Avoiding Regional Wars in the Gulf and Mashreq
Helena Cobban Al-Hayat - 21/11/05//
The U.S. toppling of Saddam Hussein's regime continues to send ever-changing shock waves through the geopolitical balance (or imbalance) of the Gulf region and the Mashreq. For the 30 years between the withdrawal of the British military presence from the Gulf and Saddam's toppling, the Gulf region was characterized by an uneasy but quite recognizable "tripod" of powers: there was Iran, whether dominated by the Shah or the mullahs; there was Iraq, dominated by the Baathists; and there was Saudi Arabia, supported by a significant US military presence and surrounded by the smaller shoreline states of the Gulf, which it was seen as dominating.
Within that tripod structure, if one of the three major legs sought to expand its role (or was seen by the other two as about to do so), then the other two powers would find ways to contain it. The system was not marked by much friendship or cooperation among the three "legs". Indeed, during the Iran-Iraq war of 1980-88, well over a million people were killed, millions more were wounded, and the infrastructure of both countries was badly damaged. Saddam's invasion of Kuwait-seen by many as a prelude to an aggression against Saudi Arabia-left much of Kuwait's infrastructure was damaged and many of its people killed, and Iraq ended up that "adventure" with thousands of deaths and considerable physical damage.
But at least the "tripod" system that existed before 2003 was recognizable and its workings in good part predictable by all actors, and it was based squarely on the concept of the interests of established nation-states.
The "system" that has been emerging in the Gulf region (and beyond) since March 2003 has none of these features of predictability or even of the supremacy of state interests. For this reason, it is very dangerous indeed. The region has been knocked onto the brink of a situation like the one that existed in Europe prior to the 1648 Treaty of Westphalia, the treaty that enshrined the established nation-state as the prime actor in the inter-"national" system. Prior to the Treaty of Westphalia, most of northern Europe was locked in the turmoil of the "Thirty Years War", a period when religious disagreements among the continent's princes-whether Catholic or Protestant-- and the strong desire that many of them had to spread their particular version of the religious truth over all the lands around them kept the whole area in turmoil. Finally, in the Treaty of Westphalia the princes came to the agreement that each one of them would be satisfied with what he had; and he would be quite free to impose whatever beliefs he chose on all the people within his "state". But no one of them had the right to try to spread his own political control, or his own beliefs, beyond his own recognizedborder. That was the origin of the doctrine of "non-intervention in the affairs of other states"; and it provided a strong basis for Europe's emergence as a center of world power over the centuries that followed…
Today, the geostrategic situation in the Gulf region is perched on being plunged into a modern-day version of the Thirty Years War. The rulers in Iran claim to have a version of religious "truth" which in the past they have been very enthusiastic about exporting to elsewhere-and indeed, there are many people who are already Shiite believers who live outside Iran, including the many millions of them who dominate the population of Iraq and the smaller numbers of them who live in Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and Kuwait. (Probably most of those non-Iranian Shiites are loyal citizens of the states where they live and very few of them would like to be ruled by teheran's mullahs. But that doesn't stop some of the mullahs from dreaming of expansion.)
In Saudi Arabia and many other majority-Sunni countries of the region, there are very powerful Sunni movements that urge a much more militantly pro-Sunni orientation that often includes militant opposition to Shiite populations and beliefs. And Iraq, which was formerly one quite recognizable leg of the strategic tripod, is on the point of disappearing as a single, unified nation-state, and is in the midst of giving birth to a radically decentralized constellation of at least two and perhaps even three or more well-armed statelets that confront each other across borders that are highly contested and will almost certainly be fought over…
If it ends up being "just" the majority-Kurdish part of Iraq that splits off from Baghdad, then the potential for broader instability throughout the region is already bad enough. But if the current sectarian strife within the majority-Arab parts of the country continues, or hardens into an intra-Arab civil war, then the effects up and down the Gulf and across the whole Mashreq will be much, much greater. In that case all the countries of the region risk getting drawn directly into a broad sectarian war that-especially given the speed of modern communications and the sensitivities of the various nation's populations-could leap present-day "national borders" very quickly.
There is one external power-Israel-whose leaders might be quite happy to see such a development.
But what can be done to prevent the outbreak of such a "continental" war?
One very evident first step should be the establishment of reliable crisis "hot line" communications links between all the national capitals that think they might need them. (That is, probably, all of them.) The point of a crisis hot line-like the most famous one of all, which was set up between Washington and Moscow after the Cuban missile crisis of 1963-is to allow very timely communications between national leaders, especially in times of uncertainty and threat. The US-Moscow hot line was first used during the 1967 Middle East war, when both superpowers were providing military aid to their friends in the region, and did not want those movements of men and materiel to be misunderstood by the other superpower as being aimed against them. Having the hot-line that year allowed the US and the Soviet Union to avoid tangling the whole world in a massive-indeed, humanity-ending-- nuclear confrontation. Hot-lines can also be used to explain that some action or other "was a mistake", before such actions become the cause of full-scale war. Hot-lines can also be used to help make certain that no mischievous "third party" is stirring hostilities up in any given situation. (For this latter reason, guarding the security of the hot-line system from any external tampering is very important.)
Beyond the establishment of hot-lines, however, there are many other actions that national leaders can and should take in order to calm things down much more in the currently tense Gulf region over the medium and longer terms. These can be divided, roughly, into two types of actions: those facing outside, and those facing inside their own societies.
Regarding those facing outside, these would include the issuing of various public statements that stress the legitimacy and need for respect of existing national borders, and the pursuit of diplomatic initiatives to calm relations with potential opponents. At the level of "calming" diplomatic initiatives, probably the nost important of these right now would be between Iran and the various Arab capitals. They could be state visits, ministerial visits, visits by intellectuals or business executives; the pursuit or even merely the public discussion of joint projects in various fields-all of this designed to reassure everyone that the basic legitimacy of the other country's government is not contested.
At the same time, more discreet "track two" contacts should also probably be pursued by the parties to such exchanges. These "track two" contacts could explore the many existing areas of disagreement away from the public eye and work in advance to make sure that the public "track one" efforts do not end up failing or being counter-productive.
Actions that "face inward" to within each national society itself should certainly include efforts to end the expression within it of any sentiments that demonize whole groups of other people-whether citizens or non-citizens-based solely on their religious affiliation or national original, and to encourage the view that "all the children of God are born with equal rights and deserve equal respect." Attempts to mobilize support for sectarian, hate-motivated acts of violence elsewhere-especially inside Iraq-should all be firmly ended.
Beyond that, it would be good for people in all soeicties to re-examine why it is that people in other neighboring societies might be fearful of the and still harbour feelings of hatred and revenge. How many Arab rulers are aware of how much the Iranians suffered during saddam's invasion of Iran-and how much the Iranians still blame the many Arab countries that supported Saddam during that war? How many people in the Iranian elite are aware of how fearful many Arabs are of Irans relative currently expanding strength in the region? Wouldn't it be a good idea if the peoples of all these countries could find ways to talk about these fears and hurts and differences rather than leeting themselves be dragged blindly towards another war because of them?
… Maybe the kinds of actions I'm suggesting here seem hard to imagine or to pursue? I assure you, compared with seeing the whole region get dragged into a continental war, these things are not difficult at all. If there's a Thirty Years' War in the Gulf and the Mashreq, everyone there risks getting dragged back to the Middle Ages.
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