Major powers jostling for Middle East primacy

London

KALEIDOSCOPIC changes in the Middle East have produced a constellation of power posing fresh challenges to the United States. The emerging alliance among Russia, Iran and Turkey gained its newest member in Qatar, thanks to a rash move by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, also known as MBS. Most alarming for America: Turkey is Nato's easternmost member with the second-largest military in the defence partnership. Qatar provides the Pentagon's Central Command with its forward base, the region's largest.

The alliance is by no means the result of expediency. The elements undergirding it - geopolitical, economic and ideological - have long been in the making. It's been helped sharply by President Donald Trump's muddled foreign policy, a contrast from the coherent policies of the Obama administration with its commitment to democracy and human rights. Mr Trump's repeated statement before foreign assemblies - "We are not here to lecture you about how to run your countries" - is too vague to form the base of Washington's policy in international affairs. Even that mantra fails when Mr Trump lectures Iran's elected rulers on how to govern. Iran's strategic importance was highl…