Iran challenges US-Saudi-Israel ‘tango of 3’ & perils of confusing Hamas with Palestine cause
Iran challenges US-Saudi-Israel ‘tango
of 3’ & perils of confusing Hamas with Palestine cause
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carefully staying with the Middle East
situation or the situation around Israel we are today expanding the area of our
gaze we are gazing beyond the immediate area where fighting is taking place or
Israel or next-door neighbors of Israel we're looking at slightly wider
Middle East because there is there is always just as people say a lot of the
people say apologies for Hamas also
unfortunately, who would say that look there are root causes to
this right there are root causes Palestinian cause but at the same time there
is a root cause also for the larger motivations of the bigger powers that are
involved here because this is one more of these proxy wars that
continue to be fought in the Middle East and in this case it isn't so much two
superpowers fighting it's not as if the Americans and the Chinese are fighting
or the Americans and the Russians are fighting a proxy war
this is a case of middling powers that is Saudi Arabia and Iran
fighting a proxy war in this case what's happening in Israel right now Iranians
are fighting it more than Saudi Arabia although the Saudi Arabians have made
some moves which have got the which have thrown the Iranians off balance so we
look at some of those situations today with some scholarly writing that I'll be
referring to also start with a very important conclusion not with
the conclusion start with very important conclusion that in personal
relations in professional relations and even in strategic policy
making it is the negative emotions that have a much greater push than positive
emotions might have the pull or let me just say that who your enemy
determines tends to determine your policy much more than who's your friend so
Nations like human beings n like beings to in their responses Nations also tailor
their policy policies to fit who their enemies are so they target their enemies
much more than working with their friends and that's how Nations also work more
towards fixing their enemies or teaching their enemies lessons then
building friendships or alliances so that is the lesson or that is the
conclusion that we start today's episode of Kak Letter with now as we go along
there are a few references I'll give you and I'll be sharing these links with
you with the description of this episode and you can read those I will I'm only
listing four of these I could have listed 40 of these but you know I'm not
trying to impress you nor am I research scholar who thinks
that I if I really pad up my paper with 400 references maybe my
guide or supervisor will get impressed and think oh this guy has
really done a lot of hard work not that I'm just giving you four references
there can be 500 things to read these days every day because this is the most
written about topic not just in global media but also in the think tank
community and there are lots of Scholars Middle East scholarship is so wide I
suppose that's why nobody's nobody's been able to find a solution to the
problem but four pieces of writing from which I have drawn several
of the insights that I'm going to share with you today so four
articles the first article is from a foreign affairs magazine headlined The End of America's Exit Strategy in the Middle East Hamas's assault
and Iran's role in it lays bear Washington's Illusions this is written by suzan
Mone who is vice president at Brookings institution and also director of
Brookings institutions foreign policy division that's the first
article the second is from a foreign policy magazine that is the
Hamas Attack Has Changed Everything by Steven Cook, a Middle East fellow
at the Council on Foreign Relations third is a story from the New York Times
it's a detailed story with multiple by-lines from June 17, 2023, and we
are leaning back on it because that story gives us an insight into where this trouble today's trouble might have started and this story is written by
Mark maiti who is the New York times' correspondent has written a fine book
The Way of the Knife on how CIA became a killing machine instead
of just being an intelligence organization Ron and Bergman Edward V and Vivian
Nim so this is a detailed story from the New York Times from June and finally
there's a Twitter thread this is a Twitter thread from Ali Amjad rizi Ali Amjad
rzv is a Pakistani Canadian author self-proclaimed atheist he's author of a
book called The Atheist Muslim his tw Twitter thread actually gives us very
brave and very sharp insights and I I'll be leaning on those also I'm sharing
all
of these with you so please go ahead and read the original as well
now what exactly is the New York Times story of June telling us the New York
Times story of June 17 2023 it is talking it's giving us a lot of inside
dope on how America at the topmost level was reaching out to Muhammad bin
Salman in Saudi Arabia and trying to bring about a Rima between Israel and
Saudi Arabia or say between Saudi Arabia and Israel because stories reported
from things that happened in Saudi Arabia first so we know that 2020
3 years ago in Trump's last days, Trump Administration was able to
secure what was called the Abraham Accords which is what brought Bahin UAE and
Israel together they established normal diplomatic relations they've had
tourists going to each other's countries and opened embassies in each
other's countries the effort at that time also was to bring in Saudi Arabia
because in the Muslim World particularly in the Sun Muslim world in the Arab
world also in that part of the Middle East in that
part of the Middle East Saudi Arabia is the most important country
also because also because the holiest places of the Muslim faith are located in
Saudi Arabia Saudi Arabia at that point has bed they had not joined this
Alliance the Abraham Accord but at the same time Saudi Arabia was flirting with
Israel but a lot was happening also behind the scenes like that famous meeting
in the new neon City that the Saudi royal family is building in fact we had
discussed that in an entire episode of kak clut of which I
will share a link with you now this story tells us that Saudi
demands seem to be quite steep so Saudi demands essentially were three number
one strengthen Saudi Arabia's security alongside American guarantees in case it
gets attacked we know that Saudis have very modern weapons a very modern Army
that but they are not pretty good they not particularly good at defending
themselves and their army is not particularly good at fighting that we have
seen also in what's happening in Yemen also we've seen also we've seen
what happens when hours you know a very primitive group has been
firing missiles at them so Saudis need foreign help Saudis need the American
umbrella so the first thing American Security guarantees should be strengthened
with a clear American guarantee to say that in case you are attacked we'll come
to your defense that's that that's a bit like NATO number two access to more
American weapons so anytime Americans are selling weapons to Saudi Arabia there
are issues at Congress Etc so they want access to
more American weapons and third and most importantly consent
to enrich uranium for civil nuclear purposes now you might say Saudi Arabia has
so much oil right why do they need nuclear energy why do they need to enrich
uranium for civil nuclear purp purposes but Saudis would turn around and say in
which case Iran has so much oil why are the Iranians doing it so Iranians are doing it to build weapons-grade uranium whether they
build weapons or not but once you have a stockpile of weapons-grade uranium you
can do what you want it just takes if remembering that famous or
inFAMOUS line used in the case of Pakistan one turn of the screwdriver right
Saudis also want their own European uranium enrichment capability for which they
want American clearances and who knows Americans cooperation ultimately
they may say 100 times that this is only for peaceful civilian purposes but
nobody will buy that everybody will see that as a
counter to Iranians enriching their uranium and you know what Israelis also
see it like that so they also feel insecure about it because they
don't want a nuclear race now beginning in the Middle East another fourth
demand that they had was some massive concessions to Palestinians because
Palestinians are a big emotional issue in Saudi Arabia so give them something
even if you don't give them full statehood that looks like as negotiations went
on the Saudis upped the ask on that one and said look we can only nor normalize
formally with Israel if a full-fledged Palestinian state is
established an independent full-fledged Palestinian state is
established now in each one is the in each one of these demands somebody
somebody would have liked to exercise a veto Israel for example would have
liked to exercise a veto with the uranium enrichment issue but also with the
Palestinian statehood because Netanyahu's government now is very conservative
very right-wing very populist in a very conservative religious sense so they
har back to old scriptures and they say they say two two-state solution is
absolutely not
possible now most of the rest of the world is committed to a
two-state solution including India including the Modi government but Netanyahu
has been pushing it in another Direction so how does he then accept the Saudi
demand for Palestinian statehood similarly Saudi Arabia would not
accept peace with Israel without a Palestinian State because what do they do
with their own public opinion you might think that they are dictatorship but
they also have a public op but they also have a public opinion and I will just
come to that in
a minute and even Biden has an issue because he's been very
critical of Muhammad bin Salman of this Saudi Administration or this Saudi
regime particularly because of Kashi's column Miss Kashi's assassination in
Turkey so he's also had to do a lot of internal correction and internal sort of
repairing of his own image at home because he had raised this to such levels
and now for him to be reaching out to Muhammad bin Salman looks like a cop-out
which it actually is so it was in this process that these talks
we're going on this was a complicated thing I see a line in the
story that says in the Middle East it takes three to Tango right the usual
thing is it takes two to tango but in the Middle East the story says it takes
three to tango three in this case would be Saudi Arabia Israel and the us but
you know what there is a fourth power that's Iran they come in Iran comes in
then sort of indirectly in their informal Alliance now or at least informal
convergence of strategic interests Russia and China also come in so what
happens if it takes
three to tango if the fourth comes in fifth comes in sixth comes
in then what does it become it's not a Tango anymore it's like a wild bang at
some wedding party or maybe or maybe a holy or a holy party that is
completely unruly and then from that situation nothing can progress in spite of
that progress was being made all sides had an interest in this working out the
Saudis wanted American guarantees nuclear enrichment and they also wanted to be
able to tell their people see we got the Palestinians
freedom and they also wanted a formal partnership with Israel
because remember what I said to you earlier that your strategic
responses are often determined not by who's your friend but by who's your enemy
so the enemy, in this case, is Iran's enemy for Israel also is Iran so enemy's
enemy I might have 100 problems with that guy but I will go and make friends
with him or have at least a transactional alliance with him that is what the
Saudi saw in it for Netanyahu all the ratings all the opinion polls
are now showing at least before the Samas attack all the opinion PO
polls have been showing that if there is a fresh election he will lose and
Israel has fresh elections all the time he has to show up his image and one way
of doing and one way of doing that was to normalize relationship with Saudi
Arabia that look I have now made Israel legitimate in the entire Arab world
that would have given him Tailwinds for his own politics and finally Biden next
year is the election next year is the election year in America he was slow to
move in the Middle East but now that he has moved if an Israel-Saudi Arabia PCT another edition of the Abraham Accords came in between
Saudi Arabia and Israel that would be a big thing to talk about for Biden in
his election campaign so everybody had reasons to move in this
direction it was moving in that direction I told you about public opinion in
Saudi Arabia so Washington Institute conducted a poll in April 2023 in South in
Saudi Arabia which showed that 78% Saudis 78% Saudis thought that
Abraham mards had a very negative impact on the region in the
Middle East so the Saudi clergy also has to deal with that public opinion they
can't go and normalize with Israel until Israelis do something really big for
the Palestinians is in this situation that Hamas walks in and what is Hamas
but a front for the Iranians, because Iranians didn't like it Iranians, thought
if this happens then a large chunk of the Sunni Muslim world the entire Arab
world in fact almost the entire Arab world comes together with Israel in in
rivalry with us so what can we do to Scuttle it now there is no
clear evidence that this is how it happened but in diplomacy in geopolitics you
have to draw your own conclusions and this looks quite logical now what does
Suzanne Mone mean when she says this is the end of America's exit strategy so
she says that for more than 20 years America has been fighting quote unquote
terrorists in the Middle East this started after 9/11 which happened in 2001
now you kept and fighting that depleted America's strength also they
were failed experiments at creating at nation buildings in Iraq and
Afghanistan Afghanistan was much worse than Iraq in Iraq some kind of democracy
did come into being not maybe did not put in power exactly the people the
Americans would have wanted but that's how democracies are Iraq still got
something Afghanistan was a complete disaster Iraq also was almost a disaster
and consumed a lot of American resources lives and also turned public opinion
against any activism overseas now she says what's happened is America would
would have thought that there were bigger problems and bigger
challenges in the world there are Russians in Ukraine there's a Russia-China
access there's also a kind of Russia-China Iran access at this point the last
thing America needed to be needed was a Middle Eastern distraction but now that this
distraction has come Americans have no option but to stay put in the Middle
East and get even more involved at a time when it might have suited them to go
away from this and turn their attention more towards China and Ukraine
in fact, China Taiwan Ukraine are America's larger strategic
interests and what this turn in the Middle East has done and that's
why she said Hamas's assault and Iranian role in it lays bear Washington's
Illusions so the illusion was now that the Middle East looked to be stabilizing there
was going to be another settlement between South Saudi Arabia and Israel this
will become a more stable place so I can then go and turn my attention fully to
Indo Pacific fully to China Taiwan Ukraine Etc she
said now that has changed America is drawn even more deeply
into the Middle East which is something that suits Russia in Ukraine Iran in
the Middle East and China in Taiwan and this in spite of the fact that neither
Russians nor Iranians nor the Chinese have any boots on the ground, in fact, they've invested nothing give low Tech weapons and some money to Hamas which
actually is not such a big investment that is what the Iranians have
done but that has now trapped America deeper in the Middle East
instead of being able to go away and then she goes on to say that
the big American illusion came from the idea that you could give little favors
to Iran for example Americans got their hostages released in return for which
they unfroze they unfroze $6 billion of Iranian oil revenues which had been
trapped because of the sanctions
these six billion were given back to the Iranians and she says the American
illusion was that these little favors will please the Iranians and get better
conduct from them that is not happening and she quotes from K the
Iranian supreme leader said days before the Hamas attacks and I quote The Firm
view of the Islamic Republic is that the governments that are gambling or
normalizing relations with the Zionist regime will suffer losses defeat awaits
them they are making a mistake now did he have a premonition he's a holy man he
might have had a premonition but more likely he had knowledge beforehand
although nobody is saying that with any evidence evidence right now but the
only
gainer in what has happened within the region is Iran because they
have scuttled this three-way Tango that was taking
place between Saudi Arabia Israel and the US and she also concludes that with the Iranians the basic thing hasn't changed and then she goes on to
say look whatever calculations you might make the foundational principle of the Iranian regime has not changed and what is that foundational principle it is a
determination to append the regional order by any means necessary the
regional order which is which is which is which is drawn from
American power through the Saudis through UAE and in a way also through
alliances like i2u2 i2u2 as we know is India Israel us and us because
Americans have been building new alliances in the Middle East and that is
something that really really upsets the Iranians and throws them off balance
and they've decided to do something about it and what they're telling the
Americans is that if you can use other people other nationalities
other communities to fight
your battles away from your Shores we can also do that and that is
what's happening with Hamas that is what keeps happening with Hisbah because
Iranians have strength there and some of that has been playing out in Syria as
well and that said I come to my fourth reference that is Ali Amjad RI the
Pakistani Canadian author of the book called The Atheist Muslim
he says, first of all, you can't be you can either be prop
Palestinian or Pro Hamas you can't be both now a lot of people in India also
confused when they're talking about Hamas attacks Hamas
Palestinians Palestinians also have a grievance so he says you
can't be Pro Palestinian and pro-Hamas at the same time why does he say so because
Hamas he says is more loyal to Iranian clergy than interested in betterment of
the Palestinians fate and he says Hamas is a Despicable Group which throws
Rockets which fires Rockets from its own hospitals and schools so the Israelis
would bomb them and they will then use bodies of babies and women
killed in those in those bombings to get sympathy from the world
they are not bothered about the Palestinians so please don't confuse Hamas's
cause with the Palestinian cause now your immediate reaction could be oh this
guy is obviously pro-Israel it's not that simple because he says that just as
Hamas is no friend of Palestinians all these tweets will run on your screen as
I talk he says just as Hamas is no friend of Palestinians Netanyahu is no
friend of Israel so that should settle the doubt in your mind on whether he's
an apologist for Israel he's not an apologist for Israel at least
definitely not for Netanyahu's policies in Israel he says Netanyahu has weakened
Israel in three ways number one he has gone after a single-state solution so
not a two-state solution in the process in the process he's caused a real
problem and what is the problem and that's a dilemma that I first read about in
1983 when John lar wrote his The Little Drummer girl now little drummer girl
the plot is that Mossad Mossad goes and recruits a
26-year-old British radical left radical artist with the intention
that she'll be smuggled into the Palestinian scamps she'll become a human
bomber and through her, they will reach the Palestinian underground's leadership her
case officer is a mad officer called Joseph now Joseph in that book has a
dilemma while Joseph is doing his job he's the case officer for Charlie their
key asset at the same time he thinks that look what happens if he keep these territories
occupied and Annex them into Israel if he Annex them into Israel
Israel will become an Arab majority country if it's an Arab
majority country and everybody has a vote if it's an Arab majority democracy
and everybody has a vote right then it can't remain a Zionist country because
then Arabs will be more than Jews and who knows you might get a government
where Arabs will have more seats in the CET so what is the solution then to Annex these territories and deny the right of vote to the
Arabs in which case Israel can stay a Zionist country but it
cannot be a democracy so if you want to Annex all these
territories West Bank Etc and say all these Arabs who are living here are part
of Israel then you can either be a Zionist country or you can be a democracy
you can't you can't be both that's the point Ali Amjad RZ is also making that
by pursuing this one state idea which is a very conservative right-wing
religiously driven idea Netanyahu has created a real problem in Israel and second
thing he has done is to damage Israel's interests is that he
has split he split the American Republicans and Democrats usually
in America there was total bipartisan support for the Israeli cause but he
split the Republicans and Democrats which has now caused a problem in America
because most Jews the large majority of American Jews in all polls
tell us vote for Democratic party so that has also brought about a break
between American Jewish community and the Israeli Jews then he says that his dictatorial
power grab in trying to destroy his Judiciary Etc has weakened
his system and the intelligence failure are not unconnected with that because when you get so many institutions broken when you get so many people disillusioned so many in your security Elites have been protesting that has an effect that has an impact on your capability and finally, he says that look Netanyahu is coming As Much from the scriptures and he says refer to Exodus 233132 or Deuteronomy 1.
8 these are old Jewish texts if you read these among others these
explain to you why what he's finding is a completely irrational
justification for a one-state formula that is giving the Palestinians nothing similarly
if you want to say where Hamas is coming from then check out Surah 551 5960 or
Hamas's charter of 1988 and 2017 where Hamas basically says that Israel has to be
destroyed all Jews have to be killed that's a belief because that was
prophecied in the scriptures now these references make for fascinating reading
even when I read them cursorily so one of these days, not
today because we don't have the time one of these days we'll read this up more
carefully religious references scriptural references, and also some commentaries
to bring back to you the case of what happens been to deeply conservative
irrational religious mindsets Clash so this is between two groups who believe
in the scriptures and who are religiously driven and to that extent are not fully
rational and then he goes on to conclude don't listen to nothing
to do with the religion crowd religion poisons everything religion
kills and that couldn't be clear in this case so as we enter day six of this
conflict this I thought was a good way of understanding where this conflict
is coming from from the larger geopolitics and Clash of strategic interests
involved in the region we haven't gone beyond the region as yet in the region
and also Clash of two extreme religiosities so once again I also buy this
argument that Hamas does not represent the Palestinian interest
because the Palestinian Authority PLO has recognized
Israel as a state they have accepted long back they have accepted Israel's
right to exist Hamas does not accept Israel's right to exist at the same time
or maybe you want to say on the other hand it is the Netanyahu Administration
and his politics who don't accept the idea of a Palestinian state in which case
commitments made in the past to the Palestinian Authority in return for their
recognition of Israel now do not stand so it is this mix of clashing
religious irrationality and political dishonesty that have
created this deadly cocktail as I say this remember cocktails don't always
have to be alcoholic cocktails can also be explosive which is what you have
right now in Israel
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