Raghida Dergham

President Barack Obama insists on adopting mystery, be this constructive or destructive, as the basis of his policies, because he is comfortable in the gray zone. Some see him as a president who is conscious of the fickle attitudes and desires of the American people, and thus backs non-clarity and non-commitment especially as relates to foreign policy. Others oppose for the US president to be diffident at his core, hiding behind ambiguity, and fearing decisiveness. The resignation – or sacking – of Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel has been seen in the context of his being one of the opponents of the non-decisiveness adopted by President Obama, by insisting to be mysterious in a key issue of the war on ISIS, namely, the issue of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. US Secretary of State John Kerry, who is good at navigating in accordance with President Obama’s ever-moving compass, can be described as the diplomat who is very well adept at coloring and shaping any political scene exactly as the president wants it to be. Thus Kerry colored the extension of nuclear negotiations with Iran as an achievement, when he knows well that the gap remains large, even if it had narrowed a little. The Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif did the same, not in support of the US President, but of President Hassan Rohani, who was marketed in the global arena as a savior of Iran from extremism and militancy. 

Moderation in the Islamic Republic of Iran is on trial today, to the tune of the nuclear negotiations, while the hardliners are practically benefiting from the easing of sanctions as a result of these negotiations. The next seven months will not be easy for Barack Obama, as he tries to reconcile the nuclear negotiations with the Republican-dominated Congress that is hostile to Tehran, and the flames of the war on ISIS and the friendly fire from the poles of the international coalition aimed at the US management of this war. The next seven months will act as a theater for impertinent approaches of all kinds, whether those of Russian President Vladimir Putin, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, or Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. It will also be a space where the repercussions and implications of the policy of mystery and its opposites would play out.

Cities in the United States have broken into protests against a grand jury’s acquittal of a white policeman who had shot dead an African-American youth, from the city of Ferguson in Missouri to Oakland in California. The protests, which have swept more than 170 cities against “racism,” have dominated the US media news cycle, which usually moves from issue to issue very rapidly, and President Obama will be under increased scrutiny, but this issue will not necessarily become the exclusive focus of US policy, both domestic and foreign. The timing of this event, which coincided with the resignation of the Defense Secretary and the end of the nuclear negotiations with an outcome of non-success and non-failure, has put more pressure on Obama, especially as he gears up for a fierce showdown with Congress, which is now dominated by the Republicans following the midterm elections. This Republican Congress will second-guess Obama on the smallest details, including in foreign policy issues led by the negotiations with Iran, the war on ISIS and its operations in Iraq and Syria, and the fate of the peace process between Palestine and Israel. 

On Iran, the Republican Congress plans to head off any possible American concessions on the nuclear issue. Congress also intends to pass additional laws that would step up the sanctions on Iran to punish it for its regional roles beyond its borders. The Obama administration will seek to reduce the punitive tone and measures because President Obama is still hoping his achievements and legacy would be culminated with an agreement with Iran. However, Obama also now realizes the difficulty of reaching an agreement with Iran on the nuclear issue as well as its regional ambitions, and understands that the battle between the forces of moderation and the hardliners in Tehran may not have the outcome he had imagined. 

The nuclear negotiations did not collapse, much to the relief of the world, including the Gulf countries. The Gulf nations were relieved by the extension of the negotiations because the alternative was confrontation and further tensions with Iran, amid circumstances that require focusing on ISIS, which is at the Gulf’s doors. 

The GCC summit, which will be held in Doha in two weeks, will reflect the climate of welcoming the extension and relief on account of it, instead of pursuing a gloating tone or supporting escalation. True, the Gulf countries benefit from the Republican Congress’s pressuring Obama into a corner to force him not to be lenient with Iran, but they don’t want to act as his “stick” as he threatens Iran on the nuclear issue. The Gulf countries are concerned about events within Iran and their practical implications for the Iraqi, Syrian, Yemeni, and Lebanese arenas, and are open to accords if moderate forces able to make deals gain the upper hand in Iran.

The division in the Islamic Republic of Iran is clear. Some signs of it surfaced following the extension of nuclear negotiations, in the form of statements made by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and President Hassan Rohani, the first waging a campaign against the West and the second highlighting the benefits of the negotiations.

The hardliners chanted “death to America.” In the Shura Council, the hardliner MP Hamid Rasaei, said, “It's already a year since Mr Rohani tried his magic key to turn around America's wolfish nature. Instead of turning, the key of trust and optimism broke in the lock.” Deputy Speaker of Parliament Mohammad-Hassan Aboutorabi-Fard said Iran had learned from the nuclear negotiations that it had a strong hand to play. He declared, “Today, we can speak to the U.S. and its allies with the tone of power. A lesson can be taken from the recent nuclear talks that, for various reasons, the U.S. is not reliable.”

Interestingly, Iranian Foreign Ministry adviser Mohammad Ali Sobhani accused the current Vice-President of the Iraqi Republic (former Prime Minister) Nuri al-Maliki of following sectarian policies when he was in office, which led to the formation of an incubator for ISIS, as quoted by the Iranian website Nameh News. He said, “Were it not for Maliki’s exclusionary policies against Sunnis in the country, the group would not have found a popular incubator among the Sunnis.” According to the same website, Sobhani criticized the Assad regime, saying, “The Syrian people initially protested peacefully for legitimate demands, but the Assad regime tried to suppress the demonstrations with excessive force which led to the emergence of armed groups later,” and pointing out that if the Syrian state had taken measures at the beginning of the demonstrations to meet the legitimate demands of the protesters, the situation would not be like it is today.

If the debate inside Iran is along the lines of these statements and those in the Shura Council, what could happen in the coming months is a serious review of the Iranian approach that will no doubt impact Iran’s regional policies, and not just the Iranian interior.

Russia is outdoing and outbidding Iran on Syria in terms of clinging to Bashar al-Assad in power. That is if we go by what Moscow told Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem, who was received by the Russian president for the first time, and who made sure to publicly stress the Syrian insistence on having his president remain in power to fight terror. If Moscow is honest about its other insinuations that it is ready for accords with international and regional forces on the basis of a formula that bolsters the war on ISIS and similar radical Islamist groups requiring concessions from Moscow, then Russia understands completely that the language of current accords stress the continuation of support for the regime in Damascus, but not necessarily the head of the regime. So which approach has Vladimir Putin really chosen? Perhaps Putin, too, found deliberate ambiguity a policy that suits him and his “poker-game” approach to his adventures from Syria to Ukraine. But what is clear is the emergence of the importance of the link between the war on ISIS and Bashar al-Assad’s position in that war and in international policies.

The Turkish president does not infuse his statements with courteousness and diplomacy, and does not care whether what he says is liked by the US president or Vice President Joe Biden, who made an unsuccessful visit to Ankara. Erdogan denounced what he called the US ‘impertinence’ on the Syrian crisis, and said in the course of commenting on US demands from Turkey in the context of the fight against ISIS that he rejected them, saying “we are against impertinence, recklessness and endless demands.” Erdogan, in reference to the Americans, said, “They looked on as the tyrant (President Bashar) al-Assad massacred 300,000 people. They remained silent in the face of Assad's barbarism and now they are now staging a 'conscience show' through Kobane,” where Erdogan refuses to intervene militarily alongside the Kurdish forces. 

Most probably, the crisis in Syria will intensify and become more complicated and bloody in the coming period, being an arena for the tug of war between regional and international forces, and also because it is the crucible where the mystery policy pursued by Presidents Obama and Putin is tested, in contrast to the stark clarity expressed by President Erdogan. 

The divisions in Iran will certainly be reflected on the fate of Syria, sooner or later, given the depth of the direct and indirect Iranian involvement in Syria. Economic sanctions restrain the hands of hardliners, which benefited from the temporary lifting of some sanctions, but which will now suffer seriously. These extremist forces have wagered – believing themselves to be shrewd and cunning – on moderate forces in nuclear negotiations, because their success would lead to lifting the sanctions. The hardliners insisted on opposing the gradual lifting of sanctions, because they are the biggest beneficiaries of the direct lifting of sanctions, as this would put money immediately in their hands. In turn this would allow them to press ahead with their policies in Syria, Iraq, Yemen, and Lebanon, while they can also use this to bully the moderate forces. 

For this reason, the moderate faction may seem like it is the bigger loser in the resulting non-success of the nuclear negotiations. But in reality, it is the hardliners that have lost the most, because the fact that the sanctions have not been lifted contributed to thwarting their regional projects and headed off their plans to turn against the moderates after sanctions are lifted on the Islamic Republic.

This situation may lead to more conciliatory policies on the part of Tehran, so as not to get involved further in Syria, Yemen, Iraq, or Lebanon, especially as ISIS has entered the frayed, and defeating it inevitably requires the participation of Sunni forces. Oil prices also play a role in making Iranian policies more conciliatory, out of necessity, because expansion is expensive, financially and materially, and because the Iranian interior is suffering economically.

Perhaps Lebanon can benefit from such conciliation, with an accord that would help Lebanon emerge out of the presidential vacuum in the next few months, probably more sooner than later. Iraq is undergoing an experiment in conciliation and accord, improving its relations with the Gulf without Iranian opposition. Yemen is a spot too large to be controlled by any of the actors, and therefore, Iranian hardliners will not be able to control Yemen even if this appears possible temporarily. As for Syria, it is an arena open to all possibilities.

President Barack Obama may be forced to move away a little from his policy of non-clarity, because he will not be able to win the war he declared against ISIS as long as he relies on mystery. This is what his outgoing Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel told him, and this is what any sane person would insist upon before agreeing to lead the US Department of Defense at this stage of President Obama’s tenure.