Brookings Institution: Panel on Impact of Militias on Governance in Near East

The panel discussion was held on June 28, 2019 at the Brookings Institution in Washington, DC.  Participants were Vanda Felbab-Brown, Jeffrey Feltman, and Shadi Hamid of Bookings, and Paul Wise of the Freeman Spogli Institute.  Moderator: Suzanne Maloney, Brookings.

The concept of these militias was first introduced.  They have their roots in the ISIS movement, and most of them are Muslim religious,  Major ones today are the Taliban in Afghanistan and Hezbollah in Lebanon.  Some are tribal in organization and are secular.  The religious ones have a concept of justice that is put in practice through Shria law.  There are two major types: Iranian allegiance to or Saudi Arabian allegiance to, the latter type having a mafia look.  They are local--establishing regional checkpoints but some have support beyond a national boundary.  Some exist in Africa, e.g., Nigeria.

The state government tends to regard them as terrorist challenging the legitimately recognized government (though some have established their own caliphate regime).   This poses a dilemma to the NGOs such as in hospitals and groups like doctors-without-borders who want to administer to those in need of services or care in a geographical region, despite the fact that by some government the people they administer aid are regarded as criminals or terrorists.         

Regarding the Near-East, American interests are cast in a short-range time-table of involvement whereas the Russians internationally and the Chinese in Africa are looking to retain regional relations over an undetermined length of time.  Moreover, the US and its allies have compiled a terrorist list of militias, ones with which the US will not support nor condone.  This means that the militias such as Hezbollah and Hamas are not regarded as legitimate governing agencies despite the services and organization they deliver to those of a geographical area.  Indeed, the organization they provide to the region is regarded as terrorist and hence unrecognized in Western eyes, while the Russians and the Chinese are willing to engage in local entanglements with them.  Accordingly, as the West pulls out, the Chinese or the Russians move in!

Importantly, as the panelists have observed while living amongst them, the militia groups have an attraction to the youth in the Middle East.

I came out of the auditorium where the discussion was conducted with a profound disgust that the West is missing out from exchanging with whole populations of people in the Near East and Africa, too--who would benefit from our developed Western civilization and with whom we could share--if only we were willing to bring them along through the educative process.