Just a few days ago Bahrain witnessed an opening of the annual conference on Middle Eastern security, known as the Manama Dialogue. This conference attracted political experts and analysts from all over the region and from other countries.
A special amount of attention was paid to US Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter who boldly stated from the stage that there is no alternatives better than the US for the Middle East.
Carter pointed out that there’s a solid US naval presence in the region, a presence that provides solid missile capabilities, allowing the US to allegedly take down any threat against its Middle Eastern allies. Carter also reminded the audience that there’s over 50,000 American soldiers deployed across the region today, of which 5,000 are operating in Iraq and Syria. According to the Pentagon chief, Washington has never had such capabilities as it has today, and the US cannot walk away from the region since it has “it’s own interests” there. Thus, Carter is convinced that there can be no alternative to the US as a partner as far as the Middle East is concerned.
It seems that hawks in Washington have been overconfident lately. They are convinced that with the CIA’s ability to take down any unwanted regimes across the Middle East, by staging so-called “colored revolutions”, no one would dare search for partnerships elsewhere.
The implementation of the “New Greater Middle East” project, which was the main reason for the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan, is not going well however. Some aspects of this project were announced last summer by General Martin Dempsey who was appointed Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff by the US Senate. In particular, he stated that Washington is not planning to give any power to Sunnis in Iraq, since only two states can exist in its territory – one Kurdish and one Shia. When asked about the possibility of a third Sunni state being created he answered that he doesn’t see a third state in Iraq, since in terms of economic resources and management, the Shiites and Kurds have better chances to succeed.
So if there’s really “no alternative for the Middle East” other than Washington, it means that 10 million Iraqi Sunni will be left unheard? It’s curious that in the Pentagon’s understanding of regional issues, the Persian Gulf monarchies and the Sunnis communities across the region could ever cooperate with Washington’s vision. And if the Iraqi Sunnis have no other option than to join ISIS as the result of this “plan”, it appears that the Obama administration is indifferent to this outcome.
Washington did have better plans, like handing over Iraqi border regions densely populated by Sunnis to the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. However, this scenario brings terror into the heart of every Saudi royal family member, The Hashemite Arab dynasty traces its lineage back to the prophet Muhammad, hence its sons are far more legitimate rulers of the region than the rootless desert sheikhs of Nejd, now known today as the House of Saud.
By establishing itself as “the only alternative for the Middle East”, Washington will be able to get rid of the Saudi Arabian rulers, while dividing the peninsula among several smaller states that will be even more dependent on the United States.
So, by making such a bold statement, Ashton Carter and the departing Obama administration must be delusional to expect that local political circles will continue to applaud such policies of Washington across the region that have already resulted in hundreds of thousands of killed, injured and displaced.
Martin Berger is a freelance journalist and geopolitical analyst, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook.”