Echoes from Antoine Courban’s agora
Translated By Jill Naeem
What an earthquake! The Syrian regime uses chemical weapons against its own people. U.S. President Barack Obama takes a stand, deploying his armada to the Mediterranean. It was as if we were reliving a remake of the Cuban missile crisis in reverse. And then, a huge surprise – the American president gives in, backs down and resorts to a diplomatic solution that allows him to get out of the Syrian wasps’ nest that he obviously doesn’t like. In spite of crimes against humanity, in spite of violations of the most basic and fundamental principles of our world – those the West have always wanted to protect – the American president’s gesture was perceived as that of a Caesar Augustus who no longer wants to be absolute master of Rome, but prefers to remain village chief.
Neo-isolationism or a major revision of strategic options? The future will tell. Nevertheless, President Obama’s attitude is a seismic shock to the world, the effects of which will continue to be felt for decades to come.
Has Obama climbed down vis-à-vis Putin as Khrushchev did in regard to Kennedy in 1962? It’s not altogether clear. Already, after his famous Cairo speech of June 4, 2009, the best-informed onlookers noticed the double danger underpinning Obama’s vision: a certain anti-imperial leftism lined with consensual and pacifist communitarianism. All the arguments of his speech suggested that the world’s problems amount to a family feud among Abraham’s heirs – Jews, Christians and Muslims. He called for a reconciliation of Abrahamicmonotheism as the basis for a new era of world peace. It is clear that when it comes to the greatest military power in history, such considerations are largely insufficient as a basis for clear strategy.
The Syrian crisis has only confirmed this impression. Barack Obama is not and does not want to be an empire builder. This could signify that the U.S., which no longer needs Middle East oil, can afford to withdraw from the Levant and gradually fall back to the American continent and the vastness of the Pacific. America is becoming an island in the middle of the ocean once more – a great maritime power.
But what is to become of the rest of the world? Vladimir Putin has clearly understood the meaning of the vacuum created by Obama. He rushed, 24 hours after Obama’s famous speech of September 10, to address the American people on the front page of The New York Times, almost as if were speaking to them fact to face, from the Atlantic shores of Europe, because at issue with all of this turmoil is Europe, or more precisely, the Euro-Mediterranean.
The new American isolationism, which has its rationale, exposes the nakedness of Europe. The ball is now in the hands of Western Europe, whose hegemony of the seas has remained undisputed since the times of the Roman Empire. Centered on the Mediterranean as an open conduit, civilization could thrive and prosper around “mare nostrum [our sea],” but she was also able to conquer the world and export to the four corners of the globe through the conquering power of colonial empire, the strategic acquisitions of which avoided collapse in the 20th century thanks to U.S. intervention, especially during the two world wars and the Cold War.
Are we still in such a familiar world? Nothing could be less certain. If, in the wake of the Syria crisis, such a reversal in the Mediterranean is confirmed, it would mean:
— A continental power, no longer a maritime one, dominates the old Eurasian continent.
— The Mediterranean Sea, the eastern gate of which is Syria, with its Orontes and Euphrates Rivers, is no longer an open sea, but would be one of three enclosed seas in Eurasia: the Caspian Sea, the Black Sea and the Mediterranean Sea.
— Under such circumstances Western Europe would be no more than what geography intended it to be: an extension – a peninsula – of Eurasia.
It’s clear that one of the major issues of this confusing Syria crisis is not only the energy supply of Europe, but Europe’s political future.
Is Europe in a position, with its fidelity to its history and culture, of having a political vision for the Euro-Mediterranean? If Europe is unable to come up with adequate strategic options for a Euro-Arab dialogue, history may well recall that Western Europe was buried in Damascus.
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