by Dr. James M. Dorsey
Competition among Middle Eastern rivals and ultimate power within the region’s various alliances is increasingly as much economic and commercial as it is military and geopolitical.
Vladimir Putin and Recep Tayyip Erdogan, photo via Wikimedia Commons
BESA Center Perspectives Paper No. 1,004, November 12, 2018
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY:
Competition among Middle Eastern rivals and ultimate power within the
region’s various alliances is increasingly as much economic and
commercial as it is military and geopolitical. Battles are fought as
much on geopolitical fronts as they are on economic and cultural
battlefields such as soccer.
Three recent developments lay bare the fragility of Middle Eastern alliances and a rebalancing of their priorities: the Russian-Turkish compromise on an assault on the rebel-held Syrian region of Idlib, the fate of troubled Abu Dhabi airline Ettihad, and battles over the reconstruction of Syria.
These developments highlight the fact that
competition among Middle Eastern rivals and ultimate power within the
region’s various alliances is increasingly as much economic and
commercial as it is military and geopolitical. Battles are fought as
much on geopolitical fronts as they are on economic and cultural
battlefields such as soccer.
As a result, the fault lines of various alliances
across the greater Middle East, a region that stretches from North
Africa to northwestern China, are coming to the fore.
The cracks may be most apparent in the
Russian-Turkish-Iranian alliance, but they also lurk in the background
of Gulf cooperation with Israel in confronting Iran, as well as the
unified front put forward by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
Russia prevented, at least for now, a rupture with
Turkey by delaying an all-out attack on Idlib despite Iranian advocacy
of an offensive. Turkey, already home to three million Syrians, feared
that a Syrian-Russian assault would push hundreds of thousands, if not
millions, more refugees across its border.
If Iran was the weakest link in the debate about Idlib, it stands stronger in its coming competition with Russia for the spoils of reconstruction of war-ravaged Syria.
Similarly, Russia appears to be ambivalent towards a continued Iranian military presence in post-war Syria, a potential flashpoint given Israel’s opposition and Israeli attacks that led recently to the downing of a Russian aircraft.
By the same token, Turkey, despite its backing of
Qatar in its 15-month-old dispute with a Saudi-UAE-led alliance that is
boycotting the Gulf state diplomatically and economically, poses perhaps
the greatest challenge to Qatari efforts to project itself globally by operating one of the world’s best airlines and positioning itself as a sports hub.
Turkey, despite its failure to win the right to
host Euro 2024 and its lack of the Gulf’s financial muscle, competes
favorably on every other front with Qatar as well as the UAE, which is
also seeking to project itself through soft as well as hard power. The
UAE opposes Erdogan because of his Islamist leanings, ties to Iran, and
support of Qatar. Turkey wins hands down against the small Gulf states
when it comes to size, population, location, industrial base, military
might, and sports performance.
That, coupled with a determination to undermine
Qatar, was likely one reason why the UAE’s major carriers, Emirates and
Etihad (which is troubled by a failed business model), have, despite
official denials, been quietly discussing a potential merger that would create the world’s largest airline.
Countering competition from Turkish Airlines,
which outflanks both UAE carriers with 309 passenger planes that service
302 destinations in 120 countries, may well have been another reason.
Emirates, the larger of the two Emirati carriers, has a fleet of 256
aircraft flying to 150 destinations in 80 countries.
These recent developments suggest that alliances,
particularly the one that groups Russia, Turkey and Iran, are brittle
and transactional. They are geared towards capitalizing on immediate
common interests rather than shared long-term goals, let alone values.
This is true even if Russia and Turkey
increasingly find common ground in concepts of Eurasianism. It also
applies to Turkey and Qatar, who both support Islamist groups, as well
as to Saudi Arabia and the UAE, who closely coordinate policies but
whose different goals are on display in Yemen.
The fragility of the alliances is further
underscored by Turkish, Russian, and Iranian aspirations of resurrecting
their respective empires in a 21st century mold and the Saudi quest for regional dominance.
Notions of empire have informed policies since
long before the realignment across Eurasia as a result of the shift in
the American focus from the Middle East to Asia, particularly the rise
of China. Relations between the West and Russia have been increasingly
strained, and Middle Eastern states like Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Iran
have been increasingly assertive.
Then-president of Turkey Suleyman Demirel told
this writer as far back as the 1990s, in the wake of the demise of the
Soviet Union and the emergence of independent, mostly ethnically Turkic
Central Asian republics, that “Turkey’s world stretches from the
Adriatic to the Great Wall of China.”
In a world in which globalization is shaped by
geopolitical zones rather than individual countries, Russia’s imperative
is to define itself as a Eurasian rather than a European power that
would be on par with China, the EU, and a US zone of influence.
“Putin does not think along national lines. He
thinks in terms of larger blocks, and ultimately in terms of the world
order,” said former Portuguese minister for Europe Bruno Macaes in a
recently published book, The Dawn of Eurasia.
In so doing, Russia is effectively turning its
back on Europe as it reinvents itself as an Asian power on the basis of
Eurasianism, a century-old ideology that defines Russia as a Eurasian
rather than a European power.
The Eurasian Economic Union, which groups Russia,
Kazakhstan. Kyrgyzstan, Belarus and Armenia, is a vehicle that allows
Russia to establish itself as a bloc in the borderland between Europe
and Asia.
Similarly, Eurasianism has gained currency in
Turkey. President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who was enabled by the demise of
the Soviet Union and the re-emergence of a Turkic world, projects his
country as a crossroads between Europe, Africa, and Asia rather than as a
European bridge to Asia.
In that vein, Turkish columnist Sinan Baykent
projected the recent fence-mending visit to Germany by Erdoğan and his
proposal for a summit on Syria involving Turkish, Russian, German, and
French leaders as a Eurasian approach to problem-solving.
The meeting between Erdogan and German Chancellor Angela Merkel was meant “to pave the way for a Eurasian solution for the region…
There is a new axis forming today between Berlin, Moscow, Ankara,
Tehran and maybe Paris… All of these countries are fed up with American
unilateralism and excessive policies displayed by the Trump
administration,” Baykent said.
If Turkey’s and Russia’s vision of their place in
the world is defined to a large extent by geography, Iran’s topology
dictates a more inward-looking view despite accusations that it is
seeking to establish itself as the Middle East’s hegemon.
“Iran is a fortress.
[It is] Surrounded on three sides by mountains and on the fourth by the
ocean, with a wasteland at its center,” noted Stratfor, a geopolitical
intelligence platform. Gulf fears are rooted not only in deep-seated
distrust of Iran’s Islamic regime, but also in the fact that the
foundation of past Persian empires relied on control of plains in
present-day Iraq.
As a result, the maneuvering of Gulf states, in
contrast to Turkey and Russia, is driven less by a conceptual framing of
their place in the world and more by regional rivalry and regime
survival. Countries like Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE walk a fine
line focusing geopolitically on an increasingly unpredictable US and
economically on China and the rest of Asia, including Russia, Korea, and
Japan.
What the plight of Idlib, potential change in
aviation, and competition for reconstruction contracts collectively
highlight is the brittleness of Middle Eastern alliances that threatens
to be reinforced by economics, rendering it an increasingly important
factor alongside geopolitics.
“Stakes for all parties are starting to divert from each other in Syria and the prospects of cooperation with Russia and Iran are becoming more challenging,”
said Turkish columnist Nuray Mert, commenting on the situation in
Idlib. Her analysis is as valid for Idlib as it for the prospects of
many of the Middle East alliances.
A podcast version of this story is available on Soundcloud, Stitcher, TuneIn, and Tumblr.
BESA Center Perspectives Papers are published through the generosity of the Greg Rosshandler Family
Dr. James M. Dorsey, a non-resident Senior Associate at the BESA Center, is a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies at Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University and co-director of the University of Würzburg’s Institute for Fan Culture.
Source: https://besacenter.org/perspectives-papers/frail-middle-east-alliances/
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