Saudi Arabia and neighboring oil-rich countries need the military and financial help (heft?) of Washington but perhaps more that of China and even Russia in their confrontation with Iran. Things are changing fast. China has been pouring money into refinery and pipeline operations in Iran (to the tune of at least 50 billion dollars), but will eventually need energy contracts not only with Iran but with everyone in sight, and that means Saudi Arabia, Iraq and the emirates. Washington is keeping an armada in the Indian Ocean and the Persian Gulf, as well as boots on the ground in Iraq, Koweit, Afghanistan, etc., that is, around the Persian Gulf and Iran. We are going to keep something like 50,000 troops in Iraq (how many non-Pentagon?), and about as many in Afghanistan. So, East and West of Iran. Aside: interesting that this modern empire of ours, pace the ideologues, still functions like the old empires, that is, with boots on the ground and ships on the seas (and in the air). Costly. How long can we keep it up if our industrial base and even our financial services go global and may end up under others’ control? The natural power over the Persian Gulf, however, with Iraq weakened for a long time, is Iran, which has had the good fortune of seeing its main regional enemy taken out for a long while thanks to Bush II’s war. They could and can sit back and poke the system, if it’s not too grand to say this (“system” for ad-hoc arrangements) via Hezbollah in Lebanon or worrisome nuclear developments. Hence the recent theater.

I can’t help but compare Israel’s present position within the US empire to that of the leaders of Samaria in Ezra-Nehemiah, under the Persian empire at the time (5th c. BC). Then, neighboring sub-provinces of a Persian empire that extended from nearly India to the south of Egypt and to Asia Minor could also be in competition and try to bring down their neighbor by pretending that they were arming (meaning: preparing to rebel). The leaders of Samaria accused their weak Judaean neighbors to the south of putting up defensive walls in Jerusalem: how peaceful was that? Could the Persian king accept this? Of course he could (if you could convince him that it was not military defense).

The key to peace in the area is going to be a sharing by the US and China, mainly, of the military responsibility over the area. Eventually, one could imagine China asking the Saudis and others to drop their opposition to the state of Israel. China’s interest in the question would be less religious and ideological than that of the US. And in turn Washington should pressure Israel to become a signatory of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty. We would end up anyway with Iran and Israel as nuclear powers in the Middle East. But with a strengthened hand for China, and a politically diminished role (though not militarily yet) for the US vis-à-vis Iran and the Persian Gulf. How to pull out of the region and especially of the Persian Gulf in orderly fashion, this should be the main goal of an intelligent US policy. It will be impossible to win elections with it.