{"id":261,"date":"2007-03-14T08:48:36","date_gmt":"2007-03-14T13:48:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/?p=261"},"modified":"2007-03-14T08:50:31","modified_gmt":"2007-03-14T13:50:31","slug":"hershs-redirection","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/?p=261","title":{"rendered":"Hersh’s Redirection"},"content":{"rendered":"
In his most recent New Yorker ar<\/title>In his most recent <em>New Yorker<\/em> article, “<a href=\"http:\/\/www.newyorker.com\/reporting\/2007\/03\/05\/070305fa_fact_hersh\">The Redirection<\/a>,” Seymour Hersh tries to make some sense out of US efforts to build a US-Saudi-Israeli alliance against Iran.\u00c2\u00a0 In some respects, the essay runs along the same lines as my own effort to trace the lines of such a redirection in a ZNet article, “<a href=\"http:\/\/www.zmag.org\/content\/showarticle.cfm?ItemID=10601\">The Devil Wears Persian<\/a>.”<\/p>\n<p>Hersh also gives a nod to the possibility that the “shift” may be championed by <em>factions<\/em> within the US, Saudi Arabia, and Israel but this theme remains relatively underdeveloped and the refusal to take factionalism more seriously tends to trouble his narrative.<\/p>\n<p>Hersh pins the US strategy on Cheney, Right Zionist Elliott Abrams, and Zalmay Khalilzad.\u00c2\u00a0 He sees John Negroponte as a critic and hedges on the role of Condoleezza Rice:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The key players behind the redirection are Vice-President Dick Cheney, \tthe deputy national-security adviser Elliott Abrams, the departing \tAmbassador to Iraq (and nominee for United Nations Ambassador), Zalmay \tKhalilzad, and Prince Bandar bin Sultan, the Saudi national-security \tadviser. While Rice has been deeply involved in shaping the public policy, \tformer and current officials said that the clandestine side has been guided \tby Cheney…<\/p>\n<p>The Bush Administration\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s reliance on clandestine operations that have not \tbeen reported to Congress and its dealings with intermediaries with \tquestionable agendas have recalled, for some in Washington, an earlier \tchapter in history. Two decades ago, the Reagan Administration attempted to \tfund the Nicaraguan contras illegally, with the help of secret arms sales to \tIran. Saudi money was involved in what became known as the Iran-Contra \tscandal, and a few of the players back then\u00e2\u20ac\u201dnotably Prince Bandar and \tElliott Abrams\u00e2\u20ac\u201dare involved in today\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s dealings…<\/p>\n<p>[T]he echoes of Iran-Contra were a factor in Negroponte\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s decision to resign \tfrom the National Intelligence directorship and accept a sub-Cabinet \tposition of Deputy Secretary of State.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>On Saudi factionalism, Hersh reiterates some of the themes that have been developed in previous posts (<a href=\"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/?p=215\">here<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/?p=236\">here<\/a>, and <a href=\"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/?p=253\">here<\/a>)–including the idea that Prince Bandar is the a figure of any such new alignment.\u00c2\u00a0 But Hersh hedges his bets on the depths of the Saudi schism:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The Administration\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s effort to diminish Iranian authority in the Middle \tEast has relied heavily on Saudi Arabia and on Prince Bandar, the Saudi \tnational-security adviser. Bandar served as the Ambassador to the United \tStates for twenty-two years, until 2005, and has maintained a friendship \twith President Bush and Vice-President Cheney. In his new post, he continues \tto meet privately with them. Senior White House officials have made several \tvisits to Saudi Arabia recently, some of them not disclosed…<\/p>\n<p>In <strong>a royal family rife with competition<\/strong>, Bandar has, over the \tyears, built a power base that relies largely on his close relationship with \tthe U.S., which is crucial to the Saudis. <strong>Bandar was succeeded as \tAmbassador by Prince Turki al-Faisal; Turki resigned after eighteen months \tand was replaced by Adel A. al-Jubeir, a bureaucrat who has worked with \tBandar<\/strong>. A former Saudi diplomat told me that during Turki\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s tenure he \tbecame aware of private meetings involving Bandar and senior White House \tofficials, including Cheney and Abrams. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I assume Turki was not happy with \tthat,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d the Saudi said. But, he added, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t think that Bandar is going \toff on his own.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d <strong>Although Turki dislikes Bandar, the Saudi said, he \tshared his goal of challenging the spread of Shiite power in the Middle East<\/strong>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>I think the Turki-Bandar split runs deeper than a personality dispute.\u00c2\u00a0 The Turki faction is more dovish on Iran and more hawkish on Israel and, in a US context, the Turki faction is closer to Baker than Cheney.<\/p>\n<p>There are some unruly problems that disrupt Hersh’s attempts to craft a coherent narrative.\u00c2\u00a0 Hersh takes up the Saudi-Israeli element of the redirection, but he can’t entirely square the circle:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The policy shift has brought Saudi Arabia and Israel into a new strategic \tembrace, largely because both countries see Iran as an existential threat. \tThey have been involved in direct talks, and the Saudis, who believe that \tgreater stability in Israel and Palestine will give Iran less leverage in \tthe region, have become more involved in Arab-Israeli negotiations…<\/p>\n<p>In the past year, the Saudis, the Israelis, and the Bush Administration \thave developed a series of informal understandings about their new strategic \tdirection… Israel would be assured that its security was paramount and \tthat Washington and Saudi Arabia and other Sunni states shared its concern \tabout Iran…<\/p>\n<p>[T]he Saudis would urge Hamas, the Islamist Palestinian party that has \treceived support from Iran, to curtail its anti-Israeli aggression and to \tbegin serious talks about sharing leadership with Fatah, the more secular \tPalestinian group. (In February, the Saudis brokered a deal at Mecca between \tthe two factions. <strong>However, Israel and the U.S. have expressed \tdissatisfaction with the terms<\/strong>.)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Isn’t it possible that the Saudi brokered deal at Mecca between Hamas and Fatah represented more of a triumph for one faction than another?\u00c2\u00a0 If the Mecca deal was part of a US initiative, it seems strange that the US was not only dissatisfied with the terms, as Hersh suggests, but was also reportedly <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/apps\/news?pid=20601103&sid=aIXaBfczmdjY&refer=us\"> caught by surprise<\/a> by the deal.<\/p>\n<p>There are certainly signs of renewed interest in some quarters for <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2007\/03\/13\/world\/middleeast\/13mideast.html?ex=1331438400&en=93dd7ffe8010b7ff&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss\"> an Israeli-Saudi accord<\/a> but <a href=\"http:\/\/news.bbc.co.uk\/2\/hi\/middle_east\/6447407.stm\">to judge from the headlines<\/a>, Prince Turki seems unlikely to emerge as a leading source of such enthusiasm.\u00c2\u00a0 Right Zionists are <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nysun.com\/article\/50333\">not exactly dancing in the streets<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Hersh’s article focuses well-deserved attention on Saudi involvement in Lebanon, although even here I think he understates the conflict between Bandar’s hawkish approach toward Hezbollah and the Turki faction’s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.dailystar.com.lb\/article.asp?edition_id=1&categ_id=2&article_id=78242\"> quest for reconciliation<\/a> in Lebanon.<\/p>\n<p>The biggest question is what a new US-Saudi-Israeli strategic alignment would mean for Iraq.\u00c2\u00a0 Hersh’s whole analysis of the “redirection” <em>begins<\/em> with the question of Iraq:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>In the past few months, as the situation in Iraq has deteriorated, the \tBush Administration, in both its public diplomacy and its covert operations, \thas significantly shifted its Middle East strategy.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>But Hersh is actually weakest in his attempt to link the “redirection” to the politics of Iraq.\u00c2\u00a0 As Hersh suggests, the US initially aligned itself with Iraqi Shiites and marginalized Iraqi Sunnis.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>One contradictory aspect of the new strategy is that, in Iraq, most of \tthe insurgent violence directed at the American military has come from Sunni \tforces, and not from Shiites….<\/p>\n<p>Before the invasion of Iraq, <strong>in 2003, Administration officials, \tinfluenced by neoconservative ideologues, assumed that a Shiite government \tthere could provide a pro-American balance to Sunni extremists, since Iraq\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s \tShiite majority<\/strong> had been oppressed under Saddam Hussein. They ignored \twarnings from the intelligence community about the ties between Iraqi Shiite \tleaders and Iran, where some had lived in exile for years. <strong>Now, to the \tdistress of the White House, Iran has forged a close relationship with the \tShiite-dominated government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki<\/strong>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>One peculiarity in this story: neoconservative ideologues appear, in Hersh’s telling, at the center of both the move toward Iraqi Shiites <em>and<\/em> a pro-Sunni redirection designed to counteract the “distress” the pro-Shiite tilt has caused.<\/p>\n<p>Is the assumption that neoconservatives have been distressed by empowerment of the Iraqi Shiite majority?\u00c2\u00a0 I see no sign of that distress, in part because <a href=\"http:\/\/www.zmag.org\/content\/showarticle.cfm?ItemID=10185\">Right Zionists close to Cheney<\/a> have always argued–and <a href=\"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/?p=260\">continue to argue<\/a>–that the empowerment of the Iraqi Shiite majority could provide a pro-American balance to <em>both<\/em> Sunni extremists (including <a href=\"http:\/\/www.aei.org\/publications\/pubID.13383\/pub_detail.asp\">the Turki faction<\/a> in Saudi Arabia!) <em>and <\/em>Shiite extremists in Iran.<\/p>\n<p>One might expect that a pro-Saudi tilt in US policy would require rollback of Shiite political dominance in Iraq and the containment of Iran.\u00c2\u00a0 This might, in fact, reflect the goals of the Baker-Turki factions.<\/p>\n<p>The restoration of Sunni Arab political power (through an <a href=\"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/?p=122\">anti-Shiite coup<\/a>, etc.), however, is decidedly <em>not<\/em> on the agenda of “neo-conservative ideologues.”\u00c2\u00a0 <a href=\"http:\/\/www.aei.org\/publications\/filter.all,pubID.25344\/pub_detail.asp\"> Neither, it seems, is a crackdown on Moqtada al-Sadr<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Hersh knows that the signs of “redirection” in Iraq do not appear to include a retreat from Shiite power.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The Administration\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s new policy for containing Iran seems to complicate \tits strategy for winning the war in Iraq. Patrick Clawson, an expert on Iran \tand the deputy director for research at the Washington Institute for Near \tEast Policy, argued, however, that closer ties between the United States and \tmoderate or even radical Sunnis could put <strong>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153fear\u00e2\u20ac\u009d into the government of \tPrime Minister Maliki and \u00e2\u20ac\u0153make him worry that the Sunnis could actually \twin\u00e2\u20ac\u009d the civil war there<\/strong>. Clawson said that this might give Maliki an \tincentive to co\u00c3\u00b6perate with the United States in suppressing radical Shiite \tmilitias, such as Moqtada al-Sadr\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Mahdi Army.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Even so, for the moment, the U.S. remains dependent on the co\u00c3\u00b6peration of \tIraqi Shiite leaders<\/strong>. The Mahdi Army may be openly hostile to American \tinterests, but other Shiite militias are counted as U.S. allies. <strong>Both \tMoqtada al-Sadr and the White House back Maliki<\/strong>. A memorandum written \tlate last year by <strong>Stephen Hadley<\/strong>, the national-security adviser, <strong> \tsuggested that the Administration try to separate Maliki from his more \tradical Shiite allies by building his base among moderate Sunnis and Kurds<\/strong>, \t<strong>but so far the trends have been in the opposite direction<\/strong>. As the \tIraqi Army continues to founder in its confrontations with insurgents, <strong> \tthe power of the Shiite militias has steadily increased<\/strong>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>If Hersh knows why “the trends have been in the opposite direction” of those implicit in his sense of the redirection, he isn’t saying.<\/p>\n<p>The Baker and the Turki faction are “<a href=\"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/?p=259\">irreconcilables<\/a>” when it comes to Shiite power in Iraq, even as they seek to <a href=\"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/?p=213\">retain but contain<\/a> the incumbent regime in Iran.\u00c2\u00a0 For this crowd, the “trends” in Iraq continue in the wrong direction.<\/p>\n<p>Hersh, however, may be missing a key piece of the puzzle.\u00c2\u00a0 The faction behind the redirection–Cheney, his Right Zionist allies, and Bandar–are <em> very hawkish<\/em> about the Iranian regime but remain quite hopeful about relations with\u00c2\u00a0 Iraqi Shiites, especially Grand Ayatollah Sistani.<\/p>\n<p>The evidence for this is quite clear in the case of Cheney’s Right Zionist allies, if not in the case of Cheney himself.<\/p>\n<p>On the Bandar front, the evidence remains murky.\u00c2\u00a0 There are, however, some tantalizing clues.<\/p>\n<p>Exhibit A: Nawaf Obaid.<\/p>\n<p>Recall that Obaid made headlines with a November 29, 2006 <em>Washington Post<\/em> Op-Ed, “<a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/wp-dyn\/content\/article\/2006\/11\/28\/AR2006112801277.html\">Stepping Into Iraq<\/a>” that seemed to threaten Saudi action to thwart Iranian influence in Iraq.\u00c2\u00a0 Obaid was <a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/wp-dyn\/content\/article\/2006\/12\/13\/AR2006121301303.html\"> fired by Turki<\/a> after the publication of the Op-Ed.<\/p>\n<p>Does Nawaf Obaid represent Bandar’s views?\u00c2\u00a0 That remains a speculative proposition.\u00c2\u00a0 Nevertheless, Obaid did appear to suggest that his views had <em>some<\/em> base of support in Saudi Arabia, if not “the Saudi leadership”:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Over the past year, a chorus of voices has called for Saudi Arabia to \tprotect the Sunni community in Iraq and thwart Iranian influence there. \tSenior Iraqi tribal and religious figures, along with the leaders of Egypt, \tJordan and other Arab and Muslim countries, have petitioned the Saudi \tleadership to provide Iraqi Sunnis with weapons and financial support. \tMoreover, <strong>domestic pressure to intervene is intense<\/strong>. <strong>Major Saudi \ttribal confederations<\/strong>, which have extremely close historical and \tcommunal ties with their counterparts in Iraq, are demanding action. They \tare <strong>supported by a new generation of Saudi royals in strategic government \tpositions<\/strong> who are eager to see the kingdom play a more muscular role in \tthe region.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Is Bandar part of “a new generation of Saudi royals in strategic government positions”?\u00c2\u00a0 Is <a href=\"http:\/\/www.saudiembassy.net\/Country\/Government\/BandarBio.asp\"> Secretary-General of the Saudi National Security Council<\/a> a strategic position?<\/p>\n<p>In any event, Obaid’s Op-Ed was actually a condensed version of a larger report–“<a href=\"http:\/\/www.csis.org\/index.php?option=com_csis_pubs&task=view&id=3021\">Meeting the Challenge of a Fragmented Iraq: A Saudi Perspective<\/a>“–published in connection with his time as a fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington.<\/p>\n<p>Obaid’s report is long and complex and deserves to be <a href=\"http:\/\/www.csis.org\/media\/csis\/pubs\/060406_iraqsaudi.pdf\">read in full<\/a>.\u00c2\u00a0 Nevertheless, the relevant point in the context of Saudi relations with Iranian and Iraqi Shiites is that the report is, as one might predict, <em>extremely<\/em> hawkish about the pernicious influence of Iran in Iraq.\u00c2\u00a0 The chief recommendations in the report concern preparing for a “worst case scenario” in which Saudi Arabia must aggressively “counter meddling by Iran.”<\/p>\n<p>At the same time, the report includes a <em>very important recommendation<\/em> that was not part of Obaid’s <em>Washington Post<\/em> Op-Ed: “<strong>Extend a State Invitation to Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani<\/strong>”<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>It is also important for the Saudi leadership to open a meaningful \tdiscussion with Grand Ayotollah Ali al- Sistani by extending an invitation \tto him to visit the holy cities of Mecca and Medina. Such an overture would \tsend a strong positive message \u00e2\u20ac\u201c both within the Kingdom and in the region \tat large \u00e2\u20ac\u201c regarding Saudi Arabia\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s position vis-\u00c3\u00a0-vis the Shi\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ite \tcommunity. It would also demonstrate that the Kingdom recognizes Ayatollah \tal-Sistani\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s authority and respects those who regard him as the leading \tShi\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ite Arab cleric. Ayatollah Sistani is not only the foremost religious \tfigure for Iraqi Shi\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ites, but his influence in Iraq\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s political sphere is \tequally as important. An official state visit to Saudi Arabia would reassure \tthe Iraqi Shi\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ite community that the Saudi leadership fully acknowledges \tthat they are critical to establishing stability in the country.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Prince Bandar meets <a href=\"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/?p=211\"> David Wurmser<\/a>.\u00c2\u00a0 Welcome to <a href=\"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/?p=232\">Cheney’s world<\/a>.<\/p>\n<blockquote><\/blockquote>\n<blockquote><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In his most recent New Yorker arIn his most recent New Yorker article, “The Redirection,” Seymour Hersh tries to make some sense out of US efforts to build a US-Saudi-Israeli alliance against Iran.\u00c2\u00a0 In some respects, the essay runs along the same lines as my own effort to trace the lines of such a redirection […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6,3,9,11,8],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/261"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=261"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/261\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=261"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=261"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=261"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}