SPME Editors’ Note: This article is presented as a public service and does not necessarily reflect the views of SPME, the Board or any of its members
http://blogs.aljazeera.net/imperium/2010/02/13/talking-war
It is time to enforce a Middle East moratorium on threats, counter threats and war speculation and preparation.
Enough wars have been waged to keep the region busy for years in Iraq, Somalia, Lebanon, Palestine, Yemen, Pakistan and the latest escalation of war in Afghanistan this week.
Repetitive Israeli, Arab and American bellicose statements are banalising war and paving the way towards violent self-fulfilled prophecies.
Paradoxically, ominous statements aimed at deterring perceived threats are instead creating a dangerous environment of conflict.
In the process, the fault lines of war are being drawn and redrawn by political expediency as a vicious cycle of menacing statements and counter statements take a life of their own in the media and public sphere.
And wars that are in no way imminent are being made inevitable because of populist, inflammatory and irresponsible escalation of threats over the last few weeks.
I dare you…
Last month, for example, Israel made new threats towards Lebanon, warning that a repeat of the 2006 war against Hezbollah would be more devastating to the entire country.
Ehud Barak, the Israeli defence minister, told Lebanon to “avoid entering in[to] conflict with us” and made it clear that Israel would not accept strategic changes on its northern borders.
Echoing their Israeli counterparts, the Obama administration told Michel Suleiman, the visiting Lebanese president, that Lebanon must put an end to arms smuggling to Hezbollah and, according to the Israeli press, US officials warned that if Syria gave Hezbollah sophisticated anti-aircraft missile, Israel would bomb Damascus.
Meanwhile, Saad al-Hariri, the Lebanese prime minister, accused Israel of making daily incursions into Lebanese air space, creating a very dangerous situation. A UN report listed hundreds of such Israeli airspace, territorial and sea violations.
For his part, Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian president, vowed in response that his country would stand by Lebanon, and his foreign minister, Walid Moalim, warned that if Israel attacked, it would be a war without limits.
Enter Avigdor Lieberman, the Israeli foreign minister, who accused Syria of crossing ‘red lines’ (!!) and warned al-Assad that the next war would lead not only to military defeat but also to regime change: “When there is another war, you will not just lose it, but you and your family will lose power.”
The Palestinian Hamas threw its hat into the ring this week when its leader, Khaled Meshaal, warned that war on the Gaza Strip would lead to an all out regional war.
The bottom line: Israel sees regional threats, but selects its targets carefully, while each of its Arab nemeses are preoccupied by their security but threaten regional hell.
How dare you..!!
A similar confrontational mood has also coloured US/Israeli-Iranian exchanges – reminiscent of the speculation of war in 2006/2007.
Ever since Obama vowed a stretched hand to an unclenched fist, Iran and Washington have been haggling over who needs to unclench first.
The US president, who pledged to pursue a diplomatic or political solution to Iran’s nuclear issue, has grown impatient and implicit and explicit expressions of hostility and threats of sanctions are shifting Washington’s approach from conciliation into coercion.
But to paraphrase Mohammad ElBaradei, the former chief of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Iran is a regional power not a donkey to be dealt with by carrots and sticks.
Meanwhile, certain American and Western officials and pundits continue to threaten Iran with imminent Israeli attack if it does not comply with their conditions.
However, Tehran has made it clear that any attack by Israel will be seen as having American complicity and that it will respond accordingly.
And Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran’s president, said that Israel must be confronted if it declares war anywhere: “If the Zionist regime should repeat its mistakes and initiate a military operation, then it must be resisted with full force to put an end to it once and for all.”
Iran has already made it crystal clear that it would close the Straits of Hormuz in the Gulf, the main shipping route for 60 per cent of the world’s oil, and undermine the military campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan.
You say talk, I say attack
While US officials have used the Israeli menace to nudge members of the UN Security Council to take action and impose more sanctions against Iran, in reality, the Obama administration has been restraining Israel from taking any military action.
Two of the leading security officials in the Obama administration, Admiral Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and General James Jones, the national security advisor, have discouraged Israel’s use of force and discounted any military attack against Iran as “very, very destabilising”.
For all practical purposes, the Obama administration has dampened Israel’s immediate military option against Iran. And without Washington’s green light, any such attack looks improbable.
Unlike Israel’s 1981 attack on Iraq’s Osirak nuclear installations, bombing Iran is far more complicated because of the heavy US military presence in the region and the Iranian capacity to retaliate.
But that did not deter Moshe Yaalon, the Israeli strategic affairs minister, from telling the Herzliya security conference last week that “it must be made clear to the regime in Iran that ignoring the international community’s demands will end in bitter tears”.
Elaborating on the possibility of using force, Yaalon said: “The plan is to stop it, be it through regime change in Iran or through, with no other choice, the use of force in order to remove Iran’s ability to develop nuclear weapons.” It is an assessment shared by the likes of Tony Blair, the former British prime minister.
However for Israel, the war against Tehran need not start by bombing Iran, but could end with it; escalation could begin in Israel’s immediate environment against Hezbollah, Hamas or Syria.
Not a bad deal for Tehran which has long supported resistance to Israel from its immediate surroundings and tried hard to regionalise its conflict with the “Zionist entity”.
Gunboat diplomacy?
Meanwhile, beyond words, Hezbollah has rebuilt its defences and Israel has tested a new ‘missile defence system’ called Iron Dome, to shoot down missile attacks from Hamas, Hezbollah and Syria.
And the US has doubled the emergency equipment it stores in Israel whose military has the right to use it whenever it deems necessary.
Likewise, the US military buildup in the Gulf – coupled with sales and deliveries of tens of billions of dollars of sophisticated weapons to its Gulf allies – have dramatically heightened the tensions between the US camp and Iran.
Deploying a Patriot missile shield and widening its naval presence in the Gulf might be justified on defensive grounds, but in reality this provides Israel and the US with better offensive capability against Iran when the time comes.
Alas, none of this seems to deter Iran. Tehran now boasts of being one of the world’s 15 nuclear states, despite warnings by US officials that Tehran’s intentions are “anything but peaceful”.
But with the military buildup unabated in the region, a mere accident in the Gulf region or a lone attack could lead to an immediate deterioration with incalculable results.
Moreover, if Tehran continues to defy Washington and develops a “nuclear option” that might change the strategic balance in the Gulf, it is not clear how long Obama can keep his generals at bay.
Besides, Obama might be able to make Israel refrain from acting towards Iran, but what about a war that starts in the eastern Mediterranean and spreads?
As the saying goes, when you are a hammer, all problems look like nails.
But if this seems to be terribly depressing, I reckon there is a way out of the gridlock and the escalation to war; an American way out.
But it will have to wait until next time …
