YEAR END REVIEW

NALA,   December 24, 1996

Introduction

One year ago Syrian and Israeli negotiators were preparing to sit down for serious negotiations at Wye Plantation on Maryland's Eastern Shore.  One year later their armies are going through exercises on either side of Mount Hermon, rattling sabers and preparing for war.  Despite the best efforts of American diplomacy, the Middle East Peace Process took a U‑turn along the seemingly irreversible path to comprehensive peace.  A review of salient events of the past year provides a post mortem for this reversal as well as a blueprint for restarting the process in a way that indeed will be irreversible. 

Review of Events of 1996

Following the initial success of the Wye Plantation talks in early January, Prime Minister Shimon Peres announced that he was moving the Israeli elections forward from their scheduled October date to May 29.  Peres did this in order to win ratification from the Israeli electorate for the compromises that he was willing to make on the Golan in order to secure peace with Syria.  In the wake of the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin on November 9, 1995, there was a wave of sympathetic support for a successful conclusion to the peace talks. 

Car bombings in Israel.  In February, those forces that oppose American interests in the region staged multiple dramatic bombings in the middle of Israeli population centers in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.  Right wing political forces in Israel spread the propaganda that peace should bring security and instead as Israel made concessions for peace the Israeli civilian death toll was mounting. 

In March, northern Israeli settlements suffered from rocket attacks launched by Hezbollah guerrillas from southern Lebanon.  Peres by this time suffered a significant erosion in his poll numbers and decided to launch a major attack into Lebanon.  Named Grapes of Wrath, the operation had twin objectives of disabling Hezbollah and restoring Peres' standing among the Israeli electorate. 

Operation Grapes of Wrath. Grapes of Wrath was launched in April. It was billed as a high tech Desert Storm type operation and it temporarily boosted popular support for Mr. Peres.  However, that all came down with the shelling of the UN Red Cross center at Qana where women and children were killed with gruesome pictures beamed all over the world. 

The Election of Netanyahu.  One month later,  Peres lost his bid for election to a full term as Prime Minister of Israel. Netanyahu became the new Prime Minister, winning with the narrowest of margins.  The Wye Plantation talks were put on indefinite hold when Netanyahu declared publicly and privately that he did not intend to be bound by verbal negotiating positions taken by the Labor Government at Wye.  Instead, he would pull back to the formal treaty agreements that already existed and would begin negotiations from that point.  The Syrians insisted on picking up the Wye Plantation talks where they had left off in January, however, this was a non starter with the Netanyahu government as he felt that his election was a repudiation of the Labor negotiating policy.

Stalled Talks on Hebron.  Through the Summer of 1996, Netanyahu initiated policies that evidenced an intent to roll back the progress made on the Israeli‑Palestinian negotiating track.  The redeployment of Israeli troops from Hebron, scheduled for March 1996, was postponed due to the February bombings in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.  After re‑election, Peres was to reschedule the withdrawal date.  However, with the Netanyahu victory, all direct talks between the Prime Minister and Arafat were suspended.  Netanyahu refused to even meet with Arafat unless the security of Israel depended upon such a meeting.  Netanyahu went even further with statements that the final status of Jerusalem was not a subject of negotiation, though the Oslo accords clearly made it so.  In August, Netanyahu's government requested that a Palestinian meeting hall be abandoned by the Palestinians since their presence was prejudicial to the ultimate outcome of the Jerusalem negotiation.  Arafat complied, but then, Netanyahu had the building bulldozed claiming that no proper permits had been let for it.  This was an obvious dig at Arafat, causing him serious loss of face with his people and engendering in him the need to retaliate by calling the Palestinians to the street.  Netanyahu reacted predictably by cracking down further on the Palestinians with the Israeli Army and closing the crossings from the West Bank and Gaza to Israel. 

The Tunnel Incident.  This incident was followed by the tunnel opening issue that arose in the Autumn that again brought angry Palestinians into the streets.  Israeli security forces fired upon the Palestinians.  The Palestinian police force, charged with defending the population, was called upon by the people to defend them against the Israeli army and pitched battles broke out between Israeli and Palestinian security forces.  Netanyahu used this incident as proof that the Oslo Accords were a mistake because it had only created an armed Palestinian force in Israel's back yard.  This free bleeding open wound in Israeli ‑ Palestinian relations was stanched by an emergency meeting at the White House with the President, the fruits of which were that Netanyahu and Arafat got to eat a meal together. Though significant in building Middle Eastern personal relationships, the meal did not produce tangible results.  

This summit was followed by some good faith discussions between both sides at the urging of American diplomats.  However, on each occasion, as it seemed that Netanyahu was coming off his hard line toward a more conciliatory position with Arafat on the Hebron issue, there would be another attack on a West Bank Israeli civilian.  Such attacks would not be immediately condemned by Arafat. This failure, coupled with Israeli blood letting would inflame the settlers into a more hardened position against an Israeli redeployment.  Netanyahu, who was elected with strong settler support and who is sympathetic to their security concerns, has reacted by declaring support for their presence on the West Bank and pledging more and greater subsidies from the government so as to expand their presence.  There is no greater issue than that of the settlements which build Palestinian frustration and anger with the Israelis, and growingly with Arafat's Palestinian Authority.  This is fueling an inevitable explosion on the West Bank that carries the potential of destroying the Oslo Accords and making of the Palestinian Authority a relic of the past, rather than the vehicle to the future as was envisioned.   

The Syrian Negotiations.  Turning to the Syrian track, President Assad has come to realize that Syria will never regain sovereignty over the Golan Heights through negotiation with the Netanyahu government.  In September, Assad ordered a redeployment of forces in Lebanon moving troops and equipment out of Beirut and other coastal population centers to positions along the western slopes of Mount Hermon.  Some 7,000 Lebanese troops joined in the Syrian redeployment.  Israel responded with a large multi faceted show of force, billed as military exercises, on the Golan Heights which border the eastern slopes of Mount Hermon.  Tensions are high on both sides as intelligence reports from both sides report an imminent attack from the other.   

The American led peace effort would appear, at year end, to be in full retreat in the face of the forces arrayed against it. 

Regional Set backs.  Regionally, American interests suffered a set back with the June car bombing of the Khobar Towers near Dhahran Saudi Arabia that took the lives of 19 American airmen assigned to over flight missions in Iraq.  According to reports in December, Saudi investigators have determined that a Saudi Shiite group executed the bombing.  They were trained for the mission in Lebanon's Syrian Occupied Bekaa Valley by Hezbollah fighters.  The bomb was manufactured by Hezbollah agents and made its way to Saudi Arabia through Damascus Syria.

American Interests and Engagement in the Region

            Though the American position in the Middle East has suffered serious set backs, American interests remain strong and constant.  Secure access to petroleum resources in the Persian Gulf, the stability of moderate Arab regimes and the security of the State of Israel are American interests that do not change over time, nor fade in importance.  Through the late Cold War, the Soviet Bloc presented itself as the challenger of these American and Western interests.  Though inroads were made in Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Egypt and Libya, American foreign policy found the wherewithal to counter, contain and eventually neutralize these threats. 

Successful Defense Against the Soviet Threat.  The greatest threat, of course, came near the end of the Cold War with the Soviet move into Afghanistan in 1980.  By supporting and arming the Mujahideen fighters, the United States was able to stop and reverse the invasion.  The Soviet losses may have even played a role in the eventual dissolution of the Soviet Union. 

Recognition of New Threats and Tactics.  Now that the Soviet Union is gone, the United States makes a great error in policy assumptions that do not factor in the rise of a new adversary in the region that would contest the United States regarding the advancement of American interests.   One of the greatest lessons of the Vietnam experience is that a determined indigenous paramilitary force with a reliable supply line can successfully confront a super power and defeat it.  The defeat of the Soviet Union in Afghanistan is subsequent proof that the Vietnam precedent is sound.  Every third world nationalist movement, or movements with less noble objectives, have learned the lesson that air power can be countered by a network of underground command and control bunkers; conventional ground assaults can be countered with hit and run guerrilla assaults;  advanced artillery can be countered by placement of targets deep into civilian population centers; and defense systems established to protect enemy population canters, i.e. Patriot anti‑missile systems, can be subverted by a committed person willing to wire himself with explosives, or drive a truck laden with explosives into the midst of an unsuspecting civilian population. 

Each of these measures has been employed to attack American interests in the region.  Iran is the ideological and economic center from which the United States is being confronted in the Middle East.  Syria and Syrian Occupied Lebanon is the operational center from which operations against the United States is conducted. 

The Global Dimension. China aiming to fill the void left by the collapse of Soviet Union, is diligently working to establish its own international network of client states that would afford it the superpower status it seeks. The Iranian-Syrian confrontation of American and Western interests in an area as vital to the West as the Middle East, gives China substantial leverage. The Syrian-Iranian is developing into a serious threat, possessing Chemical and Biological weapons and the missile capacity to deliver them. Nuclear weapons may not be too far away, with Chinese assistance and support. 

Furthermore, the operational network has grown to levels unimaginable a few years ago. Training centers, fundraising and operational cells now exist in dozens of countries on all continents, including the United States, with capacity to strike at the heart of America's interests whenever the need arises.

The American ‑ Iranian Confrontation. In reviewing the set backs suffered by American policy in the region during 1996 within the context of an American ‑ Iranian confrontation, each event referenced above assumes a rational predictable context.  American diplomatic advances have been countered by Iranian inspired counter measures calculated to halt the advances, and indeed to reverse them.  The instruments of the Iranian counter measures are, primarily, Iran's regional ally, Syria, and its clients among the Palestinian rejectionist front, along with Hezbollah in Syrian Occupied Lebanon.  Other instruments of Iranian policy are the Hamas movement in West Bank and Gaza along with fundamentalist cells in most other Middle Eastern states particularly Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Algeria.  Through these various tentacles, Iranian policy to confront the United States and its interests in the region are executed.  

Using the tactics of Vietnam and Afghanistan, these elements have taken control of events in the Middle East over the period of the past year and reversed American fortunes.  The February bombings in Israel were executed by elements of Hamas with bombs built in Occupied Lebanon by members of Hezbollah.  They occurred in the wake of the American successes at Wye Plantation where the Labor Government of Israel appeared willing to meet Syrian demands on the Golan Heights.  Note that the bombs did not go off until after Peres declared that he would stand for elections early.  The bombings had a political objective, namely to discredit the peace talks and Peres within the Israeli electorate so as to remove  Peres from power. 

Logical Sequencing of Events.  Peres responded with an attack on Hezbollah in Lebanon which reversed his losses.  Hezbollah responded by creating a target for Israeli laser guided missiles that would result in civilian casualties.  Hence Qana, the international discrediting of the Israeli military and the removal from power of Shimon Peres on May 29.  With Peres out of the way, Syria would not be under pressure to reach accord since no one in the new Israeli government was willing to offer concessions on the Golan, Assad's precondition to negotiation. 

Confluence of Interests Targeting Arafat, the PA and the US.  Netanyahu was the Iranian candidate in the Israeli elections.  His hard line on settlements and the Palestinians would assure that no Arab government could continue to negotiate with Israel and that the talks would collapse.  Assad has his own agenda within the Iranian agenda.  Namely, to take the Palestinian card out of Arafat's hand and return it to his own.  For this reason, Assad maintains the Palestinian rejectionist front under his wing in Damascus.  These Palestinians, along with Hamas have a vested interest in the ultimate failure of Arafat and the PA.  This is an interest shared with Netanyahu.  Though Arafat is clearly in jeopardy by this confluence of interests that are arrayed against him, the United States shares the bulls eye with him.  The mainstay of the American diplomatic effort is the Oslo Accords and the viability of the PA.  The destruction of the PA by a combination of moves by Netanyahu and the Syrian backed rejectionist font collapses the American diplomatic effort along with Arafat.  So, we find ourselves in the same boat with him. 

Subsequent efforts by the US to jump start the Israeli ‑ PA talks have been met with failure, but for a reason.  The latest failure came on the heels of renewed efforts to set a timetable for the redeployment of troops from Hebron.  As soon as an announcement became imminent, elements of the rejectionist front staged the murder of an Israeli woman and her daughter.  This event killed the attempt at progress. 

Lessons of Dhahran.  The latest revelations that the murder of the 19 American servicemen at Dhahran involved Lebanese Hezbollah and collaboration with Syria should make the future course of American policy clear. The bombing at Dhahran is not an isolated incident. The Riyadh bomb before as well as the conflicts in Bahrain and other countries in the region, have all traced back to Occupied Lebanon. Under Iranian and Syrian stewardship, Hezbollah has armed trained and supplied all those who are willing to joint the fight against American and Western presence in the region. Without such operational base, those forces in Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and elsewhere will not be capable of the acts they committed.  

Time for New Beginnings

1997 marks the first year of President Clinton's second term, the start of a new regime in the foreign policy apparatus of the government and an opportunity to renew efforts to negotiate the peace in the Middle East.  As we begin anew,  the lessons of 1991‑1996 should not be lost on anyone making these policy decisions.  As NALA counseled at the commencement of the Madrid Process, in order to have a successful peace negotiation, those elements that would continue to contest the issues militarily must first be defeated.  We can not leave the enemy to our rear, armed, ready willing and able to attack us as we negotiate. 

Seriously This Time, Lebanon First.  NALA felt then, as now, that the mess in Lebanon had to be cleared first, otherwise, the terrorists that operated out of bases maintained on Lebanese soil by Syrian Occupation forces would be available to Iran, or any other potential adversary to American interests, to disrupt our diplomatic progress or stop it all together.  The sad history of the Madrid Talks is that this very thing has happened.  At each step, as progress was made,  terrorists, based in Lebanon, or logistically assisted from Lebanon intervened to stage bloody events against civilian targets within the principal states to reverse the progress marked by American diplomacy. 

Without doubt, had Lebanon been pacified first, Hezbollah militarily disarmed and the Lebanese Government and Army made responsible for security within the international boundaries of the Lebanese Republic, Iran would have had a much more difficult time wreaking all of the havoc that has been wrought. 

Slow Retreat from the Gains of Peace.  The combination of events in the region and Netanyahu's actions in Israel have returned the process back to square one, practically.  But for the residual benefits of a treaty finalized with Jordan and nascent economic ties created between Israel and various Arab states, very little positive effects remain. However, even those financial gains may be lost.  Israeli treatment of the Palestinians has poisoned the waters between Israel and  other regional states which would engage in economic trade with Israel.  The recent Arab summit in Cairo is indicative of this new attitude.  At that meeting, the Syrians led the call for all Arab states to freeze relations with Israel in protest to the treatment that Israel has afforded the Palestinians.  This plays on a long standing reality in the region.  Until the Palestinian grievance can be satisfied, no Arab country can deal with Israel and save face among its fellow Arabs.  Assad reminds his brethren of this reality as often a possible.  Continued icy relations between Israel and the PA are likely to erode the economic and financial benefits that had flowed to Israel during the brief thaw in relations engendered by the policies of Rabin and Peres. 

The US Abandons the Peace Effort at Its Own Risk.  In the coming year, the United States would make a grievous error in policy to treat the Middle East as a tar baby.  Though Secretary Christopher may have burned himself out on the region with very little to show, enduring American interests there require continued American involvement to the highest levels of the American government.  By ignoring the problems we have experience there, those problems will not go away, but will instead grow even larger in the absence of active involvement by the United States. 

Errors to Avoid ‑ All Arabs are not the Same.  The United States, in staying involved, would make another error in assuming that the Arab states are homogeneous in their position toward Israel.  At times, the United States seems to take the same attitude toward Arabs as do the Israelis, namely, that all Arabs are the same and that all Palestinians are the same.  The fact is that they are not.  They are people like any other.  Each state has its own interests which are not identical to every other state. 

Netanyahu and Arafat are in the Same Boat.  Israel, in particular, makes a significant error in blaming Arafat and the PA and punishing the people of the West Bank and Gaza every time a Jewish settler is killed.  Arafat has no interest whatsoever in killing Jewish settlers.  Quite to the contrary, he has every interest in showing the Israeli government that they will be as safe under Palestinian rule as they would be with Israeli soldiers occupying the territory.  Israel must come to recognize that the Palestinian leadership is split and has been split since at least 1983.  In that year, Hafez al Assad recruited the most radical factions away from Arafat and waged war against Arafat's PLO in Lebanon and defeated them.  Since then,  those elements that Assad recruited formed the Palestinian rejectionist front and they, working with Hamas, have been responsible for the attacks on the Jewish settlers so as to undermine Arafat and with him, the peace process.  When Israel reacts to these attacks by sealing off the Territories, taking security duty away from the Palestinian forces and otherwise blaming Arafat, Israel is forwarding the interests of their erstwhile enemies in Damascus.  Israel must realize that it and the PA are in the same boat together and they have common enemies assaulting them both.   

Syrian Hegemony in Lebanon is Harmful to American Interests and Must End. The biggest strategic error that has led to the policy reversals experienced by the United States has been its treatment from Lebanon.  America's surrender of Lebanon to Syria in February 1984 helped create the situation that we find there today.  In Lebanon, there is a suspension of international law which allows all of the terrorist activity to continue there.  America can not hold Syria responsible for the bomb factories and training camps in the Bekaa Valley because we still recognize Lebanon as an independent state which officially, at least, is responsible for activity that takes place on its sovereign soil.  On the other hand, the United States knows that practically, it can not call upon the Lebanese government to confront the terrorists that operate on its soil because of the Syrian occupation which protects the terrorists. 

Over the years since 1984, Syria has taken out concessions for this territory that it operates freed from the sanctions of international law.  In the Bekaa Valley, one can find PKK training facilities, Sri Lankis, Shining Path, Azerbajani and any number of other paramilitary training camps.  Hezbollah and Iranian Revolutionary Guards provide the professors for this terrorist university system that has been created in Syrian Occupied Lebanon.   

American diplomacy in the region has labored for years in the shadow of this festering growing black hole that exists in the fabric of international laws and order.  Now Saudi revolutionaries are receiving their training in Lebanon.  This hits quite close to home as the United States and the West has a substantial vested interest in the ibn al Saud dynasty continuing its rule in Saudi Arabia.  The American policy of entrusting security duty in Lebanon to Syria has not only failed miserably, but now jeopardizes vital American interests.  That policy which dates to 1976 has long outlived its usefulness, if indeed it ever had any. 

Lebanon's Liberation Must Come Soon.  Lebanon is in the process of restoring itself as a unique economic national entity, even under the yoke of Syrian occupation.  Before that occupation causes a total eclipse of Lebanese national political leadership, steps must be taken to break it.  As the United States successfully confronted contained and neutralized the Soviet challenge in the Middle East, so too, it must do the same with Iran. In doing so, the United States would be following the same strategic path used to defeat another cancer on the international body politic, Nazism.  In 1942 when the United States entered the war against Hitler's Germany, we did not initially attack Germany proper.  Instead, our troops first landed in North Africa. The strategy was to cut Germany off from her far flung colonies and the economic support derived therefrom necessary to Germany's war effort.  

Use a Tried and True Strategy to Defeat a Known Adversary.   The means by which Iran confronts and challenges the United States is, for sure, different from Soviet means, and for that matter the means employed by the Nazis.   Using an indigenous religious ideology, Iran has appealed to the Arab masses and recruited them to their cause.  However, like Nazi Germany, Iran employs colonial outposts as a means to carry out national policy.  

The United States must take action against those Iranian outposts and isolate Iran from them. They are a source of strength to Iran therefore the denial of them to Iran will weaken it.   The foremost Iranian outpost is Lebanon.  Lebanon must be freed of Iranian influence, and therefore of Syrian Occupation.  This action  will create a multiplier effect for the United States.  We will create a friendly pro‑Western democracy in Lebanon and a weakened Iran in the process.