What Does Assad Want?

Posted on April 5, 2011 by jonathanspyer

07/03/2010

In Damascus last week, the full array of leaders of the so-called ‘resistance bloc’ came together in a series of meetings. Presidents Ahmedinejad of Iran and Assad of Syria were there, alongside a beaming Khaled Meshal of Hamas and Hizballah General-Secretary Hassan Nasrallah. There were some lesser lights too to make up the numbers – including the PFLP-GC’s Ahmed Jibril, a fossil from the old alphabet soup of secular Palestinian groups.

The mood – replicated a few days later in Teheran – was one of jubilant defiance.

The reasons underlying Syria’s membership of the ‘resistance bloc’ remain fiercely debated in western policy discussion. It has long been the view of a powerful element in Washington – strongly echoed by many in the Israeli defense establishment – that Syria constitutes the ‘weakest link’ in the Iranian-led bloc.

Adherents to this view see the Syrian regime as concerned solely with power and its retention. Given, they say, that Syria’s ties to the Iran-led bloc are pragmatic rather than ideological, the policy trick to be performed is finding the right incentive to make Damascus re-calculate the costs and benefits of its position.

Once the appropriate incentive tips the balance, it is assumed, the regime in Damascus will coolly absent itself from the company of frothing ideologues on display in Damascus and Teheran last week, and will take up its position on the rival table – or at least at a point equidistant between them.

The specific incentive required to perform this trick varies depending on who you ask. In Israel, it is generally assumed that the recovery of the Golan Heights is the great prize. In this view, Syrian backing for Hizballah and for Palestinian terror groups is intended to keep up the pressure on Israel, in order to force it to concede the Golan.

In Washington, one may hear a number of other incentives discussed – the removal of the Syria Accountability Act, US aid and investment, and so on.

The logic of all these positions depends on the basic characterization of the Assad regime as ultimately motivated purely by Machiavellian power interests. This characterization remains received wisdom in Israeli and US policy circles to a far greater extent than the evidence for it warrants.

Western wooing of Syria has undeniably produced remarkably little in terms of changing the regime’s behavior. In recent weeks, the Obama Administration increased the volume of its formerly cautious overtures to Damascus. Under Secretary of State William Burns visited Damascus. Burns attempted to raise the issue of Syrian support for insurgents in Iraq, and for Hizballah and Palestinian terror groups. Assad, according to reports, denied all knowledge of such support.

The recently announced US decision to return an ambassador to Damascus was followed by the resistance jamboree in Damascus – in which Assad openly mocked US hopes for a Syrian ‘distancing’ from Iran.

It has now been announced that Secretary of State Hilary Clinton is considering a visit to Damascus. In the meantime, Syria is gaily crashing through the red lines on its military support for Hizballah. Sophisticated anti-aircraft equipment, such as the Russian-made Igla system is rumored to be following the advanced surface to surface missiles and anti-tank systems supplied to the Shia Islamist group.

Which brings us back to the core question of Syrian motivation. Clearly, the Syrians have a habit of swallowing incentives and giving nothing in return. But if the alignment with Iran is purely pragmatic, then why does it prove so difficult to offer Syria the right carrot to lure it away from Teheran?

There are two possible answers. The first and most obvious one is that Syria calculates, probably correctly, that since there will be no real price imposed on it for not changing its behavior, it can afford to maintain its current level of relations with Iran, while happily accepting any gestures from the west or Israel designed to induce it to change them.

But this explanation fails to account for the brazenness and fervor of Syria’s current stance of defiance.

The statements of individuals close to the Syrian regime in recent months suggest that there is more to the current Syrian stance than simply playing all sides off against the middle. Rather, the Syrians believe that a profound re-structuring of the balance of power is under way in the Middle East – to the benefit of the Iran-led bloc.

This re-structuring is being made possible because of the supposed long-term weakening of the US in the region. This enables the aggressive, Islamist regime in Teheran to fill the vacuum. It also renders feasible policy options – such as direct confrontation with Israel – which in the 1990s seemed to have vanished forever.

The characterization of the young Syrian president and his regime as ultimately cool-headed and pragmatist is incorrect. The Damascus regime always held to a fiercely anti-Israeli and anti-American view of the region. In the 1990s, realities appeared to require a practical sidelining of this view. But the 1990s were over a while ago.

Regimes like that of the Assads (and even semi-farcical figures like old Jibril and his PFLP-GC) are not anomalies in the alliance based on Iranian ambition and regional Islamist fervor. Rather, they are natural partners, sharing a base-level understanding of the region, common enemies, and a common, brutal approach to asserting their interests. It is for this core reason that attempts to prise Bashar Assad away from his natural habitat will continue to prove fruitless.

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Afghanistan Shows Iran’s Stake in Regional Insecurity

Posted on April 5, 2011 by jonathanspyer

Jerusalem Post- 04/05/2009

A month ago, US President Barack Obama announced a new strategy to address the current crisis in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Obama’s plan to ‘disrupt, dismantle and defeat’ al-Qaida and the Taliban in ‘Afpak’ includes deployment of an additional 21,000 US troops in Afghanistan, and an increase in civilian officials to aid in developing the Afghan economy and governmental structures.

The strategy also contains a diplomatic element. The President said that he intended to bring together all those countries who ‘should have a stake in the security of the region.’ Among the countries he named as belonging to this group was Iran. Seeking Iranian cooperation in dealing with the grave and urgent situation in Afghanistan and Pakistan looks set to form a cornerstone in the US policy of ‘engagement’ with Teheran.

The first tentative moves in the diplomatic dance between the US and Iran on this issue have already begun. Richard Holbrooke, the Administration’s special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, recently had an ‘unscheduled’ encounter with Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Mohammad Mehdi Akhondzadeh, at a conference on Afghanistan.

The Administration’s approach rests on a crucial assumption: It is considered that since Iran and the Taliban are mortal enemies on the ideological and theological level, and since in the past, Iranians and Taliban have clashed, there ought to be a common Iranian-US interest in defeating or containing the Sunni extremists. This, however, is deeply questionable. Closer observation would suggest that, theological and historical matters notwithstanding, Iran has a clear stake in maintaining the absence of security – in ‘Afpak’ and beyond it.

The issue is not simple. In certain, limited areas – on the issue of drug trafficking, for example – there is a genuine commonality of interest between Iran and the US with regard to Afghanistan.

But in the larger, strategic arena, Iran operates according to the dictum that America’s difficulty is Iran’s opportunity. On this basis, in spite of the relations of mutual loathing that pertain between the Shia regime in Teheran and the Sunni, Deobandi extremists of the Taliban, ample evidence points to Iranian covert assistance to the Afghan insurgents engaged in war against NATO forces in the country.

In April, 2007, NATO forces intercepted two convoys carrying Iranian arms to the Taliban. A recent French media report noted the existence of three training camps for Taliban fighters in Iran. British forces in Afghanistan last year reported evidence that Iran has been supplying Taliban fighters with similar sophisticated roadside bomb making equipment to that given by Teheran to Shia insurgents in southern Iraq. Both Centcom commander General David Petraeus and NATO spokesman James Appathurai recently confirmed reports of Iranian assistance to the Taliban.

Iran’s assistance to the Taliban follows the familiar broader pattern of Iranian encouragement of instability across the region. Iran is in the business of challenging the US-dominated order in the Middle East. Preventing an American achievement in Afghanistan, and keeping NATO forces bogged down in an endless, bloody slogging match in the country represents a natural expression of this.

This strategy may be seen at work elsewhere. In Iraq, Iran is maintaining its support for Shia insurgents in the Ahl al-Haq (League of the Righteous) organization. These forces suffered severe disruption at the hands of US troops in 2007 and 2008, with many militants taking refuge in Iran. Current evidence suggests that their operations are now once again on the increase in Iraq. The Iranians make little effort to conceal their links with the Shia insurgents. Ahl al-Haq militants are armed with Iranian made Fajr-3 missiles and explosive formed projectiles (IEDs) used in roadside bomb attacks.

So while the Iranians will be happy to talk if invited to, the talking will take place simultaneously with continued Iranian assistance to forces engaged in killing US troops in the two conflict zones in which they are currently deployed in the Middle East. Both the talking and the fighting are part of a unified strategy for building Teheran’s influence and power.

A recent report by the Washington Institute for Near East Policy quoted a British official who recalled his experiences as a member of the EU’s negotiating team on the Iranian nuclear program. The official, Sir John Sawers, noted that the negotiations were taking place at the same time that British soldiers in southern Iraq were under attack from Iranian made missiles and IEDs, in the hands of Iraqi Shia insurgents. He recalled that “the Iranians wanted to be able to strike a deal whereby they stopped killing our forces in Iraq in return for them being allowed to carry on with their nuclear program.”

This approach to diplomacy reflects the confident self-assertion of a regime that regards itself as the ‘rising sun’ striving toward ascendance across the region. The US Administration thinks that Iran ‘should’ support regional security and stability. The problem is that the Iranian regime appears to have a different way of calibrating its interests.

In the Iranian approach, support for violence and insurgency brings with it myriad advantages. The western powers, prevented from attaining their objectives, appear weak and helpless. The enemy, bogged down in conflicts elsewhere, has less time and capital to spend on containing Iranian ambitions. And finally – as Sir John Sawers’ recollections indicate – proxies can always be abandoned at an opportune moment, in order to buy time for projects of truly central importance.

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Analysis: Damascus Gets What it Needs

Posted on April 5, 2011 by jonathanspyer

Jerusalem Post- 13/05/2009

In his letter to Congress announcing the renewal of US sanctions on Syria, President Barack Obama was specific regarding the reasons for his decision.
Syria, the President said, was “supporting terrorism, pursuing weapons of mass destruction and missile programs, and undermining US and international efforts with respect to the stabilization and reconstruction of Iraq.”

These three accusations are related to verifiable activity currently being undertaken by the Damascus regime. Syria’s activity in turn reflects the firmness of the regime’s strategic choice to align itself with the regional alliance led by Iran.

Syria’s actions should be observed well by all those currently promoting the feasibility of a “grand bargain” between Israel and the Arab world. They are evidence of the reality of a Middle East Cold War, in which the fault lines are growing ever clearer.

First, let’s recall the details. With regard to supporting terrorism, it is well known that the leaderships of Hamas and Islamic Jihad are domiciled in Damascus. Syria has over the last decade built a close, mutually beneficial strategic relationship with Hizbullah. Damascus also serves as a large care home for various superannuated leftist Palestinian groups.

On weapons of mass destruction, reports have surfaced in recent days suggesting that the Syrians have constructed a biological weapons facility, on the site of the al-Kibar plutonium reactor destroyed by Israel in 2007. Certainly, Damascus’s interest in both biological and chemical weapons is long-standing.

Syria possesses one of the largest and most advanced chemical warfare programs in the Arab world – including chemical warheads for all its major missile systems. It is known to possess a stockpile of the nerve agent sarin, and is in the process of attempting to develop the more powerful VX nerve agent, according to the CIA’s bi-annual report on WMD proliferation. Damascus is also thought by western governments to possess a biological warfare development program.

On the “stabilization and reconstruction” of Iraq – the latest news is that after a short pause, Damascus has in the last month recommenced its practice of facilitating the entry of Sunni jihadi fighters into Iraq by way of Syria’s eastern border. At the height of the Sunni insurgency, Damascus airport became a transit point for fighters from across the Arab world and beyond it seeking to make their way to Iraq. In mid 2007, 80-100 fighters per month were crossing into Iraq from Syria. Having fallen to close to zero earlier this year, the numbers are now up to 20 per month.

The charge sheet is both substantial, and formidable. It isn’t hard to see why the US administration found it necessary to renew the sanctions. But the interesting question remains that of Syria’s motive.

Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs, Jeffrey Feltman, and NSC senior official Daniel Shapiro have visited Damascus twice in the last two months. Feltman noted that the two sides found “lots of common ground” between them. Syrian Ambassador to the US Imad Moustapha happily described the “new spirit of serious discussion” that he found in his meetings with Obama administration officials.

So why, four months into Washington’s courting of the Assad regime, has there been no improvement of any kind in Syria’s stances regarding issues of concern to the US? Rather, where there has been change, it has been for the worse – as in the situation on the Iraqi border, and perhaps with regard to al-Kibar.

The regime has evidently done its calculations, and concluded that it has nothing to gain by loosening its relationship with the Iranians at the present time. US sanctions are not toothless. Oil and gas production in Syria has been hit because of lack of access to US technology. The aviation and banking sectors have also been affected. Damascus would substantively gain from seeing the sanctions lifted.

But Syria is also aware that with the region polarized between US and Iranian blocs, moving toward the former entails moving away from the latter. And it is not at all clear that the US could, or would, wish to provide Syria with the very tangible strategic benefits it currently gains from its close relations with Iran.

Washington wants a free Lebanon, a stable, strong Iraq, and progress towards peace between Israel and the Palestinians. Syria opposes all of these. Damascus seeks to rebuild its own power in Lebanon, to keep Iraq weak and strife-torn, and to benefit from its own self-proclaimed stance as the expression of pride and defiance in the Arab dispute with Israel.

Allies of Iran and Syria may be about to win elections in Lebanon, and are growing daily more powerful among the Palestinians. The alliance with Iran also makes Syrian meddling in Iraq a possibility, and may well prevent the reemergence of a strong and independent Baghdad.

The firmness of the Syrian stance suggests that Damascus expects US attempts at engagement with Iran to fail – making the issue a zero-sum game. On that basis, the reasons for the Syrian choice become clear. While rapprochement with the US might give the Assad regime something of what it wants, its alliance with Iran gives it most of what it needs.

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Imagined Partners

Posted on April 5, 2011 by jonathanspyer

Gloria Center- 25/03/2008

The Middle East is currently divided between an alliance of radical Islamist and associated states and organizations, which take support and inspiration from Iran, on the one hand, and a coalition of pro-Western states, on the other. The “Annapolis process” is based on the expectation that Fatah will play the role of the pro-Western, pro-stability element among the Palestinians. The facts indicate, however, that for both structural and ideological reasons, it is neither able nor willing to play this role.

In a curious reversal of normal scientific practice, the failed experiment of the 1990s peace process is now being performed again. Its architects tell us, contrary to all available evidence, that this time the results will be different. They won’t be. Instead, de facto cooperation between the region’s moderate states will serve to contain the local pro-Iranian forces. The “peace process” meanwhile, is likely to continue in virtual reality alongside this; never reaching a successful conclusion, and still not quite being pronounced dead.

The problem is not simply the internal disarray of Fatah, which did not undergo any major reform after its election defeat to Hamas two years ago. More significant is the set of core ideas upon which this movement is based, and to which it remains committed.

When Israel commenced a negotiating process with Fatah in the 1990s, it assumed that the latter had accepted that its goal of the destruction of Israel – while still in its view just and morally laudable – was for the moment impracticable. The hope was that, as the movement was drawn into the practical, day-to-day affairs of governing, its adherence to the politics of symbolism – best represented by the “right of return” – would be replaced by a sober, practical outlook. When that didn’t happen, the consequence was the collapse of the process, and the bloody years of 2000-2004.

In the interim period, change has been mainly in a negative direction – with those elements in Fatah opposed to political realism being strengthened. Today, influential elements within the movement openly reject the possibility of a two-state solution to the conflict. These include both powerful figures within the old Tunis leadership – such as Farouk Kaddoumi – and up-and-coming leaders in the West Bank – such as Ziad Abu Ein. Analysts are also noting the increasing prevalence of Islamic theological motifs in the symbols used by armed Fatah factions. Such Fatah-associated forces as the Abu Rish Brigades in Gaza, and the Brigades of the Return now openly speak the language of political Islam.

Nor is Mahmoud Abbas accepted as the single, final voice of authority in the movement. Rather, different elements of Fatah appear to be pulling in precisely opposite directions. Thus, while the PA leadership continues to hold regular meetings with Israeli officials, last October several Tanzim men plotted the assassination of Ehud Olmert in Jericho. And while the PA issues its official condemnation of the terror attack at Mercaz Harav, Fatah’s Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigade hailed the attack as a “heroic operation” in response to “Israeli atrocities.”

Thus the question logically arises: What is an alternate strategy for stability in the West Bank?

Since the death of Yasser Arafat, in 2004, the fragmenting of Palestinian nationalism has led to the gradual revival of the concept of Jordanian re-engagement in the area. There are various ideas for the form this would take – from an eventual Jordanian-Palestinian confederation to the idea of a temporary Jordanian military presence to aid or replace the PA security forces (and augment the de facto IDF presence in the West Bank, which currently prevents it from falling into Hamas’ hands).

In all these notions, the implicit idea is that Jordan, as a senior partner, could offset the dysfunctional structural and ideological elements weakening Fatah. As the current process continues to travel in circles, such ideas are gaining ground behind the scenes. Jordan’s recent decision to connect the town of Jericho to the Jordanian electricity grid is an example of the incremental, growing involvement of Amman on the ground. Jordan’s regaining control last year of the Waqf on the Temple Mount offers a further example.

The motivation for increased Jordanian de facto involvement is simple. The Jordanians have at least as much to fear from a Hamas-dominated West Bank as Israel does. Again – what is on offer here is not a political solution. Because of the nature of Palestinian politics, this is not currently a possibility. So what is happening instead is the quiet emergence of cooperation between the responsible forces in the area – Israel and Jordan – to contain the growing influence of the local representatives of the Iran-led alliance.

There are at least initial indications that a similar process of joint containment of the Hamas enclave in Gaza by Israel and Egypt is beginning. In Gaza, however, because of the reality of existing Hamas rule, it is less likely that stability and containment will hold, and large-scale military action at some point in the future remains the most likely prognosis.

In the meantime, the coalition of political interests that gave birth to Annapolis will continue on its merry way. But the emergent reality of regional cold war necessitates sober strategic thinking. One of the results of this – in reality if not immediately on paper – is likely to be the reversal of the 16-year-old Israeli wrong turn of seeking peace with an opponent that neither sought nor was able to accept coexistence with the Jewish state.

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Analysis: The Legacy of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh

Posted on April 5, 2011 by jonathanspyer

Gloria Center- 26/03/2010

Wherever departed Hamas official Mahmoud al-Mabhouh is now, he is presumably enjoying the considerable trouble the nature of his exit is causing his Israeli enemies.

The British decision to expel an unnamed Israeli diplomat following the conclusion of an investigation into the alleged use by Israel of cloned British passports in an assassination operation probably does not signal the onset of a general crisis in relations between London and Jerusalem. Still, it is not an everyday act, and the language used by the foreign secretary in announcing the expulsion was notably harsh.

This affair has so far traveled along similar lines to the last major set-to between the UK and Israel over the issue of Israeli intelligence activities overseas. In 1986, a number of forged British passports were discovered in an Israeli diplomatic pouch in West Germany. This incident was followed a year later by the apprehending of a Palestinian employed as a double agent by Israeli intelligence, together with a cache of weapons, in a northern English town. The result was the expulsion from Britain of Arie Regev, an official at the Israeli Embassy. Regev was widely regarded as the chief of the Mossad station in the UK.

Then, as now, the anger of senior British officials was real, not feigned. And the public revelations of the events meant that a response of a public nature was also inevitable. But the substantive response was a managed one. Cooperation between Israeli and British intelligence services suffered for a while. But channels of communication stayed open via Washington. Information of really crucial importance continued to be shared.

A replacement for Regev was in due course installed. After a suitable time lapse, normal cooperation was resumed.

Regarding the broader diplomatic parameters, the affair did not prevent the governments of Margaret Thatcher and her successor, John Major, from being among the most friendly to Israel in recent memory.

There is good reason to assume that this time, too, any real damage will be limited in duration and extent. The British defense establishment is known to be deeply and genuinely concerned by the Iranian nuclear program.

Cooperation in this area between the British and Israeli security services is extensive. Cooperation against the shared threat of Sunni jihadi organizations is also wide and deep.

Liaison between intelligence services takes place for the mutual benefit of the states concerned. It is likely that security professionals in Britain would be opposed to any real and lasting setback to their own activities (and the resulting danger to the security of British citizens) for the sake of a gesture of disapproval to Israel.

The presence in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and within the top echelons of the ruling British Labor Party of individuals adhering to strongly anti-Israel positions should be taken into account when gauging the nature of London’s move.

The decision will have been taken at the highest level, after input from all sides. Imminent elections in the UK, the need to placate the anti-Israel Labor Left and the desire to secure British Muslim support in marginal parliamentary constituencies should be factored in when considering the harshness of the language used by the foreign secretary in announcing the expulsion.

The limited nature in substantive terms of the gesture, however, suggests that those who made the final decision were taking Britain’s own diplomatic ambitions in the Middle East into account. According to Jonathan Rynhold, a specialist on British-Israeli relations at Bar-Ilan University, Britain wants to be seen as a player in the Middle East “peace process.” For this to be possible, it needs to maintain cordial relations with Israel.

For a variety of reasons, according to Rynhold, the UK’s standing in Israel is currently low. The failure of the British government to take action to end the use of universal jurisdiction to arrest and try Israeli officials in the UK, and the British stance on the Goldstone Report have seriously harmed Britain’s potential credibility as an honest broker in the eyes of Israelis.

Many Israeli officials today describe French President Nicolas Sarkozy as the European leader regarded as most trustworthy by Jerusalem. The diplomatic status game among leading EU countries thus may also have played a role in confining the British gesture to manageable proportions.

So the expulsion of an unnamed Israeli diplomat from the London embassy should not be dismissed as merely a routine gesture. This episode casts light on the different stances and interests within the decision-making system of a major European country.

Between the strongly anti-Israel positions of powerful people in the British political and diplomatic establishments, the more pragmatic interests of defense officials, and the ambitions of political leaders, a decision was made – this time involving harsh language and limited practical import.

Israeli officials will be aiming to move on as quick as possible from the whole affair.

They will be hoping that whatever really took place on January 19, in the Al-Bustan Rotana hotel in Dubai, the ghost of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh will return no more to stir up further trouble between the Jewish state and its allies.

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A New, Old and Ugly Spirit

Posted on April 5, 2011 by jonathanspyer

Haaretz- 06/09/2009

The article in the popular Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet alleging the Israel Defense Forces were involved in organ theft was the latest and most heinous example of an increasingly familiar phenomenon: classic anti-Semitic tropes and expressions of open hostility to Jews turning up in statements by members of the European liberal left.

This process derives from the growing popularity of openly anti-Semitic, Islamist organizations in the Middle East, and the accompanying regional political culture. These Islamist organizations are seen by a growing part of the Western left as partners for civilized dialogue. Some toward the more radical fringes see them as natural comrades in the joint battle against common enemies.

It is normal to give a respectful hearing to a friend’s allegations and claims. One is not accustomed to believing that respected friends have a tendency for pathological lying and paranoia. And the fact is that if you have decided to make friends with the regional political culture of anti-Israel militancy, you are going to be hearing an awful lot of claims of the kind that appeared in Aftonbladet.

Both oppositional and mainstream political discourse in the Middle East afford numerous examples of the crudest anti-Jewish stereotyping and sentiment. There is Hezbollah, which invented the curious allegation that 4,000 “Israelis” failed to turn up for work at the World Trade Center on September 11. The accusation was first broadcast on its television station Al-Manar, which three years ago also screened the Syrian-produced series “Al-Shatat” (“The Diaspora”), which contained dramatic depictions Jews making matzot with the blood of Christians. Officials from the organization have referred to Jews as a “lesion on the forehead of humanity,” along with a variety of other medical metaphors.

There is Hamas, whose Al-Aqsa TV station in April broadcast a play from the Islamic University in Gaza that contained a Jewish father exhorting his son to “drink the blood of Muslims,” and whose very founding document references the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion” to prove the nefarious plans of the Jews.

There is of course the Iranian president, with his Holocaust denial cartoons and conferences. There is the Egyptian, Qatar-based, so-called “reformist” cleric Yusuf Qaradawi, who praised Adolf Hitler for “punishing” the Jews on one of his popular broadcasts on Al Jazeera, and so on. And on.

Thus far the Middle East. In the past, Western leftist supporters of the Palestinians adopted the language of secular Palestinian nationalism. The latter tends to avoid the worst excesses of anti-Jewish rhetoric, at least in the English-language statements of its spokesmen. When it recalls the motifs of classical anti-Semitism, it tends to direct them at “Zionists,” rather than at Jews per se.

But secular Palestinian nationalism is in decline. The radicals who increasingly set the tone today come dressed in Islamic religious garb. They care little for the niceties of political correctness. And so the many Westerners whose search for a cause leads them for whatever reason to the Palestinians are today speaking in tones and adopting stances that would have been quite unimaginable even a decade ago.

The Aftonbladet article by Donald Bostrom, with his tales of an international conspiracy involving IDF organ thieves and ultra-Orthodox rabbis in New Jersey, is only one example. Earlier in August, Holland’s largest daily newspaper, De Telegraaf, published an interview with medical journalist Desiree Rover, who asserted that the global swine flu pandemic was the result of a “Khazar Jewish” conspiracy to reduce the world’s population.

And who can forget Jostein Gaarder, Norwegian author of the best-selling novel “Sophie’s World,” who in late 2006 stated in an article in the major Aftenposten newspaper, “For two thousand years, we have rehearsed the syllabus of humanism, but Israel does not listen,” before helpfully (if inaccurately) pointing out, “It was not the Pharisee who helped the man who lay by the wayside, having fallen prey to robbers. It was a Samaritan; today we would say a Palestinian.”

These tones are both new and very old. They are not the language of humanism and the enlightenment. They are instantly recognizable to anyone familiar with the tone of anti-Israel literature in the Middle East. They are also redolent of another, older Europe. These stalwarts of the bon ton left are adopting ideas whose original purveyors were situated, and are still situated, on the extreme right of the political spectrum. The ideas in question, which hark back to medieval Christianity, migrated from the European radical right to the Middle East, from where they have now migrated back to Europe, finding a new political home in the process.

Irony aside, a British organization that monitors anti-Semitism recorded an eight-fold increase in anti-Semitic incidents in the U.K. that coincided with the launch of Operation Cast Lead last December. It is hard to draw causal lines in such cases, of course. The British citizens who write “slay Jewish pigs” on London walls, or the foreign activists who chanted “Jewish racist pigs” at a demonstration in the Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah last month, may well never have heard of Bostrom, Rover or Gaarder. Still, all these instances taken together confirm that a new and old and ugly spirit is abroad.

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Analysis: Suddenly, the Arab World Wakes Up to Yemen’s Rebellion

Posted on April 5, 2011 by jonathanspyer

Gloria Center- 20/12/2009

The 30th summit of the Gulf Cooperation Council, meeting in Kuwait this week, expressed its solidarity with Saudi Arabia in its fight with the Shi’ite Houthi rebels in northern Yemen. The Kuwaiti emir noted that Saudi Arabia is facing “flagrant aggression that targets its sovereignty and security by those who have infiltrated its territory.”

The formerly little-noticed conflict between the Houthi rebels and the Yemeni government is now taking on the coloration of an additional hot front in an ongoing region-wide cold war. The conflict in northern Yemen reveals the ongoing Iranian regional effort to convert Shi’ite populations into assets enabling it to apply pressure on neighbors and rivals.

The Arab response, meanwhile, shows the very great trepidation felt by the Gulf Arabs in the face of Iranian regional ambitions and expansion.

The term “Houthi rebels” refers to members of the Houthi clan, who have been engaged in an insurrection against the government of Yemen in the Saada district in the north of the country since 2004. The Houthis are members of the Zaidi Shi’ite sect of Islam. (Zaidi Shi’ites venerate the first four Imams of Islam, in contrast to the Twelver Shi’ites dominant in Iran). Led by Abd al-Malik el-Houthi, the rebels are fighting to bring down the government of President Ali Abdallah Saleh, which they regard as too pro-Western.

Thousands on both sides have died in the rebellion. The fighting includes the use by both sides of tanks and armored personnel carriers. It has resulted in the displacement of around 150,000 people.

The situation escalated in November, when Houthi rebels clashed with Saudi forces in the Jabal Dukhan territory straddling the border. In the ensuing firefight two Saudi border guards were killed and another 10 were wounded. The Saudis responded in force. Saudi aircraft and helicopter gunships carried out a series of attacks on rebel held areas of northern Yemen in the following days, killing around 40 rebels. Saudi forces remain on high alert.

Riyadh identifies the hand of Iran behind the Houthi Shi’ite rebels. Saudi media outlets in the last month – including the Al-Watan and Asharq Al-Awsat newspapers and the Al-Arabiya television network – have repeatedly made the connection. They assert that Iran is seeking to develop the Houthis along the lines of Hizbullah – turning north Yemen into a pro-Iranian enclave on the Saudi border, with the intention of placing pressure on the Saudis. Saudi media outlets now regularly place the Houthis alongside Hizbullah, Hamas and Muqtada al-Sadr in Iraq when listing Iran’s clients in subversion across the region. The Iranians deny these claims. But considerable evidence exists to support them.

Regarding the ideological and propaganda level – the Bint Jbeil Web site, maintained by Hizbullah, maintains a forum for what it refers to as the “supporters of truth from Yemen.” The forum includes details and pictures of successful operations carried out by the Houthis, pictures of Houthi leaders and policy statements reflecting the movement’s Shi’ite Islamist outlook.

Regarding direct Iranian military links to the Houthis: the generally reliable Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper in the last days quoted unnamed intelligence sources who described a meeting by a Revolutionary Guards official, Hizbullah officers and representatives of the Houthis on the Saudi-Yemeni border last month. The story was carried also by Al-Arabiya. The intention of the meeting was to coordinate the escalation of the insurgency.

Yemen, meanwhile, claims in the last months to have thwarted several attempts by Iranian-commissioned ships to transport weaponry and other equipment to the rebels. The Texas-based private intelligence company Stratfor, which last year revealed the existence of an Iranian network to supply arms to Hamas via Sudan three months before the network became public knowledge, has produced details of what it claims is a similar Iranian supply line to the Houthis.

According to the group, the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps have been running a network purchasing arms in Eritrea and Somalia. The arms are then transported from the Asab harbor in Eritrea, across the Red Sea to Salif on the Yemeni coast. From there, they are taken to Hajjah and Huth in northern Yemen, before finally reaching the Saada province, where the Houthi insurgency is taking place.

Because of the Saudi dispatch of three warships to the Red Sea Coast last month, this route has now been augmented by an additional route from Asab to Shaqra on the southern Yemen coast, and then across land to Saada.

Iran’s efforts in Yemen indicate the unfortunate fate of weak states in times of regional cold war. Yemen has poorly-developed institutions and a divided populace. This has made it particularly vulnerable to penetration by its neighbors and by global jihadi forces.

In the 1960s, under very different circumstances, Yemen became an arena for the “Arab Cold War” of that time, as Saudi Arabia and Egypt backed rival sides in the Yemeni civil war. Today, in the context of a new cold war, the Iranians are using the country to build up the latest recruit to the region-wide Revolutionary Guards franchise of armed clients.

As in Lebanon, Iraq, Kuwait, Egypt and among the Palestinians, local grievances are to be utilized to intimidate neighbors and increase the sum total of Iranian influence. In the mountainous, inhospitable terrain of the Saada province, proxy war has returned to Yemen.

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Analysis: Hizbullah Turns up the Temperature in the North

Posted on April 5, 2011 by jonathanspyer

Jerusalem Post-30/07/2009

Israel’s border with Lebanon is currently at its most tense since the cease-fire which ended the war of 2006. This tension has been brought on by the combination of a number of factors.

Ongoing internal political frictions in Lebanon and a series of recent setbacks suffered by the Iran-led regional bloc are both key elements contributing to the situation. Inflammatory rhetoric and orchestrated provocations by Hizbullah supporters in the south, against the ominous background of the movement’s ongoing rearmament, are helping to ratchet up the uncertainty.

Coalition negotiations have been deadlocked in Lebanon in recent weeks. Hizbullah has conceded to the opposition’s demand that its bloc receive only 15 ministerial portfolios (one less than the number required for a veto). This does not settle the matter, however. The focus now turns to efforts to ensure that at least one of the ‘independent’ ministers linked to President Suleiman is of a pro-Hizbullah orientation, ensuring the de facto continuation of the movement’s power to block government decisions not to its liking.

Feeling itself under internal pressure, Hizbullah has sought once again to cast itself as the force of ‘resistance’ in Lebanon.

It was this role which originally propelled the movement from its status as a secondary, pro-Iranian Shia force to its current prominence. During the past several years, Hizbullah’s problem has been finding issues which could justify its continued belligerent stance against Israel. The two matters on which it has chosen to focus are Israeli control of the Mount Dov (Shabaa Farms) area, and the matter of Lebanese citizens supposedly incarcerated in Israel. Both these issues are now once more being deliberately placed in the foreground.

It is worth remembering that the 2006 war was sparked by an attempt by Hizbullah to kidnap IDF soldiers in order to exchange them for Samir Kuntar and a number of other Lebanese jailed in Israel for involvement in terror. The attack in July 2006 was not the first attempt of this kind. Each was accompanied by a ratcheting up of rhetoric by the Hizbullah leadership, which sought to focus attention on the prisoners.

On July 17, Nasrallah gave a speech to mark the first anniversary of the release of Samir Kuntar and other Lebanese captives from Israeli custody. In the speech, he raised the issue of another supposed Lebanese ‘prisoner’ who, he claimed, remains in Israeli hands. The individual named, one Yahya Skaff, was killed while taking part in a Palestinian terror operation in Israel in 1978. It was long rumored in Lebanon that he was in fact alive and in Israeli custody. Skaff’s remains were returned to Lebanon, but Hizbullah maintains that tests were unable to confirm the identity of the remains.

Nasrallah’s speech suggests that the movement wants to inflate this issue so that it may serve as ‘justification’ for further aggression against Israel.
In addition, Hizbullah is turning up the temperature in the Mount Dov area. Against the backdrop of the explosion at Khirbat Silm, the movement has carried out a series of provocations – including a crossing into the Mount Dov area by Hizbullah-supporting civilians, who placed a movement banner and a Lebanese flag on an unmanned Israeli observation post in the Kafr Shuba hills.

The present escalation is taking place against the backdrop of Hizbullah’s continued re-arming, both south and north of the Litani River. Israel is carefully monitoring this process. There are certain red lines beyond which Israel may consider some form of preventive action necessary, according to sources. These would include the acquisition and deployment by Hizbullah of an anti-aircraft capacity.

The situation on the northern border must be viewed through a regional prism, as well as a narrow Israeli-Lebanese one. The region remains divided between a bloc of states and movements aligned with Iran, which includes Hizbullah, and a de facto counter-alliance of pro-US states including Israel. Israel is the totemic enemy of the pro-Iranian bloc, which is committed to its destruction.

It has not been a good year for the pro-Iranian bloc. An important asset for the Iranians and their allies has been their sense of themselves as the ‘sunrise’ power in the region – the force of tomorrow. This perception had been aided by a string of achievements in the past few years. But 2009 has witnessed the cessation and partial reverse of this process – with a number of setbacks for Teheran and its various assets.

Israel’s Gaza operation dented their sense that they had discovered a means of nullifying Israel’s conventional advantage through the use of attrition and war against civilians. This setback was then followed by defeat for Iran’s Lebanese clients in the June elections. Following this, the unrest after the rigged elections in Iran itself made a mockery of the Teheran-led bloc’s claim to represent the regional popular will against its opponents. The charging of a number of Hizbullah activists, recently apprehended in Egypt, has added to the movement’s woes.

Could this combination of local and regional frustrations be leading Hizbullah, creation and chief asset of the Iranians, down a road of dangerous brinkmanship – in an effort to recover some of its lost momentum and charisma?

What is clear is that the events sparked by the Khirbat Silm explosion have not yet run their course, the potential for miscalculation is very real, and hence further deterioration cannot be ruled out.

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Iran Hasn’t Won the Cold War Yet

Posted on April 5, 2011 by jonathanspyer

Gloria Center- 07/01/2010

The salient strategic fact in the Middle East today is the Iranian drive for regional hegemony. This Iranian objective is being promoted by a rising hardline conservative elite within the Iranian regime, centred on a number of political associations and on the Iranian Revolutionary Guards corps.

This elite, which is personified by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has received the backing of Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.

Their aim is a second Islamic revolution that would revive the original fire of the revolution of 1979. They appear to be aiming for the augmenting of clerical rule with a streamlined, brutal police-security state, under the banner of Islam. Building Iranian power and influence throughout the Middle East is an integral part of their strategy.

The Iranian nuclear program is an aspect of this ambition.

A nuclear capability is meant to form the ultimate insurance for the Iranian regime as it aggressively builds its influence across the region.

This goal of hegemony is being pursued through the assembling of a bloc of states and organisations under Iranian leadership. This bloc, according to Iran, represents authentic Muslim currents within the region, battling against the US and its hirelings. The pro-Iranian bloc includes Syria, Sudan, Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas among the Palestinians, and the Houthi rebel forces in northern Yemen.

A de facto rival alliance is emerging, consisting of states that are threatened by Iran and its allies and clients. This rival alliance includes Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Kuwait.

Israel, despite lacking official diplomatic relations with Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states, is also a key member of this camp. Unlike the pro-Iranian bloc, which has a simple guiding ideology of resistance to the West, the countries seeking to counter Iran are united by interest only.

The rivalry between these two camps now informs and underlies all-important developments in the Middle East. It is behind the joint Israeli-Egyptian effort to contain the Iran-sponsored Hamas enclave in the Gaza Strip. It is behind the fighting in north Yemen, as Saudi troops take on Shia rebels armed and supported by Iran. The rivalry is behind the face-off between pro-American and pro-Iranian forces in Lebanon. The insurgencies in Afghanistan and in Iraq are also notable for the presence of weaponry traceable to Iran in use by insurgents against Western forces.

Who is winning in this ongoing Middle East cold war? The rhetoric of the Iranians, of course, depicts their advance as unstoppable. The reality is more complex, and the past year has seen gains and losses for both sides.

First, within Iran the electoral victory of Ahmadinejad and the subsequent backing given to him by Khamenei represented a major advance for the Iranian hardline conservatives. Ahmadinejad subsequently confirmed his victory by forming a cabinet that is packed with conservatives and Revolutionary Guardsmen.

But the refusal of large sections of the Iranian people to accept the possibly rigged election and the unprecedented scenes of opposition in the streets of Iranian cities in recent weeks have severely tarnished this achievement.

The ongoing unrest in Iran probably does not constitute an immediate danger to the regime. But it surely indicates that large numbers of Iranians have no desire to see their country turned into the instrument of permanent Islamic revolution and resistance envisaged by the hardline conservatives. The domestic unrest thus hits significantly at the emerging regime’s legitimacy, and their ability to promote their regime as a model for governance to the Arab and wider Muslim world.

Iran made major advances in Lebanon last year. The formation of the new Lebanese government in November in essence confirms Hezbollah’s domination of the country. Hezbollah is the favoured child of the Iranian regime and its partner in subversive activity globally. There is now no serious internal force in Lebanon able to oppose its will.

In Gaza, the Iranian-sponsored Hamas regime is holding on. The Iranian investment is central to Hamas’s ability to stay in power. The movement just announced a budget of $US540 million ($590m) for 2010. Of this, just $US55m is to be raised through taxes and local sources of revenue. The rest is to come from “aid and assistance”. Hamas does not reveal the identity of its benefactors. But it is fairly obvious that the bulk of this funding will come from Iran. The Palestinian issue remains the central cause celebre of the Arab and Muslim world. The Iranian regime’s goal is to take ownership of it.

But there have been setbacks here too. The Iranian resistance model failed in a straight fight with the Israeli Defence Forces in the early part of the year. Hamas’s 100-man “Iranian unit” suffered near destruction in Gaza. The Hamas regime in Gaza managed to kill six IDF soldiers in the entire course of Operation Cast Lead. This is a failure, recorded as such by all regional observers.

In addition, someone or the other appears to be trying to demonstrate to the Iranians that the use of terrorism as an instrument of state policy is a two-way street. Hence the killing of 29 Revolutionary Guards in a bombing in October near the Iran-Pakistan border, and the mysterious explosion in Damascus last month that killed a number of Iranian pilgrims.

So at the beginning of 2010, the lines are clearly drawn in the Middle East cold war, and the contest is far from over.

Ultimately, like other totalitarians before them, the Iranian hardline conservatives are likely to fail through overreach. The inefficient, corruption-ridden and oppressive state they are coming to dominate is likely to prove an insufficient instrument to sustain their boundless ambition. Still, this process probably has a long way to run yet. Much will depend on the sense of purpose, will and resourcefulness of the Western and regional countries that this regime has identified as its enemies.

This is a contest for the future of the region. It has almost certainly not yet reached its height.

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Analysis: Lebanon Election Results Offer Some Relief, but No Major Changes

Posted on April 5, 2011 by jonathanspyer

Jerusalem Post-08/06/2009

It is now clear that the pro-Western March 14 alliance has won an unexpected victory in parliamentary elections in Lebanon, and senior sources in the Hizbullah-led March 8 bloc have conceded defeat in statements to Western reporters.

Contrary to most forecasts, the vote appears to have produced a legislature very similar in representation to the one that preceded it.

March 14 is thought to have won 69 or 70 seats in the 128-member parliament. If one adds the one or two independent, pro-March 14 MPs to the total, the movement now controls around 71 seats. In the outgoing parliament, they controlled 70.

What were the factors that led to March 8/Hizbullah being upset, and what implications do the results have for stability in Lebanon and for Israel?

Most importantly, the results represent a defeat for the party of former general Michel Aoun. Aoun’s Free Democratic Party is the Christian element in the Hizbullah-led March 8 bloc. Aoun, who once led an anti-Syrian rebellion, is now a firm member of the pro-Syrian alliance in Lebanon.

The focus in these elections was the Christian community, because the allegiances of the Druse, Sunni and Shi’ite Lebanese were clear and predictable. The Sunnis and Druse overwhelmingly backed the pro-Western March 14, while the Shi’ites – their loyalties divided between Hizbullah and the pro-Syrian Amal movement, were almost exclusively aligned with March 8. As a result, around 100 of the 128 seats in parliament were effectively allocated in advance.

The Christians, however, were divided. Aoun expected that his personal standing and his strong showing in 2005 would allow his party to sweep the board in Christian areas. The pro-March 14 Christians – the Lebanese Forces Party of Dr. Samir Geagea and the Phalange – were widely disregarded.

Though the emergence of a number of “independent” Christian candidates in the weeks prior to the elections had led to rumors of a possible upset, it appears that the Christians affiliated with March 14 performed surprisingly well, though without entirely eclipsing Aoun.

March 14 swept the board in the symbolically important Beirut 1 District, which contains five seats. March 14 also won the seats of Batroun (where a Lebanese Forces candidate unseated Michel Aoun’s son-in-law) Koura, Bsharreh and Tripoli.

Why did so many Christian Lebanese turn against Aoun and March 8?

Many Lebanese analysts consider that fears in the community over the consequences of a drift further toward the Iranian and Syrian regional bloc played an important part. In this regard, the events of May 2008, when Hizbullah sent its forces onto the streets of Beirut, were seen as playing a role.
A recent speech by Hassan Nasrallah, in which he described those May events as a “glorious day” for the “resistance” and warned March 14 against any future interference with Hizbullah’s independent military infrastructure, may well have helped to concentrate Christian minds regarding the danger represented by Hizbullah.
Some have also suggested that the memory of the destructive 2006 war with Israel, sparked by a Hizbullah kidnapping of IDF soldiers and shelling of Israeli communities in the North, also played its part.
The election results mean that March 14 will be the dominant factor in the governing coalition which will now be formed. However, the opposition will also be represented in the new government. Negotiations over the make-up and nature of the coalition are likely to be protracted.

Lebanese analysts are pointing to the issue of the opposition’s demand for a “blocking third” of cabinet seats as a possible source of strife.

The veto was granted to Hizbullah and its allies in the Doha negotiations which followed the May fighting last year. However, March 14 leader Sa’ad Hariri has said that he is not interested in renewing the veto arrangement.

This is likely to prove a central issue in negotiations. Given Hizbullah’s and its allies’ and patrons’ proven capacity for using violence to reinforce their arguments, the potential for further strife remains real.

It is important to remember that while the averting of an electoral victory for the pro-Iranian, pro-Syrian bloc is significant, it has no bearing on the wider issue of Hizbullah’s possession of an independent military capacity, and its consequent ability to pursue an independent foreign and military policy.

Hizbullah would certainly have preferred the March 8 bloc it leads to have performed better. But the movement itself fielded only 11 candidates. Beyond this, it was content to concede the Shi’ite representation to the allied Amal movement.

For Hizbullah and its Iranian patron, the key interest at present is the rebuilding and expansion of its independent military capacity, and the shadow state which has emerged around it.

Hizbullah successfully defended the borders of this shadow state from internal interference in May 2008. Iran invested heavily in repairing it after the war of 2006, and its guns remain pointed at Israel.

So amid the justified relief at the setback suffered by the pro-Iranian bloc in the vote, it should be borne in mind that the results represent a continuation of the problematic preelection reality, rather than any major transformation.

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