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Now
Do America and Israel Want the Middle
East Engulfed By Civil War?
End
of the Strongmen
By JONATHAN COOK
in Nazareth.
The era of the Middle East strongman,
propped up by and enforcing Western policy, appears well and
truly over. His power is being replaced with rule by civil war,
apparently now the American Administration's favoured model across
the region.
Fratricidal fighting is threatening
to engulf, or already engulfing, the occupied Palestinian territories,
Lebanon and Iraq. Both Syria and Iran could soon be next, torn
apart by attacks Israel is reportedly planning on behalf of the
US. The reverberations would likely consume the region.
Western politicians like to
portray civil war as a consequence of the West's failure to intervene
more effectively in the Middle East. Were we more engaged in
the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, or more aggressive in opposing
Syrian manipulations in Lebanon, or more hands-on in Iraq, the
sectarian fighting could be prevented. The implication being,
of course, that, without the West's benevolent guidance, Arab
societies are incapable of dragging themselves out of their primal
state of barbarity.
But in fact, each of these
breakdowns of social order appears to have been engineered either
by the United States or by Israel. In Palestine, Lebanon and
Iraq, sectarian difference is less important than a clash of
political ideologies and interests as rival factions disagree
about whether to submit to, or resist, American and Israeli interference.
Where the factions derive their funding and legitimacy from --
increasingly a choice between the US or Iran -- seems to determine
where they stand in this confrontation.
Palestine is in ferment because
ordinary Palestinians are torn between their democratic wish
to see Israeli occupation resisted -- in free elections they
showed they believed Hamas the party best placed to realise that
goal -- and the basic need to put food on the table for their
families. The combined Israeli and international economic siege
of the Hamas government, and the Palestinian population, has
made a bitter internal struggle for control of resources inevitable.
Lebanon is falling apart because
the Lebanese are divided: some believe that the country's future
lies with attracting Western capital and welcoming Washington's
embrace, while others regard America's interest as cover for
Israel realising its long-standing design to turn Lebanon into
a vassal state, with or without a military occupation. Which
side the Lebanese choose in the current stand-off reflects their
judgment of how plausible are claims of Western and Israeli benevolence.
And the slaughter in Iraq is
not simply the result of lawlessness -- as is commonly portrayed
-- but also about rival groups, the nebulous "insurgents",
employing various brutal and conflicting strategies: trying to
oust the Anglo-American occupiers and punish local Iraqis suspected
of collaborating with them; extracting benefits from the puppet
Iraqi regime; and jockeying for positions of influence before
the inevitable grand American exit.
All of these outcomes in Palestine,
Lebanon and Iraq could have been foreseen -- and almost certainly
were. More than that, it looks increasingly like the growing
tensions and carnage were planned. Rather than an absence of
Western intervention being the problem, the violence and fragmentation
of these societies seems to be precisely the goal of the intervention.
Evidence has emerged in Britain
that suggests such was the case in Iraq. Testimony given by a
senior British official to the 2004 Butler inquiry investigating
intelligence blunders in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq was
belatedly published last week, after attempts by the Foreign
Office to hush it up.
Carne Ross, a diplomat who
helped to negotiate several UN security council resolutions on
Iraq, told the inquiry that British and US officials knew very
well that Saddam Hussein had no WMDs and that bringing him down
would lead to chaos.
"I remember on several
occasions the UK team stating this view in terms during our discussions
with the US (who agreed)," he said, adding: "At the
same time, we would frequently argue, when the US raised the
subject, that 'regime change' was inadvisable, primarily on the
grounds that Iraq would collapse into chaos."
The obvious question, then,
is why would the US want and intend civil war raging across the
Middle East, apparently threatening strategic interests like
oil supplies and the security of a key regional ally, Israel?
Until the presidency of Bush
Jnr, the American doctrine in the Middle East had been to install
or support strongmen, containing them or replacing them when
they fell out of favour. So why the dramatic and, at least ostensibly,
incomprehensible shift in policy?
Why allow Yasser Arafat's isolation
and humiliation in the occupied territories, followed by Mahmoud
Abbas's, when both could have easily been cultivated as strongmen
had they been given the tools they were implicitly promised by
the Oslo process: a state, the pomp of office and the coercive
means to impose their will on rival groups like Hamas? With almost
nothing to show for years of concessions to Israel, both looked
to the Palestinian public more like lapdogs rather than rottweilers.
Why make a sudden and unnecessary
fuss about Syria's interference in Lebanon, an interference that
the West originally encouraged as a way to keep the lid on sectarian
violence? Why oust Damascus from the scene and then promote a
"Cedar Revolution" that pandered to the interests of
only one section of Lebanese society and continued to ignore
the concerns of the largest and most dissatisfied community,
the Shia? What possible outcome could there be but simmering
resentment and the threat of violence?
And why invade Iraq on the
hollow pretext of locating WMDs and then dislodge its dictator,
Saddam Hussein, who for decades had been armed and supported
by the US and had very effectively, if ruthlessly, held Iraq
together? Again from Carne's testimony, it is clear that no one
in the intelligence community believed Saddam really posed a
threat to the West. Even if he needed "containing"
or possibly replacing, as Bush's predecessors appeared to believe,
why did the president decide simply to overthrow him, leaving
a power void at Iraq's heart?
The answer appears to be related
to the rise of the neocons, who finally grasped power with the
election of President Bush. Israel's most popular news website,
Ynet, recently observed of the neocons: "Many are Jews who
share a love for Israel."
The neocons' vision of American
global supremacy is intimately tied to, and dependent on, Israel's
regional supremacy. It is not so much that the neocons choose
to promote Israel's interests above those of America as that
they see the two nations' interests as inseparable and identical.
Although usually identified
with the Israeli right, the neocons' political alliance with
the Likud mainly reflects their support for adopting belligerent
means to achieve their policy goals rather than the goals themselves.
The consistent aim of Israeli
policy over decades, from the left and right, has been to acquire
more territory at the expense of its neighbours and entrench
its regional supremacy through "divide and rule", particularly
of its weakest neighbours such as the Palestinians and the Lebanese.
It has always abominated Arab nationalism, especially of the
Baathist variety in Iraq and Syria, because it appeared immune
to Israeli intrigues.
For many years Israel favoured
the same traditional colonial approach the West used in the Middle
East, where Britain, France and later the US supported autocratic
leaders, usually from minority populations, to rule over the
majority in the new states they had created, whether Christians
in Lebanon, Alawites in Syria, Sunnis in Iraq, or Hashemites
in Jordan. The majority was thereby weakened, and the minority
forced to become dependent on colonial favours to maintain its
privileged position.
Israel's invasion of Lebanon
in 1982, for example, was similarly designed to anoint a Christian
strongman and US stooge, Bashir Gemayel, as a compliant president
who would agree to an anti-Syrian alliance with Israel.
But decades of controlling
and oppressing Palestinian society allowed Israel to develop
a different approach to divide and rule: what might be termed
organised chaos, or the "discord" model, one that came
to dominate first its thinking and later that of the neocons.
During its occupation of the
West Bank and Gaza, Israel preferred discord to a strongman,
aware that a pre-requisite of the latter would be the creation
of a Palestinian state and its furnishing with a well-armed security
force. Neither option was ever seriously contemplated.
Only briefly under international
pressure was Israel forced to relent and partially adopt the
strongman model by allowing the return of Yasser Arafat from
exile. But Israel's reticence in giving Arafat the means to assert
his rule and suppress his rivals, such as Hamas, led inevitably
to conflict between the Palestinian president and Israel that
ended in the second intifada and the readoption of the discord
model.
This latter approach exploits
the fault lines in Palestinian society to exacerbate tensions
and violence. Initially Israel achieved this by promoting rivalry
between regional and clan leaders who were forced to compete
for Israel's patronage. Later Israel encouraged the emergence
of Islamic extremism, especially in the form of Hamas, as a counterweight
to the growing popularity of the secular nationalism of Arafat's
Fatah party.
Israel's discord model is now
reaching its apotheosis: low-level and permanent civil war between
the old guard of Fatah and the upstarts of Hamas. This kind of
Palestinian in-fighting usefully depletes the society's energies
and its ability to organise against the real enemy: Israel and
its enduring occupation.
The neocons, it appears, have
been impressed with this model and wanted to export it to other
Middle Eastern states. Under Bush they sold it to the White House
as the solution to the problems of Iraq and Lebanon, and ultimately
of Iran and Syria too.
The provoking of civil war
certainly seemed to be the goal of Israel's assault on Lebanon
over the summer. The attack failed, as even Israelis admit, because
Lebanese society rallied behind Hizbullah's impressive show of
resistance rather than, as was hoped, turning on the Shia militia.
Last week the Israeli website
Ynet interviewed Meyrav Wurmser, an Israeli citizen and co-founder
of MEMRI, a service translating Arab leaders' speeches that is
widely suspected of having ties with Israel's security services.
She is also the wife of David Wurmser, a senior neocon adviser
to Vice-President Dick Cheney.
Meyrav Wurmser revealed that
the American Administration had publicly dragged its feet during
Israel's assault on Lebanon because it was waiting for Israel
to expand its attack to Syria.
"The anger [in the White
House] is over the fact that Israel did not fight against the
Syrians The neocons are responsible for the fact that Israel
got a lot of time and space They believed that Israel should
be allowed to win. A great part of it was the thought that Israel
should fight against the real enemy, the one backing Hizbullah.
It was obvious that it is impossible to fight directly against
Iran, but the thought was that its [Iran's] strategic and important
ally [Syria] should be hit."
Wurmser continued: "It
is difficult for Iran to export its Shiite revolution without
joining Syria, which is the last nationalistic Arab country.
If Israel had hit Syria, it would have been such a harsh blow
for Iran that it would have weakened it and [changed] the strategic
map in the Middle East."
Neocons talk a great deal about
changing maps in the Middle East. Like Israel's dismemberment
of the occupied territories into ever-smaller ghettos, Iraq is
being severed into feuding mini-states. Civil war, it is hoped,
will redirect Iraqis' energies away from resistance to the US
occupation and into more negative outcomes.
Similar fates appear to be
awaiting Iran and Syria, at least if the neocons, despite their
waning influence, manage to realise their vision in Bush's last
two years.
The reason is that a chaotic
and feuding Middle East, although it would be a disaster in the
view of most informed observers, appears to be greatly desired
by Israel and its neocon allies. They believe that the whole
Middle East can be run successfully the way Israel has run its
Palestinian populations inside the occupied territories, where
religious and secular divisions have been accentuated, and inside
Israel itself, where for many decades Arab citizens were "de-Palestinianised"
and turned into identity-starved and quiescent Muslims, Christians,
Druze and Bedouin.
That conclusion may look foolhardy,
but then again so does the White House's view that it is engaged
in a "clash of civilisations" which it can win with
a "war on terror".
All states are capable of acting
in an irrational or self-destructive manner, but Israel and its
supporters may be more vulnerable to this failing than most.
That is because Israelis' perception of their region and their
future has been grossly distorted by the official state ideology,
Zionism, with its belief in Israel's inalienable right to preserve
itself as an ethnic state; its confused messianic assumptions,
strange for a secular ideology, about Jews returning to a land
promised by God; and its contempt for, and refusal to understand,
everything Arab or Muslim.
If we expect rational behaviour
from Israel or its neocon allies, more fool us.
CounterPunch
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