Not the More Liberal Order

Strategic Partner

At the EU/Arab League foreign ministers' meeting in Cairo yesterday, the German Foreign Minister demanded that cooperation between these two regional organizations be significantly enhanced. "I would like to see the Arab League become a strategic partner of the European Union" proclaimed Westerwelle, and pointed to the League's substantial increase in activity since the beginning of the transformation process in the Arab world in early 2011. "Over the past few years, the Arab League has assumed growing regional responsibility."[1] "Our efforts to reinforce the relations between the Arab League to the United Nations" had therefore been "appropriate and overdue," declared Westerwelle. Now the EU must also be led into a more intensive cooperation with this Arab alliance.

Gulf Dictatorships on the Offensive

Berlin's demand for closer cooperation with the Arab League comes at a time, when the Arab alliance of states is undergoing a significant transformation. Following the overthrow of secular regimes in Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya, and the virtual exclusion of the secular Assad regime in Syria, Islamist forces have been on the rise in the Arab countries. Their increase in power is supported by the dictatorships on the Arabian Peninsular, which, already in early 2011, had seized control. "During the Libyan crisis, a year ago, Qatar took the lead. In the Syrian conflict, it is the Emirates with Saudi Arabia, who are calling the shots," analyzed an expert back in March 2012. "The other heavyweights" - Egypt, Syria, and Iraq - "have been silenced." The Gulf dictatorships have been "herding the Arab world around" ever since. The current League's General Secretary, Nabil al Arabi, from Egypt, is said to have come into office through accords with Qatar - and has been "closely cooperating with Qatar and Saudi Arabia" ever since.[2] Through silencing the secular forces, the Islamist Gulf dictatorships are, today, also in a position to impose their foreign policy agendas on the Arab world. This description is in reference to the current constellation in the Arab League, with which Berlin now would like to cooperate even more closely.

Islamist Allies

The plans for cooperation are flanking the unrelenting intensification of German cooperation with Islamist forces in North Africa, as well as in the Middle East. For example, Berlin had already expanded its links to the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood before Islamist President Muhammad Mursi took office.[3] German authorities are also cooperating with Syrian Muslim Brotherhood militants, in their efforts to overthrow Syria's president.[4] In Morocco, Tunisia and Libya, from the standpoint of the German government, a pronouncedly closer cooperation with the respective dominant Islamist networks is indispensible. Therefore, this development has been observed by experts and think tanks for quite a while. The CDU-affiliated Konrad Adenauer Foundation had recently published a study on this subject. According to the paper on North African Islamist sectors, which, up to now, the West had only confronted militarily within the framework of the so-called war on terror, but is now being sought as allies, "detailed information" is currently lacking on major aspects of these milieus, which are "not very transparent to the outside world."[5]

Religious Identity

According to the Konrad Adenauer Foundation study,[6] Islamist forces are shaping "the public discourse and the political agenda" in the Arab countries in transformation, which is why they have been "the current primary beneficiaries" of the revolts that began in late 2010. In the West, they are considered "moderate" because "to a large extent, they reject violence as a political instrument," although "a clear-cut distinction" to Salafist milieus, not opposed to violence, is not possible. But, above all, "there is growing social pressure on the individual to publicly manifest his piety" in those Arab countries in question. In Islamic societies, the widely divergent practices, such as praying, fasting or gender relations would, to a growing extent, be focused on the rigid Islamist variation and "considered an expression of religious identity and a fundamental attitude in religious-politics." The "more liberal order," as has been demanded since December 2010 by the activists of the "Arab Spring," is "not supported by the Islamists," notes the Konrad Adenauer Foundation dryly. "Domestic conflicts" between the mostly predominating Islamists (cooperating with the West) and liberal secular forces are therefore "inevitable."

Insignificant to the West

Social concepts pursued by the new Islamist rulers are currently of little interest to the West. "The only sectors that are relatively immune to constant reference to Islam are the economic and foreign policy sectors," writes the Adenauer Foundation.[7] "Government Islamist parties" are "on the whole," even continuing to pursue the "economic policies of their predecessors" which had been worked out in consultations with the West. In foreign policy as well, no deviation from the policies of the overthrown regimes are expected. "On the intermediate term" there would probably "be no significant foreign policy revisions." This fits in with the fact that western countries, including Germany, went along with the transformations in the Arab countries with massive political lobbying and had been negotiating with Islamist organizations such as the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood already for a long time. (german-foreign-policy.com reported.[8]) From the West's perspective, therefore, unlike the secular rebels in the "Arab Spring," this cooperation poses no threat.

Against Iran

On the contrary, it proves useful. The Gulf dictatorships, which have taken over leadership in the Arab League, throughout the past few years, have proven themselves to be the most trustworthy Western allies throughout the Middle East - in spite of, or perhaps because of, their repression of any democratic movement within their respective borders. Under their influence, the Sunnite-Islamist form of worshiping Islam is becoming the force of social cohesion throughout the entire region, enabling them to oppose, in a consolidated front, those forces considered a threat by the West - Shiite Iran, as well as its allied Shiite associations elsewhere in the Middle East. (german-foreign-policy.com reported.[9])

[1] Außenminister Westerwelle bei Treffen mit der Arabischen Liga in Kairo; www.auswaertiges-amt.de 13.11.2012
[2] Rainer Hermann: Mitschwimmen im Golfstaatenstrom; www.faz.net 08.03.2012
[3] see also Die kommenden Kräfte, Vom Feind zum Partner and Vom Feind zum Partner (II)
[4] see also The Day After (III) and The Day After (IV)
[5], [6], [7] Sigrid Faath: Islamistische Akteure in Nordafrika, Sankt Augustin 2012
[8] see also Vom Feind zum Partner and Vom Feind zum Partner (II)
[9] see also Fragile Use of the Gulf Dictatorships and Der Feind meines Feindes