{"id":114737,"date":"2024-08-04T17:05:59","date_gmt":"2024-08-04T15:05:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/?p=114737"},"modified":"2024-08-03T08:45:55","modified_gmt":"2024-08-03T06:45:55","slug":"05-05-102","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/?p=114737","title":{"rendered":"The Ottoman American Empire"},"content":{"rendered":"<h5 style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.tabletmag.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"center alignleft\" src=\"http:\/\/www.reunion68.com\/Biuletyn\/img\/tablet-1.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"35%\" \/><\/a><span style=\"text-decoration: underline; color: #000080;\"><strong><a style=\"color: #000080; text-decoration: underline;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.tabletmag.com\/sections\/israel-middle-east\/articles\/ottoman-american-empire\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">The Ottoman American Empire<\/a><\/strong><\/span><\/h5>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><strong>Tony Badran<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<hr style=\"height: 15px; background: #d0e6fa; width: 100%;\" \/>\n<div>\n<h2 style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>The Obama-Biden blueprint after Gaza<\/strong>.<\/h2>\n<\/div>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/tablet-mag-images.b-cdn.net\/production\/e8fa73e7f72d5eebfb50efc2756b8b1033adf8e3-2500x3971.jpg?w=1250&amp;q=70&amp;auto=format&amp;dpr=1\" width=\"100%\" \/><span style=\"color: #808080;\"><em>Tablet Magazine<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"BlockContent col-12 lg:col-10 xl-wide:col-8 mxauto\">\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><span style=\"color: #000080;\">According to U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Israel has \u201ceffectively lost sovereignty\u201d over the north of its own country thanks to Hezbollah rocket attacks that have sent 80,000 Israelis fleeing from their homes and set at least 20,000 acres of Israeli land on fire. Blinken made his\u00a0<a style=\"color: #000080;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.state.gov\/secretary-antony-j-blinken-at-a-conversation-on-u-s-foreign-policy-at-the-brookings-institution\/\">comments<\/a>\u00a0before the Hezbollah rocket attack that killed 12 children in the Israeli Golan Heights community of Majdal Shams, in the wake of which Washington signaled that it would be working to \u201ccontain the fallout\u201d from the attack. In both cases, the Biden White House was closely following its existing blueprint for how it expects the eastern Mediterranean will work following the cease-fire it is attempting to enforce on Israel in Gaza, leaving Hamas in charge of the strip as the prelude to formally establishing a U.S.-recognized Palestinian state.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"BlockContent col-12 lg:col-10 xl-wide:col-8 mxauto\" style=\"text-align: left;\">\n<p><span style=\"color: #000080;\">There is nothing secret about the administration\u2019s plan for how it will administer the Levant, which it first unveiled in October 2022 in the form of the Israel-Lebanon maritime border deal brokered by White House emissary Amos Hochstein and signed by the then caretaker prime minister, Yair Lapid, in the waning days of his government. According to the U.S. blueprint, the United States and Iran will jointly administer a set of Levantine provinces, including Israel; a future Palestinian state; and Lebanon. Jordan, which is also part of the local geography, is configured as an American protectorate to balance out Syria, which was recognized by Barack Obama,\u00a0<a style=\"color: #000080;\" href=\"https:\/\/obamawhitehouse.archives.gov\/the-press-office\/2015\/12\/18\/press-conference-president-121815\">publicly<\/a>\u00a0in 2015 and\u00a0<a style=\"color: #000080;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.wsj.com\/articles\/obama-wrote-secret-letter-to-irans-khamenei-about-fighting-islamic-state-1415295291\">privately<\/a>\u00a0in his letters to Ali Khamenei, as an Iranian regional \u201cequity\u201d and will therefore apparently be administered solely by Iran. Whatever problems may arise between the three Levantine provinces and their local subdivisions are to be adjudicated jointly by the U.S.-Iran condominium, with local governing entities being free to plead their cases in Washington but powerless to take independent action without taking on both the global superpower and its regional partner.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"BlockContent col-12 lg:col-10 xl-wide:col-8 mxauto\" style=\"text-align: left;\">\n<p><span style=\"color: #000080;\">The U.S.-Iranian understanding has governed and constrained Israeli action since the beginning of the Oct. 7 war. By ruling out any major military action against either Hezbollah or Iran and declaring the establishment of a Palestinian state to be a necessary outcome of the end of the Gaza war, it has bound the Israeli war effort in a straitjacket of strategic futility that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his government have tried their best to wriggle out of. While the tactical successes of the past few days\u2014in which Israel targeted the upper echelons of the Iranian network in successive strikes in Beirut and Tehran\u2014smartly turned the power vacuum in the White House to Israel\u2019s advantage, it is unclear what, if any, strategic significance they will have past November.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"BlockContent col-12 lg:col-10 xl-wide:col-8 mxauto\">\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><span style=\"color: #000080;\">In the last two days of May, the Obama-Biden team again put forward its vision for the joint U.S.-Iranian administration of the region in two back-to-back announcements laying out how the Gaza endgame will work. Front and center in these announcements was the U.S.\u00a0<a style=\"color: #000080;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.whitehouse.gov\/briefing-room\/speeches-remarks\/2024\/05\/31\/remarks-by-president-biden-on-the-middle-east-2\/\">plan<\/a>\u00a0for Gaza and the Palestinians, which came with the public\u00a0<a style=\"color: #000080;\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/barackobama\/status\/1796633162077855801?s=61&amp;t=-EgS4JiQk0LAI_Jgq_Aixg\">imprimatur<\/a>\u00a0of Barack Obama himself, the leader of the ruling party in Washington. The Obama plan, which begins with ending Israel\u2019s military operation against Hamas, includes international engagement and investment in Gaza, and the formalization of the status of the Palestinian Territories as a proto-state under American management.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"PullQuote PullQuote--left flex flex-col items-center pt1_5 pb3 mt1_75 mb_75 border-bottom-black\">\n<blockquote>\n<p class=\"PullQuote__text PullQuote--left__text text-center\" style=\"text-align: left;\"><strong>To understand the dynamics of the American-Iranian blueprint for Israel-Palestine-Lebanon, we need to look to the late Ottoman Empire and its relationships with the Great Powers of Europe.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<div class=\"BlockContent col-12 lg:col-10 xl-wide:col-8 mxauto\">\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><span style=\"color: #000080;\">The day before the proclamation on the Palestinians, Team Obama-Biden rolled out its plan for Israel\u2019s northern neighbor, Lebanon. The president\u2019s senior adviser, Hochstein,\u00a0<a style=\"color: #000080;\" href=\"https:\/\/carnegieendowment.org\/events\/2024\/05\/a-conversation-with-senior-advisor-to-the-president-for-energy-and-investment-amos-hochstein?lang=en\">laid out<\/a>\u00a0a parallel multiphase plan for the Hezbollah-run country, which likewise features increased international engagement and cover, supplementing the United States\u2019 substantial existing investments in so-called Lebanese state institutions, whose job is to run cover and provide support for Hezbollah.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"BlockContent col-12 lg:col-10 xl-wide:col-8 mxauto\" style=\"text-align: left;\">\n<p><span style=\"color: #000080;\">What was original in the May announcements was the explicit connection that was made between the two plans, by both Washington and Hezbollah, the Iranian-led militia that rules Lebanon and acts as Iran\u2019s local regent. The Lebanese plan would go into effect along with the Gaza plan, i.e., once Israel agrees to a cease-fire, with the Gaza plan being patterned on the Lebanese model. Biden and his team asserted that Israel has already agreed to the framework of the U.S. plan, signaling that Jerusalem, like Hezbollah, has signed on to Washington\u2019s demands, just as it signed on to the Lebanese maritime deal\u2014though, to be fair, it\u2019s hard to see how the Israelis could turn Washington down in the middle of a war.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"BlockContent col-12 lg:col-10 xl-wide:col-8 mxauto\" style=\"text-align: left;\">\n<p><span style=\"color: #000080;\">Hamas has not yet agreed to a cease-fire, though. Here, the United States appears to be faced by something of a logical conundrum. By granting Hamas victory in its war with Israel in the form of a cease-fire, followed by continuing control of the Gaza Strip, followed by a U.S.-backed state, the United States has in fact removed the motivation for Hamas to make any reciprocal concessions whatsoever. Why should it? Which is likely why the United States has engaged in only muted criticism of Israel\u2019s military maneuvers in Rafah, which are the only form of leverage the United States has left to get the ball rolling on its regional blueprint.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"BlockContent col-12 lg:col-10 xl-wide:col-8 mxauto\" style=\"text-align: left;\">\n<p><span style=\"color: #000080;\">So what does that blueprint consist of? It starts with U.S. investment and government grants to both countries that dwarf anything that the United States put into Gaza before the war. For Tehran, such investment is a subsidy; for the United States, it is a way of \u201ccontaining the fallout\u201d from any pesky rocket attacks, since Israel will be naturally constrained from bombing anything built with U.S. money or housing U.S. personnel. Then, there is active U.S. training and equipment for Lebanese and Palestinian armed forces, which in turn serve as shields and auxiliaries for much larger and more powerful terrorist armies that dominate both societies. Funding these (fictional) entities is like creating a large, heavily armed version of UNRWA, the supposed U.N. \u201crelief agency\u201d that funded Hamas and its tunnels before Oct. 7. Except the human shields these entities deploy will now be American military trainers.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"col-12 lg:col-10 xl-wide:col-8 mxauto\" style=\"text-align: left;\">\n<div class=\"Divider Divider--dotted-rule overflow-hidden\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"BlockContent col-12 lg:col-10 xl-wide:col-8 mxauto\">\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><span style=\"color: #000080;\">What gives the Lebanon model its legs though, is not just that it joins the U.S. interest to the interests of the most powerful groups in Lebanese and Palestinian societies\u2014namely, terrorist armies controlled by Iran. It extends beyond the shared particulars of international investment and engagement to a much older regional template with deep historical and geographical underpinnings. Perhaps the most relevant iteration of this template dates back to the mid-19th century. To understand the dynamics of the American-Iranian blueprint for Israel-Palestine-Lebanon, we therefore need to look to the late Ottoman Empire and its relationships with the Great Powers of Europe.<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"BlockContent col-12 lg:col-10 xl-wide:col-8 mxauto\" style=\"text-align: left;\">\n<p><span style=\"color: #000080;\">In the early 19th century, while the Ottomans continued to control the eastern Mediterranean, the rise of Egypt under Muhammad Ali led to the reemergence of a familiar pattern in the Levant, which is the rise of a set of fractured territories that functioned as a buffer zone between rival centers of power. Only now, there was a twist. European power was now a major factor that the weakened Ottoman Empire not only couldn\u2019t circumvent but also depended on. Most notable among this power were the British, whose intervention was critical in repelling Egypt from Beirut and Acre in 1840.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"BlockContent col-12 lg:col-10 xl-wide:col-8 mxauto\" style=\"text-align: left;\">\n<p><span style=\"color: #000080;\">In turn, European industrial and military strength forced the Ottomans to grant competing European powers concessions and privileges in the Ottoman realm, especially in the Levant, where European consuls played a considerable active commercial and political role. By then, the Sick Man of Europe, as the Ottoman Empire was known, had become an important square on the European chessboard of power.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"BlockContent col-12 lg:col-10 xl-wide:col-8 mxauto\" style=\"text-align: left;\">\n<p><span style=\"color: #000080;\">As a consequence of this regional and international intrigue, the sectarian bloodletting that broke out, especially in Lebanon in 1841, following Egypt\u2019s retreat, led to the creation of a special administrative arrangement in Mount Lebanon\u2014a compromise between the French, British, and Ottomans brokered by Austrian Chancellor Klemens von Metternich. The arrangement replaced the abolished French-supported Emirate of Mount Lebanon, which had become a vassal of Egypt, and established two\u00a0<em>kaymakam<\/em>\u2019s, or sub-governorates, one Druze and one Maronite.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"BlockContent col-12 lg:col-10 xl-wide:col-8 mxauto\" style=\"text-align: left;\">\n<p><span style=\"color: #000080;\">The sub-governorate system was marked by increased sectarian hostilities, culminating in the massacres of 1860, which led to another European military landing in Beirut, this time led by the French. Moreover, it resulted in the creation of a new arrangement in Mount Lebanon, negotiated between the Ottomans and the Great Powers of Britain, France, Russia, Austria, and Prussia: a special province (<em>mutasarrifl\u0131k<\/em>). The idea of the special province was proposed by British diplomat Lord Dufferin. The province would be under European supervision and administered by a non-Arab Ottoman Christian governor chosen by the Sublime Porte, who would be advised by a local administrative council of sectarian notables. The province would have only a gendarmerie, trained by the French.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"BlockContent col-12 lg:col-10 xl-wide:col-8 mxauto\" style=\"text-align: left;\">\n<p><span style=\"color: #000080;\">The province\u2019s economy\u2014silk monoculture\u2014was dependent on the European market. European (and, by 1840, American) religious, educational, and health institutions as well as trade investments, concessions, and infrastructure projects (railways and port installations) were already well established in Beirut, the center of a separate administrative division (<em>vilayet<\/em>), which served as the base for the activities of the participants in Mount Lebanon\u2019s affairs and for French influence in the region.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"BlockContent col-12 lg:col-10 xl-wide:col-8 mxauto\" style=\"text-align: left;\">\n<p><span style=\"color: #000080;\">This complex arrangement remained in place until World War I. The war changed the calculus of the Great Powers toward the Ottoman Empire, which entered the war on the side of the Central powers. The Ottomans picked the wrong side, and after more than 500 years, their empire was finished.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"BlockContent col-12 lg:col-10 xl-wide:col-8 mxauto\" style=\"text-align: left;\">\n<p><span style=\"color: #000080;\">According to the new local arrangements ratified by the League of Nations following the San Remo Conference, the Special Province of Mount Lebanon was replaced with a French mandate. Meanwhile, the Special Province of Jerusalem, created by the Ottomans 11 years after the Special Province of Mount Lebanon, albeit with different calculations, was replaced with the British mandate for Palestine, which was quickly partitioned into two districts, Transjordan (now the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan) and Palestine (now Israel, with an asterisk).<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"col-12 lg:col-10 xl-wide:col-8 mxauto\" style=\"text-align: left;\">\n<div class=\"Divider Divider--dotted-rule overflow-hidden\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"BlockContent col-12 lg:col-10 xl-wide:col-8 mxauto\" style=\"text-align: left;\">\n<p><span style=\"color: #000080;\">I am hardly suggesting that the brain trust of the Obama-Biden team has sat down and poured over 19th c. Levantine history in search for a historical precedent and a set of maps to underpin its policy. Rather, stumbling into the Lebanese model of the special province is, for one, a testament to the enduring structures of the Levant and its interaction with imperial powers. As it happens, the same structural elements that lent themselves to the Ottoman carve-up lend themselves naturally to the vision driving policy in Washington since Barack Obama\u2019s first term: the realignment with Iran and the reconfiguration of the regional order. In that regard, the Obama-Biden policy represents at once a massive expansion of the special province model as well as its inversion, in some key ways.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"BlockContent col-12 lg:col-10 xl-wide:col-8 mxauto\" style=\"text-align: left;\">\n<p><span style=\"color: #000080;\">Whereas European intervention was driven by competing interests, which necessitated upholding a declining empire and managing its holdings while keeping rivals in check, Obama\u2019s division of the region is intended to elevate a regional middle power and inflate its status across the region while orchestrating regional and international investment in its territories so that it can \u201cdo its job\u201d as a U.S. partner. The 19th-century Mount Lebanon special province was a compromise between direct Ottoman rule and the revival of a French-sponsored principality. In Obama\u2019s conceptual universe, the special province is recognized as an Iranian satrapy ruled directly by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and its local legion\u2014with an accepted American presence, whose function is to provide protection and direct investment, both of which serve in turn to prop up Tehran.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"BlockContent col-12 lg:col-10 xl-wide:col-8 mxauto\" style=\"text-align: left;\">\n<p><span style=\"color: #000080;\">Refracted through this lens, the Obama-Biden team\u2019s policy in Lebanon offers a sketch of its adapted special province model, which it plans to implement in the Palestinian Territories following the end of Israel\u2019s monthslong incursion into Gaza.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"BlockContent col-12 lg:col-10 xl-wide:col-8 mxauto\">\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><span style=\"color: #000080;\">Underscoring the privileged place the Lebanese special province holds in Team Obama-Biden\u2019s regional configuration is the American physical headquarters in the tiny country: the U.S. embassy. The second smallest Arab country is host to the second largest U.S. embassy on earth (the largest is in Iraq)\u2014a 43-acre, $1 billion mammoth.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/tablet-mag-images.b-cdn.net\/production\/c59c8a053f4d5c003f2a3788cac896b21b62905c-1280x850.jpg?w=1200&amp;q=70&amp;auto=format&amp;dpr=1\" width=\"100%\" \/><span style=\"color: #808080;\"><em>The new US embassy complex in Beirut under construction<\/em><\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"color: #808080;\"><em>US Embassy in Beirut\/Twitter<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"BlockContent col-12 lg:col-10 xl-wide:col-8 mxauto\">\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><span style=\"color: #000080;\">The obvious question one might ask in response to hearing these numbers (the architectural renderings of this behemoth are even more startling), is: Why would America make that kind of investment in a pseudo-state run by Iran\u2019s local representative? The answer is, precisely because it is Iranian territory.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"BlockContent col-12 lg:col-10 xl-wide:col-8 mxauto\" style=\"text-align: left;\">\n<p><span style=\"color: #000080;\">The purpose of large-scale U.S. investment in Lebanon and its state institutions, as well as the building of an embassy that resembles a LEED-certified version of the Crac des Chevaliers in the hills overlooking Beirut, is not to attempt a hostile takeover or, to use the insufferable jargon of Washington hands, to \u201ccompete\u201d with Iran. The last time there was perceived hostility in the American involvement in Lebanon, Iran blew up the U.S. embassy and the Marine barracks and kidnapped and murdered U.S. citizens in Beirut throughout the 1980s. No, the U.S. involvement is understood by all to be friendly and beneficial, aimed not at undermining the Iranian domain but at consolidating it in a joint venture. Much like the British with the Ottomans, American involvement in the Iranian realm is that of a patron\u2014only not for the purpose of managing a declining empire, but for the inverted goal of consolidating the realm of an artificially inflated middle power that will administer the region under America\u2019s aegis, for a price.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"BlockContent col-12 lg:col-10 xl-wide:col-8 mxauto\" style=\"text-align: left;\">\n<p><span style=\"color: #000080;\">If the colossal embassy is the physical marker of the American investment in the Special Province of Lebanon, the principal avenue for U.S. involvement has been in the training and equipping of the security forces. Although they\u2019re called the Lebanese Armed Forces, internally, the special province\u2019s army performs gendarmerie functions; national security and defense policy and actual military functions are the domain of the Iranian court and its local military force, Hezbollah.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"BlockContent col-12 lg:col-10 xl-wide:col-8 mxauto\" style=\"text-align: left;\">\n<p><span style=\"color: #000080;\">In recent years, however, the Obama-Biden team incorporated the LAF into the American counterterrorism enterprise, which has defined U.S. involvement in the region over the past quarter century. That enterprise is another facet of the American-Iranian partnership. Centering U.S. investment in the LAF on a target acceptable and beneficial to Iran is intended to reassure Tehran as to the shared nature of the force\u2019s mission.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"BlockContent col-12 lg:col-10 xl-wide:col-8 mxauto\" style=\"text-align: left;\">\n<p><span style=\"color: #000080;\">As another token of reassurance, the LAF is deployed along the border with Israel. In addition to playing a support role to Hezbollah in the area, positioning the U.S.-sponsored force in between Israel and the Iranian force means that an Israeli attack would have to target an American asset.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"BlockContent col-12 lg:col-10 xl-wide:col-8 mxauto\">\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><span style=\"color: #000080;\">The same model is now being reproduced for the Special Province of Palestine. An ongoing Team Obama-Biden project is to stand up a Palestinian analogue to the LAF\u2014let\u2019s call it the PAF, an enterprise that\u00a0<a style=\"color: #000080;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.tabletmag.com\/sections\/israel-middle-east\/articles\/blinken-builds-palestinian-hezbollah-in-wes\">began<\/a>\u00a0well before Oct. 7 under the supervision of the Obama-Biden team\u2019s security coordinator in the Palestinian Territories, Lt. Gen. Michael Fenzel. Fenzel is also the administration\u2019s point man in its\u00a0<a style=\"color: #000080;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.tabletmag.com\/sections\/israel-middle-east\/articles\/fraudulent-case-against-violent-settlers\">campaign<\/a>\u00a0targeting Jews in Judea and Samaria\u2014the flip side of the PAF policy, both of which are designed to consolidate a nascent Palestinian Special Province.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"PullQuote PullQuote--left flex flex-col items-center pt1_5 pb3 mt1_75 mb_75 border-bottom-black\">\n<blockquote>\n<p class=\"PullQuote__text PullQuote--left__text text-center\" style=\"text-align: left;\"><strong>The Obama team sees Jewish sovereignty as a destabilizing factor in the regional arrangement with Iran, which therefore must be constrained, if not out outright abolished.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<div class=\"ArticleView__content-switch bradford text-article-body-md font-300 mxauto\">\n<div class=\"BlockContent col-12 lg:col-10 xl-wide:col-8 mxauto\">\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><span style=\"color: #000080;\">Initially, Fenzel was said to have been standing up a 5,000-strong force trained and equipped by the United States. The objective of Fenzel\u2019s force is to sharply curtail IDF operations in Judea and Samaria, setting the stage for full Palestinian control of the West Bank under American supervision.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"BlockContent col-12 lg:col-10 xl-wide:col-8 mxauto\" style=\"text-align: left;\">\n<p><span style=\"color: #000080;\">Like its Lebanese counterpart, the PAF has been folded into the U.S. counterterrorism framework. Being designated a U.S. counterterrorism partner force is code for both guaranteed perpetual American investment and reassurance to Iran that the force will safeguard, not subvert, Tehran\u2019s realm. The PAF\u2019s job is not to go after Iranian forces, such as Hamas or Palestinian Islamic Jihad, but to act as an auxiliary force and, by virtue of American sponsorship, as a constraint on IDF activity.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"BlockContent col-12 lg:col-10 xl-wide:col-8 mxauto\" style=\"text-align: left;\">\n<p><span style=\"color: #000080;\">Since Oct. 7, Washington\u2019s plans for the PAF have gone into overdrive. Like the LAF up north, the PAF features prominently in Team Obama-Biden\u2019s \u201c<a style=\"color: #000080;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.tabletmag.com\/sections\/israel-middle-east\/articles\/after-gaza-roundtable\">Day After<\/a>\u201d plan\u2014that is, the formalization of the Palestinian Special Province, with its dual jurisdictions (or\u00a0<em>kaza<\/em>, in keeping with Ottoman terminology). Within a couple of months since Oct. 7, the administration was already\u00a0<a style=\"color: #000080;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/opinions\/2023\/12\/28\/gaza-peacekeeping-palestinian-force\/\">putting<\/a>\u00a0out\u00a0<a style=\"color: #000080;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.wsj.com\/world\/middle-east\/u-s-presses-palestinians-to-secure-gaza-after-israel-leaves-10e78f75\">talkers<\/a>\u00a0about the need to \u201cstrengthen\u201d and \u201cbeef up\u201d Fenzel\u2019s nascent PAF. After a\u00a0<a style=\"color: #000080;\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/germanyonmena\/status\/1730390537557938584?s=61&amp;t=Fk-VMU6qbwBZ8jBHjFqdNg\">meeting<\/a>\u00a0between Fenzel and Palestinian Authority Intelligence Chief Majed Faraj in late 2023, chatter about guaranteeing funding (including salaries) for the force started to pop up in D.C.\u2014again, following the LAF template. It\u2019s said that during a meeting between Fenzel and the commander of the PA\u2019s National Security Forces, Nidal Abu Dukhan, they also discussed U.S. salaries for the PAF.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"BlockContent col-12 lg:col-10 xl-wide:col-8 mxauto\" style=\"text-align: left;\">\n<p><span style=\"color: #000080;\">In Lebanon, the Obama-Biden team has already deployed American trainers and special forces personnel. In fact, the U.S. military routinely docks naval vessels in Lebanese ports and uses an airstrip in the Hezbollah-controlled Bekaa to land airlifts of equipment for the LAF\u2014turning all of these places into infrastructure that is ostensibly part of America\u2019s global counterterrorism efforts.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"BlockContent col-12 lg:col-10 xl-wide:col-8 mxauto\" style=\"text-align: left;\">\n<p><span style=\"color: #000080;\">In Gaza, the U.S.-made pier was intended to fulfill a related function and convey a similar signal. Though it might have been swept away by the sea and had to be temporarily relocated to avoid being washed out to sea again before it was finally decommissioned after failing to deliver the humanitarian supply surge that was its supposed function, the salient point is the persistence of the Obama-Biden team in rebuilding it over two months, at a cost of over a quarter of a billion in taxpayer money. In other words, at every level, administration messaging is persistently laying the groundwork for an ever-deepening level of direct management in the Palestine Special Province. In addition to Fenzel, the Obama-Biden team is said to be\u00a0<a style=\"color: #000080;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/news\/2024\/05\/23\/us-postwar-gaza-00159723\">considering<\/a>\u00a0appointing a U.S. official to serve as the top civilian adviser who would be \u201cbased in the region\u201d and would \u201cwork closely with the commanding officer\u201d of a postwar security force in Gaza (which the State Department prefers to describe as a \u201cgendarmerie\u201d).<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"col-12 lg:col-10 xl-wide:col-8 mxauto\" style=\"text-align: left;\">\n<div class=\"Divider Divider--dotted-rule overflow-hidden\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"BlockContent col-12 lg:col-10 xl-wide:col-8 mxauto\" style=\"text-align: left;\">\n<p><span style=\"color: #000080;\">According to a recent\u00a0<a style=\"color: #000080;\" href=\"https:\/\/url.avanan.click\/v2\/___https:\/\/www.politico.com\/news\/magazine\/2024\/06\/12\/post-war-gaza-plans-column-00162811___.YXAzOnRhYmxldDphOm86M2Y0MGVmNWFiYThhMzc4N2FiMDQ0MTA1YTBmMDliNjY6Njo0YTA0OmJiM2QxMWE5YzQ3YTFmMjdlMzc2NzMxZTM5M2M4YjIyNGJkOTUyYTk0ODQwZTc2MzAxZjRhZGM5OWE3ZmRhNTI6cDpGOk4\">report<\/a>, the Biden administration \u201cis coalescing around plans for an interim \u2018Palestinian Council\u2019 to govern Gaza and a security coalition in which the U.S. military will play a major role.\u201d It\u2019s perhaps a little on the nose, within the scope of the Ottoman analogy, for the United States to set up an \u201cadministrative council\u201d for the Palestine\u00a0<em>mutasarrifate<\/em>, but there it is. As with the \u201cgovernment of Lebanon,\u201d the point of a council, whether it\u2019s packed with notables or \u201ctechnocrats,\u201d is to provide cover for the Iranian clients who will continue to wield real power, propping up the American sick man of the Middle East.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"BlockContent col-12 lg:col-10 xl-wide:col-8 mxauto\" style=\"text-align: left;\">\n<p><span style=\"color: #000080;\">In the Lebanese Special Province, the United States has assembled a consultative group with the ambassadors of four other nations (France, Egypt, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia) to manage the selection of a new \u201cpresident\u201d\u2014a post that\u2019s been vacant since 2022. The administration\u2019s public pronouncements emphasize the importance of a new \u201cpresident\u201d for Lebanon. In reality, the administration\u2019s point man on Lebanon, Special Adviser Hochstein, deals with Hezbollah through its ally, Shiite militia leader and \u201cSpeaker of Parliament,\u201d Nabih Berri, among other cutouts, like former Director of General Security Abbas Ibrahim. The Lebanese government is a facade, an official channel to funnel U.S. aid and to cover for the fact that the administration is dealing as directly as possible with Hezbollah.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"BlockContent col-12 lg:col-10 xl-wide:col-8 mxauto\" style=\"text-align: left;\">\n<p><span style=\"color: #000080;\">In fact, that\u2019s precisely what the administration did in 2022 when it imposed its maritime boundary agreement, which in reality functioned as an official American designation of the Special Province of Lebanon as a U.S. protectorate, thereby discouraging Israeli military operations in that territory. Hochstein, then as now, talked as directly as he could with Hezbollah and advanced Iran\u2019s interests, which he then pressed a client minority prime minister in Israel to accept in their entirety. One measure of the authority of this designation is that Israeli operations in Lebanon still haven\u2019t happened, despite the \u201closs of sovereignty\u201d declared by the U.S. secretary of state\u2014who apparently gets to declare such things without the Israelis feeling able to say \u201cboo.\u201d Even after the Majdal Shams slaughter, Hochstein reportedly told Defense Minister Yoav Gallant that the United States opposed a strike on Beirut.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"BlockContent col-12 lg:col-10 xl-wide:col-8 mxauto\" style=\"text-align: left;\">\n<p><span style=\"color: #000080;\">Intensified U.S. meddling in Israeli domestic affairs as well as the direct interference in Israel\u2019s foreign and security policy since the maritime deal was sealed provide insight into where the state of Israel fits in the Obama-Biden team\u2019s regional architecture alongside the joint U.S.-Iranian special provinces. Israel is a troublesome client, to be managed when possible by the U.S.-aligned\u00a0<a style=\"color: #000080;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.tabletmag.com\/sections\/israel-middle-east\/articles\/new-herodians-israel-biden-iran\">Herodian faction<\/a>\u00a0inside the country, combined with external pressure like having Israel\u2019s prime minister declared a war criminal by the International Criminal Court.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"BlockContent col-12 lg:col-10 xl-wide:col-8 mxauto\" style=\"text-align: left;\">\n<p><span style=\"color: #000080;\">In the same vein, Washington\u2019s framing of Iran\u2019s April 13 direct missile and drone attack against Israel is instructive. Israel was constrained from retaliating against the Iranians. Instead, the United States made clear that the only legitimate defensive arrangement is one by the American-led integrated regional missile defense, which will effectively calibrate the \u201chit\u201d that Israel is required to take, while ruling out of bounds any Israeli response to being attacked. That is to say, not only would Israel be denied the autonomous decision-making to go on the offensive, but also, even its defense would be contingent on what the United States deemed acceptable. Accordingly, following Hezbollah\u2019s rocket attack on Majdal Shams, the administration\u00a0<a style=\"color: #000080;\" href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/GebeilyM\/status\/1817998131709046821\">reportedly<\/a>\u00a0listed targets in Lebanon that it considers to be out of bounds for Israel, including Hezbollah\u2019s stronghold in the southern suburbs of Beirut.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"BlockContent col-12 lg:col-10 xl-wide:col-8 mxauto\" style=\"text-align: left;\">\n<p><span style=\"color: #000080;\">The Obama team sees Jewish sovereignty as a destabilizing factor in the regional arrangement with Iran, which therefore must be constrained, if not outright abolished. To fit in Obama\u2019s \u201cregional integration\u201d vision, Israel has to be reduced to a province, with no sovereign control over its defense policy with regard to the Iranians and their holdings in the U.S.-managed regional architecture, in which you\u2019ll have the subdivision, or\u00a0<em>kaza<\/em>, of Gaza and the\u00a0<em>kaza<\/em>\u00a0of the West Bank united within a new mutasarrifate of Palestine. Jerusalem will be a special jurisdiction shared with Israel under international supervision. The Lebanon mutasarrifate will be in the north, and the Israel\u00a0<em>sanjak\u00a0<\/em>(in keeping with\u00a0<a style=\"color: #000080;\" href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Sanjak\">Ottoman terminology<\/a>), minus Jerusalem, in the middle. Within these units, \u201cadministrative councils\u201d will be the official governing bodies, which we will refer to as \u201cgovernments\u201d while actual power resides elsewhere.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"BlockContent col-12 lg:col-10 xl-wide:col-8 mxauto\" style=\"text-align: left;\">\n<p><span style=\"color: #000080;\">In the Lebanon mutasarrifate Hezbollah, as Iran\u2019s local\u00a0<em>mutasarrif<\/em>, is the recognized ruler that the United States deals with through the administrative council. In the Palestine mutasarrifate, a council including notables, clans, bedouins, technocrats, and the PA will serve the same function, as Hamas retains its position as the de facto authority and representative of Iran. The U.S. envoy to the Palestine mutasarrifate will manage the former. In the Israel\u00a0<em>sanjak<\/em>, a \u201cunity government\u201d and a strong judicial council will serve as the American clients answering to the U.S. proconsul and the security coordinator.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"BlockContent col-12 lg:col-10 xl-wide:col-8 mxauto\">\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><span style=\"color: #000080;\">Any 19th-century Ottoman administrator, or French or British Middle East diplomat, would look at a map of these arrangements and smile at how familiar they are. Local rulers and potentates who are not familiar with Ottoman maps and who believe themselves to be the elected leaders of sovereign nations may have a surprise coming, though.<\/span><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"AuthorBioBlock col-12 lg:col-10 xl-wide:col-8 w100 mt6 mxauto\">\n<div class=\"AuthorBioBlock__container graebenbach mt1_5 text-section-details-sm font-300 color-red\">\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><span style=\"color: #808080;\"><em><strong>Tony Badran<\/strong> is Tablet\u2019s news editor and Levant analyst.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<hr style=\"height: 15px; background: #d0e6fa; width: 100%;\" \/>\n<div id=\"content\" class=\"content-alignment\">\n<div id=\"watch-description\" class=\"yt-uix-button-panel\">\n<div id=\"watch-description-text\" style=\"text-align: center;\">\n<p><em>Zawarto\u015b\u0107 publikowanych artyku\u0142\u00f3w i materia\u0142\u00f3w nie reprezentuje pogl\u0105d\u00f3w ani opinii Reunion&#8217;68,<\/em><em><br \/>\nani te\u017c webmastera Blogu Reunion&#8217;68, chyba ze jest to wyra\u017anie zaznaczone.<br \/>\nTwoje uwagi, linki, w\u0142asne artyku\u0142y lub wiadomo\u015bci prze\u015blij na adres:<br \/>\n<\/em><span style=\"color: #000080;\"><strong><em><a style=\"color: #000080;\" href=\"mailto:webmaster@reunion68.com\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">webmaster@reunion68.com<\/span><\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<hr style=\"width: 100%;\" \/>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Ottoman American Empire Tony Badran The Obama-Biden blueprint after Gaza. Tablet Magazine According to U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Israel has \u201ceffectively lost sovereignty\u201d over the north of its own country thanks to Hezbollah rocket attacks that have sent 80,000 Israelis fleeing from their homes and set at least 20,000 acres of Israeli [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6],"tags":[26,24],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114737"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=114737"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114737\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":114754,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114737\/revisions\/114754"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=114737"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=114737"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=114737"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}