Rice hopes to exploit the Arab-Iran
divide By Ehsan Ahrari
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is
in the Middle East again to shore up Arab support
against Iran. If she succeeds in achieving that
objective - and that is a big if - there is likely
to be a major realignment of forces in that area.
This is her first trip to the region since the
ceasefire of August 14 ended the 34-day war
between Israel and Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed
Shi'ite militia that controls much of southern
Lebanon.
She may be appealing to the
legendary Arab-Iranian rivalry to sell the US
agenda of shoring up the Arab opposition to Iran's
alleged
aspirations to develop
nuclear weapons. The United States has tried to
play that card before. The newest wrinkle in this
ongoing strategic power game is that Israel is
reportedly also reaching out to "moderate" Arab
states of the Persian Gulf region by focusing on
Iran-phobia.
The administration of
President George W Bush is under pressure to
create the semblance of "doing something" in the
Middle East. That decision seems to have been
reached in the wake of the recent controversies
stemming from the leak of the National
Intelligence Estimate about the Iraq war and in
response to journalist Bob Woodward's claim in
his latest book, State of Denial, of
disarray among the major US national-security
officials.
In the Middle East, Iraq is
subsiding into a sinkhole of violence and mayhem;
Iran has emerged as a major supporter of Hezbollah
in the Lebanese and Iraqi conflicts, and
Hezbollah's prestige is at an all-time high
stemming from its performance in its war with the
Jewish state. To top it all off, the US-Iran
nuclear conflict does not seem to be heading
toward resolution any time soon.
These
developments are nightmarish from Bush's
ever-growing need to leave behind some sort of
legacy related to the world of Islam, two of whose
governments - Afghanistan and Iraq - he dismantled
in the name of fighting a "global war on terror".
However, both places are emerging as major
theaters of conflict between Western and Islamist
forces.
Arab politics, probably more than
the politics of any other parts of the globe,
operate on a quid pro quo basis. So if the
US wants to get something from the Arab states, it
has to offer something they desire. For that
reason, Secretary of State Rice is creating the
impression that the Bush administration is getting
ready to restart the peace process in Palestine.
However, nothing has changed in the
occupied territories. Hamas is still trying to run
the Palestinian government under a severe shortage
of capital and, at the same time, fight a
two-front war: with Israel and with Palestinian
President Mahmoud Abbas. Hamas still refuses to
renounce violence and recognize Israel, two
preconditions insisted upon by both the US and the
Jewish state. In the meantime, economic and
political sufferings of the Palestinians persist.
Arab states know these facts. But they are
also cognizant of the reality that Bush is
desperately looking for some breakthrough in the
Middle East. That breakthrough is certainly not
coming from Iraq, where the threat of civil war
remains high, as spirals of sectarian violence
continue to ascend.
The breakthrough also
is not coming from Lebanon, where despite the
United States' best hopes for, and active support
of, a decisive victory for Israel in its 34-day
war with Hezbollah, such did not materialize. On
the contrary, Hezbollah has emerged "victorious".
Both the US and Israel have relearned the bitter
lesson that in a conflict or "war" between two
parties where one possesses too much military
power and the other is weak, all that the weak
side must do is survive. The inability of the
strong side to eradicate the weak side is widely
depicted as a "defeat."
The Bush
administration finds itself in a strategic
cul-de-sac from where it has to make a
volte-face to avoid major erosion in its
strategic interests in the Middle East.
Consequently, the United States is ready to plead
with the moderate Arab states - most notably Saudi
Arabia and Egypt, but also with other Gulf
emirates - that it was on their side all along.
Rice will not flinch at reminding the Arab
side that Iran is a greater "threat" to their
security than Israel, that the Bush administration
is willing to revive the long-moribund
Palestine-Israel peace process and that they must
focus on siding with Washington about containing
Iran's rising influence, which it would use to
create political momentum leading toward the
eventual development of nuclear weapons.
As much as the Arab states do not trust
what the Bush administration says about the peace
process, they also know that they have no other
option than to rely on the promises of an
intensely pro-Israeli US administration that it
will create momentum for the renewal of a dialogue
between the Palestinians and the Israelis.
Besides, Arabs have their own major gripe,
if not apprehension, about Iran. The Islamic
Republic has emerged as a truly major actor in the
post-Saddam Hussein Middle East. It has
immeasurably enhanced its strategic influence in
Iraq, where it could even be regarded without much
exaggeration as a kingmaker.
Iran's
support for Hezbollah in the 34-day war with
Israel also has tremendously boosted its prestige
in the Middle East, where all other Arab leaders
are viewed by the masses as too diffident -
indeed, subservient - to the arrogant demands of
the Bush administration to introduce Western
secular democracy to the abandonment of their
Islamic heritage. According to one source, three
of the most popular personalities in the Arab
world are Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah,
President Mahmud Ahmadinejad of Iran, and Osama
bin Laden.
What bothered Egypt, Saudi
Arabia and Jordan most was that the United States
publicly expressed its willingness to conduct a
dialogue aimed at stabilizing Iraq, an Arab state,
with Persian Iran. No other Arab state was invited
even to observe such an event. It is not relevant
that such a dialogue between the US and Iran has
yet to take place.
The Arab perspective is
that since September 11, 2001, the Bush
administration has done little to dismantle the
growing perception in the Arab world that the
Sunni Arab states are being treated as vassals of
the United States, a role that Iran is loath to
play.
The Hezbollah-Israel war emerged as
a blessing from the Arab perspective. It punctured
Israel's aura of invincibility, as Hezbollah's
rag-tag fighters performed impressively in that
war. Now, the leaders of the Jewish state are
truly shaken about Iran's growing capabilities of
making the best of its military weakness,
vis-a-vis Israel, in a future conflict.
After all, it was Iran's training of
Hezbollah and provisions of its military
wherewithal that enabled that entity to stand up
to the mightiest armed forces in the Middle East.
As much as the Israeli military is equipped with
cutting-edge US-supplied technology, there is a
growing fear within the Israeli ruling circles
that in a conventional war with Iran, Tehran's
yet-to-be-known asymmetric capabilities might
inflict another defeat on Israel.
Consequently, the Bush administration and
Israel are waging a two-front diplomatic offensive
with moderate Arabs to create a united front
against Iran. While Rice is making a high-profile
visit to the region, Israel's diplomats are
approaching the Arab sheikhdoms for a
rapprochement through secret channels. Last week,
there were unconfirmed reports of a meeting
between Saudi and Israeli officials. The fact that
both sides were so coy about it only intensified
speculation about such a contact.
No one
knows for sure, but the understanding is that
Israelis are enticing the Gulf sheikhs with a
probable concession on the Palestinian issue. That
would only nullify the intense sense of shame and
inadequacy within the Arab ruling circles that
Iran is outshining them in Lebanon and in support
of the Palestinian cause. In return for such a
concession on the Palestinian issue, Israelis are
reportedly asking the Arab states to create a
united front against the "mounting Iranian
threat".
If Israel indeed is seeking a
rapprochement with the Arabs by playing on their
apprehensions regarding Iran, it shows how
seriously the Israelis envisage the Islamic
Republic's escalating clout in the Middle East.
The question remains, however, whether the Arab
states will fall for the Israeli maneuver and try
to gang up on Iran, or whether they will really
drive a hard bargain and gain concessions on the
Palestinian issue without really creating an
anti-Iran front.
If Arabs know one very
harsh reality about the US and Israel, they know
that neither of these actors will offer any
concessions to the Arab side unless they are
really convinced that their bargaining position
has eroded perceptibly. If that indeed is the
case, then the Arabs will have to think long and
hard whether they really want to fall for
US-Israeli promises of breakthroughs and
concessions and revive the Arab-Persian animosity,
an option that might not be in their collective
best interests.
(Copyright 2006 Asia Times
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Ehsan Ahrari is the CEO of
Strategic Paradigms, an Alexandria, Virginia-based
defense consultancy. He can be reached at
eahrari@cox.net or
stratparadigms@yahoo.com. His columns appear
regularly in Asia Times Online. His website: www.ehsanahrari.com.
