The Middle East: Democracies or More Terrorism?

By Michael B. Kraft

The demonstrations shaking Arab governments raise questions not only about the political future of Tunisia, Egypt and possibly Jordan and Yemen but also the specter
of increased future terrorism that could trigger U.S. sanctions.

I describe the background and the possible impact on Lebanon, a potential Palestinian state and perhaps other governments, in this opinion piece on CNN’s web site today.

http://www.cnn.com/2011/OPINION/02/03/kraft.palestine.lebanon/index.html

In Lebanon, Hezbollah, designated under U.S. law as a terrorist organization since 1997, apparently is in the process of taking over the government via a Hezbollah-backed Prime Minister. The “state within a state” fired large numbers of rockets against Israel in the 2006 conflict and, with Iran’s help, has built up a huge arsenal of thousands of missiles. Many are long range, capable of reaching Israel’s cities.

The group also has taken Americans hostages in the 1980’sand attacked targets as far as way as Argentina. Will a Hezbollah dominated government continue to engage in terrorist actions as well as giving sanctuary to other terrorists? If so, it runs the risk of being placed on the U.S. government’s terrorism list, which means cutting off foreign assistance and other sanctions.

Egypt has been the victim of terrorist attacks and the Mubarak government has tried, not entirely successfully, to prevent the smuggling of more missiles and weapons to Hamas which took control of Gaza after gun battles against the Palestinian Authority. It remains to be seen what kind of role the Muslim Brotherhood will play and whether the non-violence profile it adopted in recent years was a matter of pragmatism --because of the Mubarak regime’s police and prisons-- or principle.

Jordan, like Egypt has done a good job of keeping the peace and preventing terrorists from using its territory for attacks on Israel. It also has been a target of militant Islamic fundamentalists. King Abdullah is trying to stay ahead of the wave of public unrest by replacing his cabinet. But if he loses control, and Islamic fundamentalist militants take over, that country could join Lebanon and Gaza in becoming a terrorist base. That would be a real tragedy irony as Jordan has taken a strong stance against terrorism and has even been helping train security forces from Iraq.