NEW MIDDLE EAST: REALITY AND PROSPECTS
15.03.2012
Gagik Harutyunyan
Director of “Noravank” Foundation
The processes going round Syria and nuclear programme of Iran are the
follow-up of the so-called “Arab spring”. At the same time, alongside
the commonalities the “Syrian” processes have peculiarities, which were
not characteristic of the victorious march of the Arab revolutions. Let
us mention that on this, conventional “second” stage, the motives
of the actions of big geopolitical actors in the Middle East are
even more obvious. It is known that those motives are not stated and
they are just presented as a struggle for human rights and political
freedoms. But the comparative analyses allow drawing conclusions.
Result of the first phase It can be stated today that the first phase
of the “revolutions” initiated in 2011 is over. Let us try to sum up
some results of that phase:
Libya, in fact, has transformed from a state, which had some
political influence and definite level of economic development,
into a “territory” with energy resources and groups of population,
which are united on different grounds and confront with each other.
In Egypt, which is considered to be the leader of the Arab world,
non-legitimate military “junta” and Islamists who won the elections
which were organized in accordance with the norms of democracy came
to power. Such a combination on practice deprives this country of
prospects of modern development at least in the foreseeable future.
These realities, despite the mechanisms of their formation, coincide
in terms of their content and logic with the situation in Iraq after
the American intrusion in 2003. This country and its population were
broke up according to their ethnic and confessional features, the state
structure in fact is not working, and inter-confessional collisions and
terrorism has become an everyday occurrences. Hence, Iraq has turned
into a “territory” with natural resources much earlier and the issue of
its development is as disputable as the one of Libya and Egypt. Today
almost everything is done for Syria (and in some scenarios even Iran)
to appear in the same situation. It is obvious that this pattern is a
result of consecutive strategy. This US “big strategy” has different
planes and it pursues different goals and their complex analysis is
a separate issue. Particularly, in the context of the developments
round Syria and Iran, one of the main motives is the protection of US
“number 1” ally in the region – Israel. In the past one could rather
often listen to the statements about the intentions to destroy this
country and its people. After the transformations taking place in the
region since 2003 the number of the countries, which claimed it, has
shrunk and such statements can be heard only from the leaders of Iran.
It should be mentioned that there is another definite regularity
observed in the regional processes. The aforementioned “territorial”1
situation has been formed, as we have already said, in consequence of
purposeful actions of the US and its allies. But till now they have not
faced serious, materialized opposition on behalf of other geopolitical
actors. In the current phase the situation has fundamentally changed
and it is conditioned by a number of factors.
Syria and Iran – “critical substructure” Syrian crisis has been
brought to the international scene and thus acquired, if one may say
so, a kind of “global status”. Previously in the Arab “revolutionary”
countries in the confrontation between the authorities and opposition
only the latter received military and political as well as economic,
information and other support. This support was, as a rule, rendered
by the US, European countries, among which France stood out for
its activity and Germany for its comparative discretion. Support
rendered by the regional countries – Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey –
and even Al-Qaida (by the way the later is especially active in the
issues regarding Syria) is also crucial.
The situation is different with Syria where the authorities are
directly supported by their regional ally Iran. Taking into account
the fact that one of the main motives of the “Syrian revolution” is
a reduction of influence of Iran in the region, the accord which has
been formed between Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan should also be taken
into consideration. It is remarkable that Syria is getting support
from its immediate neigbours – Iraq (in form of militants sent by
the leader of Shiites Moktada as-Sadri) and “Hezbollah” from Lebanon.
But the most important is that such global geopolitical actors as
Russia and China are also involved in supporting Syrian authorities
to some extent. The well-known “veto” of those countries in the UN
Security Council have not abolished a possibility of interference
into the domestic processes from abroad. It is known that the UN
decisions have recently depreciated and lost their significance: it
is suffice to remember 2003 when the US invaded Iraq without taking
into consideration neither the UN charter nor the opinion of its NATO
allies. At the same time the Libyan precedent when an ambiguous UN
resolution legitimated NATO intervention is sill fresh in the mind.
Russian-Chinese veto did not allow legitimating implementation of
the similar scenario in Syria.
It is remarkable that the heated discussions in the UN were followed
by the visit of the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Russia S. Lavrov
and the Director of the Foreign Intelligence Service Mikhail Fradkov
to Damascus. Later on the Chinese Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs
Zhai Jun arrived in Damascus. According to media Russia intends to
sell to Syria air and missile weapon (the total sum, according to
the statements is $4-5 million). And including of Frandkov in the
delegation proves the activation of the relations between the special
services of two countries. In this aspect it should be mentioned that
these services are rather broadly “presented” in Syria and one can
often see information about capturing of the citizens of different
countries by the conflicting parties. Not only confessional2 but also
religious factor is peculiar for processes taking place in Syria which
conditions the activity of the Christian organizations at least on
the level of global information field.
Thus, dozens of countries are involved in the processes going on around
Syria and Iran. All the elements of Cold War are characteristic of
ongoing confrontation – the parties use all the possible means of
diplomatic and military, information and psychological, economic and
terrorist influence. In particular, the US efficiently use the methods
of economic and psychological influence, which proved their value in
the Cold war against the USSR. The existing multi-plane situation is
conditioned by the following circumstances:
Formation of multi-polar world embarked on an establishment phase.
Though today the US incomparably excel the rest of the geopolitical
actors in terms of military might, the political and economic
possibilities of this super-power has considerably been restricted.
This fact is taken adequately in the United States and the structures
which elaborate strategy of the country and plan its policy tend
to make use of their “temporal” advantage in order to consolidate
positions as much as possible, taking into consideration aggravation
of competition under the multi-polarity.
The situation is taken adequately by the competitors of the US either
and they have started demonstrating the signs of “disobedience”. Such
a “disobedience” is conditioned not only by the general philosophy of
multi-polar world but also by definite estimations. The programmne of
turning the so-called “New Middle East” into “turbulence territory”
(including Afghanistan) implies not only depriving Russia and China of
military-political and economic leverages in one of crucial regions
but it also threats to “infect” those powers either3. Hence this
project has a definite orientation and currently Iran-Syria “tandem”
undermines its realization; this tandem has become a kind of “critical
substructure” in the context of geopolitical confrontation.
The weakest link in the aforementioned “tandem” is Syria; if the US
and its allies manage to bear down the resistance of the main regional
ally of Iran, it will considerably change the correlation of forces
in the region to the detriment of Iran and other geopolitical actors.
Possible developments Encounters between the governmental forces and
“Syrian Freedom Army” (about 20 thousand militants) has been continuing
for more than a year and Assad’s rather well armed army which counts
about 300 thousand soldiers still manages to control situation to some
extent. But if the chaos in the country provides fertile ground for
these militants, such situation impedes the governmental institutions
from carrying out their functions. That means that the time, in some
sense, is on the side of the rebels. This obliges authorities taking
rather tough measures which, however, do not bring to the intended
result. All of this may bring to the “erosion” of the Syrian state and
turn it into a “territory” and a sort of “black hole” which engrosses
the resources of its allies in case if no compromises are found even
if Assad’s regime is preserved.
The situation is different in case with Iran; economic sanctions
and psychological actions directed against this country are based
on its nuclear programme. It is known that Israel is very sensitive
towards this issue. Undoubtedly, possessing sufficient amount of
nuclear weapons this country can deliver heavy counter-strike (or
even preventive strike) to the potential enemy. At the same time even
several nuclear strikes delivered to the country with such a small
territory may become fatal for the entire Jewish state.
Previously Israel treated very tough and resolutely all the countries
in the region who tended to possess nuclear weapons. On June 7, 1981
Al-Tuwaitha nuclear center in Iraq built with the help of France was
destroyed by the Israeli air forces. It fortuned that Iran, which not
only provided Israelis with a detailed map of that territory but also
allowed Israeli planes to land in Tabriz, played an important role
in those actions. In September 2007 Israel destroyed Syrian nuclear
center built with the assistance of North Korea. Most probably Israel
would have treated Iran the same way either if it had all the necessary
resources and assurance that it would not pay too dear price for it.
Theoretically, option of military destruction of Iran’s nuclear
potential is possible only with a direct participation of the US,
but in the opinion of the experts, anyway it would demand large-scale
and long-term actions, for which even the US is not ready (taking into
consideration Afghanistan factor, withdrawal of troops from Iraq and
finally pre election period). Under such conditions Cold war strategy
carried out in regard to Iran is the optimal if not the only possible.
At the same time such an economic and information attack in the
multi-polar world is not always that efficient. In spite of rather
heavy economic losses Iran managed to resolve the issue of the
energy carriers export in rather flexible way. Alongside, despite the
manifestation of dissent among a part of the population, especially
youth. the overwhelming majority of the Iranian population takes
American and Israeli factor with hostility. Hence, unlike pro-western
attitude of the USSR population in the period of Cold war, which
brought to the collapse of that power, the situation in Iran is
different. Conclusion can be drawn that this country can resist to
this Cold war for quite a long time. In the context of such a scenario
the forecasts of “Stratfor” are remarkable; according to them strained
relations between the US and Iran under some conditions may transform
into a partnership.
1 The author refrain from using “chaotic” notion as it demands rather
broad commentary,
2 Confessional contradictions between Shiites and Sunites are the
main tenor of the processes taking place in the region.
3 In this respect it should be mentioned that Russia-China-Iran
relations have not turned into a strategic partnership yet and, the
prospects of such a partnership seem to be rather vague today. In
this aspect the US, Israel, their European and regional partners,
which have a rich partnership experience and common political culture,
seem to be in more advantageous positions.