Bush's Middle East Unravels Further
Bush's achievements in the Middle East were supposed to have been the 'Cedar Revolution' in Lebanon and the removal of Syria troops; holding fair elections in Palestine in January of 2006; and a deal to have Gen. Pervez Musharraf cohabit politically with Benazir Bhutto, leader of the Pakistan People's Party.
As of this weekend, Lebanon does not have a president and the country's stability is in doubt. The Palestinian Authority is divided and is a mess, with the elected government having been overthrown by a US-backed coup. And opposition leader Nawaz Sharif has returned to Pakistan, possibly derailing the Benazir option but also provoking a crisis in the political elite about what they should do.
I don't think this is going well.
posted by Juan Cole @ 11/26/2007 12:40:00 AM
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It strikes me that all the aims of the Bush administration you are listing imply US meddling in internal affairs of ME states : isn't the US defending freedom and democracy in general ?
Hint : freedom and democracy are code words justifying the fact this US meddling in the internal affairs of other countries and trying to put US friendly governments in place, ones she can easily manipulate, because their powers depends upon the US (her aid in dollars or her military support).
So it's only justice if this politic is as you say unraveling. The US should fundamentally reexamine her foreing policy, not only the way she tried to achieve it, but the very goals underlying it.
Anyway, she would be better inspired to take care of her subprime crisis and of the larger and larger income inequalities striking her workers. And please, let the rest of the world alone, we don't need your heavy handed military force.
I guess the administration is finding out the hard way that power can't always dispense with principle.
You cannot control people in they way Bush and the US national security state wants to. People can be threatend and cajoled but not programmed. Even the best laid plans can be ruined. They spend so long telling workers that 'in the modern economy, workers must be flexable'. I wish they would listen to their own bovine excriment then.
They assumed that things would go exactly as planned because they assumed that they can plan things and that people always act according to their plans.
A dangerous and naive assumption indeed.
Stage Now Set for Sharif
If anything resembling a real election is held in Pakistan, Sharif's faction of the PML seems poised to do well. Sharif will surely gain defections from Musharraf's faction of the PML, and Benazir Bhutto's PPP has lost credibility with some voters because of her ties to the U.S. and her cynically desperate efforts to cut a deal with Musharraf.
The Jamaat-e-Islami and its minor Islamist allies seem poised to gain between 15 to 20 percent of the vote and thereby hold the balance of power. Despite Bhutto's efforts to build bridges to the Islamists, Sharif and his PML faction seem to be a better political fit with the Islamists in the current Pakistani context. The most likely outcome seems to be a coalition led by Sharif, with participation from the Jamaat-e-Islami.
It is hard to imagine Sharif and Bhutto agreeing to share power in a grand coalition between the PML and PPP. Sharif, unlike Bhutto, retains substantial goodwill within the Pakistani Army, which would therefore be prepared to acquiesce in his return to the post of Prime Minister. Bhutto's presence in a governing coalition would likely poison the prospects of such acquiescence by the Army.
Why did the Saudis insist that Musharraf allow Sharif to return home? Pakistan depends on imports for 80 percent of its crude oil requirements, and the Saudis are a major supplier (along with the UAE and Kuwait). What promise did the Saudis extract from Sharif in return for their political backing, and perhaps for their offer of a discount or easy credit terms on the oil?
Did the Saudis extract Sharif's agreement to provide some technical assistance to help build a Saudi nuclear deterrent? Sharif has plenty of experience in this area, for he was the Prime Minister when Pakistan first tested its nuclear weapons technology in 1998.
A coalition between Sharif and the Islamists would serve to defuse violence in Swat, Waziristan, the NWFP, and Baluchistan, for the Islamists and tribal chieftains would be granted local autonomy with no fear of Pakistani Army intervention. Pakistan would return to its preferred course of supporting the Taliban in an effort to bring a semblance of stability to Afghanistan.
There is really little or nothing that the U.S. can do to influence events in a different direction. The Pakistanis will figure this out for themselves, with regional players such as the Saudis and Iranians making limited efforts from the sidelines to influence events. India will watch carefully, but can do little to influence events. China will also watch with concern, and will try to ensure that India does not take advantage of turmoil in Pakistan.
Ironically enough, a Sharif-Islamist coalition may be a best-case scenario. An assumption of power by Bhutto would likely be brief, for she would likely soon antagonize both the Army and the most radical of the Islamists, and the upshot could well be increasing violence and the disintegration of the Pakistani nation state--a South Asian Yugoslavia, but with far more violence in the breakup.
And remember that Pakistan has four or five dozen nuclear weapons. If Sharif fails to form a working coalition and if Pakistan descends into chaos, Al Qaeda might find itself with an opportunity to buy one or two nuclear devices from a disgruntled Pakistani Army officer in the midst of a swirling civil war.
Would al Qaeda use its nuclear weapons as its own deterrent--as a required ante for negotiations with the West? Or would it just go ahead and use them to exact revenge for perceived past wrongs?
As I wrote to David Brooks in response to one of his incomparably stupid columns a few weeks ago:
"Perhaps you hadn't noticed, but a region that lived in an uneasy but at least nonfatal peace on Jan. 20,
2001, is now pretty much 2,000 unbroken miles of bloodshed, mayhem, and chaos -- from the Indus to the Mediterranean. Now, as their crowning achievement,
George and Condi are going to bring us peace between the Israelis and Palestinians. Why am I not reassured?
Gore Vidal has taken to calling our fearless leader President Jonah. Like his cursed Biblical predecessor, he brings catastrophe wherever he goes. His shipmates throw him overboard only to find the whale can't stomach him either. Aznar, Berlusconi, Blair, those Polish twins -- so much roadkill. Howard and Musharraf are next.
Once, the road to Jerusalem ran through Tehran. Now you tell us the road to Tehran runs through Jerusalem. Well, I'm always curious to see how things look
Through the Looking Glass."
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