UAE set for ‘positive trends’ despite region’s bleak outlook
The short-term prospects for the Middle East are pretty bleak, according to a prominent academic.
With wars and tensions growing in every corner, few breakthroughs for peace or resolutions to conflicts are expected next year.
“What we need to understand is that there is no light at the end of the tunnel in the Middle East,” said Prof Fawaz Gerges, professor of international relations at the London School of Economics, speaking at the Arab Strategy Forum in Dubai yesterday.
“You have major challenges and crises, regional powers that are really fighting wars by proxies in Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Lebanon.
“Russia has also emerged as a major player and that’s why I don’t think we should expect any major changes in 2018.” Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid, Vice President and Ruler of Dubai, was in the audience. He wrote earlier on Twitter: “The Arab world is experiencing rapid changes and nations that do not strive to develop risk falling behind.
“We see positive trends in 2018 for the UAE as we are politically, economically and intellectually prepared.”
Also among those listening in the audience, as political analysts and officials gathered to discuss their projections for the geopolitical landscape next year, were Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed, Crown Prince of Dubai, and Sheikh Saif bin Zayed, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Interior.
Prof Gerges, meanwhile, said Iraq would probably have a relatively safe, secure and stable environment.
“You will probably have a stalemate in Syria [as] Assad isn’t really going to offer any major changes,” he said.
“Yemen is the theatre where we are going to witness major qualitative escalation. Yemen is going to be a bloodier theatre than it has been in the past three years.”
Major escalation is expected in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict after US president Donald Trump’s decision to recognise Jerusalem as the capital of Israel last week.
“It could really provide the spark that triggers a major conflict on the conflict,” Prof Gerges said. “All in all, I don’t think we should expect any strategic changes.
“We should expect minor changes that could be built upon in the following years but there is no magic wand by which the fires in the Middle East could be put out.”
He suggested hope was also slim for a resolution to the GCC crisis with Qatar. He predicted a 30 to 40 per cent chance that it would end in 2018.
“This is because both sides are determined not to offer any compromises or concessions to each other, so the crisis with Qatar is probably going to be with us for a while,” he said.
Abdulrahman Al Rashed, the journalist, author and former general manager of Al Arabiya News Channel and Asharq
Al-Awsat, was more optimistic. “There will be progress in Yemen because the Houthis lost 50 per cent of their strength after Saleh left,” he said in reference to former president Ali Abdullah Saleh, who broke ties with the rebels before being killed by them last Monday.
“No one has declared they will join them since his death and the rebels’ map hasn’t changed.
“In 2014, almost all the country was controlled by the rebels but now, the legitimate government holds three quarters of it.”
He said, however, that the war would rage on for years because of the country’s geography, with the Houthis mainly located in the mountains. But unity among the six GCC countries will be needed next year to face the war in Yemen, he said”.