This commentary is by Haviland Smith, a long-retired CIA operations officer who was the CIA’s first chief of counterterrorism.
With our national appetite whetted by the 1908 discovery of petroleum in what is now Iran, our interest and involvement in Middle Eastern affairs has grown exponentially over the decades.
The validity of that century-long preoccupation with petroleum has recently been diminished by climate change and by a grudging but growing commitment to a worldwide retreat from the use of fossil fuels. It is time for us to reevaluate our current policies for the region.
The region involved begins with Morocco and includes all those countries bordering the south and east sides of the Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea and continuing east to those countries bordering the Persian Gulf as well as Afghanistan and Pakistan. Something on the order of two dozen countries.
As Westerners, we start out at a disadvantage simply because of the largely negative role that western countries, England, Italy and France, have played in the evolution of the region. All told, those three countries have played colonizing or occupying roles, mostly in the 20th century, in Egypt, Sudan, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, Libya, Iraq, Lebanon, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, the UAE, and both North and South Yemen. They haven’t made many friends in doing it.
What makes this region further complicated is the fact that there are so many ethnic, religious and political realities that exist there and the further fact that so many of those countries are in almost continuous conflict.
Most of the Middle East is Sunni, while the Shia are concentrated in Iran and Iraq with significant minority populations in Lebanon, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Yemen, Pakistan and India.
Iran is almost 100% Shia and non-Arab. Its power in the Gulf is contested by the Saudis, who are Arab and Sunni. Iran, definitely the minority player, sees it as critical to its survival as Indo-European (Persian) Shia to support and maintain all the Shia communities in the region. Hence, Iran’s unremitting support of the Shia governments in Syria and Iraq, the Shia and Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen and Shia in the Gulf.
They are bonded together by their religious beliefs against the Sunni world led by Saudi Arabia. Their support goes largely to paramilitary organizations like the Houthis, the Syrian rebels, and Hezbollah.
The Sunni-Shia split does not end the issue. There are other long-established contradictions that plague the region.
The Afghan war alone has cost us over $1.1 trillion and almost 2,500 military deaths.
The Kurds, with a population of 40 million spread out mostly over Turkey, Iraq, Iran and Syria, are integral to our policies in Syria where, with our support, they have been active combatants against ISIS. This has deeply strained America’s relationship with Turkey, a longtime ally and NATO member.
Saudi Arabia is the home of Wahabism, a highly puritanical form of Sunni Islam. Combined with the wealth created by the sale of petroleum products, Saudi Wahabis have long supported the most conservative movements in Islam, including al-Qaida, the Taliban, Lashkar-e-Taiba and other terrorist groups, like Hamas.
Saudi Arabia clearly undertakes activities and supports groups that add to the instability of the region. Saudi support of the violent Sunni coalition that fights against the Shia Houthi in Yemen provides an additional look at the true nature of the country.
ISIS (the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria) was a product of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, which had a large majority of Shia but was brutally controlled by Saddam Hussein and his fellow Sunnis. With the overthrow of Sunni rule and with support from Saudi Wahabis, ISIS was created by the Iraqi Sunnis with the U.S. and Iran as its primary enemies.
Israel has moved sharply to the right, essentially denying the humanity of the Palestinians, building additional illegal settlements in the West Bank and thwarting any and all moves toward the two-state solution so strongly supported by the USA. Our support of Israel has often put us at odds with other American allies in the region.
Iran has hated America ever since we and the British engineered the 1953 overthrow of their Mossadegh regime and supported the Shah. Our 2018 withdrawal from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action governing Iranian nuclear activities was followed by sanctions that have been devastating for the Iranian economy.
America’s deep involvement in the Middle East came as a result of petroleum and 9/11. We then blundered into an additional war in Iraq and 17 years later, we are still there, heavily involved across the region.
It is difficult for any sentient American to believe that we need the petroleum, or the hatred of the peoples of the region for each other and us, or our ongoing involvement in complex regional ethnic, religious and political struggles, or any of the many other negatives that continuing involvement will guarantee us.
We desperately need to reexamine our motivation for remaining so heavily engaged. Are we so naïve that we think we can “fix” the mess in the region? What do we believe we have to gain when we have already lost so much?
