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| Obama with, from top, Thailand's Yingluck Shinawatra, Burma's Aung San Suu Kyi and Cambodia's Hun Sen |
Once he clinched a second term as U.S. President, the world expected
Barack Obama to appear in the Middle East. Instead, he popped up in the Far
East.
Obama's impression, the doyen of Arab commentators Samir Atallah writes
in his daily column for Asharq Alawsat, is that democracy has taken hold in the
Middle East – end of story.
Proof is that Hillary Clinton, who witnessed the birth of democracy at
Tahrir Square, is not staying on. She is bowing out after fitting the exploit
and a fragrance of the Arab Spring into her bag.
Hillary Clinton’s predecessor at the State Department, Condoleezza Rice,
thinks otherwise. She believes the war in Syria “may well be the last
act in the story of the disintegration of the Middle East as we know it” (see
below Rice’s think piece for the Washington Post titled “Syria is central to
holding together the Mideast”).
Atallah says Clinton
cut short her trip with Obama to Myanmar – formerly known as Burma, as in
George Orwell’s novel Burmese
Days – and flew to Egypt for Israel’s sake. Such a move would not have been
made for Syria’s sake. Otherwise, she would have called for arming the Syrian
opposition months ago. Or when Obama said the regime in Damascus is in its last
days.
Instead of Obama
locking horns with China at the UN Security Council to stop the bloodbath in
Syria, he chose to hassle Beijing on its turf in Asia and try to pinch allies
from China’s “back garden” in Burma and Cambodia.
The saying earlier was
that America is in the Middle East for oil. The saying today is that America
will be self-reliant by 2020 (through new technology including hydraulic
fracturing of underground rock formations). Or as sagacious European Javier
Solana one stated, “The Atlantic is the past, the Pacific is the future.”
Chances are señor Solana and Obama
are both jumping the gun and simplifying matters much too soon. As Condoleezza
Rice wrote, allowing the Middle East to fall to pieces is unwise. This is not a
matter of oil.
In today’s
Global Village, the Middle East is a pivotal strategic spot more than at any
time. Confessional and sectarian wars threaten not only the region but security
far and wide. If America can dispense with Arab oil as señor Solana suggests,
Europe cannot – not for the coming 50 years, at least.
Burma won’t
make America the world’s sole superpower. No would Cambodia or Thailand.
Obama didn’t
convince his voters of his Asian tour days after reelection. When he escaped to
Burma, Gaza blew up in his face.
____________
Following is Condoleezza Rice’s think piece for the Washington
Post:
Syria is central to
holding together the Mideast
By Condoleezza Rice, Published:
November 24
Condoleezza Rice was
secretary of state from 2005 to 2009
The civil war in
Syria may well be the last act in the story of the disintegration of
the Middle East as we know it. The opportunity to hold the region together and
to rebuild it on a firmer foundation of tolerance, freedom and, eventually,
democratic stability is slipping from our grasp.
Egypt and Iran have long, continuous
histories and strong national identities. Turkey does as well, except for the
matter of the Kurds, who are still largely unassimilated, mistrusted by Ankara
and tempted by the hope of independent nationhood.
Every other important state is a modern
construct, created by the
British and the French, who drew borders like lines on the back of
an envelope, often without regard for ethnic and sectarian differences. The
results: A Bahrain
that is 70 percent
Shiite, governed by a Sunni monarch. Saudi Arabia
was created with a 10 percent Shiite population in its richest provinces to the
east. Iraq is 65 percent
Shiite, 20 percent Sunni Arab, and a mix of Kurds and others, all
ruled until 2003 by an iron-fisted Sunni dictator. Jordan’s
population is almost 70
percent Palestinian.
Lebanon
is roughly divided among Sunnis, Shiites and Christians. And then there is Syria:
a conglomerate of Sunnis, Shiites, Kurds and others, ruled by the Alawite
minority.
The fragile state structure of the Middle
East has been held together for decades by monarchs and dictators. But as the
desire for freedom has spread from Tunis to Cairo to Damascus, authoritarians
have lost their grip. The danger now is that the artificial states could fly
apart.
In Iraq, after overthrowing Saddam
Hussein, the United States hoped that a fledging multi-ethnic,
multi-confessional democracy could do what authoritarians could not: give all
of these groups a stake in a common future. To an extent it has, with elections
repeatedly producing inclusive governments. But the institutions are young and
fragile, and they are groaning under
the weight of the region’s broader sectarian explosion. The conflict
in Syria is pushing Iraq and others to the breaking point. At the same time,
U.S. disengagement has tempted Iraqi politicians to move toward sectarian
allies for survival. If Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki
cannot count on the Americans, he will take no risks with Tehran.
The great mistake of the past year has
been to define the conflict with Bashar al-Assad’s
regime as a humanitarian one. The regime in Damascus has
been brutal, and many innocent people have been slaughtered. But
this was no replay of Libya. Much more is at stake.
As Syria crumbles, Sunnis, Shiites and
Kurds are being drawn into a regional web of sectarian allegiances. Karl Marx
once called on workers of the world to unite across national boundaries. He
told them that they had more in common with each other than with the ruling
classes that oppressed them in the name of nationalism. Marx exhorted workers
to throw off the “false consciousness” of national identity.
Today’s Karl Marx is Iran. It envisions
the spread of its influence among Shiites, uniting them under the theocratic
flag of Tehran — destroying the integrity of Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Iraq and
Lebanon. Iran uses terrorist groups, Hezbollah and the Shiite militias in
southern Iraq to do its bidding. Syria is the
linchpin, the bridge into the Arab Middle East. Tehran no longer
hides the fact that its security forces are working in Syria to prop up Assad.
In this context, Tehran’s sprint toward a nuclear weapon is a problem not just
for Israel but the region as a whole.
In response, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and other
neighboring powers arm and support Sunni factions. The Turks are being
drawn into the conflict, desperately fearful that the Kurds will
break away in Syria and push their brethren in Turkey to do the same. Missile
and mortar strikes are increasingly common across the borders of Israel and
Turkey. Ankara’s cries
to NATO for help last month should have gotten our attention.
But where is the United States? America
has spent months trying to get the Russians and the Chinese to agree to
toothless U.N. resolutions to “end the bloodshed,” as though Moscow will
abandon Assad and Beijing really cares about chaos in the Middle East. Vladimir
Putin is not a sentimental man. But if he believes that Assad can survive, he
will do nothing to undermine him.
In recent days, France, Britain and Turkey
have stepped into the diplomatic vacuum to recognize a
newly formed opposition that is broadly representative of all
Syrians. The United States should follow their lead and then vet and arm the
unified group with defensive weapons on the condition that it pursues an
inclusive post-Assad framework. The United States and its allies should also
consider establishing a no-fly zone to protect the innocent. America’s weight
and influence are needed. Leaving this to regional powers, whose interests are
not identical to ours, will only exacerbate the deepening sectarianism.
Certainly there are risks. After more than
a year of brutal conflict, the most extreme elements of the opposition —
including al-Qaeda — have been empowered. Civil wars tend to strengthen the
worst forces. The overthrow of Assad could indeed bring these dangerous groups
to power.
But the breakdown of the Middle East state
system is a graver risk. Iran will win, our allies will lose, and for decades
the region’s misery and violence will make today’s chaos look tame.
War is not receding in the
Middle East. It is building to a crescendo. Our elections are over. Now,
America must act.
