Missiles and Protests - how US policy to weaken Iran is working

On September 14th 2019, missiles hit the Abqaiq and Khurais oil facilities in Saudi Arabia, which damaged oil production and dampened prospects for international investment so crucial for Saudi Arabia's 2030 vision. Iran-allied Houthis in Yemen claimed responsibility, but Saudi Arabia, the US and others blamed Iran.

Little over two weeks later protests erupted in Iraq, demanding an end to corruption and incompetence which has classed the political elite since the Iraq War. On the 17th of October, little over a month after the Abqaiq/Khurais attack, protests also erupted in Lebanon against their own leadership class.

Contrasting previous administrations, the Trump Administration has kept remarkably silent about the Lebanese and Iraqi protests. To the majority of pundits, this suggests indifference to the suffering in Lebanon and Iraq. Far more likely, however, is that everything is going exactly as planned for the Trump Administration, and any show of US support could spoil the movements in either country, which are currently leveling their frustrations against corrupt political elites backed by Iran.

While Iran - whether by proxy in Iraq or Yemen or directly from its own country - had to resort to missiles and drones to strike at US interests in Saudi Arabia, the Trump Administration is showing it does not need boots on the ground nor does it need resort to conventional warfare to further its aims in weakening Iran. The Trump Administration is using finance and economic warfare to siege Iran, which is weakening its hold on Iraq and Lebanon and eliciting protests in both countries.

To add to the quagmire, on the 16th of November Iranians also began to protest, this time because of their own rising fuel prices. The leadership in Tehran are stuck: on one hand, they could turn their scarce finances to better the lives of ordinary Iranians, but doing so would mean losing their foothold in countries like Iraq and Lebanon. To so obviously focus on domestic policy over foreign policy would mean publicly conceding that the Trump Administration's economic warfare on Iran - to change its behaviour - is working.

In this case, having proxies has worked against Iran: in the past, proxies in these countries - Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hash'd Ash-Sha'bi in Iraq - have prevented war from arriving on Iranian borders; currently, with such crippling economic sanctions and an unwillingness to change its foreign policy, these proxies have become a financial drain for the Iranian regime and a source of frustration for the Iranian people.

While the protests in Iran are unlikely to materialize into any substantial gains this time around, in Iraq and Lebanon the situation looks very uncertain. Of the three countries, Iraq is the most likely to experience regime change away from Iran - in Lebanon, the country could be plunged back into civil war. The difference between Iraq and Lebanon is that Iraqis have been suffering under the more appalling conditions since 2003, and so Iraqis are more likely to have the grit to emerge victorious against the Iranian proxies in their country. In Lebanon, the people are less likely to want to fight hard against Iranian proxies like Hezbollah should civil war ensue. In fact, such a war might propel Hezbollah into a position of even more centralized leadership.

In Iraq, the government has little real power to stop the momentum of these protests. Cosmetic changes to Iraqi leadership will no longer suffice. Far more likely is a regime overhaul, with an anti-Iran leader rising to power, realigning with its Arab neighbours and forcing Iranian proxy Hash'd Ash-Sha'bi to choose between Iraq and Iran.

All of this keeps Iran very much occupied with affairs closer to home and less concerned with provoking the US by attacking oil facilities like those in Abqaiq and Khurais. Iran holds much hope in outlasting the Trump Administration. But should Donald Trump get reelected in 2020, protests in Lebanon, Iraq and Iran will be just the beginning of an avalanche that will redefine the Middle-East as we know it.

Why Mohammed Bin Salman and Congress are destined for a collision course

Mohammed Bin Salman, the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, has lost the support of the US Congress.

The straw which broke the camel's back was the murdering of Khasoggi, a pro-Muslim Brotherhood journalist in Istanbul - who also happened to be an American citizen. It is the Congress' response to the murder of an American citizen that Bin Salman failed to factor in to his plan of assassination: now Bin Salman's whole vision for Saudi Arabia is under threat.

For some who watch the Middle-East, the removal of the current Crown Prince would come as a welcome a relief. However, the damage has already been done. With his political rivals locked up at home and his father very elderly, Mohammed Bin Salman's ouster at this time is more likely to exacerbate instability in the Middle-East than calm it.

It is this that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a champion support for Mohammed Bin Salman, fears, though - as with previous Israeli support for conflicts in Iraq and Syria - it must be pointed out that Israel sanctioned these policies with short-sighted thinking that has only served to strengthen regional adversary Iran rather than weaken her.

Should economic pressure be measured against Saudi Arabia to cause the resignation of Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman, Mohammed Bin Nayyef, the previous Crown Prince, is the most likely candidate to replace him. However, what is concerning is that King Salman himself might resign should his son be forced to do so. Mohammed Bin Salman has often been seen as the "go to" to make deals with King Salman.

More worryingly still: Mohammed Bin Salman may not leave Saudi Arabia without a fight. Should that occur, Saudi Arabia will explode same as Yemen, Syria, Libya, Iraq and Afghanistan before her, but instead extremist groups will be within sight of the holy cities of Mecca and Medina.

At this stage, Congress' condemnation of Crown Prince Salman will destine them for a collision course between American and Saudi foreign policy - but this collision may result in the mother of all conflicts for the heart of the Middle-East.

Iran and Saudi politics realigned in Iraq

Following on from the previous article, (http://jwaverfpolicy.blogspot.com/2017/07/iran-ikhwan-and-salafi-politics.html) this article will explore Saudi Arabia and the UAE's role in Iraq at the behest of the Trump Administration.

From the beginning, the Trump Administration has been pushing for Iran to be rolled back in the Middle-East. And this has been tied to its strong, firm support to Iraq and Saudi Arabia.

Due to Russian intervention in Syria, Iran's position has been solidified there. Though Israel and the US are exerting pressure on Russia to force an Iranian withdrawal, it is far more likely the US will be forced into its own withdrawal from the Kurdish enclave in the north-east. Syria, Iran, Russia and Turkey are all united in their opposition to the US/Kurdish presence in north-eastern Syria.

Yet with Russia and Iran invested so heavily in Syria, in Iraq US' plans for pushing back Iran are more likely to succeed, especially since Saudi Arabia and the UAE are becoming increasingly invested in Iraqi politics. Firebrand cleric Muqtada As-Sadr, whose coalition secured the most seats in the election earlier this year, visited Saudi Arabia before the elections' results and met with Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman.

Such a visit, coupled with other cooperation initiatives between Saudi Arabia and Iraq, has been widely hailed by Iraqis, as Iraq being closer to Saudi Arabia would see it reintegrated into the Arab world. Iraq has been an outsider since the Gulf War in 1991; with Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad likely to remain in power for the foreseeable future, Syria has become the new outsider in the Arab world, and this in turn has given Iraq and Saudi Arabia more incentive to repair ties.

The Crown Prince's bold initiatives in Iraq benefit his own country's struggle against Iran. Mohammed Bin Salman is showing Shi'ite Arabs across the region that he is not against them or Shi'ism inasmuch as he is against the Shi'ite religious establishment in Qom, Iran. For Saudi Arabia, allying more closely with Iraq turns the Saudi-Iran conflict from Shi'ite-Sunni (a conflict Saudi Arabia has largely lost) into a conflict between Persians and Arabs, a conflict more likely to invigorate Iraqis and place them by Saudi Arabia's side.

This helps decrease the risk for Saudi Arabia from its own Shi'ite minorities. It gives Saudi Arabia flexibility to maintain an even harsher stance against Iran - for example, it could ban all Saudis from visiting Iran while increasing the ease of travelling to Shi'ite sites in Iraq. It may also, in the long-term, give Saudi Arabia Shi'ite allies in its war against the Houthis in Yemen.

Iraq's internal struggle, therefore, is becoming increasingly bitter and contested. After the Iraqi election, Saudi Arabia, the United States and the UAE put their support behind Abadi's Nasr coalition, Muqtada As-Sadr's Sa'eroon coalition and the various Sunni Arab and Kurdish parties. This has led to increased threats from the pro-Iranian factions within the Iraqi political structure.

The result has been, as of the parliamentary meetings in the 3rd of September, that the largest block has been formed from the Shi'ite coalitions Nasr, Sa'eroon, Wataniya and Hikmah, together with various smaller Sunni Arab coalitions. Both the Kurdish parties and the pro-Iran coalitions Fateh and State of Law, headed by Ameri and the notorious Nouri Al-Maliki, have refused to join the largest political block. So far, it looks as if the Saudi/Emirati/US plan is working.

However, recent Iraqi protests against poor services in Shi'ite city Basra have caused lead coalitions Fateh and Sa'eroon to call for the resignation of incumbent Prime Minister Haider Al-Abadi. Whether this will break up the Nasr coalition from the largest political block is unclear. What is clear is that if the political block survives, Haider Al-Abadi will not remain the Prime Minister.

This would not be such a bad scenario for the US. If Haider Al-Abadi does not remain the Prime Minister, then it is likely that one of the members of the Sa'eroon coalition will become the next Prime Minister. This would be even worse for Iran than if Abadi secured a second term.

The other reason support for an Iraq independent of Iran is likely produce dividends is the Middle-East's water crisis. Syria, Turkey and Iran have all made dams which have drastically reduced water supply to Iraq. This has been one of the reasons for the protests in Basra: the water there is undrinkable. The Basrawis rightly point out that Iran is a large part of the problem, because Iranian and Turkish dams have cut off most of their water supply.

With Turkey, Iran and Syria all emerging as adversaries to the US and Saudi Arabia, geopolitically Iraq fits in better with the Saudi/Emirati/US camp. To be deprived of water will force Iraq into a position of animosity towards those neighbours depriving it of water.

But Iraq's path to be rid of Iranian interference will not be easy. In all likelihood Iraq will experience yet another civil war, one which will stamp out Iran's proxies one by one in long, bloody battles.

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.