How coronavirus is impacting the Middle East
coronavirus has struck Middle Eastern countries in different ways, relatively moderate in some and more severe in others. According to the April 19 Johns Hopkins University (JHU) report, confirmed cases have ranged from 80,000 in Iran and Turkey with related deaths of 5,000 and nearly 2,000 — the highest in the region — to supposedly one case and zero deaths in Yemen.
In the Arabian Peninsula countries, Saudi Arabia has the highest number of positive cases and deaths in the region with over 8,000 cases. In the Levant, Israel leads the pack with nearly 13,000 cases followed by Iraq with over 1,500 cases. Lebanon has nearly 700 followed by Jordan and the West Bank and Gaza with over 400 each, and Syria with 38 cases. Egypt leads in North Africa with over 2,800 cases followed by Morocco and Algeria with over 2,500 each, and Tunisia with nearly 900 cases.
These numbers, excluding Iran and Turkey, are relatively low, but many analysts believe they are undercounted because of a lack of widespread testing, monitoring and regime transparency.
COVID-19 has laid bare the fissures in Middle East societies. Because of their ethnic, sectarian and geographic marginalization, many groups have been deprived of adequate health care, unemployment benefits, testing and social services. Hunger, diabetes, heart disease and obesity have become rampant among these diverse groups, which does not bode well for the long-term stability of some of these countries.
Terrorist groups have also begun to reorganize and carry out operations in Syria, Iraq and elsewhere. Like this pandemic, terrorism does not recognize state boundaries.
In the midst of COVID-19, many regimes have glossed over the fissures in their societies. The coronavirus has struck the vulnerable, the poor and of course the communities that cannot for economic, cultural, geographic and religious reasons isolate or maintain social distance.
In most Middle East countries, health services for COVID-19 victims have been mostly provided to the ruling elites, the affluent and the politically-connected sectors of society. The rest, who must go out to eke a living, are locked down in their neighborhoods under draconian measures without pay, medicine or food. Many die without any testing, medical care or even a hospital visit.
Some regimes have also used sophisticated technologies to track and surveil their citizens, ostensibly to trace the spread of the virus but in reality to track their citizens for so-called national security reasons.
The communities at risk from COVID-19 are spread across the entire region. Akin to many minority and underprivileged communities in the United States, vulnerable Middle Eastern communities lack job security and health insurance, and are rapidly running out of food.
Like their American counterparts, people living in these communities will die from COVID-19 at far higher numbers than the rest of the population. The communities include refugees, internally displaced persons, foreign workers, religious communities, homeless war victims, destitute urban dwellers and nomads.
It’s possible to identify two scenarios as the Middle East region goes through COVID-19: stay the course and extended chaos.
Under the stay-the-course scenario, regimes in the next three to five years are able to contain the fallout from the popular discontent at governmental unpreparedness for the disease, inadequate health systems, and the ever-widening gap between the powerful, wealthy minority and the poor majority. Communities at risk will remain so as these countries move forward, but regimes will be able to contain social unrest and street eruptions.
Because of societal disparities, this situation, however, cannot endure beyond five years. Once citizens discover that regimes fail to reward their fealty with economic support, they will not hesitate to hit the streets.
The extended-chaos scenario postulates that the gap between the haves and havenots will grow much more rapidly, which regimes will be unable to keep under wraps. The poor will become angrier, more frustrated and more courageous to confront their regimes and security services.
The drop in global demand for oil since the advent of COVID-19 has led to a dramatic collapse of oil prices. The Gulf sheikdoms are forced to cut state subsidies in education, health and welfare. Demands for regime change become the rallying cry. The vulgarity of the rich and the destitution of the poor will collide in the public square.
Economic fragmentation and regime bankruptcy lead to civil unrest, which will shake the foundations of many of these political entities. COVID-19 will likely show that many of these states are no more than a house of cards. As the major powers begin to tackle their shaky economies in the post pandemic era, they are unable to provide meaningful assistance to wobbly Middle Eastern countries, thereby hastening their inevitable collapse.