Piecework

This past week's two beig Middle East developments drew mixed reviews. They also made the Bush administration look like a marginal player in Middle East affairs and its policies toward Lebanon, Hezbollah, Syria, Hamas, Israel and Iran like miserable failures. The agreement that key Lebanese political players signed in Doha, Qatar was a victory primarily for Hezbollah and secondarily for Arab League diplomacy. The agreement resolves for now the political crisis in Lebanon: It commits the parties to a National Unity government in which Hezbollah will have veto power; it agrees to the election of the compromise presidential candidate Gen. Michel Suleiman and calls for certain revisions of the electoral laws that will increase Shiite representation in the Lebanese parliament. These changes correspond to the probable populations of the respective communities and certainly to their respective military strengths, as Hezbollah's recent armed seizure of West Beirut bluntly demonstrated. Through the agreement the government parties averted a coup d'état or civil war, which would have cost them more. The agreement, however, does not address the wider issue of Hezbollah's future character, viz., political party, movement, army; it does not quiet fears in Lebanon of Hezbollah creating a state within a state.

The agreement generally received regional and international applause. Even the United States, which had called upon Lebanon's government to stand up to Hezbollah expressed some satisfaction. Its spin was that Hezbollah's gains, achieved at gunpoint, had cost it its reputation and so political partners among other Lebanese Some skeptics, however, questioned whether the agreement just delayed the collapse of Lebanon into civil or could really defuse the situation. Yet the Arab patrons of the parties -- primarily the Saudis, on one side, Syria, on the other apparently signed off on the agreement. That suggests they have interests in making the agreement work or, put another way, keeping Lebanon from becoming the battleground of a proxy war between the United States and Iran. If so, the politics of the regional system have trumped those of the global system (not that Iran is really a global player). Since the regional politics are traditionally contentious and solidarity weak, the agreement testifies to the extent of the Arab states' disdain for the United States and suspicions of Iran.

Official Israel and Syrian statements that the two countries are indirectly negotiating peace through the Turkish foreign ministry are no surprise since reports of such negotiations have been leaking for the past month. The statements, however, made the countries' respective patrons, the US and Iran, look ineffective, since each had publicly warned its client against such negotiations. Indeed, a New York Times editorial rather imaginatively argued that George Bush's condemnation of appeasers in his May 14 speech to the Knesset was aimed at both Obama and Israelis who want to negotiate with groups to whom the Administration refuses to speak, viz., Syria, Hamas, Hezbollah. Secretary of State Rice said rather coolly that it was okay for Israel to negotiate with Syria. She then claimed that Israel and the Palestinian Authority were making such progress in their US sponsored negotiations that agreements could be signed by the end of the year. Since neither the parties to these negotiations nor any informed observers believe this, Rice is either terribly out of touch or just plain lying. Given her record, it's hard to tell.

Iranian president Ahmadinejad and his circle were reportedly pissed off by the revelation to the point of branding Syria's negotiations a betrayal of its friendship with Iran. Iran's foreign ministry, however, denied the truth of such reports. So Ahmadinejad is likely to soft pedal his opposition while working behind the scenes to block the negotiations.

There is considerable doubt among Israelis that the negotiations can succeed, though arguably both sides can benefit if Israel gives Syria the entire Golan Heights in return for a peace that includes an end of Syria's alliances with Hezbollah, Hamas and Iran. For one thing, earlier negotiations between Syria and Israel failed because the two sides could not agree on the extent and modality of Syria's control of the Golan. Second, Israel PM Olmet is too weak politically to get the Israel public behind such a deal. Indeed many skeptics believe he chose to disclose the negotiations now to deflect attention from a police investigation of his possibly corrupt practices when he was Minister of Industry and Commerce in a previous government. Third, although Israeli governments have tended to look at negotiations as an alternative to negotiations with the Palestinians, the Israel will need some assurance that some peace can be reached with the Palestinians before it will agree to relinquishing all or most of the Golan.

Fighting Words

In considering a comment on Crusader-in-Chief George Bush's speech yesterday to the Knesset, I recalled the contradictory advice of Proverbs 26: 4-5:

Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest thou also be like unto him.
Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own conceit.

Since Bush does not read this blog and much has already been written about his gratuitous, attack on Obama, McCain's hypocritical follow on and the Democrats' replies, I thought it better to focus on the Israeli response to the speech.

1. It was warm. Most Israelis were predisposed to applaud whatever he said. They think they owe him. On their view, the invasion of Iraq removed a threat to Israel, albeit an overrated one, and the occupation has created so much chaos in Iraq that another threat cannot arise from there for decades.
   
2. They found nothing wrong in what he said and a lot to their liking. Right wing Israelis could ignore his mention of a Palestinian state in a vague future, because they know in the present Bush ignores the building of settlements in the West Bank and does not even support his Secretary of State's demand to remove checkpoints. Israelis centrists could applaud the vacuous words that demanded nothing of them -- no flexibility in negotiations with Palestinians -- while congratulating Israel for comprising with the United States the moral center of the universe. Left wing Israelis could join with the others in applauding Bush's pledge to keep Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. While many Americans view Iran's president Ahmadinejad as a scruffy, contemptible, little man, almost all Israelis see him as a an existential threat and even leftists do not want to relinquish Israel's nuclear monopoly in the Middle East.
3. Israelis felt honored that Bush attended the 60th anniversary celebration. Although Bush has disgraced the presidency and the United States, Israelis still regard the United States like an older brother, a friend and protector. With its leader present, along with several other foreign dignitaries, Jewish gliterrati from the Diaspora and a few goyisch celebrities, the Israelis could briefly feel relaxed and triumphant rather than kvetchy and apprehensive.
   

Well not entirely. An editorial on the speech in the supposedly dovish Haaretz applauded Bush's pledge on Iran, but worried that it would not bind his successor. No problem if McCain is elected, but if Obama becomes the next president... In that case, the editorial suggested, Bush should take military measures against Iran in the months between the election and the inauguration. He could be assured that Israel's military would willingly assist in such operations. The editorial was likely written by Yossi Melman, one of the newspaper's military correspondents. Melman has been extremely hawkish on Iran, but he often directly reflects what his IDF and Mossad sources tell him. So the editiorial might signal to the world that Israel's security establishment is running out of patience with and trust in the United States over Iran. That is scary.

Sowing the Wind

The cunning of history, Hegel's term for unintended consequences coming back to bite political actors, might be in the works in the country formerly known as Burma [Myanmar]. The Iriwaddy delta is devastated, 35,000 to 100,000 people (depending on whose estimate) have already died, another 1.5 million are without food, potable water, shelter and are vulnerable to disease. Yet the generals who rule Myanmar have limited the influx of aid from outside, diverted resources from relief efforts for a referendum to rubber stamp their rule and even prevented rich Burmese from providing money and aid to the cowevne's victims. They are suspicious that any collective actions, self-organization or outside intervention, which is not under their control, can become politically charged and weaken their grip on power. Such suspicions are frequent among leaders or authoritarian governments and even democracies, when facing or contemplating the aftermath of disasters.

The generals, however, may not have considered that a regime's refusal or inability to alleviate the suffering of its subjects after a disaster erodes whatever legitimacy it might have. Thus the Iranian government's incompetence in organizing effective relief for earthquakes in 1977 and 1978 fueled popular opposition to the Shah and hastened his downfall. Of course all such failures do not have such a result. The mullarchy in Iran has been no more effective in responding to earthquakes since the Shah, Stalin did not suffer for letting the Ukrainian peasants starve in the 1930s and George W. Bush is still president, despite his administration's miserable failure in responding to the devastation of Hurricaine Katrina.

But Christian Science Monitor's David Montero reports from Bangkok that observers expect the regime to lose some power as a result of its inaction. "This is an opportunity for opposition groups to make limited gains," says Thitinan Pongsudhirak, head of the Institute of Security and International Studies at Bangkok's Chulalongkorn University. "There will be mounting pressures on the government because of its inadequacies. Opposition groups have the upper hand."

In contrast to the Burmese generals, Chinese authorities appear to be effectively handling the aftermath of today's devastating earthquake in Sichuan province. NPR's Melissa Block reports from the provicial capital Chengdu that cranes were on the scene in a few hours to remove debris of flattened buildings in desperate searches for survivors. Perhaps this contrast will finally convince Chinese officials that the Burmese generals do not merit China's support -- a conclusion that the Burmese dissidents and their supporters have long been pressing China to reach.

More on the Chinese response to the earthquake from James Fallows, an old China hand and editor of the Atlantic Monthly:

Most of the channels on the (state controlled) CCTV are running the normal game shows, Olympic warmups (especially torch-relay updates), teen music shows, etc. But the CCTV-1 news channel is having all-out coverage of the earthquake in Sichuan province. Brief cultural notes:

- The coverage included a long segment of premier Wen Jiabao reading a speech about his deep concern for the people of Sichuan, from aboard an airplane en route to the disaster scene. Background: after the country was paralyzed by unexpected snow storms in February, the leadership was criticized for a Katrina-like slowness in dealing with the problem. Prominent coverage now of the main officials responding immediately to this disaster.

Hezbollah appears the winner in the ongoing test of strength in Lebanon. The Lebanese government turned over to the army the decisions on shutting down Hezbollah's private telelphone network and the firing of the airport security chief, who had allowed Hezbollah to install its own security cameras. The army, still headed by the Michel Suleiman, the compromise candidate for Lebanese president, then revoked the government's decisions. Hezbollah, in return, withdrew its fighters from West Beirut, but continues to demand a government in which Shiites will have one third of the cabinet seats and hence veto power. Its fighter will also continue to carry weapons openly.

These moves have quieted Beirut, but fighting between government supporters and the opposition broke out on Saturday in Tripoli and on Sunday in mountain villages southeast of Beirut, a mainly Druze area. Druze leader and government supporter Walid Jumblatt called on his rival and opposition supporter Talal Arslan to stop the fighting and submit to army control. As this fighting demonstrates, the alignment of forces is not entirely along communal lines. While the Shiite parties, viz., Hezbollah and Amal, are in the opposition and the Sunni generally support the government, the Druze and Christians are split, mainly as a consequence of factions within these communities trying to increase their respective power and resources through opportunistic alliances. The fragmentation is far from that during the civil war, when militias were ubiquitous and rivalries played down to the street and family level. But it might be heading there.

The Arab League has dispatched an emergency mediation team to Beirut. It will meet with Hezbollah chairman Nasrallah and Sunni leader Sa'ad Hariri, in the hopes of getting their agreement to the long-delayed appointment of a new Lebanese president, a principal part of any exit strategy from the crisis. Lebanese PM Fuad Siniora in the meantime, according to the Israel press, bitterly criticized Hezbollah, saying "not even the enemy Israel dared do to Beirut what Hezbollah has done" [armed occupation and shutting access to the airport]. The rhetoric is especially provocative, because the rationalization in Lebanon for Hezbollah maintaining a heavily armed militia is its being the de facto resistance to any Israel incursions.

Hezbollah's convincing show of strength moves the regional balance of power toward its partron Iran. Iran also scored a symbolic success in Iraq this week, when it again brokered a face-saving truce for the Al-Maliki government in its indecisive struggle against the Mehdi army in Sadr city. These gains increase the unlikely prospects for diplomatic-political efforts to reduce Iranian influence, say, detaching Syria from its alliance with Iran or promoting a tacit alliance between Israel and Sunni Arab states . So Israel leaders will see little purpose in discussing peace with Syria at this time or speeding up peace negotiations with the Palestinians. Instead, feeling bracketed by Iranian clients, they are more likely to seek coordination with the Bush administration on some intervention in Lebanon or even confrontation with Iran.

A Gathering Storm?

Yesterday's commemorations of Israel's independence and the Palestinians' nakba (catastrophe) are already overshadowed by crises in Israel and Lebanon. Israel PM Olmert is under another police investigation, his third in recent years, concerning new charges of bribe taking (in incidents uncovered during the course of an earlier investigation). He is liable to be indicted, in which case, he says, he will resign. That possibility raises the question of his succession by Foreign Minister Livni and her ability to keep a governing coalition, on one hand, or early elections, on another. Olmert and his supporters claim the charges are trumped up by opponents to peace talks the Palestinians or Syria, that, he says, are making progress. So far Olmert has not given any evidence for this claim. Moreover, to judge by the government's record and the current state of the talks, the opponents would need no help from the police to derail they. They can just leave that to Olmert, his coalition partners and the Israel army, all of whom appear quite capable and willing to do that themselves.

In Lebanon, Chairman Nasrallah declared war on the Lebanese government after, he says, the Lebanese government declared war on Hezbollah, by trying to shut down the private communications network that Hezbollah had set up throughout Lebanon, with Iranian help. Hezballah gunmen have blocked the road from Beirut's international airport to the city and also wrested control of West Beirut from Sunnis. These moves come after months of a political stalemate over choosing a Lebanese president, that has pitted Sunni, Druse and most Christian communities in Lebanon against Lebanese Shiites, dominated by Hezbollah. The political situation is aggravated by economic deterioration in Lebanon, due to several factors: a) the devastation from the war with Israel two years ago; b) the political stalemate itself scaring off foreign investment; and c) rising costs of food and other necessities which has provoked violent demonstrations.

In addition, Hezbollah military leaders want to show their muscles, because the party has failed to strongarm its candidate into the presidency of Lebanon, while the Sunni, Druse and Christians grouped in the anti-Syria, anti-Shia coalition would rather have a showdown now rather than later when Hezballah is even stronger. So the parties are likely to spiral into a civil war. In that case, Israel leaders, with or without Olmert at their helm, will decide to "help" the Lebanese government either overtly or clandestinely. The Bush administration would undoubtedly green light any such Israeli move, since it regards conflicts involving Iranian clients -- Sadrists in Iraq, Hamas, Hezballah -- as proxy wars with Iran. Iranian leaders have a corresponding view of conflict directed at US clients, viz., Israel, the Lebanese government, the Arab gulf states. Lebanon today is an opportunity for them to demonstrate Lebanon's disruptive power and consequently its being a necessary player in achieving some stabilities in the Middle East, regardless of Western efforts to isolate it over the nuclear program issue.

International relations in the Middle East are like the old joke about in New England. If you don't like what is happening now, just wait a bit.

War of Words

Today's editorial in the usually dovish Haaretz evidences the deep fear in Israel regarding Iran. In effect, the editorial implores George Bush to order US air and missile strikes -- "shock and awe" redux -- on Iranian sites where Israel believes nuclear weapons are being developed. The occasion for the editorial was the Iranian deputy chief of staff's response yesterday to last week's warning by Israel cabinet minister Ben Eliezer. Mr. Ben Eliezer said Israel would destroy Iranian society, if Iran attacked Israel. The Iranian said that if Israel tried, it would be destroyed. The editorial writers at Ha'aretz point to the many Iranian activities that undermine Israel's security to argue that these words should be taken seriously, whereas Ben Eliezer's can be ignored as empty rhetoric.

The editorial fears that nations in Europe and elsewhere, for their own reasons, will avoid sanctions on Iran for failing to open its nuclear program to inspection. They will excuse their inaction by citing the US National Intelligence Estimate that judged Iran stopped its weapons program in 2002 -- a conclusion that Israel vehemently rejected. In Israeli eyes, George Bush, while not a perfect policeman, is apparently the only one willing and able to stop Iran. True, the American army in running on fumes, but the US air force with its abundance of planes and missiles is enough to get the job done.

The editorial reflects the fears of Washington neo-cons, as well as many Israelis, that time is running out to remake the Middle East in Israel's and the US's favor. Hawkish Shmuel Rosner, the paper's Washington correspondent and a willing trumpet for the neo-cons, may have had a heavy hand in its writing. In any case. its proposal is insane, according to the popular definition that insanity is repeating an action with the expectation that the outcome will be different. The neo-cons failed to learn from Israel's experiences in the territories and Lebanon that invading a country is much easier than bringing it under control. Now Israelis, as represented by Haaretz, seem unable to learn from the US failures in Iraq that "shock and awe" bombing would not make Iran comply with US or Israeli wishes. It will just increase instability in the region. To be sure, most Israelis do not especially care about stability in the future. They have lived with instability and prefer their current anxieties be relieved by the destruction of the the suspected nuclear installations.

The editorial also signals the widening gulf between Israel's interests and US interests, at least as the American public perceives the latter. That public has no desire to extend the Bush crusade in the Middle East to Iran. It knows such action would be costly, bloody and fail. If Bush ordered an attack on Iran, Congress would likely start impeachment proceedings against him. Haaretz's ignorance and indifference to these conditions amount to a miserable failure on its part.

What Goes Around Come Around

Considering the Bush administration's bad mouthing of Iran, Im sometimes tempted to think kindly of the Iranian government. That would be a mistake. It is an oppressive, often murderous regime that suppresses dissenters through jailing, intimidation, including death threats, beatings, deprivation of livelihoods, denial of licenses to print and perform. It abuses human rights, supports and arms clients that oppose peaceful settlement of conflicts, viz., Hezbollah and Hamas, and it ignores international demands to open its nuclear program to inspection. The Iranian government also lack a sense of humor and how ludicrous is its posturing. Instead it displays nauseating, self-righteous narcissism and a hideous lack of empathy for anyone except its supporters.

The latest evidence of character flaws is a complaint by the Iranian ambassador to the UN. He complained about Israeli cabinet minister Benjamin Ben Eliezer's public statement this week that, if Iran rocket attacked Israel, Israel would destroy Iranian society. Ben-Eliezer plays the buffoon or court fool in Israel politics; he says aloud what others whisper in the back rooms. So he was probably echoing current Israel government discussions about Israel's options in the event of an attack on its major cities. It is no secret that Israel has the means and apparent will to use a nuclear option as a last resort, but it is not nice to rub the other guy's nose in that.

However, Ben-eliezer's remarks follow several years of the Iranian President Ahmadinejad's promising/ predicting that Israel would soon be wiped off the map. In Israel, such statements are rather provocative because a) Hitler's similar "predictions" were not taken seriously enough, and b) they provide a motive for the acquisition of nuclear weapons, which Israeli intelligence thinks Iran still pursues. Israel has repeatedly protested such threats and other Iranian behaviors that suggest a desire to destroy the Jewish people, e.g., hosting a Holocaust deniers' conference, blowing up a Jewish community center and embassy in Buenos Aires. The protests have not chilled Iran. Maybe the Iranian Ambassador was just playing tit-for-tat, but from a distant he looks like a stupid, arrogant clod.