The Absence of Middle Eastern Great Powers: Political "Backwardness" in Historical Perspective
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The Absence of MiddleEastern Great Powers:Political ‘ ‘Backwardness’’ in HistoricalPerspective IanS. Lustick Propelledby theoil boom of the mid-1970s the Middle East emerged as theworld’ s fastestgrowing region. 1 Hopesand expectations were highfor Arab politicalconsoli- dation,economic advancement, and cultural efflorescence. With falling oil prices and adevastatingwar betweenIran andIraq, these hopes had dimmed somewhat by the early1980s. In 1985, however, the spectacular image of an Arab greatpower was stilltantalizing. A Pan-Arabstate, wrote two experts on the region, would include a totalarea of 13.7million square kilometers, secondonly to theSoviet Union and considerably larger than Europe, Canada, China,or the United States. ..By2000it wouldhave more people than either ofthetwo superpowers. This state would contain almost two-thirds of the world’s provenoil reserves. It would also have enough capital to nanceits own economicand social development. Conceivably, it couldfeed itself. ..Access toahugemarket could stimulate rapid industrial growth. Present regional in- equalitiescould ultimately be lessenedand the mismatch between labor-surplus andlabor-short areas corrected. The aggregate military strength and political inuence of this strategically located state would be formidable.. ..Itis easyto comprehendwhy this dream has long intoxicated Arab nationalists. 2 Withinten years, however, this assessment sounded more like a fairytale than a scenario.Indeed the last two decades have been dispiriting for Arab nationalists,not onlymeasured against the prospectof agreatnational state, but compared to levelsof Iam gratefulfor helpful comments made onpreliminary drafts of this article byThomasCallaghy, MelaniCammett, AveryGoldstein, Steven Heydemann, Friedrich Kratochwil, Sevket Pamuk, and this journal’s anonymousreviewers. Thepaper on which this article is basedwas originallyprepared for a January1996 workshop on ‘ ‘Regionalismand the Middle East’ ’ organizedunder the auspices ofthe Joint Near andMiddle East Committee oftheSocial Science Research Council. 1.El Mallakh1978,195. 2.Drysdale and Blake 1985,225. For similar expectationsand scenarios ofArab unity,prosperity, and power,see Kerr 1982,2; and El Mallakh1978, 186– 89. On the potential for a great Arab state, see, for example,Waterbury 1978, 53– 55, 100; Luciani and Salame ´1988,13; Salame ´1988a,264, 278; and Sira- geldin1988, 204. InternationalOrganization 51,4,Autumn1997, pp. 653– 83 r 1997by The IO Foundationand the Massachusetts Instituteof Technology 654 InternationalOrganization cooperationand interstate integration in Europe, Asia, and the Americas, where highly developedcountries are joining with rapidly expanding emergent economies in re- gionallybased communities of wealthand growth. In the Middle East, on theother hand,all integration schemes have failed. Intraregional trade remains very low ,with estimatesranging between 2 and8 percentover the last fteenyears. 3 Most Middle Easternstates are experiencing either economic stagnation or absolutedecline. From 1980to 1991the Middle East (including Israel and Iran, but not Turkey) and North Africa registeredalmost a 3percentdecrease in annualincome growth compared to a 1percentdecrease in Sub-SaharanAfrica anda 1percentincrease for allthe develop- ing world.4 Theregion suffered a declineof almost 2 percentin gross domestic product(GDP) percapita between 1980 and 1993. 5 Unemploymentin 1993 was twiceas high (15 percent) as that in anyother region of the world. 6 Manyexplanations have been offered for disunity,economic stagnation, and the failureof anyMuslim or Arab stateto emerge as or tobuild a MiddleEastern great power.Despite the rhetoric and sentiment of Arab nationalismand Arab unityand, morerecently, Islamic unity, contemporary Middle Eastern history is riddled with parochialhostilities, meaningless schemes for mergersand federations, and a raft of regimesstrong enough to suppressdissidents but too weak and insecure to risk inti- mateforms ofcooperation with their neighbors. With ‘ ‘articial’ ’ colonialborders virtuallyintact, energy and capital surpluses are mostly separated from demographic bulkand centers of militaryand administrative capacity and political appeal. These conditions,it isoftenpointed out, have prevented Middle Easterners from building largeinternal markets and from exploitingtheir homogeneity, resources, and admin- istrative-politicalcapacity for dynamic,long-term economic growth. 7 Mostanalysts who have confronted what Fouad Ajami dubbed the ‘‘Arab predica- ment’’ haveimplicitly or explicitly used the processes and successes of European integrationafter W orldW ar IItoidentifythe requisites of successin theMiddle East andthe reasons for failure. 8 Thosewho have thought the prospects were notall bad for Arab integrationhave stressed what they deemed the growing self-con dence, pragmatism,and exibilityof states whose separate sovereignty was increasingly recognizedand accepted as permanent by theirneighbors. Using W esternEurope as a pointof reference, these observers expected Arab governmentswould thereby be ableto leaveaside old feuds and cooperate without worrying about political dissolu- 3.See Miller1993, 8; Shak 1995,17. 4.Sha k 1995,15. 5.Ibid., 65. Annual growth in GDP inthe region also decreased, froma peakof 6 percentin the mid-1970sto less than1 percentin the late 1980s.See ibid.,4. 6.Diwan 1995,3. 7.For ausefullist of failedArab integrationinitiatives, see Azzam 1993,227– 28. 8.Despite therecent emphasis onIslam as aunifyingpolitical identity in the Middle East, no frame- workhas beenor is more promisingas abasis forachieving substantial political and economic integration thanArab nationalism.Therefore, I focusmy analysis on the failure of Arab integrationor Arab state building,while acknowledging that Arabism has neverbeen completely divorced from Islamic motifsand suggestingat theend of thearticle thatthe argument works equally well forMuslim schemes forpolitical integration.For a sample ofthe ‘ ‘obituaries’’ writtenfor Arab nationalunity, see Brown1984, 27– 43; Ajami 1992;and Tibi 1990, 24– 25. Absenceof MiddleEastern Great Powers 655 tionor subversion. 9 Someanalysts have stressed the functional necessity of close economiccooperation and political integration, arguing from necessityto inevitabil- ityor likelihood. 10 Otherstrace the large-scale movement of laborand remittances acrossArab stateboundaries, recalling, in theiranticipation that such interdependen- cieswere bindingthe Arab worldinto an economic whole, theories associated with Karl Deutschand Ernst Haas tothe effect that increasing transactions across borders andthe unintended spillover of functionallyimportant requirements for cooperation wouldlead Europe toward both political and economic integration. 11 Morepessimis- ticanalysts have used the European experience to explain why the Arab worldhas notintegrated successfully. Citing regime heterogeneity in theMiddle East, the ab- senceof strong democratic institutions, the skewed distribution of wealth, and the weakness andinsecurity of governments— these observers blame the failure of regional integration onhow different the Middle East is intheserespects from WesternEurope. 12 Myargumentbegins by suggestingthat, whether optimistic or pessimistic,these analysesare basedon a misplacedanalogy of post– W orldW ar IIEuropeanstates withpost– W orldW ar IIArab or,more broadly, Islamic or MiddleEastern states. A muchmore fundamental appreciation of thepoliticaland economic quandaries faced bythe peoples of theMiddle East is possible if thedozens of statesin theregion are comparedto thescores and even hundreds of Europeanstates and principalities that, ingradually decreasing number, comprised Europe (and the lands bordering the North Atlantic)from the1200s through the late nineteenth century. The question then be- comes:How isit that powerful states, such as Great Britain,France, Russia, Ger- many,Italy, and the United 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 activityon the world stageas great powers, but could also serve either as hegemonic leaders in the construc- tionof regionalblocs (especially the EuropeanCommunity) or asdependable, con - dentpartners in such endeavors? This recasts the essentialquestion to be askedabout thecontemporary Middle East in a moreappropriate historical context. Why have therebeen no MiddleEastern great powers? Westphalia andV ersailles: Warand State Building in Europe andthe Middle East ‘‘TheOttoman Turks,’ ’ wroteAlbert Hourani, in one of his last essays, ‘ ‘maybe calledthe Romans of theMuslim world.’ ’13 From along-cycleperspective, focusing 9.See Noble1991, 52, 78–93; and Taylor 1982, 108– 20. 10.See Sirageldin1988, 185– 207; Kanovsky 1968, 350– 76; Bani Hani 1984, 184; and Drysdale and Blake 1985,225. 11.Ibrahim 1982, 17– 70. 12.See Nonneman1993; Miller 1993, 3– 6. Regardingcivil society, see Barakat 1993;and Luciani and Salame´1988,16– 21. 13.Hourani 1991, 130. 656 InternationalOrganization onthe evolution of states and the cultural, military, and political frameworks that incubatethem, the analogy between the Ottomans and the Romans is foundedon the gradualattenuation and eventual disappearance of animperial center. Both the Otto- manEmpire in the Middle East and the Holy Roman Empire in medieval and early modernEurope advanced and upheld (sometimes in reality,sometimes