Courcy's Future Threats - April 2013

An interesting phenomenon can be observed, wherein various groups opposed to ‘the West’ are coming together in a marriage of convenience to further their own objectives. How these factions define their enemy is diverse, as are their goals, but for now at least they have a common cause. The cause is to harm their nominal enemy, most notably the US. The groups in question comprise factions from radical Islam and the extreme left.

Part I of this discussion will focus on how and why these groups are coming together, and the potential for harm that the coalescence represents. Part II will consider the inevitable split between these unnatural bedfellows, and why the fallout from the divorce could be as dangerous as the initial conjoining.

Alliances (and here we are looking at a very broad definition of alliance – from codified pacts to demonstrated friendships) can be observed at various different levels. The most publicly visible alliances are those at state level. Friendships and cooperation can be seen between Iran and North Korea, and between Iran and Venezuela. Tehran has also made attempts to forge friendships with other leftist regimes in Latin America in Bolivia, Ecuador and Nicaragua. Cold-War thinking would suggest that these alliances represent the most pressing strategic threat, but more recent experience shows that while those risks need to be addressed there are other threats that could be of more immediate concern. Nevertheless, it is important to monitor the development of state level alliances, as these can be instrumental in the facilitation of alliances between non-state actors. This is especially the case where one or more of the non-state actors is supported or funded by a state, or where a host state chooses to turn a blind eye to its activities.

The left and religion

The hard left has, throughout history, had a difficult and often acrimonious relationship with religion. In the Soviet Union it was state policy to eliminate all traces of religion, and the Muslim populations of Central Asia and the Caucuses in particular were targeted. Ulema and imams were imprisoned and executed, mosques were closed, and various Muslim populations were subject to mass deportations.

The left’s animosity towards religion continued until the end of the Cold War, and then everything changed. Suddenly, the end of communist rule in some of its biggest strongholds shook up the system and groups from the radical left who claimed that pure socialism was the best path to take found that with the diminishing in importance of class struggle they had lost their raison d’etre. As such they had to regroup and find a new focus; for the most part they have chosen culture and identity as the anchors around which they can create a new rhetoric. By championing causes such as anti-globalisation the perceived enemy becomes the same as for many other aggrieved groups.

The trouble is, after a long period of deliberately divisive policies focused on ‘them and us’ the Left as a social movement has found it difficult to generate support among populations that during the Cold War were definitely considered as ‘them’. To overcome this, leaders within leftist movements, both at state and non-state level, have constructed a new narrative to allow their message to appeal to a wider audience. They now claim that true Marxist-Leninist ideology has no problem with religion, specifically Islam, and that it was only the corruption of Stalinism that led to the attempts to destroy all religion. As Dave Crouch says in his 2006 article The Bolsheviks and Islam:

"The Islamic veil was not an issue for the Bolsheviks under Lenin. The mass assault on the veil was launched in 1927 by Russian chauvinists and Stalinists…so in standing up for the rights of Muslim women to wear hijab in Europe today, marching alongside Muslims against the occupation of Iraq, Palestine and Afghanistan, defending the right of Muslims to oppose those occupations by force, and joining with the left-wing Muslims in united front coalitions such as Respect, socialists are upholding a tradition that goes back to Lenin and Trotsky."

Leftist movements have historical precedent for the forming of alliances with groups that do not share their exact beliefs, but in the past it was usually with factions that at least had some overlap, such as between communist and socialist groups. It is only in more recent times that link-ups can be observed with fundamentalist religious groups.

• Selective memory: “Die Religion...ist das Opium des Volkes”

It is worth noting that in adopting their new position, Leftist leaders have been highly selective in the parts of Marxist-Leninist ideology on which they wish to fall back.

Karl Marx, an extract from the introduction to A Contribution to the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right. Although the full work was never published the introduction appeared in Marx’ own journal Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücher in 1844.

“Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.

“The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness. To call on them to give up their illusions about their condition is to call on them to give up a condition that requires illusions. The criticism of religion is, therefore, in embryo, the criticism of that vale of tears of which religion is the halo.

“Criticism has plucked the imaginary flowers on the chain not in order that man shall continue to bear that chain without fantasy or consolation, but so that he shall throw off the chain and pluck the living flower”

Vladimir Lenin, speaking in Novaya Zhizn in 1905 (drawing on Marx).

“Religion is one of the forms of spiritual oppression which everywhere weighs down heavily upon the masses of the people, over burdened by their perpetual work for others, by want and isolation. Impotence of the exploited classes in their struggle against the exploiters just as inevitably gives rise to the belief in a better life after death as impotence of the savage in his battle with nature gives rise to belief in gods, devils, miracles, and the like. Those who toil and live in want all their lives are taught by religion to be submissive and patient while here on earth, and to take comfort in the hope of a heavenly reward. But those who live by the labour of others are taught by religion to practise charity while on earth, thus offering them a very cheap way of justifying their entire existence as exploiters and selling them at a moderate price tickets to well-being in heaven. Religion is opium for the people. Religion is a sort of spiritual booze, in which the slaves of capital drown their human image, their demand for a life more or less worthy of man.”

Islamists and alliances

We need not delve far into history to examine the tactics of radical Islamist groups. Recent conflicts have been notable for the alliances formed by Islamist factions with each other, and with local pressure groups. In Mali, for example, Islamist groups formed alliances with other similar groups, and with separatist organisations with very different goals, to further their own agenda.

The main separatist group was the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA). To create a force large and powerful enough to meet its objectives the MNLA formed an alliance with other organisations, allowing it to swell its ranks. The groups it joined with were Ansar Dine (which translates as ‘Helpers of the Way’, or ‘Defenders of the Faith’) and the Movement for Unity and Jihad in West Africa (MUJAO). Contingents from Boko Haram and Al-Shabaab are also known to have assisted the separatists.

Joining with the MNLA separatists afforded the Islamist groups an opportunity to further their own causes, and this is the approach we can expect them to take with Leftist groups.

In fact, there is a notable precedent for radical Islam to form an alliance with the Left, and one which has laid the foundation for Tehran’s friendships with leftist regimes. The 1979 revolution in Iran was achieved by the Islamic factions with considerable help from the country’s communists. The Tudeh Party of Iran (The Party of the Iranian Masses) and the Communist Party of Iran suffered under the Shah, and so threw their lot in with the Islamists.

However, swiftly after the revolution prominent members of the Left were arrested, tortured and killed by the new regime, and the Left has now been all but eliminated; only parties that do not oppose strict religious governance may participate in elections. As will be discussed in part II, events in Iran can be seen as part of a pattern.

There have been other noteworthy alliances. By referring to the Israel/Palestine conflict as an example of US imperialism a common cause, and enemy, was defined which allowed the coming together of leftist and Islamist groups. In Palestine itself links have been formed between Hamas and the Revolutionary Palestinian Communist Party and, as has been noted by Karagiannis and McCauley in Terrorism & Political Violence, groups from across the Middle-East, Europe and the Americas have come together at several conferences in Cairo over the last decade to discuss ways to fight globalisation and imperialism – not so subtle code for the US and its allies.

What the above mentioned examples demonstrate is that alliances have and are being formed between leftist and radical Islamic actors at all levels, within countries and internationally.

Benefits

Potential alliances that are of most concern to the US are between radical Islamist groups and ostensibly left-wing actors in Latin America. These link-ups could provide all groups with significant benefits.

For Islamist groups, such as Al-Qaeda or Hezbollah, forming pacts with organisations in Latin America could provide a new territory to hide and train in, and more importantly it could provide access to tested routes for covertly smuggling materials and people into the US.

The appeal of new lands in which to train and hide is clear. There is no appetite in the US for the deployment of troops to yet another country in pursuit of Al-Qaeda. If an Islamist terror organisation was found to be setting up a new base in a Latin American country the US would be able to attempt to apply pressure though economic and diplomatic means, but a military deployment would be a hard political sell.

An alliance may also be useful for leftist organisations. Many groups are coming under pressure from government and regional security forces, whose principal goal is to stem the production and flow of narcotics. An influx of fresh soldiers would be a boon to the groups who use the drug trade as their main source of income. An alliance with another organisation also represents a link-up with people with additional sources of money and resources, such as weapons.

Symmetry

The end of the Cold War led to leftist groups losing their raison d’etre. They had to redefine what they stood for, and reach out to other groups to bolster their position in order to remain relevant. The Arab Spring can be seen as anther paradigm shifting event wherein some Islamist groups, who previously stated that the only way to throw off the yoke of oppression was to follow their rules, have also lost their raison d’etre.

Ceasing to be relevant is a death knell for a terrorist organisation – it was an important factor in the crumbling of the various violent groups (both Republican and Unionist) in Northern Ireland for example. In the case of Islamist groups, the discovery by populations across the Middle East and North Africa that they did not need to subscribe to the Al-Qaeda narrative to force a change in leadership means that Islamist groups will have to evolve to survive.

Forming alliances with other organisations is already a recognised tactic for Islamist groups, and joining with the leftist groups in Latin America could represent the opportunity they need to remain a threat to the US.