What is Dahlan's Secret?

A few days ago, Al-Arabi Al-Jadeed newspaper published an important report about the relationship between Egyptian President Abdel Fatah Al-Sisi and Mohammed Dahlan. The latter is considered one of the closest figures to Al-Sisi, a matter that arouses the fears of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas who waged a decisive battle with Dahlan and embarked on breaking up his network and his influence within Fatah and the Palestinian Authority (PA).

Abbas’ anxiety stems from the severe pressures exercised on him by Al-Sisi so as to re-enter into an alliance with Dahlan. The report quotes Palestinian sources as saying that this indicates that Dahlan is being considered to take over the PA.

Dahlan’s strength is not restricted to his relationship with the Egyptian president; his influence has been on the rise during the recent years after he ended up running an expanding Arab media and politics network. He works from behind the scene in the making of political standpoints and in planning to confront the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas and the rest of the factions of political Islam. He is a well-known opponent of them especially after his military and security influence in Gaza came to an end.

This may lead us to the task Dahlan is performing at the official Arab level. He is one of the architects of the current strategy that places all the movements of political Islam, whether Brotherhood, Salafist or Jihadist, in one basket without any distinction between a “moderate Islam” and another extremist one, and that squeezes the Muslim Brotherhood into the corner of the war on terrorism.

This agenda does not end with the position vis-a-vis political Islam. It goes beyond it to opposing the Arab democratic revolutions in general and insisting on safeguarding the status quo while characterising the revolutions and the protests as a source of threat to the security of the Arab states that embrace this agenda as well as to regional stability in general. These states have managed to convince the United States to return to “the school of realpolitick” as represented by a pact of interests once more while staying away from the attempts to test the relationship with political Islam or counting on change in the region.

One of the best Western articles to explain this pact and its dimensions is one entitled “The Middle East’s unholy alliance” by writer Murtaza Hussain, which was published in The Intercept. The author likens the current pact with that which existed among the European countries in the 19th Century with the aim of preventing change and maintaining the status quo. That alliance led to horrible results that failed to confront the popular protest movement.

This historical symmetry is really interesting. Regarding the European Alliance, the writer says: “For decades the Alliance served as a hugely counterrevolutionary force throughout Europe. It intervened to help snuff out the democratic revolutions of 1848 and reinforce exploitative, monarchical structures of government wherever they had been challenged. In ‘dealing with the extremists’ of their own time, the monarchies also succeeded primarily by exploiting tensions between liberals and their more radical revolutionary counterparts.”

The writer adds: “While these efforts succeeded in causing much bloodshed in Europe and entrenching repressive, authoritarian governments for generations, they ultimately failed in holding back popular democratic movements.”

He predicts a similar end for the current alliance since a combination of demographic and economic pressures, as well as deep rooted failures, will frustrate any attempt to safeguard the status quo and will drain the resources of the governments that undertake to protect it.

Despite the fact that Dahlan’s strategy is clear and well-known in this sphere, and it does not stem from a solid secular philosophical vision as much as from personal calculations and political interests, the important question that remains is: What is the secret in Dahlan’s personality that makes him difficult, someone that is preferred more than any other in the eyes of the neocons in America and in the eyes of traditional regimes in the region?

This article was first published on Al Ghad newspaper, on 7 November, 2014

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.