January 05, 2014
A new
year’s reflections on the past and coming 12 months is a useful exercise if it
avoids predominantly egotistical ventures like single-handedly anointing the
best books, articles, tweets, documentaries, or photos of the past year. More
useful is to identify trends or developments to watch that may be genuinely new
and perhaps also of continuing significance for the Middle East and the world.
The
longevity and lasting impact of current changes and turbulence across the
region are hard to define today. This is because some developments are dramatic
and very consequential in the short run—like Islamists winning free elections
or Salafist-takfiris controlling areas in Syria—but may not have lasting impact
in a year or two. Others—like Arab Gulf countries experiencing budget squeezes
amidst changing global oil import patterns—are less dramatic now, but could be
game-changers in the years ahead.
Let me
first mention what I do not think are lasting developments, but only short-term
issues that are exaggerated, often through the lens of interpretation by local
tyrants or global media. We are not heading into a Sunni-Shiite regional war,
because most ordinary Sunni and Shiite Muslims get along perfectly well if they
are not whipped into a frenzy by some of their hysterical leaders.
Salafist-takfiris will not control more land or play a long-term role in the
region, because they enjoy no significant popular support or viable political
anchorage. The armed forces will not retain power in Egypt for years to come, because
military rule has been the single most destructive force for Arab national
development and dignity in the past six decades, and ordinary citizens will not
tolerate it except for short transitional moments.
I look
forward to learning in the years ahead if my analysis is correct or wildly
off-base. In either case, I offer it with deep humility, along with these four
recent developments that strike me as most significant for our region.
The
activism of Saudi Arabia is striking and novel, and deserves watching. In the
past few years the Saudi government has sent its troops, money, military
supplies and increasingly vituperative rhetoric flying around the region and
the world, especially in Bahrain, Syria, Yemen, Lebanon, Iraq, Libya, the Arab
League, Western op-ed pages and the U.N. Security Council. This is
unprecedented behavior for a country that always conducted foreign policy like
17th Century English earls conducted romance—quietly, discreetly, hesitantly,
and indirectly through middlemen and messengers. Saudi Arabia is behaving in an
unusual way, because it is behaving like a real country, and not the
fantasyland of old when it talked openly only of Islam, Arabism, peace, love
and respect, but behind the scenes fuelled wars, tension, and wreckage. Its
sentiments and foreign policy tools now are deployed out in the open.
Regardless of one’s views of Saudi aims, its open conduct strikes me as a good
thing, because countries that are honest and forthright in their policies can
engage others more productively when it comes time to negotiate a new regional
security order and act responsibly.
The
assertion of the power of ordinary Arab citizens to change the history,
configuration and policies of their countries in the past three years has been
impressive, but inconclusive to date. The years ahead will determine how the
dust settles from the current uprisings, transformations and chaos. I remain
positively inclined to expect that the will of free citizens, expressed through
democratic and accountable mechanisms of governance, will always bring about
better policies and conditions than the last half century’s prevailing Arab
situation of countries run according to the arbitrary decisions of old soldiers
with guns or extended families with militias.
The third
meaningful development is the simultaneous shift in public sentiment and
foreign policy by Iran and the United States, focused initially on resolving
the dispute over Iran’s nuclear industry and the American-Israeli-led sanctions
on Iran. If the current negotiations succeed in resolving these two linked
issues, Iran will experience a burst of domestic economic, social and political
changes that will have enormous positive consequences for Iranians and for the
entire region. If the talks fail, brace for catastrophic confrontations across
the region.
The
fourth important change taking place is in the balance of political strength
between, on the one hand, wildly pro-Israel lobby groups in Washington, D.C.
that have long deeply influenced and often shaped America’s Mideast policies,
and, on the other hand, the power of the American presidency and public opinion
to pursue foreign policies that are seen to be first in the national interest
of the United States, while also offering Israel Washington’s long-standing and
ironclad support and also responding to the rights of Arabs, Turks and
Iranians. This changing dynamic is in the midst of its most significant test of
wills and power since the 1950s, and its resolution will impact important
issues across the entire region.
Rami G.
Khouri is Editor-at-large of The Daily Star, and Director of the Issam Fares
Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs at the American
University of Beirut, in Beirut, Lebanon. You can follow him @ramikhouri.
Copyright
© 2014 Rami G. Khouri—distributed by Agence Global