Essay: Violence and instability in the Middle East

The Middle East has been one the most volatile regions in the world since the conclusion of World War I and the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire.  Despite the United States’ efforts to create a cooperative world order in the wake of World War II, rebellions, interstate wars, and violent extremism continuously plague the region.  Establishing the contributing factors for these conflicts is necessary to guide diplomatic and military initiatives to support U.S. policy in the region and to enable regional stabilization to a practical extent.  In Beyond Sectarianism: The New Middle East Cold War, F. Gregory Gause III posits most political violence and instability in the Middle East today are closely tied to a cold war between Iran and Saudi Arabia.   The following discussion includes three arguments that are supportive of this thesis.  First, Iran and Saudi Arabia are using sectarianism and ethnic identity as a means to enable power projection and advancement of their national objectives.  Second, the region’s weakening states provide poor governance, opening opportunities to exploit disaffected populations, and lack the capability to counteract external influence by Saudi Arabia and Iran.
Third, domestic struggles against authoritarian regimes in the Middle East are perceived as a threat and an opportunity by both powers.
The Role of Sectarianism and Ethnic Identity
Iran and Saudi Arabia are utilizing sectarian and ethnic identity as vehicles to pursue direct, general deterrence objectives against the other.  Both nations are leery of their adversary’s ambitions and mindful of historical enmity.  They pursue partnerships in weak, destabilized countries to expand their influence and simultaneously strive to deny that expansion to the other in nations like Yemen, Syria, and Iraq.  Surrogate forces will often exploit sectarian affinities in order to advance these political aims in tumultuous operating environments, playing on fear, historic partnerships, or legacies of past conflicts.  Highlighting political and/or ideological animosities of a sectarian “other” enables Iran and Saudi Arabia to define common enemies with potential partners.  This partially explains how Iranian anti-Israel sentiment and political goals  helped to establish and maintain Hezbollah, “which remains Iran’s strongest non-state ally.”   While Saudi Arabia and Iran are using sectarianism in pursuing their interests, they have also crossed “the sectarian fault line in seeking affinities, and regional state ambitions.”   For example, Saudi Arabia’s support of the considerably Shia Iraqiya party in 2010 underscores the primacy of alignment based on political goals over sectarian sympathy.   However, common sectarian alignment is the basis for initial rapport and partnership development between a potential client and sponsor.
The Role of Weak States
Weaker states in the region offer ample opportunities for the relatively strong powers of Iran and Saudi to expand their influence inside the borders of an unstable, poorly governed state.  Members of disaffected populations are susceptible to manipulation of a potential sponsor that is willing and able to fulfill governmental expectations of security, human services, etc.  By highlighting legitimate grievances in third-party countries, Iran and Saudi Arabia exploit governmental failures to further weaken the indigenous government and expand their equities.  Alternatively, they can offer assistance to a faltering government in order to cultivate influence or demand transactional conduct from that government.  Riyadh’s house arrest of Yemen’s president, his sons, and notable ministers in 2017 in Saudi Arabia  is a bold demonstration of the control Riyadh wields over President Hadi and their role in the fight against Iranian-backed Houthis.  Either side of this dynamic exhibits how cross-border relationships form in the context of a state that lacks cohesiveness due to weak governance, and “explains the current salience of sectarianism.”
Weaker states have a limited capability to resist foreign influence within their borders.  In Iraq, Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) were rapidly established in the wake of Ali al-Sistani’s wajib al kifai (i.e., an obligation imposed on the community) fatwa of June 2014.  This fatwa called on all Iraqis (deliberately omitting any mentioning of Shiism) to join the “security forces” to confront the menace posed by the Islamic State in Iraq.   The call was largely answered by Shias fearful of the Islamic States rapid conquests, and Iran used Nouri Al Maliki’s consolidation of the PMF as a venue to expand their already considerable influence within his administration.  The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ influence over the PMF, solidified by months of directly supporting and fighting side-by-side PMF members, significantly rivals that of the Iraqi government’s control of the PMF.   President Abadi’s administration has found it increasingly challenging to roll back this influence despite moves to federalize the PMF after the diminished threat of the Islamic state, a facet that is demonstrative of Iranian influence in Iraq.
Threats and Opportunities
Recent domestic, popular struggles against authoritarian regimes in the Middle East are perceived as a threat and an opportunity by Iran and Saudi Arabia.  Iran attempted to capitalize on recent political upheaval in the Middle East as an “Islamic Uprising,” with their 1979 revolution serving as the foundation of rebellion, rather than an Arab movement.   In February 2012, they went as far as to invite Arab delegates to Tehran for “a conference to celebrate what it called the “Islamist Awakening.”   Iranian foreign policy gained ground in the wake of the American invasion of Iraq, despite Saudi backing of Sahwa elements and Al Iraqiya secularists,  leveraged its relationship with Hezbollah to edge proxy election victories in Lebanon, and successfully supported Hamas on ideological – not sectarian – grounds to gain influence within the Palestinian Authority’s power struggle.
In light of expanding Iranian influence in the region, “Riyadh decided that no other Arab state was willing or able to act as a counterweight to growing Iranian influence in the eastern Arab world and that it would have to do the job itself.   Saudi Arabia saw the conflict in Yemen and the Arab Spring movement’s uprising in Syria as opportunities to stymie Iranian momentum in the Arab world.  Yemeni Houthis adopted “much of the rhetoric of the Iranian regime, including bombastic anti-American and anti-Israeli language, thought the extent of Iranian support for the movement seems to have been very limited.”   Saudi Arabia launched military -against the Houthis on the pretext that they had encroached on Saudi territory.  Saudi maneuvers were accompanied by extensive media coverage that lauded Saudi forces “far beyond [their] actual accomplishments.”   Their intent was to signal the region that they had scored a victory against an Iranian ally in order to cast themselves in the light of a viable adversary against Iranian influence in the region.
While Saudi Arabia lost a key ally against Iranian influence in Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak due to the Arab Spring, they also saw an opportunity in the Arab Spring’s challenge to the Syrian regime.  The Saudi government overcame “their natural aversion to political mobilization from below” to support the upheaval against Bashar Al Assad as an effort to offset the loss of Egypt in Saudi’s regional strategy.   Syria’s civil war circa 2015 is representative of the dynamic nature of the region and the interplay of supporting or detracting relationships for a government or insurgency in the context of the wider regional maneuvers of Iran and Saudi Arabia.  Together, these factors enable and prolong modern political violence in the Middle East.
Counter-Thesis
Many political scientists argue that violence and instability in the Middle East are tied to the delineations made by British officials during World War I and post-war agreements concluded by the Allies.  This alternative, which includes the contentious establishment of the state of Israel, draws its evidence from the manifested violence resulting from the artificial creation of weak states and subsequent movements aimed at reversing accords like the 1916 Sykes-Picot Agreement.  As discussed, weak states provide the opportunity for domestic and interstate turmoil, and foster continued conflict into the modern era.
Rebuttal of the Counter-Thesis
The political instability resulting from inorganic intervention in state development post-World War I contributes to the domestic instability that serves as a medium for interference and power projection by both Iran and Saudi Arabia.  However, borderlines themselves do not account for enough of the problems the Middle East faces.  “Iraq’s eastern border with Iran followed a line set by the 16th-century conquests of Suleiman the Magnificent [did not] prevent the countries from fighting a decade-long conflict over it that killed ten times more people than all the Arab-Israeli wars combined.”  On the other hand, the significantly less-established borders of Jordan encompass a country that has avoided a degree of the tumult experienced by many of its neighbors.   The battles being waged across the region are not for territory but control of the state.   Anti-colonialism is used as a banner to rally support in much the same way sectarian identity is used.  While the legacy of colonialism is not without its notably destructive effects (and should not be discounted), “the best framework for understanding the complicated and violent regional politics of the Middle East is as a cold war among the regional players… in which Iran and Saudi Arabia play leading roles.”   This explanation also has the advantage of acknowledging the role of colonialism in the weakening of Middle Eastern states.  However, Gause’s framework also accounts for the actors above leveraging identity-based affinities to attract proxies to advance a regional patron’s influence actively.
American Invasions
Prior to the invasions of Afghanistan in 2001 and Iraq in 2003, Iranian influence had reached a practical culminating point.  The Iranians had strong partnerships in Lebanon and Syria but were contained from further expansion by determined, adversarial regimes to their east and west.  The Iranian Revolutionary Government, particularly those present for the 1979 Revolution, “was keen to spread its revolutionary model in the Arab world but was stymied by the relatively strong states.”   The invasion of Iraq and overthrow of Saddam Hussein’s regime provided a political void that enabled Iran to maneuver west.  Consequently, sectarian rivalry as a means to political and military leverage experienced a dramatic increase in prominence due to the high stakes of the contention of Iran and Saudi Arabia over their interests in the country that was physically and figuratively between both nations.
Conclusion
Gause’s description of Middle Eastern political violence stemming from a cold war between Iran and Saudi Arabia is prescient.  Iranian Revolutionaries from 1979 see foreign policy through a filter of exporting the Islamic Revolution.   In other – more modern – cases, Iranian diplomats pursue regional hegemony as a means to direct-general deterrence.  Likewise, Saudi officials want to counteract Iranian ambitions and seek expansion of their influence as an “embodiment of Sunni Islam and see themselves as something beyond a state.”   In either case, weak states in the region are pathways through which to extend influence manifested in “transnational ideological and political connections that make potential clients open to a relationship with [the prospective] patron.”   “Sunni versus Shia” makes for a simple headline, but does not adequately address the “complexities of the new Middle East cold war.”   Husbanding alignment in this cold war is more about identifying political goals and establishing common enemies (i.e. defining an “other,” whether that is Israelis, Iranians/Saudis, government/insurgent, or Americans) than it is about religious like-mindedness.
Following his thesis, Gause recommends that the U.S. prioritize stability when able and support states that provide effective governance, “even when that governance does not achieve preferred levels of democracy and human rights.”   While tempering involvement in the sense of “recall[ing] that this not America’s war” is sage counsel, it ought to be balanced with engagement and leadership from the American government.  While relatively stronger states were more successful resisting interference from either Iran or Saudi Arabia, it is important to recall that poor governance is an essential component of weak states that enable the encroachment.  Certainly, human rights abuses are forms of poor governance and serve as a foundational, enabling feature of the violence described in this Middle East cold war.  The U.S. should prioritize good governance as a bulwark of stability and not excuse human rights abuses.
Acting multilaterally and concentrating on states that effectively govern are reliable touchstones.  However, the United States should aspire to more than “riding out the new Middle East cold war” in order to avoid yielding initiative which could lead to further destabilization and to foster stability and cooperative security.  This means 1) working with Middle Eastern partner governments to curb human rights abuses, 2) providing value through executing updated internal defense and development strategies, 3) re-build counterproliferation agreements, and 4) affirm security partnerships.