by Dr Dennis Walker, PSI, Monash University

  The situation in  Egypt is dangerous because the secular-educated are evenly split between (a) Islamists and (b) Secular Nasserites, Marxists and Liberals.  Each side wants to eliminate the other from politics.  In the past year we have had hundreds of thousands of (a) Ikhwan and (b) Nasserites + Leftists on the streets.  Huge demonstrations. If the two categories of demonstrators ever ran into each other, then torrents of blood could flow.

 The military is playing on this fear to win back the power they had under Mubarak.  They want a new system that will still revolve around them = state monies.  I found ordinary people crammed into buses in Cairo had fond but hazy memories of "Gamal" --- "there was justice between people in that time".  They didn't like the class-caste system under Mubarak.  So Seesy is presenting himself as "the new Nasser". He won't be. Nasser's generation of officers came of poor petty-bourgeois origins, had been ill-paid, and knew  something of what ordinary people suffered> built welfare state and wider education.  Seesy and his fellow officers have never suffered.  He might prove the new Mubarak, though.    The Army wants money. 

 Egypt is to some extent a broken country now.    I have a book on pre-1952 Egypt to complete there, but at t my age it might not be good to go back.  I had grown to like it in recent visits.

 It looks that most Arab countries are failed states which I deeply regret.  Learning Arabic didn't pay off for in some aspects at least.. 

The recent two-day first official visit in forty years by an Egyptian defense minister to Russia of Egypt’s strongman Field Marshal Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, accompanied by Foreign Minister Nabil Fahmy, was indeed an historic breakthrough in bilateral relations, but it is still premature to deal with or build on it as a strategic shift away from the country’s more than three-decade strategic alliance with the United States.

The US administration sounds not really concerned with this controversy about an Egyptian strategic shift as much as with the Russian President Vladimir Putin’s welcome of al-Sisi’s expected candidacy for president.

“Egypt is free to pursue relationships with other countries. It doesn't impact our shared interests,” said State Department deputy spokeswoman, Marie Harf, on this February 13.

The United States, which has been waging, by military invasion and proxy wars, a campaign of “regime changes” across the Middle East, was miserably hypocritical when Marie Harf invoked her country’s “democratic” ideals to declare that her administration “don't think it's, quite frankly, up to the United States or to Mr. Putin to decide who should govern Egypt.”

However, Pavel Felgenhauer, writing in the Eurasia Daily Monitor on this February 13, described the visit as a “geopolitical shift” that “could, according to Russian government sources, ‘dramatically reorient international relations in the Middle East’.” The People’s Daily, the mouthpiece of the Chinese Communist Party, on the following day described it as an “historic breakthrough” in Egyptian-Russian relations and a “transformation in the strategic compass of Egyptian foreign policy from Washington to Moscow.”

The main purpose of al-Sisi’s and Fahmy’s visit was to finalize an arms deal reportedly worth two to four billion US dollars, al-Ahram daily reported on February 13. The joint statement released after the meeting of both countries’ ministers of defense and foreign affairs in Moscow on the same day announced also that the Russian capital will host a meeting of the Russian-Egyptian commission on trade and economic cooperation on next March 28.

This is serious business; it is vindicated also by the arrival in Cairo on this February 17 of the commander-in-chief of the Russian Air Force, Lieutenant General Victor Bondarev, heading a six-member team of his commanders, on a four-day visit, according to the Egyptian Almasry Alyoum online the following day.

Egypt is the biggest strategic prize for world powers in the Middle East. “Egypt – with its strategic location, stable borders, large population, and ancient history – has been the principal power of the Arab world for centuries, defining the movement of history there like no other,” Germany’s former Foreign Minister and Vice Chancellor Joschka Fischer wrote on last July 26. No wonder then the flurry of speculations worldwide about whether Egypt’s Russian pivot is or is not a strategic shift.

In the immediate proximity, this “new concern” has been “preoccupying Israel’s strategists in recent weeks. They are beginning to worry about the high momentum” with which Putin is capitalizing on America’s “hands off policy” in the Middle East, according to DEBKAfile report on February 16. Al-Sisi’s trip to Moscow, which “put him on the road to the independent path he seeks”  has “incalculable consequences”  the report said, adding that “he is investing effort in building a strong regime that will promote the Nasserist form of pan-Arab nationalism, with Egypt in the forefront.” “This policy may well bring Egypt into collision with the state of Israel,” the report concluded.

Nonetheless, two former Israeli cabinet ministers of defense, namely Binyamin Ben-Eliezer and Ehud Barak voiced support for al-Sisi. The first publicly supported his bid for presidency. Barak said that “the whole world should support Sisi.” However, their voices seem to fall on deaf ears in Washington D.C., or sounds like it.

Both men’s support is consistent with Israel’s instructive official “silence” over the developments in Egypt, which is still committed to its thirty five –year old peace treaty with the Hebrew state. “Israel’s main interest,” according to Israeli officials and experts, quoted by The New York Times on last August 16, “is a stable Egypt that can preserve the country’s 1979 peace treaty and restore order along the border in the Sinai Peninsula,” which extends 270 kilometers (160 miles) from the Mediterranean to the Red Sea Israeli resort of Eilat.

Within this context can be interpreted Israel’s closed eyes to the incursion of Egyptian tanks and warplanes into what is designated by the treaty as a “demilitarized” “Area C” of Sinai.

The Litmus Test

Herein is the litmus test to judge whether al-Sisi’s eastward orientation and his supposed “Nasserist” loyalties indicate or not a strategic shift that trespasses the Israeli and US red line of Egypt’s commitment to the peace treaty.

Senior associate of the Carnegie Middle East Center, Yezid Sayigh wrote on August 1, 2012 that the United States “will continue keeping a balance between its relations with the (then) Egyptian president (Mohamed Morsi) and the Egyptian army.  The balance will always shift to the side that ensures the continuity of Egypt's commitment to the following:  The Camp David Peace Treaty, the retention of a demilitarized Sinai, retaining multinational troops and observers led by the US, maintaining gas exports to Israel, isolating Hamas, resisting Iran's efforts to expand its influence, resisting al-Qaida, and keeping the Suez Canal open.” (Emphasis added).

These are the bedrocks of Egypt’s strategic alliance with the US and because they were and are still safe in good hands under both the removed president Morsi and the prospective president al-Sisi, it will be premature to conclude that the revived Egyptian – Russians relations indicate any strategic departure therefrom.

Preserving or discarding these Egyptian commitments is the litmus test to judge whether Egypt’s revival of its Russian ties is a strategic maneuver or a strategic departure.

Other indicators include the financial and political sponsorship of al-Sisi’s government by none other than the very close Arab allies of the US, like Jordan and in Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and Kuwait, who had already together pledged twenty billion dollars in aid to al-Sisi and reportedly are funding his armaments deal with Russia.

Saudi Al Arabia satellite TV station on this February 13 quoted Abdallah Schleifer, a professor emeritus of journalism at the American University in Cairo, as sarcastically questioning President Barak Obama’s performance: “What an extraordinary accomplishment President Obama will take with him when he retires from office – Kingdom of Saudi Arabia which provided (late Egyptian president) Anwar Sadat with both moral and financial backing to break with the Russians in the early 1970s and turn towards the United States – may now finance an Egyptian arms deal with the Russians,” Schleifer said.

Al-Sisi’s supposed “Nasserist” and “pan-Arab” orientation could not be consistent, for example, with inviting the defense ministers of the United Arab Emirates, Iraq, Bahrain, Morocco, and their Jordanian counterpart Prime Minister Abdullah al-Nsour to attend the 40th anniversary celebrations of the 1973 October War. Syria was Egypt’s partner in that war and Jamal Abdul Nasser’s major “pan-Arab” ally, but it was not represented. The countries which were represented were seriously against Abdul Nasser’s Egypt and its pan-Arab ideology, but more importantly they were and still are strategic allies of his US-led enemies and peace partners of Israel.

US Aid Counterproductive

US whistleblowers warning of an Egyptian strategic shift are abundant as part of blasting Obama for his foreign policy blunders. For example, US foreign policy scholars Tom Nichols and John R. Schindler, quoted on this February 13 by The Tower.org staff, who agree that they rarely agree on anything, are agreeing now that Obama’s administration is undermining “nearly seven decades” of bipartisan American efforts aimed at “limiting Moscow’s influence” in the Middle East.

But Nael Shama, writing on Middle East Institute website on last December 16, said: “It can be argued that Egypt's flirtation with Russia does not mean a shift in the country's foreign policy away from the United States as much as an attempt to induce the United States to shift its Egypt policy back to where it was before … in order to pressure the United States and to arouse concern among American politicians about the prospect of losing Egypt, encouraging them to amend unfavorable policies.”

The Obama administration welcomed al-Sisi’s assumption of power by calling off the biannual joint US-Egypt military exercise "Bright Star" and halting the delivery of military hardware to Egypt, including F-16 fighter jets, Apache helicopters, Harpoon missiles, and tank parts and when Last January the US Congress approved a spending bill that would restore $1.5bn in aid to Egypt, it was on the condition (emphasis added) that the Egyptian government ensures democratic reform.

Le Monde Diplomatique in November last year quoted veteran arms trade expert Sergio Finardi as saying that the US aid money “never leaves US banks, and is mostly transferred not to the target country but to US defense manufacturers that sell the equipment to Egypt.”

More important, US aid money is attached to Egypt’s commitment to the peace treaty with Israel. Such a commitment is compromising Egyptian sovereignty in Sinai, which has become a no-man land where organized crime, illegal trade in arms and terrorist groups enjoy a free hand with a heavy price in Egyptian souls and governance.

Either the provisions of the peace treaty are amended, or the American conditions for aid are dropped altogether or at least reconsidered to allow Egypt to fully exercise its sovereignty in Sinai, or Egypt would look elsewhere for alternative empowerment, for example to start “a new era of constructive, fruitful co-operation on the military level” with Russia as al-Sisi told his Russian counterpart Sergei Shoigu, according to the official Egyptian news agency MENA on last November 14.

All the foregoing aside, Egypt wants to modernize its military-industrial complex per se. Shana Marshall, associate director of the Institute for Middle East Studies and research instructor at the George Washington University, quoted by http://www.jadaliyya.com/ on this February 10, called this “Egypt’s Other Revolution.” The thirty five-year old arrangements with the United States are not helping out, but worse they have become the main obstacle to fulfill this aspiration.

All these and other factors indicate that al-Sisi is in fact pursuing vital Egyptian national interests and not seeking a strategic shift in his country’s alliance with the US. The Russian opening is his last resort. It is highly possible that he might backtrack should Washington decide not to repeat its historical mistake when it refused to positively respond to similar Egyptian military and development aspirations in the fifties of the twentieth century, which pushed Egypt into the open arms of the former Soviet Union.

‘Abject Failure’ of US Aid

For Egypt to look now for Russian armament and economic help means that the Egyptian – US strategic cooperation since 1979 has failed to cater for its defense needs and development aspirations.

Thirty five years on, during which a regional rival like Iran stands now on the brink of becoming a nuclear power with an ever expanding industrial military complex while the other Israeli rival is already a nuclear power and a major world exporter of arms, Egypt’s military stands weaker, seems stagnant, underdeveloped and pushed out of competition while its population have become much poorer.

Nothing much has changed since the US Middle East Policy Council in its winter edition of 1996 published Denis J. Sullivan’s piece, “American Aid to Egypt, 1975-96: Peace without Development,” wherein he pointed out that “the reality is that Egypt is far from a "model" of effective use of (US) foreign assistance.”

The country, despite the fact that “the US aid program in Egypt is the largest such program in the world” and that “in 21 years, Egypt has received some $21 billion in economic aid from the United States plus over $25 billion in military aid,” Egypt “remains poor, overpopulated, polluted and undemocratic … In short, Egypt in 1996 continues to exhibit virtually all the characteristics the United States has claimed to want to change since it began its massive economic aid program in 1975,” Sullivan wrote.

Seventeen years later David Rieff, writing in The New Republic on this February 4, described what Sullivan said was a “failure” as an “abject failure” of “the US development aid to Egypt.”

Militarily, Carnegie’s Yezid Sayigh’s paper of August 2012 quoted an assessment of US embassy officials in a 2008 cable leaked by WikiLeaks as saying that “tactical and operational readiness of the Egyptian Armed Forces has degraded.” He wrote that “US officers and officials familiar with the military assistance programs to Egypt describe the Egyptian Armed Forces as no longer capable of combat.” He also quoted “leading experts on Egypt Clement Henry and Robert Springborg” as saying that the Egyptian army’s “training is desultory, maintenance of its equipment is profoundly inadequate, and it is dependent on the United States for funding and logistical support … despite three decades of US training and joint US-Egyptian exercises.”

US Back Turned to Egypt

The Tower.org on February 13 reported that the “White House two weeks ago pointedly declined to invite Egypt to a summit of African leaders.”

That was not the first indication that the US foreign policy has been alienating Egypt since Field Marshal al-Sisi assumed power early last July in response to a massive popular protest on last June 30 against the former president Mohamed Morsi.

Since US Secretary of State John Kerry’ visit to Egypt last November, who in this capacity toured the region more than eleven times and seems to spend more time in the Middle East than in US, Kerry has been dropping Egypt out of his itinerary. His president Obama, who is scheduled to visit Saudi Arabia next March, receive Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu early in the month and had received King Abdullah II of Jordan on this February 14, had no reported plans either to receive al-Sisi or to visit his country, which was previously a regular stop for US top visiting officials.

Is it a surprise then that al-Sisi’s first visit abroad was to Moscow and not to Washington D.C., to meet with the Russian president and not with his US counterpart?

Al-Sisi in an interview with the Washington Post early last August accused the US of “turning its back” to Egyptians. “You left the Egyptians, you turned your back on the Egyptians and they won’t forget that,” he said.

However, al-Sisi does by no means dream of disturbing the existing political order in the Middle East, or coming to loggerheads with Israel or the US, but it seems obvious that he’ is fed up with the preconditions attached to US aid that have rendered his country’s military and economy backward in comparison to regional highly upgraded rivals. The US did not help Egypt become a “success story in economic development” as the USAID claims on its website.

Pavel Felgenhauer wrote on February 13 that, “It is clear Egypt is ready to accept Russian aid and weaponry as it did during the Cold War in the 1950s–1970s to show the US it has an alternative source of support.”

Indeed, al-Sisi thanked his Russian counterpart for “giving the Egyptian people economic and defense aid.” Putin said that he was “sure we can increase trade to $5 billion in the future.” Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said: “We agreed to speed up the preparations of documents that will give an additional impulse to the development of military and military-technical cooperation.” It is noteworthy that all is without preconditions, political or otherwise.

The Associated Press on February 13 quoted Abdullah el-Sinawi, whom the AP identified as “a prominent Cairo-based analyst known to be close to the military,” as saying that al-Sisi “wanted to send a signal to Washington.” "Egypt needs an international entrusted ally that would balance relations with America. Egypt will be open to other centers of power without breaking the relations with the US," he said.

Abdel-Moneim Said, another Egyptian analyst, wrote in Al-Ahram Weekly on last November 21 that Egypt is “merely seeking to expand its maneuverability abroad” and that “the Russian ‘bear’ that had come to Egypt has had its claws clipped”: “Soviet Union has collapsed, the Warsaw Pact is dead, and the Cold War is over … (and) the US GDP … is eight times more than Russia’s;” moreover the US-led world alliance accounts “for 80 per cent of global gross production and a larger percentage of the world’s modern technology.”

True, Egyptian Foreign Minister Fahmi said on last October 18 that the “Egyptian-American relations have changed after 30 June for the first time in 30 years to a peer relationship” and that “Egyptian decision making is now independent from any state.” A day earlier he told the state-run Al-Ahram newspaper that the bilateral relations were in “a delicate state reflecting the turmoil in the relationship.” “The problem,” he said, “goes back much earlier, and is caused by the dependence of Egypt on the US aid for 30 years.”

Therefore, “Egypt is heading toward Eastern powers,” Saeed al-Lawindi, a political expert at Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies, told Xinhua on February 14, but Talaat Musallam, a strategic and security expert and a former army general, described al-Sisi's Russian pivot as “a kind of strategic maneuver.” Musallam was vindicated by Fahmi’s repeated assertions that “Egypt’s closeness with Russia is not a move against the US,” i.e. not a strategic departure from the United States.

However, international relations are not static; they have their own dynamics. Should the US passive sensitivity to Egyptian aspirations continue to be hostage to the 1979 Camp David accords and the Russian opening continue to cater for Egypt’s military as well as economic vital needs, the “strategic maneuver” could in no time turn into a strategic shift.

* Nicola Nasser is a veteran Arab journalist based in Bir Zeit, West Bank of the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories. nassernicola@ymail.com

     

            Do the countries suffering from turbulences ever have time to enjoy a peaceful minute or even a second of Valentine? Or have they even forgotten that there is love in our world and it is celebrated in February. To them time has turned to a tool used to count the number of victims their battles harvest per day, the hours to measure how many will prevail quiet before the next bomber or tank shell announces death. While numerous hearts will get joined together during Valentines in total celebration of this much loved anniversary death will tear apart others in war-entine countries. While millions around the many peaceful nations of our world on the fourteenth of February will enjoy the warmth of liqueur and passion unlucky others will have a different tearful red celebration. "An ironic funny world that brings about the black and white simultaneously around us" I thought. In a few moments my fingers were moving on the keyboard of my computer typing. This story could be happening in any war-entine country to any couple in the ides of February…   

Carlos looked with awe at the pool of blood that surrounded his sweetheart's resting body on the grounds of his shop. Her body was shaking with the aftershock of pain, her once soft blue eyes now screaming with the terrorizing woes of agony. A small stream of blood was leaking from her red lips, her hair that once was shining with the marvelous glimmer of life and blondness was tainted with her precious blood. Streams of redness spilled through the many holes caused by the steel that brutally tore through her body. The freshness of her fair complexion was eroding away as her spirits weakened within her.

            Maria never felt these immense waves of agony shake herself before. Superb pain that shot from within the depths of her spirit made her cry and scream. Her body vibrated with every breath she took as she felt the shadows of death lurk close by. She knew she wasn't going to make it. She barely had the energy to move her arms. She took a glance at her beloved husband that she only knew for three months and wanted in those few moments left to look at him and capture his image in her mind to take with her to her destiny. Her husband's dark complexion was screaming with paleness from the horror of the situation. His abundant black hair was filthy with dust and rubble from the bomb that tore through his store. His bulky six foot body was kneeling besides her with the weakness and panic of a six year old child in a predicament. Rivers of tears were flooding from his terrified black eyes. She barely had the will power to speak as she pronounced his name, "Carlos…please…"

            Carlos picked up her body between his hands and stuttered as he spoke, "Maria…don't speak… I will get help…"

            Another wild explosion tore through the district and made the grounds underneath them shake. A wild wave of machine gun fire rattled the atmosphere about.

            Maria softly spoke, "Don't go out right now, you could die…"

            "And leave you to die, I wish I could pump my blood into your body and give you another life Maria, be brave and hold on till I come back please…"

            "Carlos…" her screaming was lost as fresh firing sounded again in the chaotic backgrounds. Carlos placed her back down and ran towards the entrance that was incredibly still intact. He braked and looked in all directions to see if paramedics were nearby. The entire city was quaking in a storm of frenzy. The streets were filled with people dashing wildly in all directions. Help cries ripped through the air about him as people hurt and trapped in the rubble of crumbled down buildings screamed for mercy. Wild random fire showered the air around him as the resistance and the army clashed in fatal guerilla warfare.

            Carlos chose a direction and ran down the small neighborhood street of his store, screaming for ambulance help, hoping to hear the much wanted sirens and red lamps that will be obviously flashing somewhere within the bustle of this hellish midnight. As he reached a main road two bulky and heavily armed guards drove their jeep right in front of him and blocked his path. Carlos stopped his dash and turned the other way but was too late. They descended quickly and one of them grabbed him by his arm. He turned around and pleaded in a screaming voice, "Please my wife is dying, she is hurt, I have to find an ambulance!"  

            "Shut up and turn around!!!" shouted the soldier with a mean tone of voice. The soldier turned Carlos around and threw him on the front hood of the jeep. He began searching him briskly for ammunition when Carlos decided to break through his iron grip and run away. He succeeded and ran a small distance before a round of fire ripped through the calf of his right leg. Carlos released a tormented cry and fell down on his knees. The pain was fierce and unbearable. He looked back to find the guards advancing towards him. He managed some power and stood back up. He limped his way away from the soldiers’ sight, wining like a child within the wakes of his agony, and entered into a nearby small street in an adjacent neighborhood. He made his way into an old abandoned building that had a perforated structure from the massive rocket launching in progress. The air was polluted with dust and smoke as he awkwardly moved in, bending down from time to time to remove debris with his hand, his right leg dragging behind him, groaning and panting from his plight. He stopped as he located a dark corner that was five meters away from the small building entrance besides the staircase and sat down. He took in deep drags of air and studied his bleeding leg. Aside from the lacerations his bone was hurt as well. It hurt him tremendously. The pain mounted to an incredible amount as his body savored the rest he was in. He started crying and helplessly beating the grounds around him. An image of his Maria suddenly focused in his mind. He knew she was dead by now. His eyes screamed with tears and frustration filled his body. He had to manage strength. There has to be a way. There had to be a glimpse of hope still. The image of her bleeding was so much for him to bear. He had to find strength and will somehow. His eyes caught the sight of a long white bandage that was lying nearby. He picked it up and a golden locket dangled from it. Carlos picked up the locket and opened it. A black and white picture of a couple was inside. “God only knows the outcome of this family.” He thought. "Were they dead, were they alive…no…” After a brief pause in time his mind screamed out, “This can't be his fate with his wife." He wrapped his wound with the bandage in an attempt to ease up the blood loss and stood up. His aching body limped towards the entrance. He took a peek outside and studied the territory around him. It suddenly struck him that everything went quiet. The warfare had quieted down. The only sounds that came from the distances were distress callings and noises of the masses as they rushed from the bomb shelters and secure hideouts to rescue what was left of life. Ambulance sirens began sounding in the distances. “Thank God they have come. I know I can convince somebody to come with me now." He maneuvered through the wreckage and mobs of rushing people, treading the path that led to a main street nearby. He arrived and was about to signal to a Red Cross ambulance nearby when his head swirled with dizziness. His vision began to blur and he fell down to his knees. The voices and commotion around him turned to faint sounds in a distant background. He was aware of two people that rushed towards him. A familiar voice seemed to be calling his name. He recognized the voice of his cousin John and screamed out "Maria, the Bakery..." but darkness and silence soon prevailed.

*****

John took one last look at the two faces that slept peacefully and calmly in their wooden beds. He just couldn't believe that they had perished so quickly from life; Carlos thirty and Maria twenty eight, their marriage only three months old. The real frustrating thing was what the autopsy announced in its reports about the life in Maria's womb that had died with her. It was the brutal end of an innocent family that wanted to establish itself within an ugly world that never knew any mercy. In a few moments he turned away and left the cemetery leaving the chance for the other relatives to say their good-byes. He didn't have the heart to see them lowered down to meet the earth that they were made from. How many Carlos's and Maria's would there have to be before mankind satisfies its dreadful appetite of hate and destruction? Just how many?

            Happy Valentine's Day Iraq; happy Valentine's Day Lebanon; happy Valentine's day Palestine; happy Valentine’s day Egypt; happy Valentine’s day to Iran and the US; happy Valentine's day to every weeping and bleeding war-entine in the past and present in our globe. May God rest all your deceased in peace and heal your wounds in this present Valentine's day. Put down your weapons and gather back the pieces of the shattered hearts inside each and every one of you. The only people that end up paying the taxes of wars are innocent civilians. Enough of war-entine and let’s celebrate true Valentine. Can I ask the UN to encourage a stop of arms at least on Valentine’s Day?

International, regional and internal players vying for interests, wealth, power or influence are all beneficiaries of the “al-Qaeda threat” in Iraq and in spite of their deadly and bloody competitions they agree only on two denominators, namely that the presence of the U.S.-installed and Iran–supported sectarian government in Baghdad and its sectarian al-Qaeda antithesis are the necessary casus belli for their proxy wars, which are tearing apart the social fabric of the Iraqi society, disintegrating the national unity of Iraq and bleeding its population to the last Iraqi.

The Iraqi people seem a passive player, paying in their blood for all this Machiavellian dirty politics. The war which the U.S. unleashed by its invasion of Iraq in 2003 undoubtedly continues and the bleeding of the Iraqi people continues as well.

According to the UN Assistance Mission to Iraq, 34452 Iraqis were killed since 2008 and more than ten thousand were killed in 2013 during which suicide bombings more than tripled according to the U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Brett McGurk’s recent testimony before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs. The AFP reported that more than one thousand Iraqis were killed in last January. The UN refugee agency UNHCR, citing Iraqi government figures, says that more than 140,000 Iraqis have already been displaced from Iraq’s western province of Anbar.

Both the United States and Russia are now supplying Iraq with multi–billion arms sales to empower the sectarian government in Baghdad to defeat the sectarian “al-Qaeda threat.” They see a casus belli in al–Qaeda to regain a lost ground in Iraq, the first to rebalance its influence against Iran in a country where it had paid a heavy price in human souls and taxpayer money only for Iran to reap the exploits of its invasion of 2003 while the second could not close an opened Iraqi window of opportunity to re-enter the country as an exporter of arms who used to be the major supplier of weaponry to the Iraqi military before the U.S. invasion.

Regionally, Iraq’s ambassador to Iran Muhammad Majid al-Sheikh announced earlier this month that Baghdad has signed an agreement with Tehran “to purchase weapons and military equipment;” Iraqi Defense Minister Saadoun al-Dulaimi signed a memorandum of understanding to strengthen defense and security agreements with Iran last September.

Meanwhile Syria, which is totally preoccupied with fighting a three –year old wide spread terrorist insurgency within its borders, could not but coordinate defense with the Iraq military against the common enemy of the “al-Qaeda threat” in both countries.

Counterbalancing politically and militarily, Turkey and the GCC countries led by Qatar and Saudi Arabia, in their anti-Iran proxy wars in Iraq and Syria, are pouring billions of petrodollars to empower a sectarian counterbalance by money, arms and political support, which end up empowering al–Qaeda indirectly or its sectarian allies directly, thus perpetuating the war and fueling the sectarian strife in Iraq, as a part of an unabated effort to contain Iran’s expanding regional sphere of influence.

Ironically, the Turkish member of the U.S.–led NATO as well as the GCC Arab NATO non–member “partners” seem to stand on the opposite side with their U.S. strategic ally in the Iraqi war in this tragic drama of Machiavellian dirty politics.

Internally, the three major partners in the “political process” are no less Machiavellian in their exploiting of the al-Qaeda card. The self–ruled northern Iraqi Kurdistan region, which counts down for the right timing for secession, could not be but happy with the preoccupation of the central government in Baghdad with the “al–Qaeda threat.” Pro-Iran Shiite sectarian parties and militias use this threat to strengthen their sectarian bond and justify their loyalty to Iran as their protector. Their Sunni sectarian rivals are using the threat to promote themselves as the “alternative” to al-Qaeda in representing the Sunnis and to justify their seeking financial, political and paramilitary support from the U.S., GCC and Turkey, allegedly to counter the pro-Iran sectarian government in Baghdad as well as the expanding Iranian influence in Iraq and the region.

Exploiting his partners’ inter-fighting, Iraqi two–term Prime Minister Nouri (or Jawad) Al-Maliki, has maneuvered to win a constitutional interpretation allowing him to run for a third term and, to reinforce his one-man show of governance, he was in Washington D.C. last November, then in Tehran the next December, seeking military “help” against the “al-Qaeda threat” and he got it.

U.S. Continues War by Proxy

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry has pledged to support al-Maliki's military offensive against al–Qaeda and its offshoot the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).

24 Apache helicopter with rockets and other equipment connected to them, 175 Hellfire air-to-ground missiles, ScanEagle and Raven reconnaissance drones have either already been delivered or pending delivery, among a $4.7 billion worth of military equipment, including F-16 fighters. James Jeffrey reported in Foreign Policy last Monday that President Barak Obama’s administration is “increasing intelligence and operational cooperation with the Iraqi government.” The French Le Figaro reported early this week that “hundreds” of U.S. security personnel will return to Iraq to train Iraqis on using these weapons to confirm what the Pentagon spokesman, Army Col. Steve Warren, did not rule out on last January 17 when he said that “we are in continuing discussions about how we can improve the Iraqi military.”

Kerry ruled out sending “American boots” on the Iraqi ground; obviously he meant “Pentagon boots,” but not the Pentagon–contracted boots.

The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) online on this February 3 reported that the “U.S. military support there relies increasingly on the presence of contractors.” It described this strategy as “the strategic deployment of defense contractors in Iraq.” Citing State Department and Pentagon figures, the WSJ reported, “As of January 2013, the U.S. had more than 12,500 contractors in Iraq,” including some 5,000 contractors supporting the American diplomatic mission in Iraq, the largest in the world.

It is obvious that the U.S. administration is continuing its war on Iraq by the Iraqi ruling proxies who had been left behind when the American combat mission was ended in December 2011. The administration is highlighting the “al-Qaeda threat” as casus belli as cited Brett McGurk’s testimony before the House Foreign Affairs Committee on this February 8.

The Machiavellian support from Iran, Syria and Russia might for a while misleadingly portray al-Maliky’s government as anti - American, but it could not cover up the fact that it was essentially installed by the U.S. foreign military invasion and is still bound by a “strategic agreement” with the United States.

Political System Unfixable

However the new U.S. “surge” in “operational cooperation with the Iraqi government” will most likely not succeed in fixing “Iraq’s shattered political system,” which “our forces were unable to fix … even when they were in Iraq in large numbers,” according to Christopher A. Preble, writing in Cato Institute online on last January 23.

“Sending David Petraeus and Ambassador (Ryan) Crocker back” to Iraq, as suggested by U.S. Sen. John McCain to CNN’s “State of the Union” last January 12 was a disparate wishful thinking.

“Iraq’s shattered political system” is the legitimate product of the U.S.–engineered “political process” based on sectarian and ethnic fragmentation of the geopolitical national unity of the country. Highlighting the “al-Qaeda threat” can no more cover up the fact that the “political process” is a failure that cannot be “fixed” militarily.

Writing in Foreign Policy on this February 10, James Jeffrey said that the “United States tried to transform Iraq into a model Western-style democracy,” but “the U.S. experience in the Middle East came to resemble its long war in Vietnam.”

The sectarian U.S. proxy government in Baghdad, which has developed into an authoritarian regime, remains the bedrock of the U.S. strategic failure. The “al-Qaeda threat” is only the expected sectarian antithesis; it is a byproduct that will disappear with the collapse of the sectarian “political process.”

Iraq is now “on the edge of the abyss,” director of Middle East Studies at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), professor Gareth Stansfield, wrote on this February 3. This situation is “being laid at the door of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki,” who “is now portrayed as a divisive figure,” he said.

In their report titled “Iraq in Crisis” and published by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) on last January 24, Anthony H. Cordesman and Sam Khazai said that the “cause of Iraq’s current violence” is “its failed politics and system of governance,” adding that the Iraqi “election in 2010 divided the nation rather than create any form of stable democracy.” On the background of the current status quo, Iraq’s next round of elections, scheduled for next April 30, is expected to fare worse. Writing in Al-Ahram Weekly last August 14, Salah Nasrawi said that more than 10 years after the U.S. invasion, “the much-trumpeted Iraqi democracy is a mirage.” He was vindicated by none other than the Iraqi Speaker of the parliament Osama Al Nujaifi who was quoted by the Gulf News on last January 25 as saying during his latest visit to U.S.: “What we have now is a facade of a democracy — superficial — but on the inside it’s total chaos.”

Popular Uprising, not al-Qaeda

Al-Maliki’s government on this February 8 issued a one week ultimatum to what the governor of Anbar described as the “criminals” who “have kidnapped Fallujah” for more than a month, but Ross Caputi, a veteran U.S. Marine who participated in the second U.S. siege of Fallujah in 2004, in an open letter to U.S. Secretary Kerry published by the Global Research last Monday, said that “the current violence in Fallujah has been misrepresented in the media.”

“The Iraqi government has not been attacking al Qaeda in Fallujah,” he said, adding that Al-Maliki’s government “is not a regime the U.S. should be sending weapons to.” For this purpose Caputi attached a petition with 11,610 signatures. He described what is happening in the western Iraqi city as a “popular uprising.”

Embracing the same strategy the Americans used in 2007, Iran and U.S. Iraqi proxies have now joined forces against a “popular uprising” that Fallujah has just become only a symbol. Misleadingly pronouncing al-Qaeda as their target, the pro-Iran sectarian and the pro-U.S. so-called “Awakening” tribal militias have revived their 2007 alliance.

The Washington Post on this February 9 reported that the “Shiite militias” have begun “to remobilize,” including The Badr Organization, Kataib Hezbollah and the Mahdi Army; it quoted a commander of one such militia, namely Asaib Ahl al-Haq, as admitting to “targeted” extrajudicial “killings.”

This unholy alliance is the ideal recipe for fueling the sectarian divide and inviting a sectarian retaliation in the name of fighting al-Qaeda; the likely bloody prospects vindicate Cordesman and Khazai’s conclusion that Iraq is now “a nation in crisis bordering on civil war.”

Al – Qaeda is real and a terrorist threat, but like the sectarian U.S.-installed government in Baghdad, it was a new comer brought into Iraq by or because of the invading U.S. troops and most likely it would last as long as its sectarian antithesis lives on in Baghdad’s so–called “Green Zone.”

“Al-Maliki has more than once termed the various fights and stand-offs” in Iraq “as a fight against "al Qaeda", but it's not that simple,” Michael Holmes wrote in CNN on last January 15. The “Sunni sense of being under the heel of a sectarian government … has nothing to do with al Qaeda and won't evaporate once” it is forced out of Iraq, Holmes concluded.

A week earlier, analyst Charles Lister, writing to CNN, concluded that "al Qaeda" was being used as a political tool” by al–Maliki, who “has adopted sharply sectarian rhetoric when referring to Sunni elements … as inherently connected to al Qaeda, with no substantive evidence to back these claims.”

Al–Qaeda not the Only Force

“Al–Qaeda is “not the only force on the ground in Fallujah, where “defected local police personnel and armed tribesmen opposed to the federal government … represent the superior force,” Lister added.

The Washington-based Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) had reported that the “Iraqi insurgency” is composed of at least a dozen major organizations and perhaps as many as 40 distinct groups with an estimated less than 10% non-Iraqi foreign insurgents. It is noteworthy that all those who are playing the “al-Qaeda threat” card are in consensus on blacking out the role of these movements.

Prominent among them is the Jaysh Rijal al-Tariq al-Naqshabandi (JRTN) movement, which announced its establishment after Saddam Hussein’s execution on December 30, 2006. It is the backbone of the Higher Command for Jihad and Liberation (HCJL), which was formed in October the following year as a coalition of more than thirty national “resistance” movements. The National, Pan-Arab and Islamic front (NAIF) is the Higher Command’s political wing. Saddam’s deputy, Izzat Ibrahim al-Duri, is the leader of JRTN, HCJL and NAIF as well as the banned Baath party.

“Since 2009, the movement has gained significant strength” because of its “commitment to restrict attacks to “the unbeliever-occupier,” according to Michael Knights, writing to the Combating Terrorism Center (CTC) on July1, 2011. “We absolutely forbid killing or fighting any Iraqi in all the agent state apparatus of the army, the police, the awakening, and the administration, except in self-defense situations, and if some agents and spies in these apparatus tried to confront the resistance,” al-Duri stated in 2009, thus extricating his movement from the terrorist atrocities of al-Qaeda, which has drowned the Iraqi people in a bloodbath of daily suicide bombings.

The majority of these organizations and groups are indigenous national anti-U.S. resistance movements. Even the ISIL, which broke out recently with al-Qaeda, is led and manned mostly by Iraqis. Playing al-Qaeda card is a smokescreen to downplay their role as the backbone of the national opposition to the U.S.-installed sectarian proxy government in Baghdad’s green Zone. Their Islamic rhetoric is their common language with their religious people.

Since the end of the U.S. combat mission in the country in December 2011, they resorted to popular peaceful protests across Iraq. Late last December al-Maliki dismantled by force their major camp of protests near Ramadi, the capital of the western province of Anbar. Protesting armed men immediately took over Fallujah and Ramadi.

Since then, more than 45 tribal “military councils” were announced in all the governorates of Iraq. They held a national conference in January, which elected the “General Political Council of the Guerrillas of Iraq.” Coverage of the news and “guerrilla” activities of these councils by Al-Duri’s media outlets is enough indication of the linkage between them and his organizational structure.

No doubt revolution is brewing and boiling in Iraq against the sectarian government in Baghdad, its U.S. and Iranian supporters as well as against its al-Qaeda sectarian antithesis.

* Nicola Nasser is a veteran Arab journalist based in Bir Zeit, West Bank of the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories. nassernicola@ymail.com

(Right Protected In The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan)

 The International Housing Project, 2060 AD, Faraya Hills, Lebanon

Sophie Sparkler helped her ten year old grand daughter Tracy into bed and covered her well with three thick warm blankets. This year’s winter season began a bit colder and earlier than usual, commencing in October. At least the howling chilly winds outside said a lot about what was to come. Sophie placed some extra wood in the fireplace and then sat down next to Tracy on the edge of the bed. She brushed the child’s shining golden hair softly and gave her a warm smile. Tracy’s beautiful young blue eyes radiated purity and hope yet Sophie didn’t have a clue as to what tomorrow held for her and her promising peers. She said softly, “Sleep child, try closing your eyes and concentrating on rest and you will eventually sleep. You have school tomorrow.”

“Grandma, can I ask you a question?”

Sophie welcomed, “Of course my dear.”

“What is spring?” Tracy asked while rubbing her head in thought.

Sophie gave Tracy a puzzled look and commented, “I haven’t heard that word in a long while.”

“I heard our next door neighbors tell you a couple of days ago while we were waiting for the school bus that they met and married in the spring of 2025.”

Sophie cupped her grandchild’s face with her old senile hands and said. “You are a very attentive girl my dear.” she took in a deep breath and explained, “Only thirty years ago and earlier, there used to be four seasons in the year instead of two, summer, fall, winter and spring.”

Tracy sat up in bed and exclaimed in amazement, “Four seasons, wow!” Her eyes widened as she listened.

Sophie shook her head assuring as she informed,” spring was a season that came immediately after winter. After three long months of cold, rain and snow of course in the hilly and mountainous areas, the land would begin to liven again. There would be magnificent green grass and flowers of all colors and shapes all around. Trees would re-grow their beautiful leaves and the weather would be neither too cold nor too hot, just beautiful and fair. The temperature would be just appropriate for outings and picnics. Children would play out doors all day long and enjoy the beauty of the natural surroundings.”

Tracy closed her eyes and tried to imagine the wonderful portrait her grandmother was trying to draw for her.

“Spring would last for three months then the weather would become warmer and summer would finally arrive.”

Tracy innocently asked,” The children used to play all day long? Wasn’t’ there any school and going to bed early?”

Her grandmother giggled at the question and replied while tapping her cheeks lightly. Tracy’s baby complexion was radiating with exquisite excitement. “Yes of course honey. But good children finished their homework early and then played. When I was your age back in Aqaba in Jordan, I used to have a dog and a lot of times I played with it on the superb golden beaches. Fluffy and I were just two good friends that never split apart. As a matter of fact I can still remember the influx of tourists as they would begin to arrive during the mildly hot days of springtime and enjoy Aqaba’s spectacular weather and scenery.” Tears surfaced in Sophie’s eyes as she remembered the good old days of her hometown. She missed them greatly. “Your mother and uncle spent most of their lives there.”

“Grandma why don’t we have spring anymore? Why did all the grass and flowers stop growing?”

Sophie wiped the tears from her eyes and said, “My dear, the comfortable life we as human beings were having cost us too much. We polluted our environment a lot till we were deprived of earth’s magnificent offerings and gifts. The pollution caused the temperatures to go up too high in all the countries and places. Now to the North and south of earth there were big amounts of ice called polar caps. It was icy and really cold there because the temperature was very cold. A big part of that Ice melted because of the rising temperatures. The sea level rose and drowned most of the beaches, sea level countries and land. The high temperatures caused a big change in the weather of all the countries. That is why there is only summer and winter right now. That is why there are no springs left for you my dear.”

Sophie closed her eyes and her thinking drifted back to when it all started. She was there in Aqaba. She could still hear the mighty thunders of the waters as they announced their rule over their cities…  

Aqaba City Beach, Jordan, 2030 AD

Once the hours of darkness fell on the twenty eighth day of June 2030 The Aqaba City Hotel, which was situated elegantly on a lengthy six hundred meter beach strip, glowed and glistened like a full moon in a black night sky. Its huge projectors that encircled the whole premises lighted its full one hundred million Dollar architectural glory. Being a newly commenced hospitality venture it boasted first class services, three hundred deluxe rooms and an amazing selection of eight restaurants. 

Sophie Sparkler left the Italian restaurant open air terrace and headed for the beach strip in front of the hotel. She was terribly exhausted after a full eventful day of work and needed some change of weather. Being the GM of this establishment wasn’t at all very easy for her and involved a lot of effort. Her long office hours would make her sacrifice a lot of recreational and leisure opportunities. However the much needed generous salary at the end of every month would heal her stress and sow patience within her. Her monthly income will greatly cover her approaching massive expenses as both her young children were about to enter university. Being the only parent to support them at forty three years, after her husband’s death, didn’t give her many choices at life as her responsibilities were her only concern. Her children had to finish university and be prepared for their life.   

Sophie took off her high-heals and paced the wet sands of the magnificent Aqaba beach that lied endlessly in front of her. She enjoyed the sandy feel under her feet and appreciated the messaging of the gentle waves as they attacked in cool surfs about her.   The sound of the sea surfs was very enchanting, very relaxing; she felt a certain dialogue happening between the sea and the beach as the incessant waves rolled over the eternal like sand saturating it with its richness. The ceaseless stars and moon hovering above shined perfectly giving the portrait nature drew a touch of magnificence.   

Her mind drifted and memories of her husband surfaced within her. He was a striking personality; a distinguished general in the army and an extremely loving husband.   Sophie’s memories of her husband were blessed with enormous amounts of happiness.   The love he showed her, the kind and polite way he dealt with her and the beautiful words he used when he expressed his love to her will all last within her till her life ceased to be. He was the best possible parent life could provide for their children. It took them a lot of time to recover from his tragic death in a traffic accident.   

Warm humid breeze rich with the scent of the sea arose and refreshed the atmosphere about her, brushing against her white complexion; as the memories in her mind continued while she awkwardly managed through the demanding cool blue wetness. It was in Aqaba that they met. He was on vacation with his parents and she was an employee working at the reception desk of the hotel he was reserved in. She could still remember the powerful passion and emotions that rushed through her upon seeing him. He likewise was unable to hide his excitement and reaction towards her beauty.   

Sophie was seized abruptly from her world of dreams as she felt an overwhelming dominant force unbalancing her down to the ground. She splashed down noisily settling in the midst of the chilly vibrant waves. She rubbed off the sea waters that were dripping off of her face and head. She looked around in wonder noticing that she was totally immersed in sea water up to her shoulders. Jumping up immediately she knew that there was something strange, something wrong occurring. She shivered intensely at the coolness that infested her body. The first idea that raced through her frantic mind was that she unintentionally drifted inward into the sea while walking. That explanation proved to be untrue as she hastily measured the distance to the hotel. She was almost as far away as when she began her stroll. A sense of deep and total uneasiness sparked inside her. The sound of the waves was louder and the sea seemed more vigorous than before. Sophie’s awareness focused in on immense uproar coming from the nearby hotel. It was the sound of screaming and help cries. An explanation flashed through her head that made her paralyze with fear.   It thundered in her brain all at once. Sophie’s eyes shot downwards to discover that the seal level was well above her knees. The silent trusting sea tides betrayed their truce with nature. They powerfully swelled up and stretched, forming the image of a merciless gigantic blanket, as if yearning to feed after a long age of starvation and famine. A helpless cry shot out from within the depths of her soul, “HELP ME, SOMEBODY HELP?!” It was a total murmur lost within the crashing roars of the wild waves.   

Panicking Sophie took a mad dash in the direction of the hotel trying to escape the incoming sea water. She leaped swiftly, raising her knees very high in an attempt to release herself from the growing power of the captivating waves. Her plight was endless; the sea was everywhere engulfing everything; she felt as if she was in a bad dream; “I will wake up and it will be all over in a minute,” she kept convincing herself over and over again. Her heart beats raced wildly and her breathing got heavier and harder.   Titanic amounts of excitement and horror lashed within her shaking soul. With every step of her sprint reality crashed on her and it became painfully obvious and clear that this was not a dream; there was no waking up. Sophie screamed out loud for help but her voice dissolved in the midst of the distress cries in the nearing distance. By the time she had reached the hotel, the beastly breakers had already crashed into the hotel lobby and sodomized the entire area. Even after Sophie had crossed the distance to the hotel, the water remained above knee level alarming her of the speed the tide was coming in. The lights were out and the dark was devastating. She barely struggled through the tables, chairs and wreckage that the waves tossed about her. A chair slammed into her stomach making her imbalance and fall down on her back. Her body involuntarily cringed from the pain while she swallowed bitter sea water. She was totally sunk and submerged in the depths of the waters, fighting with the pain of suffocation, thrashing about like a helpless fish caught in the painful hook of a fisher’s rod. After a horrifying struggle for life she miraculously managed to firm her feet on the ground and rise, desperately grasping and grappling for air. She inhaled deeply as if trying to suck back-in her almost departed soul.   A forceful surge made her swivel wildly again, swallowing more saline water, coughing and inhaling uncontrollably until she managed some swim control aloft of the energetic waves. Sophie rubbed her pale face firmly with both her palms while taking in deep drags of air, unbelieving the fact that she was still alive. She gave a gasp as she noticed that she was totally suspended with no touching grounds for her feet. She hastily swam to the nearest emergency stairs and climbed up to the elevated roof area above the ninth floor.   A huge crowd of frightened, panicking and screaming people met her as she opened the roof door, breathless and worn out. They all crowded around her to check to see if she was suffering from any harm. She broke lose and ran in the direction opposite the sea view and looked at the awesome, historical biblical-like tides as they continued to flood inwards into the city with a terrorizing scoop, plunging the city into a nightmare. The majestic thundering of the seas was petrifying and sent bursts of chills up her spine. The waves were beginning to sway light vehicles from their places; telephone and electricity poles vulnerably shaking. The whole city was in total panic and turmoil; the SOS screams were unbearable and piercing. Half the city view in front of her went dim as the tides surely began to damage the generators. The moonlight illuminated the people that were swarming on the roofs of the houses and buildings; the unlucky still fighting for safety amongst the lively breakers. Sophie picked up a cell phone from one of the hotel staff members. It incredibly still had transmission in it. She called the emergency brigade office and screamed out the panic and hysteria she was in, “Help!!! Does anybody know what’s happening here?! The sea is swallowing up Aqaba!!!”

**********

            “Grandma, Grandma!” Tracy got up from her coziness under the blankets and shook Sophie, “Why aren’t you talking?”

            Sophie regained her awareness with a jump from the cries and hugged her grand child. “Calm down honey. I’m ok. I was just day dreaming.” She caressed her softly in between her arms and tucked her back in bed. She stood up and kissed her goodbye while saying, “Goodnight child. Sleep well. Tomorrow is a school day.” Sophie approached the fire place that was just a couple of meters away from the bed and fed the fire with more wood as the winds rose again and sounded in the backgrounds. The electricity cut abruptly and a series of lighting bolts lit the bedroom. A deafening thunder clap sounded filling the entire atmosphere. Tracy shook from the storm and ran up to Sophie. “Grandma, please stay with me, I’m scared.”

            Sophie hugged the child and walked with her back to the bed. She tucked her in and lied besides her. She wrapped her arm around her and comforted saying, “Don’t worry I will sleep with you tonight.” 

In a couple of minutes Tracy dozed off into deep sleep dreaming of the beautiful flowers, green grass, fair weather and fluffy, her newly wanted friend. Sophie was in deep thought about the outcome of the future. One question kept scrolling in her mind. “Will their children be able to survive without some spring in their lives?”

The story events, characters, places and some cities are totally imaginary and created by the author of this article.  Any resemblance to any real life situations and characters is totally unintended. 

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas stands now at a crossroads of his people’s national struggle for liberation and independence as well as of his political life career, cornered between the rock of his own rejecting constituency and the hard place of his Israeli occupying power and the US sponsors of their bilateral negotiations, which were resumed last July 29, despite his minesweeping concessions and backtracking “on all his redlines.” 

Unmercifully pressured by both Israeli negotiators and American mediators, the elusive cause of peace stands about to loose in Abbas a brave Palestinian man of peace-making of an historical stature whose demise would squander what could be the last opportunity for the so-called two-state solution.

To continue pressuring Abbas into yielding more concessions without any reciprocal rewards is turning a brave man into an adventurer committing historical and strategic mistakes in the eyes of his people, a trend that if continued would in no time disqualify him of a personal weight that is a prerequisite to make his people accept his “painful” concessions.

The emerging, heavily “pro-Israel” US-proposed framework agreement “appears to ask the Palestinians to accept peace terms that are worse than the Israeli ones they already rejected … that it would all but compel the Palestinians to reject it,” Larry Derfner wrote in The National Interest on this February 3.

Abbas “rejects all transitional, partial and temporary solutions,” his spokesman Nabil Abu Rdaineh said on last January 5, but that’s exactly what the leaks of the blueprint of the “framework agreement” reveal.

Reportedly, the international Quartet on the Middle East, comprising the US, EU, UN and Russia, meeting on the sidelines of the Munich security conference last week, supported US Secretary of State John Kerry’s efforts to commit Palestinian and Israeli negotiators to his proposed “framework agreement.”

Europe is also tightening the rope around Abbas’ neck. If the current US-backed framework agreement talks with Israel fail, Europe will not automatically continue to support the Palestinian Authority, Israel’s Walla website reported on last January 29.

However, The US envoy Martyn Indyk said on last January 31 that Kerry will be proposing the “framework agreement” to the Palestinian and Israeli negotiators “within a few weeks,” but the State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki on the same day “clarified” in a statement that the “contents of the framework” are not “final” because “this is an ongoing process and these decisions have not yet been made.”

Historic versus Political Decisions

Israeli President Shimon Peres on last January 30, during a joint press conference with the envoy of the Middle East Quartet, Tony Blair, said that there is “an opportunity” now to make “historic decisions, not political ones” for the “two-state solution” of the Arab – Israeli conflict and that “we are facing the most crucial time since the establishment of the new Middle East in 1948,” i.e. since what the Israeli historian Ilan Pappé called the “ethnic cleaning” of the Arabs of Palestine and the creation of Israel on their ancestral land.

Peres on the same occasion said that he was “convinced” that Abbas wants “seriously” to make peace with Israel, but what Peres failed to note was that “historic decisions” are made by historic leaders and that such a leader is still missing in Israel since the assassination of late former premier Yitzhak Rabin in 1995, but already available in the person of President Abbas, whom Peres had more than once confirmed as the Palestinian peace “partner,” defying his country’s official denial of the existence of such a partner on the Palestinian side. 

Abbas’ more than two – decade unwavering commitment to peace, negotiations, renunciation of violence and the two –state solution has earned him a semi-consensus rejection and opposition to his fruitless efforts among his own people. He is defying his own Fatah-led Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) constituency, let alone his Hamas-led non-PLO political rivals, who have opposed his decision to resume bilateral negotiations with Israel and are overwhelmingly rejecting the leaked components of Kerry’s “framework agreement.”

“Abbas is perhaps the last Palestinian leader today with some measure of faith in the diplomatic process,” Elhanan Miller, wrote in The Times of Israel this February 3. Palestinian “pressure” is mounting on him even from members of his own Fatah party and “his negotiating team crumbled” when negotiator Mohammed Shtayyeh resigned in November last year. In an interview recorded especially for the conference of Tel Aviv’s Institute for National Security Studies in the previous week, Abbas “indicated he may not be able to withstand the pressure much longer,” Miller wrote.   

“Abbas is in an unenviable position these days. As negotiations with Israel enter the final third of their nine-month time frame,” the Palestinian president stands “cornered” between a Palestinian rejection “and an Israeli leadership bent on depicting him as an uncompromising extremist,” according to Miller, who quoted the Israeli Intelligence Minister Yuval Steinitz as describing Abbas in the previous week as “the foremost purveyor of anti-Semitic and anti-Israeli venom.”

Similar Israeli “political” demonization of an historic figure like Abbas led Jamie Stern-Weiner, of the New Left Project, writing in GlobalResearch online on last January 11, to expect that, “It’s possible that Abbas will get a bullet in his head!” Jamie was not taking things too far in view of Kerry’s warning, reported by Palestinian Authority (PA) officials, that Abbas could face the fate of his predecessor Yasser Arafat.

Israel’s chief negotiator, Tzipi Livni, stated on last January 25 that Abbas’ positions are “unacceptable to us” and threatened the Palestinians “to pay the price” if he sticks to them.

“This is a clear threat to Abbas in person and it must be taken seriously," the PA Foreign Minister Riyad al-Malki told reporters soon after. “We will distribute Livni's statements to all foreign ministers and the international community. We can't remain silent towards these threats,” he added.

Israeli demonization was not confined to Abbas; it hit also at Kerry as “hurtful,” “unfair,” “intolerable,” “obsessive,” “messianic” and expects Israel “to negotiate with a gun to its head.” US National Security Adviser Susan Rice “tweeted” in response to convey, according to Haaretz on this February 5, that “Israeli insulters have crossed the red line of diplomatic etiquette!”

Minesweeping Concessions

Abbas’ demonization was the Israeli reward for the minesweeping concessions he had already made to make the resumed negotiations a success, risking a growing semi-consensus opposition at home:

* Abbas had backtracked on his own previously proclaimed precondition for the resumption of bilateral negotiations with Israel, namely freezing the accelerating expansion of the illegal Israeli Jewish settlements in the Palestinian territories, which Israel militarily occupied in 1967, at least temporarily during the resumed negotiations.  

* Thereafter, according to Tzvi Ben-Gedalyahu, writing in The Jewish Press on this February 3, Abbas “has essentially backtracked on all his redlines, except for” heeding Israel’s insistence on recognizing it as a “Jewish state,” which is a new Israeli unilaterally demanded precondition that even the Jordanian Foreign Minister, Nasser Judeh, considered “unacceptable” on this February 2 despite his country’s peace treaty with Israel.

* In his interview with The New York Times on this February 2, Abbas reiterated his repeated pledge not to allow a third Intifada, or uprising: “In my life, and if I have any more life in the future, I will never return to the armed struggle,” he said, thus voluntarily depriving himself from a successfully tested source of a negotiating power and a legitimate instrument of resisting foreign military occupation ordained by the international law and the UN charter.

* In the same interview he yielded to the Israeli precondition of “demilitarizing” any future state of Palestine, thus compromising the sovereignty of such a state beforehand. Ignoring the facts that Israel is a nuclear power, a state of weapons of mass destruction, the regional military superpower and the world’s forth military exporter, he asked: “Do you think we have any illusion that we can have any security if the Israelis do not feel they have security?”

* Further compromising the sovereignty of any future state of Palestine, Abbas, according to the Times interview, has proposed to US Secretary Kerry that an American-led NATO force, not a UN force, patrol a future Palestinian state “indefinitely, with troops positioned throughout the territory, at all crossings, and within Jerusalem;” he seemed insensitive to the fact that his people would see such a force with such a mandate as merely the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) operating under the NATO flag and in its uniforms.

* Abbas even agreed that the IOF “could remain in the West Bank for up to five years” -- and not three as he had recently stated – provided that “Jewish settlements” are “phased out of the new Palestinian state along a similar timetable.”

* Not all “Jewish settlements” however. Very well aware of international law, which prohibits the transfer of people by an occupying power like Israel from or to the occupied territories, Abbas nonetheless had early enough accepted the principle of proportional land swapping whereby the major colonial settlements, mainly within Greater Jerusalem borders, which are home to some eighty percent of more than half a million illegal Jewish settlers in the West Bank, would be annexed to Israel. This concession is tantamount to accepting the division of the West Bank between its Palestinian citizens and its illegal settlers.

* Yet, what Abbas had described as the “historic,” “very difficult,” “courageous” and “painful” concession Palestinians had already made dates back very much earlier, when the Palestine National Council adopted in 1988 the Declaration of Independence, which was based on the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) resolution No. 181 (II) of 29 November 1947; then “we agreed to establish the State of Palestine on only 22% of the territory of historical Palestine - on all the Palestinian Territory occupied by Israel in 1967,” he told the UNGA in September 2011.

* Accordingly, Abbas repeatedly voices his commitment to the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative, which stipules an “agreed upon” solution of the “problem” of the 1948 Palestinian refugees. Israel is on record that the return of these refugees to their homes according to the UNGA resolution No. 194 (III) of December 11, 1948 is a non-negotiable redline, thus rendering any such “agreed upon” solution a mission impossible. Abbas concession to such a solution is in fact compromising the inalienable rights of more than half of the Palestinian population.     

On September 29, 2012, Abbas “once again” repeated “our warning” to the UNGA: “The window of opportunity is narrowing and time is quickly running out. The rope of patience is shortening and hope is withering.”

Out of Conviction, Not out of Options

Abbas is making concessions unacceptable to his people out of deep conviction in peace and unwavering commitment to peaceful negotiations and not because he is out of options.

One of his options was reported in an interview with The New York Times on this February 2, when Abbas said that he had been “resisting pressure” from the Palestinian street and leadership to join the United Nations agencies for which his staff “had presented 63 applications ready for his signature.”

In 2012 the UNGA recognized Palestine as an observer non-member state; reapplying for the recognition of Palestine as a member state is another option postponed by Abbas to give the resumed negotiations with Israel a chance.

Reconciliation with Hamas in the Gaza Strip is a third option that Abbas has been maneuvering not to make since 2005 in order not to alienate Israel and the US away from peace talks because they condemn it as a terrorist organization.

Suspension of the security coordination with Israel is also a possible option, which his predecessor Arafat used to test now and then.

Looking for other players to join the US in co-sponsoring the peace talks with Israel is an option that Abbas made clear in his latest visit to Moscow. “We would like other parties, such as Russia, the European Union, China and UN, to play an influential role in these talks,” the Voice of Russia quoted him as saying on last January 24.

Israel’s DEBKAfile in an exclusive report on last January 24 considered his Moscow visit an “exit from the Kerry peace initiative,” labeling it a “diplomatic Intifada” and a “defection” that caught Kerry and Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu “unprepared.”

Abbas’ representative Jibril al-Rjoub on January 27 was in the Iranian capital Tehran for the first time in many years. “Our openness to Iran is a Palestinian interest and part of our strategy to open to the whole world,” al-Rjoub said. Three days later the London-based Al-Quds al-Arabi daily reported that Abbas will be invited to visit Iran soon with the aim of “rehabilitating” the bilateral ties. The Central committee of Fatah, which Abbas leads, on this February 3 said that al-Rjoub’s Tehran visit “comes in line with maintaining international relations in favor of the high interests of our people and the Palestinian cause.” 

Opening up to erstwhile “hostile” nations like Iran and Syria is more likely a tactical maneuvering than a strategic shift by Abbas, meant to send the message that all Abbas’ options are open.

However his strategic option would undeniably be to honor his previous repeated threats of resignation, to leave the Israeli Occupation Forces to fend for themselves face to face with the Palestinian people whose status quo is no more sustainable.

Speaking in Munich, Germany, Kerry on this February 1 conveyed the message bluntly: “Today’s status quo, absolutely to a certainty, I promise you 100 percent, cannot be maintained,” Kerry said of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. “It is not sustainable.” Last November, Kerry warned that Israel would face a Palestinian "third Intifada" if his sponsored talks see no breakthrough.

The loss of Abbas by resignation or by nature would for sure end Kerry’s peace mission and make his warning come true.

* Nicola Nasser is a veteran Arab journalist based in Bir Zeit, West Bank of the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories. nassernicola@ymail.com