George Friedman
Nuclear talks with
Iran have failed to yield an agreement, but the deadline for a deal has been
extended without a hitch. What would have been a significant crisis a year
ago, replete with threats and anxiety, has been handled without drama or
difficulty. This new response to yet another failure to reach an accord
marks a shift in the relationship between the United States and Iran, a shift
that can’t be understood without first considering the massive geopolitical
shifts that have taken place in the Middle East, redefining the urgency of the
nuclear issue.
These shifts are
rooted in the emergence of the Islamic State.
Ideologically, there is little difference between the Islamic State and
other radical Islamic jihadist movements. But in terms of
geographical presence, the Islamic State has set itself apart from the rest.
While al Qaeda might have longed to take control of a significant nation-state,
it primarily remained a sparse, if widespread, terrorist organization. It
held no significant territory permanently; it was a movement, not a
place. But the Islamic State, as its name suggests, is different. It
sees itself as the kernel from which a transnational Islamic state should grow,
and it has established itself in Syria and Iraq as a geographical entity. The
group controls a roughly defined region in the two countries, and it has something of a conventional military designed to defend and expand the state’s
control. Thus far, whatever advances and reversals it has seen, the Islamic
State has retained this character. While the group certainly funnels a
substantial portion of its power into dispersed guerrilla formations and
retains a significant regional terrorist apparatus, it remains something rather
new for the region — an Islamist movement acting as a regional state.
It is unclear whether
the Islamic State can survive. It is under attack by American aircraft, and the
United States is attempting to create a coalition force that will attack and
conquer it. It is also unclear whether the group can expand. The
Islamic State appears to have reached its limits in Kurdistan, and the Iraqi
army (which was badly defeated in the first stage of the Islamic State's
emergence) is showing some signs of being able to launch
counteroffensives.
A New Territorial Threat
The Islamic State has
created a vortex that has drawn in regional and global powers, redefining how
they behave. The group's presence is both novel and impossible to ignore
because it is a territorial entity. Nations have been forced to readjust
their policies and relations with each other as a result. We see this inside
of Syria and Iraq. Damascus and Baghdad are not the only ones that need to deal
with the Islamic State; other regional powers — Turkey, Iran and Saudi Arabia
chief among them — need to recalculate their positions as well. A terrorist organization can inflict pain and
cause turmoil, but it survives by remaining dispersed. The Islamic State
has a terrorism element, but it is also a concentrated force that could potentially
expand its territory. The group behaves geopolitically, and as long as it
survives it poses a geopolitical challenge.
Within Iraq and
Syria, the Islamic State represents elements of the Sunni
Arab population. It has imposed itself on the Sunni Arab regions
of Iraq, and although resistance to Islamic State power certainly exists among
Sunnis, some resistance to any emergent state is inevitable. The Islamic State
has managed to cope with this resistance so far. But the group also has pressed
against the boundaries of the Kurdish and Shiite regions, and it has sought to
create a geographical link with its forces in Syria, changing Iraq's internal
dynamic considerably. Where the Sunnis were once weak and dispersed, the
Islamic State has now become a substantial force in the region north and west
of Baghdad, posing a possible threat to Kurdish oil production and
Iraqi governance. The group has had an even more complex effect in Syria, as it
has weakened other groups resisting the government of Syrian President Bashar
al Assad, thereby strengthening al Assad's position while increasing its own
power. This dynamic illustrates the geopolitical complexity of the Islamic
State's presence.
Countering with a Coalition
The United States
withdrew from Iraq hoping that Baghdad, even if unable to govern its territory
with a consistent level of authority, would nevertheless develop a balance of
power in Iraq in which various degrees of autonomy, formal and informal, would be
granted. It was an ambiguous goal, though not unattainable. But the emergence
of the Islamic State upset the balance in Iraq dramatically, and initial
weaknesses in Iraqi and Kurdish forces facing Islamic State fighters forced the
United States to weigh the possibility of the group dominating large parts of
Iraq and Syria. This situation posed a challenge that the United States could
neither decline nor fully engage. Washington's solution was to send
aircraft and minimal ground forces to attack the Islamic State, while seeking
to build a regional coalition that would act.
Today, the key to
this coalition is Turkey. Ankara has become a substantial regional
power. It has the largest economy and military in the region, and it is
the most vulnerable to events in Syria and Iraq, which run along Turkey's
southern border. Ankara's strategy under President Recep Tayyip Erdogan
has been to avoid conflicts with its neighbors, which it has been able to do
successfully so far. The United States now wants Turkey to provide forces
— particularly ground troops — to resist the Islamic State. Ankara has an
interest in doing so, since Iraqi oil would help diversify its sources of
energy and because it wants to keep the conflict from spilling into
Turkey. The Turkish government has worked hard to keep the Syrian conflict
outside its borders and to limit its own direct involvement in the civil
war. Ankara also does not want the Islamic State to create pressure on
Iraqi Kurds that could eventually spread to Turkish Kurds.
Turkey is in a difficult situation. If it
intervenes against the Islamic State alongside the United States, its army will
be tested in a way that it has not been tested since the Korean War, and the
quality of its performance is uncertain. The risks are real, and victory is far
from guaranteed. Turkey would be resuming the role it played in the Arab
world during the Ottoman Empire, attempting to shape Arab politics in ways that
it finds satisfactory. The United States did not do this well in Iraq, and
there is no guarantee that Turkey would succeed either. In fact, Ankara could
be drawn into a conflict with the Arab states from which it would not be able
to withdraw as neatly as Washington did.
At the same time,
instability to Turkey's south and the emergence of a new territorial power in
Syria and Iraq represent fundamental threats to Ankara. There are claims
that the Turks secretly support the Islamic State, but I doubt this greatly.
The Turks may be favorably inclined toward other Islamist groups, but the
Islamic State is both dangerous and likely to draw pressure from the United
States against any of its supporters. Still, the Turks will not simply do
America's bidding; Ankara has interests in Syria that do not mesh with those of
the United States.
Turkey wants to see
the al Assad regime toppled, but the United States is reluctant to do so for
fear of opening the door
to a Sunni jihadist regime (or at the very least,
jihadist anarchy) that, with the Islamic State operational, would be impossible
to shape. To some extent, the Turks are floating the al Assad issue as an
excuse not to engage in the conflict. But Ankara wants al Assad gone and a
pro-Turkey Sunni regime in his place. If the United States refuses to cede to
this demand, Turkey has a basis for refusing to intervene; if the United States
agrees, Turkey gets the outcome it wants in Syria, but at greater risk to
Iraq. Thus the Islamic State has become the focal point of U.S.-Turkish
ties, replacing prior issues such as Turkey's relationship with Israel.
Iran's Changing Regional Role
The emergence of the
Islamic State has similarly redefined Iran's posture in the region. Tehran
sees a pro-Iranian, Shiite-dominated regime in Baghdad as critical to its
interests, just as it sees its domination of southern Iraq as
crucial. Iran fought a war with a Sunni-dominated Iraq in the 1980s, with
devastating casualties; avoiding another such war is fundamental to Iranian
national security policy. From Tehran's point of view, the Islamic State
has the ability to cripple the government in Baghdad and potentially unravel
Iran’s position in Iraq. Though this is not the most likely outcome, it is
a potential threat that Iran must counter.
Small Iranian
formations have already formed in eastern Kurdistan, and Iranian personnel have
piloted Iraqi aircraft in attacks on Islamic State positions. The mere
possibility of the Islamic State dominating even parts of Iraq is unacceptable
to Tehran, which aligns its interests with those of the United
States. Both countries want the Islamic State broken. Both want the
government in Baghdad to function. The Americans have no problem with Iran
guaranteeing security in the south, and the Iranians have no objection to a
pro-American Kurdistan so long as they continue to dominate southern oil flows.
Because of the
Islamic State — as well as greater long-term trends — the United States and
Iran have been drawn together by their common interests. There have been
numerous reports of U.S.-Iranian military cooperation against the Islamic
State, while the major issue dividing them (Iran's nuclear program) has been
marginalized. Monday's announcement that no settlement had been reached in
nuclear talks was followed by a calm extension of the deadline for agreement,
and neither side threatened the other or gave any indication that the failure
changed the general accommodation that has been reached. In our view, as
we have always said, achieving a deliverable nuclear weapon is far more
difficult than enriching uranium, and Iran is not an imminent nuclear power.
That appears to have become the American position. Neither Washington nor
Tehran wants to strain relations over the nuclear issue, which has been put on
the back burner for now because of the Islamic State's rise.
This new entente
between the United States and Iran naturally alarms Saudi Arabia, the third
major power in the region if only for its wealth and ability to finance
political movements. Riyadh sees Tehran as a rival in the Persian Gulf that
could potentially destabilize Saudi Arabia via its Shiite population. The
Saudis also see the United States as the ultimate guarantor of their national
security, even though they have been acting without Washington's buy-in since
the Arab Spring. Frightened by Iran’s warming relationship with the United
States, Riyadh is also becoming increasingly concerned by America’s growing
self-sufficiency in energy, which has dramatically reduced Saudi Arabia's
political importance to the United States.
There has been
speculation that the Islamic State is being funded by Arabian powers, but it
would be irrational for Riyadh to be funding the group. The stronger the
Islamic State is, the firmer the ties between the United States and Iran
become. Washington cannot live with a transnational caliphate that might
become regionally powerful someday. The more of a threat the Islamic State
becomes, the more Iran and the United States need each other, which runs
completely counter to the Saudis' security interests. Riyadh needs the
tensions between the United States and Iran. Regardless of religious or
ideological impulse, Tehran's alliance with Washington forms an overwhelming
force that threatens the Saudi regime's survival. And the Islamic State
has no love for the Saudi royal family. The caliphate can expand in Saudi
Arabia's direction, too, and we've already seen grassroots activity related to
the Islamic State taking place inside the kingdom. Riyadh has been engaged in Iraq,
and it must now try to strengthen Sunni forces other than the Islamic State
quickly, so that the forces pushing Washington and Tehran together
subside.
America's Place at the Center of the Middle
East
For Washington's
part, the Islamic State has show that the idea of the United States simply
leaving the region is unrealistic. At the same time, the United States
will not engage in multidivisional warfare in Iraq. Washington failed to
achieve a pro-American stability there the first time; it is unlikely to achieve
it this time. U.S. air power applies significant force against the Islamic
State and is a token of America's power and presence — as well as its
limits. The U.S. strategy of forming an alliance against the Islamic State
is extremely complex, since the Turks do not want to be pulled into the fight
without major concessions, the Iranians want reduced pressure on their nuclear
programs in exchange for their help, and the Saudis are aware of the dangers
posed by Iran.
What is noteworthy is
the effect that the Islamic State has had on relationships in the
region. The group's emergence has once again placed the United States at
the center of the regional system, and it has forced the three major Middle
Eastern powers to redefine their relations with Washington in various ways. It
has also revived the deepest fears of Turkey, Iran and Saudi
Arabia. Ankara wants to avoid being drawn back into the late Ottoman
nightmare of controlling Arabs, while Iran has been forced to realign itself
with the United States to resist the rise of a Sunni Iraq and Saudi Arabia, as
the Shah once had to do. Meanwhile, the Islamic State has raised Saudi fears of U.S. abandonment in
favor of Iran, and the United States' dread of re-engaging in Iraq has come to
define all of its actions.
In the end, it is
unlikely that the territorial Islamic State can survive. The truth is that
Turkey, Iran and Saudi Arabia are all waiting for the United States to solve
the Islamic State problem with air power and a few ground forces. These
actions will not destroy the Islamic State, but they will break the group's
territorial coherence and force it to return to guerrilla tactics and
terrorism. Indeed, this is already happening. But the group's very
existence, however temporary, has stunned the region into realizing that prior
assumptions did not take into account current realities. Ankara will not be
able to avoid increasing its involvement in the conflict; Tehran will have
to live with the United States; and Riyadh will have to seriously consider its
vulnerabilities. As for the United States, it can simply go home, even if
the region is in chaos. But the others are already at home, and that is
the point that the Islamic State has made abundantly clear.
George Friedman, Stratfor, Nov. 25,
2014
"The
Islamic State Reshapes the Middle East is republished with
permission of Stratfor."
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