The Middle East has always been characterized by tensions because of cultural, historical and religious differences. Due to its oil-richness and its strategic position, the path to stability in the region has been facing several obstacles since the end of World War I. That said, it is necessary to have an overview of the world’s superpowers’ involvement in this crossroad to try to predict what lies ahead.
The seasoned player: Russia’s path to the sea though the Syrian conflict
It’s no secret that Russia wanted to rule over piece of land which could grant it an opening towards the southern seas since the XVIII century. Mutatis mutandis, the Soviet Union, until its collapse, never abandoned this project: it financed and armed the Iraqi and Syrian dictators, Saddam Hussein (especially after the Iranian revolution, 1979) and Bashar al-Assad. The latter is still nowadays a close friend and ally of the Russian President, Vladimir Putin, from whom the regime received weapons and military support for the Syrian civil war, sometimes even with the help of Iran when targeting ISIS (BBC, 2016).
Nonetheless, there are also other regional powers, such as Israel and Turkey, which are fighting to gain influence in the chaos of Syria (the war broke out ten years ago, in 2011). Israel has been bombing rebels on the southern border, ISIS had entered the East coming from the ruins of Iraq, just to be pushed back and destroyed by the USA and the Kurds. The Kurds took control of the North-East, but in 2019 Turkey crossed the border, invading northern Syria to create a “safe zone”, entering conflict with the Kurds. In this “mess”, some rebels are backed by USA and Turkey, while the central government of al-Assad is backed both by Russia and Iran.
However, to sum it up, there is enough evidence that, in Putin’s view, the Middle East represents the best opportunity to expand Russia’s influence in the Eastern Mediterranean and gain access to the Persian Gulf’s politics (ISPI, 2019).
The USA: backing Saudi Arabia for oil
The USA has held the balance of power in the region for a long time, notably since the discovery of great oil reserves in Saudi Arabia (1938): in exchange for control over the black gold, the USA granted weapons and military support to the Saudis.
In the previous decades the USA engaged in wars in Kuwait, Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria, in order to protect their interests and to fight terrorism. It did so also by arming the Saudis, especially after the Iranian revolution, fearing its export in other Muslim countries (CIA, 1980). In particular, USA arms exports to Saudi Arabia skyrocketed under the Trump administration (SIPRI, 2021).
The Saudis keep on using American weapons and bombs, so that the Middle East has become a bloody battlefield where Saudis and Iranians fight each other only in proxy wars. These proxy wars are still in progress and include the conflicts in Yemen (since 2014), Iraq (since 2004) and Syria (since 2011).
Therefore, one of the main problems the Biden administration must face is the relationship between the democracy of the USA and the Saudi Arabian absolute monarchy, apart from a rebalancing of the presence of the USA in the region.
Regarding these challenges, the Biden administration recently released an intelligence report provided by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence in which it is assessed that “Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman approved an operation in Istanbul, Turkey to capture or kill Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi” (ODNI, 2021). The Khashoggi case put the Crown Prince, the de facto leader of his country, in bad light: how can such enriched country be a developing, progressive and safe place for western people, when an uncomfortable journalist is killed in the country’s embassy, his corpse cut in pieces and burnt to ashes?
Secondly, another great problem that affects the USA’s reputation at the moment is the use in Yemen of American bombs, weapons and arms by the Saudi government against civilians and insurgents (previously designated as terrorists by the Trump administration) who are backed by Iran.
The Biden administration disclosed the intelligence report (withheld by former President Trump for two years), but it did not issue any sanctions on the Crown Prince: no strong action was taken (yet?). President Biden stated that the USA would reassess its relationship with Saudi Arabia, also banning the sale of offensive weapons, so that the war in Yemen can end. But will it be enough?
Iran: the nuclear threat that looks at China
As previously said, Saudi Arabia (Sunni Muslims) and Iran (Shia Muslims) always fought only proxy wars, never declaring war on each other. In recent times, the USA retaliated with air strikes against some Iranian-backed attacks in Syria, so that an escalation is far from unlikely.
Moreover, it must be taken into account that since 1981 Iran started threatening the USA and its regional allies by developing a nuclear program aimed at developing mass destruction bombs. The nuclear program was initially kept secret and exposed only in 2002 and it has become a crucial part of the Middle East politics.
The Obama administration pushed for the Iranian nuclear deal (2015), which would limit Iran’s capacity to enrich Uranium in order to avoid its use for a nuclear bomb development. In 2018, however, Trump pulled the USA out of the agreement, so that Iran started over to enrich Uranium, even recently (BBC, 2021).
Given the sanctions, the country is today facing hard sanctions due to its withdrawal from the nuclear deal, which was a consequence of the Trump administration’s withdrawal from the same treaty. At the moment, however, neither Iran nor the USA seems interested in doing the first move to resume a discussion (ALJAZEERA, 2021)
The solution to Iran’s economic problems seems to come from the East: China is on the way to help Teheran. (FT, 2021). A freshly-signed deal includes cooperation between China and Iran for twenty-five years in fields such as nuclear power, military and energy. Obviously, the deal is part of the Chinese Belt Road Initiative, but it shows that Iran can no longer be tamed with Western economic leverage, as long as China remains an economic giant. After all, both China and Iran are subject to US sanctions and both think the same way: the enemy of my enemy is my friend.
Bibliography
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BBC. (2016, August 16). BBC News. Retrieved from bbc.com: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-37093854
BBC. (2021, February 11). BBC News. Retrieved from bbc.com: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-56023792
CIA. (1980, March). Central Intelligence Agency. Retrieved from cia.gov: https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP81B00401R000500100001-8.pdf
FT. (2021, March 27). Financial Times. Retrieved from ft.com: https://www.ft.com/content/24393899-909e-4b3f-9e18-06a6951d639d
ISPI. (2019, April). Ispi. Retrieved from Ispionline.it: https://www.ispionline.it/sites/default/files/pubblicazioni/joint-policy-study_12_the-role-of-russia-in-the-mena-region.pdf
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SIPRI. (2021). Sipri. Retrieved from sipri.org: https://armstrade.sipri.org/armstrade/html/export_values.php
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