Category Archives: Middle East Geopolitics

For the Muslim world, it’s not a safe and easy path to modernity

Posted on January 21, 2012 | Comments Off on For the Muslim world, it’s not a safe and easy path to modernity

By DOUG SAUNDERS-
From Saturday’s Globe and Mail January 21, 2012-

Countries like Tunisia and Egypt are changing the same way France did, with wild swings of revolution and reaction

A year ago, as he watched the great uprisings in Tunis and Cairo, French scholar Olivier Roy declared that they marked the end of Islamist politics. “If you look at the people who launched these revolts,” he wrote, “it is clear that they represent a post-Islamist generation. … The new revolutionaries are perhaps practising or even devout Muslims, but they separate their religious faith from their political agenda. In that sense, it is a ‘secular’ movement that separates religion from politics.”

Well, you might say, how awkward. Those January protesters may have been secular and liberal, but, when I visited Tahrir Square six months later, Islamists commanded the stage. We’ve recently watched Egypt’s first somewhat free elections give 48 per cent of the vote to a party controlled by the Muslim Brotherhood, plus 20 per cent to 28 per cent to Salafists, who aren’t just Islamist but want an actual theocracy. Secular liberals were left with a rump of 15 per cent to 20 per cent. If this is “post-Islamist,” it sure has a lot of crescents and guys with beards.

This week, Dr. Roy – probably the world’s most respected scholar on Islamic societies and politics – was asked to explain himself on French radio. Did the Islamist electoral victories in Tunisia and Egypt pour cold water on his “post-Islamist” prognostication? Quite the contrary, he said. They proved it. The new individualism behind the Arab revolutions, he said, has led Arabs to vote for parties with an Islamic identity (in large part, because “secularism” was strongly associated with the dictatorships they overthrew) – but, in the process, it’s forced those parties to abandon the Islamist goal of a pure religious society governed only by the Koran.

“Islamist movements like Ennahda in Tunisia and the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt can no longer even be called Islamist,” he said. “They are conservatives analogous to the religious right in the United States.” Much as socialist parties in the West had to abandon the revolutionary goals of Marxism to become electable, the new Islamist parties have had to give up actual Islamism: They can’t impose the Koran on people, but rather combine “a religious reference” with democratic bids to influence “family values.”

I don’t quite share Mr. Roy’s optimism. While an Iranian-style theocracy isn’t a possibility in Egypt, there are leaders in the Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party whose views on women and Israel are alarming enough and whose ties to Egypt’s military overlords appear authoritarian enough that the result could look a lot like Islamism.

Where the “post-Islamism” scholars do have a point is in their reading of the trends that led people to vote for the Islamist parties. These, paradoxically enough, are driven by a shift to secularization of private life. Egypt and its neighbours are in the midst of the same demographic change that revolutionized the West two centuries ago: Fertility rates are falling to European levels, and institutions such as first-cousin marriages are becoming increasingly rare. Religion has become a badge of identity, not a way of life.

This shift has made Islamists desperate to seize influence, because social influence can now only be won through politics. And it has put them in a unique position to gain it. Former Ottoman states such as Egypt never bothered to replace the religious obligation to give alms with a secular obligation to pay taxes. So the imams and mullahs became not only the leading voice of dissent but also the leading source of welfare. That, more than the Koran, wins them votes.

“The fundamental contradiction of Islamism is that its leaders think of themselves as guardians of a tradition, whereas the popular wave behind them is the result of a modernizing mental revolution,” demographers Youssef Courbage and Emmanuel Todd write in their analysis of Muslim-country modernization, A Convergence of Civilizations. “Political victory is inevitably followed by cultural defeat.”

In between comes a tumultuous time. The Muslim world is becoming modern the same way France did, with wild swings of revolution and reaction. “Westerners would like to forget,” the two demographers conclude, “that their own demographic transitions were also strewn with many disturbances and a good deal of violence.” It’s not a safe and easy path, but it’s progress.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/doug-saunders/for-the-muslim-world-its-not-a-safe-and-easy-path-to-modernity/article2309955/

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Posted in Middle East Geopolitics, Religion

Turkish belly-dancing to Persian santouri

Posted on January 11, 2012 | Comments Off on Turkish belly-dancing to Persian santouri

BURAK BEKDİL-January/11/2012-

In Tehran, Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu may have told his Iranian hosts that the X-band NATO radar on Turkish soil would be used to intercept missile threats from Bolivia. His Iranians hosts may have nodded and smiled.

And next month, Mr. Davutoğlu may tell U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that Turkey could perfectly parent the naughty mullahs in Tehran; that everything would soon come up roses in the Middle East thanks to Turkish polity; and that, by the way, Iran never intended to build the atomic bomb. Mrs. Clinton, too, may nod and smile. The fact is, Turkey has never been the maverick interlocutor in the Islamic world that it claims it has been.

Turkey’s belly-dancing around the Western-Persian conflict is not new. Ankara naively thinks that it can win hearts and minds in Tehran by opposing the sanctions; in Washington, it thinks it can do so by agreeing to host the NATO radar hostile to Iran. Professor Davutoğlu may confidently believe that his powers of persuasion work more than perfectly in Tehran and Cairo – like they more than perfectly worked in Damascus and Beirut!

The foreign policy wizard may think that “the rise of a ‘Shiite Crescent’ could turn into an opportunity if Turkey and Iran enhance their dialogue.” And, in response, the Iranian soldiers may have shot two Turkish villagers who had illegally crossed into their territory to smuggle fuel.

Meanwhile, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad may have grinned at Mr. Davutoğlu’s not-so-creative pleasantries. But he, too, probably nodded and smiled. In other words, the sky is the limit! Mr. Davutoğlu may even have gone as far as to believe that he fully agreed with influential Shiite politician Muqtada al-Sadr on the future of Iraq. What future? A Shiite Crescent over the skies of Iraq? The Shiite Crescent which will turn into an opportunity?

All the same, sadly, Mr. Davutoğlu and his briefcase full of neo-Ottoman ambitions are simply not so wanted in Tehran, Baghdad, Damascus or in influential office rooms in Beirut. Soon, they will be unwanted in Egypt and Libya, too.

Instead of living in his make-believe world, Mr. Davutoğlu should think over and over again to find out why the Algerian government told Ankara to stop referring to French colonization in Turkey’s fight with France over the Armenian genocide denial bill. Or why does one Arab leader after another should keep on saying the “Turkish model” is just unwanted in the “new Arabia.”

Ankara increasingly fears that a sectarian split, which has been a bitter fact of life in the Islamic world in the last millennium, would finish off the remaining bits of Turkey’s ambitions to play the leader of Middle Eastern “Islamdom.” Ankara has hoped to play the “Muslim leader” role in the entire region, not just in its selected parts divided along warring sects.

A sectarian conflict will completely push Turkey out of the “Shiite Middle East” and limit its target zone to the Sunni Middle East only, where Turkey will not be welcomed since it is too un-Muslim, too un-Arab, too western and too secular. Only in an undivided Islamic region would Turkey have had a limited influence. Hence the nervousness in Ankara…

Despite his sometimes illusionary policy-making, Mr. Davutoğlu, no doubt, is a hard-working, decent man of knowledge. But perhaps the pillar of his policy assumptions is not so strong. Simple populism based on “Zionist-bashing” is too weak of a bond to keep Muslim solidarity up and running.

There is more than enough empirical evidence, Mr. Davutoğlu, to suggest that Muslims, sadly, tend to slaughter each other over the Shiite vs. Sunni divide or, if this is not applicable, over the pious vs. secular one. All of that failing, there has been enough killing in the Muslim world over “who is more pious than the other (among the pious of the same sect),” and over “who is more nationalist than the other (among the secularists)” splits.

But don’t give up, Minister Davutoğlu. Just enough with your “neo-Third Worldism” based on the Muslim fraternity fallacy with the neo-Ottoman spice on top!

 

http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/turkish-belly-dancing-to-persian-santouri-.aspx?PageID=238&NID=11166&NewsCatID=398

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Posted in Middle East Geopolitics, Turkey

The new Crescenters: Turkey and Qatar

Posted on January 10, 2012 | Comments Off on The new Crescenters: Turkey and Qatar

FN-09/01/2012-

Qatar and Turkey are the new Crescenters ( in opposition to crusaders) of the Arab world. They are working to move the whole Arab world into becoming Sunni Islamic republic. They plan to  “moderate” these countries by injecting massive funds in economical investment.
For that, they have the full support of the USA and the western countries tired of fighting against extremists isla, supporting hopeless dictators and facing increased immigration of moslems to their countries.
As for Iran with which Turkey and Qatar enjoy good relationship, they consider that with a few adjustments, ultimately Iran would become another moderate Islamic republic.
Syria, Lebanon and Iraq  are most difficult countries to tackle because they are not homogeneous so the move to a ‘moderate’ Sunni or Shia islamic republic is not as straighforward as Egypt, Libya, Yemen or Tunisia where the religious or ethnic minorities are either unexistant or weak.
At first, Turkey and Qatar thought that Syria that has a majority of sunni will easily replace the alawite regime by a sunni islamic republic. After 10  months, that plan failed because the regime had the support of Iran who refuses to have its allies in Lebanon isolated.
The different strategies are the following 1) Let Lebanon, Syria and Iraq stay under the umbrella of Iran with the hope that Iran will move to a moderate Islamic republic, 2)Let these countries in limbo to find their own balance or 3) Use a military option make the necessary changes.
It seems that the solution 2) is the one being considered by Turkey and Qatar after many attempts to use solution 3)

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Posted in Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Libya, Middle East Geopolitics, Syria, Tunisia, Turkey, Yemen

Iran holds key to democracy in the Middle East

Posted on January 7, 2012 | Comments Off on Iran holds key to democracy in the Middle East

McGill University law professor Payam Akhavan says Iran holds key to democracy in the Middle East

Akhavan claims that the Islamic regime is in its “death pangs”, which raises his hopes for more democracy in the region.

By Charlie Smith, January 5, 2012

A McGill University law professor says that Iran and Saudi Arabia are engaged in a “proxy war” for control over large parts of the Middle East. And the impact is being felt in Lebanon, Iraq, Syria. Bahrain, and Afghanistan, where Shiite and Sunni Muslims are often engaged in violent confrontations.

“These are often power struggles between Iran and Saudi Arabia,” Payam Akhavan, an Iranian-born expert on international human-rights and criminal law, told the Georgia Straight during a recent visit to Vancouver. “The Saudis are more than happy to eliminate Iran as a rival, but I think the biggest threat to Saudi Arabia will be when Iran becomes a secular democracy.”

During a wide-ranging interview in a downtown restaurant, Akhavan suggested that Iran’s future will have a profound impact on the region’s transition from tradition to modernity, and from authoritarianism to democracy. He declared that the Iranian regime is in its “death pangs” because the vast majority of citizens are thoroughly sick of “political Islam” after more than three decades of Shiite rule. Akhavan, who recently spoke in Tahrir Square in Cairo, contrasted that with the situations in Egypt, Syria, Libya, Bahrain, and other Arab countries that have never suffered under a religious dictatorship in the modern era.

“Egypt reminded me not of where Iran was in the 2009 uprising but where Iran was in 1979, when political Islam was still a romantic, utopian ideology,” he said. “The one place in the Middle East nobody wants political Islam is Iran, because people have lived for 30 years under this incredibly violent, brutal, corrupt rule and they see the reality. So why is Iran the epicentre of this wider transformation in the Middle East? Because Iranian civil society is 30 years ahead of Egypt’s. It’s 30 years ahead of Syria.”

Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini seized power in Iran after the 1979 revolution and, according to Akhavan, hijacked a secular, leftist national revolution against the Shah of Iran. The professor added that Khomeini’s successor as supreme leader, Ayatollah Seyed Ali Hoseyni Khamenei, continues exercising ruthless control over the corruption-riddled country. Akhavan claimed that the “green revolution”, which was brutally repressed following the 2009 election, reflected a widespread desire for change among average Iranians.

“So civil society in Iran has turned against political Islam,” he stated. “It is thoroughly secular, including among Islamic reformists, who may be devout Muslims but who want a separation of state and religion. So Iran’s civil society is by far the most mature: its women’s movement, its students’ movement, its labour movement, its environmental movement. In a sense, they have become mature thanks to the excesses of totalitarianism.”

Here’s where Akhavan’s views differ from those of many analysts of Iran, who liken the mullahs’ rule to a throwback to ancient times. The professor, on the other hand, characterized the Islamic regime as a thoroughly 20th-century aberration, similar to the rise of National Socialism in Germany or Stalinism in the former Soviet Union. He claimed that these “modern romantic ideologies” emerge to fill a vacuum, in effect becoming substitutes for traditional religion.

“When the ayatollahs say that the union of state and religion is consistent with our true Islamic identity before western corruption, it’s absolute nonsense,” Akhavan said, “because the tradition of 500 years of Shia Islam in Iran from 1501, when it became the official religion, was separation of state and religion—because the orthodox clerics believe that until the advent of the messianic 12th imam, all temporal authority was illegitimate.”

Under the Iranian constitution, however, Khamenei is the supreme temporal leader, and he decides who may run for president or be appointed to the judiciary. Akhavan noted that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s followers have complicated the picture by “circulating rumours that he has direct lines of communication with the 12th imam, which would obviate the need for the supreme leader”.

“So they’re setting the stage for a significant conflict,” he stated.

Meanwhile, Akhavan added, young people, who are the vast majority of Iran’s population, are highly literate and have middle-class expectations. And he claimed that they despise totalitarian Islamic rule. “They are Internet-savvy,” he said. “They are glued to satellite television. There is a huge diaspora abroad, highly successful, and a flow of information, so it’s not a country that you can indefinitely rule through terrorization.”

It remains an open question if revolutions in Arab countries will bring about religious dictatorships. Akhavan noted that Saudi Arabia is trying to promote Sunni fundamentalist rule in Egypt, Syria, and other countries by supporting Salafist political parties. He added that the Muslim Brotherhood, which is emerging as a powerful force in Egypt, is more moderate than the Salafists and more likely to work closely with the Egyptian army.

“Radical Islam is more like a modern totalitarian ideology, even though it speaks the language of tradition,” he stated.

However, he pointed out that if democratic rule emerges in Iran, it could create a powerful beacon for supporters of greater freedom and secular rule in Arab countries. “You have this revolution from below and the most mature and secular and democratic social movement in the Middle East,” Akhavan said. “So Iran could very quickly transform from night to day and become a force for stability in the region.”

According to Akhavan, any political transformation would be blocked if Iran were to be attacked, because this would strengthen the hands of fanatics ruling the country. “We jokingly say that Ahmadinejad prays every Friday at the mosque for Israeli air strikes because it’s the only thing that would prop up his regime: creating a common enemy, exciting people’s nationalist sentiment,” he said. “An Israeli air strike would set back the democratic movement by a decade, and it would give a pretext for mass execution of the regime’s opponents under the cover of war. And, at best, it would delay Iran’s acquisition of nuclear capability by a few years, so I think, for the most part, the Americans and the Israelis understand this.”

http://www.straight.com/article-575421/vancouver/law-prof-says-iran-holds-key-middle-east

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Posted in Iran, Middle East Geopolitics

Political theatre: Currents behind Iranian-Western standoff

Posted on January 6, 2012 | Comments Off on Political theatre: Currents behind Iranian-Western standoff

Published: 5 January, 2012, 23:49

If the EU puts its plan to sanction Iranian oil exports into practice, there will be hard consequences on the European economy. But experts say the West’s sanction policy is motivated purely by politics.

The sanctions could come into effect by the end of January, unless Iran backs down on its alleged nuclear weapons program.

Tehran has responded to the sanctions with its own threats to block oil trade through the crucial Strait of Hormuz, leading to a continued deadlock in the Persian Gulf.

American warships are also present in the region, with a mission to prevent any hindrances of passage.

RT talked to professor of political science Pierre Guerlain, from Paris West University Nanterre La Defense, who is certain that the standoff between the West and Iran is driven by politics, not economics.

“From the economic point of view, it [sanctions] is not wise” he says, but measures are “coming from leaders who are facing elections; Obama in the US. And Obama has to be very tough on Iran, because he is accused by the Republicans of being soft on Iran.”

Iranian leaders, Guerlain believes, also have strong political reasons to continue the standoff, making the current conflict a “game where everything is trying to benefit from the opposition of the other.”

“Being tough on Iran is good for Obama, being oppositional to the US is good for Iranian leaders, who are themselves quite discredited in their own country,” Guerlain explains, adding that “everyone benefits politically though economically everyone could be hurt.”

­US contributed into Iran’s geopolitical might

­Washington’s intercourse with Iran is nothing but “a strategic foreign policy problem” acquired since their failure in Iraq, says John Rees, a political activist and national officer at the Stop the War Coalition.

“The war in Iraq was meant to give them a stable pro-Western, pro-business base for operations in the Middle East,” Rees told RT. “What they ended up doing is making Iran a greater regional power than it was before. This is what the sanctions are about.”

The conflict is not just about nuclear weapons in the Middle East, or the US would be bound to pick on Israel, which is the region’s only nuclear power, continues Rees.

“The reason for this continued conflict is that the American administration simply cannot live with an Iran which has as much regional power as it has at the moment. They see its links with Syria, they see its links with Hamas, they see its links with Hezbollah. This is a challenge to the American power in an absolutely critical – economically and geopolitically – area of the globe.”

© Autonomous Nonprofit Organization “TV-Novosti”, 2005 – 2011. All rights reserved.

http://rt.com/news/iran-west-sanctions-politics-265/print/

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Posted in Middle East Geopolitics

Assessing Assad

Posted on December 21, 2011 | Comments Off on Assessing Assad

The Syrian leader isn’t crazy. He’s just doing whatever it takes to survive.

BY BRUCE BUENO DE MESQUITA, ALASTAIR SMITH | DECEMBER 20, 2011

The assessments of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad following his interview with Barbara Walters in early December all strike a common theme. A U.S. State Department spokesman, for instance, declared that Assad appears to be “utterly disconnected with the reality that’s going on in his country.” One analyst opined, “It’s now clear that Assad meets his own definition of crazy.”What prompted these conclusions was Assad’s answer when Walters asked, “Do you think that your forces cracked down too hard?” He replied, “They are not my forces; they are military forces belong [sic] to the government.… I don’t own them. I am president. I don’t own the country, so they are not my forces.” In a Western democracy, it’s hard to imagine how a leader could so blatantly deny responsibility for the actions taken by his own government. But is it Assad who is out of touch with reality? Or is it us?Following the logic we set out in The Dictator’s Handbook,we believe Assad has been misunderstood and maybe, just maybe, even misjudged. In the book, we argue that no leader — not even a Louis XIV, an Adolf Hitler, or a Joseph Stalin — can rule alone. Each must rely on a coalition of essential supporters without whom power will be lost. That coalition, in turn, counts on a mutually beneficial relationship with the leader. They keep the ruler in office, and the ruler keeps them in the money. If either fails to deliver what the other wants, the government falls.Assad is no exception. Just as he said, it is not his government. He cannot do whatever he wants. He might even be a true reformer, as many in the Western media believed prior to the Arab Spring, or he may be the brute he now appears to be. The truth is, he is doing what he must to maintain the loyalty of those who keep him in power.Assad depends on the backing of key members of the Alawite clan, a quasi-Shiite group consisting of between 12 and 15 percent of Syria’s mostly Sunni population. The Alawites make up 70 percent of Syria’s career military, 80 percent of the officers, and nearly 100 percent of the elite Republican Guard and the 4th Armored Division, led by the president’s brother Maher. In a survey of country experts we conducted in 2007, we found that Assad’s key backers — those without whose support he would have to leave power — consisted of only about 3,600 members out of a population of about 23 million. That is less than 0.02 percent. Assad is not alone in his dependence on a small coalition. Iran’s Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s coalition is even smaller. His essential supporters include the Revolutionary Guard’s leadership, the economically essential bonyad conglomerates, key clerics, and a smattering of business interests, totaling, according to our survey of Iran experts, about 2,000 in a population of well over 70 million.

Any political system that depends on such a small percentage of the population to sustain a leader in power is destined to be a corrupt, rent-seeking regime in which loyalty is purchased through bribery and privilege. Syria possesses these traits in spades. Transparency International reports in its latest evaluation that Syria ranks in the top third of the world for corruption. So, when Assad says it is not his government, he is right. If he betrays the interests of his closest Alawite allies, for instance by implementing reforms that will dilute their share of the spoils, they will probably murder him before any protesters can topple his regime. Of course, the uprising or international intervention might eventually end his rule. But those possibilities remain potential. Should the loyalty of his 3,600 supporters falter and they stop working to neutralize protest, Assad will be gone immediately. Captive to the needs of his coalition, he ignores the welfare of the 23 million average Syrians and shuns world opinion.

There is, in fact, real evidence that Assad has modest reformist tendencies. During his 11 years in power, he has increased competitiveness in the economy, liberalized — a bit — the banking sector, and did, according to our 2007 survey, expand his Alawite-based winning coalition by about 50 percent when he first succeeded his father (though, having secured his hold on power, he was able to purge some of these surplus supporters and by around 2005 had reduced the coalition’s size back to what it had been under his father). Syria has enjoyed a respectable growth rate under his leadership, though it is also suffering from high deficit spending, deep indebtedness (about 27 percent of GDP), and high unemployment, especially in the countryside and in Damascus’s poverty belt. Although official unemployment figures claim about 8.9 percent unemployment, at least one well-regarded Syrian economist estimates the rate at 22 to 30 percent.

And with the Arab League endorsing stiff economic sanctions, Assad’s regime now risks steep economic decline. With Syrians facing a society in which the rewards go to so few and confronted with the example of the uprisings elsewhere in the Arab world, it is little wonder that the people have rebelled. It is equally unsurprising that the privileged few have responded brutally to preserve their advantages.

There are two effective responses to a mass uprising (other than stepping down, of course, which leaders almost never do until all other options have been exhausted): liberalize to redress the people’s grievances or crack down to make their odds of success too small for them to carry on. Leaders who lack the financial wherewithal to continue paying off cronies often choose to liberalize. (Remember South Africa’s F.W. de Klerk, who negotiated a government transition with Nelson Mandela’s African National Congress when economic decline made the apartheid system unsustainable.) Those who can muster the money to sustain crony loyalty do so. This is why the rich oil states to Syria’s south have resisted reform and why, despite its popular uprising, Libya will not become democratic. Here is another case where Assad’s statement that it is not his country is true, but only partially. As president, he could liberalize to buy off those rebelling, but his key backers will almost certainly not allow him to do so as long as there is enough money to keep paying foot soldiers to crack heads. With Syria’s oil wealth in decline and with stiff economic sanctions, the regime’s two choices are to liberalize or to find new sources of money. They have succeeded in the latter pursuit.

Reuters reported on July 15 that Iran and Iraq offered Assad’s regime $5 billion in aid, with $1.5 billion paid immediately. The $5 billion is equal to about 40 percent of Syrian government revenue. Since the announcement of Arab League sanctions, Iran, Iraq, and Venezuela have signed agreements to expand trade and investment in Syria to the tune of more than $7 billion in 2012, including building an oil refinery. That is just what Assad’s political-survival doctor ordered. This injection of cash in the short term is likely to keep the military and security forces on his side. The military core of his coalition is likely to do whatever it takes to keep the president in power as long as that money keeps on flowing. That is the essential synergy of all leader-coalition arrangements.

In the long run, meaning two to five years, reform is likely in Syria, perhaps through internal uprising and perhaps driven by forces outside the country. It could be that Assad will turn out to be the instrument of change, but the process of getting to that point will continue to be ugly, painful, and brutal as long as the likes of Iran, Iraq, and Venezuela care more about currying favor with Assad’s regime than they do about the well-being of the Syrian people.

How long they can do so is open to speculation. Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez is rumored to be terminally ill. Will his successors care about sustaining the costs of closer ties with Syria? With Iran facing its own economic problems, how long will the Islamic Republic’s regime sacrifice to sustain Assad? If Iran’s regime focuses more of its energy on internal affairs, will Nouri al-Maliki’s Iraqi government, itself likely to face stiff internal resistance, continue to build closer ties with its Syrian neighbor? In each of these cases, we don’t believe the current arrangement will last long. That, in t

Bruce Bueno de Mesquita and Alastair Smith are professors of politics and director and co-director, respectively, of the Alexander Hamilton Center for Political Economy at New York University. Their most recent book is The Dictator’s Handbook.

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/12/20/is_assad_crazy_or_just_ruthless?print=yes&hidecomments=yes&page=full

 

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Posted in Middle East Geopolitics, Syria

Revenge of the Sunnis. What the Arab Spring is really about.

Posted on December 11, 2011 | Comments Off on Revenge of the Sunnis. What the Arab Spring is really about.

BY EDWARD LUTTWAK | DECEMBER 7, 2011

The last decade has been marked by the rise of the Shiites in the Middle East. Through the bullet and the ballot box, Shiite parties have risen to power from Baghdad to Beirut — thereby extending Iran’s reach into the heart of the Arab world. Sunni rulers have viewed with much anxiety the new “Shiite crescent” that extends from Iran all the way to Lebanon.

But as a popular — and now military — uprising in Syria becomes more powerful, the Shiite ascendancy is coming to an end. With every day that passes, President Bashar al-Assad’s grip on power seems to weaken: The United Nations assessed on Nov. 1 that Syria had entered a state of civil war and the country’s economy is projected to contract by a disastrous 12 percent to 20 percent this year. And now, the regional Sunni powers are hoping to exploit the turmoil to launch a counteroffensive that could reverse their losses.

Shiite empowerment in the Middle East began with the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, which had the perfectly predictable effect of strengthening Iran — not only its ruling theocracy as such, but also its hegemony over “Twelver” Shiites across the Arab world. In Iraq, most importantly, the Shiites have long outnumbered the Sunnis, but were marginalized and persecuted by the Ottoman Empire and then by all subsequent Arab regimes, down to the initially secular Saddam Hussein, who became a Sunni paladin after launching his war against Iran in 1980. Today by contrast, the U.S.-imposed democratic system virtually guarantees a Shiite-dominated government, with a natural affinity for the fellow Shiites of Iran.

In Lebanon, likewise, the Shiites have long been more numerous than the Christians or the Sunnis, but they were altogether weaker politically — indeed, for most of Lebanon’s history, they were more ignored than opposed. Today, by contrast, it is the emphatically Shiite movement Hezbollah — which modestly calls itself the “Party of God” — that is by far the most powerful party in the current Lebanese government, and its armed militia is stronger than the national army.

Then there is the very special case of Syria, where the Sunni majority is subjected by a nominally secular regime run by extremely heretical Muslims, chiefly backed by non-Muslim minorities both Christian and Druze.

The ruling Assad family’s control of Syria has been a strategic boon to Iran due to its readiness to act as if they were fellow Shiites — thereby connecting Iran, Iraq, and southern Lebanon into a contiguous “Shiite crescent,” in the words of an alarmed Jordanian King Abdullah II. That is richly ironic, because President Bashar al-Assad and his inner core of followers who dominate the security forces are Nusayris, only re-branded in the 1920s as Alawites (“followers of Ali”) to better claim a Muslim identity as Shiites (“partisans” of Ali), but whose very un-Islamic doctrines would expose them to murderous repression in Iran — just ask a member of the post-Islamic Bahai community.

For ultra-Sunni Saudi Arabia, as well as its smaller neighbors — Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates — the Shiite advance has been most unwelcome. Religious differences have greatly widened in recent years: Shiite devotions, particularly in Iran, have increasingly focused on the hidden Twelfth Imam, whose actively implored world-ending return leaves Muhammad himself by the wayside. Equally, Shiite pilgrimages to the Hassan and Hussein shrines in Iraq — idolatrous for rigorous Sunnis — inherently compete with the Mecca pilgrimage.

Least important doctrinally, but perhaps most important in reality, has been the greater visibility of practices and rituals that are suspect or even disgusting to Sunnis. These include the dubious “temporary marriage,” invented by Iran’s clerics, who use it liberally in lieu of prostitution; the rhythmic Shiite prayer drill that seems un-Islamic and downright menacing to Sunnis; and the more extreme Ashura rituals. They are far from new, but it is only now that many Sunnis are exposed to the spectacle of processions of self-flagellators over pavements slippery with their blood and of Shiite mothers proudly cutting their babies’ foreheads with razor-blades to bleed them in memory of the martyrdom of Hassan and Hussein.

It is, however, the crescent’s potential to extend southward that has transformed it into a strategic threat to Saudi Arabia and Sunni neighbors. Shiites outnumber Sunnis not only in Bahrain and Kuwait, but also — and most importantly — in Saudi Arabia’s oil-producing Eastern Province, where the money comes from. New protests have broken out in the region in recent weeks, resulting in the deaths of several protesters.

From the Saudi point of view, the damage inflicted by the United States in 2003 by destroying Saddam’s military strength was compounded by the failure to defend deposed President Hosni Mubarak’s government in Cairo. The Egyptian regime had other merits for the Al Saud family, including a respectable rate of economic growth, which is now a receding memory. Its chief virtue in Saudi eyes, however, was Mubarak’s systematic opposition to Iran and its allies, and even the Shiites as such. Egypt’s post-Mubarak rulers are hardly likely to embrace either Iran or its doctrine — the country is solidly Sunni — but there is no guarantee that they will emulate Mubarak’s very active anti-Iran policy, which was strengthened by pragmatic cooperation with Israel. Indeed, the first act of the post-Mubarak interim regime was to call for the restoration of diplomatic relations with Iran — even if to no great effect so far.

But having greatly damaged the Sunni front by sweeping away Mubarak, the “Arab Spring” is now greatly helping it by weakening the Assad regime in Syria. The rulers of Qatar and of Saudi Arabia are untroubled by the obvious contradictions in their policy toward this year’s Arab revolts: They are defending Bahrain’s ruling family against the majority Shiite population while loudly criticizing and sanctioning the Assad regime for oppressing its own majority Sunni population. And they are demanding democratic rule in Syria while accepting none of it at home.

Qatar’s Al Jazeera television channels have, from the start, sided with Assad’s Sunni Arab enemies. But Qatari policy has followed the more cautious Saudi lead. The Saudi and Qatari rulers only demanded action by the Arab League after months of bloody repression in Syria — when the death toll exceeded 3,500 — and even then delayed their actions in light of Assad’s “promise” to stop using force against his own population.

That was a trap, of course. Assad was left with only two choices: Stop using force, lose control, and at best flee the country; or else suppress the opposition with lethal force, losing Arab League support and provoking increasingly severe sanctions. The latter option was Assad’s preference, and the Saudi and Qatari rulers duly reacted by calling for Arab and international sanctions, while probably supplying money to Syrian resisters who happen to be almost entirely Sunni.

It is obvious that the Gulf monarchies of absolute rulers are not in the fight for the sake of a future Syrian democracy. For Saudi Arabia and its Gulf allies, the purpose of overthrowing Assad is to break the “Shiite crescent”: bringing Damascus under Sunni rule, repudiating its alliance with Iran, and cutting off Hezbollah from its logistic base in Syria, thereby allowing Lebanon’s Sunnis to regain power along with their Christian allies. A further aim is to provide backing for Iraq’s outnumbered Sunnis, just across the border. A broader goal to be achieved by denying Tehran its only Arab ally is to reduce Iran’s acceptability to Arab populations everywhere.

Achieving these aims would add up to a winning “knight’s move,” restoring the Sunni ascendancy after the setbacks of recent years. And as Assad does not have the mettle of his father — who silenced his own Sunni-Islamist opponents by massacre — it is easy enough to predict the victor. Democracy may not be the winner, but the Sunnis certainly will be.

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/12/07/revenge_of_the_sunnis

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Posted in Middle East Geopolitics, Religion

Iran prepares to strike back

Posted on December 8, 2011 | Comments Off on Iran prepares to strike back

By Brian M Downing-
Dec 8, 2011-
In the past few years, bombings and assassinations have taken place inside Iran that have killed scores of people. These attacks are almost certainly directed by Israeli, Saudi and United States intelligence services which are pressing Iran to open its nuclear research facilities to international inspection.

In recent weeks, Iran has decried terrorism around the world (somewhat paradoxically, to be sure), put up a clumsy plot to assassinate a Saudi ambassador, boasted of its missile strength, and briefly seized the British Embassy in Tehran – an act done not by students as with the US Embassy in 1979, but by toughs of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC).

The increasingly aggressive nature of these responses suggest the rising ire of the Iranian government, the political ascendancy of the IRGC, and most ominously, the likelihood of sharper

hostilities in the region. Iran is signaling the possibility of violent responses well beyond the quotidian rocket attacks on Israel from Hamas and Hezbollah.

These could include encouraging Shi’ite uprisings in the Gulf, attacking US personnel in the region, and embarking on its own wave of bombings against Israel and its US and Saudi allies.

The Shi’ites in the region
The Gulf region has a large Shi’ite population, many of whom constitute majorities in countries ruled by Sunnis. The Shi’ites complain of discrimination in employment and education and seethe at official policies encouraging foreign Sunnis to immigrate into the country to reduce the Shi’ite preponderance.

Such complaints were oft heard in the Arab Spring demonstrations in Bahrain, where on little if any evidence they were judged acts of Iranian subterfuge and harshly repressed. Similar complaints in Shi’ite parts of Saudi Arabia were tamped down last March before they could coalesce into a movement. A legitimate indigenous civil rights movement was squelched and this has piqued the interests of Iranian intelligence.

Yemen, approximately 50% Shi’ite, is amid an uncertain transition to a new president, which is not the same as a new regime. Saudi Arabia and other Sunni powers have negotiated President Ali Abdallah Saleh’s departure but Yemenis suspect an Egyptian-style ploy and the Shi’ites may be open to Iranian influence.

This is especially so in Yemen’s north, which abuts with a Shi’ite region of Saudi Arabia and which already has an armed Shi’ite movement. These Houthi fighters operate along the border with Saudi Arabia and occasionally engage Saudi forces. Iran may seek to encourage the Houthis to expand into Saudi territory and build ties with Shi’ites there.

Shi’ites in the Eastern province of Saudi Arabia have renewed their demonstrations against discrimination. Whether they have done so under Iranian influence or as a result of encouraging events in Libya and Syria is uncertain. Saudi intelligence, however, will have no doubt of IRGC’s hand, nor will they need evidence to form their conclusion and act upon it.

A Shi’ite uprising in Yemen or Saudi Arabia is unlikely, but so is a judicious response from Riyadh to any unrest that does come about. This in turn may only lead to more covert actions in Iran and harsher oppression in Saudi Arabia.

Iraq
United States troops are scheduled to be out of Iraq in four weeks, which maybe be seen as making them an unlikely target. Alternately, they can be seen as one that should be struck soon. It might be remembered that the last Soviet convoy that exited Afghanistan in 1989 suffered attacks until it crossed into the USSR, though the withdrawal had United Nations sanctioning. Beyond the first of the year, there will be US Embassy staff, training missions, and clandestine personnel.

Another response in Iraq would be against the Sunni forces of the central region which have been waging a bombing campaign on Shi’ite targets – government and civilian – for several months now. The Shi’ite have endured this campaign with remarkable and uncharacteristic forbearance, leading some analysts to think a harsh response may be in the offing once the US ground forces are no longer in position to intervene.

The Sunni forces are likely influenced by Saudi intelligence, which seeks to block a feared Shi’ite axis stretching into Lebanon and to establish an autonomous Sunni region in Iraq if not a wholly independent one, perhaps adjoined to a new Sunni-dominated Syria. The potential for sectarian warfare spilling over into Syria and Lebanon is clear and ominous.

US forces in Afghanistan and the Gulf
Iran already gives limited support, in the form of explosives and training, to Afghan insurgents, including the Taliban. This is not out of ideological affinity or broad strategic interests. Iran despises the Taliban as an intolerant Sunni movement that slaughtered tens of thousands of Shi’ites and killed a number of Iranian diplomats as well.

In the latest atrocity to inflict Afghan, 58 people were killed on Tuesday in a suicide bombing at a crowded Kabul shrine on the most important day in the Shi’ite calendar. At least 150 people were wounded when the bomb exploded in a throng of worshippers, including women and children, in a street between the Abul Fazl shrine and the Kabul River. A second bomb, which killed four people in the northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif, also targeted pilgrims on their way to mark the holy festival of Ashura.

In this case, Sunni militants from Pakistani group Lashkar-e-Jhangvi al-Alami claimed responsibility in a phone call to Radio Mashaal, a Pashto-language station set up by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. The group has close links to al-Qaeda.

Iran works against the Taliban as well by supporting development programs in the north and west where Tajik and Hazara peoples have long had cultural and political ties to Iran and deep hatred of the Taliban.

Nonetheless, Iran may increase support for the insurgents as a means of punishing the US and deterring further attacks inside Iran, especially on its nuclear facilities. Iran can provide more weapons to insurgents, possibly to include shoulder-fired antiaircraft missiles such as the Stingers given to the mujahideen.
Iran purchased a few Stingers from the mujahideen back in the eighties and copied them, with unclear success. The importance of the Stingers in the Soviet war has been greatly overstated in Central Intelligence Agency cant (Soviet pilots altered their tactics and avoided the missiles) but their use in Afghanistan would be unsettling in Washington.

Iran could venture to deploy Qods Force troops into Afghanistan to destroy aid projects, ambush troops, and interdict International Security Assistance Force convoys coming into the southern part of the country from Chaman and Spin Boldak in western Pakistan, not far from Iranian soil. Such convoys are of course already subject to intermittent stoppages by the Pakistani army.

The US’s present antagonisms with the Pakistani generals offer an opening for Iranian diplomacy. Iran could offer more favorable terms for gas and pipeline projects and support for Pakistani interests and aspirations in Afghanistan. In return, Pakistan could further restrict foreign troop convoys into Afghanistan.

The US naval presence in the Persian Gulf offers numerous possibilities. The Fifth Fleet facilities in Bahrain are within missile range, at least one carrier group is always inside the Gulf, and support ships routinely transit the Straits of Hormuz. All would be vulnerable to Iranian aircraft, missiles, and ships – especially if “swarming” tactics were used. Pentagon war-gaming of such attacks has reportedly been less than assuring.

Even a brief skirmish in the Gulf would send oil prices soaring on world markets, perhaps 15% in a day or two. Many economies would be adversely affected and world opinion might not side with Iran’s opponents in affixing blame. Paradoxically, soaring prices would be a boon for Tehran.

Non-diplomatic efforts to press Iran to abandon its nuclear program have thus far been unsuccessful. They are getting out of control and are leading to violent retaliation and regional conflict.

The efforts are also firming government and popular support for nuclear research. They are also solidifying IRGC power in the state and changing Iran from a theocracy with a zealous military to a military-dominated bureaucracy with a clerical body legitimizing it. And militaries often prefer violent actions to diplomatic ones.

Brian M Downing is a political/military analyst and author of The Military Revolution and Political Change and The Paths of Glory: War and Social Change in America from the Great War to Vietnam. He can be reached at brianmdowning@gmail.com.
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/ML08Ak01.html

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Posted in Iran, Middle East Geopolitics, US Middle East Politics

War on Iran has already begun. Act before it threatens all of us

Posted on December 8, 2011 | Comments Off on War on Iran has already begun. Act before it threatens all of us


guardian.co.uk, <

Escalation of the covert US-Israeli campaign against Tehran risks a global storm. Opposition has to get more serious

They don’t give up. After a decade of blood-drenched failure in Afghanistan and Iraq, violent destabilisation of Pakistan and Yemen, the devastation of Lebanon and slaughter in Libya, you might hope the US and its friends had had their fill of invasion and intervention in the Muslim world.

It seems not. For months the evidence has been growing that a US-Israeli stealth war against Iran has already begun, backed by Britain and France. Covert support for armed opposition groups has spread into a campaign of assassinations of Iranian scientists, cyber warfare, attacks on military and missile installations, and the killing of an Iranian general, among others.

The attacks are not directly acknowledged, but accompanied by intelligence-steered nods and winks as the media are fed a stream of hostile tales – the most outlandish so far being an alleged Iranian plot to kill the Saudi ambassador to the US – and the western powers ratchet up pressure for yet more sanctions over Iran’s nuclear programme.

The British government’s decision to take the lead in imposing sanctions on all Iranian banks and pressing for an EU boycott of Iranian oil triggered the trashing of its embassy in Tehran by demonstrators last week and subsequent expulsion of Iranian diplomats from London.

It’s a taste of how the conflict can quickly escalate, as was the downing of a US spyplane over Iranian territory at the weekend. What one Israeli official has called a “new kind of war” has the potential to become a much more old-fashioned one that would threaten us all.

Last month the Guardian was told by British defence ministry officials that if the US brought forward plans to attack Iran (as they believed it might), it would “seek, and receive, UK military help”, including sea and air support and permission to use the ethnically cleansed British island colony of Diego Garcia.

Whether the officials’ motive was to soften up public opinion for war or warn against it, this was an extraordinary admission: the Britain military establishment fully expects to take part in an unprovoked US attack on Iran – just as it did against Iraq eight years ago.

What was dismissed by the former foreign secretary Jack Straw as “unthinkable”, and for David Cameron became an option not to be taken “off the table”, now turns out to be as good as a done deal if the US decides to launch a war that no one can seriously doubt would have disastrous consequences. But there has been no debate in parliament and no mainstream political challenge to what Straw’s successor, David Miliband, this week called the danger of “sleepwalking into a war with Iran”. That’s all the more shocking because the case against Iran is so spectacularly flimsy.

There is in fact no reliable evidence that Iran is engaged in a nuclear weapons programme. The latest International Atomic Energy Agency report once again failed to produce a smoking gun, despite the best efforts of its new director general, Yukiya Amano – described in a WikiLeaks cable as “solidly in the US court on every strategic decision”.

As in the runup to the invasion of Iraq, the strongest allegations are based on “secret intelligence” from western governments. But even the US national intelligence director, James Clapper, has accepted that the evidence suggests Iran suspended any weapons programme in 2003 and has not reactivated it.

The whole campaign has an Alice in Wonderland quality about it. Iran, which says it doesn’t want nuclear weapons, is surrounded by nuclear-weapon states: the US – which also has forces in neighbouring Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as military bases across the region – Israel, Russia, Pakistan and India.

Iran is of course an authoritarian state, though not as repressive as western allies such as Saudi Arabia. But it has invaded no one in 200 years. It was itself invaded by Iraq with western support in the 1980s, while the US and Israel have attacked 10 countries or territories between them in the past decade. Britain exploited, occupied and overthrew governments in Iran for over a century. So who threatens who exactly?

As Israel’s defence minister, Ehud Barak, said recently, if he were an Iranian leader he would “probably” want nuclear weapons. Claims that Iran poses an “existential threat” to Israel because President Ahmadinejad said the state “must vanish from the page of time” bear no relation to reality. Even if Iran were to achieve a nuclear threshold, as some suspect is its real ambition, it would be in no position to attack a state with upwards of 300 nuclear warheads, backed to the hilt by the world’s most powerful military force.

The real challenge posed by Iran to the US and Israel has been as an independent regional power, allied to Syria and the Lebanese Hezbollah and Palestinian Hamas movements. As US troops withdraw from Iraq, Saudi Arabia fans sectarianism, and Syrian opposition leaders promise a break with Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas, the threat of proxy wars is growing across the region.

A US or Israeli attack on Iran would turn that regional maelstrom into a global firestorm. Iran would certainly retaliate directly and through allies against Israel, the US and US Gulf client states, and block the 20% of global oil supplies shipped through the Strait of Hormuz. Quite apart from death and destruction, the global economic impact would be incalculable.

All reason and common sense militate against such an act of aggression. Meir Dagan, the former head of Israel’s Mossad, said last week it would be a “catastrophe”. Leon Panetta, the US defence secretary, warned that it could “consume the Middle East in confrontation and conflict that we would regret”.

There seems little doubt that the US administration is deeply wary of a direct attack on Iran. But in Israel, Barak has spoken of having less than a year to act; Binyamin Netanyahu, the prime minister, has talked about making the “right decision at the right moment”; and the prospects of drawing the US in behind an Israeli attack have been widely debated in the media.

Maybe it won’t happen. Maybe the war talk is more about destabilisation than a full-scale attack. But there are undoubtedly those in the US, Israel and Britain who think otherwise. And the threat of miscalculation and the logic of escalation could tip the balance decisively. Unless opposition to an attack on Iran gets serious, this could become the most devastating Middle East war of all.

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http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/dec/07/iran-war-already-begun/print

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Posted in Iran, Middle East Geopolitics, US Middle East Politics

Syria and the unfolding hegemonic game

Posted on November 25, 2011 | Comments Off on Syria and the unfolding hegemonic game
Nima Khorrami Assl Last Modified: 25 Nov 2011 09:27

A new strategic alliance has formed, Ankara and Riyadh against Tehran, all trying to gain influence over Damascus.

London, UK – In spite of mounting international and regional pressure on Bashar al-Assad’s regime, there is still no real prospect of a quick end to the on-going instability and instead Syria is set to enter a long and bloody civil war. And as political stalemate continues, a genuinely regional hegemonic contest between Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey over this small but strategically important nation has begun to unfold.

Since the fall of Mubarak, Saudis have decided to drastically reduce their reliance on the US for securing their foreign policy interests. Riyadh has not only begun to strengthen its armed forces, but it has also decided to use its petro-dollar more aggressively seeking to buy influence in return for the provision of generous financial assistance. Capitalising on Egypt’s weakness, moreover, Saudi has assumed the leading role in the Arab League to the extent that many Arab observers see the League today as “an extension of the GCC”. Finally, preferring evolution to revolution, Saudis have crushed revolutionary movements in Bahrain and Yemen albeit via different means.

Turkey’s continued economic growth in the face of the current global crisis, its remarkable success in achieving societal cohesion by needling the gap between secular and religious forces, and its boosted standing on the world stage as a role model for Arab revolutionaries, on the other hand, have enhanced her assertiveness. Today, Turkish leadership is keen to behave “as a kind of independent regional power similar to the democratic members of the BRICS”. To this end, Ankara has sought to expand ties with Egypt in order to defuse any potential Arab criticism of its hegemonic tendencies. According to the Turkish Foreign Minister, “a partnership between Turkey and Egypt could create a new, democratic axis of power”.

Lacking Turkey’s democratic appeal amongst the Arab public and Saudi’s money, Tehran has followed a different path seeking to strengthen its alliance system as opposed to trying to expand its influence into new theatres. And as American troops begin their withdrawal, Iran’s influence in Iraq is set to rise even further especially that Ankara is more interested in intra-Kurdish affairs and Saudi appears to have abandoned Shia Iraq altogether. Iran’s influence in Lebanon will also go unchallenged as Hezbollah continues to dominate the Lebanese politics. This leaves Syria as the first theatre in which this regional hegemonic game will begin to fold out.

Syria is important to Iran for two broad reasons. Firstly, it is the link between Iran and Hizbullah. Assad’s fall will therefore be a massive blow to Iran’s foreign policy by greatly reducing Tehran geopolitical reach. Given the Iranian regime’s own unpopularity, secondly, Tehran fears that Assad’s fall could dangerously revitalize Iran’s own anti-government movement. Saudis, on the other hand, are eager to see an end to the Assad’s rule not least because he is an Alawi. Moreover, Assad’s demise will enable Saudi to challenge Tehran in Lebanon with greater ease. For its part, Turkey is mainly concerned with the Syrian situation because it shares a long border with Syria, and that on-going instability in Syria could have destabilising effects on Turkey’s own Kurdish population. Also, Ankara knows all too well that Assad’s hold on power could mean a near-total loss of its investment in Syria. This is not to mention that there has been a historical rivalry between Iran and Turkey over Syria dating back to the Ottoman-Safavid era.

Currently, Turkey and Saudi seem to have entered a tactical alliance against Iran by supporting the Muslim Brotherhood and calling on Assad to resign. Yet it is not at all clear if this alliance will achieve its desired outcome. It could in fact crumble over time. Ankara and Riyadh have opposing interests in Egypt. Saudis prefer a strong presence of military and Mubarak-era personalities in the government, whereas Turkey favours a newly and democratically elected government in place as soon as possible. Given Cairo’s dire financial needs, Saudis are more likely to obtain the upper hand there which will almost certainly antagonise Ankara. More importantly, as US is preparing to leave Iraq, there are already reports of tension between Kurdish and Iraqi security forces along the trigger line. If the civil war in Syria and the US departure lead to the revival of independence discourses amongst the Kurds, Turkey should then be expected to join forces with Iran so to preserve Iraq and Syria’s unity even if that means supporting Bashar al-Assad.

Interestingly, as the United States reorients its foreign policy focus towards the Asia Pacific, this rivalry is the clearest indication of how the future regional order will look like: a multipolar system with Iran, Saudi, Turkey, and Egypt, once it stands on its feet again, as its poles. And as this new order takes shape, one can be certain that there will be more instability ahead, and the greatest challenge facing these would-be powers will be the regulation of their rivalries.

Nima Khorrami Assl is a security analyst at Transnational Crisis Project, London. His areas of interest and expertise include the Middle East, Political Islam and De-radicalisation, China, Caucuses, Energy Security and Geopolitics.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial policy.

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Posted in Iran, Iraq, Middle East Geopolitics, Turkey, US Middle East Politics