By the begin­ning of 2018, the Isla­mic Sta­te of Iraq and the Levant, at lea­st as a for­ce hol­ding ter­ri­to­ries (not as an insur­gent for­ce), was no more. ISIS’ last stron­ghold was Raq­qa, which was taken over by the the Syrian Demo­cra­tic For­ces, a main­ly Kur­dish group which enjoyed the assi­stan­ce of the U.S.-led coa­li­tion that bom­bed to the ground eve­ry ISIS’ agglo­me­ra­te in the Koba­ni-Fal­lu­jah-Mosul trian­gle. Whi­le in Syria ISIS’ defeat was to be attri­bu­ted to the Syrian Demo­cra­tic For­ces, ISIS’ defeat in Iraq was the pro­duct of joint ope­ra­tions bet­ween the Kurds, the Ira­qi Army and Iran’s bac­ked Shia mili­tias, always sup­por­ted by the Uni­ted Sta­tes and their coalition.

All in all, whe­re does ISIS’ defeat lea­ve us? In a nutshell, in a mess. Star­ting with Leba­non, Hez­bol­lah is ope­ra­ting insi­de the coun­try and Pri­me Mini­ster Hari­ri had resi­gned when visi­ting Riya­dh in Novem­ber 2017, with­dra­wing the resi­gna­tion one week later as he came back to Leba­non. The New York Times repor­ted that Hari­ri was detai­ned by the Sau­dis, who were hoping in anti-Hez­bol­lah pro­tests to take pla­ce in the coun­try as the Pri­me Mini­ster accu­sed them of plot­ting again­st him but such pro­tests never came to be. Of cour­se, the King­dom of Sau­di Ara­bia denies such accusations.

Moving on to the com­ple­te chaos that Syria is, Assad is still the Syrian’s Pre­si­dent, sup­por­ted by Iran, Hez­bol­lah and Rus­sia. This very Anti-Western coa­li­tion has mana­ged to regain con­trol of Alep­po (with an impli­cit bac­king of Tur­key, even if Tur­key is sup­po­sed­ly again­st Assad’s regi­me and allied with the rebels) and it’s now facing the Syrian Demo­cra­tic For­ces and a bunch of other rebel groups sup­por­ted by the U.S.-led coa­li­tion. Becau­se nothing about the Midd­le East is nei­ther easy nor ratio­nal, Tur­key has now taken over a few ter­ri­to­ries occu­pied by SDF (with a tacit ok by Rus­sia which, being in con­trol of Nor­thern Syria’s air­spa­ce could have drop­ped bombs on the Turks if they were doing some­thing that wasn’t okay with President’s Putin plans), SDF that has, at times, been sup­por­ted by Rus­sia which is, hen­ce, sup­por­ting two oppo­sing fac­tions in the same coun­try. Of cour­se, Tur­key is taking on SDF becau­se the idea of a Kur­dish Sta­te in Nor­thern Syria affi­lia­ted with the PKK is as clo­se to the apo­ca­lyp­se as it can get, espe­cial­ly after the Uni­ted Staes have announ­ced that they are going to remain in the region as a “sta­bi­li­sing for­ce” in order to pre­vent the various actors to fill the vacuum left by ISIS. The Uni­ted Sta­tes had sug­ge­sted they were going to crea­te a secu­ri­ty for­ce on the Syrian Tur­kish bor­der, a move that had mana­ged to bring toge­ther Assad and Erdo­gan who, until a minu­te befo­re, were in con­flict one with the other.

The quintessential problem with the Middle East is that every party’s declaration always contains a fundamental truth, but that truth is always pushed to the extreme so that in the end it sounds false to the other party’s ears.

Take Turkey’s claim that the YPG (The People’s Pro­tec­tion Unit, the armed branch of the PYD, the Kur­dish Demo­cra­tic Par­ty in Nor­thern Syria) is the PKK. That’s a fal­se sta­te­ment, but it is also true that the PKK was once in Syria and they were sup­po­sed to get back to Tur­key soo­ner or later. On the other hand, Tur­key should appre­cia­te that the SDF has meant the dif­fe­ren­ce bet­ween ISIS in Tur­key and not in Tur­key. Also, they have mana­ged to admi­ni­ster Nor­thern Syria in a very good fashion, espe­cial­ly con­si­de­ring that they were fighting ISIS at the same time and the ter­ri­to­ries they were taking over day by day were com­ple­te­ly razed to the ground. The Kurds are, also, some tru­ly excel­lent sol­diers. Not Saye­ret Duvdevan’s (the most eli­te unit of Israel’s Spe­cial for­ces) level, but the sky is the limit. Going back to Turkey’s taking over SDF’s ter­ri­to­ries, this move has all sorts of impli­ca­tions becau­se, with this, Tur­key is going again­st the Uni­ted Sta­tes and their coa­li­tion, which is not going to take this with a smile.

Two NATO countries could potentially end up fighting each other in Syria.

Pre­si­dent Putin must clear­ly be amu­sed by this. The beau­ty of it it’s that if Tur­key pushes a tiny bit too much insi­de Syria, then you could end up with a war again­st the same actors that are allo­wing them now to move insi­de Syria. Name­ly, one could fore­see a futu­re con­flict bet­ween Tur­key and the U.S.-led coa­li­tion again­st Assad, Hez­bol­lah, Iran, Rus­sia and whoe­ver will want to join. The move by the Turks is also fomen­ting Kur­dish discon­tent in Iraq and Iran (yes, the­re are Kurds in Iran as well). And God kno­ws what can hap­pen if the Kurds rise up all the same time in the three dif­fe­rent sta­tes. In any case, the accord about the futu­re of Syria, whe­ne­ver that may come about, will have to sati­sfy no less than 8 par­ties: Syria’s Pre­si­dent, Leba­non (Hez­bol­lah), Iran, Iraq, Rus­sia, the Uni­ted Sta­tes, the Kurds and, loo­se­ly spea­king, the coa­li­tion. One might even inclu­de Israel among the par­ties, even thou­gh Israel has, so far, stayed away from the Syrian con­flict. The fun­da­men­tal issue is that Israel will never want an Ira­nian pro­xy on the bor­der. Hez­bol­lah is alrea­dy enou­gh. Not to men­tion that an Ira­nian cor­ri­dor from Iran to Leba­non pas­sing throu­gh Iraq and Syria would sca­re the hell out of the Israe­lis (and under­stan­da­bly so). For more in Syria, even thou­gh it is alrea­dy an old book given the unbe­lie­va­ble flui­di­ty of the the coun­try, I stron­gly recom­mend the rea­ding by Chri­sto­pher Phil­lips of The Bat­tle for Syria: Inter­na­tio­nal Rival­ry in the New Midd­le East.

If Syria’s situa­tion is com­pli­ca­ted, Iraq’s not that much bet­ter. Fir­st of all, Iraq is, essen­tial­ly, an Ira­nian depen­dan­ce (as the French would say): the govern­ment is hea­ded by Hai­der Al-Aba­di, a Shia; the Shia mili­tias, under the name of Popu­lar Mobi­li­za­tion For­ces (PMF), have fil­led the void left by the incom­pe­tent Ira­qi army (in the immor­tal words of Gene­ral Mar­tin Demp­sey, Chair­man of the Joint Chiefs of Staff “Ira­qi for­ces weren’t dri­ven out of Rama­di, they dro­ve out of Rama­di”); Sou­thern Iraq is so much in the hands of the Ira­nians that one of the major high­ways is named after no less than the late Supre­me Lea­der Ruhol­lah Kho­mei­ni. The Shia mili­tias, many of them either sent by Iran in Iraq (like the Badr Bri­ga­de, Asaib ahl al-Haq, Ketaib Hez­bol­lah and Hara­kat al-Nuja­ba) or with affi­lia­tion to Iran, have been accu­sed (not without merit) of atro­ci­ties again­st Sun­ni Ira­qis, after having fought along­si­de Assad in Syria. In the North, the Kurds, based around Erbil, after deca­des of fighting again­st either Iran, Sad­dam or ISIS, are sick and tired of being peren­nial­ly at war with the next ruler of Iraq and are up in arms and even voted for their inde­pen­den­ce in 2017. The Uni­ted Sta­tes, of cour­se, sup­ports them. Always in the North and North-West the­re are now groups of Hez­bol­lah fighters and Tur­key sol­diers. And Sau­di Ara­bia is now try­ing to buy its way into the coun­try. They are inve­sting in Iraq, espe­cial­ly in Bagh­dad and in the South, with seve­ral busi­nes­ses in the oil and che­mi­cal indu­stries set­ting up offi­ces in Bagh­dad. Flights have been resto­red bet­ween the King­dom and Iraq. Also, they are the lar­ge­st pled­gers of aid to Iraq for the recon­struc­tion of the coun­try in the region. The Cro­wn Prin­ce of the King­dom of Sau­di Ara­bia, the son of King Sal­man bin Abdu­la­ziz Al Saud, Moham­mad Bin Sal­man is now try­ing to sha­ke the King­dom of its sec­ta­rian forei­gn poli­cy, by sup­por­ting effec­ti­ve Shia poli­ti­cians in the coun­try and even mee­ting with top Shia cle­rics like Muq­ta­da Al-Sadr, which we alrea­dy men­tio­ned in the second arti­cle of this series as one of the lea­ders of the Shia insur­gen­cy during the Ame­ri­can occu­pa­tion of Iraq. In May new elec­tions will be held in Iraq: it’s pro­ba­ble that Pri­me Mini­ster Al-Aba­di will in again and, if this will be the case, it is abso­lu­te­ly para­mount that he won’t act as his pre­de­ces­sor Al-Mali­ki had. Sun­ni Ira­qis need to be repre­sen­ted in the govern­ment in pro­por­tion to their pre­sen­ce and trea­ted like any other citi­zen. It’s the Govern­ment of Iraq, not the Govern­ment of Shia Iraq. Al-Aba­di will have to rule accor­din­gly. Sec­ta­rian poli­cies shouldn’t even be men­tio­ned. Pos­si­bly, he should treat Sun­nis bet­ter than Shias. If he were to do that, the Sun­ni world would be with him should Iran deci­de to be a pro­ble­ma­tic neighbour.

Yemen is by far the best can­di­da­te to be a re-run of Syria. The sto­ry of the con­flict is, as any­thing rela­ted to the Midd­le East, wild­ly com­pli­ca­ted. In 2011, during the Arab spring, Pre­si­dent Ali Abdul­lah Saleh was for­ced to pass his power onto Abdrab­buh Man­sour Hadi, his depu­ty. The new Pre­si­dent fai­led to deli­ver to his peo­ple as he was dea­ling with a num­ber of issues ran­ging from ter­ro­ri­sm, army’s unre­spon­si­ve­ness to sepa­ra­ti­st move­men­ts and food inse­cu­ri­ty. In 2014, Hou­thi rebels, allied with for­mer Pre­si­dent Ali Abdul­lah Saleh and bac­ked by Iran, rose up and cap­tu­red much of the coun­try, inclu­ding its capi­tal Sanaa. By 2015 the Hou­thi rebels and Saleh loya­lists tried to take over the enti­re coun­try. Hadi fled to Sau­di Ara­bia. At that moment, Sau­di Ara­bia, lea­ding a coa­li­tion of other Arab coun­tries, inter­ve­ned in the war. In the gene­ral brea­k­do­wn of the Sta­te, ter­ro­ri­st groups of Al-Qae­da and ISIL sho­wed up in the coun­try and took con­trol of much of the South. Fast for­ward to the end of 2017, Ex-Pre­si­dent Saleh, after a fight over the con­trol of Sanaa’s lar­ge­st mosque star­ted armed cla­shes that left tens of peo­ple dead, sug­ge­sted an ope­ning, an accord to the coa­li­tion if they inter­rup­ted the bloc­ka­de and stop­ped bom­bing the coun­try. The Hou­this, in turn, accu­sed the Ex-Pre­si­dent of sel­ling out the ene­my and they later kil­led him as he was try­ing to aban­don the capi­tal. Fur­ther com­pli­ca­tions come from the fact that the coa­li­tion is frac­tu­ring along sup­port of inde­pen­den­ce groups insi­de the coun­try. The huma­ni­ta­rian situa­tion is a total tra­ge­dy, so much so that the Uni­ted Nations have decla­red Yemen to be the wor­st huma­ni­ta­rian cri­sis in the world: both cho­le­ra and diph­the­ria are pre­sent in record num­bers, mil­lions have fled their homes, tens of thou­sands have died, mil­lions of chil­dren are facing star­va­tion and so are their paren­ts, the eco­no­my of what was alrea­dy the poo­re­st coun­try in the Midd­le East is in sham­bles, the col­lap­se of law and order is absolute.

As one can appre­cia­te, the Midd­le East is in total tur­moil. It’s dif­fi­cult to find a nation, apart from Oman, that is not invol­ved or it’s a thea­tre of some clash bet­ween oppo­sing fac­tions. “Midd­le East, baby. Nice to meet you”. Howe­ver, a sub­tle red line con­nec­ts all the­se con­flic­ts that seem to be scat­te­red all over the region with no par­ti­cu­lar order. That red line, con­nec­ting all the capi­tals of the region from Sanaa to Bagh­dad, begins in Riya­dh, Sau­di Ara­bia and it ends in Teh­ran, Iran (or vice-versa).

Mar­co Canal

Aspi­ran­te eco­no­mi­sta, let­to­re, aman­te dei dibat­ti­ti intel­let­tua­li e gin&tonic, alpi­ni­sta, film il pane, viag­gio il vino e i Pink Floyd come reli­gio­ne. Pec­ca di insa­zia­bi­le curio­si­tà, bat­tu­ta faci­le, smo­da­ta ambi­zio­ne e deci­sio­ne. Alea iac­ta est.