Informed Comment Homepage

Thoughts on the Middle East, History and Religion

Header Right

  • Featured
  • US politics
  • Middle East
  • Environment
  • US Foreign Policy
  • Energy
  • Economy
  • Politics
  • About
  • Archives
  • Submissions

© 2025 Informed Comment

  • Skip to content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
Uncategorized

Could a Gaza Land War lose the Middle East for America?

Juan Cole 11/19/2012

Tweet
Share
Reddit
Email

Abd al-Ra’uf Arna’ut writes in the PLO newspaper al-Ayyam (The Days) that behind the scenes, the Obama administration and its European allies are exerting enormous pressure on Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu to refrain from launching a land invasion of Gaza.

He maintains that the air war against Gaza, which might attrite Hamas’s stock of rockets, is unobjectionable to the West assuming it does not kill many civilians and does not go on very long.

A land war in Gaza could be very costly in lives of non-combatants, and would be fairly intensively reported on this time, unlike in 2008-2009. Images of dead babies would inflame the Muslim world and cause huge headaches for the US.

But here is what is at stake, in his view:

1. The current government of Egypt headed by Muslim Brotherhood leader Muhammad Morsi has correct relations with the US. But it could be pushed to be more radical by a Gaza land war. He argues that Morsi’s hands could be tied by an Israeli ground war, Arna’ut does not say so, but if the Brotherhood looks like it is too close to the US to protest the Gaza action, it could lose out in the next parliamentary elections to even more hard line Salafis, creating an impediment to US diplomacy in the region.

2. Likewise, Jordan’s fragile and protested government may be forced to take steps contrary to Washington’s desires, just to survive. Arna’ut does not say so, but some of the Jordanian crowds’ rage against the monarchy is not just high fuel prices but also the peace treaty with Israel and the government’s refusal to revoke it.

3. The US has gone to a lot of trouble, with Qatar, to create a new leadership organization for the Syrian exile community. But an Israeli ground offensive in Gaza would take the focus off Syria and would strengthen the hand of the Baath Party. The new Syrian opposition council risks being seen as ineffectual and beholden to the US and the Israeli Likud Party, and so discredited. US policy of helping gradually take down Bashar al-Assad would be stymied.

Filed Under: Uncategorized

About the Author

Juan Cole is the founder and chief editor of Informed Comment. He is Richard P. Mitchell Professor of History at the University of Michigan He is author of, among many other books, Muhammad: Prophet of Peace amid the Clash of Empires and The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. Follow him on Twitter at @jricole or the Informed Comment Facebook Page

Primary Sidebar

Support Independent Journalism

Click here to donate via PayPal.

Personal checks should be made out to Juan Cole and sent to me at:

Juan Cole
P. O. Box 4218,
Ann Arbor, MI 48104-2548
USA
(Remember, make the checks out to “Juan Cole” or they can’t be cashed)

STAY INFORMED

Join our newsletter to have sharp analysis delivered to your inbox every day.
Warning! Social media will not reliably deliver Informed Comment to you. They are shadowbanning news sites, especially if "controversial."
To see new IC posts, please sign up for our email Newsletter.

Social Media

Bluesky | Instagram

Popular

  • Air Campaigns don't Win Wars on their Own: Why Israel will largely Fail in Iran
  • Iran's Grand Strategy - Vali Nasr
  • Top Things You Still Think You Know About Iran that are Not True
  • Colonial Logic, not Jewish Wisdom Guides Israel's Wars
  • An Iranian-American View: Tehran will Never Surrender

Gaza Yet Stands


Juan Cole's New Ebook at Amazon. Click Here to Buy
__________________________

Muhammad: Prophet of Peace amid the Clash of Empires



Click here to Buy Muhammad: Prophet of Peace amid the Clash of Empires.

The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam


Click here to Buy The Rubaiyat.
Sign up for our newsletter

Informed Comment © 2025 All Rights Reserved