A New Middle East?

Peering into the state of affairs in the Middle East reveals that the region might be on the verge of sea change. On various levels, and in several subsystems, a significant remoulding of maps, alliances and norms seems to be on the horizon. In this Middle East in flux, fundamental alliances are crumbling, old paths are being abandoned, political articles of faith are questioned, new plots and schemes are planned, emerging actors that don’t play it safe are asserting their presence, and traditional powers are groping to find their way amid increasing difficulties.

The winds of change are blowing in all directions. The contours of some of these changes already manifested themselves in the crisis that erupted last June between the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Bahrain on one hand and Qatar on the other. The standoff demonstrated that small Middle Eastern states that strive to punch above their weight have become regional forces to be reckoned with. In essence, the crisis was a testimony to the rising power of Qatar and the UAE: the former has proved influential enough to trigger the enforcement of a political and economic blockade by four more powerful states; the latter has led the anti-Qatar coalition and strove to push Doha out of the fold.

The crisis also marked the demise of the role of regional institutions, such as the Gulf Cooperation Council and the Arab League (AL), and their replacement by other, less formal and institutionalized, groupings. For instance, instead of its traditional reliance on the AL and the Organization of Islamic Conference, Saudi Arabia has preferred to work within the so-called Arab Alliance in Yemen, and the Quartet in regional politics. If this trend continues, which seems like the case, these institutions run the risk of descending into total irrelevance.     

In Gaza, an unanticipated political warming of relations between Hamas and its erstwhile bitter rival, Fateh’s former security honcho Mohamed Dahlan, has been in the making for months. According to the plan, whose full details are still unclear, Dahlan will return from his exile in the UAE to become prime minister of Gaza, Hamas will retain its control of the security file and Egypt will reopen the Rafah Crossing. Obviously, the step is taken in open defiance of Fateh and the Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, with which Dahlan has been at loggerheads for many years.

If finalized, the new arrangement - which is mediated by Egypt, financed by the UAE and indirectly backed by the United States - would significantly reshape Palestinian politics. It would reinforce the current division between Gaza and the West Bank, and undermine the influence of Abbas over Palestinian political and armed factions. It would also subject solid regional alliances to a drastic reconfiguration. News of the plan have already drawn the ire of Abbas and strained Cairo’s longstanding relations with Fateh,

Yet, the most striking outcome of this deal is that it might turn the cautious rapprochement between Hamas and Egypt into a substantial alliance, an unthinkable development in light of the antagonism and mistrust that have governed their relations over the past decades. Hamas has already tightened its control of the Egypt border, and organized a huge rally to declare its support for the Egyptian army in its war against terrorism. In return, Cairo has, as scholar Michele Dunne explained, “abandoned earlier efforts to isolate or crush Hamas,” the Palestinian offshoot of its domestic nemesis, the Muslim Brotherhood.     

Meanwhile, another political storm may be gathering in the heart of the Arab world. A final solution for the Palestinian question - the “ultimate deal” in the words of Donald Trump, or the “deal of the century” as the Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi dubbed it – has slowly come to the surface. It has apparently gained currency in Washington and Arab capitals in recent months. US and Middle Eastern leaders have not explained what exactly is meant by these terms, and whether they describe a workable short-term framework agreement or just a distant long-term objective. However, media reports indicate that the plan offers a formula to solve the Palestinian-Israeli conflict that involves the entire Arab world, and imply that it would radically transform both Middle Eastern politics and geography. According to these reports, the vision includes the establishment of a Palestinian state in Gaza, which would include parts of northern Sinai, and would accommodate Palestinian refugees. Israel would in return concede parts of its territory to Egypt. Full normalization between Israel and Arab states would ensue, which might pave the way for the formation of an Israel-Sunni Arab coalition against Iran.        

Concurrently, the time-honored norms of Arab politics are slowly changing. Most Arab states no longer pay deference, or even lip service, to the ideals of pan-Arabism or Islamism, which have consistently been seen as sources of domestic legitimacy. For decades following the inception of the modern Arab state system, Arab regimes used to make noise about Arab unity, the plight of the Palestinians and the wellbeing of the Islamic Umma. But now they make no effort to hide that realpolitik, not ideology, has become a fact of life in Arab politics. Saudi Arabia, for one, has to a large extent relinquished its historical role as a leading ‘Muslim’ country and the guardian of the Muslim holy shrines. It is now wagering on military might rather than Muslim diplomacy. That’s not entirely a surprise in light of Riyadh’s relentless bombing of a fellow Muslim country, Yemen, and its secret endeavors to develop ties with Israel—both taboos in the eyes of Arab people.

Other crucial developments in the region include a possible rapprochement between two of the region’s leading powers: Iran and Saudi Arabia. Signs suggesting a possible thaw in their icing relations include a handshake between the foreign ministers of the two countries in Istanbul, a rare visit by Iraq’s Shia cleric Muqtada Sadr to Saudi Arabia, and a declared plan to exchange diplomatic visits after the end of the Hajj season. In the shifting sands of the Levant, the Islamic State is losing territory and influence; the balance of power is tipping in favor of the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad who is clawing back territory from the rebels; and a referendum for the independence of Kurdistan is slated for September 25.

The implications of these developments for the international relations of the Middle East are still not fully clear, but are likely to be extremely significant. Bashar’s victory will embolden Arab autocrats and undermine the already meagre prospects of democratic transition in their countries; the rise of an independent Kurdistan in Iraq will encourage separatist Kurds in Turkey to follow suit, and may ignite a new civil war in Iraq for the control of the oil-rich city of Kirkuk; the deal of the century would put an end to the 70-year-old Arab-Israeli conflict; and a shift in regional alliances would likely breed a change in the region’s balance of power, disrupt the pecking order of the Arab state system and, perhaps, trigger the birth of an entirely new regional order. Domestically, meanwhile, a world of difference still exists between the expectations of Arab people and the foreign policies of their states. Legitimacy deficits persist, patience is wearing thin and instability remains the order of the day.

Nael Shama

* This essay appeared in The New Arab (English) on September 11, 2017.