Webinar: Washington Between a Turkish State Problem and a Kurdish Solution
Biden Administration’s Policy Towards Middle East
Thank you for the Washington Kurdish Institute also, Najmaldin Karim is somebody that I knew quite well and miss him a great deal.
It seems that the impression is that the United States is trying to wean itself out of the Middle East. It wants to focus on the Pacific. The Middle East has been a source of great deal of unhappiness for American administrations, it’s been wars, unsuccessful war, and unsuccessful peace efforts. It doesn’t look like the United States has gotten a great deal from all the efforts it has put into the Middle East. Clearly, the rise of China is a far more challenging foreign policy issue for the United States.
As far as the Biden administration is concerned, it came into office with maybe the only priority in the Middle East being the famous Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the nuclear agreement with Iran that the Trump administration had pulled out. The administration is now trying to resuscitate that, and it has put in a lot of effort into that. We don’t know if it will provide results yet, but nonetheless, that has been the single most important focus when it comes to the Middle East.
The Middle East Remain Important for the Word
I would argue that despite all these rumors of American disinvolvement in the Middle East, this is something that is probably not very realistic. The Middle East is an area that always sucks you back in; it doesn’t leave you alone. We just witnessed the Israel-Hamas war two weeks ago, but more importantly, I would argue that the Middle East is still a very important part of the world.
All you have to do is look at its location; it sits at the crossroads. If you think of the Middle East as being Turkey to Saudi Arabia, Morocco to Iran, this is a very large area with lots of internal contradictions and internal problems, and all of these problems have a tendency to export themselves elsewhere.
You can essentially think of the Middle East as having tentacles all over the world. Even in terms of the human aspect, look at the number of refugees that have come out of the Middle East, look at the size of the diaspora, especially in Europe, these are all political factors that make the Middle East least in some ways still a very, very important area.
People are also talking about the post-oil world; we are talking about climate change and trying to reduce our carbon footprint and reduce dependence on oil. The fact of the matter is that this transition will take a long time and oil will still remain an important factor in our economies. So from that point of view to think that the Middle East’s oil is no longer an important factor and effective by the way which consumed a great deal of American resources in terms of keeping the ship lines open et cetera over the years, oil will remain as an important factor. I would argue that the Middle East is still important.
Revisionist Powers in the Middle East
The other fact when it comes to the Middle East, is that in the Middle East today, you have a number of actors, which I would essentially define as the revisionist powers. By revisionist I mean, powers that are intent on changing to their own benefit obviously, the structures, the relationships, the equation in the region. These include Iran, Turkey, and Russia.
Russia is getting involved and has been involved in the Middle East for a long time, but now we see especially with the war in Syria. It has a real stake. It has invested heavily in Syria, but more of Russia as part of its superpower status, also from the American perspective, an unnerving tendency to try to undermine whatever the United States is doing.
You can also think of China as a revisionist power looking into coming into the region, and maybe that’s too early. But the fact of the matter is that we have seen both Iran for very, very long time and Turkey, especially in last decade under President Erdogan (the first decade of Erdogan was a little bit different than the second decade), where you have essentially a Turkey that is far more aggressive, far more willing to take risks, far more willing to challenge the status quo. As we have heard and have seen, there’s now Turkish military involvement in many parts of the Middle East. In some ways I think Turkey has become a very unpredictable power.
President Biden Experience with the Middle East & Kurdistan
When it comes to the administration and whether or not it has a Middle East policy in this context. I think everybody will say if it has a Middle East policy, then we don’t know what it is, right. As I said earlier, the JCPOA is the only thing we know, specifically, but I would argue “Senator” Biden is someone who knows him at least better than probably anybody in his administration, all of them put together, I would say. He’s been involved in all parts of the Middle East, including Kurdistan and Iraq, and has very different ideas.
One thing we have seen about president Biden is that in many, many ways, the person everybody thought would be the middle of the road, is almost revolutionary one, at least in terms of domestic American policy. I suspect that once he thinks he has domestic policy under control, he will focus more on foreign policy. This is a person who spent most of his career in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Therefore has very, very well-developed ideas that he has not yet communicated to the American public. This is a hunch. I’m not saying it will happen, but my guess is that we will see at some point in his tenure a major foreign policy strategy emerge.
Clearly, President Biden, in his previous years, has been very, very involved in Kurdistan. He knows the Kurdish region exceedingly well, has at times done things that the Kurds have not liked, but at times has said things that the Kurds liked very much. Starting with his famous op-ed with Leslie Gelb in 2006, where he said, could you actually be divided into three relatively autonomous regions, of course with the Kurds having their own, being part of Iraq but still kind of an extended federal arrangement. Then, of course, he also did upset the Kurds by trying to get Mam Jalal to give up the presidency for the Ayad Allawi that backfired. But nonetheless, This is also in 2015, I believe he said that ‘one day we will, in our lifetime, see independent Kurdistan.’
I think his involvement, whether it’s from Operation Provide Comfort to today with the Kurdish region, is actually quite, quite deep. We have heard American officials, whether at the White House or the Pentagon, say that the United States has a strategic relationship with Erbil, and it is true that at least militarily and intelligence wise, the Kurdish region is emerging as an important hub for American military’s indulgent activities. But I suspect that Biden’s approach, once it becomes clear, will be far more nuanced and far more developed than anything that the administration at the moment has been saying about this issue.