The Absence of Middle Eastern Great Powers: Political "Backwardness" in Historical Perspective Author(S): Ian S

The Absence of Middle Eastern Great Powers: Political "Backwardness" in Historical Perspective Author(s): Ian S. Lustick Source: International Organization, Vol. 51, No. 4 (Autumn, 1997), pp. 653-683 Published by: The MIT Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2703502 . Accessed: 31/10/2013 15:10

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This content downloaded from 130.91.177.89 on Thu, 31 Oct 2013 15:10:22 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions The Absenceof Middle EasternGreat Powers: Political"Backwardness" in HistoricalPerspective Ian S. Lustick

Propelledby the oil boomof the mid-1970s the Middle East emergedas theworld's fastestgrowing region.' Hopes and expectations were high for Arab political consolidation,economic advancement, and cultural efflorescence. With falling oil pricesand a devastatingwar between Iran and Iraq,these hopes had dimmedsomewhat by the early1980s. In 1985,however, the spectacular image of an Arabgreat power was stilltantalizing. A Pan-Arabstate, wrote two experts on theregion, would include a totalarea of 13.7million square kilometers, secondonly to theSoviet Union and considerably larger than Europe, Canada, China,or theUnited States.... By 2000 itwould have more people than either ofthe two superpowers. This statewould contain almost two-thirds of the world'sproven oil reserves.It wouldalso haveenough capital to financeits own economicand socialdevelopment. Conceivably, it could feed itself.... Access to a hugemarket could stimulate rapid industrial growth. Present regional in- equalitiescould ultimately be lessenedand the mismatch between labor-surplus andlabor-short areas corrected. The aggregatemilitary strength and political influenceof this strategically located state would be formidable....It is easyto comprehendwhy this dream has longintoxicated Arab nationalists.2 Withinten years, however, this assessment sounded more like a fairytale thana scenario.Indeed the last two decades have been dispiriting for Arab nationalists, not onlymeasured against the prospect of a greatnational state, but compared to levels of

I am gratefulfor helpful comments made on preliminarydrafts of thisarticle by ThomasCallaghy, Melani Cammett,Avery Goldstein, Steven Heydemann, Friedrich Kratochwil, Sevket Pamuk, and this journal'sanonymous reviewers. The paperon whichthis article is based was originallyprepared for a January1996 workshop on "Regionalismand the Middle East" organizedunder the auspices of the Joint Nearand Middle East Committeeof the Social ScienceResearch Council. 1. El Mallakh1978,195. 2. Drysdaleand Blake 1985,225. For similarexpectations and scenarios of Arab unity, prosperity, and power,see Kerr1982, 2; and El Mallakh1978, 186-89. On thepotential for a greatArab state, see, for example,Waterbury 1978, 53-55, 100; Lucianiand Salame 1988, 13; Salam6 1988a,264, 278; and Sira- geldin1988, 204.

InternationalOrganization 51, 4, Autumn1997, pp. 653-83 ? 1997by The IO Foundationand the Massachusetts Institute of Technology

This content downloaded from 130.91.177.89 on Thu, 31 Oct 2013 15:10:22 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 654 InternationalOrganization cooperationand interstate integration inEurope, Asia, and the Americas, where highly developedcountries are joining with rapidly expanding emergent economies in re- gionallybased communitiesof wealthand growth.In theMiddle East, on theother hand,all integrationschemes have failed. Intraregional trade remains very low, with estimatesranging between 2 and 8 percentover the last fifteen years.3 Most Middle Easternstates are experiencing either economic stagnation or absolute decline. From 1980 to 1991 theMiddle East (includingIsrael and Iran,but not Turkey) and North Africaregistered almost a 3 percentdecrease in annual income growth compared to a 1 percentdecrease in Sub-SaharanAfrica and a 1 percentincrease for all thedevelop- ing world.4The regionsuffered a declineof almost2 percentin grossdomestic product(GDP) per capitabetween 1980 and 1993.5Unemployment in 1993 was twiceas high(15 percent)as thatin anyother region of the world.6 Manyexplanations have been offeredfor disunity, economic stagnation, and the failureof anyMuslim or Arab state to emergeas or to builda MiddleEastern great power.Despite the rhetoric and sentimentof Arab nationalism and Arab unity and, morerecently, Islamic unity, contemporary Middle Eastern history is riddledwith parochialhostilities, meaningless schemes for mergers and federations, and a raftof regimesstrong enough to suppressdissidents but too weakand insecureto riskinti- mateforms of cooperationwith their neighbors. With "artificial" colonial borders virtuallyintact, energy and capital surpluses are mostly separated from demographic bulkand centersof militaryand administrativecapacity and politicalappeal. These conditions,it is oftenpointed out, have preventedMiddle Easterners from building largeinternal markets and from exploiting their homogeneity, resources, and administrative-politicalcapacity for dynamic, long-term economic growth.7 Mostanalysts who have confronted what Fouad Ajami dubbed the "Arab predicament"have implicitlyor explicitlyused theprocesses and successesof European integrationafter World War II to identifythe requisites of success in theMiddle East and thereasons for failure.8 Those whohave thoughtthe prospects were not all bad forArab integration have stressedwhat they deemed the growing self-confidence, pragmatism,and flexibilityof stateswhose separatesovereignty was increasingly recognizedand accepted as permanentby their neighbors. Using Western Europe as a pointof reference,these observers expected Arab governmentswould therebybe able to leave asideold feudsand cooperate without worrying about political dissolu-

3. See Miller1993, 8; Shafik1995, 17. 4. Shafik1995, 15. 5. Ibid., 65. Annualgrowth in GDP in theregion also decreased,from a peak of 6 percentin the mid-1970sto less than1 percentin thelate 1980s.See ibid.,4. 6. Diwan 1995,3. 7. Fora usefullist of failed Arab integration initiatives, see Azzam 1993,227-28. 8. Despitethe recent emphasis on Islam as a unifyingpolitical identity in theMiddle East, no frame- workhas beenor is morepromising as a basisfor achieving substantial political and economic integration thanArab nationalism.Therefore, I focus my analysison thefailure of Arab integrationor Arab state building,while acknowledging that Arabism has neverbeen completely divorced from Islamic motifs and suggestingat theend of the article that the argument works equally well for Muslim schemes for political integration.For a sampleof the "obituaries"written for Arab national unity, see Brown1984, 27-43; Ajami 1992; andTibi 1990,24-25.

This content downloaded from 130.91.177.89 on Thu, 31 Oct 2013 15:10:22 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Absenceof Middle Eastern Great Powers 655 tionor subversion.9Some analystshave stressedthe functional necessity of close economiccooperation and political integration, arguing from necessity to inevitabil- ityor likelihood.'0Others trace the large-scale movement of laborand remittances acrossArab state boundaries, recalling, in theiranticipation that such interdependen- cies werebinding the Arab world into an economicwhole, theories associated with KarlDeutsch and Ernst Haas to theeffect that increasing transactions across borders andthe unintended spillover of functionally important requirements for cooperation wouldlead Europetoward both political and economic integration. "I More pessimistic analystshave used theEuropean experience to explainwhy the Arab world has notintegrated successfully. Citing regime heterogeneity in the Middle East, the absenceof strong democratic institutions, theskewed distribution ofwealth, and the weakness andinsecurity ofgovernments-these observers blame the failure of regional integration on howdifferent the Middle East is in theserespects from Western Europe. 12 My argumentbegins by suggestingthat, whether optimistic or pessimistic,these analysesare based on a misplacedanalogy of post-WorldWar II Europeanstates withpost-World War II Arabor, more broadly, Islamic or MiddleEastern states. A muchmore fundamental appreciation of the political and economic quandaries faced bythe peoples of theMiddle East is possibleif the dozens of statesin theregion are comparedto thescores and even hundreds of European states and principalities that, ingradually decreasing number, comprised Europe (and the lands bordering the North Atlantic)from the 1200s through the late nineteenth century. The questionthen be- comes:How is it thatpowerful states, such as GreatBritain, France, Russia, Ger- many,Italy, and theUnited States, could arise in theseregions-states that not only combinedthe natural resources, cultural affinities, demographic bulk, military capac- ity,administrative integrity, and economic wealth necessary for activity on theworld stageas greatpowers, but could also serveeither as hegemonicleaders in the construc- tionof regional blocs (especiallythe European Community) or as dependable,confi- dentpartners in suchendeavors? This recasts the essential question to be askedabout thecontemporary Middle East in a moreappropriate historical context. Why have therebeen no MiddleEastern great powers?

Westphaliaand Versailles:War and State Buildingin Europe and theMiddle East

"The OttomanTurks," wrote Albert Hourani, in one of his last essays, "may be calledthe Romans of the Muslim world." 13 Froma long-cycleperspective, focusing

9. See Noble 1991,52, 78-93; andTaylor 1982, 108-20. 10. See Sirageldin1988, 185-207; Kanovsky1968, 350-76; Bani Hani 1984, 184; and Drysdaleand Blake 1985,225. 11. Ibrahim1982, 17-70. 12. See Nonneman1993; Miller 1993, 3-6. Regardingcivil society, see Barakat1993; and Luciani and Salame 1988,16-21. 13. Hourani1991, 130.

This content downloaded from 130.91.177.89 on Thu, 31 Oct 2013 15:10:22 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 656 InternationalOrganization on theevolution of statesand thecultural, military, and politicalframeworks that incubatethem, the analogy between the Ottomans and the Romans is foundedon the gradualattenuation and eventual disappearance of an imperialcenter. Both the Otto- manEmpire in theMiddle East and theHoly RomanEmpire in medievaland early modernEurope advanced and upheld(sometimes in reality,sometimes as legal fic- tions)claims of authorityover heterogeneous populations, complex arrays of monarchs,satraps, vassals, and enormousland masses divided into gradually stabilizing butnever fixed administrative segments. For theemirs, sheikhs, and walis of the Arabworld, the gradual decline and finaldisappearance of the Ottoman Empire was equivalentto the gradualdecline and eventualdisappearance of the Holy Roman Empirefor the lords, dukes, kings, and princes of Europe. In bothcases enforcement ofclaims to authorityover wide cultural and geographicareas (Muslim Middle East andChristian Europe) was abandonedand replaced with parochial but locally potent claimsto sovereigntyover small pieces of the region by local elites. In Europethe Westphalian treaties of 1648 gave formalacknowledgment to the validityof these claims (insofar as theycould be upheldin thearena of international politicaland military competition) and to replacement of the universal sovereignty of theemperor with a hostof separatesovereigns whose autonomousexistence had longsince acted as themainspring of Europeanpolitics. In theMiddle East, on the otherhand, most local elitesready to advancetheir own claims to ruleterritories no longerincorporated within the Ottoman Empire were, for the most part, cast aside or submergedbeneath the superordinatepower and imperialambitions of European states.This process began long before World War I, butit was theTreaty of Versailles thatformally acknowledged replacement of theOttoman Empire's universal sover- eigntywith rule by differentEuropean "mandatory" powers under the auspices of theLeague ofNations. In thiscontext, the League of Nations stood for nothing more thanthe European state system, which had, in anycase, longsince emerged as the decisiveforce in MiddleEastern political affairs. Hereis revealedthe most important difference in thedevelopmental trajectories of statesystems in Europeand theMiddle East. Europeanstates developed, expanded, madewar, gained victories, and consolidated-orsuffered defeats, shrunk, failed to consolidate,and disappeared-inan internationalcontext of moderatedbut violent disorder.By onereckoning, in 1900 "therewere around 20 timesfewer independent politiesin Europethan there had been in 1500.They did not disappear peacefully or decayas thenational state developed; they were the losers in a protractedwar of all againstall." 14 As CharlesTilly noted, early modern Europe was anarchic,but, "largely as a resultof theprevious unification under the Roman Empire," it was, in broad culturalterms, fairly homogeneous.'5 This setting required prudent rulers of states to be ambitiousand encouraged them to consider absorption (rather than destruction) of neighboringpopulations and wealthydistricts as a routeto increasedpower. Even moreimportantly, rulers operating within this system did so freefrom the actual or

14. Cohen,Brown, and Organski 1981, 902. 15. Tilly1975, 77.

This content downloaded from 130.91.177.89 on Thu, 31 Oct 2013 15:10:22 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Absenceof Middle Eastern Great Powers 657 potentialinterference of outsidepowers whose military, economic, and administrative capacities,by dwarfingthose of theyoung European states, could have pre- ventedthe system from operating. Nor were these rulers constrained by international normsagainst acquiring new territory as a resultof victory in waror threat of war.'6 In theMiddle East, on theother hand, and in theArab Middle East in particular, rulersof territories,or candidatesfor rulership, found themselves not onlyover- whelmedby the tremendous power of individual European or North American states (especiallyBritain, France, Italy, and the United States) but subjected to an elaborate arrayof internationalinstitutions and norms (represented by the system of Concerts andCongresses of the nineteenth century and theLeague of Nationsand theUnited Nationsin the twentieth century). In sharpcontrast to the war-lubricated Westphalian system-whoseunits expanded into great powers, sunk to middleor smallpower status,or disappearedaltogether, as a resultof warswaged at thehighest levels of forceavailable at thetime-the system of colonialsubordination and externallyen- forcednorms to whichthe nineteenth and twentiethcentury Middle East was sub- jecteddid notallow cross-border warfare by local rulersto effectsubstantial change in thenumber, size, or internal regimes of states. My claimis thatthese historical sequence-linked differences in thegeopolitical contextof European and MiddleEastern state system development constitute not the onlybut the single most important explanation for thecontemporary absence of a MiddleEastern great power. In partthis contention is inspired by Alexander Gerschen- kron'sfamous argument more than forty years ago. Gerschenkronpointed out that becauseof competition from states whose economies had already industrialized, Rus- sia andother latecomers to industrialization could not achieve industrialization through freemarket capitalism (as had earlycomers such as Britainand France).'7I argue thatthis kind of historicalperspective can explainpolitical as well as economic "backwardness."18 In thisGerschenkronian sense, the route available for the achieve- mentof great power status in Europeand North America, which included large-scale state-buildingwars, has notbeen available to those who sought and still seek to enter thegreat power club after its establishment. Prevailingtheories of theconditions under which large centralized monarchical and nationalstates crystallized in WesternEurope emphasize competition among a plethoraof potentialcore territories, each possessingeconomic resources, adminis- trativecapacities, cultural solidity, geographical advantages, and/or military capabilities.'9These "conqueringcores" or "conquestcenters," were motivated to expand

16. Finer1974, 97. 17. Gerschenkron1962. 18. The quoteshere are of particular importance since by invoking Gerschenkron's argument I mean to drawattention only to thelatecomer logic of theargument as explainingfailure of a particularkind- politicalfailure by all MiddleEastern states to join theranks of the great powers. I do notmean to imply a breakdownin theprocess of modernization, any sort of intrinsic cultural or economicbackwardness, or a backwardnessin theform of thepolity that emerged in theMiddle East comparedto Europeand North America. 19. Fora widelycited survey tracing contemporary European states to theiroriginal "core-areas," see Poundsand Ball 1964,24-40.

This content downloaded from 130.91.177.89 on Thu, 31 Oct 2013 15:10:22 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 658 InternationalOrganization and consolidatetheir protostate apparatuses by aspirationsto establishlarger "em- pires"(that is, sovereignstates) of their own for the greater glory of the ruling house, by a varietyof aggrandizingimpulses, and by strategicworries about threats from competitorswho might otherwise absorb march lands or weakerneighbors. In Brit- ain thewars of Alfred the Great and of thePlantagenet and Tudormonarchs forged theheptarchy into England and the British Isles intothe United Kingdom. In France, warsconducted by Capetianand Valois kings from the Ile de Franceproduced, over centuries,the greatstate we knowas France.In Russia theczars foughtwars of expansionand repressionto join Slavic territorieswest of theUrals and vast ex- pansesof Asia eastof the Urals to thedomain ruled from Muscovy. Using Prussia as a base, Bismarckiandiplomacy and a seriesof wars againstAustria, France, and othersproduced Germany. In Italy,Piedmont fought wars against Austria, sponsored Garibaldi'slanding in Sicily,and marchedits armydown the Italian peninsula to destroythe old Bourbonmonarchy, thereby eliminating the jealous rivalriesamong separateprincipalities and city-statesthat had forso long dividedItalians.20 The bloodystruggle between North and Southin NorthAmerica transformed what could have been a loose confederationof states,or a continentdivided into three or four states,into a continentalstate dominated by a coherentpolitical, economic, and cul- turalelite.2l The longhistories of Japanand Chinareflect the same hard truth-that no greatstate in today'sworld has arisenpeacefully or legally.22 The argumentis notone ofdesign or destiny, but of evolution and at leastpartially unintendedconsequences. "No dynastyset out to build a nation-state;"argued V. G. Kiernan, each aimedat unlimitedextension ... andthe more it prospered the more the outcomewas a multifariousempire instead of a nation.The nationwas theem- piremanque. It had to be largeenough to surviveand to sharpenits claws on its neighbors,but small enough to be organizedfrom one centreand to feelitself as an entity.23

20. Prussiaand Piedmontfought fiercer, more purposeful, and temporallymore concentrated wars of nationalunification precisely because, in theEuropean context, Germany and Italy were late developers as nationalstates. In otherwords, consistent with my argument about the obstacles to achievinggreat power statusfaced by political latecomers outside of Europe, these European latecomers themselves faced higher barriersto entryto thegreat power club thandid theirpredecessors-barriers they surmounted through determinedleadership, strategic planning, large-scale military exertions, and fortuitoustactical alliances withexisting great powers (Piedmont and Franceversus Austria; Prussia and Italyversus Austria and France).The contoursof Italy were in particularconstrained by what Tilly referred to as the"filling-in of thestate system." See Tilly1975, 46. See also Finer1974, 84, 95. 21. Deudney1995, 191-228. 22. Japan'sreemergence as a greatpower after World War II, alongwith that of Germanyand China, owes a greatdeal not onlyto theimplementation of disciplineddevelopmentalist and neomercantilist policies,but to theprior creation of unified,territorially expansive, and demographicallyweighty states throughwars of survival,conquest, and expansionamong contending subunits (wars of Germanunifica- tionin thenineteenth century and the warring states periods of Chinese and Japanese history) as wellas to theevolution of strongstates and powerfuleconomies linked to participationin warswith other great powers,from the Sino-Japanese War of the 1890s and theRusso-Japanese War of theearly twentieth centuryto thetwo world wars. 23. Kieman1965, 35.

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In 1902Otto Hintze offered a more general version of this theory for the evolution oflarge, strong territorial states in Europe: It was thesituation of the European state system that made the formation of greaterstates historically necessary. France was forcedinto this direction by her strugglewith the Habsburgs; and onceFrance had setthe example, it became a necessityfor the other European states to followher example if they wished to preservetheir independence. The developmentof military and political power andconstant military preparedness were possible only on thebasis of a larger, centrallyruled and administrative territory. The militaristsystem, with all thatit entailedin politicalterms, proceeded from the power struggles and rivalries of theContinental states after the close ofthe Middle Ages.24 Of all ofHintze's disciples, Tilly has offeredthe best and most influential formula- tionof the argument-that "war made the state, and the state made war."25 At least, andthis is mypoint, this is how it workedin Europeand North America, and thisis theonly way we knowthat a "greatpower" can be constructedin themodern world. The institutionalmechanisms that provided this link between successful prosecu- tionof externalwars and the expansion(territorial and otherwise)of stateswere political,administrative, and fiscal.Politically, it became necessaryfor absolutist monarchsto extend rights of representation ingovernment to thosecapable of paying thetaxes necessary to finance wars they wished to fight or felt compelled to be ableto fight.26Development of the "national"idea and theextension of politicalrights to thegentry, the bourgeoisie, and laterthe working class therebybecame associated withstates whose relative legitimacy permitted them to raise more taxes, build larger militarycapabilities, and fight more wars to victorious conclusions or at least prevent theirdestruction atthe hands of other expanded states.27 The muchlarger and techno- logicallysophisticated armies and navies sponsoredby thesestates also required moredeveloped and effectiveadministrative structures to extractresources (con- scriptsand taxes),direct their growth, and createbroader indigenous (or colonially supervised)industrial and agricultural bases to assurelogistical support.28 The use of theseenhanced capabilities to prosecutesuccessful wars thenled to even greater administrativeand political capacities to tax and extract other resources.29 While new militarybureaucracies served as modelsfor more powerful and ambitiousforms of statecontrol over civil affairs, investments in military-relatedindustrial and agricul-

24. Hintze1975, 174. 25. See Tilly1975, 42; andTilly 1985. Explaining Germany's rise to great power status, Dehio wrote of "dynamicdiversity" and "fertilefriction" among the Hellenic city-states, the principalities of Renais- sanceItaly, and in Europeas a whole.These were the key factors, he argued,reflected in "theperpetual motionof its struggles,"that in a culturallyunified but politically divided Europe "gave riseto an im- menseheightening of all vitalenergies" and produced the modem great powers. See Dehio 1962,21-23. See also Finer1974, 79-126; andZolberg 1980. 26. See Ibid.,694, 708, 712; Tilly1975, 23, 35; Finer1974, 104-106; and Tilly 1990, 96-126. 27. See Ardant1975, 196-99; Braun 1975; andTilly 1990, 183. 28. See Tilly 1975,73-74; Tilly1990, 67-95; Finer1974, 98; andGiddens 1985, 111-16. 29. See Finer1974, 98; Tilly1990, 189-90.

This content downloaded from 130.91.177.89 on Thu, 31 Oct 2013 15:10:22 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 660 InternationalOrganization turalgoods contributedto acceleratedgrowth of demandand productionin the economyas a whole.30 As statesbecame stronger, their neighbors had to becomestronger-politically, fiscally,militarily, demographically, and territorially. For the states that became great powers,all thesedimensions of powerwent together.31 Weaker states either disap- pearedin the strugglesamong more substantial powers (for example, Burgundy, Brittany,Scotland, Schleswig-Holstein, Hanover, Venice, the American Confed- eracy,Sicily, Lombardy, and Bavaria) or securedtheir independence (for example, Belgium,the Netherlands, Switzerland, Luxembourg, Portugal, and Poland) in a web of alliancesand neutralityagreements with great powers unwilling, at leastfor sub- stantialperiods of time, to risk war over their future. A broaderbut weaker version of my argument is thatstates, anywhere in the world, thatcould notby theend of thenineteenth century credibly contend at thehighest strategiclevel and project power beyond their own geographical regions were much less likelyto gain the capabilityto do so subsequently.A strongerbut narrower versionof theargument, and thatis whatI am advancinghere, is thatthis factor- latecomerstatus-is themost important element explaining the failure of great powers,or a singlegreat power, to emergein theMiddle East. In eithercase, I attribute thisdifferential likelihood to thepotential for existing great powers to interruptthe dynamicinteraction of warand statebuilding that had helpedbring them into exis- tenceas suchand to the new, dense, and increasingly constraining network of antibel- ligerencynorms in theinternational arena.32 The argumentis hardlynew thatthe predicament of weak thirdworld states is a functionof theirlate arrivalin an internationalsystem already dominated by and reflectingthe interests of establishedlarge powers. In theeconomic realm, world systemstheory and dependencytheory are bothbased on thissequential logic. But thesetheories were advanced to explainenduring patterns of economicunderdevel- opmentor underperformance.Strong critiques of this cluster of theories,by empha- sizingthe record of East Asianand LatinAmerican newly industrializing countries (NICs), highlightthe fact that the debate over the causes of "underdevelopment"and therange of opportunitiesthird world states have to improvetheir lot withinthe internationaleconomy has been severelyand instructivelyrestricted. Even those economistsand otheranalysts associated with the World Bank and theInternational MonetaryFund (IMF), whohave trumpeted the potential of "structuraladjustment" as an escape routefrom poverty and underdevelopment,set theirsights for these

30. See Giddens1985, 128-35; andZolberg 1980, 696. 31. Ibid.,691, 693. 32. China,India, and Brazil are examples of very large countries that may now, or soon,be legitimately considered"great powers" but which did nothave thisstatus at theend of thenineteenth century. These countriescan be consideredexceptions that prove the rule. China was constructedas a unifiedstate as a resultof many wars among Chinese states-wars that occurred well before any European or North American greatpower was in a positionto intervene,and thecountry was simplytoo vastto be occupiedby the imperialpowers even duringthe period of the Open Door. India and Brazil,on the otherhand, were shelteredfrom extraregional interventions by Britishand Portuguese (and thenU.S.) imperialism.

This content downloaded from 130.91.177.89 on Thu, 31 Oct 2013 15:10:22 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Absenceof Middle Eastern Great Powers 661 societiesno higherthan bringing economic performance into line withpopulation growth,employment requirements, and moderatelyincreasing standards of living.33 Insofaras theoristsworking along these lines have soughtto explainthe absence of large-scalestate frameworks for economic development, they have simplyre- ferredto theconsequences of Europeanimperialism and the "artificial"fragmenta- tionenforced by post-colonial boundaries. This approach, however, implies that such fragmentationdid not have to be overcomein Europeand thereby ignores the crucial role thatwar playedin producingthe kind of statesthat could buildlarge internal markets,secure necessary trading and investmentadvantages abroad, and sustain industrialdevelopment.34 Neither dependency-world system theorists nor their crit- ics imagineany form of political expansion for states not already established as great powersapart from peaceful regional cooperation or integration.Implicitly, but most categorically,they rule out statestrategies of forcibleexpansion that could, intend- edlyor not,result in imperialor nationaleconomies and internationalmilitary and politicalcapabilities sufficient to rivalthose of theestablished great powers. When suchscenarios are described, as theyoften are by American and European analysts in regardto thepossibility of a largeArab or fundamentalistIslamic state,they are presentedas whollyillegitimate and dangerous.35 One schoolof thought that makes a clearconnection between the character of third worldstates and the consequences of historical sequence that gives them that appel- lationis thecluster of studies produced by Carl Rosberg, Robert Jackson, and Jeffrey Herbst.36These scholars have developed the view that the survival of so manyweak statesin thethird world is due to thesupport of an internationalpolitical order that upholdsexisting boundaries and existingregimes against internal threats and challenges.They have contrastedthe actual weakness and politicalincapacity of these "quasi-states"to thestrength and politicalcapacity of theauthentically sovereign statesthat arose in Europe and North America before this century. These "empirical" or "real" states,in Jackson'sterminology, earned their status by exercising effective control,without external assistance, over the territories and peoples within their des- ignatedboundaries. My contentionis thatthese writers have failed to recognize an equallyconsequen- tialeffect of extraregionalpowers and internationalnorms on thirdworld political development.In theMiddle East, perhaps more than in Africa(where the Jackson- Rosberg-Herbstline of analysis has beenmost thoroughly applied) the effect of great

33. Withregard to theMiddle East, see, for example, Diwan and Squire 1993, 37. 34. SteinRokkan argued strongly that "the European sequence simply cannot be repeatedin thenewest nations.The new nation-buildershave to startout from fundamentally different conditions; they face an entirelydifferent world." He wenton to suggestthat these new states could learn from his analysisof the "manyfacets" of Europeanstate building but never considered the implications of an environment- presentin Europeanhistory and largely absent in themodern Middle East-tolerant of successful,preda- torywar. See Rokkan1973, 94. See also Rokkan1981. 35. Fora rareexception, see StephenVan Evera's mention of future wars among Arab states as compa- rableto thewars of Italian and German unification in thenineteenth century. See VanEvera 1994,1 In. 36. See Jacksonand Rosberg1982; Jackson1987; Herbst1989. For applicationof theseideas to the ArabMiddle East, see Hudson1988, 32-36.

This content downloaded from 130.91.177.89 on Thu, 31 Oct 2013 15:10:22 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 662 InternationalOrganization powerintervention and enforcement ofinternational norms has been not only to prop up otherwisevulnerable regimes against internal challenges, but to preventpotential regionalhegemons from exercising their relative capacities by conqueringor other- wisecoercively integrating their neighbors.37 To theextent that one acceptsthe argumentthat political violence on a grandscale is howall developinggreat powers have weldedlarge populations and extensivevaluable territories within a singleadminis- trativedomain and a singlemarket, one mustexpect that international norms and greatpower policies have been responsiblefor blocking the emergence of a great powerin theMiddle East by deterringor preventingstate-building wars from being foughtto successfulconclusions across existing Middle Eastern boundaries.38 Theimportance of this analysis for explaining political weakness in the third world is evidentfrom the crucial but unnoticed relationship between two observations made byJackson in thecourse of his argument. Jackson claims that if left to themselves, mostexisting third world states would crumble into far smaller particularisms. Theseentities might be morecoherent domestically than existing quasi-states, andthere probably would be fewercivil conflicts. However, they would fragment existinginternational society into a fargreater number of jurisdictions than exist now.Instead offifty states, Africa would contain more than ten or twentytimes as many... an unmanageablenumber and wouldexpose the continent to far greaterrisks of external control than it faces at present.39 Note herehow theprospect of a thirdworld fragmented into hundreds of small stateletsis consideredretrograde, "unmanageable," and apt to expose thesmaller unitsto even "greaterrisks of external control" (meaning, presumably, from outside thethird world). Yet some pages later, as Jacksonis describingEuropean conditions in theseventeenth century under which "real" statesdeveloped, he mentionsthat therewere "three hundred-odd independent sovereignties inGermany alone." Among thesehundreds of statesand principalities, proximityand power meant there was alwaysa strongpossibility of war:the classicalproblem of a states-system.Deterrence, alliance, and the balance of powerare responses to it.But competitionwas also a spurto state-buildingand one ofthe main reasons for the eventual global hegemony of Europe.40

37. In a 1990 articleHerbst does identifyinterstate war as a keyelement in Europeanstate expansion and focuseson the absenceof interstatewar as a hindranceto statebuilding in Africa.However, he attributespeace inAfrica to thevested interests and policies of African elites who do notwish to risk their holdon powerby destabilizingthe prevailing distribution of territoryamong states. Instructively, and in sharpcontrast to his emphasiselsewhere on internationalsystem responsibility for preventing successful internalchallenges to Africangovernments, Herbst does notmention the international system as a con- strainton successfulaggrandizing wars in Africa or the third world. See Herbst1990. 38. Foran argumentthat, however briefly, does join thegeneral point I am makingto considerationof Africa,see Ali Mazrui's commentsabout European "disimperialization" of potentiallylarge African states.See Mazrui 1984, 307. For moretypical treatments of thethird world as havingsuffered from "permissive"great power norms with respect to interstate violence and that emphasize the domestic locus of securitythreats in thethird world without reference to theinternational system's prevention of successfulaggrandizing wars, see Ayoob1991; and David 1991. 39. Jackson1990, 42 (emphasisadded). 40. Ibid.,51.

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In otherwords, a circumstancethat Jackson identifies as thebeginning of a process leadingto real states and great powers in Europe (hundreds of small states) is treatedas an insuperableobstacle when located in thethird world. Thus Jackson acknowledges that a keyelement in theproduction of biggerand strongerEuropean states was a prolonged periodof aggrandizing and balancing wars among a largenumber of small states. However, hisfocus on the support granted to third world regimes against internal threats leads him to missthe extent to which"external control" also preventsthe kind of rough-and-tumble interstateviolence through which some of those small states could become the third worldequivalents of Muscovy, Piedmont, Prussia, Wessex, or the Ile de France. I nowturn to a briefaccount of three attempts by Middle Eastern state builders to use aggrandizingwars and subversion to expand their states-accounts that highlight the importanceof extraregionalinterventions and firmlyestablished international normsas obstaclesto thesuccessful construction of a newgreat power. The importanceof these cases is notin thefailure of Egyptian and Iraqi elites to weldthe entire ArabMuslim Middle East intoa singlestate. After all, despiteGerman, Austrian, Spanish,and Frenchattempts to uniteall ofEurope under one politicalsovereignty, thatnever occurred. Rather, the importance of thesethree cases is thatthey reveal how,through relatively small exertions of their tremendous power, the existing (Eu- ropeanand NorthAmerican) great powers repeatedly and decisivelyintervened to preventsuccessfully fought wars from being used by Middle Eastern state builders as a meansof doingwhat their European and NorthAmerican predecessors had done. Althougha creativeanarchy could workin theEuropean and NorthAtlantic state systemsto producegreat powers, the Middle Eastern state system-whose leading memberswere in absoluteterms at least as well organized,as populous,and as militarilypotent as earlymodern England or France-was notallowed to operateby thesame rules as hadthe European system.41

The Frustrationof Potential Middle EasternState Builders: ThreeExamples42 MuhammadAli The mostsignificant effort by a nineteenthcentury Middle Eastern ruler to transform histerritorial base intothe military, political, and economic core of a greatpower was

41. Anotherway to expressthis argument is thatbarriers to entryinto the ranks of thegreat powers weremuch lower for post-Holy Roman Empire European states than for post-Ottoman Middle Eastern states.Fundamentally, however, it was becausean arrayof great powers already existed in thelatter period andnot in theformer that these barriers to entrywere so substantial. 42. I will discusswhat I considerthe three most instructive examples, representing three of themost ambitiousand dramatic attempts to build an Arab great power. Evidence supporting my argument could be drawnfrom a hostof smaller-scaleventures where external intervention or theexternal enforcement of internationalnorms on behalfof recognized sovereign states or theprinciple of natural self-determination blockedor blunted state expansion by potential regional or subregional hegemons. These ventures include Syriaunder Assad regardingJordan in 1970 and Lebanonsince 1975; Israelin Sinai in 1948, 1956,and 1975-1981,in Lebanonin 1982-1984,and in theWest Bank and Gaza Stripin 1967-present;Libya regardingChad; Somaliaregarding the Ogaaden; Morocco regarding the Western Sahara; Iraq regarding Kuwaitin 1963; and variousIranian initiatives in the 1970s and 1980s. Concerningthe peculiarbut fundamentallyconsistent case ofIsrael, see Lustick1987, 152-54.

This content downloaded from 130.91.177.89 on Thu, 31 Oct 2013 15:10:22 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 664 InternationalOrganization thatof MuhammadAli. MuhammadAli was governor(wali) of Egyptunder the sovereigntyof theOttoman sultan. This somewhatuneasy relationship of powerful vassal to sovereignlord, when the vassal commandedmore military and economic wherewithalthan the lord, is morethan a littlereminiscent of therelationship be- tweenpowerful medieval kings, such as Henrythe II of England,and theirnominal sovereign,the Holy RomanEmperor. Despite the fact that Henry's military power and politicalposition were more secure and moredependable than those of the emperor,Henry publicly acknowledged the emperor's sovereign authority, even as he proceededto consolidatehis kingdom as thekind of "empiremanque" (the Angevin Empire)that Kiernan (quoted earlier) characterized as theEuropean route to nation- statehood.Consider the greetings to theEmperor Frederick contained in a twelfth centuryletter to himfrom Henry II: To thefriend dearest to hisheart, Frederick, by the grace of God themost in- vincibleemperor of the Romans, Henry, king of England, duke of Normandy andAquitane and count of Anjou, greeting and the harmony of true peace and love.... We laybefore you our kingdom and whatever is anywheresubject to oursway, andentrust it to yourpower, that all thingsmay be administeredin accordance withyour nod and that in all respectsyour imperial will be done... to you,who excelsus in worth,may fall the right to command,while we shallnot lack the willto obey.43 Similarlanguage would have been used in officialcorrespondence from Muham- madAli to theSublime Porte, even as Ottomansultans were begging Ali forhelp puttingdown revolts in Arabia,Crete, and Greece.Indeed, as AfafLutfi Al-Sayyid Marsothas describedin vividdetail, the wars fought by Ali andhis sons, particularly Ibrahim,while formally at thebehest of thesultan, were actually waged as partof a systematiceffort to expandtheir control of easternMediterranean trade routes and annexSyria. Territorial aggrandizement through predatory war was thecornerstone ofa policydesigned to winEuropean recognition as a greatpower for the state being builtby the Albanian dynasty around an Egyptiandemographic, military, administrative,and economic core. These wars began in 1812 whenthe sultan asked his "vassal" in Egyptto send troopsto Arabiato crushWahhabi power there and occupy Mecca and Medina.A secondwar, initiated by MuhammadAli, was an invasionof Sudan in 1820, listedby Marsotas the "second of the wars of Egyptianexpan- sion."44The purposeof thisexpedition was, accordingto Ali himself,"to provide

43. Folz 1969,196-97. 44. Marsot1984, 205. Marsot'streatment is takenhere as authoritative.Fred Lawson's recentstudy (1992) arguesthat Muhammad Ali's expansionismwas designedto alleviateinternal strains in thecoali- tionof socialgroups that governed Egypt rather than a coherentexercise in realpolitik.I am unpersuaded by Lawson's work,though I do notconsider his maincontentions to contradictthe argument advanced here.

This content downloaded from 130.91.177.89 on Thu, 31 Oct 2013 15:10:22 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Absenceof Middle Eastern Great Powers 665 largenumbers of slaves, to bring the territory under Egyptian dominion, and to search forand discover gold mines and other mineral resources."45 Withboth sides of theRed Sea now underMuhammad Ali's control,Egyptian powerwas directedelsewhere. Having earlier supported Greek rebels against the sultan,Muhammad Ali nowentertained pleas fromthe Porte to putdown the rebel- lion.Using the sultan's distress to gainhis approvalfor Egypt's annexation of Crete, Ali occupiedthat island in 1824and used it as a platformfor landing Egyptian forces in Greecein 1825. A stringof Egyptianvictories against the Greeks prompted the Concertof Europeto take noteof "a new PuissanceBarbaresque in Europe."46 Metternichhimself warned the European powers of Ali's questto join theirranks.47 Meanwhile,Muhammad Ali, acutelyaware of Europeanmilitary power and fearful of a Britishinvasion of Egypt,yet anxious to be acceptedas an equal, wroteto an Austriandiplomat to describe his ambitions in as soothinga manneras possible: I wantnothing but Egypt. My wishesgo no further.Egypt is a smallcountry, but so productivethat, without this war, it would have been a pearl.Ten years of peace andI willdraw from it fortymillion talaris [riyals]. If theyleave me to work,this country will be so transformedthat beside the four great world powers,England, Russia, Austria, and France,Egypt by its money will be thefifth.48 The existinggreat powers, however, were clearly unwilling to allowEgypt to join theirranks, at leastnot through successful military campaigns in proximateareas. AccusingMuhammad Ali of fosteringpiracy in theAdriatic, France, Austria, and Britaincombined to attackand sinkthe Egyptian fleet at Navarinoin October1828. As faras Britishmotives were concerned in thisincident, Marsot comments that an independentAfrican, or rather Mediterranean, authority was exactlywhat Mu- hammadAli wishedEgypt to become,and what England wished to denyhim. Such a statein controlover the trade and commerce of the eastern Mediterranean wouldpose a threatto Britishexpansionist commercial aims, in termsof trade, andwould turn the sea intoan Egyptianenclave over half its area.49 Ali's Greekexpedition was overbut not his ambitions for constructing an indepen- dentMiddle Eastern great power based in Egypt.He immediatelyset about building a newfleet and preparing another army for the conquest of Syria. In November1831, an Egyptianarmy under Ibrahim Pasha, Muhammad Ali's son, invadedPalestine, andcaptured Acre in May 1832 and Damascusin June.No longerwilling to accept Ali's protestationsof fealty,Sultan Mahmud declared him an enemyof theempire, buttwo Ottoman armies sent against the Egyptians were defeated. Fearing Ibrahim wouldnext march on Constantinopleitself, the sultan appealed to the European pow- ersfor help. When Russia responded by sendingwarships into the Bosporus, Britain andFrance took notice. Pressured by Britain and France, wary of Russia's intrusion,

45. Marsot1984. 46. Ibid.,208. 47. Ibid.,213. 48. Ibid.(emphasis added). 49. Ibid.

This content downloaded from 130.91.177.89 on Thu, 31 Oct 2013 15:10:22 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 666 InternationalOrganization and shortof supplies,Ibrahim concluded an agreementwith the sultan that recog- nizedEgyptian rule of Syria (including Palestine). Syriahad alwaysbeen thecenterpiece of MuhammadAli's ambitionto establish Egyptas a greatpower. Although he didnot imagine himself as a leaderof the Arabs, his sonIbrahim spoke Arabic, identified himself as anArab, and used political rheto- ricchallenging rule by emperorsor monarchs"on behalfof theconsensus (ijma) of theumma" that could easily be interpretedin quasi-nationalist terms.50 In anycase, in 1838 MuhammadAli announcedhis intentionof secedingfrom the empire and incorporatingSyria into his hereditarydomain. This promptedanother Ottoman ef- fortin 1839 to dislodgethe Egyptians from Syria, resulting in yetanother Ottoman defeatand Egypt's capture of the Ottoman fleet. On thedeath of Sultan Mahmud, the new sultan,Abdul Mejid, came to termswith Muhammad Ali in an agreementthat wouldhave recognized Egypt's permanent acquisition of Syria. The greatpowers would not tolerate this arrangement. Muhammad Ali, said Palm- erston,must be compelled"to withdrawinto his originalshell of Egypt."'51In July 1840 Russia,Prussia, Austria, and Englandannounced an agreementwith the Porte "forthe pacification ofthe Levant." The main thrust of this convention was an ultimatum to MuhammadAli to retracthis bid forindependence and permanentrule of Syria. WhenFrance backed away from supporting Egypt against Britain and the other powers,the stage was setfor ending Muhammad Ali's greatpower ambitions. "Coercion ofMehemet Ali byEngland if war broke out might appear partial and unjust," wrote Palmerston,"but we are partial;and thegreat interests of Europerequire that we shouldbe so."52British and Austrian ships cut Egypt's sea linksto Syria;a contingentof Britishmarines defeated Ibrahim's forces, and bothBeirut and Sidon were taken.When a Britishfleet then appeared in Alexandria itself, Muhammad Ali agreed to theterms of theTreaty of London,including evacuation of Syria,Arabia, and Crete,return of the Turkish fleet, and sharp reduction in thesize ofhis army. In additionto surrenderingterritories, military assets, and sovereignclaims, Mu- hammadAli was also compelledto acceptcapitulation treaties that proscribed the statemonopolies he hadestablished to strengthenEgypt's infant industries. The trea- tiesdoomed Egypt to a subordinaterole in theworld economy. As Marsotexplains, The granddesign of an empireand of hegemony over the Mediterranean evapo- rated.... Withoutembargoes, a captivemarket, and a largearmy to use up much ofthe manufactured goods, Egyptian industrialization slowed down, and most of thewar-related industries were dismantled. The Egyptianeconomic effort from henceforthbecame geared to turningthe country into an exportmarket for agri- culturalproducts ... to export[ing]her raw materials to Europe,where they were to be manufacturedand soldback to Egyptas finishedproducts.53

50. Ibid.,226. See also Dodwell 1931,257-58. 51. Marriott1917, 240. 52. Marsot1984, 240. 53. Ibid.,246-47. See also Ralston1990, 90, 95.

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"The Egyptianquestion," as Marriotput it, from his European perspective, "was nowsettled."54

GamalAbdel Nasser "Settled"as itmay have been in theearly nineteenth century, the Egyptian question reappearedin the 1950s and 1960s. This timeanother ambitious military leader, GamalAbdel Nasser, sought to establish a greatArab state, with Egypt as itsmilitary, cultural,and political core. He wrotethat a worldhistoric role existed for Egypt-a roleas leaderof the Muslim, Arab, and African worlds. The African side of Nasser's policy,however, was virtuallynonexistent, and afterhis brutalcrackdown on the MuslimBrotherhood at home,his project took on a distinctlyPan-Arab cast. Evoca- tionsof a great,united Arab state,from the Atlantic to theGulf, were a constant refrainin thepopular Sawt el-Arab (Voice of theArabs) transmissions from Cairo's powerfulnew radio station. Nasser's quest for Egyptian hegemony in theArab world was aided by thousandsof Egyptianteachers, journalists, and otherprofessionals workingthroughout the Arab Middle East. Egyptianvernacular, Nasserist thinking, Nasser's cadences,his visage,his alliancewith the Soviet Union,his proudand successfuldefiance of the Israeli-French-British invasion of 1956,and his supportof therevolt against France in Algeriaestablished Egypt in thelate 1950s and early 1960sas a potentcandidate for leadership of the Arab world and as a possiblevehicle forits consolidation into a newgreat power. As MuhammadAli had alwaysbeen waryof Britishintervention to block his state-buildingand state-expanding ambitions, so was Nasseranxious to remain in the good gracesof theUnited States-the new leaderof thegreat power club. When Nasser'sFree Officersoverthrew the Farouk monarchy in 1952, theUnited States was notsurprised. Friendly contacts had beenestablished in themonths before the revolutionbetween Nasser and the U.S. CentralIntelligence Agency (CIA). In 1954 theCIA channelto Nasserwas used to deliverfunds and explorea possibleU.S.- Egyptianalliance.55 But as Palmerstonand Metternichcould not abide a powerfuland independent Egypt,neither could Dulles, Eden,Mollet, or, for that matter, Kruschev abide the idea of a trulyindependent, powerful, and unitedArab state.In bothperiods the overweeningsuperiority of the greatpowers against any nascentMiddle Eastern powerallowed policies toward the Middle East to be guidedby mundane,often casual,and usuallymarginal jealousies, inclinations, and preferences.The British- sponsored"League ofArab States" and the American-sponsored Baghdad Pact were twoschemes for the political organization of Middle Eastern states that reflected both thegreat powers' enormous margin of superiorityand the way in whichgreat power policiesof majorimportance for Middle Easternstates could be fashionedrather cavalierlyby great power diplomats and intelligence officers.

54. Maniott1917, 244. 55. Eveland1980, 96-105.

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In theimmediate postwar period Great Britain had helpedfound the League of ArabStates as an institutionthat could at once preserveexisting boundaries within theArab world and enlistthe separate governments in cooperativeventures under Britishauspices. Such limited notions of Arab unity were already suspect in theeyes of theyoung military leaders and Nasseristand Baathistactivists who weretaking politicalpower or gaininginfluence in Egypt,Syria, Jordan, and Iraq.Western supportfor Israel and schemessuch as theMiddle East DefenseOrganization and the BaghdadPact reinforced suspicions that the great powers of the West were interested onlyin organizinga dividedArab world against the Soviet Union.56 The American- Egyptianrelationship soon souredas well. The UnitedStates first promised, then withdrewoffers of armsand aid forconstruction of theAswan Dam afterNasser demonstratedtoo much independence in hisforeign policy. WithArab-Israeli tensions heating up in 1955,Nasser turned to theSoviet Union forarms and moved to nationalizethe Suez Canal. Egyptianpropaganda against the BaghdadPact intensified, and waves of Arab nationalist agitation swept through the ArabEast. Pro-Nasser, anti-Western riots erupted in Jordan in January 1956, prompt- ingyoung King Hussein to orderhis Britishmilitary and political advisers out of the country.When antimonarchist Nasserists won electionsin Jordanin October1956, thenew prime minister immediately placed Jordan's military under an Egyptiangen- eral.Mass supportfor Nasser's leadership of a unitedArab worldrose to unprec- edentedlevels afterthe failure of theBritish-French-Israeli attack on Egyptin No- vember1956. Faced witha torrentof popular outrage, Jordan canceled its treaty with Britainand terminated the British subsidy. But whenJordan announced its rejection of proposalsfor the emergentEgyptian-Syrian union, pro-Nasser army officers, backedby Arab nationalist Palestinians, plotted to overthrowthe monarchy. In Syria a Baathist(radical Pan-Arab) regime was facedwith communist subversion from withinand American-supportedmilitary threats from Turkey, Iraq, and Jordan.In February1958 it dissolved itself and merged Syria into the Egyptian-dominated United ArabRepublic (UAR). Nasserimmediately invited all otherArab countries to be- comepart of the single great Arab state he was constructing. Nasserwell appreciated that he couldnot achieve the Pan-Arab unity he promised bypolitical appeals and inspiring rhetoric alone. Nasser had alreadyprovided political anddiplomatic support to theFront de LiberationNationale (FLN) in itsviolent struggleto end French rule of Algeria. In Lebanonin 1958a full-scaleArab national- istrevolt, animated by fervent support for Nasser among Lebanon's Muslim popula- tionand drawing military support from Syria (now part of the UAR), seriouslythreat- enedthe Maronite-dominated government. Meanwhile in Iraq,Nasser's propaganda and Egyptiansin thatcountry were agitating for the overthrow of themonarchy. In July1958 a Nasseritecoup, led byGeneral Abd al-KarimKassem, did overthrow the

56. In a 1952 lectureat theArab University in Beirut,George Habbash argued "that during the First andSecond World Wars the Arabs had adopted a policyof cooperation with the Allies. He askedwhat this policybrought other than occupation, partition, and disaster upon disaster. Besides, the pacts were clearly designedto perpetuatethe condition of semi-sovereigntyand to inhibitthe Arabs from changing their internalstatus quo." See Conrad1989, 231.

This content downloaded from 130.91.177.89 on Thu, 31 Oct 2013 15:10:22 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Absenceof Middle Eastern Great Powers 669 explicitlypro-Western Hashemite regime. When the new Iraqi ruler had a fallingout withhis erstwhilehero, mass demonstrationsoccurred in Cairo and Damascus in supportof a March 1959 revoltagainst the Kassem regime.The followingyear Jordanaccused Egypt of responsibilityfor the assassination of theJordanian prime minister.In theearly 1960s, with Syria's abrupt secession from the UAR, Nasser's focusturned toward Yemen, where Arab nationalist army officers had ousted the Imamate andinvited Egypt to sendsupport. By 1965 seventythousand Egyptian troops were inYemen helping the regime against royalist tribesmen supported by SaudiArabia. The Westerngreat powers responded to whatappeared to be developinginto a Pan-Arabnationalist juggernaut. Beginning in 1956 theUnited States and Britain sponsoredseveral clandestine operations designed to overturnthe Syrian and Egyp- tiangovernments through coups or assassinations(similar to theoperation that had deposedMossadegh and reinstalled the shah of Iran in 1953).57Early in 1957Wash- ingtonpromulgated the Eisenhower Doctrine under which American military and economicresources could be committedto theMiddle East to aid anygovernment threatenedby forcesdetermined to be associatedwith "international communism." Bolsteredby clandestinefinancing from the United States and thedispatch of the SixthFleet to the Eastern Mediterranean, King Hussein, in April 1957, used Bedouin troopsagainst his opponents, dissolved Parliament, and imposed martial law. Follow- ing the arrivalof a contingentof Egyptiantroops in Allepo laterthat year, King Husseincomplained of anotherNasserist plot againsthim. The UnitedStates re- spondedwith an airliftof tanks and artillery.58 In July 1958, fourteen thousand Ameri- can soldierslanded in Lebanonto protectthe government there against a Nasserist rebellionthat at one point controlled 75 percentof the country. At the same time, with logisticalsupport and aircover provided by theUnited States, two thousand British paratrooperslanded in Jordan to forestall a Nasseristcoup there. In languageremark- ablysimilar to thatused by theEuropean powers in supportof theOttoman Empire againstMuhammad Ali 120 yearsearlier, Britain and the United States both warned of "thegrave consequences of anyconflict between their forces and those under the controlof Egypt and Syria."59 Despitetheir explicit focus on whatthey perceived as thethreat of Sovietexpan- sionism,the United States, Britain, and France each pursued policies that treated any independentArab unity scheme going beyond the kind of cooperationamong exist-

57. See Eveland 1980; and Copeland1969. For a morerecent treatment of extensiveAmerican and Britishcovert operations in thisperiod, see Rathmell1995. 58. Eveland1980, 262. 59. TheMiddle East and NorthAfrica 1969-70, 1969,794. Althoughthe Soviet Union had supplied armsto Nasser before the 1956 war and had helped halt the Suez operation,Kruschev subsequently turned againstNasser when Egyptian rule of Syriaresulted in persecutionof Syriancommunists. To theextent thatIsrael's very existence, depriving Egypt of access by land to eitherJordan or Syria,interfered with Nasser'sability to project his power and consolidate Egyptian domination of those countries-to prevent, at least,Syria's secession-the argument made by many, that Israel (and Zionism) have acted as a toolof Westernimperialism to keepthe Arab world divided and weak, takes on a clear,perhaps decisive aspect. For variationsof this argument, see Shlaim1988, 232-55; Nonneman1993, 38-39; Safran1969, 83-87; andGause 1992,441-69.

This content downloaded from 130.91.177.89 on Thu, 31 Oct 2013 15:10:22 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 670 InternationalOrganization ingstates (as exemplifiedby the Arab League) as contraryto Western interests. These policieswere reflected in theBritish and French measures already mentioned as well as Frenchhostility toward Nasser for his inspirationand supportof rebelsin North Africa.The United States was concerned,not so muchabout any one country,such as Lebanon,Jordan, or Yemen, but about the prospect of a largeunited Arab state under vigorous"revolutionary" leadership. From the American perspective, in Miles Cope- land'swords, "Yemen was onlya foothold";Nasser's real interest was in "thewhole ArabianPeninsula."60 Dulles warnedthat a passive U.S. responseto Egyptian- Syrianunity would result in an expandingpower that "would shortly take in Jordan andthe Lebanon and ultimately Saudi Arabia and Iraq leavingus witha singleArab Stateostensibly under Nasser but ultimately under Soviet control."'6' In fact,U.S. oppositionto an Arabgreat power extended beyond concerns some did have of So- vietinfluence over such a state.As Dulles toldthe National Security Council (NSC) in early1958: "If thepolicy on thesupply of oil fromthe Arab statesto Western Europewere made uniform as a resultof the unification of the Arab states, [censored] thethreat to the vital oil supplyof Western Europe from the Near East would become critical."62 In the1960s the United States responded to Nasser'sextension of Egyptian power intoYemen with clumsy attempts to manipulatefood aid andmore effective military efforts,including stationing U.S. AirForce units in SaudiArabia. Overall, U.S. policy towardEgypt in theyears prior to theSix-Day War was designedto convinceNasser and his lieutenantsto call off"the Big Show."63Egypt was to be instructedthat it couldbenefit economically and politicallyfrom relations with the United States but onlyby abandoningefforts to bringabout Arab unity in theonly way (as everyone acknowledged)it couldbe achieved,through aggressive campaigns of propaganda, subversion,and militarypressure. As had been MuhammadAli, Nasserwas to be keptwithin "his originalshell of Egypt."

SaddamHusayn Fromthe perspective of political geographers such as NormanJ. G. Poundsand Sue SimonsBall or historiansof Europeanstate formation such as V. G. Kiernan,two areas in theArab worldcan be seen to closelymeet the economic, demographic, geographic,administrative, and cultural requirements of "conqueringcores" or "conquestcenters" around which great national states could successfully be constructed. One areais LowerEgypt, surrounding the Nile Delta andthe Nile RiverValley. The otheris Mesopotamia(now Iraq) centeredaround the Tigris and EuphratesRivers.

60. Copeland1969, 266. See also JohnWaterbury's comment that "Both Saudi Arabia and the United Statescame to believe that the Egyptian presence in the southwest corner of the Arabian peninsula was but theprelude to a subversiveeffort on thepart of Egypt to topplethe Saudi regimeand somehow'grab' the peninsula'soil. Fortheir part, radical Arab regimes saw theUnited States (and, by extension, Israel) as the principalimpediment to a rationalutilization of Arab resources." See Waterbury1978, 79. 61. Froma memosummarizing a February 1958 NSC meeting;cited by Mufti 1996, 100. 62. Froma memosummarizing a January 1958 NSC meeting;cited by Mufti 1996, 102. 63. Copeland1969, 256-57, 267-73.

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Syriaas well has oftenemerged as an importantforce in its own rightbut more commonlyas a focusof competition between these Nilotic and Mesopotamian states.64 Underthe Ottomans both Iraq and Syriareceded into backwater provinces of a non-Arab,Muslim empire. During the colonial and immediatepostcolonial period, neitherHashemite Iraq norBaathist Syria managed to establishitself as a powerful player.Egypt, on the otherhand, in theearly nineteenth century and in the mid- twentieth,emerged as a realcontender for leadership of the Arab Middle East. After Nasser'spassing, however, Anwar Sadat movedEgypt away from Pan-Arabism to- wardan Egypt-firstforeign policy based on alliancewith the United States and peace withIsrael. When Sadat signedthe Camp David Accordsin 1978 withoutsecuring thesupport of anyother significant Arab country, he openedthe door to Iraq and its youngand ambitiousleader, Saddam Husayn, to advancethat country's claim to the roleof an ArabPrussia or Piedmont to Saddam'sBismarck or Cavour. Beforeits overthrowin July1958, the British-installed Hashemite monarchy in Iraqhad failed in various efforts to consolidate the country as thecore, along with the otherBritish-installed Hashemite monarchy in Jordan,of a largeunited Arab state. Furthermore,neither the British nor the Americans-through the Baghdad Pact and the short-livedIraqi-Jordanian "Arab Union"-had succeededin usingIraq as a dependableanchor for their anti-Nasserist and anticommunistpolicies. By thelate 1970s,however, Iraq beganto comeinto its own.65 Following the jump in oil prices in 1973,Iraq's enormousoil reservesgave thestate a solidrevenue base. Saddam's systemof government,though brutally authoritarian at thetop, was also based on offersof culturalautonomy to theKurds and an extensivewelfare state. Centrally sponsoreddevelopment policies were effectiveenough to raise livingstandards throughoutthe country-especially in therural areas and amongthe Shia Arabplu- ralityin thesouth. Partly for this reason, Iraq seemedless vulnerableto thekind of sectarianstrife that afflicted Lebanon and threatened Syria and Jordan. Saddam'scultural policies celebrated his revivalof thecountry's world historic importanceunder the Sumerians, Assyrians, and Babyloniansin ancienttimes and theAbbassids during Islam's golden age. Saddamfostered images of a renascentIraq readyto exploit its political stability, economic resources, substantial population, and closeties with the Soviet bloc for the benefit of the Arab world as a whole.66Oil, Iraqi officialsargued, was morevaluable for the Iraqi and Arab nationif as muchas possiblecould be leftin theground for future use in petrochemicalindustries. Mean- whilepetrodollars, it was promised,would not be investedoutside the Arab area. Thanksin partto a slightbut meaningful moderation in its positiontoward Israel, Saddam'sgovernment managed to positionitself in thecenter of non-EgyptianArab attitudestoward Israel and establish Iraq, at the time of the Iranian Revolution, as the

64. Concerningthe usually unnoticed success of a Moroccanstate builder in theearly sixteenth century,see Cornell1990. 65. ConcerningIraq's ascendancein thelate 1970s,see Wright1979-80; Taylor 1982, 73-88; Salame 1988b,323-24; andDawisha 1988,272-74. 66. RegardingSaddam's cultural policies, see Davis and Gavrielides1991, 116-48;Freitag 1994, 31; andBaram 1983, 1984.

This content downloaded from 130.91.177.89 on Thu, 31 Oct 2013 15:10:22 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 672 InternationalOrganization politicalcore of theArab world. In November1978 an Arab summitconvened in Baghdadunited virtually the entire Arab world, including Saudi Arabia, against the Camp David Accordsand againstSadat. Egyptwas isolatedand expelledfrom the ArabLeague. Gulf subsidies to Cairowere ended. In 1979Saddam met with Asad of Syria.The two once and futureenemies agreed to an elaborate(albeit unimple- mented)federation scheme between their two nominallyBaathist regimes. Closer tiesbetween Iraq and Jordan and Saudi Arabia soon followed. Since thedisappearance of theHashemite Monarchy in 1958,the United States hadcome to depend largely on thePahlavi regime in Iran as an anchorfor its political andmilitary position in the Gulf. With the shah's overthrow in 1979the United States turnedto SaudiArabia; but as vitalas thatcountry's oil depositswere, and as helpful as the Saudi familycould be in fundingU.S. military,political, and intelligence activities,Saudi Arabiawas too smalldemographically and too weak militarilyto replaceIran. Egypt was a possibility,but its isolationafter Camp David made it almostas difficultto use as a politicalor strategic asset as Israel.This is thecontext of a hesitantbut real American tilt toward Iraq at the end of the 1970s and the beginning ofthe 1980s. The newpolicy was reflectedin substantialAmerican and Western aid to Iraq duringthe long, Iraq-initiated, war against Iran.67 This war,far bloodier and farmore disruptive than Iraq's subsequentinvasion of Kuwait, was notconsidered by theWest as a threatto civilizationor to Westerninterests. Indeed, it was regularly observedby Western diplomats and pundits that the longer the war went on, without a decisivewinner, the better-hence aid toIraq was enoughto prevent defeat, but not enoughto producea decisivevictory. Whenthe Iran-Iraq war ended in 1988 Iraq was economicallyexhausted-having paidall itspetrodollars for Western and Soviet arms-but militarily potent and politically cohesive.The stateswhose interestswere mostdirectly protected by Iraq's militarymachine-Kuwait, Saudi Arabia,and theother Gulf oil monarchies-now appearedto Baghdadas temptingtargets and even as itsrightful inheritance. Ultima- tumsissued againstKuwait in early 1990, the invasionof August1990, and the subsequentbarrage of propagandachallenging the legitimacy of all thesestates as obstaclesto thewelfare and destinyof theArab nation were a full-fledgedbid for Iraqihegemony in theArab world. As had Nasser,now Saddam Husayn was raising theArab banner against the legacy of Europeanimperialism and theobjectives of Westernneocolonialism-an Arab nation"divided in orderto be mutilated,fragmented,and weakened."68 Although the governments ofthe region (aside from Yemen andJordan) joined the anti-Saddam coalition to protecttheir own interests, popular opinion-fromBeirut to Nablus,Amman, Sana, andAlgiers-if unimpressedwith Saddam as a leader,was inspiredby the politicalambition of his move and the cogencyof his message.

67. See Hiro 1991,119-21; and Miller and Mylroie 1990, 143-48. 68. Speechto theFourth Conference of the Arab Popular Forces, Baghdad, 1 June1995, Baghdad Iraq Television,transcribed by theForeign Broadcast and InformationService, Daily Report:Near East and SouthAsia. 6 June1995. 1.

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An enormousamount has been writtenabout Iraq's invasionand occupationof Kuwaitin 1990and the massive American and allied intervention in 1990 and 1991 DesertShield and Desert Storm-that expelled Iraqi forces from Kuwait, destroyed a substantialproportion of Iraq's infrastructureand industrialcapacity, imposed crip- plingeconomic sanctions on theBaghdad regime, and severelylimited its sovereign controlover a substantialportion of northern(Kurdish) Iraq. The overwhelming majorityof this material casts Saddam as an internationaloutlaw and a brutaldictator whoseruthless use of militaryforce against his neighborswas an outrageagainst internationallaw and an intolerablethreat to internationalsecurity. Arguments ad- vancedby theBaghdad government or by its manysupporters in theArab world duringthe heady (for Pan-Arab nationalists) days of late 1990-about theparalyzing artificialityof boundariesimposed by Europeanimperialists, about the plutocratic regimeswhose control of Arabian peninsula oil wealthwas an insuperableobstacle to thebalanced development of theArab world as a whole,about double standards usedby the United Nations when dealing with belligerent occupation of territory by Israelas opposedto Iraq- areignored in thisliterature or dismissed as cleverpropa- gandadevices that deflect attention from the real facts of the matter. As an exampleof plausible and historically valid Iraqi analysis, heard in theWest as floridrhetoric and empty propaganda, consider the resolutions of the Arab Popular ForcesConference in Ammanon 17 September1990. These resolutionscharacter- ized "theU.S. colonialinvasion of a partof our homeland" as "a linkin thechain of thehistorical conflict between our Arab nation and the colonial West" and compared itdirectly to the West's "defeat of the Muhammad 'All Pasha experience which sought to bringabout unity and progress."The largermotives for the intervention are identi- fieddirectly with a refusalto allowthe kind of political and economic unity achieved byJapan and the West to be achievedby Arabs. The resolutionsincluded the follow- ingdescription of the motives that lay behind Operation Desert Shield: Thisinvasion was promptedby efforts to seize controlof Arab oil andpreclude itsuse as a weaponin thehands of the Arab nation to secureits development and modernization,to defendits sovereignty and sanctities,and to realizethe slogan "Araboil is forArabs, for the whole Arab nation." Likewise, this invasion was also promptedby a desireto controlthe future of mankind,particularly consider- ingthat we areon thethreshold of the 21 st century, that Germany is goingto be reunited,that Japan is achievingan unprecedentedrenaissance, and that Europe willbecome a unitedentity. Moreover, this invasion was drivenby an attemptto thwartthe Arab cultural and unionist plan initiated by Iraq stronglyand capably afterthe end of the Gulf War.69 In Westerndiscussions of theGulf War and its aftermatha very different master narrativedetermined what claims were "the factsof thematter" and whatclaims

69. Al-Ra'ay,Amman, 18 September1990. Translatedby the ForeignBroadcast and Information Service,Daily Report:Near East and SouthAsia, 18 September1990, 16. For a brief,clear, and conve- nientversion of theinvasion as a liberationof Kuwaitand of Saddam as a possiblesavior of theArab nationfrom the imposed fragmentation ofcolonial borders, see Kuttab1990.

This content downloaded from 130.91.177.89 on Thu, 31 Oct 2013 15:10:22 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 674 InternationalOrganization were"distracting propaganda." A centralelement in thisdiscursive framework was theterritorial integrity of existingstates, at least thosewho weremembers of the UnitedNations. Within the Western master narrative, this was a sacrosanctprinciple, a well-institutionalizednorm, that had beenviolated in an obvious,outrageous, and intolerablemanner.70 Not since Hitler,it was repeatedlysaid, had such a blatant threatto civilizednorms and to therights of smallnations presented itself. In this case,loyalty to these doctrines was strongenough, American leadership deft enough, andavailable military capabilities overwhelming enough that the theory of collective securityon whichthe United Nations is putativelybased was successfullyput into practice. Withoutcondoning Saddam Husayn's adventure, the argument in thisarticle pro- videsa differentcontext for understanding Iraq's seizureof Kuwaitand theAllied response.Not surprisingly,the alternativenarrative presented here does partially overlapwith Baghdad's propaganda claims. More importantly, itfocuses attention on the "normality"(from a late medievaland earlymodern European perspective) of Iraq's behavioras an administrative,military, and economic"conquest center" ex- ploitingits particular advantages to achievea widerhegemonic role in theconstruc- tionof a greatnational state. Nor does Saddam'swell-documented brutality, includ- ingthe horrors of his torturechambers and thegenocidal campaigns he has carried out againstthe Kurds and others,set himapart, in any qualitativesense, from the "heroes"of those European and North American struggles that we nowcelebrate as the "state-building"work that created great countries. I am thinkinghere of Sher- man'smarch through Georgia and the extermination ofNative Americans, the Albig- ensianCrusade and the slaughterof theCatharis that helped Catholic France add Provenceto itsterritory, the aggrandizing wars of Edward I (in Scotlandand Wales); orElizabeth I orCromwell in Ireland.7' The contextpresented here for interpreting the GulfWar also casts theAllied responsein a radicallydifferent light from that in whichthese events are bathedby theofficial version, which portrays Desert Shield and DesertStorm as a farsighted, heroic,and creative effort to securea post-ColdWar world safe from barbaric dicta- tors.Through the lens of late medievaland earlymodern Europe and America, the greatpowers' aggressive self-interestedness comes into focus. Their enforcement of normsof peace and securityamong sovereign states, norms whose direct effect was to denyArabs entry into the great power club by theonly route ever taken into that club,is visibleas a "vitalinterest" in preservingpetrodollar monarchies and sheik- domsin theGulf whose very survival requires the most favorable and intimateof relationshipswith the Western powers. On thisview, just as theacquisition of wealthy but militarilyweak principalities,such as Burgundy,Venice, or Alsace, by major

70. Concerningthe role of masternarratives in theframing of news itemsand episodesto produce apoliticallyconvenient accounts, including decision rules for the separation of "facts"from "irrelevan- cies," see Hermanand Chomsky 1988. 71. Fora contemporaryportrait of Henry VIII describinghis "state-building"policies in termsno less horrificthan those used to describeSaddam's treatmentof his politicalopponents in Kuwaitand else- where,see Fitzpatrick1922, 299.

This content downloaded from 130.91.177.89 on Thu, 31 Oct 2013 15:10:22 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Absenceof Middle Eastern Great Powers 675 powersin Europewas to be expectedas a desiderataof the dozens of wars the small statesof that continent fought with one anotheron theway to becoming larger states, so shouldone expectthat Kuwait, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates,and Saudi Arabiawould rather quickly succumb to the predatory ambitions of demographically and militarilypowerful Arab or Muslimneighbors who couldput the economic re- sourcesof thesestatelets to moreefficient political and militaryuse. Fromthis perspective,it is thesurvival of thesecountries, in thesame neighborhood as Iraq (and Iran),that is theanomaly, not the Iraqi walkover into Kuwait.

Conclusion

In historicalperspective it is notSaddam's ferociousness, his use of a war-strength- enedstate to seize valuableterritories, orhis willingnessto use forceto challengeor destroythe independence of neighboring states that is so distinctive.It is his failure. The mostimportant factor explaining Saddam's failureis the same thingthat ex- plainsthe failure of MuhammadAli and GamalAbdel Nasser-they failed not because of the political,national, economic, geopolitical, or culturalinadequacy of Arabsor Arab lands (a view oftenput forward by orientalistswondering why the Arabshave not regainedthe worldstature they achieved in the eighthand ninth centuriesor economicfunctionalists wondering why no Arabcommon market has succeeded),but because of a fundamentalfact of sequence.When the ferocious men andwomen who built Britain, the United States, Germany, Italy, France, and Russia usedadvantages over their neighbors for territorial aggrandizement and the construc- tionof greatnational states, there was no externalclub of preexistinggreat powers able to penetratetheir continents and enforcea paralyzinglyfragmented status quo on behalfof "civilized"norms of interstatebehavior. When the Ottoman Empire crumbled,however, and autonomousor semiautonomousArab power centers began to emergein theMiddle East, an externalclub of preexisting great powers was fully preparedto do exactlythat, conveniently seeing their interest in a dividedMiddle East as correspondingto a morefundamental necessity for the "rule of law." Political"backwardness" in theMiddle East, reflected in theabsence of an Arab greatpower for which all otheringredients have been present, is thusexplained, but onlyfrom a muchlonger historical perspective than prevailing interpretations of contemporaryMiddle East politics permit.72 Such an explanationturns on a recatego- rizationof theobject of explanation-areframing of theproblem of thestability of post-Ottomanboundaries in theArab Middle East thatunderstands consolidation of

72. Manyare theanalysts who have comparedMuhammad Ali, Nasser,or SaddamHusayn to Bis- marckand Egypt or Iraq to Prussia.Their comparisons almost always focus on propertiesof theMiddle Easternleaders and countries that, in somecrucial way, do notmeasure up tothe skills of the great German statebuilder or the resources at his disposal. See, forexample, Kimche 1970, 233; andKerr 1971, 154-55. Analysesthat emphasize outside interference and pressuresfrom the international system as responsible forthe failure of Arab unity attempts do notput these attempts in thesame category as Europeanand North Americanstate building. Nor do theydiscuss the decisiveness of lateness in these attempts to join thegreat powerclub. See Gause 1992.

This content downloaded from 130.91.177.89 on Thu, 31 Oct 2013 15:10:22 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 676 InternationalOrganization statepower in Europeand North America and expansion in thesize ofstates in those regionsto havebeen, in largemeasure (though certainly not only), a consequenceof wartimeexertions and victories. To be sure,it is notuncommon for Western observers,especially polemically inclined observers, to makedirect comparisons between aspiringMiddle Eastern hegemons and European precedents. But these comparisons use Hitlerand Mussolini, not Bismarck and Cavour,as referents;thus, Nasser was a "tin-hornHitler," a "Mussoliniby the Nile." Similarthings were said ofSaddam by PresidentGeorge Bush.73 In general,Western observers make three kinds of category mistakes when contem- platingprospects for Middle Eastern political and economic performance or Arabor Islamicintegration. First, few consider failure of a MiddleEastern great power to crystallizeas a puzzleto be explained.Instead of Italy, Germany, France, Britain, the UnitedStates, and Russia, the reference group used by most World Bank, Agency for InternationalDevelopment, and IMF "development"experts to measure Middle East- ernstate performance is composedof SouthKorea, Taiwan, Chile, Singapore, and otherNICs. Fromthis perspective, Arab and Islamicstates have failedbecause they have adoptedeconomically sloppy and politicallyundisciplined responses to the internationalmarket. This lineof analysisclearly identifies the international system as a keyconstraint on ambitiousgovernments in theMiddle East, but why individual MiddleEastern states did not respond to thoseconstraints as theAsian Tigers did, by adoptingand successfullyimplementing export-led, state-dominated, labor-control- lingstrategies, though interesting in itsown right, is a fundamentallydifferent ques- tionfrom why no greatpower emerged in theMiddle East. The moreinstructive questionis whyhave theseanalysts found the Asian Tigers and notthe large Euro- pean and NorthAmerican states to be theappropriate measure of success?Why do theyinsist on Egypt,Iraq, and Algeria as theappropriate scale forcomparison and evaluation,measuring them against Chile, Taiwan, and SouthKorea? Why do they treatas unworthyof consideration the economic and political potential of a consoli- datedArab or Muslim Middle Eastern power, a statethat would be measuredagainst theEuropean, North American, and Asian great powers?

73. GilbertBurck's influential article about Nasser's hegemonic ambitions in theMiddle East is an excellentexample of thisgenre. Describing Nasser's "divinefrenzy to makeEgypt great again," Burck demonstrateshow naturallyhe and his audienceare accustomedto categorizingambitious Arab leaders withthe demons of Europeanhistory rather than with its state-foundingheroes. He does thisby distin- guishingNasser and his partners from Hitler and his cronies, but only in themost marginal and temporary ofways or in waysthat cast Nasser as actuallymore potent or threatening than Hitler: UnlikeHitler, who was able to conquerthe emotions of onlyhis own countrymen,Nasser has con- queredthe emotions of a greatarea outside his own country. He has doneit by exploiting Arab neuroses andfrustrations.... Even as Goringused to cow Germany'sneighbors with displays of the Luftwaffe, Nasseramazes and heartens his Arab brothers by showing off the economic progress Egypt has made.... Civilliberties are in thehands of the secret police, run by Zakaria Mohieddin, Minister of theInterior. AlthoughMohieddin is as yetno Himmler,he is doingvery well at wire tapping, at encouraging Jews to leave thecountry, and at keepingminute dossiers on suspectedenemies of the state. See Burck1958, 109-11.

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Fromthe standpoint of thisarticle, the explanation for the limited focus of these analystslies in thecategorical effectiveness of constraintswithin the contemporary internationalsystem that prevent the use ofwar as onekey ingredient in the recipe for attaininggreat power status used by all of thosestates that have enjoyedit. In other words,establishing South Korea or Chile as modelsof success, rather than Britain or Germany,reflects just how impossibleit has seemedto contemporaryanalysts that, absentthe possibility and threatof successfulaggrandizing wars, geographical and culturalregions (such as theMiddle East) nowdivided by political boundaries could be constructedinto great powers. A secondcategory error is madeby most of those who ask whether the Arab and/or IslamicMiddle East couldmove toward the kind of economicregionalism currently underwayin Europe, East Asia, and the Americas. These observers search for Middle EasternMonnets and theinterdependencies, spillovers, and patternsof transaction flowsthat their theories of "regionalintegration" among sovereign states tell them willbe critical.This approach ignores the distinction made by Deutsch in his analysis of thehistory of politicalintegration in theNorth Atlantic region. The largestates whosedestinies were being joined in a pluralistNorth Atlantic economic and secu- ritycommunity were structures that had achievedstrength, self-confidence, and ef- fectivenessthrough long historical processes of "amalgamation"-processesdeter- minedespecially by the actions and effect of "strongcore areas." Thus, noted Deutsch, had England,Germany, France, Italy, and theUnited States emerged over centuries fromcongeries of smaller, often hostile groups of statelets. Those who measure inte- grationefforts among twentieth century Middle Eastern countries according to stan- dardsDeutsch associated with integration among large "amalgamated" states should expectto be disappointed.74 A thirdcategory error is madeby thosewho ask whetherthe Arab and/or Islamic MiddleEast will everbe able to fulfillthe dreams of unionand greatpower status thatfired the imaginations of Jamale-din el-Afghani, Michel Aflaq, Gamal Abdel Nasser,or SaddamHusayn, without subversion, coercion, and war or thethreat of war.These observerssearch for Middle Eastern leaders who can accomplishsuch spectacularpolitical feats, ignoring the fact that such leaders never existed in Europe orthe Americas and that no theoryof political amalgamation exists that could justify suchan expectation. Since Nasser'sdemise, prospects have dimmedfor Pan-Arab nationalism to real- ize the politicalpotential associated in the modernworld with the kind of large, territoriallyconcentrated, linguistically unified, historically established, economi- callyblessed, and culturallyendowed imagined community represented by theArabs. AlthoughSaddam's adventure in Kuwaitdid showthat Arab nationalist embers still glow,at least at the mass level and among many disaffected Arab intellectuals, Islam- ist formulasfor legitimizing a unitedpolitical order in the Middle East are now

74. Deutschet al. 1957.For a systematictreatment of theprocess of growthin thepower of European statesin terms of the relationship between increasing size andan increasingdisposition toward and participationin war,see Choucriand North 1974.

This content downloaded from 130.91.177.89 on Thu, 31 Oct 2013 15:10:22 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 678 InternationalOrganization substantiallymore promising as thebasis for a large-scalereorganization of political space in thatarea. Although I have notattended specifically to thisalternative, the argumentI have made-identifying historical sequence and externally enforced internationalpolitical culture as crucialin preventing state-building wars and maintaining theconcomitant political fragmentation of theregion-would be as applicableto effortsby ambitious Islamist leaders as ithas beenfor explaining secular failures. My argumentis notthat in theworld such as it is theroutes to greatpower status thatwere open to theprogenitors of France, Britain, Germany, Russia, Italy, and the UnitedStates must now be madeavailable to Middle Eastern versions of Henry VIII, Bismarck,Lincoln, or Cavour. The technologiesof war have changed, and the world is a differentplace. It makeslittle sense to insistthat powerful countries with vital interestsavoid pursuing those interests out of a Rawlsianattachment to thelaw ofthe junglethat, among other things, produced them as greatpowers. Nonetheless, aware- ness of thecrucial role of war and coercionin theproduction of greatstates, and appreciatingthe implications of thisfact for latecoming national state builders who seekto utilize those instruments, can go fartoward reducing the self-righteousness of publicdiscourse with respect to contemporarywars in theMiddle East and in other regionswhere the contradictions between internationally recognized legal arrange- mentsand actual matrices of belief, interest, and power are sharpest.It can also help prepareus fora post-ColdWar world in whichstates capable of projectingpower globallyhave suchlittle interest in doingso thataspiring hegemons in someregions findthemselves almost as freeas theirEuropean predecessors were to use forceto buildand expand their states.75 Additionally,the argument presented here can help qualifyor correcta hostof casual misattributionsthat flow from the category errors I haveidentified. These are claimsthat find, in the failure of efforts to move toward Arab unity, something instruc- tiveabout Arab national character, the pedigree of Arab nationalism, the unnatural- ness of a largeArab state,the absence of visionaryleadership, the decisiveness of economicjealousies in preventingArab unity or theeventual decisiveness of eco- nomicfunctionality in achieving it, and theneed for stability if aid flowsfrom rich Arab statesto poor ones are to increase.76Other authors, attributing the political organizationof the contemporary Middle East to the inexorable logic of capitalism in a worldeconomy and/or to differencesin thedialectic of particular imperialist lega- cies indifferent countries, end up creditingthese factors with considerably more than theycan explain.In particularthey fail to notethe role of war in theconstruction of

75. CompareBernard Lewis' representativecomment in 1989 thatthe boundaries of MiddleEastern states,however fluid they may have been earlier in thiscentury, are nowpermanent, with Barry Buzan's suggestionthat not only specific third world boundaries, but the very norm of post-colonialboundary integrity,"particularly in Africaand theMiddle East," is likelyto comeunder increasing pressure. See Lewis 1989;and Buzan 1991,440-41. 76. Forexamples of such misattributions, see Ajami 1992;Kramer 1993; Haim 1964; Kanovsky1968, 350-76; Sirageldin1988; and Rubinstein1991, 62. Nonnemanprovides a list of thirteenfactors ex- plainingthe failure of Arab unity schemes, without even mentioning the unavailability of waras a tech- niquefor political amalgamation or theactive extraregional enforcement of normsagainst predatory war. See Nonneman1993, 37-40; andMiller 1993.

This content downloaded from 130.91.177.89 on Thu, 31 Oct 2013 15:10:22 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Absenceof Middle Eastern Great Powers 679 largenational states in Europeand thepolitical and militaryrelevance of sequence and externalenforcement of normsagainst successfully prosecuted state-building warsin theMiddle East.77 Of course,many analysts of theArab world do recognizethat the existence of a largeterritorially concentrated ethnic or nationalsolidarity is itselfnot enough to producea correspondingstate. Some also emphasizethe role of "politicalwill" in theconstruction of largenational states. They nonetheless have seemedreluctant to takecognizance of thecrucial role coercion must be expectedto playas partof this "politicalwill" and thedecisiveness of barriers to itsuse erectedby thecontempo- raryinternational system.78 Ghassan Salame, for example, offers an explanationof thefailure of Arab nationalism by describingArabs as tornbetween separate states seekingto maintaintheir individual integrity and an Arabnational project seeking to dissolvethose separate identities into a unitedwhole. Citing Italy in thenineteenth century,he askshow that state could ever have come into being if it had been divided in similarfashion between someItalians ... strugglingfor the re-unification ofItaly as a singlestate [and] others... lookingfor integration within a Europeanframework. The two projectswould have hampered each otherand an impassewould have been the likelyoutcome. This dilemma is stillreal in theArab world.79 Salameneglects to mention two crucial elements that are the basis of my argument here-Piedmont'sforcible unification of theseparate entities that previously com- prisedItaly, Sicily, and Sardinia and the absence, in nineteenth-century Europe, of an externallyenforced set of norms against successful state-building wars. The impasse in Italy,in otherwords, was overcome,neither by nationalsentiment nor economic rationality,but by waras an instrumentof politicalwill appliedwithin a permissive internationalenvironment. The impassein theMiddle East, of which Salame speaks, is unlikelyto be overcomein anyother way-neither by Arabs nor by Muslims.

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