The Middle Eastern Cold War: Updates

This weblog entry offers news on the pattern I noted five months ago at "The Middle Eastern Cold War," of an Iranian-led revolutionary bloc vs. a Saudi-Egyptian led status-quo bloc.

Yemen: Iranian backed Shi'i forces in northern Yemen, called the Huthis (or Houthis) seized a border town in Saudi Arabia, Jabal Dukan, provoking the Saudi military to retake it by force, at the cost of lives on both sides. (November 9, 2009)

Gaza: The Turkish government helped organize a "Free Gaza" flotilla whose passengers' surprise use of violence caught the Israel Defense Forces unprepared and much discredited Israel. (May 31, 2010). June 13, 2010 update: Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority has come out against lifting the naval blocade on Gaza, thus aligning himself with Israel and against Hamas.

Lebanon: "Saudi plan for anti-Hezbollah force revealed" by WikiLeaks. According to a U.S. diplomatic cable, Riyadh in May 2008 proposed establishing a Sunni force in Lebanon to fight Iranian-supported Hezbollah. (December 8, 2010)

Egypt: Egyptian strongman Husni Mubarak referred to Iranian influence as "spreading like a cancer" across Arabic-speaking countries in a conversation revealed by the WikiLeaks cache.

President Mubarak has made it clear that he sees Iran as Egypt's — and the region's — primary strategic threat. His already dangerous neighborhood, he has stressed, has only become more so since the fall of Saddam, who, as nasty as he was, nevertheless stood as a wall against Iran, according to Mubarak. He now sees Tehran's hand moving with ease throughout the region, 'from the Gulf to Morocco,' as he told a recent congressional delegation.

The cable goes on to note that "Mubarak's focus on the Iranian threat differs somewhat from ours":

While he will readily admit that the Iranian nuclear program is a strategic and existential threat to Egypt and the region, he sees that threat as relatively "long term." What has seized his immediate attention are Iran's non-nuclear destabilizing actions such as support for HAMAS, media attacks, weapons and illicit funds smuggling, all of which add up in his mind to 'Iranian influence spreading like a cancer from the GCC [Gulf Cooperation Council countries] to Morocco.

(December 15, 2010)

Overview: Lee Smith looks at the implications of Hamas splitting off from the Syrian regime in "The Road From Damascus" and concludes that "there is … a regionwide war under way: Sunni vs. Shia." (February 29, 2012)

Related Topics:  Middle East patterns, Strategic alliances receive the latest by email: subscribe to daniel pipes' free mailing list This text may be reposted or forwarded so long as it is presented as an integral whole with complete information provided about its author, date, place of publication, and original URL.