{"id":126332,"date":"2019-01-21T12:00:17","date_gmt":"2019-01-21T12:00:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=126332"},"modified":"2019-01-21T07:50:22","modified_gmt":"2019-01-21T07:50:22","slug":"entering-a-major-regional-re-set-the-syria-outcome-will-haunt-those-who-started-this-war","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2019\/01\/entering-a-major-regional-re-set-the-syria-outcome-will-haunt-those-who-started-this-war\/","title":{"rendered":"Entering a Major Regional Re-set: The Syria Outcome Will Haunt Those Who Started This War"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Middle East is metamorphosing. New faultlines are emerging, yet Trump\u2019s foreign policy \u2018hawks\u2019 still try to stage \u2018old movies\u2019 in a new \u2018theatre\u2019.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

14 Jan 2019 – <\/em>The \u2018old movie\u2019 is for the US to \u2018stand up\u2019 Sunni, Arab states, and lead them towards confronting \u2018bad actor\u2019 Iran. \u2018Team Bolton\u2019 is reverting back to the old 1996\u00a0Clean Break<\/a>\u00a0script \u2013 as if nothing has changed. State Department officials have been\u00a0briefing<\/a>\u00a0that Secretary\u00a0Pompeo\u2019s address in Cairo on Thursday was \u201c slated to tell his audience (although he may not name the former president), that Obama misled the people of the Middle East about the true source of terrorism, including what contributed to the rise of the Islamic State. Pompeo will insist that Iran, a country Obama tried to engage, is the real terrorist culprit. The speech\u2019s drafts also have Pompeo suggesting that Iran could learn from the Saudis about human rights, and the rule of law.\u201d<\/p>\n

Well, at least that speech should raise a chuckle around the region. In practice however, the regional faultline has moved on: It is no longer so much Iran. GCC States have a new agenda, and are now far more concerned to contain Turkey, and to put a halt to Turkish influence spreading throughout the Levant. GCC states fear that President Erdogan, given the emotional and psychological wave of antipathy unleashed by the Khashoggi murder, may be mobilising newly re-energised Muslim Brotherhood, Gulf networks. The aim being to leverage present Gulf economic woes, and the general hollowing out of any broader GCC \u2018vision\u2019, in order to undercut the rigid Gulf \u2018Arab system\u2019 (tribal monarchy). The Brotherhood favours a soft Islamist reform of the Gulf monarchies \u2013 along lines, such as that once advocated by Jamal Khashoggi .<\/p>\n

Turkey\u2019s leadership in any case is convinced that it was the UAE (MbZ specifically) that was the author behind the Kurdish buffer being constructed, and mini-state \u2018plot\u2019 against Turkey \u2013 in conjunction with Israel and the US. Understandably, Gulf states now fear possible Turkish retribution for their weaponising of Kurdish aspirations in this way.<\/p>\n

And Turkey is seen (by GCC States) as already working in close co-ordination with fellow Muslim Brotherhood patron and GCC member, Qatar, to divide the collapsing Council. This prefigures a new round to the MB versus Saudi Wahhabism spat for the soul of Sunni Islam.<\/p>\n

GGC states therefore, are hoping to stand-up a \u2018front\u2019 to balance Turkey in the Levant. And to this end, they are trying to recruit President Assad back into the Arab fold (which is to say, into the Arab League), and to have him act, jointly with them, as an Arab counter to Turkey.<\/p>\n

The point here is obvious: President Assad is closely allied to Iran \u2013 and so is Moscow and Turkey. To be fashionably Iranophobic \u2013 as Pompeo might wish the GCC to be \u2013 simply would spoil the GCC\u2019s anti-Turkey \u2018play\u2019. Syria indeed may be (justly) skeptical of Turkey\u2019s actions and intent in Syria, but from President Assad\u2019s perspective, Iran and Russia are absolutely crucial to the managing of an erratic Turkey. Turkey does represent an existential Syrian concern. And trying to lever President Assad \u2013 or Lebanon or Turkey \u2013 away from Iran, would be absurd. It won\u2019t happen. And the GCC states have enough nous to understand this now (after their stinging defeat in Syria). The Gulf anti-Iranian stance has had \u2018the burner\u2019 turned sharply down, (except when their need is to stroke US feathers).<\/p>\n

They can see clearly that the Master of Ceremonies in the Levant \u2013 putting together the new regional \u2018order\u2019 \u2013 is not Mr Bolton,\u00a0but Moscow<\/a>, with Tehran (and occasionally Ankara), playing their equal part \u2018from behind the curtain\u2019.<\/p>\n

Presumably, America\u2019s intelligence services know, (and Gulf states certainly are aware), that in any case, Iranian forces are almost all gone from Syria (though of course Syria\u2019s \u2018Iranian connection\u2019 remains as firm, as ever) \u2013 even as Pompeo and Israel say the precisely the opposite: that they are pushing-back hard at the \u2018threatening\u2019 Iranian military \u2018footprint\u2019 in Syria. Few in the region will believe it.<\/p>\n

The second notable emerging regional fault line then, evidently is the one that is opening between Turkey and the US and Israel. Turkey \u2018gets it\u2019: Erdogan \u2018gets it\u2019 very clearly: that Washington now deeply distrusts him, suspects that Turkey is accelerating into Moscow and Beijing\u2019s orbit, and that DC would be happy to see him gone \u2013 and a more NATO-friendly leader installed in his stead.<\/p>\n

And it must be clear to Washington too \u2018why\u2019 Turkey would be heading \u2018East\u2019. Erdogan precisely needs Russia and Iran to act as MCs to moderate his difficult relations with Damascus for the future. Erdogan needs Russia and Iran even more, to broker a suitable political solution to the Kurds in Syria. He needs China too, to support his economy.<\/p>\n

And Erdogan is fully aware that Israel (more than Gulf States) still hankers after the old Ben Gurion ideal of an ethnic Kurdish state \u2013 allied with Israel, and sitting atop major oil resources \u2013 to be inserted at the very pivot to south-west and central Asia: And at Turkey\u2019s vulnerable underbelly.<\/p>\n

The Israeli\u2019s articulated their support for a Kurdish state quite plainly at the time of Barzani\u2019s failed independence initiative in Iraq. But Erdogan simply, unmistakably, has said to this \u2018never\u2019 (to Bolton, this week). Nonetheless, Ankara still needs Russian and Iranian collaboration to allow Bolton to \u2018climb down his tree\u2019 of a Kurdish mini-state in Syria. He needs Russia to broker a Syrian-led buffer,\u00a0vice\u00a0an American-Kurdish tourniquet, strapped around his southern border.<\/p>\n

It is unlikely however, that despite the real threat that America\u2019s arming of the Kurds poses to Turkey, that Erdogan really wants to invade Syria \u2013 though he threatens it \u2013 and though John Bolton\u2019s \u2018conditions\u2019 may end by leaving Turkey no option, but to do it. Since, for sure, Erdogan understands that a messy Turkish invasion of Syria would send the delicately balanced Turkish Lire into free-fall.<\/p>\n

Still \u2026 Turkey, Syria, Iran and Russia now all want America gone from Syria. And for a moment, it seemed it might proceed smoothly after Trump had acquiesced to Erdogan\u2019s arguments, during their celebrated telephone call. But then \u2013 Senator Lindsay Graham demurred (against the backdrop of massed howls of anguish issuing from the Beltway foreign policy think-tanks). Bolton did the walk-back, by making US withdrawal from Syria contingent on conditions (ones seemingly designed not to be met) and not tied any specific timeline. President Erdogan was not amused.<\/p>\n

It should be obvious now that we are entering a major regional re-set: The US is leaving Syria. Bolton\u2019s attempted withdrawal-reversal has been rebuffed. And the US, in any event, forfeited the confidence of the Kurds in consequence to the original Trump statement. The Kurds now are orientated toward Damascus and Russia is mediating a settlement.<\/p>\n

It may take a while, but the US\u00a0is going. Kurdish forces (other than those linked with the PKK) are likely to be assimilated into the Syrian army, and the \u2018buffer\u2019 will not be directed against Turkey, but will be a mix of Syrian army and Kurdish elements \u2013 under Syrian command \u2013 but whose overall conduct towards Turkey will be invigilated by Russia. And the Syrian army will, in due time, clear Idlib from a resurgent al-Qaida (HTS).<\/p>\n

The Arab states are returning to their embassies in Damascus \u2013 partly out of fear that the whipsaw of American policy, its radical polarisation, and its proclivity to be wholly or partially \u2018walked-back\u2019 by the Deep State \u2013 might leave the Gulf unexpectedly \u2018orphaned\u2019 at any time. In effect, the GCC states are \u2018hedging\u2019 against this risk by trying to reconnect a bifurcated Arab sphere, and to give it a new \u2018purpose\u2019 and credibility \u2013 as a balance against Turkey, Qatar and the Muslim Brotherhood (Syria\u2019s old nemesis).<\/p>\n

And yet \u2013 there remains still another layer to this calculus, as\u00a0described<\/a>\u00a0by veteran Middle East journalist, Elijah Magnier:<\/p>\n

\u201cIndeed\u00a0the Levant is returning to the centre of Middle East and world attention in a stronger position than in 2011.\u00a0Syria has advanced precision missiles that can hit any building in Israel. Assad also has an air defence system he would have never dreamed of before 2011 \u2013 thanks to Israel\u2019s continuous violation of its airspace, and its defiance of Russian authority. Hezbollah has constructed bases for its long and medium range precision missiles in the mountains and has created a bond with Syria that it could never have established \u2013 if not for the war. Iran has established a strategic brotherhood with Syria, thanks to its role in defeating the regime change plan.<\/p>\n

NATO\u2019s support for the growth of ISIS has created a bond between Syria and Iraq that no Muslim or Baathist link could ever have created: Iraq has a \u201ccarte blanche\u201d to bomb ISIS locations in Syria without the consent of the Syrian leadership, and the Iraqi security forces can walk into Syria anytime they see fit to fight ISIS.\u00a0The anti-Israel axis has never been stronger than it is today.\u00a0That is the result of\u00a02011-2018\u00a0war imposed on Syria\u201d.<\/p>\n

Yes. This is the third of the newly emergent faultlines: that of Israel on the one hand, and the emerging reality in the Syrian north, on the other \u2013 a shadow that has returned to haunt the original instigators of the \u2018war\u2019 to undermine Syria. PM Netanyahu since has put all the Israeli eggs into the Trump family \u2018basket\u2019. It was Netanyahu\u2019s relationship with Trump which was presented in Israel as being the\u00a0true\u00a0\u2018Deal of the Century\u2019 (and not the Palestinian one). Yet when Bibi complained forcefully about US withdrawal from Syria (leaving Syria vulnerable, Netanyahu asserts, to an Iranian insertion of smart missiles), Trump nonchalantly replied that the US gives Israel $ 4.5 billion per year \u2013 \u201cYou\u2019ll be all right\u201d, Trump riposted.<\/p>\n

It was seen in Israel as an extraordinary slap to the PM\u2019s face. But Israelis cannot avoid, but to acknowledge, some responsibility for creating precisely the circumstances of which they now loudly complain.<\/p>\n

Bottom line:\u00a0Things have not gone according to plan: America is not shaping the new Levantine \u2018order\u2019 \u2013 Moscow is. And Israel\u2019s continual, blatant disregard of Russia\u2019s own interests in the Levant, firstly infuriated, and finally has provoked the Russian high command into declaring the northern Middle East a putative no-fly zone for Israel. This represents a major strategic reversal for Netanyahu (and the US).<\/p>\n

And finally, it is this repeating pattern of statements being made by the US President on foreign policy that are then almost casually contradicted, or \u2018conditioned\u2019, by some or other part of the US bureaucracy, that poses to the region (and beyond) the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question. The pattern clearly is one of an isolated President, with officials emptying his statements of executive authority (until subsequently endorsed, or denied, by the US bureaucracy). It is making Trump almost irrelevant (in terms of the setting of foreign policy).<\/p>\n

Is this then a stealth process \u2013 knowingly contrived \u2013 incrementally to remove Trump from power? A hollowing out of his Presidential prerogatives (leaving him only as a disruptive Twitterer) \u2013 achieved, without all the disruption and mess, of formally removing him from office? We shall see.<\/p>\n

And what next? Well, as Simon Henderson\u00a0observes<\/a>, no one is sure \u2013 everyone is left wondering:<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat\u2019s up with Secretary Pompeo\u2019s extended tour of the Middle East? The short answer is that he is trying to sell\/explain President Trump\u2019s \u201cwe are leaving Syria\u201d policy to America\u2019s friends \u2026 Amman, Jordan; Cairo, Egypt; Manama, Bahrain; Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates (UAE); Doha, Qatar; Riyadh, Saudi Arabia; Muscat, Oman; Kuwait City, Kuwait. Wow, even with his own jet and no immigration hassles, that\u2019s an exhausting itinerary \u2026 The fact that there now are eight stops in eight days, probably reflects the amount of explaining that needs to be done.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

______________________________________________<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/em>Alastair Crooke, a former top British MI-6 agent in the Middle East, is<\/em> founder and director of the Beirut-based <\/em>Conflicts Forum and author of<\/em> Resistance: The Essence of Islamic Revolution.<\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 strategic-culture.org<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

14 Jan 2019 – The Middle East is metamorphosing. New faultlines are emerging, yet Trump\u2019s foreign policy \u2018hawks\u2019 still try to stage \u2018old movies\u2019 in a new \u2018theatre\u2019.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":90359,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-126332","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle-east-north-africa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126332","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=126332"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126332\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/90359"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=126332"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=126332"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=126332"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}