The area encompassing what is broadly characterized as the Middle East continues to thrust itself into the global headlines and editorial spaces. Some would say that it refuses to settle the hope, certainly in the Western world, of what would have happened after the genesis of the so-called Arab Spring normally dated, from December of 2010, with an individual, in protest, burning himself to death in Tunisia.
This phenomenon, subsequently highlighted by the overthrow of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in February 2011, more or less coincides with the first period of office of President Obama, and might to be said to have corresponded to thoughts expressed earlier, in his famous Cairo speech of January 2009. But in these very last two weeks, the military rulers in Egypt, led by Field Marshal Abdel Fattah al-Sisi have had their troops once again in the streets against the Brotherhood’s supporters.
The Muslimists, even in their severely weakened position, have refused to return to the quiescence of Mubarak’s reign, in the face of a new constitution that would limit their ability to manoeuvre and regroup. And in consequence, almost eating his words in Cairo, President Obama has had to continue the level of economic support to the sort of Egyptian regime that characterized the Mubarak era, while clinging to the mantra that Egypt, and therefore stability in Egypt, remains critical to any settlement of the Palestine-Israel issue.
In the meantime, the focus has shifted to the ever-worsening civil war in Syria, while, however, and like it or not, the US government has had to accept that Iran is a necessary interlocutor towards any solution in that country. Yet, such is the hostility in certain Middle Eastern quarters, and particularly in Saudi Arabia and it neighbouring Gulf monarchies, that the American president cannot openly find a way of using Iran in the current talks on Syria in Geneva, even though there is clear recognition of the influence which Iran has wielded there in recent times.
In addition there is obviously a clear recognition by the Western powers that even as they seek to appease the Saudis and their allies on the Syrian issue, that the various factions in Syria, including the Assad regime, are all, in some measure, dependent on outside forces whether a Turkey, which while sympathetic to the Syrian rebels, finds itself domestically under pressure from elements of its own population; or the Saudis and their Gulf allies also supporting a faction of the rebels, while being irritated at the Americans’ attempt to settle the nuclear production capability issue with the Iranians.
So presently, the Americans’ foremost non-Arab ally, Israel, finds itself cosying up to its historical enemies, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states, in opposition to the US’s nuclear diplomacy towards Iran. While the United States itself, in order to appease those historical allies, finds itself insisting that Iran, whose diplomacy in respect of the nuclear talks it has been asking those allies to trust, itself cannot be trusted, and therefore will not be accepted, as a valid interlocutor in the Geneva talks on Syria.
So Syria is left without the direct participation in the Geneva talks of its ally Iran, an Iran which would appear to also have a hand in support of the current leadership of Iraq. There, the domestic political situation appears to be worsening daily, amidst the increasing concern of the Obama government which had promised, implicitly or explicitly, to decisively get out of Iraq which, in spite of America’s huge financial support, seems increasingly unwilling to heed its sponsor’s advice.
A not dissimilar situation, or American predicament, seems to be occurring on the fringe of the core Middle East, that is, in Muslimist Afghanistan. There, the utterly dependent President Karzai, having accepted that President Obama is determined to get the large mass of American troops out of the country, is refusing to facilitate an easy exit as his own term of office comes to an end. In the larger scheme of things, Karzai’s behaviour will no doubt be seen as an extended, but limited temporizing, designed to spruce up his own image in the face of his countrymen. But at the same time, it presents the appearance of Obama being unable to decisively implement and conclude the strategy which he has promised the American people.
That picture of Obama is not entirely dissimilar from the one which the Israelis would seem to like to see painted of the American president at this time, and it would appear to be having some positive feedback (in the Israeli view). Prime Minister Netanyahu has done his best in the last few weeks to portray the American president as weak in the face of negotiations with the Iranians, using language about American diplomacy that would normally be deemed unacceptable.
Israel itself is not a participant in the Geneva talks but, as would be expected, would wish to see a permanent stop to Iranian activities in nuclear experimentation and construction, whether for domestic or external use. Yet the Americans would be well aware, and present Iranian diplomacy has demonstrated, that Iran has a substantial status in the area, its influence, given its location, stretching well into the core Middle East as well as into the wider Muslimist world.
The obvious recent subtlety of the current Iranian diplomacy has suggested to the Americans, as well as to others, that once the Iranians have reduced the opportunity of hostility that they themselves gave the United States by their previous intransigence, then their influence in the wider Middle East is likely to be enhanced.
This possibility of normalization of relations would seem to have shaken the Israelis, and even the Saudis, whose insistence on excluding Iran from the Geneva talks the United States has had to concede to.
No doubt, however, the American President is well advised on the play of forces within Syria – America’s main preoccupation in the area at this time. It is not unlikely that, whether in or out of the talks, Iran will have a hand in whatever solution is arrived at, as the Middle Eastern cauldron continues to boil.
