The Levant: from bad to worse

The Wilson Center hosted a panel yesterday entitled “The Middle East: A Region in Chaos?” to discuss the current situation in the Middle East and the U.S. government’s reaction to this situation. Jane Harman, Director, President, and CEO of the Wilson Center, introduced the speakers before the moderator, Michael Yaffe, Vice President, Middle East and Africa at the U.S. Institute of Peace, provided a brief summary of the many developments in the region in 2018. The panel included:

Robin Wright – USIP-Wilson Center Distinguished Fellow

Bruce Riedel – Senior Fellow and Director, Brookings Intelligence Project, Brookings Institution

Mona Yacoubian – Senior Advisor, Syria, Middle East and North Africa, U.S. Institute of Peace

Aaron David Miller – Vice President for New Initiatives and Middle East Program Director, Wilson Center.

This post will focus on the panel’s analysis of recent developments in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict and the Syrian Conflict. A previous post focused on the Iran/Saudi Arabia dimension.

As the conversation shifted to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Miller painted a bleak picture of future prospects for a two-state solution. At a time when Syria, Iraq, and Egypt – traditional, vocal allies of the Palestinian cause – are projecting less power across the region because of unrest at home, the US-Israel relationship has reached unprecedented strength. This realignment is a central premise of Jared Kushner’s peace plan strategy. Kushner hopes that aligning fully with Israel on previous roadblocks, such as the governance of Jerusalem, will take these issues off the table while heaping pressure on Netanyahu to accept concessions made to the Palestinians. At the same time, Palestinian demoralization with the current state of affairs will push them back to the negotiating table if any unexpected compromises are made. Miller argued that Kushner’s moves will have the opposite effect; Palestinian trust in America to be an honest broker has evaporated over the last six months, leaving them less inclined than ever even to engage with the United States to find a viable two-state solution.

Miller and Yacoubian also highlighted the diminishing US leadership as power vacuums emerge across the region due to the dysfunction of many Arab states. As Trump continues the Obama administration’s hands-off approach to the region, these voids are being filled by Russia, Turkey, Israel, and non-state actors. US aversion to conflict has also allowed Iran to dramatically increase its influence in Syria, leading to direct military engagement between Israel and the Islamic Republic. Yacoubian argued that a possible Israeli airstrike on Iranian positions close to the Syria-Iraq border could mean that more escalation is on the horizon. Paradoxically, continued hostilities could drag the United States into a proxy war between Israel and Iran fought in Syria and Iraq.

On the southern front, the Syrian Arab Army’s ongoing siege of Dera’a and Al-Quneitra provinces could force even more refugees to flee to Jordan. The Hashemite Kingdom is already reeling from the political blowback to tax hikes designed to combat the country’s ailing economy, and another refugee influx would further inflame internal tensions. Yacoubian argued that recent US inaction in Syria suggests that the State Department’s promise for “firm and appropriate measures” in response to cease fire violations in Southern Syria is also bluster, so Jordan is on its own. Yacoubian also revealed that efforts to convince the Kurds to leave Manbij and move east of the Euphrates in northern Syria could easily derail, leading to more violence, while Trump’s desire to quickly withdraw US. troops could leave a power vacuum that ISIS would exploit.

The Bottom Lines: The political situation in the Levant has gone from bad to worse over the last six months. Increased US support of Israel at the expense of Palestinian goodwill appears to have driven them away from the negotiating table completely, at least for now. In Syria, immediate US withdrawal will only lead to further destabilization. While the train has left the station for Trump to intervene in the south to limit further economic and political strain on Jordan, maintaining a presence in the east could prevent a resurgence of ISIS in this sparsely populated, US-controlled region.