TEHRAN – A security summit about formation of the Arab NATO, the Middle East Strategic Alliance (Mesa), ended on Sunday in Bahrain’s capital. Earlier last month, there was a summit on the Arab NATO in Kuwait, an initiative pushed by U.S. President Donald Trump to confront Iran in terms of political, economy and military affairs. However, the Manama summit took place in a much more serious way than was held in Kuwait as Secretary of Defense James Mattis personally led the summit.

During the three-day summit, Mattis discussed it all with the foreign ministers of the Persian Gulf Arab states with gloomy future.

In other words, Mattis told FMs what was expected of them by their lord, Trump, before attending an upcoming summit in Washington. The summit is scheduled to take place with the participation of the [Persian] Gulf Cooperation Council (PGCC) plus Egypt and Jordan.
What the U.S. Secretary of Defense dictated to the PGCC states at the Manama Summit Dialogue included financial support for pre-mediated plans for the region and ultimately a renewal of allegiance to the White House that is hungry for the money and plunders the rich Arab states.

Meanwhile, Bahraini Foreign Minister Khalid bin Ahmed Al-Khalifa claimed that Arab NATO plays an important role in the security and stability of the Persian Gulf region, a comment that was described “ridiculous”.

The regional situation, successive meetings and type of attendees all prove preparation of a terrible plan for the region that even the leading participants do not dare to express. And it becomes more dangerous when these meetings are set up by U.S. and Trump’s orders.
These meetings are a series of plots against the region that began seven decades ago with the occupation of Palestine and continued with the war in Lebanon and Gaza. The Zionist actions continued with the backing of anti-protest of the Great March of Return rallies by the Arab regimes.

Arabs tend not to learn the lessons of previous experiences, as they have witnessed the failure of the Great plan of Middle East, the breakdown of Iraq, Syria, and Yemen, and are now witnessing conspiracies against the Palestinian cause.

It seems that reactionary regimes, which face popular protests against normalization of relations, are actually seeking to inflict the latest blow to the Palestinian cause. Will the Arab NATO find a better fate than Camp David?

Abdel Bari Atwan, the famous analyst of the Arab world, wrote: “It is no coincidence that U.S. Secretary of Defense James Mattis was the star of the Manama Summit Dialogue, which was held several days ago with the presence of a large number of foreign ministers of the [Persian] Gulf Cooperation Council, with the exception of Qatar.”

Because the first and foremost goal of this meeting is to provide the political and intellectual context of what the Middle East Strategic Alliance (MESA) called Arab NATO, is doing in practice in early New Year’s Summit in Washington, where the leaders of the six [P]GCC countries along with Egypt and Jordan is being chaired by Donald Trump, President of the United States.

“The Manama Summit completed the military summit of Kuwait held last month when the heads of the Persian Gulf states and Egypt and Jordan were attending it along with the U.S. Central Command commander Army General Joseph Vote.”

Referring to the hostile and repeated anti-Iran position of Adel Al-Jubeir, Atwan stated: “Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir, who has appeared after a month of not being in the public eye, spoke of Iran’s defeat. At the Manama summit, two main approaches were unveiled which could be for the new coalition in the region.

First, the existence of secret communications in the Persian Gulf states led by the U.S. to find a solution to the Qatari crisis, which seems to have had great progress. Al-Jubeir insisted Qatar would be a participant in a new strategic coalition to confront Iran, and referred to the security agreements recently reached at Riyadh Summit in Qatari. Al-Jubeir pointed to Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman’s speech at the Davos Summit where MbS praised the Qatari economy as a strong economy in the Middle East region.

Second, Israel will be the main partner in the Arab NATO, and its rapid normalization ties with the Arab states, including the visit of Israeli sports delegations to Doha and Abu Dhabi, and Netanyahu’s visit to Muscat. It is not unlikely that Israel will participate in the Washington summit, where the new coalition begins to work in early January. In particular, Yousef bin Allawi, the foreign minister of Oman, spoke about Israel at Manama summit as a country to interact with and treat just like any other country.

We do not agree with Bahrain’s Foreign Minister Khalid bin Ahmed Al-Khalifa when he said that this alliance will play a role in strengthening the security and stability of the region and will help its countries to confront the challenges. We believe that the Arab NATO will generally ignore the issue of Palestine and will be interrupted by its political, moral and religious affiliation. This alliance is a declaration of the tribal warfare in the region and the implementation of the Israeli plan for the destruction of Iran, similar to what happened in Iraq, Syria, Libya and Yemen.

Sunni Arab NATO will play the same role that the Persian Gulf states and some other Arab countries played in the wars against Iraq, Syria, Libya and Yemen. That means, providing Arab-Islamic coverage for the future American-Israeli war against Iran in the region. But in the impending new war on Iran, the issue is completely different, and the alternative is to do away with the Palestinian cause, basically through the deal of the century.”

Netanyahu went to Muscat a few days ago. It would not surprise me to see him in Abu Dhabi, Manama, Doha or Riyadh tomorrow. We are witnessing the birth of a new regional system as the replacement of the current fragile system of Arab-dominated states, the backbone of which is Israel, transforming the enemy into a strong ally and a friend who supports his new allies. In the next four months, we will see a stop to the issue of Palestine in the Persian Gulf region at the level of governments, not nations.”