War In The Age of Trump. Patrick Cockburn
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in the Middle East, since the Iranian revolution in 1979, reporting crises and wars in which the US and its allies fatally underestimated the religious motivation of their adversaries. This has meant they have come out the loser, or simply failed to win, in conflicts in which the balance of forces appeared to them to be very much in their favour. It has happened at least four times. Now the same process is underway yet again, and likely to fail for the same reasons as before: the US, along with its local allies, will be fighting not only Iran but whole Shia communities in different countries, mostly in the northern tier of the Middle East between Afghanistan and the Mediterranean. Trump looks to sanctions to squeeze Iran while National Security Adviser John Bolton and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo promote war as a desirable option. But all three denounce Hezbollah in Lebanon or the Popular Mobilisation Units in Iraq as Iranian proxies, though they are primarily the military and political arm of the indigenous Shia, which are a plurality in Lebanon, a majority in Iraq, and a controlling minority in Syria. The Iranians may be able to strongly influence these groups, but they are not Iranian puppets, which would wither and disappear once Iranian backing is removed.
Allegiance to nation-states in the Middle East is generally weaker than loyalty to communities defined by religion, such as the Alawites, the two-million-strong ruling Shia sect in Syria to which Bashar al-Assad and his closest lieutenants belong. This is not what Trump’s allies in Saudi Arabia, UAE, and Israel want Washington to believe; for them, the Shia are all Iranian stooges. For the Saudis, every rocket fired by the Houthis in Yemen into Saudi Arabia—though minimal in destructive power compared to the four-year Saudi bombing campaign in Yemen—can only have happened because of a direct instruction from Tehran. On Thursday, for instance, Prince Khalid Bin Salman, the vice minister for defence and the brother of Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman, claimed on Twitter that drone attacks on Saudi oil pumping stations were “ordered” by Iran. He said that “the terrorist acts, ordered by the regime in Tehran, and carried out by the Houthis, are tightening the noose around the ongoing political efforts.” He added: “These militias are merely a tool that Iran’s regime uses to implement its expansionist agenda in the region.” There is nothing new in this paranoid reaction by Sunni rulers to actions by distinct Shia communities (in this case the Houthis) attributing everything without exception to the guiding hand of Iran. I was in Bahrain in 2011, where the minority Sunni monarchy had just brutally crushed protests by the Shia majority with Saudi military support. Among those tortured were Shia doctors in a hospital who had treated injured demonstrators. Part of the evidence against them was a piece of technologically advanced medical equipment—I cannot remember if it was used for monitoring the heart or the brain or some other condition—which the doctors were accused of using to receive instructions from Iran about how to promote a revolution.
This type of absurd conspiracy theory used not to get much of hearing in Washington, but Trump and his acolytes are on record as saying that nearly all acts of “terrorism” can be traced to Iran. This conviction risks sparking a war between the US and Iran because there are plenty of angry Shia in the Middle East who might well attack some US facility on their own accord.
It might also lead to somebody in one of those states eager for a US-Iran armed conflict to stage a provocative incident that could be blamed on Iran.
But what would such a war achieve? The military invasion of Iran is not militarily or politically feasible, so there would be no decisive victory. An air campaign and a close naval blockade of Iran might be possible, but there are plenty of pressure points through which Iran could retaliate, from mines in the Strait of Hormuz to rockets fired at the Saudi oil facilities on the western side of Gulf. A little-noticed feature of the US denunciations of Iranian interference using local proxies in Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon is not just that they are exaggerated but, even if they were true, they come far too late. Iran is already on the winning side in all three countries.
If war does come, it will be hard-fought. Shia communities throughout the region will feel under threat. As for the US, the first day is usually the best for whoever starts a war in the Middle East, and after that, their plans unravel as they become entangled in a spider’s web of dangers they failed to foresee.
7 June 2019
Is Donald Trump a fascist? The question is usually posed as an insult rather than as a serious inquiry. A common response is that “he is not as bad as Hitler,” but this rather dodges the issue. Hitler was one hideous exponent of fascism, which comes in different flavours, but he was by no means the only one.
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