The nuclear deal and geostrategic shifts in the Arab east
Abdul-Wahab Qassem
Saturday, 18 April 2015 13:36
Iran and the P5+1 have finally agreed upon the final framework for
the agreement that is said to solve the crisis over Tehran’s nuclear
ambitions, which has been an extremely complex regional and
international issue. The United States and Secretary of State John Kerry
have played a pivotal role in outlining the terms of the deal and
reaching a final conclusion. Whichever way you look at it, it appears as
though both Iran and the P5 +1 or, more specifically,
the United States, feel as though they have achieved everything that they aspired to in the painstaking negotiation process.
All of the parties involved in this deal have the right to feel that
they have achieved something of great importance; however, this will not
be the focus of this article. Instead, I will choose to look at the
geostrategic shifts, which in part made this agreement possible but were
also the result of other factors in today’s heated regional climate.
The Saudi-led operation against Yemen, Operation Decisive Storm, cast
a significant shadow of influence on the Iranian nuclear negotiations.
In fact, some people feared that the airstrikes would lead to the
failure of the talks for many reasons, one of them being that the
operation targets Houthi bases and deposed President Ali Abdullah Saleh,
both of which are essential to Iran’s expansionist project. Tehran has
started to defend this project no matter what the cost, as its influence
has now spread to take over four Arab capitals. To confirm the veracity
of this claim one must look no further than the recent statement made
by Ali Yonsei, the primary adviser to Iranian President Hassan Rouhani,
who said, “
Baghdad has become the new capital of the Persian Empire.” That comment provoked many politicians within Arab circles.
The chaos and disruption being
experienced in the Arab east is due to the repercussions of the
presence and dominance of militias linked to Iran in countries such as
Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Yemen. Furthermore, the emergence of ISIS
has also contributed to the overall state of chaos in the Arab world, as
the group has destroyed symbols of Arab civilisation and threatens
centuries-old traditions. The result of all of this is that Arab
populations have been divided and dispersed and they are all fighting
each other without knowing what the end result of the chaos will be. One
thing for certain is that it will lead to the geostrategic division of
the region in a way that will benefit only one entity, and that is
Israel.
Geostrategic formations
What I mean buy the term geostrategic formations is the change in
relationships between regional actors and players in a manner that
affects the overall way in which these relationships are played out. In
these cases, the supposed effect that each regional actor will have is
transformed into their overall ability to influence events and their
outcomes, whether negatively or positively. Thus, local forces are
transformed from actors which can make suggestions as to how one can
change realities on the ground to actors who can actually implement
changes in countries where governments have failed, such as Syria,
Yemen, Iraq and maybe Lebanon. These are all examples of states where
the local governments have failed and given way to groups like ISIS and
their like.
What the region is experiencing at this stage is an atypical legacy
that began to unfold once the status quo in place prior to the Iraqi
invasion of Kuwait in 1990 dissolved post-occupation. Furthermore, the
Iraqi invasion of Kuwait led eventually to the removal of one of the
region’s crucial decision-makers, which has resulted in negative impacts
on the Arab world where once it experienced good. Iraq used to ensure
that the region enjoyed a sense of balance. Yet, since the first Gulf
War, many international players have enjoyed their slice of the Iraqi
pie; the disintegration of the country has benefited Israel in
particular, which feared for its security due to the potential of Iraq’s
political vigour, which became evident during the Iran-Iraq war.
One of the key features of this transformation is the pattern of the
Arab-Israeli polarisation that existed in the region before changes
began to occur. In today’s Arab world, what we see is a new cause for
polarisation, the Iran-Iraq War polarisation of 1980-1988 which is
beginning to reappear. At the time, we saw that the majority of Arab
countries aligned themselves with the Iraqi position; today, however,
we see that many countries like Libya and Syria are now inclined towards Iran. There remain a number of countries like Oman and Algeria which have expressed a neutral stance on this matter.
Another important element in the nature of alignments within the
Middle East is the introduction of sectarian politics and loyalty onto
the political scene with Ayatollah Khomeini’s religious revolution in
1979. With the success of the Islamic Revolution and the end of the
Pahlavi dynasty, a new era was born that would allow the Shia to govern
the Islamic world; their slogans declared that the revolution would be
exported, starting with their Arab neighbours. The religious leadership
of the Iranian Revolution set targets to infiltrate Iraq, Bahrain and
Lebanon. Iran’s goal was to incite Shia populations within Arab
countries to rise up against their governments. The plan has been
remarkably successful in Lebanon and Syria, as Hezbollah succeeded in
making the Shia community in Lebanon feel marginalised. Moreover, the
Alawite sect in Syria, which is represented by Bashar Al-Assad’s regime,
has also aligned itself with Iran.
In due course, Syria and Lebanon will face a fait accompli that will allow Iran to absorb them completely
despite the fact that the vast majority of the Syrian and Lebanese
people are fighting for their lives and existence as distinct nations
and will continue to do so until the final destruction of their
homelands.
The Islamic Dawa Party tried a similar endeavour in Iraq but did not
succeed because the system of government focused its efforts on limiting
the range of influence that politicised Shia possessed within their
communities. As a result of this, the Iraqi Shia leadership fled to Iran
and then to Syria and then sought asylum in the West. The violent
dismantling of the party’s cells in Iraq in this way, and the overall
feeling there that the country was being threatened by the existence of
such parties, led those groups with Shia sympathies to seek refuge in
neighbouring Iran. The Iraqi leadership thought that striking while it
was hot would allow them to form the metal in any shape that they
desired, but with the “Khomeinisation” of Iran and the fall of Arab
nationalism, countries like Syria and Lebanon soon pledged their
allegiances to Tehran.
The political leadership in Iraq has invested a great deal of effort
in pan-Arab causes, the Palestinian cause in particular, which they saw
as a defence of the Arab world’s western gateway. In fact, Iraqi
policies are said to be the inspiration behind Egyptian novelist Gamal
Al-Ghitani’s book Guardians of the Western Gate, which received much
popular acclaim in Iraq at the time of its publication.
All of the excessive repressive policies that were implemented to
limit the control of the Islamic Dawa Party were not necessarily aimed
at limiting the influence of the party itself. These policies and the
Iran-Iraq War were all considered to be efforts that would help prevent
the export of the Iranian revolution in the Arab world. The Iraqi regime
succeeded in gaining the loyalty of its Shia citizens throughout the
war as they population did not rebel much. Iraq came out of this war as
the victor. Despite the strength of the Shia sector in Bahrain, they did
not achieve much of a political victory. Many Shia communities tried to
take revenge on Kuwait for coordinating with the Iraqi government
during the war and went so far as to send a convoy to target the Kuwaiti
Amir, Shaikh Jaber Al-Ahmad Jaber Al-Sabah.
Such historical events illustrate the many shifts and changes that
have impacted the Levant as well as Iraq. These are the points in
history that have led us to where we are today. The Arab world’s
regional security is something that was torn apart by the international
community. We have reached a stage where Arab governments are fighting
their own people and in some cases have blown their countries to pieces.
Required foundations in regional security
Research in this area requires the identification of the elements of
power and threats being posed in the Arab world, particularly in the
Levant. We need to define where the Arab east (the “Mashreq”) begins and
ends, as well as the capabilities of each of the individual states in
terms of political capital and military strength.
The Arab Mashreq is defined
geographically by and includes all of the countries in the Fertile
Crescent (Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and Palestine), Egypt and the
countries of the Arabian Peninsula, which are the six Gulf Cooperation
Council countries (Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, UAE and Oman)
as well as Yemen.
All of these countries are members of the Arab League, and are party to a 1951 joint defence and economic cooperation agreement.
Security threats have played a role in re-shaping the geostrategic
formation of the Arab Mashreq in the way that we see manifested today.
The threats that are not only affecting the security of the region, but
also its balance, include Zionist Israel, Iran, factional conflicts
within the region itself, water conflicts (the Ethiopian Renaissance
Dam, for example), sectarian conflicts and various elements of
power-related threats.
The Israeli threat will continue to exist in the Mashreq and
it will not end until the occupation of Palestinian and other Arab land
ends with the establishment of a viable Palestinian state that will be
able to interact independently with its Arab neighbours. An agreement of
this nature is not likely in the foreseeable future. From here, one can
say that we will, undoubtedly, continue to witness a series of
destructive events in which Israel will continue to target Palestinian
communities, wherever they are, as it will no longer target Gaza alone.
There is no doubt that the continued existence of this threat will have
regional repercussions that will threaten the security of the Arab
Mashreq.
The escalating Iranian threat has now taken on a multi-faceted and multi-layered pattern at this stage.
The threat in Iraq differs from that in Syria which, in turn, differs
from that in Lebanon, which also differs from that in Yemen. Moreover,
the threat that Iran poses in Bahrain will manifest itself differently
there than it will in Kuwait or Saudi Arabia. Having said that, it
remains important to note that countries like Egypt and Jordan will also
possibly experience different manifestations of Iranian influence and
interference.
Just as the Iranian threat must be taken seriously on the external
level, it is almost more dangerous to the domestic affairs of its target
countries. What Iranian interference in the Arab world has shown is
that it promotes fragmentation and conflict in a way that resembles
other players, such as Israel. We saw how little international parties
did to prevent such fragmentation in Iraq, for example, after the
official end of the US occupation.
In terms of the impending threats of water-related security and
regional stability, our efforts to prevent the expansion of the
Ethiopian Renaissance Dam proved futile as the countries of the Nile
Delta agreed, finally, to sign an agreement amongst themselves. We still
do not know how the after-effects of this agreement will manifest
themselves in the countries that share the Nile’s water supply. We have,
however, some idea of how these things work due to the conflicts that
have taken place between Iran and Iraq over water from the River Tigris.
Despite Iran’s current level of influence and control over the Iraqi
government, this situation has yet to see any drastic improvement.
Countries such as Syria, Turkey and the rest of southern Anatolia are
also affected by the implications of future conflicts over water threats
and security.
When it comes to questions of power and influence, the Arab Mashreq
remains a crucial geostrategic point of interest because of its many
waterways and canals. We must continue to follow the developments in the
security sector of this region as the world continues to show its
interest in the Mashreq’s hydrocarbon resources.
Translated from Al-Araby Al-Jadid, 15 April, 2015
