But the Israeli side of the story, which bordered on hysterical at times, was picked up by the neoconservative blogosphere in the U.S. and dominated the attention of [...]]]>
But the Israeli side of the story, which bordered on hysterical at times, was picked up by the neoconservative blogosphere in the U.S. and dominated the attention of hawkish blogs over the long holiday weekend.
One highlight was the Emergency Committee for Israel denouncing the Iranian passage in the same breath as condemning the deaths of protesters in Bahrain, Libya, and Yemen at the hands of security forces.
In Bahrain, Libya, and Yemen, regime forces have opened fire on protesters. In Syria, thousands have taken to the streets to protest Bashar Assad’s police state. Meanwhile, Hezbollah makes inroads in Lebanon, and Iran is testing the world’s resolve by sending military vessels through the Suez Canal.
The [UN] Security Council’s response? Instead of demanding peaceful reforms from dictatorial regimes, or warning Iran against its provocations, or emphasizing the need for political and social improvement in the Arab world, it is once again attacking Israel.
(It’s unclear what the ECI expected of the Security Council, in regards to Iranian ships passing through the Suez Canal.)
The Hudson Institute’s Lee Smith, writing on the Weekly Standard’s blog, opined that the Iranian ships are testing the Israel-Egypt peace treaty.
The Iranians are also probing the Egyptian population to see where it stands on resistance—the ships were headed to Syria, another pillar of the resistance bloc lined up against Israel—for in the end the Iranians are testing Cairo’s peace treaty with Jerusalem.
J.E. Dyer admitted, on Commentary’s Contentions blog, that “The ships themselves are hardly impressive: one frigate with old anti-ship missiles and one barely armed replenishment ship,” but that doesn’t slow her down in making some dire warnings.
The important facts are that revolutionary, terror-sponsoring Iran — under U.S., EU, and UN sanctions — feels free to conduct this deployment, and Syria feels free to cooperate in it. Egypt’s interim rulers apparently saw no reason to block the Suez transit, in spite of the Egyptians’ very recent concern over Iranian-backed terrorists and insurgents operating on their territory.
While neocon pundits have been suggesting that Iran’s passage of the Suez Canal is a grave provocation, the fact is this right is guaranteed under the Constantinople Convention, as pointed out by Ali, which states:
The Suez Maritime Canal shall always be free and of commerce or of war, without distinction of flag.
Consequently, the High Contracting Parties agree not in any way to interfere with the free use of the Canal, in time of war as in time of peace.
While the passage of two Iranian ships through the canal is worthy of notice, it certainly isn’t worth testing Egypt’s fragile political climate by suggesting that the Egyptian military junta take action to block passage of the canal. An open Suez Canal, and an Egyptian stewardship of the Canal which observes the Constantinople Convention, has far-reaching military and economic benefits for the U.S. and its allies.
Of more immediate importance, however, is the concern that the Iranian ships may take attention away from an increasingly untenable situation for the Iranian government on the streets of Tehran.
Jacob Heilbrunn, blogging at The National Interest, summarized this point in his post, “Israel’s Moronic Foreign Minister,” in which he criticized Avigdor Lieberman for framing the Iranian passage of the Suez Canal as a national emergency.
It’s clear that the mullahs would love to stage a provocation that would allow them to depict Iran as the victim of hostile foreign powers. It’s obvious that the Iranian leadership, in Brechtian fashion, would love to vote in a new population. Instead, the regime’s legitimacy is almost completely spent.
With neocon blogs having spent the weekend working overtime to hype the threat of the Iranian passage, it looks like Lieberman’s ratcheting up of tensions has taken priority over focusing on the resurgent Iranian Green Movement and the massive political shifts occurring in the Middle East.
]]>Commentary: J.E. Dyer, writing on Commentary‘s Contentions blog, says that Iran has sought to weaken the U.S. military’s capabilities in the region by exploring bilateral defense agreements with Oman and Qatar and by exploiting the domestic political tensions between Shias and Sunnis in Bahrain. [...]]]>
Commentary: J.E. Dyer, writing on Commentary‘s Contentions blog, says that Iran has sought to weaken the U.S. military’s capabilities in the region by exploring bilateral defense agreements with Oman and Qatar and by exploiting the domestic political tensions between Shias and Sunnis in Bahrain. All three countries host U.S. forces. These developments limit “Washington’s latitude to “calibrate” force,” sayd Dyer, and make our allies question whether siding with the U.S. could lead to retaltions from Iran. Dyer concludes, “We may validly perceive benefits in waiting to take action [against Iran], but doing so always carries costs. This is one of them.”
]]>Commentary: Rick Richman, also blogging on Contentions, critiques the Obama administration’s Middle East policy. Among other observations, he asserts that “the attempted dialogue with Iran and Syria produced predictable failures.” “American allies will gravitate toward Iran (they already are), unless they soon hear a public commitment from the U.S. president to deal with the problem by whatever means necessary,” writes Richman. “Talks with Iran cannot succeed absent its belief such means will, if necessary, be used.”
Col. Pat Lang has written two informative blog posts about the arms sale. In the first, Lang reminds his readers that the sale is a commercial transaction, not foreign aid. And on attempts to put the arms sale in the context of the “Iranian threat,” Lang quips, “The Iranian threat? [...]]]>
Col. Pat Lang has written two informative blog posts about the arms sale. In the first, Lang reminds his readers that the sale is a commercial transaction, not foreign aid. And on attempts to put the arms sale in the context of the “Iranian threat,” Lang quips, “The Iranian threat? Oh, yes, of course… Somehow I think this has much to do with ‘commissions’ passed around in the royal family/courtier crowd. 5% of 90 billion plus will go a long way.”
In his second post, Lang addresses the codependent U.S.-Saudi relationship.
The US and SA align themselves more or less on parallel courses in the ME because the two countries have quite a few parallel interests, even though in many ways their philosophies are at odds. The same thing is true of Pakistan and the US, as well as quite a few other places.
And, we need the money.
***
The $60 billion arms deal between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia—which, if completed, would be the largest single foreign arms deal in history—has drawn its fair share of media attention.
The sale includes 70 upgraded F-15s, 70 Apaches, 72 Black Hawk helicopters and 36 Little Bird helicopters. By all accounts, this would significantly boost Saudi Arabia’s ability to defend itself against a conventional, land-based attack and would give the kingdom considerable power projection beyond its borders.
David Rothkopf, a visiting scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, offered his analysis of what the arms sale means for Washington’s Iran policy.
On his Foreign Policy blog, Rothkopf writes:
This deal is the latest example of behavior suggesting that the nuclearization of Iran is all over but for the bomb building in the eyes of U.S. and regional strategists. As soon as it became clear that the United States and its allies would play along with Iranian stalling games, and as it appeared less and less likely to all concerned that the Obama administration would actually take military action to stop the Iranian program, the mindset shifted.
And
Of course, the result [of the arms deal] is a much closer relationship between the U.S. and the Saudis which has significant implications for other U.S. relationships in the region, e.g. with Israel. And certainly much of our future planning with regard to Iraq and Afghanistan is likely to be oriented toward maintaining the kind of presence that will enable us to use posts there as part of the larger Iran containment strategy.
Rothkopf warns the containment and deterrence policy could result in a conventional or even nuclear arms race, noting the irony that the U.S. “seems on the verge of okaying the biggest arms deal in American history to the country that provided fifteen of the nineteen 9/11 hijackers, much of the critical funding for al Qaeda and was home to Osama bin Laden.” Rothkopf believes the Obama administration’s policy on Iran’s nuclear program has shifted and is now focused on containment and balancing against a increasingly powerful Tehran. He also argues that an Israeli strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities would only postpone Tehran’s construction of a nuclear weapon.
This analysis fits with Washington’s long-standing policy of deterrence and containment. Arms sales to Taiwan and South Korea could be seen in the much the same light.
Conversely the authors of the Contentions blog, hosted by the neoconservative Commentary Magazine, see the shift to containment as a death-blow to their attempts to urge the U.S. or Israel into a military confrontation with Iran.
J.E. Dyer writes that while news outlets are covering the arms sale as a sign of Washington shifting to a containment strategy with Iran, the sale is really no such thing.
Dyer concludes the analysts have it all wrong and are focusing on the wrong upcoming war:
]]>Western analysts tend to miss the fact that Iran’s moves against Israel constitute a plan to effectively occupy territory that the Arab nations consider theirs to fight for. The concerns on both sides are more than ethnic and historical: they involve competing eschatological ideas.
The resurgence of Turkey, erstwhile Ottoman ruler, only accelerates the sense of powerful regional rivals polishing up their designs on the Levant. The Saudis’ military shopping list doesn’t match their defensive requirements against Iran, but if the strategic driver is a race to Jerusalem, it contains exactly what they need. Congress should take a critical look at the numbers involved – and the U.S. should take one at our disjointed and increasingly passive approach to the region.