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Multiplication of War and Conflict from Tunisia to the Middle East

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The Second Cold War

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Abstract

President Barack Obama gave continuity to President Bush’s “freedom agenda”, and between 2002 and 2012, the MEPI received approximately US$580 million for more than 680 projects in 18 countries and territories through its headquarters in Washington and regional offices in Tunis and Abu Dhabi, extending to all suburban and rural regions as well as to the tribal communities. These programs “focused on political process strengthening, legal or institutional frameworks, elections management”.

The uprising against Ben Ali came as no surprise to the United States and was probably expected. Washington was alert to the situation in Tunisia and in the entire Middle East. When he promised Washington a “tried-and-true strategy” to fight terrorism in 2008, President Ben Ali said himself to David Welch, Assistant Secretary of State, that the situation in Egypt was “explosive” and that “sooner or later” the Muslim Brotherhood would take power in Cairo. He added that Yemen and Saudi Arabia were facing real problems and that the whole region was “explosive”.

Ahmed Maher, one of the founders and the main strategist of the April 6 Youth Movement, and Dalia Ziada made contact with the OTPOR militants in Serbia, and the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict, set up to train activists and agitators, infiltrated in Cairo in order to conduct workshops and distribute the writings of Professor Gene Sharp, such as his “198 Methods of Nonviolent Action”, a list of tactics that ranged from hunger strikes to public protests and the disclosure of the identity of secret agents.

With the exception of Israel, a secular, hybrid democracy with a strong religious influence, all countries in the Middle East met the objective and subjective domestic conditions for uprisings and conspiracies by dissidents, many of whom living in exile, mainly in Europe.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    “Leading through Civilian Power the First Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review 2010”, Department of State — USAID, accessed http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/153108.pdf.

  2. 2.

    “Conflict Barometer 2011”, accessed http://hiik.de/de/konfliktbarometer/.

  3. 3.

    Ibid.

  4. 4.

    Declan Walsh and Eric Schmitt, “Militant Group Poses Risk to U.S.-Pakistan Relations”, The New York Times, July 30, 2012.

  5. 5.

    “Balochistan — Pakistan’s other war — Baloch politicians and leaders share their vision of self-determination and freedom from Pakistani rule”, Al Jazeera World, January 9, 2012.

  6. 6.

    Wednesday, 30 December 2009, 13:28, SECRET STATE 131801 — NOFORN — SIPDIS — FOR TFCO EO 12958 DECL: 12/28/2019 TAGS EFIN, KTFN, PTER, PINR, PREL, PK, KU, AE, QA, SA SUBJECT: TERRORIST FINANCE: ACTION REQUEST FOR SENIOR LEVEL ENGAGEMENT ON TERRORISM FINANCER EF: A. (A) STATE 112368 B. (B) RIYADH 1499 C. (C) KUWAIT 1061 D. (D) KUWAIT 1021 E. (E) ABU DHABI 1057 F. (F) DOHA 650 G. (G) ISLAMABAD 2799 Classified By: EEB/ESC Deputy Assistant Secretary Douglas C. Hengel for reasons 1.4 (b) and (d). “US embassy cables: Hillary Clinton says Saudi Arabia ‘a critical source of terrorist funding’”, The Guardian, December 5, 2010, accessed http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/us-embassy-cables-documents/242073.

  7. 7.

    Ibid. Declan Walsh, “WikiLeaks cables portray Saudi Arabia as a cash machine for terrorists. Hillary Clinton memo highlights Gulf states’ failure to block funding for groups like al-Qaida, Taliban and Lashkar-e-Taiba”, The Guardian, December 5, 2010.

  8. 8.

    Hibou (2011), p. XV.

  9. 9.

    Stephen Mcinerney, “Project on Middle East Democracy, 2010. The Federal Budget and Appropriations for Fiscal Year 2011: Democracy, Governance, and Human Rights in the Middle East”, Heinrich Böll Stiftung — North America, April 2010.

  10. 10.

    Corey Pein, “Tunisia before the Riots: $631 Million in US Military Aid”, War is Business, January 14, 2011. “Massive U.S. Military Aid to Tunisia despite human rights abuses”, Asian Tribune, World Institute for Asian Studies, Vol. 11, No. 463, 18/1/2011.

  11. 11.

    Friday, 17 July 2009, 16:19 SECRET SECTION 01 OF 05 TUNIS 000492 NOFORN — SIPDIS — DEPT FOR NEA AA/S FELTMAN, DAS HUDSON, AMBASSADOR-DESIGNATE GRAY, AND NEA/MAG FROM AMBASSADOR EO 12958 DECL: 07/13/2029 — TAGS PREL, PGOV, ECON, KPAO, MASS, PHUM, TS — SUBJECT: TROUBLED TUNISIA: WHAT SHOULD WE DO? Classified By Ambassador Robert F. Godec For E.O. 12,958 Reasons 1.4 (B) And (D). Source: WikiLeaks. Elisabeth Dickson, “The First WikiLeaks Revolution?”, Foreign Affairs, January 13, 2011. Steve Coll, “Democratic Movements”, The New Yorker, January 31, 2011. “‘First WikiLeaks Revolution’: Tunisia descends into anarchy as president flees after cables reveal country’s corruption”, Daily Mail, January 15, 2011.

  12. 12.

    Friday, 17 July 2009, 16:19 SECRET SECTION 01 OF 05 TUNIS 000492 NOFORN — SIPDIS — DEPT FOR NEA AA/S FELTMAN, DAS HUDSON, AMBASSADOR-DESIGNATE GRAY, AND NEA/MAG FROM AMBASSADOR EO 12958 DECL: 07/13/2029 — TAGS PREL, PGOV, ECON, KPAO, MASS, PHUM, TS — SUBJECT: TROUBLED TUNISIA: WHAT SHOULD WE DO? Classified By: Ambassador Robert F. Godec For E.O. 12,958 Reasons 1.4 (B) And (D). Source: WikiLeaks.

  13. 13.

    Ibid.

  14. 14.

    Ibid.

  15. 15.

    Tunisia Overview, The World Bank, accessed http://www.worldbank.org/en/country/tunisia/overview.

  16. 16.

    Hibou (2011), p. XV, 189–190.

  17. 17.

    Bradley (2012), p. 32–33.

  18. 18.

    Friday, 17 July 2009, 16:19 SECRET SECTION 01 OF 05 TUNIS 000492 NOFORN — SIPDIS — DEPT FOR NEA AA/S FELTMAN, DAS HUDSON, AMBASSADOR-DESIGNATE GRAY, AND NEA/MAG FROM AMBASSADOR EO 12958 DECL: 07/13/2029 — TAGS PREL, PGOV, ECON, KPAO, MASS, PHUM, TS — SUBJECT: TROUBLED TUNISIA: WHAT SHOULD WE DO? Classified By: Ambassador Robert F. Godec For E.O. 12,958 Reasons 1.4 (B) And (D). Source: WikiLeaks.

  19. 19.

    Bradley (2012), p. 2.

  20. 20.

    Ibid., p. 2. The zealots were a patriotic, radical Jewish sect, which in 48 a.C., during the reign of Idumean Herod, until the fall of Jerusalem and Massada, in 70 A.D. and 73 A.D., deployed a terrorist campaign to encourage the insurgency, murdering Roman legionaries and Jewish collaborators with sicarii infiltrated in the cities, who stabbed their victims to death with the sica (curved dagger) hidden beneath their robes.

  21. 21.

    Bradley (2012), p. 2.

  22. 22.

    William Blum, “Trojan Horse: The National Endowment for Democracy”, International Endowment for Democracy.

  23. 23.

    National Endowment for Democracy, “Strategy Document, January 2007.”

  24. 24.

    Stephen Mcinerney, “Project on Middle East Democracy, 2010. The Federal Budget and Appropriations for Fiscal Year 2011: Democracy, Governance, and Human Rights in the Middle East”, Heinrich Böll Stiftung — North America, April 2010.

  25. 25.

    U.S. Department of State, Middle East Partnership Initiative (MEPI), April 19, 2012.

  26. 26.

    Azadeh Shahshahani and Corinna Mullin, “The legacy of US intervention and the Tunisian revolution: promises and challenges one year on”, Interface: a journal for and about social movements, Volume 4 (1): 67, 101, May 2012.

  27. 27.

    Steve Coll, “Democratic Movements”, The New Yorker, January 31, 2011.

  28. 28.

    Elaasar (2008), p. 54–58.

  29. 29.

    Ibid., p. 55.

  30. 30.

    Bank of Binary, accessed http://www.tradingeconomics.com/egypt/population.

  31. 31.

    Abdo (2000), p. 3–4.

  32. 32.

    Ibid., p. 131.

  33. 33.

    Hourani (1991), p. 40–41. Wheatcroft (2003), p. 398–399, 445–446.

  34. 34.

    Ibid., p. 398–399, 445–446.

  35. 35.

    Sheik ‘Umar Abd al-Rahman was sentenced to life imprisonment in the United States for the attack against the WTC in 1993.

  36. 36.

    “Mr. Mubarak: Valuable and Vulnerable”, The New York Times, July 4, 1995.

  37. 37.

    Ibid.

  38. 38.

    Maggie Michael, “Mubarak Faces Egypt Protests on ‘Day of Rage’”, Huffingtonpost.com , 25/5/2011.

  39. 39.

    Yolande Knell, “Egypt’s revolution — 18 days in Tahrir Square”, BBC News Cairo, January 25, 2012.

  40. 40.

    Department of State — Egypt, accessed http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/5309.htm.

  41. 41.

    Tim Ross, Matthew Moore and Steven Swinford, “Egypt protests: America’s secret backing for rebel leaders behind uprising!”, The Telegraph, January 28, 2011.

  42. 42.

    Ibid.

  43. 43.

    Ibid.

  44. 44.

    Sheryl Gay Stolberg, “Shy U.S. Intellectual Created Playbook Used in a Revolution”, The New York Times, February 16, 2011.

  45. 45.

    “Q&A: Gene Sharp — Al Jazeera talks with the quiet but influential scholar of non-violent struggle”, Al Jazeera, December 6, 2011. “Gene Sharp — Der Demokrator”, Die Zeit Online. Tina Rosenberg, “Revolution — What Egypt Learned from the Students who Overthrew Milosevic”, Foreign Policy Magazine, February 16, 2011.

  46. 46.

    Sheryl Gay Stolberg, “Shy U.S. Intellectual Created Playbook Used in a Revolution”, The New York Times, February 16, 2011.

  47. 47.

    PUBLIC LAW 108-447-DEC. 8, 2004 118 STAT. 2809, Public Law 108-447 — 108th Congress — An Act — Making appropriations for foreign operations, export financing, and related programs for the fiscal year the United States of America in Congress assembled.

  48. 48.

    David E. Sanger, “As Mubarak Digs In, U.S. Policy in Egypt Is Complicated”, The New York Times, February 5, 2011.

  49. 49.

    The Sykes-Picot Agreement was negotiated in secret, in May 1916, by the diplomats François Georges-Picot, from France, and Sir Mark Sykes, from Great Britain, with the assent of Russia. BBC. The Sykes-Picot Agreement, http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/static/in_depth/world/2001/israel_and_palestinians/key_maps/7.stm. Accessed 24.03.2015.

  50. 50.

    Fromkin (1989), p. 503.

  51. 51.

    Barr (2011), p. 65–66.

  52. 52.

    Fromkin (1989), p. 450.

  53. 53.

    Lawrence (1962), p. 36–37.

  54. 54.

    Ibid., p. 36.

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  1. Emeritus professor for History, University of Brasília, St. Leon-Rot, Germany

    Luiz Alberto Moniz Bandeira

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Moniz Bandeira, L.A. (2017). Multiplication of War and Conflict from Tunisia to the Middle East. In: The Second Cold War. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-54888-3_12

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