The Americans have a saying, "the gift that keeps on giving". It originated in an advertising slogan for a gramophone player ninety years ago, and since then has been applied in all kinds of contexts, not necessarily in a positive way.
The 2003 US invasion of Iraq can be called "the gift that keeps on giving", and not in a positive way. There is simply no end to the disasters it keeps on producing, eleven years after the fact, and three years and more after the last American soldier left Mesopotamia.
The US opened a huge Pandora's box. By now there's nothing clever in saying that the invasion was a strategic error of the first order. That's obvious. What would be clever would be to predict the next disaster that that war will spawn.
It's fairly clear by now that it has been damaging to Israel. Saddam Hussein was an enemy, but a much weakened one and surrounded by enemies himself. On the other hand, he blocked Iran's western expansion, and ruthlessly suppressed its allies within Iraq. No land bridge would have connected Iran to Syria and Lebanon through Saddam's Iraq. No "Shi'ite crescent" would have appeared in the skies of the Middle East. Al-Qaeda would not have gained a foothold, let alone a state of its own in northern Iraq.
With Saddam gone, and now that it has become apparent to the US just how crazy and absurd its Iraq project was (it planned a blossoming democracy on the Tigris, and even designed a flag for it), Iraq has turned into a black hole.
Blocking al-Qaeda
Barrack Obama was a little too keen to get out of it. Had he not been in such a hurry, it's conceivable that he might have succeeded in signing some kind of security cooperation agreement with Iraq. A US military presence would have improved the readiness of the Iraqi army, and the US might have been good enough to equip it properly. Perhaps there would have been no need now for an Iranian expeditionary force to halt al-Qaeda at the gates of Baghdad. But the exit from Iraq was very popular in the US. The Americans had no appetite for a commitment to the welfare of the Shi'ite government there.
The appearance of Iran and al-Qaeda is of course the most ironic outcome of the war that the US embarked upon against the "axis of evil" and against terrorism. Where Iran never was, the US let Iran in; where al-Qaeda never was, the US let al-Qaeda in.
Which of these two outcomes is worse for Israel? I think it's the advent of Iran. Al-Qaeda, especially in its Iraqi-Syrian version, is a pathology, a psychological aberration, a temporary result of the collapse of institutions and political confusion. It can cause terrible damage and perpetrate mass murder, like the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia forty years ago. But it can't last long.
Iran, by contrast, will be around for a long time. Its neo-imperialist ambitions are overt and known. Its aspirations reach as far as the Mediterranean, and it is Israel's main strategic enemy. Al-Qaeda does not threaten Israel's existence, although it can make life very difficult for it. Iran, on the other hand, is a clear and present danger.
Our attention at present is distracted from Iraq, and our hearts are with the three kidnapped youngsters. But in Iraq a dish is being spoiled that will stick in Israel's throat. The US and Western Europe are now discovering that Iran is the most effective barrier to al-Qaeda, both in northern Iraq and in Syria; and they, the US and Europe, are far more scared of al-Qaeda than they are of Iran.
"A favorable reference to the devil"
At the time of writing, Tuesday morning, the US is sending out conflicting signals about its intentions in Iraq. Secretary of State John Kerry "does not exclude the possibility" of US-Iranian cooperation in Iraq; but the White House says that there will be no "military coordination". From a US point of view, cooperation makes a great deal of sense. It's worth recalling that Iran offered its assistance immediately after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. They even helped to some extent in the first days of the war in Afghanistan. Bush's "axis of evil" speech in early 2002 put an end to that doubtful rapprochement. What then could be more natural for Obama's administration than that it should fix something else that his predecessor wrecked?
Israel itself once saw Iran as less dangerous than the alternatives, and aided it with arms at the time of the Iran-Iraq war, over thirty years ago. Incidentally, at that time the US took precisely the opposite view, and supported Iraq against Iran (even when it was illegally selling arms to the Ayatollah). The lesser of two evils has always been an important ally, in any equation. "If Hitler invaded hell I would make at least a favorable reference to the devil in the House of Commons," said Winston Churchill of his decision to support Stalin in 1941.
For some time, Israel has been sitting on the fence. It decided not to decide on intervention in the Syrian civil war, because both sides are repellent to it. In 2011, Ehud Barak predicted the fall of the Assad dynasty "within six months". Now, Israeli military intelligence sees the conflict in Syria persisting indecisively "for several more years". Perhaps. But that part of Syria that remains in the hands of the house of Assad is turning into a condominium for the Iranian Revolutionary Guard and Hezbollah. One day, this will be the greatest threat to Israel's wellbeing.
If Iraq breaks up into its component parts, it's safe to assume that its Shi'ite southern portion will be an Iranian protectorate. What will happen in the north? Presumably, the Kurds, from their stable and prosperous enclave, will try to fill the vacuum. But that is a state of affairs that Turkey, the irate neighbor to the north, will find unacceptable. It will also not be able to accept an al-Qaeda state, but it will be prepared to support a de facto Sunni state. Saudi Arabia and Qatar will always be happy to help.
The break-up of Iraq would be the most natural outcome of this crisis, but it is not necessarily the most likely one. Iran desires it least of all. Perhaps that is the main reason that Israel should want it.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on June 19, 2014
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