The truth of that Palmerstonian paraphrase is illustrated in a fascinating essay by Elliot Abrams in the WSJ. (Incidentally, the WSJ is a seriously good serious newspaper.) He points out the gradual and mostly surreptitious rapprochment that is growing between the Israelis and the Arabs, or to be precise, the Sunni Arabs who are becoming increasingly fearful of Persian Shia power. This is taking place during a time in which the usual middle east muddle is becoming even more intractable:
The Shia in Iran seem to be building a bomb, Iran's ally Syria is taking over Lebanon (again), Yemen is collapsing (again), Egypt's President Mubarak is said to be dying and the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is back on the front pages.
What's more, no one is sure who's in charge these days. The American hegemony, in place at least since the British left Aden in 1967 and secured through repeated, massive military operations of its own and victories by its ally Israel, seems to be fraying. Who will stop the Iranian nuclear weapons program, the Arabs wonder; they place no faith in endless negotiations between earnest Western diplomats and the clever Persians.
Hitherto, any talk of co-operation between Arabs and Jews was kept private but now some Arabs are going public:
The Arab view that someone should bomb Iran and stop it from developing nuclear weapons is familiar to anyone who meets privately with Arab leaders, especially in the Gulf. Now, the curtain is being pulled back: Just last month, the United Arab Emirates' ambassador to the United States, Yousef Al Otaiba, spoke publicly of a "cost-benefit analysis" and concluded that despite the upset to trade that would result and the inevitable "people protesting and rioting and very unhappy that there is an outside force attacking a Muslim country," the balance was clear. The ambassador told an Aspen audience, "If you are asking me, 'Am I willing to live with that versus living with a nuclear Iran?' my answer is still the same: 'We cannot live with a nuclear Iran.' I am willing to absorb what takes place." By speaking of "an outside force," Ambassador Al Otaiba did not specifically demand U.S. action; he left the door open for volunteers.
One particular 'unknown unknown' (to quote a phrase!) is the future of Egypt, not quite the powerful player of the past but still important in the region:
For Egypt, there is one worry: Mr. Mubarak's health. With a presidential election coming in the fall of 2011, will his 30 years in power (since Sadat's assassination in 1981) end with a free election, or will the ill, 82-year-old Mr. Mubarak demand another term or the installation of his son Gamal as his successor? Meanwhile, Egypt's dominance of Arab diplomacy and its overall influence in the region are declining steadily. The Arab League is still headquartered there, but it was symbolic of Egypt's diminished status that the key figure in the foreign ministers' meeting held there last week was Hamad bin Jassem of Qatar, the rich Gulf sheikdom with about 350,000 citizens, not Ahmed Aboul Gheit of Egypt, with a population of 80 million.
Of course, after half a century of constant war, tension and terrorism, there might be a certain amount of wishful thinking in suggesting a new era of co-operation between Arabs and Jews:
Perhaps the enemy of my enemy is not my friend, if he is an Israeli pilot. In that case, all gestures of friendship will be forsaken or carefully hidden; there will be denunciations and UN resolutions, petitions and boycotts, Arab League summits and hurried trips to Washington. But none of that changes an essential fact of life well understood in many Arab capitals this summer: that there is a clear coincidence of interests between the Arab states and Israel today, in the face of the Iranian threat. Given the 60 years of war and cold peace between Israel and the Arabs, this is one of the signal achievements of the regime in Tehran—and could prove to be its undoing.
What a delicious irony that would be, that the mad Mullahs of Persia were the cause of an eventual Arab/Israeli peace!
Was Eisenhower wrong in '56?
Posted by: dearieme | Saturday, 07 August 2010 at 16:11
Oh God, 'DM', don't let's open that can of worms!
Posted by: David Duff | Saturday, 07 August 2010 at 17:37