By Rajendra Abhyankar
June 30, 2015
The Islamic State’s terror attacks on June 26 in Tunisia, France and Kuwait have made the Mediterranean the epicentre of violent Islamic radicalism. Once seen as a settled Western responsibility, it has now become the Bermuda Triangle of international relationships. The unending stream of forced migrants from the south and east reflects the combined crises in society, governance and development in the countries of the southern and eastern Mediterranean. The diffusion of militant Islamic radicalism from the region is a threat to multicultural, plural and syncretic societies like India.
The blowback by entrenched interests in Syria and Egypt against popular Arab revolutions destroyed governance and societal cohesion, resulting in internecine bloodletting, rule by warlords and radical Islamic groups like the IS, al-Qaeda and its clones, the redrawing of borders and the breakdown of the region’s tolerant cultural ethos.
On the northern rim, the continuing impact of the 2009 financial collapse on the European Union limited its ability to stem, control or resolve the Greek financial debacle, even as its “forward policy” was challenged by Russia’s takeover of the Crimea and military pressure on Ukraine, Turkey playing up its Islamic — rather than its European and NATO— face, and pressure on the euro zone’s continuing viability. With the US’s focus shifting to Asia, the EU has come up short in its role as the regional security and development provider.
The unsettling of established relationships has meant an oft-contradictory realignment of adversarial forces. Consequently, Russia and China have ended up defending non-interference in Syria against France, the UK and other Western powers, while a diametrically opposite scenario unfolds in central Europe and at the UN Security Council. France supports radical Islamic groups fighting the Bashar al-Assad regime, while its troops try to defend Mali from the Boko Haram. Even as it slides into authoritarianism, Turkey has positioned itself as the paradigm of democracy in the Islamic world.
Israel, long opposed to Islamic radicalism, provides medical succour in hospitals in occupied Golan to IS soldiers battling Assad while making common cause with long-standing adversary Saudi Arabia against Iran. The IS, far from assisting its Sunni brethren in the fight against Palestine’s occupation, chooses to fight against the Assad regime and destroy minority communities like the Christians, Kurds and Assyrians. The IS’s military success and attempt to carve out a state structure opens, for the first time, the possibility of a radical Islamic state in the Mediterranean. Despite NATO strikes, Libya remains farmed out among tribal warlords, making it a conduit for populations fleeing religious violence and penury in sub-Saharan Africa.
The US’s withdrawal has eroded cohesion among Western powers in response to these challenges. The war-weariness of the American people has forced quick-fix solutions in the Levant, based on partisan advice by regional powers. As a result of the unstructured strategy against the IS, one that relies on sporadic drone strikes, the US and Assad are fighting the same enemy. Yet, the churning has opened up new opportunities in trade, energy and investment. The entry in the Mediterranean of rising Asian powers like China, India and the Gulf countries has been remarkable. The discovery of huge offshore reserves of oil and gas in the east Mediterranean Sea, the Great Levant Basin, could be a catalyst for making peace — or a trigger for a new dimension to unending conflict. The stabilisation of the Mediterranean requires three levels of dialogue.
First, a dialogue on stemming the refugee tide predicated on cohesive EU support to Italy’s “Mare Nostrum” operation. The international community’s cooperation in anti-piracy operations off the Somali coast provides a precedent.
Second, a dialogue on the scourge of Islamic radicalism between members of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, major Western powers and countries with large Muslim populations.
Third, a dialogue to unveil a new round of peace talks by leveraging the massive oil and gas discoveries to foster shared partnerships within the Mediterranean.
Rajendra Abhyankar, a former Indian Ambassador to Syria, Turkey and the EU, is professor of practice of diplomacy and public affairs at the School of Public and Environmental Affairs, Indiana University, Bloomington.
Source: http://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/mediterranean-edge/2/#sthash.OesOgUPD.dpuf
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