In the days between Christmas and the New Year, a deal was announced in the Middle-East that will likely influence the region in a major way. It saw Saudi Arabia offer 3 billion $ worth of credit to Lebanon to acquire French weapons. But apart from those 3 countries, the deal affects most of the region’s Nations and its timing is crucial to understand what it means. In order to help the reader grasp the multiple underlying reasons for this deal, it is necessary to review recent events and non-events from Washington to Volvograd and subjects ranging from Syrian chemical weapons to Potential Iranian nuclear ones as well as rock shale gas and oil in the American soil to explain the future of the Middle-East. Here we go!
Middle-East genesis :
Around World War One, the Middle-East was “reinvented” by the presence of colonial powers, mostly France and the UK. These drew the lines of modern states in the region. From Iran to Lebanon, borders appeared that had as much to do with commercial interests as they did with people’s aspiration or history if not more. Out of these, arose notably Lebanon’s enduring schizoid identity and Israel due to the French and British respectively. To a lesser degree, Syria, Iraq and even Iran were tweaked into their modern forms although the nature of these states of course later changed between 1980 and 2010 ( Iranian revolution/Sadaam Hussein/Syrian civil war ). Jordan is also part of this group.
The countries not mentioned above, to the exception of Yemen, result from a secondary process linked to the presence of oil in their ground and the emergence of the world’s dominant superpower and major consumer of that petrol, the USA around World War Two. These can now be collectively be called the gulf states although arabic peninsula would be a better unifying natural factor. Saudi Arabia, Oman, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Koweït are their names.
On the map above, I have separated the said countries and their neighbors with nifty colors. The straight axis in pink goes from Lebanon to Iran with Israel added in red as a destabilizing factor. The blue ones at bottom left are the poorer African nations that in some cases ( Sudan mostly ) also have oil reserves but lack the political stability to profit and benefit fully from them.
The others are those that have a political control over their destiny that warrants efficient development although of course, Egypt is at present under considerable strain to recover its own.
Middle-East Governance :
The peninsula states have acquired familial rule since the mid 20th century. This may not be as democratic as Westerners’ ideals call for but it works as far as stability is concerned. In turn, stability allows commerce to endure and this means that your clients become factual allies in order to keep the flow of goods ( oil ) coming, uninterrupted.
By contrast, the governments of the red states have endured multiple changes. Iran was “given” to the Shah which prompted the Revolution. Since then, tensions with the international community ( mostly the west ) have kept it isolated and hindered its development. Iraq fell into the hands of Sadaam Hussein whose rule was so personal that choices went from being nice to the West and very bad with Iran to being very bad to his own people and neighbors and the West. Add to this one of the worst strategical decisions of the Middle-East’s history circa 2003 that led to his downfall and that of Iraq as a nation. Syria was a soft dictatorial one party land until the death of Hafez al-Assad. By succeeding to his father, Bachar de facto made it a kingdom type state of his Alawite origin and the Arab Spring encouraged the non-Alawite majority to dispute that! Lebanon was always a patchwork of groups from different historical, religious and ethnic origins. That could well have endured if it had not been for events in Israel and Syria in the 1950-60s. Alas, the treatment of the Palestinians by Jerusalem and the resulting interference of Papa Assad in the country’s affairs have since torn it apart.
Middle-East racial & religious divides :
Race is easy, all the Middle East is Arab except for the two Is. Iran is Persian, speaks Farsi, etc. Israel is Semite and although that is only an old-school specific kind of Arabs, they really don’t like being reminded of the fact, neither of them.
Religion is another matter. Apart from the majority of Israelis which are of the Hebraic confession and a sprinkling of Christians ( plus some atheists who under those latitudes try their best to be inconspicuous ), the rest are Muslims. That should be a unifying factor if Islam was not the youngest of the monotheist faiths and still very much in the throes of the religious wars that occupied Christianity until the mid-18th century and sometimes flare up still in Northern Ireland. The Sunnis are a majority in Egypt, Jordan, most of Turkey, NorthEastern Syria & Northern Iraq. Shiites are the majority in Iran, Eastern Iraq as well as Bahrain and Azerbaijan with lesser consequences and present in numbers in parts of Turkey and Syria.. Wahhabism of conflicting flavors is found in the ruling families in Saudi Arabia and Qatar as well as the U.A.E while Oman is home to Ibadism. Yemen is half Shia half Sunni with dramatic consequences.
In short, Sunnis believed in the succession of leaders of the faith that was ended by the fall of the Ottoman Empire in 1922. It is only since then, in Egypt in 1924, that extremist views surfaced embodied by the Muslim Brotherhood ( overthrown President Morsi/ Hamas, many in Syria ). Shiites believe that the line of rightful Muslim leaders stopped with the 12th Imam in 931 and resurfaced only with Ayatollah Khomeini in 1978 in Iran and embodied abroad by the Hizbollah. Wahhabis are root fundamentalists that hark back to initial Islam’s time and customs and limit the influence of the clergy & Fiqh in Saudi Arabia or disregard it completely in Qatar, in both cases asserting dual civilian religious rule to the leading families ( Abdulaziz/Al-thani respectively ). Their most extreme Islamist branch is Al-Qaida.
What it means :
If the points above are clear in and of themselves, they explain the present crisis in Syria and Iraq. The only thing missing is the play of interrelations with the Western civilization’s established order. When the Jewish state began expanding around 1948, Arabs understandably saw the “newcomers” as a problem ( albeit the return of a very old one ) and united behind the Palestinians. But the Hebrews are excellent and determined fighters so that each successive war cost more than the previous one. Palestinians then fled to neighbouring lands where they soon became a burden. And since they were not all Muslims themselves, left for places where the local diversity allowed for freedom which meant mostly Lebanon and Jordan. Their numbers in either brought about 2 civil wars. That of Jordan, 1970, won by King Hussein sent the majority of the remaining Palestinians fleeing to Lebanon where their demographic importance shattered the country’s equilibrium and brought about a new civil war : 1975-1990. Their Muslim component also split with the Sunni Hamas ( competitor of the Fatah for the leadership of the Palestine Liberation Organization ) aligning with the Muslim Brotherhood and thus with both Egypt and Syria while the Shias aggregated with the native Lebanese ones into the Hizbollah. From Southern Lebanon, they attacked Israel which was then forced into one of if not its worst move ever, namely the 1982 invasion of Lebanon. It is during this period that Syria as a proxy of Iran gained major involvement and control in the affairs of its sea-side neighbor.
That is a turning point. Until then, Arab states were aligned with either the West or the USSR. But in 1976, the Arab League supported the Syrian role in Lebanon. This was as costly a mistake as the Israeli invasion had been.
Syria and Iran apart, all Arab nations in the region were tied to the USA for the importance of their petro-dollars ( money gained by selling oil ). America returned the favor by selling arms and offering help. Even the 1972 Oil shock did not alter that. It is in fact through this commercial relationship that the USA managed to keep the region calm until recently and their backing of Israel was as useful for maintaining balance as it might have been ideologically based ( the old playing all sides at once option ). After its fall, the USSR / Russia lost all little real influence it had. Some favored links to the UK or France as ways to limit their dependancy in regard to the US but that’s all.
What changed :
A series of unfortunate events gathered to bring down this card castle.
A- In the long term, the Israeli presence mattered less than intra-Islam religious disputes. Jordan, Egypt and more secretly Saudi Arabia all managed to live with the idea while Lebanon prior to the civil war nearly welcomed it. Sadaam’s Iraq couldn’t care less and Iran’s visceral opposition to the idea of a Jewish state was an additional spur to the Sunni and Wahhabi rulers to let go of that particular hot iron.
B- As long as the sanctions that followed the Iranian Revolution were in place, this both comforted the economical trade of the rest of the gang be them Sunnis or Wahhabis and incurring benefits thereof which fit just dandy with the religious problem posed by the Shiite resurrection. This explains why George Bush ( the original bright one ) did not topple Hussein in 1991. Sadaam had his own agenda not at all linked to religious purposes but served everyone’s ( but Iran’s ) goals. This all came to an end through the deliquescence of American politics. Ronald Reagan having been incorrectly credited with historical successes that happened during his watch but not because of it, Bush lost his re-election bid. This brought about an undue self-confidence in the Republican party that led to its elite trusting its luck over its ideas. Whereas Reagan was the puppet of Bush senior, the old guard of his underlings became the masters of his inept puppet of a son. That led to the 2003 Iraq debacle, the cost of which will haunt all of us for years to come.
C- When Hafez al-Assad was replaced with his son Bachar, Syria became an Alewite (a.ka. Shiite ) Kingdom. But with it, Syrian influence over Lebanon waned and with Hussein gone, the instabilty axis from the Mediterranean to Asia was created with the Afghani and Pakistani anchors destabilized beyond usefulness. This is the reason behind that line of reddish countries in our map. It is there that the region is now staking its future.
D- Beyond those Eastern lands ( Af-Pak ) lays China which has now risen to the role of anchor. The Celestial Empire’s new might will only serve its own purpose as it always did but by rebound makes Russia fragile. With Syria going, going, gone, the only ally of worth left for Moscow is Beijing and as we just said, the ogre is only your friend until it gets hungry. Poor Putin thus had no choice but to involve himself to protect its traditional customer of armament that is ( was ) Damascus?
E- The spread of often shallow democratic concepts by the US and the rest of the West coupled to the conquering technology of information and communication it engendered ( Internet ) disseminated ideas faster in lands with less stuff than it did on its own grounds thus bringing about the Arab Spring. Except that this also worked for the Muslim yearning for a re-founded Umma ( the material personification of Islam lands ) that the events of the early 20th century had shattered. Thus, in various places under various forms, democratic expression brought Muslim based governments in power although by nature these are not? The dichotomy fathered chaos in most cases.
And F- The discovery of shale oil and gas reserves in the US coupled to the greedy tendencies of unbridled capitalism made possible the exploitation of this resource to the dual cost of its future ecological balance and a re-centering of its policies. For the same anchor that now limits the unstable axis in Orient also raises problems in the West ( a.k.a. China’s Eastern seas ) … the West of the American G-P island that is?
What? Can you repeat that?
Having lessened its dependence to the Middle-East but heightened it to the Asian waking giant, America turns to the Pacific!
Of course, the Petro-monarchies have decades yet to fix their problems. But they now have to find different solutions. Obama’s disengagement based foreign policy is a respite before the next Presidents have to deal with the new deal? This period in history will most probably be remembered as the shift from the Arabian sands to the Chinese seas. Over the cadaver of Syria, the whole region will have morphed, especially as Iran resurges in timely fashion.
That explains the Saudi deal. Years ago, Iran in fact made a similar offer i.e. to finance a strong Lebanese army. Of course, it thus saw it possible to create a Shia state. But with Hizbollah busy in defence of Bachar’s regime, the Lebanese cedar is ripe for the taking? And since it was always more inclined to the West, Riyadh is making a wise investment. Angry with the soft tone of Washington over the new discussions to have teheran regain its place on the international scene, the Saudis can kill two birds with one stone : stabilizing Lebanon will contain Damascus and favor Paris without angering Washington as the arms are not for its own forces? It also thus acknowledges France’s tough stand on the Iranian nuclear deal? Win-win scenario, huh?
But, but, you will argue, did the French Army not just kick its al-Qaida progeny in Mali? To which I can only answer : Nope, not just : last year! ( 2013? ) … Which in diplomacy and politics is like eons ago. Besides, The pressing need is to make Lebanon safe and middle stream ( anything but Shiite ) again. As the overlord in Syria is to busy to counteract the move, now is the perfect time. It also links by the way to the Volvograd bombings which were likely carried out by Chechen extremists. The Saudi princes did warn Putin not to meddle so much in the Middle-East and trade support to Syria for deals with Riyadh. But nah, Vlad wanted a Nobel Peace prize.
( Good luck with that BTW! LMAO 😎 )
So that instead, they conveniently forgot not to check discreet private Western Union money transfers to Grozny, i.e. Chechen rebels ( pun intended )?
And if nothing else convinced you, the fact that Beyrouth allowed its forces to fire at Syrian planes as they ( so far customarily ) attacked retreating rebels in Lebanon a couple days ago confirms that the rules, they are a’ changing.
http://news.nationalpost.com/2013/12/30/syrian-conflict-spills-over-borders-as-lebanon-fires-on-assad-regime-jets-for-first-time-since-uprising/
So there you go. 3 billions well spent by Saudi Arabia will potentially make up for what Russia is trying to undo next door. What kind of weapons will that buy? Not necessarily flashy stuff! Most likely, troop transports, both ground and air versions, a few of those nifty highly maneuverable canons
and lots of added value troops equipments ( radios, body armor etc. ), maybe infrastructures ( bases, bunkers, radars ). In any case, you can rule out whatever could be re-used by the Hizbollah against say Israel or any other state? So no anti aircraft missiles or mines or that kind of things.
So winner : France and potentially Lebanon. Loser : Russia and potentially Iran. And somewhat the US for losing two old allies in a few months ( Egypt and S.A. ).
And last but not least, what next?
Well, in a nutshell, elections. 2016 USA and 2018 Russia? That will tell us more.
As for the Middle-East itself, may I recommend you check the news daily? Or this very blog for that matter?
Peace out and fingers crossed, Tay.
Sources :
http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/security/2013/12/france-saudi-relations-replace-washington-arms.html
http://www.presstv.com/detail/2013/11/12/334402/france-ruins-ntalks-for-saudi-arms-deal/
http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=61189
And as an additional funny source check the date here and click it for dubious link. The article is factually correct but insistence on the sole humanitarian cost is light. In the future, the lost confidence of Gulf Allies and unnecessary publicity awarded to Putin will have profound effects. The humanitarian failure is shared by the whole world and very much by the UN however. We do agree that the Obama administration gets non-passing grades on Foreign Policy though.
Definitive Lapse of Reason 