By Raghida Dergham in New York
UN General Assembly
Over
the past two weeks, the UN General Assembly witnessed a historic event that
soon became the focus of diplomats and the media equally. The event was none
other than the address by the Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to the
international community, demanding full membership for Palestine at the United
Nations, in what has proven to be a stand for pride and one that has changed
the balance of power at numerous levels, both regionally and internationally.
Yet the Palestinian episode did not alone engross the heads of state and
ministers. The bilateral meetings also reflected tremendous interest in what is
taking place, in terms of the birth of a new regional order in the Middle East
as a result of the Arab Awakening and the revolutions in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya,
Yemen and Syria, in addition to the events in Bahrain.
Turkey
and Iran are also both essential when it comes to determining the fate of the
new regional order, but this does not mean that Arab countries, and in
particular the countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), are absent in
this vein either. Lebanon, too, is important for the genesis of this new order,
inasmuch as it is affected by the Syrian regime surviving or collapsing. This
is not to mention the impact such a collapse would have on Damascus’s main
ally, i.e. the Islamic Republic of Iran, which will in turn decide the fate of
Lebanon through its intimate ties with Hezbollah.
While
Palestine is the shining star at the United Nations these days, the issue of
Syria is returning strongly to the Security Council this week, and will reveal
the nature of the developments taking place in terms of the relations among
major powers and key regional powers in the Middle East. Such new developments
carry important implications, especially as Syria is the crucial part, or the
linchpin, of the new regional order in the Middle East.
But
first, a few important moments from the day Mahmoud Abbas addressed the General
Assembly, on September 23: That day, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was
in a semi-secret location, disclosed only in the 11th hour, anticipating the
press to rally to his annual press conference. But Ahmadinejad was compelled to
postpone his event, as the international press was not preoccupied with him
this time, but rather with the Palestinian President. Ahmadinejad had been the
star of past General Assembly sessions, and had enjoyed the limelight, but his
stardom has been seriously undermined at the 66th session, and this shows two
things: One, that Iran influence and role at the regional and international
levels are on the decline, and two, that international focus on Iran’s nuclear
program is waning.
On
that day, an unfortunate incident also took place in the General Assembly Hall,
while Mahmoud Abbas was giving his historic speech, and almost ended up with
shots being fired there, something that has never happened before. What
happened was that Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan was rushing from
a bilateral meeting on the fourth floor of the General Assembly building to the
General Assembly Hall, accompanied as usual by a massive number of private
guards, in order to listen to the Palestinian President who had just begun his
speech. It happened that the UN guards blocked the way for Erdoğan and his
guards, advising them to head to the second floor, since there isn’t an
entrance leading from the fourth to the first floor, where the heads of
delegations were seated. However, Erdoğan’s guards thought that their UN
counterparts were trying to prevent the Prime Minister of Turkey from entering
the hall, and the situation escalated to a standoff. An altercation ensued,
prompting some speculation that anti-Palestinian elements were trying to
disrupt the Palestinian President’s speech from the fourth floor, a floor
reserved for guests, not official delegations. Turkish arrogance thus resulted in
three UN guards, including a woman, being hospitalized. Secretary-General Ban
Ki-moon, who wished to avoid a diplomatic crisis, rushed to apologize before
finding out the truth about what happened, prompting reservations and
criticism, especially as he had acted before investigating the incident.
The
Turkish delegation also attracted attention during this session when Turkey’s
Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu asked the Secretary-General for the Turkish
language to be adopted as one of the UN’s official languages. This is while
bearing in mind that Arabic is an official language at the UN alongside
English, French, Russian and Chinese. In short, what took place in the General
Assembly Hall while the Palestinian President was giving his historic speech
came close to ruining Palestine’s day, if a shot had been fired.
Before
delving into an analysis of the roles played by Turkey and the stardom of its
Prime Minister at the 66th session, let us return to what took place on
September 23 outside the UN, when surprisingly, the Yemeni President Ali
Abdullah Saleh left the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, where he was undergoing
treatment, and returned unexpectedly to Yemen.
The
prevailing belief among various official parties, in the region and beyond, was
that Saleh had been under near house arrest in Saudi Arabia, with a view to
avert the bloodshed his return to Yemen could result in, and also as a way of
forcing him to implement the Gulf initiative. The latter requires him to step
down and his Deputy Abd Al-Rab Mansur Al-Hadi to take charge of running the
transitional period and overseeing the elections.
The
account given by one major leader of the regime, who is from the diplomatic
corps, is that Ali Abdullah Saleh has returned to Yemen in order to prevent his
two sons from harassing his Deputy. His son Ahmed, who heads the Republican
Guard, succeeded in excluding Al-Hadi from the Presidential Palace, forcing him
to work from his home, so as to make it clear to all those concerned who is
truly in charge in the country. The story is that Ali Abdullah Saleh has
returned to stop his sons from harassing the Vice President, before returning
to the KSA to continue his treatment.
There
are numerous holes in this story, yet that is not what is most important. What
is most important is the Saudi role in Saleh’s return to Yemen. It is said that
the values of hospitality made Saleh’s departure a decision he was free to
make, but the fact of the matter is that there are political factors that
contributed to the decision of allowing him to return. Some of the most
prominent of these include: First, increased fears from Al-Qaeda in Yemen and
the belief that Saleh’s return would keep Al-Qaeda in check at the military
level; second, fear of the Vice President’s weakness and inability to control
the situation at this delicate stage, which could lead to frightening chaos; third,
the fragmented state of the opposition and fears of the repercussions of such
fragmentation. All of this does not negate the possibility that the story might
be true, which would mean for the Yemeni President the major achievement of
reining in his sons, then returning to the KSA for treatment, and later
implementing the Gulf initiative. Yet today, it seems most plausible that Saleh
is still stalling and that his stay in Yemen is aimed at reducing the pressures
being put on him. This begs the following question: did the US Administration
sanction in advance the Saudi decision to allow Saleh to leave, for the same
reasons, or was Washington truly shocked by this development?
On
the issue of Libya, the difficult hour has come, after the celebrations of the
victory of the opposition and the North Atlantic Alliance (NATO) over the
regime of Muammar Gaddafi. The time for the big test has come. The Libyan
experiment will not be completed successfully as long as mechanisms of
monitoring and accountability have not been put in place, mechanisms that would
ensure that corruption will not return, especially in oil and construction
contracts. There is also the element of foreign– including Arab – interference
in shaping the nature of government in the new Libya. Some want it to be
Islamic and others want it to be secular. Yet there are complaints of the
“heavy-handedness” of some Gulf countries, which have helped and contributed to
getting rid of the Gaddafi regime in a greater, more profound and more
prominent way. Qatar denies having interfered to such an extent, yet it must be
aware that there are complaints of its “heavy-handedness” in managing Libya.
Regarding
the Palestinian issue, a major Gulf country is working on helping Palestine
avoid being embarrassed, if it truly emerges that it will not obtain the nine
votes necessary for the Security Council to adopt the resolution granting it
full membership in the United Nations, as requested by the Palestinian
President. At the outset of the Palestinian bid, it was clear that the United
States would use its veto to preclude the Security Council adopting such a
resolution. Yet today, there is an increasing belief that the Palestinian
application will not even obtain the nine votes needed, sparing the United
States the need to cast its veto. And this, in the opinion of several countries
in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), will represent an insult and a setback
for Palestine.
Efforts
are therefore underway to convince the Palestinian President of accepting to
postpone a draft resolution requesting Palestine’s membership at the level of
the Security Council, until the General Assembly votes on a resolution with a
secured outcome, granting Palestine “non-member observer status” at the United
Nations.
It
should be pointed out here that Mahmoud Abbas is not limiting the scope of his
entire strategy to obtaining membership or “observer” status for Palestine at
the UN. He in fact has a much broader political horizon, and he has placed the
US Administration, European governments, Russia and the UN before difficult
challenges.
As
for the Syrian issue, it has engrossed a large part of the movement of Gulf
countries in bilateral and multilateral meetings, on the sidelines of the
General Assembly at the United Nations, including the meeting that brought
together Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud Al-Faisal, Foreign Minister of the
UAE Sheikh Abdullah Bin Zayed and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.
The
latter is an expert diplomat who is difficult to deal with and who is forceful
in his opinions and stances. Among his most prominent complaints about how the
Syrian issue is being dealt with, is that European governments had not taken
his opinion into account and did not inform him of the bilateral sanctions
imposed by the European Union against Syria. He also wants the Security Council
to place equal responsibility on the government and on the opposition for the
violence.
Turkey
for its part is stepping up its rhetoric as well as its actions on the ground,
and there is increasing talk of taking tangible steps to support the opposition
across the Turkish-Syrian border with weapons and equipment. The Turkish
leadership, though Erdoğan himself, has warned Iran of the consequences of its
support for the Syrian authorities and their crackdown on the protesters.
The
new regional order is taking shape at several levels and in different
milestones. It could take six months or a year, but there is no going back to
what the old regional order was in the Middle East.
This commentary was published in al-Hayat on 30/09/2011
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