As years go by

22^nd December 2006

The Malta Independent - Friday Wisdom

Another Christmas, another year! Time flies away so quickly. The year 2006 will soon be consigned to history. Sports enthusiasts will remember it as the year of the World Cup in Germany where Italy defied most odds and won a coveted prize from the clutches of Brazil that were considered as unchallengeable favourites.

Yet 2006 will probably be remembered for much more serious issues of life and death, war and peace, poverty or prosperity. In particular two new realities came to be in 2006 which will undoubtedly influence the developments of international relations for the years ahead. Both events are somehow related. Firstly 2006 was the year when Americans joined the rest of the world in the long held view that the war in Iraq is un-winnable for the US and allied forces. It is the year where the US has been frozen in Iraq in a quasi desperate situation where they know that they cannot reach their invasion objectives, but at the same time they cannot afford to leave without risking that Iraq tears itself apart in a religious civil war which will increase Iran’s influence in the region and threaten the stability of oil exports so indispensable for the world economy.

It is the year when Americans finally realised they elected the wrong president who led them into a cul-de-sac in international relations and brought to the fore the limitations of the undoubted military superiority power of the world’s sole superpower. It is the year when the Americans were forced to abandon their policy of staying the course in Iraq whatever the consequences, to the realisation of the imperativeness of seeking a more tolerable diplomatic solution by engaging Iraq’s neighbours in such negotiations.

The other major development is related. The 33-day war of Israel on Lebanon again exposed the limitations of using military power to obtain diplomatic concessions from non-state organisations like Hezbollah, whose value of life, even their own, is much lower than that of organised state powers and can therefore afford human shields, suicide bombers and other such like strategies to cultivate international pressure against the organised military force being used against them.

With the effective use of America’s international military power and Israel’s regional war capabilities substantially dented by these two events and with Iran strengthening its influence in the region not least through the use of the substantial money flows from its oil resources, it is fair to wonder whether Iran, and Syria, are not the real winners of wars they are involved in only by proxies.

There is nothing to suggest much confidence in the thesis that if Iran and Syria are engaged in multilateral discussions at diplomatic level to influence a negotiated settlement on the issues of Iraq and Palestine, the price they would expect for such engagement would be one that the international community should be prepared to pay. Iran will probably insist on its right to become a nuclear power in the region and Syria is likely to insist on its continued hegemony over Lebanon.

America’s impotence through the loss of the deterrent value of its military force, coupled with that of Israel’s following the unsuccessful Lebanon invasion, which has failed in all its major objectives, is leaving a dangerous void in the Middle East which does not augur well for future stability in the region based on the continued democratic development of its single constituents.

This void must be filled and it is the duty of the European Union and other European states not to allow this void to be filled by those whose values are not anchored on democratic principles and who think they can impose their fundamental religious beliefs on the entire Middle East region and then proceed to fight an oil war against western democracies.

A solution to the oil issue is an indispensable chip in the equation for a lasting solution in the Middle East. We are presently caught in a dangerous spiral where the more instability anti-western oil states create, the richer they become as the oil prices start reflecting a premium for the prospective instability of future supplies. This circle needs to be broken.

Inevitably the prize for breaking this circle is the re-emergence of Russia as a power at world level. As a non-Opec member Russia will be a crucial provider of energy exports to stabilise supply disruptions that could result from Middle East instability. Engaging Russia at international level and accepting that democracy in Russia cannot achieve perfection instantly and that occasionally lapses into autocracy are unavoidable in order to keep controlled development towards a working democracy, are essential for smoothening international relations.

But the bulk of the void needs to be filled by the EU. The success of engagement of former communist states into full membership is remarkable. In spite of short-term pain the long-term gain is there for all to see as the EU economy is now growing and is more competitive than it would have been without the enlargement to the East. Without fixing unrealistic time schedules the enlargement to the east must continue. The process of engagement itself would bring stability among neighbouring states. Without such stability the EU will have socially upsetting waves of illegal immigration and conflicts with bordering states.

May this Christmas bring peace to everyone. May world leaders reflect during this Christmas break on the need to lay down arms and work for peace through long-term diplomatic engagement. May they come to realise that the road for peace in Baghdad passes through Palestine and Israel rather than the misguided Bush strategy that the road for peace in Palestine passes through Baghdad. Tony Blair was always right; he was simply not forceful enough to make George W. Bush see the light and is finishing his career paying a price for a misguided policy he intrinsically never really believed in.