Ever since Francis Fukuyama claimed, more than twenty years ago, that the end of history had come, history has taken the world's breath away. The rise of China, the Balkan wars, the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the global financial crisis, the Arab Spring, the Syrian civil war - all of this refutes Fukuyama's view of the inevitability of the victory of liberal democracy. In reality, it can be said that history has come full circle and returned to its starting point in a quarter of a century from the moment of the fall of communism in Europe in 1989 to the new confrontation between Russia and the West.
However, in the Middle East history works on a daily basis and with the most dramatic consequences. The old Middle East, created from the remnants of the Ottoman Empire after the First World War, is clearly falling apart, and that is in no small part thanks to America's actions in that conflict region.
The original sin of the United States was its military invasion of Iraq in 2003 under President George W. Bush. The "neoconservatives" who were in power at that time did not pay attention to the necessity to neutralize the power vacuum in Iraq and in the region after the departure of Saddam Hussein. The hasty, premature withdrawal by Barack Obama's decision represents the second failure of the US.
America's departure, which coincided virtually with the start of the Arab Spring and the flare-up of the Syrian civil war, and its persistent passivity as a regional peacekeeping force, now threaten to lead to the collapse of Iraq due to the rapid advance of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), including and taking over the country's second largest city, Mosul. Essentially, from the moment ISIL took control and its administration of most areas northwest of Baghdad, the border between Iraq and Syria ceased to exist. Many of their neighbors' borders can also be forcibly redrawn. The already existing massive humanitarian disaster is bound to get worse.
If ISIL succeeds in becoming a permanent state entity in parts of Iraq and Syria, the disintegration of the region will accelerate and the US will lose its "global war on terror" and peace in the entire world will be seriously threatened. But even without the terror of the ISIL state, the situation remains extremely volatile, because the Syrian civil war is, it turns out, highly contagious. In fact, "civil war" is a misnomer because the events there involve a struggle for regional dominance between Saudi Arabia and Iran for regional dominance, underpinned by the age-old conflict between the Sunni Islamic majority and the Shiite minority.
The Kurds are another unstable component of the Ottoman legacy. Divided among several Middle Eastern countries - Iran, Iraq, Syria and Turkey - the Kurds have been fighting for their statehood for several decades. However, they showed great restraint in northern Iraq after the fall of Saddam Hussein, contenting themselves with an autonomous province both economically and politically - until it became independent in all but name, with a strong and experienced security force, the Peshmerga.
The rise of ISIL and its capture of Mosul have now been resolved in one fell swoop, all territorial disputes between the central government and the Kurdish regional leadership have been resolved in favor of the latter, especially when it comes to the city of Kirkuk. After the withdrawal of the Iraqi army, the Peshmegra operationally took over the city, giving the Kurdish north ample reserves of oil and gas. In addition, neighboring Iran and Turkey, as well as the US, will urgently need rebel support against ISIL. In this way, an unexpected window of opportunity has opened for the Kurds to gain full independence, although their dependence on good relations with Turkey and Iran for access to global markets will limit their political ambitions.
In addition, with its invasion of Iraq, the US opened the door to regional hegemony for Iran and initiated dramatic changes in its own regional alliances whose long-term consequences - including today's nuclear negotiations with the Iranian government - are now apparent. Both sides are fighting the same jihadists who are supported by supposed US allies from Sunni-led Persian Gulf countries. Although the US and Iran remain on opposite sides in terms of official cooperation, the wheel is set in motion with direct negotiations becoming routine.
One of the key questions of the future is whether Jordan, which has a key role in the balance of the region, will remain unscathed in these geopolitical movements. If this does not happen, then the entire balance of power in the traditional Middle East conflict between Israel and the Palestinians may collapse. The consequences, most likely, will be far-reaching and difficult to assess in advance.
For Europe, the events in the Middle East represent two main risks: jihad fighters returning and threatening to bring terror with them, and also the propaganda of their extremist ideas in the Balkans. In the interest of its own security, the European Union and its member states are forced to pay much more attention to South-Eastern Europe than they have done so far.
Copyright: Project Syndicate, 2014.
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