[Foreign Affairs] Who Will Win the Middle East?

How New Rivalries Are Transforming the Strategic Landscape

By Tarek Osman

MAY 20, 2014

Since the middle of the twentieth century, the Middle East has seen regional hegemons come and go. The 1950s and 1960s were Egypt’s era: Cairo was the Arab World’s capital and the home of its charismatic postcolonial leader, Gamal Abdel Nasser. But Israel’s victory over Egypt, Jordan, and Syria in the 1967 war; Nasser’s death, in 1970; and the spike in oil prices after the 1973 war brought that era to an end. As millions of Egyptians and other Arabs left home for the oil-wealthy Gulf, the gravity of Arab politics went with them. As the Gulf’s fortunes rose, especially in Saudi Arabia, so too did Riyadh’s political clout. Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait in 1990, however, and the subsequent U.S.-led war, which was launched from Saudi soil, made clear that oil could buy Gulf countries, including Saudi Arabia, a lot of influence, but they still needed American protection.

After the Gulf War, in the first half of the 1990s, the Oslo Agreement between the Israelis and the Palestinians and the Israeli-Jordanian Peace Treaty, shepherded by Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, gave rise to Israel’s moment in the Middle East. Regional economic cooperation took center stage, casting the politics of the previous four decades aside with the optimism of peace and integration. Rabin’s assassination in 1995 abruptly dashed those hopes. The peace process floundered by the end of the decade, as a new rightwing in Israeli politics rose to power, hardly disposed to any closeness to its neighbors. 

Then there was a void; the 2000s was no one’s decade. No Arab country had the power, resources, or credibility to assert itself across the whole region. Sectarianism spread, fuelled by the U.S. occupation of Iraq and ensuing civil war. Arab republics, such as Egypt, Syria, and Tunisia, witnessed shocking levels of corruption that eroded the foundation upon which they were built in the 1950s: social equality and the consent of the lower middle classes to the reigning regimes. In the Gulf, the ruling dynasties sought to turn their desert towns into glittering cities, modeled on Hong Kong and Singapore, and detached themselves from the problems of their other Arab neighbors. Whereas in previous decades the region’s strategic landscape had depended on one country’s ascendancy, by 2011, with so much of the region muddling through and failing to put together serious national or regional political projects, the dominant players in the Middle East seemed to be economic actors, from multinational corporations to regional financial interests.

The Arab uprisings of the last three years shook up the balance of power once more, toppling three of the Arab republics, Egypt, Libya, and Tunisia; threatening Arab monarchies in the Gulf; and sewing chaos around Israel. Whereas most observers evaluate the uprisings in terms of the political changes they did -- or did not -- usher in, there are other forces at play. A larger power struggle has emerged out of the ashes of revolution, repression, and war from Tunisia to Syria, which is reshaping the entire strategic landscape of the Middle East. Its outcome will transform the entire region more than any regional rivalry or the rise or fall of any single power in the preceding half century. 

The emerging confrontation is over the nature and future of the region’s societies, from North Africa to the Gulf.

FACE OFF

At the heart of this transformation are two groups of countries and political forces with opposing objectives. The first, led by Islamist forces in Iran, Qatar, Turkey, and the large Arab political Islamist groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood, aims to channel the energy of the Arab uprisings toward a gradual Islamization of the region. The definition of that Islamization varies depending on the ideologies, backgrounds, and social and political circumstances of each country. The camp’s unifying conviction, however, is that political Islam is the sole framework for governing. Its members believe that, unlike the old rhetoric of secular Arab nationalism or republicanism, Islamism can actually win the support of the widest social segments in the region -- and keep it. To promote its goals, the camp uses a loosely organized network of media, religious authorities, and financial interests to rouse wide sections of the more than 180 million Arabs who are under 35 years old to demand bottom-up change.

The other camp, led by Saudi Arabia and other Gulf monarchies, such as Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates, and supported by Egypt, Israel, and Jordan, sees this transformation as a threat. They -- the traditionalists -- believe that Islamization will bring further fragmentation in some countries, such as Iraq, Lebanon, and Syria; highly disruptive political and social discord in others, such as Egypt; and the strengthening of jihadist groups across the region. Favoring a more gradual, managed, and cautious evolution of the existing order, the traditionalist camp relies on militaries, security apparatuses, media and financial interests, and other state or state-backed institutions to enforce a message of national preservation and shield their countries from the upheaval unfolding across the region. 

The battle between the two groups is a new kind of fight in the Middle East. Previous struggles between Arab secularists and Islamists (for example, between Nasser and the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood in the 1950s, or between the Assad regime and the Brotherhood in the late 1970s and early 1980s) were country and regime specific. The Arab-Israeli conflict, meanwhile, has been primarily over territories. And the contest between secular Arab republics and Gulf monarchies throughout the 1960s (such as between Nasser’s Egypt and Saudi Arabia) revolved around the survival of specific regimes. This emerging two-camp confrontation, however, is over the nature and future of the region’s societies, from North Africa to the Gulf.

TROUBLE IN EVERY DIRECTION

The struggle between these two camps will be determined by four factors. The first is Egypt’s future. With nearly 90 million people, the country is the home of a third of all Arabs and, for decades, has been the region’s cultural trendsetter. Political Islam has already shaped Egypt’s politics since the fall of President Mubarak, throughout President Mohamed Morsi’s year in office, and, since Morsi’s ouster last summer, in the ongoing struggle between the resurgent nationalists -- and at their core, the military establishment -- and the Islamists. But it is really Egypt’s economy that will determine the country’s course. If Egypt’s government, likely led by Field Marshal Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, who is widely expected to win a May 25–26 presidential election, can finally put forward badly needed economic reforms, including cutting back on unaffordable public subsidies, without losing popular support and risking another round of political protest, then Egypt could regain its status as a player in the region and significantly bolster the second camp. But that is a tall order. And if it fails, another round of unrest would doom the traditionalists’ camp.

The second variable is the future of Algeria, North Africa’s largest and richest country, thanks in large part to its oil and gas wealth. (Algeria is Europe’s third-largest energy supplier.) The military regime has been buying time until it can find a replacement for the ailing, aged President Abdelaziz Bouteflika. His replacement must be acceptable to the generals who have controlled the country for over four decades and be conciliatory to the political Islamists that fought the regime throughout the 1990s in a war that cost 100,000 lives. The regime still survives by buying off such dissenters and playing off the public’s fear of returning to the violence of the 1990s, which compels many Algerians to accept the lack of plurality in return for peace and stability. But although the Algerian regime survived the wave of protests in 2011 intact, it is hardly bulletproof. Algerian political Islam has evolved beyond its 1990s antagonistic worldview. New Algerian Islamist parties could reemerge as a serious rival to the military regime. And with Algeria’s immense financial resources, this would give the first camp a major strategic advantage.

The third factor is Saudi Arabia, where the royal family is digging in its heels. A rising middle class that has a huge stake in the economy -- and has been increasingly exposed to political and social currents outside the conservative kingdom -- has finally started to demand political representation. Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia’s economic prospects are slowly deteriorating. (The country is expected to become a net energy importer by 2030.) A sagging economy will only hinder the royal family’s ability to keep buying middle-class support through social welfare and public allowances. The threats of a low-level Shiite insurgency in the kingdom’s eastern province, a renewed Shiite Houthi militancy on the borders with Yemen, or a protest movement among young, disaffected Saudis could erode the government’s authority. A weakening of the Saudi regime would undermine the traditionalists’ camp by diverting the resources and dampening the will of its most powerful and assertive member.

But there is another scenario. King Abdullah, who is 89 years old, has shuffled responsibilities and positions within the ruling family, and the rising (relatively young) princes are aware of the challenges their political system faces. If, motivated by these existential threats, the Saudi regime can evolve and turn the kingdom into a functioning constitutional monarchy in which the political, social, and economic rights of large groups of young Saudis are respected, it could lead to a long but relatively stable transition. A new, assertive Saudi leadership, buoyed by political legitimacy, would imbue the traditionalists’ camp with strong momentum.

The fourth factor is just how much more chaos the Middle East sees over the coming decade. The civil war in Syria is likely to end with a semblance of a centralized authority in Damascus, surrounded by quasi-independent political entities. Several Salafist jihadist groups in the country could manage to entrench themselves in the increasingly lawless desert plains extending from eastern Syria to western Iraq, where they could try to establish Islamic statelets, isolated from the surrounding world (as similar groups have tried in Afghanistan and the Caucasus). Their presence will be a source of violence and political fragility, primarily for Syria and Iraq, but also for Lebanon and Jordan, opening more fronts in the battle between the two camps.

The camp that can turn the political contests in the region to their advantage, by deflecting potential chaos and inflicting its consequences on the other camp, will be better positioned to win this strategic struggle.

THERE’S A STORM COMING 

As unpredictable as the Middle East will be over the next few years, there are a few certainties. First, following a pattern of the last five decades and increasingly spurred by demographics and the already palpable cultural trends within the region’s colossal youth segment, the wave of urbanization, Westernization, and increased liberalism will prove unstoppable. That will weaken the Islamists, because their attempts to evolve their rhetoric and political messages to match these trends will diminish their support among their core constituencies and gradually detach them from the Islamic frame of reference upon which their entire movement has been built. Second, because of competitive deficiencies in educational quality, technological advancement, and energy costs -- in addition to looming water crises in the Nile and Jordan River basins -- almost all large countries in the region will confront socioeconomic turbulence in the next decade. That will weaken the traditionalist camp, which relies on structured authority.

In a sense, then, both camps could lose. The socioeconomic challenges that all of these countries will confront could trigger a new youth rebellion, which, unlike the 2011 uprisings, would not be directed at the current rulers but at the entire political and economic establishments that control these countries. Such a movement could rapidly dilute the powers of entrenched institutions in old Arab republics as well as in Gulf monarchies. It could also undermine the prospects of political Islam. No matter what, then, adaptability will be key for Islamists and traditionalists alike. The camp that adjusts to these social, political, and economic waves will have better chances of withstanding the approaching storm.

[Foreign Affairs] Arms and Influence in the Gulf

Riyadh and Abu Dhabi Get to Work

Bilal Y. Saab
May 5, 2014

Since the formation of the modern Arab state system in the mid-twentieth century, no Arab country has succeeded in building and sustaining an indigenous national defense industry. Egypt tried hard, but ultimately failed because it lacked the requisite financial and human capital. Under Saddam Hussein, Iraq came closest, thanks to its skilled population and oil wealth, but it was stymied by corruption, mismanagement, and war. The Gulf countries, meanwhile, have spent lavish sums on the most modern U.S. and European arms, which they often lack expertise in handling and servicing. “Arabs don’t do maintenance,” the adage went.

Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) may finally end this streak of Arab failures. Over the past decade, the two countries have quietly developed their military-industrial capacities. Today, they are capable of manufacturing and modernizing military vehicles, communication systems, aerial drones, and more. Further, they have significantly improved their ability to maintain, repair, and retrofit aircraft. And with U.S. assistance, they have trained their militaries to operate some of the most sophisticated weapons systems in the world, including Hawk surface-to-air missiles.

To be sure, Saudi Arabia and the UAE are nowhere near self-sufficiency. (Even the most advanced U.S. allies remain heavily dependent on the United States for its military technology and know-how.) Indeed, their defense-industrial efforts are hardly complete, and retain some glaring weaknesses. But both countries have taken advantage of strategic partnerships with the top transatlantic defense companies in order to learn from the best. Riyadh and Abu Dhabi have primarily done so through so-called offset agreements, which compel foreign suppliers to invest in local industrial projects so that the recipient country can offset the typically huge cost of defense procurement. Such programs have allowed the two countries to connect their domestic defense sectors with global defense producers and acquire advanced defense industrial knowledge and technology. Meanwhile, the information technology revolution has made the international defense market even more accessible to smaller players, allowing Saudi Arabia and the UAE to manage, and in some instances, overcome key technological hurdles.

Riyadh and Abu Dhabi’s drive for military industrialization reflects their desire to reduce their political dependence on the United States. That is perfectly understandable. No nation wants to be totally reliant on another to protect itself and its interests. But unilateralism on the part of U.S. partners and allies can sometimes undermine U.S. security interests; take, for example, Israel’s unilateral military actions in Lebanon, Syria, and the Palestinian territories. Washington has often favored and called for regional solutions to many of the region’s security problems, and it would be relieved if Saudi Arabia and the UAE could use their own new resources to help defuse crises in the future. But if the Saudis or the Emiratis decided to act independently in the event of a new regional crisis, in the mold of the 1990­­–91 Gulf War, the United States could see its regional influence diminish.

Given Saudi Arabia’s size and its own leading role in the Gulf, its current disappointment with U.S. policy in the Middle East deserves closer scrutiny. Should relations between Riyadh and Washington fail to improve, bold unilateral moves by the kingdom, bolstered by more developed national defense and security capabilities, could challenge the U.S. regional force structure and threaten Washington’s other relationships in the Gulf. The UAE is a different story: Abu Dhabi’s armed forces are more technically proficient and combat-ready than the Saudi military, but its leaders are less interested in acting outside of U.S.-led coalitions.

But Saudi Arabia and the UAE have also invested in military industrialization to modernize their societies and diversify their economies. And ultimately, the pace, scope, and effectiveness of Saudi and Emirati military efforts will continue to depend on broader societal changes. Both countries still have considerable deficits of human resources and expertise -- key barriers in the way of building a sustainable defense industry.

Moving forward, Riyadh and Abu Dhabi need to further institutionalize their defense industrial processes, formulate clearer production policies, put in place more competent government managers, and make larger investments in education, research, and technological development. It could take anywhere between five and 15 years before either country can sustainably export military products and rely on its own manpower and arms production capabilities to address national security needs. But the Saudis and Emiratis are wise not to rush. It is only a matter of time before they have more advanced defense industries -- and the independence that comes with it.
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BILAL Y. SAAB is senior fellow for Middle East security at the Brent Scowcroft Center on International Security at the Atlantic Council.

[Foreign Affairs] Islamist Outlaws

Saudi Arabia Takes on the Muslim Brotherhood

By William McCants

On March 7, Saudi Arabia took the extraordinary step of declaring the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organization, on par with Hezbollah and al Qaeda. The move came just two days after the kingdom, together with the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, withdrew its ambassador from Qatar because of Qatar’s alleged support of Brotherhood interference in internal politics. Although Saudi Arabia’s dislike of Brotherhood political activities abroad is well known, for decades the kingdom has tolerated (and sometimes even worked with) the local Saudi branch of the Brotherhood. Its sudden reversal is an expression of solidarity with its politically vulnerable allies in the region and a warning to Sunni Islamists within its borders to tread carefully.

This story goes back to the Arab Spring, when Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, Saudi Arabia’s longtime ally, was ousted, and Egypt elected Mohamed Morsi, a Muslim Brotherhood­–linked politician, to fill his shoes. Riyadh feared that the group, now empowered, would try to export the Egyptian revolution regionwide, calling for action against the House of Saud and displacing Saudi’s friends and allies such as the UAE. Those fears were not entirely unfounded.

In Saudi Arabia, members of the Muslim Brotherhood had been at the forefront of the Awakening movement, a push in the early 1990s for political change in response to alleged Saudi government corruption and the basing of U.S. troops in the country. But, as the political science professor Stéphane Lacroix documents in his book Awakening Islam, most members of the Saudi Muslim Brotherhood had quickly fallen into line once the regime began to arrest or sanction its leaders. The Saudi Brotherhood simply had too much to lose: its members helped build the Saudi state and occupied important positions in the religious and educational establishment.

That détente ended with the Arab Spring, when a number of prominent Islamists added their names to a 2011 petition calling for political reforms in the kingdom. They also obliquely criticized the lack of political freedom in Saudi Arabia by lavishing praise on fellow travelers in Tunisia and Egypt. Even Nasir al-Umar, a hard-line Sururi (a blend of Brotherhood and ultraconservative Salafism), was singing the praises of democratic change. Then Crown Prince Nayef and future Crown Prince Salman pressed them into silence. According to one person I spoke to on a recent trip to Saudi Arabia, some were forced to sign a pledge to cease criticizing the lack of political freedom in the kingdom. But the renewed détente was fragile, hinging on events in tumultuous Egypt.

There was some reason for Saudi Arabia to fear for its allies in the region as well. Under Mubarak, Egypt had been a dependable Saudi ally. But Morsi sought to chart a neutral course between Saudi Arabia and Iran, following an early fundraising visit to the kingdom with an attempted rapprochement with Iran. The United Arab Emirates was worried, too. The Brotherhood has had a small presence in UAE since the 1960s, but after 9/11 the government started to see the group as a national security threat. It didn’t help that when the Muslim Brotherhood came to power in Egypt some members of the UAE branch began agitating for political reforms, going so far as to sign a petition calling for elections and real authority for the UAE’s advisory council. The government responded by arresting group members across the country, including men belonging to an alleged terror cell with ties to the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt.

In response to what they saw as Egyptian meddling, Saudi Arabia tried to economically isolate Morsi and hasten his departure. In May 2013, just two months before the military overthrow of Morsi, the Egyptian finance minister complained to the Saudis that Egypt had only received $1 billion of the $3.5 billion in aid promised after Mubarak’s downfall. When the Egyptian military overthrew Morsi just a year into his rule, Saudi Arabia applauded and quickly promised Egypt a new aid package of $5 billion, together with one from the UAE for $3 billion and from Kuwait for $4 billion. When the new regime massacred Brotherhood protestors in August, the taciturn King Abdullah uncharacteristically voiced his public support for the slaughter as a blow against terrorism. When the new Egyptian government declared the group a terrorist organization in late December 2013, Saudi Arabia followed suit. When UAE decided not to replace its departing ambassador in Qatar -- partly to punish Qatar for its refusal to discipline an influential Qatar-based Brotherhood spiritual leader who preached that the UAE is against Islamic rule -- Saudi Arabia recalled its own ambassador in solidarity.

Saudi Arabia’s moves have provoked some unhappiness at home. Saudi Islamists, particularly the Brothers, are convinced that Morsi’s overthrow was part of a Saudi plot to roll back Islamist political gains of the past three years. In defiance, they festooned their social media profiles with symbols of Brotherhood resistance and criticized their government for its complicity. The defiance has become more muted recently, after the local press reported that the government was contemplating declaring the Brotherhood a terrorist organization. According to former members of the Saudi Muslim Brotherhood I spoke with, the 25,000 or so members of the Brotherhood in Saudi Arabia reacted to the news of the deliberations by preemptively keeping a low profile, closing some of its gatherings so as not to further stoke the government’s ire. Until the Saudi government actually begins making arrests, its recent announcement is more of a shot across the Brotherhood’s bow than an attempt to sink the ship.

Nevertheless, person after person I interviewed asserted that the level of Islamist anger toward the Saudi government is higher than at any time since the early 1990s. That does not mean Brotherhood leaders will move against the regime in the near term. In the 1990s as now, they have too much to lose institutionally. There is also some benefit in a wait-and-see approach, which is why Salman al-Awda, a prominent Saudi Islamist, is privately counselling his followers to wait for the regime’s factions to sort things out among themselves. But the younger rank-and-file Brothers in Saudi, like those in other Brotherhood franchises outside Egypt, are starting to lose hope in peaceful political change. That frustration can lead to apathy. But it can also lead to violence -- and if it does, the Saudi government’s decision to declare the group a terrorist organization will have been a self-fulfilling prophecy.

[Foregin Affairs Website 2014/3/17]

[Foreign Affairs] Break Up in the Gulf

What the GCC Dispute Means for Qatar

By Bilal Y. Saab

On March 5, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and Bahrain announced that they had withdrawn their ambassadors from Qatar, claiming that Doha had been violating a clause in the Gulf Cooperation Council charter banning interference in the domestic affairs of fellow GCC members. The decision, unprecedented in the GCC’s history, hints at significant changes to come for the GCC and the balance of power in the Gulf.

The dispute between GCC members had been simmering for a while, and it was only a matter of time before it boiled over. In December, during a GCC Summit in Kuwait, Riyadh and Abu Dhabi had been close to singling out Qatar for its alleged financing of terrorism in Syria and elsewhere. But, at the last minute, the Saudis pulled the plug to avoid embarrassing their Kuwaiti hosts. They opted instead to give Doha a stern private warning. A couple of weeks before that, Saudi leaders scolded new Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim during a meeting in Riyadh that was arranged by Kuwaiti leader Sheikh Sabah Al Ahmad. The 33-year-old Tamim was asked to make serious adjustments to his country's foreign policy, including that the country stop allegedly funding al Qaeda­–affiliated groups in Syria. The young Tamim reportedly agreed, but requested some time to make the necessary changes.

Tamim eventually managed to reduce Doha's involvement in the Syrian conflict. But, realizing that it had lost in Syria, Doha doubled down on outreach to the Muslim Brotherhood and its offshoots in the region, including Hamas. In addition, it continued efforts to cozy up to Iran and Turkey, support the Al Houthi rebels in Yemen, and test the waters with Hezbollah. In doing so, Doha was touching every nerve and ringing every alarm bell in Abu Dhabi and Riyadh, where officials were doing all they could to finish off the Muslim Brotherhood (including labeling it as terrorist group and propping up Egypt's military chief, Field Marshal Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, by paving the way for his presidency).

No wonder, then, that the Bahrainis, Emiratis, and Saudis soon accused Qatar of trying to undermine the GCC and recalled their ambassadors. But where does this leave Qatar? Tamim has two options, neither of which is good. He can either fully comply with the wishes of Saudi Arabia and the UAE -- which would cost him his relationship with Qatar’s old guard, including his father -- or consolidate his role by working with his father's allies and freeing his country once and for all from the shackles of Saudi influence and an increasingly irrelevant GCC.

Tamim might not survive the first scenario, given how difficult it would be to confront not only his family but also the enormously influential ex-prime minister and foreign minister Hamad Bin Jassim Al Thani. But the second option wouldn’t be easy, either. In that scenario, Qatar would more forcefully ally itself with Iran, with which it already has strong economic ties. It would also get politically and economically closer to Oman, which already has friendly relations with Tehran. But that wouldn’t come without costs either. The Sultanate is essentially in the GCC doghouse for refusing to adopt the group’s standard line against Iran. Should Qatar join that club, it will be hard for it to ever reverse course with the GCC.

Should Qatar become friendlier with Iran and Oman, it would signal the death of the GCC and herald a new power alignment in the Gulf. It would also severely complicate U.S. plans in the Middle East. For some time, the United States has encouraged the Arab Gulf States to think and act more collectively to enhance Gulf security. But with increasing tensions among GCC members, including possible divorces, this goal seems increasingly unrealistic. Washington may come to see that its Gulf allies will not be able to provide regional security anytime soon and, as a result, think twice about plans to reduce the U.S. political and military footprint there.

Qatar's spat with its Saudi and Emirati neighbors also creates another policy dilemma for the United States. Washington has strategic relations with all three states, which will become difficult to manage if they aren’t on speaking terms. It is possible that Riyadh and Abu Dhabi could even lobby the United States to help shut down money flows out of Doha under the guise of counterterrorism. But Washington might not be receptive. Qatar hosts the Al Udeid Air Base and the Combined Air and Space Operations Center, which coordinated all of the U.S. attack and surveillance missions for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. In other words, although the U.S. Treasury Department and State Department may show readiness to entertain Saudi and Emirati punitive measures against Doha, the Pentagon will probably put the brakes on any such plans.

In the coming days, the departure of the Saudi, Emirati, and Bahraini ambassadors from Qatar will likely trigger rushed consultations among the Arab Gulf States. And these will probably lead to some sort of political settlement to defuse the crisis. But make no mistake about it, this is a new political era in the Arab Gulf, one in which individual states are charting their own courses and where the idea of unity, no matter how hard Saudi Arabia pushes for it, is rapidly fading.

[Foregin Affairs Website 2014/3/6]