The Middle East Crises: Genesis and Dimensions

Abstract

Due to certain historical legacies, the Middle East's geostrategic location, abundant resources, and regional/global power politics have been in turmoil for the last half a century or so. These crises have been aggravated by the onslaught of Arab Spring, Iranian ambitions for nuclear parity with Israel, and a resource scramble.

In the wider backdrop of rapidly shifting regional alignments, there are several conflicts, crises, and wars going on in the Middle East with deep-rooted causes that have serious implications for regional stability and global security.

This essay analyses the fault lines of the Middle East from historical and geopolitical perspectives.

Introduction

Originally coined by the British Foreign Office in the 19th century, the term the Middle East refers to the region between Western Asia in the east and Egypt in the west. The British divided the region into three sub-regions: the Near East, the area closest to the United Kingdom and most of North Africa; the Far East, which was east of British India; and the Middle East, which was between British India and the Near East.

Except for Turkey and Iran, the region is predominantly Arab and predominantly Muslim. Modelled on European nation-states, most of these countries are artificial creations, containing warring tribes for whom nation-building is still in an embryonic stage.

The present crises in the Middle East are by and large an unfinished agenda of the past, which has left several legacies. History being a continuum, we can discern at least six distinct legacies of the history of the region that are now playing their role, individually or collectively, in the situation obtaining on the ground.

1. Ancient History

Known as the Fertile Crescent because of its fertile soil and rich cultural history, the Middle East is the cradle of several civilizations and the birthplace of three world religions. Because of its strategic location at the crossroads of three continents, namely Asia, Africa, and Europe, the Middle East has been the scene of internal conflicts and external invasions throughout its history, absorbing the best and the worst of all these great civilizations. While the Akkadians gave the Middle East its cultural foundations, they also bequeathed to it the first dimension of the present crisis, i.e., a racial and cultural schism among the communities living in the region.

2. Greeks and Romans

Alexander and his successors introduced Western ideas, including authoritarian governance structures, which were reinforced by the Romans and later perfected by the Ottomans. The French and the British, finding them excellent tools of statecraft, used them thoroughly, and this is now the second dimension of the crisis, i.e., by way of manipulating rules by the oppressive and authoritarian oligarchies in most of the Middle Eastern states.

3. Islam

The rise of Islam in the early 7th century AD was a game-changer in the political and cultural history of the Middle East. It not only introduced three crucial elements—religions, sects, and language but also the idea of a shared Middle Eastern identity. The Muslim conquest of Jerusalem and the consequent stoppage of land routes to India/China resulted in the start of the Crusades, which, though destructive, sowed the first seeds of Arab nationalism. These elements still define the region today and are the third dimension of the present crises, i.e., religious conflicts, sectarian divides, and linguistic differences.

4. Ottomans

The Ottoman rule resulted in creating nationalistic feelings in the hitherto diverse communities and invited, by default, the penetration of European colonial powers—the fourth dimension of the crisis, i.e., Pan-Arabism and anti-imperialism feelings of the rulers and the general public.

5. Colonialism

The Western colonial era gave the Middle East its present boundaries as well as the oppressive, extractive state apparatus — the fifth dimension of the crises, i.e. arbitrary nation-states with artificial boundaries containing divided social, ethnic, and sectarian composition and loyalties being ruled by non-representative regimes that use these oppressive state structures to preserve themselves, contain the centrifugal aspirations of the captive nationalities, or both.

6. Neo-colonialism

The Post-colonial era coincided with the establishment of the Zionist state of Israel and the start of the Cold War. These developments introduced two new ideological conflicts, i.e., anti-Zionism and anti-communism, in an area that was already seething with the conflicts discussed above. Hundreds and thousands of Palestinians were forced to leave their ancestral homeland to make way for the creation of the state of Israel.

This forcible eviction has not only resulted in one of the most severe and long-lasting humanitarian crises but has also been the major cause of three wars in the Middle East. On the other hand, the presence of many Palestinian refugees in resource-scarce countries of the Middle East has created severe governance issues for these countries.

Fault Lines in the Middle East

Due to the historical legacies discussed above, combined with its geostrategic location, abundant resources, and regional/global power politics, the region has been in turmoil for the last half a century or so. There are several conflicts, crises, and wars going on in the Middle East with deep-rooted causes that have serious implications for regional stability and global security.

However, to fully comprehend the origin and nature of these crises, we will have to first understand the socioeconomic and geopolitical fault lines beneath the body politic of the Middle East. These structural fault lines, the result of historical legacies, the geopolitical situation, or global politics, are:

1. Location

The geostrategic location of the Middle East is its greatest strength on the one hand and also its biggest weakness on the other. Not blessed with African remoteness or American isolation, whatever happens anywhere affects the Middle East more than any other region. Similarly, whatever happens here affects global politics.

This unique location has made the Middle East an arena where anyone, who has the pretensions to be a global player, comes to jostle for influence, starting regional conflicts. Albert Hourani, a British-Lebanese historian who specialized in Middle Eastern studies, rightly stated that “He who rules the Near East, rules the world; and he who has interests in the world is bound to concern himself with the Near East.”

2. Boundaries

Except for a few countries, the Middle East has been under Ottoman Empire or European control for 500 years before WW1. After the First World War, the rest of the decolonized part of the Ottoman Empire was carved up and divided among the Europeans. The lines drawn on the drawing boards to delineate the respective spheres of influence between the French, the Italians, the Spanish, and the British, secretly arranged through the Sykes-Picot Agreement (1916), became the official borders when these countries got independence.

Whether these borders made sense or not, the USA, which inherited the mantle of leadership of Western civilisation after the 2nd World War, informally confirmed the legitimacy of these borders through the Eisenhower Doctrine in 1957. These cartographic blunders of the colonial powers have created arbitrary nation-states with artificial boundaries, containing divided social, ethnic, and sectarian compositions and loyalties.

Along with the other legacy of colonialism, namely, underdevelopment, these artificial boundaries are one of the major causes of the centrifugal tendencies of the captive minorities, creating crises of legitimacy and governance in these states.

3. Resources

Like its geostrategic location discussed above, the availability of certain resources and the acute shortage of others, have aggravated the crises in the Middle East. Abundant hydrocarbon and other mineral resources in some of the Middle Eastern countries with low population density have made their original inhabitants extremely rich.

However, it has also made them extremely vulnerable and, hence, dependent on others for their security. Some of the states and their ruling elites owe even their survival to their being outposts of one or another global power. These global powers, in turn, are only interested in maintaining the status quo within the states friendly to them and using them as proxies to extend their respective spheres of influence.

On the other side of the resource equation is the acute shortage of another commodity in most of these countries, which is responsible for interstate and intrastate conflicts. Some countries are rapidly running out of water, with a per capita average of 1000 m3/yr, as compared to the internationally defined threshold of 1700 cubic meters per year.

In some countries, it has reached critical levels. For example, the average Yemeni has access to only 140 cubic meters of water per year for all uses; its capital, Sanaa, might have to be evacuated due to this looming threat of water scarcity. The situation is not much better in other countries, either.

This water insecurity has further escalated the ethnic conflicts and sectarian strife for which the Middle East is notorious. According to social scientists, 70% to 80% of conflicts in these countries’ rural regions are water- and land-related. Some water disputes survive two generations. One of the major points of contention between Turkey, Israel, and Syria is the apportionment of water from the rivers.

4. Popular Unrest

Globalization with increasing integration of economics, communications, and cultures across national boundaries, affects, directly as well as indirectly, the governance structures, processes, and cultural fabric of every country. It is stoking the aspirations of the middle classes for a better quality of life with improved standards of living as well as a greater say in socio-political decision-making.

However, the political establishment in most of the countries in the Middle East, historically governed by authoritarian elites, is not providing them with adequate channels of expression and empowerment.

Consequently, these countries are increasingly witnessing outbursts of popular resentment against the status quo, which is then exploited by regional and global hegemons as well as non-state violent actors.

5. Underdevelopment

All the countries in the Middle East carry a lot of historical baggage of social, economic, and political underdevelopment inherited by them at the time of their independence from their colonial masters. Ruled by dynastic oligarchies, these countries suffer from economic and technological backwardness, and widespread regional and tribal inequality with stalled state-building and nation-building processes, keeping most of the population as sideliners.

Rapidly increasing populations and unemployment are further widening the schism already existing between the ruling elites and the populace, providing opportunities for violent non-state actors to recruit manpower for their agendas.

6. Divided Loyalties

One of the defining features of a developing country is the sharp division of its society along racial, tribal, and ethnic lines, which invariably results in open conflicts for control of land, water, and other scarce resources.

While the tribal division of the Arab Society is thousands of years old, the sectarian division among the Muslims started with the Prophet Mohammed’s death in 632 and a power struggle over who would succeed him in ruling the Islamic Caliphate. Though Ali lost the fight, his supporters, the Shia, held on to the idea that he was the rightful successor. Over some time, this group grew into an entirely separate branch (sect) of Islam. Today, about 15 per cent of Muslims worldwide are Shia, the majority in Iran and Iraq and a significant presence in neighbouring countries.

However, this sectarian divide is coterminous with tribal affinity on the one hand and political loyalty on the other in most of the countries in the Middle East. Some tribes are Shia, and some countries espouse the cause of one or the other of these sects. This division has now morphed into a struggle for regional influence between Shia political powers, led by Iran, and Sunni political powers, led by Saudi Arabia.

Dimensions of the Crises

All the above fault lines, individually and collectively, have given birth to several interstate and intrastate conflicts and crises in the region, which make the situation extremely complex and volatile. No war, big or small, is a single-dimensional phenomenon. There is always conflict among several actors for a variety of reasons, and several issues are at stake.

There are nearly a dozen major and minor state and non-state actors jostling for power and influence in the Middle East. We can discern at least seven types of conflicts, crises, and wars going on among the stakeholders, with multiple agendas and strange combinations. These are:

1. Battle for Regional Hegemony

At the regional level, it is an all-out war for the dominance of the Middle East by the regional powers with the active collaboration of their respective sponsoring world powers. There are five main contenders for the mantle of regional leadership: Turkey, Iran, Israel, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt.

While Saudi Arabia claims this position as being the custodian of the two most sacred places in the Muslim world, Egypt aspires to this position as the champion of Arab nationalism. Turkey lays claim to being the inheritor of the Ottoman Empire, while for Israel, it is the only way to ward off the existential threat it faces in hostile territory. Iran is vying for the leadership role on two counts — as the inheritor of the Old Iranian Empire and as the leader of the Shiite branch of Islam.

All of them are relying on different sources of support for their claims. Iran is using its soft power in the form of shite communities and its militant proxies, while Saudi Arabia has the political support of all the Sunni states and the emotional backing of the Sunni population of the region, as well as the support of the Western powers. Turkey and Israel both have strong armies and Western support to advance their claims.

Egypt is relying on her cultural superiority and her educated and skilled Diaspora, which has settled in all the countries of the Middle East. Incidentally, in this five-way contest, all of these countries are using different militant groups, organised or footloose, as their proxies in various conflict zones in the region to advance their respective claims.

2. Civil Rights Movements

In most modern-day developing countries, citizens have been denied the right to exercise their right to choose their representatives. However, the modernisation process which accompanied the industrialization efforts of post-colonial states has brought fundamental changes in the attitudes and behaviour of citizens all over the world.

Modernization, once set in motion, becomes a self-reinforcing process, penetrating all aspects of life and bringing multi-dimensional changes to any society. This change, in turn, transforms social life and political institutions, bringing rising mass participation in politics in the long run.

The same is happening in the Middle East, as briefly witnessed during the Arab Spring. People are now demanding a greater say in public affairs, an open government, transparency in public dealings, and an accountable and responsible executive. It is a struggle of the Arab people, particularly the rising middle classes, against their unrepresentative rulers for good governance, empowerment, quality of life, equality of opportunity, etc.

As a result of the interplay of the underlying forces of demography, technological advancements, and economic and social globalization, this struggle is serving as a base as well as the context against which other conflicts and crises are defined.

3. New Cold War

At the global level, it is the intensification of the old rivalry between two superpowers, namely Russia and the USA, with China as a new entrant. Having a global agenda, all of them want to increase their respective spheres of influence in the Middle East, which is strategically so important that any loss or gain of influence in this region will determine their relative global power equations.

4. A Scramble for Resources

In the ultimate analysis, every conflict is for control of resources, irrespective of the stated objectives of the contenders. Present conflicts, crises, and wars in the Middle East are no exception. At the global level, it is an all-out war for controlling the hydrocarbon and mineral resources as well as the markets for selling their goods, services, and military hardware. And, at the regional level, it is a struggle to control water and other resources by the regional hegemons. As stated earlier, one of the major points of contention between Turkey, Israel, and Syria is the apportionment of water from the rivers.

5. Ethnic and Religious/Sectarian Conflicts

One of the defining features of a developing country is the sharp division of its society along racial, tribal, and ethnic lines, which invariably results in open conflicts for control of land, water, and other scarce resources. However, in the Middle East, the division of society on sectarian lines has added fuel to the fire.

Some states and their proxy non-state actors are using this sectarian division, which has so far been ignored or suppressed, as tools of statecraft. Some of the non-representative oppressive regimes are also promoting these conflicts to divert the attention of their respective restive populations from their high-handedness.

This sectarian divide has now mutated into a war between two groups of countries in the Middle East. Sunni nations like Egypt and Saudi Arabia are at odds with Shiite nations like Iran, Syria, and Iraq. At the same time, non-state groups are fighting among one another as well as with the states in ways that cross state borders.

6. Struggle for Self Determination

As stated earlier, cartographic blunders of the former imperial powers have resulted in the creation of states in such a manner that in each state there is a significant minority that is yearning for independence, thus creating governance issues in each state. Aspirations and the struggle for self-determination of these suppressed and divided communities have created existential threats for several states.

7. Clash of Ideologies:

On the broad ideological plane, we may not agree with the clash of civilizations thesis of Huntington, but there is no escaping the fact that there are several ideological dimensions to these conflicts. No doubt there has been a rivalry between the Christians and the Muslims in the Middle East for many centuries, but by and large, it has never resulted in an open war between the two communities. However, the creation of the state of Israel introduced the third variable in the age-old equation: political Jewry.

The onset of the Cold War introduced another ideological conflict, i.e., capitalism vs. communism. Although the latter lost the epic battle in the last quarter of the 20th century but left several innovative ideas for the socio-political reengineering of the societies and their economic management. These ideas are still the stuff of debates at social and intellectual levels, whether ‘History’ has ended or not.

Thus, there are two clear nexuses in the Middle East, one comprising Russia, Iran, and Syria, and the other consisting of Saudi Arabia, Israel, and Turkey, jostling for power in the region. These conflicts have turned the Middle East into a playground where the global powers are using the politically non-representative regimes as pawns and Israel as the bully or regional policeman to secure their permanent interests.

Conclusion

The Middle East has been a troubled region for centuries, and it will remain so for the foreseeable future because of the structural fault lines and the resulting conflicts discussed above. Almost all the countries in the region have alliances of convenience among themselves that, interestingly, cut across their respective stands on one issue or another. If one country is backing a group in one conflict, she opposes it in another, and so on.

This has created an ideal situation for footloose mercenaries and even outright criminal gangs to operate with impunity for their vested interests. In such a complex situation, there are no simple solutions.

From the book “International Relations: Basic Concepts & Global Issues” published by Amazon and available at https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08QZSRWT1