Looking into hell March 26, 2002
davidwarrenonline.com
As I reported in this newspaper on
Friday, the "gaoling", or rather
probationing of Yasser Arafat, the
Palestinian leader, has been taken
over from Ariel Sharon, the Israeli
prime minister, by Dick Cheney,
the U.S. vice president. It is an
extremely significant step, not
because it "disempowers" the
Israelis, but because it puts the
United States forward directly in
the role of Israel's protector,
negotiating on Israel's behalf.
While lost on the Western media,
the point has been taken in several
capitals of the Arab world: Mr.
Arafat and his terrorist groups are
no longer simply confronting
Israel. They are now confronting a
United States that is increasingly
aware of their international
connexions.
Mr. Cheney set the conditions for
a meeting between himself and Mr.
Arafat in Cairo yesterday, which
did not take place because Mr.
Arafat did not meet them. The
essential, verifiable condition was
that Mr. Arafat would deliver a
public address, to his people, in
unambiguous Arabic, demanding
an immediate end to all terrorist
strikes against Israel; and be seen
delivering like orders to all the
Palestinian militias under his
ultimate command. Instead he
appeared on Palestinian TV,
looking as if he were a hostage
reading a prepared statement by
his kidnapper. He condemned,
after the fact, only one particular
suicide bombing in Jerusalem.
This was 11 eggs short of a dozen.
At the meeting in Cairo, Mr.
Cheney would have had an
opportunity to tell Mr. Arafat, face
to face, that all of his brigades
were on the point of being declared
"foreign terrorist organizations"
by the U.S. state department, with
consequences he should imagine;
and that Mr. Arafat must
immediately and dramatically
sever his connexions with the
"Islamist International", or be
considered a part of it.
It was Mr. Cheney, rather than
Mr. Sharon, who decided Mr.
Arafat could go to Beirut, and
return to the West Bank
afterwards, notwithstanding his
failure to meet any of the
American or Israeli conditions.
This, to preclude an unnecessary
explosion of Arab passions at
tomorrow's Beirut summit.
Mr. Arafat has nerves of steel. The
moment he was certain that Mr.
Sharon would be compelled to let
him go to Beirut, Mr. Arafat
instructed his negotiators to walk
out of the ceasefire talks with
Israel, under Anthony Zinni. In his
own mind, and in Palestinian
propaganda, he thus successfully
spat in America's face. If he goes
on to deliver an incendiary address
to the Arab League, he will have
unwittingly advanced a U.S.
objective, which is to show the
world why the Bush administration
can no longer deal with him.
But why is Mr. Arafat sounding so
confident, when the Israelis have
recently, through Operation Root
Treatment, done tremendous
damage to his terrorist
infrastructure, and through
retaliatory mortar and air strikes,
smashed almost all of the material
symbols of his prestige? In the
past, either operation would have
been enough to make him
accommodating.
The smaller part of the answer is
beginning to float through the
Western media. Palestinian
triumphalism is being fed, because
Israel has been seriously spooked
by the latest round of suicide
bombings. It is not only the sense
of security shattered for people
going about their everyday lives,
who must flinch constantly in
expectation of another nail bomb;
but also the compound damage
done to an increasingly fragile
Israeli economy. Imagine if, to put
this in proportion to population,
there were bomb blasts in every
major Canadian city, almost every
day, with more than a hundred
killed, and a thousand maimed, in
the course of an average week.
The larger part of the answer is
more frightening.
Over the weekend, the Bush
administration in effect used the
liberal New York Times to
communicate a message, alike to
friend and foe. A remarkable
article appeared at the top of the
Sunday front page, detailing
relations between Mr. Arafat and
his major new sponsor, the Iranian
ayatollahs. The relationship has
come more fully into the light
since the Israelis intercepted the
Karine A arms shipment in the Red
Sea in January. The article was
supplied with what can only be
read as intentional leaks from both
U.S. and Israeli intelligence
sources.
It omits several important
dimensions: that Iran is urgently
supplying Syria with the
technology to produce Scud
missiles on its own, and that
significant shipments of very lethal
weapons, including medium-range
missiles capable of devastating
Israeli cities, may now be passing
from Iran, through Iraq and Syria,
to the Hezbollah army that is
building up in southern Lebanon.
The article touched on the
increasing Iranian effort to
infiltrate and supply arms for
attacks on U.S. forces in
Afghanistan; and on strong
suspicions that the Iranians are
now hosting Al Qaeda operatives
who have fled the Afghan theatre.
But it did not mention Turkish
intelligence reports, of the rapid
build-up of facilities for a Kurdish
Islamist terrorist army across the
Turkish frontier in Iran. This
appears to be a co-operative
project between the Iraqi and
Iranian regimes.
On U.S. television, Sunday, Mr.
Cheney would not confirm the
content of the New York Times
story. (Condoleezza Rice, the
national security advisor,
questioned a few details.) However,
he allowed the main thrust of it to
carry: that the U.S. is aghast to see
this further evidence of what
President Bush in his state of the
union speech described,
accurately, as an "axis of evil".
"Aghast" is the word, for what we
are witnessing looks like joint
preparations by the Palestinian
Authority, Syria, its Lebanese
client, Iraq, and Iran, for war on a
regional scale, against both Israel
and U.S. interests. I fear we may
face a major, sudden, external
assault on Israel, meant to precede
U.S. action against the Saddam
regime in Iraq, and indeed prevent
the U.S. from going there, by
enmiring it in the defence of
Israel.
This last would be a catastrophic
miscalculation; but typical of the
Islamist mindset, both Arab and
Persian. It goes with the usual
optimistic expectation that the
"Arab street" will rise in the
"moderate" Arab states,
compelling even Egypt and Saudi
Arabia to join in the anti-Israeli
and anti-American fray.
I am aware of the magnitude of
this prediction, and I am not
making it casually. Everything I
now know about the deployment of
forces in the region points in the
same counter-intuitive direction:
towards an organized, external
attack on Israel, coinciding with a
final escalation of the Palestinian
Intifada. Whether or not a surprise
attack is already planned, the
equipment is being put in place to
launch one.
A pretext for such a strike will
never be lacking. Whoever
happens to be prime minister of
Israel at the moment, can be
blamed for having brought this
Armageddon upon himself, by
failing to accede to Palestinian
demands. Alternatively, such an
attack could be launched to create
a second front, the moment the
U.S. moves against the Saddam
regime, and using that for pretext.
The problem for the Bush
administration, is that while it
makes contingency plans for an
unavoidable regime change in
Iraq, it becomes increasingly aware
that Saddam Hussein is no longer
isolated; that there is a real risk
the Americans could find
themselves fighting, alongside
Israel and Turkey, against all of
their common enemies in the
region, simultaneously. But given
the constant development of
weapons of mass destruction in
each of these enemy states, and the
constant stoking of Islamist fires,
such a war might better be fought
sooner than later.
Mr. Cheney's continuing mission
is hardly restricted to trying to
broker a quick truce between
Israel and the Palestinian
Authority. I think he knows that
will anyway not be possible, given
what is now behind Mr. Arafat.
Rather, he is preparing for the U.S.
to take charge of that second front,
by moving the U.S. from behind, to
a position in front, of Israel. He is
raising the stakes for any attack on
Israel, in the hope this can prevent
such a thing from happening.
David Warren |
