Volker Perthes: Stagnant situation could lead to war

Published on Wednesday 28 July 2010 15:45

FUAD Siniora, Lebanon's former prime minister, is a thoughtful man with deep experience in Middle Eastern politics.

So when he speaks of "trains with no drivers that seem to be on a collision course," as he recently did at a private meeting in Berlin, interested parties should probably prepare for unwanted developments. Of course, no-one in the region is calling for war. But a pre-war mood is growing.

Four factors, none of them new but each destabilising on its own, are compounding one another: lack of hope, dangerous governmental policies, a regional power vacuum, and the absence of active external mediation.

It may be reassuring that most Palestinians and Israelis still favour a two-state solution. It is less reassuring that most have lost hope that such a solution will materialise. Add to this that by September, the partial settlement freeze, which Israel's government has accepted, will expire, and the period set by the Arab League for the proximity talks between the Palestinians and Israelis, which have not seriously begun, will also be over.

Serious direct negotiations are unlikely to begin without a freeze on settlement building, which Israel's prime minister Netanyahu is unlikely to announce, given resistance within his coalition government. Syria, which until the end of 2008 was engaged in its own Turkish-mediated proximity talks with Israel, does not expect a resumption of talks with Israel anytime soon. This may be one reason why Syrian president Bashar al-Assad mentions war as an option, as he recently did in Madrid.

Moreover, Israelis and people close to Hezbollah in Lebanon are talking about "another round," while many pundits in the Middle East believe that a limited war could unblock a stagnant political situation.

Their point of reference is the 1973 war, which helped to bring about peace between Egypt and Israel. But the wars that followed, and the latest wars in the region - the Lebanon war of 2006 and the Gaza war of December 2008 - do not support this reckless theory.

Iran, whose influence is not so much the cause of unresolved problems in the Middle East as the result of them, continues to defy UN sanctions.

In the Arab world, there is currently no power able to project stability beyond its own borders. It will take time before Iraq will play a role again. The Saudi reform agenda concerns domestic issues. Egypt's political stagnation has reduced its influence. Qatar over-estimates its strength.

The only regional power in the Middle East today is Iran, but it is not a stabilising force. The Arab states are aware of this - but they are also fearful of a war between Israel or the United States and Iran.

Indeed, dynamics in the Middle East today are driven by three states, none of which is Arab: Israel, Iran, and Turkey. In recent years, Turkey tried to mediate between Israel and Syria, Israel and Hamas, opposing factions in Lebanon, and lately between Iran and the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany.

But the Turkish government has increasingly allowed itself to be dragged into Middle East conflicts, rather than as an honest broker.

The Obama administration had a strong start with respect to the Middle East. But Obama's "outstretched hand" to Iran has turned into a fist, and his attempts to encourage Israeli-Palestinian negotiations seem stuck.

And the European Union? There has not been much crisis-prevention diplomacy from Brussels or from Europe's national capitals.

Twenty years ago, in the run-up to Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, many saw signs of a looming crisis. But Arab and Western players somehow managed to convince themselves that things would not get out of hand. But out of hand they got.

•Volker Perthes is Chairman and Director of the German Institute for International and Security Affairs, Berlin.