Trump, Merkel to Leave the Office Simultaneously

In news reports, I noticed that German Chancellor Angela Merkel after 18 years in office and leading the Christian Democratic Union is stepping down from her post with uttering this sentence “I have not been born Chancellor. I have always dreamed to act honorably in any job that I take its responsibility and leave it honorably.”

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It seems she leaves a position that in the current condition U.S. President Donald Trump is fighting fiercely for keeping it. I do not believe that Merkel during her years as Chancellor has been beneficial for her country and not for the world. Her policies regarding Iran’s nuclear deal, the JCPOA, have caused damages to Iran and fortunately she took the same path that Trump had taken although it did not show to be positive.

The European and American policies have inflicted damages on the people in the West Asia that they may not be recouped in the next 100 years. Although Merkel, by concentrating on more empowering Europe against the U.S., inflicted heavy investment to her country, she kept Germany’s stand in the West Asia to some extent. That Europe and the U.S. both see their interests in the Middle East have ended will be of the strategic points in the 2021 to 2030 outlook.

The U.S. and Germany’s partners and allies in the Middle East will definitely react to this shift of concentration by Europe to other regions for finding new partners and allies. Some of them will side with the U.S. and Germany’s friends and some will join their adversaries. In the near term, at least, these countries through weapon proliferation or armed conflict are likely to engage in riskier behaviors. We’ve seen signs of all of those things happening already—in Yemen, in Iraq, in Libya, and elsewhere—and they’re likely to happen more.

Perhaps this analysis may be correct that none of these issues except weapons proliferation is important for Westerners, including Europe and the U.S., though, who have watched refugee crises shape their politics, and for East Asian allies, who import three-quarters of their oil from the Middle East, rising instability is a major worry.

Jon B. Alterman, the director of the Middle East Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), recently in article published in the website of the center wrote, “Amid a robust discussion about the appropriate U.S. posture in the Middle East (it means the NATO), one element is underemphasized, and sometimes it is entirely missing. Too often, people assume that the United States will fundamentally reorient its strategy toward the Middle East, and other powers (China, Iran and Russia) will essentially roll with the punches.”

But that’s not true. While the West engagement in the Middle East has grown, the world’s engagement in the region has grown as well. Allies and adversaries alike are tied into the Middle East’s status quo and try to plan strengthening their stand. When it shifts, they will shift, and when allies and adversaries feel effects, the West, including the U.S. and Europe, will feel effects. The United States might feel it is done with the Middle East, but the reverse isn’t true for the NATO and his adversaries.

China, which lacks the domestic oil and gas necessary to drive its economy, seems lashed to the Middle East for years to come. It will almost certainly seek to increase its footprint there, and it is likely to use a more dominant position in the Middle East to exert leverage over East Asian neighbors who are also reliant on the region. As Middle Eastern states view a future in which the United States is receding and China is rising, Germany, as the super power of Europe and the U.S. and as the “reeve” of the world, will be hard pressed to prevent China from embedding itself in the region’s physical and technological infrastructure. China is averse to replicating the U.S. military footprint in the Middle East, or anywhere else, but is keen to advance its security by other means. If it is able to establish pervasive surveillance capabilities, it will do more than be a force multiplier for a limited Chinese military presence. It will also build good relations with Middle Eastern governments, almost all of which are concerned by the prospect of popular discontent and are impressed by the Chinese model of economic development without destabilizing social and political change.

Merkel’s parting with her consent, under the tough coronavirus condition and virus-hit economy and Europe’s pressure in dealing with the Brexit and UK’s double standard, is her savior but costly for Europe. But exerting pressure on Trump for leaving the White House is very beneficial for the U.S. and other countries especially for the West Asia.

  By: Hamid Reza Naghashian