The New Middle East takes on an Iranian flavor

Sunday, March 6, 2011

ISRAEL MATZAV
By  Carl in Jerusalem

This is the video I was looking for - and it will be followed by a serious post.


Some of you go back with me to the days of my Matzav mailing list (2000-04). In those days, I used to keep the radio on in the background while I posted. I got out of the habit during 2005-06, when I was in mourning for my mother and could not listen to music the entire year. (There's no such thing as a truly "all news" station here - they all take music breaks - so I didn't turn the radio on for the entire year). Today, I find it much harder to concentrate with background noise.


This song by Yehuda Policker was frequently on the radio during the Oslo war. It has a haunting chorus: "Erev tov Yerush' v'layla tov tikva, Mi haba bator u'mi ba'tor haba." (Good evening Jerusalem and good night hope, who is next in line and who is in the next line). As the suicide bombs went off throughout the country, this song was played on the radio night after night after night.


Let's go to the videotape.



Caroline Glick reports that another 'new Middle East' (the phrase was originally used in this country to ridicule Shimon Peres' idyllic vision of the Arabs lying down beside us without trying to murder us) is being shaped around us. Thanks to the Obama administration's ineptitude it's being dominated by Iran.

Iran’s mullahs win no matter how the revolts pan out. If weakened regimes maintain power by appeasing Iran’s allies in the opposition – as they are trying to do in Jordan, Kuwait, Morocco, Algeria, Bahrain, Oman and Yemen – then Iranian influence over the weakened regimes will grow substantially. And if Iran’s allies topple the regimes, then Iran’s influence will increase even more steeply.

Moreover, Iran’s preference for proxy wars and asymmetric battles is served well by the current instability. Iran’s proxies – from Hezbollah to al- Qaida to Hamas – operate best in weak states.

From Hezbollah’s operations in South Lebanon in the 1980s and 1990s, to the Iranian-sponsored Iraqi insurgents in recent years and beyond, Iran has exploited weak central authorities to undermine pro-Western governments, weaken Israel and diminish US regional influence.

In the midst of Egypt’s revolutionary violence, Iran quickly deployed its Hamas proxies to Sinai.

Since Mubarak’s fall, Iran has worked intensively to expand its proxy forces’ capacity to operate freely in Sinai.

Recognition of Iran’s expanded power is fast altering the international community’s perception of the regional balance of forces. Russia’s announcement last Saturday that it will sell Syria the Yakhont supersonic anti-ship cruise missile was a testament to Iran’s rising regional power and the US’s loss of power.

Russia signed a deal to provide the missiles to Syria in 2007. But Moscow abstained from supplying them until now – just after Iran sailed its naval ships unmolested to Syria through the Suez Canal and signed a naval treaty with Syria effectively fusing the Iranian and Syrian navies.

So, too, Russia’s announcement that it sides with Iran’s ally Turkey in its support for reducing UN Security Council sanctions against Iran indicates that the US no longer has the regional posture necessary to contain Iran on the international stage.

Iran’s increased regional power and its concomitant expanded leverage in international oil markets will make it impossible for the US to win UN Security Council support for more stringent sanctions against Tehran. Obviously, UN Security Council-sanctioned military action against Iran’s nuclear installations is out of the question.

Unfortunately, the Obama administration has failed completely to understand what is happening.

Clinton told the House of Representatives and the Senate that Iran’s increased power means that the US should continue to arm and fund Iran’s allies and support the so-called democratic forces that are allied with Iran.

So it was that Clinton told the Senate that the Obama administration thinks it is essential to continue to supply the Hezbollah-controlled Lebanese military with US arms. Clinton claimed that she couldn’t say what Hezbollah control over the Lebanese government meant regarding the future of US ties to Lebanon.

So, too, while Palestinian Authority leaders burn President Barack Obama in effigy and seek to form a unity government with Iran’s Hamas proxy, Clinton gave an impassioned defense of US funding for the PA to the House Foreign Relations Committee this week.

Clinton’s behavior bespeaks a stunning failure to understand the basic realities she and the State Department she leads are supposed to shape. Her lack of comprehension is matched only by her colleague Defense Secretary Robert Gates’ lack of shame and nerve. In a press conference this week, Gates claimed that Iran is weakened by the populist waves in the Arab world because Iran’s leaders are violently oppressing their political opponents.

In light of the Obama administration’s refusal to use US military force for even the most minor missions – like evacuating US citizens from Libya – without UN approval, it is apparent that the US will not use armed force against Iran for as long as Obama is in power.

And given the administration’s refusal to expend any effort to protect US interests and allies in the region lest the US be accused of acting like a superpower, it is clear that US allies like the Saudis will not be able to depend on America to defend the regime. This is the case despite the fact that its overthrow would threaten the US’s core regional interests.

Erev tov Yerush' v'layla tov tikava. Mi haba ba'tor u'mi ba'tor haba. Are we heading for a 'new Middle East' in which Israel is surrounded by enemies and unable to defend itself?
Read the whole thing.