The Middle East’s New Jigsaw Puzzle

 

Hi and welcome,

If you appreciate hard-hitting, fact-based analysis, please consider upgrading to a paid subscription. By doing so, you help ensure the survival of independent journalism and analysis. The Turbulent World depends on your support.

Subscribing will allow you to listen to the podcast, and/ or watch the video associated with this story. To subscribe, please click here. 

Thank you for your support and loyalty, take care, and best wishes.

Decimating Hezbollah and ousting President Bashar al-Assad were the first steps in a Middle Eastern power struggle that is likely to define not only who wields the most influence in Syria but also who will emerge as regional hegemons.

Turkey, Israel, and Iran are prime candidates, with countries like Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Qatar playing catch up, at least in Syria.

The line-up in Syria reflects the likely longer-term divvying up of influence regionally in a complex jigsaw puzzle.

Turkey, Iran, Israel, and Egypt, which has so far taken a backseat, have, to varying degrees, assets that the Gulf states lack with some exceptions: battle-hardened militaries, a deep sense of identity rooted in an imperial past and/or a sense of thousands of years of history, large populations, and huge domestic markets.

Moreover, Iran, like the Gulf states, is resource-rich, Israel boasts military and technological prowess, and Turkey has NATO’s second-largest standing military. Like the Gulf, Turkey and Iran occupy prime real estate in strategic and geopolitical terms.

The economies of Turkey, Iran, Israel, and Egypt are in various stages of disrepair. However, that is a short-term, not a long-term impediment.

Credit: Eurasia Review

As a result, the Gulf’s resource-derived financial muscle is likely to be a window of opportunity that Kuwait pioneered by creating the world’s first sovereign wealth fund designed to ensure Kuwaitis’ welfare once the country runs out of commercially viable energy resources.

Beyond resources, Saudi Arabia has the additional advantage of its status as the custodian of Islam’s holiest cities, Mecca and Medina.

Even so, the Gulf states will need more than finance and the kingdom’s religious mantle to stay in the game.

Driving the rivalry in Syria is not just a quest for regional influence. For much of the Middle East, it is also about ensuring that Mr. Al-Assad’s toppling by Islamists with jihadist antecedents does not boost Sunni Muslim ultra-conservatives, rekindle civil society-driven popular revolts, and enable Iran to rebuild its destabilising network of non-state actors.

Ironically, the Middle East’s potential hegemons – Turkey, Iran, Israel, and Egypt –are all candidates for popular revolts, with Iran being the most vulnerable.

“The example set by the fall of the repressive Assad regime in Syria may embolden the Iranian public to demand reform and increase international pressure on Iran to embrace democratic changes,” said an anonymous analyst in a Stimson Center report.

Even so, US President-elect Donald J. Trump is likely to emerge as a decisive player in crafting the jigsaw puzzle, with Syria, Gaza, and Iran his top pieces.

Israeli leaders are betting that Mr. Trump’s administration, populated by Iran hawks and supporters of Israeli hardliners, will prove to be a Godsend.

They expect Mr. Trump to greenlight an extended Israeli military presence in Syria, support Israeli strikes at Iran’s nuclear facilities and critical oil infrastructure, and endorse more brutal operations in Gaza and annexation of part, if not all, of the West Bank, conquered by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war.

It’s a tall agenda likely to create problems rather than produce solutions.

Syria

Mr. Trump’s response to Syria may be to give Turkey a free hand. That would allow him to withdraw some 2,000 US troops based in the country’s north, something he wanted but failed to do in his first term as president.

Mr. Trump’s problem may be that unleashing Turkey could pit a NATO ally against Israel.

Israel opposes a withdrawal of US forces because it would boost Turkey’s regional ambitions, provided Turkey can prevent Syria from disintegrating and avoid conflict with Israel.

Israel, in the wake of Mr. Al-Assad’s downfall, has expanded its hold on Syrian lands beyond the Golan Heights also captured in the 1967 war.

Credit: The Jerusalem Post

A report released in recent days by Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s commission on the military’s ability to confront future threats headed by former National Security Council chief Jacob Nagel projected a Turkish-dominated Syria governed by Islamists and former jihadists as a serious threat.

The report warned that “because the Sunni rebels will have the power of the state … their threat could be greater than that of Iran. … The problem will intensify if the Syrian regime will, in practice, become a ‘Turkish’ proxy as a substantive part of Turkey’s dream to restore its former Ottoman crown. The presence of Turkish emissaries or Turkish forces in Syria could intensify the danger of a direct Turkish-Israeli confrontation.”

The Kurds

Already, Turkey and Israel are at odds about the Kurds, Syria’s largest ethnic minority, and Israel’s military presence in the country.

Last week, Rohani TV, a Syrian Kurdish broadcaster, reported that Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar had given “positive guarantees to the rights of the Kurds.” What the guarantees entailed was unclear.

Earlier, Mr. Saar described the Kurds as Israel’s “natural allies.”

Credit: AA

Mr. Saar was referring to the US-backed, predominantly Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). Designated by Turkey as a terrorist organisation. Turkey asserts that the SDF is an extension of the outlawed Kurdish Workers Party (PKK).

The PKK has waged a four decades-long low-intensity campaign in southeastern Turkey in pursuit of Kurdish rights. In Syria, the SDF served as the shock troops in the US-led fight against the Islamic State.

Turkey has threatened to drive the SDF out of Syria if Syrian leader Ahmed al-Sharaa fails to disarm the group.

Turkey is well-positioned to make good on its threat. Its military controls a buffer zone in northern Syria and supports a proxy, the Syrian National Army (SNA), that is locked into battle with the SDF.

Turkey’s threat prompted the Kurds to ask Israel to intervene with Mr. Trump to maintain the US troops in northern Syria as a deterrent.

Even so, the Kurds seemingly share the Middle East’s penchant for playing both sides against the middle with strange bedfellows.

US and Israeli support didn’t stop SDF chief Mazloum Abdi from meeting Iranian General Esmail Qaani, the commander of the Quds Force, the foreign operations arm of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).

“Both Iran and Israel have a common interest in undermining Turkey’s role by destabilizing the political and security situation in Damascus, supporting minorities, and playing the occupation card,” said Middle East scholar Ali Bakir.

The Golan and beyond

Even so, Israeli maneuvering in Syria is likely to follow a historically established pattern of Israeli inability to translate military advances into political successes because Israel’s adoption of a coercive security lens rather than a mesh of agreed mutually beneficial political and security arrangements empowers militants and hardliners on all sides of Middle Eastern divides.

Israel’s failure is compounded by its inability to apply the right amount of pressure, not too much and not too little, in a world in which conflicting parties only compromise and moderate their positions under duress. To do so would mean that Israel, too, would have to compromise.

In Syria, it’s a refusal Israel maintains at its peril. It prevents Israel from properly balancing its perceived security needs and territorial ambitions with the elite and popular acquiescence it needs to project itself as a sustainable regional hegemon.

As a result, Israel has all but ignored the efforts Mr. Al-Sharaa to reassure it that his country would not serve as a launching pad for attacks on the Jewish state. Mr. Al-Sharaa has also reaffirmed Syria’s commitment to the integrity of a United Nations buffer zone occupied by Israel in the wake of Mr. Al-Assad’s downfall.

Calling on Israel to halt its attacks on Syrian military facilities, Mr. Al-Sharaa argued in an interview with The Times that “Israel's justification was the presence of Hezbollah and Iranian militias. That justification is gone.”

Speaking to the BBC, Mr. Al-Sharaa insisted, “Syria is exhausted from the war regardless of whether Israel is strong or not. Syria needs to get stronger and more developed. We don't have any plans of aggression against Israel. Syria will not be a threat to Israel or anyone.”

In a roundabout confirmation of Mr. Al-Sharaa’s intention to avoid confrontation with Israel, residents of Syrian towns occupied by Israel in the last month complained that Syria’s new rulers had expressed no interest in their plight.

Rinata Fastas, a resident of Quneitra, has accepted that Syria is in no position to confront Israel. “But why is no one in the new Syrian state coming out and talking about the violations that are happening in Quneitra province and against the rights of its people?” she asked.

Rather than reach out to Mr. Al-Sharaa, Israeli officials asserted Israel, in violation of international law, needs to maintain a military presence in a 15-kilometre operational perimeter beyond the occupied Golan Heights to prevent the launch of missiles at Israeli-held territory.

In addition, the officials insisted that Israel required a 60-kilometre-deep Israeli intelligence-controlled “sphere of influence" in Syria to counter potential security threats.

All hell will break loose

In Gaza, Mr. Trump has threatened that “all hell will break loose” if Hamas failed to release hostages it kidnapped during the group’s October 7, 2023, attack on Israel that sparked the region’s multiple wars.

Many are scratching their heads about what hell Mr. Trump can wreak on Gaza that it is not already experiencing beyond enabling Israel to take even more drastic action than it already has in Gaza and imposing tougher sanctions on exiled Hamas leaders operating from Turkey, Qatar, and Lebanon.

Mr. Netanyahu dispatched his negotiators for another round of Gaza ceasefire talks in Doha after meeting this weekend with Steve Witkoff, Mr. Trump’s Middle East envoy.

Meanwhile, Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz ordered the military to plan for the "complete defeat of Hamas in Gaza" if negotiators fail to agree on a a ceasefire and prisoner exchange by Mr. Trump's inauguration.

Fifteen months into a war that has devastated Gaza and its people, Israel has severely weakened Hamas but failed to wipe the group off the map, even if its popularity in the Strip has all but vanished.

Fearing that Hamas is increasingly fighting a long-term war guerrilla war, Mr., Katz advised the military that “we must not settle for a war of attrition that costs us dearly while failing to deliver the fruits of victory and the decisive defeat of Hamas."

The military is likely to focus its revised plan to destroy Hamas on Nuseirat and Deir al-Balah in central Gaza, where Israel believes Hamas and others hold most of the remaining 98 hostages kidnapped during the group’s October  attack. The plan could also entail further curbing of humanitarian and expanded ground operations across the Strip

The targeting of central Gaza would come on the heels of Israel ‘s months-long siege of northern Gaza that has seemingly failed to dislodge Hamas.

Mr. Katz suggested that destroying Hamas was a pre-condition for a US and-United Arab Emirates-led force to take control of Gaza, once the guns fall silent.

The UAE, the US, and Israel have discussed creating a post-war Gazan administration that would remain in place until a reformed Palestine Authority can take over.

The corrupt and dysfunctional Authority is the internationally recognised, West Bank-based Palestinian government dominated by Hamas’ archrival, Al Fatah.

Mr. Trump is unlikely to dispatch US troops to Gaza but could agree to assign a US civilian or military official to lead the administration if it materialises.

Iran and the Axis of Resistance

Generals Qassem Soleimani and Esmail Qaani. Credit: IranWireSome analysts suggest that the United States’ 2020 assassination in Baghdad of General Qassem Soleimani, the charismatic commander of the Quds Force, set the stage for Israel’s weakening of the Iran-backed Axis of Resistance five years later. Mr. Qaani, Mr. Soleimani’s successor, has not filled his shoes.

“This was not a regular assassination; it spread a fire that affected the whole Axis,” said journalist Ibrahim Rayhan, referring to a grouping that included Mr. Al-Assad’s Syria, Hezbollah, Iraqi Shiite Muslim militias, and Yemen’s Houthis.

“Iranian Guide Ali Khamenei’s decision to appoint General Esmail Qaani did not pay off. Contrary to his successor, Soleimani was in command of Iranian arms from Gaza to Sanaa, including Beirut, Damascus, and Baghdad. As for Qaani, the man undoubtedly failed to carry out this mission,“  Mr. Rayhan added.

Mr. Al-Assad’s toppling, Israel’s weakening of Hezbollah, and Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia as-Sudani’s efforts to rein in Iraqi Shiite militias have hollowed out the Axis. Israeli, US, and British strikes at the Houthis in retaliation for the rebels’ firing of missiles at Israel and attacks on Red Sea and Gulf shipping targets the Axis’ last pillar standing alongside Iran itself.

In yet another piece of the jigsaw puzzle of a new Middle East, Mr. As-Sudani sees reining in the Iranian-backed Iraqi Shiite militias as key to preventing Iraq from being sucked into Israel’s wars. Mr. As-Sudani, like the United States, views Iran’s weakening as a window of opportunity.

So does Muqtada as-Sadr, a Shiite cleric and militia boss widely viewed as Iraq’s most influential politician. Last week, Mr. As-Sadr, who soured on his once close ties to Iran, reiterated his opposition to weapons being  “in the hands of militias or outlaw groups.”

On a visit to Tehran last week, Mr. As-Sudani complained in a meeting with Mr. Khamenei that the militias were undisciplined and violated government policy at a moment when he was seeking to avoid conflict with Israel and/or the United States.

With stability in Syria hanging in the balance, Iraq is mulling extending the US military presence beyond the current 2026 withdrawal deadline.

Messrs. As-Sudani and As-Sadr, and the United States recognise that Iran may be down but is not out.

Admitting that the loss of Mr. Al-Assad constituted a “defeat” and “a very big blow,” Islamic Revolutionary Guards General Behrouz Esbati, Iran’s erstwhile top commander in Syria, insisted Iran would foster an insurgency against Syria’s new rulers.

“We can activate all the networks we have worked with over the years. We can activate the social layers that our guys lived among for years; we can be active in social media and form resistance cells. We can operate there as we do in other international arenas, and we have already started,” Mr. Esbati said in a leaked recording.

Like Israel, Mr. Esbati’s remarks suggest that Iran has failed to learn lessons from the shattering of its Axis of Resistance. On the contrary.

Revolutionary Guard statements, violent incidents involving remnants of the ancien regime, and the emergence of a mysterious armed group opposed to Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, the rebel group that led Mr. Al-Assad’s overthrow, fueled concern that Iran may seek to derail the transition to a post-Al-Assad Syria by fostering an insurgency driven by grievances of religious minorities like the Alawites, the Shiite Muslim sect from which Mr. Al-Assad hails, ethnic groups such as the Kurds, and remnants of the ousted president’s regime.

Similarly, the Islamic State, an ultra-conservative Sunni Muslim group that views Shiites as heretics, honoured a time-proven Middle Eastern fixture of arch enemies, wittingly or unwittingly, serving each other’s purpose, by plotting to attack the Sayyida Zainab Mosque, a Shiite shrine and pilgrimage site in the southeastern suburbs of Damascus. The jihadist group hoped the attack would spark sectarian tensions.

Iran and Iraqi Shiite groups often justified their support for Mr. Al-Assad with the need to protect Shiite sites in Syria.

Foiled by Hayat Tahrir, the attack would have boosted Iranian efforts to instigate an insurgency in Syria.

The nuclear option

Vice Admiral Brad Cooper, the deputy commander of US Central Command reviews Israeli capabilities. Credit: Israel Defence Forces

The joker in all of this is Iran’s nuclear program. US and Israeli officials fear that Iran may compensate for the collapse of its forward defense strategy with the puncturing of the Axis of Resistance by emulating North Korea and weaponising its nuclear program.

Mr. Trump is likely to reinstitute his maximum pressure approach involving crippling sanctions first adopted after he withdrew in 2018, during his first term in office, from the 2015 international agreement that curbed Iran’s nuclear program.

Mr. Netanyahu appears to be gung-ho about going further. Proponents of strikes against Iran argue that the Islamic Republic is at its most vulnerable because Israel has taken out the air defenses of Iran and Syria.

The Israeli military reinforced speculation that Mr. Trump will greenlight Israeli strikes at Iranian nuclear facilities and critical infrastructure by saying Vice Admiral Brad Cooper, the deputy commander of US Central Command, had visited Israel in recent days to review capabilities and discuss joint operations.

Iran faces a stark choice, regardless of the purpose of Mr. Cooper’s tour. It must choose between doubling down on an increasingly risky strategy with diminishing returns and changing course.

The choice creates a window of opportunity for Mr. Trump, provided he strikes the right balance between pressure and incentives that swings the pendulum towards change. The question is whether Mr. Trump can rise to the occasion and in doing so craft a jigsaw puzzle that accommodates the Middle East’s irregular but interlocking pieces.

Dr. James M. Dorsey is an Adjunct Senior Fellow at Nanyang Technological University’s S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, and the author of the syndicated column and podcast, The Turbulent World with James M. Dorsey.