Little in the region resembles the arrangement in place when Obama became president
Perhaps it is appropriate that America has one of its youngest presidents in office while the Middle East experiences unprecedented political novelties. One more steeped in the old ways might have taken longer to shake off the paralysis that the Arab Spring brought to the White House. Remember when Old Guard Rummys and Cheneys ran the Bush administration? How they turned a blind eye to events set in motion by the sudden removal of the Ba’ath Party – sectarian shift, shi’a crescent, Iran-Saudi hostility, etc. And how, at the height of the ’06 Israel-Hezbollah war, Condi Rice justified Lebanese deaths as “birth pangs of a new Middle East”?
Yet however much Washington tries to be proactive, its strategy amounts to little more than a wild throw of the dice. There haven’t been so many go-it-alone policies in the region for a long time. The Egyptians are set for a return to the Mubarak model under Sisi, which Washington is fine with, so there goes the old line about democracy, etc. And the death spasm of the Arab Spring has left religious-right parties like the Brotherhood to mourn the death of the hope that came with Mubarak’s fall. Some would find that ironic, especially since the Brotherhood was nowhere to be seen when secular and leftist groups first filled Tahrir square.
But all that is fine with the Saudis; they never liked the ikhwan, and didn’t like them any more when they brought political not monarchical Islam to legitimately govern the largest Arab country. They have routed billions to Cairo, just like they did whenever Mubarak needed help, as Sisi’s army has rounded up whatever Brotherhood miscreants would give up, and shot most of the more unruly bunch that wouldn’t back down from its mini civil war.
The Egyptians are set for a return to the Mubarak model under Sisi, which Washington is fine with, so there goes the old line about democracy, etc.
Qatar didn’t like that one bit, of course. It had flooded Morsi’s government with just as many billions and has always been close to the party. It even accepted Hamas, an old Brotherhood offshoot that had subsequently bunked with the Iran-Syria-Hezbollah axis and headquartered in Damascus, when it broke off and sided with Syrian rebels. But the Saudis prefer Islamist militias, not Islamic political parties that can assume power through a legitimate democratic process, to do their proxy bidding. They are also unhappy with the coverage al Jazeera has been giving the Brotherhood’s so called struggle against military oppression. And so we have had the first public fallout within the GCC, manifested in Saudi Arabia and the UAE recalling their ambassadors from Doha.
More recently, sections of the Arab press have reported that Qatar played a crucial role in the recent high profile case of having Greek Orthodox nuns released from rebel held Yamrud area in Syria, adding that Doha might have paid in excess of forty million pounds for the deal. If true, this would mean Qatar has just gone out of its way to make Bashar Asad’s government look good, after three years of actively trying to finance its defeat on the ground, especially after a string of victories has seen government forces clearly take the initiative. There are also reports of Qatar again being vocal disputed islands at an awkward time, particularly since such discussions will also feature Iran. And while Kuwait has remained neutral in the Saudi-Qatari standoff, Oman has been cozying up to Iran, even facilitating Iran-US talks. All this, of course, while the Iran-Saudi proxy war continues in Syria, where hundreds of thousands have already died.
If these issues weren’t enough for the US president to consider, there is always Israel’s belligerence and Washington’s continued inability to get Tel Aviv to rein in settlement expansion and move towards a two-state solution. Obama and Netanyahu’s personal dislike of each other, and how that led to a public, official campaign from Tel Aviv against Obama’s reelection campaign, is another one of those Middle Eastern novelties as unthinkable a few years ago as a street show of force ousting Ben Ali and Mubarak.
Obama and Netanyahu’s personal dislike of each other, and how that led to a public, official campaign from Tel Aviv against Obama’s reelection campaign, is another one of those Middle Eastern novelties as unthinkable a few years ago as a street show of force ousting Ben Ali and Mubarak.
And the Syrian war is allowing Israel new excesses. It has carried out carefully timed and targeted airstrikes inside Syria a number of times now, each time drawing empty threats. It is also becoming more adventurous around the Golan frontier, where the Syrian Army has not had regular deployments since the war demanded greater show of force further inland. And however much its interests are now aligned with Saudi Arabia, and whatever the degree of their cooperation in bringing down Asad, the Muslim world will not tolerate any alteration of borders set after the ’73 Yom Kippur War. If anything, it will give al Qaeda patrons another excuse to flood another frontier with their Allah Akbar jihad. But with Tel Aviv just as furious as Riyadh over Washington’s soft position on Syria and nuclear thaw with Tehran, Obama’s chances of arguing for calm with Israel are not very bright.
Then there is Turkey, perhaps the best example of foolishly following the Saudi line on Syria. Erdogan was actually good friends with Bashar. He was also hailed as the ideal Muslim leader, leading the ideal Muslim government. Poised to join the EU and drawing praise for its “zero problems with neighbours” policy, Turkey was trumpeted as the example to follow. Then Ankara sided with Syrian rebels, hosted Syrian refugees, opened its borders, provided logistic and financial help to the FSA, and believed Damascus would fall in six months, making way for expansion of the sunni Islamic model that the Brotherhood had just brought to Egypt.
But with his position proving false and Turks upset at paying for another country’s problems because of the prime minister’s personal feelings, his government began losing legitimacy just as the investment market turned against him, the lira weakened, and news of his personal corruption all but sidelined him as a political force. Not long ago he had won domestic praise for standing up to the Israelis, and Obama had personally intervened to get Netanyahu to apologise, if only to restore a working Muslim link with the Israelis since Egypt was too deeply embroiled in its own problems at the time.
Such hopes now seem misplaced. Whatever public statements come out of Obama’s Saudi tour – and the Arabs, Americans and Israelis seldom give out true public statements when together – the first order of business will be finding out where America stands with regard to the Saudis in the new arrangement. The oil for security deal has defined whatever has happened in the Middle East, at least on the Muslim side, ever since US President Franklin Roosevelt and Saudi King Abdul Aziz cruised the Suez together aboard the USS Quincy in ’45. But if Obama is willing to cajole Iran at the risk of alienating Israel when relations are already shaky, it seems he might just come down hard on Saudi Arabia too on what things will be like from here on. Even that would be the slightest confirmation of consistency in a volatile and rapidly changing region.
