Twenty-five years ago this summer, the Saudis were among the most shrill voices denouncing Israel for bombing Saddam Hussein’s Osiraq nuclear reactor.
They weren’t alone; even the administration of former United States President Ronald Reagan joined in, helping Iraq draft the United Nations resolution condemning Israel and briefly imposing a partial arms embargo as punishment.
The public condemnations were virtually universal, although according to a CIA source at the time, the Arabs were privately applauding, even if none ever found the courage to admit it.
It took the U.S. a decade to come around, when then-Defense Secretary Dick Cheney applauded the Israeli Air Force’s Great Nuclear Non-Proliferation Act of 1981, which made possible Saddam’s quick defeat in Gulf War I and was at least as critical to Saudi (and Kuwaiti) survival as to Israel’s.
Once again Israel is protecting Arab regimes from mortal danger. Of course, that’s not Israel’s motivation in Lebanon or in Gaza, but the secular Arab governments from the Atlantic to the Indian Ocean stand to benefit if Israel decisively defeats Hezbollah.
Some things have changed; there are signs that this time the Arabs recognize what is at stake for them, and today’s nuclear threat is even greater.
Arch foes
If — and when — Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, the man who started this war, emerges alive from his hideout and the fighting stops in Lebanon, he will cast a giant shadow across the Arab world.
The international media — from Arabia to America, including Israel — are setting up to declare victory for Hezbollah, no matter how much of a pounding it takes, if significant elements survive, especially Nasrallah.
He will be hailed in the Arab street as a hero but not in the palaces of leaders in secular Sunni states like Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf oil sheikdoms; for them it will be a sign of expanding Shiite jihadist power at their expense.
The last thing the Saudis and other Sunnis want to see is their arch foe, Shiite Iran, emerge unscathed as a big winner and a bigger threat. Tehran’s arch foe, Saddam, is in the slammer and his Sunni regime has been replaced by a friendly Shiite government installed by American ineptitude and incompetence. (Tens of thousands of Iraqis held pro-Hezbollah demonstrations in Baghdad last week.)
Jordan’s King Abdullah II has expressed fear of a militant Islamist “Shiite crescent” stretching from Iran across Iraq, Syria and Lebanon to the Mediterranean and dominated by Moslems who aren’t even Arabs.
The Arab stalling this week on a U.N. ceasefire resolution will give — intentionally? — Israel a chance to do more damage to Hezbollah.
In a break with the past, the Saudis — joined by Jordan and Egypt — quickly condemned the attack on Israel as a “reckless adventure” and not an act of “legitimate resistance.” A top ranking Saudi cleric even issued a fatwah condemning Hezbollah and anyone who prayed for its success.
Don’t get the idea the Saudi royals have suddenly become Zionist sympathizers — they’ve stridently condemned Israeli retaliation as “savage aggression” — but they are scared the Shiites are on the ascendance and enjoy more popularity on their own streets than they do.
They’ve come to realize — even if they can’t bring themselves to admit it publicly — that the Islamists and jihadis are a far greater threat to their survival than the Israelis.
The Saudis and other secular Sunni leaders would secretly love to see Israel kill Nasrallah who, one Arab scholar suggested, might win if there were an election today for president of the Arab world.
Iran is the kingdom’s leading strategic threat and Tehran has become increasingly aggressive in the past year since Mahmoud Ahmadinejad became president. A columnist wrote in a Saudi daily, “With the Arabs standing idly by, Iran seeks to impose its control over the region.”
After Syria’s withdrawal from Lebanon last year under U.N. Resolution 1559, Washington, France and Britain failed to follow-through on the other half of that measure and press for disarming Hezbollah and deploying the Lebanese army to the south. That set up the current war.
Blocking the Shiite crescent will take more American diplomacy and hands-on involvement than the Bush administration has devoted to the Middle East in the past five-and-a-half years. Except for brief spurts of activity, the U.S. has been largely AWOL.
Many doubt whether this lame-duck administration, losing so many battles from Capitol Hill to Baghdad, is up to the job.
Arab leaders are expected to meet soon in Saudi Arabia and will be looking to see if their hosts can replicate their leadership in brokering the 1989 Taif Accords ending the Lebanon civil war. The motivation is greater now because the spillover could threaten the kingdom itself if Iran dominates the Levant and turns its attention south.
Instead of indulging in the usual anti-Zionist and anti-American rhetoric, and demands for Washington to bridle Israel, Arab leaders need to spend that time praying for an Israeli victory. Praying as if their survival depended on it, because it just might.
Douglas M. Bloomfield is a Washington, D.C.-based syndicated columnist and a former chief lobbyist for AIPAC.
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