Analyst, Love Thy Enemy

This is an excerpt from my upcoming book, Convert or Die

Having spent over 10 years as a Middle East political and security analyst, I wanted to go over some of my most glaring errors, and those that I most commonly see in the analysis community. This is my way of atoning for past errors in judgement, reminding myself of my own biases, and sharing some lessons that I learned in the hope that my younger readers may find them useful. 

In my view, the key tool that an analyst must bring to the table is empathy. Unfortunately, the mindset of too many analysts is not open enough to empathise with those whom they disagree with. Here, I note a few key errors that prevent analysts from having empathy with so-called deplorables, that is, groups and individuals who do not adhere to mainstream liberal orthodoxy. These could include groups as varied as nationalists, people of faith, tribesmen, fanatics and ideologues. In this piece, I will address errors include materialist thinking, globalist thinking that does not respect national or religious identities, a lack of appreciation for ideology and the power of a committed minority, and a misunderstanding of the nature of the relationship between the executive, the oligarchs and the public, and of the public’s fear of chaos. 

Many of these errors come from the socio-economic and cultural background of most analysts, who often have advanced degrees from rather dogmatic but highly accredited centres of learning, and whose careers usually start with internships or in low paying positions. To make it through, analysts typically need to come from better-off, cosmopolitan backgrounds where ideas such as nationalism or faith are anathema, and where a strong national, religious or tribal identity is perceived as backwards. Whatever one thinks of national identity or religious faith or ideology, however, they are key drivers of collective action. Having empathy for such beliefs is a prerequisite to correctly understanding the world. 

Materialism

The third most important error analysts make is to think materialistically. I recall two major errors that taught me the limits of material thinking. The first was in 2011, after NATO toppled the regime of Muammar al-Gaddafi in Libya. I assumed, incorrectly, that the size of Libya’s oil wealth relative to the small size of the population meant that there would be more than enough wealth to go around, and that civil conflict would not be necessary following Gaddafi’s overthrow. Even the most barely competent government could easily figure out a way to divide the oil wealth relatively fairly, and in doing so buy social peace. That obviously turned out to be false. Humans are by nature envious and competitive. We are not satisfied with having a lot if our neighbours have even more. Our neighbours’ wealth makes us insecure, as they could use it against us to dominate us and take away what we have. Decades and centuries of tribal hatred and mistrust will not be erased with a few cheques. 

The second big error relating to this issue was in 2014, when I assumed that the currency devaluation in Egypt under President Abdul Fattah al-Sisi would trigger unrest against the government. In my defence, this was not an uncommon mistake. Bread riots, a reference to the 1979 protests following Egypt’s attempt to raise the price of subsidised bread, was a common trope deployed in analysis circles to warn of the consequences should basic goods become unaffordable. Notably, however, the 1979 bread riots were easily put down by the state, with some public support, as the protesters turned to looting. The regime remained intact. What toppled Sadat was not his tinkering with economic policy, but his decision to make peace with Israel – which led to his assassination. A peace agreement undermined Egypt’s Islamic identity, at least from the perspective of the assassins and their cheerleaders throughout the Muslim world. Furthermore, President Sisi’s regime was actually made more stable by the devaluation. The economy improved, his ability to reward political allies and loyalists in the media and the military increased, and the Egyptian middle class, which had been a big driver behind the 2011 protests, was forced to focus on quotidian living standards questions, rather than political activism. Coercion and starvation are very effective means of retaining power, at least for a while. And in Egypt that could be a long while indeed. 

I see errors relating to materialist thinking often repeated. Analysts said that it was not in the economic interest of Russia to invade Ukraine. Now they say that it would not be in the economic interest of China to invade Taiwan. While it is perhaps true that such actions would not have economic benefits (though Russia’s currency is more valuable now than it was before the war), these are gross misunderstandings. A nation that is secure can build wealth, but a wealthy and insecure nation is easily plundered by its enemies. Security, therefore, must always come before wealth. For Western leaders, however, life has become so secure that it is sometimes assumed that the sole purpose of politics is to increase wealth, even then, just GDP, which is just one metric relevant to thinking about wealth. I fear that such naivete can only be cured through hardship. 

This is not to say that material questions are unimportant. The number of tanks and planes, the level of technology, the productive capacity of an economy, the availability of food, fuel and energy, the number of armed men and the quality of their training, are all critical questions. Indeed, for some time in 2013-2014, I believed Lebanon would fall into a civil war, due to the inability of the political class to compromise and the availability of weapons. I did not consider the skill of Lebanon’s security services in disrupting Sunni militant groups before they could establish themselves, the overwhelming capability of Hizbullah, and the absence of a leadership committed to violence among the Sunnis. I missed critical material factors. 

The importance of material questions is in understanding the options facing decision makers, not their priorities and intentions. People and leaders make commitments based on communal identity, faith, ideology, the need for security, ambition, vindictiveness, cruelty, and even principle. They execute these decisions using material means. We ought to keep that in mind when we hear the common refrain Democrats use against Republican rural voters: that these hillbillies are voting against their economic self-interest due to their opposition to welfare and “free” healthcare. For these voters, something else is at stake – a sense of dignity, an identity, an ideology pertaining to how America works and what it is all about. Indeed, it is an undisguised blessing that voters do not merely prioritise economic self-interest – what kind of friends or family would you have if everyone in your life cared for material things above all else? 

Perhaps the best expression of how to think about the economy and about material questions in general is found in the constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran. “The economy is a means, not an end.” This is correct. All material questions relate to means, not to ends. This of course has an impact on our understanding of economic policy. What matters in determining economic policy is not merely GDP figures. Economic policy is determined by questions of security, as we are seeing now with the US CHIPS Act. It is determined by the need to protect the nation from outside intervention and pressure, as we saw with Russian efforts to reduce dependence on the American dollar. Economic policy is determined by questions of identity, as we see with South Africa’s policy to prioritise black ownership, or Malaysia’s policy to raise the influence of Malays. It is determined by special interest groups, as we see in the UK with the banking sector, or in France with the farming sector, or in the US with its own myriad lobbies. 

Identity and belonging 

Wherever you go in the world, you will find that people there hate the evil bastards over yonder hill, for they are treacherous heathens who are ignorant of correct worship and traditions. To love your own and to dislike - or at least mistrust - strangers is the default human position. This is quite natural and is found everywhere. It is a bizarre claim of current liberal thinking that identity is primarily personal and socially constructed. Throughout the world, from India to China to Latin America to Africa to the Middle East, and throughout European and North American history, identity was, is and always will be communal and largely built in. A favourite Lebanese proverb of mine is “in times of strife, each goat returns to its herd.” Another excellent Lebanese proverb is: “your grandfather’s enemy is your enemy.” It is easy to imagine that this is thinking that is common to poor societies, and that wealth changes things. But that is simply not true. If it were, a country as wealthy as Libya would be at peace. It is also easy to imagine that education would cure people of such thoughts. But that is again not true. The leaders, and very often the members of jihadi and nationalist movements tend to be rather well educated. One could argue that education is necessary to develop a sense of grievance and historic wrongs that can then be used to form an identity hostile to that of the current elite. Communal identity is part and parcel of the human condition. At best, one would follow the Quranic injunction – “We have made you into peoples and tribes that you may learn from one another.” But at no point can people stop belonging to communities greater than themselves. And if each generation switches its communal loyalties, it becomes impossible to think long term and to build up a people. Alternatively, because identities are always in competition with their neighbours, people with a weak generational identity get taken over by people with a stronger one. 

This is not to say that identity is flat or one dimensional. It is not. This is not to say that identity cannot evolve or change. Of course, it can, though probably more at the margins than at the core, and very, very slowly. This is to say that there is an inherited and mostly fixed complex of identities within every human being. Nationality, tribe, ethnicity, race, place of birth, do not shift. They may wax and wane in importance, but they do not really change, and when they change it happens in unpredictable ways. Recall that Tamil migrants in the West played a critical role in financing the Tamil Tigers, and Irish Americans financed and armed the IRA. Recall that second generation Pakistani migrants to the UK are often more militant and committed to their religious identity than their parents. Being away from the source of one’s identity for too long can result in the identity becoming stronger, more aggressive and more insular. We as a species hate being cut-off from our roots, and react to it badly. 

Minority privilege 

The cohesion of the minority is where power lies; it does not lie in the preferences of the majority. 

Firstly, it is easier to muster in a minority a sense of grievance, a sense of historic injustice, a sense of fear, and to use that to keep the minority united in the face of a fragmented majority, and in doing so to gain more power than the minority’s numbers would otherwise permit. Furthermore, the minority has a much better chance of coordinating its actions than a slothful and divided majority. The threat from the majority, real or perceived, makes the minority more committed to protecting its interests, retaining dominance or achieving victory. The minority naturally keeps more to itself, and so is less vulnerable to infiltration. The minority can agree on what constitutes its shared interests more easily, as it is more concentrated. The minority also can cooperate more effectively, due to the advantages of secrecy, smaller numbers and shared interests. Finally, when dividing an economic pie, it is easier for the minority to obtain a bigger share for itself than its numbers warrant, due to these advantages. Having a disproportionate amount of resources then reinforces all the other advantages I mentioned above. 

These dynamics were key to how President Bashar al-Assad in Syria managed to win the civil war. He put his own minority community, the Alawites, in a position of both power over the majority and fear of it, and unleashed them against a highly fragmented Sunni opposition. Judging by numbers alone, many believed, as I did in the first years of the war, that Assad would not survive. I and others like me were clearly wrong. The Alawite minority was able to keep other minorities on side, and together they were able to keep much of the Sunni majority either neutral or actively fighting on their side. This coalition successfully beat the Sunni majority. 

Too many times in my career, I was asked variations on a question addressing the same issue. An example of that question was: but surely most Libyans do not want a civil war, or, surely most Turks do not support Erdogan, or, surely most Syrians do not support Assad? The opinion of the majority in all these cases, however, does not really matter. In Libya, the civil wars are driven by militias that are sufficiently committed to their own power and interests. In Turkey, the Erdogan government has enough control over the judiciary, the police, the economy and the military. In Syria, the intelligence agencies, the media, the business elite and the military leadership all remained loyal to Assad. Under these circumstances, numbers do not matter. Elite cohesion – the ability of the ruling minority to stick together – is what matters. In democratic societies, the average person is baffled by this, even the average analyst. However, analysts need to ask themselves how wokeness, which, at its inception, had next to no public support, managed to capture so many institutions and become the dominant ideology of large and historic parties like Labour and the Democrats. It was elite cohesion, enforced through a media that shared a common identity as being educated and enlightened, that paved the way for the spread of wokeness. Democracy is not immune to this dynamic.

Faith and Ideology

An often underestimated factor that ties together identity, minority organisation, and the ability to transcend materialism is faith, or in some cases, ideology. In my view, faith is successful ideology, and ideology is failed faith.

Faith – or ideology, depending on your view – is what allows the Islamic Republic of Iran and Hizbullah to face down the United States and Israel, expand themselves into regional powers, and defeat US plans such as the war on Syria, the attempt to remake Iraq, and the Greater Middle East project. Recall that Iran entered this confrontation with the US in 1979. At the time, since the days of the Shah, Iran was wholly dependent on US weapons and economic and military advisors. It was then thrust into an eight year war against a better armed and internationally backed Iraq, where the very survival of the Islamic Republic was at stake. Iran held its ground, despite the cost. Similarly, Hizbullah, though representing a minority of Lebanese Shia at the time, managed to force Israel out of Lebanon in 2000, and to fight the Israeli army into a humiliating draw in 2006, scoring a massive political victory. The material conditions were not in Iran nor in Hizbullah’s favour when their struggle started. Hizbullah and Iran eventually made the material conditions work for them by starting from a strong ideological foundation.

Similarly, Islamic State, though by no means representative of most Iraqi or Syrian Sunnis, managed to become the dominant force in Syria and Iraq, and would have had a strong chance at taking Erbil, Baghdad, Aleppo, Homs and Damascus were it not for US and then Russian airpower. The power of ideology is such that it can permit a sufficiently committed minority to fight against numerically and even technically superior foes, and sometimes win. 

Another misunderstood aspect of ideology is its ability to influence the mainstream. Hizbullah, and before it Imam Musa al-Sadr, the first ideologue of political Shi’ism in Lebanon, managed to transform the Lebanese Shia community. The community had been backwards, weak, uneducated and under the control of a few feudal families in South Lebanon and a few tribal leaders in the Bekaa. Through the power of their rhetoric and example, Sadr, the godfather of both AMAL and Hizbullah, and the two parties that drew inspiration from him, managed to neutralise the Shia intelligentsia, which leaned heavily to the left, and the Shia feudal families, which were conservative but arrogant, out of touch and incompetent, and to transform Lebanese Shia into perhaps the Levant’s most formidable political community. In the Shia world, Mohammad Baqer al-Sadr created the idea of wilayat al-faqih. When Saddam executed him in 1980, the Islamic Revolution of Iran had just taken power, and was facing an existential war launched by Iraq’s Saddam Hussein, as well as internal insurgencies and threats. Today, Iran under wilayat al-faqih is the most formidable threat that a far more advanced Israel faces, is more than equal to NATO-member Turkey, has weapons that can overcome the most advanced US air defences, and is courted by India, China and Russia. Neither Musa al-Sadr nor Muhammad Baqer al-Sadr lived to see the success of their ideas, and how they became mainstream in their societies.

Similarly, there is nothing to suggest that most Chinese people supported Communism and the Communist Party of China in the 1920s. But now Chinese national pride is inseparable from the CPC’s leadership. There is nothing to suggest that most Indians supported the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) when it was established in 1925. Yet now that movement has one of its members as Prime Minister of India, and Indian nationalism is now a most potent force.

Examples of this sort abound. Ideas that bring about major change start at the fringes. They are adopted by a committed minority. Then they spread and become mainstream. Therefore, ideas are not to be assessed by popularity, but by by their ability to resonance with the identity of those whom they address, by the commitment of those who hold them, and by the social circumstances at the time when they are presented. In this sense, successful ideologues manage to shift the Overton Window and move the political discourse, even if the originators of these ideas never themselves gain power.

The state, the oligarchy and the people

A common American way of thinking that has slipped into the subconscious of too many analysts is to view the state as the main threat to individual liberty. This may be true when the state is strong, for example, in Iraq under Saddam Hussein. That said, the removal of Saddam created space for thousands of mini-Saddams, who are not as patriotic, effective or fearsome, but who are just as callous and cruel – take Muqtada al-Sadr, Abu Mus’ab al-Zarqawi, Abu Azrael, or Abu Dera’ as some of the more infamous examples. A similar dynamic emerged in Syria and in Libya, where the vacuum created by the state’s absence was filled by something much worse than Assad or Gaddafi: the rule of thuggish, competing militias whose leaders aspire to surpass Assad or Gaddafi. Too many analysts and policymakers perceive the alternatives a society faces as being a binary choice between freedom and despotism. Not only is this a spectrum that is full of gradations rather than a binary choice, but there is also something far worse than despotism: the chaos that stems from the reign of legions of competing, despotic thugs. This is why the Qur’an says, correctly, that “fitnah [instigating civil strife] is worse than murder.” In societies divided by competing regions, ethnicities, religions, tribes or races, that is, throughout the world, only a strong and capable state can keep the thugs in check. 

The threat from thuggish, powerful people does not come only in times of war. It emerges in times of peace as well, through oligarchy. The main threat to freedom in the West today is not from the state, but from special interests that have captured different elements of the state. In Norway, a woman was arrested for saying men cannot become women. In the UK, the police told a man not to debate politics on Twitter because he posted a limerick about transgenderism. This is the handiwork of well-funded trans rights activists who have captured the police and much of the establishment. In America and Canada, the tech oligarchy that consists of Meta, Alphabet and Twitter, and the banks and payment processing companies (Visa, Mastercard, PayPal) have the option of un-personing anyone with incorrect views, from Alex Jones to General Michael Flynn to uppity Canadian truckers. They can cut off an individuals’ access to the modern public square, that is, to social media, as well as to banking services and even, if they wished to, to mobile telephony and the internet. Such unaccountable, oligarchic power cannot be controlled by the people – the state needs to rein it in. Indeed, it is common in history to find that the executive, often represented by the monarch, is in alliance with the people against the oligarchy, represented by a corrupted nobility. This is natural. The main threat to the power of the executive is not the public – which lacks resources, the ability to act in concert, a cohesive identity and a shared set of interests and beliefs - but the oligarchy. Therefore, as Adrian Vermeule says, it is reasonable to expect even a corrupt executive to act in its own best interests, and to prioritise the interests of the public against the oligarchy in order to wield the public as a club with which to threaten the oligarchy. Once this idea is understood, it becomes obvious why in China, the public may detest their local government but support the CPC, or why Russians who lived through the chaos of the 1990s support Vladimir Putin, or why even Shia Iraqis are sometimes nostalgic for the days of Saddam Hussein.

A structural problem 

Far too many analysts and journalists are not equipped mentally, psychologically and socially to understand these things. To get a position as an analyst, it is often necessary to go through long internships and a host of unpaid or underpaid positions, meaning that analysts, like journalists, tend to come from a relatively comfortable socio-economic background. Most analysts, journalists, foreign policy experts and the like are based in Brussels, Paris, London, New York, Washington DC, or other cosmopolitan cities where being proud of your people and your land is a major social faux pas. They are typically graduates of universities that teach about global citizenship, and that claim that all identity is socially constructed. In these universities, analysts learn that identity is a relic from the past that must be overcome in order to become better global citizens, without understanding that “global citizen” is itself a tribal identity, or that without shared identity there can be no society. Often, analysts in these cosmopolitan cities with their transnational backgrounds find themselves in social milieus that view nationalism as evil. Their friends view every populist as a future Hitler and view the world as a global village. And they see liberal democracy as the highest form of government, often believing that it can be spread anywhere in the world. They cannot conceive of a participatory and consultative system of government that is not parliamentary, nor can they accept that it is possible to have rights outside a liberal democracy. 

I fear that this often places analysts in a mindset where they cannot empathise with people of faith, nationalists or anyone who is not liberal. Indeed, in my experience, the prevalent attitude towards nationalism and religion is one of undisguised contempt. However, love for one’s own and distrust of others is a rather popular position, and most people around the world are somewhat religious. This is what elections in Brazil, India, Russia, and the United States tell us. This is what policies in Japan, China, South Africa and Malaysia tell us. This is why every Muslim country in the world has a strong Islamist movement, why China is so nationalistic and why India chooses Modi. Having contempt for people of faith and for nationalists prevents analysts from understanding perhaps the majority of people around the globe. People who share the typical analysts’ worldview therefore cannot understand the appeal of Victor Orban - they therefore cannot understand Hungarian elections, policies or positions. Such people find Modi to be a backwards fascist, rather than an expression of the wishes of the majority. They view Trump as a threat to democracy and a danger to the republic, without any awareness that the functioning of a republic requires a national identity and a willingness to acknowledge the grievances of the majority. And they view religion as belonging to an age of myth and ignorance, rather than the driver and defining feature of civilisation.

This mindset affirms what G.K. Chesterton said: “there are only two kinds of people; those who accept dogma and know it, and those who accept dogma and don't know it.” As a result of not being aware of their own liberal dogma, far too many analysts suffer from a deep lack of empathy towards the subjects of their analysis. No amount of knowledge or training can overcome a gap in empathy. To understand terrorists, to understand nationalists, to understand communists, to understand ideologues, it is necessary to appreciate that what animates them is real, that they genuinely care for the causes that they espouse, that they are not merely mouthing some focus-grouped message, but that they have genuine conviction. It is necessary to absorb their way of thinking, to see the world as they see it, and to empathise with their actions, even if we find them sinful, criminal or abhorrent. This is what it is to follow Christ’s command to love thy enemy. It is not a call to submit to your enemy. It is a call to understand him, to see his perspective, to correct your own errors that you may perhaps only notice when you look at the world through his eyes, and then, if you must, to fight him only over the irreconcilable differences that remain. Understood in this light, each and every analyst, to be any good, must heed Christ’s command and love the subjects of his analysis, even if, especially if, they are his enemies.