by Prof. Eyal Zisser
-- the winner in the Russian-American squabble is actually Iran, which is silently but surely establishing for itself a realm of influence that extends from Tehran to the Mediterranean coast, over which it will have complete control
It appears that there
is already a clear winner in the struggle over prestige between Russia
and the United States. No, not Russian President Vladimir Putin. Though
he did succeed where all Russian leaders before him failed over the last
century -- in belittling and humiliating the United States and in
loosening its grip on the Middle East. The struggle between Putin and
Obama, and anyone who will soon succeed the latter, is far from over. As
for Putin, despite his show of force, he has limited power. No, the
winner in the Russian-American squabble is actually Iran, which is
silently but surely establishing for itself a realm of influence that
extends from Tehran to the Mediterranean coast, over which it will have
complete control.
Iran's accomplishment
comes with its fair share of irony. Only six years ago, when the Arab
Spring began, it appeared that the upheavals in the Arab world would
deliver a decisive blow to Iran's efforts to create an "axis of
resistance" under its own influence that would stretch from Tehran,
though Baghdad and Damascus, all the way to Beirut and Gaza. At the end
of the day, the Arab Spring proved to be nothing other than an
Arab-Sunni awakening directed more against the Iranian threat and Shiism
than against Israel. And so Iran watched with longing as radical Sunni
Islam -- with the rebel groups in Syria and the Islamic State group on
the Syria-Iraq border -- prepared to overtake its grasp on Syria, Iraq
and even Lebanon.
However, the Russian
involvement in Syria that began in September 2015 changed the game. The
Russians saved Syrian President Bashar Assad from a near-certain ouster,
and they even returned to him broad swathes of the country. But the
Russians did not come alone. The platform upon which Moscow based its
return to the region was an Iranian-Shiite one. And indeed, Russian
involvement in Syria is based on Iranian and Shiite fighters, who
complete the work of Russian aircraft and fight Moscow's war on the
ground.
But the Iranians are
not joining in for the sake of altruism, nor strictly for their love of
Assad or Putin. They also do not intend to be used as pawns on Putin's
chess board. This past August, a senior official in the Iranian
Revolutionary Guard revealed that Tehran is working toward the
establishment of a "Shiite liberation army," using Shiite volunteers
from Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq, along with, of course, Hezbollah
fighters. This army, he explained, includes units separated by
ethnicity: an Afghan unit, a Pakistani unit and an Iraqi unit, alongside
the Lebanese Hezbollah. This army is deployed along the battle fronts
where Iran is fighting, from Yemen, to Iraq, to Syria. It helped save
Assad's regime and push Islamic State out of Baghdad, but it's ultimate
goal, the Iranian official explained, is to destroy the State of Israel,
the fight against which is Iran's lifeblood.
There were those who
saw in this declaration and in other similar ones heard from Tehran
nothing more than the baseless boasting we are used to hearing from
Iranian spokespeople from time to time. But just this week, Western
media reported about Iran's intentions to advance plans for a land
passage from Tehran to the Mediterranean coast. This plan, includes the
management of two critical campaigns: One in the Syrian city of Aleppo,
which the Iranians and the Russians have been crushing in recent weeks.
And in addition to this, a campaign to conquer the Iraqi city of Mosul
from Islamic State and to ensure reinforced Shiite control in Iraq as
well as Iraq's connection to Syria.
Iran's path to the
Shiite land passage from Tehran to Beirut is still a long one, but under
the auspices of the Russian-American quarrel, and with Moscow's quiet
blessing, Iran is advancing its interests in the region. Republican
presidential candidate Donald Trump's remarks that Assad and the
Russians are fighting Islamic State and serving the American interest
may be indicative of new winds blowing in the West, of an inclination to
see Iran as a partner and its presence in Syria and Iraq as a
stabilizing force. This would certainly be an unpleasant scenario for
Israel.
Prof. Eyal Zisser
Source: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=17403
Follow Middle East and Terrorism on Twitter
Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.
No comments:
Post a Comment