Just as the world was tiring of the war in Ukraine, the Middle East region turned to what it does best: produce more geopolitics than it can consume and create the basis for a horrendous conflict. It is hard to lose sight of the fact that the Middle East had been relatively peaceful. One has to go back to July/August 2014 when more than 2000 Palestinians and 73 Israelis were killed in a war that lasted seven weeks in the region. Hamas appears to have taken Israeli security forces and the world by surprise by the ghastly attacks it carried out inside Israel. The toll at present: 700 Israelis killed and several abducted by Hamas. In retaliation, 400 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli air strike so far in Gaza. Israelis are already terming this as their ” 9/11″ and have sworn massive retaliation with absolutely no mercy. This has all the signs of an unfolding catastrophe.
The immediate implications of this sudden eruption in the Middle East is hard to ignore:
(1) The detente that we began to see in the region, either the easing of tensions between Saudi Arabia and Iran or even the Abraham Accords arrived at in 2020 may well see some setbacks. This bears close watching.
(2) The war in Ukraine, already affected by “Ukraine fatigue” may well recede from the headlines. Could this give more breathing space to Russia?
(3) Given the special status of Israel in the US and its politics, it is possible that China takes even more of a backseat than it already has, due to the war in Ukraine. The implications for Indo-Pacific in general and countries of the region like India in particular, need careful scrutiny.
(4) The Middle East has erupted at a time when the US and China are trying to re-establish channels of communication which had broken down following the “balloon” affair. There appears to be every possibility now that Chinese President Xi Jinping will travel to California for the APEC Summit in November and meet with American President Joe Biden. Xi Jinping would love for this bilateral summit meeting with Joe Biden to be dominated by the conflagration in the Middle East, rather than about China’s own activities in the Taiwan Strait, East China Sea or the South China Sea.
(5) One must also examine if there are any implications for the much-vaunted India-Middle East-Europe-Corridor (IMEC) which was recently announced on the side lines of the New Delhi G20 Summit.
(6) The impact on global economic recovery, especially with the expected spike in oil prices is also something that needs to be reckoned with.
In International Relations and Geopolitics, no one can fully anticipate events like the one Hamas unleashed on Israel on October 7, 2023, the fiftieth anniversary of the Yom Kippur war and on the holiest day of Yom Kippur (the day of atonement) itself. Which is why it is said of world leaders that they cannot control the “in tray” and have to play the cards they are dealt. This war that has just erupted in the Middle East will have repercussions well beyond the region.
Diplomacy and Geopolitics 