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Middle East Factors Middle East trategically situated at the intersection of In a way not understood by many in the SEurope, Asia, and Africa, the Middle East West, religion remains a prominent fact of dai- has long been an important focus of United ly life in the modern Middle East. At the heart States foreign policy. U.S. security relation- of many of the region’s conflicts is the friction ships in the region are built on pragmatism, within Islam between Sunnis and Shias. This shared security concerns, and economic in- friction dates back to the death of the Prophet terests, including large sales of U.S. arms to Muhammad in 632 AD.2 Sunni Muslims, who countries in the region that are seeking to form the majority of the world’s Muslim popu- defend themselves. The U.S. also maintains a lation, hold power in most of the Arab coun- long-term interest in the Middle East that is tries in the Middle East. related to the region’s economic importance as Viewing the current instability in the Mid- the world’s primary source of oil and gas. dle East through the lens of a Sunni–Shia con- The region is home to a wide array of cul- flict, however, does not show the full picture. tures, religions, and ethnic groups, including The cultural and historical division between Arabs, Jews, Kurds, Persians, and Turks, among Persians and Arabs has reinforced the Sunni– others. It also is home to the three Abrahamic Shia split. The mutual distrust of many Arab/ religions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, Sunni powers and the Persian/Shia power in addition to many smaller religions like the (Iran), compounded by clashing national and Bahá’í, Druze, Yazidi, and Zoroastrian faiths. ideological interests, has fueled instability, in- The region contains many predominantly cluding in Bahrain, Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, and Muslim countries as well as the world’s only Yemen. Sunni extremist organizations such as Jewish state. al-Qaeda and the Islamic State have exploited The Middle East is deeply sectarian, and sectarian and ethnic tensions to gain support these long-standing divisions, exacerbated by posing as champions of Sunni Arabs against by religious extremists vying for power, are Iran, Syria’s Alawite-dominated regime, and central to many of the challenges that the re- other non-Sunni governments and movements. gion faces today. In some cases, these sectar- Current regional demographic trends also ian divides go back centuries. Contemporary are destabilizing factors. The Middle East con- conflicts, however, have less to do with these tains one of the world’s youngest and fastest- histories than they do with modern extremist growing populations. In most of the West, this ideologies and the fact that modern-day bor- would be viewed as an advantage, but not in the ders often do not reflect the region’s cultural, Middle East. Known as “youth bulges,” these ethnic, or religious realities. Today’s borders demographic tsunamis have overwhelmed are often the results of decisions taken by the the inadequate political, economic, and edu- British, French, and other powers during and cational infrastructures in many countries, and soon after World War I as they dismantled the the lack of access to education, jobs, and mean- Ottoman Empire.1 ingful political participation fuels discontent. The Heritage Foundation | heritage.org/Military 141 Because more than 60 percent of the region’s domestic oil production have contributed to inhabitants are less than 25 years old, this these plunging oil prices.8 demographic bulge will continue to have a Nevertheless, the Middle East is full of eco- substantial effect on political stability across nomic extremes. For example: the region. The Middle East contains more than half • Qatar is the world’s wealthiest country in of the world’s oil reserves and is the world’s terms of gross domestic product (GDP) chief oil-exporting region. As the world’s big- per capita; Yemen, a mere 700 miles away, gest oil consumer, the U.S. has a vested interest ranks 198th.9 in maintaining the free flow of oil and gas from the region. This is true even though the U.S. ac- • Saudi Arabia has 265 billion barrels of tually imports relatively little of its oil from the proven oil reserves. It shares a nearly 500- Middle East.3 Oil is a fungible commodity, and mile border with Jordan, which has just 1 the U.S. economy remains vulnerable to sud- million barrels of proven oil reserves. den spikes in world oil prices. Because many U.S. allies depend on Middle • According to the 2017 Index of Economic East oil and gas, there is also a second-order ef- Freedom, published by The Heritage fect for the U.S. if supply from the Middle East Foundation, the UAE ranks 8th in the is reduced or compromised. For example, Ja- world in terms of economic freedom; Iran, pan (the world’s third largest economy) is the located just across the Persian Gulf, ranks world’s largest liquefied natural gas (LNG) im- 155th.10 porter, accounting for 32 percent of the global market share of LNG demand.4 Qatar is the These disparities are made worse by gov- second largest supplier of LNG to Japan. In ernment corruption across most of the region, 2016, another U.S. ally in Asia—South Korea, which not only squanders economic and hu- the world’s 15th largest economy5—depended man resources, but also restricts economic on the Middle East for 82 percent of its im- competition and hinders the development of ports of crude oil.6 The U.S. itself might not be free enterprise. dependent on Middle East oil or LNG, but the The economic situation is part of what economic consequences arising from a major drives the Middle East’s political environment. disruption of supplies would ripple across The lack of economic freedom was an impor- the globe. tant factor leading to the Arab Spring uprisings, Financial and logistics hubs are also grow- which disrupted economic activity, depressed ing along some of the world’s busiest trans- foreign and domestic investment, and slowed continental trade routes. One of the region’s economic growth. economic bright spots in terms of trade and The political environment has a direct bear- commerce is found in the Persian Gulf. The ing on how easily the U.S. military can operate emirates of Dubai and Abu Dhabi in the Unit- in a region. In many Middle Eastern countries, ed Arab Emirates (UAE), along with Qatar, are the political situation remains fraught with competing to become the region’s top financial uncertainty. The Arab Spring uprisings that center. Although many oil-exporting countries began in early 2011 formed a regional sand- recovered from the 2008 financial crisis and storm that eroded the foundations of many subsequent recession, they have since experi- authoritarian regimes, erased borders, and de- enced the deepest economic downturn since stabilized many countries in the region. Even the 1990s as a result of falling oil prices.7 Vari- so, the popular uprisings in Tunisia, Libya, ous factors such as weak demand, infighting Egypt, Bahrain, Syria, and Yemen did not usher within the Organization of the Petroleum Ex- in a new era of democracy and liberal rule, as porting Countries (OPEC), and increased U.S. many in the West were hoping. At best, these 142 2018 Index of U.S. Military Strength uprisings made slow progress toward demo- reinforced Shiite Islamist revolutionaries in cratic reform. At worst, they added to politi- Yemen and Bahrain.15 cal instability, exacerbated economic problems, In Syria, the Assad regime’s brutal repres- and contributed to the rise of Islamist extrem- sion of peaceful demonstrations in early 2011 ists. Six years later, the economic and political ignited a fierce civil war that has led to the outlooks remain bleak.11 deaths of more than half a million people16 There is no shortage of security challenges and displaced about 4.8 million refugees in for the U.S. and its allies in this region. Iran has Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq, and Egypt.17 exacerbated Shia–Sunni tensions to increase More than 6.3 million people are internally its influence on embattled regimes and under- displaced within Syria.18 The destabilizing mine adversaries in Sunni-led states. Tehran spillover effects of this civil war include the attempts to run an unconventional empire by creation of large refugee populations that exerting great influence on sub-state entities could become a reservoir of potential recruits like Hamas (Palestinian territories); Hezbollah for extremist groups. In Jordan, where King (Lebanon); the Mahdi movement (Iraq); and Abdullah’s regime has been buffeted by Arab the Houthi insurgents (Yemen). In Afghani- Spring protests and adverse economic trends, stan, Tehran’s influence on some Shiite groups Syrian refugees now account for more than is such that many have even volunteered to 10 percent of the population. This has placed fight for Basher al-Assad in Syria.12 Iran also even more strain on Jordan’s small economy, provided arms to the Taliban after it was oust- scarce water resources, and limited social ser- ed from power by a U.S.-led coalition13 and has vices, creating rising resentment among the long considered the Afghan city of Herat, near local population. the Afghan–Iranian border, to be within its In 2015, more than 1 million migrants and sphere of influence. refugees from across the Middle East crossed The Iran nuclear agreement has strength- into Europe—the largest numbers of migrat- ened Tehran’s ability to establish regional he- ing people that Europe has seen since World gemony.
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