Securing a Dynamic and Open Economy: The UAE's Quest for Stability

Full text

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Middle east Policy, Vol. XXii, No. 2, suMMer 2015
Securing a Dynamic anD Open ecOnOmy:
The uae’S QueST fOr STabiliTy
Rashed Lekhraibani, Emilie Rutledge and
Ingo Forstenlechner
Mr. Lekhraibani is an Abu Dhabi-based political analyst, Dr. Rutledge is an
associate professor of economics at the United Arab Emirates University
and, Dr. Forstenlechner is a visiting lecturer at the FH Wien University of
Applied Sciences.
© 2015, The Authors Middle East Policy © 2015, Middle East Policy Council
An estimated 50,000 American
and 250,000 British expatri-
ates currently reside in the
UAE; around a quarter of them
choose to make it their home for periods of
ve or more years. More than a third of the
UAE population is non-Muslim; Christians
and Hindus each account for around 15
percent. All faiths can congregate and wor-
ship without interference, and interfaith
dialogue is encouraged and supported.1
With Dubai at the forefront and Abu Dhabi
having recently instituted a “visitors wel-
come” campaign, the UAE has become a
hugely popular tourist destination, chang-
ing the longstanding notion that travel to
the Arabian Gulf is only appropriate for the
purposes of business and work.2 Men and
women serving in the U.S. Marines and
UK Royal Air Force are regularly stationed
at the Jebel Ali Port and the Al Minhad
Air Base, respectively. The UAE has also
participated in virtually every U.S.-led
coalition campaign since 1991, making it
the most dependable Arab partner of the
United States.3 In fact, by a number of in-
ternational metrics, it constitutes one of the
most secular and “modern” nation states in
the Greater Middle East.4
Indeed, the UAE’s international pro-
le and stature have grown signicantly
in recent years. Both CNN and Rupert
Murdoch’s Sky News broadcast from
Abu Dhabi, and the BBC’s regional hub
is located in Dubai. Two famous English
Premier League football clubs, Arsenal and
Manchester City, play their home games
at the “Emirates” and “Etihad” stadiums,
respectively. Along with the world’s tallest
tower and largest shopping mall, Dubai
is home to Emirates, currently the fourth-
largest global airline, operating from the
world’s busiest airport in terms of inter-
national passenger trafc. In 2014, Dubai
won the bid to host the 2020 World Expo
and, for a number of years, has convened
the world’s richest horse race. The nal
race of the Formula One season now takes
place in Abu Dhabi, and the Louvre will
soon open its rst satellite venue there,
as will the Guggenheim Museum. Since
2007, Abu Dhabi has partnered with MIT
and Siemens in the eld of renewable
energy at the Norman Foster-designed,
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economies.6 Security and stability (actual
and perceived) are vital to achieving a
dynamic and open economy and to attract-
ing conventional non-oil Foreign Direct
Investment (FDI) and the more ckle and
uid human capital such as highly skilled
expatriate labor. The UAE is seeking
to develop an employment-rich service
sector, to attract more tourists and confer-
ence delegates, and to become a regional
hub for a number of industries, including
logistics and nancial services. It follows
that at no previous juncture has the UAE’s
ability to effectively use statecraft been
more important.
A key question is, why exactly does
the UAE consider political Islam to be
such a threat to its security and stability?
The catalyst of its more vociferous opposi-
tion to Islamist movements can partially
be traced to the tumultuous events in
Tunisia and Egypt. Yet, in both instances,
the Islamists who lled the political vacu-
ums — which, it should be recalled, were
created by progressive “LinkedIn liber-
als” — have since been popularly ousted,
in Tunisia by way of the ballot box and, in
Egypt, by military action that was ob-
served the world over to have been widely
supported. In a subsequent poll, almost
two-thirds of the public supported the
Egyptian military’s decision, and many of
them had actually voted for the MB.
7
The
UAE may not be concerned that Islamist
governments are seen as a viable alterna-
tive by the vast majority in the unstable
regional environment — the received
view being that they performed poorly in
both Tunisia and Egypt.
8
However, the
political ambitions harbored by Islamists,
along with their message that “Islam is the
solution,” may encourage a minority to
consider their doctrine to be the region’s
panacea and one worth ghting for.
carbon-neutral Masdar City. It can now be
accessed via the iconic, Zaha Hadid-
designed, Sheikh Zayed causeway. In
2017, the UAE will be the rst in the
region to generate electricity by nuclear
technology as part of a multi-billion-dollar
partnership with South Korea.
There are, however, a number of op-
portunity costs resulting from this en-
hanced prominence on the global stage.
This overt modernity is construed by
reactionary Islamists as the antithesis
to the mode of society they prefer and
agitate for. Another is more reputational
in nature: today, UAE government ac-
tions and policies are subjected to far
greater levels of international scrutiny and
critique, informed and otherwise, than at
any point in its short, 43-year history. No
longer can it be typied as an unobtrusive
Middle Eastern backwater remote from
international affairs. This has been par-
ticularly apparent since the “Arab Spring”
and the UAE’s resultant stance toward
the Muslim Brotherhood (Al Ikhwan al
Muslimeen; henceforth MB). Despite some
commentary to the contrary, this does not
portend a Huntington-style clash. Neither
is it necessarily indicative of a confused
national identity or a confessional contra-
diction. Islam as a faith and a set of values
is not in any way comparable to political
Islam (“Islamism”), which, although ideo-
logically grounded, is, in various respects,
fundamentally at odds with modernity in
the Western sense.5
The adoption of such a confronta-
tional stance may nevertheless affect the
UAE’s continued transition towards a
knowledge-based economy — the re-
forms now underway that are designed to
overcome the deleterious socioeconomic
consequences that are typically said to
afict rentier state/resource curse (RS/RC)
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Middle east Policy, Vol. XXii, No. 2, suMMer 2015
closely with Saudi Arabia than it might
otherwise have chosen.
The question is also of particular con-
temporary relevance in light of the recently
released list of 83 organisations that the
UAE has classied as “terrorist.”
11
Its
publication in November 2014 — which,
according to the ofcial Emirates News
Agency, along with partial fullment of a
federal law
on combat-
ing terrorist
crimes, was
for “transpar-
ency” and
“awareness-
raising” purposes — raised a fair number
of eyebrows. It happens to be the case,
moreover, that dening terrorism is as
vexatious for academics and policy makers
as it self-evidently is for media commenta-
tors; it invariably leads to normative points
and counterpoints.
12
The “shock” and
heated debate that ensued should not really
have been as surprising as it seemingly
was from some UAE commentators. All
published lists are subjected to scrutiny, not
least with regard to notable inclusions and
omissions.
The United States, for instance,
has been criticised for including Hamas
and Hezbollah among the 54 international
organizations it currently designates as ter-
rorist groups, while the UK has been con-
demned for not including them on its list of
63 groups.
13
Their respective inclusions and
omissions are attributable to realpolitik.
Neither Hamas nor Hezbollah features on
the UAE list, more likely than not due to
pragmatism rather than principle.
The inclusion on the UAE list of or-
ganizations such as the Washington-based
Council on American-Islamic Relations
(CAIR) and the Muslim Association of
The move toward modernity, many
analysts have argued, is in certain respects
diametrically at odds with the societal
construct envisaged by most Islamist
groups.9 In no small part, this is because of
the sensitivities surrounding globalization.
Not only does a deeper integration expose
a culture to ever-changing global ones; it
also necessitates systemic educational and
labor-market
reform: (1)
a greater
emphasis on
the voca-
tional skills
of science
and technology at the expense of religious
studies; (2) pedagogies centred on critical
thinking as opposed to rote methods; and
(3) a greater use of English as the medium
of instruction, which for a transitional
period requires hiring a large number of
teachers from the West.
In the past, some oil-rich transitional
economies could afford to hang back from
actively combating international terrorism,
as oil installations are capital-intensive
and few in number, thus relatively easy
to secure and restore. However, this does
not hold for knowledge-based economic
structures in which acts of terrorism
would have a far more signicant impact;
reinstating safety and stability, including
perceptions of it, takes considerably longer
to achieve. Other factors are the U.S. pivot
to East Asia, which by denition means a
strategic shift away from the Middle East,
and the lack of clarity regarding the degree
of security assurance the UK’s nascent
“East of Suez” initiative might afford as an
alternative.10 This feeling of insecurity has
arguably resulted in the UAE’s now align-
ing itself, geopolitically speaking, more
The move toward modernity is in certain
respects diametrically at odds with the
societal construct envisaged by most
Islamist groups.
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either Tunisia or Egypt and, as a conse-
quence, seemingly opted for a policy of
wait and see. Saudi Arabia in particular,
was disappointed that the United States did
not do more to support their long-time ally
Hosni Mubarak.18 It was this ambivalence
and perceived lack of appreciation of the
security concerns acutely felt within the
Arabian Gulf that, more likely than not,
resulted in the forging and nancing by
the UAE and Saudi Arabia of a proactive
strategic alliance with Egypt. The UAE
itself has also become more assertive and
independent in its own foreign policy.19
Nevertheless, the longstanding, once
“rock solid and unwavering,” U.S.-Arabian
Gulf security partnership is now compli-
cated further by the divergence of interests
among the six member states of the Gulf
Cooperation Council (GCC). Aside from
Oman’s hosting of secret U.S.-Iranian
nuclear talks, much to the reported dis-
quiet of Saudi Arabia, it has been Qatar’s
support for the MB that has caused most
disunity. Not only has it long been home to
a number of the more militant MB leaders,
including the radical and inuential Yusuf
al-Qaradawi; many contend that, during
the past decade, Al Jazeera (Arabic) has
too often become a mouthpiece for the
MB.20 (The degree to which the MB has
gained a foothold in Qatar since its inde-
pendence is set out in a recent article for
this journal by David Roberts.21) While this
was tolerated for a considerable number of
years, it was no longer tenable in the post-
Arab Spring era.
Indeed, the dispute culminated in
a high-prole diplomatic falling-out in
2014, with Qatar on one side and Bah-
rain, Saudi Arabia and the UAE on the
other — the United States has a substan-
tial military presence in both Bahrain and
Qatar. Tensions are now easing somewhat.
Britain (MAB) along with other MB afli-
ated entities, all currently operating legally
in the West, was, at rst glance, the more
surprising and attracted the lion’s share
of attention.14 Incidentally, UAE ofcials
have pointed out that such groups can ap-
peal through the courts to have their names
removed from the list, so long as they can
demonstrate that they have “changed their
approach.” The extent to which the list
focused on the MB was, on the one hand,
said to illustrate “partisanship” and “exces-
sive alarmism”; on the other, it was said to
demonstrate that the ght against militant
Islamism is as much “an ideological war”
as a conventional one.15 It also aligns the
UAE more overtly with Egypt and Saudi
Arabia, both of whom outlawed the MB
earlier in the year and contend that it is
a radicalizing force that encourages the
spread of reactionary Islamist ideology,
leading some to gravitate toward more
militant forms of Islamism.16 The MB
focus is also said to be reective of the
extent to which, via its proxies, it operates
with impunity in the West; hence its con-
siderable inuence in shaping American
and European policy on the Middle East.17
Overall, though, the consensus seems to
be that, while the UAE faces no direct or
imminent threat from political Islam, it
does have legitimate concerns resulting
from the seemingly intractable and increas-
ingly internecine conicts in its immediate
neighbourhood — large parts of Iraq/Syria,
Libya and Yemen — all of which have the
capacity to embolden and motivate Is-
lamists of all degrees of militancy.
A SECURE SECURITY PARTNER?
The Arab Spring clearly posed a policy
dilemma for decision makers in Washing-
ton and London. Both were observed to
be largely powerless to shape events in
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considered its decision to build a military
base in Bahrain capable of supporting
the long-term deployment of Royal Navy
frigates and destroyers.24 The UK and/or
the EU, by giving the GCC a clear security
commitment that shares risks as well as
opportunities, will undoubtedly open com-
mercial doors; the Euroghter Typhoon
jet is a case in point.25 Defense, diplomacy
and international relations are noted for
their interdependence, and the UAE has
taken considerable risk in terms of poten-
tial “blowback” by providing the West, on
numerous occasions, with an Arab/Islamic
cover of legitimacy by participating in the
majority of its coalition campaigns since
1991. This, in addition to its stability and
tolerance, put it in good stead for entering
into more formal UK/EU security pacts
going forward.
Progressive leaders in the Gulf face
their own dilemma with regard to the
U.S.-Gulf relationship; concepts of “mo-
dernity” (rightly or wrongly) are indelibly
linked with the socioeconomic construct
of the industrialized Western world. This
presents a difculty when confronting
political Islamists, who amplify and thus
attract support from the widely held belief
that America and Britain, in particular,
treat the Middle East in a hegemonic
way. Such sentiment resonates among all
segments of society, from liberal Muslim
reformers to apolitical Muslim literalists.26
It is thus important to underscore that the
“conict” between the West and Islam
is not a consequence of an endemic and
intrinsic culture clash between Christians
and Muslims. It is rather because many in
the Arab world are convinced that Western
governments are primarily interested in
securing a steady ow of oil exports and
supporting Israel irrespective of whether it
contravenes international law.27
In essence, Qatar has given way, toning
down its support for the MB; the pro-MB
satellite channel “Al Jazeera Live Egypt”
ceased broadcasting in December.22 Anoth-
er factor compounding the West’s dilemma
is the growing divergence within the Gulf
in terms of the extent to which reaction-
ary Islam is shaping (or, more accurately,
constraining) moves toward modernity
and socioeconomic reform. In this regard,
Saudi Arabia and the UAE are arguably
poles apart.
While the United States may well
want to pivot away from the Middle East,
a number of factors are considered likely
to prevent this desire from becoming a
reality. The global economy continues to
be dependent on Middle Eastern oil, and
the seemingly intractable issue of Pal-
estine still persists. Despite there being
no immediate threat to Israel from any
of its neighbors, the region is, after all,
characterized by instability, and in order
to effectively forestall a potential future
threat, the United States has little choice
but to remain engaged. This holds even if,
as reported, it has given up any short- to
medium-term plans for regime shaping,
whether in Afghanistan, Iraq or Syria.23
Despite these reality checks, many
Gulf-based commentators remain con-
vinced that the U.S. pivot is qualitatively
different from previous strategic realign-
ment plans. And, given the precarious
current state of affairs, Gulf leaders are
said to remain “anxious” and to be seek-
ing additional “reliable friends and allies.”
There has been much talk recently of the
UK, or perhaps even the EU, taking on a
more substantive role if indeed the United
States were to reduce its presence. Moves
in this general direction include the na-
scent UK “East of Suez” initiative, the rst
(“small”) concrete step of which may be
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While Islamism is sometimes viewed
in the West as a backlash to moderniza-
tion and globalization, “a binary construc-
tion of contradictory trends,” it is argued
that a considerable fraction of the support
it attracts arises from lack of economic
opportunity. It is the high rates of unem-
ployment and social dislocation in some
Middle Eastern countries that give appeal
to Islamists.28
Islam is a
faith and a set
of values, not
an identity
ready-made
for political mobilization.29 In counterpoint
to Huntington (however reective he was
of the post-Cold War zeitgeist in search-
ing for a new “them”), the “clash,” to the
extent that it exists, is cultural in nature,
not civilizational or theocratic.
The stated aim of the most radical
Islamist groups is to restore a caliphate in
some form; the MB itself seeks the estab-
lishment of a pan-Islamic government.
The goal is similar, although the means for
realising it are not.30 Islamists of all shades
are also similar in that they draw upon the
same sets of grievances to attract support.
These, whether real (pejorative attitudes
regarding “oil-rent” and a lack of support
for Palestine at the UN) or imagined (that
the majority of Western citizens subscribe
unquestioningly to Huntington’s thesis)
are for many Islamists primarily “window
dressing” to mask “their ideological totali-
tarianism.”31
A longstanding subject of discord
stems from the West’s continued depen-
dence on the Middle Eastern oil that it
once had unfettered access to and control
over. Indeed, certain Western powers, in
their voracious quest for raw resources
during the rst decades of the twentieth
century, helped create a number of the con-
temporary Middle Eastern nation states.
They also had a vested interest in creating
an economic infrastructure centered upon
the extraction and export of raw resources.
As a consequence, it is not entirely surpris-
ing that some lacked the institutional and
diversied economic structures (in sharp
contrast to Norway) to effectively deploy
and invest the
oil rent dur-
ing the booms
of the 1970s
and 1980s
and thus have
at times been prone to RS/RC outcomes.
It has been pointed out that when a
price-determining form of absolute rent
started to emerge in the world oil industry
in the mid-1960s, it was not viewed as
a legitimate form of “ground rent,” but
demonized as an excessive and unearned
form of “differential rent.”32 The way the
West responded gave rise to the widely
held sentiment in the Middle East that it
is more interested in the region’s oil than
the wellbeing of its people. This sharp
increase in oil rent was not viewed in
terms of newly independent nations seek-
ing a better return on their depletable raw
resource assets, but as the machinations of
a “monopolistic cartel.” In his memoirs,
Henry Kissinger claims that the United
States had no higher priority than to “bring
about a reduction in oil prices by breaking
the power of OPEC,” and that this strategy
reected not only economic analysis but,
even more, “political and, indeed, moral
conviction.”33
The question of Palestine is as com-
plex as it is intractable. To deny that the
issue did not come about as a consequence
of historical “Western” actions (the Bal-
four Declaration of 1917) is not only ahis-
The UAE prime minister puts it simply:
“If Israel signs the peace process, we will
do business and welcome them.”
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volves around the ideological inuence of
(“nonviolent”) reactionary Islamists upon
the more overtly extremist groups. The
inuence is hard to deny, yet, as the multi-
tude of Islamist advocacy groups (not least
those afliated in some way to the MB)
operating in the West cannot wholly be
excluded from the picture, so long as they
themselves do not actively commit acts of
terrorism.37 Some Middle Eastern states,
however, feel, with some justication, that
the West is harboring and engaging with
entities that constitute a direct and credible
threat to their security and stability.
The basic thesis of the accommo-
dationists is that government repression
(whether Western or Middle Eastern)
of Islamist organisations will inevitably
radicalise them. While confrontationists
do not entirely disagree, they contend that
it by no means follows that accommodat-
ing and engaging with them will result in
their de-radicalization. At this juncture, on
both sides of the Atlantic, the MB is said to
constitute a well-funded, multidimensional
organisation whose afliated entities vie to
represent American and European Muslim
communities to the respective govern-
ments, media outlets and indeed non-
Muslim polities. Some analysts consider
this to be a positive force for its potential
to encourage integration and moderation.
Others view the MB as a Trojan horse,
whose intentions are twofold: to radicalise
Muslim citizens of the West, including
those of non-Arab origin, and to shape
Western foreign policy on the Middle East
in favor of political Islam.38 In contrast,
the policy of engaging and entering into
dialogue with nonviolent, but radical,
Islamists in order to frustrate incipient in-
dividual terrorist plots, is said to focus on
the symptoms while neglecting the cause,
their underlying ideologies.39
torical; in terms of contemporary policy
formulation, it is myopic. The Sykes–Picot
Agreement of 1916 is another case in
point. It makes the task of socioeconomic
reform for Middle Eastern governments
that much more contentious. The process
invariably entails partnering with Western
governments (whether in terms of knowl-
edge transfer or trade agreements) that
are concomitantly subjugating Palestinian
rights at the United Nations. Despite this
and in diametric opposition to the MB,
the UAE prime minister puts it simply: “If
Israel signs the peace process, we will do
business and welcome them.”34
THE WEST AND POLITICAL ISLAM
The engagement and mixed sentiments
of the West towards political Islam date
back to colonial times, when they proved
to be a useful counterweight at certain
junctures, be it to Arab nationalists or Arab
leftists. U.S. support for Islamists in its
ght against the Soviets in Afghanistan is
well documented, as are the unintended
consequences. In Saudi Arabia, extreme
conservatism was entrenched further
with the return to the kingdom of young,
“ideologically driven” and battle-hardened
Saudi mujahedeen, many of whom to-
day hold administrative and bureaucratic
positions in, among other places, universi-
ties and government entities.35 In the past
decade, much of the analysis and many of
the policies on how best to interact with
the MB tend to be either accommodationist
or confrontational in nature.36
Although some have sought to delin-
eate a difference in the American and Brit-
ish approaches, both seem unsure of how
best to approach political Islam; neither
want to engage with extreme or violent
groups, but both seem unsure where to
draw the line. The key controversy re-
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Accommodationists contend that deal-
ing with the MB and other Islamists orga-
nizations is pragmatic; it has the capacity
to “help in the ideological transformation
of Islamist groups” and thus makes sense
on (Western) national-security grounds. It
is pointed out, furthermore, that the MB
plays a far greater role than do any of the
more liberal Muslim groups in the Arab
Middle East. According to some, in the
often fruitless search for Muslim moder-
ates, policy makers should “recognise that
the MB presents a notable opportunity.”40
Confrontationists argue that the “ideology”
driving political Islam should be tackled
(or at least openly acknowledged and fac-
tored in by the Western government agen-
cies) because the ultimate goal of the MB
is not in reality very different from that of
militant Islamists. The existence of such
polarized views demonstrates that, at the
very least, the UAE’s concerns in relation
to the MB are not as “alarmist” or “exces-
sive” as some have portrayed them to be
and are indeed informed by the concerns
of experienced academics, policy makers
and security analysts in both America and
Europe.41
Some in the accommodationist school
do have worthy intentions, not least that
engagement with the Western-based MB
organizations can promote greater toler-
ance and prevent discrimination against
innocent Muslims. Others, for a mixture
of reasons, hope to win Muslim hearts
and minds, both overseas and at home
(for electoral purposes rather than altru-
ism). However, it is said that the notion of
engaging with the MB as a vaccine to ward
off violent extremism is misguided. Still,
engagement continues apace, due to the
“disproportionate amount of the limelight”
the MB is granted in the West, in part be-
cause of its own European-based newspa-
pers and television stations.42
As has been pointed out, Islamist
jihadi groups, predating by several decades
al-Qaeda, were inspired by the writings of
Sayyid Qutb, a radical MB ideologue who
advocated jihad as a means to overthrow
secular governments articulated in his
1964 book, Milestones (Maalim  al-
Tariq). His sentiments, it is observed, have
inuenced both extremist and mainstream
Islamist ideology ever since.43 One way
of countering this, it has been suggested,
would be to encourage Islamic scholars to
undermine Islamist doctrines by demon-
strating that most of its core features are
typical of other forms of totalitarianism
— based on “human ideas,” ideology, and
thus not compatible with or sanctioned by
scripture.44 Anthony Lake, national secu-
rity adviser to former U.S. President Bill
Clinton, argued back in 1994 that Islamic
extremists used “religion” to cover their
real intentions: “the naked pursuit of politi-
cal power.”45
It has been argued that, from the 1990s
onwards, a number of mainstream Islamist
movements, most of which are offshoots
of the MB, started to see Western-style
democracy as a way to elicit liberal sympa-
thies and a convenient means to an end.46
In recalling that Bernard Lewis once char-
acterised Muslim fundamentalism’s vision
of democracy as “one man, one vote, one
time,” confrontationists seek to underscore
the danger of seeing the MB as a moderate
organization.47 It is said to be fundamental-
ly undemocratic in nature, recently stating
that installing Islamist governments in the
Middle East would be a stepping stone to a
global Islamic state.48 Moreover, the MB is
said to treat democracy as if it essentially
constitutes a dictatorship of the major-
ity, rather than a multifaceted process that
seeks to nd middle ground and aspires
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ing the UK. While this outcome may have
disappointed a number of governments in
the Middle East, it is not indicative of a
lack of understanding regarding their seri-
ous concerns.
In addition, not only does the UK have
different assessment rubrics for proscribing
groups; it must also give way to pragmatic
realpolitik.53 Nevertheless, it does harbor a
number of serious concerns with regard to
the MB and has been wrestling with itself
for the past decade over the sort of rela-
tionship it should have with the MB. In-
deed, a great many UK Foreign and Com-
monwealth Ofce communications and
internal reports — accessed by Freedom
of Information requests — highlight the
conicting views and general discomfort
with respect to the MB and its UK-based
afliates.54 As is now widely quoted, Sir
Richard Dearlove, the former head of MI6
(the British foreign-intelligence agency), is
said to consider the MB at heart “a terrorist
organisation.”55
As Bassam Tibi has articulated, “Is-
lamic civilisation” does not constitute a
“threat” to the West; in contrast, “political
Islam” does. Moreover, the latter consti-
tutes a far more pronounced “threat” to
the Muslim world. He argues at length
that Islamists who espouse violence and
those who denounce it “only differ over
the means to be employed, not the goal
itself.”56 As a consequence, Tibi believes
the line of thinking that views a distinction
in the ultimate ambitions of Islamists such
as the MB and more militant jihadi vari-
ants should be discouraged. It is clear that
former U.S. presidential candidate Mitt
Romney did not distinguish between the
two, arguing forcefully that U.S. foreign
policy should target the Muslim Brother-
hood: “I don’t want to buy into the notion
that this is all about one person (Osama bin
to consensus; Egypt, arguably, is a recent
case in point.49
The West, it is alleged, post-9/11 has
adopted an Islamist-apologist stance. A
more accurate start date, in our view, was
the period following the 2003 invasion of
Iraq and the growing acceptance that the
imposition of democracy was having un-
foreseen and destabilizing consequences.
Either way, it is argued that both the Bush
and Obama administrations, and those
of both Labour and the Conservatives in
Britain, have allowed Islamist organiza-
tions based in the West to exert undue
inuence on the development of Western
security and military policies. Indeed, MB
afliates have increasingly been allowed to
“vet the instructional materials” being used
to train Western intelligence and military
personnel with regard to the Middle East.50
Furthermore, Western governments and
their respective intelligence agencies turn
to such MB afliates when they want to
get the “Muslim view” on a given topic
relating to the Middle East.51
Focusing now more specically on
the UK relationship with the MB, in April
2014 the government announced it would
be undertaking a review of the MB’s
activities both in Britain and the Middle
East. The unreleased report, while stopping
short of proscribing the MB as a terror-
ist organisation, did express a number of
serious concerns.52 The head of the re-
view, Sir John Jenkins, is reported to have
concluded that the MB has both an “am-
biguous relationship with violence” and a
“questionable impact on social cohesion”
in the UK. Going forward, the UK govern-
ment will pay closer attention to a number
of advocacy groups and registered charities
that are said to have close ties with the MB
and will be more proactive in banning the
organizations’ spiritual leaders from visit-
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Laden) because after we get him, there’s
going to be another and another….This
is about Hezbollah and al Qaeda and the
Muslim Brotherhood,…a worldwide jihad-
ist effort to try and cause the collapse of all
moderate Islamic governments and replace
them with a caliphate.”57
Nonetheless, deciding where to place a
given entity on a line ranging from (a) per-
petrating violent acts through (b) facilitat-
ing such acts to (c) being an apologist for
such acts is no easy task. The same can be
said with respect to whether or not a given
Islamist creed or doctrine can be consid-
ered Islamist in a political sense. There is
a surfeit of Islamist groupings and, while
arguably they share a similar goal, use very
different tactics in the present. Political
Islam is by no means the exclusive domain
of the MB. Many analysts have articulated
how certain strands of the Sala and Wah-
habi doctrines constitute forms of political
Islam.58
SAUDI ARABIA’S “STRUGGLE”
WITH POLITICAL ISLAM
The subtext of President Obama’s Sep-
tember 2014 speech to the United Nations
was that America would no longer turn
a blind eye to the nancial and ideologi-
cal sponsors of madrasas and mosques
around the world that propagate radical
Islamist doctrines.59 Yet, the existence of
Saudi-inspired radical Islamist groups is,
in part, a legacy of U.S. political decisions
in previous eras to address different sets of
strategic concerns.60 Somewhat ironically,
Saudi Arabia’s religiosity, which Washing-
ton once considered an asset (by motivat-
ing funding and even supplying ghters
to counter the Soviets in Afghanistan),
has become a political liability for the
kingdom, the United States and the wider
Middle East.61
Arguably, history may now be repeat-
ing itself with the conict underway in
Syria and large parts of Iraq. The West
has prevaricated repeatedly with respect
to Saudi Arabia’s involvement since 2011.
(One can understand why Saudi Arabian
authorities were displeased that despite
the Syrian regime’s crossing an American
“red line” on chemical weapons, no action
was taken. This was not least because they
themselves had been given a green light
to nance and train anti-Assad Islamist
forces). Some commentators point out that
Saudi Arabia is ghting what is tantamount
to a civil war: several hundred or more
Saudi citizens are said to be ghting with
ISIS, which is now subjected to aerial bom-
bardment by the Royal Saudi Air Force.
In Saudi Arabia, the so-called “Awak-
ening Clerics,” who voiced their disquiet
most audibly in the years immediately
after the Saudi authorities called upon
the United States to act as a guarantor
against the advancing Saddam Hussain in
1990, are said to retain popular appeal.62
The movement, or “Islamic awakening”
(al-Sahwa al-Islamiyya) they are said
to have spawned, is noted for its strong
anti-Western sentiments, opposition to
U.S. foreign policy and distaste for many
cultural aspects of modernity; they along
with those that are sympathetic to their
views are considered by many to represent
a variant of political Islam: a fusion of MB
political Islam and Saudi Sala discourse
— i.e., Saudi Islamism.63
For Saudi authorities, it is said to have
been much easier to encourage imams
in the battle against communism during
the 1980s than it is now to engage them
against radical Islamism.64 It is observed
also that, within the kingdom, conserva-
tive religious gures are frequently granted
more leeway to shape discourse than are
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Middle east Policy, Vol. XXii, No. 2, suMMer 2015
alism, are becoming increasingly apparent.
In many instances, it has become “well-
nigh impossible to create a truly national
spirit,” whether in Iraq post-2003, or in
Syria, Libya or Yemen in the aftermath of
the Arab Spring.68
MODERNITY: REMEDY
According to Karl, more than any
other group of countries, those dependent
on oil demonstrate “perverse linkages
between economic performance, poverty,
bad governance, injustice and conict” and
that the causal relationship is so persistent
that it represents a “constant motif” of
economic history.69 It has, however, been
argued that such “internal factors” are the
ones RS/RC protagonists seem to focus on
most closely while seemingly discounting
the “key external factor,” the West’s desire
to control the price of oil, the level of “oil
rent.” It arguably follows, then, that the
periods of economic difculty within the
Arabian Gulf during much of the 1990s
have less to do with the “internal” fac-
tors put forward by some RS/RC theorists
— lack of entrepreneurial spirt due to
excessive oil wealth; underinvestment in
non-oil sectors versus overinvestment in
white-elephant projects — and more to do
with the West’s self-interest: a reliable and
reasonably-priced ow of Arabian Gulf
oil.70 Indeed, nothing else combines oil’s
value and centrality to globalization and
the international system and, thus, the stra-
tegic geopolitical attention it has received
in the past half century.
The West’s political response to the
emergence of price-determining ground
rent in the 1970s was to mount a concerted
ideological and political attack on the gov-
ernments of these newly enriched, recently
independent transitional economies. The
West, by way of advocating Washington
liberal reform-focused technocrats, nation-
alists and moderate Islamist reformists.65 A
decade after Okruhlik’s “Islamism and Re-
form,” in which she touched upon a range
of structural reforms Saudi technocrats
considered imperative, Hammond, in “The
Islamic Utopia: The Illusion of Reform,”
contends that most of the reforms that
Saudi Arabia announced during the 2000s
have been illusive and that the kingdom
exists in an “idealized state of stagna-
tion.”66 In short, the difculties faced by
reformers in Saudi Arabia are pronounced
especially with the regional instability, be
it sectarian or political in nature. This fun-
damental strategic struggle Saudi Arabia is
now facing is, of course, highly relevant to
its immediate neighbors and closest allies,
Egypt and the UAE.
It has been argued that militant ji-
hadi groups, by adopting and advocating
an extreme reductionist interpretation of
Wahhabism, are intentionally seeking to
light a fuse that has a “very real possibil-
ity of being ignited,” in order to bring
about systemic change — not just to parts
of Syria and Iraq, but also in parts of the
Arabian Gulf. The logic of this argument is
that by adopting the language and senti-
ments of Wahhabism, they may be able
to garner support among some sectors
of Saudi society. This is not necessarily
as fanciful as it seems. Saudi authorities
face a number of inherent contradictions:
puritan morality versus capital and realpo-
litik; accommodating the “modernity” that
statehood requires versus accommodating
the views of conservative preachers. These
contradictions, it is said, have resulted
in Islamists becoming more, rather than
less, active within the kingdom.67 It has
also been argued that the limitations of the
nation state in parts of the Middle East, a
region said to have no tradition of nation-
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their comparative advantages, labor-market
structures and limited economies of scale
in non-oil manufacturing industries (and
are likely to have a similar range of rem-
edies available to them). Additionally, the
competition that would result from similar
diversication strategies has the potential
to foster greater levels of efciency and
encourage more innovation. The latter
though will be almost entirely contingent
on enhancing indigenous human capital;
that necessitates a fundamentally different
approach to education.
EDUCATION
Whichever path a given economic-
diversication strategy takes, one thing is
key: adequate and appropriate investment
in indigenous human capital. Not only is
the UAE having to undertake a wide range
of systemic reforms towards its goal of
a dynamic and open economy in light of
being a resource-rich economy that was
not industrialized prior to the large-scale
extraction and exportation of oil, it must
also do so in light of political Islam’s con-
servatism. All too often, Islamists equate
modernity (especially educational reform)
with the decline of Islamic and even Arab
identity. It should be recalled that the MB
was established in no small part to coun-
ter such reforms. Hassan al-Banna, its
founder, was primarily disturbed by what
he perceived to be the inuence of Western
secularism on Muslims.
It is Sayyid Qutb, rather than Hassan
al-Banna, who can be considered the MB’s
most inuential ideologue. As alluded to
above, in “Milestones,” jihad (in addition
to a range of violent acts including terror-
ism) is a means to a political goal (a pan-
national Islamic State) that has inspired
militant Islamists since 1964. A fair degree
of, but by no means all, subsequent MB
consensus-style policy prescriptions —
President Reagan’s government set out to
aggressively implement the policies of the
U.S. National Petroleum Council, whose
1982 report called for reopening the oil
resources of developing countries to the
international oil companies — ultimately
orchestrated a process of prot maximi-
zation within the developing world’s oil
industries that led to overproduction and
culminated in a period of low oil prices.71
This helps explain the reasons for the con-
tinued interest in Middle Eastern oil ows
by both the United States and UK and the
ingrained view in the industrialized world
that, when the appropriation of the wealth
of others is illegal it is called “theft” but,
when it is legal, it is called “rent-seeking”
or rentierism. By diverting effort and talent
away from wealth creation, this leads to
the “paradoxical resource curse.”72 It also
explains how and why Islamists can use
this fact (“grievance”) to garner support
and stoke anti-Western sentiment.
Nevertheless, the concept of “eco-
nomic diversication” is clearly in vogue
within the region. In many instances,
especially during the recent oil boom in
both demand and price, it is hard to deny
that at least some of the oil rent is being
used in ways other than simple short-term
largesse.73 Despite the argument that there
is surprising uniformity in the assessment
of the challenges facing the Gulf as well
as the recommended remedies, the impli-
cation is that it is unlikely to work if all
follow the same RS/RC escape route (it
amounts also to an implicit criticism of the
role played by the international consultan-
cy rms behind some of the region’s strate-
gic plans and transformational visions).74
Nonetheless, systemic reform is considered
an imperative. Moreover, all Arabian Gulf
countries are reasonably similar in terms of
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of which is predicated upon the concept
that secular knowledge results from sci-
ence and technology.80 This does not mean
a loss of, or compromise with, an Islamic
culture (or indeed a loss of the Arabic
language). To support this, Tibi cites Japan
as an example, for it underwent systemic
socioeconomic changes and economic
development by way of rational and secu-
lar knowledge and adopted science and
technology in harmony with its distinctive
Japanese cultural preserves and traditions.
Muslims, like other non-Western peo-
ple, acknowledge the pivotal need for sci-
ence and technology for their own devel-
opment, but the Islamists among them fail
to grasp that science and technology are
socially constructed. This point is critical.
Only rationality determines the substance
of scientic research: scientic knowledge
is perpetually changing, critiqued and sub-
jected to relentless questioning.81 Educa-
tion is a social construction and, although
radical Islamists do not advocate a renun-
ciation of “Western” technology such as
BlackBerry smartphones, satellite naviga-
tion systems or Toyota Land Cruisers, they
do renounce “Western-style” education
systems. However, to innovate means to
accept as a precondition pedagogical styles
that promote critical thinking and the free-
dom to question.
CONCLUSION
It has been argued that the West should
primarily encourage and empower secular-
ists, liberal Muslim reformers and other
anti-Islamist Muslims, yet in reality this is
easier said than done. However palatable
the “LinkedIn liberals” may be, they do
not as yet represent a signicant propor-
tion of the region’s population and are up
against a well-organized Islamist opposi-
tion that will be quick to cast any such
literature has sought to construct a vision
of an Islamic state by demonizing secular
governance as “Godless” and immoral.
“Modernity,” it is argued, legitimizes and
sanctions “the whims and fancies of the
masses,” especially those with “capricious
preferences emanating from the promis-
cuous culture of the West.”75 It has been
noted that the government of Ben Ali in
Tunisia disseminated a pluralistic vision of
Islam through the autocratic state’s public
schools.76 A key MB modus operandi is
a focus on preaching and education. Gulf
rulers have long been concerned about the
extent to which MB members and sym-
pathisers and offshoot Islamist organiza-
tions inuence education (as teachers and
administrators) and “continue to lionize
Qutb.”77 This may give some context to the
backlash against a greater usage of English
as a medium of instruction and the resis-
tance to Western-style teaching techniques
in a number of Arabian Gulf countries at
present. The profound inuence MB “edu-
cators” have had on Qatar in the decades
since its independence cannot be under-
stated; a similar though less pronounced
version of this story holds for the UAE as
well.78
Such subjects are, of course, highly
emotional and easily politicized. Bassam
Tibi considers the dilemma of Islamism
versus cultural modernity to be the el-
ephant in the room that few in the social
sciences are willing to acknowledge,
let alone discuss in an open manner, for
reasons of “naïve political correctness.”79
Nonetheless, it is argued persuasively that
the adoption of the instrumentalities of
modernity has to be supported wholeheart-
edly by the adoption of universal reason.
This is based on the belief that humankind
can shape its own destiny and determine
its own social and natural environment, all
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That some elements of the interna-
tional media were critical of a number of
the organizations included on the UAE’s
recently published list is to be expected.
The issue of the MB is emotional and
inevitably divides opinion: in the West, for
instance, there are both accommodationist
and confrontationist schools. For coun-
tries in the Middle East that are seeking to
undertake the necessary reforms to mod-
ernize and integrate into the international
system, political Islam — with its underly-
ing totalitarian ideology and reactionary
outlook — constitutes a credible threat
to both security and stability, not least by
complicating the path to a dynamic and
open economy. As Bassam Tibi has articu-
lated in his seminal work Islam’s Predica-
ment with Modernity, Islamists ultimately
represent a greater threat to moderate Mus-
lims and liberals in the Middle East than to
Western society. Nevertheless, what may
garner greater appreciation with regard to
much of the Arabian Gulf’s concern over
the MB and its Western-based proxies will
be to explain the reason the “ideology”
of the MB and other manifestations of
political Islam constitute a credible threat
to the current systemic reforms, designed
to achieve progress and modernity. The
process of carrying out these reforms, as
difcult and sensitive as it already was, is
all the more challenging now in the post-
Arab Spring.
modernists as part of a “Western project
dressed in thin Islamic garb.”82 It is inter-
esting to note in this regard the ndings of
a recent survey of Arab youth. When asked
which country in the world they would
most like their own country to emulate,
the UAE is the most highly ranked.83 This
has been true for the third year in a row
and may be correlated with the signicant
increase in preference among the region’s
youth for modern values and beliefs as
opposed to conservative ones (from 17 per
cent in 2011 to 46 per cent in 2014).
As we have previously pointed out in
this journal, the majority of UAE nation-
als are said to be satised with the incum-
bent “majlis-style” political system. Since
2006, it has been accompanied by the
vibrant Federal National Council, elected
members of which, in sessions open to the
public, regularly hold ministers to account
on a wide range of contemporary issues.84
The UAE has consistently been named
the country in which most young Arabs
would like to live, as well as the country
they would most like their own country to
emulate. Nonetheless, it is the danger of
internal ossication rather than external
threats that is the ultimate challenge in the
Arabian Gulf. This is why the UAE’s di-
versication strategy centers on indigenous
human capital; it may be why the MB (and
more generally political Islam) see it as
such a threat.
1 James Langton, “Abu Dhabi Minister Hopes to Foster Interfaith Dialogue with ‘Jesus of Arabia,’” National,
December 29, 2014.
2 UNWTO, “UNWTO Tourism Highlights 2014 Edition,” UNWTO, 2014; and Joan C. Henderson, “Tourism
in Dubai: Overcoming Barriers to Destination Development,” International Journal of Tourism Research 8,
no. 2 (2006): 87-99.
3 Rajiv Chandrasekaran, “In the UAE, the United States Has a Quiet, Potent Ally Nicknamed ‘Little Sparta,’”
Washington Post, November 9, 2014.
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4 UNDP, “Human Development Index Database,” edited by UNDP, 2014; World Bank, “Worldwide Gover-
nance Indicators Database,” edited by World Bank, 2014; and World Economic Forum, “The Global Com-
petitiveness Index Data Platform,” edited by World Economic Forum, 2014.
5 Bassam Tibi, Islam’s Predicament with Modernity: Religious Reform and Cultural Change (Routledge,
2009).
6 Emilie Rutledge, “The Rentier State/Resource Curse Narrative and the State of the Arabian Gulf,” MPRA
Paper, no. 59501 (2014).
7 YouGov, “Six out of Ten Support the Removal of President Mohammed Morsi from Power,” YouGov, http://
research.mena.yougov.com/en/news/2013/09/11/six-out-ten-support-removal-president-mohammed-mor/.
8 Oliver Housden, “Egypt: Coup D’etat or a Revolution Protected?” RUSI Journal 158, no. 5 (2013): 72-78.
9 Rachel Bronson, “Rethinking Religion: The Legacy of the U.S.-Saudi Relationship,” Washington Quar-
terly 28, no. 4 (2005): 119-37; Daniel Brumberg, “Islam Is Not the Solution (or the Problem),” Washington
Quarterly 29, no. 1 (2005): 97-116; Andrew Hammond, The Islamic Utopia: The Illusion of Reform in Saudi
Arabia (London: Pluto, 2012); Gwenn Okruhlik, “The Irony of Islah (Reform),” Washington Quarterly 28,
no. 4 (2005): 153-70; Gwenn Okruhlik, “Networks of Dissent: Islamism and Reform in Saudi Arabia,” Cur-
rent History 101, no. 651 (2002): 22-28; and James Piscatori, “The Turmoil Within,” Foreign Affairs 81, no.
3 (2002): 145-50.
10 Doug Stokes and Paul Newton, “Bridging the Gulf?” RUSI Journal 159, no. 2 (2014): 16-22.
11 “List of Groups Designated Terrorist Organisations by the UAE,” National, November 16, 2014.
12 Peter Romaniuk, “The State of the Art on the Financing of Terrorism.” RUSI Journal 159, no. 2 (2014):
6-17.
13 U.S. Department of State, “Country Reports on Terrorism 2013,” Department of State, 2014; and UK
Home Ofce, “Proscribed Terror Groups or Organisations,” London: UK Home Ofce, 2014.
14 Perry Chiaramonte, “U.S. Group Cair Named Terrorist Organization by United Arab Emirates,” FoxNews.
com, http://www.foxnews.com/us/2014/11/17/us-group-cair-added-to-terror-list-by-united-arabemirates/;
Economist, “Islamism Is No Longer the Answer,” Economist, December 20, 2014; and Economist “No One to
Talk to; Muslim Council of Britain,” Economist, October 18, 2014.
15 AFP, “UAE Casts Global Net with Anti-Islamist ‘Terror List’,” Daily Mail, November 25, 2014; and Jef-
frey Bale, “Denying the Link between Islamist Ideology and Jihadist Terrorism, “Political Correctness,” and
the Undermining of Counterterrorism,” Perspectives on Terrorism 7, no. 5 (2013): 5-46.
16 Simeon Kerr, “UAE Blacklists 83 Groups as Terrorists,” Financial Times, November 16, 2014.
17 Steven Brooke, “U.S. Policy and the Muslim Brotherhood,” in The West and the Muslim Brotherhood after
the Arab Spring, ed. Lorenzo Vidino (Foreign Policy Research Institute, 2013) 6-31; Martyn Frampton and
Shiraz Maher, “Between ‘Engagement’ and a ‘Values-Led’ Approach: Britain and the Muslim Brotherhood
from 9/11 to the Arab Spring,” in The West and the Muslim Brotherhood after the Arab Spring, ed. Lorenzo
Vidino (Foreign Policy Research Institute, 2013) 32-55; and Adam Taylor, “Why the UAE Is Calling Two
American Groups Terrorists,” Washington Post, November 17, 2014.
18 Robert Mason, “Back to Realism for an Enduring U.S.-Saudi Relationship,” Middle East Policy 21, no. 4
(2014): 32-44.
19 Abdullah Al-Shayji, “The GCC-U.S. Relationship: A GCC Perspective,” Middle East Policy 21, no. 3
(2014): 60-70.
20 Roula Khalaf, “A Kingdom on Guard,” Financial Times, March 27, 2014; and David Roberts, “Qatar and
the Muslim Brotherhood: Pragmatism or Preference?” Middle East Policy 21, no. 3 (2014): 84-94.
21 David Roberts, “Qatar and the Muslim Brotherhood: Pragmatism or Preference?” Middle East Policy 21,
no. 3 (2014): 84-94.
22 David Kirkpatrick, ibid.
23 Edward Luce, “Obama’s Faustian Pact with the Saudis,” Financial Times, September 29, 2014; and Doug
Stokes and Paul Newton, “Bridging the Gulf?” RUSI Journal 159, no. 2 (2014): 16-22.
24 Elizabeth Dickinson, “Bahrain Naval Base Will Give UK Stronger Gulf Presence,” Financial Times, De-
cember 7, 2014.
25 Gill Plimmer, “BAE Systems Strikes Euroghter Jet Deal with Saudi Arabia,” Financial Times, February
19, 2014.
26 Gwenn Okruhlik, “The Irony of Islah (Reform),” Washington Quarterly 28, no. 4 (2005): 153-170.
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27 David Gardner, Last Chance: The Middle East in the Balance (I.B. Tauris, 2009).
28 Mahmood Monshipouri, “The September 11 Tragedy and the Muslim World: Living with Memory and
Myth,” Journal of Church and State 45, no. 1 (2003): 15-40.
29 Muqtedar Khan, “Islam, Democracy and Islamism after the Counterrevolution in Egypt,” Middle East
Policy 21, no. 1 (2014): 75-86; and Bassam Tibi, Islam between Culture and Politics, 2 ed. (Palgrave Mac-
millan, 2005).
30 Heather Gregg, “Dening and Distinguishing Secular and Religious Terrorism,” Perspectives on Terrorism
8, no. 2 (2014): 36-51.
31 Michael Rubin, “The Perils of Proportionality,” Commentary Magazine, August 16, 2013.
32 Emilie Rutledge, “The Rentier State/Resource Curse Narrative and the State of the Arabian Gulf,” MPRA
Paper, no. 59501 (2014).
33 Henry Kissinger, Years of Renewal (Simon & Schuster, 1999).
34 Daniel Shane, “Make Peace and We Will Trade, Dubai Ruler Tells Israel,” http://www.arabianbusiness.
com/make-peace-we-will-trade-dubai-ruler-tells-israel-534503.html.
35 Gwenn Okruhlik, “The Irony of Islah (Reform),” Washington Quarterly 28, no. 4 (2005): 153-170.
36 Steven Brooke, “U.S. Policy and the Muslim Brotherhood,” Martyn Frampton and Shiraz Maher, “Between
‘Engagement’ and a ‘Values-Led’ Approach: Britain and the Muslim Brotherhood from 9/11 to the Arab
Spring”; and Lorenzo Vidino, The West and the Muslim Brotherhood after the Arab Spring (Foreign Policy
Research Institute, 2013).
37 Stéphane Lacroix, Awakening Islam: The Politics of Religious Dissent in Contemporary Saudi Arabia
(Harvard University Press, 2011).
38 Lorenzo Vidino, The New Muslim Brotherhood in the West (Columbia University Press, 2010).
39 Julian Lewis, “Countering Terrorism Is Not Enough,” RUSI Journal 157, no. 6 (2012): 68-71.
40 Robert Leiken and Steven Brooke, “The Moderate Muslim Brotherhood,” Foreign Policy 86, no. 2 (2007).
41 Jeffrey Bale, “Denying the Link between Islamist Ideology and Jihadist Terrorism: ‘Political Correctness’
and the Undermining of Counterterrorism,” Perspectives on Terrorism 7, no. 5 (2013): 5-46; Lorenzo Vidino,
The West and the Muslim Brotherhood after the Arab Spring; and John Ware, “Time to Wise up to the Muslim
Brotherhood,” Standpoint, July 25, 2013.
42 Alison Pargeter, The Muslim Brotherhood: The Burden of Tradition (Saqi, 2010).
43 Simeon Kerr and Heba Saleh, “Saudi Arabia Reluctant to Examine Its Role in Rise of Extremist Ideol-
ogy,” Financial Times, October 1, 2014; and Stéphane Lacroix, “Osama Bin Laden and the Saudi Muslim
Brotherhood,” Foreign Policy, http://foreignpolicy.com/2012/10/03/osama-bin-laden-and-the-saudi-muslim-
brotherhood/.
44 Julian, Lewis, “Countering Terrorism Is Not Enough.”
45 Steven Brooke, “U.S. Policy and the Muslim Brotherhood.”
46 Shadi Hamid, “The Rise of the Islamists,” Foreign Affairs 90, no. 3 (2011): 40-47.
47 Youssef Ibrahim, “A ‘Moderate’ Path Is Just another Road to Disaster,” New York Sun, March 12 2007.
48 Eric Trager, “Think Again: The Muslim Brotherhood,” Foreign Affairs, October 18, 2014.
49 Muqtedar Khan, “Islam, Democracy and Islamism after the Counterrevolution in Egypt,” Middle East
Policy 21, no. 1 (2014): 75-86.
50 Jeffrey Bale, “Denying the Link between Islamist Ideology and Jihadist Terrorism.”
51 Jeffrey Bale, ibid.; Alison Pargeter, The Muslim Brotherhood: The Burden of Tradition (Saqi, 2010); and
Lorenzo Vidino, The New Muslim Brotherhood in the West.
52 Roula Khalaf, “A Kingdom on Guard,” Financial Times, March 27, 2014; and Kiran Stacey, “Report on
Egypt Muslim Group Delayed,” Financial Times, August 18, 2014.
53 Simeon Kerr, “UAE Blacklists 83 Groups as Terrorists”; and Kiran Stacey, “Brotherhood Cleared of Terror
Link, Say Lawyers,” Financial Times, Oct 25, 2014.
54 Martyn Frampton and Shiraz Maher, “Between ‘Engagement’ and a ‘Values-Led’ Approach.”
55 John Ware, “Time to Wise up to the Muslim Brotherhood,” Standpoint, July 25, 2013.
56 Bassam Tibi, Islam between Culture and Politics.
57 Steven Brooke, “U.S. Policy and the Muslim Brotherhood.”
58 Karen Armstrong, “Wahhabism to ISIS: How Saudi Arabia Exported the Main Source of Global Terror-
ism,” New Statesman, November 27, 2014; and Alastair Crooke, “You Can’t Understand ISIS If You Don’t
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124
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Know the History of Wahhabism in Saudi Arabia,” Hufngton Post, August 27, 2014.
59 Edward Luce, “Obama’s Faustian Pact with the Saudis,” Financial Times, September 29, 2014.
60 Rachel Bronson, “Rethinking Religion: The Legacy of the U.S.-Saudi Relationship,” Washington Quarterly
28, no. 4 (2005): 119-137; and Mahmood Monshipouri, “The September 11 Tragedy and the Muslim World:
Living with Memory and Myth,” Journal of Church and State 45, no. 1 (2003): 15-40.
61 Karen Armstrong, “Wahhabism to ISIS:” and Alastair Crooke, “You Can’t Understand ISIS.”
62 Stéphane Lacroix, Awakening Islam: The Politics of Religious Dissent in Contemporary Saudi Arabia
(Harvard University Press, 2011).
63 Gwenn Okruhlik, “Networks of Dissent: Islamism and Reform in Saudi Arabia,” Current History 101,
no. 651 (2002): 22-28; and Andrew Hammond, The Islamic Utopia: The Illusion of Reform in Saudi Arabia
(Pluto, 2012).
64 Rachel Bronson, “Rethinking Religion: The Legacy of the U.S.-Saudi Relationship,” Washington Quarterly
28, no. 4 (2005): 119-37.
65 Gwenn Okruhlik, “The Irony of Islah (Reform),” Washington Quarterly 28, no. 4 (2005): 153-70.
66 Gwenn Okruhlik, “Networks of Dissent: Islamism and Reform in Saudi Arabia,” Current History 101,
no. 651 (2002): 22-28; and Andrew Hammond, The Islamic Utopia: The Illusion of Reform in Saudi Arabia
(Pluto, 2012).
67 Alastair Crooke, “You Can’t Understand ISIS.”
68 Karen Armstrong, “Wahhabism to ISIS.”
69 Karl, Terry Lynn, “Oil-Led Development: Social, Political, and Economic Consequences,” Encyclopaedia
of Energy (2007): 661-72.
70 Emilie Rutledge, “The Rentier State/Resource Curse Narrative and the State of the Arabian Gulf,” MPRA
Paper, no. 59501 (2014).
71 Ibid.
72 John Kay, “Powerful Interests Are Trying to Control the Market,” Financial Times, November 10, 2009.
73 Mohamed Ramady, ed., The GCC Economies: Stepping up to Future Challenges (Springer, 2012).
74 Martin Hvidt, “Economic Diversication in GCC Countries: Past Record and Future Trends,” in Kuwait
Programme on Development, Governance and Globalisation in the Gulf States (London School of Econom-
ics, 2013).
75 Muqtedar Khan, “Islam, Democracy and Islamism after the Counterrevolution in Egypt,” Middle East
Policy 21, no. 1 (2014): 75-86.
76 Daniel Brumberg, “Islam Is Not the Solution (or the Problem),” The Washington Quarterly 29, no. 1
(2005): 97-116.
77 Robert Leiken, and Steven Brooke, “The Moderate Muslim Brotherhood,” Foreign Policy 86, no. 2 (2007).
78 David Roberts, “Qatar and the Muslim Brotherhood: Pragmatism or Preference?” Middle East Policy 21,
no. 3 (2014): 84-94.
79 Bassam Tibi, Islam’s Predicament with Modernity: Religious Reform and Cultural Change (Routledge,
2009).
80 Bassam Tibi, Islam between Culture and Politics.
81 Ibid.
82 Daniel Brumberg, “Islam Is Not the Solution (or the Problem).” Washington Quarterly 29, no. 1 (2005):
97-116.
83 ASDA’A/Burson-Marsteller, “We Want to Embrace Modern Values: Arab Youth Survey, 2014,” Dubai:
ASDA’A/Burson-Marsteller, 2014.
84 Ingo Forstenlechner, Emilie Rutledge, and Rashed Salem Alnuaimi, “The UAE, the ‘Arab Spring’ and Dif-
ferent Types of Dissent,” Middle East Policy 19, no. 4 (2012): 54-67.
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