by Vali Nasr
As different as it is from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the Islamic Republic of Iran is also something of a dubious historical relic—an ideological state languishing under a bloated public sector, standing outside the global economic and political order and increasingly at odds with its own people. We know from experience that such states, whether communist or Islamist, don’t have an indefinite lease on life. They are brittle entities, all too prone to become victims of their own economic floundering and political brutality.
Unlike Egypt or Saudi Arabia, of course, Iran is not a country that America is counting on to support U.S. interests in the broader Middle East—although as the veteran political analyst Leslie Gelb puts it, Washington and Iran do have a surprising number of significant common interests and could in principle (however unlikely it may seem right now) be fast friends. Much of U.S. policy in the region since 1979 has been aimed at containing Iran and combating its nefarious influence outside its borders. America’s tight relationship with the Persian Gulf’s Arab states and the chain of American bases across the Persian Gulf from Oman to Kuwait all came about in an effort to deal with a troublesome Iran. But let us recall that before 1979, Iran was in fact an important U.S. ally. Is it so strange to think that, even after the massive shift wrought by the rise of the Islamic Republic has been taken into account, a substrate of common national and geostrategic interests remains, at least in potential form, and can be accessed if circumstances change?
Consider that even since 1979 America has at least been able to take Iran’s stability as a given, and has drawn benefit from this. The Iranian state has been a menace to be sure, but not so Iranian society. Iran is arguably the one country in the region outside Israel where the general public is pro-American (or at least not reflexively anti-American). Iran has so far not produced warlords and drug kingpins. Nor is it a free space in which terrorists and pirates may nest at will, or whose main export is massive humanitarian crises. In short, Iran is not a weak or failing state, and while it produces threats, they are of a sort easier to see and even, I would argue, to deal with than the kind of inchoate, unpredictable threats and problems that typically emanate from failed states.
If the current mix of confrontation and economic pressure continues, however, as we’ve seen, state failure is exactly where Iran is heading. The outcome of our policy will be not a stable, friendly Iran, but an unstable, unfriendly Iran. The gradual implosion of the Iranian state and society under international pressure will only add to regional instability.
There is now also another gladiator in the arena to consider: Turkey. Buoyed by a dynamic economy and a decade of political stability under Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP), Ankara is building its influence in Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq, and increasingly also in Egypt and Libya. The Turks like to do business in the Middle East, but economics is merely the foundation for a more ambitious role as undisputed regional leader and bridge builder between East and West. The Turks have one foot in Europe and one in Asia, they belong to NATO and have special ties with the EU, and now they are also the richer, stabler, and more solidly democratic elder brother who wishes to guide the Arab world toward greater stability and prosperity.
Ankara’s decision to become engaged in the broader Middle East is the most welcome development of the past decade. We should thank Europe for that. By closing the door to Turkey’s hopes for full EU membership, Europe unwittingly made Ankara look east and south. Ruled by a party of moderate Islamists and able to boast years of economic success, Turkey now feels comfortable about returning to the Middle East after close to a century of absence. At the end of World War I, the new Turkish Republic turned west, imagining a European future. Turkey disowned its Islamic and Ottoman legacy just as its rebellious Arab subjects made it clear that they wanted nothing more to do with Turkish rule. Then, Turks were not fellow Muslim Middle Easterners but all-too-recent imperial overlords who had blocked the path to Arab empowerment.
But now the Turks are returning and being welcomed like long-lost relatives who come back from a distant land bearing all the signs and trappings of success. In the time that Turkey was gone, the Middle East changed. It has forgotten about the inequities of Ottoman rule that gave birth to Arab nationalism and the horrors of World War I, or the heroics of the wartime Arab Revolt against Turkish rule led by the maverick British officer T. E. Lawrence. There are no more grudges against Turkey. Instead, Arabs are mesmerized by Turkey’s success, wanting to hear all about how it happened and whether there is anything in it for the region.
Over the past decade, Turkey has increased its economic and diplomatic activity across the Arab world and the broader Middle East, but it still does not have enough Arabic speakers or deep knowledge of the Arab world. Turkish troops and assistance have gone to Afghanistan. Turkey has cultivated trade ties with Iraqi Kurdistan; tried but failed to broker deals between rival factions in Lebanon and Iraq; and participated in international efforts to deal with contentious issues involving Libya, Syria, and Iran.
The West alternately worries about and dismisses “neo-Ottomanism”—the desire to rebuild the cultural and political web of influence that once joined the Arab periphery to the metropole of the Turkish sultans.13 Turkey’s tendency to evoke Ottoman times may strike listeners as ominous, but it is unclear that Turks mean their rhetoric as anything more than historical color—somewhat like the occasional evocations of Charlemagne, the Holy Roman Empire, or the Hanseatic League that were heard among Europeans when they were discussing the European Coal and Steel Community and the Common Market. American diplomats tend to look askance at Turkey’s ambitions and have been known to mock foreign minister Ahmet Davutoglu as a neo-Ottoman “Energizer bunny” who can turn every diplomatic contact into a forum for his vision of Turkey’s old-yet-new regional role. But over time Washington has warmed up to Davutoglu and found Turkey to be the perfect instrument for its policy of “leading from behind” our allies in the Middle East—which, whatever its flaws, would be utterly unworkable without Turkey.
Obama seems to recognize this. He phones Erdogan often and has probably conferred with him more than he has with any other world leader. The Turkish prime minister has worked closely with the White House on Syria and Iran, even carrying a personal message from Obama to Khamenei in March 2012 on the eve of the crucial talks with Iran. For America, Turkish influence in the Middle East is an important stabilizing force. Turkey is prosperous and democratic. It is a longtime NATO member and has deep economic ties with Europe. Despite Erdogan’s worrisome authoritarian tendencies—muzzling the press and putting journalists in jail—and periodic overtures to his Islamist base, Turkey retains a competitive political system with values that are closer to those of the West than those of the Arab world. Unlike Arab states or Iran, moreover, Turkey is not running against history, but with it. We can safely imagine Turkey becoming even more stable, democratic, and capitalist.
Some in Washington think the new axis of power in the region pits Ankara-Riyadh-Doha (add Cairo and Damascus to that once Egypt gets on its feet and Syria’s Sunni majority topples Assad) against Tehran-Baghdad-Beirut (until Hezbollah is declawed). They argue that America ought to work with and through the Sunni axis against the Iranian one. The logic seems self-evident, but the picture is not likely to be that clear.
There is still reason to doubt that Turkey could or would serve as anchor for American policy. Turkish enthusiasm for the Middle East was at its peak when the region looked to be opening up economically and inching its way to democracy. Ankara could then imagine a region built in Turkey’s image; Istanbul would be the region’s economic hub and Ankara its political center. Foreign Minister Davotuglu, Turkey’s most articulate strategic thinker, did not envision neo-Ottomanism to be about troubleshooting, peacekeeping, and scurrying from crisis to crisis to tackle the region’s problems.14 Turkey will have to do some of this, especially when trouble is at its door as in Syria, but Ankara’s appetite for diving headfirst into the region�
��s problems is dwindling. Davotuglu’s slogan for Turkey’s turn to the Middle East was “zero problems with neighbors.” Now with states across the region imploding into protest and conflict, it looks as if Turkey may find itself with neighbors that offer zero aside from problems.
Turkey may also lack the capacity to do more troubleshooting. In the near future it will have to contend with succession in its ruling party, and the Turkish economy is beginning to show signs of slowing down, along with many other once high-flying emerging markets.15 This does not mean that Turkey will become unstable, only that it may not be willing or able to act as regional ombudsman or America’s go- to ally.
In short, America will be compelled to do more in this region, and it will have to do it increasingly on its own. If it needs help, it will have to rally allies. Leading others from behind will not work largely because there are no obvious allies able to put out ahead. Add to this the fact that in the end, it is we alone who must defend our position and protect our interests against encroachment by our global rivals, especially China.
If there is any American strategy at play in the Middle East these days it can be summed up as follows: Keep Egypt from getting worse, contain Iran, rely on Turkey, and build up the diplomatic and military capabilities of the Persian Gulf monarchies. In other words, play defense with regard to the Arab Spring, play offense when it comes to Iran, and maintain continuity in waging the war on terror. But the United States must do all this in a changing geostrategic environment.
Over the past decade, the center of gravity of the Middle East has been steadily shifting east and south, first from the Levant and eastern Mediterranean (the region running from Turkey in the north to Egypt in the south and stretching east to the borders of Jordan and Syria with Iraq), which was for decades the eye of the storm in the Middle East, to the Persian Gulf, and then from the Arab world north and east to Iran and Turkey. Since the Iraq invasion of 2003, conflict in and around the Persian Gulf has consumed most of America’s attention and resources. It is in the Persian Gulf that the United States has deployed to fight in Iraq, contain Iran, and keep oil flowing to world markets. The newly salient fault line between Shias and Sunnis runs through the Persian Gulf, and it is also here that oil money gives new kids on the block such as Oman, Qatar, and the UAE their outsize influence on Arab politics.
Since 2003, a Persian-versus-Arab competition for power in the Persian Gulf (with clear sectarian overtones) has become an important regional dynamic, influencing the turn of events in Syria, Lebanon, and the Palestinian territories, where distant Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar are more influential players than neighboring Egypt or Jordan. The fate of Syria and future of Lebanon, in large measure, hang in the balance of Iranian-Saudi relations; it was Qatar that brokered a peace in Lebanon in 2008; and it is Iran and Saudi Arabia that are deepening the sectarian divide in Syria and vying to decide the region’s stance on the Palestinian issue.
Shia-Sunni sectarian rivalry will not always lead to bloody conflict and is by no means the only dynamic at play in the Middle East, but its influence over events large and small, and more broadly over the balance of power in the region, is unmistakable. And the Arab Spring has accelerated this dynamic. Sectarianism will not explain every development and every alliance in the region, but until the imbalance in distribution of wealth and power between Shias and Sunnis is set right, sectarianism will remain an important determinant of regional politics. The Shia-Sunni rivalry and the Arab Spring have brought into sharp relief how much tension centers on the Persian Gulf. It is here that the Shias are concentrated in numbers, and that Iran faces Sunni champion Saudi Arabia. The Persian Gulf is a Shia lake, surrounded by Shia-majority Iran, Iraq, and Bahrain, with significant Shia populations also living in Kuwait, Saudi Arabia’s eastern oil region, and the UAE. The more besieged the Shias feel—and the sight of a U.S.-backed Sunni regime such as Bahrain’s shooting Shia protestors cannot help in this regard—the more likely they will be to seek shelter under Iran’s wing.16 Iran may pull back from Sunni lands (Syria or Yemen), where its tenuous influence depends on denunciations of Israel, but Iranian influence will only expand among the Shia. Iran’s zone of influence will grow in and around the Persian Gulf exactly when we see it to be on the decline in Syria. This reality not only makes the Persian Gulf the geostrategic epicenter of the broader Middle East, but also should give pause to any American strategists who think they can count on stable Persian Gulf monarchies as pillars of U.S. policy.
Washington has found itself unwittingly on the Sunni side of the street. That might have been inevitable given that Iraq now matters less to America while the threat that Iran and Hezbollah pose to Western interests puts them in America’s crosshairs. The combustible mix of the Arab Spring and sectarianism has undermined another American foe in Syria, whereas in Bahrain an American friend quickly stamped out protests. America looks to be doing the Sunnis’ work for them—caging Iran and pulling down Assad. America of course does not think that it is lining up as a player in the region’s sectarian scrum, but it might as well be doing just that, for the result is the same.
That may not be the best outcome, and Washington should take great care lest it sleepwalk into a sectarian blind alley. It will not serve America’s interests to become involved on one side of the most deep-seated and long-running division in the region without a clear sense of its dynamics, how it may end, and what its implications may be for the United States.
To start with, the energy calculus in the Persian Gulf may change to reflect sectarian rivalries. Shia-majority Iraq could challenge Saudi Arabia for primacy as an oil exporter, thereby loosening the Saudi grip on the West’s strategic imagination. Once the mammoth Iraqi oil fields begin pumping to their potential (and also develop excess capacity on par with Saudi Arabia’s), world markets could soften and Saudi Arabia’s economic stability and global political influence wane. Saudi Arabia has 262 billion barrels of oil reserves. It also has pumping capacity (10.8 million barrels a day) that dwarfs Iraq’s (2.4 million barrels a day) and Iran’s (4.2 million barrels a day). But as suggested above, this imbalance in pumping capacity could change. Iraq has an estimated reserve of 144 billion barrels, but some put its true reserve as high as 300 billion. Add Iran’s 136 billion, and the geostrategic stakes in the Sunni-Shia rivalry along the Persian Gulf shoreline begin to come into focus. That these three countries together account for a third of the world’s proven oil reserve bears heavily on worries about steady supplies and stable prices.
There are also rivalries and disagreements between the flag bearers of the Sunni rise, Turkey and the Persian Gulf monarchies, especially over how to handle Iran. They all view Iran and its Shia allies with suspicion, but Turkey, unlike the Persian Gulf monarchies, does not see Iran as a strategic threat and does robust business with Tehran. Furthermore, Turkey and the Persian Gulf monarchies are now rival claimants to leadership of the region’s Sunnis.
The Arab Spring has animated this jockeying for power and influence by aggravating sectarian tensions. This is not just a matter of governments, but of popular attitudes. Sunnis all over the region are cheering for the Sunni rebels who are fighting to topple Assad’s minority Alawite (read Shia) regime in Syria. Similarly, Shias in Iraq, Iran, and elsewhere are identifying with coreligionists in Bahrain who are being held down by a Sunni monarchy and the minority that it represents.
The toppling of Saddam enfranchised Iraq’s Shias. Iran likewise felt emboldened after Saddam’s removal, and when Hezbollah made a strong showing in its 2006 conflict with Israel in southern Lebanon, the Shias seemed decisively on the rise. Fast-forward to 2012, however, and the picture changes. American pressure regarding the nuclear issue is squeezing Iran, and its main ally is on the ropes in Damascus.
Syria is being torn from the clutches of the Assad regime to become a Sunni-led country. Elsewhere, the Arab Spring’s biggest upshot so far has been the unleashing of Sunni Islamism—the Sunni expression of Islam and its unabashed claim t
o sectarian supremacy and political power—in Egypt, Tunisia, Morocco, and potentially many other Arab countries. In public discourse and official statements, a certain Sunni triumphalism is now palpable.
Leadership of the Sunni world is a plum eagerly sought by many. It is clear that Turkey, in keeping with neo-Ottomanism, sees itself as the protector of Sunni prerogatives in the region.17 A sense of Sunni identity is embedded in the ruling AKP’s conception of Islam and its place in politics inside Turkey as well as across the region. Back in 1997, before the AKP as we know it had come into being, I sat down with a group of Islamist political activists (several of them are now leaders in the AKP and the Turkish government). One of them tried to explain the dilemma they faced in Turkey by drawing a parallel with Syria. He said, “We do not want Turkey to become Syria, a Sunni-majority country ruled by an Alevi military. In Syria, an Alawite military dominates; here an Alevi military is trying the same thing.” (Turkish generals with origins in the Alevi community, a religious minority with Shia affinities, were then seen as Kemalism’s staunchest defenders and Turkish Islamism’s worst enemies.) The sense of Sunni defensiveness and embattlement that he expressed brought me up short.
