Diplomacy & Crisis News

From Syria to Iraq, Trump’s Middle East policy enables Iran to spread its tentacles across the region.

During the elections, Donald Trump was highly critical of former US President Barack Obama’s foreign policy to the Middle East. From Obama refusing to follow his own red line policy on Syria to the Iranian nuclear deal, Trump proclaimed that “Obama is a disaster on foreign policy” who treated enemies with “tender love and care” while picking fights “with our older friends.” However, since he became US President, Donald Trump has demonstrated not only that he is no better than Obama on foreign policy but some analysts claim that on Middle Eastern affairs, he is actually worse than him to the point that certain circles in Washington, DC who could not stand Obama are actually beginning to miss him.

Let us begin with Syria. While ISIS is essentially dead in the country, Trump has enabled both Russia and Iran to fill the void. He has backed away from seeking regime change. While the US did assist the Syrian Democratic Forces in their struggle against ISIS, Trump has left Russia and Iran in charge of securing security arrangements, creating safe zones, and above all, leading the diplomatic process that will determine the future of the country. While Trump has not abandoned the Syrian Kurds yet for he is still supporting the Syrian Democratic Forces against ISIS, he did leave that option on the table in order to prompt Turkey to abandon the Iranian axis and to reach a greater understanding on Syria with Russia.

Many Syrian Kurds feel that this is a great betrayal after they worked so hard in order to help the US rid the country from ISIS. Furthermore, had Trump supported breaking up Syria into separate states that better reflect the ethnic reality in the country, only part of the country rather than the entire area will fall to Tehran! The US should have engaged with the Kurds, the Druze and Sunni Arabs in order to make sure as many areas as possible did not fall to the Iranian axis. While Obama abandoning his red lines enabled the radical Islamists to overtake what was a peaceful revolution, Trump’s Syria policy has empowered the Iranian regime in Syria to the detriment of America’s natural allies.

Not only Syrian Kurds feel betrayed by Trump. The State of Israel is greatly disturbed that US President Trump has allowed Iranian-backed militias to be within 3 miles of the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights. This is a horrendous reality that even Obama did not impose on the State of Israel. Now, Iran is building a permanent base some 50 kilometers from the Israeli Golan Heights and making moves in order to secure its land route from Iraq to Syria to the Israeli border. This will give Iran a strategic advantage in harming the State of Israel. And this decision was made by a US President who claims there is “no one more pro-Israel than I am.”

In addition, the situation in Iraq has greatly deteriorated largely because Trump has decided to side with Abadi over the Iraqi Kurds. The US knowingly allowed the transfer of US weapons and technology to the Iranian backed militias in order to attack the Kurds while making assurances that the movements of these militias were only to be used against ISIS. If Trump had supported Kurdistan’s Independence Referendum and given the Kurds the very same arms that the US gave on a silver platter to Iraq, then Iran would not be making massive gains in Iraq.

It is critical to note that Abadi is just as bad for the US as Maliki is and to oppose our natural allies the Kurds merely to empower Abadi is a strategic mistake. Like Maliki, Abadi is also an Iranian proxy. Both Iraq and Syria are failed states that Iran seeks to preserve so that they can benefit from the resources, oil, water, etc. and to use as a launching pad against Israel and the GCC. In order to obtain its goals, the Iranian-controlled Iraqi government started the process of purging any reference to the Kurdistan region of Iraq, ethnically cleansing the Kurdish areas and is now holding them hostage for food, fuel, humanitarian supplies, etc. The Iraqi Supreme Court also is seeking to erase any Kurdish gains or rights. Is this the kind of government the US should support?

Nevertheless, Trump has chosen to take hostile positions towards the Kurds that even Obama would never take. While Obama also did not get that a united Iraq is a failed policy for the country was artificially created by colonial powers and Iraq would be more stable if it was broken up into three countries, at the very least, he would not tolerate American weapons being used to attack the Kurds in Kirkuk and other areas. Under his watch, the Kurds enjoyed autonomy and de facto independence. Now, even that is being robbed from them as Trump stands by and does nothing. Given this, Trump is not the Mr. Tough on Iran that he claims to be. To the contrary, he is enabling Iranian aggression across the Middle East.

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Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and the Security Council have strongly condemned Sunday&#39s attack allegedly perpetrated by the anti-Balaka group against a convoy of the United Nations peacekeeping mission in the Central African Republic, in which one peacekeeper from Egypt was killed and three others were injured.

Unless the international community tackles violence against women, the world will not eradicate poverty or reach any of the other Sustainable Development Goals, Secretary-General António Guterres said in his message today for the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women.

Reflecting on the legacy of Nelson Mandela, United Nations Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed called for investment in women and girls, decrying gender inequality as perhaps the most pervasive disparity around the world.

Four United Nations peacekeepers and a member of the Malian armed forces were killed and 21 others were wounded on Friday in what Secretary-General António Guterres called &#8220outrageous&#8221 attacks against the UN mission in the country.

A United Nations expo next week in Turkey is set to highlight the critical role of South-South cooperation in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), in light of the vast array of knowledge, skills, expertise and resources that is, and can further be, shared among developing countries.

Participants from Europe, Central Asia and North America gathered this week at a United Nations forum in Geneva to explore ways to combat racial discrimination and to ensure effective promotion and protection of the human rights of people of African descent.

Stating that the beating of refugees and asylum-seekers at the former regional processing centre on Manus Island by uniformed officers is both &#8220shocking and inexcusable,&#8221 the United Nations refugee agency has urged the Australian Government to take immediate action to ensure their safety and protection.

Concluding a two-day visit to Iran, the top United Nations humanitarian official said the Organization is ready to fill any gaps in the relief efforts following the devastating earthquake on 12 November that struck the Iran-Iraq border.

Secretary-General António Guterres and the United Nations Security Council have condemned &#8220in the strongest terms&#8221 the attack on al-Rawdah Mosque during Friday prayers in the town of Bir al-Abed in North Sinai, Egypt, that left scores of people dead and wounded.

Voicing concern that the trial of a human rights lawyer – leading to his imprisonment – fell short of international standards, a group of United Nations rights experts has appealed to the Government for the lawyer’s immediate and unconditional release.

Dans son édito du 24 novembre intitulé « L’Europe face à la réapparition des blessures Est-Ouest », Jacques-Hubert Rodier, éditorialiste diplomatique aux Échos, a mentionné un article écrit par Paul Gradvohl dans le dossier « Décompositions démocratiques » publié dans le numéro de printemps de Politique étrangère (n° 1/2017).

« Le 9 novembre 1989, le mur de Berlin s’effondrait. L’Europe se prenait à rêver de son unité de l’Atlantique à l’Oural, voire jusqu’à Vladivostok si « la maison commune » chère à
Mikhaïl Gorbatchev prenait corps. Vingt-huit ans après, l’Europe est fracturée non seulement entre les pays de l’Ouest et la Russie mais aussi à l’intérieur même de l’Union européenne, entre vieilles démocraties occidentales et anciennes démocraties populaires. « Après un quart de siècle, le monde réalise que la sécurité n’est pas assurée. L’Europe a peur de la Russie, et la Russie a peur de l’OTAN », affirmait récemment le fondateur du think tank berlinois Dialogue of Civilization (DOC), le Russe Vladimir Iakounine, considéré comme proche de Vladimir Poutine.

Fantasme ou réalité, cette « insécurité » n’a pas recréé une nouvelle guerre froide opposant deux blocs antagonistes. Mais elle a réveillé de vieilles rancœurs que l’on pensait éteintes. La Hongrie, la Pologne, la République tchèque et la Slovaquie sont en train de faire une « contre-révolution culturelle aux relents vert-de-gris », note Paul Gradvohl, professeur à l’université de Lorraine.

Dans un pied de nez de l’histoire, ces quatre pays qui ont rejoint l’Union européenne et l’Organisation du traité de l’Atlantique Nord (OTAN) expriment leur répulsion à l’égard du « diktat » de Bruxelles, comme l’exprime le Premier ministre hongrois, l’ultra-conservateur Viktor Orban. Ce rejet se traduit par un « choix nouveau : l’option pro-russe ou la reprise de conserve d’un discours sur Bruxelles l’identifiant à un centre supranational et dictatorial », ajoute encore Paul Gradvohl dans la revue Politique étrangère de l’Ifri (printemps 2017). Le Premier ministre hongrois, auquel on doit le concept de « démocratie illibérale », souligne un diplomate à Budapest, redoute que « Bruxelles [n’]impose de nouvelles règles ». Un sentiment largement partage à Varsovie par Jaroslav Kazcinsky, le leader du FiS qui dirige la Pologne, ou à Bratislava et à Prague.

Lisez la suite de l’article sur Les Échos.

Retrouvez l’article de Paul Gradvohl, « Orban ou le souverainisme obsidional », sur Cairn.info.

When Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and Egypt instituted a blockade against Qatar this summer, many in Qatar and the broader international community feared it would greatly disrupt Qatari society by breaking supply chains, limiting access to food and other resources, and preventing free travel across the region. However, Qatar has defied the odds, thanks in large part to a unique spirit of ingenuity driven by its long-standing commitment to research & development. Indeed, greater innovation is the key to ensuring not just a stable future for Qatar, but for the entire region.

While the regional blockade has hindered overall growth in the Gulf region in the short term, in Qatar, our ongoing stability and development rests with our institutions that refuse to stop innovating in core sectors such as education, energy, science and research, and community development. Qatar has been able to conduct business as usual in these areas, including following through with the Qatar National Research Strategy.

Qatar Foundation (QF), a private, non-profit organization founded more than 20 years ago by Qatar’s leadership, is one such institution that has embraced this call to action, relentlessly addressing the nation’s and region’s grand challenges in food, water, cyber, health, and energy-security through domestic research and development. The tangible results of this commitment are bearing fruit today in the midst of the ongoing crisis, as QF has been sponsoring researchers from Qatar, the greater GCC region, and across the globe to tackle these serious challenges and create new real-world solutions. This investment in Qatar’s research and development capacity and the human capital it has built inside Qatar, as well as attracted from abroad, are some of the reasons why Qatar has proven so resilient in the current situation.

With regards to food security, QF R&D has supported an initiative called SAFE-Q, which has been investigating how to safeguard food and the environment in Qatar. Ongoing research has demonstrated unique ways to secure Qatar’s food supply chains and encourage sustainable local food production for the country—a critical issue for nearly all countries in our region.

In the energy space, QF researchers are examining new possibilities to reduce Qatar’s reliance on oil-powered desalination plants to secure our water supply, including developing new solar energy technology aimed at vastly improving the resilience and performance of solar panels in the desert.

In climate, QF research is identifying innovative uses of recycled and aggregate material, providing an economically viable and environmentally sustainable way to make Qatar less dependent on imports of aggregate materials used in infrastructure projects. Researchers have shown how to significantly increase the use of recycled materials in construction, and have collaborated with the Ministry of Municipality and Environment to successfully use recycled aggregate in high-value construction projects in Qatar.

In terms of resource security, QF R&D is also supporting extensive research into the genomes of one of Qatar’s most abundant natural resources: date palm trees. A breakthrough project in this field makes it possible to determine the economic viability of a tree at the seed stage, rather than having to wait until the tree is five years old. This could soon open up a whole new stream of research into the feasibility of utilizing date palm tree products in other industries, including construction or furniture.

And regarding healthcare, QF’s Qatar Genome Programme is a one-of-a-kind national initiative to map the genome of Qatar’s population, an effort which can produce critical insights to move Qatar closer to achieving its aim of developing personalized healthcare tailored to an individual’s needs and unique characteristics.

Ultimately, this ongoing commitment to research is critical not just to ensuring the future peace and prosperity of Qatar, but of the entire Middle East and beyond. Innovation is highly beneficial for local economies, boosting inbound investment, economic activity, job creation, and technology transfer. As Her Highness Sheikha Moza bint Nasser has said, “We, in Qatar, have never been confined by our local geography. Rather, we have continuously placed our attention on the development needs of the Arab nations, as we set strategies and plans for scientific research.”

Research is a key component for the advancement of any country; it is vital to the creation of a competitive and diversified economy. Indeed, research has a unique ability to foster the development of human capital and support the growth of homegrown institutions across the region, helping provide security that can mitigate regional conflict and tumult.

QF shows it is possible to bring experts together from across the globe to harness their knowledge and expertise to create positive change and discovery in the Middle East. The region should look to continue to foster ways to promote such efforts, as the we are set to face increasing challenges due to economic and technological transformation, coupled with the effects of climate change. The same agility that has allowed Qatar to weather current difficulties is going to be needed in the future by all. Qatar’s research and development community is playing its part to find solutions, and is set to continue doing so in the future.

Dr. Hamad Al-Ibrahim is Executive Vice President of Qatar Foundation Research and Development

The post How Innovation Can Drive Stability in the Middle East appeared first on Foreign Policy Blogs.

Suite à la condamnation à perpétuité de Ratko Mladic par le Tribunal pénal international pour l’ex-Yougoslavie (TPIY) pour le génocide de Srebrenica, mais aussi pour crimes de guerre et crimes contre l’humanité, nous vous invitons à relire le dossier du numéro d’hiver 2015-2016 de Politique étrangère,  « Justice pénale internationale : un bilan », et notamment l’article de Jean-Arnault Dérens, « Le Tribunal pour l’ex-Yougoslavie : une faillite annoncée ? ».

« La création du Tribunal pénal international pour l’ex-Yougoslavie (TPIY), en 1993, devait marquer le début d’une nouvelle ère du droit international. Loin des « tribunaux des vainqueurs » formés après les conflits, il s’agissait de créer une juridiction neutre et impartiale, pouvant dire le droit alors que la guerre se poursuivait encore. Telle fut du moins le « récit des origines » que le Tribunal tenta d’imposer alors que, dans la décennie suivante, il faisait figure d’instrument central des processus de démocratisation et de stabilisation des Balkans d’après-guerre. Le TPIY tirait même gloire d’avoir été la première juridiction internationale ayant mis en accusation un chef d’État en exercice – en l’occurrence Slobodan Milosevic, inculpé le 22 mai 1999.

La création de cette juridiction ne résulte pourtant pas d’un projet longuement mûri, mais d’un concours de circonstances, voire d’un pis-aller face à l’incapacité internationale à mettre fin au conflit ouvert en Bosnie-Herzégovine. Au moment du vote de la résolution 827 du Conseil de sécurité des Nations unies créant le TPIY, le 25 mai 1993, les initiatives internationales visant à stopper le conflit s’enlisaient ; et le rapport du comité d’experts que dirigeait le rapporteur des Nations unies pour l’ex-Yougoslavie Tadeusz Mazowiecki, venait de confirmer l’ampleur des exactions et crimes commis par les différentes parties, notamment les Serbes… La création du TPIY fut donc une réponse au choc provoqué dans l’opinion publique par ces révélations, et au constat de l’impuissance de la diplomatie. En 2002, dans son témoignage au procès de l’ancienne dirigeante serbe de Bosnie Biljana Plavsic, l’ancienne secrétaire d’État américaine Madeleine Albright fit un aveu confondant : « Nous étions en train de faire quelque chose de nouveau, mais chacun pensait qu’il n’y aurait pas d’accusé, qu’il n’y aurait pas de procès, qu’il n’y aurait pas d’audience, qu’il n’y aurait pas de prononcé de sentence…« 

D’âpres batailles diplomatiques ont précédé la création du Tribunal : Russes et Américains, pour une fois d’accord, étaient partisans d’une juridiction d’exception, directement soumise au Conseil de sécurité, les Européens souhaitant un tribunal indépendant. La formule finale relève du compromis : le TPIY est un tribunal indépendant placé sous la responsabilité du Conseil de sécurité. Et il n’a jamais cessé d’être balloté par des pressions politiques contradictoires.

Né sous une étoile si incertaine, le TPIY est pourtant toujours là, tentant de boucler ses derniers procès, alors qu’il aurait dû fermer ses portes depuis près d’une décennie. A-t-il rempli sa mission, ou plutôt ses missions ? Celle de juger les personnes coupables de violations graves du droit international humanitaire sur le territoire de l’ancienne Yougoslavie, mais aussi celle d’aider les sociétés concernées à faire face à leur passé récent, et de contribuer de la sorte à l’indispensable réconciliation régionale ? Au regard des deux objectifs, le bilan est plus que décevant.

Une justice efficace et impartiale ?

Depuis sa première audience du 8 novembre 1995, le Tribunal a mis en accusation 161 personnes et clos les procédures pour 113 d’entre elles. Après l’arrestation de l’ancien dirigeant serbe de Croatie Goran Hadzic le 20 juillet 2011, aucun inculpé ne reste en cavale. Dix inculpés sont décédés avant leur transfert à La Haye, six autres – dont l’ancien président Milosevic – avant la fin de leur procès. Une vingtaine de dossiers ayant été remis par le procureur à des cours de justice locales, le TPIY pourrait, au terme de son mandat, avoir jugé 125 personnes.

Ce bilan chiffré pose déjà nombre de questions. S’il a toujours été entendu que le TPIY n’avait pas pour mission de juger tous les exécutants des crimes des guerres yougoslaves, à quel niveau de responsabilité devait-il s’arrêter ? Autrement dit, quelle logique permet d’expliquer pourquoi certains responsables politiques ou militaires ont été inculpés par le TPIY, d’autres par des tribunaux de leurs pays, et pourquoi certains, enfin, n’ont pas été inquiétés ? […] »

Lisez l’article dans son intégralité sur Cairn.info.

According to the International Organization for Migration (IOM), more than 2,200 migrants died while trying to cross the Mediterranean during the first seven months of 2017. In the United States, more people are dying while trying to cross the U.S.-Mexico border, even though fewer people are making the attempt. According to the IOM, the reported number of fatalities are probably underestimated because most deaths occur while people are crossing a vast, remote desert or a large, swift body of water.

In response to the continuing crisis facing potential migrants fleeing war or poverty, Secretary General António Guterres called on member states who gathered in New York for the General Assembly last month to find “a humane, compassionate, people-centered approach [to migration] that recognizes every individual’s right to safety, protection and opportunity.” Guterres spoke to a General Assembly that consisted of many new leaders, some of whom had run on anti-immigrant platforms to get elected.

But in the same building just one year earlier, these same member states unanimously adopted the New York Declaration for Refugees and Migrants, an international statement which outlined a path toward two global compacts scheduled to be adopted in 2018.

The first, the Global Compact on Refugees, aims to help the international community to find more equitable ways to share the responsibility for refugees.

The second, the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly, and Regular Migration, aims to enhance international cooperation in governing migration, protect migrants from smugglers and other criminal networks, and address the causes of irregular migration.

According to the Secretary General, the members of the UN are at the halfway point towards agreeing on these compacts. Over the next year, Guterres believes that UN members need to re-establish the integrity of the refuge protection regime, develop national and international mechanisms that take human mobility into account, hold human traffickers and smugglers accountable, create more opportunities for legal migration, and incorporate the advances in artificial intelligence and the skill shortages associated with this technology into international cooperation mechanisms.

But it won’t be easy. Media reports have suggested that a global backlash against international migration is making it harder for national governments to adequately address this issue. Although the clear majority of the 244 million international migrants travel legally, the consequences of irregular or unauthorized migration have captured headlines all over the world. In 2014, journalists from the Guardian, Le Monde, El País, Süddeutsche Zeitung and La Stampa debunked common myths about migration, but these myths continue to influence migration policy well into 2017.

 

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Despite the vast suffering the Chinese Communist Party has caused, it has never admitted guilt, far less memorialized its victims. Nor is it likely to. Too much remembering would risk undermining the party’s legitimacy.

Russia has never truly reckoned with the horrors of Stalin’s regime. And now the Kremlin is keener than ever to avoid acknowledging past crimes; instead, it is promoting an authoritarian ideology dangerously reminiscent of Stalin’s own.

 

Communicating with friends and colleagues in Harare, I am hearing the following (all quotations are direct from people I have communicated with, but I hope you’ll forgive my granting of anonymity in light of the circumstances):

• Get out of your minds your 1970s African coup cliches.
• Most of the streets in suburban Harare (and Harare is an enormously suburban urban area — so also dump your western conception of suburbs) are perfectly easy to navigate. There is no excess of police, the military is not rolling tanks down the streets.
• There is a sense of unease. For example, the University of Zimbabwe remains open, but end-of-year exams have been postponed.
• There is a sense of “relative calm,” but also a sense of fear.
• Honestly, no one knows what is happening politically.

People are scared and uncertain, but the fact is that there has been a constant sense of fear and uncertainty in Zimbabwe for more than a decade.

 

The post On the Ground (Indirectly) in Harare appeared first on Foreign Policy Blogs.

The sudden resignation of Lebanese Prime Minister Sa’ad al-Hariri on October 4, 2017 from Riyadh appears to have taken by surprise just about everyone in the Middle East.  The significance of Hariri’s announcement taking place not in his own capital but rather in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia was lost on virtually no one. As speculation that Hariri was either forced into resigning and/or is currently being held against his will has mounted, savvy observers have concluded that the decision reflects the Saudi will as much as it reflects Hariri’s own thinking.

But as is usual in the Middle East, other regional developments factor heavily into the actions that produce headlines.  With Raqqa no longer in the hands of the Islamic State and the city of Deir Elzour having fallen to the Syrian army, Saudi Arabia may have finally conceded that the Syrian conflict is a lost cause and is instead looking for other battlegrounds on which it can confront Iran, its bitter rival for regional hegemony.

Thus, a second theory that has circulated and swirled like a hurricane in the days that followed Hariri’s resignation is that the move portends a new conflict between Israel and Hezbollah.  With the region a perpetual tinderbox and both Israeli government officials and Hezbollah leaders long musing publicly about what their next battle would look like, Hariri’s surprise move could be the casus belli, or at least an opening salvo, that leads the region into its next confrontation.

For years now, Saudi Arabia and its allies have long warned of Iran’s aims of forming a Shiite Crescent that stretches from Tehran to Beirut, passing through Baghdad and Damascus en route.  But while Saudi calls received little purchase just a few years ago, today’s Middle East may produce a different and much more dangerous outcome.

For starters, while the Obama administration was notoriously cool toward Saudi Arabia and hesitant to get involved in another conflict, the current Administration has engaged in far more bellicose rhetoric and signalled that it is firmly in the Saudi corner.  Russia, once an afterthought in the region, has in the intervening years become a dominant player, not only in Syria but via political and commercial overtures elsewhere in the region including Iran, Saudi Arabia, and even the UAE.  Turkey, once a reliable NATO ally, now may be closer in its thinking to the Russian bloc than to its erstwhile friends in America.  The Iraqi army has seemingly foiled Kurdish plans for independence and the Islamic State appears to be in its waning days in both Iraq and Syria.  Perhaps most importantly, Saudi policy is now in the hands of the young Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who has demonstrated his willingness to take on enemies at home and abroad with fervor.

In the recent past, Hezbollah and Israel have engaged in two wars, both in 2000 and 2006, with sparks in both instances provided by Hezbollah’s overreach at times when Israel would have been content to delay confrontation.

While the United States has typically sought to balance its close relationship with Israel with a desire to avoid getting embroiled in such conflicts, the next confrontation may be different.  This past October 23 marked the 34th anniversary of bombing the US Marine Base in Beirut in 1983, an attack—blamed by the US government on Hezbollah, although never claimed by the group– that led to the death of 241 American and 58 French soldiers.  US Vice President Mike Pence issued fresh warnings to Iran and Hezbollah the same day, saying: “Thirty-four years ago today, America was thrust into war with an enemy unlike any we had ever faced. The Beirut barracks bombing was the opening salvo in a war that we have waged ever since — the global war on terror.”

Pence said that the American administration has redoubled its commitment to “cripple Hezbollah’s terrorist network and bring its leaders to justice.” This bellicose rhetoric, in which Pence said that the US will be “fighting terrorists on American terms and terrorists soil” was taken by many in the region as yet another signal that war is shimmering on the horizon. Pence added that Islamic terrorism “is a hydra with many heads, striking London, Paris, Barcelona. No matter what name they choose to go by or where they try to hide, this President and our armed forces are committed, as the President said in his own words, to destroy terrorist organizations and the radical ideology that drives them — and so we will”.

Such a war would present a perilous series of pitfalls for all involved.  The Hezbollah of today is not the same group it was in 2006, let alone in 2000.  With the group’s fighters having gained battlefield experience over several years of fighting in Syria, along with expectations that it has received far more advanced weaponry from Iran, any conflict would almost certainly prove far more deadly than previous encounters.

Last September, Israel carried out its largest military drills in 20 years along its northern border, which lasted for ten days and simulated an attack against Hezbollah inside Lebanon. The drill was then described as a response to a “significant threat to Israel and especially the home front”.

Israel would likely seek to deploy its ground forces reach the Litani River in southern Lebanon, the zone it occupied from 1982 to 2000 that represents Hezbollah’s heartland.  Israeli air strikes would aim to prevent Iranian and Hezbollah production of precise surface-to-surface missiles that can travel long distances, reaching its most dense population centers in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.  As in previous wars, Israeli strategy would seek to minimize any damage that would be inflicted upon its forces and civilians in northern Israel.

The question is whether such a conflict will occur due to an unexpected spark arising from miscalculation, or whether Israel—emboldened by its newfound, if unacknowledged, alliance with Saudi Arabia and tacit backing from the United States–will act deliberately, this year or next, to pre-empt Hezbollah’s ability to further develop weapons that threaten the Jewish State.  Though Israel has previously sent messages to Hezbollah in the form of airstrikes on its weapons convoys in Syria, this time it may opt “to launch a pre-emptive strike on the production facilities in Lebanon”.

The confluence of these changes in the region and the aggressive rhetoric of all parties form a maelstrom that, sadly, looks to be propelling the Middle East toward yet another war.  Any conflict between Hezbollah and Israel would not be contained, but rather would affect surrounding countries including Syria, Jordan, and the two countries using the Israeli-Lebanon arena as a proxy battlefield, Iran and Saudi Arabia as well.  This next war, whose drums are now beating steadily, will be more destructive than its predecessors and will once again re-draw the ever-shifting map of alliances and rivalries in the region.

Shehab al-Makahleh is an author and analyst of terrorism, military, and security affairs in the Middle East and co-founder of Geostrategic Media and is based in the UAE and Jordan.

 

Maria al-Makahleh is a political commentator, researcher, and expert on Middle Eastern affairs based in Russia, and serves as President of the International Middle Eastern Studies Club (IMESClub) in Moscow.

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