Thanks to the liberation of Mosul in northern Iraq, the "Islamic State" (IS) may soon go down in history. But the defeat of IS and the collapse of its self-proclaimed Iraqi-Syrian caliphate will not bring peace to the Middle East or even end the tragedy in Syria. Apparently, a new chapter of the bloody and chaotic history of the region will open, a chapter that will be no less dangerous than the previous ones, written after the fall of the Ottoman Empire at the end of the First World War.
The continuation of violence is, it seems, almost guaranteed, because the region, as before, is incapable of independently resolving internal conflicts or creating a framework for lasting peace. On the contrary, he cannot get out of the trap he fell into sometime between the XNUMXth and XNUMXth centuries.
Western powers can hardly be considered innocent when it comes to the sufferings of the Middle East. Any mention of the Sykes-Picot agreement, thanks to which Great Britain and France divided the territory of the former Ottoman Empire, to this day causes outrage in the Arab world, just as if the plan, conceived in 1916, was made yesterday.
We must not forget the role of Imperial Russia in that region. Its successor, the Soviet Union, and also the USSR's Cold War rival, the United States, began their own policy of active interference after World War II.
Apart from that, the US probably contributed more than anyone to the current chaos in the region. America's interests in the Middle East were initially dictated by its need for oil. But when the Cold War began, economic interests quickly gave way to strategic ones - the emergence of anti-Western, pro-Soviet governments must not be allowed. It was then that America's intention to preserve decisive influence in the region led to a close security partnership with Israel, and then to two major military interventions - two wars in the Gulf against Saddam Hussein's Iraq.
American involvement in Afghanistan also had profound consequences for the Middle East. The rebels, who were supported by the US in the 1980s and who opposed the Soviet occupation under the banner of jihad, turned two of Washington's close allies - Pakistan and Saudi Arabia - into a strategic threat. This became evident on September 11, 2001, when it emerged that 15 of the 19 terrorists sent by Al Qaeda were Saudi citizens. At the same time, Pakistan created the "Taliban" movement, which became a haven for al-Qaeda to plan attacks on the US and the West.
The success of the first Gulf War, launched in January 1991 by US President George W. Bush, was fatally undermined 12 years later by his son, President George W. Bush: his Gulf War led to a regional catastrophe that continues until today. If Bush Sr. had a limited task of liberating Kuwait and no intention of deposing the regime in Iraq, his son's goals were much more ambitious. The idea was to overthrow Saddam Hussein and establish a democratic Iraq, which would be a catalyst for broad changes in the entire Middle East and which would transform it into a democratic, pro-Western region. In the administration of Bush Jr., imperialist idealism prevailed over pragmatic realism. This has led to endless destabilization of the Middle East, and has also helped put Iran in a position to expand its sphere of influence.
After the defeat of IS, the next phase of Middle East history will be determined by the development of an open, direct confrontation for regional supremacy between Sunni Saudi Arabia and Shiite Iran. Until now, this long-simmering conflict has developed gradually and not directly. Two global powers, which actively participate in events in the region, have clearly positioned themselves in that conflict: the US sided with Saudi Arabia, and Russia sided with Iran.
The current "war against terrorism" will increasingly give way to exactly that conflict over hegemony. After Saudi Arabia and its four Sunni allies declared the isolation of Qatar, which was partially related to the close ties between Qatar and Iran, the conflict reached its first potential critical moment, in the very center of the region - the Persian Gulf.
Of course, any direct confrontation with Iran will represent a conflagration for the entire region, the scale of which can surpass all previous wars in the Middle East. In addition, with the fire in Syria still smoldering and Iraq weakened by sectarian power struggles in the country, IS or some new reincarnation of it will likely continue to be active.
Another destabilizing factor is the newly opened "Kurdish question". The Kurds - a nation without a state - have proven to be reliable fighters against IS and want to use their new political and military power to advance towards autonomy or even an independent state. For the countries concerned (in the first place, of course, Turkey, but also Syria, Iraq and Iran), the issue can potentially be a reason for war (casus belli) because it is about their territorial integrity.
Against the backdrop of these unresolved issues and the escalation of the conflict over hegemony between Iran and Saudi Arabia, the next chapter of the region's history promises to be anything but peaceful. Washington, perhaps, drew the conclusion from the Iraq disaster that it cannot win a land war in the Middle East, regardless of its enormous military superiority. US President Barack Obama has been trying to withdraw the US military from the region, which has proven difficult for both political and military reasons. That is precisely why he rejected military intervention - even from the air - in the civil war in Syria, creating a vacuum that was quickly filled by Russia (with all the known consequences).
Obama's successor, Donald Trump, also promised to leave the region during the election campaign. And then, after the election, he hit Syria with cruise missiles, took on more obligations to Saudi Arabia and its allies, and also intensified the rhetoric of confrontation in relation to Iran.
Trump clearly has a lot to learn when it comes to the Middle East, but the region won't wait for him to gain that knowledge. There is no reason for optimism.
The author was the German Minister of Foreign Affairs and Vice-Chancellor from 1998-2005; he played a key role in the founding of the German Green Party, which he led for almost 20 years
Copyright: Project Syndicate, 2017.
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