05.20.08
About That New Middle East
From R-G
Rootless Cosmopolitan May 13th, 2008
About That New Middle East
By Tony Karon
Could there be a more perfect image of the catastrophic self-inflicted
rout suffered by U.S. Middle East policy under President George W.
Bush? This week, the President will party with Israels leaders
celebrating their countrys 60th anniversary and champion a phony peace
process whose explicit aim is to produce an agreement to go on the
shelf with Bush curiously choosing the moment to honor [1]the legend
of the mass infanticide and suicide of the Jewish Jihadists at Masada.
Meanwhile, across the border in Lebanon, Hizballah are riding high on
the tectonic shifts in the Middle Easts political substructure, making
clear that the new Middle East [2]memorably (if grotesquely)
inaugurated by Condi Rice in Beirut in 2006 is nothing like that
imagined or pursued by the Bush Administration. On the contrary, the
Bush Administration has managed to weaken its friends and allies and
empower its enemies to an almost unprecedented degree.
The collapse and humiliation of the U.S.-backed Lebanese government
after it had foolishly threatened to curb Hizballahs ability to fight
Israel was simply the latest example of a failed U.S. policy of
cajoling allies into confrontations with politically popular radical
movements that the U.S. and its allies simply cant win. And picking
fights that you cant win is not exactly adaptive behavior. Indeed, as
[3]I noted earlier this week, recovering alcoholics in America are
taught the adage that repeating the same behavior and expecting
different results is the very definition of insanity but by measure of
what weve seen in Gaza, Basra, Sadr City, thats one lesson that
appears to have eluded this particular administration. The Lebanese
showdown was initiated by Washingtons closest allies threatening to
close down Hizballahs internal communication network, and its hard not
to suspect that such a provocative move could only have been taken
with Washingtons encouragement. And to put it unkindly, paper tigers
should not play with matches.
The result was predictable, because in terms of popular support,
organization, and arms in the field, the militias backing the
U.S.-backed government are no match for Hizballah, which quickly
seized control of Beirut, and also of other key locations. But
[4]Hizballah made abundantly clear that it had no intention of taking
over the country, it was simply underlining its intention to maintain
its capacity to fight Israel and to resist any attempt to trim that
capacity, regardless of whether such trimming is required by UN
Security Council resolutions. Thats why it took control over key
Druze-controlled towns in the Chouf because theyre strategically
valuable in any confrontation with the Israelis.
President Bush sounded like a man lost in his own fantasies when he
vowed, in response, [5]to beef up the Lebanese army to help it disarm
Hizballah. The Lebanese Army, Bush appears not to have noticed, enjoys
the trust of Hizballah, which is why the Shiite militia immediately
handed over areas it captured to the Army. And the reason the Army
enjoys Hizballahs trust is its scrupulous neutrality in the civil
conflict between the government and the Hizballah-led opposition (i.e.
in the clash between the U.S.-Saudi backed bloc and the Syrian-Iranian
backed bloc) the Lebanese Army has no intention of disarming
Hizballah. On the contrary, it appears willing to cooperate with the
movements efforts to steel itself for a new battle with the Israelis.
[6]Rami Khouri, the Daily Star editor at large whose analyses are
essential reading, is [7]optimistic over the potentials for a new
Middle East political order revealed in the unfolding of events in
Lebanon.
Herewith an excerpt of his analysis:
1. When the government decided to challenge Hezbollah last Tuesday, by
announcing it was sacking the Shia army general in charge of airport
security and dismantling Hezbollahs underground security
telecommunications network, Hezbollah saw this as the first serious
attempt by the government to try and disarm it.
Hezbollah immediately challenged the government, warned it against
these decisions, and made a show of force to protect its security and
telecommunications system. When street clashes started in several
parts of Beirut, the Iranian- and Syrian-backed Hezbollah-led
opposition alliance quickly and roundly asserted its dominance over
the U.S.- and Saudi-backed government alliance. Put to the test, the
new balance of power in Lebanon affirmed itself on the street for the
first time in less than 24 hours.
2. All the Lebanese parties repeatedly indicated a preference for
political compromise over communal war, but also showed they were
prepared to fight if forced to. The persistent negotiations via the
mass media included critical agreements on naming armed forces
commander Michael Suleiman as the new president, resuming the national
dialogue, forming a government of national unity, and revising the
electoral law before holding parliamentary elections next year
3. The newly vulnerable government effectively backed down Saturday
and reversed its two decisions, as Hezbollah had demanded. The street
balance of power was translated into a new political equation inside
Lebanon. Hezbollah and its allies had achieved on the street that
which they had been asking for politically: the capacity to veto
government decisions that were seen as threatening Hezbollahs security
and resistance activities.
4. By immediately handing over to the armed forces those few buildings
and strategic locations that they had taken over in Beirut, Hezbollah
and its allies sent the signal that they did not want to rule the
entire country, and that they trusted the army as a neutral arbiter
between the warring Lebanese factions.
Prime Minister Siniora sent the same message when he asked the armed
forces and their commander Michele Suleiman to decide on the fate of
the two contested government security decisions that had sparked
Hezbollahs move into West Beirut. The armed forces emerged as the
powerful political arbiter and peace-keeper, effectively forming a
fourth branch of government, and the only one that is credible and
effective in the eyes of the entire population.
All factions have agreed to get armed gunmen off the streets and leave
only the army and police as public security guardians. Now they are
expected to follow up quickly by formally naming Suleiman as president
(to which they have all agreed already), agreeing on a transitional
national unity government of technocrats, and drawing up a new
election law. The precise sequence of those events is one of the
disputed points that must be agreed, but agreement may be easier now
that the army has emerged as a pivotal arbiter and political actor.
The new domestic political balance of power in Lebanon will reflect
millennia-old indigenous Middle Eastern traditions of different and
often quarreling parties that live together peacefully after
negotiating power relationships, rather than one party totally
defeating and humiliating the other.
The idea that the Lebanese Army is now going to accept U.S. tutelage
and beefing up is simply fanciful. Someone ought to tell the Bush
White House the bad news: It lost Lebanon.
But as much as I respect Ramis analysis, Im not sure I share his
optimism over the idea that the manner in which this round was settled
could become a model for the Middle East. Here I would heed the
warnings of another fine analyst and [8]sometime Rootless Cosmopolitan
contributor Alastair Crooke, writing specifically about the
[9]increasingly vacuous efforts by Western countries to save a
two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In the region
beyond the Ramallah hothouse there is no what if? The failure of the
two-state solution is expected, and discounted, as thinking has
evolved in a different direction: The cheer-leaders among Europeans
desperate to rescue it are stuck in denial from this perspective.
The point holds for Pax Americana more generally in the Middle East.
Crooke writes:
Israel has become so accustomed to Palestinian negotiators running to
talks with Israel irrespective of the deaths of Palestinians or new
announcements of further illegal settlement construction that Israel
and the US Administration believe that an Israeli signal of peace,
however cynical its motive, is enough to placate the region and to
allow Israel and the US the quiet with which to continue with their
plans.
But if this is what they think, then it is little wonder that the West
so regularly misreads the ground in the region: Not all Palestinians
are desperate for hope from Israel. Far from it, many are making ready
against the possibility of conflict.
The feeling among Islamists, many secularists, Christians, and a
number of states is of being at the cusp of fundamental change. Change
is coming; and the region will not again be what it is today: This
major current does not foresee the coming era to be the one that
Europe or the US envisages; but something very different. Islamic
movements and states such as Syria and Iran increasingly are concerned
to judge the evolving strategic shifts accurately. This is more
important to them than to make some tactical and short term political
accommodation with western powers no one wants to be caught on the
wrong side of events.
Underlying this psychological mood-shift is the realisation that
neither Israel nor the US seems able to come to terms with the key
outcome from the two Gulf conflicts: the inevitable emergence of Iran
as a pre-eminent regional power. Similarly, the consensus is that the
US is incapable also of coming to terms with the prospect of Islamist
empowerment; and therefore of adjusting its secular, free-market
vision for the region. And there is no sense that Europe or Israel or
the US understands the nature or the energies being released by the
growing forces of resistance. there is no real sense that Israel or
its US and European friends possess the political resources to make a
strategic change of direction; or even to come to terms with Iranian
or Islamist empowerment.
Crooke sees in this inability by the Bush-led Western alliance to
grasp the reality of the changes that have occurred in the Middle East
a growing likelihood of war:
The dynamic of waning western power to shape events as the West would
like, is that sooner or later, the risk of a clash between the
polarised forces of the West with some part of the axis-of-resistance
becomes much greater. When Annapolis, Iraq and the current Israeli
overtures to take Syria out from the axis fail; when western options
narrow; and when its peace initiatives come-up empty, logic argues
that a frustrated West is likely to resort to military means to weaken
or break the resistance.
Syria and the Lebanese understand that they are in the frontline in
this event as much as Iran; and all are mentally stiffening themselves
against this prospect. The region is not desperate for peace: It would
welcome it, of course; but much of it is also preparing and
judiciously expecting the worst. It is the Wests lack of recognition
of the strength and rigour of this new psychology of resilience
towards prospective conflict, and of lack of understanding why western
policies are seen as so dangerously inadequate and misconceived, that
pushes many in the region to believe that a West, sunk in deep denial,
carries with it the probability of conflict whether inadvertent or
deliberate. Unless it is understood that it is this strategic focus
that preoccupies Iran, Syria, Hesballah and Hamas, their thinking
cannot begin to be judged accurately and grave mistakes may occur.
Crookes description of a hardening in preparation for war, to my mind,
offer the best explanation for what drove Hizballahs handling of the
most recent crisis. If the choice facing the punch-drunk Bush
Administration is between responding sensibly and creatively to the
changed reality as Rami Khouri suggests they ought to and lashing out
militarily in the hope of reversing the new balance of forces, as
Alastair Crooke suggests they will, Im afraid my money is on the Bush
Administration maintaining its dismal record.
References
Visible links
1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masada
2. http://tonykaron.com/2006/09/10/911-and-the-children-of-a-lesser-god/
3. http://www.thenational.ae/article/20080511/OPINION/996191786/1080&profile=1080
4. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/may/13/lebanon.israelandthepalestinians
5. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/may/14/georgebush.lebanon
6. http://www.ramikhouri.com/
7. http://english.aljazeera.com/news/newsfull.php?newid=118561
8. http://tonykaron.com/2008/03/25/iraq-and-us-faith-in-violence/
9. http://conflictsforum.org/2008/but-what-if-nobody-takes-notice/
Hidden links:
10. http://technorati.com/tag/Lebanon
11. http://technorati.com/tag/Bush
12. http://technorati.com/tag/Israel
13. http://technorati.com/tag/Hizballah
14. http://technorati.com/tag/Iran