From xxxxxx <[email protected]>
Subject The New Middle East That’s Coming
Date November 9, 2019 3:00 AM
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[The Middle East that is emerging from the current crisis may be
very different than the one that existed before those cruise missiles
and drones tipped over the chessboard] [[link removed]]

THE NEW MIDDLE EAST THAT’S COMING  
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Conn Hallinan
November 5, 2019
Foreign Policy in Focus
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_ The Middle East that is emerging from the current crisis may be
very different than the one that existed before those cruise missiles
and drones tipped over the chessboard _

John Singer Sargent’s “Hercules”, Wikipedia

 

The fallout from the September attack
[[link removed]] on
Saudi Arabia’s Aramco oil facilities is continuing to reverberate
throughout the Middle East, sidelining old enmities — sometimes for
new ones — and re-drawing traditional alliances. While Turkey’s
recent invasion of northern Syria is grabbing the headlines, the
bigger story may be that major regional players are contemplating some
historic re-alignments.

After years of bitter rivalry, the Saudis and the Iranians are
considering how they can dial down their mutual animosity. The
formerly powerful Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) of Persian Gulf
monarchs is atomizing because Saudi Arabia is losing its grip. And
Washington’s former domination of the region appears to be in
decline.

Some of these developments are long-standing, pre-dating the cruise
missile and drone assault that knocked out 50 percent of Saudi
Arabia’s oil production. But the double shock — Turkey’s lunge
into Syria and the September missile attack — is accelerating these
changes.

SAUDI ARABIA’S SLOW BACKPEDAL

Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan recently flew to Iran and then on
to Saudi Arabia to lobby for détente between Teheran and Riyadh and
to head off any possibility of hostilities between the two countries.
“What should never happen is a war,” Khan said, “because this
will not just affect the whole region… this will cause poverty in
the world. Oil prices will go up.”

According to Khan, both sides have agreed to talk, although the Yemen
war is a stumbling block. But there are straws in the wind on that
front, too. A partial ceasefire seems to be holding, and there are
back channel talks going on between the Houthis and the Saudis.  

The Saudi intervention in Yemen’s civil war was supposed to last
three months, but it has dragged on for over four years. The United
Arab Emirates (UAE) was to supply the ground troops and the Saudis the
airpower. But the Saudi-UAE alliance has made little progress against
the battle-hardened Houthis, who have been strengthened by defections
from the regular Yemeni army.

Air wars without supporting ground troops are almost always a failure,
and they are very expensive. The drain on the Saudi treasury is
significant, and the country’s wealth is not bottomless.

Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is trying to shift the Saudi economy
from its overreliance on petroleum, but he needs outside money to do
that and he is not getting it. The Yemen war — which, according to
the United Nations is the worst humanitarian disaster on the planet
— and the prince’s involvement with the murder and dismemberment
of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, has spooked many investors.

Without outside investment, the Saudis have to use their oil revenues,
but the price per barrel is below what the kingdom needs to fulfill
its budget goals, and world demand is falling off. The Chinese economy
is slowing — the trade war with the U.S. has had an impact — and
European growth is sluggish. There is a whiff of recession in the air,
and that’s bad news for oil producers.

Riyadh is also losing allies. The UAE is negotiating with the Houthis
and withdrawing their troops, in part because Abu Dhabi has different
goals in Yemen than Saudi Arabia, and because in any dustup with Iran,
the UAE would be ground zero. U.S. generals are fond of calling the
UAE “little Sparta” because of its well trained army, but the
operational word for Abu Dhabi is “little”: the emirate’s army
can muster 20,000 troops. Iran can field more than 800,000.

Saudi Arabia’s goals in Yemen are to support the government-in-exile
of President Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi control its southern border and
challenge Iran’s support of the Houthis. The UAE, on the other hand,
is less concerned with the Houthis but quite focused on backing the
anti-Hadi Southern Transitional Council, which is trying to re-create
South Yemen as a separate country. North and South Yemen were merged
in 1990, largely as a result of Saudi pressure, and it has never been
a comfortable marriage.

TURKEY’S CHECKED AMBITIONS IN SYRIA

Riyadh has also lost its grip on the Gulf Cooperation Council. Oman,
Kuwait, and Qatar continue to trade with Iran in spite of efforts by
the Saudis to isolate Teheran,

The UAE and Saudi Arabia recently hosted Russian President Vladimir
Putin, who pressed for the 22-member Arab League to re-admit Syria.
GCC member Bahrain has already re-established diplomatic relations
with Damascus. Putin is pushing for a multilateral security umbrella
for the Middle East, which includes China.

“While Russia is a reliable ally, the U.S. is not,” Middle East
scholar Mark Katz told the South Asia Journal. And while many in the
region have no love for Syria’s Assad, “they respect Vladimir
Putin for sticking by Russia’s ally.”

The Arab League — with the exception of Qatar — denounced the
Turkish invasion and called for a withdrawal of Ankara’s troops.
Qatar is currently being blockaded by Saudi Arabia and the UAE for
pursuing an independent foreign policy and backing a different horse
in the Libyan civil war. Turkey is Qatar’s main ally.

Russia’s 10-point agreement with Turkey on Syria has generally gone
down well with Arab League members, largely because the Turks agreed
to respect Damascus’s sovereignty and eventually withdraw all
troops. Of course, “eventually” is a shifty word, especially
because Turkey’s goals are hardly clear.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan wants to drive the Syrian Kurds
away from the Turkish border and move millions of Syrian refugees into
a strip of land some 19 miles deep and 275 miles wide. The Kurds may
move out, but the Russian and Syrian military — filling in the
vacuum left by President Trump’s withdrawal of American forces —
have blocked the Turks from holding more than the border and one deep
enclave, certainly not one big enough to house millions of refugees.

Erdogan’s invasion is popular at home — nationalism plays well
with the Turkish population and most Turks are unhappy with the Syrian
refugees — but for how long? The Turkish economy is in trouble and
invasions cost a lot of money. Ankara is using proxies for much of the
fighting, but without lots of Turkish support those proxies are no
match for the Kurds — let alone the Syrian and Russian military.

That would mainly mean airpower, and Turkish airpower is restrained by
the threat of Syrian anti-aircraft and Russian fighters, not to
mention the fact that the Americans still control the airspace. The
Russians have deployed their latest fifth-generation stealth fighter,
the SU-57, and a number of MiG-29s and SU-27s, not planes the Turks
would wish to tangle with. The Russians also have their new mobile
S-400 anti-aircraft system, and the Syrians have the older, but still
effective, S-300s.

In short, things could get really messy if Turkey decided to push
their proxies or their army into areas occupied by Russian or Syrian
troops. There are reports of clashes in Syria’s northeast and
casualties among the Kurds and Syrian Army, but a serious attempt to
push the Russians and the Syrians out seems dubious.

The goal of relocating refugees from Turkey to Syria is unlikely to go
anywhere. It will cost some $53 billion to build an infrastructure and
move 2 million refugees into Syria, money that Turkey doesn’t have.
The European Union has made it clear it won’t offer a nickel, and
the UN can’t step in because the invasion is a violation of
international law.

When those facts sink in, Erdogan might find that Turkish nationalism
will not be enough to support his Syrian adventure if it turns into an
occupation.

THE MIDDLE EAST THAT’S COMING

The Middle East that is emerging from the current crisis may be very
different than the one that existed before those cruise missiles and
drones tipped over the chessboard. 

The Yemen war might finally end. Iran may, at least partly, break out
of the political and economic blockade that Saudi Arabia, the U.S.,
and Israel has imposed on it. Syria’s civil war will recede. 

And the Americans, who have dominated the Middle East since 1945, will
become simply one of several international players in the region,
along with China, Russia, India, and the European Union.

[_Foreign Policy In Focus columnist Conn Hallinan can be read
at __dispatchesfromtheedge.wordpress.com_
[[link removed]]_ and __middleempireseries.wordpress.com_
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_Thanks to the author for sending this to xxxxxx._

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