The Middle East’s New Order

US commentators define the America that President-Elect Joe Biden inherits as a “broken house” that needs to be rebuilt. To do that, it seems that the president elect will have to split his time between rebuilding internal policies: fighting Covid-19, reducing unemployment and restoring the US economy to its position pre-Covid-19. On the foreign affairs level, the president elect will have to restore the global stature of the US by rebuilding trust between the US and its historical allies and renewing the American credibility through multilateral diplomacy. Additionally, within the limits of his crowded calendar, the president elect will have to maneuver between urgent and important matters. Indeed, a nearly impossible feat.

I took the liberty to point out the Middle East as a first priority problem for the president elect. Shiite Iran is racing towards a military nuclear capability and long-range delivery methods. Iran is rapidly approaching a Breakout Point and once there the world will have to treat it as nuclear actor. In other words, it will achieve immunity. In mid-2021 Iran will go to elections and the predictions are that the next president will be more extreme than the current one, hence Iran’s foreign policy will become more aggressive. Add to that the fact that Supreme Leader Khamenei, according to the Shiite dogma, is considered infallible as his words are effectively the words of Allah, and the million dollars question becomes: if and when Iran reaches nuclear capability, will Khamenei’s decisions be pragmatic or messianic? In other words, the traditional dialectic that existed between the US and the Soviet Union during the Cold War era, no longer applicable to a nuclear Iran era.

Those who follow Middle Eastern history since the end of the cold war (1990) to these days, identify a consistently negative process that produces more risks than benefits.

The decade between 1990 and 2000 was characterized by the US shining as the one and only global superpower, but it failed to leverage this position to pour a foundation for a stable Middle East with a peace and economic well-being dynamic.

The “Arab Spring” revolutions (2010&hence) that intended to turn the Middle East into a free and equality driven region that embraces modern values, effectively empowered the radical Islam curtesy of the ISIS’ school of thought and upgraded the latter from a regional threat to a global one. Thomas Friedman managed to magnificently define the outcomes of the Arab Spring revolutions as follows: “when these regimes break at the top, the elevator goes from the palace straight to the mosque.”!. Moreover, the Arab Spring uprisings brought instability, civil wars and the erasure of the Middle Eastern borders that held since the end of the First World War.

In the eternal debate between theology and democracy, the outcome is a function of geography. If the debate takes places in the halls of academia, democracy prevails, however if it takes places in the practitioners’ chambers, those who decide on issues that determine the fate of the world and the human race, then the outcome would be somewhere in the gray area between the two. I propose to examine both concepts over the course of history and look for a bridge that may connect them. I propose the “enlightened monarchy” model that will encourage the emergence and development of a strong middle class, without which democracy is doomed to fail.

To provide a complete Middle Eastern picture, let’s discuss the two regional powers that compete for hegemony in the region – Iran and Turkey. An outsider might think that their relationship is based on mutual interests. But that would be far from the truth. Iran is Shiite and Turkey Sunni. Both were world powers in different eras. Both were ruled at different times by leaders who separated church and state and connected them to western culture. Iran returned to the bosom of radical Islam in the Khomeini revolution (1979) and Erdogan’s Turkey is eradicating Ataturk’s civil revolution (1928) and fast tracking the Sharia back into Turkey while providing support to radical terrorist organizations. To sum up, the above are two Muslim regional powers that are not of Arab ethnicity and are not acceptable to the Arab world.

Similarly, we need to look at two global powers that also play a major role in the Middle East, namely Russia and China. Putin’s Russia is fighting to regain its position as a global superpower. Its strategy is spoiling – disrupting and destabilizing world order, accumulating small tactical achievements that over time will maybe enable it to gain a recognition as a global superpower. It maintains a constant military presence (air, land sea) in Syria, the eastern Mediterranean and the Red Sea. It also has an iron in the Libyan fire. Xi’s China is storming to be the number one global economic superpower and militarily is inches forward to obtain a military-strategic stature equal only to the US’. the current relationship between China and the US and the vector of its development may already be defined as a return to a Cold War era.

Contrary to China and Russia, the US has been adopting, since President Obama left office, an isolationist strategy, it withdraws its troops from conflict regions around the world and is returning to the posture of Fortress America.

As far as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and its place in the Middle Eastern picture; allow me to just list its main characteristics:

• The Palestinians do not recognize Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish democratic state.

• There is no reconciliation between the parties.

• Israel cannot deploy its full power every time the conflict deteriorates into violence.

• The Palestinians, who are our foes, live geographically amongst us.

• Since the beginning of the conflict in the 19th century the Israeli side was willing to appear in any forum and negotiate any deal that was put on the table for a division of the territory in conflict. The Arab Palestinian side held, as a rule, a position of “all or nothing”!. This position was a catalyst for a continued conflict and in each round of violence the Palestinian lost however their position became even more rigid.

On the face of it the above picture seems too complex for President Elect Biden to dig into it immediately upon taking office. However, it is my contention that the president elect will have no choice but to dig in immediately into the Iranian issue because the Iranians, not the US, control the time table to reach nuclear capabilities. In light of the above, should the president elect decide to prioritize the Iranian matter, this would be the time to maximize the potential gains which in hindsight justify the decision to so prioritize it. Vis a vis the above complexities there is also a ray of sunshine that may be and must be used to promote the interest of those who will, to end the Israeli Palestinian conflict. That ray of sunshine is the upgrade of the relationship between the Amirates -Dubai and Abu-Dabi with Israel, which was a tie -breaker that sends a clear message to the Palestinians, that the world is changing and with it interests are changing, and it is high time for the Palestinians also to move forward towards the end-solution to the historical conflict with Israel.

The list of benefits from the latter is impressive:

1. Restoring the relationship between the US and its traditional allies, first and foremost with the EU.

2. Sending a strong signal to the world that the US does not fold. It should be noted that one of the lessons of the Cold War was that talk and statements didn’t affect the adversaries’ positions, only actions did it.

3. The US has an opportunity to build and lead a new axis that will include Israel, KSA, Gulf states, Egypt, Jordan and Morocco. This axis will show the world’s future architecture to Russia and China as well as to Iran and Turkey.

4. The only way to realize the full potential in renewing the relationship between Israel and other Arab countries is to bring the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to an end. The only missing link is KSA and the roadmap to get there isn’t too complicated:

   1. The White House requests Israel to freeze its activity in the territories to free the president to deal with the Iranian issue. Additionally, the White House will request Israel to announce it accepts the 2002 Saudi proposal, within the necessary changes that occurred since then, as a draft for an Israeli-Palestinian negotiation to resolve the conflict.

   2. KSA will announce upgrading its relationship with Israel to a peace accord.

In the next stage, the US will lead negotiations (either clandestine or overt) to bridge the remaining gaps between the parties. Said negotiations will continue until full mediation and bridging all remaining problems till arrival to an agreement.