Newspaper: Europe's strategic role in the Middle East diminished with Trump's arrival

The past two weeks in Libya demonstrated the role of solid power in the Middle East and North Africa, as Turkey and Russia increased their military support to competing factions, and these developments have highlighted the growing role of Russia and regional actors at the expense of Europe.

Europe has always been a major player in the Middle East and North Africa region. In modern history, European countries have acted as colonial powers to draw the borders of the modern Middle East, but that era gradually ended, and was marked by the withdrawal of the United Kingdom as a major naval presence in the Persian Gulf in 1971, but Europe continued being an important strategic actor in the region and maintaining great political influence.

In the past decade, Europe’s role in the MENA region has decreased significantly, despite maintaining economic and cultural influence, and the European reaction - or lack thereof - to events in Libya, Syria, Iran, Israel and Palestine undermined its role.

European countries played a major role in the NATO-led intervention in Libya in 2011, but Europe lost a lot of its influence, due to differing European views on who will support in Libya, as European powers supported various groups in Libya, while Russia and the actors presented regional military support to the opposition factions, marginalized Europe.

Europe also became almost irrelevant to the civil war in Syria, and when the conflict created a historical refugee crisis, European leaders responded in various ways, lacking a continent-wide strategy, and tending to focus on keeping refugees abroad rather than addressing the root causes of the crisis.

Just as the European countries participated in the alliance to fight ISIS, it reinforced the message that Europe is only ready to use strict force to deal with terrorism and not to support its broader values or strategic interests.

Europe remained influential under Barack Obama's presidency, only because Washington wanted European partners to support its actions in the Middle East and North Africa region. Europe played a role in the US policy towards Libya and Syria, and in particular towards Iran, as it helped Europe negotiate and implement the joint comprehensive plan of action (JCPOA) with Iran, but with Trump in office, he withdrew from the joint comprehensive plan of action despite European protests.

Europe's efforts to save the JCPOA seemed weak, and Tehran expressed its hope that European leaders would take effective measures to circumvent US sanctions, however, the combination of economic and financial integration between Europe and the United States market, and the absence of political will proved to a large extent that it will not be a counterweight.

And it took Europe a long time to establish "INSTEX", a mechanism that allows some European trade with Iran and its scope was much narrower than Iran had hoped, as observers seemed that European leaders and European companies want to maintain access to the American market more than business opportunities in Iran.

For years, Europe had an important role in dealing with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and played a role in some negotiations and provided great assistance, however, the Trump administration's approach demonstrated once again to ignore European concerns by moving the American embassy to Jerusalem, as well as preventing nearly all American aid to the Palestinians, It supported Israel’s perspective on the proposed peace plan, as Europe’s attempts to maintain neutrality in this environment render it effectively irrelevant.

Multiple factors have caused Europe to lose political and strategic influence, and the Trump administration has made clear that the United States does not need Europe, to the detriment of the latter's influence globally.

European countries often failed to coordinate their foreign policy, which undermined their potential influence and complicated the ability of the European Union to operate effectively. In a world in which the area of political moderation diminishes, Europe’s efforts to have a balanced influence do not receive much attention, and Europe’s failure to use solid power is undermining its influence at a time when regional powers such as Russia in the Middle East and North Africa have become more willing and able to deploy military power.

Europe maintains important economic and cultural ties in the MENA region, however, this is not sufficient to remain a major strategic actor.

And for those who see Europe’s legacy in the MENA region as a mixed bag or mostly having negative effects, they see Europe’s decline as a positive development, but this will leave more room for regional powers to work independently and with greater impact, and Russia will try to fill the power vacuum. Which may raise new concerns for regional actors.

T/S

ANHA