Jordan and Lebanon: The Next Dominoes in the Arab Spring/Winter?

Earlier this month I predicted that there will be more countries affected by the drive for freedom in the Arab world. I predicted that in my humble opinion Lebanon and Jordan are the two most likely candidates. This is not because I'm an expert in the internal workings of either country. My knowledge of Jordan relates mainly to its foreign policy and my knowledge of Lebanon is historical--from the period of the Lebanese Civil War of 1975-90. So on what basis do I make my predictions? 

Both countries are neighbors of Syria and both are affected by the civil war in Syria. A 2007 Jordanian estimate was that there were 450,000 Iraqi refugees in Jordan, and small numbers of refugees continue to arrive in Jordan each month due to continued fighting in Iraq. This puts strains on Jordanian resources and Jordan has never been a rich country in terms of natural resources. It lacks oil and natural gas unlike Iraq and the Gulf countries and even Syria, and its main natural resource is phosphates in the Dead Sea region. Jordan's economy is based primarily on agriculture, tourism as part of the Holy Land, and light industry. Jordan provides free health care and education for the Iraqi refugees. Now it has to provide for Syrian refugees as well who number more than 600,000 or almost a third of the more than two million Syrian refugees who have fled since 2011. The Jordanian Central Bank has already noted that their presence is a strain on the economy.  Here is a recent LA Times article that echoes the above analysis.

Syria's Future

Two articles that were on Real Clear World yesterday suggest that Syria's war will be long. The first in Time by Rania Abouzeid is the story of a group of rebels. In it one speaks of an upcoming civil war among the rebel factions once the Assad regime is disposed of. This suggests a future like that of Afghanistan following the jihad against the Soviet occupation, or Somalia after the fall of the Siad Barre regime in the late 1980s. Both countries essentially became failed states leading to the situation where the Taliban took over in Afghanistan, inviting in Al Qaeda leading to the present war between the United States and its allies and the Taliban.

The second is an article by former Time Middle East correspondent Tony Karon in the UAE The National. In it Karon makes the argument that Washington should intervene in the unfolding civil war, but not necessarily militarily as so many are urging in Washington and the Arab world. Instead Karon argues that Washington should help mediate a solution to the present civil war as he sees neither side having the power to prevail. This creates a situation of inertia, which in turn leads to an ever higher death toll, more physical destruction, and the destruction of the country politically as different sectarian groups are pitted against one another either in support of or in opposition to the ruling regime.

Syria's Possible Futures: An Israeli View

Former head of Israeli military intelligence, Aman, Amos Yadlin, laid out five possible outcomes to the ongoing and escalating civil war in Syria in a briefing to the public at the Institute of National Security Studies in Israel yesterday. He is presently the director of the institute. Here are the five scenarios:  First, the regime could survive by working out its problems with Turkey and winning more support from Russia. Second, the civil war continues forever as a low-level conflict of the type that is common in the Third World. Third, Syria disintegrates into three sectarian states: Alawite, Sunni, and Kurdish. Fourth, a Sunni-dominated state emerges. And lastly, a failed state emerges reminiscent of Somalia after the fall of Siad Barre or of Congo after the collapse of the Mobutu regime. Yadlin did not indicate which of these scenarios was most likely to occur or even rank order them. He simply pointed out that all of them was less threatening than the status quo ante in which a powerful centralized Alawite regime legitimized its rule through maintaining a verbal conflict and tension with Israel. A senior Israeli security official, possibly Defense Minister Ehud Barak, speaking anonymously took the exact opposite viewpoint arguing that the border had become more dangerous since the start of the civil war in Syria.

No peace for Syria; no peace process for Obama

This article by Tony Karon indicates that the war in Syria is at a stalemate, with the Sunni rebels lacking the heavy weapons to contest the planes and tanks of the regime in the cities. Those who can remember the civil war in Libya will remember the important role played by NATO air forces. NATO has no plans to get involved in Syria, which has a serious air defense system. Bashar al-Assad also did not support terrorism in Europe the way Muammar Kaddafi did. For Britain, France, and the U.S. intervention was a means of settling scores with an old foe and possibly deterring future terrorism by demonstrating that Western democracies have long memories. The only outside country showing any interest in getting involved militarily in Syria is Turkey, but the Turkish population is not up for the cost of a major war. Thus, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan will have to limit himself to running refugee camps for Syrian refugees and supplying a few small arms and other aid. If he did intervene it would enhance the political role of the Turkish military, Erdogan's main domestic political foe. 

The Strategic Importance of Democracy for Israel

I receive a daily selection of links to articles from the Israeli Hebrew press prepared by Americans for Peace Now (sign up at peacenow.org--the links are to articles in both English and Hebrew). So I have been witnessing an ongoing assault by the Israeli Right on the structures of democracy in Israel. The Zionist Left is as weak today in the Knesset as the white South African Left was in the parliament in the 1970s. Liberalism there consisted of the English-speaking press, and in the 1980s of a number of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) as well as the Progressive Federal Party. The ruling National Party made parliament irrelevant by making other venues the focus of decision making in the National Security Management System. 

The Israeli Right, led by Israel Beitenu's Avigdor Leiberman, has gone after the Israeli NGOs and the Supreme Court. This was after they started over a year ago targeting Israel's Arab minority with the talk of mandatory loyalty oaths. For a discussion of how this is playing with Israeli Arabs see the two selections by Palestinians at Bitter Lemons.

Tehran in Cairo? That's How it Appears to Israelis

This weekend a mob of Egyptian rioters invaded the Israeli embassy in Cairo, (see the Aluf Benn story from Ha'Aretz) forcing a hurried retreat by plane to Israel. The Israeli flag was torn from the flagpole and shredded by the mob. To Americans seeing footage of this, it brings back memories of the capture of the "nest of spies" that the Iranian revolution claimed was the American embassy in Tehran in 1979. That same period saw the regime of the mullahs take over the Israeli embassy and turn it over to the PLO. Many Israelis may well wonder if that is the fate that is in store for the Israeli embassy in Egypt. With the military regime still in charge in Cairo, this seems rather unlikely--unless economic conditions require a foreign scapegoat.

Since Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu returned to the prime minister's office in Jerusalem in 2009, the region has seen the makings of a future tinderbox. The elevation of an uneasy coalition of the Right in Jerusalem coincided with the shift in foreign policy by the Tayip Erdogan government in Ankara. The Turkish government, wishing to return at least in terms of influence to the areas of the former Ottoman Empire, started to vigorously compete with Iran for influence in the Arab world. It did this by supporting the demands of Palestinians to have the Israeli blockade of Gaza lifted. Ankara assisted in the dispatch of a flotilla of blockade-busting ships to Gaza last year. They were intercepted by the Israeli army in international waters and boarded when they refused to pull over for inspection. Nine Turkish citizens were killed in clashes with the lightly armed passengers of the ships who offered resistance to the takeover. A recent UN report vindicated the Israeli blockade and criticized the Israeli government for using too much force. Jerusalem has refused to apologize to Ankara as demanded, leading to a break in diplomatic relations.

This followed an incident in which an assistant of Foreign Minister Avigdor Leiberman attempted to humiliate the Turkish ambassador by delivering a diplomatic demarche over programming on Turkish television that was anti-semitic in the most humiliating way possible. Ankara was quite happy to have its revenge.

So now we have a dynamic in which the Egyptian and Turkish governments can exploit the feelings of humiliation at the hands of  a non-Muslim people and government that is seen as foreign to the region. This in turn reinforces the siege mentality of the Israeli electorate who have now lost their closest ally in the Muslim Middle East, Turkey, and risk losing their strategic anchor, Egypt, of their security policy. The only thing worse would be if suddenly the Hashemite monarchy was overthrown by the Palestinians. Fortunately for Israel, such a contingency appears rather remote. 

Expect in turn an even further-right government following Israel's next election either later this year or in 2012. How different this is from the first Likud government that came to power in 1977 and made peace with Egypt.