As the Middle East region rapidly changes with Iran, Hizbullah, Hamas, and the Saudis exerting influence, new European leaders arrive, who will counter or support the U.S. role and its policies.
Exit Blair and Chirac,
Enter Vladimir Putin Patrick Seale
Agence Global
February 10, 2007
Enter Vladimir Putin Patrick Seale
Agence Global
February 10, 2007
Copyright © 2007 Patrick Seale
[Republished at GRBlog with AG permission]
[Republished at GRBlog with AG permission]
On February 11, President Vladimir Putin begins a Middle East tour clearly intended to signal the intention of a more confident Russia to provide a regional counter-weight to the United States.
The two powers are at odds on several Middle East issues. The United States is threatening Iran with harsh sanctions and possibly even military strikes unless it suspends its uranium enrichment programme. Russia has supplied Iran with anti-aircraft systems to protect its nuclear facilities. It is building Iran’s first nuclear plant at Bushehr, and has a contract to build six more.
Whereas Washington backed Israel in its war last summer against Hizbullah in Lebanon, Hizbullah’s anti-tank weapons, which successfully knocked out dozens of Israel’s tanks, were of Russian manufacture -- even if supplied indirectly via Iran and Syria.
The United States has followed Israel’s lead in boycotting Hamas after its victory at the democratic Palestinian elections of January 2006. Russia has argued in favour of a dialogue with Hamas, and invited its leaders to Moscow.
Washington fears that North and sub-Saharan Africa may become a new base for terrorist activities. Russia, in contrast, has criticised America’s obsession with terrorism, and has agreed to supply Algeria with $7.5 billion worth of tanks, aircraft and anti-aircraft missiles.
Another new actor on the Middle East scene is German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Because of its Nazi past, Germany will never put serious pressure on Israel, but on her recent Middle East tour, Merkel displayed considerable independence by arguing in favour of engaging with Syria, and of a two-state solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict.
As new actors enter the Middle East arena, others prepare to depart.
This spring, two European leaders, Britain’s Prime Minister Tony Blair and France’s President Jacques Chirac, will be passing from the national and international scene. Both will have been in power for a decade. Both leave behind a mixed record.
Blair will be handing the reins over to his long-serving Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown, while the coming French elections in April-May are expected to put either the right-wing Nicolas Sarkozy or the socialist Ségolène Royal in the Elysée Palace.
There is a one percent chance that Chirac might attempt to stand again. But, after forty years in public life -- as mayor of Paris, prime minister and president -- this is highly unlikely. He was recently quoted as saying that there was life after politics.
Blair’s creditable domestic record as prime minister has been fatally tarnished by his decision to join the United States in the war against Iraq -- a war many consider illegal and waged on fraudulent premises, which has destroyed a major Arab country, encouraged Iran’s ambitions, and spread chaos throughout the region.
Blair has attempted to rescue his reputation by pressing for movement on the Arab-Israeli peace process. But he has been defeated by Washington’s pro-Israeli neo-conservatives, who believe Israel should be free to settle its conflict with the Palestinians, and with Syria and Lebanon, on its own muscular terms, without external pressure or interference. No one knows whether Gordon Brown will be any more successful than Blair in checking American belligerence.
Jacques Chirac’s main claim to fame in the Middle East is that he opposed the war in Iraq from the very start -- an act of vision and political courage, which won him considerable popularity among Arabs. He threw some of this credit away, however, by joining the United States in pressing for Syria’s withdrawal from Lebanon and by conducting a personal feud against Syria’s President Bashar al-Asad (whom he suspects of responsibility for the assassination of Chirac’s close friend, Lebanon’s former premier Rafiq Hariri). Chirac has also opposed Hizbullah in its challenge to the Lebanese government and has followed America’s lead in boycotting Hamas.
If Nicolas Sarkozy were to win the French presidential election, he is widely expected to place France more firmly in the American-Israeli camp. He has repeatedly described himself as a "friend of Israel," and as profoundly concerned for Israel’s security. On a visit to Washington late last year, he was at pains to be photographed in friendly talks with Bush.
The truth is that neither Britain nor France have managed to implement an independent policy in the Middle East, but have been forced to give ground to the United States and Israel. Many observers would say that Europe’s failure to devise a common defence and foreign policy -- or to agree on a new Constitution for a Union of 27 members -- lie at the root of its current weakness.
Another clear conclusion of recent years is that, in spite of providing Israel with massive assistance, the United States has been unable to influence Israel in the direction of peace with its neighbours. Rather, Israel and its influential friends have succeeded in shaping Bush’s policy. Having pushed him into the Iraqi quagmire, the neo-cons are now urging him to make war on Iran -- with unpredictable consequences for the whole world.
It remains to be seen whether a more confident Russia, a more assertive Arab world under Saudi leadership, an emergent Iran, as well as radical non-state actors like Hizbullah and Hamas will manage, in their very different ways, to introduce an element of balance in Middle East affairs.
Patrick Seale is a leading British writer on the Middle East, and the author of The Struggle for Syria; also, Asad of Syria: The Struggle for the Middle East; and Abu Nidal: A Gun for Hire.
Copyright © 2007 Patrick Seale
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Released: 10 February 2007
Word Count: 865
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