The Mideast is stumbling into one of its most dangerous crisis in decades.  I’m just back from the region – and as an old Mideast hand,  I am very worried.

This region is always tense, but right now a series of separate conflicts are rapidly beginning to intersect.   We see the Mideast, North Africa and the Sahara buffeted by revolutions and counter-revolutions.  Old colonial powers France and Britain, and the US,  are trying to reassert their domination in the region. The jihadist are back.

In a brazen act of war, Israel launched airstrikes on Syria last Wednesday in a clear attempt to worsen the crisis in that war-torn nation and challenge Syria’s ally, Iran.  Israel’s forces are on high alert and may invade Syria, whose strategic Golan Heights were seized and annexed by Israel.   Will more Syrian land follow?

Goaded by Israel, Iran thundered “any attack on Syria is an attack on Iran.”   An Iranian general warned Tel Aviv might come under attack.  Hot air, as they say in Farsi.   Separated from ally Syria by Iraq,  Iran’s not very mobile ground forces would be unable to intervene in Syria in any substantial way.  Israel’s air force would devastate any Iranian columns advancing in open terrain.

Iran’s feeble air force is barely operational after decades of crushing embargos by the United States and its allies.    Tehran’s dilapidated warplanes are far more menacing to their pilots than their enemies. Iran’s passenger airliners are flying coffins thanks to the US embargo of new aircraft and spare parts.

The only way Iran could strike at Israel is by firing medium-ranged Shahab-III missiles and a small number of Sajjil-2 solid propellant missiles.   Both are inaccurate.  Their 750-1,000 kg conventional warheads  would only do limited damage – unless they made a lucky hit on  Israel’s heavily defended Dimona nuclear reactor.

Israel estimates that a major Iranian non-nuclear strike would only cause a few hundred casualties. Israel is fast deploying a multi-layer anti-missile system: the Arrow-III, which has shown high hit probability in tests against missile warheads.  The low level Iron Dome system, which had an 80% hit probability against rockets fired from Gaza, and the new, highly accurate David’s Sling high altitude system, and more systems in the pipeline, give Israel’s the world’s most advanced and accurate anti-missile system that could be relied on to knock down a majority of incoming missiles from far-away Iran.

More important,  Israel would quickly counter-attack once its powerful radars (and a US-manned X-band radar based in Israel that can scan Iran) spot missile being launched by Tehran.  Israel has its own arsenal of accurate medium-ranged missiles, armed drones,  its powerful air force, and satellites watching Iran.

How would Israel know that an incoming Iranian missile was conventionally armed and not carrying a nuclear warhead?  Rather than gamble, Israel would probably hit Iran with its own nuclear arsenal, including nuclear-tipped cruise missiles fired by Israeli submarines lurking in the Red Sea and Indian Ocean.

Iran is not believed to have nuclear warheads – but how can Israel really be sure since it successfully concealed its own nuclear program from the United States.

Meanwhile, Egypt threatens to turn into another Syria.  The chief of staff of Egypt’s armed forces just warned his strife-torn nation is on the “brink of collapse.”  Conservative Arab nations, the US and Britain are fuelling a counter-revolution by Mubarakist forces and Christians.  Egypt’s economy has all but collapsed, igniting violent social unrest. A coup may be  imminent.

Syria is teetering on the brink of national collapse.  The Assad government has no popularity beyond its Alawi base, but half of Syrians don’t want to live in an Islamic state and fear what will happen to them if insurgent forces seize power.  Syria’s economy has almost ceased to function.  This bloody civil war threatens to turn Syria into a larger version of the ghastly 1975-1990 Lebanese civil war that I covered.

Russia is growling in the background.  Syria, recall, is as close to Russia’s southern border as northern Mexico is to Texas.   Washington is underestimating Russia’ growing anger.   Israel is still determined to push the US into war against Iran.  The Turks can’t decide whether to be neutrals or reborn Ottomans.  Caution: danger ahead.

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copyright  Eric S. Margolis 2013

A year ago, I was mixing with demonstrators in Cairo’s Tahrir Square calling for an end to Mubarak’s dictatorship and democracy for Egypt’s 84 million people.

Being a natural-born firebrand,  I find most revolutions intoxicating – if almost inevitably disappointing or even ghastly.

What a difference a year makes. Tahrir Square is now packed with Egyptians protesting against the new revolutionary government led by the elected president, Mohamed Morsi.  Egypt is in political turmoil.

Morsi was fresh from brokering a cease-fire in Gaza that earned fulsome praise for him from Washington which had until then been cool to Egypt’s first ever democratically-elected president.   Islamist Morsi then turned around and staged a bombshell auto-coup.

Morsi issued a decree granting him extensive – critics charge dictatorial – powers that exempts all of Morsi’s decisions and those of the elected constituent assembly from challenge by Egypt’s courts and other high government institutions.  The decree is valid until  a new parliament is elected.

Howls of “dictatorship” came from Egypt and from many nations abroad – the very same nations that warmly collaborated with Mubarak’s ugly dictatorship for 30 years.  Foes of the Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood cried, “you see, you can’t trust those Islamists.”

All this is very curious.  So far, Morsi has moved with extreme prudence to implement free elections, reassure Christians and secular liberals, and deftly break the iron grip of Egypt’s  bloated armed forces.  Few believed that the colorless, low-key Morsi,  a former political prisoner, would be able to out-manoeuver Egypt’s powerful,  US-backed generals.  But he did, with deftness and remarkable skill, getting younger senior officers to gently oust the pharaonic old guard.

Morsi managed to reign in the armed forces and return Egypt to civilian control. But, until this week, Morsi and his allies in the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party were unable to oust an entrenched cadre of Mubarak-appointed officials and henchmen in the judiciary, security police, academia, media and the diplomatic corps.

They constitute what is known as Egypt’s “deep government,” the real power in the nation that reported directly to Mubarak’s entourage.

This parallel regime had thwarted many of Morsi’s efforts to reform the corrupt ruling system, construct a truly democratic republic, and break the hold of Egypt’s pampered, westernized  urban elite who enjoyed almost total political and economic power under Mubarak.

Egypt’s “deep government” very closely resembles a similar Kemalist secular ruling structure in Turkey that controlled the powerful military, security services, courts, universities, media, big business cartels, and Islamic religious institutions. – and was closely allied to the US and Israel.

Breaking the grip of the Turkey’s “deep government” took now PM Recep Erdogan and his AK Party ten years of patient siege – longer than Sultan Mehmet to capture Constantinople.   Erdogan finally managed to put the military and security forces under civilian control, free much of the economy from the Kemalist elite, and turn Turkey into a impressive if not perfect modern democracy -  generating a 7%growth rate.

President Morsi us now trying this same shock therapy for Egypt, which desperately needs to be shaken up and modernized.  His biggest problem: Egypt can’t feed itself nor generate funds to import food.  So Cairo is forced to rely on the United States and, now, Saudi Arabia and the UAE, for a financial lifeline.

Spare parts and munitions for Egypt’s US-equipped military are kept scarce by Washington, meaning it can maintain internal security but not fight Israel or any other power.

Now, however, the formerly cautious, plodding Morsi has staged a coup of sorts to purge what he calls the Mubarakist “weeviles’ thwarting reform.  Could the cure be worse than the disease?

Morsi’s coup has scared a lot of Egyptians and done nothing to burnish the reputation of political Islamists.   While his thunderous action is in good part understandable, he should  have taken a slower, more patient Turkish approach.  His abrupt action causes his many domestic and foreign foes to unite against him.

Maybe Mohamed Morsi will indeed renounce his newly assumed powers once a democratic parliament opens and a new constitution enacted.  If he does, he will be hailed as a second Pericles or George Washington.

Alas, as Lord Acton so famously and wisely warned, “all power corrupts; ultimate power corrupts absolutely.”

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For German translation of above column, please go to : http://antikrieg.com/aktuell/2012_11_24_inkairo.htm

copyright  Eric S. Margolis 2012

Welcome Mali, our newest crisis! Open your maps.

Mali is a huge, arid nation extending from the Sahara Desert and Algeria’s border in the north to the steamy south along the Niger River. Most of Mali’s 14.5 million people eke out an existence farming and fishing.

France used to rule Mali as part of its West African Empire, and still has deep financial, military, commercial and intelligence interests in the region.

Not so long ago, France installed West African leaders, financed them, and kept them in power using small garrisons of tough Foreign Legionnaires.  Secret payments continue today. Spooks from France’s DGSE intelligence agency, and “special advisors” are active behind the scenes in West Africa as well as North Africa.

The US has been rapidly expanding its influence in France’s former African sphere of influence, both in a drive for resources and to block China’s growing activity on the continent.

Arid Northern Mali was a backwater in France’s colonial empire.  Last March, Tuareg and militant Islamic militias seized Mali’s vast north.  US-trained army officers then overthrew the elected civilian government in Bamako of Amadou Touré.

Tuareg are fierce desert nomads often called the “blue men of the Sahara” because their skins become tinted by the blue veils they always wear to cover their faces.   French colonial troops and Legionnaires battled the Tuareg throughout the 19^th century and half of the 20^th in a romantic little struggle on which the famed Victorian novel, “Beau Geste” was based.

The Tuareg want their own state, Azawad, carved from northern Mali, and bits of southern Algeria and Mauritania.   Call them the Kurds of the Sahara.

Militant Islamists, led by Ansar Din, first joined the Tuareg fighters, but then pushed them out,  seizing the fabled city of Timbuktu.  These angry Islamists set about destroying ancient tombs of assorted local saints, producing huge indignation from westerners who could not find Timbuktu on a map if their lives depended on it.  Orthodox Muslims denounce  worship of saints as blasphemy and idolatry.

Western media immediately branded Ansar Din “linked to al-Qaida” without any real proof.  These days, anyone we don’t like is “linked to al-Qaida,” a tiny groups that barely exists any more.  However, lurking behind the next sand dune may be Al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb, a small, violent anti-western movement from Algeria  that has nothing to do with the original al-Qaida but expropriated its name.

A French-backed UN Security Council vote for military intervention in Mali to oust the rebels is imminent.   France wants the West African economic group ECOWAS to lead the charge.  But this is merely the kind of “coalition” fig-leaf favored by the US in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya.  Any real fighting and transport will be done by French military units from Europe or bases in central Africa and Chad.  And, of course, the Legion.

Washington has a different plan.  The US wants to follow the model it is using to fight Somalia’s Shebab movement.  In the last four years, the US has spent some $600 million to rent an African proxy force of 20,000 Ugandan, Ethiopian and Kenyan soldiers to invade Somalia and battle  Shebab.

Washington plans a similar strategy in Mali, led by its sexy new star, Africa Command.  Nigeria is expected to play a key role;  Morocco and Algeria may contribute troops.

All this seems like a lot of effort to combat a bunch of Saharan tribesmen and trouble-makers in pickup trucks in a place whose main city, Timbuktu, is a synonym for remoteness and obscurity.  No matter.  The US and French media are dutifully raising alarms about the “Islamic threat” from deepest Sahara – in part to distract from domestic economic woes.

Is the US ready to wage yet another little conflict – on credit?  Doesn’t Washington have enough conflicts?  Apparently not.

Mali could get nasty: neighbors Algeria, Mauritania, Burkina Faso, and Ivory Coast are unstable. The Saharawi of Western Sahara have fought for decades against Morocco for their own state. They are backed by Algeria.

Into this potential tinder box France and the US are preparing to charge.  “On to Timbuktu” goes out the battle cry of the latest obscure crusade.

Copyright  Eric S. Margolis 2012

For German translation of this article please go to: http://antikrieg.com/aktuell/2012_10_13_huetet.htm