Howard Epstein – The Third World War Could Israel Stay Out Of It?
In the off-beat satirical Monty Python movie, Life of Brian, two movements seeking independence from the yoke of Rome in the Holy Land, at the opening of the Common Era, vie for power: The Judean People’s Front and The People’s Front of Judea. In a display of life imitating art, the same phenomenon has recently been seen in what used to be Syria: multifarious (and exceedingly nefarious) splinter groups, all supposedly fighting for the same thing – peace in former Syria, or, perhaps more accurately, a piece of former Syria – but each wanting to do it in its own way, for its own advantage, and irrespective of the cost to civilians, decency and humanity.
Over the first four years of the so-called Syrian Civil War, those splinter groups, proxy pocket-armies of the bigger players, have been inexorably replaced by those bigger players. Once the Kurds had impressed in the field by pushing back Da’esh, Turkey entered the fray seeking to destroy the Kurds’ aspirations to a state of their own; Iran/Hezbollah piled in and, over two to three years, worked assiduously – but ineffectually – to prolong the Assad regime; Turkey then expanded its operations to impede Iranian/Hezbollah ambitions; Russia launched itself into the labyrinth of bloody confusion to bail out the faltering Iranian/Hezbollah operations; America sent planes from Incirlik, Turkey, to bomb Da’esh and only Da’esh – and, sanctimonious as ever, would have the world believe without their causing any collateral (civilian) damage – and to support whoever wants Assad gone (which includes Turkey); and, most recently, Saudi Arabia, despite being engrossed in its war with Iran in Yemen, has sent army and air force units to Turkey to bolster Erdoghan’s efforts. (Still with me?) Israel, all the while, wishing to remain aloof, has restricted itself to occasional pinpoint strikes against convoys of Iranian arms en route to Hezbollah in Lebanon. Can this detached Israeli attitude be maintained? The answer to that self-centred question depends to a great extent on whether the inevitability of WWIII has already crept up on us.
No-one reading the above can have missed the implications: Life of Brian internecine splinter-group bickering this is not. With the USA and Russia, their interests diametrically-opposed, both operating in the same airspace, the world, unwittingly for the most part, is now looking down the wrong end of an ICBM silo. Where are Henry Kissinger, Dr Strangelove, or even Peter Sellers when you most need them?
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Aleppo, famed for millennia, as the center of a great ancient civilization, is now the possible, not to say probable, flashpoint of the regional powers’, and even the global superpowers’, end-game for dominance in our backyard. Aleppo? Possibly rename it more appropriately “Armageddon”, for the most contentious, not to say portentous, piece of real estate in the world is no longer Eretz Yisrael, but that over which passes the main supply route from Turkey’s frontier to Aleppo: the Azaz corridor. Success in the battle for Azaz and Aleppo may well seal former Syria’s fate – and that of mankind, too.
Turkey has for long backed the anti-Assad militias (whisper it quietly, but Da’esh too), in an effort to choke off Kurdish aspirations in this area, including Azaz, for their own independent state. Such a creation would be an anathema to Turkey, with its large Kurdish minority in south-east Turkey, gasping to secede from Turkey and accede to a new formal Kurdistan. Erdoghan, however, in seeking to stifle Kurdish ambitions, now has a new formidable obstacle to face – the Russians, who are bombing and strafing everything around, including hospitals, to support Assad’s efforts to reclaim Aleppo, supporting also the Kurds in the Azaz. If Assad and the Russians succeed, as seems increasingly likely, Assad may well be confirmed in his Presidency of a series of cantons (some occupied by Da’esh), and avert the genocide of his Alawite clan by the majority Sunni Syrians. Another result may be that New Kurdistan would emerge. That, the loosening of Turkey’s grip on the region, would be the icing on the cake for Putin, still smarting from losing a fighter-bomber to Turkey in November 2015. (What did Erdoghan think? That Putin would brush down his lapels, straighten up his tie and move on? Some hope! Putin’s mind-set is more: revenge is a dish to be eaten cold……)
In the meantime, saving and empowering Assad (Putin’s aim) is the antithesis of what the USA seeks in former Syria and, whilst the Americans may feel sympathy for the Kurds, Turkey is a member of NATO. One big nepotistic non-aggression pact, NATO would regard an attack on Turkey as an attack on western Europe and the US. Since it is less clear that aggression by (and not on) a NATO member would cause the other members to feel obliged to be drawn in, Putin’s game will be to constrain Erdoghan to take the military initiative. This Putin can achieve by assisting the Kurds in their ambitions, which Erdoghan would feel bound to resist. (These conflicting alliances are reminiscent of 1913 and the run up to WWI.)
Whilst, in the past seven US presidential years, Putin has been steadily pushing the envelope, the Americans have shown an aversion to conflict. Ask Ukraine, the Baltic States, and Poland how they perceive Putin – just not during the soup course. The spluttering result would be as messy as the situations they all consider they face with Russia. The common factors are Putin and the withdrawal of the American umbrella.[1] Like the bank manager who held it over you whilst the sun shone, but walked off with it at the first spits and spots of rain, so the Americans are more conspicuous by their absence now at the fringes of the former Soviet Union than at any other time since the founding of NATO. Putin could not have failed to notice.
Political leaders of Putin’s ilk, buoyed as he is by a massive 2005-2015 rearmament program (surpassed, at end 2015, by almost 20% of what was planned), are not faint-hearted. They are also not receptive to generals who might caution against deploying all those shiny military assets, which they could then lose. Then, again, the generals might not be inclined to counsel against action, fearful that they could go the way of several of their countrymen – a former KGB spy, the victim of nuclear poisoning in London, and two Russian athletic doping regulators, both falling coincidental prey to coronaries within the last few weeks. No. On balance, Putin is unlikely to hear, let alone heed, advice that does not chime with his ambitions.
Drawing strength from his perception of his own invincibility (the antithesis of Obama diffidence), Putin may well do anything for the aggrandisement of Russia; and ensnaring Turkey into armed conflict with the Syrian Kurds might be the most delicious repast on the Russian leader’s dish right now. Under stack from Turkey, the Kurds would then have to choose between US help, should it be on offer and readily available, and the Russian/Iran/Hezbollah/Assad axis. In the event of the latter, the West would lose its last remaining fighting force on the ground in the struggle against both Da’esh and Assad, both of whom would be strengthened for their battle with one another.
Thanks to the melting away of Pax Americana, the Russians now control the airspace of former Syria[2] and, thereby protected and emboldened, are inserting ground troops into the Aleppo theater. The Russians call the shots. The Americans are nowhere-men, certainly in terms of reach, dominance or capability. Whilst they do have the Sixth Fleet off (a little way off – it is based in Italy) the Lebanon/Israeli/Egyptian coast, so could yet send in the Marines, they would be starting with a serious territorial disadvantage having no established hinterland or strategic depth. The US has assets, and is welcome, in Jordan, which one can only say is better than nothing – and doubtless the Hashemite King’s nightly repose would only be improved with more American forces installed in his kingdom. (And, just to be clear, no. The Americans cannot set up camp here in Israel. We have never been into that sort of thing.)
What would catalyze a sea change in NATO policy? There must be something that would disturb the Obama lethargy. There must surely be some red line, even for Obama, the crossing of which by Russia could not be tolerated; for, unless there is a tipping point nudged by Russian adventurism, such that NATO could not fail to come running back with the umbrella, the West will suffer abject diplomatic and military bankruptcy, inducing further challenges elsewhere.
Even Chamberlain recognised the cul-de-sac at the end of Appeasement Alley, down which Hitler had led him a merry dance, when he saw it. That was Germany’s attack on Poland, whom Britain had pledged to defend. Chamberlain, the arch-appeaser of the 1930s, felt obliged to declare war on Germany, unprepared though Britain was for the struggle. Even Obama may recognize the inevitable terminus of his appeasement policies when it hoves into view, and feel obliged to put boots on the soil of former Syrian. Risky though it would be without any real estate equivalent to what the Russians now or will soon have, in an arc from Latakia east to the Azaz corridor, at some point the US may have no choice.
So, just as the Pythonesque splinters made way for Turkey, Iran, Hezbollah and the Kurds, those actors also are even now making way for the real heavyweights in the fight: Russia and the USA. If you are not quaking in your boots, you have not been concentrating.
Now, dear reader, make some cerebral space for something somewhat more grave (pun absolutely intended). You will not have forgotten that there is another long-running struggle going on in the neighborhood: Hezbollah/Iran (and Hamas) v Israel, which could erupt all over us at any moment. Do you feel helpless witnessing the slow-motion financial meltdown of the western capitalist system? You ain’t felt nothing yet. The prospect of a Third Word War will induce in us a fear that none of us has yet experienced, with the forces that could catalyze it already spiralling out of control around Aleppo, some 500 kilometers from Tel Aviv. How would Israel stay out?
Accordingly, finally, we come to Israel’s choices. No doubt we shall use the few ambassadors we have around the world to send out the message that we have no wish to be sucked into any regional or wider conflict; but such wisdom of approach is unlikely to be shared by Hezbollah, who would see the distraction of war between Russia and the US, either full-blown into WWIII or somehow contained in former Syria, as an opportunity – a smokescreen for an all-out assault on the Galil, and the loosing of thousands of missiles on Israel, with Hamas likewise deciding that the time is right to erupt from their tunnels to cause havoc in the South.
We must hope that, should our immediate neighbours be so unwise, our political and military leaders will find the courage to make virtue out of necessity, rise to the challenge and finish the job of emasculating those blood-thirsty forces, but this time beyond peradventure, so that when the dust settles – assuming, of course that mankind has not by then ushered in nuclear winter – we can enjoy many years untroubled by asymmetric warfare on our borders, no longer threatened by over 100,000 missiles, and allowed some peace and quiet to continue the job of making miracles – not pursuing nihilism like all the others – in our tiny corner of the region.
Howard Epstein, LLB, is an English commercial lawyer of some 45 years’ standing. He still practices international commercial litigation on several continents. As such, he is articulate and voluble.
Howard is also a staunch Zionist, having achieved aliyah in September 2005, after a lifetime as “an armchair Zionist”. His parents met at a Habonim function and he was raised with Zionism on a daily basis. He is well-read, knowledgeable and opinionated about Jewish and Israeli history and current affairs.
[1] The Americans have a track record in this regard. Consider Baptista, the Shah of Iran and Mubarak, to take but a few examples.
[2] See my blog of *.
