Bahrain

Reading selections for the weekend of June 24, 2016.

Brandon Valeriano is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Glasgow, and author of Cyber War versus Cyber Realities on Oxford University Press. Allison Pytlak is a policy and advocacy specialist at Control Arms. Donald Trump calls for “closing that Internet up” due to the rise of Islamic extremism, Hillary Clinton says the same thing, just a bit more diplomatically, asking the great disrupters to go to work disrupting the so-called Islamic State. Given that it is impossible to shut down the Internet in the United States, even if Russian submarines were to cut transatlantic cables, this move by Trump to enter the arena of information security demonstrates one of the most pernicious challenges in our digital era: the rise of cyber repression. Even the New York Times is exploring challenging the First Amendment in the age of digital extremism, which suggests Trump’s ideas are not at all fringe. While the actions of the Islamic State and other malicious actors online pose security problems, especially in their ability help recruit and promote offensive ideologies, the rush to react to this threat may harm civil liberties, or as Trump says “oh freedom of speech, freedom of speech.” The great hope of the Internet as a path to digital freedom has quickly given way to the reality of the structural control imposed by states on activists in cyberspace. The danger posed by digital threats is not severe enough to warrant a challenge the freedoms and liberties inherent in Western political ideologies. There has been a precipitous rise in malicious hacking but it is not exhibited between states, rather it is from within them by governments seeking to maintain control over their populations. There is increasing utilization of cyber technology to silence dissent, often in direct contradiction with human rights law. The dramatic rise of digital control by the state is a development that has been relatively overlooked by both mainstream media and the United Nations compared to the concern exhibited for the as of yet mythical cyberwar. The latest Citizen Lab report exposes the efforts of an espionage team named Packrat to silence dissent in Ecuador, Venezuela, and Argentina. The group used malware, phishing and disinformation, even going so far as to threaten an investigator looking into their activities. The scope, funding, and targets suggest this group is either directed or serves as a proxy for state interests. The story of Hacking Team, which made headlines earlier this year, also illustrates the ability of governments to use malicious code to target activists. Based in Italy, Hacking Team is an information technology company that sells intrusion and surveillance capabilities to governments, law enforcement agencies, and corporations. While it claims to not sell to governments with poor human rights records, evidence from a counter hack points to the contrary. Hacking Team software was found on the office computers of Mamfakinch, an award-winning Moroccan news website that is critical of the Moroccan government. The Hacking Team’s products have also surfaced in Ethiopia, a country notorious for its repression and strict governmental control over all channels of communications, as well as in Sudan, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia. Digital tools clearly have as much potential for harm as good because governments, with their many resources, can leverage these tools to suppress dissent as described. As well, the ability of social media to facilitate rapid organization or protest, or to share video or photo footage is tremendous but not foolproof. Governments have been known to respond to digitally organized protests with traditional weapons. For example, agents of the Thai government killed dozens of protesters after the Red Shirt uprising, which was coordinated largely via Twitter. There are similar examples from Iran and Belarus. This kind of digital repression may not seem as dire, dramatic, or tragic as other crimes that occur regularly against civilians, but it does constitute a human rights violation. This is largely based in Article 19 of the International Convention on Civil and Political Rights guarantees the “freedom to seek, receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds, regardless of frontiers, either orally, in writing or in print, in the form of art, or through any other media of his choice.” The question then is, what must be done to help activism flourish and protect civil liberties? The first step should be collect better data to obtain a realistic picture of how and when cyber repression happens. Valeriano and Maness catalog attacks between states but now the focus must shift towards collecting data on domestic attacks perpetrated by states and their proxies. Data collection should start with defining a list of actions that constitute cyber repression, the perpetrator, target, degree of severity, goal of operation, and method of attack. This goes beyond Freedom on the Net’s ranking of countries based on Internet openness or the former OpenNet Initiative’s measuring of information controls, instead we must catalog specific abuses and methods. Once this information is collected, like any human rights abuse, action can be taken. Parties cannot be credibly named and shamed without evidence. Repression by digital means deserves attention and action. Our future is not one of constant cyber war between countries, tracing dots as they bounce around the digital map between countries, but rather one of digital violence and repression directed at both internal and external enemies. To address digital repression, we first need better awareness of the extent of the problem, followed by actions seeking to end the harm. This is a call for a control over the digital arms of repressive regimes, and the need to construct a digital society that even Russia, China, and the United States could agree to.

This article was originally published here on Fortune.com on Wednesday, January 6, 2016.   Earlier this week, Saudi Arabia cut off diplomatic ties with Iran after authorities executed a popular Shiite cleric. Anyone watching this meltdown unfold has every reason to think of worse-case scenarios, as it will only deepen the Middle East’s widening sectarian divide, intensify the region’s multiple conflicts, and set back efforts to defeat the Islamic State and end the bloodshed in Syria.   For years, the Middle East has been defined by political instability, and the execution of Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr and subsequent attack on the Saudi embassy in Teheran is only the most recent episode in a longstanding rivalry between the two powers dominating opposite shores of the Gulf — the world’s most important oil chokehold through which 30% of global oil and liquefied natural gas flows. Each claims to be the face of the true and authentic variant of Islam. Saudi Arabia, custodian of Islam’s two leading holy places in Mecca and Medina, sees in the Islamic Republic of Iran a revolutionary Shiite Persian power expanding its reach into the Sunni Arab heartland. Having seen Tehran spread its influence into Iraq, Lebanon, Yemen, and Syria, the Saudis, led by a new and more activist king, are sending a strong message to the world that it will not sit by passively. The most immediate casualty of intensified Saudi-Iranian tensions will be the recently launched U.S.-led diplomatic effort to end the horrific Syrian war that has already claimed more than 250,000 dead. Iranian forces are fighting and dying in Syria to preserve president Bashar al Assad’s regime, while Saudi Arabia is actively backing rebels seeking to topple the dictator. Just getting the Iranian and Saudi foreign ministers into the same room last month was touted as a major accomplishment by Secretary of State John Kerry. While Iran and Saudi Arabia profess a desire to cooperate diplomatically, both countries are now sure to double down their support for the opposing sides in Syria’s war. The Syrian opposition, meanwhile, has urged all Arab countries to break relations with Tehran. A second casualty of Iran’s strained relations with Saudi Arabia is likely to be the regional effort to combat the so-called Islamic State, or Daesh, that currently occupies a large swath of territory across Iraq and Syria. While the United States and Europe, reeling from Islamist terrorism, see defeating Daesh as the paramount objective in the Middle East, this sense of priority is not shared by many Arab allies within the anti-Daesh coalition. That a number of Gulf states have followed Saudi Arabia’s lead and suspended relations with Tehran reflects the fact that they see Shiite Iran, not the Sunni Islamists in Daesh, as their paramount enemy.   Continue reading on Fortune.com  

Georgia Travers considers the implications of rumors about Sultan Qaboos’ health on Omani political society. Faten Bushehri assesses the state of Bahrain on the eve of its parliamentary elections. Roberto Iannuzzi argues that the dangers facing Saudi Arabia’s political elite are their own doing.

David Roberts, lecturer in the Defence Studies Department at King’s College London, based at the Joaan Bin Jassim Staff College in Qatar, offers expert insight into the recent tensions among the major GCC states. “I love all the countries of the Gulf, and they all love me.” With this less than subtle statement, Yusuf al-Qaradawi, the vocal Qatar-based Muslim Brotherhood scholar tried to do his part to repair regional relations in the Gulf that have badly frayed in recent weeks. Long-brewing discontent erupted in early March with the unprecedented withdrawal of the Saudi, Emirati, and Bahraini ambassadors from Qatar. Subsequent mediation from Kuwait’s Emir has led the protagonists to the cusp of a modus vivendi, and a vague document has been agreed upon. But core differences remain. Qatar is alone in the region in providing financial, material, and rhetorical support for popular governance around the Middle East. It can do this because its domestic security is strong and, without internal restrictions to speak of such as a strong Parliament, its elite is unusually unconstrained and capable of pursuing unusual foreign policy tangents such as assiduously supporting the new movements in the wake of the Arab Spring. Such aid, which has been frequently channeled through Brotherhood connections, resonated favorably across much of the region. This allowed Qatar to play an important role in emerging popular revolts, keeping the autocratic monarchy with no meaningful elections on the right side of wider public opinion, while also laying the foundations for new, potentially close regional relations. Qatar’s Gulf neighbors, however, without as pliant a domestic context and driven by the intention of thwarting new Islamist actors, seek the firm reinstatement of the regional status quo ante. In November 2013, Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah presented Qatar’s new, 33-year-old Emir – a man one-third his age – with a document demanding a total reorientation of Qatar’s foreign policy under the guise of promoting regional security. In the face of conflicting interests between Saudi and Qatar, this was Abdullah’s attempt to cow Qatar and get its renegade regional foreign policy under control; something he had tried but failed to do for decades with Tamim’s father, Hamad. Tamim demurred, but  Abdullah was nevertheless led to believe that the Emir had acquiesced to the Saudi leader’s way of thinking. Yet Qatar’s rhetorical support of the Brotherhood continued and Qaradawi stoked ire across the region in early 2014. In January he accused Saudi Arabia’s leaders of not believing in sharia law and he also declared that the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has “always been against Islamic rule” prompting its foreign ministry to summon the Qatari ambassador to explain the lack of an official denunciation or apology. In March of this year, Qatari representatives facilitated the release of thirteen Greek Orthodox nuns held in Syria since in December 2012 with – according to some reports – a ransom of $67 million. From the Saudi perspective this was a clear example of Qatar adversely intervening in the conflict and further fermenting a petri dish in which jihadi groups grow, prosper, and strengthen. Saudi authorities also see Qatar fermenting similar problems in Saudi’s own backyard in Yemen where Doha stands accused of channeling its support through the Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated Al Islah party. Despite their own material and financial support for suspect groups in such conflicts, Riyadh clearly believes that Qatari actions encourage jihadism, which represents a threat to Saudi security. Given the bitter Saudi experience with domestic terrorism in the mid-2000s and its large, relatively porous borders with Yemen and Iraq, fears are growing in the Saudi elite of the impact or ‘blowback’ of returning, more radicalized, and battle-tested jihadis. This is the reason that the remit of Minister of the Interior Muhammed bin Nayef has recently been extended to cover Syria and Yemen and why the Saudi leadership issued a decree in February making it illegal for their citizens to fight in regional conflicts. The withdrawal of the ambassadors from Doha had little practical effect. Gulf diplomacy is conducted at a much higher level, but it was a public and unprecedented rebuke. Leaks to the press about the potential Saudi escalation including the cancellation of an impending airline deal by Qatar Airways in Saudi Arabia or potentially closing the land border to Qatar, added to a sense of near naked extortion. The nature of the mooted compromise agreement that the Kuwaitis hammered out does not augur well for long-term stability. The agreement is thought to demand that Qatar curtails funding for a range of media organizations in the Middle East that are critical of the policies of the Gulf States; expels Brotherhood members currently living in Doha; halts its support of the Brotherhood and the Houthis in Yemen; and stops naturalizing Gulf citizens fleeing states as opposition members or Islamists. Though Qatar has, according to reports, now agreed to implement these statutes, it is difficult to see how Doha could possibly do so without fundamentally shifting its foreign policy, something it is most unlikely to do. Since the late 1950s Qatar has provided various kinds of support for the Brotherhood. Even without a meaningful religiously based commonality – Qatar being theoretically closer, ironically, to the Saudi interpretation of Islam – Qatar often found Brotherhood members both available and sufficiently qualified to staff its emerging bureaucracies. This filled a basic need, while also allowing the Qataris to diversify away any existing dependency on Saudi Arabia in such matters. The Brothers, who settled in Qatar over the decades, whether notable ideologues like Qaradawi or those with the loosest of affiliation to the group, found Doha to be a safe and secure location. These relationships came into their own during the Arab Spring, when their potential for influence increased, for a time at least. Though the Brotherhood is once more deeply repressed across much of the region and should never be seen as a group in “Qatar’s pocket,” there is an unusually deep connection that has been cultivated over decades. Qatar enjoys this relationship because neither the Brotherhood nor any similar groups poses a challenge to the country. Indeed, the local Brotherhood branch disbanded itself in 1999. Additionally, Qatari society is so small and close-knit, and the socioeconomic bargain so strong, that the ruling elites feel entirely and understandably comfortable supporting a group that offers an alternative arrangement of government. Saudi Arabia, however, does face a challenge from the Brothers in two ways. Firstly, the Brotherhood offers a competing form of Islamic government, one that was realized for a time in Egypt and that directly challenges Saudi Arabia as the beacon of Islamic governance. Secondly, Saudi Arabia faces politicized Islam as an oppositional force: Discord throughout the Kingdom could be channeled by the Brotherhood and used to confront the royal family. The UAE has similar fears, stemming from the disparities in wealth between Abu Dhabi and Dubai and the northern Emirates. The government also insists that it has rooted out dozens of Brothers who were planning to disrupt the status quo. Equally, the UAE’s de facto leader, Mohammad bin Zayed, is known to have a deep distrust and dislike for the group that directly shapes the state’s policy. Given that Saudi Arabia and the UAE have recently labeled the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist group, there is no turning back the clock; their antipathy is now institutionalized state policy. In the aftermath of the ambassadorial withdrawal, dozens of Qataris changed their Twitter profile pictures to photos of the Emir.  Qataris - even those who do not support the Brotherhood – were clearly signaling that they would not be  bullied into changing their policy. So while Qatar could theoretically change tack and join the bandwagon, such an about-face would be seen as a capitulation and would be received poorly back in Doha. Also, aside from the legacy of the policy toward the Brotherhood in Qatar, if there has been a central theme in the country’s foreign policy in the last twenty-five years it has been one of unambiguously asserting Qatar’s independence from Saudi Arabia. Reasonable accommodation has been made in the past, such as in 2008 when Qatar controlled to a greater degree Al Jazeera coverage of Saudi Arabia to ensure the return of the Saudi ambassador to Doha after a six year absence, but the current proposals seek strategic change. Part of the mooted accord attempting to resolve this latest crisis hints that once more Al Jazeera’s coverage might be on the table and Qaradawi is, for the time being at least, cooperating by toning down his rhetoric. But without precisely the kind of meaningful change that Qatar cannot undertake, relations seem set for an extended cold snap, punctuated by personally-led spurts of anger, potentially peripatetically lurching relations from one mini-crisis to the next.