The emergence this month of Shaul Mofaz on the Israeli political scene as the new head of the centre-left Kadima party is a welcome development. It carries with it the promise — still only a faint one, however — that a reinvigorated and politically-successful Kadima could bring about a softening, even a reversal, of the expansionist, war-mongering policies of Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu and his nationalist, ultra-orthodox and right-wing Labour coalition partners.

For the moment Netanyahu seems immovable. In office since 31 March 2009, he has become Israel’s longest serving prime minister. His skilful mobilisation of Israel’s supporters in the United States — in the lobbies, the Republican Party, the media, in conservative think tanks and especially in Congress — have allowed him to brow-beat U.S. President Barrack Obama on Middle East issues, winning the plaudits of the right in Israel and the United States.

But Israeli politics are notoriously volatile. A realignment of the political landscape — as has often happened in the past — is by no means impossible. Led by Mofaz, who has now replaced the politically incompetent Tzipi Livni, Kadima could evolve into an effective counter-weight to Netanyahu’s Likud and its far-right partners.

Netanyahu’s aggressive posturing against Iran, his potentially dangerous humiliation of Obama (who may seek revenge if re-elected next November), and his relentless drive to expand settlements in Palestinian territory, while paying only faint attention to the growing social and economic disparities in Israeli society, have already aroused considerable anxiety in some sections of the electorate. This anxiety could find political expression at Israel’s next elections, due to be held before the autumn of 2013, but which may well be held earlier.

Kadima (Forward in Hebrew) is ripe for a make-over. It was created by Ariel Sharon in 2005 when, having broken with Likud hard-liners, he rallied moderate Likud and Labour members in support of his plan to disengage from Gaza. But when Sharon suffered a stroke, it was Ehud Olmert who led the party at the 2006 elections, and then formed a coalition government when Kadima won 29 out of the 120 seats, becoming the single largest party in the Knesset. At the 2009 elections, Kadima again won the most seats, this time led by Tzipi Livni, but it went into opposition when Natanyahu formed a Likud-led government together with Avigdor Lieberman’s nationalist Israel Beiteinu, the ultra-orthodox Shas, and Ehud Barak’s right-wing Labour faction.

Since then, Netanyahu has done his utmost to crush Palestinian aspirations for statehood, and has spurned all Arab peace overtures. Evidently a ‘Greater Israel’ fanatic, he has made clear that he prefers land to peace. Meanwhile decades of right-wing propaganda have convinced many Israelis that the Palestinians and other Arabs are out to kill them, and that Israel has no partner for peace.

This is the powerful current of ideas that Mofaz, now 63, will have to defeat if he is to lead Israel towards peace with its Arab neighbours and away from the belligerent policies of the Netanyahu era. For this task, he has several valuable political assets. As a former military chief of staff and defence minister, he is well-positioned to reassure a jumpy Israeli public that he can be counted on to protect the country.

Mofaz’s background is another potential asset. He is not part of Israel’s Tel Aviv elite, largely of European origin. On the contrary, he is an Iranian Jew, born in Tehran, speaking Farsi, who at the age of nine was brought to Israel by his parents and was brought up in poverty. In an interview with Ethan Bronner of the New York Times (published in the International Herald Tribune of 7-8 April 2012) he explained how this harsh background had allowed him to understand the hardships and frustrations of the many Israelis who struggle to make ends meet in a country — to cite his own words — where “the rich get richer and the poor poorer.”

Mofaz was always considered something of a right-winger. But, as the new head of Kadima, his expression of liberal and enlightened views on Israel’s social and economic inequalities, as well as on the two main controversial issues of peace with the Palestinians and war with Iran, comes as an agreeable surprise. Iran has clearly been a subject of life-long interest for him. One senses in Mofaz a readiness to deal with Iran on a business-like basis, far from the apocalyptic hysteria of Netanyahu, who never tires of demonising Iran and depicting its (so far non-existent) nuclear bomb-making programme as an ‘existential’ threat to Israel and a menace to the whole of mankind.

“The greatest threat to the state of Israel,” Mofaz told the New York Times, “is not nuclear Iran but that in 30 or 50 years it would become a bi-national state. So it is in Israel’s interest that a Palestinian state be created.” He criticised Netanyahu’s focus on Iran’s nuclear programme which, he said, had distracted attention from more important priorities, like making peace with the Palestinians, ending settlement building in much of the West Bank and reducing the country’s inequalities. He said he believed Israel should keep the West Bank settlement blocs but give the Palestinians 100 percent of their territorial demands by swapping land. He went on to say that borders and security could be negotiated in a year and that tens of thousands of settlers would leave their homes with the proper incentives. Those who remained would be forced out.

In the opinion of many observers, Israel in recent years has made several serious strategic mistakes. It attempted to destroy Hizbullah by its invasion of Lebanon in 2006 and it attempted to destroy Hamas by its ferocious assault on Gaza in 2008-9. Both endeavours failed. The Gaza operation, in particular, earned Israel the opprobrium of much of world opinion and shattered its close relations with Turkey.

By repeatedly threatening to strike Iran’s nuclear facilities, Israel has blackmailed the United States into imposing crippling sanctions on Tehran in the evident hope of closing down Iran’s nuclear activities altogether. This unrealistic objective is unlikely to be achieved at the talks due to open this Friday between Iran and the five permanent members of the UN Security Council (the so-called P5+1.) At the same time, the current Syrian crisis has aroused Israeli hopes that the whole Tehran-Damascus-Hizbullah ‘resistance axis’ could be brought down, and Israel’s unchallenged supremacy re-established — but this, too, is an unrealistic objective.

With the Palestine problem in dangerous limbo, and with the ever-present danger of war breaking out with Iran, Israel urgently needs a voice of reason such as that of Shaul Mofaz.

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).

Copyright © 2012 Patrick Seale – distributed by Agence Global

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Released: 10 April 2012
Word Count: 1,095
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Does U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton want confrontation and war in the Middle East or dialogue, reconciliation and peace? Her pronouncements and policies during her visit to the region last weekend suggest impatient belligerence. She seems intent on spreading mayhem, to the puzzlement and anxiety of many of the locals, as I discovered on a visit which coincided with hers.

In Riyadh last Saturday, 31 March, she returned to her now familiar theme of seeking to incite the Gulf Arabs against Iran, a country she insists on demonising as ‘a regional and global threat.’ At a meeting with foreign ministers of the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council (Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the UAE and Oman) she proposed erecting a strong missile shield to protect the Arab states of the Gulf. ‘It is a U.S. priority,’ she declared, to help the GCC build a regional missile defence architecture’ against what she saw as a looming ballistic missile threat from Iran.

It is hard to see how Iran would have any conceivable interest in attacking, let alone destroying, the Gulf States, since they are among its prime business partners – or at least they were before the United States tried to sever Iran’s long-standing banking and commercial ties with countries such as Dubai.

Clinton’s missile shield proposal might be good for U.S. defence contractors but would seem to have little local relevance. It bears an uncanny resemblance to a U.S. scheme to defend Europe and the United States from a hypothetical Iranian nuclear missile attack — a scheme dismissed by William Pfaff, one of the wisest of U.S. commentators, as ‘a make-work project for the American aerospace industry.’

Many Gulf Arabs I spoke to in the region earlier this week see Iran as a potential partner rather than an enemy. They think it is the United States and Israel that are seeking to deepen the rift between Iran and the Arabs — and between Sunnis and Shi’is — for their own geostrategic advantage. Muslims, they believe, should close ranks and not allow external powers to exploit their divisions by drawing them into the quarrel between the United States and Israel, on the one side, and Iran on the other. As a well-placed Arab (who wishes to remain anonymous) put it to me: ‘The essential vocation of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia must surely be to unite Muslims not divide them.’

Catherine Ashton, the European Union’s foreign affairs chief, is attempting to re-launch negotiations over the nuclear issue between Iran and the five permanent members of the UN Security Council and Germany (the so-called P5+1). But instead of lending America’s full support to these efforts, Hilary Clinton insists on throwing doubt on Iran’s sincerity in wanting to reach an agreement. ‘It is up to Iran whether they are ready to make the right choice,’ she declared belligerently in Riyadh. ‘What is certain,’ she added, ‘is that Iran’s window of opportunity to seek and obtain a peaceful resolution will not remain open forever.’ This is precisely the threatening language we are used to hearing from Israel’s hard-line Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu.

Clinton, in fact, expressed serious doubt about whether the Islamic Republic had any intention of negotiating a solution that would satisfy the United States and Israel. As is well known, Israel wants to close down Iran’s nuclear programme altogether — a totally unrealistic objective. As a signatory of the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT), Iran is entitled to enrich uranium for peaceful civilian purposes, under the supervision of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA.)

Is Clinton now saying that America has embraced the Israeli objective of forcing Iran to accept ‘zero enrichment’? If that is the case, she is undermining efforts to re-launch talks with Iran before they have even started — which is precisely Israel’s objective.

For his part, President Barack Obama has continued to ratchet up sanctions on Iran, with the evident aim of closing down its oil exports. But such measures, however crippling, are unlikely to make Iran yield. What the Islamic Republic wants is respect, recognition of its regional role and guarantees against attack — notions which are apparently totally absent from the mindset of the U.S. Secretary of State.

From Riyadh, Hilary Clinton went to Istanbul to attend the ‘Friends of Syria’ meeting, where she again preached confrontation rather than reconciliation — this time against Syria. Kofi Annan, the former UN secretary general, has been mandated by both the UN and the Arab League to seek a peaceful resolution of the Syrian crisis. Last Monday, he told the UN Security Council that the Syrian government had pledged to adhere to the ceasefire and pull back its troops by April 10, in accordance with Annan’s own six-point peace plan.

But on Syria, as on Iran, Hilary Clinton has displayed nothing but impatient belligerence. As if seeking to undermine Annan’s mission, she has misrepresented his objectives. Annan called for a simultaneous ceasefire by both the regime and the armed opposition. But Clinton has accused President Bashar al-Asad alone of having failed to keep his promise to pull back his troops. Instead of urging the opposition to put aside its weapons and accept a ceasefire, she has put the onus of stopping the fight on Asad alone. Her demand that Annan impose a ‘time line’ on Asad risks subverting Annan’s peace mission.

Annan’s six-point peace plan makes no mention of Asad stepping down, but Clinton keeps repeating that ‘Asad must go!’ Annan has stated clearly that he is against arming the opposition, knowing that it will only lead to more bloodshed. But Clinton has come very close to endorsing armed opposition to the Syrian regime. She has confirmed that the United States is providing Syrian fighters with satellite communications equipment to enable them to ‘organize and evade attacks by the regime.’ While promising $25m in humanitarian aid, she has encouraged Arab Gulf states to pledge $100m in pay for opposition fighters. In his report from Istanbul on the Friends of Syria meeting, Steven Lee Myers of the New York Timescommented that this ‘blurs the line between lethal and nonlethal support.’

By setting up a working group to coordinate U.S., EU and Arab sanctions against Syria, Clinton’s evident intention would seem to be to bring down the Syrian regime in order to weaken Iran. By seeming to fear a peaceful settlement of the Syrian and Iranian crises, she has exposed America’s aggressive face.

Kofi Annan’s mission has only just begun. It might take weeks, if not months, before it shows results. There is clearly a need to give him more time, while pressing both sides to put up their guns. Similarly, Catherine Ashton’s attempts to re-start a dialogue with Iran in order to arrive at an overall settlement should be given every encouragement and not sabotaged by unnecessary threats and crippling sanctions.

The United States should be careful not to add to the catastrophic legacy of its wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, not to mention the violent hostility its policies and actions have aroused in Pakistan, Yemen, the Horn of Africa and elsewhere in the Arab and Muslim world.

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).

Copyright © 2012 Patrick Seale – distributed by Agence Global

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Released: 03 April 2012
Word Count: 1,180
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Plagued by bitter unresolved conflicts — both within and between states — the Middle East is once again in a dangerous condition, which risks escalating into a wider war. External powers, long accustomed to meddling in Middle East affairs, are likely to be drawn in. Once again, the grim spectre of large-scale casualties and great material damage hangs over the region, as it did in 1948, 1967, 1973, 1982, 1991, 2003, 2006, 2008-9, and in the many other lesser skirmishes and explosions of violence over the past six decades.

It is surely time for the international community to seek to arrest this repeated descent into war. Festering conflicts urgently need to be addressed.

What instruments does the international community have for this task? The prime responsibility lies with the UN Security Council and its five permanent members — the United States, Russia, China, Britain and France. Other influential countries, such as Germany, India and Brazil, could also be brought in to lend their additional weight. Acting together, these powers would be well placed to negotiate a ‘Grand Bargain’ between feuding Middle East opponents, and then use their combined muscle to ensure implementation of any agreement reached. Stick would, no doubt, be needed as well as carrot.

Why a ‘Grand Bargain’? The answer, in a word, is because the nature of Middle East conflicts requires a global rather than a piecemeal approach. A striking feature of these conflicts is their close inter-connection. The Syrian regime, for example, is today fighting a war on two fronts — against an uprising at home and against a campaign of subversion, sanctions and boycotts by its enemies abroad. But the campaign against Syria is also connected to a similar, but even more intense, campaign against Syria’s strategic partner, Iran. Those who want to bring down the regime in Damascus have in mind to weaken Tehran, end its nuclear programme – and perhaps bring down its regime as well.

Targeting Iran is also intended to cripple it as a regional power and isolate and undermine Hizballah and Hamas, which Iran has backed in the struggle with Israel. These two resistance movements are an integral part of the wider, still smouldering Arab-Israeli conflict, which itself is influenced by America’s three decades-long feud with Tehran. The pattern, therefore, is one of inter-locking conflicts, each one impinging on the others.

The advantage of a ‘Grand Bargain’ is that it would allow concessions on one front to be traded against concessions on another — thus improving the chance of overall success. For example, the attempt to persuade Iran to abandon its nuclear programme – or scale it down to the point of ruling out any bomb-making — would undoubtedly have a far greater chance of success if it were linked to a deal allowing for the emergence of an independent Palestinian state, negotiated at an international conference under the stern eye of a unified block of Great Powers. This would puncture a boil which has poisoned political relationships in the Middle East for decades, repeatedly exploding into violence. To spare the Arabs and Israel further miseries, it must surely be resolved.

Tehran is deeply implicated in the Palestine question. Much of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s anti-Israeli rhetoric is inspired by outrage at the fate of the Palestinians under Israeli occupation or siege. If pressures and inducements by the Powers were to bring about an acceptable resolution of the Palestine question, it is more than likely that Iran would, in turn, be ready to yield on the nuclear issue. Israel’s fears of a potential ‘Holocaust’ would be dispelled, while Tehran would no longer live in fear of attack. Indeed, Israel and Iran might then be able to revive the close friendship they enjoyed not so long ago under the Shah.

A crucial aspect of the ‘Grand Bargain’ would, of course, have to be a constructive dialogue between Washington and Tehran, leading to a decision to put past grievances aside, to restore diplomatic relations, remove sanctions, and re-launch the relationship on a basis of mutual respect. Any such development would have a hugely beneficial effect right across the region. Most importantly, it could open the way for a strategic dialogue between Saudi Arabia and Iran, the two regional heavyweights, easing Sunni-Shi‘a tensions in the Gulf, as well as in Iraq, Lebanon, Yemen and elsewhere, and dispelling the spectre of another Gulf war. As partners rather than rivals, the Saudi Kingdom and the Islamic Republic would then recognise their joint responsibility, for the stability and security of their vital oil-rich region.

Once Iran was included in the security architecture of the Gulf, it would surely be possible to imagine the Saudi Monarch and Iran’s Supreme Guide together attending a future summit of the Gulf Cooperation Council in an atmosphere of peace, prosperity and reconciliation!

Is this no more than a utopian dream? Not necessarily. Catherine Ashton, the European Union’s foreign affairs chief, is trying to revive negotiations on the nuclear issue between Iran and the five permanent members of the Security Council, plus Germany (the so-called P5+1). At the same time, Kofi Annan, the former UN secretary-general, is trying to persuade both regime and opposition in Syria to agree to a ceasefire as a necessarily condition for a dialogue. In both cases, there is a growing realisation that there is no military solution to the current conflicts and that negotiations will become inevitable if normal life is to be restored.

Syria, in particular, will need the curative influence of something like a Truth and Reconciliation Commission to heal the deep wounds, physical as well as psychological, of recent months. The regime and its opponents must now work together to bring about the profound transformation of Syria’s political system which the country needs and the crisis demands. Once the guns fall silent, the time for real statesmanship and for mutual compromise will have arrived. Syria is too important an Arab country — too important in Arab history and consciousness — to be allowed to sink into the agonies of civil war.

All these problems, sectarian and political — whether in Syria and Iran, but also in Israel, Gaza and the West Bank, in Iraq, the Gulf and in Washington itself — would be more easily resolved within the context of a ‘Grand Bargain’, negotiated, pushed through and monitored by the Great Powers. The overriding objective would be to save the region from further blood-letting. The way to achieve this goal would be by trading concessions.

Whether in resolving family quarrels or international disputes, the principle of give-and-take has long been recognised as the key to peace.

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).

Copyright © 2012 Patrick Seale – distributed by Agence Global

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Released: 27 March 2012
Word Count: 1,089
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In one of Jean de la Fontaine’s 17th century fables, a frog envies an ox. Consumed with the urge to make itself as big as the ox, the frog puffs itself up, ever bigger and bigger, until it finally explodes. Israel’s behaviour towards its neighbours in the Middle East is not so very different from that of the over-ambitious frog. If it fails to correct its policies, it must surely risk suffering the same fate.

With this parable in mind, it is possible to identify six strategic blunders which Israel has made in recent decades, and which have become all the more blatant — and dangerous to itself — under the far-right government of Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu.

The first of these errors, from which several of the others spring, is Israel’s adamant refusal to allow the emergence of a Palestinian state in the occupied West Bank and the besieged Gaza Strip. Any expression of Palestinian nationalism is vigorously stamped on — even the harmless commemoration of the nakba, the Palestinians’ catastrophic defeat and dispersal in 1948. To an independent observer, Israel’s rejection of the national aspirations of the captive Palestinians — or the reduction of these aspirations to a security problem, to be dealt with by unremitting harshness — would seem to be an extraordinary example of political insanity.

Seen from the outside, it looks blindingly obvious that a small and prosperous Palestinian state living in Israel’s shadow would be an enormous asset for the Jewish state, assuring its long-term security by opening the door to peace and to its full acceptance in the region.

How then to explain Israel’s frantic efforts to prevent any advance towards Palestinian statehood? Some Israelis may fear that any acknowledgment of Palestinian national claims could undermine the legitimacy of Israel’s own national project — built as it was on the ruin of Arab Palestine. A more down-to-earth explanation is simply Israel’s land hunger. The relentless expansion of Jewish settlements on occupied Palestinian land, with the evident intention of creating a Greater Israel, is Israel’s second strategic error, since it risks putting an end once and for all to any possibility of a two-state solution.

Years ago, James Baker, U.S. Secretary of State from 1989 to 1992 in George H. W. Bush’s administration, urged Israel to abandon the “unrealisable dream” of a Greater Israel. But his words went unheeded. Netanyahu and his far-right colleagues are steadily proceeding with a ruthless land grab, brushing aside the admonitions of the whole world, including Israel’s indispensable American ally.

Many influential Jews, such as Professor Peter Beinart, author of The Crisis of Zionism, have understood the grave dangers of this expansionist policy. An article by Beinart in theInternational Herald Tribune of March 19 is entitled, “To save Israel, boycott the settlements.” It is time, he writes, for “a counteroffensive — a campaign to fortify the [1967] boundary that keeps alive the hope of a Jewish democratic state alongside a Palestinian one.”

A third strategic error is Netanyahu’s febrile warmongering against Iran. He has repeatedly threatened to strike its nuclear facilities to avert what he claims is the danger of “another holocaust.” It is here that the moral of La Fontaine’s fable would seem to apply. Iran’s population is ten times that of Israel and its vast land area and natural resources dwarf those of the Jewish state. What is Netanyahu up to? Does he wish to endanger Israel’s future generations by turning the Islamic Republic into an “eternal enemy”?

By threatening war — and seeking to blackmail the United States into joining in on Israel’s side — Netanyahu seems determined to sabotage the talks which Catherine Ashton, the EU foreign affairs chief, is attempting to re-launch with Iran. If he succeeds, and if a regional war breaks out as a result, history will judge him very severely.

The truth is that Netanyahu is prepared to risk war — with all its unpredictable consequences — not to avert an alleged, but so far non-existent, ‘existential threat’, but rather to assure Israel’s continued military supremacy. He seems to fear that any advance in Iran’s nuclear capability might one day restrict Israel’s freedom to strike its neighbours at will. Instead of building Middle East peace on the foundations of a regional balance of power — which would be eminently sensible — he insists on dominating Israel’s neighbours by force, with military means provided by the United States. This permanently aggressive posture is Israel’s fourth strategic error.

Its fifth strategic error is, without doubt, its murderous attitude towards Gaza, as was evident in its recent assassination of Zuhair al-Qarsi, secretary-general of the Popular Resistance Committees, together with his companion, Mahmoud al-Hannani, a recently freed prisoner. Predictably, these targeted killings provoked rocket fire from Gaza. Israel then responded with air-raids, which killed 25 Palestinians and wounded close to a hundred, demonstrating yet again its total indifference to non-Jewish human life. Some observers even believe Israel callously killed al-Qarsi in order to test the efficacy of its Iron Dome anti-missile system.

What do Israel’s hardliners now propose to do about Gaza? Efraim Inbar and Max Singer of the Begin-Sadat Center (BESA) provide an answer, published in the Jerusalem Post on March 14. The following is their blood-chilling executive summary:

Israel has to respond to the attacks from Gaza with a large-scale military operation. If no such action is taken, the attacks against Israel will surely increase. Gaza is small enough so that Israel can destroy most of the terrorist infrastructure and the leadership of Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other organisations. The goal would be to restore deterrence and to signal Israel’s determination to battle the rising Islamist forces in the region. By acting now in Gaza, Israel will also greatly reduce the missile retaliation it would face if and when it strikes Iran’s nuclear facilities. Political conditions seem appropriate as Hamas is divided, most of the Arab world is busy with pressing domestic issues, and the U.S. is in the middle of an election campaign.

The expression of such extreme views surely points to how far Israel has strayed from rational politics.

Geological surveys, confirmed by recent discoveries, suggest that the Eastern Mediterranean contains very large natural gas reserves, located off the coasts of Israel, Lebanon, Syria, Cyprus and Gaza. Once developed, they could transform the economies of these countries. Urgently required, therefore, are maritime demarcation agreements to establish how these riches are to be shared so that all can benefit — but this, in turn, will require peace agreements.

Israel’s failure to understand that now is the time to make peace not war is its sixth, and possibly greatest, strategic blunder.

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).

Copyright © 2012 Patrick Seale – distributed by Agence Global

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Released: 20 March 2012
Word Count: 1,095
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After all the bellicose bluster of recent weeks, there is a faint chance that the tide of war may be receding in the Middle East — especially in the two hot spots of Iran and Syria. The latest developments in these countries suggest the possible opening of a new phase of dialogue rather than of conflict.

This month has seen the launch of two important initiatives by Catherine Ashton, the EU’s foreign affairs chief, and Kofi Annan, the former UN Secretary-General. If successful, they could trump the hawks and silence the drums of war. It remains to be seen, however, whether the parties themselves will have the sense to seize the opportunities now being presented to them.

Gaza is the major exception to this somewhat more promising picture. Israel’s air strikes – conducted in the name of its pitiless and provocative policy of ‘targeted killings’ or extra-judicial assassinations — have this past week taken the lives of some 25 Palestinians (until the Egyptian-brokered truce on Monday) and wounded close to a hundred more. Palestinian factions struck back with rockets, wounding a dozen Israelis. But these painful events should not distract attention from the bigger picture.

Just when Benyamin Netanyahu, Israel’s Prime Minister, was at his most histrionic and bellicose at the recent AIPAC convention in Washington — shamelessly comparing Iran to Auschwitz — Baroness Ashton took the wind out of his sails by offering to resume talks with Tehran on the nuclear issue. Her initiative took the form of a letter to Tehran on March 9 offering renewed talks with the P5+1 (the United States, Russia, China, France, Britain and Germany) “within the coming weeks at a mutually convenient venue.” The goal of the talks, she stressed, remained “a comprehensive negotiated long-term solution which restores international confidence in the exclusively peaceful nature” of Iran’s nuclear programme. Her letter was in response to one last September by Saeed Jalili, Secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, expressing Iran’s readiness for talks.

Meanwhile, just when Syria seemed to be sinking into the hell of a sectarian civil war, Kofi Annan, mandated by both the UN and the Arab League, embarked on a mission aimed at stopping the killing and creating the conditions for a negotiated settlement. After calling on the Arab League secretary-general in Cairo, he held two long meetings with President Bashar al-Asad in Damascus on 10-11 March, before travelling to Doha for talks with the Emir (the Qataris have been vociferous in wanting to arm the Syrian rebels) and then on to Turkey for meetings with the Syrian National Council.

Do the initiatives of Ashton and Annan have a chance of success? They at least have the advantage of setting the international agenda for a while. They could, however, be easily sabotaged. The hawks will not easily give up.

Israel detests the idea of the great powers negotiating a settlement with Tehran, since it knows that talks must inevitably result in recognising Iran’s right to enrich uranium, if only to modest levels for purely civilian purposes. Netanyahu wants Iran’s entire nuclear programme shut down — his goal is “zero enrichment” — a demand which no Iranian regime, whatever its colouring, could possibly accept.

On his recent visit to Washington, Netanyahu tried to secure a pledge from President Barack Obama to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities or to lend American support to an Israeli strike. He failed to get the pledge he wanted. Although Obama reaffirmed his determination to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, he also made very clear to Netanyahu that sanctions and diplomacy must first be given a chance to work.

For all Netanyahu’s tough talk, it is highly unlikely that Israel will dare attack Iran on its own. Its strategy has been to get the United States to do the job for it — in much the same way as pro-Israeli neo-conservatives, like Paul Wolfowitz and Douglas Feith, manipulated intelligence to push the United States into war against Iraq in 2003 on Israel’s behalf.

Israel wants at all costs to protect its regional monopoly of nuclear weapons. It has a nuclear arsenal estimated at between 75 and 150 warheads, a range of sophisticated delivery systems, and a second strike capability based on long-range missiles mounted on German-supplied submarines. In contrast, there is as yet no convincing evidence that Iran intends to build a nuclear weapon. America’s annual National Intelligence Estimate — the collective opinion of its 16 intelligence agencies — has repeatedly confirmed that Tehran has not so far taken any such decision.

Talk of Israel facing an “existential threat” from Iran has no basis in fact. Rather it is Israel’s neighbours who risk annihilation. As the former French President Jacques Chirac once said: If Iran were ever to contemplate launching a suspect missile towards Israel, Tehran would be immediately obliterated!

The issue is not, and has never been, about ensuring Israel’s survival, but rather about ensuring its regional military supremacy — a supremacy which, over the past several decades, has given it the freedom to strike its neighbours at will without being hit back. If Iran were ever to acquire a nuclear weapon — or merely the capability of building one — Israel fears this would restrict its freedom of action. It might even be a step towards creating a regional balance of power, which Israel is determined to prevent.

Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has said that if Iran were supplied with 20% enriched uranium for the Tehran Research Reactor and medical purposes, it would immediately stop enriching uranium to that level, restricting itself to 3.5% enrichment for electricity generation. (He repeated this pledge to Lally Weymouth of the Washington Post on 13 September 2011; to Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times on 21 September 2011; and to Reuters on 22 September 2011. To Iranian TV in October 2011, he declared: “If they give us the 20 percent fuel, we will immediately halt 20 percent.”) In return, however, he would no doubt expect a US guarantee that it would not seek to overthrow the Iranian regime by subversion or force. The outline of a deal with Iran is, therefore, already on the table.

As for the Syrian conflict, neither President Bashar al-Asad nor his opponents seem yet ready to compromise. Having flushed out the rebels from Homs, Bashar is now seeking to drive them out of their other strong-points before he will contemplate a negotiation. For their part, the rebels seem to believe that — with fresh fighters, weapons and funds flowing in to them — they must eventually triumph. Both sides are almost certainly mistaken. Kofi Annan’s task is to persuade them that there can be no military solution to the conflict, and that, sooner or later, they must sit down and negotiate a way out of a crisis which is destroying their country.

The time has surely come for President Obama to lend his full weight to the two initiatives of Catherine Ashton and Kofi Annan. He is fully aware of the urgent need to spare the region — and the United States itself — another catastrophe such as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

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).

Copyright © 2012 Patrick Seale – distributed by Agence Global

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Released: 13 March 2012
Word Count: 1,174
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Of all the actors in the Arab Spring, one of the most effective — and perhaps the most intriguing — has been the state of Qatar. Protruding from the eastern flank of Saudi Arabia, this mini-state points a plump finger of waterless desert at Iran on the opposite side of the Gulf. Situated between these two regional giants — with each of whom it entertains somewhat wary relations — little Qatar’s remarkable achievement has been to carve out an independent and ambitious role for itself.

How has this pocket-sized state become a world-class mover and shaker? And what is it seeking to achieve? Any visitor to Doha, Qatar’s glittering sea-front capital-city, is bound to ask himself these questions so great is the contrast between the country’s global ambitions and its limited human resources. Its foreign service, active on numerous fronts across the world, is staffed by a mere 250 diplomats. Its native population numbers only some 200,000. These fortunate few – whose annual per capital income of over $100,000 is said to be the highest in the world – are served, pampered and supported by an immigrant Arab and Asian population of 1.7 million.

Over nearly two decades, Qatar has built a considerable reputation for itself in the tricky and often tedious field of conflict mediation. It has tried, and usually succeeded, in calming tempers and forging agreements between opponents – whether between Eritrea and Yemen in their dispute over the Hamish Islands in 1996; or between Eritrea and Sudan a couple of years later; or between Yemen and its Huthi rebel movement in 2007; or between rival Lebanese factions in 2008, which ended 17 months of crisis and prevented a return to civil war; or between Sudan and Chad in 2009; or between Eritrea and Djibouti in 2010; or between feuding Palestinians factions in early February 2012, to name only some of its many endeavours in the cause of peace.

This past year, however, has seen a major change in Qatari diplomacy: From being an impartial mediator, praised by all parties, it has begun to take sides in Middle East conflicts. For example, it played a key role in the overthrow of Libya’s dictator Muammar al-Qadhafi, pouring into the civil war hundreds of its own well-equipped troops and some $400m in aid to the rebels. In Syria, Qatar has led the assault against President Bashar al-Asad, pressing for his condemnation and boycott in the Arab League while arming and funding the opposition.

Even more significantly, Qatar has been a major backer of the Muslim Brothers in their recent rise to power across the Arab region. This has caught the West by surprise, in particular the United States. Having spent the past fifteen years fighting the Islamists, Washington is now scrambling to come to terms with — and even befriend — these new political actors, whether in Egypt, Tunisia, Syria, Morocco and elsewhere. Unlike Qatar’s earlier mediations, this switch to activist policies inevitably makes enemies as well as friends. Not the least of Qatar’s contradictions is that while it embraces progress and modernity with open arms, it also promotes radical Islamic movements, for example giving ample airtime on Al Jazeera to the tele-preacher Yusuf al-Qaradawi.

In waging its battles, Qatar deploys many assets, of which the first is undoubtedly the vigour and daring of its leadership. Four members of its ruling autocracy deserve special mention. The Emir, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, 60, a graduate of Britain’s Sandhurst military academy and former Defence Minister, deposed his father in a bloodless coup in 1995, setting the country on its path to spectacular development. The Emir’s right-hand man is his distant cousin, Sheikh Hamad bin Jasim Al Thani, 53, who has served as Foreign Minister (since 1992) and also as Prime Minister (since 2007), acquiring a formidable reputation as an international diplomatist but also as a remarkable financier with major stakes in Qatar Airways, in the London department store Harrods, and dozens of other real-estate, commercial and industrial enterprises. He is the owner of the 133-metre yacht al-Mirqab, said to be the eighth largest super-yacht in the world, valued at over $1bn. Some sources estimate his personal fortune, perhaps with a touch of hyperbole, at $35bn.

Another major figure is the Emir’s second wife, Sheikha Mozah, widely admired for her elegance, energy and culture, who chairs the Qatar Foundation for Education, Science and Community Development. One of her five sons is Crown Prince Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, a clever, highly-popular, French-speaking young man in his early thirties. Sheikha Mozah’s Foundation has brought numerous foreign universities to Qatar’s ‘Education City’ and sponsors many training and leadership programmes, as well as the lively Doha Debates on Al Jazeera television, Qatar’s brilliant media arm — a powerful agent of its world-wide influence.

Needless to say, all this would be vain were it not for the prodigious revenues Qatar derives from exporting oil and liquefied natural gas. Its oil reserves of 25 billion barrels would enable continued output at current levels for the next 57 years, while the reserves of its offshore gas fields are estimated at 250 trillion cubic feet, the third largest such reserves in the world. Gas provides 85% of Qatar’s export earnings and 70% of government revenue.

Qatar’s skill has been to acquire a wide variety of foreign friends without being overly dependent on any of them. Since his 1995 coup, the Emir has forged especially close ties with France, which supplies some 80% of the country’s military equipment. He has purchased one of France’s top football clubs, Paris Saint Germain (PSG) — perhaps as a prelude to hosting the 2022 World Cup — as well as a score of valuable properties across the French capital. Serious investments have been made in major French firms such as Veolia and Lagardère. Qatar also has warm relations with Britain, the former colonial overlord of the Gulf until its withdrawal in 1971, and is bound militarily and industrially to the United States.

Qatar’s Al Udeid Air Base is the forward headquarters of the United States Central Command, which oversees a vast area of responsibility extending from the Middle East to North Africa and Central Asia. CENTCOM forces are deployed in combat roles in Afghanistan as well as at smaller bases in Kuwait, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates and Oman. No doubt the presence of CENTCOM provides Qatar with some protection, but it also runs the risk of attracting hostility if, for example, Qatar were to allow itself to be sucked into the quarrel now raging between the United States and Israel on one side and Iran on the other. A regional war could deal a catastrophic blow to Qatar’s prosperity and development.

Qatar has become a global brand name as well as a global player. These are clearly the goals its leaders have striven to achieve. But this mini-state operates in a turbulent region, a situation which demands constant vigilance and nimble footwork. Many might wish it had restricted itself to its noble role as a peace-maker.

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).

Copyright © 2012 Patrick Seale – distributed by Agence Global

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Released: 28 February 2012
Word Count: 1,163
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After a long absence, Russia is now demanding a seat for itself at the top table of Middle East affairs. It seems determined to have its say on the key issues of the day: the crisis in Syria; the threat of war against Iran; Israel’s expansionist ambitions; and the rise of political Islam across the Arab world. These were among the topics vigorously debated at a conference at Sochi on Russia’s Black Sea coast, held on 17-18 February in the grandiose marble halls of a 22-hectare resort — with its own elevator to the beach below — once the playground of Soviet leaders.

Attended by over 60 participants from a score of countries, the conference was organised by Russia’s Valdai Discussion Club on the theme of “Transformation in the Arab World and Russia’s Interests.” Among the Russians defending these interests were Mikhail Bogdanov, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, Vitaly Naumkin, Director of the Institute of Oriental Studies at the Russian Academy of Sciences, Alexei Vasiliev, Director of the Institute of African and Arab Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, and Andrey Baklanov, head of the International Affairs Department of Russia’s Federal Assembly.

Seen from Moscow, the Middle East lies on its very doorstep. With 20 million Muslims in the Northern Caucasus, Russia feels that its domestic stability is linked to developments in the Arab world, especially to the rise of Islamist parties. If these parties turn out to be extreme, they risk inflaming Muslims in Russia itself and in Central Asia. Professor Vitaly Naumkin — the man who sits at the summit of oriental studies in Russia — declared that “I believe democracy will come to the Arab world by the Islamists rather than by Western intervention.” He admitted, however, that we would have to wait to see whether Islamist regimes in Arab countries proved to be democratic or not.

Moscow’s first reaction to the Arab revolutions has tended to be wary, no doubt because it suffered the assaults of the Rose Revolution in Georgia, the Orange Revolution in Ukraine, the Tulip Revolution in Kyrgyzstan, and so forth. Yet it is now fully aware of the need to build relations with the new forces in the Arab world. Events in the Middle East may even impinge on Russia’s presidential elections, giving a boost to Vladimir Putin’s ambitions. Ever since his historic visit to Saudi Arabia and the Gulf in 2007 — the first ever by a Russian leader — Putin has claimed to know how to handle Middle East affairs.

The situation in Syria is a subject of great preoccupation in Moscow. Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov was very firm, issuing what seemed like a warning to the Western powers: “Russia cannot tolerate open intervention on one side of the conflict,” he thundered. It was wrong to force Bashar al-Asad, “the President of a sovereign state” to step down. Russia was seeking to institute a dialogue without preconditions. It was continuing its contacts with the opposition. But, in the meantime, he cautioned, the opposition had to dissociate itself from extremists.

In thinking about Syria, the Russians are clearly much influenced by what happened in Libya. The Western powers, Bogdanov charged, had made many mistakes in the violent overthrow of Qadhafi. “There is a need,” he insisted, “to investigate the civilian casualties caused by NATO airstrikes.” Professor Naumkin explained: “Russia feels that it was cheated by its international partners. The no-fly zone mandate in Libya was transformed into direct military intervention. This should not be repeated in Syria.” Arming the opposition would only serve to increase the killing. There was now the threat of civil war. Reforms had to be given a chance. The majority of the Syrian population did not want Bashar al-Asad to stand down. External armed forces should not intervene.

Although Naumkin did not say so, there were rumours at the conference that Russia had advised Asad on the drafting of the new Syrian Constitution, which strips the Ba’th Party of its monopoly as “leader of State and society.” The Constitution is due to be put to a referendum on 26 February, followed by multi-party elections.

As was to be expected, several Arab delegates at the conference were critical of Russia’s role in protecting President Asad, in particular of its veto on 4 February at the UN Security Council of the Resolution calling on him to step down. Professor Naumkin put up a vigorous defence. “We are seeking a new strategy of partnership between Russia and the Arab world,” he declared. “We are determined to take up the challenge against those who do not respect our interests.” He stressed that Russia’s interests in the Middle East were not mercantile. It had no special relations with anyone (by this he seemed to mean the Asad family); it had no proxies or puppets in the region. Russia was a young democracy. It listened to public opinion. It was defending its vision of international relations based on respect for the sovereignty of states and a rejection of foreign armed intervention.

Of all the Arabs present, it was the Palestinians who, not surprisingly, were most eager for Russian support in their unequal struggle with Israel. Now that Russia was returning to the international arena as a major player, they called for it to put its full weight in favour of the peace process and of Mahmoud Abbas, “the last moderate Palestinian leader.” America’s monopoly of the peace process had merely provided a cover for Israeli expansion.

Speaker after speaker deplored the ineffective peace-making of the Quartet (the United States, European Union, Russia and UN). Indeed, an Israeli speaker reminded the conference that the discovery of large gas reserves off the Israeli coast meant that Israel — soon to be “a major partner in the energy market” once gas started to flow next year — would be less motivated to talk peace. The world would be confronted, he seemed to be saying, by a “Greater Israel with gas!”

Some Palestinians called for the toothless Quartet to be dismantled altogether and replaced by enhanced UN involvement. Some Israelis conceded that their country had made strategic errors in expanding West Bank settlements and laying siege to Gaza. Nevertheless, the Israel public had turned against the peace process, while the goal of Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu was to rule out the possibility of a two-state solution. This prompted Ambassador Andrey Baklanov to argue for the need to re-launch a multilateral Middle East peace process to replace the failed bilateral talks.

Indeed, perhaps the clearest message of the conference was the appeal for a greater role for the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) in establishing a new multilateral mechanism for regional security. To halt the killing in Syria or to ward off a U.S.-Israeli war against Iran, would Russia sponsor a mediation process in conjunction with its BRICS partners? Would it seek to revive the moribund Arab-Israeli peace process by sponsoring an international conference in Moscow? These questions remained unanswered.

Russia’s ambition to play a greater role in international affairs is clear. But can it deliver?

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).

Copyright © 2012 Patrick Seale – distributed by Agence Global

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Released: 21 February 2012
Word Count: 1,175
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While the Arab world struggles to reshape its future out of the fires and blood-letting of revolution, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, a haven of stability, continues to pursue its goals of growth, modernity and social transformation with great resolve and singleness of purpose.

Driven by the strategic vision of King Abdallah bin Abdulaziz, its reformist ruler, the Kingdom seems to be the main beneficiary of the Arab Spring, so great is the contrast between its robust progress and the tumult and tremors in countries such as Egypt, Tunisia, Libya and Yemen, not to mention the fratricidal war in Syria.

As the powerhouse of the Arab world, the Kingdom cannot ignore the dramatic happenings beyond its borders, but its first priorities would seem to be domestic. A visit to Riyadh for thejanadriyah — the Saudi National Guard’s Festival of Heritage and Culture, now in its 27th year — provides a glimpse of what the country is seeking to achieve at home, as well as the dilemmas confronting its foreign policy.

In strictly shorthand terms, one can say that the Kingdom is attempting to advance from an oil-based economy to a knowledge-based economy. In order to empower its youthful population, and prepare it for the tasks ahead, prodigious efforts are being made in education, especially in science and technology. Six years ago, there were eight universities in the Kingdom. Today there are 27, several of them state-of-the-art institutions. Dispersed across the country, they are attracting huge numbers of students, under what is called the NSTIP — the National Science Technology and Innovation Plan.

In addition to the emphasis on high-quality education at home, 150,000 Saudis are studying abroad — including 40,000 in the United States; 16,000 in the UK; and 1,000 in China. One of the King’s own grandsons is studying in China, a pointer to his strategic vision. To cope with the youth bulge, reforms have been launched to open up the economy so as to encourage the private sector and create jobs.

A key aspect of the King’s plan is the promotion of women. There can be no greater symbol of this than the giant campus of the Princess Noura University for Women, which stretches for mile after mile along the airport road, its grandiose buildings linked by an overland as well as an underground rail network. It will be opening its doors to its first students in the coming academic year.

Saudi women — especially the increasingly large numbers of highly-educated ones –are emerging from behind the screens, closets and full-face veils where they have so long been confined. Women intervened vigorously in the janadriyah symposium debates this past week. Indeed, a Saudi woman chaired one of the sessions on the theme of the relationship of intellectuals to power. Women television journalists interviewed the visitors and, at a luncheon given by the King for some 300 janadriyah guests, a score of women were present at their own table in the great reception room.

Foreign policy dilemmas
The Kingdom cannot, however, ignore the regional upheavals. The crisis in Syria is of particular concern, in view of its potential to destabilise the whole region, especially Jordan and Lebanon. Saudi Arabia’s breach with President Bashar al-Asad, and its condemnation of his strategy of violent repression, is keenly felt because of the close relations the Kingdom enjoyed for a quarter of a century with Bashar’s father, President Hafiz al-Asad, until his death in 2000.

There is no doubt that King Abdallah is appalled by the continuing killings in Syria and is deeply disappointed with the Syrian president. As he made clear in a short but powerful speech at the luncheon mentioned above, he deplores the vetoes cast at the UN Security Council by Russia and China on February 4, which served to abort an Arab League plan for a transition of power in Damascus

But, so far as one can gather, the King — unlike the leaders of some small Gulf States — does not favour arming the Syrian opposition, as this would only lead to more bloodshed. Nor does he at all approve of the call for armed jihad against the Syrian regime by the Muslim Brothers in Jordan and, more particularly, by Ayman al-Jawahiri, who took over the leadership of al-Qaeda after the death of Osama bin Laden.

It is worth recalling that the Kingdom considers that Al-Qaeda tried to steal the mantle of Islam from it. Accordingly, the King conducted his own highly intelligent and non-repressive campaign against al-Qaeda, defeating it in the right way, he might argue, by defining for his own population a sense of what it is to be truly Islamic. De-radicalisation centres across the country appear to have done a good job.

The Islamic Republic of Iran poses another major foreign policy dilemma for Saudi diplomacy. There seems little doubt that the King regards the Iranian leadership with considerable suspicion. Some senior Saudis hold Tehran responsible for encouraging rebellious ideas among Shia communities in Bahrain, North Yemen and in the Eastern Province of the Saudi Kingdom itself. The Saudi press has carried reports in recent days of gunfights in the Qatif province between security forces and ‘masked persons’, in which a number of people have been killed and injured.

But there is also a widespread understanding in Saudi circles that Iran is a neighbour with which the Kingdom has to compose. There seems to be little support in the Kingdom for the crippling sanctions which the United States and Europe have, under Israeli pressure, imposed on Iran. Many Saudis prefer to see Iran as a potential partner, rather than an enemy — which was indeed the theme of a public discussion at this year’s janadriyah. There is full recognition of the fact that war between Iran and the United States, or between Iran and Israel, could be catastrophic for the Arab Gulf States, as they could find themselves in the line of fire.

Relations with the United States pose perhaps the greatest puzzle of all for Saudi Arabia’s ruling family. America’s blind support for Israel in its continued oppression and dispossession of the Palestinians has put the decades-long Saudi-American alliance under considerable strain. Anxious to forge a participatory form of government, the Saudi leadership cannot ignore the great hostility towards Israel felt by the bulk of its population.

With its vast resources, dynamic development and wise leadership, Saudi Arabia has emerged as the still centre of an Arab world wracked by revolution. It is by no means an easy role to play.

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).

Copyright © 2012 Patrick Seale – distributed by Agence Global

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Released: 14 February 2012
Word Count: 1,081
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The Syrian crisis is no longer a purely Syrian affair. Its wider dimension was highlighted on 4 February when Russia and China cast their veto at the UN Security Council, thereby aborting a Western-backed Arab Resolution, which had called on President Bashar al-Asad to step down. At a stroke, the debate was no longer simply about Syria’s internal power struggle. Instead, with their vetoes, Moscow and Beijing were saying that they too had interests in the Middle East, which they were determined to protect. The region was no longer an exclusive Western preserve under the hegemony of the United States and its allies.

Russia has decades-old interests in the Middle East, in Syria in particular. As a major customer of Iranian oil, China does not approve of Western sanctions against Tehran. Nor does it take kindly to U.S. attempts to contain its influence in the Asia-Pacific region. There is a hint in the air of a revived Cold War.

The Syrian crisis has, in fact, been a two-stage affair from the very beginning — internal as well as international. On the internal level, the uprising has aimed to topple the regime on the model of Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Yemen. In this increasingly ugly struggle, both sides — government and opposition — have made serious mistakes. The government’s mistake was to use live fire against street protesters who were — at first at least — demonstrating peacefully. The crisis could perhaps have been defused with the implementation of immediate reforms. Instead, mounting casualties have created enormous bitterness among the population, reducing the chance of a negotiated settlement.

The opposition’s mistake has been to resort to arms — to become militarised — largely in the form of the Free Syrian Army, a motley force of defectors from the armed services, as well as free-lance fighters and hard-line Islamists. It has been conducting hit-and-run attacks on regime targets and regime loyalists. The exiled opposition leadership is composed of a number of disparate, often squabbling, groupings — of which the best known is the Syrian National Council. Inside the SNC, the Muslim Brotherhood is the best organised and funded element of the opposition. Outlawed since its terrorist campaign in 1977-1982 to overthrow the regime of Hafiz al-Asad — an attempt crushed in blood at Hama — it is driven by a thirst for revenge.

No regime, whatever its political colouring, can tolerate an armed uprising without responding with full force. Indeed, the rise of an armed opposition has provided the Syrian regime with the justification it needed to seek to crush it with ever bloodier repression.

Casualties over the last eleven months have been heavy — estimated at some 5,000 to 6,000 members of the opposition, both armed and unarmed, and perhaps 1,500 members of the army and security forces. There is necessarily an element of guesswork in these figures. As in all wars, the manipulation of information has been much in evidence.

Inside Syria, therefore, the situation is today one of increased violence by both sides, of sectarian polarisation, and of a dangerous stalemate, slipping each day closer to a full-blown sectarian civil war.

The second level of the contest is being played out in the international arena, where Russia and China, with some support from other emerging powers such as India and Brazil, are challenging America’s supremacy in the Middle East. Washington’s outrage at the challenge was evident when U.S. Secretary of State Hilary Clinton angrily dismissed the Russian and Chinese veto as a “travesty.” Escalating the crisis, she called for an international coalition to support the Syrian opposition against what she described as the “brutal regime” in Damascus. She has encouraged the creation of a “Friends of Syria” group, with the apparent aim of channelling funds and weapons to Bashar al-Asad’s enemies.

At the heart of the international struggle is a concerted attempt by the United States and its allies to bring down the ruling regimes in both Iran and Syria. Iran’s ‘crime’ has been to refuse to submit to American hegemony in the oil-rich Gulf region and to appear to pose a challenge, with its nuclear programme, to Israel’s regional nuclear monopoly. At the same time, Iran, Syria and Hizballah — partners for the past three decades — have managed to make a dent in Israel’s military supremacy. They have in recent years been the main obstacle to US-Israeli regional dominance.

Israel has for years demonised Iran’s nuclear programme as an ‘existential’ threat to itself and a danger to the entire world, and has repeatedly threatened to attack it. Its fevered gesticulations have pressured — some might say blackmailed — the United States and the European Union into imposing crippling sanctions on Iran’s oil exports and its Central Bank.

The real issue, however, is one of regional dominance. Iran’s nuclear programme poses no particular danger to Israel. With its large nuclear arsenal, Israel has ample means to deter any would be aggressor. Nor would Iran willingly risk annihilation in a nuclear exchange. However, a nuclear-capable Iran — even if it never actually built a bomb — would limit Israel’s freedom of action, notably its freedom to strike its neighbours at will.

Israel is at pains to restore its regional dominance which has recently been somewhat curtailed. Its invasion of Lebanon in 2006 failed to destroy Hizballah. Its 2008-9 assault on Gaza failed to destroy Hamas. Worse still from Israel’s point of view, the war attracted international opprobrium and damaged Israel’s relations with Turkey. The rise of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt has put at risk the 1979 Israel-Egypt peace treaty which, by removing the strongest country from the Arab line-up, guaranteed Israeli dominance for 30 years.

Israel’s current strategy has been to get the United States to cripple Iran on its behalf – in much the same way as America’s pro-Israeli neo-cons pushed the United States into war against Iraq, a country which Israel had then considered threatening.

The United States has also suffered grave setbacks in the region: its catastrophic war in Iraq; its unfinished conflict in Afghanistan; the violent hostility it has aroused in the Muslim world, particularly in Pakistan, Yemen and the Horn of Africa. It, too, is striving to retain its pre-eminence over the oil-rich Gulf States. Some Washington hawks may think that the overthrow of the Mullahs in Tehran would put the United States and its Israeli ally back on top.

Because of their own apprehension of Iran, the Arab states of the Gulf have allowed themselves to be drawn into the conflict. They seem to fear that Iran may endanger the existing political order by stirring up local Shi‘a communities. With Qatar in the lead, they joined the United States and Israel in their assault against Damascus and Tehran. Perhaps belatedly aware that a regional war could be catastrophic for them, there are signs that they are having second thoughts.

At last weekend’s Munich Security Conference, Qatar’s Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, Khalid al-Attiyeh, declared that an attack on Iran “is not a solution, and tightening the embargo will make the scenario worse. I believe we should have dialogue.” That is the voice of reason.

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).

Copyright © 2012 Patrick Seale – distributed by Agence Global

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Released: 07 February 2012
Word Count: 1,175
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Peace with the Taliban is now on President Barak Obama’s agenda. He is evidently keen to end the war and extricate the United States from a ten-year conflict, which has proved hugely costly in human and financial terms. Even with a scaled down US force of 100,000 men, operations in Afghanistan are costing the American tax-payer $130bn a year — apart from the substantial funds needed to keep President Hamid Karzai’s administration afloat.

A start towards the goal of peace has now at last been made. American and Taliban representatives met recently in Qatar, where the Taliban have opened a political office. At this early stage, the negotiators have been concerned to test each other’s good faith. Confidence-building measures are said to have been discussed such as freeing Taliban prisoners held at Guantánamo in exchange for a US soldier captured by the Taliban.

Marc Grossman, the Obama administration’s special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, came to Qatar last week after a visit to Kabul. He was quoted by the New York Times as saying that real peace talks could only begin when the Taliban renounced international terrorism (by which he presumably meant their links with Al-Qaeda) and agreed to engage in a peace process. He did not say what the United States was prepared to offer to bring the Taliban to the table.

The Taliban have repeatedly declared that they will demand a full withdrawal of all foreign troops. They are also likely to expect a place in any future government and a role in drafting a new Constitution providing for greater decentralisation, so as to give the Pashtuns — Afghanistan’s largest ethnic group — control over their own affairs.

The United States is said to wish to retain five bases in Afghanistan after 2014, but that could be a deal breaker. The Taliban would oppose it, and so would Pakistan and Iran. The last thing these two neighbouring countries want is an American military presence in their vicinity. Iran under punishing American sanctions is unlikely to help the United States extricate itself from the Afghan quagmire. In Afghanistan and Pakistan, US drone attacks have already aroused fierce anti-American sentiment.

NATO forces are due to leave Afghanistan by the end of 2014, when President Hamid Karzai is set to step down at the end of his second term. A difficult problem for the United States and its allies will be managing — and financing — the transition to a post-Karzai Afghanistan. The Coalition would like to ensure the survival of a pro-Western regime, if only to justify the great sacrifices of the war.

At a conference at Bonn last December, the coalition agreed to continue economic aid to Afghanistan from 2015 to 2024. Just how many billions will be required will be discussed at a summit meeting on Afghanistan in Chicago next May. Much will depend on the nature of the Kabul government at any one time and whether the country is at peace. If it is wracked by civil war — say between Pashtuns and Tajiks, which is a distinct possibility — the flow of Western aid might well be interrupted. In any event, Washington will want its allies to share the financial burden. There is talk of getting the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank involved, as well as the oil-rich Arab Gulf States.

The United States had originally planned to create an Afghan army of some 350,000 men to take over security duties once NATO forces withdrew. But the cost of such a vast army would be prohibitive — far beyond Afghanistan’s means. It would have to be financed almost entirely by foreign powers. The target for the new Afghan army has therefore been reduced to 225,000 men — still a very considerable number.

Meanwhile, the war in Afghanistan has become a burning issue in France’s presidential campaign. On 20 January, a man wearing Afghan army uniform opened fire on a group of unarmed French soldiers who were jogging at France’s Gwan army base. Four soldiers were killed and eight others seriously wounded. President Sarkozy immediately suspended military training and assistance for Afghan security forces, and hinted at an early withdrawal of French forces. With elections less than three months away, he is desperate to avoid further military casualties. François Hollande, his Socialist rival, declared that if he were to win next April, French troops would be withdrawn before the end of 2012. In fact, it would probably take the French twelve to eighteen months to repatriate their 3,600 soldiers, together with their munitions and equipment, including 500 heavy tanks and 700 other vehicles.

There can be no peace in Afghanistan which ignores Pakistan’s interests. It is in a position to torpedo any Afghan settlement not to its liking. Pakistan is bitterly angry at the United States over a frontier incident last 26 November when the US killed 24 Pakistan soldiers. In retaliation, Pakistan closed the 2,300 km supply route from the port of Karachi to Kabul via the Khyber Pass along which four hundred trucks a day used to carry a quarter of all supplies for American forces in Afghanistan. Furious negotiations have been taking place to reopen the route. If the talks succeed, transit fees are likely to be much steeper than in the past. In the meantime, the trucks stand idle.

For peace to take root in Afghanistan, the aspirations of Pashtun nationalism will have to be recognised. At present, ethnic Pashtuns have a sense of being fragmented, because the 2,640 kilometre Durand Line, drawn in 1893 between British India and the Emir of Afghanistan, cuts through their tribal areas. There are some twelve to fifteen million ethnic Pashtuns on the Afghan side of the Line, and twice as many in Pakistan.

Pakistan has always been frightened that ethnic Pashtuns in both Afghanistan and Pakistan might seek to unite to form a Greater Pashtunistan — which would take a great bite out of Pakistan territory. That is why Pakistan has always sought to bring a friendly regime in Kabul under its protection so as to stifle any nationalist drive for a greater Pashtun homeland. The fact that Afghanistan does not recognise the Durand line as an international frontier has kept Pakistani fears alive.

Clearly, the Durand Line — which was amended by treaty three times in 1905, 1919 and 1921 — needs to be rethought once again, with the full participation of Pashtun tribal chiefs in both countries. Without threatening the territorial integrity of either Afghanistan or Pakistan, Pashtuns should be able to move freely back and forth between the two countries.

Pashtuns have supported and protected the Taliban because they have a nationalist grievance. If they no longer needed the terrorist networks, they would probably turn against them. According to Georges Lefeuvre, a French expert (writing in Le Monde diplomatique in October 2010) the frontier question between Afghanistan and Pakistan must be settled before national reconciliation can take place in Afghanistan between Pashtuns in the south and east, and ethnic groups, such as Tajiks, Hazaras, Uzbeks and Turkmens, in the north.

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).

Copyright © 2012 Patrick Seale – distributed by Agence Global

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Released: 31 January 2012
Word Count: 1,167
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