A Middle Eastern balance of power emerges

RPS brings you this interesting article by STRATFOR Geopolitical comment Austin TX www.stratfor.com. It is an interesting look at the way the lines are changing in the Middle East and provides a different insight into the way power is shifting.

Analysis

The battle lines of the Middle East are changing. The chaotic force of the Islamic State has pushed the region's major powers Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Iran to re-think decades-old relationships and regional strategies. Nowhere is this more apparent than the Syrian-Iraqi battleground, where a sectarian proxy battle has been the incubator for an emerging balance of power, and although it may look messy on the surface, this dynamic falls in line with the United States long-term strategy for the region.

Many have criticised Washington's decision not to take a more direct role in containing the violence in Syria, or to rely on local forces to combat the Islamic State in Iraq. Those people are forgetting that the United States global geopolitical imperatives necessitate a balance of power in the Middle East and one in which regional actors shoulder more of the burden of managing their problems. Washington's refusal to be dragged back into another ground war in the Middle East slowly is bearing fruit, as Turkey is cautiously re-entering its former sphere of influence along its southern flank, and so counterbalancing the Saudi-Iranian competition which has fuelled much of the violence destabilising the Middle East.

We (Stratfor) wrote last week about Egypt’s attempts to craft an Arab response to regional pressures, focused specifically against the Islamic State and the other regional militant groups which are threatening Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi's administration. Cairo lacks the geopolitical heft to shape outcomes in Syria or Iraq, let alone region-wide change. Egypt, nevertheless, is a crucial part of a broader attempt by Saudi Arabia, using its role in both the Arab and Sunni worlds, to reach out to Turkey in combatting both the Islamic State and an emergent Iran. The challenges are plenty, and regional Sunni cohesion may well prove to be as elusive as a stable Pan-Arab military alliance. If nothing else, the Saudi outreach has helped to finish what the United States started by pushing Ankara to take a stronger role in the region.

The Turkish President, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and a delegation of Turkish politicians arrived in Riyadh this past Monday, the 2nd March to meet with their Saudi counterparts, including the new Saudi monarch, King Salman bin Abdulaziz. Few details of the discussions were announced, but both sides have agreed to work together on Syria. The meetings, as well as the agreement, represent a marked shift in the relations between the Middle East's two main Sunni powers. Turkish foreign policy and especially under the leadership of Erdogan and his Justice and Development Party, has favoured mainstream Islamists, to the consternation of the Saudi government under the former ruler, King Abdullah. Saudi Arabia still views the Muslim Brotherhood and other Sunni Islamist democratisation movements as threat to its long-term national stability, but the concurrent threats of the Islamic State and Iran call for a shift in tactics.

Saudi Arabia has also re-engaged Qatar, a state that, like Turkey, supports mainstream Islamists. This support has put them at odds with Riyadh and, at times, broadly in line with Iran exemplified as such by the three countries opposition to the ouster of Egyptian President Mohammed Mursi in 2013. There are growing indications that Riyadh, Ankara and Doha now are working together and supporting similar groups of rebels in Syria, in contrast to backing and sometimes violently, the competing rebel forces. Especially in northern Syria, along the border with Turkey, groups like Jabhat al-Shamiya are beginning to enjoy a wider base of regional support, as the Gulf actors are continuing to scale back support for the more Right-wing Salafist-jihadist rebel actors such as Jabhat al-Nusra.

In neighbouring Iraq, both Saudi Arabia and Jordan are working with disaffected Sunni Arab tribesmen to expand the Iraqi coalition battling the Islamic State, even as Turkey works with both Kurdish forces and with Baghdad to strengthen Iraq's anti-Islamic State positions. This Sunni cooperation is not without its challenges, however. It is clear that both Turkey and Saudi Arabia would like to shape the futures of Syria and Iraq according to their own strategic interests, and Riyadh and Ankara ultimately are competitors for influence in the region; and both also have to deal with Iran.

Iran's influence over its western periphery has ebbed and flowed for some 2,500 years. However, since the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003, Iran has been able to consolidate relationships in Iraq to create a Shi’ite arc of influence from its borders to the Eastern Mediterranean. Iraq is the crux to Iran's Middle East strategy; it can serve as the launch pad for Iranian influence into the Arab world or, as it has so many times in history, serve as the staging grounds for a foreign invasion of Iran. It makes eminent sense then that Iran has stepped up its direct military involvement in Iraq over the past week, with the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) forces participating with the Iranian-backed Shi’ite militias, Iraqi army forces, and a limited number of Sunni tribal elements in the battle for Tikrit.

Along with the long-standing Iranian and Shi’ite backing of the Syrian President Bashar al Assad’s government, and remember that Syria historically served as a critical route for Iranian material support to Hezbollah, Iran has increased its military presence across both Syria and Iraq in fighting the Islamic State. Whereas Turkey and Saudi Arabia are attempting to expand their influence into both states, Iran has been forced into a defensive position, seeking to retain elements of the influence which it had enjoyed in the period between the US invasion of Iraq and the unrest of 2011's Arab Spring. This strategic reversal is one of the factors which is pushing Teheran to negotiate with the United States to help gain recognition of its footholds in the Arab world, and to safeguard its status as a regional power, albeit a weak one.

As the threat posed by the Islamic State gives rise to a tenuous working relationship between Ankara and Riyadh, the US plan for a regional balance of power involves changing more than three decades of strained relations with its former ally, Iran. Iran's direct involvement in the battle for Tikrit raises questions over the eventual battle for Mosul, where the Shi’ite militias slowly are increasing their presence, and the United States plans to assist the Kurdish and Iraqi forces in the fight against the Islamic State.

Coordinating with Iran is an incentive for the United States, but still, Washington cannot see Iran too weakened (or assertive), and the direct competition between Teheran and Riyadh poses far too great a risk of regional destabilisation and thus necessitating a greater Turkish role in the region. As a result, we see the battle lines converging, overlapping, and blending into an emerging balance of power. It may not be exactly in the shape which the US would wish at the moment, but it could respond to careful massaging.

With thanks to Stratfor and if you have any travel queries, please do not hesitate to get in touch with us at [email protected]

Map: www.freeworldmaps.net with thanks