By Barry Rubin

Let’s say you rule an Arab state in the Persian Gulf–Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, or the United Arab Emirates. How does the world look to you right now?

Remember, of course, that what you think is not necessarily what you say. Unfortunately, there are many Western observers who don’t seem to understand this simple point. Publicly, Gulf leaders complain about the United States and the alleged Israeli threat, flaunting their dedication to the Arab cause, passionate commitment to the Palestinians, and beliefs in Muslim solidarity even toward neighboring Iran.

Privately, it’s something altogether different.

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by Daniel Pipes*

With the Dec. 3 publication of a completely unexpected declassified National Intelligence Estimate (NIE), “Iran: Nuclear Intentions and Capabilities,” a consensus has emerged that war with Iran “now appears to be off the agenda.” Indeed, Iran’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, claimed the report dealt a “fatal blow” to the country’s enemies, while his foreign ministry spokesman called it a “great victory.”

I disagree with that consensus, believing that military action against Iran is now more likely than before the NIE came out.

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by Daniel Pipes*

“Far from being the source of anti-Americanism in Turkey, the AKP represents an ideal partner for the United States in the region.” So asserts Joshua W. Walker, a former Turkey desk officer at the State Department now studying at Princ­eton University, referring to the Justice and Development Party (known as the AKP). Writing in The Washington Quarterly, Walker supports his thesis by noting the constructive Turkish role in Iraq, praising “how carefully the AKP has guarded the [U.S.] alliance and tried to work with the Bush administration, partic­ularly when compared to other European nations.”

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By Ted Belman, Israpundit

“Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists” Pres Bush said after 9/11. He went on to identify N. Korea, Iran and Iraq, the “axis of evil” and to declare the “war on terror”. The last thing he wanted to do was to identify the enemy. N. Korea was included in the list for fear that someone might think, G-d forbid, that Moslems were the enemy or that Islam was the enemy just as Communists and Communism were during the cold war.

It’s not that he didn’t know who the enemy was. After all, 15 of the 19 highjackers were Saudis who were inspired by Saudi supported Wahabbism. Its not that he viewed the use of terror as the enemy because the US had created al Qaeda to use terror to defeat the Russians in Afghanistan. It is not that this was the first time that the US was attacked by Arabs or Muslims starting with the Islamic revolution in Iran and the hostage taking of US diplomats.

Angelo Codeville, a professor of international relations at Boston University, wondered and wrote a startling article in the Fall of ‘02, Post Mortem to a Phony War. If you missed this article, don’t miss it now. It’s a classic. Read it here.

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By Barry Rubin

What would you do if your foreign policy agenda had these priorities:

• Get Arab and European support for solving the Iraq crisis.
• Mobilize Arab and European forces against a threat led by Iran and its allies, Syria, Hamas, and Hizballah.
• Get Iran to stop its campaign to get nuclear weapons.
• Reestablish American credibility toward friends and deterrence toward enemies.
• Reduce the level of Israel-Palestinian conflict.

That pretty much describes the U.S. framework for dealing with the Middle East nowadays. The Annapolis conference is not going to contribute to these goals. The most likely outcome is either failure or a non-event portrayed as a victory because it took place at all. No one is going to say: We are so grateful at the United States becoming more active on Arab-Israeli issues that we are going to back its policy on other issues.

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by Michael Rubin*

On Oct. 17, President Bush raised the specter of war with Iran. “If you’re interested in avoiding World War III,” he said, it’s necessary to deny the Islamic Republic “the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon.” Condemnation of his comments was swift. Sen. Robert Byrd (D-WV) accused the President’s of using “rhetorical ghosts and goblins to scare the American people, with claims of an imminent nuclear threat in Iran.”

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By Jonathan Spyer

The possible emergence of a nuclear-armed, Islamist Iran committed to the destruction of the Jewish state is the key security issue currently occupying the attention of Israel’s political and security elite. It is one of the few issues upon which there is near (but not total) consensus. Israel has watched the growing power of radical elements within the Iranian ruling elite in the last half-decade with concern. These elements, of which President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad is the most prominent representative, openly reject Israel’s right to exist. Ahmedinejad’s comments advocating Israel’s destruction and denying the Holocaust are part of a larger project to recover the original fervour of the 1979 Islamic revolution. The expansion of Iran’s regional role is also part of this, and Israeli strategists note that the influence of Iran in all areas of key strategic concern to Israel is being felt, in a negative way. Iran’s alliance with Syria underwrites Damascus’s increasingly bellicose stance. Iran’s creation and sponsorship of Hizbullah has enabled it to come to constitute the powerful militia opponent seen in last year’s war. Iranian assistance to Hamas and Islamic jihad may be in the process of turning these organisations into analogous forces.

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By Barry Rubin

The Iranian nuclear issue is too important and dangerous to be miscomprehended. So here are some life-and-death factors to keep in mind about it:

First, Iran is not about to obtain nuclear weapons, certainly not ones that it could use. That dreadful outcome is still several years away. Despite all the bragging going on by Iranian leaders in Persian-language statements about how they are getting closer to atomic bombs — coupled with denials of any such intention in English-language ones — it just isn’t that easy to do.

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by Jared Shelly*

The idea of promoting peace in the Middle East by transforming governments into democracies has unquestionably failed, according to one foreign-policy expert, leaving the United States searching for a definitive policy in one of the most volatile regions of the world.

“This has left us at one of those rare moments when the playing field is suddenly made level for the competition of new big ideas,” said Martin Kramer, a fellow at both the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and Harvard University, during a lecture held at the Union League of Philadelphia.

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by Daniel Pipes*

About 100,000 Turkish troops, backed by aircraft and tanks, are poised to enter Iraq for counterterrorism purposes. But once there, they might just stay permanently, occupying the Mosul area, leading to dangerous regional consequences.

To understand this danger requires a refresher in Turkish irredentist ambitions harking back to the 1920s. The Ottoman Empire emerged from World War I on the losing side, a predicament codified in 1920 by the Treaty of Sèvres imposed on it by the victorious Allies. The treaty placed some Ottoman territory under international control and much of the rest under separate Armenian, French, Greek, Italian, and Kurdish control, leaving Turkish rule to continue only in a northwest Anatolian statelet.

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By Barry Rubin

The alternative Western view of Middle East strategy–so influential in academic, media, and to some extent diplomatic circles–has a six-point program that boils down as:

Make deals with Iran, Syria, Hamas, and Hizballah; ally with Muslim Brotherhoods; and split Iran and Syria.

Those more extreme who advocate this approach are sympathetic to these forces, seeing them as more misunderstood victim than aggressive oppressor; the more moderate among them merely think the radicals can be moderated through concessions and confidence-building measures. In other words, they are not really adversaries but either already good guys or can be converted into playing that role.

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by Michael Rubin*

Last Thursday two dozen political activists and organizations signed a statement drafted by the National Iranian American Council calling on Congress to cut off Iranian civil society funding. The signatories — who ranged from representatives of billionaire philanthropist George Soros to the group The World Can’t Wait/Drive Out the Bush Regime– argue that such funding, rather than aiding democracy, has precipitated an Iranian crackdown on dissidents. These political activists are wrong. Should democracy funding be cut, not only will independent civil society be eroded but a vital tool to encourage Iranian moderation will be removed, speeding the slide toward confrontation.

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By Barry Rubin

The Israeli-Palestinian peace process is about to be the topic of an international summit and optimism is breaking out all over.

A breakthrough to comprehensive peace, however, is very unlikely. Hamas controls the Gaza Strip; the Palestinian Authority (PA)-Fatah leader, Mahmoud Abbas, is weak; Fatah is still overwhelmingly radical and has not conducted the internal debate—much less public education effort—necessary for a change of policy.

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by Michael Rubin*

As relations between Washington and Tehran deteriorate, critics of the Bush administration are seeking to cast blame for the rocky relationship not on Iran’s nuclear program or support of terrorism, but on President Bush’s intransigence. At the root of the attacks is the administration’s supposed rejection of a May 2003 Iranian offer of a grand bargain to settle all outstanding disputes. “Basking in the glory of ‘Mission Accomplished’ in Iraq, the Bush administration dismissed the Iranian offer,” Peter Galbraith, a Democratic party activist and former ambassador to Croatia, wrote in the October 11 New York Review of Books.

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By Barry Rubin

Quick! Tell me. Who’s desperate to make a deal? Who acts as if they are the weaker party, eager to negotiate solutions in order to end their people’s suffering and the costs of conflict?

Certainly not Iran. It has been pushing ahead with its nuclear program for more than three years during a period of intense Western diplomatic effort, lots of talk about sanctions, and even the implementation of some. Iran is indifferent to threats of attack or warnings of isolation. To a large extent — but not completely — the regime thinks the West is bluffing. But if Tehran really sought nuclear energy, not bombs, it could easily cooperate and have power stations in operation far faster. And if Iran was really acting out of fear of being surrounded by American power, it could help resolve the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq — instead of inflaming them — in exchange for U.S. forces withdrawing more quickly.

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