Good Assessment of Situation after Middle East Policy Changes!
March 5, 2007
http://www.tribulationperiod.com/
Loss of control to the Democratic Party, in both the U.S. House and the Senate, has been instrumental in policy shifts and accompanying actions in the Middle East.
The writer in this article, extracted from the Khalee Times, offers a good assessment of the current situation in the Middle East.
Begin Excerpt from the Khaleej Times
Meeting of minds, finally?
BY CLAUD SALHANI
March 4, 2007
SECRETARY of State Condoleezza Rice announced an important change of US policy earlier this week when she revealed that the United States would participate in a meeting with Iran and Syria over Iraq’s future.
The “meeting of neighbours,’ as the gathering is being called, heralds an important reversal of policy for the Bush administration. Until now Washington refused to accept the idea that Teheran and Damascus can play important roles in the region. Both Iran and Syria carry enough clout that they can influence developments in Iraq in either a positive or negative manner.
The Bush administration’s view — until now — was that inviting Damascus and Teheran to negotiations would be rewarding them, something the administration refused to do on the ground that Syria
and Iran support groups considered by the US to engage in terrorist activities.
In short, the administration has decided to follow the advice put forward by James Baker and the Iraq Study Group.
Rice said there was hope these governments would “seize this opportunity to improve their relations with Iraq and to work for peace and stability in the region.”
This meeting of neighbours may well be a last ditch effort to try and avoid a greater disaster in Iraq — and possibly in the rest of
the region. The Syrian-Iranian alliance in fact holds the key, or at least part of it, to many of the region’s problems.
Consider the following:
Iraq: Iran commands and/or controls much of the country starting just south of Baghdad either through militias loyal to Teheran or through agents the Islamic republic has managed to infiltrate into Iraq in the last four years. The two countries share hundreds of miles of unguarded border, making it easy for Iran to smuggle men and munitions.
Likewise for Syria, who also shares a long and mostly unprotected border with Iraq. The US has accused Syria of allowing thousands
of jihadi fighters to slip through the border to join the insurgency. Lebanon:
Both Iran and Syria are able to affect the volatile political situation in Lebanon by pulling the strings on Hezbollah. Lebanon’s leader of the Druze community, Walid Jumblatt, who met with President Bush and his top advisers in Washington this week, accused the Shia militia of attempting a coup d’etat in Lebanon.
Of course, without support from Syria and Iran the Shia militia would loose much of its clout, or, given continues support from the two countries Hezbollah could be in a position to re-kindle the civil war. This correspondent has learned that truckloads of 60mm mortars have recently been smuggled into Lebanon from Syria for delivery to Hezbollah. Sixty-millimetre mortars are typically used for short range fight ing, such as
in cities.
Hezbollah would not find much use in those short-range mortars in fighting Israel.
In the Palestinian Territories: Hamas, the Palestinian Islamic Resistance movement also receives much support from Iran in the form of weapons and money. And Damascus hosts the group’s political leadership, as well as other radical Palestinian groups, whom the US has placed on its list of terrorist organisation.
The meeting of neighbours comes at an appropriate time as all sides are continuing to flex their military muscles. There is much at stake riding on the future of this “Meeting of neighbours.” A successful outcome may lead to further negotiations to help diffuse the tension in Lebanon and hopefully revive the Middle East Roadmap to bring about a peaceful settlement to the long-standing Israeli-Palestinian dispute. That is why, at least from this analyst’s perspective, the outcome of this first encounter between US, Iranian and Syrian negotiators will be all so very important.
Over the years in the Middle East failure to reach a peace agreement in the past typically led to decades of political stagnation, usually interrupted by a war or two. This time around we may not be so lucky. The stagnation may be skipped over in favour of going straight to war.
The United States now has a second aircraft carrier task force in the Gulf, giving Washington more firepower than it had in the region since the war in Iraq began in 2003. And neither has Iran’s military been standing by idly either. The Iranians have been is carrying out one of their largest military exercises ever, involving live ammunition, and including missiles.
Adding to the rhetoric Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said last week his country’s disputed nuclear programme was like a train without brakes or a reverse gear. To which Secretary Rice shot back, saying Iran needs “a stop button.” Rice hinted that the US could volunteer to “install” that button. Meanwhile, the Islamic republic has test-launched a sub-orbital rocket it said was for scientific research only.
Now is all this is not enough to keep you awake at night thinking that the sky might fall any minute, a report from the International Media Intelligence Analysis says that Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert instructed the country’s defence establishment on Sunday to prepare for the possibility of an all out war with Syria.
Israel’s various intelligence agencies, the Mossad, the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency), Military Intelligence, the National Security Council and
the Foreign Ministry briefed the Israeli cabinet on pending threats. Military Intelligence chief Maj-Gen.
Amos Yadlin opened the briefing and told the ministers “Israel is surrounded by negative processes… that create more instability in the Middle East than in the past.”
Meanwhile, the commander of the US Fifth Fleet currently deployed in the Gulf warned that Iran poses a greater security threat to the strategic
Gulf region than does Al Qaeda.
We consider this moment in time unprecedented in terms of the amount of insecurity and instability that is in the region,” Vice Adm. P atrick W
alsh said at a Press conference in Bahrain earlier this month.
“Our presence in the Arabian Gulf is for defensive and not offensive purposes,” said Walsh. But, added the commander of the US Fifth Fleet, “the US will take military action if ships are attacked or if countries in the region are targeted or US troops come under direct attack.”
Indeed, much is riding on the Meeting of Neighbours. Its success or failure could impact the region for the next decades.
Claude Salhani is International Editor and a political analyst with United Press International in Washington. He may be contacted at Claude@upi.com.
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