Netanyahu at a midway Point

Posted on March 16, 2011 by jonathanspyer

Global Politician- 04/10/2010

From 1996-2000, Benjamin Netanyahu served as prime minister of Israel. He was re-elected to the post in 2009. His second period of incumbency is taking place during a time of severe foreign policy challenges for the Jewish state. Building an effective response to these challenges is at the center of the agenda that Netanyahu has set himself.

The key challenge put forth by Netanyahu is the threat of the Iranian nuclear program. However, the perceived gravity of the Iranian nuclear threat is related to other aspects of the Israeli prime minister’s conception of the region, and the threats facing Israel therein. Unlike many of his predecessors, Netanyahu came to the prime ministership with a worldview and strategy clearly articulated and written. As such, it is possible to some degree to measure the success or failure of his prime ministership to date in its own terms against a fairly clear yardstick.

This article will attempt to outline the core foreign policy perceptions and goals of the Netanyahu government in a number of central areas. Key events from the time Netanyahu took office in March 2009 will be discussed. Throughout, the policy success or failure of the actions of the government will be assessed in terms of Netanyahu’s own professed goals and objectives. The domestic political constraints incumbent on the prime minister, and his success or failure in navigating these and ensuring the survival of his government, will also be considered.

THE MAKE-UP OF THE NETANYAHU GOVERNMENT

The second Netanyahu prime ministership emerged from an unprecedented political situation in Israel. Prior to the elections of 2009, following every election since the foundation of the state, the president had tasked the leader of the party with the largest Knesset (Israeli legislature) representation with forming a governing coalition. In the elections of 2009, however, Kadima under Tzipi Livni won the largest number of seats (28), while Netanyahu’s Likud won only 27.[1]

However, the overall right-wing bloc won more seats than that of the left, which presumably guided President Shimon Peres’s decision to give the task of attempting to form a government to Netanyahu. The president sounded out party leaders in the days following the election, and based on the apparent likelihood that a Netanyahu-led coalition would prove more stable, he approached the Likud leader.

Netanyahu and Livni failed to reach agreement regarding a possible national unity coalition bringing Likud and Kadima together. The issue that prevented this was Livni’s insistence on the rotation of the prime ministership, which Netanyahu was not prepared to consider. Rotation would have involved Netanyahu and Livni agreeing that one of them would hold the prime ministership for the first two years of the government, after which the other would take over. Such an arrangement has a precedent in Israel in the national unity government of 1984 to 1988, when the premiership was shared between Shimon Peres of Labor and Yitzhak Shamir of Likud.

Netanyahu then set about creating a coalition that would bring in parties to the right of the Likud and religious parties, as well as the left of center Labor Party. Labor, once the main party of Israel’s center-left, went from being the second largest party to fourth place in the 2009 elections, making it a viable secondary coalition partner.

The government eventually formed by Netanyahu and the Likud included Labor, the right-wing Russian immigrant party Yisrael Beiteinu, and the Sephardic Haredi party Shas. Also in the coalition were the Haredi United Torah Judaism list and the small, nationalist religious Habayit Heyehudi list. This coalition gives Netanyahu a comfortable Knesset majority of 75 seats in the 120-member Knesset.[2]

As shall be seen, from the point of view of Netanyahu’s preferred policy direction, the coalition that emerged was favorable. Had he succeeded in bringing Kadima, along with Labor, into the coalition the Likud would have represented the rightist edge in the government and thus would have been vulnerable to the possibility of being “ganged up on” by the two large parties to its left. In the coalition that emerged, the center-right Likud was in the comfortable position of occupying the center ground–between Labor to its left and Yisrael Beiteinu and Shas to its right. The presence of the right-wing elements (Yisrael Beiteinu, the small Ha’Bayit Ha’Yehudi party, and Shas) in the coalition would also provide a certain “balance” for Netanyahu from the demands of the U.S. administration, a situation that would not have pertained in a Likud-Labor-Kadima coalition. The element of balance derives from the fact that Netanyahu could credibly claim that reckless or hasty moves with regard to the Palestinians could lead to the collapse of his coalition, hence the need for him to tread carefully.

Netanyahu’s position was made yet more secure by two additional factors. First, the figure supposedly occupying the space to his “left” in the coalition–Labor leader Ehud Barak–in fact shares most of the prime minister’s core assumptions regarding the order of priorities in Israeli policy. In particular, Barak and Netanyahu were of one mind in placing the Iranian nuclear threat front and center of their concerns. Alongside this threat of central importance–in Netanyahu’s conception–is the rise of Islamist extremism in the region and the consequent threat of terrorism. The meeting point between these two processes, in the Hamas and Hizballah organizations–which maintain active fronts against Israel–is also a central focus.[3]

Barak’s skepticism regarding Palestinian intentions, following his experience as prime minister at the 2000 negotiations, also no doubt facilitated his easy transformation to functioning as defense minister in a government whose core positions on the diplomatic process sharply differed from those of the Labor Party. Barak’s position in his own party is weak, and he has probably abandoned any chance of returning to the prime ministership given the declining strength of Labor.

Barak has emerged as the key policymaking partner in the Netanyahu government. In effect, the prime minister and defense minister form an exclusive policymaking echelon for key decisions, above all other members of the cabinet and the so-called “inner cabinet” of seven ministers.

The second factor that proved to be to the advantage of the government formed by Benjamin Netanyahu in 2009 was the relative weakness of the opposition. As opposition leader, Tzipi Livni failed to maintain a high level of visibility or to develop a clear and consistent critique of government policy. In the main, this reflected less a particular failure in the leader of the opposition and more the fact that the Netanyahu government was launched on a more or less centrist path and sought with some success to avoid major, eye-catching moves that would have enabled the opposition to depict it as a government of the radical right.

CORE STRATEGIC POSITIONS OF BENJAMIN NETANYAHU

The agenda of Benjamin Netanyahu is dominated by–but not solely concerned with–issues relating to the field of foreign affairs and defense. As noted above, the single most important item on Netanyahu’s agenda is the threat, as he sees it, posed to Israel by the combination of the nuclear ambitions and the extremist ideology of the Iranian regime. Netanyahu was among the first Israeli politicians to prioritize the Iranian issue. He spent the period prior to his return to the Likud leadership speaking and writing extensively on this matter.[4] It has been suggested that he sees his central policy task in the prime ministership as preventing the emergence of a nuclear Iran. He has described the matter as an existential issue. Netanyahu sees the Iranian nuclear issue as part of a larger problem of Iranian regional ambitions, which also takes in the matter of Iranian support for Hamas and Hizballah.

Far lower on the agenda for Netanyahu is the diplomatic process between Israel and the Palestinians. Netanyahu emerged onto the political stage in Israel as an arch-skeptic regarding the 1990s Oslo process. His view then was that the peace process between Israel and the PLO was based on an entirely spurious conception, which held that the Palestinian Arab national movement was ready for peace and historic compromise with Israel and Zionism. There is no evidence to suggest that Netanyahu has altered this core perception. On the contrary, he feels that the violent events of 2000-2004 that followed the collapse of the Oslo process wholly justified his early skepticism. This point of view is shared by many Israelis, and is one of the reasons for the return of Likud’s political fortunes.

Nevertheless, the experience of his first prime ministership also indicates that while Netanyahu has a clear conception of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, according to which the Palestinian national movement has not reconciled itself with Israel’s existence, this does not necessarily translate into a policy on the ground of confrontation with the Palestinian Authority (PA). While expressing his opposition to Oslo at that time, Netanyahu did not seek a radical reversal of the peace process or to challenge its basic parameters when in office.[5]

Prior to his re-election in 2009, Netanyahu stressed the need to support Palestinian efforts to build up their economy and civil society on the West Bank. He also stressed the need for the Palestinians to accept Israel as a “Jewish state,” as an indicator of whether a true move toward historic compromise had been made.[6]

Regarding the issue of Syria, Israel’s northern front, and the Hizballah threat, Netanyahu’s approach has been more straightforward. Despite media speculation at various junctures, there has been no serious attempt by the Netanyahu government to commence a negotiating process with the Asad regime in Syria. Controversy remains regarding the extent of concessions that may have been offered to Hafiz al-Asad during Netanyahu’s first prime ministership.[7]

Elements close to the defense establishment and Defense Minister Ehud Barak are understood to favor the “Syrian track.”[8] This is perhaps the most significant difference in the Netanyahu-Barak partnership. In the Barak camp, it is evidently considered that there is a real possibility that the Syrian regime might be tempted away from its alliance with Iran in return for the ceding by Israel of the Golan Heights. But since 2009, there appears to be little ambiguity regarding the fact that Netanyahu and his closest advisers do not share this emphasis and no evidence has emerged of efforts to revive the Turkish-mediated talks that broke down during the period of Ehud Olmert’s prime ministership.[9] Syria is regarded as firmly embedded in the pro-Iranian camp and likely to use any concessions to its advantage while failing to alter this orientation.

On Hizballah, the remaining business of the exchange of Hizballah prisoners for the corpses of the two Israeli soldiers killed in the kidnapping attempt that began the 2006 Lebanon War was carried out by the Ehud Olmert government. This leaves, from the Netanyahu government’s point of view, no immediate specific issue on the Hizballah file requiring attention.

The northern border has been quiet since August 2006. Hizballah is rearming and Israel is observing this process closely and seeking to raise world and U.S. awareness of it. However, for as long as the border is kept quiet from Hizballah’s side, it is likely that Israel will perceive an interest in maintaining the status quo, while seeking to maintain international attention on Hizballah arms.

An additional matter considered by Netanyahu to be of strategic importance is the need to preserve Israel’s international alliances. First and foremost, in this regard, Netanyahu is aware of the importance of preserving Israel’s strategic alliance with the United States. Yet Netanyahu is also acutely aware of the need to address the campaign seeking to “delegitimize” Israel in the West.[10] This campaign–of particular strength in some Western European countries–seeks to promote a boycott and sanctions against Israel.

The Netanyahu prime ministership is, therefore, one dominated by a view of the region that sees Israel as facing a concerted and related series of threats. Iran is seen as committed to the destruction of Israel and the pursuit of nuclear weapons. It is seen as a rising power in the region, basing its growing influence on its appeal to radical and anti-Western sentiment. It is viewed as having linked up with extremist Islamist forces among the Palestinians and in Lebanon in order to wage proxy war against Israel.[11]Yet Netanyahu’s view is also fundamentally confident and optimistic–not regarding the prospect for a peace settlement, but regarding the belief that Israel possesses the necessary strength to prevail in the contest opening up.

The Palestinian Authority is viewed as still committed to a version of Palestinian nationalism that would preclude the successful conclusion of a final status accord. The positions of Fatah on final status issues such as the demand for the “right of return” of Palestinian refugees and their descendants as well as the future status of Jerusalem are central here. At best, therefore, the status quo can be maintained in the West Bank, while the PA leadership develops the economy and society.

The policy that might be expected to emerge from the conception outlined above is one of assertiveness against the prospect of a nuclear Iran. In other areas, one might expect caution. This is in essence based on a perception that no real diplomatic advancements are likely in the current regional climate and that Israel’s task in terms of national strategy is to maintain its deterrent edge in a region of increasing dangers and increasingly assertive enemies, while at the same time investing effort in combating efforts to weaken its alliances with its allies through “delegitimization.” Of course, this strategy has been made problematic by the emergence in Washington–almost simultaneously to the election of the Netanyahu government–of a U.S. administration that sees the region in a very different way.

The administration of President Barack Obama has made the repairing and enhancement of U.S. relations with the Muslim world a priority, and the president places the solving of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict high on the list of priorities in achieving this.[12] The core difference in outlook on the region between Washington and Jerusalem has been the most salient dynamic during the period of Netanyahu’s second prime ministership, and has informed every element of its attempt to implement its strategy.

Following is an examination of the Netanyahu government’s attempt to implement its strategy in crucial areas. The focus will be on the Iranian nuclear program, the Israel-Palestinian conflict, Israel’s northern border, and the issue of delegitimization.

Iran

Netanyahu views the challenge posed by the Iranian nuclear program as the key foreign policy issue facing Israel. In the years as leader of the opposition prior to his return to the prime ministership, Netanyahu used every opportunity to cast the Iranian threat in the most dramatic terms possible. The statement, ‘”It’s 1938 and Iran is Germany. And Iran is racing to arm itself with atomic bombs,” encapsulated his approach.[13] Crucial to Netanyahu’s message at this time–and crucial to his policy as prime minister with regard to Iran–is the notion that Iran and its nuclear ambitions represent a danger not to Israel alone, but to the region as a whole, and even to the Western world.

Netanyahu also stressed that Iranian regional ambitions had a paramount influence on other regional processes, in particular, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. As he put it, “What happens in Iran affects what happens in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, not the other way round.”[14] Such statements presaged Netanyahu’s diplomatic policy as prime minister, which was to stress Israeli support for additional, harsher and “crippling” sanctions against the Iranian economy–both imposed by the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) and by individual countries.[15]

Netanyahu said in an interview with a U.S. magazine shortly after assuming the prime ministership that “Western civilization” will have failed if Iran acquires nuclear weapons. He added that he saw this as the second great task facing President Obama, along with salvaging the U.S. economy.[16]

Support for additional sanctions was accompanied by hints that Israel had not ruled out the use of force. Un-named officials quoted by the Atlantic, for example, stressed that in Israel’s view Iran’s defenses were “penetrable” and that Israel would not necessarily need U.S. approval for an attack. [17]

Netanyahu throughout sought to accommodate himself to the U.S. position, while at the same time seeking to toughen it. Thus, when “engagement” was the U.S. intention, Netanyahu said that he supported it, if it produced results (while adding that he doubted it would). Similarly on sanctions, Netanyahu stressed that given the weakness of the Iranian economy, the country was “susceptible” to sanctions, providing that they were “ratcheted up by a variety of means.”[18] It has also been suggested that the Israeli security services have engaged in a clandestine campaign of sabotage against the Iranian nuclear program.

The very nature of the policy, however, meant that other than public diplomacy, possible sabotage, the implicit threat of possible Israeli military action, behind the scenes lobbying and presumably an ongoing attempt to monitor the development of the Iranian nuclear project, Israel’s role was basically that of a bystander.

Regarding the issue of potential military action, Netanyahu, on assuming the prime ministership, refused to rule it out. However, according to media reports, President George W. Bush had declined to give Israel permission to carry out such an attack during his term of office,[19] and it appears likely that a similar state of affairs has persisted into the Obama administration. It is clear that while both the United States and Israel were convinced that Iran was seeking a nuclear weapon, there were major differences between the two countries, both on the projected time frame for this and on the sense of urgency attached to the issue,.

A series of blunt statements by senior U.S. officials in the period following Netanyahu’s assuming the prime ministership revealed the differences between the United States and Israel in perceptions of the relative urgency of the Iranian nuclear file. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen said that an Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities would undermine stability in the Middle East and endanger the lives of Americans in the Persian Gulf. [20]

The policy of the administration, meanwhile, was initially set toward engagement with rather than pressure on Iran. The very different emphasis of Netanyahu and Obama was evident following their first meeting after taking up their respective posts. In May 2009, Obama spoke of negotiations with Iran while saying that he would reassess at the end of the year if the process appeared to be going nowhere. Netanyahu publicly thanked him for keeping “all options on the table.”[21] This is understood as a euphemism for maintaining the possibility of military force against Iran.

The Iranian regime’s suppression of dissent following the contested 2009 presidential election results and the revelations of an additional nuclear facility near Qom[22] helped to disillusion the administration with the idea of engagement, along with the increasingly obvious fact that Iran was playing for time and was not interested in a real negotiation. Still, the pace toward further sanctions was far slower than Israel would have liked to see.

When a fourth UNSC sanctions resolution was finally agreed upon in June 2010, it fell still far short of the “crippling” restrictions the government of Israel had recommended. Nevertheless, the passing of the resolution and the subsequent approval on July 1, 2010, into law of additional, tougher sanctions by the U.S. Congress may have played an important role in improving the atmosphere of relations between Jerusalem and Washington.[23]

The sanctions approved by Congress went further than any previous measures in punishing foreign suppliers of refined petroleum to Iran and blocking access to the U.S. financial system for banks doing business with Teheran. Yet despite the undoubted increased severity of the new measures, in terms of the substantive goal of preventing a nuclear Iran, their likely effectiveness appears low. Iran has itself dismissed the sanctions and vowed to continue its enrichment of uranium.

Netanyahu is clearly also of the view that the sanctions are likely to be ineffectual, and on the basis of the supposedly improved relations between himself and Obama following their meeting in July 2010, he has begun to express himself in clearer terms in this regard. In a statement to Fox News, the prime minister stated clearly that in his view only the threat of U.S. military action might curb the Iranian nuclear drive. He stated that the new sanctions would probably not be sufficient. Netanyahu went on to say that he thought that a nuclear Iran could not be deterred or contained.[24] In other words, Iran must be prevented from getting nuclear weapons rather than–as the Obama administration seemed to be concluding–expecting it could successfully be prevented from using them once they were in its possession.

Unless military action is approaching, therefore, it appears that in its own terms, Netanyahu’s tireless public diplomacy against a nuclear Iran has achieved very little. Iran appears to be moving at speed toward a nuclear capability, its uranium enrichment and missile programs proceeding apace.

Thus, Netanyahu, in the key self-defined objective of preventing a nuclear Iran–which he has referred to as a “hinge of history”–appears to have achieved little of substance as of this writing. Indeed, many analysts concur that unless military action is taken, a nuclear Iran appears to be inevitable.

Should such predictions prove accurate, it is possible that Netanyahu will leave office prior to the emergence of a nuclear Iran, or may even be in office when Iran is judged to have achieved a nuclear weapons capability. It is of course difficult to imagine how, in the absence of a sense of urgency in other countries over the question of Iranian nuclear ambitions, a coalition could have been built to take determined action to prevent it. Yet if preventing a nuclear Iran is the yardstick by which Netanyahu himself invited his prime ministership to be judged, then failure is at the moment looking likely–unless unpredictable occurrences such as military action intervene to transform the situation.

In this latter regard, it is worth noting an internal contradiction in Netanyahu’s statements on the Iranian nuclear effort. On the one hand, he stresses his view of the regime as deeply ideological and committed to a religious ideology, and therefore not subject to the normal rules governing nuclear deterrence between states. Yet on the other hand–according to his public statements at least–Iran could only be curbed by the threat of U.S. military action. If, however, a nuclear Iran would be undeterrable because its leaders are given to non-cost benefit type thought, it is not clear why a not yet nuclear Iran might be inclined to a cost benefit analysis if threatened with U.S. military action.

The current author’s estimation on this matter, which is merely speculative, is that Netanyahu does not really believe that the Iranian regime can be deterred by the threat of military action. He has, however, adopted an approach of “educating” the U.S. administration step by step. That is, if one follows the logic of Netanyahu’s position, it is hard not to reach the conclusion that the Israeli prime minister regards a nuclear Iran as an existential threat to Israel, and thinks that the only way to stop this is by military action. He may well be doing his best to persuade the United States and other allies of this position.

What this will mean in policy terms cannot be accurately predicted, of course. Yet the inner logic of Netanyahu’s position, the centrality of the Iranian issue to his thinking, and his current failure to do a great deal about the Iranian nuclear drive should all be taken into account. They point in the direction either of the failure of Netanyahu’s prime ministership in the terms it set for itself or military action to stop or set back the Iranian nuclear program.

It is also worth bearing in mind that according to informed sources, Netanyahu intends to stand again for the leadership of the Likud and for the prime ministership.[25] As such, the time frame in which he is thinking is not one in which he has only a year or two remaining. It is also generally considered that Netanyahu would be almost certain to win any contest for the Likud leadership at the present time. Thus, his plan may well be to hold elections again next year or the following year, on the basis of a sound economy, an ongoing negotiating process with the Palestinians, and above all a continued determination to neutralize the Iranian threat.[26]

Israeli-Palestinian Track

As noted above, Netanyahu’s career has been largely informed by the sense that the Palestinian national movement (and of course Hamas) continues to hold to a refusal to accept the permanent existence of the State of Israel as a Jewish state, and that as such, a permanent agreement between Israelis and Palestinians is not a feasible ambition. There is no reason to assume that this view has been altered.

Netanyahu came to a power at a time when the Palestinian national movement had effectively split into two, with a Hamas-controlled statelet in Gaza rejecting the very basis of the 1990s peace process. Netanyahu had stressed the idea of an “economic peace” with the West Bank Palestinian Authority and concentrating on grassroots initiatives and the development of institutions. It may be assumed that he had hoped the quiet management of an ongoing, intractable conflict would characterize relations between Israel and the Palestinians, enabling him to focus on the more pressing issues of Iran and its regional ambitions and influence.

This hope, of course, has not been realized. Rather, the U.S. administration chose to make progress on the Israeli-Palestinian front a central part of its regional strategy. Netanyahu was forced to adjust accordingly. The crucial importance of maintaining the strategic relationship with the United States necessitated efforts to stay on the “same page” with the administration on the Israeli-Palestinian issue, in spite of the view among those close to the Israeli prime minister that the U.S. view of what was achievable in this regard was and remains deluded.

Achieving this, however, requires something of a diplomatic and political tight rope walk for the prime minister. He has needed to convince the U.S. administration that he is not the factor obstructing its efforts to make progress on the Israeli-Palestinian track (and hopefully demonstrate to their satisfaction that Palestinian positions made a permanent status agreement unachievable), while at the same time avoiding the departure of right-wing coalition partners. At the beginning of his premiership, in a significant speech at Bar-Ilan University in June 2009, the prime minister expressed in clear terms his support in principle for the creation of a Palestinian state.[27] The government subsequently accepted a ten-month moratorium on settlement building at the end of 2009.

Over time and with a number of stumbles along the way, Netanyahu appears to have managed to position Israel in such a way as to avoid the impression that it was acting as a deliberate obstruction to Obama’s Israeli-Palestinian policy. This did not, however, prevent tensions from resurfacing–most famously in March 2010 during a visit to Israel of Vice President Joe Biden, when the administration objected to the announcement of an Israeli construction plan in a Jerusalem neighborhood across the Green Line.

The Israeli positioning certainly did not end all tensions and suspicion with the U.S. administration. The differences between Netanyahu and Obama are substantive and deep. Yet at the time of writing, Netanyahu and President Obama have managed to prevent their genuine differences on regional strategy from turning into a major rupture in relations.

It is considered that concern in the U.S. Democratic Party over the deterioration in relations in the build-up to the Congressional midterm elections in November 2010 may have contributed significantly to Netanyahu’s successful “reset” trip to the United States in July 2010. This of course raises the possibility of a further “reset” in relations after the elections–back in the direction of confrontation. There are persistent rumors that in the absence of progress and a move toward direct talks, the United States may introduce its own plan for Israeli-Palestinian peace next year. Should these rumors prove correct, such a move would serve once more to raise tensions in the relationship between Washington and Jerusalem.

Regarding the matter of the Israeli-Palestinian proximity talks, the process has failed to make substantive progress for predictable reasons. The Palestinian side wanted to move directly to the discussion of final status issues–specifically, the future borders of a Palestinian state and security arrangements, on terms to its liking. The Israeli government, by contrast, stressed the need to focus initially on practical, on-the-ground issues on which progress could be made.

During his July 2010 visit to the United States, Netanyahu stressed the Israeli demand for direct talks to begin, as he has done consistently since mid-2009. The Palestinian Authority refused to countenance this, unless Israel renewed the settlement moratorium and extended it to include east Jerusalem (as well as continuing its demand for Israel to express its terms on borders in a final settlement). For Netanyahu, who in any case has few expectations of the talks, the prospect of the Palestinians beginning to overplay their hand as U.S.-Israeli relations are patched up is a promising one. The agreement by the Palestinian Authority to the commencement of direct talks in late August 2010 does not substantially alter the picture. There is little reason to assume that Netanyau expects the talks to yield substantial results. Yet his demonstrated willingness to participate in them serves his broader strategy.

Thus, in terms of his very low expectations regarding the Israeli-Palestinian track, Netanyahu may be able to look back with some satisfaction. He has succeeded to prevent serious differences on the Palestinian issue from resulting in a profound rupture in relations with the United States. In spite of the effective deadlock in the diplomatic process, the West Bank is relatively tranquil and its economic and security situation improving. The Hamas Gaza enclave remains isolated, despite international pressure having forced the Israeli government to ease the terms of the blockade. Hamas continues largely to hold to the unilateral ceasefire it adopted following Operation Cast Lead, meaning that the Gaza border has been quiet.

The North: Syria and Hizballah

Indirect, Turkish-mediated negotiations between Israel and Syria broke down after Operation Cast Lead, during the prime ministership of Ehud Olmert. There have been no known attempts to revive the talks under Netanyahu. In Lebanon, meanwhile, Hizballah is continuing the process of rebuilding its power and armaments close to Israel’s border. Again, Israel has sought to raise world attention to the fact of Hizballah rearming in various ways–including releasing intelligence maps detailing Hizballah’s deployment in a south Lebanese town–but has avoided decisive action.[28]

Israeli analysts generally consider that renewed conflict with Hizballah is at some stage inevitable. The desire of Hizballah to avenge the killing of senior movement operative Imad Mughniyah is cited as a possible spark for a future conflict. The possibility that Israel may take preemptive action to prevent Hizballah deployment of certain types of weaponry has also been raised. There are credible reports that Israel was dissuaded by the United States from attacking a Syrian arms convoy carrying long-range missiles to Hizballah earlier this year.[29] It is also expected that in the event of an attack on Iranian nuclear facilities, Hizballah would launch rockets and missiles at Israeli population centers.

Yet despite the stark prospect of possible future conflict in the north, the current situation is one of uneasy quiet. This situation has pertained since the conclusion of the 2006 war. Another round of warfare between the sides is probably inevitable. This does not mean that it is necessarily imminent. It appears that neither side has an overriding interest in opening conflict at the present time. Netanyahu is also under no pressure to deviate from his desired policy with regard to Syria and the northern front. It is thus likely that his preferred approach based on deterrence and containment will continue, absent Syrian or Hizballah action to make it no longer tenable.

CONCLUSION: THREADS OF CONTINUITY IN THE TWO NETANYAHU PRIME MINISTERSHIPS?

The image of Benjamin Netanyahu internationally and to some degree in Israel is of a conviction politician, with a very firm and ideological view of the world. In Israel, however, the prime minister is also popularly viewed as given to indecisiveness, preferring to avoid making major decisions until circumstances effectively force him to do so. The result is a combination of conceptual boldness and clarity with extreme practical caution and avoidance of major initiatives.

In his first prime ministership, Netanyahu rose to power against a background of suicide bombings and terrorism, during the period of the Oslo process. While vociferously opposed to Oslo, Netanyahu did not in practice set about seeking to dismantle or reverse the framework of the agreement. Rather, he slowed its implementation, introducing the principle of “reciprocity”–meaning that the Palestinians would be held to a higher standard in terms of their own adherence to the agreements, in return for further Israeli implementation of them.

In practice, what this meant was that no major change was effected. Territorial concessions continued, at a slower rate, and the Prime Minister’s Office engaged in an energetic information campaign to highlight the failure of the Palestinian Authority to adhere to its responsibilities under the accords. Netanyahu’s frank opposition to the basic assumptions of the peace process continued. Yet the process continued under his government, and it was Ariel Sharon–rather than Netanyahu–who from 2002 onward, put a policy in place that consistently abandoned the assumptions behind Oslo and took measures to reverse them on the ground.

So far, at least, it appears that Netanyahu is taking a similar approach to the major policy issue of his second prime ministership–namely, the Iranian nuclear program. It remains to be seen if the prime minister’s apparent relative passivity in this regard is only a smokescreen, or if Netanyahu will leave office having made very clear why a nuclear Iran would be in his view a bad thing, without having taken decisive action (possibly beyond ordering the Israeli security services to disrupt the program) to prevent it.

Yitzhak Shamir, a very different political figure, once responded to a question as to how he hoped to be remembered by saying that he hoped Israelis would remember that he “kept things quiet.”[30] At the half way point of his second prime ministership, there is a growing sense that Benjamin Netanyahu may share the ambition for a similar legacy. The difference is that with Shamir, the desire to preserve the status quo went hand in hand with his larger strategic ambition of preventing territorial rearrangements west of the Jordan River. With Netanyahu, on the other hand, there is a sense of contradiction between his bold assertion of dangers that must be stopped (when in opposition) and his cautious, tentative treatment of issues once in office. Of course, Netanyahu’s prime ministership is not yet over, and events may yet occur to reverse this perception. Yet at its halfway point, the second Netanyahu premiership has been characterized by pragmatism, caution, and a general desire to preserve the status quo. This is largely in keeping with his performance in the period from 1996 to 1999. Whatever the inherent merits and demerits of such an approach, it may be asserted with some confidence that it is unlikely to bring about the single most important goal that Netanyahu set himself–namely, the prevention of the emergence of a nuclear Iran.

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Three Years Later, The Core Issues in Lebanon Remain Unsolved

Posted on March 16, 2011 by jonathanspyer

Global Politician- 14/07/2009

Three years have passed since the outbreak of the Second Lebanon War. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon pointed out this week that the cease-fire which ended the war on August 14, 2006, remains fragile. The core issues which triggered the fighting remain unresolved. Since the guns fell silent, both sides have been busy seeking to learn the lessons of their successes and failures, on the assumption that another round is at some stage inevitable.

For Israel, the war served as a wake-up call that a new chapter in the Arab-Israeli conflict had begun.

In the two decades prior to 2006, the main focus of the IDF ground forces had been on counter-insurgency in the West Bank and Gaza. The result was that the IDF’s war-fighting capabilities grew rusty.

The reports of the committee headed by Judge Eliyahu Winograd were harshly critical of the performance of both the political and military leaderships during the war. Winograd noted a failure to understand and internalize the requirements of war, as opposed to those of low-intensity operations. His reports were critical of the setting of unrealistic goals by the political leadership, the pursuit of goals in an unsuitable way (for example through excessive reliance on air power and illogical and half-hearted use of ground forces), and the lack of readiness of some IDF units.

The result, he concluded, was that the war represented a “great and grave missed opportunity” for Israel. The decay in some parts of Israel’s defense structures that the 2006 war revealed derived from a misapplication of resources. This, in turn, was the result of a conceptual failure.

The faulty pre-war conception held that Israel was unlikely to be called upon to engage in conventional warfare in the foreseeable future. There was an accompanying belief that future wars would involve mainly air power and small groups of highly trained specialists on the ground. The 2006 war, however, ended the notion that the Arab-Israeli conflict was engaged in a long process of gradually winding down. It lifted the veil on a new mutation of the conflict, in which Islamist forces, armed, trained and aided by Iran, are engaged in a long war strategy of seeking to inflict a “death by a thousand cuts” on Israel.

But despite the failures of the Israeli military and political systems in the 2006 war, the results were hardly a ringing success for Hizbullah and its Iranian masters. The movement sustained very heavy casualties (over 500 men killed), and the loss of a large amount of sophisticated and costly Iranian equipment – most importantly, the Zelzal and Fajr missile systems destroyed by the IAF at an early stage of the war. The south of Lebanon was decimated, and efforts by Iran and Hizbullah to rebuild the damaged areas have proved sluggish and inefficient. The terms of Security Council Resolution 1701 significantly complicated the movement’s deployment south of the Litani River.

Hizbullah went on to significantly overplay its political hand as a result of the war. The movement imagined it could translate its self-proclaimed “divine victory” into increased political power, and engaged in a series of adventures which saw it turning its guns on fellow Lebanese, and attempting to bring down the government in Beirut. The results of last month’s elections showed the discontent of many Lebanese at Hizbullah’s desire to turn the country into a front line in an Islamist war to the death with Israel.

Since the Second Lebanon War, both sides have been preparing for the next round. The performance of the IDF in Operation Cast Lead showed that Israel has internalized some of the lessons outlined by Winograd.

The Gaza operation saw a better integration of political and military objectives, and a far more logical and effective use of ground forces. Hamas’s leaders believed that they would be able to maintain a level of attrition that would force Israel back. They were wrong.

Hizbullah, meanwhile, is rearming. The movement is now thought to possess 40,000 missiles north of the Litani. It has tripled the number of C-802 ground-to-sea missiles in its possession, is attempting (reportedly with some difficulty) to recruit and train new fighters, and has created an anti-aircraft unit.

The northern border, three years after the war, is pastoral and quiet. The quiet is deceptive.

Hizbullah leader Hassan Nasrallah admitted that had he known the Israeli response to the kidnappings that began the war, he would never have carried them out. The result of this miscalculation, we are told, has been stronger Iranian supervision of their Lebanese proxy.

Hizbullah’s creator and most enthusiastic backer – The Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps – is emerging as the victor in the power struggle under way in Iran. Hizbullah is a key asset for Iran in its ongoing bid for regional hegemony. The larger struggle of which the 2006 war was an episode is still under way.

The reactivation of the northern front at some time in some future turn of events thus remains likely. The most meaningful form of remembrance of the dead of 2006 is in ensuring that when that time comes, the systems tasked with defending Israel are properly prepared and properly led.

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The Domino Effect

Posted on March 16, 2011 by jonathanspyer

Global Politician- 27/12/2009

Lebanese Prime Minister Sa’ad Hariri’s December 19 visit to Damascus is the latest marker in the return of the coercive Syrian presence in Lebanon. It is also an indication of Syria’s successful defiance of the west.

Hariri’s ritual gesture of supplication to Bashar al-Assad in Damascus was the inevitable adjustment of the leader of a small state to a changing regional balance of power. Hariri and his supporters have little reason to take pride in the gesture. But the real responsibility for it lies not in Beirut, but further afield.

The pro-western and pro-Saudi March 14 movement, led by Hariri, achieved a modest victory in elections in June. This victory was effectively nullified in the lengthy coalition “negotiations” that followed. The new government as finally announced in November represented the unusual spectacle of a wholesale capitulation of the electoral victors before the vanquished.

The Hizbullah-led opposition kept their effective veto power in the Cabinet. The government’s founding statement included an acknowledgment of the legitimacy of Hizbullah’s continued armed presence.

This substantive conceding by Hariri of his election victory has now been accompanied by a symbolic gesture.

It should be remembered that the process which led to the ending of the Syrian occupation of Lebanon in 2005 was set in motion by the murder of Sa’ad Hariri’s father, Rafiq, in February, 2005. The murder of the elder Hariri is widely thought to have been committed by Syria or elements allied with it. The murder called forth a mass movement opposing Syrian occupation.

In the context of a more general US and pro-US assertiveness in the region at the time, the Syrians felt compelled to withdraw their forces from Lebanon.

From the moment of its humiliating retreat from Lebanon, Syria sought to rebuild its influence “by other means.” These other means included its overt backing of Hizbullah, the key deciding factor in internal Lebanese affairs. Syria also adopted a classic “strategy of tension” to undermine stability in Lebanon. A string of March 14 politicians and pro-independence political figures were mysteriously murdered.

As one Syrian analyst happily put it this week: with Sa’ad Hariri’s trip across the mountains to Damascus, the circle that began with the retreat of the Syrian army from Beirut is completed.

The Assad regime, in a typically feline gesture, even chose to accompany Hariri’s visit with a further attempt at ritual humiliation. A few days prior to the visit, a Syrian court issued summons against 24 former and current senior Lebanese officials, demanding that they stand trial in Syria. They are accused of defaming a notorious Lebanese client of the Assad regime, Jamal Sayyed.

Understanding what has happened requires a broadening of focus.

The Hizbullah-led opposition conditioned their agreeing to join the coalition on the Hariri visit. But this condition was originally agreed to, according to reports, by Saudi King Abdullah, during his visit to Damascus in October. This visit was a gesture of rapprochement by the Saudis to the Syrians. The main backer of Hariri and March 14 appears at that point to have signaled Saudi willingness to concede its clients to the pro-Syrian interest in Lebanon.

Unlike the Syrian and Iranian clients in Lebanon, Hariri and Co. have no “hard power” or resistance option. The only game they can play is diplomacy. So once their main diplomatic patrons had offered them up, the game was effectively over.

But why did the Saudis choose to make this gesture? On one level, the Saudis hope to pull Syria way from Iran by welcoming Damascus back into the Arab “fold.” But Syria has made abundantly clear that it has no intention of ending or even toning down its staunch, 30-year alliance with Teheran.

On another level, the Saudis and Syrians share an additional, common interest in ensuring a weak, vulnerable Iraq between them.

But even this begs another question. Why should the Saudis choose to begin to engage with Iran’s main Arab allies – the Syrians – against the US-aligned Iraqis? Riyadh’s own patron, after all, is the United States.

Here one arrives at the crux of the matter. Although the Obama administration has hesitated before rushing headlong into renewing relations with Damascus, it has undertaken a series of gestures that have demonstrated that any real policy of isolation is over. This goes hand in hand with the broader regional stance of the administration of attempting “engagement” with the Iranian regime.

Far from signaling to Middle Eastern powers that a new world of cooperation is about to commence, what this US stance conveys to friends and foes in the region is that Washington no longer has the stomach for holding fast against the bid by Iran and its allies for regional hegemony.

The clients, and the clients of the clients, therefore move to make their accommodation with the changed reality. Unlike the Obama administration, they understand that the dominion of force is not going to end any time soon in the Middle East. The only question is – whose force will it be?

So if the small dominoes like Hariri are falling, it is because the larger ones are pushing them. Reversing this process, meanwhile, would require a general re-think of the current assumptions guiding western policy in the Middle East.

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What Does Assad Want?

Posted on March 16, 2011 by jonathanspyer

Global Politician- 08/03/2010

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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Rewarding Bad Behavior

Posted on March 16, 2011 by jonathanspyer

Global Politician- 12/01/2011

US President Barack Obama’s recent decision to appoint a new ambassador to Damascus is further proof positive of the effectiveness of the strategy pursued by Syria over the last half decade. It also showcases the sense that the current US administration appears to be navigating without a compass in its Middle East diplomacy.

The appointment of experienced and highly regarded regional hand Robert Ford to the embassy in Damascus is not quite the final burial of the policy to “isolate” Syria. The 2003 Syria Accountability Act and its sanctions remain in effect. But with Syria now in possession of a newly minted American ambassador, in supposedly pivotal negotiations with Saudi Arabia over the Special Tribunal in Lebanon, with its alliance with Iran intact, having repaired relations with Iraq, and in continued, apparently cost-free defiance of the International Atomic Energy Agency over inspections of its nuclear sites, the office of President Bashar Assad could be forgiven for feeling slightly smug.

Syrian policy appears to have worked. And since there are few more worthy pursuits than learning from success, it is worth observing closely its actions on the way to bringing about its resurgence.

Syria’s regional standing was at its nadir in 2005: Assad was forced to abandon his country’s valued and profitable occupation of Lebanon; the US was in control in Iraq; Israel appeared to have turned back the assault of Damascus-based Islamist terror groups. The future seemed bleak for the Assad family regime.

How did we get from there to here? The formula has been a simple and familiar one, involving the potential and actual use of political violence and the subsequent offer of restraint.

Thus, Syria set out to successfully prevent the achievement of stability in Lebanon. A string of murders of anti-Syrian political figures, journalists and officials began almost before the dust had cleared from the departure of the last APC across the border in 2005.

The semi coup undertaken by Syrian-allied Hizbullah and its allies in May 2008 set the price of further isolation of Damascus at a rate higher than either the US or “pro- Western” Arab states were willing to pay. The process of Saudi-Syrian rapprochement began shortly afterward.

It has now reached the somewhat surreal stage where Damascus, which was almost certainly involved in the killing of Rafik Hariri, is being treated as a key player in helping to prevent the possibility of violence by Syrian and Iranian sponsored organizations in the event of their members being indicted for the murder.

With regard to Israel, the defense establishment and part of the political establishment maintain an attitude of patience and forgiveness toward the Syrian regime. This, to be sure, has its limits. Damascus’s attempt to develop a nuclear capacity was swiftly and effectively dealt with in 2007. On two known occasions in recent years, Israel has brushed aside Syria’s domestic defenses to engage in targeted killings against senior military or paramilitary figures on Syrian soil.

Yet the belief that Syria seeks a way out of the supposedly stifling bear hug of the Iranians remains prevalent in defense circles and in large parts of the political establishment.

This perennial article of faith means that in the event of Syria’s feeling lonely, it need only raise an eyebrow in Israel’s direction for the eager suitor to come running.

This took place, for example, in October 2007, at a time when Syria had good reason for feeling isolated.

The commencement of Turkish-mediated negotiations with Israel helped in cracking the wall of Syrian isolation.

Once other powers began to get on board the dialogue train, of course, the negotiations could be allowed to quietly fade away. The latest indications are that the defense establishment persists in its faith. The result is that Syria, as long as it stays within certain limits of behavior, is able to domicile and support organizations engaged in armed action against Israel, at no cost.

ON IRAQ, a number of regional analysts have suggested that part of the reason for the Obama administration’s persistent and largely one-sided policy of engagement with Damascus derives from the porous border between Syria and Iraq. The maintaining of this open border by the regime as an artery providing fresh fighters for the Sunni insurgency constituted a useful tool of pressure. The US now wants quiet as it prepares to withdraw from Iraq. Once again, the simple but effective methods of the protection racket appear to pay off.

More broadly, Syria originally favored Iyad Allawi’s candidacy for prime minister, but fell into line with big brother Iran’s backing of Nouri al- Maliki. Relations with Maliki have now been repaired, despite Syria’s suspected involvement in a series of bombings in Baghdad early last year.

Finally, with regard to its nuclear program, Syria has banned all IAEA access to the site of the destroyed al-Kibar reactor, since 2008. This decision followed an initial IAEA report concluding that the facility had similarities to a nuclear reactor, and noting the discovery of uranium particles at the site.

In November last year, an IAEA report noted that “with the passage of time, some of the information concerning the site is further deteriorating or has been lost entirely. It is critical, therefore, that Syria actively cooperate with the agency.” Critical to the agency, maybe.

Less critical, apparently, to the Syrians.

WHAT LESSONS may be learned from this relatively comprehensive list of interactions? What might an aspiring Middle Eastern regime or movement glean from the Syrian experience of the last half-decade – all the way from the hurried departure from Lebanon to the return of the US ambassador.

There are two obvious lessons.

The first is that if you are in a confrontation with the West, hang tough, because the West and its allies will eventually tire, particularly if you are willing to raise the stakes to a level on which the other side will not be willing to play. The currency Syria has traded in, with subtlety and determination, is political violence.

Terror and the sponsorship of murder – in Iraq, in Lebanon and against Israel – appear to have come at no real cost and eventually to have paid dividends.

The second lesson is to maintain your close alliance with the big regional spoiler, but at the same time express your willingness to dialogue with and maintain relations with everyone else. This, it appears, will have the result that you will come to be seen as an indispensable country. This status, however, will only last for as long as you maintain your alliance with the spoiler – in this case, Iran. So on no circumstances must this firm connection be put in jeopardy.

In other words, the Syrian success story teaches all aspiring family police states and anti-Western regional movements that the sponsoring of violence against the West and maintaining alliances with its enemies are the key to emerging from isolation, punching above your weight and even, in the fullness of time, establishing friendly and respectful relations with the West. QED. Lesson learned.

As to why exactly the US, Israel and their regional allies should find it beneficial to promote and reward this model as the exemplar of political behavior in the region, the answer lies beyond the limited analytical tools of this column. The writer wishes great success to anyone seeking to figure it out. It continues to elude him.

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Hizbullah’s Throne of Bayonets

Posted on March 16, 2011 by jonathanspyer

Global Politician- 27/12/2010

It is obvious that given the true balance of power in Lebanon, the special tribunal investigating the murder of former prime minister Rafik Hariri is largely a virtual exercise. As Michael Young pointed out in a column in the Beirut Daily Star this week, tribunal prosecutor Daniel Bellemare is currently on his end of year vacation and left without submitting draft indictments. This means that indictments cannot be issued before mid-January at the earliest.

Once they are issued, they will not be made public, but rather will be subject to the perusal of a pre-trial judge, Daniel Fransen. This process is likely to take up to a further two months, meaning that the very earliest a trial could begin would be late March or April.

At that point, if Hizbullah members are indicted, the movement will declare its nonrecognition of the court, and in real world terms, that is likely to be that.

But if this is the case, and it is, why is the Iran/Syria/Hizbullah camp so clearly jittery and worried by the events surrounding the tribunal? Why the wishful thinking in the newspapers evident this week, when the pro-Hizbullah Al-Diyar published a statement by Saad Hariri apparently abandoning the tribunal, which turned out to be entirely fictional?

More importantly, why the stark and repeated threats from Hizbullah and Iranian officials regarding the consequences if the Tribunal is not abandoned?

Hizbullah this week reiterated its promise to “cut off the hand” of anyone trying to arrest members of the movement. Many analysts saw the recent visit of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to Lebanon as an act of preemptive intimidation. He was reminding Hizbullah’s opponents just how strong it is, and just how determined its backers.

Even Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei descended this week from his lofty heights to issue a fatwa regarding the tribunal. “This tribunal is receiving orders from elsewhere,” he said in a meeting with the emir of Qatar, before pronouncing “any ruling it hands down” as “null and void.”

Hizbullah immediately hailed his words, interpreting them in the most unambiguous terms as supporting its war to the end on the tribunal. A Hizbullah MP, Walid Sucarieh, said that the statement was meant to “tell those who seek strife through the indictment: stay right there. We won’t stand idle while the fire is burning our homes.”

SO WHAT is the reason for the very obvious concern of the pro-Iranian axis regarding the tribunal, even though there is no way that its indictments or rulings can be enforced?

Firstly, it is important to differentiate in this regard between the stances of Syria on the one hand, and Iran and Hizbullah on the other.

The Iran-Syria alliance serves the purposes of both parties and is in no danger of fraying. This does not mean, however, that the interests of the parties are at all times identical.

Syria is currently engaged in a convoluted diplomatic process with Saudi Arabia to try to find a solution on the issue of the tribunal. The Syrians hope to make diplomatic gains by playing all sides against the middle, in their usual fashion.

The indications are that Syria itself has nothing to fear from the indictments, despite the near certainty that its officials were involved in the murder of Hariri, even if Hizbullah men were contracted to carry out the deed. Syria stands to pay no price. It looks likely to continue to be aligned with Iran, and courted by the West and the Arab states whatever the outcome of the tribunal issue.

But the serious project under way in Lebanon is not that of the Syrians.

Hizbullah is a long-term project undertaken by the Islamic Republic of Iran, with the intention of generating legitimacy and popularity for Teheran by engaging in a never-ending war with Israel.

For this purpose, Iran established Hizbullah, and has over time built it into a political-military juggernaut of a potency rarely seen in the Arabic-speaking world.

Hizbullah today is the de facto dominant force in Lebanon.

But to serve its purpose for its creator, it is not enough for Hizbullah merely to be powerful. A Hizbullah which dominates Lebanon through pure coercion cannot play the role intended for it by its patron. It must also appear legitimate.

That is to say, to perform its task for its Iranian masters, Hizbullah must appear to be simultaneously Shi’ite and pro-Iranian, but also authentically Arab. It must be seen as the sole force able to make Arab dreams of victory over Israel once more look feasible. The Hariri tribunal in no way offers a threat to the real power of Hizbullah.

The movement can defeat any combination of its domestic opponents, if it comes to a fight.

But if such a fight takes place, even though Hizbullah would win it, the ambiguity regarding its true nature would be gone. It would be revealed as a powerful, alien force, made possible by the money and guns of non- Arab Iran, and holding power purely by coercion. It is for this reason that Hizbullah has been so desperate to change the subject back to Israel in recent weeks.

In this way, it hopes to portray the part of its identity which the Arab world finds attractive – the “resistance” – as opposed to the part that threatens to be revealed by the tribunal indictments – the alien, Shi’ite, Iran-created force.

The latest events in Lebanon thus help to lay bare the contradictions of the Iranian project in the region. This means nothing in power terms. Hizbullah still dominates.

Its local opponents remain disarmed and helpless.

But it apparently matters enough to Iran and its local proxy to cause them to mobilize the heavyweights to stop the tribunal in its tracks.

So it remains likely that the special tribunal on Lebanon will be the proverbial mountain that gives birth to a mouse. But careful observation of the current events surrounding it show the inherent limitations of Shi’ite, non-Arab Iran’s ambition to emerge as the dominant force in the region. As former Russian president Boris Yeltsin once put it in a rare moment of clarity, “You can make a throne of bayonets, but you can’t sit on it for long.”

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Illusion and Reality Clash in Lebanon

Posted on March 16, 2011 by jonathanspyer

Global Politician- 08/03/2010

Initially, the Special Tribunal for Lebanon probing the murder of Rafik Hariri focused on Syria. Lately, indications suggest that the main focus is now on Hizbullah. Tension is currently rising in Lebanon, amid reports that the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL) is to issue indictments in the coming months. The tribunal is tasked with investigating the 2005 murder of Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri. Earlier this year, its president, Antonio Cassese, said he expected that indictments would be issued at some stage between September and December.

The Hariri tribunal has followed a long and winding path since its formation shortly after the murder, which took place on February 14, 2005. In its initial period, it was expected that its main angle of investigation would focus on the Syrians. Hariri was known as a defender of Lebanese sovereignty and therefore a natural adversary of the Syrian regime.

The latest indications, however, suggest that the main focus of the investigation is now on Hizbullah. This has led some Lebanon watchers to raise the specter of possible renewed civil strife in the country. Others have suggested that the prospect of indictments represents a serious dent in Hizbullah and Iran’s power in the country. Neither of these claims, however, holds water.

The first claim rests on the idea that if Hizbullah is indicted for the murder of Rafik Hariri, this will place Saad Hariri – current prime minister and son of the murdered man – on a collision course with it.

But for a civil war, you need two sides. In 2008, it was the effective capitulation of Hariri and his March 14 movement which averted conflict. This time around, Hariri has even fewer options and this makes renewed confrontation less likely.

In a press conference last week, Hizbullah leader Hassan Nasrallah said that he had been personally informed by Hariri that the tribunal would accuse some “undisciplined members” of Hizbullah (i.e. not the movement as a whole) of the murder of his father.

Nasrallah also noted that he had received a personal assurance from Hariri that he would publicly confirm that individual Hizbullah members, rather than the movement itself, were implicated in the murder.

Informed sources suggest that Hizbullah has already selected the individuals it will throw to the wolves if indictments are indeed issued (which is itself not certain).

The men in question are low-level operators reputed to be involved in crime as well as movement activity.

Nasrallah’s rare press conference may have indicated that Hizbullah is uncomfortable at the prospect of the indictments. But his name-checking of Hariri also confirmed that he thinks he has little to worry about from the murdered man’s son.

The available evidence suggests that he is right. Mustafa Allouche, a former MP from Hariri’s March 14 bloc, said last Friday that if the tribunal issued indictments “not backed by proper evidence,” then the position of the Hariri movement toward it would change.

Allouche added that Hariri would consider matters in cooperation with Nasrallah to ensure “calm.” Hariri is reported to have held a private meeting with Nasrallah in recent days to lay the basis for this cooperation and reassure the Hizbullah leader.

The idea that a group of Hizbullah members decided independently to assassinate Rafik Hariri belongs in the realm of comedy. Hizbullah is a fiercely centralized, disciplined body in which no dissent is brooked. Its militants do not go about pursuing their own political and military policies.

It is made doubly so by the known sophistication of the Hariri murder. The notion that a group of Hizbullah men acting independently could have assembled, planted and detonated the massive explosive device that killed him, without their own movement’s knowledge or the knowledge of the Syrian de facto rulers of the country at the time, is without any foundation in reality.

SO WHY IS Saad Hariri apparently bowing before the Iran-Syria-Hizbullah axis that murdered his father? Hariri is a client of the Saudis, and the Saudis, for reasons of their own, are currently engaged in a process of rapprochement with the Syrians. Saudi King Abdullah is due to visit Lebanon this week. The Lebanese prime minister possesses no military power on the ground. A civil war between his supporters and Hizbullah would be exceedingly short, and would rapidly conclude with Hariri’s destruction.

As a result, he is carrying out his own slightly macabre courtship dance with the people that killed his father. Syria is quietly rebuilding its power in Lebanon, with no effective pro-Western counter-force to oppose it. Hariri therefore must bow to reality and avoid clashing with Hizbullah and/or Syria over the tribunal.

The Saudi approach in turn is supposed to shore up the troubled Arab diplomatic system by drawing Syria back into it.

Some commentators have claimed to see a silver lining in this. They depict the current situation as representing a weakening of Iran and its Hizbullah client in the face of a new alignment of Syria and Hariri, backed by Saudi Arabia and Turkey.

Such a depiction has little foundation. Syria’s return to political influence in Lebanon is a product of its alliance with Iran. Its continuation depends on the continued existence of this alliance. So the idea that Syria’s new friendship with Hariri portends a significant shift in the balance of power is an illusion. It is a friendship on Syrian terms, made possible by the implicit threat of Iranian-backed muscle. The Syrians will be happy to reap the fruits of their alliance with Iran in the form of renewed political sway in Lebanon. This has no implications for the real Iranian power in the country, or for Syria’s alignment with it.

The real power in Lebanon today, whose resources, investment and ambitions dwarf those of the Syrians, is the Islamic Republic of Iran. Iran exercises its power through its Hizbullah client. Hizbullah, in turn, is able to have the last word in any argument in the country because of its military power on the ground. Hizbullah and its patrons prefer to allow the Lebanese political system and government to exist, and will continue to do so for as long as they do not interfere in their plans.

Iran’s plans are region-wide, and it is interested in Lebanon mainly insofar as its control of the southern part of that country allows it to maintain the most active front currently in existence in the Israel- Islamist conflict. Syria is riding back into Lebanon in the form of a minor carriage attached to the Iranian- Hizbullah train.

Against this political-military juggernaut, the conscientious researchers of the SLT can do little. Saudi diplomacy and its Lebanese clients lack the tools to oppose Iran and its allies directly. They are therefore seeking to convince themselves and the world that their strategy of drawing Syria away from Iran is working. It is not.

The US, meanwhile, is engaged in matters elsewhere, and the administration still appears to be in a learning process regarding the ambitions of the Iran led regional axis.

It is against this background that the latest developments in Lebanon should be understood. Neither the SLT, nor Saad Hariri, nor Turkey, nor Saudi Arabia are going to break the power of Iran and its allies in Lebanon. This will be achieved, if it is to be achieved, as a result of the frustration of Iranian plans on a broader, regional level.

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Muslim World: Iran’s Execution Binge

Posted on March 15, 2011 by jonathanspyer

22/01/2011

In the early morning hours of Saturday, January 15 in the isolated and overcrowded Orumiyeh prison in western Iran [Iranian Kurdistan], the authorities hanged one of their opponents.

Hossein Khazri, an alleged activist with the Party for Free Life of Kurdistan (PJAK), was 29. He had been in custody since early 2009. His crime, of which he was convicted on July 11, 2009, was that of being an “enemy of God” in the eyes of the Islamic Republic.

Khazri’s specific activities against the deity worshiped by the rulers of Iran appear to have consisted of political agitation for democracy and federalism in the country of his birth.

In the course of his incarceration, in prisons administered by the Iranian Revolutionary guards Corps and the Intelligence Ministry, Khazri had been severely tortured, according to human rights organizations.

His hanging was the latest in a wave of executions of Kurdish activists and other opponents of the regime carried out in recent weeks. Fourteen other Kurdish activists are currently on death row, condemned for their political activities.

The International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran this week described the authorities as on an “execution binge,” orchestrated by the intelligence and security agencies.

The hanging of Khazri brings the number of people executed by Iran since the beginning of the year to 47.

A spokesman for ICHRI said that the “execution of Kurdish activists, without fair trials and following torture, increasingly appears as a systematic, politically motivated process.” The roundups and executions of Kurdish activists are part of an ongoing, brutal and little-reported war waged by the Revolutionary Guards against a separatist insurgency in the predominantly Kurdish areas of western Iran. Urumiya jail, which was built to house 150, is currently teeming with 300 inmates, as a result of recent crackdowns on independent political activity.

PJAK HAS been fighting the Iranian authorities since 2004. It defines its fight not in ethnic nationalist terms.

Rather, it claims to be fighting for “federalism and secular democracy” in Iran.

Based in the Qandil mountain range on the Iraqi border, the movement engages in periodic raids into Iran. Since February 2009, it has been designated a terrorist organization by the US. PJAK is an offshoot of the Turkish-Kurdish PKK, and belongs to the same umbrella organization.

It lacks the deep roots among the Kurds of Iran which the PKK possesses among the Turkish Kurds, however.

Unverified media reports have suggested that despite the terrorist designation, the group has received US support, as part of a larger effort to foment unrest and instability in Iran. There have also been rumors of Israeli contacts with the organization. These supposed Western links feature prominently in the propaganda of the Iranian authorities against PJAK.

But whatever the particular provenance of PJAK, it is clear that the people in whose name it wishes to speak, the Kurds of Iran, currently endure something much less than a free life. The movement’s potential for growth is thus considerable.

The repression of it by the regime is correspondingly harsh.

THE IRANIAN system is dominated by ethnic Persians, but the Islamic Republic does not define itself officially according to ethnic identity. Rather, it rules in the name of religion. As such, the regime constitutionally recognizes the Kurdish language. In practice, however, discrimination against Kurds and other minority ethnic and religious communities is widespread and of long standing.

Around 5 million Kurds live in Iran, concentrated in the provinces of West Azerbaijan, Ilam and Kurdistan. Separatist sentiment is particularly strong among Sunni Muslim Kurds,who constitute just over half the total. In the earliest days of the regime, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini declared a jihad against Kurdish separatism, and 10,000 Kurds were killed as the Revolutionary Guards fought to establish regime control in these areas.

After the unrest following the rigged presidential elections of July 2009, the Islamist authorities’ repression in Kurdish areas of the country has once more sharply increased. Last May, the authorities began a crackdown as the anniversary of the elections approached. Four Kurdish activists, one a woman, were convicted of membership in PJAK and executed following severe torture.

None was given access to lawyers. PJAK denied any links with the four. All were convicted, like Hossein Khazri [Hussein Xizri], of the crime of war against God.

The incidents led to widespread demonstrations and further bloody suppression.

And this is where things remain. The period since the successful repression of the countrywide dissent that followed the elections of July 2009 has seen the consolidation of an Islamist counter reaction within the regime.

The power of the intelligence and security apparatuses has grown. This is reflecting itself in the brutal repression of dissent taking place in the Kurdish speaking areas along the border with Iraq. Khazri was the latest victim of this repression. He was almost certainly not the last.

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The Rise and Rise of Hizb ut-Tahrir

Posted on March 15, 2011 by jonathanspyer

The Guardian- 09/10/2007

Sitting in the best bar in Jerusalem about four months ago (it’s called Sira, in case you’re interested), I entered into conversation with a tall, ginger-haired young man who turned out to be a member of the Swedish contingent in the Temporary International Presence in Hebron (TIPH). Our conversation ranged over the trials and tribulations of the life of a member of TIPH, the very large amounts of money he seemed to be making, and the merits of Jerusalem when compared with other cities in the region.

An offhand remark he made concerning the political balance of power in Hebron turned the conversation from mildly interesting to memorable. I asked him if Hamas was gaining ground in the city of Hebron. He replied wearily that the fastest-growing political force in the city was not Hamas, nor any of the other well-known Palestinian political movements. Rather, the most notable and noticeable development on the ground in Hebron was the sudden and rapid rise in support for the Islamist party Hizb ut-Tahrir.

Subsequent months have attested to the truth of my Swedish friend’s unexpected claim. Hizb ut-Tahrir (the “party of liberation”) is indeed growing in strength and visibility in the West Bank, especially in the areas of Jerusalem and Hebron. So what does the Hizb’s emergence as a political factor mean, and what implications may it have (if any) for the future direction of events between Israelis and Palestinians?Hizb ut-Tahrir was founded in Jordanian-ruled Jerusalem in 1952 by a sharia court judge, Taqiuddin al-Nabhani. The party inscribes on its banner the goal of the restoration of the caliphate – the Islamic government established after the death of Muhammad in 632, and abolished by Kemal Ataturk in 1924.

The party wants the imposition of sharia law – eventually worldwide – and is in favour of the destruction of Israel. However, it sees this as the job of the conventional forces of the restored Islamic caliphate. The party has thus not employed the methods of terror attacks against Israelis, as favored by other, more prominent Palestinian Islamist currents, such as Hamas and Islamic jihad.

Hizb ut-Tahrir has grown from its beginnings in Jordanian Jerusalem into an international force, with branches in 45 countries in the world. It has achieved particular notoriety in central and southeast Asian countries, in particular in Uzbekistan and Indonesia. It has also come to prominence in western European countries – particularly in Britain, where a branch was established in 1986. A number of the best-known British participants in Islamist terrorism attended meetings of the group or one of its offshoots at certain stages of their trajectories. These include Omar Khan Sharif, who tried to bomb the Mikes Place bar in Tel Aviv in 2003, and the “shoe bomber”, Richard Reid.

In the Arabic-speaking world, Hizb ut-Tahrir was long regarded as an obscure, eccentric current. Some analysts saw its failure to place the Palestinian issue at the centre of its concerns as contributing to its marginality. This is now changing. In the West Bank in the last months, Hizb ut-Tahrir has held a series of successful events, which mark its entry onto the stage as a significant player in Palestinian politics. In early August, the party organised a number of mass rallies in the West Bank, including a gathering of 10,000 people in the town of Al-Bireh, and similar-sized rallies in Hebron and Ramallah. These took place under the slogan “The caliphate is the rising force”, and coincided with similar gatherings held by branches around the world. The rallies followed a year of frenetic activity and growing prominence for the movement in the West Bank, which saw activists, for example, protesting against the establishment of a new mission school in Hebron in May, 2007 and organising demonstrations in protest at the Danish cartoons of Mohammed in October, 2006.

What does the rise of Hizb ut-Tahrir among Palestinians imply? First, it indicates that the assumption over the last two decades that Palestinian politics was essentially a two-horse race between nationalist Fatah and Muslim Brotherhood/Hamas may be beginning to fray at the seams.

More profoundly, the emergence of the movement raises a question over the optimistic scenario recently raised in some quarters, according to which once Islamist movements such as Hamas are tested in office and fail, previous, predominantly secular patterns of politics will re-emerge.

It may well be that a deep, and profoundly significant “Islamisation” of the politics of the Arab world is taking place, the implications of which are only beginning to be glimpsed. Looking around the region, the wall-to-wall dominance of Islamist groups in opposition politics appears to attest to such a process. Hizb ut-Tahrir itself may well end up being only one of many symptoms of this broader trend, all trying to ride the wave. Such a shift, if it takes place, would have severe implications for hopes of a consensual peace between Israelis and Palestinians, and for wider regional stability. A Fatah official I spoke with recently told me that in his view Abu Mazen was “the last Palestinian,” whose failure would mean the emergence to prominence of a new brand of chaotic, rejectionist politics among the Palestinians.

So had my Swedish friend – enjoying his weekend off in a west Jerusalem bar – revealed a dot on the horizon, indicating the approach of something new? It’s too soon to tell, of course. But interested parties among both Israelis and Palestinians will no doubt be keeping a close eye on the activities of Hizb ut-Tahrir in the West Bank in the period to come.

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More United, Less Passionate

Posted on March 15, 2011 by jonathanspyer

The Guardian- 25/03/2006

Three days now remain until the elections in Israel. The election campaign has been the most sedate in living memory. One may walk the main streets of the three main cities, and hardly be disturbed by activists, posters, leaflets. I remember my first visits to Israel, and the election campaigns of 1984 and 1988. As a London Jewish teenager, I was thrilled by the impassioned debates, the raucous crowds gathered round two rival activists locked in verbal combat, each using a fine range of theatrical rhetorical skills to the utmost. The rival activists at Zion Square and outside the Hamashbir department store in Jerusalem. Endless disputation. Historical analogies, Bar-Kochba, the events of the 20th century, the destruction of the Temple, all freely invoked and brandished. This, I thought, was what a democratic Jewish state ought to look like.

This has all changed now. It is a change of great significance, open to interpretation in a variety of ways. First the facts. Israeli society is a fragmented, sectoral, disenchanted sort of place compared with the fervor of yesteryear. Yet it is also more united than ever before – on the basic issues that have dominated discussion for the last 40 years. This sounds like a contradiction, but isn’t. Allow me to explain. Since the mid-70s, Israeli politics has been dominated by the Labour-Likud divide, with the two big parties, and their argument over policy on the Arab-Israeli dispute defining the political life of the country.

These two parties wore the colours of old, pre-state Zionist factions. On occasion, lip service would be paid to arcane ideological loyalties. Likud derived its support from the country’s poorer Jews, originating in North Africa and Asia and fiercely committed to a nationalist, traditionalist outlook. The party, until recent years, was neither more nor less committed to free market economics than Labour. Labour, meanwhile, was the party of the liberal Israeli middle classes. The split between the parties, as between the pre-state Labour and Revisionist movements from which they emerged, was over high national issues, the one more inclined to suspect the Arabs and cleave to ancestral territories, the other more inclined to compromise.

The structural Labour-Likud divide continued to dominate Israeli politics throughout the ’90s and beyond. But in that period, it became essentially bled of meaning. The experiences of the Intifada, Oslo, the breakdown of Oslo and the subsequent five year conflict with the Palestinians mixed up the old definitions, damaging the basic edicts of the faiths of hawk and dove alike. For many hawks, the Palestinian uprisings called into question the easy assumption that Israel could simply rule over the West Bank and Gaza indefinitely. The growing Palestinian populations of that area made these new concerns ever more urgent. For the doves of Labour, meanwhile, the collapse of the Oslo process, and the rejection by the Palestinian side of the Clinton proposals of December 2000 called into question their easy assumption that sufficient Israeli forthcomingness could quickly wrap up the issue under dispute. The result has been the slow emergence of a new consensus at the center of Israeli politics, which sees no Palestinian partner with whom to deal, and at the same time considers that maintenance of the status quo is not to Israel’s advantage. The Gaza Disengagement, and the likelihood of further withdrawals on the West Bank is the policy fruit of this new alignment. The split in the Likud, and the emergence of the Kadima Party to its astonishing, dominant position on the map is the political result.

So we have a new party that stands for no-partner and unilateralism. This party looks set to win the elections (36 seats, according to current polls) But there is more to it than that. The old parties – Labour and Likud – were based on historic movements, which at their height commanded a fierce partisan loyalty from their supporters. To be a ‘Likudnik,’ or an ‘Alignment (Labour) man’ in Israel was to take on a whole historic narrative and set of loyalties. These old tribal ideological blocs have departed the stage. Many people will turn out to vote for Kadima on March 28th. But the loyalty to Kadima is based on a resigned acceptance of unpleasant facts, combined with a very pervasive feeling of cynicism toward the political class in general. Ehud Olmert and his colleagues are accepted as being perhaps the best team for the job. But the idea that they carry with them the aura of moral authority that a Ben-Gurion, a Begin, or even a Shamir or a Rabin in their time could claim would be met in today’s Israel with a snort of derision. Turnout in the election is expected to be low.

How might one interpret this turn of events in Israeli politics? Well, there is the apocalyptic view held by various left and right-wing Israeli ideologues, along with Hizballah Chairman Nasrallah, Khaled Maashal of Hamas (and for all I know also their European sympathizers) according to which this sense of disillusion signals the advancing decrepitude of Israel, presaging its imminent collapse. I do not share this reading. It seems to me that the growing unwillingness of Israelis to look for identity and moral belonging in politics – the shallowing of political allegiance, the skepticism toward political leaders and so on – places our society in a parallel process to that of other western democracies. In the Israeli case, it is a sort of maturing – not in the idealized coming-of-age sense of that word, but more in the sense of a tempering of hopes, fervor and dreams, an awareness of the smaller amounts that can be achieved, and a consequent narrowing of the place of political involvement, debate and discussion in everyday life.

It has its dangers – an increasingly disengaged public might lead to a despairing acceptance of mediocrity and worse in the political class. But it also represents the possible emergence of a measured, sober pragmatism into a system which has been largely characterized for the last decades by a distinct lack of that ingredient, along with an urgent need for it. I miss the impassioned crowds at Zion Square – nowadays, one assumes that the few kids quietly offering leaflets for Kadima in city centers are being paid to do so. But then I also miss my adolescence, and I nevertheless have no desire to return to it.

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