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THE POWER

OF ISRAEL

2 •2005
contents no. 2/2005
2 Editorial

ISRAEL AGAINST ISRAEL

4 Arnon SOFFER - What the Barrier is for


14 Aldo BAQUIS – The Kingdom of Judea Vs the State of Israel
22 Ely KARMON – Hizbullah as Strategic Threat to Israel
49 Guy BECHOR - The Party of God is Victim of its Victory

WHAT IS CHANGING IN THE MIDDLE EAST (AND WHAT IS NOT)

58 Margherita PAOLINI – Gas and Oil: Getting Along Without the Arabs in the
East

67 Abdel Ra’uf Mustafa AL-SIDDIQI – The Pretend Peace with Israel


72 David POLANKSY – Greater Middle East or Daydream?
79 Giovanni PARIGI – The Iraq that Counts and the One We See

HEARTLAND PLUS

92 Interview with Viktor Yushchenko, President of the Republic of Ukraine

97 Fabrizio MARONTA and David POLANSKY – How to Become the # 1


109 David T. ARMITAGE – What Americans can Learn from Italian Carabinieri
115 Doug BANDOW – Cities of God

121 AUTHORS
THE POWER OF ISRAEL

EDITORIAL

If This Is Victory…

T hesis: Israel has won. The second Intifada has ended in the suicide of the
Palestinian cause. Terrorism hasn’t torn apart Israeli society nor has it crushed its
economy. The wall - or “separation barrier” in the rhetoric of Jerusalem – is a success.
Arab public opinion is increasingly less inclined to get enthused for the Palestinians.
Bush is aligned with Sharon. Arafat has been buried, Saddam has been eliminated,
Baššār al-Asad’s Syria has been marginalized, ayatollah Iran has been surrounded by the
extraordinary deployment of American bases and troops between Afghanistan and the
Persian gulf; and with the Egyptian and Saudi regimes caught up in the fight for survival
against the same radical Islamic networks that wish to destroy the “Zionist entity”, who
still threatens the existence of Israel? Moreover, the Jewish State is expanding its sphere
of influence in the Middle East, almost taking on the role of chief regional power.
Antithesis: Israel has only gained time. Arabs and Muslims will never accept the
“Zionist entity”. The hatred of the Jews remains common currency in Middle Eastern
society. The Jihadists have hijacked the Palestinian cause. The police States, which in the
region feel caught in the vice of Islamic radicalism and democratization sponsored by the
United States, cannot accede to real peace with the Jewish State without risking their own
overthrow. And if they could really vote freely, in many Arab countries the archenemies of
the West and Israel would triumph. In any case, Bush won’t be around forever, nor can
he continue to unconditionally side with Sharon. In the end, demography remains the
lethal weapon of the Palestinians: by 2020, in the area between the Mediterranean and
Jordan (including Israel and the Occupied Territories), there will be a clear Arab
majority. The old debate - that has plagued the Zionist movement since its origins - of
whether the future State should be Jewish or for Jews (Judenstaat), will be resolved in
favor of the Arabs: that is, with the end of Israel and the birth of “Israelestine”, as
Gheddafi in his time hoped for, and in accordance with the formula “two peoples in one
State”.
Synthesis: the future remains uncertain, but today the Jewish State is stronger than
ever.

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R OF ISRAEL

ISRAEL AGAIINST ISRAEL


THE POWER OF ISRAEL WHAT THE BARRIER IS FOR

WHAT THE BARRIER IS FOR by Arnon SOFFER

At least for a few decades, separation of Israel from the Palestinians is inevitable,
especially due to the growing demographic disparity between the two. Otherwise, Jewish
democracy risks being overcome by an Arab-Islamic wave.

T he death or changeover in leader on the


Middle-Eastern – indeed, even on the world - political scene, often raises expectations of
great positive change. After periods of hostility and conflict, there is hope that the
adversaries might understand the futility of war and that they might reach a mutual
understanding. At the end of each world war, it was hoped that a new order would prevent
future conflicts - hopes that always went up in smoke.
The Madrid Conference in 1991 gave rise to a wave of optimism on the future of
the Middle East, to be placed under the protective umbrella of a single democratic
superpower interested in peace in the region. Even as a result of the Oslo Accords (1993-
1995), we were inundated with publications on the «New Middle East», a region in which
there would be collaboration in the areas of water resources, tourism and development
initiatives. It’s worth recalling that all these publications originated from the West, and
not from the Arab States.
So what results has all this yielded? What has been achieved?
Israel has never had so high a number of civilian victims as during this period of
euphoria. In the wake of the occupation of Iraq in 2003, and even more so after the
elections that took place there in 2005, the Western world has been flooded by new waves
of publications which have hailed the beginnings of democracy in the Arab world. Even
in relation to the Arab-Israeli conflict, and in particular the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, a
new climate of optimism has been created based on some encouraging signs: the death of
Arafat and the changes in the Palestinian leadership – the latter occurring in an orderly
manner – represent, according to many, the start of a period of moderation and
responsibility. The elections in Iraq and the American presence in that country, close to
States that encourage terrorism – which is the case with Syria and Lebanon - as well as
the Syrian army’s withdrawal from Lebanon in March-April 2005, have contributed to the
sense that major positive geopolitical changes are taking place in the region.
I would suggest that we shouldn’t raise our expectations on the basis of the hopeful
declarations of certain leaders or articles by people who allow themselves to get carried
away with their wishful thinking, but that we should base ourselves on an objective
analysis of the geographic, demographic, economic, social and religious reality on the
ground.

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This is what we aim to do in the remainder of this article. We’ll start off with an
examination of relations between Israel and bordering Arab countries, followed by a look
at relations between Israel and the Palestinians, and finally we’ll deal with the separation
barrier in Israel, asking the question: is it possible to dismantle the barrier or should its
construction be brought to completion?

Israel and the Arab States: the peace that’s possible

If we accept the supposition that world conflicts principally derive from disputes
relating to territory and natural resources, there would be no real reason for conflict
between Israel and the Arab States. However, in this case, the determining factors are
different: religious, cultural and ethnic differences, reciprocal and deep-seated fears, and
considerations relating to honour, prestige, envy and revenge.
Let’s take the case of the conflict with Syria: a small American military unit based
in Qunayţra in the Golan Heights, would be sufficient to separate Syrian forces from
Israeli ones and eliminate mutual suspicions. The water issue could have been resolved in
a meeting of no longer than an hour between the leaders of the two countries.1
The same goes for relations between Israel and Lebanon. There is no real territorial
dispute and the Palestinian refugee issue could have been resolved a long time ago just as
it has been in other parts of the world.
Official relations – be they cold, cool or lukewarm – exist today between Israel and
Egypt, Jordan, Tunisia, Morocco and some of the Persian Gulf States. Israel would be
willing to make these relations friendlier, but to do so it needs a sign from the Arab
States.
With the geopolitical changes that are occurring in the Middle East, it is to be
hoped that even the Arab States situated farthest away from Israel – namely Iraq, Libya,
Sudan, Syria, Lebanon and Algeria, and perhaps even Saudi Arabia and Yemen – will
join the group of Arab States that entertains official relations with Israel. Israel could
offer them its resources comprising human know-how and sophisticated industries, and
they could offer Israel oil, raw materials and tourism. These States are hostile to Israel
without there being any real justifications other than those related to the Palestinian issue,
the Jewish faith and ancient fears. The United States, on its own, can improve relations
between Israel and the Arab countries and guarantee peace between the parties by
offering support, piloting compromises and defending peace in the region; all this on the
condition that Europe doesn’t interfere and disturb the process. I have strong doubts as to
whether France, which today is a Christian-Muslim State, can remain neutral, given the
hostility it has displayed towards Israel from 1967 till today!
In short, geopolitical changes in the Middle East could lead to political agreements
between Israel and all the Arab countries, both near and far.

1
Cf. A. SOFFER, Rivers of Fire, Boulder 1999, Rowman and Littlefield.

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Israel and the Palestinian people: peace is a long way off

As we have already seen, as far as possible relations between Israel and the Arab
countries are concerned, optimism is justifiable in light of the geopolitical changes in
progress in the region. Unfortunately, for various reasons, the same cannot be said
regarding relations between Israel and the Palestinian people.

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First of all, there is a demographic problem. In every place in the world where an
ethnic or religious group has a rate of population growth three or four times higher than
another, it raises fears of loss of control, in particular in relation to resources. The Israeli-
Palestinian case represents the most extreme example of this: the rate of Jewish natural
population growth is 1% per annum. If we add the waves of immigration to Israel (which
are not predictable) to this, we would note that in some years, especially at the beginning
of the 1990s, the rate of population growth reached 2% per annum. In contrast, the rate of
population growth of Muslim-Arabs within the borders of Israel is 3% per annum, and in
some years has reached up to 4.5%! In 2005, the population of the Gaza Strip will grow
by between 3-4% while in some years this growth has hit 5%. In this context, population
pressures on Israel are foreseeable such as to put its resources, capacity for strategic
control and maintenance of a Western-style quality of life at serious risk.2 The high rate of
natural population growth will continue for at least the next twenty years.
In 2020, the Jewish population in Israel will reach 6.5 million people. The
Palestinian populace encircling it – namely, the Palestinians who live in Israel and those
settled in Jordan – will in that same year reach 10-12 million (Map 1)3. In such a context,
even in a situation of total peace, there is a need for a separation since only effective
fencing can offer a response to the demographic peril. Political agreements, mutual trust
or assurances on the part of the powers-that-be cannot cancel out the danger and its tragic
consequences. And this is as true in the Middle East as it is in Western Europe.
Thanks to massive economic aid to the Palestinians, it is possible to achieve
positive changes – supposing that this aid really gets into the hands of those who need it
and doesn’t go into the pockets of corrupt officials. However, the positive influences of
these changes would begin to be felt only after many years. The experience gained by
Israel regarding the improvement in condition of disadvantaged groups – such as the case
of Jews coming from Muslim countries or of Israeli Arabs – with the aim of bringing
them up to a similar condition as that of Jews coming from Western countries, indicates
that between 20 to 50 years are required to achieve this result. In other countries, the
improvement in the condition of weaker groups has required even longer periods of time.
For example, this is the case in the United States in relation to people of African or Latin
American origin, and also in France and Germany in relation to Muslims of Moroccan or
Turkish origin.
As long as the gap remains this great, Israel will continue to defend itself from the
influx of poor Palestinians who seek to improve their quality of life. Their numerically
significant presence would shift the demographic balance in favour of the Palestinians.
This threat, which endangers the very existence of the Zionist-Jewish democratic
State, places Israel in a situation of having to complete the separation barrier and of
having to maintain it for a long time to come, without taking into consideration the
geopolitical changes which are occurring today in the Middle East. The European Union
2
Cf. A. SOFFER, Israel, Demography 2004-2020, in Light of the Disengagement, Haifa 2005, Chair of
Geostrategy.
3
All the maps in this article are original works of the author (editor’s note).

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is doing exactly the same thing in its attempt to defend itself against the incursion of
people coming from less-developed areas, putting in place similar systems as those used
in Israel in Southern and Eastern Europe. The same goes for the United States on its
border with Mexico.

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As far as the economic gap is concerned, we should stress the fact that the ratio
between the GDP in Israel and that of the Palestinians is 18:1! This is the highest
differential in the world between two bordering nations. Just to make a few comparisons,
the economic gap between the USA and Mexico is 4.5:1 and between Germany and
Poland, 3:1. Just on its own, this enormous economic divide between Israel and the
Palestinians will provide the impetus for a very heavy burden being placed on the Jewish
State.

The economic issue will have to be made a focal point of discussion even if
positive developments occur in the region, as the poverty of the Palestinians and dearth of

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resources present on the West Bank and in the Gaza Strip will make rapid economic
growth difficult - even with substantial Western aid. Many years will pass before the
West Bank and the Gaza Strip can feel the effects of economic development that radically
changes their quality of life. And until the economic gap between the two bordering
nations is reduced, the separation barrier will have the very important function of
protecting the Israeli economy, limiting the volume of illegal traffic and impeding the
incursion into Israel of hundreds of thousands of Palestinian workers – the majority of
whom could remain living within its borders, in contrast to what happens in Singapore
and Malaysia for instance. There, every morning, thousands of Malaysian workers cross
the border to Singapore and cross back in the evening to return to their homes in Malaysia
at the end of the working day. A model of this kind is impracticable in a Middle East
known to all for its lack of order, which forms part of the culture of its inhabitants.
In the case of Israel, the demographic and economic differences are particularly
striking, since the distance between the border and the area representing the heart of Israel
is very small. Only 15 kilometres separate the centre of Tel Aviv from the border, while
there is only one kilometre between the outskirts of the metropolis and the beginning of
the Palestinian territory. For this reason, the separation barrier between Israel and the
Palestinians must be more effective than that existing between the United States and
Mexico! No geopolitical agreement in the Middle East would enable this necessity to be
overcome.
Beyond the geographic, demographic, economic and social divides, national and
religious differences, together with deep-seated reciprocal fears, are also at play here. All
this reinforces the hostility of the parties and transforms their conflict into the most
profound the world has known in the last sixty years.
Islamic leaders do not recognise Jewish law over any part of the Israeli territory.
Their position is that all Israel is waqf land, meaning land that belongs to the Muslim
sacred heritage and is therefore inalienable. For this reason, the dispute over the issue of
Jerusalem, and particularly over the Temple Mount, is irresolvable. No foreign force
could defend this city.

Two scenarios

I would like to present two possible scenarios for the future of the Arab (in the
Territories) – Israeli (in Israel) conflict.
The first, which we’ll call «the pessimistic or realistic scenario», envisages that
serious changes in the region will not take place. The attempts to resolve the conflict will,
one after the other, fail as has happened in the past. Leaders will change, and will change
their minds, but – as has always been the case – it will be the extremists who will
determine the continuation of the conflict. In the meantime, other events will take place in
the world which will attract the attention of public opinion and the world will tire of the
continual attempts to find a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. If all this occurs,
there is no doubt that the separation barrier will be vital for the future of Israel.

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According to the second «optimistic» scenario, Western powers will succeed in


enforcing an agreement between the States in the Region. The Arab States will be forced
to sign peace accords with Israel, «betraying» the Palestinian question. Syria, Lebanon
and Egypt would stop assisting Palestinian terrorism and the activity of the latter, for its
part, would progressively diminish until it reaches acceptable levels.
Even in this case, the separation barrier will be necessary to prevent attacks.
The West can do nothing to change the geographic reality of the Land of Israel. It
can’t change the distance between Tel Aviv and the border, just as it can’t overly
accelerate the improvement in quality of life of the Palestinians. A change of this kind,
assuming it occurs without corruption and in a democratic or pseudo-democratic fashion,
will take many years.
The existing divides between Israel, as a developed democratic country, and the
Palestinian Autonomous Territory, as a Third World State, will remain great. For this
reason, it will be necessary to close the borders and to control who enters and leaves
(exactly as occurs on the borders between the USA and Mexico and between Europe and

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North Africa). The very high rate of population growth among Palestinians will not fall
rapidly, and its consequences will impede the economic and social development of
Palestinian society for many years.
From Israel’s point of view, it is important that there is surveillance over trade and
social contacts between Israeli Arabs and Arabs who live in Gaza and on the West Bank.
This is to ensure that these economic relations are conducted according to normally-
accepted modern standards (Map 2).

The barrier and its path

The path of the barrier, as it is proposed, can be seen in the maps in this article.
Map 3 gives a view of the entire country, while Map 4 zooms in on Jerusalem. The
considerations which have led to the determination of this course are based on the
principle that the maximum number of Jews should be included within the borders of
Israel.
In Jerusalem, the barrier generally traces the eastern borders of the city and, where
there are no particular legal issues – meaning doubts of the Ministry of Justice or appeals
to the Supreme Court – it has already been constructed. In other areas, such as in the
vicinity of the Tomb of Rachael, the works have been blocked as a result of objections
raised by Christian religious organisations. Then there is the area between Al-Ezariya and
A’nata, which has been left without a barrier with a view to the reunification of Jerusalem
and Ma’ale Adumim: there is much discussion on this point with the United States, as the
issue of the Palestinian territorial continuity between the area of Rāmallāh and
Bethlehem/Hebron still has to be resolved.
In the north, the barrier between the River Jordan and Rosh Ha’ain is almost
complete. In that area, the barrier has shown its effectiveness, blocking all attempts at
infiltration. After a long wait for the decision of the Supreme Court, construction work
subsequently commenced from Rosh Ha’ain to Jerusalem, without taking in the city of
Ariel for the moment. Around this small town, however, a part of the route has already
been defined and there are even parts of the barrier already constructed.
The go-ahead that the Supreme Court is giving to the works, rejecting the various
appeals or proposing adjustments, has given a strong momentum to the work even in the
south.
It is therefore clear that the barrier is essential, also to preserve Israel as a Western
island capable of keeping afloat and not being engulfed by the sea of Muslim-Arabs that
surrounds it.
The optimistic scenario assumes extraordinarily positive developments in the
Palestinian camp: namely, the installation of a Western-style democracy, the fight against
terrorism, economic development, recognition of Israel by Islam, the end of the fear of a
Zionist invasion and the overcoming of frustrations attributable to how much Israel has
been able to achieve. These processes take time, and in the meantime separation remains
necessary. No foreign army, no economic aid, and no speeches by presidents, kings or
prime ministers can change the abovementioned reality.

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When, within 20-50 years, the Middle East becomes part of the Global Village and
militant Islam becomes moderate or is defeated, then Israel can dismantle the barrier that
separates it from the Palestinians, Europe can dismantle the barrier that separates it from
North Africa and the United States can dismantle the barrier dividing it from Mexico.
Then, perhaps, we will truly have reached the end of this affair. But until then, the barrier,
which the enemies of the Jewish State consider an evil, will have a vital role in the
defence of Israel, its culture, its economy and its democracy.

Translation by John Mifsud

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THE POWER OF ISRAEL THE KINGDOM OF JUDEA vs.
THE STATE OF ISRAEL

THE KINGDOM OF JUDEA Vs


THE STATE OF ISRAEL by Aldo BAQUIS

The nationalist-religious extremist groups condemn Sharon as a traitor, accusing him of


not being Jewish. They dream of a monarchy governed by Mosaic Law. The Sanhedrin
has been revived and there are risks of alignment with the most radical settlers. Is civil
war possible?

A t first glance, it is easy to underestimate the


subversive Israeli Right. The small number of its ranks, together with the eccentricity of
its political agenda of substituting the prime minister with a descendent of King David, as
well as permanently dissolving the Knesset so as to place their trust in a rabbinic
Sanhedrin instead, have for a long time kept the followers of the “Leadership of the
Faithful” in a political limbo where, as a rule, not even the most radical exponents of the
settlers’ movement dared to venture.
In the Israeli press, those who look back nostalgically to the biblical monarchy of
three thousand years ago are treated with contempt mixed with derisive sarcasm. In
technological and western Tel Aviv, there is little patience shown towards those who
years ago went into raptures when, in a rare event, a heifer was born in a stable in Galilee
perfectly-formed and with a uniformly red coat; namely, precisely the animal which one
day would have been sacrificed on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem to cleanse the people
of Israel - had it not been, unfortunately, for the stubborn tuft of white hair poking out of
its tail, deemed incompatible with the rigid requirements of orthodox Judaism.
In recent months, Shin Bet, the internal security service, has seen to wiping off the
mocking grins aimed at these zealots. Already by the end of 2003, the head of Shin Bet,
Avi Dichter, warned that the radical Right potentially represents a strategic threat for
Israel because there are elements at work within it that are unscrupulous, ready to attack
the al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock, in the Esplanade of the Mosques in
Jerusalem, which the Jews call the Temple Mount. An event of this kind, according to
Shin Bet, could have catastrophic consequences and could incite the entire Muslim world
against Israel.
There is no shortage of precedents. At the beginning of the 1980s, a group of
Jewish zealots (among whom were quite a few that had military experience) planned to
attack the mosques in Jerusalem both for practical reasons – namely, to block the
impending retreat from the Sinai in the context of the peace accord with Egypt – and for
religious reasons, that is, to remove the “eyesore” (Islamic places of worship) from the

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Esplanade of the Mosques and “to cleanse it” with a view to reconstructing of the new
Temple.
The decision of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to give up the Gaza Strip and to clear
out the eight thousand settlers who live there has torn apart the rabbinic world. In the
orthodox urban areas of Mea Shearim (Jerusalem) and Bene' Braq (Tel Aviv),
traditionally alienated from the institutions of the secular Zionist State, the decision to
dismantle 20 colonies at Gaza and four small settlements on the northern West Bank has
been approved without creating serious problems. In parliament, the Ashkenazic Torah
Front supports the coalition while the Sephardic party Shas, also in the opposition, is
focussing on social issues.
The situation is completely different in the rabbinic colleges, which are inspired by
religious nationalism and which for decades have taught their disciples that the State of
Israel was a necessary tool for the salvation of the Jewish people. For this significant
school of religious thought, the Six-Day War and the “liberation” of the lands sacred to
Judaism (the Old City of Jerusalem, Hebron with the Tomb of the Patriarchs, Beit El and
Nablus) had a feel of divine intervention about them. Sure, the leaders of this school
would say until recently, the various Israeli generals (Yitzhak Rabin, Moshe Dayan, and
even Ariel Sharon) were acting in a secular context. Perhaps they might seem to be
“gentiles expressing themselves in Hebrew”; and yet, in spite of themselves, they were
the instruments of a higher, deterministic will. For this reason, these rabbinic colleges
have systematically churned out idealists ready to offer themselves as volunteers both in
the colonization of the freed lands and in the armed forces necessary to defend them. It is
no accident that today, in the highest ranks of the army, there are quite a lot of officers
who wear kippahs or skullcaps.
In this peculiar rabbinic world, the pragmatic evolution of Sharon has created a
split which is not only political, but also cultural and even theological. It’s too early to say
for sure, but some have sensed that it’s the beginning of a Copernican revolution.
This is why in March, the ex-Rabbi Ashkenazic leader Avraham Shapira, from the
vantage point of his 90 years of age and from his pedestal of revered master of the
nationalist-religious rabbinic colleges, launched an inflammatory appeal: “After Jewish
Passover”, he said, “whoever provides military services is directly or indirectly furthering
Sharon’s plans. Have you received a draft card? In reality, you’ve received a card which
means the destruction and expulsion of the inhabitants of the colonies”. In his opinion,
soldiers who are religious should refuse to obey the clearing out orders.
Even up till recently, it would have been unthinkable that an exponent of religious
nationalism would incite desertion and mass disobedience. In the horrified eyes of these
religious leaders, the overly-secular Sharon has therefore ceased to be “an instrument of
divine will in spite of himself” and has resumed the appearance of the “gentile who
expresses himself in Hebrew”. In this climate, it is no coincidence that at the end of April,
the small orthodox journal Shaa' Tova' ba-Hadashot raised doubts about whether Sharon
is really a Jew. His mother, Vera Sheinerman – says the journal – was an assimilated Jew
of Russian origin. But his maternal grandmother, according to these (probably unfounded)

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“revelations”, was a non-Jewish Russian. According to Orthodox Judaism, “Arik” Sharon


is therefore not Jewish, but has rather absorbed in his blood an element of Russian rural
anti-Semitism. This finally explains, in the eyes of the zealots, the “eagerness” of the
Cossack-turned-prime minister of Israel to expel Jews from their homes and raze their
synagogues to the ground.
A photomontage in which the image of Sharon was superimposed over that of
Stalin in uniform was hung from the city walls of Jerusalem. In the radical right-wing
Israeli press, Sharon is now portrayed as a dictator who cynically tramples on democracy
owing to his evident weakness in the face of the Palestinian Intifada. He’s a helmsman
without a compass, without solid Jewish roots. The one-time warrior has aged – say the
articles – and he certainly won’t know how to defend Judea-Samaria (the West Bank)
when external pressures call upon him for further redeployments. When they look to
Jerusalem, the exponents of the radical Right see a discredited and corrupt prime minister,
flanked by an unruly Knesset and by parties which internal splits and cynicism have
rendered impotent. A keen desire for something new and drastically purifying can be
sensed in the most extremist settlements and in the most lively rabbinic colleges.
In a recent television interview, Sharon said that in Israel, there is a very
radicalised political atmosphere, which is perhaps the prelude to a civil war. An ex-
Mossad head, Dany Yatom, raised the risk of a coup d’état that could be led by high-
ranking officers manipulated by subversive rabbis.
In spring 2005, we can say that religious nationalism, which for decades had been
one of the pillars of the secular Zionist State, is forging ahead in its march towards taking
militant positions. The gap between it and subversive right-wing fringe groups
(aficionados of the Kingdom, the Sanhedrin and the Temple Mount) has reduced. This
summer, with the beginning of the withdrawal from Gaza, the two forces could even unite
or forge a tactical alliance. Shin Bet says that the fusion of the ideological fervour of
those who look back nostalgically to the biblical monarchy, with the nationalist-religious
leaders’ perfect acquaintance with the corridors of power as well as military strategies,
does not bode well.

A king, a Sanhedrin and a temple in Jerusalem

Seen from the subversive Right’s perspective, the State of Israel is a hostile entity
because it is shaped on the basis of western culture, which is foreign to the way of life and
thinking of these zealots. Some months ago, M.D. Ben-Ami, pseudonym of a right-wing
polemicist, needed a good 900 pages to list in a pamphlet (entitled: Jacob’s worm and
uncle Ishmael) all the inherent ills of the Israeli mass media, the judicial system and the
academic world. In his view, they are elite and characterised by a cosmopolitan outlook,
lack Jewish roots and are very aggressively against orthodoxy.
Perhaps there will never be the civil war feared by Sharon. But a creeping cultural
war has been underway for some time. According to these zealots, on one side there are
“the Israelis” (a term pronounced in a pejorative tone), namely “the gentiles who express

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themselves in Hebrew” and who could easily be Americans, Danes or Swedes. On the
other side of the barricade, however, are “the Jews” with a capital “J”: those who, in
contrast to Sharon, have not lost the “compass”, which is represented by the Bible and its
precepts. They are therefore those who are predestined to take over control of the helm
one day.
Manhigut Emunit (Leadership of the Faithful), is the title of an ideological text
published recently by one of these zealots named Mordechai Karpel. Pursuing the
technique of infiltration behind “enemy” lines, Karpel – along with another ideologist
Moshe Feiglin and with many hundreds of their followers – joined the Likud and is now
part of the Central Committee (of around three thousand members).
Ten years after the tragic events in Kings Square in Tel Aviv – and even today the
ambiguous role of Shin Bet and its agent Avishay Raviv remains distressingly obscure –
we can however say that the first victim of the slowly growing conflict between “Israelis”
and “Jews” was the Labour prime minister Yitzhak Rabin, the definitive sabra cut down
by gunfire by the zealot Igal Amir - not only to stop him from giving up strips of the Land
of Israel to the Arabs, but also to avoid the danger that as a result of regional peace
accords, Israel would be transformed into a western State like many others, and would no
longer be anchored to specific Jewish values.
In a recent interview, Rabbi Yossef Dayan, one of the advocates of a return to
monarchy and close to the new Sanhedrin, said “In short, Judaism and western democracy
are incompatible”. This is a lesson which he says he learnt thirty years ago from Rabbi
Meir Kahane, the founder of the right-wing subversive group Kach, outlawed in 1994
after the massacre of Palestinians carried out by a member of that organisation at the
Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron.
“As far as I’m concerned”, added Dayan (who in 1995 uttered a kabbalistic curse
against Rabin, the Pulsa de Nura or “Lashes of Fire”), “the Knesset can “democratically”
establish that the weekly day of rest in Israel is Tuesday. In my opinion, as a Jew, it will
always and only ever be Saturday”. Rabbi Dayan, author of a recently published book
entitled “The Throne and the Crown”, believes that the gap between “Israelis” on the one
hand and “Jews” on the other is so great that it could one day translate into a physical
separation between the State of Israel and the Kingdom of Judea. As well as appropriate
structures, the future monarchy will need a candidate for the throne – and he believes
himself perfectly suitable as a direct descendent of the lineage of King David, the only
line authorised to guide the chosen people.
One of the leading theorists on the transition from western parliamentary
democracy to a monarchy is Professor Hillel Weiss of the Ber Ilan University (in Tel
Aviv), who is currently also serving as a spokesman for the New Sanhedrin. In his book
“The King’s Way” (2003), Weiss explains that the move to a democratic monarchy has
become “an issue of existential nature” for Israel, because parliamentary democracy has a
harmful nature, as it pushes Israelis to assimilation to other western regimes “and wipes
out the Jews as individuals, as a religion and as a State”. For instance, Weiss finds it
untenable that lay judges sitting on the Supreme Court may establish if someone is a Jew.

17
THE POWER OF ISRAEL THE KINGDOM OF JUDEA vs.
THE STATE OF ISRAEL

He finds it repugnant that there are Arab parliamentarians in the Knesset “who identify
with the enemy”. Israel, he claims, is in fact governed by “Hellenising oligarchies”.
The only beacon of salvation is therefore an oath of loyalty to the King of Kings
and to his Law. Sovereignty – theorises Weiss – doesn’t descend from a race that is
merely a motley crowd of ignoramuses, but directly from God. “There can be no
legitimate regime in Jerusalem if not that of a democratic monarch”, concludes the
professor. “Only in this way can the Jews regain their identity”.
In his book on monarchy, Rabbi Dayan jumps ahead in time and anticipates the
role of the future King of Judea. He will have no more qualms in the fight against the
enemy, nor will he worry about not striking “innocent civilians”. “At the head of our
army, the King will know how to come out as victor of the conflict: he will keep the cities
of the enemy besieged to then raze them to the ground. Terrorism has a military solution.”
Thus, the monarch will see to “Jewifying” the education system and the judicial
system. The Supreme Court of Jerusalem will become obsolete on that day, and will hand
over the mantle to the Sanhedrin composed of 71 doctrinal masters (dayanim). Things are
already happening on this front. On 13 October 2004, a meeting of the new Sanhedrin
was held for the first time, after a hiatus of 1660 years, on the shores of Lake Tiberiade in
the evocative synagogue of Abulafia. “A historic day for the Jews” the settlers’ radio
station Channel 7 would call it the next day. The “Israelis” however, in their newspapers,
on that day found only a brief mention. Speaking in the name of the new institution,
Rabbi Yishai Baabed said then to the settlers’ radio station that “the Sanhedrin has been
conceived as a point of reference both for aspects of daily life as well as in relation to
greater national issues”; hence, as a theoretical alternative not only to the Supreme Court
but also the Knesset. “Our edicts will be based solely on Mosaic Law”, added the rabbi.
“The revolution has begun”, exclaimed the overwhelmed hundred-year-old kabbalistic
rabbi Yitzhak Kaduri. “We want a monarchic regime in place of the current fascist regime
which only pretends to be democratic. And we want the Temple of Jerusalem”.
Proclamation after proclamation: this is how the plan for a Kingdom of Judea is
brought into focus by these zealots. The territory has already been identified: the West
Bank, scattered with colonies where 240 thousand inhabitants live, to which another 200
thousand Israelis in East Jerusalem can theoretically be added. The regime would be:
monarchic, overseen by a Sanhedrin (which for nearly over a year now has met regularly
to discuss topical issues; in April, for example, it asked Pope Benedict XVI to promptly
give back to the Jews all their treasures still held in the Vatican). The candidate for the
throne is identifiable, according to Rabbi Dayan, from among the descendents of the six
familial clans: the Abrabanels, the Berdugos, the Charlaps, the Dayans, the Roths and the
Shaaltiels. The military potential is based on the experience developed by the settlers
during their military service and on the quantity of arms and ammunition stockpiled in
over thirty years of the Israeli regime kindly turning a blind eye.
The last component of the plan of the zealots concerns the Temple Mount. Even on
this front, there are those who have been working to forcefully make the issue a top
priority in the national agenda - namely the Revava (meaning: ten thousand people)

18
THE POWER OF ISRAEL THE KINGDOM OF JUDEA vs.
THE STATE OF ISRAEL

group, which operates in the extremist settlement of Tapuach (Nablus) and is led by
David Ha-Ivri, another follower of Rabbi Kahane. At the beginning of April, Ha-Ivri
attempted to organise a march of ten thousand Jews to the Temple Mount, deeply
alarming the leaders of Waqf (Agency for the Protection of Islamic Property in Palestine)
who, among other things, feared an attack on the al-Aqsa Mosque, or attacks of a similar
nature.
On the Jewish Zealot “D-Day” (the first day of the Jewish month Nissan, or 10
April), three thousand Israelis in anti-guerrilla gear took positions around the Esplanade
of the Mosques to block the albeit minimal threat. Ha-Ivri only managed to assemble a
few dozen followers. Dragged off to the nearest police station, he made it clear that he
will be back at the entrance of the Temple Mount, punctually on the first day of every
Jewish month, to reclaim the right to pray in the most sacred place for Jews. “In the end,
we will enter with heads held high, and not by night like chicken thieves”, he underlined.
Ha-Ivri finds the current situation absurd and indecent. In order to not anger
Muslim believers, the Israeli police allow entry only to small groups of Jews and these are
followed closely. “They even prohibit us from showing our national flag in our most
sacred place” exclaims Ha-Ivri. “One of our companions, who dared to mumble a prayer,
was accused by the police of having committed an indecent act in a public place. It was as
if he had gone out nude in the centre of Tel Aviv.”
As with all revolutionaries, even Ha-Ivri has a long-term plan: to change the status
quo on the Esplanade of the Mosques. “Whether they like it or not, the Muslims will have
to get used to our presence”, he declares. For him, the main issue is not the Muslims, but
the holiness of the Mount, where the Temple of Jerusalem stood until 70 A.D. The area of
the Sancta Sanctorum is prohibited to Jews, and its exact location has been lost over the
years. In theory, inadvertently, Ha-Ivri and company may already be walking over it.
“Have no fear, all is resolved” explains the zealot now, who has had detailed maps
of the Esplanade printed in which the areas “added” after the destruction of the Temple
are highlighted in garish colours, and where, in his opinion, today it is right to enter, pray
and (one day) build a fitting synagogue (see coloured map). To avoid embarrassing
encounters, Revava has even planned two separate entrances to the Esplanade: one for
men and one for women. Before entering the Mount, it is necessary to “purify oneself”
with ablutions.
Even Weiss, in his book on the monarchy, insists on the necessity of Jews
returning to pray on the Temple Mount. Once, he recalls, Orthodox rabbis prohibited
entrance to the Esplanade tout-court. But some years ago, after much insistence, the
Rabbinate of Jerusalem authorised – at least in theory – the construction of a model of a
synagogue to be erected on the Temple Mount: not in place of the Islamic holy places, but
beside them. On a private basis, architect Gideon Harlap has prepared nine possible
synagogue models. Needless to say the mere thought of Jews reciting prayers on the
Esplanade of the Mosques is intolerable to Palestinian Islamic leaders. They believe that
in September 2000 (during a visit which preceded the Intifada), Ariel Sharon, then leader

19
THE POWER OF ISRAEL THE KINGDOM OF JUDEA vs.
THE STATE OF ISRAEL

of the right-wing opposition, in fact desecrated the al-Aqsa Mosque; this is despite the
fact that he didn’t enter the mosque but remained on the Esplanade.
It is important not to lose sight of the size of these groups, whose activities
frequently overlap. When put to the test, Revava only assembled a few dozen militants in
the streets. Professor Weiss is the spokesman of a Sanhedrin of whose existence the
average Israeli in the street has no idea. Rabbi Dayan, pretender to the throne, is so
unpopular with mainstream rabbis that in the settlement where he lives (Psagot, near
Ramallah), local leaders would like to stop him giving interviews.
Until recently, Weiss, Kaduri, Ha-Ivri, Dayan and others like them acted eagerly
but always in a political limbo comprised of a few thousand people. The forecast
withdrawal from Gaza has now triggered a process of alignment with the militant factions
of the settlers’ movement, which has caused a rise in the activities of the subversive Right
and has forced Shin Bet to also focus their attention in that direction.

Translation by John Mifsud

Explanatory note for colour map of the Temple Mount on following page

At the time of the Israeli occupation of the Temple Mount in 1967, Orthodox Rabbis prohibited Jews from
going up the Mount for fear that they might walk over the inner sanctum of King Solomon’s Temple, the
Sancta Sanctorum, where in biblical times only the High Priest could enter. That place (Ezrà, in Hebrew)
was considered the seat of the Shekinah, or the Divine Presence. Over the years, on the insistence of
nationalist Rabbis, that ban has been relaxed. Orthodox Rabbis were made to note that the width of
Solomon’s Temple was approximately half that of the Wailing Wall. A large area of the Temple Mount
was furthermore added by King Herod later on, meaning that it was of necessity outside the forbidden
area.
Even the zealots agree that entry to the Temple Mount necessarily requires an act of purification to be
carried out via ablution in a “miqve” (a rainwater pool). After which, escorted by the police, they pass
along the perimeter wall, careful not to get close to the Dome of the Rock which, according to their belief,
was erected on the site where the Temple once rose. During these visits, men and women remain separated
for reasons of modesty. Even with these precautions, today many Orthodox Rabbis still oppose visits to
the Temple Mount.

Key to the ten places indicated in the map prepared by the Revavà group

1. Wailing Wall Plaza and the Mograbi Gate


2. King Solomon’s Stables
3. South-east Roadbed
4. Shushan Gate (destroyed)
5. Mercy Gate
6. King Solomon’s altar
7. Gate of the Tribes
8. Lions’ Gate
9. Observer’s Gate
10. Cotton Gate
(Aldo Baquis)

20
THE POWER OF ISRAEL THE KINGDOM OF JUDEA vs.
THE STATE OF ISRAEL

21
THE POWER OF ISRAEL HIZBULLAH AS STRATEGIC
THREAT TO ISRAEL

HIZBULLAH AS STRATEGIC
THREAT TO ISRAEL by Ely KARMON

Origins, ideology and tactics of the political-terrorist movement based in southern


Lebanon. Its ambiguities and links with Teheran and Damascus. The disarmament of
Nasr Allah’s militias is unlikely, also due to the weakness of international pressure.

O ver the past decade, various developments -


in particular, the 1992 Lebanese parliamentary elections, the significant internal
developments in Iran and Syria, and the Israeli unilateral withdrawal from southern
Lebanon in May 2000 - led analysts to predict that Hizballah would transform itself from
an international terrorist organization into a Lebanese political party.1 Despite these
developments, however, Hizballah continued to use international terrorism as a strategic
tool for advancing its goals. The organization regards terrorism not only as a legitimate
military strategy but as a religious duty, part of a “global jihad.”
Hizballah represents a strategic threat to Israel on three levels: as a major
independent player with clear strategic goals in the Lebanese arena, in the Israeli –
Palestinian conflict and in the Middle East as a whole; as an arm of the Syrian army; and
as a proxy of the Iranian religious regime.
As Hussein Agha, an Arab scholar puts it: “Hizballah operates in a theater where
four immediate forces provide the coordinates within which it has to survive and fulfill its
purpose: Syria, Iran, the Lebanese government and the wider Lebanese society. Beyond
those four immediate forces are the Palestinian scene and the Arab world and its moods.
Then come international considerations, especially those pertaining to the US and Europe.
Israel is the defined enemy and as such whatever it does, or doesn't do, is of direct impact.
Part of the success story of Hizballah has been its ability to juggle these forces and keep
them relatively docile.”2

1
See for instance Augustus Richard Norton, “Hizballah and the Israeli Withdrawal from Southern
Lebanon,” Journal of Palestine Studies, XXX, No.1 (Autumn 2000), pp. 25, 33-4 and Sami G. Hajjar,
Hizballah: Terrorism, National Liberation, Or Menace? Strategic Studies Institute Monographs, U.S.
Army War College, August 2002, pp. 29-35. A year after publishing his article, confronted with the reality
of Hizballah’s aggressiveness against Israel’s northern border, Norton recognized that he was mistaken
when he “expected the border region to be calm and saw the Israeli exit as a remarkable opportunity for
Lebanon to get on the path of recovery.”
2
Hussein Agha, “A note on Hizballah,” in Hizballah and the Lebanon-Israel border, bitterlemons-
international, Edition 36, Volume 2, September 23, 2004, at http://www.bitterlemons-international.
org/previous.php?opt=1&id=57 .

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THE POWER OF ISRAEL HIZBULLAH AS STRATEGIC
THREAT TO ISRAEL

Israel’s withdrawal from southern Lebanon on May 24, 2000, was regarded as a
major victory by Hizballah, one that enhanced its regional reputation and strengthened its
commitment to terrorism as a strategic tool. As Hassan Nasrallah, the organization’s
secretary-general, rightly remarked: “One cannot easily downplay this achievement by
Hizballah, since throughout the 1990s it had remained almost the sole group in any Arab
state committed to implementing an armed struggle against Israel. It…achieved what no
other Arab country or army had been able to do: oust Israel from Arab territory without
the Arab side committing to any concession.” 3

The Lebanese arena

Since May 2000 Hizballah has practically taken control over southern Lebanon,
where the Lebanese army has no foothold, and with Syrian backing has transformed it
into an “extraterritorial” base for guerrilla and terrorist activity against Israel.
The main area of direct military confrontation between Hizballah and the Israeli
Defense Forces (IDF) is in the Shebaa Farms area, a 15-square-mile mountainside along
Lebanon's southeast border with the Golan Heights claimed by Lebanon, but belonging to
Syria according to the UN. Hizballah periodically attacks mountaintop IDF outposts with
anti-tank missiles, Katyusha rockets and mortar rounds.
Hizballah has expanded its arsenal of weaponry acquiring armaments capable of
reaching a greater number of Israeli targets. Currently, the organization is estimated to
have some 13,000 rockets and missiles. These include the SA-7 surface-to-air missile and
the Fajr-5 surface-to-surface rocket (which, with a range of forty-five miles, is capable of
reaching the Israeli cities of Haifa and Hedera).4
The organization leadership pretends that its military activity is intended to liberate
the Shebaa Farms and defend the Lebanese territory against Israeli aggression and is
coordinated with the Lebanese government.5 Besides its infringement on UN decisions, a
review of this activity will show that it had to do more with regional aims and not defense
of Lebanese interests.
In October 2000, four months after the Israeli withdrawal from southern Lebanon,
Hizballah exploited the eruption of the Palestinian intifada and decided it was time to

3
Hassan Nasrallah, interview, al-Jazeera Television, May 27, 2000.
4
Gary Gambill, “Hezbollah’s Strategic Rocket Arsenal,” Middle East Intelligence Bulletin, 4, no. 11
(November–December 2002) at www.meib.org/articles/0211_l2.htm.
5
Referring to Hizballah’s pretext of the Israeli occupation of the Sheeba farms, Norton acknowledges that
“[w]hen the issue first arose in the spring of 2000, few Lebanese had even heard of the Shebaa farms, and
even senior Hizballah officials were ignorant of the case.” But again he refused to recognize the
aggressiveness of Hizballah and its active interference in the Palestinian intifada: “I am not aware of any
credible evidence to support Israel’s claims that Hizballah is active on the ground in Gaza or the West
Bank.” See Augustus Richard Norton, “Addendum,” in Martha Neff Kessler, George Emile Irani, Peter
Gubser, Augustus Richard Norton, Lebanon and Syria: Internal and Regional Dimensions, edited
transcript of the twenty-fifth in a series of Capitol Hill conferences convened by the Middle East Policy
Council, May 23, 2001.

23
THE POWER OF ISRAEL HIZBULLAH AS STRATEGIC
THREAT TO ISRAEL

resume its artillery attacks on northern Israel and kidnap three Israeli soldiers. This
operation was intended to show the support and solidarity with the fight of the
Palestinians and to get hold of a bargaining chip for the negotiations on the liberation of
Hizballah prisoners in Israeli hands. Until the beginning of 2002 Hizballah’s artillery and
bombing activity has been sporadic and low-key, killing 3 soldiers and wounding 4
others.
However, during much of 2002, Hizballah appeared to consider opening a “second
front” against Israel from southern Lebanon either before or parallel to impending US
action against Iraq. The organization’s leaders no doubt hoped that Arabs and Muslims
would support such a strategy and put pressure on their governments to do the same.
Hizballah may also have hoped that an opportunity would arise to drag Syria and other
Arab states into an all-out regional war with Israel and the United States.
It is against this background that one should view the escalation in Hizballah’s
military activity in March - April 2002. On March 12, Hizballah-backed Palestinian
infiltrators crossed the Lebanon-Israel border and attacked nonmilitary vehicles in
northern Israel, killing five civilians and one member of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).
This incident - the first infiltration from Lebanon since the May 2000 Israeli withdrawal -
occurred two weeks before Hamas’s deadly Passover suicide bombing in Netanya sparked
the IDF’s Operation Defensive Shield, Israel’s first major ground operation inside the
Palestinian Authority (PA). In other words, Hizballah had already decided to escalate its
operations well before Israel launched its harsh response to increasing Palestinian
violence.
On August 29, 2002, after four months of tense calm, Hizballah launched a new
attack on Israeli outposts in the Shebaa Farms. This attack was probably timed to coincide
with several developments: increased U.S.-Israeli pressure on Syria and Lebanon on the
eve of U.S. Congressional discussion of the Syria Accountability Act, the escalation of
Washington’s rhetoric regarding Iraq, and Iraqi vice president Taha Yassin Ramadan’s
visit to Lebanon. Its objective was to send a “swift and hot message to the U.S.
administration and the international community from the Lebanese-Syrian-Iranian axis,”6
as well as a “reminder and warning to Israel that it cannot go far in its aggression against
the Palestinians while Washington is preparing for an attack against Iraq.”7
Israel's penetrations of Lebanese airspace with aircraft and reconnaissance drones
are another source of confrontation. Hizballah accuses Israel of aggression and breach of
Lebanon’s sovereignty, when in reality this air activity is due to monitor Hizballah’s own
growing heavy arming and instigated attacks. In response to the over-flights, Hizballah
anti-aircraft gunners occasionally fire 57mm rounds across the border. The rounds

6
George Alam, “Lebanese Writer Discusses ‘Message’ of Hizballah’s Attack 29 Aug,” al-Safir (Beirut),
August 31, 2002, Foreign Broadcast Information Service, Near East and South Asia (FBIS-NES-2002-
0901), August 31, 2002.
7
“Lebanon: Hizballah Attack 29 Aug Linked to Iraqi, Palestinian Developments,” summary of reports
appearing in al-Safir (Beirut) and al-Mustaqbal (Beirut), n.d., Foreign Broadcast Information Service,
Near East and South Asia (FBIS-NES-2002-0830), August 30, 2002.

24
THE POWER OF ISRAEL HIZBULLAH AS STRATEGIC
THREAT TO ISRAEL

explode in the air thousands of feet above Israeli towns, spattering whatever lies below
with light shrapnel. In August 2003 one Israeli civilian was killed and four were wounded
by such anti aircraft fire.
Hizballah also uses the blue line as a means of retaliating for Israeli actions beyond
south Lebanon, such as alleged assassinations of party officials and major developments
in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.8
By July 2003, The International Crisis Group (ICG) multinational think tank
evaluated that “armed attacks on the Shab’a farms seem no longer to be on the agenda of
Hizbollah, which appears eager to move away from an issue that is losing its
attraction…Hizbollah has sought to redefine its armed resistance as a means of defying
the enemy without necessarily firing a shot… Instead, resistance has become, in effect,
deterrence. Hizbollah’s self-proclaimed goal is to make it far more difficult and costly for
Israel to attack Lebanon or Syria.” 9
However, this evaluation was contradicted by events on the ground. Hizballah
renewed its artillery fire by October 2003, when the situation of the US-led coalition
forces in Iraq worsened, but actually 2004 showed the most intensive Hizballah military
activity, occurring periodically every two months.10
On November 7, 2004, for the first time an Iranian Muhajir UAV (unmanned air
vehicle) operated by Hizballah infiltrated into Israel over western Galilee, a clear
provocative escalation by Hizballah and its sponsor, Iran.
On January 9, 2005, the very day of the election of Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen)
as chairman of the Palestinian Authority following Yasser Arafat’s death in November
2004, an Israeli officer was killed when Hizballah detonated an explosive device in the
Shebaa Farms area. On January 14 and 17, Hizballah detonated additional explosive
devices in the same area, without causing casualties. Asked why this operation was
carried out at this time, Sheikh Nabil Qawuq, Hizballah's commander in the south tried to
convince that "[t]his operation has nothing to do with the elections in Palestine” and that
the “(Islamic) Resistance is committed to liberating the remaining occupied lands in
Shab'a Farms and Kafr Shuba hills. What happened today reaffirms this commitment and
falls within the context of continuous jihad and operations to force Israel to leave our
land.”11
On April 12, 2005, Hizballah succeeded for the second time in five months in
flying an unmanned surveillance aircraft into Israeli airspace. According to IDF officers,
this was a provocative act only with propaganda value, as Nasrallah wants to prove
8
Nicholas Blanford, “Irritating Israel,” in Hizballah and the Lebanon-Israel border.
9
“Hizbollah: Rebel Without a Cause?” International Crisis Group, Middle East Briefing,
Amman/Brussels, 30 July 2003, at http://Www.Crisisgroup.Org/Library/Documents/
Report_Archive/A401070_30072003.Pdf.
10
Between May 2000 and July 2004 the following attacks against Israeli targets have taken place: 105
anti aircraft attacks; 42 anti tank missile attack; 5 Katyusha rocket attacks; 7 shooting attacks; 10
explosive device attacks; 14 infiltration attempts.
11
Al-Manar: Hizballah's Qawuq Interviewed on Shab'a Farms Operation 9 Jan, Beirut Al-Manar
Television, January 9, 2005.

25
THE POWER OF ISRAEL HIZBULLAH AS STRATEGIC
THREAT TO ISRAEL

capable of action against Israel without hurting Syria’s interests which is under
international pressure to withdraw from Lebanon. The launching of the drone may have
been timed to coincide with the joint news conference of U.S. President George W. Bush
and Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, held two hours later.12
A wide-scale terror attack was averted on April 24, 2005 in the Israeli Har Dov
area on the Lebanese border when an explosive device detonated from afar by Hizballah
men on both sides of the border targeted a routine patrol but caused no casualties. The
IDF is examining whether there is a connection between the attempted attack and
Nasrallah's threats to forcefully pressure Israel to free Lebanese prisoners.13 In this
writer’s opinion, the attack was meant to coincide with the end of the Syrian withdrawal
from Lebanon and prove once again that Hizballah will not change its strategy vis-à-vis
Israel.
As in the case of the Israeli unilateral withdrawal from southern Lebanon,
Hizballah leaders are resisting the calls for its disarmament and end of violent activity by
pretending that they are the only sure defense of the sovereignty and freedom of Lebanon
in the face of continuing present and future aggression from Israel.
One of the recent claims by Nasrallah was that he had good personal relations with
the late premier Rafik Hariri, implying he received support from him for Hizballah’s
military activity. Even Walid Junblatt, the leader of the Lebanese opposition, declared
that “[w]e were unanimous at the time of Al-Hariri that Hizballah is a Lebanese defense
force. We will hold dialogue with Hizballah to see if there is need for this force or not.
We cannot act without consulting with Hizballah. I will not be influenced by US or other
instructions.”14
Actually, by early 2001 the Hizballah attacks had begun to severely alienate Prime
Minister Hariri. Just one day before the February 16 attack, he had informed a group of
investors in France that there was “a clear agreement with our Syrian brothers” to end
Hizballah provocations in the security zone. However, in April 2001, Hariri displeased his
Syrian allies by allowing his daily mouthpiece al-Mustaqbal to question the wisdom of
Hizballah's attack on Israeli soldiers in the Shebaa Farms and whether Lebanon can “bear
the consequences of such an operation and its political, economic and social impacts.”
Syrian President Bashar Assad was so outraged by the editorial that he canceled a
scheduled meeting with the Lebanese premier in Damascus and refused to receive him for
over a month.15

12
Haaretz, April 12, 2005.
13
Haaretz, April 24, 2005.
14
See Al-Anwar, April 15, 2005. Walid Junblatt’s declaration came after he probably received reassuring
statements from Hizballah leaders following a previous announcement that his dialogue with Hizballah
“will be suspended awaiting the party's explanation of circumstances behind raising pictures by
demonstrators in Al-Nabatiyah showing Junblatt as a Jewish rabbi.” See “Lebanon's Junblatt Announces
Suspension of Dialogue With Hizballah,” Al-Arabiyah Television, March 15, 2005.
15
See As`ad AbuKhalil, “Lebanon One Year After the Israeli Withdrawal,” Middle East Report Online,
May 29, 2001, at http://www.merip.org/mero/mero052901.html and Gary C. Gambill and Ziad K.

26
THE POWER OF ISRAEL HIZBULLAH AS STRATEGIC
THREAT TO ISRAEL

In this author’s view, the best way to understand the organization’s strategy is to
read its leaders’ public straightforward statements. In Nasrallah’s view, Syrian forces’
departure from Lebanon “creates a political vacuum that we must all try to fill. We
absolutely must build a real national consensus, which is why Hizballah's domestic
responsibilities are much broader than before…The Resistance flanks the army… Israel
knows that the Resistance is independent both from the army and from government
decisions… If the Resistance were to become just a brigade in the national army, at the
first skirmish the enemy would bombard its positions, attack its staff headquarters, and
the country's infrastructures. The day the Resistance becomes answerable to government
orders, its effectiveness on the ground will become nil.” [author’s emphases]16

The Palestinian – Israeli conflict

Hizballah sees its active involvement in the Palestinian intifada as part of the
inevitable struggle against the imperialist threat represented by the United States.
According to Nasrallah, Hizballah must therefore “assume [its] responsibilities…and
never [allow] the Palestinians to fight alone.”17
This strategy is consistent with Hizballah’s strategic vision regarding the
Islamization of Lebanon. The organization believes that this goal will be impossible to
achieve as long as Syria has a clear interest in maintaining its grip on Lebanon, and as
long as a balance of power exists between Lebanon’s various religious communities. As
far back as the late 1980s, Hizballah leader Hussein Musawi stated that “Hizballah’s
victory in Lebanon depends upon more struggles and confrontations with American
imperialism and Zionism… [and] a prerequisite for establishing an Islamic government in
Beirut is victory over the Zionist regime.”18
As mentioned above, four months after the Israeli withdrawal from southern
Lebanon, Hizballah was quick to lend its support to the violent Palestinian intifada. In
October 2000, Hizballah leaders and various Palestinian factions opposed to the peace
process held a series of meetings in Beirut, Damascus, and Tehran. Soon afterward,
Hizballah announced the formation of a central committee composed of Lebanese and
Palestinian nationalist and Islamic elements that rejected any settlement with Israel. One
goal of this committee was to prevent other Palestinian factions from using the intifada as
leverage to facilitate peace negotiations. Since that time, Hizballah has increased its level
of cooperation with Palestinian rejectionists through direct training as well as logistical
and operational support.

Abdelnour, Hezbollah: “Between Tehran and Damascus,” Middle East Intelligence Bulletin, Vol. 4 No.
2, February 2002, at http://www.meib.org/articles/0202_l1.htm.
16
Nasrallah interview to Le Monde, April 15, 2005.
17
Hassan Nasrallah interview, El Mundo Madrid, December 18, 2001.
18
Quoted in Martin Kramer, Hezbollah’s Vision of the West (Washington, D.C.: The Washington Institute
for Near East Policy, 1989), p. 30.

27
THE POWER OF ISRAEL HIZBULLAH AS STRATEGIC
THREAT TO ISRAEL

Parallel to its open military activity, Hizballah has put forth significant effort
toward establishing an independent terrorist and intelligence infrastructure inside both the
Palestinian Authority (PA) and Israel. In the territories, the organization has recruited
Palestinian operatives for training at Hizballah camps in Lebanon. It has also worked with
Lebanon-based operatives from Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in recruiting a
network of rogue Fatah Tanzim elements. Members of this network, called the “Shiva
Brigades,” serve as Hizballah’s West Bank cadres, significantly expanding the
organization’s targeting capabilities and political reach.19
Hizballah terrorists have also attempted to infiltrate Israel in recent years.20
Moreover, since November 2000, authorities have uncovered several cells of Israeli Arabs
recruited by Hizballah for intelligence and terrorist missions.21
Hizballah’s attempts to destabilize the region and impede Israel’s massive
operations against the Palestinian terrorist infrastructure peaked from March 30 through
April 13, 2002, when it conducted a campaign of Katyusha and mortar attacks on IDF
positions in the Shebaa Farms and, for the first time, the Golan Heights. The organization
began this campaign the day after a meeting between Hizballah secretary-general Hassan
Nasrallah and Syrian president Bashar al-Asad. According to various diplomats and
analysts, “This escalation was Syria’s way of demonstrating its continued influence over

19
For a detailed account of this expansion, see Matthew Levitt, “Hizballah’s West Bank Foothold,”
PeaceWatch no. 429, The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, August 20, 2003.
20
One of the earliest examples of such infiltration occurred in 1996, when Hussein Mikdad, a Lebanese
Shi‘i terrorist, blew himself up while trying to make a bomb in his room at an east Jerusalem hotel. He had
entered Israel a few days earlier with a forged British passport. A member of Hizballah, Mikdad had
served as accountant to Shaykh Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah, the organization’s spiritual leader, before
being chosen for terrorist training. Since 1996, at least two other Hizballah operatives have attempted to
infiltrate Israel and gather information on behalf of both the organization and Iran. In 1997, Hizballah
member Stefan Smirks, a German citizen and convert to Islam, was arrested in Israel following a tip-off
from German intelligence. Similarly, Lebanese-British citizen Jihad (or Gerard) Shuman was arrested in
January 2001 while attempting to enter Israel in order to take photographs of potential targets. See Isabel
Kershner, “The Changing Colors of Imad Mughniyah,” Jerusalem Report, March 25, 2002.
21
The first such cell was uncovered in November 2000, when seven residents of the Western Galilee
village of Abu Snan were arrested “on charges of spying for Hezbollah and plotting to abduct Israeli
soldiers on its behalf.” In June 2001, three Israeli Arabs from Yafi‘a and Kfar Kanna were indicted “for
plotting to steal weapons from an [IDF] base and send information to Hezbollah.” In September 2001,
four Israeli Druzes in Rama and Daliat al-Carmel were arrested “on charges of smuggling weapons into
Israel from Lebanon.” In June 2002, Israeli citizen Nissim Nasser, a Lebanese Jew, was “indicted on
charges of spying for Hezbollah”; specifically, he had attempted to provide the organization with
photographs and maps of Israeli targets for large-scale terrorist attacks. In July 2002, “Israeli officials
announced that they had uncovered a Hezbollah plot to kidnap Israelis abroad,” an operation devised by
an Israeli Arab who had moved to Lebanon in 2000 and become a Hizballah operative. Also that month,
Israeli authorities arrested “four Arab Israelis who smuggled weapons and transmitted intelligence to
Hezbollah in return for drugs.” All quotes from Gary Gambill, “Hezbollah’s Israeli Operatives,” Middle
East Intelligence Bulletin 4, no. 9 (September 2002) available at www.meib.org/articles/0209_l2.htm. See
also Arieh O’Sullivan, “Hizballah Recruiting Israeli Arabs,” Jerusalem Post, February 19, 2002.

28
THE POWER OF ISRAEL HIZBULLAH AS STRATEGIC
THREAT TO ISRAEL

Middle East stability.”22 The timing of the campaign “was also connected to the peace
initiative proposed by Crown Prince Abdallah of Saudi Arabia and adopted at the Arab
summit in Beirut at the end of March.”23
After the quick US military victory in Iraq in spring 2003, Hizballah, Iran, and
Syria seemed to believe that, given the difficulties US forces would encounter in postwar
Iraq, the Bush administration would be neither willing nor able to take forceful action
against any of them in the short term. Therefore, they had a great deal of space in which
to maneuver, provided they behaved cautiously. In a May 2003 interview, Hizballah’s
spiritual leader Mohamed Hussein Fadlallah explained this view in response to a question
regarding whether Hizballah would face “official demands for its dissolution “in the “next
stage” of Washington’s plans for the region: “The issue of Hezbollah and the Islamic
resistance is linked to the Palestinian issue; therefore, this issue is not expected to
progress with the same urgency as the Iraqi situation… Launching a strike against the
Islamic resistance in Lebanon would create an Arab Islamic shock, which the United
States would not be able to absorb. Therefore, I imagine that these threats to the resistance
are preemptive ones to prevent the resistance from launching military operations against
Israel and create a fait accompli of insecurity in the region.” 24
Hizballah views the continuation of the violent conflict between Israel and the
Palestinians as crucial to achieving its overall goals. During Operation Iraqi Freedom,
Fadlallah’s posted his views under titles such as “The Palestinian Cause Is Where We
Stand or Fall”25 and “Palestine Is the Battlefront on Which the Future of the Region Will

22
Nicholas Blanford, “Fears of a Second Front: The Lebanese-Israeli Border,” Middle East Report Online,
April 23, 2002, at available at www.merip.org/mero/mero042302.html.
23
Ibid. The Saudi proposal, which first came to light in mid-February, “offered Israel full normalization
with the Arab world in exchange for a full withdrawal from all territory occupied . . . since 1967.” Yet,
Syria did not want to give up “its bargaining card in future negotiations” by promising normalization
before Israel withdrew from the Golan Heights. Hence, although Syria joined twenty-one other Arab
League states in endorsing the proposal, Hizballah “rockets began flying over the border two days later.”
Moreover, Hizballah’s leadership was quick to denounce the very notion of a compromise solution soon
after the Saudi proposal surfaced. In early March, Husayn al-Khalil, Nasrallah’s political assistant, warned
the Palestinians against “falling in the trap of truces and entering the game of polarization,” calling on
them to “stick to their rights and not to get involved in the games of international politics” (“Ra‘d:
Resistance Has Right to Support the Palestinians,” al-Nahar [Beirut], March 12, 2002). Then, on March
24, three days before the Arab Summit opened, Nasrallah called for the continuation of the Palestinian
armed struggle, declaring that the “conflict must end with the liberation of Palestine from the river to the
sea.” He also called for a national conference “to resist the settlement” of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon.
See Hasan Nasrallah, interview by Hiyam Shahud, London al-Majallah, March 24, 2002; and Jubran
Tuwayni, “Lebanon’s Role,” Beirut al-Nahar, March 21, 2002.
24
BBC Worldwide Monitoring, “Shi‘i Cleric Fadlallah Comments on Iraq Situation,” May 4, 2003,
translation of an interview originally published in al-Sharq al-Awsat (London), May 2, 2003.
25
From the “Our Stand This Week” section of Fadlallah’s website, April 8, 2003, at
www.bayynat.org.lb/www/english/standthisweek/stand08042003.htm.

29
THE POWER OF ISRAEL HIZBULLAH AS STRATEGIC
THREAT TO ISRAEL

Be Decided.”26 Aware of the enormous international pressure that the Palestinians were
facing to halt the violence, Fadlallah advised them “to be cautious as they try to thwart
this new scheme [i.e., the Quartet Roadmap for Israeli-Palestinian peace]. They have to
play different and concerted roles that they will divide among them, and they have to
uphold their national unity…to hold on to what they have so far achieved.”27 Similarly,
Nasrallah declared that Hizballah would remain engaged in the Palestinian issue because
“it is also an Arab cause and an Islamic cause. The holy shrines in Palestine are not the
Palestinians’ alone. They concern all the Muslims… Consequently, every Muslim
throughout the world is concerned with this issue one way or another…[Hizballah’s]
concern is to be present and perform this duty.” 28
By mid-2002, an Israeli journalist and researcher evaluated that by aiding the
Palestinian struggle, Hizballah operations against Israel have served the interests of the
organization itself and “has been careful to limit its activity to the Shab'a Farms” only,
thus proving “its ability and willingness to embark upon a policy of cautious
brinkmanship, acting in a way that would not compel an Israeli response.” 29 Two years
later the same analyst acknowledged that Hizballah had penetrated into the Palestinian
arena and confirmed the existence of a special unit devoted to bolstering the Palestinian
intifada. He cited the Israeli intelligence claims that up to 80% of Palestinian violence in
2004 had been either financed or directed by Hizballah, “although it is always difficult to
corroborate such intelligence claims independently,” but recognized that the “opaque
façade” maintained by Hizballah concealed a deep involvement in terror activity against
Israel and that “[t]his association with the Palestinian theater could unravel the status quo
at the northern border.” His conclusion was that the scope and nature of Hizballah’s
continued activity against Israel since the withdrawal have been “more limited and less
troubling than what had been forecast by Israeli intelligence.”30
In the same vein, the aforementioned mid-2003 ICG paper stated on the one hand, that
“from the outset, Hizballah claimed that its principal agenda related to the Arab-Israeli
conflict. Characterizing Lebanon as only one part of a far broader theatre of operations, it
stated its goal as being to “liberate” Palestine. Following the outbreak of the Palestinian
intifada, Hizballah increased its support for armed operations in Israel and the occupied
territories, and observers were concerned about the risks to regional stability posed by this
“Palestinianisation”. With the war in Iraq, Hizballah’s leadership further underscored the
26
From the “Our Stand This Week” section of Fadlallah’s website, April 22, 2003, at available at
www.bayynat.org.lb/www/english/standthisweek/stand22042003.htm.
27
“The Enemy’s Conditional Acceptance of the Road Map,” from the “Our Stand This Week” section of
Fadlallah’s website, May 27, 2003,Z, at www.bayynat.org.lb/www/english/standthisweek/stand
27052003.htm.
28
“Egyptian Magazine Interviews Hizballah Chief on Lebanese, Regional Issues,” translation of an article
that originally appeared in al-Musawwar (Cairo), June 13, 2003.
29
Daniel Sobelman, “Hizbollah Two Years after the Withdrawal - A Compromise between Ideology,
Interests, and Exigencies,” Strategic Assessment, Jaffe Center for Strategic Studies, Tel-Aviv University, ,
Volume 5, No. 2, August 2002, at http://www.tau.ac.il/jcss/sa/v5n2p4Sob.html.
30
Daniel Sobelman, “Still playing by the rules,” in Hizballah and the Lebanon-Israel border.

30
THE POWER OF ISRAEL HIZBULLAH AS STRATEGIC
THREAT TO ISRAEL

importance of the Palestinian struggle, claiming that the primary U.S. objective was less
Baghdad than Jerusalem.” 31
On the other hand it claimed that although Hizballah “may have been involved in
an effort to ship weapons to Palestinian armed groups in May 2003” and “Nasrallah held
a publicized meeting with a key Hamas leader the following month…neither step appears
to herald a significant upgrading of the organization’s investment in the Palestinian
struggle.” It concluded that in practice “this strategy proved to be more rhetoric than
action. Direct military intervention by Hizballah on the Palestinian front would have
exposed it, as well as Lebanon and Syria, to swift and severe Israeli retaliation.”32
According to data provided by the Israeli Security Service, there was a steep rise in
Hizballah involvement in Palestinian terrorism: In 2002, seven Palestinian groups were
operated by the Hizballah, in 2003, there were 14, and in 2004, there were 51 such
groups. Most of last Hizballah-connected armed cells were affiliated with Fatah - 38,
mostly in the West Bank. Six cells were associated with Islamic Jihad, three with Hamas
and at least four with the Popular Front, a secular Marxist organization.
In 2004 68 attacks were initiated by Hizballah, some 20 percent of the attacks over the
Green Line. Twenty-four Israelis - soldiers and civilians - were killed in these attacks.
Iran is funneling through Hizballah significant resources to the war against Israel: an
estimated $9 million into the territories in 2004. Since a terrorist attack costs an average
of NIS 5,000, clearly some of that $9 million ended up in the pockets of the cells in the
territories. The current bonus paid for a dead or wounded Israeli is NIS 4,000. According
to the same report, Hizballah leadership strives to forge unity between the various groups
in the West Bank, unifying bomb makers, suicide bombers and those who dispatch attacks
into one organization. It has apparently stopped trying to send a senior bomb expert into
the territories by using couriers who carry instructions on computer disks.33
However, the growing involvement of Hizballah in the Palestinian violence has been
acknowledge more and more not only by the Israeli intelligence, but by the Palestinians
themselves, more so since the death of Arafat and the election of moderate Abu Mazen as the
new leader of the PA.
Members of the al Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades - the terrorist wing of Fatah, said that
Fatah’s fighters had received payments of up to $9,000 from Hizballah for attacks against
Israel during the past four years. However, most of the money had been sent to
Palestinian Islamic Jihad quite easily “just using Western Union.” According to the leader
of one group, he lately refused money offered by Hizballah in order to give Mahmoud
Abbas, the Palestinian president, a chance to negotiate with the Israelis. But the agent of
the Hizballah in the West Bank approached other groups offering money to get them to
mount an attack.34

31
Hizballah: Rebel Without a Cause?
32
Ibid.
33
See Amos Harel, “Hezbollah's Terror Factory in the PA”, Ha'aretz, 11 January 2005.
34
See the interview with Ala’a Sanakreh, the 27-year-old leader of the group, in Marie Colvin, “Iran offers
cash for bombs to break Palestinian truce,” Times Online, April 3, 2005.

31
THE POWER OF ISRAEL HIZBULLAH AS STRATEGIC
THREAT TO ISRAEL

After the PIJ took responsibility for the deadliest suicide bombing since Abu
Mazen took office, at the Stage night-club in Tel Aviv, the PA owned daily Al-Hayah Al-
Jadidah referred to the alleged involvement of Hizballah in this attack: “It is thus possible
to ask Hizballah not to meddle in our arena as long as it does not allow the Palestinians to
fire rockets from the central region - from Al-Nabatiyah for example - and not even to fire
rockets from the Shab'a front. Palestinians in Lebanon were informed of this ban as soon
as the withdrawal from Southern Lebanon was completed. We do not want to use the
same words Hizballah used on the eve of the pullout from the south when it said to the
Palestinians: Do not meddle with Lebanon's destiny; and its request was implemented to
the letter before everyone's eyes.” 35
Leaflets distributed in Ramallah also warned Hizballah against "meddling" in
Palestinian affairs and threatened to punish any Palestinian who collaborates with the
Lebanese organization. The leaflets, signed by a hitherto unknown group called The Unit
for Combating Foreign Intervention in Palestinian Affairs, accused Hizballah of
channeling funds to Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
These events reflect growing tensions between Hizballah and the Palestinian
Authority over the latter’s decision to suspend terrorist attacks against Israel. However,
even after such admonitions, and in spite of the huge pressure on Hizballah and Lebanon
to disarm the organization, it seems its leaders do not renounce to the card of Palestinian
violence.
Some, like the ICG, see a change in Hizballah’s behavior on the background of the
pressure to disarm it after the Syrian withdrawal. For instance the organization’s attempts
to deny any involvement in Palestinian anti-Israeli attacks, “in sharp contrast to past
practice.” Whereas Nasrallah once made no secret of the movement's active support for
militant Palestinian groups, the movement now strongly denies providing any such help.
The ICG cites a Hizballah spokesperson who claimed that the movement provides “moral
support to the Palestinians for their just cause on a media level only.” 36
Even Israeli military experts sometimes can be deluded by Hizballah’s clever
maneuvering. On April 6, 2005, a member of the IDF general staff said there has been
lately a noticeable drop in Hizballah pressure on Palestinian groups to conduct terror
attacks. The IDF spokesman said it did not signify an overall change in the organization's
policy, but rather a reduction in the number of directives and amount of funding that has
flowed into the hands of activists in the territories. Days after this declaration we
witnessed a flare up of Hizballah initiated incidents.37
Moreover, in a recent interview with The Daily Star, Nasrallah’s deputy, Sheikh
Naim Qassem, clearly declared that Hizballah will offer whatever “material support”
Palestinians need, an “unconditional support” for their struggle against Israel, regarded as

35
Column by Adli Sadiq: "Outside the Palestinian Sphere," Jeruaslem Al-Hayah Al-Jadidah, Feb. 28, ‘05.
36
“Syria After Lebanon, Lebanon After Syria?” International Crisis Group, Middle East Report, N°39 –
12 April 2005, at http://www.crisisgroup.org/library/documents/middle_east_north_africa/ arab_israeli
conflict/lebanon/39_syria_after_lebanon_lebanon_after_syria.pdf.
37
Haaretz, April 12, 2005.

32
THE POWER OF ISRAEL HIZBULLAH AS STRATEGIC
THREAT TO ISRAEL

something that concerns the whole Arab world. He said that Hizballah believes “in
cooperation in all possible and appropriate ways and forms, whether it is material,
financial or moral support, and… consider it [its] obligation…” “Helping the Palestinians
stand up to the Israeli offensives, he added, will disable Israel's ability to expand its
aggression into neighboring countries, of which the first would be Lebanon.”38

Hizballah as Syria’s strategic arm

The Golan Heights remains in Israeli hands, and for Damascus, Hizballah remains
one of the few, if not the only, potent bargaining chips with which to pressure the Jewish
state into returning the strategic plateau.
The balance of power between Damascus and Hizballah has shifted most
noticeably since the death of former Syrian president Hafiz al-Asad. This change is often
attributed to the strange (some say hypnotic) relationship between Bashar al-Asad and
Hizballah leader Hassan Nasrallah. During Bashar’s reign, Nasrallah has assumed a
greater amount of independence and demonstrated a certain charismatic ascendancy -
indeed, Bashar is said to look at him “like a starstruck teenager.”39 According to one
expert, the nature of this relationship “testifies to Bashar’s weakness in the Lebanese
arena.” 40
Syria - not Iran - has been the most important source of support for Hizballah’s
terrorist and guerrilla activity against Israel from the north. To be sure, Iran has given
Hizballah the ideological legitimacy and all the political, financial, propagandistic, and
military support it needs. Yet, without Syria’s help - in the form of an overall strategic
umbrella, specific military and political coordination and pressure on Beirut to give the
organization free rein in southern Lebanon - Hizballah could not have achieved its current
status as a guerrilla movement with control over a “liberated” territory, a continuous
supply of military equipment via Damascus, and virtual immunity from all-out Israeli
punitive measures.41 Syria provided the organization with logistics, instruction,
technological aid, and weapons (including 220-millimeter rockets with an estimated range
of eighteen to forty-five miles). Such aid has transformed Hizballah into a strategic
partner and operational arm of the Syrian army in the confrontation with Israel.42

38
The Daily Star, April 15, 2005.
39
Gary Gambill and Ziad Abdelnour, “Hezbollah: Between Tehran and Damascus,” Middle East
Intelligence Bulletin 4, no. 2 (February 2002), at www.meib.org/articles/0202_l1.htm.
40
Eyal Zisser, “The Return of Hizbullah,” Middle East Quarterly 9, no. 4 (Fall 2002), at
www.meforum.org/article/499. See also Yossi Baidatz, “Bashar’s First Year: From Ophthalmology to a
National Vision” (Washington, D.C.: The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, 2001).
41
See Ely Karmon, “A Solution to Syrian Terrorism,” Middle East Quarterly, vol. 6, no. 2 (June 1999),
pp. 23–34.
42
See Gambill, “Hezbollah’s Strategic Rocket Arsenal,” and Lenny Ben-David, “Iran, Syria, and
Hizballah—Threatening Israel’s North,” Jerusalem Issue Brief, vol. 2, no. 3 (Jerusalem Center for Public
Affairs, July 17, 2002).

33
THE POWER OF ISRAEL HIZBULLAH AS STRATEGIC
THREAT TO ISRAEL

For the most part, Hizballah has embraced this role. In a speech delivered at a
ceremony marking the first anniversary of Hafiz al-Asad’s death, Nasrallah promised
Bashar that, in addition to liberating the Shebaa Farms through blood and jihad, Hizballah
would “receive the victory flag from Palestine and the Golan.”43 The latter promise was
made as if it were Hizballah’s duty to liberate the Golan, not just Syria’s.44 Similarly,
Hizballah’s leaders have reacted to Israeli “aggression” against Syria even more
vociferously than has Damascus. On October 5, 2003, one day after a deadly suicide
bombing in Haifa, Israel launched air strikes against a terrorist training camp near
Damascus - its first attack on Syrian soil in nearly three decades.45 Soon thereafter,
Hizballah described the Israeli strike as “a treacherous aggression and a very serious
breach of all red lines and rules of the conflict for nearly three decades.” The organization
also declared its “absolute commitment to the commonality of the battle and destiny with
steadfast and proud Syria, its leadership and people,” promising “to confront the existing
and coming challenge with all that is necessary” in order to avert “the disastrous
consequences of the terrorist and aggressive policies of Sharon, US President George
Bush, and all this state-terrorism camp.”46
Nonetheless, Hizballah has also acted independently not always responding to
Syrian demands. As peace negotiations between Syria and Israel opened in early 1996,
Syrian wishes to calm down the Israeli-Lebanese border were initially heeded by
Hizballah, and the Syrian government even started to speak openly about dismantling
Hizballah. Not long after, however, Hizballah reinitiated incursions across the blue line.
Having reached a decision that a confrontation with Damascus was not in the
interest of the party, Hizballah adopted the policy of engaging the Syrians on all fronts.
Hizballah managed “to create a process of open and continuous dialogue with the various
power centers in Damascus” and thus coordinate its activities in a fashion that takes into
account both parties' interests and does not disrupt their strategies.” In the context of this
process Hizballah managed to carve a space for itself where it can operate with a high
degree of independence.”47
Some observers evaluate that for Lebanese Shiites and Lebanon in general, the
party has become an active social and political player on the domestic scene, with or
without Syrian support. As Hizballah’s resistance goes beyond the Shebaa Farms to
support of the Palestinian cause, even if Syria broke rank with Hizballah, it would still
have popular backing and a cause. At most, it might be forced to undo its military wing or

43
Hassan Nasrallah, remarks broadcast on Radio Damascus, June 10, 2001.
44
This stance may help explain why Hizballah expanded its shelling of Israeli positions in March–April
2002 to include IDF bases in the northern part of the Golan. See Gal Luft, “Israel’s Response to Lebanese
Border Skirmishes,” PeaceWatch no. 376 (The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, April 16, 2002).
45
The training camp had been used by various terrorist organizations, including Islamic Jihad, which had
claimed responsibility for the Haifa bombing.
46
“Lebanon: Hizballah Says Israeli Attack on Syria Breaches ‘All Red Lines,’” October 7, 2003,
translation of an untitled, unattributed report that originally appeared on the website of al-Nahar (Beirut).
47
Agha, A note on Hizballah.

34
THE POWER OF ISRAEL HIZBULLAH AS STRATEGIC
THREAT TO ISRAEL

incorporate it into the larger Lebanese Army, possibly lending even more strength to
Hizballah's legitimacy.48

Hizballah – proxy of Iran’s export of the Islamic revolution

When the US sponsored the Madrid Conference of October 1991, beginning an


Arab-Israeli negotiation process that Iran perceived as a threat not just to its ideological
doctrine but also to its strategic interests, it responded by convening a parallel conference
in Tehran to unite radical organizations hostile to negotiations with Israel.49 At the closing
of the Tehran conference, the regime decided to support the “Palestinian resistance” and
establish a high-level committee to unite radical organizations hostile to negotiations with
Israel and prepared to continue the struggle in an Islamic front under Iranian leadership.
Iran provided weapons to Hizballah and training for Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic
Jihad. Support of the rejectionist and radical Palestinians is one of the few issues where
Iran's ideological-revolutionary and national-pragmatic interests coincide.
Until late 1991, Iran supported Hizballah’s strikes against Israeli military
objectives in southern Lebanon and northern Israel; it did not attack any Israeli or Jewish
targets abroad. After the Madrid Peace Conference, Iran coordinated a spate of deadly
attacks against Israeli and Jewish targets.50
Iran’s massive support to Hizballah has been critical in cultivating the
organization’s terrorist capacity against Israel. This support is meant to help Hizballah
maintain pressure on Israel’s northern border, prepare itself to launch a major attack at the
appropriate moment, and facilitate the Shi‘i movement’s assistance to the intifada in
general and to Palestinian Islamist organizations in particular. As mentioned above, most
of the estimated $9 million that Hizballah poured into the territories in 2004 came from
Iran.
Hizballah has reached a modus vivendi with the various factions in the ruling elite
of Iran although there are “elements in the Iranian political system that are not very fond
of Hizballah, and even less so of Iran's relations with the organization.” In the past
Hizballah suffered from Iranian “misreading” of the situation in its zone of operation and
had to put up with misjudged Iranian “interference” in its policies. Most of these

48
Rhonda Roumani, “Syria's last trump card,” in Hizballah and the Lebanon-Israel border.
49
Elie Rekhess, "The Terrorist Connection-Iran, the Islamic Jihad and Hamas," Justice (Tel Aviv), May
1995, p. 4.
50
These included: a failed bazooka attack against an employee of the Israeli consulate in Istanbul (Jan.
1992); the suicide car bomb attack against the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires, Argentina (Mar. 1992);
the assassination of the security officer of the Israeli embassy in Ankara (Mar. 1992); an attempt to bomb
the main synagogue in Istanbul (Mar. 1992); the attempt to assassinate a leading member of the Jewish
community in Istanbul by bazooka fire (Jan. 1993); an attempt to place a car bomb at the Israeli Embassy
in Bangkok, Thailand (Mar. 1994); and the suicide bombing of the Jewish community building in Buenos
Aires, Argentina (July 1994).

35
THE POWER OF ISRAEL HIZBULLAH AS STRATEGIC
THREAT TO ISRAEL

disturbances have been successfully dealt with and the relationship now is “quieter and
somewhat smoother.”51
In this context, it is interesting to remember Nasrallah’s proposal at the beginning
of February 2003 for an ‘Iraqi national accord’ between Saddam Hussein and the Iraqi
opposition, to be sponsored by the Arab League, the Organization of the Islamic
Conference, or a group of Arab and Islamic countries in order ‘to obstruct the American
war’ against Iraq and evade war, “especially since the price will be paid primarily by the
Iraqi people.” The conference should “set principles for national reconciliation and a
mechanism for holding free and fair elections that bring to power a government enjoying
the support of the Iraqis.”52 Although Nasrallah stressed that what he proposed “is not
opposed by Iran,” it could be understood that there are differences of opinion between
Hizballah and some leading circles in Iran on this subject.53 Lebanese commentators
presented Nasrallah’s initiative as an indication of Hizballah’s confusion and in total
contradiction to the Iranian position.54
According to an interesting press report at the time, Hizballah took “austerity
measures in the party's social, medical, and educational establishments and is working to
activate and develop these establishments to generate enough revenues in case Iranian aid
stops in the future, and so that the party can practice civilian activities through these
establishments in case the Arab-Israeli conflict was resolved and the party turned into a
political party.”55
However, Iranian marja'eyah (Shiite jurisprudence leadership) remains the source
of authority for the leadership of Hizballah. Nasrallah is still presented on his personal
website as “the representative of the Imam Khamenii in Lebanon, the paramount leader
Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah,” and not the secretary-general of the organization.56 This puts
Iran in a unique position of influence on the party but need not define every aspect of its
policies. The future will show how Hizballah evolves after the restoration of the Iraqi
Shiite marja'eyah that is not Iranian but Arab. 57
Meanwhile, Iranian hardliners and reformists alike, consider Hizballah’s political
and military status in Lebanon as important to Iranian interests as ever. The leading
Iranian conservative daily exulted after Hizballah’s huge pro-Syrian demonstration in
Beirut on March 8, 2005: “The rare and awe inspiring brilliance of the secretary general
of Lebanese Hizballah in capitalizing on the moment and taking the initiative in his hand
in the political arena of Lebanon and Syria, and thus forcing the vicious and
overambitious and interventionist forces of America, Europe, and the Zionist regime
seeking a quick escape, has been one of the outstanding and unforgettable episodes in the

51
Agha, A note on Hizballah.
52
Ibid.
53
Ibid.
54
See Zvi Bar’el, ‘Nothing like spending the war in Beirut,’ Haaretz, February 19, 2003.
55
See Al-Nahar, January 14, 2003.
56
See at http://www.nasrollah.org/english/index.htm,
57
Agha, A note on Hizballah.

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THE POWER OF ISRAEL HIZBULLAH AS STRATEGIC
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history of Arab nations and freedom loving Arab people. American press Thursday
confirmed that US statesmen having seen the epic move and immense demonstrations of
Beirut, have reached the conclusion that for the time being they had better avoid any
entanglement and confrontation with Lebanese Hizballah…This is indeed a candid
confession to the defeat of the joint conspiracy by America, Europe, and the Zionist
regime through the show of power by Lebanese Hizballah…So…Bush by having
witnessed the realities on the ground in Lebanon... [should] also appreciate and come to
grips with this other and more important reality, namely that the power of the Islamic
Revolution leadership in Iran too has remained unknown for many American statesmen
and decision-makers. This is the crucial lesson that America should learn from the events
in Lebanon”. [author’s emphases] 58
The reformist political activist Elyas Hazrati commented on the same events: “The
United States is not merely pursuing Syrian departure from Lebanon, Security Council
Resolution 1559 places emphasis on the disarming of Hizballah and other resistance
groups and the full withdrawal of Syrian forces. This in fact complements the changes
and developments that have also come about in Palestine…[T]he disarming of Palestinian
groups and the withdrawal of Syrian forces from Lebanon can serve as a first step, which
can lead to the next step, which is the closing of the offices of Palestinian resistance
groups and Hizballah in the Syrian capital… In fact by targeting Hizballah, Iran is in
some way being targeted… In my view, Seyyed Hasan Nasrallah undertook the most
appropriate task. He applied a distinctly effective and at the same time impartial policy
toward involved groups and in a way played a father figure-like role for all groups”.
[author’s emphases] 59

Is Hizballah on its way to disarm and become a pure Lebanese political party?

Most observers evaluate Hizballah’s political and military strength at its true value.
A leading Israeli intelligence expert described it: “Domestically, Hizballah is the strongest
political force in the Shiite community, which is the largest sectarian community in
Lebanon (roughly estimated at 35 to 40 percent of the population), but both are
underrepresented in the existing Lebanese political system. For example, Hizballah
currently occupies only 10 percent of the seats in parliament, while the Shiites themselves
are also limited by the system - as brokered and manipulated by Syria - to approximately
20 percent of parliamentary seats. In the present Lebanese embroilment, Hizballah holds
the key to any national agreement with the opposition that would enable the formation of
a national-unity government and the subsequent holding of parliamentary elections

58
See unattributed editorial: “Lesson America has To Learn from Lebanon,” Jomhuri-Ye Eslami [Tehran
daily insisting on strict adherence to Khomeyni's ideals], March 13, 2005.
59
See Report by Javad Montazeri “In Interviews With Experts ‘E'temad’ Discusses Iran and the
Developments in Lebanon,” E'temad [reformist daily published in Tehran], March 14, 2005.

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currently scheduled for May. Hizballah will want to use this key to enhance its political
power.” 60
Hizballah’s disarmament will remain the crucial issue in the aftermath of the
elections. As usual, its leaders release multiple contradictory statements, but they stress
all the time the need to keep the weapons and deterrent force of the movement vis-à-vis
‘the American-Zionist conspiracy.’
Speaking on February 12, before Hariri's killing, Qassem told Reuters that
disarmament was not up for discussion. In April, the same Qassem told the Financial
Times that disarmament could pave the way for Hizballah’s fighters to become a kind of
reservist army working with Lebanese authorities. But he said talks could not take place
while Israel remained in the Shebaa Farms area. 61
Hizballah’s spiritual leader Fadlallah also justified the need to keep the arms:
“There is still the issue of the Shab'a Farms, which the Lebanese, on the official and
popular levels, believe are Lebanese land…We are still in a state of war with Israel. No
one can provide a guarantee that Israel will not attack Lebanon in the future under any
negative circumstances...So if we assume that the resistance laid down its weapons and
some parties or organizations carried out some actions against Israel, then Israel might use
that to launch an aggression against Lebanon. We know that Israel is still holding the
Islamic resistance responsible for some operations inside Palestine. Therefore, we ask:
Who will protect Lebanon if Israel launches an aggression against it? We respect the
Lebanese army, but we know that this army cannot confront the Israeli army, just as one
army faces another. That is why there is a need for Lebanese resistance on the battlefront
to be like a popular and reserve army in Lebanon.” 62
As always, Nasrallah was the most clear and blunt speaker for Hizballah: “There is
a group in Lebanon that together with the Lebanese army, people, and state, which
provides some kind of security or protection – it is required to lay down its arms, or else
be declared a terrorist organization. We are willing to remain a terrorist organization for
all eternity in the eyes of George Bush, but we are not prepared to give up defending our
country, our people, our people's blood, and our honor.” 63
Hizballah leaders not only try to convince their Lebanese partners or international
players that their claim to remain armed is legitimate and absolutely necessary for the
defense of Lebanon’s sovereignty and well-being, but when cornered by the growing
pressure they threaten to react just as during the early 1980s, namely to use sheer force
and terrorism.
60
Michael Herzog, “The Hizballah Conundrum,” The Washington Institute for Near East Policy,
PolicyWatch, No. 981, March 29, 2005, at http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/templateC05.
php?CID=2286.
61
Haaretz, April 9, 2005.
62
“Fadlallah Tells Al-Nahar: The Shiites Are Not Sectarian and Not Inside a Shell, But They Have
Priorities; Weapon of the Resistance Is Necessary and Will Be Removed Once Danger of Israeli
Aggression Is Over”, Al-Nahar, March 25, 2005.
63
Interview with Hizballah’s Secretary General, Hassan Nasrallah. Al-Manar TV aired on March 16,
2005. See MEMRI TV Monitor Project, clip 610, http://memritv.org/Transcript.asp?P1=610.

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Ibrahim Amin al-Sayyid, head of Hizballah's Political Council declared: “Hizballah


cannot take a neutral stand and just watch things…[w]hen the issue of disarming the
resistance is raised…Hizballah has a strong presence and influence in Lebanon. It
proposed dialogue on these issues. Let us meet and reach agreement either within the
framework of the constitutional establishments or outside it. We have only three options:
Hold dialogue within the framework of the constitutional establishments, hold a round-
table dialogue, or go to war. There is no fourth option: Either war or dialogue outside or
inside the establishments. If there is a fourth option it would be that of international
interference and guardianship to decide the future of the Lebanese people if they do not
take the initiative to solve their problems…If this is meant to be a threat of US military
intervention in Lebanon, it will be enough to know what happened to the Zionists in
Lebanon between 1982 and 2000 and what happened to them in the presence of their
fleets here”. [author’s emphases]64
A blunt and significant commentary by a hard-line Iranian daily, one of the clearest
acknowledgments yet that Hizballah was behind the suicide bombings against Western
peace forces in Lebanon in 1983, threatens that this could happen again: “The entry of
Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, the secretary general of Lebanon's Hizballah, onto the scene
and his invitation to all people to gather for a rally this afternoon in Beirut is another
astute move that can change the entire scene completely to the disadvantage of foreign
conspirators…It is certain that this time, too, America and the Zionist regime will miss
the mark in Lebanon, and the bitter experience of the 1360s [1980s] will be repeated… In
the 1360s, the Zionist regime, taking advantage of the confused domestic situation in
Lebanon and the severe civil war being waged in that country, invaded first southern
Lebanon and then raided Beirut. America, accompanied by a number of other crony
countries in the West, followed these footsteps and, in defense and support of the
Zionists, dispatched their military forces to Lebanon and tried to consolidate the
occupation of Lebanon by the army of the Zionist regime. Amid these circumstances and
this environment, the Lebanese Hizballah was born and succeeded in forcing all three
Western [US, French and Italian] armies to retreat...What was done in the 1980s and
1990s at the hand of the Lebanese Hizballah to cleanse that country of the filth of the
aggressive armies of the West and the Zionists took place when Hizballah was still young
and brand new. It lacked experience and not quite recognized by the world. Now this
revolutionary movement has gained plenty of experience and has accumulated the
valuable experience and precious lessons of the past two decades. It is stronger than at
any other time... and has gained a lofty status and position among the Lebanese that is
unprecedented. So there is no doubt they can challenge and confront foreign conspiracies
better than before and stronger than anytime prior to the present.” [author’s emphases]65

64
“Lebanon, a New Stage” program, featuring an interview with Ibrahim Amin al-Sayyid, head of
Hizballah's Political Council, by Ghassan Bin-Jiddu, in Beirut - Al-Jazirah, March 10, 2005.
65
Editorial: “Method Used in Ukraine Cannot Be Deployed in Lebanon.” Jomhuri-Ye Eslami, March 9,
2005.

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In a more direct threat to Israel, Nasrallah warned that “plans by Jewish extremists
to attack the Al Aqsa Mosque” would trigger an Arab and Muslim response, without
elaborating.66
On this background, the editor-in-chief of the Kuwaiti daily Al-Siyassah Ahmed
Al-Jarallah recently wrote an article critical of Hizballah and its leader Nasrallah, who
vowed to inflict a disgracing defeat on the U.S. troops if they approach Lebanon: “This
man has chosen to adopt an arrogant attitude, similar to that of Saddam Hussein, knowing
fully well how Saddam's power and authority came to an end. Nasrallah is speaking the
language of the Fifties and Sixties. Such speeches may jeopardize the lives of the people
in Syria and Lebanon because neither Syria, nor Hizballah, can fill the huge gap in the
balance of power with their adversaries.” 67
However, addressing thousands of supporters at a Lebanese Liberation Day rally in
South Lebanon on May 25, Nasrallah insisted Hizballah would fight to keep its arms and
threatened to ‘cut off any hand that reaches out to our weapons because it is an Israeli
hand’; he considered ‘any thought of disarming the resistance’ as ‘madness.’ Nasrallah
warned the resistance had ‘more than 12,000 rockets’ that can target northern Israel at any
time.68 Moreover, during his campaigning in southern Lebanon, Nasrallah spoke about the
necessity to liberate not only the Shab’a Farms, but also seven Lebanese villages in
northern Palestine [meaning Israel] which he claims are part of Lebanon, implying that
Hizballah’s fight will continue even if the Farms are “returned” to Lebanon.69
According to most Lebanese observers, Nasrallah's speech defied mounting
international pressure on Hizballah to disarm and underlined the group's determination to
maintain its independence from political influence. Nasrallah gave Hizballah's weapons a
regional function when he linked disarming to the settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict, and not to Israel’s withdrawal from the Shab'a Farms.70
According to another view, Hizballah is aware of the major danger represented by
the confrontation with the United States and Israel under the flag of the UN and the
international community for the implementation of Security Council Resolution 1559.
Therefore, Nasrallah ‘did not wait for the battle to come according to the timing of the
enemy and adversary, but decided to take the initiative in heading into battle’ in his
speech in Bint Jibail.71
Interestingly, Walid Jumblatt, one of the most vocal critics of Syria's interference
in Lebanese politics, attended the rally and claimed that international interference should
not ‘undermine Lebanon's principles.’ Jumblatt recently forged an alliance with Hizballah
in Mount Lebanon for the parliamentary elections. During his Liberation Day speech
66
Haaretz, April 9, 2005.
67
MEMRI Special Dispatch Series, No. 887, 1 April 200, at http://memri.org/bin/articles.cgi?Page=
countries&Area=syria&ID=SP88705.
68
See Mohammed Zaatari,, ’Hizballah throws down gauntlet on arms,’ Daily Star, May 26, 2005.
69
See al-Hayat, June 9, 2005 and al- Watan, June 10, 2005. Nasrallah used the formula “we want a
Lebanon of 10,452 km, as asked by the [assassinated] president Bashir Gemayel” in 1983.
70
Walid Chucair, ‘Nasrallah Says Disarming Linked to Peace Deal,’ Daily Star, May 28, 2005.
71
Ra'uf Shahuri, ‘Plan B in the Battle of Disarming Hizballah,’ Beirut Al-Anwar, 27 May 27, 2005.

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Nasrallah insisted his party's electoral alliances would only become long term political
alliances if they were committed to ‘protecting the resistance and safeguarding its arms.’
The message also addressed those who believe they could disarm Hizballah through talks
and dialogue.
Hizballah has said it is not convinced by every statement of support and feels much
of the support is ‘void of any clear commitment.’ In fact, the four major political entities,
Hariri's Future Movement, Jumblatt's Progressive Socialist Party, Nabih Berri's Amal
Movement and Hizballah, form two major blocs that join with and break away from other
parties in various electoral districts depending on how much they need the votes.
Paradoxically, Hizballah’s ‘pragmatic’ stance represented an asset for maverick General
Michel Aoun (who won a sweeping victory in the largely Christian Metn and Kesrouan-
Jbeil districts) who in turn believes Hizballah would oppose any attempt to disarm it.72
Hizballah’s victory in the May – June 2005 elections has raised its representation
in Parliament from nine to 11 party members, and 25 members in its coalition bloc with
the country's other main Shiite party, the Amal Movement, confirming their domination
among Shi'ite Muslims. Hizballah’s big win in south Lebanon bolstered its determination
to keep its weapons in the face of international pressure to disarm, senior pro-Syrian
leaders claimed. ‘The win... is the decisive expression of our people's rejection of [U.N.]
resolution 1559,’ Mohammad Raad, head of Hizballah’s parliamentary bloc, told a news
conference. ‘It is an expression of our people's commitment to protect the path, choice
and weapons of the resistance.’ ‘We will face any attempt to disarm the resistance,
[which] is the natural result of Israel's aggression and its wars and massacres against
Lebanon,’ declared Amal leader and Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri.73
According to Hizballah politburo member Nawaf Musawi, on March 5, the day
Syrian President Bashar Assad announced his decision to pull his troops out of Lebanon,
the party made the decision to be more involved on the political scene. He said: ‘Syrian
withdrawal from Lebanon created a vacuum in the country's political scene, and
international powers are trying to take advantage of this vacuum and impose their tutelage
over Lebanon.’ Indeed, on the background of the excellent results obtained in the second
and third rounds of the country's parliamentary elections, Hizballah announced its
intention to participate fully in the formation of Lebanon's next government. Hizballah
dismissed alleged contradictions in this step with its role as a resistance party.74
Musawi said the party's decision to take part in the next Cabinet did not mean less
focus on its goals as a resistance group: ‘There is no conflict between taking on more
political responsibility in the internal political arena and keeping up the resistance
work…The group will maintain its resistance, and its readiness to face any Israeli
aggression as long as the Zionist danger is there.’ Nizar Hamzeh, a Lebanese Hizballah
expert, said the party cannot afford to be left out of the cabinet at the time being as it is

72
See Adnan El-Ghoul, Nasrallah reveals Hizbullah's strategy of political alliance, Daily Star, May 27,
2005.
73
See Nadim Ladki, ‘Hizbollah polls win bolsters defiance on arms,’ Reuters, June 6, 2005.
74
See Majdoline Hatoum, ‘Hizbullah: Politics, resistance don't conflict,’ Daily Star, June 18, 2005.

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‘under international pressure to disarm and it needs to be in the center of what is going on.
It would be very dangerous for them not to participate.’

Hizballah – Quo Vadis?

The main question in dispute is the evaluation of Hizballah leaders’ true intensions
and strategy for the short and longer term, on the background of the dramatic events of
the last months which culminated with the assassination of former prime minister Hariri
and the complete withdrawal of the Syrian forces from Lebanon.
Analysts present several possible scenarios for the future of Hizballah. According to
the Israeli researcher Eyal Zisser, in recent years Nasrallah ‘has adopted the ambitious
goal of taking power in Lebanon through democratic means’ through a system in which
every vote is counted equally and therefore would benefit Hizballah, which enjoys
massive support among the Shi'ites who constitute at least 40% of the population. Zisser
considers that in the face of the international and even internal consensus concerning the
need of the disarmament of all armed militias in Lebanon (even though Lebanese leaders
advocate disarmament of Hizballah in the context of a Lebanese dialogue rather than as
capitulation to foreign pressure), Hizballah has ‘failed to come up with a coherent
response’ although its leaders ‘have not ruled out the possibility of eventually finding a
formula that would include disarmament.’ The reason for this relatively accommodating
stance, according to Zisser, is that ‘outright defiance might put all the movement's
political, social and economic gains of recent years at risk and reduce it, again, simply to
the status of a resistance movement, but this time with virtually nothing to resist.’ On the
other hand, claims Zisser, ‘the organization remains determined to preserve whatever
freedom of maneuver it still has in south Lebanon and to prevent Israel from changing the
current equation according to which every Israeli action guarantees a Hizballah
reaction.’75
The ICG, which has already tried in 2003 to predict it, does it again in a recent paper.
It assesses that recent events have narrowed Hizballah’s options and pressed it to be more
cautious: the decision by moderate clerics from Najaf to work with US coalition forces on
the background of vicious insurgent attacks against Shiites in Iraq; Mahmoud Abbas's
election as PA president and the efforts to forge a ceasefire with the potential of strong
international response in case Hizballah attempts to sabotage the process.76
According to ICG analysts, seen from Hizballah’s perspective, the Syrian
withdrawal is only stage one; what comes next on US and Israeli agendas is its
disarmament which, in the short run at least, it is likely to resist, if necessary by force. A
Lebanese official cited by the ICG report remarked that “disarmament is not on Hizballah's
agenda, in spite of whatever moderate signals it may convey. If it feels threatened, if it feels
the U.S. is coming after it, it will provoke instability, either directly or by voicing Shiite
75
Eyal Zisser, ‘Hizbullah's Strategy Following Syria's Withdrawal From Lebanon,’ Moshe Dayan Center
for Middle Eastern and African Studies, Tel Aviv Notes, No. 134, May 23, 2005.
76
Syria After Lebanon, Lebanon After Syria? Crisis Group interview, March 2005.

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demands for a greater and fairer share of the political pie. The scenario is not hard to imagine
- Shiites assert their power; Maronites feel threatened and react - and it leads straight to
sectarian confrontation.”77 In the words of a Hizballah spokesman, "if anyone comes to
disarm us we will eat them. We will go mad. But in any event, the Lebanese army will be the
last to try to disarm us. 70% of the army is Muslim and 70% of these Muslims are Shiites".78
ICG considers even that as a result of Hizballah’s current predicament it is distancing
itself from Damascus without breaking ties, “preserving its legitimacy and place on the
domestic political scene while reminding all of its strength and special status - and therefore,
of its continued need to bear arms.” In the words of a Lebanese observer, “Hizballah's
position has always been unique. Until recently, it saw itself as part of the opposition but
without being anti-Syrian. Now it is pro-Syrian but it doesn't fall into the loyalist camp.
So it falls outside all camps and that is precisely how it derives its strength.”79 This
explains the massive use of Lebanese flags, not Hizballah banners, and nationalist slogans
during the mass demonstration organized by Hizballah on 8 March 2005.
ICG’s conclusion is that should the gambit fail, Hizballah appears to be counting
on “the resurgence of sectarian and political differences within the opposition once its
principal goal - getting the Syrians out - has been achieved,” giving way to “political
bickering, corruption and institutional gridlock” and leaving the issue of disarming the
Hizballah “to yet another day.”
According to an Israeli expert, Michael Herzog, Hizballah “sees both opportunities
and dangers ahead”, feels more vulnerable with the Syrian departure, but may also
become more dependent on Iran. “If the internal scene slopes into violent strife, the group
will stand ready as the only armed Lebanese militia.” 80

Threats to Israel after the Syrian withdrawal

Analysts also point to another possibility: that of a security vacuum in Southern


Lebanon should Hizballah leave or assume a passive role in regard to radical and armed
Palestinian groups who, out of conviction or serving the purposes of others (Syria? Iran?)
may carry out attacks against Israel.81
Israeli analysts are indeed very worried by this possibility. Herzog considers the
possibility that the Syrian withdrawal will allow Hizballah to arm itself through direct
shipments from Iran to Lebanon and free of Syria’s restraining hand could further
77
Idem
78
Syria After Lebanon, Lebanon After Syria? Crisis Group interview with Hussein Nabulsi, Hizballah
spokesperson, Beirut, 1 April 2005.
79
Idem
80
Herzog, The Hizballah Conundrum.
81
Syria After Lebanon, Lebanon After Syria? Crisis Group interview with Lebanese journalist, Beirut, 4
March 2005. Such a scenario would not be without precedent. On several occasions, so-called rogue
Palestinian factions carried out attacks on the Blue Line. See Crisis Group Report, Old Games, New Rules,
op. cit., p. 9. "Hizballah appeared to be saying, if you don't like us to be around, we won't be able to
control the situation here either", Crisis Group interview with diplomat, Beirut, February 2005.

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provoke Israel. In any case, Hizballah will certainly continue its efforts to destroy
prospects for Israeli-Palestinian peace. 82
Another Israeli researcher, Israel Elad Altman, predicts the possibility that the
attempts to dismantle the militias could lead to Lebanon rapidly becoming “a fertile
ground for terrorist attacks against Israel, against American or French interests in
retaliation for those countries' sponsorship of 1559, or as a warning against further
intervention in Lebanese or Syrian affairs… Syria itself might be interested in, and even
initiate, internal strife and other mischief.”83

The dilemmas of Hizballah’s challenge

Hizballah’s pivotal role in the pro-Syrian camp and the potential damage it could
cause if pressed too much, has led to a very cautious French and even American conduct
during the critical days following Hariri’s assassination.
According to US and French officials the priority was to get Syria out of Lebanon
but keep Lebanon stable in the process, giving no opportunity to Hizballah “to stand in
the way.” The US authorities considered that it would be counterproductive to push
disarmament now, and it was unrealistic to expect the Lebanese army to take forceful
action against the organization. The issue should be dealt therefore in due time, by the
Lebanese. ICG comments that France is persuaded of the need “to integrate Hizballah
more fully into the political equation…and offer reassurances about its future,” while
“Washington has been balancing its Lebanon focus with its broader anti-terrorism
campaign, leading to often conflicting messages.” 84
In this vein, President George W. Bush’s in his March 15, 2005 statement
expressed the hope that Hizballah would prove not to be a terrorist organization, “laying
down arms and not threatening peace.”
Nawaf Musawi, member of Hizballah's political bureau in charge of international
relations commented on these developments: “We have recently witnessed an increasing
political debate in European circles and now on the level of the US President. This debate
seeks to adopt a stand that is different from the traditional US stand toward Hizballah. I
do not want to adopt a stand in this regard at this point. I said that we view the stand
positively. But, we should also view this stand in light of the Israeli influence of the US
policy.” 85
Some American and British experts, including retired former intelligence and other
officials, are even eager to court Hizballah, in the framework of an effort to “open
communications among groups and societies that are not in touch with one another,

82
Herzog, The Hizballah Conundrum.
83
Israel E. Altman, “Syrian military pullout could backfire,” in The Future of Lebanon, Bitterlemons Int.,
Ed. 11 Vol. 3 - March 24, 2005, http://www.bitterlemons-international.org/previous.php?opt=1&id=77.
84
Syria After Lebanon, Lebanon After Syria? Crisis Group interview, Washington, March 2005.
85
Hizballah Official Says Party Views US Stand 'Positively' Announcer-read report over video, Al-
Arabiyah Television, March 16, 2005.

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aiming to try and shift prevailing Western perceptions on the Islamist movements and
what they represent,” as expressed by Alastair Crooke.86 Members of his Conflicts Forum
recently met in Beirut with Hizballah, Hamas and other leading Middle Eastern Islamists
“to probe each other's perceptions, positions and goals.” Nawaf Mousawi, represented
Hizballah in these meetings. The director of political programs at Hizballah’s Al-Manar
Television, Ibrahim Mousawi, said that the participating Islamists seemed to welcome the
gathering as a breakthrough.87

The need for a strategy to disarm Hizballah

The ICG team is firm in the conviction that in “the longer term, steps will have to
be taken in accordance with the Taef agreement and Resolution 1559 to transform
Hizballah gradually into a disarmed, strictly political organization.” To achieve this goal,
ICG proposes: gradual integration of Hizballah’s military wing as an autonomous unit
under Lebanese army control, agreement to abide by decisions of the elected Lebanese
government and relocation of its rockets 20 to 30 kilometers from the border as a prelude
to handing them over to government control; and full disarmament of Hizballah in the
context of progress toward Israeli-Lebanese and Israeli-Syrian peace agreements. The
European Union is advised to maintain its current stance regarding non-inclusion of
Hizballah on its terrorism list, subject to reconsideration should the organization engage
in such activity.88
Israeli analysts agree as to the dangers facing Lebanon, Israel and the international
community as a result of the Syrian withdrawal and Hizballah’s central role in the
Lebanese arena. Herzog however, emphasis the fact that Hizballah cannot be allowed to
remain the exclusive armed, nongovernmental force in Lebanon and proposes to exploit
“the current movement of political ‘tectonic plates’ under Lebanon and the Middle East,”
this “unique moment of opportunity to begin undercutting the armed Hizballah-Iran axis.”
He thinks that focusing on Hizballah, the international community should exploit its
current domestic vulnerabilities and pressure it concerning terrorism and disarmament.89
Elad Altman rightly remarks that the May Lebanese elections “can be neither free
nor fair if one party is a military organization that also enjoys effective autonomy in parts
of the country,” thus pointing to the urgency in the disarmament of Hizballah. He is
86
Alastair Crooke is director of Conflicts Forum, a new London-based non-governmental organization
“hosting professional people united by a common interest in overcoming current barriers between Islam
and the West. These people have extensive grounded experience in zones of conflict across the globe. The
principal aim of Conflicts Forum is to establish new understandings of Islam and of political Islam in the
West and to challenge the prevailing western orthodoxy that perceives Islamism as an ideology that is
hostile to the agenda for global democracy and good governance.” Crooke has been among other member
of the British MI6 and Special Adviser to the European Union Special Envoy to the Middle East Peace
Process. See its website at http://conflictsforum.hyperion.titaninternet.co.uk/ index.htm.
87
Rami G. Khouri, “Western-Islamist talks counter confrontation trend,” Daily Star, March 25, 2005.
88
Syria After Lebanon, Lebanon After Syria, Executive Summary and Recommendations.
89
Herzog, The Hizballah Conundrum.

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skeptical at the possibility that any Lebanese government or coalition of political forces is
able to persuade Hizballah to surrender its military capabilities fully or in part.
He, therefore, proposes the dismantling of Hizballah and the Palestinian armed
groups, “which are an integral part of the Syrian structure of domination in Lebanon,” as
“part of the Syrian withdrawal and not separated from it and delayed to a later stage…
Syria should be required to use its influence over Hizballah in the context of efforts to
dismantle the militias.” His main practical proposal though, is the deployment in Lebanon
of a NATO and EU international civilian and military force whose role would be “to
verify the full implementation of UNSC Resolution 1559, full Syrian military and
intelligence withdrawal; to assist in disarming all the militias; to help provide internal
security; and to assist the Lebanese in reconstructing their national institutions.” Elad
Altman believes that NATO and the EU, both looking for new security missions in the
broader Middle East region, are more suitable for the job than the UN forces, which failed
in the past.90
Even a very levelheaded Israeli analyst as Yossi Alpher, is apprehensive of “the
prospect of the enhanced political empowerment of radical Islamist movements that have
been deeply involved in terrorism”, namely Hizballah in Lebanon and Hamas in Palestine.
He rightly observes: “There are some indications that the US, and particularly the
European Union, will acquiesce in this process if Hizballah and Hamas manage to
distance themselves from their terrorist pasts. But these movements will not easily
abandon their totally negative attitude toward Israel and its very right to exist. Thus their
integration into politics, in turn, poses a potentially serious obstacle to the promotion of a
peace process, whether with Palestine or Lebanon…For Israelis and Palestinians,
Lebanon's proximity to Palestine makes it potentially the most influential front where
radical and moderate forces confront one another.” 91

Conclusion and recommendations

Martin Kramer, one of the first sharp analysts of Hizballah, commented that the
organization is a political movement which sees politics as an inseparable part of religion
and whose “collective choices regarding the extent and intensity of its violence had a
clear political rationale. When it employed violence, it did so for political and not
ritualistic purposes…to bring it closer to power. In making its choices, Hizballah weighed
benefits against costs.” 92
Throughout its twenty-five-year history, Hizballah has demonstrated quite clearly
that it is an ideologically driven movement with strong leaders, a clear vision of its
strategic goals, and extensive experience in terrorism and guerrilla warfare. The current
leadership, under the guidance of the charismatic Nasrallah, is convinced of the
90
Elad Altman, Syrian military pullout could backfire.
91
Yossi Alpher, “On Hizballah and Hamas,” in Lebanon, Syria and the conflict, bitterlemons.org, Edition
11, March 21, 2005, at http://www.bitterlemons.org/previous/bl2103205ed11.html.
92
M.Kramer, "The Calculus of Jihad,” at http://www.geocities.com/ martinkramerorg/Calculus.htm.

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THE POWER OF ISRAEL HIZBULLAH AS STRATEGIC
THREAT TO ISRAEL

righteousness of the organization’s aspirations and methods, and, until recently, believed
that its goals were within close reach. The perceived victories of the Islamist cause during
these two-and-a-half decades -victories in which Hizballah was an active participant- only
reinforced this conviction. In particular, the Israeli withdrawal from southern Lebanon in
May 2000 instilled the organization with an almost messianic assurance that it would
achieve final victory over its enemies.93
Hizballah is also a pragmatic movement, however. It maintains awareness of the
difficulties ahead, makes plans to overcome them, and waits for the right moment to act,
while exhibiting great patience and a strong sense of history. Therefore, even when its
ultimate objectives are postponed because of strategic or political constraints, Hizballah
does not feel compelled to renounce its goals or the violent means it has learned to use so
well.
Given this modus operandi, if pressed to disarm, Hizballah’s current short-term
strategy may be threefold: to try to sabotage the Israeli-Palestinian negotiating process
and the withdrawal from Gaza by staging, under deep Palestinian cover, a major terrorist
attack in Israel; to support a Syrian move, or even take the initiative, for internal
destabilization of Lebanon through terrorism; to build on the American entanglement in
Iraq and the possibility that Shi’a radicals there will make use of violence and terrorism
against the US coalition if the new constitutional framework will not answer their
expectations.
As the crisis concerning the nuclearization of Iran is approaching a critical moment
in case the negotiations between the US and Europe and Iran fail, Hizballah could be used
to provoke a regional crisis at Israel’s northern border with Lebanon.
Ibrahim Amin al-Sayyid, head of Hizballah's Political Council reflected this state
of mind when he declared: “If the current circumstances are not favorable, they might be
more favorable in the future.” 94
We should therefore take seriously the threats proffered by the Hizballah leaders
and analyze carefully what Daniel Sobelman metaphorically described as Hizballah’s
“opaque façade.”
In our view, Hizballah has achieved the present dangerous status as a Middle
Eastern player due to the unwillingness or the fear of the international community to
challenge its brutal murderous terrorism over the last 25 years. Hizballah has paid no
price until today for the numerous attacks against US, French, other Western and Arab
citizens, soldiers and interests. Hizballah has also continued for eight years to kidnap,
unpunished, dozens of Western citizens in Lebanon, historic example for the Iraqi
insurgents. Even Osama bin-Laden has praised Hizballah’s 1983 suicide bombing of the

93
Ely Karmon, ‘?Fight on All Fronts?: Hizballah, the War on Terror, and the War in Iraq,’ The
Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Policy Focus, No. 46, December 2003.
94
“Lebanon, a New Stage” program, featuring an interview with Ibrahim Amin al-Sayyid, head of
Hizballah's Political Council, by Ghassan Bin-Jiddu, in Beirut - Al-Jazirah Televison, March 10, 2005.

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THE POWER OF ISRAEL HIZBULLAH AS STRATEGIC
THREAT TO ISRAEL

US Marine barracks in Beirut as the first “American defeat” at the hands of Islamist
radicals.95
Neither have the various Israeli governments, of the left and of the right alike,
dared to seriously challenge the Hizballah-Syria-Iran strategic threat to Israel’s interests.
In final analysis, these governments have permitted Hizballah to build a solid base in
southern Lebanon, threatening permanently Israel’s territory and actively supporting
Palestinian terrorism and at the same time deterring it from significant reprisal.96
The permanent Hizballah threat to the Israeli - Palestinian negotiating process
could not only derail any hope for a future peace agreement and thus engulf again the two
peoples in a long bloody fighting, but it could produce also a regional conflict if Syria
will continue to coordinate its actions with Hizballah after the withdrawal from Lebanon
and compel Israel to react forcefully to major terrorist attacks on its territory.
A success on the Lebanese and Palestinian fronts could embolden Hizballah to be
more active on the Iraqi front, in case the Shia radicals there decided to violently
challenge the new government and the US-led coalition.
In view of the historical experience and the serious potential threat Hizballah
represents for the local and regional arena, there is need for a continuous and vigorous
political and economic pressure by the US, the European Union, and actually by the UN
representing the whole international community, on the Lebanese government, Syria and
Iran to curtail Hizballah’s military presence in southern Lebanon and compel it to disarm.
The designation of Hizballah as a terrorist organization by the EU and as many
other countries as possible could only enhance this pressure and help deter the
organization and its sponsors. US and France could also engage legal actions against
Hizballah leaders for their organization’s involvement in past terrorist operations.
It is doubtful that NATO or the EU would accept in this troubled period engaging
military forces on the ground. However, it should be made clear to Hizballah leaders, by
the international community and by Israel, that if they continue terrorist activities across
the border or support other terrorist organizations abroad, direct military reprisal could
come as a result.

95
See Reuven Paz, “Global Jihad and the Sense of Crisis: Al-Qa‘idah’s Other Front,” Occasional Papers
vol. 1, no. 4 (Project for the Research of Islamist Movements [PRISM], March 2003), at www.e-
prism.org/pages/4/index.htm.
96
See Ely Karmon, “A Solution to Syrian Terrorism,” Middle East Quarterly, Vol. VI, No.2, June 1999,
pp. 23-34, at http://www.meforum.org/article/464.

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THE POWER OF ISRAEL THE PARTY OF GOD IS
VICTIM OF ITS VICTORY

THE PARTY OF GOD IS


VICTIM OF ITS VICTORY by Guy BECHOR

Hizbullah managed to legitimate itself as a great Lebanese political force against the
enemy, Israel. After the withdrawal of Tsahal from the South of the country, it lost its
way. Today the Shiites themselves contest its leadership. The dilemmas of Nasr Allah.

1. T he farewell between the head of Syrian


intelligence in Lebanon, General Rustum Razala, and the secretary-general of the
Lebanese Shiite movement, Hizbullah, Hasan Nasr Allah, was touching. Razala left
Lebanon together with the Syrian military forces in April by order of the Americans.
Saluting him, his ally Nasr Allah wanted to deliver him a personal farewell gift.
According to the Lebanese press, it was a gold-plated Kalashnikov submachine gun. Not
a functioning one, but a souvenir. In effect, Nasr Allah symbolically gave him the
meaning of his movement: a machine gun imprisoned in a gold case meant for a museum.
For, these are new times in Lebanon.
In the same month, in a speech in Beirut, Nasr Allah confirmed that his
organization will be disposed to discuss disarmament, but only “behind closed doors.”
Nasr Allah declared himself ready to discuss questions regarding the fate of his
organization with all Lebanese political representatives. “We have agreed that the
resistance (a term which in the Lebanese political lexicon is equivalent to Hizbullah), its
arms and its goal, will be discussed on a national level, but it is absolutely forbidden that
the particulars be mentioned in the press”.
That same month as well Nasr Allah’s second, Sheik Na’im Qasim, confessed in
an interview with the Financial Times that his organization was ready to discuss
disarmament and that the possibility existed that Hizbullah would become a “reservist
military”, in coordination with the Lebanese government. Even if Qasim placed the
disarmament in relation to the Israeli withdrawal from the zone of the Shebaa farms,
which Hizbullah considers part of Lebanese territory (contrary to UN opinion),
nonetheless, the question of disarmament is now considered discussable.
Who would never have believed that the most militant organization in Lebanon
and perhaps the entire Middle East, the organization whose terrorist propaganda fired the
anti-Israeli imagination of an entire generation of young Arabs, which swore to fight
Israel “for another thousand years”, would now express the intention of transforming
itself into a political party? Where did the flame of the struggle go?

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THE POWER OF ISRAEL THE PARTY OF GOD IS
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Hizbullah represents yet another example of the paradox that characterizes the
Middle East, a region in which excessive strength can also transform itself into weakness.
This strength is in reality a double-edged sword. Whoever holds it in his hands feels a
sensation which even Israel, the sworn enemy of Hizbullah, knows very well. One may
say that, in good measure, Hizbullah is a victim of its own strength.

2. In 1982, when this organization was founded by its first charismatic secretary-
general, Sheik Subhi Tufayli, under the religious guide of the imam Muhammad Husayn
Fadl Allah, the principal objective was to address the Shiite community in Lebanon.
Until the mid-Seventies—when another imam, Musa al-Sadir, had founded the Shiite
movement Amal (which means “hope” in Arabic)—it had never been organized. With al-
Sadir’s defeat in Libya in 1978, the decline of the movement began, until the founding of
the militant and revisionist Shiite organization with the pretentious name of Hizbullah,
which means Party of God in Arabic. No less pretentious were its aims: it would not rest
until the conquest of power in Lebanon.
It was then tradition that the Lebanese state invested little in the poor and
marginalized Shiite citizens, who in turn largely directed their political, religious and
cultural attention East, towards the far holy cities of Iraq and Iran—Nagaf, Karbala and
Qom. The Shiite population had always been controlled in the South of Lebanon by two
families—As’ad and ‘Usayran. In the Seventies, the populations of the villages began to
relocate en masse from the South and from the Bekaa Valley to Beirut in search of means
of sustenance. Thus were born the poor and neglected quarters in the southern part of the
city—Burg al-Baragna, Bir Hasan, and others. The families of the Shiite elite continued
in every case to consider these masses as nothing more than electoral reserves, necessary
to ensure term after term of success in the general elections.
The Shiites thus found themselves in the lowest social strata of the Lebanese socio-
economic scale. They were deprived of united leadership, confused between the strong
conservatism they left behind in their villages and the bright lights of great Beirut, which
was not however their city. Great theories emerged in that period: Arab unity, Nasserism,
Arab socialism, communism, revolution of the officials, Greater Syria. But they were not
their theories. In a certain sense the Shiite were strangers in their own homeland.
The Hizbullah movement, with the proud support derived from the victory of the
revolution of Khomeini in Iran, erupted amidst the Shiite cultural confusion and its ardent
desire for revenge. Its reborn strength rested on two pillars: religion and armed struggle
against Israel. With time, the struggle against the Israeli military then stationed in South
Lebanon would provide the base for Hizbullah’s assault on power in Beirut. A struggle
that granted the movement legitimacy and immunity within the Lebanese political system.
Still today the rule of the Arab world is that whoever fights against Israel is worthy of
great esteem. It was this rule that brought such figures as Yasser Arafat, Gamal Abd al-
Nasir and Saddam Hussein to the pinnacle of Arab politics in the twentieth century.
Hizbullah fought against Israel with the aim of obtaining that social and political
leadership which gave the Shiites of Lebanon recognition and strength within the country.

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THE POWER OF ISRAEL THE PARTY OF GOD IS
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When Hizbullah Israel at the center of their attention, it intended in reality to draw
attention to itself and to the Shiites it represented. Thus Hizbullah completed its rise in
Lebanese politics, paralyzed by the party of combatants in the “holy war” against the
Israeli enemy. Gnashing their teeth, but lacking the power to do more, the other parties
assisted Hizbullah’s progressive political rise, until it became the most numerous group in
the Lebanese parliament.
But Hizbullah also played the religion card. That religion which had managed to
provoke a revolution in Iran in 1979 and that had become a political weapon for the
Lebanese Shiites. A religion that hid clear social and political objectives. And so
Hizbullah, combining militant Islam, hate, a sense of social marginalization and
restoration of amour propre in the struggle against a common enemy, discovered the
formula for victory in Lebanon.

3. Hizbullah did not have allies in the Arab world. Sunni Islam for hundreds of years
expressed its superiority over the Shiite school, considered marginal and mystic. Nor was
the organization a member of the organized network of the Muslim Brotherhood,
extended throughout the Arab world, connected to a plethora of groups, from Hamas in
Palestine to the various brotherhoods active in the Arab countries. This network hinges on
the ideologue Hasan Turabi in Sudan and involves also the ISF (Islamic Salvation Front)
in Algeria and affiliated movements in other North African countries. Hizbullah has had
to do everything alone, operating in an environment rich with dangers, with respect to the
best Shiite tradition of seeing a threat in any foreign entity.
Paradoxically, the Party of God has since its birth been able to count on two
opposed points of support that contributed with their polarity to the completion of the
identity and legitimacy of the movement: Iran and Israel. In its struggle against Israel
Hizbullah has defined itself and inflamed an entire generation of Arabs. Unlike the Sunni
Islamic movements, a part of which found definition through “cultural” and political
opposition to Israel, Hizbullah has can be proud of having truly fought against the Jewish
state. Iran, at the opposite pole, preformed a function of support, financing and a proud
model of auto emancipation. It is clear how important Israel was for Hizbullah: without
Iran, with all its economic and military assistance, the movement would have still been
able to form itself; with out Israel, on the other hand, Hizbullah would not have been able
to exist.
As an Israeli it is difficult to admit it, but Hizbullah managed in the Nineties to
make a game of Israel, manipulating its public opinion. Its present secretary-general
Hasan Nasr Allah understood the strength of the mass media in the West. Making use of a
psychological war sustained by kidnappings and terrorist acts given prominence by the
mass media, he turned Israeli public opinion against its own government. It was this
public opinion that put pressure on the military, as happens in democracies, and in the end
Israel completely evacuated the South of Lebanon in May 2000.
Nasr Allah made psychological war an art. He became the grand high priest in the
game of fear and illusions. His was a televised leadership supported by terrorism—never

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THE POWER OF ISRAEL THE PARTY OF GOD IS
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the opposite. And it worked. Israel bought the manipulation that aimed at instilling the
belief that Hizbullah was a highly potent military organization, when in reality all the
guerillas of the Party of God would easily fit in a soccer stadium. The weakness was
camouflaged behind apparent strength. And this strength influenced a democratic society
to the point of changing it internally.
Nasr Allah has always derided Israeli democracy. He considered it the soft
underbelly, as al-Qa’ida derides the democracies of Italy or Spain. But history often has
its irony. So that the organization that has so well know how to (negatively) exploit public
opinion (of Israel), has fallen victim to public opinion (the Lebanese one). It is as if
democracy knew to find the way to strike its antagonists. The great priest of manipulation
of public opinion finds himself these days being carried away by it.
The armed struggle against Israel, thanks to which Hizbullah has defined itself, is
concluded. When Israel withdrew from the South of Lebanon, Hizbullah was caught flat-
footed. Its leaders were hasty to declare a continuation of the struggle against Israel, but
Lebanese public opinion was not inclined to continue this Sisyphean task once Israel
evacuated and released all the Shiite prisoners.
Lebanon, where general political amnesties have been applied more than anywhere
else in the Arab world, has asked that the struggle against Israel be ended. From
Hizbullah’s point of view, this is a catastrophe. Without the struggle against Israel, the
movement with its aura of glory and influence will no longer be able to exist. The major
fear of the managers of the Party of God consists of the collapse of political influence
reached through great toil.
With the withdrawal of the Israeli military, Hizbullah’s first critics emerged. The
Christian journalist Gubran Tuwayni, director of the Beirut newspaper al-Nahar, rose to
the fore for criticizing the Party of God, “which could drag Lebanon, Syria and the entire
region into a ruinous war”. Tuwayni and other journalists no longer hide their criticisms
of Hizbullah. In one blow, the organization has lost its identity as pseudo-protector of
Lebanon and has returned to being the group of poor Shiite fallah of the South. From
national protagonist Hizbullah has returned to being a sectarian phenomenon; from
granter of favors to needy recipient.
Even the relations between Hizbullah and the Lebanese Shiite population have
changed in recent years. When the organization was born in 1982, in the south of
Lebanon, information technology was almost nonexistent. The Shiites who populated
southern Lebanon were simple people, lacking electricity and easily moulded and
inflamed.
Today Lebanon is coming into contract with globalization. Dozens of satellite
channels from other Arab countries carry information and analyses to every Lebanese
home; the internet has spread and Hizbullah’s role as creator of norms becomes more
difficult every day. Until recently, it defined the Shiite public, while today it is in large
measure the public that determines Hizbullah. It has fallen victim to its own success.
Having managed to elevate the Shiites to a strong position in society, now that they have
arrived they are used to a high level of living, expecting representation and power. If in

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THE POWER OF ISRAEL THE PARTY OF GOD IS
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the past Hizbullah spoke of “the oppressed of the world”, when carrying out terrorist
operations, today this only provokes amusement. Today the public is less discriminated
against, has a much higher level of education and is more integrated in the state structure
to the point that revolutionary rhetoric has little relevance. In sum, Hizbullah has reached
its objectives—both with regards to Israel and within Lebanese society—and yesterday’s
successes are today’s failures.

4. The organization’s troubles have continued and worsened since September 11th,
when Hizbullah began to fear being identified with al-Qa’ida’s terrorism, and more of
being the focus of America’s ire after the military victory over Saddam Hussein.
The war in Iraq has introduced a new element in the equation of forces in the
Middle East: fear. Revisionist organizations and states that use violence and terrorism and
in the past did not have to account for their actions are today on the defensive. The fear of
following in Saddam’s footsteps has brought Iran, Syria and Libya as well as Hizbullah,
Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad to consider the limits of force for the first time.
Hizbullah, for example, fears being identified with the militant Shiite organizations in
southern Iraq and attracting the fury of the United States.
The surprising religious unity among the Shiites has disquieted Hizbullah, causing
them to lower their profile. And so, those who had brought the “novelty” of unstoppable
militancy to the Arab world have pursued a line of fast-track integration into Lebanese
politics. Hizbullah, which has always been able to differentiate the points of strength and
weakness in the region, understood immediately that the Americans have imposed a new
level of force on the Middle East.
The relations of force in the region have changed. If in the past Syria was not
terribly inclined to take Washington’s will into consideration, at times outright opposing
it, now the US has become a concrete menace for Damascus. If before Hizbullah launched
threats against Israel, today the Jewish state and the democratic freedom it represents are
a menace to the existence of the organization itself. And in Lebanon public opinion
increasingly controls the Hizbullah movement.
So, from 2000 to today, the Party of God, sole armed militia in Lebanon, has
moved from public good to a shackle on freedom for the country’s leaders. The Lebanese
governing class has begun to distance themselves from the organization. And how could it
be otherwise if they want to attract a million tourists a year to the country? How can one
expect them to come to Lebanon if the leaders of armed militias roam about in the streets,
burning US and Israeli flags at the end of their demonstrations? How is it possible to
better Lebanon’s dubious reputation if Hizbullah, with its mere existence, perpetuates the
memory of days in which terror reigned in Beirut? How is it possible to attract
international investment for Beirut’s development, when Hizbullah continues to project a
sense of instability?
The declared military power of the organization stands out too boldly on the
Lebanese scene in a phase of change. The Hizbullah = war brand, so successful in the
past, has become a sign of the past which one wishes to forget and make forgotten. It has

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THE POWER OF ISRAEL THE PARTY OF GOD IS
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come to create a separation between the Lebanese leadership and the Shiite group. After
having been able to serve as a bridge between the Lebanese political world and the
Shiites, Hizbullah has today become the element that could recreate the moat of the past.

5. The war in Iraq has brought similar consequences for Syria and Iran. Teheran and
Damascus are ever more isolated and threatened by the international community. But
their most insidious enemies are above the ideas of democracy, internet, free information
and human rights. From strong and solid regimes, the two supporters of Hizbullah are
now struggling for survival. For Hizbullah, the two state protectors have become
millstones rather than advantages. If before, they were factors of legitimization, today
they have the opposite effect. If before they were on the offensive, now they are on the
defensive.
So it happens that Hizbullah finds itself involved in Security Council resolution
1559 which calls not only for the withdrawal of Syrian forces from Lebanon—now
completed—but also for the disarmament of all the militias. This obviously refers to
Hizbullah, the only remaining militia. The Shiite organization found itself linked to the
Syrian occupiers in Lebanon. The Security Council resolution came down upon both
Syrian president Bashar al-Asad and Hasan Nasr Allah. Syria and Hizbullah were by then
used to seeing a cover for their actions at the UN. Now for the first time, it has turned on
them
Even the highly calibrated internal structure of Hizbullah has become a burden
since the war in Iraq. In a world with only one superpower, in which states and
organization are defined on the basis of their democratic aspirations, elections and civil
rights, the structure of the council of the Sura (consulting council) appears antiquated and
irrelevant. The Sura is based on the classic Islamic model in which a consulting council,
led by secretary-general Hasan Nasr Allah, unites around a single religious sage (faqih).
At Nasr Allah’s side are figures like Muhammad Ra‘d, Hasim Safi a Din, Muhammad
Yazbak, Husayn Halil, Muhsin Sa‘kar, etc.
It is certainly not easy to reconcile a traditional structure with the demand for
democracy and modernity which is advancing with ever greater insistence in Lebanon.
Can the figures that guide Hizbullah, who had their relevance in the days of war and
terrorism, adapt to guiding the organization in times of market economies, stock markets,
casinos and a thriving nightlife in Beirut? Will they know to tone down their thunderous
rhetoric? I strongly doubt it. The lack of mobility in Hizbullah’s structure does not allow
for the entrance of new blood and new ways of thinking. Of course the spiritual leader,
Sheik Fadl Allah, who holds the post of mugtahid, can bring changes, but his position in
the sphere of Lebanese Shiites is much less central than it once was.
Hizbullah finds itself confronted by strategic dilemmas. For example, does it need
to enter into government or transform itself into one of many political parties, perhaps not
even the greatest? Until today, it considered itself above trifling Lebanese political games.
The movement behaves as if it were the government. Hizbullah has always been a
movement of thundering monologues, a characteristic opposed to classical Lebanese

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politics. Besides, the entrance into government would mean renouncing the proud
program of turning Lebanon into a country subject to Islamic law. The Lebanon of
compromises would conquer the Hizbullah of intransigence and rebellion. The word
would defeat the gun.
Hizbullah finds itself almost obligated to enter into government to satisfy the
desire for participation on behalf of the Shiites, who want what the organization has
promised them: public offices, political responsibility and power. In the past, Hizbullah
based its strength on the element of da‘wa, which is to say a form of state socialism: hot
meals, schools and free medical treatment. Today, this backfires on the organization,
which is not able to satisfy different demands. The Shiites do not want more hot meals.
They want strength and money; they want to participate in Lebanon’s wealth. And for this
they do not need Hizbullah’s old slogans.
Nasr Allah, who well understands the growing strategic difficulties for his
organization, returns to raising the specter of Israel. If it depended on him, his rockets
would be launched at the north of Israel and Tsahal would be returned to southern
Lebanon, thus resolving the existential dilemma of the Party of God. But the Lebanese
street does not allow him to open a new front and Nasr Allah is seeking to bait Israel,
hoping that Jerusalem will launch its military against him. In recent years Hizbullah’s
leader has been testing the waters to determine how far Lebanese public opinion will
allow him to go: this is fundamental because he must go far enough to drag Israel into a
new war. For this he only attacks the zone of the Shebaa farms (controlled by Israel with
the UN’s consent), firing artillery against Israel and piloting unmanned planes over its
airspace. Unfortunately for Nasf Allah, Israel—which has matured in the meantime—
does not respond to his provocations. So that even within Lebanon Hizbullah appears as a
provocateur.
Thus Nasr Allah does little else than worsen his situation. The more the calm lasts,
the greater the divide between his ever more grotesque speeches and his actions. It is
another hard blow for the organization that has always held that Arab leaders speak much
but do little. The enfant terrible of Lebanese politics has become just another petty
politician.
Even if it is still early, the day will come when the government of Beirut will find
itself at the negotiating table with Israel. The talks should not be terribly complicated,
given that no real problems divide the two countries. How will Hizbullah react? Israel
will work with any legitimate Lebanese government, but what will Nasr Allah’s
movement, for which the struggle against the Jewish state is the sole geopolitical raison
d’etre, do? Probably Hizbullah, which has in the past demonstrated its ability to read
Lebanon’s moods, will understand that it cannot cause the failure of a similar process, and
will at the most hold it hostage with whatever tools the mass media leaves at its disposal.
It will be one more blow for the Shiite movement, after those received these past few
months.

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6. With the assassination of the former Lebanese prime minister, Rafik al-Hariri, on
February 14th, by Syria and the Lebanese government (as the UN commission report has
determined), the situation has changed for the worse for Hizbullah. All the dilemmas and
fears hidden by the discrete nature of Lebanese politics have come to the surface. It was
no longer possible to hide the Lebanese who thundered through the streets demonstrating
in crowds never before seen in the Arab world, firmly asking the Syrians to disappear
from the Land of the Cedars.
Nasr Allah, who had not yet truly understood the crisis of his organization,
hastening to “adopt” the Syrians has only increased the illegitimacy of his movement in
Lebanon. Instead of seizing the occasion and seeking a new place for Hizbullah, he
remained nearly the only leader locked in the past. The Syrians’ exit from Lebanon has
weakened his organization not only militarily but also socially. In fact the men of
Hizbullah were among the few to support the Syrians to the end, against public opinion.
But there was another reason that Nasr Allah brought hundreds of thousands of
Shiites into the squares of Beirut and Nabatiyya to demonstrate support for the Syrians.
He knew that the hundreds of thousands of Lebanese who asked the Syrians to leave
Lebanon, were indirectly addressing Hizbullah, letting them know their place. The
Lebanese protestors let the Shiites know that they had to return to their “natural
dimension” in society, which is to say at the margins. It is this hidden message that made
Nasr Allah explode. When he reunited the Shiite masses in his counterdemonstration, he
did so against the Lebanese elite, telling them that the Shiites were here and would
remain.
In those days, two disputes played out. The first—in the light of day, clear to all in
the West—regarded the presence of the Syrians in Lebanon; the second—hidden and
comprehensible only to the Lebanese—concerned the place that Shiites must occupy in
Lebanon. This is the dilemma that Hizbullah today faces: will it be able to find a way to
integrate the Shiites into Lebanese politics or will it keep them at the margins from which
it sought to redeem them? Will it be able to exploit the changes that are taking place in the
region, transforming Hizbullah into a new organization and abandoning its military
essence, or will it remain in the past, like Iran and Syria? Will Hizbullah remake itself?
Will the Kalashnikov truly become a gold-plated model, to be conserved in a museum for
future generations, or will it be used to sabotage the effort to get Lebanon back on its
feet?

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THE POWER
R OF ISRAEL

WHAT IS CHANGING IN THE MIDDLE EAST


(AND WHAAT IS NOT)
THE POWER OF ISRAEL GAS AND OIL: GETTING ALONG
WITHOUT THE ARABS IN THE EAST

GAS AND OIL : GETTING ALONG


WITHOUT THE ARABS IN THE EAST by Margherita PAOLINI

In the new geopolitical order, Israel, alongside the Turks, Russians and Iraqi Kurds, is
the main player in a regional energy strategy. Turkey functions as a conduit for crude oil
and methane flows from east to west. And American guarantees to the Jewish State have
their limits.

1. I n the East, there is a new and unusual energy


contest in progress. There are four contestants who are all regional: Israel, Turkey,
Ţalābānī’s Iraqi Kurds and Russia. The logic driving these four players is implicit in the
game itself; it is no longer solely the logic of the companies that pieced together the great
Caspian-Central Asian energy scene. Let’s look at what the motivations of each
individual player are in turn (Map 1).

Israel. The Jewish State participated even in the first stage of this contest, in the
second half of the 1990s, lobbying the United States for the possibility of a Baku-Ceyhan
(oil and gas) energy corridor. It meant finding an outlet to Western markets for oil and gas
from the Caspian Sea and Central Asia, carefully bypassing Russian and Iranian
territories. The starting point of the Baku-Ceyhan operation hinged on an Azerbaijani and
Kazak oil flow, providing a stimulus to Uzbek and Turkmen resource exploitation. At that
stage, the final aim of the Israeli government was to directly assure its share of gas
supplies from Turkmenistan (and this goal still applies even in the new scenario). It was
an operation that was carefully-planned by Israeli companies such as Merhav (managed
by ex-Mossad agents), a consultant to the Turkmen government. The secret services had
thus anticipated the decision of Sharon’s government to forge ahead in restructuring the
Israeli energy network, taking the share of gas from 2% to 25%. This plan was also
facilitated by interesting offshore gas finds in the stretch extending from Gaza to Haifa (a
continuation of the Sinai fields).
Today, the Turkmen gas operation is taking shape thanks to several favourable
events. Firstly, the energy crisis which has forced the acceleration of projects left to bain-
marie for many years; secondly, the confirmation of Turkey as privileged energy corridor
for the West; and thirdly, the recent interest of the European Union in promoting supplies
via Turkey, of gas especially, to reduce dependence on oil. Altering the oil/gas energy
mix, which is currently weighted in favour of the former, would substantially prolong the
supply of hydrocarbons.

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Turkey. Erdoğan’s Turkey inherited the fiduciary role of energy corridor for the
West due to its Atlantic leanings in the context of the Cold War and the understanding
reached with Israel in the 1990s. It was according to this rationale that the Baku-Ceyhan
option was founded, launched in 1997 also in collaboration with Israel, to sell the
resources of the Caspian Sea to American and European buyers. From this starting point,
Ankara raised the stakes, transforming what should have been two gas supply agreements
for the domestic market – with Russia and Iran, precisely the intended targets in the case
of the Baku-Ceyhan corridor - into a great strategy for marketing gas to Europe.
Erdoğan forged ahead, agreeing with the ex-archenemy Greece over the
construction of an undersea gas pipeline across the Dardanelles Strait. In this way, the
Turkish-Greek partnership created a fait accompli: from then on, Asian pipeline gas
supplies to Europe would pass by this route. Furthermore, Ankara’s pan-Turkish
ambitions for Central Asia (particularly in relation to Turkmenistan) found a practical
application here. Among other paradoxes, even before passing through the trans-Caspian
route, the first consignments of Turkmen gas were arriving in Turkey via Iran.
Naturally, thanks to agreements for increasing supplies from Moscow, the new
breed of Turkish trader looks to the East, in particular to Israel, Syria, Lebanon and
Palestine, in both economic and geopolitical terms. By setting up such a network,
Erdoğan foreshadowed regional profit-sharing, thereby reserving the lead position in the
energy sector for Turkey.

Iraqi Kurdistan. The network created by the Turks is also extremely interesting in
terms of better exploitation of energy resources in Northern Iraq, which until now has
been somewhat held back by the various stages of the Mesopotamian conflict. In recent
months - even more so with the election of the Kurdish leader Ğalāl Ţalābānī to the Iraqi
presidency - a spectacular rapprochement has taken place between Iraqi Kurds and Turks
with two precise aims: first, to re-secure the Kirkūk-Dortyol oil pipeline (terminating on
the Mediterranean coast near Ceyhan), the Turkish leg of which was threatened by PKK
attacks; and secondly, to guarantee Turkey’s participation in research and development of
oilfields in the Mosul area (controlled by the local Kurdish leader Mas‘ūd Barzānī) and of
gas south-east of Kirkūk (an area within Ţalābānī’s control). This latter proposal
envisages the construction of a new gas pipeline parallel to the Kirkūk-Dortyol oil
pipeline. In this way, Turkey would become a partner of the Iraqi Kurds, also enabling
resources to converge for benefit of the Turkmen minorities in Kurdistan.
The Ţalābānī-Erdoğan agreement also includes Syria, even if only in a backseat
position, for further protection from the south of the Kirkūk-Dortyol energy corridor -
which will be defended on the Turkish stretch by private Israeli companies that are
already working on the security of the Baku-Ceyhan pipeline. In this way, it is also
possible to guarantee Kurdish oil and gas supplies to Israel through the strategic junction
situated on the Turkish Mediterranean coast. It is an effective operation as it is
camouflaged. Indeed, if you wanted to revive the old route of the Kirkūk-Haifa colonial
pipeline, you would have to endure its vulnerability due to the pipeline crossing through

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Arab territories that are all but secure, from Western Iraq to Jordan to the Palestinian
territories.

Russia. The Russian strategy is less linear, due to certain inescapable difficulties.
First of all, Moscow intends to get back into the Caspian arena. After having opposed the
Baku-Ceyhan corridor, it now accepts the fait accompli and is seeking to modify the
corridor’s originally anti-Russian rationale. The Russian energy company Lukoil (whose
shares, by the way, are 11% owned by the American Conoco) is a 10% operator in the
main Azerbaijani Caspian oilfield. The same Lukoil is also part of an important joint
venture with KazMunaiGaz, with whom it will exploit the significant Tyub Karagan
oilfield in the Northern Caspian Sea. With these resources and other Russian and Kazak
oil, Russia can contribute to giving greater substance to the oil flow of the Baku-Ceyhan
pipeline - which up to now seems rather feeble - while remaining outside the consortium
that manages it. This operation is to be carried out through the Russian-British company
TNK-BP - third most important in the Russian market - which would have to reverse the
flow of the already existing Russian-Azerbaijani Novorossijsk-Baku oil pipeline. In this
way, the Ceyhan energy outlet would be characterised as more European and less
American.
On the gas front, having already resolved the European supply issue with the
underwater Baltic gas pipeline project, Russia is trying to get into the Eastern venture via
Turkey. Putin is contemplating a specific economic agreement with Israel. The primary
vehicle is Gazprom, which for a year has been negotiating for a wide-ranging agreement
with the Israeli government to develop a future gas network with the Jewish State, to be
supplied via Turkey through the doubling of the capacity of the Blue Stream underwater
gas pipeline (which crosses the Black Sea from Tuapse to Samsun). Moscow has also
relaunched the idea of selling Russian oil to Asia via Israel and the Red Sea, avoiding the
Suez Canal (which is now too small for the super tankers) and reversing the Ashkelon-
Eilat flow. Old and new oligarchies of the Russian Jewish lobby and of the Russian
Diaspora to Israel are involved in these games. Such is Putin’s interest in getting in on the
Israeli venture that he has put an agreement in place with Sharon for the supply, without
intermediaries, of Russian diamonds. In this way, Putin perhaps seeks to placate the
oligarchies, which are now looking beyond the current Russian leadership and preparing
to install a new one.

2. Piecing together the puzzle of manifest and hidden intentions of the four players, a
totally original scenario emerges which was unthinkable only a few years ago. Now, it is
the game itself that has somehow become autonomous from its promoters and it proceeds
according to regional rationales. This is a no-win game. There are no winners or losers. In
the end, it could end up being more stabilising and productive than that devised by the
Americans, which had an essentially anti-Russian role.
The Iranian factor remains an unknown in this scenario. If the Israelis or
Americans attempt to destabilise Iran, the whole set-up described above could fall apart.

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From the Israeli point of view, this scenario envisages a geopolitical novelty: it
foreshadows Israel as integrated into the East, but with a clear preference for interacting
with the non-Arab Sunni elements of the Middle East, from the Turks to the Kurds. The
Jewish State has ushered in a new regional energy approach which seems more congenial
to the interests of the increasingly more diverse Israeli society - particularly its Russian
element. If, in fact, its closest and most economical supplier is Egypt, with its growing
ambitions as gas exporter, Israel is looking to diversify its suppliers as much as possible
to ensure greater security of supplies. The Jewish State is gradually freeing itself of
American protection, even in the energy field. Indeed, up till now, Washington has
guaranteed Israel all necessary supplies, even during emergency conditions for the United
States itself. This is a protection that today Bush admits he can no longer guarantee. Israel
knows that the crisis is not transitory. But contrary to the past, Jerusalem has various
alternative solutions at its disposal.
In order to understand the originality of this strategy, it’s worth very briefly tracing
back the genesis of the firstly Jewish, and later Israeli, energy angst. The story begins in
the 1930s, at the time of the British mandate over Palestine and the first conflicts and
meetings between British and American companies to secure the resources of
Mesopotamia and the Gulf for themselves (see Map 2). Haifa was by then already the
outlet towards which a significant part of the oil controlled by the British, and later that in
the hands of the Americans, was channelled. It was first chosen by the Iraq Petroleum
Company (IPC) to sell Kirkūk crude oil (Kirkūk-Haifa pipeline of 1938), and
subsequently by Aramco as an outlet of the so-called Tapline (at the time the largest
pipeline in the world and which carried Saudi oil) as an alternative to routes which
crossed Arab areas (‘Aqaba, Suez or al-‘Arīš). But Tapline would never reach Haifa,
because after the birth of the Jewish State, in light of the Arab-Israeli conflict, it was
diverted towards Sidon, crossing the Golan Heights. For the same reasons, again in 1948,
the Iraqi oil pipeline was also stopped. Thus, the Jewish State lost any possibility of
proposing itself as outlet for crude oil of Arab origin. In Israeli geopolitical memory, it is
since then that a strategic position in the Mediterranean - useful for channelling Gulf
crude oil to the West - has remained a failed dream, while the possession of the Golan
Heights and Galilee as territories crossed by phantom oil pipelines has been prominent.
The brief Suez war that followed by the closure of the Canal by Nasser in 1956 seemed to
confirm Israel’s ambition to become the sole secure Mediterranean outlet for the West.
The Jewish State would then directly see to consolidating this position with the
occupation of the Arab territories in 1967. The Golan-Galilee territorial junction was
conquered not only with a view to acquiring more ample water supplies, but also to
achieve a much hoped-for recovery of strategic areas which stretched out towards the
sections of old truncated pipelines that by then carried oil fitfully to Syrian and Lebanese
ports.
In reality, the 1967 occupation spelt the end of the IPC and Tapline venture even
on the threshold of the new Israeli borders. In compensation, the 6-Day War led to a
precious haul: the Abū Rudays oilfields on the coast and in the directly adjacent south-

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east Sinai hinterland, just recently put into production by Agip in joint venture with the
Egyptian State company. For Israel, this represented the long dreamt-of energy
independence.
This dream was to last for eight years during which the Suez Canal would remain
closed (thus favouring the development of North African Mediterranean producers, Libya
especially) while the Eilat-Ashkelon pipeline - built in 1968 in record time - permitted
Abū Rudays oil to be transported to the Haifa refinery. Officially, the Tipline (Trans-
Israel pipeline) was set up to accommodate the flow of oil tankers sent by Israel’s ally,
Shah Reza Pahlavi; in reality, the pipeline was conveniently oversized to make Ashkelon
a proper export terminal of the substantial Sinai and Suez Gulf resources.
In 1975, the second Israeli-Egyptian agreement on the Sinai led instead to the
handing back of the oilfields. In exchange for this «huge sacrifice», the Israeli
government negotiated two key conditions with the United States: the inalienability of a
large part of the Golan Heights and the West Bank territories and a long-term strategic
agreement on energy security. The guarantor of the memorandum, who would have to
guarantee strategic supplies and reserves to the Jewish State even when the United States
might find itself in difficulty, was Henry Kissinger. Since then, the pact has been tacitly
renewed every three years, making Israel a trusted companion and often the driving force
behind various American ventures motivated by «energy security», carried out to
guarantee supplies to large companies that supply the US market. It was within this
context of consistent coverage of its needs that the Jewish State was able to overcome the
oil crisis of 1979-81 that followed the Khomeini revolution (which saw Israel losing the
Shah’s supplies) and the consequent Iran-Iraq conflict (1980-88).
Ironically, it was actually Saddam, in the middle of the 1980s when the ra’īs was
still the principal ally of Washington against the ayatollahs’ regime, that the USA
prepared an agreement between Israel and Iraq for the reopening of the Kirkūk-Haifa oil
corridor, reactivating Jordanian sections under IPC control. The promoter of the project
(brainchild of Kissinger himself in his time) was Donald Rumsfeld, who urged on the
construction company Bechtel. The project envisaged a geopolitically correct route,
Kirkūk-Zarqā-‘Aqaba, which only in the last section would have to make its way towards
Israeli territory, turning into the heaven-sent Eilat-Ashkelon pipeline.
Once again, the dream was cut short due to the turnaround in relations between the
US and Iraq which led to the second Gulf War in 1991. To make up for this, the oil
companies that supplied the US market saw to Israel’s needs - including with supplies
from Kuwait, which was able to raise its production using the abandoned fields of South
Rumayla.

3. In the years that followed, the field of Israel’s suppliers diversified, for the most
part leaning towards Anglo-Saxon companies which operated in Mexico, Angola, the
North Sea and South Africa. But it was particularly Russia that increased the volume of
its oil imports in the context of a much larger trading circle that saw reinvented Russian

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oligarchs and ex-Soviet politicians as the main actors together with leading personalities
of the Jewish Diaspora to Israel (see Map 3).
At the end of the 1990s, the Russian oil industry in fact launched itself into what
appeared to be an exciting venture, based on huge investments of the Western energy
majors. In reality, the latter preferred to acquire majority company holdings and to sit on
the reserves of the most aggressive Russian oil companies that emerged from profitable
privatisations. Washington was behind the main companies, as it saw an opportunity of
penetrating more deeply into the Central Asian ex-Soviet periphery and of organising a
real anti-OPEC front there.
The advent of Putin changed the cards in the deck of the Russian energy scene, but
didn’t substantially change trade relations between Moscow and Tel Aviv. Indeed, Putin
considered the strategic position of Israel particularly interesting by looking at things the
other way round so that Haifa was not the outlet to the Mediterranean but the entry point,
via the Red Sea, to the Asian markets. In fierce competition with the Gulf producers, who
were increasingly more engaged in covering American requirements, Moscow was in
search of oil corridors to the south-east as a lone operator or with Iran and later even with
India and China, but always seeking to involve its unreliable Central-Asian partners.
Despite the fact that in Central Asia, Israel clearly operates on the opposite side, namely
against Iran, supplies and negotiations with Russia nonchalantly disregarded the
numerous geopolitical incompatibilities. Waiting to see which would be the winning oil
pipelines in the great Central-Asian contest, since 2003 Jerusalem and Moscow have
started discussing significant Russian and Kazak oil supplies from the Novorossiysk
terminal, which in addition to covering part of Israeli needs should be sold to Asian
markets. An increase in the capacity of Tapline from 400 thousand to over 1 million
barrels a day has been suggested. The 40% savings on costs incurred for transport via the
Suez Canal have also been emphasised.
The Moscow-Jerusalem energy relationship has tended to become more structured
in proportion to Israel’s growing interest in diversified natural gas supplies. In relation to
the development of the gas market in the East, Moscow is in fact forging a privileged
alliance with Turkey. In this way, it is placing itself in direct competition with the Arab
producers, starting with Egypt.
With this thought at the back of its mind, Israel could afford to let inconclusive
negotiations drag on for years, despite the active brokerage of the Israeli company
Merhav within the ad hoc-created East Mediterranean Gas (EMG) joint venture. The
consortium has pursued an ambitious project for a pipeline (completely underwater) from
al-‘Arīš in the Sinai up to the Israeli coast. In a later double face version, the project –
going under the name of the gas «peace pipeline» - envisages the pipeline, after having
crossed the Sinai, branching off from Eilat to the Israeli coast via Ashkelon and from
‘Aqaba to the Jordanian hinterland (with an offshoot to the West Bank), continuing to
Syria and Lebanon and arriving finally at the Turkish border (see Map 4).
At the same time, a group of Israeli and foreign companies (including British Gas)
discovered some significant natural gas fields off the northern Israeli coast and

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particularly off Gaza. While the Israeli offshore fields were immediately put into
production to supply the coastal electricity plants, those off the Gaza coast remained
inactive due to the impossibility of directly exploiting them. Indeed, Sharon blocked any
attempts at collaboration with the British Gas-ANP consortium, claiming there was a risk
that the proceeds from exploitation of the Gaza gas might go to propping up the terrorist
machine. This political hitch, confirmed by the proposed route for the undersea al-‘Arīš-
Ashkelon gas pipeline which saw Gaza being deliberately bypassed, was the main reason
for the delay in the signing of agreements between Egypt and Israel. Even recently, the
Egyptian Parliament was in uproar, accusing the Mubārak government (among whose
entourage are private partners of the EMG joint venture) of having taken a decision on a
politically sensitive issue without the approval of the two houses of Parliament.
In conclusion, since the hopes for Israeli energy independence are only met with a
short term solution in Israel’s offshore gas reserves, Israel is pursuing the objective of
generating at least 40% of its electricity with natural gas by looking to other non-Arab
suppliers. Russian gas via Turkey is one of the options that has been considered and is
being negotiated in detail with the management of Gazprom.

4. In terms of desirable non-Arab supplies, in the short term the post-Saddam


prospects seemed to turn the tap on again for Northern Iraq oil and gas resources under
Kurdish control: initially, together with the strong Turkish option along the Kirkūk-
Dortyol route on the Mediterranean coast, the phantom Kirkūk-Haifa oil pipeline
resurfaced as an option - raised again since the eve of the war. This time, the Iraqi Shiite
illusionist Ahmad Ğalabī, who convinced Israelis and the Pentagon of the full feasibility
of the operation, was behind the aspiration. The engineers of the Israeli Ministry for
Transport rolled out the plans for the project (with the same route envisaged by Bechtel
but with piping of a greater diameter) even before the marines disembarked on Iraqi soil.
Already Haifa was being talked about in Israel as the «Rotterdam of the Middle East».
But when the Ğalabī balloon burst, the dream of the oil pipeline died with it; in the end,
according to the Ha’aretz daily, it was nothing more than an «American attempt to put
pressure on Turkey» (the latter being against the intervention in Iraq) by threatening an
alternative to the oil pipeline which passed through its territory and from whose
reinstatement Ankara would have expected handsome royalties. In the overall scheme of
things, the Northern Iraq-Mediterranean coastal energy corridor geared to the European
market (now essentially for oil, but in the future also hopefully for considerable quantities
of gas yet to be exploited), constitutes an important supply diversification option for
Israel. In any case, a share of oil supplies to Israel via Dortyol has already been taken into
account in the list of Kurdish-Turkish supply options – and even at a good price given that
Israeli private businesses such as Athena, a subsidiary of Merhav, would have to
contribute to surveillance of the oil pipeline.
In the end, the long term supplies which Jerusalem is keenly interested in for its
security would still need to come via the Anatolian corridor. They will come from
Azerbaijan and especially from Turkmenistan, countries where Israel can count on

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dependable lobby groups forged thanks to the long presence of the Merhav Group of
Israel, which acts as a consultant to local governments on energy issues and also acts as
an intermediary on behalf of US companies.
The gamble that Israel seems to have won is that of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan
(BTC) oil pipeline, at least in its initial oil phase but whose capacity should go on to be
doubled by a parallel gas pipeline. Jerusalem is definitely more interested in the latter for
its long-term supplies (see Map 5).
In itself, the BTC oil pipeline, inaugurated on 25 May last year after eight years of
ongoing project difficulties and a search for increasingly greater finance (almost 4 billion
dollars compared to the initially estimated 2.6 billion) still lacks an acceptable long-term
cost-benefit ratio. If it were to rely solely on Azerbaijani oil, without attracting
considerable quantities of Kazak crude oil, the whole operation would collapse within a
few years. This was the premise at the beginning of the venture when there were only
three convinced players: the Azerbaijanis, the Turks and the Israelis. The oil companies
hovered hesitantly around them. Then Washington, thanks also to Israeli pressure, ended
up flexing the muscle of its strategic interests and the international banks backed the
feasibility of the initiative. The increase in oil prices over the last year did the rest.
The operation gained credibility chiefly due to the geopolitical context created in
the Eastern Mediterranean in which Turkey rose to become a real regional hub of East-
West energy supplies. It’s the scene of significant operations such as the Russian
underwater Blue Stream gas pipeline and the flow of Iranian (and Turkmen) gas to
European markets. These projects have been helped by the growing difficulty of trading
crude oil via the Bosphorous, which has rendered the costs of transport via the Black Sea
prohibitive. Today, Moscow not only proposes the doubling of the Blue Stream pipeline
to transport Russian and Turkmen gas from the Turkish market to the Great Levant, but
also the construction in joint venture of plants for conversion into Liquid Natural Gas, for
methane transport or for the construction of sections of underwater gas pipelines. An
underwater oil pipeline beneath the Black Sea is also in the works to transport Russian
and Kazak oil to the Turkish Eastern Mediterranean terminals, thereby avoiding the
Bosphorous passage.
Amid the fervour of this activity, the Baku-Ceyhan pipeline, with its capacity to
transport 1 million barrels a day, will take crude oil to the Mediterranean by the end of the
year linking the Azerbaijani flow originating from the Azerbaijani-Guneshli-Chirag
offshore fields – for now, 10 million tonnes a year, but up to 50 million in 2008 – to the
output of the new Kazak-Russian fields of the Northern Caspian Sea and parts of the
immense Kazak field of Kashagan in the Eastern Caspian. The Kazak State company
Socar intends to transport 25 million tonnes of oil via Azerbaijan starting from 2010,
partly by oil tanker, but mostly via connections which will link the new port of Kuryk,
south of Aktau, with the various fields.
Parallel to the BTC, the South Caucasus (gas) Pipeline (SCP) project is taking
shape, fed by the substantial Azerbaijani offshore fields of Shah Deniz and which should,
from 2006, shift 70 Bcf, rising to 177 Bcf in 2007 and reaching 223 Bcf a year by 2020.

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The time may now be ripe for launching the trans-Caspian Turkmen gas link (TGCP)
fervently backed within the Clinton administration by Israel - the 1999 feasibility study
was by Enron - given the European Commission’s request to the Turkmen government
that it be linked to the Baku-Ceyhan gas pipeline. The invitation is supported by a
commitment to assist the development of new ways of exporting to Europe. A proportion
of Turkmen gas will probably remain tied to Gazprom European market operations, while
a minor share will continue to follow the Iranian venture aimed at the Greco-Balkan
market. A significant share will be divided between two options: the first is the possibility
of a North-South Russian gas corridor towards Pakistan and the Indian Ocean; the second,
known as the «Southern Caspian gas pipeline», will take the Turkish road to Europe
entering via Baku. It is from this flow in particular that the Jewish State will be supplied.

5. To round off this overview of the available and diversified options on offer to
Israel, we can conclude that its energy security should be sufficiently assured. The field of
reference evinces reliable, rigorously Sunni and - if possible - non-Arab partners. While
in the background, the decisive protection of the Americans persists.
The risk, if anything, is that Israel might be tempted to venture into the vast and
turbulent Central Asian zone, in search for new geopolitical-energy partnerships. The
Jewish State doesn’t have the means to act on this scale. It would do much better to
selectively focus on guaranteed deals in its own backyard, the Great Levant, which after
the fall of Saddam is taking on a more promising profile for Israel’s strategic and energy
security.

Translation by John Mifsud

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THE PRETEND PEACE


WITH ISRAEL by Abdel Ra’uf Mustafa AL-SIDDIQI

The Egyptians detest the Israelis. This sentiment influences government decisions. But
economic crisis and strategic necessities have driven Cairo to rapprochement with the
Jewish State: for instance, the QIZ agreement and on the issues of Gaza, nuclear facilities
and gas. But in the end, there will be war again.

1. I f I had to sum up in one sentence how


Egyptians view the Israelis, I would say that the former detest the latter enough to oppose
any form of interaction and any attempt at normalisation of relations between the two
countries, because in the course of their ancient history, Egyptians have already had an
age-old experience of the Israelites - virtual and very tenuous ancestors of the current
Israelis.
On the other hand, at the governmental level, Egypt is very pragmatic. It bases
itself more on field data than on popular opinion regarding the Israelis. This is why after
months of preparation, the government in Cairo signed a strategically fundamental
economic agreement with Israel and the United States called QIZ (Qualified Industrial
Zone).
This agreement opens up a new phase in bilateral relations. In the 1980s, “Cold
Peace” between Husni Mubarak’s Egypt and Israel was already being talked about. In
2000, amid highs and lows and with the outbreak of the second Intifada, Egypt halted
relations. At that time, Cairo suspended its diplomatic relations by withdrawing its
Ambassador from Tel Aviv, ceased cooperation in the areas of trade and agriculture and
gave carte blanche to its national press to oppose Israel.
Last year, things apparently changed. To reach this vital agreement, the most
important since the signing (thanks to the efforts of Egyptian ex-president Anwar Sadat)
of the separate peace deal of 1979, Egypt and Israel actively collaborated over the future
of the Gaza Strip - in theory destined to return to Egyptian security control - and some
prisoners were exchanged. There are certainly political motives, linked to the
deterioration of relations between Cairo and Washington, at the heart of Egypt’s new
attitude towards Israel. But this is not the sole motivating factor. The main reason is the
economic crisis which Egypt has been experiencing for some years. The QIZ is aimed at
giving the Egyptian economy a breath of fresh air.
Although Egyptians were somewhat taken by surprise at the announcement of this
new deal, in reality the whole thing had already been announced by the Israeli press,
which on several occasions had mentioned various Israeli-Egyptian projects for the

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creation of special industrial areas. Even the release of the Israeli Druse spy Azzam
Azzam, who had worked in Egypt masquerading as an Israeli industrialist and had been
condemned to 15 years imprisonment for espionage in 1997, in exchange for 6 Egyptian
students arrested by Israelis on the Egyptian border and 150 Palestinian prisoners, was
part of the price paid for the attainment of the QIZ. That’s how valuable one Israeli is!
And so, on 14 December last year, Egypt, the United States and Israel signed the
famous accord. Thanks to the QIZ, Egypt can export to the US without paying tariffs on
the condition that the relevant products are 11.7% Israeli. In other words, the defined
industrial areas will have to be located both in Egypt and in Israel and Egypt will have to
produce goods which contain a substantial quantity of semi-finished components or raw
materials that are Israeli. Jordan has already shown that this pact works well, having
significantly increased its clothing sales to the United States in just a few years.
Egypt was forced to review its policy on Israel, especially from a trade point of
view, as soon as China and India had ousted it from the textile market. Egypt could not
remain competitive in the US market unless it was exempted from the tariff regime. After
the refusal of the USA to sign an agreement to this effect with Egypt, the latter looked for
an alternative in the improvement of relations with Israel, without which the Land of the
Pharaohs would have lost 500 million dollars a year in exports - a fact which would have
led to the destruction of an important national industry.
However, the QIZ is also an indicator of a new Egyptian political direction. The
Israeli Minister for Trade, Ehud Olmert, stated «It is much more than a trade agreement. It
is the announcement by two regional powers of their intention to move in the direction of
increasingly greater cooperation with the support of the United States.» But the QIZ has
also, and above all, helped Egypt re-establish its standing with Washington. In recent
years, Americans had become extremely critical of Cairo, especially under pressure from
the American Jewish lobby. With the improvement of relations with Israel, which have
culminated in the recent resumption of normal diplomatic relations thanks to the return of
the Israeli ambassador to Cairo, Egypt has suddenly regained the confidence of the
pressure groups who had plotted against it. Thus, the second Bush administration will
now direct its condemnations towards other countries first.
In short, the QIZ has shaken the dust off many old issues that had been waiting to
be revisited for a long time: namely, Israeli-Egyptian bilateral relations, with the
resumption of normal diplomatic relations; US-Egyptian bilateral relations, with the
cooling down of US hostility; US-Israeli-Egyptian trilateral relations; the Egyptian and
Palestinian prisoners issue; and the project to export Egyptian natural gas to Israel. The
latter is enshrined in an agreement worth 2.5 billion dollars, to be signed shortly by the
Israel Electricity Company and the Eastern Mediterranean Gas Company (Egyptian), for
the supply of Egyptian gas to Israel for 15 years via an Egyptian gas pipeline.

2. While Egypt attempts to smooth bilateral relations according to its strategic


needs, Israel shows its treachery. On the one hand, it signs an agreement and makes
conciliatory declarations, while on the other, it publicly accuses Egypt of hostility towards
it. A report by Shin Bet, the Israeli intelligence service, has recently accused Egypt of

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behaving “in a hostile manner”, preparing its army for another war against Israel. The
report alleges that, in particular, Egypt is illegally selling anti-aircraft missiles to the
Palestinians, thus aiding “Palestinian terrorist organisations”. According to information
from a Palestinian spy, the Egyptian authorities have signed one of the most dangerous
military agreements to be concluded between Egypt and the Palestinians in the last 10
years, smuggling anti-aircraft missiles through Rafah at a time which coincides with the
deployment of more than three thousand Egyptian soldiers in the Sinai. According to Shin
Bet, Israel «cannot just stand by and watch these hostile military actions which represent
a clear breach of the Israeli-Egyptian peace accords.» It would seem from the report that
the Israelis fear Palestinian military organisation attacks in the very heart of their territory.
But in reality, what is really feared are those three thousand Egyptian soldiers
deployed in the Sinai. For this reason, the Israeli services have alerted the government in
Tel Aviv, asking it to present a formal protest to the government in Cairo which provides
for a freeze on all the commitments undertaken by Israel regarding border controls.
Included in these commitments – the author might add – was Egypt’s ability to deploy
those three thousand troops.
Even the Gaza Strip is a burning issue. Certainly, the case of the Egyptian military
manoeuvres in the Sinai comes under this umbrella. Up till now, the absence of Israeli
will to effect a total withdrawal from the Gaza Strip has been evident. After more than a
year since the withdrawal announcement, many steps backward have been taken,
especially under pressure from the settlers who are very powerful in Israel. It is in this
light that the Israeli army decision to entrust Israeli-Egyptian border controls to an
important military unit should be considered. With this move, Israel wanted to say to
Egypt, rather directly, that: we don’t trust you Egyptians and we have no intention of
withdrawing. The settlers won the day by using the classic Israeli technique of making
trouble with Egypt out of nothing, in order to disengage themselves from agreements
made. An example of this are the false accusations regarding anti-aircraft missiles which I
have already mentioned.
Then there’s the nuclear issue. Today, Israel is a jungle of nuclear reactors which
represent a serious threat to Egypt. Indeed, many of them are within a few kilometres of
the Sinai border. And in the Negev desert, very close to our borders, there is that
nightmare known as Dimona, which threatens us and will continue to threaten us,
especially with the end of its so-called “shelf life”. According to information at our
disposal, the reactor, which consumes great quantities of heavy water and uranium and
which in the 1960s had a power level equal to 26 megawatts, has now reached a power
level of a good 150 megawatts, enabling it to produce a greater number of nuclear arms.
The shelf life, with a theoretical duration of 45 years, should have ended in 2002; but as a
number of Israeli scientists reduced this period to only 40 years, the reactor should have
been dismantled and destroyed in 1997.
In addition to the threat represented by this type of older generation (and therefore
even more dangerous) reactor, there is that of radioactive waste. Indeed, for more than
thirty years, Israel has not permitted anyone, not even Israeli scientists, to arrange for the
safe disposal of radioactive material. A study published in the Israeli press demonstrated

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the presence of tons of atomic waste buried in gigantic containers – the same ones for
over thirty years – close to the Egyptian border, in an area in the Negev rich with water
tables. Much of this waste has begun to seep into the soil, initiating contamination of the
water cycle.
In addition to Dimona, there are seven other reactors, including B’ir Tel Aviv, built
underground close to the Israeli capital.
This situation signifies an imminent danger for the whole region, especially for the
Sinai and for all of Egypt in general. For this reason, every time that Cairo tries to
pressure the US to compel Israel to sign the Treaty on the Non-proliferation of Nuclear
Weapons, Israel mounts a hate campaign against Egypt, accusing it of being in possession
of the atom bomb. The truth is that the presence of nuclear arms in Israel will only lead to
new winds of war in the region.
Finally, a very thorny issue relates to prisoners. The case of Azzam Azzam is only
one of many examples of how exchanges of prisoners between the two countries function.
There are many Egyptian prisoners detained in Israeli prisons who are waiting to be freed.
Israeli military leaders have admitted that many of the Egyptian desaparecidos who ended
up in Israeli prisons during the Triple Aggression of 1956 (translator’s note: the Suez
War) and the Naksa (translator’s note: the Six-Day War) of 1967, were summarily
executed by the Israeli army. For this reason, Egypt has for some time been calling for an
international trial of these criminals. It’s ironic that Israel is able to prosecute ex-Nazis
while prosecution of similar Israeli figures is blocked. Why shouldn’t those who killed the
prisoners, our co-nationals, be put on trial and compensate the victims’ families? Why
does Israel continue to extort staggering amounts around the world for Nazi crimes while
no one manages to prosecute Israeli military leaders?

3. Looking beyond the political façade of bilateral relations between Egypt


and Israel, momentarily calm but destined to become stormy with the same intensity and
frequency that high and low tides wrack some seas, anti-Israeli popular opinion
contributes to ensuring that relations between these two countries will always remain
provisional. A large percentage of Egyptians, whether they be Muslims or Copts,
comprising especially the young and very young (an extraordinary fact, when one
considers that the veterans of 1973 are at least 50 years old) absolutely opposes the
normalisation of relations with Israel. In the eyes of Egyptians, who see a good part of the
traditional views passed down to them through the centuries confirmed by current reality,
Israel does not believe in peace. It doesn’t believe in peace because it would mean the end
of the raison d’etre of the Jewish State.
Egyptian politics continues to move increasingly in the opposite direction to that of
popular opinion. Egyptians will always remain surprised by whatever steps their
government takes towards Israel, especially where those steps are met, over the border in
the Palestinian territories, with acts of violence against Palestinians that continue to
contribute to unexpectedly raising the temperature of bilateral relations. It is therefore
Egyptian public opinion which acts on political relations and not vice versa.

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However, if Egypt continues to ignore this anti-Israeli public opinion for too long,
and to consider Israel as a strategic partner, and if Israel, for its part, continues to
dishonour agreements as it likes and as it has always done up till now, then nothing can
avoid another war between these two countries, who are only temporary friends.
In light of what has been said here so far and of the complexity of an issue that no
one wishes to talk about, I will attempt to sum up relations between Egypt and Israel in a
metaphor so that it may remain impressed on your memory. The relations are like mud:
misshapen, heavy, viscous and dark; anyone who tries to enter into them comes out soiled
both in body and spirit.

Translation by John Mifsud

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OR DAYDREAM?

GREATER MIDDLE EAST


OR DAYDREAM?
DAYDREAM? by David POLANSKY

American strategy against the Jihadist terror is an unlikely compromise, that attempts to
reconcile diverging geopolitical, energy and military interests. Victory in a field can
mean defeat in another.

W hat is the Greater Middle East? According


to the Bush administration, it is a broad swathe of the world, comprising twenty-seven
countries plus the Palestinian territories—predominantly though not entirely Muslim—from
North Africa to the Levant to the Persian Gulf to Pakistan. Its fixation is the culmination of
an evolving approach that was set in motion by the events of September 11th. This region,
though neither geographically, nor politically, nor culturally homogeneous, is nonetheless
linked by the common threat of exportable Islamic terrorism, supposedly incubated by its
undeniable democratic deficit.
The administration aims to defuse the jihadist menace and ward off future attacks
through a variety of measures designed to induce democratic reform throughout the region.
This is its stated policy—but is it a strategy? This is to say, does it provide a coherent
framework for managing and integrating America’s various interests in the region? Can it
create policies of linkage, which prevent the different economic, military and geopolitical
issues from tripping over one another?
To better understand where we are now, let us examine the Cold War strategy vis a vis
the Middle East to see how it served US interests, before we turn to the present approach.
For, prior to the Cold War, the United States had no experience in that part of the world.
The Cold War strategy had two fundamental aims, which were linked: to secure the
modicum of stability in the region needed to ensure a continued flow of oil towards America
and to balance the Soviet Union in the Middle East. The US was not then chiefly concerned
with the character of the ruling governments of the region, but in their pro-American or pro-
Soviet leanings. Following the Suez Crisis and the articulation of the Eisenhower Doctrine of
assistance and intervention in states which seemed to be in danger of falling underneath the
Soviets’ sway (1956 and 1957, respectively), a balance of power was struck with pro-
Western Jordan, Lebanon, Iran, and Turkey set against anti-Western Iraq, Syria and Egypt
(with the Gulf states attempting to maintain an economically beneficial neutrality). This
balance was rendered precarious by the rise of Soviet-influenced socialism on a pan-Arab
level. This movement, embodied in Gamal Abdul Nasser, had the political support of the
Soviet Union, and the intellectual support of the Arab intellectuals. Its messianic goals, by

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OR DAYDREAM?

appealing to fellow Arabs across border lines, gave it dangerous power to affect geopolitical
change beyond the capacity of state militaries.
Finally, it led directly to the escalation of the Arab-Israeli conflict and to the Six Day
War in June of 1967, bringing the last major piece of the regional game into place. This war,
in which the US did little to nothing, was the turning point in the history of the region. It was
the moment at which the Soviets turned on Israel, ending its quasi-neutrality, and at which its
stunning military victory led to the greatest geographical transformation in the Middle East
since it became a state, nearly twenty years earlier, and marked its status as a regional great
power.
This was also a turning point in American conceptions of the region. With rising
radicalism weakening the grip of Arab regimes, the US found itself viewing stable and
militarily dominant Israel no longer as a needy but a potentially useful ally. During the 1973
Yom Kippur War, the US saw its opportunity to block the Soviets once and for all. By
demonstrating the impotence of Soviet-backed Arab expansionism to fulfill its aims (as well
as America’s willingness to check the USSR at the nuclear level), the US was able to use the
Arab-Israeli conflict to break the deadlock and turn (albeit slowly) a recalcitrant Egypt
towards the West, without putting American boots on the ground.
To sum up, the strategy united US geopolitical and economic aims by supporting an
Israeli dominated balance, which denied regional leverage to the Soviets, while containing
the myriad regional rivalries and blood-feuds among the Arabs. As far as the Palestinian
cause was concerned, Palestinian nationalism, in the form of Yasir Arafat’s Fatah movement,
was a direct threat to the regimes in Egypt, Jordan and Lebanon. Support for its cause during
those years would have amounted to support for overturning the status quo throughout much
of the Arab world and replacing it with directionless political radicalism, much of it
subsidized by the Soviet Union.
On the Arab side, the essentially autocratic governments were induced to cooperate
through fear of Israel or of one another, while the oil-producing Gulf states were granted
security and relative stability in exchange for the continued sale of their oil. This stability was
essentially precarious but it held, even through the Lebanese civil war and Iranian revolution.
Following the Cold War, it was capped by reversing Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait,
and by allowing Hafez al-Assad to consolidate his control over Lebanon, according to Henry
Kissinger’s dictum: give Lebanon to Syria and there will be peace in the Middle East.
This strategy overall was hardly a perfect one, but it was successful in maintaining an
equilibrium between America’s various interests in the region. If it had the weakness of
considering the region primarily in terms of the wider ongoing global conflict, it had the great
strength of avoiding reductionism, refusing to see its many troubles and conflicts through the
prism of a single issue such as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict (post-Cold War) or democracy-
promotion (post-9/11).
Its greatest weakness was that, in treating the region primarily on the level of the
nation-state, it failed to recognize various internal or supranational trends, above all the rise of
religious radicalism. On many occasions, as in Lebanon and Saudi Arabia, it involved
capitulation in the face of terrorism, sowing winds to later be reaped as whirlwinds.

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OR DAYDREAM?

Finally, American statesmen of the time, in dealing with the leaders of nations whose
geopolitical borders were often illusory at best, deluded themselves into believing that their
Arab interlocutors possessed the power and competence to manage their own affairs well.
Above all, the Americans failed to recognize that as the authority of the Arab regimes
weakened, preserving themselves and serving American interests would not always be one
and the same, and being forced to choose, Arab leaders would always choose the former at
the expense of the latter.
That said, the period which followed, bridging the end of the Cold War and the 9/11
attacks, was essentially a murky one, during which no real strategic precepts were derived. It
goes without saying that the attacks changed everything. Terrorism as a tactic has existed
since time out of mind. But only since September 11th has it been identified as a global
menace, and only since then has it been treated as a major factor—indeed the determining
factor—in shaping US policy towards the Middle East.
But how much has really changed and how much remains the same? If the projected
Greater Middle East is the furthest evolution (thus far) of the new approach, then it may help
to begin at the surface. As has been noted, it comprises the twenty-two Arab League nations
along with Israel, the Palestinian territories, Turkey, Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan. To begin
with geography, this contiguous group includes the entire Gulf-centered area with which the
Cold War strategy was primarily concerned, now greatly expanded. What accounts for the
map? Curiously, it is not merely the presence of Islamic terrorist cells (that would include
Europe and America in the calculus—a geographical absurdity). Many but not all possess oil.
The US possesses or seeks forward basing in most of these. Some but by no means all face
internal instability. None save Israel and Turkey are democracies.
It might be said that this is the widest possible contiguous region which comprises all
of the above factors. Yet its very vastness and diffuseness renders it a geopolitical chimera.
The Gulf monarchies are much less concerned with Israel and its capabilities than with Iran.
Both the Gulf monarchies and Iran are nervous about Iraq's future development, while Egypt
is not worrying about possible future territorial threats from a revamped Iraqi state but quite
concerned with Israel, its policies towards the Palestinians, its military capacities, and its
potential position in the region once a settlement is achieved. Algeria and Morocco, on the
other hand, watch each other with more concern than they watch Israel, Iraq or Iran.
Part of the problem is the very nature of US power: with a global reach and global
interests, it is often difficult to determine where to draw limits in more specific cases. But to
measure the success or failure of Bush’s policies, now and in the future, we must try to
narrow the field somewhat.
While the United States surely has interests in North and East Africa, those countries,
apart from Egypt, are largely distinct from the others. They are not affected by the politics of
the Gulf or the Levant, and above all removed from America’s central position in Iraq. One
only has to observe the US’ non-action over the crisis in Sudan, to consider its distance.
Morocco is a significant base for terrorist cells operating in Europe, but not in America or
Iraq. Ironically, Libya—a longtime exporter of terrorism—proved a real success, with
Moammar Ghaddafi, admitting to his nuclear program in the wake of the invasion of Iraq.

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Yet the US did not attempt to exploit this opening as they are presently doing with Syria,
following Bashar al-Assad’s withdrawal from Lebanon.
Turkey, both democratic and non-Arab, is facing west more strongly than ever. Given
Afghanistan’s culture and history, it requires a great deal of modernization before reform
could even enter the picture. Pakistan is presently the epicenter of the hunt for what remains
of al-Qa’eda, and its army and government cannot withstand strong pressure for reform while
experiencing further pressure to capture bin Laden.
We are left with a Middle East curiously similar to the playing field during the Cold
War: from Egypt through the Levant and the Gulf states to Iran. It is here that the policies of
the Greater Middle East will be most heavily concentrated, with the aim of having the
greatest political effect. The expanded version serves to dilute the rhetoric and blur the focus,
while leaving open the possibility of application on a broader scale. However, with limited
resources and power, the US must prioritize —at least for the time being.
Perhaps the best way to comprehend the lesser Greater Middle East plan is to consider
how it breaks with past US policies across a roughly similar terrain. If the obvious
geopolitical constants are oil and Israel, the changes are as follows: a greatly enhanced and
revamped military, which combines light troop deployments with intelligence and mobility,
requiring forward basing in areas of chronic instability; a volatile Palestinian quasi-state,
which borders have yet to be determined; a major if temporary military presence in a Ba’ath-
less Iraq, the geographical center of the lesser Greater Middle East; increased distrust of
formerly friendly regimes following September 11th; and the fear of global Islamic terrorism
with widespread support networks throughout the region. In sum, every aspect of the former
Middle East has acquired a new dimension, becoming greatly complicated in the process.
With the exception of Iran (to which we will return), the problem of a geopolitical
equilibrium on the state level no longer exists. The region’s dominant power is friendly
Israel. The problem is in rolling up terrorist networks, while containing supranational
instability in an economically vital region. The administration has decided that the heart of
the plan to combat those lies in regional democratic reform.
As in every other area of the world, the US is attempting to deal with a Middle East in
which the Soviet Union plays no role. In countries like Lebanon, Turkey, Jordan, Saudi
Arabia and Pakistan (among others), the USSR created the balance of fear that helped push
them towards the US. With the fall of the USSR, that balance was shattered. Those regimes
who remained on good terms with the US now did so purely out of interest. While this was
more than enough to ensure economic relations, the picture was inevitably more complicated.
With the Soviet Union gone, the discontented (and there are many) of the region now had one
less target at which to vent their ire. In the case of Islamic radicalism, the targets had now
narrowed down to three: Israel (a perennial favorite), their corrupt home governments and the
United States. The Saudi case illustrates this phenomenon as well as any: with growing
jihadist networks on one side and the al-Saud in the middle, the US found itself on the wrong
end of the balance of fear. Unable to destroy the networks themselves and fearing them more
than the US, the Saudi royal family turned a blind eye when it was not paying them off.

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OR DAYDREAM?

For years, Arab autocrats have fostered internal stability through misdirection; by
encouraging the rise of radicalism, both secular and religious, and channeling its energies
towards America and Israel, they have staved off revolution and prolonged their own rule.
The implementation of the plan for the Greater Middle East, amounts to turning the tables, as
it were, employing their own means against them. After many have for so long said in effect:
“the blame for your problems of poverty, political repression, lack of education, not to
mention outright violence and civil war lies not with us but with America and Israel”; the
Bush administration has forcefully replied: “no, the problems lie with your rulers who must
be replaced with the mechanisms of modern democracy”.
This is potent stuff and it appeals both to the American tradition of exceptionalism and
to speechwriters hoping to employ elevated language. It has the Machiavellian benefit of
momentum, of seizing the field, while not actually being a Machiavellian plan. By taking the
focus off itself, America has avoided (thus far) becoming a sitting duck for repeat attacks,
while emphasizing the elements which divide the region itself. It has also in some measure
reversed the propaganda of the preceding years, which placed the Israeli-Palestinian issue at
the center of all Middle Eastern problems.
It also has had a certain measure of success. The Iraqi and Palestinian elections and
the Lebanese demonstrations which led to Syria’s withdrawal, are testaments to the desire for
self-determination.
Another great benefit of the plan is its subjective nature. Adam Garfinkle has
remarked that, as it is not considered a dichotomous variable (i.e., that it either exists or
doesn’t) but a cardinal one (i.e., that it can exist to a greater or lesser extent), democracy can
be both difficult and easy simultaneously: easy to desire and pursue, difficult to achieve
quickly or in full. In other words, to a certain extent, success is in the eye of the beholder.
But there are less subjective factors that amount to fundamental flaws. To begin with,
the US, having made the call for political representation, has offered no limits —dangerous in
a region where tribal loyalties have always counted for more than the state. Take, for
example, the call for the creation of an independent Arab state in Palestine. Does it follow
that there should be a similar call for an independent Kurdish or Maronite state?
Meanwhile, in attempting to uproot an authoritarian culture (whose influence on
terrorism is inconclusive at best), the US is potentially undermining a significant tool with
which to combat the more immediate threat of extant terrorist cells. If, in the wake of the Iraq
invasion, the Saudi government has begun to step up its own war on terror, it may not do to
pressure that same government to reform. The United States is in effect seeking partnerships
with governments and then asking them to reform themselves right out of existence. When
dealing with less-than-desirable regimes, every American administration hopes to find their
Gorbachev; when dealing with American administration’s, such regimes recall Russia’s fate
and pray that it not become their own. Regimes will be far less likely to cooperate with
America if they see it as a mortal threat.
It is true that the power structure of many of the regimes here is fundamentally shaky
and unsound. Regimes not strong enough to exercise absolute power cannot forever deny
political rights to the majority of their citizens. Bush’s push for region-wide reform may be

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OR DAYDREAM?

the equivalent of destroying a condemned house before it collapses of its own accord, and
causes great damage in the process. But having released a wrecking ball, America will have
less and less control over its trajectory, even as its economic and security interests remain just
as vital. Much will depend then on America’s ability to skillfully manage its hypocrisy, or
accept the harm to certain interests that success in other areas may bring.
There is furthermore one entity which still presents a strategic concern on the state
level: Iran. Iran has the largest democratic movement of any country except Israel in the
region. Yet it is actively pursuing a nuclear program. It is a strategic threat to US interests
both inside and outside of the Gulf, and possibly an existential threat to Israel. Its regime has
a long history of ties with global terrorism. While the regime enjoys little support among its
beleaguered people, its nuclear program and security enjoy much support. Should the US
choose to employ a military option to defend its interests and security, it will make a bitter
enemy of any developing democracy in the country.
Israeli-Palestinian negotiations remain largely outside the plan. This is partly due to
one of its principals being a major US ally. Bush has, despite openly proclaiming US support
for the creation of a Palestinian state been rather vague on the specifics. Sharon intends to
leave Gaza and create the widest possible security belt in Israel’s wasp-like middle. The
Palestinians are too embroiled in internal conflicts to begin to think strategically about their
borders. The US has wisely avoided “owning” the process thus far as Clinton tried to do. Yet
stateless Palestinians have been a source of perennial disturbance among their Arab
neighbors, in Lebanon, Jordan and elsewhere, not to mention Israel. A viable state will be
necessary to contain them. If the US decides it has real interests in the outcome, it will at
some point find itself imposing limits on not one but two democracies. As Sharon is
discovering with the Gaza pullout, the desires and sovereignty of a free people sometimes
gets in the way of one’s plans to impose ready-made solutions.
But the geopolitical is only one dimension of US strategic interests in the region. The
US military is presently undergoing revolutionary changes as it catches up to the end of the
Cold War. Yet US forward bases are not Roman garrisons; their existence requires the
consent of their host countries. The Bush administration may hope to replicate the non-
imperial nature of US basing in Europe, relying on the recognition that an American presence
helps deter threats in a dangerous region and ensure stability. However, nascent and
immature democracies, even if they manage to survive, may not prove as reasonable as their
European counterparts, or as dependent as their Iraqi brethren. If the US intends to pursue
such interests at all costs, than it will seek to use more bluff and bluster to persuade allies —a
partial return to 19th-century Latin American policies— or it will attempt to limit the spread
of the democratic revolution.
Economically, the same principle applies, and in spades. The United States shows no
sign of weaning itself off its oil dependence. With China playing an increasingly stronger role
in the Middle East, as it follows its thirst for oil wherever it may lead, who is to say that
independent, democratic states with a history of anti-Americanism will not turn away from
the US, both geopolitically and economically? Even if these countries choose to maintain
their ties with the United States, America may face real economic shocks during interim

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OR DAYDREAM?

periods of instability, particularly in the Gulf states. And it has not yet demonstrated the
willingness to resort to imperial dominance to manage the transition.
Finally, with a growing China, a disintegrating Russia and a myopic Europe, the
Middle East is but one region in a world which poses numerous strategic difficulties for the
US. Unlike during the Cold War, it does not possess anything like a single threat to unify
global interests. Yet neither the Greater Middle East plan nor anything outside of it offers a
vision for linking its interests in various regions, or determining their proportional weight.
Thus, US interests in the Greater Middle East exist on three primary, but unconnected,
levels: geopolitical, military/security and economic. These interests predate the Bush
administration by decades, yet Bush has offered a unique interpretation. The Greater Middle
East plan, in the end, amounts to splitting the difference between them.
It must be admitted that a plausible alternative has not yet been offered. Given the
variety of concerns raised and the unknowable but surely destabilizing effects of a long-
overdue process of modernization, it may be that a real strategy is not possible.
Bush, it would seem, seeks to hold down the Israeli-Palestinian crisis, control the
geopolitical equilibrium, continue to buy oil, continue to expand its military presence,
continue to hunt down terrorists and push for real democratic reform. The success of juggling
these myriad policies is measured both in days: every day in which the edifice remains
standing with no further attacks on the US; and in decades: the possibility of a much more
stable and democratic Middle East, which produces oil but not terrorism. Its inconclusive
nature is a politically useful at home, but geopolitically nebulous. With no way of joining the
policies, the present approach cannot be called a strategy.
Which leads us back to the question: what is the Greater Middle East?

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THE POWER OF ISRAEL THE IRAQ THAT COUNTS
AND THE ONE WE SEE

THE IRAQ THAT COUNTS


AND THE ONE WE SEE by Giovanni PARIGI

The difficulty of the reconstruction of an Iraqi state derives in good part from the divide
between formal and actual powers. Tribes, armed forces, remnants of the Saddamite
regime and Shiite clerics count more than the government or parliament. The ministries
as fiefdoms.

legend tells that the Caliph Mu’awiyya,


founder of the Omayyade dynasty, on the verge of death, told his son Yazid that the sole
rule for avoiding a rebellion of the Iraqi population, was to give them a new governor
each time they asked, no matter how often.

Saddam was not simply the rais, the “chief”.


Like any other clever dictator, Saddam did not eschew the cult of personality. Rather,
he was always attentive to his look. Immense billboards on public streets portrayed him on a
white horse, dressed as Saladin, waving a sword, with a boundless desert in the background.
Or else he appeared in newspapers as the new Sumerian conqueror Sargon of Akkad or a
second Babylonian Hammurabi or revivified Chaldean Nebuchadnezzar. In the squares, there
were statues that portrayed him in uniform as a military commander and murals with him
bearing the rank of supreme commander. Television programs interviewed him, calling him
sheikh al mashaykh (sheik of sheiks), while he wore disdasha and kuffiah, seated on the
ground and kindly entertaining elderly tribal sheiks. On film, he was seen in a double-
breasted suit and one of his numerous hats , while firing in the air, with a frenzied crowd at
his back. All these were the order of the day.
A soldier among soldiers, but also a secular statesman among politicians; a Bedouin
among sheiks and sword of Islam; champion of pan-Arabism and heir to the national
Mesopotamic heroes: it would be easy to think this measureless megalomania. The reality is
that this iconography was minutely studied for a precise reason: to incarnate all the diverse
spirits of the country.
The problem of Iraq is all here: what is its spirit, or better: which are its spirits?

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AND THE ONE WE SEE

The market of the ministries

“You all know the heavy inheritance left to this government. We are afflicted by
corruption, lack of public services, unemployment and mass graves.”1
Were these Iraq’s only problems, the task of the new prime minister Jaafari would not
be so arduous. The reality is that, alongside fearsome political and economic disorder, not to
mention undiminished terrorism, one must place social disintegration without precedent in
the country.
Saddam has left a terrible inheritance, but it is not the origin of the country’s
problems; it is the result of an erroneous cure. Tribalism, power rivalry and religious
sectarianism have divided the country for centuries, and the rais, for almost 25 years, fought
these centrifugal forces with purges, massacres and wars against neighbors. In his way, he
held the country together.
However, today, what Saddam obtained through evil, the new government must
obtain through good, mediating with all the social components without recourse to gassing
villagers and razing their homes. To better understand the problems of mediating among the
animating spirits of the country, simply observe the difficulties which beset the birth of the
new government.
On April 7th of this year, after two months of trying, the Presidential Council was
chosen, with the Kurdish Jalal Talabani as President and the Shiite al Mahdi as Vice
President and the Sunni Ghazi al Yawar as exiting President. At the same time, a Shiite,
Ibrahim Jaafari, was assigned the task of forming a government.
The task of the Jaafari government is transitory but important: to stimulate the creation
of a draft Constitution by August, submit it to a referendum in October and, if approved,
guide the country through the December elections. It will not be easy to adhere to this
timeframe. At the same time, the new government will have to confront the security
emergency, preventing terrorism from degenerating into civil war.
At the end of April, when, seeing the difficulties, many spoke of prolonging Allawi’s
mandate, Jaafari presented the list of ministers to the Presidential Council and the National
Assembly, thereby gaining their trust.
The problem is that since they began to leak indiscretions on the composition of the
government, it was clear that the problem was not only the “Sunni question”, but also the
dissenters within the Shiite parliamentary bloc.
First of all, the National Assembly approved the list of ministers with 180 votes out of
185 present. But the fact remained that among the 90 absent parliamentarians, nearly all
were part of the Allawi bloc. When this first trio of ministers was sworn in, vice premier
Yawar absented himself in protest.
In sum, the resulting Jaafari government was initially composed of 16 Shiite ministers,
9 Kurds, 4 Sunnis and one Christian. Furthermore, five of the most important ministries—
Oil, Defense, Electricity, Industry and Human Rights—were assigned ad interim, so two of

1
From Jaafari’s speech, May 3, 2005, for the swearing in of the new Iraqi government.

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the four vice premierships remained vacant. While the ministry of Defense was, ad interim,
reserved for Jaafari himself, that of Oil went to the ubiquitous Chalabi. And Chalabi earned
himself the post of vice premier, together with the Kurdish Shawis.
Only subsequently, on the first of May, were the ad interim ministries definitively
assigned, reserving Oil and Electricity to the Shiites and the rest to Sunnis, with Saadun al
Dulaimi as Minister of Defense. The Sunni al Shible refused the offered post at the ministry
of Human Rights, while the Sunni Abid Mutlaq al Juburi was nominated as third vice
premier. Hoshyar Zebari, a Kurd, is the minister of Defense, and the minister of the
Interior—a position coveted by the Sunnis—is the Turcoman Shiite Baqir Solagh, of the
SCIRI. The ministry of Human Rights and the seat of fourth vice premier both remain open,
the latter likely to be assigned to a woman or a Turcoman.
In effect, Jaafari has had to confront two problems: the Sunni malcontent over the
alleged lack of political weight and the extremist Shiite opposition.
The initial idea was in fact that of a government of national unity, which would
contain all the parties of the National Assembly; however, this meant giving significant to the
Sunni community, even beyond the electoral result which saw them underrepresented. While
the Kurds were ready to make concessions to the Sunnis, this idea did not sit well with the
hawks on the Shiite list, given the prominent positions of Allawi and Yawar. In fact, the
former premier and the former president have drawn closer to the Sunni movements, thanks
to Yawar’s tribal ties and Allawi’s opposition to a radical de-Baathification process. The
problem is that the Sunnis in parliament are very divided amongst themselves and do not
constitute a single bloc with a coherent political address. Essentially, a Sunni leader with the
charisma of Sistani or Talabani does not exist and many of the names circulated in parliament
are accused of conniving with the deposed regime.
Despite the internal Shiite opposition, Jaafari made known from the beginning that the
Ministry of Defense would be Sunni, making a virtue out of necessity. Dulaimi is from the
province of Anbar—one of the most troublesome. With his appointment, they hope to launch
a scorched-earth policy against the Sunni insurgents. Even the nomination of a vice minister
must be read in this light. Considering that the Sunnis have only 17 parliamentarians out of
275, Jaafari, who has assigned them a half dozen ministries and a vice presidency, has made a
noble effort. In reality, the talks do not only focus on the number of seats. The Sunnis have in
fact based participation in government on four conditions: allowing the return of former
Baathist functionaries to the new public administration, the reinstatement of former Baathist
officials in the ranks of the military, the reconstruction of the Sunni cities, beginning with
Falluja and the freeing of those detained without valid reason for crimes of terrorism.
The tensions do not only divide Shiite and Sunni. The struggle within the Shiite
coalition, made up of over 15 diverse movements, for the ministry of Oil was very hard.
Chalabi declared his interest right away but, nominated vice premier, had to cede the
department to Bahr al ‘Ulum, of the religious party, SCIRI. The ministries of Sanitation and
Transportation went to figures tied to al-Sadr, despite the opposition of many
parliamentarians loyal to Sistani.

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In conclusion, Jaafari has managed to extricate himself from the crossfire, forming a
largely balanced government. At this point, with a democratically elected government,
ethnically and religiously balanced, and which above all comprises even the Sunnis, it would
seem that the premises for the reinforcement of democratic institutions are guaranteed and the
country prepared to confront the matters of security and the constitution.

Institutional powers and traditional powers

The above analysis, conducted according to ideas of Western politics, risks being
myopic and unrealistic. Seeking to understand the future of Iraq through what succeeds in
parliament in Baghdad or through counting daily attacks is a grave error, for two fundamental
reasons. First of all, the attempt with democracy which is unfolding in Iraq is surely a break
with the country’s past. But the January elections have not made a tabula rasa of the relations
of traditional forces and the parliament can not leave aside the dynamics and power balances
which have until today characterized the country.
In other words, it is necessary to take care because the newborn democracy is not
certain to change the spirit of a country bled white from centuries of war, internal struggles,
ethnic clashes, religious tensions and tribal rivalries.
Besides, the dynamics which influence the country’s development exist not only on
formal levels but also in centers of informal power, tied to Iraqi social and political tradition.
The centers of traditional or informal power are currents which cross the country,
without finding full expression in the National Assembly, the ministries or other institutions.
The four principal informal social and political actors are the armed forces, tribalism,
Saddam’s shadow state legacy and the Shiite clerisy.
Alongside these indigenous elements, one can add foreign ones, from the United
States to Syria, from Saudi Arabia to Iran. All these countries have created groups or systems
of pressure which heavily influence the situation, but an analysis of that phenomenon lies
outside the scope of this writing. Let’s concentrate then on the internal agents.

The Armed Forces

In democratic countries, the government and parliament are the central institutions of
the political system. The armed forces are tied to their will. In Iraq, things are rather different;
the military has always represented a center of autonomous power and, to speak
euphemistically, is very often antagonistic to political power.
The Iraqi armed forces were born in 1921, together with the Hashemite monarchy.
The British, in founding the Iraqi state, created a military and entrusted it to Faysal and the
Hashemite officials who came with him from Syria. The King made it known right away that
he wanted an army of the people, through which to culturally Arabize the country, thereby
unifying it. The British wanted instead a small, professional military—more controllable and
less costly. Consequently, the British and Hashemites clashed over the question of obligatory
conscription. In particular, the Hashemites intended to recruit the military from the urban

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population, less subject to the influence of the British and the sheiks. The British sought to
counterbalance the affirmation of the state monarchy, supporting the claims of the grand
Shiite sheiks of the South. Thus, when obligatory conscription began in 1928, the Iraqi
government found that they made little headway in the tribal areas of the South, and more
and more relied on officials and troops from the faithful Sunni areas. The Sunni
predominance within the armed forces is rooted in those years.
In short time, the military transformed itself into a sort of state-within-a-state; an
instrument of the Sunni minority, where political and military centralism coincided to the
detriment of the other components of the country. In 1933, the military confronted the
Assyrian revolt and shortly after numerous tribal revolts in the Shiite South and in Kurdistan.
It became the catalyst for nationalistic ferment in the Thirties and Forties and pan-Arab
sentiment in the Fifties and Sixties. Each coup d’etat (1936, 1941, 1958, 1961 and 1968)
came from within the military. Historically, no Iraqi public institution has ever had the power
and influence of the military, and the military has always been Sunni-controlled.
Saddam was the first to radically modify the structure of the military. With the ascent
of the rais, the armed forces were subject to two processes: tribalization and politicization.
Initially, the armed forces were defined by the Baath party, but with the end of the war with
Iran the rais replaced the generals with civilians loyal to him through familial ties. From an
“ideological” military, it passed to a “tribalized” one.
Saddam, despite having no military experience, made himself commander-in-chief of
the armed forces. During the war with Iran, he elevated members of his own clan to the top
ranks. Having “Tikritizzized” the apex, he reserved other positions in the hierarchy for Baath
party members, always from other Sunni tribes, like Jubur, Sa’dun, or Dulaym. These tribes
furnished the regime with officers, Republican Guard troops and security apparatuses. It was
not long before civil political and economic posts followed suit.
In other words, the Baath ideology absorbed tribalism, with an added anti-Shiite
element during the war with Iran. Not by chance was the Baath party often called the “tribe
of all tribes”.
With the fall of the regime, the United States found themselves with the dilemma of
what to do with the military. Bremer’s controversial decision to disband it was tied to the fact
that the armed forces and security services had been the spirit of the past regime. It was then
necessary to dispel any doubt over a possible continuity of power of the dictator’s politico-
military bloc. In reality, a less drastic, more gradual, approach would have surely avoided the
development of a grave security situation.
Today, security is the central problem, being the precondition of any political and
economic development. Faced with the necessity of limiting losses and reducing the military
task, the solution for coalition forces is to employ Iraqi armed forces and security. With the
aim of accelerating the creation of an effective military instrument, the National Guard was
recently merged with the military. In fact, while the police forces remain more tied to the
local powers and the past regime and therefore less dutiful, the military is gradually proving
itself able to confront critical situations. All this while the terrorists attacks seek, without
much success, to undermine the rebirth of these institutions.

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Recruiting, training and equipping the Iraqi forces have become the principal
objective for the coalition, along with developing the political institutions. The problem is
that, if the unity of the country has always been guaranteed by the military, the unity of the
military has always been guaranteed by its “Sunni-ness”. Now, after fifty years of dominance,
the relationship has been inverted. Above all is necessary to understand if and how this
subordination will last. Iraq cannot allow its two pillars, parliament and military, to be weak
and divided: it would not survive. Beyond this, it remains to be seen who will command the
military. If the appointment of a Sunni Minister of Defense has above all a symbolic value, it
is likely that the army ranks will see a renewed predominance of Sunni generals, for various
reasons—the Sunni military tradition and the American urgency to structure and render
operative the Iraqi forces. To these one may add a third: underrepresented in parliament and
consequently displaced from political and economic centers of power, the Sunni community
will easily colonize anew the armed forces. In sum, the military as safety valve for Sunni
malcontent is surely a strong temptation for the American administration. Beyond this, the
most probable outcome is a regionalized, or better, confessionalized military like the
Lebanese one at the beginning of the civil war. Not of course an auspicious solution.
In conclusion, even if at the moment the armed forces are still weak and in the course
of reorganization, they will soon become one of the principal actors on the Iraqi scene.

Tribalism

Ali is a building contractor and local councilman. His brother, Aber, lives in the
country and is the sheik of his mudhif while their cousin, Hussein, parliamentarian of a
secular party in Baghdad where he seeks to enter the sons of the major tribal leaders in the
police academy. Here is an apparently heterogeneous social group with a hidden cohesion—
the tribal tie—with far more weight than any political party.
Tribalism is a very complex phenomenon, which characterizes all Arab societies. It
has not only survived urbanization and modernity but adapted to them. Two elements have
modified the tribal structure within Arab societies: the state and the market economy.
Analyzing the Iraqi case, one can speak of state tribalism, social tribalism and military
tribalism.
As we have seen regarding the military, Saddam placed his inner circle in government
power. In the tribalism of the state, the functional relations between government institutions
are replaced with tribal ties. In this way, one perverts the tribal tie, forcing it into a business-
client model, away from the loyalty of common blood.
Tribalism is, however, also the inverse process: those who are excluded from power
recover their identity through tribal ties. Paradoxically, one can then speak of two social
forces of tribalism, one imposed by the state hierarchy, while the other emerges as a
centrifugal force which permeates the society and guarantees the survival of single social
groups in the face of an absent or tyrannical state. This second phenomenon can be defined
as social tribalism.

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Military tribalism (ideological in the case of Iraq) has seen armed forces rapidly
spread the Baath ideology through a network of tribal ties.
Initially, Saddam focused on the pan-Arabism of the Baath ideology, seeing in
tribalism an obstacle, “an execrable tradition, shameful in the eyes of revolutionary progress”.
The tribes became a taboo. In the early years of the regime, books on the topic were
outlawed. The traditional use of the noble tribal title, laqab, was forbidden.
But during the war with Iran, Saddam had to make an appeal to all the country’s
resources. And so tribalism recovered in an anti-Shiite form, initially to be absorbed in the
Baath ideology. The party was thus presented as “the tribe of all tribes” and Saddam
immortalized as tribal sheiks placed their clans’ standards at his feet and put their strength at
his disposal against the Iranians.
The appropriation and manipulation of tribalism continued in the following years. By
1991 Saddam had fully recovered it, legitimizing it politically to shore up the regime. The
objective was to employ it in contrast to the religious Shiite parties and movements. One of
the reasons for the failure of the revolt in 1991 was the fact that the tribal, rural population
felt itself neutral between the urban, religious movements and the regime.
During the years of the sanctions, the tribal leaders on the local level acquired major
economic and political power. The rais was fully conscious of this, employing a policy of
discrimination and facilitating the rise of those favorable to the regime. In those times, the
newspapers published lists of loyal tribal leaders while television portrayed scenes of tribal
leaders swearing fealty to Saddam.
In the elections for the National Assembly in March 1996, tribalism was openly
readmitted. In reality, the rapport was not idyllic. The failed military coup of 1992, was born
out of an attempt by one tribe, the Jubur, to take power after having reached the head of the
armed forces. In 1995, the same occurred with the Dulaim, who succeeded the Jubur. Both
were eliminated by Saddam. Both coups may be seen as simply tribal rivalries.
It was the Iraqi state which recovered the tribal dynamics for politico-economic
interests. At the same time, however, Saddam distrusted the local and intermediate social
institutions. The beleaguered population congregated around the traditional institutions: the
tribes and the clerisy.
Today, the tribe maintains its economic, political and military functions, constituting
an autonomous subject. If on the central political level, it lacks a true party, this is owed to the
ingrained particularistic tendency of the tribe. If, however, we descend to the local level, we
discover that the administration and the provincial bureaucracy are largely composed of
functionaries actively tied to local clans, even in urban centers. At this point, it is legitimate to
ask if, in exercising their institutional functions, the Iraqi administrators are more attentive to
the interests of the government or their tribe.

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The Shadow State

In Iraq today it is difficult to be a public functionary, whether civil or military. If


someone wishes you harm, he only has to label you a Baathist. The problem is that Baathists
included anyone, even imams.
The Baath ideology took hold in 1968, proposing itself as a break with the past, in
contrast to the traditional religious institutions or modern democracy. But when in the mid-
Eighties, it passed from a state controlled by a party to a party controlled by a man, Saddam
restored the system of tribal ties, creating a network to manage his power. The state, or rather
Saddam, extended his control to all the social and political organizations, while developing a
network of control and coercion through the armed forces and secret services. Syndicates,
professional associations, student movements, newspapers, universities and any other form of
social congregation was nationalized. The entire civil society was permeated by the party and
frozen by the control of the security services. Saddam even came to forbid Friday prayer and
the traditional Shiite religious rites.
The war with Tehran not only crippled the public and private economy, but devastated
the social fabric. Deprived of autonomous social structures, economically strangled and
without escape, the Iraqi middle class collapsed. Only the muqawilun, the contractors favored
by the regime, prospered. The institutional and economic weakness of society corresponded
with increased dependence on the regime. At the beginning of the Nineties, 21% of the
population was employed in the civil institutions of the state, while still more were involved
in the military and police forces, including Shiites.
In 1991, in a desperate attempt to escape from the country’s economic and social
crisis, Saddam invaded Kuwait. Despite the international reaction, the rais managed to
remain in power.
The embargo paradoxically accentuated state control. The atomization of Iraqi society
reached its culmination in this period. The sanctions also produced a second effect: the state
institutions were increasingly reduced and ever more dependent on the exclusive assistance of
the rais. During the years of embargo, about a million Iraqis depended economically on either
Saddam himself, or members of his entourage.
Exploiting the traditional ties, Saddam managed to create and interdependent clientele
system, an authentic shadow state which diminished every public institution. The clans loyal
to Saddam, to guarantee the survival of the regime and themselves, rooted themselves in the
centers of power, even at the local level, creating a network of control over the resources of
the whole country.
In the Shiite cities of the South, the notorious, Sunni Feddayn Saddam throw their
weight around, controlling the local Baathist institutions, following the 1992 revolt.
Now the problem is that many of those whom the coalition forces have chosen as local
figures of influence are often compromised by the old regime. This inevitable phenomenon is
extended above all to the intermediate and local levels of public administration. In particular,
in the military it is difficult to find middle and upper management with experience who were
not employed by the previous regime.

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Given the extension and pervasiveness of the regime, a “physiological” consequence


emerges. It is not possible to reconstruct an Iraqi state without taking account of the past. On
the other hand, it amounts to creating out of nothing a class of bureaucrats and functionaries.
A second, more grave, consequence of the regime is the persistence of a clandestine
network of opposition to the new political course. In light of the experience of Desert Storm,
Saddam, prior to his fall, had time to structure a “resistance” network, with financing, arms
supply and organization. These network enjoys the support of part of the Sunni tribes and an
inexhaustible supply of unskilled recruits among the criminal element and the unemployed.
It is here that Zarqawi inserted himself.
Beyond this, thousands of Baathists after the fall of the regime found refuge in the
Emirates, Syria, Jordan and Saudi Arabia. The clandestine opposition is strongly fortified in
the surrounding countries.
In sum, even if Saddam is in prison, his legacy remains within a large part of civil
society. Whoever aspired to a public post had to be enrolled in the party (passive Baathism),
while the nerve center of power of the shadow state remain active. The persistence and desire
to reinstate the regime is accentuated by the spirit of tribal solidarity which animates the ranks
of the Sunni community.
This is no mere abstract problem, but stands in the way of shaping the Iraqi state. The
entire bureaucracy, the local management of public administration were born under the
regime of the rais. Replacing it wholesale, as was attempted with the military, is impossible.
It is natural that amnesty is one of the most discussed topics in the country. In this power
vacuum, local administrations rely upon traditional powers to govern. The risk is of creating a
new informal web of clientelism, personal or sectarian ties, which undermines the birth of a
functional, modern state bureaucracy. In sum, the principal problem in the National
Assembly and in the small communities is the reinstatement of those employed by the fallen
regime.
Only a process of national reconciliation can resolve the problem. Here may also lie
the political solution to the Sunni insurrection: favoring the emergence of a Sunni leadership
which represents even the most radical factions and leads to selective de-Baathification seems
to be the best option. In conclusion, Saddam’s shadow state is still present and seeks to return
to power. The phantasm of Saddam could, like the Arab phoenix, reemerge from the ashes,
thanks to the same social dynamics and, in some cases, the same figures of the past regime.

The Shiite Clerisy

“We don’t want too many turbans in parliament…” This phrase was uttered by a
secular Shiite in the run-up to the elections.
The influence of the Shiite clerisy in the history of the country is fundamental and it
has always characterized the Shiite community.
For historical and social reasons, the Shiite clerisy is, compared to the Sunni one,
highly organized. Beginning with the capillary network of the imams of the countryside, the
sayyed, the religious structure is articulated around the religious colleges, the hawza, guided

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by clerics with the title of mujtahid. At its apex is a restricted group of ayatollahs who stand
out through religious charisma, theological competence and political ability and act as
spiritual guides for the whole Iraqi Shiite community.
One of the essential characteristics of Iraqi Shiism is given by the presence of the holy
places, where the schism historically originated. The clerisy originally developed in urban
spheres and only later, since the middle of the eighteenth century, extended its influence in
rural and tribal areas.
A second peculiar characteristic is that the proselytism conducted by the clerisy has
always acted against the central authority. This is a major difference between Iraqi and
Iranian Shiism.
In particular, the holy cities of Kerbala and Najaf have always enjoyed economic
benefits from being a pilgrimage destination and religious centers. The religious institutions,
madrassas, sanctuaries, mosques, and brotherhoods made these cities political and economic
centers. The revenues tied to burial rites and conduct of pilgrimage came from around the
country, but also from Iran, India and the Gulf countries, enriching the religious elite for
centuries. With the fall of the Safavide reign in Iran, supporter of the clerisy, midway through
the eighteenth century many great religious Iranian families moved to Iraq. This favored the
rise of great religious clans like the as Sadr or the Khoy, who garnered unimaginable wealth
in the process.
The decline of the holy cities began when, first the Turks then the British increasingly
limited the flow of pilgrims from abroad. In reality, the weakness of the Shiite religious
institutions resulted from the fact that the hierarchy was often divided by internal struggles.
Secondarily, the Shiite clerisy was unable to root itself in the economic circuit.
Beyond this, the Shiite mercantilist bourgeoisie was not tied to the clerisy. This class
emerged only in the 1950s in Baghdad and Bassora. In fact, traditionally, commerce was
monopolized by the great Jewish families. When the Jews left the country to emigrate to
Israel, the Shiites took their place. This class moreover actively abstained from entering the
political life of the country.
The affirming of Baghdad as political and economic center of the new state reduced
the importance of the two holy cities, shifting the center of gravity. Furthermore, the Shiite
religious community was never able to make the tribes its political instrument. The power of
the sheiks remained predominant.
Deprived of an economic base, the mujtahid could not then oppose the Sunni rise.
The Sunnis, entrenched in the state under the Hashemite monarchy, proved able to isolate the
Shiite clerisy, fixing a barrier between church and state. Economically strangled, the Shiite
institutions began to depend on the central government that had supplanted them. If Najaf at
the beginning of the twentieth century was the center of Shiite religious culture, the
emergence of a modern state in Iraq permitted Qom, in Iran, to steal the honor.
With the affirmation of pan-Arabism, Shiism became a heresy tied to the expansionist
Iranian aims. This stigmatization allowed helped the Sunni elite to cut the Shiites out from
power. In the Seventies, rejected by the Sunni establishment under the accusation of not
being true Arabs, the Shiites found an ideological glue in the struggle for Islamic radicalism

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(that the charge itself was false was demonstrated during the war against the revolutionary
Iranian regime, when the Shiites sided with Iraqi Arab nationalism).
The Baath regime was radically averse to recognizing autonomy or a social role for
the marja’yyia. The regime’s repression not only struck the clerisy but any expression of
faith. Traditional pilgrimages were forbidden, mosques were closed and, for the first time in
Shiite history, members of the marja’yyia were killed, while many others fled in exile.
The structural weakness of the Shiite clerisy emerged dramatically in the revolt of
1991, when the Shiite rebels found themselves without leadership. Only the ayatollah Khoy
attempted to provide organization, but it was too late.
The power vacuum following the fall of the regime has favored the reemergence of
the religious element, both Shiite and Sunni. In particular, the change in Sunni religious
sentiment should not be underestimated. In opposition to the Iranian moves, Saudi Arabia
began to support the radical Sunni movements, inspired by the Muslim Brotherhood and
wahhabism.
Religion has returned to playing an essential role in the political life of the country.
The most glaring example is Sistani, the real adhesive for the Shiite group. But the role of the
Sunni ‘ulama as intermediaries between the armed opposition and coalition forces is also
indicative.

Conclusions

The greatest risk for Iraq is of a society split along fracture lines: Kurdish autonomy,
the rivalries between Shiites and Sunnis and the Shiite theocracy. The are the nightmares
which haunt the country.
The lack of success for nation building in Iraq is tied to two related processes: the
unraveling of Iraqi society and the crystallization of state powers.
The process of unraveling is that in the absence of effective state structures, the social
fabric collapses, reorganizing itself on the basis of sectarian values and interests. In other
words, in a country which lacks security, jobs, schools and hospitals, the citizens cease being
citizens and rediscover their ethnic or religious roots. At the same time, the power vacuum
created by the fall of the regime becomes the ground for conflict and conquest for all the
forces that the regime had repressed.
The fruits of this process are many and not all negative: the emergence of politico-
religious leaders like as Sadr and, fortunately, Sistani; the reemergence of Sunni tribalism as a
support network for the terrorism Baathist opposition; or the end of hostility and the alliance
between the Kurdish parties, the PUK and KDP.
This phenomenon can defined as a sort of “return to roots”. It has created a
polarization of interests throughout the country. If exacerbated, it could degenerate,
eliminating the space for mediation between different groups. It is then extremely necessary
to restore the prerogative of state institutions as soon as possible.

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The problem at bottom is that as in many Middle Eastern countries, the role of
institutions is limited by tribalism, the military, religion, ethnicity, all of which determine
political dynamics.
Consequently, among the many problems for the nascent country is one not
immediately perceptible but insidious: the risk of crystallization of power. Having reached a
political balance and divided up the public powers on the basis of that equilibrium, the risk is
that the situation becomes sclerotic, and one the one hand, no change in power takes place,
and on the other, each center of power becomes a fief conquered in the elections. The
crystallization of the balance of power and sectarian feuding are two sides of the same coin.
The risk is that the ministers will utilize their resources through a network of tribal,
ethnic religious or political ties. The centers of power could thus become feuds in the hands
of different factions, refusing to cede the keys to the ministries even when power officially
changes.
Without any pretense of scientism, one can use Max Weber’s political model to
schematize Iraq. He delineated three types of power: traditional, charismatic and rational.
Iraq has passed from the military and secular, charismatic power of Saddam to a coexistence
between the rational power of the government and the traditional power of tribal and religious
leaders. The Iraqi problem is to balance these different models.
In following Iraqi development, patience and realism are therefore necessary. The
institutions require time to reinforce their control of the country. But this control will always
coexist with traditional powers, rooted in the society and which in part finds expression
within the National Assembly.
It is necessary to consider that Iraq has never been a tranquil country and that extreme
social fragmentation has over the centuries created the tendency to juxtapose the interests of
the group with those of the state. The brutality of Saddam’s regime and of all those which
preceded him was also a response to the turbulence which has always pervaded the country.
Violence and the use of ethno-religious divisions, corruption, control of economic resources
and tension between state and society are evils endemic to the country which will not easily
be eradicated.
The only hope is that the Iraqi political forces will take to heart the counsel of the
Caliph Mu’awiyya and give life to a real representative democracy. It will be an Iraqi
democracy—perhaps not to our Western liking, but which surely will be able to better the
conditions of life for the Iraqi people.

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R OF ISRAEL

HEARTLAAND PLUS
THE POWER OF ISRAEL INTERVIEW WITH V. YUSHCHENKO

INTERVIEW WITH Viktor Yushchenko


PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF UKRAINE
An overlook on the Ukrainian current geopolitical issues and priorities. The historical
reasons that led to the independence. The internal political and religious divide and the
governmental efforts to cope with the oligarchs. The goal of NATO and EU membership.
GUUAM as an anti-Russian spur and a tool of Ukrainian regional ambitions. The
Odessa-Brody pipeline project.

HEARTLAND You were born as a Soviet citizen. As a young boy, did you ever dream
becoming first Ukrainian citizen and then President of the Ukraine?

PRES. YUSHCHENKO The heroic history of my people, which dates back more than a
thousand years, taught me to dream about Ukraine’s future as a truly free, independent
and democratic country. Battling injustice committed throughout the centuries, which
continued in Ukraine after our independence in 1991, became the rallying point that
united millions of my countrymen last winter to withstand our constitutional right to
chose our future without government or foreign interference.

HEARTLAND What was, in your view, the main reason of the disintegration of USSR?

PRES. YUSHCHENKO The USSR collapsed because the totalitarian communist system could
no longer adapt to the political, economic, social and other centrifugal forces, which
evolved on the territory that once was the Soviet Union. And, the threat of using military
force to keep the system together was too weak to withstand the human desire for national
self-determination and freedom.

HEARTLAND When the Soviet Union was about to collapse, President George Bush sr.
delivered strong message to the Ukrainians, asking them not to secede from Moscow.
How did you react to that message?

PRES. YUSHCHENKO Ukrainians took many steps toward realizing their national self-
determination and one of the most decisive was a national referendum vote for the
independence of Ukraine from Moscow. Ninety percent of Ukraine’s 50 million citizens
voted for independence on December 1, 1991. This historic step led to the peaceful
dissolution of the USSR in the closing days of 1991. The leadership of Ukraine did all it
could to ensure that no blood was shed and that the divorce from the Soviet Union was
peaceful and orderly.

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HEARTLAND Some people speak of two or more Ukraine. In fact, it seems that the electoral
map marks a geopolitical divide between Eastern and Western Ukraine. What do you
think of that?

PRES. YUSHCHENKO Opinion polls show that two-thirds of my compatriots wanted radical
changes in the way Ukraine is governed after ten-years of rule by my predecessor. They
wanted an end to government corruption, which was evident in all aspects of their daily
lives, from the tax and traffic police to high-level government stealing. All this was done
as the population drift further and further into poverty. In fact, Ukrainians are in solidarity
when it comes to wanting more economic opportunities and freedom of choice to improve
their lives and become less dependent on the state and government bodies. A majority of
them see their future and that of their country anchored firmly in Europe, not only
geographically, historically and culturally, but more importantly, politically and
economically. This is our long-term historic goal. Therefore, to understand Ukraine fully
one should not confuse Ukraine’s electoral politics with our long-term geopolitical
aspirations.

HEARTLAND And what about the religious divide? Do you think that a Ukrainian Orthodox
Church fully independent from Moscow Patriarchate is possible?

PRES. YUSHCHENKO The path to God chosen by millions of Ukrainian faithful is an


individual choice and cannot be a divisive issue. There are many religious denominations
and confessions thriving in Ukraine – Christians, Jews, Muslims, among others – this is
part of our nation’s rich cultural fabric. There is a movement for consolidating the
Ukrainian Orthodox faith, which I support. The importance of interdenominational
relations cannot be overestimated, but it is a matter of relations between faithful and the
Church.

HEARTLAND Do you think that the Ukraine will be first member of NATO or of the EU,
and if so, when?

PRES. YUSHCHENKO We expect to begin talks about joining the European Union as an
associate member after having fulfilled our EU partnership agreement within the next
three years. More importantly, we are currently focused on our internal policies and
implementing the basic EU values into all spheres of public life. Our nation’s European
choice and the adoption of democratic values and principles will also bring us closer to
NATO. Membership in this alliance has yet to be discussed between the two sides. Let is
make progress in our internal policies and then we can measure how long it will take
before we begin discussions about entering other multilateral bodies.

HEARTLAND What do you think of the Ukrainian oligarchs?

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PRES. YUSHCHENKO Large business in society plays an important role as an employer,


taxpayer, a competitive economic force, as well as contributor to social welfare and local
community development. Each society manages the triangle of economic relations
between big business, trade unions and the state by the creation of laws that regulate
markets, guarantee decent wages and protect against unfair competition, among other
things. The courts are mandated with deciding disputes. However, in Ukraine, we have a
situation where oligarch business monopolies control not only industry and trade unions,
but also the state and the courts. Therefore, our first steps in office have the goal of
creating a level playing field for all market participants, removing business
representatives from government and the courts, and creating conditions for competitive
economic growth for business and the people.

HEARTLAND Most Russians think of Kiev as the capital of their first State. Do you share
this view?

PRES. YUSHCHENKO The history of Kyiv and its glorious past can be traced back more than
1,500 years. Kyiv was an important trading center for centuries and was also the medieval
capital of the Kyivvan-Rus’ state – a political, economic and cultural force in Europe and
Asia during the 10-12th centuries. The leaders of this dynasty had family ties to rulers in
what are today France, Germany, Poland and the Czech Republic. The territory of the
Kyivan-Rus’ Dynasty was extensive and today makes up many modern nation-states,
including, but not limited to, Russia and Ukraine.

HEARTLAND Will the Ukraine stay in the Community of Independent States, in the
Common Economic Space with Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan, and at the same time
GUUAM?

PRES. YUSHCHENKO Ukraine’s membership multilateral organizations and initiatives is


dictated first and foremost by her national interests. The Commonwealth of Independent
States (CIS) was created in 1991 after the fall of the Soviet Union. It served a useful
purpose at the time as a transitional forum for states that were once part of the USSR.
Time will tell whether or not this structure will respond to the changing needs of its
member and observer states. As to the Common Economic Space, we view the potential
of this body within the sphere of trading and economic relations between Russia, Ukraine,
Belarus and Kazakhstan. We are in the process of working out a mechanism that will
allow us to achieve trading relations between the partners that does not contradict our
ambitions of joining the World Trade Organization. As to GUUAM, we envision this
coalition of states serving as a beacon of economic opportunity and security in the region.
The effectiveness of each of these structures depends on the ability of each member-state
to realize its particular goals without standing in the way of opportunities offered in
European and global political and economic bodies.

HEARTLAND Will the Russian fleet stay in Sevastopol forever?

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PRES. YUSHCHENKO The status of the Black Sean Fleet is regulated by appropriate bilateral
agreements between Russia and Ukraine and accordingly, the Russian fleet has leasing
rights in Sevastopol until 2017. We have every intention of living up to these agreements
and I have no intention of revising them. Issues that arise with the Black Sea Fleet will be
discussed between both sides and resolutions will be found that are mutually beneficial to
both sides.

HEARTLAND Russia as full member of NATO and the EU would be in the Ukrainian
interest?

PRES. YUSHCHENKO Absolutely.

HEARTLAND Will the Ukraine become a NATO member State?

PRES. YUSHCHENKO Ukraine clearly announced its position of readiness to adhere to the
plan of actions for membership in NATO. Membership will depend on both sides,
moreover, in the first instance on Ukraine and the tempo with which we live up to NATO
standards.

HEARTLAND What do you think of the Chevron project of a pipeline from Brody to Poland?

PRES. YUSHCHENKO Ukraine has expressed its interest in developing the Odessa-Brody oil
transportation pipeline beyond Ukraine’s borders to destinations in Europe. This is part of
European energy strategy. These expressions have also been communicated to our
neighbors and we have held a number of talks on this particular issue. In the coming
weeks we expect talks to turn into concrete actions with both neighboring states and
partnering companies.

HEARTLAND Do you think that the Orange Revolution could become a model for other
former Soviet republics, starting with Belarus, Kazakhstan, Moldova and Uzbekistan?

PRES. YUSHCHENKO The so-called Orange Revolution was Ukrainians’ liberation from
authoritarianism and a confirmation of our support for democratic values and principles.
It was based on Ukraine’s political and economic peculiarities, our internal practices, and
took advantage of the unique opportunities before us as a people and a nation. Ukrainians
stood-up against the past and chose to take their destiny and that of their country into their
own hands. The human desire for freedom and the acts to defend that freedom cannot be
exported or predicted. They are spontaneous acts tied to a yearning, which each nation
and peoples must decide for themselves. As a democratic nation, we have an obligation to
support those who also yearn to be free. I know in Ukraine’s experience, the moral
obligation and support of neighbors, is often times enough to support those who are
willing to act in defense of their liberty.
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HEARTLAND Why did you choose orange as the color of your campaign? Is it not too close
to red?

PRES. YUSHCHENKO In Ukrainian politics, orange is a new color, which represents a


political movement committeed to democratic values, optimism and a European future. It
symbolizes a solid break from the communist and post-communist era and against the
backdrop of government tyranny and authoritarianism, it mobilized millions of citizens
who were no longer willing to live according to the lawlessness that ruled our country
during the past decade. Orange now represents a new wave of political thinking, civic
responsibility and commitment to Ukraine.

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HOW TO BECOME
THE # 1 by Fabrizio MARONTA and David POLANSKY

Tracing out the course of American history, a constant strain between principles and
action emerges. The founding criteria of the stars-and-stripes Republic make it
qualitatively different from the other actors on the world’s stage. Reasons and phases of
the territorial and geopolitical expansion.

We are firmly convinced, and we act on that conviction, that with


nations as with individuals, our interests soundly calculated
will ever be found inseparable from our moral duties.

Thomas Jefferson: 2nd Inaugural, April 3, 1805.

T he United States currently stands preeminent


on the world stage. While its position and power is surely unique, it is the route that it took to
achieve it that is perhaps of greater interest; for, the United States has always enjoyed a
somewhat strained relationship with the traditional tenets of geopolitics that have informed
the behavior of nations throughout history.
At the time of its conception, the United States lacked an evolved tradition which
comprises the essence of a nation. For most powers—Europeans in particular—nationhood is
not a mere abstraction but the sum total of countless specific and concrete historical and
cultural realities which form its character and provide the moral foundation for the notion of
“reasons of state.” The young United States, which possessed a fully formed civil society but
no comparable tradition, could not define itself or its interests in such terms. The essence of
the American nation is the abstract principles of its founding, to deviate from which would be
to deny the legitimacy of the nation itself.
How could such a nation have managed to ascend to its present height? Indeed, how
does such a nation conduct foreign policy in the first place?

Birth of a Nation

The mentality of the earliest settlers was informed not by abstract philosophies of
natural right but by prosaic concerns of security and obtaining material sustenance. Most of
all they were influenced by the reality of their natural environment, with its largely
uninhabited, vast tracts of land in which they might pursue their aspirations.
The everyday lives of common citizens would inform the character of the nation as a
whole in unprecedented ways. Unlike their counterparts in Europe, they were not members of
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an inherited feudal system. They could produce goods without economic obligation to a lord,
they owned their land, the means of production and all of their output, and they were required
by necessity to provide for their own defense. Self-interest dictated that the settlers assume a
level of individual responsibility that became deeply ingrained in the American character.
This experience would remain the standard against which Americans would judge
their country, politically, socially, and morally thereafter. Policies, both foreign and domestic,
which led the nation further away from this mode, would often be viewed with suspicion.
The long-running isolationist strain of American thought grew out of this period. It was
precisely this tradition that prevented broadly conceived considerations of foreign policy
from taking precedent in the years prior to the nation’s conception.
In 1754, an attempt was made, with the Albany Congress, to informally unite the
colonies on issues that were of general concern, specifically the acquisition of new territory
and negotiation with the Indians. The obvious need for enforced taxation, which was seen as
the nefarious origin of governmental power, to sustain such measures doomed the attempt
from the start. Likewise, the Seven Years War (1756-1763), when it spilled over onto the
new continent in the form of competing territorial claims, had little effect on the colonists,
who were far more concerned with ensuring against one another than with becoming
involved with a great power dispute. The British were forced to fight off the French with little
assistance from the colonists or their Indian allies.
The War of Independence that resulted from the founding of the United States, lasting
from 1776 to 1781, was a shining example of how America seems to conduct geopolitics as if
by accident. An oft-heard quip regarding the British Empire is that it was founded in a fit of
absent-mindedness—a statement which could well be applied to America’s geopolitical
achievements.
While the colonists went to war in order to codify what they saw as their tradition of
self-governance, not to secure geostrategic or economic gains, this did not preclude the use of
realist tactics in order to win it. Benjamin Franklin was dispatched to Paris to gain the support
of the French, on the basis that both France and the new United States might find a common
enemy—a neat reversal of positions from the war that had taken place only twenty years
earlier.
The ratifying of the Constitution (Rhode Island was the last state to ratify, on May 29,
1790) enshrined the principles and institutionalized the modes by which the colonists had
been living. It also provided the impetus for many of the United States’ territorial gains
throughout the next century.
The laxity of central governance that federalism called for, allowed for an enormous
degree of flexibility in how the young United States defined its interests. The ability of
geographically peripheral elements within the nation to in effect define policy—particularly
what was then foreign policy—allowed the United States to achieve gains that would have
been unjustifiable either to its constituency or to itself had they been centrally conceived.
Geopolitics could be conducted by a variety of individuals (usually settlers) who conceived
their interests separately from those of the state, despite the fact that the state routinely
benefited from their exploits.

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The Expansionist Nation

American expansion was motivated primarily by internal rather than external


considerations. While sheer geographical proximity forced European nations to develop a
concrete awareness of their position in relation to one another, for much of its history, the
United States had not been forced to deal with other nations in such a way as to make its
pursuit of national greatness contingent upon its relative status. In a sense, the history of US
expansion occurred in a vacuum, thus shaping the way in which the United States would
interact with other nations in the future.
When, in 1800, France took possession of the Louisiana territory—then encompassing
much of the central continent—from Spain, an alarmed President Jefferson found himself
forced to reconsider the connection between trade and foreign policy. For the political
freedoms enjoyed by citizens under the American regime were necessarily linked to
economic freedoms and the port city of New Orleans, now under French control, was a
crucial economic lifeline to the outside world.
To forestall the need for geopolitical entanglements—most likely with Great Britain,
the United States’ erstwhile enemy—in order to gain leverage over France, Jefferson sent
James Monroe as a special envoy to Paris to negotiate the sale of New Orleans and on April
30th, 1803 a treaty was signed ceding not only New Orleans but the entire Louisiana Territory
to the United States for $15 million.
Many Americans were outraged, pointing to the fact that the Constitution did not
explicitly authorize territorial acquisition by the Federal government. After countless bloody
wars fought over expansion, any European power would have leapt at the chance to
peacefully acquire contiguous territory that would double the size of their nation. Yet the
young United States, whose founding had explicitly rejected power politics in favor of rights,
remained discomfited by what would have been simple logic for any European state.
Constitutional legality which secured the rights of individuals took precedence over the
interests of nations. On the other hand, little concern was professed over the settlers who, left
to their own devices, routinely made land grabs.
A case in point was future president Andrew Jackson who, in 1818, while leading a
punitive force against the Seminole Indians with whom the settlers had been skirmishing in
Spanish-owned Florida, seized the towns of St. Marks and Pensacola and claimed them for
the United States. Secretary of State John Quincy Adams found himself ostensibly
negotiating the terms defined by Jackson, arguing that if the Spanish could not maintain
control of Florida then they possessed no legitimate claim to the land, thus following a classic
precedent of American geopolitics according to which diplomatic goals are often decided by
independent military action.
Clausewitz’s famous dictum, that war is merely a continuation of politics by other
means, is fundamentally alien to American thought both philosophically and practically.
The historical refusal of the US to harmonize military and political endeavors is often belied
by the willingness to allow political realities to be determined by military initiatives. For
nearly a century, Washington found itself in the at times awkward position of granting
legitimacy to the independent achievements of militant settlers and maverick generals. So in

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1821, the Adams-Onis Treaty ceded Florida to the United States and Jackson became its first
American governor.
America’s greatest continental military conquest began in precisely this way. After
Mexico won its independence from Spain in 1821, it found itself the possessor of much of
western North America, including Texas, California, and what is now the Southwestern
United States. It also found itself directly in the path of independent settlers operating under
the aegis of what would later be called manifest destiny. This creed, so-called by a New York
editor in 1845, officially defined what had long been the unconscious American motivation to
realize their freedoms in proliferating throughout the open continent: the notion that as
individuals, they had the right to claim and occupy whatever land was within their ability to
possess.
The Mexican government allowed American settlers into the sparsely populated area
of east Texas. They increasingly pushed for political representation, in effect demanding that
their new state conform to the modes of their original regime. The mounting tension between
the settlers and the Mexican government culminated when General Santa Anna seized power
in Mexico and decisively ended the hope of separate Texan statehood. On March 2, 1836,
Texas declared its independence prompting military reprisal by the Mexican government.
The Texan settlers quickly won independence under General Sam Houston, under whose
Presidency they formed a republic and began negotiations for annexation to the United States
which acquiesced to Texas’ requests in 1845 thus precipitating the Mexican-American War.
The Texans, who then controlled east Texas up to the Nueces River, wished to possess
Texas proper up to the Rio Grande or Texas as it exists today. The United States sent General
(later President) Zachary Taylor to take a small army into the disputed territory on behalf of
the new state—an act which enraged Mexico. A brief skirmish between Mexican and
American troops positioned along the Rio Grande provided the casus belli for the inevitable.
In the end, Mexico’s legal sovereignty over the region did not effectively translate into
territorial possession. If the core components of state control are sovereignty, population, and
territory, then geopolitical estimation would state that one gains the first by controlling the
latter two. Coincidentally, the principle of self-determination, upon which the United States
was founded and the Revolutionary War waged, states much the same thing. While it would
be unrealistic to ascribe geopolitical motivations to the American founding, the principles
expounded therein were nonetheless found to be in accord with US interests here and
elsewhere throughout its history.
The United States easily defeated Mexico and imposed a new government with whom
it signed the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (1848) granting it California, New Mexico, and
Texas proper—a half million square miles of territory. The United States was now a
continental power bordered by two oceans and facing a new arena in which it would be
obliged to conduct foreign policy.
Before confronting external powers, however, the US would have to confront itself.
Federalism and the great expansion that it had allowed for had unwittingly exacerbated the
split over the most divisive of national questions: that of slavery. Loose central governance
on this issue had put off its resolution and the debate over the status (free or slave) of the
newly acquired states escalated into increasing violence and hatred.

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When Abraham Lincoln was elected President in November of 1860 on a platform of


containment of slavery, the Southern states1 seceded from the Union and drafted the
constitution for the Confederate States of America on February 7, 1861. Technically,
America’s constitution allowed for the secession of individual states. The southerners had
broken no law in their conduct, yet their constitutionally sanctioned behavior nonetheless
resulted in the breaking of the nation.
What was left of the United States would now have to determine a coherent national
vision; the adherence to the principle of a weak centralized government which had allowed
for unprecedented individual initiative had led to the worst crisis in the nation’s history.
When it became clear that the southerners were fully prepared to use force in support
of their new order, Lincoln took action and immediately called up reserves of 75,000
militiamen. When Maryland, a border state, became divided over conflicting loyalties,
Lincoln instituted martial law, sent federal troops to occupy Baltimore, its largest city, and
suspended the writ of habeas corpus, allowing Confederates to be imprisoned without trial.
Meanwhile, the war was by no means entirely popular among those states that
remained loyal to the Union. Forced conscription led to rioting throughout northern cities.
The first principle of individual freedom had been replaced with a newly empowered
executive, concerned first and foremost with the preservation of the living Union. For the first
time since the founders, a national strategy was being orchestrated. Lincoln was the first of
the modern presidents who were unabashedly prepared to shape the nation according to their
vision.
After the end of the Civil War on April 9, 1965, the exhausted and demoralized nation
entered an unprecedented period of isolationism, in which it all but ignored foreign policy
and attempted no new acquisitions for nearly twenty-five years. In this period, the United
States experienced an extraordinary surge of growth in economy and population, which it
would soon seek to translate into a military capacity. This combination of growth and
complacency led to an enhanced ambition and desire to reenter the international arena.
Ironically, when the dam finally burst, it was not in the new Pacific regions but in the
east where the United States was first born. Spain was practicing especially cruel policies
among its colonies, particularly Cuba, arousing great sympathy amongst influential
Americans, many of whom called for war as a means of rectifying the undesirable state of
affairs.
On February 15, 1898, in the midst of diplomatic negotiations to defuse the situation,
the U.S.S. Maine, which was docked in Havana harbor, exploded killing 260 American
officers. Though the causes were unknown, negotiations quickly broke down, and the United
States passed a resolution recognizing Cuba’s independence. Spain promptly declared war.
Though Cuba was the proximate cause, the fighting involved Spain’s colonial
possessions as a whole; it was America’s first two-hemisphere war. By the time it was over,
in August of 1898, the United States found itself in possession of Puerto Rico, Guam, and the
Philippines, with effective control over Cuba. Humanitarian sympathy for Cuba and a

1
Texas, Florida, Arkansas, Louisiana, Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Mississippi,
Tennessee, and Virginia.

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renewed fidelity to the Monroe doctrine (see below) swiftly led to hemispheric dominance
and global stature.
The expansionist nation had finally become “imperial”. This, along with the
annexation of Hawaii, in July of that year, made the United States a relevant player in the
Pacific. However, along with new gains came a necessary reassessment of national interest.

The Geopolitical Player

In creating a new basis for government, the United States denied the legitimacy of
much of the European political heritage, a crucial part of which was the classic concept of the
primacy of national interests. Hence, it would take its bearings not from tradition or from
geopolitical realities but from its own rational principles rooted in nature.
Thus, the history of the United States not only concerns the evolution of the concept
of national interest but its development in spite of the initial disavowal of the principles from
which the concept itself is derived. This in turn produces a unique tension between the
American ethos and geopolitics which manifests itself throughout its history.
With the notable exception of Alexander Hamilton, the early American thinkers did
not question what they saw as the conflict between the liberty of individuals and the
pragmatic geopolitical interests of nations. Most tacitly accepted Locke’s proposition that
regimes founded on the consent of the governed would be less bellicose, that raison d’etat
would be a thing of the past and the United States’ actions would not be governed by the
logic of the European approach.
This did not actually preclude considerations of national interest, but implied that the
American national interest would be qualitatively different than those of other nations; the
accretion of power would be inextricably linked with the preservation of individual liberty.
The earliest elaboration of American geostrategy arose from precisely this premise.
Faced with possible regional encroachment by greater powers, the United States was forced
to seek a method for preserving its freedom of action and hence, the necessary conditions for
individual liberty to flourish.
The resulting Monroe Doctrine was incorporated into President James Monroe’s
annual address to Congress in 1823. He claimed in effect that any attempt by another state to
extend its power into the US’ hemisphere would be considered a threat and would be dealt
with accordingly. America had adopted the age-old realist notion of “spheres of influence”
and the first great statement of US foreign policy was born in the Monroe Doctrine.
As geostrategy, the Monroe Doctrine was relatively unsophisticated, concerned with
securing the widest possible margin of protection without formulating specific long-term
goals. It was not so much a long-term strategy in and of itself, but a method of forestalling
the need for one.
This is hardly to deny its effectiveness in providing for what would be the geopolitical
requirements of the nation throughout the nineteenth century, during which it grew
exponentially. However, by the end of the century, the Monroe Doctrine, which presumed

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insularity, was no longer strictly applicable to the now continental United States, preparing to
emerge as a global power.2 A broader conception of US national interests was needed.
Though Theodore Roosevelt is rightly viewed as having inaugurated a new era of
American foreign policy, the ethos with which he proceeded was not itself revolutionary.
The confident, expansionist Americanism embodied in Alexander Hamilton, John Quincy
Adams, Henry Clay, and Andrew Jackson, among others, was now framed by a new vision to
promote the nation’s global reach.
For nearly a century of expansion, principled idealism and tactical realism had gone
hand in hand on the basis that America’s principles were best served by promoting its
interests—heretofore confined to the continent. In seeking to promote those interests abroad,
Roosevelt explicitly stated what had long been practiced: that American greatness required
policies that served its interests.
He began by revising the Monroe Doctrine, adding what came to be known as the
“Roosevelt Corollary”, which stated that the United States might be forced “however
reluctantly, in flagrant cases of such wrong-doing or impotence, to the exercise of an
international police power.”3 It was employed by a revolutionary (for the United States) form
of intervention in Cuba, the Dominican Republic, and Panama.
Roosevelt’s concept of international justice was understood not in the traditional
American terms of legality but by a stable world order in which the Western nations—the
United States in particular—had a stake. He believed firmly in such traditional geopolitical
concepts as spheres of influence and balance of power. Thus in Europe he rejected
Germany’s plea for assistance in curtailing French acquisitions in North Africa, despite
France’s notorious brutality in the region, because he considered Germany and not France to
be the greater long-term threat. Likewise in Asia, he ignored Japan’s occupation of Korea and
supported its aggression against Russia because he deemed Russia the more troublesome
power. This led to his offer, in 1904, to negotiate the Russo-Japanese treaty, which was
designed to balance between the two in a manner conducive to the interests of the United
States.4
This evolutionary leap in American geopolitics would require a reevaluation of its
exceptionalism, traditionally rooted not in the excellence of its endeavors but in the justness
of its principles and institutions; it was a qualitative not a quantitative difference with other
nations. In Robert Kagan’s terms, “we were not just America the great, but America the
good.”5

2
Though the Monroe Doctrine did not explicitly offer quid pro quo in exchange for demanding European
non-intervention in US affairs, it rested upon the presumption that non-intervention was reciprocal. In a
later address to Congress, Monroe stated that, “In the wars of the European powers in matters relating to
themselves we have never taken any part, nor does it comport with our policy so to do.” (Message of
President Monroe to Congress, December 2, 1823)
3
President Roosevelt’s Annual Message to Congress on the State of the Union, December 6, 1904, in
Bartlett, ed., Record of American Diplomacy, p. 539.
4
Henry A. Kissinger, Diplomacy, Simon and Schuster, New York, 1994, pp. 39-42.
5
Robert Kagan, “How We Unlearned the Art of War”, The New Republic, December 3, 2001.

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Roosevelt’s realist policies perhaps inevitably provoked an idealistic reaction,


designed to connect the founding principles with modern geopolitical practice. If American
policies were primarily concerned with promoting its relevant interests, then what claim
could America make to embody transhistorical principles?

The Return to Idealism

Roosevelt’s sophisticated geopolitics, which introduced the once reviled European


tactics to the United States, heightened the tension between the necessities of foreign policy
and the principle of freedom that lay at the core of the American creed. Though his
presidency itself was wildly popular, it is unlikely that his stern realism was sustainable in
practice in the long term. A nation which professes to embody universal principles in its
domestic institutions cannot legitimately implement a self-serving foreign policy. What had
forestalled such an examination up until this point was the fact that previously, so many of
the United States’ actions were not widely perceived as constituting a foreign policy. After
Roosevelt’s presidency, such denial was no longer possible.
It was Woodrow Wilson who demanded a reassessment of the nation, and in doing so
he permanently undercut the Rooseveltian foundations of American confidence whose roots
went back through nearly a century of expansion. Though Wilson did not deny America a
role in world affairs, he insisted that American greatness rest not upon its accomplishments
but upon the promotion of its ideals for the benefit of all mankind.
“We do not confine our enthusiasm for individual liberty and free national
development to the incidents and movements of affairs which affect only ourselves. We feel
it wherever there is a people that tries to walk in these difficult paths of independence and
right.” 6 From this moment on, the United States would subject its foreign policies to the
same scrutiny as it had hitherto subjected its domestic policies. Understood in these terms,
Wilson’s project amounted to nothing less than a refounding of the American regime,
reshaping its moral and political horizons and casting its founding principles in a new light.
When World War I broke out in Europe in 1914, Roosevelt and Henry Cabot Lodge
immediately counseled involvement to check the superior German power. Wilson, however,
refused to become involved on the basis of pragmatic concessions to necessity. Indeed, the
war itself was conceived by him as an unnecessary aberration caused by the whims of
undemocratic leaders. Wilson’s view represented a return to the founders, according to whom
war was a choice not a necessity; the United States could only voluntarily go to war to defend
and promote democracy in the interest of the general peace.
Thus the overthrow of the European dynasties was a crucial component of the
demands of the victors. Heretofore, the orchestration of a peace settlement was designed to
ensure stability above all else. The new Wilsonian model insisted instead upon the right of
self-determination for all peoples involved, regardless of the geopolitical order that would
result. This option was not viewed as being mutually exclusive to others but as the primary

6
Woodrow Wilson, Annual Message to Congress on the State of the Union, December 7, 1915, in Link,
ed., Papers of Woodrow Wilson, vol. 35, p. 297.

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moral good from which all other benefits would flow. The tragic understanding of politics,
that it demands a choice between high opposites, is not inherent in the American worldview.
In response to this newest form of American idealism, the oldest form—
isolationism—reemerged in force to define American policy between the wars. It would be
the last time. Since the bombing of Pearl Harbor on December 7th, 1941, up until the time of
this writing, the United States has played a proactive and decisive role in world affairs. This
is not to say that the United States’ involvement has led to an adoption of geopolitical
thinking.
From the standpoint of the United States, now tutored in Wilsonian ideals, the Second
World War was an unfortunate replay of the first; a revolutionary, undemocratic Germany
and its allies was overturning what was otherwise the world’s natural harmony. Hence the
US’ involvement, from December of 1941 to 1945, aimed at cleansing the scourge and
allowing for the return of order.
During the Second World War, the United States was increasingly obliged to define
the nature of the post-war order. Yet to do so would have been to claim a specific interest in a
desired outcome, thus defining America’s role in the world in terms of a long-term
geostrategy—something they were loathe to do. Churchill in particular advocated using the
military to take as much territory as possible in order to obtain a desirable settlement vis a vis
the Soviets. However, the United States continued its long-standing aversion to harmonizing
political and military goals. The military’s role was to defeat the enemy at hand; the
statesman’s role was to define the terms of a just settlement based on American principles.
So, the Cold War began not as a result of differing geostrategic visions between
nations, but between a nation that had one and a nation that didn’t. Stalin had specific
territorial goals for which he was prepared to bluff and negotiate; Franklin Delano Roosevelt
and later Truman had no such goals beyond the preservation of peace, which they assumed
could be achieved through good faith negotiations. During its period of extraordinary
expansion America had never been viewed as a threat by another power and had no reason to
view other powers as potential threats simply on the basis of their existence.
For America, the Cold War was not a geopolitical inevitability, as the verities of
Realpolitik would have it, but the direct result of Soviet aggression. Yet the prolonged nature
of the conflict itself was at least partially caused by the abdication of America’s initial
superiority, even once it no longer harbored any doubts regarding Soviet intentions. At the
end of the Second World War, the United States possessed military, economic and
technological superiority, stronger allies, a more stable domestic situation, and atomic
monopoly over the Soviet Union. Yet the US refused to press its advantage in order to gain a
settlement. The basically defensive position as postulated by the Containment strategy
resulted from the desire to take the morally acceptable role as the resister of aggression rather
than as the aggressor. It was the essential belief in moral and political freedom and the United
States’ continued denial of traditional geopolitical thinking that resulted in a de facto situation
of spheres of influence, a balance of power, and a geopolitical conflict spanning nearly half a
century.
In 1947, after the Second World War had been over for nearly two years and the
Soviets under Stalin showed no sign of relaxing the adversarial position they had adopted

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over the still undecided post-war settlement, George Kennan published an article in Foreign
Affairs which put to rest the doubt over Soviet intentions. The article, entitled “The Sources
of Soviet Conduct” became the blueprint of the Containment strategy and compellingly
argued that Communist ideology would goad the Soviets into ongoing conflict with the
capitalist world and the United States in particular. “In these circumstances, it is clear that the
main element of any United States policy toward the Soviet Union must be that of long-term,
patient but firm and vigilant containment of Russian expansive tendencies”.7 Kennan
accepted the essentially ideological nature of the dispute and outlined a strategy that was
designed not to achieve geopolitical primacy but ultimately to prove the superiority of
capitalist and democratic institutions.
“It is rather a question of the degree to which the United States can create among the
peoples of the world generally the impression of a country which knows what it wants, which
is coping successfully with the problem of its internal life and with the responsibilities of a
World Power, and which has a spiritual vitality capable of holding its own among the major
ideological currents of the time.”8
Containment was not merely an updating of traditional European balance of power,
but a means of crippling the Communist domestic structures from which the new Russian
expansionism was derived. In the American view, “the Soviet-American conflict was not
caused by clashing national interests—which by definition might be negotiated—but by the
moral shortcomings of the Soviet leadership. Therefore, the goal of American policy was not
so much to restore the balance of power as to transform Soviet society.” 9
The Containment strategy so well predicted much of the course of the Cold War and
the Soviet Union’s collapse that it its easy to forget how unprecedented it was. Winston
Churchill in particular was concerned by the potential emergence of an unfavorable world
order as a result of the refusal to negotiate. Speaking on October 9, 1948 at Llandudno,
Wales: “The question is asked: What will happen when they get the atomic bomb themselves
and have accumulated a large store… No one in his sense can believe that we have a limitless
period of time before us. We ought to bring matters to a head and make a final settlement.
We ought not to go jogging along improvident, incompetent, waiting for something to turn
up, by which I mean waiting for something bad for us to turn up. The Western Nations will
be far more likely to reach a lasting settlement, without bloodshed, if they formulate their just
demands while they have the atomic power and before the Russian Communists have got it
too.” 10 Furthermore, the Containment strategy did not clearly delineate areas of national
interest around the world, in effect implying a global commitment to containing the spread of
communism. The initial battleground had been Europe, but following the Maoist revolution
in China and the Soviet engineered Suez crisis, it became clear that, with the Soviet
willingness to spread communism globally, containment would have to follow suit.

7
“X” (George F. Kennan), “The Sources of Soviet Conduct,” Foreign Affairs, vol. 25, no. 4 (July 1947).
8
ibid
9
Henry A. Kissinger, Diplomacy, Simon and Schuster, New York, 1994, p. 450
10
Winston S. Churchill, His Complete Speeches, 1897-1963, ed. by Robert Rhodes James, vol. VII, 1943-
1949, New York/London: Chelsea House in association with R. R. Bowker, 1974, p. 7710

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Thus the strategy—to check the expansion of communism wherever it might occur—
was put in the service of moral rather than geostrategic ends. To assess the struggle
geostrategically by region would have amounted to ceding the fundamental moral element of
the conflict.
Hence the war in Vietnam was not an attempt to defend US geostrategic interests in
Indochina, which were questionable, but to prevent the spread of communism on the basis of
principle, which wasn’t. By the same token, when domestic resistance to the war grew, it did
so not on the basis of a differing geopolitical assessment but over the disputing of the
fundamental moral imperatives that led to Vietnam, and indeed the waging of the Cold War
itself. “The [foreign policy] establishment…might have turned against the war in Vietnam
simply on the grounds that it was unwinnable, or at least not winnable at an acceptable price.
They might have declared the war a mistake, well intended perhaps but poorly executed. But
that was not how the liberal establishment…explained their failure. Instead they disowned an
entire worldview. Vietnam became not just a lost war in a good cause; it became a metaphor
for everything that was wrong with America, the symbol of America's misplaced confidence
in its own moral and physical superiority.” 11
The limits of American power were seen as intrinsically linked to the limits of
American justice.
It was at this moment of shattered idealism that Richard Nixon and his Secretary of
State Henry Kissinger inaugurated a brief, controversial period of traditional realism within
American foreign policy. This approach downplayed the fundamental moral element of
Containment in favor of a region-by-region assessment of geopolitical interests and a
pursuance of détente. Elected on a promise to end the war, they initiated a widely criticized
policy of escalation to facilitate the extrication of US troops from the region by forcing the
Vietnamese to negotiate. “In the course of conducting the first large-scale American troop
withdrawal in our history, under openly humiliating circumstances… [Nixon and Kissinger]
actually improved America's geopolitical position vis-à-vis China, the Soviet Union, and the
Arab world.” 12
The new, uniquely geostrategic approach facilitated negotiations with the Soviet
Union, which concluded a landmark arms-control pact; led to the first dialogue with China
which exploited the Sino-Soviet split in order to gain leverage against the Soviets; and in the
wake of the Yom Kippur war, wrested Egypt and Syria from the Soviet orbit.
Kissinger’s thought reflected a pragmatism in many respects contrary to the idealistic
spirit of the American tradition, according to which, “Every statesman must attempt to
reconcile what is considered just with what is considered possible. What is considered just
depends on the domestic structure of his state; what is possible depends on its resources,
geographic position and determination, and on the resources, determination and domestic
structure of other states.” 13 Despite its material successes, this approach proved deeply

11
Robert Kagan, “How We Unlearned the Art of War”, The New Republic, December 3, 2001.
12
Robert D. Kaplan, The Atlantic Monthly; June 1999; Kissinger, Metternich, and Realism - 99.06;
Volume 283, No. 6; page 73-82.
13
Henry A. Kissinger, A World Restored: Metternich, Castlereagh and the Problems of Peace 1812-1822,
Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1973 - Sentry Edition.

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contentious domestically and resulted directly in a return to idealism—first in Carter’s


humanitarianism and then in the Reagan revolution. Reagan’s vision was a return to the
moral underpinnings of the Containment strategy and an aggressive overturning of
Kissinger’s détente and Carter’s pacific tendencies.
Reagan’s confrontational policies stemmed from his belief that the underlying conflict
from which the Cold War originated was unavoidable—that the problem lay directly with the
nature of the Soviet regime itself, and hence would end with its destruction.
His policies were uniquely definitive of the US approach to foreign policy; he
employed brutally realist tactics (funding non-democratic groups in Nicaragua and
Afghanistan among others, and initiating a massive arms buildup designed to cripple the
Soviet infrastructure) in the service of a deeply idealistic vision—specifically the refusal to
co-exist with evil, even at the expense of peace and stability.

Living without Geopolitics?

The American geopolitics of the nineteenth century were informed by a moral


imperative of securing American individual freedom, just as those of the twentieth were
informed by one of spreading global freedom. Yet in neither instance did the United States
attempt to formulate a coherent geostrategy derived from a concept of national interests.
America’s non-geopolitical geopolitics have historically raised two perennial
accusations. As a nation that expanded throughout a continent by eliminating all territorial
rivals and transformed into a superpower by denying the validity of rival interests it is
imperial; as a nation that proclaimed idealism while practicing foreign policies that led to
global dominance it is hypocritical.
What is one to make of these charges? Since the end of the Cold War the United
States has indeed been preeminent. However, throughout the 1990s it made no attempt to
derive geostrategic precepts from this position, thus downplaying much of its role. The
attacks on September 11th have obliged the United States to reenter the arena, creating new
grounds for old criticisms.
The charges leveled may well be the inevitable byproduct of America’s unique
character and ascendance on the world stage. There can be little doubt that the United States,
like any nation, has practical interests and that the policies derived from its ideals have been
conducive to them. Yet it is another thing entirely to suggest that America’s ideals were
conceived in order to further those interests, or that those ideals have never been the primary
mode through which America has approached geopolitics.
The measure of the distance between Platonic ideals and geopolitical necessities
creates a permanent tension resulting in America’s ambivalent approach to foreign policy. In
some sense, the history of American foreign policy may be seen as the continual attempt to
escape from geopolitics only to return to it time and time again.

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FROM ITALIAN CARABINIERI

WHAT AMERICANS CAN LEARN


FROM ITALIAN CARABINIERI by David T. ARMITAGE

What are the right steps to take in the tricky phase that divides war from reconstruction?
In this field, Europeans have much to teach to the Americans. The Italian and French
examples. The prodomes of a European police force.

I t may come as a surprise to some Americans,


but the Europeans have security expertise that might be useful to the United States. With
so much critical attention devoted to the European Union’s (EU) nascent European
Security and Defense Policy (ESDP), the quasi-operational European Rapid Reaction
Force (ERRF), and low European defense spending, it is easy for Americans to overlook a
potentially critical European security contribution. Indeed, numerous European countries
– in particular, Italy and France, but also Spain, Portugal, the Netherlands, as well as a
number of Partnership for Peace countries – have developed unique capacities essential to
post-combat operations. Such capacities are generally known as constabulary. They are a
vital part of filling the stability gap between the end of combat operations and before the
start of traditional peacekeeping and general reconstruction. So far, the United States has
tried to fill that gap – with a band aid approach and mixed success – either by stretching
the National Guard and reserves or by tasking elite special forces and other combat units.
European constabulary forces, such as the Italian Carabinieri and French
Gendarmerie, have long and successful histories in this “intermediary” policy/nation
building arena, and are well positioned to perform these functions. It would be in the best
interest of US policy makers to reach out to our European Allies, capitalize on their
expertise, and publicly promote their participation. This could well represent a very
positive, constructive and concrete step in rebuilding the frayed post-Iraq transatlantic
relationship.
If recent history and military operations have taught us anything it is that to
effectively respond to crises along the full spectrum of conflict, three types of forces are
needed: high-end combat forces to neutralize hostile, organized adversaries; constabulary
or paramilitary forces to handle crowd control and lower-levels of organized violence;
and law enforcement organizations (police, judicial, penal authorities) to rebuild legal and
judicial institutions.1 So far, the United States with its military forces is best suited only to
address the first type of force.
1
See Rachel Bronson, “When Soldiers Become Cops,” Foreign Affairs 81, 6 (November/December
2002): 122-132.

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The Europeans, on the other hand, have extensive experience in the use of the
other two force types. They have conducted numerous constabulary and law enforcement
operations in virtually every hotspot in the world. For example, between August 1998 and
January 1999, the Multinational Specialized Unit (MSU) in Bosnia, headed and
dominated by Italian Carabinieri, were employed in 243 reconnaissance patrols, 87
information-gathering missions, and 33 public order interventions.2 These MSU’s dealt
with refugee returns, organized crime, and terrorism. The French Gendarmerie have been
involved in peace operations in Haiti, El Salvador, Cambodia, the Western Sahara,
Somalia, Rwanda, the Balkans, and elsewhere.3 Likewise, the Dutch, Portuguese, and
Spanish have been deployed in various operations in Africa and the Balkans.
Washington could learn from them. In the past, it has been too tempting for the US
to think that elite Special Operations Forces (SOF) can do the job alone. The consequence
of deploying SOF to conduct messy post-conflict operations and low-end security is to
over-stretch and run them ragged to the detriment of other priority military missions
which only they are trained and equipped to meet.

What are Constabulary Forces?

What are constabulary forces, and how do they relate to post-combat operations?
Europeans describe constabulary forces are as “police forces with a military status.”4
They are military trained, but their focus and equipment is on minimal use of force and
tasks normally associated with police functions. Unlike traditional soldiers, the goal of
constabulary units is to defuse potentially violent situations through negotiations and
conflict management, rather than “neutralize” the enemy or destroy a target.
Often, they wear national police uniforms, in order not to be confused with those
who have just done the fighting, but they are armed and willing – if necessary – to use
lethal force. Unlike traditional police, they are skilled in the tactics and doctrine of light
infantry, including rapid deployment and an ability to self-sustain themselves logistically.
The Dutch Marehaussee, for example, can deploy a fifty-person detachment as a rapid-
response unit within forty-eight hours.5
Constabulary forces are highly skilled. For example, the Italian Carabinieri serving
as part of KFOR had on average ten years specialized training, about twice the time of
their military counterparts.6 Other training includes: martial arts; use of firearms and light
weapons; intelligence gathering and interrogation techniques; international law;
negotiation; social skills; use of communication equipment; and foreign languages and
cultures. Most European constabulary forces also have K-9 units and sniper teams. Their

2
R. Perito, Where is the Lone Ranger When We Need Him? (Washington, DC: USIP Press, 2004), 161-2.
3
See “Coopération internationale,” http://www.defense.gouv.fr/gendarmerie/.
4
See “Declaration of Intent,” European Gendarmerie Force, September 17, 2004. EU Informal Defense
Ministerial, Noordwijk, the Netherlands. http://www.eu2004.nl
5
Perito, 42.
6
Interview with Italian defense official, January 12, 2005.

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equipment reflects a hybrid of police and military as well: flak jackets, shields, batons,
tear gas, and automatic weapons.7
They are able to protect traffic routes, facilitate the introduction of civilian
rebuilding and assistance, set up and administer prisons, as well as establish and train
local police and law enforcement institutions. Thus, they serve a vital role along the
conflict spectrum between warfighting on the high end and local law enforcement on the
low end.
While combat forces are effective in neutralizing hostile forces and providing the
initial stability to the environment, they are not well-trained or equipped for (or
comfortable with) handling security problems, such as looting, rioting, crowd control,
crime, dealing with civilian disturbances, restoring basic services, and local law
enforcement, all of which require increasingly non-lethal counter methods. For example,
in March 2004, KFOR troops stood by as local rioters ransacked an orthodox church
because their Rules of Engagement (ROE) did not permit them to engage in crowd control
for the protection of patrimonial sites.8
Activities such as crowd control, early warning of potential unrest based on
engaging the local populace, and restoring basic services fall in the realm of what today
US officials call “stability and reconstruction” (S&R) operations. Department of Defense
officials acknowledge that the US military has only nascent S&R capabilities. Planning
for these types of activities is often considered ad-hoc or at best secondary compared with
combat force planning. Despite dawning recognition of the importance of S&R operations
in the conflict spectrum and US weakness in S&R operations, Washington has paid
surprisingly little attention to tapping European expertise and recognizing the important
contribution they can make.

European Capabilities

What kind of constabulary forces do the Europeans possess? Several nations have
established constabulary forces for national use (e.g., Italian Carabinieri and French
Gendarmerie). Europeans also have proven their ability to merge capabilities in
multilateral units, notably in the MSUs in the Balkans. In fact, the EU’s first crisis
management operation was in January 2003, when the Police Mission in Bosnia-
Herzegovina (EUPM) took over from the UN’s International Police Task Force.
Most recently, Europeans have sought to develop multinational constabulary
capacities within an institutionalized European framework. On September 17, 2004, the
Dutch EU presidency announced that five EU member states (France, Italy, the
Netherlands, Portugal, and Spain) had agreed to form a European Gendarmerie Force
(EGF), with headquarters in Vicenza, Italy. Intended to be operational by late 2005, the
900-person force would be tasked with ensuring security and public order, fighting

7
Perito, 158. Also, interview with Italian defense official, January 12, 2005.
8
Interview with KFOR commander, December 2, 2004.

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organized crime, advising and training local police forces, as well as filling the
specialized security “gap” in support of military peacekeepers. Other EU member states
would be able to participate, as they are willing and able.
The EGF’s main purposes are substitution and strengthening missions.
Substitution refers to missions where the local police either does not exist or is totally
incapable of maintaining public order. In Haiti and Cote d’Ivoire, French Gendarmes
deployed alongside military peacekeepers and helped reestablish the local police force.9
Strengthening missions involve advising and training local police to perform public order
duties. In Bosnia and Kosovo, for example, Italian Carabinieri conducted joint patrols
with local police. Their presence provided reassurance to fledgling local police and gave
skittish refugees confidence that they could return to their homes unharmed. Italian
Carabineri also used their investigative skills (including plains-clothes covert
surveillance, crime mapping, and link analysis) to help SFOR counter organized crime.10
European officials envision the EGF to be deployed either along with or
immediately after a military operation to maintain or establish public order and safety.
The advantage of the EGF is that, although it is considered a police asset, it can be placed
under military command. In other words, EGF forces have the training, equipment and
background to work in a military command environment.
On December 14, 2004, the EU announced that the first EGF Commander would
be French Brigadier General Gérard Deanaz.11 He will report to a High Level
Interdepartmental Committee (HILC) that will be responsible for strategic management
and political control, although if the EGF is used for an EU mission, the political control
will fall under the EU’s Political-Security Committee (PSC).12
Deanaz will head a staff of about 30 planners at the EGF permanent headquarters
in Vicenza. EGF planners are expected to work closely with the EU Military Staff and
Civilian-Crisis Management planning cell in Brussels. Among the EGF headquarters’
tasks are: monitoring at-risk areas; contingency and operational planning; planning and
directing combined exercises; evaluating and implementing lessons learned; and, as
necessary or if requested, provide guidance to strategic decision-making. Thus, the goal is
to incorporate EGF capacities into ESDP so that the EU eventually will be able to respond

9
Interview with French Gendarmerie official, December 2, 2004.
10
Perito, 170-171.
11
See “Un general français, chef de la gendarmerie européenne,” December 14, 2004.
http://www.defense.gouv.fr/sites/gendarmerie/actualites_et_dossiers/ [accessed December 23, 2004].
12
The HILC is composed of representatives from the countries’ various ministries. France, Italy, and the
Netherlands have representatives from their respective defense and foreign ministries. Portugal has
representatives from its interior and foreign ministries, and Spain has representatives from all three
(defense, interior, foreign) ministries. In addition to managing the politics of the EGF, the HLIC will also
set the operational standards of the units. The PSC is composed of ambassadors from all 25 EU members
and charged with advising the Council of the European Union on EU foreign and security policies.

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to the full spectrum of crisis situations, from preventive diplomacy to post-combat nation-
building.13
According to the EGF’s “declaration of intent,” the EGF’s flexibility is its ability
to deploy at every phase of a conflict:
a Initial phase: along with military forces to perform various police tasks;
b Transitional phase: either alone or with a military force, coordinating and cooperating
with local or international police units;
c Military disengagement phase: facilitate the handover from military to civilian
authorities, whether local or international.

The EU concept of the Integrated Police Unit (IPU) is envisioned to allow for
Europeans to perform “robust police missions” under less stable conditions, even if this
involves temporarily being placed under military command. Since the expected area of
operation is likely to reflect the absence of internal authority, the IPU concept is a critical
part of the larger framework linking EGF to EU contributions in building the country’s
law enforcement and judicial institutions. The rationale was (and supported by EU
experiences in the Balkans and East Timor) that having police forces would be basically
useless without having other means to process criminals and administer justice.14
The BBC described the EU effort as trying to create an intervention force that is
“something between the neutrality of traditional UN peacekeeping and NATO’s cruise
missiles.” 15 The Dutch stress that the EGF – through training and its pre-organized unit
structure – would serve as a viable framework in which other nations with similar types of
police forces may choose to participate. Any EU member state possessing “a police force
with a military statute” may participate in the EGF. EU candidates (including Turkey) that
have such constabulary forces may obtain “observer status” and detach a liaison officer to
the EGF HQ. For instance, the contribution of the Turkish Jandarma (roughly 150,000)
may help the EGF eventually solve manpower constraints, as well as facilitate EU-
Turkish relations in general. Because of its unique capabilities, the EGF may also open a
door for providing a positive venue for repairing relations with the US.

13
For background on ESDP and the holistic EU approach to security, see Jolyon Howorth, European
Integration and Defense: The Ultimate Challenge? Chaillot Paper No. 43 (Paris: WEU-ISS, 2000) and
Michael J. Brenner, Europe’s New Security Vocation, McNair Paper No. 66 (Washington, DC:
INSS/NDU, 2002).
14
Based on the Civilian Crisis Capabilities Conference in November 2004 that incorporated contributions
from the ten newest member states, the EU’s civilian crisis capacity includes: policing (members have
pledged 5,761 police officers); rule of law (members have pledged 631 judges, prosecutors, and other
rule-of-law experts); civilian administration (562 administrative and infrastructure experts have been
pledged); and civil protection (4,988 specialists in rapid response following natural disasters). See
Ministerial Declaration at http://ue.eu.int/ueDocs/cms_Data/docs/pressData/en/misc/82760.pdf.
15
See BBC News, “EU Launches Crisis Police Force,” http://newsvote.bbc.co.uk and FBIS, “EU States
Set Up New European Military Police Force” (September 17, 2004).

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Relationship to the United States – a Few Recommendations for the EU

The United States is currently wrestling with its own military transformation and
force-restructuring efforts to be better positioned to respond to the threats and challenges
of the 21st century. The question is: how can European constabulary capabilities help to
resolve not only a US military shortfall with a “real” capability but also provide a
concrete step toward rebuilding the transatlantic relationship?
First, Europeans should – either through NATO, the EU, or bilaterally – establish
combined training relationships and opportunities for American armed forces, civilian
police, and law enforcement officials. There should be slots reserved for Americans to
attend courses at European training facilities in Italy and France. In fact, this is an area
where Italy in particular – with its rich Caribineri tradition and historic transformation of
its armed forces – could take the lead. Washington should provide proper incentives for
Americans – both civilian and military – to learn from the Europeans.
Second, the EGF should establish liaison relationships with the State Department’s
Office of Civilian Police (CIVPOL), the Justice Department’s International Criminal
Investigative Training and Assistance Program (ICTAP), as well as the Department of
Defense. Such interaction would permit adoption of best practices and facilitate
coordination, cooperation, and planning.
Third, as the United States begins the debate about developing its own
Stabilization and Reconstruction force,16 the US should consider permitting and
encouraging (with proper credit) European constabulary forces to participate in the post-
combat phase of multinational military operations involving the US. Ideally, this would
mean that EU constabulary functions are incorporated into US (and NATO) military
planning as part of an integrated whole. The US would assist in providing European
constabulary forces with necessary transport and intelligence support. If successful, this
collaboration could become the prototype for a new multinational instrument and a firm
counterbalance to perceptions of American unilateralism and European irrelevance. Such
transparency at the planning stage would allow the US (and NATO) to focus on its
comparative advantage, while spotlighting European strengths and skills in post-combat
operations. Consequently, the political costs of persuading others to follow a US military
course of action would be lowered, as the European leaders can sell the policy to their
respective parliaments and publics. Europeans (and the EU) once again can feel (and
rightfully so) that they are working side-by-side with the United States as equal partners
capable of successfully meeting the demands of crisis operations in the 21st century.

16
For example, see Hans Binnedijk and Stuart E. Johnson (eds), Transforming for Stabilization and
Reconstruction Operations (Washington, DC: NDU Press, 2004).

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CITIES OF GOD by Doug BANDOW

What is the link between religious groups and political parties in the United States?
References to faith are frequent, but in most cases their leverage on politicians’
behaviour and public choices is little or void. The political militancy of the Christians.
The Evangelical as bulwark of conservatism.

A t times, especially to outsiders, religion


seems to dominate America's national political debate. George W. Bush is the most
overtly observant Christian to hold the U.S. presidency in a quarter century. He recently
went before the National Association of Evangelicals to cite his opposition to abortion,
homosexual marriage, and stem cell research. Religious broadcaster Pat Robertson
cheerfully opined that God told him that Bush will be reelected: "It doesn't make any
difference what he does, good or bad. God picks him up because he's a man of prayer, and
God's blessing him."
The Democratic primaries drew as candidates an Orthodox Jew (Sen. Joseph
Lieberman) and an ordained Pentecostal minister (Al Sharpton). Presumptive Democratic
nominee Sen. John Kerry is by all accounts a devout Catholic. Wesley Clark and Howard
Dean quite publicly and less convincingly proclaimed their deep Christian faith.
Important issues remain fraught with religious implications. Abortion has passed
the 30-year mark as a divisive national issue. In 2003 homosexual marriage exploded as a
bitter social controversy. Many evangelicals look at U.S. policy towards Israel, Iraq, the
Palestinians, and Muslims in general through the prism of their faith.
Some religious conservatives also have cited God as the reason to jail gays across
the nation and, more unusually, raise taxes in Alabama. Former Alabama Chief Justice
Ray Moore refused to comply with a federal court order to remove the monument to the
Ten Commandments from his state's judicial building.
More liberal denominations and groups used religious images and rhetoric to
oppose the Iraq war and President Bush's tax cuts. In November 2003 left-wing Christians
announced the formation of the Clergy Leadership Network to organize politically to
counter such conservative organizations as the Christian Coalition and Family Research
Council.
Should religious people--and particularly Christians, who profess to make up the
vast majority of the American population--think, act, and vote differently because of their
faith? Although Americans of all faiths are active politically, in their actions many are
little different than their more secular neighbors. Their religion is more a cultural than a
theological factor in affecting their political positions. For instance, Hindus, Buddhists,
and adherents to other Eastern religions engage in little organized activity.

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Most Jewish Americans advocate strong U.S. backing for Israel, but it has nothing
to do with their interpretation of the Law and the Prophets or the Talmud. More broadly,
American Jews have trended left in their politics, but for reasons unrelated to their
religion. The Orthodox seem to focus their attention on protecting the integrity of their
communities and speaking out on some social issues, but have had only a limited impact
on U.S. politics.
Similarly, most Muslim Americans, as well as Arab-Americans (who are mostly
Christian), lobby for a more balanced approach towards Israel and the Palestinians, with
whom they identify. Devout Muslims are likely to share many social attitudes with devout
Jews, but they are relatively few in number and have had little organized impact on issues
outside of Middle Eastern politics.
Atheists recently have entered the political fray. But the Godless Americans
Political Action Committee appears to do little to promote what is, in fact, a faith-based
belief system. Rather, GAMPAC is primarily dedicated to counteracting religious
involvement in politics. If Christian conservatives, in particular, were not pushing an
agenda drenched in Biblical rhetoric, GAMPAC would have nothing to lobby against.
Most religious political activism comes from Christians. Even here, many of their
activities are indistinguishable from those of secularists. The leadership of the major
"mainline" Protestant denominations —Methodist, Episcopal, Presbyterian— run liberal
and Democratic. They borrow Christian imagery and rhetoric for support, but their
positions are not derived from religious faith. Rather, their backing for statist solutions
reflects the reigning political zeitgeist of elite culture. Most laymen in these churches are
more moderate in their politics.
The Catholic hierarchy has taken more seriously its professed desire to use
scripture and church teaching to promote political ends. However, though the American
bishops oppose abortion and sexually expressive cultural practices based on Christian
moral concerns, they have offered economic and foreign policy prescriptions more
befitting the Democratic Party than the Catholic Church. Although their efforts have been
well-intentioned, they engaged in the dubious practice of using general spiritual principles
to spawn specific policy proposals – while evidencing little understanding of the realities
of politics or principles of economics. The results hardly looked spiritually inspired.
Perhaps unsurprising is the fact that evangelicals, who are most likely to share their
religious beliefs with others, also most actively attempt to use their faith to shape policy.
Most are conservative, focusing their theological rhetoric on social matters – abortion,
pornography, the family. On economic and foreign policy controversies they trend
Republican with little apparent effort to express their positions in religious terms. There
are a few evangelical leftists, who speak out for greater government efforts to alleviate
poverty and against war, but they are relatively few in number.
Thus, when one thinks of religion in American politics, one sees a complex
mixture of theologies and policies. Americans are far more likely than Europeans to
freight their political involvement in sacred terms, but they still find themselves on
different sides of virtually every issue even as they cite the same God and the same faith.

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But this should come as no surprise. After all, the proper role of government, the
central concern of political theory, has long been a controversial issue within
Christendom. We seem no closer to agreement today.
That people still attempt to apply their faiths to politics is laudable. However, the
very pervasiveness of policy disputes should be cause for humility. There is, it seems, no
simple Christian view of the state. And for good reason: what many Americans, in
particular, seem to miss is that holy scripture and church tradition provide guidelines and
principles, but no detailed blueprint for godly government. On most issues believers are
left with the Apostle James' unsatisfying injunction to ask for wisdom, which God "gives
generously to all without finding fault." (James 1:5)
Christians do have specific responsibilities toward government, such as prayer for
public officials and obedience to the law. Yet anyone who takes his religious faith
seriously should have limited expectations for politics: the state is neither redemptive nor
eternal.
Beyond that, the Bible sets only general boundaries for political debate. The
dominant message of the Gospel, as well as of the Hebrew writings, is man's relationship
to God and one's neighbors. Although many of these principles have some application to
politics, the Bible gives much more guidance on how we should treat people in our
everyday lives than when we should coerce them through today's secular political order.
The state's most fundamental role is to protect citizens from the sinful conduct of
their neighbors. The Bible indicates that government is to help preserve order —people's
ability to live "peaceful and quiet lives," in Paul's words— in a sinful world. (1 Timothy
2:2) One goal of the state is just retribution. Deterrence, encouraging even evil men to
respect others' rights, is another objective of government. But even here, where
government's role is clear, the exact means of achieving Godly objectives is left to man's
discretion.
Another recurring theme is reflected in Kind David's observation: "The Lord is
righteous, he loves justice." (Psalm 11:11) Civil rulers, like individuals, are to be just and
righteous. However, corporate duty differs from personal responsibility. Individuals must
respond generously to the needs and rights of their neighbors; government must regulate,
coercively yet fairly, relations between both righteous and unrighteous men. In short, the
contrast is personal virtue versus public impartiality.
Thus, government is to be a neutral arbiter and protector. Biblical justice protects
all men in their enjoyment of God's blessings. It certainly is not to become a tool to rob
and oppress, a constant risk in every political system, including American democracy.
In its focus on process, Godly justice and righteousness are very different from the
modern notion of "social justice," which demands equal economic and cultural outcomes.
However appealing may be some proposals advanced under the rubric of "social justice,"
they are not matters of Biblical justice, which guarantees a fair civil government nestled
within a larger culture in which the wealthy and powerful recognize their obligation to
help those in need. Thus, seemingly problematic economic and social outcomes should be
addressed directly, most obviously through charity, rather than by manipulating standards
of justice.

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In the Old Testament, the government enforced many essentially "religious" rules,
and some believers want those same regulations to be enforced today since they are
"God's law." For example, leftist American Christians often point to ancient Israel's
Jubilee laws, which limited property sales, to support income redistribution.
Some conservatives look to Mosaic Law for support for their social preferences.
The U.S. Supreme Court decision voiding state sodomy laws caused even more
mainstream religious conservatives to not only dispute the constitutional legitimacy of the
Court's ruling, but to defend jailing homosexuals as a requirement of God's law. A
number advocated similarly punishing adulterers and fornicators, which would put most
of America's population behind bars.
The willingness of fervent activists to pick and choose provisions of Mosaic Law
to enforce is disturbing enough. But the enforcement of Old Testament law was tied to the
nature of the political community in which it was applied, and isn't properly within the
province of civil government today. Public enforcement of many Old Testament norms
required the active intervention of God, something no secular state today is likely to rely
upon.
Another reason to doubt that today's state is mandated to enforce moral/religious
rules, as is so often advocated on the right, is that most ultimately deal with matters of the
heart as much as conduct. Paul wrote: "A man is a Jew if he is one inwardly; and
circumcision is circumcision of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the written code."
(Romans 2:29) Meaningful enforcement of the moral law, then, requires God's direct
intervention.
Christians should be particularly hesitant to advance civil enforcement of
essentially religious strictures. For instance, in his first letter to the Corinthian church
Paul instructed believers to disassociate themselves from "anyone who calls himself a
brother" but is immoral. He did not apply the same rule to nonbelievers to the world, he
explained, since "God will judge those outside." (1 Corinthians 5:9-13)
And, like it or not, Christians live in a society dominated by nonreligious
neighbors (compared to many Europeans, of course, Americans appear to be unnaturally
devout. But many of the latter maintain only a formalistic adherence to their supposed
faiths, atheists in practice). The very nature of the government, in contrast to the ancient
Israelite monarchy, is to govern a disparate people of disparate beliefs. Today's state is an
institution designed to promote civil order and public good, not religious faith and
individual salvation.
Just as scripture requires government to act in some circumstances —though not as
often as many liberals and conservatives would like— it also restricts some government
actions. The most important limitation flows from the first commandment given to
Moses: "You shall have no other gods before me." (Exodus 20:3) Although the "other
gods" were usually such supposed deities as Baal, some secular rulers, notably the later
Roman emperors, also claimed to be divine.
Most secular rulers are more discreet in their formal pretensions, but many
nevertheless act as quasi-gods, attempting to usurp God's role. That is most obvious with
the totalitarian death states of the 20th century. Even the modern welfare state has

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increasingly turned into what author Herb Schlossberg calls "the idol state," using "the
language of compassion because its intention is a messianic one."
Christian teaching suggests that an expansive government is bad not only because
it might demand to be treated like God, but also because it will reflect the sinfulness of its
participants and mistreat its citizens. Man is a fallen creature, often eager to do wrong.
This sinful nature is exacerbated by the accumulation of power which, warned Lord
Acton, "tends to corrupt." History down through today certainly has shown that "power
was on the side of their oppressors – and they have no comforter." (Ecclesiastes 4:1)
While scripture is ultimately more concerned about spiritual freedom--particularly
liberation from sin – than political liberty, the latter remains an important theme for at
least three reasons. First, the lives and dignity of human beings created in the image of
God require respect by other people, including governors. In the end, the least important
person for whom Christ died is of greater value than the grandest empire.
Second, people must be free to respond to or reject God's grace. Indeed, the
exercise of virtue is impossible without the freedom to sin. Finally, Christ's injunction that
believers be salt and light requires them to have at least some autonomy from the state,
whether totalitarian or the slightly less imperialistic welfare states that dominate the West.
To know what government must and must not do is critical, but only a start, since
most issues fall in between. It is here that left and right most clash in the political arena in
America as elsewhere. And it is here where religion in general, and Christianity more
specifically, say little.
Broad Biblical principles may help resolve some issues. Consider poverty. God's
concern for the poor is clear. Notably, however, the Bible does not vest this responsibility
in the state. Neither does scripture proscribe a public role, but it implies that believers
should fulfill their individual and corporate responsibilities before turning to government,
and any state programs should not violate other biblical norms, such as family formation.
About many other current public controversies, from the World Trade
Organization to corporate accounting rules, Christian theology offers little specific
guidance. Rather, these usually are more matters of prudence than principle and fall
within the permissive area of government activity.
Where God is silent, what role should people assign to the state? In this area,
broadly speaking, conservatives seem more right on economics and leftists do better on
social controversies. Although there is no formal Christian political philosophy, believers
have good reason to be skeptical about the use of government to solve economic and
social problems. The temptation to seize power in an attempt to do good is strong, the
prospect of making people moral and righteous is alluring. But can there be greater hubris
than the belief that one should forcibly remake individuals and transform entire societies--
to save God the trouble of having to separate the wheat and tares? Thousands of years of
history suggest that such a project is fraught with peril and doomed to fail.
Moreover, believers must never forget that the basis of the state is coercion. The
ultimate sanction behind every law and rule is prison and, should a citizen resist, death.
In general, throwing someone in jail cannot be viewed as an act of love. Thus, Christians
should exhibit humility before resorting to force, and should do so only reluctantly.

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Finally, the lessons of practical experience are particularly powerful. Although


private market outcomes are imperfect--the traditional justification for state action--that is
not a sufficient basis for political intervention. There also needs to be solid reason, rather
than just wishful thinking, to believe that the government response will not be more
imperfect. Given the problems inherent to the political process, the case for state action
should be overriding necessity, not personal whim.
What is the proper Christian role of the state regarding most issues? God provides
principles to be applied with wisdom, rather than specific answers.
In general, government should provide the legal scaffolding that allows people to
collectively but voluntarily solve their problems. Only in extraordinary circumstances,
where there is no other choice, should the state supplant private decision-making.
Ultimately, a political system based on liberty will enhance man's ability to provide for
his family and others in his community, exercise dominion in transforming God's
creation, enjoy the many gifts of God, and seek to fulfill God's will.
Of course, freedom is not enough, even for Americans. As Pope John II explained,
a market economy will work only "within a strong juridical framework which places
[capitalism] at the service of human freedom in its totality and which sees it as a
particular aspect of that freedom, the core of which is ethical and religious." Government
can provide the juridical framework, but the church--the world body of Christian
believers--must help provide the ethical and religious core. Without that core a free
society still will be better than an unfree society, but it will be neither good nor godly.
For Christians politics is an important, but never the most important, calling. Even as
American Christians work on behalf of a multitude of candidates and causes, they must
never forget that their highest allegiance runs beyond this world.

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AUTHORS
ARNON SOFFER – Professor of Geostrategy at Haifa University.

ALDO BAQUIS – Journalist. From 1986 is correspondent from Tel Aviv of the Italian
news agency Ansa. He writes, among others, for the Italian newspaper
La Stampa.

ELY KARMON – Senior Research Scholar at the International Policy Institute for
Counter-Terrorism and at the Institute for Policy and Strategy,
Interdisciplinary Center of Herzlya, Israel.

GUY BECHOR – Senior Analyst on Middle East issues at the Interdisciplinary Center of
Herzlya, Israel.

MARGHERITA PAOLINI – Scientific Coordinator of Limes – Italian Review of


Geopolitics.

ABD AL-RA’UF MUSTAFA AL-SIDDIQUI – Retired Egyptian General.

DAVID POLANSKY – Research Fellow at Limes – Italian Review of Geopolitics and at


Heartland.

GIOVANNI PARIGI – Lawyer, Islam connoisseur and army reservist.

FABRIZIO MARONTA – Research Fellow at Limes – Italian Review of Geopolitics and


at Heartland.

DAVID T. ARMITAGE – Research Fellow at the Institute for National strategic Studies,
National Defence University, Washington, D.C..

DOUG BANDOW – Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute.

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