Sunni Shia relations 070907

November's next

Arab diplomacy has its eyes set on Washington and the forthcoming US proposed peace gathering, writes Dina Ezzat

The Middle East diplomatic season has already picked up in full. Western envoys are resuming regional meetings and Arab officials and diplomats are doing likewise. The challenges facing the region are as intense as ever. In the view of some Arab officials, never have things been worse.

In a solemn statement to the opening of the regular session of the Council of Arab Foreign Ministers yesterday, Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa told his audience that Sudan is the only front among many hotspots across the Arab world where progress is being made in containing conflict. As for the most challenging fronts of Palestine, Iraq and Lebanon, no progress could be reported. Even the usual array of hopeful or resolute statements by either Moussa or concerned ministers participating in the meeting at the headquarters of the Arab League was absent.

The accent, as portrayed by statements during the opening session and during closed-door discussions, seemed to be a diagnosis rather than the remedy of problems. Speakers spent most of their time reiterating platitudes on "threatening dangers" and "the need to act promptly". Few operative ideas were in circulation.

On the Palestinian front, no positive nods were made by any of the participating foreign ministers to the heart- breaking appeal of UNRWA High Commissioner Karen Abu Zeid for more generous Arab financial assistance to the Palestinians in the occupied territories, especially Gaza, that she said are subject to suffering that far exceeds what is deemed intolerable under international law. Only a humble attempt on the part of the Arab League secretariat -- with little support from Arab capitals -- to seek some sort of low-level inter-Palestinian reconciliation was forwarded.

The appeal for Palestinian dialogue, which does not even have much support from the official Fatah-controlled Palestinian Authority delegation, was included within a report presented to the ministers by the Arab Fact Finding Committee that was formed in the wake of Fatah-Hamas clashes in Gaza in June, and that was effectively denied full access on the ground by President Mahmoud Abbas. The report of the committee, which was based on accounts offered by the two conflicting sides, was very blurred. It failed to firmly point out wrongdoers due to the exaggerated attempt of its authors to accommodate all conflicting viewpoints.

Meanwhile, the euphoria generated in the wake of the Arab summit to re- launch the Arab peace initiative and kick-start a process of serious Arab -- especially Palestinian -- negotiations has all but been eclipsed by the US- proposed international gathering on Palestinian-Israeli peace slated for November. While an Arab minority is keen on setting serious Arab conditions concerning any possible outcome of this meeting, the majority is for embracing whatever might be offered in the spirit of "something is better than nothing".

"There is agreement on some basics that will be expressed in the format of demands rather than conditions," commented one Arab League source that requested anonymity. These are: the full participation of all concerned Arab parties -- a euphemism for demanding the inclusion of Syria and the Arab League, which Washington has seemed reluctant to invite -- and an agreement on mechanisms. There is also a tendency towards demanding that the meeting conclude with a clear-cut outcome, especially in relation to the launching of final status talks between the Palestinians and Israelis on the basis of clear principles and in a realistic timeframe. There is also a tendency, on the part of some but not all, to demand UN Security Council supervision of any future negotiations.

"It would be useless, indeed downright counter-productive, if Arabs were to submit to participate in a meeting that would boil down to be no more than a political photo opportunity... This would simply underline the unfairness the Arabs suffer," Moussa said in his opening remarks.

During an Egyptian-Jordanian summit in Alexandria Tuesday, both President Hosni Mubarak and King Abdullah demanded that the international peace gathering commit itself to producing clear results. This demand has been relayed to Washington, Egyptian diplomats say, and also visiting envoy of the International Quartet on the Middle East Tony Blair and European Union Foreign Policy Chief Javier Solana. According to one informed Egyptian official, however, the proposed Washington meeting is still surrounded by uncertainty. Arab officials will meet American and other counterparts this month in New York on the fringes of the UN General Assembly. The meetings should clear up some of this uncertainty, he added.

In New York, Arab officials are also hoping to reach agreement with Western counterparts on developments in Lebanon. In Cairo, Arab foreign ministers underlined the need for conflicting Lebanese political forces to observe the late November deadline stipulated by the constitution to nominate a successor, accepted by all, to current President Emile Lahoud. However, as Arab diplomats acknowledged privately, French-American support needs to be secured for a comprehensive process of Lebanese political reconciliation beyond the presidential nomination issue. For this to occur, some Arab diplomats acknowledged, dialogue with Iran, which greatly influences Hizbullah and some other Shia segments in Lebanon, would have to be sought on the fringes of the UN General Assembly meeting.

Talks with Iran, which are unlikely to be high profile or for that matter high- level, would also necessarily address the situation in Iraq, in view of what many Arabs perceive as an unhelpful Iranian influence that has largely resulted in bloody sectarian strife. Arab-Iranian consultations would also likely broach possible -- and controversial -- scenarios of Iranian security assistance to Iraq in the event of a gradual pull down of American troops early next year.

Source: Al Ahram Weekly

After the US defeat

The midnight oil in Ehud Barak's office in the Harkiyah district of Tel Aviv is burning nearly to the crack of dawn these days. The Israeli defence minister and his team have been working 19-hour shifts, pouring over what has been described as an "extremely vital" document. The document in question is a compilation of the findings of five study groups from the Ministry of Defence, Military Intelligence, the Israeli Defence Force Planning Department and the National Security Council on the question of how the eventual US withdrawal from Iraq will affect Israel's strategic interests.

Piles of cigarette butts cleared from relevant offices are said to testify to the bustle of work and intensity of concentration that went into this study, which, according to reports in the Israeli press this week, predicts "a new Middle East" in the fullest sense of the term. To the analysts who began their study in total secrecy three months ago, the forthcoming version of the region will be worse than anything Israel ever expected. The American withdrawal from Iraq, they claim, will set into motion a "tsunami" that will rock all of America's allies in the region, with Israel the hardest hit. They anticipate actual troop withdrawals to begin as early as September, which is when congressional hearings will be held over the report to be submitted by US Commander in Iraq General David Petraeus. The hearings will compound present pressures on the White House, as they are certain to bring President George W Bush to the centre of domestic controversy over Iraq and to aggravate already tense relations between his administration and the current Iraqi government.

In the opinion of the Israeli study, the proof that the Bush administration has made up its mind on an early withdrawal from Iraq is to be found in its decision to boost US military aid to Israel by a hefty 25 per cent up to $30 billion over the next 10 years, and in Washington's huge $20 billion arms deal with Saudi Arabia. The military aid package and the arms deal are intended to pre-empt the Israeli and Saudi shock from the US's decision to withdraw from Iraq and give them a sense that they will be able to handle the fallout from this decision, the study claims. It adds that this was the reason for which King Abdullah, as a form of protest, called off a visit to Washington and instead made overtures to strengthen communications with Iran.

The Israeli analysts fear that the US withdrawal will usher in three threats. First, what will be hailed throughout the Arab and Islamic world as a stunning defeat for the US will come as an enormous boon to radical Islamist movements, which will step up their drive to destabilise moderate regimes in the region, and it will strengthen the regimes that are hostile to the US. To Israel, the gravest consequence of this would be the destabilisation of the regime in Jordan, which, the study claims, "is Israel's most important strategic asset in the region because it forms a buffer between Israel and the Shia crescent that will coalesce following the US withdrawal from Iraq. In addition, the Jordanian regime is a staunch opponent of radical Islamist movements and it performs the vital security task of preventing the infiltration of terrorists into Israel across the long border it shares with that country." The Israeli study believes that Iraq, after the US leaves, will become a staging post for terrorist activities aimed at inciting Jordanian opposition movements to rise up against the regime. Syria, of course, will lend a hand, permitting anti-Jordanian activity from its territory. The fall of the Jordanian regime, the report continues, would transform that country into an enemy zone, bringing Israel back to the very first years of its existence. To avert this peril, the report advises, all efforts must be made to support the Jordanian regime by rallying US and international aid to solve the water shortage problem and by furnishing Jordanian security forces with as much military technology as possible.

Second, the US withdrawal from Iraq would give additional incentive to Arab resistance movements, notably Hizbullah, to lash out at Israel and Iraq would become, again, a potential source of missile fire against Israel. Indeed, certain parties there might be interested in supplying jihadist elements with long-range missiles precisely for this purpose initially, and later in the hope that the missiles would be directed against Jordan.

Threat three, according to the report, would be an Iran free of the pressures that it is currently under and hence unencumbered in its drive to develop its nuclear programme and produce its own nuclear bomb. Iran, moreover, would be able to work in coordination with Syria, which would have eluded American attempts to tighten the stranglehold on the regime in Damascus. By 2009, the analysts warn, Syria will have completed the process of modernising its army. That year, the report adds, will coincide with the end of Bush's second term of office, after which America would change its policy towards Iraq and leave in earnest.

Obviously, the document in question represents the point of view of most of the experts in Tel Aviv who participated in drafting it. But a minority among the study groups suggested that the US withdrawal from Iraq might bring one good thing for Israel. US Command in Iraq has been vehemently opposed to an American assault against Iranian nuclear installations for fear that Iran would retaliate against US forces in Iraq. US withdrawal would remove that obstacle, paving the way for a potential US strike against Iran.

Well before news of this study was released, strategic experts in Israel urged decision makers in Tel Aviv not to count on a continued American presence in Iraq and to take the initiative, independently, to halt Iran's nuclear programme. Uzi Arad, former director of intelligence for Mossad and currently president of the Interdisciplinary Centre, Herzliya, said that Israel had to invest all its energies into thwarting the Iranian nuclear programme even at the cost of going against Washington. Echoing this opinion, the former deputy minister of defence, Ephraim Sneh, held that all signs indicate that the US is about to leave Iraq before dealing with the Iranian nuclear threat and that Israel should proceed on its own to remedy this problem. "President Ahmadinejad doesn't have to use the nuclear weapon against us or even threaten to use it. Most Israelis will leave Israel the moment they hear that Iran has developed a nuclear weapon," he said on Israeli radio.

Still, one does hear the occasional dissenting voice in Israel. Shlomo Avineri, former director of Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, cautioned Israeli leaders against being eager for the US to remain in Iraq. "For the Americans in Iraq, the story's over. They are looking at nothing but failure, however they might try to give the impression that the situation is changing for the better. They are going to withdraw from Iraq sooner or later, and the sooner the better, because the longer they remain there the worse is the damage to the US's international standing." Avineri goes on to argue that if the US's international standing were severely damaged it would have dangerous repercussions because America's prestige is one of Israel's most important pillars of strength.

Israeli writer Yaakov Ahmeir cautions Israel's Jewish American supporters of casting Israel as the reason to send more American troops to Iraq and to use greater force at a time when all signs point to the inevitable and dismal failure of that venture. He adds that Israel's standing in the US has been severely damaged by the fact that there are people there who claim that the US went to war in Iraq in order to defend Israel. Israel must not portray the situation "as though it is in Israel's interests for the Americans to sustain their deadly and futile presence in Iraq."

Source: Al Ahram Weekly

Is a US attack on Iran indeed imminent?

BY USAMA BUTT

6 September 2007

BEFORE the UN sanctions on Iran last year, a possible US attack was making many headlines. Among the leading commentators on the issue was an American veteran journalist, Seymour Hirsh, who in early 2005 reported that US officials were involved in "extensive planning" for a possible attack "much more than we know".

Hirsh suggested that the "hawks in the Bush administration really want to go in, but the Intelligence is not sufficient, therefore, US Special Forces are inside Iran and the necessary Intelligence will be available by the summer of 2005 and upon satisfactory Intelligence, about three dozen targets may be isolated and destroyed by precision missiles". He explained that the US is hoping that the attacks on Iran will provoke the Iranian public against mullahs. A former UNSCOM inspector Scott Ritter had similar predictions and suggested an aerial strike in June 2005. Bush administration refused to comment on the authenticity of Hirsh’s statement and maintained that "all options are on the table".

After the report, a huge debate started whether US will attack Iran or not and eventually through EU3’s pressure, Bush decided to take the root of the UN Security Council. Now, since the UN sanctions are not "working", i.e they don’t have the effects the US was hoping for and Iran’s regional position is getting stronger amidst those sanctions, there is a change of tone in the Bush administration. Bush has ignored the founding of "Iraq’s study group" which suggested bringing Iran on board to solve the Iraqi mess, and now Iran is actively engaged with Maliki’s government which the US doesn’t like. Not only that, Karzai has also "praised" Iran’s constructive help towards Afghanistan.

Through the prism of recent events I suspect that the postponed attack on Iran may be forthcoming within Bush’s tenure. Bush’s recent statement that came out a few days ago alleged Iran’s provision of weapons to Iraqi insurgents that "kill American soldiers", followed by the statement on Iranian Revolutionary guards. Now here’s an interesting situation, last week, when I looked up at AIPAC’s (American Israel Public relations committee) web site, one research there suggested that Iranian Revolutionary guards are training terrorists, from "Afghanistan to Gaza" including Iraq. Within days, Bush has labelled Iranian Revolutionary guards, based on that report, as a terrorist group. This is the first time that a "state actor" of a sovereign country is branded "terrorists" by the US. This statement implements few things which are AIPAC’s great influence over Bush administration and US foreign policy, American’s return to pre-sanction Iranian policy and a possible forthcoming attack on Iran, probably within months.

Along with the AIPAC’s "research", if we evaluate Israeli Military Intelligence chief General Amos Yadlin’s statement (which was reported in June 2007 in the Herald Tribune) presented to the Israeli cabinet that "Israel faces five adversaries in what could result in an IMMINENT CONFRONTRATION", Iran was on the top of the list along with Syria, Hezbollah, Hamas, and Al Qaeda.

US naval exercises in the Arabian Gulf in October last year were the early steps of the possible attack, in which two US Naval striker groups, USS Enterprise and USS Iwo Jima, participated, both of the striker groups are assigned on America’s "war on terror". These exercises were so close to the Iranian coastline that "Time" reported one could partly see them standing on the coast. The recent US arm package to the Middle Eastern countries and Israel is clearly formulated out of Iranian "threat" and supports my analysis mentioned above.

Back in 2005, when Hirsh’s report suggested possible US attacks, many analysts and commentators ruled it out giving a few reasons such as Iraq’s already a disaster and the US cannot afford another venture, Iran’s not Iraq and its nuclear facilities are well hidden and are vastly distributed, making them nearly impossible to destroy, international opposition will not allow the US to do such a thing and American think-tank RAND suggested that US attack will increase Iranian public resentment towards America.

But let’s analyse why I think Bush may be prompted to attack Iran within his tenure and not choose the option of his predecessor, Bill Clinton, who in his "Lame duck" periods, reserved his problems to the forthcoming administration. To start with, Bush is not Clinton, going by his style of presidency and such statements as "he’s a doer, not a thinker", Bush will not reserve his "problems" for the next administration. The Bush doctrine which has Neo Con bases is an ideology and Bush would want to make sure that it is continued and transferred to the coming administration, whether they want it or not. Iraq’s a clear example; no matter whether Republicans or Democrats come in to power, no one’s going to cut and run and will finish the job. Attacks on Iran will undoubtedly provoke a chain reaction in the region, but the next administration won’t have any choice to deal with them and because Iran will not go about un-answered and may retaliate within its capacity i.e. closure of Shatt al Arab water way. It would still be the US number one enemy in the region.

Secondly, AIPAC is too important for both Republicans and Democrats for the coming US elections. An attack on Iran will win AIPAC’s much needed support for Republicans.

Thirdly, Israel is growing ever so impatient and after its "defeat" from Iranian sponsored Hezbollah is looking to make it "square". It would really want to decrease Iranian nuclear capabilities for its own "security and survival" (General Yadlin’s statement is a clear example) after the "failure of UN sanction over Iran".

Fourthly, Bush has numerously stated that the war on terror is a "long war" and he would want to make sure that the next administration keeps it this way. Attacks on Iran will be another phase of the war on terror, and since Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan are the new "frontline on terrorism", an attack on Iran will send a very clear and strong message to Musharraf in Pakistan to do more about Al Qaeda’s growing capabilities in the tribal areas.

Finally, attacks on Iran will decrease the worries of American allies like Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Gulf countries and Israel that the US is not going to stand aside and let Iran "take the regional power status".

If the US does attack Iran, it will not be a full-fledged military operation of the likes of Iraq, because the US simply cannot afford another adventure after Iraq. Thus, aerial attack, aimed at different nuclear sites, would probably be the answer. By doing so, the US would look to push back Iranian nuclear capabilities, provoke fear among Iranians of further US attacks and create confusion in Iran, destabilise Iran’s emerging "regional power" status, discourage its "support for terrorism" in Iraq and the region on one hand, and US domestic political gain (as discussed above) on the other.

Usama Butt is a research scholar based in the UK

Source: Khaleej Times