Adonis Diaries

The inevitable Northern Middle East strategic block

(Report #30); (October 21, 2009)

            There would be much turmoil within the next five years in the Greater Middle East.  There is this inevitable trend toward forming a strategic and economic bloc in the northern Middle East region of Turkey, Iran, Syria, and Iraq.   Turkey and Iran are the main regional powers with the means to drive this trend to fruition.  Saudi Arabia is in line to supporting this bloc which will secure to the monarchy a new lease on life and not relying exclusively on the US Administrations.

            To prevent this new emerging bloc many superpowers are in a frenzy to obstruct this natural trend in economic and financial stability.  For example, this week the south eastern region of Iran witnessed a terrorist attack that decapitated the military leadership of the paramilitary Pasdaran or Guardian of the Islamic Revolution.  Iran is blaming Pakistan to facilitating the movements of the Sunni “Jund Allah” with full backing and finance from Britain and the USA. Personally, I tend to see indirect coordination of the Iranian regime in that attack: decapitating the paramilitary organization is the first phase into disbanding an organization that is no longer the guardian of the revolution but the military backer of the retrograded clerics working on maintaining their hold on the political climate in Iran.

            Another example is the terrorist blasting of a couple of ministries in downtown Baghdad.  This attack followed the signing of full diplomatic relation with Syria at the instigation of the US and France.  In retaliation of Syria cozying up with Maliki of Iraq without Iran’s full consent a prompt response sent the appropriate signal; Maliki promptly broke diplomatic ties with Damascus under lame excuses.  Syria got the message clear and loud not to cooperate with France, the US, or any regional power without prior coordination with Iran.  Syria is not about to ruin its internal security for any baits extended to it by the Western powers.

            The Arab Emirates are under pressures to kick out all Islamic Chiaa immigrants, starting with the Lebanese.  Israel is constantly pressuring the US to get militarily involved in Iran. Turkey is in excellent terms with Syria and Iran: it has canceled an air exercise with Israel and the US that was intended to cross the borders of Syria, Turkey, and Iraq; it is an exercise for Israel to take this alternative air route to blast Iran’s nuclear power stations.  Lebanon is unable to form a government for 4 months; it is waiting for green light of the new strategic block that is now backed by Saudi Arabia.  The US, Israel, and Egypt are counter blocking any unity government in Lebanon.

            The trend toward forming a strategic and economic bloc in the northern Middle East region started in 1979 as the Islamic revolution in Iran came to power and the Shah went to exile (Only Sadate of Egypt accepted the Shah to take political refuge in its land). Thus, the first clue goes back to 1979.  Iran of Khomeini, Syria of Hafez Assad, and President Bakr of Iraq decided on a rapprochement of Islamic sects (Sunni and Chiaa).  Saddam Hussein was chief of security and Vice President of Bakr; Saddam hated the Chiaa as well as Hafez Assad his archenemy to the leadership of the Baath Party.  At the instigation of Saudi Arabia and the green light from the USA Saddam deposed Bakr and swiftly executed all the Iraqi Baath members who supported this entente; these prominent members of the Iraqi Baath were mostly Chiaa. At the time the Saudi Defense Minister Sultan and the Interior Nayef (Sultan’s cadet brother) hated the Chiaa and were worried for their obscurantist and salafist Wahhabit Sunni sect. Thus, Saddam and the Saudi monarchs joined forces to destabilize Iran of Khomeini.  Many regional States, the US, France, and Britain would not allow a strategic and economical block in the Middle East to be formed of Iran, Iraq, Turkey, and Syria. Thus, Saddam was encouraged to invade Iran. After two years, Saddam had to retreat his troops from Khuzestan.  Iran wanted this war of attrition to resume as an excuse to clean and re-structure its Islamic regime; (this nonsense war lasted 8 years).  

            The second clue is after invaded Kuwait in 1990.  Saddam’s regime was publicly terribly weakened; the Chiaa in southern Iraq and the Kurds in the north were threatening to destabilize Saddam’s regime.  The US wanted to help Saddam by any means to prevent Iran from taking hold of Iraq and joining forces with Syria (Iran’s ally).  The short-term strategy was to give Saddam an external activity or a semblance of war to re-unite Iraq on a national excuse.  To that effect, the US lured Kuwait to pressure Iraq into refunding 50 billions in war loan.  Saddam amassed his troops on the borders with Kuwait. The unstable Saddam wanted to believe that he got effective green light to conquer Kuwait. Bush Senior formed a coalition and forced Saddam to retreat from Kuwait. Saddam was defeated and the US and coalition forces could easily enter Baghdad. The purpose of this war was not to depose Saddam but for Iraq to be a buffer zone between Iran and Syria.  Saddam was permitted to crush the Chiaa insurgency in the south and the Kurdish upheaval in the north. Turkey strengthened its relationship with Syria and Iran. Syria was given bait for a mandate over Lebanon. Moubarak of Egypt was ordered to accept the deal and help put an end to the civil war in Lebanon. These hot regions needed to be pacified while the US and Europe tends to bigger problems: the proper dismantling of the Soviet Union, stabilizing Europe, and overseeing the financial globalization.

            The third clue is the massive occupation of Iraq by the US troops in 2003. (Read my post “Why the massive occupation of Iraq?”).  After 9/11/2001, the US demoted the Taliban regime in Afghanistan but did nothing to finish off the job and stabilize Afghanistan: the US Administration had other strategic plan than worrying about Sunni salafist Al Qaeda “terrorism”: it was contained in northern Pakistan.         

            At the time of the invasion there was no nuclear program in Iraq and the Bush Junior Administration knew that fact.  Iraq had resumed the development of two other means of mass destruction: the biological and the chemical arms. Saddam Hussein prevented any further inspections by the UN for two years because he had these two arms programs functional.  Thus, the US employed Russia and France to misinform Saddam: Russia would displace and decontaminate the presence of the biological and chemical arms that it had supplied Iraq in return for vetoing any pre-emptive attack by the US in the UN.  This maneuver was effective and the inspectors found no arms of mass destructions in Iraq. It was when the US was totally confident that Saddam had no arms of mass destructions that it invaded Iraq; Saddam had nothing to counter the massive offensive of the US forces, especially that the officers in the field of the Iraqi army had no power but to wait orders from central commands:  that was how Saddam restructured his army since 1980 to prevent any army rebellion to his regime.

            Why the US had to completely occupy Iraq?  Saddam could have been deposed in many ways without any military invasion or at least a partial occupation of south Iraq with Chiaa majority and the north with Kurdish majority. Why the US did not invest one more year in Afghanistan to stabilize this country before turning on to Iraq?  Why the US failed to get out after Saddam his entourage were finished?  Why this occupying force is still there after seven years of the invasion?  The US wanted its physical presence in Iraq to prevent the formation of the Northern Middle East Block. Turkey was against this invasion and did its best to prevent the US troops crossing its territory to northern Iraq.  Syria and Iran played cats and mouse with the US to harass its presence in Iraq.

            Thus, deposing Saddam without US military presence in the field meant that Iraq will quickly link with Iran; the other bonus was to control oil production and distribution of the second largest oil reserve to put the squeeze on the giant economic power of China. This “pre-emptive” intervention didn’t turn right: first, radical Islam increased and proliferated even further; second, it was the catalyst for the severest financial crash ever, and it alienated Turkey. 

            What are the scores at this junction?  The Saudi Arabia click of (Sultan, Nayef, and Bandar) is deposed and Saudi Arabia is seeking stronger ties with Syria.  Turkey is increasingly improving its ties with Syria and de-linking with its former “strategic” ally Israel. Iran is recapturing its initial strategy of uniting the Islamic sects.  Pakistan will cooperate fully with Iran to stabilize Afghanistan and save the unstable State of Pakistan deeply involved militarily to crush the Taliban brand in northern Pakistan. Thus, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and Armenia are changing their policies to join this bloc as allies if not partners.

            The trend is already inevitable and it cannot be stopped with the world economy and finance state in such disarray.  It is the movement of political leadership in the four States that is the driving force and not simply individual leaders. By the end of 2011 the US is to remove all its military troops from Iraq. During this period, the US, Russia, France, and Britain will coordinate efforts to keeping Turkey and Iran on tip tow; Syria and Iraq are to be frequently destabilized.