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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Copyright © 2012 Patrick Seale – distributed by Agence Global

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Copyright © 2012 Patrick Seale – distributed by Agence Global

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Copyright © 2012 Patrick Seale – distributed by Agence Global

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Copyright © 2012 Patrick Seale – distributed by Agence Global

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Copyright © 2012 Patrick Seale – distributed by Agence Global

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Copyright © 2012 Patrick Seale – distributed by Agence Global

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Released: 31 January 2012
Word Count: 1,167
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In spite of bluster from belligerent hawks in the United States and Israel, it is highly unlikely that either country will attack Iran in the near future. Israel will not dare attack Iran alone, while President Barack Obama has made it clear – if not perhaps quite clear enough — that, after its costly wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the United States has no intention of allowing itself to be pushed or pulled into another disastrous Middle East war.

The United States is cutting $500bn from its military budget over the next decade. It is trying to get out of Afghanistan without admitting defeat. Instead of “boots on the ground,” it is switching to cyber warfare and unmanned drones in its counter-insurgency and counter-terrorist efforts.

Instead of a hot war against Iran, the United States and its European allies are waging economic warfare against Tehran with the declared aim of forcing it to suspend uranium enrichment. The undeclared aim would seem to be regime change.

On 31 December, Obama signed into law a new set of sanctions against Iran’s oil exports and Central Bank. On 23 January, the European Union followed suit. On the same day, the U.S. Treasury Department announced sanctions on Bank Tejerat, Iran’s third largest bank. As the sanctions noose tightens, the Iranian rial has lost half its value since October.

Faced with this severe punishment of a neighbour, the members of the Gulf Cooperation Council need to ask themselves a number of tough questions. Is the economic warfare waged against Iran in the Arab interest? Economic warfare could spark something hotter. Any conflict in the region would inevitably expose the Arab countries, their populations and their vulnerable oil terminals and desalination plants to possible attack.

Arab leaders must surely be aware that if Iran is prevented from exporting its oil, it will do its utmost — as it has already threatened — to prevent its neighbours from making up the shortfall by increasing their own production. The situation is fraught with danger.

Iran may well view the sanctions and the boycott as an act of war. Seething with anger at the murder of four of its nuclear scientists — widely believed to be the work of Israel’s intelligence service Mossad — Iran may well retaliate. With tensions running high, there is always the possibility of war by accident, if not by design.

Negotiations not sanctions are the way to defuse the crisis. Catherine Ashton, the EU’s foreign affairs chief, has suggested renewed talks between Iran and the P5+1 (The five permanent members of the Security Council plus Germany). But the declared aim of these talks is to compel Iran to suspend all uranium enrichment. Iran will not submit meekly to such diktats and sanctions. No Iranian leader could survive if he agreed to give up the right to enrich uranium for peaceful industrial purposes — as is allowed by the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), of which Iran is a signatory. The humiliation would be too great.

In any event, whereas the NPT forbids the production of nuclear weapons, it does not forbid developing the capability to do so. Experts from the UN International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) are due to visit Iran from 29 to 31 January in an attempt to resolve this and other outstanding issues.

If the Western powers are unable or unwilling to start serious negotiations with Tehran, the Gulf Cooperation Council should seize the initiative and propose engaging talks itself. The Arabs and Iran have a strong common interest in safeguarding the security of the vital Gulf region. To open the way for GCC-Iranian talks, the Arab Gulf States might pledge not to allow their territory to be used for an attack on Iran. In return, Iran might pledge not to use the Shi‘a communities of the region to disturb the existing political order. That could provide the starting point for closer security cooperation. Would not this be the best way to protect the region from the fall-out of a possible conflict?

The region’s geography cannot be changed. Whether the Arab Gulf states like it or not, Iran is their neighbour. It has many common interests with them, as well as many trade and family ties. Both Arabs and Iranians should do their utmost to bridge the Sunni-Shi‘a divide. It is folly for them to allow events which happened fourteen hundred years ago to shape their present fears and dictate their current policies.

Israel has for years led the propaganda campaign against Iran. Its strategy has been to blackmail the United States and Europe into imposing crippling sanctions on Iran by threatening to attack Iran itself. Israel would dearly love the United States to destroy the regime of the Mullahs, in much the same way as pro-Israeli neocons in George W. Bush’s administration managed to push the U.S. into overthrowing Saddam Hussein. The consequences of that war were catastrophic for Iraq, for the Arab world as a whole, and for the United States itself.

What are Obama’s real motives in sanctioning Iran? First, he is seeking to maintain America’s hegemony over a region rich in oil and gas. Second, facing an election this year, he cannot afford to let his Republican rivals accuse him of being weak in support for Israel. He needs to placate Israel’s powerful friends in Congress, in the press, in the many pro-Israeli lobbies and think-tanks, as well as in his own administration. He must do nothing to offend Jewish American donors and voters. He is, in any event, committed to protecting Israel’s regional military supremacy. Although he may disagree with several aspects of Israeli policy and have no love for Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, he is obliged by U.S. law to guarantee Israel’s Qualitative Military Edge (QME) — that is to say its military superiority over all Arab states. U.S. arms sales to Arab countries have to be cleared with Israel, to ensure that they pose no threat to it.

Is American and Israeli hegemony over the Middle East in the Arab interest? Is it not time for Arab leaders to assert their independence from these powers and distance themselves from quarrels which do not concern them?

The astonishing aspect of the present highly dangerous situation is that there is absolutely no proof that Iran has decided to produce nuclear weapons. America’s National Intelligence Estimates for 2007 and 2010 — the joint work of its 17 intelligence agencies – concluded that Iran had ceased work on developing nuclear weapons in 2003. There was no conclusive evidence that it had resumed such work. The paradox, however, is that the more Iran is threatened and sanctioned, the more likely it is that it will seek the protection of nuclear weapons.

The security of the GCC must surely lie in engaging with Iran rather than allowing itself to be sucked into a quarrel which could end in bitter tears.

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: 24 January 2012
Word Count: 1,139
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President Bashar al-Assad of Syria does not seem to be in any immediate danger of collapse or overthrow. In spite of confronting a popular uprising at home and severe pressures from abroad, he has — for the moment at least — weathered the storm. His difficulties, however, are immense. In a speech on 10 January he described the crisis he is facing as “a battle unprecedented in Syria’s modern history.”

Several authoritative sources, both inside and outside Syria, share the view that, having held his enemies at bay since last March, Assad stands a good chance of survival for several more months. His longer-term prospects, however, remain uncertain.

As a skilful tactician, he has played for time. His agreement to allow in Arab League monitors has relieved him of some pressure for a month, and possibly two. In dealing with the protesters, he has used carrot as well as stick, such as his recent amnesty for political prisoners, his offer of an immediate dialogue with the opposition, and his renewed promise of a revised Constitution, to be put to an early referendum, followed by multi-party elections in the early summer. Two new parties were granted licenses this week.

Assad’s long-term survival, however will depend, sources say, on whether Syria’s close ally, Iran manages to stand firm. Already under crippling Western sanctions, Iran faces what looks like an attempt, not just to halt its programme of uranium enrichment — which Israel sees as a challenge to its own nuclear weapons monopoly – but to change the Tehran regime altogether. The United States and Israel — supported by a number of European and Arab nations, who have joined in for their own commercial, sectarian or strategic interests — have launched a determined assault on the tripartite alliance of Tehran, Damascus and Hizballah. The crime of this trio is to have dared challenge America’s military hegemony in the Gulf and Israel’s military hegemony in the Levant. The three allies – Iran, Syria and Hizballah – know that they stand or fall together. The battle is likely to be fierce.

Iran is facing a systematic campaign aimed at subverting its nuclear facilities by cyber attack, the murder of its scientists, and the undermining of its economy by a boycott of its oil exports and Central Bank. Israel and its American friends are also sparing no effort to trigger a U.S. attack on Iran – much as they pushed the United States into invading and destroying Iraq. If Iran cracks under the pressure of sanctions and military threats, Syria could fall. Hizballah in turn, stripped of its external patrons, could then face another Israeli attempt to destroy it, as in 2006.

Bashar al-Assad’s attention is focussed on the danger to Syria from this ‘foreign conspiracy’. As he explained in his speech, it is only the latest of many such conspiracies: When Iraq was invaded in 2003, “Syria was threatened with bombing and invasion”; the same enemies exploited the assassination of Rafiq Hariri in 2005 to expel Syrian forces from Lebanon and attempt to bring down the Syrian regime; in 2006, Israel invaded Lebanon; in 2007, it bombed an alleged Syrian nuclear facility; in 2008, it attacked Gaza, each time exposing Syria to danger. But, Assad declared defiantly, “We will never allow them to defeat Syria… Resistance is the core of our identity.”

Assad sees his domestic opponents as allies of his foreign enemies, rather than as legitimate protesters against corruption, police brutality, severe youth unemployment and a lack of basic freedoms. That some of these opponents have taken up arms, killed soldiers and policemen and destroyed public property has served him well. He is resolved to “strike these murderous terrorists hard… There can be no compromise with terrorism.”

Such is his mindset, and such his justification for the bloody repression of the past ten months — the large-scale killings, mass imprisonment, beatings and torture. These brutal methods have opened up a profound rift in Syrian society; they have sharpened sectarian tensions. They have gravely damaged Syria’s image and its international reputation. The internal wound will be difficult to heal. How will Syrians learn to live together again? One Syrian source compared the situation with that which the French faced when, once the German occupation had ended, résistants and collaborators set about rebuilding their fractured society after World War 2.

Tourism in Syria has collapsed, the stock market has lost 50% of its value and the exchange rate for the dollar has fallen on the black market from 49 to 67 Syrian pounds. Fuel supplies are running short and the budget deficit has surged. But Syria enjoys a large measure of food autonomy and, if it tightens its belt, can probably survive sanctions and boycotts.

The most important asset which keeps the regime afloat is the continuing loyalty of the army and security services. Defections have been few. So long as this remains the case, the opposition will be unable to topple the regime. Nor can the opposition count on foreign military intervention: No Western or Arab nation is prepared to use force. Turkey might possibly consider intervening if its own vital interests were threatened — by, say, active Syrian support for the PKK, the Kurdish Workers Party which has taken up arms against the Turkish state.

At the UN Security Council, Russia and China will protect Syria by vetoing any resolution authorising the use of force. Syria can probably also count on Iraq, Algeria and Sudan to prevent any internationalisation of the crisis. America’s decline – its retreat from Iraq, its failure in Afghanistan, its weariness with foreign adventures, its defence cuts — are also much to Syria’s advantage.

The regime has two other important advantages: the opposition’s failure to unite behind a single leader or a single political project, and the fact that a good slice of the population still supports the regime. Minorities such as Alawis, Christians and Druze, as well as civil servants, officers, leading merchants in Damascus and Aleppo, and the new bourgeoisie — comprising some tens of thousands of people, created by the neo-liberal economic model of the past decade — are all wary of regime change. They do not feel represented by the street protesters or the exiled opposition.

When Syrians see the terrible devastation caused by the civil wars on their borders in Lebanon and Iraq, they dread suffering the same fate. The fear of a sectarian civil war is on everyone’s mind. The Syrian Muslim Brothers, by far the strongest element in the opposition, are evidently waiting to avenge the crushing of their uprising at Hama in 1982. Beginning in the late 1970s, they mounted a terrorist campaign against the regime of Hafiz al-Assad, Bashar’s father. In one of their terrorist operations, 83 Alawi cadets were gunned down in Aleppo in 1979. When they seized Hama, they massacred Ba‘th party members and officials. The government sent in troops to retake the town, killing over 10,000 people. The exact numbers are in dispute, but the spectre of Hama hangs over the scene to this day, inflaming passions on both sides.

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: 17 January 2012
Word Count: 1,167
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This past year has dealt a heavy blow — perhaps even a terminal one — to the project, long supported by the international community, of resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict on the basis of two states. When the United States itself proved unable to halt Israel’s relentless land grab, it seemed that nothing and nobody could rein in Israel’s iron-willed ambition to expand its borders towards a “Greater Israel.”

What will the immediate future bring? In the continued absence of firm international intervention, the likeliest scenario is that Israel will seek to consolidate its hold over 40 percent of the West Bank, including the Jordan Valley, either by settlement expansion or outright annexation. The main centres of Arab population, such as Nablus, Jericho and Ramallah, would be fenced off, although Israel might allow them corridors to Jordan. This first stage of the project would, of course, be portrayed by Israel as a painful concession.

If Israel managed to get away with it, the next stage could be a good deal more radical, and could possibly involve the expulsion of large numbers of Palestinians, probably under the cover of war as occurred in 1948 and 1967, so as to complete the creation of a Greater Israel between the sea and the river.

After the experience of the past two years, no one should have the slightest doubt that Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu’s right-wing coalition is utterly determined to prevent the creation of a Palestinian state on the West Bank. Bantustans, for a while perhaps, but a Palestinian state, never! Netanyahu is known to be profoundly influenced by his father, the historian Benzion Natanyahu, now 101 years old, who was once the secretary of Ze’ev Jabotinsky – “the father of Revisionist Zionism” — and who remains a life-long passionate believer in a Greater Israel. He petitioned against the UN Partition Plan for Palestine of 29 November 1947 because he, and others like him, wanted the whole of Palestine for the Jews. That remains his dream.

Whether Israel seizes the whole of the West Bank or only 40 per cent of it, the immediate victim will be the Kingdom of Jordan, which is likely to be swamped with displaced Palestinians. Ariel Sharon, a passionate advocate of Jewish settlement in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, used to say that “Jordan is Palestine.” Desperately concerned about its future — and with good reason — Jordan recently tried to revive the moribund process by hosting a meeting in Amman of Israel and Palestinians representatives, in the presence of the ineffectual Quartet. Predictably, the outcome seems to have been wholly without substance.

The biggest shock to the so-called peace process this past year was President Barack Obama’s collapse in the face of Netanyahu’s obduracy. Since Obama had raised hopes of a new, more balanced American policy towards the Arab-Israeli conflict his defeat was all the more painful. When Israel refused to budge, he simply walked away, showing no hint of steel, not even of that “tough love” towards Israel which many observers of the conflict — including liberal American Jews — had hoped to see. Obama’s failure merely underlined the abysmal record of America’s monopoly of the peace process over the past several decades, which has simply provided cover for Israel’s expansion.

The massive aid — financial, military and political — which the United States lavishes on Israel appears to have given it not the slightest leverage over Israeli policies. The influence has been all the other way. It is Israel that has managed to shape Washington’s Middle East policy, rather than the other way round. Rarely in history has there been such a flagrant example of the tail wagging the dog.

The Arabs are in no condition to check Israel’s expansion. The Arab Spring has weakened them. Their leaders, whether revolutionary or not, are struggling to cope with the fall- out from the popular uprisings. There is little time or energy to spare for the Palestine cause. The Palestinians themselves, whether under occupation or under siege, remain stubbornly divided. Amazingly, Fatah and Hamas are still squabbling and seem unable to put up a united front, although their country is disappearing before their eyes.

Little wonder that hard- line Israelis feel that Greater Israel is within their grasp. One more big push, they seem to think, and it will be theirs. This seems to be true of the ultra-Orthodox, who are more than ever concerned to put their fundamentalist stamp on Israeli society, and whose members are making deep inroads in the officer ranks of the IDF. It is true, too, of religious nationalists and their constituency of violent and fanatical settlers, and it is, of course, also true of hard-line politicians like Netanyahu himself, who seem to believe that weakening and subverting their neighbours — and harnessing American power to their hegemonic cause, principally at present against Iran — will enable Israel to continue to dominate the entire region militarily for the foreseeable future. Peace, territorial concessions and peaceful co-existence are simply not part of their mindset.

Leaders like Netanyahu have been responsible for overseeing very significant changes in Israeli society, including an alarming rise in intolerance, racism and brutality. Even Israel’s so-called liberal middle classes who camped out in tents in their thousands this past year to highlight their economic grievances, seem to show little interest in the hate Israel is piling up by its continued oppression and dispossession of the Palestinians.

The Arab-Israeli conflict — with the Palestine problem at its core — has been the cause of wars, massacres and countless other violent incidents throughout the 20th century. It now threatens to contaminate this century as well. Israel’s pitiless onslaught on Gaza in 2008-9 may turn out to have been but a precursor of even grimmer things to come.

In a speech at the London School of Economics last October, Dr Tony Klug, a leading British expert on the Middle East, described the growth of Israel’s settler population from fewer than 5,000 in the early 1970s to more than 500,000 today as “one of the longest state-suicide notes in history.” “Israel,” he declared, “now faces a stark choice: freeze all further settlement growth in preparation for swift and focused negotiations based on the pre-June boundaries with equitable land swaps, or prepare for permanent conflict and indefinite pariah status.”

Is regime change possible in Israel? A miracle cannot be excluded. But there is as yet no sign of the great popular awakening which such an outcome would require. Is it not time for the international community to put together a package of sanctions and incentives, which might induce Israel to change course? The aim must surely be, not only to save Israel from self-destruction, but to spare the Middle East the ordeal of what could be the most terrible war in its modern history.

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

Copyright © 2012 Patrick Seale – distributed by Agence Global

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Released: 10 January 2012
Word Count: 1,124
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