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To: Charles A. King who wrote (8824)	2/25/1998 12:03:00 AM
From: Hawkmoon	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 13091

Charles, This is a copy of an analyst forum I subscribe to. I thought it showed a nice follow-up to your posting. Regards, Ron **************************************************** February 25, 1998 Intense Diplomacy in Wake of Iraqi Crisis As the Iraqi crisis winds down, there is intense diplomatic activity underway throughout the region. A high-level Iranian delegation is continuing its visit to Saudi Arabia, while Turkish officials visit Damascus and the Greek Foreign Minister has met with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and other Egyptian officials. Each meeting has focused on the state of the world after UN Secretary General Kofi Annan's compromise permitted the United States to end its direct confrontation with Iraq. At issue: the geopolitics of the Middle East. The Iranian-Saudi talks took some strange twists during the past 24 hours. At first, it was expected that former President Rasfanjani would remain for ten days while Iran's oil minister would remain until Tuesday, carrying out a pilgrimage to Mecca on Wednesday. Then it was reported that the oil minister would be leaving a day early, and that a communique would be released on Monday. No communique was released, but stories appeared in Iranian newspapers on Tuesday, revealing that Saudi Arabia had attempted to blackmail Iran at OPEC negotiations in November, 1997, by threatening to take the lid off of its oil production unless the Iranians agreed to higher quotas for Saudi Arabia. So it appeared that the talks had broken down in a rather nasty way. Then it was revealed that the talks hadn't broken down but were continuing, although it was not clear how long the talks would last or who was participating on the Iranian side. Now, all of this could have been merely a case of poor public relations coordination. But it appears to us that the news reveals extremely important and tense negotiations underway. Two issues have intersected. Iran wants to reverse the results of the Iran-Iraq War, recover lost territory, and become the preeminent power in the Persian Gulf. The Saudis are less than enthusiastic about the prospect, to say the least, but badly want Iranian cooperation in attempts to stabilize global oil prices. The Iranians have mixed feelings on this, since there are geopolitical advantages to them in having the Gulf States economically weakened. So each wants something from the other and the United States is no longer a factor in their consideration. Underlying this is a geopolitical nightmare for Saudi Arabia. The Middle East is now divided between a Turkish-Israeli bloc and a Greek-Syrian-Iraqi bloc. Immediately after Annan's agreement was announced, the Turkish foreign minister went to Damascus, clearly trying to leverage Syria out of the alliance--an unlikely prospect. Then the Greek foreign minister traveled to Cairo on a more plausible mission--recruiting Egypt into the alliance. Greece would welcome Egyptian support on the Cyprus issue. More important, Egypt could increase the military vulnerability of Israel, thereby increasing Turkey's isolation. Egypt, furious with Israel, irritated at the United States, and vulnerable to Islamic fundamentalists, might see such a relationship as potentially attractive. This would be disastrous for the Saudis, who would then be exposed to internal unrest due to economic stress and religious and tribal dissent, and to external pressure from an emboldened Iraq. Since no one can be sure how Egyptian policy will evolve in the coming months, the Saudis are confronted with some extremely unpalatable choices, one of which involves cutting a deal with the Iranians. A number of things are clear. First, the regional credibility of the United States is at an all-time low. No one really even knows what the U.S. wants or what they might want the U.S. to do. With the U.S. no longer containing conflicts in the region, we expect the Greco-Turkish confrontation over Cyprus to intensify and even spread. This is a good time for the Greeks to press their case against Turkey, with Turkey's main patron unlikely to flex its muscles again very soon. We expect the Iranians to have enough leverage with the Saudis to emerge with some sort of deal involving strategic cooperation and parallel policies on oil prices. Oddly, the Iranians are among the big winners in this crisis. They have become the wild card in the region, courted by everyone, owned by no one. Iran is now busily spinning its own web, trying to replace the United States as Saudi Arabia's guarantor. Washington, having conspired with Tehran, is now discovering the price of failed conspiracy. It has emboldened and enabled Iran. Now that the United States has managed to simultaneously baffle and terrify everyone in the region, the Iranians have become the thoughtful and moderate alternative. That is an incredible achievement on the part of the United States and will be a legacy dominating the region in the coming months.