Middle East: United States Strategic Chessboard In Disorder – Analysis
By: <
http://www.eurasiareview.com/author/saag/> SAAG
August 30, 2012
By Dr Subhash Kapila
“What is being played out is one of the greatest power games since the end
of the First World War. Behind the cover of ‘Arab Spring’ the obstacles to
renewed Western domination of the region are being removed one by one. The
destabilisation of Syria is bringing the region close to war with
potentially catastrophic global repercussions but the rewards are so great
that the Western coalition cannot help from pressing against all red lines”
— Prof. Jeremy Salt, Bulent University, Ankara
“The Pax Americana that has prevailed in the region (Middle East) since
1973—the last time a major Arab-Israeli War erupted—is rapidly eroding.
American power, friendship or enmity will no longer be decisive for
Egyptians, Syrians, or even Saudis in the ways they have been for nearly
four decades.” — Jim Hoagland, Consulting Editor, Washington Post, August
18, 2012
Introductory Observations
United States unipolar moment in the Middle East seems to have passed away
and is being replaced by a power tussle between regional actors, erstwhile
staunch military allies of the United States. Each one of these erstwhile US
allies are embarked on striking independent trajectories or engaged in
hedging strategies. Concurrently, they also seem to be pushing the United
States into possible military interventions in the region.
The United States strategic chessboard in the Middle East appears to be in
disorder in 2013. More importantly, United States strategic formulations in
the Middle East seem to be driven by Israel on Iran and by Saudi Arabia and
Gulf Monarchies on Syria. On Iran, Saudi Arabia and Gulf States seem to be
on the same page as Israel.
Perceptionally, the United States seems to be no longer shaping strategic
dynamics in the Middle East. Further, in the American security architecture
in the Middle East, the traditional mainstays of US strategic formulations,
namely, Egypt, Turkey, Israel and Saudi Arabia seem to have lost lustre and
are no longer effective allies of the United States.
The latest flashpoint to be added to a volatile explosive mix already
existing is Syria in which local actors seem to be contriving situations and
pushing the United States into a possible military intervention in Syria for
a regime change. Nothing could be more ill-advised for US strategic
decision-makers than to be goaded into a military misadventure by regional
power-play.
This Paper intends to examine the main theme under the following heads:
* Egypt, Turkey. Israel and Saudi Arabia No Longer Furthering United
States Strategic Interests in the Middle East
* Syria: The United States on Path to Repeat Strategic Blunders of
Iraq Military Intervention.
* Iran: Congagement Not Conflict is Advisable Strategy for United
States & Regional Contenders
* United States: Inadvisable to Get Entangled in Islamic Sectarian
Divisions in the Middle East
* United States: The Way Ahead
Egypt, Turkey, Israel and Saudi Arabia No Longer Furthering United States
Strategic Interests in the Middle East
Egypt which after Israel was the second-most beneficiary of US military and
economic aid and a staunch ally of the United States can no longer be said
to be so. The Arab Spring has brought about a regime change and the advent
of trajectories independent of the United States. The new Egyptian President
to drive home this point will be visiting Iran and China before he visits
the United Sates. In terms of internal political dynamics, the Muslim
Brotherhood not much favoured by US partners in the Middle East seems to be
establishing sway.
Turkey though continuing as United States NATO Alliance partner has for a
couple of years now been striking independent trajectories in carving a
regional power niche for itself. However this drive is confronting complex
challenges for it in Middle East power-play. As a moderate Islamic
democratic and Western-oriented secular nation it now seems to be
strategically in company of conservative Islamic nations like Saudi Arabia.
Israel secure in the belief that the United States has no choice but to
stand by its side for its security and stability has been driving a one-pint
agenda of military strikes against Iran on the nuclear issue. This limits
United States newer initiatives for strategic transformation of the Middle
East power play more realistically in terms of strategic realities
obtaining.
Saudi Arabia cannot capitalise its geostrategic and geopolitical leverages
on its own because of its significant limitations in terms of manpower base
and Wahhabi Islam. Strategic greatness on it is a bestowal by the United
States. In terms of its leadership of the Islamic Ummah, one needs to
remember the yawning Sunni-Shia divide in the overall Islamic Middle East.
Saudi Arabia can no longer be counted as a US strategic asset because of its
hedging strategies in moving closer to Russia and China
In brief, the United States traditional military allies in the Middle East
on whom the United States had invested exorbitant political and military
capital have all ceased to be loyal foot- soldiers of US strategy in the
Middle East.
Syria: The United States on Path to Repeat Strategic Blunders of Iraq
Military Intervention
Syria is primarily being targeted by Saudi Arabia, Turkey and the United
States primarily to downsize Iran because Syria is strategically close to
Iran. Also because in the perceptions of the countries named, Syria along
with Iran and Hezbollah in Lebanon could be establishing a ‘Shia crescent’
in the northern tier of the Middle East which could upset the balance of
power being contrived by Saudi Arabia and Turkey.
Saudi Arabia and Turkey more notably are all seemed to be engaged in pushing
the United States towards a regime change in Syria for power-play reasons of
their own. The United States so prodded has restrained itself from direct
military intervention against Damascus but has not restrained itself from
letting Saudi Arabia and Turkey funnel in sizeable quantities of advanced
weaponry to the Free Syria rebel militia operating from Southern Turkey.
Reminiscent of the run-up to United States military intervention in Iraq,
the so-called US allies in the Middle East are calling for the imposition of
‘safety zones’ and ‘no-fly zones in Syria.
In other words a civil-war seems to have been contrived forgetting the
dangerous consequences of such an ill-advised step. Within the United States
sane voices are sounding caution against such moves as would be evident from
the excerpts from a recent piece in Foreign Policy Journal by Kenneth
Pollack: “Civil wars like Syria are obvious tragedies for the countries they
consume but can also be catastrophic for their neighbours. Long-lasting and
bloody civil wars often overflow their borders, spreading war and misery”.
Are Syria’s neighbours in the forefront to nudge the United States towards a
military intervention in a contrived civil war in Syria listening?
Further, in relation to the United States, the same piece opines that: “For
the United States, these developments are particularly important because
spill-over from the civil war could threaten America’s vital interests far
more than a war contained within Syrian borders.”
The United Sates would be ill advised to proceed with any direct military
intervention in Syria or even indirectly by using its Middle East proxies.
United States misplaced strategic aim of regime change in Iraq strategically
distracted the United States from Asia Pacific for a decade facilitating
China to come dangerously close to perceptionally downsize United States
strategic stature in Asia Pacific. United States own losses in terms of loss
of valuable military lives and bringing yawning deficits in the budget are
well-known.
While Saudi Arabia and Turkey may presently be engaged as US proxies against
Syria, the ensuing dangers to the United States are multiple. It is easy to
start a fire but difficult to put out the ensuing brush-fire. The United
States would be unwillingly drawn into a military intervention in Syria to
salvage and bail out its proxies when the going gets tough for them
Secondly, what is the guarantee for the United States that once President
Assad’s regime is toppled that peace and stability would automatically
follow?
Also, would the United States be prepared to handle the spill-over military
effects from civil wars breaking out in Lebanon or an insurrection in Turkey
by the Kurds? Can Saudi Arabia insulate itself against Arab Spring movements
breaking out in its kingdom and in Bahrain where it snuffed out a regime
change demand by the majority Shias in Bahrain?
Iran: Congagement Not Conflict is Advisable Strategy for the United States &
Regional Contenders
United States and Iran have been in a conflictual mode for more than three
decades now. The conflict between the two countries is marked by a singular
distinctive feature and that is that the United States has despite its
global military predominance and a multi-dimensional military superiority in
the Middle East has not been able to be subdue Iran.
Congagement is a strategic and political construct coined by United States
policy establishment in relation to the strategy of dealing with a menacing
China. It envisaged a mixture of containment and engagement strategy to
handle China.
There is no reason as to why the United States cannot employ the same
congagement strategic approach towards Iran, to its consequent strategic
benefits for the United States.
The major problem inhibiting the United States in adopting congagement
strategy towards Iran lies in the unremitting hostility towards Iran of
Israel and Saudi Arabia. Lately, Turkey can also be said to be added to this
list.
Even if Iran submitted to US demands on rolling back its nuclear programme,
then too Saudi Arabia, Israel and Turkey would still continue to be hostile
to Iran. New excuses and reasons would be invented by them to goad the
United States into an avoidable armed conflict with Iran.
Iran is the most dominant regional power in the Gulf Region and in coalition
with Styria and its closely allied Lebanese armed militias extends its
strategic influence from The Gulf to the Eastern Mediterranean.
Strategically, both Saudi Arabia and Turkey perceive Iran and its allies as
military threats.
The United States needs to arrive at a bi-partisan political and strategic
decision whether US long range strategic interests in the Middle East will
be served by an unremitting hostility and conflict with Iran as the most
dominant regional power or whether it would be more strategically
advantageous for United States to accord strategic space to Iran within the
overall strategic calculus of the Middle East, however distasteful it may be
for US erstwhile military allies.
United States: Inadvisable to Get Involved in Islamic Sectarian Divisions in
the Middle East
Deeply embedded within the regional power rivalries operating in the Middle
East besides geopolitical and geostrategic factors is the Sunni-Shia Muslims
divide within the Islamic World. There is also the Arab Muslims and the
Non-Arab Muslims divide.
Deeply disturbing in the present civil war in Syria fanned by external
actors, are media reports indicating that Saudi Arabia has in some way or
the other allowed the Al Qaeda to get involved against the Syrian
established regime. Do religious sectarian rivalries or regional power
struggles justify use of groups like the Al Qaeda as cats- paw to achieve
Saudi Arabia strategic and political objectives?
Jim Hoagland observations this month in The Washington Pot deserve
attention:
* “The Sunnis of Saudi Arabia and other Gulf nations are putting all
their chips in an effort to bring down Bashar-al Assad’s regime in Damascus
and inflict a strategic defeat on Assad’s Shiite allies in Teheran.”
* “An Iranian decision to escalate to save Assad, perhaps by
retaliating against the Gulf Arabs, would push the borders back on the Obama
Administration—in the middle of a heated presidential campaign—-to define
and protect US regional interests more clearly and decisively.”
The greater call is on the United States having been a victim of the heinous
terrorists attacks by Al Qaeda suicide bombers in the 9/11 attacks in
Homeland USA to restrain Saudi Arabia from using terrorism tools in the
on-going civil war in Syria.
The United States needs to learn from its Afghanistan experience, twice over
in the 1980s and in 2000s and also in Iraq not to get involved in the
sectarian divides within the Islamic World. The Sunni Muslim-Shia Muslim
conflict within the Islamic World has gone on for centuries and the United
States is hardly in a position to change that reality.
More importantly, the United States strategic fulcrum in the Middle East has
shifted to The Gulf Region. In The Gulf Region the United States must
realise that sitting at the head of the Gulf is Iraq and sitting astride the
entire Eastern littoral of the Gulf is Iran. Both are Shia Muslim majority
nations sitting on huge reserves of oil. On the Western littoral of the Gulf
are Saudi Arabia and the Gulf monarchies—–with Sunni monarchs ruling
ruthlessly over the restive Shia Muslim majorities in their kingdoms.
In such an explosive mix, strategic logic would dictate that the United
States in its policy formulations adopts a more detached posture on the
sectarian divisions within the Islamic World.
United States: The Way Ahead
United States-Iran rapprochement for an effective embedment in the Middle
East as an inescapable strategic imperative for the United States was being
advocated in my Papers in the middle of the last decade. It was argued that
if the United States could normalise relations with China which had fought a
major war with USA, why America could not normalise relations with Iran
which till 1979 had been a much vaunted ally of the United States. This
however has stood thwarted all along under intense pressures from vested
interests amongst US allies in the Middle East.
Reading George Friedman’s recent book “The Next Decade” one felt gratified
that similar suggestions from a reputed US strategic analyst now advocate
the same approach. The excerpts of significance are as follows:
“In the next decade, the most desirable option with Iran is going to be
through a move that now seems inconceivable. It is the option chosen by
Roosevelt and Nixon when they faced seemingly impossible strategic
situations: the creation of alliances with countries that had been
previously been regarded as strategic and moral threats.”
“The alternative was a German victory in World War II. For Nixon, it was the
Soviets using American weakness caused by the Vietnam War to change the
global balance of power.”
“Conditions on the ground put the United States in a similar position
vis-à-vis Iran. These countries despise each other. Neither can easily
destroy the other, truth be told, they have some interests in common. In
simple terms, the American President, in order to achieve his strategic
goals (In the Middle Eat) must seek accommodation with Iran,”
“There will be several advantages to the United States. First, without
fundamentally threatening Israeli interests, the move will demonstrate that
the United States is not controlled by Israel. Second, it will put a
generally unpopular country, Saudi Arabia—–a state that has accustomed to
having its way in Washington—-on notice that the United States has other
options. For their part, the Saudis have nowhere to go, and they will cling
to whatever guarantees the United States provides them in the face of an
American-Iranian entente.”
While on the subject of the way ahead for the United States, one cannot
forget the roles of Russia and China. Russia and China are the strong
supporters of Iran and Syria. What would be their reactions and options to a
US-Iran rapprochement?
Then is the question of reactions of Turkey aspiring to emerge as the
pre-eminent power in the Middle East? To what extent the United States would
countenance an independent strategic stance in the Middle East, unmindful of
US strategic sensitivities?
Once again, one would fall back on Friedman’s prognosis and this time it is
intriguing: “As a solution to the complex problems of the Middle East, the
American President must choose a temporary understanding with Iran that
gives Iran what it wants, it gives the United States room to withdraw, and
that is also a foundation for the relationship of mutual hostility to the
Sunni fundamentalists. In other words, the President must put the Arabian
Peninsula inside the Iranian sphere of influence while limiting direct
controls, and while putting the Saudis, among others, at an enormous
disadvantage.”
Concluding Observations
United States global predominance in terms of power stand finely balanced in
terms of equilibrium at two ends of the strategic balance, namely the Middle
East and the Asia Pacific.
While the United States has made a strategic pivot to the Asia Pacific, the
United States strategic chessboard in the Middle East seems to be in
disorder. This basically arises from change of policy stances of United
States former staunch allies in the Middle East.
The logical argument that so surfaces is that when US erstwhile allies in
the region have adopted hedging strategies, is there any pressing imperative
for the United States not to redefine its strategic calculations in the
Middle East?
The United States needs to go in for dramatic moves in the Middle East, the
chief of which would be to arrive at a rapprochement with Iran, temporary or
long-standing.
In terms of balance-of-power strategies preferred by the United States,
future perspectives would suggest that the United States biggest challenge
would be to maintain a balance-of-power between Iran and Turkey.
Nothing is inconceivable in international relations and power-play. Who
knows that at some point in the future, the United States may be tempted to
use Iran to check-mate a rising and powerful Turkey?
(The author is an International Relations and Strategic Affairs analyst. He
is Consultant, Strategic Affairs with South Asia Analysis Group.
Email:drsubhashkapila.007_at_gmail.com)
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Received on Thu Aug 30 2012 - 18:31:05 EDT
