MIDDLE EAST IN FLAMES 1/2

The world events that followed the start of the Special Military Operation, in February 2022, have certainly relaunched - especially in the West - a widespread interest in geopolitics, a subject that has been neglected for decades. This renewed interest, however, has not found much correspondence in the actual understanding of the dynamics that underlie it, also and above all in the European political elites.
Even those who try to make geopolitical analyses, moreover, often tend to take for granted things that, instead, are not so for the general public. One of the most common errors - in representation and therefore in understanding - is to focus attention on the main actors, falling, even involuntarily, into those dualistic schematizations that have characterized the previous decades, thus moving away from the complexity that instead characterizes the geopolitical vision.
With this awareness, we want to address the current Middle Eastern situation here – the most incandescent at the moment – ​​starting first from an overall assessment of the geopolitical framework, and then examining in the second part – with a closer look – the situation in the theater from a military perspective.

When we look at the conflict in the Middle East, we tend to exclude (or at least marginalize) the non-leading actors. We see Israel, with the United States behind them, and on the other side Iran with the various subjects of the Axis of Resistance. But in fact, even if at the moment the fighting is (relatively) limited to some areas, the shock wave of the conflict extends much more widely, and we must consider many more countries as (directly or indirectly) affected, in an area that we can roughly consider as extending from Turkey to the Horn of Africa, and from Egypt to Iran. In one way or another, all the nations that are there are variously involved in the upheavals that the conflict entails.
Fundamentally, it must be kept in mind that the governments of these countries - not always aligned with the feelings of their respective populations - establish the nature and quality of their geopolitical positioning, based on the country's interest and on the balance of power, regional and international.

Keeping these parameters in mind, we can read the entire context more clearly.
Leaving aside for the moment the case of Israel, which represents, as we will see, an anomaly in all respects, we can see how there are four major regional players: Turkey, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Egypt.
Turkey, a member of NATO (currently the second largest army in the Alliance), and long interested in joining the European Union, under the leadership of Erdogan has begun to slightly shift the axis of its positioning, often with wide margins of ambiguity. Without questioning its Atlanticist position, Ankara has essentially moved in more or less divergent directions compared to the past. It has developed a fruitful relationship with Russia – despite the conflict between NATO and Moscow – and has sought to build hegemony over the Turkic-speaking countries of Central Asia, and to expand it also in East Africa.

Its geographical position, however, projected towards the Black Sea and the Mediterranean, makes it a non-secondary player – in the Middle Eastern scenario – but with a role inferior to its potential capabilities, and above all to its ambitions.
The main problem for Turkey (apart from the internal ones, especially relative to the strong and combative Kurdish minority) is that its economic strength is not up to the role it aspires to, so fundamentally its geopolitical game is largely based on maintaining a borderline position, and with the necessary flexibility.
Relations with Israel and Iran are perfect examples of this.
On the one hand, Ankara is an excellent commercial partner of Tel Aviv, and does not intend (at least for the moment) to question its economic interests, even if it then makes extensive use of rhetoric against Israel – functional both to respond to the moods of the Turkish population, and to represent itself as the champion of Muslims.
For another, after having had a conflictual relationship with Iran, especially by virtue of the anti-Kurdish action carried out in Syria by the Turkish army (and by specific Turkmen militias), it then had to reconsider the terms of the relationship with Tehran, in light of the changes on the ground (defeat of the attempt to overthrow Assad, Syria's return to the Arab League, Iran-Saudi Arabia appeasement...), up to a substantial alignment with respect to the Palestinian conflict [1].

Similarly, Saudi Arabia has also had a similar path, even if - here too by virtue of its geographical positioning - Saudi involvement in regional balances is greater.
Historically, especially since the Islamic revolution in Iran, Riyadh has been the second strategic US ally in the Middle East [2], obviously after Israel. In this context, Saudi Arabia has always tried to counter the growing Iranian regional power, first in Syria (financing ISIS and pro-Western rebels), and in Yemen (leading the coalition that tried to defeat Ansarullah).
Obviously, and especially for a country like Saudi Arabia, the primary interest would be to pacificate the area, since wars are bad for trade. Although available to a relationship of mutual exchange and peaceful coexistence with Israel [3], Riyadh has had to take note of three elements that have emerged in recent years, and draw the necessary consequences.

On the one hand, the growing friction with Washington, especially around the issue of civil rights, which have been experienced as an annoying interference in internal affairs, and in fact as an American attempt to impose a more subordinate relationship, have pushed towards the search for different partnerships, capable of compensating for the loosening of relations with the USA. Hence, the new relations with Russia and the entry into BRICS+.
On the other hand, the growing diplomatic and military power of Iran, which (together with Russia) defeated the attempt to overthrow Assad, defeated the Saudi coalition in Yemen, established important relations with Russia and China, entered BRICS+ even before Riyadh, substantially changed the framework of regional political balances, finally pushing towards normalization, mediated by China.
And, finally, the show of force towards Israel (True Promise 1 and 2), which served as a regional warning not to underestimate Tehran's operational capabilities.

A third important player is Egypt, both for its geographical position and for its historical-political importance. Here too, we are faced with a country that moves in balance between the two fronts, a bit like Turkey. Cairo also has good commercial relations (and not only) with Israel, which in turn would have no reason to question - which in fact it does not do. It must however take into account the pro-Palestinian sentiment of the population (over 100 million, by far the most populous in the region). Governed by a military regime, which does not look favorably on political Islamism, it has a fairly precarious economic situation, such as to make it politically weaker than - in other respects - it could legitimately aspire to. In terms of its international positioning, it skirts between Russia and the United States, maintaining good relations with both; it tries to exert its influence towards the Horn of Africa (Sudan, Somalia, Ethiopia ...) and towards the Maghreb (eastern Libya), where it often finds itself aligned with Moscow.

Its close proximity to the Gaza Strip is obviously a factor of continuous tension and, while trying to stay out of the conflict in every way, it is still paying the consequences; the Ansarullah naval blockade in the Gulf of Aden, in fact, has not only caused the failure of the Israeli port of Eilat, but has also greatly damaged traffic through the Suez Canal. Just like Erdogan, Al Sisi is forced to play a defensive game, in which he struggles to find a significant role, and must still fly low, despite having a powerful army [4], precisely because of Egypt's structural weaknesses.
An important element that conditions Egyptian politics, as well as Saudi politics (and in general other countries in the region), is the difficult balance between immediate interests (trade with Israel, fear of its military strength) and long-term ones. The Arab countries, in fact, are well aware that the Zionist ideology - the inescapable foundation of the Jewish state - involves territorial ambitions that include a large part of their national territories. Which, moreover, many Israeli politicians are careful to reiterate periodically.

In fact, Israel's expansionist aims do not only concern the Palestinian territories of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, but extend over large swathes of Lebanese and Syrian territories (partly already illegally occupied), as well as parts of Jordan, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Egypt (Sinai). And the Arabs know that these are ambitions that are just waiting for the right moment to be put into action. From this point of view, therefore, it is generally in the Arab strategic interest to contain Israel; all the better if this is done by (and at the expense of) others. Ideally, for the Arabs, the optimal situation would in fact be a status quo that sees the creation of a balance of power between Israel and Iran, which would in turn act as a mutual containment. The Arabs, predominantly Sunni, do not look favorably on the rise of Iran, Shiite and Persian, as a regional hegemonic power. In this sense (as well as for the aforementioned commercial reasons), the Arab countries would prefer a two-state solution for the Palestinian question, because it would leave Israel standing and, by resolving the issue, would take away from Iran and the radical forces the main argument through which they hegemonize the Arab masses.

As for Iran itself, finally, we are faced with a country that, thanks to a far-sighted and well-cohesive leadership, has not only managed to resist US pressure for 45 years, but has also been able to make the most of the advantages deriving from its strategic position, avoiding the disadvantages, and increasingly establishing itself as an emerging regional power, and with great aspirations.
The Iranian geopolitical position is not, in many ways, ideal. Despite being a fairly large country, and with almost 90 million inhabitants, it has various ethnic minorities within it, especially along the borders - in particular, obviously, the Kurds [5]. The Persian population is, from an ethno-cultural point of view, different from that of the neighboring countries, which are predominantly Arab or Turkic-speaking. And, even if the prevailing religion is Muslim, common to the entire area, here the Shiite current prevails, which is generally a minority in the Islamic world.

Despite these handicaps, Iran has been able to find its own regional and global strategic position. In the regional context, especially through the creation of the Axis of Resistance and full support for Palestinian aspirations, it has not only assumed full leadership of the Shiite communities – Iraq, Lebanon, Yemen – but also of some of the Sunni and Christian ones – Palestine – or Alawite ones – Syria.
On the international level, it has developed excellent relations with Russia and China, placing itself in a central position with respect to the projects of large Eurasian trade routes. This position, especially after the Russian Federation, following the conflict in Ukraine, broke ties with the West and turned to the East, naturally represents a great growth prospect for the country, which has been subjected to US sanctions for forty years.
Of great importance, as mentioned, was also the assumption of the role of leader of the Resistance, first through the important military intervention in Syria, and then with the strengthening and coordination of all forces, in Lebanon, Iraq, Yemen and Palestine.

The creation of the Axis of Resistance must be seen in its strategic perspective, which is not merely pro-Palestinian, but has a broader scope. From Tehran's point of view, in fact, the state of Israel represents not only an obstacle to the birth of a Palestinian nation, but a fundamental pawn in the US hegemonic design in the region, as well as - with its territorial ambitions - a constant threat to the stability of the Middle East. The Iranian strategic and geopolitical objective, therefore, is the liberation of this fundamental area from the presence of the United States, and to achieve this objective the destruction of the Jewish state is necessary as a priority. Which, it is important to underline, has nothing to do with any form of anti-Semitism (assuming that the term has a meaning); within Iran, in fact, there is a Jewish community that lives peacefully, and is indeed largely integrated into the political and social system of the country. The problem is not the expulsion of the Jews from the Middle East, but the removal of the colonial state created by them to defend European interests first and then American ones.

Aside from these major players, the issue of the Palestinian conflict concerns and involves a much larger number of countries than the areas immediately adjacent to the combat zones.
Closest to the hot zones are first of all Syria and Jordan. The former is certainly the one most threatened by the conflict, both because it is already extremely weakened by the long years of war against the rebels financed by the USA, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Israel, and because its territory is still partially occupied. To the north, by the Turkmen militias supported by Ankara, to the south by the SDF, by ISIS (residual, but still present in some desert areas), as well as by the illegal military bases of the United States. At present, Damascus depends substantially on Russian and Iranian military support, and continues to suffer economically from the systematic robbery of its oil (the deposits are located in the areas controlled by the USA, which protect the convoys that fraudulently export it to Iraqi Kurdistan). In effect, Syria is the soft underbelly of the so-called Shiite crescent (Iran-Syria-Lebanon), and is also, as we will see in the second part, at risk of an Israeli military invasion.

Jordan, in turn, is located on the border of a hot but (not yet) very hot area, namely the West Bank, or the territory west of the Jordan River. Jordan is governed by the Hashemite monarchy, closely linked to Great Britain, but has a population that is partly Bedouin, partly of Palestinian origin. Always firmly aligned with Western and Israeli interests, it is potentially subject to becoming the rear base of a possible Palestinian guerrilla in the West Bank, and in any case at risk of instability. Even Amman, more recently, is trying to tone down its pro-Israel alignment, precisely for fear that the Axis of Resistance will exploit popular discontent to create its own cells there.

A little further away geographically, but closer politically, Iraq is substantially close to Iran, by virtue of a majority of the population of Shiite observance. Even if the government tries to maintain a more moderate position, in the country there is a strong presence of political-military organizations that are part of the Axis of Resistance, and that are engaged in a very low intensity war against the US bases in the country (which should be definitively dismantled by 2026) and against Israel. The political and geographical position of the country makes it the first logistical rear base of the anti-Israeli front, especially the Lebanese one, but the presence of US forces - and the internal balances with the strong Sunni minority - do not give great stability to Baghdad, which however aligned it is, would certainly need a long period of peace to stabilize definitively.

Going further east, we find a series of smaller countries, all more or less pro-Western and linked to Saudi Arabia: Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Oman, plus Yemen.
All these states, which live on oil, and overlook the Persian Gulf, obviously have an interest in keeping the channels open for their commercial traffic, which essentially means preventing the conflict from spreading to Iran – which in that case would block the Strait of Hormuz. They are all very small, mostly desert, rich in petrodollars but unable to exercise any real power of their own.
Adjacent to Saudi Arabia – of which they are, even geographically, little more than offshoots – they fall into its political orbit. They are predominantly Sunni, although in Bahrain there is a significant Shiite minority. Many of these countries host US and British military bases. An obvious exception is Yemen, a Shiite nation, closely linked to Iran (thanks to which it was able to win the war with Saudi Arabia) and part of the Axis of Resistance, in which it is very active, both for the selective naval blockade in the Gulf of Aden and for missile attacks on Israel [6].

West of the Red Sea, we find Sudan, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Djibouti and Somalia. These countries, mostly already afflicted by enormous internal problems (civil war in Sudan, separatism in Ethiopia, chaos and warlords in Somalia...) are only affected by the conflict in a reflex way, but are also at risk. In Djibouti, for example, there are important American and English bases, which could become targets, in the event of an expansion of the conflict. And in Somaliland (an autonomous Somali region in the north of the country) Israel is considering installing a military base to counter Shiite Yemen, which is located right on the other side of the Gulf of Aden.

Finally, we have the Israeli anomaly. An anomaly because, to begin with, it is a foreign body. The state of Israel, in fact, is not only a colonial creation of Great Britain, but was founded by European settlers, brought here by the fear of European anti-Semitism [7] and by the messianic illusion of a right to those lands, deriving from a presumed assignment of the same by God himself. This foreignness, which could have been avoided, if only the foundation of the state had been based on the common Semitic identity of the populations, regardless of religious belief, and therefore on equal dignity, has instead been violently emphasized from the beginning. The foundation of Zionist ideology, in fact, was not only to deny this common identity, but even to establish an ontological hierarchy: the Palestinian Arabs were not only an inconvenient presence to be freed from, in order to occupy their lands and appropriate their goods, but they were real untermenschen, “human animals” (in the expression of Minister Gallant). In essence, the European Jews who fled the old continent because they were considered an inferior race, replicated the same attitude as soon as they arrived in Palestine.

The Israeli state, therefore, since its birth (and not only since its proclamation as a Jewish state, in 2018) has characterized itself as an apartheid regime. This is another characteristic of European colonial regimes. Aware of its own extraneousness, but at the same time believing itself invested by divine right to the exclusive possession of those territories, Israel has from the beginning placed itself in a hostile condition towards neighboring countries. Indeed, it has literally theorized the need to impose its presence through terror, to the point of articulating a specific military doctrine. This original characterization has then been further accentuated and underlined, in the following decades, when Israel has on the one hand increasingly characterized itself as a Western country, in every way different from the rest of the Middle East, and on the other - placing itself as the linchpin of the US imperialist presence in the region - has assumed the role of gendarme of a foreign and hostile power.

This summary of the geopolitical context of the Middle East should help to understand the complex dynamics that characterize it, and which are obviously not only the military ones that are currently bloodying the area. To put it briefly, it is not all black and white, there is no here and there so clearly marked and distinguishable. Each actor, large or small, pursues its own interests, which do not always coincide with those of friendly and/or allied countries. It follows that even political positions can be more or less nuanced, sometimes ambiguous, but always potentially changeable - because the balance of power is changeable. Having taken this step back, in order to have a broader view of the situation, even the reading of the geographical map - which is always good to take a look at, to understand the spatial aspects (dimensions, distances, positions ...) - should be enriched. And it serves as an introduction to the reading of the maps, that is, to the analysis of what is happening on the battlefield, which we will examine in the second part. Because then, in turn, the outcomes of the war will influence in various ways, and at different times, the balance of power in the region; and therefore will change its geopolitical nature.

Notes

1 – A few days ago, Erdogan made a statement addressing Iranian Foreign Minister Araghchi, arguing that Iran and Turkey should work more closely together to counter Israel.

2 – The United States has always tried to have two allies in the region, so as to balance their weight. As long as Shah Reza Pahlavi was in power, this role was covered by Iran, before moving on to Saudi Arabia. The cooling of relations between Washington and Riyadh has meant that Israel’s specific weight has increased considerably, unbalancing US Middle Eastern policy.

3 – Recently, Prince Regent Mohammed bin Salman is said to have declared that he personally does not care about the Palestinians, but that he cannot ignore the opinion of the kingdom’s subjects.

4 – Egypt is the African country with the most powerful armed forces, ranking 15th globally, with a score of 0.2283, in the 2024 ranking of the most powerful armies in the world, published by the American defense website Global Fire Power (Gfp).

5 – The Kurdish populations straddle the territory of four states: Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Iran, and obviously demand the foundation of a national state. In particular, very active political and military formations are active in Turkey and Syria. The complexity of the regional geopolitical situation has unfortunately pushed a part of the Kurdish forces to find shelter under the US umbrella. In particular in Syria, where the Kurdish resistance formations have allied themselves with other opposition formations to form the SDF (Syrian Democratic Forces), which operate under the protection of illegal US bases, and in Iraq, where following the Gulf wars the (de facto autonomous) state of Kurdistan was created, which is also pro-American. In both cases – SDF and Iraqi Kurdistan – there is also extensive collaboration with Israeli intelligence services.

6 – Yemen is in fact divided into two parts: the south-western part is controlled by Ansarullah, while the north-eastern part is controlled by a pro-Saudi government.

7 – A clarification on the term and the concept it expresses is necessary here. Anti-Semitism, understood as hostility towards those who practice the Jewish religion, is an absolutely European product. This is obviously not the place to investigate the historical motivations, but the fact remains that historically there is substantially no trace of hostility towards Jews in the Middle East. The term itself – anti-Semitism – arises from the fact that originally Jews believed themselves to have remotely come from Palestine, a land whose populations were in fact Semitic. The identification of the Jews as Semites, therefore, was not intended to establish an exclusive overlap of terms, but simply arose from the fact that the Jews were (or were believed to be) communities of Semitic origins; in short, they were the only Semites significantly present in Europe. This hostility towards the Jews, rooted above all – but not only – in the Anglo-Saxon countries, has remote origins, but over the course of the last century it reached the height of its virulence. The planned and systematically applied extermination, especially in the 1940s, then gave impetus to the Zionist project, pushing many European Jews to flee – precisely – from this anti-Semitism, and to seek refuge in this promised land of the Middle East. It is therefore evident that the use of the term anti-Semitism, in the context of Palestine, is simply meaningless, since there everyone – Arabs and Jews – are Semites. Just as it is evident that labeling any criticism of the government of Israel or of Zionism as anti-Semitic is not only misleading (it would be like saying that a criticism of the government of Germany can be defined as anti-Aryan, or even just as anti-German), but clearly the result of semantic manipulation, through which supporters of Israel try to use feelings of guilt and shame over the Holocaust to deflect any blame towards Israeli behavior.