Henry Kissinger: A Path Out of the Middle East Collapse
With Russia in Syria, a geopolitical structure that lasted four decades is in shambles. The U.S. needs a new strategy and priorities.
The debate about whether the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action with Iran regarding its nuclear program stabilized the Middle East’s strategic framework had barely begun when the region’s geopolitical framework collapsed. Russia’s unilateral military action in Syria is the latest symptom of the disintegration of the American role in stabilizing the Middle East order that emerged from the Arab-Israeli war of 1973.
In the aftermath of that conflict, Egypt abandoned its military ties with the Soviet Union and joined an American-backed negotiating process that produced peace treaties between Israel and Egypt, and Israel and Jordan, a United Nations-supervised disengagement agreement between Israel and Syria, which has been observed for over four decades (even by the parties of the Syrian civil war), and international support of Lebanon’s sovereign territorial integrity. Later, Saddam Hussein’s war to incorporate Kuwait into Iraq was defeated by an international coalition under U.S. leadership. American forces led the war against terror in Iraq and Afghanistan. Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf States were our allies in all these efforts. The Russian military presence disappeared from the region.
WNU Editor: He is correct that the geopolitical structure that has existed in the Middle East for decades is now in shambles. But I disagree with his view that countries like Iran can be incorporated in a regional dialogue that will be amenable to our interests. Iran's mullahs have always been driven by their ideology, and that ideology .... especially the radical aspects of it .... have in the past been completely contrary to Western interests. On top of that .... the Sunni Arab states have also proven to be unreliable .... they have always had their own agenda, doubly so after the Iranian nuclear deal. Niall Ferguson in the above video is correct .... Kissinger has at times been an idealist, and it shows in this WSJ commentary.