Anyone paying attention to what passes for American policy in the Middle East could be excused for believing they were suffering from whiplash.
One day President Donald Trump is giving Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan the green light to smash a Kurdish militia allied with the US; the next, he is threatening to obliterate Turkey’s economy if it persists with its offensive in northern Syria.
Whatever interpretation might be placed on these confusing developments, it is hard to conclude other than that Trump’s intervention represents a shameful sellout of a US ally whose deaths number more than 10,000 in the fight against Islamic State.
From an Australian perspective, this whole episode raises troubling questions. Just how reliable is America as an ally under Trump? Ask the Kurds.
Former Republican presidential candidate Senator Mitt Romney echoes the views of many on his side of politics when he describes the abandonment of an ally as a "bloodstain in the annals of American history".
In short, Trump’s betrayal of the Kurds has caused an unravelling in what had been a relatively stable corner of the Middle East where a Kurdish militia backed by a relatively small deployment of US Special Forces was maintaining a semblance of calm.
Worse than that, apart from the mayhem that has accompanied Turkey’s surge across the Syrian border, is the space that has been accorded Russia to expand its Middle East footprint.
Not just Russia and its client, Syria, by the way, but Iran and Turkey, as well. All three powers – Russia, Iran and Turkey – are in a quasi-alliance under what is known as the Astana process, in which they are participating in a UN-backed committee for Syria aimed at producing a constitution and preparing for elections.
Iran may be under economic pressure due to a US-imposed sanctions regime, but this has not curbed its regional ambitions to spread its power and influence in an arc that stretches across Iraq, to Syria and Lebanon on the borders of Israel and Jordan.
This is a new Middle East "great game" in which America risks becoming a bit player confined to the margins of a region in which its role as a stabilising factor had long been taken for granted.
The US President’s desire to end America’s involvement in “endless wars’’ in the Middle East is understandable and politically appealing, but implementation of a withdrawal on the ground requires the sort of deftness that appears foreign to a White House in which process has given way to chaos. None of this is to say the US would be incapable of re-asserting itself in the event of a change of administration or a full-blown Middle East crisis – after all, it has massive firepower concentrated in the Gulf – but its ability to influence developments is diminished as Russia rises.
We can trace this erosion, most immediately, to the ill-advised rush to war in Iraq in 2003. The costs of this ill-fated exercise are incalculable. Unquestionably, the main beneficiaries of a disastrous exercise have been Iran and Russia at the expense of America’s traditional allies.
Australian policymakers, whose record on reading the Middle East correctly is abysmal, as evidenced by the Iraq folly, would be advised to reflect carefully on these latest Middle East developments.
Now, to the 120-hour ceasefire along the Syrian border negotiated by Vice-President Mike Pence on a hasty visit to Ankara late last week. While Washington characterises Turkey’s undertakings as a "ceasefire", Turkish officials are describing an agreement to enable Kurdish YPG militias to withdraw from a 32-kilometre "safe zone" with their heavy weapons as a "pause".
Having reported countless Middle East "ceasefires" I can tell you they are rarely worth their diplomatic ink. So-called ceasefires, or pauses, are simply excuses for one side or the other to gain further advantage. Despite Trump’s claim that his reckless intervention has paid off in the form of Turkey’s agreement to a ceasefire/pause thanks to "an unconventional tough approach", the reality is that Ankara has got much of what it sought. This is the effective occupation of several hundred kilometres along its border that would separate a Kurdish enclave in Syria from the troublesome Kurds in Turkey where PKK terrorists have waged a decades-long war against Ankara.
In effect, and with American connivance, Erdogan has extended Turkey’s territorial grab into the Kurdish homeland and in the process shifted the pieces in a Middle East kaleidoscope. To what end is not clear. What is clear, however, is that Russia at this stage is the main beneficiary.
Consider these two unthinkable – until recently – developments of the past week.
In Riyadh, Saudi Arabia’s King Salman greeted Russian President Vladimir Putin with words that will have reverberated in Washington. “Saudi Arabia appreciates Russia’s active role in this region and in the world,’’ said the king.
In the United Arab Emirates, a day later, the UAE’s de facto ruler, Prince Mohammed bin Zayed, said this in Putin’s presence: “I think of Russia as my second home. We are connected by a deep strategic relationship.’’
Erdogan is scheduled to meet Putin in Sochi on Russia’s Black Sea early this week.