Her apology was not sufficient for the bloodhounds who wanted her fired. She spoke her mind, but, in a politically correct world, she had to pay by resigning. That was very unfortunate, because the push to be politically correct is creating a world where no one would dare challenge conventional wisdom of the West. If one does, one has to be ready to pay the price by ending their productive career.

As much as I am exposed to the American media, it never ceases to amaze me how powerful the pro-Israeli frame of reference really is in this country. It is more powerful than the legendary pro-Israeli lobby AIPAC. It is more pervasive and it is sharply honed to collect any comments about Israel that are considered derisive or even mildly offensive. No one dares to apply the same standards of freedom of speech regarding Israel as they do about everything that is not part of the United States. I was watching Washington Week in Review last Friday (June 4, 2010). The subject was Israeli commandos’ killing on the Turkish peace vessel that broke the Israeli embargo that day. All four journalists on that show were doing their best to dance around the issue. I invite the reader of this column to watch that show.

But entirely different standards are applied to Islam and most things Muslim. When I read about a cartoon contest insulting the Prophet of Islam, or damning Muslim women for wearing hijabs, or banning of hijabs in France in the name of secularism, or the recent vote in Switzerland about disallowing the building of the minarets to a mosque and the related hateful cartoons making the minarets looking like missiles, I wondered how those “fearless” practitioners and defenders of freedom of expression would behave when it comes to Judaism or Israel. There are even laws in some European countries making it a crime to deny that the Holocaust ever happened. I think it is idiotic to deny the occurrence of a shameful incident in history (or any other historical incident for that matter). However, sending someone to jail for denying it is a borderline insane act.

Then there is Helen Thomas, who had very unconventional ideas about the Middle East and Israel, as a dispatch of the Washington Post makes its quite clear. She asked hard questions that no regular American journalist dared ask about America’s war in Iraq: “Why are we killing people in Iraq? Men, women, and children are being killed there. . . . It’s outrageous” she asked. Regarding the Israeli intense bombing of Lebanon during the Hezbollah-Israel war of 2006, she told Tony Snow, one of many Press Secretaries of George W. Bush, that the United States “could have stopped the bombardment of Lebanon” by Israel, but instead had “gone for collective punishment against all of Lebanon and Palestine.” Snow acerbically thanked her for “the Hezbollah view.” On another occasion, according to a freelance cameraman, she was reported to have said “thank God for Hezbollah” for driving Israel out of Lebanon, then added “Israel is the cause for 99 percent of all this terrorism.”

Okay, these are not conventional views, and some of them are certainly politically incorrect. However, the last time I checked, Helen Thomas is living in a democracy, and she has views like all thinking persons or journalists. She was not a reporter, but a columnist. As such, she could (and did) ask questions that were more editorial remarks than questions. So, what? Why shouldn’t she ask them? Just because she was the only person of the White House Press pool given an assigned seat did not mean that she should have become a mouthpiece of whichever president was in the White House or should have never asked questions that would have rattled America’s special friends.

As much as we hear that there is freedom of expression and freedom of the press in the United States, one must also keep in mind a highly implicit aspect of that freedom which goes like this: if you ask politically incorrect questions, and especially anti-Israeli questions, you will pay the price by losing your career or being cast away as a “whacky” person or “nerd.” Almost all dispatches that I read on the Helen Thomas incident identified her as a Lebanese American. One of her former colleagues, Sam Donaldson, former ABC News correspondent and an obnoxious questioner of the powers-that-be during his career, without defending her comments on Israel, said her views likely reflect the views of many people of Arab descent.

If it is okay to relate Thomas’ views with her ethnicity, I wonder how others would react if I were to merely report that a Jewish-American columnist for National Review, Jonah Goldberg, said the following about Thomas: “She’s always said crazy stuff.” Or, another Jewish American, Ari Fleisher, former Press Secretary to George Bush, was reportedly leading the campaign for her ouster and was in the lead in “e-mailing journalists who might have missed her remarks.”

Ideological warfare is becoming too pervasive and strident inside the American political and social arenas. There are extreme right wing Tea Baggers and their pal, Sarah Palin. You want to get your blood boiling? Start or end your day by watching the “fair and balanced” Fox channel, or listen to Rush Limbaugh to find out how much the airwaves are being polluted with insult, bigotry, and other nonsense in the name of journalism.

What is important to know (and remember) is that for most of us there are rules, which we cannot violate even in the name of freedom of expression. For some selected few, no such rules apply. Helen Thomas belonged to the former category.

The United States is manifesting a similar amount of eagerness about imposing economic sanctions on Iran, which has remained much more defiant than Saddam Hussein ever was in terms of challenging the America’s dominance of the Middle East. It is important to ask whether Iran will meet a similar fate as Iraq, perhaps not a direct military invasion, but other actions whose purpose would still be to bring about regime change. President Obama has already stated that his administration would consider aggressive sanctions on Iran.

Iran remains the last major state that consistently rejects any proposition of kowtowing to American diktat or its hegemony in the Middle East. It has accumulated ample clout in that region in the aftermath of the U.S. invasion of Iraq. The United States, either for propaganda reasons or merely in order to underscore the nature of Iran’s anti-Americanism, consistently harped on the growing Iranian influence in post-Saddam Iraq. Indeed, if the U.S. assertion of Iran’s role in the political turbulence in Iraq between 2005 and 2007 was true, it can be safely concluded that Iran played a crucial role in America’s decision to actively seek an exit strategy. After all, it was largely as a result of intense political instability emanating from the violent role played by the Iraqi insurgents and Islamists groups that forced Washington to calculate that it could not stay in Iraq for long. Iran had strong ties with a number of those insurgents. That was a coup de grace from the perspective of Iran’s interests in Iraq, because the neoconservatives – working as the brains of the Bush administration – had an elaborate plan to make the entire Middle East a part of pax-Americana.

Iran’s military and material support of Hezbollah was very crucial in that organization’s ability to withstand the punishing Israeli attack on Lebanon during the short war of July-August 2006. The resultant general perception in the Arab world was that Hezbollah won that round of the battle against the Jewish state. Iran’s strategic dominance in that region was emerging as a new phenomenon regarding which neither Washington nor Jerusalem could produce effective countermeasures. Consequently, U.S.-Iran ties became even more antagonistic than before.

A major strategic shift from the Bush administration to the Obama administration in the Middle East and South Asia is that, in terms of conducting military operations, the U.S. would rely on a multilateral approach. The military operations conducted under the auspices of NATO in Afghanistan emerged as the best multilateral vehicle. However, the constraining aspect of the role of NATO is that it cannot be used anywhere without the approval of the entire Alliance; and that approval is very hard to secure. That fact ties the hands of any future American president who would develop any notion of adventurism a la George W. Bush in Iraq. That reality also prevents the United States from taking any military action against Iran, even in the wake of its intransigence about abandoning its nuclear research program.

The preceding constraint might be a major reason why the United States would heavily rely on the use of covert operations. President Obama has become the most prolific user of such operations by regularly ordering drone attacks against Islamist groups in Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia. One can only guess how many other covert operations involving U.S. Special Forces are being carried out presently in South Asia, the Horn of Africa, Yemen, and other Middle Eastern countries.

Because of an inordinate technological gap between the United States and the Islamist forces in the aforementioned countries, the use of covert operations has emerged as the most convenient weapon of the strong. As long as American soldiers are not returning home in body bags, U.S. public opinion remains highly supportive of such operations. That is why the United States is likely – if it hasn’t already been doing so – to use covert tactics in Iran in order to destabilize the Islamic Republic.

According to a report prepared in July 2008 by the muckraking journalist, Seymour Hersh, the United States secretly allocated up to $400 million to underwrite covert operations against the Islamic Republic. Such operations “involved ‘working with opposition groups and passing money.’ The Finding provided a whole new range of activities in southern Iran and in the areas, in the east, where Baluchi political opposition is strong.”

The chief problem that President Barack Obama faced when he first became president is that there is no proven record of diplomatic encounters between the United States and Iran since the days of President Jimmy Carter. Even Carter – one of the most ardent promoters of justice and constitutionalism in the Middle East and the most successful former president – did his best to oust the fledgling Islamic Republic in 1980, while he was still in office. All American presidents who followed him spent a lot time and capital in their attempts to overthrow the Islamic Republic, even by going to the extreme of cooperating with Saddam Hussein during his brutal aggression against Iran in 1981.

In the wake of Iran’s refusal to buckle under the pressure of the United States to abandon its nuclear research program, Obama could have made a courageous decision to abandon the covert operations that Bush had started. However, the United States’ heavy reliance on covert operations in Pakistan tells us that Obama envisions such operations as safe alternatives to any bold new measures, which still might not persuade Iran to cooperate with the United States. In the meantime, the hyperactive Israeli lobby has made sure that any actions other than imposition of harsh economic sanctions are unfailingly condemned as “appeasement” of the Ayatollahs.

It should also be noted that the Iranian leaders did nothing to make their own case in the court of the world’s public opinion when they seem to have fraudulently stolen the election from the reformist candidate, Hussein Moussavi, last June. In the aftermath of those elections, it was interesting to watch how adamant the anti-Iranian forces inside the U.S. Congress were in their insistence that the President strongly condemn the Iranian leaders for allegedly stealing the elections. One should contrast that eagerness with the deafening silence inside the U.S. government following the murder of the Hamas leader, Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, allegedly perpetrated by Mossad in Dubai.

Given the strategic environment that is marked with a high degree of hostilities and intense distrust on both sides, the chances of the resolution of the nuclear program-related crisis through peaceful means are slim, at best. The United States has even attempted to go to the extent of creating Arab endorsements for its harsh economic sanctions on Iran. The U.S. Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates, went to Riyadh asking the government to persuade China to agree to sanctions on Iran, which Saudi Arabia wisely rejected. However, Gates was not about to give up. He proceeded on the same mission to the UAE. His chances of gaining a somewhat favorable reception from that country are pretty decent, given its long-term tensed relations with Iran. But the UAE is not Saudi Arabia. Even its endorsement of U.S. sanctions on Iran would not sway any other major Arab state.

As the United States’ diplomatic choices regarding Iran narrow, Israeli pressure for military action against that country is likely to intensify. The question is whether or how long Obama is likely to withstand it. A lot depends on whether he becomes politically stronger as a result of a potential passage of the healthcare bill in the next few weeks.

At least for now, the government of Benyamin Netanyahu has been digging a diplomatic hole for itself by allegedly orchestrating the murder of the Hamas leader in Dubai. To further deteriorate its case, Israel, during a visit of the U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, announced the building of new housing projects in East Jerusalem. However, no one should underestimate the Israeli hubris concerning its strong support inside the U.S. Congress. The Jewish state has long understood the nature of its political support inside the U.S. and has assiduously worked through its tool, AIPAC, to solidify that support. Just based on that fact, chances are high that it would push President Obama hard to take military action against Iran. How wise is such an action likely to be from the viewpoint of American strategic interests in the Middle East? It would be very foolish, indeed. However, Israel has not been known to waste time thinking about what is best for America in the Middle East. Friends of Israel inside the United States incessantly, and without even giving it a second thought, confuse Israeli interests with American interests. So, the world should not rule out the high probability of U.S. military action against Iran in the coming months, which would create another hell for American strategic interests in that region.

I read Roy’s first two books when they first came out.  While reading The Failure of Political Islam, I felt then, as I do now, that Roy’s conclusion about the alleged failure of that movement was premature.  Movements—especially ideological or religious-based ones—have a long duration and a variety of phases through which they pass over a long period of time before a somewhat meaningful—but still premature—judgment can be passed regarding their success or failure.  Social scientists, to the contrary, are like judges in an Olympic competition–too much in a hurry to measure the performance of the participants in order to declare winners and losers.  One of the most interesting studies of the phases of a movement is Crane Brinton’s, The Anatomy of Revolution.[1]  An interesting approach for the study of Roy’s thesis on political Islam is to examine it through an application of Brinton’s framework.

The title of Roy’s book, Globalized Islam, as Professor Hroub also notes, “contradicts…[Olivier’s] own failure thesis” of his previous book.  How can a failed movement become globalized and still be depicted as “failed”?  My own explanation is similar to the one that Hroub touches on, but is elaborately discussed in the Islamist literature under the rubric of fighting the “far enemy” (i.e., the “infidel-in-chief,” meaning the United States) versus the “near enemies” (Arab and Muslim governments) among many Islamist groups.  That debate was settled temporarily between 1999 and 2001.  As a result of which the audacious decision of attacking the lone superpower on its own homeland was taken.  As one tracks the “global” rhetoric of today’s “Jihadists,” one gets the sense that they are driven by the goals of fighting the U.S. as well as destabilizing the “near enemies.”

I lean toward the proposition that al-Qaida and other pan-Islamist groups were shocked about the scope and intensity of the U.S. response, which was also accompanied by George W. Bush’s ominous caveat that was especially aimed at the Arab leaders:  “either you are with us or you are with the terrorists.”

In the aftermath of America’s global war on terrorism (GWOT), in order to survive, al-Qaida was forced to transform itself into a movement.  There also ensued the decision of regional and sub-regional Islamist groups to develop their own campaigns of terror in agreement with Mus’ab al-Suri’s operational slogan: Nizam la Tanzim.  That, in my estimation, is the beginning of the making of global Jihad.[2]

To argue that there is such a thing called globalized Islam is belaboring the obvious.  “Islamic internationalism” is an old idea.  In today’s parlance, that very idea is repackaged as “globalized Islam.”  The notion of nationalism and citizenship has always been alien to Islam.  The global promotion of that idea, especially starting in the 1990s, was easy because it was very much in harmony with the theological concept that states: “Islam is a religion of all ages.”  The global reach of the Internet has turned out to be a perfect tool for the globalization of a notion that was intrinsically global to start with.

Political Islam’s temporary failure—temporary because, as I stated earlier, it is a premature judgment on the part of Roy—stems from two very important variables.  The first one—as only touched upon by Professor Hroub but not fully developed—is that it has failed to offer nuanced and comprehensive solutions to what ails Muslim polities.  Answers to that question are hard to develop even in a whole book.  Even Bernard Lewis, after asking the right question in his book, What Went Wrong?, desolately failed to provide  persuasive answers.[3]

Secondly, because all Muslim polities are non-democratic, there was no chance of Islamists capturing power through an election.  Even in countries where limited electoral practices existed, elections are characterized by the odious practices of ballot-stuffing by the cronies of the regimes in order to ensure that there should be no transfer of power.  We have recently witnessed this phenomenon in the elections of Iran and Afghanistan.

Islamists have long known that merely shouting, “Islam is the solution!” is never enough.  They needed to develop comprehensive programs of political and economic development.  Muslim theologists failed to become experts in contemporary economics, global trade, international politics, or other contemporary disciplines, largely because they rejected them as “failed” and “godless” disciplines, without offering alternatives.  Even now, I am unaware of any theologist who has offered alternatives.   All countries that explicitly call themselves “Islamic”—Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, the Sudan, or Iran, for instance—are failed and corrupt polities and are characterized by backward economies.  When a Muslim youngster looks for an “Islamic solution” to problems that ail his/her society, he/she finds an immense vacuum.  So, the failure of those states to emerge as stable polities or strong economies becomes a credible indicator that other Islamist groups would also fail, if or when they capture political power.

But, what are the chances of the Islamists capturing power in any country in the coming years?  With the exception of Hamas, I would say none.  Even Hamas, by remaining intransigent about changing its stance regarding Israel, has condemned itself to failure.  The United States, the EU, and other countries, by denying economic assistance to Palestine, have been serving as leading players in ensuring that Hamas does not succeed as a political entity. 

Most importantly, an unspoken aspect of the Western actors’ systematic attempts to ensure that Hamas fails is also related to their fear that, if Hamas succeeds in stabilizing Palestine, other Islamist groups will be encouraged to capture power and then hang on long enough to become victorious.  However, when Hamas’ rule comes to end in Palestine, that development will not necessarily persuade other Islamist groups to stop their endeavors to capture political power in their own countries.  

I was once of the view that, perhaps, the Islamists should be given a chance to come to power through elections, and be allowed to fail.  However, after watching the performance of Hamas in Palestine and Hezbollah in Lebanon, I have changed my mind.  In the absence of comprehensive programs to stabilize their polities and to strengthen their economies, their chances of success are none. 

A few words about the Islamic Republic of Iran:  that country could have been an example of the success of an Islamic government; Iran has had a reasonable amount of democracy and ample oil and gas reserves to introduce ambitious programs of modernization;  and the Iranian leaders encountered serious problems from the United States in the 1980s, when the US sided with Iraq in the bloody war between the two neighbors. 

Undoubtedly, the United States wanted Iraq to do America’s dirty work by getting rid of the Ayatollahs through that war.  However, both Washington and Baghdad failed miserably in fulfilling their objective of terminating the Islamic government in Iran.  From Iran’s point of view, it was correct to state that their revolution was not given a chance to succeed. 

The Iranian fraudulent election of last June does not bode well for the Islamic Republic.  Iran seems to be steadily edging toward chaos for which the hardline Islamists of that country are substantially responsible.

What does the continuing saga of the Islamic Republic say about the future of political Islam in the Middle East and elsewhere in the world of Islam?[4]  It has not found its niche as a movement, largely because it has not yet developed a comprehensive framework for governance.  However, the concept of eternity that is related to Islam as a religion is one reason why the Islamists (or political Islamists) will continue to try and fail, but will not stop until they have a successful recipe for governance.  When will they succeed?  An answer to that question is not within the realm of Social Science.

The Financial Times, a right of center but highly respected newspaper, could not resist about coming up with a sensational headline: “Hizbollah confirms broad aid for Hamas.”  The Hizbollah-Hamas connection is not exactly an unknown variable, only its specifics are.  Even after the admission of Hezbollah’s deputy leader that his organization is providing military assistance to Hamas, the issue still remains murky and unconfirmed by other sources.  Why, then, is there so much hoopla about Hezbollah’s admission of support for Hamas? Because that reality only underscores the effective exercise of “smart power” on the part of Iran—Hezbollah’s chief backer—in the Sunni Middle East.  That is also worrying the United States, which, under the Obama administration, is relearning to come up with its own smart power-related maneuvers towards Iran.

For the uninitiated, “hard power” is a euphemism for military power.  Soft power, on the contrary, describes the use of all other activities such as diplomacy, cultural variables, trade, and aid, etc.  Joseph Nye, a Harvard Professor and the coiner of the phrase “soft power” described smart power as: It “is about tapping into diverse sources of American power, including our soft power, to attract others. It is about how we can get other countries to share our goals without resorting to coercion, which is limited and inevitably costly.”

The United States has been one of the oldest practitioners of smart power without even coining that phrase or without even recognizing the necessity for harping on it.  The only reason that phrase appears as a novel idea during the Obama presidency is because it followed an administration (that of George W. Bush), which almost ruined America’s reputation as a practitioner of soft power. 

Bush’s exercise of unilateralism, his voluble pronouncements about “regime change,” his use of intolerable phrases such as “axis of evil,” “either you are with us or you are against us,” and “preemptive wars” created so much global antagonism toward the lone superpower that the international community has pretty much forgotten the unsullied role of the United States in rebuilding the global economic and political order from the ruins of World War II. 

The American exercise of hubris worldwide during the eight years of George W. Bush created an unpleasant impression on the collective memory of the international community.  So the global discussion of the potential demise of the United States as the presiding power of the unipolar global order was received as welcome news throughout the world.  However, President Barack H. Obama’s promise of the exercise of soft power has acquired the status of a soothing melody emanating from Washington, D.C., after a long-lasting thunder storm.

Iran has emerged as a leading practitioner of smart power in the wake of America’s invasion of Iraq.  However, it has deftly mixed that soft power with its own exercise of hard power, by challenging America’s invasion and continued occupation of Iraq.  Iran could do that, ironically, because the United States played a crucial role in the creation of a Shia-dominated political order in Iraq.  In the new Iraq, Iran supported those who hated the American presence—most significantly Muqtada al-Sadr and his ilk.  Even those who were not active in demonstrating their hatred toward the United States felt much empathy for the insurgent activities of the Mahdi Army (which was a pro-Muqtada Shia paramilitary force).  Iran was also one of the chief backers of Hezbollah during the aforementioned 2006 war against Israel.

There also have been rumors of Iran’s alleged cooperation with al-Qaida in Iraq in that organization’s asymmetric war against the U.S.  Iran was most effective in the use of its al-Quds elite force in creating an anti-American chaos in Iraq between 2003 and 2006.  That force specializes in working closely with non-state actors in such countries as Afghanistan, Lebanon, and Palestine.  Iran clearly understood that the most effective way of using smart power was to establish its credibility through the use of hard and soft power, which it also has been exercising in the aforementioned countries.

As the Obama administration contemplates having a comprehensive dialogue with Iran, it has remained wary about that country’s rising potential clout in the Middle East.  The Sunni Arab states—who have been most comfortable in dealing with the United States during and after the Cold War years—envisage Iran’s growing popularity with considerable apprehension.  They do not know how to deal with it because it is heavily slanted in favor of populism, which the Arab autocrats envision as a threat to their archaic rule.  Their memory of the Islamic Revolution of the late 1970s is being revived.  At that time, the late Ayatollah Rouhollah Khomeini used the plight of the Mustadafeen (the underprivileged or the downtrodden) as a battle cry for ousting the pro-American Shah of Iran.  Now, even without that rallying call, Iran’s message is interpreted as an implicit message for anti-monarchical or anti-dictatorial changes in the Arab Middle East. 

The pro-American Sunni monarchs have long dominated the Middle Eastern political scenes without attempting to resolve the Palestinian issue.  By challenging the U.S. in Iraq and by supporting the Hezbollah of Lebanon, which challenged and survived the punishing military attacks of Israel in the war of July-August 2006, Iran is seen as the new liberator of the Mustadafeen of the Middle East.

As the United States edges toward negotiating with Iran, Iran’s hardline approach toward the lone superpower appears as an effective strategy for the Middle Eastern masses, a strategy no Arab ruler has the nerve to pursue on his own.  However, for Iran, its approach is more of an exercise of soft power than anything else. 

It is based on a blend of realism, Machiavellianism, rationalism of keeping its option of a dialogue with the United States very much open, and, above all, “Islamic populism” of a new variety.  This particular brand of populism is also open for a rapprochement with the U.S., which had maintained a strident anti-Iranian posture throughout the existence of the Islamic Republic.

If Iran’s exercise of soft power succeeds in reaching a comprehensive rapprochement with the United States, its leadership of the world of Islam will be an unquestionable reality.  While neighboring Pakistan has been reduced to a client state of the United States, and while Arab rulers are struggling to find common ground for the resolution of the Arab-Israeli conflict, Iran is beginning to be viewed by the United States as a major Muslim country, and a state with which it must reach a modus Vivendi.  That is the ultimate success of Iran’s exercise of soft power.

From the point of view of their potentials for bringing about balance of power-related changes in the Middle East, Sunni monarchies and dictatorships are archaic and outmoded.  Throughout the post-colonial era of the Twentieth Century, all they wanted to do was to preside over obscurantist and backward-looking societies where their authority would never be challenged.  They also made sure that the Sunni religious establishment “wheel” was amply greased so that it would permanently support their rule by issuing favorable religious rulings when needed.

The Arab Development Reports—written for the UN by Arab scholars—are full of candid explanations as to why the Arab world remains so close to the bottom rung in terms of Internet use, scientific education, overall literacy, and gender equality.

The monarchies and dictatorships’ ruling style was favored by the colonial powers of Europe and by the United States, when it emerged as the major Western power in the Arab region during the post-colonial era.  No one was going to challenge the United States’ strategic dominance in any significant way.  Saddam Hussein attempted to do just that.  But he could never raise himself to the status of an Arab hero who was committed to the uplifting of the Arab masses.  As long as he ruled Iraq, he was no more than a tyrant.  As such, he indulged in any amount of blood-letting to keep himself in power.

The Islamic Revolution of 1979 in Iran brought forth a promise of change when it ousted the rotten monarchy of Mohammad Reza Pahlevi.  But then the Islamic Republic itself became part of struggle for which the Middle East is notorious.  Except this time, that struggle also involved the Mullahs’ ventures to maintain their rule.  Still, Iran did bring about a number of changes, one the most significant ones was its politicization of the under-privileged Shias of Lebanon.  The emergence of Hezbollah was very much part of that aspect of Iran’s involvement in that country. 

However, it is the U.S. invasion of Iraq that opened new vistas of opportunities for Iran, not just inside that country but on to the rest of the Middle East.  An important point that should be kept in mind is that the U.S. propaganda machine has also helped Iran by unwittingly overplaying its clout beyond its real scope.  Needless to say, such U.S. publicity suits the rulers of that country just fine.

The Sunni Arab countries—most significantly Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Jordan—are watching with a mixture of fascination and dismay as Iran has emerged as a major player inside Iraq since 2003.  Even when the Surge strategy implemented by General David Petraeus has deescalated violence and its related instability in Iraq, Iran is just standing around, it seems, waiting to see what the next major U.S. move is likely to be. 

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When President Obama entered the White House, the prospect of having a serious dialogue with Iran became part of his agenda.  Iran is now enjoying the kind of attention no Arab state has ever experienced.

Iran’s nuclear program is what is most troubling to the United States and the Sunni Arabs.  Even on this point, the U.S propaganda machine is doing a good job of exaggerating Arab fears.  Realistically speaking, Iran has no quarrels with the Arabs to use its nuclear weapons against them after acquiring it.  By the same token, a nuclear Iran’s best option is never even to threaten Israel with its use.  But these types of rational arguments are presented in the uppermost echelons of policymakers and behind closed doors.  No amount of cavalier attitude may be publicly expressed regarding Iran on this matter.   Any discussion that lowers the level of fear of Iran’s potential acquisition of nuclear weapons is not part of conventional wisdom in the United States.

After the recent nuclear test conducted by North Korea, the Obama administration’s level of patience regarding Iran’s ostensible delaying tactics will be getting short.  The most important maneuver on the part of Iran is to see if it can successfully continue its nuclear program without forcing the United States to give it some sort of deadline.  It may not be important for Iran that it emerges as a nuclear power in the immediate future, as long as its scientists acquire the critical knowledge of manufacturing nuclear weapons, learn to miniaturize them, and master the coupling of their miniaturized nuclear tips to the long-range ballistic missiles.  Its leaders may realize that the time for developing nuclear weapons is not appropriate.  But the question is when would be the appropriate time for Iran.  Not in the foreseeable future. 

Alternatively, Iran might bite the bullet and declare one day that it has already developed nuclear weapons.  Then it will be up to the United States to figure out the next move.

If Iran were to become a nuclear power and still escape any attacks from the United States and Israel, then the Middle Eastern power hierarchy will experience considerable changes.  One has only to imagine what the status of Iran is likely to be vis-à-vis the United States.  The example of India is very much in front of Iran.  In 1998, India exploded its nuclear weapons and became a nuclear power.  By 2008, it signed a nuclear deal with the lone superpower without even signing the NPT and has gained access to cutting civilian and military technology.  That may not be a bad example for Iran to follow.  Such a potential might be one very crucial reason why Arab monarchs and dictators are worried about Iran.

dispatch reads:  “Tony Blair makes his first trip to the Gaza Strip.”  In the growing global economic meltdown, the world has forgotten the suffering of the Palestinians who became victims of Israel’s “war” against Hamas.  How can there be a war between the most well equipped military of the Middle East and a state which does not even have an armed force of any credibility.  But this is the era of asymmetric war, and Hamas did launch rockets or missiles on Israel.  Those terror weapons did not cause much damage, but they provided a “justification” for Israel to let loose its military wrath on the civilian Palestinians.

In his book, Road to Lebanon, Thomas Friedman of the New York Times talked about Hama Rules established by the butcher of Syria, Hafez al-Assad, father of the current dictator, Bishara Assad.  According to those rules, if his authority were to be challenged by Islamist forces, he would completely destroy their villages, without any regard to civilian casualties.  He wanted to instill ultimate fear of destruction in the hearts and minds of the Islamists.  They understood that message, and Syria has remained just another “republic of fear” in the Middle East.  The other such republics are Egypt, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia.  The message to all potential Islamists or those who challenge the political status quo in those states is that the brutal arm of the state will fall on them with utmost use of violence, and they will be eradicated.  That is how republics of fear maintain fear and, thereby, their continued rule.

Israel is also operating on the basis of a similar rule.  It tells the Palestinians within the occupied territory and the Hezbollah of Lebanon that if they challenge the Jewish state, it will be forced to “reestablish” its deterrence.  That phrase is merely a euphemism for using disproportionate military power to bring about enormous destruction of civilian infrastructure and human lives to sow so much fear in the hearts and minds of the Palestinians and the Lebanese that they will think twice about challenging Israel.  In this sense, Israel has remained another “republic of fear” for the Palestinians.

However, the Palestinians have not been impressed or fearful of what Israel’s American-supplied weapons will do to them.  In the information age, they understand how powerful the images of destruction and mayhem really are.  Those images continue to underscore the limits of using military power to deprive them of freedom and dignity.  The United States learned that lesson in Iraq the hard way.  Its proud campaign of “shock and awe” could not break the freedom loving spirit of the Iraqis.  Consequently, Washington worked diligently to pave the way for its departure from Iraq.  However, the Palestinians are not likely to encounter similar positive results aimed at ending the Israeli occupation of their land.  So, they periodically challenge the Jewish state, get killed, and have their properties destroyed as a result.  But in the process, they are also forcing the world to get its head out of the sand and face the urgency of bringing an end to the occupation of their homeland.  In the meantime, the Palestinians misery continues to grow.

When Barack Obama became President, there ensued a round of hoopla stemming from the appointment of Special Envoys to the Middle East and to Pakistan-Afghanistan.  George Mitchell became a special envoy for the Middle East, while Richard Holbrooke was named as a special representative for Pakistan-Afghanistan.  The high hope was that, by giving high visibility to conflicts afflicting those regions, the United States would be able to find solutions.  At least at first blush, no one can be critical of that approach.  However, what is lost in the period of high hopes following Obama’s election to the White House is that a lot of conventional thinking regarding the Middle East must also be discarded.

First, and foremost, it should be clearly understood is that the United States will not succeed unless it adopts a fresh approach toward Hamas.   The chief requirement of that approach is that Hamas should be dealt with directly by Special Envoy George Mitchell in his quest for common ground.  Isolating Hamas by depicting it as a “terrorist” organization will not do.  That was the simple-mindedness of the Bush era.  In the post-9/11 era, there were few entities in the entire world of Islam that the United States did not declare as “terrorists.”  After adopting such a wrong-headed blanket approach, one wonders why the lone superpower was perplexed as to why the Islamist groups were so persuasive in making an argument within the Islamic countries that their religion was under attack.  

In addition, there are two other obstacles in the way of the United States.  The first one is what emerges as the new government in Israel.  Considering the fact that the Likud and the Kadima parties failed to gain impressive majority votes in their own right, the coalition government—no matter who becomes Prime Minister—will only preside over an impasse on the Palestinian conflict for the foreseeable future.  There is nothing that Mitchell is likely to do or say to persuade the Israeli leaders to be daring or forthcoming in terms of offering major concessions to the Palestinians, when they have no such mandates from their voters.  

Then there also are ample divisions among the Palestinians.  Who really speaks for them?  Certainly not the Fatah Party, nor Mahmud Abbas who has a reputation among his people of being a sycophant of the Americans and the Israelis.  Hamas is too confrontational and Abbas is too diffident.   Under these circumstances, the issue of who speaks for the Palestinians remains unresolved.  Even though Hamas is elected by the Palestinians, there is that nagging question whether their representation should undergo a new endorsement through another round of elections.

So the real prospect of resolution of the Palestinian issue faces a very dim future.  In the meantime, special envoys called Tony Blair or George Mitchell periodically surface to make news without creating any real hope for realistic breakthroughs in negotiations between the warring Palestinians and Israelis.  The Israeli voters have established that they are not in favor of any major concessions, and concessions to whom?  Hamas, which has fired missiles over their homeland?  Certainly not Abbas, who has flimsy legitimacy—if any at all—among the Palestinians.  In the meantime, Israeli leaders might feel smug that they have established their deterrence, and Palestinians will think twice before launching more missiles toward Israel.   The new republic of fear is as much on shaky grounds as the ones led by Arab dictators.

Regardless of whether you are among those who are baffled about the economic problems that continue to ail the U.S. with no end in sight, or among those who are cheering the noisy fall of the mightiest among nations, here is one of the most cogent explanations that Nathan Gardels provides in the Fall 2008 issue of the New Perspectives Quarterly about the grim situation that the lone uberpower faces.  He writes:

In the space of a few short months, we have morphed from the citadel of free-market capitalism and freewheeling consumerism — from a land of high-flying hedge funds, Hummers and homes that doubled as ATMs — to a system in which the banks, insurance companies, mortgage industry and auto manufacturers are quasi-socialized

The tax-and-spend epithet that defined America’s partisan politics for decades has been replaced overnight with a bipartisan mantra calling for a nearly trillion-dollar fiscal stimulus. No sooner had Milton Friedman been laid to rest (he died in 2006) than John Maynard Keynes was resurrected. Amazingly, even the historical aversion to state-guided industrial policy in the United States has yielded to urgent demands for political oversight of private enterprise, starting with the Big Three automakers in Detroit.

The year 2008 is thus likely to go down in American history as an even more pivotal one than 2001, when the 9/11 terrorist attacks occurred, because the life of the average American is going to be shaped far more by the consequences. We’re not talking about the inconvenience of lining up to go through metal detectors at the airport.

Notwithstanding these gloomy, albeit realist, annotations, there is no single power over the global horizon that is willing to or capable of replacing the uberpower.  However, the need for creating new approaches aimed at averting America’s decline has never before more urgent and imminent than now.

NOT RELEVANT NATO

The NATO is popular and unpopular, and relevant and irrelevant at the same time.  How can it be?  The chief reason is that at the conclusion of the first decade of the 21st Century, NATO members seem to treat it like a social club where they want to be seen, but do not want to pay the membership dues in blood.  That is right.  That is the price of membership that the European members must pay.  The United States wants to continue its occupation of Afghanistan, but under the flags of NATO.  It wishes to Europeanize an American-preferred war, which promises to become more intense and bloodier under the presidency of Barack Obama than it has been under George W. Bush.

Obama’s biggest shock is awaiting him in Afghanistan.  He has stated that he will focus on seeking international cooperation in solving global problems.  However, as a recent Pew Research Center report notes, “he will have to navigate a world that has grown highly critical of the United States.”

The Islamist forces do not care about their loss of life in their battle in Afghanistan—indeed, they appear eager to die.  But the Europeans do care.  After all, Europe is a region where war is supposed to have become a thing of the past as a means of settling disputes.  But for the Islamist forces, conflict is the only way to defeat the West out of Afghanistan, as they did the communist superpower in the 1980s.

In view of these widely stark perspectives on settling a conflict, NATO is facing, from within, mounting pressure related to its relevance.  One option for its members is to get out of Afghanistan; another is to buy into the U.S. seriousness and commitment to winning in that country.  However, winning means by shedding the blood of European soldiers, while the public opinion in various countries of that region is least gung-ho on winning in Afghanistan at any cost.  More to the point, the same Pew Center report states, “Opposition to key elements of American foreign policy is widespread in Western Europe, and positive views of the U.S. have declined steeply among many of America’s longtime European allies.”

Stay tuned. 

NO HE CAN’T

Despite his often-repeated mantra of “Yes we can,” President Barack Obama is bound to face the reality of “No he can’t” in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.  The asymmetric war launched by Hamas is not promising for that organization, since Israel is determined to make Hamas the object of its resolve to reestablish its invincibility.  That invincibility was seriously shattered in its war against the Hezbollah in July 2006.  But pacifying Gaza is not out of the question, especially when Egypt is doing Israel’s bidding by closing its borders.

In comes President Obama next week.  He has already established his partisanship by observing free minority report , “If somebody was sending rockets into my house where my two daughters sleep at night, I’m going to do everything in my power to stop that. And I would expect Israelis to do the same thing.” 

Granted, he made that statement as a presidential candidate who was vying for Jewish votes in the United States.  It will be interesting to see how he wiggles out of that position.  As Obama acquires experience in foreign policy, he will realize that making such observations without having an historical understanding of who is tormentor and who is tormentee will shatter his credibility as an honest broker, if he continues that practice as President.  Then, it will not be long before the Arab and the Muslim side will envision little difference between him and his immediate predecessor.  The time is fast approaching for Obama to spell out the specifics of “Yes we can” regarding the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

LET’S BAN THE LeT, ONCE AND FOR ALL!

It appears that an arrested “fighter,” Zarrar Shah, has confessed to Pakistani authorities that Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), indeed, was involved in the Mumbai massacre in November.  

The first step for Pakistan is to ban the LeT, and not allow it to resurface by adopting another name.  That also means the end of an era when Pakistan used shady and murderous entities in the Indian-administered Kashmir.

The second measure should be to put the LeT’s leaders on trial and give them the stiffest possible sentence under the law.  The extradiction of any of them to India is out of the question, for legal as well as for political reasons.  Only the United States can make such demands from Pakistan and make it stick.  So, it behooves India to let the Paksitani legal process work this issue. 

Finally, if Pakistan were to go through the charade of trying the LeT and then put them under house arrest, then it ought to be brought to the international scrutiny.  The punishment for terrorizing India has to be the threat of labelling Pakistan a rogue nation.

The U.S. turned Iraq into hell between 2005 and 2006; Pakistan is steadily edging toward becoming a hellish place in the post-9/11 era; and Afghanistan is heading in that direction.  In the Horn of Africa, a similar situation prevails.

In the post-9/11 era, the militarily powerful nations have taken it upon themselves to set the “rules of engagement” for wars or war-like violence in Muslim lands, while the extremists are letting loose violence and mayhem from their side.  Iraq had its killing fields between 2005 and 2007, and Afghanistan’s most “fertile” killing fields started in the late 1970s, when the Soviet Union invaded it with a view to incorporating it into the Soviet empire.  Those killing fields continue to multiply in the first decade of the 21^st Century.  Lebanon’s killing fields come alive periodically, and—in view of its highly explosive internal dynamics—that country seems at the precipice of witnessing them on a regular basis.  Gaza’s killing fields are getting bloodier by the hour.  

The chief victims of this bloody phenomenon are the ordinary people, whose main aspirations is are to have productive careers, raise families, and live happily.  But happiness is increasingly becoming a rare commodity.

Here is the essence of the problem in many Muslim countries:  The U.S. has decided to wage violence in the name of that awful phrase “global war on terrorism,” which is as meaningless as the “war on poverty.”  Terrorism, like poverty, has been around forever, and no use of military power alone will eradicate it from the face of the earth.  Awful concepts like “regime change,” “preemptive war,” and the “war of choice” were applied to Muslim countries.  George W. Bush’s warning, “either you are with us or with the terrorists,” was also largely aimed at Muslim countries. 

The United States encountered something called the “Iraqi quagmire,” and almost lost its war in that country until the Sunni Muslims came to its rescue.  The same group (Sons of Iraq) is still crucial for the durability of peace and continued success of America’s “surge” strategy.  A strategy, which was aimed at clearing the hostile territory, by holding it, stationing security forces, and by rebuilding civilian authority and economic development.  But that is just one precondition; the other being a systematic inclusion of Sunni Muslims in the governance of Iraq.  Iraq remains a work in progress.  It is likely to return to its instability of 2005-2007, if the Sunnis do not become an important part of its ruling circles.

Israel has adopted the same approach—letting loose its military fury—in the name of establishing its “credible deterrence” among Arab nations, especially since it was humiliated by the Hezbollah in the “war” of July-August 2006.  Purely on a force-on-force basis, Israel did not lose that war.  Its mistake was that it established very precise goals of eradicating Hezbollah and having its own captive soldiers released.  When those objectives were not achieved and Israel stopped bombing Southern Lebanon, both the Western and the Arab media declared it the “loser” of that war.  To Israel’s bitter resentment, the Hezbollah not only survived, but became an inordinately popular organization in the Arab streets, as well as in Lebanon.  As such, it also challenged the governing authority of the U.S.-backed government of Premier Fouad Siniora.  Siniora has remained a weak head of the government in Lebanon primarily, if not solely, because Washington supports him.  Consequently, the legitimacy of the government in Lebanon remains shaky, at best. 

It has been a long-established fact that no outside power can institute its credibility inside a country through the use of military force or through occupation alone.  That is a universal principle. 

Syria learned that lesson at the end of many years of occupying Lebanon.  The U.S. has also learned that bitter reality after remaining an occupying power in Iraq for the past eight years.  It is likely to face the same fate in Afghanistan.  Israel refuses to learn that lesson as it invades Gaza and remains an occupying power of Palestine.  The gloomiest fact of that occupation is that the mounting toll of Palestinians will create new generations of even more enduring—and even more radical-minded—resistance to Israel than Hezbollah and Hamas have thus far demonstrated.

Unlike the historical accord between the U.S. military and the Sons of Iraq, no basis of rapprochement has been established between Israel and the Palestinians.  The Oslo Peace Accords of the early 1990s are long dead and buried.  Israel does not want to trade land for peace, and the Palestinians are much too divided to offer the Jewish state a great deal of confidence that they are ready to live in peace with their Jewish counterparts. 

Israel played a crucial role, if not in the creation of Hamas, then in definitely enhancing the presence and clout of that organization in the occupied territory many years ago.  As an Israeli historian at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Zeev Sternell, stated, “Israel thought that it was a smart ploy to push the Islamists against the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO).”  Today, Hamas is the governing authority in Gaza.  Ironically, Israel’s stated objective of waging a war against Gaza is to weaken, if not eliminate, Hamas. 

However, no matter how badly the military conflict damages Hamas, it is likely to emerge as the most popular organization within the occupied Palestine as well as in the rest of the Muslim world.  According to a news dispatch from Egypt, “As the war in Gaza burned though its 14^th day, Arab governments have felt their legitimacy challenged with an uncommon virulence.”  It adds, “With each passing day, and each Palestinian death, the popularity of Hamas and other radical movements has ratcheted higher on the Arab street, while the standing of Arab leaders has suffered.”

The frustrations of the Arab masses stem from a reason that is larger than the occupation of Palestine, even though the mounting suffering of the Palestinians is also adding further fuel to those frustrations.  The chief reason for the Arab frustrations is the presence of authoritarian rule, which lingers on like an eternal curse over their existence.  From their point of view, their collective suffering will not end unless the United States stops supporting the status quo in their countries.  From the U.S. side, that authoritarian rule-based status quo is preferred over the alternative–the return of Islamist rule.  Two examples continue to haunt the U.S. decisionmakers–the Islamist-dominated rule in Iraq and the successful emergence of Hamas as the ruling entity after the elections of January 2006.  The Arab autocrats in Egypt, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia suffer from the same fear.  The emergence of Hamas as the governing body over Palestine did not end their internal turbulence. 

The plight of the Palestinians was worsened when, after a bitter fight between Hamas and Fatah in June 2007, the latter took over the West bank, while Hamas maintained its political control of Gaza.  However, Hamas was unable to make a breakthrough regarding reaching a peace an agreement with Israel. 

Egypt did bring about a ceasefire between Hamas and Israel in June 2008.  That agreement ended early last November.  The fact that Hamas was describing that agreement as tahdiya (a period of calm, which is temporary), as opposed to hudna (truce, which is concrete and lasting) underscored the fact that it was only a tactical maneuver.  The leaders of Hamas were adamant about describing on Al-Jazeera a tahdiya as “a tactic in conflict management and a phase in the framework of the resistance [meaning all forms of struggle].” The Israelis were not willing to fall for that ploy.  That so-called tahdiya ended early last November.  The escalating violence between the two sides since then has led to the Israeli military invasion of Gaza.

The systematic destruction of the already feeble institutional infrastructures and mounting human misery has already transformed Gaza into a hellish place.  Even though Hamas challenged Israel, and even though Hamas is also largely responsible for the breakdown of the tahdiya, the fact that Israel has been wreaking major havoc and is responsible for mounting civilian deaths in Gaza, Hamas’ popularity is most likely to escalate.  

In a perverse way, similar conditions prevail in Afghanistan.  The Western occupation forces are attempting to strengthen the authority of the government of President Hamid Karzai, whom most Pushtoon regard as a puppet of the United States.  The legitimacy of the Karzai government is a shrinking commodity.  Historically speaking, the occupiers of Afghanistan—from Alexander the Great to the Soviet Union—have faced nothing but bloody battles and resulting defeat.  The Taliban—who are primarily Pushtoon—know that fact only too well.  They also know that history is on their side, as long as they do not let up on the use of violence.  The United States cannot afford to lose in Afghanistan, and the Taliban refuse to seek a rapprochement with the Karzai government.  In the process, Afghanistan has become a hellish place.

No single actor is more responsible in Pakistan’s emergence as a highly unstable country than Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto and General Zia ul-Huq.  The former started the process of Islamization of that country, and the latter took it to the extreme.  The practice of using an extremist interpretation of Sunni Islam, which was intensified under Zia’s rule, was continued under the rule of General Pervez Musharraf, but with a different twist. 

Zia was forthright about his commitment to the extremist interpretation of Sunni Islam and used it unabashedly to maintain himself in power.  Musharraf, on the contrary, was duplicitous and cunning.  He presented the face of moderation toward the American interlocutor, while sustaining his alliance with the Islamists inside his country, especially in Baluchistan and in the border areas between Pakistan and Afghanistan.

The extremist Islamist forces had a clear sense that Musharraf was creating a façade of suppressing or containing them.  They understood that game and played along until they decided to take on the Army, after the massacre at the Lal Masjid (red mosque) on July 13, 2007.  That bloody event marked the beginning of the end of the Musharraf regime.  But when he was forced out of office and democracy returned to Pakistan, it was a feeble government while extremist forces were very much on the offensive.

The continued escalated pace of violence—which resulted in the assassination of Benazir Bhutto on December 27, 2007, and an assassination attempt on the life of Prime Minister Yusuf Reza Gilani on September 3, 2008—numerous suicide attacks and the resultant deaths of civilians as well as military personnel, leave little doubt about the march of Pakistan toward further instability.

As the United States gets ready to enlarge the presence of its troops in Afghanistan, the biggest question is whether the Surge strategy can be successfully implemented in Afghanistan.  Even if one were to be optimistic about such prospects, it should be kept in mind that stability and security of Afghanistan has been intrinsically linked to the security and stability of Pakistan since the 1980s.  The United States has known that fact.  But, under the administration of President Barack Obama, it might not remember, at its own peril.

In summarizing the overall situation in many Muslim countries, what is needed in Gaza, for starters, is a reinstatement of indirect negotiations between the parties, with Egypt serving, once again, as an intermediary.  After that, the only alternative for the Obama administration will be to plunge itself into endless rounds of negotiations, first with Hamas and Fatah, and then by bringing all Arab and Israeli contenders to the negotiating table. 

Even under the heap of mounting bitterness, the Palestinians know that the United States is the only actor that can exercise its influence on Israel.  This is not about putting pressure on the Jewish state.  Israelis know better than anyone else that there is no way they can resolve the conflict with the Palestinians by resorting to military force alone.   However, there is no denial of the significant role of an intermediary.  And only the U.S. can play that role, largely because Israel trusts the U.S., and also because it is a major recipient of U.S. military and economic assistance.  Besides, the Obama administration does not carry the same baggage of high partisanship that the Bush administration demonstrated toward Israel.

In South Asia, there is an urgent need for the application of a new “surge” strategy.  Such a strategy must treat Pakistan and Afghanistan as two sides of the same coin and it should be multi-dimensional.  Its features include massive economic assistance, revision of educational curricula, building of civilian infrastructure, implementation of civil-military relations that assign supremacy of civilian authority, eradication of the opium trade culture, and elimination of the proliferation of small arms from both Pakistan and Afghanistan. 

The chief tactic to escalate the feeling of security in the Pakistani ruling circles (of which the Pakistan Army is the most important part) is to ensure that India has minimal diplomatic presence in Afghanistan.  Any heightened Indian diplomatic presence in Afghanistan—which is the current reality on the ground—will motivate Pakistan to destabilize Afghanistan, fearing collusion between Afghanistan and India, whose purpose it is to destabilize Pakistan.  A general suspicion is that Pakistan’s highly secretive intelligence service, Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), sponsored the terrorist attack on the Indian embassy in Afghanistan in July 2008. 

The most unfortunate part of the current reality is that both Pakistan and Afghanistan have become fertile places for the mushrooming of extremism.  The deteriorating quality of life in those countries—as is also the case in occupied Palestine—is definitely adding further momentum for the growth of that phenomenon.  No simple solution that comprises only the use of military force will work.  In the pre-surge days, Iraq was the primary example of that fact.  It was only through the multidimensional application of the surge strategy that Iraq is making steady progress toward political stability.  That reality becomes a powerful argument for the implementation of the aforementioned multidimensional strategy in Afghanistan.

There is some reason to be optimistic, however, that the United States will develop a sophisticated understanding of the significance of Pakistan in the coming days.  According to a recent New York Times dispatch, the outgoing Bush administration has handed over to the Obama transition team a lengthy report on Afghanistan and Pakistan.  That report concluded, “that in the end, the United States has far more at stake in preventing Pakistan’s collapse than it does in stabilizing Afghanistan or Iraq.”

The most interesting part of Mughniyah’s assassination question—which will never be answered—is who killed him.  He was one of the most sought-after persons by American as well as Israeli intelligence.  However, since he successfully defied both of those countries, one possibility is that he was murdered by Syrian intelligence—with whom he was working closely—as a favor to the Americans.  The United States has been determined to push for the indictment of Syria’s President Bishara Assad by the U.N.  He is suspected to have been involved in the assassination of Lebanon’s former Premier Rafiq Hariri of Lebanon in 2005.  As a quid pro quo for Mughniyah’s life, according to this speculation, Assad will be given a respite on the Hariri murder inquiry.

Another possibility is that Israel demanded Mughniyah’s head as a price for continuing the indirect negotiations with the Syrians involving a potential withdrawal from the Golan Heights. 

The most interesting aspect of Mughniyah’s assassination is how Syria is being pulled between Israel and Iran.  Israel is getting desperate to take military and diplomatic action against Iran’s alleged nuclear weapons ambitions.  However, it must ensure a diplomatic isolation between Iran and Syria.  That would also weaken the Iran-Hezbollah nexus.  If true, we might be witnessing a new power alignment in the Levant whereby Syria—for explicit promises of the return of the Golan Heights from Israel—might create a diplomatic distance with Iran.  At the same time, it will be persuaded by Israel to tighten control on Hezbollah.  Needless to say, Iran is not going to remain idle in this alleged diplomatic cat-and-mouse game between Israel and Syria.