A new kind of security for the Middle East
https://arab.news/m7had
In the past decade alone, the Arab world has undergone several major transformational shifts with varying ramifications for regional peace and long-term stability.
Opportunities for long-term peace remain plentiful even as stabilizing actors such as the US exit the region in the coming decade, and there has been a revision of widely held perceptions of what constitutes long-term security in the Middle East and North Africa, and the basis of enduring regional stability.
The Arab world is in an era where, increasingly, Arabs and Arabs alone will have to define and forge their own “peace,” with little intervention from far-off powers too distracted by domestic woes or pivoting to other foreign policy priorities. However, to come close to attaining such an elusive future, the region must confront several challenges posed by sub-state groups, transnational ideologies, governance failures, violent extremism, and disillusioned people — especially youth.
Contrary to established convention, most of the ongoing transformations originated from within the region itself, instead of the usual spillover from great power adventurism’s knack for failed interventions. This almost organic surge toward fashioning an enduring regional peace is a strange phenomenon, and it is challenging to project what the results will look like over the coming years. Moreover, these recent developments are confounding discourse tethered to aging perceptions of what constitutes long-term Arab peace.
A decade ago, the uprisings in 2011 toppled once unassailable regimes, and conventional wisdom had many expecting a catastrophic domino effect with the potential to destabilize the entire region. Similarly, the chaotic landscape after Daesh’s defeat also left vast power vacuums that destabilizing actors were all too happy to fill via sub-state or non-state proxies with varying ideological orientations hostile to traditional state structures. Yet again, there was no shortage of analyses and punditry angling for forceful interventions to prevent a resurgence of more violent iterations of Daesh or further metastasis of its offshoots.
Additionally, even after the Trump administration’s misguided retreat from Syria —the first real sign of US disinterest-turned-policy — neither Syria nor northern Iraq descended into the prolonged chaos reminiscent of the short-lived Daesh era. Instead, the MENA region becoming less of a priority for Washington appears to have ignited a scramble for normalization and rapprochement among the unlikeliest of actors. After all, the growing likelihood of a total US departure has contributed to the region’s changing power dynamics and substantially altered each country’s threat perceptions without the guardrails provided by what was once an enduring US military presence across the region.
In reality, America’s exit has had at least two parallel effects on present-day realignments in the MENA region. First, among the relatively stable Arab states, a dominant foreign player’s prospective or actual departure became a catalyst for transactional utilitarian ties built on a convergence of interests and shared threats. Alternatively, in the more volatile zones prone to or already enmeshed in protracted conflicts, US disinterest created power vacuums now divvied up among geopolitical rivals with limited ability to shape regional dynamics but great power to halt post-conflict transitions and settlements.
In parts of the MENA region that sought reconciliation ahead of a US exit, there is almost a cynical implication that the world’s greatest promoter of stability, peace, and democracy had become a significant roadblock to the visible signs of relative Arab cohesion seen today. However, the validity of that is up for a debate that far exceeds the scope of this writing.
Elsewhere, an almost universal distaste for Middle East interventions among Western democracies has arguably emboldened harmful actors. This disinterest has left avenues for resurgent extremist groups or spawned armed non-state actors not threatened by unenforced red lines, sanctions, and the growing preference for non-kinetic counterinsurgency strategies.
As a result, while transformations and reconciliations in the Arab world are trending toward the positive —declining conflict and enduring stability — numerous threats persist that could unravel tenuous conciliatory processes and derail long-term regional peace.
However, others would argue against assertions that the Arab world mostly took to solving its own security and development challenges spurred by the growing prospect of America’s departure. In their view, the foundations of the “new order” establishing itself today lie in the geostrategic disruptions of the Arab Spring and its numerous iterations.
The Arab world is in an era where, increasingly, Arabs and Arabs alone will have to define and forge their own “peace,” with little intervention from far-off powers too distracted by domestic woes or pivoting to other foreign policy priorities.
Hafed Al-Ghwell
A decade ago, tumultuous uprisings not only undermined the region’s traditional dominant players such asEgypt, Algeria, Syria, and Iraq. It also benefited emergent regional players — the Gulf states, which are rapidly evolving from the drivers of regional development to the near-global hubs they are today.
It is implausible that the Arab world’s once-dominant actors will ever recapture the spotlight or regain the wherewithal to shape regional dynamics. On the contrary, they face a plurality of domestic challenges exacerbated by the pandemic and the need to prepare their economies for the 21st century by, for example, rationalizing public expenditures without ripping up decades-old social contracts.
In addition, interventions are exceedingly costly and ill advised, even as a tactic to distract citizens enraged by state failure, poor governance, corruption, and political gridlock. Thus, as more Arab nations look inward to resolve domestic challenges, there is a growing appreciation of a foreign policy based on converging interests and the need to deter shared threats. It is a massive departure from waging costly competitions or engaging in misguided interventions for influence with all the risk and no reward.
Unfortunately, any discussion of MENA realignments focusing on security and stability tends to be projected against a background of US-China-Russia geopolitical rivalry, relegating organic trends to mere runaway offshoots of grander ambitions elsewhere. Most literature on Arab world de-escalation is rife with threats or warnings of how other non-US powers will wade in, sparking a new era of escalations and possibly open conflict.
So far, however, the reality is different.
China remains attached to a limited, transactional engagement prioritizing trade, investment, and development over open-ended or divisive interventions. On the other hand, Russia is limiting its encroachment in areas where it already had historical ties, making it easier to establish strategic footholds. Moscow does not appear to want to become an influential player with as vast a reach as the US. Instead, interventions in Syria and Libya point to tamer ambitions of being an unavoidable actor with just enough leverage to influence domestic affairs in Moscow’s favor, rather than lay an overbearing hand over most of the MENA region.
As a result, the calculus in most Arab world capitals has since shifted from piggybacking ambitions of far-off powers in favor of regional dialogue and de-escalation. For now, normalization is still in its infancy, with most progress hinging on, for instance, whether the Vienna talks on Iran’s return to compliance with the 2015 nuclear deal will resume and come to a favorable conclusion.
The same applies to the resolution of eastern Mediterranean tensions, not excluding dealing with some of the roadblocks to Libya’s post-conflict transition. In addition, progress now depends on Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s diplomatic offensive to improve strained ties with Cairo and Riyadh. Lastly, in Syria, regime change is no longer a realistic objective since Arab states have gradually normalized relations with Damascus since 2018. This year alone, discussions are underway regarding the conditions for rehabilitating the Assad regime in the region.
Moreover, exhaustion with intra-Palestinian rivalry and further consolidation of the Abraham Accords have relegated the relevance of the Palestinian question to broader Arab world cohesion. It remains to be seen how deep or wide-reaching this de-escalation trend will go toward fostering more regional dialogue, managing conflicts better, and building inclusive, cooperative frameworks for security, trade, and development. Hopefully, the desire to create enduring paths away from endless conflicts might result in a MENA region free of nuclear weapons and other divisive influences.
- Hafed Al-Ghwell is a senior fellow with the Foreign Policy Institute at the John Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies. Twitter: @HafedAlGhwell
