Panel: Middle East

If the American era in the Middle East is ending, as argued by some analysts, what is likely to replace it? Chaos? Self-determination? Iranian hegemony? A new caliphate?
- David Ignatius & Fareed Zakaria

The Apocalyptic Whistle
Bashir Goth
UNITED ARAB EMIRATES/SOMALIA

Goth is a veteran journalist, freelance writer, the first Somali blogger and editor of a leading news website . He is also a regular contributor to major Middle Eastern and African newspapers and online journals.

Somalia/UAE - Ruth Shanor, an octogenarian American friend of mine who observes the world from her little home in Cowpens, South Carolina, and reads my Postglobal pieces, wrote to me after learning about the release of the Baker-Hamilton report on Iraq:

Dear Bashir, I have a whistling tea kettle. When I want a cup of tea I put the kettle on the back burner of the stove. I continue with other chores in the kitchen. Usually I completely forget that the temperature is rising in the tea kettle and the water is on the verge of breaking into a full boil. When the silence is finally blasted by an ear-splitting, shrill whistle, it scares me to death. There is no way to ignore the alarm. A call to action! Looks like wiser heads in America are finally screaming that the kettle is about to explode. Your part of the world keeps throwing sticks on the fire also, doesn’t it? When will we have that cup of tea?
An apt analysis indeed. But instead of giving us the recipe for preparing the tea, the Baker-Hamilton report advises the Bush Administration to flee the explosion. The recommendation of engaging Iran and Syria to help solve the Iraqi debacle seems a pragmatic, long-overdue measure. However, looking at the overall defeatist tone of the report, one may conclude that America now turns to Iran and Syria to serve as a lifeboat for the Bush administration. It will then pass along the ticking bomb to Iran and Syria, who it now accuses of fueling the fire. It is their turn to burn.

The Report describes the Iraqi situation as daunting, points out that Bush’s stay-the-course policy was not working, calls for a pull out of American combat troops by early 2008, demands Iran and Iraq be involved in finding a solution, and links the age-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict to the deteriorating situation of Iraq. This clearly spells out defeat for the Bush administration and a resounding victory for Al Qaeda and the other extremists in the region. One thing the report didn’t mention, however, is that the decision to launch the war on Iraq was the wrong one. But that would have been tantamount to putting Bush in the dock, calling for his impeachment.

If America flees the battlefield, Al Qaeda will be gloating on their favorite TV channel Al Jazeera.

Calling the Israeli-Palestinian conflict the core issue of the Middle East problem and linking it to the pacification of the situation in Iraq is a deft way of shifting the focus from the failure in Iraq and winning back the trust of the American-allied Sunni countries which have been alarmed by the growing influence of the Iranian-backed Shiite groups in the region.

I am sure that many people in the region will agree that the stay-the-course policy of the Bush administration was suicidal and the Report was right to advise a change of policy, but running away from the exploding kettle will not only engulf the whole region in unprecedented sectarian wars and chaos but will also signal an end to any future American influence in the region. The Islamic extremists and Al Qaeda sympathizers will emerge as the winners, thus bringing their dream of an Islamic caliphates closer to reality. Emboldened by the American defeat in Iraq, they will flock to other places like Somalia where the Islamists there are raising the mantra of Jihad against the deployment of UN-backed African peace keeping forces. The only consolation for America will be that the emerging Islamic caliphates will not be homogeneous both in ideology and objectives and they will be annihilating themselves on sectarian basis, thus shifting the extremists war away from American and Western soil to a Muslim-Muslim fratricide fought in Arab streets like what we see in Iraq today.

Therefore, I add a few recommendations that may make the Baker-Hamilton Report more appealing to the disgruntled Iraqi Sunni, so that it is veiwed no longer as simply an exit strategy for the Bush administration. The Report is a bitter pill to swallow for the Bush administration to swallow. A few more pills won’t do any harm. Bush should press the Iraqi government to call the old Iraqi army back to service and to open a serious dialogue with the leadership of the disgraced Baathist party. A release of Saddam Hussein, giving him an exile in Venezuala, Cuba, Zimbabwe, or North Korea may also help to calm down the Iraqi Sunnis who feel humiliated every day by the way their former leader is being treated. It will also show Bush’s atonement for waging a domestically unpopular and internationally unjust war on the basis of liesand deceit.

The Bush Administration should also call a tribal conference in Iraq, similar to the Jirga of Afghanistan. In it, tribal leaders and militia commanders represent every tribe and ethnic group in the country and talk to each other. As America’s democracy has only brought a vengeful majority to power in Iraq, resorting to the traditional Arab way of resolving problems and sharing power may reassure the Iraqi people that their fate is in their hands. This, in the end, might expedite the exit of the beleaguered Bush administration.

America Loses, China Rises
Lamis Andoni
QATAR

Lamis Andoni is an English and Middle East consultant for Al Jazeera, the Qatar-based news station. She has been covering the Middle East for 20 years. She has reported for the Christian Science Monitor, the Financial Times and the main newspapers in Jordan. She was a professor at the Graduate School in UC Berkeley.

Jerusalem, Israel - The defeat of the U.S. in Iraq signals the beginning of the end of America’s unilateral political hegemony in the region. It does not, however, end America’s influence. The U.S. will remain dominant while other regional and international powers consolidate their influence to initially counter a weakened American power. That will take time.

China is the most likely candidate to sweep into the region, using its economic power. China’s embassies are already filled with Arab-speaking experts. The country is making slow but sure inroads across the region.

The French, Spanish, and Italian-backed initiatives to hold a peace conference on the Arab-Israeli conflict has been the boldest European move in the region for a while. They are capitalizing on America’s setback, but it remains to be seen if Europe, or some of its countries, will take full advantage of America’s quagmire in Iraq.

Seen in this context, the Iraq Study Group’s recommendations reflect a U.S. realization that they should recapture the moribund “peace process” to minimize its losses.

Meanwhile, the Islamic project -- in its different shades and forms -- has risen in response to America’s blunders and the Israeli occupation. Despite of its diversity -- and serious internal contradictions -- the political Islamic movement has gained unprecedented legitimacy and power. This is partly due to the Islamic nature of the forces leading the resistance in Iraq, Palestine, and Lebanon.

Secular forces cannot support Israel and American hegemony; they also cannot accept the ideological premises of the Islamic movements; and so are caught in the middle.

China’s Middle East Conundrum
Huang Hung
CHINA

Huang runs CIMG, a media company in China. She is the publisher of Time Out in China and iLook, a Chinese luxury lifestyle magazine. In addition, she has wrote a best seller book titled “My abnormal Life” and her own blog is one of the most popular in china.

Beijing, China - Funny you should ask. Only yesterday, over a cup of coffee, a seasoned editor and I came to the conclusion that expressing opinions on the Middle East must be a pain in the you-know-what for the Chinese government.

On the one hand, they want to show solidarity with the West on issues such as terrorism; on the other hand they are completely tongue-tied because they have a huge domestic Muslim population.

China is being pushed to assume a world superpower role. But our policy research institutes aren’t ready to provide adequate information and recommendations to the Chinese leadership. If the top leaders want a Baker-Hamilton report, they wouldn’t know whom to call. For too long, Chinese academics and policy analysts have spent their time trying to figure out what the leadership wants to hear, not what they should hear.

As a result, Chinese statements often seem empty. If indeed the American era in the Middle East is over, then there is much scrambling to do on the Chinese side to come up with a coherent Middle East policy. Until then, please don’t ask.

Iran Cannot Dominate
Yossi Melman
ISRAEL

Yossi Melman is a senior commentator for the Israeli daily Haaretz. He specializes in intelligence, security, terrorism and strategic issues. An author of seven books on these topics he is now writing (with Meir Javedanfar) a book on Iran’s President and his desire for nuclear weapons to be published next spring in the U.S.A.

Tel Aviv, Israel - The end of the American presence in the Middle East is not yet near. U.S. policy in the region is indeed licking its wounds. Iraq was a major blow. But America’s involvement is far from over.

The U.S. still needs Middle East oil. America must remain involved in the region for this reason. And there are other reasons too. Pro-western states that favor the status quo, like Israel and the Sunni world of Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, and the United Arab Emirates, all need America’s security umbrella. These states fear the growing expansion of Iran’s Shiism. They struggle at home to maintain stability and repel forces of radicalism and Islamism. They feel threatened by Iran’s belligerency.

Iran is heading toward -- and it seems unstoppable -- acquiring nuclear weapons. Talk in the Middle East is about the “Shiite Crescent” (some refer to it as the “Shiite Banana”). Iran is trying to to create a geographically connected zone extending from Iran to its Shiite allies in Iraq -- and via the pro-Iranian regime in Syria, controlled by the Alwaites (which is a minority and ruling Asad family is part of it) - all the way to Lebanon.

Iran and Lebanon’s Hezbollah are both threats to the existence of Israel, but above all they are perceived as threats to Arab Sunnites. No wonder Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Jordan wanted Israel to prevail against Hezbollah. Tensions will likely only increase between the Shiites led by Iran and by the Sunnites led by Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey.

A new alliance to stop Iranian hegemony is already in the making. In individual countries, violent struggles for power could or already have emerged in Palestine, Egypt, Lebanon and of course Iraq. America will withdraw from Iraq sooner or later and when it does, Iraq will most probably be divided into three mini-states -- Shiite, Sunnite and a Kurdish. The U.S., along with Europe and Russia will be there to exercise their influence.

The Middle East is facing harsh times. But it is too large and too ethnically and religiously diversified to allow one local force, Iran, to dominate.

New Superpower Pair: U.S. & EU
Miklos Vamos
HUNGARY

Miklós Vámos is a Hungarian novelist, screenwriter and talk show host.

Budapest, Hungary - The American era is slowly ending, and not just in the Middle East. The question is: What kind of an era will replace it.

The U.S. seems to have been better at solving problems in dangerous places and keeping peace around the globe than another super power, the late Soviet Union, was at it. Ever since the USA became the sole superpower, it has been acting like a man or woman who, after a long marriage, is suddenly left alone in the house and acts senselessly; he or she starts doing things too many things at the time, and is never sure what to do.

This is exactly how the aggressive steps of the United States of America seem to me. I understand that it is hard to be the only superpower -- the only living creature in the old house. What should America do? Let’s stick to our example and see. When you loose your life companion, go and befriend others more than ever. Work more than ever. In the end, try to find another partner.

The U.S. has no big choice. Either it accepts that the new “superpower” is the dispersed group of terrorist around the world -- and that mustn’t be accepted -- or he turns to the European Union. Great Britain is just nostalgia for superpower days of yore, and is important just as one member of the European community, with or without Tony Blair.

Let’s not try to figure out the future of Iraq. Let’s leave that problem to the people of Iraq. They will find their own way, and the road won’t be much bloodier without the Americans. The only difference is that there won’t be American blood on that road. That difference, unfortunately, is not too important from the point of view of the future of that region. This all means that now is the right time for U.S. troops to go home without feeling guilty.

Israel is a Liability for U.S.
Daoud Kuttab
PALESTINE/JORDAN

Daoud Kuttab is a Palestinian journalist. He was born in Jerusalem in 1955. He is the director of the Institute of Modern Media at Al Quds University in Ramallah, and he is the founder and general director of AmmanNet, the Arab world’s first internet radio station.

Ramallah, Palestine - The departure of Rumsfield and Bolton from the political scene, the bipartisan Baker-Hamilton report, and the frank talk of Jimmy Carter are all signs that Americans are finally beginning to realize that Israel is a liability and not an asset to their global interests. However, there is still a long way to go before the end of U.S. hegemony in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Israel, unfortunately, is still a domestic issue for the United States and the strength of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee hasn’t weakened despite attempts by U.S. academics to expose them.

Hopefully, as the roots of America’s blind support for Israel are exposed, a more sane U.S. foreign policy in the region might emerge -- a policy that takes into account what the rest of the world thinks. So far, a great deal is needed to end the misery caused by the unjust, nearly 40-year-old occupation of Palestine. The U.S. must act proactively, doing what Bush senior and James Baker III tried to do with the Shamir government on the eve of the 10 billion loan guarantees and the Madrid Peace process.

The next year or so might provide a small window of opportunity if a Palestinian national unity government is formed, the moderate Arab countries get serious, and Britain along with its European partners makes a real push for Olmert to answer for his country’s illegal occupation and for the obstruction of genuine negotiations.