Reinforcing Failure

Posted on March 7, 2011 by jonathanspyer

The Guardian-29/06/2007

Israeli responses to the news that Tony Blair has accepted the post of Quartet Middle East Envoy have ranged from the warmly supportive, via the mildly bemused, to the downright opposed. The former British prime minister is generally regarded as warmly disposed to Israel. He has often expressed himself in this regard. Blair’s latest mission, however, is flawed in its very definition.

The current direction of western diplomacy vis a vis the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is based on support for the new PA government established by Mahmoud Abbas on the West Bank, following the Hamas coup in Gaza. The hope is to build a model of successful governance on the West Bank. This successful new PA government will then continue negotiations with Israel on the basis of the Road Map. The job description for Blair’s new post is tailored to this endeavor. Mr. Blair is to “help create viable and lasting government institutions representing all Palestinians, a robust economy, and a climate of law and order for the Palestinian people.”

Behind this bland, job-advert type prose (Mid-East envoy wanted for challenging position, responsibilities will include…) are two core items of faith, for which Blair has been a key proselytizer throughout his career. These are that ‘economics leads politics,’ and that external aid in creating institutions will produce political order, and responsible government and policy. That is: if only people are offered sufficient economic incentives, and if only enough money is poured into the creation of projects and institutions, then the result will be a responsible political entity, ready to do business in a rational manner with its neighbors. This belief formed the basis for the great efforts to secure Israeli-Palestinian peace in the 1990s. It is also, at least in the Mid-Eastern context, demonstrably wrong.

The recipient for the largesse which Tony Blair will seek to channel to the West Bank will be the Fatah movement of Mahmoud Abbas. This movement, according to all observers on the ground, does not consider that the historic defeats it has recently suffered are any reason for a major re-think. One hears, on the contrary, that there is fury among powerful factions in the movement at the appointment of non-Fatah technocrats such as Salam Fayad to key positions. The Fatah sense of entitlement, of being the ‘sole legitimate representative’ and the rest of it, remains. No grass-roots plan for reform of the movement exists or is likely to come into existence. The armed elements of Fatah, meanwhile, are continuing to operate without central direction from the movement’s leadership. They are today as much engaged in criminal activity as in political.

This dysfunctional system has a proven track record of absorbing international generosity, and producing from it a huge mess, accompanied by sonorous excuses.

The eclipse of US and British hopes for rapid ‘democratization’ in the region, and the fear of rising Islamism, have led to a desire to fall back on western regional clients, in the hope that they may contribute their proven skills maintaining stability. The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, and Mubarak’s Egypt, for all their many flaws, are plausible performers of this role. The current desire is to include Fatah and Mahmoud Abbas under this rubric. But the evidence indicates that Fatah is simply not capable of performing such a role. While the attempt takes place, meanwhile, the Iranian-backed Islamist organizations of Hamas and Islamic Jihad will be building their own infrastructures on the West Bank – almost certainly largely unmolested by the forces of the new Fatah government.

Israel’s strategy of unilateralism was meant to be a response to this absence of a partner capable of taking decisions and producing results. But the alarming growth of Iranian-backed Islamism in the neighborhood has placed this strategy on ice. It may be that de facto arrangements drawing Jordan further into the West Bank, – and a joint Israeli and Egyptian facing down of the Islamist statelet in Gaza – will prove the only sustainable path in the dark moment which the region is now passing through.

Before this, however, we are in for the latest installment of the Fatah show. There will be international meetings, clicking cameras, handshakes on staircases, solemn commitments. There will be pathos. There will be Hanan Ashrawi. And on the ground, the same political culture that received previous Quartet envoy James Wolfensohn’s gift of 4,000 greenhouses in Gaza in September, 2005, and then stood by as they were looted and destroyed by a mob, will dictate the course of events.

Former Prime Minister Blair is about to become the west’s point man in the effort to turn the Fatah-led West Bank into a model of successful governance. His friendship toward Israel is without doubt genuinely felt. Given the challenges that await, and given that the lecture circuit and more-time-with-the-family were also options, one can only greet his new choice of employment with the kind of affection mixed with concern that one reserves for true, if slightly mis-guided friends.

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Appearance is Everything

Posted on March 7, 2011 by jonathanspyer

The Guardian- 08/08/2007

US Secretary of State Condolleeza Rice has now completed her four day trip to the Middle East. Dr. Rice was evidently well-pleased at what she found, describing herself as “impressed by the seriousness of (Olmert and Abbas) to really advance this two state solution.” A number of commentators have remarked on the similarity between the current moment and the days of the Oslo peace process. A notable difference, however, is that during Oslo one had the sense that the protagonists, or at least some of them, really believed they were on the way to making peace in the Middle East. This time around, the whole thing has a strained, slightly unreal sense to it. What lies behind this?

First, it’s crucial to understand the regional backdrop. The war in Iraq has ushered in a new Middle East. Unfortunately, it isn’t the new Middle East that the war’s planners had hoped for. The new regional dispensation is one characterized by a contest between the United States and its allies on the one hand, and Iran and its clients on the other. This has brought a rapid end to hopes for regional democratization, and a return to older methods and conceptions of the region.

The revived ‘peace process’ is part of a rearguard action intended to solidify the ranks of the regional opponents of Iran and of revolutionary Islamism. The so-called axis of moderation – Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Jordan – do not wish, by aligning with the US and Israel, to leave Iran and its allies to champion the cause of the Palestinians – still the greatest ‘legitimating card’ in regional politics. There is therefore a need for something to seem to be happening on the Israeli-Palestinian track.

But the chances of all this actually leading anywhere – as protagonists from both sides will tell you behind the scenes – are close to zero. Why?

Firstly, because the two leaders, Olmert and Abbas, lack credibility with their respective publics. Indeed, a sizable part of Abbas’s public currently lives under the rival Palestinian Authority maintained by Hamas in Gaza. The very existence of that authority raises the question of in whose name exactly will Abbas and Fayad be negotiating, and who will feel bound by any agreement they might reach.

Olmert, meanwhile, has been deeply unpopular among the Israeli public since the Lebanon War last year, and surely lacks the authority that would be required to order the large scale removal of West Bank Jewish communities as part of any deal. Olmert needs to give his own government – rudderless for the last year – a defining task, and the revived peace process seems tailor-made for the purpose. But again, the current government of Israel can do appearance, but not substance, on this issue.

Secondly, there is the more fundamental issue of intention. The peace process of the 1990s collapsed not because of a misunderstanding, but because of the fundamentally irreconcilable positions of the sides – most crucially, on the issue of the Palestinian refugees of 1948 and their descendants. The Israeli left thought that the Palestinian ‘right of return’ was a sort of metaphor, which required only a bit of empathy and a few ritual expressions of guilt to be satisfied. They found out they were wrong. The issue of the refugees remains the single most defining element of Palestinian nationalism. It is also an issue on which Israel cannot concede without ceasing to exist as the expression of the national rights of the Jews – its very raison d’etre.

Is there a substantive basis for supposing that even among the narrow circles around Abbas and Fayad, the idea of the real-life realization of the ‘right of return’ has been transcended? Well, there was the much reported fact that the guidelines of the new PA government spoke only of a ‘just and agreed upon solution to the refugee problem’, rather than openly demanding the ‘return’ of the 1948 refugees and their descendants to Israel. But the current – relative – flexibility of Fatah is a product of its extreme weakness, not of any historic compromise. And with this movement currently engaged in a battle with the Islamist Hamas for the leadership of Palestinian nationalism, it is unimaginable that it would be prepared to compromise on this defining element of Palestinian identity.

So there you have it. Various influential parties have an interest in the appearance of a peace process. So the appearance of a peace process there shall be. But there has been no substantive shift in the underlying geology of the conflict to really merit the latest outburst of diplomacy. Rather, it is motivated by regional and internal political factors not directly related to the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians. Given this, the likelihood is that a great deal of process is about to take place, but that peace will remain elusive.

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Coalition agreement not Withstanding, Hizbullah will continue to hold Sway in Lebanon

Posted on March 7, 2011 by jonathanspyer

Jerusalem Post- 13/11/2009

Following statements from both government and opposition sides in Lebanon over the weekend, it now looks likely that Prime Minister-elect Saad Hariri will announce the formation of a new governing coalition in the next few days.

The announcement that a deal has been reached on a unity government was made by the Hizbullah-led March 8 opposition movement after a meeting on Friday.

The details of the deal have not yet been made clear, but it appears that the main stumbling blocks have been overcome.

The formation of a new government will bring to an end four months of political paralysis in Lebanon, following the victory of the pro-western March 14 coalition in general elections in June.

However, the new government will have no bearing on the key political fact looming over Lebanon today: namely, the existence of a parallel state maintained by Hizbullah, which makes its decisions without consulting the nominal rulers of the country.

The deadlock regarding the formation of the government was itself related to the agenda of the Hizbullah parallel state. It is worth remembering that agreement for the formula of cabinet appointments was reached in July. But this agreement solved little.

Hariri was determined to prevent the opposition from obtaining veto power in the new government. To exercise a veto over cabinet decisions, the opposition needed to control at least 11 portfolios in the 30-member cabinet – that is, one-third plus one of the cabinet seats.

In July, both sides accepted a formula of 15 portfolios for the March 14 coalition, 10 for the opposition, and five to be appointed by President Michel Suleiman.

The key issue then became the identity of the ministers to be appointed by the president. If only one of them were to be inclined toward the opposition, this would mean that Hizbullah would effectively have kept the veto it exercised before June. Since the final names have not yet been announced, it is too soon to draw any firm conclusions in this regard.

It looks likely, however, that Hariri has compromised in another key area.

Hariri announced after the election that he was determined to keep the Telecommunications Ministry for his party. The Hizbullah-led opposition was equally determined to obtain this portfolio for themselves.

Hizbullah maintains a large-scale independent communications network which is an essential part of its military stance vis a vis Israel. Its determination to keep this network away from government scrutiny was one of the factors that triggered the fighting in Beirut in May 2008.

Hizbullah at that time acted decisively to prevent any government interference with its independent communications. Possessing the telecommunications ministry is a way to ensure no further possible unwanted scrutiny.

Reports suggest that Hariri has conceded this portfolio to the opposition. The prime minister-elect has apparently prevailed in his demand that Jebran Bassil, son-in-law of former Gen. Michel Aoun, not occupy this post. But the portfolio looks set to go instead to another member of Aoun’s party, which is aligned with Hizbullah.

Hizbullah itself, it appears, will have two posts in the new cabinet.

Hariri, in a recent statement to the media, sought to display his Arab nationalist colors, asserting that Hizbullah would be in the cabinet, whether Israel liked it or not. It is also the case that Hizbullah will continue to do what it wants in Lebanon – whether Saad Hariri likes it or not.

In the May 2008 fighting, Hizbullah reconfirmed that its parallel structures are off limits to the government of Lebanon. It did this by demonstrating its effective monopoly of the means of violence.

Such a monopoly remains the ultimate source of political power. This was the case before the June elections, remained the case after them, and will remain so regardless of the precise coalition arithmetic.

As the seizure of the Francop arms ship last week showed, Hizbullah and its backers are busily engaged in preparing for the next round of fighting with Israel. The precise timing and nature of the conflict to come will be determined without reference to the wishes of the new Lebanese cabinet, whatever its eventual makeup.

A report in a British newspaper on Sunday quoted Hizbullah fighters as openly admitting the extent of their rearmament efforts. In a statement which says much more about who makes the key decisions in Lebanon than any details regarding the coalition, a Hizbullah gunman was quoted as saying “Sure, we are rearming, we have even said that we have far more rockets and missiles than we did in 2006.”

This statement confirms Israeli assessments. By making it, the unnamed Hizbullah man cheerfully shows his contempt for Security Council Resolution 1701, the UN forces deployed to enforce it, and those Lebanese who might want their country to be something other than a springboard for war.

Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun, as a famous Chinese leader once said. In Lebanon, the guns are in the hands of Hizbullah.

This is the salient point. All else is detail.

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Virtual Diplomacy, Real Damage

Posted on March 7, 2011 by jonathanspyer

Jerusalem Post-29/11/2009

The statement by French President Nicolas Sarkozy in Riyadh last week expressing French willingness to mediate talks between Syria and Israel is the latest indication of Syria’s emergence from diplomatic isolation.

Damascus has largely rebuilt its links with Europe and the Arab world. There is now a real possibility of a revival of indirect talks between Israel and Syria.

Such talks, if they take place, are almost certain to get nowhere.

Still, the near guarantee of failure of any talks does not render Sarkozy’s offer insignificant. It is to be hoped that the Netanyahu government resists the temptation to reopen the Syrian track.

Why might the government be tempted to enter indirect negotiations with Syria at this point? It is an article of faith among European countries and in the current US administration that a peace process between Israel and one or other of its enemies is essential. Israel’s international diplomatic position currently leaves a lot to be desired. The perceived US distancing from Israel has emboldened those very considerable elements in Europe who would like to see increased pressure on the Jewish state.

There appears to be little hope of substantive movement in stalled talks between Israel and the troubled, perhaps moribund Palestinian Authority. Talks with Syria could provide the illusion of diplomatic motion which could help alleviate claims that Israel represents an intransigent barrier to progress toward regional stability.

Why would such talks almost certainly fail? The formula for success in negotiations between Israel and Syria is no longer the ’90s recipe of land for peace. A breakthrough in Jerusalem-Damascus negotiations would be predicated on the basis of “land for strategic realignment.”

That is, Syria would be expected to abandon its regional alliance with Iran in return for Israeli territorial concessions on the Golan Heights.

Damascus, however, has made abundantly clear that such a realignment is not on the table. The reasons are fairly obvious. Syria’s current stance of alliance with Iran gives the Damascus regime most of what it needs. Syria is seen as a vital part of any regional diplomatic process, because of its ability to spoil progress through its alignment with radical forces.

As Syria’s recent rapprochement with Saudi Arabia and France suggests, keeping the alliance with Iran comes at very little cost. And there is a deeper sense that the Damascus regime is comfortable with its place in the Iranian alliance, which enables it to indulge in the nationalist chest-beating and poses of “resistance,” which it enjoys.

So reviving the appearance of talks with Syria might seem a cost-free move for Israel. It could make the Europeans happier, diverting the oft-made (and incorrect) claims that Israel currently has the most right-wing government in its history. And it would almost certainly not lead to any potentially dangerous actual concessions to Damascus.

But this is not so. Restarting talks with Syria would not be cost-free.

Syria has emerged from isolation without in any way modifying its alliance with Iran, and its support for terror organizations in Lebanon, Iraq and among the Palestinians. This achievement is testimony not to any hidden diplomatic genius lurking among the Ba’athists of Damascus. Rather, it shows the weakness, confusion and disunity of those forces in the region and beyond it who might be expected to have an interest in challenging Iran and its allies in their bid for dominance of the Middle East.

Saudi Arabia in the last week suffered a stinging defeat at the hands of the Syrians in the Lebanese arena. The formation of the new Lebanese government represents an effective surrender of pro-Saudi forces in that country to the allies of Iran and Syria. Yet the Saudis are understood to be maintaining their improved relations with Damascus out of a shared desire to undermine the Maliki government in Iraq.

France, meanwhile, wishes to play an increased role in regional diplomacy and sees the revival of close relations with Damascus as a way to do this. France also (astonishingly) thinks that Syria could play a role in mediating with Iran over its nuclear program.

Both Paris and Riyadh have thus elected to place short-term gain over long term interest.

The bigger picture of the Israeli and broader Western interest in the region requires the containment and ultimately the rolling back of the currently emboldened Iranian-led alliance. Reviving the prospect of Israeli territorial concessions to Syria, at a time when Damascus is engaged in sponsoring organizations engaged in proxy war with Israel and others would be to reward aggression.

It would furnish an additional argument in the armory of Iran and its supporters who maintain, not without reason, that the camp facing them is weak and responds to pressure by making concessions.

The Obama administration has so far held off from joining in the rush to make up with Syria. Washington has sent a series of visitors to Damascus and is preparing to appoint a new ambassador. But the sanctions remain in place, and the administration appears mindful of Syrian actions in Iraq, Lebanon and among the Palestinians.

The administration has failed, nevertheless, to articulate a clear understanding of the current strategic picture in the region. The building of clarity in this regard represents a core strategic interest for Israel. It would be mistaken to sacrifice this interest on the altar of any short-term alleviation of pressure resulting from a revival of virtual diplomacy with the Assad regime.

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New Manifesto reveals a more Sophisticated, Confident Hizbullah

Posted on March 7, 2011 by jonathanspyer

Jerusalem Post-15/12/2009

Hizbullah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah this week announced the publication of a new political manifesto, outlining the goals of his movement. The document is the successor to Hizbullah’s first manifesto, published in 1985, and many regional analysts have hailed it as reflecting the group’s “Lebanonization.”

This term is intended to mean that the new manifesto represents the abandonment of the movement’s core Shi’a Islamist outlook, and its acceptance of a new role as an influential player in Lebanese domestic politics. However, this view is excessively optimistic. The new manifesto reveals that Hizbullah’s strategic goals are unchanged.

Observe: The November 2009 manifesto does not differ substantively from its predecessor in terms of its view of the region and the clashing elements within it. Its first part, entitled “Domination and Hegemony” in the English version, consists of a long denunciation of the United States and its role in the Middle East and the world post-1945.

The US is depicted as the “root of all terror,” and a “danger that threatens the whole world.” Washington is seen as in the process of implementing a “New Middle East project” intended to dominate “the nations politically, culturally, economically and through all aspects.” The creation of the “Zionist entity” is described as the most “dangerous step” in the American drive for hegemony. The English-language document reiterates Hizbullah’s support for “armed struggle and military resistance” as the best way of “ending the occupation.” The longer Arabic version is less ambiguous, committing Hizbullah to “liberation of all the usurped land” and restoring the “usurped rights of all no matter how long and how great the sacrifices.”

So no change in the core strategic view. But proponents of the idea that the document reflects a more pragmatic Hizbullah have pointed to the lack of “religious rhetoric” in the new manifesto, compared to the 1985 document.

It is correct that the new manifesto does not include the previous document’s call for the establishment of an “Islamic Republic” in Lebanon. But here an interesting discrepancy emerges. The longer, Arabic version of the manifesto is steeped in religious rhetoric and Islamist terminology. Nasrallah opens his statement with two quotations from the Koran. The manifesto’s first section refers to “resistance in the way of jihad,” and the “jihadi way.” The section dealing with “Palestinian resistance” depicts Hizbullah as practicing “jihadi resistance.” The section dealing with Iran notes the “blessed Islamic revolution led by the Vali al-Faqih Imam Khomeini.” (The latter phrase refers to the system of government operative in Iran, Vilayat al-Faqih – rule of the jurisprudent, i.e., clerical rule.) The section on “resistance” deals with the movement’s “mujihadeen and its martyrs.”

The Arabic version of the manifesto also contains a whole section entitled “Jerusalem and the Aksa Mosque,” which asserts that “to liberate Jerusalem and defend Aksa Mosque” is a “religious duty” incumbent on Muslims.

But in the English-language version of the manifesto, the section on Jerusalem, and all the phrases mentioned above, do not appear. The English version, indeed, is innocent of all reference to jihad or Koranic quotation. On Al-Manar, it is not made clear that the English version contains only selected excerpts from the manifesto. On the regime-supported Syrian News Station Web site, meanwhile, the English version is presented as the “full text of Hizbullah’s new political document.”

The discrepancies suggest that Hizbullah considers it in its interest to tone down or remove the pro-Iranian and jihadi parts of its identity when presenting itself to the outside world. But the full document in its original form suggests that the movement has not strayed far from its original path.

The new manifesto contains a call for the ending of the sectarian system of political representation in Lebanon. This is the final aspect cited by those asserting that Hizbullah is undergoing a process of moderation. But this does not represent a concession on Hizbullah’s part. The movement believes, possibly correctly, that the Shi’a community has a long-term demographic advantage in Lebanon. Ending Lebanon’s consociational system is therefore intended, in the fullness of time, to deliver the country into its hands.

In the meantime, Hizbullah established de facto in the violence of May 2008 that there was no force within Lebanon that could prevent it from asserting its will. It has forced its opponents to accept its conditions in negotiations for the formation of a new government. The new cabinet is set to contain an opposition-blocking third and will also overtly endorse the continued independent role of Hizbullah’s armed forces.

The new manifesto suggests that Hizbullah circa 2009 is a far more confident and comfortable player in Lebanon than it was in its earlier years. The reason for this, however, is not because the Shi’a Islamist movement has adapted itself to prevailing Lebanese realities. It is because Hizbullah has successfully imposed itself upon these realities, and hence may now proceed at its own pace.

On this basis, Hizbullah has secured the perimeter of the Iranian-financed state-within-a state that it maintains in Lebanon.

The new manifesto represents the movement’s willingness to coexist on its own preferred terms with other elements within the country. This coexistence is intended to usher in a “natural” process that Hizbullah believes will, in the fullness of time, result in its domination of Lebanon.

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Lebanon: Conflict widens to Syria

Posted on March 7, 2011 by jonathanspyer

Jerusalem Post-03/02/2010

In the last week, senior Israeli policymakers made statements of an uncharacteristically bellicose nature regarding Syria.

It is unlikely that these statements were made because of sudden random irritation toward Israel’s hostile northeastern neighbor.  Rather, the statements probably constituted part of a message of deterrence to Damascus.

The need to project deterrence itself derives from a series of significant changes currently under way on the ground in Lebanon – reflecting Syria’s ever tighter alignment with Hizbullah and the pro-Iranian regional bloc of which it is a part.

These changes take place against the backdrop of awareness that the tactics likely to be adopted by Israel in a future war with Hizbullah carry with them the very real possibility that Syria could, on one level or another, be drawn in.

On Saturday night, Minister-without-Portfolio Yossi Peled said that another conflict on the northern border was a “matter of time.” Peled noted that in the event of such a conflict breaking out, Israel would hold “Syria and Lebanon alike responsible.”

Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon, meeting with Michael Williams, the UN special coordinator for Lebanon earlier this week, expressed his concern that Hizbullah fighters have been training on surface-to-surface missile systems in Syria.

Then, on Tuesday, Defense Minister Ehud Barak noted in a speech that if Israel was forced to fight Syria, “we won’t fear and we’ll defeat them.” Why the sudden ministerial loquaciousness?

It may with some justification be asserted that to assume any coordination behind the statements of Israeli ministers is to betray a touching naivete. All the same, the near-simultaneous ministerial recollection of the Syrian threat should be considered in conjunction with the following facts:

Hizbullah has in the last weeks deployed advanced Syrian-made surface-to-surface M-600 missiles on the territory of Lebanon. The missiles, which according to Jane’s Defence Weekly are copies of the Iranian Fateh-110 system, have a range of 250 kilometers and carry a 500-kg warhead.

They bring the entirety of central Israel within Hizbullah’s range. The missiles are precision-guided, meaning that in the event of renewed conflict, Hizbullah would be able to use them to target military facilities or heavily populated areas.

According to Jane’s, the deployment of the M-600s adds to concerns already expressed by Israel at Syrian supplying of the (relatively unsophisticated) SA-2 air defense system and the SS-N-26 surface-to-sea missile to Hizbullah.

Syria’s undaunted and increased support for Hizbullah appears to reflect a clear strategic turn taken by Damascus. Lebanese analyst Tony Badran this week drew attention to a recent and relevant report in the Qatari daily al-Watan which quoted Syrian sources who claimed that “a strategic decision has been taken not to allow Israel to defeat the resistance movements.”

Such statements, if genuine, indicate that the Syrian regime is aware of the potential price to be paid for its current orientation, but feels that the risk is worth taking.

The Syrians have not, according to available evidence,  yet passed the point of no return – which, as Badran notes, would be the provision of sophisticated anti-aircraft systems to Hizbullah. The SA-2, if deployed, could constitute a danger to IAF helicopters, but not aircraft.

Israel has made clear that the deployment of systems capable of threatening Israeli aircraft by Hizbullah would constitute a casus belli.

But beyond the specific issue of weapons systems, the logic of confrontation in Lebanon suggests that Syria may find it hard to avoid direct engagement in a future Israel-Hizbullah clash.

Since 2006, Lebanon’s eastern border with Syria has formed the key conduit for weapons supplies to Hizbullah. And Hizbullah is reported to have relocated its main military infrastructure north of the Litani River, in the Bekaa Valley, in areas close to the Syrian border.

Which suggests that if Israel wants in a future conflict to strike a real blow against Hizbullah, this implies an Israeli ground incursion into the Bekaa.

Should such an incursion take place, the Syrians would be intimately involved in supplying Hizbullah just across the border, and the possibility of Syrian casualties at Israeli hands would become very real.

It is again worth remembering that on August 4, 2006, 34 Syrians were killed when the IAF bombed a packing house on the Syrian side of the border thought to contain weapons for Hizbullah. The Syrians did not respond at that time.

But an Israeli incursion into the Bekaa would logically raise the question of either the Syrians ceasing their real-time supplying of Hizbullah (very unlikely), or Israel acting to prevent this.

Of course, the point of deterrence is to deter. The ominous statements from Israeli officials are not meant to signal an imminent war. Rather, they are intended to convey to the Syrians that they should not think their alliance with Hizbullah is cost free, and that they would be advised to adhere to red lines.

The developing logic of the situation in Lebanon is nevertheless widening the circle of future conflict.

The bottom line is that any future strike at Hizbullah that does not take into account its status as a client of Iran and Syria, is unlikely to be able to land the kind of decisive blow to the organization which alone would justify such a strike.

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Muslim World: Iran – The End is not Nigh

Posted on March 7, 2011 by jonathanspyer

Jerusalem Post-02/01/2010

The ongoing demonstrations in Iran are testimony to the continued strength and resilience of Iranian civil society. They make a mockery of the Islamic Republic’s ambition of offering a model for successful Muslim governance to the world.

The next major manifestation of the protests is likely to be February 11 – the 31st anniversary of the Islamic revolution. The seventh and 40th days following the deaths of those killed this week are also likely to witness dramatic scenes.

Still, the overheated punditry of the last week predicting the imminent demise of the regime, claiming that this is the beginning of the end for the Islamists in Teheran and that a “tipping point” has been passed is misleading and should be questioned.

Two parallel movements exist in Iran, each of which seeks to change the nature of the Islamic Republic as it has existed since 1979.

The first of these has been much in evidence this week, in the protests and demonstrations that have rocked Teheran and other cities. This is the so-called “Green movement.” It has no clear ideology beyond a deep dissatisfaction with the current state of affairs. Within its ranks, one may find supporters of the reformist wing of the current regime, including former presidential candidates Mir-Hossein Moussavi and Mehdi Karroubi, and reformist ex-president Mohammad Khatami.

The protest movement also undoubtedly includes individuals and groups with a far more determined and radical agenda, who would like to see the end of the regime established in 1979. But no credible, organized revolutionary leadership with a clear program for toppling the regime can yet be identified from within the broad mass of this movement.

The second “movement” exists within the regime itself. This is the trend whose most visible representative is President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The coalition of hard-line conservative political associations which produced Ahmadinejad, along with the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps, have been steadily advancing in the institutions of the Islamic Republic over the last half-decade.

Unlike their opponents in the Green movement, this group has a clear and unifying set of ideas and goals. Their aim is a “second Islamic revolution,” which will revive the original fire of 1979. What they are aiming at is the replacement of clerical rule with a streamlined, brutal police-security state, under the banner of Islam. This state will be committed to a goal of building regional hegemony – through possession of a nuclear option and the backing of radical and terrorist movements.

This year has been mixed for the Iranian hard-line conservatives. On the one hand, the electoral “victory” of Ahmadinejad and the subsequent backing given to him by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei represented their biggest advance yet. Ahmadinejad later reinforced his victory by forming a cabinet packed with hard-line conservatives and Revolutionary Guardsmen. This cabinet is currently administering Iran.

There were gains further afield, too. The closest regional allies of the hard-line conservatives – Hizbullah – have become the effective governing force in Lebanon. Iran’s Palestinian clients, Hamas, are maintaining power in Gaza, as well.

But on the other hand, 2009 is also the year in which the limitations of the hard-liners and their ideas became apparent.

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

More tangibly, the Iranian hard-liners have not had it all their own way over the last year in the field most dear to them – the practice of political violence.

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

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

These are significant setbacks. Still, the bottom line remains that for as long as they maintain the loyalty of the Revolutionary Guards Corps, the Basij militia, and the patronage of Khamenei, the control of the hard-line conservatives is not in danger.

Should a real challenge to the power of the hard-liners emerge, the likely prognosis would be for prolonged civil strife, rather than their swift departure. This is not a tired and decaying elite, parallel to the East European communists in 1989. The Iranian hard-liners and their allies regard themselves as the wave of the future, only now ascending to the pinnacles of power. They will not go quietly.

So the prospect is for a long struggle in Iran. The Iranian people are not about to enter the stage like a deus ex machina, with one stroke destroying the Islamist regime and solving the agonizing problem of the Iranian nuclear program.

The most determined revolutionary current in Iran remains the hard-line conservatives. Their eventual failure is a near certainty, because they are likely to fail in building the real-world basis – political, social, economic and military – which alone could support their boundless ambition. Even then, much will depend on the will of the Western and regional enemies of the regime in confronting them.

But contrary to some of the more overexcited opining this week – the playing out of all this still has a way to run. The end is not yet at hand.

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Malevolent Inspiration

Posted on March 7, 2011 by jonathanspyer

10/07/2010

Beirut this week witnessed the passing of one of the seminal figures of the Lebanese Shi’ites – Grand Ayatollah Muhammad Hussein Fadlallah. Tens of thousands of mourners followed the coffin in its southern suburbs, with chants of “Death to America” and “Death to Israel.”

Delegations came from across the region – from the holy cities of Najaf in Iraq (where Fadlallah was born) and Qom in Iran, as well as from Al-Azhar University in Cairo, the regional center of Sunni Islamic study.

Hizbullah, with which Fadlallah had maintained a complex relationship over the years, declared three days of mourning. Movement leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah is reported to have paid a nocturnal visit to the mourning family. Fadlallah, designated a terrorist by the US, was referred to as Hizbullah’s “spiritual leader” in its early years.

Israelis who have heard of Fadlallah are likely to have a vague sense of him as a Shi’ite cleric based in Lebanon and linked to Hizbullah. But he was a far more substantial and complex figure than this might suggest.

He was regarded by many across the region as a leading spiritual authority, a marja altaklid (source of emulation) of Shi’ism. He was revered among the Shi’ites of Lebanon and beyond them. Fadlallah established a sizable network of charitable and educational institutions with which his name will continue to be associated.

He was also one of the central figures in the development of the Shi’ite variant of political Islam over the last half century. He offered words of justification for suicide bombings, accused Israel and Jews of exaggerating the numbers of those killed by the Nazis, suggested that the Jews and elements in the US might have been responsible for 9/11 and hoped uncompromisingly and apparently to his last breath for the collapse of the “Zionist entity.”

Fadlallah began his political activity in Iraq, where he was among the founders of the Dawa party, in the late 1950s. This is the party of former Iraqi prime minister Nouri al- Maliki, and is one of the leading political forces of post-Saddam Hussein Iraq. After arrival in Lebanon, Fadlallah was active among the impoverished and largely politically silent Shi’ites in the early 1960s. He was instrumental in forging the attempt to fuse traditional Shi’ite concepts with the notions of “anti-imperialism” and political opposition to the West and Israel. He pioneered the linking of the cause of the Shi’ites of Lebanon with that of the Palestinians. Fadlallah also welcomed the Iranian revolution of 1979.

In the early 1980s, Fadlallah was prominent in the Shi’ite political and spiritual ferment from which Hizbullah emerged. He has been referred to as the movement’s spiritual guide. The US authorities held him responsible for giving his blessing to the 1983 suicide bombings in Beirut which killed 241 US marines and 58 French paratroopers.

While the precise organizational links between Fadlallah and the nascent Hizbullah organization are not clear, it is beyond doubt that the ideas which he had pioneered helped create the political and ideological space from which the movement emerged.

His outspoken calls for the destruction of Israel, for militant opposition to US regional policy and in defense of the methods of terrorism represent the ideological soil from which Hizbullah grew. Fadlallah also, of course, operated in the same physical environment as Hizbullah. It is said that Imad Mughniyeh, later Hizbullah’s most prominent military figure, for a time served as one of his bodyguards.

Yet these close early links notwithstanding, Fadlallah later distanced himself from the Iranian regime, and this led to a similar cooling of relations with Hizbullah. Though an early supporter of the Islamic Revolution, Fadlallah disassociated himself from the system of Vilayet e-Faqih (Rule of the Jurisprudent) which the revolution spawned. This is the system whereby Iran’s Shi’ite clerics ruled directly, under the leadership first of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and then his successor Ali Khamenei.

This system was not the banner under which the revolution was made, though it may be assumed that it was the intention throughout of Khomeini to implement it.

Nor does it derive inevitably from Shi’ite thinking regarding proper relations between religious and political authority. According to Fadlallah, clerics should wield influence, but should not rule directly in the administrative sense. Fadlallah also considered that the speedy implementation of an “Islamic state” was not relevant to the complex Lebanese reality. What was needed, rather, was to slowly “prepare the scene” for the creation of such a state.

Some have also suggested that the relatively modest achievements of Khamenei in terms of religious study and erudition further inclined Fadlallah toward maintaining a distance from the regime.

Hizbullah, of course, is the creation of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, and is committed both to the principle of Vilayet e- Faqih, and to its current personification in Khamenei. As such, Fadlallah’s critical stance led to a distancing between him and the movement.

Lebanese analysts have pointed out that this was reflected in the response of the movement to his death. Hizbullah called for a mass turnout for Fadlallah’s funeral, and was seemingly effusive in its eulogies. In mourning his passing, Hizbullah spokesmen stressed his support for the destruction of the “Zionist entity.” But Hizbullah statements also stressed the status of Khamenei as a marja, while failing to use this term to describe Fadlallah.

Ultimately, the career of Fadlallah is testimony to the incendiary power of ideas. He never wielded a gun, nor involved himself in the precise planning of operations against the US and Israel. Few Hizbullah men looked to him as their marja, and a loyalty to him was said to even be a motive for suspicion in the movement’s circles in later years. Nevertheless, his role was crucial in creating the religious, ideological and moral climate from which Hizbullah emerged.

Working far from the spotlight in his early years, he helped prepare the soil from which later, less ambiguous figures and organizations would grow and flourish.

 

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Arab World: Battleground Yemen

Posted on March 7, 2011 by jonathanspyer

Jerusalem Post-09/01/2010

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton yesterday described the current situation in Yemen as “a threat to regional stability and even to global stability.” She was referring to the fact that Yemen is the latest failed state to become a haven for elements of the Sunni global jihad. Like Afghanistan and Sudan before it, Yemen is becoming a key regional base for al-Qaida.

Unlike in the 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 is not the only major problem facing Yemen. In fact, it could be argued that the country manages to encapsulate in acute form the three main causes of political turmoil in the Middle East: a dictatorial government, vulnerability to Iranian subversion through local jihadis and the presence and activity of the Sunni global jihad.

Last January, the hitherto little-heard-of Yemeni franchise of al-Qaida merged with the Saudi franchise to form the so-called “al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula” (AQAP). The Saudi jihadis were facing an increasingly effective counter terror campaign by the Saudi authorities, and therefore decided to shift focus to lightly-governed Yemen, where proper security fails to extend much beyond the capital city of San’a.

Through its organizing of the failed attack on Northwest Airlines Flight 253, AQAP has now entered the major leagues of the global jihad. Fears of an imminent second strike led to temporary closure of the US, British and French embassies in San’a over the last week.

Yemen is currently host to no less than three separate insurgencies. Each resembles one another in that they are being conducted by forces committed to some form of political Islam. There, however, the similarities end.

Probably the most politically and militarily significant of the three Islamist insurgencies is 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 has proved quite beyond the capabilities of the government of Ali Abdalla Saleh.

In the past few months, the Shi’ite Houthis have extended their activities across the border to Saudi Arabia. Their close proximity to the Saudi border makes them a useful tool for Iran to pressure Riyadh. Responding to rebel attacks in November, the Saudis struck back with aircraft and helicopter gunships, killing around 40 Houthis. Regardless, Iran is sending regular arms shipments to the Houthis, continuing to stoke the flames of the rebellion. The real possibility of further deterioration remains.

The second insurgency faced by the hapless Yemeni regime is 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 Tareq al-Fadhli, again grew in intensity during 2009, with a number of stormy demonstrations and armed confrontations leading to deaths on both sides.

As if fighting insurgencies on two separate fronts was not enough, Yemen is also being hit hard by economic woes. 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. And Yemen’s water supplies are also dwindling.

Like a parasite that spots, enters and exploits a weakening body, AQAP has now added its own particular brand of Islamist insurgency to this volatile situation.

The close proximity of Yemen to Saudi Arabia and to international shipping lanes makes the country’s instability a factor which the US and the West cannot afford to ignore.

This, however, raises a dilemma. The regime of President Ali Saleh is autocratic, inefficient and largely ineffectual. Its economic policies have failed to develop the country, leaving the regime sitting precariously on top of a boiling cauldron of poverty, illiteracy, extremism and discontent. To remain on its perch, the regime is now asking for ever larger contributions of US funding and assistance to counter the terror.

Since Yemen’s government rules in name only in large parts of the country, increasing the US commitment to combating al-Qaida in the country raises the possibility of US ground forces in Yemen. President Barack Obama can ill afford yet another Middle East war, with its inevitable cost in American lives. Yet he also cannot afford to stand back and allow Yemen to play the role for al-Qaida that Afghanistan played in the late 1990s.

There are no simple answers. Washington may prefer to adopt the counter terror tactic of helping the Yemenis strike al-Qaida sites from the air, to avoid the sight of US soldiers deployed in a country so close to the Muslim holy city of Mecca.

But whichever option the US chooses, the real “root cause” of the proliferating insurgencies in Yemen, and the inability of the regime to adequately deal with them, is the ongoing dysfunctionality of the region’s political culture. All across the Middle East, failing, autocratic regimes face off against popular Islamist movements committed to a murderous and ultimately sterile political program.

Yemen offers an example of this situation in a particularly virulent form.

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Arab World: Ahmadinejad’s Recipe for Success

Posted on March 7, 2011 by jonathanspyer

22/10/2010

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is now safely back in Teheran, his triumphal tour of Lebanon concluded. The internal Lebanese political crisis which underlay his visit, however, is far from over and has almost certainly not yet reached its height. His visit served to cast a sharp light on the Lebanese reality. It revealed a country whose people may be divided between supporters of the Iran-led regional axis, and hostages of that axis.

This is a grave situation. The fact that Iran and its proxies have been able to reach this ascendant position in Lebanon is a testimony to the failure of Western regional policy over the last half decade.

Ahmadinejad’s visit was a justified triumphal procession by a representative of a regime which, despite economic and internal difficulties, is succeeding in its goal of advancing Iranian power and political influence across the region.

The Iranians have found openly authoritarian structures in the Arab world hard to penetrate. In Egypt and in Saudi Arabia, their efforts at internal subversion have largely run aground. However, in weaker states in which something like an electoral system exists, Teheran has developed a very Middle Eastern mixture of patronage, paramilitary muscle and exploitation of genuine grievances which is delivering the regime a string of successes.

This “recipe” has enabled the Iranians to split the Palestinian national movement and make their half of it (the Hamas enclave in Gaza) the most dynamic element. It has enabled Teheran to emerge as the kingmaker in Iraq, via their support for the movement of Moqtada al-Sadr. And last and very much not least, this political-paramilitary “system” has brought the Islamic Republic the effective ownership of Lebanon, through the long development of its proxy, Hizbullah.

Ahmadinejad’s visit was an acknowledgment of Iranian success and Western failure. It had the virtue, nevertheless, of helping to dispel some of the more obvious falsehoods asserted by supporters and fellow travelers of the Iran-led bloc, and of presenting this troubling reality in clearer focus before the world.

Supporters and fellow travelers of Hizbullah have long sought to downplay the movement’s status as an Iranian franchise. Hizbullah leaders seek to present themselves as Lebanese patriots, leading a national “resistance” to Israel. Their Western admirers in Beirut and elsewhere eagerly repeat these claims. The assertion of Hizbullah’s independent Lebanese nature looked rather more threadbare after the Ahmadinejad visit.

The Iranian president addressed a cheering crowd of 14,000 overwhelmingly Shi’ite Lebanese in Bint Jbeil, who reacted to the mention of the name of Prime Minister Saad Hariri with loud boos. He made his promised trip to the border area and delivered a ranting call for Israel’s destruction from it. All around were Iranian flags and slogans praising Teheran’s system of government.

This was no mere visit by a foreign politician to a neighboring state. The rebuilt infrastructure – military and civil – south of the Litani River is entirely the product of Iranian largesse. Hizbullah leader Hassan Nasrallah, who preferred discretion to valor and greeted the guest from his place of hiding, looked for all the world like what he is – a client. Ahmadinejad was the patron, inspecting his investment.

Western leaders have not been slow to notice this, nor to respond.

Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Jeffrey Feltman reportedly warned Lebanese officials that the US would “not tolerate” an Iranian foothold on the Mediterranean.

One of the immediate practical effects of Ahmadinejad’s visit has been to lend added weight to voices in the US Congress calling for an end to military aid to Lebanon. Some $100 million in military and security aid has been frozen by the US Congress since August of this year.

Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, a former House Subcommittee chairwoman, this week said that “Ahmadinejad’s visit to Lebanon” and its illustration of the “increasing dominance of Iran and its allies,” raised the question of whether such aid should continue.

Even UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, in his 12th semi-annual report on the implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 1559, noted that Hizbullah is now stronger than the Lebanese Armed Forces. He said that Hizbullah’s military ascendancy “creates an atmosphere of intimidation and poses a key challenge to the safety of Lebanese civilians and to the government.”

FURTHER INDICATIONS of just who is in control in Lebanon appear to be imminent. Tensions are currently high throughout the country in the buildup to the possible issuing of indictments against Hizbullah members suspected of involvement in the murder of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri. Members of the Hizbullah-dominated March 8 movement are calling for the tribunal to be abolished. The movement has made clear that it has no intention of handing over suspects. There is a wider fear that the issuing of indictments could trigger a wider, violent reaction from Hizbullah.

There is also widespread speculation as to what exactly will be the response of the official government of Prime Minister Sa’ad Hariri to a Hizbullah ultimatum for the abolition of the tribunal. Hariri, after all, has already undergone the humiliation of being forced to declare his sincere friendship to the Assad regime in Syria – which almost certainly had a hand in the killing of his father.

How much more will he be willing to swallow is the question now being asked. It is testimony to the current balance of power in the country that the only option available to Hariri other than further capitulation is probably resignation. Saudi-Syrian efforts are under way to try to find a way out of the crisis.

But whatever the outcome of the latest set-to over the Hariri tribunal, the balance of forces in Lebanon was made plain in the starkest terms during Ahmadinejad’s visit.

Western neglect and the evident inability to find the will and determination to stand firm against Iranian sponsoring and activating of political-military proxies has led to the establishing of an Iranian enclave on the Mediterranean. Ahmadinejad may be reviled and ridiculed at home. The Iranian economy may be reeling under the impact of sanctions. But when it comes to playing power games in the less stable parts of the region, it is increasingly obvious that the Iranian recipe for militarized politics is paying dividends.

 

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