America’s Role in the New Middle East

[TomSea]

America’s Role in the New Middle East
The Need for a Coherent and Defined Strategy
by Dennis Ross
23 November,2018

For most policy-makers and pundits, the Middle East has long been a tinderbox.  American presidents in the past feared a US-Soviet confrontation in the event of Arab-Israeli wars.  Richard Nixon, at the outset of his presidency, said a major effort was needed to prevent a war.  In no small part, he said that’s because he believed that the US retained vital interests in the region.

Today, the Middle East remains highly unstable.  Terrible conflicts in Syria and Yemen continue, and have taken a horrendous human toll.  Iran is active and employing the tool of Shia militias as it seeks to extend its influence throughout the Arab Middle East.  With its effort to build a military infrastructure, embed the Revolutionary Guard and deepen Shia militia presence in Syria, the potential for a wider conflict with Israel has grown significantly.  But multiple militaries are either in Syria or are operating there.  Any area that has the militaries of the Syrians, Russians, the Turks, the Iranians, the Americans, and Israelis in close proximity is bound to be unstable and contain the seeds of escalation.

So far de-confliction has prevented a wider war, but there are new uncertainties after the Russians blamed the Israelis for the downing of one of their planes and the fifteen personnel who were on broad and were killed.  Even though it was a Syrian missile that downed the plane and Israeli aircrafts that had carried out a strike were already back in Israel, the Russians could not blame the very forces they have intervened to save.  In the aftermath of this event, the Russian tone toward Israel has changed—even as the Israelis have declared they will continue to hit Iranian/Syrian/Shia militia targets that might be the site of qualitatively new weapons that Israel sees as posing unacceptable threats to the Jewish state.

Read more at: http://eng.majalla.com/node/48156/america%E2%80%99s-role-in-the-new-middle-east?platform=hootsuite