Abstract
The article attempts to bring forward a framework analysis which elaborates on America’s shifting foreign and defence policy priorities from the Middle East region to the Asia-Pacific. Pulling of resources for sustaining a US rebalancing strategy to Asia is inextricably linked to successfully coordinate a set of alliances in a far from straightforward regional security environment. In an effort to achieve a functional balance of power in the Greater Middle East, Washington’s game-changing for managing regional rivalries and the spillover effects of the Syrian civil war, indicate a necessity for reassessing Middle East’s security system by approaching two non-Arab Muslim countries; Shiite Iran and Sunni Turkey. To avoid Iraq’s disintegration and above all to preserve a regional balance of power, America’s strategy involves engaging Iran in a constructive process of rapprochement with the US, while empowering Turkey to counterbalance its growing leverage in the region.
Highlights
To avoid Iraq’s disintegration and above all to preserve a regional balance of power which will not be disrupted by Iran’s exercise of greater influence in the Middle East and its continued rigid approach on Syria and Lebanon amongst others, the US has to examine the case of coordinating a different set of alliances; whereby Ankara and Tehran are being more actively engaged in the region’s affairs while the Americans -apart from setting limits and constraints over their contradicting policies for enhanced regional influence- offer their consent for the two countries involved in establishing their distinct spheres of influence over Iraq
In terms of Turkey’s energy security, Russia’s upgraded geopolitical status coupled by growing concerns over expanding Iranian domination of Iraq, push Ankara towards increasing its efforts for achieving satisfactory oil and gas independence from expensive[39] natural resources of Russian origin; a development leading to greater energy cooperation with the less costly and politically less risky Kurdish Regional Government in Iraq, producing strained relations with the central government in Baghdad and resulting in an unavoidable growing degree of Turkish involvement in the Arab world
Turkey supports Barzani’s efforts for achieving a moderate solution to the Kurdish problem and make use of the country’s “strong economic potential to woo the PYD and draw it into a Turkish zone of influence and prosperity, as it has done with the KRG.”[49] to keep the balance of power in order, in return for Turkey’s growing leverage and increased power over northern Iraq, which by no means should it lay the foundations for Iraq’s disintegration, Kurdish groups in Syria led by the PYD50 approached as Syrian offshoot of PKK- will retain their political autonomy over Barzani, for leadership of the Syrian Kurds and will probably establish their semi-autonomous entity in the Kurdish-majority areas along the Syrian-Turkish borders[51]
Summary
The issues raised in an international environment of rising economic and security interdependence underline the importance of resisting the temptation to overcome the complexity of the modern world by dusting off and adopting old attitudes and unsuccessful modes of action. If the course of action proves to be a successful one, in effect it will be the West (US and Europe which acts as its bridgehead in Eurasia) as the actor establishing principles and setting limits for emerging regional players on how to properly manage their growing power and assist them In this respect, with the dynamics of change taking precedence over the ones of continuity, the role of the US for managing global security and matching shifting regional power relationships in a liberal economic order is increasingly linked to the Asia - Pacific Region[4]. Presence in Europe and the Middle East, US administration paves the way for pivoting its strategic gaze to Asia with the aim of becoming the central broker in China’s external relations[6] Through this strategy, Washington seeks to maintain its network of key alliances in the region, projects its capacity for military intervention and above all avoids facing unfavorable trends in the Asian balance of power leading to “a less cooperative order built on spheres of influence”[7]. While cementing Beijing’s “peaceful rise”[8] through its deeper integration into the international order, the United States maximizes its leverage to ensure effective global cooperation and policy coordination with China being offered the status of regional and not the one of global player
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