Islamism’s Likely Doom | National Review

The divisions of radical Islam offer us grounds for optimism but not complacency.

As recently as 2012, it appeared that Islamists could overcome their many internal dissimilarities — sectarian (Sunni or Shiite), political (monarchical or republican), tactical (political or violent), and attitudes toward modernity (Salafi or Muslim Brotherhood) — and cooperate. In Tunisia, for example, Salafis and the Muslim Brotherhood types found common ground. Differences between all these groups were real but secondary, as I put it then, because “all Islamists pull in the same direction, toward the full and severe application of Islamic law (the sharia).”

This sort of cooperation still persists in small ways, as shown by a recent meeting between a member of Turkey’s ruling party and the head of a Salafi organization in Germany. But Islamists have in recent months abruptly and overwhelmingly thrown themselves at each others’ throats. Islamists still constitute a single movement that shares similar supremacist and utopian goals, but they also have different personnel, ethnic affiliations, methods, and philosophies.

Islamist internecine hostilities have flared up in many other Muslim-majority countries. Sunni-versus-Shiite tensions can be seen between Turkey and Iran, in Syria, in Iraq, in Egypt, and in Lebanon, where it’s Sunni versus Shiite Islamists and Sunni Islamists versus the army. In Yemen, it’s Houthis versus Salafis.

More often, however, members of the same sect fight each other: Khamenei versus Ahmedinejad in Iran; the AKP versus the Gulenists in Turkey; Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq versus Muqtada al-Sadr in Iraq; the monarchy versus the Muslim Brotherhood in Saudi Arabia; Islamic Liberation Front versus the Nusra Front in Syria; Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood versus Hamas regarding hostilities toward Israel; the Muslim Brotherhood versus the Salafis in Egypt; and a clash of two leading ideologues and politicians, Omar al-Bashir and Hassan al-Turabi, in the Sudan. In Tunisia, the Salafis (called Ansar al-Sharia) are fighting the Brotherhood-style organization Ennahda.

Seemingly minor differences can take on a complex quality. Just try to follow a Beirut newspaper’s arcane account of hostilities in the northern Lebanese city of Tripoli.

Clashes between the various Islamist groups in Tripoli, divided between the March 8 and March 14 political movements, are on the rise. . . . Since the assassination of March 14 figure and intelligence chief Brig. Gen. Wissam al-Hasan in October, disputes between Islamist groups in Tripoli have been heading toward a major conflagration, particularly following the killing of Sheikh Abdel-Razzaq Asmar, an official from the Islamic Tawhid Movement, just hours after Hasan’s death. The sheikh was shot dead . . . during an armed clash that erupted when supporters of Kanaan Naji, an independent Islamist figure associated with the National Islamist Gathering, attempted to take over the headquarters of the Islamic Tawhid Movement.

This pattern of fracturing brings to mind the 1950s divisions of pan-Arab nationalists. They aspired to unify all Arabic-speaking peoples, as the expression then went, “from the [Atlantic] ocean to the [Persian] gulf.” However appealing the dream, its leaders fell out as the movement grew in power, dooming pan-Arab nationalism to the point that it eventually collapsed under the weight of kaleidoscopic and ever-more-minute clashes. These included:

Gamal Abdul Nasser of Egypt against the Baath parties ruling in Syria and Iraq
The Syrian Baath party against the Iraqi Baath party
The Sunni Syrian Baathists against the Alawi Syrian Baathists
The Jadidist Alawi Syrian Baathists against the Assadist Alawi Syrian Baathists

And so on. In fact, every effort at forming an Arab union has failed — the United Arab Republic between Egypt and Syria (1958–61) as well as lesser attempts, such as the Arab Federation (1958), the United Arab States (1958–61), the Federation of Arab Republics (1972–77), the Syrian domination of Lebanon (1976–2005), and the Iraqi annexation of Kuwait (1990–91).

Dissension reflecting deep Middle Eastern tribal patterns often prevents Islamists from working together. As an Islamist movement surges and its members begin to actually rule, its cracks become increasingly divisive. Rivalries papered over when Islamists languish in the opposition emerge when they wield power.

Should the fissiparous tendency hold, the Islamist movement is doomed, like fascism and Communism, to be no more than a civilizational threat inflicting immense damage but never prevailing. This possible limit on Islamist power, which became visible in 2013, offers grounds for optimism but not for complacency. Even if things look brighter than they did a year ago, trends can quickly turn around again. The long and difficult job of defeating Islamism remains ahead.