The Middle East and the growing East-West divide

Now is the time for all Lebanese to take the radical approach of supporting systemic change

The US needs to maintain a security presence in the Middle East as a check on Iran’s regional destabilization

activities

The dispute began as a war of words and became a messy skirmish of retaliatory tariffs — souring already tense relations between Beijing and Washington. However, with it came an inevitable parade of doomsayers heralding the fateful descent of a trade, financial and digital “iron curtain” between the world’s largest economy and its fastest growing. “Decoupling” they called it, causing alarm in some circles, intrigue in others and cursory dismissals from the rest. Fortunately, these portentous declarations will soon fade in response to fast-changing realities. Our world is in serious need of collaboration and cooperation between the US and China in order to address mounting crises from an oil price crash, a global pandemic, and the still discernible vulnerabilities left by a now decade-old financial crisis.

According to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), a third of the economies in the Middle East and Central Asia had still not returned to their pre-2008 levels of economic activity by the end of last year — and then the pandemic struck. Many countries are not expected to recover to pre-pandemic levels until at least 2024, with global trade plunging by 12 percent. As a new administration takes over in Washington, the calls to either deal decisively with China or settle for some awkward form of detente have only become more raucous. The obvious dovish pragmatism of the incoming

Joe Biden administration will certainly opt for the latter, since a continuation of the previous administration’s aggressive, transactional, clientelistic diplomacy does not bode well for a battered world economy.

Expectations of a sudden irreparable rift forming between East and West are basically moot at this point, which comes as a relief to most of the world — particularly the Middle East. The last thing the planet needs is a replay of a world once again divided into antagonistic halves only a generation after the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Most nations are desperate to recover because failure to do so will unleash an overwhelming tide of social unrest and political uncertainty. The number of impoverished people continues to grow, with millions out of work and, in some cases, without adequate social safety nets.

It is these exigent realities that are defining priorities for most governments in the

Middle East, and not the growing tide of Sinophobia stemming from Western capitals. Nonetheless, proponents of decoupling will not be silent and every maneuver by Beijing will be intensely scrutinized and rendered adversarial, and therefore deserving of an equal response.

Certainly, some of the posturing by Beijing is very concerning and, should it remain unchecked, could cause some sleepless nights for the new occupants of the White House. The US is yet to respond to a $400 billion

Hafed Al-Ghwell is a non-resident senior fellow with the Foreign Policy Institute at the John Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies. lifeline thrown by China to the sanctionsriddled Iranian economy. This was followed by Beijing swiftly enacting an Export Control Law to regulate the export of sensitive materials, weapons and related technologies overseas — not long after the expiration of a UN arms embargo on Iran.

If the Biden administration is keen on renegotiating a freeze on Iran’s nuclear ambitions, Tehran’s embracing of China will likely make those negotiations a lot more challenging. On the other hand, China will have to tread carefully to avoid jeopardizing the positive returns from its engagement with US-backed, anti-Tehran Gulf states.

Such is the messy calculus across the Middle East, where countries must carefully balance national security and economic priorities. US energy self-sufficiency has left the energydense region looking elsewhere, mostly Asia, to export its hydrocarbons. It is unsurprising that the Middle East is home to six of China’s Top 10 oil suppliers, and stands to benefit enormously from the very ambitious $1 trillion BRI — if they are not already being swarmed by Chinese investments to develop ports, oil facilities, petrochemical depots, power stations, industrial zones, and logistics hubs. A sudden rift or the imposition of some kind of iron curtain would be very catastrophic for all.

Since 1945, the Middle East has benefited, and will continue to do so, from a steadfast US security umbrella, despite its flawed foundations reminiscent of Cold War-era “domino theory” thinking. Relative “successes” — such as engineering a defeat of the Soviet Union in its invasion of Afghanistan, two Gulf Wars and the containment of Iran — would inform a policy shift from attritional counterbalancing to misguided regime change disguised as a “War on Terror.”

Now, however, the US appears intent on reducing its footprint overseas, despite fierce opposition by partners in the region, allies in Europe, and interest groups at home. It is unlikely a new administration will reverse this trend given the obvious domestic political appeal of “ending forever wars.” However, an abrupt exit would rob the US of any standing it can use to demand that the region rebuff an attempt by China to consolidate its fastgrowing presence, unchecked by Washington’s ambivalence and looming absence.

If the region is to skirt the worst of a widening chasm between East Asia and the West, it must adopt a pragmatic approach that favors neither side. The only way the Middle East can stay clear of the fray is to insist on a symbiotic confluence of interests.

Despite achieving relative energy selfsufficiency, the US still needs to maintain a security presence in the Middle East beyond counterterrorism operations and as a check on Iran’s regional destabilization activities — it also prevents China and Russia from coordinating hegemonic designs in the shadow of a complete US exit.