China Threatens US Dominance in the Mideast

Biden Admin Blunders open the Door for China

Israel’s tactical victory in the daring raid to free four hostages in Gaza will not be turned into a more robust advantage because the Biden Administration’s strategic blunder in the middle east by diplomatically abandoning Israel. While Israeli fragility is based on its dependence on the United States militarily and diplomatically, people forget that the US too, is dependent upon Israel to support its presence and its influence in the middle east. How, you may ask can this be true with a massive US military presence in Qatar and a powerful naval presence in the Persian Gulf and surrounding areas?   Simply, US power depends upon these countries remaining its allies and if Qatar, Saudi Arabia, UAE and others come to the conclusion that China and not the US is the future, that will leave only Israel.  The US has been thrown out of other countries without repercussions and these countries will do the same, if necessary.

It is Israel that is the cornerstone of US power in the middle east and without it, Iran and China will control the entire region.  The Saudis and their Gulf allies know only too well how to look into the future and if that future is no longer America – they will look elsewhere.   The ancestors of these leaders abandoned the Ottoman Turks for TE Lawrence and the British in WWI as they correctly predicted the fall of the Ottoman Empire and welcomed British and then French armies.  They abandoned the French and British for the Americans as a balance to the Soviets and now they are looking for the next half century and wondering which power they will need to coddle.  Like it or not, Israel is the only constant that the US has in the middle east and betraying it as the Biden administration is doing (at least diplomatically) will lead to disaster.

According to Yoni ben Menachem, a veteran Israeli journalist who, amongst other things was the first Israeli journalist to interview Yassir Arafat before the Oslo Agreements, reports that China is now hosting a conference which will include senior Fatah/PA and Hamas figures.  The idea of the conference, like the previous one in Russia, is for the two main Palestinian groups to come to an agreement for the future control of Gaza as well as the West Bank.  

According to the report, Hamas understands that it cannot be the “official” leader of Gaza and the West bank now, but of course that doesn’t mean they can’t be a major part of the military and decision-making process.   One analyst has called this the “Hezbollah-zation” of the West Bank and Gaza as Hamas becomes the most powerful force without having to control and be responsible for official state duties.   As China is closely aligned with Iran in the middle east, the Islamic Republic of Iran is surely “advising” both China and Hamas in these talks.    This seems to be another step in China insinuating itself into the middle east much as the Soviet Union did in Cold War I.  With Chinese allies controlling Iran, Iraq, Syria and Lebanon – the West Bank and Gaza would further squeeze America’s allies into making difficult decisions.

For Jordan and Saudi Arabia, one must wonder if they would turn to China instead of the US for guarantees of their territorial integrity.  This of course would go against Iranian interests of creating a Shiite Empire that would control Jordan, Mecca and Medina (as well as Israel), but Iran is nothing if not patient and they could continue to try to destabilize both countries, if on a lower flame.  Chinese “guarantees”, these dessert kingdoms would soon learn, would last as long as is needed to get the US out of the region.

For Israel, it would put the country back to where it was in 1966, threatened on all sides by countries allied with the main enemy of the West.   This time however, there would be a nuclear power, Iran, that is in direct confrontation with it instead of a proxy of a nuclear power.  China has had no problem allowing North Korea to threaten the West at every turn there is no reason to believe it would reign in Iran.  If this meant the eclipse of United States power in the region that supplies it with most of its energy needs China will be glad to play along with a nuclear Iran.

If the Chinese bring an agreement between Hamas and Fatah that appoints a “technocratic” figurehead as Prime Minister of something called Palestine that recognizes all of the West Bank, Gaza and Jerusalem as its borders the US/West will be in a bind.  On the one hand that is the dream of the US State Department and the EU– to force israel into indefensible borders with Iranian allies in spitting distance of Jerusalem, Ben Gurion Airport and Tel-Aviv.  On the other hand, it leaves the West and specifically the US, out of the loop.   Or in a desperate move to remain relevant, will US aircraft carriers be positioned to force Israel to accept a Chinese brokered deal that endangers it? 

For the West in general and the US in particular, the issue of course has nothing to do with the absurdity of the idea of a Palestinian State in the pre-1967 lines and everything to do with China becoming the main power in the middle east without so much as sending an aircraft carrier to its seas.    The US and the West are already being kicked out of sub-Saharan Africa and have ignored the slaughter of black African Christians in the Sudan and now will they sit back as the UN Security Council forces Israel to agree to enemy forces backed by Iranian nuclear power, on every land border? 

Israel will have limited diplomatic options if the US is no longer in the region.   It can build its relations with India of course, but they don’t have a veto (yet) in the Security Council. The one card that Israel has and has not yet even threatened to play is the nuclear card.   Could Israel threaten to nuke Teheran, Iranian nuclear sites, oil fields and even Beirut f it is left to its own devices without a major ally?   Does it have other weapons that can, as the Biden administration likes to say “upset the balance” in the middle east?   As opposed to the old Soviet Union, China does not yet have the forces capable to back their allies and deter Israel and if backed to a corner, no one knows what Israel may do. 

 One thing Israel won’t do is close up shop.

While the global progressive left (including its Israeli branch office) cherishes the isolation Israel is in, the consequence of this isolation is the end of Western influence and power in the middle east.  The end of Western influence means the end of the western rules of international relations and of course the end of Pax Americana.

Currently, I don’t see any Israeli leader threatening, let alone using the nuclear option, but things change rather quickly in the middle east.   The Biden Administration and the Davos-Left are sure that after getting rid of the scapegoats in Israel (centered upon Netanyahu) a more pliant leader will be elected.  That will happen only if most of the Israeli electorate is disenfranchised as the Israeli public has moved even more to the right since October 7.

If the US doesn’t change course and back Israel unequivocally, the summit in China might be the beginning of the end for US influence, not only in the middle east but in the Indian Ocean and maybe the entire Indo-Pacific.  The US is still the only country that can amass great power in the middle east and it needs to use this power to counter the China-Iran-Russia axis and not to help it. Backing Israel and demanding the destruction of Hamas instead of looking for ways to keep Hamas in power is, currently, the best way to actually reduce Axis power and influence and make the Chinese summit irrelevant.   Hezbollah now assumes that the US will do anything to prevent Israeli troops from crossing the border with Lebanon – much as it seems willing to do (almost) anything to prevent Israel from winning in Gaza.  That assumption needs to change and it can only change with powerful statements and actions from Washington.

We are living in dangerous times and one more Biden-Blinken blunder, might be its last – with horrible repercussions globally.   It is not too late for Biden to take the Hamas “no” to the latest deal and to give Israel carte-blanche to finish what it started in Gaza.  This can turn Israel’s tactical victory into a strategic one – for Israel as well as for the United States.