Iraq and Middle East Geopolitical Struggle
Turkey's Geopolitical Endeavor in the Middle East
The Geopolitical Road to the Middle East Democratization
Middle East Totalitarianism and Terror
Iran and the Middle East Political Violence and Terror
The Middle East; Dangers and Delusions (3)
In a previous piece of mine, I suggested that that there is an apparent nascent political polarity in the Middle East getting over time more connected to two poles in the region are the Shiite extremist Iran and the Sunni moderate Saudi Arabia. Although this polarity has, in general, religious cover and distribution between Sunnis and Shias, it definitely has political nature and scope, and most importantly, it has a geopolitical essence and shape.
As the moderate campaign rallied by Saudi Arabia consists of the most moderate countries in the Middle East, the extremist campaign led by Iran, which also has been called the Shiite crescent, is taking Iran, Syria, Gaza strip by Hamas, and struggling for Lebanon by Hezbullah. It is also persistently attempting to stretch itself in the region through the Iranian aggressive regional policy. This extremist campaign matches the Middle East Totalitarian Axis and uses it.
For Iran's extremist campaign or the Shiite crescent, there is a missing part is of extreme importance not only for this campaign but also for the entire Middle East and even for the leading international powers. This part is Iraq, which I used to call the strategic axis or prize to the Middle East geopolitics.
This country has a Shiite majority within its population, which makes it a reasonable target to the Iranian expansionist policy in the region after the political change in Iraq transferring power to this majority by means of democracy.
Nevertheless, this country has a strong and important Arab Sunni minority besides its Shiite majority has Arabic nationality incompatible to Persian ambitions of Iran. Moreover, there is a strong Kurdish population with considerable political weight in Iraq.
In addition, the key determining factor at the strategic and geopolitical level in terms of Iraq is the current internationalization of this country due to the situation there resulted from the Operation Iraqi Freedom overthrowing Baath dictatorial regime. This gives the United States a key influence in this regard, but it is not the only role and impact there. In fact, the U.S. did not pay this huge cost in the war in Iraq to turn it over to Iran eventually.
Then, Iran and its campaign are in front of a very difficult task to gain Iraq to complement the Shiite crescent in the Middle East.
