/REPEAT//POLITICS-MIDEAST: U.S. Position Looks Shakier

By Jim Lobe Reprint | | Print |

Analysis - Jim Lobe

WASHINGTON, Nov 24 1997 (IPS) - One lesson President Bill Clinton may have learned from this month’s crisis over Iraq is that Washington’s diplomatic position in the Middle East has become dangerously weak.

Despite the “unconditional” return of UN weapons monitors, including U.S. nationals, to Baghdad to resume inspections of Iraq’s military arsenal, political analysts in Washington say the United States must re-think a number of its policies in the region with a view to winning greater Western and Arab support.

That will almost certainly require renewed pressure on Israeli President Binyamin Netanyahu, whose undermining of the Arab- Israeli peace process over the past 18 months is seen as one major cause of Washington’s weakness in the Gulf.

Clinton appears to realize there is no time to waste. At a a ceremony Friday honoring the assassinated Israeli Premier Yitzak Rabin clinton said both sides in the Middle East crisis “have got to realize the need for urgency.”

The U.S. president, however, is also under pressure to review his containment policy against Iran, whose re-integration into the regional equation will be celebrated in dramatic fashion Dec 9, when it hosts the Islamic Summit in Teheran.

That meeting, certain to draw most of the Arab leaders, will be in sharp contrast to last weekend’s US-sponsored Middle East economic conference in Doha, Qatar. Despite feverish lobbying, most Arab states – including the twin pillars of Washington’s mid- east policy Egypt and Saudi Arabia – stayed away.

“These countries are mindful of the response of their respective publics to any appearance they are simply following US dictates,” Middle East experts Mamoun Fandy and Judith Caesar, wrote in the Christian Science Monitor.

Clinton not only must try to shore up Arab support for US policy in the region; he faces a major challenge in recouping Western European support as well.

Although Britain’s Prime Minister Tony Blair provided staunch support to Clinton throughout the crisis, France lined up with Moscow in pushing for a solution that would include an accelerated timetable for lifting U.N. sanctions against Baghdad. All three countries wield veto power in the U.N. Security Council.

Remarkably, it was Russia, and, to a lesser extent, France, who brokered the agreement that permitted both Clinton and Iraqi President Saddam Hussein to claim victory and avert a military confrontation at this time.

As one Arab reporter here commented: “I don’t think it says much about the strength of the US position in the region to have to rely on (Russian Foreign Minister Yevgeny) Primakov to act as your foreign minister and (French President Jacques) Chirac as your national security adviser.”

Indeed, the U.S. clashed with France and Russia over the imposition of new UN sanctions against Iraq late last month and this no doubt spurred Saddam to provoke the latest crisis in hopes he could exploit their differences.

Ties between Washington, on the one hand, and Paris and Moscow on the other, already were strained over French and Russian participation in a two billion dollar oil deal signed with Iran in September before the Iraq crisis erupted.

Clinton has come under increasing pressure from the powerful Israel lobby here to impose tough sanctions against the companies involved under a controversial law passed by Congress last year. The European Union (EU) has strongly denounced the law and threatened to sue Washington in the World Trade Organisation (WTO) if it is applied to European companies. Clinton has so far avoided a decision on the issue by insisting that his administration is still studying the deal.

Germany and France, meanwhile, quietly sent their envoys back to Teheran last week in a move that suggested a resumption of more normal ties, if not “business as usual.” Washington once again has been left fuming and isolated.

So far, however, the administration has shown no sign of revising its containment of Iran. On the contrary, Washington appeared last week to be putting more pressure than ever on the oil- and gas-rich Caspian states to build pipelines that bypass Iran, which offers the cheapest and most direct routes to the sea, altogether.

In the wake of the Iraq crisis, however, most attention will be focussed on the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. US analysts appear convinced that there was a direct correlation between the lack of Arab support for Washington during the crisis and the lack of progress in the peace talks.

“Iraq cannot be seen in isolation,” wrote Graham Fuller, a former top Mideast CIA analyst, in a newspaper article. “In Israel, the hard-line policies of Benjamin Netanyahu have effectively torpedoed the peace process, setting off negative reactions across the region.

“Unilateral US military action against Saddam today would be widely condemned by Arab states that feel a need for Arab solidarity in the face of Netanyahu’s intransigence.”

Zbigniew Brzezinski, former President Jimmy Carter’s national security adviser, made a similar point: “Clinton’s inability or unwillingness to move forward on the peace process …deprived us of the Arab support that we had when Saddam invaded Kuwait (in 1991),” he said.

To redress the situation, Clinton must be prepared to exert more pressure on Netanyahu if he does not comply with the peace accords, according to Brzezinski.