Peace talks regarding the Middle East again, this time in Annapolis, Maryland. Israel, the Palestinians, and their Arab neighbors all sitting down to give Condoleezza Rice one more chance of leaving a positive legacy as Secretary of State. After all, cutting the Gordian Knot of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict would be one way to make us forget her complete ineptitude as both Bush’s National Security Adviser and then Secretary of State, a record replete with failures from Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, Russia, China, Africa and Europe.
There’s little chance of actually making any real progress, however, given the intransigence of the current Israeli government and of Hamas, and the skeptical attitudes of their Arab neighbors. Still, peace is not the only reason Ms. Rice has for calling a conference where Israel and America’s Arab “friends” can all sit down together to pontificate. Her other agenda has little to do with peace in the region. Rather it has everything to do with the principal non-attendee to her little soirée, a certain Shi’ite Islamic Republic over which the Bush administration continues to obsess, despite the chaos in Iraq and the potential for an Islamic revolution in Pakistan. If you haven’t guessed by now, that country is Iran, and Rice fully intends her “conference” to form the basis for an Israeli/Sunni Arab league against the Menace from Tehran’s Imams:
Tuesday’s Arab-Israeli peace summit in Annapolis, Maryland, is supposed to be about resolving long-standing Palestinian issues, the Golan Heights, and other contentious matters. But, increasingly, it is framed in the United States and Israeli media as a dual-purpose conference, the other being the containment of Iran. […]
[I]n the US a number of pundits have painted Annapolis as a “means of sorts of cementing a coalition against Iran and its allies”, to paraphrase Tamar Cofman Wittes of the Saban Center for Middle East Policy. According to Cofman and a host of media pundits paraded on American television news programs, Annapolis is President George W Bush’s wakeup call to the world on the “Iran threat”.
It comes as little surprise, then, that the US military in Iraq has quickly pinned on “Iran-backed militias” the responsibility for the recent explosion at Baghdad’s pet market which killed more than a dozen people – call it pre-Annapolis fuel for “blaming Iran”.
Interestingly, a powerful Iraqi politician, Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, head of the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council, has questioned the US’s accusations against Iran, asking the US to “offer more proof” of Iran’s alleged role in inciting violence in Iraq. That is a fair request, particularly since both the US and Iran are now poised to hold their fourth round of direct, bilateral talks on Iraqi security. And, per the US military’s own admission, there has been a substantial reduction of violence in Baghdad and elsewhere in Iraq, suggesting a more cooperative role on Iran’s part. […]
But, Israel and the US do not call all the shots at the conference and Syria in particular, which has participated in a number of summits and conferences in the past in pursuit of regaining its territories in Israel’s hands, can increase the diplomatic pressure on Israel in Annapolis. And so can other states of the Arab League, such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia, that have made clear their unwillingness to go along with the Bush administration’s division of the Middle East into “moderate” versus “radical” camps.
The big question, then, is to what extent the Arab participants at Annapolis will be successful in repelling the US-Israeli map of action against “Iran-led extremism”, which has a clear nuclear dimension, aimed at taking advantage of the Arab world’s fears of an Iranian bomb? Another question is what kind of concessions does Israel have to make on the Arab front to make gains at the Iran front? Will Israel go as far as appeasing Syria, to wrest Damascus away from Tehran at his critical juncture in the Iran nuclear crisis? […]
Any overt linkage of this summit with Iran has its own perils, potentially backfiring on the US and Israel, showing them to be not serious on the core Palestinian issues and, as Tehran has put it, pursuing “their own interests and objectives”. On the other hand, a soft linkage, whereby Syria’s pro-Iran proclivity can be chipped away and Iran’s international standing suffers, has its own dividends.
“Iran should follow the strategy of avoiding confrontation,” writes a Tehran analyst, Ibrahim Motaghi. After all, the latest IAEA report, despite its minor shortcomings, has been rightly viewed by Tehran as a timely plus, enhancing its hands in the nuclear negotiations and weakening those of the US. Yet, the Annapolis summit and the likely negative spins against Iran around it are aimed at eroding Iran’s nuclear gains and facilitating US-led coercive diplomacy at the UN and beyond. […]
The problem, however, is that whereas ElBaradei has reported “good progress” on Iran-IAEA cooperation, this has not had any impact on the US-led road to tougher UN sanctions on Iran, except perhaps small speed bumps. China, which balked at participating at the last “Five plus One” meeting on Iran (the Security Council’s permanent members plus Germany) , is now under pressure to go along with tougher sanctions, as is Germany, which like China has much to lose in lucrative business with Iran as a result of a sanctions regime.
But, again, a major problem for the US’s Iran policy is none other than the IAEA itself, whose findings, of the absence of any military diversion, etc, serve Iran’s purpose of rallying the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), comprising the majority of UN member states, behind its cause, in light of the NAM’s resolution at the recent IAEA meeting that warned against the meddling influence of “certain governments” in the IAEA’s relations with Iran.
Tuesday, I’ll be at the Dentist getting my teeth worked on. Somehow I expect that I will have a better time of it than Ms. Rice tomorrow as she tries to convince the Sunni Arabs in the region that they should give their full backing to an Israeli/United States military confrontation with Iran. Our Arab “friends” in the region don’t like Iran’s government much, and they have reasonable suspicions about it’s nuclear program, but neither do they want another war at their doorstep, one which will only inflame the passions of minority Shi’ite populations within their own countries, lead to an increase in terrorism throughout the region and quite possibly result in the closing of the Strait of Hormuz.
At this point they see the Bush administration’s military approach to the Middle East’s problems as a complete and utter disaster. Why should they enable him to double down on Iran at this point? What can Bush and Rice offer them that would make such a risky strategy palatable? I can’t think of anything, can you?
Thanks for this piece.
Great article on what can be expected from the Annapolis conference from Rami G. Khouri, the Palestinian-Jordanian editor of the Daily Star, a leading Lebanese newspaper.
A Great Stage that Should Not be Missed
by Rami G. Khouri Released: 21 Nov 2007
http://www.ramikhouri.com/
A few paragraphs quoted here, but the full article can be read above.
The deamd that the Palestininas recognize the right of Israel to exist as a Jewish State is fraught with unstated implications that remain buried.
That acknowledgemnt would mean that the Palestinians, as non Jewish people would have no right to live within the borders of Israel even though it has been their ancestral home for centuries.
This ploy neatly gets rid of the Palestinian demographic problem without invoking the specter of ethnic cleansing.It can be gradually implemented and will all be legal.
This will be the FINAL SOLUTION to the problem that has vexed the Israelis for the past fifty odd years..
The Nazis never really died.They went and lived happily ever after in Israel.
At the end of Condi’s soiree,the Palestinians will have two options: Commit Collective Hara-Kiri by signing away their rights to life within the borders of what is currently Israel or wait for the Israeli bulldozers and tanks to do it for them if they refuse.
I found it most interesting that in the past three days, there have been only two member diaries on the Annapolis Conference at Daily Kos. Admittedly, the press on Israel’s participation has been skeptical at best, bringing Israel’s intransigence and penchant for red herrings to the fore at the worst.
This I suspect is the result of the massive purge and banning of proPalestinian peace activists from the site, and I admit to being one of them. But I also admit that Daily Kos presently has its nose so far up the Israel Lobby’s ass, that as far as reporting on Middle East foreign policy, it is not the place to be.
This is the place to be.
Bush already backtracking to push aside any hope of a concluded peace at Annapolis.
Bush national security adviser Stephen Hadley made these statements on Sunday:
“It is now time for the parties to get into this process by way of negotiation,” Hadley told reporters. “And I don’t think the president will conclude that the time is right to start offering ideas on outcomes on specific issues. … This is not a negotiation session. It is to launch a negotiation, and for the parties then to take a lead.”
Hadley also said the joint statement was not as important as it had initially appeared. The two sides had taken the unexpected step of agreeing to negotiations, so the document was no longer a vehicle necessary to bring them to that point, he said.
“If we get something, if they can agree on some things as an input to the negotiations, that would be fine,” Hadley said. “But I think it is really no longer on the critical path to a successful conference.”
What bullshit. Olmert and Abbas have been talking for a year. About what? Nonspecifics, and as long as Israel insists on vagueness, nothing will be accomplished during Bush’s presidency.
If it weren’t so excruciatingly painful, humiliating and embarrassing for the Palestinians, this conference would be a hoot. Imagine: the Palestinians have to sit and smile while they know that the hostess has no intention of passing them the party delights because the host told her not to. A kind of public S and M deja vu of U.S. manufacture is all they will get. Remember when she referred to the host as her husband? Giggle. As if the U.S. and Israel don’t know how to establish a Palestinian state and peace on earth in the Holy Land forever and ever. After all, the Christian Season is coming round again and the host and hostess and their minions are in a comercially giving, peace-loving spirit. Right. Anyone else embarrassed by the flaming hypocrisy, disgusted. I demand I get all my confiscated art works back immediately! You can’t have your house or land or orchard because I say so! Cry, cry, cry.
as long as the containment is containment, and not military strikes, this is actually the first smart thing the idiots have done…ever.
They’re not going to get an agreement over Palestine…they don’t want one and neither do the other parties at this time. But they can talk to everyone, and they can explain to them that they’re leaving power soon and that a failed Iraqi state is a not unlikely outcome. So…if the Arabs don’t want a failed Shi’a state and more ethnic cleansing..they should use their influence to calm Iraq and then to support it in recovery.
I’m not saying this will work, but any sensible person would at least try. Frankly, it should have been tried 4 years ago.
If no one wants an agreement over Palestine, then tell me, what is the wicked purpose of convening a gathering which will only publicy humiliate the Palestinians while they are suffering more than ever? Does anyone really get how horrendous the situation is in Gaza and even the West Bank? If the clandestine purpose of the get-together is to discuss Iraq or Iran, why wasn’t it said? The Palestinians could have stayed home and skipped the disciplinary training. They have nothing to say even about their own destiny, let alone Iraq and Iran. Or were they invited purely out of compassion and love? Of course the ‘Arabs’—whoever they may be—know that Bush and his crowd are leaving. Why would that make them want to take any advice from them, let themselves be frightened into submission out of fear of a failed state? No one can really believe that any of us can understand the relations between the Sunni and Shi’a branches of Islam in the political field. It goes much deeper than good guy, bad guy, friend, foe. There will be a new administration and the Arabs might choose to wait before showing their cards. I don’t need to advise them to do so. They know where their advantages lie: oil and a new Sunni dictator for Iraq who deprives Iran of the advantages the U.S. cock-up in Iraq has delivered Iran on a silver platter. The West will soon be back at Go in the Middle East. The most disgusting part is how the condition of the Palestinians has been manipulated and exploited, among other reasons, to flatter the egos of a bunch of power brokers.
Can’t exactly agree with this. Although the Palestinians know that Israel is not interested in concluding a peace agreement…just look at the building on the West Bank if you need signals…they have no choice except to appear peace oriented. Olmert probably already informed Abbas that the Knesset, as during Camp David in 2000, would not approve the dismantling of a single Israeli only town or city in the West Bank. The Arab nations know it as well. It is all appearances.
What is it that will make Israel cave and give the Palestinians the 22% that is left of their original country, Palestine, I don’t think either side knows. But right now the status quo is intransigence on the Israel side and the right wing still has all the marbles.
Lately, I’ve been referring to the Mideast socio-political scene as kaleidoscopic. Just when you think you’ve got a handle on events, just tilt your ‘viewer’ ever so slightly and a whole new set of events and relations starts to emerge.
Tony Karon has a very interesting guest on his blog that presents the intricacies of the Iran factor. It’s not all anti-Iran.
See also this.