Recent indications that Turkey and Saudi Arabia might intervene militarily in Syria were called back by the governments of both countries. Partly, that was because of the ambiguities behind their intentions. But a larger problem was the tenuous relationship between them and the Americans.
The Obama administration has spent years confounding its allies in the Middle East over Syria. Initially it took a hands-off attitude to a conflict engulfing the region, one president Barack Obama dismissed as “someone else’s civil war”. Only when the war metastasised into something bigger, spawning ISIL, did Mr Obama deploy American forces to the region.
However, a by-product of this American attitude of focusing on ISIL was the avoidance of any situation that could favour the terrorist organisation. As a result, while the Americans have insisted Bashar Al Assad must leave office, they have refused to raise the military heat on him for fear that ISIL might benefit.
As a result, Washington has grown closer to the Russians, Mr Al Assad’s prime backers, evidently in the hope that any radical shift in the military balance could bring an early end to the Syrian conflict. The consequences, however, are that the Obama administration has given up on the anti-Assad opposition, while backing the advances against ISIL of Syria’s Kurds.
Such dynamics are deeply worrisome for the Turks and Saudis. To the Saudis, abandonment of the opposition opens the way to an Iranian and Russian victory in Syria. To the Turks, the Kurds seek to unite their two areas of concentration in Afrin and north-eastern Syria, creating the prospect of a Kurdish entity on Turkey’s southern border, near their own Kurdish areas.
Mr Obama’s dramatic shifts in the region have been poorly managed. When the president decided to arrive at a deal with Iran over its nuclear programme, he clearly saw this as a step towards gradual normalisation. That objective alone was a sign of Mr Obama’s new vision for the region, one in which the old verities and relationships were bound to be overhauled.
While one can blame the Obama administration for the management of its transition in the Middle East, America’s allies are also partly responsible for having failed to seriously prepare for it. This was never going to be an easy task, but when it became apparent that something had profoundly changed in Washington, it was up to the allies to initiate a well-planned process of adaptation to secure their own interests.
Above all, they had to avoid finding themselves in dispute with the United States, hitherto the guarantor of their security. In foreign policy it’s not enough to be right; a state must also prepare for all contingencies. The fact that they did not do so has led to a situation today where both Turkey and Saudi Arabia find themselves on the wrong side of an emerging consensus over Syria.
That consensus may be profoundly wrong-headed, but the recent signals that the Turks and Saudis might send forces to Syria, while sensible, did not help them. Both see the Assad regime regaining ground, and would like to gain a foothold in the country to have leverage in future negotiations over a solution.
However, this intention is not welcomed internationally. Washington and European states do not want to have to deal with the possibility of hostilities between Turkey and Russia. Nor do they want to see battles between Turkey and the Kurds that would hinder the campaign against ISIL. And they certainly do not want the Syrian situation to be further complicated through a direct Saudi-Iranian confrontation.
Turkey and Saudi Arabia must sense that Mr Obama’s preferences are not likely to be reversed under a new administration. Even the candidate arguably most willing to return to the past, Hillary Clinton, would have to face an American electorate largely sceptical when it comes to the Middle East. Americans no longer want to expend energy in a region they regard as chaotic and threatening.
Mrs Clinton would doubtless not risk the opening to Iran by leaning in favour of the Saudis and Turks. Nor would she relish beginning her mandate by picking a fight with Russia over Syria. As for ISIL, it will be no less of a preoccupation for her as it is for Mr Obama. And yet Mrs Clinton is perhaps the best that America’s traditional allies can hope for.
The American swing in the region will impose more widespread change in the behaviour of countries such as Turkey and Saudi Arabia, as it has for Egypt and others. Mr Obama has long sought to put in place a regional balance of power, and perhaps feels that instability is inevitable until the actors can create one.
If so, this reveals a man who won’t let the facts get in the way of theory. A balance of power often takes a long time to form, after countless, brutal wars. Mr Obama’s allies are right to condemn his carelessness but that still doesn’t absolve them of creating durable institutions to adapt to this new reality.
Michael Young is opinion editor of The Daily Star in Beirut
On Twitter: @BeirutCalling
