Too
late to stem Middle East covert
war By Victor Kotsev
While both Tehran and Washington were
eager to deny a New York Times report which
claimed they had agreed "in principle for the
first time to one-on-one negotiation," the covert
war between the main camps in the Middle East
moved to the Lebanese capital Beirut.
Even
more than a coup for Syrian President Bashar
al-Assad (who is having trouble managing the
terror situation in his own country), the large
bombing Friday which assassinated a Lebanese
security chief and seven others was a sign that
the militant organization Hezbollah, an important
Iranian ally, is coming under increasing pressure.
Brigadier General Wissam al-Hasan, who was
killed in the attack, was responsible for the
arrest of former Lebanese minister Michel
Samaha a few months ago,
charged with plotting terror attacks in the
country on behalf of the Syrian regime. He also
implicated Hezbollah in the murder of former
Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq al-Hariri, which
caused an international outcry in 2005 and forced
the Syrian army out of Lebanon. Amid rioting at
al-Hasan's funeral, his own murder may yet
precipitate the fall of Lebanon's government,
dominated by Hezbollah.
The explosion
appeared to be a part of Hezbollah's frantic
recent activity, including an ever more public
involvement of the organization in the Syrian
civil war and the sending of a drone - allegedly
in a joint operation with Iranian special forces -
into Israel a couple of weeks ago. It also came in
the midst of a heightened exchange of cyber
attacks between Iran and its Western enemies.
Both Israeli and American officials
recently announced that key infrastructure in
their countries - especially banks and other
financial institutions - were coming under
increasing attacks from a group of hackers
allegedly located in Iran.
On the other
hand, the Russian computer security firm Kaspersky
announced last week that it had discovered a new
virus from the same family as Stuxnet, Duqu, Flame
and Gauss, all of which are believed to be highly
sophisticated cyber weapons used by the United
States and/or Israel against the Iranian nuclear
program. Kaspersky described the new malware,
dubbed "miniFlame", as a program that "was used
for extremely targeted cyber-espionage operation".
There are several ways of interpreting
these developments. There is little doubt that
indirect negotiations (what is known in negotiator
circles as "track 2") are taking place between the
US, Iran and their allies. Iranian officials have
hinted that a breakthrough may come after the US
presidential elections next month. Last Wednesday,
the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency
Yukya Amano also alluded to a positive
development, telling Reuters that "I hope we can
have a meeting [with the Iranians] quite soon."
On the one hand, it is possible that
Hezbollah aims to bolster Iran's hand in these
talks through a dangerous bluff that could easily
backfire and ignite Lebanon. Alternatively, it may
be trying to act as a spoiler - perhaps in order
to ensure that it or the Syrian regime would not
be traded by their patron in exchange for
undisclosed Western concessions - precisely by
bringing larger-scale violence to the country.
Many observers believe that the current secret
negotiations between the US and Iran revolve
primarily around Syria. If the fire of identity
conflict spreads to Lebanon, the Syrian tangle
would become even more complicated and difficult
to cut.
According to a third possibility,
Hezbollah, which has come under increasing
domestic and international pressure for its role
in Syria and its violation of several United
Nations Security Council resolutions calling on it
to disarm, may be acting to assert itself. A day
before al-Hasan's assassination, the Secretary
General of the UN, Ban Ki-Moon, filed a harsh
report on it, which was obtained by the Israeli
daily Ha'aretz.
The threat to Hezbollah is
not just diplomatic and political. Since the
Syrian regime is a key link in the resupply chain
stretching from Iran all the way to Lebanon and
Gaza, the civil war against Assad is a grave
threat to the Lebanese militants. In order to
protect their Levantine military array beyond the
projected collapse of central authority in
Damascus, the Iranians have reportedly been
setting up a sectarian Alawite militia in Syria
and testing various new technologies such as a
growing fleet of drones. [1]
It appears
likely that the drone sent over Israel earlier
this month was part of this contingent. It bears
noting that according to one theory, the Iranians
and the Lebanese militants sought to photograph
the set-up of a joint US-Israeli missile defense
exercise, which is scheduled to begin this week
and threatens the efficacy of the main weapon in
Hezbollah's arsenal, its missile stockpiles.
Meanwhile, it is unclear where exactly
each of the main actors in the Middle East stands
vis-a-vis the negotiations and the recent
developments. Most - including Hezbollah itself -
hurried to condemn Friday's terror attack in
Lebanon.
The US, where the most heated
part of the presidential election campaign is
underway, is refraining from any major decisions.
While some hope that this will change next month -
and we may certainly see a push toward public
meetings with Iranian leaders - others express
doubts that American policy will shift
fundamentally. As the veteran negotiator Aaron
David Miller put it in an article published by
Foreign Policy Magazine, "Regardless of who's
elected president in November, 2013 may be no more
determinative in deciding the fate of the mullahs'
bomb than 2012 was." [2]
Russia has also
vacillated recently, though arguably for different
reasons. Its massive recent military deal with
Iraq, almost certainly sealed with the
acquiescence of the US, suggests that it is
willing to accept sweeteners that might convince
it to abandon other lucrative clients such as
Syria and Iran. Its dealings with Israel,
including a large bid by the Russian
state-controlled giant, Gazprom, to co-develop
Israeli natural gas fields in the Mediterranean
Sea, point in the same direction.
On the
other hand, as the US-based intelligence analysis
organization Stratfor argues, regime change in
Iran may facilitate regime changes in Central
Asia. [3] This is a major red line for the
Russians, and, coupled with the prospect of an
increased American presence in Tehran after the
hypothetical fall of the ayatollahs, means that
the Kremlin will likely continue to support the
Iranian regime.
Similarly, the Russians
can be expected to continue at least some forms of
cooperation with the Syrian government. For
example, unverified reports claim that Moscow is
shifting the responsibility of supplying arms to
the Assad regime to proxies such as Belarus.
According to a separate Stratfor analysis,
Turkey is trying to facilitate the negotiations,
while Saudi Arabia can be expected to have the
opposite role in the future. "Though Saudi Arabia
can see the risk to the region of having Syria
remain in a prolonged state of civil war,"
Stratfor writes, "it also does not want to see a
broader understanding between Washington and
Tehran develop out of the Syrian crisis, an
understanding that could strain the US-Saudi
relationship. If negotiations gain traction in the
coming months, Saudi Arabia may end up being more
of a spoiler than a facilitator." [4]
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