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Scott Sullivan : China drops Gates

I have posted several op-eds in recent months criticizing the policies of Robert Gates as Secretary of Defense. Today, there is welcome news that China has spurned his request to visit China and to meet with Chinese officials.

It is highly unusual for a US ally to confront the authority of the US Secretary of Defense, as China has done. Gates hopes that Obama will rush to his defense. Gates is earning headlines with his attacks on China's military, although it is far from certain that Gates has Obama's support to widen the scope of this controversy.

Secretary Gates is also blundering by ascribing the worst possible motives to China for rejecting him as a security partner. Thus, a Gates' ally told MSNBC news yesterday that China refused to invite Gates to bilateral defense consultations because China feared his pressure on Chinese military leaders for greater transparency in China's defense planning budget. This Gates' allegation that the Chinese leadership is afraid to face him is false. The issue of greater transparency in Chinese defense has been the subject of numerous meetings between Chinese and US defense officials in recent years, with no risk to diplomatic relations. For his part, Gates is also attempting to create a split in China's leadership between so-called anti-Gates reactionaries on one side and pro-Gates reformers on the other side. Gates now wants Obama to assist his "Chinese reformers" by escalating this latest controversy over Gates' visit. Enough, already. Gates should back off. The US cannot hope to retain China as a banker and a security ally if it allows Gates to insult the Chinese leadership. Gates should stop public speculation about China's motives in blocking his visit.

Gates should also remain silent on the explosive issue of Taiwan. In particular, Gates should avoid dissmissing China's legitimate concerns about the dangers of China's partition again at the hands of foreign powers. If Gates reads up on Chinese history, that China faced acute threats of partition by foreign imperialists throughout most of the 19th and 20th century. The Chinese will always remember that Japanese imperialists in the years before WW II supported independence of Taiwan and Manchuria from China. Japan then invaded Taiwan and Manchuria and used them as staging areas for Japan's full scale invasion of China.

To clarify the issues, let me suggest a new explanation for China's distrust of Gates – in one word, Pakistan. China is aware that Gates is Obama's most powerful advocate of Pakistan-US security cooperation, a policy that other US leaders oppose because it is directed against the interests of Afghanistan, India, and Russia. Where does China fit in? China, like the US, has been a strong ally of Pakistan for many years. No more. China has parted ways with Pakistan and Gates, as demonstrated by four recent developments.

First, just before Afghanistan President Karzai's recent visit to the US, where Karzai met with Obama, he signed agreements with China assuring that China – not Pakistan – will take over peacekeeping duties as the US withdraws from Afghanistan. This means China and Pakistan are now in confrontation over Afghanistan. Obama needs to discover if China consulted Gates in advance of this decision? If not, China no longer trusts Gates, who has become a liability for Obama in national security affairs.

Second, China is becoming aware that many leading US security and intelligence officials have lost faith in Gates and Pakistan and their common strategy in Afghanistan – for details, see “Options studied for a possible Pakistan Strike.” WP, 29 May 2010. China now fears it would look foolish in backing Gates even for one more day, when Gates is loosing the confidence of his own people.

Third, China is becoming suspicious of Pakistan's intentions by improving security relations with Iran. These two Muslim nations are natural security partners. They are both radical Islamic states under military rule. They have the same adversaries -- Afghanistan, India, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Syria, and the Arab states. They have a common border, meaning that a Pakistan-Iran security agreement would permit each state to use the other to supply strategic depth for large scale military operations. Pakistan and Iran also have significant trade complementarity, where Iran would satisfy Pakistan's need for oil while Pakistan would supply Iran with advanced military technology, most of it obtained from the US. Finally, Pakistan and Iran share a history of illicit cooperation with North Korea in developing nuclear weapons and intermediate range missiles. In short, Gates' dream of a US-Pakistan-Iran Axis is likely to become a nightmare for Obama, South Asia, and the Arabs, not a breakthrough to regional stability, as intended by Gates.

Fourth, China is beginning to fear that Obama has decided to continue George W. Bush's policy of favoring Iran at Arab expense. Thus Obama, like Bush, continues to focus the drone strikes against Arab Taliban and Arab bin-Ladin terrorists, while protecting Iranian and Pakistani terrorists that are backed by Pakistan's military. Also, China is beginning to worry that the US has lost its way in Iraq by following an anti-Arab policy. For example, the US is alienating the Iraqi Arabs by failing to block Iranian and Kurdish efforts to partition Iraq and its oil industry. Iran seems to be receiving a US green light to annex Arab Basra and its oil, while the Iraqi Kurds are receiving a US green light to annex Arab Kirkuk and its oil.

Obama and his appointees are amused by Arab fears of Iranian and Kurdish agression. They should stop laughing. This week Turkey, which has the most powerful military in the Middle East due to Turkey's NATO connections, joined the Iran-Pakistan Axis this week in a big way, with two bold moves. First, Turkish president Erdogan provoked Iraq by inviting the separatist Iraqi Kurds and their leader Barzani to discuss sensitive issues on Turkish-Iraqi border control in the Kurdish zones, where terrorism by the PKK is widespread. Although Erdogan invited Barzani to these consultations on border issues, he did not invite the Iraqi government.

Turkey also dislayed its new loyalty to Iran by provoking Palestinian-Israeli conflict in Gaza. Meanwhile, the Iranian leaders will stay safely on the sidelines as a new Middle East conflict explodes.

To get to the point -- the US is on the verge of radicalizing the Arab allies by failing to deter Iranian and Kurdish aggression against the Iraqi Arabs, and by using the war on terrorism as a pretext for US attacks on the Arabs, while ignoring terrorism by Iran and Pakistan. These pro-Iran and anti-Arab policies were instituted by Robert Gates and General Petraeus. Gates in particular deserves blame for ignoring widespread and exceedingly brutal Pakistani terrorism in India (e.g. Mumbai) and Afghanistan. Gates is also ignoring Iranian terrorism in Iraq, Israel, the PA, and the Balkans, where Iran is aligned with Germany and its fascist allies from WW II including Croatia, Albania, and a small but powerful group of Holocaust deniers in the Vatican. Finally, Gates is ignoring widespread Iranian terrorism in Latin America and the Caribbean (see my next op-ed).

Osama bin Ladin is pleased with these US anti-Arab policies in Iraq and in the war on terrorism. Osama is pleased because he knows the Iranian Shi'ites will lose in their comnfrontation with the Arabs, even with US support, because the Shi'ites lack the numbers to dominate the Arab Sunni states in the Middle East. Osama is pleased because Obama has become his numnber one recruiting agent, thanks to the US bias against Arabs by Gates-formulated policies in Iraq, Pakistan, and Afghanistan. Finally, Osama is pleased by Gates' provocations against China and Russia, which precude the formation of a US/China/Russia united front against Iranian fascism and terrorism.

In short, Obama must change course in favor of the Arabs if he intends to retain US influence in the Middle East. To this end, assuming that China has actually decided to abandon Gates and Pakistan, Obama would be wise to follow China's policy. Thus, Obama should dismiss Gates, unless Gates agrees to refrain from all further interference in China's internal affairs, and can answer all of the hard questions on Pakistan, Iran and the Arabs.

(Corrects a reference to Pakistan as a Shi'ite state, in paragraphs 7 ).

Scott Sullivan is a former Washington government employee and was the Senior Advisor for International Economics at the Crisis Management Center of the National Security Council, 1984 - 1986. Petroleumworld not necessarily share these views.

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Petroleumworld News 06/07/2010
Correction: 06/08/2010

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Scott Sullivan : China drops Gates