The continuity of US foreign policy in the Greater Middle East Region (GMER) is now bearing fruit handsomely. The US has adroitly exploited its formidable political, diplomatic, economic, technical and military clout to neutralise/destroy all actual and potential threats to Israel. It has ruthlessly employed coercive diplomacy, (un)just wars, an Arab Spring, military and economic sanctions and inducements, sales of high-tech weapon systems, peace agreements, manipulation of the ruling royal families and even de facto regime changes to achieve its geopolitical objectives in the GMER. Today the GMER and some contiguous North African Arab states lie in ruins and at the mercy of the US-Israel Combine—to be rebuilt in the avatar it decrees. Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Iraq, Tunisia, Libya, Yemen etc stand effectively neutralised/destroyed. Iran and Syria though seriously stricken, remain defiant. The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) is understandably scrambling to secure itself. The UAE and Bahrain have signed the Abraham Accord; others may too.
The US policy for the GMER has been very direct and emphatic. It ordained for Israel to be the sole nuclear power and uncontested hegemon in the GMER. All possible challenges to that end were to be quashed. The strategic reach of all contending military, economic and political powers was to be circumscribed to remain well short of Israel’s inviolable perimeter of security. The power structure in the GMER is fast acquiring this US mandated incarnation. Significantly, Israel’s US-backed sphere of influence and perimeter of security are gradually expanding from the Mediterranean Ocean to envelop the Persian Gulf—Greater Israel? That will blatantly cramp the strategic spaces/perimeters of security assumed by other regional powers especially Iran and will precipitate clashes.
Will they creep into the South-Central Asian Region to straddle the River Indus too?
Concomitant to the elimination of all possible threats to Israel, the US created a bogey-man in Iran, as part of the notorious axis of evil. Political and sectarian differences between the Arabs and the Iranians were skilfully exploited to divide and rule the Muslim World. Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs, despite the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) were relentlessly projected as an existentialist threat to the GCC Arabs and Israel. A common threat and a convergence of interests was thus adeptly created. The GCC Arabs found their fears growing upon them exponentially. A US-Israel provided protective military-nuclear-missile umbrella against a futuristic nuclear weapon toting Iran is but a foregone conclusion. The stage is now being set for the massive Arab wealth to be combined with the technological and military prowess of the US-Israeli Combine to ostensibly combat and neutralise Iran and dominate the GMER—and beyond! A US-Israel-GCC Combine is all but imminent.
Israel’s recognition by the GCC/Arabs is splitting the Muslim World, distinctively into Arab and non-Arab factions. The GCC approach to the Palestinian cause has undergone a massive paradigm shift, fostering a colossal role-reversal within the GMER—Israel is henceforth an ally and Iran a sworn enemy! Instead of leading a whole-of-the-Muslim-World approach to the Palestinian issue a maverick GCC one has been preferred. Apparently this recognition of Israel is a collective GCC policy decision and is being implemented piecemeal. Ironically, there appears to be no discernible, compatible quid pro quo thereto. What is causing this GCC Arab vulnerability, nervousness and indecent haste in recognising Israel and potentially outsourcing their security and futures to the US-Israel Combine? Do they fear that a President Biden Administration will resurrect the Iran nuclear deal to their detriment? They must already know that the basic US national interest and policy objective of denying Iran a nuclear weapons capability will always remain sacrosanct, unalterable. Then why the fears? Has Iran then been so grossly demonised as an existentialist threat and a potential regional hegemon that they feel constrained to seek external help to defend themselves? The GCC Arabs must also realise that if things develop as projected, it will be the US backed Israel which will eventually end up becoming the sole hegemon in the GMER and they will be obliged to support it!
Presently, the GCC Arabs appear vulnerable under multidimensional pressures. The ravages of realpolitik, reported infighting, a debilitating slump in oil prices, the emergence of alternative fuels, the COVID-19 pandemic, the strategic connotations of Israel’s recognition etc have limited their ability to assert themselves in the GMER and beyond. Their hold on the Muslim World’s leadership is extremely tenuous now. Their rather limited indigenous military capacities add to their woes. They have painfully become aware of the futility of asking other Muslim states to fight their battles against another Muslim country. They perhaps now view Iran as a potential nuclear-missile existentialist “threat” to them and the US-Israel Combine as their “saviour”. Instead of directly engaging Iran to neutralise the threat, the GCC Arabs have apparently preferred to cast their lot with the US-Israel Combine.
Quite obviously, such a skewed strategic environment in the GMER will cause battle lines to be drawn—a strategic objective of the US-Israel Combine? The US-Israel Combine appears set to provide a prohibitively costly military-nuclear-missile umbrella to the GCC against a yet-to-become nuclear power, Iran. The GCC Arabs perhaps feel that a US-Israel-GCC (and possibly India? The Indian Army Chief is on a visit to the KSA and UAE) alliance guarantees their respective national securities as well as a perpetuation of their monarchies and dynasties.
The GCC Arabs will have a monumental price to pay, in military, financial, economic, political and diplomatic terms, for this “ostensible favour” done to them by the US-Israel Combine. They will be isolated within the Muslim World. The threat of democracy, (used as a leverage by the US-Israel Combine) will hover above their heads ominously, forever. Crucially, this will allow the US-Israel Combine’s military forces’ presence on Arab lands; fatefully on their oil resources to supposedly protect them. The GCC Arabs’ centre of gravity, their oil wealth, will thus pass to direct oversight/control of the US-Israel Combine! Ironically, they will be made to pay for it, both literally and metaphorically.
Clearly, the GCC Arabs are remiss here!
(To be continued)