Page 1 of
2 Summer
war in the Middle East? By
Victor Kotsev
TEL AVIV - Spring has come
to the Middle East - not the Arab spring,
unfortunately - and it is time for the annual
billion-dollar question: will there be a big
summer war? Indeed, it is a question worth
multiple billions of dollars, as it has been
codified into an elaborate ritual featuring
ever-shifting alliances, "incidents", threats,
ever-accelerating arms procurement, and
(surprise?) large speculative bets on the
financial markets.
Big military campaigns
in the Middle East have historically happened
during or around the summer. With some exceptions,
this continues to be true today, for a variation
of the same historic reasons - the weather is
best, meaning that air power is most efficient and
ground maneuvers by large forces are easier, and the
harvest has largely been
collected, meaning that manpower is more readily
available and war poses a lesser challenge to the
national economies.
Thus, every spring
politicians, investors and pundits become
unusually restless and try to predict - if not
determine - what will happen. It is a flare-up of
activity in a game of intricate tactics and
strategies, where war and politics form a full,
endless circle. The game includes risky bets,
secret maneuvers and intense though usually short
bouts of violence (hardly any major war in the
Levant since 1948 has lasted for longer than a
month, mostly because of the enormous costs of
modern warfare and resupply issues).
This
year, the game inventory is extraordinarily rich:
among other plots, a great Arab revolution, a
(much discussed) great Arab counter-revolution, a
growing crisis in the Persian Gulf within the
context of worsening Sunni-Shi'ite relations
across the Middle East, a Palestinian declaration
of independence looming by September if not
earlier, and a speculative "war in or with
Israel", to quote American think-tank Stratfor, as
"a major wild card that could destabilize the area
further".
The stakes are high, too: the
metaphoric gunpowder keg is stacked full. Having
in mind the massive arms buildup in the region
during the past few years, we can expect any large
conflict to be unusually brutal. Israeli military
planners have predicted that hundreds of missiles
will rain on Tel Aviv (mostly from Syria and
Lebanon), and have issued grim warnings that they
will do whatever it takes to curtail the fire. The
Israeli home front - indeed, every home front in
the region - will likely be hit particularly
severely.
But human life and dignity often
have a relative rather than absolute value in this
region and this game. At best, individuals are
expected to sacrifice dearly, and regularly, for
the sake of a defensive effort; at worst, they are
nothing but a cheap expendable resource - as
cheap, even, as public relations capital can come.
Nothing illustrates this better than the use of
human shields and the deliberate positioning of
large groups of civilians near military
installations.
A lot of money is certainly
at stake. Gold and silver have reached an all-time
high, while oil is above $110/barrel and,
according to many analysts, heading higher. This
is by no means entirely due to the Middle East;
much of it is due to the global financial crisis
and inflationary pressures on all the major
currencies (according to Stratfor, the global
money supply has "roughly doubled" since 2005). A
large part of it, however, is due to speculation,
and a lot of that centers on the political and
military volatility in the Middle East.
Gold and silver, in particular, are seen
as a safe asset in times of financial and
political upheaval, while oil prices are
particularly sensitive to developments in the
region. "When we ask why the price of oil is
surging, the idea of geopolitical risk does come
to mind," writes Stratfor in another report. "It
is not a foolish speculation."
There is
certainly much to worry about. Most recently, the
Syrian regime pulled out all the stops in its
repression of domestic unrest, burying any show of
reform. "A gap exists between the desires of the
people and the government's positions," Syria's
President Bashar al-Assad acknowledged a week or
so ago, and then promptly proceeded to fill that
gap with bullets. His severe distress is measured
by hundreds of protesters gunned down and mowed by
tanks.
This is bad news for almost
everybody in the region, from Turkey to Iran to
Israel (see also my article Water
crisis floats Syrian unrest (Asia Times Online
March 29, 2011). What is worst is that now a
complete collapse of the country into anarchy
cannot be ruled out. This is not a certain
outcome, and it would depend largely on whether
large-scale defections in the army emerge in the
future.
It would mean, among other things,
that thousands of medium-ranged missiles and
countless other arms could fall into the hands of
Hezbollah, Hamas, Kurdish militants (Kurdish
Workers' Party - PKK), and other rogue actors.
Many of the missiles reportedly have chemical
warheads.
There are several other
micro-crises that are brewing: in Libya, the
United States felt compelled to send two armed
Predator drones on a "humanitarian" mission (talk
about irony). The coalition has become so
desperate that it apparently tried -
unsuccessfully - to assassinate Muammar Gaddafi
[1]. "Uncle Curly," as the rebels call the
colonel, responded with yet another change of
tactics and pulled his forces out of the city of
Misrata, only to intensify the conflict in the
mountainous areas in the west of Libya.
In
Yemen, a vague deal between the protesters and the
opposition is reported to have emerged, but
sources report that the situation continues to be
extremely volatile. It is a country where Islamic
militancy has long and convoluted roots [2], where
tribalism is strong and where the interests of
several regional powers (most notably Saudi Arabia
and Iran) intersect.
The real nexus of the
intrigue, however, lies in the Persian Gulf and
the Arabian Peninsula, where Saudi Arabia and Iran
battle each other, if indirectly for now. This
also puts into perspective the Syrian crisis as
well: Syria is a major ally of Iran, and a
linchpin of Iranian influence and deterrence in
the Levant.
Moreover, the Iranian leaders
are unlikely to have forgotten their own
protesters, and are concerned they could be next
in line after Assad. As Israeli journalist Avi
Issacharoff points out, "In Iran, the specter of
Assad's fall is a real concern, not only because
Tehran is an important ally, but also because of
the ramifications this would have for future
protest against the Iranian regime."
While
it is far from clear that Saudi Arabia is stirring
trouble in Syria (the kingdom has been accused
more often of being a major counter-revolutionary
force in the region than an instigator) the Saudis
stand to gain much if they exploit the crisis
adeptly. They also stand to lose much if Assad
survives the crisis but gravitates further into
the Iranian orbit. We can expect them to get more
involved in Syria soon, if they aren't already.
Conversely, Iran may not be the only force
behind the protests in Bahrain and Yemen, but both
are particularly sensitive spots for Saudi Arabia,
and the Islamic Republic is clearly trying to make
the best out of the trouble there. Two other hot
spots where Saudi and Iranian interests intersect
particularly sharply are Iraq and Lebanon.
A major intrigue is unfolding in Saudi
Arabia's relationship with the United States. The
Saudi king is upset with the way President Barack
Obama treated his friend and ally in Egypt,
ex-president Hosni Mubarak, but beyond that, the
Saudis seem intent on drawing the Americans into a
confrontation with Iran. They have gathered a
coalition of Persian Gulf states to turn the heat
up on Iran - most notably, in Bahrain - while
simultaneously piling pressure on the United
States to interfere on their side.
According to Stratfor, Tuesday's visit to
Washington by the crown prince of the United Arab
Emirates, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan,
most likely focused on the latter issue. "We
obviously cannot know what the UAE is going to ask
the United States for," Stratfor writes, "but we
would be surprised if it wasn't for a definitive
sign that the United States was prepared to
challenge the Iranian rise in the region".
One of the most important battle grounds
in the region is Iraq. Stratfor sees the gradual
American pullout from the country as a major
source of instability. "Not coincidentally, the
withdrawal of American forces has coincided with
tremendous instability in the region, particularly
on the Arabian Peninsula," the think-tank writes.
Head
Office: Unit B, 16/F, Li Dong Building, No. 9 Li Yuen Street East,
Central, Hong Kong Thailand Bureau:
11/13 Petchkasem Road, Hua Hin, Prachuab Kirikhan, Thailand 77110
