In the Arab World
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December 2014 Year in the arab World introduction was good news from North Africa, where Tunisia’s democratic transition BAlAncing Act progressed with free parliamentary and presidential elections and Morocco By Roula Khalaf, Foreign editor pushed ahead with plans to turn itself into a finance hub for sub-Saharan Africa. The past year will be remembered United Arab Emirates against Qatar for On the following pages, the Financial as one of the Middle East’s most much of the year. Times reprints edited highlights of tumultuous, a time of political Across the region, Arab governments our political, security and economic decadence and shattered illusions. have been forced to contend with reporting over the past year, giving Rarely a peaceful region, the Arab the diminishing role of the US and readers a gripping and concise picture world was convulsed in 2014 by continuing anxiety over the influence of of the challenges facing the region. existential crises, in which borders of Iran. But, as ever, they continued to be As this magazine shows, the Islamic nation states created by colonial powers thwarted by inter-Arab bickering and State of Iraq and the Levant, known as after the end of the first world war the lack of a common vision. Isis, has posed the most dramatic test for were challenged and the dreams of a The main pocket of relative stability the Arab world since the Sunni extremist young population for more democratic was in the oil-rich economies of the group took over Mosul, Iraq’s second city, political systems were smashed. Gulf, where growth was fuelled by in June. Isis has merged the civil war in By the end of the year, four Arab high energy prices and generous Syria with the sectarian conflict in Iraq, countries were engulfed in war – Iraq, government spending programmes. and could become a menace to other Syria, Libya and Yemen; the Gaza Strip Dubai has reclaimed its role as a states in the region. was still reeling from a summer conflict magnet for Arabs from other troubled The resurgence of a monstrous with Israel; and Lebanon and Jordan spots, and emerged from its debt crisis jihadi force lashing out against the were struggling with waves of Syrian with a determination to reassert its Shia as well as other minority sects has refugees. ambition as the regional business hub. provoked regional and international Meanwhile, an autocratic By year-end, however, the steep drop outrage. It has brought the US back government has returned to Egypt, in oil prices looked likely into the region, temporarily, with air even more repressive than the to sour the mood and strikes against Isis positions containing Mubarak regime swept away in the put a damper on the the jihadis’ advances but not yet close to 2011 revolution. And the Gulf was oil-based economies’ destroying the group. patching up a political conflict expansion. However, as president Barack Obama that pitted Saudi Arabia and the In 2014, there has made clear to Washington’s Arab allies, it will be up to the political elite in the region – particularly in Iraq – to find the compromises that are necessary to defeat Isis. While Iraq may have a chance of overcoming the raging conflict and surviving as a state, restoring stability to Syria looks nearly impossible, at least in the short term. In Syria, Isis is only one piece of a complex puzzle, with the regime of Bashar al-Assad still battling it out with a range of opposition groups. Opponents to Assad, within Syria and across the region, argue that organisations like Isis will continue to thrive as long as the Assad regime survives. As 2014 draws to a close, hope appears in short supply in the Arab world, the optimism of political transformation that erupted in the 2011 youth revolutions long gone, replaced by anxiety over jihadi violence, and uncertainty over what lies ahead. www.ft.com/ArAB-world | 3 CONTENTS FT YEAR 36 46 MOROCCO TUNISIA Finance minister The Arab spring IN THE celebrates survives in economic success the cradle of from solar panels revolution ARAB to car exports WORLD SPECIAL REPORTS EDITOR MICHAEL SKAPINKER HEAD OF PRODUCTION 28 AND COMMISSIONING EDITOR LEYLA BOULTON LIBYA HEAD OF EDITORIAL CONTENT HUGO GREENHALGH The south’s PRODUCTION EDITOR dangerous mix GEORGE KYRIAKOS of oil, guns and SENIOR DESIGNER JONATHAN SAUNDERS inter-ethnic PICTURE EDITORS conlict CHRIS LAWSON, ANDY MEARS COMMERCIAL DIRECTOR AFRICA AND THE MIDDLE EAST MARK CARWARDINE SALES MANAGER AFRICA AND THE MIDDLE EAST LARRY KENNEY ADVERTISING PRODUCTION DANIEL LESAR 38 CONTRIBUTORS Borzou Daragahi Middle East correspondent ARAB BUSINESS Geoff Dyer US diplomatic correspondent How a marked David Gardner International Affairs editor Siona Jenkins Middle East and Africa news editor upturn in inancial Simeon Kerr Gulf correspondent RIS SECKIN/ activity deied BIO BUCCIARELLI/ Roula Khalaf Foreign editor BA FA violence elsewhere Lobna Monieb Cairo news assistant in the region Ingram Pinn Visual commentator Anjli Raval Oil and Gas correspondent GETTY IMAGES; ED GILES Heba Saleh Cairo correspondent Y/ Erika Solomon Lebanon and Syria correspondent ENC YEZ NURELDINE, Piotr Zalewski Freelance journalist AG FA Saadia Zahidi World Economic Forum senior director COVER: FAYEZ NURELDINE, RAMZI HAIDAR, ABDELHAK SENNA, FABIO BUCCIARELLI/AFP/GETTY IMAGES; REUTERS; BLOOMBERG; ED GILES PHOTOS: AFP/GETTY IMAGES; REUTERS; ANADOLU 4 |WWW.FT.COM/ARABWORLD 6 MIDDLE EAST The conlicts in Syria, Iraq and Lebanon have merged into a single sectarian 33 war WOMENOMICS Millions more 12 Muslim women go to university – ISIS INC and work An oil smuggling network created to evade sanctions on Saddam’s Iraq 40 is being exploited JIHADI WOMEN anew Western female jihadis deploy ‘soft power’ of Isis online 16 LEBANON Fresh turmoil at the crossroads of the Middle East 34 24 EGYPT Long overdue GULF The House of Saud 42 slashing of fuel subsidies has is increasingly ABU DHABI proven very hardline at home Pressure mounts unpopular and aggressive on emirate to pay abroad fees for workers toiling on grand museum projects 44 OBITUARY Self-efacing Scot who helped build Dubai WWW.FT.COM/ARABWORLD | 5 MIDDLE EAST 6 |www.ft.com/arab-world middle east: three nations, one conflict The crises in Syria, Iraq and Lebanon are merging into a single sectarian war. By Borzou Daragahi On the line BIo BUCCIARELLI/AFP/GEtty ImAGEs FA a Kurdish fighter on the turkey-iraq border. Kurds from several villages in oil-rich hasake province are fighting groups affiliated to al-Qaeda Photo: www.ft.com/arab-world | 7 MIDDLE EAST this story was raqi forces have stepped up their patrols along the shia-dominated governments in syria, Iraq and Lebanon first published in barren 605km syrian border recently, but they admit they against sunni rebels who appear to be learning tactics the ft on have very little to show for it. the flow of guns, fighters from each other and sharing resources. the governments May and money moving in and out of Iraq has just grown too are also taking varied levels of direction from Ayatollah 27 heavy to control. Ali Khamenei’s regime in Iran. Weaponry supporting one day this spring they caught a convoy of fighters the syrian regime comes from Russia, which with China from the Islamic state of Iraq and the Levant, or Isis, provides cover from the UN security Council. starting a firefight, only to hear word two days later of an “It’s all one arena under the control of Khamenei,” says even larger convoy that had made its way past them. the Dhaffar al-Ani, an Iraqi sunni politician. “It’s a shia- best the border controls can do is serve as the eyes and Russian alliance.” ears of Baghdad. the other side in the conflict also receives backing from “We maintain a strong presence on the border to try to powerful foreign patrons, including saudi Arabia, turkey cut their supply lines, but mostly to try to find out what is the United Arab Emirates and the west, which supplies happening on the other side,” says Brigadier General saad training and weapons to the rebels in syria as well as maan Ibrahim, spokesman for Iraq’s interior ministry. political support to sympathetic sunni and allied factions “It is clear that what is happening in syria is impacting in Lebanon. us and hurting the Iraqi people directly. If there is any the stoking of Kurdish national aspirations and problem in syria or fresh outbreak of violence in syria, the assertive emergence of al-Qaeda and its offshoots this will be reflected in Iraq.” – including the ambitious Isis – as major forces in Lebanese and Iraqi shia militiamen take up arms in areas outside the control of the three countries’ central syrian towns and cities. syrian insurgents set off bombs governments has raised the stakes further. in southern Beirut. sunni fighters flow from syria to Iraq, together, these factors have compounded the dangers where they battle government troops on the outskirts in the oil and gas-rich region sitting along Nato’s of Baghdad, while Lebanese and Palestinian sunnis in southeast frontier. Lebanon fight in the syrian city of homs. Governments “this is qualitatively different from the contained war in Baghdad and Beirut, backed by their patron in tehran, in Iraq in the 2000s or the Lebanese civil war of the 1970s look the other way – or sometimes help – as arms and and 80s,” says Kirk sowell, an analyst for Uticensis, a risk- fighters make their way into syria for battles from Aleppo management firm. “What’s happening is potentially far to Damascus to Deraa. more dangerous than what was happening in Afghanistan this is more than just the “spillover” from the syria in the 1990s.” conflict analysts warned about when the uprising against Bashar al-Assad began in 2011.