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Michael C. Hudson (ed.)
1999
2. The Arab World and the New Balance of Power in the New Middle East
Bahgat Korany
In the international tinderbox that is the Middle East, the 1990–91 Gulf War is usually treated as a watershed. Ever since, a growing industry of writing on the "New Middle East" has acquired increasing relevance. The enlarged and ongoing Arab–Israeli peace process added visibility to the "newness" concept.
Despite much critique by many of the validity of the concept of "balance of power," it still captures, in summary form, world and regional structures. It also determines—in reality or in perception—the behavior of different actors. As the Middle East specialist of the Clinton administration, Martin Indyk, put it in discussing the post–Gulf War context: "the administration’ s approach (to the region)... starts from the balance of power." (Indyk, et. al. 1994, 1–26). Consequently, it is important to show the nature of this balance, its evolution, and the meaning in concrete terms of its newness.
The first section of this paper looks at the ambiguities surrounding the balance of power concept, some of the problems in its practice, and, finally, presents the definition used here. The next two sections move to application to show how regional dynamics—with their Arab/non–Arab distinction—could be grouped through the balance of power conceptual lens. Section three specifically deals with the evolution of the balance from a pattern of attempted (Egyptian) hegemony to a pattern of power diffusion after the rise of "petro–powers." Power–diffusion could favor partnership, as during the 1973 October war where military action and oil embargo decisions were coordinated, or during the second Gulf War. But this latter partnership was not transformed into an international regime because it lacked transparency, predictability, and the necessary longue duré e. This handicap was even more apparent in the formation of passing coalitions (with the exception of the Gulf Cooperation Council). Section four concentrates on the present post–Gulf War context, characterized by an Arab balance of weakness. Then the question is raised in section five as to whether, in the new context of peace–building around the Arab–Israeli core conflict, we should now envisage a different conceptual lens from the balance of power, i.e., interdependence, and thus talk of a balance of benefits. Given the oscillation of current regional politics between warfare and welfare, this final part shows how it is necessary to use simultaneously the two conceptual lenses to better decode the present Middle East complexity.
Defining the Balance of Power
In 1836, Richard Cobden, in talking about Russia, condemned balance of power as a fallacy, a mistake, an incomprehensible concept: asserting the theory was "mere chimera—a creation of the politician’ s brain—a phantasme, without definite form or tangible existence—a mere conjunction of syllables, forming words which convey sound without meaning" (Cobden 1867, Moul 1989).
About 117 years later, a prominent specialist of international relations, Ernest Haas (1953), found that the concept indeed has meaning, or rather more than one—in fact too many. He counted at least eight distinct meanings ranging from any distribution of power, to parity in distribution, to dominance. He attributed the ambiguity of the concept to the fact that people use the same words but intend different meanings.
The confusion is logical since there is no standard unit of power comparable to pound weights or pound sterling. The heated debate about whether there is a U.S. decline of power or not (Kennedy 1987, Nye 1990) reflects this ambiguity in power measurements.
In addition to these problems in the measurement of power of states, we have other basic issues in the theory that are shrouded in ambiguity: e.g., the role of the balancer: is it an eternal bystander like Britain in the nineteenth century or an active third party in conflict–resolution like the United States during the Camp David Accords? Another ambiguity is whether the balance of terror that characterized the Cold War period is also a balance of power, and whether wealth necessarily means strength (e.g., the oil–producing Gulf countries).
To put a temporary end to this conceptual discussion and concentrate on regional dynamics themselves, we can agree that power among states is not uniquely military and that it is always relative, never absolute. In fact, such an understanding of power is crucial in saving the balance of power concept and making it useful in discussing present structures and processes in the Middle East.
The Evolving Regional Balance of Power: the Arab/Non–Arab Dichotomy
For most of this century, the basic structure of regional relations has traditionally been dominated and shaped by the distinction between Arab and non–Arab. The revolt of the "Arab Provinces" against Ottoman rule on the eve of World War I and the evolution of the Arab national movement generally, was based on this Arab/non–Arab distinction. It was, however, the 1948 establishment of the state of Israel that made this distinction politically acute and, indeed, bloody. Typically, Heikal put this conditioning frame of reference in clear–cut terms, and it is worth quoting him in detail on this continuous struggle for predominance:
The advocates of the two systems have spared no effort, using all the means at their disposal, both overt and covert, to advance their cause.
1. The Middle Eastern System. First advocated by Britain, France, the United States, and Turkey, the real architect of the system was, in fact, the United States, backed by Great Britain. This system saw the Middle East in geographical terms, as a vulnerable land mass lying close to the Soviet Union. Wholly preoccupied with the Soviet threat, the architects of the system held that the countries of the area must organize themselves against this threat by joining in an alliance with others who were concerned for the region’ s security. This alliance would have to coordinate its defense with other countries exposed to the "red Peril" in Europe and Asia. A Middle Eastern alliance would be the final link in a chain of alliances (including NATO and SEATO) encircling the southern frontiers of the Soviet Union. In the logic of this system, the Arab countries were expected to join in an alliance with Turkey, Iran, Pakistan, even Israel—that is, the Middle Eastern countries directly concerned with the region—as well as with the United States, Britain, and France, the international parties concerned with the region’ s security as well as being the major participants in NATO and SEATO.
2. The Arab System. Based on a different outlook toward the region, this system saw the Middle East not as a hinterland lying between Europe and Asia—a simple geographical expansion—but as one nation having common interests and security priorities distinct from those of the West. According to this logic, the countries of the area, which enjoyed unity of language, religion, history and culture should—indeed could—create their own system to counter any threat from whatever source. And the main threat, as the advocates of this system saw it, came from Israel, not only because it cut across the African–Asian land bridge but also because, with its seizure of the Auja area demilitarized under the Rhodes armistice agreement, it was clear that it harbored expansionist aims. At the same time, while admittedly the Soviet Union did represent a threat, it was felt that there was not immediate or direct danger from that source. Many people in the area, including Gamal Abdel Nasser, held that the lack of common borders between the Arab nation and the Soviet Union would deter the Soviets from undertaking any military act against it. And in any case, Nasser felt that the answer to communist infiltration did not lie in joining Western–sponsored alliances with their imperialist overtones, but rather in promoting internal economic and social development and in affirming the spirit of nationalism and independence.
If the advocates of the Arab system required any proof of the validity of their theory, this was amply provided by the 1956 Suez War, an operation launched by two discredited colonial powers, Britain and France, in retaliation for Egypt’ s nationalization of the Suez Canal. Although it is hard to see how this particular settling of accounts could have concerned it in any way, Israel nonetheless joined the ill–fated attack, in a spirit compared by Moshe Dayan in his book on the 1956 campaign to that of a cyclist peddling uphill who grabs the back of a passing truck that happens to be going in the same direction (Heikal 1978a, 720).
Much more than the Suez Crisis, it was the 1954–55 debate over the Baghdad Pact that shaped the structure of regional relations, not only with the big powers but also among Arab countries as well as with their neighbors (Korany 1976, 198–300).
The Baghdad Pact project started formally with the Turko–Pakistani Treaty on April 4, 1953, followed by Anglo–Saxon attempts to incorporate Iraq and Iran into the new "anti–communist" organization destined to stretch from the Bosphorus to the Indus. Britain was enthusiastic in welcoming this arrangement because it offered Britain a new treaty instead of the existing Anglo–Iraqi one which was to expire by 1957. Thus, on February 24, 1955, Turkey and Iraq signed their mutual assistance pact, Britain joined on April 5, 1955, followed in September by Pakistan and in November by Iran.
Nasser reacted violently to Iraq’ s "defection." This issue dominated policies in the Arab interstate society for almost the entire year. Nasser’ s arguments were diffused through the widely heard Cairo Radio, which gave them added weight. He also contacted Arab nationalists throughout the region, explaining that Iraq had violated the solidarity of the League in committing itself to outside obligations. He threatened to withdraw from the League, a move that would have brought about its demise. Nasser’ s line of attack was simple. He emphasized Pan–Arabism against "imperialism and Zionism" and said that the Baghdad Pact was not aimed at the "real" enemy of the Arabs—Israel—but was instead an alliance with those who had created and still supported this "imperialist base" against the Arabs, i.e., the Western states.
Not only was the pact unrelated to the Arabs’ defense against their "real" enemies, according to Nasser, but it was an imperialist formula permitting imperialist forces into the Arab world through the backdoor. The appeal of this argument to ex–colonial people was strengthened when "material evidence" was cited to "prove" its truth. According to the agreement governing British accession to the Turko–Iraqi pact, "the airfields in Iraq occupied by Great Britain in accordance with the 1932 treaty were to pass under Iraqi sovereignty; but the existing facilities of overflying, landing and servicing British aircraft in Iraq were to be maintained and British military personnel would remain in Iraq, under British command, for this purpose, and would enjoy appropriate amenities. Furthermore, the installations on the airfields retained for British use were to remain British property" (Barraclough and Wall 1960, 28).
Consequently, as a British analyst summarized the new agreement, "The effects of the new agreement were therefore juridical rather than practical; in other words, although sovereignty and legal ownership passed to Iraq, effective use by Great Britain remained largely undisturbed" (Ibid.).
Thus, Nasser insisted, as far as the relationship between the Arabs and the Western powers and their "regional stooges" was concerned, Iraq’ s step meant a return to the old treaty relationships which brought the newly independent state back into the "imperialist sphere of influence." Instead, an alternative Arab strategy could achieve the Arab nationalist aim of independence by materializing Arab solidarity on the basis of the 1950 Arab League Collective Security Pact. In practice, as Salah Salem, expressed it, efforts have to be focused on arranging and organizing the "Arab house," consolidating Arab military and economic capabilities, and coordinating Arab efforts and plans. At this stage, no commitments should be concluded with foreign states. This is why Arab states should not participate in the Turko–Pakistani alliance or any other defense arrangements outside the "Arab homeland." This "unification of an Arab policy," as Turkish newspapers expressed it, would put an end to the dispersion of Arab capabilities and the "wasting of energy" through disunity. Moreover, a "unified Arab stand" would make of the Arab states a "weighty" interlocutor, and give them an elevated status in the international system. And Nasser emphasized why such an "Arab strategy" would appeal to the "masses" psychologically: "The Arabs have been colonized for a long time and they are always afraid of falling back again under Western domination." This is why "defense of the area... has to spring from the area itself," otherwise the Arabs would not feel that "they are defending their own families, their own children, their own property... [but] British or American interest." (Nasser 1960)
Consequently, if the Western powers were really interested in having independent states that would provide Middle East defense against "communist danger," Nasser thought, they should supply the Arabs with weapons without pressure and without requiring political commitments. The West should not insist on retaining the power of command in this field; this the Arabs themselves were capable of providing without any alignment.
The Baghdad Pact controversy is significant in at least two respects. According to Nasser, he was talking not only for Egypt but also in the name of a unified Arab strategy. What is characteristic of his speeches at that time is his identification with nationalist Arab aspirations and the transcendence of the interests of individual states and governments.
Second, the controversy between the supporters of pro–Western alignment and those of nonalignment was depicted as synonymous with the battle of "imperialism, zionism and their stooges" against the forces of independence and Arab nationalism. If anyone questioned this equation, Israel’ s February 28, 1955 attack on the Egyptian–controlled territory of Gaza (killing 38 people and wounding 31) was to "prove" that Egypt was paying the price for its opposition to "imperialist" alliances. This confirmed that Nasser—an Arab champion—was the "target of the Arabs’ enemies" and this strengthened his position in the Arab world enormously. Of course, power struggles were not limited to relations between Arabs and non–Arabs, but they permeated inter–Arab relations.
Inter–Arab Balance of Power
The Arab world itself has experienced various forms of balance of power. These variations ranged from hegemonic behavior by one actor (e.g., Egypt 1954–1967) to increasing power diffusion among regional members (e.g., 1967–71, 1988–1990) with some attempts at effective partnership (1971–1977, 1981–1992).
The period 1979–1988 witnessed complete Arab fragmentation. Following President Sadat’ s decision to adopt "go–it–alone" diplomacy with Israel, Egypt’ s membership in the Arab League was suspended, and the Arab League itself moved to Tunis. Moreover, the Arab states seemed to be divided about the primary threat facing them: was it Israel or revolutionary Iran (and its possible victory in its war with Iraq)? The agenda and deliberations of the 1987 Arab Summit in Amman revealed these acute divisions. The year 1988 saw the cease–fire between Iran and Iraq, Egypt’ s reintegration into the Arab world, and the return of the League to its original headquarters in Cairo.
Unilateral Hegemonic Behavior 1954–1967
The controversy over the Baghdad Pact was crowned with Egypt’ s success in establishing its regional preeminence. This preeminence rested on important bases of power—both tangible and intangible. Egypt’ s population at the time constituted no less than a third of the whole Arab population. (In fact, at the height of their petro–power in 1975, the six countries that coalesced in the Gulf Cooperation Council contained not more than one quarter of the population of Egypt.) Historically, Al–Azhar Islamic University radiated enlightenment all over the Arab and Islamic world; Egypt’ s many famous authors, poets, and journalists set the literary and intellectual pace; and Egypt’ s teachers flocked to socialize future Arab elites. Egyptian universities were the goal of promising Arab intellectuals. Many Arab high school students felt they had to work hard and earn high grades to get admitted to Cairo University, otherwise they would be "forced" to go to Oxford or Cambridge!
Egypt’ s multifaceted predominance in the region was reflected in the Arab League. In Alexandria in 1944, a meeting was convened to establish the League and approve a protocol. The minutes of this meeting are full of speeches affirming Egypt’ s regional preeminence. And it was in Cairo that the new organization located its headquarters. Until the late 1950s, Egypt’ s share in the League’ s budgets was between 40 and 50 percent, and in 1974, of the 253 permanent and nonpermanent staff members of the League, 162 were Egyptians. Until the League was forced to move from Cairo to Tunis after Egypt’ s separate peace with Israel, the three Secretary–Generals had all been Egyptians.
Various quantitative indicators that span a long period in the evolution of the Arab system confirm Egypt’ s centrality. For instance, the pattern of official visits for the period 1946–1975 confirm Egypt’ s preeminence among Arab and other Third World countries (Korany 1988, 164–178). Similarly, at the civil society level, in the mid–fifties when Jordanian leaders seemed inclined to join the Pact with their Hashemite cousin, Iraq, huge demonstrations erupted in Jordan and other Arab countries at the instigation of Egypt and its Arab supporters. Consequently, Arab membership in the Pact was limited to Nuri’ s Iraq, and when this regime was overthrown in 1958, one of the first measures of Iraq’ s Free Officers was to withdraw from this military alliance (which had then to change its official name to CENTO—Central Treaty Organization).
Egypt’ s prestige increased and its leadership was confirmed when it managed to nationalize the Suez Canal Company in 1956 and politically defeat the "Tripartite Aggression of Britain, France and Israel." This rising political hegemony was reinforced when Cairo was explicitly solicited to lead the union with Syria in the United Arab Republic (Flory and Korany 1991; Riad 1986, 193–222). Not only were two prominent states combining their capabilities, but two Pan–Arab organizations—the Ba‘ th and Nasserism—were joining forces to establish an imposing influential pole projecting the future blueprint of Arab society.
Even though the UAR’ s existence came to an end after only three and a half years, Nasserism survived. It manifested its tangible power by sending troops across the Red Sea to assure the survival of a revolutionary regime in one of the most inhospitable areas for revolutionary change in the Arab world: Yemen. Egyptian troops were thus amassed in the backyard of the leader of Arab conservatism and traditionalism: Saudi Arabia. More than once these troops crossed Saudi frontiers in hot pursuit of Yemen’ s royalist forces. Increasingly, Arab interactions were polarized. With the main Western powers actively involved on the Saudi side, the Arab world echoed the global bipolar structure. As at the global level, bipolarity did not mean complete parity between the camps. Algeria’ s 1962 independence, the 1963 coups in Syria and Iraq, followed by tripartite unity talks in the spring and summer of that year, illustrated that Nasserism still represented the regional dominant pole, both at the state and civil society levels. The cracks within the Saudi regime, such as the defection of some Saudi pilots, the activities of "liberal princes," and the departure of King Saud himself for asylum in Egypt, confirmed Egypt’ s apparent hegemony. In contradiction of the theory of hegemonic stability (Gilpin 1987, 86–92), Egypt’ s hegemony did not last long.
Egyptian hegemony was overstretched and eventually exhausted. The humiliating defeat in the third war with Israel—the so–called Six–Day War—confirmed this exhaustion (Korany 1988, 164–178).
What Nasser said in November 1967 is still valid. "After this great catastrophe, we were like a man who went out in the street to be hit by a tram or a car and lay both motionless and senseless on the ground." Six months later on April 25, 1968, he described himself as "a man walking in a desert surrounded by moving sands not knowing whether, if he moved, he would be swallowed up by the sands or would find the right path." Indeed, on November 23, 1967, Nasser admitted that his country’ s direct losses at the hands of a state with one–tenth Egypt’ s population were 11,500 killed, 5,500 captured, 80 percent of Egypt’ s armor and 286 of its 340 combat aircraft destroyed. The chaotic collision between two divisions of the Egyptian army in their disorganized race to withdraw to the mountain passes showed that the army as a military corps had ceased to exist. To add insult to injury, Israel’ s casualties were comparable proportionally to yearly road accidents in any industrialized country or even in Israel itself.
Worse still, there was no diplomatic victory (as in the 1956 Suez war, for instance) to compensate for this military disaster. On the contrary, to this Arab military defeat was added political humiliation. As one observer noted,
The pre–war picture of Israel as a beleaguered fortress... had earned the Israelis wide international sympathy... .By the discrepancies between their threats and their performance, the Arabs had invited the world’ s derision. This had been skillfully encouraged by Israeli psychological warfare and propaganda which stressed the cowardice rather than the lack of skills of the Arabs and took every opportunity of showing the Arab and especially the Egyptian armies in a humiliating light—for example, by photographing Egyptian prisoners stripped to their underwear or in other unheroic situations. (Stephens 1971, 497, 504).
Arab speeches of the time are full of themes of the "ordeal," the "cruelty of our situation," "our great pains," "the greatest test and crisis of our modern history." These expressions are in fact reminiscent of the first wave of writings by Constantine Zureik and others after the first "catastrophe," that of 1948. Similarly, the "setback" in 1967 led to a second wave of lamentation literature (Korany 1988, 164–178; Maddi 1978; Shukri 1970).
Table 2.1. Remittances in Select Labor Exporting and Importing Countries
(millions $U.S.)
| Country | 1973 | 1974 | 1975 | 1976 | 1977 | 1978 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Export Labor: | ||||||
| Sudan | 6.3 | 4.9 | 1.5 | 36.8 | 37.0 | 66.1 |
| Egypt | 123.0 | 310.0 | 455.0 | 842.0 | 988.0 | 1824.0 |
| N. Yemen | na | 135.5 | 270.2 | 675.9 | 987.1 | 910.1 |
| S. Yemen | 32.9 | 42.8 | 58.8 | 119.3 | 187.3 | 254.8 |
| Jordan | 55.4 | 82.0 | 172.0 | 401.8 | 420.8 | 468.0 |
| Import Labor: | ||||||
| S. Arabia | –391.0 | –518.0 | –554.0 | –989.0 | –1506.0 | –2844.0 |
| Bahrain | na | na | –227.6 | –252.8 | –300.3 | –387.7 |
| Oman | na | –111.0 | –208.0 | –220.0 | –222.0 | –212.0 |
| Libya | –273.0 | –350.0 | – 260.0 | –257.0 | –856.0 | –557.0 |
| Kuwait | na | na | –276.0 | –315.0 | –370.0 | –433.0 |
| Country | 1979 | 1980 | 1981 | 1982 | 1983 | 1984 |
| Export Labor: | ||||||
| Sudan | 115.7 | 209.0 | 322.7 | 107.1 | 245.8 | 275.3 |
| Egypt | 2269.0 | 2791.0 | 2230.0 | 2116.0 | 3315.0 | 3611.0 |
| N. Yemen | 936.7 | 1069.5 | 777.4 | 911.4 | 1084.4 | 995.5 |
| S. Yemen | 311.5 | 347.1 | 406.2 | 429.7 | 436.3 | 479.3 |
| Jordan | 509.0 | 666.5 | 921.9 | 932.9 | 923.9 | 1053.3 |
| Import Labor: | ||||||
| S. Arabia | –3365.0 | –4064.0 | –4100.0 | –5211.0 | –5236.0 | –5284.0 |
| Bahrain | –278.8 | –282.8 | –317.6 | –311.4 | –300.0 | –345.7 |
| Oman | –249.0 | –326.0 | –4 52.0 | –684.0 | –692.0 | –819.0 |
| Libya | –371.0 | –622.0 | – 1314.0 | –1597.0 | –2098.0 | –1544.0 |
| Kuwait | –532.0 | –692.0 | –689.0 | –702.0 | –906.0 | –855.4 |
Source: IMF International Financial Statistics Yearbook, December 1980, February 1983, December 1985, as adapted from Nazli Choucri, "The Hidden Enemy: A New View of Remittances in the Arab World," in World Development 14(6)(1986):697–712.
In an atmosphere of tightening political control by the existing regimes, it seems that mass protest and lamentation could best be expressed through novels and other literary forms, and thus publications of this genre increased noticeably. Between 1961 and 1966, the number of novels published in the Arab world was 92, between 1968 and 1973, the number was 163. The yearly average thus jumped from 15 novels to 27 annually (Maddi 1978: 26–35).
Increasing Diffusion of Power
Nasser’ s personal popularity notwithstanding, the demise of the Egyptian pole was confirmed and even legitimized during the August 1967 Khartoum Arab Summit. Nasser’ s Egypt and the radical Arab order was to be subservient to what we can call "political petrolism." Two immediate indications demonstrate the retreat of the radical order: the hurried withdrawal of Egyptian forces from Yemen, and Egypt’ s financial dependency on subsidies from the oil–rich states. Neither the emergence of a fervorous Muammar al–Qadhafi (1969) in his fragile state, nor the stateless Palestinian revolution could provide an alternative base for the radical order. The power vacuum—to use the language of balance of power adherents—was to be filled by "petro–powers"—at least by default (Korany 1988, 164–178).
Some quantitative indicators confirm the primacy of the oil states in inter–Arab politics (Dessouki 1982, 326–347).
By 1979, 55 percent of the capital of inter–Arab economic joint ventures was contributed by oil–rich Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the UAE, Qatar, and Libya; and usually the country that contributes the most capital becomes the host country for any new project headquarters.
Thus, the oil states were becoming the locale of an increasing number of new Arab organizations. In 1970, Cairo was host to 29, or 65 percent, of these organizations; Iraq hosted none and Saudi Arabia only one. Eight years later, Baghdad had become the locale for 12 organizations, thus occupying the second place after Egypt, and Saudi Arabia was in third place with eight organizations.
Fewer Arab League meetings were held in Egypt and more in the oil states. The proportion of meetings held in Cairo decreased from 70.5 percent in 1977 (the year of Sadat’ s visit to Jerusalem) to 42.2 percent in 1978 (the year of the Camp David Accords).
Egypt’ s share in the Arab League budget dropped. That share was above 40 percent until the late 1950s but declined until in 1978—the year the Arab League moved to Tunis—it was only 13.7 percent, equivalent to the contribution of Kuwait.
Yet, the rise of oil states created a golden opportunity for a balanced, less monocentric Arab interstate community to develop. For instance, some basic shortages of the newly rich powers were offset by the "excesses" of the old declining powers, enabling the former to create a demand for the surplus labor of the latter
Mobility of Labor and Capital
Source: Abdel–Fadil 1979, 161.
Moreover, the huge oil revenues were partially redistributed through remittances to the poor labor–exporting countries, with the result of more equally widespread benefits to the region as a whole (see table 2.1). What better basis for an integrated Arab system could there be?
Seeming Arab Complementarity In The 1970s.
With the exception of Algeria and Iraq, the so–called rich countries were lacking in everything from food to arms. There were huge deficiencies in infrastructure and in established bureaucracy as well as in personnel. Once development projects were envisaged, both skilled and unskilled labor was acutely needed, and importing it was beneficial to the Arab interstate society as a whole since the problem of most Arab countries has been a labor surplus.{T 2–1}
Thus, the complementarity among the factors of production, labor, and capital, provided an excellent prod for integration and thus a higher level of resource exploitation. Moreover, the acceleration of the laborers’ movement across state frontiers showed the fragility of legal state barriers, and made the different strata of Arab society aware of their interdependence.
Why did this integrative process stop half way despite the factors in its favor? This question touches on one of the most nagging issues of recent social analysis: the transformation of political systems. Although some studies have addressed themselves successfully to the transformation of nation–state systems (Goldstone 1989; Moore 1966), analysis of the transformation of interstate or international systems is still in an embryonic stage (Armstrong 1993). Consequently, the ups and downs in the Arab interstate society can shed light on the conceptual issues of system transformation while also providing information on the important regional dynamics in this part of the world.
Two preliminary explanations answer why the Arab integrative process stopped half way: The inability (even if willingness existed) of oil states to act as an alternative regional base and the absence of a pan–social project to give normative direction and hold the interstate society together. The result of this fragility of a petro–based hub would not be a shift to another hegemon but, rather, power diffusion.
The oil states are not powers in the conventional sense of this concept. If they are powers at all, it is purely in the financial sense. They lack almost all other attributes of power: sizeable population, solid administrative structures, well–trained effective military manpower, and pan–Arab political organizations. Even though Saudi per capita income is 16 times that of Egypt, Saudi Arabia is basically poor in most indices of development. In 1975, Saudi Petroleum Minister Ahmed Zaki Yamani described his country in the following way:
... We are still a poor country... we lack industry, agriculture... manpower... we have to import engineers, technicians, specialized workers that we don’ t know where to house because we lack hotels. To build hotels we need contractors, but the contractors themselves need hotels to live in. It is a vicious circle that exhausts us. Among other things we lack cement. We lack harbors because we lack cement to build them. Last, but by no means least, we lack water. We haven’ t a single river, a single lake. We depend on rainfall alone. For one hundred years, it has rained less and less frequently, for the last twenty–five years hardly at all. (Ayubi 1982, 23–24)
Even in purely financial terms, Saudi per capita income is comparable to that of Finland, which is not a particularly rich country, and has lent its name to the political term "Finlandization," indicating almost total marginality and dependence. Until the gigantic projects at Jubail and Yanbu’ manage to give an industrial base to the Saudi kingdom, it remains dependent on the outside world. In fact, in all of the oil states, even basic infrastructure is still in the making, and that thanks to foreign labor. For instance, in 1975, foreign workers constituted 81 percent of the labor force in Qatar and 85 percent in the UAE.
Another reason for the fragility of the "petro–based hub" lies with historical patterns of social organization. The process of state–formation rendered those countries family–states rather than nation–states. The economist Hazem El–Beblawi writes: "Though oil wealth has transformed [the Gulf States] into advanced welfare states, they still remain patriarchal in a distinctly familial way. The Sauds, the Sabahs, the Al–Thanis, the Qasimis, the Al–Nahayans, the Al–Maktums, the Al–Khalifas, are not only the ruling families: they embody the legitimacy of the existing regimes" (El Beblawi 1982, 210–11).
Pan–Arabism retreated in front of the raison d’ é tat, which was indiscriminately mixed with raison de famille. Two results follow from this situation. First, the leadership was characterized by a limited time horizon and an extremely personalized perception of national and international events. Second, inter–Arab relations were contaminated with the long history of interfamily feuds. In short, family frictions imposed extreme limitations on political coordination. Unfortunately, the rising technocratic elite has not been able to change this situation much. Consequently, Arab finance has not been a complement to pan–Arabism. The oil states were unable or unwilling to devise an Arab strategy. If they seemed in control, it was not so much that their achievements have won out, but that the outcome has been determined by the failure and exhaustion of the "radicals." Thus, the oil states’ primacy in the Arab interstate society represented victory by default.
This is not a strong base for an international regime. Even if Saudi Arabia, the birthplace of Islam, had become armed with a barrel of oil and was increasingly the site of secular as well as religious pilgrimage, it has not been able to keep a regional system together. As has been said, "the hegemony of mere money unsupported by manpower, cultural attainments, military strength or industrial development may be something of a mirage." (Kerr and Yassin, 1982, 11)
The increasing labor–capital complementarity was not correlated—as the functionalist theory of integration insists—with equivalent political integration. All that could be achieved from 1971 to 1974 was a Cairo–Riyadh axis, based on a tradeoff of Egyptian capabilities and Saudi money. A predominant characteristic of a relationship based on money is constant haggling, which may destroy the relationship at any time. A general mood of "affairism" rivaled nationalist commitment and penetrated the highest echelons of society, even trickling down to the masses in former revolutionary centers like Egypt and Syria. Heikal (1978b, 261–62) summarized the change:
For a generation the men who directed the course of events in the Arab world had been ideologists or officers from the armed forces—or sometimes officers who turned into ideologists or ideologists who tried to behave as if they were officers... (for example, Sadat, Assad, Boumedienne, Qadhafi, Michel Aflaq, Saddam Hussein)... Many of these were still there, but they were now being joined by the first installment of a new breed of power brokers, the middlemen, the arms dealers, the wealthy merchants who flitted between East and West, between royal palaces and the offices of royal companies... (for example, Kamal Adham, Mahdi Tajir, Adnan Khashoggi)... and by royalty itself, for who in the Arab world now exercised more power that Prince Fahd or Prince Sultan of Saudi Arabia? Could not individuals such as these, it was argued, achieve more for the Arab world than mass movements and radical revolutions? It is not surprising if in this changed atmosphere men and women in Egypt and Syria felt that the time had come for them, too, to see some improvement in their material circumstances. They had known hardship; now they looked for their reward—for more to eat and for better houses to live in. Of course, money would have to be found to pay for this, but who would dare to suggest that the Arabs were short of money? It was being said that the Arabs possessed the power to bring the rest of the world to starvation; surely they must have the power to feed themselves? So eyes turned to the oil–producing countries. Oil fields began to loom far bigger in the public mind than battlefields; tharwa (riches), it was said, had begun to take over from thawra (revolution).
The end result was not then another cycle of hegemony but rather power diffusion. Within this pattern of power diffusion, there were attempts at partnership. Though issue–specific and consequently short–lived, they still went beyond axis–building. A well–known example of such partnership was the Egyptian–Syrian–Saudi coordination for the launching of the 1973 October war with Israel.
The preparation (rather than the performance) of the October war was based on minute planning, systematic information gathering and analysis, and detailed discussion and bargaining among the different participants, notably between Syria and Egypt. These two countries’ various negotiations and discussions resulted on January 31, 1973, in the organization of a unified command for their armed forces (Korany 1986, 87–112). Continuous and intense coordination at top political and military leadership levels fixed the specific day and hour of the attack on the ceasefire lines with Israel: Yom Kippur, Saturday, October 6, 1973, 2 p.m., Middle Eastern time.
Along with this politico–military coordination, the war had a wide impact on the global economy because of the accompanying decision to impose an oil embargo. The decision to employ an oil embargo was actually a cluster of several decisions. The announcement on October 17, 1973 by the oil ministers of the Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) of a monthly 5 percent cut in the flow of oil to the United States and other countries supporting Israel against the Arabs. It also included Saudi Arabia’s October 18 announcement to cut oil production by 10 percent at the time the United States especially was pressing oil–producing countries to increase their production to meet the demand of an increasingly oil thirsty world. Also part of the embargo was Saudi Arabia’s October 20 announcement to stop all oil exports to the United States following President Richard Nixon’s October 19 demand to Congress for $2.2 billion in emergency security assistance to Israel and the continuation of a massive U.S. airlift beginning October 13 to compensate Israel’s war losses.
Table 2.2. Political Processes Under Conditions of Realism and Complex Interdependence
|
|
Realism | Complex Interdependence |
|---|---|---|
| Goals of Actors | Military security will be the Dominant goal | Goals of states will vary by issue area. Transgovernmental politics will make goals difficult to define. Transnational actors will pursue their own goals. |
| Instruments of state policy | Military force will be most effective, although economic and other instruments will also be used | Power resources specific to issue areas will be most relevant. Manipulation of interdependence, international organizations, and transnational actors will be major instruments. |
| Agenda formation | Potential shifts in the balance of power and security threats will set the agenda in high politics and will strongly influence other agendas | Agenda will be affected by changes in the distribution of power resources within issue areas; the status of international regimes; changes in the importance of transnational actors; linkages from other issues and politicization as a result of rising sensitivity interdependence. |
| Linkages of issues | Linkages will reduce differences in outcomes among issue areas and reinforce international hierarchy. | Linkages by strong states will be more difficult to make since force will be ineffective. Linkages by weak states through international organizations hierarchy.will erode rather than reinforce |
| Roles of international organizations | Roles are minor, limited by state power and the importance of military force. | Organizations will set agendas, induce coalition–formation, and act as arenas for political action by weak states. Ability to choose the organizational forum for an issue and to mobilize votes will be an important political resource. |
Source: Keohane and Nye 1977, 37
This partnership, however, was already reaching its limit by 1975. In September 1975, Egypt formally initiated its go–it–alone diplomacy with Israel by signing its second disengagement agreement with a political clause amounting to a state of nonbelligerency. The rift between Egypt and Syria was patched up temporarily in a 1976 tripartite summit in Riyadh. Saudi mediation facilitated an Egyptian–Syrian reconciliation where Syria agreed to tone down its critique of the Egyptian move and Egypt accepted the presence of Syrian troops in Lebanon. Egypt’s go–it–alone diplomacy with Israel was confirmed and consolidated on the occasion of Sadat’s "sacred mission" to Jerusalem. Egypt’s membership in the Arab League was suspended and the League moved its headquarters from Cairo to Tunis.
The attempt at partnership was revived again on the occasion of the second Gulf War. The partners were almost the same, except that Saudi Arabian participation was enlarged to include other oil–producing Gulf countries, and Syria brought along Lebanon. In 1992, the number of visits exchanged within this group was 131—compared to 38 visits for the nine–country pro–Iraqi partnership (Arab Strategic Yearbook 1992, 192–96). But this partnership around the March 1991 Damascus Declaration was even more short–lived than the first one. Even though the Damascus Declaration has not been formally abrogated, it was never carried out.
In addition to partnership, this pattern of power diffusion has also witnessed an institutionalized coalition–building. The most notable examples are the various subregional organizations. These were three on the eve of the second Gulf War: the Arab Cooperation Council (Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, and Yemen), the UMA (Union du Maghreb Arabe: Algeria, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, and Tunisia) and the Gulf Cooperation Council (Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, UAE, and Saudi Arabia). The fifteen Arab countries that were divided among these different suborganizations represented two–thirds of all the Arab population, hosted the highest number of universities and research centers, controlled 90 percent of traditional energy resources and 75 percent of water and agricultural resources.
On the surface, these organizations were active and dynamic. The Arab Cooperation Council, for instance, held no less than seventeen formal meetings at the summit or ministerial level during 1989 (Arab Strategic Yearbook 1989, 259–69). Yet this Council precisely broke down on the occasion of its first policy challenge: Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait. The Council members were never consulted or even informed of this decision, and Egypt joined the international coalition against Iraq. Equally divided was the UMA, with Morocco sending troops to Saudi Arabia. Only the GCC kept its ranks unified, but failed to prevent its founding member, Kuwait, from being attacked and occupied.
Regional power diffusion often invites claims for hegemony. The most notable is, of course, Iraq’s attempt, of which the 1990 invasion of Kuwait was part and parcel. But this attempt dismally failed, with dire consequences for both Iraq and the Arab interstate society as a whole.
The 1990s Arab Balance of Weakness
A traumatizing result of aborted hegemony—like the one following Iraq’s eviction from Kuwait—is not simply a return to the previous pattern of power diffusion. Saddam’s Iraq had violated a taboo. It not only initiated inter–Arab warfare on a large scale but also sought to cancel out an Arab League member. Moreover, it justified its action by appeals that were attractive to the majority of Arab populations: correcting colonial border demarcation, achieving Arab unity, and redressing flagrant inter–Arab inequalities.
Consequently, the end of the military confrontation did not mean the end of all forms of inter–Arab warfare, either between states or within their societies. Mutual recriminations of "stoogism," "treason," and "adventurism" as well as vendettas still linger on both sides. In a word, Arab society is seriously bruised, with the marks likely to remain for a long time. This is not a political or psychological context conducive to partnerships.
The result at present is a pattern not only of power diffusion but also of weakness diffusion. A minimum of inter–Arab coordination has not only declined but in many cases has been replaced by narrow state interests and interstate competition even in the face of core Arab issues such as the Arab–Israeli Conflict. A prevailing atmosphere of lack of credibility among many Arab leaders—especially between the PLO and Jordan—has been dutifully exploited by Israel’s negotiators to emphasize diversity of Arab state interests (Arab Strategic Yearbook 1992, 211–31). Burning Arab issues, like Somalia’s disintegration or the civil war in Yemen, have illustrated a glaring absence of any Arab mechanism of conflict resolution or even conflict management.
In this context, it is more appropriate to talk of an Arab balance of weakness, rather than balance of power. This becomes clear when we return to the distinction of Arab versus non–Arab clusters in the region. Already during the 1980s, Iran threatened the Arab status quo not only by virtue of its physical size and strength but also because of its revolutionary Islamic ideology. The support extended by Arab Gulf states and other Arab regimes to Iraq during its eight–year war against Iran stemmed especially from the hope of undermining the credibility of revolutionary Islam. During the 1990–1991 Gulf crisis, Iraq found it necessary to rebuild bridges to its erstwhile enemy. In a desperate bid to minimize the destruction of its military machine, Iraq sent part of its air force—23 planes according to Iran, 135 according to Baghdad—to the safety of Iranian airfields. Teheran’s Islamic Republic—after long being considered a pariah state—seemed to be rehabilitated in the wake of the Gulf crisis at Iraq’s expense. With Iraq still in disarray, the potential for future regional hegemony by Iran was rendered easier.
The Gulf crisis further consolidated Israel’s military predominance in the region. Conventional indicators establishing Israel’s military superiority over the Arab world are too well–known and numerous to be repeated here. It suffices to point out that Iraq’s defeat obviously tilted the balance even more in Israel’s favor. More important, however, is the degree to which the Gulf crisis furthered Israel’s political integration within the region. A few years ago, few would have imagined the signing of formal agreements or even the convening of multilateral Arab–Israeli talks. Visions of Omani delegates speaking publicly with Israeli counterparts in Moscow corridors would have seemed far–fetched as would suggestions that Saudi Arabia’s Prince Bandar might coordinate moves with U.S. Jewish leaders or that his country would host visiting Jewish delegates. These events have occurred, and the ongoing Middle East peace talks have moved from discussions of military and political matters to technical and cultural issues. The fact that all of this has transpired with no radical transformation of Israel’s approach to some basic conflict issues—the application of the principle of self–determination to the Palestinian people, and the status of Jerusalem—starkly shows how far the balance of power has moved in Israel’s favor.
Turkey was one of the greatest winners of the 1991 Gulf War. After the end of the Cold War, Turkey was in danger of losing its strategic importance between the East and West. The Gulf War gave Turkey a new strategic role at the expense of its Arab neighbors. Again, the military gap is too clear to be labored, but Turkey is now capitalizing on a much more important strategic asset: water resources.
In a region of overuse and undersupply, as is the case of the Arab world, water is literally a factor in survival and is at the basis of any program of food security. It is, therefore, notable that 67 percent of the Tigris’s sources and 88 percent of the Euphrates’s sources originate in Turkey. With the decline of Iraq’s military power, Turkey is in an even stronger position to exercise substantial pressures for political concessions on both Iraq and Syria. Turkey’s blockage of the Euphrates’s water flow for a month in early 1990 not only affected agriculture in Syria and Iraq but also led to frequent electricity cuts in both countries. At present, there are serious concerns over the effects of Turkey’s planned $20 billion water control project, a massive undertaking that envisages the construction of 21 dams and 17 power stations. If Turkish hopes of extending water pipelines to Jordan, Palestine, Iraq, and the Gulf are eventually realized, Ankara will be in a good position to barter water for oil and, more important, to dominate daily life in much of the Arab world.
Thus with the elimination of Iraq as a military power for years to come and Arab dispersion, erstwhile Arab power levels have declined in both relative and absolute terms. The result is a higher level of Arab insecurity and multiplicity of threats—military and otherwise: e.g., Syria in relation to Turkey and Israel. Moreover, for some Arab countries threats come now from within the family. Kuwait and other Gulf countries have now to face up to the multiplicity of threats from both Iran and Iraq, including subversive activities. Possibly, such multiplicity of threats could balance each other out, giving rise to what we can call a new balance of threats. Indeed, American policy toward the Gulf in the 1990s has been articulated as a strategy of "dual containment"; of Iraq and Iran. (Indyk 1994; Gause 1994)
If this line of thinking is adopted among Gulf countries, it means that the Arab/non–Arab distinction in regional politics is an increasingly fading line in the sand. The alternative might then well be a reorientation of regional politics toward the adoption of a new conceptual lens: a balance of benefits.
From Balance of Power to Balance of Benefits?
The two proposed conceptual lenses of balance of power versus balance of benefits refer to seemingly two different visions of international relations. They have been dubbed power politics versus interdependence. The first emphasizes the continuity of (violent) history ever since Ancient Greece and the Peloponnesian War. The aim is to attract attention to the ever–present predictability of war among sovereign states (and hence the necessity of power balance). The second, interdependence, aims to understand change at the international level (including regional) and the increasing human interconnectedness (both interstate and intersociety) in the global village. Keohane and Nye’s preceding table (1977, 37) synthesizes well the differences between realism based on balance of power and interdependence based on cooperation and the possibility of a balance of benefits.(Table 2–2)
I have shown elsewhere (Korany 1996) that some political practices make the two conceptualizations less mutually exclusive than their developers want them to be. Indeed, interdependence terminology could be used to promote balance of power calculations even by some visionaries of a "New Middle East" (Peres 1993, 21, 33–34). Does this mean that the balance of power conceptual lens is the be–all and end–all and that the analysis of Middle East dynamics cannot be conceived in any other light? This would be a reductionist view of a region as complex as the Middle East.
The "New Middle East’s" power calculations notwithstanding, the interdependence conceptual lens is different from the traditional balance of power lens in two main respects: (1) interstate relationships are not pure zero–sum games, where some win all and others lose all. Power is not primarily military but multifaceted; it is not absolute but relative. It can be shared, albeit not equally. (2) interstate relationships are not reduced to violent warfare, where history is defined as the normalization of the use of force—Raymond Aron’s marche à la folie.
For example, from an interdependence perspective, conflicts between the Arab states and Israel could be managed before escalating to military confrontation, owing to the multiplication of channels of communication between them. Moreover, the emergence of "low politics" (e.g., economic boycott, normalization) make the use of military force less efficacious in settling most of them. "The scale," Peres rightly observes, "has tipped in the direction of economic rather than military might" (Peres 1993, 34–35). Consequently, national security, which conventionally is seen as depending on military and weapons systems, is increasingly "of necessity based on political accords and embraces international security and economic considerations" (Peres, 33–34, emphasis added).
Therefore, given (a) the complexity of the Middle East and its multiplicity of issues, and (b) its continuous evolution (indeed, its seeming eternal state of transition!), it seems clear that the two conceptual lenses must be used side by side in order to address the complex dynamics of this region. Some examples will clarify this point. One concerns the prevalence of protracted conflict and the relevance of balance of power reasoning. In the summer of 1997 when reading the regional press (both Arab and Israeli) one was reminded of the late 1960s when the Arab–Israeli conflict dominated the scene. Regional interactions oscillated between peace initiatives (such as Swedish diplomat Gunnar Jarring’s fruitless mission) and warfare (such as the "war of attrition" between Egypt and Israel along the Suez Canal). Warlike behavior tended to overshadow fledgling "peace processes."
The situation in the late 1990s is similar. As in the post–1967 Six–Day War context, Arab governments manifest no unified Arab strategy, and major sectors of Arab civil sosciety resent what they perceive as Israeli dictats. These inter–Arab divisions (among states and within them) were exemplified by disagreements over attending the fourth Middle East and North Africa Economic Summit, scheduled to be held in Doha, Qatar in November 1997. The disagreement pitted Qatar—committed to Washington’s efforts to promote a "new Middle East" regional order, including Israel—against a growing number of Arab governments disenchanted with the policies of the hardline Israeli government of Benyamin Netanyahu. The dissidents even included Saudi Arabia—traditionally very supportive of the "peace process." With such a reintensification of the conflict between the longtime Arab and Israeli protagonists, one is tempted to stick to the balance–of–power conceptual lens in decoding regional politics.
But there is danger in looking at the region as if its main conflict patterns and protagonists have remained unchanged over the years. For important aspects of the seemingly eternal Arab–Israeli conflict have changed considerably since the Six–Day War. Peace treaties have established a different code of conduct. Diplomatic relations, exchange of top–level visits, mutual investments, and economic relations do create patterns of partnership. Even for the Likud establishment the PLO is no longer entirely reduced to a "terrorist organization." Similarly, Netanyahu’s Israel is no longer reduced simply to "the Zionist entity" in the perception of most Palestinian and Arab elites. No less a figure than President Hafiz al–Assad of Syria personally received (in August 1997) a delegation of Israeli Arabs, including Knesset members representing official Israeli political parties. Such an evolution—involving as it does the end of nonrecognition and the growth of multiple open and direct contacts at both the state and societal levels—invites and indeed requires us to complement the balance of power analysis by also looking at the region through the interdependence conceptual lens. The relevance of the latter approach is reinforced by the increasing permeability of the state in the Arab world and the increasing political importance of the societal dimension.
If with increasing globalization the state is no longer an island but a crossroads, the Arab/non–Arab dividing line cannot be assumed to include in one bloc monolithic Arab entities behaving like billiard balls on the pool table of international power politics, as Heikal’s twenty–year old quotation cited above indicates. The "non–Arab periphery" is increasingly part of intra–Arab and inter–Arab interactions. Israel has been and will increasingly continue to be an explicit factor in inter–Arab politics—in conflict as well as cooperation. Whatever the lapses of the peace process, Israeli penetration of inter–Arab politics will intensify horizontally (covering more sectors of relations) and vertically (becoming deeper in specific sectors). Iran’s (Shi‘ite) Islamic revolution continues to represent a major attraction for many Arab–Islamic movements, including the Sunni ones. Turkey, either because of its water resources or arms industry, represents a pole of attraction of a different kind.
Similarly, at the level of state–society relations (Hudson 1994), Arab monolithism—for so long an assumed given—is also eroding. Though the coup d’état that characterized Arab domestic politics in the 1950s and 1960s have until new blocked major political change at the top, the Arab domestic scene is increasingly dominated by clashes between the incumbent government and armed groups. The case of the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) in Algeria first comes to mind, but Islamist protest movements are prevalent all across the region. In addition we see growing conflicts pitting incumbent regimes against minority groups ethnic movements, as in the Sudan (against its southernmost population) in 1955–62 and 1983 to the present, and in Iraq (against its Kurdish minority) for extended periods since 1958. Some of these intrastate conflicts have reached the level of civil war: e.g. Lebanon, 1975–1990; Somalia, 1991–
1994; and Djibouti, 1992–1994 (Abdel–Salam 1994). In such situations we are indeed far from the geopolitical thinking of the "national security" "billiard ball" state as depicted through the balance–of–power conceptual lens.
Do these factors of declining state monolithism, growing transstate relations and societal interconnectedness completely invalidate the Arab/non–Arab distinction? The traumatizing Gulf war of 1990–91 has certainly given credence to such a view. Such assertions, however, go against the grain of prevalent cultural norms and the collective psychology in the region. What Paul Noble (1991, 47–48) observed a few years ago is still valid: "In some ways, the Arab system has resembled a vast sound chamber in which information, ideas, and opinions have resonated with little regard for state frontiers. Political developments and changes in one segment of the system have set off reverberations in other segments... "
This multi–level and intense interconnectedness distinguish the Arab core from the Middle East region as a whole. The result is that the prevalent inter–Arab conflicts—which will probably continue—do not seem to diminish this collective Arab identity. These conflicts have been less militarized than in other regions. According to Abdel–Salam (1994), for the period 1945–1990 the greatest number of conflicts (49 percent) were conducted through propaganda campaigns. In only 9 percent of these conflicts were military means employed, and even then they were limited in 86 percent of the cases. Iraq’s 1990 invasion of Kuwait is an exceptional rather than representative case of inter–Arab dispute. The Arab/non–Arab distinction, though changing, is still alive and relevant to the balance of power configuration at the wider Middle East regional level.
Conclusion
To reiterate, then, the picture at the end of the century is of a complex region in a continuing state of transition, oscillating between coming together and moving apart, between welfare and warfare, at both the state and society levels. This is what makes the analysis of the region both challenging and stimulating. On the eve of the third millennium Middle East dynamics—in addition to their manifest global importance—constitute an intellectual laboratory offering benefits for both the area specialists concerned with micro–level description and understanding and for the political science/international relations generalists interested in empirically based model building.
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