By Eric Walberg
The world is living through a veritable slow-motion earthquake. If
things go according to plan, the US obsession with Afghanistan and Iraq
will soon be one of those ugly historical disfigurements that -- at
least for most Americans -- will
disappear into the memory hole.
Like Nixon and
Vietnam, US President Barack Obama will be remembered as the president
who "brought the troops home". But one cannot help but notice the
careful calibration of these moves to fit the US domestic political
machine -- the Iraqi move to show Americans
that things on the
international front are improving (just don't mention Guantanamo), the
Afghan move put off conveniently till President Barack Obama's second
term, when he doesn't need to worry about the fallout electorally if
things unravel (which they surely will).
Of
course, Russia lost big time geopolitically when the US invaded
Afghanistan, and thus gains as regional geopolitical hegemon by the
withdrawal of US troops from Central Asia. Just look at any map. But
American tentacles will remain: Central Asia has no real alternative
economically or politically anymore to the neoliberal global economy, as
Russia no longer claims to represent a socialist alternative to
imperialism. The departure of US troops and planes from remote
Kyrgyzstan will not be missed -- except for the hole it leaves in the
already penurious Kyrgyz government's budget and foreign currency
reserves. Russia is a far weaker entity than the Soviet Union, both
economically
and
politically. Thus, Russia's gain from US weakness is not great.
Besides, both Russia and the US support the current Afghan government
against the Taliban -- as does Iran. In fact, in case US state
department and pentagon officials haven't noticed the obvious, the main
beneficiary of the US invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq has been Iran,
again by definition. The invasion brought to power the ethnic Persian
Tajiks in Afghanistan, and the invasion of Iraq set up a Shia-dominated
government there.
Similarly, when the US
invaded Iraq, Russia lost politically and economically. The US cancelled
Sadam Hussein's state debts, which hurt the Russians and Europeans but
not the US. The US just happened to be boycotting Iraq for the previous
decade and took pleasure from shafting its sometime allies for ignoring
US wishes. However, once Iraqi politicians begin to reassert some
control over their foreign
policy, Russia will be
seen as a much
more sympathetic partner internationally.
Ironically, on many fronts, Iran now holds the key to readjusting the
political playing field and establishing rules that can lead away from
the deadly game being played by the US, including in Afghanistan, Iraq,
with broader implications for broader nuclear disarmament, EU-US
relations, but above all, for the continued role of the dollar as world
reserve currency. This encourages Russia to maintain its alliance with
Iran over vague (and empty) promises of US-Russian world hegemony as
envisioned by the now-discredited Medvedev Atlantists in Moscow.
Russia’s relations with both Central Asia and the Middle East since the
collapse of the Soviet Union have been low key. In the Middle East, it
maintains relations with Palestine's Hamas, and, as a member of the
so-called quartet of Middle East negotiators (along with the EU, the US
and the UN), insists that Israel
freeze expansion
of settlements in the Occupied Territories as a condition of further
talks. It appears to be trying to regain some of the goodwill that
existed between the Soviet Union and Arab states, supporting the UN
Goldstone Report which accused Israel of war crimes in its 2008 invasion
of Gaza.
It embarked on a diplomatic
offensive with Arab states in 2008, offering Syria and Egypt nuclear
power stations, and is re-establishing a military presence in the
Mediterranean at the Syrian port, Tartus, though Syria's current civil
war, with Russia and Iran lined up against the West and the Arab states
could leave Russia on the losing side. Western attempts to portray
Russia as the power-hungry bad guy in Syria do not hold water. Russia is
concerned about heightened civil war in an evenly divided population,
with rebel groups openly armed by Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad's
Arab and Western foes. The hypocrisy in the Arab world is appalling:
Gulf
monarchies and Saudi Arabia loudly demand
that Egypt's new government swear off any attempt to "interfere" in
their internal politics, but brazenly arm Syrian rebels.
Russia
is still struggling to leave its own tragic civil war in Chechnya
behind, and to make sure there's a place at the table for its Muslims.
With its 16 million Muslims (about 12 per cent of the population), it
has expressed interest in joining the Organization of Islamic
Conference. Its unwillingness to let Syria slide into civil war does not
gain it any brownie points among its own separatist Muslims in the
Caucasus and elsewhere, but it is not willing to carve up either Syria
or the Russian federation in the interests of some fleeting peace.
The importance of Jewish financial and economic interests in
post-Soviet Russia -- both the banking and industrial oligarchs and the
Kosher Nostra mafia -- ensures that Israel gets a sympathetic hearing
from Russian leaders.
Israeli Foreign
Minister Avigdor
Lieberman is a Russian Jew who emigrated from the Soviet Union in 1978.
Israel is also able to take advantage of the
persistence of Muslim unrest and dreams of independence in the Caucasus
within Russia to prevent Moscow from taking any strong position to
pressure Israel. Russia's prickly neighbor Georgia harbors Chechen
rebels and Georgia’s president, Mikheil Saakashvili, uses Israeli and US
military advisers. Of course, the US benefits from Israeli pressures on
Russia. This is a key feature of the current Great Game, where the US
and Israel act as the new imperial "centre".
It
is popular to call this era a new Cold War. However, history never
repeats itself. There certainly is a new tension in world politics
following 9/11, and the failure of the newly aggressive US to
successfully assert its hegemony around the world, including Russia,
keeps the fires of chauvinism hot in the US. On the US right,
Russia is
seen merely as the Soviet Union reborn, a ruse to hide the KGB's agenda
of world communist control. For the saner Obamites, it is a more
diffused Cold War, dominated by a new US-Israeli imperial centre, the
"empire-and-a-half", with shifting alliances of convenience, though with
a strong, new opposition player on the horizon -- a savvier, more
articulate Islamic world, with Iran, Turkey and Egypt in the first rank.
The
desire by both the US and Israel to overthrow the Iranian government is
now the only common goal left in this “empire-and-a-half”, but it is a
common goal only because Israel is in the driver’s seat. Israel resents
Iran as an existential threat not to Israel itself, but to Greater
Israel and regional domination. Iran serves as a powerful example, a
third way for Muslim countries, and is most definitely a rival to Israel
as Middle East hegemon.
Among the new Arab
Spring
governments, it is
only
Egypt's that worries Israel. Just imagine if Egypt and Iran start to
cooperate. Add in Shia-dominated Iraq, Turkey and Russia, as Russia has
good relations with all four, and common objects on the international
scene. Suddenly the Middle East playing field takes on a totally
different appearance.
A rational US policy to
join with Russia and China to accommodate Iran could save the teetering
dollar, or at least give the US a chance to prepare for an orderly
transition to a new international currency. If Russia, China and Iran
defuse the current nuclear crisis between the US and Iran peacefully,
with a nod to Turkey and a resolve to make Israel join the Nuclear
Non-Proliferation Treaty, this could pave the way for a new Eurasian
playing field. If and when the US withdraws from Afghanistan, Pakistan
and India will be drawn in as well.
This would
set off a chain of events that could change the whole nature
of the current
Great Game
leading to a Russia-India-Iran-China axis (Russia-India-China summits
have already been held yearly since 2001), leaving Pakistan, Azerbaijan,
Armenia and Israel to sort out their regional conflicts outside of a
new, very different great game. US interests would be considered but
without US diktat, forcing, or rather allowing the US to put its own
house in order. Iran would finally be accepted as the legitimate
regional player that it is. If the US cannot bring itself to make a
graceful exit from its self-imposed crisis in the region, this will only
accelerate its decline.
***
Eric Walberg writes for http://weekly.ahram.org.egy/ and is author of Postmodern Imperialism: Geopolitics and the Great Games http://claritypress.com/
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