by Hall Gardner
By criticizing the nuclear accord, the Trump-Pence administration is ironically putting pressure on Iran just when Iran rejected a fundamentalist Shi'a leader and elected an ostensibly reformist leader, Hassan Rouhani, and just when Boeing has signed two aircraft deals worth $22 billion that could supply an estimated eighteen thousand American jobs.59 Given the fact that part of the Boeing deal was signed when Trump was president, it appears highly unlikely that Trump would strike Iran. Nevertheless, the proxy war between Saudi Arabia and Iran could continue to escalate. And in response to Saudi military purchases from the United States and to the threat of potential new US economic sanctions on Iran, or if Washington should brand the Iran's Revolutionary Guards as a terrorist organization, then their commander, General Mohammad Ali Jafari, warned that US military bases in Bahrain, Iraq, Oman, and Afghanistan would be at risk of an Iranian missile attack.60
Prior to Trump's arrival to power, the Obama administration had hoped that the JCPOA nuclear accord would eventually open the door to better US-Iranian relations, trade, and a settlement of regional conflicts. Yet the JCPOA nuclear accord was also signed at a time in which there was no apparent progress toward a resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, nor a resolution of regional disputes that involve a surrogate war between Iran and Saudi Arabia. The risk is that Trump's major $110 billion arms sale to Saudi Arabia in May 2017, as previously discussed, may have jeopardized any possibility of a Saudi-Iranian rapprochement in the near future and could turn Iran even closer to Moscow and Beijing for arms.
Here a new dimension of the global rivalry manifests itself. The fact that Iran has been moving closer to both Russia and China in the post–Cold War era raises questions as to whether the three countries could forge a new Eurasian Alliance. This appears plausible, given the fact that Iran has been considered for membership in both the Russian-led CSTO military alliance and also the more security and cooperation–oriented Chinese-led Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO)—even though it has not yet joined either. Teheran has thus far closely aligned with Moscow and Damascus in the conflict raging in Syria and Iraq.
THE RUPTURE BETWEEN SAUDI ARABIA AND QATAR
One of the most recent signs of the polarization of the world was the decision in June 2017 by Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Yemen, and Egypt to isolate Qatar for its ostensible support for Iran, al-Qaeda, the Islamic State, and the Muslim Brotherhood. This effort to isolate the super-wealthy country, which is not much bigger than the size of the state Delaware, could represent a prelude to a much larger conflict for control over finance, oil, and gas resources throughout the wider Middle East—if diplomacy cannot eventually settle the dispute. Here, Turkish troops have been deployed in Qatar to protect it from a potential Saudi invasion. But more likely, the country could be threatened by an internal pro-Saudi coup d’état intended to replace the present emir of Qatar, Tamim bin Hamad al Thani.
The dispute with Qatar is threatening to splinter the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrein, and Oman, in which the latter finds itself trying to resist Saudi pressures. The dispute is also beginning to polarize countries in Africa and the wider Middle East. Already, Djibouti, Somaliland, Chad, Senegal, Maldives, and Mauritania have tended to side with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. States such as Sudan, Ethiopia, Somalia, Eritrea, Guinea, and the Seychelles have tried to remain neutral, while Turkey is Qatar's strongest supporter. The United Arab Emirates is building a naval base in Eritrea (a country that also has close ties to Qatar), which worries Ethiopia. The United Arab Emirates has also obtained the backing of three semiautonomous regions inside Somalia, which is strategically crucial for providing airspace for Qatar. The United Arab Emirates removed its ambassador from Somalia when it declared neutrality. Riyadh is building a naval base in Djibouti, along with the United States and China. Israel likewise opposes Qatari foreign policy in the region, given Qatar's close relations with Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran. In spreading its portfolio, Qatar has also invested in Russia's Rosneft energy company, as well as other strategic investments in Russia, so that Qatar is hedging its bets by maintaining closer ties not only to Iran, but to Russia as well—despite the fact that the US maintains its major Al Udeid military base in Qatar. Yet according to Trump, the United States “would have 10 countries willing to build us another one, believe me, and they will pay for it.”61
THE WAR IN IRAQ: THE MOSUL OFFENSIVE
In October 2016, the United States and forces of the Global Coalition against Daesh—involving Iraqi forces, Kurdish Peshmerga fighters, Sunni tribesmen, and Shi'a militiamen backed by Iraq and Iran—began a major offensive against IS in Mosul, Iraq. This is the location of Great Mosque of al-Nuri, where IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi had initially proclaimed the creation of a “caliphate” in July 2014.62 This major battle resulted in 420,000 refugees. Mosul was ostensibly “liberated” in January 2017; yet fierce fighting continued until July, raising questions as to how to reconstruct the devastated city.63
Although IS is being defeated step-by-step in battles with the Global Coalition against Daesh, its fighters have begun to spread out in small numbers throughout the wider Middle East—from Libya to Egypt and Afghanistan. In mid-January 2017, US B-2 bombers struck IS positions in Libya, which is divided into at least two major warring factions, plus splinter groups. Concurrently, Egyptian forces have tried to eradicate IS in the Sinai. Trump bombed proclaimed IS fighters with the Mother of All Bombs in Afghanistan. The military dilemma is that air strikes do not control the ground, thus airpower does not necessarily prevent the Islamic State or pro-al-Qaeda forces from dispersing to new regions and regrouping to engage in a nomadic style of hybrid warfare.
THE ONGOING WAR IN AFGHANISTAN
The US effort to reconstruct a corrupt and essentially insolvent Afghanistan has represented the largest expenditure to rebuild a single country in US history. Despite a $70 billion US investment in the Afghan security forces, only 63 percent of the country's districts are under Afghan government control or influence. And since 2001, 2,247 US military personnel have died and more than 20,000 have been wounded in Afghanistan alone. And Afghanistan still leads the world in opium production—despite $8.5 billion in US counter-narcotics investment.64
The September 11 attacks had actually been masterminded in Hamburg, Germany, and in not Tora Bora. Osama bin Laden—who was the leader of these terrorist attacks—was killed a decade later in 2011 by US Navy SEALs in his hiding place in Pakistan, which is ostensibly a major non-NATO ally but which has not given up its secret supports for differing radical Islamist factions in Afghanistan or in Kashmir. (See chapter 6.) Although al-Qaeda has lost some influence since bin Laden's assassination, affiliated groups are still influential in Yemen and in Syria, for example.
Further, if the actual goal of the US intervention in Afghanistan since 2001 was to set up energy pipelines and gain access to an estimated $1 trillion worth of strategic raw materials, as some analysts have argued, US firms are not necessarily in the forefront for gaining those contracts. Chinese and Indian firms appear willing to take the risks. One could argue that the 2001 intervention in Afghanistan, followed by the 2003 intervention in Iraq, which reduced US resources for Afghanistan, has done nothing but spread pan-Islamist movements—while also doing very little to resolve the domestic sociopolitical problems for either Iraq or Afghanistan, despite the billions invested.
Moreover, the US struggle against the Taliban, al-Qaeda, and now the Islamic State in Afghanistan, ironically, has served Russian interests more than American interests—while US intervention did not achieve its initial goal to destroy al-Qaeda. On the one hand, Moscow has sought to force NATO out of the Black Sea region; on the other, Putin has urged NATO to stay on in Afghanistan since 2014. This is because NATO has helped stabilize some key regions of the country while preventing the Taliban from returning to power. Yet the Russian position toward the Taliban has been shifting.
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FACTORS LEADING TO POTENTIAL CONFLICT
The situation in Central and Southwest Asia, in Afghanistan and Kashmir, has accordingly begun to heat up again due to a number of factors. First, Obama promised that the United States and NATO would to leave Afghanistan during his administration. Yet Trump has been considering a significant increase in NATO and US troops in the country. The main purpose of a renewed surge would be to shore up Afghan troop morale—but it would also provide the Afghan government with greater firepower. Trump would, in the process, put an end to Obama's restrictions that had limited the ability of the US military to act on the battlefield. And he would give the Pentagon greater authority to use air strikes, such as the April 2017 MOAB (Massive Ordnance Air Blast, or Mother of All Bombs) attack against an IS tunnel complex. Trump would purportedly authorize the Pentagon, not the White House, to set troop numbers in Afghanistan.
Trump's National Security Advisor, H. R. McMaster, who had led anticorruption efforts in Afghanistan, is said to be one of the main backers of the new Afghan strategy. McMaster was also one of the architects of President George W. Bush's generally failed troop surge in Iraq.65 Donald Trump had initially claimed that he opposed—and would continue to oppose—unnecessary, if not disastrous, US military interventions, such as those in Iraq and Libya, but these initial assertions appear completely false. And it was only after the fact, that Trump argued that the George W. Bush administration's decision to invade Iraq may have been the worst foreign-policy decision in US history.66 Trump has also stated that he would attempt to limit the exposure of US servicemen and servicewomen to combat situations, but will he?
Despite his campaign statements, Trump appears to be engaging in yet another futile military intervention after the Bush administration had severely maltreated American service members during the wars in both Afghanistan and Iraq. Ironically, in 2013 Trump had tweeted that the United States should leave Afghanistan immediately, or, “if we have to go back in, we go in hard & quick.”67 But it does not look like the United States will be going in hard and quick. And, at the same time, by unleashing the Pentagon rather than pressing for renewed diplomacy, Trump may actually end up extending this seemingly endless war.
Trump's call to deploy more US and NATO forces (as many as five thousand above the already eight thousand present) is a due to the fact that the Taliban appear to be making advances concurrent with the arrival of the Islamic State in the region. In effect, this will complicate US calculations as it attempts to fight both movements, which in turn will fight each other—unless they join forces. (It is possible that the new IS groups could be disgruntled Taliban elements who have formed their own groups and have declared themselves to be IS.68)
Moreover, Moscow appears to be seeking a rapprochement with the Taliban—given the Obama administration's promises to withdraw from Afghanistan, which Moscow believes might then lead to a Taliban takeover. In 2014, the Taliban almost took over Kunduz, after NATO began to phase out of Afghanistan. At that time, Pakistan had concurrently sought to clear Islamist militants out of the North Waziristan tribal area; this forced those groups into Afghanistan, even though there are still Taliban sanctuaries on Pakistani territory, which make it almost impossible to achieve peace.69
The dilemma for Russia is that if the United States and NATO do eventually pull out of Afghanistan, as Obama had promised, it appears unlikely that the Afghan government will survive for long. On the other hand, if the United States and NATO do engage in a new troop surge, as Trump has indicated, Moscow could play the role of a spoiler that attempts to sabotage US foreign policy wherever possible, given thus far unproven US accusations that Russia has begun to provide the Taliban with weaponry—a charge vehemently denied by Moscow.
Moscow may have decided to make a deal with the Taliban “devil.”70 It is accordingly possible that both Beijing and Moscow might try to make some deal with the Taliban so that the latter (which has begun to struggle with the Islamic State in Afghanistan) will not support the Muslim Uighurs in Xinjiang province in China (former East Turkestan). As they build BRI together, neither Beijing nor Moscow want the Taliban to support those Islamists who want to destabilize Muslim regions in southwest Asia or in the Russian Federation itself. The problem then for Moscow and Beijing is to buy off the Taliban and to play the Taliban against the Islamic State—while also countering the United States and NATO in Afghanistan.
Yet the new Russian policy could also lead the United States to negotiate with the Taliban, which the State Department does not formally designate as a “terror organization.” Proposed negotiations with the Taliban, which Secretary of State Rex Tillerson appeared to support at a NATO conference in March 2017,71 could have two different results. Either the United States could return to the Obama policy of supporting an “Afghan-owned, Afghan-led” negotiation, or the United States could take the lead in negotiations with the Taliban, which the Taliban have claimed they would prefer. Such negotiations could take place in US-led multilateral framework, with countries such as Russia, China, India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Qatar involved.72 But unfortunately it will take much more time, death, and destruction before such negotiations begin, because there is no trust between the opposing sides after years of warfare. And these talks could be further delayed if Trump does unleash the Pentagon so that it is no longer under State Department controls.
THE WIDENING OF THE GLOBAL WAR ON TERRORISM
In his first public speech in Saudi Arabia in May 2017, Trump argued that the Global War on Terrorism was “not a battle between different faiths, different sects, or different civilizations…. This is a battle between barbaric criminals who seek to obliterate human life, and decent people of all religions who seek to protect it.”73
While Trump did not then use the term “radical Islamic terrorism” in this speech (which he did use in his address to the United Nations in September 2017), he also did not define what he meant by “terrorists and extremists.” (See chapter 3.) Nevertheless, Trump urged that “they” (whoever “they” are) be driven “out of this earth” by all the Sunni Arab states and societies that are involved in the Global War on Terrorism. It is not clear how the terms “terrorists and extremists” will be interpreted in the Sunni Arab/Islamic cultural context—as these terms could be interpreted to mean those who believe in Shi'a Islam or other “unbelievers” and atheists.
In his May 2017 speech in Saudi Arabia, Trump had focused on Shi'a Iran, as if Tehran were the source of all the problems: “From Lebanon to Iraq to Yemen, Iran funds, arms, and trains terrorists, militias, and other extremist groups that spread destruction and chaos across the region. For decades, Iran has fueled the fires of sectarian conflict and terror.” So instead of seeking a way to end the regional arms race and urge Saudi Arabia and Iran to settle their differences—which is absolutely fundamental if it will ever prove possible to put an end to the Global War on Terrorism—Trump appears to have sided fully with Riyadh. In effect, rather than attempting to play honest broker, Trump has greased the fire.
On the one hand, Trump's speech (accompanied by promises of $110 billion in arm sales, plus $300 to $400 billion in mutual investments74) could lead some pro-Saudi holy warriors, among others, to shift their focus from the United States, Europeans, Russia, and Israel to fight against Shi'a Iran and the Syrian regime. Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who has been designated by the eighty-two-year-old King Salman to run the country, has initiated major political, social, and economic reforms so that Saudi Arabia can attempt to sustain its regional hegemony in the long term by diversifying the economy away from oil production by 2030. At the same time, Salman has begun to purge potential domestic rivals (some two hundred individuals arrested on corruption charges, including members of his own ruling al-Saud family).75 In addition to seeking to isolate Qatar, due in part to its ties to Iran, Salman has militantly opposed Iranian efforts to increase its political-economic influence in Lebanon, Iraq, Syria, Bahrain, and Yemen, and along the Red Sea in t
he Gulf of Aden. Trump appears to be falling into Salman's game plan.
On the other hand, Trump's speech will not stop IS or similar groups from recruiting young Muslims and converts—particularly those individuals who oppose what they see as the corrupt Saudi Kingdom, which controls Mecca and Medina and whose regime they believe is backed by US and European weaponry. This creates a tacit alignment between these groups and Tehran, which opposes Saudi Arabia, which is seen as the major supporter of pan-Sunni movements that could destabilize the northern Caucasus, Central Asia, and other areas in the wider Middle East against Iranian and Russian interests. At the same time, Tehran also opposes a nuclear-capable Israel, which is threatening to preempt Iran's “peaceful” nuclear program in large part due to Iran's support for the Shi'a militias of Hezbollah in Lebanon.
And despite US/NATO efforts to fight the Taliban, al-Qaeda-affiliated movements, and IS, both Moscow and Beijing see the United States as indirectly backing a number of pan-Sunni Islamist movements throughout the wider Middle East via bilateral US alliances with Saudi Arabia and the other Sunni Arab Gulf countries. US policy has led Russia, and increasingly China, to support Shi'a Iran and Syria. At the same time, Pakistan may be shifting sides, looking to both China and Russia.
Trump's propaganda risks once again falling into the trap first set by bin Laden's attack on the World Trade Center and Pentagon and that sought to draw the United States and other countries into wider wars within the Islamic world. But in this case, Trump's speech represents a call to arms for a war with Iran and those pan-Islamist groups that oppose Saudi Arabia as well. As long as Trump's pro-Saudi, anti-Iranian policies and America First, anti-“radical Islamic” ideology prevails, the Global War on Terrorism appears doomed to last a very long time.