Back to a Future that Never Existed

He is a columnist for a large, liberal paper, and so rarely gives the President credit for strategic thinking. When he wrote positively this week about the Administration’s plan to contain Iran, it was worthy of note. Unfortunately, what he wrote was, “The cornerstone is a political-military alliance with the dominant Sunni Arab powers – especially Saudi Arabia. The hardware will be new arms sales to Israel, Egypt and the Saudis. The software will be a refurbished Israeli-Palestinian peace process.” Approvingly he called it “back to the future.” Sigh.

He is a columnist for a large, liberal paper, and so rarely gives the President credit for strategic thinking. When he wrote positively this week about the Administration’s plan to contain Iran, it was worthy of note. Unfortunately, what he wrote was, “The cornerstone is a political-military alliance with the dominant Sunni Arab powers – especially Saudi Arabia. The hardware will be new arms sales to Israel, Egypt and the Saudis. The software will be a refurbished Israeli-Palestinian peace process.” Approvingly he called it “back to the future.” Sigh.

Perhaps he didn’t notice that Israel is not a Sunni Arab power.

Perhaps he didn’t notice that a “refurbished Israeli-Palestinian peace process” would require that the Palestinians establish a modus vivendi among themselves in order to adopt a negotiating posture toward Israel.

Or perhaps he did. But never mind Israel for the moment, and the inappropriateness of demanding that Israel pay for Iran’s containment in the currency of another useless and dangerous agreement with the Palestinians.

More important, this columnist appears not to have noticed that Saudi Arabia is heavily funding al Qaeda in Iraq as it kills American soldiers and is funding Wahhabi-Salafist jihad elsewhere including in the United States. It is those al Qaeda operatives in Iraq that the Sunni tribal leaders have been turning against in droves, providing some measure of hope for Iraq, but causing al Qaeda to denounce the Saudi move to re-establish relations with the Iraqi government. It is Wahhabi-Salafist jihadis that the New York Police Department was concerned about in their report on homegrown American terror. (See JINSA Report # 696) Look for more instability in Saudi Arabia and more trouble from Saudi Arabia. Is this REALLY where we want to put JDAMS or other cutting edge weapons expected to be included in the new arms sales packages?

Sunni jihad has arisen in Syria as well – funded by Saudi Arabia in an attempt to overthrow the Alawite (a Shiite sect) Assad minority regime that has been allied with the hated Persian Shiites? Not clear, but not impossible. Ditto long-range Saudi support for Fatah al Islam currently wrecking Lebanon – not clear, but not impossible.

Egypt is no bargain either. Although Mubarak has belatedly come to understand that chaos in Gaza is trouble for his regime and is talking seriously to Israel and the U.S. about controls on Hamas, the long term in repressed and repressive Egypt is troubling.

America, then, is resting its hopes of “containing” Iran on very weak reeds.

It seems too, that this correspondent is hoping that pressure on Israel will cause an alignment of Arab states to do what the America wants done in the region, regardless of the capabilities and interests of those same Arab states. That would be back to a future that never really existed. Reality dictates that the U.S. push Saudi Arabia to stop funding and supporting Sunni jihad as step one in the containment of Iran.