Editor's Note:
Today we suggest for your consideration: "The Middle East: Evolution of a Broken Regional Order," a paper by Paul Salem, director of the Carnegie Middle East Center in Beirut, that "identifies patterns and trends in the dynamic history between the countries of the Middle East
-- through the collapse of Ottoman rule, European mandates, and the post-World War II developments in the region
-- that help to understand how Arab states, as well as Turkey and Iran, have shaped their policies, particularly after 9/11 and the U.S. invasion of Iraq."
Salem's paper serves as introduction to a series of country studies, including Saudi Arabia, that will describe how states have responded.
This SUSRIS IOI provides the introduction and links to the -- on-line English and Arabic versions -- report.
Full Report English
Arabic
The Middle East: Evolution of a Broken Regional Order
Paul Salem
Introduction
The Middle East is broken. The structures and power balances put in place in the late 1970s and amended after the end of the Cold War are no longer. These structures and balances included a number of key elements. Israel was at peace with Egypt and Jordan and in an informal truce with Syria—hence the Arab–Israeli conflict was no longer pursued by any major contiguous state opponents of Israel. A weakened Palestinian movement had been chased out of Lebanon in 1982 and co-opted in the Oslo Accords of 1993. Syria’s role in the region was recognized and its influence in Lebanon legitimized—indeed, after 1990, it was promoted to suzerainty. Iraq was bolstered in the 1980s by the United States as a buffer and counterbalance to revolutionary Iran, and later, throughout the 1990s, it was preserved but contained. Saudi Arabia helped manage the finances of this scheme and helped maintain Arab consensus when possible. And the United States saw out the end of Soviet influence in the region, secured a military foothold
in the Gulf, and gained in political influence: first as a broker of Israeli–Egyptian peace in the late 1970s, then as the architect of a pro-Iraqi containment policy against revolutionary Iran in the 1980s, as the leader of an Arab and international coalition to liberate Kuwait from an Iraqi invasion in the early 1990s, and as the patron of another major peace initiative launched in the Madrid peace conference.
Today, this system is in ruins. Iraq collapsed as a centralized sovereign state, and its implosion altered the geopolitics of the system. For the previous two decades, Iraq had represented a buffer within the Middle East system—counterbalancing
Iran and keeping Turkey facing west; now Iraq is the epicenter of a new set of tensions drawing in Saudi Arabia, Syria, Iran, and Turkey. Iran has become a dominant player in the heart of the Middle East. Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party
(AKP) has shown an increasing interest in the Middle East while at the same time continuing to pursue accession to the European Union
(EU). Additionally, the implosion of Iraq has drawn Turkey back into intense concern about Kurdish ambitions and has spurred it to rebuild relations with Syria and Iran. Saudi Arabia, once an arm’s-length player, has moved to become a direct manager of regional affairs by talking directly to Iran and backing Sunni groups and parties throughout the region. Syria has been pushed out of Lebanon, and although it retains considerable power there, its power is not what it was in the 1990s. Syria also has come under pressure from the United States, Saudi Arabia, and the UN Security Council, and it has internal regime worries. Lebanon, after its first bold steps of post-Syrian independence, has succumbed to internal division and continued external influence, and it teeters between paralysis and civil unrest. Farther south, the peace process was abandoned, and the Palestinian body politic split into rival camps on the West Bank and Gaza; only in late 2007 did the United States attempt to revive the peace process. Indeed, all the states in the region have been affected by the dramatic changes in the regional system.
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Full Report
(PDF) English
Arabic
Paul Salem
Director, Carnegie Middle East Center
Paul Salem is the Director of the Carnegie Middle East
Center. Prior to joining Carnegie in 2006, Salem was the general director of the Fares Foundation and from 1989 to 1999 he founded and directed the Lebanese Center for Policy Studies, Lebanon's leading public policy think tank. Recently, Salem was a member of the Lebanese National Commission for Electoral Law Reform, a blue ribbon commission tasked with revising Lebanon's electoral laws and proposing a new system. In 2002, Salem was a member of the Senior Review Committee for the
UNDP Arab Human Development
Report. He also has held various positions at the American University in Beirut. He is regularly seen in television appearances, radio interviews, and newspaper articles on political issues relating to the Arab world.
Selected Publications: Bitter Legacy: Ideology and Politics in the Arab World (Syracuse University Press, 1994); Conflict Resolution in the Arab World: Selected Essays, editor, (American University Press, Beirut, 1997); Handbook for Arab Parliamentarians Against Corruption, editor, (Beirut and Kuwait: Arab Parliamentarians Against Corruption and Transparency, Lebanon, 2006); Administrative Decentralization in Lebanon: Issues and Applications, co-editor with Antoine Messara (Lebanese Center for Policy Studies, 1996); The First Elections in Lebanon After the War, co-editor with Farid
el-Khazen (Dar al-Nahar and Lebanese Center for Policy Studies, 1993)
Education:
Ph.D., M.A., B.A., Harvard University
The Carnegie Middle East Center
The Carnegie Middle East Center is a public policy research center based in Beirut, Lebanon, established by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in 2006. The Middle East Center is concerned with the challenges facing political and economic development and reform in the Arab Middle East and aims to better inform the process of political change in the region and deepen understanding of the complex issues that affect it. The Center brings together senior researchers from the region, as well as collaborating with Carnegie scholars in Washington, Moscow, and Beijing and a wide variety of research centers in the Middle East and Europe, to work on in-depth, policy-relevant, empirical research relating to critical matters facing the countries and peoples of the region. This distinctive approach provides policy makers, practitioners, and activists in all countries with analysis and recommendations that are deeply informed by knowledge and views from the region, enhancing the prospects for effectively addressing key challenges.
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