The International Institute for Middle-East and Balkan Studies (IFIMES) from Ljubljana, Slovenia has been regularly analyzing the events in the Middle East and the Balkans. IFIMES is currently analyzing a shift in the American policy in searching new allies within moderate Islam. The most important and interesting sections of the comprehensive analysis are given bellow:

MODERATE (POLITICAL) ISLAM – A NEW ALLY OF THE WEST

The political events at the beginning of the 1990's were marked by quick changes in social and political life around the world. Within these changes we can also include the quick economic growth in Asia in which industrially powerful countries were born. The African continent has started to use the language of dialogue instead of the language of arms, which has caused new political and economic reforms.

Also in Latin America the democracy and respect for the political diversities replaced civil wars, squadrons of death, totalitarianism and corruption.

The wind of change has engulfed the whole world except the Arab-Islamic world. The people were desperate and did not even believe a new day will come.

The first term of the American president George Bush marked the first changes in the Middle East. Iraq was liberated and has for the first time in 50 years received a democratically elected government. Libya surrendered her stocks of weapons for mass destruction and paid the reparations for the victims of the terrorist attacks in Berlin and above Lockerby. Syria is leaving Lebanon and the Lebanese people are freely deciding about their own destiny. The new Palestinian authority is opposed to militarization or Intifada (the insurgence). The militant fractions replaced the car-bombs with political dialogue. Israel is about to leave Gaza. Several decades lasting war in The Southern Sudan has been ended with the signing of the peace treaty between the rebellious South and the government in Khartum. Elections in Afghanistan. The historical elections in the most conservative kingdom in the world (Saudi Arabia). Women gained voting rights in Kuwait. The Turkish liberal and moderate Islam is proving the possibility of co-existence between the East and the West. Egypt has changed the 76^th article of the constitution and allowed multi-party candidatures for the position of the president of the state.

In brief, the first term of the American president George Bush is the beginning of profound changes in the Middle east due to the American military and political pressures.

The main characteristics of this politics is that the U.S.A. stopped their friendship and alliance with the Wahabite movement as the most orthodox and extreme branch (movement) within Islam. Wahabism, as the official religious doctrine of Saudi Arabia, is a British product from the end of the 19^th century to fight the Turkish Empire. Wahabism later on became the ally of the West in fighting the communism and Soviet advance towards the Persian Gulf.

In the middle of the 1990's after the Soviet retreat the Taliban take over the government in Afghanistan and establish a Wahabite state according to the Saudi model.

The opinions in the American politics were divided on the issue of (non)cooperating with the Taliban. The pragmatic neoconservatives were aware of the dangers involved in such cooperation for the region and the world, while the oil lobby wanted to cooperate with the Taliban since Afghanistan is important for the future Caspian oil pipeline. After the 11^th of September 2001 all their doubts on the matter vanished. U.S.A. liberated Afghanistan from the Taliban and Al-Qaida. The Wahabite state was destroyed.

After the growth of anti-Islamic atmosphere in the West, the U.S.A. and Europe started to search for somebody new to talk to if not an ally within the Islamic world. The new ally should be the moderate Islam, which is a marking for less radical Islamic organizations over the Islamic world.

The American public diplomacy has redirected all of its power towards more moderate Islamic organizations over the world – these organizations are traditionally ideologically opposed to radical organizations such as: Al-Qaida, Taqfir, Hijra, etc.

The analysis of the influential 'US News' from the end of April 2005 under the headline 'Brain – Heart – Dollars' confirms that the USA set aside 1.3 billion dollars for the support of such public policy.

The market niche of the Americans in this diplomacy is for certain the oldest and controversial Muslim organization 'The Muslim Brothers', which was established in Egypt at the beginning of the previous century and has spread since over the entire Islamic world. The Muslim Brothers hold initiative in most of the Islamic countries, especially in the countries, in which they were victims of political purges (Egypt, Syria, Libya, Tunisia, etc.). The organization is also present in Europe among the immigrants from the Middle East. The directly or indirectly control most of Islamic cultural and school centers in Europe. Their roof organization is the federation of Islamic Organizations in Europe (FIOE) and is located in Great Britain. Maybe the U.S.A. would like to relive the experience Great Britain had with such kind of organizations?

The dialogue between the American Administration and moderate Islam commenced at the beginning of the year 2002. The National Security Advisor of that time Condolizza Rice was informed of that. The Americans identified 17 moderate organizations in the Arab world with quite a significant political weight and they started a dialogue with them.

This politics represented a continuation of the American dialogue with some organizations in the middle of 1990's and were in good relations with some organizations like the Islamic movements in Algeria and in Tunisia. The French were very reserved about these contacts. The victory of Islamists at the Algerian elections pushed the country into the civil war and thus ended the dialogue.

The ideologue of this dialogue was a former employee of CIA and a colleague of the influential Rand Corporation Graham Foller, who published his views in a series of articles in 1991 under the name of 'From the fridge to the oven'. The dialogue was later on continued also with some radical organizations such as the Palestinian Hamas and the Shiite Hizballah and of course, as it is not needed to mention, the intensive talks with the Shiites under the leadership of ayatollah Al-Sistany in Iraq after the fall of the Saddam Hussein regime.

There are two groups in Washington with different opinions on the issue of dialogue with moderate organizations. The first group is under the leadership of Foller, who is uniting the renowned professors and diplomats, who believe that certain parts of the program of these organizations are useful and correctable in a continuous dialogue.

The other group is more pragmatic and believes that the radical organizations were born and grew up in the bosom of these moderate organizations. The example of Egypt speaks for himself, where Sadat offered cooperation to these organizations and was later on killed by the extreme part of exact same movements.

The dialogue with moderate Islamic organizations is not a unilateral act of the U.S.A., which is proved by joining of the EU. The foreign ministers of the EU have at the meeting in Luxemburg in the middle of April 2005 at the preposition of Denmark and Great Britain decided to establish a dialogue with these organizations. The first concrete steps were established by the ambassador of EU in Cairo Klaus Ebermann. The reasons, which were forcing the EU into such a diplomatic step, are deriving from several facts:

1. Moderate organizations are rooted into the society in such a measure that the democratization of the Middle East is not implementable without them.

2. Turkey under the government of AKP is an example of a moderate Islam and is representing a kind of preparation towards accepting one Muslim country into the European Union.

3. The EU is closely following the dialogue between the U.S.A. and the moderate organizations, one of which was an April conference (American-Islamic dialogue) in Doha-Katar. EU does not wish to miss the opportunity and stay behind the U.S.A.

4. The EU is aware that the political Islam is actually a part of the government in several countries such as: The Party of Justice in Morocco, The Muslim Brothers in Jordan, SCIRI and Al-Dawa in Iraq.

The west is convinced into cooperation with the political Islam and the greatest push of this dialogue can be noted after the publication of the study by the American Institute Rand Corporation under the headline: 'The Civil Democratic Islam'. The study is dividing the Islamic organizations into three groups. The first are the leftists and the liberals, which are not rooted into the society. The second are the moderate Islamists and the third are the radical groups.

The study is analyzing in detail the benefits from the dialogue with the moderate organizations, which do not oppose the dialogue with other religions and do not hate the West.

Here the Rand Corporation did not predict what will happen if some day some of these organizations take over the power. They were the oppressed and persecuted exactly on the demand of the West in the past half a century.

According to the opinion of the International Institute IFIMES it is necessary to undertake the following steps:

1. Saudi Arabia needs to seriously and quickly follow through the reforms of the religious system, the police, separate the religion from the state and abolish the religious courts.

The religious branch of the government, which is the guardian of the Wahabite teachings, spends several billions of dollars every year on political missionary work among the millions of poor Muslims over the world.

The Saudi dynasty has to separate itself from the other branch of the government (religious), as in the opposite case it is the government, which is co-responsible for the death of innocent civilians on the streets of New York, Kuwait, Baghdad, Tel Aviv, Madrid, Mombassa, Casablanca, Bali, etc.

The Saudi Arabia has to present clear answers to the questions, since the world no longer believes into some protocol conferences similar to those in Riyadh in February 2005. The world is in no smaller danger after this conference.

The Saudi Arabia has to take over the moral responsibility for all the victims of terrorism in the U.S.A., Morocco, Algeria, Spain, Kenya, Iraq, etc.

The sporadic incidents between the Saudi security forces and the followers of Al-Qaida are not a part of the global struggle against the terrorism, but rather a power struggle between the dynasty and the radical organizations.

The U.S.A. have to actualize the petition of Loren Muravich and 24 influential politicians and diplomats from the 10^th of July 2002 in which they are calling upon the Congress to demand reparations from the Saudis and as an extreme measure to divide the country into two parts, the western and the oil-rich eastern part, which is populated by mostly oppressed Shiites.

2. There is no essential difference between the radical and the moderate Islam, since every religion and therefore Islam as well calls for peace and tolerance. Each (ab)use of religion for political purposes is dangerous and counterproductive.

3. The International Institute IFIMES does not support any direct dialogue with these organizations, since each dialogue is a legalization of political Islam, which will have dangerous and far-reaching consequences for the fate of the democracy and reforms in these countries. The dialogue can be indirect through student, syndicate, women's and all other organizations of the civil society.

4. The EU has before commencing any dialogue with the Middle Eastern Islamic organizations to establish a dialogue in its own house in Europe, where there are more than 10 million autochthonous Muslims (Bosniacs, Albanians, Bulgarian Turks, etc.)

The EU seriously has to undertake a mission of naming and choosing a pan-European mufti, who will be at the same time a president of the association of Islamic mufti-lead structures in Europe, a sort of counseling and connecting body such as the British FIOE.

According to the opinion of the International Institute IFIMES a suitable candidate came come from the autochthonous Muslims such as the Bosniacs, since it is exactly the Supreme spiritual leader of the Bosnian Muslims (Bosniacs), who is the greatest moral and spiritual authority not only on Balkans and in Europe, but is also considered in all of the Islamic countries from Morocco, Egypt, the Gulf, Iran, Afghanistan, Indonesia, Malaysia and the Muslims on Taiwan as a suitable personality.

Ljubljana, on the 19^rd of May 2005

International Institute for Middle-East and Balkan Studies (IFIMES) – Ljubljana
Director:
Bakhtyar Aljaf