LCCC ENGLISH DAILY NEWS BULLETIN

LCCC ENGLISH DAILY NEWS BULLETIN
December 10/2012

Bible Quotation for today/Jesus Heals a Crippled Woman on the Sabbath
Luke 13/10-17: "One Sabbath Jesus was teaching in a synagogue. A woman there had an evil spirit that had kept her sick for eighteen years; she was bent over and could not straighten up at all. When Jesus saw her, he called out to her, “Woman, you are free from your sickness!” He placed his hands on her, and at once she straightened herself up and praised God. The official of the synagogue was angry that Jesus had healed on the Sabbath, so he spoke up and said to the people, “There are six days in which we should work; so come during those days and be healed, but not on the Sabbath!” The Lord answered him, “You hypocrites! Any one of you would untie your ox or your donkey from the stall and take it out to give it water on the Sabbath. Now here is this descendant of Abraham whom Satan has kept in bonds for eighteen years; should she not be released on the Sabbath?” His answer made his enemies ashamed of themselves, while the people rejoiced over all the wonderful things that he did."

Latest analysis, editorials, studies, reports, letters & Releases from miscellaneous sources
Obama’s shifting red line/By: Michael Weiss/Now Lebanon/ December 09/12
Egypt: The Brotherhood’s militia/By Tariq Alhomayed/Asharq Al-Awsat/December 09/12
The Brotherhood, the constitution and tyranny/By Osman Mirghani/Asharq Alawsat/December 09/12
Egypt: The dangers of the sulk-and-retreat strategy/By Amir Taheri/Asharq Alawsat/December 09/12
Ayman Zawahiri and Egypt: A Trip Through Time/by Raymond Ibrahim/December 09/12

Israeli Vice Prime Minister Moshe Ya'alon : No sign Syria may use WMDs against Israel
By JPOST.COM STAFF, REUTERS 12/09/2012/ Vice premier says effective deterrence ensures that Syrian regime will not use chemical weapons against Israel.
There is no sign the Syrian regime might use chemical weapons against Israel, Vice Prime Minister Moshe Ya'alon said Sunday in an interview with Israel Radio.
"Over the past decades Syria has armed itself with missiles and chemical weapons," Ya'alon said, adding that due to the state's effective deterrence, the Syrians have thus far not used their weapons against Israel.
Prime Minster Binyamin Netanyahu on Tuesday addressed concerns that Syrian President Bashar Assad could be preparing to use chemical weapons in his fight to survive, stating that Israel was monitoring the situation closely.
Israel has said on several occasions in the past that it would take military action if necessary to prevent Syria's stockpile of chemical weapons from falling into the hands of Hezbollah or other terror groups.
After US President Barack Obama and NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen warned Assad against using chemical weapons on Monday and Tuesday respectively, Netanyahu said Tuesday, "We are monitoring closely, along with the international community, the events in Syria with regard to the chemical weapons stockpiles."
Netanyahu said that he "heard the important statement made by President Obama on this matter and I agree, these weapons cannot be used or transferred to terrorist organizations. "
The head of NATO, asked about possible use of chemical weapons by the Syrian government, said on Tuesday that any such act would provoke an immediate international response.
"The possible use of chemical weapons would be completely unacceptable for the whole international community," NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen told reporters.
"If anybody resorts to these terrible weapons, then I would expect an immediate reaction from the international community," he said.
Rasmussen's statement followed a similar warning by Obama to Assad on Monday not to use chemical weapons against Syrian opposition forces, saying there would be consequences if he were to do so.
"I want to make it absolutely clear to Assad and those under his command: The world is watching," Obama said in a speech to a gathering of biological, chemical and nuclear weapons proliferation experts.
"The use of chemical weapons is and would be totally unacceptable and if you make the tragic mistake of using these weapons, there will be consequences and you will be held accountable," Obama said.
He did not say how the United States might respond, but White House spokesman Jay Carney said earlier that "contingency planning" was under way when asked whether the use of military force was an option.
It was unclear what has motivated US officials to think that Syria might be on the verge of using chemical weapons.
An American official said the United States is concerned that Syria may be preparing to combine the chemicals needed to make sarin gas.
As Assad's government has shown signs of increasing strain in response to recent advances made by the rebels, Carney said the United States has grown concerned that the Syrian president might be considering the use of chemical weapons.This would, Carney said, "cross a red line for the United States."

Assad’s last warning to rebels before using chemical weapons. West, Israel on high preparedness
http://www.debka.com/article/22596/Assad’s-last-warning-to-rebels-before-using-chemical-weapons-West-Israel-on-high-preparedness
DEBKAfile Exclusive Report December 8, 2012/The danger that Syrian ruler Bashar Assad will now resort to chemical warfare shot up Saturday afternoon, Dec. 8, after the rebels captured the “chloride factory” at Al Safira east of Aleppo. This is a codename for the Syrian army’s biggest chemical weapons store and base, which also houses Syrian Scud D missiles armed with chemical warheads adjusted to fire at Israel. Assad’s warning to the rebels not to fight with chemical weapons is taken as a means of justifying his own resort to chemical weapons and brought this threat closer than ever before. The West, Israel and Syria’s other neighbors have gone on elevated preparedness. debkafile file: The fall of Al Safira into rebel hands crosses a red line and places the Assad regime in direct peril. Possession of the chemical-tipped Scuds gives the rebels their strongest weapon for forcing the Syria army to capitulate. British Foreign Secretary William Hague said earlier Saturday that the UK and the US have seen evidence that Syria is preparing to use chemical weapons. There was enough evidence from intelligence sources to know “that they need a warning,” he said at a security conference in Bahrain. "The President of the United Sates warned of serious consequences and he meant it,” said the British minister.
British intelligence sources told the BBC that Syria's chemical weapons are concentrated at five air bases and are being closely watched. They said contingency plans have been drawn up if they show signs of being readied to be loaded and used as weapons. debkafile reported this week that US British and French air, sea and marine forces are concentrated opposition Syrian shores and across its Turkish and Jordanian borders.
Developing…

What comes first – a Syrian chemical attack or a US-led military showdown?
DEBKAfile Exclusive Analysis December 9, 2012/For the past week, US officials have kept up a flow of leaks to the media suggesting that Syrian President Bashar Assad was on the verge of ordering his army to unleash chemical weapons. The details built up as the week went by, starting with the detection of “unusual movements” of Syrian chemical weapons units, advancing to reports that the Syrians were “mixing precursor chemicals” for the nerve gas sarin and on Thursday, Dec. 6, that bombs had been made ready with sarin gas for loading onto Syrian Air Force fighter-bombers when Assad gave the word.
Saturday, Dec. 8, British Foreign Secretary William Hague reported evidence from intelligence sources that Syria is preparing to use chemical weapons. British intelligence sources added that Syria's chemical weapons are concentrated at five air bases and are being closely watched. They said contingency plans have been drawn up if they show signs of being readied to be loaded and used as weapons.
Who are the close watchers and what are the contingency plans?
In its last issue, DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s military sources disclosed that US, Israeli, Jordanian and Turkish special forces are spread out on the ground in Syria, armed with special gear for combating chemical arms. They are close enough to count the convoys carrying canisters, shells or bombs loaded with poison gas and their reports are supplemented by orbiting US military surveillance satellites and drones able to pinpoint the position of the chemical munitions at any given moment.
debkafile also reported Saturday that the rebels had seized a “chlorine factor” at Al Safir, the cover name for Bashar Assad’s largest chemical store and base, where also he keeps Syrian Scud D missiles armed with chemical warheads ready to fire at Israel.
The strange thing about these tactics is this: If “US officials” – military and intelligence – were able to keep track step by step of the movements of Syria’s poisonous weapons, believe that sooner or later Assad will use them and have issued grave warnings, why didn’t they take preventive action in good time?
Yet to date, President Barack Obama has held back from ordering an attack on the Syrian army’s chemical units – just as the Syrian ruler is abstaining from issuing the final “go” order to use those weapons.
It seems that neither wants to go first.
We seem to be witnessing a high-stake poker game between Washington and Damascus over a deck of chemical cards, each waiting to see who blinks first.
If the Americans attack, Assad will feel he is justified in releasing his poisonous gas over Turkey, Jordan and Israel.
But if Assad loses his nerve and lets loose with chemical weapons inside or outside Syria, the Americans will come crashing down on him with the full might of the US air, sea and marine forces standing by off the Syrian coast, along with Turkish, Israeli and Jordanian strikes against targets in Syria.
Tuesday Dec. 6, Syrian chemical weapons units positioned near the capital, Damascus were first sighted by military and intelligence personnel heading north on the road to Aleppo armed with shells loaded with nerve agents - sarin and possibly XV. Three days later, the movements continued to destinations unknown.
Intelligence experts are speculating that these convoys may be decoys for distracting attention from still- undiscovered poison gas caches. Large-scale Western naval and marines forces are therefore on elevated readiness for responding to any unexpected Syrian moves.
Those experts offer two theories about the destination of the chemicals weapons. One is that they are not destined for any of the battle fronts against the rebels, but for the Alawite Mountains; Assad is getting ready to retreat from Damascus and barricade himself in his mountain stronghold accompanied by the forces still loyal to him. Another theory is that from the Allawite Mts. near the coast, the Syrian ruler was planning to hit American and Turkish soldiers with chemical weapons as they came ashore.

Italian deputy calls for EU ban of Hezbollah
http://www.jpost.com/International/Article.aspx?id=295162
By BENJAMIN WEINTHAL, JERUSALEM POST CORRESPONDENT 12/09/2012 01:37 Fiamma Nirenstein submits resolution to parliamentary committee calling on Italian FM to urge EU to list Hezbollah as terror group. Photo: Courtesy
WASHINGTON – Fiamma Nirenstein, vice president of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Italian Chamber of Deputies, has submitted a resolution to the committee urging Foreign Minister Giulio Terzi Sant’Agata to push to outlaw Hezbollah. The move comes as discussions are being held among the 27 EU member countries about placing the Lebanese Shi’ite group on its list of terrorist organizations.
The Jerusalem Post obtained a copy last week of the draft resolution, which was formulated in late November, and is slated to be voted on by the Foreign Affairs Committee. It calls on Italy’s Foreign Ministry “to act within the European framework in order to include the Hezbollah movement in the international terrorism list of the European Union.” The resolution bases the call to blacklist Hezbollah on a number of factors, including the July 18 bus attack in the seaside resort of Burgas, Bulgaria, which killed five Israeli tourists and their Bulgarian bus driver, and wounded 32 other Israelis. American and Israeli intelligence officials attributed the explosion to a joint Iran-Hezbollah operation. She added, however, that there has been documented Hezbollah terrorist activity in the past, and “this action is even more urgent in the light of Hezbollah’s involvement in the Syrian crisis, which is a threat for the stability of the whole Middle Eastern region.” The United States government, which has listed Hezbollah as a terrorist entity since 1995, earlier this year sanctioned key leaders of Hezbollah for aiding the Assad regime in attacking pro-democracy activists in Syria. Nirenstein’s resolution cites Hezbollah’s attacks in 1983 on American and French troops in Lebanon, which killed 241 US Marines and 58 French paratroopers. The resolution also cites Hezbollah’s involvement in “1984 in a bombing at a restaurant near the US Air Force Base in Torrejon, Spain, which killed 18 US servicemen and injured 83, and in the 1985 hijacking of TWA Flight 847, during which US Navy diver Robert Stethem was killed [after being beaten and tortured, in Beirut].”The document notes Hezbollah’s “1992 attack on the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires, which claimed 29 dead and over 290 wounded, and the 1994 attack on the headquarters of the Asociacion Mutual Israelita [community center] in Buenos Aires which killed 85 people and injured more than 300.” The resolution continues, “Hezbollah repeatedly defies UN Resolution 1701 (2006), which calls for the disarmament of all armed groups in Lebanon other than that of the Lebanese Army and bans the presence of Hezbollah proxies in south Lebanon."Currently the Party of God [Hezbollah] has over 13,500 soldiers and in October 2006 Hezbollah said it possessed an arsenal of 33,000 rockets, including Iranian-made Fajr missiles, (with a range of 45 km.), Zelzal-2s (with a range of 200-400 km., capable of carrying a 600-kg. warhead), Scud ballistic missiles, Katyusha rockets and anti-ship missiles. Furthermore, according to the US Counter-terrorism Bureau, Iran provided Hezbollah with unmanned aerial vehicles such as the Mohajer-4.”Hezbollah’s activities meet the EU’s definition of terrorism, according to the resolution. “The European Union defines terrorist groups as those perpetrating deliberate acts, which given their nature or the context, may seriously damage a country or an international organization by intimidating a population, exerting undue compulsion of various types or by destabilizing or destroying its fundamental political, constitutional, economic or social structures,” the resolution states. Nirenstein added: “In 2003, Italy played a crucial role in the decision to include Hamas in the list of the terrorist organizations of the European Union.”

Nasrallah: Corruption more dangerous than Israel
Roi Kais Published: 12.08.12/Ynetnews/Hezbollah chief tells students his organization will save Lebanon from slipping further into political turmoil; adds Shiite group has created 'true balance of terror' vis-à-vis IDF
Hezbollah Chief Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah said Saturday that the political corruption plaguing Lebanon was "More dangerous than Israel." The Lebanese news website al-Nashra reported that Nasrallah, speaking to a student gathering, said that "Any solution in Lebanon has to begin with solving the chronic economical issues and the problem of the public debt." Hezbollah, he said, cannot offer any "clear solution" to the economic crisis, which he said "Stems from the disintegration of the government and the growing corruption within it. "Hezbollah cannot deal with this kind of corruption because the problem is bigger than us and it is more dangerous than Israel," he said.
The Shiite movement will not allow Lebanon to come to the brink of civil war, he vowed. Nasrallah further said that in the past 30 years, "Hezbollah has used a substantial part of its defense and military infrastructure, which enabled it to become the kind of resistance that can thwart the Israeli aggression and create a true balance of terror that makes Israel think 1,000 times before it launches any foolish act against Lebanon."
Many Hezbollah-affiliated media outlets omitted Nasrallah's statements about the political corruption in Beirut, focusing instead on his commitment to save the nation from internal military conflict.

Brother of Hezbollah minister charged in drugs scandal
December 08, 2012/The Daily Star /BEIRUT: A brother of Hezbollah Minister Mohammad Fneish was one of seven people to be charged Saturday over the recent case of illegally imported drugs into the country, judicial sources said. Judge Claude Karam, the public prosecutor for Mount Lebanon, filed charges against seven people, including Abdul Latif Fneish, in the case where illegally imported drugs entered the market through the forging of documents. The charges filed Saturday included for forging official documents and laboratory reports as well as putting public health at risk by allowing unlicensed drugs into the country and distributing them in the market, the sources said. The case of illegally imported drugs was brought to light in early November by Future MP Atef Majdalani who said over 100 types of drugs had been illegally imported into the country with forged stamps, health minister signatures and Beirut Arab University laboratory tests. Referring to the 62 medicines whose documents were discovered to be forged in October by the Beirut Arab University, Health Minister Ali Hasan Khalil said Thursday that all the warehouses involved in the scandal have been shut down and that the drugs were confiscated. However, Majdalani insists that several hundred other types of medicines were in the country thanks to forged paperwork. Soon after the scandal came to light, Hezbollah State Minister Mohammad Fneish issued a statement saying he would not protect anyone found guilty in the case.

Lebanon commemorates Patriarch Hazim at Mass
December 09, 2012/The Daily Star
BEIRUT: Lebanon bid farewell Sunday to the late Greek Orthodox Patriarch of the Levant and Antioch Ignatius IV Hazim in a popular Mass at St. Nicolas Church.
Hundreds attended the funeral service at the Ashrafieh church in honor of the patriarch who died at a Beirut hospital Wednesday morning, a day after suffering a stroke. He was 92.
Bishop Saba Esper was elected Friday as temporary successor to Hazim, whose casket will be transported to the Mariamite Cathedral in Damascus later Sunday.
Prime Minister Najib Mikati announced Sunday as an official day of mourning for the patriarch.
Hazin, who served 33 years as patriarch, was born in the village of Mhardeh near Hama in Syria in 1920. In 1971 he was appointed Orthodox Metropolitan of the Syrian city of Latakia. He was appointed Greek Orthodox Patriarch of the Levant and Antioch in 1979. The patriarch’s passing has been described by President Michel Sleiman and Prime Minister Najib Mikati as a loss for Lebanon and the region, and he was praised for believing and maintaining the principle of coexistence. He was dubbed as a man of moderation by Lebanese officials

6 Dead, 40 Hurt as Fighting Continues in Bab al-Tabbaneh, Jabal Mohsen
Naharnet/Six people were killed and 40 others wounded in clashes between the rival Tripoli neighborhoods of Bab al-Tabbaneh and Jabal Mohsen on Sunday, a security official told Agence France Presse.
The latest fighting in the northern city came amid growing international concern about the potential for neighboring countries to be dragged into the Syrian conflict. Sunni gunmen from the port city's Bab al-Tabbaneh district exchanged machinegun and rocket fire with Alawite residents of the neighboring Jabal Mohsen district leaving three members of each community dead, the security official said.
The fighting broke a tense calm that had held since the army deployed troops between the two impoverished neighborhoods early on Friday. During the night, troops held their positions on sidestreets but not on the ironically named Syria Street that forms the frontline. The clashes rocked Tripoli's rival neighborhoods intermittently throughout the day, the security official said, adding that fighting was still taking place "off and on" in the afternoon.
The latest deaths brought the toll from fighting in the city since Tuesday to 19, including two children. Longstanding tensions in Tripoli escalated in mid-week when 22 Sunnis from the city who had crossed into Syria to join the armed rebellion against the regime were killed in fighting with government troops. Damascus later agreed to repatriate the bodies at the request of the Lebanese foreign ministry, and on Sunday the corpses of three of the slain fighters were received at the Arida border crossing. The atmosphere was tense with shots fired into the air as the bodies of Khodr Mustafa Alameddine, Abdul Hakim al-Salah and Mohammed al-Mir were handed over, Agence France Presse reported. The body of Mir was initially given to the wrong family but later returned to his father. The others were buried straight after funeral prayers. A Lebanese official told AFP that Syrian authorities told their counterparts that some members of the group had survived the ambush and were being interrogated. Opposition activists posted video footage on the Internet on Saturday, with the caption: "Abuse of the corpses of the Tripoli martyrs in Tall Kalakh." In the video, a man is seen kicking at least five lifeless bodies lain out on the ground, while others can be heard cracking jokes in the background. Its authenticity could not be verified.
Agence France Presse/Naharnet

Al-Rahi Urges Tripoli Residents to Halt Violence, Reach Reconciliation
Naharnet/Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi called on officials from the northern city of Tripoli to exercise efforts to end the clashes in the city. He urged during his Sunday sermon “the residents of Bab al-Tabbaneh and Jabal Mohsen to halt the cycle of violence and reach reconciliation.” “We look forward to the efforts of the army and security forces to impose security and stability in the city,” he added. “We cannot accept the suffering of Tripoli and that the image of Lebanon's second largest city, which has been the symbol of mutual coexistence, be tarnished,” continued the patriarch. “We were hoping to visit the city and take part in a reconciliation to put an end to the violence,” al-Rahi said. Clashes erupted in Tripoli over a week ago in light of news of the death of a number of Lebanese fighters, who mainly hail from the North, in the Syrian border town of Tall Kalakh.
Conflicting reports emerged over the exact number of fighters who were killed in an ambush by Syrian regime forces. Four people were killed overnight in the clashes between the rival neighborhoods of Bab al-Tabbaneh and Jabal Mohsen, bringing the toll of the latest round of fighting to 17.

March 14 MP Marwan Hamadeh : March 14 Officials to Meet to Issue Stance on Berri's Consultations
Naharnet/March 14 MP Marwan Hamadeh announced that officials from the camp are set to meet again in order to discuss the recent consultations held with Speaker Nabih Berri aimed at revitalizing parliament activity, reported An Nahar daily on Sunday. He told the daily that the heads of parliamentary committees and members of the parliament bureau will meet for a second time to take a united stand on the resumption of parliamentary work. The officials had met at MP Butros Harb's residence on November 30 to warn against Berri's call for a meeting of joint parliamentary committees that would not be attended by the March 14-led opposition.
While the conferees held onto not postponing the 2013 parliamentary elections, they “considered any attempt by Berri to call for a meeting of joint parliamentary committees in the absence of March 14 MPs as a dangerous precedent.”The opposition boycotted all parliamentary activity in the aftermath of the October 19 assassination of Internal Security Forces Intelligence Bureau chief Wissam al-Hasan after it blamed the government for the killing, and called for its resignation. mA delegation of March 14 MPs had met with Berri on Wednesday to inform him of their rejection of the resumption of parliament committees' work in their absence.

Terry Waite meets with Hezbollah 25 years after kidnapping
December 09, 2012/The Daily Star
BEIRUT: Terry Waite, the British former hostage, met with Hezbollah in Lebanon last week, 25 years after he was taken captive by a group linked to the party.
Waite, now 73, was held for almost five years after he was taken hostage on Jan. 20 1987 while working to secure the release of other British hostages as a special envoy for the Archbishop of Canterbury.
During his trip last week, on which he was accompanied by British newspaper the Sunday Telegraph, Waite met with Ammar Moussawi, and told the Hezbollah official “that the past was the past,” according to an article he wrote for the newspaper published Sunday. Waite was in Lebanon to bring attention to the situation of Christian refugees from Syria, and appealed to Moussawi for Hezbollah to provide more help for those in the Christian community who have fled violence.“I expressed my concern for the Christian groups who were leaving Syria and asked if Hezbollah would make a gesture towards helping them, especially at Christmas,” Waite wrote.
Moussawi, in reply, “asked me to let him have a proposal and he would see if something could be done.”
Waite was released in Nov. 1991 after 1,763 days in captivity, most of which he spent in solitary confinement and chained to a wall. He wrote that he wanted to meet with Hezbollah as an example of the reconciliation he believes necessary for coexistence in the region.“I believe that reconciliation between larger groups, political groups, has to begin here with our own personal reconciliation,” the Sunday Telegraph quoted him as telling Moussawi during their nearly-two hour meeting.During his trip Waite also met with Christian Syrian refugees, and wrote of concerns that the uprising in Syria “has now been hijacked by extreme jihadists and that, for the first time in years, religious persecution is taking place where once there was harmony.”He also wrote of the importance of encouraging coexistence in Lebanon which he said “is rapidly becoming the only country in the entire Middle East where there remains a significant Christian presence.”

Syria hands over bodies of 3 Lebanese fighters
December 09, 2012/The Daily Star
BEIRUT: Syria handed over the bodies of three Lebanese fighters Sunday who were recently killed in an ambush by regime forces. The men transferred Sunday were identified as Malek Ziyad Hajj-Dib, Khodr Mustafa Alameddine and Abdel-Hamid Ali al-Agha, but the families of Hajj-Dib and Alameddine have claimed that the body they have received are not those of their relative.
Alameddine's family said that the body they received belonged to Mohammad al-Mir, another fighter. Carried by mourners, the coffins arrived to their respective houses as shots were fired in the air welcoming the caskets, which had a white paper taped on each one of the deceased’s name. Syrian security officials handed the bodies to a Lebanese delegation that included representatives of Dar al-Fatwa as well as General Security in the presence of three Lebanese Red Cross ambulances on the Arida border crossing, north Lebanon. The ambulances transferred the bodies of the men to their relatives for burial.
A group of fighters from Tripoli were killed in a Syrian army ambush in the town of Tal Kalakh near the border with Lebanon on Nov. 31, but there have been conflicting reports on the exact number of men who were killed.
Foreign Minister Adnan Mansour was informed in a letter Saturday that three of the slain fighters would be returned to Lebanon Sunday, and given their names.The letter added that the remaining bodies of Lebanese fighters would be returned in several stages for “logistical reasons.” The handover is expected to ease tensions in north Lebanon after armed clashes were renewed between opponents and supporters of Syrian President Bashar Assad.
The fighting, which began earlier this week, has left 17 people killed and at least 77 wounded.

Egypt: The dangers of the sulk-and-retreat strategy
By Amir Taheri/Asharq Alawsat
Are Egyptian democrats trying to make every mistake in the book? Assuming there could be any democrats in a country emerging from six decades of dictatorship, the answer seems to be yes. The first mistake they made came in early 2011 when a weakened Mubarak regime was offering a negotiated deal for a mutually agreed transition. The Tahrir Square crowd rejected that out of hand, although, in hindsight, they might have dictated their terms to an ailing dictator who was looking for an honourable way out of history. Through daily demonstrations they transformed the streets into Egypt’s principal political arena. They did not realise that street politics is different from democratic politics and that if the fate of Egypt’s were to be decided in the streets they would not be able to match the organisational resources of the Islamist groups.
Once Mubarak had stepped down, Egypt’s democrats, or at least those who describe themselves as such, made their second mistake. This time they boycotted contacts with the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) that, in the absence of other institutions, was keeping the ship of state afloat.
The Tahrir crowd systematically scripted itself out of real politics, leaving the stage to the military and its long-time partner-cum-adversary the Muslim Brotherhood.
While the self-styled democrats sat in Zamalek coffeehouses to sulk and moan, the military and the Brotherhood wrote and performed their own script. In the parliamentary election, they managed to attract around 40 percent of the electorate. In the presidential election they seduced almost 50 percent, with the votes split between the candidate of the military and that of the Islamists in the second round.
A simple calculation would show that had the Tahrir camp fielded a credible candidate, or had they backed the candidate of the military Ahmad Shafiq, Mohamed Mursi would not be President of Egypt today.
Once the presidential election was over, as democrats they should have acknowledged Mursi as president and offered to work with him to manage the transition and shape the future. Instead, they clung to their policy of sulking and cursing from the sidelines. Worse still, they boycotted the committee charged with drafting the new constitution. Not surprisingly, that gave the Islamists a free hand to produce a long, confused and thoroughly retrograde document that is bound to create more problems for Egypt.
Demonstrations, boycotts, hunger strikes, and protest marches are effective in destabilizing a government or, in rare cases, even causing its demise. However, no democratic system could be built with such tactics. More importantly, perhaps, when there is a possibility of institutional participation, there is no need for such tactics. Egyptian democrats could have participated in the parliamentary and presidential elections. They could have filled their seats on the committee drafting a new constitution. Even now, if they don’t like the draft submitted by Mursi and his friends, Egyptian democrats should try to fight it with something better than street riots. They could demand a dialogue with the president to negotiate amending the text. At the same time, they should tell the Egyptian people which sections of the text they oppose and why and what they propose instead. Saying “no” is easy and, perhaps, an inevitable tactic where no open space exists for political activity. In Egypt today there is such a space. Thus, those who say “no” should also be able to say what they recommend instead.
In contrast to democrats, Egypt’s Islamists have learned their lessons. They no longer claim that a Muslim nation needs no constitution because the Quran could be regarded as such. Nor do they assert that Islam is “the only solution”. They have abandoned their decades-long opposition to a Western-style republic with an elected president instead of a caliphate with a Caliph.
Islamists have also abandoned the tactics that failed to get them any closer to power. At least for the time being, they have abandoned assassinations, car bombs, suicide attacks, kidnapping and murdering foreign tourists, and the use of facial attributes and special dress codes as props of visual terror. In other words, the Islamists have made concessions to reality. They realise that their hard-core support base is too small for imposing the kind of religious despotism they have always dreamt of. This is a major development and an opportunity that must not be wasted.
Of course, the Islamists may not be honest in their acceptance of the rules of the game. They may be wolves dressed as sheep. However, no democrat should judge his adversaries on the basis of assumed intentions.
Egyptian democrats should not boycott the process of approving a new constitution. If they do, they would be signing a blank cheque to the Islamists. In a democratic system whoever manages to persuade a majority of the people would succeed in having his programme adopted. Thus, Egyptian democrats should unite behind a common strategy for dealing with the draft prepared by the rump council. Judging how small the hard-core Islamist base is, I believe it is possible to persuade a majority of Egyptian to reject the draft in the planned referendum. Democrats should get out of Tahrir and the cafes and go to villages, shantytowns, souks, factories, universities and offices to inform the voters about the implications of approving the proposed draft. The only problem is a shortage of time; changing a sulk-and-retreat strategy into one of active and combative participation needs time. This is why Mursi is trying to speed things up, hoping that his opponents will continue making mistakes.

The Brotherhood, the constitution and tyranny
By Osman Mirghani/Asharq Alawsat
The problem with the Muslim Brotherhood is that they lost their credibility in the eyes of a considerable portion of the Egyptian people within just a few months as a result of their manoeuvres, their lack of commitment to their pledges, their tendency towards despotism and their attempts to impose their vision by means of fraud and intimidation. The recent constitutional decree crisis is nothing more than one chapter in a book of such crises written by the Brotherhood with their own hand since the January 2011 revolution. This has exposed their tendency towards despotism, and the Brotherhood has suffered heavy losses as a result of their failure to fulfil their promises. This was clear ever since their most famous failed pledge, namely that they would not put forward a candidate for the presidency and that they would not seek to dominate the parliament or Constituent Assembly, not to mention their assurances that the draft constitution would be based on consensus and compromise between different components and categories of Egyptian society.
Following the huge struggle over the draft constitution, it is clear to anybody who reads this that the Brotherhood is not committed to its principles and are violating the spirit and indeed actual articles of this document. In addition to this, the Brotherhood themselves were responsible for supervising the drafting of this constitution thanks to their dominance of the Constituent Assembly. In fact, the introduction of this draft constitution confirms that “the people are the source of legitimacy; they alone have the right to establish authorities. The legitimacy of these authorities is derived from the people and subject to the people’s will, abiding by the constitutional limits in terms of their powers and responsibility.” However the Brotherhood’s conduct has neutralized this principle, particularly their refusal to listen to the voice of the protesters, whether those present in Egypt’s public squares or elsewhere, not to mention the objections of those who withdrew from the Constituent Assembly. The Brotherhood have ignored these voices and instead insisted on imposing their own vision and will by calling a referendum to endorse the constitution despite the objections, protests and the phenomenal divisions now threatening the cohesion and stability of Egypt. As for constitutional limits in terms of powers and responsibility, Mursi has failed to abide by the limits of his own powers and responsibilities as stipulated by the Constitutional Declaration issued in March 2011 that was endorsed by the people in a public referendum. This declaration, which Mursi’s presidential oath of office was based on, determined the powers and authorities of the president during the transitional period; this does not include the authority to introduce legislations or issue constitutional declarations, let alone grant oneself legal immunity and grab hold of absolute power!
The violations of the spirit of the new constitution are not limited to the introduction, but extend to include many constitutional articles. For example, Article 5 stipulates that “Sovereignty of the law is the basis of governance: It guarantees freedom for individuals, legitimacy for the authority, and ensures that the state and any individual shall submit to the law, and that the state is committed to the independence of the judiciary as well as to the principle that no voice shall prevail over the voice of the truth. This is in order for the Egyptian judiciary to remain independent and capable of maintaining its sublime message of protecting the constitution, establishing justice and maintaining rights and freedoms.” So since the Brotherhood rose to power, have they truly been committed to maintaining the independence of the judiciary? Have they allowed the judiciary to be the protector of the constitution? Have they shown any evidence that they are committed to judicial rulings, particularly rulings that are not in harmony with their own desires and trends? By simply looking at the course of events in Egypt, we can clearly see that the Muslim Brotherhood have done everything they can to circumvent the judiciary's powers and impose their own vision. This was made apparent when Mursi attempted to reverse the Constitutional Court's ruling by recalling parliament in July, and when he attempted to dismiss Egypt’s General Prosecutor - something that brought him into conflict with the judiciary – before he temporarily retracted this position. However, he later returned to enforce this decision, at the same time as he issued the constitutional declaration that provoked the current crisis.
The Constitutional Declaration granted immunity to the Constituent Assembly and Shura Council; preventing any authority from dissolving these bodies. This, thereby, placed these two institutions above the law, in the same manner that the declaration granted immunity to Mursi and all his decrees from any and all authorities. This means that he cannot be questioned by either the judiciary or the people! Continuing to transgress and marginalize the judiciary, the Brotherhood rushed to complete the draft constitution prior to the 2 December Supreme Constitutional Court session, during which the court was scheduled to look at the legitimacy of the Constituent Assembly and Shura Council. They also took action to prevent the court's judges from holding the scheduled court session by besieging the court headquarter from all directions, blocking all entrances and exits and even climbing the court’s walls! This was clarified in the statement that was issued by the court’s judges in which they announced that the Supreme Constitutional Court would be suspending its sessions in protest, objecting to what they described as a climate of malice and rancor and decrying the “psychological and material pressure” being exerted on the judges. The statement described the situation as “the blackest day in the history of the Egyptian judiciary.” This was perhaps a reference to the slogans being chanted by the Brotherhood and Salafi supports outside the courts, including “the people want the dissolution of the Constitutional Court”, “bread, freedom and the dissolution of the Constitutional Court” and “oh judges of the Constitutional Court, beware the million-man protests!”
Let us compare this climate to Article 74 – of Chapter 4 – of the new constitution, which states that “sovereignty of the law shall be the basis of rule in the state. The independence and immunity of the judiciary are two basic guarantees to safeguard rights and freedoms.” In this case, one must ultimately come to the conclusion that the Brotherhood don’t believe in the draft constitution that they are urging the people to vote for. Indeed, they are doing more than urge, promising that those who vote yes will go to heaven! This can be seen in a tweet posted by Dr. Essam al-Erian, Deputy Chairman of the Freedom and Justice Party, in which he described those who will vote yes on the constitution – at the forthcoming referendum – as the best of people who will certainly go to heaven!
In fact, the draft constitution contains loose language in certain articles that allow for different interpretations. This is something that has aroused real fears. As for the constitutional articles concerning the judiciary, these introduce slogans that are not in line with the judiciary’s real practices on the ground, not to mention the slogans raised at Muslim Brotherhood protests! This is truly a source of concern because the independence of, and respect for, the judiciary are supposed to be one of the major pillars of governance; this should function as a guarantor for the separation of powers, the protection of rights and the strengthening of the values of justice and equality. The draft constitution highlights the judiciary's independence at a time when Mursi and the Brotherhood are launching a fierce assault against it and trying to subjugate it to their will. Furthermore, the constitution, in its current form, seems to reduce the powers of the Supreme Constitutional Court in terms of its oversight of the law, whilst it also removes the task of supervising the elections from the judiciary, granting this task to a new electoral committee. This new electoral committee opens the door for possible political interference [in the electoral process].
The question that must be asked here is: if the Muslim Brotherhood are not committed to the draft constitution – which they themselves prepared –seeking to circumvent some of its articles or trying to use these to destroy the principle of separation of powers, then how can they expect the Egyptian people to accept and support this constitution? Indeed, how can they expect Egypt to enjoy stability or calm under a constitution such as this?

Egypt: The Brotherhood’s militia!
By Tariq Alhomayed/Asharq Al-Awsat
Like the Nazis in Germany, Hezbollah in Lebanon and Khomeinism in Iran, the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt used their militia despite the fact that the Brotherhood themselves are the ruling party. They are the ones who are in power and in charge of all security authorities; however they used their militia to confront the Egyptian opposition in the street. This tells us that the Brotherhood not just want to capture all powers in Egypt, but control the country as a whole, along the lines of the Khomeinist revolution in Iran.
The Brotherhood’s militia is not just military, but this also includes the media, business sector, and more. They are all doing everything in their power today to enable the Brotherhood to rule Egypt, and this is something that is not just taking place in Egypt itself, but we can also see their activities in the Gulf region in defense of the Brotherhood’s coup in Egypt. We have never seen such a defense as this from the Brotherhood regarding Egyptian – Gulf issues, whether against Saddam Hussein, or even during Saddam Hussein’s occupation of Kuwait and his threats towards Saudi Arabia. I write this article as Islamist groups, in a clear game of splitting roles with the Brotherhood, are besieging Media City in Egypt’s 6th of October City, calling for the purification of the media! If the Brotherhood want to purify the media and the judiciary and the business sector and even their political opponents – which is something that the president himself hinted at – then what remains of the image of civil society in Egypt?
As we said last week, Egypt and the Egyptians are fighting a battle for all the Arabs, and this is the battle over the state against those who want to hijack it. We previously warned, as did the intellectuals, that when each party has its own militia, media outlets and even its own flag, then what remains for the state itself? This is a terrifying issue that threatens the destruction of our Arab states, one after another, transforming them into failed states, as a result of the disruption of the economy, the breakdown of security and destabilization. Unfortunately, all the logical rhetoric regarding the prestige of the state, significance of stability and importance of not infringing social peace – which the Brotherhood supporters previously dismissed and made jokes about – whether in Egypt or the Gulf, is now being repeated by these same Brotherhood supporters today. This is after they previously described this as the “logic” of the “remnants” [of the former regime] and those who wants to defend Mubarak!
The reality of the situation is that the Egyptian President today is walking in the footsteps of Mubarak in his dealings with the new Egyptian revolution against the Brotherhood. He is unaware of the seriousness of what is happening in the Egyptian street, whilst he is also issuing lengthy and escalatory speeches which are also too late in their response to the people’s demands. More dangerous than all this is the fact that the Brotherhood used their militia despite the fact that they are the ones in power and in charge of all security authorities today; this is the crux of the matter. This means that the Brotherhood do not truly believe in the rotation of power, the ballot box, the quest for consensus or balance [of power], which are the principles of the political process. Any party that uses a militia to suppress the opposition cannot truly believe in the role of the state, or respect its institutions, or want to preserve social peace. The Muslim Brotherhood’s militia in Egypt is a lesson to all Arab states that are keen on the concept of the state and preserving its institutions; when each party has its own media, flag and militia, we must be aware that we are facing an evil that must be guarded against, and the first disaster that this will create is the destruction of the state. There must be no Sultan higher than the authority of the state, regardless of what name this is under. Anybody who fails to see the danger of this must carefully consider what happened in Lebanon, Iraq, Gaza, Sudan, Iran, Yemen and finally, unfortunately, the Brotherhood’s militia in Egypt!

Free Syrian Army [FSA] targeting al-Assad regime air bases - Sources
07/12/2012
By Nazeer Rida
Beirut, Asharq Al-Awsat – Leading sources in the Free Syrian Army [FSA] have announced that battalions stationed in the Rif Dimashq governorate have “gained control of most of the air defense bases in the governorate”, adding “operations continues to gain control of all military air bases in the region”.
A well informed FSA source, speaking to Asharq Al-Awsat on the condition of anonymity, confirmed that the FSA had gained control of Aqraba military air base, which is located between Damascus International Airport and the city of Damascus. Aqraba air base is reportedly where the al-Assad regime military helicopters overseeing the district of Damascus and the surrounding area are stationed.
The sources claimed that the FSA gained control of Aqraba air base “after violent battles with regime forces along the road to the air base and the surrounding villages of al Ghouta al-Sharqiya”.
He added that the rebel brigades were able to “breach the fortifications of the air base despite artillery and rocket fire targeting their location”.
This development comes shortly following the announcement of FSA control of Marj Sultan air base last week. Syrian opposition brigades managed to enter and take control of Marj Sultan air base, which became the first military air base in Rif Dimashq governorate to fall into the hands of the opposition.
Other sources confirmed that the military airports “have considerable military strength and protective forces”, adding that the next key battle “will be for the Sayeda Zeinab military air base, which is also home to al-Assad regime helicopter gunships”. However, according to the sources, the strategic importance of this particular airport lies “in its runway, which is more than 3km long. This allows for the takeoff and landing of Sukhoi and MiG fighter jets”.
The Rif Dimashq governorate is home to 6 military air bases; Marj Sultan and Aqraba, which are now controlled by the opposition, Sayeda Zeinab, which “the FSA intends to attack as soon as possible” according to sources, in addition to Mezzeh military air base in al-Ghouta al-Gharbiya, and Damir and Nasiriyah air bases which have been used by the regime’s helicopters extensively throughout the current Syrian crisis.
In this regard, prominent sources in the FSA claimed that rebel forces were now in control of “most” air defense bases located in Rif Dimashq, of which there are 11 in total, following yesterday’s announcement that the FSA had gained control of Air Defense Brigade 22 in al Ghouta al Sharqiya.
The source pointed out that “all types of air defense in Rif Dimashq are now under our control, including air missile defense systems, radars and fixed and mobile missile systems which have now become operable”. He added that these weapons will be put into action “imminently.”
The source explained that these systems “will be used to monitor and respond to the regime’s military aircraft as soon as our air defense specialists arrive”.
Sources also revealed that it has been possible to seize control of these sensitive military systems and sites “after the headquarters of the air defense leadership fell into the hands of the rebels”. This headquarters, commonly known as Brigade 82, was responsible for various radar apparatus and air defense systems throughout Damascus and the surrounding area. The sources indicated that the opposition brigades “managed to seize two sophisticated radar devices that were found at the headquarters, in addition to surface-to-air missiles and short and medium range surface-to-surface missiles”.
Sources also told Asharq Al-Awsat that the regime’s forces now only control two air defense sites in Rif Dimashq, “one located south east of Harran al-Awamid, near Damascus International Airport, which is a very sophisticated air defense base, including espionage stations”. As for the second site, “this is located on Mount Kassioun”. The sources went on to say that the latter site is located specifically above Masaken Barzeh district and “includes surface-to-air and surface-to-surface missile systems, mounted and ready to launch”.
At the same time, the FSA are currently conducting operations to gain control of two military air bases in Aleppo and Deir al-Zour. Syrian opposition websites quoted activists as saying that the FSA “has been continuing its siege on Deir al-Zour military air base for several days”, and likewise announced that “a battle has begun for control of the Meng military air base in Aleppo”. Clashes are also ongoing between the regime’s forces and the FSA in the region of Neirab and around the vicinity of Neirab military air base, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Brotherhood protesters were defending themselves - Former MB Guide
08/12/2012
By Waleed Abdul Rahman.
Cairo, Asharq Al-Awsat – Former Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood General Guide Mahdi Akef denounced the counter-protest carried out by Brotherhood supporters on Wednesday outside the presidential palace in Cairo. This protest aimed to confront the “revolutionary” protests that have been launched against Egyptian President Mursi following his controversial constitutional declaration and draft constitution. This counter-march resulted in dozens of deaths and hundreds of injuries. Speaking exclusively to Asharq Al-Awsat, the former Muslim Brotherhood General Guide stressed that “their march to the vicinity of the presidential palace was wrong.”
However Akef refused to hold the Muslim Brotherhood responsible for the violence that erupted outside the presidential palace, saying “the Brotherhood mobilized everybody in the belief that this would protect the presidential palace, after watching the attacks on the palace.” He also strongly denied that Brotherhood supporters were armed with weapons, including Molotov cocktails, stressing “they did not attack anybody; they were the ones who were attacked.”
As for press reports that it was the Muslim Brotherhood protesters who attacked the revolutionaries outside the presidential palace, the former Muslim Brotherhood General Guide said “I know the brothers well, and they did not attack anybody, rather it was a third party that attacked both the Brotherhood and the revolutionaries.”
He added “the real revolutionaries did not attack the Brotherhood supporters; however some parties were hired to do so.”
Akef told Asharq Al-Awsat that “those who set fire to Muslim Brotherhood and Freedom and Justice Party headquarters in Egypt’s provinces were not from the revolutionaries, rather they were hired by the former regime, in the belief that this will create chaos that will return them to glory, however this is a complete delusion.”
The former Muslim Brotherhood General Guide described the general state of affairs in Egypt by saying, “there is an insistence on the absurd, and these demonstrations are absurd”. He stressed that the Egyptian people “need all of us to work together for their sake, and for the stability of state institutions” adding “as for these demonstrations and unrest, I do not agree with it or support it.”
Akef criticized the insistence of some parties to demonstrate and protest, saying “they have insisted on this position in a manner that is harmful to Egypt”.
Regarding the fate of Egypt’s draft constitution, Akef said “the new constitution is great and I stayed up the whole night reading this constitution, article by article. This is something that honors Egypt, and it is the greatest constitution that Egypt has seen.” As for its opponents, he said “those who do not like a certain constitutional article can amend this at a later date.”
Akef also informed Asharq Al-Awsat that he had tried to contact Egyptian President Mohamed Mursi to advise him to speak directly to the Egyptian people and stress that the objective of the constitutional declaration is to foster and strengthen Egyptian state institutes and national stability. He revealed “I have not received any response, and nobody is willing to transfer anything to him [Mursi], and I do not know how to get in touch with him.”
He added “my goal from this was for the president to come out and send his message, saying ‘my objective is to establish institutes and stability in Egypt, and anybody who assists me in this endeavor is welcome, whilst anybody who does not assist me is also free to do so.”
President Mursi lately issued a speech addressing the Egyptian people calling for national dialogue to resolve the crisis. He said “I call for a full productive dialogue with all figures and heads of parties, revolutionary youth and senior legal figures.” The national dialogue was scheduled for Saturday, although it was unclear just who would take part in this, with many opposition forces refusing to do so.
As for his vision for the future of Egypt, former Muslim Brotherhood General Guide Mahdi Akef said “Egypt is moving towards a renaissance; Egypt is great and nobody can stand in the face of its people.” He expressed his confidence in Egypt’s ability to overcome the crisis, stressing that the current situation is not a cause for concern, and that the major objective of this is to stop Egypt moving towards renaissance and stability.
He also strongly denied quotes, attributed to him by the press, that senior Muslim Brotherhood figure, Khairat al-Shater, had issued direct instructions to Brotherhood members to take to the streets. He stressed that “this is a complete lie”. These reports gained traction in the media after Ibrahim al-Hudaybi – grandson of the Muslim Brotherhood’s second General Guide – claimed that Akef had told him that al-Shater was responsible for this decision.

Obama’s shifting “red line”
Michael Weiss/Now Lebanon/ December 8, 2012
Judging by his old “red line” on Syria, the one that was convenient until it wasn’t, President Obama’s “calculus” with respect to the humanitarian calamity in Syria has changed multiple times already. In August he said this: “A red line for us is we start seeing a whole bunch of chemical weapons moving around or being utilized.” Then his Defense Secretary Leon Panetta admitted at a Pentagon press conference in September that the United States had lost track of some Syria’s chemical weapons. Now NBC News and Wired magazine have reported that U.S. officials believe that the precursors for sarin gas have been combined and loaded into aerial bombs (albeit not yet onto aircraft), where they await Bashar al-Assad’s personal order for deployment. Panetta, who I hope has found the chemical weapons he misplaced last fall, now claims: “I think there is no question that we remain very concerned, very concerned that as the opposition advances—in particular on Damascus—that the regime might very well consider the use of chemical weapons. The intelligence that we have raises serious concerns that this is being considered.”
Now’s a good time to survey the devastation Assad can yet unleash upon a ruined country, and what the West plans to do about it if he does.
The regime’s stockpiles of chemical weapons are thought to be scattered throughout 75 sites within Syria. The most well-documented facility is the al-Safirah complex in Aleppo province. This is where Major General Adnan Silou, the former head of Syria’s chemical weapons program, told CNN that there’s an underground tunnel system and Scud missile base along with warehouses that contain sarin gas, tabun gas and mustard gas.
According to Syria Deeply, defense contractors in Jordan and Turkey have begun training select rebel brigades on chemical security, and contractors on the ground in Syria are helping monitor the movement of stockpiles. Approaches have apparently even been made to regime officials to ensure the safety of these materials in a post-Assad environment.
Assad has options for using his deadliest weapons: Scuds (the most advanced series of which can reach up to 300 miles), rockets, artillery shells or aerial bombs. However, Brigadier General Akil Hashem told me not long ago that when the Syrian military first started developing and experimenting with these agents in the 1970s, it made stunningly amateurish efforts at delivery mechanisms. Considering that Assad’s Air Force is now dropping barrels stuffed with TNT from helicopters and jets, might it resort to some improvisational method of spraying population centers or opposition strongholds with sarin or mustard gas or VX such that the regime can’t even control its own destruction? Or has its bumbling catastrophism been obviated by the reported presence of Iranian and North Korean “experts” advising the WMD program at al-Safirah and elsewhere?
Contingency plans for intervening in Syria were drawn up months ago, but now we have a fair indication of what they look like. The Times of London’s Michael Evans and Deborah Haynes reported this week that there is to be a “limited” no-fly zone to prevent chemically-equipped Syrian aircraft from dropping their payloads, combined with the presence of special forces (US Navy Seals and US Army Rangers) and supporting ground troop that might total as many as 75,000. The United States, Britain, Jordan, Turkey and Israel would all be involved.
One U.S. official who spoke to the Times said that operation forces were “already in the region,” no doubt meaning Turkey and Jordan and also (possibly) aboard the aircraft carrier USS Dwight Eisenhower, which is currently stationed somewhere 50 miles off the Syrian coast. Even intervention-hostile Germany looks set to deploy 400 soldiers to southern Turkey along with those eagerly anticipated Patriot missile batteries Ankara has requested from NATO. For it’s part, NATO, meanwhile, has specified that the Patriot systems will only be used as a “deterrent” against WMD, not for enforcing a no-fly zone, though, as analysts Jeffrey White and Lt. Col. Eddie Boxx have pointed out, they can easily be repurposed for just that.
Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu recently told Turkish daily Sabah that NATO’s protection “will be three dimensional; one is the short-range Patriots, the second is the middle-range Terminal High Altitude Air Defense [THAD] system and the last is the AEGIS system, which counters missiles that can reach outside the atmosphere.” The Eisenhower is part of the Navy’s Strike Group 8, which contains two AEGIS-equipped destroyers, the USS Donald Cook and the USS Cole. It’s not public knowledge whether either or both of those destroyers are currently stationed with the Eisenhower right now, but the smart money’s on assuming that either or both of them are. Then again, a sea-borne component might be surplus to the task. According to the Times, Izmir Air Station (also where NATO’s Allied Air Component Command for Southern Europe is headquartered) and the US Air Force 39th Base at Incirlik, plus the UK-controlled Sovereign Bases Areas in Cyprus, could probably handle any anticipated intervention on their own. In a second exclusive in the same newspaper, one unnamed American official said that “[t]he muscle is already there to be flexed” and that if necessary, military action in Syria would happen “within days.”
Of course, no one in Washington really wants it to happen at all, and the focus remains, at least publicly, on a “political solution,” even as rebels have formed a half-moon perimeter around central Damascus and are preparing their “Zero Hour” push into the lion’s den.
It seems that every time Vladimir Putin hiccups, the media begins another round of frenzied speculation as to whether or not his line on Syria is “softening.” It isn’t. Rather, he now realizes that his fellow don in Damascus is a bit of a squish and utterly incapable of laying waste to an armed opposition. “We have shared and do share the opinion that the existing government in Syria should carry out its functions,” Vladimir Vasilyev, a Putin loyalist in the Duma, announced on December 6. “But time has shown that this task is beyond its strength.” Stalin had Kim il-Sung, we’ve got the eye doctor who listens to Right Said Fred.
So what’s Russia’s end-game? Putin had no qualms about gassing theatre-goers in Moscow in 2000, but even I doubt that he’s readying the argument that, should Assad loose nerve agents against rebels and civilians, the majority of un-asphyxiated Syrians will still support him. A better read on the Kremlin’s new-old orientation was offered by Fyodor Lukyanov, a foreign policy analyst chummy with the Russian Foreign Minister. Talking to the New York Times, Lukyanov described Assad’s mood as fatalistic. “If he will try to go, to leave, to exit, he will be killed by his own people. If he stays, he will be killed by his opponents. He is in a trap. It is not about Russia or anybody else. It is about his physical survival.” This Dostoevskian assessment translates as: “If Assad resorts to the apocalypse, don’t blame us.”
The only real red line for the Obama administration, I think it’s now safe to assume, is the actual use of WMD. This means that if thousands of Syrians suddenly discover that their skin and lungs are suppurating with blisters, and that they’re vomiting uncontrollably, they should take comfort in the fact that United States will be there “within days.” I don’t think my calculus on the morality or wisdom of Obama’s Syria policy has changed.

Ayman Zawahiri and Egypt: A Trip Through Time
by Raymond Ibrahim
Investigative Project on Terrorism
November 30, 2012
http://www.meforum.org/3393/ayman-zawahiri-egypt
Around 1985, current al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri fled his homeland of Egypt, presumably never to return. From his early beginnings as a teenage leader of a small jihadi cell devoted to overthrowing Egyptian regimes (first Nasser's then Sadat's) until he merged forces with Osama bin Laden, expanding his objectives to include targeting the United States of America, Zawahiri never forgot his original objective: transforming Egypt into an Islamist state that upholds and enforces the totality of Sharia law, and that works towards the resurrection of a global caliphate.
This vision is on its way to being fulfilled. With Islamist political victories, culminating with a Muslim Brotherhood president, Muhammad Morsi, Egypt is taking the first major steps to becoming the sort of state Zawahiri wished to see. He regularly congratulates Egypt's Islamists—most recently the attacks on the U.S. embassy in Cairo—urging them to continue Islamizing the Middle East's most strategic nation.
He sent a lengthy communiqué during the Egyptian revolution in February 2011, for example, titled "Messages of Hope and Glad Tidings to our People in Egypt." In it, he reiterated themes widely popularized by al-Qaeda, including: secular regimes are the enemies of Islam; democracy is a sham; Sharia must be instituted; the U.S. and the "Zionist enemy" are the true source behind all of the Islamic world's ills.
Zawahiri continues to push these themes. Last September he sent messages criticizing Morsi, especially for not helping "the jihad to liberate Palestine;" called for the kidnapping of Westerners, especially Americans—which the U.S. embassy in Cairo took seriously enough to issue a warning to Americans; and further incited Egypt's Muslims to wage jihad against America because of the YouTube Muhammad movie.
In short, a symbiotic relationship exists between the country of Egypt and the Egyptian Zawahiri: the country helped shape the man, and the man is fixated on influencing the country, his homeland. Accordingly, an examination of Zawahiri's early years and experiences in Egypt—a case study of sorts—provides context for understanding not only Zawahiri, the undisputed leader of the world's most notorious Islamic terrorist organization, but also explain how Egypt got where it is today. The two phenomena go hand-in-hand.
In this report, we will explore several questions, including: What happened in Egypt to turn this once "shy" and "studious" schoolboy who abhorred physical sports as "inhumane" towards jihad? What happened to turn many Egyptians to jihad, or at least radical Islam? What is Zawahiri's relationship to the Muslim Brotherhood and the Salafis—Egypt's two dominant Islamist political players? Did the 9/11 strikes on America, orchestrated by Zawahiri and al-Qaeda, help or hinder the Islamists of Egypt?
Background
Little about Zawahiri's upbringing suggests that he would become the world's most notorious jihadi, partially responsible for the deaths of thousands of innocents in the September 11 attacks and elsewhere. People who knew him stress that Zawahiri came from a "prestigious" and "aristocratic" background (in Egypt, "aristocrats" have traditionally been among the most liberal and secular). His father Muhammad was a professor of pharmacology; his mother, Umayma, came from a politically active family. Ayman had four siblings; he (and his twin sister) were the eldest. Born in the Egyptian capital, Cairo, on June 19, 1951, Zawahiri, as a BBC report puts it, "came from a respectable middle-class family of doctors and scholars. His grandfather, Rabia al-Zawahiri, was the grand imam of al-Azhar, the centre of Sunni Islamic learning in the Middle East, while one of his uncles was the first secretary-general of the Arab League."
According to the Islamist Montasser al-Zayyat, author of the Arabic book, Al Zawahiri: As I Knew Him (translated in English as The Road to Al Qaeda: the Story of Bin Laden's Right-Hand Man), Zawahiri was "an avid reader" who "loved literature and poetry." He "believed that sports, especially boxing and wrestling, were inhumane…. people thought he was very tender and softhearted…. nothing in his youthful good nature suggested that he was to become the second most wanted man in the world…. He has always been humble, never interested in seizing the limelight of the leadership."
Even so, he exhibited signs of a strong and determined character, as "there was nothing weak about the personality of the child Zawahiri. On the contrary, he did not like any opinion to be imposed on him. He was happy to discuss any issue that was difficult for him to understand until it was made clear, but he did not argue for the sake of argument. He always listened politely, without giving anyone the chance to control him."
For all his love of literature and poetry, which Islamists often portray as running counter to Muslim faith, Zawahiri exhibited a notable form of piety from youth. "Ayman al-Zawahiri was born into a religious Muslim family," al-Zayyat wrote. "Following the example of his family, he not only performed the prayers at the correct times, but he did so in the mosque…. He always made sure that he performed the morning prayers [at sunrise] with a group in the mosque, even during the coldest winters. He attended several classes of Koran interpretation, fiqh [Islamic jurisprudence] and Koran recitation at the mosque."
Otherwise, he appeared to lead a normal, privileged lifestyle. Like his family, he followed a prestigious career path. Zawahiri joined the Faculty of Medicine at Cairo University, graduating in 1974 with the highest possible marks. He then earned a Master's degree in surgery from the same university in 1978. He went on to receive a PhD in surgery from a Pakistani university, during his stay in Peshawar, when he was aiding the mujahidin against the Soviets. People who know Zawahiri say that the only relationship he had with a woman was with his wife, Azza, whom he married in 1979, and who held a degree in philosophy. She and three of Zawahiri's six children were killed in an air strike on Afghanistan by U.S. forces in late 2001.
Death of a Martyr
The initial influence on Zawahiri's radicalization appears to have come from his uncle Mahfouz, an opponent to the secular regime and Islamist in his own right, who was arrested in a militant round up in 1945, following the assassination of Prime Minister Ahmed Mahfouz. In reference to this event, Zawahiri's uncle even boasted: "I myself was going to do what Ayman has done," according to Lawrence Wright's The Looming Tower: Al Qaeda and the Road to 9/11.
Though Mahfouz was likely the first to introduce young Ayman to the political scene of radical Islam, no one appears to have had an impact on Zawahiri's development as much as Uncle Mahfouz's mentor and Arabic teacher, Sayyid Qutb—often referred to as the "godfather" of modern jihad. Qutb, then the Muslim Brotherhood's premiere theoretician of jihad, has arguably played the greatest role in articulating the Islamist/jihadi worldview in the modern era, so much so that Zawahiri and others regularly quote his voluminous writings in their own work.
According to the 9/11 Commission Report, "Three basic themes emerge from Qutb's writings. First, he claimed that the world was beset with barbarism, licentiousness, and unbelief (a condition he called jahiliyya, the religious term for the period of ignorance prior to the revelations given to the Prophet Mohammed). Qutb argued that humans can choose only between Islam and jahiliyya. Second, he warned that more people, including Muslims, were attracted to jahiliyya and its material comforts than to his view of Islam; jahiliyya could therefore triumph over Islam. Third, no middle ground exists in what Qutb conceived as a struggle between God and Satan. All Muslims—as he defined them—therefore must take up arms in this fight. Any Muslim who rejects his ideas is just one more nonbeliever worthy of destruction."
Qutb's primary target—and subsequently Zawahiri's—was the Egyptian regime, which he accused of being enforcers of jahiliyya, obstructing the totality of Sharia. Because Qutb was so effective at fomenting Islamist animosity for the regime, President Gamal Abdel Nasser had him imprisoned and eventually executed in 1966. That act only succeeded in helping propagate Qutb's importance to the jihadi movement, which came to see him as a "martyr" (a shahid, the highest honor for a Muslim), turning his already popular writings into "eternal classics" for Islamists everywhere.
As Zayyat observes, "In Zawahiri's eyes, Sayyid Qutb's words struck young Muslims more deeply than those of his contemporaries because his words eventually led to his execution. Thus, those words provided the blueprint for his long and glorious lifetime, and eventually led to its end…. His teaching gave rise to the formation of the nucleus of the contemporary jihadi movements in Egypt."
It is no coincidence, then, that Zawahiri founded his first jihadi cell in 1966—the year of Qutb's execution—when he was only 15-years-old. Embracing Qutb's teachings—that jihad is the only answer, that talk, diplomacy, and negotiations only serve the infidel enemy's purposes—his cell originally had a handful of members. Zawahiri eventually merged it with other small cells to form Egyptian Islamic Jihad, becoming one of its leaders. Zawahiri sought to recruit military officers and accumulate weapons, waiting for the right moment to launch a coup against the regime; or, in Zawahiri's own words as later recorded by an interrogator, "to establish an Islamic government …. a government that rules according to the Sharia of Allah Almighty."
Humiliation of Defeat
A year following the establishment of Zawahiri's cell, another event took place that further paved the way to jihad: the ignominious defeat of Egypt by Israel in the 1967 war. Until then, Arab nationalism, spearheaded by Nasser, was the dominant ideology, not just in Egypt, but the entire Arab world. What began with much euphoria and conviction—that the Arab world, unified under Arab nationalism and headed by Nasser would crush Israel, only to lose disastrously in a week—morphed into disillusionment and disaffection, especially among Egyptians. It was then that the slogan "Islam is the solution" spread like wildfire, winning over many to the cause.
At the time of the 1967 war, the future al-Qaeda leader was 16 years old. Like many young people at the time, he was somewhat traumatized by Egypt's defeat—a defeat which, 34 years later, he would gloat upon in his 2001 book Fursan Taht Rayat al-Nabbi, ("Knights Under the Banner of the Prophet"), writing:
"The unfolding events impacted the course of the jihadi movements in Egypt, namely, the 1967 defeat and the ensuing symbolic collapse of Gamal Abdel Nasser, who was portrayed to the public by his followers as the everlasting invincible symbol. The jihadi movements realized that wormwoods had eaten at this icon, and that it had become fragile. The 1967 defeat shook the earth under this idol until it fell on its face, causing a severe shock to its disciples, and frightening its subjects. The jihadi movements grew stronger and stronger as they realized that their avowed enemy was little more than a statue to be worshipped, constructed through propaganda, and through the oppression of unarmed innocents. The direct influence of the 1967 defeat was that a large number of people, especially youths, returned to their original identity: that of members of an Islamic civilization."
This theme—that the "enemies of Islam," first the secular dictators, followed by the USSR and then the U.S., were "paper tigers" whose bark was worse than their bite—would come to permeate the writings of al-Qaeda and other jihadis. For instance, in March 2012, in response to President Obama's plans to cut Pentagon spending, Zawahiri said, "The biggest factor that forced America to reduce its defence budget is Allah's help to the mujahideen [or jihadis] to harm the evil empire of our time [the U.S.]," adding that American overtures to the Afghan Taliban for possible reconciliation was further evidence of U.S. defeat.
The 1973 war between Egypt and Israel appears to have had a lesser impact on Zawahiri, who by then had already confirmed his worldview. Moreover, it was during the 1970s that he was especially busy with "normal" life—earning two advanced university degrees (one in 1974, another in 1978), getting married, and starting a family. Even so, the subsequent peace treaty that the Egyptian President Anwar Sadat signed with Israel incensed many Islamists in Egypt, including Zawahiri, who saw it as a great betrayal to the Islamic Nation, or Umma, prompting jihadis to act now instead of later.
Accordingly, Sadat was targeted for assassination; the time had come for a military coup, which was Islamic Jihad's ultimate goal. But the plan was derailed when authorities learned of it in February, 1981. Sadat ordered the roundup of more than 1,500 Islamists, including many Islamic Jihad members (though he missed a cell in the military led by Lieutenant Khalid Islambouli, who succeeded in assassinating Sadat during a military parade later that same year).
Prison Torture
Zawahiri was among the thousands of Islamists rounded up after Sadat's assassination, leading to one of the most talked-of episodes of Zawahiri's life: his prison experience. He was interrogated and found guilty of possessing firearms, serving three years in prison. During that time, he was among many who were tortured in Egyptian prisons.
Much has been made of Zawahiri's prison-time torture. (It is curious to note that when Egyptian officials called to investigate the officers accused of torturing the Islamist inmates, Zawahiri did not file a case against the authorities, though many others did, and though he bothered to witness to the torture of other members.) Several writers, beginning with al-Zayyat, suggest that along with the dual-impact of the martyrdom of Qutb and the 1967 defeat, this event had an especially traumatic effect on Zawahiri's subsequent development and radicalization.
Still, one should not give this experience more due than it deserves. Zawahiri was an ardent jihadi well over a decade before he was imprisoned and tortured; the overly paradigmatic explanation of humiliation-as-precursor-to-violence so popular in Western thinking is unnecessary here.
On the other hand, in the vein of "that which does not kill you makes you stronger," it seems that Zawahiri's prison experience hardened him and made his already notorious stubbornness and determination that much more unshakeable. In short, if his prison experience did not initiate his jihadi inclinations, it likely exacerbated it.
Moreover, being "found out" had an indirect impact on his radicalization. After he was released, and knowing that he was being watched by the authorities, he was compelled to quit his native Egypt, meeting other Arabic-speaking Islamists abroad. He met Osama bin Laden as early as 1986 in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. That led him to relocate to the Afghan theater of jihad, where the final coalescing of his global jihad worldview culminated.
Shifting Strategy
During his time in Egypt, Zawahiri was a staunch proponent of jihad—believing that no real change or progress can be achieved without armed struggle. This never changed. However, his strategic goal of toppling the Egyptian regime grew more ambitious over time, especially after the Afghan war experience and partnership with bin Laden.
In Egypt, Zawahiri's goal was clear: overthrowing the regime and implementing an Islamic government. The enemy was internal, the secular Hosni Mubarak regime, that took over after Sadat's death. In Zawahiri's thinking, one could not consider fighting the far or external enemy until he had beaten the near one. (This is the famous "near/far enemy" dichotomy Islamists have written much on.)
Accordingly, until the late 1990s Zawahiri rarely mentioned what are today the mainstays of Islamist discontent, such as the Arab/Israel conflict, or other matters outside Egypt's borders. In fact, in a 1995 article titled "The Way to Jerusalem Passes Through Cairo" published in Al-Mujahidin, Zawahiri even wrote that "Jerusalem will not be opened [conquered] until the battles in Egypt and Algeria have been won and until Cairo has been opened." This is not to say that Zawahiri did not always see Israel as the enemy. Rather, he deemed it pointless to fight it directly when one could have the entire might of Egypt's military by simply overthrowing the regime—precisely the situation today.
Then, in 1998, Zawahiri surprised many of Egypt's Islamists by forming the International Islamic Front for Jihad on the Jews and Crusaders, under bin Laden's leadership. It issued a fatwa calling on Muslims "to kill the Americans and their allies–civilians and military, an individual obligation incumbent upon every Muslim who can do it and in any country—this until the Aqsa Mosque [Jerusalem] and the Holy Mosque [Mecca] are liberated from their grip." Until then all of Zawahiri's associates believed that his primary focus was Egypt, overthrowing the regime—not the Arab-Israeli conflict and the United States.
Zawahiri's "Mistake"?
It is for all these reasons that many of Egypt's Islamists, beginning with the Muslim Brotherhood, saw al-Qaeda's 9/11 attacks, partially masterminded by Zawahiri, as a severe setback to their movement. The attacks awoke the U.S. and the West, setting off the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, and also giving many Arab regimes—including Mubarak's—free reign to suppress all Islamists. Those regimes happily took advantage. As al-Zayyat, Zawahiri's biographer, wrote:
"The poorly conceived decision to launch the attacks of September 11created many victims of a war of which they did not choose to be a part…. Bin Laden and Zawahiri's behavior [9/11] was met with a lot of criticism from many Islamists in Egypt and abroad…. In the post-September 11 world, no countries can afford to be accused of harboring the enemies of the United States. No one ever imagined that a Western European country would extradite Islamists who live on its lands. Before that, Islamists had always thought that arriving in a European city and applying for political asylum was enough to acquire permanent resident status. After September 11, 2001, everything changed…. Even the Muslim Brotherhood was affected by the American campaign, which targeted everything Islamic."
In retrospect, the "mistake of 9/11″ may have indirectly helped empower Islamists: by bringing unwanted Western attention to the Middle East, it also made popular the argument that democracy would solve all the ills of the Middle East. Many Western observers who previously had little knowledge of the Islamic world, were surprised to discover post 9/11 that dictatorial regimes ran the Muslim world. This led to the simplistic argument that Islamists were simply lashing out because they were suppressed. Failing to understand that these dictatorships were the only thing between full-blown Islamist regimes like Iran, many deemed democracy a panacea, beginning with U.S. President George W. Bush, who invaded Afghanistan and Iraq, partially to "spread" and in the name of democracy.
With the so-called "Arab spring" that began in 2011, the Obama administration has followed this logic more aggressively by throwing the U.S.'s longtime allies like Egypt's Mubarak, under the bus in the name of democracy—a democracy that has been dominated by the Muslim Brotherhood, which, as has been mentioned, shares the same ultimate goals of Zawahiri and other jihadis. Recent events—including unprecedented attacks on U.S. embassies in Egypt and Libya, ironically, the two nations the U.S. especially intervened in to pave the way for Islamist domination—only confirm this.
Zawahiri and the Muslim Brotherhood
While Zawahiri's early decades in Egypt are mostly remembered in the context of the above—prestigious and academic background, clandestine radicalization, jihad, prison, followed by fleeing the country—the al-Qaeda leader has a long history with other Islamist groups in Egypt, such as the Muslim Brotherhood. Since the "Arab Spring" and ousting of longtime President Hosni Mubarak, it has been the Brotherhood who have, not only dominated Egyptian politics, but have a member, Muhammad Morsi, as Egypt's first elected president.
Zawahiri joined the Brotherhood when he was only 14, then abandoned it to form his own cell less than two years later after Qutb's execution. A proponent of the slogan "jihad alone," Zawahiri soon became critical of the Brotherhood's pragmatic strategies, and wrote an entire book in 1991 arguing against their nonviolent approach.
Titled Al Hissad Al Murr, or "The Bitter Harvest," Zawahiri argued that the Brotherhood "takes advantage of the Muslim youths' fervor by bringing them into the fold only to store them in a refrigerator. Then, they steer their onetime passionate, Islamic zeal for jihad to conferences and elections…. And not only have the Brothers been idle from fulfilling their duty of fighting to the death, but they have gone as far as to describe the infidel governments as legitimate, and have joined ranks with them in the ignorant style of governing, that is, democracies, elections, and parliaments."
It is perhaps ironic that, for all his scathing remarks against them, time has revealed that the Muslim Brotherhood's strategy of slowly infiltrating society from a grassroots approach has been more effective than Zawahiri's and al-Qaeda's jihadi terror. The Brotherhood's patience and perseverance, by playing the political game, formally disavowing violence and jihad—all of which earned the ire of Zawahiri and others—have turned it into a legitimate player. Yet this does not make the Brotherhood's goals any less troubling. For instance, according to a January 2012 Al Masry Al Youm report, Brotherhood leader Muhammad Badie stated that the group's grand goal is the return of a "rightly guided caliphate and finally mastership of the world"—precisely what Zawahiri and al-Qaeda seek to achieve. Half a year later, in July 2012, Safwat Hegazy, a popular preacher and Brotherhood member, boasted that the Brotherhood will be "masters of the world, one of these days." Most recently, President Morsi gave himself unprecedented powers in order to empower Sharia law in Egypt.
Zawahiri and Egypt Today
In light of the Egyptian revolution that accomplished what Zawahiri had tried to accomplish for decades—overthrow the regime—what relevance does the al-Qaeda leader have for the Egyptian populace today? The best way to answer this question is in the context of Salafism—the popular Islamist movement in Egypt and elsewhere that is grounded in the teachings and patterns of early Islam, beginning with the days of Islam's Prophet Muhammad and under the first four "righteously guided" caliphs.
As a Salafist organization, al-Qaeda is very popular with Salafis. Its current leader, the Egyptian Zawahiri, is especially popular—a "hero" in every sense of the word—with Egyptian Salafis. Considering that the Salafis won some 25 percent of votes in recent elections, one may infer that at least a quarter or of Egypt's population looks favorably on Zawahiri. In fact, some important Salafis are on record saying they would like to see Zawahiri return to his native Egypt. Aboud al-Zomor, for instance, the Egyptian Islamic Jihad leader who was implicated for the assassination of Sadat, but who has now been released and is even a leading member of the new Egyptian parliament, has called for the return of Zawahiri to Egypt, "with his head held high and in safety."
Zawahiri's brother, Muhammad, is also an influential Islamist in Egypt, affiliated with the Salafis and Al Gamaa Al Islamiyya. He led a mass Islamist demonstration last spring with typical jihadi slogans. He also was among those threatening the U.S. embassy in Cairo to release the Blind Sheikh—the true reason behind the September attack, not a movie—or else be "burned down to the ground." When asked in a recent interview with CNN if he is in touch with his al-Qaeda leader brother, Muhammad only smiled and said "of course not."
Under Zawahiri's leadership, al-Qaeda has made inroads on Egyptian territory. For example, several recent attacks in Sinai—such as the attacks on the Egypt-Israel natural-gas pipeline—were in fact conducted by a new group pledging allegiance to al-Qaeda. Zawahiri publicly congratulated them for destroying the pipelines, and the organization itself has pledged its loyalty to Zawahiri. More recently, al-Qaeda in the Sinai has been blamed for attacking and evicting Christian minorities living there.
This highlights the fact that groups like the Brotherhood and the Salafis have the same goals—establishment of a government that upholds Sharia law—though they differ as to how to achieve this. Salafis like al-Qaeda tend to agree that jihad is the solution. Yet, given the Brotherhood's success using peaceful means—co-opting the language of democracy and running in elections—many Salafis are now "playing politics" even though many of them are also on record saying that, once in power, they will enforce Islamic law and abolish democracy, which is precisely what President Morsi and his cohorts have begun to do, in the face of widespread condemnation and protests in the Egyptian street.
It is not clear where Zawahiri stands regarding Egypt. Because of his deep roots there, Egypt undoubtedly holds a special place for him. But as the leader of a global jihadi network, he cannot afford to appear biased to Egypt—hence why he addresses the politics of other nations, Pakistan for example, and themes like the Arab-Israeli conflict, with equal or more attention.
Likewise, there are different accounts regarding his personality traits and how they would comport with Egypt's current state. For example, whereas his biographer described young Zawahiri as averse to the limelight and open to others' opinions, most contemporary characterizations of Zawahiri suggest he is intractable and domineering—a product, perhaps, of some four decades of jihadi activities, as well as the aforementioned experiences. While the personality traits attributed to him in youth would certainly aid him in influencing Egyptian Islamist politics, those attributed to him now would not.
He has been away too long, and others have stepped in. Either way, to many Islamists around the world, Egypt in particular, Zawahiri is a hero—one of the few men to successfully strike the "great enemy," America. Such near legendary status will always see to it that Ayman Zawahiri—and the Salafi ideology al-Qaeda helped popularize—remain popular among Egypt's Islamists.
**Raymond Ibrahim is a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center and an Associate Fellow at the Middle East Forum.