The Buie Knife

What's Next in the Middle East? It's at a Crossroads

The modern Middle East can be divided into four eras, according to Eugene Rosen, author of "The Arabs."

• Ottoman Empire Era. Arab countries dominated by Turks (1516-1878).  
• Colonial Era. British and French dominate -- they carve up countries and create artificial borders (1878-1948).
• Independence movements (1878-1967).  "Al-Nahda" renaissance movement in North Africa, Egypt and Syria/Lebanon. With crucial US support, Israel is founded in 1948. Arab countries face ignominous defeats in efforts to drive Zionists into the sea.  Attempt to create "Arab Nationalist" movement fails. 
• Cold War Era (1948-1990), in which Soviets and Americans compete for regional dominance, quashing independence movements. Egypt invites the Soviets in, then kicks them out in the 1970s, turning towards Americans. US engineers Israeli peace with Egypt and Jordan. Declaring a national security interest in Middle East oil, US installs or supports dictatorships in Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, Syria. US is demonized by Iranians for thwarting democracy and installing brutal Shah for 25 years. Iranians break international law by invading US embassy and holding hostages, seek to export Islamic revolution to the region. In eight-year Iran-Iraq war, US supports Saddam in Iraq against Shiite revolutionaries in Iran.  US supports anti-Soviet rebels in Afghanistan who defeat Russia but eventually merge with Islamic radical groups Al Qaeda and the Taliban, which are virilantly anti-American. 
• American dominance, 1991-2011/14. With collapse of Soviet superpower, America, the only superpower, fears Saddam Hussein, when he invades oil-rich Kuwait, will fill power vaccum in Middle East. US launches Gulf War to free Kuwait, sets up brutal Iraqi sanctions to force regime change, installs "infidel" military bases in holy Saudi Arabia, which inflames Al Qaeda. In 2003, US topples Saddam and engages in eight-year war in Iraq. US backs Israel against Palestinians; US backs authoritarian Mubarak in Egypt until his domestic support evaporates. US supports the seemingly successful Kurdish Independence Movement in Iraq. Exhausted from resource drain, America withdraws from Iraq, 2011, and Afghanistan, 2014, and shows reluctance to back rebels in Syrian civil war against dictator Assad.

I would add that we're already seeing a new if possibly short-lived era in the Middle East: 

the Arab Spring (2011- ). Region-wide uprisings against dictatorships. Civil conflict and even civil war (lack of consensus) in Iraq, Syria, Egypt, Bahrain, Kuwait, Libya, Tunisia. 

What's next? I see three roads ahead: 

a) Region-wide tribal civil war. Conflict could expand to Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Lebanon. If we see long-term tribal civil war, and Iranian-sympathizing Shiites gaining a foothold in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, and Iran, starting to dominate the region, there will be a lot of second guessing about American actions in the region since 1991. Maybe the US should have left Saddam in power, even let him have Kuwait in 1991. Yes, he was a brutal dictator but until 1991 he was our ally and a counterweight to Iran. When the US removed Saddam, did it ultimately gave Iran freedom to dominate the Middle East? 

b) Return to Authoritarian Rule? We are already seeing some nostalgia for Mubarak in Egypt and nostalgia for Saddam in Iraq. Will we see a military junta in Egypt to restore order? Dictatorship in Iraq? Assad survive in Syria or another (hopefully less brutal) authoritarian emerges? Radical Islamists (backed by Iran) seize power in Syria? 

c) Best-case scenario: After period of instability, democracy and consensus emerge in Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Egypt and other points in the region. Assad opposition coalesces into peaceful coalition. The Arabs work out their own problems without the intervention of the US, Europeon powers, or Iran. At this stage, this seems like wishful thinking rather than a plausible outcome. If I had to bet, I would choose b), with hope that over time, the region can make baby-steps, like Turkey has done since the 1980s, toward stability and democracy.

But Turkey has going for it a strong sense of secular nationhood, created by Ataturk. The Arab countries, with the possible exception of Egypt, do not, for the most part, have that strong sense of national identity, nor charismatic unifying "founding fathers." As I wrote previously, they are far more tribal than nationalistic. 

Previously:

Nostalgia for Saddam Leads to Questions About Assad in Syria

Red Scare Redux: Some Americans Get Hysterical About Middle East

Related articles

Syria and the Failure of Imperialisms (Old and New)

Iraq's Lesson for Syria: Be Careful What You Ask For

Why Don't Middle Eastern Countries Love US?

Syria and WMD Inconsistency in the Middle East

What If...WMDs Were Found in Saddam Hussein's Possession?

Countering American Misperceptions of Iraq Today

Never Was One 'Arab Nation'

"The term 'Arab nationalism' is a misnomer. It represents not a genuine national movement or ideal but is a euphemism for raw imperialism. There is not and has never existed an "Arab nation" and its invocation has been nothing but a clever ploy to rally popular support behind one's quest for regional mastery. Before the 1920s and 1930s, when Arabs began to be indoctrinated with the notion that all of them constituted one nation, there had been no general sense of "Arabism" among the Arabic-speaking populations of the Middle East. There was only an intricate web of local loyalties to one's clan, tribe, village, town, religious sect, or localized ethnic minority—overarched by submission to the Ottoman sultan-caliph in his capacity as the religious and temporal head of the worldwide Muslim community." -- Misunderstanding Arab Nationalism by Efraim Karsh, Middle East Quarterly, Spring 2001.

 A reader sends me a link to a map of the first "Arabic Empire" that spanned from Southern France to Northern Africa to the borders of modern-day India and Russia, he says, for 300 years. Indeed, the Muslim Conquests expanded from 622 to 1800.

However, the map is misleading in that it ignores the tribal nature of the Middle East, which has always hindered grand generalizations about "Arabs." Yes, the Umayyad Caliphate -- not a 300-year empire but just 89 years, from 661-750 -- was important in spreading Islam, the Arabic language, in making Arabic the administrative language of a wide swath -- 28% of the world's population in the 7th century --  creating a common currency, and briefly, a concept of Islamic unity and Arab nationalism.

"The first five centuries after the emergence of Islam, spanning the seventh through the twelth centuries, was the age of the great Islamic empires that dominated world affairs," wrote Eugene Rosen in "The Arabs." "Arabs had an international presence stretching from Iraq and Arabia to Spain and Sicily. The era of early Islam is a source of pride to all Arabs as a bygone era when the Arabs were the dominant power in the world, but resonates in particular with Islamists, who argue that the Arabs were greatest when they adhered most closely to their Muslim faith."

But underneath the Arab nationalism and "empire" was "a severe case of tribal animosity," according to Wikipedia, especially with the Hashimites, beginning before there even was an empire, in 624 with the Battle of Badr. Put another way, there has always been a rich diversity in the Arab and Islamic worlds. The Arabic of Northern Africa could even be understood by the Arabs of the Fertile Crescent or the Arabian Peninsula. Cuisine, architecture, and musical traditions were all different.

As historian Rogan pointed out, the 89-year Umayyad dynasty, ruled from Damascus, while the Abbasid caliphate that followed and dominated the region for more than 500 years, ruled from Baghdad. Five more Arab dynasties, most prominently the Mamluks (a military caste of warriors, some of whom were not even Arabic and not even Muslim), ruled from Cairo from 1250 until the Ottomans took over in 1517. The Ottoman Turks' seat of power was Istanbul. 

"From 1517 onward, the Arabs would negotiate their place in the world through rules set in foreign capitals, a political reality that would prove one of the most defining features of modern Arab history."

Arab nationalism existed only briefly, from the decline and fall of the Ottoman Empire in the early 20th century, to the defeat of the Arab armies in the 1967 Six Day War with Israel. Nowadays, as the region experiences numerous sectarian conflicts, civil and political warfare, the notion of "one Arab nation" seems as elusive as ever.

Family, Clan, Tribe Above All

To understand the psycho-cultural heritage of Arab societies, one must appreciate that a foundation of Arab culture was a nomadic tribal system that enabled them to survive in a tough desert environment. "To maintain this system, a strict patriarchal authority was needed to protect the collective interests of the tribe. Life within a tribal system is characterized by fanatical identification of its members with the tribe, and full submission and obedience to the tribal leadership." The group's cohesion is paramount, rather than an individual's ideas and decisions. Individuals have little autonomy by Western standards and must avoid actions to weaken the strength of the tribe, so that it can withstand external invaders or threats...Individualists can be seen as disturbers of collective harmony, a threat to the authority of leaders....Honorable behavior maintains group cohesion and serves its interests, while shameful behavior disrupts or impairs group cohesion. Attempts at democracy in the Arab world often incorporate tribal perspectives. Voters are often heavily influenced by family, clan, tribe, religious or sect affiliation. -- Counseling And Psychotherapy With Arabs And Muslims: A Culturally Sensitive Approach to Psychology by Marwan Dwairy. (See reviews of the book on Amazon.com.)

Similarities Between Arabs and Native American Tribes Remain Relevant in Syrian Crisis

From afar, I suspect most Americans look at the Middle East as a dangerous, hopeless mess, unworthy of more time and attention because it is mystifying in its violent complexity. But living in Abu Dhabi, UAE, a peaceful, stable and economically vibrant city on the eastern edge of the Arabian Peninsula, I'm trying unravel the mysteries of the region.

Sleeping in an Arabic tent on the side of Jabal Shams, Oman's Grand Canyon, I was reminded of a trip to the American West a few years ago, when I slept in a Native American teepee on the Blackfoot Indian Reservation. In both cases, I could hear the wind whipping through the camp and flapping the cloth "doors" of the tents. It got me to thinking of perhaps one way for Americans to begin to understand the Middle East.

Imagine that there was no significant European colonization of North America, no "Trail of Tears," and no deadly smallpox virus that wiped out hundreds of thousands if not millions of Native Americans. Imagine that the Native American tribes, some of them warring with each other, continued to grow, multiply and develop into the 20th century in North America.

Bedoin and Native American tribes had similar lifestyles. Mostly patriarchal societies based on kinship, they both lived off the land. Many were nomads without formal education who road horses. They had a rich oral history and honor code; followed the traditions of their ancestors; felt spiritually connected to nature; followed the stars and had a strong use of astronomy. They built forts for protection. They hunted and fished, consumed beef and grew vegetables, gathered around campfires, smoked, danced and played drums. One raised and depended on buffalo; the other camels. Today, they each sell colorful jewelry and crafts by the roadside. 

Then imagine that, in the 19th and 20th centuries, the Great Powers disdainfully sought to manipulate and control these "primitive savages." The Ottomans of Turkey, who dominated the Middle East for more than 350 years, came to view the Bedoins as a threat to state control and "progress." So they tried to force them to stop their nomadic lifestyles and stay in one place. When the Ottoman Empire collapsed in the early 20th century, Britain and France decided to carve up the Middle East, establishing "countries" with artificial boundaries or borders, and installing governments, rather than letting the natives decide for themselves what they wanted.

If this happened in North America in the early 20th century, where would it be today? How many power struggles, how many land disputes, how much infighting or sectarian violence do you think there would be 100 years later? 

Perhaps not just students of Native American history can understand or empathize with this history. Descendants of Scotch-Irish clans, who once fought each other bitterly as well as the English, can perhaps begin to understand the violence that might have continued if there had been no assimilation into the American melting pot. 

The analogy only goes so far, and is controversial when applied to the weakness if not collapse of the modern Arab states of Iraq, Syria, Egypt; internal disputes in Tunisia; Libya; Kuwait and Bahrain; and rising tensions in Saudi Arabia. But from it you can get a sense of the legacy of the last 100 years in the Middle East, and of the current struggles.

"It's loyalty to the tribe, family, sect, and religious group that provides the primary source of identity and organization" in the Middle East, Aaron David Miller wrote recently in Foreign Policy magazine titled "Tribes With Flags: How The Arab Spring Has Exposed the Myth of Arab Statehood."

His thesis is disputed by many observers in the comments section, and the blog Karl Remarks offers a good counter-argument. The debate is illuminating for those of us trying to understand the Middle East.

But one thing is for certain.

Tribal loyalties have survived, and remain strong in the Middle East, even with urbanization. More than 70 Bedoin tribes still exist; there are more than 100 tribes of Arabia listed online; 150 tribes of Iraq; 13 major tribes or royal families in the Arabian Peninsula in the 20th century. "From the Gulf to Iraq to Syria, the area is interlinked in a complex web of tribal relations," columnist Hassan Hassan wrote in The Guardian. Tribes neglected by Bashir Assad's regime in Syria are mobilizing against his Baathist regime. In another article for The (UAE) National, Hassan argues that deeply rooted tribal bonds between Syrians and Gulf State Arabs are solidifying as a result of the Syrian crisis, despite Baathist attempts to undermine such connections.

A Syrian friend explains to me that when she returned to Syria after a decade in the United States, her last name immediately identified her to strangers as a member of a certain tribe and religious sect. There is no escaping your identity or your tribal loyalties in the Middle East. 

And certainly, tribal loyalities and differences between Sunni, Shia, and Kurd help to explain the continuing conflict in Iraq, a conflict that Americans greatly under-estimated when they launched "Operation Iraqi Freedom."

Drill Deeper:

• "Tribes With Flags
• An ESL Teacher Working With Bedoins Compares Them to Native Americans
• Parallels Between Bedoins and Native Americans

Related:

• If Foreign Media Covered America Like US Media Covers the World

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Native American leaders share State of the Tribes Address

Why Don't Middle Eastern Countries Love US?

Americans have a difficult time understanding why the rest of the world doesn't love us since we are beneficient in foreign aid and trumpet universally-recognized human rights. We say we want to spread democracy and self-determination around the world. And yet for all of this, we are called imperialists. Why, for example, are the peoples of the Middle East so suspicious of America's "good intentions"?

Why don't the Iraqis thank us for our eight years of sacrifice? We added to their pain, they say. In an article titled "Iraq's pain has only intensified since 2003," Sami Ramadani charges that for 30 years, the US supported the dictator Saddam Hussein and shored up his Baathist Party. The US gave Saddam no indication we'd oppose his annexation of Kuwait. Then after he did it, we reversed ourselves, and inflicted mostly pain on the Iraqi people for another 20 years through two wars, and "murderous sanctions." Once the US toppled Saddam, it nurtured a political process "designed to sow sectarian and ethnic discord." He writes bitterly:

Using torture, sectarian death squads and billions of dollars, the occupation has succeeded in weakening the social fabric and elevating a corrupt ruling class that gets richer by the day, salivating at the prospect of acquiring a bigger share of Iraq's natural resources, which are mostly mortgaged to foreign oil companies and construction firms. 

In opposing the 2003 war, Ramadini, a British citizen of Kurdish origin who fled Iraq after opposing Saddam, questioned whose interests would really be served by the invasion -- he suspected only certain American and British interests would be served -- and concluded war wouldn't give his people their freedom. 

 "In Iraq, the US record speaks for itself: it backed Saddam's party, the Ba'ath, to capture power in 1963, murdering thousands of socialists, communists and democrats; it backed the Ba'ath party in 1968 when Saddam was installed as vice-president; it helped him and the Shah of Iran in 1975 to crush the Kurdish nationalist movement; it increased its support for Saddam in 1979…helping him launch his war of aggression against Iran in 1980; it backed him throughout the horrific eight years of war (1980 to 1988), in which a million Iranians and Iraqis were slaughtered, in the full knowledge that he was using chemical weapons and gassing Kurds and Marsh Arabs..."

Ramadani's charge that the CIA was complicit in the 1963 coup of a democratically-led government of Iraq is backed up by the memoirs of CIA operatives. In fact, Wikipedia has details on secret CIA involvement in coups of democratically-led governments in 11 countries between 1949 and 1981 -- including Syria, Iran, and Turkey in the Middle East. 

Syria's president in 1949 opposed an oil pipeline American business interests wanted built, so the CIA overthrew the government and installed a criminal to make sure the pipeline was built. Once the pipeline was finished, the Syrian president was allowed to return to power.

In the early 1950s, multi-national oil companies asked President Truman to have the CIA overthrow the democratically elected government of Iran because the prime minister threatened to nationalize the oil companies. Truman refused. But when President Eisenhower came to power in 1953, the oil companies asked again and got their wish. Eisenhower authorized the CIA to overthrow the Iranian government and install the shah, who was a brutal dictator for 25 years.

In America's defense, its leadership saw these coups in the context of the Cold War and the "twilight struggle with communism." Most governments around the world were forced to align with either the United States or the Soviet Union, as allies, proxies, puppets or satellites. Turkey, because of its strategic location, was especially filled with "spy vs. spy" tension. And yes, business interests, especially oil companies, exploited Cold War tensions to gain economic advantage.  

Democratic development in the Middle East for centuries has been hampered by big-power politics, and the rise and fall of empires. For 500 years, the Middle East was part of the Turkish-Ottoman empire. After World War I, that empire collapsed, and the British and French stepped in to create artificial borders advantageous primarily to themselves. Their empires collapsed, and the Americans stepped in -- through foreign aid, coups, shuttle diplomacy, and the wars in Iraq -- to maintain access to cheap oil and to protect Israel and pretty much support everything Israel does. 

Those have been America's two main interests in the region. We haven't cared much about human rights in the Middle East, especially for Egyptians and Palestinians, despite our professed values. With generous foreign aid, the US shored up the dictatorship of Mubarak in Egypt for nearly 30 years, effectively blocking regime change there because he supported peace with Israel. And we've put almost no pressure for an end to illegal West Bank settlements on the Israelis, despite our stated belief that's the only way a two-state solution -- and peace -- can occur. 

That said, in my experience the peoples of the Middle East find much to admire about America and Americans and welcome us as individuals to their region.

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Iraq's pain has only intensified since 2003

Middle East Social Media

Al-Monitor has compiled a list of the "35 Best Blogs in the Middle East." 

They also have a list of 50 People Shaping Culture in the Middle East

and the Best 50 Middle Eastern Twitter Feeds

 

US, Israeli Isolation At the UN

Juan Cole, UNESCO Palestine Vote Isolates US Further: "The overwhelming influence in the US Congress of the Israel lobbies (including those of the Christian Zionists) are leading the US down a path of increasing international isolation and weakness. The US vote against Palestine is the headline on the Arab satellite television news programs, and even in India and Russia it is a vote that makes the US look like an ogre." 

Drill Deeper:

• The Charade Is Revealed: Israeli & Palestinian Extremists Need Each Other to Maintain Political Power 
• Israelis Killed Far More Palestinians Than Vice Versa 
• Israel Should Relinquish 1967 Borders, George Friedman Says 
• America and Mideast 'Quicksand' 
• Has 'Israeli Lobby' Distorted America's Perceptions and Actions in Middle East? If Americans Knew...

Roots of Islamic Extremism and Evolution of Arab Societies Since 2001

Fareed Zakaria (Harvard Ph.D ’93) is "the most influential foreign policy advisor of his generation." I am enlightened by his frequent Facebook links and updates. His

much-cited Newsweek cover story in October 2001, “Why Do They Hate Us?” changed the post-9/11 discourse in America for the better. By incorporating modern Middle Eastern history into its causality narrative, Zakaria argued that Islamic extremism did not come from envy, resentment, or essential evil but rather increasing state corruption and incompetence in the Middle East and regional public perception of the United States’s role in this process. It is a deft and compelling argument. Moreover, Zakaria showed true courage of conviction in voicing it in such a sensitive environment. -- Harvard Crimson editorial.

Zakaria's award-winning 2001 Newsweek essay is an intelligent response to the Islamophobia that is still present in certain parts of the US, as manifested by anti-Sharia campaigns in Oklahoma, Michigan, Tennessee, and Arizona. (The UAE newspaper, The National, had a great in-depth piece on that campaign. The legality of a Sharia ban will likely be decided by the US Supreme Court.) Zakaria's piece is essential reading to understanding the Middle East. Excerpts: 

Arab Spring Inspired, In Part, By Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, and US Civil Rights Movement

 Veteran reporter Robin Wright has a fantastic piece in The Wilson Quarterly about how the "Arab revolts of 2011 have transformed the image of the Islamic world. One young Egyptian woman's struggle reflects the scope of change -- and shows how long it has been in coming." It's interesting and ironic that Dalia Ziada, a leader of the pink hijab movement in Egypt, was inspired by Dr. Martin Luther King and the US civil rights movement, and yet her movement seems to be making more progress than the move toward greater democracy -- people power -- in the US.

A less optimistic piece on Egyptian protesters, on the front page of The Washington Post, focuses on one woman, Rasha Azb. It certainly shows there is no glamour in long-term protests:

Does Arab Spring Signal Beginning of Region's Economic Rise and End to Arab-Israeli Conflict?

I've posted before that the solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict is to create an atmosphere in which they are "too busy to hate." Obviously, violence is bad for business, and if violence can be eliminated, that puts opportunity at the forefront and money in people's pockets.

Economist George Gilder wrote in 2009 that the Mideast will achieve peace by becoming an economic powerhouse. Now comes evidence that young Arabs are eager to abandon the conflicts that have preoccupied their great-grandparents, grandparents, and parents.

"The Arab-Israeli conflict is over, a thing of the past. It has been overtaken by the events and has lost its fizz — what is going on is far more exciting, but there is more to it than that," writes Nadim Shehadi in The New York Times. "Three generations of Arabs had their lives confiscated and their freedoms curtailed. They were told that no voice rises above the sound of the battle for Palestine. Any demands for reform or opposition to the regimes amounted to collaboration with the enemy in a perpetual war. Constitutions were suspended, emergency laws lasted 40 years and the conflict was always the excuse. The regimes used the “question of Palestine” to consolidate their own power, suppress all opposition and install an authoritarian structure that seemed immovable as long as there was an enemy to either fight or make peace with..."

"The Arab Spring is about freedom, justice and dignity everywhere, including Palestine, but the significant difference is that the protesters also want to move on from a situation where perpetuating the conflict was an end in itself...(Now) the conflict is ripe for a solution and the answer lies in the Palestinian bid for statehood at the United Nations. This appeal to the international community would break the stagnation in 20 years of negotiations and be a game changer, a new beginning equivalent to making statehood, which was to be the end game, a point of departure." 

Today’s young Arabs want the nations of the Middle East to be less dysfunctional, writes Michael Karam, a communications consultant in Beirut. Under new leadership, Lebanon could be another Singapore, he says. 

"It has the capacity to be a wonderful boutique jewel, not unlike Singapore. It can be built on a core of industries such as banking, tourism, agriculture and small manufacturing, backed up by a service sector offering the region’s best health care, education and hospitality as well as exporting the best in human capital to a region crying out for expertise in IT and media skills."