A pet theory of the US State Department is that solving the Israeli - Palestininian conflict will magically solve the Israeli-Arab conflict, and that solving both will even more magically solve all the problems of the Middle East, make Wahhabi Sheikhs fall in love with democracy and reduce the price of oil to about 25 cents a barrel. Bikinis will replace Hijabs in Iran, the Persian Gulf will turn into grade A crude oil, the lion will lie down the lamb, and a little assistant undersecretary of state for Middle East Affairs shall lead them.
The upcoming summit conference on the Middle East was designed according to those percepts: the United States would show "progress" in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the Arabs in turn would help the United States extricate itself from Iraq. The particular idea that the Jews are at fault for the problems of the United States in Iraq was due to the Iraq Study Group report, where it was injected as a last minute afterthought by Ray Close.
There is no longer any need for agents of the World Zionist Conspiracy, A.K.A. "Israel Lobby" to explain that this idea is a fantasy. The idea was just shot down by the Arabs. According to an AFP article:
Pro-Western Gulf Arab states do not want the Middle East peace conference called by Washington to be aimed at helping get it out of "the Iraqi impasse," the oil-rich bloc's chief said on Tuesday.
Gulf Cooperation Council member states "welcome any attempt to reach a just and comprehensive solution of the Palestinian issue and settle the Arab-Israeli conflict," Abdulrahman al-Attiyah said in remarks released at
GCC headquarters in Riyadh.
He said he hoped the proposed conference will address core issues and will "not be aimed at linking movement in the Middle East peace process to developments in Iraq in a bid to attract Arab states to a conference whose real goal is to help (the US) get out of the Iraqi impasse."
Attiyah did not elaborate on his suggestion that Gulf monarchies, which have close ties with the United States, fear Washington might use the conference to ease its difficulties in war-torn Iraq, where the continuing insurgency is fueling mounting domestic criticism.
Arab states are not going to be helpful in confronting Iranian nuclear ambitions and mayhem in Iraq either, apparently:
Attiyah also reiterated that Gulf Arab states favour a negotiated settlement to the standoff between Iran and the West over its nuclear programme.
"GCC states don't want to see any brotherly or friendly country subjected to sanctions," he said in a reference to Iran.
They also support "opting for the language of peaceful dialogue to resolve all the problems liable to affect international security and stability," Attiyah added.
One might hope, though probably in vain, that these positions will demolish once and for all the idea that U.S. problems in the Middle East are due to Israel and the Israel lobby, and the even stranger idea that the reactionary and short sighted "pro-Western" regimes of the Gulf states are capable of being, or interested in being, strategic assets except in the sense of providing oil for the highest price the market will bear. The addiction of the United States -- and of the industrialized world-- to oil has caused a dangerous blind spot concerning the activities of Gulf States rulers in financing radical Madrassahs and fomenting radical Islamism. They are willing to have radical Islamist regimes and to support terror anywhere, as long as it is not in their own country. Likewise, the Sunni Arabs seem reconciled to living under the hegemony of nuclear Iran. Or else, they are playing the old Middle East game of saying what must be said for public consumption, and hoping that the West or Israel will be wise enough to ignore their propaganda and do their dirty work for them. It is not such a far-fetched idea after all. Israel got rid of the threat of the radical Grand Mufti Hajj Amin Al Husseini Grand Mufti Hajj for them, Israel got rid of the threat of pan-Arabism for them, and Israel got rid of the Iraqi nuclear reactor. The US has spent billions every year to protect their Sheikhdoms, spent several hundred billions to get rid of Saddam Hussein for them, after first spending hundreds of billions to make Kuwait safe for Sheikhocracy. And in return for all this, almost none of the Arab states have really lifted a finger to support U.S. policy and certainly not to control Palestinian terror or advance a constructive solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that is more than words.
Ami Isseroff
Cross posted: Israel News Middle East Analysis
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