Fiery Crash: The Future of Conflict In The Middle East

The course of conflicts is hard to predict. Who knew in 1971 that twenty years later America would be fighting in Iraq? And who in 2001 could have guessed that the war in Afghanistan would go on for twenty years?

There were educated guesses. And there were projections of long wars after 9/11, even spanning the entire 21st century, but that was political fantasy. Real wars don’t last that long. Do they?

Some wars do, but with interludes. World War 1 and 2 can be considered one multi-generational war because Germany had to fight the same enemies twice. And nobody predicted at the time of the breakout of WW1 that it would go on for four years. They thought it would begin and end in summer. The Christmas truce of 1914 should have ended the war right then and there.

The U.S. wars in the Middle East can also be classified as one long, never-ending war. Its policies have influenced both its regional allies and adversaries to participate in the game of war to achieve even short-term benefits. War is the greatest temptation.

But once those benefits recede, and the bill comes due, war’s true destructive power becomes apparent. War is counter-productive for all but a few, especially if there is no defined goal or victory envisioned. The quicker it comes to an end the better for the victor and the loser. 

That is why wars in healthy societies must always be declared, and fought bravely and with speed.  Dragging out a conflict does harm to all parties involved.

Stable and prosperous countries don’t wage wars without first exhausting all other options, which is what Russia did in Ukraine. 

Putin is winning against the rogue regime in Kiev because he is acting logically, which is extremely hard in wartime. But it’s impossible to act logically in a state of war indefinitely. Putin would be wise to declare victory soon and leave Ukraine for good.

War is a bitter fruit. If it’s not consumed quickly it is even more bitter. It invites all sorts of disasters, from state collapse to climatic catastrophe.

Political oppression at home and warmongering abroad are the main reasons why the four dominant states in the Middle East are so unstable and their futures so bleak. 

Israel, Turkey, Iran, and Saudi Arabia all have ambitions beyond their borders but the inability to carry them out successfully because neither one is a true regional hegemon. 

We saw Saudi Arabia fail in Yemen for over a decade with tons of U.S. and British backing. American and British military personnel were basically running the war for them. But they only managed to make their enemies stronger because their army isn’t worth a damn. You can have all the airpower in the world, what matters in the end is the quality of the frontline soldier.

Turkey has had more success in quelling the aspirations of the Kurds, and most recently, Armenians, by using ISIS soldiers of fortune in both theaters. These terrorists, motivated by money, religion, and drugs, can wreak havoc anywhere in the region when called upon. 

And thousands of them are still languishing in makeshift prisons in Syria when they should have been tried and executed under international law by now. The fact their financial and political backers have not even been punished by “international” institutions means they will raise their ugly heads once more, next time with probably more success and devastation.

And then there are the two cultish theological states: Israel and Iran. 

Israel has proven it has no moral or religious limits in its months-long assault on Gaza. They are in the process of implementing their final solution. But the problem is they have made themselves enemies not only of a subject and impoverished people but an entire religion. 

It’s easy to wipe out a people in chains. Killing the Palestinians off is cut and dry. Shooting fish in a barrel is not warfare. The real question is what comes after the bloodlust? 

If the Muslim world stands pat, then that’s that, but because of the radicalization of Islamic politics within the last century, a process that Israel, America and England spearheaded, the calls for the total erasure of Israel will only continue to grow. And it probably won’t even be Iran that will be leading the charge because its younger generations have taken no interest in the Israeli-Palestinian drama. Once the older generation dies off and the inevitable transformation of the nature of the state begins, Iran will become much less radical. 

But the region surrounding it, the one it helped give birth, will not stop laboring for Israel’s total destruction. 

Some crimes cannot be forgiven. Waging war is one thing, but killing for sport, which seems be the M.O of the Israeli army, inspires an emotion more powerful than revenge. The great challenge for the future leaders of the region will be to contain that emotion so a genocide doesn’t happen the either way.

II.

Below are some articles that help illuminate trends, threats, and tensions in the region. 

An excerpt from, “Excellent Talk from John Mearsheimer on the State of Israel v. the Palestinians” By Ryan McMaken, Mises Institute, May 20, 2024: 

Mearshimer notes that the elites of the Israeli state has zero interest in a democracy or constitutional republic. Rather, the Israeli elites want a Jewish ethno-state in which all other groups are second-class citizens. This is partly why Israel has not written constitution. That might end up protecting the rights of ethnic minorities. So, option 1 is unacceptable. 

The two-state solution is obviously unacceptable also, and Mearsheimer notes this is partly why the Israeli state essentially created Hamas and continued to support Hamas right up to October 7. Hamas was created to counter the PLO which supports a two-state solution. Hamas, of course, rejects that option, and wants for the Palestinians what Israel has right now: total control of the region “from the river to the sea.” 

. . .The current policy is unlikely to reverse numerous problems that continue to mount for the Israeli state, however. For one, the Israeli regime is now spending a lot of money in its conquest and destruction of Gaza. There is a reason Tel Aviv turned Gaza into what Mearsheimer calls an “open-air prison.” Sealing off Gaza was the most economical option in many ways. The current policy is anything but economical, and Israel couldn’t even carry out its current destruction of Gaza without enormous amounts of free weapons from the United States-paid for by the US taxpayer. 

A second problem can be seen in the fact that the Israeli regime has lost its “escalation dominance.” In the past, Israeli policy was based on retaliating against attackers in ways that were far more deadly and destructive than the initial attack on Israel. As Mearshimer describes it, the Israeli goal has been “as we go up the escalation ladder, I dominate.” Yet, in recent months, Israel’s ability to do this has faltered. Tel Aviv has been unwilling to deter Hezbollah with this method, and the US has even forced Tel Aviv to respond with restraint to recent attacks from Iran. Moreover, the current campaign in Gaza has not succeeded in defeating Hamas, and is unlikely to do so. 

A third problem is that Israel is still surrounded by adversaries that hate the Israeli state. That’s long been true, but technology has not progressed to a place where adversaries now have access to drones and missiles in ways that are far more troublesome for the Israeli state. 

And finally, the current ethnic cleansing campaign continued to make Israel more of a pariah state with each passing day.  Mearsheimer notes that until the 1980s, the Israeli state absolutely dominated the narrative everywhere on the history of Israel and its creation in the 1940s. In recent decades, however, historians have brought to light a version of history that is not nearly as praiseworthy of the Israeli regime. This problem continues to grow, especially as the Israeli state has not managed to exercise control over social media where anti-Israel narratives now proliferate. Indeed, Mearsheimer notes there has been a remarkable, generational shift in views of Israel. The elderly elites still favor Israel overwhelmingly, but younger generations take a very different view and this is very bad news for the Israeli regime. 

An excerpt from, “Iranians Turn Away from the Islamic Republic” By Ladan Boroumand, Journal of Democracy, January 2020:

Why are the seminaries distancing themselves from the regime and paying attention to a handful of liberal theologians? It is because the seminaries worry that Iranians are losing faith in Islam. This disaffection has been growing since the inception of the Islamic Republic. In 2000, an official survey found that 75 percent of all Iranians and 86 percent of students did not say their prayers. By 2009, half the country’s mosques had become inactive.

. . .The current turn by many Iranians toward alternatives to the Islamic Republic’s harsh Islamism, such as liberal Shi’ism, Sufism, the Baha’i Faith, Christianity, and agnosticism or atheism, signals that Iran may now be on a new course. This course is taking it toward becoming the first Muslim-majority society to weave into its spiritual, social, and intellectual fabric the principled separation of religion and the state characteristic of the liberal-democratic worldview—and to do so by a process that comes more fully “from within” than from outside. Ironically, the Islamic Republic itself has been the driver of that process, impelling a pathbreaking democratic response to its totalitarian claims. If the process succeeds—and signs both dramatic and subtle suggest that it is succeeding in the hearts and minds of Iranians as they demand freedom from the brutal rule of Khomeini and his successors—then it may lend new force to the liberal-democratic cause worldwide.

An excerpt from, “Caging terror: The ongoing saga of ISIS prison breaks” By Ahmed al-Rubaie, The Cradle, September 22, 2023:

In neighboring Syria, the situation has been vastly different as multitudes of ISIS members have managed to escape from areas controlled by Syrian opposition forces. The Syrian prison breaks have given the terrorist organization a newfound lease on life, enabling them to orchestrate a series of devastating attacks against the Syrian army and the US-backed Kurdish militia, the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). 

In June, a daring escape saw 37 ISIS leaders and members, hailing from various nationalities, including Iraq, Syria, Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait, break free from a prison located in Ras al-Ayn, an area under the influence of Syrian Turkmen opposition factions closely aligned with Turkiye.

On 27 August, the SDF imposed a strict curfew in Al-Hasakah, a city within the Autonomous Administration region in the northeast of Syria. This measure was in response to intelligence reports that ISIS cells were preparing for a mass escape attempt in Ghwayran Prison  – a detention facility housing thousands of ISIS members, from which a successful escape operation had been executed over a year and a half ago. 

In January 2022, dozens of ISIS fighters, including suicide bombers, under the direct supervision of the organization’s late leader, Abu al-Hassan al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi, carried out an attack on the prison to free an estimated 5,000 ISIS members. The attack led to hundreds escaping successfully before most of them were re-arrested in complex operations that lasted more than two weeks.

The Ghwayran prison breach forced the Kurdish Autonomous Administration to intensify efforts to repatriate non-Syrian ISIS prisoners – some, Iraqis – to their respective countries. For those who remained, the administration sought to subject them to judicial proceedings under both international and local laws governing terrorism. 

The prospect of prosecuting over 19,000 detainees from more than 40 countries, including high-ranking ISIS leaders, has been daunting for all involved parties. In fact, international indifference toward establishing an international court to adjudicate their cases – coupled with the reluctance of the detainees’ home countries to approve their return – has led to mounting concerns that more frequent prisoner escapes may ensue.