DRAFT
Chapter 4 Additions: State Setting
Some stage setting is required.
 The Soviets from ally to enemy
 Arab nationalism
 The birth of Israel
 Oil
Elements of the Arabic-Islamic Narrative
Cultural anthropologists and others use the word narrative to talk about a lens
through which our words and actions are interpreted by the intended audience. Very
important components of the Arab and Muslim narrative are the events associated with
the end of the Ottoman Empire after the First World War. Three bodies of documents
serve to describe this component: the Hussein-McMahon correspondence, the SykesPicot Agreement, and the Balfour Declaration. The World War I betrayal, Western
colonization of the region, and the birth of Israel, all contribute to the narrative.
A narrative might contain statements of ethos, pathos, and logos. Statements of
ethos establish the speaker’s credentials with the audience, statements of pathos appeal to
the audience’s emotions (hearts), and statements of logos are of fact and logic (minds). A
compelling narrative might have a protagonist (the hero), an antagonist (the villain), a
crisis, an epic struggle, and resolution.1
World War I Betrayal
Very important components of the Arab-Islamic narrative are the events associated
with the end of the Ottoman Empire after the First World War. Three bodies of
documents serve to describe this component: the Hussein-McMahon correspondence, the
Sykes-Picot Agreement, and the Balfour Declaration.
Sherif Hussein, a Hashemite, was perhaps the single individual that could be
considered the Arab spokesman during the First World War. Sir Henry McMahon, British
high commissioner of Egypt, was the principal British spokesman in the Arab world. As
early as 1914, the Hussein-McMahon correspondence began encouraging an Arab
uprising against the Ottoman Turks and the promise of Arab independence after the war.
An Arab Caliphate under Hussein was a possibility. Separately in May 1915, two small
movements, al-Fatat and al-Ahd, produced the Damascus Protocol describing their
conditions for cooperation to support the British against the Turks. The Arab uprising
began in June 1916, was led by Hussein’s son Feisal, and aided by T.E. Lawrence. The
Hussein-McMahon correspondence (not a formal agreement) is often cited as the basis of
Arab understanding of the way things were supposed to be after the war.
At the same time, member of British Parliament Sir Mark Sykes and French
diplomat Charles François George-Picot were quietly discussing the postwar partition of
the Ottoman Empire. It would be divided between the British and the French with Russia
William D. Casebeer and James A. Russell, “Storytelling and Terrorism: Towards a
Comprehensive ‘Counter-Narrative Strategy,’” Strategic Insights iv, 3 (March 2005),
http://www.ccc.nps.navy.mil/si/2005/Mar/casebeerMar05.asp, accessed March 24, 2005.
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having the dominant role in the north. The British and French would have direct control
in some areas and indirect control in others. Semi-autonomous Arab states would be
possible where indirect European control existed. The resulting secret document is the
Sykes-Picot Agreement.
The Balfour Declaration—a letter from British diplomat Arthur J. Balfour to the
head of the British Zionist Organization Lord Rothschild in November 1917—indicated
the British government’s positive view towards a Jewish homeland in Palestine. Palestine
was at the time an undefined area. A condition of the new homeland would be that the
rights of the non-Jewish community would not be prejudiced.
The entirety is often evoked as “Sykes-Picot,” and has the connotation of “white
man speaks with forked tongue.” It represents past betrayal and predicts future betrayal
associated with the Western alliance including present-day Israel. Sykes-Picot is in more
recent memory than good deeds done for Muslims by the United States in Kosovo and
elsewhere. It remained in recent memory throughout relief operations in Indonesia, the
country with the largest Muslim population.
Self determination has been thwarted for the Arab nation. Direction of Arab history
has been determined by the West. Everything the US says and does is interpreted through
this lens. Pan Arabism is the term used to refer to the Arab nation’s desire for self
determination.
Salifism, Wahhabism, and Qutbism
The terms Salifism, Wahhabism, and Qutbism are not universally accepted within
Sunni Islam, and it appears that some shift in meaning has taken place after 9/11. Still,
some characterization is necessary to have at least a rudimentary understanding of the
“narrative.”
It appears that Salafi is the more general term. The Salaf is the first three
generations of Islam. Salafists, Wahhabists, and Qutbists accept the Qur’an (scripture),
Hadith (traditions of the prophets), and Ijma’ (consensus) as the sources of Islamic law.
All three are fundamentalist as defined by Western dictionaries to include adherence to a
literal interpretation of scripture, the inerrancy of that scripture, and often intolerance for
other views. Innovations and interpretations of Islamic law beyond the first three
generations are rejected.
Ibn-Taymiya (1263-1328) is perhaps the original godfather of radical Islam—a
Salafist before the term existed. The capture of Baghdad and the overthrow of the
Abbasid caliphate in 1258 by the invading Mongols was a catastrophic event for the
believers and required an explanation. Taymiya was a disciple of the Hanbali School of
jurisprudence, the most conservative of the four major schools of Sunni legal and
religious thinking, which rejected innovations and called for a revival of early Islamic
practices. He spoke against apostate leaders who cooperated with Mongols but saved his
real venom for the Mongols. Today, when Abu Mussad Zarqawi compares the United
States to Mongol invaders, he is evoking this old image. Ibn-Taymiya’s writings are a
strong influence on Muhammed ibn Abd al Wahhab, Sayyid Qutb, Ayman al-Zawahiri,
and Usama bin Laden.
Wahhabism is the official religion of Saudi Arabia. In addition to the three classic
sources of Islamic law, Wahhabist also rely on the writings of Muhammad ibn Abd alWahhab (1703-1792) who, among other things, argued for rejecting innovations and
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returning to Islam as understood by the Salaf. Wahhabism spread across the Saudi
Peninsula in the 18th century and was strengthened by the establishment of the Saudi
state in the 20th century. Saudi oil wealth funds Wahhabist schools throughout the
Muslim world.
The thinking of Sayyid Qutb (1906-1966) is firmly centered in 1960s Egypt and a
fundamentalist backlash against dictatorship and secular socialism. He was also
profoundly and negatively influenced by a visit to America (1948-1950). Qutb was a
member of the radical Muslim Brotherhood. After attempting to assassinate Gamal Abdel
Nasser, the Brotherhood was banned and many jailed, including Qutb, who was later
executed by Nasser’s government.
Saladin and bin Laden
The figure of Saladin is an important component of the Islamic narrative, and his
role is necessary to understand the lens through which American words and actions are
interpreted. Saladin’s importance is summed up by James R. Reston Jr.2
Until this day, Saladin remains a preeminent hero of the Islamic world. It was he
who united the Arabs, who defeated the Crusaders in epic battles, who recaptured
Jerusalem, and who threw the European invaders out of Arab lands. In the
seemingly endless struggle of modern-day Arabs to reassert the essentially Arab
nature of Palestine, Saladin lives, vibrantly, as a symbol of hope and as the stuff
of myth. In Damascus or Cairo, Amman or East Jerusalem, one can easily fall into
lengthy conversations about Saladin, for these ancient memories are central to
Arab sensibility and their ideology of liberation.
According to some, bin Laden is increasingly seen as the modern Saladin.3
The Great Game
The Great Game (1813-1907) was a strategic competition between Czarist Russia
and Great Britain over Central Asia and the Indian Subcontinent. It was apparently more
of a preoccupation of the British in defense of India, the Empire’s crown jewel. The
contest was centered in Afghanistan but involved the larger region.
[Add something about Partition.]
[Add something about British invasions.]
Iran’s Political Progression
Persia is an ancient and sophisticated civilization dating back several thousand
years. [Persian Empire when?] The Arabs successfully Islamized Persia between the 7th
and 9th centuries, but never Arabized it. It became an independent state in 1501.
Persia’s Constitutional Revolution took place between 1906 and 1911.
Moagaferedin Shah, who had ascended to the throne in June 1896, was forced by
revolutionaries to adopt a constitution and elect a parliament on 5 August 1906. It
2
Warriors of God: Richard the Lion Heart and Saladin in the Third Crusade (New York: Anchor
Books, 2001), p. xiv.
3
Anonymous, Imperial Hubris: Why the West is Losing the War on Terror (Washington, D.C.:
Brassey’s, 2004).
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replaced a weak, centralized, and corrupt government with a constitutional monarchy,
both preserving the shah and establishing an elected parliament. The constitution,
modeled on the Belgian constitution, provided for the rule of law, equality, individual
rights, universal public education, and freedom of the press. Crown Prince Mohammad
Ali Mirza, ascended 21 June 1907, broke the constitution. Iranian politics was divided
internally by progressive constitutionalists and conservative monarchists. The British and
Russians announced a pact on 7 September 1907. They backed the shah but
geographically divided the country between them. By dividing the country, they unified
the Iranian factions.
Great Britain and Russia intervened. Russian Cossaks stormed the parliament 23
June 1908 initiating a civil war. Christian missionaries pressured U.S. politicians to
respond with tough action, but Presidents Teddy Roosevelt and William Taft maintained
a policy of neutrality. The revolution ended in 1911 and Iranian constitutionalists turned
to the noninterventionist United States for assistance. Two Americans served as
“Treasury Secretary.” Relations between Iran and the United States would continue on
favorable terms for 35 years. Reza Khan ascended to the thrown in 1925. He initiated
industrial expansion, railroad building, and an educational system.
To prevent Iran’s railroads and oil from falling to the Axis Powers, Great Britain
and the Soviet Union invaded Iran in 1941. The shah was ousted and replaced with his
son, Mohammed Reza Pahlavi.
Oil
With WWI developing, in 1903, British Foreign Secretary Lord Landsdowne
warned Russia and Germany that Britain would “regard the establishment of a naval base
or of a fortified port in the Persian Gulf by any other power as a very grave menace to
British interests, and we should certainly resist with all the means at our disposal.” To
prevent Iran’s railroads and oil from falling to the Axis Powers, Great Britain and the
Soviet Union invaded Iran in 1941.
Petroleum was of critical importance to the industrial-age army of WWII. The
United States was then the world’s leading oil producer and supplied most of the oil for
Allied armies. U.S. resources were not infinite, and positive relations with Saudi Arabia
became a strategic necessity. On 16 February 1943, FDR said, “the defense of Saudi
Arabia is vital to the defense of the United States.”
The first Arab-Israeli war (known as the War of Independence in Israel and the
Catastrophe by Palestinians) took place in 1948 after Israel announced its statehood and
was recognized by the United States and the Soviet Union. Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Lebanon,
and Jordan attacked the new state on [14-15 May 1948]. A truce formally ended the war
in 1949.
The second Arab-Israeli war as initiated by the Israelis and the great powers against
Egypt over the Suez. Some Western texts do not count this as one of the Arab-Israeli
wars.
The third Arab-Israeli war, the Six-Day War, began on 5 June 1967. Arab states
announced an oil embargo on any state providing aid to the Israeli military. The embargo
was hastily constructed and ineffective. It did, however, lead to a policy statement from
the Oil Minister’s Conference in Baghdad from 9-18 June. The policy stated that oil
would be denied to any country directly or indirectly committing aggression on Arab
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territory; commercial assets and nationals inside Arab territories would be subject to the
laws of war.
The Khartoum Resolution ended the embargo on 1 September 1967. The
Resolution gave moderate Arab governments the political cover to resume oil exports
over their more radical populations. The victims of the war (Jordan and Egypt) were to be
provided annual financial aid. The oil embargo also led to formation of OAPEC to
discuss how to use oil for political purposes.
On 15 August 1971, Nixon unilaterally withdrew from the Bretton Woods Accord.
Under Bretton Woods, the value of the U.S. dollar was pegged to the price of gold, and
all other currencies were pegged to the dollar. The dollar would now float. The
industrialized nations followed suit. The oil exporters decided to peg oil prices to gold
rather than to the dollar. The Oil Shock of the middle 1970s soon followed after twenty
years of price stability was replaced by volatile oil prices.
The fourth Arab-Israeli war, the Yom Kippur War, was initiated on 6 October 1973
when Syria and Egypt attacked Israel. Initial Arab successes make Israel’s position
tenuous. The USSR undertook a massive resupply of Syria. On 12 October 1973, the
United States initiated Operation Nickel Glass, an overt strategic airlift of weapons and
supplies to Israel. On 16 October, OPEC raised the price of oil by 70 percent. The next
day, OAPEC placed an oil embargo on the United States and then on Europe and Japan.
On the 19th, Nixon proposed $2.2 billion in military aid to Israel. The following day,
Libya, Saudi Arabia, and other producers joined the embargo. The war ended on 26
October 1973 in Arab defeat.
Secretary of State Henry Kissinger announced Project Independence to achieve
independence from imported oil on 11 February 1974. The embargo ended (with the
exception of Libya) on 17 March 1974. The price of oil had quadrupled from $3 to $12
per barrel. The United Kingdom and France had been unaffected by the embargo. They
remained neutral, refused U.S. access to their airfields, and embargoed arms to both
Israelis and Arabs.
The Oil Crisis of 1979 and the Oil Glut of the 1980s. The Iranian Revolution
caused a serious disruption of Iran’s oil sector. The sector performed erratically and at a
significantly reduced level. The world market overreacted. The Iran-Iraq War devastated
both countries’ oil output. Other exporters responded by increasing output. The resulting
overproduction and reduced demand led to declining oil prices from 1980 to 1986. The so
called Oil Glut of the 1980s was an exaggerated name.
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