Ayatollah for a Day

I war-gamed an Israeli strike on Iran -- and it got ugly.

By Karim Sadjadpour

The International Atomic Energy Agency's new report on Iran's nuclear program asserts that Tehran "has carried out ... activities that are relevant to the development of a nuclear explosive device" and that the agency sees "strong indicators of possible weapon development." In other words, the IAEA has finally reached the same conclusions that Israel first reached in 1995. So should we really be worried about an Israeli strike now?

Historically, there has been an inverse correlation between Israeli saber rattling and military action, but senior Obama administration officials consistently confirm in private meetings that they take "very seriously" the prospect of an Israeli attack on Iran's nuclear sites.

Think of it like this: In one way -- and one way only -- the potential of an Israeli military strike on Iran is akin to a Herman Cain presidency. Its likelihood is slim, but the potential consequences are too dramatic to ignore.

Although the precise strategy Israel would employ to carry out such an operation is debatable, its objective -- to avert a nuclear-armed Tehran -- is crystal clear. What's less clear is how Tehran would react and with what aim. Would the Iranian regime be strengthened or weakened internally? Would it respond with fury or restraint?

To probe these questions, the Brookings Institution in late 2009 assembled two dozen former senior U.S. government officials and Middle East specialists for a daylong simulation of the political and military consequences that would result from an Israeli military strike against Iran's nuclear program.

The simulation was conducted as a three-move game, with Israeli, U.S., and Iranian teams, each representing their government's top national security officials. The members of the U.S. team had all served in senior positions in the U.S. government; the Israeli team was composed of a half-dozen experts on Israel, including former senior U.S. officials with close ties to senior Israeli decision-makers; the Iranian team was composed of a half-dozen specialists, including people who had either lived in Tehran or served as U.S. officials with responsibility for Iran.

I had the unenviable task of trying to channel Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

The simulation was premised on a surprise Israeli military strike -- absent U.S. knowledge or consent -- on Iran's nuclear facilities, motivated by the breakdown of nuclear negotiations, the ineffectiveness of sanctions, and newfound intelligence of secret Iranian weapons activity. In other words, pretty close to what we have before us now.

Arguably, the strongest argument against an attack on Iran is a question of simple mathematics. According to Israeli estimates, a strike would, at best, set back Tehran's nuclear clock by just two to three years -- but it would likely resuscitate the fortunes of a deeply unpopular, ideologically bankrupt Iranian regime, prolonging its shelf life by another decade or generation. As one Iranian democracy activist once told me, Israel and the United States should "focus less on the gun and more on the bandit trying to obtain the gun." Bombing Iran, he said, would strengthen the bandit, not weaken it -- and only increase his desire to get the gun.

Iran's nuclear sites are purposely built close to population centers, but in the simulation, the Israeli strike managed to cause only a small number of civilian casualties. Nonetheless, one of my immediate reactions was to order Iranian state television to show graphic images of the "hundreds of innocent martyrs" -- focusing on the women and children -- in order to incite outrage against Israel and attempt to convert Iranian nationalism into solidarity with the regime.

To further that goal, we then invited the symbolic leadership of the opposition -- Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi (both of whom are now under house arrest), as well as former President Mohammad Khatami -- onto state television to furiously condemn Israel and pledge allegiance to the government. Instead of widening Iran's deep internal fractures -- both between political elites and between the people and the regime -- the Israeli military strike helped repair them.

I asked a longtime aide to Karroubi about the plausibility of the above scenario. He said that an Israeli strike on Iran would be "10 times worse" -- in terms of eliciting popular anger -- than a U.S. strike and agreed that it would likely bring recognized opposition figures in concert with the government, strengthening the state's capacity to respond.

And respond we did. I went into the exercise believing that the Iranian regime's response to an Israeli military strike -- despite many predictions otherwise -- would be relatively subdued, given the regime's fears of inviting massive reprisals. The opposite turned out to be true. Once our nuclear sites were effectively destroyed, we calculated that we had no choice but to escalate and retaliate in order to save face and project power to our own population and neighbors, deter future attacks, and inflict a heavy political cost on Israel.

Perhaps implicitly, the experience of Israel's September 2007 bombing of a Syrian nuclear reactor was instructive. Aside from a feeble official complaint to the United Nations about Israel's "breach of Syrian airspace," there was virtually no reaction from Damascus. As a result, the Israeli attack was met with little international or even Arab condemnation.

We needed to respond in a way that would further enflame the regional security environment, negatively impact the global economy, and make reverberations felt throughout the world. So we played dirty.

One of our first salvos was to launch missiles at oil installations in Saudi Arabia's Eastern Province, as well as stir unrest among Saudi Shiites against their government. Our pretext was that Israel had used Saudi airspace to attack us, though we later found out it did so without Saudi permission. Given Iran's less-than-accurate missile technology, most missiles missed their mark, but some struck home and we succeeded in spiking oil prices enough so that Americans and Europeans filling their cars with gasoline might be irritated by Israel's actions.

We also fired missiles at Israeli military and nuclear targets and unleashed Hezbollah, Hamas, and Islamic Jihad to fire rockets at Israeli population centers. Although few of these missiles reached their targets, the goal was create an atmosphere of terror among Israeli society so its government would think twice about future attacks.

We didn't limit our reaction to just the Middle East. Via proxy, we hit European civilian and military outposts in Afghanistan and Iraq, confident that if past is precedent, Europe would take the high road and not retaliate. We also activated terrorist cells in Europe -- bombing public transportation and killing several civilians -- in the belief that European citizens and governments would likely come down hard on Israel for destabilizing the region.

But, appreciating the logic of power, we stopped just short of provoking the United States. Before the simulation, I'd often heard it said that it wouldn't make much difference whether Israel actually got a green light from the United States to strike Iran, for Tehran would never believe otherwise.

This assessment wasn't borne out in the simulation. The U.S. secretary of state sent us a private note telling us that the Americans did not approve the Israeli strike, and vowed to restrain Israel from attacking further -- if we also exercised restraint. They tried on multiple occasions to meet with us or speak by phone, but we refused. While Washington believed that its overtures would have a calming effect on us, we interpreted them to mean that we could strike back hard against Israel -- not to mention European targets -- without risking U.S. retaliation, at least not immediately.

Given that the simulation was intended to gauge the immediate consequences of an Israeli strike on Iran -- not its long-term impact -- the final results were inconclusive. The intent wasn't to prove either side correct, but to try to understand the decision-making calculus of each side.

Not unlike wars themselves, different actors drew different lessons. Those, like myself, who thought that the costs of an Israeli attack significantly outweighed the benefits, felt the results of the simulation validated their position. In the span of just a few days, our simulation had the Middle East aflame. But those who, prior to the exercise, believed that attacking Iran's nuclear facilities was a necessary risk weren't convinced otherwise.

Yet the reality is that no one -- not even the Iranians -- can say with confidence how they will choose to react once the fog of war sets in. And as for long-term consequences, it's way too murky to say anything but this: It will be ugly.

One of the great American strategic thinkers of the 20th century, former U.S. Ambassador to the USSR George Kennan, spent more than half a century alternatively thinking about how to avert a nuclear war with the Soviet Union and what a nuclear war with the Soviet Union might look like. 

Shortly before he passed away in 2005 at age 101, he reflected on his half-century of experience. "Anyone who has ever studied the history of American diplomacy, especially military diplomacy, knows that you might start in a war with certain things on your mind as a purpose of what you are doing, but in the end you found yourself fighting for entirely different things that you had never thought of before," he said. "War has a momentum of its own, and it carries you away from all thoughtful intentions when you get into it."

"But also, there is a very, very basic consideration involved here, and that is that whenever you have a possibility of going in two ways, either for peace or for war, for peaceful methods of for military methods, in the present age there is a strong prejudice for the peaceful ones. War seldom ever leads to good results."

-This commentary was published in Foreign Policy on 10/11/2011
-Karim Sadjadpour is an associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and author of Reading Khamenei: The Worldview of Iran's Most Powerful Leader. 

Syria's Rebuff Threatens The Arab League With Relegation

The Assad regime's disdain for the Arab League's peace initiative is another blow to the organisation's credibility

By Simon Tisdall

The continuation of the Syrian slaughter would seem to imply bad faith on the part of negotiators sent by President Bashar al-Assad (centre). Photograph: AFP/Getty

The Syrian regime's refusal even to pretend to implement last week's peace "road map" has provoked a portentous response from the deal's diplomatically challenged progenitors, the Arab League. "The failure of the Arab solution will have disastrous consequences in Syria and the region," the 22-nation organisation's secretary general, Nabil el-Araby, warned. What Araby did not say is that the apparent collapse of the initiative, only days after its launch in Cairo last week, is a potential catastrophe for the league, which was forced to call an emergency meeting after further deaths on Sunday.

The Syrian security forces' continuation of their daily slaughter of pro-democracy protesters would seem to imply a staggering degree of bad faith on the part of President Bashar al-Assad's negotiators. But there's another, more disturbing explanation: that the military and security apparatus, not Assad, is running the show and cares not a fig for external peace initiatives. On past form, this latter explanation seems more probable.

Activists said on Sunday that at least five people were killed in Homs province, central Syria, as thousands of people protested on the first day of the Muslim Eid al-Adha holiday. More were killed across the country. The UN-estimated death toll in the seven-month uprising stands at around 3,000.

Given this bloody context, the apparent impotence of Arab League mediation is deeply damaging to the health of an organisation that was never particularly robust. Araby's reference to the need for an "Arab solution" highlights a bigger issue: the way the league and comparable organisations, such as the African Union, often struggle to act effectively and collectively to resolve regional problems, thereby increasing the onus on the west to act.

The league has been floundering since the Arab spring began. Its former secretary general, Amr Moussa badly misjudged events in Egypt. "I think President Mubarak should stay until his term expires," he declared on 9 February, two days before the Egyptian president was ousted. The league spectacularly reversed itself over Libya. Its support for a no-fly zone was crucial in securing a UN resolution authorising the Nato intervention that speeded Muammar Gaddafi's downfall.

The sort of divisions that have bedevilled the League over the Iraq war (2003), the Darfur crisis in Sudan (2003-5), Lebanon (2006) and Somalia resurfaced over this year's uprisings in Bahrain and Yemen. In these cases, Saudi Arabia took the lead in supporting, more or less, the status quo. But Syria could not be treated the same way. As the international outcry grew ever more shrill, pressure on the league to take a strong stand, and criticism that it did not do so, mounted inexorably. The league's convention that states do not interfere in each other's internal affairs could not hold.

Even so, its approach continued to be tentative. Michael Young, writing in the National, said Assad demonstrated open disdain by delaying Araby's modest bridge-building visit to Damascus in September. The league had to do better; its indecision was a chronic condition, he said. "The continuing upheavals in the Arab world have crippled the Arab League's effectiveness, never great in the first place."

Hopes of more vigorous intervention were raised when last week's much tougher Cairo deal was unveiled, proposing a ceasefire, a military stand-down, and the opening of a "national dialogue" on neutral ground. But so far, Assad has ignored these undertakings, apart from a token release of 553 detainees. The detainees were involved in the unrest in the country, but had "no blood on their hands", the state-run news agency said. Thousands more remain imprisoned.

The Arab League faces a momentous, possibly make-or-break decision. To avoid a big split involving the likes of Iraq, it either goes on pretending a peace process is in place and the regime is genuinely engaged – at the risk of destroying what little credibility it has left. Or it takes the courageous step of expelling Syria, one of the league's six founding members in 1945, imposing additional, punitive sanctions – and in effect sending a message to the west that Arabs cannot manage Arab problems.

There is a third option, of course: collective Arab military intervention to bring Assad to book. Sadly, this sort of Lawrence of Arabia fantasy is out of fashion.

-This commentary was published in The Guardian on 07/11/2011
-Simon Tisdall is an assistant editor of the Guardian and a foreign affairs columnist. He was previously a foreign leader writer for the paper and has also served as its foreign editor and its US editor, based in Washington DC. He was the Observer's foreign editor from 1996-98

Bahrain's Courageous Doctors

By Adil E. Shamoo

Bahraini medical personnel protesting in Manama (Photo: Dr. Nabeel al Ansari)

The United States continues to ignore the thwarted Arab Spring in Bahrain. Recently, a quasi-military court in the small Gulf state sentenced 20 doctors and nurses to up to 15 years in jail. The charge against them? Treating injured demonstrators opposing the regime.

Doctors and nurses in the Middle East have a long and proud tradition of treating the ill, regardless of the situation. In ninth-century Baghdad, for example, Hunayn ibn Ishaq was the Caliph’s physician. The Caliph asked this physician to prepare a poison to kill his enemies. The physician refused, risking his life, and was eventually jailed for one year. After serving his sentence, the Caliph inquired as to why he refused. The physician replied, “My profession is instituted for the benefit of humanity and limited to their relief and cure.”

So the doctors and other healthcare providers in Bahrain who treated the injured demonstrators were acting not only in the noblest tradition of the Hippocratic Oath but also in keeping with centuries-old Arab tradition. Medical ethics requires all physicians to be medically neutral toward those they treat.

Last February, Bahrain’s citizens joined the Arab Spring by holding massive demonstrations against the country’s corrupt, minority royal government. Bahrain’s security forces, assisted by Saudi-led troops sent by the Gulf Cooperation Council, brutally suppressed the peaceful demonstrations by force, resulting in the deaths of around 30 people, as well as hundreds of others wounded and arrested. At least 1,200 people were dismissed from their jobs. Opposition leaders were arrested, quickly tried, and sent to jail. Many detainees were tortured, and some women were sexually abused.

The government of Bahrain soon turned its attention to doctors and other healthcare providers, arresting, jailing, and torturing those accused of treating protesters. One female doctor told NPR that she was tortured and threatened with rape. In the same story, a man claimed that he was beaten unconscious. The authorities threatened the arrested individuals, saying that the security forces would arrest and torture members of their families if they didn’t sign a confession.

The doctors and nurses in Bahrain have called for support from the international community, especially from the United States. But the U.S. State Department has been muted in its comments about Bahrain’s abuse of hospital staff. This has led some medical professionals and other observers to lament that if such abuses had occurred in Syria or Iran, the United States would have condemned them vocally and emphatically.

U.S. policy toward the Arab Spring has been two-faced and unprincipled since its outbreak. When a hostile regime – in Syria or Iran, for example – has abused human rights, the administration has taken the moral high ground. However, in the case of friendly regimes – like those in Bahrain, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia – the administration has toned down its criticism or remained silent altogether. In the case of Bahrain, the United States still maintains a naval base there with 15,000 personnel.

The British Medical Association (BMA) issued a statement strongly condemning Bahrain’s behavior, stating, “BMA is shocked that these doctors are being persecuted for acting in accordance with their code of ethics.” The World Medical Association issued a similar statement. However, the American Medical Association merely invited physicians, if they wish, to write directly to Bahrain’s rulers to voice their opinion. The U.S. bioethics associations are silent.

Over the course of history, humanity has carved out zones of ethical conduct, whether in the conduct of war or the treatment of the sick and wounded. Medical ethics has a long and honorable history that U.S. officials and medical professionals must uphold for the doctors and nurses in Bahrain. Otherwise, the Arab Spring won’t bloom for long.

-This commentary was published in Foreign Policy In Focus on 07/11/2011- Adil E. Shamoo is a senior analyst for Foreign Policy in Focus and the author of the forthcoming book, Equal Worth – When Humanity Will Have Peace

Oman, Kind Of Not Quiet?

By Ra'id Zuhair Al-Jamali

Oman held parliamentary elections on October 15 -- two weeks before the Tunisian elections that captured the world's attention. But nobody paid them much mind. And why should they? There is not much more to be said beyond the high "participation" rate (76 percent of those who bothered to register), the solitude that the one elected woman may feel among her 83 male colleagues, or the election of three protesters. Tribal alliances still drove results in a country where political parties are not allowed and where, for most seats, 1,500 votes is enough to get elected.

But this might be deceiving. This has been Oman's least quiet year in a generation. The Economist scored Oman sixth highest within its (unsophisticated) Arab instability index in early February, a forecast met with wide incredulity at the time. A few weeks later, the country was shaken with memorable scenes of unrest: protests -- some violent, most peaceful, loyalty marches, regime concessions, a GCC "Marshall Plan," labor strikes and opportunistic demands, and regime crackdowns. The ground has significantly shifted beneath the feet of a regime that has overseen the rapid transformation of society over the last 40 years, underwritten by absolute power and facilitated by oil income.

Muscat witnessed its first significant demonstration only three days after Ben Ali fled Tunisia. By the second "Green March" -- on that first Friday sans Mubarak - it was undeniable that a new wind was blowing. Vibrancy of Bahrain's early Lulu scenes and the intensifying youth-led protests in Yemen only sharpened the palpable mood for change. Secure in its own rhetoric of Omani exceptionalism, the government chose not to confront crowds numbering in the low hundreds rallying mainly against corruption.

One week later, though, massive protests struck in the rapidly industrializing city of Sohar, setting in motion a month of unprecedented countrywide unrest, government concessions, labor opportunism, and even promises of GCC economic support. By mid March, however, specters of a bloody crackdown in Bahrain and Yemen fed fears of deterioration. On March 29, the army finally moved to clear the protests in Sohar, restoring safe passage for the industrial port area. Over the next month, order was gradually enforced through security and legal channels, culminating in the May 12 breakup of the last major protest site in Salalah. Whatever residual will for public manifestation there remained, summer heat soon dissolved.

Yet roots of the Omani protests extend deeper than a simple imitation of the prevailing Arab mood. Throughout the past decade, new and unregulated channels for disseminating information and expressing opinion proliferated. Internet forums dynamically altered the hitherto rigid political mood. With over 100,000 members and 200,000 daily visitors, thorny samizdat Al-Sablah endured episodes of closure and litigation until Oman's own "Spring" forced a major concession -- the royal court now operates an official account.  This and other examples of compelled accommodation illustrate how much the regime's capacity for containment was challenged -- most dramatically since the defeat of the 1970's Marxist insurgency led by the Popular Front for Liberation of Oman and the Arabian Gulf (PFLOAG). Yet this year's confrontation was less ideological, more pragmatic. It's about a youthful, worldly, more connected population who basically want a voice -- publicly accountable ministers, free and independent press, even separation of state powers. It's also about an economy in which during 2009, nearly 75 percent of private sector jobs drew monthly wages of OMR 200 or less (USD $520), and in which non-nationals in the active workforce outnumbered nationals by more than two-to-one. Oil income may be near historic highs, but with the inequitable distribution of revenue, it's far from enough to pamper the entire population. Even narrowing it to "jobs and economy" entails a political undercurrent: a limit of rentier social contract is fast approaching.

Cognizant of the situation's unfolding gravity, the Omani authorities responded by bombarding the population with far-reaching decisions. One third of the Cabinet of Ministers was replaced. Some top officials, previously thought as immovable, were dismissed. There was an immediate creation of 50,000 jobs -- in a country where the total active national workforce, public and private, was probably 300,000. Minimum wage was raised by a one third (OMR 150 to 200). It did look quite ad hoc, even if the careful sequence of changes -- individually or in aggregate -- indicates that Oman had intellectually digested the risks and opportunities presented by its own youth bulge phenomenon.

But the treatment did not just stop at analgesics. Public prosecution gained independence from the police force and there was an expanded remit for State Audit committee. Constitutional changes were announced, with the bicameral house eventually gaining legislative and regulatory powers. These are actually deep institutional changes which are remodeling the scope of possibilities. Power is becoming more inclusive, with the elected Shura Council being granted extra voice and, while in the appointed State Council, civil society being recognized as the emergent social force.

The thing that is less clear is whether the Omani system can manage this adaptation. The regime is quite set in its ways. Many of the key figures are septuagenarians (or were, until March, when the average age of ministers significantly decreased). Since the resignation of his uncle nearly 40 years ago, Sultan Qaboos has not warmed up to the idea of a prime minister. The Sultan retains nominal ministership of defense, foreign affairs, finance, plus command of various military and security apparatuses. (With March's cabinet sackings, the lightening rods had vanished and it was expected that a PM was needed more than ever. Yet that still hasn't happened.) Considering the widely acknowledged need for a more reactive, flexible form of governance, what type of power transfer can thus be expected? Moreover, as placements of individuals to public positions often proceed without their foreknowledge, this unpredictable all-powerful agency maintains a sense of public passivity. And of course: whenever a singular, i.e. extra-ordinary, power becomes the defining factor for an entire system, perennial uncertainty breeds.

Many Omanis worry as well about the regime's efforts to re-impose control over the public sphere by drawing new "red lines." For example, the amended penal code article headed "on undermining the state's position" outlines punishment for those who undermine "prestige of the state" ?or weaken confidence in its financial reputation. Or another article in the press and publications law that prohibits "disseminating all that would compromise state security, internal or external." Not to mention the ongoing appeal by Azzaman newspaper, slapped with prison sentences and one month closure.

Previous Omani reforms have typically responded to major external challenges. The Shura council was founded at the end of a year of intense world scrutiny bearing upon Saudi Arabia and the GCC consequent to Iraq's 1990 invasion of Kuwait. Female inclusion could be seen as another proactive move, partially to stem the spread of Islamist currents of the 1990s. Post 9/11, a different set of acute outside pressures resulted in further overtures, proactive and reactive: non-opposition of benign Western reform agendas, symbolism of a 100-fold increase in base of possible voters in 2003 versus 1991, acquiescence to a regionally assertive United States on free trade. As these external pressures subsided, so did the reforms. The events of 2011 are a departure from the past as the first sustained, significant pressure from within. It remains unclear whether genuine pluralism can evolve within a domineering power structure, and more critically whether a democratic transition can be managed whilst preparing society for the post-oil terra incognita. At least if the exceptional number of Royal Decrees is any indicator, clearly some kind of shift is taking place.

-This commentary was published in The Foreign Policy on 07/11/2011
-Ra'id Zuhair Al-Jamali, @rzj,  lives in Muskat, Oman. Olivier Renard contributed to the editing and review of this article. The views expressed in this article are solely the opinions of the author

Saudi Arabia: Keeping It In The Family

By Jane Kinninmont

The New Saudi Crown Prince Nayef Bin Abdel-Aziz Al Saud

The naming of Prince Nayef bin Abdel-Aziz Al Saud as Saudi Arabia's new crown prince was no great surprise, but has nonetheless highlighted ongoing questions about the generation gap in Saudi Arabia, and about the capacity for the country's political system to evolve in a changing Middle East. Prince Nayef, who has been the Interior Minister since 1975 and who was appointed to the second deputy prime minister in 2009, had long been seen as the most likely successor to the previous crown prince, Prince Sultan bin Abdel-Aziz Al Saud. After King Abdullah bin Abdel-Aziz Al Saud, Prince Nayef is the most senior of the surviving sons of the country's founder, King Abdel-Aziz, who passed away in 1953. Saudi Arabia has had six kings since then, all brothers. Of course, this generation is aging; Prince Sultan was at least 83 when he died and Prince Nayef is 78. One of the biggest questions about Saudi Arabia's future is how it will manage the transition to the next generation of princes. King Abdel-Aziz had 37 sons; the grandsons are far more numerous.

As interior minister, Prince Nayef already has a significant power base; his ministry oversees most of the well-funded internal security, paramilitary, and intelligence forces, including the public security forces, civil defense, border guards, the special security forces, and the religious police. However, authority over the security forces is divided, preventing anyone from having total control and thus reducing the risk of a coup; there is a regular army that reports to the Ministry of Defense, and a separate National Guard that reports directly to the king. The interior ministry also has extensive patronage networks because it is a major employer with a large budget. Indeed, one sign of Prince Nayef's growing power came in March when the king announced that 60,000 new jobs would be created in the interior ministry as part of a massive program of new government spending that was estimated by the Saudi investment advisory firm Jadwa to be worth SR 500 billion ($133 billion) over several years. This boost to the number of people on the interior ministry payroll can also be seen as an expansion of Prince Nayef's personal patronage network and power base.

Despite the scripted succession, a wide range of reformist groups, including women's rights campaigners, liberals, human-rights campaigners, and activists from the country's Shia minority are concerned about the growing power of one of the country's most politically conservative princes. For instance, Mohammed Al-Qahtani of the Saudi Civil and Political Rights Association said Prince Nayef does not have reformist qualities and that the country would lose out by appointing a hardliner.

This concern may be warranted. Crown Prince Nayef has said in the past that he does not see the need for women to vote, and he has recently blamed unrest in the Eastern province on foreign intervention, ignoring the longstanding domestic grievances around the political marginalization of the Shia population there. Nayef's supporters in Western capitals suggest that as king he would adopt a less conservative approach than is required by an interior minister, but this is likely wishful thinking.

The consequences go beyond Saudi Arabia. The country could become increasingly out of sync with a changing Arab region. While seniority remains extremely important in Saudi politics, other Arab countries are being dramatically altered by new youth-led social movements. Recalling that Prince Nayef became interior minister before Hosni Mubarak even came to power in Egypt,  the vast majority of the population in Saudi Arabia is less than half the age of Prince Nayef. The Arab monarchs that currently hold out the most promise of political reform -- those of Morocco and Jordan -- are men in their forties who both came to power in 1999. Almost no one of Prince Nayef's generation remains in top positions in the Arab world; the exceptions include the Sultan of Oman, Qaboos bin Sayed Al Sayed, who came to the throne in 1970, and the prime minister of Bahrain, Khalifa bin Salman Al Khalifa, who assumed his position upon Bahrain's independence in 1971.

Indeed, there is a widespread view in Bahrain that Prince Nayef was a key force behind the Saudi intervention there earlier this year. The entry of Saudi (and UAE) troops to Bahrain in March was officially part of a GCC drive to protect the ruling Al Khalifa against a foreign plot. It was also a clear demonstration that Saudi Arabia would not tolerate people calling for a republic in the GCC, and as such was a warning to Saudis as well as to Bahrainis. However, the groups calling for a republic in Bahrain were a minority. The mainstream opposition sought a constitutional monarchy with a stronger parliament -- and an elected prime minister. The Saudi intervention in Bahrain did not just support the ruling family. It directly protected the prime minister from the risk that the opposition would strike a deal with some of the ruling-family reformists to remove him from power as a step towards a new political era. Such a move would have set an unwelcome precedent from the point of view of a senior Saudi prince such as Nayef, poised to take the crown prince title.

Prince Nayef is also seen as a leading force in Saudi policy towards Yemen. Traditionally, Prince Sultan had led on Yemen policy, but his illness had been limiting his role for some time. Meanwhile, the interior minister has been concerned with the possible risks that Yemen could pose to Saudi national security, particularly through the Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula militants based there. One of these militants, a Saudi national, tried to assassinate Nayef's son, Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, the assistant interior minister, in 2009. Prince Nayef approaches Yemen mainly through a counterterrorism lens -- not unlike the U.S.

Additionally, there remains the question of who will succeed Prince Sultan in his other role as the minister of defense. This is one of the top ministries in the country and represents a major power base for whichever prince heads it. One option would be the long-serving vice-minister of defense, Abdulrahman bin Abdel-Aziz Al-Saud, a brother of Prince Nayef and half-brother of the king. Alternatively, media reports on Monday claimed that Prince Salman bin Abdel-Aziz Al-Saud, a half-brother of King Abdullah and Prince Nayef, and the current governor of Riyadh, would be the next defense minister. Prince Salman is regarded as more liberal, is said to be popular among younger princes, and is himself relatively young by Saudi government standards, being merely in his sixties.

Another option might be to elevate one of Sultan's sons, Prince Khaled, who is already the assistant minister of defense. Such a move would be an important transfer of power to a next-generation prince. But this would place added pressure on other senior princes, including Prince Nayef, to seek further advancement for their own sons. Another of Prince Nayef's sons, Prince Saud bin Nayef, formerly ambassador to Spain, joined the interior ministry in July as an advisor to his father.

To help manage the complicated transfer of power to the next generation, King Abdullah has set up a council of senior princes to advise on the succession in the future. According to a 2006 law, this Allegiance Council will ultimately have the right to reject the king's nomination for crown prince and to suggest an alternative if a majority of its members are agreed. Legally, it also has the power to remove a king if an independent team of medics finds him to be incapacitated. The law establishing this council stated that it would not come into effect until after the current king. The Saudi state media reports suggest that it was briefly consulted on Prince Nayef's succession, but it seems not to have had any lengthy debate; presumably there was already sufficient consensus.

In the future, given the advancing age of the current generation of senior princes, the council's ability to remove a king for medical reasons could be an important tool. But overall, the Al Saud family has a big incentive to maintain consensus and avoid damaging splits over succession issues -- lest this encourage their growing young population, who have been watching the regional developments on satellite TV and YouTube, to challenge the entire concept of family rule.

Jane Kinninmont is the Senior Research Fellow on the Middle East and North Africa Programme at Chatham House, a UK-based policy research institute

You Say You Wanna Bomb Iran? Take A Number And Stand In Line

By Tony Karon

Ballistic missiles are paraded past a podium from which Major General Hassan Firoozabadi and other military commanders observe a parade commemorating the 31st anniversary of Iran-Iraq war on September 22, 2011 in Tehran, Iran. (Photo: Kaveh Kazemi / Getty Images

Yes, you heard right: Britain  is preparing to bomb Iran. Well, that's if the latest reported leaks from the British government are to be believed. The Guardian -- not known, like some of its British rivals are, for frequent breathless front-page claims of imminent military strikes on Iran -- reported Wednesday that Britain's Defense Ministry has stepped up plans for military action against Iran. Not that the Brits would kick things off, of course; their contingency planning is ostensibly geared towards playing a largely symbolic support role (think "Coalition of the Willing")  should the Obama Administration "decide to fast-forward plans for targeted missile strikes at some key Iranian facilities."

Beneath the attention-grabbing headline, the story is a familiar one:  British officials believe that while President Barack Obama "has no wish to embark on a new and provocative military venture before next November's U.S. election ... the calculus could change because of mounting anxiety over intelligence gathered by Western agencies, and the more belligerent posture that Iran appears to have been taking."

The Guardian's sources create the impression of dramatic new developments and a ticking clock, although the consensus among the  world's intelligence agencies that Iran remains some years away from having  nuclear weapons, and has not yet decided to actually build them even though it is assembling the means to do so. But the alarmist messaging certainly jibes with an Israeli diplomatic campaign launched to persuade reluctant governments to impose tough new sanctions on Iran if they hope to avoid a potentially catastrophic war. Israel underscored the point, Wednesday, announcing it had successfully tested a missile capable of reaching Iran -- at the same time as Israeli papers were filled with stories claiming that  Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is seeking cabinet approval for bombing Iran.

That, too, is an old story warmed over, and former Israeli intelligence chiefs have publicly denounced the idea of a military strike on Iran as misguided and potentially disastrous for Israel -- it could at best only succeed in delaying Iran's program (and ensure that it pursues a nuclear deterrent) but it would unleash a protracted regional war that Israel couldn't win, warned former Mossad chief Meir Dagan earlier this year. But regardless of its real intentions, dangling a threat to bomb Iran has been a central part of Israel's strategy in recent years.

President Obama's point man on Iran, Dennis Ross, had written before joining the Administration that if governments reluctant to impose harsh measures on Iran believed the alternative was Israel starting a war, they would be more inclined to back new sanctions. And there's certain a new sanctions push in the works, right now. The "intelligence" being cited by the Guardian's sources to suggest a new urgency is hardly new -- it's material collected some time ago by Western agencies that purports to show that Iran has been doing theoretical work on designs for a nuclear warhead. What's new is the fact that the U.S. has been pressing the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to include those allegations in its latest report on Iran, scheduled for release later this month. The IAEA has questioned Iran's intent and  raised questions about many of is activities, but it has not until now accused Iran of running an active nuclear weapons program. A Western official told the Guardian that revelations about bomb-design work will be a "game-changer" that forces Russia and China to get on board with U.S. sanctions efforts.

It's not clear, though, whether those charges will  make it into the IAEA report -- China and Russia are lobbying against what they see as an attempt to enlist the nuclear watchdog in the service of a U.S. agenda --  but even if they're in the report, Moscow and Beijing are unlikely to join the sanctions push. It wouldn't be the first time the U.S. had assumed  that  some new 'gotcha' piece of intelligence would change the game, only to be disappointed.

Indeed, former Bush Administration national security staffer Michael Singh argued in Foreign Policy this week that the only way to change China's position on sanctions would be to prepare for a military attack, which, if it went ahead, would disrupt China's energy supplies. A familiar argument, that one.

As to the claim by the Guardian's sources  that Iran had lately adopted a more belligerent posture, the evidence offered  was the bizarre Saudi embassy bombing plot, which much of the international community remains to be convinced was actually an official Iranian effort.

For the rest, there's not much new: Iran is restoring its uranium enrichment capability damaged by the Stuxnet computer worm and protecting it in hardened facilities. But none of that provides anything close to a casus belli that might be deemed credible by most of the international community. The chances of getting legal authorization for a military strike on Iran's nuclear facilities from the U.N. Security Council right now are slender, at best.

The Guardian piece, in fact, deflates its own alarmist premise when a government source notes that there has been "no acceleration toward military action by the U.S. but that could change." Well, yes, although it's hard to imagine why a government source would require anonymity for sharing a truism. There's no obvious reason for the urgency of the timetables suggested by the officials briefing the Guardian -- they suggested Obama would have to make a fateful decision next spring -- other than the fact that the Iranians haven't changed tack,  despite four rounds of U.N. sanctions plus a raft of additional measures adopted unilaterally by Western powers, and considerable saber rattling by the Israelis. The urgency would need to be politically generated, however, because of the  assumption that Iran wins the long game absent some dramatic game-changing action on the part of its adversaries. And then there's the fact that the U.S. is entering an election year.

In a companion piece to its UK preparations for military action story, the Guardian notes that despite Obama's reluctance to drag the U.S. into another Middle East war with potentially disastrous consequences, he enters his reelection year under pressure from Israel over Iran. Prime Minister Netanyahu could even force Obama's hand by initiating an attack on Iran that the U.S. might feel compelled to join in order to ensure its success. (The Israeli leader has certainly shown a willingness to defy Obama on issues where he believes he has the support of Capitol Hill, and attacking Iran would certainly be one of those.) Obama is no closer to persuading or pressuring Iran into backing down on its nuclear program than when he ran for office four years ago, promising the engagement he said had been missing from the Bush approach. Washington hawks say engagement was tried and failed, and it's time to ratchet up the pressure. Doves argue that engagement wasn't given a serious go or was disrupted by Iran's internal power struggle, and should be resumed.

Electoral calculations, however, would more likely prompt Obama to toughen up his stance. The problem, of course, is that a harder line appears no more likely to persuade Iran to back down than a softer one, but more bellicose rhetoric from Obama could have the unintended effect of narrowing his options. A U.S. military strike on Iran would not mark the first time in history that a country had found itself marching to war without having really intended to do so.

-This commentary was published in Time on 02/11/2011

Why Bombing Iran Is Still A Bad Idea

By Dalia Dassa Kaye

In the days since the Justice Department unveiled its charges of an Iranian plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to Washington, conservative pundits have dusted off their attack Iraq language from 2003 and begun to apply it to Iran. It didn't take long for many to advocate a military response to Iran, in some cases not just against the revolutionary guard members believed responsible for the plan but also against Iran's nuclear program. The martial rhetoric from inveterate hawks was predictable. But even President Obama suggested that the United States would not take any "options off the table," a phrase that is understood to leave open military options.

They should not be. Even assuming the worst -- Iranian Government involvement at the most senior levels -- a military response is just what it was before the plot became known: a dangerous and unpredictable option that should be avoided. 

Much remains unclear about the alleged terrorist plot itself. According to the Justice Department, an Iranian-American used-car dealer and his cousin, an operative of the Quds force of Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corp, are at the center of a bizarre, sloppy and, audacious terrorist plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to the United States. A large number of experts on Iran have expressed skepticism about the plausibility of these allegations. Still, the U.S. Government clearly believes Iran is responsible. The Obama administration has made public accusatory statements that can hardly be walked back at this point, and it is difficult to believe that it would have staked its reputation on a flimsy case. 

If the Justice Department has the story right, and if the clerical regime actually had knowledge of the plot, Iran has crossed a dangerous redline. As bad as United States-Iranian relations are now, they are bound to get worse. Only evidence that leads the administration to back down on its claims -- an unlikely scenario -- could avert at this point a serious escalation in United States-Iranian tensions.

The public exposure of this plan, coming alongside continued Iranian progress on its nuclear program and United Nations reports of egregious human rights abuses, may have been meant to show toughness against Tehran and to build international support for sanctions. But it has also created new opportunities for advocates of the military strike option to more forcefully press their case. In a presidential campaign season in which potential Republican candidates are searching for ways to attack Obama and to differentiate themselves from each other, all the incentives push toward ever more hawkish public rhetoric. It is not clear that the administration anticipated the political pressure that is now being mustered to demand a forceful response that matches the severity of these allegations.

The escalation has already started with U.S. efforts to increase international economic and diplomatic isolation of Iran. However, such efforts are likely to face resistance from critical countries like Russia and China, particularly as U.S. officials lack or are unwilling to expose indisputable intelligence to implicate Iranian officials in the plot. The difficulty of garnering sufficient international support for effective sanctions will now be associated with a failure to adequately respond to what lawmakers across the political spectrum have called an act of war against the United States.

Military alternatives will again very likely become part of the Washington conversation, even if senior U.S. officials had previously all but ruled them out (and encouraged Israel to do the same). At this stage, there is little chance of retaliatory U.S. military action. Pentagon officials have already issued statements suggesting this incident requires a diplomatic and legal response. But if such responses appear lackluster and ineffective, political pressure will mount to make military options more credible. At the very least, Israeli and Saudi officials who favor military strike options against Iran's nuclear program may now receive a more receptive audience in Washington.

The sad reality is that there is no silver bullet solution to the Iranian challenge, and a creative combination of engagement, containment, and deterrence will likely be necessary to address it. Despite this new plot twist, a military strike remains among the worst options possible, whether it comes from the United States or Israel, as the United States will be implicated either way.

First, the operational challenges of a military attack remain daunting. Iran's nuclear facilities are widely dispersed and deeply buried and so difficult, if not impossible, to eliminate. An Israeli attack would be even more challenging, though not impossible, due to long distances to Iranian targets and over flight challenges. Second, and more significantly, the aftermath of an attack could be devastating militarily and politically. It could unleash a wave of Iranian retaliation against U.S. forces, allies, and interests. Iran maintains a wide array of levers across the region, including militia groups it has trained and funded, that it could employ to retaliate against U.S. forces or diplomatic personnel, particularly in countries like Iraq. Iranian missiles have ranges that can reach Israel and all its Gulf Arab neighbors, including those hosting U.S. military forces. Such an attack could also backfire by fomenting nationalist sentiment within Iran (particularly if large numbers of civilians are killed) and boost support for more hard-line elements within the regime that current policies are attempting to marginalize. It could also increase Iranian incentives to obtain nuclear weapons to avoid such attacks in the future, while undermining painstaking U.S. efforts to bolster international and regional support for economic and diplomatic pressure against Iran. In short, there are serious risks associated with this option with little potential to actually solve the problem, and possibly making it harder to solve in the future.

A military strike would be particularly damaging in a post Arab spring environment, in which public opinion is already hostile toward U.S. policies. Even if Arab governments may quietly welcome forceful U.S. actions, Arab publics are far more sympathetic to Iran's anti-Western positions. Despite Iran's waning regional influence as Arab revolts and Turkish activism have decreased its relevance in the resistance narrative, Arab publics would likely rally behind Iran in the face of an attack. Additionally, they could constrain their governments' ability to support US-backed efforts to isolate Iran.

Some may view the assassination plot as an opportunity to bring the military option back to the table, believing that only a forceful response to Iran's actions will prevent the country from striking again. However this type of response would be a strategic mistake. A military attack would isolate the United States rather than Iran, further weakening U.S. influence regionally and globally while giving an increasingly isolated and vulnerable Iran a second chance.

Dalia Dassa Kaye is a Visiting Professor and Fellow at UCLA's International Institute and Burkle Center for International Relations.