Of the many transformations taking place throughout the Middle East, the most striking is that the new regional security architecture gradually emerging in the Arab world seems to be managed almost totally by non-Arab parties: Iran, Turkey, Israel, the United States, and now Ethiopia. It is possible that the Arabs could write themselves out of their own history, ending up as mere consumers of foreign goods, proxies for foreign powers, and spectators in the game of defining their own identity, security and destiny.
This is not certain, but the current trend points in that direction, which would be a demeaning cap after a century of repeated incompetence in the field of Arab security and statehood. The United States is clearly looking to withdraw from Iraq in the coming few years, signaling the end of the short-lived neoconservative era in Washington leadership and foreign policy.
The US will continue to protect its national security interests and friends in the Middle East, but by using more sensible methods than the diplomatic and military methods it has deployed in recent years, including its Rottweiler-like approach of intimidation and overkill in Iraq.
A new security system will have to emerge to ensure stability and order, thus sparing the Middle East the ignominy of becoming a failed region of the world. This occurs while two other major trends define the region. Traditional major Arab powers like Egypt and Saudi Arabia, as well as lesser ones like Syria, Jordan, Libya, Algeria and Morocco, are less influential and interventionist regionally than they used to be. In many cases they also suffer greater dissent and even some stressed legitimacy at home.
At the same time, powerful new non-state actors in the Arab world now challenge, work alongside, or even replace long-serving regimes; the most noteworthy examples are Hezbollah, Hamas, the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, the Badr and Mehdi militias in Iraq, the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, and, most recently, the Union of Islamic Courts in Somalia. Arabs, Israelis, Turks, Iranians, Americans, Europeans, and now Ethiopians, will not sit around passively watching the rise to power of these groups on CNN and Al-Jazeera. All those concerned will try to secure their national interests and weaken their enemies, ultimately forging a new security arrangement that allows the region’s many forces to find a balance of power that is stable.
This could be negotiated – like the historic Helsinki Accords between the East and West in 1975 – or it will emerge from the political and military battles we witness these days in downtown Beirut, Gaza, Baghdad, and south-western Somalia. The coming new era in which Middle Eastern geo-strategic security is handled primarily by non-Arab regional players will replace the former US-USSR superpower rivalry and the actions of major Arab players like Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Syria.
Several regional hegemons will emerge to balance each other out.
The leading candidates now seem to be Iran, Israel, Turkey and a toned down or over-the-horizon United States. Any Arabs who play a role will mainly be surrogates, subcontracted militias, or outsourced intelligence agencies to these front-line powers. Arab military systems that cost hundreds of billions of dollars to build will be relegated to being little more than local gendarmeries. Political circumstances in Iraq, Palestine, Syria and Lebanon have given Tehran openings that it has exploited to forge closer alliances or tactical working relationships with groups as different as Hamas, Hezbollah, the Syrian Baathist leadership, and the Shiite-dominated Iraqi government that is merrily hanging former Baathists.
Turkey is primarily focused on Kurdish-related events in neighboring Iraq, Iran and Syria, though it could also play a greater role in Arab-Israeli and United Nations peace-keeping activities. Israel works covertly throughout the region, but remains constrained by its lack of formal ties with most Arab states and Iran.
A comprehensive, fair Arab-Israel peace accord would open many doors for Israeli ties with other Middle Eastern states, making its role in a regional security system more legitimate and acceptable. This picture is startling for the prevalent absence of Arab states in the creation and management of their own security order. What remains unclear is how the enormous power of Islamist militant and resistance groups will translate into formal engagement with a new regional security system.
The best we can hope for is that Islamists who win democratic elections, Turkey-like, would assume power and responsibly manage the affairs of state and society, including striking diplomatic deals with regional and foreign powers.
Attempts by Iran, Syria and others to control Islamists will not work in the long run, because the Islamists only have legitimacy and impact in their role as nation-specific defenders of their own people’s rights, not as agents for foreign governments. Rami G. Khouri writes a regular commentary for THE DAILY STAR
