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The Middle East in Flux
Abdullah ibn Abdilaziz Al Saud, the long-reigning king of Saudi Arabia, passed away this week. While some observers worried about a power struggle, the new King Salman quickly reassured his national and international friends that it will be a peaceful transition.
However, it’s hard not to notice that King Salman is 79, just 11 years younger than his deceased half-brother Abdullah. Even if he stays in charge for a few years, he is the last of the old guard and a new generation rises. Will the younger Sauds have the same priorities of international trade and regional stability?
Further down the Arabian Peninsula, Yemen is in the midst of a violent coup. President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, a nominal U.S. ally in the war on terror, just resigned due to the rebel takeover of the capital city. These Houthi upstarts are basically a Shi’ite version of the Sunni Al Qaeda. Locals celebrated Houthi military success in downtown Sana’a by waving signs reading “Death to America! Death to Israel!”
Looking to north Africa, Libya is an anarchic nightmare, in spite of/because of the Western-led effort to topple Muammar Qaddafi. Militants carrying the banners of Al Qaeda, IS and other Islamist terror groups are thick both on the well-populated coastlines and the desolate inland.
Speaking of ISIS, they control vast swathes of Syria and Iraq and are now exporting terror to western capitals. Bashar al-Assad is brutally crushing other rebellious groups in country, while in the corners of Syria, Turkey and Iraq, heavily armed Kurds dream of an independent state.
A few days ago, Israel wiped out Hezbollah leadership and high-level Iranian generals who were gathering in the Golan Heights for an apparent invasion of the “Zionist entity.” Hezbollah’s supporters are demanding a bloody response, while Hamas attempts to step up their own terror campaign. And did I mention Iran’s nuclear program is still humming along as the feckless Obama administration finds new ways to placate the apocalyptic regime?
The above parade of horribles only scratches the surface of turmoil upending the region, any element of which could spark a far wider war.
Six years in, the President might want to consider a comprehensive plan of diplomacy, defense and trade for the Middle East. Because drones outfitted with speakers blaring James Taylor songs ain’t going to cut it.
It’s time for your prediction: What do you think the Middle East will look like in five years?
Published in General
Well they’d be similarly deterred. That’s the point of having a bomb.
I know there’s this whole ‘Iran is crazy and doesn’t act rationally’ thing going around, but I just don’t see any evidence of that. Their regime might be evil, and indeed fractured between multiple power centres, but I can see plenty of instances where it’s acted rationally and none where it’s acted irrationally wrt disregard for its own continued existence.
But I agree with you – I suspect that Iran already has an A bomb or two, and that the real red line is their making this known publicly. We may be settling into having (at least) two ambiguously nuclear states in the Middle East, neither of which will be the first to set off an atomic bomb, but neither of which will be the second either.
Here’s some great news: French President Holland’s plane was denied permission to land in Saudi Arabia because its pilots were women. The plane had to land in Jordan and he took a bus to meet with the new King We’re all screwed.
The region will look much the same in five years, except that proxy wars between the Saudis and the Iranians will intensify in Yemen and perhaps Bahrain. The Saudis cannot tolerate Shia extremist incursions in Yemen, while the Iranians will, emboldened by their Yemeni success, increasingly try to destabilize Bahrain. The resulting competition will cause an arms race in which Pakistan will most willingly share its nuclear technology with the Saudis. The US will be tempted at some point in this whole mess to dramatically change course by forming an alliance with Iran and the Shia and abandoning the Saudis in exchange for Iran shutting down Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza.