person:marc lynch

  • Si les Séoudiens n’aiment pas Obama, ce n’est pas pour sa politique syrienne ou iranienne, c’est avant tout parce qu’ils craignent que, si eux-mêmes subissaient une révolution démocratique, Obama ne les soutiendrait pas. What’s really wrong with the U.S.-Saudi relationship - Marc Lynch
    https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2016/04/20/whats-really-wrong-with-the-u-s-saudi-relationship

    Much of the discussion of U.S.-Saudi tensions has focused on Gulf regime grievances over the nuclear deal with Iran and the American refusal to intervene in Syria.

    As I argue in my forthcoming book, “The New Arab Wars,” the deeper driver of these tensions, however, is the existential fear for regime survival unleashed by the Arab uprisings and the fall of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. Arab leaders suddenly feared that Washington would be unwilling or unable to come to their rescue if they faced renewed popular mobilization. The erratic and counterproductive policies they pursued in response, at home and across the region, have exacerbated their domestic problems — and put them sharply at odds with American strategic goals in the region.

    • Vraiment intéressant.
      Mais l’idée qu’il y aurait une crainte saoudienne que Washington ne voudrait pas ou ne serait pas capable de venir les sauver en cas d’un Printemps arabe 2.0 (renewed popular mobilization) est, à mon avis, encore en-dessous de la réalité.
      Les Saoudiens savent parfaitement, comme la plupart des gouvernements, qui a préparé le terrain pour les « printemps arabes ». Que l’on songe à tous les gouvernements qui l’ont dit ou qui ont pris des dispositions législatives contre les ONG étrangères pour se prémunir contre ce genre d’évènements que sont les révolutions colorées : Russie, Iran, Venezuela, Egypte de Sissi, Biélorussie, ...
      A mon avis, ce que craignent les Saoudiens, c’est qu’alors qu’ils ont une première fois réussi à repousser cela loin de leurs alliés, une seconde vague ne vienne ébranler leur pouvoir avec comme toujours, leur grand « allié » américain à la manœuvre.
      La première fois ils ont réussi à sauver la monarchie bahreïnie en envoyant 1000 soldats réprimer dans le sang le soulèvement bahreïni, à flinguer les Frères musulmans en Egypte et à rabattre le caquet du Qatar - les FM et le Qatar étant les principales forces sur lesquelles s’appuyaient les USA en 2011-2012. Maintenant que les prétentions des FM et du Qatar ont été rabattues, les Saoud peuvent de nouveau s’entendre avec eux - par exemple au Yémen avec le parti Islah issu des FM.
      L’article note certains de ces points :

      The Saudis have won on many important issues, while Obama has prevailed on his own highest priorities. The Saudi side of the ledger includes Obama’s willingness to turn a blind eye to the sectarian repression of Bahrain’s uprising, support for an obviously doomed and devastating war in Yemen, billions of dollars in arms sales and grudging acceptance of the Gulf-backed military coup in Egypt.

      Mais là aussi l’article est à mon avis encore un cran en-dessous de la réalité. L’administration Obama n’a pas laissé les Saoudiens sauver le roitelet de Bahreïn, en regardant ailleurs, parce que ce n’était pas un point important pour les USA, comme le suggère l’article, mais parce que c’était la condition pour intervenir en Libye contre Kadhafi.
      Pepe Escobar avait écrit un article sur ce deal :
      http://atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/MD02Ak01.html

      You invade Bahrain. We take out Muammar Gaddafi in Libya. This, in short, is the essence of a deal struck between the Barack Obama administration and the House of Saud. Two diplomatic sources at the United Nations independently confirmed that Washington, via Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, gave the go-ahead for Saudi Arabia to invade Bahrain and crush the pro-democracy movement in their neighbor in exchange for a “yes” vote by the Arab League for a no-fly zone over Libya - the main rationale that led to United Nations Security Council resolution 1973.

      Qui, sur le terrain à Bahreïn, effrayait les Saoudiens ? Les militants des droits de l’homme à la Nabil Rajab et alKhawaja soutenus par les fondations américaines, et le Wefaq que Ryadh perçoit comme un parti satellite de l’Iran - et qui aurait pu jouer le même rôle que les FM ailleurs.
      Donc Ryadh a obtenu de Washington (Clinton) de pouvoir écraser ces deux forces à Bahreïn, avant que des forces similaires ne viennent contester le régime absolutiste saoudien sur son propre sol au nom de la démocratie pour les uns, ou du droit des chiites pour les autres (dans le Hasa pétrolier). Et les USA ont donc laissé ceux qu’ils avaient soutenus (les militants des droits de l’homme) se faire tranquillement torturer à Bahreïn... Mais c’est un coup d’urgence pas une politique sur le long terme. Il n’y aura pas éternellement un Kadhafi à sacrifier pour apaiser le Moloch du regime-change américain.
      Sur le long terme les Saoudiens ont donc tenté d’une part de constituer une Sainte-Alliance des monarchies, avec au centre un CCG qu’il leur fallait dominer, pour dévier la vague uniquement vers les seuls régimes républicains-autoritaires, et d’autre part de relancer la guerre sunnites/chiites contre l’Iran et ses alliés dans le cadre d’une compétition déjà ancienne.
      D’où d’ailleurs leur acharnement à refuser la défaite en Syrie où les deux enjeux se conjuguent.

  • How leaked Saudi documents might really matter
    By Marc Lynch June 21 at 2:27 PM
    http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/monkey-cage/wp/2015/06/21/how-leaked-saudi-documents-might-really-matter

    Pro-Saudi and anti-Saudi online networks and media highlight entirely different documents. with partisans in each cluster selectively focusing on those documents and arguments that support their cause while playing down others. The politics of the Saudi leaks is likely to reinforce rather than challenge the region’s toxic, repressive, fearful and unstable political environment.

  • Restraining Order - By Marc Lynch | Foreign Policy
    http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/08/28/restraining_order_barack_obama_syria?page=0,1

    ... the administration’s loud protestations of limited aims and actions are only partially reassuring. Much the same language was used at the outset of the Libya campaign. Everybody knows that it will be excruciatingly difficult for Obama to hold the line at punitive bombing after those strikes inevitably fail to end the war, Assad remains publicly defiant, the Geneva 2 diplomatic process officially dies, and U.S. allies and Syrian insurgents grumble loudly about the strike’s inadequacy. Once the psychological and political barrier to intervention has been shattered, the demands for escalation and victory will become that much harder to resist. And what happens when Assad launches his next deadly sarin attack — or just massacres a lot of Syrians by non-chemical means? This too Obama clearly knows. But that knowledge may still not be enough to save him.

  • Ce que l’on sait de la politique étrangère du Sheikh Tamim : rien.
    D’après Lynch, les contraintes (intérieures et régionales) de cette politique sont à peu près nulles donc il fera bien ce qu’il veut. Celui qui sait, lit dans ses pensées

    Mysteries of the Emir - By Marc Lynch | Foreign Policy
    http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/06/27/mysteries_of_the_emir_power_transfer_qatar?page=full

    I, for one, don’t believe we yet know the whole story behind the emir’s decision or the intentions of the new leadership. And in at least one crucial way, what happened in Doha most certainly will not stay in Doha. Given Qatar’s active role in virtually every one of the region’s interlocking problems, from Egypt to Syria to Libya to Yemen to Palestine, the new emir’s choices will matter in ways far less predictable then many seem to believe.

    • Je ne suis pas sûr que son père ait été débarqué pour avoir franchi des lignes rouges. Je pense aussi qu’il existe des contraintes intérieures au Qatar, où existent des clivages (par exemple sur Israël) et des vues plus ou moins conservatrices dans la société. Le livre de Claire Talon sur Al-Jazirah paru aux PUF en offre une vision intéressante.

  • The Middle East Kings of Cowardice by Marc Lynch

    Lynch revient sur la multiplication, dans les monarchies du Golfe, des condamnations pour ’insultes à l’émir’/ roi/ sultan. Il y voit le signe que le mythe de la spécificité monarchique, basé sur l’idée que les souverains jouissent d’un certain attachement populaire, ne tient pas. Il y voit aussi le signe de l’érosion de leur légitimité, après que le printemps arabe ait fait tomber ’la culture de la conformité publique’

    In other words, the crackdown across the Gulf suggests that its regimes are probably not nearly as stable as they’d like everyone to believe. If the monarchs of the region were truly stable and legitimate, they would brush aside these insults. Nothing telegraphs weakness and insecurity quite like lawsuits and arrests over perceived disrespect.

    Egypt gets all the headlines — and of course Bassem Youssef should win the right to make fun of Morsy’s hat. But Egypt’s drama shouldn’t distract attention from the significance of the mounting battle in the Gulf over the right to directly criticize one’s leaders — humorously or not. Rulers who imprison poets or bloggers over “insults” should always be mocked both at home and in the international realm. If they want to be respected, they should earn it through democratic inclusion, open engagement, transparency, and accountability.

    http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/04/18/middle_east_kings_of_cowardice

  • Did We Get the Muslim Brotherhood Wrong? - Marc Lynch | Foreign Policy
    http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/04/10/did_we_get_the_muslim_brotherhood_wrong?print=yes

    It has become clear that the Brotherhood was more profoundly shaped by its inability to actually win power than has generally been recognized. Almost every aspect of its organization, ideology, and strategy was shaped by the limits Mubarak placed upon it. The revolution removed those boundaries — and the Brotherhood has struggled badly to adapt. Its erratic, incompetent, and often incomprensibly alienating behavior since the revolution comes in part from having utterly lost its bearings in a new institutional environment. The chance to rule forced it to confront a whole range of contradictions that Mubarak’s domination had allowed the group to finesse.

    ...

    ... I recall sitting in Deputy Supreme Guide Khairet al-Shater’s office in late 2011 being shown what appeared to be comprehensive, detailed plans for economic development and institutional reform. It seemed plausible at that point that a Brotherhood government would quickly get things moving again and establish itself as a centrist Islamist majority party, like Turkey’s ruling AK Party. Yet it has utterly failed to do so. What went wrong?

    One part of the answer lies in something else the academics got right: factional politics inside the Brotherhood. Put simply, the years immediately preceding the Egyptian revolution had produced a Brotherhood leadership and organization almost uniquely poorly adapted to the challenges of a democratic transition. The regime cracked down hard on the Brotherhood following its electoral success in 2005, arresting a wide range of its leaders (including currently prominent personalities such as Morsy and Shater), confiscating its financial assets, and launching intense media propaganda campaigns.

    This took a toll on the internal balance of power inside the Brotherhood as advocates of political participation found themselves on the defensive against the more conservative faction, which preferred to focus on social outreach and religious affairs. In 2008, conservatives were declared the winners in all five seats being contested in by-elections to replace empty seats on the Brotherhood’s highest official body, the Guidance Council; reformists cried foul. The next year, in new elections to the council again marred by serious procedural violations, the most prominent reformist member, Abdel Monem Abou el-Fotouh, and a key intermediary between the factions, Mohammed Habib, lost their long-held seats. Supreme Guide Mohammed Mehdi Akef, an old-guard conservative who had nonetheless maintained a careful balance between the factions, later stepped down and was replaced by little-known conservative Mohammed Badie. Over the next few years, a number of leading members of the reformist faction left the Brotherhood or were excluded from positions of influence.

    When the revolution broke out, then, the Brotherhood had already driven away many of its most politically savvy and ideologically moderate leaders. Its leadership had become dominated by cautious, paranoid, and ideologically rigid conservatives who had little experience at building cross-ideological partnerships or making democratic compromises. One-time reformists such as Essam el-Erian and Mohammed el-Beltagy had made their peace with conservative domination and commanded little influence on the movement’s strategy. It is fascinating to imagine how the Brotherhood might have handled the revolution and its aftermath if the dominant personalities on the Guidance Bureau had been Abou el-Fotouh and Habib rather than Shater and Badie — but we’ll never know.

  • Silent on Saudi Arabia | Marc Lynch
    http://lynch.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2013/03/11/silent_on_saudi_arabia?fb_action_ids=10152624757705526

    This is a mistake which will have enduring implications. I’ve been pointing to the problems caused by the “Saudi exception” in American foreign policy for a while now, and I had urged Secretary Kerry to not set aside human rights and democracy questions during his inaugural trip to the Gulf. By punting on these issues on this trip he sent a clear signal about American priorities, which do not include democracy or human rights in these Gulf countries. The sentences on Qahtani and Hamed have been months in the making, but it’s hard to not interpret the timing of their harsh sentence amidst these two high profile American visits as a clear signal of “message received.”

    Ignoring these questions of reform, human rights in exchange for support on strategic issues probably seems prudent but I believe it reflects a real misreading of the evolution of Gulf politics. Bahrain isn’t over. The Saudi public sphere is rapidly transforming. Gulf-backed sectarianism is doing serious damage across the region. Do go read Omran’s essay http://mideast.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2013/03/11/saudi_activists_silenced_and_the_us_is_silent on why this matters and how Saudi reformists are responding to this American silence.

  • Attention : Al Arabiya attaque le journaliste Nir Rosen sur la base des emails fuités – dont Angry Arab assure qu’ils sont faux ou bidouillés. Il est ici présenté comme un « informateur » du régime syrien, sur la base d’un email (qui ressemble à une demande d’interview…).

    http://www.alarabiya.net/files/image/sec5_14541_4159.jpg
    http://www.alarabiya.net/files/image/sec4_14540_8716.jpg

    Nir Rosen :
    http://twitter.com/nirrosen/status/180912495509254144

    The allegations about me are completely untrue. I will be responding in a longer format in 24 hours when I am back online so please wait

    Marc Lynch :
    http://twitter.com/abuaardvark/status/180962740926545921

    I’ve been skeptical of authenticity of the Assad emails from the start, same applies to @nirrosen allegations. Waiting.

    Asa Winstanley
    http://twitter.com/asawinstanley/status/180952638425276417

    @Falasteeni you know this this worse than silliness. It’s a sectarian attack on @nirrosen that could put his life in danger. Sick of this.

    Falasteeni
    http://twitter.com/Falasteeni/status/180929603286745088

    Really, all these ’leaked’ emails about Syria, whether allegedly belonging to the Assads or @nirrosen, are sensationalist silliness.

    • La réponse de Nir Rosen :
      http://www.lineofdeparture.com/2012/03/17/a-defense-of-nir-rosen

      In Syria my articles have not been pro-regime or anti-regime. From the beginning opponents of the regime accused me of being its agent while supporters of the regime accused me of serving Qatar, Saudi Arabia or America. These are stupid accusations and I never lowered myself to respond to them before. My goal was to provide an anthropology of Syria’s descent into civil war so people could understand what is happening there. I am more proud of my work in Syria than anything I have previously done. It is a clear eyed account which does not idealize or romanticize anybody but while sober it is always empathetic.

      Some people gave me the benefit of the doubt. But I do not need it. My journalism speaks for itself and should prevent any doubts, as should my work for Human Rights Watch, Refugees International, the United Nations and other humanitarian organizations. But I do not give the benefit of the doubt to those who made these scurrilous accusations against me, including one who publicly accused me today of collaborating with the Taliban as well. These accusations against me are more than irresponsible, they are malicious, politically motivated and conducted by my ideological enemies. I have already contacted a lawyer to explore whether I can take those who are defaming me to court. The rest should say a silent thank you that there exist people willing to endure difficult and dangerous conditions to provide them with an understanding of events in far away places, and offer a prayer for our safety.

  • Saudi Arabia’s Counter-Revolution | Marc Lynch
    http://lynch.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2011/08/10/saudi_arabias_counter_revolution

    Late at night on Sunday, August 7, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia delivered an unusual televised rebuke to Syria’s Bashar al-Asad calling on him to “stop the killing machine” and immediately begin reforms. The Saudi move against Damascus was only the latest twist in Riyadh’s newly energetic foreign policy. Since March, Saudi Arabia has been in the forefront of a regional counter-offensive designed to blunt the momentum of the Arab uprisings and shape the new regional order to its liking. After a decade of a regional order defined by an alliance of “moderate” autocracies aligned with the United States and Israel against a “Resistance” axis, the Saudis have responded to an age of revolution by leading what many now call a regional counter-revolution. This has placed them at odds with the Obama administration in key theaters, disrupted long-standing alliances, and brought Riyadh to the forefront of regional diplomacy.