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[ by Charles Cameron –on the whereabouts of the jihadist thinker, and the importance of careful reading ]
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For those interested in the question of whether Abu Musab al-Suri has been released by the Syrians, where he is and how he’s doing, this tweet today from Mr. Orangetracker is probably the state of the art:

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I sat up and took notice of this tweet today, both because I think al-Suri’s whereabouts is and should be a matter of considerable concern and interest — and also because it reminded me of a conversation a day or two back, which began (or at least, those parts that I can see from my own feed began) with a comment from Will McCants on the recently posted Institute for the Study of War report, Jihad in Syria, and led Jane’s analyst Charles Lister to comment that the report “Also concretely claims Al-Suri was released in Feb; that wasn’t confirmed, right?”

The exchange continues:

McCants: i haven’t seen anything credible. but Aaron tracks the story more closely
Aaron Zelin: Credible sources at the forums said al-Suri was released then, but no word on him since.
Raff Pantucci: I wonder if he was ever actually freed tho. maybe a scare story from Syrian intelligence?

I hadn’t particularly noticed the conversation up to this point, but here is where I noticed a tweet from Zelin to Pantucci:

Raff Pantucci is another student of these matters whom I follow. As the discussion continues, he agrees with Zelin’s assessment:

Pantucci: that would make sense. he certainly wouldn’t be on their side if they let him loose at home!
Yassin Musharbash: the thing is that we simply cannot know what kind of state – physically, psychologically and ideologically – he is in
Zelin: Agreed.

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As a matter of fact, the report did indeed state [p. 15] that Abu Musab al-Suri has been released:

In early February 2012, the Syrian government released Mustafa bin Abdel Qadir Sitt Mariam Nassar, also known as Abu Musab al-Suri. Al-Suri is an important jihadist ideologue and a top al-Qaeda operative, with experience fighting against the Assad regime during the 1979—1982 Islamic Uprising. As the alleged mastermind of the July 2005 London Bombings, Al-Suri had been in Syrian custody since he was allegedly transported there by the CIA six years ago.

But here’s where it gets interesting. In connection with these sentences, the report carries this footnote [# 29]:

“Syria’s Assad releases alleged al-Qaida mastermind of 2005 London bombings,” Haaretz, February 5, 2012.

Significantly IMO, that footnote omits the first word of the Haaretz headline, which reads:

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“Report claims Syrian President released” is simply not the same as “Syrian President released”.

On such tiny details are the webs and fogs of misunderstanding often based.

[ by Charles Cameron — comparative riotology, with sidelong glances at goats and a single mole ]
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It’s not always disrespect for the Prophet that causes people to burn flags and attempt to break into embassies…

This week, the disputed sovereignty of some uninhabited islands has done the trick quite nicely in Beijing, where rioters have attempted to breach the Japanese embassy and burned the Japanese flag (upper image, above) in a manner that’s somehow reminiscent of the breaching of the US embassy and corresponding burning of the US flag (lower image) in Cairo .

I imagine that if one was Japanese or Chinese, one might consider the Beijing protests over the ownership of the Senkaku / Diaoyu / Tiaoyutai Islands to be the primary troubling news-story about embassies, rioting and gross breaches of diplomatic protocol this week.

There’s a strange kind of parallax involved here, I think. Or perhaps: what’s in the foreground depends on where you stand.

But that’s not to say there’s an exact equivalence between the situations, just that bearing one in mind may shed some light on the other.

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I hope to get into the layers and layers of motivation that feed a riot in a subsequent post, but for now I’d just like to point to one similarity between the two situations. In each case, there’s an undertow of strong feeling that surfaces at a certain point — and astonishes us by its force.

In the case of the disputed islands, it may be Chinese feelings about Japanese behavior towards them in World War II that are triggered by Japanese claims on the islands. As China Daily USA says:

Japan has to recognize China’s sovereignty over the Diaoyu Islands and atone for its past aggressions and atrocities, and take measures to punish those Japanese who deny the country’s violent past, in the way that Germany has been doing for decades. Only if Japan does that will China and other Asian countries see it as a normal country. Otherwise, China should prepare for a long-term struggle.

Or as the Israeli Arutz7 puts it:

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The dispute with Japan is now part of the legacy of World War II and China claims that under the Potsdam Declaration of 1945, Japan was obligated to return all the territories seized illegally.

The above means that the dispute over the islands is now connected to one of the most highly charged issues in Sino-Japanese history, making it a matter of national honor for the Chinese that is not subject to negotiation.

Note here that the question is expressly one of honor.

It is significant, too, that the Chinese can be described as lenient towards their protesters attaching the sovereign embassy of a sovereign nation, just as the Egyptian government has been described as lenient towards their protesters attacking the sovereign embassy of the United States:

In the interim, China has allowed anti-Japanese demonstrators a relative freehand (“Their feelings are perfectly understandable” explained the Chinese Foreign Ministry) and the Japanese Embassy in Beijing has issued warnings to Japanese citizens and businessmen to take precautionary measures.

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I strongly believe that undertows, as I am calling them here, are among the most important topics for monitoring and analysis — and that the fact that they so often take us by surprtise is a good reason to pay them closer analytic attention.

They surface in dreams, in graffiti, in conspiracy theories, in all the liminal spaces. And they can have game-changing impact: Great Game Changing impact.

That, btw, is why Cass Sunstein‘s paper on conspiracy theories is one we should consider in detail here on ZP one of these days.

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Of course, as this recent map from the Economist shows —

— there are also oil and gas fields nearby.

What drives a crowd to riot and what interests the powers that be may be two very different sides to the same affair.

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Curious Goat Fact accompaning the above map:

In the 1970s Japanese ultra-rightists took two goats on a 2,000km (1,250-mile) trip southwest from Tokyo to a group of uninhabited rocks near Taiwan called the Senkaku Islands. In the absence of humans willing to live in such a remote outpost, the hardy creatures would be the vanguard of a new push to solidify Japan’s hold over the islets, which are also claimed by China and Taiwan.

Supplementary Mole Fact:

The Senkaku mole is an endangered species.

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Does comparing Beijing 2012 with Cairo 2012 change the emphasis with which you view recent events in Cairo and elsewhere?

Do you find the analogy between Cairo 2012 (upper panel above) and Tehran 1979 (lower panel) more convincing?

Look, I think the making of analogies is one of the chief ways — if not the chief way — in which we make “instinctive” judgments, which we then back up with appropriately selected data and reasoning. If you like, it’s subject to our own mental version of undertow in terms of what analogies we chose and how strongly we then weigh them — unless we take responsibility for the process, and begin to explore how it actually works in our own minds, and in the public mind…

Analogy is an extremely powerful instrument of thought — and it’s about time we understood it as well as we understand linear logic.

[ by Charles Cameron — on prophetic stances towards Israel: both blessings and rebukes ]
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It seems to be fairly common in some Christian circles to view the Israeli Prime Minister’s position on war with Iran as somehow sacrosanct.

Thus the end times fiction and non-fiction author Joel Rosenberg, for instance, recently blogged a “sermon” in two posts [Rediscovering the power and purpose of Bible Prophecy: 1 and 2] about the importance of prophecy to an understanding of Middle Eastern affairs, noting:

Israel is the epicenter of God’s plan and purpose in the last days. Other countries mentioned in Bible prophecy are Russia, Iran, Syria, Lebanon, Turkey, Libya, Sudan, the revived Roman empire, and several others. The United States, however, is never mentioned directly or specifically in the Bible. In my recent book, Implosion, I go into this in greater detail. But the bottom line is that even though America is the wealthiest and most powerful nation on the face of the earth in the history of mankind, the Bible does not describe a specific role for us in the last days. Something, therefore, apparently happens to neutralize us or paralyze from played a key role in the events that lead to the return of Christ.

Despite this lack of emphasis on the Unites States, he followed these two posts up with a post titled Troubling development: rift between White House & Israel growing as threat of war rises:

In recent days, anyone watching U.S.-Israel relations has seen a very troubling development: the already serious rift between the current White House and Israel is growing. The relationship between President Obama and Prime Minister Netanyahu has been strained for nearly four years. But as the threat of war between Israel and Iran this fall continues to rise, the Obama administration seems to be intentionally signaling a growing distance from the Netanyahu government.

He doesn’t draw a direct link to prophecy in this particular post, but he does close with this prayer:

Please pray for the Lord to change the heart of President Obama and his advisors, and that they would change course and truly and publicly stand firmly with Israel, our most faithful ally in all of the epicenter. As we read in Genesis 12:1-3, God promises to bless those who bless Israel, and curse those who curse Israel. With America facing a growing risk of economic and moral implosion, now is certainly not the time to turn our backs on Israel.

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As usual, my interest is in nuance — so I’d just like to say that from a purely Biblical point of view, it is by no means out of the question for believers to disagree with the kings and rulers of Israel. Indeed, Rav Moshe Taragin, writing in the Virtual Beit Midrash of Yeshivat Har Etzion, hardly a bastion of anti-Israeli sentiment, goes so far as to say:

In general, the function of the prophet is to rebuke the nation, to expose its negative traits and to help the people improve their behavior. As the Rambam teaches (Hilkhot Teshuva 4:2): “Thus, all the prophets rebuked Israel so that they would repent.”

Just because someone rebukes Israel doesn’t mean they don’t bless her…

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I addressed a question to my Christian friends on Twitter the other day, using the Iraq war as my example — but it applies to the current face-off between Israel and Iran, too:

If you and I disagree on, say, the Iraq war now, will one of us have to change his or her mind in heaven?

I added that my question was not about the Iraq war as such, but about our certainties when so many of our certainties differ.

My friend Mike Sellers responded with this admirable quote — which as he pointed out is often attributed to St Augustine (for more on its origins, try Wikipedia):

In things necessary, unity, in things doubtful, liberty, in all things, charity.

[ by Charles Cameron — caliphal succession as a marker in Egyptian-Iranian diplomacy at NAM ]
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Describing Egyptian President Morsi‘s speech in Iran at the Non-Aligned Movement conference, Rodger Shanahan of Australia’s Lowy Institute wrote, tellingly:

Invoking the names of the first four caliphs (which never goes down well in uber-Shi’a Iran), his condemnation of the Syrian regime (an Iranian ally) caused the walkout of the Damascene delegation and stole much of the positive messaging that Iran would have been hoping for from this meeting.

Sunni Islam recognizes four “rightly guided” Caliphs as the successors to the Prophet: first among them was Muhammad‘s friend Abu Bakr, who was succeeded by Umar — who when he conquered Jerusalem, is said to have entered it on foot, and guaranteed the protection of the Christians and their churches – third, Uthman, remembered for establishing the definitive text of the Quran, and finally the Prophet’s cousin and son-in-law, Ali ibn Abi Talib.

Of these, Ali alone is recognized by the Shia, who consider him the Prophet’s rightful heir and their own first Imam.

As the photo above suggests, Morsi, a Sunni, and Ahmadinejad, a Shia, are precisely three caliphs apart.

[ by Charles Cameron — Sunni and Shia, Mecca and Qom, Saudi and Iran and the balances between them, with special attention to Mecca — and sideways comparisons with Las Vegas and Somoza’s Nicaragua ]
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Consider this map:

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It was ZenMeister who pointed me today, via Notes from Thermopylae, to Stephen Crittenden and his Global Mail piece, The Clash Within Civilisations: How The Sunni-Shiite Divide Cleaves The Middle East, from which the map above is taken. Crittenden writes:

There is a dangerous 2,000-kilometre fault line running through the Middle East between Beirut and Bahrain via Damascus and Baghdad, which marks the present line of demarcation between the two main branches of Islam, Sunni and Shiite.

The 1,300-year-old schism between Sunnis and Shiites was caused not by a theological dispute (those came later), but by rival clans in Muhammad’s tribe, the Quraysh, squabbling over the succession after his death in 632 AD.

Mostly the “Sunni-Shia Line” lies dormant, and ordinary Sunnis and Shiites live out their separate lives, side-by-side in relative harmony. In Lebanon and Iraq it has not been uncommon for Sunnis and Shiites to intermarry. But the Line is still always there, just below the surface, and it has recently re-emerged as the most significant factor reshaping geopolitical relationships in the Middle East, a region where religion and politics are always inextricably intertwined.

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Suppose it, at least for now. And in that context, consider as a counterweight to all the talk about Iran, two fascinating pieces by the Pakistani novelist Maniza Naqvi.

Naqvi’s piece The Remit of Fear in 3 Quarks Daily today is worth reading — you may be interested in any one or more of her various critiques of the House of Saud:

I fear the perverse purchase of petrodollars from Saudi Arabia: the twin ideologies of Salafism and Islamophobia. …

[ … ]

I fear to imagine a county which produces no art, film, theater, song or dance. Yet such is the country created by the State of Saudi Arabia. I fear the reasons which cause 16 million citizens most of whom are not Saud in Saudi Arabia to remain silently compliant. The bulk of this population is under the age of 25 and disempowered and is ruled absolutely by old men who do not tolerate dissent or diversity of opinion. I fear the mindset that treats women as blots and clots to be erased or managed.

There’s plenty of food for thought there, not least about Pakistan:

I fear that the people unlearned and illiterate impressed by influence and the purchasing power of Saudi Arabia might be confused and unable to distinguish the House of Saud as being apart from the origin and the authors of Islam. I fear that this may be the case for Pakistan where matters are so far gone that if the father of the Nation, Mohammad Ali Jinnah were alive today he would not be able to go about freely for fear of being shot to death for being a Shi’a.

My own interest, as usual, draws me to the religious drivers at work and their impact:

I fear that after thirty years of petrodollar bonanzas and propaganda, Muslims are unable to delink Islam from the House of Saud. There are 5000 Saud and in comparison there are 1.2 billion Muslims all over the world. A majority of whom, for a myriad of reasons including illiteracy, poverty and sudden wealth are unable to resist or protest against the Saudi influence upon them. I fear that the populations of the world are unable to resist, protest and fight against the privatization of all that is their sacred to them: their lands where they grow their food, to the places where they congregate and live, to their own thoughts and even their bodies.

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But you should read too her linked critique of the remaking of Mecca, The Architects of the War on Islam, from August 6th:

This is addressed to Muslims who think that Islam is under attack: They are right. Just take a look at the images of the House that Abraham built, the Ka’aba and see how progresses that ancient attack. Just look at the transformation of the environs of the Ka’aba and the Haram Shareef into a garish resort rivaling Las Vegas or Atlantic City.

Just look, at the transformation of the sacred environs of the Haram Shareef into a shopping mall and Disney world–to understand the war on Islam and who is responsible for waging it. Just look at this and see how Islam has been trafficked as though it were a bonded slave, dressed up in bells and baubles to be whipped and sold in the marketplace.

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Note finally her remarks, in today’s piece, on fear and silence:

Much is at stake if people are not silent. Much is at stake if people remain silent.

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I fear that Haj and the Ka’aba, a central principal of Islam, sacred to 1.2 billion people have been privatized, by an estimated 5000 people belonging to one family. Why? How is the privatization of the Ka’aba different from the wholesale seizure and privatization of the commons and public lands and spaces all over the world? I fear that the Ka’aba and the Haram Shareef which is sacred to 1.2 billion people has been privatized and occupied by the members of one family and that this is the same as what is happening to the entire world and its public goods and commons and public space which have been eroded and literally stolen from the people.

And now you can see, too, why I am reminded of Somoza and his farm, Nicaragua:

With this profound difference: that the Ka’aba is the Qibla, the point of orientation to which all Muslim prayer turns, as others orient their prayers towards Jerusalem.