In a previous post on this blog, Flynt Leverett and Hillary Mann Leverett described what they identify as the increasingly polarized strategic environment in the Middle East. They explained that
On one side of this divide are those states willing to work in various forms of strategic partnership with the United States, with an implied acceptance of American hegemony over the region. This camp includes Israel, those Arab states that have made peace with Israel (Egypt and Jordan), and other so-called moderate Arab states (e.g., Saudi Arabia and the rest of the Gulf Cooperation Council).
On the other side of this divide are those Middle Eastern states and non-state actors that are unwilling to legitimize American (and, some in this camp would say, Israeli) hegemony over the region. The Islamic Republic of Iran has emerged in recent years as the de facto leader of this camp, which also includes Syria and prominent non-state actors such as HAMAS and Hizballah. Notwithstanding its close security ties to the United States, Qatar has also aligned itself with the “resistance” camp on some issues in recent years. And, notwithstanding Turkey’s longstanding membership in NATO and ongoing European “vocation”, the rise of the Justice Development Party and declining military involvement in Turkish politics have prompted an intensification of Ankara’s diplomatic engagement in the Middle East, in ways that give additional strategic options to various actors in the “resistance” camp.
While the “pro-American” camp retains considerable resources and influence, the “resistance” camp has made impressive strategic gains since the turn of the millennium—in no small part, because of the George W. Bush Administration’s strategically counterproductive approach to the region. Against this backdrop, the “pro-American” camp clearly hoped that President Obama would re-legitimate America’s leadership role in the Middle East and deal effectively with the region’s most pressing strategic challenges—with the Palestinian issue and Iran at the top of that list. But, as we have met with senior diplomats and officials from the “pro-American” camp in recent weeks, we have been struck by the accelerating pace at which our interlocutors’ concern about the direction of the Obama Administration’s Middle East policies is mounting. They are becoming increasingly dubious that President Obama will “deliver” in the Middle East—on Palestine, on Iran, in Afghanistan, and on other important regional issues.
The importance of this analysis has been laid bare by Secretary Clinton’s recent trip to the Middle East and the United States’ growing arms sales to its allies in the region.
In this context, I thought I’d share this “Strategic Comment” published by The Institute for International and Strategic Studies back in November.
The report documents the large arms purchases by the Gulf countries and notes that in 2008, UAE and Saudi Arabia spent more than any other developing countries on arms-transfer agreements, committing $9.7 billion and $8.7bn respectively. The report goes on to explain key trends in Middle Eastern arms purchases including the deployment of missile defense systems.
Here is what the report concludes:
The bases and weapons purchases illustrate the dichotomy of Gulf thinking regarding Iran. Some Gulf states fear that Iran, with its size and wealth, aspires to the status of regional superpower. Were Iran to have nuclear weapons – or a ‘break-out’ capacity that could quickly furnish it with weapons – rulers fear Tehran could dictate to them in military and economic matters. They do not want a nuclear Iran. At the same time, however, they are concerned about the possible consequences of a hard Western line against Iran, and especially of military action aimed at disabling its nuclear programme. They fear that Tehran’s response would be to lash out not at the West, but at the West’s friends in its neighbourhood. Hence their increased expenditure on defence, missile shields and foreign bases.
Confronting this dilemma by tightening their embrace of the West – and doing so openly – represents a gamble for the Gulf’s rulers: it is an implicit acknowledgment that however much they may spend on weapons, their security, ultimately, lies with outside powers. With the closure of American facilities in Saudi Arabia and, eventually, Iraq, and an accompanying scaling-down of operations in Kuwait, the trend is obviously towards a smaller overall US footprint in the region. This, however, must be balanced against the new wave of weapons sales, the French base in Abu Dhabi and the significant expansion of American naval facilities in Bahrain. When the dust settles there may well be fewer foreign troops in the Gulf than there were a decade ago, but with Iraq no longer a strategic threat to its neighbours this was to be expected. The remaining forces are very openly focused on Iran. It is too soon to say whether Iran, looking from across the water, sees a threat or a deterrent.
You can read the full “strategic comment” here.
– Ben Katcher
rfjk – Iran isn’t looking to go crusading beyond its borders, that’s not the point when discussing democracy in the region. The biggest point is that it is rapidly evolving in various forms throughout the Middle East, and Islamic politics is the popular choice everywhere. Turkey is perhaps the most benign form of it from a Western perspective, but the truth is that apart from a few fringe groups all Islamic politics is moderate, and they all learn from each other.
Unless the US adopts more inclusive policies toward Islamism, all US influence will go up in smoke one day. Dealing with Iran is the perfect opportunity to move forward in that way, preserving the chance to develop inclusive political systems amongst the Arab dictatorships without too much revolutionary drama.
JohnH
There is no disputing your premise of the many interpretations of democracy. The list is a long one defining deliberative democracy, democratic socialism, direct democracy, participatory democracy, representative democracy and on and on. Its all nonsense since when you really start studying the forms you can distill all these nomenclatures down to several basic forms like republics, parliamentarian and tyrannies. Some of these are quite ridiculous like dictatorship of the proletariat. I kid you not. And futarchy is only something an economist can dream up.
The last thing democracy is about is justice, rights or liberties for the few or the many. Democracy means people/rule. Its a majoritarian order that serves the majoritarian will in pursuit of majoritarian power. All power is plenary in the hands of the People in Assembly. There are no presidents, prime ministers, senators, ministers or representatives. There is no understanding or tolerance of divided powers, separate chambers of governance or a separate judicial system above or beyond the power of the people in jury, which is absolute. Judges in such a system are merely to enforce the protocols of the court and proper conduct. They do not rule on the law.
If America were a democracy George Bush and hundreds of others, maybe thousands would have been condemned to death by the People in Assembly. The Athenians did it quite regularly not only executing generals and admirals, but also their leaders. Pericles, the greatest first citizen, war leader and demagogue in Athenian history just barely escaped such a fate himself. Alcibiades spent the last half of his life fleeing the wrath of the Athenian people. Themistocles died in a Persian satrap and others were ostracized like Miltiades. Democracy is about raw, unadulterated, people power and exercised exclusively by its citizens.
Everyone begs for it, and in the getting no one will like or want it.
JohnH
Iraqi’s weren’t the only people to reject the US system of republican governance. Every eastern European state freed from the Soviet grip also rejected the US model. This attitude shocks Americans because we believe we have the best system of governance in the world. The truth is we don’t if we actually believe that government should serve the will and welfare of the people.
Parliamentarian systems are less autocratic in their politics, far simpler systems than the US republic and usually better serve the will, personal and social welfare of the governed. Consequently, such systems tend towards socialism, government control over the marketplace and curtailment of liberties that are anathema to the American culture and its Zeitgeist.
JohnH
You are confusing the act of voting as proof of democracy or some artfully imagined version of. Voting is an activity in many systems of governance, even in dictatorships or communist like the former USSR. And when you say “free and fair elections of people to represent you,” your actually describing a republic by which citizens elect delegates to rule over them for specific periods of time. The people, citizenry or masses don’t rule in a republic. Read the US constitution and what it describes are the architectures of a republic. Section 4 of article 4 boldly states: “…The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government…”
The court histories of the US revolution are idealized propaganda and the military histories aren’t much better. A more clearer picture emerges when foreign sources like British documents and diaries are accessed and a more violent and brutal war emerges that was principally waged between rebel and loyalist colonists, of which neither the Continental Congress, the British or George Washington had any control over. The founding generation, not merely the founding fathers had a belly full of Montesquieu’s “rights of man,” natural law, revolutionary anarchy and in the end the survivors where nearly all anti-democratic to a man. That’s why the US constitution is an anti-democratic document and government republican in form and function.
rfjk
Sorry to see how disconnected or perhaps disgusted you are with what we all have to endure, never less this are the facts that shape our policies, if you are an American
I can see how you are relating all your current problems with the fact that the need for energy is forcing this country to adopt policies that are undemocratic and this might have diluted the absolute utopian imagery you might have had of a so called democracy
kooshy
Can’t disagree more. Notwithstanding your beliefs, not one Arab state can claim being a democracy. Iran is a Shiite theocracy and Israel is evolving into a Judite police state of apartheid and ghettoization. And should some miracle of creation bless the world with a new, abundant and cheap energy resource to replace hydrocarbons, your head will spin at how fast the whole global community abandons the M/E to its fate.
Labels like democracy, republic, parliamentarian, plutocracy, oligarchy, monarchy, kleptocracy and a host of others informs not only the philosophy of governance that rules in such systems, but principally the architectures & structures of these various institutions of governance through which power/politics operates and is managed by parties, classes, wealth, race, tribes, creeds, etc.
Democracy is a very vague and malleable word. Here we take it to mean that the consent of the governed will be obtained through free and fair elections of people to represent us. There is legitimate concern about how all that has worked out, since Big Money basically buys elections and representation of their interests. In fact, that may not be very far removed from what big landowners had in mind when they framed the Constitution.
Over time there have been many interpretation of democracy. Some of the most ruthless dictators in the world have evoked the word democracy, because they had the audacity to claim they were acting on behalf of the peoples’ interests.
There are obviously lots of shades of difference between the direct democracy of a New England town hall meeting and that of a brutal dictator. But the fundamental criterion for a functioning democracy is representation of the rights and interests of the many, not just the narrow interests of a privileged few, whether they be clerics, generals, or wealthy capitalists.
If democracy comes to the Middle East, it will certainly not be based on the US model. Someone I know worked with Iraqi legislators to build a functioning legislature. They typically regarded the US model as a failed model of democracy. Congress’ failure to impeach Bush and remove him was cited as one reason for their opinion. They preferred a parliamentary model.
Bottom line: if the ME becomes more democratic it will not be made in USA. It will be something different, which America should not rush to judge. (People who live in glass houses…)
Rfjk
Politics is the art of relevance and not the absolute, since a democracy is a political form it can’t be viewed as an absolute within it’s cultural, geographical and historical context, With that in mind Iran is more democratic today then it was 30 years ago but it will never be an absolute democracy, there has never existed an absolute democratic entity and I don’t think it ever will.
Iran, Turkey, and Egypt culturally and historically and religiously are the trendsetters in the Muslim world a more democratic form of governance by these countries will affect the entire Muslim population of the world. Arguably the Iranian revolution of the 1979 has been the biggest event in the Muslim world since the Ottoman takeover of the Byzantium in 1453, and the effect of that revolution has been weakening of the western powers including the former USSR. If invading Afghanistan was a pillar of lost USSR lost than why did soviets need to move in to Afghanistan a few months after the Iranian revolution did it had anything to do with their then soviets Muslim republics of central Asia or for the same reason why did US need to have Iraq invade Iran was it worried that the Iranian revolution will affect the US allied Arab Muslim countries.
So worries of the domino effect was and still is there and that is not only for the western side
Democracy? Their hasn’t been a bona-fide democracy on the planet since the 5th century BC. ‘Demos,’ the great delusion of the modern era, the pixy dust and super charged KoolAid the masses snort and swallow hook, line and sinker. Anyone who harps on about democracy in the modern era demonstrates no knowledge of political science and governing systems, shouldn’t be listened to and are likely wannabe tyrants selling their own version of snake oil to the brainless and gullible.
Iranians have got more than enough troubles on the home front than to go crusading for more beyond their borders. And the only approval Iranians & Turks receive from main street Arabs is solely due to their support for Palestinians, which is a number 1 issue among all Arabs anyway. Beyond that Turks and Persians aren’t really all that much admired or have anything useful for the Arabs to learn from. It sure as hell isn’t democracy (sic). If there is anyplace on the earth where democracy will never take root, southwest Asia ‘fits the bill to a T.’
The “domino effect” will be manifested by the toppling of illegitimate, US-allied kings and other hereditary successors (Egypt, Qatar.) Iran cannot export its Shi’a revolution and it will not control other nations. However, the Iranian example undermines the very foundations of the Persian Gulf autocrats.
Arabs will have to find their own way to inclusive, representative government, if that is possible. They will get no help from the US or Europe. But democracy has blossomed throughout Latin America under the benign neglect of the US, so there is some hope.
IMHO many Arab states are pressure cookers waiting to explode. Successful Islamic alternatives like Turkey and Iran only add to the pressure.
There will be no “domino effect” in the Middle East.
Though Obama gets the credit for slashing Corporate/Congressional pork in the defense budget, its Gate’s whose the mastermind ramrodding reform in defense spending. He was the one who gutted the 350 billion dollar ‘Future Combat Systems’ boondoggle of boondoggles, that corporate America and its whores in Congress were slathering up at the trough and made it stick despite the howling. Nor is that the only graft Gates has cut out of the backsides of corporate America, besides current planning on denying them more.
In Gates’s Pentagon budget, humble pie for Lockheed Martin
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Military/2010/0201/In-Gates-s-Pentagon-budget-humble-pie-for-Lockheed-Martin
But Gates is no dummy. These foreign sales will go a long way to mollifying corporate angst over his management style and successful politicking. Nor should anyone be fooled those saving will be redirected to other needful priorities. Gates and like minded are recreating the US armed forces into a standing, professionalized force for the 21st century, like better pay grades and benefits to keep trained and experienced personnel in the military.
John
That’s it, you have got this thing absolutely right this is the whole problem a successful Islamic revolution will become a role model for the people in this region and may cause a domino effect in this energy region of the world, that is why at the current time even a grand bargain can’t be accepted and negotiated no matter how much you and me blog about it, or even if all the opinion polls indicate that the entire country is in love with Iran and Ahmaidinijad, the policy will not and can’t change unless US encounters the same situation that it did at the end of the Vietnam war then the US maybe will be willing to pay the price like when it did agree to pay the price to Mao to be allowed to live the Vietnam. There they agreed with a communist Vietnam and its effect on its immediate region, at that time because of USSR they preferred to leave the Vietnam for China rather than the soviets, This could happen again depending what will become of the Iraq once US leaves and the more likely if the situation gets out of hand in between Pakistan and India
No sooner has Hillary returned from her junkett, Chairman of the USJCS Admiral Mike Mullen returns from his visit to Israel and stated before a news conference Monday that:
“…he supported using diplomatic and economic pressure against Iran and repeated his view that military action could carry ‘unintended consequences.’ ‘No strike, however effective, will be in and of itself decisive,’ Adm. Mullen told a press conference after recently returning from a visit to the Middle East…”
As for military operational planing regarding Iran, the US has such plans with our neighbors Canada and Mexico. I wouldn’t be surprised if the US has a battle plan for the Principality of Monaco. Nothing like another warning to dampen the rhetorical devices of the impotent.
http://www.straitstimes.com/BreakingNews/World/Story/STIStory_493714.html
Interesting that the leading militarized societies in the world are all in the Middle East. Oman, Qatar and Saudi Arabia, each spend 10% of their GDP on the military, putting them at the top of the world rankings. Right below are Iraq, Jordan, Yemen and Israel.
Interesting also that Iran is far from being a leading militarized society. They spend only 2.5% of GDP annually on their military, putting them at #67 in the world. (The United States ranks #28.) In fact Iran spends less annually than what the US spends in 3 months in Iraq alone. By contrast, Iran used to spend 18% of its GDP on the military, but that was when the US’ ally the Shah was still in power.
The disparities between the social and economic models on the Persian and Arab sides of the Persian Gulf could not be more stark. Iran is investing heavily in science, education, and health care. The Arab states are investing in their military.
All this makes Iran very threatening, but not because of its military. Rather, its revolutionary rhetoric constitutes a threat to US allied Arab autocracies. Massive investments in arms do little to address social injustices or enhance stability. The Shah found that out the hard way. As so, Iranian rhetoric finds fertile ground among the Arab disadvantaged, particularly the large Shi’a community in which historical oppression and injustice constitute a core part of their religious experience.
And, if Iran succeeds in building a more just, equitable society, its example will only enhance its rhetoric, causing more trouble for neighboring Arab tyrants. And this is perhaps one of the things about Iran that the US finds most frightening–how dare the Iranians try to develop a just and equitable society, particularly with profits that rightly belong to oil companies?
This is all very well put. The question for us is: What should we do to preserve and enhance our security interests in the Middle East-Central Asia? I know the Obama administration cares about this, but they are hampered by their propensity to split the difference on every matter. This is not like a piece of legislation before Congress. We need to move decisively to:
1) Try for an Israeli-Palestinian settlement that at a minimum resembles the deal Arafat turned down in 2000. That means spending real political capital on pressuring Israel to be forthcoming. Because even our best effort is likely to be torpedoed by one side or the other, we must be seen to be doing everything in our power to get Israel to make real concessions. The world must know that the U.S. government is not a captive of the Israeli lobby. This would allow us to move forward on other fronts even in the face of failure.
2) Try to strike a “grand bargain” with Iran which provides guarantees for the security and interests of both parties in the region. The ultimate goal would be achieving a strategic partnership that locks up the Gulf region for our purposes and prepares the way for the extension of our influence (to the extent we desire) in Central Asia. This will require real dialogue, real U.S. concessions, and ignoring Israeli fear-mongering. (It’s curious to think back and reflect on the Israeli-Iranian “strategic partnership” that existed even under Khomeni. In those days the Israelis actually sold arms to Iran, even over the objections of the Reagan administration.) This must be done without offending Russia (we should, perhaps, be more accomodating towards the Russians as regards the breakaway portions of Georgia), and without neglecting our other natural allies Turkey and India.
A pie-in-sky program? Only if we will it so. Of course, for its own reasons Iran may turn down a grand bargain. But we’ll never know unless we try.