Must See: Foreign Policy Diary – The Violence in Middle East (in-depth
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The Iranian nuclear deal doesn’t mean a calm of the conflicts in the
Middle East. Tehran’s opponents in the region will curb the expansion of
Iranian influence enforced by the chance of lifting the sanctions from
the Islamic Republic. This will not immediately result in all-out
warfare in the region, but it most likely will entail a growth of
violence in Middle Eastern battle-grounds of Iraq, Syria and Yemen.
Saudi Arabia, Turkey and other opponents of Iran are well experienced in
the use of proxy forces including a diverse range of terrorist
organizations and paramilitary groups. Thus, the situation in the region
will likely worsen on multiple fault lines: Sunni versus Shiite, a war
on terrorist groups as ISIL and ethnic conflicts among Turks, Iranians,
Arabs, Kurds, and other groups.
The rise of the violence will come amid the bureaucratic chaos.
Despite the fact that the Iran Nuclear deal has passed the U.N. Security
Council, it will be extremely difficult for both houses of the U.S.
Congress to find the two-thirds votes necessary to prevent the lifting
of certain U.S. sanctions levied against the Islamic Republic.
Normalization with the US isn’t on the horizon for the near future
<
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US allies in the region have already started to act as Iran has already
come to it’s full economic power and is threatening them with an
invasion. Saudi Arabia’s ground operation in Yemen and Turkey’s attempts
to establish a zone of military occupation in northern Syria clearly
mark this approach. Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Egypt are the heavyweights
in the balance of power the United States seeks to create in the Middle
East. The most vociferous critic of the Iran nuclear deal has been
Israel <
http://www.liveleak.com/#>. The Iran deal is obviously not in
Israel’s interests and marks
an evolution in the relationship between Israel and the United States.
Israel represents the United States’ insurance
<
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for the game it is
playing. If the US decides, Israel may be forced to back US-provoked
conflicts in the coming years. Also, it is important not to shrug off
Qatar, which was the one of primary powers that helped the US create
ISIL.
Turkey is the largest economy in the Middle East and is strategically
situated at the confluence of the Black Sea and the Mediterranean, on
the Sea of Marmara. Like the United States, Turkey has some conflicting
interests with Iran. For one, Turkey depends on Iranian oil, which in
2014 <
http://www.liveleak.com/#>, constituted up 26 percent of Turkey’s oil
imports. Moreover,
Turkey is one of the biggest markets for Iranian natural gas. However,
Turkey is a Sunni power rival to the Shiite Iran, and of the three Sunni
heavyweights. It is also the most capable and equipped to oppose Iran’s
objectives. Turkey claims the Middle East as its sphere of influence
and will not look kindly on any country encroaching on its ambitions.
Besides the economic links between the two powers, Tehran and Ankara
have some strategic disagreements. For example, Turkey roughly opposes
the rise of an independent Kurdish state as result of the Syrian and the
Iraqi conflict. Almost 15 percent of Turkey’s population is Kurdish,
and Ankara has had to contend with a Kurdish insurgency since 1984.
Moreover, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has said his country
will never allow the establishment of a Kurdish independent state.
Meanwhile, Tehran has at times offered military support to Kurds fending
off the Islamic State in Iraq. Iran also has a Kurdish population of
its own, estimated at a minimum of 5.5 million Kurds. Kurdistan is the
natural battleground between Turkey and Iran, both sides will actively
move on this ground. Turkey’s relationship with the Islamic State is an
another problem. Turkey has supported a militant group providing
logistical support and buying ISIL’s oil for a long time. However, the
Islamic State could become a domestic threat for Turkey even in the case
of changing Turkey’s public rhetoric to Islamic State criticism. Turkey
has been adamant about seeing the downfall of Syrian President Bashar
al Assad, actively supplying and training militants to fight Damascus.
At the moment, Turkey is considering moving its military into northern
Syria to create a buffer zone that would prevent Syrian Kurdish
expansion, enabling Ankara-backed militants, including ISIL to focus
their resources on continuing the assault on the al Assad government.
Saudi Arabia hopes to lead a broad Sunni Arab coalition against Iran
and doesn’t have any shared interests with Iran. The kingdom is an Arab,
Sunni power, and the Wahhabism sect of Islam to which most Saudis
subscribe views Shiites with deep disdain. With an oppressed Shiite
minority making up at least 10 percent of it’s population and aggressive
ambitions traced back to the socalled Arab Spring’ exercised in league
with the US, Saudi Arabia feels itself on the front line of the conflict
with Iran. Moreover, most of Saudi Arabia’s Shiite population lives in
close proximity to the country’s massive oil fields, which are the
source of Saudi wealth and power. In 2011, Saudi Arabia sent troops into
Bahrain to repress unrest in the Sunni-ruled, Shiite-majority country.
The Riyadh’s discrimination policy against Shiites is a challenge for
Iran, which is attempting to become a defender of the Shia population.
Saudi Arabia fears that Iran might use the arisen Shia belt and Shia
minorities in Sunni-governed countries to extend its reach in the Gulf.
As a Wahhabi state, Saudi Arabia naturally provides the ground for
terrorist groups such as Al Qaeda and has a long history of using them
as proxy forces in the Middle East. Like Turkey, Saudi Arabia wants to
see the downfall of the al Assad government, which would deal a
crippling blow to anti-terrorist opposition in the region. Saudi Arabia
has been supporting Sunni militants in Syria fighting against loyalist
forces. Separately, Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula has been roughly
cooperating with the Saudi-led coalition in clashes against the Al
Houthi government of Yemen. In 2014, Saudi Arabia did attempt to start a
diplomatic dialogue with Iran, but this effort quickly deteriorated
with the beginning of the conflict in Yemen. Riyadh focused on battling
the Shiites in the rest of the region hardly could become an ally of
Iran. In turn, the capacity of Iran to provoke Shia minority groups is a
current problem of Saudi Arabia. However, Saudi Arabia has very little
interest <
http://www.liveleak.com/#> in seeing Turkey dominate the Middle
East also.
Egypt, like Saudi Arabia, is an Arab, Sunni power, but it’s ability
to act is much more constrained than Turkey or Saudi Arabia. Despite
this, Egyptian forces are active in Yemen, and Egyptian President Abdel
Fattah al-Sisi was in Russia this past week to discuss economic ties and
the situation in Syria with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Nonetheless, Egypt faces serious internal issues of it’s own as social
unrest and jihadist threats in the country, including disturbingly
attacks in Cairo and the Sinai Peninsula. For instance, Wilayat Sinai
pledged allegiance to the Islamic State and has launched a full-scale
offensive on government-controlled territories in July. Egypt and Saudi
Arabia have increased their cooperation in recent months and may try to
pool their resources to protect their influence in the region. A joint
Arab defense force under development could easily become part of this
plan and is one of Cairo’s ways of attempting to maintain an important
role. However, we mustn’t forget that both Saudi Arabia and Egypt have a
big problem with military forces indicated by a high corruption, a low
motivation and the level of training, and a lack of a real experience on
the battle ground. Evidence of these statements is the lack of success
in the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen against the al Houthi forces despite
the serious advantage in air forces, military equipment and man power.
Qatar, a tiny but wealthy Arab state with the largest naval American
base in the region, has provided an initial financing for the Islamic
State. Qatar also provided another important “service” – propaganda – in
the form of a recruitment campaign to convince Muslims that fighting in
Syria is a “Jihad” against the infidels, meaning all Syrians.
Egyptian-born Qatari Sheikh Youssef Qaradawi, spiritual leader of the
Muslim Brotherhood, issued the necessary fatwa on Qatari TV channel
Al-Jazeera, where he not only publicly blessed the terrorist campaign
against Syria, but also urged Muslims everywhere to join the Islamic
State. IS militants started beheading Westerners and using the universal
reach of social media with the help of foreign experts. At the moment,
ISIL has risen to the level when Qatar hasn’t had a direct influence on
the group. However, it will be questionable if Qatar doesn’t have enough
contacts to exercise soft control of the group.
Washington signed a deal with Iran to achieve a mid term goal to
release US military and economic resources in the region and attempt to
hurt to Russia. The idea of the establishing relationship with the White
House should encourage Iran to break the alliance with Russia and
China, and to take the US side in the ongoing energy wars. Iran has a
chance to provide oil and gas on the European energy market. This will
affect energy prices and, obviously, Russia negatively. Moreover, as
soon as the sanctions will be lifted, Iran will get additional economic
revenue and it’s budget will rise and allow Teheran to increase defense
spending. It’s commonplace that Iran and Hezbollah are the rival enemies
of Israel. So, the rise of Iran’s defense budget will mean a rise in
danger for Israel from the directions of Lebanon and the Golan Heights.
As Iran probably has nuclear weapons and Israel definitely does, Israel
will strongly disapprove of Washington’s line. At a minimum, it will
mean the rise of Israeli operations in the region and a real chance of
the carrying out of preventative strikes on Iran and its allies’
military objects by Israeli Defense Forces.
Overall, the Middle East after the Iran nuclear deal will not face
less violence or war. It will face more destabilization and violence
because of the competition between rival players encouraged by the
possibility of Iranian dominance in the region. These actions will
proceed amid the power vacuums and a rise of the terrorist threats
conducted by the US and its allies. A diverse range of militant groups
supported today by the US, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Qatar, as well as
local militias and groups, will find new space in which to operate.
Also, the situation will be marked by the growth of direct military
involvement of regional states in conflicts. On the tactical level the
main competition in the region will become increasingly about Turkey,
Iran, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Qatar using various groups to compete
against one other, rather than groups taking advantage of failed states
to carve out small fiefdoms of power and responsibility for themselves.
On the strategic level, the US will play it’s own game using the
situation in the Middle East expand the area of the permanent war in the
region which opens additional ways for the US to destabilize
geopolitical opponents in the region and throughout the world. Here are
two possible reasons for the Obama administration’s actions in the
Middle East: The first is the Washington strategists understand that the
sanctions won’t be lifted from Iran because the U.S. Congress is in
hard opposition to the President. Thus, it’s a US game to raise the
pressure on Russia, by dropping the oil prices and reminding Saudi
Arabia who is the real power in the Persian Gulf. The second is the US
has been trying to provoke a full-scale military conflict and has
betrayed its main ally in the region, Israel, to gain questionable
benefits. The war becomes closer and closer to the Russian and China
borders amid the US’s destructive actions and the EU’s inability to
appropriately react on threats of regional security. The Russian
Federation has to take steps to ensure peace in Europe and Northern
Asia. On August 17, Russia delivered 6 MiG-31 fighter jets to the Syrian
government. Russian flight trainers will most likely train their Middle
Eastern counterparts. Currently, Russian bases in Armenia, Abkhazia and
South Ossetia are also set in a high-alert posture and a defensive line
has likely been established in Tajikistan.
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(in-depth analysis)
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The Iranian nuclear deal doesn’t mean a calm of the conflicts in the Middle
East. Tehran’s opponents in the region will curb the expansion of Iranian
influence enfo...
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(in-depth analysis)
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LiveLeak.com - Must See: Foreign Policy Diary – The Viol...
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The Iranian nuclear deal doesn’t mean a calm of the conflicts in the Middle
East. Tehran’s opponents in the region will curb the expansion of Iranian
influence enfo...
Auf www.liveleak.com anzeigen
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Received on Mon Nov 09 2015 - 18:41:28 EST
