Strategic Insecurity After Saddam: Whither Regional Security in a World Turned Upside Down?
Abstract
Veteran Middle Eastern analyst and former Clinton Administration official Martin Indyk recently characterized the Middle East as being turned "upside down" in the aftermath of the U.S. invasion of Iraq. It's hard to argue with his assessment. The Iraq invasion has unleashed wide-ranging forces that are re-ordering the internal and external dynamics of regional security that could see the region plunged into a prolonged period of strategic insecurity. External politics have been altered in important ways. The political empowerment of the Shi-ite majority in Iraq, the establishment of an autonomous Kurdish region in northern Iraq, and the accompanying loss of influence by Iraq's Sunni community is profoundly altering the regional balance of power. Iraq no loner serves as the Sunni bulwark against Shi-ite and Iranian expansion, and the Sunni Gulf State monarchies (and Jordan) now find themselves as frontline states against an emerging Iranian-dominated alliance comprised of Iraq, Syria and Hizbollah in Lebanon. Iran's seemingly inexorable march towards achieving a nuclear weapons capability makes this alliance particularly disturbing to the Gulf States. In confronting these adversaries, the Sunni states also disturbingly find that the region's guarantor of security, the United States, in a weakened position. The limits of American military power on display in Iraq is combined with reduced political influence as a cumulative result of policy choices made by the United States over the last six years. Confronted by a series of conflicting messages from Washington that at various times emphasized democracy, transparency and human rights and at other times demanded cooperation in the so-called war on terrorism, the region's elites are contemplating alternative arrangements to deal with the regional insecurity billowing out of Iraq and the rising power of Iran.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Mar 01, 2007
- Accession Number
- ADA519738
Entities
People
- James Russell III
Organizations
- Naval Postgraduate School