Military Professionalization and Civil-Military Relations In the Middle East

Military Professionalization and Civil-Military Relations in the Middle East Author(s): Mehran Kamrava Source: Political Science Quarterly, Vol. 115, No. 1 (Spring, 2000), pp. 67-92 Published by: The Academy of Political Science Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2658034 Accessed: 22/02/2009 07:21 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=aps. Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit organization founded in 1995 to build trusted digital archives for scholarship. We work with the scholarly community to preserve their work and the materials they rely upon, and to build a common research platform that promotes the discovery and use of these resources. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org. The Academy of Political Science is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Political Science Quarterly. http://www.jstor.org Military Professionalization and Civil-MilitaryRelations in the Middle East MEHRAN KAMRAVA After an intense flurry of research and publications on civil-military relations in the Middle East in the 1960s and the 1970s, recent studies on the subject are few and far between.! Despite the tapering off of academic interest, the intimate nexus between the state and the armed forces remains one of the most salient features of Middle Eastern politics. The continued pervasiveness of the military's role in politics has, however, lately confronted Middle Eastern leaders with a paradoxical dilemma. On the one hand, in recent years Middle Eastern leaders and states have sought to professionalize the armed forces. On the other hand, they have been unable or unwilling to qualitatively reduce their connections with and reliance on the military establishment. This article examines the means and methods through which Middle Eastern leaders and/or states have implemented military professionalization-which, it argues, may significantly enhance the military's political aspirations-while making sure that in the process they themselves are not swept away by yet another military coup. Military professionalization in the Middle East (the introduction of 1 See, for example, Eliezer Be'eri, Army Officersin Arab Politics and Society (New York: Praeger, 1970);George Haddad,Revolutionsand MilitaryRule in the MiddleEast, vols. 1-3 (New York: Robert Speller & Sons, 1965-1973);J. C. Hurewitz,Middle East Politics: The MilitaryDimension (New York: Praeger, 1969); Dankwart Rustow, The Militaryin Middle Eastern Politics and Society (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1963); Gordon Torrey, Syrian Politics and the Military,1945-1958 (Columbus:Ohio State University Press, 1964); P. J. Vatikiotis, The EgyptianArmy in Politics: Patterns for New Nations? (Bloomington:Indiana University Press, 1961);and P. J. Vatikiotis, Politics and the Militaryin Jordan:A Study of the Arab Legion, 1921-1957 (New York: Praeger, 1967). MEHRAN KAMRAVA is assistant professor of political science at California State University, Northridge.His most recent books includeDemocracyin theBalance:Culture Societyin theMiddle and East and CulturalPolitics in the Third World. Political Science Quarterly Volume 115 Number 1 2000 67 68 | POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY modern military equipment, established procedures for recruitment and promotions, and advanced training) has not translated into the military's depoliticization and increased subordination to civilian control. To the contrary, it has increased the potential for the military's continued intervention in the political process. Thus the dilemma facing Middle Eastern leaders is both real and stark: how to bring about military professionalization while keeping the military's political aspirations in check. In order to deal with this paradox, Middle Eastern states have settled into specific patterns of interaction with their armed forces. Certain typologies of civil-military relations have thus developed, whereby groups of Middle Eastern states have devised similar means to ensure their continued dominance over and control of the armed forces in spite of changes aimed at greater military professionalization. In general, these modalities of state control over the armed forces in the Middle East can be divided into four categories: First, they include those found in ostensibly democratic states, in which the state predominates but allows the military to play an important role in domestic politics (Israel and Turkey); second, those found in inclusionary states, in which the regular military's political aspirations are kept in check and are neutralized by a highly ideological, largely volunteer militia (Iran, Iraq, and Libya); third, those in exclusionary states, in which once-ideological officers are still in power but have now civilianized themselves and much of the machinery of the state, having in the process become largely nonideological, civilian autocrats (Algeria, Egypt, Syria, Sudan, Tunisia, and Yemen); and finally, those in monarchies, either whose small geographic and demographic size compels them to rely on foreign mercenaries (Bahrain, Oman, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates [UAE]), or which rely on one or more loyal tribal contingents to counterbalance the influence and potential autonomy of the regular military (Jordan, Kuwait, Morocco, and Saudi Arabia). Ultimately, more general patterns of state formation and the specific typologies of civil-military relations are all products of larger historical developments. In the following pages, the very genesis of most modern Middle Eastern states is traced back to the armed forces. Few if any of the contemporary states of the Middle East have been able to fully overcome their military past, with the armed forces continuing to be politically powerful in all four of the categories outlined above. Nevertheless, some states have been better able to first bring about and then meet the challenges of military professionalization than others. While political and military imperatives have made the professionalization of the armed forces a matter of urgent necessity, only in a small number of Middle Eastern countries-notably in the military democracies of Israel and Turkeyhas military professionalization not threatened the larger constellation of political forces on which the state has come to rely. Regular elections also enable the military democracies to have leadership turnovers with minimal political instability and turmoil. For all three other civil-military categories, military professionalization has been somewhat problematic, for some more than for oth- CIVIL-MILITARYRELATIONS IN THE MIDDLE EAST | 69 ers, increasing possibilities for successive coups by enhancing the corporate identity of the officer corp at the expense of civilian politicians. In short, professionalization has meant partial or at best skewed civilianization. It is not clear how much of the drive to professionalize is the product of an impulse from within the ranks of senior officers-an internal backlash against the absurdities and disappointments of the earlier decades-or a carefully thought-out plan by civilianized officer-politicians to enhance the performance of the institution on which their rule ultimately depends. What is clear is that state actors have stopped far short of severing most of their ties with the military command. Military control, in other words, remains largely subjective and is still far from becoming objective.2 The reasons for this partial civilianization go to the heart of civil-military relations in Middle Eastern states and throughout the developing world. There is a recognized need to professionalize the military as much as possible. Among other things, this entails an end to arbitrary military appointments and promotions and to interference in military matters based on political considerations. But professionalization enhances the autonomy of the military and, if politically unchecked, can increase its tendency to intervene in the affairs of the state (for example, Turkey). Where should the line between professionalization and autonomy be drawn, not only in Algeria, Egypt, Syria, and Tunisia, but throughout the Middle East? The military's professionalization can become a double-edged sword and may significantly undermine the powers of the actors seeking to implement it.3 Before going any further, a word needs to be said about the exact meaning of the "professionalization" of the military and the concept's use here. In his classic treatment of the subject, Samuel Huntington maintained that military professionalization means the complete subordination of the military command to civilian officials.4In the Middle East, however, as in parts of Southeast Asia and Latin America decades earlier, military professionalization has not necessarily meant subordination to civilian leaders. Instead, it has meant the introduction into the armed forces of modern equipment and technology, upgrading training facilities and procedures, making recruitment and promotions less arbitrary, and having "professional" cadres of specialist officers and mili2 Samuel Huntington maintains that there are two varieties of civilian control over the military: "subjective"and "objective."Subjective control is when the power of some particularcivilian group or groups (rather than civilians as a whole) is maximizedin comparisonto the military."The general concept of civilian control is identified with the specific interests of one or more civilian groups."By contrast,objective militarycontrol aims at maximizingthe military'spolitical power by professionalizing it and by rendering the armed forces "politicallysterile and neutral." Samuel Huntington, The Soldier and the State: The Theoryand Politics of Civil-Military Relations (Cambridge,MA: Harvard University Press, 1957), 80, 84. 3 Throughout South America, this professionalizationof the military in the 1940s and the 1950s facilitated its takeover of the state in the 1960s and the 1970s. See Howard Wiardaand Harvey Kline, "Interest Groups and Political Parties" in Howard Wiarda and Harvey Kline, eds., Latin American Politics and Development, 3rd ed. (Boulder, CO: Westview, 1990), 58-61. 4 Huntington, The Soldier and the State,80-85. 70 | POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY tary experts at various levels and branches of the armed forces. In this sense, professionalization increases the military's corporate identity and its sense of efficacy, militarily and politically. The quest for professionalization-not the Huntingtonian variety but that defined here-has combined with a number of historical, sociocultural, economic, and political dynamics to lead to the emergence of different patterns to civil-military relations in various Middle Eastern states.5Depending on specific national characteristics and historical experiences, the highly intertwined, mutually empowering relationship between the Middle Eastern state and the armed forces is likely to take one of four forms: heavy reliance by the state on hired mercenaries and/or kinship and tribal bonds to maintain the army's loyalty; the steady and conscious transformation of ideological officers into civilian autocrats; the use of indoctrinated, nonprofessional irregulars to counterbalance the professionalism and ambitions of the men in uniforms; or the continued pervasiveness of the military's influence despite the establishment of a largely democratic, parliamentary system. These, of course, are ideal types, far more easily distinguishable on paper than in reality. What matters is the degree to which each state belongs to one category as opposed to another.6 MILITARY DEMOCRACIES Among the states found in the Middle East, Israel and Turkey come closest to being considered democratic, for they feature regular, meaningful elections, vibrant party systems, and genuine input by the electorate into the political pro-cess. Neither of these democracies, however, has had a trouble-free political history. Turkey's tenuous democracy has also long been troubled by a very determined Kurdish autonomy movement, the imposition of severe restrictions on civil and political liberties, and a chronic threat of military intervention.7 By contrast, the Israeli state comes much closer to being described as democratic, especially now that it is relinquishing control of some of its Palestinian inhabiI For more backgroundon the reasons for and patterns of military intervention in politics in the Middle East, see Fuad Khuri, The Study of Civil MilitaryRelations in Modernizing Societies in the Middle East:A CriticalAssessment (Los Angeles: UCLA Center for Internationaland StrategicAffairs, 1982); Ahmed Hashim, "The State, Society, and the Evolution of Warfarein the Middle East: The Rise of Strategic Deterrence?" WashingtonQuarterly18 (Autumn 1995): 53-72; and Mehran Kamrava,"Non-DemocraticStates and Political Liberalizationin the Middle East:A Structural Analysis," Third World Quarterly19 (Spring 1998):63-85. 6 The typology of Middle Eastern states devised here and the ensuing differentways in which states have incorporatedthe militaryin order to maintain political control and regime stability is based on a model originallydevised by Kamrava,who groups the states of the Middle East together based on backgroundfactors, historical commonalities and/or differences (history of coups, revolution, etc.), economic predicaments(oil resources, demography,etc.), political experiences, and other similardynamics. See Kamrava, "Non-Democratic States and Political Liberalizationin the Middle East: A StructuralAnalysis," 63-85. An Ex7See, for example, Kemal Kirisgiand Gareth Minrow, The Kurdish Questionand Turkey: Ethnic Conflict(London:FrankCass, 1997);and Henri Barkey and GrahamFulample of Trans-State ler, Turkey'sKurdish Question (New York: Rowman & Littlefield, 1998). CIVIL-MILITARYRELATIONS IN THE MIDDLE EAST | 71 TABLE1 Varieties of Civil-Military Relations Found in the Middle East Tribally dependent monarchies Oil monarchies Saudi Arabia Kuwait Bahrain Qatar UAE Oman Civic-myth monarchies Jordan Morocco Autocratic officer-politicians Mukhaberat states Syria Egypt Tunisia Yemen PNA* Military states Algeria Sudan Dual militaries Iran Iraq Libya Military democracies Israel Turkey * Although the Palestine National Authorityis far from acquiring the form of a state, all initial indications point to its evolution into an authoritarian polity, with former guerrillafighters (Arafat and other PLOfigures) now assuming office as civilianpoliticians. tants to the Palestine National Authority following the signing of the Oslo Accord. Nevertheless, what both of these states share are degrees of interaction and cooperation between civilian and military authorities that are not commonly found in other democracies. In these Middle Eastern democracies, civilian-military interactions are cemented either by institutional devices (the National Security Council in Turkey) or international geopolitical realities or tradition (retired Israeli officers becoming politicians). With the military having become a highly visible and integral feature of the political system, these states may best be described as "military democracies."8 An important distinguishing factor in these systems is that the legitimacy of the military's political influence is seldom questioned by the electorate. In Israel and Turkey, the military constitutes one of the most popular institutions of the state. In both countries, career officers are generally viewed quite positively and treated with much respect.9A 1994 poll in Turkey revealed, for example, that 26 percent of respondents considered the army to be the country's "most trusted" institution, with civilian politicians garnering 20 percent of the vote and political parties only 1 percent.10In Israel, some of the country's most popular politicians-Moshe Dayan, Yitzhak Rabin, and Ehud Barak (the current prime minister and defense minister)-have come from illustrious military backgrounds.1" I The Syrianmilitaryplays an equally pervasive role in the Lebanese Second Republic. In relation to Lebanon, however, a different set of dynamics-those governing the behaviors of a hegemon and its satellite-are at work rather than those related to the domestic politics of civil-military-relations. 9James Brown, "The Military and Society: The Turkish Case," Middle East Journal 25 (July 1989): 392. TurkishDaily News, 25 October 1994. l Admittedly, P. M. Barak's military career is somewhat exceptional. In 1991, he was appointed the chief of general staff and promoted to the rank of lieutenent general, the highest in the Israeli military. In 1995 and 1996 he served first as interior and then foreign minister, before assuming the chairmanshipof the Labour party in 1997 and winning the prime minister'spost in May 1999. 72 | POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY Much of this popular acquiescence to the military's political influence stems from its role in the establishment and founding of the state. In Turkey, Kemal Atatuirk was a military hero long before he became the founding father of the republic. Although he and his collaborators resigned from the armed forces upon formally assuming political power, they did not hesitate to use the military as one of the main instruments in carrying out their modernizing agendas and constructing a modern state. Even during the presidency of Ismet Inonui,Ataturk's close associate and his successor, the military was still considered to be "the ultimate prop for the Republican regime."'12 If in Turkey the military has played a role in the construction of the republic, in Israel it has been responsible for its very survival. Forged out of successive military conflicts that date back to the earliest days of the Yishuv (the Jewish community in Palestine), the existence of the State of Israel has on several occasions depended on the ability of first the Haganah and then the Israeli Defense Forces to neutralize much bigger adversaries. In Israel the military is at the heart of the nation; for many, it is the heart of the nation. For generations of Israelis, military service has been an honorable national duty, a willingly accepted fact of life for a nation of citizen-soldiers.13 Another important feature of military democracies is the comparatively high degree of internal cohesion and professional discipline within the armed forces. In military democracies, the unique role and position of the armed forces in relation to the state reinforces military unity and professionalism rather than accentuating its divisions. Within each country, military elites are bound together by a consensus over what they consider to be their historic mission: either protecting the state or acting as an arbitrator among its frequently unruly civilian leaders. This corporate identity and cohesion is the strongest within the Israeli army, where instances of internal dissension and unhappiness are virtually unheard of. The unity of the Turkish army has not historically been as consistent. In February 1962 and May 1963 there were attempted coups against the military regime in power at the time. By some accounts, the takeover of 1971 was launched by the High Command in order to thwart an imMore recently, military commanders pending coup by officers of lower rank.14 12Metin Heper and Aylin Guney, "The Military and Democracy in the Third Turkish Republic," Armed Forces and Society 22 (Summer 1996): 620. 13 In informal interviews with several young Israeli soldiers, I discovered a deep-seated fear and reluctanceto be stationed in South Lebanon, whichmany called a "deathtrap." 1982,a groupcalling In itself the Yesh Gvul (There is a Limit) circulated a petition signed by 2,500 Israeli reservists asking that they not be sent to fight in Lebanon. In the late 1980s, some members of the group also refused to serve in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. Whether these developments (especially now that the Palestinianpolice forces patrolpartsof Gaza and the West Bank) will result in lastingchangesto Israeli views on militaryservice remainsto be seen. See Deborah Gerner, One Land, Two Peoples: The Conflict over Palestine,2nd ed. (Boulder, CO: Westview, 1994), 73-74. 14 RichardDekmejian. "Egypt and Turkey:The Militaryin the Background" in Roman Kolkowicz and Andrzej Korbonski,eds., Soldiers,Peasants,and Bureaucrats: Relationsin CommuCivil-Military nist and ModernizingSocieties (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1982), 44-45. CIVIL-MILITARYRELATIONS IN THE MIDDLE EAST 1 73 have been troubled by the increasing appeal of the now-banned Refah party and other Islamist groups among many conscript soldiers. Nevertheless, the professionalism and unity of the Turkish army has never been compromised, at least openly. The army plays an important integrative role within Turkish society by bestowing conscripts from diverse backgrounds with a common set of professional and national values. This is accomplished through educating recruits to read and write, and indoctrinating them with Atatuirkianvalues. Such common characteristics notwithstanding, the exact nature and extent of the military's involvement in politics varies considerably depending on specific historical and political dynamics. At the broadest level, Israeli civil-military relations are characterized by relative parity between the two poles, although the military's institutional subordination to civilian politicians is guaranteed by law and tradition. In Turkey, the armed forces ultimately retain a veto power over civilian politicians and their actions. In essence, the Israeli military plays the role of a protector, whereas the Turkish military serves as a political arbitrator. This goes to the heart of how the Israeli and Turkish militaries perceive professionalism. The Israeli military command would not fathom using its institutional powers or clout to overtly influence public policies. Its primary focus is on national defense, although an unusually high number of former noncommissioned officers eventually enter politics. In Turkey, however, the military's professionalism is not perceived as antithetical to its continued significance in domestic politics. Professionalism in the Turkish context means the emergence of an esprit de corps among soldiers and officers, the acquisition of sophisticated weaponry, effective fighting capability, and continued interference in civilian political affairs. Beginning in the early 1950s, by which time Atattirk and most of his original associates had left the scene, the Turkish military assumed the mission of protecting the Atatuirkianrepublic from wayward, at times irrational civilian politicians. During the intervening years, this self-ascribed mission has been reinforced by a recurrent tendency among elected civilians to drift away from what the military considers to be "rational democracy."15 the process, the Turkish In military has turned into what Amos Perlmutter calls an "arbitrator army": it accepts the general parameters of the existing social order; it is willing to return to the barracks once disputes are settled; it does not seek to maximize army rule and is instead interested in improving professionalism (as military leaders define it); and it has a tendency to operate as a pressure group from behind the scenes.16All three instances of direct military rule have been relatively brief1960-1961, 1971-1973, and 1980-1983-and all were preceded by intense periods of political instability and partisan bickering. With each intervention, the military has sought to further institutionalize and protect its political preroga15 16 Heper and Guney, "The Militaryand Democracy in the Third TurkishRepublic,"621. Amos Perlmutter,Political Roles and MilitaryRulers (London: Frank Cass, 1981), 25. 74 | POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY tives so as to insure its guardian, arbitrator role.17In 1960, for example, the National Security Council (NSC) was created to serve as a forum through which military commanders convey their views and decisions to elected politicians.18 When General Kenan Evren, chief of the Turkish General Staff and head of the NSC, took over in September 1980, he and other members of the Council also tried to institute a series of far-reaching reforms of the country's political institutions and party structure.19 Ultimately, many of these reforms were reversed and did not have a lasting impact on the overall nature of the Turkish political system. Nevertheless, the expanded powers and influence of the NSC did make it possible for the military to launch a silent coup in 1997 against Prime Minister Necmettin Erbakan and his Islamist-oriented Refah party (RP).20 The 1997 coup stands out not only in its indirect and "silent" nature but also because its primary aim was ideological correction rather than institutional change or modification. From the very start of his premiership, Erbakan and the RP had a thorny relationship with the virulently secular military high command, exacerbated by conflicts over such issues as government funding for religious schools, the right of military officers to pray inside military bases, and Erbakan's diplomatic overtures to Iran and Libya. Relations worsened in the months preceding the coup, when senior military leaders unleashed a barrage of very public verbal attacks against the prime minister and the RP. "Destroying fundamentalism is of life or death importance," warned a Turkish general in a highly publicized press conference just weeks before Erbakan's ouster.21 The NSC also issued a report in which it warned against an erosion of Atattirk's ideals, the "extremely dangerous activities" of Islamists, and the widespread observance of the Islamic dress code in universities and government offices, "which could give Turkey a backward appearance."22Erbakan's half-hearted warnings that "no one has the power to defeat the pious people" turned out to be empty rhetoric.23In the end, the military, through the constitutionallysanctioned institution of the NSC, had little trouble in forcing Erbakan to re17 The tendency to intervene in order to further consolidate political prerogatives is by no means unique to the Turkishmilitary and was a frequent contributorto militarycoups in countries such as Uruguay, Chile, Argentina, and Brazil. See, for example, Alfred Stepan, The Military in Politics: ChangingPatternsin Brazil (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1971). 8 The 1982 constitution expanded the powers of the NSC and set its membership to include the president, prime minister, ministers of defense, foreign affairs, and internal affairs, and the chief of the general staff, along with the commandersof the army, navy, air force, and the gendarmerie. 19 Relations in the Third TurkishRepublic,"Middle East Journal John McFadden, "Civil-Military 39 (Winter 1985): 69-85. Some of these reforms included banning those in positions of leadership at the time of the 1980 coup from runningfor office for ten years (later repealed); approvingonly three of the proposed fifteen political parties;and increasingthe powers of the presidency. 20 See Michael Gunter, "The Silent Coup: The Secularist-Islamist Struggle in Turkey,"Journal of South Asian and Middle EasternStudies21 (Spring 1998): 1-12. 21 Jonathan Lyons, "Turkish Army Says IslamistsNow Enemy Number One," Reuters Newswire, 30 April 1997. 22 Sabah (Istanbul), 19 March 1997, 18. 23 "ErbakanWarns Turkish Army Against 'FightingIslam,"' Agence FrancePress, 8 March 1997. CIVIL-MILITARYRELATIONS IN THE MIDDLE EAST 1 75 sign on 18 June 1997. Within a few months, the judiciary would ban the RP altogether. With the ideological correction to the system implemented and the Islamist threat effectively eliminated, the army saw no need for direct intervention. An acceptable political-ideological equilibrium having been restored once again, the military in general and the NSC specifically resumed their arbitrator role from behind the scenes. While civil-military relations in Israel far more closely approximate those found in liberal democracies, the Israeli military's overall closeness to the political establishment, and consequently the degree of cooperation and interconnection between military and civilian elites, is highly unusual for a democracy. Despite Prime Minister David Ben Gurion's initial fears of a coup-by such outlawed Jewish terrorist organizations as Menachem Begin's Irgun24-and isolated instances of insubordination by certain commanders during the 1967 and 1973 wars, the Israeli military's subordination to civilian politicians is today guaranteed by political tradition and legal procedures.25What sets Israel apart from other liberal democracies is the direct and indirect involvement of military leaders in government policy formation. Although confined to defense and foreign policy issues, this involvement can take several forms. To begin with, since the 1967 War the chief of general staff and at times his deputy and other high ranking military commanders participate in cabinet meetings. Although without a formal vote, the military leaders' participation in cabinet deliberations gives them considerable influence in government decision making.26Also, it is not uncommon for senior officers to actively promote the ruling government's position in speeches or in press interviews. Not surprisingly,many top-level military appointments and promotions are conducted on a partisan basis. Up until the 1980s, for example, all but one of the chiefs of staff were aligned with the ruling party at the time of their appointment.27Equally prevalent is a practice known as parachuting, whereby high-ranking military leaders resign their posts, wait out the obligatory 100 days, and then join the top echelons of one of the political parties, usually the one in power.28Since 1977, when the Likud party first came to power, this type of pyramid hopping has become a common practice, to the extent that today some 8 to 10 percent of members of the Knesset come from senior military backgrounds (colonel or higher).29 No less of a figure than Shimon Peres, former prime minister and minister of defense, has admit24 Alan Richards and John Waterbury, A Political Economy of the Middle East, 2nd ed. (Boulder, CO: Westview, 1996), 332. 25 Eva Etzioni-Halevy,"Civil-Military Relations and Democracy:The Case of the Military-Political Elites' Connection in Israel,"Armed Forces and Society 22 (Spring 1996): 406. 26 Ibid., 407. 27 Ibid., 408. 28 Ibid., 413. 29 Ibid., 409. 76 | POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY ted that despite his contributions to the 1948 war of independence, lack of a formal military rank haunted him throughout his political career.30 AUTOCRATIC OFFICER-POLITICIANS Far more prevalent than the military democracies in the Middle East are states that owe their genesis to the military and continue to be dominated by the armed forces and their personnel. Beginning with Iraq's 1936 coup and lasting through the 1960s, the middle classes and other educated groups in the Middle East considered it almost "natural" for the military to take over the reins of power in order to start the process of political development, give speed and direction to industrialization, and pull the country out of "backwardness" and underdevelopment.31 The Arab world, it was commonly held, was mired in a deep crisis, a malaise for which the only remedy was,thought to be a revolution (al-thawra). And the only force in society capable of bringing about a revoluThus the young tion, of affecting meaningful change, was seen as the military.32 flocked into the army to satisfy their thirst for answers, for "liberation" from all that was negative about the present. Lofty visions abound, vague in details but compelling in their promises. Many young men, of whom a teenage Mummar Qaddafi was one, joined the army out of conviction to higher political ideals, hoping to use their new institutional platform to wrest power from those whom they blamed for the humiliating backwardness of their country.33 Understanding the emergence, evolution, and later decay of the ideological armies of the Middle East is nearly impossible without fully appreciating the historic and global contexts within which they emerged. For much of the developing world, the 1950s and 1960s were the decades of revolution and political self-actualization. Apart from Algeria, where the movement for national liberation started from below and had a truly national component, all of the other early revolutions in the Middle East-excluding Iran's-started from above and were led and orchestrated by highly ideological officers. Most of the ruling officers chose a Revolutionary Command Council as their favorite instrument in the new state to effect change. The "sacred principles" of the revolution, however, were rarely enunciated for the masses on whose behalf the entire drama was supposedly unfolding.34 30 ShimonPeres and Robert Littell,For the Futureof Israel(Baltimore,MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998), 54. 31 This sense of historic mission on the part of the army was not limited to the middle class professionals of the Middle East. Similarlyinclinedwere many Westernmodernizationtheoristsof the 1960s. See, for example, David Halpern, The Politics of Social Change in the Middle East and North Africa (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1963). 32Be'eri, Army Officersin Arab Politics and Society, 6. (Gainesville:University Press 3 MansourEl-Kikhia,Libya's Qaddafi:The Politics of Contradiction of Florida, 1997), 40. 34 Be'eri, Army Officersin Arab Politics and Society, 61. CIVIL-MILITARYRELATIONS IN THE MIDDLE EAST 1 77 Success, however, in both the short and the long terms, was often elusive. The army's excessive politicization, coupled with the absence of a single, unifying vision around which to rally-or the same interpretations of a single vision (for example, Ba'athism)-severely impeded the emergence of a corporate, unified sense of identity among the officers corp. In countries such as Iraq and Syria, coups within coups became an ordinary fact of life. Factions and individuals within the army, often with considerable brutality and bloodshed, battled for control of the state and the imposition of their own, more correct vision of the future. Not surprisingly, the ideological platforms of these successive military regimes, while often loudly advertised, were seldom all that different. Regardless of the proclamations of the officers in power, all invariably pursued projects that were essentially nationalist and statist and were defined in terms of economic nationalism, industrial development, state capitalism, and the development of a bourgeois class. This is not, of course, meant to downplay the tremendous appeal that Ba'athism held for thousands of Syrian and Iraqi youths or what Arab Socialism meant to countless Egyptians. But ultimately, Ba'athism was unable to serve as a cohesive glue among the Syrian or the Iraqi officers corp. Military fratricides in Iraq and Syria came to an end only after a capable leader in each country effectively supplanted all his challengers.35In Egypt, similarly, within only a few years of the "revolution," it became obvious that Arab Socialism was little more than an attractive gloss, a mere codeword for the far more resonant and resilient phenomenon of Nasserism. As hollow as the military's ideological pretensions were seen to be, they still retained a unique popularity as the main engine for large-scale social and political change. The army's rallying cry of nationalism still evoked powerful emotions among the masses. Defending the motherland, liberating Palestinian brethren, defeating the Zionists and their colonial supporters, standing up to the British and the Americans-these were all potent promises that in the 1950s and the 1960s touched a deep and receptive chord among millions throughout the Arab world. That the articulators of these promises were often charismatic men-Gamal Abdel Nasser, Ahmad Ben Bella, Mummar Qaddafi-only added to the potency of their rhetoric. The important point is that initially the army-states of the Middle East enjoyed considerable popular legitimacy. Until the mid-1960s, especially before the break-up of the United Arab Republic in 1961 and then the 1967 war with Israel, what Nasser did and stood for not only enhanced the legitimacy of the Egyptian military in Egyptian eyes but lent credence to the rule of other militaries in places such as Iraq, Algeria, Libya, Syria, and briefly Lebanon during Fu'ad Shihab's presidency from 1958 to 1964. Only in the Sudan did a military-based regime rise and later collapse under theweight of a popular uprising in 1964 in -what came to be known as the October Revolution. 35 Alasdair Drysdale, "The SyrianArmed Forces in National Politics:The Role of the Geographic and Ethnic Periphery"in Kolkowicz and Korbonski,eds., Soldiers,Peasants,and Bureaucrats,66-67. 78 | POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY But with the passage of time and the need to institutionally consolidate power, popular legitimacy steadily waned. In this context, political institutionalization meant the consolidation of the powers of certain individual officers in relation to others. Yet the unending turmoil and bloodshed that came with attempts at consolidation eventually eroded the military's popularity and its image as the nation's saviour. Political consolidation, remained a most elusive goal, with only a few officer-politicians succeeding at it. Nasser did it early; Asad eventually succeeded; Qaddafi has weathered several coup and assassination attempts.36But Algerian, Iraqi, and Sudanese military rulers have yet to achieve unquestioned consolidation of their rule. Gone are the days of lofty promises and impending victories against global enemies. Today's goal is simply to hang on to power. The military states of Algeria and Sudan make no pretensions to even hide their real intentions. Civil wars, massacres, and starvation, they reason, are necessary evils in trying to stay in power. Even Qaddafi, once the perennial soldier and liberator, is today portraying himself more as a contemplative philosopher, an architect of his ever more elaborate Jamahiriyya system.37Asad, always careful to be seen as a man of principles, is now more worried about the struggle over his succession between his broth Raf'at, once a vice president, and his son Bashshar.38 Among its many international and regional consequences, the 1967 War had three specific ramifications for the military-based regimes of the Middle East: apparent civilianization of the machinery of the state; its concomitant loss of legitimacy; and an increasing drive to professionalize the military. Most states began portraying a more civilian image of themselves to their populations, although they did not necessarily qualitatively civilianize themselves. The replacement of military uniforms with civilian suits was part of a deliberate move to deemphasize the state's military genesis while keeping intact its overall institutional structure.39 The continued pervasiveness of the military is due to A rapid, hasty civilianization of the political system can bring several factors. 36 The latest rumors of an assassination attempt circulated in June 1998, when Qaddafi abruptly canceled a trip to Cairo shortly before reaching the Egyptian border by car. The Fighting Islamic Group, an undergroundLibyan opposition movement, also claims to have carriedout a similarattack in 1996.See Salah Nasrawi,"MuslimDissidents Say They Tried to Kill GadhafiLast Year,"Associated Press Newswire, 2 January 1997. There have also been reports of attempted military coups in 1975 and 1993. 37 According to El-Kikhia, in recent years Qaddafi has "taken to himself the role of the 'Grand Legislator'to see that the 'will of the people' is served in accordancewith his thoughts as outlined in The Green Book." El-Kikhia, Libya's Qaddafi,58. 38Al-Watan al-Arabi, Paris, 20 February 1998, 4-7. Asad's eldest son Basil was reportedly being groomed to succeed his father, but died in a car accident in January1994. 39 An importantexception to this has been Tunisia,where for decades PresidentHabib Bourghuiba, the Supreme Combatant,made a concerted effort to keep the militaryout of domestic politics. In the end, however, it was his prime minister, General Zein el-Abedine Ben Ali, who ousted Bourghuiba in a palace coup in 1987 and is now the country'scurrentpresident. See Dirk Vandewalle, "Fromthe New State to the New Era: Toward a Second Republic in Tunisia,"Middle East Journal 42 (Autumn 1988): 602-620. CIVIL-MILITARYRELATIONS IN THE MIDDLE EAST 1 79 about a severe backlash on the part of the senior officers whose economic and political privileges are suddenly threatened. Also, the parliamentary and bureaucratic institutions that could potentially fill the vacuum resulting from the military's departure are too marginalized and politically manipulated to be of any real value. This is precisely what occurred in Algeria between 1988 and 1992.40Civilianization's perceived threats to senior officers were further compounded in Algeria by the state's hurried attempts at democratization without first realigning the various institutions of the state, most of which continued to remain under the control of the armed forces. A military coup was almost bound to happen: having long played an entrenched role in the political process, faced with sudden political marginalization and the very possibility of a stunning electoral victory by the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS), the impulse to preserve the status quo and to maintain the traditional post-1962 polity seemed almost natural for the military.41 the leaders of the 1992 coup, the extensive For violence and bloodshed that ensued were only the unpleasant side effects of a necessary "corrective measure." The military-states' evident inability to live up to their end of the social contract that had so far kept them in power has eroded more and more of their legitimacy. The malaise of the 1940s and 1950s has returned with a vengeance in the 1990s, masked only temporarily by the euphoric but artificial victory of 1973.4 Similarly empty is the larger vision of the military-state as it is presented to the people. The cause of national liberation, which so captivated the Algerians, and of Palestinian liberation, which excited the Egyptian and the Syrian masses, no longer holds sway as it once did over millions of men and women. Also gone is the leader, the heroic soldier whose charisma served as the bond between the military-state and the people, whose promises gave voice to their unspoken aspirations, whose force of character made popular sacrifice possible and economic shortcomilngs excusable. There are no more Nassers today, no Ben Bellas or Boumediennes. Asad, never too fond of the limelight compared to others, is now old and frail, preferring his much younger-looking pictures to do his charismatic bidding for him. Egypt's Husni Mubarak and Tunisia's General Ben Ali have also seldom displayed pretensions of being charismatic, eschewing grandiose proclamations and preferring instead to inculcate an image of dedication and honesty. But with honesty and efficiency mostly fictitious in the larger system, especially in Egypt, shunning the charismatic limelight may prove costly in the long run.43 The Agony of Algeria (New York: Columbia University Press, 1997), 60. Ibid., 80. 42 For an insightfullook at the plethora of economic, social, and political problems grippingEgypt as an example of other military-states,see Cassandra,"The Impending Crisisin Egypt," Middle East Journal 49 (Winter 1995):9-26. Other examinationsof the same topic may be found in Fouad Ajami, The Arab Predicament: Arab Political Thoughtand PracticeSince 1967 (Cambridge,UK: Cambridge A University Press, 1992); and Hisham Sharabi,Neopatriarchy: Theoryof Distorted Change in Arab Society (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1988). 43 Cassandra,"The Impending Crisis in Egypt," 18. 41 40Martin Stone, 80 | POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY In the seemingly civilianized military-states of the Middle East, the challenge of further military coups in the face of increasing military professionalization has been met through a fusion of multiple institutions controlled by the men in uniforms. The officer-politicians continue to use these institutions to perform a variety of functions, becoming at once military commanders and civilian technocrats, ideologues, and commercial producers, and the like. Not unlike the Communist parties of China and Cuba, the Arab Socialist Union in Egypt, the Neo-Destour in Tunisia, the National Liberation Front in Algeria, and the Ba'ath Party in Syria, all allowed their mostly officer members to perform such multiple roles.44Thus hegemony within these states continues to lie with the armed forces, even if the state has assumed a civilian character more than ever before.45In other words, the state's civilianization has not significantly altered the fusion of the roles by those in the highest echelons of power. In recent decades, these multiple political roles have been further consolidated through the increasing assumption of a number of significant economic functions by the armed forces. Although not quite to the extent of China's People's Liberation Army, many Middle Eastern militaries have become economic actors in their own right. The armed forces have extensive economic interests, especially in Algeria, Egypt, Syria, Yemen, the Sudan, and since the early 1990s, Iran. In Egypt, for example, since the 1970s there has been a "horizontal expansion" in the role of the military into the national economy.46In addition to an expanding military industry and its role as a veteran arms producer, the Egyptian military is economically active in the agricultural sector, in civilian industries, and in the national infrastructure.47 These economic and functional adjustments in large part account for the general absence of successful military coups-or at least coups within coupsthroughout the Middle East since the early 1970s (Algeria being an exception). There are two factors at work here. To begin with, factions within the armed forces no longer find it necessary to launch a coup, because they now have considerable stakes within both the economic as well as the political systems. But even if opposing factions were to appear, they would find it nearly impossible to overthrow the more bureaucratic military, which has now firmly entrenched itself into the system. On the one hand, officer-politicians have multiplied those state functions over which they have control. No longer simply military rulers, 44 Interestingly,while all of the political parties mentioned here, except the SyrianBa'ath, have had their names changed since their originalestablishment,their relations both with the state and with the militaryremain essentially the same. 45 Amos Perlmutter and William LeoGrande, "The Party in Uniform: Toward a Theory of CivilMilitaryRelations in CommunistPolitical Systems,"AmericanPolitical ScienceReview76 (December 1982): 786. 46 Robert Springborg, Mubarak'sEgypt:Fragmentation the Political Order(Boulder, CO: Westof view, 1989), 107. 47 Stephen Gotowicki, The Role of the EgyptianMilitaryin Domestic Society (Ft. Leavenworth,KS: Foreign MilitaryStudies Office, n.d.), 4-7. CIVIL-MILITARYRELATIONS IN THE MIDDLE EAST | 81 officer-politicians now frequently also control key bureaucratic institutions, dominate the official political party and even the legislature, and have placed themselves as the ultimate articulators of the state's ideology. On the other hand, this manifold penetration of the state and its functions has been cemented through an expansive economic network that has turned the armed forces into a formidable, at times insurmountable financial and industrial force. With their political and economic interests firmly grounded into the status quo, overthrowing the seemingly civilianized military rulers becomes exceedingly difficult, while at the same time compelling those in power to fend off potential challengers with even greater zeal. The overall role of the military within the state has therefore changed little. Once a venerable, highly popular institution, by the mid-1970s and the 1980s Middle Eastern militaries had become the foundations for repressive police states. In a number of instances, notably in Algeria and the Sudan, they had also become instruments of random terror and bloodshed. Almost all of the ideological military-states of the 1950s and the 1960s had by the 1990s been reduced to autocratic Mukhaberat (Intelligence) states. Also, the economic and sociocultural gap between the officers corp and the average middle classes has grown considerably. Concerned with preventing a recurrence of coups that brought down so many of their predecessors, today's military-based states shower their officers with a variety of perks and fringe benefits, ranging from generous foreign travel allowances to subsidized housing, cooperative shops, duty-free imports, interest free loans for villas and other prime real estate, free medical care, and generous salaries.48Once a group with whom the people readily identified and many sought to join, today's officers have become integral components of the repressive state, members of an elite with whom the average person has little in common materially or ideologically. Its continued political pervasiveness notwithstanding, the military has undergone a rather rigorous program of professionalization. Here again professionalization has meant not an abrogation of political responsibilities but rather the appointment of more competent commanding officers, the widespread emergence of an esprit de corps, and the development of much greater cohesion among the ranks of officers and soldiers. With the costly lessons of the Six Day War in mind, especially in Egypt and Syria, most commanders deemed incompetent have been purged or retired, command structures have been revised and revamped, military training and education has been strengthened, and logistical and supply problems have been highlighted and redressed. The enhanced performance of the Syrian and Egyptian armies in the 1973 war no doubt can be greatly attributed to these and other similar changes.49 48Alasdair Drysdale, "The SyrianArmed Forces in National Politics:The Role of the Geographic and Ethnic Periphery"in Kolkowicz and Korbonski,eds., Soldiers, Peasants,and Bureaucrats,70. 4 Dekmejian, "Egypt and Turkey:The Militaryin the Background," 34-35. 82 | POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY DUAL MILITARIES Building on and in turn perpetuating a revolutionary legacy, a number of other Middle Eastern states have established highly ideological, parallel military structures to counterbalance and watch over the professional armed forces. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corp (IRGC) in Iran, the Popular Army in Iraq (also known as the Popular Militia), and the Revolutionary Committees in Libya serve as parallel institutions to the regular military and have become bureaucratized and well-developed components of each of the states.50There are other countries in which parallel military institutions may be found; Turkey's Village Guards and Saudi Arabia's National Guard Corp are prime examples. But they do not serve as institutions through which inclusionary politics are perpetuated and which serve as one of the primary structural means of nexus between state and society. In this sense, the extensive paramilitary organizations found in Iran, Iraq, and Libya assume unique importance. Of all three cases, Iran's IRGC is the most highly bureaucratized, with an elaborate internal hierarchy that closely mirrors that of the regular military. In Libya, by contrast, Colonel Qaddafi's deliberate attempts at eroding the institutional base of the Libyan state have been somewhat mitigated by a similar degree of institutional routine and continuity in the operations of the Revolutionary Committees. Qaddafi has regularly sought to invent new and innovative mechanisms to include the populace in the political process. In all cases, the end result has been the same. Each of these states has created militias that act as highly ideological praetorian guards against domestic enemies, including possible conspirators within the military. Each state has a dual military component: a regular military, whose primary mission is to protect the country against foreign enemies; and a highly ideological militia, which often takes the form of various paramilitary organs, designed mainly to watch over domestic enemies and other internal power centers.51 While the militia's primary purpose is to reduce the possibility of a coup by elements within the regular military, the state resorts to additional means to ensure the officer corp's political and ideological conformity. In Iraq, Ba'ath party commissars are found at practically all levels and units of the armed forces; and military commanders, chosen based on their loyalty to President Hussein rather than their professional merits, are routinely rotated so as not to 50In Iran, the IRGC is known as Sepah-e Pasdaran-eEnghelab-eIslami, commonly referred to as Sepah-e Pasdaran or simply Pasdaran. In Iraq, the Popular Army is referred to as al-Jayshal-Sh'bi, while in Libya, Revolutionary Committees are known as al-Lijan al-Thawriyya. 51Since they are not part of the regular armed forces, ideological militia and other paramilitary organizationsare usually left out of most examinationsof civil-militaryrelations. In the Middle East, however, the state specificallycreates militias in order to counterbalancethe influence and autonomy of the regularmilitary.Therefore, their examinationmust be included so as to better understandboth the agendas and nature of the state as well as the limitations and constraintsplaced on the regular military. CIVIL-MILITARYRELATIONS IN THE MIDDLE EAST 1 83 TABLE2 General Features of Dual Militaries in the Middle East Ideological militia Composition Volunteerforce; lower & lowermiddle classes; primarily urbanbased youths Highlyideological; continued indoctrination Focus mostly on internalsecurity Low-level militarytraining;light weaponry Regular military Conscripts and NCOs; from all social classes; urban & rural youths both Politicallyaware; less ideological; political commissars present at most levels Conventional militaryduties Relativelyprofessional and disciplined; heavy artillery& sophisticated equipment Degree of indoctrination Responsibilities Level of training and equipment be able to conspire with their peers and subordinates.52Iranian military commanders, barred from any form of political activity by law, are similarly watched over by a Political-Ideological Directorate and by a whole cadre of commissars known as Imam's Representatives. The Political-Ideological Directorate is a large security organization staffed predominantly by clerics who engage in political propaganda and indoctrination among the troops. The Imam's Representatives are also clerics who are appointed by the leader (first Khomeini and now Khamenei) to make sure that the imam's guidelines are implemented within the various services.53Colonel Qaddafi has resorted to somewhat different mechanisms to reduce the possibility of further military coups. Similarly to Saddam Hussein, Qaddafi gives far more priority to the revolutionary credentials and loyalty of his officers as opposed to their rank or qualifications. Unlike Saddam, however, Qaddafi has relied on expatriates to fill key security and intelligencebpositions. Since the late 1980s, he has also brought in a number of Syrian pilots to fly in his air force.54 In each of the three cases discussed here, several significant differences separate the regular military from the institutionally-sanctioned ideological militias. These differences are especially noticeable in the social and class composition of the militia versus the regular military, in the degree of their ideological indoctrination, their responsibilities, and their levels of training and the equipments they are likely to use. (See Table 2.) Perhaps a most revealing difference between the ideological militia and the regular military is that the former is overwhelmingly if not entirely comprised of volunteers, and the latter is made up of conscripts and noncommissioned officers. Volunteers join out of a deep sense of ideological commitment and a highly emotional attachment to the Charles Tripp, "The Iran-IraqWar and the Iraqi State" in Derek Hopwood, Habib Ishow, and Thomas Koszinowski,eds., Iraq:Power and Society (Oxford, UK: Ithaca Press, 1993), 104. 53 Nikola Schahgaldian,TheIranianMilitaryUnderthe Islamic Republic(Santa Monica, CA: Rand, 1987), 30-31. 54 Omar El Fathaly and Monte Palmer, "Institutional Development in Qadhafi'sLibya"in Vandewalle, ed., Qadhafi'sLibya, 173. 52 84 | POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY cause or the leader. The armed militia essentially serves as one of the primary mechanisms through which the state institutes and perpetuates an inclusionary polity, thereby channelling popular energies and sentiments into state-supported projects. The militia is thus one of the crucial links through which the emotionally-laden nexus between the state and society is maintained. This is not to imply that other institutions, including the regular military, are exempt from the inclusionary machinations of the state. Nor is it to suggest that all three militias mentioned here are equally enthusiastic or ideologically committed. Comparatively, the Iranian volunteers and guardsmen have been far more committed to the Islamic state's ideological agendas and its domestic and international projects than the Iraqi Popular Militia or the Libyan Revolutionary Committee members. Moreover, most Iranians volunteer to join the IRGC on their own, but it is not clear how much of the comparable groups in Iraq and Libya are joined out of genuine commitment or as a calculated, politically prudent move. Despite these qualifications, a different level of commitment characterizes the militia forces compared to the regular army. The military is entrusted with a different mission altogether-that of guarding against foreign adversaries. The overwhelming bulk of its soldiers-infantrymen who end up being stationed far from home-resent being there and are eager to serve out their compulsory service and return to their lives. Many in the middle and the upper-middle classes are conscripted only after they have exhausted their attempts to evade military service. In terms of social and class composition, the militia often tends to be more homogeneous than the regular military, which includes soldiers and officers who come from a variety of backgrounds, except for the wealthy who can afford to purchase or bribe their way out of conscription. Most members of the militia are drawn from the urban-based lower and lower-middle classes. In Libya, efforts at military mobilization also focus on female high school and university students, part-time government employees, factory workers, and other elements traditionally excluded from the political process.55Membership in the militia not only gives these groups a sense of belonging and political efficacy, but, more importantly, it presents them with the possibility of upward mobility in societies where few other opportunities are open to them. In turn, this adds credence to the state's symbolic and rhetorical (rather than actual) identification with "the masses." The role of the IRGC in this regard, especially that of its more populist subcomponent of the Basij, is a case in point. The Basij-short for Sepah-e Basij, or Mobilization Army-was decreed into existence by Ayatollah Khomeini in 1979, soon after the collapse of the monarchy. It was created in an effort to placate and to meet pressures by the more radical groups who were seeking the formation of a people's army.56 "Basij," as the militia's commander declared years later, "is the essence of the people" and "defends the 55Ibid., 171. 56 Schahgaldian,The Iranian MilitaryUnder the Islamic Republic,88. CIVIL-MILITARY RELATIONS IN THE MIDDLE EAST | 85 ideals of the revolution."57An earlier decree, also by Khomeini, had led to the creation of the IRGC out of the popular militia guards (Pasdaran) that had been separately formed and run by different clerics and local Islamist activists. During the Iran-Iraq war, the Iranian government promoted the Basij as a "twenty-million man army." Although the goal of mobilizing twenty million Iranians was never achieved, both the Basij and the IRGC continue to function as an avenue for upward political mobility and elite recruitment. A case in point is Major General Mohsen Reza'i, who after having served as the commander of the IRGC for sixteen years stepped down in 1997. Today he serves as the secretary of the newly-created Expediency Council, which is headed by former President Hashemi-Rafsenjani.58In both Iraq and Libya, the need to volunteer appears even greater; membership in voluntary organizations and paramilitary groups is one of the very few political channels open to outsiders. Another major difference between the militia forces and the regular army is the degree and type of training each receives. In Iraq, the Iran-Iraq War witnessed a mushrooming of the Popular Army into a reported 600,000 militiamen and resulted in an unprecedented degree of military action at the front by its members. Prior to this battlefront experience, however, the Popular Army's training was limited to a two-month period every year. Much of this training revolved around basic weapons handling, low-intensity warfare, familiarity with various light armaments, and ideological indoctrination.59In Iran, the training of the IRGC is much more rigorous, often conducted by instructors and officers of the regular military. The Basijis, on the other hand, continue to be poorly trained and equipped, although in recent years their internal discipline and cohesion have improved.60Similar to their Iraqi counterparts, both the IRGC and the Basij saw considerable action at the front, with the Basijis forming the bulk of the "human wave" assaults. Libya, while remaining within the general category of dual-military states, deserves separate treatment, as Colonel Qaddafi's continued experimentation with the Libyan polity has seen the rise and fall of several militia-type organizations. In 1978 and 1979, Qaddafi set up but never actually mobilized a "people's army" to counterbalance the influence of the regular army.61His dictums of "revolution within the revolution" and "committees everywhere" (lijan fi kulli makan) eventually led to the proliferation and intense activism of the Revolutionary Committees at almost all levels of Libyan political life, including the 57 Iran, Teheran, 22 November 1997, 8. 58For more on Reza'i's resignation,which appearsto have been orchestratedby PresidentKhatami, see Kenneth Pollack, "Iran:ShakingUp the High Command,"WashingtonInstitutePolicywatch,No. 269 (Washington,DC: WashingtonInstitute for Near East Policy, 1997), 1-2. 59 Efraim Karsh and Inari Rausti, SaddamHussein:A Political Biography (New York: Free Press, 1991), 190. 60 Schahgaldian,The IranianMilitaryUnder the Islamic Republic,93-94. 61Vandewalle, "The Libyan Jamahiriyyasince 1969"in Vandewalle, ed., Qadhafi'sLibya, 27. 86 | POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY press, schools, and internal security organizations.62Reminiscent of Mao Zedong's Red Guards, the period 1980-1987 saw an intensification of violence and arrests by the Revolutionary Committees of those accused of economic corruption, bureaucratic crimes (such as bribery), and political deviance. By the late 1980s, however, the excesses of the committees were beginning to erode any remaining semblance of popular legitimacy that Qaddafi still had, and the colonel openly criticized their zealotry. Beginning in 1988, when the Libyan state began initiating a larger process of structural adjustment, the Revolutionary Committees lost much of their former influence, although they still nominally exist and continue to operate. This steady decline in the influence of the Libyan Revolutionary Committees closely mirrors that of Iraq's Popular Army, which still theoretically exists but today retains little real power. In fact, through the course of the two Gulf Wars and afterward, virtually all Iraqi institutions declined in political significance, while the powers of Saddam Hussein personally and those of the Revolutionary Command Council grew proportionately.63Even the Iranian Basij and the IRGC, once the cornerstones of Teheran's inclusionary polity, are in search of a military raison d'etre in the post Iran-Iraq War era. In recent years, the Basij has become active in such nonmilitary projects as nationwide polio vaccination of children and the distribution of millions of health insurance cards among the rural population. The IRGC is also rumored to have become the country's largest contractor. Nevertheless, in rhetoric at least, the goal of raising a twenty million man army still remains.64 Invariably, there is bound to be friction, if not outright conflict, between the militia and the regular military. By design, the two institutions are meant to look over one another, and there is often competition and resentment between them over the allocation of resources and armaments, promotions, and logistical stationing. Career officers often resent the rapid rise to power of militia commanders, while the two organizations frequently compete for glory and acclaim after major battlefront victories. In Iran, members of the regular military often view the IRGC with contempt and resent their seemingly preferential treatment by the country's senior politicians. In Iraq, many officers openly blamed the incompetence and lack of military training of the Popular Army for the loss of the Fao Peninsula to Iran in February 1986. In Libya, tensions between the army and the militia came to a head in 1983, when the Revolutionary Committee-dominated press launched a frontal attack on the regular military, reportedly with Qaddafi's blessing.65Eventually, in 1986 the subtle conflict between the two institutions was settled in favor of the regular military, following 62 Hanspeter Mattes, "The Rise and Fall of the Revolutionary Committees" in Vandewalle, ed., Qadhafi'sLibya, 1969-1994, 95. 63 Peter Haine, "PoliticalParties, Institutionsand AdministrativeStructures" Hopwood, Ishow, in and Koszinowski,eds., Iraq:Power and Society, 48. 6 Iran, 22 November 1997, 8. 65 El Fathaly and Palmer, "InstitutionalDevelopment in Qadhafi'sLibya," 174. CIVIL-MILITARYRELATIONS IN THE MIDDLE EAST | 87 U.S. air raids on Libya, when the military was seen as more capable of confronting the country's adversaries.66 KINGS, TRIBES, AND MERCENARIES Civil-military relations in the monarchies of the Middle East are based on a completely different set of dynamics. On a general, political level, these monarchies can be divided into two broad categories: the civic myth monarchies of Jordan and Morocco (where the monarchical state perpetuates a largely artificial sense of historical resonance); and the oil monarchies of the Arabian Peninsula, where the state's hold on power is supported by the dual pillars of petrodollars and tribalism (in Saudi Arabia Islam as well).67 In addition to the plethora of historical, economic, and sociocultural differences that distinguish these two types of monarchies, those in the Arabian Peninsula are largely incapable of mobilizing armies whose sizes are sufficient for national defense. Two factors underlie this. With the exception of Saudi Arabia, the Gulf states are faced with severe demographic limitations, with their populations ranging from a low of 500,000 in Qatar to a high of only 2,200,000 in Kuwait.68But demographic limitations are not alone. Saudi Arabia, with a citizen population of around 12.3 million in 1992 had armed forces of only 111,500, a percentage lower than those of Jordan, Iraq, Syria, or Israel.69Even the combined forces of the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council do not constitute a sizeable army on par with those found elsewhere in the Middle East. In a region renowned for its massive standing armies, and especially with the shadows of the Iranian and Iraqi armies looming large over the immediate Gulf region, the ensuing limitations to the oil monarchies pose serious challenges. There are a series of political reasons that keep the number of soldiers in the oil monarchies low. To begin with, as part of the rentier nature of the state, which is designed to support a massive welfare apparatus, all oil monarchies except Kuwait have so far abstained from instituting compulsory military service.70Even in Kuwait, where the draft is easily avoidable, many Bedouins are reported to desert the army once their savings-accrued through relatively generous monthly salaries-are sufficient to enable them to buy plots of land or herds of sheep.71With opportunities for financial enrichment abundant in the "The Rise and Fall of the Revolutionary Committees,"in Vandewalle, ed., Qadhafi'sLibya, 1969-1994,106. 67 For more on the political and institutionaldifferencesbetween the oil and civic myth monarchies, see Kamrava,"Non-DemocraticStates and Political Liberalizationin the Middle East: A Structural Analysis," 63-85. 68 These figuresare 1991 estimates. After the invasion of Iraq, as much as 50 percent of the population of Kuwait was estimated to have temporarilyleft the country. 69 Gregory Gause III, Oil Monarchies:Domestic and Security Challengesin the Arab Gulf States (New York: Council on Foreign Relations Press, 1994), 124-125. 70 Ibid., 124. 71 Isam Al-Taher, Kuwait:The Reality (Pittsburgh: Dorrance, 1995), 183-184. 66 Hanspeter Mattes, 88 | POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY private sector, and with military service not necessarily viewed as socially prestigious, few young men tend to volunteer for service. Only in Oman, where Sultan Qabus personally commands the forces, is service in the armed forces thought of as prestigious and thus there are no shortage of volunteers.72Moreover, existing social prejudices-against Shi'ites in Bahrain, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia-keep many groups away from the armed forces or greatly curtail their mobility and access to sensitive posts once they enlist. In the Saudi military, sensitive positions are also rumored to be closed to officers from the Najd (central) region.73 The oil monarchies have resorted to two primary means of compensating for the numerical inferiority of their armed forces. Traditionally, they have brought in officers and at times even soldiers from abroad to fill the vacuum left by insufficient manpower. At the officer level, most of the foreign advisers are from Britain and are often put in charge of training and supervising logistics. In the decades past, some were entrusted with intelligence operations as well.74Seldom have expatriate officers been entrusted with command positions, especially in recent years, although Bahrain's chief of police has long been the same notorious British officer. The more junior-ranking expatriate officers and soldiers are likely to hail from Egypt, Pakistan, India, or be of Palestinian descent.75Nevertheless, the last few years have witnessed a sharp reversal of this reliance on expatriate soldiers, a trend accentuated by the second Gulf War and by internal pressures within each of the Gulf states. In this regard, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Oman have been leading the way. A second substitute for insufficient manpower has been the purchase of vast quantities of sophisticated weaponry. Arms purchases in the Gulf region have reached unprecedented proportions since Iraq's invasion of Kuwait and previously during the Iran-Iraq War. While undoubtedly these military procurements affect the military balance in the Gulf region and in the entire Middle East, their significance is not limited to the military domain. The Gulf War exposed the inherent weakness of the region's monarchies and their deep dependence on outside forces for their survival. Ironically, while the almost unabated import of arms from abroad deepens the dependence of the oil monarchies on the expertise and spare parts of Western (mainly American) military suppliers, one of its primary functions is to impress the population with the monarchy's ability to defend the nation militarily. The supply of arms is meant to reinforce Gause, Oil Monarchies,124. Ibid., 124. 7' Al-Taher, whose writingsare to be taken with a grain of salt, records that in the 1960s Kuwait's militaryintelligence service was characterizedby "ignorance,naivety, malice and comedy" and was led by a number of "dishonest"foreign "adventurers." Al-Taher, Kuwait:The Reality, 181. See 75 Priorto the Gulf War, some Iraqi citizens could also be found in the armies of the Gulf Cooperation Council states. 72 73 CIVIL-MILITARYRELATIONS IN THE MIDDLE EAST | 89 the long-standing position of the monarch as the nation's emir, the commander, while erasing the stain of military impotence left over from Iraq's invasion." The Saudi state, in addition to foreign military personnel and the importation of sophisticated weaponry, relies on the National Guard, which in recent decades has undergone considerable expansion and modernization. It serves several functions for the Saudi state. Made up entirely of recruits from the country's various tribes whose service is a form of tribal levy, the National Guard ensures al-Saud's dominance over other tribes and in turn reinforces the ruling family's means of nexus with one of its main sources of legitimacy. Its role as the monarchy's praetorian guard is just as important, especially after the elimination of the Royal Guard in the mid-1960s. It also serves as a form of internal security agency that can be called upon to quell domestic upheavals both in urban centers and in the army. A number of royal princes have used the Guard as their personal power base. The most dramatic example of this occurred during the power struggle between King Saud and his half-brother Faisal in 1963-1964, when Faisal sought to use the Guard to his advantage.77 Ironically, a number of disgruntled members from the National Guard were rumored to have taken part in the seizure of the Grand Mosque in Mecca in November 1979. Nevertheless, in the two-week attack on the rebels by the Saudi forces, units from both the regular army and the National Guard fought side by side. In the civic myth monarchies of the region, civil-military relations are characterized by an entirely different set of dynamics. The Jordanian and Moroccan states do not have the economic capabilities necessary to support rent-based welfare states. Neither do they have the luxury of hiring foreign advisers or reinforcing their social contracts with the uninterrupted flow of expensive, sophisticated weapons. Both rely heavily on conscription in order to staff the armed forces, and yet neither has the institutional capabilities to bring the military under the full control of the royal family. In virtually all of the oil monarchies, whenever possible the king appoints his sons, brothers, uncles, and nephews to military command positions or the governorship of various provinces, thus lessening possibility of a military rebellion. However, lacking similar tribal and kinship support networks, the Jordanian and Moroccan royal households are not nearly as large, forcing the monarch to appoint professional officers to command positions, even if they only have power on paper and real power resides with the king himself. The monarch, therefore, has to play a delicate balancing act with his military officers, a task at which Iraq's Faisal, Egypt's Faruq, Libya's Jdris, and Ir76 For other domestic adjustmentsundertaken in Saudi Arabia in the wake of the Gulf War, see Madawi al-Rasheed, "God, the King and the Nation: Political Rhetoric in Saudi Arabia,"Middle East Journal 50 (Summer 1996):359-371. 77 Nadav Safran, Saudi Arabia: The Ceaseless Quest for Security(Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1988), 101-102. 90 | POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY an's shah all failed.78On a number of occasions, the Jordanian and Moroccan monarchs have also found themselves faced with attempted military coups, compounding their suspicions and uneasy relations with the officers corp. Nonetheless, since the system is a monarchy, domestic public opinion dictates that the king maintain a semblance of civilian control of and dominance within the system. Thus the monarchical state cannot give too many high-profile positions to its loyal officers and replicate the pattern of officers-turned-civilians as represented by most other states in the region. At the same time, the very basis of the regime's legitimacy and its modus operandi mitigate the possibility of creating and relying on an ideological militia. The two monarchies seek to depoliticize as much of their population as possible rather than to deliberately fan political passions. Making matters worse have been profound changes in recent decades within the Jordanian and Moroccan societies and in the larger global arena, which have made nonconstitutional monarchy increasingly archaic, have sharpened demands for political accountability, and have made economic shortcomings harder to explain away. The end result has been the adoption by both states of loudly propagated but very limited processes of political liberalization, a survival strategy whose components include drawing up a National Charter (in Jordan), legalizing political parties, giving some freedom to the parliament, and encouraging a more vocal press. Despite their structural limitations and the larger domestic and international environments within which they operate, the survival of both the Jordanian and Moroccan monarchies ultimately depends on the loyalty of their armed forces. Each monarch has made himself indispensable to the controlled liberalization process that is currently underway and is highly unlikely to be swept away by a tide of popular excitement of the kind that cost East European autocrats their power.79Liberalization has turned into both regimes' newest source of popular legitimacy, having become a safety valve for pent-up pressures. Yet control over foreign and defense policies resides firmly with the king, and he remains the nominal as well as the real commander of the armed forces. Beneath the surface of the new democratic era, therefore, old political formulas for maintaining power continue to prevail. As before, loyalty to the king is the sole criteria for promotion; coordination between officers and commanders is prohibited at all costs; the only ideology any officer is allowed to have is the credo of the monarch; and the king has eyes and ears in all branches and at all levels of the officers corp. Both the Jordanian and Moroccan armies appear to benefit from considerable professionalism and discipline, especially the Jordanian army, which until Although the fall of the shah of Iran was the result of a popular revolution, in the critical days before and duringhis collapse the royal armedforces experienced an atrophywhose speed astonished most observers.See Abbas Qarebaqi,Haqayeq dar-bareyeBohran-eIran (Truthsabout Iran's Crisis) (Paris:Soheil, n.d.). in Jordan:The Consequencesfor Democ7 See MehranKamrava,"FrozenPolitical Liberalization racy,"Democratization5 (Spring 1998): 138-157. 78 CIVIL-MILITARYRELATIONS IN THE MIDDLE EAST | 91 recently was nominally at war with Israel for decades. Nevertheless, past experience suggests that intimate personal control by the two kings may have severely hampered the real professionalism and strength of their armies to act under adverse circumstances. This is what happened to the imperial Iranian army, at the time of the shah's collapse the world's fifth largest and supposedly highly professional. For now, however, when violent challenges to the two remaining civic myth monarchies seem to be limited to small and localized "bread riots," the armed forces appear to be reliable sources of support for both the Jordanian and Moroccan states. CONCLUSION As the preceding pages demonstrate, in the Middle Eastern context, military professionalization has seldom meant political civilianization. The very dangers inherent in professionalization-giving the armed forces greater internal cohesion and a stronger sense of corporate identity, thus making political intervention easier-have required the provision of a variety of modalities through which improvements in training, promotions, hardware, and other logistical matters do not qualitatively alter command structures or the state's constant efforts to keep the military at bay. Regardless of the general category to which they belong, therefore, all cases of civil-miliary relations in the Middle East feature a prominent political role for the armed forces. This role may be played from behind the scenes, as in Turkey and to a lesser extent Israel, or be more overt but have a civilian face, as in Algeria, Egypt, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia, and Yemen. Some countries have gone so far as to create two militaries, one for enemies from abroad and another for enemies from within, including those wearing military uniforms. Also, the monarchies of the region, once far more plentiful than now, have either made command of the military a family matter or, if not as large, have resorted to Machiavellian machinations to keep the military as the state's ultimate saviour. Civil-military relationships in the Middle East have not been static but are instead highly dynamic and changeable. Once an agent of radical socioeconomic change-that is, industrial growth and social and cultural development-Middle Eastern militaries have now become bastions of conservatism, often times the biggest agents of maintaining the political status quo, albeit from behind the scenes. Concurrent with growing political conservatism has been a steady blunting of the ideological character of the military. A main proponent of such radical ideologies as Ba'athism and Arab Socialism not too long ago, today's armed forces in the Middle East have lost much of their former ideological coloring. Instead, they have retained their essentially nationalist character and continue to project a largely accepted image as the ultimate guardian of the motherland. In its current phase, with the exception of Algeria and the Sudan, civil-military relationships in the Middle East are characterized by an apparent and in large measure substantive separation of the regular mili- 92 | POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY tary from the civilian-dominated political process. Nevertheless, with military professionalization defined and promoted only as state actors see fit, the armed forces remain integral to and inseparable from the larger political system. However defined, the professionalization of Middle Eastern militaries has not yet translated into the civilianization of the political process. Even the most professional of the militaries in the region will not hesitate to intervene in politics and to try to maintain the status quo in abnormal conditions of a serious internal threat to the system, whether on their own accord (as in Turkey) or at the behest of civilianized former officers now in power (as in Egypt and Syria). In either case, the armed forces, be they the regular military or paramilitary militias, are never too far from the political formula.