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Implications of the 2011-13 Syrian Uprising for the Middle Eastern Regional Security Complex

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Implications of the 2011-13 Syrian Uprising for the Middle Eastern Regional Security Complex Implications of the 2011-13 Syrian Uprising for the Middle Eastern Regional Security Complex Fred H. Lawson © 2014 Implications of the 2011-13 Syrian Uprising for the Middle Eastern Regional Security Complex Fred H. Lawson © 2014 Center for International and Regional Studies Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar Occasional Paper No. 14 ISSN 2072-5957 Established in 2005, the Center for International and Regional Studies at the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar is a premier research institute devoted to the academic study of regional and international issues through dialogue and exchange of ideas, research and scholarship, and engagement with national and international scholars, opinion-makers, practitioners, and activists. Guided by the principles of academic excellence, forward vision, and community engagement, the CIRS mission revolves around five principal goals: • To provide a forum for scholarship and research on international and regional affairs; • To encourage in-depth examination and exchange of ideas; • To foster thoughtful dialogue among students, scholars, and practitioners of international affairs; • To facilitate the free flow of ideas and knowledge through publishing the products of its research, sponsoring conferences and seminars, and holding workshops designed to explore the complexities of the twenty- first century; • To engage in outreach activities with a wide range of local, regional, and international partners. This publication series is made possible by the generous support of Qatar Foundation for Education, Science and Community Development. Implications of the 2011-13 Syrian Uprising for the Middle Eastern Regional Security Complex Fred H. Lawson Fred H. Lawson is Lynn T. White, Jr. Professor of Government at Mills College in Oakland, California. He is author of Global Security Watch Syria (2013), Constructing International Relations in the Arab World (2006), and editor of Comparative Regionalism (2009), and Demystifying Syria (2009). In 2009-2010, Lawson was Senior Fellow at the Center for International and Regional Studies (CIRS) at the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar. He is past president of both the Society for Gulf Arab Studies and the Syrian Studies Association. Abstract By the autumn of 2013, the Middle Eastern regional security complex (RSC) had taken on a new configuration, which was substantially different from—and much more explosive than—the one that existed prior to the large-scale popular uprisings that broke out across the Arab world in the winter of 2010-11. Foreign policies adopted between 2000 and 2010 by the Ba‘thi regime in Damascus, the leaderships of Hizbullah and HAMAS, and the Israeli government to parry overlapping internal and external threats created an unprecedented patchwork of strategic rivalries and alignments. Large-scale popular unrest in Iraq and Egypt in early 2011, along with the outbreak of full-scale civil war in Syria later that same year, generated an even more intricate web of interstate security dynamics. The reconfigured RSC that emerged out of the “Winter of Arab Discontent” is only beginning to be explicated, and can best be addressed by tracing the connection between domestic political conflicts and shifts in external belligerence and alignment across the region. List of Organizations English Acronym Arabic Transliteration Hizbullah حزب هللا Party of God -Harakat al حركة المقاومة Palestinian Islamic Resistance HAMAS -Muqawamah al اﻹسﻻمية Movement Islamiyyah )حماس( Liwa’ al-Muqawamah لواء المقاومة Free Resistance Brigade al-Hurra الحرة Saraya al-Muqawamah سرايا المقاومة Islamic Resistance Companies al-Islamiyyah اﻹسﻻمية Hizb al-Tahrir حزب التحرير Liberation Party -al-Qa‘ida fi Bilad al القاعدة في al-Qa‘ida in the Lands of Syria Sham بﻻد الشام Kifaya حركة كفاية Enough Movement I’tilaf Dawlat al-Qanun ائتﻻف دولة State of Law Coalition القانون -al-Qa’imah al القائمة العراقية Iraqi List ‘Iraqiyyah Jabhat al-Nusrah li-Ahl جبهة النصرة Assistance Front for the People of the al-Sham ﻷهل الشام Lands of Syria Kata’ib Ahrar al-Sham كتائب أحرار Free of Syria الشام Suqur al-Sham صقور الشام Brigade of Syria Falcons Liwa’ al-Ummah لواء اﻷمة Brigade of the Community of Believers Harakat Fajr al-Islam حركة فجر Dawn of Islam Movement اﻹسﻻم al-Jabhah al-Islamiyyah الجبهة Syrian Islamic Front al-Suriyyah اﻹسﻻمية السورية Liwa’ al-Faruq لواء الفاروق Al-Faruq Brigade Liwa’ al-Islam لواء اﻹسﻻم Islam Brigade -Jabhat al-Tahrir al جبهة التحرير Islamic Liberation Front Islamiyyah اﻹسﻻمية Asa’ib Ahl al-Haqq‘ عصائب أهل Bands of the People of Truth الحق Jaish al-Mahdi جيش المهدي Mahdi Army Munazzamat Badr منظمة بدر Badr Organization -al-Dawlah al الدولة Islamic State of Iraq ISI Islamiyyah fi al-‘Iraq اﻹسﻻمية في العراق English Acronym Arabic Transliteration -al-Dawlah al الدولة Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant ISIL Islamiyyah fi al-‘Iraq اﻹسﻻمية في wa al-Sham العراق والشام Liwa’ Allahu Akbar لواء هللا أكبر God is Greatest Brigade Liwa’ al-Tawhid لواء التوحيد Unity Brigade Jaish al-Mukhtar جيش المختار Mukhtar Army Jaish Rijal al-Tariqah جيش رجال Army of the Men of the Naqshbandi al-Naqshbandiyyah الطريقة Order النقشبندية al-Tanzim al-Sha‘bi التنظيم الشعبي Popular Nasirist Organization al-Nasiri الناصري al-Tajammu‘ al-Qawmi التجمع القومي Islamic National Gathering al-Islami اﻹسﻻمي Ahrar Tarabulus أحرار The Free of Tripoli طرابلس Alwiyat ‘Abdullah ألوية عبدهللا Abdullah ‘Azzam Brigades‘ Azzam‘ عزام Kurdistan Regional Government KRG Kurdistan Workers’ Party PKK Israel Defense Force IDF Party for a Free Life in Kurdistan PJAK Peace and Democracy Party BDP Kurdistan Democratic Party KDP Patriotic Union of Kurdistan PUK Democratic Union Party PYD Popular Protection Units YPG Kurdish Unity Party Yakiti Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps IRGC Note: Transliterations follow the style set by the International Journal of Middle East Studies. Introduction By the autumn of 2013, the Middle Eastern regional security complex (RSC) had taken on a new configuration, which was substantially different from—and much more explosive than—the one that existed prior to the large-scale popular uprisings that broke out across the Arab world in the winter of 2010-11. This RSC expanded during the first decade of the twenty-first century to include not only the core actors of Syria, Israel, the Lebanese Shi‘i movement Hizbullah (Party of God), and the Palestinian Harakat al-Muqawamah al-Islamiyyah (Islamic Resistance Movement) or HAMAS, but also Turkey, the Islamic Republic of Iran, Iraq, and Lebanon.1 Moreover, persistent Israeli efforts to cultivate new markets for its high technology exports, as well as to forge strategic partnerships that might counteract Syria’s growing links to Turkey and Iraq, entangled several former Soviet republics of the South Caucasus and Central Eurasia in regional affairs. Egypt, Jordan, and the Palestinian Authority hovered uneasily on the sidelines, due to the peace treaties that they had signed with Israel in March 1979, October 1994, and September 1993, respectively. Foreign policies adopted between 2000 and 2010 by the Ba‘thi regime in Damascus, the leaderships of Hizbullah and HAMAS, and the Israeli government to parry overlapping internal and external threats created an unprecedented patchwork of strategic rivalries and alignments. Large-scale popular unrest in Iraq and Egypt in early 2011, along with the outbreak of full-scale civil war in Syria later that same year, generated an even more intricate web of interstate security dynamics. The reconfigured RSC that emerged out of what Gregory Gause calls the “Winter of Arab Discontent” is only beginning to be explicated, most often by scholars who draw explicit analogies to earlier moments in regional affairs. Regional Security and the New Arab Cold War Several observers have tried to explain the impact of the 2010-13 uprisings on the Middle Eastern RSC by resurrecting Malcolm Kerr’s notion of an Arab Cold War.2 Nabeel Khoury, for instance, proposes that three kinds of regional actors have emerged in the wake of the revolts: “conservative monarchies, transitioning republics and non- state Islamic groups.”3 The transitioning republics, Khoury asserts, can be expected to 1 Fred H. Lawson, “New Twists, More Intricate Configurations: The Changing Israel-Palestinian Regional Security Complex,” Perspectives on Global Development and Technology 6, nos. 1-3 (2007): 345-362. 2 Malcolm H. Kerr, The Arab Cold War: Gamal ‘Abd al-Nasir and His Rivals, 1958-1970, 3rd ed. (London: Oxford University Press, 1971). 3 Nabeel A. Khoury, “The Arab Cold War Revisited: The Regional Impact of the Arab Uprising,”Middle East Policy 20, no. 2 (Summer 2013): 73. 1 Fred H. Lawson be ruled by Islamist movements of one sort or another, and to be actively supported by Turkey and tolerated by the richer Arab states of the Persian Gulf, while Iran is likely to emerge as the primary sponsor of Hizbullah and other radical Islamist organizations, with the notable exception of HAMAS. The upshot is most likely to be “a very unstable [regional] system.”4 Morten Valbjørn and André Bank claim that the New Arab Cold War entails not only rivalries among Arab states but also “a stronger regime/society dimension, where the ‘radical’ block is dominated by societal actors advocating an Arab-Islamic order with considerable resonance within the Arab public.”5 In this conceptual scheme, Iran during the administration of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was posited to act like a quintessential Arab state, since
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