The Clock on Iran Ticks Faster with the Russian Anti-Aircraft Missile Deployment in Iran

The Associated Press has now confirmed the Russian arms sale of its Tor M-1 sophisticated anti-aircraft/anti-missile missiles to Iran, expecting the first batteries to become combat operational in approximately six months. This will increase the cost/reduce the odds of success of any US, Israeli or joint western air attack meant to disrupt and delay production of Iranian nuclear weapons. This thereby further shortens the amount of time that diplomats will have in order to find some sort of peaceful, face-saving solution to the Iranian nuclear mess -- where we may have had a year or two (if we were lucky) for sanctions and carrots to work, now the timing comes down to 6-9 months before an effective military option may have to be deployed, at least if the Israelis convince us that they are willing to "go it alone" on Iran (because their capabilities to hit Iran with missiles and planes is nowhere near as robust as our own, the Israelis would feel compelled to attack sooner rather than later -- the US could afford to wait longer to attack even at the risk of making the mission tougher due to further deployment of these Russian missiles).

What does all this mean? If you are the Iranians, you want to keep Israel and the West back on our heels with other concerns, as much as possible in 2007, as follows:

--the further breakup of Lebanon into Civil War,
--Hezbullah-Israel War 2 with a greater contribution from Gaza of a "second front" effort (the nascent cease fire in Gaza, just announced but not implemented yet by the Palestinians, could be an attempt to gain a resupply "breather" for Hamas to prepare for this war), and
--more civil war trouble in Iraq (while Iran engages us with Syria in talks on this subject, just to better confuse things).

I also would not exclude the possibility of an assassination or major terrorist threat to King Abdullah in Jordan (in fact, he warned in an interview this weekend of the threat of the "three civil wars" referenced above). To combat these threats, the moderate Sunnis (principally Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Jordan) together with the US foreign policy "braintrust" better get off the shnide quickly to get ahead of these matters. For the past three years, through a complete failing of leadership and imagination by our leaders, we have found ourselves in reaction mode, rather than setting the agenda. We don't have much more time left to fix this. My prescription:

--A Saudi ($$$) and Egyptian (manpower)-led Arab League conference to look to "throwing the US" out of Iraq as quickly as possible (not quickly enough for us), deploy Arab League peacekeepers in Iraq to oversee the tacit separation of Shiites and Sunnis, most likely involving population swaps (which are already occurring) and protection of oil resources. This gives the West another alternative to letting Iran run the table in Iraq (which is where we are now headed), and is in the Saudi's (and other status quo conservative regimes') best interests.

--In light of the Gemayel assassination and the total resupply of Hezbullah in Lebanon under the UN's watchful eyes (As bragged about by Hezbullah), weneed to talk seriously to the French and other European participants about ways to reformulate the UN peacekeeping forces to save Lebanon from spiralling into civil war and retard Hezbullah's ability to make trouble. The French have a keen former colonial interest in this endeavor (that we, a non-colonialist country, will never understand).

--Unite with the French, the Saudis, Jordan and Egypt to "force" the Israelis to meet with the Syrians without preconditions (as the Syrians have finally offered), with the involvement of those other parties (i.e., not just Israel and Syria), becuase the issues are many -- Lebanon, Syria's support of Hamas, Hezbullah and Iran, and peace with Israel. Do I expect a grand bargain leading to Israel's relinquishment of the Golan Heights or in a total cleaving of Syrian relations with Iran? Not in this generation, but we do know that Assad desperately seeks liberalization of his economy, and meetings such as these can yield incremental progress that can help strengthen Assad's hand in Syria against the more reactionary elements that limit his freedom of action.

--Move forward with providing broader Arab support (from Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States, as well as Arab moderates of North Africa -- Egypt maybe more problematic) for a closer Jordanian involvment in stabilizing the Palestinian mess, first in the West Bank, and then on to Gaza. The concept is to go back to the Jordanian Confederation plan, bringing the Palestinian territories (adjusted for land and population swaps of Southern Galilee Israeli Arab lands for the several major Jewish population blocks in the West Bank) under the trusteeship of the Jordanians, who would maintain security for the Israelis and Palestinians in the territories, and hopefully move them towards eventual full independence from Jordan sometime in the future. This might be approached in steps -- for this to really work, the Arab states would have to get behind abolishing the "right of return" of Palestinians to Israel proper in exchange for the larger number of Jews forced out of Arab lands with Israel's establishment, and some agreement on Jordanian/Palestinian presence in Jerusalem. Little known fact: the Jordanians already control religious jurisdiction over the Temple Mount/Dome of the Rock, and that, combined with joint patrols of that area, and Jordanian political control (and joint Israeli-Jordanian military control) of areas of East Jerusalem, may do it.

Anyway, I am not saying any of this would work, but it has to be tried fast, or it is going to be a very tough 2007 for the Middle East, the world and global capital markets, which have begun to get dangerously lazy and ignore the potential impact of major geopolitical events.