Zeyno Baran

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Zeyno Baran (born January 31, 1972) is a Turkish American scholar on issues ranging from US-Turkey relations to Islamist ideology to energy security in Europe and Asia. She was the Director of the Center for Eurasian Policy and a Senior Fellow at the Hudson Institute, a think tank based in Washington, D.C. From January 2003 until joining the Hudson Institute in April 2006, she worked as the Director of International Security and Energy Programs for The Nixon Center. Baran also worked as the Director of the Caucasus Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies from 1999 until December 2002. [1]

Hudson Institute American think tank

The Hudson Institute is a politically conservative, 501(c)(3) non-profit American think tank based in Washington, D.C. It was founded in 1961 in Croton-on-Hudson, New York, by futurist, military strategist, and systems theorist Herman Kahn and his colleagues at the RAND Corporation.

Washington, D.C. Capital of the United States

Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington or D.C., is the capital of the United States. Founded after the American Revolution as the seat of government of the newly independent country, Washington was named after George Washington, the first president of the United States and a Founding Father. As the seat of the United States federal government and several international organizations, Washington is an important world political capital. The city, located on the Potomac River bordering Maryland and Virginia, is one of the most visited cities in the world, with more than 20 million tourists annually.

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She is married to Matthew Bryza, former U.S. Ambassador to Azerbaijan [2] and has a daughter.

Matthew Bryza American diplomat

Matthew James Bryza is a former United States diplomat. His last post in the United States foreign service was the United States Ambassador to Azerbaijan.

Opposition to political Islam

One of Baran's key areas of specialization is countering the spread of radical Turkish Islamist ideology in Europe and Eurasia. She has worked to foster the tolerant integration of Muslims into Western societies, arguing that the creation of "parallel societies" within a state's broader society will only encourage intolerance and extremism on both sides.[ citation needed ]

Muslims Adherents of Islam

Muslims are people who follow or practice Islam, a monotheistic Abrahamic religion. Muslims consider the Quran, their holy book, to be the verbatim word of God as revealed to the Islamic prophet and messenger Muhammad. The majority of Muslims also follow the teachings and practices of Muhammad (sunnah) as recorded in traditional accounts (hadith). "Muslim" is an Arabic word meaning "submitter".

Parallel society refers to the self-organization of an ethnic or religious minority, often immigrant groups, with the intent of a reduced or minimal spatial, social and cultural contact with the majority society into which they immigrate.

Baran has criticized European and American governments for working too closely with groups or individuals that she claims espouse an Islamist ideology. She argues that such engagement actually works against U.S. and European interests. Baran wrote an article for The Weekly Standard on this very subject. In it, she advocates a kind of "litmus test" for deciding who and what type of Muslim groups the U.S. government should engage with. Baran argues that "the deciding factor must be ideology: Is the group Islamist or not?" [3]

<i>The Weekly Standard</i> Former American conservative opinion magazine

The Weekly Standard was an American political magazine of news, analysis and commentary published 48 times per year. Its founding publisher, News Corporation, debuted the title on September 18, 1995. Originally edited by founders Bill Kristol and Fred Barnes, the Standard had been described as a "redoubt of neoconservatism" and as "the neo-con bible." By 2018, it was owned by MediaDC, a subsidiary of Clarity Media Group, itself a subsidiary of The Anschutz Corporation. On December 14, 2018, its owners announced that the magazine was ceasing publication, with the last issue published on December 17.

She believes that the Muslim Brotherhood, Hizbullah, and Hizb ut-Tahrir fail her test.

Muslim Brotherhood Transnational Sunni Islamist organization

The Society of the Muslim Brothers, better known as the Muslim Brotherhood, is a transnational Sunni Islamist organization founded in Egypt by Islamic scholar and schoolteacher Hassan al-Banna in 1928. Al-Banna's teachings spread far beyond Egypt, influencing today various Islamist movements from charitable organizations to political parties—not all using the same name.

Hizb ut-Tahrir Pan-Islamist and fundamentalist organization

Hizb ut-Tahrir is an international, pan-Islamist political organization which describes its ideology as Islam, and its aim the re-establishment of the Islamic Khilafah (Caliphate) to resume Islamic ways of life in the Muslim world. The caliphate would unite the Muslim community (Ummah) upon their Islamic creed and implement the Shariah, so as to then carry the proselytizing of Islam to the rest of the world.

Baran's Hizb ut-Tahrir: Islam's Political Insurgency, published in 2004, asserted that Hizb ut-Tahrir, an international Islamist organization, is a "conveyor belt for radicalism and terrorism." She qualified her statement by saying, "While HT as an organization does not engage in terrorist activities, it has become the vanguard of the radical Islamist ideology that encourages its followers to commit terrorist acts." [4]

Conveyor belt material-handling equipment

A conveyor belt is the carrying medium of a belt conveyor system. A belt conveyor system is one of many types of conveyor systems. A belt conveyor system consists of two or more pulleys, with an endless loop of carrying medium—the conveyor belt—that rotates about them. One or both of the pulleys are powered, moving the belt and the material on the belt forward. The powered pulley is called the drive pulley while the unpowered pulley is called the idler pulley. There are two main industrial classes of belt conveyors; Those in general material handling such as those moving boxes along inside a factory and bulk material handling such as those used to transport large volumes of resources and agricultural materials, such as grain, salt, coal, ore, sand, overburden and more.

Uzbekistan

In 2003 Baran assisted in American efforts to engage with the Uzbek leadership to come up with better strategies to combat HT's hold in Central Asia, writing a monograph [4] on this subject.

In testimony to the Committee on International Relations, Baran argued that simply cutting off relations and terminating financial assistance with Uzbekistan because of the country's human rights abuses would not help foster reforms, and would, in fact, assist Hizb ut-Tahrir. While acknowledging that there are serious violation in Uzbekistan, she asserted that disengaging with the Uzbek government would be counterproductive both on humanitarian grounds and in terms of U.S. strategic interests in Eurasia.

Baran correctly predicted that after U.S. disengagement, China and Russia would embrace Tashkent and whatever limited democratic reform was underway would cease altogether. Baran also foresaw that the Uzbek government would punish the U.S. by revoking the latter's right to use military bases in the country which had been used to facilitate Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan. [5]

Turkey

Baran's research and insights are not limited to Islam, but also her native Turkey. She famously wrote an article in Newsweek on December 4, 2006, stating that the likelihood for a coup in Turkey was "50-50". [6]

This article generated significant controversy and actually prompted a member of the Turkish parliament, Egemen Bagis, to write a letter to the editor of Newsweek in which he refuted her statement. Bagis went on to claim: "The statement belongs to Turkey's then-chief of staff Ismail Hakki Karadayi, who first made the comment in a well-publicized statement to the Turkish daily Sabah (newspaper) in 1996 and repeated it elsewhere in numerous interviews." [7]

Some claim that Baran was vindicated after the nomination of Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gül for President led to significant public protests and the issuance of a cautionary statement from the Turkish General Staff. There were some tensions between the Turkish military and the ruling Justice and Development Party prior to the 2007 elections when the military issued a warning on the website of the Turkish General staff, which has been dubbed "e-warning." This did not prevent a resurgent Justice and Development Party from gaining over 46 percent of the popular vote in the July 2007 elections. There are allegations that the public protests were orchestrated by a clandestine illegal organization named Ergenekon. Alleged members of this organization have been indicted on charges of plotting to foment unrest, among other things by assassinating intellectuals, politicians, judges, military staff, and religious leaders, with the ultimate goal of toppling the pro-Western incumbent government in a coup that was planned to take place in 2009. Hence, the prediction of a coup by Baran may have been based on these developments.

In June 2007, the Hudson Institute conducted an off-the-record alternative futures meeting on the escalation of conflict between Turkey and the PKK. For this meeting, a fictitious scenario was created in which a series of PKK attacks led Turkey to intervene militarily in northern Iraq. The details of this scenario and the content of the meeting were subsequently leaked to the Turkish press, generating a controversy that rivaled the one created by Baran's December 2006 Newsweek article.

These revelations and its ensuing media coverage have given rise to speculation and a number of conspiracy theories. Several high-ranking Turkish government officials have condemned the holding of this meeting as it considered the possibility of a Turkish intervention into Iraq. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan denounced the contents of the Hudson scenario as "crazy talk." [8] In a statement released via the Hudson website, Baran has asserted that the purpose of the meeting was "to prevent the PKK from causing further strains in US-Turkey relations" and that those were present at the meeting "stated clearly the need for the US to take concrete action against the PKK." [9]

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Politics of Turkey

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Pan-Islamism political movement advocating the unity of Muslims under one Islamic state – often a caliphate – or an international organization with Islamic principles

Pan-Islamism is a political ideology advocating the unity of Muslims under one Islamic country or state – often a caliphate – or an international organization with Islamic principles. As a form of internationalism and anti-nationalism, Pan-Islamism differentiates itself from pan-nationalistic ideologies, for example Pan-Arabism, by seeing the ummah as the focus of allegiance and mobilization, excluding ethnicity and race as primary unifying factors. It portrays Islam as being anti-racist and against anything that divides the human race based on ethnicity.

Taqi al-Din al-Nabhani Founder of Hizb ut-Tahrir

Muhammad Taqi al-Din bin Ibrahim bin Mustafah bin Ismail bin Yusuf al-Nabhani was an Islamic scholar from Jerusalem who founded the radical Islamist and anti-democratic political party Hizb ut-Tahrir.

Akromiya is an Islamist organization founded by Akrom Yo‘ldoshev.

Hizb-an-Nusra is an Islamist organization which the Uzbek government considers to be terrorist in nature that has operated in Uzbekistan since 1999. It was founded by Mirzazhanov Atoyevich. Members of Hizb ut-Tahrir, an international organization dedicated to establishing a unified Islamic state across the Muslim world, created Hizb-an-Nusra in Tashkent out of dissatisfaction with Hizb ut-Tahrir's inability to overthrow the Government of Uzbekistan.

Terrorism in Uzbekistan. Prior to the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan, the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) posed the greatest threat to the Karimov administration. In 2002 the IMU was reclassified as terrorist by the United States. Since the invasion the IMU has been greatly weakened due to US military actions which cut off its supply of resources and killed its leader, Juma Namangani.

Terrorism in Tajikistan stems largely from the forces of political opposition who opposed the comprehensive peace agreement that ended the civil war in 1997. President Emomali Rahmonov and UTO leader Said Abdullah Nuri signed the agreement on 27 June believing it would bring an end to hostilities. However, dissident Islamist militants led by Tohir Yo‘ldosh and Juma Namangani formed the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan in 1998, allying with Al-Qaeda and vowing to unite Central Asia as an Islamic state. Latest terror attacks took place in the Danghara District on July 29, 2018 when five Islamic State terrorists carried out a vehicular attack, killing four foreigners and wounding two others.

Terrorism in Kyrgyzstan has increased since the U.S. military invaded Afghanistan and overthrew the Taliban in 2001. The governments of Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan provided airbases for counter-terrorism operations. Southern Kyrgyzstan is increasingly sympathetic to terrorism and Islam extremism.

Igor Rotar is a Russian journalist. From 2003 to early 2007 he was the Central Asian news correspondent for Forum 18, a human rights organization based in Norway that promotes religious freedom. He is a Russian citizen.

The threat of terrorism in Kazakhstan plays an increasingly important role in relations with the United States which in 2006 were at an all-time high. Kazakhstan has taken Uzbekistan's place as the favored partner in Central Asia for both Russia and the United States. Kazakhstan's counter-terrorism efforts resulted in country's 94th ranking among 130 countries in the 2016 Global Terrorism Index published by the Institute of Economics and Peace. The higher the position on the ranking is, the bigger the impact of terrorism in the country. Kazakhstan's 94th place puts it in a group of countries with the lowest impact of terrorism.

Mirzazhanov Sharipzhon Atoyevich is the founder of Hizb-an-Nusra, a militant Islamist organization that advocates the violent overthrow of all Central Asian governments and replacing them with a Central Asian caliphate. He is a former member of Hizb ut-Tahrir, an international Islamist organization.

Maajid Nawaz British activist

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Hizb ut-Tahrir America

Hizb ut-Tahrir America (HTA), Hizb ut-Tahrir is a political party whose ideology is Islam, and its political work is Islam, It works within the Muslim community globally and locally, so that she adopts Islam as her cause and is led to restore the Khilafah. Hizb ut-Tahrir is a political group working globally to return Muslims to their natural way of life. The party adheres to the Islamic law better known as Shariah in all aspects of its work. The party utilizes non violent methods for political change to re-establish the Islamic State, in accordance to the Islamic Shariah. Hizb ut-Tahrir does not engage in political struggle in America.

Hizb ut-Tahrir (Australia) australian chapter of the international pan-islamist organization Hizb ut-Tahrir

Hizb ut-Tahrir is an international, pan-Islamist and fundamentalist political organisation. The organisation is considered a radical Islamic group and has come under scrutiny from the Australian government.

Shiraz Maher is a British writer and analyst, and Director at the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation and Political Violence (ICSR) at King's College London. He also teaches at Johns Hopkins University. The son of Pakistani immigrants, for several years after 9/11 Maher was a member of the Islamist organisation Hizb ut-Tahrir, but left the movement after the 2005 London bombings and became an outspoken critic of radical Islam. He has written for leading newspapers in Britain and elsewhere, produced reports and studies on counterterrorism strategy, and appeared in the international news media as a commentator on jihad and radicalisation.

Hizb ut-Tahrir Britain british chapter of the international pan-islamist organization Hizb ut-Tahrir

Hizb ut-Tahrir Britain is the British branch of Hizb ut-Tahrir, a transnational, pan-Islamist and fundamentalist group that seeks to re-establish "the Islamic Khilafah (Caliphate)" as an Islamic "superstate" where Muslim-majority countries are unified and ruled under Islamic Shariah law, and which eventually expands globally to include non-Muslim states such as Britain.

Hizb ut-Tahrir in Central Asia Sunni Islamist and fundamentalist organization

Hizb ut-Tahrir is a pan-Islamist and fundamentalist group seeking to re-establish "the Islamic Khilafah (Caliphate)" as an Islamic "superstate" where Muslim-majority countries are unified and ruled under Islamic Shariah law, and which eventually expands globally to include non-Muslim states. In Central Asia, the party has expanded since the breakup of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s from a small group to "one of the most powerful organizations" operating in Central Asia. The region itself has been called "the primary battleground" for the party. Uzbekistan is "the hub" of Hizb ut-Tahrir's activities in Central Asia, while its "headquarters" is now reportedly in Kyrgyzstan.

Hizb ut-Tahrir in Bangladesh is a banned international Islamist organization.

References

  1. ↑ Zeyno Baran, Hudson Institute
  2. ↑ Kilic, Ecevit (2008-09-08). "Rusya'ya karşı Çin-ABD açılımı olabilir". Sabah (in Turkish). Retrieved 2009-01-04.
  3. ↑ O Brotherhood, What Art Thou?, The Weekly Standard
  4. 1 2 Hizb ut-Tahrir Islam's Political Insurgency Archived February 12, 2006, at the Wayback Machine The Nixon Center
  5. ↑ Hearing Transcript, United States Congress
  6. ↑ The Coming Coup d'etat?, Newsweek
  7. ↑ Mail Call, Newsweek
  8. ↑ Erdoğan'dan ''felaket senaryosu'' yorumu: ''Deli saçması'', Haber Aktüel
  9. ↑ Statement from Zeyno Baran on Hudson June 13 Meeting Archived September 29, 2007, at the Wayback Machine , Hudson Institute
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