February 7, 2024
There is a consensus on the right
and the left that the only way to deal with Iran is with military force. The conservative Chicken Hawks in the Senate
and the House of Representatives believe targeting Iran—and not merely Iranian
proxies—is essential.
Senator Lindsay
Graham (R/SC) wants to “hit them hard.” The conservative newsmagazine, The
Economist, believes that the United States could form a political alliance with
Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the Gulf States to isolate Iran.
Authoritative pundits such as Thomas
Friedman of the New York Times, and David Ignatius of the Washington Post favor
deterring Iran militarily as well as a “robust” military retaliation against
Iran’s proxies. Both fully support the
U.S. military attacks now taking place in Iraq, Syria, and Yemen. Ignatius even credits the Biden
administration’s recent sanctioning of four violent Israeli settlers on the
West Bank as a “strong step” that will enhance U.S. credibility as a peace
broker for a Palestinian state. This
so-called “strong step” has been ridiculed throughout the Arab world.
The U.S. attack on Iran’s military
and affiliated militias in Iraq and Syria as well as the attacks against the
Houthis in Yemen raise serious questions.
We are told that U.S. forces are in Iraq and Syria to combat the forces
of ISIS, which happen to be a leading enemy of Iran. Last month, the U.S. even
warned Tehran about an ISIS attack in Iran that killed nearly 100
Iranians. This fact suggests that the
United States and Iran have something in common in the region, at least
regarding the ISIS threat, and that they should be engaged in bilateral or
back-channel discussions. U.S.
non-recognition of Iran continues to be an obstacle to talks and should be
reconsidered.
We must also reconsider our troop
deployments in the Middle East that are vulnerable to attacks by Iranian-backed
militia groups. At the very least, we
should remove our small force deployments from both Iraq and Syria. The United States cannot deter attacks on
these facilities, and our troops there are primarily occupied with force
protection.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken
was ill-advised to ignore his diplomatic hat in order to doff a military cap,
promising U.S. military attacks that would be “multileveled, come in stages,
and be sustained over time.” This
language should not be coming from the nation’s leading diplomat; this is
Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin’s bailiwick.
The Department of State should be grappling with the diplomatic
possibilities that exist in the region.
The first priority should be a cease fire, particularly in view of the
fact that Israeli Defense Forces have killed more than 11,500 children in
Gaza. Not even the warnings from the
International Court of Justice have altered the IDF’s brutal tactics.
While the United States maintains
the vilification of Iran that reached new levels in the Trump administration,
the Gulf states have been pursuing rapprochement with Iran that has the United
States on the outside looking in. In
addition to China’s brokering of the Saudi-Iranian accord in 2023 that led to
restoration of diplomatic relations, there have been a series of actions by
Gulf states to improve relations with Iran.
In 2022, Abu Dhabi restored ties with Iran. If these erstwhile adversaries of Iran can
begin a dialogue, then perhaps the United States should be able to do so as
well.
Continued Israeli bombardment in
Gaza and U.S. attacks in Iraq, Syria, and Yemen threaten the signs of political
stability that have taken place in the region over the past several years. Beginning in 2020, which happened to be the
year of the Abraham Accords between Israel and the Gulf states of Bahrain and
the United Arab Emirates, there have been signs of greater political accord in
the region. In 2021, Egypt, Saudi
Arabia, the UAE, and Bahrain ended their economic blockade of Qatar. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad returned to
the Arab League. Saudi Arabia and the
UAE reconciled with Turkey, ending the freeze that began in 2018 when the
Saudis conducted the brutal killing of Saudi dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi
at the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul.
Despite the brutal Israeli campaign in Gaza in the wake of the horrific
October 7th events, the Gulf states, somewhat surprisingly, have not weakened
relations with Israel.
The Gaza War and the current U.S.
military attacks, however, will create greater political instability in the
region. The United States will come
under increased criticism for supplying military weaponry to Israel; providing
diplomatic cover for Israel at the United Nations; and showing insufficient
regard for the fate of 2.2 million Gazans.
The Arab states in the region do not favor the U.S. escalation of force
in the region, and certainly do not want a wider war with Iran.
The mainstream media seem
particularly oblivious to the strategic trap that the United States has created
for itself in the Middle East with its support for Israeli militarism. Thomas Friedman of the New York Times believes
the Biden administration is on the verge of proclaiming a Biden Doctrine for
the region that would find a “strategic realignment” that would “coalesce
around the U.S. stance on Iran, a Palestinian state, and Saudi Arabia.” Secretary of State Blinken’s five
unsuccessful trips to the Middle East suggest that there is no Biden doctrine
and that Arabs aren’t even listening to the signals that we are sending.
Friedman argues that Palestinian
statehood should be “consistent with Israeli security,” which would not meet
the demands of the Saudis and all other Arabs.
In any event, the Israeli government is opposed to a two-state solution
under any circumstances. Friedman also
believes that Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar could be persuaded to leave Gaza for
Qatar, just as Yasir Arafat left Lebanon in 1982 to go to Tunisia. Very wishful thinking.
Continued Israeli and U.S. use of
force will create greater instability in the entire region; contribute to the
diplomatic and political influence of Russia and China; and create a wider zone
of conflict and crisis. We fail to
understand that the disastrous and deceitful invasion of Iraq two decades ago
by the Bush administration opened the door to Iran’s influence in Iraq and led
to weaker states in the region that also invited support from Iran.
The modest U.S. deployments in Iraq
(2,500) and Syria (900) are too small to challenge or deter Iran, but large
enough to serve as sitting ducks for attacks by Iranian proxies. These deployments must be ended before more
Americans are killed, which would lead to more U.S. bombardment. The United States already has more than
sufficient military power in the region at the huge U.S. bases in Bahrain and
Qatar that should be able to handle any local military challenge. The fact that the United States flew strategic
bombers on a 12,000-mile round trip from bases in Texas to target Yemen, one of
the world’s basket cases, seemed particularly incongruent unless we were trying
to frighten Iran.
Instead of trying to build an Arab
alliance against Iran, the United States should be looking for ways to engage
Iran both politically and diplomatically.
The Iranian nuclear accord, the Joint Comprehensive Action, provided a
diplomatic opening that led to
conciliatory gestures on Iran’s side.
The cease fire that allowed the exchange of Israeli hostages and
Palestinian prisoners also witnessed a cease fire from Iran’s proxies in the
region. It is long past time to reduce
the U.S. military presence in the region, which the Obama administration
promised in 2011, and to play the diplomatic card.
No comments:
Post a Comment