There may be an Arabo-Iranian Cold War brewing, if the Arabs make themselves relevant again

As the Arabs furiously try to guilt Syria into curbing Hezb Allah????????s activities and ???????rejoining??????? the Arab world, one cannot help but see an almost laughable, but certainly pathetic, last ditch attempt at salvaging what influence the Sunni Arab states have in the Middle East.

Ever since the American invasion of Iraq, the strong men of the Sunni Arab world have become less and less relevant in a region that has become increasingly polarized on various fronts. On the one hand, with the liberation of a mass of Iraqi Shias by a foreign behemoth the Sunnis have become much more timid than they were in the pre-invasion period of the 1990’s and early 2000’s. The reasons for this are twofold. Firstly the Arabs have been in desperate fear of Iran, the region????????s new Islamic superpower, and its influence over Iraq????????s massive Shia Arab population. Whether it be losing ground militarily to the Persian giant, or face domestic instability among the Sunni ruled states of the Persian Gulf with large Shia populations of their own, the Arabs have realized the precariousness of the Sunni system when it rests upon the shoulders of repressed and resentful minorities. The latter realization is perhaps not new at all, all despots know this, but this issue has entered a new day as Shias have become more and more empowered by watching their Iraqi co-religionists take the lead in their country.

Secondly, the Arabs were already less than significant geopolitically in the region, with powers such as the United States and Israel occupying the leading roles in the Middle East militarily. As Iran rose (not to mention the past twenty or so years), the Arabs effectively forfeited their place in the region to Israel and Iran as they focused on domestic threats from Islamists and other opposition groups. The only Arab power of any military significance, imagined or otherwise, was Iraq, the barrel of the Arabs???????? rifle. With Saddam and the Baéath removed from the political landscape of the region, the most important Sunni Arabs in the region became the Iraqi insurgents, whose only real purpose was to stop Shias from attaining relevance, there by thwarting Shia hopes for political ascendency. This mission has largely failed, however, mainly because the Shias of Iraq have formed their own militias and still occupy the most important offices in the Iraqi government and seem unshaken in that country. These tactics, which were not only encouraged but often financed by mainstream Sunni Arab forces and leaders, have failed as well because they did absolutely nothing to stop Iran from taking up the banner as the defender of the Palestinian national cause. Syria, an Arab actor which has since the 1970’s gone its own way (and usually outside the mainstream of Arab and regional policy), used this strategy only to try and irritate the American forces in Iraq, not so much to thwart Shia hopes of equality or dominance. Though the Americans and Arabs tried to convince Syria that its motives and actions were out of place (as the Arabs often did just the same) and detrimental to regional security, they were quickly ignored and drove Syria further into the arms of the region????????s next big thing: Iran.

Today, Arabs across the region cheer on Hezb Allah against Israel, as they jeer their own leaders???????? inaction. The Arabs’ leaders rush to the side of Lebanese PM Fouad Siniora as he desperately tries to convince the world to do anything to stop Israel????????s onslaught and help the Lebanese state disarm Hezb Allah in the long term. The West and the Arab world scurry about trying to get Syria to disarm its Shia proxy in Lebanon, to no avail. What they do not realize is that Syria is not the one calling the shots on Hezb Allah, Iran is. The Arabs are still in fear of Iranian dominance, they have not quite yet come to terms with it though.

This recent Lebanon crisis may be the beginning of the Iranian era of Middle East politics. The last four weeks have shown just how irrelevant the Sunni Arab states have become. Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and all the rest no longer matter. Through their Western alliances and domestic repression they have no credibility among the Arab masses. Hassan Nasrallah is the champion of Arabism, and Islamism today. No Arab state is. He can hit Tel Aviv, or so it is believed, King Abdullah couldn????????t hit Dimona if he tried. The Arabs have been out done by a little Shia militia leader who hasn????????t any of the sophisticated Western arms paid for by billion dollar aid packages, but only Iranian and Syrian made imitation rockets with little accuracy. Iran has made this possible. And Iran wields the power to end it.

Condoleezza Rice has called the Lebanon Crisis of 2006, the ???????birthing pains of a new Middle East???????, referring to the transition to democracy there. But this is more likely the second contraction of a Middle Eastern pregnancy ready to give way to a baby named ???????Ajam???????. The first contraction was the Iraq War, giving rise to what historian and political science Vali Nasr has called the ???????Shia revival???????. Historically the Middle East has had a quad or tri-polar system, with the Arabs on the first side, the West and Israel on another, and still Iran on a third. This system is dying. The Arabs???????? position is effectively gone, given that public opinion, though still viciously anti-Shia, has been able to so quickly turn against the Sunni Arab leaders and redirect itself positively towards a Shia-Iranian-backed Nasrallah. It should also be mentioned that this reorientation has taken place even as Sunni clerics, and even liberal Arabs (such as those at Al-Arabiyya , and other media outlets that initially took the anti-Hezb Allah line) holler on about the evils of supporting a Shia organization. The Arabs may like to pretend that holding their next summit in Mecca, or forcing the Syrian FM Walid Muallem to storm out of their meeting in Beirut this week, will guilt Syria into empowering the Sunni state system by stopping Hezb Allah and his intimidation of the Lebanese PM, but all of this merely serves Iran????????s interest by dividing the Sunni Arabs from the Allawi ruled Syrians and thus its arm in the Middle East cookie jar. The Syrians have no reason to join the Arabs now, Iran fills most of their needs and provides it protection against the West and the rest. Though Syria????????s role within Lebanon is clearly diminished, its influence over Hezb Allah is not. Though anti-Syrian demonstrators appeared outside Muallem????????s hotel in Beirut, Hezb Allah is still deep in Syria and Iran????????s pocket, and, increasingly, so is the Arab street. Syria has no desire to enter the mainstream of the Arab world, and it has no intention of moderating Hezb Allah????????s activities (see here).

The new Middle East created by the invasion of Iraq is a bi-polar one with Iran and Israel (the West has less influence than it previously did, as demonstrated by the results of the negotiations on the Iranian nuclear program and bringing about an end to the current fighting) at its helm. The Arabs will have no say in what goes on in their region until they come to terms with this situation. The crisis of today foreshadows a potentially ever more Iranian predicament in the Middle East, and its outcome will decide the severity of Iranian eminence. If Hezb Allah defeats Israel, the Arabs will become more irrelevant than they ever have been before in recent memory, they will be at the mercy of Iran and its agents in the region. If Hezb Allah is destroyed, Iran????????s influence will be reduced, as will that of Syria, but it will be by no means gone. There is no turning back for the Syrian regime at this point, it has made a blood pact with Iran and it cannot return because doing so would undermine all that the Assads have built for themselves.

Short of a coup or some other sort of regime change, there is no way for the Arabs to take Syria for themselves. The methods by which the Arabs have tried to undermine Iran have all been sectarian in nature, by making public comments hostile towards Shias and sending the message, as one Lebanese blogger noted, that the Syrians may ???????side with us or the Persians???????. Syria has estranged itself from the Arab world, and the Sunni Arabs have over the past year or so basically said ???????fine! Go!??????? at their own peril. What the Arabs could have embraced the Iraqi Shias after the invasion and taken a less hostile line on Iran and sectarian matters generally, while liberalizing their domestic policies, and discouraging, actively, their young men from traveling to Iraq for the jihad. They could have made their camp appealing, they could have recognized the changing face of their region, they could have coopted their Shias. This crisis is not solely the fault of Hezb Allah and the Syro-Iranian Axis. Responsibility lies in the lap of the Arab stats, going all the way back to the days before and immediately after the US invasion, when Arab rulers blamed the US for creating an evil Shia Crescent. The Arabs have refused to enter the new Middle East mentally, with the result being utter irrelevance. Now the Arab states work essentially on behalf of Israel, much to their peoples???????? dismay. They can make no move in the region which would not displease their people or their Western patrons. They are stuck as much as Lebanon is. They cannot reform, because the elites would lose their power. They cannot side with Iran, because the West and Israel would pull the rug of aid out from under them. And they cannot side with Israel against Hezb Allah, because their people would rip them from their thrones. Lebanon cannot be saved until the Arabs save themselves.

The Arabs can only make things worse for themselves and the region. Anti-Hezb Allah posturing could bring the Arabs into a massive sectarian melee, and/or an Arab-Iranian war, with two fronts Iraq and Lebanon. A pro-Hezb Allah stance would bring them the ire of the West and Israel and make them like Syria, clients of Iran. The fear of a regional war which would tear down the existing state system in the Middle East is too great among comfortable Sunni Gulf Arabs and likely too unpopular among average Egyptians. The Arabs will be stuck in the limbo of existence in irrelevance so long as they refuse to adjust to the new Middle East. Resistance is not enough, they must become active, cutting down old sectarian barriers and embracing all of the Middle East, and helping in more than rhetoric to put an end to the militancy of the Palestinians and Hezb Allah. The Sunni Arabs must swallow their pride and recognize that the current system has failed, and its termination is long over due and it cannot manage itself in a region in which there is no dominant Arab power. It is no surprise that Jordan’s young monarch has admitted that he “can’t read the political map of the Middle East anymore”, and that it is time for the Arabs and Israelis to “declare a new future” for the region, countries in the region “will continually be sucked into the abyss.” He did not however articulate how that future would come about, or what it would look like.

The Arabs cannot counterbalance Iran in their current bigoted and sectarian frame of operating, they must make the leap into the 21st century by purging their governments of backwardness and creating among themselves a competitive and comparative advantage to Iran. Thus may begin the Arabo-Iranian Cold War, and with it the hope of winning back the adoration Arab public from Syro-Iranian-Hezb Allah. The Arabs ought not worry of Syria, they should worry about their own.