Subtly and determinedly, Syria is taking over Lebanon

Posted on March 10, 2011 by jonathanspyer

Global Politician 08/08/2008

Lebanese President Michel Suleiman is to visit Syria next week, to discuss the opening of diplomatic relations between the countries, a Lebanese official told reporters this week. French President Nicolas Sarkozy last month hailed President Bashar Assad’s expression of willingness in principle to establish diplomatic relations with Lebanon as “historic progress.”

The establishment of a first-ever Syrian Embassy in Beirut is probably not imminent, for various reasons. Nevertheless, the signs of normalization in relations between Syria and Lebanon are significant. They are the latest indication of Syria’s growing confidence, and far from being a harbinger of more peaceful times in the neighborhood, they offer clues as to the shape of possible further strife.

The formation of the new Lebanese government after the Beirut clashes in May represented a very significant gain for the pro-Syria element in Lebanese politics. Hizbullah now controls a blocking 11 of the 30 cabinet seats. With a Lebanese government of this type, there is no reason for Syria to be in dispute there. The short period when Damascus felt the need to express its will in Lebanon solely in a clandestine way is drawing to a close.

Still, Western hopes for the rapid establishment of formal relations between the two countries are probably exaggerated. Damascus is in no hurry. Syria’s return to Lebanon is a work in progress. Assad has listed the preconditions for the establishment of diplomatic relations to become a real possibility. These include the passing of an election law, and the holding of the scheduled May 2009 general election.

Behind Assad’s honeyed words, one may glimpse the contours of Syrian strategy in the next stage. The election of May 2009 will be conducted under the shadow of Hizbullah’s independent and now untouchable military capability.

Intimidation will go hand in hand with the real kudos gained by the movement and its allies because of recent events – including the prisoner swap with Israel, and the Doha agreement that followed the fighting in May. The result, the Syrians hope, will be the establishment of a government more fully dominated by Hizbullah and its allies, in which the pro-Western element will have been marginalized.

Such a government would mark the effective final reversal of the events of the spring of 2005, when the Cedar Revolution compelled the Syrian army to leave Lebanon. Damascus would then go on to conduct friendly and fraternal relations with the new order in Beirut. Mission accomplished.

If this strategy plays out, however, it will represent not the normalization of Syrian-Lebanese relations, but rather the enveloping of Lebanon into the regional alliance led by Iran, of which Syria is a senior member.

On the ground in Lebanon, this regional alliance is still engaged in consolidating its gains. The lines separating the official Lebanese state from the para-state established by Hizbullah continue to blur. The new government’s draft policy statement, which is still to be discussed by the parliament, supports the “right of Lebanon’s people, the army and the Resistance to liberate all its territories.”

This statement thus nominally affords the Resistance. i.e. Hizbullah, equal status with the Lebanese Armed Forces, and appears to consider it an organ of official government policy.

The new organ of government policy, meanwhile, is building its strength. Ostensibly for the mission of “liberating” 20 square kilometers of border farmland, Hizbullah has built a capability of 40,000 missiles and rockets, is frenziedly recruiting and training new fighters, and is expanding and developing its command and logistics center in the Bekaa.

The latest talk is of Iranian-Syrian plans to supply Hizbullah with an advanced anti-aircraft capacity that would provide aerial defense to the investment in rockets and missiles. Such a move would represent a grave altering of the balance of power. Serious moves towards it could well prove the spark for the next confrontation.

In all its moves, the Iranian-Syrian-Hizbullah alliance has known how to combine brutal military tactics on the ground with subtle and determined diplomacy. Its willingness to throw away the rule book governing the normal relations between states has been perhaps its greatest advantage. While the West sees states as fixed entities possessing certain basic rights, Iran and Syria see only processes of rising and falling power. They see themselves as the force on the rise, and the niceties of internationally fixed borders as a trifle unworthy of consideration.

The region has known the rise of similar systems of power and ideology in the past. Experience shows that such states and alliances have become amenable to change and compromise – if at all – only after experiencing defeat, setback and frustration.

The Syrians and their allies, of course, are far weaker in measurable military and societal terms than their rhetoric would suggest. Western (including Israeli) actions over the last years have tended to blur this fact. The general acceptance of the transformation of Lebanon into a platform for this alliance – and the lauding of it as ‘historical progress’ – is the latest example of this. The re acquaintance of rhetoric with reality on all sides is long overdue.

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Assad’s Shopping List

Posted on March 10, 2011 by jonathanspyer

Global Politician- 27/08/2008

President Bashar Assad of Syria began a trip to Russia this week. Russian news agency RIA Novosti has quoted the Syrian Information Ministry as confirming that the trip will last two days.

According to the statement, the purpose of the trip is to discuss bilateral relations and the latest world and regional developments, particularly relating to the Middle East peace process and to Iraq.

Assad’s trip to Moscow comes at a particularly opportune time. Russia is in the process of completing what looks like a successful, contemptuous defiance of international will over its actions in Georgia. In the Caucasus, Moscow has thrown down a direct challenge to the US-dominated post Cold-war international order.

Syria, meanwhile, is part of an Iran-led regional bloc which seeks to issue a similar challenge in the Middle East, albeit on a smaller scale. But Assad is not in Moscow purely to compare notes with the Russians. Rather, his trip has a list of clear and practical objectives.

During the Cold War, the USSR was of course Syria’s main arms supplier. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, Damascus was left with an outstanding debt of $13.4 billion to Moscow for weapons purchased. Throughout the 1990s, with Syria stagnant and Russia plunged into economic and political chaos, this outstanding debt cast a chill over relations between the two countries. This chill has now thawed. In 2005, Moscow agreed to write off 73 percent of the debt. This reduced Syria’s foreign debt to less than 10% of its GDP, allowing Damascus once more to focus on arms procurement. Large-scale purchases of arms from Russia began that same year.

Over the following two years, according to Israeli sources, Syria purchased 50 Pantsir SE-1 and Tor-M1 air-defense systems from Moscow. Sophisticated anti-tank guided weapons systems were also acquired. There are conflicting reports as to whether the Pantsir air defense systems had been fully deployed at the time of the successful IAF raid on a suspected Syrian plutonium reactor in September, 2007. The raid, in any case, undoubtedly represented a significant failure for the Syrians.

The Syrian response has been to accelerate the pace of arms purchases from willing Russia. In May, a senior Syrian delegation headed by air force commander General Akhmad al-Ratyb visited the Russian capital. The delegation secured the purchase of Mig-29 SMT fighter aircraft.

This time around, the leading item on Assad’s shopping list is thought to be the sophisticated S-300 long range anti-aircraft missile system. This state-of-the-art system has already been purchased from Russia by Iran. Iran is expected to deploy it by March, 2009. The Iranian intention, clearly, is for this system to be used in defense of Teheran’s nuclear program.

Assad, in his previous visit to Moscow in December, 2006, made unsuccessful attempts to purchase the S-300. Israeli diplomats have been working to try to prevent a successful Syrian acquisition this time around. The outcome is not yet clear. The S-300 is thought to be the leading item on Assad’s list of planned purchases in Moscow. A series of public statements by Russian officials over the past days stressing (and exaggerating) Israel’s defense relationship with Georgia could be interpreted as a negative sign, but nothing is yet certain.

What lies behind Russia’s growing interest in arms supplies to the Middle East? This is part of a larger picture – Russia’s return as a player on the global diplomatic stage. The Russians would like to leverage their supply of arms to Iran and Syria into influence, forming an alternative address for diplomatic mediation – or for help in challenging enemies. Either way, Russia intends not to have its voice ignored. The days when all other countries automatically accepted US predominance on issues of Middle East statecraft have passed.

Of course, Russia is still far too weak a state to be able to provide a real challenge to the western system of alliances in the Middle East. Syria, too, for all its rhetoric, possesses armed forces which still suffer from acute structural and educational problems, as well as the problem of norms which limit their ability to successfully absorb and operate ultra-modern systems. Still, something is changing.

The regional alliance of Iran and its allies is currently acting as a ‘spoiler’ in many flashpoints across the region – Iraq, Lebanon, the Israeli-Palestinian arena, Kuwait and the Israel-Syria-Hizbullah triangle. In all these linked arenas, influence is being built through the exacerbation of conflict, and the preventing of peaceful development. Iran and Syria have had the good fortune to meet a major power – Russia – whose interests happen to currently coincide with the strengthening of anti-status-quo powers in the Middle East. The result is a relationship based on mutual benefit. President Assad will be hoping to reap tangible gains from this as he makes his way through meetings with the power elite in Moscow over the next two weeks.

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Damascus Gets What it Needs

Posted on March 10, 2011 by jonathanspyer

Global Politician- 25/05/2009

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Syria’s Goose Lays a Golden Egg

Posted on March 10, 2011 by jonathanspyer

Global Politician- 27/07/2009

Washington’s decision to return its ambassador to Syria is the latest stage in the present administration’s policy of engagement with Damascus. It relates most importantly to the US desire to secure Syrian cooperation in the build-up to the departure of American combat troops from urban areas in Iraq.

The decision is related to the broader American ambition of drawing Damascus away from Iran. Hopes for a revival of talks between Israel and Syria, and the desire to enlist Syria in the ongoing effort to bring about a rapprochement between the Palestinian Fatah movement and the Damascus-domiciled Hamas may also have played a role.

Regarding Iraq, the US is aware that Sunni insurgents will have an interest in ratcheting up the level of violence as the US prepares to draw down its combat forces – to give the impression that it is they who are bringing about the American redeployment. Syria has served as a key ally of the Sunni insurgency since its beginnings. For a period, the route between Damascus airport and the Syrian-Iraqi border was a favorite one for Sunni jihadis seeking to enter Iraq to take part in the insurgency.

In recent months, US officials have reported an improvement in Syrian control on the border, and a reduction in the number of insurgents crossing over. In the familiar Syrian fashion, Damascus’s promotion of violence against Americans, and its subsequent willingness to partially reduce this promotion, is used as a tool to reap diplomatic rewards.

Regarding the Palestinian angle: ongoing Palestinian unity talks in Cairo have so far proved fruitless. Despite its focus on a revived Israeli-Palestinian peace process, the administration is aware that for as long as an openly rejectionist Hamas entity continues to rule over 40 percent of the Palestinian population, hopes for a meaningful negotiating process belong largely to the realm of fantasy.

There is therefore a real determination, shared by Egypt and the Palestinian Authority, to make a success of the unity effort. Hamas’s leadership is based in Damascus, so efforts to bring Syria closer to Washington may also be intended to enlist Syrian support in pressuring Hamas towards greater flexibility.

The revival of Israeli-Syrian talks is likely to feature on the administration’s agenda at some stage in the coming period. The presence of a US representative in Damascus would facilitate US mediation.

The biggest prize, however – a Syrian strategic reorientation away from alliance with Iran – is likely to continue to prove elusive.
An angry, more openly militant Iranian regime is likely to emerge in the coming weeks from the current unrest. It will be hated by a large section of its people. But this will not harm either its desire or its ability to support radical forces in the region.

For the Syrians, the maintenance of alliances with various Islamist and radical regional elements forms a key element of national strategy. It is one which continues to pay dividends. The past months have shown that the Syrians may repair relations with the West at little cost to themselves, while maintaining this stance.

One does not, as the saying goes, kill the goose that lays the golden egg. The Syrian “goose” combines alliance with Iran and support for regional instability with occasional gestures of cooperation to the West. It has just delivered the “golden egg” of a new US ambassador in Damascus in return for no concessions on issues of core importance to the Assad regime.

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Hezbollah’s Delusions

Posted on March 10, 2011 by jonathanspyer

Global Politician- 12/10/2009

The latest events in Lebanon offer an image in miniature of larger regional developments. The Iranian-backed Shi’ite Islamist movement Hezbollah is pursuing a long-term strategy intended to eventually deliver Lebanon into its hands. In the short term, the greater commitment of the movement’s cadres and its public is delivering impressive results. But at the core of the strategic thinking of Hezbollah and its patrons lie a series of delusions, which are likely to bring about the defeat of the movement over time. Between that point and the present, however, further strife and conflict are likely.

The pro-Western March 14 movement won an unexpected victory in elections in Lebanon in June. But the subsequent protracted coalition negotiations succeeded in emptying that victory of most of its content. The composition of the new Lebanese government will enable the Hezbollah-led opposition to block any legislation not to its liking. More important, the new government’s official mission statement will include a commitment to maintain Hezbollah’s independent, Iran-facilitated military capacity.

Supporters of March 14 had little choice but to concede to the demands of the “losing” side in the election. The violence of May 2008 proved conclusively that they are incapable of resisting the armed might of Hezbollah. Hezbollah may have paid a price in terms of its legitimacy in the eyes of non-Shi’ite Lebanese for demonstrating its power, but it acquired the ability to silence any further dissent on issues it deems of cardinal importance.

But the foundation of the new Lebanese government is ultimately only one small element within a larger process taking place in Lebanon. This is the way the power of Hezbollah and its constituency is growing in all areas of life in the country. The organization recently released a new manifesto. A particularly notable aspect of the document was the call for an end to “sectarianism” in Lebanon and the expression of the desire for rule by an “elected majority.” This demand reflects the self-confidence of the movement, rather than a newfound appreciation for democratic principles.

While it is impossible to carry out accurate demographic surveys in Lebanon, Hezbollah certainly believes that the Shi’ites are on the rise demographically, due to their high birthrate and low(er) emigration rate. Senior Israeli officials who are knowledgeable about the country concur with this assessment. They also note the growing strength of Shi’ite officers in the Lebanese Armed Forces, particularly at mid-level. This development, alongside the latest political moves, is slowly blurring the borders between the official Lebanese state and the parallel state maintained by Hezbollah.

The slow, full-spectrum advance of the Shi’ite Islamist camp in Lebanon resembles developments elsewhere. No one situation is exactly like any other, of course, but it is not hard to detect the common elements in the steady advancement of Islamic politics in Turkey, the rise of Islamist radicals within the Iranian clerical regime, the onward march of Hezbollah and the strides made in recent years by Palestinian Islamism. In all cases, this is not the delusional, apocalyptic Islamism of Al-Qaida and its ilk. The rising Islamic forces in the region do not go in for violence-as-gesture, nor do they envisage the triumph of the rule of righteousness in the immediate future.
The significant differences between these rising forces and the delusional Salafi fringe has led many in the West to believe that “pragmatic,” localized Islamism can be accommodated rather than confronted. Such a belief ignores a large part of the picture. Certainly in the case of the regime in Iran – in particular in the form it has assumed since the disputed election of last June – and its ally in Lebanon, the political methods may at times be slow and cumulative, but the ends are serious and sincere, and note should be taken.

Hezbollah’s new manifesto condemns the United States as the “root of all terror,” and a “danger that threatens the whole world.” The document also reiterates the call for the destruction of Israel, describing the need to “liberate Jerusalem and Al-Aqsa” as a “religious duty” for all Muslims. There is not a shred of evidence to suggest that these sentiments are intended for the printed page only. Indeed, recent visitors to Lebanon speak of a high, almost delusional state of morale among circles affiliated with Hezbollah. In the closed world around the movement, it is sincerely believed that the next war between Israel and Hezbollah will be part of a greater conflict in which Israel will be destroyed.

The true balance of power is rather different, of course. And as Hezbollah slowly swallows other elements of the Lebanese system, the conclusion being reached in Israel is that any differentiation between the movement and the nest it has taken over is increasingly artificial – and will not be maintained in a future conflict.

The history of the region shows that anti-Western ideological waves can indeed eventually be accommodated and dealt with pragmatically – but this cannot be achieved at the moment of their rise. The examples of pan-Arabism and Palestinian nationalism suggest that only following military defeat and socioeconomic failure are flexibility and pragmatism likely to make an appearance. Political Islam has not yet reached this stage. Current events in Lebanon show its local Shi’ite manifestation to be in a state of rude health. It is brushing aside local foes, marching through the institutions, as tactically agile as it is strategically deluded. Yet its latest manifesto suggests that it remains the prisoner of its ideological perceptions. The recent history of the Middle East, meanwhile, indicates that gaps between reality and perception tend to be decided – eventually – in favor of the former.

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Welcome to the New Israeli Politics

Posted on March 9, 2011 by jonathanspyer

The Guardian- 29/03/2006

You will need to forget a large amount of what you thought you knew about Israel. The clash between Gush Emunim and Peace Now, between Labour and Likud, between the Whole Land of Israel and the New Middle East – is over. Neither side won. Impatience with the old ideas, with the old parties, and with the political system as a whole has meant that one of the most boring election campaigns in Israeli history has brought forth a fascinating, new, strangely unfamiliar political map.

Some old parties have ridden the storm by transforming themselves. Others, locked in old definitions, have fallen to the sidelines. The external policy debate will now be dominated by two relatively recent creations (Kadima and Yisrael Beiteinu – I’ll explain in a moment). The internal debate, meanwhile, has finally started to matter again after a 40 year hiatus.

Let’s look at some of the details. The Kadima Party, the vehicle of Ariel Sharon for the pursuit of strategic unilateralism, is the clear winner of the elections. Without its charismatic founder to lead it, the party’s victory is much narrower than expected. But the idea on which the party ran – the ‘Convergence Plan’ for additional, Gaza style withdrawals from much of the West Bank – is now the only serious contender on the Israeli policy menu of proposals for how to deal with the conflict with the Palestinians.

The Likud Party, which stood for staying, at least for the moment, in all territories and fighting Hamas, has been decimated in the elections. The Labour Party – which was once the party of the Oslo Accords and Geneva – appears to have largely abandoned any focus on external issues in favor of a stress on socio-economic affairs. This means that they will join Olmert’s coalition, and the policy haggling will be on social and economic issues, not on approaches to the conflict. Meretz – the only party still committed to Geneva and the 1990s peace process idea – received 4 seats.

It is interesting to note that the other original policy approach to the conflict to have received significant endorsement by the electorate is also a strange new creature, hard to place according to the definitions we’ve grown familiar to since 1967.

This is the idea of Avigdor Lieberman – for two states, but a moving of the border, placing certain towns inhabited by Palestinian Israelis in the Palestinian state, in return for annexing settlement blocs to Israel. Lieberman is opposed to unilateral withdrawals, which he regards as dangerous, because unreciprocated.

Yet his idea, too, is a creature of the new post-peace process, post-settlement movement period. He too shares the key notions of a wish to retain a Jewish, democratic state, concern at demographics, and an estimation that there is no Palestinian partner for peace. (It is by the way superficial to regard Lieberman’s party as a ‘Russian immigrant’ party. Senior figures on its list and, reportedly, a significant section of its support, come from outside of the Russian immigrant population.)

The range of options between Kadima’s ‘Convergence Plan and Lieberman’s idea is the look of the new Israeli politics regarding the conflict. Both ideas share the three elements mentioned above, to which a huge majority of Israeli Jews subscribe. The representatives of other ideas are on the sidelines.

But yesterday’s elections may signal other deep movements and shifts in Israeli politics. The very low turnout – at 63% the lowest in the history of the country – and the general absence of public rancor in the campaign indicate that a second disengagement has already taken place: namely, the disengagement of a large part of the Israeli public from the political process.

The other surprise winner in the elections apart from Lieberman was the Pensioners Party, led by the only-superficially-cuddly former senior Mossad official Rafi Eitan. This party’s success was partially due to the fact that it became a means for some younger voters to register their cynicism toward the larger parties (and their affection for their grandparents) by voting for it.

Such phenomena reinforce the sense in which Israeli politics has entered a post-heroic phase. Gimmicks, legitimate internal differences, cynical detachment and playfulness may all find their place here. Yet perhaps to a greater extent than other democracies, Israel still faces existential policy issues of grave import. The rise of radical Islamism among the Palestinians, the Iranian nuclear threat, the issue of territorial re-arrangements in the face of these threats – have not gone away.

The Convergence and unilateralist ideas are themselves enormously problematic, with many cardinal questions on them remaining unanswered. But Israelis have shown this time around that they prefer to elect a contractor to bring his team to focus on the technical aspects of dealing with such issues. For their part, they would mainly like politics to leave them alone. And if it must be dealt with – then it is to be a politics on a human level, dealing also with daily issues. The politics of a mature and sophisticated population – accustomed to, rather than thrilled by its own sovereignty.

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What is Israel’s Endgame in Gaza

Posted on March 9, 2011 by jonathanspyer

The Guardian- 12/01/2009

As Israel’s operation Cast Lead in Gaza enters its third week, questions are increasingly being asked regarding its aims. Is Israel’s ultimate objective the fall of the Hamas regime in Gaza? Or is Israel maintaining military pressure on Hamas in order to conclude the operation with a set of de facto ceasefire arrangements intended to prevent Hamas re-arming? The Israeli cabinet is itself divided on this issue. The operation is being guided by the triumvirate of prime minister Ehud Olmert, defence minister Ehud Barak and foreign minister Tzipi Livni. All three are thought to have differing conceptions as to what should happen now, though there are fewer differences regarding the outcome of the operation.

Barak had hoped to avoid a major ground operation of any kind into Gaza, and would like to see the operation wrapped up. Livni also wants to see the ground operation rapidly concluded. She would like to see the Israel Defence Forces withdrawn from Gaza without renewed understandings with Hamas but on the clear assumption that further military operations will take place if rocket fire resumes. Olmert, however, favors maintaining the military pressure on Hamas; he is due to ask for cabinet approval for continuing the ground operation.

Israeli reservists have now been introduced into the fighting, and the IDF is conducting operations into Gaza City, the seat of the symbols of the Hamas government in Gaza.

What is the prime minister aiming for? No coherent plan for the replacement of Hamas has been outlined. It is generally accepted that carrying out a military operation intended to topple Hamas would require the mobilization of further reservists, and a time frame of several weeks, would probably entail considerable Israeli loss of life and could end with an Israeli re-occupation of the Gaza Strip. Olmert, who is due to depart from the political stage with the general election on February 10, is unlikely to be thinking along these lines.

It is therefore most likely that the prime minister too intends Israel to emerge from the current round of fighting with the Hamas regime in Gaza severely weakened but still in power. If this assumption is correct, the current military activity in southern Gaza is intended as a means to ensure a more favorable outcome for Israel in the arrangements that will follow the fighting.

The key demand around which Israel’s diplomatic stance appears to be coalescing is for more efficient measures to prevent renewed Hamas re-armament following the conclusion of operation Cast Lead. Israel watched with trepidation in the ceasefire period as Hamas sought to emulate the example of Hezbollah. The tunnels of northern Sinai served as the main route by which ordnance was transported into Gaza. By these means, Hamas transformed its arsenal in the ceasefire period, acquiring sophisticated Grad and Iranian Fajr-3 missiles.

Israel would like to see an international force deployed at the southern crossing between Gaza and Egypt to ensure the effective prevention of further Hamas arms smuggling. Egypt so far is staunchly resisting the introduction of foreign troops. An alternative would be for a beefed-up Egyptian force on the border, possibly with technical support from US or European personnel.

In parallel, a Hamas delegation is also in Cairo, holding talks with Egyptian intelligence minister Omar Suleiman. Hamas has so far rejected the terms of the Egyptian initiative. The movement’s refusal to renew the ceasefire in December derived from its demand for the opening of the crossings connecting Gaza to Israel and Egypt. There is no prospect of Israel agreeing to this. It is therefore possible that Israel and Egypt will agree terms for new arrangements on the border, with Hamas left out of the arrangements, and remaining as an existing but weakened ruling force in Gaza.

Hamas has lost heavily in the course of operation Cast Lead. The movement’s backers in Iran and allies in Hezbollah are understood to be disappointed and angry about its failure so far to inflict serious damage on the IDF in Gaza, and its generally lackluster military performance. There are indications of splits between the Gazan and Damascus-based leaderships of the movement. The former are now more inclined to accept a ceasefire. The latter, under Iranian influence, are determined to fight on, regardless of the cost.

Hamas’s rhetoric of “muqawamma” (resistance) predicted a different outcome. The movement’s willingness to take casualties was meant to deter Israel from taking effective action, or force it to reverse itself before its goals were achieved. As things stand at present, the resistance model has therefore received a significant dent in the last days in Gaza.

If operation Cast Lead ends with minimal IDF losses, a severe blow struck at Hamas, no concessions to Islamist Gaza and significantly improved arrangements on the Egypt-Gaza border, this will constitute a significant achievement for Israel. The preference of the Israeli prime minister for continuing the ground operation, however, suggests that while the goal probably remains reducing rather than destroying Hamas, it does not mean that the current round of fighting is at its endgame.

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Terrorism: A Weak State incubates Terror

Posted on March 9, 2011 by jonathanspyer

05/11/2010

The revelations this week of a sophisticated plot emanating from the Yemen-based al- Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula organization have belatedly re focused attention on this most backward and poverty stricken of Arab states. The sending of explosive packages to synagogues in Chicago is only the latest act of international terror to have emerged from Yemen in the last year.

Yemen today exemplifies the central malaise of the Arab world in particularly acute form. Throughout the Arabic-speaking world, failed development, a political culture in which extremist Islamist ideology thrives and Iranian interference and subversion from outside serve to create a breeding ground for political violence to grow and proliferate.

Only in areas where strong and shrewd (though unrepresentative) state regimes exist – such as Egypt, Jordan and, in a more problematic way, Saudi Arabia – is the lid uneasily kept on this boiling cauldron.

Yemen is one of the weakest of Arab state regimes.

As a result, regional forces of subversion have linked up with local Islamists and are turning the country into a hub of instability – playing host today to no fewer than three separate armed insurgencies.

Yemen is the poorest Arab country; 40 percent of its people live on less than $2 a day. The country’s steadily depleting oil reserves are unable to generate sufficient income for the government to maintain the tribal patronage system on which it depends. Gas exports are failing to make up the shortfall. Yemen’s water supplies are also dwindling.

The regime of President Ali Saleh is autocratic, inefficient and largely ineffectual. Its economic policies have failed to develop the country. It rules in name only over large areas of the country.

Poverty, illiteracy, extremism and discontent are salient aspects of today’s reality in Yemen. And like Afghanistan and Sudan before it, Yemen is becoming a key regional base for al-Qaida. Unlike in these other two countries, in Yemen this has come about not because of an agreement reached between the jihadis and the authorities; rather, the inability of the Yemeni authorities to impose their rule throughout their country, coupled with the close proximity of Yemen to Saudi Arabia – a key target for al-Qaida – has made the country a tempting prospect for the terrorists.

Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula is a relatively recent addition to the various networks laying claim to the name made famous by Osama bin Laden. It emerged at the beginning of last year, when the hitherto little-heard-of Yemeni franchise of al-Qaida merged with the Saudi franchise. The Saudi jihadis were facing an increasingly effective counter terror campaign by the authorities, and therefore decided to shift focus to lightly-governed Yemen.

Through its organizing of the failed attack on Northwest Airlines Flight 253 in December 2009, AQAP made its bid for entry to the major leagues of the global jihad. Its guiding spirit, US born Islamist ideologue Anwar al-Awlaki, was in touch with US Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, the officer who murdered a number of his fellow servicemen at Fort Hood, Texas, a year ago.

The latest bomb plot now confirms AQAP’s status as the most powerful “branch” of al-Qaida outside of Pakistan and Afghanistan. There are those who believe that the Yemen-based network has surpassed Bin Laden’s group as the primary terror threat to the West in general and the US in particular.

Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, however, is only one of the insurgencies to have taken root in blighted Yemen.

In addition to its hosting of the most active element of the global jihad, the country faces a separatist campaign in the south. Yemen was only reunified in 1990, and has since suffered a brief civil war in 1994.

The separatist insurgency led by Islamist tribal leader and former Bin Laden associate Tareq al-Fadhli grew in intensity during 2009 and has continued this year, with stormy demonstrations and armed confrontations leading to deaths on both sides.

Probably the most militarily significant of the three Islamist insurgencies was that of the Houthi rebels in the Saada district in the north. The Zaidi Shi’ite rebels of the al-Houthi clan have been engaged in an insurgency against the Yemeni authorities since 2004. Quelling the uprising proved beyond the capabilities of the Yemeni government.

In late 2009, the Shi’ite Houthis extended their activities across the border to Saudi Arabia. Their close proximity to the Saudi border made them a useful tool for Iran to pressure Riyadh. Responding to rebel attacks late last year, the Saudis struck back with aircraft and helicopter gunships. Iran was closely involved in this Shi’ite insurgency, sending regular arms shipments to the Houthis and continuing to stoke the flames of the rebellion.

Saudi involvement and Western pressure led to a cease-fire between the government and the Houthi rebels being reached in February. This was reaffirmed at the end of August, though the underlying causes for the violence remain unresolved.

So the situation in Yemen is one of a near-failed state, notionally aligned with the West but currently unable to effectively impose security throughout its territory. As elsewhere in the region, the resulting vacuum has rapidly been filled by the various, virulent malignancies that affect the regional body politic.

As for the solution, there is no magic formula.

But US President Barack Obama can ill afford yet another ground deployment, with its inevitable cost in American lives. So it is most likely that increased investment in building up Yemen’s security forces on the ground, increased deployment of intelligence assets in the country and the occasional use of targeted missile strikes on al-Qaida’s infrastructure will be the preferred path.

Saudi intelligence is reported to have played a vital role in intercepting the packages. Saudi involvement also helped to end the Houthi insurgency, at least for now. The lesson here is that for all the problematic nature of regional regimes, the dangers of Iran and the global jihad thrive best where, as in Yemen and elsewhere in the region, strong central government has broken down.

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The Unfinished War

Posted on March 9, 2011 by jonathanspyer

29/10/2009

The explosion in the south Lebanese village of Tayr Felseir offers the latest evidence of the way in which Hizbullah is rebuilding its infrastructure following the Second Lebanon War in 2006. In the pre-2006 period, Hizbullah maintained its military infrastructure in open countryside areas often declared off-limits to all but the movement’s personnel. The rebuilt infrastructure, by contrast, has been constructed within the fabric of civilian life in south Lebanon. This process has taken place largely undisturbed by the Lebanese and UN military personnel conspicuously deployed throughout the south.

Just over a year ago, The Jerusalem Post described some of the methods used by Hizbullah in building its new infrastructure. Fortifications were being constructed in private homes whose owners had left the south for the Beirut area. The owners were offered friendly advice not to inquire too closely regarding the alterations. Evidence suggests that this and similar practices have continued apace.

Hizbullah’s decision to make use of populated areas is primarily a result of the increased presence of UNIFIL and LAF (Lebanese Armed Forces) personnel in the area south of the Litani River, a presence which was enforced under the terms of UN Resolution 1701. Of course, the movement has made use of civilian-populated areas in the past. During the 2006 war, Hizbullah often launched Katyushas from villages (generally non-Shi’ite ones). But the placing of arms caches and permanent positions within residential areas has served to render the renewed military infrastructure largely off-limits to international inspection. Past experience indicates that the embarrassing publicity deriving from the Tayr Felsair explosion is unlikely to alter this picture.

This week’s explosion was not the first time in recent months that Hizbullah ordnance has accidentally detonated in south Lebanon. On July 14, a series of large explosions took place in the village of Khirbet Silm. The events that followed and the UNIFIL investigation into the explosions show the extent to which both the international forces and the Lebanese Army are adopting a “live and let live” attitude to Hizbullah’s preparations for the next war.

At the time, Hizbullah actions in Khirbet Silm followed a similar pattern to those observed on Monday in Tayr Felsair. First, Hizbullah agents removed the evidence. As this was being done, a number of “outraged residents” from the area held demonstrations to prevent UNIFIL troops from inspecting the scene. Peacekeepers eventually conducted their investigation, and concluded that the site at Khirbet Silm contained large quantities of 107 mm.

Katyusha rockets, heavy machine gun rounds and mortar tubes of a type used by Hizbullah.

Investigators from the international force also discovered that the site had been permanently guarded by Hizbullah personnel. They recorded that all this constituted a “serious violation” of Resolution 1701.

Beyond this declaration, the investigation has had no discernible result. No one was ever named, much less held accountable. Nor did UNIFIL’s modus operandi change to take into account the likelihood that if there was an arms depot in Khirbet Silm it probably wasn’t the only one.

UNIFIL remains deployed mainly in unpopulated areas. It enters Shi’ite villages only with an escort of Lebanese army personnel. Its vehicle and air patrols, taking place along recognized patrol paths and in rural areas, have produced some tangible results in terms of discovering unused bunkers and old munitions. But the international force, which maintains no independent checkpoints, does its best to stay out of the way of Hizbullah and the civilian population.

Except for cases where there are obvious signs pointing to the presence of ordnance – such as when a large explosion occurs – UNIFIL simply prefers not to act on the evidence. And there is no indication that the latest explosion at Tayr Falseir will change this situation. Rather, it is more likely that UNIFIL’s investigation will be rapidly forgotten and the results quietly filed away as the media moves on.

Even more problematic is the role being played by the LAF. The Lebanese army and UNIFIL were prevented from entering the house in Tayr Falseir immediately following the explosion. Once LAF representatives were permitted to enter, they swiftly endorsed Hizbullah’s version of events.

The Lebanese army, which is much more visible on the ground than UNIFIL, undoubtedly has a far better sense of what is really going on. The problem with the LAF becoming an obstacle to Hizbullah rearming and reorganizing itself in south Lebanon is that the army is a deeply divided organization. Many of its members are sympathetic to the “resistance.” Thirty percent of the LAF officer corps, and a majority of its rank and file, are Shi’ite, like Hizbullah. More fundamentally, the official position of the LAF is one of “endorsement” of Hizbullah’s “right to resist.” The LAF defines Israel as its “primary antagonist and enemy.” So neither UNIFIL, nor the LAF, nor their respective employers – the United Nations and the government of Lebanon – are going to be standing in the way of Hizbullah’s program of rearming in populated areas any time soon.

Ultimately, the situation in southern Lebanon is a facet of a larger problem, namely, the existence of a Hizbullah state within a state, which is answerable to no one but the movement’s leadership and its Iranian patrons. Since the mini-civil war of May 2008, it has been clearer than ever that there is no force in the country able to challenge Hizbullah’s independent foreign and “defense” policies. The movement maintains a parallel army, parallel security services, a parallel communications network and also, of course, independent educational and social structures.

The winners of last June’s elections in Lebanon do not like the current situation, but they are helpless to prevent it, as they have not even succeeded in forming a government since their victory. The extent to which the Hizbullah state within a state is subservient to Iran or maintains its own agenda remains debated by analysts. But there is no debate that it is entirely free of any control or supervision from the official Lebanese state.

Preparations for the next round of fighting are going on daily, undisturbed, in the heart of the populated areas south of the Litani River, and the occasional “work accident” is the only reminder the world receives that it is happening. UNIFIL conducts its patrols and doesn’t get in the way, and the LAF plays an even more ambiguous role. Anyone who thought that the war between Hizbullah and Israel ended on August 14, 2006 was surely mistaken.

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For Assad, Conflict is a Raison d’Etre

Posted on March 9, 2011 by jonathanspyer

05/09/2009

The Baghdad government’s assertion of Syrian responsibility for the explosions which killed more than 100 people in Iraq on August 19 has re focused attention to Syrian policy vis-a-vis its eastern neighbor. Syria’s approach in Iraq offers a prime example of diplomacy, Assad-style.

For this reason, among others, Damascus’s Iraq policy should be closely studied – particularly by advocates of the broader stance of engagement with the various elements of the Iran-led regional alliance.

The specific advantage of the Syrian relationship with Iraqi Ba’athists and jihadists lies precisely in its murkiness and ambiguity ( in contrast to Damascus’s relations with other local Islamist elements such as Hizbullah, Hamas and Islamic Jihad). So the question of whether the bombings were committed by Iraqi Ba’athists, Iraqi Islamists or some combination thereof may never be known.

Iraqi officials believe that the late claim of responsibility by an al-Qaida-linked group was an attempt to divert attention from the Syria-Ba’athist link.

But the fact that Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki’s accusations could feasibly be asserted highlights a number of important facts.

Syria has over the last six years played a vital role in nurturing and harboring the Iraqi Sunni Islamist and Ba’athist insurgencies. Maliki, in pointing the finger at Syria, angrily claimed that 90 percent of the terrorists entering Iraq to take part in the insurgency smuggled themselves into the country by way of Syria.

Following the invasion of Iraq by US and allied forces, and the toppling of the Saddam Hussein regime, Damascus offered shelter to former officials of the Iraqi Ba’ath party. With the beginnings of insurgency in Iraq, Syria hosted the key line for young Sunni jihadists looking to fight the Americans in central Iraq. The aspiring insurgents would arrive at Damascus airport, and be funneled directly to the border and then across it.

The Iraqi Ba’athists, who are deeply engaged in the insurgency, are still in Syria. The border remains unsealed.

The direct involvement of Damascus in aiding the Sunni insurgency was a key factor leading to the crisis in US-Syrian relations six years ago.

Since coming to power seven months ago, the Obama administration has been involved in a cautious but energetic attempt to engage Syria. The American desire to mend fences with Damascus derives from Syria’s importance in the totality of Obama’s apparently very considerable Middle East ambitions.

The Syrians have a carefully nurtured client system which enables them to frustrate progress in a number of conflict zones – including the Israeli-Palestinian arena and Lebanon. But since Obama wants to withdraw from Iraq, and since the Syrians have played a direct role in aiding anti-US forces in that country, it is in Iraq that Washington most urgently requires Syrian cooperation.

The US has indicated that it is willing to make gestures to coax Syrian compliance. Six visits by senior US officials have taken place in recent months; Washington has announced that it will return an ambassador to Damascus; important elements of the US-sanctions policy toward Syria – regarding the supplying of export licenses for aircraft parts – have been quietly waived.

The result so far may be seen in the Baghdad explosions and Maliki’s furious accusations against the Damascus regime. Of course, for seasoned watchers of the Middle East in general and Syria in particular, the logic is not hard to infer. Why on earth should Syria give up such a useful tool of pressure on the United States and on Iraq as the fostering of insurgency? It appears to be producing dividends, and its value will only rise as the US withdrawal from Iraq continues.

And it apparently costs nothing. So – best to keep the Americans and Iraqis on their toes, while at the same time professing a commitment to dialogue.

Assad’s characterization of Maliki’s accusations as ” immoral” is a classic example of the Syrian Ba’athist style: de facto intimidation coupled with prim indignation that anyone could suspect them of such a thing.

This textbook case of Syrian behavior should serve as a warning to the US administration. We are told that Obama is about to launch a comprehensive attempt to solve a series of interlinked problems and conflicts in the Middle East. The current outreach to Syria is no doubt intended to bring the Syrians ” on-side,” because of their unique capacity for frustrating all attempts at progress in key areas of regional strife, if and when they choose to do so.

The Americans want ” solutions.” They believe in ” end-games.” The trajectory of events in Iraq should indicate to the administration that for Syria, the game has no end. Conflict provides the regime’s raison d’etre, its means of rule, and the way it communicates with its neighbors.

Regional stability can perhaps make progress in spite of the Syrians, when they are sufficiently intimidated (see Lebanon, 2005). Trying to make Syria a partner in the search for peace and stability in the region will guarantee the failure of the quest.

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