Contributors – Page 12

Patrick Seale, “The Regional Implications of Syria’s Crisis”

March 28, 2011 - Jahan Salehi

Because Syria lies at the center of a dense network of Middle East relationships, the crisis in that country cannot fail to have an impact on the regional structure of power. Problems of foreign policy, long the all-consuming concern of Syria’s leadership, have suddenly been displaced by an explosion of popular protest highlighting urgent and long-neglected domestic issues.

If the regime fails to tame this domestic unrest, Syria’s external influence will inevitably be enfeebled, with repercussions across the Middle East. As the crisis deepens, Syria’s allies tremble and its enemies rejoice.

The situation has acquired a new and more dangerous dimension by the use of live fire against youthful protesters. Civilian deaths at the hands of security forces have outraged opinion across the country, setting alight long pent-up anger at the denial of basic freedoms, at the monopolistic rule of the Baath party, and the abuses of a privileged elite. To these ills should be added severe youth unemployment, as in several other Arab countries; devastation of the countryside by draught over the past four years; and the hardship suffered not only by the struggling masses, but also by a middle class impoverished by low wages and high inflation.

The regime has released some political prisoners and pledged to end the state of emergency in force since 1963. A government spokeswoman has hinted that coming reforms will include greater freedom for the press and the right to form political parties. But at the time of writing, President Bashar al-Asad had not spoken and the promised reforms had not been implemented. It remains to be seen whether promises alone will be enough to quell the unrest.

Meanwhile, the protests have challenged the fundamentals of Syria’s security state. By all accounts, this has led to furious debates inside the regime and to increasingly violent confrontations between would-be reformers and hardliners. The outcome of this internal contest remains uncertain.

Together with its two principal allies, the Islamic Republic of Iran and the Lebanese Shi‘a resistance movement Hizbullah, Syria is viewed with great hostility by Israel and its American ally. The Tehran-Damascus-Hizbullah axis – of which Syria is the lynchpin — has long been seen as the main obstacle to Israeli and American hegemony in the Levant.

With backing from Washington, Israel has sought to smash Hizbullah, notably by its 2006 invasion of Lebanon, and to detach Syria from Iran, a country Israel views as its most dangerous regional rival. Neither objective has so far been realized. But now that Syria has been weakened by internal problems, the viability of the entire axis is in danger.

If the Syrian regime were to be crippled by internal dissent, if only for a short while, Iran’s influence in Arab affairs would almost certainly be reduced — whether in Lebanon, the Palestinian territories, or even the Gulf.

In Lebanon, it would appear that Hizbullah has already been thrown on the defensive. Although it remains the most powerful single movement, its local enemies sense a turning of the tide in their favor. This might explain a violent speech recently delivered by the Sunni Muslim leader Saad al-Hariri, in which he blatantly played the sectarian card. Cheered by his jubilant supporters, he charged that Hizbullah’s weapons were not so much a threat to Israel as to Lebanon’s freedom, independence and sovereignty — on behalf of a foreign power, Iran! An early consequence of the Syrian crisis has therefore been to destabilize an already fragile Lebanon.

Shi‘a-Sunni tensions are not restricted to Lebanon but are being inflamed across the region, notably in Bahrain, where a Sunni minority rules over a Shi‘a majority, but also in a predominantly Sunni country such as the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, where a restive Shi‘a minority is to be found. When Saddam Hussein ruled in Baghdad, Iraq and Iran were at dagger’s drawn, indeed they fought a bitter eight-year war in the 1980s. But the overthrow of Saddam’s Sunni minority rule brought the majority Shi‘a community to power. The sectarian wind blowing across the region is now serving to draw Iran and Iraq ever closer together.

Turkey is deeply concerned by the Syrian disturbances since Damascus has been the cornerstone of Turkey’s ambitious Arab policy. Turkish-Syrian relations have flourished in recent years as Turkish-Israeli relations have waned and grown cold. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his hyper-active foreign minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, have actively sought to mediate local conflicts and bring much-needed stability to the region by forging close economic links.

One of their bold projects is the creation of an economic bloc of Turkey-Syria-Lebanon-Jordan, already something of a reality by the removal of visa requirements as well as by an injection of Turkish investment and technological know-how. A power struggle in Syria could set back this project and put a limit on further Turkish initiatives.

Syria’s loss, however, may turn out to be Egypt’s gain. Freed from the stagnant rule of former president Husni Mubarak, Cairo is now expected to play a more active role in Arab affairs. Instead of continuing Mubarak’s policy, conducted in complicity with Israel, of punishing Gaza and isolating its Hamas government, Egypt is reported to be pushing for a reconciliation of the rival Palestinian factions, Hamas and Fatah. If successful, this could help defuse the current dangerous escalation of violence between Israel on the one side and Hamas and still more extreme Gaza-based Palestinian groups on the other.

Undoubtedly, the failed peace process has bred extreme frustration among Palestinian militants, some of whom may think that a sharp shock is needed to wrench international opinion away from the Arab democratic wave and back to the Palestine problem. They are anxious to alert the United States and Europe to the danger of allowing the peace process to sink into a prolonged coma. Israeli hardliners, too, may calculate that a short war could serve their purpose. Many Israeli supporters of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s far-right government may dream of finishing off Hamas once and for all.

On all these fronts — Iran, Iraq, Turkey, Lebanon, Palestine, Israel — Syria is a key player. Its distraction by internal problems reshuffles the regional cards, and adds to the general sense of insecurity and latent violence.

But of all the threats facing the region, perhaps the greatest — greater even than of another Arab-Israeli clash — is that of rampant sectarianism, poisoning relationships between and within states, breeding hate, intolerance and mistrust.

Several of the modern states of the Middle East — and Syria is no exception — were built on a mosaic of ancient religions, sects and ethnic groups held uneasily and sometimes uncomfortably together by central government. But governments have themselves been far from neutral, favoring one community over another. As the power of the state is challenged, blood-thirsty sectarian demons risk being unleashed.

Patrick Seale is a leading British writer on the Middle East. His latest book is The Struggle for Arab Independence: Riad el-Solh and the Makers of the Modern Middle East (Cambridge University Press).

—————

Released: 28 March 2011

Word Count: 1,122

—————-

Patrick Seale, “The Urgent Need for Arab Leadership”

March 21, 2011 - Jahan Salehi

The absence of Arab arms in the attack on Libya is a matter of regret — and could have serious long-term consequences. It has allowed the beleaguered Libyan dictator, Mu‘ammar al-Qadhafi, to portray the attack on him as an aggression by the ‘crusader’ West to seize Libya’s oil — an argument which may strike a chord with his tribal loyalists.

This is because the regime has kept alive memories of Italy’s brutal colonial regime in Libya between the world wars. Certainly, Libyans will find more convincing the claim that this is a Western colonial adventure than Qadhafi’s fiction that Al-Qaida has master-minded the ‘conspiracy’ against him.

The West’s record in the Arab world is by no means guilt-free. The criminal destruction of Iraq; the ongoing war in Afghanistan; the tolerance of Israel’s decades-long oppression of the Palestinians; the neglect of the tragedy in Darfur; the avid pursuit of commercial interests, of which arms sales are only a blatant example – all these weigh heavily against the West in the Arab and Muslim world.

Nevertheless, the Western intervention in Libya should be seen in a more favorable light. It seems to have been driven by genuine revulsion at Qadhafi’s 42-year history of human rights abuses against his own people, not to speak of his murderous forays into external terrorism, such as the downing of civilian aircraft. Among his countless brutalities, the massacre of some 1,200 prisoners in the notorious Abu Salim prison in 1996 is only one of the most flagrant.

Every effort should now be made to prevent the intervention in Libya from injecting further venom into the West’s relations with the Arab and Muslim world. The Arab states must be persuaded to shoulder more of the burden of bringing about a peaceful transition in Tripoli.

Early in the crisis, the Arab League spoke out in favor of a no-fly zone, but its words were not followed by action — either political or military. The Arab League gave the Western assault legitimacy — as did the UN Security Council Resolution in even greater measure — but the overall Arab contribution has been feeble. Amr Mousa, Arab League secretary general, has now voiced disquieting reservations about the West’s air strikes, apparently unaware that an effective no-fly zone requires the prior destruction of Libya’s air defences.

In order to prevent further civilian casualties and great material destruction, Arab states must now work to bring the fighting in Libya to a close. They must act to save Libya from what could be a protracted civil war.

Yemen may also need Arab mediation to oversee a peaceful transition from President Ali Abdallah Saleh’s 33-year rule to a new government in tune with the demands of the protesters. Yemen was ravaged by a civil war from 1962 to 1970, which ended only when an uneasy and unstable reconciliation was arrived at with the help of outside powers. Lebanon, too, suffered a destructive civil war, of which the baneful consequences of mistrust and enmity continue to threaten a relapse into violence. Its neighbors should be careful not to contribute to further instability.

In the case of Libya, a high-powered contact group should be formed, to mediate between the two sides and negotiate Qadhafi’s peaceful departure, without the need to inflict a military defeat on him. As well as Arab states, the proposed contact group might include a regional power such as Turkey, and perhaps even one or two countries — such as Germany, China or Russia — that abstained when Resolution 1973 was adopted by the Security Council authorizing intervention. Only a contact group of real weight would have a chance to bring about a peaceful settlement.

No Arab country has a greater interest than Egypt in the outcome of the Libyan power struggle. But it would seem that Egypt’s generals have been too preoccupied with managing the transition of power in their own country to think strategically about relations with their neighbors.

Egypt could have won the gratitude of the great majority of the Libyan people had it provided the rebels with early and decisive help — and not simply the few small arms it is said to have given them. It is not too late for Egypt to act, both militarily and politically, so as to pave the way for a close alliance with its neighbor — and perhaps even, at a later date, for some form of federal union, such as Qadhafi himself advocated when he first came to power.

Libya could greatly benefit from Egypt’s vast human resources, its wealth of skills, its experienced government institutions, as well as its cultural and educational establishments. Egypt, in turn, could benefit from Libya’s oil resources and from its thinly-populated land area, including its 2,000 kilometres of Mediterranean coastline. Together they could provide a formidable anchor and power-house for the Arab world.

There is little doubt that Qadhafi’s rule must soon come to an end. It is important, however, that the transition be handled without unnecessary violence, and in tune with the extraordinary awakening of the Arab peoples, which the world is witnessing from the Atlantic to the Gulf.

No regime in the Arab world will be immune from the explosion of protest and longing for freedom sweeping the entire region. To seek to repress the democratic movement by force will be as ineffective as seeking to contain a tsunami. Arab regimes which have so far escaped serious challenge should hurry to end police brutality, curb corruption, and allow their people to choose their own representatives in genuinely free elections. The use of force — and especially the killing of protesters — only adds fuel to the flames, as Syria is now discovering.

In addition to external mediation in Yemen and Libya, another urgent measure should be an attempt to negotiate an entente between Saudi Arabia and Iran. By sending troops into Bahrain, Saudi Arabia has asserted its authority in the Arabian Peninsula in defense of its national interests. If this intervention creates a moment of calm, the Bahraini ruling family should seize the opportunity to introduce real and far-reaching reforms.

In particular, it would be tragic if the crisis in Bahrain were interpreted as a Saudi-Iranian proxy war. Indeed, nothing could be more effective in calming tensions in the Gulf region than a genuine attempt at mutual understanding between those two powers — and indeed between Sunni and Shi‘i Muslims, a task to which religious leaders in both camps should urgently address themselves in a necessary spirit of conciliation.

Enlightened action by Arab leaders could yet spare their countries further turmoil and loss of innocent life. The fate of the region should not be left to external powers.

—————

Released: 21 March 2011

Word Count: 1,101

—————-

Patrick Seale, “Europe Must Regain the Diplomatic initiative”

March 14, 2011 - Jahan Salehi

It is high time for Europe to take over the lead role from the United States in negotiations with Iran over its nuclear programme, as well as in attempting to broker a settlement of the long-running Arab-Israeli conflict.

In both cases, the United States has failed to make progress towards a peaceful resolution, although both pose grave threats to international security. Quite the contrary, America’s handling has made the two situations more explosive.

The reason for failure are clear: Pro-Israeli groups and lobbyists have shackled U.S. President Barack Obama, constraining his freedom of action, and compelling him to adopt positions far removed from the aims he proclaimed at the beginning of his mandate.

A new approach is now urgently required. Europe can provide one. But for that to happen, the minimum requirement is that the big three members of the European Union — Britain, France and Germany — concert their policies and act as one.

For the moment, the Arab-Israeli conflict, simmering just off the boil, and the dispute with Iran over its nuclear ambitions have been overshadowed by the people’s struggle to unseat autocrats across the Arab world. As these various dramas have unfolded, America’s inability to shape events, one way or the other, has been widely noted. Indeed, the upheavals have provided fresh evidence of the decline in American influence in the troubled Middle East, bringing home to European leaders the need to seize the initiative if Europe’s own interests are to be safeguarded.

American impotence was dramatically demonstrated on Friday, 18 February, when the United States vetoed a UN Security Council Resolution, which could have broken the dangerous log-jam in the Arab-Israeli conflict. Sponsored by 130 countries and presented by Lebanon in the name of the Palestinian Authority, the Resolution stipulated that the settlements Israel had established in the Occupied Palestinian Territories since 1967, including those in East Jerusalem, were illegal and were “a major obstacle to the achievement of a just, durable and comprehensive peace.”

Although the wording of the Resolution echoed the official U.S. position — indeed, according to the Palestinians, it was cut-and-pasted from Secretary of State Hilary Clinton’s own public statements — Obama intervened to protect Israel from a hostile vote. All the other 14 members of the Security Council voted for the Resolution. Arab confidence in the United States was dealt a severe blow.

The abject sight of a U.S. president bowing to domestic pressures has caused some European leaders to consider that they can no longer afford to entrust the management of the Arab-Israeli conflict to the United States. As a result, there are moves afoot in European chanceries to produce a draft settlement of the conflict, which would then be presented to the UN Security Council for endorsement in a binding resolution. The calculation is that the United States — alarmed at the prospect of the EU adopting an independent posture — would not dare to use its veto again.

The European initiative, now being considered, is an eleventh-hour bid to rescue the two-state solution, which is in mortal peril because of Israel’s relentless settlement expansion. Such a proposed European move would come none too soon.

Israel is more than ever in the grip of right-wing forces and fanatical settlers, and seems to be sinking deeper into intransigence. A straw in the wind was last week’s decision by Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to appoint General Yaakov Amidror, a hard-line, ultra-religious nationalist, as head of Israel’s National Security Council. Amidror is known for his total opposition to peace and to a Palestinian state.

On Iran, there is a similar feeling in European capitals that American policy has gone astray. Driven by Israel and its friends, Washington has embarked on an ever more hostile confrontation with Tehran, in spite of the evident risk of an escalation into armed conflict.

Some experts believe that Britain, France and Germany, which had been conducting negotiations with Iran, missed a crucial opportunity in March 2005 to strike a deal with Tehran. At the time, Iran offered to limit the number of its centrifuges, used to enrich uranium, to 3,000; to allow permanent on-site inspections at its nuclear sites; and to give written assurances that it would not build nuclear weapons nor withdraw from the NPT. But the E-3 rejected the Iranian offer.

They did so because they wished to deny Iran all capability to enrich uranium, even though Iran has the right to do so, for peaceful purposes, under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), of which it is a signatory — unlike Israel, India and Pakistan.

In February 2006, the E -3 ceded the lead in negotiations with Iran to the United States, which promptly piled on the pressure with harsher sanctions. But this did not led to a breakthrough. Although sanctions have caused Iran some serious domestic problems, they have not undermined its economy nor forced it to give up its determination to master the uranium fuel cycle. On the contrary, America’s bullying has resulted in the current precarious and highly-dangerous impasse.

Most European governments now recognise that a fresh approach to Iran is needed. As a proud nation and a major regional power, Iran wants to be treated with the respect it deserves. It will evidently not yield to intimidation and threats.

In order to be able to protect itself in an emergency, Iran may well wish to acquire the capability to build atomic weapons. But most experts believe it is highly unlikely that it will actually build one. The disadvantages of being a nuclear power far outweigh the advantages. For one thing, if Iran were to become a nuclear power, its Arab neighbours in the Gulf would scurry for protection under the American nuclear umbrella — precisely an outcome which Iran wishes to avoid.

U.S. officials such as Hilary Clinton have sought to mobilise the Arab states against Iran. But this is surely a wrong approach. The West should, on the contrary, encourage the Gulf States to engage in a dialogue with Iran, such as Oman and Qatar already conduct, in order to build mutual confidence. Rather than seeking to isolate Iran — in any event, a doomed enterprise — attempts should be made to draw Iran into the security architecture of the region.

Some influential experts believe it is time for Europe’s big three to regain the lead from the United States and engage in negotiations with Iran, fully discarding the language of threats. The EU should close its ears to the specious Israeli argument that Iran’s nuclear programme is a danger to the whole world. It should listen instead to the more moderate views on the subject of Turkey, Russia and India.

Iran may well be ready to conclude a “grand bargain” with the West, provided its legitimate interests are addressed. The opportunity is there for Europe to seize.

—————

Released: 14 March 2011

Word Count: 1,128

—————-

Patrick Seale, “Moment of Decision Approaching in Afghanistan/Pakistan”

March 7, 2011 - Jahan Salehi

Overshadowed by the dramatic events in the Arab world, the situation in Afghanistan and Pakistan seems to be approaching a dangerous turning-point. Should the United States and its NATO allies continue making war on the Taliban or should they urgently seek a global political solution?

As if still hoping for better news from the battlefield, Western leaders — President Barack Obama first among them — seem reluctant to face up to the need for a clear decision one way or the other.

Washington’s strategy is to keep up the military pressure on the insurgents — and attempt to disrupt and destroy its leadership by air strikes on Taliban safe-havens across the border in North Waziristan — while beginning a drawdown of U.S. troops this summer. The hope is that by 2014 the situation will be sufficiently stable for U.S. combat troops to leave after progressively handing over security responsibility to Afghan forces. But this may not be a realistic objective.

There are at present 143,000 NATO-led forces in Afghanistan, of which 98,000 are American. Poland is to withdraw all its 2,600 troops this year, while Germany will also start to withdraw its 4,700-strong contingent this year. Britain has said it will withdraw its 9,000 troops by 2015.

Last week, however, a report by the House of Commons foreign affairs committee sharply criticized the British government’s handling of the war. The campaign was not succeeding, the report said, and lacked a clear national security purpose. Arbitrary deadlines and further military operations were setting back the prospect of a peace deal, which the report described as “the best remaining hope” of achieving “an honorable exit from Afghanistan.”

Will this sensible report be heeded? Most independent experts are agreed that only a negotiated settlement can put an end to the West’s wanton waste of men and resources.

The decision facing Western leaders is whether to continue with the current strategy of military attacks and leisurely withdrawals or, on the contrary, to make a strong and sustained push for negotiations with the Taliban. Meanwhile, spring is coming to the Afghan mountains and with it the probability of an upsurge of lethal Taliban hit-and-run operations.

In recent months, the insurgents have given ground in the face of large-scale NATO-led assaults in Helmand Province and in and around Kandahar. But they continue their widespread use of improvised explosive devices (IED), which take a dreadful toll of NATO troops, blowing off limbs and sharply constraining movement. At the same time, rather than face NATO troops in battle, the insurgents have also increasingly resorted to suicide bombings and the assassination of those tribal leaders who dare consort with foreign forces.

Public opinion among America’s NATO allies — and indeed in the United States itself — is impatient and despondent. Security in both Afghanistan and Pakistan seems to be deteriorating. The costly ten-year war is far from won, and could well be lost, despite the attempt by General David Petraeus, the military commander in Afghanistan, to put a brave face on what is a grim situation.

A new and hopeful development is that Turkey seems ready to play a mediating role in the conflict. A spokesman for Afghanistan’s 70-man peace council, which President Hamid Karzai set up last year, has been reported as saying that Turkey was ready to facilitate talks between the warring parties by providing the Taliban with a representative office — that is to say an ‘address’ on Turkish soil — where contacts and talks with the Afghan Government could eventually take place. But any such initiative might first require a pause in military operations, perhaps even an informal ceasefire.

So far, the United States has not given public support to the Turkish suggestion. The precedents are not encouraging. Washington did not welcome some of Turkey’s earlier mediation efforts, such as its attempt, with Brazil, to defuse the crisis over Iran’s nuclear activities or its bid to make peace between Fatah and Hamas, the Palestinian rival factions.

Profoundly destabilized by the Afghan war, neighboring Pakistan seems to be trembling on the edge of an abyss, which could sweep away President Asif Ali Zardari and his ruling Pakistan People’s Party. Pakistani-Indian rivalry lies at the heart of the problem. Afraid of losing ground to India in Afghanistan, Pakistan feels the need to maintain contact with insurgent Islamic groups — the very groups that most bitterly oppose the U.S. presence and which have recently turned their guns on Pakistan itself.

Ferocious anti-Americanism and a rise of extreme Islamic militancy are today the most striking features of both the Pakistani and the Afghan scene. In both countries the killing of civilians by NATO air strikes has aroused great rage and a thirst for revenge.

Last week, nine young boys, aged from 9 to 15, who were collecting firewood to heat their homes in the mountains of eastern Afghanistan, were killed by fire from NATO helicopters. It was the third incident in ten days in which the Afghan Government has accused NATO of killing civilians. Air and ground attacks on 17-19 February are said to have resulted in 64 civilian deaths.

In Pakistan, CIA drone attacks continue to inflame the local population. Among the many indications of Pakistan ‘s fierce anti-American mood is the insistence that there can be no diplomatic immunity for Raymond Davis, a CIA contractor accused of killing of two Pakistanis. Pakistani opinion is clamoring for him to hang.

Other alarm signals of Pakistan’s growing intolerance were the murder last January of Salman Taseer, the liberal Governor of Punjab, and this month of Shahbaz Bhatti, a Roman Catholic, who was Federal Minister for minorities. Both men appear to have been murdered because they favored amending the 1986 blasphemy laws, which prescribe a mandatory death sentence for insulting the Prophet Muhammad. Unwilling to confront public opinion, the Pakistan Government’s response to the killings was tepid in the extreme.

Another recent pointer to anti-Americanism and Islamic militancy was the gunning down at Frankfurt airport on 2 March of two American airmen and the serious wounding of two others by a 21-year old Muslim Kosovar. Three of the four victims were members of a security team en route from Britain to Afghanistan, via the Ramstein Air Base in Germany, a logistical platform for U.S. operations in Afghanistan.

Casualties, both direct and indirect, of the Afghan war continue to pile up. It is long past time for the United States and its NATO allies to make every attempt, with the help of regional states such as Turkey, to conclude a negotiated settlement resulting in a full and speedy withdrawal of foreign forces.

Both Afghanistan and Pakistan deserve a break from lethal Western military meddling, allegedly in the interest of illusory strategic interests.

—————

Released: 07 March 2011

Word Count: 1,112

—————-

Patrick Seale, “Lessons from the Arab Revolution”

February 28, 2011 - Jahan Salehi

Europe and the United States were taken by surprise by the revolutionary changes sweeping the Arab world. They failed to foresee the sudden awakening of the Arab peoples. Arab rulers who had evidently imagined they could rule for life have been swept away. Several others are under threat, and may well follow.

It is widely agreed that the Arab world is undergoing a profound transformation and will never be the same again. Europe, a mere step away from the Arab world, was evidently blind to the powerful pressures which were building up and which eventually could no longer be contained.

A striking example was provided by Michele Alliot-Marie, France’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, sacked on 27 February by President Nicolas Sarkozy. She is the first European ministerial victim of the Arab revolution — in particular of the revolution in Tunisia, which overthrew President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali.

Alliot-Marie’s catalogue of blunders was to take a vacation in Tunisia when the troubles had already started; to offer the Tunisian President French riot police to help quell the demonstrators; to take free flights on a private plane owned by a businessman close to Ben Ali; and to allow her parents, who had accompanied her on vacation, to buy a hotel company from the same Tunisian businessman. Such errors suggest a profound incomprehension in Paris of the Arab mood.

Inevitably, the escalating revolts in the Arab world were the principal subject of debate at this year’s meeting of a high-level discussion group, known as the Club de Monaco, which met in Monte Carlo from 25 to 27 February.

Attended by some 40 former prime ministers, ministers, ambassadors, academics and journalists from more than a score of countries, the proceedings were opened by Prince Albert of Monaco, and were chaired by the Club’s founder, Claude de Kemoularia, a veteran former French ambassador and international banker, who had served as Minister of State in Monaco under Prince Albert’s father, Prince Rainier.

The Club makes no public recommendations, nor does it allow individual speakers to be named, so the remarks that follow are merely some of the lessons I personally drew from the prolonged and animated three-day debate by the distinguished participants.

One such lesson is that the burgeoning democratic movement in the Arab world will need to be underpinned by urgent financial support. If immediate and substantial financial and economic help is not given to Egypt and Tunisia, but also to Yemen and to the Sahel countries bordering the Sahara desert, as well as to other relatively poor countries, the great hopes that have been aroused will be dashed. It is no accident that terrorism thrives where poverty and hopelessness are widespread.

When the Soviet system collapsed in central and Eastern Europe, the West created the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) in 1990 to promote economic development, multi-party democracy and to help the transition to capitalist economies.

Something similar is urgently required in the Arab world: if not an Arab development bank, then a massive fund, something in the nature of the Marshall Plan which the United States launched after the Second World War to rescue and revive European economies.

This is today the challenge facing the Arab oil states and their sovereign funds. They must help their poorer neighbours, if they wish to be protected from the storm engulfing the entire region. Europe, too, must lend a hand if it is not to be submerged by a flood of illegal immigrants from across the Mediterranean.

One of the key underlying social reasons for the revolution in the Arab world is the population explosion. In every single country birth rates are too high. Economic growth simply cannot keep pace. As a result, unemployment is a universal problem.

To quote a single example, when Napoleon invaded Egypt in 1798, there were just three million Egyptians. When Gamal Abd al-Nasser and his ‘Free Officers’ seized power in 1952, this had risen to 19 million. Today, less than sixty years later, there are 84 million Egyptians, and the number is increasing by nearly a million a year. Clearly, reducing fertility rates and job creation must be the priorities not only of Egypt but of every Arab country. A revision of the educational system must also follow. In most Arab countries, over-burdened schools and universities produce large numbers of poorly-trained graduates for whom no jobs exist.

Another subject of debate by the Club de Monaco was the whole range of issues concerning Israel. The revolution in Egypt was likely to bring Cairo back into the Arab mainstream. This would have a profound impact on Israel’s strategic environment. Was it not time for Israel to rethink its security doctrine, so as to seek co-existence with its Arab neighbours rather than military domination?

Now that the United States had failed to advance the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, could Europe and Russia step in to give the process a much-needed nudge? Was Israel beginning to grasp that its continued theft of Palestinian land was a curse from which it must itself inevitably suffer? A major attempt had to be made to resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict before it exploded into more violence. There was no viable alternative to a two-state solution.

Iraq’s revival was hailed by members of the Club de Monaco. After the horrors of recent decades, the country was being remade as a decentralised democracy. It had overcome its civil war of 2006-7 and was making a successful transition from foreign occupation to real sovereignty. Its relations with such neighbours as Turkey and Iran had much improved. Given time, there were real hopes that Iraq would recover its role as a major oil producer and a leading Arab state.

In country after country, Arab protesters have voiced the same demands. They want an end to random arrests, torture and police brutality; they want the dismantling of the Arab ‘security state’; the right to speak and be heard; to participate in politics; to choose their own representatives. They want a better life for themselves and their children, the end of corruption and the gross privileges of a narrow elite. In brief, they want freedom, social justice, economic opportunity, dignity and democratic governance.

Those Arab leaders still in office should urgently take note or face the consequences.

—————

Released: 28 February 2011

Word Count: 1,044

—————-

Patrick Seale, “Can Europe Rescue a Shackled Obama?”

February 21, 2011 - Jahan Salehi

In the Greater Middle East — that vast stretch of territory from the Maghreb to Pakistan – the once-mighty United States has been exposed as a paper tiger. It has failed to have the slightest impact on the tidal wave of popular protest that has engulfed the region.

This is one of the most striking features of the political tsunami that has already destroyed two Arab regimes and is shaking the foundations of several others.

America’s European allies have watched with growing anxiety Washington’s irrelevance in the face of the raw expression of ‘people power’ in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Bahrain, Yemen, Iran, Jordan, Iraq, Algeria — and who knows where next?

In recent days, in what looked like a vain attempt to catch up with events, Obama and Secretary of State Hilary Clinton made several public comments, seeming at times to encourage the protesters and at others to chide them. But no one took the slightest notice. They would have been well advised to keep silent.

Nothing has so vividly illustrated the decline of American power. The United States may still be the world’s greatest economic and military power but, in country after country, whether friend or foe, America’s ‘hard power’ is being challenged and its ‘soft power’ derided.

European leaders are busy taking note. But what are they to do? Is there any way they can help correct America’s mistakes or fill the current vacuum? The European Union has so far failed to grow into a coherent political power, but some individual leaders in major European countries are waking up to the challenge posed by American impotence.

Quite apart from the storm blowing through Arab societies, two related problems are of special concern. The first is Afghanistan, where the United States seems to be leading its allies into a bloody morass. Victory in the ten-year war seems far out of reach. In neighbouring Pakistan, hostility to the United States is at fever pitch.

Should a contact group of European nations propose to conduct an urgent negotiation with the Taliban, even with Mullah Omar himself? It may be the only way for the international coalition to escape a humiliating defeat.

The second burning problem is the collapse of the Arab-Israeli peace process. For decades, the United States monopolized the process on the grounds that it alone had the necessary influence with both sides. The Europeans agreed to play second-fiddle. They funded the hapless Palestinians but were denied any political input into the negotiations.

Today, America’s abject failure can no longer be disguised. As a result, there is a growing realisation that Europe must act, if only to protect itself. If Israel’s extremist government proceeds with its ‘Greater Israel’ agenda; if its dispossession of the Palestinians continues unchecked; if the two-state solution is truly dead; then, sooner or later, Arab and Islamic rage will erupt. Violence, in one form or another, is bound to overspill into the Western world. The precedents are there for all to see.

These are only the most obvious of America’s foreign policy failures. In Egypt, a revolution has overturned thirty years of American diplomacy. Lavish U.S. subsidies, paid to the Egyptian military, were intended to protect Israel by keeping Cairo out of the Arab mainstream. This outworn strategy may no longer work. In Tunisia, an American-backed ‘kleptocrat’ has been sent packing. In Yemen, Bahrain and Algeria, pro-American regimes are facing a swelling movement demanding change. The Libyan regime, recently reconciled with Washington, is proving to be the most blood-thirsty in slaughtering its own people.

In Lebanon, America’s allies have been routed in a constitutional process which has brought a Hizbullah-backed prime minister to power — to the dismay of the United States and its Israeli ally. In Iraq, America’s huge investment in men and treasure has failed to win it any lasting influence. On the contrary, the Iraq war — a criminal enterprise launched on the basis of fraudulent intelligence, largely fabricated by pro-Israeli neocons — has brought to power in Baghdad a Shia-dominated regime with close ties to Iran — an unforeseen outcome hardly to the liking of the United States.

Although Iran, too, has been profoundly unsettled by a surge of ‘people power’, it has remained defiant and unbowed in the face of American sanctions and the ever-present threat of military attack, either by Israel or by the U.S. itself.

Israel, America’s closest ally, has provided one of the most striking examples of the paralysis of American power. At the UN Security Council last Friday, the United States vetoed a draft Resolution, sponsored by no fewer than 120 countries, which proposed to condemn Israel’s West Bank settlements as illegal. With the sole exception of the United States, all the 14 other Council members voted in favour.

Rarely was there a more blatant illustration of the capture of American decision-making by pro-Israeli forces — whose influence extends, not only in the Congress, in the various lobbies, think-tanks and media outlets, but inside the U.S. administration itself.

Some months ago, Israel’s Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu felt able to reject Obama’s appeal to freeze West Bank settlements. Last Friday at the Security Council, he was able to secure America’s protection for Israel’s illegal practices. Obama’s humiliation was complete. He had set his heart on resolving the Arab-Israel conflict but was defeated by a small Mediterranean country of some seven million people — which is, moreover, totally dependent on American aid and support.

Will a group of European states now produce its own blueprint for a settlement – as Obama has so far failed to do? Will it dare warn Israel that it might risk a boycott, and even the exclusion of its exports from European markets, if it continues to trample on Palestinian rights?

Ideas of this sort are beginning to circulate in some European circles, where there is growing impatience with Israeli intransigence. Some would like to see Britain take the lead of such a movement, if only to redeem the catastrophic legacy of the Blair era, when Britain slavishly followed former US President George W. Bush and Washington’s neocons in making war on Iraq. There seems to be a move afoot for the UK to reassert its independent voice in foreign affairs.

Miracles, however, should not be expected. Prime Minister David Cameron is deeply preoccupied with the task of rescuing Britain from an unprecedented economic and financial crisis. Foreign Minister William Hague may not have the knowledge or the stuffing for such a bold move.

What is beyond dispute, however, is that European leaders are watching the unfolding Middle East drama with great anxiety. What will the emerging political landscape look like? What if the immense and angry energy of the Arab peoples were channelled into the Arab-Israeli conflict? Who could deal with an intifada on such a region-wide scale? Might it not be wise to act before the storm breaks?

—————

Released: 21 February 2011

Word Count: 1,136

—————-

Patrick Seale, “The Future of the Israel-Egypt Peace Treaty”

February 14, 2011 - Jahan Salehi

Israel has been unnerved by Egypt’s Revolution. The reason is simple: It fears for the survival of the 1979 Peace Treaty — a treaty which by neutralizing Egypt, guaranteed Israel’s military dominance over the region for the next three decades.

By removing Egypt — the strongest and most populous of the Arab countries — from the Arab line-up, the Treaty ruled out any possibility of an Arab coalition that might have contained Israel or restrained its freedom of action. As Israeli Foreign Minister Moshe Dayan remarked at the time: “If a wheel is removed, the car will not run again.”

Western commentators routinely describe the Treaty as a “pillar of regional stability,” a “keystone of Middle East diplomacy,” a “centerpiece of America’s diplomacy” in the Arab and Muslim world. This is certainly how Israel and its American friends have seen it.

But for most Arabs, it has been a disaster. Far from providing stability, it exposed them to Israeli power. Far from bringing peace, the Treaty ensured an absence of peace, since a dominant Israel saw no need to compose or compromise with Syria or the Palestinians.

Instead, the Treaty opened the way for Israeli invasions, occupations and massacres in Lebanon and the Palestinian territories, for strikes against Iraqi and Syrian nuclear sites, for brazen threats against Iran, for the 44-year occupation of the West Bank and the cruel blockade of Gaza, and for the pursuit of a “Greater Israel” agenda by fanatical Jewish settlers and religious nationalists.

In turn, Arab dictators, invoking the challenge they faced from an aggressive and expansionist Israel, were able to justify the need to maintain tight control over their populations by means of harsh security measures.

One way and another, the Israeli-Egyptian Treaty has contributed hugely to the dangerous instability and raw nerves which have characterized the Middle East to this day, as well as to the sharpening of popular grievances, and the inevitable explosions which have followed.

Suffice it to say that, emboldened by the Treaty, Israel smashed Iraq’s Osirak nuclear reactor in 1981 and, the following year, invaded Lebanon in a bid to destroy the PLO, expel Syrian influence and bring Lebanon into Israel’s orbit. Israel’s 1982 invasion and siege of Beirut killed some 17,000 Lebanese and Palestinians. In an act of great immorality, Israel then provided cover (and arc-lights) to its Maronite allies as they engaged in a two-day slaughter of helpless Palestinians at the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps. Israel remained in occupation of southern Lebanon for the next 18 years, until driven out in 2000 by Hizbullah guerrillas. So much for the Peace Treaty’s contribution to Middle East peace and stability!

The origins of the Peace Treaty can be traced to the diplomacy of Henry Kissinger, President Nixon’s National Security Adviser at the time of the October War. Anxious above all to protect Israel and contemptuous of Palestinian and Syrian aspirations, Kissinger maneuvered Egypt’s Anwar al-Sadat out of his alliance with both Syria and the Soviet Union, and towards a cozy relationship with Israel and the United States.

With the 1975 Sinai Disengagement Agreement, Kissinger removed Egypt from the battlefield — a fateful decision which led directly to the Camp David accords of 1978, and the Peace Treaty of 1979. Sadat may have hoped for a comprehensive peace, involving the Palestinians and Syria. But he was out-foxed by Israel’s Prime Minister Menachem Begin, a fervent Zionist who was determined to destroy Palestinian nationalism and prevent the return of the West Bank to the Arabs. Begin was happy to return the Sinai to Egypt in order to keep the West Bank.

Weakened at home by pro-Israeli forces, President Jimmy Carter witnessed unhappily the scaling down of his peace effort from its original multilateral aims to a mere bilateral outcome — a separate Israeli-Egyptian peace. At the end of the day, Washington swallowed Israel’s argument that the Treaty ruled out the threat of a regional war and was therefore in America’s interest. Egypt’s army was given $1.3bn annual U.S. subsidy — not to make it more warlike but, on the contrary, to keep it at peace with Israel.

Defence of the Peace Treaty remains the prevailing wisdom in Washington. The Obama administration is reported to have told Egypt’s military chiefs that they must maintain the treaty. In turn, Egypt’s Supreme Military Council has said that Egypt will honour existing treaties. So there will evidently not be any revocation of the Treaty. No one in Egypt or in the Arab world favors a return to military action, nor is ready for it. But the Treaty may well be put on ice.

We do not yet know the color of the next Egyptian government. In any event, it will be hugely preoccupied with pressing domestic problems for the foreseeable future. But if, as is widely expected, this government will have a strong civilian component drawn from the various strands of the protest movement, adjustments of Egypt’s foreign policy must be expected.

It is highly unlikely that Egypt will continue Husni Mubarak’s policy — deeply embarrassing to Egyptian opinion — of colluding with Israel in the blockade of Gaza. Nor is the new Egypt likely to persist in Mubarak’s hostility towards the Islamic Republic of Iran and the two resistance movements, Hamas and Hizbullah. Whether the Treaty survives or not, Egypt’s alliance with Israel will not be the intimate relationship it was.

The Egyptian Revolution is only the latest demonstration of the change in Israel’s strategic environment. Israel ‘lost’ Iran when the Shah was overthrown in 1979. This was followed by the emergence of a Tehran-Damascus-Hizbullah axis, which has sought to challenge Israel’s regional hegemony. Over the past couple of years, Israel has also ‘lost’ Turkey, a former ally of real weight. It is now in danger of ‘losing’ Egypt. The threat looms of regional isolation.

Moreover, Israel’s relentless seizure of Palestinian land on the West Bank and its refusal to engage in serious negotiations with the Palestinians and Syria on the basis of “land for peace” have lost it many former supporters in Europe and the United States. It is well aware that it faces a threat of de-legitimization.

How will Israel react to the Egyptian Revolution? Will it move troops to its border with Egypt, strengthen its defenses, desperately seek allies in the Egyptian military junta now temporarily in charge, and plead for still more American aid? Or will it — at long last — make a determined bid to resolve its territorial conflicts with Syria and Lebanon and allow the emergence of an independent Palestinian state with its capital in East Jerusalem?

Israel urgently needs to rethink its security doctrine. This is the clear lesson of the dramatic events in Egypt. Dominating the region by force of arms — Israel’s doctrine since the creation of the State — is less and less of a viable option. It serves only to arouse ferocious and growing resistance, which must eventually erupt into violence. Israel needs a revolution in its security thinking, but of this there is as yet no sign.

Only peace, not arms, can guarantee Israel’s long-term security.

—————

Released: 14 February 2011

Word Count: 1,174

—————-

Patrick Seale, “The Regional Implications of Syria’s Crisis”

Patrick Seale, “The Urgent Need for Arab Leadership”

Patrick Seale, “Europe Must Regain the Diplomatic initiative”

Patrick Seale, “Moment of Decision Approaching in Afghanistan/Pakistan”

Patrick Seale, “Lessons from the Arab Revolution”

Patrick Seale, “Can Europe Rescue a Shackled Obama?”

Patrick Seale, “The Future of the Israel-Egypt Peace Treaty”

Syndication Services

Rights & Permissions

Advisories

Syndication Services

Rights & Permissions

Social Media

Advisories