Why US is walking away from the Middle East. (
BI).By: Luke Rodeheffer and Lewis King.
Politicians and pundits from Riyadh to Washington have castigated recent
American foreign policy in the Middle East for being unfocused, misguided or
harmful to national interests.
Contrary to these accusations however, the
Obama policy is none of the above: It is a pragmatic approach that takes into
account a progressive decline in the political and economic importance of the
Middle East.
This policy change is currently making headlines in Syria where
the United States, despite accusations of hypocrisy and strategic blundering,
remains skittish about engaging in a conflict that is drawing in almost every
other regional player, many of whom are long time American allies.
This
policy change is also reflected in other recent developments in the region, such
as Turkey’s courting of CPMIEC, a Chinese weapons manufacturer under US
sanction, Saudi Arabia’s de-coupling from America’s intelligence networks and
renewed dialogue with Iran. These diplomatic changes already reflect a very
different Middle East than the one most politicians acknowledge.
Furthermore,
there is a simple explanation for this shift: The region no longer warrants the
same level of attention that it did when it was a nexus of global conflict
during the Cold War and the two decades that followed, when Middle Eastern oil’s
role in the global energy market allowed it to hold the world economy
hostage.
The results of the shale oil revolution, which is set to make
America the world’s biggest oil producer by 2015, and the United States’ shift
towards oil reserves in the Western Hemisphere are not the only factors in the
decline of Middle East oil fortunes.
Even China is now jumping on the shale
bandwagon, with a 5-year plan that is predicted to produce 60-100 billion cubic
meters of shale gas by 2020. In the Middle East, Israel’s recent natural gas
discoveries amount to approximately 950 billion cubic meters of
reserves.
Further complicating matters is the continued instability of the
region, which drives up the price of oil and makes alternatives more attractive.
The Saudi ruling coterie is clearly worried, as Prince Alwaleed bin Talal
demonstrated in an open letter to the Kingdom’s government last spring. He
warned that revenues from oil form over 90% of the Saudi state budget, and the
consequences of producing below capacity could be devastating.
Former
National Security Agency specialist Paul D. Miller noted in his 2012 article
“The Fading Arab Oil Empire,” peak oil production in the Middle East is either
soon approaching or already behind us. Although oil production in the Middle
East has reached levels unseen in two decades, the IMF recently warned Arab oil
producers that they will face deficits by 2016.
Last month, the Kingdom
announced it would no longer engage in the high level of intelligence sharing
with the United States that had marked the two countries combined efforts in
fighting terrorism in the region. In the same vein, the Saudis rejected a
position on the UN Security Council that they had campaigned relentlessly to
obtain. In a recent interview, Saudi Arabia’s Turki Bin Faisal Al Saud
questioned whether Obama, “gets it” while condemning a “worldwide apathy—a
criminally negligent attitude toward the Syrian people.”
But the reality is
much more complicated than the picture Al Saud painted. In addition to a human
rights catastrophe, the situation in Syria represents perhaps the most
fundamental regional contest for power in decades.
The policies of the House
of Saud and its allies, as well as those of Assad and his supporters, are both
fueling the carnage, with neither side backing down. With so much at stake,
longtime allies like the Saudis find it surprising that America remains so
uncommitted, while America has every reason to abstain.
Domestically, boots
on the ground is a non-starter and other interventionist alternatives are almost
as unpopular. Just as importantly, the deference showed to Russia and China
reflects a more balanced approach to foreign policy.
From Obama’s
perspective, any marginal gains made by saving face on the Syria issue would be
sharply offset by serious diplomatic fallout with Russia and China, not to
mention Iran where a groundbreaking agreement was just inked.
Without the
ability to use oil as a diplomatic weapon, there is very little that Persian
Gulf countries can do. The Russians and Chinese, on the other hand, wield far
more economic and diplomatic influence over not only the United States but its
European allies as well. For the time being, the primary belligerents in this
conflict are of Middle Eastern origins and America would prefer to keep the
conflagration localized.
If Saudi Arabia is so concerned about the
degeneration of human rights conditions, there is little stopping them from
taking a more interventionist role. Aside from arming rebels, many of whom are
hardline extremists, Saudi Arabia has shown little willingness to engage Syria
militarily.
This is not for wont of weapons: America has granted the Kingdom
an enormous amount of military support since 1950, with the Saudi Armed Forces
absorbing huge amounts of armaments to keep the Gulf free of Soviet influence.
Arms sales exploded again in the wake of the Islamic Revolution. After 9/11,
arms sales received another shot in the arm.
Turkey has expressed its
discontent with the US and the West through a variety of moves. Announcements
concerning the planned purchase of a $3.4 billion high-altitude missile defense
system from China have already raised the ire of NATO’s leadership.
Erdoğan
has also successfully drawn Turkey closer to the Shanghai Cooperation
Organization (SCO), stating that the organization shares Turkey’s values and
gaining observer status earlier this year. Ankara has also expressed interest in
joining the Eurasian Union, an economic block being formed between former Soviet
states.
In spite of its aggressive signaling however, Turkish policies seem
to have had no real impact on America’s regional shift. NATO officials maintain
that any Chinese missile systems will not be compatible with the organization’s
defenses, leaving Turkey with very little room to negotiate.
During the Cold
War, Turkey was a valuable ally and it remains a key strategic state. In the
current climate, however, the former ally is no longer able to command the same
attention and must make threats to go elsewhere in search of economic and
military alliances.
The erosion of American support has reduced Turkey’s
ability to wield influence in the region. Two of its major projects, Syria and
Egypt, have both ended poorly, alienating the Erdogan regime and damaging
Turkey’s ability to act as a regional leader. It is clear now that Turkey
engaged in the Syrian conflict with the expectation of far more Western support
that it received.
With an 822 kilometer shared border with Syria and a
refugee crisis on his hands, Erdogan has everything to gain from an intervention
and has repeatedly lobbied Turkey’s allies for one. Yet without Western support
beyond defensive Patriot missile batteries, Turkey finds itself saddled with a
humanitarian crisis and uncomfortably close to a perturbed and resilient
Assad.
The unwillingness of the United States to condemn the recent coup in
Egypt is another illustration of this divergence. Ever since they came to power
in Egypt, Erdogan closely aligned himself with the Muslim Brotherhood. When
Morsi was ousted, Erdogan saw the West’s compliance as a personal and
ideological betrayal. Just as importantly, Washington’s response showed that it
was more interested in maintaining the status quo than defending Erdogan’s
allies.
The status quo of the last half century was predicated on American
interventionism, which is dwindling. Under the new circumstances, states in the
region will do well to follow a path of increased cooperation and
compromise.
The current feud between Turkey and Israel over the death of
Turkish activists on board the Mavi Marmara is dividing countries that would
benefit from an improvement in relations. The Saudis, for their part, will need
to either look elsewhere for allies against Iran, or opt for a peaceful
resolution. And as the sectarian conflict rages on in Syria, those chances are
dwindling.
In a classic 1973 Foreign Affairs article, “The Oil Crisis: This
Time the Wolf is Here,” U.S. Ambassador to Saudi Arabia James E. Akins bemoaned
the inability of the global economy to break itself free from Middle Eastern
oil, and pined for the day when America’s shale oil reserves, alongside supplies
from the emerging field of renewable energy, would allow the U.S. to reduce oil
imports.
Four decades later, Akins’ dreams of an American foreign policy no
longer held hostage to the international oil market is coming into focus. After
a decade of heavy investment, renewable energy supplied almost 15% of U.S.
demand in the first half of 2013, and the United States has pushed aside Saudi
Arabia and Russia to become the world’s top oil producer.
The first half of
the 20st century demonstrated that oil has the ability to alter regional and
global power balances, placing the Middle East at the center of the world stage.
But the dawn of a new century has brought with it new geopolitical realities,
including America’s new surge in domestic energy production, allowing Washington
to begin its ‘pivot towards Asia’ while avoiding becoming mired in an
increasingly unstable and unpredictable Middle East.Hmmmm.....Great insight still doesn't explain why the US is cozying up to Iran.
