« It is Iran that May Soon Find Itself ‘Wiped Off the Map’ (Al-Seyassah, Kuwait)
If Washington Makes War on Iran, it will be America’s Last (Samidoon, Palestinian Territories) »
2012: Start of an Historic Realignment in the Mideast
Jan 5th, 2012 | 9 responses
Terrorist bombs killed another 72 people in Iraq today, on a day considered holy by the Islamic Shia religion. This is a further sign of bloody sectarian strife boiling over after the withdrawal of US troops last December.
It also presages a more significant trend that could make 2012 go down in history as the start of a seismic shift in the political makeup of the wider Islamic Middle East, from Morocco to Pakistan. The shift would be as fundamental as in 1919, after the Turkish Ottoman Empire’s defeat in World War I. At that time, Britain and France divided the Ottoman territories between them and consolidated their hold on others with the British getting an upper hand.
After the World War II, the US became the dominant power with some help from Britain and France. It propped up regimes in Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Emirates, Iraq, Jordan, Turkey, Pakistan and Iran (before the 1979 revolution).
But the Iraq war frittered away US influence and the fall of Hosni Mubarak in Egypt reduced its relevance as a power-broker or kingmaker in the Middle East. Its Israeli ally, though still an overwhelming military power is less useful as a bolster of US influence because of its diplomatic isolation. Its other ally, Saudi Arabia, which is also armed to the teeth by the US, has few admirers because of its Salafi and Wahabi forms of puritanical Islam.
The new political winners seem to be Turkey and to a lesser extent Iran. Turkey, though not an Arab or conservative Islamic country, is moving quickly to build strategic friendships with Egypt, Iraq, Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco. Because of its growing economic strength, it is being received with more warmth than the France and Britain, which have always been distrusted as former colonial powers, and the US, whose former dictatorial friends are in disgrace. Turkey may not have strong enough legs to sustain the momentum but for the West to turn back the clock will be difficult.
The US-backed military and secular elites of Turkey lost power to a moderate Islamic regime in 2002, which now feels confident enough to snub the US even through it remains a vital pillar of NATO. A former friend of Israel involved in deep military cooperation, Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan became a virulent critic in 2010 when Israeli commandos killed nine Turks aboard a Turkish ship trying to deliver relief supplies to Gaza’s Palestinians.
The most significant Turkish influence is in Northern Iraq’s autonomous Kurdish zone, which needs a new protector to replace the US. It also needs transit for its oil and other exports through Turkey and its streets already bustle with Turkish businesses. Discreetly, it is helping Ankara to stamp out fellow Kurds who plot attacks from its territory to “liberate” Turkey’s Kurds.
If such developments continue, Iraq could be divided by a de facto economic partition between the north dependent on Turkey and the south dependent on Iran. Both are oil rich areas of Iraq. The partition would not be de jure in the sense of legal recognition but it could be a “green line” marking the Turkish and Iranian zones of economic and military influence.
This economic partition would spread beyond Iraq, especially if the new Egypt partners more closely with Turkey because Islamic influence on the streets has made the US less palatable than it used to be to Mubarak’s regime.
The fly in this ointment for Turkey is Syria, with which it has the longest border. Erdogan was a close friend of Bashar al-Assad but is currently providing safe haven and perhaps advisory support to rebels fighting to depose Assad. Iran, on the other hand, is helping Assad, who belongs to an Islamic Alawite sect similar to the Shia faith.
Through Assad, Teheran has long helped the Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza, both despised by Israel. Turkey does not have an openly anti-Iranian position on this help but is strongly opposed to Teheran acquiring a nuclear weapon. However, it believes Iran’s mullahs when they say they want nuclear technology only for peaceful purposes, such as medicine and electricity.
There are recent indications that Ankara and Teheran will not allow their differences over Syria or nuclear issues to come in the way of mutual understandings to carve out zones of influence in the region. The US and European Union may rattle sabers and sanctions but this dynamic will be hard to turn back because the West’s local allies, Israel and Saudi Arabia, are unloved in the region. So there is a power vacuum waiting to be filled.
9 Responses to “2012: Start of an Historic Realignment in the Mideast”
True there is a power vacuum waiting to be filled, and will be filled– but not by the West . And sure there are and will be thousands, hundreds of thousands, of people killed in the Middle East because of religious, sectarian and tribal reasons as there have been probably millions already slaughtered there through the centuries — for the same reasons.
But what is the West to do? Try to stem the genocide and violence by sacrificing our own young men and women?
Oh, yes, I forgot. There are strategic, national security (i.e. economic/oil) considerations that demand we step in and do just that…
Sorry, Brij.
I did not intend my rant above to detract from your excellent article. It was more a symptom of frustration for what I feel coming: that any further degradation in the Middle East — a centuries-old powder keg — will somehow be blamed on our pull-out from Iraq or other Obama “missteps.”
I do hope that any “historic realignment” in that tortured part of the world will be somewhat peaceful and to the benefit of the long-suffering populations there.
This arab/muslim countries have been losers in almost all wars. There are actually no real leaders that muslims can trust. They are too fragmented to ever get together to do any serious damage.
It will be a disaster should the radial islamics get control of a army. They have no training on how to command a army. They have no navy or air power. It will be a total disaster if they try to employ the forces.
As an inhabitant of a country that has lost every major war it has been involved in since 1945, I am not sure that you’re in any position to throw stones.
We actually fight wars pretty well. What we don’t do very well is pick the wars to fight.
Bosnia, were we became involved on the Muslim side against the Christians, gave the United States a lot of credibility ‘on the street’ in the Muslim world. We gained more sympathy after 911, the people who suffer the most in the world from Islamic terrorism are the moderate Muslims.
But we lost all of that good feeling and credibility when we decided to turn the War on Terrorism™ into a religious war and, for still some undefined reason, decided to invade Iraq and occupy it and Afghanistan. A totally inappropriate response to counter the threat posed by at most 300 people who were at that time hiding in caves primarily in Pakistan. A response that confirmed all of the things Al Qeada was telling the Arab world about us and our so-called occupation of the Muslim holy lands after the first Iraq war.
Terrorists have two goals, to spread fear among their target’s population and to get them to over react in response. Our leaders actually increased the fear of terrorism at home and there can be no argument that starting two wars was a gross over reaction. One that moved American targets right to the terrorists’ doorstep. There was little additional help the terrorists needed, so much was provided by the American government.
Brij takes a giant leap from WWII to the Iraq war. Rather unsophisticated analogy IMO. These states are sovereign, we may have had influence but not control. The Soviet Union had great influence also.
The problem in Iraq is not our creation. The Sunni and Shia have been fighting off and on for more than 1500 years. We just helped them establish majority rule after invasion and it took a hell of a long time at a great cost to us to do so. We cannot solve all of their differences, but lord knows we tried. We have done enough. There is nothing we can do to make them accept each other. They will have to find their own way to peace.
…I think the phase goes;…you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make them drink….
To>Quelcrist
You are truly a joke. The USA has more capability to kick @ss that all the muzzie countries combined. You are a DA!
Quelcrist-
lol…but we won the battles.