By Yossef Bodansky, YAHOO FIANANCE
A new bloc is emerging in the greater Middle East with the declared objectives of dominating the entire Arab world, confronting and containing the US and its allies; and controlling and benefiting from the entire hydro-carbon economy, from production to transportation. The leading members of the new bloc are Turkey, Iran, and Qatar; with Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Jordan submitting to the new bloc. Russian experts call the new bloc “the Middle Eastern Entente”.
The key to the success of the bloc is the emerging correlation of influence of the great powers in the aftermath of the wars in Syria and Iraq. Russia and the People’s Republic of China are ready to compromise with the regional powers in order to secure their vital and global interests, while the US, Saudi Arabia and, to a lesser extent, Israel, are the nemeses of the bloc.
The roots of “the Middle Eastern Entente” are in Doha. Qatar in Summer 2017 initiated a myriad of bilateral and trilateral discussions with Iran and Turkey after Saudi Arabia and the GCC allies imposed the siege on Qatar in June of that year. However, it was not until the second half of 2018, with the initial impact of the siege largely ameliorated, that the long-term post-war posture of the greater Middle East became a major priority.
It was then that Doha, Tehran, and Ankara started talking about forming a coherent strategic bloc. According to Iman Zayat, the Managing Editor of The Arab Weekly, in late November 2018, the three countries struck a deal in Tehran to create a “joint working group to facilitate the transit of goods between the three countries”. This was the beginning of a profound realignment of the three regional powers. “Qatar has irrevocably joined with Ankara and Tehran against its former Arab allies. It has conclusively positioned itself in a regional alliance that pursues geopolitical dominance by driving instability,” Zayat noted.
It did not take long for the three powers to realize that for such a bloc to succeed it must focus on security issues and not just economic issues. Hectic negotiations followed. In mid-December 2018, the three foreign ministers — Muhammad bin Ab-dulrahman al-Thani, Mohammad Javad Zarif, and Mevlut Çavusoglu — signed the protocols and agreements for the new bloc on the sidelines of the 18th Doha Forum. In the Forum, Qatar formally called for “a new alliance that would replace the four-decade-old Gulf Cooperation Council”. Since then, specific and concrete negotiations on the consolidation of the bloc have been taking place. The final modalities for joint actions and common priorities, particularly the integration of the Arab states, were formulated in early March 2019.
Iran was the dominant force in this phase. The last decisive push for the Arab integration took place during Bashar al-Assad’s visit to Tehran on February 25, 2019. There, he submitted to the demands of the Iranian mullahs and to tight supervision by Tehran. Significantly, during his stay in Tehran, Assad was constantly escorted by Qassem Soleimani, Mahmoud Alavi, and Ali Akbar Velayati, who attended all his meetings with Iranian leaders. In Tehran, Assad committed to supporting the new bloc and to support the greater Middle East the bloc members were trying to create.
The geo-strategic and geo-economic objectives of the bloc are huge, and, as things stand in late March 2019, largely attainable. The first objective of “the Middle Eastern Entente” was to quickly consolidate strong influence, if not hegemony, over Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Jordan before the Fertile Crescent of Minorities could re-emerge as a viable geo-strategic and political entity. The primary rôle of the revived Fertile Crescent of Minorities was to constitute a buffer containing the upsurge of the Sunni Arab milieu and blocking the access of both Iran and Turkey to the heartlands of al-Jazira.
The greatest fear of the bloc members, however, was the possible ascent of the Kurds as a regional power once they internalized the US betrayal and were ready to strike deals with Moscow and Damascus. The overall susceptibility of the four Arab countries to the new regional posture was evident from their blatant disregard of the US sanctions on Iran. Hence, this region would soon become the key to a new grand-strategic and grand-economic posture for the entire greater Middle East… [To read the full article, click the following LINK – Ed.]
Big Q but manageable. 1) The Middle East depends on food imports from N.America and Australasia. 2) We are on the way to solar power, wind power, fracked gas and non-Arab oil especially off shore Brazil and Europe besides Russian petro- gas. 3) There are limits as in 73 and 79 to how far oil prices can be raised without upsetting the economy and inflating money. 4) OAPEC has to sell to buy food and manufactures and the more it pressures the West and the rest, the faster they go alternative.
Definitely go to the full article. It sheds even more light on the growing anti-American alliances in the Middle East than in this excerpt. Also, a brief but telling reference to the close but ill-advised close working relationship between the CIA and Erdogan’s Turkey. I believe that this ill-advised alliance has led to MBS and KIng Salman being falsely accused of Kashoggi’s murder. But that is my opinion, I am not attributing it to Bodansky. But his article contains a hint as the reasons that the CIA might have bought a false Turkish narrative about the Kashoggi affair.
Bodansky was chief investigator for the U.S. Congress’s joint counter-terrorism task force for seventeen years. He is a professor or reseach fellow at several major universities, and an editor and frequent contributer to a large network of periodicals specializing in strategic affairs. He is a board member of several counter-terrorism NGOs linking Western governments and private industries in counter-terrorist activities. A real heavy hitter, one of the people who is best informaed about Middle East strategic-military-diplomatic affairs in the world. Read the Wikipedia article about him. Amazing.