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About a month before the United States invaded Iraq in March 2003, Tariq Aziz, one of Saddam Husseins most trusted comrades, sat in his office in Baghdad in an olive green uniform, cigar in hand, wearing house slippers. The man who for decades had served as the public face of high-stakes Iraqi diplomacy offered a political analysis thatmight well have gotten him executed in years past.

The U.S. can overthrow Saddam Hussein, said Aziz, an Iraqi Christian and one of the most senior figures in Saddams government. You can destroy the Baath Party and secular Arab nationalism. But, he warned, America will open a Pandoras box that it will never be able to close. The iron-fisted rule of Saddam, draped in the veneer of Arab nationalism, he argued, was the only effective way to deal with forces like Al Qaeda or prevent an expansion of Iranian influence in the region.

When the U.S. invaded, Aziz was the eight of spades in the card deck the Pentagon created to publicize its high-value targets. He was ultimately captured, held in a makeshift prison at the Baghdad airport, and forced to dig a hole in the ground to use as a latrine. He died in custody of a heart attack in June 2015. But Aziz lived long enough to watch exactly what he warned of come to pass, accusing U.S. President Barack Obama of leaving Iraq to the wolves.

Former Iraqi Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz stands to attention as the Iraqi national anthem is played at a conference in Baghdad on Dec. 2, 1998.

Photo: Peter Dejong/AP

The 2003 invasion and occupation of Iraq marked the momentwhen the U.S. lost control of its own bloody chess game. The chaosunleashed by the U.S. invasion allowed Iran to gain a level of influence in Iraq that was unfathomable during the reign of Saddam.Secret documents from the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence and Security, obtained by The Intercept, give an unprecedented picture of how deeply present-day Iraq is under Iranian influence. The sovereignty once jealously defended by Arab nationalists has beensteadily eroded since the U.S. invasion.

The country that Iran assumed influence over had been shattered by decades of war, military occupation, terrorism, and economic sanctions. Iraq is still struggling with the legacy of years of sectarian bloodshed, the emergence of violent jihadi groups, and widespread corruption unleashed by the U.S. invasion and occupation. In the face of this national tragedy, some citizens express nostalgia for the authoritarian stability of Saddams regime. Navigating this chaotic situation is no easy task for any foreign power.

In the years after the 2003 invasion, some U.S. politicians cited the Pottery Barn analogy to justify a continued long-term presence in Iraq. It was the invasion that broke Iraqi society. So, as the analogy went, having broken the country, the United States now needed to buy it. In reality, the U.S. shattered Iraq and ultimately walked away. It was Iran that ended up figuring out what to do with the pieces.

Civilians on foot pass tanks on a bridge near the entrance to the besieged city of Basra, Iraq, on March 29, 2003.

Photo: Spencer Platt/Getty Images

A little over a decade before George W. Bush decided to overthrow the Iraqi government, his fathers administration had taken a very different path. After mercilessly destroying Iraqs civilian and military infrastructure in a bombing campaign during the 1991 Gulf War, George H.W. Bush waspersuadedthat it would be too dangerous to march on Baghdad. Not because of the potential human costs, or deaths of U.S. soldiers in combat, but because Saddam was a known quantity who had already proven valuable in the 1980s when he attacked Iran and triggered the brutal Iran-Iraq War. During that eight-year conflict, the U.S. armed both countries but overwhelmingly favored Baghdad. More than a million people died in trench warfare reminiscent of World War I. Henry Kissinger put a fine point on the U.S. strategy in that war when he quipped that it isa shame there can only be one loser.

Even after the war had ended, the American fear of Iran outweighed any appetite for regime change in Iraq. So Saddam remained.

Bushs son took a different view. In the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks, high-ranking figures in his administration began falsely connecting Saddams regime to Al Qaeda. In reality, the religious extremists were mortal enemies of the Baathists. But the process forSaddams removal had already been determinedby neoconservatives who had been bent on waging war against Iraq years before 9/11.

Left/top: In Tikrit, Iraq, on April 30, 2003, women of the household watch as U.S. soldiers arrest a man who the commander of the 1st Brigade identified as a prominent Baath Party member. Right/bottom: A U.S. marine watches a statue of Saddam Hussein being toppled in downtown Baghdad on April 9, 2003.Photos: Saurabh Das/AP; Jerome Delay/AP

Within weeks of the 2003 invasion, Saddam was out of power and on the run. A right-wing ideologue who had cut his teeth working under Kissinger was placed in charge of Iraq for a period after the invasion. The countrys new viceroy, L. Paul Bremer, once referred to himself as the only paramount authority figure other than dictator Saddam Hussein that most Iraqis had ever known. Though a longtime diplomat, Bremer had never served in the Middle East and had no expertise in Iraqi politics. But he had become obsessed with the idea that the Baath Party was analogous to the German Nazi Party and needed to be eliminated in its entirety. Under his leadership at the Coalition Provisional Authority, the U.S. implemented one of the most disastrous policies in the modern history of postwar decision-making: liquidating the Iraqi Army as part of a policy known as de-Baathification.

In his book on the Iraq War, Night Draws Near, the late Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Anthony Shadid wrote, The net effect of Bremers decision was to send more than 350,000 officers and conscripts, men with at least some military training, into the streets, instantly creating a reservoir of potential recruits for a guerrilla war. (At their disposal was about a million tons of weapons and munitions of all sorts, freely accessible in more than a hundred largely unguarded depots around the country.) A U.S. official, quoted anonymously by the New York Times Magazine at the time, described Bremers decision more bluntly: That was the week we made 450,000 enemies on the ground in Iraq.

Paul Bremer, the top U.S. civilian administrator in Iraq, during a graduation ceremony for Iraqs new postwar army on Oct. 4, 2003, in Kirkush.

Photo: Marwan Naamani/AFP via Getty Images

The impact of Bremers decision can be discerned in the secret Iranian intelligence cables written more than a decade later. Many of the Sunni insurgents who went to war against the government of Nouri al-Maliki in 2013 are described in the documents as Baathists, a reference to militant groups led by former Iraqi military officers. These groups have nostalgically identified themselves with the pre-2003 political order. The documents show that the Iranians have worked to either destroy them or co-opt them into the fight against the Islamic State.

As the leaked intelligence reports show, the sectarian bloodletting that started with the U.S. invasion has never really ended.

Many former Baathists also found themselves fighting in the ranks of ISIS itself, an organization whose military leadership has included senior officials from Saddams disbanded military.

De-Baathification coincided with another ugly development in Iraq: the rise of sectarian politics. The United States played a critical role in this phenomenon as well. To take one example, the U.S. occupation authorities after the invasion went on the offensive against a Shia cleric named Moqtada al-Sadr. Sadr, whose father and brothers were assassinated by Saddams henchmen, was an Iraqi nationalist who spoke the language of the people, though he was often at odds with other Shia clerical leaders. Iranian intelligence cables from 2014 cite pro-Iranian individuals in Iraq expressing continued frustration with Sadr for refusing to go along with their program. He remains a thorn in the side of the current Iraqi government and Iranian interests generally, despite having lived and studied inIran for many years.

Sheikh Moqtada al-Sadr delivers Friday prayers at the mosque in Kufa, Iraq, on July 11, 2003.

Photo: Scott Peterson/Getty Images

Following the U.S. invasion, Sadrs popularity rose after he organized social services and infrastructure to address the abysmal conditions faced by Iraqis, particularly in the Shia slums that had been brutally repressed by Saddam. When the Sunni city of Fallujah was first attacked by the U.S. in April 2004, following the killing of four Blackwater mercenaries, Sadr organized blood donations and aid convoys and condemned the American aggression. For a brief moment, the U.S. had very nearly united Shia and Sunni forces in a war against a common enemy.

This situation was untenable. By 2005, the U.S. had become fully invested in policies that greatly exacerbated sectarianism in Iraq. It began arming, training, and funding Shia death squads that terrorized Sunni communities in a war that altered the demographic makeup of Baghdad. As the position of the Sunnis became increasingly dire, groups began to emerge that grew more and more extreme, including Al Qaeda in Iraq and its successor, the Islamic State.

As the leaked intelligence reports show, the sectarian bloodletting that started with the U.S. invasion has never really ended. As late as 2014, the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence and Security was documenting the continued violent cleansing of Sunnis from areas around Baghdad by Iraqi militias associated with Irans Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

Iraqi security forces try to push back anti-government demonstrators to Tahrir Square on Nov. 11, 2019, using tear gas and bullets to prevent the occupation of bridges in downtown Baghdad.

Photo: Laurent Van der Stockt/Getty Images

When the Obama administration conducted a made-for-television withdrawal from Iraq in 2011, large swaths of the country were still in a state of political and humanitarian collapse. The Iraqi state that had existed before the war had been utterly destroyed. For better and for worse, Iran has sought to fill the gaping void in Iraq that Washingtons policies created. Out of the rubble of the country, Iranian leaders saw an opportunity to create a new order one that would never againthreaten them the way Saddam Husseins regime had.

The protests now paralyzing Iraqi cities are a vivid demonstration of how unpopular Iranian policies have been in Iraq. Several hundred demonstrators have been killed by security forces firing live ammunition into crowds. The sovereignty of Iraq was effectively annihilated by the 2003 U.S. invasion, but the idea of an Iraqi nation is still cherished by young people in the streets braving bullets to assert their independence.

Irans aggressive approach toward Iraq has to be seen in the context of history. Indeed, it is hard to imagine any rational nation-state actor that would not have pursued a similar path given the same circumstances. The invasion led to fears in Iran that the next stop for the U.S. military would be Tehran. These fears were heightened after the Bush administration rebuffed a proposed grand bargain from Iran in 2003 that offered talks aimed at resolving the differences between the two sides. Instead, the United States continued to treat Iran as an enemy and pursued a path of occupation in Iraq that left in its wake a trail of failures and hundreds of thousands of dead Iraqis.

That Iran would seize an opportunity to assert its influence in Iraq is no shock. While Irans role has been far from positive, the United States has long since lost any claim to be a legitimate broker regarding the future of either country. In 1963, the U.S. helped initiate Iraqs long nightmare when it aided the overthrow of the popular government of Abdel Karim Kassem, who sought to nationalize Iraqi oil and create social welfare programs.The U.S. supported the ascent of Saddamand continued toback his regime over the years, mainly as a bulwark against Iran, even in the face of high-profile atrocities like the gassing of Kurdish civilians in the city of Halabja and the massacres of Shia Iraqis following the Gulf War.

For more than six decades, the U.S. has played a central role in fomenting disasters that have destroyed the lives of entire generations in Iraq and Iran.Any criticisms of Irans role today cannot efface this ugly record. How Iraqis respond to the information about Irans secret dealings in their country is their business. Perhaps there are international organizations and countries whose advice and counsel would be welcome. But given its atrocious legacy in Iraq, the United States should not be among them.

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From the Rubble of the US War in Iraq, Iran Built a New Order - The Intercept

They were hardly kindred spirits. In fact, they stood on opposite sides of one of the worlds fiercest geopolitical divides. Yet in a secret effort at detente, two of the most formidable organizations in the Middle East held a previously undisclosed summitat a Turkish hotel to seek common ground at a time of sectarian war.

The 2014 summit brought together theforeign military arm of Irans Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, known as the Quds Force, and the Muslim Brotherhood, a sprawling Islamist political movement with significant influence throughout the region.

TheQuds Force represents the worlds most powerful Shia-dominated nation, while the Muslim Brotherhood is a stateless but influential political and religious force in the Sunni Muslim world. The Trump administration designated the Revolutionary Guards a foreign terrorist organization in April, and the White House has reportedly been lobbying to add the Muslim Brotherhood to the list as well.

The disclosure that two such polarizing organizations on either side of the Sunni-Shia divide held a summit is included in a leaked archive of secret Iranian intelligence reports obtained by The Intercept.

There were public meetings and contacts between Iranian and Egyptian officials while Muslim Brotherhood-backed Mohamed Morsi was president of Egypt from 2012 to 2013. But Morsi was forced from power in a coup supported by the Egyptian Army in July 2013 and later arrested. The regime of Abdel Fattah el-Sisi launched a crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood, and many of its leaders have since been imprisoned in Egypt or are living in exile.

An Iranian intelligence cable about the 2014 meeting provides an intriguing glimpse at a secret effort by the Muslim Brotherhood and Iranian officials to maintain contact and determine whether they could still work together after Morsi was removed from power.

A supporter of Egypts ousted President Mohamed Morsi reads the Quran next to a tent outside the Rabaa al-Adawiya mosque, where protesters established a camp, in August 2013 in Cairo.

Photo: Khalil Hamra/AP

The cable about the summit, from the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence and Security, or MOIS, reveals the fraught political dynamics that separate powerful Sunni and Shia organizations like the Muslim Brotherhood and the Quds Force. Above all, the cable and the story of the summit expose the maddening complexities of the political landscape in the Middle East and show how difficult it is for outsiders, including U.S. officials, to understand whats really going on in the region.

On the surface, the Quds Force and the Muslim Brotherhood would appear to be archenemies. The Quds Force has used its covert power to help Iran expand its influence throughout the Middle East, backing Shia militias that have committed atrocities against Sunnis in Iraq, while siding with the brutal regime of Bashar al-Assad in the Syrian civil war. The Muslim Brotherhood, by contrast, has been a key player in Sunni Arab politics for decades, bringing a fundamentalist Islamist approach to a long battle against autocratic governments in Egypt and elsewhere. Along the way, extremists have left the Muslim Brotherhood to form splinter groups, like Hamas, that have sometimes veered into terrorism.

The summit came at a critical moment for the Quds Force and the Muslim Brotherhood, which may explain why the two sides agreed to talk.

But the summit came at a critical moment for both the Quds Force and the Muslim Brotherhood, which may explain why the two sides agreed to talk. When the meeting was held in April 2014, the Islamic State was tearing across the Sunni-dominated regions of northern Iraq. The Iraqi Army was melting away in the face of the terrorist groups brutal tactics, and ISIS was threatening the stability of the Iraqi government in Baghdad.

The threat of ISIS prompted the Quds Force to intervene on behalf of the Shia-dominated government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki in Iraq. The Quds Force began leading Shia militias into battle against ISIS, but Maliki was widely seen as an Iranian puppet and had stoked deep anger and resentment among Iraqi Sunnis. He would soon be pushed aside.

At the same time, the dream of the Arab Spring had turned into a nightmare. War was raging in Syria while in Egypt, the ouster of Morsis Muslim Brotherhood-dominated government had led to a new dictatorship under Sisi. Morsi died in an Egyptian courtroom in June after nearly six years in solitary confinement.

Weakened by its losses in Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood probably viewed an alliance with the Iranians as an opportunity to regain some of its regional prominence.

The Muslim Brotherhood-Quds Force summit unfolded against the backdrop of deepening sectarian divisions in Iraq as ISIS gained strength. The Shia Popular Mobilization Forces, or Hashd al-Shaabi, took most of Tikrit, Iraq, from ISIS control in April 2015.

Photo: Sebastian Backhaus/picture-alliance/dpa/AP

What neither side knew was that there was a spy in the summit. Irans MOIS, a rival of theRevolutionary Guards within the Iranian national security apparatus, secretly had an agent in the meeting who reported everything that was discussed. The MOIS agent not only attended but acted as coordinator of this meeting, according to the MOIS cable. The MOIS envied the Revolutionary Guards power and influence and secretly tried to keep track ofthe Guards activities around the world, the leaked archive shows.

Turkey was considered a safe location for the summit, since it was one of the few countries on good terms with both Iran and the Muslim Brotherhood. Yet the Turkish government still had to worry about appearances, so it refused to grant a visa to the highly visible chief of the Quds Force, Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani, according to the MOIS cable. With Suleimani unable to enter Turkey, a delegation of other senior Quds Force officials led by one of Suleimanis deputies, a man identified in the cable as Abu Hussain attended the meeting in his place.

The Muslim Brotherhood was represented by three of its most prominent Egyptian leaders in exile: Ibrahim Munir Mustafa, Mahmoud El-Abiary, and Youssef Moustafa Nada, according to the document. (After 9/11, the George W. Bush administration and the United Nations suspected that Nada had helped finance Al Qaeda; his bank accounts were frozen and his movement restricted. In 2009, the U.N. sanctions against him were lifted because no proof of his alleged ties to terrorism could be found.)

In a recent interview, Nada told The Intercept: I never attended such a meeting anywhere. I never heard about such a meeting anywhere. Mustafa and El-Abiary could not be reached for comment.

Supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood await the arrival of Brotherhood parliament members during the first session of theEgyptian Parliament on Jan. 23, 2012, in Cairo.

Photo: Moises Saman/Magnum Photos

The Muslim Brotherhood delegation opened the meeting with a boast, pointing out that the outfit has organizations in 85 countries in the world. Perhaps that was an effort to counter the Iranian governments support for the Quds Force, since the Muslim Brotherhood had no similar national power backing it up.

Differences between Iran as a symbol and representative of the Shia world and the Muslim Brotherhood as a representative of the Sunni world are indisputable, the Brotherhoodmembers noted, according to the MOIS cable. But they emphasized that there should be a focus on joint grounds for cooperation. One of the most important things the groups shared, the Brotherhood representatives said, was a hatred for Saudi Arabia, the common enemy of the Muslim Brotherhood and Iran.

Perhaps, the Brotherhood delegation said, the two sides could join forces against the Saudis. The best place to do that was in Yemen, where an insurgency by the Iranian-backed Houthis against the Saudi-backed Yemeni government was about to escalate into full-scale war.

In Yemen, with the influence of Iran on Houthis and the influence of the Brotherhood on the armed tribal Sunni factions, there should be a joint effort to decrease the conflict between Houthis and Sunni tribes to be able to use their strength against Saudi Arabia, the Brotherhood delegation argued.

One of the most important things the groups shared, the Muslim Brotherhood representatives said, was a hatred for Saudi Arabia.

Meanwhile, the Brotherhood wanted peace in Iraq, the delegation said. If there was one place in the region where help bridging the Sunni-Shia divide was needed, it was there, and maybe the Brotherhood and the Quds Force could cooperate to stop the war.

On Iraq, it is good to lessen the tension between Shia and Sunni and give Sunnis a chance to participate in the Iraqi government as well, the delegation said, according to the MOIS cable.

While denying any knowledge of the 2014 meeting, Nada said that the Muslim Brotherhood does want to reduce tensions between Sunni and Shia Muslims, as was suggested by the cable. As far as I know, [the Muslim Brotherhood] are interested to defuse, not only reduce, any conflict between Sunni and Shia, Nada said.

But the Brotherhood also recognized that there were limits to regional cooperation with the Quds Force. Syria, for example, was such a complicated mess thatthe Brotherhoodsimply threw up its hands. Of course, the issue of Syria currently is out of the hands of Iran and the Brotherhood, and there is nothing particular to be done about it, the cable noted.

And while the Muslim Brotherhood had been pushed out of power the year before the summit by the Egyptian Army, the group didnt want Iranian support in Egypt. On the issue of Egypt, we as Brotherhood are not prepared to accept any help from Iran to act against the government of Egypt, the delegation said. The Brotherhood leaders probably recognized that they would be discredited in Egypt if they sought Iranian aid to regain power in Cairo.

Despite their apparent eagerness to forge an alliance, the Brotherhood leaders still managed to insult the Quds Force officials, according to the MOIS cable. During the meeting,the delegation emphasized that the Brotherhood was committed to a reformist and peaceful approach to change in the Middle East. The observation seemed to imply that the Quds Force was not.The delegation then quickly added that members of the Brotherhood have trained ourselves to be more patient than Iranians.

Members of Irans Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps march in front of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeinis mausoleum outside Tehran on Sept. 22, 2011, during an armed forces parade marking the 31st anniversary of the start of the Iraq-Iran War.

Photo: Vahid Salemi/AP

The Brotherhood has indeed historically been averse to violence, in contrast to the Quds Force, which is part of a military organization. Some experts have objected to the Trump administrations desire to designate the Brotherhood a terrorist organization, arguing that it does not engage in terrorist activities.

The fact that the Trump administration has not [designated the Muslim Brotherhood] suggests that maybe rationality won the day, observed Ned Price, a former CIA official. To say you are going to designate the Muslim Brotherhood misrepresents what the Muslim Brotherhood is today, and it risks partnerships we have in countries where the Muslim Brotherhood does have influence.

In one of his last columns in the Washington Post before he was murdered, Saudi journalist and dissident Jamal Khashoggi criticized the Trump administration for targeting the Muslim Brotherhood and for failing to understand that it played an essential democratic role in the Middle East. The United States aversion to the Muslim Brotherhood, which is more apparent in the current Trump administration, is the root of a predicament across the entire Arab world, Khashoggi wrote in August 2018, just two months before his death at the hands of a hit team in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. The eradication of the Muslim Brotherhood is nothing less than an abolition of democracy and a guarantee that Arabs will continue living under authoritarian and corrupt regimes.

Maybe the Muslim Brotherhood leaders decided to be candid with their Iranian counterparts during the summit because they could already sense that the Quds Force representatives were not really interested in forming an alliance. That is certainly how the meeting played out. In fact, it soon became clear that the two sides were talking past each other.

Friends of the Quds Force who were present in this meeting disagreed that there should be an alliance of Shia and Sunni, according to the MOIS report on the meeting. At the same time, somewhat mysteriously, the Quds Force representatives insisted that they never had any differences with the Brotherhood.

The Brotherhood representatives were clearly irked by that unrealistic statement. This view was not accepted by the Brotherhood delegation, the cable noted.

Despite the apparent failure of the talks, the MOIS agent spying on the summit noted that he was willing to travel again to Turkey or Beirut to be present in any follow-up meetings. It is not clear from the leaked archive whether further meetings of this kind occurred.

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Iran's Quds Force and the Muslim Brotherhood Considered an Alliance Against Saudi Arabia - The Intercept

Update: Israel strikes dozens of Iranian and Syrian targets following rocket barrage

Four rockets fired from Syria were intercepted over the Golan Heights by the Iron Dome missile defense system, the Israeli military said early Tuesday. According to sources in Israel's defense establishment, the rockets were fired following a command from Iran.

Haaretz Weekly Ep. 49Haaretz

Shortly thereafter, explosions were heard in Damascus, a week after another Israeli strike targeted a top Palestinian militant in the Syrian capital.

Later Tuesday morning, Syria's Observatory for Human Rights reported that Israel fired five missiles toward targets in southern Damascus. The report said that Syrian air defenses had intercepted some of the missiles, while others did manage to strike some targets. There were no reports of casualties or damage.

The area targeted, the Observatory for Human Rights noted, is populated by Hezbollah and pro-Iran militiamen.

The military said that there no damage was caused to Israeli communities after rocket sirens awoke residents there early in the morning. There was no immediate official comment from Syria, but the SANA state news agency reported explosions were heard near Damascus International Airport. It was unclear how reliable the reports were and whether Israelindeed struck in that area.

>>Syrian rockets fired at Israel are part of Iran's new deterrence policy

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Following the overnight developments, freshly-appointed Defense Minister Naftali Bennett announced that he will hold a security consultation with the Israeli military's chief of staff, Aviv Kochavi, as well as with other top army brass at the Israel Defense Forces' headquarters in Tel Aviv.

Foreign media have reported that over the past couple of months, Israeli strikes in Syria and Iraq have significantly decreased. Israeli intelligence have assessed recently that Iran decided to respond resolutely to any Israeli action against it or organizations affiliated with it.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke at length lately about the uptick in threats emanating from Tehran, and has warned that Israel will hit Iranian targets if Iran carries out moves against Jerusalem.

The Israeli army's policy is to respond overtly to any attack from Syria. Usually, Israel responds quickly to such attacks, and has admitted in the past to carrying out retaliatory strikes.

Last week, Israel launched a missile attack targeting the home of an Islamic Jihad official in Damascus, killing one of his sons, Syrian state media said. Islamic Jihad said the target was the home of political leader Akram Al-Ajouri.

The move came after Israel's targeted assassination of top Islamic Jihad leader Baha Abu al-Ata, who was killed with his wife Asma in the Gaza Strip.

In August, Israel said In a rare confirmation that it had struck in Syria to thwart a drone attack by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards' elite Quds Force. Syrian opposition activists reported three deaths in the attack.

The Israeli army said the foiled attack entailed launching several drones at targets in northern Israel.

Read the rest here:
Israel intercepts four Syria rockets believed to be fired on Iran's orders - Haaretz

The idea that the world will be a better place after the death of Isis leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is a far-fetched one. Sure, Isis was dealt a major blow, but that hardly makes the Middle Easta better-looking place. It makes it look like a pig wearing makeup.

Isis effectively took a wrecking ball to the Arab world. The groups main aim was to blur existing national borders in favour of its caliphate. But its historic and dramatic rise left us struggling to recognise the wider Middle Easts descent into anarchy.

Both in its structure and in its lust for power, Isis was a reflection of whats happened to the region now nothing more than a decadent corpse, devastated not by Isis alone but by an unprecedented hike in the number of militias and armed groups.

Sharing the full story, not just the headlines

Whether you callthem militias, armies, rapid forces or whatever youd prefer depends on where you stand. This belt of militias extends across Libya, Sudan, Yemen, Iraq, Syria and Lebanon. It is a complicated pattern of armed groups created to fight each other as part of an endless multi-layered cold war shaping the regions future.

They are wreaking havoc within and beyond the borders of the post-independence Arab state as we know it, and threatening its very existence. Although they have conflicting ideological, ethnical, geographical and tribal agendas, they all share one motive: serving the interests of big regional players, many of whom helped create them in the first place.

Iran was the first to devise the idea of a militia more powerful than the state, a force to control the state from within as part of a regional sectarian project. In Lebanon, the creation of Hezbollah which has increased its power and survived for decades was a great success. It sent a wave of admiration throughout the whole region, especially (and ironically) among Irans rivals in the Gulf.

A Syrian tank lies turned over in the Hermon Stream in the Banias Nature Reserve on the western edge of the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. Israel captured the area, a former demilitarized zone, in the 1967 Six Day War

Reuters

A part of the trench in a former Jordanian military post known as Ammunition Hill in Jerusalem. Originally built by the British, the site was captured by Jordan in the 1948-1949 war and held by them until Israeli troops captured it in the 1967

Reuters/Ronen Zvulun

An abandoned mosque on a rainy morning in the Golan Heights, in territory that Israel captured from Syria and occupied in the 1967 Middle East war. Until 1967 a Syrian village inhabited by Circassians stood near the site, which now lies just 5km on the Israeli side of the United Nations-monitored 'Area of Separation' that divides Israeli and Syrian military forces under a 1974 ceasefire arrangement

Reuters/Ronen Zvulun

The broken helicopter of the late Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat sits atop a structure in Gaza City. Without its main rotor, it is now on public display in the coastal enclave that is now controlled by the Palestinian Authority's most powerful domestic rival, Hamas

Reuters/Ibraheem Abu Mustafa

A sign warning of landmines on a fence in the Golan Heights. Many Israeli and foreign tourists drive past the site on their way to popular holiday spots

Reuters/Ronen Zvulun

Part of an abandoned Syrian building in the Golan Heights. Once a military headquarters, it is one of many Syrian buildings left deserted and abandoned since wars fought half a century ago

Reuters/Ronen Zvulun

The wall of a structure in a former Syrian outpost in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. In stark contrast to the beauty of the surrounding countryside, it is now crumbling and covered in graffiti, one Arabic message reading: "The Syrian army passed by here."

Reuters/Ronen Zvulun

Buildings constructed during the British Mandate era to serve as jails and fortified positions in Al-Jiftlik village near Jericho, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Long abandoned, sheep now wander through the empty buildings, searching for vegetation in the scorching heat of the Jordan Valley. The Israeli military sometimes uses them for training, Palestinian residents say

Reuters/Mohamad Torokman

A bunker in the Golan Heights, in territory that Israel captured from Syria. It was used for military purposes and has been deserted for many years

Reuters/Ronen Zvulun

British soldiers depicted in a mural on an old pillbox in Jerusalem. The pillbox dating back to the era of British Mandatory rule before 1948, stands abandoned in a busy intersection of Jerusalem. The mural was added in recent years

Reuters/Ronen Zvulun

Concrete blast walls are seen in an open area once used by the Israeli military near Rahat, southern Israel. Once part of a facility for training in urban warfare, the barriers are now an isolated scar on the landscape

Reuters/Ronen Zvulun

A part of a trench is seen in a former Jordanian military post known as Ammunition Hill in Jerusalem. Originally built by the British, the site was captured by Jordan in the 1948-1949 war and held by them until Israeli troops captured it in the 1967

Reuters/Ronen Zvulun

The derelict remains of Gaza International Airport in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip. Former US President Bill Clinton attended the opening ceremony in 1998. But Israeli air strikes and bulldozers closed it down during the second Palestinian uprising, or Intifada, a few months after the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States

Reuters/Ibraheem Abu Mustafa

A house is seen in Lifta, a ruined Palestinian Arab village whose inhabitants left or were forced from their homes in the conflict that accompanied the end of British rule and the founding of Israel in 1948. The abandoned ruins are visible to travelers arriving at the western entrance of Jerusalem

Reuters/Ronen Zvulun

An abandoned mosque on a rainy morning in the Golan Heights, in territory that Israel captured from Syria

Reuters/Ronen Zvulun

A part of a structure in a former Jordanian military base near the Dead Sea in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. The building is a scar in the landscape as it stands deserted following the 1967 Middle East war when Israel captured the area from the Jordanians

Reuters/Ronen Zvulun

A Syrian tank lies turned over in the Hermon Stream in the Banias Nature Reserve on the western edge of the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. Israel captured the area, a former demilitarized zone, in the 1967 Six Day War

Reuters

A part of the trench in a former Jordanian military post known as Ammunition Hill in Jerusalem. Originally built by the British, the site was captured by Jordan in the 1948-1949 war and held by them until Israeli troops captured it in the 1967

Reuters/Ronen Zvulun

An abandoned mosque on a rainy morning in the Golan Heights, in territory that Israel captured from Syria and occupied in the 1967 Middle East war. Until 1967 a Syrian village inhabited by Circassians stood near the site, which now lies just 5km on the Israeli side of the United Nations-monitored 'Area of Separation' that divides Israeli and Syrian military forces under a 1974 ceasefire arrangement

Reuters/Ronen Zvulun

The broken helicopter of the late Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat sits atop a structure in Gaza City. Without its main rotor, it is now on public display in the coastal enclave that is now controlled by the Palestinian Authority's most powerful domestic rival, Hamas

Reuters/Ibraheem Abu Mustafa

A sign warning of landmines on a fence in the Golan Heights. Many Israeli and foreign tourists drive past the site on their way to popular holiday spots

Reuters/Ronen Zvulun

Part of an abandoned Syrian building in the Golan Heights. Once a military headquarters, it is one of many Syrian buildings left deserted and abandoned since wars fought half a century ago

Reuters/Ronen Zvulun

The wall of a structure in a former Syrian outpost in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. In stark contrast to the beauty of the surrounding countryside, it is now crumbling and covered in graffiti, one Arabic message reading: "The Syrian army passed by here."

Reuters/Ronen Zvulun

Buildings constructed during the British Mandate era to serve as jails and fortified positions in Al-Jiftlik village near Jericho, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Long abandoned, sheep now wander through the empty buildings, searching for vegetation in the scorching heat of the Jordan Valley. The Israeli military sometimes uses them for training, Palestinian residents say

Reuters/Mohamad Torokman

A bunker in the Golan Heights, in territory that Israel captured from Syria. It was used for military purposes and has been deserted for many years

Reuters/Ronen Zvulun

British soldiers depicted in a mural on an old pillbox in Jerusalem. The pillbox dating back to the era of British Mandatory rule before 1948, stands abandoned in a busy intersection of Jerusalem. The mural was added in recent years

Reuters/Ronen Zvulun

Concrete blast walls are seen in an open area once used by the Israeli military near Rahat, southern Israel. Once part of a facility for training in urban warfare, the barriers are now an isolated scar on the landscape

Reuters/Ronen Zvulun

A part of a trench is seen in a former Jordanian military post known as Ammunition Hill in Jerusalem. Originally built by the British, the site was captured by Jordan in the 1948-1949 war and held by them until Israeli troops captured it in the 1967

Reuters/Ronen Zvulun

The derelict remains of Gaza International Airport in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip. Former US President Bill Clinton attended the opening ceremony in 1998. But Israeli air strikes and bulldozers closed it down during the second Palestinian uprising, or Intifada, a few months after the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States

Reuters/Ibraheem Abu Mustafa

A house is seen in Lifta, a ruined Palestinian Arab village whose inhabitants left or were forced from their homes in the conflict that accompanied the end of British rule and the founding of Israel in 1948. The abandoned ruins are visible to travelers arriving at the western entrance of Jerusalem

Reuters/Ronen Zvulun

An abandoned mosque on a rainy morning in the Golan Heights, in territory that Israel captured from Syria

Reuters/Ronen Zvulun

A part of a structure in a former Jordanian military base near the Dead Sea in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. The building is a scar in the landscape as it stands deserted following the 1967 Middle East war when Israel captured the area from the Jordanians

Reuters/Ronen Zvulun

Even as Hezbollah and later its replicas in Iraq (Popular Mobilisation Forces) and Yemen (Houthis) created the biggest security threat in the Gulf countries history, those same Gulf states decided to mirror the same Iranian strategy in a bid to counter its increasing influence. The whole idea is to destroy Irans power using its own weapon.

Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Qatar (who are at this very moment busy trying to undermine each other) have invested billions of dollars in trying to push Iran back. If they are serious about putting an end to Iranian intervention in the Arab sphere, this is the right thing to do.

But by copying and pasting their rivals militia strategy, they ended up doing the right thing in a disastrous way. The idea of killing Iran with its own weapon simply backfired.

The fallout is all too apparent: millions of Arab refugees, the swift rise of religious extremism, and the creation of existential threats to fellow Arab states. And who benefits without lifting a finger? Iran, of course.

But this isnt just about Iranian power. Saudi Arabia, theUAE, Egypt and their allies (not to mention Qatar) are also inadvertently helping Turkey and Israel as they too try to gain ground. It is not surprising that the more effort the Gulf states put into pushing back the non-Arab powers, the more influence those same powers accrue.

The wealthy Arab states also got it wrong when they tried applying the same minority-empowerment strategy used by Iran to bolster theShiacommunity to solve the Sunni majority dilemma in the Arab world. Instead of empowering the state in in Syria, Libya and Yemen, they unintentionally ended up undermining its very existence.

In providing generous support for Libyas General Khalifa Haftars National Army in his fight against the Qatari-backed militias in Tripoli, and in propping up Yemens southern separatists and General Hemedtis Rapid Support Forces in Sudan, the UAE and Saudi Arabia are digging a big hole for themselves as they try to pursue some kind of Arab project in the face of Irans relentless efforts to undermine it.

The huge amount of cash pumped into this anarchy created a new class of warlords, who are now capable of controlling a large portion of these countries populations, guaranteeing their security and providing them with basic services where the state cannot.

As time passes, the militia system feeds on its own power, with various warlords establishing cross-border solidarity and others backing conflicting forces. It is reported that Hezbollah is providing Yemens Houthis with the technical know-how they need to target sensitive Saudi infrastructure with drones.

Sudanese General Hemedti, on the other hand, has taken a different side in the Yemen war, trying to prop-up president Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadis forces in his fight against the Houthis. This week, other reports suggested that Hemedti has sent troops to back General Haftar in Libya.

Meanwhile, Qatar, with the help of Turkey, is also doing its part by supporting the militias trying to thwart Haftars bid to recapture the Libyan capital, Tripoli.

This bleak and eccentric network has turned the Middle East into a region run, in effect, by warlords and militia commanders.

The only way out is for the Gulf states to change course. If they are to stop Irans rambling death train in its tracks, they must sign a reconciliation agreement that would put an end to their meaningless and protracted feuds. And they must accept that by deploying militias as power vehicles, they have helped lay waste to what remains of various Arab societies.

The time has come for the big Arab regional powers to instead invest in real institutions and support strong governments that can effectively run sovereign states. Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Qatar must stop serving Irans agenda both intentionally and unintentionally once and for all.

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The Gulf states tried to turn Irans own weapon against it and it backfired with terrible consequences - The Independent

There will be more danger ahead for the Lebanese uprising. Irans proxies will continue to orchestrate a dispersal of the protests by force or attrition and fulfill their promises to their leadership. On the surface, Tehran says the revolution is not against Hezbollah but corruption. In reality, however, it is well aware that the uprising has Hezbollah in its crosshairs as well as the government. The militant group cannot escape accusations of corruption and demands for accountability. Hezbollah itself has declared its allegiance to Irans supreme leader and admitted that its funds and hardware are supplied by Tehran. Tehran has decided not only to prevent Hezbollah from falling at any cost but has told its allies in Moscow it intends to use the current situation in Lebanon to increase Hezbollahs power, even if it requires force. Iran sees Lebanon as an important arena in the duel with Washington and will not sacrifice its prize, no matter the cost.

The multi-generational revolution in Lebanon against the corrupt political class is in danger. It has a regional behemoth as an adversary, which will not allow it to stand in the way of its projects or undermine its gains. It is therefore imperative for the uprising to take stock of regional and international dynamics, develop tactical and strategic steps to ensure its survival, capitalise on its gains and achieve its demands gradually and consistently. The revolution must not be extinguished as the so-called axis of resistance wishes it to be. If it truly is a revolution, then it will be a long, difficult and bloody march. Its first martyr has already been claimed: Alaa Abou Fakher, killed by a bullet that made him an icon.

Washington of course welcomes the uprising as a benefit to its policy of tightening the noose around Hezbollah and expanding sanctions against the party. However, this is a patriotic, homegrown revolution.

Russias leadership has so far sided with the ruling class. At the Paris Peace Forum, foreign minster Sergey Lavrov dismissed a key demand of the uprising, namely to form a technocratic government with no career politicians, saying it was unrealistic. He expressed implicit support for Hezbollahs position of forming a government of politicians combined with technocrats.

The axis of resistance has claimed it now commands a bigger bloc of supporters than the protesters

According to Russian sources, Moscow sees the discord in Lebanon as a threat to its efforts to stabilise Syria, where it faces a complex mission with no guarantee of success. It sees Hezbollah and Iran as easier to deal with than the Lebanese army, say the sources. Perhaps it is Washingtons ties with the army that frustrate Moscow but there is a risk that in supporting Irans influence in Lebanon, Russia is jeopardising Lebanons sovereignty.

The sources revealed Tehran had given Moscow promises to pacify the situation and restore normality to the country by putting an end to the protests, adding that instability in Lebanon was not in the Russian interest.

The axis of resistance has claimed it now commands a bigger bloc of supporters than the protesters. But such a bloc of people would not represent either Lebanons independence or its national army. Lebanese President Michel Aoun, who has long spoken of his support for the national army, is today hostage to his affiliation to the axis. Indeed, by condoning the Iranian project in Lebanon, he has undermined his own countrys sovereignty and the army he once led. Iran and Hezbollah do not want to allow the national army to lead so the president must remember his oath of allegiance instead of being a silent witness to the attack on his country by Iran.

The president must also apologise for saying the Lebanese should emigrate if they are unhappy with his rule. He must reassure his people that he is not simply a puppet of the axis of resistance and do everything he can to restore confidence and prevent the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in Iran from turning a peaceful uprising into a bloody confrontation.

Washington is determined to choke Iran and its proxies economically to force it to adjust its behaviour in issues such as its nuclear and ballistic missile programme and its regional expansionist projects in Arab countries. Hezbollah is the most successful implementation of that model.

Lebanon has become an arena for the Iranian regimes battle for influence and survival. This regime sees uprisings as a threat to its projects, even when they are primarily challenging corruption. Washington, meanwhile, sees Lebanon as a key factor in its bid to block Irans schemes. Iran is now vulnerable in Iraq, Syria and Yemen as well as at home, where protests are beginning to erupt against the regimes authoritarianism, and the hardship and isolation that have resulted from successive rounds of US sanctions.

In view of this equation, the Lebanese army is the countrys safety valve. If the president chooses Lebanon over Iran, he must not fear the social media-fuelled protests and instead forgo his political alliances. Otherwise he will be bound in the service of Iran.

Updated: November 17, 2019 01:04 PM

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Lebanon has become an arena for the Iranian regimes battle for influence and survival - The National