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Do America and Israel want the Middle East engulfed by civil war?
by Jonathan Cook
http://www.antiwar.com/orig/cook.php?articleid=10189
The era of the Middle East strongman, propped up by and enforcing Western policy, appears well and truly over. His power is being replaced with rule by civil war, apparently now the American administration's favored model across the region.
Fratricidal fighting is threatening to engulf, or already engulfing, the occupied Palestinian territories, Lebanon, and Iraq. Both Syria and Iran could soon be next, torn apart by attacks Israel is reportedly planning on behalf of the US. The reverberations would likely consume the region.
Western politicians like to portray civil war as a consequence of the West's failure to intervene more effectively in the Middle East. Were we more engaged in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, or more aggressive in opposing Syrian manipulations in Lebanon, or more hands-on in Iraq, the sectarian fighting could be prevented. The implication being, of course, that, without the West's benevolent guidance, Arab societies are incapable of dragging themselves out of their primal state of barbarity.
But in fact, each of these breakdowns of social order appears to have been engineered either by the United States or by Israel. In Palestine, Lebanon, and Iraq, sectarian difference is less important than a clash of political ideologies and interests as rival factions disagree about whether to submit to, or resist, American and Israeli interference. Where the factions derive their funding and legitimacy from – increasingly a choice between the U.S. or Iran – seems to determine where they stand in this confrontation.
Palestine is in ferment because ordinary Palestinians are torn between their democratic wish to see Israeli occupation resisted – in free elections they showed they believed Hamas the party best placed to realize that goal – and the basic need to put food on the table for their families. The combined Israeli and international economic siege of the Hamas government, and the Palestinian population, has made a bitter internal struggle for control of resources inevitable.
Lebanon is falling apart because the Lebanese are divided: some believe that the country's future lies with attracting Western capital and welcoming Washington's embrace, while others regard America's interest as cover for Israel realizing its long-standing design to turn Lebanon into a vassal state, with or without a military occupation. Which side the Lebanese choose in the current standoff reflects their judgment of how plausible are claims of Western and Israeli benevolence.
And the slaughter in Iraq is not simply the result of lawlessness – as is commonly portrayed – but also about rival groups, the nebulous "insurgents," employing various brutal and conflicting strategies: trying to oust the Anglo-American occupiers and punish local Iraqis suspected of collaborating with them; extracting benefits from the puppet Iraqi regime; and jockeying for positions of influence before the inevitable grand American exit.
All of these outcomes in Palestine, Lebanon, and Iraq could have been foreseen – and almost certainly were. More than that, it looks increasingly like the growing tensions and carnage were planned. Rather than an absence of Western intervention being the problem, the violence and fragmentation of these societies seems to be precisely the goal of the intervention.
Evidence has emerged in Britain that suggests such was the case in Iraq. Testimony given by a senior British official to the 2004 Butler inquiry investigating intelligence blunders in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq was belatedly published last week, after attempts by the Foreign Office to hush it up.
Carne Ross, a diplomat who helped to negotiate several UN security council resolutions on Iraq, told the inquiry that British and US officials knew very well that Saddam Hussein had no WMD and that bringing him down would lead to chaos.
"I remember on several occasions the UK team stating this view in terms during our discussions with the U.S. [who agreed]," he said, adding: "At the same time, we would frequently argue, when the U.S. raised the subject, that 'regime change' was inadvisable, primarily on the grounds that Iraq would collapse into chaos."
The obvious question, then, is why would the U.S. want and intend civil war raging across the Middle East, apparently threatening strategic interests like oil supplies and the security of a key regional ally, Israel?
Until the presidency of Bush Jr., the American doctrine in the Middle East had been to install or support strongmen, containing them or replacing them when they fell out of favor. So why the dramatic and, at least ostensibly, incomprehensible shift in policy?
Why allow Yasser Arafat's isolation and humiliation in the occupied territories, followed by Mahmoud Abbas', when both could have easily been cultivated as strongmen had they been given the tools they were implicitly promised by the Oslo process: a state, the pomp of office, and the coercive means to impose their will on rival groups like Hamas? With almost nothing to show for years of concessions to Israel, both looked to the Palestinian public more like lapdogs rather than Rottweilers.
Why make a sudden and unnecessary fuss about Syria's interference in Lebanon, an interference that the West originally encouraged as a way to keep the lid on sectarian violence? Why oust Damascus from the scene and then promote a "Cedar Revolution" that pandered to the interests of only one section of Lebanese society and continued to ignore the concerns of the largest and most dissatisfied community, the Shia? What possible outcome could there be but simmering resentment and the threat of violence?
by Jonathan Cook
http://www.antiwar.com/orig/cook.php?articleid=10189
The era of the Middle East strongman, propped up by and enforcing Western policy, appears well and truly over. His power is being replaced with rule by civil war, apparently now the American administration's favored model across the region.
Fratricidal fighting is threatening to engulf, or already engulfing, the occupied Palestinian territories, Lebanon, and Iraq. Both Syria and Iran could soon be next, torn apart by attacks Israel is reportedly planning on behalf of the US. The reverberations would likely consume the region.
Western politicians like to portray civil war as a consequence of the West's failure to intervene more effectively in the Middle East. Were we more engaged in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, or more aggressive in opposing Syrian manipulations in Lebanon, or more hands-on in Iraq, the sectarian fighting could be prevented. The implication being, of course, that, without the West's benevolent guidance, Arab societies are incapable of dragging themselves out of their primal state of barbarity.
But in fact, each of these breakdowns of social order appears to have been engineered either by the United States or by Israel. In Palestine, Lebanon, and Iraq, sectarian difference is less important than a clash of political ideologies and interests as rival factions disagree about whether to submit to, or resist, American and Israeli interference. Where the factions derive their funding and legitimacy from – increasingly a choice between the U.S. or Iran – seems to determine where they stand in this confrontation.
Palestine is in ferment because ordinary Palestinians are torn between their democratic wish to see Israeli occupation resisted – in free elections they showed they believed Hamas the party best placed to realize that goal – and the basic need to put food on the table for their families. The combined Israeli and international economic siege of the Hamas government, and the Palestinian population, has made a bitter internal struggle for control of resources inevitable.
Lebanon is falling apart because the Lebanese are divided: some believe that the country's future lies with attracting Western capital and welcoming Washington's embrace, while others regard America's interest as cover for Israel realizing its long-standing design to turn Lebanon into a vassal state, with or without a military occupation. Which side the Lebanese choose in the current standoff reflects their judgment of how plausible are claims of Western and Israeli benevolence.
And the slaughter in Iraq is not simply the result of lawlessness – as is commonly portrayed – but also about rival groups, the nebulous "insurgents," employing various brutal and conflicting strategies: trying to oust the Anglo-American occupiers and punish local Iraqis suspected of collaborating with them; extracting benefits from the puppet Iraqi regime; and jockeying for positions of influence before the inevitable grand American exit.
All of these outcomes in Palestine, Lebanon, and Iraq could have been foreseen – and almost certainly were. More than that, it looks increasingly like the growing tensions and carnage were planned. Rather than an absence of Western intervention being the problem, the violence and fragmentation of these societies seems to be precisely the goal of the intervention.
Evidence has emerged in Britain that suggests such was the case in Iraq. Testimony given by a senior British official to the 2004 Butler inquiry investigating intelligence blunders in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq was belatedly published last week, after attempts by the Foreign Office to hush it up.
Carne Ross, a diplomat who helped to negotiate several UN security council resolutions on Iraq, told the inquiry that British and US officials knew very well that Saddam Hussein had no WMD and that bringing him down would lead to chaos.
"I remember on several occasions the UK team stating this view in terms during our discussions with the U.S. [who agreed]," he said, adding: "At the same time, we would frequently argue, when the U.S. raised the subject, that 'regime change' was inadvisable, primarily on the grounds that Iraq would collapse into chaos."
The obvious question, then, is why would the U.S. want and intend civil war raging across the Middle East, apparently threatening strategic interests like oil supplies and the security of a key regional ally, Israel?
Until the presidency of Bush Jr., the American doctrine in the Middle East had been to install or support strongmen, containing them or replacing them when they fell out of favor. So why the dramatic and, at least ostensibly, incomprehensible shift in policy?
Why allow Yasser Arafat's isolation and humiliation in the occupied territories, followed by Mahmoud Abbas', when both could have easily been cultivated as strongmen had they been given the tools they were implicitly promised by the Oslo process: a state, the pomp of office, and the coercive means to impose their will on rival groups like Hamas? With almost nothing to show for years of concessions to Israel, both looked to the Palestinian public more like lapdogs rather than Rottweilers.
Why make a sudden and unnecessary fuss about Syria's interference in Lebanon, an interference that the West originally encouraged as a way to keep the lid on sectarian violence? Why oust Damascus from the scene and then promote a "Cedar Revolution" that pandered to the interests of only one section of Lebanese society and continued to ignore the concerns of the largest and most dissatisfied community, the Shia? What possible outcome could there be but simmering resentment and the threat of violence?
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