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Why this war could indeed create a new Middle East
The real strategic winner of the latest Israeli invasion of Lebanon is unquestionably Iran. For the first time since the Shah lost his Peacock Throne a generation ago, revolutionary Iran is the Middle Easts regional power broker of war and peace. The geopolitical omens are perfect for Iran. Hezbollah has again destroyed the myth of Israeli military invincibility forever, with its Katyusha rockets raining down on Hadera.Hezbollah, purely a Lebanese sectarian militia and local political machine only three weeks ago,
One, Iran is now the dominant force in Lebanese politics, the new patron of Syrias besieged Baathist regime and Hamas, the voice of visceral anti-Zionist and anti-American rage. There are no winners in a war where the world weeps over the graves of Arab babies. This is a monumental, even existential disaster for Israel. Two, Irans influence in Arab geopolitics has been amplified by Israeli atrocities and Hezbollahs resilience to the IDFs firestorm has overwhelmed Arab historys pathological Shia-Sunni schism. Iran now dominates the politics of the Iraqi Shia heartland. With $70 crude oil, an ideological vassal and strategic deterrent in Hezbollah, the Syrian connection and a proxy war on its own terms against Israel, Iran is the new rising star in the Middle East. Three, Hezbollahs alliance with Hamas, success against Israel on the battlefield and open contempt for pro-American Arab regimes is a political earthquake in the making. A public opinion backlash forced the governments of Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Egypt to reverse their initial condemnation of Hezbollah. The Saudi cabinet even spoke of the war option against Israel, something last uttered as Saudi financed Egypt prepared to attack Israel on the Suez Canal and King Faisal ordered the oil embargo in the autumn of 1973. As with the PLO in the 1970s, the Arab states will have to factor in Hezbollahs power to destabilise pro-West regimes. The cataclysm of the 1948 Arab defeat led to successive coups d etat in Cairo, Damascus, Baghdad and Tripoli as pro-Western kings and Presidents lost their last shred of legitimacy. Could history repeat itself with the new Arab generation? Four, Americas withdrawal from Iraq is inevitable if the Democrats win the Senate in November and the WhiteHouse in 2008. This scenario exponentially raises the risk of a regional Arab-Israeli war instigated by Iran. Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Iran and Iraq could well attack Israel once Uncle Sam cuts and runs in Baghdad. So the Middle East reverts to its geopolitical balance of terror of before October 1973 when coalitions of entire Arab states, not mere guerillas or militia warlords, attacked Israel on the battlefield despite suicidal odds. This is the Armageddon scenario for both Jews and Arabs, the requiem for those of us peaceniks who staked our lives on a reconciliation among the warring children of Abraham. Israel is to America now what Serbia proved to the imperial Germany in August 1914. A brutal vassal state whose arrogance and delusions of power wrote the obituary for world peace. Like Serbia in 1914 and Japan and Germany in 1939, Israel is a threat to world peace. This is a seminal moment in Arab history, the summer when the Middle Easts Pax Americana balance of power met its doom and Zionism its nemesis. We now live in a world where Dimona and Bushire join the nuclear axis of evil and must now face the bitter reality that the endgame of the Lebanon war could well be a radioactive mushroom cloud over the Holy Land. Posted by: Nimble Spemble 2006-08-13 |
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