THE Saudis, instead of leaving the Americans to pull their chestnuts out of the fire, have actually formed a military alliance of fellow Sunni Arab states, to save their proxies in the southern tip of the Arabian peninsula, thus, to go after the Shia Houthi, who have chased the Yemeni president out of his capital. The Americans, for their part, are fighting as virtual allies with Iran in their attempt to expel Islamic State from Tikrit, Saddam Hussein’s hometown.
In Israel, despite winning an unprecedented fourth term, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is getting blasted on all sides for his undiplomatic transgressions against the president of the only country that really matters in Israeli security.
In Washington, which with all due respect, doesn’t really need Israel for American survival, a profoundly irritated leader hasn’t let a day go by without a new blast at Netanyahu — or simply a green light to his senior aides to do it for him. In 26 months, Israel will have occupied Palestine for 50 years, and Washington is allowing a drumbeat and countdown to start, putting the Jewish state on notice to come to terms with that reality and quickly.
All across the terrain is the litter of a failed alliance. It turns out that the Pentagon declassified last week a 1986 study of Israeli nuclear capability, revealing just how close it was to making hydrogen bombs, not just atomic. Accidents like that don’t happen; at the very least, someone in the defence arena knew he could get away with the revelation, given how profoundly President Barack Obama despises Netanyahu, who started it all and can’t resist making matters worse.
At a higher strategic level, it is easy to see the result of an evolution of American doctrine. In the first instance, the pivot to Asia, though much delayed, was not just recognition of the higher long-term importance of Asia to America and the declining importance of the Middle East, but also a sign of Obama’s distaste for playing the Middle East game.
Not just that, he is the first American president not to get stars in his eyes on the subject of Israel. The result is that we are now an offshore balancer in the Middle East, rather than a direct player in most of the major conflicts. We have been giving high-level technology and training to the major Sunni states for decades, and it’s high time they take some responsibility for their affairs themselves.
Talk of an Arab Nato is a bit premature, but matters are moving in the right direction. Inside Israel, it’s a bewildering cacophony of extremist groups indifferent to the state’s strategic interest, not giving a damn whether its Washington allies are insulted or not. There are two million Arabs inside the Jewish state itself, and they are becoming more vocal about their second-class status; the thuggery and hostility against them; their difficulty at getting jobs; and their ability even to be heard in the Knesset, the Israeli parliament.
It is lucky that the newly elected Israeli president, though his job is symbolic and his background highly Zionist, is speaking out more and more vocally about democratic decencies in the Jewish treatment of Arabs— and survival of democracy itself.
Netanyahu’s disgusting racist statements on Election Day cannot be disavowed, any more than his subsequently backtracked promise that there would never be a two- state solution while he was in office.
The Obama administration is simply not letting him get away with this and is making him pay by its plans to support moves at the United Nations, without the habitual American veto to protect Israel, to move towards negotiations that begin to give Palestinians self-determination.
What I’m saying is that in tomorrow’s Middle East, all bets are off. There is simply too much change everywhere for us to have a clue what we will see when the dust is settled— from the eventual defeat of Islamic State, to the outcome of the Shia versus Sunni battle in Yemen.
The only virtual certainties are on the western and eastern poles of the region; the Israeli-American airtight alliance is forever gone. It may be that Obama likes it this way, but it was Netanyahu’s arrogance and offensive comments about the American leadership that tore the otherwise seamless fabric apart.
At the other pole is, of course, Iran. Obama had the foresight to see that whether one liked it or not, Iran is the regional heavyweight and will one way or the other play a role equivalent to what history, size and geography entitle it to.
Iran’s negotiators may have to answer to the ayatollahs, but they are also aware that the standard of living has declined by two-thirds, thanks to the sanctions, and that the 50 per cent of the country that is under 25 wants to be back in the connected world.
I am getting a little weary of hearing that Iran is an existential threat to Israel, which has a nuclear arsenal that Iran couldn’t possibly obtain in a generation.
Israel could try a little diplomacy and will have to learn to live without America forever bailing it out of its difficulties, even if Obama’s successor tries to rekindle the warmth of previous American-Israeli relations. That genie is just out of the bottle.
So, out of necessity, the Sunni states are organising themselves in an intelligent fashion; Iran will play a growing role not just in the Middle East but within the world as the weight of sanctions come off; and Israel will have to learn how to be a “normal” state — as it is in some of the world, for example in India, to which it is one of the largest arms suppliers and thus holding a position of real influence in Delhi.
Perhaps what we’re seeing is a reasonable balance of power emerging in the region, with Washington happy to try to play groups against each other, without ever again waging war, or directly intruding itself in the region.
Let’s hope this is more than an April Fool’s joke.
The writer W. Scott Thompson is emeritus professor at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University, the United States
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