Wanted: A new Middle East
initiative By Jephraim P
Gundzik
As the Bush administration's
influence in the Middle East continues to wane,
the risk of strong unilateral action by Washington
against a widening array of regional foes will
increase. This risk will push international oil
prices much higher and global economic growth much
lower in 2006. Rather than producing Washington's
desired outcome, every major regional initiative
has backfired, greatly weakening US influence.
The recent Hamas victory in the
legislative elections held in the Palestinian
territories has propelled another arch-enemy of the
Bush
administration into power in the Middle East. A
new Hamas-centered government in the Palestinian
territories will join the governments of Syria,
Iran and Iraq as Washington's self-made enemies.
Not only will these powers coalesce around one
another, they will gather increasing regional
support as well as support from other world powers
such as Russia, China and to a lesser extent the
European Union.
These developments are
intensifying pressure within the Bush
administration for strong action that will
re-establish Washington's hegemony in the Middle
East. Such action could be a unilateral strike,
with assistance from Israel, on Syria and/or Iran.
Other actions taken by Washington could be efforts
to destabilize the new governments in the
Palestinian territories and in Iraq.
The
growing risk of such actions has already begun to
push the international price of oil higher. This
risk can be expected to lead international oil
prices above US$100 per barrel in the first half
of 2006. And the materialization of any effort by
the US to re-establish its influence militarily in
the Middle East could push international oil
prices over $150 per barrel. By the second half of
2006, much higher oil prices will begin to exert
tremendous drag on the global economy, slowing
economic growth worldwide. Thus US military action
in the Middle East will push the world into
economic recession.
In 2002, the first
administration of President George W Bush
implemented a dramatic change in US Middle East
policy with the invasion and occupation of Iraq.
Though the US had a strong hand in regional events
since the 1920s, the invasion and occupation of
Iraq marked Washington's first attempt to
subjugate any country in the Middle East
militarily. After failing to find any weapons of
mass destruction or links between Iraq and
al-Qaeda, the Bush administration settled on
democratizing Iraq as the objective of US military
action in the country.
Beneath even this
veneer, the real goal of the administration was
installing a pro-Washington government that would
provide a reliable source of petroleum imports and
have an amicable disposition toward a permanent US
military presence in Iraq. None of these goals
have come close to being fulfilled. The descent of
Iraq into near-civil war has reduced the country's
crude-oil output. The recent election of a
Shi'ite-dominated pro-Iranian legislature in Iraq
portends the creation of a new anti-American
government that will demand the withdrawal of
foreign troops from the country.
The Bush
administration's next significant Middle East
policy initiative came in 2003 and was designed to
produce permanent peace between Israelis and
Palestinians by creating a viable Palestinian
state. This initiative, ironically named "the
roadmap to peace in the Middle East", has
foundered. Neither Israel nor the Palestinian
Authority has heeded the terms of the roadmap,
making peace between these parties more elusive.
To a large degree, the roadmap's failure to
advance the cause for a Palestinian state
delivered the stunning Hamas victory in last
month's legislative elections.
The Hamas
victory has been accompanied by calls for
pragmatism in the new Palestinian government from
nearly every quarter of the world - except from
the US, Germany and Israel, all of which
immediately cut or threatened to cut aid and
commerce cash flows to the Palestinian
territories. In contrast, the United Nations,
Russia and the EU have all decided not to
interrupt aid flows to Palestinians.
By
signaling their inability to deal diplomatically
with what will be a new Hamas-centered government,
the US and Israel are abdicating any influence
over the new Palestinian government to other
regional and world powers. Both Iran and Saudi
Arabia are likely sources from which larger aid
flows to Palestinians will originate. Russia could
also increase aid flows to the Palestinians, while
the EU finds itself at home on the fence.
Not long after introducing the roadmap,
the Bush administration sought a behind-the-scenes
method to contain and reverse Iran's nuclear
ambitions. Washington undoubtedly played a strong
role in formulating the demands of the EU-3
(France, Germany and Britain) that Iran relinquish
its right to mastering the nuclear fuel cycle for
civilian nuclear power purposes. The untoward
EU-3/US demands on Tehran have set the stage for
conflict between Iran and the West, not Iran and
the rest of the world.
The EU-3 and the US
have worked very hard to move Iran's nuclear
dossier from the International Atomic Energy
Agency (IAEA) to the UN Security Council, from
which economic sanctions can be applied to Tehran.
Russia and China have worked equally hard to keep
Iran's nuclear dossier within the IAEA in order to
contain the threat of sanctions against Iran.
Though heralded in the Western press as a unified
front against Iran, the recent agreement among
China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the
United States to "report" Iran to the Security
Council is a Pyrrhic victory for the West.
Russia's and China's economic and
geopolitical ties with Iran make it very unlikely
these two countries would support economic, or any
other, sanctions against Tehran. By delaying any
Security Council action until March at the
earliest, Russia and China are giving Iran time to
comply fully with the IAEA to weaken the West's
case against Tehran further. The low probability
of Security Council action against Iran increases
the probability of unilateral US action against
Iran. As far as Washington is concerned, the case
for attacking Iran must only be made to Americans
- a process that is already under way.
The
dramatic diminution of Washington's status in the
Middle East is strengthening regional ties against
the US, isolating Washington further from the
region and from other world powers. The future
actions of the Bush administration in the Middle
East are likely to be underscored militarily and
violently as Washington struggles to re-establish
its influence in the region.
Jephraim P Gundzik is president
of Condor Advisers, Inc. Condor Advisers provides
country risk analysis to individuals and
institutions globally.
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