Of Alberto Negri

Source: Alberto Negri

Understanding the tangle of interests of the powers in conflict in the Middle East and throughout the crisis that reaches Asia is a challenge because the states and actors involved are entangled in contradictory alliances: the fundamental friend-enemy relationship itself has become mutable and in some cases almost indistinguishable. They seem like distant things but if we follow the thread of events we see how these events directly involve us, also here in Italy, where we get stabbed, in a real or figurative sense, for electoral events devoid of any tactical and strategic interest. As if we were resigned to not counting for anything and instead we too carry heavy responsibilities.

The fight against terrorism, heralded for years, reveals itself, more every day, a tragic mockery. Saudi Arabia, Türkiye and China, in recent days they are trying to stop the American initiative to put Pakistan on the list of countries financing terrorism after Washington froze US aid to Islamabad. The Pakistanis are sending a thousand soldiers to the Gulf to support the Saudis in the interminable war in Yemen against the Shiite Houthi rebels, China has a contingent of 12 thousand men in Pakistan to protect its ports while Turkey is historically linked to Islamabad by economic and military relations.

But beyond these obvious interests there is much more. Saudi Arabia has financed jihadist groups with an anti-Iranian function for years, is more or less directly involved in September 11th, while Erdogan's Turkey maneuvers thousands of jihadists in the anti-Assad war. Pakistan was for a decade, together with the Saudis, the key ally of the USA in the war against the USSR in Afghanistan but it is also the country that hosted the fugitive Osama bin Laden and supports the Taliban and jihadist groups in Afghanistan against the American-led coalition.

If we were then to analyze the behaviors of these and other powers on the Syrian quadrant, things become further complicated. Ankara uses recycled jihadists against the Syrian Kurds now supported by Assad but also allies of the Americans in the fight against the Caliphate. Turkey, Born country, on that front, North Syria is against the US which is objectively allied here by the pro-Assad militias who intervened in support of the Syrian Kurds. But eliminating Assad perhaps still remains the main Western objective, of Türkiye and the anti-Iranian Sunni coalition. While Israel, closely linked to the Americans, it supports the jihadist groups in the Golan to fight the regime in Damascus, Iran and Hezbollah. ISIS is dead but there are those who would like to resurrect it. Russia supports Assad but at the same time does not want to alienate Erdogan and is discussing the specter of raids against Damascus bases with Israel, of the Iranians and Hezbollah, Moscow's major allies in this war.

In this broader Middle East conflict there are minimal and major objectives. The minimum objective of the USA is to determine the future of Syria, Erdogan's to contain the Kurds, that of Israel interrupt Iranian supplies to Hezbollah in Lebanon. The major objective of these three actors is to eliminate Assad to strike Iran _ the true origin of this war which changed with Russia's entry into the field _ but as usual, according to what has already happened in Iraq in 2003 in Libya and in 2011, they don't know who to put in his place. They have no leverage within the regime and the groups they maneuver are unreliable.

Russia's goal is to keep Assad in the saddle and then find, probably in the armed forces, a succession. Iran could also think about replacing Assad in the medium term, but guaranteeing itself a decisive influence in the country. The US remains in Syria because it aims to exploit a possible divergence in objectives between Russia and Iran.

The only viable way out at the moment it is to maintain a military condominium in Syria of the various powers that defend their minimal interests: who goes further, as the unsafe Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu or the ineffable Erdogan would like to do, triggers a greater conflict. They, like the US and the Gulf monarchies, bear the burden of the miscalculation of 2011 when they thought that Assad would fall in a few months: il 6 July of that year the American ambassador to Syria Ford even went for a walk among the armed rebels of Hama filmed by CNN cameras. It was supposed to be the signal of the end of Assad and was yet another demonstration that the Americans had not learned anything even from the mistakes they had just made in Iraq.

In reality there is even worse, the Saudis financed Hillary Clinton's presidential ambitions, like the Chinese, and the then Secretary of State thought of serving the head of Iran's major ally on Riyadh's plate with a proxy war in which everyone would use the jihadists.

The same scheme used in Afghanistan where the rear role of Pakistan's anti-Soviet guerrilla in this case was assumed by Türkiye. In short, these hack strategists had created an Afghanistan on Europe's doorstep with the consequences we have seen with terrorism at home.

After all, here on the continent there is little to shed crocodile tears. Europeans are no better than Americans. Great Britain and France agreed to destroy the Syrian Alawite regime, enemy with Tehran of those Gulf monarchies _ from Saudi Arabia, to Qatar to the Emirates _ to whom everyone sells weapons and who are among the major investors in Italy too.

Blair, Cameron, Sarkozy e Hollande they are the accomplices of this murky affair disguised as a war on dictatorships. As if the unpresentable sheiks of the Gulf were champions of human rights: now they are redoing the make-up of these absolute monarchies dominated by a few hundred princes because precisely we need to continue selling them weapons and attracting capital that can save European societies in crisis.

But where have the European trade unions and the left gone?? At the table with the sheikhs to safeguard sacrosanct jobs. As long as no one raises a finger to moralize.

The question now is how to stop Erdogan in Syria. But the aspiring Caliph blackmails the Europeans and Germany with 2,5 millions of refugees who are kept at home like a "human bomb" ready for use and we continue undaunted to sell them Agusta helicopters and Franco-Italian Eurosam missiles. In response, Ankara blocks sailing to Saipem in Cyprus, knowing full well that the Europeans have such business in Türkiye that they cannot strangle a country with companies in debt at the 70% with European banks. We have to keep it up, always to safeguard jobs, orders and profits, at least until he is able to pay.

Americans and Israelis, accompanied by the monarchies of the Gulf, they insist that the problem is Iran. Because a culprit must be found to justify its enormous weaknesses and the glaring errors that favored the expansion of Iranian influence.

To resolve these contradictions More than a geopolitical manual, it serves above all as a psychoanalyst's couch. E’ time for great powers and regional players on the brink of inextricable conflict to follow Jung's advice: “Make the unconscious conscious, otherwise the unconscious will guide your life and you will call it destiny”.