US recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital

Strategic consequences of US recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital: Iran is gaining in the regional power equation.

The US President’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital breaks with a decade-old position of US presidents not to adhere to Israel’s most fundamental claim. The decision has triggered wide-spread opposition in the Muslim world and also Europe’s refusal to support that move. The problematic global reception of the decision may have seriously  impacted the US Administration since State Department officials are pretending that the actual move of the US Embassy from Tel Aviv into premises in West-Jerusalem already prepared to take more than just consular services will take some time “for logistical reasons”, which is seen as an excuse not to move now. The Administration seems to be hesitantly awaiting unpredictable next moves by the President on a “Middle East peace plan” for which there is no visible blueprint apart from the full engagement of the President’s son-in-law and most senior advisor for Middle East policies, Jared Kushner.

The international strategic community got accustomed to recognize in most recent developments in the region a “US-Israel-Saudi bloc”. Such a concept would insinuate that earlier subtly balanced US approaches to regional antagonisms have become secondary for American strategies, just as the perennial Israeli-Arab conflict over Palestine has been pushed back to a lower priority by Saudi Arabia. The “US-Israel-Saudi bloc” is a concept aiming at containing Iran’s growing influence in the region. For some, this bloc has left a “trail of tears” in Qatar, Lebanon and Yemen and has generated the growing global perception that the region’s problem does not lie in Iran’s capital Tehran, but rather in Washington, Tel Aviv and Riyadh. The rejection of the Jerusalem decision by the international Muslim community, although emotionally unequivocal, has not produced a strong united front against it. The OIC-Organisation of Islamic Cooperation’s summit in Istanbul under the chairmanship of Turkey’s President Erdogan was united in the chairman’s strong words, but was clearly not solid under the surface. The Saudis, e.g., had sent their minister of religious affairs, indicating, thus, that for them it was not a summit, and other Arab powers represented at the summit will not take any meaningful action either in favour of a Palestinian State. The rest of the Arab world outside government circles, however, will resent it for long. So, the summit articulated the rejection of the US decision, but revealed again the inability of regional governments to coordinate effectively their actions. Their individual interests keep priority.

Iran, on the other hand, is gaining strength in its position on the Middle East. While the “US-Israel-Saudi bloc” has as a priority goal to prevent the so-called “Shiite Arch” running from Lebanon to the Persian Gulf and protecting Iran’s security, recent developments triggered by the USA, Israel and Saudi Arabia had just the opposite effect: to promote the rise of Iran’s influence in the region. Iran is maintaining their ally Hizbollah’s dominant position in Lebanon, which, at the same time has a stabilising effect on the country’s cohesion; Iran has decisively contributed to keep the Alawites under Bashir al-Assad in power in Damascus and thus prevented a regime change in Syria; Iran is developing its influence in Shiite-governed Iraq (liberated from Sunni-Saddam Hussein-rule by the USA in 2003!), and Iran is building a political and economic partnership in the Gulf with Qatar, which hosts the largest military base of US forces in the region.

Measured against the long-term impact of current trends, the USA is losing some of its influence in the region, because it is more and more seen as exclusively siding with Israel and the Saudis and antagonising the rest of the people of the region. Israel may dream of hegemony, at least over its neighbours, and does not understand that with such hasty and bold moves as the Jerusalem “coup” it is isolating itself even more from the regional environment in the long run. The Saudis, finally, may still be in a position to “buy” their partners like Jordan, Egypt, and even the United States by spending billions for military hardware for which they lack sufficiently professional personnel , but they are antagonising the non-Gulf Arab States of the region and possibly their own people. On the other side, Iran is winning in the competition for power and influence by getting it its way in Syria, in Iraq, in Qatar and possibly in Lebanon and by upholding the JCPOA, the “Nuclear Deal” with world powers. It is noteworthy that the US Congress has not accepted their President’s tactic gamble to cancel the Nuclear Deal; Europeans and also idependentUS strategic experts have made clear that the US would be isolated if they left the Agreement with Iran. Iran is still lacking the means and possibilities to lobby for their interests in the US, but has everything at hand to maintain the current rise with a view of regaining hegemony in the Gulf. A direct military confrontation between Iran and Saudi Arabia is improbable because Iran is aware that it would start with a technological disadvantage and because the Saudis know that they would never be able to sustain the unpredictable development of war, for which they lack strategic depth, manpower, social cohesion and historic statehood experience.

Picture: rwayne307