The idiots’ guide to our Middle East policy

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The idiots’ guide to our Middle East policy

as Bird & Fortune would have discussed it.


(By Matthew Parris)

As the Geneva Conference on Syria begins, this is what John Bird and the late, great John Fortune might have made of it ???
John Fortune died last month. Rest in peace, John, you hero. By way of a tribute as the Geneva Conference on Syria kicks off, here’s my pale pastiche of this duo’s genius: the interview Bird & Fortune might have conducted this weekend.

Fortune (to Bird) Good evening. Now, you’re an expert on the Middle East and many of us are feeling a bit in the dark about where Western policy has been . . . er . . . steering things, what with Iraq and Iran and Syria and Saudi . . . er . . .

Bird :Arabia.

Fortune :Yes, Arabia. Now let’s start in the 1980s . . . for instance, when Saddam invaded Iran. Whose side were we on?

Bird :Obviously, we supported Saddam.

Fortune :Obviously?

Bird :Well, yes. The Iranians had overthrown the Shah, who was our ally. It was all terribly revolutionary and we didn’t like that. Especially the Americans. Couldn’t stand it.

Fortune :No, indeed. So we supported Iraq . . . and the Iranians didn’t like that?

Bird :Hated it. Haven’t trusted us since.

Fortune :No, indeed. But then we got rid of Saddam?

Bird :He’d invaded a country we did like, Kuwait. Remember, we didn’t like Iran.

Fortune :No, of course. But hasn’t Iraq ended up with an Iranian-backed government? Did we plan that?

Bird :It may not have been wholly anticipated but, yes, we’ve got Nouri al-Maliki as Prime Minister; he’s supported by the Shia Muslims. Iranians are Shias, you know.

Fortune :Ah, yes. Shias. And the others are the . . . er . . .

Bird :Sunnis. Saddam supported the Sunnis. Saudi Arabia is mostly Sunni.

Fortune :Saudi Arabia? But aren’t we their friends?

Bird :Erm, yes, very much so. Big customers for our arms exports. Monarchy. Stable government, so far. Horse-racing. Anti-communist. You know, the kind of thing we like.

Fortune :Indeed. But haven’t they — the Saudi monarchy, I mean — got trouble with Sunni Wasabi revolutionary extremists?

Bird :Wahhabi. Yes, very much so, but the Saudis are exporting them, as it were — arming them to fight the Assad regime in Syria. Where they’re hanging around with those al-Qaeda chappies.

Fortune :You’re confusing me a bit here. Surely we don’t like al-Qaeda?

Bird :No, indeed. Not at all. We’re hoping some rebels win, but not those ones.

Fortune :And who is winning?

Bird :Nobody, really. You see the Assad people have got Hezbollah on board and . . .

Fortune :Hezbollah? We don’t like them either do we?

Bird :Can’t stand them.

Fortune :No, I thought not. So why this business of the Americans promoting a Hezbollah coalition
to govern Lebanon . . .

Bird :Beirut. Ah. That’s different.

Fortune :How so?

Bird :The usual rules don’t apply. Lebanon supports Assad. We don’t support Assad. But we support Lebanon.

Fortune :Quite so. But elsewhere . . .

Bird :Hezbollah are in cahoots with the Iranians, who are supporting Assad too.

Fortune :And we still don’t like the Iranians?

Bird :Not for the moment, no.

Fortune :But — forgive me, I may have misread a report — isn’t America helping Iran arm the Iraqi Government against its rebels?

Bird :Blow-back, old chap.

Fortune :Blow-back?

Bird :From Syria . . .

Fortune :Syria?

Bird :Let me explain. All these armed foreign fighters, al-Qaeda Sunni jihadis and the like, are now sloshing around in Syria, and the Saudis are terrified they’ll come back to Saudi Arabia with ideas . . .

Fortune :So we want them to stay in Syria?

Bird :Not exactly . . . Well, we don’t want them to win . . . Well, only some of them.

Fortune :But we don’t want Assad to win, either?

Bird :No, no, absolutely not. Heaven forfend. We have to take a view. Arab Spring, and all that . . .

Fortune :Which we support?

Bird :Oh, absolutely. So, as I was saying, there’s all these armed foreign fighters in Syria, and some of them are spilling over into Iraq . . .

Fortune :Ah, “blow-back”?

Bird :Precisely. And in Iraq they’re having a pop at Nouri al-Maliki, the Shia-supported Prime Minister. You may have heard the insurgents have occupied Fallujah and Ramadi . . .

Fortune :Yes, I wondered where
they were coming from.

Bird :Syria. Or Saudi Arabia, via Syria. And as I say we support Saudi Arabia but we don’t support their fighters in Syria. Or not all of them. But I was telling you about the blow-back in Iraq . . .

Fortune :Do we support that?

Bird :Far from it. We support
al-Maliki . . . elected government, mission accomplished and all that. US Republican congressmen now want Obama to arm al-Maliki with more drones and stuff, to fight the Sunni al-Qaeda . . .

Fortune :Hold on, you’re getting ahead of me here. Al-Maliki’s a friend of the Iranians, but we want
to arm him to fight the insurgency caused by spill-over . . .

Bird :Blow-back . . .

Fortune :Yes, blow-back, arising from our ally Saudi Arabia’s sponsoring of al-Qaeda insurgency in Syria. So we’re with the Iranians here?

Bird :After a manner of speaking, yes. But only here. We don’t support the Iranian-backed Hezbollah wanting to destroy Israel, but we do support them wanting power in Beirut. But not to attack the Israelis.

Fortune :Indeed. Whom do the Israelis support?

Bird :They’re in a bit of a spin.

Fortune :So, to sum up?

Bird :It might help if I drew some little lines on this map. Here’s Iran. Huge. Here’s us, opposing Iran. Then this line is Iranian support for Assad in Syria. Then this dotted line is
al-Qaeda fighters coming in from Saudi Arabia . . .

Fortune :Whom we support . . .

Bird : . . . to depose Assad . . .

Fortune : . . . whom we don’t . . .

Bird : . . . but then spilling over . . .

Fortune : . . . or blowing back . . .

Bird : . . . into Iraq . . .

Fortune : . . . whom we support . . .

Bird : . . . who are fighting back against al-Qaeda . . .

Fortune : . . . whom we don’t . . .

Bird : . . . with the help of Iran . . .

Fortune : . . . whom we shun . . .

Bird : . . . to shore up al-Maliki . . .

Fortune .:  . . whom we installed.

Bird : Quite. Well summarised, if I may say so.

Fortune :Look, I don’t want to over-simplify but, erm, is there a bit of a case here of everyone biting their own tails? Do you think we might be a bit, er, out of our depth? Are we actually helping?

Bird :(profoundly puzzled) How do you mean?

Fortune :Well, I mean would it really be any worse if we’d never got involved — never, as you put it, “taken a view” — at all?

Bird :But then we’d have missed the Arab Spring.

Fortune :Ah yes. Indeed. Of course.


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