In my last diary, my first at the frog pond, I pointed to some geopolitical dynamics happening in the Middle East that support the notion that a Peace Train is gathering momentum. The usual East/West, Dem/Rep identifications and storylines are being severely shaken up and what is bogus is becoming ever more clear. In that space of confusion, of crumbling storylines, a tremendous opportunity has arisen. The dynamics of peace will soon be trumping the war card. The action goes Big Time this week when Rouhani and Obama speak to the UN General Assembly. This diary is a roundup of links from the past week that caught my eye. Here again, I’m not claiming enough expertise to vet the backstories associated with all these links, so use your best judgment.
Let’s start with Israel and a report from Chemi Shalev in Haaretz
Whatever the ultimate outcome of the deal hashed out between Russia and the U.S. to dispose of Syria’s chemical weapons, events of the past two weeks have diluted the credibility of an American military threat against Iran, a sine qua non, in Netanyahu’s eyes at least, to convincing Tehran to give up its nuclear weapons program.
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Obama’s decision to ask for Congressional approval for a military attack against President Assad’s regime achieved the opposite of what the president presumably intended: it solidified public and political opposition to a military attack, especially in cases where there has been no direct attack on American targets or U.S. personnel. The more the issue was discussed, the more the public’s opposition to an attack was cemented in stone. By the time the Russians intervened, America had effectively handed in its badge as the world’s only policeman.
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To catapult straightaway from pushing an unpopular proposal to embroil the US in Syria to playing Debbie Downer on Rohani’s encouraging flirtations is a precarious undertaking which could lend credence to hostile claims of Israeli warmongering. It is a fine line that needs to be walked, one that requires less sledgehammer and more finesse, a trait not usually associated with Israeli hasbara efforts.
From Geoffrey Aronson for Al-Monitor, US-Russia Cooperation Opens New Era in Middle East
If Russian President Vladimir Putin and US President Barack Obama can manage to work together on Syria — and rid the country of its chemical weapons stores — why shouldn’t a cooperative superpower approach to Israel and its conflict with the Arabs be next? If Washington and Moscow can establish common ground on Syria’s nonconventional arsenal why not agree upon a revived Geneva process — the one convened in 1975 — to settle the Israel-Arab conflict?
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Good things can happen when great powers cooperate. That is the message that increasingly — if tenuously — defines key regions of the Middle East today. In the wake of the progress made by Moscow and Washington, Assad has embarked on a charm offensive courtesy of the US media. In a not unrelated arena, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and Obama are sending not-so-secret, encouraging missives to each other. These are not the only signs of the alluring potential for a dramatic transformation in a region that only a few weeks ago was anxiously awaiting the United States’ armed entry into Syria’s war.
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These “birth pangs of a new Middle East” — one built upon diplomatic agreement rather than on the ruins of Lebanon — might affect Israel and its multifaceted disputes with the Arabs in two related spheres. First, from Israel’s earliest days as a state, its leaders have viewed great power rivalry in the Middle East as an opportunity to promote Israel’s interests — from the race between the Soviet Union and the United States to recognize the new state in 1948 to the stalemate following the June 1967 war and the creation of an Israeli nuclear weapons capability under a US Cold War security and political umbrella. In contrast, Israel has always feared superpower collaboration — joint efforts that have constrained Israel’s territorial and strategic ambitions. Witness the forced retreat from the Gaza Strip and Sinai after the “tripartite aggression” against Nasser in 1956. Similarly, international conferences reflecting superpower collaboration — the Geneva international peace conference model established in the wake of the Yom Kippur War (October 1973) comes to mind — reduce the space for Israel (and Arabs as well) to exploit great power rivalries for their own purposes.
Geoffrey Aronson has been involved with ‘Track II’ diplomacy efforts. From the UNITED STATES INSTITUTE OF PEACE
In the absence of formal U.S.-Iran relations, which were severed in 1980 following the U.S. Embassy takeover, Americans and Iranians have held track II meetings to discuss contentious issues that divide their governments.
“Track II” refers to unofficial interactions usually carried out by non-governmental actors with access to decision makers. In contrast, “track I” denotes diplomacy conducted by government officials.
Ben Caspit for Al-Monitor Israel Pulse writes
Until recently, the official Israeli position was sweeping support for the overthrow of Assad’s regime. Today it’s neither decisive nor sweeping. Decision makers in Jerusalem and intelligence gatherers in Tel Aviv have been losing sleep over reports indicating that at least half the rebels in Syria are members of al-Qaeda and the global jihad.
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The bottom line is that the Middle East is experiencing an interesting U-turn. Up until a few weeks ago, the sounds heard were mostly of the drums of war. The sanctions on Iran were getting stricter, the military option was becoming more and more concrete while in Syria the war was raging and the United States announced, semiofficially, that it was readying for a military blow to Assad’s regime following his use of poison gas.
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This week we awoke to a new reality. The strike on Syria has been removed from the agenda at this stage. A diplomatic arrangement has been reached which might lead to a comprehensive diplomatic move. Rouhani and US President Barack Obama are exchanging letters, the Americans aren’t ruling out a meeting and the Iranians are speaking in moderate tones and are willing to deal on the nuclear issue. In other words, there’s light at the end of this dark tunnel. As the cliché goes, this may be the start of a new dawn, or it may be a heavy nuclear engine bearing down on us. At some point we’ll discover which.
Uh-oh, I wonder what THIS will portend? Netanyahu’s New Security Team Lacks Experience
In the recent elections, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu lost a lot more than his ultra-Orthodox partners, who had provided a coalition safety net for him. On Monday evening, March 18, at the swearing-in of the new government, Netanyahu sadly bade farewell to the octet members — the experienced and highly regarded members of the defense forum who had surrounded him in the last four years.
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Netanyahu and his octet members had accumulated hundreds of discussion hours deep into the night on security-related issues, largely on the Iranian nuclear crisis. But from this moment on, every time Israel’s prime minister looks around at the members of his pared-down diplomatic-security cabinet, he will see young, inexperienced people. They will be his partners in the most difficult, harshest decisions, perhaps even the most dramatic of them all — to attack or not to attack. In fact, this is one of the least experienced cabinets in the annals of Israeli governments.
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Lapid, who was a popular and talented television presenter until a year ago, is a newbie politician. The recent elections transformed him into a man with great political power, and one of the three highest-ranking ministers in the government. Bennett also swept many people off their feet. However, both men’s knowledge of security and defense matters are on about the same level as that of the average newspaper reader.
My bold on that last sentence.
All right, it’s halftime here and for the halftime entertainment click to see a picture of Putin at a treaty signing with Turkey’s Erdogan. Now I ask you, does Putin have that Mona Lisa expression down or what?
Over at the Iran Review Rami G. Khouri writes in US-Iranian Leaders’ Dazzling Opportunity
We should avoid the temptation of pursuing this potentially new positive phase of Iranian-American relations by simply perpetuating our ideological allegiances and needling the other side for their knuckleheaded policies of the past. Better to acknowledge that both the United States and Iran have shifted their rhetoric, for reasons they will explain in due course. The zealous and fearful warmongers in both capitals, and in Israel and Riyadh, seem sidelined for the moment, as more rational leaders try a better approach that could generate a win-win outcome for all concerned.
OK, now please fasten your seatbelts because this next piece reads like a rocket. This is from the Golden Jackass, and yes, he’s a Gold guy. Syria, Pipeline Politics, OPEC & the US Dollar
Syria is about the last gasp for the Petro-Dollar, the emergence of energy pipeline geopolitics, the rise of the NatGas Coop, the new dominance of Russian Gazprom, the eclipse of OPEC, the fall of the house of Saud, and a grand adjustment process in global commerce and banking.
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Syria is about a lot of things, most of which are volatile, many unsolvable. To be sure, the naval port of Tartus is valuable for the Russian Military, always eager to wrest a seaport. Like Lebanon, Syria is a hotbed stronghold for HezBollah, never to be taken lightly. They are mortal enemies to Israel, whose nations have exchanged covert violence for years. Syria might have tight relations with the Shiites of Iran, even some in Iraq. However, Syria represents the crossroads of many important shifting geopolitical roadways that pertain to the global financial structure and commercial systems. Syria is the tipping point for a Grand Global Paradigm Shift. It is the last stand for the Anglo Banker world. Syria will not go easily into the Russian camp, into the Gazprom fold, into the European energy market sphere. For if it does, the entire US Dollar system of commerce and the US Treasury Bond system of reserves management will fall by the wayside and open a new era with Eastern dominance. But the Western powers cannot stop it. Clouds of whatever type do not halt pipeline flow, nor pipeline geopolitics.
Stopping senseless war is not enough. We still have the task of building a society that is not fearfully based. We haven’t reckoned on a large scale how the new society will function, but when the discourse is not shouted down by war cries, I believe we will have a better chance of finding out.
And finally, here’s an optimistic comment from ‘bluto’ in Richard Silverstein’s piece Time to Cut a Deal with Iran
What very, VERY coincidental timing!
Obama gyps Israel out of a war with Syria (and Iran) which it thought was a foregone conclusion – then immediately and deftly sticks the knife in AIPAC/Israel with a historic deal with Iran, before the Israeli Lobby has time to recover. Wow…
Beautiful timing and it has played Israel and her Neocons for more than a fool, it has sealed the fate on Israeli Apartheid.
Was the Syria Strike really just a very well-timed manipulation by Israel/Neocons designed to destroy the backchannel Iran negotiations which Israel knew were on the point of a breakthrough? Better believe it…
All Israel has in it’s future now is a few years twisting in the wind at the ICC and under ever intensifying BDS….
