October 7th was not just a date or a fleeting event linked to the Gaza Strip and Hamas, but the beginning of a new phase in the Middle East.
The Middle East region is considered of geostrategic importance to the dominant global order, and the Middle Eastern regimes established by the dominant global order in the early twentieth century “through the Sykes-Picot Agreement, the Balfour Declaration, and the Treaty of Lausanne” on nationalistic and Islamic bases to serve its agenda in the region and maintain its control over the region for a hundred years are no longer of great importance to it. Given the crisis this order is experiencing, it must bring about change in the region after these artificial regimes have become a heavy burden on it, especially with China and Russia taking advantage of this crisis to strengthen their influence in the world – its most prominent competitors. It seems that the task of change has been entrusted to the State of Israel, based on the political, military, economic, and security landscape in the region, and making the Israelis appear as if they will be exterminated by the countries of the region, so the Gaza war began on October 7, passing through the defeat of the Lebanese Hezbollah and the expulsion of the pro-Iranian factions from Syria, then the fall of the Syrian regime and the tightening of the noose on the Houthi group in Yemen, and today Iran, and Turkey cannot be excluded from this equation in the future, especially after the new Israeli role as an implement for change in the region, “the first regional power,” and the statements of the Turkish “nationalist” officials that Turkey is the ultimate goal and their call to face future challenges, and it seems that the peace process falls within this context.
Mechanisms of the Change Process in the Region
The ongoing change process in the region is based on a set of political, military, economic, and security mechanisms adopted by the dominant global order in supporting Israel in its mission:
1- Targeting major leaders or decision-makers who pose a threat to the dominant global order and Israeli national security. Israel has targeted leaders of Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran, and the Syrian regime before neutralizing them completely as movements and regimes that threaten its national security. Here, we do not mean that these are nationalistic figures; on the contrary, they were the cause of creating crises within their countries – “totalitarian rule, ignoring the rights of their people, fighting democracy, and implementing a regional and international agenda that serves the interests of their regimes.” They also failed to prevent the dominant global order from interfering in their countries’ affairs and attempting to control the region for another hundred years, in response to its crises under many pretexts based on democracy and correcting the mistakes made in the early twentieth century.
2- Imposing economic sanctions on countries that the dominant global order classifies as rogue states, due to the policies adopted by its artificial regimes in the region, with the peoples of the region paying the price for those policies. Economic sanctions weaken the security apparatus of these regimes and neutralize the people in the ongoing conflict between Israel and these countries’ regimes. Knowing that these regimes have not been tools of construction and development, but rather tools of crisis and plague upon their people, the policy adopted by these regimes has enabled the United States and the West to impose economic sanctions on them “Iraq – Syria – Iran.” Consequently, economic sanctions thus created internal crises in despotic or rogue regimes that can only be resolved by a radical change in their policies or by their overthrow from abroad and the establishment of new alternative regimes.
3- Exploiting the policy adopted by the authoritarian regimes in the region “Turkey – Iran – Iraq – Syria” and marginalizing the will of their peoples. This authoritarian policy based on the principle of the one-party or one-leader has made these countries fragile from within.
4- The economic projects that are being drawn up in the region have made the region a hotbed of crises and competition and weakened regional peace, which facilitated the mission for Israel, such as Turkey’s attempt to thwart the trade route project (Indian-European) by supporting Hamas in its war with Israel, and activating the development road that links the Gulf to Europe via Turkey, which harms the interests of the countries of the region, and the Russian intervention in Syria to ensure its monopoly on gas imports to Europe, and the competition between Turkey, Israel and Egypt over who will be the center for the transit of energy to Europe. The success of this policy was manifested, for example, in the inability of Iran and Russia to prevent the fall of the Ba’athist regime in Syria, and the inability of Turkey to extend its hegemony over the whole of Syria.
5- Taking radical Islamist groups such as Al-Qaeda, ISIS, and their followers of jihadist groups as a pretext for direct military intervention in the region. The armed groups that operate according to a regional agenda “Turkish mercenaries and Shiite militias” have also contributed to exacerbating the region’s crises and opened the way for the change process.
6- Supporting the political, military, and economic interventions pursued by some regional countries in the affairs of other countries, especially with the launch of the Arab Spring in the region, for objectives and ambitions related to their projects of hegemony, which affected their internal and external situation, as is the case in the Syrian crisis and the blatant Turkish and Iranian intervention in order to implement their projects in the region “the Iranian Shiite Crescent and the Ottoman Milli Pact” and under the eyes of the existing global order and Israel, where the major powers and Israel allowed these regional countries to engage in the Syrian crisis to drain their capabilities and expand the scope of the Syrian crisis and ultimately the success of the American and Israeli strategy and Iran’s exit empty-handed from the Syrian crisis, but with great losses, and Turkey’s inability to exploit the Syrian crisis to achieve its agendas.
Intrinsic and Objective Factors in the Process of Change
There are several intrinsic and objective factors that effectively influence the process of change, which those in charge of the change process benefit from in supporting the mechanisms of this process. These factors include:
1- Intrinsic Factors
The intrinsic factors in what is happening now in the Middle East cannot be ignored. The ruling regimes that have proven their failure have played a pivotal role in bringing the region to where it is today.
The Iranian regime and its internal policy of stifling the people economically and culturally have transformed Iran from a country with enormous wealth that could be exploited for the benefit of its people and to raise the standard of living to a country unable to achieve human security for its citizens, in addition to its refusal to recognize the rights of its people’s components and establish a democratic system, all for the sake of the continuity of its regime, and its expansionist foreign policy based on exporting its Islamic revolution through its external arms and protecting its allies and intervening in the region’s crises, where Iran spent billions on the Ba’athist regime, and the result was the fall of the regime instead of converting these billions into economic projects and developing its infrastructure, even its nuclear doctrine, which did not serve the Iranian people, but has become a heavy burden on the Iranian people without the Iranian people enjoying this nuclear technology “electric power,” all of which has made Iran a weak and troubled state.
Syria and the defunct regime, which is no different from the Iranian regime, dragged the country into a long crisis, and its effects are still continuing even after its fall.
The Iraqi regime, which, despite its transformation into a federal system, still believes in the central system and creates crises with the Kurdistan Regional Government and concludes economic and security agreements with neighboring countries “Iran and Turkey” to harm the Regional Government, which is negatively reflected on the political, economic, and security situation in Iraq as a whole.
As for the Turkish regime and its internal policy of not wanting to establish peace and establish a democratic system, despite the initiative of the Kurdish leader Abdullah Ocalan for peace, the statements of the leader of the racist Nationalist Movement, Devlet Bahceli, to call for peace are only a reading of the troubled Turkish situation and the ongoing process of change in the Middle East, and this call may be somewhat late, and the Turkish regime’s failure to take any steps towards the peace initiative puts Turkey in the circle of change. Also, the foreign policy pursued by the Turkish regime “Erdogan” and the interference in the affairs of the region, Syria, Egypt, Libya, and Iraq, and the indirect conflict with Israel, all of this has created internal and external crises in Turkey.
2- Objective Factors
These factors are included in the context of competitive relations and conflict relations between countries based on military and economic interests in the region and related to the indirect international conflict between the Eastern bloc “China and Russia” and the Western bloc, which represents the dominant world order. The Middle East has become a focus of conflict due to its geopolitical importance in the world, whether in enabling the current world order or in creating a multipolar world order, in addition to regional projects that have created crises in the region “the Chinese project Belt – One Road and the American project the economic corridor that connects India to the Middle East “the Arabian Gulf region” to Europe, and the Turkish development project with Iraq and the Eastern Mediterranean Gas Forum, in addition to military partnerships and agreements between Middle Eastern countries and the great powers and the position of the Middle Eastern regimes on the ongoing conflict and the Russian-Ukrainian war.
The Israeli-Iranian war as the latest development in the process of change:
It was not surprising that Israel launched a military operation against military sites in Iran and targeted first-tier leaders. Israel, which began weakening Iran’s arms in Syria and Lebanon, did so to protect its national security from neighboring countries by not allowing the Iranian regime to exploit them to strike Israel. Also, the failure of nuclear negotiations between the United States and Iran and the sixty-day deadline granted by Trump, which served as a warning to Iran, gave Israel the justification to strike its nuclear project and target its nuclear scientists and most important military leaders.
The delayed Iranian response put it in a position of weakness, and the targeting of Israeli residential areas gave the Israeli army a pretext to target the southern Yars gas field, which means that Israel is increasing pressure on Iran economically by targeting Iranian economic infrastructure and striking the capital, Tehran, a dangerous indicator in the Israeli-Iranian war that complicates the process of change. Iran appears to be in a weak position based on the positions of its allies, which are still within the framework of opposing and denouncing statements, and the inability of its arms to provide tactical support.
Most indicators in the context of this war point to a change in Iranian domestic and foreign policy, and the developments of this war will determine the form and levels of this process. In general, some potential future outcomes of the Israeli-Iranian war can be identified, most notably:
1- Its negative impact on the Iranian regime, weakening it internally and giving Iranian components an opportunity to pressure the Iranian regime to obtain their political, economic, and cultural rights, and its impact on the rest of the regimes in the Middle East.
2- Ending what is called the ‘axis of resistance’, as Israel has managed to neutralize Hamas as an internal threat and as a movement exploited by some regional countries, and to neutralize Hezbollah in Lebanon. Hezbollah, which is considered Iran’s main arm in the region, has not taken any action so far regarding the Israeli military operation against Iran. Also, the Shiite militias in Iraq have so far been content with promises and threats, which are indications of the end of what is called the axis of resistance in the region.
3- The possibility of the wheel of change extending to Turkey if the Turkish regime remains committed to its internal policy since its establishment by the trio of “America – England – Israel,” which is based on marginalization and insistence on a military solution to end the Kurdish issue. Failure to make any change in the current form of its regime and failure to take any serious steps so far towards resolving the Kurdish issue based on the peace initiative, and in changing its foreign policy based on interference in the affairs of neighboring countries “Syria and Iraq,” will greatly affect the internal situation in Turkey. Devlet Bahceli’s statement that these attacks “are not directed at Iran only, but also carry an indirect message to Turkey,” and added, “Our country is surrounded by fire, and the ultimate goal is Turkey,” in addition to the statement of Dogu Perincek, leader of the Turkish Patriotic Party, who denounced “that the strategic goal of the Israeli attack is Turkey itself and that all Israeli measures ultimately lead to the division of Turkey.”
4- Creating space for the peoples of the region to have freedom and democracy and to empower themselves, but this space is linked to the ability of the peoples of the region to organize themselves in building a democratic society, and to the external agenda, which requires them to allow a certain margin of freedom for the peoples of the region, and to try to use them as a pressure card against the ruling regimes.
5- The Israeli strikes on Iran are not considered the end of the “Guardianship of the Islamic Jurist” regime, but can be considered the first stage on the road to change. Iran, with its internal and external policies, directly or indirectly, still provides clear services to the dominant global system in the Middle East region. The fall of the “Guardianship of the Islamic Jurist” regime at this time would create widespread chaos in the region that cannot be controlled.
6- The possibility of reaching a nuclear agreement between the United States and Iran after the military operation launched by Israel against Iran, especially since both parties are in a situation where they cannot continue their military operations, as the continuation of military operations will exacerbate their internal crisis. This agreement, which may occur, may somewhat alleviate the crisis between the two parties, but it is also a temporary stage. Israel will not hesitate to target Iran when it realizes its threat to its national security, and it may target it from within without carrying out a direct military operation. The damage inflicted on Israel exceeds its capacity to bear as a result of the social environment in which Israeli society lives and the high rate of internal opposition against Netanyahu’s policies. Most data indicate that the winds of change will sweep Iran, unless it makes radical changes in its structure, which is based on democratic foundations.
War is not a solution to the problems and crises of the region.
War has never been a final solution to ending the crises that have plagued the region for more than a hundred years, but it may be part of the solution towards the intransigence of the despotic regimes in the region. The Syrian people got rid of the tyrannical regime represented by the Ba’athist regime, but the Syrian crisis is still ongoing and may drag Syria into a deeper and bloodier crisis as long as the new Syrian regime adheres to its policy of monopolizing power according to a sectarian approach and as long as it remains subject to the regional and international agenda. The process of change that the region is witnessing at the hands of Israel is nothing but a transition from one crisis to another that serves the existing world order, even if the peoples of the region find a space of freedom and despotic regimes fall. The region will remain within the circle of crises created by the global powers as long as they remain convinced of wars as a means to ensure their control. Therefore, the only way forward to face future challenges and avoid new conflicts and crises is through democratic politics based on the establishment of pluralistic democratic systems through dialogue and negotiation instead of wars that states develop in pursuit of power and hegemony, not to end the region’s crises, but rather inflict serious damage on peoples, as it has become clear that war does not solve any problems, but opens the way to suffering, loss and destruction, and deepens problems, and to avoid this, the existing regimes in the region must change their internal and external policies in light of the coming changes from abroad in a way that serves the interests of their countries and peoples, and Ocalan’s peace initiative can be an approach and a path to achieving peace, stability and development in the Middle East region.
Based on the foregoing, the crisis that the current world order is experiencing and its attempts to alleviate it by making radical changes in the Middle East region after the national and Islamist regimes have completed their tasks assigned to them directly or indirectly have made the Middle East a hotbed of conflict and increased popular anger resulting from the crises caused by the authority and the policy of hegemony and the mentality of the despotic national or Islamist state with divine rule (the ruler) or the one party that capitalist modernity established in the twentieth century, and left the Middle East in a state of backwardness, stagnation, weakness, and dispersion, and allowed the dominant world order to intervene blatantly in the region under the pretext of fighting its (artificial) regimes, which seem to have become part of its global crisis.
The United States’ shift in its military strategy away from direct involvement in wars has pushed Israel to become the implement of change in the region. Israel has a clear strategy as a state system, which is to dominate the Middle East as an agent of the dominant global order. Israel has managed to subdue Hamas, Lebanon, Syria, and even Iraq to its regional policy. Iran groans under its blows, and Arab countries rush to normalize relations with it and end the so-called Arab-Israeli conflict. Israel is not just a small state, but represents a part of the pyramid of the capitalist system. It also possesses unlimited material, media, intelligence, and international support that enable it to lead the process of change in the Middle East, without any actual move by the international community to punish it or force it to stop its plans.
