West Asia's changing contours

Harsh Pant, King’s College, London (from eurasiareview):

Important developments are reshaping the contours of West Asia. After around three years of conflict in Syria, the United States, Russia and the United Nations are scrambling to bring the two warring sides to the negotiating table in Geneva before the end of the year. But both the political opposition and its armed forces have outlined preconditions for talks.

A number of gains made by the Syrian government in the Damascus suburbs and mounting pressure on rebels in the northern part of the country are complicating Western efforts to persuade the opposition to attend planned peace talks…

That Obama has had no policy on Syria was evident from his flip-flops, as the crisis came to a point of no return. For more than two years, he had insisted that Assad must go, but took few steps to hasten that departure. During this time, millions of people have been displaced from their homes, al-Qaeda has found a safe haven in the country and violence has spread to neighboring Lebanon and Iraq, with Israel, Jordan and Turkey also at risk.

There has been an extraordinary failure of leadership by the US President. While deciding on intervention in a fateful West Asian war, he chose the minimalist option, most likely to fail.

Days after being on the verge of sending US missiles into Syria to punish Assad for using chemical weapons, Obama decided to go to the Congress to authorize this mission in advance. As it started to become clear that Congress would not give its approval for the attack on Syria, Obama started to have a rethink. Finally, the President was offered a lifeline by the very regime he was planning to attack, when Assad agreed to a Russian plan to surrender chemical weapons.

As a result, Obama then decided to pursue diplomatic efforts to force the Syrian President to turn over control of his chemical weapons to an international body, and eventually to see them destroyed… It has been a muddle all around for Washington.

As a result of Obama’s Syria policy, America’s position as the region’s predominant power has come under threat with regional players weighing their options and other powers asserting themselves in ways that are unprecedented.
Saudi Arabia remains disturbed by the US-Russian diplomatic initiative on Syria’s chemical weapons and has called for increasing support to the Syrian opposition. Riyadh suspects that the Syrian regime would take advantage of the initiative to change the balance of power in the ground in its favor.

The possible US-Iran rapprochement has also increased anxiety in the Arab (Persian) Gulf states… Turkey has signed a $4 billion deal for a FD-2000 missile defense system from China Precision Machinery Import and Export Corp, a company that is under US sanctions for dealings with Iran, North Korea and Syria. Though Ankara has signaled that it might back away from the deal after strong opposition was expressed by Washington and NATO, it underlines a changing reality in West Asia insofar as the emergence of new powers such as Russia and China is concerned.

The regional configuration is changing rapidly in the West Asian region as the US forces have left Iraq and with the fall of some of major US allies in the Arab Spring uprisings (Islamic Awakening movements).

At the same time, Russia has asserted its so far limited regional presence by standing steadfastly with its only remaining Arab ally. The passing of the Security Council resolution requiring Syria to surrender its chemical weapons arsenal was a huge achievement for Russia. Moscow is also trying to reach out to states like Iraq and Egypt to win new friends in the region. The new Egyptian government has reached out to Moscow already and the Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has been to Russia twice over the last year in order to sign a $4 billion defense pact. The Arab states remain deeply suspicious of Russian motives and view with concern Russian maneuverings to entrench itself at the expense of the US.

The US interest in West Asia is declining as domestic economic and political uncertainties make it look more and more inwards. Moreover, the US energy profile is changing rapidly.