Political Dynamics in the Middle East

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When it comes to discussing the essence of political dynamics in a particular part of the world, it is important to understand that that these dynamics’ significance reflects the objective laws of evolution, concerned with the process of states striving to expand their geopolitical niches, while undermining their competitors’ ability to do the same.

This simply could not be otherwise, because being composed of people (endowed with physical bodies), societies/states are essentially material, which in turn suggests that the qualitative subtleties of a particular country’s geopolitical stance are best assessed through the lenses of specifically materialist political theories, such as Realism and Marxism.

The foremost theoretical postulate of political Realism is the assumption that, since the amount of natural resources in the world is limited, states (whose continual existence is being dependent on these resources’ exploitation) are determined to exist in the state of a perpetual confrontation against each other, which adopts peaceful and non-peaceful (military) forms (Shimko, 2009).

Realism presupposes that there are three major purposes of just about any state’s existence:

political/economic expansion,
maintenance of a political stability within,
destabilization of competing states.

Marxism contributes to the realist political philosophy in respect of emphasizing the fact that the shortage of natural resources does not only define the dynamics in the arena of international politics but also in the arena of domestic ones. This is because, according to Marxists, just about any state can be well conceptualized in terms of an instrument that allows the representatives of social elites to maintain their dominance over the rest of their co-citizens.

By maintaining such their dominance, the rich and powerful are able to ensure their unrestricted access to natural resources, at the expense of denying (restricting) the same opportunity to the representatives of lower social classes. The validity of both earlier outlined theories can be well illustrated in regards to what appear to be the significance of the so-called ‘Jasmine revolutions’ in the Middle East.

Even though that Western medias never ceased reflecting upon this significance from an essentially Constructivist perspective, while implying that the overthrowing of secular regimes in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya was fueled by the sheer strength of citizens’ determination to associate themselves with the values of ‘democracy’, this is far from having been the case.

After all, it now became clear to just about anyone that the outbreak of these revolutions was caused by the Western countries’ intention to assume a full control of natural resources (oil and natural gas) in the region. In this respect, the example of Libya is especially illustrative. From being a thoroughly secular (civilized) country, in which citizens used to enjoy very high standards of living, Libya has been effectively reduced into the battleground for a never-ending civil war of everybody against everybody.

As of today, there is no de facto central government in this country – the function of a political governing in the country’s regions has been unofficially delegated to the tribal warlords, who deny a rationale for Libya to remain a politically unified country, in the first place (Lacher, 2011). Curiously enough, the extent of these tribal warlords’ separatist enthusiasm positively relates to the amount of oil and natural gas in the regions where they rule.

Such is the strength of these warlords’ commitment to celebrating ‘democratic values’ that they declare their willingness to allow Western trans-national corporations to assume a unilateral control over the exploitation of the earlier mentioned natural resources in the ‘democratized’ areas. Therefore, only very naïve people may continue to believe in the ‘progressiveness’ of the ‘Arab uprising’.

Because of the secret documents, made available for public access by WikiLeaks, it now became absolutely clear to just about everybody that the so-called ‘Arab spring’ was fully orchestrated and financed by Western powers, as the mean of strengthening the extent of their own geopolitical security in the wake of the approaching energy-crisis. What it means that, contrary to the provisions of a Constructivist paradigm, the ‘divide and rule’ principle continues to represent a de facto basis of the ‘international law’.

Allegorically speaking, weaker countries are being ‘eaten’ by the stronger ones – pure and simple. This suggestion also helps to explain the actual significance of the UAE’s currently enacted foreign policies. One of one hand, this country continues to position itself as one of the America’s foremost allies in the Gulf. On the other, however, the UAE rulers apply a great effort into promoting the concept of a ‘Muslim solidary’, as the instrument of lessening the extent of American geopolitical influence in the region (Almezaini, 2010).

The reason for this is simple. The UAE rulers fully realize the fact that their country with the population of 1.7 million cannot possibly be considered capable of advancing its own geopolitical agenda in the Gulf. What it means is that it is being only the matter of time, before it will be ‘eaten’ by either one of the Western countries, or by one of its stronger neighbors. This, of course, will put an end to these rulers’ lavish lifestyle.

Therefore, it makes a perfectly logical sense for the UAE top-officials to ‘balance’ between the West and the East, while contributing to the escalation of tensions between the US, on the one hand, and the Muslim world (represented by Iran), on the other. This is because, while actively confronting each other, the big ‘predators’ of the US and Iran will be less likely to take a note of the geopolitically and culturally unjustified existence of the regional ‘hyenas’ of the UAE, Oman, Bahrain and Qatar.

As of today, many political observers cannot help noticing the fact that, even though that GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council) state-members emphasize primarily cultural/economic motivations, behind their decision to join the organization, the GCC’s continuous existence should be discussed as such that reflects the concerned countries’ security-agenda.

According to Ablulla (1999), “Security has been consistently the most visible preoccupation of the GCC… The urgent concerns and discussions within the GCC have actually focused on defense and internal security” (p. 157). This simply could not be otherwise, because due to their status of resource-rich but archaically governed countries, GCC members are being naturally looked upon as a potential ‘prey’ by both: their immediate Muslim neighbors and Western powers.

Hence, the scope of clear and present dangers to the GCC’s security:

The rise of Islamic fundamentalism, which threatens the legitimacy of a political governing in GCC states, especially given the fact that the number of Shiites in these countries is estimated to account for 14 million (Oktav, 2011);
The continuous deterioration of the very concept of an ‘international law’, which creates objective preconditions for Western countries to return back to their former colonial policies (Sasley, 2011).

What also can be discussed in terms of a potential threat to the GCC’s continuous existence, is the fact that even the combined population of all GCC countries is simply not large enough (Lawson, 2009). In its turn, this implies that these countries would not be able to effectively thwart a foreign military invasion. As Cordesman (2009) pointed out, “Iran’s army has a total manpower of more than 540,000, compared to a combined GCC total of 176,500” (p. 15).

Ironically enough, the latter threat can also be discussed as such that allows GCC rulers to maintain an internal stability within their countries. After all, the lesser is number of citizens in a particular country, the higher are their chances to take a personal advantage of what appears to be this country’s GNP (wealth). Consequently, the higher is the extent of their loyalty to those in charge of distributing this wealth.

Given the fact that the form of a political governing in GCC states is being utterly inconsistent with the realities of the 21^st century’s living, it is specifically providing citizens with a number of extensive social benefits (made possible by revenues generated from selling oil), which allows GCC rulers to assure the legitimacy of their governmenship. Therefore, these rulers are being objectively interested in restraining the growth of their countries’ populations – even at the expense of allowing GCC states to remain militarily vulnerable.

The earlier outlined threats explain the essence of the GCC’s currently adopted strategy of addressing them, which can be defined in terms of a ‘geopolitical balancing’. On the one hand, the GCC positions itself as being thoroughly supportive of the Muslim cause, reflected by the origination’s strongly pro-Palestinian stance and by its formal neutrality, in regards to the Iranian nuclear program.

For example, GCC top-officials never cease stressing out that the Iran’s right to develop its nuclear capacities cannot be restricted, for as long as the aims of the Iranian nuclear program remain peaceful. This, of course, is meant to convince the rest of the world’s Muslim countries that the GCC is being firmly on their side, within the context of them confronting arrogant Western ‘infidels’.

On the other hand, however, the GCC continues to apply a great effort into encouraging Western powers to attack Iran, “In a 2008 cable published by WikiLeaks in late 2010, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia exhorted U.S. diplomats to ‘cut off the head of the snake’ – a reference to U.S. military strikes against Iran” (Esfandiary, Fakhro, & Wasser, 2011, p. 124).

The clearly Machiavellian essence of the GCC’s geopolitical stance is nevertheless being fully consistent with the IR’s Realist paradigm. Apparently, GCC rulers are being fully aware that, regardless of what happened to be a particular country’s cultural or religious uniqueness, it cannot have permanent allies or permanent enemies, but only permanent interests. There is also a Marxist aspect to it.

Because the Gulf countries can be well conceptualized as family-ran commercial enterprises, there is only one purpose of their continuous existence – to allow Arab ‘sheikhs’, ‘kings’ and ‘princes’ to proceed with pumping out as much oil as possible, while the opportunity lasts, so that that may continue collecting the world’s most expensive sport-cars and building marble palaces.

Unfortunately, the earlier mentioned de facto purpose of these countries’ existence has very little to do with the conventional concept of a statehood, which is why there can be few doubts as to the fact that, in the future, the geopolitical dynamics in the Gulf will attain a qualitatively new dimension. The very laws of historical dialectics predetermine such an eventual development. Therefore, discussing how the GCC’s applied efforts to maintain a status quo in the region may have any lasting long-term effects would not make much of a logical sense.

References:

Abdulla, A. (1999). The Gulf Cooperation Council: Nature, origin, and process.

Almezaini, K. (2010). The UAE and Foreign Policy: Foreign aid, identities and interests.

Cordesman, A. (2009). Iranian weapons of mass destruction: The broader strategic context. Washington: Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Esfandiary, D., Fakhro, E. & Wasser, B. (2011). Obstacles for the Gulf States. Arms Control Today, 41 (7), 22-25.

Lacher, W. (2011). Tribes and cities in the Libyan revolution. Middle East Policy, 18 (4), 140-154.

Lawson, F. (2009) Security dilemmas in the contemporary Persian Gulf.

Oktav, O. (2011). The Gulf States and Iran: A Turkish perspective. Middle East Policy, 18 (2), 136-147.

Sasley, B. (2011). Studying Middle Eastern international relations through IR theory. Ortadoğu Etütleri, 2 (2), 9-32.

Shimko, K. (2009). Contending perspectives on international politics.

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Political Dynamics in the Middle East

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