Special to WorldTribune.com

By Dr. Assad Homayoun

The Indian Ocean has already become the key focus of the global strategic and commercial contest for the 21st Century.

The realization is slowly dawning in Europe and the Americas that this is the dynamic element of the new Asia-Pacific strategic architecture.
And now, because of historical developments, Iran is very much at the heart of how the new Eurasian, Indo-Pacific, and African framework evolves.

The struggle for geopolitical interests in this vast region is already extremely tense, and yet it is being little studied or understood by most strategic policymakers; indeed, it does not receive significant international media or academic attention, perhaps largely because the traditional great powers — and the People’s Republic of China (PRC) — do not at present have large military deployments in the area. Even the International Coalition’s commitment to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan relied on the quiescence of the Indian Ocean to be able to project force into the littorals.

The geography of the Indian Ocean is extremely important, and this will become evident in the coming decades. It is a dominant world source of hydrocarbon energy, and in the 21st Century the role of energy for the economic wellbeing and security of nations is decisive. Indeed history is geography in motion.

From ancient times, this region, as Sir Arnold Wilson also put it, has been of much interest to geologists, archeologists, historians, geographers, merchants, statesmen, and students of strategy.

The Indian Ocean and its littorals are the center of communications and competition for energy and minerals. Almost all conquerors from ancient times to the 18th Century — such as Darius the Great, Alexander the Great, Tamerlane, Mahmud of Qazni, Babur (who founded Mughal Empire of India), and Nader Shah — all passed from the strategic plain of Herat through the majestic Khyber pass to India. Sultan Mahmud from Ghazni invaded India 17 times.

The great religions of Zoroastrianism, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Christianity, Islam, and Baha’ism all originated from the lands which touch the Indian Ocean region. Indeed, it is easy to forget that 48 nation-states are either Indian Ocean littoral states, or are landlocked states which are dependent on that Ocean.

All oceanic explorers, such as Adm. Zheng-He of China, Vasco da Gama, and Christopher Columbus, started with the Indian Ocean as their centerpoint. In the 15th Century, Adm. Zheng-He, with 317 ships and a crew of 28,000 — including scientists, astronomers, interpreters, and medical doctors — passed through the Strait of Malacca from China, into the Indian Ocean, and from there visited the Persian Gulf. Adm. Zhang-He headed via Cape Route to the Americas. He explored or discovered America 70 years before Columbus.

[The story of Zheng-He is documented by British naval historian Gavin Menzies in his master works 1421: The Years China Discovered America, and 1434: The Year a Magnificent Chinese Fleet Sailed to Italy and Ignited the Renaissance.

Menzies’ histories have been widely challenged — attacked — by many mainstream historians, but history may yet vindicate his research, and, in any event, the basic theme of Zheng-He’s pioneering journeys with the Chinese treasure fleets are well enough documented and accepted, even if they did not go as far as Menzies asserts.]

Later Portuguese, Dutch, French and Great Britain came into Indian Ocean and the Persian Gulf, but Great Britain outmaneuvered all and became lord paramount of the Persian Gulf and Indian Ocean for two centuries. For the British, it took 11 months via the Cape of Good Hope route to come to the Indian Ocean and reach India.

After the Seven Years’ War with the French in the 18th Century and with treaty with Paris, the French gave up all their interests to the British East Indian Company, and the British Government found its way to Persian Gulf and Indian Ocean through Baghdad. The route through the Persian Gulf took only five months instead of 11 months, and facilitated Great Britain’s leverage to dominate the region.

Finally, the British Government after two centuries withdrew from the Persian Gulf in 1971. Immediately thereafter, Iran regained its control over three strategic islands of Greater Tunb, Lesser Tunb, and Abu Musa at the mouth of Straits of Hormuz. Indeed, Iran became the true gate keeper of the Persian Gulf with its unique position and active diplomacy and power projection in the regional and global geopolitical framework.

Indian Ocean waters directly touch 37 countries (depending on how the Indian Ocean perimeters are measured) and almost 1.8 billion people, with a significant number of Muslim states. Indeed the Indian Ocean is the heart of the world and, simultaneously, of the arc of Islam. This important ocean is, at its broadest reach, 6,200 miles (10,000 km) wide and 4,000 miles from north to south: an area of 73,556,000 sq.km (28,400,000 sq. miles), including the Red Sea and Persian Gulf.

It is the center of several different arms races, as well as the home to low and high intensity conflicts, fundamentalism, political Islam, and Islamic jihad movements which would like to replace the West with an Islamic order. Terrorism, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the civil and secessionist wars underway in Syria, Iraq, and Yemen are just part of the instability in the region. As well, the nuclear issue between the U.S. and the 5+1 group on the one hand and Iran on the other, is so significant that, if it is not settled, could lead to war.

Conflict between India and Pakistan over Kashmir and other issues, and rivalry between India and the PRC, and the potential for ongoing instability in Afghanistan, contribute to making this region tense. With the warming of relations between U.S. and India, and the evolution of a new strategic relationship between Washington and New Delhi, Pakistan may seek a closer relationship with the PRC and a new approach to Russia. But none of this is static or clear. The U.S. in November 2014 began attempting to rebuild its strategic relationship with Pakistan.

Russia sent its Defense Minister to Islamabad. U.S. President Barack Obama made a significant State visit to India for India’s National Day in January 2015, and so on.

Russia, with a naval base in Syria and supporting the Government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, also has a significant strategic relationship with Iran, and is therefore — again — integrally involved in the geopolitical contest in the Indian Ocean. The Middle East and the Indian Ocean region are in the middle of great transformation and many of its states are unstable.

The U.S., with bases in Bahrain, Qatar, Djibouti, and Diego Garcia, has focused on sea lane security and close relations with Persian Gulf states, is still a great player in the region. The U.S. is becoming more involved in this region, once again, with the war against the Islamic Caliphate and terrorism. But it is the U.S. interest in Far East, to check the growing power of the PRC, and its engagement in Europe with the crisis in Ukraine, which holds the greater potential for state-on-state conflict.

It is not easy for international analysts, or even U.S. policy observers, to properly understand U.S. policy. The new 29-page national security document which was introduced on Feb. 6, 2015, by the Barack Obama Administration as the U.S.’ 2015 National Security Strategy (NSS) was an important document, but gives no real clue as to how U.S. could be able to face the various significant problems in most part of the world, a world which is functioning in new ways.

It is necessary for the U.S. to devise a grand strategy not only to deal with ever increasing crises but especially regarding rapid rise of the PRC. The crisis in South China Sea, for example, could soon lead to a confrontation.

The U.S. was, by the beginning of 2015, the world’s largest producer of oil and natural gas and this ended its dependence on Middle Eastern, Nigeria and Gulf of Guinea, and Venezuelan supplies.

Indeed, it has for many years seen its dependence on Middle Eastern oil decline; by mid-2014 some 20 percent or more of U.S. imported oil came from the Gulf of Guinea. But the U.S. energy situation could be set back if world oil prices remain low (ie: below $50 a barrel) for the coming year or more: highly-leveraged U.S. shale oil development firms may not be able to sustain investment and production if production costs exceed sales prices. If the U.S. returns to the global energy market, it could also see the U.S. revive its interest in Middle Eastern oil and gas production, and therefore the Indian Ocean sea lanes.

Apart from funding war between Sunni and Shi’a communities in the region, Saudi Arabia has exported Wahhabist-based jihadism into the Balkans, the Caucasus, South Asia, and elsewhere. But the same applies to Qatar, which hosts the major U.S. military basing on the Arabian Peninsula.

The United States has for some time closed its eye to Saudi and Qatari activities. Geopolitically the Gulf Arab states are surrounded by enemies and the serious threat of the Islamic Caliphate — which essentially sprang from support for jihadist groups from Turkey, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia. Such is the challenge faced by the new Saudi Administration of King Salman bin ‘Abd al-’Aziz al Sa’ud, and internally it is faced with an unhappy Shi’a minority and a restless younger population.

Oman, which dominates the southern littoral of the Strait of Hormuz, faces challenges itself, at this critical time on the Arabian Peninsula. As Yemen falls into disunity, and possible renewed civil war between North and South, and Saudi Arabia battles its transition, Oman must now consider a leadership transition after four decades of stability and growth. Sultan Qaboos bin Sa’id al-Said has been fighting cancer in a German hospital since July 2014.

With the growing geopolitical importance of Iran and its role of the war against the Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (ISIL), U.S. policy and interests has come to parallel that of Iran in many ways. Much, then, depends on the diplomatic negotiations now underway.

India, meanwhile, is geographically well-placed to project power from the Eurasian landmass into the Indian Ocean. Indeed, it is the anchor into to the Indian Ocean proper which Iran is to the Persian Gulf. The security of sea lanes passing across the Indian Ocean is vitally important for the People’s Republic of China (PRC), as well as for the states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), Japan, South Korea, Taiwan (Republic of China), and Australasia.

The PRC has a huge — even existential — interest in the Indian Ocean. It receives 80 percent of its energy from Persian Gulf and Africa through the Indian Ocean and via the Strait of Malacca. With the big deep water port in Gwadar, in the Baluchistan province of Pakistan, and with refueling facilities there and elsewhere in the Ocean, the PRC can monitor oil and commercial traffic from the Persian Gulf to the Strait of Malacca and on to China.

Australia, like the U.S., faces two main oceans, and Australia controls some 8,000 miles of Indian Ocean coastline (7,500 miles — 12,000 km — of it in the State of Western Australia alone). Australia has vital interest in the security of the Indian Ocean. Imports of industrial products from the PRC, Japan, the Republic of Korea, and Europe, and oil from the Persian Gulf are vital to Australia for its economy, and exports of natural gas, coal, iron ore and other minerals, and agricultural produce from Western Australia to the PRC, Japan, and other Asia-Pacific states via the Indian Ocean make it the most significant trade ocean for Australia.

The 16th Century navigator Adm. Alfonzo Albuquerque, after establishing Portuguese interests in the Persian Gulf, noted in 1576:
“There are three places in India that serve as markets of all commerce in that part of the world. The first is the Malacca at the exit to the Strait of Singapore. The second is Eden in the entry and exit of Strait Red Sea. The third is Hormuz at the entry and exit of the Strait of the Persian Gulf. This City of Hormuz is, according to my idea, the most important of them all. If the King of Portugal had made himself master of Eden with a good fortress such as those of Hormuz and Malacca, he will have been called Lord of all world. With these three key straits in hand, he may shut the doors against all commerce.”

Now the three gates to entry and exit to the Indian Ocean for trade and the flow of energy are of vital importance because of the transforming global situation. If global trade is to remain stable, it would be necessary for those sea highways to remain secure. The Strait of Hormuz, which for 200 years was a crossroads of empire, now has become the international crossroads of the world for energy, and commence depends on the security of this sea route.

The Persian Gulf is considered the Western hand of the Indian Ocean. Its length is 500 miles and its width 180 miles and around 26 miles at the Strait Hormuz. It is like a bottle of wine with its cap is in the hands of Iran.

That is why the stability of Iran is of utmost importance for security the Persian Gulf and sea lane that is the jugular vein of international trade and communications.

Israeli opposition to Iran — after some 2,500 years of strong links between Persia/Iran and the Jewish/Israeli community — goes beyond the nuclear issue and focuses on the regional balance of power which may now be going against Israel’s favor. Iran is already a nuclear weapons state, and will soon (if it is not already) be in a position to undertake ongoing manufacture of nuclear weapons. It is clear that Iran will not relinquish its nuclear goals, so external interests (those of the U.S., Israel, and others) may have to accommodate that reality, just as the nuclear capabilities of Israel, India, and Pakistan have been accommodated.

If an Iranian deal with the U.S. does not eventuate, and pressures continue, Iran would not hesitate to become an actual nuclear state in the comprehensive sense of that phrase. And for the United States the only option remaining would be a containment policy or a form of accommodation. Any deal short of leaving Iran a potential nuclear state will not be accepted by Iran. It is the geopolitical situation which dictates the direction of Iranian foreign policy. No matter who rules in Iran, whether it is a Shah, a cleric, or secular democracy: the possession of a comprehensive military nuclear capability will be the national security doctrine of Iran for as long as nuclear weapons hold strategic efficacy.

A diplomatic failure could cause a war which would catapult the region to chaos and instability, detrimental to the world economy and peace. And chaos and instability would, in any event, facilitate or accelerate Iran’s nuclear program. That is why it is important that the U.S. rapprochement with Iran succeeds.

The clerical rule, which is an aberration in Iranian history, is rejected by the great majority of Iranian people. It has already begun to transform since the 1979 revolution, and inevitably will be replaced by a secular government.

Iran with its great humanist civilization, a cultural identity which radiates far beyond its borders, its human resources and geopolitical importance, can play a decisive role in the stability and equilibrium of the greater Middle East and Indian Ocean. With the eventual turn of the policy direction of Iran, it is logical that the historical relationship between Iran and the Jewish state of Israel would then be resumed.

  The Indian Ocean emerging as central nexus of 21st century geopolitics, WorldTribune.com