This book is the first systematic assessment of current trends and patterns of militancy in Shii communities in the Middle East and South Asia - specifically in Iran, Iraq, but also in Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Kuwait, and Bahrain. It addresses two key questions: What trends emerge in the types of militancy Shii actors employ both inside and outside of the Shii heartland? And what are the main drivers of militancy in the Shii community?
This book argues that ever since Iran’s Islamic Revolution in 1979, which established a Shia Islamic government in Iran, that country’s religious and political leaders have used Shia Islam as a crucial way of expanding Iran’s objectives in the Middle East and beyond. Since 1979, Iran’s religious and political leaders have been concerned about Iran’s security in the face of the hostility and expansionism of the United States and other western countries, and the threats from powerful neighboring Sunni leaders and countries. While Iran’s government has attempted to align itself with Shia Muslims in various countries, such as Iraq and Lebanon, against American and Sunni expansionism, the Iranian government has attempted to religiously nourish and politically mobilize those Shias as a matter of principle, not only because of the Iranian government’s desires to protect Iran from external threats. The book analyzes Shia Islam and politics in Iran, Iraq, and Lebanon which have among the largest proportional Shia populations in the Middle East and are vibrant centers of Shia intellectual life. The book's clear and jargon-free approach make it especially accessible for students and general readers who would like an introduction to the book's topics.
One of Foreign Policy's Best Five Books of 2013, chosen by Marc Lynch of The Middle East Channel Beginning with the 2003 invasion of Iraq and concluding with the aftermath of the 2011 Arab uprisings, Frederic M. Wehrey investigates the roots of the Shi'a-Sunni divide now dominating the Persian Gulf's political landscape. Focusing on three Gulf states affected most by sectarian tensions—Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait—Wehrey identifies the factors that have exacerbated or tempered sectarianism, including domestic political institutions, the media, clerical establishments, and the contagion effect of external regional events, such as the Iraq war, the 2006 Lebanon conflict, the Arab uprisings, and Syria's civil war. In addition to his analysis, Wehrey builds a historical narrative of Shi'a activism in the Arab Gulf since 2003, linking regional events to the development of local Shi'a strategies and attitudes toward citizenship, political reform, and transnational identity. He finds that, while the Gulf Shi'a were inspired by their coreligionists in Iraq, Iran, and Lebanon, they ultimately pursued greater rights through a nonsectarian, nationalist approach. He also discovers that sectarianism in the region has largely been the product of the institutional weaknesses of Gulf states, leading to excessive alarm by entrenched Sunni elites and calculated attempts by regimes to discredit Shi'a political actors as proxies for Iran, Iraq, or Lebanese Hizballah. Wehrey conducts interviews with nearly every major Shi'a leader, opinion shaper, and activist in the Gulf Arab states, as well as prominent Sunni voices, and consults diverse Arabic-language sources.
Hezbollah — Lebanon’s ‘Party of God’ — is a multifaceted organisation: it is a powerful political party in Lebanon, a Shia religious and social movement, Lebanon’s largest militia, a close ally of Iran, and a terrorist organisation. Drawing on a wide range of sources, including recently declassified government documents, court records, and personal interviews with intelligence officials, Matthew Levitt examines Hezbollah’s beginnings, its first violent forays in Lebanon, and then its terrorist activities and criminal enterprises abroad in Europe, the Middle East, South America, Southeast Asia, Africa, and finally in North America. He also discusses Hezbollah’s unit dedicated to supporting Palestinian militant groups and the group’s involvement in training and supporting insurgents who fought US troops in post-Saddam Iraq. The book concludes with a look at Hezbollah’s integral and ongoing role in Iran’s ‘shadow war’ with Israel and the West, including plots targeting civilians around the world. Levitt shows convincingly that Hezbollah’s willingness to deploy violence at home and abroad, its global reach, and its proxy-patron relationship with the Iranian regime are all matters worthy of the utmost concern.
Close friends since childhood, Kyle, Duncan and Ivan have become rich, successful co-owners of a beautiful Harlem brownstone. The one thing each of them lacks is a special woman to share his life with—until true love steps in to transform three sexy single guys into grooms-to-be…. Handsome psychotherapist Ivan Campbell could diagnose his own issues in a heartbeat—fear of commitment. Every woman he meets is convinced he's the complete package, yet no one has been able to get past the wall he built around himself long ago. But Nayo Goddard isn't looking for marriage. The petite, stylish photographer plays by her own rules and makes it crystal clear she has no interest in settling down. A fun, passionate, no-strings relationship with Nayo should be the perfect solution for Ivan—except suddenly he wants more, much more. And this time, the love 'em and leave 'em bachelor may be the one who's left heartbroken….
In this timely book, completed before the current outbreak of unrest in Bahrain that has formed part of the Arab Spring, Laurence Louer explains, the background of the Bahraini conflict in the context of the wider issue of Shiism as a political force in the Arab Middle East, amongst other issues relating to the role of Shiite Islamist movements in regional politics. Her study shows how Bahrain's troubles are a phenomenon based on local perceptions of injustice rather than on the foreign policy of Shiite Iran. More generally, the book shows that, though Iran's Islamic Revolution had an electrifying effect on Shiite movements in Lebanon, Iraq, the Gulf and Saudi Arabia, local political imperatives have in the end been the crucial factor in the direction they have taken. In addition, the overwhelming influence of the Shiite clerical institution has been diminished by the rise to prominence of lay activists within the Shiite movements across the Middle East and the emergence of Shiite anti-clericalism. This book contributes to dispelling the myth of the determining power of Iran in the politics of Iraq, Bahrain and other Arab states with significant Shiite populations.
This book illuminates the historical origins and present situation of militant Shia transnational networks by focusing on three key countries in the Gulf, Kuwait, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, whose Shia Islamic groups are the offspring of Iraqi movements. The reshaping of the area's geopolitics after the Gulf War and the fall of Saddam Hussein in April 2003 have had a profound impact on transnational Shiite networks, pushing them to focus on national issues in the context of new political opportunities. For example, from being fierce opponents of the Saudi monarchy, Saudi Shiite militants have tended to become upholders of the Al-Sa'ud dynasty.The question remains, however, how deeply in society have these new beliefs taken root? Can Shiites be Saudi or Bahraini patriots? Louer concludes her book by analysing the transformation of the Shia' movements' relation to central religious authority, the marja', who reside either in Iraq and Iran. This is all the more problematic when the marja' is also the head of a state, as with Ali Khamenei of Iran, who has many followers in Bahrain and Kuwait.
Annotation By providing a new framework for understanding Shi'ite national politics in Lebanon, Roschanack Shaery-Eisenlohr recasts the relationship between religion and nationalism in the Middle East
