01.07.2016 Author: Petr Lvov
The Far
Reaching Consequences Brexit Will Have on the Middle East
Region: Middle East
It seems
that Ankara was the first understand that the withdrawal of the United
Kingdom from the EU would have far-reaching implications. The weakening
European Union will not be able to oppose Washington’s actions in the Middle
East, especially when Hillary Clinton is likely to become the next US
president. Therefore, Ankara has immediately turned its attention toward Moscow
by apologizing for the downed SU-24 warplane and expressed its readiness to
pursue a strategic partnership with Russia. The Turks understand that they won’t
have much leverage versus the US, a nation with different approaches to the
situation in Syria, Iraq and the Middle East in general. Most importantly,
Ankara is well aware of Washington’s plan to pursue the creation of a Kurdish
state that will occupy Kurdish regions of Turkey, Iraq, Iran and Syria. But no
regional player is going to feel comfortable enough around such a large
geopolitical formation with a total population of 30 million people in the very
heart of the Middle East. Russia doesn’t like this idea so much as well, if
taking into account the pro-American posture of the Kurdish population of the
region. Additionally, Israel will be pleased to obtain an ally in the form of
the Kurdish state right at the center of the Arab World, undermining the
positions of both Turkey and Iran.
A weakened
Europe that will get weaker still by the day especially in political terms,
cannot serve as a counterweight for US meddling across the region. Therefore
regional players are now presented with a choice: they can subject themselves
to Washington’s will or focus on establishing greater cooperation with Moscow,
who is not forcing anyone to adhere to foreign democratic, moral and political
values, and has made it a habit of respecting the sovereignty and the principle
of non-interference in the internal affairs of other states. After all, with
the bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999, the active promotion and expansion of NATO
toward the East and the inclusion of the North Atlantic alliance of former
Soviet republics, followed by the Georgian crisis in 2008 and the actual
separation of Donbass from Ukraine in 2014, the US has been burying the Europe
created in 1945 in Yalta, in the aftermath of WWII.
Now the US
is committed to collapse the Middle East as a system along with North Africa,
the system created by London and Paris on the eve of the collapse of the
Ottoman Empire and embodied in the Sykes-Picot Agreement. First there was the
US-British occupation of Iraq in 2003. This was followed by a wave of “Arab
Springs” in 2011. The end result of this meddling is terrifying: Libya is
a failed state now, Iraq is about to break into Sunnitostan, Shiitostan and
Kurdistan, Egypt is living under the threat of the “Muslim Brotherhood,” Yemen
may again break up into two parts – northern and southern, and the civil war in
Syria is only leading to the disintegration of the country along ethnic and
religious lines. Additionally, Sudan has collapsed, but there is also the
prospect of the creation of a “Greater Kurdistan.” And then “democratization”
will sweep Iran, given that almost a third of its population consists of
Azerbaijanis living in the north-west of the country around Tabriz, while the
south is home to several million Bellugi with counterparts in neighboring
Pakistan, and in the east, Iran is densely populated with 2.5 million Kurds.
Americans
will then try to break Saudi Arabia in 3-4 parts, which will be easier to
control than a centralized state based in Riyadh. Especially since almost all
the oil in Saudi Arabia is extracted in the Eastern Province (the historical
name of the Al-Hiss), in the west before there was a moderate Sunni kingdom of
Hijaz, which housed the two Islamic holy sites of Mecca and Medina, in the
North and Northeast of the country a there was a kingdom with the capital in
Al-Haile that was controlled by the Shammar tribal union, in the southwest
(historical region of Al-Asir) there was a clan of al-Raschid, where several
million Yemenis live now, including Shia Houthis and Shia Ismaili.
Ankara has
realized that the only player that can stop the US plan to redraw the Middle
East – is Russia. It is clear that the redrawing of the Middle East will be
carried out when its principal players including Egypt, Iraq, Syria and Algeria
are weakened. There are the growing ambitions of Saudi Arabia, which proclaimed
itself the standard-bearer of the Sunni world by manipulating Sunni Arabs with
an alleged Shia threat supposedly coming from Iran. This opposition is now
shaping the whole situation in the region, including wars and conflicts in
Iraq, Syria and Yemen. And when Hillary Clinton comes to power with her special
ties to the Arabian monarchies of the Persian Gulf, the confrontation will only
grow more tense.
Of course,
one may wonder how Turkey, considered a Sunni state as well, and who has been
working closely with Saudi Arabia and Qatar in Syria, could change its stance?
As a matter of fact it can, since Riyadh and Doha have been using Ankara for
its own purposes, while giving nothing in return. In addition, for almost 100
years that have passed since the time when Kemal Ataturk separated Islam from
the state institutions, Turkey has become a secular country in many respects.
Moreover, it has always wanted to become a EU member, but now Brexit appears to
have buried those hopes. Yet, Turkey has a strong sense for its own national
interests, for which it is willing to fight till the end. The only country that
could potentially facilitate this cause is Russia.
The
project that is now known as the EU is not dead yet, but it has sustained
severe damage, therefore it will be impossible to predict whether it will
recover or other states, following the example of the UK, will begin leaving
the union as well. This trend is evident, as well as a tendency toward the
disintegration of a number of multi-national states: the UK, Spain, Belgium and
even Italy, where northerners and the Venetians do not want to live under the
authority of Rome. And if due to active steps of the United States hundreds of
thousands of Syrian and Iraqi refugees will flee to Europe through Turkey
again, including tens of thousands of terrorists, Ankara will find itself in a
peculiar position. Turkey’s economy is seriously weakened now by the sanctions
Moscow imposed upon it in return for the downing of Russia’s Su-24 warplane
over Syria. Turkey’s agriculture, tourism industry and construction business
won’t be able to recover from those sanctions without the normalization of its
relations with Russia. Especially since the restoration of the strategic partnership
with Russia will lead to the resumption of the construction of the Turkish
steam pipeline to southern Europe, which will mark the end of Ukraine along
with the rapid rise of a prosperous Turkey.
It is
clear that the creation of an axis between the two countries – Russia and
Turkey, is clearly not enough to completely disrupt the implementation of
US plans to redraw the Middle East. Obviously it is necessary that this is
joined by a powerful Iran, which will soon have to face Washington’s attempts
to “liberalize” the ruling imams, a process already underway in Iraq and Syria.
In the future this “union” can be joined by Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and
Azerbaijan, who have already been experiencing preparations for “color
revolutions” on their soil. This association, with a total population of 380
million people, and with huge hydrocarbon resources and strong armies, will be
more than capable to defend its collective interests. Moreover, its formation
would further weaken the EU and its dependence on the US, which may trigger a
process toward a common Eurasian space from the Atlantic to the Pacific,
which Russia’s President Vladimir Putin has recently mentioned. Turkey seems to
be moving in this direction now, but it’s imperative that this push is joined
by Iran. The European Union will find itself in a truly difficult position soon
since it won’t be able to continue its existence in its present form. Brussels
clearly has taken too much authority for itself, and the EU’s expansion
eastward has led to the inclusion of poor, but ambitious states such as Poland
and Romania, not to mention the Baltic states that have put the European Union
in a precarious economic position. Time will do its work now, but instead of
waiting one can prepare for what is sure to come.
Peter
Lvov, Ph.D in political science, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook.”
http://journal-neo.org/2016/07/01/the-far-reaching-consequences-brexit-will-have-on-the-middle-east/
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