Just compare China’s response to Iranian threats to close the Strait of Hormuz in 2008 with that of 2012. Beijing kept quiet when in 2008, heightened tensions in the region led Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps Commander Mohammad Ali Jafari to warn that “one of [Iran’s] reactions [to an attack on Iranian nuclear facilities] will be to take control of the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz.” This passive Chinese stance is in stark contrast to January 2012 when Tehran reacted to potential new sanctions by once again threatening to shut down the strait. Prime Minister Wen Jiabao, then in the midst of a six-day visit to the Gulf, made it clear that any such Iranian actions would be completely unacceptable to China—and topped off his blunt language by stating that China “adamantly opposes Iran developing and possessing nuclear weapons.”
Until recently, U.S. policymakers have tended to see China’s involvement with the Middle East as problematic. In speaking with journalist Tom Friedman in the summer of 2014, President Obama smiled wryly and described China’s role in this way: “They [the Chinese] are free riders . . . they’ve been free riders for the last 30 years, and it’s worked really well for them.” But a close observer of Chinese action in the region would discern a more positive trend: a willingness to limit imports of Iranian oil during the nuclear negotiations, the offer of financial and military support for Iraq in its effort to combat ISIS, serious contributions to U.N. peacekeeping initiatives in Africa, and participation in antipiracy patrols around the Horn of Africa.
The United States and China will increasingly share a common outlook toward the Middle East, one that prioritizes stability over other objectives related to internal modes of governance. The two countries, therefore, are likely to agree more on desired outcomes in the future than at any other point in the recent past. China’s useful role in the P5+1 talks with Iran is testimony to this trend. U.S. political and military capabilities in the region are substantial, although such history comes with a certain amount of baggage. American interests will also remain considerable, even though they are marginally declining with diminishing oil imports from the region. (See Chapter Eleven on the Middle East.) In contrast, China’s interests in the region are expanding, and owing to its past noninterventionist stance, its baggage is minimal. China’s political and military capabilities, however, remain extremely limited.
The shifting U.S. energy stance, however, has convinced many in Beijing that China can no longer be certain that “free riding” will be sufficient to protect its interests in the region. There are signs, in fact, that China’s long-standing aversion to the exercise of American military power outside its hemisphere is waning—as Beijing becomes more and more concerned about a power vacuum developing in the Middle East. When asked about Chinese views on the U.S. bombing of ISIS in Iraq in August 2014, a spokeswoman from the Chinese Foreign Ministry declined to make the usual condemnation. Instead, she stated that her country would “keep(ing) an open mind” about operations that would “help maintain security and stability” in Iraq.
Both powers, in short, are in need of a comprehensive, sensible, sustainable strategy toward the Middle East. Devising these strategies in tandem, to the extent possible, could help the U.S. and China advance their interests at more reasonable costs. Large questions remain before such a coordinated approach to the region could be realized. To what extent is China willing and able to devote military resources to the region? And if it does, how might the United States and China cooperate and coordinate in the interest of regional stability? How willing is the U.S. military to yield or at least share operational or other duties with the Chinese? How much intelligence sharing would meaningful cooperation require and what are the associated risks? Are the Chinese willing to use their extensive economic investment in the Middle East to exert political leverage on warring parties and other conflicts? Experiential differences factor in as well.
The Chinese are quick to note that they have only a fraction of America’s understanding of the complex dynamics in the Middle East, while also observing that Washington’s superior knowledge has seemed to do little to keep it from costly, controversial engagements in the region. Americans cite the difficulty of sharing intelligence, systems, and plans with even their closest allies, never mind with a potential adversary.
Yet, despite these and other inevitable friction points, the trend will be more toward U.S.-Sino cooperation in the Middle East in the years ahead. The problems of the region are growing, not decreasing, and they are likely to overwhelm the ability of any one state to defuse. Moreover, the incentive for closer bilateral cooperation goes beyond the good that might be done in the Middle East. In establishing relationships and modes of cooperation in less prickly areas, such U.S.-Sino cooperation could prove helpful in managing larger points of contention elsewhere.
* * *
The rise of China and its consequences for the international system will shape the world in coming decades, or even centuries, more than any other global political development. Policymakers in Washington, Beijing, and everywhere in between are cognizant of certain factors influencing China’s trajectory, such as rising nationalism, weakening economic growth, and growing military capabilities. Energy is an equally important factor. Policymakers need to appreciate the many ways in which energy—and the new energy abundance—shape China’s possibilities and challenges. In considering the impact of this new energy landscape on China, U.S. and other policymakers would do well to consider the many ways in which seemingly disparate issues are connected by energy. They will find more opportunity than peril in trying to understand China through the prism of energy.
The benefits of viewing Chinese interests and actions through an energy lens, however, extend beyond simply gaining a better understanding of Chinese motives and strategies. It will also open new avenues for Washington to reimagine its relationship with Beijing, to craft approaches that capitalize on common interests, and to offer new possibilities of establishing channels of trust and cooperation in an otherwise tense relationship.
ELEVEN
* * *
* * *
* * *
The Middle East
Trying to Make the Most of a Tough Situation
Sir Mark Sykes slid his finger across the map that was unfurled on a table at No. 10 Downing Street. “I should like,” he said to British Prime Minister H. H. Asquith, “to draw a line from the ‘E’ in Acre to the last ‘K’ in Kirkuk.” Sykes then traced an imaginary boundary from a city on the Mediterranean coast to one near the mountains of present-day northern Iraq. The year was 1915. Sykes had been engaged in a secret mission with François Georges-Picot, a French diplomat and lawyer, to divide up the vast Ottoman Empire into British and French spheres of influence. World War I was to stretch on for several more years. But the colonial powers were already well focused on the gains that could be made, and interests that needed to be protected, in the aftermath of the conflict. The Sykes-Picot Agreement was signed the following May, but it was nearly a decade—and many other deals and treaties later—before the modern borders of the Middle East emerged.
This Sykes-Picot Agreement, decided without the input of the Arabs in the region, broke the pledges of freedom the British had made when enlisting Arab support against the Ottomans. It also conflicted with the vision of “self-determination” promoted by President Woodrow Wilson during the war. The U.S government only learned of the agreement two weeks after it was signed, when British foreign secretary Arthur Balfour revealed it to Edward House, a foreign policy advisor of Wilson’s. Enraged, House wrote “It is all bad and I told Balfour so. They are making it a breeding place for future war.”
Figure 11.1: Sykes-Picot Agreement, 1916 (present countries borders are shown in dotted gray lines)
Source: “Sykes-Picot Agreement Map, signed 8 May 1916,” Wikimedia Commons, October 7, 2011.
Fast-forward one hundred years to 2016 and Edward House looks prescient. The leaders of the Middle East may agree on few things. But one outstanding po
int of accord is that the era of Sykes-Picot is over. Walid Jumblatt, the leader of the Druze community in Lebanon, put it succinctly: “Sykes-Picot is finished, that’s for sure, but everything is now up in the air, and it will be a long time before it becomes clear what the result will be.” Barham Salih, a Kurdish leader and former deputy prime minister of Iraq, voiced similar sentiments: “The system in place for the past one hundred years has collapsed. . . . It’s not clear what new system will take its place.” Even ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was focused on the death of Sykes-Picot, declaring in 2014 that “this blessed advance [of ISIS] will not stop until we hit the last nail in the coffin of the Sykes-Picot conspiracy.”
Since 2011, the Middle East has been buffeted by multiple upheavals, any one of which might have been sufficient to challenge the post-Ottoman arrangements. It was in that year that political revolutions began to rock countries including Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, and Yemen. Soon these upheavals reverberated into full-blown civil wars in Yemen and Syria, contributing to a near–state collapse in Iraq.
The same period also saw a growing prominence of nonstate actors, some of whom transcend borders—not only ISIS, but also the Tamarod Movement in Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood, and the Tunisian National Dialogue Quartet. These changes also coincided with the rise of regional powers such as Iran and, for a time, Turkey. Iran was already flexing its muscles in multiple parts of the region despite international sanctions. Once the nuclear deal was completed, its economy started to strengthen. Turkey saw its GDP per capita nearly double within a decade, and it became more assertive, at times aligning, and at times clashing, with the interests of other regional players like Israel, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar.
Amidst these political transformations, the new energy abundance has instigated a second revolution of a whole different sort in the Middle East. Oil and gas are the economic lifeblood of the region—either directly for the producing countries, or indirectly, via large transfers of wealth from them to those countries bereft of the resource wealth of their neighbors. Given this reality, most expect the energy revolution will mean greater tumult, instability, and loss of influence for the region. This view is true to some extent, particularly when seen in conjunction with the other upheavals. Some countries, the most obvious being Iraq, were pushed to the brink of collapse by falling revenues in the midst of security and political crises. Moreover, we have already seen how the new energy dynamics weakened OPEC—an institution that is older than many countries in the region and has wielded enormous global influence for decades.
Nevertheless, as has been the case elsewhere, the realities are more complex than they first appear. Many of the other anticipated effects of the energy boom on the geopolitics of the Middle East will not materialize, or at least not nearly to the extent predicted. For instance, the U.S.’s domestic energy boom will not lead Washington to withdraw from the Middle East, nor even spur a dramatic diminution of American interests in the region. Nor will the boom necessarily dilute the ability of the region to wreak energy-inspired havoc on other parts of the world, either through embargoes or less politically driven production disruptions. In fact, in a persistently low-energy-price environment, the world could become more, not less, reliant on the Middle East.
Many of the less anticipated, but more meaningful impacts of the energy boom on the Middle East are surprisingly encouraging. Perhaps counterintuitively, the new energy abundance has actually opened the door for some positive developments in the region. At this point, such possibilities are just that—possibilities. There is nothing inevitable about their realization and, in fact, considerable odds are stacked against their success. But it is fascinating how the new energy dynamics have worked with other circumstances to create the potential—or even imperative—for countries in the Middle East to pursue paths that would have seemed unimaginable only a few years ago. Ambitious reforms, and even new peace initiatives, are plausible where none had been on the horizon a short while ago.
Protecting the Producers
On Valentine’s Day 1945, an American destroyer covered in Oriental rugs pulled up alongside a larger vessel named the USS Quincy in the waters of the Suez Canal. With dozens of American sailors standing at attention, Saudi King Abdulaziz Al Saud, also known as Ibn Saud, slowly made his way over a gangplank to where President Franklin Roosevelt waited to receive him.
The two leaders came from very different worlds. Ibn Saud had never been out of his country before this trip. He arrived with a pared-down entourage of forty-eight, including the royal astronomer. He slept outside on the deck of the ship and insisted on slaughtering his own sheep onboard so he could eat fresh meat. Roosevelt, by contrast, had traveled abroad from the age of two and was a champion of progressive reform. He had repealed Prohibition and was successfully leading American forces in the largest international conflict ever.
The differences extended to their countries. To much of the world, the United States was synonymous with notions of accountability, democracy, freedom of speech and religion, and opportunity to people of all backgrounds and races. Saudi Arabia was a hereditary desert tribal kingdom founded only thirteen years previously on a conservative interpretation of Islamic law, with strict limits on personal and political freedoms. The nation was also still relatively unknown—although its vast reserves of oil would soon change that.
Nonetheless, the meeting was very congenial. Both men had trouble walking, and Roosevelt gifted Ibn Saud with his spare wheelchair. Sitting close together, the leaders laughed and smiled over the course of the conversation. During a four-hour meeting in the Great Bitter Lake portion of the Suez Canal, the two leaders set the foundations for the modern U.S.-Saudi relationship and, in many, ways, American foreign policy toward the whole region.
The arrangement was simple. Following World War I, Britain had claimed a mandate over oil-rich Iraq. American companies, searching for additional external sources of petroleum, had discovered large reserves in Saudi Arabia. As late as 1936, the desert kingdom had not exported a single barrel of oil. But, with American investment and expertise, it quickly became a global oil giant. So, in exchange for a steady flow of oil to global markets from Saudi Arabia—and eventually other Gulf countries—the United States guaranteed that no one would threaten the country or its ability to export its commodity.
Over the course of the twentieth century, the relationship between these two otherwise very different nations has been important enough to be the explicit subject of multiple presidential doctrines. In 1980, the United States and Saudi Arabia both viewed the Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan as an attempt to gain direct access to the vast oil reserves of the Gulf just three hundred miles to the south. A few years earlier, the CIA had done a secret study called the “The Impending Soviet Oil Crisis,” which raised concerns that Soviet oil production would soon peak, causing the nation to forcefully look abroad for new sources of energy. In his last State of the Union address, President Jimmy Carter responded to the Soviet Union with forceful words, “Let our position be absolutely clear: An attempt by any outside force to gain control of the Persian Gulf region will be regarded as an assault on the vital interests of the United States of America, and such an assault will be repelled by any means necessary, including military force.” His words were interrupted several times by bipartisan applause.
Just one year later, newly elected President Ronald Reagan affirmed his readiness to protect American interests in the Middle East. “There is no way,” he said, “as long as Saudi Arabia and the OPEC nations there in the East—and Saudi Arabia’s the most important—provide the bulk of the energy that is needed to turn the wheels of industry in the Western World, there’s no way that we could stand by and see that taken over by anyone that would shut off that oil.”
A decade later, the United States backed up its promises to defend Saudi Arabia and other Gulf nations with decisive action. In 1990, Iraqi forces overran Kuwait, and threatened to do the same to Saudi Arabia. As discussed in Cha
pter Five, gaining control of the region’s energy riches would have exponentially enhanced the power of Saddam Hussein, Iraq’s megalomaniacal leader. In addition to the vast riches from oil sales, Saddam would have been in an excellent position to blackmail the world by orchestrating huge price spikes overnight.
Once again, an American administration made clear that this was an unacceptable situation. “The economic lifeline of the industrial world runs from the gulf,” said Secretary of State James Baker, “and we cannot permit a dictator such as this to sit astride that economic lifeline.”
Within months, the United States led a coalition of countries in a rout of Iraqi forces, quickly driving them out of Kuwait. The Iraqi invasion of Kuwait marked a turning point in U.S. strategy and military presence in the Middle East. As late as 1989, the United States had fewer than seven hundred military personnel deployed in all of Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE combined. Yet, even a decade after Iraq was ejected from Kuwait, tens of thousands of American troops remained in the region—a number that expanded to nearly a quarter million by the late 2000s at the height of the Iraq War.
U.S. Withdrawal: Not So Fast
Given the centrality that oil has played in U.S. involvement in the region, many Americans view their new energy prowess as a vehicle for deliverance from such costly and controversial engagements in the Middle East. If a full withdrawal is not in the cards, then, at a minimum, proponents argue, Americans can look forward to a significant retrenchment from the region. According to economist Anders Aslund, “U.S. interests in the Middle East will decline along with U.S. energy imports.” Middle East policy expert Daniel Pipes likewise concluded, “Washington will be largely freed from having to kowtow to the oil and gas pashas.”
Windfall Page 29