Dennis Ross speaking at Emory University. Photo: Nrbelex.

Earlier this month the New York Times published a wildly misleading article by Dennis Ross, currently a "Distinguished Fellow" at the Washington Institute thinktank. Ross previously worked on Middle East issues at a senior level under four American presidents – the two Bushes, plus Clinton and Obama – so it is difficult to excuse the article's flaws on grounds of ignorance. 

The article starts off reasonably enough with the headline "Islamists are not our friends" and continues:

"A new fault line has emerged in Middle Eastern politics, one that will have profound implications for America's foreign policy in the region. This rift is not defined by those who support or oppose the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), or by conflict between Sunnis and Shiites and the proxy war between Saudi Arabia and Iran. It is characterised by a fundamental division between Islamists and non-Islamists."

Ross is absolutely right to highlight the Islamist question as a fundamental issue. The nightmare caused by ISIS, Sunni-Shia rivalries and sectarian conflicts in the region more generally need urgent attention but they all owe their existence to a belief that religion can (and should) be allowed to over-ride popular sovereignty and the rights of individuals. Until that is seriously challenged we shall not see a real improvement in the condition of the Middle East.

Where Ross's argument goes fatally wrong, however, is in trying to match the current political line-up to an Islamist versus non-Islamist divide:

"On one side are the Islamists — both Sunni and Shiite. ISIS and the Muslim Brotherhood represent the Sunni end of the spectrum, while the Islamic Republic of Iran and its militias, including Hezbollah (in Lebanon and Syria) and Asaib Ahl al-Haq (in Iraq), constitute the other."

Writing for the LobeLog, Paul Pillar comments:

"Thus anyone who has been unfriendly to Hamas or to its more peaceful ideological confreres in the Muslim Brotherhood are placed on the good side of the line, Iran and those doing business with it are put on the bad side, and so forth.

"Ross tries to portray something more orderly by asserting that 'what the Islamists all have in common is that they subordinate national identities to an Islamic identity' and that the problem with the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood was that 'it was Islamist before it was Egyptian'. What, exactly, does that mean, with particular reference to the short, unhappy presidency of Mohamed Morsi? There were several reasons that presidency was both unhappy and short, but trying to push an Islamist-more-than-Egyptian agenda was not one of them ... It would make at least as much sense to say that the current president, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, was more authoritarian and more in tune with fellow military strongmen than he was Egyptian.

"Where Ross's schema completely breaks down is with some of the biggest and most contorted squiggles in the line he has drawn. He places Saudi Arabia in the 'non-Islamist' camp because it has supported el-Sisi in his bashing of the Brotherhood and wasn't especially supportive of Hamas when Israel was bashing the Gaza Strip. Saudi Arabia — where the head of state has the title Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, the country’s constitution is the Koran, and thieves have their hands amputated — is 'non-Islamist'? Remarkable. 

"Conversely, the Assad regime in Syria, which is one of the most secular regimes in the region notwithstanding the sectarian lines of its base of support, is pointedly excluded from Ross's 'non-Islamist' side of the line because of, he says, Syrian dependence on Iran and Hezbollah. Of course, any such alliances refute the whole idea of a 'fundamental division' in the region between Islamists and non-Islamists, but Ross does not seem to notice."

It's worth a mention in passing that Ross's article also appears on the Washington Institute website where an introduction actually describes the Gulf monarchies as "non-Islamist actors". There is no sensible definition by which any of the Gulf monarchies can be described as "non-Islamist". All have Islamist features, to varying degrees (as I explain in my book, Arabs Without God). Saudi Arabia, of course, is the most Islamist of the Gulf monarchies and is arguably even more extreme in that area than Iran. The Muslim Brotherhood, in comparison, is the epitome of moderation.

So what is Ross up to? He is clearly trying to sell the idea that an unsavoury bunch of America's "friends" in the region are serving a noble cause – an idea that will appeal to the American public even if it doesn't stand up to the most basic scrutiny – but to what end?

Although no longer employed by the US government, Ross does have clout, as the Indian diplomat M K Bhadrakumar noted: "He has a larger-than-life influence in the Washington circuit when it comes to the US policies in the Middle East. Administrations may come and go, but Ross carries on — either as a policy counsellor or as a diplomat or at the very least as an influential think tanker."

In an article last July, Ross was more forthcoming about what he sees as the real agenda in the Middle East: old-fashioned power politics and an effort to shift the balance as far as possible in America's favour:

"In its remaining two and half years, the [Obama] administration needs to approach the Middle East with a broader goal and judge how its day-to-day policies support or detract from that goal: How can it ensure that US friends in the region are stronger in January 2017, and their adversaries (and ours) are weaker?"

Besides his involvement with the Washington Institute (which has links to APIAC, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee), Ross is an adviser to the Counter Extremism Project and United Against Nuclear Iran (described by the Washington Post as a "hawkish investigative and advocacy group"). 

Last July there was a legal move in the US to make United Against Nuclear Iran disclose its sources of funding – a move which was blocked under rather strange circumstances by the Justice Department. Meanwhile, the Counter Extremism Project is said to be about to issue a report giving detailed information about the financing of the Islamic State.

Ross is also co-chair of the Gemunder Center Iran Task Force and has co-authored several recent articles criticising rapprochement with Iran: here, here and here.