Islam, Islamism, Conflict & Terrorism (a collection)

[Azor]

Sir John Jenkins, a retired Uk diplomat, has a wide ranging overview of the Middle East; sub-titled:Link:https://www.newstatesman.com/world/m...me-middle-east

In response...

It is also true that the latest Kurdish disaster in Iraq is far more consequential than previous ones. This is not simply about the Kurdistan regional government: it is about the Middle East as a whole. The failure of the Kurdish referendum project has given Iran in particular an opportunity to weaken the one part of Iraq that has consistently been pro-Western and open for business. And it has given Iran the ability to shape Kurdish politics not just inside Iraq but also in Syria, where the Western-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which have led the ground assault against Islamic State, will have drawn lessons from President Barzani’s apparent abandonment by the US and the UK – and inside Iran itself. The Kurdish failure gives Iran leverage inside Turkey, through the links it has cultivated with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party. And it has strengthened some of the key sectarian militias inside Iraq. It has shown Turkey that the US will not stand with the Kurds if it has bigger interests at stake, a lesson that Turkey will apply in north-western Syria, where it is seeking to make an extension of Kurdish control impossible.

Thus far, Iraq has merely returned the situation to the pre-2014 status quo, which was not unfavorable to the Kurds. The Kurdistan Regional Government has been “pro-Western and open for business” because it has been a U.S. client or protectorate for over a generation: specifically since 1991. The same is hardly true of the Turkish and Syrian Kurds, who are mainly under the control of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party and its Syrian branch, the Democratic Union Party.

Unfortunately, Jenkins makes the grave error of conflating Iraqi and Syrian Kurds, the KDP and the PKK, and the Peshmerga and the YPG. Barzani attempted a fait accompli despite Western warnings, and despite the fact that the West was not about to allow Iraqi Kurdistan to be overrun by Iraqi Shia militias and subjugated into a unitary Shia-dominated state. Iraqi Kurdish frustration with the status quo was understandable, but so too should have been the necessity of continuity. Unless the U.S. was planning on expelling Turkey from NATO and championing Kurdish independence against opposition from Iran, Turkey, Iraq and Syria (which are united on that particular issue), any unilateral declaration of independence was sheer folly.

…but they [the Saudis] are no nearer a conclusion to the war in Yemen, where the Houthis remain defiant and Iran can keep its modest but still significant military supply lines open.

As CrowBat and others have noted, the Iranian “military supply lines” to the Houthi/pro-Saleh forces in Yemen are very “modest” indeed. Houthi successes have more to do with former president Saleh’s support than Iran’s.

…it is inconceivable that Riyadh, whatever discussions may have taken place in private, will be able to rush Israel into launching a war against Hezbollah in or outside Lebanon, or against Iranian forces inside Syria. Egypt is characteristically reluctant to get involved. And in any case, Israel is the only actor with the ability to take them on in any serious way, for reasons of geography, capability and competence. Although Israel constantly plans for the next conflict and is determined that Iran will not threaten its borders, it is unlikely that Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu wants war now, any more than Hezbollah or Iran does. They all have other priorities and may not have decided yet whether it would make sense to fight each other directly at any point in the short to medium term.

Jenkins seems to ignore the fact that aside from the perception that Iran is now more influential in Iraq, Lebanon, and Syria now, than it was in 2011, Iran has had to marshal all of its resources in order to preserve Assad’s rule in perhaps one-third of Syria. Not only are the IRGC and foreign Shia militias occupied in Syria or Iraq (~35,000 of them), but Syria’s once-formidable air defenses (at least 4X more capable than Iran’s) have been neutralized by the war, and no longer provide any protection from or early-warning of an airstrike on its nuclear facilities, ostensibly by Israel. In addition, Syria’s arsenal of tanks and artillery are now denied to Iran in the event of conflict with Israel. Iran’s nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs aside, Israel is less threatened by Iran’s allies or auxiliaries than ever before, and Lebanese Hezbollah is in no position to pummel northern Israel as it did in 2006.