The 800-Pound Gorilla

A TALE OF THREE PROBLEMS



"It is time to turn the page." That's the way President Obama put it last night in noting the final day for withdrawal of the last U.S. combat forces from Iraq. If it were only that simple.

The next page includes the continuing story of efforts to deal with the long running Israeli-Palestinian issue. And, of course, the next page also includes the other running problem of the war in Afghanistan.

It is difficult to imagine that much real progress can come out of the so-called summit meeting, beginning today, between the United States in the person of Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. The fundamentals haven't changed. Israel has long said that the ultimate price for creation of a Palestinian state (there are other major issues also) is guarantees for Israeli security and recognition by the Palestinians of Israel as a Jewish nation that is here to stay. It is difficult to get to any final arrangement when the old, square-one stumbling block continues to exist-- Israel's continued building of new Jewish settlements on the West Bank, the core of any new independent Palestine, and in east Jerusalem where the Palestinians would like to place their capital. Netanyahu, under great pressure from the ultra-nationalist right in the person of his Foreign Minister, Avigdor Lieberman, fears that any commitment to either a long-term freeze or outright ban on such settlements would bring down his government.

At the same time, Abbas says he will not enter any long-term negotiations unless the settlements are halted now. Like Netanyahu, Abbas also can show little flexibility because his Palestinian Authority is challenged by Hamas which controls the Gaza strip, a Palestinian refugee tinder box and source of periodic rockets fired into Israel. Both Israel and the United States view Hamas as a terrorist organization and thus cannot be recognized and admitted to any negotiating process. To show that Hamas is still a force to be dealt with, it admitted to the killing of four Israelis in the West Bank city of Hebron on the eve of the Washington talks.


So when the presumably already written final statement for the talks is issued, it is unlikely to provide any notable signs of substantive progress, but rather a tentative commitment to simply hold further, lower level talks.

Thus, as we turn the page on the ending a combat role in Iraq, continuing the escalated war in Afghanistan, and launching another round of Israeli-Palestinian talks, we find there is an 800-pound gorilla in the room--namely, Iran. (Perhaps 800 pounds is too much, but Iran is certainly a weighty presence.)

In choosing to go to war in Iraq to topple Saddam Hussein and his mythical weapons of mass destruction, we removed Iran's greatest nemesis and competitor for regional dominance. In getting rid of Saddam, we empowered Iran. With the end of Saddam's Baathist, minority Sunni-based regime, we opened the door to mutual courting between the Shiite majorities in both countries. The Mideast is a sectarian world where Sunni-Shiite religious differences and centuries old antagonisms make a big difference in how all countries in the region view the various issues and possible solutions.

It wasn't long after Saddam was gone when Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr was off to Tehran to see what troubles he could stir up for the United States whose presence in Iraq he openly fought with his Mahdi army. Current and Interim Prime Minister Nuri al-Malaki has not hidden his willingness to go to Tehran to establish a working relationship with Iran's Shiite President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. But perhaps the most unkind cut of all has been the visits to Tehran by Ahmed Chalabi. It was the exiled Chalabi who was instrumental in helping to sell us the case of Saddam's possessing weapons of mass destruction. It was also Chalabi whom we backed in the early days as our hoped-for spear carrier in future shaping of Iraqi politics. Unhappily for us, Chalabi decided to go into business for himself and develop his own political network, to the exclusion of the United States. Chalabi's role as a continuing thorn in the U.S. side and as a major player in Iraqi politics is analyzed in the recent issue of Newsweek magazine.

So what we have today in Iraq are 50,000 troops as trainers/advisors, an increasingly embarrassing stalemate in the formation of a new government following last March's election, and major political actors who seek to advance their own political fortunes, at least in part, through Tehran.

Iran's oversized presence in the region is also a key factor in Israeli-U.S. relations. With Ahmadinejad's oft repeated threats to Israel and his determination to pursue Iran's own nuclear ambition, Israel pressures the United States to take military action against Iran before it develops nuclear weapons. We, in turn, keep pressing for more and stronger sanctions hoping to bring Iran to the bargaining table to give up development of such weapons to halt nuclear proliferation generally and to assist Israel in particular. In pressing for a sanctions-negotiation route we also hope thereby to discourage Israel from unilateral military action against Iranian nuclear facilities, such as it did in Iraq in l981.

If the Iranian presence isn't enough to deal with in Iraq and in nuclear proliferation/Israeli issues, there is also a growing Iranian involvement in neighboring Afghanistan. Ahmadinejad has actively reached out to increase its ties with both Afghanistan and Pakistan, thereby trying to wedge its interests into any negotiations to end the war. The Iranian President has held direct talks with his counterparts, Afghan President Hamid Karzai and Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari, to discuss the long term reconstruction of Afghanistan. At the same time, Iran has been making inroads with the Taliban by supplying them weapons. Iran's relations with the Taliban have not always been good, but Ahmadinejad now sees the Taliban as a way of carrying on his fight with the United States in still another area. The net result of these efforts he hopes will be a further enhanced Iranian presence in another part of the region.

So Iran is the 800-pound gorilla in the room in our search for solutions to our continuing multiple problems in the region. However, as asserted before in my blogs: "the existence of a problem does not assume the existence of a solution," at least not now.