The Arab Spring “democratic revolutions” swept out the regimes that were resisting Iran’s bid for spiritual hegemony and ended up giving way to Iran’s greater influence in the region. Today, Tehran’s anti-Western, anti-American, and especially anti-Israeli rhetoric, maintained in the background of the extensive Islamization of Arab countries, will strengthen Iran’s position in the Greater Middle East. At the same time, it should be noted that the eastward spiritual expansion—toward Afghanistan and Pakistan—may hardly be reckoned by Iran as a promising one. There has been no direct evidence indicating Iran’s support to the Taliban during the last thirty years, particularly while Afghans were fighting against the Soviet invasion and currently with NATO. Such a position by Tehran can be explained by some geopolitical implications, particularly Iran’s reluctance to enter into conflict with China and India, which will be inevitable if Iran tries to activate pan-Islamic ideas near the borders of the great powers. (Although Pakistan employs the religious factor in its regional policy, too, it appears to be a supportive instrument in Islamabad’s half-century quarrel against India over the Kashmir province.)
The Middle East, however, is another story. Iran seems to be lacking competition here in terms of advancing its influence and projecting geopolitical maneuvers. Moreover, the circumstances stated below are also playing into Iran’s hands:
- Arabs have no experience in using a national idea as a means for consolidation, and
- Persian Gulf monarchies and, most of all, Saudi Arabia will hardly be able to claim leadership of the Arab world due to their pro-Western political orientation.
Indeed, for the last six decades, these monarchies were protecting economic and geopolitical interests of the Western powers rather than that of Arabs, whereas the anti-Israeli rhetoric of Iran has struck a chord with the majority of the population in Arab countries.
The question then arises, is it possible that such predictable consequences of the Arab Spring were not calculated in advance? This is practically ruled out! However, this seemingly superficial answer generates another more difficult question, namely, why have the organizers of the Arab Spring—aimed at splitting the Islamic world and weakening Iran’s influence on it—gotten the diametrically opposite result? Here we enter the domain of the forecasts that in our opinion perfectly match the logic of regional as well as global politics.
Iran vs. Egypt or Iran with Egypt?
While there is little doubt that Iran will lead the anti-Western camp of the dividing Islamic world, the possible leader of the opposite (pro-Western) camp may hardly be identified with the same confidence. Until recently, Egypt was recognized as potentially the most appropriate country for this role. In contrast to Saudi Arabia, Egypt has both the aspiration and capability to lead the Arabs’ consolidation process based on the revival of the all-Arabian national idea. The revolution in this country has just temporarily slowed the strengthening of Cairo’s regional position. However, the Egyptian uprising by no means made the idea unpromising or its implementation undesirable. In other words, Egypt has not given up its claim to regional leadership and will hardy do so in the foreseeable future, which is crystal clear to the Iranian political elite.
The struggle between Iran and Egypt for dominance in the Islamic world dates back to 1979 and continues today, despite gestures of goodwill from both sides. (These gestures are represented in particular by Cairo’s permission to Iranian warships to pass through the Suez Canal and the visit of 50 Egyptian social, cultural, and religious figures to Tehran.)[11] All these happened after the deposing of Hosni Mubarak, which shows that Egypt continues to be perceived in Iran as potentially the most influential regional force. Iranians rightly suppose that the future balance of forces in the Greater Middle East will be determined mainly by their relations with Egypt. However, their general concern is whether Egypt will remain in the West’s orbit of geopolitical influence or…? It cannot be ruled out that Cairo may come to terms with Tehran, which would result in Egypt turning its back on the West, rejecting the latter’s economic aid and getting Iran’s approval (and possibly support) to take the energy resources of the southern shore of the Persian Gulf under its direct control. In addition to crushing the established geopolitical schemes in the region, such a deal would literally destroy the Gulf monarchies.
One may fairly argue that such an agreement between Tehran and Cairo is unrealistic. Even if the agreement were achieved, the logic of regional geopolitics dictates that it would not herald any durable union between the two countries. However, we should not underestimate the probability of this scenario. Cairo has clearly identified those who prominently wish it ill and will hardly forgive the numerous oil-rich kings, emirs, and sheikhs who financed Egyptian, Tunisian, Libyan, and Syrian uprisings. Above all, in post-Mubarak Egypt, rapprochement with Iran may well be considered a powerful trump card, over Riyadh first of all and also others for whom the idea of an Iranian-Egyptian union is equal to catastrophe.
Saudi rulers currently understand that by weakening Egypt, they have just played into the hands of Iran (perhaps even against their will) and have won nothing in return. By virtue of the factors noted earlier, they have found themselves unable to lead the process of all-Arabian consolidation and thus have gotten uncompromising enemies in Egypt and Syria. Moreover, the Arab revolutions have prepared a fertile ground for another regional power to renew its claims to once-held leadership in the Islamic world.
Turkey
Recapturing the leadership in the Islamic world has been the goal of the entirety of Turkish foreign policy in the last three years. We covered this issue several months ago (see Suren Grigoryan, Dr. Vardan Grigoryan, “The Neo-Turkish Gambit,” Foreign Policy Journal, October 26, 2011)[12] and here just want to emphasize the most important aspects of Turkish foreign policy. In particular, these are:
- Strengthening anti-Western rhetoric in Turkish mass media and among Turkish officials, which is due at first glance to the issue of Turkey’s membership in the European Union but has, in fact, deeper roots;
- Dramatic deterioration of Turkey’s relations with Israel; the previous mutual understanding of and cooperative approach toward major regional issues has been superseded by deepening confrontation that is reaching animosity;
- Crushing of the army’s leadership, which traditionally stood as a guarantor of the secular principles of this state;
- Political and material assistance to the Islamic movements in the Arab countries;
- Rapprochement with Iran upon a set of regional problems and even readiness to undertake the mediator role between Tehran and the West in solving the Iranian nuclear issue.
All these points indicate Turkey’s aspiration to participate in the already-commenced re-division of the Greater Middle East and to find a new geopolitical niche. However, on the way to realizing its ambitions, Turkey will inevitably clash head-on with Iran and Egypt equally. Earlier in this work, we argued that there is a plan to split up the Islamic world into at least two antagonistic camps. However, Turkey’s renewed bid for regional leadership indicates that the Middle Eastern geopolitics will be dominated soon by three competing power centers.
Will this competition escalate to conflict, and the conflict to immediate military action between the competitors? This is quite possible. It is worth remembering that history witnessed such a precedent merely three decades ago when a similar struggle for geopolitical domination in the region between Iran and Iraq escalated into a large-scale war. Both parties of the conflict then spent the considerable part of their exchange reserves, lost roughly a half-million people each, and were compelled to abandon their geopolitical ambitions for a long time. If a similar collision starts today, the situation will be the same: numerous human losses and tremendous financial expenditures, and, again, none of them will become a regional (let alone Islamic) leader.
Israel
The only state that may find itself in a winning position in this situation is Israel, whose most dangerous opponents will weaken each other. Even though Ankara, Cairo, and Tehran refrain from the application of force against each other, the immanent tension between them—manifested mainly by blocking each other’s political initiatives in the region—will sideline Israeli issue from the top priorities of their geopolitical agendas.
However, Israel can still damage its promising position by an inexpedient military strike on Iran’s nuclear installations in hope of pulling the Western powers into the war such an action would unleash. But the persistence with which President Barack Obama has been trying to convince the leader of the Jewish state to back away from such a move indicates that the West is reluctant to sacrifice its own interests for Israel’s.
As for the Arab uprisings, Israel’s position in this regard is quite cautious. During all of 2011, Jerusalem officially refrained from sounding its opinion on the Arab revolutions. This was apparently due to the thorough understanding of the destructive consequences the process might entail. As the destabilization of Egypt has strengthened Iran, the fall of the ruling regime in Syria will bring about political chaos near Israel’s borders. Moreover, it may strengthen Turkey’s influence over Syria and even result in a Turkish military presence in that country—maintained certainly under the pretext of struggling against “Kurdish separatists.”
The Kurdish Issue
This is perhaps the most important and acute problem of the contemporary Middle East. Kurds are indigenous people in these areas (in contrast to Turks, for example) and live compactly in Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Turkey, where their population reaches twenty million. The Kurds’ claims for (at least) autonomy remain unanswered in all these countries except perhaps in Iraq, where a sort of “semi-official” autonomy was received as a result of external (particularly Western) pressure on destroyed Baghdad. It is worth mentioning, however, that Iraq’s Kurds are in fact beyond Baghdad’s control. It is perhaps for this reason that Iraqi authorities have no objection to frequent Turkish military intrusions into Iraq’s territory when pursuing Kurdish fighters.
