Annapolis Opens All World Fronts: Diplomacy Vs Violence; Moderates Vs Radicals, Etc.

*** Musharraf Was On Nov. 29 Sworn In As A Civilian President Of Pakistan; He Promised To Lift The State Of Emergency Within Weeks; His Successor As Army Chief, Gen. Ashfaq Kayani, On Nov. 28 Faced His 1st Test As Al-Qaeda And The Taliban Offered An Immediate Ceasefire In The Volatile Swat Valley In NWFP - Accepting This Means Trouble With USA/NATO; Rejecting It Means Trouble On The Internal Front; To Make Matters More Complicated, A Bin Laden Tape On Nov. 29 Called On The Europeans To Stop Helping In The Afghan War, Saying The American Tide In The Middle East Was 'Ebbing' And That Victory For The Neo-Salafis Was At Hand

ANNAPOLIS - The international Arab-Israeli peace conference held on Nov. 27 at the US Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, was attended by 48 states - including 16 from the Arab world, with all (but Syria which attended at a low level) being part of the US-led alliance in the Middle East confronting an Iran-led axis of anti-US forces. Opened and hosted by President George W. Bush, a Republican whose term ends in early 2009, this event unleashed all fronts in world politics: diplomacy versus violence, an Arab state in Palestine Vs a Jewish state in Israel, the hawks Vs doves in Palestine and Israel, Arab Vs "Persian", the quietists of Najaf Vs Tehran's theocracy in Shi'ism, a modern Muslim state Vs a Neo-Salafi caliphate in Sunnism, and the moderates Vs radicals across the globe.

Annapolis and the subsequent developments coincided with changes in Iraq, where the US is establishing a long-term strategic presence. This is despite complications forcing the US to settle for limited objectives in the short term (see fap6-Iraq-USlimitsGoals-Dec3-07).

The fronts mentioned above will make the US-led peace process between Israel and the Palestinians more complex than ever before. To begin with, there is no globally acceptable definition of who is moderate who is radical, who is a terrorist and who is a freedom fighter. But there is a clear global distinction between diplomacy and violence, and this is the main trap for those whom "the moderates" call radical.

As the global balance of power is heavily in favour of "moderates", those who are classed as "radical" will be in trouble - not only during the remaining 13 months of the Bush administration but also if this is replaced in early 2009 by a Democratic government in the US.

The first among the losers in the Middle East is Hamas, the Islamist Palestinian group which wrested control of the Gaza Strip from Fatah on June 14. Hamas - part of the Iran-led axis - is unable to get out of its own traps: "violence" and "radicalism". Fatah, part of the US-led alliance, is secular and its leadership has opted for diplomacy. Annapolis, which Hamas and its Iranian allies have called a "failure", gave Israel the green light to retake the Gaza Strip and give it back to Fatah. In return, however, it will pay a price. It is not certain if the secular group will get from Israel and the Arab members of the US-led alliance the diplomatic capital to cope with the consequences.

Lebanon is a battlefield between the axis and the US-led alliance. There the balance of power in the short term is in favour of the axis; but this will be a dangerous trap for the latter. This is where Syria, ruled by an 'Alawite/Ba'thist regime, will have to tread carefully.

In comments reflecting Washington's intensified interest in Middle East peace, US National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley on Nov. 28 told an audience at Johns Hopkins University in Maryland that Bush saw the establishment of a Palestinian state as part of his "freedom agenda". He said Bush saw "Hamas, Hizbullah and al-Qaeda as different faces of the same evil: a radical ideology seeking to impose its world view throughout the Middle East and beyond".

To the West, resource nationalism with a negative impact on oil supply security to the world economy is as dangerous as radicalism. Iran is losing 500,000 b/d per year of its oil output capacity. In early 1999, weeks before Hugo Chavez came to the presidency, Venezuela could produce over 3.6m b/d and had plans to double this by 2005/07. Now it cannot produce over 2.8m b/d (see news22-VenzLatin&OPEC-Nov26-07.

Chavez is working on Latin American integration. Having turned PDVSA into a cash-cow for social projects at home, he is spreading his Bolivarian ideology in Latin America. Simon Bolivar (1783-1830), his hero, was a Venezuelan populist who vowed to liberate Latin America. Known as El-Libertador, however, Bolivar is seen as a controversial figure in the region, and many modernists - even in Venezuela - regard Chavez's use of this ideology as a tool to control Latin America in somewhat the same way as the Ba'thist regime in Syria or Iran's Shi'ite theocracy have been accused of doing to control the Middle East - the world's biggest oil reservoir (see omt23VenzWhoDec3-07).