By GREG DOBBS, Denver Post
Maybe the best way to draw a diagram of rivalries and alliances in the Middle East is to think about how it looks when you boil a pot of spaghetti, then pour out the water and pull out the pasta. You end up with stray strands of starch stuck to the bottom, splayed in shapes that might make Pablo Picasso proud.
The trouble is, such curvilinear contortions might leave an artist proud, but on a Middle East flowchart they only leave us confused. Rivalries I’ve covered there, in large part, are rooted in the principle that “the enemy of my enemy is my friend.” Which works until your friend makes up with your enemy and the diagram has to be redrawn. Alliances, for the most part, are marriages of convenience. Which also works until it’s not so convenient anymore. And the diagram has to be redrawn yet again.
The nations of the Middle East know how the game is played. Yesterday’s enemy is today’s friend. Today’s friend is tomorrow’s enemy. No friendship is forever, no enmity is eternal.
Those nations get it. Us? Not so much. Especially after the past couple of weeks. Saudi Arabia is now our BFF, so when (along with four other Arab governments) it cut diplomatic, trade and travel ties last week with next-door neighbor Qatar, President Donald Trump jumped in with the Saudis and skewered Qatar, tweeting, “Perhaps this will be the beginning of the end to the horror of terrorism!”
It won’t. Not just because it’s not that simple, but also because oil-rich Qatar is not the only state from which funds flow to fanatics. Another? How about our new BFF, Saudi Arabia. And it won’t end the horror because Saudi Arabia isn’t really cross with Qatar for sustaining terrorists. It is cross with Qatar for aligning with Iran, which, as a regional superpower, is the Saudis’ most ominous adversary.
Of course we have no more regard for Iran than the Saudis have, so given the logic for rivalries and alliances, it would follow that since Iran is Saudi Arabia’s enemy as well as ours, and Qatar is a friend of our enemy and an enemy of our friend, Qatar would be our enemy too.
But it’s not (at least not yet). That’s because Qatar offers irresistible attributes as a friend. Namely, it hosts the Middle East headquarters of the United States Central Command, and the air base from which we stage attacks on terrorists. Like the Islamic State.
Even the geopolitical picture of Iran is fuzzier than you’d think. The fact is, the U.S. and Iran have mutual malice toward the Islamic State. In Iraq, Syria and Yemen, we are fighting the Islamic State. And so is Iran. How does that that jibe with “the enemy of my enemy is my friend”? Especially since Qatar is on the same side, too, in the same fight.
To different degrees, the United States today is involved in more Middle East wars than ever before. A friend in one war is an enemy in another. The best we can do, although bewildering, is recognize reality.
And if you need any more head-spinning scenarios, late last week our friend Turkey sent in troops to prop up Qatar, which is our friend but also our friend Saudi Arabia’s enemy.
An old parable I’ve often heard in the Middle East actually explains everything. A scorpion asks a frog to carry it across a river. Afraid of being stung, the frog says no, but the scorpion promises that it would never sting the frog because then they both would drown. So the frog gives the scorpion a lift until, halfway across, the scorpion stings the frog. As they’re dying, the frog asks the scorpion, “Why did you sting me, dooming us both?” The scorpion answers, “Because, my friend, this is the Middle East.”
Someone should explain that to Trump.
Greg Dobbs of Evergreen is an author, public speaker, and former foreign correspondent for ABC News.
