Rice Opens New Arab Cold War Phase.

During her Oct. 2-6 tour of the Middle East, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was in Cairo for a meeting with foreign ministers from Egypt, Jordan, and the six GCC states - Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE. Rice's main objective, as she stated in Jeddah, was "helping young governments in places like Lebanon, Iraq and helping the Palestinians, but most of all, helping the moderate forces against the extremist forces" in the region. Rice's tour was prompted by the outcome of the Lebanon war and Iran's quest for nuclear weapons. After the 34-day war the Bush administration, troubled by the consequences of Iran's policies, moved to shore up its lead in the region and rally support for its Arab allies.

Building regional alliances to reflect regional and international dynamics has always been a trademark of Arab politics. Throughout the Cold War, the US sought to contain the Soviet Union and prevent it from reaching the strategically important oil resources of the Gulf. To this end, Washington engaged in a hectic diplomacy to establish pro-West security systems. Different schemes were contemplated to build a "northern tier" to isolate the Soviet Union. Attempts were made to establish a "Middle East Command", a British idea, to encircle the Soviet Union. This was abandoned in favour of the Baghdad Pact.

The Baghdad Pact survived until the Iraqi revolution of 1958, which overthrew the pro-Western monarchy of King Faisal II, marking a new phase of Arab cold war. The US responded by establishing a bloc to counteract the rising influence of pan-Arabism, which was defeated during the 1967 Arab-Israeli war. This was called the Central Treaty Organisation (CENTO), an easterly extension of NATO which included Turkey, Iran and Pakistan.

After the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the Ja'fari Shi'ite Islamic revolution in Iran, a new alliance of "moderate" states was established - featuring the GCC and an invasion of Iran by Saddam's Ba'thist dictatorship of Iraq. Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Pakistan and to a lesser extent Saddam's Iraq formed a US-sponsored bloc to contain the new assertiveness of the Soviet Union and Khomeini's efforts to export his revolution. The 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war ended with Khomeini accepting a UNSC truce resolution. The US-led alliance lasted until the end of the Cold War and Saddam's invasion of Kuwait in 1990.

After the second Gulf War and the Madrid peace conference in late 1991, the US established a "dual containment" strategy against both Iran and Saddam's Iraq. Saudi Arabia, Syria and Egypt played key role in the "dual containment" policy devised by then US assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs Martin Indyk. For 10 years and under "dual containment", Iran and Iraq were isolated, weakened and treated as pariahs in the international community. After 9/11, the Bush administration launched its global "war on terror". Iraq and Afghanistan were occupied with tacit approval of most Arab states. Those who did not provide direct help to the US military effort remained silent. Those who rebelled against the US were Assad's Syria and Iran's theocracy. Together with North Korea, President George W. Bush had called them "the axis of evil" in 2002.

The enemies of the US-led alliance in this Arab cold war are, apart from North Korea, the Shi'ite theocracy of Iran, the Ba'thist dictatorship of Syria, Hamas and other radical Palestinian groups, and Iran's Lebanese offspring Hizbullah. The outcome of this alignment could be another regional war with disastrous consequences.

Pan-Arab nationalists say that, for the past 50 years the US has been exploiting intra-Arab rivalries and regional dynamics to achieve its objectives and weaken its enemies. Dr Marwan al-Kabalan, a lecturer in media and international relations at the University of Damascus, recently wrote: "Division, distrust among Arab leaders and conflicting priorities, have all helped Washington to ensure the success of its policies, neutralise challenges and abort Arab efforts for independence and unity. It seems that Arab ruling elites will never learn from past mistakes and it is very likely that we will, soon perhaps, witness the loss of another Arab country with tragic effects". Apparently Dr. Kabalan was subtly referring to the Assad regime of Syria.