As the economic sanctions levied by the US on the Middle East's two Islamist powerhouses begin to bite, the pressure on Iranian and Turkish government officials to hide their anxieties behind appeals to national pride is somewhat understandable.
Their regional counterparts who have no such compulsion would be well advised, however, to act in their people's best interests instead of getting carried away by pious platitudes about religious or brotherly solidarity.
The risks of being caught in the crossfire have already been revealed by the purported cancellation of the Iraqi prime minister's visit to Iran, which is being interpreted as Tehran's way of signaling its displeasure with Haider al-Abadi's remarks on the latest round of US sanctions targeting Iranian commerce.
To Abadi, who perforce walks a fine line between Washington and Tehran, Iran's deepening crisis, which began with the Trump administration's withdrawal from the 2015 nuclear deal, probably feels like a crisis for Iraq as well due to the two countries' close political and economic linkages.
With tempers over a lack of public services and jobs at boiling point in southern Iraq and the Baghdad government too dysfunctional to even begin to think of addressing the concerns of other parts of the country, Abadi's position is nothing if not precarious.
Even then, it is his duty to take all possible steps to prevent the interests of ordinary Iraqis - be they Shia or Sunni, Kurdish or Turkmen, Yazidi or Christian - from becoming collateral damage in the two separate economic conflicts at Iraq's doorstep.
Granted, it will be an uphill struggle for those Iraqi politicians who feel the competing pulls of solidarity with Iran and Iraqi national identity, to stay above the fray. However, prudence dictates that Baghdad remain equidistant from Tehran and Washington as well as from Ankara and Washington.
That being said, for the ethnic Kurds of Iran, Iraq, Syria and Turkey, it must be tempting to view as poetic justice the predicament of the two sanctions-hit regimes that have piled so much violence and misery on their own Kurdish populations.
But geography being destiny and history having proved there are "no permanent friends, only permanent interests, in international relations", in the Kurds' case too caution may be the best approach.
Bereft of an independent homeland and monetary sovereignty, the Kurdish people's economic and political fortunes are to a certain extent intertwined with those of Iran and Turkey.
It is true that every big fall in the value of the Iranian rial and the Turkish lira caused by political tensions and economic mismanagement rattles the foundations of two of the biggest opponents of Kurdish self-rule and self-determination.
But paradoxically, the same decline adds to the financial stress of many Kurds.
What is more, there exists an outside chance of a deal (or a sell-out, depending on one's political standpoint) somewhere down the line between the Trump administration and the powers that be in Tehran and Ankara if the sanctions end up fueling fears of an emerging-market contagion.
Under the circumstances, ethnic, religious and political minorities stuck in an uneasy coexistence with Iran and Turkey should not shy away from capitalizing on the economic pressure build-up as long as they take care to avoid being perceived as reveling in schadenfreude.
Take the potential opportunities for Iraqi Kurdistan, for example.
With luck, the reported blow dealt to Abadi's re-appointment hopes by the kerfuffle over his comments on the Iran sanctions could open the door for the two main Kurdish parties to the possibility of recouping the influence they lost at the federal level after the events of October 2017.
With regard specifically to the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), there is no need for it to see its rapport with Iran and Turkey and its close ties with the US as a zero-sum game. Rather than pick sides, this time around the KRG should confidently offer itself as a potential honest broker if the possibility arises of back-channel negotiations via Erbil.
Given the slight chance of a total rearranging of the regional order, could the salvoes against Iran and Turkey be part of a new containment strategy the US administration is pursuing to revive America's global power?
The jury is still out on the matter, but the tone and tenor of statements and announcements by Trump's foreign- and economic-policy teams suggest that this could indeed be the case.
As a member of NATO, Turkey does not obviously belong in the same league as Iran, but its leader, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, finds himself next only to China's Xi Jinping and Russia's Vladimir Putin as a perceived thorn in Washington's side despite his country's formal status as a Western ally.
What a difference a year can make to US foreign policy!
Around this time in 2017, Trump's first secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, was frequently to be seen shuttling between Arab Gulf capitals, trying to end the boycott of Turkey's strategic ally, Qatar, by a Saudi-led bloc.
By contrast, these days Tillerson's successor, Mike Pompeo, spends most of his time reassuring US allies and partners of Washington's determination to stay engaged globally and challenge geopolitical rivals vigorously.
Wielding sanctions, tariffs and a strong dollar as his principal tools for influencing global politics was arguably not what Trump had in mind when he moved into the White House in January 2017. But that is cold comfort for the people of Iran and Turkey as they find themselves being pushed closer to the brink with each passing day by circumstances largely beyond their control.
With their governments braced for the politico-economic equivalent of "the long war", it would be folly for leaders and rulers from Baghdad to Beirut and from Dohuk to Doha to not put their own people's interests first.
Arnab Neil Sengupta is an independent journalist and commentator on the Middle East.
The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rudaw.
Comments
Rudaw moderates all comments submitted on our website. We welcome comments which are relevant to the article and encourage further discussion about the issues that matter to you. We also welcome constructive criticism about Rudaw.
To be approved for publication, however, your comments must meet our community guidelines.
We will not tolerate the following: profanity, threats, personal attacks, vulgarity, abuse (such as sexism, racism, homophobia or xenophobia), or commercial or personal promotion.
Comments that do not meet our guidelines will be rejected. Comments are not edited – they are either approved or rejected.
Post a comment