Ebb-tide for the Arab League

                                                                                 Video version
          The Arab League’s economic and social summit, held in Beirut on 19 and 20 January, hardly showed the organization at its most dynamic.

          All Arab heads of state were invited. Almost none turned up.

          “We wanted this summit to be an occasion that brought together all the Arabs, leaving no vacant seats,” said the host, President Michel Aoun of Lebanon, in his opening remarks. “The hurdles were unfortunately stronger.”

          Most countries sent minor officials to represent them, but two states in particular were notable by their absence. One was Libya.

          The antagonism between Lebanon’s Shi’ites and the state of Libya goes back some 40 years. On 25 August 1978, at the invitation of Libyan president Muammar Gaddafi, the revered Shia religious leader Musa al-Sadr set off with two companions for a meeting. The three men were last seen on 31 August. They were never heard from again. Supporters of Lebanon’s main Shi’ite political party, Amal. have continued to press the Libyan government to investigate the circumstances of their disappearance, but to no effect.

          Consequently, from the time Lebanon was selected to host the new summit, Amal supporters announced that they opposed Libya attending. Finally they threatened to block the Libyan delegation at the airport if they tried to fly in, and then symbolically burned a Libyan flag. Shortly afterwards Libya announced that it would not be present.

          Another non-attender was Syria. Soon after the start of the Syrian civil war the Arab League, appalled by the violence and bloodshed of President Bashar al-Assad’s response to opposition dissent, suspended Syria’s membership. Nothing succeeds like success, and the fact that Assad, with the support of Russia, Iran and Hezbollah, has regained a large part of the territory lost to Islamic State in the early years of the conflict, has generated a change of attitude among Arab nations.

          In December 2018 the Sudanese president, Omar al-Bashir, became the first Arab League leader to visit Syria for eight years. Sudan and Saudi Arabia have recently become close, and many believed the visit was a gesture of friendship on behalf of Saudi Arabia. But Syria is aligned to the Shi’ite arm of Islam, and in the weeks before the summit the Speaker of Lebanon’s Parliament, Nabih Berri, a Shi’ite, called for the whole event to be postponed until Syria was invited. Both Syria’s reconstruction and its refugees were on the agenda, and Berri asked what the point was of discussing them in Syria’s absence.

          He was far from alone. Most of the Sunni Arab world is strongly opposed to the Iranian regime’s ambition to dominate the Middle East, but there was reportedly a growing consensus among the League’s 22 members that, despite the fact that Assad has been in a close alliance with Iran, Syria should be readmitted. The logic of supporting Syria’s return into the League lies in the hope that it might swing Assad away from Tehran and back into the Arab fold. It is often forgotten that the Iranian nation, though Muslim, is not Arab.

          When the 28 members of the European Union meet, they are at least at peace with one another. The same cannot, unfortunately, be said of the 22 members of the Arab League.

          “Half these countries are fighting each other in wars or undermining each other,” said Rami G Khouri, a Beirut-based political columnist.
        

          In Yemen, Saudi Arabia and its coalition, including the United Arab Emirates, are battling the Iranian-supported Houthis in a conflict that has reduced the country to famine and penury. Although delegates from the Saudi-backed and officially recognized government of Yemen attended the summit, the League had nothing to offer on its humanitarian crisis.

          Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states are at daggers drawn with Qatar, with whom they have cut off diplomatic relations and tried to isolate economically. In Syria several Arab states have funded one or other of the rebel groups that have been combatting Assad’s government forces.

          The venue chosen for the summit, Lebanon, exemplifies the chaotic state of intra-Arab relations. Eight months after a general election the country still has no government. Dominated by Hezbollah, the “state within a state”, it is not only locked into a political stalemate, but is also the unhappy locus of a struggle between Shi’ite Iran and Sunni Saudi Arabia.

          Two issues that the Lebanese hosts desperately wanted help with were the huge burden imposed by the influx of refugees from the Syrian conflict, and the failing economy. But when one of the League’s assistant secretary-generals, Hussam Zaki, landed in Beirut to oversee preparations for the summit, he announced: “The internal political problems in Lebanon have nothing to do with the Arab League.”

          He was to be proved wrong. While the summit was still under way, mass rallies involving some 20,000 people were held in Beirut to protest the government’s economic policy. The most recent survey has revealed that more than 25 percent of Lebanese citizens live in poverty. The day after the summit Qatar stepped forward and offered to invest $500 million in Lebanon. Saudi Arabia, not to be outdone by the nation it is seeking to isolate, had its finance minister announce that his country would “support Lebanon all the way.”

         As for the refugee issue, the Arab League agreed, somewhat controversially, that refugees should be “encouraged” to return to their home country. A joint statement, read by Lebanese foreign minister Gebran Bassil, called on the international community to foster “favorable conditions for return” by providing aid in their home country.

          Many countries, particularly the Gulf states, were hesitant to encourage refugees to return in the absence of a political solution to the Syrian conflict. Bassil, however, announced that: “This statement represents a victory for Lebanon” and a “gesture of solidarity” from Arab countries.

          If so, it was a minimally positive outcome from an organization clearly in the doldrums. 

Published in the Eurasia Review, 27 January 2019:
http://www.eurasiareview.com/27012019-ebb-tide-for-the-arab-league-oped/ 


Published in the MPC Journal, 29 Jannuary 2019:
http://mpc-journal.org/blog/2019/01/29/ebb-tide-for-the-arab-league/

This rogue Iranian regime

                                                                              Video version
          Ever since then-US President Obama took office with his misconceived pro-Iran foreign policy, the Iranian regime has run rings around world opinion. 

          The nuclear deal with Tehran, brokered by Obama in 2015, was promoted as a way of both resolving the long‑standing controversy over Iran’s nuclear ambitions, and also encouraging the regime to join the so-called “comity of nations”.  The very reverse seems to have occurred. 

          The deal, the partial lifting of sanctions that followed, and the opening up of trade with the West appear to have emboldened the ayatollahs to pursue their political and religious ambitions with even greater determination. A recent report claimed that Tehran has so far successfully sidestepped all attempts to halt its nuclear program, while its continued missile development and testing program led Donald Trump to withdraw the US from the deal and to reimpose sanctions. 

          In addition, the regime has expanded its terrorist operations into the heart of Europe. 

         At the very time the nuclear deal was being signed in 2015, an Iranian activist opposed to the regime, Ali Motamed, was assassinated in the Dutch city of Almere. This was followed in 2017 by the murder in the Hague of another critic of the regime, Ahmad Molla Nissi. The Dutch intelligence service has “strong indications that Iran was involved in the assassinations.”

          In summer 2018 an Iranian opposition rally in Paris was very nearly the scene of carnage in the wake of a failed bomb plot. Apprehended by French security officials, a Belgian couple of Iranian origin were caught with half a kilogram of powerful explosives and a detonator. Paris believes the plot was organized by Assadollah Assadi, a senior member of Iran’s intelligence ministry. The couple are now awaiting trial in Belgium on terrorism charges.

          In September, Danish police successfully foiled a plot to assassinate an Iranian activist in Copenhagen. The Danish government, blaming Iranian intelligence for planning the attack, recalled its ambassador from Tehran.

          So far the European Union has been turning a blind eye to Iranian excesses. Flowing from the nuclear deal a number of European countries, especially Germany, France and Italy, have concluded highly profitable commercial arrangements with the Iranian regime. As a result, the EU has been working actively to subvert Trump’s newly imposed sanctions on Iran by way of a so-called Special Purpose Vehicle, a measure designed to allow European companies to continue trading with Iran without attracting punitive measures from the US.

         Yet the emerging evidence of Iranian terrorist activity on its very soil has stirred even the EU into action – albeit somewhat milk-and-water.

          On January 8, 2019, ambassadors from Belgium, Britain, Denmark, France, Germany and the Netherlands visited the Iranian Foreign Ministry in Tehran “to convey their serious concerns” about Iran’s behavior. In addition the EU imposed some limited sanctions which involve freezing assets connected to Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security, and to two Iranian officials believed to have been behind the Paris bomb plot.

         In response, Iran’s foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, did not deny the allegations, but accused European countries of harboring militants from the Mujahedeen Khalq, or M.E.K., a group that seeks the violent overthrow of the Iranian government.

          Meanwhile, the US and Poland have announced a summit, to be held in Warsaw over February 13-14, on securing stability and security in the Middle East, including the "important element of making sure that Iran is not a destabilizing influence."

          "We will gather around a number of different topics,” US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told reporters recently, “fighting ISIS is part of that... and address how we can get the Islamic Republic of Iran to behave like a normal nation. There will be countries from Asia, Africa and all across the world."

          The announcement evoked an immediate riposte from the Iranian regime. Iranian Vice President Eshaq Jahangiri said the summit was being held because US sanctions had failed to bring Iran to its knees. "Americans thought pressures would break down our economy. They wanted to bring our oil exports to zero but failed... Now they've decided to hold an anti-Iran conference in Europe." 

          But the world cannot continue ignoring the threat to global stability posed by the current Iranian regime. The Trump administration’s special representative for Iran, Brian Hook, recently published a dossier detailing the weaponry manufactured and supplied by Iran to combatants in Yemen, Iraq and Syria, together with details of the terrorist activity sponsored by the regime aimed at overthrowing the government of Bahrain.

          The fears of the Sunni Arab world about the intentions and actions of the Iranian regime are not irrational. They are based upon facts and evidence. The regime of the ayatollahs poses a threat to the civilized world, and it must be curbed.

Published in the MPC Journal, 21 January 2019:
http://mpc-journal.org/blog/2019/01/21/this-rogue-iranian-regime/

Published in the Eurasia Review, 22 January 2019:
https://www.eurasiareview.com/22012019-this-rogue-iranian-regime-oped/

We must not abandon the Kurds

                                                                             Video version

 One major factor behind President Trump’s decision to withdraw US special forces from Syria is the dominant position achieved by Russia, in alliance with Iran, in restoring the fortunes of Syria’s President Bashar al Assad. Another seems to have been a telephone discussion with Turkey’s President Erdogan just before Christmas 2018. The implications of this are worrying. 

          The military defeat of Islamic State (IS) over the eight long years of Syria’s civil conflict has been due in no small measure to the part played by the doughty Kurdish Peshmerga fighters. But for Erdogan the Kurds and their aspirations – whether for civil rights, for autonomy or, worst of all, for independence – are a constant thorn in the flesh. Kurd-occupied territory encompasses substantial areas of Turkey, but also of Syria, Iraq and Iran. It spans their borders. So Erdogan faces not only a domestic political threat from Turkish Kurds, but what he perceives as their military support abroad, and specifically in north-eastern Syria.

          Long before the civil war, the 2 million Kurds in Syria, accounting for 15 percent of the population, had aspired to some degree of autonomy. Their opportunity came with the internal uprising in 2011 against Assad’s regime. As the civil war inside Syria resulted in Islamic State winning vast swaths of territory, the Syrian Kurds began battling IS up in the north-east. Backed by air support and special forces from the US and its allies, the Kurdish Peshmergas began to prevail, winning back large areas of Kurd-inhabited territory.

          Today the Kurd-occupied region – about 25 per cent of the old Syria – is formally known as the Democratic Federation of Northern Syria (DFNS), ruled under a new federal and democratic constitution. It is not a sovereign state nor, if statements from its leaders are to be believed, does it aspire to be one. It is a semi-autonomous region, and there have been formal moves by its leaders to reach an accommodation with the Syrian president.

          In September 2017 Walid Muallem, Syria's foreign minister, said that his country was open to the idea of greater powers for the country's Kurds. They ”want a form of autonomy within the framework of the borders of the state," he said. "This is negotiable and can be the subject of dialogue." He indicated – presumably with the acquiescence of Russia – that discussions could begin once the civil conflict had ended.

          A Kurdish legislator, Omar Ussi. who sits in Syria's national parliament in Damascus recently said the government wanted the Kurds to "facilitate the entry of the Syrian army and the return of state institutions into Kurdish-majority areas east of the Euphrates.” In return, it was offering "constitutional recognition for the Kurdish community and its cultural rights."

          All this might eventually result in a Syrian version of the semi-autonomous Kurdistan that is recognized by the Iraqi government. But any such formal recognition of the DFNS would be anathema to Erdogan. Whatever degree of autonomy Syria’s Kurds might gain could only reinforce the separatist demands of the Kurds in Turkey.

          This explains Erdogan’s incursion in January 2018 into the region around Afrin in north-west Syria. His success in defeating the Kurdish forces there indicates that, allowed a free hand, Erdogan would probably take action aimed at gaining dominance right along the Turkey-Syrian border, decimating the DFNS Kurdish-ruled region.

         Subsequent to his off-the-cuff announcement about US troop disengagement from Syria, Trump seems to have allowed wiser counsels to prevail. The US simply could not allow a free-for-all to develop inside Syria, give Turkey carte blanche in its vendetta against the Kurds, and throw its long-time and successful ally and partner to the wolves. So whatever the substance of his telephone discussion with Erdogan, Trump now indicates that there is to be no hasty US withdrawal from Syria. It will be done, but in a measured and timely fashion.

          It is well established that in foreign relations there is little or no room for sentiment. Realpolitik is the order of the day. But the civilized world does owe a debt of gratitude to the Kurdish people in general, and to their stalwart Pershmerga fighters in particular, for their successful efforts to combat the evil and inhumane IS movement. Theirs has been a long struggle for recognition and self-determination. It is time the world honoured its debt and at least allowed the Kurds in Syria to negotiate an acceptable future for themselves as part of the post-war settlement.

Published in the MPC Journal, 13 January 2019:
http://mpc-journal.org/blog/2019/01/13/we-must-not-abandon-the-kurds/

Published in the Eurasia Review, 14 January 2019:
https://www.eurasiareview.com/14012019-we-must-not-abandon-the-kurds-oped/

Published in the Jerusalem Post, 27 January 2019:
https://www.jpost.com/Opinion/We-must-not-abandon-the-Kurds-578768

A Palestinian peace option

          On September 2, 2018, a delegation from Israel’s Peace Now organization travelled to Ramallah in the West Bank to discuss with Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas prospects for settling the conflict. The statements that follow such meetings rarely contain anything of substance. This was an exception. 

          The next morning, the Palestinian Information Center, known as Palinfo, published a deadpan account of Abbas’s conversation with the Israelis. without comment. 

         “During a meeting with an Israeli delegation that visited Ramallah on Sunday,” ran the report, “Abbas said that senior US administration officials, Jared Kushner and Jason Greenblatt, asked him recently about his opinion of a ‘confederation with Jordan’. “I said yes to the offer, but I want a three-way confederation with Jordan and Israel,” Abbas said.” 

          When exactly did Abbas speak with the Trump peace plan team, Kushner and Greenblatt? It could only have been some time in 2017 while the details were still being assembled. Now it is complete , but it is clear that Abbas has not been briefed on its provisions. Abbas disengaged from all dealings with Washington back in December 2017, when President Donald Trump announced US recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. Abbas has subsequently declared that the US has disqualified itself as a broker in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. 

          Leaks are always possible, despite the tightest security. It is just on the cards that the word “confederation” has somehow slipped through the intensive screen of secrecy that has been erected around the plan. Whether this is so or not, the word has featured in the speculation buzzing about the “deal of the century”. It may explain why the Jordanians issued a statement rejecting the idea of uniting with, or taking over, the West Bank . But Abbas’s endorsement of a triangular confederation comprising Jordan, Israel and a sovereign state of Palestine is a game changer.

          Abbas has a good deal of reason on his side. Prowling around the PA stockade is Hamas, ruling over nearly two million Palestinians in Gaza, hungry for power in the West Bank, and harrying Abbas for a decade. Hamas rejects the two-state solution because it rejects the right of Israel to exist at all and is dedicated to destroying it. Establish a new sovereign Palestine within whatever borders, and it would not take long for Hamas to seize the reins of power just as it did in Gaza. The PA leadership is very worried about losing power to Hamas, either by way of a military coup or via democratic elections. Like it or not, Abbas realizes that a new Palestine would need stronger defences against “the enemy within” than his own resources could provide – one powerful reason for supporting the confederation concept. 

          An even more fundamental issue now militates against the classic two-state solution. The PA has painted itself into a corner. Vying with Hamas on the one hand, and extremists within its own Fatah party on the other, it has glorified the so-called “armed struggle”, making heroes of those who undertake terrorist attacks inside Israel, and reiterating the message that all of Mandate Palestine is Palestinian and the creation of Israel was a national disaster. The end-result of its own narrative is that no Palestinian leader dare sign a peace agreement unilaterally with Israel based on the two-state solution. The consequent backlash from within the Palestinian world, to say nothing of the personal fear of assassination, have made it impossible. 

          The political reality is that any viable solution would have to be based on an Arab-wide consensus, within which Palestinian extremist objections could be absorbed. In recent times moderate Arab states, led perhaps by Saudi Arabia, have begun to perceive Israel as an ally against Iranian ambitions, both nuclear and political. The Arab League could prove a broker for peace acceptable to all parties. Under its shield the PA could participate in hammering out a three-state confederation of Jordan, Israel and Palestine – a new entity, to come into legal existence simultaneously with a new sovereign Palestine that ideally would include Gaza. 

          The negotiations to bring about this kind of political solution would be lengthy, intensive and complex, probably putting the discussions leading to the UK’s deal to withdraw from the EU – so-called Brexit – in the shade. But if successful, the end-result would be eminently worthwhile. A Jordan-Israel-Palestine confederation could be dedicated above all to defending itself and its constituent sovereign states, but also to cooperating in the fields of commerce, infrastructure and economic development. From the moment it came into legal existence, the confederation could make it abundantly clear that any subsequent armed opposition, from whatever source, including Hamas, would be disciplined and crushed from within. 

          Acting in concert with the defence forces of the other states, the Israel Defense Forces would guarantee both Israel’s security and that of the confederation as a whole.

          A confederation of three sovereign states, dedicated to providing high-tech security but also future economic growth and prosperity for all its citizens. If this is indeed Mahmoud Abbas’s vision, it is a possible route to a peaceful and thriving Middle East.

Published in the Eurasia Review, 5 January 2019:
https://www.eurasiareview.com/05012019-a-palestinian-peace-option-oped/

Published in the MPC Journal, 5 January 2019:
http://mpc-journal.org/blog/2019/01/05/a-palestinian-peace-option/?fbclid=IwAR2iHztwbdvOZ4XnOO7FGNwiaTcU-H2n3im0WBJEdyK2qxdoF8H477l8tY8

Peace in the Holy Land – one possible path

                                                                                 Video version

With new political groupings emerging in anticipation of Israel’s forthcoming general election, voters are entitled to ask what policy each of the contending parties proposes for the perennial Israeli-Palestinian issue. 

          On September 2, 2018, a delegation from Israel’s Peace Now organization travelled to Ramallah in the West Bank to discuss with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas prospects for settling the conflict. The statements that follow such meetings rarely contain anything of substance. This was an exception.

          The next morning, the Palestinian Information Center, known as Palinfo, published an account of Abbas’s conversation with the Israelis that was replete with surprising, not to say startling, details.

          “During a meeting with an Israeli delegation that visited Ramallah on Sunday,” ran the deadpan report, “Abbas said that senior US administration officials, Jared Kushner and Jason Greenblatt, asked him recently about his opinion of a ‘confederation with Jordan’. “I said yes to the offer, but I want a three-way confederation with Jordan and Israel,” Abbas said.”

          When exactly did Abbas speak with the Trump peace plan team, Kushner and Greenblatt? It could only have been some time in 2017 while the details were still being assembled. Now it is complete , but it is clear that Abbas has not been briefed on its provisions. Abbas disengaged from all dealings with Washington back in December 2017, when President Donald Trump announced US recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. Abbas has subsequently declared that the US has disqualified itself as a broker in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.

          Leaks are always possible, despite the tightest security. It is just on the cards that the word “confederation” has somehow slipped through the intensive screen of secrecy that has been erected and maintained around the plan. Whether this is so or not, the word has featured in the speculation buzzing about the “deal of the century”. It may have provoked the Jordanians into rejecting the idea of uniting with, or taking over, the West Bank . But Abbas’s response - that he believed in a triangular confederation comprising Jordan, Israel and a sovereign state of Palestine – that is a game changer.

          Abbas has a good deal of reason on his side. Prowling around the PA stockade is Hamas, ruling over nearly two million Palestinians in Gaza, hungry for power in the West Bank, and harrying Abbas for a decade. Hamas rejects the two-state solution because it rejects the right of Israel to exist at all and is dedicated to destroying it. Establish a new sovereign Palestine within whatever borders, and it would not take long for Hamas to seize the reins of power just as it did in Gaza. The new state would then become a Gaza-type launching pad for the indiscriminate bombardment of Israel.

          This prospect in itself may not concern the PA leadership overmuch, but what does worry them is the likelihood of losing power to Hamas, either by way of a military coup or via democratic elections. Like it or not, Abbas realizes that a new Palestine would need stronger defences against “the enemy within” than his own resources could provide.

          An even more fundamental issue now militates against the classic two-state solution. The PA has painted itself into a corner. Vying with Hamas on the one hand, and extremists within its own Fatah party on the other, it has glorified the so-called “armed struggle”, making heroes of those who undertake terrorist attacks inside Israel, continuously promulgating anti-Israel and anti-Semitic propaganda in the media and in the schools, and reiterating the message that all of Mandate Palestine is Palestinian and the creation of Israel was a national disaster. The end-result of their own narrative is that no Palestinian leader dare sign a peace agreement unilaterally with Israel based on the two-state solution. The consequent backlash from within the Palestinian world, to say nothing of the personal fear of assassination, have made it impossible.

          Any viable solution will need to be based on an Arab-wide consensus, within which Palestinian extremist objections could be absorbed. Israel’s status within the Arab world has improved immeasurably in recent times, as moderate Arab states begin to perceive Israel as a stalwart ally against Iranian ambitions, both nuclear and political. The Arab League could prove an acceptable broker for a peace deal. Under its shield the PA could participate in hammering out a three-state confederation of Jordan, Israel and Palestine – a new legal entity that could come into existence simultaneously with a new sovereign Palestine that ideally would include Gaza.

          The negotiations to bring about this kind of political solution would be lengthy, intensive and complex, probably putting the discussions leading to the UK’s deal to withdraw from the EU – so-called Brexit – in the shade. If achieved, the end-result would be eminently worthwhile. A Jordan-Israel-Palestine confederation would be dedicated above all to defending itself and its constituent sovereign states, but also to cooperating in the fields of commerce, infrastructure and economic development. From the moment it came into legal existence, the confederation could make it abundantly clear that any subsequent armed opposition, from whatever source including Hamas, would be disciplined and crushed from within.

          The IDF, acting in concert with the defense forces of the other states, would guarantee both Israel’s security and that of the confederation as a whole. A confederation of three sovereign states, dedicated to providing high-tech security but also future economic growth and prosperity for all its citizens – this is not only a configuration offering considerable potential advantages to Israel, but it is also the possible answer to a peaceful and thriving Middle East. It is attractive enough for at least one of Israel’s contending political groupings to adopt as its proposed policy in the forthcoming election.