Autocracy forces Jordan away from Saudi Arabia

As the Gulf crisis enters its second year, the Middle-East's increasingly autocratic landscape is turning countries like the Hashemite kingdom of Jordan towards Qatar and the Ikhwan.

The UAE's autocratic vision for the Middle-East has never looked stronger. In Egypt, Mohammed Morsi was overthrown and replaced by Abdul-Feteh As-Sisi in 2013. In 2014 Libyan strongman Haftar Al-Khalifa took control of the Libyan Army and set up a rival autocratic government in Tobruk. Since the start of the Yemen war, the UAE has been strengthening the Southern Movement under Aidarious Az-Zubaidi, to facilitate the fragmentation of Yemen into two states, with the southern state being autocratic and pro-UAE. Anti-autocratic Qatar has been boycotted by a significant number of its neighbours.

Yet the crown jewel to UAE's autocratic vision has been the support it has lended to Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman, which has set Saudi Arabia on the path to autocracy and away from political Islamism. Mohammed Bin Salman's reforms have allowed the UAE and Saudi Arabia to increasingly see eye-to-eye on a whole range of issues, including Iran, Qatar, Turkey - and even Israel.

Currently, there is a peace agreement being considered by Saudi Arabia and Israel. This peace agreement does not take into account the Palestinian diaspora that desperately desires to return home. There is no larger diaspora of Palestinians than in Jordan. For King Abdullah Hashemi to survive the political fallout of such a deal, seeking aid from Qatar, Saudi Arabia's most bitter Sunni enemy, is the only option.

Jordan has a significant portion of its population that is pro-Ikhwan, the staunch enemy of the Middle-East's autocrat block and politically closer to countries Qatar and Turkey. When other countries denounced the Muslim Brotherhood as terrorism, Jordan refrained. This has incentivised Jordan to take 1 billion dollars' aid from Qatar over and above the 1.5 billion dollars' aid offered by the UAE and Saudi Arabia. The two autocratic nations did not provide enough of a financial alternative for Jordan to feel inclined to upsetting its pro-Ikhwan population.

Should a deal between Israel and Saudi Arabia come to fruition, it will have to face serious opposition from Qatar in the east as well as Jordan in the north, with both countries supported by Islamist giant Turkey. This, together with the unstable large countries Iraq and Yemen, does not pose well for the future of autocracy in Saudi Arabia.

In this case, it will be the Ikhwan countries which are better shielded from instability than the autocratic ones. By reaching across the aisle to Qatar, Jordan is saving itself from the likely fate of autocratic Saudi Arabia: instability, terrorism and perhaps even regime change.

Iran: Israel's 'Baptism of Fire'

Many pundits often said that it was either an Iran Nuclear Deal or an Iran War. They may be right - but if so, it is unlikely to be US troops on the ground fighting it.

The American public are exhausted of war. President Donald Trump won his historic presidential campaign on an anti-war platform, including lambasting the "big fat mistake" of the Iraq War. If the Iraq War was a big fat mistake for the US, an Iran war would be one of the biggest, "fattest" US conflicts since the Second World War.

In 2013, when President Barrack Obama pushed for a vote in Congress over whether or not to strike the Syrian government, the American public were overwhelmingly against it. Since then, the anti-war sentiment in the United States has not grown weaker, but stronger.

So with a war-weary America, why has President Trump pulled out of the Iran Deal and made war with Iran a possibility in the short-term? Because though he cannot fight this war with current public support, he also knows he is not expected to by his closest ally, Israel - except as a last resort.

Israel, on the other hand, is ready for war. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has just been granted overwhelming war powers, granting him the ability to wage war without a cabinet vote. Israel is also being welcomed into the Arab fold by countries Saudi Arabia, Egypt and UAE in particular, with an Israeli-Palestinian deal pending before full relations are initiated.

Prime Minister Netanyahu's rhetoric against Iran and its nuclear deal has culminated into Israel and Iran engaging in a series of military strikes in Syria. Yet with the risk of nuclear proliferation from Iran looming, Prime Minister Netanyahu is unlikely to focus Israel's efforts on merely striking Iran's proxies. The Israeli Prime Minister has often been known for having a "go at it alone" approach to Middle-East affairs, such as when he flew to Washington to condemn the Iran nuclear deal in 2015 at Congress, against President Barrack Obama's wishes.

In an Israeli-Iranian conflict, Israel would not only have the political support of the United States (which Israel did not have under President Obama), but Israel would also be supported by many of its Arab neighbours. In fact, an Israeli war with Iran may just be the 'baptism of fire' required by the Arab states to prove that Israel can vouch for their security. With the rise of Turkey as an adversary to Arab determinism in the Middle-East and beyond, Israel is more likely to garner Arab support should it prove itself in militarily intervening against the enemies of the Arabs, such as Iran.

In such a case, perhaps it is understood by both President Trump and Prime Minister Netanyahu that, in the advent of an Iran War, an Iran-Israeli conflict is the best case scenario for the US, Israel and the wider Middle-East: President Trump would not have to embroil the US in another costly Middle-East conflict, Israel would prove itself capable to protect its Arab partners, and Israeli-Arab relations would soar.

Since its initial fight for survival, the nation of Israel has come a long way with its Arab neighbours. Because of this, the fury of the Israeli military may soon, with Arab support, be directed against Iran, a stark and historic contrast to previous Israeli conflicts.

Mohammed Bin Salman - the Shah of Saudi Arabia

The flourishing relationship between Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman Al-Saud and the Trump Administration is a foreign policy strategy that has been tried before, to counterbalance growing anti-Israeli resentment and keep US adversaries at bay. And it did not work.

Under the Nixon Administration (1969-1974), ties between the United States and the Shah-led Iran, which were already strong, reached new heights as the pro-American regime continued to bolster its military might through the "blank check" initiative, in which the US would provide enormous amounts of weaponry to the Shah in exchange for large sums of money.

President Nixon chose this path was because British forces withdrew from the Arabian Gulf, which left a vacuous space that the US was unable to fill itself. The vacuum was unable to be filled by the US due to its commitments with the Vietnam War and the Cold War.

Such a geopolitical situation parallels the Trump Administration's dilemma. After President Barrack Obama's disastrous Middle-East foreign policy and with victories still aloof in Afghanistan and Iraq, President Trump has doubled down on achieving victory in the two nations, with much less capacity for dealing with the wider region.

With US military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan continuing, an extra US ally is needed to support the US ambitions and act as a counterbalance to Iran. The Trump Administration has singled out Saudi Arabia - and, more specifically Mohammed Bin Salman - to protect US interests and keep Iran at bay.

Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman is the favoured future ruler of Saudi Arabia for both the US and Israel. Mohammed Bin Salman's hawkish views on Iran largely match the Israeli and US views. One of the largest arms deals was signed between President Trump and Saudi Arabia and paved the way for stronger relations. It is very likely that the favouritism of the US and Israel for Mohammed Bin Salman was the reason Mohammed Bin Nayyef, the previous Crown Prince, was forced to abdicate.

Under the tacit approval of Mohammed Bin Salman, it is no secret that an Israeli-Palestinian peace process is under way. But this peace process leaves Israel with full control of Palestine and with Israel's capital as Jerusalem, a deal completely unacceptable for the majority of adherents to the Muslim faith. Being anti-Iranian may not be enough for Mohammed Bin Salman to stem outrage at home over a peace deal with Israel supported by his government.

Islamic extremists are already painting Mohammed Bin Salman as the figurehead of everything wrong with Saudi Arabia - indeed, as a figurehead of everything wrong with the Middle-East. Worryingly, the economy under Mohammed Bin Salman's 2030 vision is worsening, with some of the worst recession to hit the conservative kingdom in years occurring in 2017.

Much optimism from pundits about the direction of Saudi Arabia under Mohammed Bin Salman is misguided unless it is rooted in recent history. Under President Nixon, much more emphasis was put on ties between the Shah of Iran and the US, but economically Iran went from bad to worse. Anti-Israeli sentiment was fueled by bad economy and the Shah became the figurehead of everything wrong with Iran. The Nixon policy fueled one of the most anti-American revolutions in history - and armed it, too.

It was some years between President Nixon's terms and the Iranian revolution, and it may be that the Trump Administration is just buying time for Iraq and Afghanistan to stabilize before Saudi Arabia implodes.

But history should leave the world in no doubt: explicitly pro-Israeli governments in the Middle-East can only work with a functioning economy or popular leadership. Mohammed Bin Salman, like the Shah before him, will be unable to provide a functioning economy for his country. And the time will come, soon, when Saudi Arabia will be plagued by a revolution, but instead of Ayatollah Khomeini, it will be ISIS, hiding in Iraq, that will lead the revolution.


http://nationalinterest.org/commentary/how-the-shah-entangled-america-8821
https://972mag.com/zionism-and-the-shah-on-the-iranian-elites-evolving-perceptions-of-israel/71699/
http://nationalinterest.org/commentary/how-the-shah-entangled-america-8821?page=2
http://foreignpolicy.com/2017/11/07/jared-kushner-mohammed-bin-salman-and-benjamin-netanyahu-are-up-to-something/

The New Middle-East UPDATED

Since the Iraq War and the Arab Spring, the Arab world has undergone its largest geopolitical shifts since the fall of the Ottoman Empire and the establishment of the state of Israel.

The overthrow of Saddam Hussein and the establishment of a Shi'ite government in Iraq swung the balance decisively away from the Arab Sunni world and gave Iran a new ally. For the first time in almost 25 years, the United States was once again allied to a Shi'ite Muslim government. The forces unleashed during the Iraq War still haunt the region to this day.

The Obama-endorsed Arab Spring did much to inflame terrorism across the region, particularly in Egypt, Libya, and Syria. While withdrawal from Iraq was endorsed at the time, Obama's Syria policy fueled Iraq's worst enemy, the Islamic State of Iraq, turning it into ISIS, a group so brutal that Al-Qaeda disavowed it. Had Obama supported a ceasefire in Syria, it is unlikely ISIS would have grown as large as it did.

Obama's Syrian policy inflamed the instability which spilled over from Iraq. Thankfully, Russia has had a pragmatic approach to Syria. Their Syrian campaign (2015 to present) has seen an historic reduction in violence and terrorism across the entire region. Russia is currently playing the lead role in ending the conflict in Libya, while also strengthening already strong ties with the autocratic government of Egypt and the Islamic Republic of Iran.

All 3 Arab countries which suffered from the Obama-era interventions - Egypt, Libya and Syria - are now closer to Russia than ever. President Trump has been unable or unwilling to stop this, given his focus on Afghanistan and Iraq with a war-weary America.

For Libya, President Trump is quoted as saying he would only commit to destroying ISIS there, not to a political settlement. For Syria, the State Department has released a statement that the US will be leaving Syria after they are certain ISIS has been defeated there. Though President Trump has extended his hand in alliance to Egypt, the damage of the last 3 years of the Obama Administration has meant that Egypt has looked on the US with the question: will this alliance outlast President Trump?

President Trump's largest challenges remain the same as those of Presidents Bush and Obama: Iraq and Afghanistan. While the US is engaged militarily in those two countries and initiating its pivot towards Asia, this leaves other regional forces - such as Russia, Iran and Turkey - more space to intervene in other areas of the Middle-East.

These developments have left Gulf countries like Saudi Arabia increasingly vulnerable to instability and chaos. Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman, the son of the current king, is increasingly being used by Al-Qaeda and ISIS as the figure head of everything wrong with the kingdom. Even the less radical side of Saudi Arabia is appalled at Bin Salman's handling of the Yemeni crisis. Should he descend to the throne, civil war will likely follow him.

With Russia strongly backing autocratic regimes in Egypt, Syria and Libya and strengthening ties with Islamist countries Iran and Turkey, the US is left on the back foot. Their own hold on Turkey is slipping; Iraq and Afghanistan are still unstable after years of intervention and, worst of all, the Arabian Peninsula is creeping towards chaos as terrorism is uprooted from other regions.

This will leave Russia dominating much of the Middle-East, while America will be forced to continue their strategic withdrawal and focus on stabilizing Iraq and Afghanistan.

This is the new Middle-East: a Middle-East divided between US and Russian influence; divided between Russian-supported autocratic regimes, US-supported democratic institutions and sponsors of terrorism threatened by terrorists returning home disillusioned and beaten.

This New Middle-East heralds the dawn of a new, even more uncertain era.

4 Predictions for Saudi Arabia

In this article I will be outlying a series of predictions for Saudi Arabia over the next 5 years:

1) Mohammed Bin Salman will be forced to abdicate from ruling Saudi Arabia.

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman is next in line for the throne after his father, King Salman. However, unlike his father, Mohammed Bin Salman is reforming the country at too fast a rate for the kingdom to cope with.

Not to mention: Bin Salman's foreign policy blunders have been exceptional: from Yemen, to Qatar, to Lebanon - he has shown himself to be too reckless and not measured enough to rule a kingdom as dynamic and conservative as Saudi Arabia.

2) Mohammed Bin Nayef will be made king of Saudi Arabia.

Unlike Mohammed Bin Salman, Mohammed Bin Nayef is the Al Saud family favourite for the throne. Though he has been currently forced to abdicate by his cousin and uncle, the Saudi establishment will look to him to lead the country after the folly of bin Salman's policies has been fully revealed.

3) ISIS will come to Saudi Arabia.

Scarily, Mohammed Bin Salman's push for modernization makes ISIS coming to Saudi Arabia all the more likely. What is even worse is his desire to push for public ties with Israel.

This has happened before: in the 1970's the Shah of Iran pushed for public ties with Israel. That, along with economic instability, led to his downfall in 1979, when Ayatollah Khomeini took over the country in the Iranian revolution.

A Saudi revolution benefits ISIS, and ISIS only. ISIS is a neo-Ikhwani expansionist project in the tradition of Ibn Abdul Wahhab and, according to Alistair Crooke, after invading Iraq, ISIS inserted a time bomb into the heart of the Middle-East, into Saudi Arabia. Alistair Crooke maintains that the kingdom is more vulnerable to ISIS under a modernizing ruler like Mohammed Bin Salman than under a more conservative ruler like Mohammed Bin Nayef.

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/alastair-crooke/isis-aim-saudi-arabia_b_5748744.html

4) With ISIS will come war to Saudi Arabia

Whether the Al-Saud royal family will be eventually forced out by ISIS is difficult to assess, but what is likely is that, like Syria, Iraq, Libya and Yemen in recent years, different Arab tribes will pick different sides. Some will remain loyal to the Saud royal family - some will join with ISIS.

Unlike the Iranian Revolution in 1979, the Saudi revolution will quickly turn into a civil war, one in which millions of Muslims will fight, either for or against ISIS. What the Trump Administration does in such a scenario is difficult to assess - American airstrikes on Islamic holy land will further exacerbate such a conflict.

the new Middle-East

Since the Iraq War and the Arab Spring, the Arab world has undergone the largest geopolitical shifts since the Ottoman Empire.

Though responsible for the death of Osama Bin Laden, President Obama's Middle-East strategy has been misguided. The Obama-endorsed Arab Spring did much to inflame terrorism across the Middle-East, particularly in Egypt, Libya, and Syria. While withdrawal from Iraq was endorsed at the time, Obama's Syria policy fueled Iraq's worst enemy, the Islamic State of Iraq, turning it into ISIS, a group so brutal that Al-Qaeda disavowed it. Had Obama supported a ceasefire in Syria, it is unlikely ISIS would have grown as large as they did.

Unlike President Obama, Russia has had a pragmatic approach regarding the Middle-East. Their Syrian campaign (2015 to present) has seen an historic reduction in violence and terrorism across the entire region. Russia is currently playing the lead role in ending the conflict in Libya, while also strengthening already strong ties with the autocratic government of Egypt and the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Obama's push for democracy across the Middle-East backfired badly. Not only has Russia been consolidating alliances in many Middle-East countries not wanting Obama-doctrine democracy, but President Trump has been, implicitly, welcoming Russian intervention in such countries. The reason for this is that President Trump does not wish to have as large a US footprint internationally as under the Obama or Bush Administrations and wants to focus more on domestic issues.

Not only so, but President Trump has made sure that President Obama's Arab Spring interventions - such as those Libya and Syria - are not engaged militarily by the US in the future and left instead to the Russian sphere of influence. For Libya, President Trump is quoted as saying he would only commit to destroying ISIS there, not to a political settlement. For Syria, the State Department has released a statement that the US will be leaving Syria after ISIS is defeated there.

In spite of this, there is growing tension between Russia and the US in the Middle-East. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has been asking for the removal of Bashar Al-Assad, something Russia is highly unlikely to do, while Russia has also been linked to supporting the Taliban in Afghanistan and attempting to gain influence over Iraq. While the war on terror is being won by both President Putin and President Trump, both are doing so in competition - not in harmony - with each other.

President Trump's largest challenges are the same as those of Presidents Bush and Obama: Iraq and Afghanistan. Because Iraq is allied with Iran, it is easier for Russia to try and wrest control of it from the US. However it is more likely that the US will prioritize relations with Iraq and Afghanistan over any other Middle-East nation (with Israel as an exception), to keep them out of Russian hands.

Enter Saudi Arabia. Under the Obama Administration, relations deteriorated badly between the US and the conservative kingdom, due in no small part to the Iran Nuclear Deal and Obama's endorsement of the Arab Spring. Though relations between the Trump Administration and Saudi Arabia are strong currently, there is every reason to suspect that, as Salafi terrorism continues to be funded worldwide by the Saudis, relations between President Trump and Saudi Arabia will sour, and sour quickly.

This will leave Russia dominating much of the Middle-East - Iran, Syria, Egypt, Libya, Yemen - while America will continue make their strategic withdrawal and focus on solidifying relations with Iraq and Afghanistan. Countries like Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Pakistan will likely suffer the most from the American withdrawal, and may end up plagued by instability.

This is the new Middle-East: a Middle-East divided between US and Russian influence; divided between Russian-supported autocratic regimes, US-supported democratic institutions and sponsors of Salafi terrorism under sanctions.

In a Middle-East like this, terrorism may actually be defeated.

Trump's Saudi comment may signal end of long alliance

Earlier today, Donald Trump called on Saudi Arabia to end the Yemeni blockade immediately. Saudi Arabia is currently blocking many food stuffs from entering Yemen, driving the country to famine on an industrial scale.

Added to this strain has been Saudi Arabia slamming Trump's recognition of Jerusalem as the Israeli capital. That aside, Trump's comments about Yemen have come at a particularly hard time for Saudi Arabia, having just lost Ali Abdullah Saleh as leverage over the Houthis.

It is entirely possible that this is the beginning of the end of the Saudi-US alliance, an alliance which began with the intention of frustrating Soviet ambitions in the Middle-East and curbing their influence. The reason why this may come to an end is two-fold: either Saudi Arabia will cut their losses and become more anti-American, or they will remain pro-American and suffer from plaguing instability.

Saudi Arabia is losing every proxy war they have been engaged in. From Syria, to Iraq, to Yemen, to Afghanistan - their proxies are being defeated and replaced with either pro-American or pro-Iranian forces in the region. As it becomes clearer that Saudi Arabia will not detract itself from Salafi terrorism, the US look to other Middle-East allies as better alternatives, such as Afghanistan and Iraq.

If Saudi Arabia end the blockade in Yemen and stop funding for radical Islamic terrorism, it is very likely the Houthis will win the war and Saudi Arabia will be faced with Iranian proxies everywhere. This will cause a geo-political shift unlike any we have seen since the Iranian Revolution in 1979: Saudi Arabia will likely suffer both revolution and civil war, with the clear benefactor being ISIS.

How America respond to such instability in yet another Middle-East country is unclear. What is clear is that the Al-Saud government's rule has never been shakier, and could easily be swept away by instability and chaos.