US Strategy toward Middle East: Confusion in Transformation
Since the middle of 2019, centering on US-Iran contest, new hotspot issues and crises in the Middle East have emerged one after another, further exacerbating fluctuation in the regional situation. The chaos in the Middle East this time around can be traced back to the Arab Spring broke out in 2011, being exacerbated by the readjustment of US strategy and contests between countries within the region and beyond it, featuring conflict generating, scope expanding, long-lasting and ever complexing. This essay attempts to analyze the main forms of the chaos in the Middle East this time around, explore the origin of the turbulent situation, and assess its effect and future trend.
The Main Forms of Middle East Chaos
Middle East chaos is referred to the turbulence of the regional situation, the diversiform contradictions, the frequent conflicts, the mixed and disorderly relations, and the disorder, among which turbulence and disorder are two keywords. The chaos in the Middle East this time around beginning with the so called Arab Spring in early 2011 has lasted nearly a decade. Not only does the regional turbulence show no signs of letting up, but it also displays the trends of the continued expansion of conflicts, ever escalation of the crisis, growing disorder in the situation, and complexation and pluralization of contradictions.
First, various regional contradictions break out in concentration, hotspot issues emerge one after another, and there is no end of lasting wars and conflicts. The war in Yemen, the war in Syria and the war in Libya go on, and Palestine-Israel conflict flares up once more, whereas new hotspots appear one after another, such as the return of the Iran nuclear issue, increasing tension in the Eastern Mediterranean situation, Turkey enhancing its military intervention in the region, the safety of navigation in the Persian Gulf being in crisis, a new wave of popular protests breaking out in a number of countries across the region. All of the above regional hotspots and crises mutually interlink, interact and penetrate one another, with piling on effect.
Second, the political situation in regional countries continue to fluctuate, regime stability is impacted in general, and there is an outstanding issue of regime security. The fluctuation of political situation can be classified into four categories: firstly, the risk of “regime change” keeps increasing, namely after Tunisia, Yemen and Egypt, Sudan and Algeria have seen the “change of weather” since 2019, long ruling Sudanese President Bashir and Algerian President Bouteflika have stepped down in disgrace. Secondly, succession to the throne faces a challenge, and generational leadership alteration accelerates, which mainly happens to the Gulf monarchies like Saudi Arabia, Oman, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). In face of raging domestic political struggle, Crown Prince Mohammed has consolidated his political authority through an array of measures to secure his succession. In Oman, Sultan Qaboos who had ruled the sultanate for fifty years passed away, the stability of the country in the future remaining to be watched. Both Kuwait and the UAE are in face of the issue of succession. Thirdly, intensified internal power struggle affects political stability, as in Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon and Iraq. Fourthly, an upsurge of popular politics leads to continued domestic protests, impacting political stability, including countries like Egypt, Tunisia, Jordan, Turkey, Sudan, Algeria, Lebanon, Iraq and Iran. Since 2019, leaders of Sudan, Algeria, Lebanon and Iraq have been forced to step down in face of large-scale protests.
Third, the US-Iran surging contest
seriously affects regional stability. In July 2015, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) commonly known as the Iran nuclear deal was concluded, the Iran nuclear issue that had beset the region for years finally being on pause. It was followed by a period of relaxation of US-Iran relations and cooling off of regional tension in the Middle East. After Trump became US president, the Iran nuclear issue heated up again. Harboring strong anti-Iran complex, Trump negated Obama’s Iran policy and stood for placing all round sanctions on Iran. Not only did he criticize theJCPOA as “a horrible one-sided deal that should have never, ever been made”, he also accused Iran of developing balletic missiles, “supporting terrorism” and being engaged in “regional expansion”. On May 8, 2018, the US announced to quit the JCPOA and has continued to increase sanctions on Iran. While placing Iran under “maximum pressure”, the US has actively joined hands with the Gulf countries like Saudi Arabia and Israel to build an anti-Iran united front, aiming to construct a Middle East strategic coalition for containing Iran in an all-round way. Tit-for-Tat with hostile actions of the US, Israel and Saudi Arabia, Iran has taken a series of countermeasures. The US conducts anti-Iran activities in Syria, Yemen, Palestine, Lebanon, Bahrain, Qatar, Iraq and the Gulf area at large, causing turbulence in Lebanon, Iraq and Gulf situation, seriously impacting regional stability.
Fourth, the Middle East pattern being confused and disorderly, all parties vie to fill up the power vacuum, intensifying regional political competition. At present, the Middle East is in transition from the old order to a new one, regional power pattern changing fast. As the US continues to retrench in the region in strategic terms, the stage is set for a “post-American era” Middle East, with four salient features of “America retreating and Russia advancing”, “the West retreating and the East advancing”, “one on the decline and two on the rise” and “principalities vying for supremacy”. After three decades, Russia is once more one of the principal players in Middle East affairs. Constrained by internal difficulty, the role that the EU has to play in the Middle East increasingly wanes. Taking advantage of the chaos in the Middle East, Japan and India actively extend their influence in the region. Regional countries like Turkey, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, Iran and Israel avail themselves of the opportunity of the chaos to expand their own spheres of influence and reaches. The unipolar regional pattern in the Middle East is evolving fast towards a multipolar one.
The Origin of Middle East Chaos
Unique geographical location, rich endowment of oil resources, complex internal and regional contradictions, failure of regional transition from tradition to modernity, aggression and intervention by great powers outside of the region are main causes for the Middle East to be in long turbulence and incessant wars and conflicts. Since the outset of the 21st century, new changes have taken place in factors causing turbulence in the Middle East, including a large number of practical factors in addition to historically accumulative and inherent regional contradictions, among which four factors have played the key role.
First, the Arab Spring triggered off turbulence in regional political and security order and disrupted social stability mechanisms. The Arab Spring marked the beginning of Middle East chaos this time around. On the national level, this regional storm of protests has led to regime collapse in Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen, Libya, Sudan and Algeria, condemning three countries of Yemen, Syria and Libya to large-scale wars. This turbulence has created political and security vacuum in a number of countries, collapsing power structure, almost paralyzing the government, breeding endless power struggles, reducing governance capacity, and giving rise to surging social strives. All problems above are most striking in Libya and Yemen. On the regional level, the storm this time around has caused a regional imbalance, disorder and loss of control, leading to important changes on regional balance of national strength and international relations, and internal and external forces have seized the opportunity to reshape regional order to their advantage and vie for spheres of influence.
Second, US readjustment of global strategy and change in US Middle East policy has facilitated turbulence in the Middle East. Since the Obama administration, US Middle East policy has changed fundamentally. Obama carried out strategic retrenchment in the Middle East, doing what he could to be free from the negative effect of the two wars there, and being reluctant to use force in a significant way in the region lest the US be bogged down in a new war in the Middle East. Deter
Unique geographical location, rich endowment of oil resources, complex internal and regional contradictions, failure of regional transition from tradition to modernity, aggression and intervention by great powers outside of the region are main causes for the Middle East to be in long turbulence and incessant wars and conflicts.
mined to realize eastward shift of the focus of US strategy, Obama set about the rebalancing Asia-Pacific strategy. Though Trump gave verbal negation to Obama’s Middle East policy, he has in fact carried on Obama’s central line of strategic retrenchment, likewise regarding the Middle East as a strategic burden and being willing neither to be bogged down in a war there nor take up any more responsibilities in the Middle East. From Obama to Trump, not only did US strategic retrenchment lead to the collapse of US-led Middle East order and give rise to a “post-American era” Middle East, but it has also created a gigantic power vacuum, which various forces are seizing the opportunity to fill up. US inaction has brought huge risks and turbulence to the region, to which Trump’s random acts have added confusion and threats. This boils down to three aspects as follows, firstly a Trump who is deeply influenced by Jewish lobby and Israel has returned to hardline policy on the Iran issue, making it once again a major security issue of the region. Secondly, entirely in disregard of stipulations of international law and consensus of the international community on a host of sensitive issues such as the status of Jerusalem, Jewish settlements, Palestine-Israel borders, refugees and the Golan Heights, Trump has adopted a “leaning on one side” proIsrael policy, presenting a so called “deal of the century” aiming to thoroughly resolve the Palestine-Israel conflict, only triggering off an escalation of the conflict. Thirdly, the “America First” policy conflicts with the interests of US regional allies, the cleavage between both sides being on the increase. The US downsizes its commitment to the Middle East and in particular its security commitment to its strategic allies in the region, risking the collapse of its regional alliance system. As trust and reliance on the US of its regional allies like Turkey, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Qatar wane, regional countries begin to enhance their independence on political and security affairs.
Third, the consciousness of regional countries of being on the “home field” as “leading players” is on the increase, resulting in increasingly sharpened geopolitical competition and continuously intensifying regional strives and conflicts. Besides raging US-Russia contest in the Middle East, geopolitical competition between major regional states is the main factor for regional tension. The competition between major regional states mainly centers on strives and conflicts involving Saudi Arabia, Iran, the UAE, Qatar, Turkey and Israel, forming complicated relations and camps. These countries are the leading players of present geopolitical contradictions in the Middle East, whose essence is the rivalry for regional leadership. The competition and contest among them lead to ever intensifying regional conflicts in the Middle East.
Fourth, the increasingly compound form of regional crisis and the lingering regional transition enlarge the risk of social turbulence. At present, the Middle East is both in an accelerating period and in a lingering period of transition from a traditional society to a modern one. Not only is there political, economic and security crisis facing the region, there are also profound identity crisis and ideological crisis. A review of the experience of developing countries’ transition in the post World War II shows that most of the countries have undergone political turbulence and violence, the Middle East being no exception. In a regional perspective, the Middle East is in transition from an old order to a new one. More often than not, a shift between old and new orders is accompanied by violent conflicts and wars, from the two Iraq wars to the three ongoing wars of Syria, Yemen and Libya, all of them strongly featuring regional alteration of orders. On the national level, current Middle East chaos is closely related to transition and identity reinvention of major regional states, among which Turkey, Saudi Arabia and the UAE stand out. Under Erdoğan’s leadership, Turkey is in transition from a Kemalist Turkey to a “New Turkey”, from traditional “joining Europe instead of Asia” to being both European and Asian, and from a secularist Turkey to an Islamic-Turkish state. King Salman and his son are building a “Neo Saudi Arabia”, actively conducting political, economic and social reform at home, creating a Salman dynasty, constructing non-oil economy, rejecting Islamic extremism, and promoting the transition from a “religious monarchy” to a secular nation-state, and attempting to become the hegemon of the Middle East abroad and checking competition from Turkey and Iran. The UAE has broken its tradition of nation building based on international commerce, eager to try in regional political and security arena, styling itself as “Sparta in the Middle East” and aspiring for regional leadership.
The Effect of Middle East Chaos
Not only dose Middle East chaos seriously interfere with the normal regional development process, threaten regional stability and plunge the people into misery and suffering, it has also posed a grave challenge to international security.
First, as a normal political and economic development process in the region is subject to interference, regional countries are in general involved in a diversiform crisis. At present, almost none of the countries in the region is free from political turbulence. To varying degrees, most of the regional countries undergo a double political and economic crisis, the sense of regime insecurity of various regional countries
being on the rise. According to the statistics of the World Bank, the growth rate of GDP of the West Asian-African region between 2009 and 2018 was the lowest since the end of the Cold War.
Second, regional conflicts are spreading from isolated pockets to the whole area, turbulent situation continuing to grow in size, traditional security issues intermingling with non-traditional ones, and complicity of regional contradictions being on the increase. As such, security and stability in the Middle East is in face of even more serious challenge, war and bloodshed, religious extremism, terrorism and narrow nationalism wreaking havoc. At present, alongside the three ongoing wars, a serious of regional crises and hotspot issues pile on, and a new crisis is in the making. Seen as an oasis of peace in the Middle East, the Gulf area faces increasing risks of turbulence. The power vacuum and continued regional turbulence help terrorism and extremism spread unchecked, extremist and terrorist forces like ISIS and the Al Qaida run rampant in Syria, Libya, Yemen, Iraq and Somalia.
Third, readjustment of the regional pattern accelerates, the international relations in the Middle East undergo drastic changes, and geopolitical competition intensifies, making it more difficult to find a solution to regional issues. Comparing with the past, the influence of the US-led West is on the decline, the influence of Russia, China and India is on the rise, regional countries in general pursuing an “eastward” policy. Against the backdrop of the regional balance of power having been broken and the US alliance system in the region facing collapse, reorganization of relations between regional countries picks up speed, friend and foe relations reversing fast. Qatar’s relations with Saudi Arabia and the UAE has taken a sudden turn for the worse, the state opting to enter into an alliance with Turkey and Iran, whereas Turkey has fallen out with all its past allies and partners like Egypt, Israel, Saudi Arabia and the UAE. Old rivals Saudi Arabia and Israel have struck an anti-Iran strategic alliance, and Egypt, Israel, Cyprus and Greece have rallied against their common foe Turkey.
Fourth, Middle East chaos has plunged the people into misery and suffering, bringing about a great humanitarian disaster. Especially in Syria, Yemen, Libya and Iraq, the war has caused a million casualties, displaced tens of millions of people, and reduced millions of them to refugees, creating the greatest humanitarian disaster of the contemporary world. According to the statistics of the UN, between 2010 and 2017 refugees and asylum-seekers across the globe increased by about 13 million, and 46% of them came from the West-Asian and African regions. In 2018, 70.8 million people across the globe were displaced, with record number of refugees totaling 25.9 million, most of them coming from West-Asian and African countries. In Syria, 13 million people have been displaced, accounting for nearly half of the population of the country, and in addition 5.6 million people have been reduced to international refugees. Four million people in Yemen and 3 million in Iraq have been displaced, and so have hundreds of thousands of people in Libya.
Fifth, international peace and security and global governance are in face of grave threats. On multiple levels of extremism, terrorism, nuclear proliferation, refugee crisis, international maritime access safety, and energy supply, Middle East chaos has severely impacted international security and stability, intensified major country competition, and threatened global strategic stability and, at the same time, posed a huge challenge to global governance. To a degree, Middle East chaos also signifies the failure of transplantation and experiment of Neo-Liberalism in the Middle East. The fact proves that it is necessary to deeply rethink global governance in terms of guiding principles, theories and methods.
Conclusion
It is partly coincidental for Middle East chaos to happen, but it is also a development of historical necessity. The current confusion, turbulence and disorder in the Middle East, and the uncertainty of its future development are a microcosm of global political development. At the same time, there are also opportunities and hope in Middle East chaos rather than total darkness. In regional turbulence and throes, the Middle East is going in the general direction of “moving from change to chaos, and from chaos to order”. In this chaos, there are also positive signs that are noteworthy. For instance, though Tunisia and Egypt have undergone regime change with lurking internal crises, neither of countries is in civil war or turbulence like Libya, Syria or Yemen. Learning lessons from other countries, Sudan and Algeria have realized the smooth transition of political power. The West and the US , in particular, has become cautious in interfering with the Middle East affairs, reducing involvement, which is conducive to regional countries assuming the principal role and playing a more important part in the Middle East affairs. Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Egypt, Morocco and Turkey have actively pushed ahead political and economic transformation, launching a host of reform and development programs. In particular, the religious and social reform of Saudi Arabia that does away with extremism carries important significance for the country and for the Arab and Islamic world at large. One may be tempted to apply economist Schumpeter’s notion of “creative destruction” to the politics in the Middle East, that after the great disorder, a great order may prevail in the Middle East. Of course, in view of the drastic changes and uncertainty in global political development, it is estimated that the current Middle East chaos will continue for a period of time. It is worth noting that in the transformation of the global system and the system of the Middle East, it increasingly becomes a trend to de-Westernize, to de-centralize the power, and to diversify, which may be conducive to the realization of peace, stability and development in the Middle East in the future.