Attitudes are hard to change. When people are in a war for a generation, they grow up with hatred toward their enemy. This is the case in the Middle East. The disaster of the Iraq war has made these attitudes more pronounced, and spread them to more countries.
Joschka Fischer, Germany’s Vice Chancellor from 1998 to 2005, paints a bleak picture of the situation in the Middle East,
Indeed, the war in Iraq has transformed the centuries-old Shia-Sunni conflict by infusing it with modern geopolitical significance and extending it to the entire region.
Not only this, there is now a potential for tension between Iran and Saudi Arabia.
The rise of Iran poses an existential threat to Saudi Arabia, because the country’s oil-rich northeast is populated by a Shia majority. A Shia government in Baghdad, dominated by Iran, would, in the medium term, threaten Saudi Arabia’s territorial integrity – a scenario that the Saudis cannot, and will not, accept.
There is now a new arrangement of power in the Middle East. The territorial power of Iran has increased with no effort of their own. The two Shia factions - Hamas in Palestine and Hezbollah in Lebanon - surrounding Israel are supported by Iran. A solution to the conflict there will now have to rely on talking to Iran.
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