As the nations of the world got together at the United Nations last week to discuss the state of the world, they found themselves having to contemplate increasing war, rather than the prospects of peace and development. So no matter how much the minds of spokespersons (mainly heads of state and government) from the developing world were determined to discuss the prospects for economic growth and social stability in their countries, the centre of the discourse was the worsening of war in the Middle East.
So while for most of the countries of the Caribbean the main preoccupation would be following up the recent UN discussions and decisions on the ways to control or inhibit the negative aspects of climate change, or the prospects for support for the development of small island states following the Samoa decisions, the Middle East and its struggles have taken centre stage. And the focus of deliberations has been the opinions and justifications of some of the largely NATO powers, as they concentrate the guns of war against Islamic State (IS).
For the leadership of the major power, the United States, the new conflagration in the Middle East must be something of a disappointment. Clearly, President Obama has been hesitant to play a stronger hand in the area even as the determination of IS to extend itself has become more obvious.
The President, perhaps some three months ago or so, would probably have felt that with the elections in Iraq, the position of the re-elected leadership could be consolidated there, although that Shia-led leadership was continuing to refuse to accept the necessity for cooperation with the Sunnis. For Obama’s orientation seemed to be to use the positive political relationship between that Iraqi leadership and the leadership of Iran, into influencing the Syrians to come to heel.
But IS would seem to have spoiled the plan, taking advantage of a delay in the attainment of cohesiveness and advancement towards post-election consolidation among the various forces in Iraq; and, on the other hand, an unwillingness of the Saudis and Iraqis to come to engage an embattled President Assad in Syria.
Clearly, in spite of a commitment on the part of the US to achieve a general post-Iraqi election rapprochement with Iran, based on the necessity to find a response to the Iran’s apparent willingness to agree on ways of curbing its ambitions towards achieving nuclear power status, the lack of agreement was inhibiting American policy towards the situation in Syria, where the Iranians have a certain influence.
The IS uprising in Syria, and its movement into Iraq, have now pushed the US, Iraq and Iran into a certain measure of cooperation. But it has also forced President Obama into a stance which he has been long unwilling to take, this is being an active participation in war against IS, even though without American participation on the ground. The subsequent decision to engage the participation of certain Arab and Nato countries in what is described as an air war, is what has transformed the hitherto more geographically localized conflict into a major concern of the wider United Nations.
The geographical spread of the encounter has also forced Turkey, more recently at odds with the United States, into a recalibration of its approach. Turkey, as a member of NATO, has obviously been seeking to distance its policy towards Middle Eastern developments from the policies of its other NATO partners, following a degree of political distancing between itself and those partners resulting from their dissatisfaction with the domestic political strategies of Turkey.
But the Turkish leadership has found that this distancing could not withstand the more and more expansive difficulties arising from an overflow of Syrian refugees across its border. Turkey has had to gradually come to terms with the fact that it could not stand aside from the domestic conflagration in Syria. And the implication of this for President Erdogan, has been that there would have to be a mending of fences between his country and the major NATO powers hostile to what they determined to be his recent anti-democratic tendencies.
President Obama’s address to the United Nations has given the impression of an American leader being placed in a position which he would have liked to avoid. The conflagration in the Middle East has upset his strategy of not wanting to engage American military capabilities in an active role in the area; and he has given the impression to the American people that the situation in which he has taken the country in that region is exactly the opposite of what he intended.
Much of what has taken place at the United Nations in relation to the new developments in Syria, has been one-sided, in the sense that, in the context of Western-Russian disagreements on the European continent, there has been a certain reluctance to engage President Putin on the current developments in and surrounding Syria.
The situation therefore displays symptoms of the old Cold War, at a time when indications of a new Cold War have already been emerging. The events in the Middle East seem, at least as of now, to be taking the form of a traditional Western intervention in what are deemed strategic arenas, without any recognition that the rest of the world has an interest.
So as the General Assembly has met in the last week and continuing, other major powers – Russia, China, India and the like, appear to be on the sidelines, witnessing a period of what might well look like a traditional imperial preoccupation with that geographical area. Whether that American preoccupation, willing or forced, can be sustained by President Obama is left to be seen, most likely in the not too distant future, as the American mid-term elections take place around the corner.
And as the jaw-jaw, war-war, continues, the UN, engaged in its 69th annual discussion among its member states, now appears to be on the sidelines.