50 Years After the Six-Day War

03/21/17 • 46 min

Jacob Shapiro and Kamran Bokhari discuss the geopolitical importance of the 1967 Arab-Israeli War, and whether the realities it created will define the future. Sign up for free updates on topics like this! Go here: hubs.ly/H06mXwR0

TRANSCRIPT:

JS: Hello everyone and welcome to another Geopolitical Futures podcast. My name is Jacob Shapiro, I am the director of analysis for Geopolitical Futures and I am joined again this week by Kamran Bokhari, who is our senior analyst, welcome Kamran.

KB: Thanks for having me, Jacob.

JS: I just want to apologize to our listeners, I know that we didn’t manage to get a podcast out last week, so we’re going to try and get two out this week. In general, we are going to try to stick to one a week, so we appreciate you guys bearing with us as we go along.

Last time we talked, Kamran, we talked about the Islamic State and we talked about the Islamic State’s origins and its futures. And one of the things I think is interesting right now is that the Middle East is really in a state of flux. The balance of power in the Middle East is changing. We can see it changing all the time. One of the things we are chronicling in our writing is how the balance of power in the Middle East is changing all the time. You brought up to us when we were thinking about what to talk about today, that we’re coming up on the 50th anniversary of the 1967 war between Israel and Egypt, Syria, Jordan, and also Lebanon and Iraq had some token forces in there, but really it was between Israel and Jordan, Syria and Egypt. The 50th anniversary is coming up in June. How about you lay out for our readers why you think this is such an important anniversary to note?

KB: I think 50 years is a good point in time to go back and review and measure just how things have unfolded in the region. And 1967 is particularly important because it really shaped the way the region has unfolded. It was a pivotal moment. Israel, as a result of that war, its massive victory over three Arab states, really established it as a military power in the region. And it was only 19 years old, Israel was only 19 years old when that war happened. And at the time, no one could’ve foreseen that Israel would be able to defend itself against three major Arab powers, at least they were perceived as major Arab powers. And the whole perception of Arab strength was essentially laid bare. The image of the Arabs was tarnished. I mean the fact that in the collective Arab memory, June 5, 1967, is seen as Yawm al-Naksa, which is loosely defined or translated as the day of setback, although ‘naksa’ in Arabic is far more, if you will, stronger than just the word ‘setback’ as we know it in English, but nonetheless, it left a deep imprint on the Arab world and established that the Arab world was very much hollow and it could not impose a military solution on Israel.

JS: Kamran, I think this was one of the things you brought up last week that was interesting, which was when we were talking about the Islamic State and we were talking about the rise of radical jihadist Islam as a major ideology in the region, you pointed towards this moment as the moment at which the political ideology of the time, which was secular nationalism, Arab nationalism – in 1967 Egypt was still known as the United Arab Republic technically, right, which is an ode to the short-lived entity that existed when Egypt and Syria were part of the same republic from 1958 to 1961. So you sort of pointed out last week just how important this moment was in history and how it really defined how the Arab world was going to move forward. It amounted to the failure of Nasserism and in some ways, it was the moment that Egypt abdicated leadership in the Arab world, wouldn’t you say?

KB: Absolutely, and I think that it was forced to do that. I think that nobody could argue and nobody could sustain the image of this leadership role that Egypt had projected, that it was the leader of Arab nationalism, the Arab soul, the Arab world. When the Egyptian Air Force was destroyed in a matter of hours on the fifth of June, you couldn’t make that argument anymore. And it was essentially the beginning of the end of the Nasser regime, at least Nasserite Egypt – though some would argue that we are still living in the legacy of Nasserite Egypt – but Nasser himself didn’t live too long after that. He died in 1970, and that really closed that chapter of Arab nationalism, but it also demonstrated that the Arab states, and here we are talking about Egypt, I mean Egypt is the heart of the Arab world given it is the largest Arab state by population, any type of cultural renaissance, new ideologies that take shape in Egypt, in Cairo particularly, and then disseminate to the rest of the Arab world. So that was the status of Egypt. ...

TRANSCRIPT:

KB: Thanks for having me, Jacob.

Previous Episode

The Islamic State: Origins and Future

Kamran Bokhari and Jacob L. Shapiro discuss where IS came from, the history and politics of radical Islam, and what happens if IS is defeated in Raqqa. Sign up for free updates on topics like this! Go here: hubs.ly/H06mXwR0

TRANSCRIPT:

JS: Hello, my name is Jacob Shapiro, I’m broadcasting today from Avignon, in the south of France. I’m joined by Kamran Bokhari, who I believe is in Washington, D.C. Is that right Kamran?

KB: Yes I am.

JS: I’m joined by Kamran Bokhari who is our senior analyst and who focuses on the Middle East, and we’re going to be talking a little bit about ISIS. Thanks for joining us Kamran.

KB: Pleasure to be here.

JS: So, Kamran, I thought instead of talking about every single battle and every single report that seems to indicate ISIS is imminently falling, we might take a broader look at the subject for our listeners. So, how about we just start with a rather broad question – tell me about how ISIS started. How did ISIS come to be in the middle of Syria and Iraq?

KB: Well if you recall, Jacob, this happened in the wake of regime change, or regime collapse, in Iraq, when the United States invaded Iraq in 2003, toppled the Saddam government and has since been unable to form a viable state. And it was not just the lack of a state, but it also brought to the fore forces that were until then very much contained under the autocratic leadership of the Baathist regime.

And so what we had was the disenfranchisement of the Sunnis, the rise of the Shiites and of course the rise of the Kurds, in the form of regional autonomy. ISIS did not exist, in fact, there were hardly any Islamist groups of any shade in Iraq, but in war, especially when you have the sectarian problem in the Middle East where the Sunnis and the Shia are struggling with one another – yes, the Sunni government came down, but it’s not like the Shiites were able to establish their own government.

There was a window of opportunity in which the founders of ISIS, particularly Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who founded what used to be called al-Qaida in Iraq, laid the foundation for ISIS. And as the years rolled on, ISIS continued to gain strength from the conflict that was brewing. It was a complex conflict. There were Shiites fighting Shiites, Shiites fighting Sunnis, Sunnis fighting Kurds and Sunnis fighting the United States. So in that complex warlike scenario, that’s where we find the birth of ISIS.

JS: Yes, well, as usual in the Middle East, everybody is fighting everybody and it’s all complicated. But so there’s a lot there to unpack. So how about we start with this: You mentioned that the original name of ISIS was al-Qaida in Iraq and you also said that ISIS began, or really, its generation point came in 2003 after the U.S. invasion of Iraq. How about we go back a little step further, and can you talk about the relationship between al-Qaida and between ISIS and what the relationship was and how it’s developed?

KB: If we go back to the aftermath of 9/11 and after the United States invaded Afghanistan and destroyed the infrastructure of al-Qaida, disrupted its operations, forcing al-Qaida, the original organization, to disperse and relocate largely in northwestern Pakistan. Al-Qaida had basically very little power projection capability at that point. I’m talking between 2001 and 2003. And at that point in time, it seemed like al-Qaida’s purpose for staging the 9/11 attacks, which was to bait the United States into militarily acting in a very large way in the Middle East, in the heart of the Muslim world, that didn’t succeed.

The United States sent in a small force, largely special operations forces and intelligence operatives and later NATO forces came in, but originally it was Afghan forces on the ground who toppled the Taliban regime. That didn’t produce the kind of effect that al-Qaida was hoping for. But then when the United States invaded Iraq, that was an opportunity. But al-Qaida didn’t have any horses in this race. Al-Qaida could not reach Iraq. But Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who ran his own jihadist training camp in Afghanistan pre-9/11, was able to make his way from Afghanistan between 2001, and by the time the United States invaded Iraq in the spring of 2003, he had set up his shop in the Sunni areas in northern Iraq. And he was able to take advantage of that vacuum that was created with the fall of the Saddam regime and he began an insurgency.

But at that point in time his group used to be called something like Jama’at al-Tawhid wal-Jihad and it wasn’t even called al-Qaida. But this individual and this outfit were on the ground, al-Qaida was at a distance. Both needed each other.

Zarqawi’s outfit was not getting the kind of coverage or the kind of support, financially or otherwise, because i...

Next Episode

April Fools’ Special: Geopolitics and Game of Thrones

GPF discusses what the novels-turned-hit-TV show tell us about geopolitics and apply GPF's methodology to the Game of Thrones universe. Read "The Geopolitics of Ice and Fire" here: hubs.ly/H06X1KN0

TRANSCRIPT:

JS: Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of Geopolitical Futures Podcast. I am joined today by our marketing director, Sam Dube. Welcome, Sam.

SD: Welcome, thank you for having me.

JS: So we are doing something a little bit different for today. This will be publishing on April Fools’ and it’s going to accompany a special edition piece that we’re doing for April Fools’ on “Game of Thrones,” which has turned into a hit HBO series. Before it was an HBO series, it was a series of fantasy novels by George R.R. Martin. I know that some of our listeners will be completely uninterested in this, and for that, I apologize and you can just tune in next week for our regular turn at geopolitics.

But I actually think that “Game of Thrones” itself is an interesting laboratory for thinking about geopolitics, and I think that the level of interest that it has spawned, particularly in the United States, but not just in the United States, is also interesting to talk about from a geopolitical perspective. And since it was April Fools’, we wanted to have a little fun, so that’s what we’re going to do today. And Sam is joining me because she is a real fan and she is a true fan. She’s been reading all the books for a long time. I am just somebody who has come a little late to the party and has been watching the television show. So Sam, thank you for lending us your expertise.

I want to jump right into it, and people can read the piece that we wrote and stuff like that. But what I want to start off with rather than the actual content of “Game of Thrones” itself is a discussion of why you like it and why you think people are so drawn to it. I have my own answer, but maybe you can start us off by explaining to the audience why this is something that you gravitated to.

SD: Well sure. I’ve always been a fan of fantasy and in general those sorts of novels. I am also a big reader, so having something with a lot to sink my teeth into was really attractive. But what really kept me into the novels is the number of characters that there are, how dynamic they are and how they change over time. Normally with a novel or with a TV show, there’s one main character and you kind of follow them all the way through and you get one perspective.

But this is such a multi-person perspective that your emotional reaction to the show changes as they want you to change by following different character’s stories, having them meet different situations. It just really draws you in because there’s so much going on, and you can adjust your reaction to different people and see the same situation from many different angles.

JS: It’s funny, so would you say then that for you it’s more about the books, or is it more about the show itself?

SD: Well, now that there’s no more books coming before the shows, I would say now it’s about the show. When he was releasing the books ahead of time, it was more about the books for me. Although I won’t lie, I really do enjoy watching the shows quite a bit.

JS: Well, and also I mean I guess I would ask you as someone who has been reading the books and following George R.R. Martin for a long time, a lot has been made about the current and domestic political overtones of some of his work. So when Daenerys gets stuck in Meereen, for example, people have described that as very similar to the second Iraq War, or the political statement about the United States being stuck in the Iraq War in particular, or in the Middle East in general. Is that something you line up with or do you think it’s more abstract than that?

SD: I don’t know. I think so many of these themes were in play. I am really not sure about that. I haven’t seen that myself and I haven’t given that much thought. Usually when I am escaping into that, I am escaping into the fantasy of it and to tune everything else out. But I mean I could see it thinking back on many of the things that have happened. I can certainly see, you know, themes or thematically things that have happened in history kind of reappearing in the Westeros landscape.

JS: Speaking as somebody who really wasn’t into the books that much but is more into the TV show, but I am also somebody who is generally a fan of these types of things myself, and I have been asking myself why I am interested in these things and why I read these books. This is true of fantasy, it goes on down with “Lord of the Rings,” it goes on down to “The Chronicles of Narnia.” I would even extend it to science fiction. “Dune” is one of my favorite novels.

Our founder, George Friedman, ...