SPEAKING FREELY Armed and ready for Iran
By William Hawkins
Speaking Freely is an Asia Times Online feature that allows guest writers to have
their say.
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On July 29, just a few days before the US Congress went on its August recess,
Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Nicholas Burns held a press
briefing in Washington outlining how the George W Bush administration plans to
arm Sunni states in the Middle East to contain Iranian expansion.
Taken in conjunction with the escalating charges from the White House that Iran
is aiding the insurgency in Iraq, and the threat to brand the Iranian
Revolutionary Guards Corps as a terrorist organization (a step up from listing
Tehran as a state sponsor of
terrorism), this new round of arms sales indicates a regional strategy that is
looking beyond the fighting in Iraq to consider the entire region to be an
interlinked theater of war.
The US$20 billion in planned military aid to Saudi Arabia and the other five
members of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC - Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar and
the United Arab Emirates) will run in parallel with increased military aid to
Israel ($30 billion) and to Egypt ($13 billion) over the next decade. According
to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, the arms sale to Cairo will "strengthen
Egypt's ability to address shared strategic goals" with Israel and the other
Sunni Arab states - the best way to build new diplomatic and security alliances
is to pull otherwise diverse states together against a common enemy.
The arms deal with Israel was signed in Jerusalem on August 16. At the signing,
Burns put the aid to Israel in the context of the Iran-Syria axis and its
support for Hezbollah and Hamas, all enemies of the Jewish state. But he then
went on to say, "We have said to the congressional leadership that we intend to
seek their support for increased military assistance to our friends in the
Gulf: to Saudi Arabia and to Kuwait and to Bahrain and to Qatar, [to] the
United Arab Emirates and to Oman. All of this together represents a signal from
the United States that our country is strong in this region, that we intend to
be a good friend to our allies and our partners in this region." This was an
explicit setting of Israel and the Sunni Arabs together in a US-backed security
alignment.
It should be remembered that last summer, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan openly
criticized Iran's Hezbollah proxy for raiding into Israel, triggering more than
four weeks of heavy fighting. The Arab states gave Israel the diplomatic space
it needed to mount military operations aimed at crippling Hezbollah in Lebanon.
In his March 29 testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Burns
outlined the pivotal role Lebanon plays in regional dynamics: "We are also
working with France, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan and others to signal our
strong support for Prime Minister [Fouad] Siniora's democratically elected
government in Lebanon, to enforce the arms embargo imposed by Security Council
Resolution 1701, and to prevent Iran and Syria from rearming Hezbollah.
"We have stationed two [aircraft] carrier battle groups in the Gulf, not to
provoke Iran, but to reassure our friends in the region that it remains an area
of vital importance to us. And at the regional level, Secretary Rice last
autumn launched a series of ongoing discussions with our Gulf Cooperation
Council partners, as well as Egypt and Jordan, regarding issues of shared
concern, including most especially the threat posed by Iran." Prime Minister
Ehud Olmert has said Israel will not lobby against the new arms sales to Saudi
Arabia, as it has against previous sales.
Iran, with its support for militias in foreign lands, its supposed nuclear
ambitions, and its aggressive Shi'ite faith, poses a much greater threat to the
Sunni Arab world than does Israel, which has no intention of toppling Arab
regimes and converting their people to its religious doctrines. Iran does have
these ambitions, directed at both Jews and Sunni Muslims. As a nation-state
with vast oil reserves and substantial diplomatic support from Russia and
China, Iran is much stronger than the ad hoc al-Qaeda terrorist group. Al-Qaeda
can kill people with suicide bombers in marketplaces, but it cannot seize state
power. The terrorism groups sponsored by Tehran are far more capable and
dangerous as projections of Iranian power.
On August 9, the Tehran Times, the self-proclaimed "loud voice of the Islamic
Revolution", highlighted a speech given in Lebanon by Hezbollah leader Hassan
Nasrallah that attacked the proposed US arms sales as an attempt to "drown the
Mideast in wars". The speech was given at an event marking the group's alleged
"victory" in last summer's Lebanon war, and follows Nasrallah's claim that his
fighters have been fully rearmed and trained for a new round of conflict.
Ever since the pro-Western, secularizing shah of Iran was overthrown by the
radical ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in 1979, the Middle East has been ripped by
the Shi'ite-Persian/Sunni-Arab divide. Far more have died in this sectarian
struggle than have ever fallen in combat with Israel or Western "imperialists".
Iraq was the frontline state against Iran under Saddam Hussein, who became the
hero of the Arab world during the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq War. But he brought
disaster on himself when he invaded his ally Kuwait in 1990.
The two countries with the strongest military potentials in the Persian Gulf
region are Iran and Iraq. Washington needs a friendly regime in either Tehran
or Baghdad. Whatever the proximate cause cited for the invasion of Iraq in
2003, the real strategic objective was to replace Saddam with a new government
with which the US could cooperate against Iran.
But Iraq is still in turmoil, with Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's
Shi'ite-dominated government in crisis. American commanders have made
considerable progress in winning the respect of Sunni tribal leaders and
turning them against al-Qaeda. But a key part of this improved relationship is
a pledge to protect the Sunnis from genocidal attacks by radical Shi'ite death
squads and Iranian-backed militias.
Recent attacks on Maliki by US senators, including presidential front-runner
Hillary Clinton, have again raised the question of whether the prime minister
is an Iraqi nationalist serious about leading a national-unity government or
merely a Shi'ite partisan. Though born and educated in Iraq, Maliki went into
exile in Iran and Syria during Saddam's crackdown after the 1991 Gulf War. He
was deputy leader of the De-Ba'athification Commission in the post-invasion
interim government, which many charge became a witchhunt against Sunnis.
On August 22, Maliki lashed out at his American critics on his return from a
three-day trip to Syria, saying, "We will pay no attention. We care for our
people and our constitution and can find friends elsewhere." The danger is that
he only defines his "people" as Shi'ites, and "elsewhere" is Iran.
On August 9, the Christian Science Monitor headlined a story on how
Shi'ite-controlled media in Iraq have been trying to "shift attention from Iran
to its Sunni neighbors" by running stories hostile to Saudi Arabia for is
support of the Sunni insurgency in Iraq.
As British prime minister Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston famously
explained foreign policy in 1848, "We have no eternal allies, and we have no
perpetual enemies. Our interests are eternal and perpetual, and those interests
it is our duty to follow."
The US sympathized with the Iraqi Shi'ites when they were being oppressed by a
hostile Saddam Hussein, but continuing to support them if they fall under
hostile Iranian influence does not coincide with America's "perpetual"
interests.
US forces are again engaged, as they have been during several prior phases of
the Iraq campaign, in beating down the pro-Iranian Mahdi Army of Muqtada
al-Sadr, who also heads a powerful Shi'ite bloc in Iraq's legislative assembly.
It is not clear who will win the power struggle within the Shi'ite majority in
Iraq, so it is only prudent to strengthen the next line of defense, either to
support a unified Iraq or to sustain anti-Iranian forces in a fragmented Iraq.
Saudi Arabia and the smaller Gulf states do not have the manpower to combat
Iran, so they need superior weapons that are interoperable with those of the
United States. Cooperation in the areas of missile defense, maritime patrol,
counter-terrorism and energy security is moving ahead with US-led joint
exercises. American trainers, advisers and support personnel will also have to
accompany the new weapons systems.
Though a minority in Iraq, the Sunnis are a majority in the Muslim world. In
addition to providing material and diplomatic support for what is called by the
State Department the "six plus two coalition" (the GCC plus Egypt and Jordan),
a tilt toward the Sunnis would also help Turkey, whose governing Justice and
Development Party has caused concerns about the possible future orientation of
the country towards Islam. But the Turks have long been at odds with the
minority Alawi sect of Shi'ites that rules Syria, whose people are majority
Sunni.
There is congressional opposition to the Saudi-GCC weapons deal. On August 2,
114 members of the US House of Representatives (96 Democrats, 18 Republicans)
rushed a letter to President Bush declaring their intention to vote against any
sale of advanced weapons to Saudi Arabia.
The letter was organized by New York Democratic Congressmen Anthony Weiner and
Jerrold Nadler, who staged a protest outside the Saudi Consulate in New York on
July 29. The argument in the letter was similar to that made by Shi'ite leaders
in Iraq, that Saudi Arabia had been uncooperative in the "war on terror".
What the letter really represented was recognition by those in the anti-war
movement that there is, indeed, a regional conflict beyond Iraq, and they do
not want the United States engaged in any of it. Weiner and Nadler have been in
the forefront of the "cut and run" caucus on Iraq. Those who signed their
letter don't just want out of Iraq, they want to withdraw completely from
everywhere "east of Suez".
For Congress to block the arms sales would undermine what trust there is
between Washington and the Sunni world. It would also fuel the propaganda of
both al-Qaeda and Tehran that alleges the US is at war with all of Islam, when
in fact US security interests are in line with those of a majority of Muslims
regarding the rising threat from the Iranian regime.
It is very unlikely that congressional opponents of the arms sales can muster
the veto-proof majorities in both houses needed to block the deal. So whatever
resolutions and statements may come out of Congress on withdrawals or
redeployments from Iraq, the larger regional conflict will continue to build,
and the United States will continue to be in the thick of it.
William R Hawkins is senior fellow for national-security studies at the
US Business and Industry Council in Washington, DC.
Speaking Freely is an Asia Times Online feature that allows guest writers to have
their say.
Please click hereif you are interested in contributing.
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