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Home , Arabist, Arab Cold War, Arab League, Arab Parliament, Gulf War, Mahmoud Riad

The Gulf crisis: why the Arab

regional order failed Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/ia/article/67/3/487/2406786 by guest on 28 September 2021

YEZID SA YIGH

Iraq invaded , Yezid Sayigh argues, because the rules linking the Arab states in a regional order had broken down into weakness and disarray. He writes that domestic political power structures in the Arab states have determined regional politics, and that the regimes' selfish and divisive policies, aimed at consolidating personal power, have undermined state security and collective regional security. Sayigh argues that 'rentier' politics-whereby rich states used their oil wealth to support allies, purchase the goodwill of rivals and, in effect, bribe sectors of their populations-are a consistent theme of Arab politics since 1975. No solution is in sight to the 's disunity and weakness until core common values emerge again among the Arab states.

Few expected the Iraqi on 2 August 1990. Yet anyone studying Arab regional politics and the interactions ofthe Arab regional order would have observed that it was rapidly approaching crisis point. breakdown of the regional order and the prevalence of axis and balance-of- in the previous decade and a half highlighted the growing vulnerability of the smaller or weaker members of the Arab region. The fundamental challenges posed by international developments-the abdication of the as a , the momentous change that swept Eastern Europe in 1989-90 and the imminent emergence of West European economic integration in 1992, among others-deepened the crisis and brought out in even sharper relief the severe strains within the Arab states at both regional and domestic levels. This article attempts to situate the Iraqi invasion within the context ofrecent Arab regional politics, and to shed light both on how the Iraqi invasion could have happened and on the reactions of Arab governments and populations. It will argue that the Arab leaders, by using their regional foreign policies to uphold the status quo and to bolster their own personal rule, failed both individually and collectively to address the real challenge facing the Arab countries. After briefly describing the Arab regional order in part one, in part two the

International Affairs 67, 3 (1991) 487-5 07 Yezid Sayigh article traces the patterns ofArab regional politics from the high point ofArab solidarity between 1967 and 1974, through the ofconsensus after 1975, to the outbreak of the Gulf . In part three it attempts to draw out likely future trends in Arab regional relations, and finally in part four it assesses the prospects for changing the dynamics of Arab politics. The article looks only at the interrelations of the Arab states and does not consider the extra• regional dimension of Arab foreign policy. 1 Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/ia/article/67/3/487/2406786 by guest on 28 September 2021 I. The Arab states and the Arab regional order Western observers have tended to reject the idea that there is a single Arab nation, and to see this as the artificial creation of pan-Arabist ideology. Yet it is a matter offact that the vast areas that form the ' ' were in effect united for centuries under Islamic and Ottoman rule, with a high degree of exchange and permeability between and . Even now, the Arab states share unique characteristics that go beyond shared borders or the dictates of geography and bond populations across modern state borders throughout the region." With their quasi-commonality of language, religion, social culture, economic and commercial ties, political history, and self• definition as Arab states (as reflected in the foundation of the League of Arab States in 1945), these countries are more than a mere collection of states whose interactions are governed primarily by the fact of proximity. They constitute a regional system or order. 3 Most of the Arab states are relatively recent creations, their political boundaries and separate identities forged only during the modern colonial period of the twentieth century. With centuries of permeability and effective unity behind them, these modern states have suffered repeated challenges from neighbours and local populations to their authenticity and legitimacy.4 Nonetheless they have survived intact as separate political entities and have succeeded to a degree in fostering their own country-based patriotisms (as distinct from pan-).

1 The author would like to thank Fawaz Gerges for his comments during early discussions on this article and then on the final draft. 2 The Arab countries are taken to be the 21 members of the : , , , , , , Kuwait, , , , , , the PLO/Palestine, , , , , , , unified , and the . 3 In theory, there is as viable a basis for forming an integrated community of Arab states as there is in Western Europe, where the Benelux countries, the Nordic zone and the European Community zone exhibit varying levels of permeability across borders to populations at least as varied as the in language, culture and ethnicity. In practice, however, the Arab states have not formed a 'community of nations' with shared values and norms as in the idea of an 'international society'. (The notion of community or society is developed in Hedley Bull and Adam Watson, The expansion of international society, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984.) One reason for this failure, of course, is the role played by the international system and the great powers in creating and maintaining Arab divisions. 4 Egypt, a nation-state from ancient times, is the principal exception, though it too was for centuries part of wider Arab/Islamic entities. The classic work on the issue of legitimacy is Michael Hudson, Arab politics: the search for legitimacy (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1977); a more recent volume is Ghassan Salame, ed., The foundations of the Arab state (London: Croom Helm, 1987). A conceptual treatment of the problems of statehood in the Third World is in Yezid Sayigh, Confronting the : security in the developing countries (London: International Institute for Strategic Studies, 1990), Adelphi Paper 251. Arab politics

Because of their shared characteristics, interactions between the Arab states have tended to be intense. The behaviour of individual states can profoundly affect the others, which means that these states are particularly vulnerable to regional patterns and balances, with a close and often direct linkage between regional external and internal developments. 5 Since 1967, and especially since the mid-rovos, Arab governments have sought to counter this interrelatedness in order to bolster their stability at home and to deny rival governments the opportunity of interfering in their affairs. 6 To do this they have tried to disconnect the external and internal spheres Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/ia/article/67/3/487/2406786 by guest on 28 September 2021 through a pattern of induced separation or disengagement. Governments sought to prevent their populations developing loyalties to ideologies or movements that transcended existing borders (such as pan-Arabism, Palestine or ). They constructed strong, centralized state apparatuses and fostered local, country patriotism. Some degree of mutual influence between external and internal politics is ofcourse inevitable, and certain foreign policy goals have been promoted, at least at the level of rhetoric, simply in order to defuse domestic discontent, but the real effort has focused on managing them in parallel and reinforcing the distinction between them. The policy of disconnecting regional from domestic politics tended to exclude the public or its active sectors from exerting a direct or meaningful influence on policy formulation or decision-making. These have thereby devolved more exclusively on elitist governments. Because real power in most Arab countries rests with narrowly based elites-drawn from family, tribal, ethnic, or sectarian minorities and almost invariably unelected• disengagement from regional politics has given these regimes even greater importance and a quite disproportionate impact on regional politics." Stark illustration is that could launch his country into immensely costly military adventures twice in the space ofone decade. Such concentration of power has been part and parcel of the consolidation of minority-based or authoritarian rule in the region in the 1970S and 198os.8 That the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait could take place was, however, a failure of the Arab regional order and of the individual Arab states. In reducing their exposure to external developments, Arab governments in effect downgraded their commitment to the regional order and weakened both collective and their

5 A useful discussion of the regional system is in Tareq Ismael, of the contemporary : a study in worldpolitics (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1986), part one. Also (in ) Jamil Matar and Ali Hilal, The Arab regional order: a study of Arab politics (: Centre for Arab Unity Studies, 1979). 6 The impact of permeability and linkages is developed in Paul Noble, 'The Arab system: opportunities, constraints, and pressures', in Bahgat Korany and Ali Dessouqi, eds., The foreign policies of the Arab states (Boulder, CO, : Westview/AUCP, 1984). 7 , former -General of the Arab League, expressed this succinctly: 'Arab fate is not decided by the Arab people, rather, the fate of is in the hands of individuals who insist on imposing their own views': 'The difficulties facing Arab joint action', al-Hayat, II Dec. 1990. 8 See Berch Berberoglu, ed., Power and stability in the Middle East (London: Zed, 1989), and Adeed Dawisha and I. William Zartman, eds., Beyond coercion: the durability of the Arab state (London: Croom Helm, 1988). Yezid Sayigh own state security." Paradoxically, the attempt to escape regional tensions ultimately only exacerbated regional and domestic strains.

2. Patterns of Arab politics, 1967-90 1967-74: the Arab consensus The humiliating defeat of the Egyptian, Syrian and Jordanian armies by in the Six-Day War ofJune 1967 discredited the Arab regimes, and particularly the 'progressive' ones of President Nasser and the Syrian Ba'th Party.l" It Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/ia/article/67/3/487/2406786 by guest on 28 September 2021 revealed the limits oftheir military capabilities and strategic power, and ushered in the realization that destroying Israel was impossible, as implied in Egyptian and Jordanian (and later Syrian) acceptance of UN SC Resolution 242 (which guaranteed peace and secure borders for all states in the region, including Israel). The 1967 war undermined the pan-Arabism ofNasser and the Ba'th and put an end to the first phase of autonomous Arab regional politics. Previously, between the mid-roaos and mid-rooos when most Arab countries became independent, interstate relations had been dominated by a mutual lack of recognition: the legitimacy not only ofincumbent governments and colonially defined borders, but also of states themselves was challenged. Justifying themselves on that basis, a number of governments sought actively to subvert their rivals or to intervene militarily in their affairs. Prominent examples were the Saudi role in the Omani civil war of the 1950S, Iraq's assertion of its claim to Kuwait in 1961, Syrian and Egyptian policy towardsJordan in the mid-royos and mid-rooos, Syrian involvement in Lebanon in 1958 and Egyptian in Iraq in 1960, Egyptian and Saudi intervention in the Yemen civil war in 1962-7, and the Moroccan-Algerian conflict of 1965.11 Such interventionism declined sharply in the wake of the 1967 war as Arab governments ceased to dispute the very basis of the existence of their rivals. Indeed a working consensus now emerged around the sanctity of existing political borders and the inadmissibility of clandestine subversion or military intervention. Above all, the hitherto destabilizing thrust of pan-Arabism was replaced by a general acceptance ofthe autonomy and legitimacy ofthe modern state. An indication ofthe new legitimacy ofstates and ofthe evolving regional order was the rise in importance ofthe Arab summit meetings ofheads ofstate. Nasser had initiated the summit forum in 1964, but only afterJune 1967 and the meeting of November 1967 did it become the principal locus for coordination of regional policies. 12 This is not to say that no further upheavals took place in the late 1960s. Coups d'etat changed rulers in Libya, Sudan and Iraq, and internal strife underlay the

9 Some of the patterns and implications are discussed in Valerie Yorke, Domestic politics and regional security: Jordan, Syria and Israel (London: Gower, 1988), conclusions. 10 The impact of the war and subsequent Arab regional politics up to the early 1980s is discussed in Alan Taylor, Arab balance of power (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1981). 11 The classic work on this period remains Malcolm Kerr, The Arab : Carnal' Abd al-Nasir and his rivals, 1958-1970 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, jrd edn 1971, reprinted 1978). 12 See Ghassan Salame, 'Integration in the Arab world', in Giacomo Luciani and Ghassan Salame, eds., The politics of Arab integration (London: Croom Helm, 1988).

490 Arab politics resolution of power struggles in Syria and in North and . There was interstate interference too: Syria, Egypt, and Iraq supported the Palestinian guerrillas in Jordan and Lebanon; Syrian intervened in the Jordanian civil war of 1970. But the main Arab states now adhered to certain limits and sought more actively to reach consensus on matters of common interest• primarily the conflict with Israel. The fact that the upheavals and interventions that did take place were easily absorbed and failed to provoke wider polarization was a sign ofthe commitment to the emerging regional order and its new-found resilience. Thus the Six-Day War (which introduced a new Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/ia/article/67/3/487/2406786 by guest on 28 September 2021 player, the Palestinian movement, embodied in the PLO) proved to be a major watershed in the modern history of Arab regional politics. The next seven years witnessed the peak ofArab' solidarity'. Its basis was the Arab summit meeting at Khartoum in November 1967. This reconciled a number of erstwhile rivals-particularly Nasser, King and King -and set the broad guidelines for subsequent diplomatic and military action in the conflict with Israel.l" It was this conflict that defined the core aims and values of the Arab regional order, along with broad but lesser goals of regional cooperation and development and Non• Alignment. At the heart ofthe regional order was the working relationship that emerged between Egypt, Syria and Jordan, backed politically and financially by Saudi Arabia and the other states. The new consensus did not preclude jockeying for position: Egyptian mediation between the PLO and the Lebanese authorities during the clashes of 1969 was offset by Syrian escalation, and Egypt's andJordan's acceptance ofthe US-brokered Rogers plan of 1970 was countered by Iraq's growing militancy towards Israel. But it did mean that the assembled Arab heads ofstate could enhance their collective moral authority and political influence, which was applied under Nasser's patronage to end the Jordanian-PLO civil war of 1970. Just how much Arab interstate relations had changed was perhaps best demonstrated by the short-lived communist coup d'etat of 1971 in Sudan. Invoking a recently signed pact and with discreet backing from Saudi Arabia and Syria, Sadat of Egypt and Qadafi of Libya intervened militarily to restore the Sudanese leader Nimeiri. The Arab consensus was brought to bear still more dramatically in the October War of 1973, when Egypt and Syria launched their surprise attack on Israel. Many Arab countries sent token army contingents or air squadrons to the battlefront (Iraq despatched 20,000 men and 300 , Jordan 4,000 men and 150 tanks). Of more lasting impact was the blanket embargo imposed by the Arab oil producers on oil supplies to the West. This and moves towards nationalization ushered in the oil-price revolution of 1973-4 and the Arab financial boom of the 1970s.14 'Arab solidarity' was given further meaning in

13 This is evident from the minutes of meetings between Nasser and other Arab leaders: Abdul-Majid Farid, ed., From the minutes of Abdul-Nasir's Arab and International meetings, 1967-70 (in Arabic: Beirut: Arab Research Institute, 1979). 14 An overview of the process is Yusif Sayigh, Arab oil policies in the 1970S (London: Croom Helm, 1983).

49 1 Yezid Sayigh

1974 when the Arab states formally recognized the PLO as sole legitimate representative of the (which assured similar recognition by the Non-Aligned Movement), delegated Lebanese President Franjiyyeh to speak at the UN on their behalf, and ensured an invitation for PLO chairman Arafat to address the UN General Assembly for the first time. This was the high point ofthe Arab regional order. In international relations terminology, the Arab states ought to have been well on their way towards developing the concept of a 'community' of states measured in shared values and norms. Instead, regional politics relapsed increasingly into patterns like Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/ia/article/67/3/487/2406786 by guest on 28 September 2021 those that had dominated the period up to 1967-the formation of passing alliances in accordance with balance-of-power considerations.

From 1975: fragmenta~ion of solidarity

As many writers have pointed out, the single most critical cause of this decline was the withdrawal ofEgypt from the Arab-Israeli confrontation and from its pivotal role in Arab interstate politics.i" The seeds ofrupture were sown in the October War, when Sadat provoked Syrian bitterness by agreeing prematurely (as saw it) to a ceasefire. US Secretary of State Kissinger's step-by• step diplomacy was specifically designed to deal separately with the Egyptian, Syrian, and Jordanian fronts with Israel, and it built upon this split. The bilateral approach resulted in the Sinai II disengagement agreement of 1975 between Egypt and Israel, which set the basis for a fundamental parting of the ways between Egypt and its former partners. The full implications were revealed with Sadat's visit to Jerusalem in 1977 and the Camp David peace accords with Israel in 1979. Egypt had removed itself entirely from the Arab-Israeli balance and from Arab regional politics. Not all that took place in the Arab regional order in the second half of the 1970S can be ascribed to Egyptian policy, but it had an immensely destabilizing impact. It undermined the basic assumptions of official Arab solidarity, and weakened the restraints inhibiting interstate rivalry. Although the very same regimes and leaders who had built the pre-1973 consensus were still in power and presumably could have ensured the continuation ofthe consensual regional order, they were faced with a shift in the regional balance and had to respond to the altered stakes and new challenges-a deepening strategic imbalance with Israel, growing domestic pressures on resources, the Soviet invasion of and the . These issues demanded greater Arab solidarity, but the apparent opportunity for new would-be regional leaders to emerge encouraged rivalry instead. In fact, despite some efforts by Saudi Arabia and Libya to maintain the consensus, it was virtually inevitable that most Arab governments would react as they did, given the of the regimes. The regional order of 1967-73 had not changed the domestic structure ofpower; if anything, this had been reinforced. So the imbalance caused by Egypt could

15 See Ismael, International relations of the contemporary Middle East, pp. 56--9.

492 Arab politics only trigger a breakdown in the regional order-especially when imbalance turned to vacuum after 1979-and permit internal and interstate strains to surface. Some writers have sought to explain the decline in Arab solidarity by the parallel evolution of ideology (the decline of pan-Arabism and the rise of country patriotism and sectarianism), oil politics, and state formation and their impact on regional relations in the 1970S. They note that Arab governments tended to restrict themselves to their own territorial frameworks, which weakened pan-Arab tendencies and undermined the causes for interstate Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/ia/article/67/3/487/2406786 by guest on 28 September 2021 solidarity. 16 The primacy of narrow state interests inevitably led to a dissipation ofcollective efforts; and the decline ofregional cooperation defused the central importance ofthe Palestine problem and the Arab-Israeli conflict as the unifying and mobilizing theme ofregional politics. 17 Oil wealth contributed to this degenerative process: through the pattern of redistribution it deepened inter-Arab cleavages and economic disparities and encouraged self-centred , realism' at the expense of solidarity and cooperation.18 Inevitably, the change in the values and norms ofthe Arab regional order and the downgrading of its aims meant a concomitant deterioration in domestic politics. A notable instance was the marked rise in sectarianism-based on political ideology, kinship, regionalism or ethnicity as much as on religious community-in Arab politics.l" As regional solidarity declined, domestic politics-the nature of ruling elites and the foundations of regime power• became a more important determinant of external relations. The more authoritarian and narrowly based the government, the less likely it was to bow to collective Arab will or interest and the likelier to promote foreign and regional policies seen as conducive to its own selfish agenda.

Axis politics

In overview, the evolution of Arab regional politics in the second half of the 1970S can best be understood in terms of two distinct patterns: the formation of clusters or cliques of Arab states, often described as axes (mahawir, or zumar or tajammu'at),20 and the determining role ofkey individual countries. The rise of axis politics with the emergence of specific alliances of states was linked to the eruption ofarmed domestic and inter-state conflicts. The of 1975-6 demonstrated this vividly: Syria and Egypt not only backed opposing sides, but even traded places in different phases. Iraq supported the PLO-Ieftist-Muslim ; Jordan aided the rightist-Maronite camp. When the Spanish withdrawal from the Western in 1974-5 prompted

16 Noble, 'The Arab system', p. 49. 17 See Matar and Hilal, The Arab regional order, p. 90; Ismael, 'International relations of the contemporary Middle East', pp. 60-63. 18 Ali Dessouqi, 'The new Arab political order', in Malcolm Kerr and el Sayed Yassin, Rich and poor states in the Middle East: Egypt and the new Arab order (Boulder, CO: Westview, 1982), pp. 319-20; and P.]. Vatikiotis, Arab regional politics in the Middle East (London: Croom Helm, 1984), pp. 97-8. 19 Matar and Hilal, The Arab regional order, pp. 151-2. 20 Matar and Hilal, The Arab regional order, p. 42.

493 Yezid Sayigh a two-way struggle for control between Algeria and Morocco, both states sought the support ofa wider Arab coalition, drawing in Mauritania and Libya and further afield affecting ties with Tunisia, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the PLO. Sadat's offer to conclude a separate peace with Israel polarized the Arab regional order even further. On one side, Egypt now headed an axis comprising Sudan, Somalia, and Oman. Diametrically opposed to this was the Steadfastness and Confrontation Front, comprising Syria, Algeria, Libya, South Yemen and the PLO. As worrying were the conflicts that involved non-Arab neighbours.f" A Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/ia/article/67/3/487/2406786 by guest on 28 September 2021 relatively isolated case was the Dhofari rebellion in Oman in the mid-roves. South Yemen (and reportedly Iraq and Syria at different times) supported the PFLOAG guerrillas, while Sultan Qaboos received direct military assistance from Jordan, and Britain. More extensive was the of 1978, when Somali troops invaded the Ogaden desert in Ethiopia. During that conflict and subsequent in , the Ethiopians could calion support not only from Libya and the Soviet Union but also direct South Yemeni and Cuban involvement. Against them, the got aid from Egypt, Sudan and Saudi Arabia. Not unrelated were the growing tensions between North and South Yemen. In 1977-8 these erupted in a border war and internal strife in both countries, with undertones ofIraqi, Saudi Arabian and Soviet involvement on either side.

Key players

The second distinct pattern of Arab regional politics in the 1970S was the role played by the four key members of the regional order-Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Syria.

Egypt had effectively exited from the Arab order by the end of the decade, leaving a major gap. Till then its position as the principal member of the regional order was largely undisputed, a status gained by Nasser in the wake of the War of 1956 (though the defeat of 1967 had cut Egypt and Nasser down to size somewhat). From 1967, the new consensus on the legitimacy of the separate states and acceptance of the new rules of regional politics set limits on the influence of anyone member. Egypt remained the single most important actor, but the status of other countries was reinforced. Furthermore, the real source of past Egyptian ascendancy had been military power, and this lost relevance as the disengagement with Israel unfolded after 1973, increasingly so as Egypt's economic crisis became chronic and grew to massive proportions.

Saudi Arabia: The other principal state actor in this period was Saudi Arabia. The Kingdom's rising importance had its roots in the reconciliation effected

21 Abdul-Mon'im Sa'id, The Arabs and thefuture of the international system (in Arabic: Beirut: Centre for Arab Unity Studies, 1987), p. 210.

494 Arab politics

between King Faisal and Nasser after June 1967. After this, Saudi financial backing and political approval were sought before any major military or diplomatic initiative by the main confrontation states with Israel, and especially by Egypt. The real boost to Saudi regional influence was the oil price revolution of 1973-4, however.f" The immense increase in wealth enabled the Kingdom to pursue its objectives more actively. Development loans and massive official subventions were used to obtain the goodwill of rivals or to strengthen friends against domestic opponents (as in the support for Nimeiri against the Sudanese communists, for example). Similar means were used to moderate local conflicts, Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/ia/article/67/3/487/2406786 by guest on 28 September 2021 for instance between Syria and the PLO in Lebanon. This policy obviously furthered Saudi Arabian aims and values in combating leftist ideology and Arab opposition movements. It also worked to preserve the status quo that had evolved since 1967, by using Saudi wealth and consequent political influence to ease tensions and moderate or lubricate interstate relations. As a result the Kingdom gained the role of chief mediator, even arbiter, of inter-Arab disputes. This was especially important from the mid-rczos, as one conflict after another erupted in the Arab regional order-though the were usually slow to intercede until mediation could be assured of success. 23 Above all, though, this approach was designed to enhance Saudi . This was best served by ensuring a protective, or at least unthreatening, regional environment. Such thinking lay at the heart of the close relationship that had developed in the 1970S with Egypt, to which Saudi Arabia had looked primarily for strategic depth against a potential Iranian threat. So important was this link that the Kingdom pumped billions of dollars into the ailing Egyptian economy during the 1970s.24All the more reason, then, why the Sadat initiative and the Camp David peace accords disconcerted the Saudi leadership. Not only had Saudi Arabia lost its looked-for shield, but its wider self-protective network and role as mediator were undermined by the sharp polarization of the Arab regional order that ensued. The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the Islamic revolution in Iran at precisely this juncture heightened Saudi fears and deepened the sense of vulnerability. From 1979, Saudi mediation in inter-Arab disputes became less forceful and less frequent. Occasionally, as in relations with Syria, it lapsed into a pattern closer to paying 'extortion money'.

Iraq: The opened a new era for the third key Arab state, Iraq. Up to the late 1970s, Iraq veered between relative neutrality and isolation in regional politics. The Ba'thist leadership that seized power in 1968 adopted a militant stand against Israel, but failed to support the PLO in its confrontation with the Jordanian army in 1970. Self-interested pragmatism was mixed with

22 Point developed in Saadedin Ibrahim, The new Arab social order (in Arabic: Beirut: Centre for Arab Unity Studies, 1982), p. 266; and in Dessouqi, 'The new Arab political order'. 23 Ghassan Salame, Saudiforeign policy since 1945 (in Arabic: Beirut: Arab Development Institution, 1980), p. 663· 24 Paul Jabber, 'Oil, arms, and regional diplomacy: strategic dimensions of the Saudi-Egyptian relationship', in Kerr and Yassin, Rich and poor states in the Middle East, pp. 417 and 424. A more extensive and up-to-date study of Saudi security and of inter-Gulf relations is Anthony Cordesman, The Gulf and the search for strategic stability (Boulder, CO, London: Westview/Mansell, 1984).

495 Yezid Sayigh intense dislike for the rival Ba'th Party wing in power in Syria. In the mid• 1970s, fuelled by this rivalry and by its ideology, Iraq built up its position as a leading' rejectionist' country (opposing PLO diplomacy and sponsoring a rival coalition of Palestinian guerrilla groups). In other respects, despite its contribution to the war effort in October 1973, it remained essentially marginal in regional politics. However, the increase in its oil wealth and its ambitious military development (partly in response to the Iranian buildup) after the 1973 war gradually improved Iraq's position. Egypt's abdication as leading Arab state, Saudi Arabia's discomfiture, and the Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/ia/article/67/3/487/2406786 by guest on 28 September 2021 fragmentation of Arab solidarity provided Iraq with an opportunity to assert itself. Rather than join the Steadfastness and Confrontation Front (Syria, Algeria, Libya, South Yemen and the PLO) in which Syria exerted special influence, Iraq opted for a much wider role, to establish and lead a broader coalition of states against the Egyptian peace initiative, consisting of the Gulf and states, Jordan, Lebanon, and the remaining North African countries. To promote this alternative strategy, Iraq used the Arab summit forum and the Arab League in 1978, winning financial and political commitments (especially from the Gulf states) to support the remaining confrontation states (including the PLO and the Occupied Territories). The summitry of 1978 had been preceded by a short-lived unity agreement between Iraq and Syria, embodied in a National Charter. However, partly because of the challenges posed by the Iranian Revolution, the union ended in internecine bloodletting in the Iraqi Revolutionary Command Council in July 1979. More indicative ofIraqi ambition was the Covenant proposed by Saddam Hussein in 1980 as a new basis for the Arab regional order: all members would abide by the non-use of force in interstate relations, but would commit themselves to strict neutrality in their foreign ties. (In retrospect, this proposal served in part to prepare for the imminent war with Iran; Hussein followed up with a visit to the Saudi capital, the first by an Iraqi leader since the 1958 revolution.) But besides growing military might, it was geopolitical reality that was the basis for the regional assertion of Iraqi influence. Quite simply, Iraq occupies a pivotal physical and strategic position between the Gulf and the eastern Mediterranean countries.

Syria: The rise of Iraq as a was particularly unwelcome to its neighbour and unremitting rival. Strictly speaking, Syria was not a key actor in the same way as the three others described above. It could not credibly aspire to leading status in the Arab regional order for reasons to do largely with economic, demographic and historical limitations. Above all, any aspiration to regional influence was constrained by its inability, in the absence of a wider Arab coalition, to shift the military balance with Israel enough to prove itself a major player in its own right. The fact that Israel still held Syrian territory occupied in 1967 (the ) set the agenda in Damascus. The Syrian leadership could not claim Arab leadership until it had reclaimed its land, but it was unable to do so unaided and thus faced an impossible dilemma. That Arab politics

Syria was an important regional actor could not be denied, therefore, but mainly in the negative sense that it could not be ignored. To resolve this catch-22 situation, the Syrian strategy was essentially a , spoiling' one. Syria aimed primarily to ensure that it could not be excluded from a peace settlement that might restore its territory and confirm its regional status, even if it could not alone impose a settlement or compel Israel to withdraw from the Golan Heights. To pursue these somewhat contradictory policy objectives, Syria worked in the latter half of the 1970S to build a supportive axis of its own, and to counter or prevent the emergence of other Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/ia/article/67/3/487/2406786 by guest on 28 September 2021 that were actively or potentially hostile. The much-publicized union withJordan in 1975 was a first, ifephemeral, step towards building a supportive axis; in contrast, intense pressure was exerted on the PLO after 1978 not to improve relations with Jordan, and on Jordan in 1980 not to align itself with Iraq. The loss of Egypt's added power meant that Syria was even less likely to regain the Golan Heights. The Camp David accords thus prompted Syria to create a new axis, the Steadfastness and Confrontation Front (with Algeria, Libya and South Yemen). Closer to home, this led Syria to renew pressure on Lebanon to conclude a special security pact, and to a much vaunted, though hollow, 'strategic alliance' with the PLO. Unlike the Steadfastness and Confrontation axis, however, the relationship that Syria sought with Jordan, Lebanon and the PLO was that between a hegemon and its weaker partners. Its purpose was double: to prevent the junior members from seeking a separate deal with Israel and/or the (the spoiling role), and to collect enough cards in its hand to assert itself as the foremost broker able to deliver its neighbours to the negotiating table.

The Iraq-Iran War: strategic impasse The withdrawal of Egypt from the Arab order and the Islamic revolution in Iran-both viewed by the other governments as threats more often than not-seemed to provide a unique opportunity for the ascendancy of Iraq. At the very least they prompted a drawing together of the majority of the Arab states at a time when Iraq was well placed to offer motivation and direction. However, whatever further prospects there might have been for a renewal of Arab solidarity, they did not materialize. In September 1980 the Iraqi leadership launched its lightning strike against Iran. The Iraq-Iran War was to drag on, dominating Arab concerns and energies, for another eight years. The conflict effectively paralysed the Arab regional order. In this it reinforced, rather than reversed, the strategic imbalance left by Egypt's withdrawal. The consequences were not long in coming. Israel, after bombing and Beirut and annexing the Golan Heights in 1981, in the summer of 1982 invaded Lebanon, occupying the capital and half the country, and confronting Syria. Lebanon was thrown into even greater communal violence and cantonization than before; internal Palestinian divisions and the feud between

497 Yezid Sayigh

Syria and the PLO became overt and violent. Jordan became ever more fearful that an expansionist Israeli government would indeed seek to implement the slogan that 'Jordan is Palestine'. 25 Syria, jealous of Iraqi influence and the nascent Iraqi/Saudi/Jordanian axis, revived its spoiling approach. It boycotted the eleventh Arab summit conference, held in in November 1980, and pressured the PLO and Lebanon to do likewise. The PLO was prevailed upon to reject the 1981 Saudi peace plan towards Israel put forward by Crown Prince Fahd, even though it had assisted in the drafting. Subversion and interventionism were on the rise on all sides. In 1979-80 Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/ia/article/67/3/487/2406786 by guest on 28 September 2021 Syria was particularly vulnerable. Armed opposition by the Muslim Brother• hood (supported tacitly by Jordan) was at its peak, as was an Iraqi-inspired bombing campaign. During the 1980 Arab summit, Syria massed troops along the border with Jordan. At the wider regional level, Syria had allied itself with Iran in the war against Iraq, and in so doing it exerted a 'blackmailing' role on Saudi Arabia and the smaller Gulf states. These were reportedly prompted (not for the first time) to pay repeated subsidies to Syria in order to moderate its foreign policy. In North too there was fragmentation and instability. Libya, which supported Iran until late in the war and had sponsored an unsuccessful insurrection in southern Tunisia, thus isolated itself at a time of general Arab strategic paralysis and exposed itself in 1981 to a clash with American aircraft and vessels over the Gulf of . As the 1980s progressed it shifted alliances constantly with the other North African states, forming and dissolving unions with most of them (and suffering American bombing raids in 1986). The debilitating involvement in spilled over to mar relations with Sudan. The Saharan conflict continued to poison relations between Algeria and Morocco. In the Gulf, the outbreak ofthe war prompted Saudi Arabia to shepherd the smaller emirates into the in 1981. This move signalled an inward-looking turn in the Gulf. This became more pronounced in the next few years as the world oil glut forced down oil prices and producer revenues. With Iraq absorbing a large part of their income, and even Saudi Arabia obliged to adopt deficit spending, the Gulf states steadily downgraded their political and financial relations with the other Arab states. Sudan and Somalia were among those that suffered most. Jordan was forced to cut back its defence spending and froze major arms deals from 1984, and the expiry of the ten-year grant agreed by the Baghdad Arab summit of 1978 was a major economic blow.

Rentier polities

The financial effects of the Iraq-Iran War and the decline in oil revenues were felt right through the Arab regional order. Worse, the retrenchment highlighted the chronic problems and structural weaknesses ofmany Arab economies. In so doing it compounded the effects of governments' protracted mismanagement.

25 Interview with Crown Prince Hasan bin Talal, Amman, Mar. 1984. Arab politics

The growing economic crISIS In the 1980s was evident in a number of indicators. Oil income dropped. Labour migration from population-rich to oil• rich states declined; remittances from the remaining expatriates and migrant workers dropped. Official aid and development loans from the oil-rich states were curtailed. Everywhere, economic growth rates slowed. Indebtedness rose sharply; balances of trade and payments worsened. The Arab states became more dependent on imported food. Far from being the decade ofArab economic development and integration• the aim set by the official blueprint approved at the Amman Arab summit of Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/ia/article/67/3/487/2406786 by guest on 28 September 2021 198o--the 1980s were a lost opportunity. Though this was true for many countries ofthe South, given the immense resources available to the Arab states, theirs was the wasted decade par excellence. Failure can be attributed to a variety of factors-development strategies, centrally planned economies, ideology, international market conditions, population growth, civil strife, natural disasters. But central was the structure ofpolitical power, which determined the allocation ofresources within the Arab states. In other words, it was the nature ofthe Arab regimes' power bases and oftheir systems ofcontrol (ranging from police methods to co-option of social forces and the creation of privileged classes) that held the key to the wasted 198os. What made this particularly relevant was the special correlation in Arab regional politics already outlined between the domestic power-structure within states and wider regional patterns. This was most obvious in the role played by oil, especially from 1973-4 onwards. The result was what might be called rentier politics. Oil wealth allowed governments to 'bribe' their populations or segments ofthem and so to alter the basis oftheir control. 26 At the risk ofover• simplifying, Arab governments employed oil wealth to support their allies and to purchase the goodwill of potential rivals elsewhere in the region. Specifically, the recycling of oil wealth played an important part in shoring up the Arab regional order. This was partly because at the level of the general public the diffusion of funds (through the exchange of labour and remittances or through development aid) raised living standards and helped governments to maintain subsidies and so to pre-empt discontent in the 1970S and early 198os. It was also because official assistance from the oil-rich states allowed recipient governments to pursue inflated spending programmes that would otherwise have been impossible--such as massive expenditure on armies and internal security forces-and yet to avoid the worst consequences. Exogenous wealth, whether from local oil or government transfers, cushioned the effects of mismanagement on local economies by injecting compensatory funds into the system. By reducing dependence on local productivity and domestic constituencies, the rentier system lessened regime accountability and made rulers less vulnerable to internal pressures for reform.

26 The concept is developed in Giacomo Luciani and Hazem Beblawi, The (London: Croom Helm, 1987). The author is grateful to David Poole and Mabro for discussing the rentier concept and its critiques.

499 Yezid Sayigh

It has been objected that the actual volume of' rent' in any Arab country and the region as a whole was never enough to support the concept of rentier politics; and also (with considerable justification) that the major determinant of regime behaviour was always the internal socioeconomic structure of political power, rather than exogenous wealth. After all, abuse ofpower to amass private wealth has occurred in many oil-poor developing countries too. The strengthening of state apparatuses and the consolidation of distinct country patriotisms at the expense of pan-Arab or other transnational ideologies and allegiances was a common feature of Arab governments, which sought tighter Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/ia/article/67/3/487/2406786 by guest on 28 September 2021 control over their populations whether or not they had access to exogenous wealth.f" Nonetheless, the rentier system had discernible regional effects. Official country-to-country transfers magnified the opportunities for personal self• aggrandizement and formed the basis for special bonds of mutual interest between certain Arab rulers. This was compounded by the tendency of recipient regimes to replicate some of the more exploitative aspects of the economic structure in the main rentier states. One of these was that the monopoly on power in several Gulf states allowed members of ruling families to assert themselves as middlemen into every government contract and so to make enormous profits (in some emirates they had direct access to oil revenues). Another aspect was that the millions of migrant workers and expatriate professionals who had flocked to these states for three decades could only acquire residence and employment by attaching themselves to native' sponsors' or majority-holding business partners. These profited by holding an absolute stranglehold over the legal status ofdozens or hundreds of' guests', and without contributing a day's work.f" Labour-sending states did not insist on assuring guaranteed or acquired rights for their nationals abroad, because they were more anxious not to disrupt the flow of remittance homewards. One consequence of this was great uncertainty for migrant citizens and their sending governments, as host countries could and did suddenly expel whole communities of tens or hundreds of thousands of expatriates at short notice (Tunisians or from Libya, Egyptians from Iraq, Yemenis from Saudi Arabia, Palestinians or Jordanians from Kuwait). In other words, the regional rentier system encouraged states to employ financial assistance as a direct political means of furthering narrow policy objectives in interstate relations. In the Arab states this increasingly took the form of 'bribes' from oil-rich Gulf states to such governments as Iraq, Syria, even Jordan. These in turn tended to use political or strategic' blackmail' to obtain support (witness the massive flow of up to $40 billion to Iraq in 1980-8 and the attempt to extort yet more financial assistance from Kuwait in the run-

27 One author argues that the rentier state has given way to the' authoritarian' one in the Gulf: see Khaldoun al-Naqeeb, Society and state in the Gulf (London: Routledge, 1990), chs. 5, 6. This book is part of a series dealing with state and society in the and Mashreq by Mohammad al-Hermasi and Ghassan Salame, published in Arabic by the Centre for Arab Unity Studies, Beirut, in 1987. 28 Ibrahim, The new Arab social order, pp. 33 and 175--6; and Luciani and Beblawi, The rentier state, pp. 55-6.

500 Arab politics up to the 1990 invasion). This contrasted with the previous Saudi approach in the 1967-74 period, ofmaking aid largely conditional on coordination at Arab summit level of common policy towards such core issues as the Palestine problem and the Arab-Israeli conflict. At another level, Gulf aid was instrumental in funding widespread activities by conservative Islamic groups in most Arab countries-from the ofJordan or Sudan, to in the Occupied Territories, to the in Algeria. The Saudis in particular pumped millions of dollars over the 1980s into the construction of mosques and cultural centres Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/ia/article/67/3/487/2406786 by guest on 28 September 2021 abroad to enhance their stature and influence internal politics. This at a time when homegrown fundamentalists and Iranian pilgrims had turned into a battleground (in 1979 and again in 1988), when the Saudi royal family had defaulted on its 1980 promise to form a consultative assembly, and when the Kuwaiti emir had suspended parliament altogether (in 1986).

Run-up to the Gulf crisis

This background helps to explain the deepening crisis of many Arab states in the 1980s. As sources of exogenous wealth dried up and the effects of chronic mismanagement or over-spending on defence or internal security accumulated, fuelling soaring debt, governments everywhere were less able to disguise costs and absorb internal strains. The economic crisis coincided with and exacerbated the strategic impasse already described. An immediate consequence was the intensification and spread of civil strife. The conflicts in Lebanon have already been mentioned. The Sudanese civil war restarted with a vengeance in 1983 and was followed by similar violence in Somalia. A renewed struggle for power in South Yemen caused thousands of casualties in 1986. In Iraq, the Kurdish revolt revived. In , violence became endemic along the borders of Libya and Chad. Civil society was brutalized in Syria and Iraq: at least 5-10,000 died when Syrian troops crushed an uprising in the city ofHama in February 1982. The Iraqi-Syrian feud spilled over again into Lebanon, with fierce battles between local proxies in 1989. Yet the Arab states did nothing, even when the threat was not military and when there were no strategic complications. Famine was allowed to sweep Sudan and Somalia, and drought to attack Yemen and Tunisia. Jordan and Egypt tottered constantly on the edge ofbankruptcy. On the one hand, the worst sufferers were countries with no inherent strategic power: on the other hand, problems of economic decline and could be safely overlooked if they did not directly threaten the regional status quo. What such disarray showed was the severe inability of the Arab states to control both domestic and interstate conflict. It showed also how propping up the regional status quo had led to the internalization of strains and threats, which resurfaced as domestic instability and decay. These two trends reasserted and reinforced the linkage between external and internal affairs that Arab governments had worked so hard to disconnect since 1967. In a string of

5°1 Yezid Sayigh countries-Tunisia, Egypt, Sudan, Algeria, Jordan and Morocco-there were food riots from 1984. There were direct calls for political change, leading to electoral reforms in Algeria and Jordan and a loosening of controls in Tunisia and Yemen.

New groupings

Partly in response to these pressures, the North African countries joined in a Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/ia/article/67/3/487/2406786 by guest on 28 September 2021 subregional grouping-the -in February 1989. Days later, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan and formed the Arab Cooperation CounciL The formation of subregional groupings was long overdue (especially compared to the nine-year-old Gulf Cooperation Council). The timing was related to major changes in the strategic and international environment. The eruption of the Palestinian intifadah or Uprising in December 1987 had put the Arab states on notice of grassroots feeling, only weeks after they had devoted a summit meeting exclusively to the Iraq-Iran War (to the exclusion of the Arab-Israeli conflict). Further afield, the approaching date of West European economic integration threatened the future of migrant labour, trade and assistance for the Maghreb countries. By early 1989 it was clear that the Soviet Union's abdication as a superpower would remove a principal pillar ofstrategic support for the Arabs. These developments coincided with the stalling of the Palestinian-Israeli peace process and the start of the influx of Soviet Jewish immigrants to IsraeL The Palestinians and Jordan perceived this as a direct threat to their land and to their stability. The military temperature was rising. Israel had proved its military potential and its reach by satellite launches, by ballistic and by bombing Iraq's Osiraq nuclear reactor (in 1981) and PLO headquarters in (in 1985). It had reportedly amassed an awesome nuclear weapons potentiaL When Iraq and Israel exchanged threats ofchemical attack in the spring of 1990, the regional was finally pushed to the fore. Against this background, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates broke commitments made to OPEC concerning oil production. They exceeded their quotas and forced oil prices down. Undermining Iraqi revenues at a critical moment, this was viewed by the Iraqi leadership (with some justification) as a deliberate threat to Iraq's economic recovery, strategic influence and domestic stability. The rentier system was being pushed to its extreme. The Arab regional order had already shown itself unwilling or unable to protect its weaker members-half the Arab states had been suffering from chronic bloodshed, famine or penury-and it proved no more willing or able to deter the Iraqi invasion.f" In fact it was more or less inevitable that the Arab

29 For one analyst, the invasion was the peak of failure for the Arab regional system: see Ali Hilal, al• Hayat, 25 Sept. 1990. An ironic footnote was that interstate relations were so riven with distrust that in March 1989 Saudi King Fahd actually visited Baghdad-the first such visit by a Saudi monarch in 3I years-to sign a mutual non-aggression pact.

502 Arab politics states should be incapable of responding to the invasion without resort to outside intervention. The regional order had been asking for trouble for a long time, and trouble it got, in plenty. Just as predictable, shocking as it may have been to Westerners, was the instinctive response of large numbers of ordinary Arabs who rallied in support ofIraq and pilloried the West. Many explanations have been ventured for this, but above all it was a protest against the regional status quo in its political, economic, and strategic dimensions. Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/ia/article/67/3/487/2406786 by guest on 28 September 2021 3- Plus ~a change? For as long as the Arab regimes and political systems are unchanged, and for as long as shared core values and aims (such as the Palestine problem) are not revived in their foreign policies, the patterns of Arab regional politics are unlikely to change either. A number of unknowns may yet make an impact. Protracted civil war in Iraq may eventually be replicated in Syria, for reasons to do with that country's social makeup and political structure, which may alter the regional balance with Iran. The ' right to self-determination may be asserted in and Iran as well. We do not yet know the final cost of the war and the oil fires to the Iraqi, Kuwaiti and Saudi economies and liquidity, nor is the role ofoutside powers or externally induced processes such as regional security pacts and arms control clear. That said, analysis of the past suggests some probable patterns. 30 First and foremost to look at in the wake ofthe war are the GCC sheikhdoms of the Arabian peninsula. This group forms a major part of the broader Gulf . Building on the pattern of the 1980s and the crisis of 1990-1, the GCC member states are likely to close ranks even further, at the expense specifically of economic and strategic ties with their northern Arab neighbours-Iraq, Jordan, and the Palestinians-whose expatriate workers and professionals the Gulf states will try to replace. The GCC is likely to be dominated by its own collective agenda and by bilateral pacts between each of its members and Saudi Arabia. The latter is likely to block deeper relations with Iran, and generally to resist relying on other regional states. Where possible, it is likely to prefer out-of-area ties. 31 Syria, as a member of the wartime alliance, is commonly expected to maintain a close relationship with the GCC and especially the Saudis. However, recent experience has probably convinced Gulf leaders ofjust how little they need Syrian material help-as opposed to the symbolism ofpolitical support.i"

30 Some of these are discussed in Yezid Sayigh, 'Arab regional security: between mechanics and politics', RUSIJournal, Summer 1991. A rare but exhaustive attempt to forecast Arab future, predating the Gulf crisis, is Centre for Arab Unity Studies, The future of the Arab nation (London: Routledge, 1991). 31 Saudi bilateralism and dislike for deploying in-region forces on its soil are noted by Salame, Saudi foreign policy since 1945, pp. 516 and 523-4. 32 GCC Secretary-General Abdullah Bisharah and other Council officials have spoken of massive fmancial support for Egypt and Syria from the GCC states, perhaps up to $15 billion over an unspecified period. Whether this is implemented, and whether the channels used will differ from past precedents, remains to be seen: International Herald Tribune, 6-rJ Apr. 1991.

5°3 Yezid Sayigh

Beyond the level of lip-service and token financial rewards, the GCC will not seriously rely on an Arab ally with whom they do not even share a border. Unlike Iraq, Syria does not occupy a pivotal position between the Gulf and the eastern Mediterranean and so lacks that added strategic importance. The long• term effect is likely to be disengagement between the peninsular Arabs and their 'northern tier' brethren-Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Jordan and the Palestinians. However, GCC seclusion may not be sustainable in the longer term, for a number of reasons. One is Yemen's anomalous position, in the peninsula but not of it. Another is the persistence of interstate disputes such as that between Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/ia/article/67/3/487/2406786 by guest on 28 September 2021 Qatar and Bahrain. A third is the importance of Saudi subregional hegemony-itself dependent on the internal stability of a fragmented tribal society-to the cohesion of the GCC. Logically, the 'northern tier', which comprises much of what is known as the Arab mashreq or east, should form a natural geopolitical subregion. However, the markedly conflictual nature of interstate relations and the heterogeneity of societies there have always impeded the creation of a formal collective organization along GCC lines. Thus when the Arab Cooperation Council was formed, it embraced countries as far apart geographically as Yemen, Egypt, Iraq and Jordan, of which only the last two shared a common border. A change of regime in Iraq might alter the picture by shifting the balance ofpower between Iraq and Syria and reducing the latter's fear of Iraqi hegemony. Similarly, any growth in the importance of Iran may produce a northern Arab-Iranian axis, or impose a re-engagement between the northern tier and the GCC states. Otherwise, because its policy aims set it apart from Iraq, Jordan and the Palestinians, Syria will remain the odd man out in the north. It is likely to seek alliances further afield. Paradoxically, Egypt faces a similar dilemma. Its natural geopolitical subregion-the Valley ofSudan and Ethiopia, and peripherally Libya33-is of limited strategic importance and does not give the sort of intrinsic regional importance that attracts major external financial or economic support. In the past, this has propelled Egyptian foreign policy in two directions: to seek wider alliances, based on political and strategic factors rather than the dictates of geography, and to involve itself in issues of broad Arab concern in order to promote its importance to outside parties.i" In practice, when relations between Egypt and Saudi Arabia have been poor, or when Syria has been isolated in the north, an Egyptian-Syrian axis has tended to emerge. The obvious precedent was the United Arab of 1958-61, but a similar alliance was the Tripartite and later Quadripartite Union of 1971, which included Sudan and Libya. These four countries were already

33 One writer has called this the' median subregion': Iqlim al-wasat. Ahmad Yusif Ahmad, AralrArab conflicts, 1945-1981 : overview study (In Arabic: Beirut: Centre for Arab Unity Studies, 1988), p. 121. 34 The Egyptian approach is evident in the statement by Foreign Minister Butros Ghali, who defined Palestine and Arab defence as two of four main tasks to be tackled by the Arabs after the Gulf crisis: Al-Hayat, 6 Jan. 1991. The other two were an economic recovery plan and an . Other authors have also suggested the importance of developing common Arab institutions, such as parliament and courts: Sa'id, The Arabs and thefuture of the international system, p. 263. Arab politics edging closer together again before August 1990. Since then the Egyptian• Syrian core has solidified, with Libyan backing. However, this axis lacks the fundamental prerequisites of geographical and economic ties. This is why Egypt is seeking to reassert the broader framework of the Arab League. This gives Egypt a leading role in Arab politics that is not dependent on physical proximity or subject to the whims ofbilateral relations. If the Gee states do commit themselves to Egypt in a major way, for labour (to replace Palestinians, Jordanians and Yemenis) or for strategic support, a shift from previous patterns is possible. Past experience, and the inconsistency and Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/ia/article/67/3/487/2406786 by guest on 28 September 2021 cupidity ofGee state policies, suggest that continued Egyptian emphasis on the Palestine problem and on wider Arab cooperation are the best means to win regional influence.i" Already the pattern of Gulf reconstruction contracts suggests minimal reliance on Egypt. The sudden decision by Egypt in May 1991 to withdraw its troops from the Gulfand so abort the security pact agreed with the Gee and Syria only two months earlier revealed the depth of divergence in needs and priorities among them. There remains the Maghreb subregion, represented since 1989 by the Arab Maghreb Union. Traditionally the Maghreb has been regarded as peripheral to Arab regional politics, forming a relatively self-contained unit owing to its geographical remoteness and its physical and economic proximity to southern Europe. However, the Gulfcrisis revealed just how close the Maghreb countries have become to events far to their east. At one level, this reflects the imminent prospect ofbarriers going up between the Maghreb and southern Europe. This would threaten the flow of migration from North Africa, trade and aid after 1992 and trigger economic retrenchment and a political shift towards other Arab countries. At another level, public opinion in the Maghreb countries during the demonstrated the increasing relevance of interlinkages between Arab states.i"

4- Altering the domestic basis of regional politics IfMaghreb public opinion suggests anything, it is that the Arab regional order and its dynamics need to change or the Arab states will suffer the consequences. The symbiotic interrelationship outlined earlier between regional and domestic politics is likely to reassert itself forcefully, albeit amidst the general disarray of regional and domestic institutions. The apparent revival of pan-Arabism and the continued resurgence of Islam-indeed producing a political fusion between Arabism and Islam 37-are but two reflections of the commonality of problems across states and of the discrediting of Arab governments and the localized country-based patriotism they have fostered. Nor will the challenges be confined to the poor states. The invasion of

35 The emphasis was made explicit by former Egyptian Foreign Minister Ismat Abdul-Majid, the new Secretary-General of the League of Arab States: interviewed in al-Hayat, 16 Apr. 1991. 36 Maghreb intellectuals argue that the recent experience of colonialism has created a unique concern among North Africans for the Palestine problem. 37 Noted by Jamil Matar, 'Conditions for an Arab order' (in Arabic): al-Hayat, 31 Dec. 1990.

5°5 Yezid Sayigh

Kuwait showed that the Gulf states were vulnerable to the same dynamic. The need to invoke Kuwait and Saudi during the crisis, and the necessity ofproviding postwar security by mobilizing citizens more extensively than before, threaten, by crystallizing the concept of , to undermine the basis of previous allegiance to ruling families and to introduce long-term strains into social and political systems.i" Lasting development and lasting security cannot be assured simply by resorting yet again to expatriates and outside powers (especially regional ones like Egypt) unless the Gulf states are willing to offer integration to expatriates and protection and guaranteed Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/ia/article/67/3/487/2406786 by guest on 28 September 2021 financial returns to outside powers. The challenge to the Arab regional order is made all the more urgent by the emergence of new pressures.f" There will be growing competition for vital resources, especially water. Already water affects relations in three main complexes-between Israel, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria (over the Litani/ Yarmouk/Jordan rivers and the aquifer); between Turkey, Iraq and Syria (over the ); and between Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia (over the Nile). Environmental threats, not least the possibility of rising sea levels in the fertile Nile delta, will compound the critical level of dependence on food imports. Growing indebtedness, declining living standards and increasing numbers ofpeople below the poverty line will push economic problems to the fore. All this can only be exacerbated by rapid population growth, which may strain governments' ability to provide basic services and infrastructure to breaking-point. The imperative need for change is there, but the prospects are unclear, even grim. For one thing, the Arab states operate within a wider international framework which may shore up the regional status quo unduly, or punish states that pose real pressures for change from within. Another potentially complicating factor is the introduction in effect, whether explicitly or implicitly, ofadditional states-Iran, Israel or even Turkey-into the Arab regional order. At all events, the global-regional linkage is likely to gain in importance after demonstrating itself so dramatically in the Western military intervention. The Arab regional order may yet maintain itself, or be maintained, despite its failures and strains. Above all, the pattern of interstate relations is unlikely to change significantly in the absence of effective influence from domestic constituencies. These, for the most part, are disorganized or marginalized. Nor are regional cooperative bodies more likely to succeed than in the past, since they are not based on the active social and political institutions that are central to the functioning of civil society within each Arab country. The Gulf crisis could yet prove to be a watershed ofeven greater import for

38 This process has already fundamentally altered internal relations in Jordan, for example. See Paul Jureidini and R. D. McLaurin, Jordan: the impact of social change on the role of the tribes (Washington, DC: Praeger for Center for Strategic and International Studies, 1984), pp. 6-7 and 63. Saudi commander General Khalid bin Sultan has repeatedly urged the doubling or trebling in size of the Saudi army: International Herald Tribune, 22, 30 Apr. 1991. 39 Some are raised in Nevine Masad, 'The Arab regional framework in the 1990s' (in Arabic), al• Mustaqbal al-'Arabi, No. 132, Feb. 1990, pp. 12-14.

506 Arab politics

Arab politics than I967-but only if the domestic dimension of state policy takes its rightful place in determining the regional one. Otherwise, instead of the largely peaceful transition that swept Eastern Europe, the absence of active civil society and of the restraining influences of the wider regional order will only presage even greater suffering for the Arab peoples. Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/ia/article/67/3/487/2406786 by guest on 28 September 2021

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