Will there be big changes in Middle East under Trump?
Saudi Arabia is expecting a renewed push from Washington on its arch-rival Iran, instead of Obamas more neutral stance
Prof Sarwar Md Saifullah Khaled
A Middle East landscape beset by warring factions and beleaguered governments, with some players eyeing the prospect of once unimaginable new alliances, could hit like an earthquake across the region because of Donald Trumps all-but-dismissal of human rights as a foreign policy principle. Syria is the foremost test of Trumps promise of a return to a hard-headed realpolitik and could quickly show whether the United States (US) is truly abandoning promotion of democracy and the rule of law in a way that could reshape much of the regions post-Cold War, post-9/11 order.
Trump has raised the possibility of a broad new US partnership with Vladimir Putins increasingly authoritarian Russia and has even hinted at aligning with Syrian President Bashar Assad. This would amount to a dramatic reversal from years of the US President Barack Obama administration calls for Assads ouster. Trump seems to calculate that their shared enemy in the Islamic State (IS) is more important than shared values. Trump explained last July 2016, as Turkey was punishing tens of thousands of people seemingly unconnected to a failed coup attempt, that When it comes to civil liberties, our country has a lot of problems, and I think its very hard for us to get involved in other countries. Trump said in a New York Times interview that We need allies. I dont know that we have a right to lecture.
When Obama declared a new beginning with the Muslim world in a landmark speech eight years ago, he mentioned democracy six times and broached the subject of human rights on a dozen occasions. Trump has barely mentioned these as foreign policy principles, extolling instead deal-making, diplomatic and economic, and championing the fight against IS. Mustafa Alani, the director of the security and defense department at the Geneva-based Gulf Research Center concluded that Human rights will not be his (Trumps) top priority. Some believe the change will in the end be largely a matter of style, noting that Obama has fought Jihadism all over the region as well.
Aaron David Miller, a Middle East adviser under five US presidents, expects Trump to prove risk- averse and remain consistent with Obamas own reluctance to interfere in other countries affairs, use military force, remain engaged in Iraq or get truly involved in Syrias civil war. But its clear that several long-standing allies in the Middle East are relishing an end to what they saw as moralizing rhetoric, confused signals and unfulfilled red lines, and favouring a Trump pivot to counterterrorism and security. Egypts President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi is still waiting for a White House invitation, having been shunned by Obama for his bloody crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood.
Saudi Arabia is expecting a renewed push from Washington on its arch-rival Iran, instead of Obamas more neutral stance and its accompanying criticism of the kingdoms treatment of women and killing of civilians in Yemen. And Israels nationalist leadership has made almost a public celebration of Trumps imminent arrival, confident that its grief for how it treats the Palestinians is over. Here is a look at how Trumps policies could shake up the Middle East: the US-led campaign against IS, more than 60 nations strong, has lacked in Syria the one thing it needs most: a partner on the ground capable of reclaiming and holding territory, as the Iraqi government is doing in its areas. Widespread evidence of torture, chemical weapons attacks and even war crimes by Assads forces had made a partnership infeasible to Obama and most of Americas foreign policy establishment.
Meanwhile, Russias intervention since September 2015 has dramatically shored up Assads position. If Assad and Putin now take on IS in its strongholds in northeastern Syria, it is less difficult to imagine Trump accepting perhaps a tacit partnership. Trump has said Assad may be bad but the rebels fighting to topple him could be worse. He has said the US has no idea who its allies in the country are and has appeared most concerned about containing the exodus of Syrian refugees, fearing they will spread terrorism. Assad recently suggested the US and Syria could be natural allies. Such a shift would have consequences. The USs Sunni allies in the Persian Gulf will chafe at any outcome they see as strengthening the hand of Assads other main partner, Shiite Iran.
Years of contentious relations between Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu culminated last month in a UN Security Council resolution declaring illegal the Jewish states construction of settlements on occupied land the Palestinians seek for a future state. Obamas decision to no-veto the resolution followed bitterness in Israel over the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran. Trump has vowed to heal the wound, apparently by embracing parts of Netanyahus nationalist agenda. He has appointed a pro-settlements ambassador, vowed to move the US embassy from Tel Aviv to more controversial Jerusalem and spoken of renegotiating and even dismantling the Iran deal. Whereas much of Obamas disapproval of Netanyahu was expressed in moral terms, Trump has steered wide of any such thing. Eytan Gilboa, an expert on US-Israel relations at Israels Bar-Ilan University, said that He (Trump) is against this kind of moralism and political correctness. He is a businessman. If there is a potential for a deal between Israel and the Palestinians, he will do it. If there is no potential for a deal, he will not do it.
Many fear overreach by Israel that could trigger a new Palestinian uprising. And some note the situation could turn if the confident Netanyahu ever provoked the mercurial Trump as he did Obama. Miller predicted that Within a year, theyll be annoying the hell out of each other. If there is one authoritarian country unlikely to enjoy the fruits of Trumps human rights-free foreign policy, it is Iran. The Trump regularly chastised Obama for agreements that provided new funds to a US-designated terror sponsor and left it only several years away from potentially returning to nuclear weapons capacity. Beyond the talk of a nuclear renegotiation, Trump also has promised to get the US prisoners released and threatened to shoot Iranian boats out of the water if they provoke US Navy vessels in and around the oil-rich Persian Gulf.
Irans supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has said if the US tears up the nuclear accord, we will light it on fire. But Iranian President Hassan Rouhani on January 17, 2017 dismissed the possibility that Trump could undo the nuclear deal, likening it to turning a finished shirt back into cotton. Trumps tough talk on the deal was is mainly slogans, he said. Officials in Saudi Arabia, Irans regional rival, are nonetheless pleased with a president who might focus more on Iran than its own human rights violations. Although its rights record routinely ranks among the worlds worst, Rex Tillerson, Trumps choice for secretary of state, would not call the key US ally a rights violator.
Egypts general-turned-president, El-Sissi is not hiding his hopes in Trump. He said that There is appreciation (by Trump) for Egypts regional role and there will (be) more coordination with the United States going forward. Government circles in Cairo widely see Obama as naive about the true intentions of political Islam and excessively idealistic about liberal democracy. Championing the popular protests of the 2011 Arab Spring, Obama urged the stalwart US ally Hosni Mubarak to step down and welcomed the ascendancy of the countrys first elected president, Islamist Mohammed Morsi. After el-Sissi led a 2013 military overthrow replacing Morsi, Obamas administration struggled for months over whether to call it a coup and later suspended some arms sales to Egypt. It has routinely criticized the governments police brutality, mass trials of Islamists and the crackdown on liberal dissent, drawing charges from el-Sissi that the US supports Morsi and other religious hard-liners.
Michael W. Hanna, an Egypt expert at the New York-based Century Foundation said that under Trump, there will be a lot of capacity for less friction and more engagement. But given Egypts dire economic condition and internal instability, el-Sissi may have little to offer a deal-oriented US president in return. How important that turns out to be will help show whether the new US compass will truly be about the quid pro quo.
The writer is a retired Professor of Economics
