Oman as Iran’s Trojan Horse in the GCC

Prince Turki al-Faisal addressing the Manama Dialogue

Oman is emerging as Iran’s Trojan Horse trying to destroy the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) from within.

Sultan Qaboos bin Said, the monarch of Oman since 1970, reportedly played a key role in facilitating the secret U.S.-Iran talks leading up to the November 24 “historic” nuclear deal, according to The Associated Press.

Oman is isolated from much of the rest of the Arabian Peninsula by a formidable mountain range, while Iran is just across the narrow Strait of Hormuz, a critical waterway for global oil shipments that has at times raised tensions between the U.S. and Iran.

As early as 2009, according to Wikileaks, the sultanate offered to arrange talks between the U.S. and Iran – which hadn’t had diplomatic relations for 30 years – on condition that they were kept quiet. But it was reportedly the hostage crisis of three American “hikers” that brought him into a mediating role between the two sides and helped win the release of the three Americans, who were arrested and accused of spying while hiking along the Iran-Iraq border.

With that success in his pocket, Sultan Qaboos offered to facilitate a U.S.-Iran rapprochement, the AP reports. In March, U.S. and Iranian officials met in Oman, Secretary of State John Kerry followed up in May, and the talks took on a momentum of their own after Hassan Rouhani replaced Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Iran’s June elections.

Sultan Qaboos wasn’t in front of the cameras in Geneva, but a news report in the Saudi daily al-Hayat this morning speaks of “fears within the GCC of Iranian-Omani efforts to break up” the six-member club grouping Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Oman.

Oman and Saudi Arabia bickered publicly over the GCC’s future last week at the three-day Manama Dialogue in Bahrain, a forum on Middle East security.

A much-anticipated Gulf union is inevitable and will happen because people in the region are keen on it, Prince Turki al-Faisal, Saudi Arabia’s former Intelligence Chief who also served as ambassador in both the United States and United Kingdom, told the conference.

He was commenting on remarks made Saturday by Yusuf bin Alawi bin Abdullah, the Omani foreign minister, who said his country rejected the Gulf union and would pull out of the club if the union were approved.

“Everyone has the right to express their opinions,” Prince Turki retorted. “However, this will not prevent the union from happening. Oman can join it then or later, or not at all,” he said.

On the nuclear talks in Geneva last month between the 5+1 world powers and Iran, Prince Turki said they lacked a “very important factor” – namely, the participation of Iran’s Gulf neighbors.

“I don’t know the reasons for that… because eventually we are the ones that will be affected by anything -- a military event or a nuclear leak or any earthquake that may hit the [nuclear] sites in Iran,” he remarked.

“No doubt we are now facing a big smile from the Iranian leadership in the way they are dealing with the Gulf.”

Prince Turki added: “Iran must take concrete measures before we can judge whether it is going forward with a smile, or simply showing its teeth.”

Prince Turki said television and radio stations in Iran are targeting the Gulf Arabs with inflammatory broadcasts tackling “sensitive issues in our Arab world.”

Addressing Iran, he said: “Why don’t you close them down and show us your good intentions? Show us you are serious about this real, wide smile you are showing us.”

The six GCC partners hold their annual year-end summit in Kuwait, tomorrow, Tuesday.

Ghassan Charbel, editor-in-chief of al-Hayat, has this word today to tell tomorrow’s summiteers:

The region is unlike the one that existed three years ago.

Governments are confused. Armies are anxious. Borders are violated or about to be…

Iraq’s disintegration is an undeniable fact. The dismemberment of Yemen is flagrant. What looked like a Syrian intifada turned out to be a sectarian war feeding tension into the neighbors’ arteries.

Lebanon’s institutions are in a coma and its doors are open to refugees and fire. Libya, which spent four decades under one leader, today terrorizes its people, neighbors and the world. From Yemen to Tunisia, al-Qaeda and its ilk are omnipresent…

Today’s world is much more dangerous than the world that witnessed the birth of the GCC in 1981.

Bar Israel, four key regional states will play a dominant role in this difficult phase depending on their respective internal stability, resources and alliances.

They are Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Iran and Turkey.

GCC leaders who meet in Kuwait tomorrow are aware of the magnitude of the threats to stability and roles. They know the importance of adapting to change.

Oman’s attitude clearly unveiled that the Gulf union’s journey won’t be trouble-free.

But sensitivities should not forestall attempts to reconcile views of the various GCC member states on how to handle this phase of containing risks and assigning roles.  

Enter Saudi-Iranian “Track II diplomacy”

This is my paraphrasing of the weekly think piece penned in Arabic by Saudi mass media celebrity Jamal Khashoggi for al-Hayat newspaper

“Conflict resolution” specialists note that forthright negotiations between two adversaries often fail when held in the public eye.

This is because of pressure official negotiators come under from their political mentors, as well as from their core supporters who monitor the talks and want to know their secrets from journalists present at or around the negotiations venue.

Whether the journalists’ leaks prove wrong or word-perfect, their effect is often negative.

An issue that was already settled suddenly gets complicated and another that was not on the agenda crops up from nowhere.

Lying in wait are two oppositions trying to raise the stakes and embarrass the two sides.

The “conflict resolution” specialists thus spread and defined the concept of “Track II diplomacy” aimed at fixing a conflict situation.

“Track II diplomacy” would kickoff by arranging for secret talks at a countryside resort or a remote state, initially involving secondary academics and activists.

Some of the latter don’t realize their country’s leadership is aware of the negotiations. They believe they are engaged in scientific research.

Once “Track II diplomacy” makes progress and paves the way for blueprints of an acceptable understanding on which an agreement could be based, the level of participants is raised and the parties start serious negotiations.

They begin exchanging documents setting out the rules of negotiation and the mandatory nature of bilateral agreements.

This is what happened between the Palestinians and Israelis in the early 1990s.

While the late Haidar Abdel-Shafi, Hanan Ashrawi (do you recall those names?) and other members of the Palestinian national movement were engaging the Israelis in tough negotiations at the Madrid conference of 1991, “Track II diplomacy” was underway in a distant corner of northern Europe – namely, in the Norwegian capital Oslo.

The breakthrough came in Oslo.

And the Oslo Accord governs the lives of Gazans and West Bankers today, whether for better or worse depending on one’s political outlook.

I liked this idea.

I thus decided to volunteer and initiate a “Track II initiative” between my native country, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and the Islamic Republic of Iran.

My decision came after the so-called “Saudi-Iranian impasse” came to light and raised the prospects of problems in the region, the likely escalation on the ground in Syria and elsewhere and the exchange of bombing and counter-bombing charges.

This transpired after the November 24 agreement between the 5+1 world powers and Iran over the latter’s nuclear program and the looming honeymoon in bilateral relations between Iran and the U.S. without a similar breakthrough on the horizon between Riyadh and Tehran.

That’s why I seized the opportunity of my participation in three research workshops over the last three weeks, which took me to Washington, the English countryside and Vienna to test “Track II diplomacy” with Iranian researchers I met there.

Indeed, I came across three of them: a Washington-based researcher, and two others based in Tehran – the first is a consultant to one of the ministries and the other is a political science professor.

Before any of the readers gets excited and describes what took place as official and serious, let me reiterate that it was neither.

Discussions took place on the sidelines of the conference during intermissions or over dinners.

None of us took down notes, but everyone welcomed the idea of “Track II diplomacy” between Saudi Arabia and Iran.

This is not astounding.

Throughout his recent Gulf tour, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif did not cease calling for a get together that would promote cooperation, devotion and brotherhood with the kingdom.

But Mr. Zarif reminds me of what I told the Iranian political professor in Vienna: “You want to eat the lamb and at the same time leave it whole to graze hillsides and slopes. You want good relations with the kingdom without pulling out of Syria, for example, or ending your intervention elsewhere in the region.”

At the beginning of our “Track II diplomacy,” the Iranians resorted to cliché expressions such as, “What is Syrian democracy to you? You’re not a democratic state.”

I think my answer was convincing.

I said, “Yes, this is true. But we did not call for or trigger the Syrian revolution. The Syrian people are calling for regime change. We either accept their call as bona fide or let them slay you and the Syrian regime’s people.

“Even if we let down the Syrian people, they won’t acquiesce and they would keep up their uprising. The longer their struggle goes on, the deeper your involvement in it.”

One of my interlocutors retorted saying not all people are against Bashar al-Assad and elections are the only way forward.

We ended our discussion by agreeing that Saudi-Iranian cooperation at Geneva-2 was imperative. I kept insisting that talk of cooperation or elections at Geneva-2 or elsewhere is haywire so long as a lone Syrian soldier continues to fire at his own people with Iranian help.

In another round of “Track II diplomacy” with the Iranian ministry’s consultant, I enumerated the instances of Iranian meddling in the region before asking him bluntly: “Have you a similar list of complaints against Saudi interventions in Iran?”

His answer: “I am not familiar with such security issues… The kingdom did not truly accept the Islamic Republic, choosing to deceive it instead. The kingdom warmly welcomed any aggression against the Islamic Republic by Israel or the United States.”

I denied this, basing myself on several bilateral agreements signed by the two neighbors -- some of them are of a security nature -- and on the exchange of formal visits.

I also pointed out that kingdom has invariably opposed military action against Iran and undertaken not to join any of them.

We continued our discourse over dinner, when we shared a meal of “Wiener Schnitzel” with mashed potatoes on the side.

Our rapprochement was self-evident. We both stopped resorting to controversial slogans used in televised debates only.

We agreed peace would be mutually beneficial.

He told me Iran was groaning under the weight of sanctions and wants to channel its economic resources to economic development.

The political science professor said a third of Iran’s youths are unemployed and Tehran intended to curtail its foreign interventions in the next decade.

“Why should it wait a decade,” I said in reply. “That will prove costly to her and to us.”

“Better you get to know Iran from the inside,” he retorted. “It hasn’t got one lone force only. You’ve got to talk to everyone there.”

It was an encouraging first foray by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the Islamic Republic of Iran into “Track II diplomacy.”

But the exercise requires patience. It also calls for awareness that it will be a very long journey the two neighbors embarked on over 3,000 years ago.

Why not resume it – even without letup in our bilateral confrontation?

12 nuns for 1,000 Syrian women prisoners?

Mother Pelegia Sayyaf

Syrian opposition forces are offering to swap some 12 Orthodox nuns they are holding in the Qalamoun Mountains range for 1,000 women prisoners detained by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime.

News of the proposed exchange makes today’s front-page lead of the respectable Saudi daily Asharq Alawsat.

The paper’s correspondent in Antakya quotes an “Ahrar al-Qalamoun Brigade” spokesperson as saying the nuns abducted earlier this month from the predominantly Christian village of Maaloula “are now in a safe place. They won’t be released before a number of conditions are met – chiefly, the release of 1,000 Syrian women prisoners languishing in Syrian regime lockups.”

An Ahrar al-Qalamoun Brigade spokesperson, AKA Muhammad Abul-Feda, tells Asharq Alawsat, “Our demands were relayed to the Syrian regime via the Vatican following a satphone call by Mother Pelegia Sayyaf to Rome.”

Mother Pelegia Sayyaf is the abbess of St. Thekla (a disciple of St. Paul who faced a heroic and miraculous martyrdom) in Maaloula (which means “entrance” in Aramaic).

Some of Maaloula’s residents still speak a version of Aramaic, a biblical language spoken by Jesus.

Abul-Feda tells Asharq Alawsat the rebel demands were jointly set by Ahrar al-Qalamoun Brigade and Jabhat al-Nusra, adding:

“The Vatican had asked my brigade to move the sisters to a Christian family’s home in the nearby town of Yabroud. The request was turned down pending approval of our terms that have been passed on to the regime.”

Abul-Feda said the nuns are now in a safe hideaway and protected jointly by Ahrar al-Qalamoun Brigade and Jabhat al-Nusra.

The Saudi daily quotes other unnamed sources as saying Jabhat al-Nusra also wants the regime to lift its blockade on food and other supplies in Ghouta near Damascus.

Mohammed el-Zahouri, a Syrian journalist embedded with opposition forces in Maaloula, says he saw the nuns and their valet, Elias, “but their number is not 12 as the Vatican is claiming.”

Zahouri tells Asharq Alawsat, “The Syrian regime is trying to kill the nuns and blame the armed opposition for their killing. A few days ago, they escaped certain death when their St. Thekla convent in Maaloula was hit by a government ground missile and a round of mortar shells.”

But he is adamant the nuns “are now out of Maaloula and out of Yabroud as well.”

Separately, opposition activists again accused Assad forces of using poison gas in Syria’s civil war yesterday, and said victims had been discovered with swollen limbs and foaming at the mouth.

The activists told Reuters two shells loaded with gas hit a rebel-held area in the town of Nabak on a major highway in the Qalamoun region. They reported seven casualties.

Key Hezbollah commander assassinated in Beirut

Top, Lakkees' funeral in Baalbek. Center, Lakkees and son Ali Reda, who was killed in 2006

A senior commander of Iran’s cat’s-paw in Lebanon, the militant Shiite movement Hezbollah, has been killed at close range in Beirut.

Hassan Lakkees was killed near his home in Hadath, seven kilometers southeast of the Lebanese capital Beirut. He was buried in the town of Baalbek.

Hezbollah blamed Israel for the killing -- a charge Israel strongly denied

Little is known publicly about Lakkees, but he was reputedly close to Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and an expert in weapons manufacturing, particularly drones.

Thousands of people turned out for Lakkees' funeral in Baalbek, a Hezbollah stronghold in eastern Lebanon.

Lakkees' coffin, draped in the Hezbollah flag, was carried through the streets of Baalbek.

The news comes a day after Hassan Nasrallah said Saudi Arabia was behind last month's bombings outside the Iranian embassy in Beirut.

Iran is a major backer of Hezbollah, which has sent fighters to Syria to back the regime of Bashar al-Assad.

A report on Hezbollah’s al-Manar TV channel Wednesday said Lakkees was killed as he returned home from work around midnight. It said Israel had tried to kill him several times previously.

Two neighbors at the quiet residential complex where Lakkees lived said he arrived home alone shortly before midnight and just got out of his car – a 4x4 Jeep Grand Cherokee -- in the parking space beneath his apartment block when he was shot four times in the head and neck at close range by two or three attackers apparently lying in wait.

They said two men were seen running away across some waste ground leading to boulevard Camille Chamoun nearby. The neighbors had no idea he worked for Hezbollah.

Some sources say Lakkees was shot with a 9mm silenced gun.

Israel denied any involvement in the death.

"These automatic accusations are an innate reflex with Hezbollah," Israeli foreign ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor said. "They don't need evidence, they don't need facts. They just blame anything on Israel."

Shiite Hezbollah emerged with financial backing from Iran in the early 1980s and began a struggle to drive Israeli troops from Lebanon.

Hezbollah fought a destructive 34-day war with Israel in Lebanon in 2006. One of Lakkees's sons – named Ali Reda -- was killed in that war.

Dr Ronen Bergman, a writer on military intelligence affairs for the Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronot, told the BBC Lakkees "became known in Hezbollah as the guy in charge of manufacturing sophisticated weaponry, explosives, booby traps, he was a technical guy.”

He added: "Hassan was the leading figure who received Iranian guidance, he studied in Iran the issues of micro warfare, terrorism, counter-terrorism, and he brought this knowledge with him to Hezbollah, so he was one of these channels through which the Iranians gave Hezbollah their assistance."

Bandar back in Moscow for Geneva-2 bazaar

Prince Bandar and President Putin last July 31

Saudi Arabia’s spymaster Prince Bandar bin Sultan arrived in Moscow today for his second round of talks in four months with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

News of his arrival in the Russian capital was broken this afternoon by Khaled al-Matrafi, regional director of Saudi-owned TV news channel Alarabiya.

Prince Bandar’s visit to the Kremlin comes less than a month since Putin, a strong backer of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, called Saudi King Abdullah to discuss international efforts to end the Syria crisis.

Russia last month sharply criticized Saudi Arabia's decision to reject membership of the UN Security Council over the body's failure to resolve the Syria war, which has been fought for over two-and-a-half years.

The most significant recent contact between Moscow and Riyadh was a meeting between Putin and Prince Bandar last July 31.

I assume the new round of Putin-Bandar talks opens the bazaar between the pair over the upcoming Geneva-2 peace conference slated for January 22.

The UN implicates Assad in Syria war crimes

The UN’s human rights chief says an inquiry has produced evidence that war crimes were authorized in Syria at the “highest level,” including by President Bashar al-Assad.

Navi Pillay

It is the first time the UN’s human rights office has so directly implicated Assad.

Commissioner Navi Pillay said her office held a list of others implicated by the inquiry.

The UN’s commission of inquiry into Syria has produced “massive evidence... [of] very serious crimes, war crimes, crimes against humanity,” Ms Pillay said.

“The scale of viciousness of the abuses being perpetrated by elements on both sides almost defies belief," she said.

The evidence indicated responsibility “at the highest level of government, including the head of state,” she added.

The inquiry has also previously reported it has evidence rebel forces in Syria have been guilty of human rights abuses.

However, the investigators have always said the Syrian government appears to be responsible for the majority, and that the systematic nature of the abuse points to government policy.

Syrian Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad was dismissive of Ms Pillay’s remarks.

"She has been talking nonsense for a long time and we don't listen to her," he told AP.

Mekdad was in The Hague at a meeting of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) to discuss the effort to destroy Syria's chemical weapons. Mekdad told the BBC's Anna Holligan, Syria needed lorries and armored vehicles to move the chemicals

He told the BBC Syria needed more money and equipment from the international community.

He said Syria needed lorries and armored vehicles to transport chemicals to prevent “terrorists” attacking the vehicles on their way to the port of Latakia, where they will be loaded onto a US naval vessel for destruction.

An OPCW spokesman at the conference told the BBC that any donations of dual-use equipment would be carefully monitored and there would have to be strict guidelines imposed to make sure the machinery could only be used for the purpose of removing the weapons.

Ms Pillay said the UN commission of inquiry had compiled a list of those believed to be directly responsible for serious human rights violations.

It is assumed senior figures in the Syrian military and government are on that list, the BBC's Imogen Foulkes reports from Geneva.

However, the names and specific evidence relating to them remain confidential pending a possible prosecution for war crimes and crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Court (ICC).

She has previously called on the UN Security Council to refer Syria to the ICC.

Foulkes says Ms Pillay has repeatedly called on the UN Security Council to refer Syria to the ICC, something it has not so far done. Her surprising candor today may be a sign of her impatience.

Syria is not a state party to the ICC and therefore any investigation into the conflict would need to be mandated by the Security Council.

However, Russia and China have a veto on the council and would be highly unlikely to let such a move pass.

Human rights groups say the regime's use of air power often amounts to war crimes

Ms Pillay's statement is a reminder of the severity of the situation in Syria as preparations are made for the Geneva-2 peace conference next month, the BBC correspondent says.

Ms Pillay, a former judge at the ICC, said perpetrators of crimes must face justice.

"Accountability should be key priority of international community, and I want to make this point again and again as the Geneva-2 talks begin," she said. "I reiterate my call to all member states to refer the situation to the ICC."

Both the government and the opposition National Coalition have said they will attend the conference, but the head of the Western-backed rebel Free Syrian Army has said it will continue fighting during the talks.

The National Coalition says it categorically rejects any role for Assad in any transitional government, while the regime has said it is not going to negotiate a "handover of power".

Also on Monday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), a UK-based activist group that monitors deaths in the conflict, said its estimate of the number of dead had now reached 125,835, more than a third of them civilians.

Almost 28,000 rebel fighters had died, and more than 50,000 on the side of the government, including both regular soldiers and pro-regime militias. The latter figure also includes almost 500 dead from the Lebanese Hezbollah movement and other foreign Shiite militias.

However, it said it believed these figures were an underestimate as both sides were reticent about reporting deaths in their ranks.

BBC/Agencies

After Iran’s triumphal moment in Geneva

Scenes from the Vietnam War

Ghassan Charbel, editor-in-chief of pan-Arab al-Hayat, today penned this think piece in Arabic

People of the Middle East are generally emotional and gung-ho.

They love victories, not compromises. They prefer winning by knockout rather than on points.

But regional and international conditions are very tricky. They leave little room for sweeping victories and for building on them swiftly. So proceed with caution in drawing conclusions. We’re still at the beginning of the road.

We were young when America’s adventure in Vietnam ended in America’s overwhelming defeat. The United States lowered its Stars and Stripes and pulled out.

Much was said at the time of the humiliating rout and of the empire that turned inwards to lick its wounds in isolation.

Today, it’s been years since we started reading about the rising level of bilateral trade between the two countries; about Vietnam’s eagerness to attract U.S. investments and tourists; and Vietnam’s delight at welcoming visiting U.S. naval units to remind China she needs to curb her appetite to rule the roost in her neighborhood.

Iran did not achieve Vietnam’s landslide in Geneva.

She targeted Americans in Beirut. She also targeted them in Iraq and probably elsewhere. But Iran did not enter into a face-to-face confrontation with the U.S. military machine, which unintentionally gifted her Iraq and Afghanistan on a silver platter.

Iran was able to collect other cards in the region. She always reminded others of her ability to influence the region’s two political hot potatoes: oil security and the security of Israel.

She brought in Hassan Rouhani from the cold to take advantage of the opportunity presented by Barack Obama’s new priorities.

The Geneva deal followed and it was called a “victory.”

Even if what took place in Geneva were described as a triumph, it is premature to liken the agreement results to the upshot of Richard Nixon’s visit to Mao Zedong.

We are today in a different world than Mao’s – dissimilar in its checks and balances and power criteria.

Assuming Iran’s nuclear deal with the 5+1 powers was a triumph, we have to take into account the agreement is provisional. The November 24 deal has a six-month clock and future negotiations will be more difficult and call for taking more painful decisions.

The Obama Administration’s reluctance to fight new wars in the region and her leaning to prioritize another part of the world does not mean turning over the headship of the Middle East, or the task of drawing its features, to Iran.

We also have to take into account the Russian and European players and such regional heavyweights as Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Turkey.

It is essential as well to be aware of the objective hurdles that preclude Iran from leading the Islamic world, particularly that -- unlike most Arabs – she does not belong to its [Sunni] majority.

Moreover, assuming a role of such magnitude requires means that go beyond the current Iranian economy, which have been drained by Western sanctions and “Soviet” commitments from Afghanistan to Lebanon.

Iran cannot be the region’s star player unless she changed.

Star roles depend on a propensity to promote and uphold stability. They hinge on creating compromises instead of establishing beachheads.

Bringing stability to Iraq necessitates the involvement of her Sunni component in the decision-making process. However, co-opting this component in earnest undermines Iran’s aptitude to manage Iraq.

Any viable compromise in Syria calls for drawing in her Sunni majority. That would ipso facto mean a Syria that is less glued to Tehran.

The same can be said of Lebanon, where the systematic undermining of the position of the [Sunni] prime minister has already galvanized militants in the Sunni community.

These are post-victory matters.

Generations were raised to the slogan, “Death to America.” What will Iran now do with the slogan?

How can relations with “Great Satan” be normalized if talk of beachheads and strikes continues?  

And what of “exporting the [Islamic Republic] revolution,” which perturbed the region before it was agitated by fear of Iran’s nuclear ambitions?

Iran realizes fully well the slogan of “eradicating the cancerous tumor” [i.e. Israel] does not only raise America’s hackles but those of Russia’s Putin as well.

In addition, opening the door to investors assumes a transformed political and legal environment that would encourage young Iranians to aspire to a normal and prosperous state earmarking her resources for development and education rather than for perpetual dogfighting with her neighbors and the world powers.

Iran is a major country in the region.

To be acceptable and durable, her role must break up from the ambers of the revolution.

It is premature to compare Hassan Rouhani to Mikhail Gorbachev. Perhaps Iran needs someone who takes after China’s Deng Xiaoping.

She probably has to remember Vietnam defeated the United States, but referred her triumph to the history books.

And Vietnam is busy today inviting investors and tourists to improve the living conditions of the people behind the epic victory and their descendants.