“Wouldn’t It Be Great If…”

   My last two posts made a lot of my readers angry, but first and foremost, I want to thank all of the readers who sent their comments to me. Some were supportive, some… less supportive – but this is the beauty of our academic world. Recent years have proven that no one can predict what will happen. No one predicted that Bashar al-Assad would kill hundreds of Syrians every day for more than a year and a half, and that no one would stop him. No one predicted the Arab Spring and its outcome in Tunisia, Libya and Egypt. We can express and exchange opinions. You are more than welcome to post your comments here and have a fertile discussion.

   Thinking about Hezbollah as a separate entity and not as a proxy army of Iran, and consequently forming a unique strategy to combat it, seems to be a new concept that is hard to seize, but apparently this concept is not mine alone. It seems that American intelligence agencies decided to change their approach and refer the relationship between Iran and Hezbollah as “strategic relationship” instead of labeling Hezbollah a “proxy army.” They too understand that Hezbollah has grown into a full independent creature with which the world has to cope individually.

    Additionally, the international community’s distrust of and discomfort with President Mohammed Morsi is perfectly understandable. He is a man of Islam, and a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, a religious movement that was repressed for many years by Hosni Mubarak. Now, he and that movement are in power thanks to the first democratic elections in Egypt whether we like it or not. To Western eyes it looks that President Morsi poses a threat and it only seems natural that his next ally will be Iran due to their common enemy: Israel. Though I greatly appreciate concerns for Israel’s well being in the case of an Iranian-Egyptians alliance, I believe that the odds of this kind of alliance are pretty slim.

   The world of terrorism and counter-terrorism researchers tends to be pessimistic by nature. We search for the reasons for the destruction of humanity, and unfortunately the majority of these reasons currently invoke the name of Allah. Researchers are no different from the world they live in, and the world in general has lost its faith in strong and clear-intentioned Arab leaders. One should add that this lack of faith is not without reason. And yet President Morsi, though Muslim, draws himself as a different type of leader. Maybe we should give him a chance and leave our fears aside. Maybe something good will happen – to Egypt and the region.

   “Wouldn’t it be great if Hezbollah didn’t have a huge arsenal of weapons;” “wouldn’t it be great if Hezbollah didn’t declare of its intentions to attack Israel,” said a distinguished researcher in a conference this week. He’s a pessimist too. I’m trying not to be.