The Modern Middle East (3 page)

The popular yearning for democracy, in fact, and the intransigence of incumbent authoritarian states on giving up power rocked the Arab world beginning in late 2010, when the region witnessed a series of historic uprisings that continue to change the region’s political landscape in ways that few had predicted. This happened to correspond with the publication of the book’s second edition. For months after the uprisings began, I resisted the temptation to start work on a new edition, hoping to wait long enough for the outcomes of what came to be known as the Arab Spring to become evident before putting pen to paper. But spring turned into summer and fall, and then winter, and the turns and twists of the fateful events of 2011 continued to unfold across the region in ways that defied all predictions and analysis. As the second anniversary of the start of the Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions approached, I could no longer delay work on updating a book that was becoming rapidly outdated.

As I write, history is still being made. In Tunisia, Libya, and Egypt, draft constitutions have sparked intense debates over such fundamental questions as the role of religion in political life in general and in legislation and personal-status law in particular. In Tunisia and Libya elections for the national legislature and the executive are yet to be held, and the ultimate shape of those institutions are far from determined. In Egypt, the newly elected president, Mohamed Morsi, is fending off accusations of crafting a new dictatorship from the country’s judges and from old and new protesters in Cairo’s iconic Tahrir Square. In Syria, a bloody civil war continues to rage, whose direction and outcome at this point are far from certain. And for
the first time demonstrators in Amman are openly calling for the fall of the Hashemite monarchy.

Keenly aware of the perils of writing on history as it unfolds, I go about this third edition with a larger-than-usual measure of humility. History, and especially Middle Eastern history, often plays tricks on those who try to predict its future course. So I make no such attempt here. Instead, in chapters 7 and 8, I focus on the causes of the revolutions of 2011 and examine the dynamics that have given them the characteristics they have so far assumed. In chapter 7 I look at the institutional and political evolution of seemingly immovable states beginning in the 1950s and the 1960s and lasting into the 2000s. In chapter 8, on repression and rebellion, I examine moves toward democratization initiated both by states and by social actors, most of which were aborted in the 1990s and the 2000s, and which eventually precipitated the mass uprisings of 2011.

Chapter 9 examines the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. It begins with a discussion of how the two competing national identities have given resonance and force to the conflict through a mutual negation of “the Other.” The chapter then looks at the situation on the ground, examining how the two sides’ denial of each other’s rights affects their daily lives and circumstances. There are, on a few occasions, glimmers of hope in this long and bloody conflict, as figures from both sides have embarked on the difficult task of reconciliation and peace. The chapter ends with a discussion of some of the maneuvers and the progress made so far in the elusive “peace process.”

Chapter 10, on economic development, examines three features of the political economy of the Middle East: the pervasive role of the state; its pursuit of economic policies designed to minimize its extractive role in relation to social actors; and its limited abilities to control or even regulate many economic activities.

The book ends with a brief discussion of some of the more important challenges the Middle East is currently facing or is likely to face in the coming decades. The last century has brought to the Middle East progress and change on multiple fronts, from the creation of impressive edifices of the state to the transformation of arid desert lands into massive urban areas and even agricultural lands (in Saudi Arabia). But problems also abound—from economically unsustainable rates of population growth and chronic food insecurity to hazardous levels of pollution of environmental resources, to name only a few—and their magnitude is amplified by official neglect or mismanagement. Sooner or later, state or private agencies need to substantively address the many challenges facing the Middle East, or the future will be more troublesome than the past.

A Political History of the Middle East

AS HOME TO SOME OF THE
world’s earliest civilizations and the birthplace of three great religions, the Middle East offers a rich tapestry of human life and deeply ingrained traditions. At the same time, the region’s political history, both classic and modern, has been punctuated by the rise and fall of great powers, colonial domination, the birth or creation of new countries, and uneven marches toward political and economic development. The multiple consequences of these developments for the Middle East have been particularly pronounced since the early decades of the twentieth century. In reality, however, they can be traced as far back as the second half of the 1500s, when the Ottoman Empire began expanding its domain, and, in many ways even before that, all the way back to the early development of Islam in the seventh century
A.D.

From its inception, Islam has shaped politics and society in the regions where it is dominant, especially the Middle East. Even in those historical periods when political authority in the Muslim lands was fragmented or nonexistent, Islam continued to be a powerful social bond and a potential source of communal solidarity. The Ottomans united much of the Middle East under their own imperial banner, but their control over their far-flung territories was often tenuous and indirect at best. Despite the existence of the institution of
beyliks
(provincial governorships appointed by the Ottoman court), in much of the Middle East meaningful local political institutions never had the opportunity to emerge. The Ottoman “state” operated most manifestly in Istanbul and in the Anatolian heartland and seldom reached deep into the societies of the vast territories over which it ruled.

The collapse of the Ottomans in the early twentieth century resulted in the large-scale introduction of European colonialism into the Middle East
beginning in the 1920s and officially lasting until the late 1940s, although in some cases British domination of local politics did not really end until the early 1970s. European colonialism took place under historical circumstances radically different from those that had existed during Ottoman rule. Nevertheless, the basic pattern of relationship between the colonial states and their subject societies—one of detachment, minimal contact, and top-down flow of power—remained largely the same.

The emergence of sovereign, independent states in the Middle East in the 1940s and 1950s dramatically altered domestic power equations and the traditional foundations for state-society relations in each Middle Eastern country. These ostensibly modern states were thrust unprepared into a competitive international environment in which they had to foster rapid economic and industrial development and, most importantly, satisfy the growing nationalist aspirations of their populations. These nationalist yearnings emerged in response to domestic social and political developments and as a result of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, the latter itself serving as a catalyst for much regional conflict and instability. Not surprisingly, the political history of the modern Middle East as it unfolded in the twentieth century was one of wars, conquests, political turmoil, and extremism. Whether the current century, with a wave of regional uprisings at the end of its first decade, will hold a different future for the region remains to be seen.

1
From Islam to the Great War

Since the Middle East is home to some of the world’s earliest civilizations, it is difficult to choose a starting point for examining its political history, for no matter how far back the investigator searches, there still seem to be deeper layers of historical and political developments that influenced the course of later events. For convenience, and admittedly somewhat arbitrarily, I have chosen the dawn of Islam as the starting point of this book. This has some justification: Islam as both a system of beliefs and a historical-political phenomenon has distinctively marked the Middle East, and its rise and evolution created dynamics that continue to shape the destiny of nations today.

The rise, evolution, and spread of Islam in the seventh century
A.D.
were greatly influenced by the geography of the region in which it was born. Islam is not unique in this respect, for any religious or political phenomenon is shaped and influenced by its geographic circumstances. Thus the chapter begins with a brief survey of that larger context. It then traces Middle Eastern history from the birth and expansion of Islam to the rise of the Ottomans and, after nearly five centuries, their ultimate collapse and replacement by European colonial powers. Islam was born in the Arabian peninsula, a place nearly as harsh and inaccessible today as it was in the seventh century. The area was linked to the outside world primarily by the merchant caravans that left the Hijaz region (in western Arabia) for trading posts in Damascus and farther north along the Silk Road. By the time of the rise of Islam, many civilizations just north of the Arabian peninsula had already gone through cycles of birth, death, and regeneration—the Akkadians, Babylonians, and Hittites chief among them—although two formidable dynasties continued to exist and, in fact, thrive. The Sassanids, concentrated to the northeast of the Arabian peninsula along the two sides
of what is now the Iran-Iraq border, were gradually restoring to the ancient Iranians some of the glory they had lost with the collapse of the Achemenid dynasty at the hands of Alexander the Great. The other great civilization was the Byzantine Empire, whose size and powers were as impressive as the great city that bore its name. Between the Sassanids and the Byzantines lay the ruins of a few other ancient civilizations, by then long abandoned, the most notable of which were the Babylonians. With these potential intermediaries long gone, frequent quarrels erupted between the two regional giants, steadily weakening both in the process. In 330
A.D.
, Constantine the Great made Byzantium the capital of the Roman Empire and changed its name to Constantinople, the City of Constantine. Islam appeared in 610
A.D.
and expanded dramatically after the Prophet’s death nearly twenty-three years later. This expansion was greatly influenced by the conditions in which Islam found itself and the heritage of the peoples and the regions it conquered along the way.

By the time Islam appeared in the Arabian peninsula, the two other civilizations in the region, the Byzantines in the north and the Sassanids in the east, had come to adopt variations of two monotheistic religions, Christianity and Zoroastrianism, respectively. Several forms of Christianity prevailed elsewhere in the Middle East: the Coptic Church in Egypt, the Jacobite Church in Syria, and the Nestorian Church in Iraq. Parts of eastern Iraq were also Zoroastrian, as was almost all of Iran, where the tradition of divine kingship did not die out until after the Arab conquest, and even then not very thoroughly.
¹
Jewish and pagan communities were also scattered throughout the area, including in the Arabian peninsula, where a majority worshipped local deities.
²

The religious makeup of the Middle East at the time of Islam’s appearance tells us much about other aspects of life in the region. With religion came the increasing differentiation of authority and the development of religious and administrative hierarchies. Depending on local circumstances and conditions, local priests (
mobads
for Zoroastrians), bishops, and popes could become tremendously influential in the day-to-day lives of ordinary people, some even influencing the fates of entire dynasties. Places of worship and congregation also assumed importance not only for articulating and perpetuating religious values but as sources of local organization and mobilization. Equally important were the use and manipulation of religion by existing or aspiring political leaders, whether at the level of the local
community or the empire, the most brilliant manifestation of which could be found in Constantinople.
³

Life was organized, and still is today, into three distinct but at times interrelated communities. First were urban communities, cities where markets and money economies had been firmly established, elaborate political and administrative apparatuses had been set up, and religious power and authority, as well as liturgy and customs, had evolved.
⁴
In broad, historical terms, cities in the Middle East can be divided into pre-Islamic and Islamic ones. With the rise and expansion of Islam, a few cities gradually died out as they ceased being centers of economic and political power. The Sassanid capital of Ctesiphon, near present-day Baghdad, is a case in point. Many more cities were established anew or grew out of military encampments. Kufa and Basra in southern Mesopotamia, Fustat in Egypt, Qayrawan in Tunisia, and, somewhat later, Marv in northeastern Iran were among the more notable in this group of cities.
⁵
Still others were changed not just in name but also in their political and historical significance. For example, Yathrib, a town north of Mecca, became Medina and the capital of Prophet Muhammad’s new Islamic state. Some eight centuries later and under very different circumstances, Constantinople became Istanbul and the capital of an expanding Ottoman Empire.

While Islam has essentially been an urban religion in both its genesis and its later evolution, there have been two other types of Middle Eastern communities as well: relatively small and often isolated villages; and tribes of nomads, many of whom were called bedouins (literally, “desert dwellers”). Both developed as a result of the “Neolithic Revolution,” which began around 6000
B.C.
and involved the development of agriculture and the domestication of new types of animals.
⁶
The proportion of villages and nomadic tribes appears to have oscillated depending on political currents and the rise and fall of local dynasties.
⁷
On the whole, strong central authority, and the concomitant security of the subject population from banditry and lawlessness, favored urbanization and the growth of cities. Political authority and urbanization assumed a mutually reinforcing relationship. With the decline of central authority and increasing levels of physical and economic insecurity, some of the less firmly settled urban groups or those in smaller towns and villages found it beneficial to migrate.
⁸
The reliance of many of these groups on camels and horses, and thus the search for pastures and oases, made migration for many nomads a seasonal or a semipermanent necessity. Dynastic declines did not directly give rise to nomadic and other tribal groups, but they certainly appear to have added to their numbers. Throughout the centuries, the center of political and imperial
power shifted from one city and region to another several times—from Medina to Damascus, then to Baghdad, and eventually to Istanbul, with Cairo, Cordoba, and Esfahan experiencing their own power fluctuations. Each time the center of political power shifted, the fortunes of the populations in the nearby areas changed as well.