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Introduction: rethinking Western foreign policy and the Middle East
Christian Kaunert
University of Dundee
Sarah LĂ©onard
University of Dundee
Lars Berger
University of Leeds
Gaynor Johnson
University of Kent
Does the Arab Spring provide a new opening for Western cooperation with the Middle East? The Arab Spring involved a revolutionary wave of demonstrations and protests in the Arab world, starting on 18 December 2010, which forced rulers, at least partially, from power in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Yemen. Egypt, however, has since seen a reactionary movement re-establishing military power to the pre-revolutionary state. Additional uprisings occurred also in Bahrain and Syria, the latter escalating into full-scale civil war. A number of other countries have also seen serious protests, ranging from Algeria, Iraq, Jordan and Kuwait to Morocco. It is particularly noteworthy that the fallout from the war in Libya has had side effects for a simmering rebellion in Mali, where it appears that al-Qaeda is establishing itself in the north of the country. The European Union (EU) has been concerned about such an eventuality in the Sahel for some time. While some observers have drawn comparisons between the Arab Spring and the revolutions of 1989 in Eastern Europe, the precise endpoint and the direction of the Arab Spring revolutions remain to be identified. In short, the Arab world currently faces a period of social protest and change, which challenges our understanding of politics in the region and established assumptions about Western foreign policy towards this region.
Twice within the last hundred years, Western powers have tried to significantly alter the configuration of the Middle Eastern political order. The main aim of this special issue is to examine the extent to which the goal of democracy promotion has been in conflict with or, in contrast, supported by other goals (geo-strategic, economic and cultural) in the policies of the major actors towards the Middle East. It brings together scholars with research interests in Middle Eastern politics and those analysing the policies and interests of external actors. Against the backdrop of the recent âWar on Terrorâ, the comparative and interdisciplinary outlook of the special issue offers the opportunity for much-needed intellectual exchange between political scientists, contemporary historians and international relations scholars from Europe, North America and the Middle East.
The articles in this special issue tackle the major issues that occupy the minds of all historians and political scientists: how the world works as a political entity and how human beings, either individually or in groups, affect this, especially if they choose to operate outside contemporary systems and norms. The contributors also provide us with an important reminder of how current affairs reflect and reinforce centuries-old patterns of how states interact with each other. These issues occupied the mind of Europeans a century and a half ago who, under the umbrella of a different form of imperialism, attempted to eradicate the differences they encountered between themselves and the indigenous population. Such tactics would be considered unacceptable today, but, as some of the articles demonstrate, avoidance of such measures is often difficult.
A number of the articles in this issue concern themselves with terrorism and international security and contribute to the debate about how scholars should define those terms. Magdalena Kirchner highlights the phrase âstate-sponsored terrorismâ as defined by Ray Cline and Yonah Alexander, arguing that it does not help us understand the difference between those who encourage and assist terrorist attacks and those who actually carry them out (Cline and Alexander 1986, 32). In trying to resolve this problem, it is tempting to regard contemporary acts of terrorism, such as those committed by fanatical religious fundamentalists since 9/11, as intrinsically different in nature from those perpetrated by, for example, the Irish Republican Army (IRA) in the United Kingdom (UK) in the 1970s and 1980s. This distinction is not self-evident. Therefore, it is useful to reflect on the history of the word âterrorismâ and on how its evolving definition has shaped the policy landscape surrounding terrorism today.
International law, like all forms of judicial activity, is premised on a clear distinction between compliance and non-compliance with its terms. Until the last decade, acts of terrorism could be dealt with within this framework with some success, should the perpetrators be found. However, international legislatures, whether they are within the EU or within the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) or the United Nations (UN), have yet to develop a mechanism for dealing effectively with ârogueâ states. This is in fact an age-old problem. It occupied the minds of the peacemakers after all of the major wars in the modern era, from the signatories to the Peace of Westphalia onwards. It was the principal issue that the League of Nations failed to grapple with after the First World War. Recent incarnations of what has been labelled terrorist activity also themselves pose questions about how the international community uses labels such as âterroristâ, âinsurgentâ, etc. It is not simply that one manâs terrorist is another manâs freedom fighter, to use a clichĂ©. Rather, the tension goes to the heart of international codes of conduct for states, posing questions about a stateâs right to control its own foreign policy and international activity.
Other articles in this collection assess the role of external factors in determining statesâ foreign policy and how those determinants change over time. From the fall of the Soviet Union until the recent rise of China, the United States (US) served as the foremost player in international relations. Writing on a US mission to Iraq in the 1950s, Brandon King provides a reminder of the considerable responsibility this placed on US diplomats, especially in regions of the world where the Cold War diplomatic demarcation lines were less clear than in Europe. The discussion in this chapter of âpolitical stabilityâ is not only resonant with contemporary British and US concerns in the region. It poses important questions about how we understand the meaning of the phrase more widely. Does it mean the imposition of one set of ideological or political values upon another, peacefully or at the barrel of a gun? Do governments create stability or does it emerge as part of a more organic process? These are critical questions with global resonance.
The articles follow a two-pronged approach. First, the special issue addresses the foreign policies of important external powers (nation-states, as well as inter- and transnational organizations) towards the Middle East. Second, the special issue examines the policies of domestic political actors and regional powers, such as Saudi Arabia and Turkey, whose international role has been affected by the political developments that followed Western intervention in Iraq.
External actor 1: the US
Since emerging as the major external power in the Middle East, the US has based its policies on two underlying interests.
The first is securing the world economyâs constant and reasonably priced access to the regionâs oil and gas resources. With the US satisfying more than three-quarters of its energy needs through domestic production or imports from elsewhere in the Americas, the Middle East is important because its resources help support economic growth among the USâs trade partners. The second major US interest in the Middle East is the need to protect the security of Israel, a task complicated by Israelâs relations with its Palestinian and other Arab neighbours.
Closely related to these two primary concerns is at least one secondary concern: the ability of (non-)state actors to challenge the regional status quo and thereby undermine the USâs ability to pursue its central interests. During the Cold War, this challenge manifested itself most profoundly in the Soviet Unionâs (ultimately limited) ability to exploit the ArabâIsraeli conflict and the mutual unease between the US and Arab nationalists to gain a strategic foothold in the area. Over the twentieth centuryâs final quarter, the focus shifted first to ongoing concerns about post-revolutionary Iran and then to the rise of radical Islamist groups in the Sunni areas of the Arab world.
The arrival of a âunipolarâ moment appeared to open new opportunities for securing US interests. Yet the failure of Oslo, the failure of a policy of dual containment of Iran and Iraq, and, most dramatically, the events of 9/11 raised questions of whether traditional US support for the regional status quo was ultimately self-defeating, helping to create and perpetuate the conditions that gave rise to Islamist radicals capable of unleashing terrorist attacks on US soil. Yet despite al-Qaedaâs attempt to create wider sympathies for their otherwise deeply unpopular political vision by instrumentalizing ongoing resentment against US policies, the latterâs role as the driving factor for attacks on Western civilians by radical Islamists remains highly dubious. A simple comparison of the widespread condemnation of both US policies and al-Qaedaâs tactics among Arab and Muslim publics highlights that criticism of US policies does not directly translate into support for Islamist terrorism.
More convincing are attempts to trace the roots of Islamist terrorism in the (almost) unquestioning support the US offered to those authoritarian Arab regimes whose support for the regional status quo have earned them the label âmoderateâ in US government circles and media. The excessive human-rights abuses these regimes deploy against political opposition, and their cooption of conservative and anti-liberal representatives of âofficial Islamâ, are far more fundamental to the causes of Islamist radicalism. Moreover, the muzzling of civil society in these polities precludes the spread of a counter-narrative to exclusivist radical Islamist interpretations of domestic and international politics. Together these factors explain how authoritarian repression became the necessary condition for transforming the domestic concern of Islamist radicals with the ânear enemyâ into a global struggle against the âfar enemyâ.
Arguably, it was a flawed implementation of this very logic that led the US under the Bush administration to select Iraq, rather than more pluralistic regimes in Jordan and Egypt, as a potential regional role model. However, the pressure placed on state sponsors of terrorism (both direct sponsors of terrorism such as Iraq, Syria, Libya and Sudan, and passive sponsors in Pakistan and Saudi Arabia) led several of these states to cooperate with the US on the exchange of intelligence and the extraordinary rendition of terrorism suspects. In so doing, authoritarian regimes delivered ample evidence that rational calculus can lead supposedly ârogueâ governments towards support for US policies, undermining the public case for war.
This paradox, and the US failure to set up Iraq as the foundation for a wholesale, top-down transformation of the region, helped set the stage for the bottom-up transformation of the Arab Spring. Widespread anger at and condemnation of perceived failings of US policies vis-a-vis the ArabâIsraeli conflict, the Iraq War and the perceived complicity of authoritarian governments were the initial rallying cries of a nascent culture of political protest that soon also tou...
