https://www.thenational.ae/opinion/comment/if-the-mueller-report-proves-anything-it-s-that-us-democracy-is-badly-broken-1.842997

Its handling so far also prompts the vital question of who guards the guardians of America’s political system

Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s 300-page report on Russian interference in the 2016 US presidential election has been filed with the Justice Department, but no one else has seen a single sentence of it.

Congress and the public have only a four-page letter from Attorney General William Barr, supposedly summarising its findings.

Mr Mueller was apparently unable to prove a conspiracy by the Trump campaign and Russian intelligence, but unyielding Republican resolve to suppress the report suggests that it, nonetheless, contains highly damaging information.

Mr Trump’s victory celebration is at best premature.

He claims complete vindication and exoneration, but the report categorically declines to exonerate him of obstruction of justice.

While Mr Barr and his deputy, Rod Rosenstein, argue that Mr Trump did not obstruct justice in his response to the investigation – including the firing of former FBI director James Comey – Mr Mueller’s report obviously also provides grounds for a very different conclusion.

Democrats and much of the public may strongly differ with Mr Barr, once they see the full report – which Mr Mueller says doesn’t exonerate the president and which Republicans seem keen to conceal.

The Democrats’ de facto leader, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, is correct that since the Republican Senate majority is united behind Mr Trump, it’s pointless for the Democratic majority in the House of Representatives to impeach him.

Besides, Democrats think there’s an excellent case for defeating Mr Trump in 2020, and many prefer a public repudiation of him and his white-nationalist politics to a parliamentary battle.

Meanwhile, Mr Trump continues to face ominous investigations by New York prosecutors into his businesses, foundation and campaign.

Although the impact on Mr Trump’s long-term viability remains to be seen, two major effects of the Mueller investigation are immediately evident.

First, the criminal convictions of Mr Trump’s campaign manager, Paul Manafort, and his deputy, Robert Gates, announce a new era for prosecuting violations of the Foreign Agents Registration Act, which was traditionally barely enforced.

These convictions, and others, signal that international lobbyists in Washington, and even the governments who hire them, must now be very careful about scrupulously adhering to this law.

Second, the reaction of Mr Barr and Mr Rosenstein to the Mueller report highlights one of several serious constitutional malfunctions in the American political system that are only getting worse.

In many ways, US democracy is badly broken. Some of its core structures are either no longer working as designed more than 200 years ago, or have become obsolete and thus dysfunctional.

For example, the federal election system, the electoral college, and several other aspects of the Connecticut Compromise on congressional representation between large and small states, all crafted when the Constitution was adopted at the end of the 18th century, have become, in a drastically changed nation, intolerably distorting.

They are resulting in minority rule by a conservative, rural electorate with far more power per individual voter than the larger, liberal and urban constituencies that mainly power the nation’s culture and economy, but are increasingly politically shortchanged. All this is exacerbated by dark money, gerrymandering, voter suppression and so on.

The Mueller investigation has brought a related conundrum bedeviling US governance into sharp focus: who guards the guardians?

Last year, Mr Barr virtually auditioned for his Attorney General job by writing a public memo denouncing the Mueller investigation and suggesting no president can commit obstruction of justice while conducting the duties of leading the executive branch.

Mr Barr does allow that if a president ordered the destruction of evidence or instructed staffers to commit perjury, that would constitute obstruction. But, he argues, if the president, acting as the government’s chief executive, instructs subordinates like the head of the FBI not to investigate someone or something, that is a judgment that he alone is constitutionally authorised to make and that cannot be second guessed.

Thus far, the handling of the Mueller report is reinforcing this troubling, quasi-monarchical, standard.

It places few constraints on any president inclined to subvert the law-enforcement process to benefit himself and his friends.

In theory, US presidents are checked by Congress, not the police. But political parties did not exist when the Constitution was drafted. It was assumed that Congress would invariably defend legislative prerogatives against an out-of-control executive. In practice, though, legislators defer almost totally to any president of their own party, and reflexively attack one from the other side, preferring organisational loyalty over institutional imperatives. So, the legislative check is generally either insufficient or excessive.

Past efforts to solve this problem, such as the genuinely independent special prosecutors created by the 1978 Ethics in Government Act, proved unsustainable, given that both parties win presidential power.

Republicans, angered by the Iran-Contra investigation, and Democrats, enraged by the Whitewater investigation that led to the impeachment of Bill Clinton, both quietly let the law expire in 1999.

That effectively produced the present scandalous situation, in which presidents apparently possess vast and virtually unfettered authority over federal police investigations, even into themselves, their administrations or their associates.

The US needs a viable process to constrain executive overreach and ensure real independence for investigators scrutinising presidents and their cronies. It’s hardly impossible.

Any well-functioning democracy would move expeditiously to craft one. So, don’t hold your breath.

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-03-28/trump-approval-of-israel-s-golan-land-grab-subverts-peace?srnd=opinion

Recognizing annexation of the Golan Heights weakens alliances with Arab powers and strengthens Israeli annexationists and Palestinian rejectionists.

President Donald Trump’s proclamation on Monday recognizing Israel’s sovereignty over the occupied Golan Heights sends Israel a clear and dangerous message: If you want land, annex it, and eventually it shall be yours.

That departure from U.S. and international norms will weaken both Israeli and Arab incentives to seek peace.

By rebooting American expectations, the Trump administration is revising Israeli calculations. For Israeli annexationists, the sky is now the limit.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is surrounded by people in his own Likud party and among his coalition partners who favor annexing parts of the West Bank, notably the areas on the western side of a separation wall built since 2002 along with major settlement blocs and the Jordan River valley.

Last year, Likud endorsed the de facto annexation of many Israeli settlements. So did the Knesset before being restrained by cooler heads, including Netanyahu himself.

Whoever wins the upcoming Israeli election, the drive towards annexation in the West Bank is likely to pick up speed. What argument is left against it?

Until now, that argument was decisively made by history and international law.

In the early 1980s, Israel effectively annexed first East Jerusalem and then the Golan Heights, which it had seized from Syria in the 1967 war. The administration of President Ronald Reagan pushed back, joining the rest of the international community in rejecting those claims and upholding the principal enshrined in the United Nations charter of the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war.

Every subsequent administration has done the same. Until now.

For Palestinians, there can now be no doubt that the U.S. government has signed on to the expansionist ambitions of Greater Israel advocates on the Israeli right.

That’s in conflict with the principle that the U.S. has upheld since the 1993 Oslo agreements between Israel and the Palestinians, which stipulated that any territorial adjustments to the 1949 armistice lines had to be mutually agreed.

With the Oslo framework discarded, Palestinians have no reason to hope they can win their independence through negotiations with Israel.

Violent factions like Hamas will be strengthened despite the bitter Palestinian history of military defeats.

Also emboldened will be the “one-state” movement that seeks to unite Israel, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip into a single nation where Palestinians would enjoy demographic dominance (the combined population of those regions is already more than half Palestinian). The goal would be to discredit and eventually eliminate the Jewish state as an example of minority rule comparable to the apartheid system once used in South Africa.

Annexationist Israelis seem comfortable with the same trajectory. Both sides are convinced they can win a demographic battle that will more likely yield a bitter stalemate.

U.S. recognition of Israeli expansion is also likely to backfire against Israel itself by straining its emerging partnership with Arab countries, especially U.S. allies in the Persian Gulf like Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Israel is relying on cooperation with those countries against Iran and, increasingly, Turkey, as a basis for new approaches to Palestinian peace.

I was in Riyadh in May 2018, when the U.S. moved its embassy to Jerusalem, and the consternation of Saudi officials was unmistakable.

Now, the Arab world, including the Gulf states, Jordan and Egypt, is united in rejecting Monday’s Golan proclamation. Arab leaders consider the U.S. move to be a gift to Hamas, Iran, Hezbollah and other radical groups in the region.

Saudi Arabia’s bitter statement went far beyond what would be required to satisfy Arab political correctness on this matter.

Trump justified his Golan declaration on the grounds of Israel’s security. The Saudi statement flings that logic back at him and raises the stakes. “The declaration,” the Saudi statement correctly notes, “will risk the security and stability of the region.”

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-03-26/israel-and-middle-east-adversaries-tiptoe-toward-war

All sides are spoiling for a little bit of conflict. Nobody wants too much, but combat can be hard to control.

As President Donald Trump followed through on Monday on his pledge to recognize Israel’s annexation of the Golan Heights, the Middle East is bracing for war.

For the third time in two weeks, a long-range rocket has been fired from the Gaza Strip into Israel, slamming into a house Monday morning and injuring seven civilians.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu cut short a visit to Washington. Israel mobilized its military. And leaders of Hamas, the militant Palestinian faction that controls Gaza, have reportedly gone into hiding.

Just two weeks before the next Israeli election, the indicators pointing toward armed conflict have moved into the red zone.

Almost all the involved parties have reasons to welcome a limited escalation. They also have reasons to prevent hostilites from going too far. But fighting can be hard to stop.

The latest crisis began on March 16, when two Hamas rockets landed in the Tel Aviv area. No one was hurt. Hamas said it was a mistake. Israel and Egypt chalked the attack up to “incompetence.” Israel made a limited response that injured two Palestinians. Hamas avoided any retaliation and called off a scheduled protest at the border.

All sides plainly preferred to avoid another conflict.

But that kind of quick de-escalation is now unlikely, particularly for Netanyahu, who cannot afford to look weak.

On the other side, it’s easy to see why someone in Gaza decided to instigate a military crisis.

Hamas is in political trouble. It’s been facing angry demonstrations by Gazans under the banner, “We want to live,” protesting Hamas mismanagement, brutality and authoritarianism. Hamas has responded with more repression.

The protests are the latest manifestation of a growing humanitarian and governance crisis facing Hamas, which has not found a way to bring international humanitarian aid and reconstruction to the overcrowded, impoverished and quarantined territory it rules.

Hamas leaders may not all want a new war. The group says the rocket attacks have been mistakes, implausibly blaming the latest one on “bad weather.”

On March 16, Netanyahu had every reason to avoid another major conflict with Hamas to distract from the Israeli election. This time he has little choice. Adding to the chance of armed confrontation, Egypt signaled Hamas that it would face the consequences of continued attacks on Israel unaided.

Moreover, a limited but robust military exchange could help Netanyahu push back against a strong electoral threat posed by the Blue-White Coalition, led by three noted generals.

And Israel’s other major antagonists, the Lebanon-based Hezbollah paramilitary force and its Iranian patrons, seem to be itching for a fight. Iran has been hobbled by intensifying U.S. economic sanctions and other pressure, and is looking for chances to flex regional muscles.

Trump’s announcement on Golan has generated new opportunities for Arab and Islamic forces looking to assert leadership credentials in the struggle against Israel.

Trump’s blessing of Israel’s annexation of Golan and Jerusalem could prove especially useful for Iran and its Shiite proxies. Distrusted by many Arabs, they can now pose as champions of Arab and Muslim interests against Israeli expansion and U.S. imperialism.

They’ll also see a chance to prevent Hamas from being credited for leading the confrontation in the name of Sunni Islamists, benefiting newly assertive Turkey and its Muslim Brotherhood allies rather than Iran.

But all sides also have reason to be careful. Hamas knows it would lose any sustained military conflict with Israel. Even the political benefits it seeks depend on escaping without so much damage to Gaza that it would provoke further public wrath.

Netanyahu could benefit politically from a brief exchange, but not if Israel gets dragged into a protracted war in Gaza, loses soldiers or sustains damaging rocket attacks on its population centers, or comes under withering international criticism.

And Hezbollah and Iran don’t want Israel to launch an all-out air offensive against Hezbollah’s new assets and capabilities in Syria, and even in Lebanon, degrading and reversing many of their gains from the Syrian war.

A brief Middle East conflict now seems likely, with all sides seeing potential benefits. But once a fight gets started, pulling back is easier said than done.

https://www.thenational.ae/opinion/comment/as-the-syrian-war-ends-the-axis-of-resistance-has-been-exposed-for-the-illusion-it-always-was-1.840587

The Syrian war effectively eradicated the once-widespread myth that there was an “axis of resistance” in the Middle East, uniting Sunni Islamists like the Muslim Brotherhood with pro-Iranian sectarian Shia forces. The false narrative suggested that, by threatening the regional order, the culture of “resistance” was battling a supposed “culture of accommodation” by Arab states, which, in seeking to maintain stability, were supposedly serving the interests of the West and Israel.

But with the Syrian war now over, efforts to resuscitate this myth are being thwarted by the rise of Turkey, which has drawn Sunni Islamists into a unified camp of its own.

After rebel-held parts of Aleppo fell to pro-regime forces in December 2016, Turkey shifted its strategy away from a concerted confrontation with Iran and its proxies and began a determined bid for broader regional, ideological and political hegemony.

In the decade before the Syrian war began in 2011, both Sunni and Shia Islamist, as well as pan-Arab nationalist, populist rhetoric, depicted the region as divided into two camps: an “axis of resistance” confronting an “axis of accommodation”.

This mythology created the illusion of a “resistance” alliance, which, with rare exceptions, never really existed, and a supposed consensus, which never existed at all, between two largely incompatible groupings.

The pro-Iranian camp in the Middle East – including the Syrian regime, Hezbollah and other Lebanese factions, Iraqi Shia militias and others directly aligned with Tehran – trumpeted the mythology of resistance, with Hezbollah as the implicit vanguard of the movement.

The Sunni Islamist camp – passionately supported by culturally influential but politically insignificant left-wing pan-Arab nationalists, among them prominent voices on Al Jazeera TV – repeated virtually the same mythology but with Hamas at the forefront.

Although they had fundamentally differing agendas, their regional discourse was generally, but not entirely, indistinguishable, and certainly complementary and mutually reinforcing.

While it was never fully fleshed out, this resistance was assumed to be wholeheartedly against Israel, largely against the US and generally against the status quo and most existing Arab regimes.

However, this putative alliance did not survive the war in Syria.

The stark division the Syrian war appeared to force on most regional actors appeared to neatly divide them into relatively homogenous pro and anti-Iranian camps. Turkey, for example, was understood to be in the anti-Iranian grouping.

It was also primarily responsible for the illusion that regional dynamics were primarily driven by a sectarian Sunni-Shia divide, which some commentators even asserted was an age-old phenomenon.

The best example of the kind of dislocating rupture caused by the demolition of the axis of resistance myth is Hamas, which was no longer able to remain both a core member of the Muslim Brotherhood movement and a key ally of Iran.

The Syrian war forced Hamas to choose between its Sunni Islamist identity and its alliance with Syria and Iran. Its leadership fled Damascus for Doha, abandoning their headquarters and many assets.

Now the Syrian war is effectively over, there are obvious efforts to resurrect the false idea of an alliance between Sunni and Shia Islamists, plus left-wing cheerleaders, under the banner of “resistance”. Hence, Hamas is cautiously reaching out to Iran again. Media outlets are dropping some old hostilities and softening tones. Attitudes are shifting and many self-styled activists are no doubt hoping to resurrect the idea of resistance versus accommodation.

But that’s not going to happen. Shia and Sunni Islamists, and even their pan-Arab nationalist fan clubs, aren’t going to be able to resurrect the fictional and virtual axis they believed defined the region 15 years ago.

The factor that makes this impossible is the rise of Turkey as a fully fledged would-be regional hegemon with a fully defined Sunni Islamist ideological orientation and a set of reliable allies and proxies, most notably Qatar and Muslim Brotherhood groups.

Fifteen years ago, Iran wasn’t competing with a major anti-status quo rival. Now it is.

Even if these formerly aligned groups once again use similar language, there are two distinctly different agendas and contending foreign policies reflecting powerful, competing regional states at work.

The Middle East is no longer a binary landscape, divided between resistance versus accommodation (or radical versus moderate, if you prefer), or even pro and anti-Iran blocs.

Writ large, it is now a ternary reality: a pro-Iranian bloc with a largely Shia Islamist orientation; a pro-Turkish and essentially Sunni Islamist one; and the camp favouring stability and the regional status quo largely aligned with Washington.

Turkey and Iran now are frenemies – rivals that will cautiously confront when necessary, co-operate when possible and compete always, while being careful to continue hundreds of years of care to avoid any direct conflict.

But it has become obvious that, just as Tehran’s foreign policy was, ultimately, the guiding light behind the pro-Iranian and sectarian Shia wing of the axis of resistance, what used to be its Sunni Islamist components are now operating just as firmly under the direction and for the interests of Ankara and its agenda.

The outbreak of the Syrian war might have put paid to the myth of the axis of resistance. But the end of that conflict isn’t going to allow for its resurrection.

https://agsiw.org/new-congress-sounds-alarms-for-u-s-gulf-arab-partnership/

Yemen, Khashoggi, detainees, and nuclear technology are driving a deep-seated congressional backlash against Riyadh.

As anticipated, the new U.S. Congress is proving to be an inhospitable environment for Saudi Arabia and some of its Gulf Arab allies, including the United Arab Emirates. Despite a slow start for the 116th session due to a prolonged U.S. government shutdown, a number of issues have already been tackled by both the House of Representatives, with a Democratic majority, and the Senate, with a slimmer Republican majority. They have arisen through the full range of available legislative prerogatives: hearings, formal letters, press statements, and communications to the executive branch or media. And both Democrats seeking to critique the administration on a partisan basis and Republican internationalists seeking to push it in a more traditionally hawkish direction have been attracted to Gulf-related issues, especially regarding Saudi Arabia. Predictably, the close association between the Saudi government and the administration of President Donald J. Trump – and his family – is leaving Riyadh an exposed and relatively defenseless political target for administration critics on a range of issues. These issues reflect a growing divide between Saudi Arabia and Congress, and have great relevance for several other Gulf Arab countries as well.

The Yemen War

The biggest issue roiling U.S.-Gulf Arab relations is the Yemen war, which continues to be used by both the administration’s Democratic opponents and internationalist Republicans to pressure the executive branch. In mid-March, the Republican-controlled Senate broke with Trump on two issues: mandating the withdrawal of U.S. forces from most aspects of the Yemen war and reversing the national emergency declaration to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. Resistance to U.S. participation in Yemen has therefore dovetailed with a growing sense by members of Congress from both parties that there has been a usurpation of the legislature’s constitutional war-declaring and war-making powers, producing a historic vote.

The March 13 Senate resolution sets up what is likely to be the first time that a majority of both houses of Congress have used the War Powers Resolution of 1973 since its original passage in efforts to order the withdrawal of U.S. forces from a conflict. If the House and Senate can agree on the same language and pass that in coming days, which is likely given the existing votes in the two chambers, it would be the first major effort by the legislature to push back against the executive’s increasing monopolization of war-making powers, which the Constitution specifically grants to Congress and not the White House.

However, the practical impact on U.S. military support for the Saudi-led coalition in the Yemen conflict is likely to be very small, if any at all. The final language will include exemptions for missions to combat extremist groups such as Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant, which are a major part of the U.S. participation in the UAE-led counterinsurgency in southern Yemen. More importantly, any such measure will almost certainly be vetoed by Trump, and there is no indication of supermajorities in either chamber to overturn that and make this law. So, the impact on the separation of powers and the U.S. engagement in Yemen will be largely symbolic.

The rejection of the Yemen war marks a serious breach of the U.S. alliance with Saudi Arabia, at least on the part of Congress, with many members linking their votes to the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi and other concerns regarding the kingdom’s leadership. The votes were the culmination of two years of pending legislation in both the House and Senate that finally came together mid-March.

The Gulf countries principally involved in this conflict, Saudi Arabia and the UAE, should recognize the stakes reflected in this unusual pushback against the White House by Congress, including seven senators from his own party. In the long run, it suggests that almost any administration succeeding Trump’s will reflect a similar disapproval of and determination not to be involved in this conflict, should it persist beyond the current administration. Weapons sales to the UAE are also threatened by reports that U.S. weapons supplied to the Emiratis were discovered in the hands of al-Qaeda-affiliated militia groups in southern Yemen. In short, on Yemen, Congress is no longer a Saudi or even a UAE ally.

Jamal Khashoggi Murder

The continuing controversy over the murder of Saudi journalist and Washington Post contributor Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on October 2, 2018 also remains a major source of tension between the United States and Saudi Arabia and between Congress and the White House. The president, secretary of state, and other senior officials have repeatedly cast doubt on the ability of the United States to determine the degree of culpability of senior Saudi officials, particularly Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Pressure built to the point where, in early February, Saudi Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Adel al-Jubeir publicly asked Congress to withhold judgment and let the Saudi judicial and investigative process run its course before reaching any conclusion and, especially, not to impose additional sanctions on Saudi Arabia or its government officials, as some lawmakers are proposing.

But an act of Congress in late 2018 mandated a finding by the White House under the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act to determine if a foreign person, specifically the Saudi crown prince, was responsible for this action. The Trump administration did not report a clear finding by the February 7 deadline to Congress, which both Republicans and Democrats identified as a failure to abide by the law. The CIA has issued an intelligence assessment suggesting the crown prince was likely responsible, but that assessment has not been embraced by the president. It’s likely, therefore, that the Khashoggi issue will continue to be a major irritant between Washington and Riyadh and, probably, between Congress and the White House.

Women and Other Detainees in Saudi Arabia and Other Gulf Countries

A closely related source of tension between Gulf countries, particularly Saudi Arabia, and the new Congress is human rights concerns, and particularly the arrest and treatment of certain detainees, above all women’s rights activists, several of whom have reportedly been tortured while in custody. For much of 2018 the issue grew in prominence in Washington but did not receive a great deal of attention from Congress. However, 2019 promises to be different. On February 13, a bipartisan group of lawmakers called on Saudi Arabia to “immediately and unconditionally” release these detainees, including Hatoon al-Fassi, Aziza al-Yousef, and Loujain al-Hathloul. The resolution also strongly condemns the arrest and treatment of these women’s rights activists. On March 1, two members of Congress formally asked Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to personally intervene in the case of Aziza al-Yousef. Many observers, including prominent media outlets, have noted a connection between this intensified concern and the Khashoggi murder. Given that at least some of the arrested women are now being tried on extremely serious charges, attention to this issue is likely to increase.

Similar concerns have been expressed in Congress regarding a dual U.S.-Saudi citizen, Dr. Walid Fitaihi, who has reportedly been detained without charges. Fitaihi’s son alleged the doctor is being tortured when he spoke at a Capitol Hill press conference hosted by Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy. At a March 6 hearing for the approval of new ambassadors to Saudi Arabia and Iraq, senators from both parties expressed serious concerns about detainees, including Fitaihi, the Yemen war, and a number of other Saudi actions. Indeed, the prominent Republican Senator Marco Rubio described Mohammed bin Salman as having “gone full gangster,” and called him “reckless” and “ruthless.”

A related issue being raised in Congress, including at the March 6 confirmation hearing, are persistent charges, which Saudi Arabia denies, that its diplomatic officials have been helping Saudi citizens flee pending prosecutions for serious crimes in the United States. The issue has been formally raised with the State Department by several lawmakers, including Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon. If this issue is not satisfactorily resolved, and more cases come to light, it could dovetail with the human rights considerations to compound the growing bill of particulars in Congress against Riyadh.

Nuclear Technology Sales to Saudi Arabia

A further issue dividing the new Congress from both Saudi Arabia and the White House is proposals by the Trump administration to sell nuclear technology to Saudi Arabia for the development of a Saudi nuclear energy program based on the need to preserve hydrocarbons for export and tapping into the country’s extensive uranium reserves for domestic energy consumption. A 2010 agreement with the UAE follows the traditional “123” protocol that prohibits purchasers of reactors from enriching uranium or reprocessing plutonium to prevent any risk of nuclear weapons proliferation. However, Saudi Arabia is one of the few countries with extensive uranium reserves it can mine that also wants to make extensive use of reactors to generate its own electricity. Critics note that the kingdom could purchase enriched uranium more cheaply than creating its own enrichment process, but Saudi Arabia counters that the right to enrich was recognized in the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or nuclear deal, with Iran, as well as the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, and Riyadh will not accept more restrictions than what were asked of Tehran. Moreover, as the Trump administration frequently notes, Saudi Arabia could purchase reactors from a wide range of other potential suppliers, including South Korea. However, Saudi Arabia has repeatedly suggested it would prefer to make the United States its main partner in developing its own domestic nuclear energy industry.

In the context of the Yemen war and other concerns, however, this prospect has been greeted with considerable alarm in Congress and much of the mainstream U.S. media. On February 19, the House Committee on Oversight and Reform issued the report “Multiple Whistleblowers Raise Grave Concerns with White House Efforts to Transfer Sensitive U.S. Nuclear Technology to Saudi Arabia.” The report raises serious concerns about the process through which the proposed sales are being advanced and about undue influence, cronyism, and corruption on the part of current and former administration officials involved in the conversations, including former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn. The report also outlines previously confidential proposals by six major U.S. energy corporations and the consortium IP3 International to the Saudi government for a joint nuclear energy plan for the country – the “Iron Bridge Program.” This has come under considerable criticism as well. Democrats say they have begun a full-scale House inquiry into the plans and other proposals to sell U.S. nuclear technology to Saudi Arabia with or without a 123 agreement.

Bipartisan initiatives have been introduced in both the House and Senate that would require any nuclear technology sales to Saudi Arabia to conform to a 123 agreement approved by Congress. Interestingly, however, on March 3 the Pentagon confirmed that Lockheed Martin would be receiving its first payment from Saudi Arabia for the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense missile-defense system. The $15 billion sale, which also involves Boeing and Raytheon, does not appear to be presently at jeopardy in Congress despite the growing concerns regarding U.S.-Saudi relations and other weapon sales. The size of the contract combined with the defensive nature of the THAAD system and the existence of alternatives such as the Russian S-400 anti-missile system may protect the viability of the sale despite growing congressional exasperation with Saudi policies and conduct.

Alarm Bells are Ringing

All of this is bad news for Riyadh and its Gulf Arab allies, notably the UAE. It’s a clear barometer of how damaged the long-standing but often fraught U.S.-Saudi alliance has become outside of the bubble at the center of the Trump administration. The pushback is close to unanimous among Democrats and often involves key Republicans, many of them traditionally proponents of close U.S.-Saudi relations. The pending Yemen War Powers Resolution bill will almost certainly be vetoed and not become law, but it’s the strongest indication that a historic rupture is brewing that, in some ways, is going far beyond earlier crises such as the 1973 OPEC oil embargo and the September 11, 2001 attacks. Riyadh and its Gulf partners are on notice that on the range of issues cited, and several pending ones that could develop during this congressional session, they have lost the sympathy of many members of Congress from both parties.

That’s plainly not irreversible. But Gulf Arab countries will have to pay close attention to their relationship with the Democrats, who remain a powerful part of the U.S. government, once again in control of the House of Representatives and well-positioned to regain the Senate in 2020. Despite Gulf states’ disappointment with the second term of the administration of Barack Obama and strong relations with the Trump administration thus far, it’s vital to keep uppermost in mind that their alliance is with the United States, not with the executive branch and certainly not with the Trump administration, let alone Donald Trump and his family. The U.S. government as a whole, as well as the broader society, should be the target audience for positive re-engagement.

Any effective U.S. ally has to have good relations with both Democrats and Republicans or risk becoming a partisan issue and therefore going through wildly fluctuating fortunes as the incessant pendulum swings in U.S. domestic politics. The health of the U.S.-Gulf Arab partnership can only be maintained by taking each other’s sensitivities seriously, respecting each other’s interests and values, and placing a strong spotlight on the shared goals for the future of the Middle East that haven’t changed. Otherwise, the warning signs are signaling a historic shift away from bipartisan support for this partnership to a much more partisan and damaging division on the U.S.-Gulf Arab alliance.

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-03-20/golan-annexation-by-israel-shouldn-t-get-u-s-recognition

There’s no justification for a move that encourages military land grabs.

President Donald Trump’s White House apparently has yet another terrible idea about the Middle East: recognizing Israel’s annexation of the Golan Heights, seized from Syria on the last day of the 1967 war.

The administration signaled that it is at least thinking in these terms when a State Department human rights report this month described the Golan as “Israeli controlled” instead of the traditional U.S. designation, “Israeli occupied.” The idea is being openly championed by Republican Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, one of the few outsiders who appears to have foreign policy sway with Trump.

Don’t do it, Mr. President.

The argument made by Israeli officials is that recognizing Israeli control of the Golan, like recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, simply acknowledges reality. Israel effectively annexed the Golan Heights in 1981 and isn’t about to hand it over to the hostile Syrian dictator General Bashar al-Assad.

But there are other realities, too.

Israel doesn’t regard its annexation as irreversible, and not long ago treated the territory as a bargaining chip. As recently as the late 1990s, Israel almost returned most of the territory to Syria.

Negotiations failed because Israel was unwilling to withdraw to exactly the 1949 armistice lines, which would have restored Syrian access to the waters of Lake Tiberias. Israel insisted on keeping a strip of land that would deny Syria access to the lake, also known as the Sea of Galilee.

But few Israelis view Golan as sacred territory. Israel extended the 1967 war to grab it, partly because it was strategic high ground, but more for its rich farmland.

The U.S. drafted and voted for numerous United Nations Security Council resolutions designating the Golan Heights occupied territory and rejecting Israel’s annexation, though the administration has been recently inching away from that decades-long legacy.

No one denies that the Golan was Syrian or that Israel acquired it during a war.

So, if the U.S. endorses Israel’s annexation, the principle of the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war — the most important principle of the UN charter — will be gone.

Confirming Israel’s seizure of this territory would render any territory in the world subject to conquest and annexation. There’d be no legal basis to insist, for example, that Russia must return Crimea to Ukraine. Indeed, Russia would be virtually invited to start gobbling up any parts of the former Soviet Union it regrets having let go of at the end of the Cold War. And that’s just Russia.

If Graham and White House officials think Israeli annexation would enhance Israeli security, they are mistaken. Certainly, Assad’s brutality, and the war and chaos he provoked, have given Israel plenty of good reasons to keep him at arm’s length. His alliance with Iran is not the least of them.

But that doesn’t make the case for Israel’s annexation.

If Israel and Syria had secured a Golan deal in the 1990s, the entire underlying reality would have changed. Syria could well have become a U.S. ally and altered its regional profile, much as Egypt did in preparation for Israel to give back the Sinai Peninsula in 1982.

Moreover, the Golan does not belong to Assad; it belongs to the Syrian people. Punishing Assad for his brutality against his own people by denying them their own land is doubling their victimization.

Israel’s effective control of the territory isn’t in question, and endorsing its annexation wouldn’t make the Golan Heights more or less secure. As with the Jerusalem recognition, it doesn’t change anything in reality. It wouldn’t weaken any Israeli enemy: Assad, Iran, Hezbollah or Islamic State.

But it would aggravate anger against the U.S., undermine the dwindling chances of a Palestinian peace deal and damage core principles of international law.

Given the chaos in Syria, no one would ask Israel to make a territorial concession on the Golan Heights now. But that’s hardly a justification for a decades-old land grab. Like recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, confirming Israel’s annexation of the Golan Heights is a solution in search of a problem. It would come at a steep cost and achieve nothing.

https://www.thenational.ae/opinion/comment/peddlers-of-hate-must-bear-responsibility-for-the-christchurch-attacks-1.837581

It is impossible to separate the language of prejudice and division from real-life acts of violence, such as those witnessed in New Zealand

Words matter. Actions are motivated by thought. So, those who deliberately spread dangerous ideas via reckless statements which, taken to their logical conclusion, will inevitably provoke violence, are responsible for the results.

The western world, including the United States, is in the throes of a major resurgence of white-supremacist rhetoric that is inspiring a wave of terrorism.

The latest instance was the massacre in Christchurch, New Zealand, in which at least 49 Muslim worshipers were killed by a white supremacist gunman.

The suspect’s manifesto, titled “The Great Replacement”, demonstrates that he was convinced that white Christians are being systematically invaded and will eventually be replaced by non-white people. He saw himself fighting in a racial war, the main weapon of which is immigration.

This paranoid delusion is overtly promoted by fringe right-wing voices in the West to endorse discrimination, exclusion and even expulsion of non-whites.

But a slightly attenuated version, encoded in unmistakable dogwhistles, has gained vast traction in “mainstream” conservative discourse, not least in the United States.

President Donald Trump deploys precisely these tropes to denounce immigration, describe Mexicans as “rapists,” impose a ban on entry for citizens of several Muslim-majority countries, and propose building a wall along the US-Mexican border.

Immigration is supposedly his signature issue, but he’s really talking about race.

When he thunders about an “invasion” and “onslaught” of migrants trying to “infest” majority-white nations, his words draw directly on and give a global platform to this “replacement theory”. Referring to the alleged dangers faced by both US and European countries gives these ideas an added ability to travel globally.

Naturally, the Christchurch terrorist praised him as “a symbol of renewed white identity and common purpose”. Mr Trump has worked hard to foster precisely that impression, stoking apocalyptic, existential fears that easily translate into violence.

In American replacement mythology, Jews are typically cast as the funders and masterminds of a plot to destroy white societies, abetted by chaos-sowing Muslim terrorists and hordes of Central and South American migrants to perform the actual replacement. Hysteria about the recent migrant caravan conveyed exactly that narrative.

This is also what the neo-Nazis marching in Charlottesville – praised by Mr Trump as “very fine people”, meant by their notorious chant – “Jews will not replace us.”

It’s a contemporary update of Adolf Hitler’s deadly delusion that Jews and “Aryans” were in a life-and-death struggle that not only justified but necessitated genocide.

The western world, including the United States, is in the throes of a major resurgence of white-supremacist rhetoric

This ideology has variously inspired massacres of worshippers at an African-American church in Virginia, Jews at a synagogue in Pennsylvania and now Muslims at a mosque in New Zealand.

The mainstreaming of this hate-filled ideology has been so devastating that the Anti-Defamation League reports that right-wing extremists committed 70 per cent of American domestic terrorism in the past 10 years and a full 100 per cent in 2018.

Words obviously have consequences.

That’s why members of the Trump-supporting wing of the American right are suddenly so defensive and alarmed. They’re terrified that the non-racist majority will finally put two and two together and realise that their rhetoric was bound to result in carnage, and that they cannot, therefore, continue to evade all responsibility for that.

As the full horror of the Christchurch attacks sunk in, almost the entire American ideological far-right suddenly started singing a most unusual song: don’t pay any real attention to this crime.

“Terrorists crave attention and publicity,” they said. “Don’t give them any! Don’t examine, analyse or reprint his manifesto. Don’t discuss his hateful opinions. Don’t view his videos. Don’t even say his name.”

Doing anything else, they sermonised with extraordinary unanimity, would merely feed the beast and reward terrorism.

But these were precisely the same voices who, since the 9/11 terrorist attacks, have been angrily demanding that the term “Islamic” always be applied to any terrorist violence carried out by Muslims. Anything else, they insist, is craven political correctness and denial.

Mr Trump and his key political and media supporters harped on this incessantly, viciously condemning Barack Obama, who argued that it was unwise to cede the title “Islamic” to terrorists who distort and demean the faith.

Today, the Trumpian right seems to realise how dangerous any close examination of this pattern of racist attacks could be for it.

Mr Trump denounced the New Zealand massacre, but was careful not to acknowledge its inescapably Islamophobic character, let alone the white-supremacist ideology behind it.

When directly asked, he dismissed white supremacists as merely “a small group of people”, downplaying to the point of denial the growing threat they pose.

But it’s indisputable that white supremacy is a major cause of violent extremism globally, and is currently the main inspiration of domestic terrorism in the United States.

It’s also obvious that hateful rhetoric and policies aimed at Latinos, Muslims and other minorities – tragically standard fare in Mr Trump’s Republican Party – normalise and promote this ideology of hate and the violence it inspires.

Their only hope is to dodge the whole issue by dismissing white supremacy as a tiny, irrelevant, fringe and insisting that the only responsible course is to completely ignore everything that motivated the Christchurch killer.

Otherwise, many more people might connect their words with the inevitable consequences, see the blood on their hands and act accordingly.

As U.S. Sanctions Bite, Iran Flexes Diplomatic Muscles in Iraq and Syria

Rouhani’s trip to Iraq and Assad’s to Iran show that Tehran and its allies are determined to maintain alliances.

With the administration of President Donald J. Trump applying greater pressure against Iran with renewed economic sanctions and other leverage, Tehran is seeking to push back against the United States and other adversaries, and even some erstwhile partners, and assert itself regionally by flexing its diplomatic muscles. The main themes are embodied in the visits by Iranian President Hassan Rouhani to Iraq and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to Iran. In both cases, Iran is seeking to communicate its central role in neighboring countries as they consolidate a post-Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant stabilization period and, in the case of most of Syria, a new postwar environment. Meanwhile, Iran’s Syrian and Iraqi allies are attempting to leverage Iran to play off various foreign powers – including the United States, Russia, Turkey, and the Gulf Arab countries – against each other and gain breathing space to pursue their own policies.

But both trips are also making it clear that, when push comes to shove, the Iraqi government is not prepared to bow to U.S. demands to actively cooperate in imposing new sanctions and restrictions on Iran, and that Tehran remains a key ally for Syria. This has significant implications for Gulf Arab policies, especially those of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Bahrain, which are core members of the anti-Iranian alliance in the Middle East. These rare head of government diplomatic visits demonstrate that Iran retains enormous influence in both Syria and Iraq and feels the need to consolidate and demonstrate this clout.

The stakes are particularly high in Iraq, because anti-Iranian forces have made considerable political gains in that country over the past 18 months or so. The once solidly pro-Iranian Shia alliance in Iraq slowly fractured in recent years; now, some of the most influential factions, including that led by Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, which won the most seats in the 2018 parliamentary elections, are openly skeptical of Iranian intentions and interested in building closer ties to other regional powers including Gulf Arab countries. The elections were not a disaster for Iran, with some of its closest allies coming second in the polling and a large bloc still beholden to Tehran’s influence. But the outcome was hardly ideal, and in fact both the voting results and the subsequent political negotiations were more satisfactory to Washington and Riyadh than they were to Tehran.

Still, the most important ministerial positions in terms of domestic political power remain unfilled. In addition, still unresolved is the disposition of the Popular Mobilization Forces, the mostly highly sectarian Shia Iraqi militias; they were formed ostensibly to combat ISIL but are now exercising authority in much of the country beyond the direct control of the government. While there is a general agreement that the PMFs should be incorporated into the national security structures run by the government, questions of how and when that happens are crucial. The answers will determine a great deal about the scope and degree of ongoing direct Iranian influence in Iraq, especially by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and hard-line factions in Tehran.

If the PMFs are simply folded into extant Iraqi national security structures with their own identities, hierarchies, and systems essentially intact, it will effectively mean that the government ministries will continue to subsidize de facto independent militias over which they exercise little control. In many cases, it would be Tehran rather than Baghdad that would have the most influence over these nominally Iraqi government forces. If, on the other hand, the existing PMFs are effectively broken up, placed under significant government control, and essentially dissolved with their members receiving new jobs in different national security entities in Iraq, it will be much harder for the IRGC and Iranian hard-liners to dictate policies and conduct inside Iraq.

Rouhani in Iraq

This dilemma was clearly on display at the remarkable meeting of Rouhani with Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani in Najaf. Sistani is the highest-ranking Shia cleric in Iraq and one of the most senior in the world, and certainly among the most influential. The meeting was a rare audience for a foreign leader with the senior cleric. His blessing is essential for power in most of Iraq, and he wields considerable influence in Iran as well. The messaging coming from this extraordinary meeting – Sistani has not met with foreign political leaders other than United Nations and other multilateral agency heads since 2015 – was multifaceted. Iran was clearly sending the message to Washington and its allies that it retains powerful influence in Iraq and that the Iraqi Shia clerisy is, ultimately, still more sympathetic to Tehran than to the United States or Sunni Arab countries. Sistani is, in effect, a card that Iran can play, and Tehran has waved that in the air fairly dramatically.

Yet there is a power struggle inside Iran between hard-liners suspicious of the outside world, especially the West, and those who continue to advocate for engagement, particularly with Europe. The recent resignation, which was not accepted by Rouhani, of Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, appears to have been an important effort by the more “moderate” factions to push back against more “hard-line” elements like the IRGC. Indeed, it was also highly significant that Zarif won the explicit praise of the head of the IRGC regional expeditionary force and militia vanguard, the Quds Force, Major General Qassim Suleimani. It may have been an attempt to communicate relative unity to audiences inside Iran and to the outside world. But it was also widely viewed as at least a limited validation for Zarif himself and Rouhani, and their policies.

By meeting with Rouhani, Sistani, too, may have been sending important messages to audiences in both Iraq and Iran. In Iraq, it communicates his continued sympathy with Iran, when, as they now are, the chips are down. The meeting strongly suggests Sistani’s view is that Iraq should be dealing with the formal Iranian government, not the IRGC, and that both prominent citizens like himself and, especially, the government should be meeting with Iranian officials through formal channels.

This is also important for the elderly Sistani’s legacy. He is relatively apolitical compared to many of his fellow senior Shia clerics, especially in Iran, and has been politically cautious and moderate for much of his life. However, it was precisely a fatwa he issued when ISIL arose as a major threat, calling on Iraqis to join together in “popular forces” to oppose the terrorists, that was used by Shia sectarian forces and the highly pro-Iranian then-Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki to create the PMFs. Since then, there has been widespread concern inside and outside of Iraq that these militias are becoming the equivalent of uncontrolled states within a state like Hezbollah in Lebanon, often beholden to the same foreign power, Iran. But because there are dozens of small PMF groups operating under various influences and agendas, there is concern that they could in many ways be even harder to deal with than a single, centralized substate actor.

The PMFs loom grimly, therefore, as a possible profound stain on his career, given that the proximate cause for their formation and often-cited justification for their actions was Sistani’s own notorious fatwa. Even though he has issued subsequent opinions that would encourage the PMF groups and their backers to undo the damage, he apparently understands that the best course for both Baghdad and his own legacy is to work with forces inside Iran that also want to control such groups and have their own fraught relationship with the IRGC.

Of course, even Rouhani and his faction will only go so far in that direction. The PMF coalition in Iraq – the United Iraqi Alliance list – is pushing strongly for the appointment of PMF Chair and Iraqi National Security Advisor Falih Alfayyadh as interior minister to oversee the terms of their “incorporation” into existing, or even new, state entities. Iran’s enthusiastic preference for this appointment was demonstrated by Alfayyadh’s prominent participation in the meeting between Rouhani and Sistani. It doesn’t necessarily mean Sistani is backing him, but Rouhani certainly is. For Sadr and other Iraqi Shias who are neither hostile nor beholden to Iran, but want to ease Iraq into a position of relative independence by playing off Iranian influence versus that of the United States and its Gulf Arab allies, it is apparently now necessary to bolster the Iranian presence in the country to push back against anti-Iranian forces.

Assad in Iran

A similar juggling act is being performed by the Assad regime in Syria. Beholden to its saviors – Russia, Iran, and Hezbollah – in the civil war that is effectively over in most of the country, the Syrian government now seeks to carefully pit those forces against each other to win its own breathing space and avoid becoming completely subservient to any of them. Damascus would probably prefer to be dependent on distant Moscow than any closer domineering patron. Yet the boots on the ground that have made the continuation of the Assad regime possible are primarily paid for and directed by Iran, although they are a motley crew of Lebanese, Afghans, and Pakistanis, in addition to Iranians and others. Damascus also must seek to placate and balance the interests of Turkey, which, after the government recaptured Aleppo, redefined its priorities to focus almost entirely on containing Kurdish influence in northern Syria. And the regime is conducting a partial rapprochement with Kurdish and other domestic militias that seem to be willing to accommodate a degree of regime authority in the once-liberated areas in order to avoid a devastating Turkish military onslaught.

So, it was striking that one of Assad’s first trips abroad, other than two brief trips to Russia, since the outbreak of the civil war in 2011 was to Tehran in February. The message the Syrian leader was sending both domestically and internationally was a continued insistence that, whatever the United States, Turkey, and even Russia might wish, Iran remains a vital regime ally and, as things stand, will be playing a major part in forthcoming reconstruction efforts in the country, mainly by profitably implementing projects financed by others. A year ago, the Syrian government might have been looking for Russian and Turkish reassurance that it would not fall under complete Iranian domination in the postwar stabilization period. But under the current circumstances, to the contrary, it is reminding all other players that Iran remains crucial to the regime’s interests, including balancing the influence of these other foreign forces.

Significantly, the Assad visit also played directly into the internal power struggle in Iran, because the proximate cause for Zarif’s abortive resignation was his purported indignation at not being included in high-level meetings with the Syrian president. Assad met Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and Rouhani, but the Ministry of Foreign Affairs bitterly complained it was not informed of the trip or the meetings at all. Zarif’s resignation was intended to send the message that Iran’s formal ministries and government agencies cannot be bypassed by the supreme leader and the IRGC in crucial foreign affairs matters.

There followed a period of recriminations with Rouhani complaining that he and Iran needed an empowered Zarif for foreign affairs – at least for outreach to Europe and, perhaps eventually again, the United States – and that he could not be so casually dispensed with. That prompted Suleimani’s “surprising” endorsement of Zarif and the resolution of the affair with the foreign minister continuing in his post. But the jockeying for position in Iran that was reflected in the handling of the Assad visit and its aftermath may have played into Sistani’s – and perhaps Rouhani’s – efforts to use the Iranian president’s subsequent visit to Iraq to reinforce the idea that Iran needs to deal with its Arab clients and allies mainly via the Foreign Ministry rather than the IRGC and its militia proxies. Ultimately, the Syrian and Iraqi governments will almost certainly want that too, especially as postconflict stabilization and reconstruction gains ground and they increasingly look for space to make their own decisions based on their political and national interests rather than always bowing to the imperatives of a foreign patron.

What these recent visits demonstrate is twofold: First, while progress has been made in Iraq by Gulf Arab countries, there is still a long way to go before Iran’s powerful hegemonic force is eased – especially among many of the Iraqi Shia factions that still dominate the politics and government, and the PMFs that remain largely uncontrolled. And, second, the Assad regime in Syria continues to regard Iran as not only a major source of support and reinforcement but also as a key player in rebuilding and reconstruction in much of the country as a prize for its crucial support in saving his regime. If Washington and its Gulf Arab allies are hoping to work with various partners including Russia, Turkey, and, eventually, the Iraqi and even Syrian governments, to limit Iran’s regional influence, that project is still at its relative infancy. Iran retains powerful regional muscles, particularly in Iraq and Syria, and, when pressured, is clearly happy to publicly flex them.

https://www.bloomberg.com/amp/opinion/articles/2019-03-14/turkey-is-changing-the-middle-east-the-u-s-doesn-t-get-it?__twitter_impression=true

Leadership of the Islamic world is shifting, weakening the anti-Iran coalition.

https://www.thenational.ae/opinion/comment/the-aftershocks-of-aleppo-s-fall-continue-to-shake-the-region-1.834896

From the establishment of the Turkey-Russia-Iran triumvirate to the ongoing Arab efforts to re-engage with Syria, everything can be traced back to the events of December 2016

In international relations, change is constant but often subtle. As in a kaleidoscope, patterns continuously, yet usually almost imperceptibly, readjust themselves via delicate and discrete shifts.

Occasionally, though, there is a dramatic twist and the whole constellation is suddenly rearranged.

Sometimes it’s obvious, as with the 9/11 terrorist attacks or the 2003 US invasion of Iraq. In other cases, the full significance only becomes manifest over time.

The fall of rebel-held portions of Aleppo to pro-regime forces in Syria in December 2016 is the most recent Middle Eastern example of a subtle political tremor that, perhaps surprisingly, has repositioned many tectonic plates underneath the strategic landscape.

At the time, most observers understood that it was a big deal, signalling the practical end of the major fighting in Syria and, therefore, the comprehensive victory of Bashar Al Assad’s regime and its Russian, Iranian and Hezbollah backers.

But the aftershocks have reverberated so powerfully that it is becoming difficult not to begin many conversations about Middle Eastern strategic realities without saying: “After the fall of Aleppo…”

Perhaps the most far-reaching impact has been the significantly transformed regional role of Turkey.

Ankara was already moving away from a commitment to regime change in Damascus and focusing on containing Kurdish gains in northern Syria. But Aleppo made Turkey’s altered profile practically irreversible.

From then on, Ankara no longer saw Tehran as a fundamental adversary, but reconceptualised Iran, along with Russia, as a necessary partner in ensuring an acceptable post-conflict stabilisation in Syria.

This intensified and accelerated the emergence of Turkey as a fully committed, leading regional power with its own distinctive orientation. And after the boycott of Qatar began in June 2017, it became clear that the Ankara-Doha axis was emerging as a third regional bloc, simultaneously competing with both the pro and anti-Iranian camps.

Aleppo was the decisive turning point in transforming the Middle East from a binary to a ternary competition

Aleppo was, therefore, the decisive turning point in transforming the Middle East from a binary to a ternary competition, a new reality that is close to pervasive, albeit sometimes subtly, from Morocco to Iraq.

And because Egypt is so categorically opposed to the pro-Islamist orientation of this Turkish-led third camp, Cairo has increasingly emerged from its crisis-induced introversion and back into broader regional engagement.

As the victorious parties – Russia, Iran and Turkey – established the Astana conferences to try to negotiate the arrangements necessary to consolidate their gains, Ankara and Moscow, in particular, developed new levels of cooperation.

However, as Syria has more firmly entered into a post-war era, it is obvious that both Turkey and Russia are beginning to wonder if, and even when, Iran’s more far-reaching ambitions in Syria will begin to undermine their own, more limited, goals in the country.

In other words, the long-term impact of Aleppo and the end of the war could, however counterintuitively, signal at least a gradual erosion of the Russian-Iranian alliance that secured that victory in the first place.

Aleppo was also decisive in harmonising Arab and Israeli threat perceptions regarding Iran.

Before then, Israel largely saw Iran as a nuclear threat, while Arabs were more focused on Iran’s destabilising regional policies, hegemonic ambitions and support for non-state actors, such as militia groups.

The fall of Aleppo confronted Israel with its own, immediate version the same threat, with pro-Iranian and other militias far too close for comfort, Iran trying to establish itself as a dominant power in post-war Syria, and Hezbollah transformed from a Lebanese paramilitary organisation to the regional vanguard of the network of pro-Iranian militia and terrorist groups throughout the Middle East.

So, Iran’s victory at Aleppo brought its major Arab and Israeli antagonists closer together, despite ongoing divisions regarding Palestinian rights, which cannot be to Tehran’s benefit.

Because terrorist groups thrive on war, chaos and state failure, the fall of Aleppo was dreadful news for ISIS in the short run. It removed the final obstacle to a concerted international campaign to destroy its self-declared “caliphate.”

And while the regime victory in Aleppo meant that affiliates of Al Qaeda would dominate larger portions than ever of the remaining armed Syrian opposition, it might eventually mean that the terrorist organisation will find itself largely driven out of Syria.

In the longer run, however, after so much wanton violence, the regime is likely to find it difficult to rule Syria in peace and quiet. If it cannot and will not find a way to reconcile with so many of its own citizens, the terrorist groups may be back with a vengeance.

By signalling the end of the Syrian war, the fall of Aleppo also set in motion ongoing Arab efforts to re-engage with Syria, most notably illustrated by the recent reopening of the UAE Embassy in Damascus.

As in Iraq, most Arab states will now have to rely on political and economic outreach, soft power, and the gradual reintegration of Syria into the Arab fold, in order to secure their interests.

These are just a few of the major transformations that the fall of Aleppo set in motion or greatly accelerated. But they irrefutably establish that, over time, it has proven a significant Middle Eastern turning point.