The Middle East - watch this space
 
Sharon is coming under increasing pressure from his military chiefs to get off the fence and either negotiate with what's left of the Palestinian Authority, with or without Arafat or mount a major military re-occupation of the West Bank in particular.  Sources close to Israeli intelligence suggest that a body of opinion in the Aman and Shin Beth and with considerable support from the orthodox religious parties in the Knesset, are arguing that Sharon should go further and formally annex both the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. They believe that with the present mood in Washington that little meaningful criticism would be offered and certainly no positive action would be taken to prevent Israel from readjusting its borders permanently.
 
Reasons for this action abound, Israeli sources point to the apparently weakness of Arafat and the growing influence of Iran and Iraq in the West Bank. It is not only the delivery of relatively advanced weaponry, but the numbers of experienced military personnel stiffening Palestinian units that is of great concern to the IDF.  The Palestinians have no real track record of religious extremism, but now Arafats secular revolutionaries are being outmanoeuvred and side-tracked by Hezbollah and the Islamic Jihad. Even Hamas has opted to take a more pro-Iranian line in recent months.
 
Aman, the Israel Defence Force (IDF) intelligence service maintains that Colonel Mohammed Dahlan has been replaced by his former deputy Rashid Abu Shabak, who now heads the Palestinian Authority (PA) Preventive Intelligence in Gaza. The move is seen as confirmation that Arafat accepts that he has lost long term control of the West Bank. His only chance of survival will be as a local warlord in Gaza with a new security force made up of trusted loyalists to protect him from dissidents within the rump of his own regime.  But of course, only on the sufferance of Israel and his CIA paymasters in the United States.
 
The US has everything to play for
 
The perceived US anti-Muslim Crusade, while encouraging Israel, Turkey and India, has severely frightened Saudi Arabia, Iran and some other major Middle Eastern states, but to what effect? To support the US led War on Terrorism and risk being subjugated in an American neo-Colonial future or take the risk and fight back. Nobody doubts that the Arabs will lose any major conflict with the Western alliance, even in the unlikely event that they could co-operate militarily. However, the Arabs though defeated and occupied by the Turkish Ottoman Empire for 500 years, maintained their belief in an Arab identity. An honourable defeat sits more easily with Arab sensibilities and survival than that of being a collaborator with the enemy.
 
To even moderate Arab and Muslim opinion it appears that the United States has embarked not only on a campaign, perhaps even a crusade, to defeat the threat of Islamic Terrorism, but to do so by largely removing the ability of an independent Islamic world to challenge US interests. It is getting increasingly hard to avoid the conclusion that the United States is in the process of the biggest land grab in history. It has every thing to play for, the oil reserves of Arabia and Central Asia and a dominating US influence.  Its the Wild West all over again with Osama Bin-Laden as the new Geronimo and the only good Taliban is a dead Taliban, perhaps indeed the United States has lost a role and found itself an Empire.  However, will this actually greatly concern the Americans? They have the power and at the moment they have the will. Hollywood is happily providing the propaganda with 'Blackhawk Down' and more importantly the Bush administration has the bit between their teeth. Perhaps this is indeed the future, first the film, then the war.
 
INSIGHT
 

AFI Research, The Ground Floor, 27 The Avenue, Newton Abbot, Devon, TQ12 2BZ, UK afi@supanet.com  (main contact point for the News Media)  contact:  tel:  +44(0)1626 33 50 40   fax:  +44(0)1626 33 50 40

AFI Research (US Office), c/o Alan Simpson, National Press Building, Suite 1059, Washington DC 20045, USA news@comlinks.comcontact:  tel: (202) 662 7109   fax: (202) 662 7127

AFI Associates; Richard M Bennett (Founder & Senior Associate), Michael Crawford (Milnet-USA), Sidney E Dean (Consultant-Political Analyst-USA),
Michael Fishpool (Consultant-European Defence), John G. Habenstein (Intellecom Inc-USA), Glenn Jones (Consultant-Australia),
Dr Yuri Nekrassov (Consultant-Russia), David Oliver (Consultant -UK), Anthony O'Mahony (Consultant-MRPA Security), Ravi Rikhye (Orbat-USA),
Alan Simpson (ComLinks-USA) and Dr Robert Zeidner (Consultant-USA)

Maj Kamal Tahir, C.D.Ashok, Maj Frank P.Hayes, Col Massimo Menghini and Dr Fiona Campbell (AFI Research Team),Dr James Hawker(Administration)  and Kate Bennett (AFI Archivist & Webmaster).

AFI Associated websites  www.intelbriefing.com    www.milnet.com/milnet/afi/     www.orbat.com  www.intellecom-inc.com
www.defense-i.comwww.european-defence.co.uk www.freelancedirectory.org

The views expressed are the contributor's own and do not necessarily represent those of AFI Research AFI Research news feeds are available in both HTML and Plain text formatTo unsubscribe or if you have received this message in error, please contact afi@supanet.com

The outstanding 'America goes to War' can be found at our associate ORBAT.COM - the USA's top orbat source, while MILNET.COM provides extensive material on weapons and the infrastructure of worlds armed forces.