Publications – Page 109

Patrick Seale, “The Kurds Seize Their Chance”

December 25, 2012 - Jahan Salehi

Many Kurds have come to believe that the present prolonged turmoil in the Middle East — in Syria and Iraq and, to a lesser extent, in Iran and Turkey — is giving them their best chance of self-determination in modern times. They are determined to seize it. It could be that the map of the region is being redrawn before our eyes.

During the four hundred years of the Ottoman Empire, the Kurds enjoyed considerable autonomy and even political unity. Since they lived in largely inaccessible mountains, the Ottomans allowed them to run their own affairs. When the Ottoman Empire was defeated in the First World War, it signed the Treaty of Sèvres in 1920 with the victorious allies — a treaty which among its many provisions, seemed to promise the Kurds a state of their own. But the Turks would have none of it. They were determined to create a strong Turkish state out of the ruins of Empire.

Mustafa Kemal Atatürk’s Turkish national movement fought the Sèvres Treaty and, after long negotiations, forced the allies to sign a new treaty, the Treaty of Lausanne of 1923, which recognised the sovereignty and borders of the new Turkish Republic. This was bad news for the Kurds, because the Lausanne treaty made no mention of them. Instead, they found themselves carved up between the new Turkey and the Arab states of Iraq and Syria formed by Britain and France out of former Ottoman provinces. The Kurds have had to live with dispersal and oppression ever since.

Kurdish hopes of a better life have now been revived, largely because of a number of important regional developments:

• In Iraq, the central government in Baghdad and the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) in Erbil seem to be on the brink of war. Both sides have massed large numbers of troops along a contested border in the oil-rich region of Kirkuk. The immediate causes of the dispute are first, a contract the KRG has signed with Exxon Mobil to drill for oil in the Kirkuk area; and secondly, a proposed strategic energy partnership between the KRG and Turkey. This would involve a government-backed Turkish company drilling for oil and building export pipelines from the KRG to Turkey to transport Kurdish oil and gas to international markets. Needless to say, if these projects were to go ahead, they would bring Iraqi Kurds a big step closer to independence.

Baghdad is now fighting back. Sami Alaskary, an aide to Iraq’s Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has said that “if Exxon lays a finger on this territory… we will go to war for oil and for Iraqi sovereignty.” Baghdad has put Lt. Gen. Abd al-Amir al-Zaidi in command of Iraqi troops confronting the KRG. This officer is thought to have played a role in Saddam Hussein’s 1988 Anfal campaign against the Kurds. Showing defiance, KRG’s President Massoud Barzani paid a high-profile visit to Peshmerga front lines on December 10.

At this delicate moment, the stroke suffered by Iraq’s President Jalal Talabani, 79 — himself a Kurd — has removed from the scene a potential mediator between Baghdad and Erbil.

Fearing that a close KRG-Turkish partnership will cause Baghdad to ally itself even more closely with Iran, the United States has urged the KRG to go slow in its oil deals with Turkey. But Washington has been rebuffed. The Kurds smell independence.

It will be recalled that the autonomous Kurdish enclave emerged under Western protection in northern Iraq following the U.S.-led invasion in 2003. With its own flag, national anthem, presidency and parliament, the KRG has since acquired several characteristics of independent statehood, in particular its own powerful armed forces — the Peshmerga, meaning “those who face death” – are believed to number some 200,000 men. Although Iraq’s new constitution of 2005 defined the country as a federal state of Arabs and Kurds, Iraqi Kurdistan, increasingly dynamic and prosperous, has virtually broken free from Baghdad’s control.

• In Syria, the prolonged civil war is destroying the once strong and united country. Vicious fighting between the beleaguered Syrian regime of President Bashar al-Asad and numerous groups of rebel fighters is increasingly taking on the appearance of a sectarian war between the Sunni majority and the minority Alawi community, the latter well represented in the army and security services. The fighting seems to be leading inexorably to the fragmentation and partition of Syria, with each sect and ethnic group looking to its own defence.

Last summer, Syrian government troops were deliberately withdrawn from Kurdish-majority towns along the Turkish border in the north of the country. By handing this strategic border region over to the Kurds, the Syrian regime evidently sought to punish Turkey for its support of the Syrian rebels. It may also have withdrawn its troops because it needed them to fight the rebels elsewhere. The area is now being governed by the Kurds themselves — by the Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD), an armed and disciplined movement formed in 2003, closely allied to Turkey’s militant Kurdish organisation, the Kurdish Workers Party or PKK.

Also on the scene in northern Syria is the Kurdish National Council, a loose grouping of eleven Syrian Kurdish factions, formed in 2011. On December 11, Shirku Abbas, chairman of the Kurdish National Council, declared in an interview that the United States and its European allies had agreed to provide finance and logistics for an independent Kurdish army strong enough to keep Islamist and Salafi fighting groups out of the Kurdish regions of Syria. Shirku Abbas made no secret of his ambition to create an independent Kurdish enclave inside a federal Syria on the model of the KRG in northern Iraq.

• Turkey, in turn, is being forced to make concessions to its own militant Kurds. A mass hunger strike by thousands of Kurdish political prisoners was brought to an end last November after an appeal by the PKK leader Abdulla Ocalan from his island prison of Imrali. Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan himself acknowledged the role played by Ocalan. Indeed, there are suggestions that Erdogan may now be contemplating a political negotiation with Ocalan — and further concessions to the Kurds.

• Always anxious to weaken and subvert its neighbours, Israel has for years armed and trained the Kurds of Iraq against Baghdad. Since the 2003 war, its relations with the KRG have grown still closer. Israeli drones are said to be operating against Iran from bases inside the KRG, while Mossad is said to have launched cross- border intelligence missions from the KRG against Iran’s nuclear facilities. Israel is also said to be backing a Kurdish guerrilla group inside Iran, the PJAK (or Party for a Free Life in Kurdistan) to carry out armed attacks against Iranian targets.

The misfortunes of one are the blessings of another. The more the Arabs sink into disunity and warfare, the more its enemies will triumph – and the more the Kurds will believe that their dream of independence may at last be realised.

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).

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Released: 25 December 2012
Word Count: 1,146
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Patrick Seale, “Can the United States Strike a Deal with Iran?”

December 18, 2012 - Jahan Salehi

In recent weeks, there has been talk in the media — in both the United States and Iran — of the possibility of direct bilateral talks between Washington and Tehran over the many subjects in dispute between them. If such talks on a comprehensive package were to take place, they could break the deadlock in U.S.-Iranian relations which has existed ever since Washington’s ally, the Shah, was overthrown by the Islamic revolution of 1979.

Needless to say, hardliners in both capitals oppose direct talks. In Washington, the ‘war party’ does not want to talk to the Mullahs, it wants to bring them down. In Tehran, the instinct is not to give an inch in the belief that the United States is seeking nothing less than Iran’s abject capitulation. Mutual mistrust is so deep that it would require a miracle, or some truly inspired diplomacy, for the United States to strike a bargain with the Islamic Republic of Iran.

In the meantime, the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany (the so-called P5+1) are said to be considering holding a new round of high-level negotiations with Iran on the nuclear question — the first since last June. Reports suggest that it might be held in Istanbul in January. But real progress by the P5+1 seems unlikely unless Washington and Tehran give an indication that they are prepared to be more flexible. Without a push from both capitals, a breakthrough seems unlikely.

The prospects are far from bright. The spectre of a war against Iran — waged by Israel with reluctant American tolerance — has overshadowed the region for much of the past two years. To head off the danger of an Israeli strike which might have compelled the United States to join in, President Barack Obama imposed on Iran the most crippling sanctions ever imposed on any country. War was thus averted. But it will again be on the agenda of Israel’s hard-liners and their American supporters in 2013, if no progress is made towards a settlement.

A war against Iran — which could easily spread to the whole region — is the very last thing the turbulent Middle East needs. On the contrary, a lowering of tension is urgently required to create a climate in which compromise is possible – not only in resolving the dispute with Iran but also the many other violent regional disputes, such as the civil war in Syria and the long-running Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which continues to claim its victims and spread its poison.

The Iranian case is particularly difficult to resolve because it is more about geopolitics than about nuclear technicalities. In other words, it is less about Iran’s alleged ambitions to acquire nuclear weapons — for which there is as yet no convincing evidence — than about the nature of the region’s political order.

The United States views the Islamic Republic as a challenge to American hegemony over the oil-rich Arab Gulf. Israel, in turn, wants military supremacy over all its neighbours. In 2003, it and its friends put relentless pressure on the United States to destroy Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. Once this was achieved, the same pro-Israeli forces turned their attention to the Islamic Republic of Iran, because its nuclear programme was seen as a potential threat to Israel’s nuclear monopoly. Israel has long conspired with Washington to bring down the whole so-called ‘resistance axis’ of Tehran-Damascus-Hizballah, seen as a challenge to U.S.-Israeli dominance. It has made repeated attempts to crush Hizballah and Hamas, and has not hesitated to assassinate Iranian atomic scientists. In league with the United States, it has also waged clandestine cyber-warfare against Iranian industrial facilities.

For their part, Saudi Arabia and its Arab neighbours view Shi‘ite Iran as a hostile power which is seeking to challenge Sunni supremacy in the region and undermine the Arab political order.

These are among the underlying geopolitical reasons why a breakthrough in relations with Iran seems unlikely — whether in bilateral talks with the United States or in the wider framework of P5+1 negotiations. And yet it would require only a modicum of goodwill for a deal to be struck.

What is Iran seeking in these discussions? First, it wants recognition of its right to enrich uranium on its own soil for peaceful purposes. Its right to do so is spelled out in Article IV of the 1968 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, of which it is a signatory. Peaceful purposes include nuclear power generation. Iran is planning to build several nuclear power plants in addition to the one at Bushehr. Iran has, moreover, agreed to regular monitoring of its nuclear activities over the past decade by the International Atomic Energy Agency. (Israel, which has a large arsenal of nuclear weapons, refuses to sign the NPT or allow monitoring of its nuclear plants by IAEA inspectors.)

Secondly, Iran has repeatedly offered to cease 20% enrichment of uranium if it is allowed to purchase fuel rods from abroad for the Tehran Research Reactor, which makes medical isotopes for close to a million Iranian cancer victims. It is prepared to restrict its uranium enrichment to below 5% — thus posing no threat of weapons proliferation — if, in return, it is given relief from the sanctions which have targeted its oil exports, its financial transactions and its nuclear industry, and which are imposing great hardship on its population. Thirdly — and more generally — Iran wants recognition of the legitimacy of its Islamic regime which emerged from its 1979 revolution. It wants to be recognised as an important regional power and not be treated as a pariah state.

Iran’s chances of achieving these goals do not look good. On the contrary, the U.S. Congress is pressing for even stiffer sanctions. Under Israeli pressure, the United States insists that Iran end all uranium enrichment, not merely 20% — and that it must do so before securing any significant concessions in return. In making this extreme demand, the United States has brushed aside Iran’s rights under the NPT and ignored its long compliance with the safeguards of the International Atomic Energy Agency. Instead, the United States has based itself on politically-motivated UN Security Council resolutions, beginning with Resolution 1696 on July 2006, which demands that Iran halt all uranium enrichment on the grounds that the unproven suspicion that it intends to go nuclear poses a threat to international peace and security.

Is it not time for other members of the P5 — notably Russia and China — to rebel against the American-led punitive sanctions against Iran, and themselves engage in sounding out Iran’s intentions? In May 2010, Brazil and Turkey reached an agreement with Iran to ship out to Turkey 2,500 pounds of low-enriched uranium, but the U.S. shot it down, reverting instead to imposing still more sanctions. If Russia and China were now to take the lead in striking a bargain with Iran, it might induce Washington to think again, and even to follow suit.

But, shackled by a pro-Israeli Congress, how much freedom does President Barack Obama have to break America’s long and dangerous stalemate with Iran?

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Released: 18 December 2012
Word Count: 1,164
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Patrick Seale, “How to Bring Peace to Mali and Avoid War”

December 11, 2012 - Jahan Salehi

French President François Hollande’s visit to Algeria, scheduled for 19-20 December, is unlikely to be an easy mission. High on his agenda will be the situation in Mali, where armed Islamist groups seized control of the north of the country after a military coup last March in the capital Bamako. France has been pressing for an international force to oust the Islamists, but Algeria, the major regional power which borders on Mali to its south, is firmly against any such intervention. While it defends the principle of the integrity of Mali, it believes the crisis is an internal problem which should be settled by negotiation, not by force.

The dispute between France and Algeria is likely to be sharpened by the news last Monday that Cheick Modibo Diarra, Mali’s prime minister — a passionate advocate of international intervention against the Islamists — was arrested as he was about to board a plane for Paris. The order for his arrest came from Captain Amadou Sanogo, leader of the coup last March, who is fervently opposed to foreign military intervention.

Northern Mali — an arid area the size of France — is the home of nomadic Touareg tribes who for decades have struggled to win autonomy, if not full independence, from Bamako. The military coup last March gave them their chance. But they had barely seized the main northern towns from a demoralised Malian army when they in turn were defeated and ousted by armed Islamists, who set about imposing on the local population a harsh version of Sharia law. Their exactions — stoning for infidelity, amputations for theft, as well as the destruction of ancient World Heritage shrines – have aroused much anxiety in world capitals.

The fear is that these extremist Islamist movements — AQMI (al-Qaida au Maghreb Islamic), MUJAO (Movement pour l’unicité et le jihad en Afrique de l’Ouest) and Ansar al-Din — could turn the vast area of northern Mali into a regional base for international terrorism and trafficking in narcotics, threatening the security of neighbouring states, and posing a danger to Mali’s neighbours, to Europe and even to the United States. Some evoke the spectre of ‘another Afghanistan’.

On 12 October, France persuaded the UN Security Council to adopt a resolution in favour of an intervention to oust the Islamists. A month later, West African leaders at an emergency summit in Abuja discussed the military means and strategy which such an intervention would require. ECOWAS, the 15-nation West African organisation, was reported to be ready to contribute a force of 3,300 men. France and other European states were said to be preparing to train several Malian battalions which, with intelligence from the United States, logistics from France and stiffening by ECOWAS forces, would recapture Timbuktu and Goa from the Islamists and then stabilise the area to prevent the Islamists’ return. Military operations were expected to begin in January 2013 before the heavy spring rains of March-April. War seemed imminent.

The last few weeks, however, have seen a change of mood. The task has come to seem daunting. The sheer size of Northern Mali’s desert terrain; the weakness of local West African armies not trained for combat abroad and often preoccupied with security problems at home (such as the Boko Haram rebellion in Nigeria); the impressive military arsenal of the Islamists, much of it seized from Libya after Muammar al-Qadhafi’s overthrow; the months it would take to bring the Malian army up to scratch; the widespread and widely-shared fear of being sucked into an interminable conflict, all these have tamed the ardour of those who pressed for military action.

A real damper has come from Algeria — the only country in the region with a powerful army and a capable intelligence service. The Algerian Minister of Interior and the Algerian army chief of staff have both come out firmly against intervention. Algeria’s Foreign Minister, Mourad Medelci, has been canvassing support for a political solution to the crisis, winning the backing of Turkey’s Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu; of Mauritania’s head of state, Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz; and of the former Italian premier Roman Prodi, now the UN special envoy to the Sahel (‘My mission,’ Prodi declared, ‘is to do everything possible for peace and to avoid war.’)

In an article on November 23, the Algerian daily, Al Watan, mocked France for pressing for military intervention in northern Mali, saying that it was behaving like a bull in a china shop.

Algeria’s doubts about the wisdom of making war on the Islamists in Mali spring from its own bitter experience of civil war in the 1990s, which is said to have claimed up to 200,000 lives. Abdelmalek Droukdel, the present head of AQMI, is none other than a former Islamist who fought the Algerian army for several years. Anxious to avoid any possibility of a renewed Islamist uprising in its exposed southern region, Algeria’s policy is to press for negotiations with all those in northern Mali who reject terrorism and international drug trafficking.

The assassination of the U.S. ambassador in Benghazi last September has focussed American attention on the Islamist threat to North Africa and the Sahel. American drones are no doubt already monitoring the area. Yet some of the most sensible remarks about the situation in Mali have come from General Carter Ham, head of AFRICOM, the command HQ of American forces in Africa. In an interview with Le Monde on 17 November, he declared that a purely military approach to the situation in northern Mali was doomed to fail. It was necessary, he said, to place the possibility of military action within a wider strategy. The first requirement was a political negotiation together with humanitarian assistance. The borders of Mali’s neighbours, such as Algeria, had to be made secure. The world should prepare for military intervention but it was by no means inevitable.

Instead, he proposed that the Bamako government respond to the political aspirations of the Touareg and of other groups in northern Mali. ‘If the population in the north came to believe that the government would give due attention to its demands, it might then act in such a way as to make AQMI leave the region — perhaps even without resorting to force,’ he declared.

The Sahel has been neglected by the international community for far too long. It is a poor part of the world made poorer by drought, violence, and the corruption of local elites. Rather than military intervention, Mali needs political reconciliation underpinned and promoted by massive development aid, sustained over several years. This may be the only way to persuade young men, desperate for a better life, to leave the Islamist groups and give up hostage-taking and drug smuggling which so far have been their only way to make a living.

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Released: 11 December 2012
Word Count: 1,120
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Patrick Seale, “Courting Danger in the Middle East”

December 4, 2012 - Jahan Salehi

U.S. President Barack Obama is behaving in the Middle East as if unaware of the dangers his policies are provoking. It is often said that big ships cannot easily or swiftly change course, but the U.S. ship of state is steaming headlong towards an iceberg. The collision could make 9/11 seem like a traffic accident. To protect America, its interests and its allies will require bold corrective measures — and the earlier in his second term the better.

Recent figures have caught the world’s attention — 162 Palestinians killed and a thousand wounded in Gaza compared to six Israelis killed and a dozen wounded; 138 votes cast at the UN General Assembly in favour of Palestine’s upgrade to the status of a non-member observer state, with only nine votes against — Israel, the United States, Canada, the Czech Republic, Panama and four small Pacific Island states.

Striking as these figures are — illustrating the disproportionate casualties in the recent Gaza conflict and the increasing international isolation of Israel and the United States — they do not tell the whole story. Bubbling beneath the surface like molten lava lies something which cannot be counted. It is hate. In my more than four decades of writing about the Middle East and talking to Arabs, I have rarely encountered such detestation of Israel, such thirst for revenge and such rage at its superpower patron.

When populations are oppressed, occupied, besieged and murdered, their land stolen, their rights and national identity denied, brute force may manage to quell and subdue them momentarily. But when they eventually rebel, as they must, the eruption is bound to be violent.

The whole world knows that Israel’s right-wing leaders want land not peace — a view enthusiastically shared by settlers and other fanatics. Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and those like him have done everything possible to avoid a negotiation with the Palestinians since any negotiation carries the risk of checking progress towards their goal of a ‘Greater Israel’. Such right-wingers loathe Palestinian moderates like Mahmud Abbas, President of the Palestinian Authority, because moderates want peace and an end to Israel’s land theft. Israeli right-wingers far prefer Palestinian militants like Hamas, whom they can dismiss as terrorists with whom no talks are possible. “How can you negotiate with someone who wants to kill you?” is a familiar right-wing Israeli cry. Israel’s policy has always been to discredit the moderates and radicalise the militants. A striking recent example was its assassination of Ahmad al-Jabari, Hamas’ military chief, just when he was on the point of agreeing to a permanent ceasefire with Israel. As Reuven Pedatsur wrote in Haaretz, “Israel assassinated the man who had the power to make a deal with Israel.”

Yet the question must be posed: How can a tiny country of seven million people believe that it can permanently defy hundreds of millions of Arabs, Iranians and Turks and the vast Muslim world beyond? Only the United States can save Israel from the suicidal folly of its leaders. But the U.S. must also act to protect itself against what will inevitably be a violent backlash if it fails to rein in the inflated ambitions of its ally. Peace and peace alone will secure Israel’s future and protect the United States from the threat of an Arab counter-blow.

The events of 9/11 were a harsh wake-up call which the United States has still not fully heeded. The current wave of fierce anti-American feeling in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen and many other parts of the Muslim world is another red alert which the U.S. should surely note. There have been several such omens in the past. Shi‘i anger at American backing for Israel after its 1982 invasion of Lebanon led to the car-bomb attack which killed 241 U.S. Marines at Beirut airport on 23 October 1983. Another warning was the attack on the USS Cole in Aden harbour on 12 October 2000, which killed 17 U.S. sailors, and triggered an American counter-insurgency which is claiming lives to this day. The killing of U.S. ambassador Chris Stevens in Benghazi on 12 September 2012 threw a harsh light on how Islamists view the United States. And was not the recent UN vote on the status of Palestine yet another reminder of what the world thinks of American policies on this highly contentious issue?

Obama’s moment of truth will soon be upon him. He will need to make some painful choices which will profoundly affect America’s security as well as its standing in the world. Are American values really compatible with the deeply-rooted expansionist ideology and Arab-hating world view of Israel’s fanatical settlers and religious nationalists? Does the United States really want to be on the side of racists and fascists who harass and kill Palestinians, torch their fields, cut down ancient olive trees and deface mosques?

Obama has been criticised for not visiting Israel. Early next year would be the time to do so. If both ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ power cannot be used to persuade Israel to change course, might a dose of ‘smart’ power be more effective? Obama needs to spell out America’s terms for a final closure of the poisonous Arab-Israeli conflict, which has destroyed America’s reputation and brought horrendous punishment to the American mainland. He needs to secure the backing of world powers for an international conference which will dictate to the parties the peace terms of the world community. He must use the powers of the Presidency to impose a two-state solution and bring peace to the deeply troubled Middle East — before it is too late.

Pessimists argue that Obama is tired of the Middle East and that he cannot face a bitter fight with the pro-Israeli Congress, let alone with the powerful ranks of neo-cons and pro-Israeli lobbyists. It is said that he does not want to risk another humiliation such as he suffered at Netanyahu’s hands when he tried to press for a settlement freeze early in his first mandate. In any event, he seems to believe that, whatever he does or does not do, the oil-rich Arabs will always side with the United States. His strong belief is that the real challenge for the United States in the years ahead will be confronting the rise of China. Priority must be given to affirming American power in the Pacific rather than in the Mediterranean and the Gulf.

Optimists, in contrast, persist in hoping — against all the evidence — that Obama will surprise the Middle East and the world with some bold decisions. They believe he is biding his time before showing his hand. He wants first to form his new cabinet — including naming the new Secretaries of State and Defence. And he will no doubt wish to ponder the results of next January’s Israeli elections to gauge just how tough and tricky a problem he will be facing there.

The next couple of months will show whether or not Obama will earn his place in history and deserve his Nobel Prize.

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Released: 04 December 2012
Word Count: 1,158
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Patrick Seale, “More Agony Ahead for Syria”

November 27, 2012 - Jahan Salehi

Might the Western powers and their allies be making a mistake in Syria? Several of them — Britain and France, together with Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar — have recognised the new Coalition of Syrian opposition forces formed in Doha on 11 November. They will now come under intense pressure to provide the rebels with heavier and more sophisticated ‘defensive’ arms, such as anti-aircraft and anti-tank weapons. That is what is now being discussed in several capitals. But will better weapons be enough to bring down President Bashar al-Asad? Most military experts think it doubtful. The rebels have made significant advances but are still far from landing a decisive blow.

Worried at the rise of Islamist fighting groups — much like those it is fighting in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen and elsewhere — the United States has so far hesitated to recognise the new Coalition, although it played a major role in its formation. This is an illustration of the dilemmas facing the Western powers.

If the rebels get better weapons as seems likely, Asad’s regime is bound to respond by throwing its own more advanced weapons into the battle, such as MIG 29s, heavy battle tanks, missiles and long-range artillery, which have so far been kept in reserve. The military escalation will be a recipe for more bloodshed rather than the beginning of dialogue.

The opposition wants more than weapons. What it really hopes for is a Western military intervention on the Libyan model. But such an intervention does not seem probable — the Russians will veto any UN Security Council Resolution authorising the use of force. In any event, no Western power wants to be drawn into the Syrian conflict. All are happy to hide behind the Russian veto.

By arming the rebels, the Western powers and their allies are in danger of undercutting the efforts of Lakhdar Brahimi, the UN and Arab League envoy, to halt the bloodshed and prepare the ground for a negotiation — in much the same way as they undercut the efforts of his predecessor Kofi Annan. To pay lip-service to the goal of a ceasefire and a negotiated transition of power while arming the rebels is to guarantee that fighting will continue.

Arab diplomatic sources say that Brahimi has drafted a new roadmap for peace, which he is expected to present to the UN Security Council and to regional powers in the coming days. His plan is said to call for the formation of a national unity government of both opposition figures and regime loyalists, with the task of conducting free and fair elections under international supervision.

According to these sources, Brahimi has left open the contentious issue of the fate of President Asad. The opposition refuses to consider talks so long as Asad remains in power, while regime supporters, both domestic and foreign, believe that he must be part of the transition process. Brahimi, like Kofi Annan, seems to think that the process has to be ‘Syria-led’ — which implies that Asad has to be involved.

But Brahimi’s task is well-nigh impossible. Neither the regime nor the opposition shows any sign of being ready for a deal. Most opposition factions — and certainly the fighting groups — declare that they will continue the struggle until Bashar al-Asad is toppled. He, in turn, evidently hopes to crush them. In a word, both sides believe the time is not ripe for a political settlement. Each believes the military balance must first be changed in its favour before a negotiation can take place. In any event, so much blood has already been spilled, and so much hate generated, that there is at present no room for rational thinking or mood for compromise

The new umbrella Coalition is, however, a distinct improvement on the Turkey-based Syrian National Council (SNC), which it has incorporated and replaced. It is more representative of the various opposition factions. Its President, Moaz al-Khatib, has much in his favour: He is a Damascene (as is the industrialist Riad Seif, one of his two vice-presidents); he is a moderate Muslim, acceptable to many Christians and to part at least of the silent majority. Some regime loyalists may even be prepared to fall in behind him. Above all, he has lived and worked in Syria all his life, and knows the different communities which make up the country’s mosaic. He left his native country only recently — unlike some SNC members who have lived in exile for decades. But al-Khatib is no politician. He is an intellectual and an academic. It may well be that expectations of what he can achieve have been pitched too high.

The Coalition he heads has many failings. It does not represent Syria’s many minorities. No Kurdish group has agreed to join. Needless to say, the Alawites are absent. Above all, this group of civilian exiles will find it difficult to impose its will on fighters inside the country, who dismiss it as a foreign creation. Jihadi groups, in particular — who are steadily gaining in strength and are linked in some cases to al-Qaeda — detest the civilian opposition abroad. They have no time for anyone who is not a jihadi. Their aim is to create an Islamic state by force of arms. One already exists in embryo in that part of Aleppo which the rebels control.

Al-Khatib must also wrestle with the fact that the countries which have chosen to recognise his Coalition are themselves far from united. Each country seems to be backing a different group with a different agenda. Syria has become a battlefield for foreign powers

It is all too easy to predict the likely outcome of current Western policy. It seems set to lead to military escalation; to a higher death toll on both sides; to more material damage; to greater sectarian divisions and hates, with each community taking to arms to protect itself. Even more serious is the fact that a military escalation will fragment the country even more than at present. Each side will fight to defend areas under its control. The struggle over the coming months is likely to be bloody.

A major casualty of the conflict is the loss of Syria’s regional role. Syria has played a pivotal role in Arab politics since the Second World War, in association at different times with Iraq, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Iran and, in recent times, Turkey. It used to be said that there can be no war without Syria and no peace without it. It has been the kingpin of resistance to Israel ever since the creation of the Jewish state — a role it has continued to play in recent decades as part of the so-called ‘resistance axis’ in association with Iran and Lebanon’s Shite resistance movement Hizballah. With Syria’s collapse, a new regional configuration of power is likely to emerge in which Islamists of various stripes seem destined to play a bigger role.

As a prominent Arab exclaimed to me this week, ‘Syria, as we know it, is finished!’

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Released: 27 November 2012
Word Count: 1,156
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Patrick Seale, “What Can the Arabs Do about Gaza?”

November 20, 2012 - Jahan Salehi

Faced with the carnage in Gaza, how should Arab states react? Heart-breaking TV pictures of death and destruction — of mauled children being pulled from the wreckage of their homes — must certainly have aroused consternation and stirred the conscience of every family from Cairo to Baghdad, and from Riyadh to Rabat. What will Arabs now expect from their leaders?

To get some sense of Arab opinion, I conducted my own limited poll, phoning and e-mailing contacts in different Arab countries. I tried to understand how they felt about the punishment of Gaza. Was their reaction one of anger and a thirst for revenge? Or did they feel a painful sense of humiliation, coupled with impatience with their leaders?

The reaction of most of my correspondents was robust. Their view was that Egypt and Jordan should freeze their peace treaties with Israel and close the Israeli embassies in Cairo and Amman. “Do Arab leaders not understand,” one of them said to me, “that the new Arab generation, freed from the dictators of the past, will no longer tolerate submissive polices? Arabs and Muslims must now show their muscle.”

Two proposals I heard seem worth conveying to a wider public. One was that President Morsi, Shaikh Hamad bin Khalifa of Qatar, Prime Minister Tayyip Recep Erdogan of Turkey and a very senior Saudi such as Prince Salman should together seek an urgent meeting with President Obama. They should convey to him the clear message that Israel’s siege of Gaza, and its continued occupation and land theft on the West Bank, have become intolerable. Israel’s violent policies were not only destroying the Palestinians. They were undermining the legitimacy of every Arab regime. They were a danger to the whole Arab order. No Arab government was safe from the anger of its people. That was the main lesson of the Arab Spring.

My contacts said that these regional leaders should give Obama a clear choice. They should tell him that if in 2013 — the first year of his new presidential mandate — he failed to bring Israel to the table to negotiate peace and statehood for the Palestinians on the basis of the 1967 lines (perhaps with some agreed land swaps), then the Arabs would be compelled to downgrade their relations with the United States.

Purchases of American arms would be frozen. American bases in the Gulf would be closed. American aid could be dispensed with. American interference in Arab affairs would no longer be tolerated. American protection was worthless and unwanted: It merely exposed the Arabs to Israeli aggression.

Arab oil producers, some of my contacts said, were fully aware that the United States was no longer a major customer for Arab oil. The international oil trade had switched towards Asia. It was time for the Arabs to join with China in protecting the new strategic oil routes. If the United States wanted influence in the Arab region, it had to change its policies and become a truly neutral mediator. If that were not possible, the Arabs would look elsewhere for help. As for the Arab leaders, they too should understand that profound changes were taking place on the international scene. It was time for them to carve out a new place for the Arabs in the world — outside of the American orbit.

Some contacts linked the Arab-Israeli conflict to America’s current undeclared war against Iran — a war driven by Israel. They said that the Arabs should not allow themselves to be squeezed between Israel and Iran. They should know which one of the two was their real enemy. Gulf countries — a senior contact in that area told me — should conclude a non-aggression pact with Iran and draw Tehran into regional security arrangements with the Arabs. If the Arabs allied themselves with Iran and Turkey, they would be strong enough to contain Israel’s aggression and protect the Palestinians. The cruel fate of the Palestinians was a badge of dishonour for every Arab.

Yet another suggestion which I heard from several sources was that Arab oil states, flush with funds, should coordinate and consolidate their financial aid to ailing Arab economies — like those of Egypt, Tunisia and Yemen. They should make plans for the reconstruction of Syria once a way out was found from the current nightmare in that country. Only when Arab money was used in defence of Arab causes could Arab independence be truly genuine.

Should the Arabs then prepare for war with Israel? I asked. No was the unanimous reply. The solution had to be political, not military. But most of my contacts — in countries as diverse as Yemen, Algeria and Kuwait — blamed the United States for the Gaza slaughter. It was America’s support, they said, which allowed Israel to kill Palestinians with impunity. They complained that Obama had again collapsed in the face of Israel and the Jewish lobby. He had adopted Israel’s argument that Israel had the right to defend itself and that Hamas was a terrorist organisation. This was a slap in the face to the Arabs. No doubt, it was the duty of the Israeli government to defend its people. But had no one else such a right? Was no other country allowed to seek deterrence? Hamas was a democratically-elected government. Was it not also responsible for defending its people?

How did Arabs react, I wondered, when Israel’s Minister of Interior, Eli Yishai, said that “The goal of the operation is to send Gaza back to the Middle Ages?” Or when Gilad Sharon, son of former prime mister Ariel Sharon, said, “We need to flatten all of Gaza. There should be no electricity, no gasoline, no moving vehicles, nothing. Then they’d really call for a ceasefire?”

“Israelis like this are psychopaths,” one of my contacts said. “They are insane killers living in their own closed, fanatical world. They don’t seem to understand that saying such obscene things fuels violent anti-Semitism and puts Jews everywhere in danger.” But another of my contacts said: “Hamas is to blame. Why did it expose its population to attack? Why did it embarrass President Muhammad Morsi? He needs to give his full attention to the Egyptian economy. Why put him in an impossible position?”

One of my interlocutors put the matter in stark terms: “Should the Arabs accept to be beaten into pulp every few years so that Israelis can feel safe and the Israeli-American alliance flourish?”

Another view I heard was that Israel was exploiting the vacuum created by Syria’s internal war. “By smashing Gaza,” one of my contacts said, “its intention is to remind Iran and the United States of its strength. It wants to prove that it can do what it likes when it likes. It wants to show that its freedom of action is total — whatever the world may think.”

The above is a sample of views conveyed to me over the past few days. The coming weeks will show whether Arab leaders heed the voices of their people, or whether they will simply decide to go back to business as usual, however many Palestinians perish.

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Released: 20 November 2012
Word Count: 1,176
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Patrick Seale, “The Coming Obama-Netanyahu Duel”

November 13, 2012 - Jahan Salehi

Fresh from his electoral victory and preparing to embark in January on his second term, President Barack Obama should now be planning how to rein in Israel, halt and reverse its land- grab on the West Bank and bring to birth a Palestinian state. That is what the Arab and Muslim world is expecting of him — as well as every person of goodwill concerned for peace in the Middle East.

But can he do it? The obstacles are formidable. The United States itself is profoundly divided on the issue. It has become a country where Islamophobia is rampant. Powerful Jewish financial interests, lobbies and pundits in the media and the think-tanks will surely raise hell if Obama is seen to be departing ever so slightly from the consensus of an ‘unshakable’ U.S.-Israeli alliance. Great swathes of evangelicals, fervent Christian Zionists, remain committed to Israel’s exclusive ownership of the Holy Land. Above all, the Republican-controlled U.S. House of Representatives is very much in the Israeli camp. Obama needs to work closely with Congress to seek compromises on urgent domestic issues, not least the level of the federal debt. Would it be politic in such circumstances for him to tackle the highly contentious Israel-Palestinian question?

In Israel, Binyamin Netanyahu’s Likud has formed an alliance with Yisrael Beiteinu, Avigdor Lieberman’s nationalist political party, to fight next January’s elections. Any government emerging from this hard-line grouping will be more determined than ever to press for a ‘Greater Israel’ while denying the Palestinians any prospect of statehood. As Israel’s peace camp languishes, fanatical forces are on the rise consisting of violent and unrestrained settlers, religious nationalists and various other species of racist, died-in-the-wool right-wingers. In 1995, Yitzhak Rabin — the last Israeli prime minister seriously to consider peace with the Palestinians — was murdered by a right-wing, ultra-Orthodox Jewish fanatic. What Israeli leader — indeed what American President — would dare run the same risk?

Great as they are, these are not the only barriers to a bold American drive for a fair Arab-Israeli settlement. Also restraining any American attempt to moderate Israeli policy are the deep inter-governmental and corporate ties forged over many years between the two countries, especially in the fields of defence and intelligence. In these key areas of national security, the United States has few secrets from Israel. In addition, there are the numerous pledges which Israel and its many American friends — from Henry Kissinger to Dennis Ross — have wrung out of subsequent American administrations, such as the pledge to guarantee Israel’s military superiority over all its neighbours, near and far, together with the promise never to make any move on the peace front without first consulting Israel.

In other words, any American President proposing to promote a fair and balanced peace in the Middle East will find himself bound hand and foot before he even sets forth on such a perilous venture.

And yet… and yet there is little doubt that Obama knows what needs to be done. If Israel’s settlement expansion is not checked and if the Palestinians do not get their state in Obama’s second term, the two-state solution must finally be declared dead, releasing a tsunami of hate, frustration and a thirst for revenge which will be difficult to control — directed as much against the United States as Israel. How long can Israel continue to occupy and gobble up the West Bank without facing a third Intifada and international condemnation? This past week provided yet another reminder of the dangerous Israeli-Gaza confrontation: The tit-for-tat air bombardments and rocket attacks left many dead and wounded — mainly, as usual, on the Palestinian side. How many more times can Israel invade Gaza to destroy ‘terrorists’ who dare defend themselves? When will Israel choose to make peace with its neighbours rather than always seek to subdue them by brute force?

This is by no means only a Middle Eastern problem. Vital American interests are at stake. The ‘unshakable’ alliance with Israel has left the United States vulnerable to Arab and Muslim anger in a vast stretch of territory from Afghanistan to Yemen. The United States has never fully considered why it was attacked on 9/11. The reasons were many: They included the callous abandonment of the mujaheddin once the Soviets withdrew from Afghanistan in 1987 — fighters whom the United States had itself recruited and armed; the brutal punishment of Iraq during and after the first Gulf war of 1991; more generally, the militarisation of American foreign policy. But that was not all. High on the list of Arab and Muslim grievances was Palestine, as Osama bin Laden himself declared. The unresolved Palestinian conflict remains a running sore fuelling hostility to the United States and eating away at its interests and reputation.

Obama knows that the current Islamic upsurge in the Arab world poses a major challenge to the U.S. presence and influence there. The only way the United States can restore its battered reputation is to broker an Arab-Israeli peace, with a Palestinian state at its very heart. That was the thrust behind Obama’s Cairo speech of June 2009. He was defeated by Netanyahu, but he must surely try again, whatever the immense difficulties.

Israel has identified Iran as its most dangerous enemy. But Iran’s anti-Israeli militancy would be quieted down overnight if Israel were to make an honourable peace with the Palestinians. If Obama wants a ‘win-win’ deal with Iran, which will end the threat of nuclear proliferation and restore America’s relations with Tehran after thirty years of senseless hostility, the way to get there is by an Israeli-Palestinian settlement.

Why are Israel and Iran at daggers’ drawn? Primarily, because of Israel’s pitiless repression of the Palestinians, for whom Iranians, like most Muslims, have great sympathy. There are, of course, other reasons for their mutual hostility. Iran is under constant threat of Israeli attack and is the butt of violent Israeli denunciation. Israel, in turn, has faced offensive Iranian rhetoric. Yet another crucial reason is that Israel conceives of its national security in terms of weakening — or preferably destroying — any neighbour which seems, however remotely, to present a threat. Iraq was Israel’s first target, which it persuaded the United States to destroy. Now it is Iran’s turn to face an Israeli-incited American onslaught. Syria, Iran’s ally, is self-destructing. But once its destruction is complete, Israel will no doubt turn its lethal attention once more to Hamas in Gaza and Hizballah in Lebanon, who refuse to submit and lie down. Will Saudi Arabia and the Gulf be the next targets of Israeli aggression?

Obama has many pressing foreign policy problems including the ‘pivot’ of American military power to the Far East to contain the rising challenge from China. But he cannot afford to neglect the Arab and Muslim world. That is where the United States faces an immediate challenge, even more pressing than that of China. Obama’s difficult but essential task in his second term will be to bring peace to the tormented Middle East. The only way to do so is to place America above the fray, able to deal with all the various warring parties without prejudice or bias.

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Released: 13 November 2012
Word Count: 1,186
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Patrick Seale, “Why the Middle East Is in Torment”

November 6, 2012 - Jahan Salehi

The Middle East is plagued by death, destruction and population displacements. A dozen different conflicts are raging. The whole region has rarely been in such torment.

In Syria, a bitter fratricidal war, largely fuelled by outsiders, threatens to reduce the country to a smouldering ruin, while consigning tens of thousands to the grave. Its neighbours are suffering from the spill-over. Turkey is struggling with a flood of Syrian refugees and a revival of Kurdish militancy. Lebanon and Jordan have been dangerously destabilised, and fear the worst.

Iraq, once a powerful Arab state, was destroyed and dismembered by America’s invasion and brutal ten-year occupation. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis were killed or wounded and millions displaced. Material damage was enormous. The once united country was transformed into a far weaker federal state by the creation of an autonomous Kurdish enclave in the north. Although Iraq’s oil industry is now recovering, its society and its politics remain highly unstable.

Just as America’s invasion in 2003 was launched on the fraudulent claim that Iraq was developing weapons of mass destruction, so the United States and its allies are now waging an undeclared war against Iran — a war of crippling sanctions, cyber-subversion and assassinations. The alleged aim is to force Iran to give up its development of nuclear weapons — although there is no credible evidence that Iran is doing any such thing. The real aim would seem to be ‘regime change’ in Tehran. A military attack on Iran in the New Year cannot be excluded.

After eleven years of war in Afghanistan, the United States and its allies have failed to stabilise the country, let alone devise a credible exit strategy. Their planned departure in 2014 seems likely to turn into a humiliating scuttle, while plunging the country into an even more murderous civil war. Meanwhile, Egypt and Tunisia struggle to tame their Salafists, while armed gangs in Libya vie for supremacy.

In Mali, a war is in preparation to expel militant Islamic groups which have captured the northern part of the country and threaten the stability of the whole Sahel. In Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, and soon possibly in Mali as well, U.S. ‘targeted killings’ of alleged Islamic terrorists by means of pilotless drones also kill civilians and terrorise peaceful communities, driving relations between the United States and the Muslim world to new depths of misunderstanding and hostility.

Meanwhile, unchecked by either the Arab states or the Western powers, Israel continues its relentless seizure of Palestinian territory, finally burying any hope of a two-state solution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and condemning itself to generations of future conflict with the Arab and Muslim world.

How has all this come about? What false moves and foolhardy decisions have brought the region to this lamentable state? In my personal opinion, the following are some of the main reasons.

• As everyone knows, America’s invasion of Iraq triggered a civil war between the Sunni minority and the Shia majority, inflaming antagonisms between these two Muslim communities right across the region. The war transformed Iraq’s regional role. Instead of acting as a counterweight to Iran — which had long been Iraq’s traditional role — Iraq under Shia leadership has become Iran’s ally.

This has overturned the balance of power in the Gulf region to the alarm of Saudi Arabia and its allies in the Gulf Cooperation Council. Fear that Iran has ambitions to dominate the Gulf region has shaped the thinking and the regional policy of Saudi Arabia and some of its GCC partners. The fear may not be wholly justified, but it is real nevertheless.

• By removing Egypt, the most powerful Arab country, from the Arab military line-up, the Egypt-Israel peace treaty of 1979 eliminated any possibility of a balance of power between Israel and its Arab neighbours. It gave Israel the freedom to attack its neighbours with impunity and fuelled its ambition for regional dominance. One need only recall Israel’s strike on Iraq’s Osirak nuclear facility in1981 and its invasion of Lebanon in 1982. Many more aggressions were to follow. In Israel itself, the rise of right-wing and ultra-religious forces hardened the country’s determination to expand its land area and prevent any expression of Palestinian statehood, while maintaining Israel’s military supremacy over the entire Greater Middle East.

• Israel’s belligerent and expansionist policy has largely been made possible by the considerable influence of American Jews on American politics. The U.S. Congress seems to have succumbed to AIPAC, the main Jewish lobby. At the same time, AIPAC’s sister organisation, The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, managed to place its members in key posts in successive American administrations and generally shape American policy towards the region. Pro-Israeli neo-conservatives pushed the United States into war against Iraq — because Saddam Hussein was seen as a potential threat to Israel — and are now echoing the call of Israel’s Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu for war against Iran. Against this background, it is not altogether surprising that the United States has been unable to halt Israel’s land-grab of Palestinian territory, let alone persuade it to make peace with the Palestinians and the rest of the Arab world.

• Yet another factor which helps explain the present disastrous situation is the collapse of Arab nationalism and its replacement by the rise of militant Islam. Arab leaders failed to coordinate their efforts in support of joint policies. Equally, they failed in their dealings with Western powers to use their considerable financial and oil and gas resources in support of Arab causes. The Arab League, a victim of inter-Arab quarrels, remains something of a broken reed.

What needs to be done? What are the key challenges facing the leading Arab states as well as the new American Administration? A great deal will hang on the way the United States adapts to its changing position in the world. Once the world’s dominant power, it must now come to terms with a new multi-polar international system. America’s relative decline (largely brought about by its catastrophic wars and the misbehaviour of its deregulated financial institutions) has been matched by the rapid rise of China and a resurgent Russia.

The challenges are daunting. First, an urgent effort needs to be made to resolve the Arab-Israel conflict and bring to birth a Palestinian state. Nothing could better stabilise the region. Secondly, Arab leaders should work for a Sunni-Shia reconciliation, which must also require an entente with Iran. Iran should be the Arabs’ partner, not its enemy. The United States, in turn, should seek to negotiate a ‘win-win’ deal with Tehran — a perfectly feasible outcome which would at a stroke remove a major source of dangerous tension. Finally, the United States, the Arab states and the rest of the world should unite in finding a solution to the rise of Islamic violence. This must surely be done by negotiation and re-education — and by a change of state policies — rather than by force.

Is there even the slightest hope that any of this will be accomplished?

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Released: 06 November 2012
Word Count: 1,154
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Patrick Seale, “Time for National Reconciliation in Syria”

October 30, 2012 - Jahan Salehi

The swift collapse of Lakhdar Brahimi’s Syrian ceasefire is a grave disappointment for all those — such as myself — who had hoped that the time had come to stop the killing and start the difficult process of national reconciliation. But all is not lost.

Although massive obstacles remain, there are reasons to believe that Syria — a state at the very heart of the Arab political system — can still be saved from destruction and national disintegration. Brahimi, the UN and Arab League peace mediator, has certainly not given up. He remains resolved to bring the Asad regime and its opponents to the negotiating table before the whole country is reduced to rubble.

What are the obstacles to a peaceful settlement? First and foremost are the profound wounds which twenty months of savage conflict have inflicted on Syrian society. The deep mistrust, ferocious hate and thirst for revenge aroused on both sides by the pitiless fighting could take years to dispel. There is as yet no readiness for reconciliation on either side.

Another major obstacle to reconciliation is the ever greater role in the rebellion of extremist Islamist groups, such as Jabhat al-Nusra and others. These groups have no interest whatsoever in a ceasefire, still less in a negotiation with the regime. Their objective is to destroy the secular Ba‘thist state and replace it with a strict Islamic one.

Jabhat al-Nusra, described by the Swedish scholar Aron Lund as a spinoff from an Iraqi al-Qaida faction, has specialised in suicide bombings in Syria and other acts of terrorism. It is widely considered responsible for exploding a bomb in Damascus on the first day of Eid al-Adha, which effectively sabotaged Brahimi’s ceasefire. The regime had agreed to the ceasefire but had reserved the right to fight back if attacked — which it promptly did. The sad truth is that just as hard-line Islamists will not deal with the regime, so the regime will not deal with them — except with guns and bombs. The gulf between them will not easily be bridged.

Nevertheless, there are reasons for believing that negotiations must eventually take place. Most of the external actors, whichever side they are on, are increasingly worried at the prospect of regional destabilisation. The violence has already spilled over into Lebanon, is threatening Jordan, has added to Iraq’s very considerable woes, and has given Turkey an acute headache as it struggles to cope with a resurgence of Kurdish militancy as well as with a massive influx of Syrian refugees. In Ankara, voices are being raised criticising Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan for his violent and perhaps over-hasty condemnation of the Syrian regime. The latest statements coming out of Turkey suggest a softening of Erdogan’s position. More particularly, Turkey no longer seems to insist that President Bashar al-Asad quit the scene before a negotiation can take place.

The notion is also taking root in both Syrian camps that there can be no military solution to this conflict — in other words, that neither side can hope to score an outright victory. The regime has been destabilised but not toppled. The Syrian state remains more or less intact, shored up by its army and officer corps, by its powerful security services, by Ba‘th Party networks across the country, by an army of still largely loyal civil servants, by the support of minorities and of part at least of the silent majority, which does not approve of the regime but fears what might come after it.

The rebels had expected an external military intervention in their favour on the Libyan model, but have been bitterly disappointed. No one wants to intervene militarily in Syria — not the United States, nor Turkey, nor the European states, still less the Arab states. But without an external intervention the rebels cannot hope to defeat the Syrian army. The rebels would be mistaken to place their hopes in a Mitt Romney presidency in the United States. Romney is even more hostile than President Barack Obama to militant Islam, and is equally opposed to an American military intervention.

Indeed, the Syrian opposition should note that the U.S. has started to deny vehemently that it is coordinating military deliveries to the rebels or has supplied them, as some reports have claimed, with Stinger anti-aircraft missiles. Washington is worried at the prospect of Syria turning into another Afghanistan and is aghast at the thought that it might be seen to be fighting on the same side as Al-Qaida!

From the start the external onslaught on Syria has been tied to the parallel onslaught on Iran. Israel has been pushing the United States to bring down the regime in Tehran in much the same way as it pushed the U.S. to bring down Saddam Hussein in Iraq in 2003. Obama has managed to resist Israel’s war-mongering, but only by imposing unprecedented sanctions on the Islamic Republic. Although these are now crippling the economy and inflicting pain on the population the regime still appears to be reasonably solid. In 2003, Britain was misguided enough to join the U.S. in the invasion of Iraq. It has no wish to make the same mistake again. On the basis of legal advice that an attack on Iran would be unlawful, it has informed the U.S. that it will not provide access to its basis in Cyprus and Diego Garcia in the event of any such attack.

One way and another, the danger of a military attack on Iran has receded. There have even been reports that the United States and Iran have engaged in secret bilateral exchanges, which raise the prospect of more ambitious negotiations after the American elections — if, that is, Obama is re-elected. Any breakthrough of that nature would be good news for a negotiated settlement in Syria.

Two other important factors need to be noted. Egypt led by President Muhammad Morsi has reappeared on the world stage after decades of subservience to the United States and Israel. Morsi is striving to put together a regional contact group to promote a negotiated transition of power in Damascus. Perhaps even more significant is the increasingly assertive role of Russia in the Syrian crisis. It has denounced the West for its hypocrisy in calling for a ceasefire while arming the rebels and it has offered to host negotiations in Moscow.

The crisis has show that the United States, long the dominant external power in the Middle East, can no longer impose its will unilaterally on the region. It must take account of the wishes and interests of others, Russia prominent among them.

But, at the end of the day, it is up to the Syrians themselves to decide when the killing has to stop. It is Syrians who are dying; it is their homes, factories, schools and hospitals which are being shattered; it is the future of their country as a key regional player standing up for Arab interests against the ambitions of Israel and the Unites States which is being gravely compromised. It is surely time for Syrians to recognise that blind hate must be replaced by dialogue, mutual concessions and an attempt, however difficult, at reconciliation.

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Released: 30 October 2012
Word Count: 1,185
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Patrick Seale, “Is a Changed U.S. Policy Possible in the Middle East?”

October 24, 2012 - Jahan Salehi

Who will emerge victorious on November 6? Will it be the sitting President Barack Obama or his Republican challenger, Mitt Romney? In no part of the world will the outcome of the U.S. presidential election be awaited with greater anxiety than in the Middle East. Last Monday’s foreign policy debate between the two contestants was not reassuring. It did not give Arabs and Muslims any reason to believe that their fundamental problems would be addressed by whoever occupies the White House over the next four years.

The United States has for decades been the dominant external power in the Middle East, having replaced Britain and France in that role after the Second World War, and seen off the Russians after the collapse of the Soviet Empire. Yet America today is being challenged as never before. Local populations are rebelling against its policies — and with some justice. Instead of being above the fray, mediating conflicts as an honest broker, and helping spread peace and prosperity, the United States has waged hugely destructive wars, killed and wounded great numbers of innocent people, imposed punishing sanctions on alleged enemies, and — above all — put Israel at the very centre of its Middle East policies.

One of the clearest messages of the Islamic wave now unfurling across the region is that Arabs and Muslims have lost confidence in the United States. They do not want to be interfered with or bossed around by the U. S. any more, still less to be on the receiving end of America’s militarized foreign policy. This is the message coming from Cairo to Baghdad, from Gaza to Kabul, from south Beirut to Tehran, from Timbuktu to San‘a. Never has the United States been so resented and disliked — even fervently hated.

Can the United States restore its tarnished reputation? Can it change course? Any rehabilitation would require a radical revision of current policies, of which there is no sign. Few Arabs have any hope in Mitt Romney. When he declared, as he did last Monday, that “This nation is the hope of the earth,” many Arabs and Muslims must surely have burst into incredulous laughter. “If I‘m President,” he said, “America will be very strong!” That is indeed the problem the Middle East faces. Romney’s blind devotion to Israel — his repeated pledge that “There must be no daylight between the United States and Israel” — and his arrogant bluster about America’s power arouse nothing but acute anxiety. He is definitely not the man the region wants to see in the White House.

But is Obama any better? His 2009 Cairo speech, in which he pleaded for a “new beginning” with the Arab world, was soon replaced by bitter disillusion when he collapsed before Israel’s Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu. Instead of pursuing the quest for a fair resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, he has tolerated Israel’s continuing land-grab of Palestinian territory and has blocked the Palestinians’ attempt to win recognition of their state at the UN. Will he do better if re-elected? Nothing is less certain.

Although Obama has managed to extricate the United States from Iraq, he has so far failed to negotiate an honourable exit from the unwinnable Afghan war. Worse still, he has outdone his predecessor, the belligerent George W. Bush, by greatly increasing targeted killings of alleged militants by U.S. drones in Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia and, soon perhaps, in the Sahel. There is no more effective way to create ‘terrorists’ and inflame anti-American sentiment.

Why is the United States so wedded to being the military bully in the Middle East? The usual answer is that it wishes to control the region’s vast oil and gas resources. But experts say that shale gas is freeing the United States from dependence on Middle East oil. In any event, the figures show that last year the Middle East exported 72% of its crude to Asia — mainly to China, India, Japan and Singapore — rather than to the United States. None of these countries sees the need for military bases in the Middle East.

America’s concern to protect Israel is often given as another reason for America’s overwhelming military presence in the region. At this very moment, the United States is conducting a three-week missile-defence drill with Israel, described as “the largest exercise in the history” of their long relationship, with the aim of strengthening Israel’s comprehensive air defences.

Protecting Israel is one thing; guaranteeing its military supremacy is quite another. This is the meaning of America’s pledge to guarantee Israel’s Qualitative Military Edge (QME) — that is to say its ability to defeat any combination of its neighbours. The pro-Israeli lobby has managed to get this guarantee written into U.S. law. The U.S. tolerates, indeed assists, Israel in its attempts to destroy resistance movements like Hamas and Hizballah — movements the United States portrays as terrorists — whose crime has been to seek to protect their respective populations in Gaza and Lebanon from Israeli attack. At the same time, the United States is doing its best to bring down the Tehran-Damascus-Hizballah “resistance axis” which has tried to hold Israeli power in check in the Levant. Much of America’s current campaign to bring Iran to its knees — the unprecedented sanctions against its oil industry and central bank, the cyber-attacks against its industrial installations — seems to be driven by a wish to destroy any potential threat to Israeli dominance.

No one is allowed to relieve the besieged population of Gaza. When an unarmed Turkish ship, the Mavi Marmari, carrying peace activists, tried to breach the cruel Gaza blockade, it was attacked by Israeli commandos in international waters. Nine Turks were killed, including one activist of duel U.S.-Turkish nationality. Turkey is waiting in vain for an Israeli apology. Its once warm relations with Israel have cooled to freezing point. The United States criticised the flotilla, not Israel. The last thing the proud Turkish nation will do is acknowledge Israeli dominance.

Egypt, now under Muslim Brother leadership, is seething at the restraints its American-brokered 1979 peace treaty with Israel has put on its freedom of action in Sinai and in Gaza. Nevertheless, President Mohamed Morsi has vowed not to let the Palestine cause go by default.

Henry Kissinger, who presided over U.S. foreign policy from 1969 to 1977, used to say that the closer the United States drew to Israel, the more the Arabs would come running to Washington. This cynical view is now being challenged by the populations of the region, if not yet by all their leaders.

Instead of propping up Israel against the entire Middle East — and destroying any state or resistance movement daring to defend itself against Israeli power — the United States might be wiser to encourage the emergence of a balance of power between Israel and its neighbours. History proves that a balance of power keeps the peace, whereas an imbalance causes war, because the stronger party will always seek to impose its will by force.

This could be something the next U.S. President might care to consider if he is concerned to restore America’s influence and authority in the turbulent Middle East.

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Released: 24 October 2012
Word Count: 1,179
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