MAKING
SENSE OF MIDDLE EAST GEOPOLITICS
Focus,
Winter 1992, Vol. 42 Issue 4, p20, 5p,
To most Americans, the Middle East
evokes mixed feelings and notions. The region is often associated with
mysticism and conflict. Many fail to understand its complexity and diversity,
its people, religions, resources and politics. This article aims at shedding
some light on this opaque and misunderstood region, and comes to grips with
deeply-rooted misperceptions.
As a starting point, a clear definition of the region is in order.
The term "Middle East" reflects a British
and European view of the world. Most Americans have accepted this European
ethnocentric definition without question. From an American perspective, the
"Far East" is actually the Far West. Consequently, an
objective, geographic definition of "Middle East"
would include Southwest Asia and North Africa. it is equally important to
realize that the countries comprising this region can vary; but there is
general agreement on the following countries: Turkey, Lebanon, Syria, Israel,
Jordan, Egypt, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the United
Arab Emirates, Oman, United Yemen. Some geographers include Greece, Cyprus,
Afghanistan, Pakistan, and other countries in a looser definition of the Middle
East.
SOCIALLY AND ENVIRONMENTALLY DIVERSE
Equally important is the fact that while most Americans perceive all
Middle Easterners to be the same, the region is actually a
melting pot of ethnic, religious, racial and linguistic groups. The diversity
of the region extends to physical geography-climatic regions, as well as human
geography--population, development, standards of living and
lifestyles. The distinctions among different ethnic, religious, and linguistic
groups is of paramount importance. Historical rivalries between some groups go
back thousands of years. The region's population may be divided
into two major groups, Arabs and non-Arabs. Arabs make up the dominant group in
twelve of the fifteen countries and account for more than half of the total population.
Non-Arabs are found primarily in two of the three most populous
countries, Iran and Turkey, but include other important groups such as the
Kurdish population of Iraq, Iran, Turkey, Syria; the Israeli
Jewish population, and other minority groups throughout the
region.
Unfortunately, many outsiders do not understand these critical
ethnolinguistic and religious distinctions. More importantly, a significant
number of Americans continue to associate the region and its people with
inaccurate stereotypes. David Lamb, in his book The Arabs: Journeys Beyond the
Mirage points out that the West sees the Arab "as a millionaire, a
terrorist, a camel herder, or a refugee, but not as a human being." Sadly,
this erroneous perception is further complicated by the failure to distinguish
among the region's political, ethnic and religious groups.
THE MIDDLE EAST"S
IMPORTANCE AS A WORLD REGION
Of the many factors that contribute to the region's vital role in
the world's history, economy, and geopolitics, the following are the most
germane to understanding today's Middle East:
• The Middle East enjoys a geostrategic location. The
region is a crossroads to three continents: Asia, Europe and Africa. The fact
that the Middle East is a tri-continental junction
has been a blessing and a curse. On the one hand, this geostrategic location
promoted trade and exchange and thus benefitted the region; on the other hand,
it means that different powers from within and outside the region have competed
for its control. Consequently, the Middle East has
been a center of conflict, and a battlefield, for centuries.
• The Middle East has been an historical trading
region. Anciently, people of the Middle East
were the intermediaries in trade between Asia, Africa, and Europe. Many
economists attribute the decline of the Middle East
in the Middle Ages to the loss of this economic role. With the
discovery of new trading routes during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries,
the region lost its principal role in the global economy.
• The Middle East is often referred to as the
"Cradle of Civilization". The region is home to some of the
world's most ancient civilizations. Human evolution and development is traced
to Mesopotamia-the land between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers-where the first
known cities were built. The origins of agriculture, writing, legal codes and
political systems are found in Mesopotamia--today's Iraq; and the Nile
Valley--today's Egypt.
• The Middle East is also the birthplace of three
monotheistic world religions: Judaism, Christianity and Islam. The vast
majority of the people-almost 90 percent-- of the Middle East
are Moslems, and significant numbers of Christians--roughly seven percent of
the population--and Jews-roughly two percent--are found
throughout the region. Christianity and Islam are the world's two largest
religions, accounting for one-half of the world's population. The
seeds of competition and potential conflict between the two religions are
evident in the fact that both are universal religions that have actively sought
to spread their message throughout the world. The region's religious
communities have generally lived in harmony. Yet, competition for the region
and its resources, and the interests of outside powers have resulted in
conflicts that are often masked by religion. Ironically, the two religions have
a great deal of similarity and espouse the same basic principles and beliefs.
Nevertheless and as a direct consequence of competition, a gulf of
misunderstanding has opened.
• The contemporary Middle East is rich in petroleum
and natural gas. The region accounts for close to sixty percent of the
world's proven oil reserves and twenty-five percent of the world's reserves of
natural gas. This should not lead us to believe that the region as a whole is
rich, for much of these reserves are concentrated in the Persian/Arab Gulf
region. Therefore, the majority of the Middle Eastern people are
poor and have low standards of living. Yet, the sparsely populated
Gulf states--Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the U.A.E., and Saudi Arabia--enjoy high standards
of living and the enormous affluence resulting from oil exports. The
disparities in income are astonishing and can be a destabilizing factor in the
region. Whereas the per capita income of Egypt or Yemen is $500-700 per year,
income from oil alone guaranteed Kuwait and the Emirates some of the world's
highest per capita incomes at $20,000-$32,000 in the 1980s.
• There is a powerful legacy of European colonialism. The
region, in recent history, has been beset by conflict divided by the creation
of new states that did not exist in the past. Winston Churchill boasted that he
created Transjordan with a stroke of his pen! The French carved the mini state
of Lebanon out of Syria to reward the Maronite Christian minority. Lebanon is
the only country on earth where the President must be of a certain religious
affiliation--a Maronite Christian--and the prime minister of another religious
faction-Sunni Moslem.
THE MIDDLE EAST AND THE
WEST
The roots of today's Muslim and Arab rage can be traced to past and current
Western and American policies in the region. The British "divide and
rule" policy ensured that the region remains fragmented and that
"friendly" regimes control much of the Middle East.
The British, after promising an independent Arab state in return for Arab
revolt against the Ottoman Turks and cooperation with the Allied forces during
World War I, turned around to sign the Sykes-Picot Agreement with the French
and the Russians in 1916. This agreement contradicted promises to the Arabs and
established an artificial political division within the region. A year later,
the British declared that their government looked "with favor at the
establishment of a Jewish homeland in British Mandated Palestine"; yet the
Balfour Declaration went on to promise that "nothing should be done to
prejudice the rights of existing non-Jews in Palestine."
Again, the British were party to contradictory promises and
agreements that drastically changed the political map of the region. It is
worth noting that at the time the British promised the Jews a homeland in
Palestine, 90 percent of the population of Palestine was
non-Jews: Christians and Moslem Palestinians. The Palestinian Arabs continued
to account for a majority of Mandated Palestine's population on
the eve of the creation of Israel in 1948. The Arabs perceived the partition
plan sponsored by the United Nations in 1947 as unjust since it gave the
minority Jewish population 57 percent of Palestine's territory.
This perception is better understood when land ownership is accounted for,
because the Palestinian Arabs owned 90 percent of the land. Zionist supporters,
on the other hand, saw the creation of Israel as the return of a people to a
land that was anciently theirs.
For the Arabs, the creation of Israel was another example of
"Lebanization", where an artificial state is created at the expense
of the local native majority. David Lamb points out that the compromise
partition plan was accepted by the Jewish population and rejected
by the Palestinian Arab population: "For the Palestinian
Arabs, less than half a loaf was not an acceptable compromise since they
believed the whole loaf is theirs while for the Jewish population
more than half the loaf was far greater than none!" Ironically, the
Palestinians are still waiting to build their state, while Israel has emerged
as the super military power in the region. The same United Nations resolution
that gave legitimacy to the existence of Israel called for the establishment of
a Palestinian Arab state. American and Western military and economic aid ensure
Israel's continued hegemony and belligerence in the region, and its continued
denial of basic rights for the Palestinian people. Israelis are profoundly
divided as to whether or not they could survive as a state if they relaxed
their militancy.
In the eyes of Arab and Moslem masses, the West applies double
standards in dealing with the region. For friendly regimes, "gentle
persuasion" is the harshest measure employed. Israel's continued
occupation of Palestinian, Syrian, and Lebanese land is tolerated and
encouraged through the unconditional support Israel receives from the United
States. Needless to say, Israel's brutal occupation and oppression of
Palestinian land and people, runs in defiance of many United Nations resolutions.
American vetoes in the Security Council have sheltered Israel from universal
condemnation and possible sanctions. On various occasions, the U.S. was the
[one voice supporting Israel in U.N. deliberations and resolutions. On the
other hand, any violation of human rights or breach of a U.N. charter is
swiftly dealt with when the aggressor is not a friendly regime. The recent Gulf
crisis and consequent war attest to the uncompromising attitude the United
States can take towards illegal occupation of territories. The tragic
consequences of the Gulf War could have been averted if the West showed some
flexibility in dealing with the crisis. Instead, the war has resulted in total
devastation of Iraq and Kuwait and has deepened the polarization between the
Arab Haves and Have Nots.
The Kurdish and Shia revolts in Iraq reflect the same duality of
standards. The United States refused to support the Iraqi Kurds in their quest
for autonomy, for such an action would snowball and encourage Turkish Kurds to
seek a similar arrangement. As for the Shia in southern Iraq, their
independence would mean the creation of an Iran-dominated Islamic state which
could threaten the monarchic, U.S.-friendly regimes in the Gulf, especially the
regime in Saudi Arabia.
Bernard Lewis, in his 1990 article, points out that Western and
American support for Israel is a primary reason for Arab and Moslem rage and
discontent with the West. The Arabs have witnessed the Western powers establish
what they perceive as a foreign, belligerent military state in the heart of the
Arab world. Lewis goes on to clarify that America's interest in maintaining the
free flow of cheap Middle Eastern oil has also meant support for
monarchic and feudalistic regimes. In the Middle East,
U.S. oil interests seem to clash with America's stated values of liberty,
freedom, and self-determination. Western and American history of intervention
in the region has ensured that "friendly" yet authoritarian regimes
will survive any popular threat. For the masses of the Middle East,
the United States is not the cradle of freedom and democracy but an extension
of European enterprise and European militarism and repressive culture.
Continued support of non-democratic regimes in the region indicates
that the U.S. is only interested in the region's natural resources, and that
democratic ideals are less than secondary. Perhaps the fact that oil prices--in
real terms--are at their lowest in forty years gives credence to this notion of
economic colonialism. Most residents of the region have seen little improvement
in their standard of living. At the same time, a group of scarcely-populated
emirates plunders its own oil wealth. Perhaps the most telling story is the
fact that the Middle East imports one-third of all
arms traded in the world, while the economies of the region stagnate and the
people continue to live in poverty. Most of the states in the Middle
East spend more on defense than on education, health, housing,
and social services combined! Again, much of this military build-up is to
defend dictators from their own people as well as from external threats. The
West again benefits from this political fragmentation, as the main source of
military supplies and expertise to middle Eastern regimes.
Continued problems, without reforms
The region will continue to suffer from political instability and
persistent conflict until the political regimes implement genuine reforms that
aim at democratization and economic development of the region as a whole. This
will take a more equitable distribution of the region's wealth, and management
of the region's complementary resources. The people of the Middle
East have the same desires for a better life as do people around
the globe.
The contention that the region's culture undermines democracy and
development is absurd and grossly inaccurate. The Middle East
enjoyed a primitive form of democracy fourteen centuries ago. With democracy,
cooperation, and unity, the Middle East of the past
was the leading region in the world economically, scientifically, culturally,
and politically. When the people of the Middle East
call for a return to the past, they call for a return to the political and
economic values of a system that brought them glory, prosperity, and freedom.
The United States and the West can best help the region by encouraging friend
and foe alike to democratize, by helping to settle the various disputes in the
region justly and permanently, by bringing productive rather than destructive
technology to the region, and by helping the various states in the region to
seek the benefits of economic cooperation that Western Europe (The EEC), North
America (USA-Canada-Mexico), and East Asia (ASEAN) are rigorously
pursuing. The region's shared history, complementary resources, and wealth of
human and natural resources present it with valuable opportunities for economic
development and wide-reaching prosperity. America can best help the Middle
East seek what is best for its peoples by adopting policies that
coincide with America's stated value of democracy, freedom, equality, and
economic opportunity for all.
Selected Statistics for the Middle
East
KEY:
A = Country
B = Per Capita Income (1988-89) in U.S. dollars
C = Population (in millions) 1992 estimates
D = Adult Literacy Rates
Arab Countries:
A B C D
U.A.E. 15,720 1.5 53.5
Qatar 11,610 0.4 51.1
Kuwait 10,380 1.2 70.0
Bahrain 6,610 0.5 72.7
Saudi Arabia 5,600 14.2 24.6
Oman 4,920 1.6 38.0
Iraq 2,140 19.5 89.3
Jordan 1,560 3.2 75.0
Syria 1,500 12.9 60.0
Lebanon 811 3.0 77.0
Egypt 630 58.0 44.5
Yemen 550 11.8 17.0
Non Arab Countries:
Israel 9,000 5.0 95.0+
Iran 4,168 57.0 49.0*
Turkey 1,110 58.0 76.0*
Cyprus 8,020 0.75 91.0+
In 1992 statistics clearly demonstrate the tremendous gaps in
income. By dividing the region into four categories based on per capita income,
we can see that:
• Only three countries enjoy high standards of living with a
per capita income (PCI) of 10,000 or more.
• Four countries report moderate standards of living with a
PCI range of between $5000 and $9999.
• Three countries fall into the relatively poor category with
income ranging between $2000 and $5000.
• Six countries, accounting for more thatn 85 percent of the
region's population, have an average annual income of less than
$2000 and consequently fall into the poor category.
In sum, only two percent of the region's population
enjoys high standards of living while more than 89 percent is either poor or
relatively poor.
*data is for 1990
+Estimate for 1990
(Baustani and Fargues 1991, World Development Report 1992, and
Ghosheh 1989)
Further Readings
Bickerton, Ian J., et. al., 1991. A Concise History of the
Arab-Israeli Conflict. Englewood Cliffs, Prentice Hall.
Boustani, Rafic and Phillippe Farouge, 1991. The Atlas of the Arab
World. New York: Facts on File, Inc.
Ghosheh, Baher A., 1989. A New International Economic role for the
Arab World: Lesson from the Japanese Experience. Notre Dame: Cross Cultural
Publications.
Lamb, David, 1986. The Arabs: Journeys Beyond the Mirage. Random
House.
Lewis, Bernard, 1990. "The Roots of Muslim Rage". The
Atlantic Monthly. September.
Moffett, George D. III, 1991. "Tales of Arabian Oil". The
Christian Science Monitor. March 20, 1991. pp. 10-11.
Tibi, Bassam, 1990. "The Iranian Revolution and the Arabs: The
Quest for Islamic Identity and the Search for an Islamic System of
Government". Arab Studies Quarterly. Vol. 8, Winter, pp. 29-40.