Axis of Hope: Iraq, Turkey, Israel
A Mideast future worth imagining

by Stanley A. Weiss

Washington--Imagine. A pro-Western democratic Iraq forges an alliance with the only other democracies in the Middle East, Turkey and Israel. Surrounded and squeezed by U.S. forces and allies on all sides, Syria and Iran sever their terrorist ties with Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas and Islamic Jihad in the Palestinian territories.

Starved of cash and weapons, Palestinian suicide bombers become a rarity. A moderate Palestinian Authority emerges. No longer fearing a Palestinian terrorist state on its borders, Israel ends its untenable occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

Without daily television images of Israeli soldiers killing Palestinians to distract Muslims from what the United Nations calls a "poverty of opportunities" across the Middle East, frustrated young populations turn on their aging, corrupt rulers. In Iran, Saudi Arabia and elsewhere, oppressive regimes succumb to public demands for more political freedom and economic opportunity.

The Arab-Israeli conflict gives way to historic handshakes on the White House lawn. Arab-Israeli trade blossoms, with Israeli tourists spending millions in Baghdad, Damascus, Tehran and Beirut.

Sound absurd? No more so, perhaps, than the notion, in the darkest hours of World War II, that a post-Hitler Germany could underpin a democratic, prosperous and peaceful Europe.

And it seems that this is the sort of vision the White House has in mind as it contemplates its next move in the Middle East. President George W. Bush speaks of a "very different future" for the region with a democratic Afghanistan, Palestine and Iraq "inspiring reforms throughout the Muslim world." Political and economic liberty, he says, "can triumph in the Middle East."

Ahmad Chalabi, leader of the Iraqi National Congress, the umbrella opposition group, agrees. "The greatest chasm in the region is not between Arabs and America," he tells me, "it's between the people and their own governments."

In fact, the building blocks of an Iraq-Turkey-Israel alliance already exist. The historic military ties that Ankara and Jerusalem inaugurated in 1996 are now a military, political and economic partnership. Turkish and Israeli sailors and pilots train together. Ankara gets prized Israeli high-tech weapons. Jerusalem gets coveted Turkish water and a partner in a hostile neighborhood. Boosted by a free trade agreement and Israeli tourists vacationing in Turkish seaports, bilateral trade topped $1 billion last year.

This partnership will grow, despite the newly empowered Islamic-rooted Justice and Development Party. When it comes to defense matters in Turkey, the military controls the civilians. Expect a repeat of 1996-97 when the generals made sure Turkish-Israeli defense ties flourished despite an Islamic government.

A democratic Iraq would have the same enemies that have bound Ankara and Jerusalem: Syria and Iran's support for terrorism, Iran's missiles and weapons of mass destruction, and militant Islamic fundamentalism. Baghdad and Ankara would share other compelling security and economic interests: preventing an independent Kurdistan in northern Iraq and ensuring the free flow of Iraqi oil.

Building ties between Baghdad and Jerusalem would be harder, but not impossible. Senior leaders from the Iraqi National Congress, which is bound to play a prominent role in a post-Saddam Iraq, have met openly with Israeli officials.

One INC member once told the Jerusalem Post that a liberated Iraq would "look to Israel as a partner in a new politi-cal, security and commercial alliance" that "would create a formidable force that could reshape the future of the Middle East."

An Iraqi government heavily dependent on U.S. economic and military assistance would have enormous incentive to make peace with Israel. Think Egypt 1979 and Jordan 1994.

Other members of a new security arrangement would, over time, include Jordan, which has sent observers to the Turkish-Israeli naval exercises and which Israel has offered to include under its Arrow missile defense shield. Israel and India, a secular democracy with the world's second largest Muslim population, are cementing their military ties out of a common fear of Pakistan's "Islamic bomb" and radical Islam.

Risks abound. The Middle East is littered with the wreckage of failed defense pacts that only heightened tensions. Alliances can provoke counter-alliances. Syria, with a chemical and biological arsenal that dwarfs Saddam Hussein's, could deepen its ties with Iran. A largely non-Arab axis of Turks, Jews, Americans and Iraqis could be a recruiting bonanza for Al Qaeda.

Yet early returns from the Turkish-Israeli partnership reveal the potential rewards. Arab governments have sought Turkish influence with Jerusalem on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Suddenly facing two potential fronts and fearing a Turkish invasion, President Hafez Assad ended Syria's historic support for the terrorist Kurdistan Workers Party in 1998. His son Bashar has tried to offset the Ankara-Jerusalem partnership by mending fences with Turkey and Jordan.
When the Turkish-Israeli military partnership was first announced, the Israeli defense minister, Yitzhak Mordechai, declared: "When we lock hands, we form a powerful grip."

The 22 regimes of the Arab League fear an even more powerful grip - an Iraq-Turkey-Israel axis of hope that could begin transforming the Middle East from tyranny and theocracy to freedom and democracy. That's a future worth imagining - and working for.

The writer is founder and chairman of Business Executives for National Security. The views he expresses are his own.