TigerHawk

Earlier today, Cardinalpark wrote briefly about Edward Luttwak's argument($) that the Sunni-Shiite division is creating enormous strategic opportunities for the United States. Because the people demand it, here is a fair use excerpt from behind the WSJ's subscriber wall:

Just as the Sunni threat to majority rule in Iraq is forcing Sciri [the Shiite the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq] to cooperate with the U.S., the prospect of a Shiite-dominated Iraq is forcing Sunni Arab states, especially Saudi Arabia, the Emirates and Jordan, to seek American help against the rising power of the Shiites. Some Sunnis viewed Iran with suspicion even when it was still under the conservative rule of the shah, in part because its very existence as the only Shiite state could inspire unrest among the oppressed Shiite populations of Arabia. More recently, the nearby Sunni Arab states have been increasingly worried by the military alliance between Iran, Syria and the Hezbollah of Lebanon. But now that a Shiite-ruled Iraq could add territorial contiguity to the alliance, forming a "Shiite crescent" extending all the way from Pakistan to the Mediterranean, it is not only the Sunnis of nearby Arabia that feel very seriously threatened. The entire order of Muslim orthodoxy is challenged by the expansion of heterodox Shiite rule.

Although it was the U.S. that was responsible for ending Sunni supremacy in Iraq along with Saddam Hussein's dictatorship, it remains the only possible patron for the Sunni Arab states resisting the Shiite alliance. Americans have no interest in the secular-sectarian quarrel, but there is a very real convergence of interests with the Sunni Arab states because Iran is the main enemy for both.

At this moment, it is in Lebanon that the new Sunni-U.S. alliance has become active. With continuing mass demonstrations and threatening speeches, the Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah is trying to force the government of Prime Minister Fuad Siniora to give way to a new coalition which he can dominate. Syria and Iran are supporting Mr. Nasrallah, while the U.S. is backing Mr. Siniora. He has the support of the Druze and of most Christians as well, but it is also very much as a Sunni leader that Mr. Siniora is firmly resisting so far. That has gained him the financial backing of Saudi Arabia, which is funding Sunni counterdemonstrations and has even tried to co-opt Hezbollah, among other things. It was in their Arab identity that Hezbollah claimed heroic status because they were not routed by the Israelis in the recent fighting, but evidently many Sunni Arabs in and out of Lebanon view them instead as Shiite sectarians, far too obedient to non-Arab Iran. That suits the U.S., for Iran and Hezbollah are its enemies, too.

The Sunni-U.S. alignment in Lebanon, which interestingly coexists with the U.S.-Shiite alliance in Iraq, may yet achieve results of strategic importance if Syria is successfully detached from its alliance with Iran. Originally it was a necessary alliance for both countries because Saddam's Iraq was waging war on Iran, and periodically tried to overthrow the Assad regime of Syria. Now that Iraq is no longer a threat to either country, Iran still needs Syria as a bridge to Hezbollah, but for Syria the alliance is strategically obsolete, as well as inconsistent with the country's Arab identity. True, Syria is ruled primarily by members of the Alawite sect that is usually classified as a Shiite offshoot. But that extremely heterodox faith (it has Christmas and the transmigration of souls) is far different from the Shiism of Iraq, Lebanon or Iran -- where it would be persecuted; and besides, at least 70% of Syrians are Sunnis. That may explain why the Syrian regime has not used its full influence to overthrow Mr. Siniora: His stand against the Shiite Hezbollah resonates with his fellow Sunnis of Syria. But another reason may be the promise of substantial aid and investment from Saudi Arabia and the Emirates for Syria's needy economy, if the regime diminishes its alliance with Iran and Hezbollah, or better, ends it altogether. The U.S., for its part, is no longer actively driving Syria into the arms of the Iranians by threatening a march on Damascus, while even the unofficial suggestions of negotiations by the Iraq Study Group made an impression, judging by some conciliatory Syrian statements.

The U.S.-Sunni alliance, which is a plain fact in Lebanon, is still only tentative over Syria; but it would be greatly energized if Iran were successfully deprived of its only Arab ally. At the same time, the U.S.-Shiite alliance in Iraq has been strengthened in the wake of Mr. Hakim's visit. The Sunni insurgency is undiminished, but at least other Shiite groups are jointly weakening the only actively anti-American Shiite faction headed by Mr. Sadr.

When the Bush administration came into office, only Egypt and Jordan were functioning allies of the U.S. Iran and Iraq were already declared enemies, Syria was hostile, and even its supposed friends in the Arabian peninsula were so disinclined to help that none did anything to oppose al Qaeda. Some actively helped it, while others knowingly allowed private funds to reach the terrorists whose declared aim was to kill Americans.

The Iraq war has indeed brought into existence a New Middle East, in which Arab Sunnis can no longer gleefully disregard American interests because they need help against the looming threat of Shiite supremacy, while in Iraq at the core of the Arab world, the Shia are allied with the U.S. What past imperial statesmen strove to achieve with much cunning and cynicism, the Bush administration has brought about accidentally. But the result is exactly the same.

Against this backdrop, consider this essay from Monday's The Daily Star (Egypt):

Of the many transformations taking place throughout the Middle East, the most striking is that the new regional security architecture gradually emerging in the Arab world seems to be managed almost totally by non-Arab parties: Iran, Turkey, Israel, the United States, and now Ethiopia.

It is possible that the Arabs could write themselves out of their own history, ending up as mere consumers of foreign goods, proxies for foreign powers, and spectators in the game of defining their own identity, security and destiny.

This is not certain, but the current trend points in that direction, which would be a demeaning cap after a century of repeated incompetence in the field of Arab security and statehood....

A new security system will have to emerge to ensure stability and order, thus sparing the Middle East the ignominy of becoming a failed region of the world.

This occurs while two other major trends define the region. Traditional major Arab powers like Egypt and Saudi Arabia, as well as lesser ones like Syria, Jordan, Libya, Algeria and Morocco, are less influential and interventionist regionally than they used to be. In many cases they also suffer greater dissent and even some stressed legitimacy at home.

At the same time, powerful new non-state actors in the Arab world now challenge, work alongside, or even replace long-serving regimes; the most noteworthy examples are Hezbollah, Hamas, the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, the Badr and Mehdi militias in Iraq, the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, and, most recently, the Union of Islamic Courts in Somalia.

Arabs, Israelis, Turks, Iranians, Americans, Europeans, and now Ethiopians, will not sit around passively watching the rise to power of these groups on CNN and Al-Jazeera. All those concerned will try to secure their national interests and weaken their enemies, ultimately forging a new security arrangement that allows the region’s many forces to find a balance of power that is stable.

This could be negotiated - like the historic Helsinki Accords between the East and West in 1975 — or it will emerge from the political and military battles we witness these days in downtown Beirut, Gaza, Baghdad, and south-western Somalia.

The coming new era in which Middle Eastern geo-strategic security is handled primarily by non-Arab regional players will replace the former US-USSR superpower rivalry and the actions of major Arab players like Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Syria.

Several regional hegemons will emerge to balance each other out.

The leading candidates now seem to be Iran, Israel, Turkey and a toned down or over-the-horizon United States. Any Arabs who play a role will mainly be surrogates, subcontracted militias, or outsourced intelligence agencies to these front-line powers. Arab military systems that cost hundreds of billions of dollars to build will be relegated to being little more than local gendarmeries....

The question is, does the United States have the human capital -- sheer numbers of people who both understand the region and who are not bureaucratically committed to supporting one side against the other (as seems to be the case among many American "Arabists") -- to exploit Arab weakness to the West's geopolitical advantage? The foreign policy "establishment" is hopelessly divided on the proper American role in the region, so perhaps our future lies with our new experts outside the establishment. Who might they be? The 400,000 Americans who have spent part of the last four years experiencing the Sunni-Shia split up close in Iraq. The alumni of Iraq will almost certainly produce the next big pool of American Middle Eastern experts. Where will they take American policy when they go back to school to become specialists, or enter the Foreign Service, or go to work for the Central Intelligence Agency?