The New Middle East and the Greater Middle East are two terms we have heard and read about in more than one study and analysis, and these terms were circulated recently as an American strategy, with Western blessing and silence, to arrange the Middle East as they wish, increasing their dominance over the East and wisely controlling it, placing all peoples, governments, resources, and wealth at their disposal.
In brief, they wanted and planned to fragment the fragmented and divide the divided so that the Middle East would remain a playground for their colonial interests, with its only concern being internal conflicts and ethnic and sectarian wars planned by the American strategist as part of the New Middle East project.
To achieve this goal, building a new Middle East, which was a fundamental pillar for cementing American dominance over the world after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the failure of the socialist experiment, and unleashing savage globalization, the American establishment used all its political, military, and diplomatic cunning over the past quarter century.
Four American presidents tried and experimented with all their plans, weapons, and influence to achieve this goal. We are now witnesses to the beginning of the failure of their colonial project.
A quick look back at history shows that everything the American establishment planned to consolidate its savage globalization by taming the Middle East (as part of the comprehensive globalization plan) and rebuilding it on its scale did not succeed. Neither direct wars through military force, as in the destruction of Iraq and Libya, nor wars instigated by its allies in the East—from the constant Zionist war on the Palestinian people, igniting civil war in Algeria, the cold war between Morocco and Algeria, multiple wars and battles in Lebanon, the division of Sudan, the war on Syria, the war on Yemen, to fomenting internal fighting through political assassinations such as those of the late Hariri and Yasser Arafat—nor the American carrot-and-stick policy through futile peace negotiations and economic ties under American and Zionist dominance succeeded.
Also, the policy of reviving the new Ottoman Sultanate led by the Turkish Brotherhood Erdoğan and with the help of Brotherhood factions in the Arab world failed and was broken by the legendary Syrian steadfastness.
The New Middle East that the United States and its ruling institutions—intelligence agencies, think tanks, the Pentagon, and diplomacy—wanted had to be based on four axioms.
First: Israel’s military superiority and ensuring its eternal existence; second: igniting sectarian and ethnic conflicts and then fragmenting the states established by Sykes-Picot under the pretext of removing the very conflicts they ignited; third: tightening the grip of ruling families working for the American administration for decades, led by the Al Saud family; and finally: aborting the Palestinian cause either with the Palestinian leadership’s approval of a solution satisfying Israel or by bypassing the issue at the official Arab level.
As I mentioned earlier, none of this succeeded as planned. Today, we follow daily the failures of this strategy and see the disastrous results of its failure on the ground.
In my reading and analysis of the political reality in the Middle East, I start from the fact that we are facing a renewed Middle Eastern reality (renewed because it has not yet been completed in its final form, although its features become clearer day by day on the ground), which differs completely from what it was six years ago and differs fundamentally from what the American administration planned over the past quarter century.
The features of this renewed Middle East can be followed in the following points:
First: The new Ottoman project led by the Turkish Brotherhood and the participation of Arab Brotherhood factions in key states to dominate the Middle East has become a thing of the past. Not only that, but Turkey’s position as a key regional actor is now in crisis, as is the Arab Brotherhood movement. I expect Turkey’s regional status and influence to shrink further.
Second: The Palestinian people are distancing themselves day by day from their political leadership, and their options for resistance to expel the occupation no longer align with the leadership’s choices after the people turned their backs at the start of the peace process and gave it a long chance to prove that Zionist intentions toward the Palestinian people and their vital issues had changed. In other words, taming the Palestinian people failed, and the option of resistance in its various forms, especially popular resistance, has become the new reality of the Palestinian situation.
Third: The American plan to change regimes in the Middle East by force, as happened in Libya and Syria, met with catastrophic failure. In Libya, we now speak of a quasi-state and quasi-government with complete security chaos. State institutions no longer exist, and no alternative to the old system has formed. In Syria, the people and leadership stood firm against the project of destruction and division, the army stood behind the president and political leadership, and prevented the country’s fragmentation as planned. Syria’s steadfastness by its people and leadership has become a beacon and a struggle program emulated by the peoples of the region.
Syria’s steadfastness was the essential coffin plank to bury the American New Middle East project with its various branches, and it was also the backbone for beginning to build the renewed Middle East.
Fourth: The influential regional powers—Egypt, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia—have lost their regional status; their influence has shrunk, and they have become preoccupied internally with political, military, and economic turmoil. Each of these countries alone is no longer capable of being a significant regional power comparable to a rising regional power like Iran.
The only regional power shining in the renewed Middle East is Iran. It is a military, diplomatic, and networked power par excellence, in addition to being an economic and scientific power surpassing all in the East.
Fifth: The main international player in the Middle East changed since Russia entered alongside Syria in its war on terrorism. Today, after the withdrawal of American naval fleets from Syrian coasts in 2013 without starting the expected war on Syria, Russia has become the main influential power in the policies of all Middle Eastern countries, not just its allies.
Today, we can see not only the return of the Russian player to the Middle Eastern arena with momentum and strength but also a noticeable decline of the American and European players. A new international power is Russia, and a new regional power is Iran, supported directly by China and blessed by India, Brazil, South Africa, and reluctantly accepted by Europe. All this leads us to say that we are at the heart of a renewed Middle East whose features become clearer day by day.
Sixth: Since Iran’s entry into the Syrian war alongside the Syrian leadership and people, Russia’s full involvement in fighting terrorism and protecting Syria’s unity in land and people, Syrian-Iraqi military coordination to fight terrorism, Hezbollah’s support for Syria in its war against division, the overwhelming majority of Arab peoples’ support for Syria’s unity and protection of its independence and entity from domination, and some Arab regimes siding with the Syrian people’s freedom to determine their destiny and elect their political leadership on one hand, and on the other hand, Saudi Arabia’s aggressive war on Yemen with American support and Israeli and Arab participation in this brutal aggression, and Saudi intervention in Bahraini affairs to suppress the peaceful revolution entering its sixth year, we face a renewed Middle East with two camps and no third: the resistance and sovereignty camp protecting peoples’ sovereignty and lands, and the aggression and domination camp.
In this renewed Middle East, there is no place for neutrality. You are either with the resistance, sovereignty, and peoples’ freedom to determine their destiny, or you side with aggression and domination.
Within this equation, I divide Middle Eastern countries as follows:
First: The resistance camp: Syria, Iran, Iraq, and Yemen, alongside Hezbollah and with clear support and blessing from Algeria, Tunisia, and Egypt (although Egypt, due to its internal economic and political strike situation, has not yet fully decided).
Second: The aggression and domination camp: Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, Turkey, Israel, and Jordan.
Third: The swing camp: These have not yet decided for various reasons that are beyond the scope of this analysis. This camp includes Morocco, Lebanon, and Palestine. Morocco and the official Palestinian leadership have sided with Saudi Arabia in its aggression on Yemen, and their statements about Syria are scarce and almost nonexistent. Lebanon has its particularity; President Aoun and several political forces clearly stand with the resistance camp, but Prime Minister Saad Hariri and his current, supported by the Jumblatt current, remain hostage to their financial and political ties to the Gulf and harbor hostility toward the Syrian leadership, wielding the sword of their Gulf masters.
Returning to the article’s title, we say that Palestine is swinging between the dominant leadership’s position, linked to Western and Saudi money, and the majority of the people’s position, which opposes aggression on Yemen, opposes the war on Syria, and clearly stands with the resistance camp.
The people’s position is supported partially and discreetly by leftist democratic political forces. Hamas, after the military coup in Gaza and its alliance with the Brotherhood in what is called the Arab Spring and putting its eggs in the Turkish-Qatari basket, has become far from being the master of its decision in Middle Eastern affairs. It does not have independent decision-making power on the internal Palestinian issue, so how could it have greater decision-making power regarding the region and its fate?
The resistance camp confirms day by day that its compass is Palestine and the liberation of Palestine, while the aggression and domination camp works diligently to normalize its relations with the Zionist occupier.
This is the equation concerning the Palestinian cause.
We are certain that state policies are shaped by interests and determined by increasing influence. But what is the interest of the Palestinian leadership in siding with the camp working hard to eliminate the Palestinian cause and circumvent the Palestinian people’s desire to liberate their land from Zionist occupation through normalization and economic, scientific, and military coordination with the Zionist occupier?
These facts are no longer political analysis but existing reality: Israeli experts and pilots participate alongside Saudi Arabia in its aggression on Yemen; two days ago, the UAE and Israel conducted joint air exercises, and Qatar and other Gulf countries openly trade with Israel, despite the increasing brutality of their occupation in Palestine day by day.
The new Zionist scenario no longer relies on the gateway of normalization with Arabs being Palestine. Instead, it relies on aborting the Palestinian cause and forcing the Palestinian leadership to accept crumbs through accelerated normalization with the aggression and domination camp, which has become its backbone.
Palestinian lamenting over the increasing Gulf-Israeli brotherhood is futile. What is required is a clear stance on the alignments in the renewed Middle East to save what can be saved after rescue.
The Palestinian people and leadership face an important historical juncture, similar to the situation after the 1973 war. The Palestinian cause needs a new political program that takes into account the immense changes that have occurred in the region and the political, social, and economic changes that have swept occupied Palestine in the past quarter century, in addition to a new political agenda, a new qualitative alignment, and a new struggle program based on the new geopolitical reality in occupied Palestine.
The military showmanship used as a 'cage' for the masses no longer suffices and must be replaced by effective means of struggle for the Palestinian people that hurt the occupation and its entity.
Finally, I doubt that this shift is possible under the current Palestinian leadership. Here, I exclude no one, neither the ruling party, nominal opposition, nor separatist Brotherhood factions.
