MOSCOW, November 5 (RIA Novosti) — Prior to the Arab Spring events, the US had assembled a constellation of regional alliances to promote its Mideast vision. This was greatly enabled by the 2003 War in Iraq, which facilitated America’s geostrategic plans. The second stage of this ‘New Middle East’ strategy was for Washington to take the initiative in guiding the expected (but possibly, unpredictable) leadership transformations that were set to occur with time (e.g. Egypt) and stamp out any remaining resistance to its rule (e.g. Syria), ergo the ‘Arab Spring’ regional Color Revolutions. When unleashing ‘controlled chaos’, however, things do not always go as planned, and one of the most drastic political aftershocks has been the major and extremely rapid foreign policy divergences between the US and Saudi Arabia on one hand, and Turkey and Qatar on the other.
It is extremely difficult for one entity to simultaneously manage so many actors at once, and things were bound to go awry sooner rather than later, hence the need to have concluded the ‘Arab Spring’ Color Revolutions as soon as possible. The Syrian people’s resistance prolonged this painful process, and the longer it dragged on, the more likely it was that America’s disparate ‘Lead From Behind’ allies, each with their own self-interests, would realize that they have less in common than initially thought and start turning against the ‘greater good’ being promoted by the US. Specifically, this has led to Turkey and Qatar being the US’ ‘strategic spoilers’, since they have since opted to promote their own interests at the expense of Washington’s and its allies’, thereby becoming the mischievous ‘misfits’ of Washington’s ‘New Middle East’ grand strategy and potentially putting the entire operation at risk.
The Grand Strategy
The War in Iraq gave the US the power to shape the Mideast to its own liking, and this is exactly what the US intended to do. It foresaw empowering its regional allies with leadership positions that would advance both their own subjectively-defined interests and those of the US with as little American resources as possible. This ‘Lead From Behind’ strategy was pointedly seen with regards to Turkey and Saudi Arabia, Washington’s two heavyweight regional allies. Turkey was supposed to restore its Ottoman legacy over Syria (subserviated as the result of a new ‘Arab Spring’-imposed government), Lebanon, and possibly Jordan, Iraq, and North Africa, while Saudi Arabia was to formally integrate all of the peninsular states (and perhaps Jordan) into the Riyadh-led Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), thereby de-facto dividing most of the Mideast between them.
Syria Stands Strong
The first major unexpected development during the theater-wide Color Revolutions of the US and its allies was the resistance of the Syrian people to regime change in their country. Because the overwhelming majority of the people stood behind their democratically-elected leadership, this forestalled what was supposed to have been a quick covert campaign and turned it into a bloody and prolonged unconventional war. In the beginning, all of the partners performed their regional ‘division of labor’ in lockstep under American supervision, with the Gulf States assisting in financing and recruitment, and Turkey (and Jordan, to a lesser extent) providing training and a gateway to the battlefield. The longer that Syria held out, however, the more likely it was for self-interested cracks to emerge in Washington’s outsourced regime change strategy, and when they began to do so this year, their repercussions proceeded with astounding speed.
When Allies Go Awry
Qatar: The first major divergence among America’s allies involved Qatar, which for ideological reasons, had been proselytizing the Muslim Brotherhood throughout the region (with a militant focus on Syria), unnerving the monarchist regimes in the Gulf, most notably Saudi Arabia. Although a Cold War of sorts had been brewing between Doha and Riyadh for some time, tensions reached the surface early this year when Saudi Arabia pressured its GCC partners to follow its lead and recall their ambassadors from Qatar. More than likely, the Saudis had seized the moment to test the resolve of Qatar’s new 34-year old leader, Tamin Al Thani, who had come to power a year earlier, replacing his long-serving father. What they didn’t anticipate, however, was that Thani would hold his ground and double down in his country’s support for the Brotherhood, regardless of what this meant for GCC unity or America’s larger plans.
Turkey: Relations with Turkey didn’t completely sour until this September, but once they did, they quickly went bad. Up until that point, the country had been the most adamant and diehard about forcing regime change in Syria, going further than any other country to agitate for NATO and outside coalition (conventional) military support in toppling the government. At the same time, however, Turkey was growing weary and anxious through its lengthy contribution to the covert war there, having second thoughts about whether or not the US would follow through on its unsaid acceptance of a post-war Turkish-influenced Syria. Its leadership did not want to play the ‘cat’s paw’ in physically overthrowing the government, only to have the Saudis or Qataris reap the reward with the establishment of their own proxy state(s) there. This is why, when given the opportunity to conventionally intervene in Syria in September, Turkey had cold feet and instead sought to reach a regime change guarantee from the US before it finally set forth to do what it had wanted for over the past three years.
Chastising the Misfits
Turkey: As I’ve extensively written about for RIA Novosti, Turkey’s doubts were interpreted by the US as being akin to a strategic betrayal; when the ‘anti-ISIS coalition’ (in reality, the regime change coalition [RCC]) needed Turkey the most in order to fast track its long-delayed plans, it balked. The US had pursued extensive behind-the-scenes diplomatic measures (and metaphorical arm twisting) to get Qatar to symbolically send its jets (which it affirms had no combat role) to Syria with the rest of the GCC, while the others made token strikes in Syria. When it became apparent that Turkey wasn’t going to budge without US and GCC regime change guarantees (which they were unwilling to provide because of fear of deeper entanglement if matters went wrong), Washington stepped up the pressure against Ankara by surging its full-spectrum support for the region’s Kurds and de-facto encouraging the worldwide protests against Turkey’s failure to ‘humanitarily intervene’ in Kobani (and obviously further afield in Syria afterwards).
Thus, in exchange for its ‘misfit behavior’, not only is Turkey’s international reputation being blackened through a coordinated global information campaign managed by its ‘ally’, but its territorial integrity could potentially be at stake if the pro-American Kurds felt emboldened enough (either with or without Washington’s blessing) to declare an independent state in Iraq, Syria, or a combination thereof. It is this extensive pressure from the US that is at the heart of Turkey’s apparently perplexing decision to cave in and allow militarized Iraqi Kurds to transit its territory en route to Kobani, as this was the only temporary short-term solution available to prevent a full-on rift between Turkey and the rest of its former partners.
Qatar: The US’ plans for punishing Qatar are just as sinister as for Turkey, albeit in a different way. Whereas Turkey is being set up as the ‘fall guy’ in case ISIS defeats the Kurds in Syria and Iraq (thereby further inhibiting the US and its allies’ plans to use proxy elements in order to carrying out their goals), the US-influenced Western media has been gearing up to pinpoint Qatar as the state sponsor of terrorism for the group (conveniently forgetting Saudi and other Gulf-based support provided for them over the past three years). One can see the traces of this already being hinted at, and if Qatar doesn’t abandon the Muslim Brotherhood and fall in line with Saudi dominance of the GCC once and for all, then they’ll pull out all the stops and pin the entire blame for ISIS on Qatar, with all of the regime change implications this will have for Al Thani.
The reason that such dramatic and seemingly disproportionate measures are being enacted against Qatar is for two primary reasons: (1) The Muslim Brotherhood is a transnational regional lever of power that endangers the Gulf monarchies which the US itself abandoned after the fall of Morsi (effectively also abandoning its support for Qatar’s regional vision, which served its purpose in the early days of the ‘Arab Spring’ and is now no longer needed); and (2) Qatar’s gas reserves are among the largest in the world, and the country mustn’t use its recent falling out with the Saudis as a motivation to join the Russians and Iranians in creating a ‘gas OPEC’ (last month’s opening of the gas-trading market in St. Petersburg is but the first step towards this goal). In this manner, tiny Qatar actually presents a larger threat to the long-term interests of America and the Gulf than the Turks do, since if worse comes to worst, the latter’s squabbles with Armenia and the Kurds and more or less resolved disputes over the Bosporus are not as significant as the former’s ability to theoretically engulf the region in conflict via the Brotherhood and have a global impact via the gas market.
Concluding Thoughts
In hindsight, the Syrian War may actually have been the event that broke America’s alliance network in the Mideast. Before its onset, the US had a relatively stable ensemble of regional allies and power networks there, but the longer the war dragged on, the more that crucial make-or-break differences began to emerge between some of its actors. Qatar has proven that its support of the Muslim Brotherhood is unwavering and will not be affected by the GCC’s bullying or America’s information campaign against it, and Turkey has resolutely shown that it will spoil the ground war in Syria through its non-participation unless there are firm guarantees that it will receive military support for regime change.
Through their ‘troublemaking’, these two ‘Mideast misfits’ are now endangering the entire US-managed web of alliances in the region. Paradoxically, the more that the US and Saudi Arabia push them to accede to their vision, the more they actually push them away, with all of the disastrous consequences thereof for the Syrian RCC. Of course, this pressure might eventually become too much for the ‘misfits’ to bear, but should these ‘prodigal partners’ ever fully return to the alliance, then they would have to atone for their transgressions by forever surrendering their regional visions as geopolitical penance. Until that happens (which it very well may not), then the American and Saudi mismanagement of the ‘Mideast misfits’ presents precisely the serendipitous opportunity that is needed to delay a larger war in Syria and possibly save the country from a Libyan-style fate.
The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not reflect the official position of Sputnik.
