K
Kickin' Ass and Takin' Names
Guest
Saudi Arabia and the United States share a common concern--Iran--but are
divided on the issue of strategy.
For the last five years, the United States has pursued a high-risk
campaign of isolation, confrontation, and escalating pressure, with
overthrowing or at least weakening Iran's current government as its
final objective.
The Saudis, on the other hand, are pursuing what might be called Cold-
War style containment of Tehran.
And it looks like the Saudis have the upper hand for now.
The fatal flaw of the U.S. approach was that, with our military forces
occupied in occupying Iraq, we were trying to shift the burden and
risk of hassling Iran to our allies.
Since confrontation with Iran was risky, costly, destabilizing to our
allies, and, last but not least, offered little chance of success,
there was little enthusiasm for it.
So it didn't work.
Now it looks like the Saudis have stepped up decisively to fill the
leadership vacuum with a plan of their own.
Riyadh means to replace the destructive framing of a war on terror
that the United States imposed on the region, and replace it with the
careful nurturing of conservative, Islam friendly, and stable but Iran-
hostile regimes.
And the signs are--from the Annapolis conference to the Iran NIE--that
the realist wing of the U.S. State Department has decided to go along.
Over at Syria Comment, the veteran Syria watcher Josh Landis points
out http://joshualandis.com/... that the main achievement of the
otherwise anti-climactic Annapolis conference was that Syria showed
up.
"Flipping" Syria away from Tehran is the centerpiece of everybody's
strategy for Iran.
The price of Syria's attendance was various inducements offered by
the Saudis, EU, and the U.S., not the least of which was to betray
Lebanon's pro-Western March 14 political movement by supporting the
nomination of a pro-Syrian general, Michel Sulieman, as Lebanon's
president.
The ultimate carrot being dangled is return of the Golan Heights to
Syria.
The quid pro quo is that Syria stops acting as a conduit for Iranian
support of Hizbullah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza.
The most remarkable aspect of this strategy is promotion of a de facto
alliance between Israel and Saudi Arabia, by which Israel appeases
Syria and in return gets a docile Palestinian Authority regime in the
West Bank and a free hand to stamp out Hamas in Gaza.
By this scenario, the Palestinians, bereft of outside aid, take it in
the shorts as usual, but Syria is expected to return to the Sunni Arab
fold and resume its natural role of hatin' on the Farsi-speaking
Shi'ite Iranians.
However, as release of the devastating National Intelligence Estimate
on Iran (devastating, that is, to U.S. and Israeli hardliners seeking
to drive Middle East security policy by invoking an Iranian nuclear
threat) indicated, the purpose of peeling Syria away from Iran is not
necessarily to isolate Iran for the purpose of more and more effective
sanctions, destabilization, and regime change as the U.S. had
attempted.
The focus, as I see it, has shifted to a move orchestrated by Saudi
Arabia to contain--as opposed to destroy--Iran's regime by removing its
Syrian asset and thereby encouraging Iran to stick to its local
knitting and rethink its plans of extending its diplomatic and
military reach into the Arab slice of the Middle East via Damascus,
Beirut, and Gaza.
Detente, in other words.
Or maybe just a new cold war in the Middle East, one that heats up to
fatal levels whenever opportunity and miscalculation enter into the
equation.
With the Levant off the table, the real struggle for the western end
of the Middle East would shift to Iraq.
In Iraq, I expect that Riyadh's strategy would be to thwart Iraq's pro-
Iranian Shi'ite majority from gaining power by backing the Sunnis and
whatever feckless U.S. client is ensconced in Baghdad at the time.
Divide and conquer, on other words. Not good news for the Iraqi
people but, if handled right, the Iraqi people spend a few more years
in the meatgrinder as proxies in a desultory and limited local
struggle between two well-heeled regional powers--Iran and Saudi Arabia--
trying to deny each other the advantage in a crucial central state.
The most interesting and less understood aspect of the struggle
between Iran and Saudi Arabia is taking place, even as we speak, in
the east--in Pakistan.
It's not well understood that what's going on in Pakistan is not a
democracy movement--it's an attempt to inject Benazir Bhutto into
Pakistan's government as an American client.
What's even less well understood is that Saudi Arabia is pushing an
alternate candidate--Nawaz Sharif--in opposition to the Bush
administration.
If Bhutto comes to power, she promises to follow U.S. line with an
aggressive campaign against Islamic extremists inside Pakistan and
against Taliban elements in Pakistan's tribal areas. And if she
follows through, she will alienate the army and exacerbate Pakistan's
political crisis.
If Sharif comes to power, he will pursue a more moderate line of
alternating pressure and accommodation with the Taliban, Islamicist
extremists, and al Qaeda.
The end result of Pakistan's--and America's and Saudi Arabia's--choice
will be seen in Afghanistan.
The West is losing in Afghanistan.
That either means we fight to keep the pro-U.S. Karzai regime in
power, using Benazir Bhutto to mobilize Pakistan's military and
intelligence resources in the name of fighting Islamicist extremism...
....or we let it go, Pakistan's security and military organizations
allow nature to take its course, and a conservative, pro-Saudi regime--
one that accommodates the Taleban--return to Kabul and form a natural
bulwark to Iran on its east with Pakistan's assistance.
That's an impossible choice for the U.S. to make: to abandon a well-
intentioned if not particularly capable democratic, secular, and pro-
American ally.
But I think the Saudis worry that America's high risk, high cost, and
low return war on terror is driving overreliance on Karzai and
excessive meddling in Pakistani politics, with the possibility of not
one but two failed states on Iran's eastern flank sucking up our
money, attention, and energy.
The bottom line is this:
Pro-US regimes in Muslim countries are weak, ineffectual, divided,
unstable, and dangerous--and are too weak to resist Iran. In fact,
like the Iraqi regime, they often end up dealing with Iran, and from a
position of weakness.
Saudi Arabia is quietly and persistently working to replace the
secular regimes we have installed or supported in Iraq, Afghanistan,
and Pakistan, whose values, rhetoric, and alliances can't take down
Iran but pose a genuine threat to non-democratic, Islam-based
autocracies...like Saudi Arabia.
Ironically, the Islamicist forces that we abhor and fear so much are
dressed in the garb of our allies and are pushing us from the center
of the Middle East stage...and we don't even realize it yet.
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/12/7/01739/5481
divided on the issue of strategy.
For the last five years, the United States has pursued a high-risk
campaign of isolation, confrontation, and escalating pressure, with
overthrowing or at least weakening Iran's current government as its
final objective.
The Saudis, on the other hand, are pursuing what might be called Cold-
War style containment of Tehran.
And it looks like the Saudis have the upper hand for now.
The fatal flaw of the U.S. approach was that, with our military forces
occupied in occupying Iraq, we were trying to shift the burden and
risk of hassling Iran to our allies.
Since confrontation with Iran was risky, costly, destabilizing to our
allies, and, last but not least, offered little chance of success,
there was little enthusiasm for it.
So it didn't work.
Now it looks like the Saudis have stepped up decisively to fill the
leadership vacuum with a plan of their own.
Riyadh means to replace the destructive framing of a war on terror
that the United States imposed on the region, and replace it with the
careful nurturing of conservative, Islam friendly, and stable but Iran-
hostile regimes.
And the signs are--from the Annapolis conference to the Iran NIE--that
the realist wing of the U.S. State Department has decided to go along.
Over at Syria Comment, the veteran Syria watcher Josh Landis points
out http://joshualandis.com/... that the main achievement of the
otherwise anti-climactic Annapolis conference was that Syria showed
up.
"Flipping" Syria away from Tehran is the centerpiece of everybody's
strategy for Iran.
The price of Syria's attendance was various inducements offered by
the Saudis, EU, and the U.S., not the least of which was to betray
Lebanon's pro-Western March 14 political movement by supporting the
nomination of a pro-Syrian general, Michel Sulieman, as Lebanon's
president.
The ultimate carrot being dangled is return of the Golan Heights to
Syria.
The quid pro quo is that Syria stops acting as a conduit for Iranian
support of Hizbullah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza.
The most remarkable aspect of this strategy is promotion of a de facto
alliance between Israel and Saudi Arabia, by which Israel appeases
Syria and in return gets a docile Palestinian Authority regime in the
West Bank and a free hand to stamp out Hamas in Gaza.
By this scenario, the Palestinians, bereft of outside aid, take it in
the shorts as usual, but Syria is expected to return to the Sunni Arab
fold and resume its natural role of hatin' on the Farsi-speaking
Shi'ite Iranians.
However, as release of the devastating National Intelligence Estimate
on Iran (devastating, that is, to U.S. and Israeli hardliners seeking
to drive Middle East security policy by invoking an Iranian nuclear
threat) indicated, the purpose of peeling Syria away from Iran is not
necessarily to isolate Iran for the purpose of more and more effective
sanctions, destabilization, and regime change as the U.S. had
attempted.
The focus, as I see it, has shifted to a move orchestrated by Saudi
Arabia to contain--as opposed to destroy--Iran's regime by removing its
Syrian asset and thereby encouraging Iran to stick to its local
knitting and rethink its plans of extending its diplomatic and
military reach into the Arab slice of the Middle East via Damascus,
Beirut, and Gaza.
Detente, in other words.
Or maybe just a new cold war in the Middle East, one that heats up to
fatal levels whenever opportunity and miscalculation enter into the
equation.
With the Levant off the table, the real struggle for the western end
of the Middle East would shift to Iraq.
In Iraq, I expect that Riyadh's strategy would be to thwart Iraq's pro-
Iranian Shi'ite majority from gaining power by backing the Sunnis and
whatever feckless U.S. client is ensconced in Baghdad at the time.
Divide and conquer, on other words. Not good news for the Iraqi
people but, if handled right, the Iraqi people spend a few more years
in the meatgrinder as proxies in a desultory and limited local
struggle between two well-heeled regional powers--Iran and Saudi Arabia--
trying to deny each other the advantage in a crucial central state.
The most interesting and less understood aspect of the struggle
between Iran and Saudi Arabia is taking place, even as we speak, in
the east--in Pakistan.
It's not well understood that what's going on in Pakistan is not a
democracy movement--it's an attempt to inject Benazir Bhutto into
Pakistan's government as an American client.
What's even less well understood is that Saudi Arabia is pushing an
alternate candidate--Nawaz Sharif--in opposition to the Bush
administration.
If Bhutto comes to power, she promises to follow U.S. line with an
aggressive campaign against Islamic extremists inside Pakistan and
against Taliban elements in Pakistan's tribal areas. And if she
follows through, she will alienate the army and exacerbate Pakistan's
political crisis.
If Sharif comes to power, he will pursue a more moderate line of
alternating pressure and accommodation with the Taliban, Islamicist
extremists, and al Qaeda.
The end result of Pakistan's--and America's and Saudi Arabia's--choice
will be seen in Afghanistan.
The West is losing in Afghanistan.
That either means we fight to keep the pro-U.S. Karzai regime in
power, using Benazir Bhutto to mobilize Pakistan's military and
intelligence resources in the name of fighting Islamicist extremism...
....or we let it go, Pakistan's security and military organizations
allow nature to take its course, and a conservative, pro-Saudi regime--
one that accommodates the Taleban--return to Kabul and form a natural
bulwark to Iran on its east with Pakistan's assistance.
That's an impossible choice for the U.S. to make: to abandon a well-
intentioned if not particularly capable democratic, secular, and pro-
American ally.
But I think the Saudis worry that America's high risk, high cost, and
low return war on terror is driving overreliance on Karzai and
excessive meddling in Pakistani politics, with the possibility of not
one but two failed states on Iran's eastern flank sucking up our
money, attention, and energy.
The bottom line is this:
Pro-US regimes in Muslim countries are weak, ineffectual, divided,
unstable, and dangerous--and are too weak to resist Iran. In fact,
like the Iraqi regime, they often end up dealing with Iran, and from a
position of weakness.
Saudi Arabia is quietly and persistently working to replace the
secular regimes we have installed or supported in Iraq, Afghanistan,
and Pakistan, whose values, rhetoric, and alliances can't take down
Iran but pose a genuine threat to non-democratic, Islam-based
autocracies...like Saudi Arabia.
Ironically, the Islamicist forces that we abhor and fear so much are
dressed in the garb of our allies and are pushing us from the center
of the Middle East stage...and we don't even realize it yet.
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/12/7/01739/5481