PATH FROM CIVILIZATION TO A CATACLYSM AND BEYOND

The Middle Eastern region has come a long way from spearheading the oriental civilizational rhetoric to a perpetual catastrophe of proxy wars and ethnic violence. Contemporary security studies view it as a complex inherent model of regional conflict that ticks off all possibilities of ethnic violence, international involvement, social groups, non-state actors, sectarian violence and economic scrabble. Multiplicity of identities and an oil rich economy makes for a combustive politico-economic possibility. 

‘Siasat-al-Insaf’, the ‘Politics of Justice’ is the pioneering journal issue for the Centre of Middle East Studies. Justice imbibes the sole essence of permanence in all the dislodging socio-political and economic contentions that thunder across the region.  By evaluating facts, justice and politics in the Middle East seem worlds apart however, perspectives of articles in this journal aim to bridge that very gap between the two.

Much has been scribed about the Middle East and its role on global energy security. However, this journal issue brings forth certain unsought issues of strategic maritime assets, future of age-old wars like the Yemini conflict and the international shift in clout towards the resurgence of Russia in the Middle East. 

​

With a global decline in the United States Liberal Order, the Middle East is scribing its own path towards a future dominated by the constructivist argument of identity politics, which had been etched in the political history of the Middle East for aeons and continues to shape its political contours even now.

​

While evaluating the future in the Middle East it is imperative to study the unique features that this region faces in terms of political evolution as compared to other regions of the world. Firstly, the oil-led energy politics of the region is reaching a saturation point in terms of its global leveraging policy. Gone are the days of Oil Diplomacy to leverage the West into succumbing to the concessions of Arabic demands. The emerging bisectional rivalry between Iran and Saudi Arabi has fissured the demands of the Arabic states by embroiling the region in internal squabbles. The lack of a united front has served as a multiplicator of conflicts and players accentuating the violence. 

​

Economically, the states of the Middle East are embroiled in conflict economy due to their lack of de-hyphenation of political rivalries from economic gains. The poorest of nations like Yemen have been enmeshed in civil wars as a proxy of the new cold war for years. This has denied the region the well-deserved economic development as all the received funds have gone into the pockets of the revolutionaries. This is what Paul Collins defines as the ‘Conflict Trap’ wherein underdeveloped economies are entangled in conflict and their economic backwardness becomes both, the cause and consequence of their regional conflicts. 

Another sui-generis of Middle Eastern politics is the heavy involvement of proxy non-state actors and their political leverage over states and political economy in the region.  After the recent US sanctions under the “maximum pressure” policy against Iran’s nuclear enrichment Iranian economy has taken a steep fall from rising unemployment to devaluation of currency to depletion of currency reserves, Iran’s hands seem tied in bankruptcy. Despite all these restrictions Iran hasn’t faltered on its economic support to terrorist organizations like Hamas and Hezbollah. This process largely defines Mearsheimer’s assumption of states being rational actors and acting for self-interests through a cost-benefit analysis. The cost of propping up these non-state actors is far more than the concrete economic, military or political benefits received by Iran. Then why does it carry on with this hardline policy of economic starvation of the self by propping up non-state actors against Saudi Arabi in countries as geopolitical far as Lebanon? The constructivist theory makes complete sense of this action by explaining the Social Being. Iran does this because these non-state actors allow Iran to export its struggle and thereby define its identity beyond its borders. The support to these non-state actors provides Iran with an organisational mechanism to “socialize” its identity in the world. 

​

According to constructivist theorists, “Self becomes social by acquiring an institutional identity.” The United States did so by exporting the Liberal International World Order through institutions such as the North Atlantic Treaty organization, The Bretton Woods System or the G20. Or when China tries to institutionalize its revisionist identity through the historical silk route reimagines as the Belt and Road Initiative. All these states, though very different in their nature of politics, foster the same goals of exporting their identity through social or economic institutions. The only way Iran can stay in the game or rally against the United States or Saudi Arabia is by the options given to it by its non-state actors in proxy wars and giving up this battle would mean surrendering its identity. 

The above-mentioned factors clarify that the nature of conflict in the Middle East is not exclusively on the basis of realist imaginations of power maximization and security dilemmas. Identity and ethnic violence have adopted political means to achieve ends of ideational hegemony, thereby curating a hand-picked model of Ideational Security Dilemma in the region. It’s a mishmash of opposing identities striving for domination with each having different models of the same achievement.  Similarly, adhering to Stephen Walt’s account of Defensive Realism, the security dilemma of ideological mobilization is countered through ideational balancing by neighbouring states and because the nature of security dilemma is not militaristic, the countering measures take alternative forms such as identity-building seeking to increase the power ratios of capabilities between opposing identities. This process happened on the lines of creation of Shiite and Sunni camps in the Middle East. Wherein Saudi Arabia and Iran have taken opposing sides on respective religious blocs and curated opposing identities in the region. This constructed identity is the end whereas militaristic and cultural thirst for hegemony is a means to legitimize and expand that identity in the world. 

Other parts of the region like Libya, Iraq seem like regimes dwindling into populist demands. The back-lash against corrupt regimes and lack of economic reforms seems to be gripping much of the MENA region into widespread protests owing to which many feel an Arab Spring 2.0 is on the horizon. 

​

Therefore, the future of the region is focused on issues of political rebuilding and humanitarian reconstruction. Socially, development, refugee crisis, women development and factors like mental and physical wellbeing of the region are highly undervalued. Our journal issue brings a broad range of perspectives to report the rising importance of sociological issues of identity, gender, mental health and refugee safety, something that will be the basis for reconstructing the new Middle East. 

Simultaneously, the notion of a new Middle Eastern regional order will revolve around the Iran-Saudi axis of ideational bi-polarity. The emerging pluralistic populist regimes as well as geo-strategic importance will define the identity of the region through the coming years vis-à-vis the international lobbying by United States, Russia and China. When one examines these developments, the questions regarding the future of the balance of power in this region comes to the forth. What would a post-conflict Middle East look like? Who would be the dominant International player in the continent? 

This issue of ‘Siasat-al-Insaf’ brings to you answers to some of the questions around the recent developments in the Middle East along with a wide scope for the readers to develop an individual opinion on the ideas proposed by the writers. 

​

Tamanna Dahiya

Editor

Siasat Al-Insaf