Brian M Downing
China and Russia are trying to replace the US as the dominant world power. They aided the Taliban and gave the US an embarrassing defeat. They’re cooperating in Ukraine to the same end. The Gaza war presents extraordinary opportunities for the agenda. China and Russia will use diplomatic entreaties and regional assets – the IRGC, Hamas, Hisbollah, and an array of Shia militias in Iraq. The maneuvering is on.
Propaganda
Both China and Russia will decry civilian casualties, especially those in Gaza and the West Bank. The US and EU send the same message but most people in the region judge it in the context of one-sided support for Israel.
The same declamations will follow a likely uptick in Islamist terrorism in the EU, US, and the Middle East. The EU is more vulnerable than the US as its Muslim populaces are highly concentrated in specific urban districts. ISIL and AQ have recruited well from those districts and lone wolves have welcoming dens. A likely anti-Muslim backlash will also be exploited. (China will of course avoid mention of its Uighur people.)
Beijing and Moscow will call for meaningful negotiations on the two-state solution. All parties have long purported to support the goal but decades of settlements on the West Bank have rendered it in extremis. The propaganda line will underscore this.
Action
The war in Gaza will be expanded. The IRGC and its allies are already seeing to it. Hisbollah is exchanging fire with IDF troops just across the Lebanon-Israel border. The level of fighting may be limited by Hisbollah’s recollection of Israel’s devastating air campaign in 2006 and Israel’s concern with Hisbollah’s formidable assets. They include Iranian missiles with greater range and payload than Hamas’s inventory. Shia militias in Syria and Iraq began targeting US personnel today. Houthi militias have fired cruise missiles over the Red Sea which were intercepted by an American warship.
The aim isn’t to ignite a large regional war, though the threshold isn’t known to anyone. The aim is to evoke US military responses which will underscore its ubiquity in the region, stance on the Gaza war, and inability to act fairly on sensitive regional issues.
The American public will recognize forgotten vulnerabilities in Syria and Iraq and question the point of ongoing casualties there. America will face impassioned and perhaps violent demonstrations on the Gaza war from voices on both sides of the issue. Lone wolf terrorism is possible.
Most of the ongoing attacks will be from Shia groups but that might not exacerbate sectarian hostilities. Indeed, they seek to get past the sectarian divide and build Shia-Sunni support for Palestinians, who are overwhelmingly Sunni. They strike at an external power long supportive of Israel and aligned with Sunni princes and generals.
Expanding fighting and America’s responses will set the stage in coming months and years for a Sino-Russian overture to Sunni states. They will point to Washington’s refusal to listen to Sunni allies and offer a new future of Sino-Russian security guarantees and economic development. Sunni leaders, dismayed by Washington and Jerusalem’s actions on Gaza and mindful of their subjects’ sympathies, won’t turn away.
©2023 Brian M Downing
Brian M Downing is a national security analyst who’s written for outlets across the political spectrum. He studied at Georgetown University and the University of Chicago, and did post-graduate work at Harvard’s Center for International Affairs. Thanks as ever to fellow Hoya Susan Ganosellis.