The Club de Monaco must be one of the most exclusive in the world because its members – all heavyweights of international politics -- meet for just one weekend a year in the exquisite setting of the Hotel de Paris at Monte Carlo.
The aim of the Club is to bring together government ministers, secretaries-general of international organisations, European Commissioners, ambassadors, foreign affairs pundits and similar men and women of distinction to exchange views frankly and informally on the great questions of the moment, especially as they refer to the Middle East and the Mediterranean basin.
The rules of the Club do not allow me to name names or attribute views to the various high-powered members who attend. So I propose instead to take you behind the scenes of the recent meeting because, as is often the case at such gatherings, what is said privately in the lobbies is often as interesting as what is said in the conference room.
Inevitably, this year’s meeting was dominated by three main issues of great topicality: Should the United States stay in Iraq or withdraw? Should it talk to Iran or attack it? And, what should be done to revive the moribund Arab-Israeli peace process?
Almost immediately, I came up against a paradox. Most people would argue that there can be no peace in Iraq until the United States admits defeat and gets out. An American withdrawal would satisfy the main demand of the insurgents, thereby removing one major strand from the complex tissue of conflicts afflicting that country.
On this view, the Pentagon should announce a timetable for a phased withdrawal, tied to progress in rebuilding Iraq’s army and police forces. The fact that six American helicopters, vital for the movement of troops, have been shot down in recent weeks suggests that the insurgents are upgrading their weapons. A delay in pulling out can only mean more casualties and still greater expenditure.
An American withdrawal would also force Iraq’s warring factions and its six antagonistic neighbours to hammer out a compromise acceptable to all. That, at least, is the theory. But when one probes deeper, one finds that not many people actually want the Americans to leave -- at least not yet. For many, the time is not yet ripe.
Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States are worried that a precipitate US withdrawal would lead to a massacre of Sunnis by Shi‘is, forcing them to intervene, which they are understandably reluctant to do. No one is keen to stick their finger into the Iraqi hornet’s nest. Syria may want the Americans out of Iraq, but not if that will expose it to attack.
One would have thought that Iran would be extremely glad to see the Americans depart. That is what Iranian leaders have repeatedly said. This has led many to fear that Tehran wishes to drive out the Americans in order to replace America’s regional hegemony with its own. But this is neither likely nor even possible.
It is often forgotten that the antipathy between Arabs and Persians is centuries old and cannot easily be overcome. Even though Iraq’s present leaders are mainly Shi‘a, and even though several of them took refuge for many years in Iran to escape Saddam Hussein’s repression, they are not ready to submit to Iranian dictation. On both sides of the border memories of the eight-year Iran-Iraq war are still too painful.
The last thing Iran wants is an Iraqi revival under a strong leader at the head of a strong army. It would far rather the United States stayed a while longer in Baghdad to keep the Iraqis down -- or rather, if one is cynical, to destroy the country further, and delay the day when a united Iraq might again pose a threat.
When Saddam Hussein attacked Iran in 1980, he tore up the 1975 Algiers Accord whereby he conceded the Shah’s claim that the thalweg, or median line in the Shatt al-Arab, become the common border between them. Saddam later complained that he had been forced to accept the agreement in order to put an end to Iran’s support for Mustafa Barzani’s Kurdish insurgents, then waging a bitter war against Baghdad.
So much is history. But what is new and striking is that today’s Maliki government in Baghdad also refuses to recognise the 1975 Algiers agreement! That is a small but significant indication that Iraq is not about to surrender to Iran.
In truth, there is no great enthusiasm among Iraq’s neighbours for a rapid US withdrawal because each fears that it may be to the other’s advantage. As for the myriad militias fighting each other inside Iraq, they do not seem ready to put away their guns. As the 15-year long Lebanese civil war demonstrated, conflicts of this sort have an inner dynamic which needs to run its course before a settlement can be reached.
However tragic the Iraqi situation may be, and however great the human misery, the conflict may not yet be ‘mature’ enough for a settlement. Factions and states inside and outside the country are still jockeying for power. The prize is too great for these actors to give up the struggle.
It needs to be said, however, that in everyone’s mind is the fear that a sectarian conflict between Shi‘is and Sunnis could spill over from Iraq into the whole region, from Pakistan and Afghanistan to the Gulf States, and to Lebanon. It is this terrible anxiety which may bring Iraq’s neighbours and many other interested parties to accept Iraq’s invitation to a conference in Baghdad later this month. It will at least have the advantage of bringing the US face to face across the conference table with Iran and Syria.
I observed another paradox at Monte Carlo. Everyone believes it would be utter folly for the United States to attack Iran. It would set the whole region on fire, disrupt the oil flow, plunge the industrial world into recession, give an enormous boost to terrorism. So grave would be the consequences that such a war is virtually impossible to imagine.
And yet, judging from conversations in the lobbies, the possibility of war has by no means been ruled out. Some conferees, who had recently been in Moscow, reported that President Vladimir Putin believes an American attack on Iran is coming. His speech last month, harshly critical of American policy, is believed to have been intended as a warning to the United States to draw back from the brink.
In his present desperate mood, President George W. Bush may believe that to win in Iraq, he must first deal Iran a knock out blow. He may be ready to take such a gamble. Israel and its influential friends in Washington are pressing him to attack Iran -- much as they pressed him to attack Iraq.
Washington’s pro-Israeli neo-conservatives are playing their last card. In thrall to a geopolitical fantasy conceived in the 1990s, they imagined that the overthrow of Saddam Hussein would trigger a political revolution across the Arab world, which would destroy Islamic radicalism, Arab nationalism and Palestinian militancy, making the whole region pro-American and pro-Israeli. Their dream has faded, but they remain dangerous. Their influence on Bush should not be underestimated.
As for a possible re-launch of the moribund Arab-Israeli peace process, I must report that the mood in the lobbies was distinctly gloomy. Serious doubts were expressed about whether US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice had the personal authority or the backing in Washington to bring Israel to the negotiating table. Her eight visits to the region have yielded next to nothing.
The recent summit between Israel’s Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian Authority President Mahmud Abbas resulted in nothing but an angry exchange. The Israelis scorn the long-term hudna or truce which Hamas has offered. They still clamour for Hamas to recognise Israel’s right to exist -- although they themselves stubbornly refuse to recognise the Palestinians’ right to an independent state. I was amazed to hear an Israeli utter the old, shop-soiled complaint: "How can you negotiate with someone who wants to kill you!" when it is the Israelis themselves who are doing most of the killing.
On present form, there will be no shortage of problems for next year’s Club de Monaco to debate.
Patrick Seale is a leading British writer on the Middle East, and the author of The Struggle for Syria; also, Asad of Syria: The Struggle for the Middle East; and Abu Nidal: A Gun for Hire.
Operation Breakfast Redux