From California to Benghazi — and Back

Facts

In August, 2012, quite probably a middleman of an unknown actor or somebody called Sam Bacile or Nakoula Basseley Nakoula - or for that matter Mark Basseley Youssef, Yousseff M. Basseley, Nicola Bacily or Malid Ahlawi according to US Court documents provided to CNN -, after raising 5m$, hiring a staff and shooting the film, releases an anti-Islam hostile propaganda video. To aide him during the filmmaking, the 'filmmaker' hires a ‘consultant’ - a man confirmed to be a leader of a US-based, anti-Islam extremist group.

Within weeks, the video’s trailer makes its way to Youtube and gets dubbed to Arabic - days later, in early September, a firestorm of protests shook the BMNA region leading to the killing of a US Ambassador and other 3 diplomatic personnel on September 11, 2012, during an orchestrated assault involving heavy weapons and RPGs as well as subsequent storming of US Embassies in Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, Sudan, Yemen, Afghanistan, etc.

In the United States, events put an enormous tactical pressure on US President Barack Obama and trigger a media firestorm ‘on the nature of the course the Arab Spring societies are to take’. Also, the issue reverberates in the US election campaign as Mitt Romney, the Republican challenger raises doubt about the handling of the crisis by the administration. US authorities seem dully confused; first they reportedly provide protection for, then take the supposed 'filmmaker' in for questioning by probation authorities.

In parallel, the outburst of protests also posed a challenge for newly established governments in Arab Spring countries whose leaders were confronted with the enormous task of handling the heat in countries that are in the first phases of democratic transition.

The events also complicate matters for all involved in Middle-Eastern affairs from Germany to the Pope visiting Lebanon just that time.

Assessment

The above events fit together just too smoothly not to have at least some orchestrated elements amongst them. But even if these were only a series of accidents, the case presents all the challenges posed by non-state actors in a XXI century environment.

In a ‘worst case’ scenario, a hostile state - e.g. Iran, rogue elements in other governments, etc. - that is looking for non-conventional means to deliver a blow - in the given case drive Arab Spring new democracies away from the US - decides to hire a guy without any credibility to ensure deniability and pays him to shoot the film. After its release on Youtube, it dubs it to Arabic and contacts a friendly militia to mount an attack on a US embassy in Libya to trigger a media firestorm. From this point on, those who ordered the campaign from behind can lean back: events are driven further by local actors interested in anti-US agendas throughout the BMNA region.

Results are clear: the US has been humiliated, newly established governments in Arab Spring countries have been successfully challenged, after which - to say the least - some question marks  are certainly popping up in US policy-making circles regarding 'the direction' of new Arab Spring democracies.

In a ‘best case’ scenario, there is no orchestration of the sort described above - it simply turns out that the most advanced states on the planet are unable to control these forces. One group - with a totally blurred background - shoots a hostile propaganda video in the US. Another chooses to use it as a pretext and mount an attack on a US Embassy in Libya. Again, others are launching subsequent protests around the BMNA to score domestic political points in a jockeying for power between moderate and radical Islam parties (as suggested by David Ignatius). Every group follows its more limited, more ‘local’ goals that result in a much grander cumulative damage done on the world stage.

Such a pattern demonstrates the ability of sub-state actors - making maximum use of constitutional freedoms and rights provided by Western democracies as well as cheap and readily available communications technology, including the Internet - to launch campaigns with the aim of bombarding mainstream politics.

Conclusion

Can such a campaign derail US-Arab Spring countries’ relations? In itself it certainly cannot. Does it complicate matters? It certainly does. Was the United States humiliated by the killing of its Ambassador? Indeed it was.

In case the pattern described as a worst case scenario has something to do with reality then it is proven that sub-state (extremist) groups active in the US and Europe can be or already are being used by other countries seeking ‘plausible deniability’ to carry out hostile campaigns.

If the second, ‘best case scenario’ is true then it will certainly inspire similar actions with the same level of ambition either by non-state groups or states using them. At least, the  political technology proved itself to be effective, powerful and successful.