{"id":394809,"date":"2017-03-29T11:08:23","date_gmt":"2017-03-29T15:08:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brookings.alley.test\/?p=394809"},"modified":"2022-09-08T07:26:56","modified_gmt":"2022-09-08T07:26:56","slug":"6-elements-of-a-strategy-to-push-back-on-irans-hegemonic-ambitions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mecouncil-afkar.fuegodigitalmedia.qa\/en\/6-elements-of-a-strategy-to-push-back-on-irans-hegemonic-ambitions\/","title":{"rendered":"6 elements of a strategy to push back on Iran\u2019s hegemonic ambitions"},"content":{"rendered":"

Iran is posing a comprehensive challenge to the interests of the United States and its allies and partners in the Middle East. Over the past four decades, it has managed to establish an \u201carc of influence\u201d that stretches from Lebanon and Syria in the Levant, to Iraq and Bahrain on the Gulf, to Yemen on the Red Sea. What the United States now needs is a comprehensive, integrated, and sustainable \u201cpush-back\u201d strategy.
\nAny such American strategy needs to take account of the way that, in the Middle East, everything is connected. Push back on Iran in Yemen, and they might well stir up the Shiite population in Bahrain. Push back on Iran in Syria, and they might well use the Shiite militias in Iraq to undermine our effort to eliminate ISIS there, or encourage Hamas to launch rocket attacks on Israel from Gaza.
\nA comprehensive strategy would need to contain at least six elements:
\n1<\/span>Rigorous enforcement of the Iran nuclear deal.<\/em> Whatever the perceived shortcomings of the JCPOA, it has succeeded in creating a vital 10-year window in which the region is not threatened by Iranian nuclear capabilities and the nuclear arms race that they would inevitably trigger. Nothing is easy about countering Iran in the conflict-ridden Middle East, but everything becomes easier if we do not have an Iranian nuclear threat to contend with at the same time. As long as the Iranians strictly adhere to the agreement, the United States and its regional allies will have gained vital time to develop and implement the other elements of the push-back strategy.
\n2<\/span>Support for the Iraqi government<\/em>of Haider al-Abadi and the Iraqi Armed Forces as they campaign to defeat ISIS and regain control of Mosul and the Sunni regions of Iraq.\u00a0Eliminating Iran\u2019s influence in Iraq is not an achievable or necessary objective given the historic and religious ties between the neighboring Shiites of Iraq and Iran. But providing an effective counter-balance to Iran\u2019s influence in Baghdad is eminently achievable since it is welcomed by the current Iraqi government, which was not the case with the previous Maliki government.
\nWhile Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Arab states have long been unwilling to engage meaningfully with the Iraqi government, the recent visit of the Saudi Foreign Minister to Baghdad\u2014and the Saudi effort to engage with the Sunni tribes of Iraq\u2014presages a new approach which needs to be encouraged and sustained. The elimination of ISIS will generate a huge post-conflict reconstruction challenge in Mosul and the other liberated Sunni cities and towns. It will be particularly important to have Sunni state support for a major post-war reconstruction effort led by the Abadi government and reinforced by the United States. It is essential that Iranian-directed Shiite militias not be allowed to fill the vacuum and in the process establish a land bridge between Iran and Syria across northern Iraq.
\n3<\/span>Promotion of a political resolution of the civil war in Yemen.\u00a0<\/em>The Trump administration is currently considering<\/a> stepping up military support for Saudi Arabia and the UAE in their two-year long military campaign in Yemen.\u00a0This makes sense only if it is wedded to a diplomatic strategy for ending the war, which has already caused thousands of civilian casualties and vast human suffering. Otherwise, the United States will be sucked into the Yemen quagmire like so many outside powers before us.
\nGains on the battlefield should impact the dynamics at the negotiating table. In that regard, a successful effort to take control of the Red Sea port of Hodeida could impact the Houthi calculus and lead to greater seriousness and reasonableness on their part in the negotiations. But American support needs to be conditioned on the pursuit of a political solution by our Saudi allies as well.
\n4<\/span>Reduce Iran\u2019s influence in Syria.<\/em> This will be difficult and complicated, and implementing it is not helped by loose talk about the unrealistic objective of \u201cpushing Iran out of Syria.\u201d We need to recognize that neither we, nor the Russians, have the will or capacity to achieve that goal\u2014as desirable as it might be\u2014in current circumstances.
\nIran has developed a formidable presence on the ground in Syria:\u00a0the Iranians have penetrated the remaining governing institutions of Asad\u2019s regime, and have embedded some 30,000 forces in the government-controlled areas of western Syria (some 5,000 IRGC, Basij, and Iranian Army elements; some 3,000 to 5,000 highly trained Hezbollah fighters from Lebanon; and some 20,000 Shiite militiamen recruited from Afghanistan and Pakistan). These forces are significantly larger than what is left of the Syrian army or the Russian forces now deployed there.
\nThe Iranian-controlled presence is bolstered by two key factors:<\/p>\n