Once one of the most solid states in the Middle East and a key pivot of the regional power structure, Syria is now facing wholesale destruction. The consequences of the unfolding drama are likely to be disastrous for Syria’s territorial integrity, for the well-being of its population, for regional peace, and for the interests of external powers deeply involved in the crisis.

The most immediate danger is that the fighting in Syria, together with the current severe pressure being put on Syria’s Iranian ally, will provide the spark for a wider conflagration from which no one will be immune.

How did it come to this? Every actor in the crisis bears a share of responsibility. Syria is the victim of the fears and appetites of its enemies but also of its own leaders’ mistakes.

With hindsight, it can be seen that President Bashar al-Asad missed the chance to reform the tight security state he inherited in 2000 from his father. Instead of recognising — and urgently addressing — the thirst for political freedoms, personal dignity and economic opportunity which were the message of the ‘Damascus Spring’ of his first year in power, he screwed the lid down ever more tightly.

Suffocating controls over every aspect of Syrian society were reinforced, and made harder to bear by the blatant corruption and privileges of the few and the hardships suffered by the many. Physical repression became routine. Instead of cleaning up his security apparatus, curbing police brutality and improving prison conditions, he allowed them to remain as gruesome and deplorable as ever.

Above all, over the past decade Bashar al-Asad and his close advisers failed to grasp the revolutionary potential of two key developments — Syria’s population explosion and the long-term drought which the country suffered from 2006 to 2010, the worst in several hundred years. The first produced an army of semi-educated young people unable to find jobs; the second resulted in the forced exodus of hundreds of thousands of farmers from their parched fields to slums around the major cities. Herders in the north-east lost 85% of their livestock. It is estimated that by 2011, some two to three million Syrians had been driven into extreme poverty. No doubt climate change was responsible, but government neglect and incompetence contributed to the disaster.

These two factors — youth unemployment and rural disaffection — were the prime motors of the uprising which spread like wildfire, once it was triggered by a brutal incident at Dar‘a in March 2011. The foot-soldiers of the uprising are unemployed urban youth and impoverished peasants.

Could the regime have done something about it? Yes, it could. As early as 2006-7, it could have alerted the world to the situation, devoted all available resources to urgent job creation, launched a massive relief programme for its stricken population and mobilised its citizens for these tasks. No doubt major international aid agencies and rich Gulf countries would have helped had the plans been in place.

Instead, the regime’s gaze was distracted by external threats: by the Lebanese crisis of 2005 following the assassination of Rafic Hariri; by Israel’s bid to destroy Hizballah by its invasion of Lebanon in 2006; by its attack on Syria’s nuclear facility in 2007; and by its bid to destroy Hamas in its murderous assault on Gaza in 2008-9.

From the start of Bashar al-Asad’s presidency, Syria has faced relentless efforts by Israel and its complicit American ally to bring down the so-called ‘resistance axis’ of Tehran-Damascus-Hizballah, which dared challenge the regional dominance of Israel and the United States.

Syria had a narrow escape in 2003-4. Led by the Pentagon’s Paul Wolfowitz, the pro-Israeli neo-cons embedded in President George W. Bush’s administration were determined to reshape the region in Israel’s and America’s interest. Their first target was Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, seen as a potential threat to Israel. Had the United States been successful in Iraq, Syria would have been next. Neither Iraq nor the United States has yet recovered from the catastrophic Iraqi war, of which Wolfowitz was the chief ‘architect’.

Syria and its Iranian ally are once again under imminent threat. The United States and Israel make no secret of their goal to bring down both the Damascus and Tehran regimes. No doubt some Israeli strategists believe that it would be greatly to their country’s advantage if Syria were dismembered and permanently weakened by the creation of a small Alawi state around the port-city of Latakia in the north-west, in much the same way as Iraq was dismembered and permanently weakened by the creation of the Kurdish Regional Government in the north of the country, with its capital at Irbil. It is not easy to be the neighbour of an expansionist and aggressive Jewish state, which believes that its security is best assured, not by making peace with its neighbours, but by subverting, destabilising and destroying them with the aid of American power.

The United States and Israel are not Syria’s only enemies. The Syrian Muslim Brothers have been dreaming of revenge ever since their attempt 30 years ago to topple Syria’s secular Ba‘thist regime by a campaign of terror was crushed by Hafiz al-Asad, Syria’s President at the time. Today, the Muslim Brothers are repeating the mistake they made then by resorting to terror with the aid of foreign Salafists, including some Al-Qaida fighters flowing into Syria from Iraq, Lebanon, Turkey, Jordan and other countries further afield. The liberal members of the Syrian opposition in exile, including several worthy academics and veteran opponents, are providing political cover for these more violent elements.

Some Arab Gulf States persist in viewing the region through a sectarian prism. They are worried by Iran’s alleged hegemonic ambitions. They are unhappy that Iraq — once a Sunni power able to hold Iran in check — is now under Shia leadership. Talk of an emerging ‘Shia Crescent’ appears to threaten Sunni dominance. For these reasons they are funding and arming the Syrian rebels in the hope that bringing down the Syrian regime will sever Iran’s ties with the Arab world. But this policy will simply prolong Syria’s agony, claim the lives of some of its finest men and cause massive material damage.

America, the dominant external power, has made many grievous policy blunders. Over the past several decades it failed to persuade its stubborn Israeli ally to make peace with the Palestinians, leading to peace with the whole Arab world. It embarked on catastrophic wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. It failed to reach a ‘grand bargain’ with Iran which would have dispelled the spectre of war in the Gulf and stabilised the volatile region. And it is now quarrelling with Moscow and reviving the Cold War by sabotaging Kofi Annan’s peace plan for Syria.

There can be no military solution to the Syrian crisis. The only way out of the current nightmare is a ceasefire imposed on both sides, followed by a negotiation and the formation of a national government to oversee a transition. Only thus can Syria avoid wholesale destruction, which could take a generation or two to repair.

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

—————
Released: 24 July 2012
Word Count: 1,173
—————-

The triumphant emergence of Islamic movements after decades of repression is one of the more striking features of the Arab revolutions of the past 18 months. How these movements behave once they are in government will be closely watched. Each of them has an extremist fringe, apparently determined to abolish the divide between religion and politics, dear to Western opinion. The key question, therefore, is this: Will Islamic leaders now in power be able to tame the radicals in their ranks?

This is the challenge facing Mohammad Morsi, Egypt’s new President, and Rashed Ghannouchi, the historic leader of Tunisia’s Ennahda (Renaissance) party. Their Islamist movements both won democratic elections and are now in the driver’s seat. Islamists have also made gains elsewhere. In Morocco, they wrested a share of power from the King, while in Yemen and Jordan they could score further victories in the coming year. In post-Qadhafi Libya, the Islamists, against all expectations, were defeated at this month’s elections by a coalition of 58 parties led by Mahmoud Jibril, the former head of Libya’s transitional council. But they hope to win at elections next May.

In Syria the contest is fiercest. Islamists are engaged in a life-and-death battle with President Bashar al-Asad, whose regime rests essentially on the secular Ba‘th Party, on minorities such as Chistians and Druze, on some members of the commercial and professional middle classes, and on the military force of his own Alawi community. Both sides are fighting with the utmost ruthlessness. It is kill or be killed. The outcome of the contest is still uncertain, but the wounds in Syrian society are already very deep, and must inevitably shape the nature of any successor regime.

The West may not like it, but in country after country across the Arab world the Islamists’ day has come. Minorities may tremble. The educated middle classes may fear for their Western-style way of life. Liberated women may dread being forced back into purdah. Israel may worry about the survival of its 1979 peace treaty with Egypt, which has guaranteed the regional supremacy of the Jewish state for more than three decades. But these fears may be greatly exaggerated.

Both Mohammad Morsi and Rashed Ghannouchi are highly-intelligent, modernising Muslims whose immediate priority is not to impose the shari‘a but rather to create jobs for their armies of unemployed youths, provide security for all citizens, restore the authority of the state, and generally revive their economies after the ravages of the past year.

Morsi has a doctorate in engineering from the University of Southern California. He spent several years studying and teaching in America. Two of his five children, born in the United States, are American citizens. Ghannouchi has had an essentially Islamic education but his open-mindedness may be seen in the careers of his daughters. One has a doctorate in astrophysics, another is a human rights lawyer who studied at Cambridge and the London School of Economics, and a third is a philosophy graduate and researcher at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London

To fulfil their daunting programmes, the Islamists in Egypt and Tunisia must form coalitions with local allies and keep fanatical extremists down. To calm the fears of women and of Christian Copts — the latter some 10% of Egypt’s population — President Morsi has even suggested appointing a Christian woman as vice-president! Aware of the magnitude of the task facing it in Tunisia, Enahda has formed a governing coalition with two other parties — Moncef Marzouki’s Congress for the Republic, and Mustapha Ben Jaafar’s Ettakatol. Marzouki is now President of the Tunisian Republic and Ben Jaafar is Speaker of the constituent assembly.

At this month’s Ennahda conference — its first since its victory at the polls last October — Rached Ghannouchi went out of his way to project an image of tolerance and moderation, which is essential if foreign investors and tourists are to be attracted back to Tunisia.

The Islamist revival across the Arab world springs from many roots. It is powered by a popular reaction against corrupt dictators and brutal security services. It is a reaction against Western domination and against leaders who seemed to give primacy to Western strategic interests over the aspirations of their people. Both Morsi and Ghannouchi are surely aware that only leaders able to assert their country’s independence vis-a-vis external powers will have the legitimacy to keep their own extremists at bay. The Islamic revival also reflects popular outrage at Israel’s oppression of the Palestinians, and at the West’s wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, not to speak of America’s lethal counter-insurgency operations in Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia and elsewhere — all widely seen as wars against Islam.

Above all, the Islamists are reacting against decades of cruel repression in their own countries. In Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood, founded in 1928, was disbanded in 1948 and scores of its members jailed when they were suspected of plotting a coup against the monarch. A year later, Hasan al-Banna, the movement’s founder, was gunned down at the early age of 42, almost certainly by King Farouk’s security agents. When the Muslim Brotherhood tried to assassinate Egypt’s revolutionary leader Gamal Abd al-Nasser in 1954, many thousands were arrested, and half a dozen of its leaders hanged. The movement was dissolved, causing many prominent members to flee abroad. Repression and mass arrests of Muslim Brothers continued under the regime of Husni Mubarak, until he was toppled last year.

In Tunisia, the Ennahda party was driven underground for a quarter of a century by President Habib Bourguiba and his successor Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali. Rached Ghannouchi himself, sentenced and jailed many times, spent over 20 years in exile in Britain. In Algeria, the army fought the Islamists in a bitter 10-year civil war in the1990s in which more than 150,000 people perished. Some Algerian Islamists, veterans of the civil war, are today behind the insurgency in northern Mali to Algeria’s great concern. In Libya, the late Colonel Muammar Qadhafi hunted down the Islamists whenever he could.

In Syria, an attempt by the Muslim Brothers to kill President Hafiz al-Asad in 1980, and overthrow his regime in a campaign of terror, was brutally crushed in 1982 with great loss of life. The movement was outlawed for the next 30 years and membership was punishable by death. Today, the Islamists dream of revenge.

In Yemen, Ali Abdallah Salih, who ruled from 1978 to last year, made use of the Islamists to defeat the Marxists and secessionists of South Yemen but, when he found himself compelled to join America’s ‘war on terror’, he turned against them. Now that he has gone, they hope to restore their fortunes.

Against this harsh background, it would not be surprising if Islamists embraced extremist, revanchist views. It will demand courage and vision for their leaders to embrace a moderate, tolerant Islam that recognises diversity, accepts modernity, delivers social justice, asserts national independence and sovereignty, and — above all — creates jobs. Only by recognising that their countries live in an inter-dependent world will they 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

—————
Released: 17 July 2012
Word Count: 1,168
—————-

“Dialogue is the strategy of the brave.” This is the striking phrase I heard from the mouth of Norway’s Foreign Minister, Jonas Gahr Store, one of the wisest of European statesmen, when I attended the Oslo Forum last month, an annual gathering of would-be mediators of the world’s conflicts. Rarely has dialogue been more necessary than in today’s deeply disturbed Middle East.

In Syria, the present fierce struggle is unlikely to yield a decisive outcome. Even if funds and weapons continue to pour in to the rebels, the latter will not be able to defeat the Syrian army on their own. The opposition prays for an external military intervention, but this is not likely to happen. The mood in the United States and Europe is to withdraw from Middle East conflicts not to get sucked into yet another one. In any event, so long as the Syrian opposition remains deeply divided it will have no hope of achieving its goals.

What then are we left with? More of the present bloody stalemate in which many more people will die or be displaced from their homes. Syria will be destroyed to the delight of its enemies — Israel first among them.

Even if President Bashar al-Asad were to quit the scene, the opposition would still have to reach a negotiated compromise with Syria’s powerful officer corps and security services — the backbone of the regime — as well as with representatives of the various minorities, which are an ancient and essential part of Syrian’s social fabric.

Only a dialogue, preceded by a ceasefire honoured by both sides, could save Syria from the catastrophe of a sectarian civil war, in which there would be no winners, only losers. This is what Kofi Annan, the UN-mandated mediator, is trying to achieve. He should be supported not undermined. The deal now being negotiated in Egypt between the Muslim Brothers and the armed forces could provide a model for Syria.

Dangerous tensions in the Gulf could also be fruitfully contained through dialogue. It is reported that Egypt’s President Muhammad Morsi is soon to pay an official visit to the Saudi monarch, King Abdallah, and has also accepted an invitation to visit Iran’s President Ahmadinejad. Imagine what a formidable diplomatic coup it would be for Egypt if President Morsi were to initiate a tripartite strategic dialogue between Cairo, Riyadh and Tehran. Acting together, these three major capitals could resolve many of the region’s conflicts, and put an end to destabilising interventions by outside powers.

Egypt and Saudi Arabia, could, through dialogue and cooperation, draw Iran into the security architecture of the region. That would be a far better recipe for stability and peace than a policy of threats, sanctions and intimidation.

In spite of the propaganda emanating from Israel and Washington, there is no evidence that Iran wishes to acquire atomic weapons. Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ai Khamenei declared last February that the possession of such weapons would be “pointless, dangerous and a great sin from an intellectual and religious point of view.” He should be taken at his word. Western intelligence agencies have themselves confirmed that, while Iran wishes to master the uranium fuel cycle, it has not embarked on a military nuclear programme.

Nor is there any real evidence that the Gulf region faces a threat from Iran’s alleged “hegemonic ambitions.” I believe too much is made of Iran’s alleged role in stirring up Shia communities in the Gulf and in Saudi Arabia’s Eastern Province. The Islamic Republic is at present in no shape to threaten or dominate anyone. It is simply seeking to survive in the face of a campaign of cyber attacks, assassination and sabotage by the United States and Israel, which is just short of outright war. Crippling sanctions have reduced its oil exports by a million barrels a day; its currency has collapsed; and its hard-pressed population is struggling to cope with 30 percent inflation. Under such intense pressure, Iran may well lash out in frustration, triggering a regional hot war, which would definitely not be to the advantage of the vulnerable Gulf Arabs.

Instead of helping to resolve conflicts by promoting dialogue between the states of the region, the United States is reinforcing its armed forces in the Gulf region. It is reported to be bringing additional F-22 and F/A-18 warplanes to local bases, and is doubling its minesweepers from four to eight. A senior U.S. Defence Department official has explained that this deployment of American power is intended to provide “tangible proof to all of our allies and partners and friends that even as the U.S. pivots towards Asia, we remain vigilant across the Middle East.”

Is this really what the region wants to hear? The militarisation of American foreign policy started during the Cold War in response to what was perceived as a threat from the Soviet Union. Militarisation was then greatly expanded under George W. Bush’s administration. The result was two catastrophic wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, which have devastated these countries, bankrupted America and gravely damaged its reputation. The American historian William Polk has calculated that the United States has spent at least $2.59 trillion on ‘defence’ in the last five years, a large part of it on weapons, and is planning to spend 5% more in the next five years.

Israel and its neo-con allies in the United States are pushing the Obama administration to bring Iran to its knees, in much the same way as they pushed the Bush Administration to destroy Iraq. The Arabs should not lend their backing to this campaign. The conflicts of the region — and especially the dangerous tensions regarding Iran’s nuclear facilities — would best be settled by dialogue and compromise rather than by military force.

No doubt some Gulf countries fear they would be threatened by Iran if the American protective umbrella were removed. But even if the United States were to withdraw its bases from the region, as some U.S. strategic thinkers advocate, it would retain an ‘over-the-horizon’ naval presence which would surely provide adequate protection.

I have long argued in this column that it is not an Arab interest to make an enemy of Iran. The Gulf States and Iran have many commercial and strategic interests in common, not least the security of their vital region. The clear lesson of the present crises is that local powers should be able to protect themselves or reach a satisfactory accommodation with their non-Arab neighbours by means of dialogue and cooperation.

It is Israel that needs to be persuaded that its current policy of seizing Palestinian territory while seeking to weaken and destabilise its neighbours, is not the best way to ensure its own security. On the contrary, Israel’s long-term survival can only be assured if it normalises its relations with the Arabs, as well as with Iran, by allowing the emergence of a Palestinian state. Only a sincere and sustained dialogue can bring this about. That should be the urgent focus of the international community.

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

—————
Released: 10 July 2012
Word Count: 1,164
—————-

Yemen, like Pakistan, is a country where America’s counter-insurgency strategy has failed. The Obama administration has this year greatly increased the number of drone attacks in Yemen carried out by the CIA and by the U.S. Military’s Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC). Some150 militants are said to have been killed as well as unnumbered others who happened to be in the area of the strikes. It appears that any man of military age is automatically considered a ‘terrorist’. Large numbers of villagers have fled in terror from their homes.

The targeted killing of suspected ‘terrorists’ — the centrepiece of current U.S. strategy — has been at great political cost. It has aroused fierce anti-American sentiment among the local populations, largely because missile strikes inevitably cause the death of innocent civilians. Far from defeating the radicals, these cruel and somewhat indiscriminate strikes by unmanned Predator drones drive volunteer jihadis into ‘terrorist’ ranks while discrediting and de-legitimising local political leaders who — since they feel compelled to back U.S. policies in exchange for financial aid — are seen as U.S. stooges.

Pakistan has tended to receive more attention than Yemen, because of its close links to the catastrophic war in Afghanistan, now in its eleventh year. The United States needs the support of Pakistan — and indeed of Iran — if it is to manage something like an honourable withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2014. But the U.S. cannot cripple Iran with sanctions and expect it to lend a hand in Afghanistan. In turn, U.S. relations with Pakistan have come under great strain because of the drone attacks and a host of other violent incidents in which the U.S. is seen as trampling on Pakistani sovereignty — such as the killing of Osama bin Laden in the Pakistani city of Abbottabad in May 2011. The Pakistan Foreign Ministry has stated that drone attacks are “in total contradiction of international law and established norms of interstate relations.” The breakdown in U.S.-Pakistan relations, and the corresponding support Islamabad is giving to certain militant Afghan groups, have greatly complicated NATO’s task in Afghanistan.

Yemen is as important as Pakistan for regional peace, not least for the threat which its instability poses to the security of its northern neighbour, Saudi Arabia. Violent ripples from Yemen have also spread to Somalia, where the local Islamic militants, the Shabab, are said to have established close ties with their opposite numbers in south Arabia.

Yemen continues to be in the grip of intense political turmoil. It has by no means recovered from its long struggle to oust Ali Abdallah Salih, its former President, who was in power for 33 years. Earlier this year, he was at last persuaded — and pressured — to step down in favour of the former vice-president, Abd Rabbu Mansur al-Hadi.

The new President inherits a number of tasks of extraordinary difficulty: He must re-launch the collapsed economy, set in train a much-needed process of national reconciliation, tame the sons and nephews of the former ruler who still occupy important commands in the army and security services, while at the same time fight a rebellion in the north, a secessionist movement in the south, and Ansar al-Shari‘a, a militant group aligned with Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). This AQAP franchise, if that is what it is, appears to have won considerable local support in and around the southern port of Aden and its neighbouring provinces by administering Islamic justice, helping the poor and giving the locals a taste of clean government.

The man President al-Hadi appointed to fight Ansar al-Shari‘a, Maj. Gen. Salim Ali Qatn, was killed by a suicide bomber, said to be a Somali, in Aden last month after he claimed to have made some headway against the Islamic militants in Abyan province.

These many conflicts apart, Yemen is in desperate need of economic aid. UN agencies say that famine threatens 44% of the population. Nearly one million children are acutely malnourished. UNICEF says that half a million of them are likely to die in the coming months if immediate action is not taken. Water and oil are running out. The government’s budget deficit is estimated at $2.5bn.

At this critical juncture, when President al-Hadi urgently needs international support, a donors conference, which had been due to be held in Riyadh at the end of June, has been displaced to New York and postponed until late September. This is a bitter blow to the new government. It is bound to undermine its legitimacy, increase instability, and play into the hands of the militants.

Instead of encouraging, coordinating and overseeing a large and much needed aid programme for Yemen — which in any event would be largely financed by Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States — the United States has over the past ten to fifteen years tended to view the country through the narrow prism of counter-terrorism. That remains the fundamental weakness of U.S. policy towards Yemen today. The U.S. preoccupation with terrorism is understandable but wrong-headed. It suffered a severe shock when the USS Cole was attacked in Aden harbour on 12 October 2000. A speedboat piloted by two members of al-Qaida exploded several hundred pounds of explosives into the hull of the vessel, killing 17 U.S. sailors. The United States has pursued the terrorists relentlessly ever since, but with only mixed results.

Regrettably, the United States has failed to ask itself why Islamic militants hate it and want to punish it. Even the devastating attacks on the twin towers of the World Trade Centre on 11 September 2001 failed to stimulate an American national debate of sufficient seriousness and depth into the motives for the assault. Many Americans seem to have contented themselves with the simplistic view that their country was ‘good’ and their Islamic enemies ‘evil’.

In Yemen, the emergence of a militant Islamic movement over twenty years ago was largely the work of the so-called ‘Afghan Arabs’ — that is to say of former mujahidin whom the United States had recruited, armed and trained to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan in the 1980s, but which it then callously abandoned once the Soviets withdrew. Another grievance which has fed anti-American sentiment in Yemen is the way the United States punished Iraq — a country which had very close ties with Yemen — after the first Gulf War of 1991. Crippling sanctions were imposed on Iraq for thirteen years, much like those now imposed on Iran. Needless to say, the destruction of Iraq by the Anglo-American invasion of 2003 and the horrors of the long occupation that followed have not made America many Arab friends. And then there is that other major factor, which is forever eating away at America’s reputation and standing: its blind support for Israel in its continued oppression and dispossession of the Palestinians.

Far from easing these grievances, drone attacks only make them worse. A radical policy rethink allied to a massive aid programme might go some way to restoring American authority. But, in Washington’s current political climate, this task would seem to be at least as daunting as that confronting Yemen’s new President, the luckless Abd Rabbu Mansur al-Hadi.

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

—————
Released: 03 July 2012
Word Count: 1,179
—————-

Six conflict-zones of the Greater Middle East are in danger of erupting into fresh violence. In all six, the United States and its allies seem unable — or perversely unwilling — to contribute to a peaceful solution. Instead, in each case, they are adding fuel to the fire.

When President Barack Obama assumed office on January 20, 2009, he had a chance to put an end to America’s 30-year estrangement with Iran. There was even talk of a grand bargain which would have resolved fears about Iran’s nuclear programme and stabilised the Gulf by recognising Iran’s legitimate place and role in it. There was also a chance that U.S. engagement with Iran would calm Sunni-Shi‘i tensions across the region brought to boiling point by the Iraq war.

These hopes have proved vain. Instead, the United States has chosen to wage an undeclared war on Iran. It is crippling its economy by means of sanctions and has joined with Israel in subverting its nuclear and oil installations with cyber-attacks.

Moreover, in this year’s three rounds of talks between Iran and the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany (the so-called P5+1), the United States has refused to compromise. A deal was on offer whereby Iran would give up enriching uranium to 20% in exchange for an easing of sanctions and a recognition of its right under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty to master the nuclear fuel cycle for peaceful purposes. Instead, the United States has hardened its position by embracing Israel’s demand that Iran be forced, by means of further sanctions and military threats, to suspend all enrichment.

In piling on the pressure, the real goal of the United States and its Israeli ally would seem to be regime-change in Tehran, rather than putting an end by negotiation to Iran’s so far non-existent nuclear weapons programme. Israel’s friends in the U.S. Congress are already pressing the Obama administration to suspend the talks with Iran and resort instead to military measures. Just as Israel’s friends in George W. Bush’s administration pushed the United States into destroying Iraq, so the aim now would seem to be to push the U.S. into destroying Iran. Needless to say, if Iran is pressed too hard, the danger of a hot war breaking out is ever present.

The United States has also entered the fray in Syria, where the beleaguered Asad regime is facing a widespread urban guerrilla war together with terrorist attacks — suicide bombings, assassinations, destruction of public buildings — in large cities, including Damascus. All the major U.S. media – Fox News, Time, the Washington Post, the New York Times, the Christian Science Monitor, the Wall Street Journal – have reported that CIA officers in southern Turkey are ‘coordinating’ arms shipments from Saudi Arabia and Qatar to the Syrian rebels, especially, it would appear, to armed Islamic groups. Needless to say, arming the opposition is undercutting Kofi Annan’s peace plan for Syria.

It is Russia rather than the United States that is calling most urgently for a negotiated settlement of the crisis. In the Huffington Post of June 21, Russia’s foreign minister Sergei Lavrov wrote: “We need to bring all the weight to bear on both the regime and the opposition and make them cease fighting and meet at the negotiating table.” He called for the convening of “an international conference of the states directly involved in the Syrian crisis…. Only in this way can we keep the Middle East from sliding into the abyss of wars and anarchy.” Lavrov rightly sees the assault on Syria as “an element of a larger regional geopolitical game.” Indeed, instead of joining Russia in pressing for an evolutionary transition of power in Syria, the United States has adopted as its own the Israeli ambition of bringing down the whole so-called “resistance axis” of Iran, Syria and Hizballah, which has dared make a dent in Israel’s regional hegemony.

Campaigning for re-election and under intense pressure from the Israeli lobby and from a pro-Israeli Congress, Obama is silent when it comes to Israel’s continuing land grab on the West Bank and the unpunished violence of fanatical settlers against helpless Palestinians. Just as he has lost control to Israel of U.S. foreign policy when it comes to Iran, so Obama has collapsed in front of the Greater Israel ambitions of Israel’s Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu.

Some commentators are already predicting the outbreak of a third intifada. Palestinian frustrations are very great. They know that Israel will not grant them a state unless it is forced to do so. Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian Authority president, has protected Israel from Palestinian militants but has received absolutely nothing in return. His Hamas rivals in Gaza have, for their part, been greatly encouraged by the election to the Egyptian presidency of Muhammad Mursi of the Muslim Brotherhood. The coming phase could be very bloody.

The fourth, fifth and sixth conflict-zones in the Greater Middle East are in Afghanistan/Pakistan, Yemen, and increasingly in the Sahel, where NATO’s violent overthrow of Muammar Qadhafi has had the unforeseen consequence of spreading mayhem in Mali, Niger and other countries bordering the Sahara. Hungry violent men, once recruited as mercenaries by Qadhafi, have now returned home with their weapons. In Mali, the northern half of the country has fallen to a Touareg rebellion stiffened by armed Islamist groups close to al-Qaida. Algeria and all the West African states are deeply concerned by these developments but do not quite know what to do about them. It will no doubt not be long before U.S. drones carry out targeted assassinations in the region.

In Afghanistan, Pakistan and Yemen, long-distance killings by U.S. drones have become the instruments of choice in America’s counter-terrorist operations, to the rage of local populations and the loss of legitimacy of their leaders. In American thinking, drones and cyberwarfare are now a substitute for large-scale military operations — and also a substitute for negotiations and the peaceful resolution of conflicts.

In Pakistan, a Taleban commander has banned polio vaccinations in the tribal belt of North Waziristan until the CIA halts its drone campaign. This is because a CIA agent, Dr. Shakil Afridi, ran a vaccination campaign in Abbottabad, which helped lead the United States to Osama Bin Laden’s hiding place in that city, and his subsequent killing by U.S. Special forces in May last year. Dr Afridi has been convicted by a tribal court in Pakistan to 33 years in prison.

American practices of doubtful legality have provoked a despairing cry from former President Jimmy Carter who, in an article in the International Herald Tribune of 25 June, declared: “As concerned citizens, we must persuade Washington to reverse course and regain moral leadership according to international human rights norms that we had officially adopted as our own and cherished throughout the years.” Is Obama listening? Or is he thinking only of his re-election?

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

—————
Released: 26 June 2012
Word Count: 1,141
—————-

No Western statesman has done more to promote the cause of Palestinian statehood than the charismatic Foreign Minister of Norway, Jonas Gahr Store, a Labour politician who enjoys unrivalled popularity in his own country. Yet all his efforts over the past several years in favour of the Palestinians have ended in failure. He has been defeated by Israeli intransigence, by U.S. President Barack Obama’s collapse under Israeli pressure, and by Palestinian disunity.

After the Oslo peace accords of 1993, Norway felt it had a responsibility to see the peace process through to a satisfactory conclusion. It felt that its role was to bring a Palestinian state to life. But this depended on securing Israel’s agreement as well as American backing. Neither was forthcoming.

Norwegians distinguish between two parallel tracks of the peace process: a so-called top-down political track led by the United States which is meant to tackle final status issues such as borders, security, refugees and Jerusalem; and a bottom-up track, led by Norway, which has focussed on mobilising donors to help the Palestinians build the institutions of a state.

Foreign Minister Store has himself for years chaired a donors support group dedicated to this task. By preparing the Palestinians for statehood he hoped to counter Israel’s argument that it had no Palestinian partner for peace. His strategy was to present Israel with a fait accompli in the form of a virtual Palestinian state.

The Foreign Minister explained his position to me in an interview in Oslo on 19 June. “We had hoped,” he said, “that the top-down and bottom-up tracks would meet. We worked with Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad in helping him build the institutions of a state.

“The Palestinians had reached the threshold of a state in September 2011 when they made their bid for UN membership — only to be disappointed. Europe should have spoken with a clearer voice. What Israel is doing is against international law, and against its own interests. The two-state solution is fading away. We are today facing a very dangerous situation.

“The Palestinians are suffering a double tragedy — the tragedy of living under occupation, and the tragedy of being divided. In 2007, we decided to engage with the Palestinian national unity government. But the European Union made the mistake of deciding not to engage.

“We in Norway are prepared to talk to all Palestinian groups, including Hamas, even though we do not recognise its charter, which we find deeply disturbing. We are in favour of Palestinian national reconciliation.”

I asked the Foreign Minister whether he aspired to play a leading role in the Peace process, as Norway had played at the time of the Oslo accords:

“We have no nostalgia for such a leading role. In a world of deficits, we are fortunate in having an economic and a political surplus. We are simply looking for places where we can make a difference, with no strings attached. We have no second agenda. We are not there to put pressure on anyone but merely to mobilise networks for causes we believe in.”

I asked him how he viewed the rise of Islamist movements across the Arab world:

“It would be the height of hypocrisy,” he replied, “if we saluted the ballot box but refused its result. We must accept the results of the ballot box. But we must also hold accountable any majority which might emerge from elections. Any such majority must abide by international human rights standards.

“Countries like Egypt, which need to attract investment, must strive to be accountable and transparent. It is important to reduce the risk for investors. Who will invest in a country if there is a lack of transparency as well as a suspicion of corruption?”

It is well known that Foreign Minister Store engaged very early on with the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. His policy has always been to engage with all actors, without necessarily endorsing their policies. To engage is a key principle of the foreign policy of Norway’s current centre-left government which came to power in 2005 and was re-elected in 2009.

The donors’ committee which the Foreign Minister chairs is called the Ad Hoc Liaison Committee, or AHLC. Established after the Oslo peace accords, its task has been to mobilise financial support for Palestinian state-building.

The institutions Norway has helped create include security institutions dedicated to preventing attacks on Israel. But this has become a source of embarrassment for President Abbas. He was seen as doing Israel’s work without reaping any political reward in the form of progress towards statehood.

Norway supported Palestinian unity although it was well aware that Israel would not deal with any Palestinian government that included Hamas. It would withhold taxes it collected on behalf of the Palestinian Authority, and the United States would cut its aid. So, rather than encouraging Hamas to join a unity government, Norway’s policy has been to mobilise financial support for the PA. It has preferred to leave to Egypt the task of reconciling the various Palestinian factions.

Norway has frequently warned Israel that if it refused to move forward with the political process, it would face donor fatigue, and might itself have to assume responsibility for the West Bank Palestinians. But Israel has called Norway’s bluff. It has continued its relentless seizure of Palestinian land while counting on foreign donors to continue to finance the PA.

The Quartet — and the United States, its main power broker — failed to pressure Israel to consent to Palestinian statehood. Obama’s collapse was a huge disappointment for the Palestinians but also for Norway, which had invested so much in the creation of Palestinian institutions.

The AHLC activities reached their peak at the time the Palestinians made their UN bid for recognition of their state, But the United States killed it. The inescapable conclusion is that the AHLC no longer has a role to play in parallel with the political track of the peace process. This goes some way to explaining the foreign minister’s judgement that the present situation is one of extreme danger.

My interview with the Foreign Minister took place during this year’s Oslo Forum, a leading international gathering of mediators, now in its tenth year. Among the participants was the Burmese Nobel Prize winner, Aung Saan Su Kyi who called for change by non-violent means. Even though she spent decades under house arrest by the military, she said she admired the Burmese army — which her father had helped found. She also said she had confidence in the humanity of her captors!

The Norwegian Foreign Minister summed up the message of the Oslo Forum by declaring that “Dialogue is the strategy of the brave.” It is a message the Syrian regime and its opponents would be wise to ponder.

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

—————
Released: 20 June 2012
Word Count: 1,123
—————-

It is undeniable that President Bashar al-Asad’s Syrian regime has, over the past 15 months, made many mistakes and committed many crimes. An early example was the savage punishment of a dozen children who had scrawled anti-regime graffiti on a wall in the southern city of Daraa in March 2011. This ugly incident was soon made far worse by the use of live fire against peaceful protesters.

Had the President raced to Daraa, apologised to the parents of the brutalised children, sacked the governor and severely disciplined his security services he would have been hailed as a hero. Instead, he adopted a policy of indiscriminate repression which has continued to this day. The large-scale killings have cast a dark shadow over his timid and long-delayed reforms, such as last month’s multi-party elections, which were held once the Constitution had been emended, putting an end — at least in theory — to the Ba‘th party’s half-century stranglehold over Syria’s political life.

The opposition has also made mistakes and been guilty of serious crimes. Its first mistake was to take up arms against the government. This may have been an understandable response to the regime’s repression, but it was also an act of political insanity since it provided the regime with the justification to crush any pocket of armed rebellion, wherever and whenever it might appear. The result was the tragedy of the Baba Amr quarter of Homs — seized by the rebels, then destroyed by the regime’s heavy weapons — a pattern repeated elsewhere.

There are now said to be about 100 armed rebel groups engaged in urban guerrilla warfare against the Syrian regime. Money is flowing in from Gulf States and from Syrian businessmen abroad, fuelling a brisk black market in weapons. Large numbers of jihadis, armed Islamic extremists, have crossed into Syria from neighbouring countries — and also from Kuwait, Tunisia, Algeria and Pakistan — to swell the ranks of the fighters. Muslim clerics in several Arab countries are inciting young men to go to Syria to fight. Rebel groups conduct ambushes, attack check-points, destroy public property, kill government troops — about 250 were killed in ten days in late May and early June. They also kidnap, rape and slaughter pro-regime civilians.

The regime’s strategy is to prevent armed rebels seizing and holding territory, even if this means shelling residential quarters when rebels hole up in them. The rebels’ strategy is to trigger a Western military intervention to stop the killing on humanitarian grounds (although no one mentions the large numbers of civilians killed by U.S. drones in half a dozen countries, including 18 women and children in Afghanistan alone last week.) The rebels know they cannot defeat the Syrian army without outside help. The recent massacres at the villages of Hula and al-Qubair have raised their hopes that the United States and its allies are now one step closer to military action.

But who was really responsible for the reported smashing of skulls and slitting of children’s throats at these two villages? The opposition puts the blame squarely on the regime’sshabbiha, a notorious armed militia made up largely of Alawis — a view adopted uncritically by Western leaders and much of the Western press. The UN has been more cautious. After monitors reached al-Qubair, a spokeswoman for the UN supervision mission, Ms Sausan Ghosheh, said, “The circumstances surrounding the incident are not clear.”

Meanwhile, a very serious newspaper, the Frankfurter Allegemeine Zeitung (FAZ), Germany’s leading daily, has reported that the massacre was not carried out by the regime’s shabbihaafter all but by anti-Assad Sunni militants. According to sources FAZ interviewed, the victims were almost exclusively from the Alawi and Shia communities. The gruesome events took place after rebel forces attacked three army-controlled roadblocks outside Hula. It was during the ensuing fire-fight of some 90 minutes that the massacre occurred. According to FAZ, the perpetrators then filmed their victims and, in videos posted on the internet, presented them as Sunni victims of the regime.

An independent investigation is clearly needed to establish which of these two versions is correct. It would not be surprising if both sides were found guilty of acts of savagery in what is fast becoming a sectarian civil war.

What role are outside actors playing? Each is pursuing its own strategic interest. The keys to the Syrian crisis lie outside Syria. Indeed, the Syrian crisis cannot be separated from the massive pressures being put on Iran. U.S. President Barack Obama is now fully mobilised against both regimes. He seems to have given up trying to secure a win-win deal with Iran over its nuclear programme, and he is sabotaging Kofi Annan’s Syrian peace plan by conniving in the arming of the rebels. He seems to want to bring down the regimes in both Tehran and Damascus — either because he sees Iran as a rival in the Gulf region or to win the favours of Israel’s American supporters in an election year.

Israel has openly declared its keen interest in Asad’s overthrow. President Shimon Peres — a wolf in sheep’s clothing whose deal with the French back in the 1950s provided Israel with its first nuclear weapons — declared that he hoped the Syrian rebels would win. Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu went one better. Borrowing a phrase from George W. Bush, he has called the Iran-Syria-Hizbullah resistance alliance an “axis of evil.” Clearly, Israel is pushing the United States and its allies to bring down the whole axis which has dented its supremacy in the Levant.

Saudi Arabia and Qatar, the main Arab backers of the Syrian rebels, seem largely driven by sectarian passions. They see Shia Iran as a threat to Sunni primacy. They, too, seek to bring down the regimes in Iran and Syria. However, it might be wiser for them to support, rather than subvert, these regimes, which have tried to stand up to Israel. Without the protection they afford, the oil-rich Gulf States might one day wake up to find themselves the next target of unchecked Israeli power.

Many problems in Syria remain to be solved. If Asad himself were toppled, would not the officer corps and the Ba‘th party carry on the fight? If the whole state were brought down — as happened in Iraq — what would the next regime look like? Would extremist Islamists, bent on revenge, come to power? Would the country be dismembered, with the Alawis driven into their mountains, as Iraq was itself dismembered by the creation of a Kurdish statelet? Who will protect the minorities? Will Syria’s Christians, 10 per cent of the population, suffer the same fate as Iraq’s Christians, dispersed around the world? And would Lebanon and Jordan, not to speak of the unfortunate Palestinians languishing under Israel’s occupation, survive the shock waves of a Syrian tsunami?

The Western powers would be well advised to unite with Russia and China in putting maximum pressure on both sides to put up their arms and come to the table. Diplomacy, rather than war, is the only way to preserve what is left of Syria for its hard-pressed citizens.

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

—————
Released: 12 June 2012
Word Count: 1,173
—————-

President Barrack Obama’s Middle East policies seem increasingly problematic. His expanded use of missile strikes by Predator drones against targets in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia and elsewhere — now being launched at a rate of about one a week – seem certain to create more ‘terrorists’ than they kill. They arouse fierce anti-American sentiment not least because of the inevitable civilian death toll. Obama is said to decide himself which terrorist suspect is to be targeted for killing in any particular week, as if to confer some presidential sanction on operations of very doubtful legality.

Even more worrying is Obama’s apparently wilful sabotage of two diplomatic initiatives, one by Europe’s foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, the other by former UN secretary-general Kofi Annan. Ashton has been leading an attempt by the P5+1 (the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany) to negotiate a win-win deal with Iran over its nuclear programme, while Annan has been struggling to find a negotiated way out of the murderous Syrian crisis. Obama seems intent on compromising both initiatives.

Catherine Ashton managed to launch the P5+1 talks with Iran in Istanbul on 14 April once she had agreed the ground rules with the chief Iranian negotiator, Saeed Jalili. She pledged at that time that the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) would be a key basis for the talks, thus sending a clear signal that Iran, as a signatory of the NPT, had the right to enrich uranium up to 3.5% for power generation and other peaceful purposes. She also declared that the negotiations would “be guided by the principle of the step-by-step approach and reciprocity,” thus giving a strong indication that sanctions would be lifted in stages once Iran gave up enriching uranium to 20% and provided convincing evidence that it was not seeking nuclear weapons. Iran responded favourably to this approach and the talks got off to a good start.

But, at the next meeting on 23 May, held this time in Baghdad, they ground to a virtual halt. No progress of any sort was made save for an agreement to meet again in Moscow on 18-19 June. The early optimism was dispelled because Obama had hardened the U.S. position. There was to be no recognition of Iran’s rights to enrich lower grade uranium — indeed the P5+1 refused even to discuss the subject — and no easing of sanctions. On the contrary, Iran was faced with the prospect of even stiffer sanctions coming into force on 1 July. The only sweetener was an offer of some spare parts for Iran’s civilian aircraft in exchange for an Iranian pledge to freeze 20% enriched uranium. Iran was asked, in effect, to give up its trump card in exchange for peanuts. It was no surprise that Tehran considered the miserly offer insulting.

Obama seems to have been persuaded that Iran, already reeling under crippling sanctions, would meekly submit to American demands if still more pressure were applied. This was a fundamental error of judgement. Far from submitting, Iran reacted defiantly. Hopes for a win-win deal evaporated. There are now no great expectations of a breakthrough at the Moscow talks.

What is Obama up to? He seems to have adopted Israel’s hard line view that Iran should be compelled to close down its nuclear industry altogether — a clear deal-breaker. It is not altogether clear whether he is doing so to counter accusations of weakness from his Republican challenger Mitt Romney or whether his hard, uncompromising line is intended to stave off Israel’s much-trumpeted threats to attack Iran in the coming months which, in view of the American electoral calendar, would inevitably suck in the United States.

Obama has already joined Israel in clandestine warfare against Iran. In a major article last week in the New York Times, David E Sanger revealed that “from his first months in office, President Barack Obama secretly ordered increasingly sophisticated attacks on the computer systems that run Iran’s main nuclear enrichment facilities…” The United States and Israel then jointly developed the cyber-weapon Stuxnet, which caused considerable damage to the centrifuges in Iran’s Natanz facility.

By any standards, launching Stuxnet against Iran was an act of state terrorism. That Israel should engage in such practices is not surprising: Its entire regional policy is based on subverting and destabilising its neighbours so as to ensure its own supremacy. But how can the United States, which claims to be the supreme guardian of the international order, justify such base behaviour?

Not content with sabotaging Catherine Ashton’s efforts, Obama is also undermining Kofi Annan’s difficult mission in Syria. The American president pays lip service to Annan’s peace plan while, at the same time, secretly coordinating the flow of funds, intelligence and weapons to Bashar al-Asad’s enemies. Numerous sources attest that the United States has taken upon itself the role of deciding which among the various armed rebel groups deserve support. One must only suppose that, in his eagerness to bring about the fall of the Syrian regime, Obama will not fall into the trap of funding and arming jihadis, many of them linked to al-Qaida, who have flowed in from neighbouring countries to fight the Syrian regime.

In a word, Obama seems to have embraced the argument of Israeli hawks and American neo-conservatives that bringing down the Syrian regime is the best way to weaken and isolate the Islamic Republic of Iran, sever its ties with Lebanese and Palestinian resistance movements, and eventually bring about regime change in Tehran.

The puzzle is to understand what has happened to Obama. This former professor of constitutional law was expected to correct the flagrant crimes of the Bush administration — such as the horrors of Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo, the water-boarding, the network of secret prisons where torture was routine, the practice of extraordinary rendition. Instead, by his own violent and questionable acts, he is widening the gulf between the United States and the Muslim world.

No less a person than Henry Kissinger has, in a recent Washington Post article, reminded the United States of the dangers of humanitarian intervention in Syria. “If adopted as a principle of foreign policy,” he wrote, “this form of intervention raises broader questions for U.S. strategy. Does America consider itself obliged to support every popular uprising against any non-democratic government…?” If Asad were overthrown, he argues, a new civil war could follow as armed groups contest the succession. “In reacting to one tragedy, we must be careful not to facilitate another.”

Kissinger’s main point is that states are sovereign within their borders. The United States may have strategic reasons to favour the fall of Asad but “not every strategic interest rises to a cause for war; were it otherwise, no room would be left for diplomacy.” In other words, the world should support the Annan peace plan and give it time to work.

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

—————
Released: 05 June 2012
Word Count: 1,137
—————-