The frequently-reviled-but-ever- fascinating Debkafile made one of its most interesting posts yet on Tuesday, revealing that a strange alliance between Mubarak (Egypt), King Abdullah (Jordan), Abu Mazen (Palestinian Authority) and Arik Sharon (Israel) was formed early this week at the Middle East summit at Sharm al-Sheik. Who knows, as ever with this website, to the degree this is true, but it certainly has interesting implications:
1. A new Middle East Club of Four came into being. With a good measure of audacity and inventiveness, this bloc could dictate the next steps towards lifting the Israel-Palestinian dispute out of its stalemate – or even play a role in other conflicts, such as Lebanon and Iraq. Mubarak hinted as much in his closing speech when he urged Israel to embrace Syria and Lebanon in its peace diplomacy. This call was taken as a token response to a request from Syrian president Bashar Assad to raise the Syrian issue at the summit. In fact, the Egyptian ruler was already beginning to weave other regional issues in with the conflict on the table.
2. The Middle East Club of Four will need to pace itself against that of the absent nations – Saudi Arabia, Syria, Turkey, all the Gulf emirates and even East Africa. Interestingly, by coming together alone, the four leaders cut themselves off from big power or even regional intervention. If the group endures long enough, it might even solidify into a distinct Egyptian-Israeli-Jordanian-Palestinian military-intelligence pact. A candidate for fifth member might be Iraq, which might find useful alternative export routes for its oil through Jordan’s Red Sea port of Aqaba and Israel’s Mediterranean ports of Haifa or Ashkelon.
I’m sure you’ll want to read it all. The Debka post concludes (with more to come on the suject):
The importance of the Sharm Four as the core of a new alliance also explains why Washington appointed an officer as senior as Lt. General William E. (Kip) Ward, deputy chief of US ground forces in Europe, as security coordinator between the United States, Israel, Egypt, Jordan and the Palestinians.
PJM Home
Pajamas Media appreciates your comments that abide by the following guidelines:
1. Avoid profanities or foul language unless it is contained in a necessary quote or is relevant to the comment.
2. Stay on topic.
3. Disagree, but avoid ad hominem attacks.
4. Threats are treated seriously and reported to law enforcement.
5. Spam and advertising are not permitted in the comments area.
The clause regarding "hate speech" has been deleted because readers criticized it as being too loosely defined. We agreed.
These guidelines are very general and cannot cover every possible situation. Please don't assume that Pajamas Media management agrees with or otherwise endorses any particular comment. We reserve the right to filter or delete comments or to deny posting privileges entirely at our discretion. If you feel your comment was filtered inappropriately, please email us at story@pajamasmedia.com.
22 Comments
1. BigFire:That’s some wild speculation. I can see a couple of problem with it. I don’t think Egypt is in any shape to go into this kind of arrangement when they have to worry about the war of Mubarak succession. PA isn’t anywhere near stable enough to dictate anything. Only Jordan and Israel are confident and stable enough to offer anything tangible.
Lets see how it goes.
Feb 9, 2005 - 6:30 pm 2. John Moore ( Useful Fools ):Common enemies make strange bedfellows…
With Debka, you never know, but this report means something – not necessarily what it says. Assuming it is true, we may have four leaders who all have a common problem: radical Islamist terrorists and Palestinian terrorists (assuming Abu Mazen has moved from the dark side).
Jordan’s population is mostly Palestinian. Egypt has issues with being on the trade route for terrorists, especially since Al Qaeda was essentially created as a result of Islamofascist terrorists in Egypt ( Dr. Zawahiri’s crowd ).
The only other big concentration of Palestinians I am aware of is in Syria’s vassal state of Lebanon.
This group could increase pressure on Syria, while badly crimping the style of the Palestinian terrorists while also hurting general Islamofascist terrorists.
The question is: what is the quid pro quo? Does Israel help Egypt deal with its internal problems? Jordan already cooperates (quietly) with Israel on this stuff. Does the group of four gain some immunity from international pressure and the growing desire for democracy in the region as Iraq demonstrated and is causing?
This is a very interesting development – as long as Debka didn’t make it up to try to trigger it, or to hide some code groups for Mossad or someone
Feb 9, 2005 - 6:32 pm 3. Harry:Just to put you straight regarding Hong Kong.
China handed over Hong Kong to the UK at the Treaty of Nanking (1842) in perpetuity. There was no lease that was due to end.
The New Territories were later added to Hong Kong (1898.) They were on a lease that ended in 1997. The Brits did not simply annex them.
The Brits handed the whole lot back in 1997, even though Hong Kong was technically under UK rule in perpetuity.
Feb 9, 2005 - 6:48 pm 4. mudmarine:Harry
That was way the heck off topic. But interesting nonetheless. Any links? Have I been bamboozled again? I loved HK for my 5 days in 1967
As to the post. I have a feeling we will be seeing many strange allegiances in the future. I do believe the word is spreading. The ‘freedom’ word that is, or perhaps, just the ‘we’re working on things GWB, just give us a little time’ meme.
Feb 9, 2005 - 7:05 pm 5. PJ:Pretty crafty, I’d say. Go Condi. I think we have brought together the four most likely purveyors of peace in the region, given them military help from NATO to clean out their security forces (okay, and lots of money) and deal with internal jihadis in concert with those who all have something to lose if they don’t act together.
Too bad our “friends” the Saudis were on holiday at their anti-Israel…I mean, anti-terrorism conference. They must be feeling a chill wind off the desert tonight.
Feb 9, 2005 - 7:23 pm 6. Ann:I heard a lot of talk a couple of years ago about a Turkey-Israel alliance. I don’t know where that stands, but if Turkey would join up to the 4, it would be great.
Feb 9, 2005 - 8:32 pm 7. heather:I think the REAL message here is that Roger L Simon really really wants to write a thriller about the War on Terror. And instead of doing that, he is trolling through the likes of Debka (there’s nothing wrong with that of course..)
Feb 9, 2005 - 9:00 pm 8. thibaud:Not as strange as it sounds. In the days when Saddam rather than democracy was the greatest threat to neighboring arab regimes, Israel served effectively as Jordan’s first line of defense. Jordan has never been particularly committed to the Palestinian cause, either, certainly not so long as memories of Arafat’s attempt to topple the Hashemites remained fresh.
As to Egypt, one can sense a similar calculus taking shape. If you’re Mubarak or one of his inner circle, your greatest fear is of course your own people. However, the prospect of a splintering of the Palestinian leadership into the de jure leadership of Abu Mazen and, in Gaza, the de facto leadership of the death cult warriors would force Egypt to pick a side.
This will happen immediately if Abu Mazen commits himself to ending the Gaza ratline and tunnels, which could push Hamas into Egypt. If Mubarak attempts to crush Hamas, he risks creating an ally for his own country’s jihadists. If Mubarak fails to help shut down Hamas, he risks cutting the legs out from under Abu Mazen.
The really interesting question is whether Condi signalled to Mubarak that his $3B-a-year Sugar Daddy’s willing to cut him off he doesn’t get on board.
Feb 9, 2005 - 9:56 pm 9. PJ:Big Pharoah from Egypt has some thoughts on this, too.
http://bigpharaoh.blogspot.com/
Feb 9, 2005 - 10:06 pm 10. Knucklehead:Can one or more of y’all clue me in to what’s in it (follow the money) for each of the players in this.
Israel/Sharon – this seems reasonably obvious. They really would like to live in their little slice of desert in peace and get no joy from spending their blood and other resources to kill, main, render homeless and otherwise make miserable some group of people called Palestinians
Jordan/Abdulah – again, somewhat obvious. They’d like the Palestinian Problem to go away since they have tons of the problem within their borders and really would like them to go somewhere else and stop wrecking the kingdom
Egypt/Mubarrak – I don’t get this one. The path to maintaining power (and passing it to his son) and securing wealth for Mubarrak is to keep control of those even loonier than him. One of the primary methods for this has been to keep those loons and their bloodlust and other criminal activity focused externally toward killing Jews
PA/Mazen – his only path to survival and, possibly, power and wealth is to make himself the central controller of the shakedown of the international (read EU and ME despots) community and share the wealth with the violent factions who run rampant. I don’t see how this alleged alliance is anything short of a death warrant for him.
Feb 10, 2005 - 6:08 am 11. rjschwarz:Egypt can see the writing on the wall, Bush will be pushing for Democracy and expecting everyone, even pseudo-allies like Egypt to make some changes in that direction. This move buys them some time to figure out if Bush is serious, and how fast and hard he’ll be pushing.
Feb 10, 2005 - 6:59 am 12. thibaud:America’s drive for “democracy promotion” = regime change, no less for Egypt than for Iran.
Mubarak’s rule is less secure than it looks, particularly if he takes tentative steps toward democratic reform. As Tocqueville wrote, “the most dangerous time for a bad government is when it seeks to reform itself.”
It will be extremely difficult for Mubarak to simultaneously resist growing calls for more democracy and still keep the violent jihadist MB movement under wraps. Add the potential mischief from a Hamas that were to turn its gunsights on his government and you have destabilization in Egypt (aka regime change).
Feb 10, 2005 - 7:13 am 13. PJ:From Bigpharoah, an Egyptian blog:
“See, Mubarak’s term will end this year and he is eyeing a sixth term. He wants to enter into his new term with as less fuss as possible. With the elections festival in Iraq and President Bush determination to push democracy in the region, Mubarak wants to decrease the pressure on him by turning himself into an Anwar Sadat.”
As for the PA, perhaps after Bush’s total blackout on Arafat, they finally believe him: a lasting peace or you’re on your own, buddy. With the US military “training” in Pali, Mazen has independent, non-Pali protection.
Feb 10, 2005 - 8:08 am 14. Sandy P:Isn’t there also a huge water shortage looming?
Can’t solve it w/o Israel and money. Maybe Hosni’s also looking at what history will have to say about him.
Feb 10, 2005 - 10:16 am 15. Kevin P:Roger:
My thought on the whole ME situation is that anything is possible, both bad or good. There is no way to know the true intentions of the major players and whether these peace feelers are realistic or if they are just a temporary pause in the war. So I am hopefull but extremely cautious.
I find it funny that all this is happening without a formal mega summit or a formal middle east envoy. We were told by most of the experts that President Bush was not paying attention to the problem and that he needed to try to copy the failed Camp David model. Whether peace breaks out is anyone’s guess but I strongly feel that President Bush’s refusal to bend to the MSM cries to copy the Clinton model and his steadfast refusal to deal with Arafat sent a strong message to the Palestinians that they could not count on playing the same double game of signing accords and using the American political system to avoid responsibilities for crushing Hamas. Bush set firm goals for peace and then had the self control to not intefere with the self defense operations of Israel. I think this sent a message to the Palestinians that they had to get off their butt or Bush was going to let them stew in their own misery. The game isn’t over but it seems the pattern of big summit followed by big dissapointment is over.
Feb 10, 2005 - 10:17 am 16. Kyda Sylvester:Is it just me or do the Bushies seem to have a real knack for this stuff?
Doe anyone know when Mubarak extended the invitation to Sharon? Was it before or after the SOTU?
Feb 10, 2005 - 10:44 am 17. Bruce W.:The most important thing was to get that first meeting done. It served a similar purpose as the surprise transfer of power from the CPA in Iraq last summer. Get it done, without incident, and move on from there. Handshakes are important, even more so when the world has not been taking odds for days before hand on whether the parties would dare do so or not.
Although some level of U.S. involvement is key to long term success here, it’s physical presence will hardly ever be. Setting aside for a moment that Arafat may never have been able to bring himslef to a peace deal, one of Clinton’s big mistakes was thinking that his presence would make the feuding Semites “play nice.”
Sadat and Begin had much of their historic deal in place before their coming out party with Jimmy…that treaty being the result of private meetings between serious parties. While certainly not as super-private, I hope Tuesday’s meeting was indeeed the beginning of seriousness.
Feb 10, 2005 - 11:27 am 18. Matt Evans:The seeming lack of interest about this by posters indicates to me one thing- we don’t trust the Arab world. We’ve heard the BS and the platitudes and the promises from the PLO, from Saudi Arabia, from Egypt, from Syria and what do we have to show for it ? What does Israel have to show for it ? Dead citizens and huge amounts of money spend to hunt down and confront radical islam, state sponsored or otherwise.
The fact that over a billion tax dollars is paid to the egyptians to keep them friendly chafes my ass everytime I think about it. I heard yesterday we’ll be donating 40 million dollars to the Palestinians- and for what ? So they won’t kill Jews.
The governments in the middle east care only for staying in power. Does anybody truly believe that any coalition of Arab nations will truly work for peace with Israel and the rest of the world ?
Feb 11, 2005 - 4:28 am 19. Pat Curley:Rog, no posts for the last two days? Hope you haven’t been laid low by this doggone flu bug that has hit Hugh Hewitt, John Hinderaker and me?
Feb 11, 2005 - 7:31 am 20. Knucklehead:Pat,
Last we him he was headed off to chat with France2. I’m thinkin’ DGSE here.
Feb 11, 2005 - 7:51 am 21. OJ:The idea of an alliance of sort between Israel, Jordan, Palestine and Egypt is at first sight implausible. Yet when you account for the shifting political tide in the region and consider that the opposing pact, Syria and Iran, do not make for good alternatives the thought seems less radical. Stranger alliances have emerged in Europe and former enemies with the US are now our staunchest supporters.
This is probably not a relationship which will blossom in the next year or two. The work done now may, however, lay a foundation for extending military and intelligence as well as financial cooperation over the next decade. I would assume that Iraq will indeed be included. Should this emerge as pseudo-alliance, Kuwait will probably also join.
Interesting topic!
http://www.RightViews.com
Feb 11, 2005 - 7:58 am 22. Otter:Ann:
I heard a lot of talk a couple of years ago about a Turkey-Israel alliance. I don’t know where that stands, but if Turkey would join up to the 4, it would be great.
Turkey and Israel are still on pretty friendly terms — the Islamist party now in power has cooled things off a bit, but more in terms of talk than in real-world actions.
That said, Turkey isn’t especially relevant here as 1) it’s a long way away, 2) they have no major Palestinian connection and 3) they’re not Arabs.
Feb 13, 2005 - 3:52 pm