NEW DELHI: Mohammed Soliman is widely regarded as one of the most influential strategists from the Middle East, particularly in the context of great power competition. His thoughts and writings helped shape a vision for the post-U.S. Middle East. One of Soliman’s most significant contributions was his pursuit to redefine the Middle East as West Asia, which he defines as a geopolitical system that stretches from Egypt to India or the maritime space between the Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean. Soliman believes that without expanding the Middle East to the East to include India, the region will lack a balance of power.
This was the strategic context for his famous “Indo-Abrahamic Alliance,” in which he envisioned a broad alignment between India, Israel, and Arab states to bring back a balance of power. He argued that by engaging with the United States and pursuing areas of common interest such as technology, energy, maritime security, and trade, the Indo-Abrahamic construct could create a stable geopolitical order in the region. This construct was embraced by senior policymakers and resulted in a foreign minister-level meeting, officially launching the I2U2 Group, followed by a leaders’ summit in July 2022. In an interview with Ramananda Sengupta, Soliman explains how the I2U2 and other regional formats could bring about the missing balance of power and reduce the U.S. military footprint in the region, while aligning Washington’s interests with regional ones.
Q: The Indo-Abrahamic alliance, as envisaged in your July 2021 paper in The Middle East Institute, originally had three nations, the UAE, Israel, and India, and they were meant to fill the gap created by a U.S. retreat from the region, and also to act as counterbalance to the rise of China. Yet the I2U2 or the ‘other’ Quad, has the U.S., while China has brokered an accord between Iran and Saudi Arabia. Was that part of your original vision for the alliance?
A: My Indo-Abrahamic framework doesn’t refer only to the I2U2 but also incorporates other minilateral and regional formats, such as the East Mediterranean Gas Forum, the France-UAE-India Trilateral, the Negev Forum and bilateral relations between India and major Arab states—Egypt and Saudi Arabia. The China-brokered plan between Iran and Saudi Arabia reinforces my thesis that in the long run the Indo-Abrahamic bloc will be the basis of a favourable balance of power that maintains peace and security in West Asia. By building networks of trade and defence, the littoral states of the Indian Ocean can ensure their own economic vitality and security.
Q: In a more recent piece for the Observer Research Foundation, you argue that ‘the fundamental issues that set the region on a collision course in the first place are still intact and will not break the cycle of competition and proxy conflict that consumed the region in the past.’ Could you please elaborate on these fundamental issues?
A: The core of conflict in the Middle East is geopolitical and, to a lesser extent, ideological. The U.S. invasion of Iraq and the Syrian civil war removed Baghdad and Damascus as a balance to Tehran and Ankara. Iran and Turkey not only expanded their influence deep inside Syria and Iraq but used them to project regional power in the geopolitical space from the Mediterranean to the Horn of Africa and Yemen, and from the Levant to North Africa. The Middle East became an unbalanced system, which eventually led to a broad rapprochement between the Arab states and Israel to build a united front that could act as a geopolitical balancer.
Q: What ties the four disparate members of the I2U2 together? Do these four nations have a common template for ‘regional security’? What other common causes bring them together, and what, if any, are their individual objectives?
A: The major objective of the I2U2 is to build a vehicle for broad coordination on regional issues, ranging from energy to technology and from climate change to maritime security. In the long term, the I2U2 will evolve in nature and expand to security issues. Furthermore, the concept of West Asia has changed the map. India, Israel, and the UAE are brought together by virtue of this geographic space that encompasses the Middle East and South Asia– making the three nations plus the United States natural strategic partners.
Q: What are the implications of the China-brokered Saudi-Iran accord for the region as well as the global order?
A: The deal, in my view, is tactical and aims to provide the two sides with breathing room after an intense cycle of regional competition that had economic and security implications. It’s extremely unlikely that this deal will be the beginning of a broader strategic alignment.
Q: What was the main reason for the Saudi-U.S. rift, exemplified by Riyadh rejecting U.S. President Joe Biden’s appeal to pick up the slack in oil and gas production following the U.S. sanctions on Russia?
A: There is a lack of a strategic blueprint for U.S.-Saudi relations in the 21st century. An oil-for-security framework doesn’t work anymore, and neither captures where Saudi Arabia, a G20 economy, is at nor recognizes where Saudi Arabia is going. The global landscape and the U.S.’ new pivot to the Indo-Pacific are other elements that overshadow Washington-Riyadh relations.
Q: Do you see some kind of a growing common cause in West Asia against the U.S., particularly attempts to find an alternative to the almighty USD?
A: There is no substitute for the U.S. dollar as the global reserve currency. The talks about de-dollarization and using BRIC-issued currency or gold-backed stablecoins are mostly predicated on wishful thinking and are disconnected from economic realities. This being said, this growing sentiment should be a worrying sign for policymakers in Washington, who should take into consideration the long-term impact of the extraterritoriality of U.S. sanctions on the thinking of U.S. partners and allies as well as competitors.
Q: Do you see the region once again turning into a proxy battlefield for the new Cold war between the U.S. and China/Russia?
A: As West Asian countries accelerate their economic and digital transformation, the U.S. and China will compete to deploy more of their physical and non-physical advanced technologies in the region. Because the U.S. sees most Chinese tech companies as an extension of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), growing market dominance by these companies in West Asia will be seen as a threat to American influence and commercial, diplomatic, and security interests. As a “Cold War” by definition lacks direct military confrontation between two competing great powers, China and the U.S. will instead play out their rivalry by striving to expand or maintain their respective spheres of influence by wielding diplomatic clout, shoring up or creating new relationships, and preventing the other from gaining commercial and defence influence. The strategically important West Asian region will be a prominent venue for this duel.
Q: How do you see the events in Ukraine impacting the frantic realignments in West Asia?
A: Not only is the Russian invasion of Ukraine a geopolitical issue, it is also a globally impactful economic issue. Grain shortages and disrupted energy flows have had consequences for West Asian and North African states such as Egypt and Turkey. These economic consequences, as well as the conflict’s resulting geopolitical tensions will force West Asian states—many of whom are import-dependent—to consider alternative, less politically-charged partnerships in this new age of global disorder. We are already seeing these emerge. For example, the non-oil trade relationships between India and their partners in Riyadh, Cairo, and Abu Dhabi continue to grow. India, Indonesia, and Brazil will likely emerge as a very attractive camp in international politics for West Asian states that seek robust economic and political ties with G20 nations without needing to choose a side in this new Cold War.
Q: Has the focus in West Asia really shifted from religious to economic and strategic issues?
A: I contest the basis of the idea of a “Muslim world”. West Asia was never solely focused on religious issues, and the dynamics of the so-called “Muslim world” have been historically divided along non-religious lines. Muslim nations have used strategic and economic objectives to drive their policies, despite the illusion of their agendas being defined solely by religious issues. Historically, there was a trend towards imposing some sort of religious branding or messaging on top of geopolitical struggles—from Afghanistan to Syria, to Yemen and beyond. While Islam was and remains an important guiding force in West Asian social and political life, it is hardly the sole source of all policy decision-making. Governments in the region have long been driven by the same basic goals as any government elsewhere in the world—to provide safety, security, and prosperity for their citizens, to foster a sense of national or supra-national identity, and to secure an advantageous position in regional politics. As the world around us undergoes rapid technological, geopolitical, and social changes, West Asian countries are adjusting and positioning themselves to be in advantageous positions.
(Mohammed Soliman is Director, Strategic Technologies and Cyber Security Program, of the Middle East Institute. He tweets @ThisIsSoliman)
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