Rami Khouri is Director of the Institute of Public Policy and International Affairs at the American University of Beirut. This is from the Daily Star on 1/3/07.
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A journalist's tendency to look back on the past year and spot important new trends is heightened when the setting for such an exercise is the idyllic northeastern shore of the Dead Sea in Jordan, where I spent the last days of 2006. Reviewing the past year, I jotted down recent and ongoing developments worth keeping an eye on in the years ahead.
Polarization and confrontation, with occasional violence, have become the prevailing political norm in the Middle East, as the docile ideological center of years past temporarily leaves the stage. Militant polarization manifests itself on three levels, evident in many countries such as Lebanon, Palestine, Iran, Sudan, Egypt, Morocco, Bahrain, and others: local power balances, regional alliances aligned around the Arab-Israeli conflict, and a global confrontation pitting Arab-Iranian Islamism against American-Israeli-Arab power elites.
If the increasingly common use of violence by most local and foreign parties in the region becomes the norm of political expression, it could remove negotiated politics as a credible means of conduct for years to come. Political and military violence are now routinely used by all: Arab states and regimes, Iran and Turkey, Anglo-American-led foreign armadas, local hegemonic and occupying powers like Israel, assorted terrorist groups, several resistance movements, and local gangs and criminals. No wonder that the most common symbol of the contemporary Middle East is the security guard and metal-detecting scanner. It is the sad icon that defines and unites us, but it is also an icon of our own making.
Foreign intervention in domestic affairs, though not new, has become more common and audacious, involving primarily countries like Iran, the United States, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Egypt, and some low-key Europeans. Foreign support for local proxies is most obvious in Lebanon and Palestine, but also in Somalia, Iraq, and Sudan. The latest entry into this club is the Ethiopian Army in Somalia, where the rollback of the Islamists who had recently controlled parts of the country is likely to encourage more foreign assistance to stop the advance of political Islamists. Such a strategy is underway in Lebanon and Palestine, where political forces of roughly equal strength on both sides are likely to be forced to accept compromise agreements rather than fight to the finish.
Consequently, we may be witnessing the birth of an odd new system in which Middle Eastern countries are governed by elites umbilically linked to foreign patrons. This mirrors two recent historical antecedents: the foreign mandates that ruled the region after World War I; and the Capitulations system during the Ottoman era that allowed European powers to protect minorities -- mainly Christians and Jews. It is bizarre and troubling that as most of the world moves forward in history, our region is moving backward toward arrangements from the past.
The spiraling violence throughout the Middle East is prompting honest people to acknowledge that trying to resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict is the single most useful thing to do in the short run in the quest for a more stable region. This has not yet been translated into meaningful diplomatic progress, but a resolution could be one of the few signs that some are prepared to respond sensibly to the incoherence all around them.
This effort could be linked to the expanding opportunity for the United Nations to play a constructive role -- if it can break away from Washington's attempt to turn the organization into a Pentagon annex. This would include the UN Security Council's pursuing the investigation of the murder of the late Lebanese prime minister, Rafik Hariri [6], and dozens of others since February 2005; creating the mixed court to try the suspects in the murders; implementing those aspects of Security Council Resolution 1701 [7] that open the way for Lebanese-Israeli conflict resolution; further consolidating the UN military force in South Lebanon; and playing a greater role in Darfur in Sudan.
Change is everywhere, but it's not always positive, as our region and its many foreign patrons refuse to remain static, or docile, for long. After half a century of mostly frozen political development, the Middle East is experiencing the resumption of history -- with all its good and bad dimensions. Unlike in 1918 and 1948, however, this episode of historical change is noteworthy because the people of the region insist on participating in the process, rather than being passive recipients of foreign dictates. This is the most important development of 2006: self-assertion by Middle Eastern natives who are not only restless, but determined to play a role in shaping the new drama that is their destiny.