A Crystal Ball on 2016: David M. Weinberg, Israel Hayom, Jan. 1, 2016 — One year ago today, I accurately forecasted in these pages that in 2015, U.S. President Barack Obama would cement a complete reorientation of U.S. policy in the Mideast and Persian Gulf by cutting a grand deal with the Persians.
Sectarian Tensions in the Middle East Deepen: Ahmed Al Omran & Asa Fitch, Wall Street Journal, Jan. 4, 2016 — Sectarian anger in the Middle East deepened further Monday, as allies of mainly Sunni Muslim Saudi Arabia severed or downgraded diplomatic ties with Shiite-dominated Iran following protests over Riyadh’s execution of a prominent Shiite cleric.
In the Iran-Saudi Arabia Conflict, a Clash of Civilizations: Avi Issacharoff, Times of Israel, Jan. 4, 2016— The attack by an angry Iranian mob on the building of the Saudi Embassy in Tehran appears to be the opening salvo in an escalating battle between Iran and Saudi Arabia.
Iran’s Hypocrisy on Persecution: Michael Rubin, Commentary, Jan. 4, 2016 — Saudi Arabia executed Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr, perhaps Saudi Arabia’s most famous Shi‘ite scholar and a man who has professed non-violence even as urging Shi‘ites to protest in order to achieve basic rights and equality…
French Ambassador Rationalizes Iranian Belligerency: Lee Smith, Weekly Standard, Jan. 3, 2016— Saturday the French ambassador to the United States Gerard Araud downplayed the attacks on Saudi Arabia’s diplomatic facilities in Iran.
On Topic Links
The Jerusalem Post’s Top 5 Stories of 2015: Steve Linde, Jerusalem Post, Dec. 31, 2015
Why Iran is Pressing Its Luck, Max Boot, Commentary, Jan. 4, 2016
Saudi-Iran Rift Threatens Syria Diplomacy: Dan De Luce, Foreign Policy, Jan. 3, 2016
The ISIS/Iran Conundrum: Lee Smith, Middle East Forum, Dec. 29, 2015
David M. Weinberg
Israel Hayom, Jan. 1, 2015
One year ago today, I accurately forecasted in these pages that in 2015, U.S. President Barack Obama would cement a complete reorientation of U.S. policy in the Mideast and Persian Gulf by cutting a grand deal with the Persians. Sure enough, Obama’s appalling pact with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani merely postpones Tehran’s nuclear bomb production for a few years, while legitimizing Iranian hegemony in the region.
I also foresaw that Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas would ramp up his campaign of lies and incitement to violence regarding the Temple Mount. But I was wrong in expecting formation of a Netanyahu-Herzog national unity government, and in presuming that Tzipi Livni would bow out of public life. Looking into my crystal ball for the year ahead, this is what I anticipate:
Obama: The late-term U.S. president will be unable to resist his own ideological urges to further squeeze Israel, and will act to set markers for an internationally imposed “solution” of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Obama will seek to support a United Nations Security Council decision that guts Resolution 242, rupturing 40 years of U.S.-Israel understandings on pursuit of negotiated peace in the Middle East, and giving new strength to the Palestinian campaign to criminalize Israel. The danger zone for such action lies in the seam period between the November presidential election and January 2017 inauguration, but Obama is likely to telegraph this in another one of his moralizing speeches in the spring. Israel and its friends in the U.S. will have to warn of truly harsh reaction in order to dissuade Obama from moving in this ruinous direction. Israel will have to genuinely threaten to annex the majority of the West Bank, and Congress to slash almost all funding for the U.N. But I’m not sure that even such pressures will deter Obama.
Abbas: After threatening to do so a dozen times, Abbas will finally, permanently resign from leadership of the Palestinian Authority, setting off a power struggle in the West Bank. The Palestinian intelligence chief Majid Faraj is best placed to succeed him, or at least Israel hopes so. Faraj would probably have to share power with a more known political figure such as Jibril Rajoub (ugh!) or Mohammad Shtayyeh (double ugh) or Marwan Barghouti (triple the trouble). In the interim, current Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah can be counted upon to promise “stability” for international donors to the PA, so that Ramallah can continue to rake in the many aid dollars, euros, kroner, yen, and francs.
Syria: Despite Obama (“ISIS is the JV team,” “al-Qaida is in retreat”), the two Islamofascist organizations are back with a vengeance and gunning for Israel. Yarmouk Martyrs Brigade (ISIS in Syria) and the Nusra Front (al-Qaida in Syria) are well-equipped and entrenched not far off Israel’s Golan border. Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s threats to hit Israel (from Sinai, too) should be taken seriously.
Will the new czar of Syria, Vladmir Putin, be willing to block Iranian and Islamic muckraking on Israel’s northern border and/or turn a blind eye to Israel’s military operations in Syria and Lebanon against radical Islamic enemies? I think that there is room for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to craft a true working partnership with Putin that buttresses Israeli security. While Russia and Iran share an interest in stabilizing the Assad regime, Russia has no reason to provide cover for Iranian and Islamic operations again Israel. Careful Israeli maneuvering can drive a wedge between Russia and Iran.
Government: The current coalition will remain stable. Netanyahu will keep HabBayit Hayehudi in the government and avoid bringing in the Zionist Union. The last thing the prime minister wants is a strong right-wing challenge from Naftali Bennett and Avigdor Lieberman coalescing outside the government. The haredi parties can be counted on to sit quietly, too. In the longer term, Netanyahu only has to worry about leadership challenges from Gideon Saar and Nir Barkat — which is why Netanyahu is seeking to solidify his position in an early Likud leadership vote next month.
Opposition: Zionist Union Chairman Isaac Herzog and Yesh Atid leader Yair Lapid should be sweating. Former IDF Chief of Staff Benny Gantz and Tel Aviv Mayor Ron Huldai are planning runs for national office, and are likely to eclipse the current opposition party leaders. It’s the only way the Center-Left has any chance of challenging Netanyahu (and even then, their chances of besting the right-wing are slim).
Former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert: The disgraced former prime minister won’t go to jail. He will be pardoned by President Ruvi Rivlin. Outrageous, I know, but you heard it here first! The two Jerusalemites go way back together, and anything that Rivlin can do to irritate Netanyahu, he will.
Natural gas: The Supreme Court may invalidate the government’s deal with the gas conglomerates (meant to develop and share the profits of the Tamar and Leviathan fields). This would be disastrous and wrong. We’re talking about a classic case of executive branch economic and security policymaking, in which that the courts should not intervene. Nevertheless, the Left is counting on the Supreme Court to dissect Netanyahu’s most important infrastructure project. Beware.
U.S. presidential elections: Donald Trump will blow out and quit the race (even though it doesn’t look that way just now), with Marco Rubio or Chris Christie besting Hillary Clinton in the November vote by a slim margin. Well, at least that is what I hope will happen!…
[To Read the Full Article Click the Following Link—Ed.]
SECTARIAN TENSIONS IN THE MIDDLE EAST DEEPEN
Ahmed Al Omran & Asa Fitch
Wall Street Journal, Jan. 4, 2015
Sectarian anger in the Middle East deepened further Monday, as allies of mainly Sunni Muslim Saudi Arabia severed or downgraded diplomatic ties with Shiite-dominated Iran following protests over Riyadh’s execution of a prominent Shiite cleric. The tiny Persian Gulf nation of Bahrain and Sudan, Africa’s third-largest nation, cut all diplomatic relations with Tehran. Bahrain ordered all members of Iran’s diplomatic mission to leave the country within 48 hours, its state-controlled news agency said.
The government of King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa accused Iran of interfering in its internal affairs and those of its allies. Since 2011, Bahraini authorities have frequently accused Iran of fomenting antigovernment protests by the island’s Shiite majority, who say they suffer systematic discrimination by the Sunni monarchy. Also on Monday, the United Arab Emirates, another Saudi ally and Sunni monarchy, withdrew its ambassador to Tehran, the state news agency reported. It said its charges d’affaires would remain in Tehran. Echoing Bahrain’s accusations against Iran, Abu Dhabi said the withdrawal of its envoy to Tehran was due to “unprecedented” levels of Iranian interference in the affairs of the Gulf Arab states.
The moves by the U.A.E. and Bahrain followed Saudi Arabia’s decision to cut diplomatic ties with Iran on Sunday, after violent protests over the execution on Saturday of the Shiite cleric, Nemer al-Nemer, erupted outside its embassy in Tehran and its consulate in Mashhad, Iran’s second-largest city. The repercussions of the rift between two of the Middle East’s major powers widened late Monday, as Saudi authorities cancelled all commercial air traffic between Iran and the kingdom.
In Tehran, Iran’s Foreign Ministry accused Saudi Arabia of trying to inflame sectarian conflict in the wake of the execution of Mr. al-Nemer, who led antigovernment protests in the kingdom in 2011. Saudi Arabia “is engulfed by domestic and foreign crises and is pursuing a policy of escalating tension in the region,” Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Hossein Jaber Ansari said, according to the official Islamic Republic News Agency.
The swelling diplomatic storm between Riyadh and Tehran has exacerbated tensions in a region already roiling with conflicts widely viewed here as pitting the interests of predominantly Shiite Iran against those of the region’s Saudi-led bloc of Sunni monarchies. Iran is the main military and financial patron of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, whose regime is mired in a nearly five-year civil war with Sunni rebel groups, some of whom are backed by Riyadh. Saudi Arabia also leads a coalition of Gulf Arab nations fighting Houthi rebels in Yemen. The Houthis, who follow the Zaidi offshoot of Shiite Islam, receive diplomatic support from Iran.
The friction has been compounded by a nuclear deal reached in July between Iran and the U.S. and five other world powers. The accord, under which Tehran has agreed to limit its nuclear program in exchange for a lifting of international economic sanctions, has raised concerns among Saudi Arabia and its Gulf Arab allies of a more aggressive and adventurous Iran in the region.
A stampede at the annual hajj pilgrimage in Mecca in September worsened already strained relations between Riyadh and Tehran. The Saudi government said 769 pilgrims were killed in the stampede, but an examination of records by The Associated Press put the number of dead as more than 2,400. Tehran has said more than 464 of its pilgrims were killed and blamed Saudi Arabia for “incompetence” in their deaths.
Mr. al-Nemer was executed along with 46 other people, most of them convicted Sunni extremists. His death has sparked protests across the Shiite Muslim world, including in Tehran, Bahrain, Beirut and Baghdad. Iranian authorities arrested 40 demonstrators on Saturday after protests at the Saudi embassy turned violent. Iranian President Hassan Rouhani urged calm, but the country’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, warned that Saudi Arabia would face “divine vengeance” for its execution of Mr. al-Nemer…
[To Read the Full Article Click the Following Link—Ed.]
IN THE IRAN-SAUDI ARABIA CONFLICT, A CLASH OF CIVILIZATIONS
Avi Issacharoff
Times of Israel, Jan. 4, 2015
The attack by an angry Iranian mob on the building of the Saudi Embassy in Tehran appears to be the opening salvo in an escalating battle between Iran and Saudi Arabia. Only a few hours later, the official website of Iran’s spiritual and supreme leader Ali Khamenei published a summary of his speech to Shiite religious figures in the Iranian capital, in which he clearly said that Saudi Arabia could expect revenge for the execution of the Shiite religious figure Nimr al-Nimr. The Revolutionary Guard Corps also published a similar announcement shortly after Sheikh Nimr was executed along with another 46 “terror suspects.”
Monday morning headlines in all the major Arab media outlets dealt with the Iranian-Saudi dispute, and by the time the afternoon rolled around several Arab countries had severed or downgraded their ties with Tehran. One report dealt with American fears of the expected escalation between the two countries. And indeed, nearly all the actors in the Middle Eastern arena now understand that the Iranian declarations are not hollow and that Tehran will try to give them substance in the form of an attack on the Saudi kingdom.
Any revenge attack via Shiite actors will draw a Saudi response. Which means, as the London-based site Al Araby Al Jadeed wrote Monday, the cold war will heat up suddenly into a more much more dangerous confrontation between the two countries. It has to be said that this crisis, which is likely to lead to a clash of the two civilizations, Shiite and Sunni, does not come as much of a shock. In all, what’s come to light here is the depth of the loathing between the two local powers, which have for years been fighting behind the scenes for years for regional hegemony.
There’s hardly a country or a region in which the fingerprints of the hostility between Tehran and Riyadh cannot be seen; or more precisely, between the representative of Sunni Islam — Saudi Arabia — and Iran, its competitor in the Shiite world. Consider the list: Lebanon, where for more than a year and a half there has been no president, partly because of the tension between Saudi Arabia and Iran; Yemen, where a civil war is being waged with the direct intervention of Saudi forces and Iranian advisers; Syria, of course, where Iran’s Revolutionary Guards are fighting militias funded by Riyadh; Iraq (which is in many ways similar to Syria in that regard); and even the West Bank, where the Iranians give financial support to the Islamic Jihad, to the A-Sabireen movement in Gaza and, to a limited extent, to Hamas.
The problem that Hamas will have from now on is that this battle between Iran and Saudi Arabia will force it to take a side. Hamas is not alone. From now on, the name of the game in our region is that every country or organization will have to choose a side. The Israeli-Arab conflict no longer interests decision-makers in Riyadh or Cairo; rather the battle for the future of the Middle East between Shiites and Sunnis occupies center stage.
Almost 1,400 years have passed since the first battles broke out within the Muslim world between the inheritors of the Prophet Muhammad, which led to the schism between Shiites and Sunnis, and it seems little has changed here: We are returning to the same very old sectarian war, which is likely to lead to severe ongoing bloodshed that will once again shape the face of the region.
IRAN’S HYPOCRISY ON PERSECUTION
Michael Rubin
Commentary, Jan. 4, 2016
Saudi Arabia executed Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr, perhaps Saudi Arabia’s most famous Shi‘ite scholar and a man who has professed non-violence even as urging Shi‘ites to protest in order to achieve basic rights and equality, reinforces the fact that religious persecution is alive and well in the 21st Century. The ideology that led to Nimr’s beheading isn’t that different than that which drives the Islamic State (ISIS, ISIL, Daesh) in its bloodlust against Shi‘ites and non-Muslims.
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, a sectarian warrior in his own right, nevertheless sought to seize the high road rhetorically, tweeting: I hereby condemn #SheikhNimr’s execution & send my condolences to his family & Muslim world. This act violates human rights & Islamic values.
Well, if it’s not obvious from my unequivocal condemnation of the execution on C-Span’s “Washington Journal” yesterday, I agree that there was no justification for the murder of Sheikh Nimr. That said, if Rouhani was sincere, he might consider why it is that the regime for which he serves as president imprisons Baha’i men, women, and children simply because they are Baha’i’s. He might question — because Secretary of State John Kerry and his team did not appear to have done so with any seriousness during negotiations — why the regime over which he presides has targeted Iranian Christians, such as Saeed Abedini, an Iranian-American pastor. Then there’s the case of the missing Jews, an episode the New York Times ignores as it seeks to raise money off its Iran reporting. And if human rights matter, he might ask why the rate of Iranian executions in 2015 was almost an order of magnitude greater than that of Saudi Arabia, which had approximately 150.
Should Saudi Arabia be condemned? Absolutely. Should the farce of Saudi Arabia’s ascension to any international human rights body end? Yes. Should groups like Human Rights Watch that raised funds from Saudi Arabia return that money or donate it to a worthy charity that supports religious freedom? Certainly. But let’s not believe that just because Saudi Arabia revealed its true character, that Iran has any ground for moral preening. It’s time to call out Iran’s hypocrisy and work non-stop to release its imprisoned religious figures before they suffer the same fate as Nimr.
FRENCH AMBASSADOR RATIONALIZES IRANIAN BELLIGERENCY
Lee Smith
Weekly Standard, Jan. 3, 2016
Saturday the French ambassador to the United States Gerard Araud downplayed the attacks on Saudi Arabia’s diplomatic facilities in Iran. Following the execution of controversial Saudi Shiite cleric Nimr al-Nimr, Iranian mobs surely backed by the clerical regime set fire to the Saudi embassy in Tehran, and the kingdom’s consulate in Iran’s second-largest city, Mashad. In response to the destruction of diplomatic missions, the chief of France’s diplomatic mission in Washington wrote that “Iran was obliged to react. Burning an embassy is spectacular but not war.”
Araud articulated his bizarrely obtuse thesis during a Twitter exchange with Omri Ceren, the managing director for press at the Israel Project. Ceren responded by citing an opinion from the International Court of Justice holding that, “there is ‘no more fundamental prerequisite’ for interstate relations than protecting embassies.” Violating diplomatic immunity, Ceren continued, is the “single most corrosive thing you can do. More corrosive than war because war is governed by rules.”
Araud has recently shown a pattern of rationalizing Iranian belligerency. In a previous exchange with Ceren, Araud described an Iranian ballistic missile test as “posturing.” According to the French diplomat, Iran is “a rational country we should handle with firmness and rationally.” Fine, but if, as Araud contends, Iran is rational, then it should rationally understand that when a mob controlled by an authoritarian state is incited or directed to attack an embassy the action might well warrant a response more firm than a Baudrillardian tweet like that authored by Araud.
Indeed, there’s serious testimony arguing that the violation of diplomatic missions should be regarded as something rather more than a post-modernist happening. In February 1980, veteran American diplomat George Kennan told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that because of the takeover of the American embassy in Tehran, “our Government [should] simply acknowledge the existence of the state of hostility brought about by the behavior of the Iranian Government, and, having done that, then regard ourselves as at war with that country.” In other words, torching an embassy might be more than spectacular—it might indeed be an act of war.
As Ceren argued in his exchange with Araud, the diplomacy prized by the international order cannot be conducted without protecting the sanctity of embassies. It seems that Araud was later given access to the same conclusion, perhaps helped by his bosses at the French foreign ministry. Hence Araud later deleted his tweet, and replaced it with the statement that “Burning any embassy, whatever the pretext, is unacceptable. A gross violation of international law.”
Good for him, who eventually came to see the problematic aporia embedded in the margins of the ineluctable Derridean irony of an ambassador justifying the deconstruction of an embassy. However, shortly after retracting his initial tweet, Araud defended it, describing his first effort as “analysis” of the attack on the embassy, and not a “judgment” of the action. “Strange,” wrote Araud, “how many people confuse analysis of an action with justification of an action.”
In this case of course the analysis does in fact justify the action. Araud, like other diplomats, is no doubt well aware that the Islamic Republic regularly targets diplomats and embassies as a matter of course. Indeed, the regime at its very inception invaded the American embassy in 1979 and held 52 Americans, including diplomats, for 444 days. The Khomeinst regime, via Hezbollah and other Iranian-backed groups, also attacked American embassies in Kuwait in 1983, and Lebanon in the same year, killing 63, including 17 U.S. citizens. The Islamic Republic has also targeted Araud’s countrymen, citizens, soldiers, as well as diplomats, for more than three decades, largely inside Lebanon. Among other recent plots against diplomatic personnel, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps targeted Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to the United States in Washington, D.C. in 2011…
[To Read the Full Article Click the Following Link—Ed.]
The Jerusalem Post’s Top 5 Stories of 2015: Steve Linde, Jerusalem Post, Dec. 31, 2015—Despite Israel’s vocal objections, international powers led by the United States signed a landmark agreement with Iran this year. History will decide whether the deal succeeded in stopping Iran’s nuclear program and bringing the Iranian regime into the fold of civilized nations, or fueled its support for international terrorism and determination to destroy Israel.
Why Iran is Pressing Its Luck: Max Boot, Commentary, Jan. 4, 2016—Remember “snapback?” That was supposed to be the enforcement mechanism for the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), a.k.a. the Iran nuclear deal. If Iran cheated, the U.S. would re-impose sanctions. Administration spokespeople spent the summer assuring anyone who would listen that the mechanism for punishing Iranian violations would be sure, swift, and painful.
Saudi-Iran Rift Threatens Syria Diplomacy: Dan De Luce, Foreign Policy, Jan. 3, 2016—Saudi Arabia severed diplomatic ties with Iran on Sunday, as an escalating war of words between the two archrivals threatened to derail a renewed international bid to halt the conflict in Syria.
The ISIS/Iran Conundrum: Lee Smith, Middle East Forum, Dec. 29, 2015—The obsessive international preoccupation with ISIS notwithstanding, Iranian expansionism poses a far greater threat to U.S. interests and regional allies than the self-proclaimed Islamic State.