Shifting Global Politics and the Middle East March 2019 Contents
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POMEPS STUDIES 34 Shifting Global Politics and the Middle East March 2019 Contents Introduction: Shifting Global Politics and the Middle East ..........................................3 Marc Lynch and Amaney Jamal Teorizing Structural Change Shifting Alliances and Shifting Teories in the Middle East .........................................7 Curtis R. Ryan, Appalachian State University In America’s Wake: Turbulence and Insecurity in the Middle East ..................................14 Waleed Hazbun, University of Alabama Global/Regional IR and changes in global/regional structures of Middle East international relations ....18 Morten Valbjørn, Aarhus University Great and Regional Powers in the Middle East: Te Evolution of Role Conceptions ...................23 May Darwich, Durham University Poverty, inequality and the structural threat to the Arab region .....................................28 Rami G. Khouri, American University of Beirut Europe, the UN and China Friends with Benefits: China’s Partnership Diplomacy in the Gulf ...................................33 Jonathan Fulton, Zayed University Is the Middle East the Transatlantic Achilles’ Heel? ................................................39 Kristina Kausch, German Marshall Fund of the United States European ‘Middle Powers’ and the Middle East in the age of Trump and Brexit ......................44 Kristian Coates Ulrichsen, Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy EU foreign policy in MENA: Te pitfalls of depoliticization .........................................48 Ruth Hanau Santini, Università L’Orientale, Napoli Te UN and the Arab Uprisings: Reflecting a Confused International Order .........................53 Karim Makdisi, Te American University of Beirut Regional Dynamics Insecurity, Identity Politics, and the Restructuring of the Middle East. .56 Raffaella A. Del Sarto, SAIS Europe, Te Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies Global and regional crises, empowered Gulf rivals, and the evolving paradigm of regional security .....63 Emma Soubrier, George Washington University Structure, Agency and External Involvement in the Syria conflict ...................................67 Christopher Phillips, Queen Mary University of London From State-Building to State-Fraying Permeability:NSAs in the Post-Popular Uprisings Arab World ....72 Bassel F. Salloukh, Lebanese American University Saudi Arabian military activism in Yemen: Interactions between the domestic and the systemic level ...76 Maria-Louise Clausen, Danish Institute for International Studies Alliances and Treats in the Middle East: Neoclassical Realism and the Balance of Interest ............81 Ahmed Morsy, American Political Science Association Te Project on Middle East Political Science Te Project on Middle East Political Science (POMEPS) is a collaborative network that aims to increase the impact of political scientists specializing in the study of the Middle East in the public sphere and in the academic community. POMEPS, directed by Marc Lynch, is based at the Institute for Middle East Studies at the George Washington University and is supported by Carnegie Corporation of New York and the Henry Luce Foundation. For more information, see http://www.pomeps.org. 2 INTRODUCTION Introduction: Shifting Global Politics and the Middle East Marc Lynch and Amaney Jamal What is the current structure of international relations, such as Iraq, or areas which it has declined intervention and how does this shape the politics of the Middle East? to overturn the status quo, such as Syria. Te Trump For decades, the answer was clear: international structure administration’s reported decision to withdraw most was unipolar, and American predominance shaped the troops from Syria came after accomplishing the declared alliance choices of both its allies and its adversaries. In mission of the territorial defeat of the Islamic State. Te recent years, this clarity has been overtaken by confusion. U.S. is expanding bases such as the Al-Udeid base in Qatar. American primacy has perhaps declined, or at least shifted Despite Russia’s opportunistic interventions and China’s in its application, but no rival power has yet risen to take economic diplomacy, to this point the U.S. still faces no its place. How has this perceived change in global structure serious peer competitor. affected regional politics in the Middle East? Te perception of U.S. decline is less about its capabilities In September 2018, POMEPS, Princeton University’s than about its policy choices and its inability to translate Bobst Center, and the American University of Beirut capabilities into outcomes. Hundreds of thousands of brought together nearly two dozen scholars from the U.S. troops were unable to create a durable, legitimate, United States, Europe and the Middle East at AUB to pro-American state in Iraq; toppling Qaddafi did not discuss the impact of shifting global structure on regional lead to a democratic Libya; support to the Saudi-UAE dynamics. Tis collection features sixteen essays ranging war in Yemen did not produce victory. Close allies have across diverse perspectives on the evolving relationship repeatedly opposed and undermined top American foreign between the global and the regional. Taken together, they policy objectives, such as the nuclear agreement with Iran. offer a fascinating window into the relationship between Overall, an increasingly turbulent region consumed by the global and the regional, and the implications for domestic challenges and intra-regional rivalries is simply contemporary regional politics. less amenable to external control. As Hazbun puts it in this collection, “Middle East geopolitics has transformed from Pervasive Uncertainty and International Structure a system organized around and against a US-managed security architecture into a multipolar system lacking Discussion of American retrenchment from the Middle norms, institutions, or balancing mechanisms to constrain East has become a persistent theme in debates in both conflict and the use of force.” Washington and the region. While some date American decline to its overstretch in Iraq and others to its failure Te reality of continued U.S. military presence and to intervene more forcefully in Syria, the conventional dominance has been largely obscured by perception. wisdom takes the retreat of U.S. power as a given. Tat does not make it less real: as constructivists remind us, perception and belief often are more important than Tis is in some ways odd. Te perceived decline of base reality in the daily course of international affairs. American primacy is not easily observed in terms of Te perception of American decline is less about its material power. Te United States continues to far outpace capabilities than it is about the perceived inability to secure all potential rivals in military spending, and maintains presumably desired outcomes and the seemingly successful an extensive array of military bases and alliances across moves of its rivals. Obama’s decision not to bomb the Asad the Middle East. Its perceived retreat is primarily from regime in September 2013 may have had little real impact arenas where it overextended itself in preceding decades, on the course of that war, as Christopher Phillips reminds 3 us, but it fueled a perception of U.S. weakness, which led a of the Islamic State in the name of combating Iranian wide range of other actors to take highly significant actions influence. Just as the region began to internalize this new in response. In the opposite direction, Russia’s successful policy direction, Trump suddenly announced the full and intervention to save the Asad regime in 2015 created a rapid withdrawal of U.S. troops. Either policy might be perception of power, which had little basis in the actual defensible, but the rapid moves between them left regional balance of power. actors unable to formulate coherent policies in response. Tis is an important corrective to any concept of an easily Similar policy confusion and weakness were revealed in observed “real” balance of power. Instead, perceptions the American response to the blockade of Qatar. Saudi with little objective foundation repeatedly became a Arabia, the UAE, Egypt and Bahrain announced this self-fulfilling prophecy through an agitated process of boycott suddenly following Trump’s ostentatious visit to public social construction. Te more that regional powers Riyadh. Numerous U.S. officials pushed back against it, doubted American capabilities or intentions, the more based on the U.S. strategic interest in sustaining GCC independently they acted based on that perception. As unity against Iran. Trump then undermined their efforts by Darwich put it, “the perceived change in external actors’ tweeting support for the blockade. As the blockade settled roles by regional powers in the Middle East has led to in to become a new reality, a succession of U.S. officials and major uncertainties and changes in their behaviour… Te envoys tried to negotiate its end while sustaining strong change in the US role has led to a perceived vacuum in the working relationships with both sides. Te U.S. military region, and thereby, changed its social structure, which and diplomatic corps viewed the blockade as clearly influenced regional actors’ role conceptions and behaviour.” detrimental to vital national interests, but were unable to compel their allies to end it. Tis stalemate both increased Te shifting perception has also been fueled by the uncertainty about real U.S. intentions and exacerbated