Iran’s bid for power in Iraq

Posted on July 11, 2011 by jonathanspyer

Amid the recent upheavals in the Arab world, one country has largely escaped attention. That country is Iraq. However, the absence of anything attributable to the ‘Arab Spring’ within its borders should not lead to the conclusion that all is tranquil in the land of the two rivers. As the United States prepares to withdraw, Iran and its regional allies and proxies are ramping up their campaign to impose the look of defeat on the American withdrawal from Iraq. This is part of a larger, ongoing effort by Iran to dominate the politics of Iraq in the post-US era. The Lebanese Hizballah movement, as a client of Iran, is playing a central role in the developing Iranian strategy in Iraq.

The Iranians and their Hezbollah clients are pursuing a strategy which resembles that applied successfully in Lebanon. It involves the creative combination of political and military activity. The intention is the acquisition of power, in the largest Shia-majority Arab state.

The remaining 47,000 US combat troops are set to leave Iraq on December 31, 2011, according to the existing State of Forces Agreement. American officials are concerned at the ability of the Iraqi forces to effectively ensure security. They are therefore currently attempting to convince the Iraqi government to allow some troops to stay past the deadline.

This has become a political issue in Iraq, with patriotic credit going to forces most vociferously opposing the extended stay of US forces.

In this context, the last months have seen a notable uptick in attacks on US forces by Shia paramilitary groups linked to Iran and Hezbollah.

Fourteen US soldiers died in enemy attacks in Iraq in the month of June. For the sake of perspective, in January and February, there were no US combat deaths caused by Shia organizations in Iraq. In March, there was one such death, In April there were four.

The Iranian-backed Kta’eb Hezbollah (Hezbollah Brigades) claimed responsibility for the attacks. The American authorities find this credible because of the type of weaponry used. The bloodiest attacks in June involved the use of improvised rocket-assisted mortar systems (IRAMs) – a type of weaponry particularly associated with the Shia groups. These primitive but effective weapons consist of explosives packed into canisters, propelled by Iranian produced rocket systems.

The Hezbollah Brigades is the most active of the small, armed Shia groups utilized by Iran as tools of policy in Iraq. The organization’s founder, Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis (Jamal al-Ibrahimi), is a former close adviser to Iranian Qods Force commander Qassem Suleimani. ‘Al-Muhandis’ is also a former member of the Shia Islamist Dawa Party, and a veteran of the Iran-Iraq War, in which he fought on the Iranian side.

An additional group worthy of mention is the Asaib al-Haq (League of Justice) organization.

This latter group is a result of a split-off from Moqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army. However, both the Hezbollah Brigades and the Asaib al-Haq are today considered to be under the direct control of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards and the Qods Force. Al-Sadr himself is today also openly aligned with Iran. Through involvement with these groups, Iran thus maintains both a terrorist and paramilitary capacity in Iraq, and a ‘legitimate’, mass political movement (which itself has an armed wing – the Jaish al-Mahdi).

The Lebanese Hezbollah movement has been intimately involved in the training of Shia paramilitaries on behalf of Iran, since the early days of the US occupation of Iraq. As Arabic-speakers, the Lebanese have an obvious advantage over Iranians in operating relatively inconspicuously in Arab environments.

The US Justice Department is currently preparing to prosecute Ali Mussa Daqduq, a senior Lebanese Hezbollah operative who masterminded Hezbollah’s training of the Iraqi Shia groups prior to his capture in mid-2007 in Iraq. Daqdud, a veteran operative, previously commanded Hassan Nasrallah’s security detail, and ran a special operations unit.

According to US Brigadier General Kevin Bergner, Daqduq was tasked by Iran and the Hezbollah leadership to organize Shia terror groups in Iraq “in ways that mirrored how Hezbollah was organized in Lebanon.” Daqduq organized the training of groups of recruits in Iran, where they were instructed in the use of IEDs, mortars, rockets and small arms, and in the conducting of intelligence and kidnapping operations.

In tandem with this clandestine activity, Iranian backing of the al-Sadr movement has delivered political dividends. Sadr was able to decide who could form a government in Iraq after the 2010 elections, because neither of the two main blocs scored an absolute majority. Having chosen to back Nouri al-Maliki, he remains able to block legislation. Sadr has threatened to return to the path of violence if US troops do not depart on December 31. His Mahdi Army, while currently not openly active, retains its weapons. Sadr himself remains resident in Iran. In the meantime ‘Sadrists’ are taking up positions in ministries associated with social services, health and transportation.

So Iran is pursuing a joint political and paramilitary strategy in Iraq. This involves the establishing and/or sponsoring of militant groups, based on the majority Shia community. These groups commit themselves to the Iranian style of government, and engage in civilian political, open military or clandestine terror activity according to the need of the moment.

Does any of this sound familiar?

It ought to, because it is the means by which Iran gained power in Lebanon, through the use of its proxy, Hezbollah. (The latter, as we have seen, is playing an important role in the strategy in Iraq.)

The strategic stakes are far higher in Iraq than they ever were in Lebanon, of course. Control of tiny Lebanon brought the Iranians to the Mediterranean and gives them a frontline against Israel. No small things. But control of Iraq would mean control of the largest Shia majority Arab state, a country replete with Shia holy shrines, and with oil resources. It is also a country that borders Saudi Arabia, Iran’s main regional rival.

Teheran is in no hurry. But its bid for power in Iraq has begun.

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New Lebanese government a victory for Iran, Assad

Posted on June 25, 2011 by jonathanspyer

By JONATHAN SPYER
24/06/2011

This week, beleaguered Syrian dictator Bashar Assad gave a speech in which he referred to protesters as “vandals” and re-issued a tired promise of reforms. The speech did nothing to lessen the anger of his opponents, and the uprising against the regime is continuing apace.

Yet in neighboring Lebanon in the same week, the Assad regime and its allies scored a signal achievement.

After 140 days of wrangling, Syria, Hezbollah and its allies held the first meeting of the new, pro-Syrian government in Beirut.

This is an important development that represents a victory for the Iran-led regional coalition. It is also an indication that excited declarations of plans for a “Syria without the Assads” may be a little premature.

The Iran-led strategic architecture in the Levant of which the Assad regime is a part has its own ideas about the direction of events. These do not include its quiet submission to the verdict of history and subsequent departure from the stage.

Syria had a clear interest in ensuring the emergence of a new, pro-Damascus government in Lebanon.

Walid Jumblatt, the currently pro-Syrian Lebanese Druse leader, told the pro-Hezbollah Al-Akhbar newspaper this week that “Assad asked his allies to accelerate the cabinet formation, because [the formation of] a cabinet in Lebanon will diminish the pressure on Syria.”

The new cabinet contains 18 members of the Hezbollah-led March 8 alliance out of a total of 30 ministers.

Such a government will secure Syria’s “western flank.”

Assad may now be assured that the power in place in Beirut firmly supports the suppression of the uprising against him.

In addition, the slow-burning but potent issue of the special tribunal investigating the murder of former prime minister Rafik Hariri is about to return to relevance.

There are reports of the imminent issuing of long-awaited indictments against those accused. These may well include both Syrian regime figures and Hezbollah officials. The formation of a Lebanese government that will seek to brush aside any such indictments is essential for Assad.

The Syrian role in the formation of the new government was central and crucial. Only Assad could have forced the necessary concessions from his various Lebanese clients to make the new cabinet’s formation possible.

First of all, the fact that President Michel Suleiman agreed to sign off on the cabinet was almost certainly a result of Syrian pressure. Suleiman has lost his ability to play a balancing role in the new March 8 cabinet. That he agreed to his own effective political neutralization suggests pressure from outside (in this context, Syria).

Second, Amal leader and parliament speaker Nabih Berri’s agreement to “cede” a Shi’ite cabinet place also suggests a higher Syrian hand. The new cabinet is to contain five Shi’ite ministers and seven Sunnis, rather than an equal distribution – a significant concession from the Syrian client Berri.

A focus on the tedious minutiae of Lebanese cabinet wranglings may seem out of place with Syria on fire and the fate of the 40-year Assad family dictatorship hanging in the balance. But the political process in Lebanon, largely ignored by the international media, should remind all observers that a key part of the regime’s strategy throughout its existence has been interference in the political processes of its neighbors.

Lebanon, smallest and most powerless of these, has borne the main brunt. Over the last two weeks, Assad has demonstrated that he and the regional grouping of which he is a member are capable of consolidating their control over their smaller neighbor.

Before the dust had even cleared from the last Syrian APC crossing the Lebanese-Syrian border in an easterly direction in 2005, the regime in Damascus was already planning its return to dominance by other means in Lebanon. This goal has been pursued tenaciously over the subsequent half-decade. The means used to attain it have consisted of political violence and the employment of Syria’s own clients in Lebanon, as well as those of its ally Iran – most importantly Hezbollah. This week, with the first meeting of a Lebanese cabinet made possible by Syrian pressure, the process was completed.

Assad’s latest speech showed that he cannot change. He is unwilling to bow to the will of the protesters.

Instead, he offered vague and meaningless promises of elections in August and dialogue with the opposition. In real terms, his refusal to bow leaves only one other option – to fight to the end.

The announcement of a government in Lebanon dominated by Syria and its allies shows that the will, tenacity and cunning of the Assad regime should not be underestimated. On the smaller stage of Lebanon, Assad refused to accept what looked five years ago like the “verdict of history.” Ultimately his appeal of this verdict won the day.

Assad faces longer odds in his current fight. The persistence of protests, the potential drying up of the economy, pressure from the powerful Turkish neighbor, are all stacking up against him. But the barely noticed events in Lebanon this week are testimony to the sometime efficacy of the brutal methods this regime is prepared to use to achieve its goals.

Those engaged in busy preparation for Syria without the Assads should understand that this will not happen through wishing for it. Rather, a far more determined and united Western and international push to remove the dictator is necessary if Assad is not to recapture Syria as he finished doing with Lebanon this week.

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Syria: the army is the key

Posted on June 14, 2011 by jonathanspyer

By JONATHAN SPYER
14/06/2011

In the aftermath of the taking of Jisr al-Shughour by the Syrian army, it has become clear that the direction of events in Syria depends largely on the cohesiveness of Bashar Assad’s security forces.

If the army remains largely united behind the leadership of the dictator, then the brutal repression of the protests looks set to continue.

If, on the other hand, significant fragmentation of the military occurs, then the prospect is for possible civil war. Since large-scale international intervention into Syria looks unlikely, the army has become the key.

The events in Jisr al-Shughour followed the claim, almost certainly false, by the regime that it had discovered the corpses of 120 policemen. These men had, according to Syrian official media, been massacred by the phantom “terrorist” forces who the Syrian authorities claim have been responsible for the uprising since its onset. Local activists said that the bodies were those of members of the security forces who had refused to fire on protesters and who had been executed by their own side.

But while the “terrorists” remain the likely product of the official Syrian media’s Soviet-style imagination, there is evidence that elements of the security forces have gone over to the opposition. So far, this has happened only sporadically, and has involved individuals of low and middling rank.

The regime’s savage response to all signs of hesitancy in the security forces shows that it is well aware of the cardinal importance of this issue.

In the early stages of the uprising, in Deraa, elements of the largely conscript and mainly Sunni 5th Division sought to prevent the largely Alawite 4th Division from firing on demonstrators.

The result was exchanges of fire between the two units. Opposition sources say that a number of soldiers of the 5th Division were executed in the aftermath of these events.

In Jisr al-Shughour, it appears a larger-scale mutiny took place. An Associated Press report quoted eyewitnesses who described “thousands” of army defectors, who sought to slow the advance of the Syrian army into the town, to allow refugees to escape toward the Turkish border.

Assad is no longer ruling with even the pretence of his people’s consent.

Rather, the Syrian regime appears to have declared war on a large section of its own people. The 220,000- strong regular Syrian armed forces and the 64,000 full-time members of the state security services are almost certainly sufficient, if they remain loyal, and absent international intervention, to keep the regime in place. But will they remain loyal?

The problem for the regime has long been its narrow, sectarian base of support, centered on the Alawite community, to which the Assad family belongs. In the armed forces and the security services, the regime has sought to counter this by ensuring Alawite domination of the officer corps and of certain units.

The Syrian Arab Army, as it is officially called, has 11 divisions, of which two, the Presidential Guard and the 4th Armored Division, are largely Alawite and are considered reliably loyal to the regime. The regime also has a number of special forces units on which it can rely. The other nine regular units are mainly Sunni, and are worse trained and equipped. It is from units of this type, such as the 11th Division, that the defections to the uprising have come. The officers of these units are preponderantly Alawite, with a number of regime-supporting Sunnis also represented.

The command of the security services shows the way that the regime has sought to co-opt Sunnis, while retaining overall Alawite domination. Of the four security services, two (Military Intelligence and Air Force Intelligence) are under the control of Alawites, while two (Political Security and State Security) are headed by pro-regime Sunnis.

Defections from the army have so far been sporadic and limited. Assad has sought to deploy a combination of the Alawite units loyal to him, the security forces and irregular, mainly Alawite fighters (the “Shabiha”) as his main instruments of repression.

He has tried, with good reason, to keep the less reliable, mainly Sunni units out of the fray, as much as possible.

The opposition well understands the now pivotal role of the military.

Leading dissident Radwan Ziadeh, interviewed this week by Asharq al-Awsat, noted that “our principal goal at this stage and all our focus is on the Syrian army.” He mentioned that the opposition has sought to organize demonstrations honoring the army’s role in national defense. The opposition’s “National Initiative for Change” document also envisages a continued role for defense officials in the transitional stage.

Whether any of this will be sufficient to cause real fissures in the Syrian army is not yet known. But it is clear to both sides, as Ziadeh noted, that a determined international response capable of bringing down the regime does not look forthcoming. The US administration has yet to even call on the Syrian dictator to step down. So if Bashar can hold his army together, he stands a good chance of surviving – to rule over a shaken, sectarian regime lacking any domestic legitimacy.

If the opposition can split the military, the two parts will then fight each other.

The prize will be rule over Syria. The result – impossible to predict.

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A Dictator’s Dilemma

Posted on April 22, 2011 by jonathanspyer

Jerusalem Post 22/4/11

Syrian President Bashar Assad’s decision this week to rescind emergency laws in place for 48 years and to abolish the state security court was less significant than it sounds. Syria is, to put it mildly, not a place where the rule of law is in effect.

Any change in the written form of the law will thus not impact the essential process by which power is held.

The decision by Assad to withdraw this particular fig-leaf of his dictatorship suggests that the Syrian president’s strategy for defeating the growing uprising against his rule involves appearing to offer concessions, while engaging de facto in continued energetic repression.

It isn’t working. The protests continue to spread. The demonstrators scent uncertainty, note that a major crackdown has not yet taken place, and redouble their efforts.

Assad’s failure of imagination, however, does not mean that the regime is losing its will to survive.

The annoucement of emergency laws’ removal on Tuesday was followed immediately by a statement from Interior Minister Muhammad Ibrahim al- Shaar forbidding Syrians to take part in “marches, demonstrations or sit-ins under any banner whatsoever.” The country’s official media channel SANA expressed the authorities’ determination to suppress what it referred to as “armed Salafist groups” in the cities of Homs and Banias. New legislation requiring Syrians to acquire a permit from the Information Ministry for any demonstration was passed on the same day. Legislative Decree 64, in place since 2008, continues to ensure the security forces immunity from prosecution. No provision for the release of political prisoners was made.

So Assad’s move was mere window dressing. It was a transparent attempt to create a new legal and political basis for continuing the status quo. The form was also predictable. Antique emergency laws put in place to deal with the struggle against Israel were withdrawn.

The regime then re-imposed the same restrictions. This time around, they were directed against a fresh enemy, namely extreme Sunni Islamist groups.

Eyewitnesses reported that in Banias, demonstrations began immediately following the announcement on the emergency laws. The slogans remain the same. Protesters called for the departure of the regime.

The regime, meanwhile, has continued its policy of slowly intensifying crackdown. The authorities killed four people in Homs on the same day that the laws were lifted. Prominent leftist leader Mahmoud Issa was taken into custody the following day.

But in the end, it would be naïve to be drawn into a precise discussion of the legal niceties by which the Assad regime continues its repression of dissent. The law in Syria is a fiction. The Assad regime maintains power not with the authority of the governed, but because it has the ability to rule by the threat or use of violence. That is to say, by terror.

If and when it loses power, it will similarly be by coercion, and not as a result of its own free choice.

So the lines are increasingly clear.

Assad believes that mid-level repression and cosmetic concessions will keep his family in power. The protests are spreading, and growing – in size and ambition.

They are now openly calling for the end of the regime. A collision looks inevitable.

If demonstrations hit Damascus on a large scale, Assad will find it necessary to employ more drastic and bloody measures.

At this point, the theories that the 21st century communications revolution has fundamentally changed the nature of power politics, making al- Hama 1982-style massacres of purely historical relevance, will be crucially tested. If the choice is heavy repression or submission, Assad is likely to opt for the former – though clearly, at present, he still hopes to avoid a situation in which the issue becomes binary in this way.

The entry of the Sunni middle class of Homs into the arena, meanwhile, is the latest setback for the regime, which rests on the twin poles of Alawi power and Sunni Arab pragmatic acceptance of that power.

Here an additional detail must be noted.

The regime’s identification of Sunni Islamists among the protesters in the city is not without foundation.

Documentary evidence has emerged of the presence of Salafi and other Sunni Islamist elements, such as Hizb ut-Tahrir, in the protests. Fiery preacher Sheikh Mahmoud Dalati called this week for jihad – before a crowd of thousands yelling, “Allahu Akbar,” and, “With our blood and spirit, we will redeem you, o shahid” in the Great Mosque in Homs.

Certainly there are secular and liberal elements among the protesters, too. But the Islamists are there, and they are there in considerable numbers. They are not simply a bogeyman dreamed up by SANA.

Sunni Arabs are 60 percent of the population.

Their choices, and the nature of the political forces active among them, are of crucial importance.

So the essential contours of the Syrian situation are becoming increasingly clear, despite the media blackout affecting large parts of the country. The regime has no intention of surrendering and will engage in the level of repression it deems necessary to survive. The tsunami of protests is reaching the Sunni Arab heartlands of the country.

Islamist elements are present and prominent among the Sunni protesters.

And a collision between these two sides, which will pose the question of power in the starkest of ways, appears to lie just over the horizon.

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The Iranian Sword and the ‘Peninsula Shield’

Posted on April 8, 2011 by jonathanspyer

Jerusalem Post, 8/4/11.

First of all, it is necessary to restate an obvious truth. The “Arab spring” of 2011 has not served to alter the core strategic architecture of the Middle East. The Middle East in the long Arab winter that preceded this period was dominated by a standoff between the US-led dispensation in the region, which has held sway since the 1980s, and a challenge to that dispensation by an Iranian-led, largely Islamist alliance.

The Iranian challenge has been expressed through a sophisticated, patient strategy involving the creation of proxy organizations and the blending of subversive political and paramilitary activity.

Three months into the period of instability set in motion by the uprising in Tunisia, the Middle East is still dominated by this core process.

Once this is acknowledged, the strategic and diplomatic effect of the uprisings can begin to be rationally assessed. While not altering the essential picture, the uprisings have led to the departure of two significant players from the stage, both of them on the pro-Western side of the line: Zine El Abidine Bin Ali of Tunisia and Hosni Mubarak of Egypt.

The current indications are that Egypt, the far more significant of the two, is unlikely to return to its former role as a key bulwark against Iranian and Islamist regional ambitions. The Arab spring has also precipitated an incoherent Western intervention in the somewhat irrelevant state of Libya.

It is possible, and even likely, that the kinds of issues raised by the Arab uprisings will be central in the eventual defeat of the Iranian-led regional alliance. This is because on the crucial matters of societal development – the creation of working and representative institutions of government, providing jobs and opportunities and channeling the creative energies of a generation of young people in the Middle East – Iran and its allies have absolutely nothing to say.

Hence the attempts of both Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran and Bashar Assad of Syria to return the subject of conversation to Israel and its supposed hidden hand in the latest events.

BUT A 1989-style moment in which pragmatic civil society agendas sweep away decrepit anti-Western regimes is not yet upon us. The anti-Western regimes in Iran, Gaza and Lebanon continue to maintain power by force. Their ally in Syria also looks set to do so. Unlike the communists in 1989, these regimes are not yet in their dotage. Rather, they possess a vigorous and brutal will to live.

Meanwhile, with world attention focused on the intervention in Libya, Iran is moving ahead to exploit weaknesses exposed by the uprisings.

Iran has long been applying its skills in political/military subversion in locations across the region – from Afghanistan, via Iraq, to Lebanon and the Gaza Strip. But it is the Gulf area – the central focus of Iranian regional ambitions – that currently constitutes the central arena.

The Saudi intervention in Bahrain last month ensured, at least for the moment, that the reigning al-Khalifa family would survive. But it has also set the scene for a growing, open confrontation between Tehran, which wants to extend its influence and power into the energy-wealthy Arab monarchies and emirates of the Gulf, and Western-aligned Saudi Arabia, which sees itself as the protector of Sunni power in this area.

With Saudi troops ensconced in Bahrain, an escalating war of words is now under way between the official spokesmen and media outlets of Tehran and Riyadh.

Last week, the The National Security and Foreign Policy Commission of the Iranian Parliament (Majlis) accused Saudi Arabia of “playing with fire” and called on Riyadh to withdraw its forces from Bahrain. Iran said the Saudis were engaged in “pursuing US policies in the region.” Kuwait’s claims this week to have broken an Iranian-sponsored spy ring and Saudi fears of Iranian attempts to stir up unrest in the largely Shia province are adding to the tension.

Saudi statements dismissed the Iranian accusations in blunt terms. A Saudi official quoted in Asharq Alawsat newspaper said that Iran had “no right to breach the sovereignty of the Kingdom of Bahrain or to interfere in its affairs, or the affairs of any other Gulf State, or to attempt to deprive Bahrain of its legitimate right of seeking the help of the Gulf Cooperation Council [GCC] Peninsula Shield force.” THE SAUDI-Iranian standoff looks set to continue and probably escalate.

This rivalry is being played out around one of the most strategically vital areas of the world. It contains vital US air bases and the headquarters of the US Fifth Fleet. The security of world energy supplies depends on stability and the expectation of continued stability here.

This fact has evidently not entirely been lost on Western defense planners. On Monday, a NATO delegation held talks in Kuwait, discussing possible joint naval exercises in the Gulf area and closer cooperation.

The Iranians are experts at playing the long game. It is possible that they will prefer to maintain Bahrain as a generator of political legitimacy, in which they can present themselves as defending a beleaguered Shia majority from their Sunni oppressors. This may serve their interests more than a frontal confrontation at this stage, and can go hand in hand with continued efforts at subversion in Kuwait and eastern Saudi Arabia.

But the growing tension between Saudi Arabia and Iran is the first serious inter-state fallout deriving from the uprisings of 2011. It should serve to remind all those rhapsodizing about a new regional political age that springtime in the Middle East is a notoriously brief season, whose flowers have a tendency to fade quickly in the heat.

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Analysis: Arab States ‘Just Say No’ to Normalization

Posted on April 5, 2011 by jonathanspyer

Jerusalem Post- 08/08/2009

The idea of gestures of ‘normalization’ from Arab states to Israel is a central component in the US administration’s plan for reviving the Mideast peace process.
The notion represents a variant of the Oslo-style approach whereby a series of confidence-building measures will create a climate conducive to the successful conclusion of final-status negotiations. President Barack Obama’s approach seeks to expand the circle of confidence-building, so that the Arab states, and not only the Palestinians and Israelis, will be drawn into it.

According to reports, the US is now in the final stages before the announcement of its new, comprehensive peace plan. In the past week, meanwhile, three Arab states appear to have rejected the possibility of gestures of normalization.

Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal last Friday openly dismissed the idea of “incrementalism” and “confidence-building measures.” Jordanian Foreign Minister Nasser Judeh took a more ambiguous but still critical stance regarding such measures early this week in a meeting with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Kuwaiti Emir Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah, meanwhile, reiterated his country’s support for the Arab peace initiative after a meeting with Obama. By failing to give any hint of a forthcoming gesture to Israel, or to express any support for the idea of normalization in principle, the emir appeared to be adding Kuwait to the list of Arab countries who prefer to politely decline the administration’s request for assistance.

So far, the score-card for gestures of normalization from the Arab states to Israel stands at close to zero. Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Kuwait are all close allies of the US. Yet none have yet been willing to make a positive gesture in Washington’s direction on this issue. What lies behind their refusal?

One explanation for this holds that the administration’s pressure on Israel is leading to a hardening of Arab positions. Since Obama demanded a complete freeze on all construction in settlements, it would now be futile to expect Arab gestures of normalization unless Israel first accepts this demand. However, the Arab rejection of incremental measures has not been solely predicated on Israel’s refusal of a comprehensive freeze on all construction in West Bank settlements. Rather, the very principle of normalization in the period prior to a final-status accord between Israelis and Palestinians appears to be rejected.

The rejection of this idea derives from two elements. Firstly, the near-universal, though rarely expressed, belief that the current attempt to revive the Israeli-Palestinian peace process is doomed to failure. Secondly, the distinct lack of urgency felt in Arab capitals regarding this issue.

Regarding the first issue, the factors that caused the failure of the peace process in the 1990s have not disappeared. They are waiting to trip up any negotiation should final-status talks begin.

The demand that Palestinian refugees and their descendants be permitted to make their homes in Israel, the demand for exclusive Muslim sovereignty over the holy places in Jerusalem, the refusal to countenance recognition of Israel as a Jewish state – all these remain part of the non-negotiable core position of the Palestinian national movement. Indeed, in so far as the situation on the ground has changed since 2000, it is for the worse.

The split in the Palestinian national movement between nationalist Fatah and Islamist Hamas increasingly has the look of permanency about it. And since militancy against Israel remains the currency of legitimacy in Palestinian politics, the effect of this is to induce the aging Fatah movement to dress itself up in radical array once again.

This may currently be seen at the Fatah congress in Bethlehem. There is simply no prospect in the foreseeable future of a united Palestinian leadership willing to make the compromises with reality which alone would render a repartition of the country feasible.

For Arab countries aligned with the US, this situation is not so terrible. They suffer no tangible consequence as a result of it. But the Palestinian issue remains the great mobilizing cause for the populations of the Arab states.

Since this is the case, Arab regimes do not consider it in their interests to appear to be making concessions to Israel. On the contrary – given that from the Kuwaiti, or Saudi, or even Jordanian point of view there is no urgent practical need to resolve the conflict, the leaders of these countries have an obvious interest in playing to the gallery of their own publics by striking occasional militant poses.

These poses must not go beyond a certain point, of course. The American protector must not be unduly provoked. But the Obama administration has made abundantly clear that there will be no price to be paid by the Arab states for their refusal to get on the Obama peace wagon.

As a result, these states may happily continue their comfortable stance of verbal support for the Palestinian cause and refusal to undertake any potentially detrimental gesture of rapprochement toward Israel, while continuing to enjoy the benefits of American patronage.

The fact is that, as everyone in the region knows, there is no chance of a final-status accord between Israelis and Palestinians any time soon. And the absence of such an accord is very far from being the most urgent problem facing the region. All sides now await the moment that this knowledge finds its way to the US administration.

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An Empty Package

Posted on April 5, 2011 by jonathanspyer

30/05/2008

At this past Sunday’s cabinet meeting, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert issued a public statement relating to the revived negotiations with Syria. The talks, the prime minister wished to assure us, were “serious” and would be conducted with “all due caution.” All the ingredients familiar from peace processes past were present in Olmert’s statement: the gravitas; the quiet sense that history is presenting us with a chance that must not be missed; the necessary discretion. However, in the manner now familiar from Olmert’s tenure as prime minister, what we were presented with was the form of something, without its content.

The revelation of negotiations with Syria last week came wrapped in the packaging of a diplomatic breakthrough. But it was nothing of the kind. The basic flaw relates not to Israeli domestic politics (though this may certainly be a factor). The reason why the current negotiations are almost certain to lead nowhere relates to the Syrian regime, and to its perception of its own interests. Syria should not be expected to break with Iran, for the following, central reason: The Iranians and their friends are winning. The Iran-led bloc can look around the region today, and feel a quiet sense of satisfaction. In all the various areas in which it is engaged in its long war with the West, Iran is gaining ground.

Hamas, hosted by Syria and increasingly sponsored and trained by Iran, is holding on in Gaza. In doing so, the Hamas enclave there offers living proof of the muqawama (resistance) doctrine to which the Iranian-led bloc adheres. According to this doctrine, Iran and its clients can paralyze their enemies’ decision-making ability, by making the cost of a preferred action too high. Israel knows that it ought to conduct a large-scale military operation in Gaza, in order to remove a regime that makes any peace process with the Palestinians an impossibility. But Israel doesn’t act, because of the cost in lives that such an operation would entail. For Iran and its allies, this confirms a basic dictum: namely, that the shiny outward appearance of Western and Israeli strength conceals an inner weakness – a lack of will.

Iran and its clients have just scored an additional major victory in Lebanon. This, similarly, was gained by raw intimidation. The result was that in Doha last week, Hezbollah gained the key demand for which it has been campaigning over the previous 18 months: veto power in a new cabinet.

This is of direct relevance to the Syrians. The Assad regime’s interests have been aptly described as regime survival, returning to a position of influence in Lebanon and regaining the Golan Heights – in that order. If Assad is currently interested in talking, it’s because he genuinely would like to gain the third item on this list – but not if it has implications for the other two items, which are more important. If quitting the Iran-led bloc is the price, it has direct relevance to both the stability of the regime and the Lebanese question.

Hezbollah’s new strength in Beirut will enable it to block and perhaps kill the tribunal investigating the murder of former prime minister Rafik Hariri. The tribunal has been one of the chief fears of the Assad regime since the assassination, in February 2005. More fundamentally, the rise of Hezbollah to the status of arbiter of power in Lebanon represents a very significant and clear gain for the Iran-led bloc in what has been one of the key arenas of its contest with the United States and its regional allies.

Now, if Syria were to depart the Iran-led bloc, its place in all of this would evaporate: no more blocking of the Hariri tribunal, because there would be no more backing of Hezbollah. No return to Lebanon – with its many economic opportunities – because its new American friends will want to respect Lebanese sovereignty. No more influence over the Palestinians through the support of Hamas. Instead, the Assad regime would gain the basalt plateau of the Golan Heights – the absence of which causes it no tangible discomfort – and would in return become a vulnerable, minority-led dictatorship with no immediately obvious justification for its own existence.

Why would the Syrians go for such a deal? Why would they leave the tutelage of a power that appears to be successfully defying the West over its nuclear program, and whose allies are managing to hold up well across the region? The answer is that they wouldn’t, which is why the process is packaging without substance.

Indeed, the very desire of Israel at the present time to break with American attempts to isolate Syria offers further proof that defiance works. Who is splitting whose alliance in this process, exactly?

The bottom line is that peace will become a possibility in the region only when the pro-Iranian alliance is challenged and faced down. The attempt to decouple elements of it at the moment of its ascent is worse than useless. It conveys confusion, disunity and hesitancy at a time when the precise opposites of all of these are urgently needed.

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Arab Summit, Iranian Agenda

Posted on April 5, 2011 by jonathanspyer

05/04/2009

The issues that dominated the 21st Arab League summit in Doha, Qatar, this week testified to the weakness and disunity of the Arab states. Sunni Arabs are the majority population group in the Middle East. Yet the Doha agenda reflected a regional reality dominated by the interests of, and clash between, two strong but non-Arab countries – Israel and Iran.

Current Arab diplomacy is dominated first and foremost by a growing Iranian encroachment on the politics of the Arabic-speaking world, and the divided Arab response to this. This was reflected in all the major issues at and around the summit.

The central diplomatic headline at Doha was the decision by Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak not to attend, against a backdrop of growing Egyptian displeasure with Qatar. Egypt’s irritation derives from the increasingly pro-Iranian stance being taken by Qatar. The Gulf Emirate of Qatar offered demonstrative support to Hamas during Israel’s recent Gaza incursion. Qatar hosted an improvised summit during Operation Cast Lead, which was attended by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Hamas leader Khaled Meshal.
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Egypt regards Qatar’s stance as hypocritical and somewhat ludicrous – given the emirate’s close defense ties with the United States (the headquarters of U.S. military Central Command is located there). But Cairo is also worried. Qatar is aping the Iranian language of anti-Western defiance and “resistance” – a concept sure to have a receptive audience in the Arabic-speaking world – in an attempt to build its own regional influence.

The Palestinian cause – the great self-proclaimed moral flagship of Arab politics – is currently the subject of a hostile takeover bid by Iran and its clients. The Doha summit issued the expected ringing call on Israel to accept the Saudi initiative while there is still time. It is not entirely clear what the implied threat behind this statement actually consists of. But the truth is that as long as the Palestinian national movement remains in its current state, this demand lacks even the most elementary logic.

The Iranian-armed and sponsored Hamas enclave in Gaza has successfully suppressed its internal rivals and defended its existence against Israel. There are now in effect two Palestinian national movements. One of them is ideologically strong and hungry, favors Israel’s destruction, and is supported by Iran. The other is old and tired and lost, and is propped up by vast amounts of Western funding. The former is in the process of trying to devour the latter, and may succeed. So in partnership with whom is Israel expected to implement the Saudi initiative?

Fear of Iran is driving the Saudi attempt to woo Syria away from its alliance with Tehran. At a “mini-summit” in preparation for Doha earlier in March, Saudi King Abdullah offered Syria’s President Bashar Assad an extensive financial package in return for Damascus abandoning its ties with Iran and returning to the “Arab fold.” The Saudis also pledged to help Syria in its diplomatic efforts to re-acquire the Golan Heights from Israel.

So far, Assad has managed to resist all such temptations. In a recent interview with Al-Jazeera, Foreign Minister Walid Moallem dismissed the very possibility of such a move. The Syrian line, as expressed in an editorial in the government-owned al-Thawra newspaper earlier this week, is that the search for peace must go hand in hand with a policy of muqawama (resistance). The doctrine of “resistance,” of course, is the ideological and rhetorical glue holding together the disparate forces aligned with Iran in the region.

All the above examples might lead one to conclude that Iran is developing into a vast, looming power, about to overshadow the region. But the situation is more complicated than this. Iran’s advances are testimony not to the great strength and vitality of the Tehran regime and its governing idea, but rather to the weakness of Arab states, institutions and political cultures.

Iran’s regional strategy is itself limited by a series of contradictions. The muqawama doctrine is designed to enable Shi’ite, Persian Iran to link up with Islamist and oppositional forces across the Middle East. The Tehran regime stresses the idea of the “Islamic world” and an overriding Muslim identity. It dreams of a bloc of Muslim states led by a nuclear Iran, challenging Israel’s existence and American power.

And indeed, Iranian regional “outreach” has succeeded in building close alliances with a number of Arab states and movements. This project is impacting all aspects of regional politics. But Iran will always suffer from a “legitimacy gap” in the Arab world. It will always be perceived as a foreign, frightening power by many non-Shi’ite Arabs. In the end, the faltering Iranian economy and domestically unpopular regime are probably instruments too weak to carry the grand ambitions of Iran’s rulers.

Still, Doha signaled that for the moment the Iranian star in the region is on the rise, with the leading states of the Arab system – Egypt and Saudi Arabia – reduced to scolding and attempted bribery respectively in their efforts to limit its influence. It is perhaps the final ironic testimony to the Arabs’ weakness that the only regional state capable of mounting a real resistance to the westward march of Iranian power is the one against whom all Arab League members can still momentarily unite in displays of verbal ferocity – namely, Israel.

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Re-Packaging Illusion

Posted on April 5, 2011 by jonathanspyer

28/03/2010

The Obama administration’s approach to the Middle East is characterized by an apparent desire to revive the sunny illusions of the 1990s peace process – in an era that is far more uncertain and dangerous. This is particularly noticeable in the Israeli-Palestinian arena, in which the United States, the dominant world power, sets the parameters of debate. As a result, international discussion of the conflict is now more detached from reality than at any time in the past 40 years.

There are two layers to the edifice of unreality in which mainstream debate on the Israeli-Palestinian issue is now taking place. The first and most obvious one concerns the Hamas enclave in Gaza. It is now over four years since the movement’s victory in elections to the Palestine Legislative Council, and nearly three years since the Hamas coup in Gaza. It is therefore past time to acknowledge that a single, united Palestinian national movement no longer exists.

Since this is, apparently, a reality too terrible to be admitted, the U.S. and the Europeans have chosen, in public at least, to ignore it. The fiction that the West Bank Palestinian Authority speaks in the name of all Palestinians is politely maintained. Behind the scenes, however, the reality is widely acknowledged. The intended means for coping with it constitutes the second layer of illusion.

The inability of even mainstream Fatah-style Palestinian nationalism to accept partition as the final outcome of the conflict has prevented its resolution twice – in 2000 and 2008. This type of nationalism understands the conflict as one that pits a colonial project against a native, authentic nationalism.

From such a perspective, partition of the land means admitting defeat. But Palestinian nationalism does not feel defeated. It is characterized, rather, by a deep strategic optimism. From its point of view, it is therefore not imperative to immediately conclude the struggle – but it is forbidden to end it. Hence the endless reasons why the partition deal somehow can never be inked.

The solution to this obstacle, the West has now decided, is that a new Palestinian leadership, unburdened by this outlook, must be created and defended. The manifestation of this approach is the meteoric career of Salam Fayyad, who was first imposed upon Palestinian politics as finance minister in 2002 by then-secretary of state Condoleezza Rice, and is today PA prime minister.

Fayyad is working closely with Western representatives to build up the institutions and the economic prosperity that are supposedly going to transform Palestinian political culture from the all-or-nothing logjam that has prevented conflict resolution until now, into something with which the world can do business.

The essential logic of this is the same wishful thinking that doomed the 1990s peace process: namely, the idea that institution-building and economic advancement will – and must – eventually have a transformative effect on political outlook. This idea, experience has shown, is fundamentally flawed.

Some liken Fayyad to Konrad Adenauer, the German chancellor who presided over the transformation of political culture and the emergence of democracy in his country after 1945. But Adenauer operated in an era in which the anti-modern, anti-Western element in German political culture had just experienced a final, crushing Gotterdammerung, and Germany was living under a massive and permanent occupation.

In the Palestinian territories, by contrast, the anti-Western and anti-modern element is flourishing, and has state backers in Iran and Syria. It would probably quickly consume Fayyad, were he to cease to be cradled in the arms of the West.

Like the pleasant, well-dressed leaders of the March 14 movement in Lebanon – who have now been devoured by Syria and Hezbollah – Fayyad and company are the product of Western wishful thinking. And like those of March 14, they will survive for precisely as long as the West is willing to underwrite them. And no longer.

This would be fine. The economic development Fayyad is promoting in the West Bank is wholly positive. The problem is that this fantasy version of Palestinian politics is now being seen as real in Brussels and Washington. There are those in the West who seem to have convinced themselves that their creation can walk by itself.

The pleasant figure of Fayyad allows outside observers to pretend that the underlying realities of Palestinian politics do not exist. From there, it is a short step to convincing oneself that the only reason there isn’t peace in the Middle East is because Interior Minister Eli Yishai wants to build houses for ultra-Orthodox families in north-central Jerusalem.

In the case of the U.S. administration, it is not entirely clear if this view derives from genuine naivete, or a calculated rationale. There are those who suspect that President Obama will find a way to hold Israel responsible for the absence of peace, regardless of the truth of the situation, because of broader considerations that in his view require the distancing of Washington from Jerusalem.

Either way, it is difficult to discern what advantage the administration’s approach will bring for Western interests and good governance in the region. The main impression to be gained is that the West and its allies are confused, disunited and fractious. A cause for celebration for their enemies, no doubt, but hardly an impression one would expect Washington to wish to promote.

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The West Should Use Resolution 1701 to Roll Back Hizbullah’s Effective Take-over of the Lebanese Government

Posted on April 5, 2011 by jonathanspyer

22/04/2010

The summoning by the United States of Syrian Deputy Chief of Mission Zouheir Jabbour for a review of Syrian arms transfers to Hizbullah is the latest evidence of the serious basis to the recent tensions in the north.

Syria has continued to deny recent reports suggesting that it permitted the transfer of Scud-D ballistic missiles to Hizbullah.

But the issue of the Scuds is only a significant detail within a larger picture, which has been emerging into clear view since August 2006. This is the reality in which UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which ended the war between Israel and Hizbullah in 2006, has been turned into a dead letter by the “resistance bloc” of Iran, Syria and Hizbullah.

It is worth recalling that Resolution 1701 was hailed as a significant achievement for diplomacy at the time. The resolution was supposed to strengthen the basis for the renewed Lebanese sovereignty that seemed possible after Syrian withdrawal in 2005.

Its provisions are quite clear. The resolution calls for the disarmament of all armed groups in Lebanon, so that… there will be no weapons or authority in Lebanon other than that of the Lebanese state.” It also explicitly prohibits “sales or supply of arms and related materiel to Lebanon except as authorized by its government.”

Hizbullah and its backers calculated, correctly, that neither the government of Lebanon, nor the United Nations, nor the “international community” would be able or willing to enforce these clauses.

The UN has itself admitted the severe inadequacy of arrangements along the Syrian-Lebanese border. Two UN border assessments have been carried out since 2006 – in June 2007 and August 2008.

The second report found, in the dry language employed by such documents, that “even taking into account the difficult political situation in Lebanon during the past year,” progress toward achieving the goals laid out in Resolution 1701 had been “insufficient.”

The “difficult political situation” of 2008 is a reference to the fact that the elected Lebanese government’s single attempt at enforcing its sovereignty over the allies of Syria and Iran in the country ended in May 2008 with the violent rout of the government.

Hizbullah and its allies simply made clear that any attempt to interfere with their military arrangements would be met with blunt force, and no further attempt was made.

The result has been that over the past three-and-a-half years, under the indifferent eyes of the world, the roads between Syria and Lebanon have hummed to the sound of arms trucks and suppliers bringing Syrian and Iranian weaponry to Lebanon.

The response of Israel has been to observe the situation, and to make clear that the crossing of certain red lines in terms of the type and caliber of the weaponry being made available to Hizbullah would constitute a casus belli.

The recent heightening of tensions has come because of emerging evidence that these red lines are being flouted with impunity.

This did not begin with the reports of the Scuds. Evidence has emerged into the public sphere over the last months of weaponry suggesting a Syrian and Iranian desire to transform Hizbullah into a bona fide strategic threat to Israel.

The weaponry supplied to Hizbullah include M-600 surface-to-surface missiles, the man-portable Igla-S surface-to-air missile system, which would threaten Israeli fighter aircraft monitoring the skies of Lebanon, and now the Scud-D ballistic missile system.

If the reports regarding such weaponry are correct, they would make Hizbullah by far the best-armed non-state paramilitary group in the world.

These reports do not mean that war is necessarily imminent.

Israel appears in no hurry to punish Hizbullah and Syria for the flouting of red lines. Unlike its enemies, the Israeli government is publicly accountable, and would find it difficult to justify a preemptive strike – which might well result in renewed war – to the Israeli public.

Hizbullah and Syria also seem in no rush to initiate hostilities. They have merely internalized the fact that nothing serious appears to stand in the way of their activities across the eastern border of Lebanon, and are hence proceeding apace.

The clearest lesson of the latest events is the fictional status of international guarantees and resolutions if these are not backed by a real willingness to enforce them.

The Western failure to underwrite the elected government of Lebanon has led to the effective Hizbullah takeover of that country. The failure to insist on the implementation of Resolution 1701 has allowed the apparent strategic transformation of Hizbullah over the last three and a half years.

While the “resistance bloc” does not necessarily seek imminent conflict, there is also no sign whatsoever that its appetite has been satiated by its recent gains. Laws, elections and agreements do not stand in its way. It operates, rather, according to the dictum of a certain 20th-century German leader, who said, “You stand there with your law, and I’ll stand here with my bayonets, and we’ll see which one prevails.”

The real question, of course, being how long the intended victim of such an approach is prepared to allow it to continue.

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