A New Middle East?

 Yogi Berra "It's tough to make predictions, especially about the future.

The balance of power in the Middle East has fundamentally changed in three ways.

1) Over the past fifty years Israel has relied on military superiority and a sophisticated and remarkably capable intelligence service to confront its enemies with powerful deterrent threats, including nuclear weapons. (Israel has consistently denied having nuclear weapons since 1967. Deterrence, like beauty, lies in the eye of the beholder and everyone in the Middle East believes in Israeli nukes.) But after the brutal Hamas attacks in October 2023 Israel launched a determined effort to destroy Hamas that has resulted in the death and suffering in Gaza and increased pressure and assaults on Palestinians in the West Bank.

Even as that war in Gaza dragged on, Israel expanded it to include a major assault on Hezbollah in Lebanon demonstrating the prowess of both its conventional military and intelligence services (remember the exploding pagers?) and an air war that destroyed almost all of Iran's air defenses. That allowed Israel to undertake twelve days of systematic bombardment of Iran's ballistic missile capability, kill many nuclear scientists and top security officials, and paved the way for the United States to enter the war with 30,000 pound bunker buster bombs. Israel is now the unchallenged dominant military power in the region.

2) The United States has portrayed itself as a potential "honest broker" in Middle East conflicts. Everyone understood that the U.S. was deeply committed to Israel and was hardly an even handed mediator but there was always the hope that the U.S. could thread the needle and find a solution both Israel and the other side could live with. Beginning with the largely symbolic move of the American embassy to Jerusalem and culminating in the coordinated assault on Iran, American policy and actions have become aligned with Israel's.

3) Iran has been seriously weakened. The air war has given Israel and the U.S. unchallenged control of Iran's air space. Nuclear facilities have been damaged to an uncertain extent both by the bombings and the assassination of senior scientists. Iran's allies, including Hezbollah and Hamas have been severely damaged. The coup in Syria that chased Assad into exile in Moscow has eliminated a critical supply line for arming irregular forces in Lebanon, Iraq and Gaza.

The most important decisions that will define the new contours of Middle East politics

Even I am not foolish enough to predict the future. But I think we can identify some key decisions that will be made by the major players that will determiner the outcome.

Israel will be making the most important decisions. The current polices of using overwhelming military force against real and perceived enemies and eliminating the Palestinians as a factor is unachievable and unsustainable. The Netanyahu government is being held hostage by the most hardline extreme right wing factions in its tenuous coalition government. [The small ultra-Orthodox parties that insist on Great Israel, a strictly Jewish state in all of biblical Israel, "from the river to the sea"] And Netanyahu has been able to use the response to the Hamas attack of October 2023 as a tool to delay the corruption trial against him. The extremist cabinet ministers insist that the war in Gaza cannot end until Hamas is eliminated as both a military and political factor. The government seems enamored of Trump's idea of getting rid of all the Palestinians in Gaza and has herded some two million people into a narrow strip in the very south, from where they (perhaps) be easily transported to other countries.

But the mounting human cost of Palestinian death and suffering and Israeli casualties and the drain on Israel's economy will become an intolerable burden. The alternative would be seek accommodations with its neighbors and the Palestinians, adopt a more defensive posture, and act to preserve stability in the region. In the short run, such an abrupt change in policy could, I think, only come about through the active and persistent involvement of outside parties who could be portrayed as forcing concessions on a reluctant Israeli government.

In the longer run, I think, there are two possibilities. The first is that an aggressively militarized Israeli foreign posture in human and economic terms will trigger a countervailing movement either in Israeli politics or Middle Eastern countries like Saudi Arabia, Iran and Syria, perhaps even Egypt, who will try to form a counter balancing coalition by promoting a greater role for China as a source of weaponry and influence.

The second possibility is that Israel finally faces the existential crisis. Thomas Friedman, among others, has pointed out that the original Zionist vision was an Israel that was a Jewish state, a democracy, and occupied the biblical land of Israel, including the area conservative Israelis and evangelical Americans refer to as Judea and Samaria and the rest of us call the West Bank and Gaza. Israel could annex the West Bank and occupy Gaza but that biblical state could not be Jewish or it could not be democratic. Israel could be a democratic Jewish state only if the Palestinians had their own state in the West Bank and Gaza. Or Israel could be a democratic state in the biblical territory but it would not be a Jewish state. The history of the last 30 years and the policies of the Netanyahu government suggest that Israel is moving toward becoming an undemocratic Jewish state in the biblical borders.

The United States is clearly aligned with Israel. The Biden administration made some halfhearted attempts to affect the war in Gaza; the Trump administration has whole-heartedly backed Israel (except when the President is momentarily distracted by something he saw on TV.). The proposals it has put forth for cease fires in Lebanon, Iran and Gaza have been skewed toward Israeli demands. Trump's shifting positions on everything from the war in Ukraine to tariffs, his open admiration for dictators, disdain for America's long time allies, and his grandiose rhetoric have destroyed American credibility.*

*Trump's bluster and braggadocio are seen by his followers as brilliant negotiating tactics but making threats and promises that you do not carry out renders them useless because they are no longer credible. The TACO (Trump Always Chickens Out) meme captures the effect nicely.

The United States is not in a position to play a positive role in the emergence of a stable peaceful Middle East. It is easier to see Trump and his acolytes throwing up their hands and ending any attempts at dealing with the situation than making a powerful and enduring commitment to engineering a new order in the Middle East. But it is also possible that the very Trumpian focus on trade and investment and fascination with the ruling aristocrats in Saudi Arab and Gulf States would lead to a policy of indirectly supporting a coalition to balance Israel.

Iran There are two things that I think are quite certain. First, the current regime is not going to collapse nor will it be replaced with a pro-Western, cooperative government. Second, Iran has consistently claimed the right to enrich uranium to non-weapons levels, guaranteed in the Non-Proliferation Treaty of 1970. It has in fact never violated that provision, (despite having both the technical and, until recently, the physical capacity to produce weapons grade fuel) and has long defined its ability to fuel its own reactors as a point of national pride. The nature and extent of the damage done to nuclear facilitates by the U.S. and Israeli bombing raids of June 22 is still unclear but there is no doubt that they were not "obliterated" The question is whether it will take months or years to rebuild the crucial systems. The idea that Iran can be coerced or persuaded to give up the capacity to enrich uranium seems like sheer fantasy.

I think there are two critical choices facing Iran. The first is whether to commit to developing a nuclear weapon. Since Trump withdrew the United States from the 2015 agreement to limit Iran's nuclear capability in exchange for sanctions relief because it was "a horrible one-sided deal that should have never, ever been made" Iran has practiced strategic ambiguity: citing Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei's fatwas declaring nuclear weapons un-Islamic but enriching uranium up to 60% -- far more than civilian reactors need but less than weapons-grade, and developing both the equipment to machine enriched uranium into a nuclear warhead and ballistic missiles capable of carrying a warhead anywhere in the Middle East. The inability to prevent the sustained aerial bombardment of the so-called Twelve Day War with Israel and the U.S.,the Libyan example (Muammar Gaddafi agreed to scrap his nuclear weapons program in exchange for an end to sanctions from the West and two years later the U.S. and NATO intervened in a civil war to oust his regime), and the North Korean example (no one has even threatened to attack since Pyongyang successfully tested a nuclear weapon) would be powerful arguments for Iranian elites to commit to weapons development. The fact that Israel has nuclear weapons [Israel has flatly denied this since 1967, wink wink nudge nudge] is also an argument for going forward.

The second choice is how much effort to put into salvaging the network of allies like Hezbollah, Iraqi militias, Hamas, and some Syrian groups who have been seriously weakened by Israeli attacks. Iran could try to rebuild the network or it could pivot away from championing Shi'a minorities in these countries and the Gulf States and seek to join with Saudi Arabia in leading a coalition to counter balance Israeli dominance.

A powerful limiting factor in Iran's future is the combination of serious economic hardship and waning revolutionary fervor that undermines the regime's legitimacy and long term prospects for survival.

That Was Then, This is Now

The Hamas attack of October 2023 and the Israeli response fundamentally changed the politics of the Middle East. In the old system Israel relied on deterrence and occasional punitive attacks to keep its enemies in check. In the old system most of Israel's neighbors tacitly accepted Israel's existence and some were ready to normalize relations to capitalize on ecomic gains through the Abraham Accords. The status of the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza was not a stumbling block for the oil rich Gulf States and not a major convener for Iran, Lebanon or Syria, nor for the United States and Western Europe. And Israel had a deep well of support in public opinion in the U.S. and Europe.

Now Israel is seen as a potential threat by its immediate neighbors, there is a real danger that Iran may try for a nuclear weapon and Saudi Arabia may be tempted down that path. The United States cannot play an in effective role in managing or resolving conflicts and Western Europe is not longer reflexively sympathetic to Israeli positions. The Palestinians are front and center of international attention and any Middle Eastern government that seemed to be accommodating Israel at all would face a powerful backlash from its citizens.

There are powerful forces at play and it will take some time for a new equilibrium to emerge.

A Quick Look at the Origins of the Islamic Republic of Iran

 

For Iranians, the relationship with the U.S. began in 1952 when the CIA cooperated with the British in instigating a military coup that overthrew the democratically elected government of Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh and transformed Shah Rez Pahlevi from a largely symbolic figure into a powerful ruling monarch. The new regime played heavily on Iranian nationalism rooted in the glorious heritage of 2500 years of the Persian Empire. The Shah was determined to modernize Iran economically and socially while suppressing any political development. Particularly in the cities, oil revenue was used to create a more balanced economy, a wealthy aristocracy, and an increasingly well educated and westernized middle class. Resentment over the abandonment of traditional social and religious values (westoxification*) in the rural areas and among recent migrants to cities and over the harsh repression of any political dissent among the growing middle class led to widespread unrest and resistance in 1979 and when the military and security forces deserted the regime, the Shah and the regime collapsed.

*a term coined by an Iranian intellectual critical of his countrymen's fascination with Western culture and society and dismissal of traditional values

Much of the opposition was led by religious clergy; Shi'a mullahs have a long tradition of providing secular as well as religious leadership. Shi'a clergy (mullahs) played a leading role in channeling popular discontent with the regime. Capitalizing on the Shah's failing health and disarray among the ruling elite, the mullahs launched a revolution that called for a return to traditional religious values. The new regime emphasized Persian identity as opposed to minority groups, with a central, charismatic figure (the Supreme Leader) and strongly authoritarian style. Ayatollah Khomeini could have dubbed his movement MIGA, making Iran great again.

The foreign policy of the new regime stressed the importance of coming to the aid of oppressed Shi'a minorities in majority Sunni Arab regimes*, combating global imperialism (exemplified by the United States) and combating Israel (a Jewish outpost of Western colonialism in the very heartland of Islam.) Iran damned the United States as "The Great Satan" and the U.S. responded by defining Iran as an enemy.

*Shi'a Islam emerged during a conflict over who was Mohamed's rightful successor. The conflict had more to do with secular issues of Arab versus non-Arab communities than it did with theological questions or the details of prayer. Iran is the only country in the Middle East with a Shi'a majority; elsewhere Shi'a communities were discriminated against.

A good example of the convergence of those themes is Hezbollah which originated as an armed oppositon group in Lebanon's shi'a community. Lebanon's Christian and Sunni Arab elites have historically not only dominated the country but more or less actively excluded the Shi'a minority. When Hezbollah emerged as a powerful counterweight to a pro-Western government. dominated by Christians and Sunni Muslims and willing to cooperate with Israel, Iran saw a natural ally to be supported and encouraged. It is intellectually lazy and very misleading to reduce Hezbollah, Hamas, the Houthis in Yemen and other Iranian-backed groups to mere proxies or tools of Teheran. They are indigenous groups with local issues and grievances who are allies, not puppets, of Iran.

The JCPOA

The new Islamic Republic's hostility to modernity led to an early exodus of professionals who had trained in the U.S. or Western Europe. In addiditon,the purge of the Shah's supporters in government and business spurred an exodus of the wealthy upper class. In the face of crippling economic sanctions from the West, the regime came to embrace the remaining engineers and scientists who could develop Iranian technology and manufacturing systems. The nuclear energy sector, perhaps ironically in an oil rich nation, became not only a point of pride in Iranian know-how but an increasingly important component of electricity generation.

Thirty years after the revolution, perspectives among decision makers in the United States and Western Europe had shifted enough to make it possible to contemplate negotiating with Iran to forestall nuclear weapons. (Russia and China did not regard Iran as an enemy but were not happy with the idea of a nuclear armed Islamic Republic.) After a number of false starts, increasing western sanction and credible evidence that Iran was developing a nuclear industry that could develop the resources to create a nuclear weapon, a new round of talks started in 2013 The result was an interesting mix of interlocutors (the U.S., the UK, France, Germany, Russia, China and the European Union) who negotiated the Joint Comprehensive Plan Of Action (JCPOA) with Iran. The JCOPA offered Iran significant relief from crippling economic sanctions in return for limits on nuclear technology and a srict inspection regime. (Back in the day I tried for a more thorough analysis of the JCOPA negotiations. See https://www.blogger.com/u/2/blog/post/edit/4398193451691859469/6127416897469986096 and https://www.blogger.com/u/2/blog/post/edit/4398193451691859469/6127416897469986096)

Supporters of the agreement either accepted Iranian assurances that there was no intent to produce weapons or believed that the inspection and limitations regime would delay an actual weapon for years. Opponents argued that Iran could not be trusted to live up to any agreements and its increasingly sophisticated ballistic missile systems and bad behavior causing terror and chaos around the world made it an existential threat to Israel and a major threat to the Untied States and Western Europe. The skeptics won out when Trump replaced Obama in the White House and loudly and proudly withdrew from the agreement,replacing JCPOA with "maximum pressure" on Iran. I think it is fair to say that in the seven years since the U.S. withdrew, Iran has gone from being a few years away from a full weapons capability to a few months before the recent bombing. Except for the triumphalists in the Trump administration, very few observers believe that Iran's nuclear capabilities have been "obliterated." Assessing the damage is very difficult without physical inspections of a large number of sites but some speculative estimates see delays of as little as a few months while others think Iran is now several years away from a nuclear weapon.

Regime Change?

Israeli politicians and analysts have been very clear in their belief that the Iranian regime must be replaced because its core ideology includes the destruction of Israel. The U.S. policy makers who negotiated the JCPOA believed that Iran could be contained and the regime would ultimately either morph into a "normal" regime or be replaced by internal forces. The Iran hawks who blasted Obama for pursuing the JCPOA and urged Trump to withdraw from it want regime change to be the primary goal of U.S. policy.

The regime is increasingly unpopular. The economy is suffering from the effects of U.S. and European Union sanctions. The excesses of the religious police and the level of repression from the security forces have sparked protests. And the ideology underlying the Islamic Revolution of 45 years ago has become stale and irrelevant in a country where over half the population was not even born then. Regardless of how noble and inspiring the ideology that underlies a regime (including liberal democracies) sooner or later the question becomes, "What have you done for me lately?

But bombing campaigns by hostile powers are notoriously ineffective in undermining support for a government or forcing a surrender. Instead of people thinking that their suffering is due to the policies their government is pursuing, bombing victims blame the (bleeping) foreigners who are dropping the bombs. The Israeli and U.S. assault has resulted in an upsurge of Iranian nationalism and anger and at least short run support for the regime.