Alwaght- The US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Friday announced US plan to hold on February 13 and 14 an international conference on the peace and stability in the Middle East in Warsaw, Poland.
In an interview with the Fox News broadcaster, Pompeo said the jointly-hosted meeting will focus on stability, peace, security, and the “important element of making sure that Iran is not a destabilizing influence.”
The Secretary of State, currently on an eight-day tour of the Arab allies, said the gathering will take place with the attendance of several officials from various parts of the world to discuss a set of issues including terrorism, extremism, missile proliferation, marine trade, and the threats posed by proxy militias.
Apparently, we should wait for the conference to be held to see how it develops. However, we can discuss the main US objectives behind such conference.
Failure of tensions escalation strategy for further domination
The region is certainly in a transit period of chaos and instability. Getting a good understanding of the roots of such devastating instability is highly needed to get a picture of the secret American goals. In fact, finding the roots of instability in the West Asia region will help understand the Western interpretation of stability concept around the world.
The key destabilizing factor in the region over the past two decades is the mushroom growth of the takfiri-terrorist groups with Wahhabi ideologies under various titles of Al-Qaeda, Taliban, ISIS, Al-Nusra Front, and others. The turning point in organizing the takfiri ideology into the form of a militant organization took place in 1980 when the US, assisted by Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, mobilized the militant fighters under an organized body to fight the Red Army of the Soviet Union which at the time was occupying Afghanistan. Squeals to the US-backed fundamentalist militias later emerged under the Taliban and Al-Qaeda.
Iraq was another ground for the rise of extremist groups. The US invasion of Afghanistan under the excuse of terrorism and of Iraq under the ruse of nuclear weapons, which were never found in the Arab country, lay the groundwork for the rise of takfiri groups in the two countries. Thousands of civilians were killed and millions others were displaced under the cover of counterterrorism war and promotion of democracy.
The developments that followed the 2011 Islamic awakening were another setting in which the US— to save its regional allies who are all running dictatorships and also to impair the Iran-led Axis of Resistance that is growing fast to the Israeli regime’s detriment— nurtured, in association with its regional partners, terrorist groups, on top of them ISIS, to destroy the regional nations including the oil-rich countries of Iraq, Syria, and Libya. So, from the viewpoint of the US strategists, stability is the one that serves Washington’s regional interests and influence.
Pompeo called Iran and Russia two destabilizing forces. This comes while the Tehran-Moscow cooperation to destroy ISIS organization in Syria and also Iran’s support to the Iraqi anti-terror campaign have improved the security situation in the region, making the prospects of the regional peace and stability more observable than before. Surprisingly, the most senior US diplomat, on the other hand, finds the Saudi aggression on Yemen and the Israeli attacks on Syria and Gaza, which so far killed thousands and displaced millions, US-eyed stabilizing measures.
With all these in mind, the US efforts to hold the meeting in Warsaw only reflect the collapse of the tension-making US policies to command the developments and save the fast declining global hegemony in an encounter with the Resistance camp.
US sway and presence declines in the region
One issue that should be taken into account on the sidelines of the Warsaw conference is the US exit from Syria and generally the US sway cut in the future regional developments which comes amid adoption of the “pivot to east” policy that relocates the focus to China in East Asia and Trump’s mercantilist approach to the security relations with the allied countries.
The US, on the other side, has intensified efforts to form an Arab army, formally known as Middle East Strategic Alliance, or MESA, though the effort, mainly to fill the US forces vacuum in Syria, so far has not succeeded. Without a shadow of a doubt, Iran is the central target of the US-proposed alliance. Additionally, the Arab NATO is aimed to intimidate Turkey. Ankara government constantly attacks Trump administration and the US withdrawal from Syria can open its hand to launch a large-scale military campaign against the Syrian Kurds.
The US struggles to bridge the intra-Arab historical, geographical, and ideological gaps by building a false uniting factor like the so-called Iranian intervention in the region in a bid to pave the ground for an Arab army in association with what Washington calls “international community.” The US says that these measures beside the economic sanctions to pressure Tehran to review its regional policies will make a change. This aim was observable in Pompeo's speech in Egypt and his interview with the media.
Deal of the century and Arab-Israeli diplomatic normalization
Yet another drive pushing the Americans to hold the conference is a need to accelerate the Arab-Israeli normalizations to put an end to the Palestinian case that’s solution is a prerequisite to stability in the region. Meeting of the Arab leaders with the Israeli Prime Minister in the conference will be of considerable significance. It seems that Benjamin Netanyahu was invited to the event during a meeting with Pompeo in Brazil in early January. Washington is optimistic that accelerated normalization process will help alter the European countries’ opposition to the deal of the century and termination of the Oslo Accords which demands the foundation of a Palestinian state within the pre-1967 borders.
