When the Soviet Union collapsed and ceased as superpower in 1991, and following the liberation of Kuwait, the then president of the United States, George H.W. Bush, made his famous speech, declaring the emergence of a “New World Order”. Now, we can see a new world coming into view. A world in which there is the very real prospect of a new world order. In the words of Winston Churchill, a “world order” in which the principles of justice and fair play ... protect the weak against the strong “a world where the United Nations, freed from Cold War stalemate, is poised to fulfil the historic vision of its founders. A world in which freedom and respect for human rights find a home among all nations”. I wish I could say the same about the unfolding of the new more chaotic and unstable new Middle East we are witnessing.
A quarter century later, that new world order is coming to an end. The era of American dominance and hegemony has reached its peak and the talk today is of a less primacy of the US, even retreating on the world stage, and especially in the Middle East. On the other hand, we are witnessing an end to the hundred-year-old Sykes-Picot agreement that established the new Middle East, post First World War, and the division of the Ottoman Empire territories in the Arab world. This created a strategic vacuum in our midst.
Former US secretary of state Henry Kissinger, in his much quoted Wall Street Journal piece last month, delineates four concurrent challenges in the Middle East: “Shitte-governed Iran and its legacy of Persian imperialism; ideologically and religiously radical movements striving to overthrow prevalent political structures; conflicts within each state between ethnic and religious groups, arbitrarily assembled after the First World War into (now collapsing) states; and domestic pressures stemming from detrimental political, social and economic domestic policies.”
The US is now a power with lesser footprints in our region and the rest of the world; the Russians are forcing their way into US area of influence in the Middle East and the Mediterranean; China is bullying its neighbours and flexing its muscles in South China Sea; Iran has become a regional hegemon and is trying to exercise its control through its proxies and agents in four Arab capitals. The nuclear deal will give Iran a nod of approval and legitimacy to play a larger role in regional politics — not only to fight terrorism and radicalism, as it brags about, but also to be consulted and invited to discuss the Syrian crisis! This will bestow legitimacy to Iran’s regional role, even if that comes at the expense and national interests of America’s Arab allies.
Today, we are witnessing a shift and realignment in the Middle East, five years since the outbreak of Arab Spring, which has jolted many states in the region and plunged them into chaos, particularly Syria and Yemen, which are in shambles. This has undermined Arab order and invited regional and foreign interventions, as witnessed by Iran, Turkey, Israel and lately Russia. Today, many Arab states are threatened by Iran and Daesh (the self-proclaimed Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant).
Moreover, civil wars, proxy wars, wars of attrition, collapse of state authority, ascendance of non-state actors, militias have perplexed the masses in many Arab states and societies.
Today, one can notice a shift in the centre of gravity in the ‘new’ Middle East. Power has clearly shifted from the traditional Arab anchor-states — like Egypt, Iraq and Syria — to the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states with their soft and hard power. In the ‘old’ Middle East, the GCC states had been relegated to the peripheries of Arab order. Today, the scenario has changed. The ‘new’ Middle East has now been transformed to a GCC-centric region. Today, the GCC has become the de facto leader of the Arab order.
Game-changing developments are now underway in the Middle East: The disengagement of the US with a lesser regional footprint; the Iran nuclear deal, propelling Tehran into a regional hegemon, so that it can advance its mischievous designs with greater legitimacy; the Saudi Arabia-led operation of coalition forces in Yemen to restore the legitimate government of the democratically elected President Abd Rabbo Mansour Hadi and also to arrest Iran’s hegemonic role in the Arab East. It is a much-needed bold move to stand up and defend GCC national interests in a region that has suffered for too long from a skewed balance of power that has favoured Iran and its Arab proxies, who have time and again undermined and jeopardised the security and national interests of Arab and GCC states.
What could have triggered much of the current tensions and uncertainties is the Obama administration’s abdication of its leadership role and its obsession to reach a nuclear pact with Iran at any cost — ignoring the wider flash points in the region. This has added much angst and is reshaping the ‘new’ Middle East.
Professor Abdullah Al Shayji is a professor of Political Science and the former chairman of the Political Science Department, Kuwait University. You can follow him on Twitter at www.twitter.com/@docshayji