Dr. Mordechai Kedar thinks that Iran is beating America in the fight for leadership in the Middle East. He recently laid out his analysis of the battle to a large and attentive audience in Ra’anana, his hometown. Kedar served for 25 years in the IDF Military Intelligence, specializing in Arab political discourse, Arab mass media, Islamic groups and the Syrian domestic arena. A lecturer in Arabic at Bar-Ilan University, Kedar is also an expert on Israeli Arabs and is a soughtafter commentator. His interview about Jerusalem on Al Jazeera network is a classic: www.youtube.com/watch?v=V HpMhAzj-Tk

Kedar named the coalition that Iran has created to fight American interests: Syria, Lebanon – particularly Hezbollah – Gaza, Turkey (supposedly a military partner of Israel!), Venezuela, Cuba and many other Third World countries. Iran is putting the squeeze on Israel, America’s close ally, via Syria, Hizbullah, and Hamas. With scores of thousands of rockets aimed at it, and with Iran confidently predicting its demise, Israel justifiably feels threatened.

Often overlooked is the fact that Israel is only the “Little Satan” for the Iranian rulers. America remains the “Big Satan” and its interests are being undermined by the intimidation and vilification of Israel. Because of America’s failure to line up a strong Western coalition against Iran, the “moderate” Arab countries lack confidence in America’s staying power in the region. Iran is playing a game of interests, especially energy. Its coalition has been painstakingly put together with the help of China and Russia, who have been urged by America, unsuccessfully, to oppose Iran.

Kedar explained that China is the kingmaker in the dispute between Iran and the West. China depends on Iran for 15 percent of its oil and gas, the fuel for its stupendous growth. The Obama administration has tried to persuade the Saudis to step up and guarantee China’s energy needs if Iran were displaced, but the Saudis have declined to make the offer to China. According to Kedar, Saudi Arabia is in no hurry to rapidly deplete its fossil fuel reserves, because of the lack of capacity to produce a large, additional supply in the short term and because increased volume would reduce its planned, lengthy schedule of supply. In addition, the Saudis don’t think sanctions will work and they fear Iran’s reaction to being muscled out.

In the field of international relations, values as well as interests combine to make strong partnerships, said Kedar. In the China-Iran linkage, shared values are more significant than shared interests: both are authoritarian systems-dictatorships. The energy factor is secondary to China’s (and Russia’s) reluctance to see a fellow authoritarian state boycotted. China’s dependence on Iranian oil seals the deal.

Turning to President Obama, Kedar likened him to the last Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev. As president of the USSR, Gorbachev’s reforms and his reorientation of Soviet strategic aims ended Communist rule and led to the dissolution of the Soviet Union and its demotion from superpower status. For this, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1990. Kedar said that America has a severe problem: Obama is throwing away its superpower status by abdicating American global leadership. Not only that, he is doing it purposefully, just as Gorbachev did. (President Obama, April 13, 2010: “It is a vital national security interest of the United States to reduce these [international] conflicts because whether we like it or not, we remain a dominant military superpower, and when conflicts break out, one way or another we get pulled into them. And that ends up costing us significantly in terms of both blood and treasure.”)

Recent military maneuvers by Iran in the Hormuz Strait display its power at brinkmanship. Iran is threatening to mine the Strait as a strong deterrent to sanctions. Since about 20 percent of the global oil trade passes through the Hormuz Strait, its closure would shake world economy, far surpassing the recent damage Europe’s economy suffered from volcanic ash shutting down air travel. Prime Minister Netanyahu has repeatedly warned about Iran’s threat to the world; but the West, under President Obama’s leadership, has yet to take more than token action. By its inaction, the West has left itself little room to maneuver.

Kedar emphasized that White House leadership is heading in the wrong direction. The West faces a painful choice, between bad and worse, with the Iranian threat. Unable to make a tough decision between dire sanctions or armed interdiction, the West is preparing itself to live with a nuclear armed Iran, as it dithers about weak sanctions in the United Nations.

Shedding light on Ahmadinejad’s radical theology, Kedar explained the Shi’ite belief that the Twelfth Imam (the Mahdi or Muslim Messiah) will return when the world is on the brink of chaos. Ahmadinejad is one of the “hasteners” who wish to accelerate chaos, which explains his impatience and appetite for war with Israel. Kedar hopes that the world will understand this before its too late. He cited the buildup of materiel by the U.S. military on its Indian Ocean base at Diego Garcia as a promising development. (March 17, 2010: “The Sunday Herald can reveal that the U.S. government signed a contract in January to transport 10 ammunition containers to the island. According to a cargo manifest from the US Navy, this included 387 ‘Blu’ bombs used for blasting hardened or underground structures. Experts say that they are being put in place for an assault on Iran’s controversial nuclear facilities. There has long been speculation that the US military is preparing for such an attack, should diplomacy fail to persuade Iran not to make nuclear weapons.”)

Kedar warned that Hizbullah has taken over Lebanon as a direct result of Western betrayal of Lebanese interests. He noted that both the Muslim Prime Minister Saad Hariri and Christian leader Walid Jumblatt have bowed to Syria, although both their fathers were assassinated by Syrian leaders Bashar al-Assad, and his late father, Hafez al-Assad, respectively. Western support for democratic government in Lebanon is sorely lacking, despite resolutions passed by the United Nations after the Second Lebanon War of 2006. Weapons constantly flow into the country from Syria/Iran. Hizbullah’s head, Nasrullah, is the effective ruler of Lebanon, ten years after Hizbullah forced Israel to hastily depart from Lebanon’s southern region, Israel’s “security zone”.

Prime Minister Netanyahu recognizes the “hasteners” threat to the world. Will Obama recognize it in time to lead a global campaign against Iran’s rulers, or will Israel be on its own?