Nobody can predict which way the \u2018Arab Awakening\u2019 will turn this year. But Robert Fisk has ventured a very tentative punt or two…<\/i><\/p>\n
Never make predictions in the Middle East.<\/p>\n
My crystal ball broke long ago. But predicting the region has an honourable pedigree. \u201cAn Arab movement, newly-risen, is looming in the distance,\u201d a French traveller to the Gulf and Baghdad wrote in 1883, \u201cand a race hitherto downtrodden will presently claim its due place in the destinies of Islam.\u201d A year earlier, a British diplomat in Jeddah confided that \u201cit is within my knowledge… that the idea of freedom does at present agitate some minds even in Mecca…\u201d<\/p>\n
So let\u2019s say this for 2013: the \u201cArab Awakening\u201d (the title of George Antonius\u2019 seminal work of 1938) will continue, the demand for dignity and freedom \u2013 let us not get tramelled up here with \u201cdemocracy\u201d \u2013 will go on\u00a0 ravaging the pseudo-stability of the Middle East, causing as much fear in Washington as it does in the palaces of the Arab Gulf.<\/p>\n
On the epic scale of history, that much is certain. At the incendiary core of this discontent will be the claims of a Palestinian state that does not exist and may never exist and the actions of an Israeli state which \u2013 through its constant building of colonies for Jews and Jews only on Arab land \u2013 ensures that \u201cPalestine\u201d will remain only an Arab dream. If 2012 is anything to go by, the Palestinians themselves face the coming year with the knowledge that: 1) neither the Americans nor the Europeans have the guts to help them, because 2) Israel will continue to act with impunity, and 3) neither the Obamas nor the Camerons nor the Hollandes have the slightest interest in taking on the Likudist lobby, which will scream \u201canti-semitism\u201d the moment the minutest criticism is made against Israel.<\/p>\n
Add to this the fact that Mahmoud Abbas<\/a> and his utterly discredited regime in Ramallah will go on making concessions to the Israelis \u2013 if you do not believe me, read Clayton Swisher\u2019s The Palestine Papers<\/em> \u2013 even when there are no more concessions to make. Hamas and Khaled Meshaal will go on denying Israel\u2019s right to exist \u2013 thus allowing Israel to falsely claim that it has \u201cno one to talk to\u201d \u2013 until the next Gaza war and the subsequent cowardly request from the West which will \u201curge restraint on both sides\u201d, as if the Palestinians possess Merkava tanks, F-18s and drones. A third Intifada? Maybe. An approach to the International Court to condemn Israel for war crimes in building Jewish colonies on other people\u2019s land? Perhaps. But so what? The Palestinians won an international court case which condemned the building of Israel\u2019s apartheid\/security wall \u2013 and absolutely nothing happened. That\u2019s the fate of the Palestinians. They\u2019re told by the likes of Tom Friedman<\/a> to abandon violence and adopt the tactics of Gandhi; then when they do, they still lose, and Friedman remains silent. It was, after all, Gandhi who said that Western civilisation \u201cwould be a good idea\u201d.<\/p>\n So bad news for Palestine in 2013. Iran? Well, the Iranians understand the West much better than we understand the Iranians \u2013 a lot of them, remember, were educated in the United States. And they\u2019ve an intriguing way of coming out on top whatever they do. George Bush (and Lord Blair of Kut al-Amara) invaded Afghanistan and rid the Shia Iranians of their Sunni enemy, whom they always called the \u201cBlack Taliban\u201d. Then Bush-Blair invaded Iraq and got rid of the Islamic Republic\u2019s most loathsome enemy, Saddam Hussein. Thus did Iran win both the Afghan and the Iraqi war \u2013 without firing a shot.<\/p>\n There\u2019s no doubt that Iran would fire a shot or two if Israel\/America \u2013 the two are interchangeable in Iran as in many other Middle East countries \u2013 were to attack its nuclear facilities. But Israel has no stomach for an all-out war against Iran \u2013 it would lose \u2013 and the US, having lost two Middle East wars, has no enthusiasm for losing a third. Sanctions \u2013 and here is Iran\u2019s real potential nemesis \u2013 are causing far more misery than Israel\u2019s F-18s. And why is America threatening Iran in the first place? It didn\u2019t threaten India when it went nuclear. And when that most unstable and extremist state called Pakistan was developing nuclear weapons, no US threat was made to bomb its facilities. True, we\u2019ve heard that more recently \u2013 in case the nukes \u201cfell into the wrong hands\u201d, as in gas which might \u201cfall into the wrong hands\u201d in Syria; or in Gaza, for that matter, where democracy \u201cfell into the wrong hands\u201d the moment Hamas won elections there in 2006.<\/p>\n Now that Obama has entered his drone-happy second presidency, we\u2019re going to hear more about those wonderful unpiloted bombers which have been ripping up bad guys and civilians for more than four years. One day, one of these machines \u2013 though they fly in packs of seven or eight \u2013 will hit too many civilians or, even worse, will contrive to kill westerners or NGOs. Then Obama will be apologising \u2013 though without the tears he expended over Newtown, Connecticut. And here\u2019s a thought for this year. The gun lobby in the States tells us that \u201cit\u2019s not guns that kill \u2013 it\u2019s people\u201d. But apply that to drone attacks on Pakistan or Israeli bombardments of Gaza and the rubric changes. It\u2019s the guns\/bombs\/rockets that kill because the Americans don\u2019t mean to kill civilians and the Israelis don\u2019t wish to kill civilians. It\u2019s just \u201ccollateral damage\u201d again, though that\u2019s not an excuse you can provide for Hamas rockets.<\/p>\n So what\u2019s left for 2013? Assad, of course. He\u2019s already trying to win back some rebel forces to his own ruthless side \u2013 an intelligent though dangerous tactic \u2013 and the West is getting up to its knees in rebel cruelty. Yes, Assad will go. One day. He says as much. But don\u2019t expect it to happen in the immediate future. Or Gaddafi-style. The old mantra still applies. Egypt was not Tunisia and Yemen was not Egypt and Libya was not Yemen and Syria is not Libya.<\/p>\n Iraq? Its own latent civil war will go on grinding up the bones of civil society while we largely ignore its agony; there are days now when more Iraqis are killed than Syrians, though you wouldn\u2019t know it from the nightly news.<\/p>\n And the Gulf? Arabia, where the first Arab awakening began? Where, indeed, the first Arab revolution \u2013 the advent of Islam \u2013 burst forth upon the world. There are those who say that the Gulf kingdoms will remain secure for years to come. Don\u2019t count on it. Watch Saudi Arabia. Remember what that British diplomat wrote 130 years ago. \u201cEven in Mecca…\u201d<\/p>\n Syria<\/b><\/p>\n \u2018Yes, Assad will go. One day. He says as much. But don\u2019t expect it to happen in the immediate future.\u00a0 Or Gaddafi-style.\u2019Israel and the\u00a0 Palestinian territories<\/p>\n Israel and the Palestinian territories<\/b><\/p>\n \u2018Hamas and Khaled Meshaal will go on denying Israel\u2019s right to exist \u2013 thus allowing Israel to falsely claim that it has \u201cno one to talk to\u201d \u2013 until the next Gaza war.\u2019<\/p>\n Iran<\/b><\/p>\n \u2018Israel has no stomach for an all-out war against Iran \u2013 it would lose \u2013 and the United States, having lost two Middle East wars, has no enthusiasm for losing a third.\u2019<\/p>\n Saudi Arabia<\/b><\/p>\n \u2018There are those who say that the Gulf\u00a0 kingdoms will remain secure for years to come. Don\u2019t count on it. Watch Saudi Arabia.\u2019<\/p>\n Iraq<\/b><\/p>\n \u2018Its own civil war will go on grinding up the bones of\u00a0 civil society while we largely ignore its agony.\u2019<\/p>\n US<\/b><\/p>\n \u2018Now that Obama has entered his drone-happy second\u00a0 presidency, we\u2019re going to hear more about those wonderful\u00a0 unpiloted bombers.\u2019<\/p>\n _________________________<\/p>\n Robert Fisk is a multiple award-winning journalist on the Middle East, based in Beirut.<\/i><\/p>\n