Courcy’s Intelligence Brief

In our main briefing today we examine Iran’s strategic aims for the Middle East, in particular its vision of consolidating an Iranian-backed Shia crescent from Iran through Iraq and Syria to Lebanon which would be aligned with a post-Mubarak Egypt in hostility to Israel.  That powerful forces in the US and Israel are determined to prevent this outcome is certain.  But their alternative vision is not necessarily as comforting as some imagine.

The development that the US wants to exploit is the burgeoning division between Sunni and Shia Arabs with a view to  excluding Iranian influence from the Arab Middle East.  Washington believes that there is a deal to be done with moderate Sunni Islam in Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Jordan, and the Palestinian territories; and in particular it believes that if Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad falls and is replaced by a Sunni Arab regime then the ‘axis of evil’ between Iran and the Shia Hezbollah in Lebanon will be greatly weakened.  It also believes that the link between Iran and rejectionist Sunni groups such as Hamas in the Gaza Strip can be broken by doing a deal with the Muslim Brotherhood.

The problem with this vision is that it underestimates the point that Sunni Islam is as opposed to Western influence in the Middle East – and to Israel – as Shia Islam.  The same Arab American Institute Foundation poll that we refer to in this week’s main briefing shows that if Iran’s popularity among Sunni Arabs has plummeted, the position of the United States is even worse.

In Morocco, the unfavourable rating for Iran is 85%, but for the US it is an even bigger 88%.  In Egypt, the Iran/US unfavourable rating is respectively 63%/95%; in Lebanon it is 37%/77%; in Jordan 77%/88%; and in the United Arab Emirates 70%/77%.  Only in Saudi Arabia does the unfavourable rating for the US (68%) come below that for Iran (80%), and even that is hardly comforting given that over two-thirds of Saudi Arabians view the US unfavourably.  Asking the same question about the relative merits of Iran and Israel would be pointless.

The danger in the Obama administration’s apparent policy of trying to strike a deal with moderate Sunni Islam is obvious.  But that the White House is in a muddle is not a surprise given that the Israelis are in an equal muddle over what to do.  Despite all the dangers, there are many in Israel who see less danger in the survival of the pro-Iranian Assad regime in Syria than in its replacement by a Muslim Brotherhood regime allied to Egypt and the Islam-based AKP government in Turkey.  Should Assad fall, the best idea that Israel can come up with is to exploit the differences between Sunni and Shia to weaken both.

We have previously looked at Israel’s growing support for the (Sunni but non-Arab) Kurds as a way of undermining Turkey and Iraq; now there are suggestions that in a post-Assad Middle East, Israel could try to form an ‘alliance of minorities’ that could encompass not just the Jews and Kurds but the Shia Arabs as well.  It seems inconceivable that the hardline anti-Israeli Shia/Alawites of Lebanon and Syria would embrace such a concept, but faced with marginalization (and worse) from a resurgent Muslim Brotherhood anything might be possible.

If nothing else, the very fact that such a scenario is being talked about in Israel serves to emphasize just how unstable and unpredictable the Middle East has become.  If, as seems certain, the liberal-democratic element within the Arab Spring is destined to be marginalized, then there are no good outcomes.