The oil-rich but volatile Muslim Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region is in the grip of multiple humanitarian and geopolitical crises and balance of power shifts, perhaps not seen since the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire and the British-French colonial remapping of the region nearly a century ago. The old correlation of forces in support of maintaining the status quo, especially following the Iranian revolution more than 36 years ago, is altering. A set of new alignments and realignments along multiple overlapping and contested regional fault lines, including sectarian divisions and geopolitical rivalries at different levels, has come to redefine the region. Its traditional political and territorial contours are at serious risk of changing.
The so-called Arab Spring or popular uprisings that commenced in late 2010 has been transformed into a winter of despair and soul searching for those pro-democracy and liberalist elements that spearheaded them. Initially, it resulted in the toppling of dictatorial leaders in Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya, sparked bloody conflicts in Syria, Yemen, and Bahrain, and threatened the interests of conservative Arab states, led by the Sunni Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. However, of all these countries, only Tunisia has managed to develop a pathway toward a democratic future, and even that trajectory faces serious challenges. Egypt has returned to authoritarian rule at the expense of overthrowing its democratically elected Islamist Muslim Brotherhood government in mid-2013 and outlawing the Brotherhood as a terrorist organization, with Saudi Arabia and its partners in the Gulf Cooperation Council being supportive, and the West, more importantly, the USA, acquiescent in the process. The other Arab states subjected to popular uprisings (perhaps with the exception of Bahrain), plus Iraq, have virtually disintegrated.
If the objective of the Western-backed conservative Arab actors was to marginalize and possibly eliminate the forces of radical political Islam, this has not been achieved. Political suppression, human rights violations, social and economic disparities and injustices, and active conflicts, as well as Israel’s occupation of Palestinian lands, with East Jerusalem as the third holiest site for Muslims, and America’s support of Israel and authoritarian regimes in the Arab world, have continued to stimulate radical groups opposed to those regimes and determined to pursue their goals through violence.
An important example of such a group came with the rise of the extremist Sunni Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). Its conquest of vast swathes of Iraqi and Syrian territories since mid-2014 has introduced a new dimension to the Middle East. The group’s declaration of a khilafat or “Islamic State” (IS) has fatally fractured an already politically and territorially conflict-ridden Iraq and Syria. IS’s radical Wahabi/Salafi-rooted ideological disposition, with a call to Muslims around the world to join it in a mission to recreate an Arab-led Islamic empire along the lines of that of the seventh to thirteenth centuries, has posed a serious challenge, not only to Iraq’s and Syria’s neighboring states, but also to the West.
The USA and many of its allies were initially caught off-guard by IS’s successes. The shock was especially painful when considered in the light of the staggering amount of blood and money that the USA had invested in Iraq for 9 years following its 2003 invasion of the country in order to transform Iraq into a stable, secure, and democratic state. The USA had fought a trillion-dollar war (as part of a wider “war on terror,” commencing in October 2001 with its intervention in Afghanistan to punish Al Qaeda for its terrorist attacks on America and the organization’s Taliban allies) in the country. It lost some 4000 troops with many more thousands injured, not to mention the incalculable Iraqi human and material losses. Under the presidency of George W. Bush, its avowed goal was to change Iraq into a stable democracy and to advance a process of democratization across the rest of the Muslim Middle East. In the process, Washington also aimed at squeezing the Iranian Islamic regime and its Syrian and Lebanese allies as America’s main adversarial forces, and conversely at strengthening the position of its strategic partner, Israel, and cementing the USA’s geopolitical dominance in the region.
However, more than a decade later, the reverse of what Washington intended has come to beset the Middle East. Iraq has fallen apart, and the Arab world has remained mostly autocratic with deeply rooted seeds of long-term structural instability. The country that has emerged as the most stable constituent state is the Shi’a-dominated and non-Arab Islamic Republic of Iran. It has largely deflected the turmoil of the Arab domain and has emerged as a dominant player in the Iraqi and Syrian conflicts, while also building strong leverages of influence in Lebanon, Bahrain, Yemen, and Palestine, not to mention Afghanistan, within the parameters of the “Greater Middle East.” This does not mean that Iran is not involved in the regional conflicts and tensions. To the contrary, it has been an integral part of the region’s turbulent transition, especially in the context of its proxy sectarian and geopolitical confrontations with Saudi Arabia as well as rivalry with Israel. At the same time, ironically, Iran is also the country whose interests have increasingly come to converge with those of the USA and its Western allies against IS as an anti-Shi’a and anti-Iranian force. Boosting this convergence is the comprehensive agreement, which Iran signed on July 14, 2015, with the USA and the four other permanent members of the UN Security Council, plus Germany, (the Group of 5 + 1) to resolve the long-standing dispute over the country’s nuclear program.
If the nuclear deal is implemented in good faith, and the historical antipathy between Tehran and Washington were to give way to a more interest-based, albeit adversarial, relationship between the two countries, it has the potential to pave the way for a degree of US-Iranian cooperation in addressing some regional conflicts in the foreseeable future. A fear of this development, together with the lifting of the crippling US-led and UN economic and financial sanctions against Iran that could make the country stronger and more influential in return for curbing Tehran’s possible ambitions to acquire nuclear weapons, has not only profoundly worried Israel, but has also seriously concerned Saudi Arabia and its Arab allies who share a somewhat common position with Israel on that score. Whereas Israel has lobbied vehemently to scuffle any process of normalization of relations between the USA and Iran, Saudi-led Arab states have engaged in active interventionist policies to counter a perceived Iranian threat. Hence, we have witnessed the Saudi-led interventions in Bahrain in support of the minority Sunni Arab monarchy against its Iranian-linked Shi’a majority population, and in Yemen to counter the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels, and the backing of anti-Iranian Sunni groups in Syria, Iraq, and Lebanon. In this context, Gulf Cooperation Council member countries, dominated by Saudi Arabia, have also found it expedient to make little more than symbolic contributions to the US-led military campaign against IS, despite public condemnation of the entity as a terrorist and unacceptable phenomenon. Just as Iran has come to the conclusion, that it is important to work pragmatically for an improvement of its relations with the USA, Saudi Arabia has engaged in intense political and strategic maneuvering to shore up its position against a US-Iranian entente and cooperation in the region. While retaining its de facto alliance with the USA as the bedrock of its security, it has lately doubled its efforts to build a region-wide network of Sunni forces, deepen strategic ties with a nuclear-armed Pakistan, widen relations with Western countries other than the USA, and strengthen ties with Russia and China, in particular.
The MENA region, in general, and its sub-region of the Gulf in particular, has indeed entered a very turbulent, transformative phase, pregnant with serious political, social, economic, and strategic possibilities. The prevailing regional status quo has become increasingly unsustainable. The diffusion of the “Arab Spring,” the reaction of the conservative forces seeking to maintain traditional authoritarianism in the face of demands for change, the rise of extremist groups, most importantly IS, the Iraqi and Syrian crises, the Saudi-Iranian rivalries, and the inability of the USA to play a determining role in regard to any of these developments have come together to profoundly affect the prospective regional landscape. The regional geopolitical contours of the post-Cold War era are at risk of substantially altering, and the conflicting forces and interests at work are eating the heart out of any effort to stabilize the region or to make it a lesser source of anxiety and concern in world politics. The region has become an arena of conflicts within conflicts with a circular trajectory.
The conclusion of Iran’s nuclear agreement, though a positive development, is unlikely to produce fruitful results for regional cooperation in the short run. Most indicators point to the possibility in store of a more fundamental political and strategic remapping of the Middle East amidst the weakening of sovereignty on the part of some existing Arab states, even while others seek to manage change and bring stability to the region. Unpacking and understanding the complexities of the issues involved is by no means easy. It requires tackling the most salient features that have plunged the MENA region into a crisis of change and transitions.
This book—a compilation of contributions by a number of well-placed specialists—focuses primarily on interpreting the changing domestic and regional dynamics in the Arab world and Iran. In so doing, it capitalizes on intensified public and academic interest in the MENA region. While there is a growing body of literature of scholarship and research on particular aspects of transition in the region, there is a dearth of volume that incorporates both local and regional processes of change within the context of the Arab world and Iran. The book engages with the literature on a number of topics such as processes of democratization, sectarianism, political Islam, and Arab-Iranian geostrategic rivalry.
This book’s main objective is to provide a fresh interpretation of the changing dynamics in the Arab world and Iran. It seeks to unpack the complexities of the disputes, conflicts, rivalries, and failed aspirational goals and processes of change and development that have made the Muslim Middle East so turbulent, directionless, and perpetually contested by both regional and international actors. The volume is organized into three thematic sections, each of which addresses important questions about change in the MENA region. The chapters deal with different national, regional, and extra-regional factors and actors that inform, affect, and shape the Arab world, Iran’s policy behavior, and Arab-Iranian relations. In the process, they provide the necessary explanatory foundations for assessing the future of the MENA region in the medium to long run.
The first section covers different aspects and dynamics of change in the Arab world and assesses the prospects and challenges of transition. It addresses such questions as have the traditional power structures been seriously threatened or have elites managed to resist any real change? What are the prospects of democratization and the pursuit of progressive social, economic, and political reforms after the “Arab Spring?” What are the implications of the ongoing transitions for Western policymakers? Fethi Mansouri, Bob Bowker, and Matthew Gray contribute to both popular and academic debates over how we should interpret transitional and civilizational challenges within the Arab world and what its implications may be for political, social, and economic developments in the region.
The second section examines the role of Islam, Islamism, Islamic governance, and sectarian and ethnic politics in the region. How have Islamists in power fared? What is the impact of sectarian and ethnic politics in the Syrian conflict? What is the role of the Saudi religious establishment in the conflict? As elaborated by Hisham Hellyer, Raihan Ismail, and Minerva Nasser-Eddine, a multifaceted examination of the role of Islam and its potential relationship to democratic change can provide insight into the transitions and challenges facing the broader Arab world, Iran, and the major powers with an interest in the region.
The third section of the volume focuses on Iranian domestic and regional politics. Building on the previous section, Shahram Akbarzadeh, Bruce Koepke, and Amin Saikal address the following questions: what are the Iranian foreign policy objectives in Syria? What is Iran’s policy attitude toward its important but war-torn neighbor, Afghanistan, and can it play a stabilizing role in that country? What are the prospects of change in the Middle East within the context of Saudi-Iranian geostrategic rivalries? How does Iran project its power in neighboring countries? How are Saudi-Iranian proxy conflicts shaping the region, especially in Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, and Yemen, where such rivalry has extended to supporting national or sub-national groups in opposition to one another?
The final chapter draws together the main findings of the volume in ways which not only inform us about the overall prevailing regional situation, but also enable the readers to draw their own conclusions as to where the Middle East is heading.