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The Middle East is metamorphosing. New fault-lines are emerging, yet Trump's foreign policy 'hawks' still try to stage 'old movies' in a new 'theatre'.
The 'old movie' is for the US to 'stand up' Sunni, Arab states, and lead them towards confronting 'bad actor' Iran. 'Team Bolton' is reverting back to the old 1996
Clean Break script - as if nothing has changed. State Department officials have been
briefing that Secretary Pompeo's address in Cairo on Thursday was " slated to tell his audience (although he may not name the former president), that Obama misled the people of the Middle East about the true source of terrorism, including what contributed to the rise of the Islamic State. Pompeo will insist that Iran, a country Obama tried to engage, is the real terrorist culprit. The speech's drafts also have Pompeo suggesting that
Iran could learn from the Saudis about human rights, and the rule of law."Well, at least that speech should raise a chuckle around the region. In practice however, the regional fault-line has moved on: It is no longer so much Iran. GCC States have a new agenda, and are now far more concerned to contain Turkey, and to put a halt to Turkish influence spreading throughout the Levant.
GCC states fear that President Erdogan, given the emotional and psychological wave of antipathy unleashed by the Khashoggi murder,
may be mobilising newly re-energised Muslim Brotherhood, Gulf networks. The aim being to leverage present Gulf economic woes, and the general hollowing out of any broader GCC 'vision', in order to undercut the rigid Gulf 'Arab system' (tribal monarchy). The Brotherhood favours a soft Islamist reform of the Gulf monarchies - along lines, such as that once advocated by Jamal Khashoggi.
Comment: Erdogan is still playing the balancing act he seemingly excels at. On the one hand, threatening the Kurds (and the U.S.) with an invasion of Manbij, deal-making with the U.S. (with the security zone idea), and placating the Russians (and by extension the Syrians) by promising to leave after invading more of northern Syria. But whatever he says, it's pretty clear that the overall trajectory of Turkey's foreign policy of late has been in line with Russia in the Astana format for Syria. We'll just have to wait and see how it plays out.
See also: Erdogan tells Trump that Turkey ready to take over Syria's Manbij