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Monday, Nov 9, 2009
The Middle East: The Worst-Case Scenario
March 2003. Despite the Sharon scandals, the Israeli public has returned the Likud to power in Israel, although this time without its Labor partner in a fig-leaf unity coalition. It pursues the same grind-them-down policies toward the Palestinians while continuing to expand the illegal settlements in the occupied territories. Arafat, an increasingly pathetic figurehead, still clings to nominal power, giving Sharon an excuse to defer implementing the "road map" to peace proposed by the Quartet (the U.N., the E.U., the U.S., and Russia). Sharon, Netanyahu and their fellow right-wingers become even more open in denouncing the road map and all other serious peace plans that stipulate Israeli withdrawal from the occupied territories and the creation of a viable Palestinian state. Bush says nothing.
April 2003. The U.S. and Britain invade Iraq, over the bitter objections of the other members of the Security Council. Tony Blair's domestic political ratings sink to the lowest in postwar British history. Iraq is defeated in a six-week war in which 10,000 Iraqi and 1,600 American troops die, most of the Americans during fierce fighting in the streets of Baghdad. At least 1,000 Iraqi civilians are killed in Baghdad: Some of the horrific carnage is captured on Al-Jazeera TV and broadcast around the Arab world. Iraq attempts to use chemical weapons, but they are mostly ineffective. It also launches a few ineffective Scuds at Israel, which does not retaliate. Arabs in Egypt, Syria, Jordan and the occupied territories take to the streets in protest, but no regimes are threatened. No Iraqi leader emerges.
Bush, the newly laureled Conqueror of Baghdad, heeds the advice of former Iran-Contra rogue Elliott Abrams, the National Security Council's new point man for the Middle East, along with that of fellow neocons Paul Wolfowitz and Douglas Feith, who urge him to "hang tough" on the Palestinians. An upsurge of patriotism at home during the war, accompanied by denunciations of "ragheads" and "camel jockeys," encourages him. Bush backs away from the Quartet's road map, which asks Israel to negotiate with the Palestinians in the absence of a cease-fire, and returns to the harder-line position of his June 2002 speech, in which -- displaying a sudden and unprecedented concern for democracy in the region -- he demanded that Arafat step down. He continues to castigate Arafat and puts no pressure on Israel to take political steps toward peace. His rhetoric increasingly casts the Palestinians as indistinguishable from al-Qaida. Echoing Donald Rumsfeld, Bush begins to refer to the "so-called" occupied territories and declaims, "In Texas, I was always taught that when you lose a war, you don't whine about it. That's something our Palestinian friends need to understand."
American troops have not left Iraqi soil, but a crisis breaks out in southern Turkey, where Kurd separatists clash with the Turkish army. The U.S. tries to mediate and fails; it ends up not taking sides. The Kurds begin to carve out an autonomous region. Popular anger against the U.S., already smouldering after Ankara agreed to allow in U.S. forces, grows in Turkey.
The defeat of Iraq speeds up the ferment in Iran; hundreds of thousands of students mass to protest the rule of the mullahs. Weeks later the hard-liners are kicked out in a bloodless takeover. But the new secular government rejects offers by the U.S., the World Bank and multinational corporations to improve business ties to Iran in exchange for abandoning its nuclear program and support for Hezbollah. Iran vows to "stand even more firmly beside our suffering brothers and sisters in Palestine," despite threats and cajolery from the United States. Syria, despite increasing economic hardship, also refuses to change its foreign policy stance, insisting that Israel return the Golan Heights before it will make peace. The Arab League, the E.U. and the U.N. demand that the United States move to alleviate Palestinian suffering.
In the occupied territories, arms continue to flow in despite Iraq's defeat. Palestinian terror attacks inside and outside the Green Line (Israel's internationally recognized 1967 border) continue, as do Israeli-targeted assassinations and missile and tank attacks, as well as unpunished vandalism and murder committed by devout Israeli settlers. In July, Palestinian gunmen from the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade kill one of the 450 far-right Israelis who live under heavy military protection in the center of Hebron, a biblical Palestinian city of 130,000. In retaliation, a U.S.-built Israeli fighter bombs an apartment complex in Ramallah, killing the top leaders of the Brigade and 36 innocent people. An Israel Defense Forces (IDF) spokesman expresses regret, saying the pilot was given incorrect intelligence, and announces that the army will investigate, which it does without apparent result. Bush says he supports Israel's right to defend itself against the scourge of terrorism, but cautions that it must be aware of the consequences of its actions. The next week he signs a bill sent to his desk with a 440-12 vote from Congress approving $14 billion in military and economic aid to Israel.
Five weeks after the Hebron bombing, Palestinian terrorists detonate the largest bomb ever used inside Israel, at a mall in Tel Aviv. Seventy-eight Israelis die, the most ever killed by a Palestinian attack. In response, hundreds of enraged, heavily armed settlers go on a rampage in the West Bank village where the terrorists came from, killing eight people, and then forcibly expel all 300 members of the village to Jordan as the IDF stands by and does nothing. Israel's government says it "regrets" the settlers' actions but makes no attempt to repatriate the refugees. The Bush administration expresses its "deep concern" for Israel's "troubling" actions, but vetoes a U.N. resolution condemning Israel for engaging in "transfer," aka ethnic cleansing.
Violent riots break out across the Arab world and in Indonesia. Protests threaten General Musharraf rule in Pakistan, with hard-line clerics openly threatening to use the "Islamic bomb" against America. Egypt and Saudi Arabia, under extreme pressure from their angry populations, demand that the U.S. immediately cease aid to Israel. An oil embargo is discussed.
American backpackers are brutally murdered in England, Tunisia, Bali and Colombia. Their assailants are unknown.
Two weeks later, an American family of five visiting the Eiffel Tower is gunned down by French Arabs. The U.S. airline industry is on the verge of collapse.
Six weeks later, an Indonesian Muslim living in Chicago, a quiet, industrious father of five enraged by the Palestinian expulsion and by images of Iraqi children killed by U.S. bombs in Baghdad shown again and again on Al-Jazeera TV, drives a rented truck filled with 2,000 pounds of fertilizer into the busiest downtown intersection at lunch hour and detonates it. At least 534 people are killed when a seven-story building collapses on top of an audience attending an outdoor concert.
Bush blames the attack on Iraqi sleeper agents. Declaring "This scourge of terror will not stand," he says the attacks make it clear why the invasion of Iraq was necessary and vows to "track down the evil perpetrators who hate our freedom."
