martes, 16 de marzo de 2021

martes, marzo 16, 2021
No Peace for the Middle East

The Arab-Israeli normalization deals are unlikely to bring stability to the fractured region.

By: Hilal Khashan


The Middle East’s location has long made it an arena for great power competition. 

Over the past few centuries, the region has seen conflict between the Ottoman and Iranian empires, and Russian and Western meddling in its affairs. 

The Anglo-French establishment of the Middle East state system in the 20th century failed to bring stability. 

Iran and Turkey went on to build the foundations of a modern state on their own, and the newly rising Arab states, divided as they are, have not managed to come to terms with the creation of a Jewish state in Palestine. 

The Egyptian and Jordanian peace treaties with Israel also failed to spread peace and stability throughout the region.

Today, the recent normalization deals between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco once again promise to open a new chapter in Middle East relations. 

But its complex problems and diverse political landscape mean peace is still out of reach for this fractious region.

Relying on the West

When former U.S. President Donald Trump visited Saudi Arabia in May 2017 to attend the Riyadh summit, he announced the formation of the Middle East Strategic Alliance, a kind of security partnership that would help fill the power vacuum in the region. 

He wanted to create a unified defense mechanism and common economic and energy platform that would prevent China and Russia from filling the void. 

Both Turkey and Iran boycotted the summit, believing that it was part of an effort to undermine their influence. 

Either way, the MESA never materialized because Egypt, Jordan and Qatar did not see Iran as a security threat, and Kuwait and Oman preferred to mostly stay out of the region’s explosive conflicts.

In fact, most Arab countries, with the exception of Saudi Arabia, did not take the MESA seriously, believing it would turn them into pawns rather than allies. 

The project was never likely to stem the region’s chronic instability as it ignored the local issues – state repression and regime intolerance of peaceful opposition – that so often cause it.

But the U.S.-brokered plan was emblematic of a larger problem: Arab countries have been largely unable to cooperate with each other and often prefer to rely on a Western mediator. 

The Arab League’s 1950 Joint Defense and Economic Cooperation Treaty collapsed because Egypt and Saudi Arabia feared domination by Iraq’s Hashemites. 

The Joint Arab Command, established in 1964 as a platform from which to confront Israel, quickly became defunct, making Israel’s stunning victory in the 1967 Six-Day War even easier.

When Egypt made peace with Israel in 1978, the Arabs held a summit in Baghdad and decided to establish the Eastern Front between Syria and Iraq to make up for the loss of Egypt. 

But the project failed because of the personal rivalry between Hafez Assad and Saddam Hussein. In 1991, right after the end of Operation Desert Storm, the Gulf Cooperation Council states signed the Damascus Declaration with Syria and Egypt, both of which agreed to provide troops to help support Arab security, but the agreement was later scrapped because the Saudis preferred to rely on Washington’s support instead.

For many in the Middle East, the ideal scenario would be for Saudi Arabia to establish an alliance with Israel and Turkey as a countervailing force against Iranian regional ambitions. 

This makes sense: Israel is eager to partner with the larger Gulf countries such as Saudi Arabia and the UAE, and Turkey has of late tried to befriend Arab countries. But such an alliance is still beyond reach. 

Ankara has had little success in wooing Arab states, with the exception of Qatar and Libya’s beleaguered Government of National Accord. 

And the Saudis are paranoid about trusting their fellow Arabs, believing they're only interested in Saudi money and in subverting Riyadh's rule. 

But with the Biden administration scaling back ties with Saudi Arabia, Riyadh will need to rethink its hesitancy.

Emerging Israel-UAE Alliance

For the UAE, its rapprochement with Israel is about more than just normalizing relations. It believes their relationship can evolve into an economic and military alliance. 

Abu Dhabi has strategic needs that it believes Israel can help meet in areas such as agricultural technology, food self-sufficiency, cybersecurity, tourism, high-tech and commerce. 

It sees itself and Israel as having modern economies and efficient armed forces that can change the shape of the region. 

Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan wants to transform the UAE into an economic empire safeguarded by a strong military and a network of relations with strategic partners, chief among them the U.S. and Israel. (Notably, China had a mixed response to the Israeli-UAE peace accord. It issued a vague but measured response that warned against ignoring the Palestinian question and further radicalizing the region.)
 



Israel and the UAE have different expectations of the normalization deal. 

Abu Dhabi’s crown prince has delusions of grandeur and thinks Israel needs him to legitimize its existence. 

As a hub for air transport, education, culture and media, the UAE believes it can link Israel to the region and thus to the rest of the world. Israel, on the other hand, wants to build an alliance against Iran. 

It’s unlikely that the UAE would go along with such a project, especially since the Biden administration is pursuing a diplomatic path to solving the Iran nuclear issue, and the UAE would not join an alliance that brings with it the risk of war without U.S. backing.

Their prospects for economic cooperation are also limited. 

The UAE’s economic development hinges on its ability to maintain domestic stability, which goes hand in hand with Sheikh Mohammed’s policy of fostering good relations with military dictators such as Egypt’s Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, Libya’s Khalifa Haftar and Sudan’s Abdel-Fattah Burhan, and ambitious leaders like Saudi Arabia’s Mohammad bin Salman. 

A potential armed conflict with Iran is therefore out of the question.

Indeed, in many ways, their economic interests don’t align. 

Israel plans to link its Haifa Port to the Maritime Silk Road component of Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative. 

The project bypasses the Persian Gulf, to avoid the volatile Strait of Hormuz, and will effectively reduce the significance of the UAE’s Jebel Ali Port, currently the largest in the Middle East.
 


It’s therefore unlikely that the UAE-Israeli entente will go beyond security cooperation, which was already in the works between Israel and several Arab states for years, including with Jordan since 1948, Egypt since the Camp David agreement, and the Gulf countries since the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative. 

In the Middle East, alliances with Israel are difficult to build because Israel inevitably emerges as the leading force and its Arab allies the junior partners. 

The balance of power tilts decisively in Israel’s favor.

Russo-Turkish-Iranian Triangle

The two major Middle East players left out of the emerging Arab-Israeli alliance are, of course, Turkey and Iran – both of which have complicated relationships with an external power that often looms over many regional conflicts, Russia. 

To some extent, Russia, Turkey and Iran seem to have more bringing them together than pulling them apart. 

Russia and Turkey’s total trade rose from $4.5 billion in 2000 to $25.7 billion in 2018. 

The balance of trade favors Russia because of Turkey’s import of Russian oil and gas. 

Turkey also has a negative trade balance with Iran because of its imports of Iranian energy. 

U.S. sanctions on Iran, however, have hurt trade between the two countries – which shrank from $25.7 billion in 2013 to $3.4 billion in 2020. 

Turkey hopes to increase trade with Russia to $100 billion and with Iran to $30 billion.

However, the ideological and historical differences among the three countries, as well as their rivalry as regional powers, rule out any chance of them becoming close allies. 

Russia and Turkey have different agendas in Syria, and Ankara’s intrusion into the South Caucasus, especially in support of Azerbaijan in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, irritates Moscow.

Turkey’s relationship with Iran is also complex. 

The two countries need each other economically and are keen on keeping channels of communication open despite their sharp political divisions. 

In the absence of a unified Arab world, competition between Turkey and Iran is likely to eventually escalate as they seek to dislodge each other in their near abroad, especially in Syria and Iraq.

Syria gives Iran access to the Mediterranean, Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Israeli border. 

For Turkey, Syria provides land access to Lebanon, Jordan and the Arabian Peninsula. 

As for Iraq, it was for centuries a battleground between the Ottoman Empire and Persia. 

Saddam Hussein’s ouster in 2003 made Iran the dominant force in Iraq, but Turkey is also trying to establish a foothold there – which could revive their historical rivalry in the country. 

With proven oil reserves totaling 115 billion barrels, which could rise to 215 billion once the rest of the country is explored, Iraq will be a major focus for Turkey in the future.

For now, however, Turkey’s reliance on Iran (and Russia) for oil and gas is the main factor preventing tensions from escalating. 

But Ankara is also seeking alternative sources. 

It already has a stake in the Caspian Sea’s oil reserves through the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan Pipeline, the Trans Adriatic Pipeline, the Trans Anatolian Pipeline and the land-based component of China’s BRI. 

It’s also drilling for gas in the Eastern Mediterranean, though many countries have expressed concern about its operations there.

Real peace in the Middle East remains elusive. Trump’s MESA project did not take off, and the Israel-UAE alliance is unlikely to lead to any concrete changes. 

Turkey and Iran may find it challenging to get over their past disagreements and concentrate on potential economic cooperation.

The one remaining factor is China. 

It has succeeded in establishing economic ties with U.S. allies in the region, especially Israel, Saudi Arabia and the UAE, without compromising its business links to Iran and Turkey. 

But its investments will not bring prosperity to the Middle East. 

The Chinese project requires regional stability and willingness to cooperate, both of which are woefully absent in the Middle East. 

What’s more, China has become increasingly authoritarian. 

Its Social Credit System is an attempt to control all aspects of people’s lives in China and could be spread to other parts of the world as part of the BRI. 

In a region that remains gripped by violence and factiousness, China’s rise will not bode well.

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