Tag Archive for: Middle East

What’s next for Islamic State?

With the cities of Hawija and Raqqa now under Iraqi government and Syrian Democratic Forces control, the military defeat of Islamic State looks imminent. Six and half million people have been liberated and 80% of the group’s territorial holdings have been reclaimed. What’s left of the self-proclaimed caliphate has been squeezed into a narrow corridor along the Middle Euphrates River Valley between the towns of Al Mayadin in Syria and Al Qaim on the Syria–Iraq border.

Few in the US led coalition are prepared to predict how long this final phase will last, but competition between the three coalition forces fighting IS has increased in recent months. While the demise of Islamic State is universally welcomed, the political backdrop to victory leaves many concerned that IS will simply revert to its regional insurgency origins, seeking to further export its brand of radicalism to other international hotspots where opportunities present.

Like the battle for Mosul, the fight for Raqqa was desperate. By Tuesday, as the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces took control of the L9 traffic circle in the center of the city (where IS had conducted most of its brutal public executions), around 400 fighters had surrendered. Until a week ago, very few IS fighters in Raqqa had surrendered. The handful that had given up were suffering the effects of sustained amphetamine abuse in an effort to remain in the fight as long as possible. Much of the city, like Mosul, had been rigged with improvised explosive devices designed to target civilians as much as Syrian Democratic Forces clearing the city.

What’s left of the IS leadership group is now effectively isolated. Despite multiple reports of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s death, US coalition commanders continue to say that he’s most likely still alive and in deep hiding somewhere in Middle Euphrates River area. Killing or capturing him will remain a high priority for coalition forces on all sides, since his existence provides IS with a figurative and literal raison d’être for continuing the struggle.

Since late 2016, the overwhelming preoccupation of the IS leadership has been survival. As pressure in Iraq and Syria mounted, the leadership group took measures to hide itself among the population while forcing its rank and file to stay in the heartland and fight to the death. Along with an intent to maximise the destruction of what was left of civil society in the area it occupied, IS’s plan since the fall of Mosul has been to preserve a core group of true believers that can reconstitute the IS brand. By the end of the Iraq troop surge in 2007, the forerunner to IS, al-Qaeda in Iraq, was reduced to well below 200 members, and there’s a belief that, like in Iraq in 2007, a post-conflict rebirth will be possible.

While the group will no doubt seek to compensate for its defeat in coming months with a renewed effort to conduct terrorist-style attacks locally and abroad, the removal of its proto-state position is an important milestone. No longer able to draw on revenue streams from oil sales and tax collection, the group will be constrained in its ability to facilitate terrorism or fund struggles in North Africa and Central and Southeast Asia on the scale it once did.

Its physical defeat is also important for the survival of regional governments. As a stateless terror organisation, IS and groups like it are less of an existential danger to traditional Westphalian states. Terrorism is a threat to the safety of people and societal norms within the state, not the existence of the state itself. But limiting the threat of terrorism will be a challenge for regional governments as they grapple with the growing complexity surrounding more traditional drivers of geostrategic competition across the Middle East and Central Asia.

The US has been able to keep the loose alliance to defeat IS together until now, but the underlying disputes haven’t been resolved. The conditions look ominous. The growing competition between Kurdish forces in both Syria and Iraq and the tensions between the US, Iran and Russia could prove too great a catalyst for further conflict than is possible to contain. If that were to unfold, then whatever is left of IS following its military defeat will be anticipating a return in some shape or form faster than any government had expected or hoped for.

Talking to the chiefs: David Johnston (part 2)

For the ADF, the goal of carrying out truly ‘joint’ operations must embrace not just the army, navy and air force, but also key non-military agencies and allied forces.

The head of the ADF’s Joint Operations Command, Vice Admiral David Johnston, tells The Strategist that in the past the Australian forces were at times more accomplished at working with allied military forces than with their own government agencies. ‘That’s been a key observation for us’, Johnston says. ‘As comfortable as we are in the Middle East with all the coalitions, we had to be as comfortable working with our own agencies back in Australia.’

Johnston says that for a country the size of Australia, coalition operations come very naturally.

‘In many scenarios we know we will have to work with other partners and we need to be ready. It’s part of our DNA, a very embedded part of the way we think and work. Our communications systems, this headquarters and our placement of people around the world reinforce that function powerfully for us.’

It’s always been important for the services to work together and they’d always done that to varying degrees, says Johnston. Campaigns now don’t involve just the military, he says, and departments and organisations such as DFAT, the AFP and intelligence agencies are represented at the Joint Operations Command headquarters, or HQJOC, near Bungendore. ‘We’ve evolved to knowing whole of government’s important. We’ve got to have DFAT officials or AFP officers with security clearances to get in here. They’ve got to learn our language so that we’re able to communicate and understand each other.’

Johnston says a great strength of HQJOC is its links to the military headquarters of friendly nations. It has liaison officers embedded in US Central Command in Florida, which leads US operations in the Middle East, and Pacific Command in Hawaii. ‘On a daily basis we communicate with various elements of these headquarters on what they might be doing and what we might be doing in the region.’

Because the ADF doesn’t have the massive scale of the US forces, each ADF service on operations has to work closely with the others. ‘Our navy doesn’t have its own protective screen of aircraft as the US Navy does, so our air force has to be involved. In terms of amphibious forces, the navy doesn’t have marines so it works with the army. We knew that was the case for the tactical forces, but we needed to be sure the operating headquarters which sat over them was equally joint’, he says.

‘We’ve tried to ensure we have an integrated headquarters that can employ the breadth of ADF capabilities in a very cohesive manner.’ With some ‘growing pains’, the navy, army and air force were given the confidence to hand over the personnel they’d trained to another commander to employ.

‘They need to be sure we can employ their people well within the boundaries of their training and certification and demonstrate at the strategic level that we are competent at delivering the military oversight and planning of operations that’s required.’

Emerging capabilities have brought new challenges, and the commissioning of the navy’s two giant landing ships is a good example of how HQJOC has had to evolve to mount an amphibious capability and deploy it, says Johnston.

The whole, he says, has proven to be much stronger than the sum of the individual services. That applies, too, to the use of cyber capabilities alongside more traditional weapons such as bombs. ‘Changing capabilities that may threaten us, or which we might employ, mean the headquarters needs to change the way we work.’

To better prepare and certify the ADF for joint operations, Johnston has been appointed its ‘joint collective training authority’ responsible for ensuring that units from different services can work effectively together.

This afternoon he’ll be leading a comprehensive ‘after-action review’ of a domestic counter-terrorism training exercise.  ‘After every operation or exercise, we pull it apart to see if we could have done better’, he says. ‘We review our operations in the Middle East with the same focus.’

HQJOC is a very robust learning environment. Exercises like Talisman Sabre are massive dress rehearsals for the real thing and put great pressure on JOC personnel whose goal is to make them as lifelike as possible. ‘It’s easy to forget that you’re in a scenario because you get very consumed by the demands of what we’re facing and how we’re going to work our way through it’, Johnston says. ‘Everyone knows it’s not real, but it feels pretty real when you’re trying to keep track of all the elements we bring to a complex scenario.’

An actual operation can begin at any moment. Choreographed by the headquarters, it will start with the gathering of intelligence and surveillance of an area. That might involve intelligence agencies and manned and unmanned aircraft, such as the P8 Poseidon or the Global Hawk, and lead up to deployment of a force.

When Fiji was hit by a cyclone, RAAF Orion patrol aircraft were sent to survey the damage so assessments could be made of where help was most needed. RAAF C-17 transport aircraft brought urgent supplies and carried army helicopters to distribute the relief material and an army HQ to coordinate. One of the navy’s two massive landing ships followed up.

The sort of urgent planning that went into Operation Fiji Assist could be applied to a military operation. ‘The environment might be different and the outcome could be different, but the approach is consistent whether you’re doing a humanitarian activity or one that’s more combat oriented’, says Johnston.

He notes that in the Gulf War of 1990–91, the ADF went into an environment of great uncertainty and threat. ‘We’ve been in different theatres ever since then and we’ve been learning all the way.’ That includes Iraq and Afghanistan and regional operations.

The level of activity at the moment is as high as Johnston has ever seen it. ‘We have a very demanding Middle East environment and an uncertain region in which we’re operating, which means our span is particularly large.’

A good example of the ADF’s ability to operate independently is the self-contained air task group fighting the Islamic State terror group in Iraq. The RAAF force includes Hornet or Super Hornet strike jets, a tanker to refuel them and a Wedgetail command-and-control aircraft to coordinate operations, along with ground crews to maintain and arm them.

‘But as important is how we got it there’, says Johnston. ‘In the past we couldn’t have gone without somebody helping. In 2014 we used our own C-17s, our tankers did the in-flight refuelling, we had our own search and rescue watch coverage over them as they moved. Now we’ve got the national resources to do it without having to go to others. We can do it faster and in a self-contained manner. Militarily, that gives Australia and its government many options and increases self-reliance.’

ASPI suggests

The world

Saudi women can finally drive. However, on a day that should have been celebratory for feminists driving the campaign (pun intended), the government silenced their voices by demanding that they not  comment on or discuss the announcement. BBC Monitoring provides a good explainer on the rationale behind the driving ban. An insightful Q&A with Hala al-Dosari, a Saudi scholar based in the US, argues that the fight is far from over.

Autonomous communities in the Middle East and Europe fighting for independence referendums met stiff opposition from central governments this week. Iraqi Kurds, who voted overwhelmingly in favour of independence (92%), were subjected to harsh responses from Baghdad. All international flights to the Kurdish capital Erbil were cancelled in an attempt to pressure Kurdish authorities to void the result. From Brookings, here’s a comprehensive recent history of Kurdish political division and unity.

Meanwhile, in Spain, Catalonians preparing to hold their independence referendum on 1 October met resistance from Madrid, leading to the seizing of ballot papers, arrests, and threatening of electoral officials. Here’s a full breakdown of the facts, as well as a longer read with more context on the longstanding feud.

Two recent pieces discuss two separate responsibilities of the US president. First, it’s up to President Trump to authorise the declassification and release of more than 3,000 sub rosa documents related to JFK’s assassination. He can decline to do so if he deems them harmful to intelligence or security interests of the nation.

Second, and a lot more ominous, is that the president gets to decide whether the US enters into nuclear war. Should trusted generals have the power to restrain an unreliable president? This piece argues that the US has a ‘Dr Strangelove in reverse’ problem. The author unequivocally argues that the only person with a mandate to make that decision is the president.

Finally on the nuclear theme, this analysis meticulously spells out the horrifying consequences of an explosion of a single terrorist-deployed nuclear bomb on a major city.

White House advisers are apparently struggling to distinguish between the personal and the professional. Six advisers, including Jared Kushner, failed to disclose their use of personal email accounts to conduct official state business. Hillary Clinton—not a stranger to the issue—has added her two cents.

To Europe now, and you might like this review of six new books that highlight the many arguments for a new pan-European political project to help solve the many crises plaguing the region.

One of those crises—the rise of far-right populism—shows no sign of relenting, as discussed in two interesting analyses of support for Germany’s Alternative für Deutschland (AfD). The first looks at how a sophisticated Twitter campaign of organised trolls weaponised internet culture to generate a ‘patriotic revolution’. The second focuses on party fractures and the state of German politics.

Transport for London’s decision not to renew Uber’s licence sparked furious debates about disruptive technologies and the challenges they pose to political institutions. This long read is a powerful account of the arguments and incidents leading up to the decision last week.

On the flip side, fashion retailer Burberry demonstrates how the private sector’s strategy to implement big data and artificial intelligence (AI) is boosting sales and customer satisfaction.

Tech geek of the week, by Malcolm Davis

This week was a big one for Australia in Space, with Adelaide hosting the International Astronautical Congress, the world’s premier annual space policy and astronautics conference. Delegates enjoyed five days of back-to-back all things space, ranging from details on the exploration of Mars and the Moon, through to hypersonics, solar sailing and even SETI (‘search for extra-terrestrial intelligence’).

The highlight of the conference was a presentation by SpaceX’s Elon Musk on plans for an interplanetary transportation system and how it will allow us to colonise Mars. Blue Origin, the principal competitor to SpaceX, previewed its New Glenn reusable rocket and promoted its goal of achieving millions of people living and working in space.

In other news, the US Defense Advanced Research Project Agency is funding tests of the UK’s SABRE hypersonic engine. SABRE stands for ‘synergetic air breathing rocket engine’ and is probably one of the most elegant solutions towards achieving flight beyond Mach 5 for air vehicles.

Getting back down to earth—or more accurately the sea—check out some amazing concepts for future submarines, from the Royal Navy no less. They are clearly mixing their Pimm’s with something amazing!

Podcasts

Matters of debate: sex robots—yes or no? Kate Devlin at Wired discusses possible questions and potentially sinister consequences for this controversial use of AI.

Blogs of War interviews the Australian Army’s Colonel Ian Langford. This fascinating discussion covers the use of Australia’s Special Operations Forces and how that might be changed by the evolving nature of the security and defence environment.

Videos

The Lowy Institute’s Media Award dinner hosted New York Times columnist Bret Stephens, who delivered a keynote speech addressing the ‘dying art of disagreement’.

This powerful report from the BBC tells the stories of the 15 people who lived on the 21st floor of Grenfell Tower. There’s a video and accompanying photo essay with commentary.

Here’s another video and captivating photo essay, this time from the Iraqi city of Raqqa, telling of the destruction left behind by Islamic State.

Talks at Google presents ‘Lipstick under my burkha’, a discussion with the director of a new Indian black comedy.

Events

Canberra: Dr Clarke Jones will speak at ANU on the topic ‘Re-examining security based approaches to countering violent extremism’ on 3 October. More information here.

Canberra: ‘Arson, exclusion and exodus: what next for the Rohingya and Myanmar?’ is an event at ANU on 3 October. More information here.

Sydney: The United States Studies Centre will host a debate on 25 October investigating the link between the internet and politics, and the impact of American popular culture: does American democracy exist if no-one is there to like it, retweet it or turn it into a meme? Register here.

Trump’s Middle East stumbles

The recent six-month mark of Donald Trump’s presidency serves as a reminder not only of how little his administration has accomplished domestically, but also of how his meandering foreign policy has created a geopolitical landscape rife with ticking time bombs. And nowhere have the consequences of Trump’s almost willful incapacity to grasp complex problems, and his obsession with reversing the legacy of his predecessor, Barack Obama, become more apparent than in the Middle East.

Consider Trump’s decision in April to launch cruise missiles at the Shayrat Airbase in Syria, in response to the use of chemical weapons by Bashar al-Assad’s regime. Aside from an unconvincing nod to humanitarianism, Trump’s only rationale for deploying US military capabilities seems to have been that Obama—after famously drawing a ‘red line’ against the use of chemical weapons in Syria—did not respond militarily to the Assad regime’s chemical attack in Ghouta in 2013.

But Trump showed little interest in following up on the attack with diplomacy. Then, earlier this month at the G20 summit in Hamburg, Germany, he indicated that the US might somehow join forces with Russia to enforce a ceasefire in Syria’s southwest, which would serve as a model for other parts of the country, thus setting the stage for an eventual peace process.

No one with even a cursory understanding of the situation in Syria could think that a peace process will emerge from a regional ceasefire. Assad’s government has been importing allies—Lebanon’s Hezbollah, Iran, Russia, and even Turkey (in some respects)—to fight on its behalf for years. The Syrian opposition, by contrast, has received only intermittent assistance, and remains as fragmented as it was when the civil war began.

No one knows what Trump has in mind in terms of Syria’s future borders or governance. In a fractured country with few civil-society institutions and many ethnic and religious groups, will minority rights be protected? What about its borders? If the world learned anything from Iraq, it is that democracy requires resilient institutions and effective governance, not just elections.

The Obama administration’s goal in Syria was to identify and support moderate rebel groups willing to fight Assad. The Trump administration, by contrast, has shut down military assistance to moderate opposition groups altogether, having apparently concluded that no such forces exist. It has offered tacit support for the peace talks currently underway in Astana, Kazakhstan, which were brokered by Iran, Turkey, and Russia. But it has given no indication that it will take the lead on a peace process of its own, or even try to influence the outcome of the Astana deliberations.

Judging by Trump’s first six months in office, one can safely assume that Assad will remain in power for the time being. Trump seems to be encountering the same problem that Obama did when he tried to explain to the American people that overthrowing Syria’s Alawite-dominated regime would help defeat Sunni extremist groups such as the Islamic State (ISIS). In fact, as many Syrians rightly fear, removing Assad without a clear idea of what comes next could pave the way for the emergence of a kind of radical ‘Sunni-stan’.

Islamic radicalism is largely a Sunni Arab phenomenon. It is not simply a consequence of abusive Shia or Alawite regimes in specific countries, and it will not suddenly disappear if those regimes do. After all, ISIS has other footholds in the region as far away as the Maghreb. Beyond Syria, Trump would prefer to think big. In May, when he attended a Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) meeting in Riyadh, he praised Saudi Arabia as America’s top ally in the region. Given their disagreements with the Obama and George W. Bush administrations, the Saudis were eager for a new friend in the White House, and they greeted Trump by adorning Riyadh’s streets with massive posters of his visage.

During the GCC deliberations, Iran was singled out as the root cause of all the region’s problems (although the Saudis did invite Iraq which it often suggests is nothing but an Iranian surrogate). This anti-Iran rhetoric was certainly in keeping with Trump’s own. But Trump’s embrace of Saudi Arabia also seems to be about more than just Iran.

Many Trump supporters regard Saudi Arabia as the missing ingredient for Israeli–Palestinian peace. The Saudis have financial leverage over Fatah, the ruling Palestinian party in the West Bank, and they are open to marginalising Hamas, the Islamist militia that rules in Gaza. Hamas receives support from the Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamist organisation with extremist offshoots that is sometimes seen as a rival to the Saudi-grown Salafist movement.

By unconditionally embracing Saudi Arabia, Trump unwittingly set in motion a new public spat between that country and neighboring Qatar, which has long supported the Muslim Brotherhood. In June, Saudi Arabia, along with Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, imposed a full-scale blockade on Qatar and issued its leaders a series of far-reaching demands.

The diplomatic dispute between Qatar—a strategically important country to the US—and the other Gulf states sent US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson into crisis mode. But Tillerson has distanced himself from Trump, and rumors are circulating in Washington that he already wants out.

If Trump intends to make his mark on the Middle East, he would do well to mind the region’s complexities, and not behave as if he were still campaigning against Obama or Hillary Clinton. To paraphrase Hippocrates, the first rule of diplomacy is to do no harm.

Israel and the Six-Day War: a response to David Gardner

David Gardner’s recent Strategist post Israel, the Six-Day War and the end of the two-state solution is what you’d expect from a journalist reporting from Lebanon, a country still officially at war with Israel, and which is so anti-Israel it recently banned the US movie ‘Wonder Woman’ simply because an Israeli actress plays the title role. The reality is different to Gardner’s portrayal.

The Six-Day War was unquestionably a defensive war on Israel’s part, having been preceded by various acts of war from Egypt and its allies, including mobilising forces on Israel’s borders, demanding the withdrawal of UN peace-keepers, and blocking a naval route to Israeli shipping, not to mention blood-curdling predictions of Israel’s imminent demise. Indeed, the West Bank was taken only after Jordan attacked Israel.

Gardner criticises Israel for continuing to hold the West Bank 50 years later, but is this really fair? In the immediate aftermath of its stunning victory, Israel offered to return land captured in exchange for peace. However, that August, the Arab League met, and responded with the ‘three nos’—no negotiation, no recognition, no peace.

In November 1967, UN Security Council Resolution 242 required Israel to withdraw ‘from territories occupied’ in the war in exchange for peace. The resolution specifically didn’t state ‘all the territories’ or even ‘the territories’, because the intention was that final borders be negotiated.

In 1979, in exchange for peace with Egypt, Israel returned the entire Sinai, an area larger than Israel itself. A peace agreement with Jordan followed in 1994.

However, despite numerous attempts, Israel has been unable to conclude a final peace agreement with the Palestinians. The Oslo Accords, reached in 1993, determined that the newly established Palestinian Authority (PA) was to progressively administer more of the West Bank and Gaza, while confidence was built between the sides, and ultimately a Palestinian state would be negotiated.

By 1999, over 95 per cent of Palestinians lived in areas administered by the Palestinian Authority. Then the following year Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, negotiating with Arafat at Camp David, with Bill Clinton mediating, offered a Palestinian state consisting of Gaza, most of the West Bank, land swaps to compensate for areas Israel was to keep, and shared sovereignty in Jerusalem, including the holy places.

Arafat was urged to accept the deal, including by some Arab leaders, but refused point blank. Instead, he launched his terrorist Intifada, which killed over 1,000 Israelis, maimed thousands more, and was only ended by Israeli security measures including the checkpoints and security barrier.

The 2002 Arab peace initiative, endorsed and over-simplified by Gardner, was certainly an improvement on the ‘three nos’, but still had many shortcomings. It demanded a return to the 1967 borders, without the land swaps generally regarded as necessary, it implicitly required the ‘return’ of millions of descendants of Palestinian refugees to Israel, which would end Israel as a Jewish state, and it demanded Israel accept these conditions not as part of negotiations, but as a prelude to them.

It is also untrue to say Israel has refused to ever discuss the proposal. In the years since, various Israeli governments including Netanyahu’s have signalled willingness to negotiate the terms, but have been meet largely with disinterest.

In 2005, after Arafat’s death, Israel under Ariel Sharon tried a different tack, fully withdrawing from Gaza. Instead of a peaceful neighbour, using the infrastructure Israel left behind to prosper, Israel got a Hamas takeover, over ten thousand rockets and mortars, and three wars.

In 2008, Israel’s Prime Minister Ehud Olmert improved on the Camp David proposal, offering land equivalent to the entire West Bank and Gaza, with a land bridge between them, and compensation and limited return for refugees. As PA President Mahmoud Abbas has admitted, he rejected the offer ‘out of hand’.

More recently, he has refused to negotiate in good faith, and then, to talk at all, despite confidence-building steps by the Netanyahu government including freezing settlements and releasing Palestinian terrorists from prison, and an ongoing offer from Netanyahu to negotiate anywhere, anytime, without preconditions.

Instead, the PA incites hatred against Israel through all levels of its society, and encourages terrorism by paying terrorists and their families, to the tune of US$1.1 billion in the last four years alone.

Netanyahu has many times expressed his support for a two-state peace, but he currently has no peace partner. It was in that context that Trump made his comment about a possible one-state solution, meaning that he wasn’t about to try to impose a solution one of the parties, the Palestinians, seemingly has no interest in.

Gardner, and the Palestinians, portray settlements as a major problem, but even Palestinian leaders admit the settlements take up less than two per cent of the West Bank, and most settlers live in areas generally slated for land-swaps. Settlements didn’t prevent the 2000 and 2008 offers.

The real sticking points are that the PA refuses to accept that any agreement means no further claims against Israel, and that it will not be able to flood Israel with a ‘right of return’ for in excess of five million descendants of refugees.

Just as the Six-Day War ultimately led to peace between Israel and Egypt and Jordan, it could ultimately lead to Israeli/Palestinian peace, but that can only happen if the Palestinians have a change of heart and genuinely accept Israel’s right to exist.

Saudi Arabia holds the Trump card

Image courtesy of Flickr user Daniel Coomber.

Since President Trump’s visit to Riyadh last month, the events that have played out on the ground in the Gulf have exposed long-standing rifts between powerful Sunni monarchies that belie the simplistic logic of sectarianism that’s been used to analyse Middle Eastern conflicts.

Addressing the Muslim world on the threat of extremism, Trump made the decision to divide and conquer by shrouding his message in the cloak of sectarianism—an oversimplified analysis of the complex conflicts taking place in the Middle East. He made no apologies for singling out Iran as the government that fuels ‘the fires of sectarian conflict and terror’, yet chose to wilfully ignore the human rights violations, indiscriminate bombing of innocent civilians and unreserved disregard for democracy by some of the region’s most powerful Sunni despotic rulers—with Saudi Arabia at the helm.

The sectarian conflicts that plague the region are not as deep-rooted and innate as have been claimed; nor are they beyond political resolution. Rather, contemporary sectarianism has become the focus of international proxy wars between nations competing for regional power and influence. External influencers—such as the US—have been central to fuelling rather than quelling those conflicts by supplying arms and funds in the interest of brokering trade deals and promoting economic stability, at the expense of human life.

Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Lebanon and Bahrain have all experienced ‘Sunni–Shia’ conflicts; however, what happens on the ground is tied in to a much larger geopolitical power struggle involving an extension of old Cold War anxieties between the US and Russia, played out through Saudi Arabia and Iran. The proxy wars that are being fought in the region require a much more nuanced and in-depth understanding of the local socio-cultural histories that have paved the way for current manifestations of conflict to take root.

For example, while Iran has helped coordinate local military coalitions in the fight against ISIS in Iraq, its support for President Assad has undermined the coalition’s preference to unseat the regime. In addition, Iran’s role in maintaining the presence of Hezbollah in Lebanon has helped to create the strongest non-state military force in the country.

On the other hand, the Saudi bombing campaign against the Houthi rebels in Yemen created an atmosphere that enabled al-Qaeda to proliferate in the Arabian Peninsula. The Saudis’ support for the military-led coup to oust democratically elected Egyptian President Morsi, and subsequent support of President Sisi’s military regime, demonstrated their fear of ideological competition as vanguards of the Muslim world, at the hands of the Brotherhood.

Furthermore, the Saudis’ longstanding ideological and financial relationship with Hamas deteriorated in the late 2000s following US scrutiny of their funding of terrorist groups. The curtailment of Saudi funding of Hamas paved the way for increased Iranian support for the group—an unlikely alliance, in theory—demonstrating that the Sunni–Shia sectarian narrative doesn’t hold up to scrutiny. An analysis by the Brookings Doha Center (PDF) detailed the multifaceted forces at play: ‘Sunni versus Shia makes for a simple headline, but does not do justice to the complexities of the new Middle East cold war.’

Qatar’s bold support for both the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas reveals deep tensions between the two monarchies, but former emir Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani’s public pursuit of relationships with Israel and Iran demonstrated a rejection of the status quo across the regional GCC monarchies. Those actions further challenge the idea that Sunni regimes will stick together, and that sectarian disagreements are at the foundation of issues in the region.

The regional disputes are in fact clearly based on geopolitical ties of power and influence, which are playing out both regionally and internationally. For example, Saudi Arabia’s cessation of diplomatic relations with Qatar over accusations of terrorist funding was part of its broader campaign to ‘discredit Doha in the eyes of the Trump administration’ and to reassert itself as the sole regional Sunni power by isolating the nation ideologically and physically.

The return to the status quo was reinforced by President Trump’s address in Riyadh. The US$400 billion worth of deals signed, and Trump’s firm commitment to isolate Iran, have bolstered the Kingdom’s confidence, which was severely weakened during the Obama era. Trump’s speech openly toed the Saudi line of playing the blame game with Iran, framing the nation as the ‘source of all evil in the region’. That approach ignores Saudi-endorsed extremism across the world, and reinforces a sectarian rhetoric that’s fundamentally flawed. Saudi Arabia is a known theocracy that has funded and exported extremism from Indonesia to South Korea.

The reignited Saudi–US alliance demonstrates a shift back to old comforts and relationships in the Middle East. During the Obama era, traditional foreign policy conventions that dictated a tacit alliance with Saudi Arabia were undermined. The administration’s sincere attempts to bring Iran to the negotiating table, topped off with the nuclear disarmament deal, fuelled domestic anxiety and reproach among Saudis. With Trump in the White House, it appears as though the Kingdom can resume order as normal and return to being the primary regional powerhouse.

Beyond the public display of extravagant hospitality, sword dances and glowing orbs, a more sinister message of autocracy and regional influence can be discerned: Saudi Arabia is trying to reshape US priorities and relationships in the region.

The Six-Day War at 50

Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

The world is about to mark the 50th anniversary of the June 1967 war between Israel and Egypt, Jordan, and Syria—a conflict that continues to stand out in a region with a modern history largely defined by violence. The war lasted less than a week, but its legacy remains pronounced a half-century later.

The war itself was triggered by an Israeli preemptive strike on the Egyptian air force, in response to Egypt’s decision to expel a United Nations peacekeeping force from Gaza and the Sinai Peninsula and to close the Straits of Tiran to Israeli shipping. Israel struck first, but most observers regarded what it did as a legitimate act of self-defense against an imminent threat.

Israel did not intend to fight on more than one front, but the war quickly expanded when both Jordan and Syria entered the conflict on Egypt’s side. It was a costly decision for the Arab countries. After just six days of fighting, Israel controlled the Sinai Peninsula and the Gaza strip, the Golan Heights, the West Bank, and all of Jerusalem. The new Israel was more than three times larger than the old one. It was oddly reminiscent of Genesis: six days of intense effort followed by a day of rest, in this case the signing of a cease-fire.

The one-sided battle and its outcome put an end to the notion (for some, a dream) that Israel could be eliminated. The 1967 victory made Israel permanent in ways that the wars of 1948 and 1956 did not. The new state finally acquired a degree of strategic depth. Most Arab leaders came to shift their strategic goal from Israel’s disappearance to its return to the pre-1967 war borders.

The Six-Day War did not, however, lead to peace, even a partial one. That would have to wait until the October 1973 war, which set the stage for what became the Camp David Accords and the Israel-Egypt peace treaty. The Arab side emerged from this subsequent conflict with its honor restored; Israelis for their part emerged chastened. There is a valuable lesson here: decisive military outcomes do not necessarily lead to decisive political results, much less peace.

The 1967 war did, however, lead to diplomacy, in this case UN Security Council Resolution 242. Approved in November 1967, the resolution called for Israel to withdraw from territories occupied in the recent conflict—but also upheld Israel’s right to live within secure and recognized boundaries. The resolution was a classic case of creative ambiguity. Different people read it to mean different things. That can make a resolution easier to adopt, but more difficult to act on.

It thus comes as little surprise that there is still no peace between Israelis and Palestinians, despite countless diplomatic undertakings by the United States, the European Union and its members, the UN, and the parties themselves. To be fair, Resolution 242 cannot be blamed for this state of affairs. Peace comes only when a conflict becomes ripe for resolution, which happens when the leaders of the principal protagonists are both willing and able to embrace compromise. Absent that, no amount of well-intentioned diplomatic effort by outsiders can compensate.

But the 1967 war has had an enormous impact all the same. Palestinians acquired an identity and international prominence that had largely eluded them when most were living under Egyptian or Jordanian rule. What Palestinians could not generate was a consensus among themselves regarding whether to accept Israel and, if so, what to give up in order to have a state of their own.

Israelis could agree on some things. A majority supported returning the Sinai to Egypt. Various governments were prepared to return the Golan Heights to Syria under terms that were never met. Israel unilaterally withdrew from Gaza and signed a peace treaty with Jordan. There was also broad agreement that Jerusalem should remain unified and in Israeli hands.

But agreement stopped when it came to the West Bank. For some Israelis, this territory was a means to an end, to be exchanged for a secure peace with a responsible Palestinian state. For others, it was an end in itself, to be settled and retained.

This is not to suggest a total absence of diplomatic progress since 1967. Many Israelis and Palestinians have come to recognize the reality of one another’s existence and the need for some sort of partition of the land into two states. But for now the two sides are not prepared to resolve what separates them. Both sides have paid and are paying a price for this standoff.

Beyond the physical and economic toll, Palestinians continue to lack a state of their own and control over their own lives. Israel’s objective of being a permanent Jewish, democratic, secure, and prosperous country is threatened by open-ended occupation and evolving demographic realities.

Meanwhile, the region and the world have mostly moved on, concerned more about Russia or China or North Korea. And even if there were peace between Israelis and Palestinians, it would not bring peace to Syria, Iraq, Yemen, or Libya. Fifty years after six days of war, the absence of peace between Israelis and Palestinians is part of an imperfect status quo that many have come to accept and expect.

The battle for hegemony in the Middle East

The story of the Middle East for decades to come is of a battle for the hegemony of Sunni Islam, especially in the Arab world, and of the efforts by non-Sunni Muslims and non-Muslims to ensure that no dominant Sunni power capable of uniting the Sunni Arab world, and ultimately the Sunni world more broadly, emerges.

The Sunni world in general, and the Arab Sunni world in particular, lies in ruins. In some cases, quite literally. However, the current malaise of the Sunni Arab world shouldn’t cover the simple fact that Sunni Muslims make up the majority of Muslims around the world and that the Arab world is almost exclusively Sunni. After the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, due to the intervention of the conquering British and French powers, Sunni Arabs had little to say about their political organisation. Now that they are emerging from a century-long political hiatus, a united Sunni Arab world constitutes one of the biggest, but still contestable, geopolitical prizes.

Should a united Sunni Arab polity emerge, especially if it unites under the banner of the more extreme interpretations of Islam, it could constitute an existential threat to the non-Sunni, non-Arab and non-Muslim minorities of the Middle East. Those minorities therefore have no greater strategic imperative than to ensure that no such polity, as well as no hegemonic power capable of creating such a polity, emerges.

The battle to replace the lost hegemony of the Ottoman Empire is waged among those who could credibly claim leadership of the Sunni world over which it once held sway. In the grand strategic game of the Middle East—defined here as the battle to lead or thwart Sunni, and especially Sunni Arab, unification and hegemony—the players are grouped into those capable of leading (Turkey, Egypt, Saudi, Islamist contenders) or thwarting (Iran, Israel, Russia). The board on which they are playing the game includes four major ongoing battlegrounds (Syria, Iraq, Libya, Yemen) and five or six potential battlegrounds (Lebanon, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, the various Gulf states, Egypt, perhaps Turkey). Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco are likely to remain at the margins but will be profoundly affected by the outcomes of the other battles.

With the game, players and battlegrounds defined, the ability of the players to achieve their aims depends on the tools at their disposal and whether they make effective use of them. In terms of the traditional tools of power— territory, people, military and economic resources—the various actors differ, and none emerges as the absolute clear hegemon. There’s no natural hegemon to the Sunni world, or to the Sunni Arab world, as exists in other regions of the world. There’s no single country that can make a credible claim to uniting the Sunni Arab world that also enjoys a preponderance of power in all its various forms. This means that not only is the struggle for hegemony likely to be drawn out over decades, if not longer, but also that the ability of the various actors to be effective and have an edge depends on their sophisticated use of other forms of power, such as so-called ‘soft’ power.

Ultimately, Australia and other Western countries have to come to terms with their limited role in shaping the outcomes of the battle for hegemony in the Arab Middle East. This doesn’t mean that there’s nothing to be done, but those outside the region must clinically and dispassionately consider their interests in the region and what they can reasonably expect to achieve.

To avoid importing or expanding the Middle East’s conflicts, those outside the region need to develop a greater understanding of its various layers of complexity. And, in doing so, they need to avoid the temptation to seek an over-simplistic ‘fix’. In the realms of domestic, border and international security, what’s to be done is arguably much more about Islam in the West than about the Middle East.

Divided tribes: the impact of colonial boundaries in the Middle East and North Africa

In their grab for influence and resources, colonial powers drew artificial borders across the Middle East and North Africa, often arbitrarily splitting traditional tribal territories into new states. Clans and families found themselves living in different countries. It was bearable at the beginning since no real physical barriers were erected, meaning that the nomad and semi-nomad tribes continued their routine movements and family contacts weren’t interrupted. Most states established patterns of dependence and inclusion with these tribal populations which included representation in state institutions, financial subsidies and assurances of non-interference in their jurisdiction and practices.

It wasn’t a perfect formula but it created a modus vivendi that served both the tribes and the regimes so long as the states could provide the means to keep the tribes loyal mainly through financial subsidies. The model worked for more than half a century from Algeria, through Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Iraq and the Horn of Africa. Little was invested in education, so tribal leaders were kept busy maintaining their tribal authority and prestige—prerequisites for survival in the unforgiving sands of Arabia and the Sahara desert.

This comfortable equilibrium started fraying at the edges towards the end of the 20th century when literacy improvements coincided with the rapid spread of cellular communications. Tribes in Egypt, Syria and Yemen began to feel disenfranchised by privatisation policies brought about by globalisation. The trend was accelerated by the 2011 upheavals naively dubbed ‘The Arab Spring’. Central authority was severely weakened in most places across the Middle East and North Africa, preventing authorities providing the tribes with the essentials, which were mainly economic, needed to maintain their loyalty.

These tectonic changes want hand in hand with the spread of social media. The practical disappearance of international borders in some places contributed to the meltdown. Remote tribal clans, spread across three or four countries in Northern Africa like the Tuareg in Algeria, Tunisia and Libya or the big Annazah, Rawallah, Shammar tribes in Syria, Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Jordan in Western Asia which had managed to stay in contact over decades, began communicating intensively through new media and taking advantage of the breakdown of the borders. Doing so helped them to spread ideas and to coordinate moves and policies. This happened also with the Bedouin tribes in the Sinai Peninsula, Southern Israel, the Gaza Strip, Jordan and Northern Saudi Arabia.

To complicate the situation, dangerous new elements in the shape of al-Qaeda and ISIS took advantage of the governance vacuum. These Jihadi-Salafi groups influenced some tribes through a combination of financial benefits and a show of cruel power which sometimes disrupted their organic and traditional structures. In other places (such as Syria), the tribes split between opposing the regime or supporting it. That new factor turns the traditional equation into a triangle: state, tribes and Jihadi-Salafism.

Here we come to the contemporary challenge: who’s going to find out what happens among those dispersed tribes and how are they going to do that? This isn’t an academic or social question but an intensely practical one. European, North American and Australian diplomats, armed forces and NGOs operate in those areas but most of their quarters are either closed or fortified by barbed wire and concrete protective walls, hindering efforts to discharge their classical duties. Baghdad’s ‘Green Zone’, home to most of the embassies, is an example of such disconnect, as is the phenomenon of trying to monitor the situation in Syria through the staff who have been withdrawn from Damascus and rehomed in Beirut.

Operational and political decisions have to be made and policies adopted now to help resolve situations created over a century ago. How much support, in equipment and finance, should be extended to tribes in return of fighting against ISIS or turning their back on their current “allies”? That’s a current and valid issue in Syria, Libya, Yemen and Iraq. Such complex decisions must be based on the best information available. How can one sense the mood of the tribes in Deir Al-Zour Province in Eastern Syria and Al-Anbar Province in Western Iraq who reside along the Euphrates River on whether joint regional self-rule will work in the future? How much support may the Ruwallah, Shammar and Annazah factions in different countries provide to their brethren in other countries? And how are Kurdish tribal groups in Iran, Iraq, Syria and Turkey planning for their common future at the same time as their nations of residence are using them as a proxy against their rivals?

The complicated picture on the ground gives rise to the question of who should monitor and research these cross-border issues. At the moment there exists no cohesive architecture or mechanism to carry out such activities. Such an oversight obscures our vision of what is happening in the Middle East and North Africa, where the sands keep shifting.

Iran’s 2017 elections: more than just a presidential ballot

Iran’s presidential elections on 19 May will not only determine who and which political faction, moderate or conservative, will head the government during the next four years, but may also decide who succeeds Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

The Guardian Council announced on 20 April that six candidates, three from each faction, were ‘approved’ to contest the election. The council, of six clerics appointed by the Supreme Leader, and six jurists appointed by the Supreme Justice (himself a Supreme Leader appointee), reviews the eligibility of candidates for presidential, parliamentary and some other elected bodies.

The three moderate candidates are the president, Hassan Rouhani, Eshaq Jahangiri, Senior Vice President, and Mustafa Hashemitaba, a former Vice President. Of the conservative candidates, two are hard-line: Ebrahim Raisi, a senior cleric and a former Deputy Chief Justice and Attorney-General; and Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, mayor of Tehran and a former Commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Air Force. The third, Mostafa Mirsalim, a former Minister of Culture, is a more traditional conservative.

Whether some candidates withdraw to avoid splitting their faction’s vote, remains to be seen. Candidates don’t know if they will be ‘approved’ by the Guardian Council so usually at least two members of the major groupings within each faction (technically, there are no political parties as such in Iran) will nominate in the event one, or more, are disqualified.

Amongst the conservatives, Jahangiri is a supporter of Rouhani but does not have his electoral appeal and he is likely to withdraw. Hashemitaba also has less electoral appeal than Rouhani, but, if he does contest, the split vote could affect the outcome.

Raisi and Ghalibaf are from the same hard-line conservative group. Ghalibaf has long standing presidential ambitions, having stood in 2005 and in 2013. If he withdraws, it’s unlikely the Guardian Council would approve his candidacy in future so he would be very reluctant to pull out. If Raisi stands firm and both contest the election, they’ll split the vote. Mirsalim has electoral appeal among moderate conservatives. Whether he would consider withdrawing to avoid further vote-splitting is not clear, but a three-way conservative split would significantly affect their chances.

This election will position future candidates to replace Ali Khamenei. He has prostate cancer and could die or become seriously incapacitated within the term of the next president. Rouhani and Raisi are the front runners to replace him. Both are members of the Assembly of Experts which selects the Supreme Leader. If both contest the elections, victory would improve the winner’s prospects of becoming Supreme Leader.

It’s difficult to assess who will become president. Rouhani’s re-election is not a foregone conclusion, although all presidents since 1989 have won a second term. Rouhani’s campaign is focused on continuing his 2013 platform: economic development, a constructive role in seeking to resolve the multiple crises in the Middle East, improved relations with the West and social reform.

Progress on the first three has been mixed. The signing of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) in 2015, and its implementation in 2016 was critical because it defused, at least in part, concerns about Iran’s intentions and ability to develop nuclear weapons. The lifting of many economic sanctions opened up opportunities for significant new foreign investment in Iran’s domestic economy, including the infrastructure sector, leading to the creation of desperately needed jobs. The close relationship between Iran’s foreign minister, Javad Zarif, and former US secretary of state, John Kerry, also helped Iran/US-West dialogue and understanding.

But continuing sanctions by many Western countries, especially the US, and uncertainty about the extent of US restrictions on international financial movements that would enable investment, have significantly slowed economic development. The Trump administration’s brake on the Iran-US dialogue has raised uncertainties about its future.

While the US Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, announced on 18 April that Iran had complied with nuclear restrictions despite strong allegations to the contrary, he added that US-Iran policy remained ‘under review’. He cited Iran continuing to be a sponsor of terrorism, especially by supporting anti-Israeli elements of Hamas and Hezbollah, and its support for Syria’s Assad government and backing of regional Shia militia, now engaged in proxy wars with Sunni militia, backed by Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states. Another factor is Iran’s alleged breach of UN restrictions on the development and test firing of nuclear-capable ballistic missiles and other military provocations in the Gulf area.

Potentially, the elections could deliver a hard-line conservative president, and down the track, a replacement hard-line Supreme Leader. Either, or both, would have significant implications, not only domestically in terms of the direction of economic and social change, but also for Iran’s international relations.

Rouhani’s re-election would allow him to continue his past policies, notwithstanding their deficiencies as perceived by the West. But delivery will be a challenge. If the US, backed by other regional states, raises its level of confrontation with Iran, it’ll be an outcome with no winners. Rouhani’s ability to shape domestic and international relations will be compromised, and could encourage the hard-liners to push for greater confrontation, regionally and internationally.