Wednesday, November 29, 2006

Three Arab crises

After the NATO summit in Riga, the first in a former Soviet bloc country, Pres. Bush and Secty. of State Condy Rice will arrive in Amman for a "Crisis Summit." King Abdullah of Jordan has invited a stellar cast of leaders (excluding Israel) to discuss three crises that could bring civil war to the Middle East. These are the internal conflicts between Hamas and Fatah in the Palestine territories, the clash between the pro-Syrian Hizbollah and the anti-Syrian Christians and others in Lebanon, and the sectarian conflict between the Shia and Sunnis in Iraq.
Now while these conflicts appear to be distinct, they all share a common basis, namely the support by Syria and Iran of terrorist forces in each of these Arab areas. Iran is bankrolling Hamas in the PA, Hizbollah in Lebanon and Shia forces (probably the Sadr Mahdi Army) in Iraq. Apart from Hamas which is a Sunni Muslim organization, the rest are Shia, and Abdullah and other Arab "moderates" in the Gulf, Saudi Arabia and Egypt, are concerned that they will be drawn into a long-term war between the Muslim Sunni and Shia. sects.
This war is 1,200 years old, and goes back to the very origins of Islam and the fight for dominance over Islamic countries and regimes. While the Sunni brand of Islam favored a Caliphate and the election of a Caliph as leader of the Islamic world, the Shia view is that all such elections are unacceptable, and the leadership has to come from the descendents of Mohammed. Since his direct line was destroyed by the Sunnis, they favor in place of it a return to rule by religious leaders, namely Ayatollahs, just as they have resurrected in Iran. Although they have a nominal parliament and elections, these are all subject to the decisions of the Supreme Religious Council, which for example vetted all candidates for parliament and excluded all moderates, as well as candidates for President, which is how they ended up with Ahmedinejad. Although he was voted in by the people, he was first selected from other candidates by the Ayatollahs.
So the course of action is deceptively simple, confront Syria and Iran and stop their machinations, if necessary by the use of force. However, the moderate Sunni regimes are desperate to avoid such a conflict, especially when the US is under pressure to withdraw from Iraq, and Iran is run by an extremist regime and seemingly is on a roll. That is one reason why the focus of the Arab moderates is to pressure the US to bring Syria and Iran into the fold by talking to them, by giving them a say in what happens in these and other conflicts.
In a way it is similar to the situation before WWII, in order to avoid the war the policy used was appeasement. Give Germany what it wants, the Sudentenland, Czechoslovakia, etc. and it will appease Hitler's hunger for land. But, the problem with this policy is that it doesn't work, because giving in to dictators and terrorists only whets their appetites, shows them the weakness of their opposition, the fatal tendency of democracies to fade initially in the face of determined anti-democratic forces. Ah, but will they rally later, when the anti-democrats show their true colors, or will it then be too late?
So while the summit in Amman was first publicized as a meeting on "democracy in the Middle East," it was renamed because the democracies are hardly even fledgling (e.g. Lebanon, the PA and Iraq) while the opposition to them is much more aggressive, and seeks to destroy them even before they can take hold. Perhaps it is in Israel's and the region's interest to have these conflicts work themselves out before any real progress can be made.
While the meeting in Amman is the current focus of initial attention, on the sidelines Rice will meet with PA Pres Abbas, and then if the ceasefire in Gaza holds, there may be a three way summit with PM Olmert added. There is a lot of international pressure, including an EU meeting today, to resume the "peace process" between Israel and the Palestinians. In his speech yesterday at Sde Boker marking the 35th anniversary of Ben Gurion's death, PM Olmert gave a very dovish view of the future. He said he will be prepared to give up land ("you will be surprised how much") and to recognize a Palestinian State living "side-by-side" with Israel. The necessary conditions set by Olmert for such a renewed peace process are the formation of a Unity PA Government that accepts the three conditions of the international community of recognizing Israel, etc. and the release of Cpl. Shalit, in exchange for many Palestinian prisoners. But, he drew the line at the repatriation of Palestinain "refugees" to Israel. This if course immediately brought a rejection by PM Haniyeh of Hamas, who favors the so-called Saudi/prisoners peace plan in place of the "road map" plan. But, as Olmert indicates his willingness to concede, seen as weakness by the other side, their demands escalate (the prisoners went from 400 for Shalit to a rumored 1,400). Eventually this becomes ridiculous, and whatever Israel does, as in the current ceasefire, some group or another will reject it and go on firing.
Today two Kassam missiles landed in Sderot, and the excuse given by the terrorists is that Israel has taken actions on the West Bank. But, the ceasefire explicitly does not include the West Bank, and so the Army spokesman said today that Israel cannot allow itself to get into a situation where its freedom of action is prevented in Gaza while Sderot is still being bombarded. This is no ceasefire and this is like all previous Palestinian agreements, never kept.

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