Civil War
That Sunni-Shi’a civil war in Iraq?
That’s not a flaw. It’s a feature. And it’s going to be exported to the rest of the Middle East.
Israel’s extensive assault on Lebanon beyond Hizbollah and its assets has puzzled many observers.
However, it now looks like it’s part of an effort to drive a wedge between Hezbollah and the rest of Lebanon, at least its affluent, Christian, and Druze components.
The effort seems to be bearing some fruit, as non-Sh’ia Lebanese seem to be willing to overlook the fact that Israel planned this attack for over a year (and that Hizbollah’s kidnapping of three soldiers was merely a convenient causus belli) and blame Hizbollah for Israel’s destruction of Lebanon’s infrastructure.
(Considering that no campaign of this magnitude would have commenced without close consultation with the United States, it comes as no surprise that as the attack was launched the Iraq debacle — with its monthly death toll of civilians — quickly became America’s forgotten war, and Our George gets to play Innocent Bystander in the Middle East instead of The Guy Who Pushed Iraq Into the Woodchipper just as we cruise into the mid-term elections)
Now, I assume Secretary Rice went to Beirut to promise that all that stuff the Israelis blew up will be replaced in a graceful here’s the money no questions asked manner, with the Hariri clan soaking up the graft instead of Halliburton.
In return, all the Lebanese have to do is to coordinate with the US, Israel, and NATO to strangle Hizbollah and the Sh’ia militarily and politically.
I’m not sure how well this is going to work, since the Sh’ia are grossly under-represented in Lebanese national politics thanks to the Taif Agreement — and that’s probably why Hizbollah was given a free hand in southern Lebanon as compensation. Although they only occupy about 20% of the seats in Parliament, Sh’ia are definitely a plurality in Lebanon, and perhaps even the majority.
If the Sh’ia decide their security and interests can only be served by controlling the whole country instead of a vulnerable enclave, Lebanon is headed for some bad days ahead.
The wedge strategy has a bigger, regional component as well.
It’s been reported that the US is working through Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Egypt to try to split Syria from Iran.
The carrot is if Syria “abandons” Hizbollah, Bashar Assad can join Qaddafi on the short list of Arab Socialist Assholes We Like, and we’ll stop trying to overthrow his regime.
If Syria doesn’t play ball, well apparently morally inert world opinion has tolerated collective punishment by Israel against the Lebanese democracy, so nobody’s going to lose any sleep if the IDF starts bombing the stuffing out of civilian as well as military targets in Syria on whatever pretext it can create.
According to this theory, Syria and Christian/Druze Lebanon will join hands and sing kumbaya over the bones of Hizbollah, Israel will retreat into its national fortress, and the decks will be cleared for isolating Iran.
Of course, Iran won’t be isolated.
The Iraq regime is Sh’ia dominated and pro-Iran.
The Sh’ia population of Lebanon is not going to be quietly pro-Israel and pro-US after half a million of them were displaced by a savage Israeli bombing campaign.
Instead of an Iran isolated in the Arab world and confronted by a united front of Western powers, we’ll see intense polarization between Sunni and Sh’ia throughout the Middle East fueled by mistrust of Iran’s growing economic, military, and nuclear ascendancy.
That’s the realistic expectations of Israel and the US anyway.
The only proven capability of our Middle East policy has been to foster deadly enmity between Sh’ia and Sunni in Iraq. Why not apply that strategy to the whole region?
If the traditional narrative of Muslim world vs. Israel is replaced by Sh’ia vs. Sunni, we can sit on the sideline and watch the Muslims tear each other apart for the next few generations.
That’s pretty much the inevitable consequence of America and Israel’s commitment to the goal of national security through violent regime change.
There are those of us who will remember that the whole issue might have been solved by the arduous but relatively unbloody process of achieving an accommodation with the Palestinians and Syrians.
But we’re pretty much the minority.
However, I think the majority of Muslims in the Middle East will not forgive their leaders for using them as pawns in a geopolitical game that brought civil war to their region and within their religion. If the regimes of Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Jordan, and Egypt persist in America’s anti-Sh’ia project, they may well be weakened beyond America’s ability to support and protect them.
The price for the few square miles of land that Israel so desperately covets may very well be a revolutionized, implacably anti-US Middle East for the next 50 years.
copyright 2006 Peter Lee
