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A turning point for Iran

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A turning point for Iran

The lifting of the international sanctions against it is a huge breakthrough for Iran, even though it remains a challenge for its edgy Arab neighbours, writes Salah Nasrawi

For Iran, the beginning of the implementation of its landmark nuclear deal with the West this week was a moment to celebrate. It was another diplomatic triumph that will end the Islamic Republic’s isolation and reopen the doors to the international economy.
“Today is a historic and exceptional day in the political and economic history of the Iranian nation,” declared President Hassan Rouhani in a press conference following the announcement of the lifting of the Western economic sanctions on Iran.
The lifting of the crippling sanctions came after certification by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on Saturday that Iran has successfully completed all the nuclear-related steps to which it had agreed with the 5+1 powers in July.
The 12 years of sanctions have had devastating effects on Iran where millions of Iranians have been left living with a shortage of medical services, basic goods and services. The punitive measures also imposed a state of diplomatic isolation on Iran that weakened its international standing.
The embargo compromised the Iranian economy, and the country suffered from the devaluation of its local currency, the rial, double-digit inflation and an unemployment rate of nearly 11 per cent.
The lifting of the sanctions, however, means the government and people of Iran will now start to feel the enormous benefits of the agreement, which will make this regional power rebound from its misfortune.
The removal of the oil- and gas-related US and EU sanctions means that Iran can now resume its sale of oil and gas worldwide, having been restricted to selling it to a handful of countries, including China and India.
Even with plummeting oil prices, Iran plans to ramp up daily exports by some 500,000 barrels per day from one million barrels currently. It plans further increases in the months ahead.
The cancellation of the embargo also means foreign oil and gas companies are now free to enter Iran’s energy market, with American and European companies poised to become Iranian partners and bringing with them world-class technology.
It will allow Iranian banks to restore ties with the Western banking system and to open new business opportunities in the country to multinational corporations.
More than $30 billion (Iran says $100 billion) in assets overseas will become immediately available to Iran. While the money is expected to be injected into the Iranian economy, much of the funds are expected to be used as foreign currency reserves to protect the value of the rial.
The lifting of the sanctions will also allow Iranians to resume foreign trade and travel, and the transfer of assets to a wide range of individuals and companies. Politically, the lifting of the sanctions on Iran is expected to have a far-reaching implication on the country’s global politics, mostly on its regional standing.
Iran is expected to emerge politically stronger and with its regional influence increased. For precisely this reason, celebrations in the region have been muted. While most Arab nations, such as Saudi Arabia, have abstained from congratulating Iran or welcoming the deal, only Iraq and Oman have voiced positive reactions.
Iraq’s Prime Minister Haider Al-Abadi, whose Shia-led government is one of Iran’s key regional allies, described the agreement as “historic”. Oman’s Foreign Minister Yusuf bin Alawi said: “The spectre of war has disappeared.”
Right from the outset, Saudi Arabia and its allies in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) have opposed the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, as the deal is known, and made every possible effort to thwart the agreement.
Saudi Arabia, an Arab Sunni powerhouse, has been concerned about Shia Iran’s growing regional influence and, from Riyadh’s perspective, a nuclear deal will leave Tehran stronger politically.
Saudi Arabia also suspects that the deal will not stop Iran creating a nuclear weapon, since the deal will only take effect for a relatively short period of time, 15 years, and will not destroy Iran’s technical capabilities to maintain a nuclear programme. The results will embolden Iran and its Shia allies in the region, according to this perspective.
Surprisingly, Iran has wasted no time in throwing down the gauntlet and defying Saudi Arabia for its opposition to the nuclear deal and the lifting of sanctions. Shortly after the announcement of the deal, Rouhani was quick to point to Iranian-Saudi political tensions and the security rivalry that has dominated the two countries’ relationship for nearly four decades.
“Saudi Arabia did not apologise for the pilgrims killed in the human tragedy in Mina,” said Rouhani, referring to the deaths of hundreds of Iranian pilgrims in a stampede near Mecca in September. He also said Saudi Arabia should pay reparations to the Iranian victims.
Rouhani blasted the oil-rich kingdom for “its behaviour towards the people in the region,” which he described as “not proper”. Rouhani specifically mentioned the Saudi-led campaign against the Shia rebel Houthis in Yemen, which he labelled as “the carnage of a Muslim nation”.
Rouhani bitterly criticised the Saudi government for the recent execution of the Shia religious leader Sheikh Nimr Al-Nimr, a vocal critic of the Saudi government. Riyadh cut diplomatic relations with Tehran following Iran’s protests against the execution of Al-Nimr.
On the other hand, Iran has also been raising the blood pressure of observers for some time in many Arab countries over its actions in several regional hot spots.
Saudi Arabia and its Gulf allies have serious questions about Iranian intentions in flashpoints such as Iraq, Syria and Yemen. There is little doubt that the rise in Iranian regional standing as a result of the new deal will raise tensions between Iran and the Saudi-led alliance further.
Saudi Arabia seems intent on trimming Iran’s regional influence by seeking to build a broader Sunni Muslim alliance to confront Shia Iran and its regional allies. Riyadh hopes that heavyweights, such as Egypt, Pakistan and Turkey, will join the 34-country Islamic coalition it said it is creating to battle terrorism but is widely seen as an anti-Iran alliance.
From Riyadh’s perspective, the three powerful Sunni-ruled nations, whose armies are among the largest in the world, could provide the much-needed critical mass to confront Iran.
Such support has been hard to win, however, as Cairo, Islamabad and Ankara have shown no great interest in actively joining such an alliance. Indeed, both Pakistan and Turkey, which have long borders with Iran, have offered mediation between Riyadh and Tehran, sidestepping the burden of having to pick sides.
Inevitably, the prospect of rivalry between the two regional powers is expected to be on an upward trajectory in the post-nuclear deal era.
With several sources of short- and longer-term tension in different arenas already evident, the two countries seem to be heading towards further split. Unfortunately, the key element of this confrontation is the widening Shia-Sunni split engaging the two regional powerhouses and their proxies.
This standoff is perhaps most glaringly apparent in Iraq, Syria and Yemen, which are expected to bear most of the adverse consequences of the competition for regional influence by Iran and its adversaries.

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Desert Storm through the eyes of an Iraqi reporter

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Desert Storm through the eyes of an Iraqi reporter

As Iraq braced for war with the US, Iraqi AP reporter Salah Nasrawi was torn between journalistic duty and patriotism.

Salah Nasrawi

On the eve of the 1991 Gulf War, I was working as a correspondent for the American news agency, the Associated Press (AP), in Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. My job was not only demoralising, exhausting and hazardous, it was virtually suicidal.

War was looming, and I was pulled between my sense of duty and my sense of patriotism – the dilemma of a native journalist reporting on a conflict for a news organisation that, in theory, belonged to the other side – to the enemy.

I had already spent more than six years reporting for the BBC and AP on the Iraq-Iran war, which ended in August 1988. For much of that time, I was in the trenches along the 1,200km-long frontline or investigating the war’s human cost and its political and social impact.

I had my own war to fight, too, as I battled to maintain neutrality between the two sides’ narratives and positions. Complying with global journalistic standards often meant employing “tricks” to avoid Saddam’s censors.

Sometimes it worked. But sometimes it didn’t.

There were occasions when I faced the wrath of Iraq’s Ministry of Information or its ruthless intelligence service, the Mukhabarat – often for stories they considered negative or insufficiently patriotic.

But if covering the Iraq-Iran war for foreign media was daunting, it was nothing compared to reporting on the US’s Operation Desert Storm for a major American news agency.

Under Saddam’s authoritarian rule, there were strict limitations on what could be reported. The cost of breaching those could be grave. An Iraqi reporter might face death for gathering information considered to be confidential or for writing an article deemed to be harmful to the state.

Really, I should have quit. But that would have meant losing both my job and the opportunity to be on top of the biggest story in the world at the time.

When I contemplated resigning from AP during a heated discussion with then Minister of Information Latif Nussayif Jassim al-Dulaymi about a report I had written on Iraq’s war preparations, I was surprised that he rejected the idea.

“I will shoot you with my own gun and hang your body over the bridge,” he thundered.

He had his reasons.

We were, after all, showing the world horrific scenes of death and destructioninflicted by the Americans, images that he knew could prompt the world to demand that the US stop its bombardments.

American reporters fled before the bombs fell 

Many news organisations kept their teams away from the front lines, arguing that it would be too dangerous for their reporters to stay in Baghdad.

Then US President George Bush senior personally rang the heads of US media networks to ask them to ensure that their employees left.

Few foreign journalists were willing to remain. As they left and the doors to Iraq closed, I felt acutely aware of being stuck with my own destiny – for better or for worse.

The countdown to war had started as Saddam refused to comply with the UN’s January 15 deadline to withdraw from Kuwait, and I found myself deeply immersed in covering the crisis.

My fears gave way to my journalistic instinct.

On January 8, 1991, I made my fifth trip to Kuwait under Saddam’s occupation. It was a trip organised by the Ministry of Information to show Iraqi reporters the trenches and fortifications built by Iraqi soldiers across the country.

There was no doubt, war was imminent

On my return to Baghdad, I met the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) leader Yasser Arafat, whom I had known for years.

I had been at Arafat’s office less than two months before, when, on November 29, 1990, he had met the former Japanese Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone. Nakasone had previously met Saddam in an effort to convince him to defuse the crisis.

Go and tell Saddam that Iraq will be sent back to the pre-industrial age if he does not withdraw from Kuwait, Nakasone had basically told Arafat.

Now, I told Arafat that war was unavoidable.

To my surprise, he called an urgent press conference at his residence in an Iraqi government guesthouse, telling journalists: “There will be no war. There will be no war. I promise.”

Once the press conference was over, Arafat was whisked along the 1,000km-long highway to neighbouring Jordan in a Mercedes. When the war began two days later, US warplanes bombed that same road.

There was one last-chance bid for a peaceful resolution from the then-UN Secretary-General Javier Perez de Cuellar. He arrived in Baghdad on January 12, 1991, to tell Saddam to pull out of Kuwait.

I was the only reporter on that historic day to have access to De Cuellar’s spokesman, Francois Giuliani, at a secret guesthouse. Giuliani, a former Reuters journalist, told me that De Cuellar’s encounter with Saddam was scheduled for after the Iraqi leader’s afternoon nap the next day. From that, I immediately understood that the UN chief’s mission was doomed.

Baghdad, the ghost town

I no longer questioned whether Iraq would be bombed, just what would become of the “cradle of civilisation”.

The moment we would find out came on Wednesday, January 16, 1991, the day after the deadline set by the UN.

Government offices and shops were shuttered. Windows were taped. Tens of thousands of Iraqis crammed into buses and cars and fled the capital.

As dusk approached, the streets were dark and quiet. Troops manned roadblocks at the main junctions, but Saddam’s henchmen seemed to have given up altogether.

The city that history books called Madinat al-Salam, or the City of Peace, was bracing for war.

My headline that night was: Saddam defiant, Iraq bracing for military showdown, Baghdadis leaving or cowering at home.

At 2:30am, the first bombs fell. Explosion after explosion rattled the city. Iraqi soldiers fired back from anti-aircraft batteries positioned on rooftops.

By morning, Baghdad was a ghost city. Its main government buildings and communication centres either disabled or heavily damaged.

There was no electricity or running water.

The city of “A Thousand and One Nights” seemed to be on its way back to the Middle Ages.

Today, I am retired from active reporting. Yet, I am still stuck with Iraq as much as it is stuck with me.

The 1991 Gulf War, as I have repeatedly argued in all my writing, including my memoirs, A Life of Paper, was an eruption that has left Iraq forever shaken, and with it, my own life too.

This article appeared on Al-Jazeera on January 20, 2016

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What does Turkey want in Iraq?

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What does Turkey want in Iraq?

Turkey’s latest military gambit in Iraq could be a strategic game-changer, writes Salah Nasrawi

As Iraq continues to suffer, Turkey’s incursions into its war-torn neighbour have become ever more brazen. On 4 December, a column of Turkish troops and equipment crossed the border in the far south of the country at the Ibrahim Al-Khalil border crossing with Iraq’s autonomous Kurdistan Region.

The convoy of several hundred Turkish soldiers and flatbed trucks carrying armoured vehicles made its way at night through territory and checkpoints controlled by Kurdish Peshmerga forces to Iraq’s northern province of Nineveh, some 80 km to the south.

Turkish media later reported that some 150 to 200 Turkish soldiers backed by 20 to 25 tanks had been sent to Bashiqa, traditionally a Christian Chaldean-populated district north-east of Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city, which fell to the Islamic State (IS) terror group in June 2014.

The Turkish Hürriyet newspaper reported that Turkey plans to set up a permanent military base in Bashiqa under a deal signed between Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) president Massoud Barzani and former Turkish foreign minister Feridun Sinirlioğlu during the latter’s visit to northern Iraq on 4 November.

By establishing a foothold in Bashiqa, seized by the Peshmergas after IS advances last year, Turkey will be able to establish another bridgehead in this strategic part of northern Iraq. Since 1995, the Turkish army has built at least four known military bases inside Iraq in the Dohuk Province, which is under the control of Barzani’s Democratic Kurdistan Party (DKP) administration.

When news of the incursion broke, prompting an angry reaction from Iraq’s central government in Baghdad, Turkish prime minister Ahmet Davutoglu acknowledged the intervention but said the soldiers had been deployed to provide training for unspecified Iraqi troops in response to a request from Iraq.

But Iraqi Prime Minister Haider Al-Abadi denied “a request or authorisation from the Iraqi federal authorities” for the deployment had been made and told Turkey to “immediately” withdraw its forces, including tanks and artillery. The deployment “is considered a serious violation of Iraqi sovereignty,” Al-Abadi said in a statement.

Turkey’s relationship with Iraq has been tense over a host of issues ranging from its routine military incursions into Iraq, water conflicts, illegal oil exports, and disputes over what Iraq perceives as Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s interference in Iraq’s sectarian disputes.

What the newly assembled Turkish force tells us, however, is something more significant than the building of a new bridgehead inside Iraq, which the Turkish military buildup indicates. The buildup hints at a wider intervention aimed at creating a new reality on the ground in the war-torn country which is now threatened with breakup.

The past several weeks of Turkish activities in Iraq and Syria demonstrate that Ankara has found a new tactic for carrying out its overreaching strategy for achieving its goals and interests in both countries. Turkey’s course of action in the Iraqi and Syrian conflicts clearly signals its intention to assert its regional policy aims and objectives.

The new Turkish troop deployment comes amid preparations by the Iraqi security forces, Iran-backed Shia militias, and pro-government Sunni tribes backed by the US-led international coalition to storm the Iraqi town of Ramadi and take it back from IS militants.

If Ramadi, the capital of Iraq’s western Anbar Province, is to be liberated from IS militants, the combined Iraqi forces are then expected to move to take back Mosul, Iraq’s largest city still under IS control.

The Turkish intervention, therefore, would seem to precipitate any move by the Iraqi forces and the Shia militias to take back Mosul for reasons related to Ankara’s views about Iraq’s inter-communal conflicts, its future as a unitary state, and the regional strategic balance, especially with Iran.

The camp in Bashiqa is currently being used by a force called Al-Hashd Al-Watani (National Mobilisation Units), which is made up of about 4,000 to 6,000 mainly Sunni Arab former Iraqi policemen and volunteers from Mosul.

The force, believed to be equipped and trained by Turkey, was formed by former Mosul governor Atheel Al-Nujaifi, who is close to Turkey.

The new Turkish troop dispatch came a few days after Iraq rejected a US proposal to deploy a new force of special operations troops in Iraq to conduct raids against IS there and in neighbouring Syria. The Turkish move has now created a new reality on the ground that will make it impossible for Baghdad to move to retake Mosul unilaterally without confronting the Turkish troops.

The presence of foreign ground forces is a contentious issue in Iraq, whose Shia-led government feels caught between the United States and its powerful neighbours. Last week, Al-Abadi rejected a proposal by US Defence Secretary Ashton Carter to deploy a special forces contingent to carry out raids against IS.

He also rejected a proposal by two senior US senators, John McCain and Lindsey Graham, for Washington to send a 100,000-strong force from Sunni Arab countries like Egypt, Turkey and Saudi Arabia to Iraq as part of a multinational ground force to counter IS.

All this is compounded by the fact that the conflict in Iraq is now hurtling into a downward spiral. The Turkish buildup will most likely complicate the fight against IS in both Iraq and Syria and especially the new international alliance that is emerging to take down the terror group.

The United States has distanced itself from Turkey’s putting its troops into Iraq, saying that Turkey’s deployment of hundreds of soldiers in northern Iraq is not part of the activities of the international coalition it leads in Iraq and Syria.

The new crisis triggered by Turkey’s intervention in Iraq is likely to be the latest complication in the war against IS, especially after US President Barack Obama pledged this week to “destroy” IS following its claiming the attack in San Bernardino, California, and the increasing role of NATO in the campaign.

Since Turkey shot down a Russian fighter jet last month, the country’s western NATO allies have scaled down their coordination with Ankara in the war against IS. Germany has reportedly drawn up plans to prevent sharing intelligence with Turkey as it prepares to support international air strikes against IS.

But Ankara seems to have remained defiant, and the Turkish media reported this week that the country may increase its presence in Bashiqa by hundreds more soldiers in order to bring the total number of troops near Mosul to more than 2,000.

A pledge by Davutoglu that Turkey would not send in additional forces was not good enough to placate Baghdad, which has threatened Ankara with UN action and resistance to the buildup.

This may explain how Turkey plans to make the crisis over the troop deployment in the Mosul area a strategic game-changer in Iraq and Syria after tensions with Russia escalated following Turkey’s downing of a Russian warplane last month.

The flare-up has thwarted Turkey’s plans to establish a safe haven in northern Syria, where it had hoped to use the zone to expand its influence in its southern neighbour and block Turkish Kurdish separatists from operating from an emerging autonomous Kurdish enclave in Syria.

Ankara’s adventure in Iraq, therefore, seems to be a two-pronged strategy: a slight change in its plans in Iraq to make up for its aspired safety zone in Syria, and a way of exploiting the turmoil in Iraq in order to advance its long-term agenda in its other southern neighbour.

It is no longer a secret that Turkey has stakes in Iraq, and ever since the 2003 US-led invasion Ankara has been a major regional actor in the beleaguered country, apparently trying to counterbalance Shia Iran’s increasing influence there.

In addition to using its beefed-up presence in northern Iraq to undermine the Kurdish Workers Party’s (PKK) objectives, including having free rein in both Syria and Iraq, the Turkish strategy aims at confronting the increasing Iranian influence in Iraq which is likely to receive a further boost if the Shia militias take part in liberating Mosul from IS.

Underlining Turkey’s aspiring role as a regional Sunni powerhouse and a traditional competitor with Shia Iran for influence in Iraq, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu blasted Tehran’s “sectarian policies” in Iraq and Syria on Monday, which he said were a danger to the region.

To understand the reasons behind the Turkish military buildup in Mosul, one should also pay a brief visit to recent Middle Eastern history. According to the Treaty of Lausanne of 1923, signed by Turkey and the allies in the First World War to define the Turkish border following the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, Mosul was given to the newly established Iraqi state.

Many in Turkey believe that Mosul, at that time an Ottoman velayet, or province, that included all northern Iraq, was unduly cut off from the remaining territories of the Empire, what is today Turkey, and they now aspire to see it connected back to the Turkish homeland.

Many experts worry that Erdoğan, who is showing an increasing obsession with reviving Ottomanism, may now try to take advantage of Iraq’s troubles to advance a territorial agenda that includes the annexation of Mosul if the country breaks up.

“If Turkey has reinforced its troops in Mosul with the secret intention of gaining land, then it has launched into a very dangerous venture,” Turkish columnist Taha Akyol wrote in the Hurriyet Daily News on Monday.

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Of Iran, Syria and regional chaos

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Of Iran, Syria and regional chaos

Iran’s teaming up with world powers to hammer out a solution to the war in Syria does not mean an end to regional conflicts, writes Salah Nasrawi

For more than four years, Saudi Arabia and its allies have rebuffed persistent appeals to let Iran join peace-makers in Syria by arguing that Tehran is a key ally of President Bashar Al-Assad’s regime in Syria’s bloody conflict and that it would be unthinkable to grant it a seat at the table.

The price of a ticket to the talks to find a durable political settlement in Syria, Riyadh has long insisted, would be an unequivocal commitment from Tehran to endorse a plan backed by Saudi Arabia and its allies that calls for a political transition and the departure of Al-Assad from power.

With Moscow’s military intervention in the Syrian conflict turning the tide against Al-Assad’s opponents, Riyadh finally relented and gave Tehran a free pass to an international peace gathering in Vienna on 30 October.

However, inviting Iran to attend the Vienna summit raises questions far beyond the problems and promises of Iran’s acting as a mediator in reaching a political settlement in Syria.

Will Iran’s participation guarantee greater connectivity between regional powers stalled by decades of rivalries and can they now work together to prompt peace and security?

For many Middle East watchers, the political and security impact of the conflicts that have played havoc with many of the countries in the region shows that they have been damaged beyond repair. If regional stakeholders are keen to end the entangled hotspots, they should adopt a new and common approach to their shared stability.

As expected, Iran has proclaimed the Saudi U-turn in letting it join the international peace efforts in Syria as a triumph for its regional diplomacy. “Those who tried to resolve the Syrian crisis have come to the conclusion that without Iran being present there is no way to reach a reasonable solution to the crisis,” Iranian Foreign Minister Mohamed Javad Zarif boasted after receiving the invitation.

But while Tehran celebrated the Saudi and the world’s recognition of its regional diplomatic capacity, it also showed pragmatism, and probably realpolitik, by expressing its preparedness to shore up the country’s “soft power” to resolve the Syrian crisis.

Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister Hussein Amir Abdullahian said that “Iran does not insist on keeping Al-Assad in power forever,” a declaration Saudi Arabia quickly met with scepticism. “If they’re serious, we will know, and if they’re not serious, we will also know and stop wasting time with them,” Saudi Foreign Minister Adel Al-Jubeir said.

Of course, it is too early to judge if the talks in Vienna have made any headway in efforts to bring peace to Syria. The group of nations with opposing stakes in the Syrian war have agreed to ask the United Nations to start a process that could lead to a ceasefire and new elections.

In an announcement following the meeting, the participants also asked the United Nations to launch a political process that would involve overseeing the rewriting of the country’s constitution and then new elections.

For many analysts, the statement, designed to show that the participants have narrowed their differences over the Syrian conflict, seemed more like wishful thinking than a realistic outcome. The controversial issue of the future of Al-Assad has remained unresolved.

What drove Saudi Arabia to drop its opposition to allowing Iran, which it has always accused of being part of the problem and not part of the solution, to participate in the direct talks is a matter of speculation.

While pressure from the United States on the kingdom may have played a part in its showing flexibility over Iran, Riyadh’s realisation that it has been misreading the game Tehran is playing in the region cannot be excluded.

Still, the unprecedented decision to permit Iran to join the talks on Syria has sparked old fears that giving Iran a seat at the regional negotiation table will reinforce Tehran’s emerging status as a recognised regional powerhouse.

Tehran’s diplomatic breakthrough comes three months after it struck its landmark nuclear deal with world powers in exchange for removing the international and US economic and financial curbs that had throttled its economy.

The deal was made to show that Iran has complied with specific obligations to reduce its capabilities of stockpiling enriched uranium and address concerns about the potential military dimensions of its nuclear programme.

Yet, the agreement was also seen as a signal of willingness on the part of Washington, the main power behind the deal, to engage Tehran in Middle East issues and to work in concert with it to confront regional challenges such as those in Iraq, Yemen and Lebanon and the threats posed by the Islamic State (IS) and other terror groups.

Though Saudi Arabia and its allies reluctantly supported the nuclear deal, they raised concerns about Iran’s rehabilitation and expressed fears that the US would turn away from their worries about Iranian activities in some of the region’s flashpoints.

Given Saudi Arabia and its allies’ deep-rooted mistrust of Iran, it is clear that these countries want to make Iran’s participation in international efforts to find a solution to the Syrian conflict a testing ground of Tehran’s intentions.

The sticking point remains the future of Al-Assad and whether Iran is prepared to reverse its support for its Syrian ally and back a political process that includes replacing him. Iranian officials still say that “it should be up to the Syrian people to decide on the country’s fate.”

Yet, the predominately state-controlled media in Iran, routinely employed as a proxy to spread the message of Iranian diplomacy, may have expressed Tehran’s real view on the subject.

“With the participation of Turkey and Saudi Arabia, Iran’s regional rivals, reaching an agreement [in the Syria talks] could be difficult,” wrote Tehran newspaper Ebtekar in an editorial.

While there has been no sign that Iran will come around to the Saudi view on Al-Assad’s future, the Islamic Republic has never hidden its desire to be a partner with international and regional powers in any diplomatic push to deal with other regional flashpoints.

Here again the Iranian media may provide an insight into Iranian official thinking. “If they succeed, [the talks] can serve as an example for the international community in managing other regional conflicts in Iraq, Yemen and Lebanon,” wrote the Farsi-language Iranian newspaper.

“Some of the countries in the region will gradually start recognising Iran’s regional status. Iran’s responsible behaviour on regional crises could help reduce the tension between key players,” it wrote on the eve of the Vienna talks.

Of course, the idea of a platform to discuss, or to resolve or manage, these and other conflicts on the regional level is very tempting. But that is not how the Middle East system since it came into being following the First World War has worked.

Today’s Middle East problems are not simply the result of the ongoing bloody conflicts that threaten to tear it apart, but rather are the consequences of both foreign interventions and the failures and follies of its regimes over some 90 years.

A closer look at the new diplomatic process to solve the Syrian crisis would reveal it as just another gambit that Western strategists hope will push Russia, and in Saudi Arabia’s case Iran, deeper into the Syrian quagmire.

In a speech at the International Institute for Strategic Studies Manama Dialogue this weekend, Antony Blinken, the US deputy secretary of state, revealed his government’s thinking. It was only a matter of time before Moscow realised that its military intervention and its ardent support for Al-Assad’s continued rule were mistakes, he said.

Saudi Arabia’s assessment of the Iranian role was not much different in hoping to see Iran failing to sustain its military intervention in Syria for long and being obliged to change course.

Al-Jubeir, who spoke at the Manama Dialogue after Blinken, said that in order for any real political process in Syria to begin Iran must withdraw its forces from Syria and agree to a date and means for Al-Assad’s departure.

Such a gamble not only ignores the deep-rooted problems in the Middle East, but also the new regional dynamics. While the turbulence created by the Arab Spring since 2011 is still affecting the regional order, the rise of non-state actors is also shaking the foundations of the state system in many of its countries.

The sad truth is that the failure of the Vienna process will give Syria the final push to tear itself apart and plunge the region further into bloody chaos.

—

This article appeared first in Al Ahram Weekly on Nov. 5, 2015

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Regional impact of the Turkish elections

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Regional impact of the Turkish elections

The regional implications of the forthcoming Turkish elections could be enormous, writes Salah Nasrawi

When Turks go to the polls on 1 November to choose a new parliament, the elections will be watched by regional players as never before. The outcome of the vote will impact on Turkey’s relationship with its neighbours in a variety of areas.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan called the snap elections to end the political stalemate that followed the June 2015 parliamentary elections. For the first time since 2002, voters denied Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) a parliamentary majority and gave the country’s large Kurdish minority its biggest ever voice in national politics.

Even before the current political deadlock, Turkey was sinking deep into political uncertainty. The country is grappling with escalating instability and economic turmoil. Turkish opposition parties have accused Erdogan of forcing snap elections in a bid to return the AKP to the majority in parliament it lost in the June elections.

Analysts say the call for the elections amid mounting turmoil in the country has increased the polarisation between the pro- and anti-AKP camps. Much of the polarisation is blamed on Erdogan himself, who has grown more authoritarian in office. He has built up a cult of personality and antagonised secularists, the Kurds, the military, the judiciary and the media.

Erdogan earlier blocked a coalition government, hoping that a new parliamentary vote would give the AKP a majority and form a government alone. A large majority would also allow him to rewrite the constitution to concentrate powers in the presidency.

For many observers, the 1 November elections are the most important in the country’s recent history, and not just for Turkey. The outcome could change the country drastically for better or for worse, and could also certainly affect the immediate region, which is already fraught with political uncertainty.

During its 13-year tenure, the AKP has used foreign policy to advance its domestic drive for power. It has favoured an ambitious approach that promotes its popularity at home while fundamentally reshaping Turkish foreign policy and making Turkey a key regional player.

One of the main issues that will decide the future of Turkey’s relationship with the region is Ankara’s attitude towards its Kurdish population. The pro-Kurdish People’s Democratic Party (HDP) picked up about 13 per cent of the vote and 80 seats in the last elections, breaking the 10 per cent threshold required for a party to take its seats for the first time and raising hopes for a peaceful solution to the Kurdish problem in Turkey.

But a recent crackdown on the Kurds ended a ceasefire with the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) that had held since 2013. The government is also trying to strike at the popularity of pro-Kurdish opposition groups in order to secure an absolute majority in the elections.

In Syria, the Democratic Union Party (PYD), labelled by Ankara as the Syrian offshoot of the PKK, is making significant gains on the ground. A collapse of the peace process and the resumption of fighting with the PKK will certainly ignite turbulence along Turkey’s southern border with Syria and even with Iraq, which has a Kurdish-controlled territory.

Since the civil war in Syria started following the popular uprising in 2011, the AKP has insisted that President Bashar Al-Assad should have no role in a UN-backed proposal for a transitional government in Syria.

Ankara has also called for a safe zone to be set up in northern Syria to keep the Islamic State (IS) terror group and Kurdish militants away from its borders, and help stem the tide of displaced civilians trying to cross into the country.

There has been no international support for either idea. Russia’s military intervention in Syria has further complicated Erdogan’s plans for the future of the war-torn country. It has also left him facing the stark reality of Turkey’s limits when challenged by an international power.

There are increasing fears that after the elections an AKP-led government will be more involved in the war in Syria and will drag the country further into the country’s quagmire.

Iraq is another regional policy hurdle for Turkey. The Shia government in Baghdad has accused Ankara of siding with Iraq’s Sunnis in the country’s sectarian conflict.

It also accuses Turkey of supporting jihadists, including IS, in parts of Iraq. Iraq has criticised Turkey for its continuous bombings of what it claims to be PKK targets in northern Iraq, calling these an “assault on Iraqi sovereignty.”

Last month, an Iraqi Shia group calling itself “The Death Squads” briefly abducted 18 Turkish construction workers and engineers in Baghdad. The gunmen demanded that Ankara cut the Kurdistan region’s oil pipeline to Turkey and stop Sunni extremists from entering Iraq through Turkish territory.

In both Iraq and Syria, Turkey finds itself in confrontation with Shia Iran. Erdogan has accused Iran of trying to dominate the Middle East and said its efforts have begun to irritate Ankara.

Turkey also has serious diplomatic problems in its relations with Egypt. Relations between Ankara and Cairo soured after the ouster of Muslim Brotherhood president Mohamed Morsi in 2013. Erdogan, a vocal supporter of the Brotherhood, labelled Morsi’s overthrow “a coup” and said that he does not view President Abdel-Fattah Al-Sisi as the president of Egypt.

The Turkish Foreign Ministry has said that bilateral ties with Egypt could “normalise if the country returns to democracy and if the Egyptian people’s will is reflected in politics and social life.”

Erdogan also supports Hamas, the Palestinian Islamist resistance movement, which controls Gaza. Egypt considers the group to be a security threat because it is an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Opposition leaders in Turkey, meanwhile, have said that Ankara should repair its relations with Cairo if the AKP wants to form a coalition government after the elections.

Turkey’s new approach towards the Syrian refugee problem and the deal it is negotiating with the European Union (EU) poses another challenge to its regional strategy.

The draft agreement on migrants, which is expected to give Ankara incentives including visa liberalisation, financial support and invitations to Turkish leaders to EU summits, will be in return for Turkey policing its borders and stopping refugees from sneaking into Greece and Bulgaria, and from there into other EU countries.

If finalised, the deal will allow the EU to return some hundreds of thousands of refugees to Turkey, where they will be housed in camps financed by the EU. Such a move will expose the selfish foreign policy of Ankara and its disregard for the plight of the refugees, who are mostly Syrians and Iraqis.

In another sign that it wants to use its resources to play a regional role, Turkey started supplying water through an undersea pipeline to Turks in Northern Cyprus on Saturday. The Peace Water Project will transport a total of 75 million cubic metres of water annually to the island.

In his inauguration speech, Erdogan said Turkey is ready to extend water supplies to Cyprus, the clearest indication yet that Turkey intends to use its huge water resources, generated by the South-Eastern Anatolia Project (GAP), in the region’s power game.

Turkey is also seeking to secure a role in several regional energy projects that involve Russian, Iranian and Qatari gas pipelines to Europe through the Mediterranean. Such a role would help ensure Turkey’s decisive role in the new world energy order.

No one knows what will happen in the upcoming elections in Turkey. If the AKP regains a majority and forms a government on its own, it will likely resort to its proactive regional policy. If a coalition government is formed, Turkey is expected to adopt a less confrontational foreign policy and probably return to its traditionally neutral and secular role in the region.

But whether the AKP is able to form a government on its own or through a coalition with other parties, Erdogan will still be there for the next three years. There are increasing concerns that he will continue to pursue his adventurism in regional policy in an attempt to maintain his vision of Turkey and keep advancing the AKP’s domestic push for power.

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This article first published in Al Ahram Weekly on Oct. 22, 2015