Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, right, and his close ally Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei, flash victory signs at the start of their press conference, after registering candidacy of Rahim Mashaei for the upcoming presidential election, at the election headquarters of the interior ministry, in Tehran, Iran, Saturday, May 11, 2013. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi)

The Guardian Council aside, among those likely to be allowed to run there is still a considerable diversity in terms of the backgrounds of the candidates and the political camps and views they represent.

All the candidates in Tehran, however, appear to see eye-to-eye one point: they all agree that outgoing president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was an unequivocal disaster for Iranian foreign policy and the country’s diplomatic standing in the world.

The maverick two-term president is blamed for having exacerbated Tehran’s foreign challenges by generating unnecessary tension with the West through his bombastic style—and not doing nearly enough to mollify Iran’s immediate neighbors amid widespread fear of its regional ambitions.

Even those not running in the elections are having a field day in attacking Ahmadinejad’s foreign policy record. Mehdi Sanaei, a member of the Iranian parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Committee, commented that the Ahmadinejad government had not pursued the basic “cost and benefit” rule which is part and parcel of diplomacy. In Sanaei’s view, and undoubtedly many others in Tehran, Iran “has paid dearly” for mistakes made in recent years in the realm of foreign policy.

In recent weeks, a host of high-profile foreign policy decisions have come under increasing scrutiny. Ahmadinejad’s trademark Holocaust-denial stance is a favored topic of criticism. Mohsen Rezaei, a rightist senior regime figure who also ran against Ahmadinejad in 2009, stated recently that if he became president he would not “speak about the Holocaust.”

Another front runner, Mohammad Qalibaf, asked, “What good did Iran get out of [Ahmadinejad] denying the Holocaust?”

Meanwhile, another prominent candidate, Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, a former president and now a darling of the reformists, raised the ante by making comments that essentially questioned the logic behind Tehran’s long-standing enmity toward Israel: “If the Arabs end up in a war with Israel, Iran can provide material support to the Arabs,” but added that there was little else it could do.

This sort of narrative—and the argument that Iran is in dire need for a foreign policy overhaul—is now being debated more openly in the Iranian media. Once the official election campaign begins, more surprising policy positions can be expected from the competing candidates.

The candidates who represent the broader reformist movement—and here Hashemi Rafsanjani and Hassan Rouhani stand out—have a more compelling case to take to the voters. During the years of the reformist administration of President Mohammad Khatami, a coherent, rational approach to foreign policy was more discernible. It stressed the need for detente, and specifically reaching out to neighboring states. This was the period when the Iran–Saudi relationship was the most tranquil, and when Khatami’s call for a “Dialogue Among Civilizations” brought Tehran and Washington closest to an accord. The same sorts of inclinations were also in place when Rafsanjani was president from 1989 to 1997, although his administration’s record was more mixed.

On the other hand, the Ahmadinejad administration of 2005 to 2013 has had a foreign policy record that is in many ways incoherent. Instead, it has been heavy on slogans and grand—but almost always unrealistic—gestures. A focus on securing and promoting Iran’s specific national interests has been missing. Whichever candidate survives the scrutiny of the Guardian Council would do well to promise the electorate a return to pragmatism in foreign policy, one rooted in a clear-eyed recognition of Tehran’s multiple foreign policy challenges in its neighborhood and on the international stage.

A man checks an apartment on a damaged building at the site of a blast in the town of Reyhanli in Hatay province, near the Turkish-Syrian border, May 13, 2013. Source: Reuters/Umit Bektas

On May 11, two powerful car bombs ripped through the Turkish town of Reyhanlı on the Syrian border, killing at least 51 people. This was not only the worst cross-border spillover of the Syrian conflict to date—it was also the deadliest terror attack in Turkey’s recent history.

But if you were watching Turkish television or reading the national papers the next day, you could be forgiven for thinking that nothing had happened in Reyhanlı. Dominating the airwaves instead were the season finale of a popular talent show and the derby match between Fenerbahçe and Galatasaray (which was marred by racial slurs against Gala’s Ivorian star striker, Didier Drogba, and the fatal stabbing of a teenage Fener supporter).

This is because immediately after the bombings, a local court imposed a media blackout on all reporting from and about Reyhanlı, which the Justice and Development Party (AKP) government supported. Two journalists were subsequently detained while documenting the extent of the devastation, while police clashed with and arrested scores of demonstrators protesting the attack in the northwestern town of İzmit.

How can we make sense of this horrific act of violence and the government’s reaction to it? In an apparent justification of the blackout, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan suggested that the attack had been an attempt to derail the “sensitive process” of reconciliation between the Turkish state and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). Indeed, in a potentially historic turning point for the three-decade conflict, PKK fighters in Turkey have begun withdrawing to their bases in northern Iraq as part of a ceasefire agreed in March. Mindful of the fact that previous ceasefires were sabotaged by spectacular acts of violence that led to popular outbursts of nationalistic fervour, the government’s desire to keep a lid on provocative news reporting might be understandable.

But what Reyhanlı reveals—and the government seems eager to conceal—is not really about the Kurds or the PKK. (The pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party declared solidarity with the government shortly after the attack.) It is about Syria, and Turkey’s involvement in its civil war.

Within hours of the bombings, a succession of Turkish officials placed the blame on the government of Bashar Al-Assad, the AKP’s friend-turned-foe. The interior ministry then announced that suspects with links to Syrian intelligence had been detained. This sequence of events raises a number of important questions.

According to the interior minister, the authorities had been alerted to plans for a terrorist attack in the area as early as May 8. Since it took less than a day to apprehend the culprits, we must ask whether the attack could have been averted in the first place. Moreover, if there was a breach of security—as there seems to have been—was it merely accidental, or could it have been intentional? There is still no news on whether there will be a thorough public investigation to identify what went wrong and hold those who are responsible—if there are any—to account.

Crucially, we do not know the primary target of the attacks. It may have been the Turkish government, or the local population of Reyhanlı, which has had an increasingly tense relationship with the growing number of Syrian refugees resident in the town. Alternatively, the twin blasts may have been directed at the refugees themselves, who count among their ranks fighters from the Free Syrian Army (FSA) and the Al-Qaeda-affiliated Al-Nusra Front.

What does the bombing say of the Turkish government’s performance of its duty to safeguard its borders and protect its citizens? This is an especially timely question, since members of the Al-Nusra Front have become an atrocious fighting force challenging the already-flimsy authority of the FSA. Is the Turkish government allowing Al-Nusra fighters and Syrian intelligence agents to freely roam across its borders? If, as it is claimed, the Syrian government has the ability to carry out such a spectacular attack inside Turkey after successfully passing through the ostensibly rebel-controlled border region, the attack could be telling of the present course of the Syrian civil war and the likely success of the Turkish (and Western) policy of supporting the anti-Assad opposition.

In the absence of mainstream media coverage of the developments, the dissemination of pictures and reports from Reyhanlı, as well as the public debate on Syria in general, has been taking place in online discussion forums and social networking sites. On the positive side, this demonstrates yet again the difficulty of keeping the public in the dark in the age of Facebook and Twitter. The social media can also be an effective platform for dissent: creative and poignant expressions of criticism (such as the images created by bobiler.org) have been shared thousands of times within the space of a few hours.

On the negative side, it underlines the crucial need for a traditional media that is perceived as sufficiently credible, independent and trustworthy. As the Reyhanlı case has shown, its absence can easily give rise to the dangerous polarization of opinions based on viral rumors, conspiracy theories and false news stories. One of the most widely shared stories on Facebook involved a post that quoted non-existing reports from Western sources like the BBC, The Telegraph and Le Monde, claiming that the Syrian rebels were behind the bombings and that the casualties had exceeded 200.

By trying to stifle the discussion on Syria the Turkish government risks contributing to a toxic atmosphere of public paranoia and delusion, where rival camps do not merely differ in their interpretation of the facts, but believe in totally different facts altogether. What Turkey urgently needs is a healthy and constructive debate on its Syria policy and how the looming train wreck can be prevented. Permitting an open evaluation of its decisions would only strengthen the AKP government, not weaken it. And, surely, an atmosphere of dialogue and openness is necessary if one hopes to see peace and reconciliation at the end of this “sensitive process.”

Lebanon’s Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah. Joseph Eid/AFP/GettyImages

The contending Lebanese factions have taken their fight from the streets of Beirut and Tripoli to those of Damascus and Homs. Yet, battling it out elsewhere does not mean that Lebanon is sailing toward stability or prosperity. Lebanon’s leaders continue to enjoy their fiery statements, often attacking each other and taking opposing sides on all issues, both domestic and regional. This infighting does little to alleviate Lebanon’s many political impasses, such as forming a new cabinet after the dissolution of the last one in late March.

Of Lebanon’s politicians, Hezbollah’s Hassan Nasrallah stands out for his firebrand orations, which have recently increased in both frequency and intensity. Defying whatever national sentiments the Lebanese might have, Nasrallah has in the past sworn allegiance to Iranian supreme leader Ali Khamenei. Nasrallah has openly taken sides with Syria’s embattled dictator, Bashar Al-Assad, and has stuck with his unrelenting threats against Israel.

Nasrallah’s statements count in a country where he has become the most influential man, and where his party, Hezbollah have become the de facto ruling party—even if unofficially. However, despite his amplified cries, Nasrallah’s political chest-thumping rings as hollow as ever. In private, the Hezbollah leader offers conflicting rhetoric on the crisis in Syria.

In a special report published by Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Rai, Nasrallah was quoted as saying that “Lebanon is crossing into a new phase with its [to be explored] oil and gas,” and that with its estimated fossil fuel fortune, the country “is heading toward prosperity, the improvement of living conditions of its citizens and the upgrading of its infrastructure so that it stands on par with modern nations.”

Nasrallah then contrasts this rosy picture of Lebanon with his prediction of open-ended strife in Syria. The report quotes Nasrallah as saying that there will be “no good outcome” for the conflict in Syria, an idea that echoes the view of Washington and other world capitals and their reasons for staying out of the crisis. The crucial difference is that Nasrallah is actively participating in the conflict by deploying fighters from his formidable militia to Homs suburbs in a bid to tilt the balance in favor of Assad. Yet despite Hezbollah’s involvement in Syria, the report suggests that Nasrallah believes that what happens in Syria should stay in Syria.

Two revelations in the report show that Nasrallah’s understanding of the conflict in Syria is skewed on many counts. He believes that the West is still focused on the Middle East’s oil resources, and that the West sponsors conflict in order to create jobs for its “arms factories” and post-war reconstruction companies, both suffering from the recession.

In fact it is in the interest of the West, and China and Japan, to keep Syria’s oil flowing in order to keep the world market price low. This requires stability, not revolutions. However, it is in the interest of Russia and Iran—both oil-producing giants—to take other oil-producing countries, even puny ones like Syria, offline, so that prices can go up, thus increasing their profits.

This scenario does not match the current alignment of Russia and Iran with Assad, who promises both dictatorship and stability, and the West that is pushing for more democracy even at the expense of stability. This means that Nasrallah’s theory on Syria’s oil production, a meager 385,000 barrels per day in 2010, does not compute with the realities of the Syrian crisis.

As for arms production, Russia has long been one of the top nations exporting arms to Syria. Russia’s contracts with Assad dwarf whatever arms the rebels may receive from the West. Nasrallah appears to be unaware that arming civil wars is not rewarding for the West’s military industry, which needs big contracts to turn profits. Such business is possible only with stable governments.

Nasrallah’s amateurish views of world politics and economics explain a lot about why, even though Lebanon is not going to war, it is not moving forward either.

Etrat Kazemi, seated at center, registers her candidacy for the upcoming presidential election, at the election headquarters of the interior ministry in Tehran, Iran, Friday, May 10, 2013. (AP Photo)

The elections are the first since the infamous 2009 elections in which Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was fraudulently reelected to a second presidential term, sparking mass demonstrations—and a brutal government crackdown on protesters—across the country.

So all eyes will be on Iran this June, as the cliché goes—and not just those of Iranians. Diplomats from the P5+1—the five permanent members of the UN Security Council and Germany—will also be watching the elections, hopeful that they will produce a more reasonable nuclear negotiating partner than Ahmadinejad to drive the process forward.

But we have been here before. In early 2005, Western nuclear negotiators were confident that Iran’s presidential elections would see pragmatic former President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani return to office. Instead, the election was won convincingly by an international unknown: the hardline former mayor of Tehran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Today, Western diplomats once again look to forthcoming elections to re-calibrate Iran’s domestic politics in their favor.

The hope, though, is more wishful than expectant. For a start, who will run? (Ahmadinejad himself is constitutionally limited to two consecutive terms as president, and thus is barred from seeking a third term.) Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mahdi Karroubi, the leaders of what may loosely be described as the opposition—the so-called Green Movement—have been under house arrest since early 2011, and the many Iranians opposed to the ruling status quo have been brutally suppressed.

Moreover, an election in Iran is a carefully managed affair. Before they can run, all candidates must first be approved by the Guardian Council, who can—and do—strike off the lists those they deem ‘unsuitable’ for the presidency. In practice, this makes it almost impossible for reformers to get through—and those that do, like former President Mohammad Khatami, find themselves stymied and frustrated at every turn once they do gain office. Indeed, Khatami is not likely to seek election this time around, leaving those reformist-minded Iranians with little in the way of choice, short of boycotting the elections completely.

Only a handful of candidates will be on the final list that the Guardian Council unveils later this month, which will overwhelmingly consist of candidates considered loyal to the supreme leader, Ali Khamenei. Given the problems the regime had with opposition figures during the last elections, the supreme leader and his allies will do all they can to ensure there is no repeat of the trouble that, at certain points in the summer of 2009, had many questioning the regime’s ability to survive.

Among the likely favorites are former foreign minister Ali Akbar Velayati, Tehran mayor Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf and former nuclear negotiator Hasan Rouhani—all good regime men, unlikely to cause trouble in any real way.

But, in what is a clear indictment of Ahmadinejad’s time in office—which has seen the economy disintegrate and international isolation increase—all of the main candidates have vowed to make a clear break with the president’s style of leadership. Ahmadinejad is widely blamed for worsening Iran’s situation both domestically and internationally; he is a largely unpopular figure both within the elite and the populace at large. And while all the candidates support Iran’s ‘inalienable’ right to enrich uranium, Ahmadinejad’s nuclear negotiating stance has been attacked by many, including Rafsanjani himself, for bringing down the world’s anger on Iran. The criticisms, however, amount to nuances of diplomatic behavior—all are agreed on the fundamentals that underpin the Islamic Republic.

With all candidates keen to distance themselves from the incumbent as they begin their campaigns before the season has even officially opened, the government is also getting into election mode. The past month has seen a huge increase in controls and blocks on Internet traffic as Tehran attempts to stifle opposition voices during the election period.

Meanwhile, the only liberal-leaning candidate that is likely to be considered by the Guardian Council is former vice president Mohammad Reza Aref, who served in Khatami’s administration. He is largely an unknown, and very unlikely to find any great success at the ballot box; while it is true Ahmadinejad was never expected to win in 2005, he, at least, enjoyed the supreme leader’s approval.

The picture one month before the elections is depressingly familiar: once again, the world watches and waits for some kind of change in Iran. Unfortunately, the result of June’s elections, even if a more reasonable figure than Ahmadinejad is elected (which will not be difficult), is likely to be more of the same.

A member of Yemen’s newly formed Special Security Forces is stationed at a machine gun mounted on a patrol vehicle at a checkpoint in Sanaa. (REUTERS)

There are two main military elements to the announcement. The most important element is the reorganization of the Yemeni ground forces. Although this may appear a minor step, it—together with the administrative procedures that are likely to accompany it—will go far in professionalizing the Yemeni ground forces and breaking up patronage networks. Not only have all the ground-holding commands been reduced in geographical extent and military mass, but it is likely that commanders will be posted in and out of appointments on a two- to three-year basis. This will return Yemen to the long-established military principle, exemplified by the Ottoman Empire’s janissaries, that a commander should not establish roots—and thus alternative loyalties. Unit loyalty should therefore return to the Yemeni state, rather than to chronically entrenched military magnates.

The reduction in Area Of Responsibility also reduces a number of potential opportunities for abuse in several key areas. The most important is the diminution in size of the commands. Not only does this reduction limit the forces under any one commander—no longer will a single regional commander wield state-threatening military power, as did Ali Muhsin Salih or Ahmad Ali Abdallah. Interestingly, the Regional Commanders no longer have direct, personal command of combat power, as was previously the custom; they merely command subordinate units. This, too, will limit their ability to threaten the state.

The smaller size of commands also reduces the ability of any one commander to generate vast personal wealth by skimming wages and allowances, or mustering as many “ghost” soldiers who only exist on paper, allowing their commander to pocket their pay. Further, the length of border that can be “protected” (i.e., used for direct smuggling) is dramatically reduced, proportionately decreasing profits to be made. Additionally, it appears that the lucrative Eastern Region has also been split horizontally, so that one command no longer controls both the Indian Ocean shore and the Saudi border.

As important to the de-personalisation of the military structure has been the removal of many former military “patrons” from the scene. It is doubtless the need to co-ordinate the simultaneous assignment of all these to decorous postings remote from the fray that has taken so long: it has been reported that the sponsors of the GCC deal wanted this step to occur in December 2012, when the previous measures were announced, rather than in April. Although ostracizing the former president’s family is an important measure, it should not be overstated. Not only are they, for the most part, only a few hours’ flight away, but commanders operate a tactical bound behind their troops, issuing orders through the communication channels of the day. The relocation of Saleh and his kin has not changed that much.

However, two significant actors are also involved. The first is Ali Muhsin Salih, erstwhile commander of 1st Armored Division and North West Military Region. His Sana’a headquarters has allegedly been turned into a public park, and he himself has been appointed a “Military Adviser” to the president, who has been extensively educated in both Western and Soviet military systems and needs little military advice. It is likely that this is the only possible appointment that would pry Ali Muhsin from his position, since previous attempts to appoint him to roles abroad reportedly foundered on his Salafism and alleged links to jihadis. Muhammad Ali Muhsin—a friend, but no relation, of Ali Muhsin Salih, as well as a long-term member of the Sanhani clique—was also sent out to luxurious pasture in Qatar.

Also appointed abroad is the one of the Al-Ahmar dynasty: Hashim Abdullah Husayn. This is a symbolically important inclusion of a member of the heavily armed forces of the Hashid Tribal Confederation, which have thus far been almost ignored in Yemen’s political rearrangements. While his eldest brother, Sadiq, is the paramount chief of Hashid, and his elder brother Hamid is one of Yemen’s wealthiest and most politically active citizens, Hashim was seen on YouTube directing artillery fire onto loyalist forces in 2011, so a fitting representative of Hashid to send abroad, to reassure the pro-Ali Abdallah Saleh forces (and the almost-forgotten youth) of political balance.

The US—which has the Friends of Yemen lead in security sector reform—has shown itself to have learned from the many mistakes of the previous decade. Not only has it chosen evolution over the kind of revolution it tried in Iraqi SSR, it has also enshrined important measures for democratic oversight of the intelligence services. These are mostly missing in Iraq and Afghanistan, which has allowed Karzai and Maliki to create presidential forces accountable to none but themselves.

While there are risks that some Loyalists may attempt to kick over the traces, these are limited by the political sticks the GCC sponsors hold. This program represents an even, progressive and potentially important step in the subordination of the Yemeni Armed Forces to the Yemeni state. Its success—or otherwise—should be visible within three years, with the first posting of commanders.

As importantly, while this SSR programme may have had US advice and funding, their subtle approach in giving it Yemeni “ownership” is a welcome change from the Neo-Conservatives’ brash attitude. Indeed, it harks back to another era: as T. E. Lawrence wrote, “Better the Arabs do it tolerably than that you do it perfectly. It is their war, and you are to help them, not to win it for them.”

Saloua Raouda Choucair
Waterlens 1969–1971, detail
© Saloua Raouda Choucair Foundation

The four small rooms that hold the Saloua Raouda Choucair retrospective at the Tate Modern truly offer the most surprising and enjoyable experience available in London this summer.

Choucair was born in 1916 and continues to work in her ninety-seventh year, although ill health prevented her from travelling to London for the opening of this landmark show. Choucair—or Raouda, as she was known at the time—studied in Paris after World War II with Fernand Léger, the Cubist legend. Léger had spent the war in exile in the United States.

The return to a broken and defeated France saw a change in Léger’s work, a move away from abstract and architectural pieces that he used to depict social and Left-wing themes to a more figurative style. Photographs from the period show Choucair as a dark-eyed, beautiful woman at ease in his studio, yet when one sees how her own work developed over the next decade, one wonders if she was disappointed by Léger’s late period work. Perhaps she had hoped to be a part of the more challenging art of Léger’s inter-war years. At that time he was a friend of the ultra-Modernist architect Le Corbusier, who made works intended to compete against the futuristic buildings of new cities.

Choucair’s Parisian paintings are delightful, as bright and lovely as any late Cubist paintings. The poster for the Tate’s retrospective is taken from this time: a casual, rather student-y self-portrait of Choucair looking intense. Yet this painting is far from representative of the work in this exhibition: the bulk of the show comes from after her return to Beirut in the 1950s. It is a revelation.

In Lebanon, Choucair developed a new, exclusively abstract body of work. It is unclear whether her decisive turn away from figurative painting was inspired, at least in part, by the traditional Islamic discomfort with representation in art. If so, it is worth noting that no one else in the Middle East was making abstract work at this time: Choucair was a lonely pioneer. Indeed, she did not sell any work at all until she was in her fifties. Two of her series stand out. The first is composed of carved stones that can be stacked in different formations, even moved around at will, inviting the spectator to rework the displays—a revolutionary idea that one would struggle to find in Europe until the 1970s. The second features towering wooden structures, composed from dozens of horizontal shelves holding small, abstract wooden figures. The result is that each tower in some way resembles both a bookcase in a library and, oddly, a page of text inside a book, written in a private, sculptural language. Both these series clearly respond to the art of calligraphy, yet in hitherto unknown and entirely original ways.

By the 1970s, Choucair had extended what might be termed architectural abstraction beyond stone and wood into Perspex and steel, soft nylon and even jets of water. For more than sixty years, she has managed to stay ahead of the international art scene, while remaining entirely unknown within it. This will surely change after a major retrospective at the world’s most-attended art gallery. Credit is due to friends in Beirut who have championed her, to the Tate curators who re-discovered her, and above all to a unique, courageous and—one assumes—determined and driven woman.

“Saloua Raouda Choucair” will be showing at the Tate Modern, London, until October 20.

Pro-Kurdish politicians Sirri Sureyya Onder (3rd L) and Pervin Buldan (6th R) read the statement of jailed Kurdish rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan during a gathering to celebrate Newroz in the southeastern Turkish city of Diyarbakir March 21, 2013. Source: Reuters/Umit Bektas

Recent comments from the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) leader Abdullah Öcalan puzzled groups that have long been allied with his party. In a letter that was read out to crowds gathered for the Kurdish New Year in Diyarbakır a few weeks ago, Öcalan emphasized the role of Islam as forming a strong bond between Kurds and Turks: “Turkish people who know ancient Anatolia as Turkey should know that their coexistence with Kurdish people dates back to a historical agreement of fraternity and solidarity under the flag of Islam.” His proclamations threw off some groups in the Turkish Left and the liberal Left, Armenians and Alevis that sympathized with the PKK and supported its progressive-secular agenda.

Originally founded as a Marxist organization in 1978, the PKK had to revise its ideology in the early 1990s. Like many other Marxist–Leninist organizations in the world, the PKK lost its main source of ideological legitimacy when the Soviet bloc disintegrated and capitalism appeared to have won an absolute victory. Furthermore, Öcalan, as well as others within the PKK leadership, gradually came to the conclusion that Islam was too important for a Kurdish party to ignore, given that many Kurds are devout Muslims.

This shift did not mean that the PKK dropped its secular, progressive discourse, which continued to generate sympathy among Turkish leftist organizations as well as some Western Left and liberal Left academic circles. Rather, it reconciled its secular-nationalist ideology with Islam, hailed as a revolutionary idea by Öcalan in his various writings and speeches. The PKK’s secular allies, which once opted to ignore the stance developed by the PKK on Islam or underestimated it as a conjectural policy, were troubled when they came to understand that Islam is seen as a strategic asset by Öcalan.

Given the fact that the PKK has to compete against Prime Minister Erdoğan’s conservative Justice and Development Party and the extremist Turkish Hezbollah for domination in the Kurdish-majority provinces, it is very logical for the PKK to acknowledge the importance of Islam and act accordingly. In embracing Islam, the PKK may also be able to erase the Turkish public’s opinion of it as an atheist terror organization: the organization could reach wider segments of Turkish society and eventually transform itself into a legitimate political actor in Turkey.

On the other hand, Öcalan’s new discourse will likely alienate some groups among the PKK’s supporters. The Kurdish Alevis and the Kurdish elites living in Europe, with their strong secular tendencies, will not be pleased with the PKK’s embrace of Islam. They may break away from the PKK in order to join other pro-Kurdish organizations, such as the Maoist Communist Party, the Revolutionary People’s Liberation Party–Front, or one of the other Leftist organizations that have accused the PKK of betraying its revolutionary cause and of serving as a tool for imperialism in the Middle East.

Öcalan, who is detained on an island prison in the Marmara Sea, sees the realities of Turkey better than the marginalized extreme Left—and he makes his long-term plans accordingly. In this regard, he recognizes the historic Islamic reality in the Middle East, the need for maintaining good relations with it, and the benefits of exploiting it when and where possible.

Masked Sunni protesters wave Islamist flags while others chant slogans at an anti-government rally in Fallujah, Iraq, Friday, April 26, 2013 (AP Photo)

The pretext was that wanted militants were hiding among the protesters—a charge the protest leaders deny, although there is a history of militant activity in the area. Subsequent unrest killed dozens more and brought the death toll to 215 by Saturday, April 27. With Sunnis enraged, one prominent tribal leader from Anbar province, Ali Al-Hatem, vowed a full-scale armed uprising against the government, daring Shi’ite Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki “to finish what he started.”

Not without some justification, Sunni resentment at the perceived discriminatory policies of the Shi’a-led government has been bubbling away for some time. This led to the launch of a Tahrir Square-type sit-in movement that demanded the release of female prisoners and the repeal of the country’s anti-terror law. But as in Syria, what began as a largely peaceful protest threatens to spiral into a violent and overtly sectarian conflict. Already, the talk is of “toppling” Maliki and creating a tribal army, the so-called Army of Pride and Dignity, to protect Sunni areas.

This threatens to resurrect the insurgency that was supported by the same tribal leaders who are now challenging the Iraqi prime minister. Peaking around 2006, the insurgency did not achieve its stated goal of forcing the US out (or its less-stated goal of recapturing the Iraqi state from the Shi’as), but it did succeed in traumatizing a generation of young Iraqis and turning large swaths of central and western Iraq into the badlands that Al-Qaeda’s Islamic State of Iraq calls home.

It also managed to exacerbate Sunni feelings of marginalization by precluding the emergence of an effective political leadership that could advocate for the Sunni interest in the new Iraq. The April 20 provincial elections are a case in point. Excluding the Kurdistan region, the elections were held in all of Iraq’s provinces except two: Sunni-majority Anbar and Nineveh.

During the election campaign at least fourteen candidates were assassinated and numerous car bombs exploded in what appear to have been coordinated attacks designed to disrupt the vote. Having been denied the right to elect their own representatives, the citizens of Anbar and Nineveh have little recourse but to fall back on the self-appointed tribal leaders whose lack of political judgment has embroiled them in one unwinnable war already.

The Shi’a hold on power in Iraq is now formidable, but with Iran’s proxy in Syria weakening and a shift in the regional balance of power appearing imminent, Sunni leaders sense an opportunity for another showdown with the Shi’as. But while some brag about humbling the “Safavids,” others call for more modest goals: self-governing rights not unlike those of Iraqi Kurdistan.

Under the constitution drawn up after the US-led invasion, each province or group of provinces is entitled to create a federal region if it wins enough votes in a referendum. Predominantly Sunni Salahuddin province is currently pursuing regional status. “Sunnism is our slogan and a region is our goal,” senior cleric Taha Hamed Al-Dulaimi told demonstrators in Anbar in a video on his website. “Do not scatter your demands,” he instructed.

But scatter they shall. All of the candidates assassinated in the lead up to the elections were Sunnis, a number of whom were from the Al-Iraqiya coalition headed by Iyad Allawi, the secular former prime minister. He, more than any other political figure, represents the Sunnis’ most likely prospect of winning a real stake in government. His campaign for next year’s parliamentary elections has been weakened not only by intimidation from militant factions, but by high-level defections to rival coalitions of a more sectarian hue.

For too many Sunni politicians, playing the victimization card has become the only political program they know. It may win them votes, but once in power they lack the competence and collective will to do anything about it. And while some have been chased out of the country for standing up to the prime minister, others have quietly been co-opted with ministerial portfolios and generous government stipends. Many of these individuals will seize on the current troubles not to guide their own community out of danger, but to negotiate better terms for themselves with Maliki.

Even away from the Green Zone bubble, Sunni group solidarity appears shaky. The Awakening Council’s militia—composed of anti-Al-Qaeda Sunni tribesmen in Anbar province—has sided with Maliki and has ordered its co-religionists to “do what it did in 2006.” In other words, to take on and defeat another insurgency.

Regardless of the scope of Sunni goals or the methods they employ to achieve them, the absence of a united and democratically mandated leadership limits the chances for success of a Sunni revolt against the Shi’a order in Iraq. The fear is that it will be a rerun of the 2004–2007 rebellion that ended so disastrously, and this time there will be no US military to blame or to cushion the blow. Defeat will be total and abject, and the stakes could not be any higher.

Protesters loyal to the Shi’ite al-Houthi rebel group burn an effigy of a U.S. aircraft during a demonstration to protest against what they say is U.S. interference in Yemen (REUTERS)

The answer is yes, they could have been captured easily. Almost all the Al-Qaeda suspects killed in Yemen (more than a hundred since 2009) could have been captured, including Anwar Al-Awlaki, who was the most wanted Yemeni-American terrorist before being killed on September 30, 2011, by American drones in Al-Jawf, in the east of the country.

The Yemeni government did not arrest these people—not only because it was afraid of retaliation from their relatives, but also in fear of retaliation from other tribesmen. Tribesmen tend to like and respect extremely religious men like Al-Qaeda members, even though they do not understand their thoughts and ideologies.

Adnan Al-Qadi, a dangerous Al-Qaeda operative and local leader who was killed by US drones late last year, lived openly in his house in Bait Al-Ahmar, Sanhan, the village of ex-president Ali Abdullah Saleh and many other senior officials. That village is less than twenty miles east of the capital, Sana’a, and Qadi was not hiding. Instead, he painted his house with the black flag of Al-Qaeda. Shortly before he was killed, the government asked him to go as a mediator to local Al-Qaeda leaders in Rada’a to negotiate a truce that never happened. Qadi could have been captured easily. Hailing from the Sanhan tribe of former president Saleh, he was a senior military officer, and was receiving his salary from the 1st Armored Division until he died. Now his family receives the salary.

Another example is Hamid Radman, the leader of Al-Qaeda in the mountainous areas of Wesab, who was killed with three other operatives last week. His village, Mathlab, is very close to the headquarters of the local government, and he routinely conferred with local security and police officers. This indicates there was some kind of cooperation between Radman and the local authorities of Wesab, because each side was afraid of the other.

One day in the middle of 2012, about sixteen security troops in two vehicles were detained for hours close to Radman’s village by armed men loyal to him, because Hamid’s men did not know where they were going and why. “Hamid and his men told us—and they are the authority there—that they should know where we are going,” said Mohammed Al-Yafee, who was with the soldiers at the time. The sixteen security men and their vehicles were only released after the most senior security official in Wesab negotiated with Radman, said Yafee.

In July 2012, Hamid Radman, along with more than fifty gunmen, surrounded Al-Dan, the place where the local government officers for Wesab are located. While his men besieged Al-Dan, Radman stormed into a meeting of local government officials with a Kalashnikov, and declared, “We must uproot corruption and establish an Islamic State.”

“We could have easily arrested him without single shot, but no one told us to do so,” said a local security official who knows Radman very well. The official, who asked not to be named because of the sensitivity of the issue, said that the senior security officials in the provincial capital of Dhamar and in the national capital, Sana’a, were afraid of supporters of Radman.

“Radman would always tell me, in a friendly way, that killing a [Yemeni] soldier or soldiers is permissible for the time being, because right now, the soldier is the barrier between us and the big enemy, America,” said the official. “But if the strike comes from the sky, his followers will be confused and not know who to take revenge on—maybe this is what our superiors think.”

Radman, along with three of his fighters, were buried as “martyrs” in their home village on April 18, 2013, after being blasted to pieces in their car, which was completely destroyed by US drones one day before, near Radman’s house. Radman was virtually the absolute ruler of Wesab and neighboring areas, about 125 miles southwest of Sana’a, for more than three years. He was not ruling by force but by the consent of local people, who were looking for a ruler able to solve their daily problems in a place where government services are almost completely non-existent.

In the 1980s, Radman was a communist and was sent to Cuba, where he studied economics for 4 years. He returned to Yemen in 1991. Then he was arrested and sentenced to death for killing one of his cousins, but was released in 1999 because his remaining cousins pardoned him shortly before he was due to be executed. In 2004, he tried to travel to Iraq to fight the Americans, but was seized at the airport and jailed by Yemen’s intelligence service. He was released from prison in 2009, after getting to know many of the Al-Qaeda veterans detained there. Radman returned to his village eager for revenge and full of zeal to establish an “Islamic State.”

“Everybody is sad, everybody is asking, ‘Who will solve our problems now?’” said Ali Abdullah, a laboratory technician in Mathlab’s local hospital. “Hamid was very popular; everyone liked him and respected him as soon as they saw him, let alone if he solved their problems … If he was from Al-Qaeda, then he made the people like Al-Qaeda. He did very well to improve the image of Al-Qaeda for some people here who hate them,” said Ali.

The Yemeni government ignored Hamid and let him do whatever he wanted for years, not only because Wesab is considered remote, mountainous and unimportant, but also because it knew that Wesab became a refuge for Al-Qaeda fighters from volatile areas like Abyan and Shabwah. Al-Qaeda sent tens—if not hundreds—of those injured in battles in Abyan last year to the remote and mountainous area for treatment under the supervision of Radman.

He was not only a local commander of Al-Qaeda; he was the police chief, the judge, the minister of water, education, health and everything else, for the people of Wesab. In contrast, government officials, including the administrative and security chiefs of the region, stay in their home districts and do not show up to work except to collect their salaries before quickly leaving again, according to many residents who were asked why people liked Radman.

Even worse, the low level officials who showed up to work and did their jobs were threatened with being left alone with Radman and his militants.

“One day I argued with the intelligence officer assigned to monitor Radman’s activities, and he was a little bit angry with me, so he said: we will leave you for Radman if you do not listen to me,” said the low-level security official who identified himself only as Yahya. “Everything about Radman was reported to the senior intelligence officials, but they did nothing more than threatening us with this guy.”

Radman’s village of Mathlab is located in the district of Wesab, a series of mountains overlooking the Red Sea. Poverty, ignorance and illiteracy are widespread. Although US drones have been sporadically flying over Wesab for about six months, the local people were surprised by the drone strikes.

“We thought we are not important enough for American drones,” said Abdu Morshid. “To mention our name [Wesab] with drones is better than no mention at all … Killing this man will not solve the problem without solving the development problems of the people, who do not care about Al-Qaeda and care only for having enough to eat.”

A Syriac priest climbs the stairs at the Syriac Orthodox Mor Gabriel monastery, in Turkish southeastern town of Midyat. Source: AFP/Getty Images/Tarik Tinazay

Syriac Orthodox Archbishop Yohanna Ibrahim is all thumbs navigating his way around his new iPhone. This modern device contrasts sharply with the traditional cassock he is wearing, but it helps him stay in touch with his community in Syria and the wider diaspora. After an impromptu hour-long interview in London during what was supposed to be a short coffee visit, he reminds me that I can email him if I need anything more. Then he mumbles that he is sleepy.

Ibrahim is an ordinary man—an ordinary man who believes wholeheartedly in the message that he promotes tirelessly, one of tolerance and unity. Ibrahim is also an advocate of dialogue. At the time of the meeting, in early December, he was optimistic for the newly formed Syrian coalition.

Whoever carried it out, the senseless kidnapping at gunpoint of Ibrahim and the Greek Orthodox Archbishop Boulos Yaziji in the village of Kafr Dael on the outskirts of Aleppo on Monday evening has hit Syria’s Christian community hard. During the country’s chaotic descent into violence, they have leaned heavily on their religious leaders for guidance, strength and assistance due to concern over the future of their community in Syria. False reports circulated by major global news channels that the bishops had been released Tuesday night, has only compounded their turmoil.

In December, Bishop Ibrahim spoke of the rising spate of kidnappings in the city of Aleppo—a devastating development in the city that has been little acknowledged in the Western media. When captured, the bishops were reportedly on a humanitarian mission to release two priests who were kidnapped months ago by an unknown gang. Many Aleppine families, at home or in the diaspora community, have experienced the inexplicable disappearance of at least one relative or former neighbor. Most have never learned the fate of their loved ones. Bishop Ibrahim said he had heard of hundreds of such cases, and in his capacity as a community leader would go from neighborhood to neighborhood offering solace to the families.

The humanitarian work that Ibrahim was undertaking when he was captured was to an extent just another working day. His work required him to travel across Syria as well as around the world frequently. In recent times, this had put him, and others who carried out similar work, in constant threat of danger, although he did not seem fearful and carried out his business as usual.

Ibrahim and Yaziji’s kidnapping could mark a turning point for Syria’s civil war in terms of the treatment of the country’s Christians. The abduction of the men and killing of their driver, who was Ibrahim’s deacon, marks the first time such senior Christian figures have been targeted in Syria’s civil war. Significantly, Boulos Yaziji’s brother is the recently enthroned John Yaziji, who leads the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Antioch and All The East, the largest Arab Christian Church in the Middle East. If it should transpire that the kidnappers were affiliated with a known rebel group, it could seriously hurt the reputation of the opposition movement.

There was widespread condemnation of the kidnapping from Lebanon’s Sunni and Shi’ite religious leaders, including the grand mufti, Sheikh Mohammad Rashid Qabbani, who said, “We denounce [acts] that harm any religious authority figure regardless to which sect he belongs.” George Sabra, who was assigned on Monday as the interim head of the Syrian National Coalition, is reportedly working to secure the release of the bishops.

The Antiochian Chritian Orthodox Diocese issued a statement on Tuesday saying that their release had not yet taken place. Members of the community close to Ibrahim stress that no contact has yet been made with the bishops or with the kidnappers.

Ibrahim is an ordinary man. Yet there is something extraordinary about how he has been facing the crisis in his homeland. There remains an unwavering optimism in his perspective on the conflict. On that wintry day in London five months ago Ibrahim ended the conversation on a hopeful note, “as a man of God or as a religious leader I see that still at the end of this tunnel there is light.”