The latest phase in the struggle for the Middle East witnessed adjustments in the relative power between the contending coalitions, the Syrian-Iranian alliance vs. the US and its reluctant allies. The contest was waged via proxies in two main battlegrounds, the fragmented states of Lebanon and Iraq. Despite its overwhelming military power, the US continued to lack the political legitimacy to impose its will in these states and hence a Pax Americana in the region remained out of its grasp.
The period opened with a major victory on the part of the Syrian-Iranian alliance in Lebanon where the pro-Syrian Hizbollah-led opposition turned the tables on a challenge by the pro-US/Saudi governing coalition. The Lebanese government had challenged Hizbollah’s security presence in Beirut’s international airport and its independent communications system. Taking this as an act of war, Hizbollah fighters swept into government fiefdoms in West Beirut, humiliating the main Sunni component of the ruling coalition, Saad Hariri’s Sunni militia, while the Lebanese army remained neutral or even sympathetic to Hizbollah. This transformation of power on the ground broke the deadlock between the two sides over governing power and paved the way for the intervention of Qatar. Qatar brokered an agreement between the Lebanese factions to elect a new neutral Christian president, army chief Michel Suleiman, and to form a national unity government in which the Shiite opposition had a veto, ensuring that all major decisions would be taken by consensus. This essentially restored the practice of consociational democracy against the attempt of the US-backed government to use its temporary majority to challenge Shia and Syrian interests in the country. Despite the military humiliation of the Sunnis, Prime Minister Fuad Sinora remained in office, hence the three main sects seemed set to share power, the only formula likely to ensure stability in Lebanon.
At the regional and international levels, the Lebanese outcome marked a major setback in efforts by the US and Saudi Arabia to use Lebanon to isolate Syria. A national unity government made it less likely that Lebanon would become a venue for using the Hariri tribunal to threaten the regime in Syria. The episode also demonstrated that Syria could not be isolated and its consent was essential to stability in Lebanon and the region generally. The first immediate payoff for Syria was the high-profile invitation by France to President Bashar al-Asad to attend the Paris European-Mediterranean summit, much lamented by Syria’s Lebanese enemies who were counting of a US-French coalition to discipline and even overthrow the Syrian regime. At the same time, Syria was engaged in exploratory peace talks with Israel under Turkish auspices, another demarche which obstructed Washington’s plans to isolate it. The outcome also reaffirmed Hizbollah’s military position in Lebanon, hence its ability to challenge Israel should Israel attack Iran. That it was tiny Qatar, having good relations with all sides, that brokered the Lebanon deal marked a setback for Saudi Arabia, usually the main broker in inter-Arab politics, but now a partisan player in the Lebanese power struggle and sidelined by its enmity to Syria.
In Iraq the outcome remains contested even if the US appears to have the upper hand. On the one hand, the US enjoyed increased success in marginalizing the guerilla insurgency by Sunni opponents and by the Shia Mahdi army and in consolidating a cooperative Iraq regime. In northern Iraq, a combined Iraqi-U.S. force routed Al-Qa'ida from Mosul, its last stronghold. Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki boasted that terrorism had been defeated in Iraq: “thanks to the will of the tribes, security forces, army and all Iraqis, we defeated them.'' Al-Maliki's crackdown on the Mahdi army, the reluctance of its leader, Moqtada as-Sadr, to confront his enemies, the U.S. surge in troop strength, and the Sunni tribal revolt against al-Qa'ida all contributed to the decline of armed opposition. The number of Iraqis dying in violence declined over the year from about 100 a day to 35/day. This was, however, in good part because many mixed neighbourhoods had been ethnically cleansed and transformed into guarded islands cut off from each other.
Although its base remains shallow and uninstitutionalized, the al-Maliki regime’s greater consolidation and the weakening of opposition was owing to several underlying factors. Skyrocketing oil prices, earning the regime about $70 billion over this year, has allowed it to assume a certain role as patron-state. The Sunni community has been, to a degree, appeased and co-opted by several factors; the easing of de-Bathification laws, allowing re-employment and pensions for civil servants under the Saddam regime, promised integration of Sunni tribal militias into the armed forces, local self-government in Sunni areas, and a better distribution of oil money to Sunni groups and regions all contributed to the decline of Sunni opposition. This came, however, at the cost of increased tribal influence and regional autonomy in Sunni regions that was bound to keep the central government weak.
At the same time, the Maliki government and the two governing Shi'i parties--the Da'wa and the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq and its Badr militia, appeared to achieve a temporary ascendancy over the main Shia opposition, the movement of Muqtada al-Sadr and his Mahdi army. The two sides stand for very different ideas of Iraq’s future. Sadr is a nationalist, wants a strong central government, is wary of Iran and strongly anti-American while the ruling parties advocate de-centralized federation that would give them permanent control over Shia areas of Iraq and balance between American and Iranian patronage. While al-Sadr has the strongest popular support among the lower class Shia, the ruling parties are based on exile groups that have infiltrated governing institutions such as the interior ministry and have thinner bases on the ground. In April 2008, al-Maliki, with US support, used the army to forcefully wrest parts of Basra from the control of the Mahdi Army while battles also erupted in Sadr City suburbs of Baghdad. This aimed to give pro-government factions undisputed control of Basra’s oil and port.
Interlocked with this intra-Shia struggle, was a major contest over the role of the US in Iraq. From the beginning, the US sought to govern Iraq by setting the sectarian-ethnic groups against each other while weakening Iraq’s Arab identity through promoting Kurdish autonomy and splitting the Arabs along Shia and Sunni lines. When this strategy alienated the Sunnis, the US altered its approach by promoting tribalism among them, a tactic facilitated by the exile from the country of big parts of the Sunni Middle class, the main social base of Iraqi Arab nationalism. For US imperialists, the current situation provides a promising scenario for institutionalizing US dominance in the country: the Iraqi regime is weak and appears dependent on US forces to stay in power, while Americans who would like to get out of Iraq are deterred by fear that the weak government left behind would collapse in chaos. The unintended consequence of US strategy was that in empowering the Shia, it also led to the expansion of Iranian influence in the country, and the current government, although dependent on the US, seeks also to appease Iran. Because Iran has hedged its bets, providing support to all the Shia groups, it would probably be the beneficiary of a regime collapse and become the main power broker in the country, perhaps together with Syria which had historic ties to the Sunni and Kurdish opposition under Saddam as well as with factions of the Iraqi Ba’th party. If the US exits, Iraq appears likely to fall into the hands of hostile forces, but maintaining its presence in the country is turning out to be less straightforward than anticipated.
This has become apparent as US-Iraqi negotiations unfolded over the regularization of the US presence in the country when the UN mandate expires. In these negotiations, the US sought to legitimatize a neo-colonial presence in the country involving permanent bases, autonomy of its military forces from Iraqi control and even their immunity from Iraqi law. This has provoked widespread opposition across the Iraqi public and in a recent poll, 75 percent of the Iraqi population was in favour of an immediate American withdrawal. Anti-occupation demonstrations formed a backdrop for the negotiations, constraining government negotiators: "No, no to colonization! Out, out you occupier!" crowds shouted in the Shia cities, especially in Sadr City where fierce battles had raged in the spring between Shiite militants and US forces in which hundreds of people were killed. The Baghdad regime was thus caught between its dependence on the US and the demands of its own Shia constituency. It also became apparent that the government would have little chance of getting the kind of agreement the US was demanding through parliament, where a majority of the political factions opposed an agreement that would put Iraq on the path of "slavery,” tempting al-Maliki to consider by-passing the constitutional process. The Shia government was also under pressure from Iran, its initial sponsor, not to concede US demands that would allow permanent US military presence on Iran’s borders. Importantly, senior Shia cleric Grand Ayatollah Sistani intervened to stiffen the government against US demands, calling for a time table for US withdrawal. The Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council led by Abdul Aziz Al Hakim accepted Al Sistani's demand, which for the first time coincides with that of the Sadr movement. As a result Iraq, began demanding a timetable for the withdrawal of US forces, strongly resisted in Washington. On the other hand, the Kurds and groups opposed to Iran accused Sistani of acting for Tehran. The newfound independence of the Iraqi regime may also reflect its increased confidence that it can survive a US departure. The outcome of the struggle over the terms, duration and extent of the US presence will go some way toward determining whether Iraq becomes another US client state in the region or whether its Arab and Shia Islamic popular identities turn it again into a natural opponent of Washington.
Meanwhile, the war of nerves waged by the US and Israel against Iran over the latter’s nuclear program continued, with Pentagon officials revealing large scale preparations by Israel for an air strike on Iran. Iran, in return threatened retaliation and a closure of the flow of oil through the straits of Hormuz. Yet, in a major policy shift by Washington, US Under Secretary of State William Burns attended talks between Iranian chief nuclear negotiator Said Jalili and EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana to discuss a package of incentives offered to Tehran. Unofficially, the possibility of a partial restoration of US ties with Iran was also raised. Iran will not concede on the nuclear issue, however, unless the US offers a “grand deal” that would involve security guarantees and an end to the US-orchestrated isolation of the country.
Paradoxically, despite Washington’s unprecedented military power in the region, its political influence has actually declined compared to the apex of Pax Americana in the nineties and the period in the aftermath of its conquest of Iraq. Losing in Lebanon, challenged in Iraq and unable to cow Tehran, the US also finds that many Arab countries traditionally aligned with it are showing increasing reluctance to follow its lead in addressing regional problems. Even states that host major U.S. military facilities on their soil, such as Qatar, Kuwait, and Bahrain, consider U.S. policy in the region counterproductive. The GCC countries blame the US invasion of Iraq, against their advice, for turning a country that used to be a buffer against Iran influence into a conduit of Iranian influence in the area. With Iran now a much enhanced actor, and the US seen as unreliable and little concerned for their interests, their only option is to balance between the US and Iran. Hence they rebuffed US efforts to create an anti-Iranian front and strongly oppose a US or Israeli attack on Iran which is bound to be extremely damaging for the Arab Gulf. In opposition to US policy, Qatar negotiated a solution to the standoff in Lebanon while Egypt, in defiance of U.S. policy, has tried to bring Hamas and Fatah together in Palestine. Turkey has, against US efforts to isolate Syria, become the key mediator in the renewed negotiation between Syria and Israel, taking on a role traditionally monopolized by the United States. The root of US political weakness is that while its confrontational policy panders to domestic pressure groups in Washington, it threatens the security of the Middle East region. As Ottoway and Herzallah explain, in allowing itself to become a partisan player in the region, the US has surrendered its ability to broker the compromises and adjustments of interests required for Middle East stability. It enjoys complete military superiority over any given country but its forces are too overstretched in Iraq and Afghanistan for them to be further employed to force America’s will on its opponents. Many of these opponents are non-state actors against whom it is difficult to deploy military power and such power alone cannot resolve the main conflicts—sectarian strife in Lebanon and Iraq, the Palestinian–Israeli conflict—which keep the regional pot boiling. As they put it, “the rejection of diplomacy has thus reduced the United States to a condition of self-inflicted powerlessness regarding many problems.”
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