Over the past month hysteria over a possible war with Iran has reached a new crescendo. Pundits, government officials and presidential candidates have been debating ad nauseum about issues such as whether Iran is an existential threat to Israel, whether deterrence will work, whether air strikes would be effective, whether Iran is entering a “zone of immunity”, the effect of Iranian nuclear weapons on the Middle East balance of power, the nature of an Iranian response, etc. Washington Post columnist David Ignatius ignited a fire storm when he said that Defense Secretary Panetta “ believes there is a strong likelihood that Israel will strike Iran in April, May or June — before Iran enters what Israelis described as a “zone of immunity” to commence building a nuclear bomb.” (See here)

The Obama administration has weighed into the fray with a series of statements which have sent mixed signals about U.S. policy and only served to increase the rhetoric. In a series of speeches and interviews Secretary Panetta stressed his belief that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon and that a military strike would at best delay any future production of a nuclear weapon. Secretary of State Clinton on the other hand took a more hawkish tone saying in discussing Iran’s expansion of its enrichment site near Qom, "The circumstances surrounding this latest action are especially troubling. There is no plausible justification for this production. Such enrichment brings Iran a significant step closer to having the capability to produce weapons-grade highly enriched uranium." (See here) James Clapper, U.S. director of national intelligence raised the stakes by claiming, during Congressional testimony. that Iran is now more willing to carry out attacks inside the U.S. and that intelligence agencies were worried about attacks on U.S. interests around the world. President Obama, on the other hand, said that he did not believe that Iran had the “intentions or capabilities” to attack inside the United States.

I am persuaded that the Obama administration has decided that it does not want war with Iran. If it wanted war, it could have attacked any time in the past three years, rather than waiting until just before the elections. Ignatius reports that Israel believes that it would be a short war. “‘You stay to the side, and let us do it,’ one Israeli official is said to have advised the United States. A short-war scenario assumes five days or so of limited Israeli strikes, followed by a U.N.-brokered cease-fire.” Make no mistake; a military strike is an act of war. As the U.S. found to its pain in Iraq and Afghanistan, the enemy has a say in how long the war lasts.

If Obama doesn’t want another major Middle East war right before the elections, he had better say to Israel, not only no, but hell no! To do this he will need to make the case for diplomacy and defy the Israel Lobby. Is this likely in an election year? Probably not.

After months of opposition demonstrations, counter demonstrations by regime supporters, attacks on opposition demonstrators by government forces, terrorist bombings of government facilities, various efforts at international intervention, charges and counter charges, the situation in Syria is in word a “mess”. Currently we have three wars going on in this strategically located, but fragile state. There is a low grade civil war between government and opposition forces. Overlaying this war is a proxy war between the US and its Gulf State and European allies and Iran and its allies. A third war has now emerged, a war of perceptions. As in many such wars, the facts are usually the first casualty.

The U.S. and its supporters in the conservative Sunni Gulf States, particularly Qatar and the UAE would like to see regime change in Syria and Iran and a weakening of the Shia resistance group Hezbollah. Under Secretary of State for the Near East Jeffery Feltman in describing US regime change policy in Syria said that the U.S. would “relentlessly pursue our two-track strategy of supporting the opposition and diplomatically and financially strangling the regime until that outcome is achieved”. (See here)

The Arab League has dispatched a monitoring team to Syria in order to attempt to reach a mediated solution. Qatar and the Istanbul based opposition Syrian National Council (SNC), on the other hand have criticized the Arab League mission and have pushed for western military intervention rather than a mediated solution that would reform the regime, but leave Assad in power.

The western media have portrayed the Syrian situation as one in which a peaceful opposition, representing the overwhelming majority of Syrians is faced off against a brutal, intransigent regime. However, a recent poll conducted by the Qatar based Doha Debates points out that while 81% of Arabs want President Assad to step down, 55% of Syrians are supportive of Assad and do not want Assad to resign. (See here) The respondents said that without Assad, they feared for the future of their country.

The appalling statistics of massacres, rapes of Sunni women and girls and torture by regime supporters that have been reported by the western media with the disclaimer “we were unable to confirm the accuracy of these figures” have been largely provided by the British based Syrian National Observatory. (SNO) The SNO is an arm of the SNC and is funded by a Dubai based pooled fund of western and Gulf money and thus the accuracy of these figures is suspect. Somehow the media has not managed to receive reports of casualties among regime supporters and military forces.

The U.S. based private intelligence group Stratfor has advised caution on the accuracy of the mainstream narrative on Syria saying “with two sides to every war … the war of perceptions in Syria is no exception”.

Three years ago in Damascus, when I met with Khaled Meshal, the leader of Hamas’ political wing, he acknowledged that Hamas was committed to violent resistance to the Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands. While emphasizing that if Israel withdrew to the 1967 borders the resistance would end, he said that violent resistance was the only effective means of ending Israeli occupation.  He used examples of Hezbollah ending the Israeli occupation in Lebanon, of the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and of the Israeli withdrawal from the Sinai.

Many observers of the situation in Israel/Palestine (this one included) have felt that, given the overwhelming power of the Israeli occupation force, the biggest threat to the occupation would be mass non-violent protests by the Palestinians on both sides of the green line separating Israel from the West Bank. The effectiveness of Dr. Martin Luther King’s demonstrations for African American civil rights and the Arab Awakening uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia demonstrate this. While there have been demonstrations against the Separation Barrier in the West Bank towns of Biliin, Ni’lin and Qalqilya, they have never been large enough to attract much international media  attention despite the violent response by the Israeli Army (IDF).

Waging a mass non-violent campaign requires a lot of education and organization. The Fatah led PLO has never had the organizational ability to achieve an effective campaign of mass non-violent resistance. Hamas, on the other hand, through its extensive network in the mosques, has had the ability, but not the will.

The winds of change, however, may be blowing. In the past month, Hamas and Fatah have agreed to move forward with a unity government and to move toward a posture of mass non-violent resistance. (This story is here, here and here.) If this transition comes about it will pose a significant threat to Israel’s ongoing occupation and settlement building. Images of Israeli forces and settlers attacking unarmed demonstrators marching on Jewish only roads on the West Bank and chanting silmiya, silmiya (peaceful, peaceful) will not play well in the international media.

Only time will tell if the Palestinian leadership can pull off this change in tactics. There will certainly be resistance from those groups committed to violence. However, if mass non-violent protests can be effectively implemented, they have the potential to be a game changer.

A regional war with Iran would also be a game changer, but that is another story.

(Photo from Hamas Press Office)

The U.S. campaign against the Islamic Republic of Iran has a long history dating back to the founding of the Islamic Republic when the Carter administration imposed unilateral sanctions following the hostage crisis in 1979. Over time the sanctions regime has expanded as the U.S.has attempted to deal with what it saw as Iranian challenges to U.S. interests in the region. The U.S. overthrow of the regime of Sadaam Hussein in Iraq enhanced the Iranian position and in response President George W. Bush, in 2007, initiated a program of covert military action against the Islamic Republic.

President Obama, after campaigning on a policy of dialogue, has enhanced the sanctions regime and lobbied and coerced other countries to enhance their sanctions. The practical effect of the sanctions has been modest. The World Bank estimates that the Iranian economy grew at a rate of 3% in 2010. This is not to say that the Iranian economy doesn’t have its problems. Years of inconsistent and incompetent management by the theocratic regime have resulted in sub-par economic performance. Sanctions have negatively impacted privately owned enterprises leaving more of the economy in the hands of government enterprises.

Dissatisfaction with economic performance has led to political conflict within the regime. The Iranian system of government is similar to the U.S. system with separation of powers and checks and balances. As in the U.S., this leads to political power struggles and gridlock. There is one thing that could unite the squabbling leadership and that is the rise of an existential outside threat. This appears to be on the horizon.

President Obama has not only enhanced sanctions, but has escalated the covert military campaign. Over the last year, several Iranian nuclear and electronic warfare scientists have been assassinated. The Stuxnet virus has been unleashed against Iranian nuclear facilities. Deadly explosions have occurred at military and other facilities near the major cities of Tehran and Isfahan. Support for ethnic terrorist groups such as MEK, PJAK and Jundallah has continued. Some analysts claim that there have been attempts to assassinate Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. (See here).

           In reaction, Iran appears to have escalated its own responses. In past months, Iran, in conjunction with Hezbollah, has unraveled a CIA spy ring in Lebanon and Iran, arresting over thirty operatives.  In October, U.S. authorities accused Iran of orchestrating a plot to kill the Saudi ambassador in a popular Washington, DC restaurant. If true, this represents a major escalation on the part of the Iranian regime and a major shift in their tolerance for risk. Two weeks ago Iran displayed an American drone aircraft, claiming that they had hacked into its GPS guidance system and guided it to an intact landing. (An interesting account of how they did it is here.) Iranian officials have also claimed that they will soon display other U.S. and Israeli drones that they have shot down or hijacked.

            This week, Iran announced that they will soon conduct a “military maneuver on how to close the Strait of Hormuz” through which 17% of the world’s oil flows. This announcement alone caused oil prices to jump $3 a barrel. As we continue down this path of confrontation with no vehicle to prevent or defuse miscalculation, the danger of unintended conflict increases.

(Photo from Iran Revolutionary Guard website)

This week Republican Presidential candidates (except for Ron Paul who was not invited because of his “misguided and extreme views”) paraded before a conference of the Republican Jewish Coalition to express their undying loyalty to the State of Israel. Newt Gingrich, the current front runner for the Republican nomination, stood out from the crowd by signaling his intention to overturn long standing US policies on the Israeli-Palestinian situation. Among other things he promised to move the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, a step that has long been opposed by almost all of the international community. However, his most interesting comments occurred in an interview with The Jewish Channel which was posted on-line on Friday.

            In this interview he said, "Remember, there was no Palestine as a state. It was part of the Ottoman Empire. I think that we've had an invented Palestinian people who are in fact Arabs and who were historically part of the Arab community. And they had a chance to go many places.”        This statement has been interpreted by many as questioning long standing US policy supporting a two state solution to the situation. The two state solution has been sustained since the early 1990’s by both Republican and Democratic administrations despite growing evidence that facts on the ground make it no longer viable.

            Many historians trace the concept of Palestinian national identity to the 1800’s when the Palestinians revolted against their Ottoman Turkish overlords. Clearly there is now a strong sense of Palestinian national identity created by the founding of the State of Israel in 1948. The whole debate harkens back to a 1969 statement by Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir that “there is no such thing as a Palestinian”.

            It is, however, the implications for the two state solution policy that make this discussion interesting. If there is “no such thing as a Palestinian”, is there any need for a Palestinian state? If there is no Palestinian State, will there be a bi-national state for all residents of historical Palestine? If Palestinians can “go many places”, should they be forced out of a Jewish State in Palestine? Martin Indyk, former U.S. Ambassador to Israel and Director of the pro-Israel think tank, Saban Center for Middle East Policy, recognized the consequences of these positions when he said if Mr. Gingrich believes the positions “as implied in his language, then he's not pro-Israel at all."

            While being a “front runner” in the Republican primary race is a precarious position, if Mr. Gingrich can maintain this position, it should provoke an interesting, and much needed debate about U.S. Middle East policy

(Photo from Al Jazeera English}.

One question I am frequently asked these days is what is the U.S. policy in Syria and why are we acting differently in Syria than we did in Libya. In considering these questions I am reminded of the words of a Middle East expert who when asked about U.S. Middle East policy responded, “We don't have a policy in the Middle East, but that's just as well because, if we did, it would be the wrong one”. Before discussing Syria, it would be useful to examine the Libyan situation.

            The Brotherly Leader of Libya, Muammar Qaddafi was an easy target for international military support for a revolution. In addition to his eccentric antics, he had managed, through his words and policies over the years, to make enemies of nearly everybody, the western powers, fellow Arab leaders (especially in the wealthy, autocratic Gulf States) and his own people. When, following the approval of UN Resolution 1973 authorizing “all necessary actions to protect civilians”, the western powers, interpreting the resolution very liberally, embarked on a policy of regime change, no one came to Qaddafi’s defense. The situation in Syria is quite different.

            While Libya was isolated politically, diplomatically and geographically, Syria sits in the middle of the volatile Levant region bordering Iraq, Lebanon, Turkey, Jordan and Israel. It is a major player in the so-called axis of resistance along with Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas. Any western intervention in Syria would likely bring its allies into the conflict with serious regional consequences.

            The divisions in Libyan society are largely tribal in nature. On the other hand, in Syria, tribal rivalries are overlaid with sectarian divisions. The Christian and Alawite (an offshoot of Shia Islam) minorities are generally part of and supportive of the regime, whereas the majority Sunni Muslims see themselves as oppressed.

            Faced with these complicating factors and an overriding concern about the rise of Iran and a possible threat to Israel, the U.S. is attempting to create its own version of the Great Game between Russia and Britain in Central Asia in the 19

            The conservative Gulf monarchies have long despised the secular Assad regime in Syria. Among their Sunni proxies in Syria are a large number of Salafist groups including many jihadist fighters who were kicked out of Iraq and who have set up shop in Syria. Orchestrating a Syria/Iran game as part the effort to remake the New Middle East,  utilizing allies with different agendas, is risky business and may come back to haunt the U.S. and its allies.

This week the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) released its much ballyhooed report on Iran’s nuclear program. The release of the report has been accompanied by a great deal of hype and alarmist rhetoric by western governments and media. Upon close inspection, however, the document appears to be “much ado about nothing”. Almost all of the information on Iran’s nuclear weapons program in the report is historical, dating to 2002, and has been known by most observers for some time. In its summary, the IAEA concludes that it “continues to verify the non-diversion of declared nuclear material at the nuclear facilities and LOFs declared by Iran under its Safeguards Agreement”. The report complains that Iran has failed to live up to its obligations under the Additional Protocol, neglecting to mention that Iran signed, but never ratified this protocol.

The new material on weaponization efforts sites as its source undisclosed intelligence information from Member States, presumably U.S, Israel and other western intelligence agencies. This information primarily alleges that Iran is conducting research on weapons systems that could lead to the development of a nuclear weapon. The report gives no hard evidence supporting this allegation. Even if all of the allegations are true, the report neglects to point out that, as a signatory to the NPT, Iran has obligated itself not to “manufacture or acquire” nuclear weapons {there is no mention of weapons research) and, therefore, is not in violation of the NPT.

There are, however, some useful understandings in this report. First, the IAEA has become much more political under its current head, Yukiya Amano, than it was under his predecessor, Nobel laureate Mohamed ElBaradei. Most of the intelligence information included in this report was available to ElBaradei, but he did not deem it credible enough to include in previous reports.  Amano, who owes his position to strong U.S. lobbying, has taken the agency in a new direction and, as described in a State Dept. cable released by Wikileaks, is “solidly in the U.S. court on every key strategic decision”. (This cable is here.)

The second understanding is that U.S. policies toward the Islamic Republic are a complete failure. Iran continues to develop its nuclear program, albeit more slowly than it might have hoped. The so called crippling sanctions have done nothing to affect Iranian policy. Iran has been able to maintain its oil production at about 4 mm bpd and with a budget based on an oil price of $65 and current prices hovering around $100 they are not in financial straits. They have been able to get around many financial restrictions by taking payments from India and China in local currency and leaving the currency in place to pay for imports. They have also been forced to put their currency reserves in gold. (Not a bad investment.)

The U.S. has finally been forced to back down and to acknowledge that stricter sanctions or military conflict would have very serious negative consequences for the struggling western economies. (See here.) Now might be a good time to reconsider the policies. Unfortunately, this is not a likely occurrence.

This week Palestine was admitted as a full member of UNESCO, the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. Despite strong U.S. and Israeli lobbying against the resolution the vote in favor was overwhelmingly positive: 107 for, 14 against and 52 abstentions. It appears that, besides the U.S. and Israel, only 12 states support the Zionist enterprise.  The result was enormously popular among conference members and was enthusiastically received despite the potential financial problems that will be created for the organization. The larger implication is for U.S, global influence.

Immediately after the UNESCO result was announced, the U.S. announced that it was withholding its payment of its $80mm contribution to UNESCO which amounts to 22% of the agency’s budget. Should the U.S. continue in arrears for two years, it will lose its voting membership and join such luminaries as Somalia and Libya in being in arrears on its UNESCO dues. While the funding deficit is serious, it could easily be made up by countries such as Russia, China or Saudi Arabia who voted yes and for whom $80mm is pocket change. A similar outcome can be expected if Palestine continues to take its statehood case to other UN agencies such as IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency), WHO (World Health Organization) and 12 other agencies who have similar rules. This will have important implications for U.S. national interest in issues such as Iran’s nuclear program and global health among others.

This is only the latest in a series of events which have highlighted U.S. declining influence in the Middle East. When the U.S demanded that Israel halt construction of settlements in occupied Palestine, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu was completely comfortable in ignoring the wishes of his strongest ally and continuing construction. Despite U.S. threats to cut off funding to the Palestinian Authority and to veto the statehood resolution at the UN, President Abbas ignored the U.S. threats and proceeded to the UN Security Council.

The decline in U.S. influence in the region and the concurrent rise in Iranian influence began with the U.S invasion of Iraq. This has had significant consequences for U.S. regional policy. In Iraq, Iran’s political allies have been able to prevent the U.S. from retaining a significant military force on the ground. In Bahrain, the U.S. has had to back away from its support of the democracy movements for fear of Iranian influence among Bahrain’s Shia majority. When I recently asked a senior State Department official about this, his reply was, “This is an extremely difficult problem”.

Absent a significant change in policy approach, it is likely that America’s influence with friend and foe alike will continue to decline. The decline will have major implications for America’s foreign policy objectives. Other countries will certainly fill the vacuum. Whether this will be positive or negative remains to be seen.

That said this quote from Amb. Charles Freeman at the recent NCUSAR (National Council on U.S. Arab Relations) Conference is applicable, “I want to close by affirming my faith in the adaptability and resilience of the United States.  With all the problems we have made for ourselves and our friends in the Middle East, we have just about run out of alternatives to doing the right things.  Now we may get around to actually doing them.”

Last week U.S. government officials announced the indictment of a former used car salesman in Corpus Christi, Texas on charges of being the coordinator between the Iranian government and a Mexican drug cartel in a plot to kill the Saudi ambassador to the U.S., blow up Jewish synagogues and cause other attacks. As information on the alleged plot begins to trickle out, the whole event begins to sound more like an episode from the 1960’s spy genre spoof Get Smart than a serious threat. Unfortunately Manssor Arbabsiar, the alleged perpetrator, does not appear to have had his own Agent 99 to keep him organized. It looks to me as though this is another one of those “dangerous plots” that is announced with great fanfare and then gradually fades from media coverage and is dismissed for lack of credible evidence.

Whatever the outcome of this case, let’s assume that all of the allegations are true and this was a serious effort, controlled at the very top of the Iranian government, designed to result in a major attack on the U.S. and provoke a regional war with the western powers. What are the options for a U.S. response? To me, they appear pretty limited. President Obama has threatened additional sanctions. However, because of the U.S. led sanctions regime currently in place, Iran is already among the most isolated countries in the world. This state of affairs suits the hardliners in the Iranian government just fine as they have no interest in engaging with the west. The isolation also tends to insulate Iran from the financial contagion that is plaguing countries linked to the western financial system.

            The hardline hawks, both within and outside of the U.S. government, who advocate military action have escalated their saber rattling, “all options are on the table” rhetoric following the announcement of the indictment. It is my view, however, that the Iranian strategy of asymmetrical deterrence is fairly effective. Rather than relying on conventional military capability for deterrence, Iran has engaged regional allies including political parties/militias such as Hezbollah and Hamas to threaten Israel and American troops deployed to the region They have succeeded in arming Hezbollah and Hamas to the extent that they pose a significant threat to Israel’s population centers. Pressure from Iran’s allies in Iraq has forced the complete withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq and Iran’s relationship with the Taliban and the Northern Alliance poses a similar threat to U.S forces in Afghanistan. The Quds Force, a special unit of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, “responsible for extraterritorial activities” is also deployed around the world.

            President Obama is now in campaign mode and it is very unlikely that he will want to instigate another disastrous Middle East conflict just as he is trying to focus attention on domestic economic issues. That said, in this part of the world, anything is possible.

Last week the Palestinian Authority’s nominal president Mahmoud Abbas defied U.S. and Israeli pressure and submitted an application to the United Nations to become a Member State of the international organization. Many people on both sides of the Israel/Palestine situation have questioned why Abbas has chosen to make this move.

 The 1993 Oslo Accords established the Palestinian Authority (PA) and initiated the peace process which was envisioned to lead to a Palestinian state within five years. Instead the Oslo process has led to two decades of alternating negotiations and violence. Instead of a Palestinian state, the Oslo process has led to continued Israeli occupation, construction of a wall that divides families and confiscates land, increased blockades and road closures, more Jewish settlements on the West Bank and further Israeli land annexation

In 2008, faced with an interminable process that was going nowhere, Abbas and his nominal prime minister, Salam Fayyad, embarked on a new strategy which included the building of state institutions before sovereignty. This approach assumed that, once state institutions were in place, international pressure would force Israel to recognize Palestinian rights. This has proved to be a false hope.

Abbas and Fayyad have realized that the U.S. and Israel are satisfied with the status quo and that Obama is now in full campaign mode and unlikely to do anything that would have domestic political consequences. With the Arab Awakening going on all around him, Abbas has become desperate to change the political landscape. The move to the UN was the outcome. It is a desperate gamble with uncertain consequences

With the U.S. certain to veto the Member State application in the Security Council, the recognition of Palestine as a non-member state in the General Assembly is the most likely result. Unless the PA leadership has a strategy (strategic thinking is not their strong suit) to follow up with actions at the International Criminal Court and International Court of Justice and to capitalize on the United States’ weakened and isolated position to break the U.S. stranglehold on the peace process, they may end up with the provisional state that Netanyahu has frequently broached. This outcome will have little effect in improving the situation on the ground for ordinary Palestinians.

In the end, the outcome may rest in the hands of the Palestinian people themselves. The Arab Awakening which started in Tunisia and Egypt and has spread across the region has demonstrated the ability of the people to rise up and say “enough is enough” and overthrow their unelected leaders and demand their rights. The Arab Spring may eventually arrive in Palestine.

(Photo by UN News Center)