As 2007 neared its end, “Annapolis” emerged as the hopeful myth about the middle east: the perfect setting for the latest cycle of peace-hopes (and in the end failure) that the establishment media likes. The fact that the United States secretary of state Condoleezza Rice is leading the effort also satisfies the true believers that Washington alone must lead the region to peace.
But after the nice words, the millions of euros already expended and the others promised by the donor community to reconstruct what Israel has destroyed in Palestine, comes the harsh reality: Israel is continuing its settlement policy in East Jerusalem and the West Bank, thus undermining the basis of any possible agreement in the next twelve months.
In 2008, Israeli will intensify its repressive control of the West Bank; Gaza’s population will remain under siege and continue to suffer a humanitarian crisis; the gap between Hamas and Fatah will grow; the alliance between the US, the Quartet, the Palestinian Authority and Israel to isolate Hamas will help this movement to win more support among Palestinians who feel excluded. The failure of Annapolis, in short, will generate more violence; and Europe will continue to pay the bill.
This pattern of politics - more repression generates more deadly radicalism - is also visible in Pakistan. The country has (to mention only five of its big problems) nuclear weapons; millions of young poor people who are effectively abandoned by the state to be indoctrinated in madrasas; a porous, violent border with Afghanistan; internal ethnic divisions; and tensions with India. While Pervez Musharraf imposes his will to defend his trembling regime against the rise of Islamism, the chances grow that an alliance between Islamists in the mosques and the army and the state’s intelligence apparatus will control the country.
Benazir Bhutto’s assassination is a dramatic confirmation of the dangerous intersection of religious and geopolitical ambition. Pakistan’s descent into an even deeper crisis, which seems inevitable after Bhutto’s killing, will also make the war in Afghanistan less containable and more regional.
In their last year at the White House, George W Bush and Richard Cheney will reduce the number of troops in Iraq but will intensify involvement in Afghanistan - projecting the fiction that Iraq was a war pursued with good intentions if flawed by mistakes, but that Afghanistan is the good war that all can win.
Washington and Nato’s secretary-general are putting pressure on the western allies to deploy more European forces in combat-zones with less restriction on their ability to use force. But most European contingents and the Canadians are having more doubts about US and Nato strategy in this war.
The last big question is what the United States and Israel will do towards Iran. The latest national intelligence report about the freezing of the Iranian nuclear programme undercuts the Bush administration’s arguments on the need to use force against Tehran. It also opens the possibility of negotiation leading to a deal in which Washington could lift sanctions and recognise that the Islamic Republic is a legitimate international actor, in return for Iran’s implicit acceptance of the state of Israel, a slowing of its nuclear programme, a halt to the promotion of insurgency from Lebanon to Gaza, and help in stabilising Iraq.
Such an unlikely deténte with Iran would also contribute to healing the breach between Shi’a and Sunni in Iraq and the region. But a US-Iran dialogue would also drive Israel to attack Iran. After Israel’s defeat in Lebanon in 2006, an attack would show a weaker US and its next president, and the region, who wants to have the final word in the middle east.
Published by Open Democracy
