THE STRUGGLE FOR THE LEVANT Geopolitical Battles and the Quest for Stability Aram Nerguizian First Review Draft: August 20, 2014 Anthony H. Cordesman Arleigh A. Burke Chair in Strategy
[email protected] CSIS-Burke Chair: 1616 Rhode Island Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20036; 202-775-3270, Burke
[email protected] The Struggle for the Levant 08.20.14 ii EXECUTIVE SUMMARY The United States and its allies compete with Iran in a steadily more unsettled and uncertain Levant. This study focuses on how this competition is affected by the political upheavals in the Middle East, economic and demographic pressures, sectarian struggles and extremism, ethnic and tribal conflicts, and how these tensions all combine to produce new complex patterns of competition. The civil war in Syria, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in Gaza, and the internal upheavals in Egypt, Jordan and Lebanon all interact and all affect the competition between the US and Iran. Accordingly, the study examines a broader view of the Levant that includes Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, the Palestinian Territories and Syria. The analysis shows that the United States faces an increasing level of instability across the Levant, which in turn affects every key aspect of US competition with Iran in the broader Middle East and North Africa. It examines how the US and Iran compete in the Levant, where they compete, and what forces and constraints shape their competition: o The first chapter of this report introduces the analysis. o The second explores US and Iranian interests in the Levant. o The third chapter addresses how the US and Iran compete by considering the conventional military balance in the Levant.