The ISIS/ISIL is now a credible territorial organisation with strong roots in the Shia-Sunni conflict in the Middle East. Regional geopolitics also plays a role because the Saudi-Iranian rivalry has a long history and plays into the politics of conflicts in Iraq and Syria – the two main frontlines in the region, along with Yemen. President Obama and his advisers have no answers to the deep-seated conflicts because, unlike the British colonials, Washington lacks knowledge and understanding of local politics and alignments and is instead interested in maintaining and developing international arrangements which protect its commercial and political interests and which maintain a liberal international economic order under US hegemony. As such, the warning sides feed off the cycle of violence and interact on that basis. Still, the ascendency of the ISIS/ ISIL is not the end of the Middle East story because the political table of the Middle East is being reset by the rise of new and previously unimaginable coalitions. To a discussion of this we now turn.
Moscow’s concern is not to roll back ISIS conquest but to contain its expansion into western Syria (where Russian military assets are located) and to control the eastern Mediterranean, which is the backyard of US naval power.
The Middle East is now a case of disorderly chaos because there are a large number of well-armed participants in regional/subregional conflicts and there is a continuous blame game being played along with ongoing conflicts. The rise of the ISIS/ISIL is associated with the brutality of the Assad regime in the Western narrative. In Russian thinking, it is associated with mistaken US policies which produced regime change in Iraq and Libya and outside the region (in Ukraine) and attempted regime change in Russia itself. The criticism here is that US military-political actions created a void in the region which the ISIS/ISIL has now filled. Even if Russians admit that Assad is a part of the problem, his brutal policies are not seen as the whole problem. And then there is the view that the source of instability lies in the nasty fight between Saudi Arabia and Iran, between the Shias and the Sunnis, and this is now being played out in an intensified military fashion in the Middle East/Gulf region. The competing narratives cannot be reconciled because there is no international centre to adjudicate the narratives and the conflicts they produce and the UN, which was meant to be the guardian of world security, is a weak and conflicted organisation and is now mired in corruption scandals after the oil-for-trade scandal in Iraq.
The issue – who is to blame for the present crises – is now academic, and it is best left to historians to untangle the cause-effects. For us, it is sufficient to think of Syria as the main hub of military-diplomatic action in the region and the flow of refugees from Syria into Europe as an important side effect. The ISIS/ISIL now controls most of eastern Syria. The Kurds (Democratic Union Party) control large parts of northeastern Syria.
Islamist rebels, including al-Nusra (a local franchise of al- Qaeda), control north-west Syria. West-backed rebels and al-Nusra control Quneitra province, next to the Golan Heights, and much of Dera province south of Damascus. The Syrian government controls Damascus and the western coastal areas (Homs, Hama and parts of Allepo are contested).
The Army of Conquest (set up in March 2015) is backed by Qatar and Turkey, and Saudi Arabia gained a position in north-west Syria and appeared to move the frontline to Latakia province close to the Mediterranean, which threatens the Russian base at Tartus. Assad is threatened by rebel coalitions as well as the areas taken by the ISIS/ISIL, but for Russia, there is a threat to the Caucasus/central Asia region and it is significant that about 2,000 Chechen/Georgian fighters are involved in the Middle East against Assad and Putin and having fought a bitter battle against the Chechens,
Changing US red lines has eroded its political and moral authority. Removal of Assad was Obama’s first priority; now it is to defeat the ISIS…
Moscow’s concern is not to roll back ISIS/ISIL conquest but to contain its expansion into western Syria (where Russian military assets are located) and to control the eastern Mediterranean, which is the backyard of US naval power.
Despite the intensifying conflicts and instability, a pattern of alignments has emerged. These are tactical cooperative arrangements which indicate that the changing alignments focus on geopolitical enmities rather than ideological affinities, and the rank order of enmities has also changed. During the Cold War, the diplomatic and military lines were clearly drawn between the US and Soviet camps (China was not in the Middle East picture) and the frontlines respected the boundaries of the Middle East states which the European colonial powers had established. Three developments have changed the Middle East’s strategic landscape. First, the state structures of Iraq, Libya, Syria and Yemen have collapsed. The USSR collapsed. And US/Western authority and the ideology of democracy are not an effective counter to the theory that jihad is the way forward for Muslims.
Changing US red lines has eroded its political and moral authority. Removal of Assad was Obama’s first priority; now it is to defeat the ISIS/ISIL, and this has been adjusted to ‘degrade’ it and the narrative that the fight is a long one. Furthermore, Iran was viewed by George W. Bush as a part of the ‘axis of evil’; for Obama, it emerged as a negotiating partner in the recently concluded nuclear deal. Even as the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khameini is telling the Revolutionary Guards that no further negotiations are envisaged with the US because it uses negotiations to penetrate the Iranian establishment, there are convergent interests between the two in Afghanistan, and in fighting the ISIS/ISIL. Now, the Hezbollah and Revolutionary Guards fighters are silent partners of the US and the Iraq government in the fight against the ISIS/ISIL.
Russia may get stuck in the Syrian conflict as in Afghanistan, in which case the likelihood of degrading the ISISwill likely diminish and the Middle East will remain the centre of a messy conflict with shifting frontlines and with well-armed militias.
The rank order of the enmity between the US and Iran is changing. The US military is advising Iraqi and Iranian militias fighting the ISIS/ ISIL, and there is intelligence sharing to avoid hitting the Iranian fighters. Both project antagonistic postures on the world stage, and this is necessary for the two to maintain their domestic legitimacy as the guardians of national security. But adjustments are occurring on the ground, and both have concrete self-interests to do so. The Great Satan is now viewed as the ‘Little Satan’ by Tehran practitioners. Both have a common interest to check the Taliban in Afghanistan, and Tehran in addition worries about the drug trade into Iran from Afghanistan and the flow of refugees. The Afghan conflict is also a proxy war between Iran and Saudi Arabia because Riyadh financed the madrassas in Pakistan, fed them the Wahhabi ideology and motivation and nourished Pakistan-Taliban links.
Another big change in the rank order of enmities is the adjustment in the Saudi-Israel relationship. They do not have a diplomatic relationship because of the old Saudi demand that Israel make concessions to the Palestinians before Saudi Arabia would consent to a peace process and recognition of Israel, but a new pattern of political engagement has emerged. Dora Gold, the new head of the Israeli Foreign Office, met recently with Anwar Eski, a retired Saudi general who advises the Saudi King, and both spoke publicly that Iran is a threat to regional security and both believe that ultimately Iran will deceive the world on the nuclear deal. But the fly in the ointment for Israel is that Russia is moving fast into the Middle East, and its moves have caught Washington by surprise.
With Western sanctions and a crippled economy because of poor oil prices and internal mismanagement, Russia was deemed to be a weak player on the world stage. Instead, Putin is building new links with the Middle East players. It is willing to sell missiles to Iran. It is building an intelligence-sharing arrangement with Iran, Syria and the Iraq government, which also caught Washington by surprise. Its military action in Syria and build-up of its bases there make Syria its platform in the Middle East/Mediterranean area. By aligning with Iran in the fight against the ISIS/ISIL, Moscow is taking a pro-US position, but at the same time, by attacking Syrian rebels who are supported by Washington, Putin is taking a pro-Assad and anti-Washington position. Although Turkey is a NATO member, Putin is building an economic partnership by the sale of gas for Turkey’s energy needs, and this explains Turkey’s caution in dealing with Russia.
To sum up, the Middle East now has several significant constant or permanent features. First, the Saudi-Iranian rivalry has a geopolitical and ideological focus, and it is non-negotiable. Secondly, the breakdown of the system of states, the theory of territorial sovereignty and the rule of international law, including humanitarian law, and the failure of US leadership facilitated the rise of the ISIS/ISIL. Even if the caliphate is not accepted as a legitimate enterprise by the world community, it is now a fact of life. Thirdly, the rise of the ISIS/ISIL implies the growing irrelevance of the Western narrative about the Arab Spring and the importance of democracy. And most of the military participants in Middle Eastern campaigns today do not enjoy democratic credentials.
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Finally, the resurgence of Russia as a strategic player in the Middle East is a story in the making. It is possible that Russia may get stuck in the Syrian conflict as in Afghanistan, in which case the likelihood of degrading the ISIS/ISIL will likely diminish and the Middle East will remain the centre of a messy conflict with shifting frontlines and with well-armed militias.
Notes and Reference
I have drawn on Wikipedia for information about the rise of the ISIS/ISIL and various Western media reports.
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