

For almost a thousand years, Bernard Lewis observes, from

the first Moorish landing in Spain to the secondTurkish siegeof

Vienna, Europe was under constant threat from Islam. Islam is

the only civil ization which has put the survival of the West in

doubt. and it hasdone that at least wice.4e

How exactly the weak, impoverished,and fragmentedcountries of

the Middle Eastand south Asia could put the survivalof the West n

doubt was not explained.But it w as a thesis hat BernardLewis had

been efining since he 195os.

Lewis, a former British intelligence fficer and longtime supporter

of the Israeli right, has been a propagandistand apologist or impe-

rialism and Israeliexpansionism or more than half a century.He first

used the term clash of civilizations in 1956, in an article that

appeared n the Middle East Journal, in which he endeavored o

explain the presentanti-'Westernmood of the Arab states. Lewis

asserted hen that Arab anger was not the result of the Palestine

problem, nor was it related o the struggle against mperialism.Instead,he argued, t was somethingdeeperand vaster :

lil/hatwe are seeingn our time is not le ss han a clashbetween

civilizations-more specifically, revolt of the world of Islam

against he shatteringmpactof 'Westerncivilizationwhich, since

the rSth century, asdislocated nd disrupted he old order . . .

The resulting ngerand frustrationare oftengeneralizedgainst'Westerncivilization sa whole.50

It was a themehewould return o againand again.By blaminganti-'Westernfeeling in the Arab world on vast historical forces, Lewis

nt a:

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S

Clashof Ciuilizations? 331

absolved he \il/estof its neocolonialpost-World War II oil grab, ts sup-

port for the creationof a Zionist stateon Arab territory, and its ruthless

backing of corrupt monarchies n Egypt, Iraq, Libya, Jordan, Saudi

Arabia, and he Gulf. In his classic 964book,The Middle Eastand the

West,herepeated is nostrum: 'We must]view hepresent iscontents

of the Middle Eastnot as a conflictbetween tates r nations,but as a

clashof civilizations. 5l ewisexplicitlymade hepoint that theUnitedStatesmust not seek o curry favor with the Arabs by pressuring srael

to make peace. Some speakwistfully of how easy t would all be if

only Arab wishescould be met-this beingusually nterpreted o mean

thosewishes hat can be satisfied t the expense f other parties, .e.'

Israel.52nstead,he demanded, he United States hould simply aban-

don the Arabs. The \7est shouldostentatiously isengagerom Arab

politics, and in particular, from inter-Arab politics, wrote Lewis. It

should seek o manufactureno further Arab allies. 53Why seekalli-

ancewith nations whosevery culture and religion make them unalter-

ably opposed otWestern

civilization?Over severaldecades, ewis played a c ritical role as professor,

mentor,and guru to two generations f Orientalists,academics, .S .

and British intelligence pecialists,hink tank denizens, nd assorted

neoconsefvatives,hile earning he scornof countless ther academic

specialists n Islam who considered ewis hopelessly iased n favor

of a Zionist, anti-Muslim point of view A British Jeiv born in t9r6,

Lewis spent iveyearsduring World'S7ar I as a Midd le Eastoperative

for British ntelligence, nd then settledat the Universityof London.5a

In tc)74 he migrated rom London to Princeton,where he developed

ties to people who would later lead the fledgling neoconservativemovement. l.ewis became SenatorHenry] Jackson's uru' more or

less, said Richard Perle,ss former top Pentagonofficial who, as

chairman of the Pentagon'sDefensePolicy Board, was the most

prominent advocate or war with Iraq in zoo3, and who is a longtime

acolyteof Lewis's.Lewis also becamea regularvisitor to the Moshe

Dayan Center at Tel Aviv University,where he developed lose inks

to Ar iel Sharon.

By the r98os, Lewis was hobnobbing with top Department of

Defenseofficials. According to Pat Lang, the former DIA official,





tO

as

. I

Clashof Ciuilizations? l l5

Lang, referring o the late chief deologue or the former SovietCom-

munist Party. He's the theoretician. '58t was Rhode and Feith'sOSP,

under neoconAbram Shulsky,which manufactured alse ntelligence

that blamed raq for tiesro Al Qaeda.And it was the oSP which cre-

ated talking-points papers for Vice PresidentCheney' Secretaryof

DefenseDonald Rumsfeld, and other top Bush administration offi-

cialsclaiming that Iraq had extensive tockpiles f chemicaland bio-logicalweapons, ong-rangemissiles, nmannedaerialvehicles, nd a

well-developed uclearprogram.seChalabi's alsified ntelligence ed

directly nto the OSP, rom whence t endedup in speechesy Cheney,

Rumsfeld,and other top Bushadministrationofficials.On the eve of

the Iraq war, Lewis, who was close o Cheney,had a private dinner

with the vice president o discuss lans for the war in Iraq,60and' in

Loo3, Lewis dedicatedhis book The Crisis of Islam To Harold

Rhode.

The War on Terror

In going ro war, first n Afghanistanand then n Iraq, and in declaring

the start of a global war on terrorism with no end in sight,President

Bushwas carefulnot to embrace ully the Lewis-Huntington heory of

a civilizational clash. n speechafter speech-and despitean initial

clumsy eferenceo the campaign n the Middle East252 g1s52ds -

the president nsisted hat the United Stateswas engaged n a wa r

against errorists,not a war against he peopleof the Koran. In fact,

however,Bush'swar on terrorism s merelyan excuse o implementa

radical new appfoach o the Middle East and CentralAsia. It is not apolicy toward Islam, or Islamic undamentalism,or even oward ter-

rorism, Islamicor otherwise.

From the start, he president's esponse o glrr displayeda broad

imperial vision. He imagineda domino-like series f regimechanges

in the Middle East, tied to an expandedU.S. military and political

presencen the region: First the Taliban, hen SaddamHussein, he n

regimes n Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia, and beyond would fall before

the onslaught of an imperial democracy.The Bush administration

was heavily influenced by neoconservatives nside and outside



336. Drvr l 's Gel. l .

who preached he gospelof sweeping egional change. nside were

\Tolfowitz, Feith, Perle,Marshall, Wurmser,and Shulsky,along with

other key officials in the Pentagon, such as Michael Rubin and

William Luti, Lewis Libby in Vice PresidentCheney'soffice, John

Bolton at the StateDeparrment,Elliott Abrams at the NSC, and manyothers;outsidewere a host of think tank and media activists, nclud-

ing Tom Donnelly and Gary Schmitt of the Project or a New Ameri-

can Century, Tilliam Kristol of the lMeeklyStandard, Michael Ledeen

of the AmericanEnterprise nstirure,Max Singerof the Hudson Insti-

tute, and The ltlew Republic's Peretzand Lawrence F'.Kaplan, and

James Woolsey.

The missionbegins n Baghdad,but it doesnot end there, wrote

Kaplan and Kristol in The War Ouer Iraq. Ve stand at the cusp of a

new historical era. . . This is a decisivemomenr. . . It is so clearly

about more than Iraq. It is about more even han the future of theMiddle East and the war on terror. It is about what sort of role the

United States ntends to play in the world in the rwenry-first cen-

tury. 61At a press conferenceon the eve of the invasion of Iraq,

Ledeenput the strategyevenmore bluntly. I think we aregoing o be

obliged o fight a regionalwar, whether we want to or not, he said,

assertinghat the war could not be imited to Iraq. It may turn out to

be a war to remake he world. 62

Suchgrandiose deashad long marked rhe neoconservativeision

of the world. In the infamous blueprint for their srraregy, rafted in

r996 as a policy memorandum o then-PrimeMinister NetanyahuofIsrael,Perle,Feith, Wurmser,and others describeda comprehensive

regionalpolicy.The memo, entitled, A CleanBreak:A New Strategy

for Securing he Realm, called on Israel to work with Turkey and

Jordan to contain, destabilize, nd roll back various states n the

region,overthrow SaddamHussein,pressJordan o restorea scionof

its Hashemitedynasty n Baghdad,and launchmilitary action against

Lebanon and Syria as a prelude to a redrawing of the map of the

Middle East [to] threaten Syria's erritorial inregriry. Nowhere, in

the long memo, did it suggest policy of countering undamentalist

Islam, heMuslim Brotherhood,or evenAl Qaeda.63

Nor is democracy he real oblectiveof the Bushadministration n



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Clash of Ci uilizations? 337

the Middle East, despite he central place that idea occupies n the

president's hetoric. Neoconservativeswant to control the Middle

East, not reform it, even f that means earing countries apart and

replacing hem with rump mini-states longethnicand sectarianines.

The Islamic ight, in this context, s ust one more tool for dismantling

existing regimes, f that is what it takes. n Rethinking the Middle

East in Fore ign Affairs, Bernard Lewis forthrightly described aprocess e called Lebanonization :

[A] possibility,which could evenbe precipirated y fundamen-

talism, s what hasof latebeen ashionableo cail Lebanonrza-

tion. Most of the states f the Middle East-Egypr s an obvrous

exception-are of recentand artificialconstruction nd are vul-nerableo sucha process.f thecentral ower ssufficiently eak-ened, here s no real civil society o hold the polity together, orealsense f common dentity. . . Thestate hendisintegrates-as

happenedn Lebanon-into a chaos f squabbling,euding, ight-

ing sects,ribes, egions ndparties.6a

That, of c ourse, s indeedone possible uture for Iraq in the wake of

the U.S. nvasion,one foreseen y ChasFreeman. The neoconserva-

tives' ntention in Iraq was never o truly build democracy here, he

says. Their intention was to flatten t, to remove raq as a regional

threat o Israel. 55

Not only Iraq is vulnerable o disintegration, ut the neoconserva-

tiveshave madeexplicit their intention to collapseSaudiArabia, too.

In their book, An End to Euil: Hotu to'Win

the.War

on Terror,

Richard Perleand David Frum, both fellows ar the American Enrer-prise Institute, suggestmobilizing Shiite undamentalists gainst he

Saudistate.Becausehe Shiites re a powerful forcealong he shoreof

the PersianGulf, where Saudioil fieldsare, Perleand Frum nore ha t

the Saudis have long fea red that the Shiitesmight somedayseek

independenceor the EasternProvince-and its oil. They add:

Independenceor theEastern rovince ould obviously ea cata-

strophicoutcome or the Saudi tate.But it might be a very good

outcome or the United States. ertainly t'san outcome o ponder.



138 Devrr 's Gaun

Even more certainly.we would want the Saudis o know we are

ponderingt.66

Max Singer,he co-founderof the Hudson Institute,has epeatedly

suggestedhat the United States eek o di smantle he Saudikingdom

by encouraging reakawaystates n both the EasternProvinceand the

western Hrjaz. After [Saddam] s removed, rhere will be an earth-

quake n the region, saysSinger. If this means he fall of the [Saudi]

regime,so be it. 67 Ledeenwrote that the fall of the House of Saud

could lead to the takeoverof the country by pro-Al Qaedaradicals.

In that event, he says, we would have to extend the war to the

Arabian Peninsula,at the very least o the oil-producing regions. 68

James Akins, the former U.S. ambassador n Riyadh, says: I've

stoppedsaying hat Saudi Arabia will be taken over by Osama bin

Ladenor a bin Ladenclone f we go into Iraq. I'm now convinced hat

that'sexactlywhat [the neoconservatives] anr ro happen.And then

we take t over. 6e

During the first four years of Bush'swar on terror, many critics

argued hat by invading Afghanistanand Iraq and by raising Amer-

ica'sprofile in the Middle East so high, the Bush administrarionwa s

creatinga new generationof radical Islamistswho would blame the

United States or all the ills in the Middle East. Despite ts rhetoric

about combating Islamist-inspired errorism, in neither Afghanistan

nor Iraq did the Bush administration demonsrrate successful trat-

egy for reversing he spread of Islamic fundamentalism. Michael

Scheuer, riting as Anonymous in Imperial Hubris, stated he case

most forcefully:

U.S.,British, ndothercoalition orces re rying o govern ppar-

ently ungovernableostwarstatesn Afghanistan nd raq while

simultaneouslyightinggrowing slamist nsurgenciesn each-a

stateof affairsour leaders all victory. n conducting heseactivi-

ties, and the conventionalmilitary campaigns receding hem,

U.S. forcesand policiesare completing he radicalization f the

Islamicworld, somethingOsamabin Ladenhasbeen rying o do

with but incompietesuccess ince he early r99os. As a result,



in

Clashof Ciuilizations ' 339

think it is fair to conclude that the United States of America

remains bin Laden'sonly indispensable lly.70

Whether or not Afghanistan can defeat the remnants of the Tal-

iban, reverse decadesof Islamization, dismantle the underground

forcesof the Islamic ight, and createa stable, ecular tate emains o

be seen.

Whether

Iraq can produce a seculargovernment,crush theforcesassociatedwith Al Qaeda that have collected here, suppress

Shiite undamentalistpartiessuch as SCIRI and Al Dawa that have

dominated postwar Iraq, and hold o ff efforts by Iran's ayatollahs o

exercise nfluence nsi de the territory of their Arab neighbor s also

an open question. Chancesare at least fifty-fifty that in the not-roo-

distant uture Afghanistanwill fall back under the sway of hard-core

Islamistsand that Iraq will end up with a theocracyonly slightly less

militant that lran's. By the same token, the clerical leadership in

Teheranappears o haveconsolidated ts iron grip over power in the

Islamic Republic of Iran. In Pakistan, PresidentMusharraf-whoakeady olerates he muscular nfluenceof Islamists n Karachi-could

at any moment fall to an Islamist coup d'6tat from the army and the

ISI, n alliancewith the Muslim Brotherhoodor other militant parries

and groupson the Islamic ight. Indonesiaand Bangladesh re facing

Islamist insurgencies, urkey has been drifting into the Islamist camp

for more than a decade, nd Syria,Lebanon,Jordan,and Palestine re

all facing severepressure rom the Muslim Brotherhood. The heart of

the Arab world, Egypt and Saudi Arabia, are both facing pressure o

open up thei r political systems,which many observers elievecould

lead o the establishment f Islamic epublics n both countries.The caseof Iraq is most startling.PresidentBush went to war in

Iraq after accusing Saddam Hussein of forging an alliance with Al

Qaeda.He warned that Saddammight be ncli ned o giveweaponsof

massdestruction o bin Laden's ells.But, as became vident n zoo3,

Saddam's egime had no ties to Al Qaeda and no weaponsof mass

destruction o distribute.The regime n Baghdad,dictatorial hough t

was, was a secularone whoseBaathParty eadershipwas a confirmed

enemyof the Islamists-both the Shiitevarietyand the SunniMuslim



34o . Dpvrr s Gann

Brotherhood. But Bush, consciouslyand with deliberation,encour-aged raq s Islamists o reach for power. American forcesand the cIAbrought an ayatollah from London to Najaf, Iraq, and forged a prag-matic alliancewith anorherayatollah,Ali al-sistani,an Iranian clericwho became

he kingmaker in Iraq after rhe war. The united statesworked with a radical Iraqi cleric, Abdel-Azizal-Hakim, who com-manded the zo,ooo-strongparamilitary Badr Brigade, a force thatwas armed and trained by Iran. And it promoted a terrorisr groupcalled he Islamic call, or Al Dawa, a group thar over its forty-yearhistory had conducted bombings, assassinations, nd other violentattacks, ncluding an attack against he American embassy n Kuwaitin the early r98os. on the sunni front, in central raq, the chief politi-cal party to emergeafter the war in 2oo3 was the Iraqi Isramicparty,

the Muslim Brotherhood sofficial branch n Iraq.

The Bushadministrationhasset nto motion a chain of events ha tcould lead to a repriseof the Algeria crisisof r99z incountlessstates

in the region.Even iny states uchas Kuwait, where he Brotherhood

is strong, and Bahrain, with its sunni royal family and its Shiitemajority population, are vulnerable o Islamic revolution or ballot-box Islamist riumphs-or both.

ReuelMarc Gerecht s a former cIA officer with experiencen Iraqand the Middle East,a fellow at the American Enterprise nstitute, anda neoconservative ard-liner who was a leadingvoice n supporr of theu.s. invasionsof Afghanistanand Iraq. For three yearsafter zooz,heappearedat AEI forums alongsideperle,

Ledeen,and other neoconser-vatives,while writing for the \yeekly standard and many other right-wing publicarions, including the Wall Street Journal,s op-ed page.Early in zoo5 Gerecht dropped all pretenseof opposing the Islamicright, issuing a clarion call for the united states to encouragebothsunni and Shiite fundamenralism throughout the entire Middle East.

In a January zoo5 appearanceat AEI, Gerecht announced hereleaseof his new book, The Islamic paradox: Shiite clerics, sunniFundamentalists,and the coming of Arab Democracy.In it, Gerechtdeclared hat the future of the Middle East ies with the Islamic right,and that the united statesought ro welcome t. Although many

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Robert Dreyfuss Devil's Game

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