For the Geopolitics Fans Among You: The Moor on the Maghreb

Geopolitics is fascinating if at times a bit abstruse. Kal at The Moor Next Door has begun a series of posts with lots of maps/graphs etc. on the Maghreb/Sahel region. It defies summary but the two posts so far are Geopolitical Actors in the Maghreb/Sahel and Three Geopolitical Characteristics of the Maghreb/Sahel Sub-Region. Interesting stuff.

India, China Stepping Up Training in Afghanistan?

An interesting piece in The National datelined New Delhi and indicating that India and China are both looking at increasing their training presence in Afghanistan, looking towards the day the US withdraws.

India has, of course, long had an involvement in Afghanistan, usually either covert or at least mostly under-the-radar, since it clearly sees a need to offset Pakistani influence in the country. China is a bit less obvious, but it is certainly concerned with the role the Taliban and Al-Qa‘ida have played in encouraging radicalization of China's Uighur (East Turkestani) separatists in Xinjiang.

It's a reminder that the Great Game in Central Asia is still very much afoot, and will be when the US leaves as well.

Halford Mackinder, please call your office.

Great Games and Small, India and Afghanistan: The Often Neglected Player

Yesterday's major suicide bombing attack on the Indian Embassy in Kabul was a reminder of a fact that is generally clear enough in the strategic vision of the regional country players but is often forgotten in Washington: India is still, as it has been for centuries, a player in Afghanistan. In our Western tendency to divide the world, while we consider Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India all part of South Asia in some sense, we tend to shrug India off as separate from the Muslim World and thus not really a player in the "Great Game" in its modern incarnation. The locals don't make that mistake. Pakistan sees India as its primary strategic enemy, and India accordingly sees a strategic value in counterbalancing Pakistan's interest by supporting, first the pro-Soviet, and now the pro-Western, regime in Afghanistan. That makes the pro-Taliban elements hostile to India, though they and al-Qa‘ida were already so over the Kashmir issue, which actually is a major one for some of their ideologues. Kashmir moves many Pakistanis deeply, but also the radicals of al-Qa‘ida.

Nothing I've said here is news to the regional specialists, but oddly it's possible to read serious pieces about the "AfPak" theater, as it's now called, that barely mention India (or China). The fact that the world's two most populous countries, both of them with fast growing economies and both of them with nuclear weapons, border Afghanistan and Pakistan is not, actually, a peripheral geopolitical consideration. Obviously, whoever bombed the Indian Embassy in Kabul was aware of that.

Syrian-Turkish Rapprochement

Syria and Turkey, which were at daggers drawn as recently as the 1990s, are rapidly moving towards greater integration. Most recently they've dropped visa requirements for their nationals traveling between the two countries. This is potentially a very important evolution. Josh Landis at Syria Comment examines some of the potential benefits and quotes several Turkish newspaper analyses.

One role Turkey has played, of course, is mediation between Syria and Israel. This article suggests that IDF Commander Gabi Ashkenazi feels that an opportunity has been missed for a Syrian-Israeli deal, one that could do a great deal to move Syria away from its Iranian alliance. Needless to say, the Turkish-Syrian rapprochement can potentially have a favorable impact on both the Israeli and Iranian relationships for Syria.

Multiple Arab Diplomatic Offensives

Marc Lynch blogged recently about the multi-faceted efforts at Arab reconciliation diplomacy we've been witnessing lately. His post provides an excellent overview and by following his links one can fill in much of the background, but I thought I'd add a few comments of my own.

On the Hamas-Israel front, a snag seems to have emerged in the past day or two. Many press reports had suggested that today (Wednesday) would be the day a prisoner exchange/ceasefire deal was announced. So far as one can tell from press reports, the Egyptians thought they had a deal in place, but the Israeli security cabinet was insisting on some linkages that weren't part of the deal as negotiated. It is of course clear that Hamas' primary goal is a ceasefire to stop continuing Israeli air strikes, and a lifting of the siege of Gaza; it's just as clear that Israel's goal is an enforeceable end to the rocket fire and the release of Gilad Shalit. But these deals are often hostage to last-minute conditions, and for whatever reason the Israelis seem to want to avoid linking the prisoner exchange with lifting the siege. Of course, there's the obvious fact that Israel is in political limbo; the incumbent Olmert government is negotiating the deal; the Foreign Minister is one of the candidates for Prime Minister; the opposition wants to lead the next government; and the Defense Minister has just seen his party drop to fourth place. Not an ideal moment for critical compromises. The fact that the Israelis are negotiating with Hamas (via Egypt) while everyone insists they are not negotiating with Hamas adds an Alice-through-the-looking-glass aspect to it as well.

On the other key Palestinian issue the Egyptians are trying to broker, some sort of deal between Hamas and Fatah seems more necessary than ever, since any remediation of Gaza's predicament would seem to need an interlocutor with which the outside world is willing to deal, and that means Fatah, though given Hamas' popular strength, a unity government that includes Hamas is necessary. There are still a lot of obstacles to this and, like the Hamas-Israel deal, it can easily come unraveled.

This, I think, is where the Saudi and Arab League openings to Syria are key. Syria's alignment with Iran has been a theme running through so many regional issues: Hamas versus Fatah, the Lebanese political situation, Saudi and Egyptian geopolitical concerns about Iran's nuclear program and regional meddling. Syria, which historically boasted of being "the beating heart of Arabism," has been aligned with Iran against much of the Arab world, but that has in part been because it was excluded by its fellow Arabs.

Egypt and Saudi Arabia, the two big Arab players, both have shrewd diplomats with geopolitical savvy, and they seem to be committed to bringing Syria back into the Arab fold. And for all the uncertain signals coming out of the Obama Administration so far, the opening to Syria seems to be the least unambiguous. John Kerry is going to Damascus and Bashar al-Asad is sending very positive signals. Not only has Asad continued to express a willingness to cut a peace deal with Israel (albeit on terms the Israeli right may reject), but he continued to express such willingness right through the Gaza campaign, when much of the rest of the Arab world was expressing outrage. How's that for an unclenched fist?

A whole lot can go wrong with all this. The Hariri assassination commission starts meeting in the Hague March 1, and Syria could find itself being asked to hand over senior officials and find itself ostracized again just as it is trying to build bridges. Any real progress on an Israel-Syria deal will be hard if Netanyahu forms a hard-right government. The fact that the Shalit-ceasefire exchange deal seems to be hanging fire is a reminder that breakthroughs are not easy in such a longstanding and complex conflict. But a lot does seem to be happening,m a sort of diplomatic offensive tous azimuts, and thus perhaps a moment of opportunity, not to concentrate on a comprehensive peace but to move towards amerlioration of the situation on the ground in Gaza and a ceasefire that might hold for a finite time.