'No 1
Sunni fanatic' goes to the
UN By Vijay Prashad
In
2009, two United States diplomats went to
Damascus. Their mission seemed simple enough. It
was to create a modus vivendi between the
US and Syria. Relations soured in 2003 when the US
passed the very harsh Syria Accountability and
Lebanese Sovereignty Restoration Act (SAA).
It banned trade between the two countries,
which though small posed a threat to third party
countries (notably in Europe) that trade with
Syria. The two diplomats came to find a way around
the sanctions regime, and to see if they could win
Syria's assistance in the US government's policy
of throttling Iran and securing Israel's place in
the region.
The Barack Obama
administration sent two men who had a role to play
in the garrisoning of Syria. Daniel Shapiro, as an
aide to Senator Bill Nelson, had his handwriting
on the 2003 SAA. This
bill is one of the most
punitive sanctions regimes enacted by the US
Congress, up there with the Iraq sanctions regime
that the US ran from 1990 to 2003 (which led to
the deaths of over half a million Iraqi children,
according to the United Nations; a price that
then-secretary of state Madeline Albright said was
"worth it").
Politics professor Steve
Zunes says the SAA "is not a reflection of popular
concern for the Lebanese people, for
non-proliferation, for preventing terrorism, or
for defending the United Nations. It is a
reflection of an imperial world view." The SAA
scratched an itch for George W Bush: he wanted his
tanks in Iraq to roll across the al-Waleed border
crossing into Damascus. In 2009, Shapiro joined
the Obama administration's National Security
Council, his ambit being the Middle East. It was
in this role that he went on his Syria mission. He
was subsequently rewarded with the ambassadorship
to Israel.
The other man who accompanied
Shapiro to Damascus was career diplomat Jeffrey
Feltman. Feltman's career took him to Israel three
times (twice at the embassy and once at the
Jerusalem consulate), once to the Coalition
Provisional Authority in Iraq and, most
controversially, as ambassador to Lebanon.
It was in Lebanon that Feltman made it
very clear that he favored the March 14 movement
of the Hariri clan, and Israel's agenda. The enemy
was Shi'ite Hezbollah. Things were so tense
between Feltman and Hezbollah's leader Hassan
Nasrallah that after the Israeli bombing of
Lebanon in 2006, Nasrallah dubbed the Lebanese
government of Fuad Siniora as "Feltman's
government" (Siniora ran the Hariri family's
banking operations before he took on the mantle as
head of government).
In the Obama
administration, Feltman was appointed assistant
secretary of state for Near Eastern Affairs, from
where he is to resign this week. Rumor has it that
Feltman is to be appointed as the head of the
United Nations' Department of Political Affairs.
In Damascus, these two men with strong
opinions met with Foreign Minister Walid
al-Muallim and President Bashar al-Assad's close
adviser, Bothaina Shaaban. The Syrians had a
one-point agenda: they wanted the US to let the
Europeans know that it was acceptable to sell
civil aviation parts to Syria.
The Syrian
economy, now increasingly privatized, was
suffering, and the Bashar al-Assad regime had come
under pressure from its coterie of neo-liberal
businessmen to make the sanctions disappear. The
US wanted the Syrians to be more aggressive with
its enemies: to strength the Iraq-Syria border,
and to eject Hamas from Gaza and Hezbollah.
The Syrians were not averse to pressuring
Hamas. Al-Muallim said that his government had
pushed Hamas to join the Palestinian Authority and
so be bound by its concessions to Israel. Turkey
and Syria had been trying to "educate Hamas
politically", al-Muallim said. What the Syrians
did not want was for the US to impose demands on
Hamas. "If you ask us to work constructively to
achieve the same goals, okay." On Hezbollah, the
Syrians wanted the US to treat it as the British
treated Sinn Fein. "The US needs to recognize
political realities," al-Muallim said.
Deals were cut, hands were shaken. The
Obama administration could not easily revoke the
2003 SAA. Export licenses from the Department of
Commerce allowed Boeing to overhaul Syrian Air's
747s. The Syrian regime put pressure on Hamas,
continued to try to tether Hezbollah and restarted
diplomatic relations with the US (ambassador
Robert Ford arrived in Syria in 2011, Syria's Imad
Moustafa was already in Washington).
Syria
was on the road to becoming one of the new pillars
of US power in the region. All this fell apart in
the Arab Spring, and notably with the Syrian
government's crackdown on the protests of 2011
(before a section of the opposition took to the
gun, egged on by the Gulf Arabs and the US).
During the Syrian uprising of 2011-12,
Feltman has made many trips to Lebanon. Here he
has made it very clear that this is an opportunity
for the March 14 movement to excise Hezbollah from
Lebanese political life, to intervene via Lebanon
into Syria, and to clean up the neighborhood in
the interests of the US and Israel.
In
March 2012, Feltman told the Lebanese to use the
2013 parliamentary elections to remove "the
apologists of Assad's butchery", "the pillar of
which is Hezbollah". Rumors swirl around Beirut
and Tripoli that Feltman is somehow linked to the
ship (Lutfallah II) stopped in the harbor
filled with guns for the Syrian opposition, and
that it is Feltman's hand that urges on Saudi
funding for the extremist Sunni bands to take on
Hezbollah on the streets (the key figure here
seems to be Shadi Al-Mawlawi).These are all
rumors, but what they suggest is that Feltman is
not seen as a responsible figure. As one person
said, Feltman is the "no 1 Sunni fanatic in
Lebanon".
Meanwhile, south of the border,
Feltman's friend Shapiro gave a speech recently on
Iran. He told a closed meeting in Tel Aviv on May
16 that it is "preferable" to resolve the tension
over Iran diplomatically "and through the use of
pressure, than to use military force. But that
does not mean that option isn't available. Not
just available, it's ready. The necessary planning
has been done to ensure that it's ready." Later
this summer, the US and Israeli forces will
conduct a joint drill to simulate a major attack.
Feltman, in Beirut, went to put "pressure"
on Iran. He warned Lebanese bankers not to allow
their sophisticated banking sector to be used to
break the siege on Iran's banks. "If some sides in
Lebanon seek to circumvent the sanctions on Iran,"
he said, "then the Lebanese government will face
very serious complicated problems with the
international community," viz the United States.
Feltman and Shapiro share a world view that is
askance of the Arab Spring. For them, US power is
central to the protection of Israel (with Israel
allowed to do what it wants in the neighborhood).
The fixation on Iran matches the paranoid world
view of the royal families of the Gulf Arab
states.
These are views that are no longer
in the political mainstream in the Arab capitals
(they haven't been the views in the street ever).
The 2009 trip to Damascus showed little care for
the Syrian people, many of whom suffered in
Assad's jails at that time (the US made good use
of those very jails, and those very torturers at
the high point of the extraordinary rendition
program, as can be attested by Maher Arar).
Nor is there concern for the Lebanese
people, at least half of whom see Hezbollah as a
protective shield against the violence visited on
Lebanon by Israel. What would the destruction of
Hezbollah (as demanded by UN Resolution 1599,
urged on by Feltman) do for the fears of those
Lebanese who fear another Israeli assault?
Shapiro is at least the US representative
in Israel, and faithfully represents the position
of the US government there. But Feltman is now
poised to take a senior role at the UN, as head of
the Department of Political Affairs. My sense is
that Feltman will be welcomed into the UN building
in much the same way as neo-conservative Paul
Wolfowitz was welcomed into the World Bank: with a
cold shoulder.
He has to be tolerated
because it was the immense bulk of his country
that forced him in, but he is not going to be
hailed for his agenda. It would make more sense
for Feltman to take over from Susan Rice, the US's
envoy at the UN. He is a good representative for
the current contours of US policy. He'd be a
terrible leader in the UN.
Vijay
Prashad is Professor and Director of
International Studies at Trinity College,
Hartford, United States. This spring he will
publish two books: Arab Spring, Libyan Winter
(AK Press) and Uncle Swami: South Asians in
America Today (New Press). He is the author of
Darker Nations: A People's History of the
Third World (New Press), which won the 2009
Muzaffar Ahmed Book Prize.
(Copyright
2012 Asia Times Online (Holdings) Ltd. All rights
reserved. Please contact us about sales,
syndication and
republishing.)
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
