William Hague, Laurent Fabius and Guido Westerwelle, foreign ministers of the United Kingdom, France and Germany, are playing with fire in Iran. At the next meeting of the EU Foreign Affairs Council on 15 October, they are planning to seek agreement from foreign ministers of all member states on a new tough package of sanctions against Iran. They want the European Union to tighten still further the embargo on Iran’s oil exports; prohibit all financial transactions with Iranian banks; take joint measures to prevent Iran from circumventing restrictions on its shipping operations; and ban export to Iran of any materials which might conceivably be used for its nuclear programme.

In other words, they are planning to ratchet up still further the severe economic warfare already being waged by the United States and its allies against Tehran, which has brought painful hardship to the Iranian population in the form of hyper-inflation, galloping prices and a collapsing currency.

The calculation the three Western foreign ministers appear to have made is that, once its economy faces total collapse, Iran will meekly submit to Western — and Israeli — demands to dismantle its nuclear industry altogether. They may well be mistaken.

Why are these leading European powers pursuing this course? What has Iran done to them to merit such punishment? It would seem that they believe Iran is seeking to join the exclusive nuclear weapons club. There is, however, no convincing evidence that this is indeed Iran’s ambition. On the contrary, Iran has repeatedly declared that it is not seeking to acquire nuclear weapons and its supreme guide, Ayatollah Khamenei, has issued a fatwa, or Islamic ruling, against any such acquisition. All Western and Israeli intelligence agencies confirm that Tehran has, as yet, made no decision to build such weapons — although, in view of Israel’s relentless threats, it would not be surprising if Iran were looking for means to protect itself from any such attack.

Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has repeatedly stated — most recently at a press conference in New York last month during the annual meeting of the UN General Assembly — that Iran was ready to give up enriching uranium to 20% — a first and necessary step towards enriching uranium to over 90% for atom bomb manufacture — if it were guaranteed supplies for the Tehran research reactor which makes material for medical purposes. The Iranian President has made this pledge on several previous occasions, but the Western powers and Israel seem not to have heard him — or rather they have not wished to hear him — which raises the suspicion that their real objective is not simply to force Iran to give up enriching uranium to a high level but rather to end all uranium enrichment in Iran and, better still, to overthrow the clerical regime of the Ayatollahs.

Iran is a proud country of some 70 million people. Its history and civilisation stretch back thousands of years. Its population is fiercely patriotic, as was demonstrated during the bitter eight-year Iraq-Iran war. Iranians have not forgotten that in 1953, the intelligence services of Britain and the United States mounted a coup which overthrew the democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadeq, because he had dared wrest Iran’s oil industry out of the hands of Britain’s Anglo-Persian Oil Company (later BP). Much of Iran’s historic hostility to the United States and Britain dates back to that arrogant imperial intervention in Iran’s internal affairs. Mossadeq spent three years in jail, and was kept under house arrest until his death in 1967. For most Iranians, he remains a great nationalist hero.

One of the reasons the Shah was toppled in 1979 was because he was seen to be subservient to the West, and especially to Britain and the United States. The Islamic Republic, which emerged after that revolution, puts great value on Iran’s sovereignty and independence. It wants Iran to be treated with the respect it deserves as a major regional power. It has hailed the mastery of the uranium fuel cycle as a triumph for Iranian modernity and scientific progress. In the words of the Iranian political scientist Homeira Moshirzadeh, “Iran’s nuclear policy has become a matter of identity.” No country will willingly or easily give up its hard-won identity.

Does Iran pose a threat to Israel and the world, as Israel and its propagandists maintain? There is certainly no evidence that it does so at present. But if brought to its knees by the West’s crippling sanctions — if pushed to the limit — Iran could well hit back in one form or another, triggering a regional war of unpredictable consequences. It is easy to see how this could be the disastrous outcome of America’s current anti-Iran campaign, driven by Israel and its American lobbyists. Instead of acting as a brake on such adventurism, the Europeans — notably Hague, Fabius and Westerwalle — are adding fuel to the fire, as if unaware that they are leading their countries into just such an historic blunder as the overthrow of Mossadeq 59 years ago.

Discussing in Foreign Policy magazine last January the reasons for America’s current massive military deployments against China, Clyde Prestowitz wrote: The U.S. “presumes a threat where none exists but where the presumption could become a self-fulfilling prophesy.” One could say the same about American and Israeli policy towards Iran. Rarely in modern times have we witnessed such political folly.

The reckless undeclared war against Iran brings to mind the disastrous Suez War of 1956 when Britain, France and Israel plotted to overthrow the Egyptian ruler, Gamal Abd al-Nasser, only to be disciplined like naughty schoolboys by the then American President Dwight Eisenhower. The Suez debacle brought Britain’s dominance of the Middle East to an end.

Closer to our own time, the undeclared war on Iran bears an alarming resemblance to the propaganda campaign which preceded the catastrophic invasion and occupation of Iraq in 2003, unleashed by U.S. President George Bush and Britain’s then-Prime Minister Tony Blair on the basis of phoney intelligence fabricated by America’s pro-Israeli neocons. Just as Israel and its friends pushed America and Britain into war against Iraq, so — even more shamelessly — Israel’s Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has been straining every nerve to push America into war against Iran.

There is no mystery in understanding Israel’s motives: It wishes to dominate the region militarily and has recruited the United States to destroy any rival which might challenge its supremacy.

Will America’s next president be enough of a statesman to reach a negotiated compromise with Iran? Will he be prepared to recognise Iran’s legitimate right under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty to enrich uranium to low levels for peaceful purposes such as electricity generation? Will he be brave enough to lift sanctions on Iran, which would mean challenging America’s ignorant, venal, brain-washed pro-Israeli Congress? Will he be strong enough to hold Israeli hawks at bay, as well as the slavish neocons?

These will be some of the challenges awaiting Barack Obama if he is re-elected next month — or possibly, heaven forbid, Mitt Romney!

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: 11 October 2012
Word Count: 1,164
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To understand Israel’s security concerns, as well as its ambitions, one needs to look into the head of Uzi Arad, Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu’s National Security Adviser. He is a veteran of Mossad, Israel’s spy agency, where he spent 20 years; he has Netanyahu’s ear; he occupies an office a step away from his and, in terms of influence over the Prime Minister, he seems to have managed to beat off competition from the heads of the armed services and from other security and intelligence chiefs. Dr Arad is Israel’s super-hawk. Some have called him Israel’s Dr Strangelove.

His over-riding goal is to put a permanent end to any ambition Iran may have to build a nuclear bomb, or even simply to acquire the means and ability to do so. He does not believe that “crippling sanctions” will do the job and deplores the lack of resolve of Western leaders in stopping Iran’s race for nuclear weapons. He is convinced, against a good deal of evidence, that Iran is determined to become a nuclear power.

Uzi Arad wants the United States and its Western allies to confront Iran with the certainty of military attack if it does not give up all uranium enrichment and plutonium production. Indeed he believes that a pre-emptive attack on Iran would be perfectly legitimate: Iran, he argues, must be stopped before it is too late. Since Netanyahu never misses an opportunity to demonise Iran as the “greatest threat to world peace” and “the world’s leading sponsor of international terrorism,” one can safely predict that his address to the 67th session of the UN General Assembly this month will be an anti-Iranian rant.

What is the root cause of Israel’s animus against Iran? Certainly, there is an element of paranoia. Having suffered genocide at the hands of Hitler, Jews are utterly determined never to risk another Holocaust. “Never again!” is the slogan. Arad has spoken of the “genocidal attributes of Iranian statements.” But, equally, there is an element of hubris — of overweening pride — in the Israeli approach. Having built up a powerful nuclear arsenal over the past 45 years — estimated at between 100 and 200 warheads, together with an array of delivery vehicles, including a “second strike” capability in the form of submarine-launched missiles — Israel wants no competition in the nuclear field. It wants to be the Middle East’s sole nuclear power — a key element in its determination to remain the region’s dominant military power.

Men like Arad and Netanyahu do not, even for a moment, think that Iran’s leaders are mad or suicidal. They are well aware that if Iran were to acquire nuclear weapons, it would never launch them against Israel — and risk immediate national annihilation. Atomic bombs are weapons of defence, not offence. They provide a deterrent capability to the country possessing them — that is to say they serve to deter a hostile nuclear power from launching an attack. No nuclear power, for example, would consider attacking nuclear-armed North Korea.

Israel does not want Iran, or any other state in the Greater Middle East, to acquire a deterrent capability in the form of nuclear weapons, since this would restrict its own ability to attack its neighbours at will. If Iran or an Arab state had a nuclear capability, Israel would not have attacked Lebanon in 2006, Syria in 2007 and Gaza in 2008.

Arad believes that the United States and its allies should address a clear ultimatum to Iran on the following lines: “Dismantle your entire nuclear industry or face attack. Don’t dare retaliate to any attack as more punishment will follow. And don’t dare restart your nuclear programme once it has been destroyed, as it will be destroyed again.”

He has expressed these brutally robust views on many occasions, among them an address last February to Canada’s annual Conference on Defence and Security. What does he recommend? First, that Iran’s oil exports should be “put in jeopardy”; and secondly, that strikes against Iran should be “surgical,” aimed initially only at its nuclear facilities and at the Revolutionary Guard Corps. Such strikes, he argues, would be far easier to conduct than the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and would cause little collateral damage. He dismisses as unfounded the often-cited fear that an attack on Iran would set the whole region on fire.

Like his boss Netanyahu, Arad rejects all compromise with Iran on the nuclear issue, rejecting the widely held view that Iran, as a signatory of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, has the right to enrich uranium on its own territory for the purpose of power generation or medical purposes. He wants none of it. His whole argument is that a military strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities would be far less dangerous than living with a nuclear-armed Iran. If Iran were to get the bomb, he warns, it would “enhance the clout of a militant, extremist Islamic regime,” and drive Arab states to go nuclear as well. Proliferation would make life in the Middle East a nightmare.

U.S. President Barack Obama has so far resisted Israel’s relentless pressure for war and its constant threat — in effect blackmail — that “If you won’t attack Iran, we will, and you will be forced to join in, whether you like it or not.” To counter the accusation that he is ready to “throw Israel under a bus,” Obama has showered the Jewish state with funds, with secret intelligence, with UN vetoes in its favour and with weapons, including the latest warplanes and bunker-busting bombs. He has joined with Israel in acts of state terrorism, such as cyber-warfare against Iran. But all this is still not enough for Israel’s super-hawk. He wants Iran’s nuclear industry destroyed.

So, if one were able to look into Uzi Arad’s head, what other imperatives might one note?

First, the need to maintain at all costs the vital relationship with the American super-power. More than an alliance, it is a marriage, a merger, an inter-penetration of each other’s society, to the extent that it is difficult to tell which of the two is the dominant partner.

Second, the need to ensure Israel’s military dominance over the Greater Middle East by all possible means — wars, sabotage, the dismemberment of threatening states, mobilising the United States for regime change as in Iraq in 2003, and now in Syria and Iran, the assassination of political opponents. (The long list of Israel’s victims includes the former leaders of Hizballah and Hamas as well as Iranian scientists. Palestinians figure prominently on the list, including very probably Yasser Arafat himself.)

Third, the need to prevent the emergence of a Palestinian state, since it would put an end to the dream of a Greater Israel and might even undermine the legitimacy of Israel’s own enterprise, built on the ruins of Arab Palestine.

Uzi Arad is the dangerous advisor of a dangerous prime minister. In the Greek legend, hubris leads to nemesis. Israel’s long-term survival rests on accepting, indeed encouraging, the emergence of a Palestinian state and on peaceful, cooperative relations with the whole region, not on murder, subversion, domination and war.

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 September 2012
Word Count: 1,180
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The Arab Spring will undoubtedly go down in history as an important moment in the liberation of the Arab peoples from tyranny. But, like most major political upheavals, it has had a number of unfortunate and largely unforeseen consequences.

The economies of Egypt, Tunisia and Yemen have suffered serious damage; Syria’s on-going civil war has resulted in heavy — and mounting — civilian casualties and material destruction; in the Sahel, violence and chaos have followed the overthrow of Libya’s Muammar al-Qadhafi, especially in Mali where Touareg rebels backed by Islamist groups have seized a great chunk of the country; sectarian tensions have sharpened across the region causing all minorities to feel less secure; the Palestine cause has been consigned to the margins of international attention, while Israel, fully backed by the United States, proceeds undisturbed with its land grab.

Turkey is yet another victim of the unforeseen consequence of the Arab Spring: Its ambitious Middle East policy has collapsed. Two years ago, Turkey could claim to be the most successful country in the region. Its economy was booming. Its charismatic Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, in power since 2002, enjoyed popularity at home and respect abroad. The Turkish combination of democracy and Islam was hailed as a model for the region. Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, an academic turned statesman, was credited with devising a peaceful regional order, based on the principle of “zero problems with neighbours.”

A key pivot of Davutoglu’s new regional order was a Turkish-Syrian partnership, both commercial and political, which soon expanded into a free-trade zone embracing Turkey, Syria, Lebanon and Jordan. Visas with these countries were abolished. Meanwhile, Turkish construction companies were active in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States, as well as in Qadhafi’s Libya (where contracts were estimated at some $18bn for roads, bridges, pipelines, ports, airports and much else besides.)

Buoyed by these successes, Turkey set about seeking to solve some of the region’s most obdurate conflicts. It tried hard to bring Syria and Israel to the negotiating table. Together with Brazil, it made what seemed a promising advance towards solving the problem of Iran’s nuclear programme. In Afghanistan, Turkish troops were the only foreign forces welcome, which seemed to presage a role for Ankara in negotiating a settlement with the Taleban. In addition, Prime Minister Erdogan had hopes of reaching an entente with Turkey’s old rival, Greece, and of making peace at last with Armenia (a country still smarting from the harsh treatment of Armenians by the Ottoman Turks.) Above all, the Turkish Prime Minister seemed ready to make major political concessions to the Kurds of eastern Anatolia in a bid to end, once and for all, the long and violent struggle with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which has claimed tens of thousands of lives.

Then the whole thing fell apart.

The deal which Turkey and Brazil negotiated with Iran over its nuclear facilities was rejected by Washington. Turkey’s overtures to Armenia got nowhere: The border remains closed. Turkey quarrelled violently with Israel when Israeli commandos boarded a Turkish ship, the Mavi Marmara, in international waters, and killed nine activists, most of them Turks, who were trying to break Israel’s cruel siege of Gaza. Israel has refused to apologise for its brutal behaviour. Turkey’s hopes of better relations with Greece were dashed by Greece’s economic collapse. Moreover, having quarrelled with Turkey, Israel hurried to embrace Greece, as well as the Greek-speaking Republic of Cyprus, joining with it in the exploitation of gas finds in the eastern Mediterranean, to the anger of Turkish-speaking northern Cyprus and of Turkey itself.

On the commercial front, Qadhafi’s overthrow put an end to several big Turkish contracts in Libya, while Turkey’s expanding business with Saudi Arabia and the Arab Gulf states was dealt a harsh blow by the disruption of road traffic across Syria due to the uprising there. Turkey’s once friendly relations with Iran suffered because they now found themselves on opposite sides of the Syrian conflict, while Turkish relations with Iraq suffered because of Turkey’s close ties with the autonomous Kurdish Regional Government in northern Iraq (including providing the KRG with facilities to export oil direct to Turkey, to the fury of Baghdad.)

Instead of “no problems with neighbours,” Turkey is now beset with grave problems on almost every front. Inevitably, Ahmet Davutoglu’s star has waned. No longer the master strategist, he is seen as an amateur politician struggling to survive.

The real turning point was Turkey’s impetuous decision to back the Syrian rebels against President Bashar al-Asad’s regime. At a stroke, Turkey’s partnership with Syria collapsed, bringing down the whole of Turkey’s Arab policy. Instead of attempting to resolve the Syrian conflict by mediation — which it was well placed to do — Turkey took sides. It provided house room in Istanbul for the civilian Syrian opposition and camps for the Free Syrian Army and other fighting groups. Under Turkish protection, the Syrian rebels now control a narrow strip of territory of some 70 kilometres along the Syrian-Turkish border.

Turkey and Syria are virtually at war. In retaliation for Turkey’s role in channelling funds, weapons and intelligence to the rebels, Syria seems to be encouraging the PKK — and its Syrian affiliate, the PYD — to turn up the heat on Turkey. The PYD has occupied five largely Kurdish towns in northern Syria, from which Syrian government forces were deliberately withdrawn. If Syria’s Kurds gain anything like the autonomy already enjoyed by Iraq’s Kurds, then Turkey’s own Kurds are bound to press their claims for political rights and freedoms. In eastern Turkey, the PKK’s 28-year insurgency seems to be springing back to life with deadly ambushes against military targets, such as last Sunday’s attack which killed a dozen Turkish soldiers. The struggle to put a lid on Kurdish militancy could once again become Turkey’s most painful and disruptive domestic problem.

A real headache for Turkey is the massive influx of Syrian refugees. To stem the flood, Turkey has closed its frontier with Syria for the time being. Syrian refugees in Turkey are said to number over 80,000, lodged in nine tented camps. Five more camps are under construction, which could house another 30,000 refugees. Turkey says it cannot realistically take in more than about 100,000, without help from other countries and international organisations. Hosting the refugees has already cost Turkey an estimated 135 million euros — and no doubt will cost a great deal more.

Should Turkey revise its Syria policy? Instead of joining in Washington’s (and Israel’s) war against Tehran and Damascus, Ankara might be well advised to revert back, step by step, to a more neutral stance. Lakhdar Brahimi, the new UN peace envoy, needs Turkey’s help in his difficult task of mediating a peaceful resolution of the Syrian conflict. That would be the way to restore Turkey’s Middle East policy to its former glory. Turkey needs urgently to rethink its relations with all its neighbours — Syria first among them.

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: 04 September 2012
Word Count: 1,152
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Although he has been in office only since June 30 — a bare two months — President Muhammad Morsi of Egypt has already embarked on bold foreign policy initiatives which risk bringing him into confrontation with the United States and Israel. It is a risk he is evidently prepared to take. Indeed, his goal appears to be to recover a measure of independence from the tutelage of these powers. If he succeeds, he will win the plaudits of the vast majority of Egyptians.

The immediate area of possible confrontation is over the extreme pressure which the United States, egged on by Israel, is putting on the Iranian and Syrian regimes, with the evident intention of bringing them down. The U.S. is seeking to cripple Iran’s economy with unprecedented sanctions and is backing the armed Syrian rebels in their attempt to topple President Bashar al-Asad.

President Morsi will have none of it. Braving the displeasure of the United States and Israel, he is refusing to isolate or demonise Iran. On the contrary, he has chosen to attend this week’s gathering of Non-Aligned countries in Tehran — the first Egyptian President to visit the Islamic Republic since the overthrow of the Shah in 1979. He broke the ice with Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinjad some weeks ago when they met at an Islamic summit in Mecca. By all accounts, their meeting was extremely cordial.

Again, in direct opposition to Washington, President Morsi evidently prefers to resolve the Syrian crisis by negotiation rather than war. He has proposed that the region’s four main Muslim powers — Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Iran and Turkey — form a contact group to oversee a negotiated settlement. In other words, he is telling the United States and NATO to keep out of Syria and leave it to local powers. (Morsi’s move poses a tricky dilemma for Turkish diplomacy: Should Turkey, a NATO power, side with the U.S. in channelling arms, funds and intelligence to the Syrian rebels or would it be wiser for Ankara to join in a regional effort to end the conflict by negotiation?)

U.S. President Barack Obama has invited Dr. Morsi to visit Washington in September — no doubt to give him a diplomatic dressing down. But, in yet another assertion of Egyptian independence, Dr. Morsi plans to visit Beijing and Tehran first. It may be his way of signalling that he will not tolerate being lectured to.

An even more serious subject of contention concerns the military annexes of the1979 Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty, which President Morsi, like most Egyptians, would like to revise. When a band of gunmen surged out of Sinai on 5 August and attacked an Egyptian army checkpoint on the Egyptian-Gaza border, killing 16 Egyptian soldiers and wounding several more, Morsi promptly sent a strong force of troops, helicopters and tanks in hot pursuit of them. But, according to the military annexes, Egypt should have sought Israel’s prior agreement before sending tanks into Sinai, even though it is sovereign Egyptian territory. It would seem that Morsi did not feel the need to do so.

When, last September, I interviewed Amr Moussa, former Egyptian foreign minister and veteran Arab League secretary-general — who was then a candidate for the Egyptian presidency — he called for a revision of the military annexes. “The Peace Treaty will continue to exist,” he told me, “but Egypt needs forces in Sinai. The security situation requires it. Israel must understand that the restrictions imposed by the Treaty have to be reviewed.” President Morsi evidently shares this view.

This sort of talk is not to Israel’s liking. The New York Times reported on 22 August that Israel was “troubled” by the lack of advance coordination and had asked Cairo to withdraw its tanks. But Israel finds itself in a cleft stick: It wants Egypt to maintain order in the lawless and turbulent wastes of Sinai, yet it fears that armed Egyptian deployments might one day threaten its security.

Dennis Ross of the Washington Institute (an outgrowth of the Israeli lobby, AIPAC) used strong words in the Washington Post on 19 August to censure Morsi for moving tanks into Sinai without notifying Israel. “If this behavior continues,” he thundered, “U.S. support, which will be essential for gaining international economic aid and fostering investment, will not be forthcoming.” Known as “Israel’s lawyer” for his decades-long defence of Israeli interests when he was in government, Ross clearly thinks that he still speaks for the American administration. Let us hope he is mistaken.

Another of President Morsi’s moves, which alarmed Washington and Tel Aviv, was his sudden sacking of a clutch of very senior officers — the very men with whom Israel and the United States had established close relations over the years. These remnants of the Mubarak regime include defence minister Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi, chief of staff General Sami Anan, the heads of the Navy, Air Force and Air Defence, intelligence chief Murad Mowafi, and other commanders. President Morsi has named Lt. Gen Abdelfattah El-Sisi as the new defence minister, and Lt. Gen Sedky Sobhi as the new chief of staff. Both men, it would appear, share Dr. Morsi’s wish to break free from excessive American and Israeli influence.

The immediate and overriding priority of Dr. Morsi and his team will be to revive Egypt’s economy, now in a dire state. Some 85 million people need to be fed. Job creation will be essential. Government services have to be restored. Massive external aid will be required. In the circumstances, there is no danger of the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty being scrapped. No Egyptian can today conceive of war with Israel. Nor will the Egyptian military readily sacrifice the $1.3bn annual subsidy it receives from the United States to keep the peace with Israel.

But President Morsi will undoubtedly seek to forge a new relationship with both the United States and Israel. From now on Egypt is likely to be less tolerant of Israel’s outrageous treatment of the Palestinians, under continued siege and occupation. He has already stressed the need to address the long-neglected Palestine question. He will be less ready than his predecessor to accept Israel’s relentless war-mongering against Iran. Although he will not be able to challenge Israel’s military supremacy — financed, equipped and guaranteed by the United States — he will seek to end the abuse Israel has made of this supremacy, notably its repeated aggressions against its neighbours.

Many Egyptians have a certain feeling of guilt about the 1979 peace treaty with Israel. They know that, by removing Egypt from the Arab military equation, the Treaty gave Israel more than thirty years of unchallenged military dominance — and with it the freedom to strike its neighbours at will, without the risk of being hit back. Lebanon, the Palestinians, Iraq and Syria have all experienced Israel’s assaults.

President Morsi’s evident ambition is to restore some balance to Middle East power relationships. It will be fascinating to see how he goes about this high-risk enterprise, and how the United States and Israel choose to react to Egypt’s new assertiveness.

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 August 2012
Word Count: 1,166
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Half a century ago, in 1962, when I was the Middle East correspondent of the British Sunday newspaper, The Observer, I learned that Algeria, following its hard-won independence from France, had sent an ambassador to Cairo and that President Gamal Abd al-Nasser had put at his disposal one of King Farouk’s palaces. The ambassador’s name was Lakhdar Brahimi. As I was in Cairo at the time, I decided to call on him.

The palace seemed deserted. There was no one at the gate. I walked in and made my way through the gardens towards the great house, hoping to find someone there. Then I saw a gardener digging in one of the flower beds. “Where can I find Ambassador Brahimi?” I asked him. “I am Lakhdar Brahimi,” he replied. This was my first — but fortunately not my last — encounter with this remarkable man.

I have had the privilege of many conversations with him over the years — when he was ambassador to London in the 1970s, deputy secretary-general of the Arab League in Cairo in the 1980s, Algerian Foreign Minister in the early 1990s, or between his many assignments in Lebanon, South Africa, Haiti, Afghanistan and Iraq. He was also kind enough to receive me at his home in Paris on a number of occasions.

What is the key to his personality? I would suggest that it is his utter conviction that negotiation rather than war is the best way to resolve conflicts — of which the Middle East has more than its fair share.

My guess is that he reached this conclusion because of the torment his country suffered in its nearly eight-year struggle for independence from France, 1954-1962, the most bitter of modern anti-colonial wars. No savagery was omitted in that terrible war. Its catalogue of horrors included numerous acts of terrorism, cruel massacres, barbarous torture, ferocious counter-insurgency and equally ferocious reprisals. Devilish instincts were released on both sides. About 750,000 Algerians died and another two million were uprooted. France lost about 25,000 men. And after the war another 100,000 pro-French Muslims were murdered by the National Liberation Front. The war brought down France’s Fourth Republic, carried General de Gaulle back to power, and anchored the Algerian army and security services in their country’s political life to this day. It was a trauma from which, one might argue, neither Algeria nor France has yet fully recovered. Certainly it has had profound effects on the subsequent history of both countries.

Lakhdar Brahimi has many qualities which prepare him for his difficult task in Syria. First of all, as a man of the Maghrib, he views the turbulent Mashriq with a certain valuable detachment. In other words, he comes to the conflict with no emotional baggage. Secondly, he is well-known and respected by all the Arab leaders, and also by the leaders of the external powers most directly involved in the conflict — the United States, Russia, Britain, France and Turkey. All have welcomed his appointment as U.N peace envoy. Thirdly, few people on the international political scene today can match his personal experience at mediating conflicts in different parts of the world.

But are the parties to the Syrian conflict ready for a deal? Can the many different fighting groups on the streets agree to put up their guns, even for a short spell, to allow negotiations to start? Can the squabbling exiles in Turkey and elsewhere agree on a common negotiating position? Can the Muslim Brothers be brought to the table with the regime? Is President Bashar al-Asad prepared to make the painful compromises which must eventually set a term to his leadership?

Lakhdar Brahimi is likely to tell all sides that their Syrian nation — its safety, stability, territorial integrity and the welfare of its population — is far more important than their individual ambitions and hates.

This is what he said in his first statement after his appointment as U.N. peace envoy:
“Syrians must come together as a nation in the quest for a new formula. This is the only way to ensure that all Syrians can live together peacefully, in a society not based on fear of reprisal, but on tolerance. In the meantime, the U.N. Security Council and regional states must unite to ensure that a political transition can take place as soon as possible.

“Millions of Syrians are clamouring for peace. World leaders cannot remain divided any longer, over and above their cries.”

Lakhdar Brahimi has some advantages over Kofi Annan, his unfortunate predecessor as peace envoy. The most notable of these advantages is that the various parties to the conflict are beginning to understand that a clear victory by either side is unlikely, and that a prolonged war will destroy the country and will serve no one’s interest — except Israel.

The Syrian regime does not seem about to fall but nor can it easily win what has become a hit-and-run urban guerrilla campaign, funded and armed from outside. The rebels may be getting better armed and organised but, to their bitter disappointment, they are beginning to grasp that they cannot count on an external military intervention. And without such an intervention they are unlikely to defeat the Syrian army. Washington, in turn, is beginning to worry that, if morejihadis join the fighting, Syria could turn into another Afghanistan. The last thing the United States wants is to find itself on the same side in Syria as Al-Qaida! Saudi Arabia and Qatar know that if a regional war were to break out — say between the United States and Israel against Iran — their economic and political interests could suffer. They might even find themselves in the line of fire.

Key regional leaders — King Abdallah bin Abdulaziz of Saudi Arabia, President Muhammad Morsi of Egypt, and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran — are beginning to assume their joint responsibility to put an end to the conflict. Ahmadinejad attended the recent Islamic summit in Mecca, where he had an apparently cordial exchange of views with the Saudi monarch. Morsi, who was also at the Mecca summit, is to attend the Non-Aligned Movement conference in Tehran later this month, the first visit to Iran by an Egyptian president in decades.

President Morsi is reported to have suggested that Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Turkey and Iran form a contact group to resolve the Syrian crisis through discussion and reconciliation. This is a promising development since it suggests that major regional powers are beginning to take the destinies of their region in hand, free from the ambitions of outsiders. They face no easy task because, overshadowing the Syrian crisis, is the evident ambition of the United States and Israel to affirm their regional supremacy.

Such is the challenging context of Lakhdar Brahimi’s peace mission. He must be given every chance to succeed.

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 August 2012
Word Count: 1,127
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The Middle East is facing an acute danger of war, with unpredictable and potentially devastating consequences for the states and populations of the region. A ‘shadow war’ is already being waged — by Israel and the United States against Iran; by a coalition of countries against Syria; and by the great powers against each other. A mere spark could set this tinder alight.

The threat of a hot war is coming from three main directions: first, from Israel’s relentless and increasingly hysterical war-mongering against Iran; second, from America’s geopolitical ambitions in the oil-rich Gulf and its complicity in Israel’s anti-Iranian campaign; and third, from the naked hostility of some Sunni Arab States towards Iran — and towards Shi‘is and Alawis in general.

These Arab states are apparently unaware that they are playing into the hands of Israeli and American hawks who dream of re-modelling the region in order to subject it to their will. This same neo-con ambition drove the United States to invade and destroy Iraq in the hope of permanently enfeebling it.

The current Israeli war fever rests on a blatant falsehood: that Iran poses an ‘existential threat’ to the Jewish people. What a joke! The only threat Iran poses is this: Were it to develop the means and skills to build an atomic weapon — without actually doing so — it would thereby acquire a limited deterrent capability. That is to say, Israel might hesitate to attack it. Israel’s freedom to attack its other neighbours would also be restricted — a freedom it has enjoyed for decades, as may be seen from its numerous wars and assaults on the Palestinians, Iraq, Lebanon and Syria.

Israel wants unfettered military supremacy. This is what the fuss is all about. It wants the freedom to hit Iran and any other country that dares raise its head, without the risk of being hit back. It does not want any Middle East state or movement to be able to protect itself — hence its bitter animus against resistance movements such as Hizballah and Hamas, which have survived Israeli attempts to destroy them, and refuse to be cowed.

Israel’s Prime Minister Netanyahu and Defence Minister Ehud Barak are evidently itching to bring down the regime in Tehran — and indeed the whole so-called ‘resistance axis’ of Iran, Syria and Hizballah, which in recent years has been the only credible barrier to Israeli and American ambitions. But the Arabs should reflect that the destruction of this barrier will mean abandoning the Palestinians to their tragic fate and exposing the Gulf States themselves to future Israeli and American pressures and possible assaults.

Israel would, of course, prefer the United States to bring down the Iranian regime by itself — much as it brought down Saddam Hussein’s regime in Iraq. Netanyahu may be tempted to strike first, but only if he is sure that President Barack Obama will join in the attack or be compelled to do so, because of his alleged need to win Jewish votes in November’s presidential elections. Obama desperately wants to avoid being dragged into another war. To head off an Israeli attack, he has, in the words of his spokesman, imposed on Iran “the most stringent sanctions ever imposed on any country.”

A solution to the crisis lies in the hands of the two major regional powers, Saudi Arabia and Iran. Although they are often seen as rivals, they could also be partners, since they share a strong interest in the peace and security of the Gulf. There are small but promising signs that they are reaching out to each other. It is striking that the recent summit in Tehran of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) and the gathering in Riyadh of members of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC) reached much the same conclusions regarding the civil war in Syria. Members at both meetings stressed the need for a ceasefire to stop the bloodshed, followed by political negotiations and the formation of a national unity government. A hopeful sign was the presence of Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at the OIC summit in Riyadh.

Disastrous as it is, the Syrian civil war is only a sub-plot in a far wider contest. Whether President Bashar al-Asad remains temporarily at the head of the regime in Damascus, or is persuaded to quit the scene, is far from being the main issue. Those pressing for war do not care about who rules in Damascus. They simply want Syria enfeebled, preferably dismembered, and its allies crippled.

Issues of profound importance for the Arabs are at stake in this ferocious test of wills. Will the existing pattern of Arab nation states survive the crisis or will it fracture? Can Sunnis and Shi‘is learn to live together in harmony under the banner of Islam or are they doomed to fight each other for another thousand years? Can the security of ethnic and religious minorities, which have contributed for centuries to the rich diversity of the region, be guaranteed? And what will be the outcome for Arab independence itself?

We are witnessing today the latest phase of the struggle for Arab independence. It began a century ago when the Arabs sought to throw off Ottoman rule. But when the Ottoman Empire collapsed in the First World War, the Arabs fell instead under the control of Britain and France who divided the Arab world between them. And when these colonial powers were finally forced out, the Arabs were confronted by the even deadlier threat of an aggressive and expansionist Israel.

American influence over the region has long been predominant, especially after the collapse of the Soviet Union a generation ago. Today, as the United States wrestles with economic problems and the legacy of catastrophic wars, it is also being challenged by new emergent powers. A further handicap for the United States is that it has allowed Israel to dictate its Middle East policy. The Arabs should reflect that a regional war, driven by Israel, risks robbing them of the little real independence they have so far managed to secure.

Can war be prevented? King Abdallah bin Abdulaziz of Saudi Arabia is one of the wisest leaders on the international stage. He alone has the political weight, the resources, and the influence with both the United States and the Muslim rebels in Syria to check the region’s downward rush to disaster. He seems torn between his understandable distaste for some Iranian policies and his instinctive understanding of the need for better Saudi-Iranian relations. Several Gulf officials, in turn, are torn between their fear of a powerful Iran and their understanding that members of the Gulf Cooperation Council share many commercial and strategic interests with the Islamic Republic.

Instead of siding with the United States and Israel in the destruction of Iran and Syria, Saudi Arabia and its Gulf allies should join with Iran in building a new security system for the region free from external meddling. If they act together, they can spare the region the devastation of war. But they must act soon because time is running out.

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 August 2012
Word Count: 1,171
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