Page 58 - bne magazine March 2017 issue

58 Opinion
bne March 2017
It is perhaps a great coincidence that Karlov’s assassination would come just days before a planned tripartite meeting between Russian, Turkish, and Iranian leaders in Moscow to discuss the fate of Syria. While Turkey’s revitalised relation- ship with Moscow will likely earn it some kind of face-saving concessions, it has few functional means of leverage over Rus- sia and Iran in its currently isolated and weakened position. Notably, neither Washington nor any of the major European players were invited to participate, underscoring the reality that power is not a quotient to be crunched using inputs of GDP, military manpower, or cultural might. Ultimately, power is not just about economic dynamism (the Russian economy, for example, is roughly comparable to that of Mexico) or even a strong military, but the will, and the means, to act.
While the US and Europe continue to enjoy the bulk of global economic and military dominance, recent signs suggest that the Western public’s reserves of willpower have flagged to a potentially historic nadir, perhaps never to recover. With the West often unwilling to enforce the broad contours of the norms it developed and preached for decades, and sometimes even engaging in such violations, the scramble for dominance in wide pockets of western Eurasia has already begun in earnest.
Unpolarity encroaches
Of course, while Western capitals may have had the means to stop them, it is important to remember that US and European leaders are not themselves responsible for the carnage in Syria, the mass refugee flows in the eastern Mediterranean and the extended fighting in Ukraine. President Barack Obama’s deci- sion to grant the perpetrators indefinite forbearance may be an unfortunate over-corrective to past US blunders in the region,
ALACO DISPATCHES:
but it is ultimately Russia, Iran and the Syrian regime that
are complicit in the grotesque crimes unfolding in the likes of Aleppo. Similarly, it is regime-allied forces and terrorist groups that are forcing millions to flee the region; and it is Russian troops and their Moscow-directed proxies that are prosecuting the wars in Ukraine. Towering though Western policy short- comings may be, it should not be conflated with those whom are actively enabling or inciting destruction on those regions.
Nonetheless, unpolarity encroaches only with Western com- plicity. It is likely comforting (and not entirely wrong) to pin blame for emerging unpolarity on the elections of reaction- ary elements, or growing barriers to the global flow of ideas, goods and people. However, unpolarity is also an outcome from an array of misguided, or at least grossly mismanaged, foreign adventures; or from decades of economic policies that sacrificed inclusive growth for rent seeking; or a result of yawning popular disconnect between the cherished institu- tions of Western life and the sprawling global systems that underpin them.
If not a sign in itself, Ambassador Karlov’s murder in Ankara at least exposes the withered, snapping moorings of the old US-led unipolar order and an early preview of how an unpolar world might appear. And if current trends hold, the contagion of unpolarity is liable to spread broadly and swiftly, usher-
ing a new age of geopolitical cynicism, mutual suspicion, and declining fortunes for all.
Michael Cecire is an International Security Fellow at New America and a non-resident Fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute.
Russia makes big play for Iranian trade
Yigal Chazan of Alaco
Russia has been ramping up trade and investment with Iran following the lifting of nuclear-related internation- al sanctions early last year, stealing a march on Western companies still hesitant about striking deals with the Islamic Republic.
Isolated by the West, Russia sees Iran as an increasingly important market and a strategic ally in the Middle East, while Iran hopes Russia’s commercial muscle will help bolster its economy, whose recovery has been hampered by remaining US sanctions, which include measures linked to terrorism, human rights violations and ballistic missiles.
In December, a large Russian trade delegation to the Iranian
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capital, comprising representatives of 180 firms, signed a series of initial agreements in a range of sectors that could lead to $10bn worth of business. The deals included memorandums of understanding with several Russian energy firms for the devel- opment of seven Iranian oil fields, and a $2.5bn contract for the construction of a thermal power station and the electrification of a railway line. The two countries also agreed a five-year road map on industrial cooperation covering more than 70 projects.
Assad assistance
The growing commercial relationship has emerged amid their strategic cooperation in the Middle East focused on preserv- ing the Assad regime. In August, Russian planes used Iranian airbases to launch raids on Syrian targets, and in November it