Rami G. Khouri

The upheaval of ideological forces and reconfiguration of geostrategic conditions across the Middle East took a dramatic turn on Sunday and Monday, with in three principal developments in and around the Arab world: the combined American-Arab Gulf states airstrikes in Syria; the control of the Yemeni capital by Houthi rebels; and the meeting in New York between the Saudi and Iranian foreign ministers. 

Each of these developments was dramatic in its own way, but together they captured two overarching developments that interact deeply and shape the region today. The first is that the domestic configuration of some Arab countries such as Syria, Libya, Yemen and Iraq is being defined (often for the first time) by a balance of forces emerging from military clashes among sectarian and ethnic groups. The parallel phenomenon that is not so novel is that major regional powers such as Iran and Saudi Arabia are intervening directly, militarily, financially and ideologically in these domestic contests to shape the identities and policies of Arab countries. They routinely do this with the active participation of allies such as Hezbollah and the smaller Gulf Cooperation Council states.

 

The American-led airstrikes against ISIS in Iraq and Syria are not so noteworthy in themselves, because the U.S. has been bombing Arab countries at will for decades. That such foreign militarism is one of the factors fueling the continuous growth of Salafist-takfiri extremist groups such as Al-Qaeda and ISIS is a tangential matter for Americans or Arabs right now, when the immediate threat of ISIS must be beaten back and, if possible, eliminated.

 

The novel development this week is the combined air attacks against ISIS targets in northern Syria by several GCC states and the U.S., signaling a historic shift in how the traditionally conservative, low-key Gulf states use their power in the region. Air attacks against targets in nearby Arab countries indicate that all the constraints that had traditionally defined intra-Arab engagements are now removed. We have a free-for-all situation in the region, with traditionally clear ideological demarcation lines all blown to hell, whose gates the United States has said it is willing to reach to defeat ISIS.

 

Americans, French, many Arabs, Kurds, Iranians and others are all directly involved in military clashes in Iraq and Syria, with important supporting roles by Russia, Hezbollah and Turkey. The ongoing aerial attacks against ISIS in Syria and Iraq will certainly weaken the group, and perhaps transform it from a movement that wants to create an Islamic state in the lands it controls, to a movement closer to Al-Qaeda in its tactics of attacking Arab and Western targets of its ire anywhere in the world. The gates of hell may be forming before our eyes. 

Degrading or dispersing ISIS in Syria is likely to strengthen President Bashar Assad’s government in Damascus that the U.S. and most of the Arab states attacking ISIS have been trying to overthrow. The fate of Assad rule will directly affect Iran, which calculates its interests and assets around the region in denominations of allied movements, such as Hezbollah or the Houthis who are now playing a leading role in Yemen.

 

Chaos created by foreign military action in the Arab world in recent years has always provided openings for Russia and Iran to improve their strategic relations across the region, which may happen again now, at least in the short run. If Yemen stabilizes under a government in which the Houthis are dominant, and Iran already has close ties with the governments in Iraq and Syria, this makes it all the more urgent for Iran and Saudi Arabia to forge a regional security arrangement that protects their vital interests while acknowledging their interests on the ground in various countries. That is why the Iranian-Saudi meeting in New York is so significant, because it is the first tangible public sign of both countries’ understanding of their urgent need to cooperate to reduce regional tensions and work out a new regional security system that they both guarantee.

 

“This is a new page in relations between the two countries,” Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said after the meeting in New York. “We hope this will have a positive impact on restoring peace and security in the region and the world.”

 

Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal for his part noted, “We believe we must avoid the errors of the past to successfully confront the current crisis.” 

Indeed, we can now either walk through the gates of hell or act rationally and create a regional balance of power system in which Iran and Saudi Arabia anchor a wider set of relationships based on mutual collective self-interest rather than wasteful militarism.