Four crises have been foci of the struggle for the Middle East in the beginning of 2008: Lebanon, the Palestine-Israeli conflict, the Iranian nuclear problem and Iraq. Because the US has been involved in each, they have polarized the region between Washington’s supporters and opponents, with pro-US Saudi Arabia and Egypt in a struggle with Iran and Syria, especially over Iraq and Lebanon where each backs opposing sides. Each time one or the other side takes the initiative, the ripple effects impact on the whole region.
Those who thought the Iranian nuclear crisis had been defused by the US National Intelligence Estimate assessment that Iran had given up its nuclear program did not reckon on the determination of the Bush administration which produced new ‘evidence’ it said showed otherwise. On the strength of this, enough doubt was cast on Iranian intentions that Washington managed to get the needed Security Council votes to impose another slight tightening of sanctions. Although nobody expected they would affect Iran’s stand, the German representative insisted they were needed for the Security Council to retain its credibility. Iran responded by suspending all talks over the issue with the EU.
The Palestine conflict was dominated by two issues, the continued standoff between Hamas and Israel in Gaza, with Hamas firing rockets into Israel border towns and Israel launching military incursions into Gaza, costing the lives of many Palestinians and blockading the territory, with a resultant humanitarian crisis. When Hamas sought relief for the Palestinians by breaching the wall separating Gaza from Egypt, the latter was drawn into the struggle, put under pressure by Israel and the US to re-seal the border and from Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood which mobilized demonstrations in support of the Palestinians and Hamas (initially its Palestinian branch). The Egyptian government chose to blame Hamas for provoking the conflict with Israel, as well as its supposed Syrian and Iranian backers, and even ordinary Palestinians. After Egyptian police came under attack by stone-throwing Palestinians as they re-sealed the border, one Egyptian newspaper accused the Palestinians of regarding Egypt as they do Israeli forces: ‘Egypt will never allow the Palestinians to do to the Sinai what they have done to Jordan or Lebanon’—i.e. drag Egypt back into the conflict with Israel. Syria is accused of trying to create security problems for Egypt in order to force it to give up its role in seeking a solution to the presidential crisis in Lebanon, where Egypt and Saudi Arabia are backing factions opposed to Syria.
Meanwhile, the crisis in Lebanon between the ruling Maronite-Sunni coalition and the Shia Hizbollah continued, with the security situation deteriorating. The assassination of Hezbollah commander Imad Mughniyya, a man on the US most-wanted list for his involvement in terrorism against the US in the 1980s, sharply raised tensions. This was likely a joint US-Israeli operation. Israel’s Mossad secret service said his death "took years of planning." America's CIA had also been pursuing him for decades as the mastermind of Hezbollah's military wing; in 2002 they put a $25
million-dollar price tag on his life. The US sent anti-missile warships to the Israeli port of Haifa and Patriot anti-missiles batteries were deployed across northern Galilee in case Hezbollah retaliated for Mughniyeh's death. The US and Gulf states embassies in Beirut warned their nationals in Lebanon that they could be targeted by armed organizations hostile to their governments’ stands in Lebanon. Two American naval vessels are stationed in international waters off the Lebanese coast.
The intractable crisis in Lebanon is rooted in the inequitable sectarian distribution of power: although the Shia are the largest community, they are accorded the least political power. Currently, Christians and Sunnis can block any government action that threatens their interests since the Christians control the presidency and command the army while the Sunnis appoint the prime minister and command the internal security forces. In contrast, the Shia have no controlling position in the executive branch and must rely on the Speaker of the Parliament and the Hizbollah militia to protect their interests. They are demanding a veto on cabinet decisions, but their opponents, backed by the US and the main Arab Sunni powers, have refused. They oppose any enhancement of Shia power but also oppose any change because the Shia are seen to protect Syria’s interests in Lebanon. The speaker of Lebanon’s parliament, Nabih Berri has argued that if the conflict between Damascus and Riyadh were ended, there would be a major positive knock-on effect on his own country since their rift is preventing any solution to the crisis. The nub of the inter-Arab conflict is Saudi backing of the international tribunal that Syria fears will be used to accuse it of the murder of former Sunni prime minister and Saudi client, Rafiq Hariri.
The war in Iraq has increased Iranian influence in the region, with politicians of the majority Shia, many former exiles in Iran, now dominating political power. The chaos in Iraq has also discredited US policy in the region. Iraq’s fragmentation has steadily worsened, even splitting the dominant Shia camp. The principal current conflict among two Shia groups, Muqtada al-Sadr’s anti-US group, and the Supreme Islamic Council is over power and oil, particularly in oil-rich Basra. Even the Shia parties in the ruling governing coalition, the Dawa Party of Prime Minister Maliki and the Supreme Islamic Council are competing for Washington’s goodwill on the one hand and Tehran’s on the other—while also vying for support in the Shi’i street. Iraqis are disillusioned by the failure of the regime to improve the economy (unemployment is widespread) and public services (electricity and petrol are scare in an oil rich country). Continuing rampant insecurity, sectarian killings and ‘ethnic cleansing’ has trapped Iraqis in sectarian ghettos. The position of the US in Iraq has only improved because it has reached a deal to pay off former Sunni tribal insurgents of the Sunni Awakening (Sahwa) groups which are seeking, in return, incorporation into the Iraqi army. This will turn the army into an amalgam of militias with contradictory loyalties.
Both Saudi Arabia and Egypt resent what they consider Iranian "interference in Arab affairs." They see as an attempt by Iran to gain influence that will serve it in its struggle vis-à-vis the West. Of course, it is Egypt and Saudi Arabia that, through their alliances with Washington, have brought the most intrusive force of all into the region. What Sunni Arab governments are worried about is the influence of the Iranian-backed Hamas and Hezbollah movements which are fighting Israel and hence have great appeal to their own publics whose passions are inflamed by Israeli conduct in the Palestine territories. An example of the danger for Sunni-ruled states is the case of Kuwait where the killing of Mughniyeh sparked Sunni-Shia tensions following demonstrations by Kuwait’s Shia minority in support of the slain commander. The Kuwaiti authorities claimed Mughniyeh had hijacking a Kuwaiti plane during the Iran-Iraq conflict and arrested eight leading Shiite activists including two former MPs and a prominent cleric on charges of being members of Hezbollah Kuwait, a previously unknown group. The arrests brought further demonstrations by hundreds of angry Shia sympathizing with Hezbollah.
Against this backdrop, Iran has made several remarkable interventions in the Sunni-Shia conflict by seeking rapprochement, first with Saudi Arabia in 2007 and more recently with Egypt. Egypt and Iran have been estranged since the Iranian revolution, with Egypt seeing Iran as a subversive threat seeking to inflame Islamist dissent in Egypt. In a break with this hostility, reciprocal visits by Iranian and Egyptian officials have taken place between September 2007 and February 2008. Egypt's relations with the U.S. have become tense following Congress's freezing of some aid after Israeli accusations that Egypt was not doing enough to secure the Egypt-Gaza border, particularly following the border breach at Rafah. Egypt's relations with the E.U. have also cooled since a European Parliament resolution condemned its human rights record. Discerning a cooling in Egypt's relations with the West, Iran is hoping break the Sunni front against it and hence push back American hegemony in the region which depends on the main Sunni regimes. Egypt’s moves toward Iran send a message to the West that its fealty cannot be taken for granted.
In wooing Egypt, Iranian commentators have acknowledged Egypt’s strategic position at the crossroads of three continent and contiguous to both North Africa and occupied Palestine as well as its political, cultural, religious and economic capabilities. Egypt is seen as still a leader of the Arab world in many respects. Ali Larijani, the representative of Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei in Iran's Supreme National Security Council explained: "Iran must not allow the U.S. and others to undermine its relations…[with other Middle East countries]... "With the decline of America's exclusive status [as the sole dominant force in the Middle East]... Iran and Egypt, the strongest countries in the region, have a chance to play a greater role in stabilizing the [Middle East] by acting in cooperation... Such cooperation will benefit all the Arab and Muslim countries.” The Iranians hinted that Iran could provide an alternative to Egypt's alliance with the U.S., but acknowledged that this would mean Egypt giving up its $2 billion yearly aid from Washington-- and is therefore hardly likely; still good relations with Iran would ease Egypt’s dependence on the US.
As for Egypt, Iran is a issue of contention among Egyptian analysts, between the traditional anti-Iran faction and what one of them called the ‘ Iranian lobby in Egypt." Dr. Muhammad Al-Sa'id 'Abd Al-Mumin, professor of Iranian studies at 'Ain Shams University, wrote in favour of rapprochement: "Egypt's interests must not be [dictated] by the media struggles between Iran and the West, or between Iran and Israel. Its attaining nuclear weapons would [only] benefit the Arab countries in their struggle against Israel. Opponents of this view argued that Iranian backing for Hamas and Hezbollah aims to embarrass Egypt for its weakness toward Israel. Since the Persian Empire, the interests of Iran and the Arabs are said to have clashed and an Iranian nuclear weapon would decisively shift the balance of power toward Iran to the detriment of the Arabs and of Egypt’s role in the region.
Meanwhile tiny Qatar has been playing a curious role seemingly in line with Iranian ambitions to be accepted as a player in the Arab world, inevitably at the expense of US hegemony; remarkably this role, motivated by its long-standing tension with its big Saudi neighbour, is pursued in spite of Qatar’s role as a major base for US military forces that were used in the invasion of Iraq and might be used against Iran. Qatar has tilted toward the Iranian-Syrian axis in several respects. Qatar unilaterally invited Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to attend the summit of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) in Doha. It supported Hizbullah in the U.N. Security Council by working to block Resolution 1701, and, unlike other GCC states, it refrained from condemning the Hamas takeover of Gaza. Qatar, as the Arab state on the Security Council at the time, abstained in the vote over Security Council Resolution 1737 which threatens Syria with an international tribunal on the Hariri assassination. In a latest move, Foreign ministers of Syria, Qatar, Oman and Iran held a meeting in Damascus in early March, ahead of the upcoming Damascus Arab summit at the end of March 2003, seemingly to coordinate views on the crises in Lebanon and occupied Palestinian territories and in preparation for the upcoming summit. Owing to the conflict over Lebanon, Saudi Arabia threatened to stay away or send a low level delegation to the summit. Saudi Arabia was seeking assurances from Syria that the anti-Syrian Lebanese government would be invited to the summit; but when the invitation was issued, the Lebanese turned it down.
The single thread that unites each of the regional conflicts is the hand of the US: it destroyed the Iraqi state, unleashing the Shia-Sunni conflict; it, together with France, precipitated the crisis in Lebanon; its extraordinary financial and military backing for Israel prevents a resolution of the Arab-Israel conflict (however much it may appear to mediate the conflict); and its campaign against Iran’s nuclear program (acting largely as a proxy for Israeli fears) prevents a normalization of Iran’s global and regional position. In their turn, regional actors, in trying to get the US on their side in their conflicts with each other, enable Washington to exploit regional conflicts to sustain its hegemony through the classic divide-and-rule strategy of imperial powers. That is what makes any easing of the Sunni-Shia split so potentially important.
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