SINOGRAPH US vapor trail leads to Jasmine revolt
By Francesco Sisci
BEIJING - Over the past few days, the United States' strategy in the Muslim
world has been paying high rewards, objectively foreboding even larger US
plans.
Last week, a drone operated by the Central Intelligence Agency killed
al-Qaeda's second-in-command, Atiyah Abd al-Rahman, after the earlier
elimination of the group's founder, Osama bin Laden, in May.
The announcement of the death of Rahman, who is of Libyan origin, occurred as
rebel forces were taking Tripoli, with Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi on the
run.
These successes have many implications in various parts of the
Muslim world. In Libya, rebels supported by Western forces proved at long last
able to topple the Gaddafi regime. In this way, the West managed to prove that
it did not have to be bogged down in a long fight of resistance.
Meanwhile, food scarcity and high inflation didn't totally disrupt Egypt, as
was feared some months ago. Although Egypt is far from stable now, people in
Cairo can look forward to some months of relative tranquility as the weather
cools down, more food is brought in, and domestic tensions are more under
control. From now until next March or April, Egypt could have a chance to get
into economically better shape for the next hot summer.
In Syria, the anti-regime forces are gaining momentum, and there is news that
larger groups of people are adding strength and posing an even greater
challenge to the regime of President Bashar al-Assad. It is possible that
Turkey could intervene in the country in the same fashion that France and
Britain stepped into the Libyan fray. Even the vague possibility of Turkish
intervention in Syria is putting further pressure on the regime to find some
kind of political compromise with the rebels.
The real aim from the Western point of view in Syria is not to have a
functioning democracy there, something extremely hard to accomplish given
tribal tensions. The goal should be to disengage Syria from its alliance with
Iran and then leave the pro-Iranian Hezbollah forces in Lebanon without
military assistance from Iran and Syria.
In Pakistan non-Western witnesses report that the killing of bin Laden has
lifted the spirits of the common people in the main cities. People who had left
the streets, hotels, and restaurants for fear of attacks, bombings, and
shootings by al-Qaeda have come back feeling more secure. Attacks and bombings
are not waning, but witnesses claim there is a different atmosphere, where
people feel Al Qaeda and their supporters are no longer invincible.
The Pakistani army, or at least a part of it, is feeling under siege by the
Americans, who evidently don't trust it. But this sense of insecurity in the
country's strongest structure paradoxically is not bringing down the country;
there is little expectation that crisis in the Pakistani army, will break down
into a feud between diverse and competing regions.
This apparently leads to some very difficult questions for Pakistan. If the
strongest structure of the country feels insecure while the rest of society
doesn't feel the political strain, it means that the army should reform itself
because it is unable to provide for the overall security of its own country.
In Pakistan, there is a knot of enormous contradictions. The army, which should
bring security to the country, has been doing so by supporting the Kashmiri
rebels, who carry on a fight deemed essential to the identity of Pakistan – the
liberation of Indian-controlled Kashmir. However, these same rebels, aided by
the Pakistani army, which in turn is supported by the US, are also assisting
the al-Qaeda forces in the fight against the new pro-American Afghani regime.
Similarly some Pakistani leaders view Afghanistan as an outpost of Indian
expansionism. In this way, Pakistan feels squeezed by India on the east and a
pro-Indian government in the north.
The vision held by the military was once shared by the people. However, the
al-Qaeda forces were similarly mistrusting of the Pakistani army in Pakistan
and tried to impose their de facto political control over parts of Pakistani
territory by terrorizing the population. It seems that the killing of bin Laden
has started breaking this deadlock, and it could help the Pakistani military to
find a different role in line with the interest of safety for the Pakistani
population.
This could go hand in hand with finding a new broad political solution with
India to the Kashmiri issue - something that could de facto help to bring peace
to the whole region.
All this can be quite difficult to achieve from Libya to Syria to Pakistan, and
many things could go wrong. However, the present American strategy is quite
different from that of the George W Bush administration. Basically, the idea is
to keep American intervention light and to have other countries take the lead
in a war of attrition. In Libya, it was Britain and France; in Syria, it could
possibly be Turkey; and in Pakistan, it might be a part of the Pakistani
establishment in the army and India. In this way, America could reaffirm its
international political clout while cutting expenses and risks.
If something goes wrong in any of these areas, the Americans will not have to
be the first to put the pieces together since there will be other countries
working de facto as a security buffer.
This brings back the centrality of the main force of the Cold War covert
operations, the work of the Central Intelligence Agency in place of military
action whose costs - as the Iraq and Afghanistan interventions have attested -
can drain American coffers. If this strategy works, one can surmise that in a
few months there could be new activity in Iran, and the Jasmine uprising could
start in Tehran in a few weeks or months.
With Tehran, there is obviously much more at stake than in Libya and Syria.
Iran is a much larger country, it is sitting on more oil and gas reserves, and
it can stop the flow of oil from the state of Ormuz, thus brining havoc to the
world's entire energy system. However, what we have seen in recent months
proves that this is not impossible although it remains very difficult. The
ultimate goal, unlike with Libya, could not to bring down the Ayatollah regime,
but simply to cook Tehran on a slow fire.
The next step after Iran could be of course China. Here we are speaking of a
double jump: we don't know if, when, or how a Jasmine Revolution could take
hold in Iran. Therefore, it is even more difficult to think of a Jasmine
Revolution in China, where people are scared of chaos and largely satisfied
with what the government has given them over the past 30 years - much better
living conditions and far greater freedom than during Maoist times.
However, it is not impossible to conceive that some internal opposition forces
could be leveraged to make Iran's leadership tense and Chinese leadership
nervous. And just the idea of de facto bringing China and Iran closer together
in the eyes of the international community could help feed more domestic
tension in and around China.
The result might not be the toppling of the Iranian regime or the Chinese
government, but it could be enough to put Tehran or Beijing on the defensive.
The result of this could be to make the Chinese government more oppressive
internally or to spur it to start political reforms inside the country.
Either result is good for America. If China begins political reforms, America
can claim that it has managed to push for this change. If China becomes more
oppressive, then it is perhaps even better as China would become the new Grand
Enemy Americans wished to have after the fall of the Soviet Union, and China
might become the lightning rod for all of America's and the world's troubles.
In all cases, the Obama administration could score many international
successes, which if kept on track could help to reestablish American global
authority. This would not seal Obama's re-election. In the early 90s, President
George H W Bush brilliantly managed to disintegrate the Soviet Union and defeat
Saddam Hussein in Iraq, establishing the essential role of America in the
events. Yet, he failed to win re-election because the economy did not perform
well.
For Obama, it could be the same. Still, for the moment, we can just say that at
least half of American policy is working, and if the economy doesn't unravel in
the coming months, there could be a new American order in the world in 2012.
Francesco Sisci is a columnist for the Italian daily Il Sole 24 Ore and
can be reached at fsisci@gmail.com
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