Former Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and current Chairman of the Middle East Institute, Bilahari Kausikan shared with Mothership his concerns about the significant geopolitical implications of the current conflict in the Middle East.

Two shifts already in motion

Bilahari cast doubt on the idea that the current Israeli-Hamas conflict would spark significant geopolitical shifts in the Middle East.

He explained that there were two major geopolitical shifts in the Middle East, one historical and one that, in his view, is in the midst of occurring.

Iraq and the unleashing of Iran

The first was the 2003 invasion of Iraq by the United States, something that Bilahari called a "fundamental mistake".

To his mind, Iraq was the only thing that was restraining the Islamic Republic of Iran.

But with the removal of Saddam Hussein and his regime, resulting in a fundamental instability in the Middle East, there was no way to replace that restraining factor on Iran.

Without Iraq restraining Iran, the Middle Eastern states, particularly the Arab Gulf states, could “no longer even bother to pretend that the Palestinian issue was a significant one”.

To them, Iran posed an existential threat to their regimes, where the Palestinian issue did not.

The Islamic revolution in 1979 that brought the current government of Iran to power was also a republican revolution, deposing Iran’s own monarch, the Shah of Iran.

The countries of the Arab Gulf States are Sunni monarchies, where Iran is a Shiite Republic, and thus an "existential threat" to them.

Offshore balancer

The second shift was the United States' correction of the first mistake.

Where in 2003 they had directly intervened in Iraq, they are now moving towards an offshore balancer role, Bilahari explained.

The US might perform the occasional airstrike, but would not have a significant ground presence.

But offshore balancing did not mean retreat, with Bilahari noting the American Fifth Fleet and its carrier battlegroup, is stationed in Bahrain.

The U.S. Air Force is stationed in Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, as well as Turkey, far from an insignificant presence.

Bilahari also brought up the case of the Abraham Accords, which were promulgated under President Donald Trump, which sought to get Middle Eastern Gulf States to recognise Israel.

Saudi Arabia might join the accords if they were given security guarantees by the U.S., as well as access to the nuclear fuel cycle, actions that were driven by fears of Iran.

The shift to being an offshore balancer means that the United States will no longer involve their own troops.

It meant that the United States was not in retreat, as it remains in the region, but it will decide on its own interest whether to intervene in a situation or not.

“So if you guys (the Arab countries) think that Iran is a deep threat to you; I don't think Iran is such a big threat to me (the U.S.), you better get together and do something about it among yourselves.

That's the bigger meaning of the Abraham Accords.”

The U.S. remains the only great power that could act as a security provider in the region.

Ending up a loser?

But what about China?

In Bilahari's opinion, China could not do the same. In fact, it might even end up a loser in the current Israeli-Hamas war, because China had refused to condemn Hamas's massacre of Oct. 7.

The significance of this, as also explained by the Diplomat magazine, is that China is seeking to broaden its relationship with Iran; but Iran financially backs both Hamas and Hezbollah, two non-state militant groups.

It is implied that China's reluctance to condemn Hamas' massacre of Oct. 7 is tied to its relationship with Iran.

In this way China is caught between two different diplomatic goals.

The first is to specifically target countries that are diplomatically unpopular with the West, and build relationships with them.

But it also seeks to drive a wedge between allies of the United States, particularly those in the Middle East, to varying success, although it should be noted that China is credited with a recent diplomatic rapprochement between Saudi Arabia and Iran.

Failure to condemn Hamas is unlikely to result in any of these countries, whether Israel or the Arab Gulf states, to stop working with China, but it will give them pause, or so Bilahari believes.

The big picture

So to Bilahari, the big picture is unlikely to change, unless an organisation like Hezbollah becomes more deeply involved, or if there is clear evidence that Iran was behind the Oct. 7 attack.

Bilahari does not think this is particularly likely, as clashes in the north of Israel have been relatively restrained in the former case.

In the latter case, there was no clear evidence at the moment of direct Iranian involvement in Oct. 7, and even Israel does not seem to believe so at the moment.

Bilahari said that while Iran certainly gives Hamas training as well as weapons, the evidence seemed to be that Iran was just as surprised as anybody else.

Also, it was probably in Iran's interest to not have a big war right now, as Iran has its own fair share of internal problems.

While Bilahari does not believe that the current Israeli-Hamas conflict would lead to a big war, he said that there was always a potential for mistakes to be made, and for something to happen by accident.

He gave the example of Iran's various non-state proxies, Hamas and Hezbollah, who were “not always under Tehran's perfect control”.

“In the Middle East,” he said “ the tail often wags the dog, don't forget.”

The big war

Bilahari also gave a somewhat grim prognosis about the future of the Middle East:

“This is not yet the big war.

I think a big war in the Middle East is well nigh inevitable, but it's not going to be over Palestine if any of the principle actors can help it, because Palestine is simply not that important.

If a big war comes, it will be over Iran’s nuclear capability. That, Saudi Arabia, Israel, the Gulf States, they cannot tolerate.

But they're not yet there.”

Chewing gum and walking in the Indo Pacific

When asked about the U.S.’s pivot to the Indo-Pacific, and how its numerous attempts to pivot to Asia had been interrupted by events in the Middle East, Bilahari called the current events “a distraction”.

Despite the U.S.’s deployments, or redeployments, to the Middle East, there was no degradation to the assets they had in the Northern Pacific.

The Presidents of the U.S. and China, Joe Biden and Xi Jinping are scheduled to meet on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Cooperation (APEC) summit in San Francisco, according to the Associated Press, and are expected to discuss trade, Taiwan, as well as how to manage the U.S.-China relationship.

"They can walk and chew gum," said Bilahari.

The focus he said, was on China, and if there was a distraction from that, it was more likely to be Ukraine.

But even then it was a second order issue, where China is a first order issue.

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Top image via Mothership