As U.S. withdraws, regional powers vie for control of Iraq

Though recent advances by Al-Qaeda-linked Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) toward Baghdad were shockingly brutal, they spell not anarchic doom in the Middle East but a fresh phase in the surrogate war between Iran and Saudi Arabia.

In addition, the collapse of the border between Syria and Iraq is not evidence of chaos but the shaping of a new state one could call the Emirate of Al-Jazira (the Arab heartland).

I wrote of the rising emirate earlier this year after Fallujah and parts of Anbar province fell into the hands of the Salafist ISIL. The emirate stretches from Baghdad to Aleppo, near the Mediterranean coast in Syria. At the edges of the emirate, the regional minorities of Kurds, Allawites, Druze, Ismailists, Christians and Jews roost in enclaves that have become armed sanctuaries. Colonial-era pre–World War II boundaries have completely broken down.

The recent flight of the Shia-dominated Iraqi army, which led to the fall of Mosul, Tikrit and other Iraqi cities to ISIL control, is a logical continuation of the ISIL’s earlier successes, which date back at least 10 years. The crisis in Iraq illustrates that critical global powers are now involved in shaping the emirate for their national interests.

Most important, Saudi Arabia and Russia are working together to take advantage of the dynamic formation of the Emirate of Al-Jazira for their own benefit.

Early in the month, Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal traveled to Sochi to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. Last week Lavrov went to Jiddah to continue consultation. The official announcement about these meetings was that Moscow and Riyadh were discussing the Syrian civil war and other regional turmoil as well as working to sign a cooperation agreement on nuclear energy. 

My information is that that major topics of the meetings were the emirate and the risky Saudi decision to support the ISIL in Iraq’s civil war.

Riyadh is badly losing in the Syrian civil war to the pro-government forces of Damascus, backed by Tehran. The decision by Washington not to intervene militarily in Syria has left Riyadh isolated and outgunned in its regional proxy war with Iran. However, the rise of the emirate offers an opportunity to offset the defeats in the Syrian civil war and put Iran back on the defensive. 

Kurdish BasNews reported last week that 150 Saudi “intelligence officers” passed through the Syria’s Hasakka province and entered Mosul in Iraq to lend a hand to the ISIL takeover. The Kurdish report underlined that Riyadh has said it will not help the ISIL attack Kurdish-dominated areas of Iraq, such as Irbil and Kirkuk, and will instead direct the ISIL toward Baghdad.

The Saudis calculate that the ISIL victories and Iraqi defeats rock and set back Tehran’s plans for regional hegemony. 

Riyadh has so far calculated keenly. Tehran is scrambling to reinforce Baghdad with advisers from the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, such as the notorious Quds Force Commander Qassem Suleimani, as well as reportedly stationing combat troops along the border. Tehran is now on the defensive across a vast civil war battlefield that starts with the religious center of Samarra to the north of Baghdad and reaches to the Shia shrines of Karbala and Najaf to the south of Baghdad. In addition, the oil fields and pipelines are vulnerable at all times, whether or not ISIL eventually launches assaults against Basra.

As for Russia’s interest in supporting the emirate, Moscow fears that the Salafist bands of Al-Qaeda and its spawn, such as the ISIL, will overwhelm the region and turns its sights on the Russian Federation, starting with the so-called Emirate of the Caucasus and quickly moving to the dominant, restive Muslim populations in Central Asia. 

Moscow’s counter is to maintain strong ties with Iran. This much explains the expediency of the Moscow alliance with Tehran and Damascus. 

However Moscow also maintains strong relations with the regional minorities, the very peoples who are now most threatened by ISIL violence. By supporting the emirate, in concert with Saudi Arabia, Moscow is calculating that it can exercise control over the emirate’s ambitions. Local threats are tolerable to Moscow, so long as they don’t metastasize into transnational threats against the Caucasus and Central Asia.

Riyadh and Moscow are grimly aware of the risks in their decisions to fund and support the emirate. They are also aware that lesser players in the region, such as Turkey and Qatar, are backing the emirate for their own purposes: in Turkey’s case, to bedevil Tehran and Damascus and in Qatar’s case, to compete with Riyadh for leadership in the Gulf.

My information is that Riyadh and Moscow will break off with the emirate if it does not keep to its agreement to aim for Baghdad and not the Saudi oilfields or the Russian homeland. Moscow already appears to be hedging the gamble already by offering support to the weakened government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki in Baghdad while it blesses the emirate’s ferocity.

The civil war in Iraq can easily last another 10 years. Tehran and its clients — Damascus, Hezbollah and the Shiite-dominated army of Baghdad — are redeploying and digging in for a long war. There will consequently be a long-term risk to global crude oil prices because of the threat to Iraq’s gigantic oilfields as well as to regional stability.

A longer-term result will be that Russia replaces the U.S. as the major influence for order and balance in the region. 

The U.S. has twice failed in the region in 10 years over two presidencies and five Congresses — first by invading Iraq without a coherent postwar plan and second by abandoning Iraq to the intrigues of Iran. Barack Obama’s administration has long since made a decision to exit the region, and I am told there will be no revisiting the matter. Secretary of State John Kerry’s present embassy to Baghdad is viewed in Moscow as no more than fatalism. Obama’s recent telephone conversation with Putin, while focused on the Ukraine crisis, is said to have touched on Iraq. Putin is reported to be in favor of the security and peace that only Russia, its allies and regional players have the power to achieve.