Could this just be a coincidence that the US has begun conducting airstrikes on Syria right after the announcement of a China brokered peace deal between Iran and Saudi Arabia? Following the announcement of this deal, it was revealed that the Saudis are also in talks with the Syrians to normalise ties. The China factor, it seems, is reshaping the Middle East in ways that leave little to no room for the US to manipulate the region’s geopolitics to its advantage. The US still has almost one-third of the Syrian territory under its control. With almost 900 troops, unaccounted-for Special Forces and contractors operating in Syria, the US has been able to prevent Syria’s unification for the past many years. But if Saudi Arabi’s ties with Syria become normal and if Turkey follows suit and withdraws its forces as well, it will further squeeze the space for the US to maintain its occupation of the Syrian territory. A military exit from Syria could further push the US out of the Middle East in a geopolitical sense. Hence, the US efforts to reignite the flares of conflict to sabotage normalisation.
The US has a significant military presence in Syria and it is able to maintain it via its airbases spread in the region, including the one in Qatar that Washington most recently used to strike the Iran-backed groups in Syria. The US officially justifies its military presence in Syria to prevent the “return” of the Islamic State (ISIS, banned in Russia). But we know the US actually uses its presence either a) to keep significantly large portions of the Syrian oil under its control to prevent the war-torn country from recovering from years of war, and b) to prevent Iran from consolidating its position in Syria and put geopolitical pressure on Israel.
But both of these objectives are likely to become a lot harder to achieve in a reshaped Middle East that China (and Russia) are keen to create. A major breakthrough is likely to happen later this year, when Beijing will host a meeting of the Gulf Cooperation Council and Iran. Were Iran’s relations with the GCC to become normal, it would become extremely difficult for Israel and the US to project Iran as a “threat” to the Middle East and/or sell Iran’s nuclear programme posing an existential challenge for the Arab states. Presumably, any understanding between Iran and the GCC via China will be incomplete without a comprehensive understanding regarding Iran’s nuclear ambitions, i.e., the will to make the bomb.
For the GCC states, following the Trump administration’s unilateral withdrawal from the JCPOA and the subsequent failure of the Joe Biden administration to revamp the deal, China is the best-placed geopolitical player to devise a workable deal between Iran and the GCC to the exclusion of the US, EU, and Israel. Were Iran and the GCC ties to become normal and were Iran to be no longer seen as an enemy, the US will lose the support of its traditional allies in the region for maintaining a heavy military presence; hence, the US airstrikes in Syria on the Iran-backed militias to re-project Iran as the “real” enemy and troublemaker in the region.
The message the Biden administration has sent reads like this: if Iran can manage to attack the US forces, what’s going to prevent it from attacking other countries? But the message that the GCC is receiving from China (and Iran) is completely different. It reads: China needs a stable Middle East for its Belt and Road Initiative to come to fruition. Iran – like many other GCC countries – needs China for various reasons, including selling oil in return for investment. Therefore, it will make no sense at all for Iran to “attack” GCC countries directly or indirectly (e.g., via the Houthis based in Yemen), create instability, jeopardise Beijing’s interests, and compromise its vital economic interests tied to Beijing.
As far as Iran is concerned, it understands that Saudi ties with the US are far from ideal. Saudi is selling most of its oil to China and the former has repeatedly declined US “requests” to increase oil production to bring the prices down. In Riyadh, there seems to be a real political will to move decisively away from over-reliance on the US and align with China. Iran, therefore, also has a similar level of confidence in the China factor that the GCC countries have.
For Washington, this is a very serious development that it has no means to undo diplomatically. Due to very bad ties, Washington is unable to influence the Saudis and the latter being the most powerful state in the GCC, Washington is unable to influence the bloc as well. Since the US lacks the necessary diplomatic channels to exert influence, it is forced to resort to the only means it has on the ground: the military.
Will it succeed? Mere military strikes may not be enough for the US to influence the larger geopolitical process of normalisation. Therefore, the US might need to re-activate an old asset: jihadi militias. In fact, as media reports indicate, these groups are already trying to break into the territories under Syrian control. Oleg Gurinov, deputy chief of the Russian Center for Reconciliation of the Opposing Parties in Syria, said on last Friday that “Militants from the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham terrorist group (banned in Russia) tried to break through into the government-controlled territory near the settlement of Urum al-Sugra in the Aleppo governorate.”
Taking cues from the old playbook, Washington, by manufacturing instability in the region, is re-creating conditions where it can project its relevance. A key problem for Washington is that it is unlikely to find the support from regional countries that it had during the peak of the Syrian war to support these militias directly or indirectly. Therefore, the chances of Washington finding any meaningful success to sabotage the China-led process are grim.
Salman Rafi Sheikh, research-analyst of International Relations and Pakistan’s foreign and domestic affairs, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook.“
