By
MICHAEL COLLINS DUNN
MICHAEL
COLLINS DUNN, Ph.D. is Editor of The Middle East Journal, the
scholarly quarterly published by The Middle East Institute, and also of The
Estimate, a biweekly newsletter of political and security intelligence
on the Islamic world, which he founded in 1989.
In
the Middle East, 1999 differed considerably from 1998. While 1998 had been
characterized by recurring confrontations between the United States and
Iraq, 1999 saw an almost ignored, but persisting, U.S. air campaign
against Iraq's air-defense capabilities, one which neither side
particularly sought to publicize. The Israeli-Palestinian peace process,
which had seemed mired in stasis in 1998, was given a new jump-start after
the decisive election of Ehud Barak. Iran moved more rapidly toward normal
relations with the outside world while continuing an internal power
struggle, the outcome of which was still uncertain as of early December.
The boycott on air travel to Libya was suspended after Libya turned over
the two intelligence officers accused of plotting the Lockerbie bombing.
Despite certain continuing confrontations--and, on the Middle East's
eastern periphery, the October military coup in Pakistan--it was generally
a year of positive movement, of optimism rather than pessimism.
But
1999 will be remembered for another reason. For many years, Middle East
analysts have been waiting for the inevitable generational change in the
Arab world. The survey article on the Middle East in last year's Almanac
of Seapower noted that so many of the region's leaders had been in power
for decades that a turnover was inevitable. And 1999 was the year it
began. For that reason, the past year will be remembered as a landmark in
the history of the Middle East, and thus the generational change demands
attention even before a discussion of the U.S. defense posture in the
region.
Generational
Change
The
three longest-serving Arab monarchs all died within a six-month period:
King Hussein of Jordan in February, Sheikh Isa of Bahrain in March, and
King Hassan II of Morocco in July. King Hussein inherited his throne in
1952; the other two rulers ascended their thrones in 1961. Jordan has
always been a key player in the Arab-Israeli peace process; Bahrain is the
home of the U.S. Fifth Fleet, and Morocco has long been a staunchly
pro-Western friend in both Arab and African affairs. The transfer of power
to younger men--in their thirties, in the case of the new Kings of Jordan
and Morocco; in his forties in the case of the new ruler of Bahrain--seems
unlikely to change the alignment of those countries, but is almost certain
to change the governing style.
But
these three successions in six months are unlikely to mark the end of the
story. Sheikh Zayed, the president of the United Arab Emirates and ruler
of Abu Dhabi, is already in his eighties. King Fahd of Saudi Arabia,
already semiretired, is in his mid-seventies--but his heir apparent is
almost the same age. The ruler of Kuwait and his heir are both around 70.
Husni Mubarak of Egypt is 71, and received a flesh wound in an apparent
assassination attempt in September. He has no vice president or other
clearly designated heir. Yasser Arafat, president of the Palestinian
Authority, turned 70 in 1999 and is visibly frail, his hands shaking
during public appearances. He also has no clear successor. Hafiz al-Asad
of Syria turned 69 in October, amid rumors that his health is worsening
daily. Asad has made clear that he wants to be succeeded by his son Bashar,
but the latter is only 34 and the Syrian constitution says that the
president must be 40; Bashar almost certainly would find himself
challenged if his father were to die soon.
There
is even some basis for believing that one reason that the new Israeli
prime minister, Ehud Barak, is seeking to push forward on both the Syrian
and Palestinian "tracks" of the peace process is his recognition
that whoever succeeds Asad and Arafat will have neither the authority nor
the confidence to make the hard compromises necessary for peace. Barak is
therefore determined, apparently, to cut a deal with the old guard before
it passes from the scene.
It
is not merely that these men are growing old. They have held dominant
roles in their countries' lives for a very long time. Hafiz al-Asad came
to power in 1970 and has been unchallenged since 1971; Arafat has been
leader of the Palestine Liberation Organization since 1968. While Mubarak
did not become president of Egypt until 1981, he has served longer than
either of his predecessors, Gamal Abdel Nasser and Anwar Sadat. Saddam
Hussein has been a major player in Iraq since the late 1960s, and has been
in unchallenged power for nearly 20 years. Even the enfant terrible of the
Arab World, Muammar Qadhafi of Libya, has been in power for 30 years.
Looked
at another way, the late King Hussein of Jordan ascended the throne as a
teenager, on 11 August 1952. Harry Truman was president of the United
States, Winston Churchill had just been returned to power in Britain,
France was under the Fourth Republic, and Egypt had sent King Farouq
packing just three weeks earlier. King Hassan II of Morocco and Sheikh Isa
of Bahrain came to power in the same year as John F. Kennedy, 1961. All of
these men ruled through dramatic periods--several Arab-Israeli wars, oil
price booms and busts, and both revolutions and counterrevolutions in
neighboring countries.
By
the time these three leaders died their worlds had changed in almost
unimaginable ways. Satellite television and the Internet were breaking
down old barriers and old censorship. Attitudes toward Israel had changed
dramatically. Jordan signed its peace treaty with Israel in 1994; Israeli
leaders attended the funerals of both King Hussein and King Hassan.
Perhaps most amazing of all, Israel's Foreign Minister met with eleven
Arab delegations, at the United Nations General Assembly session in
September in New York, something that would have been unthinkable even a
few months earlier.
As
the old guard passes from the scene, and younger men who came of age in
the era of the communications revolution take charge of their countries,
governing styles will inevitably change (as it already has in Jordan and
Morocco); the question is how much--and if--these changes in style will
bring with them a change in substance.
The
Unsolved Problem: Saddam, Sanctions, and the West
While,
as noted above, three of America's oldest friends in the Arab world, the
monarchs of Jordan, Morocco, and Bahrain, passed on in 1999, one of its
oldest enemies remained as entrenched as ever. Saddam Hussein, almost a
decade after Desert Storm and a year after the foreshortened Desert Fox,
was still very much in power in Iraq. The United Nations' sanctions
remained in place, and there was a growing clamor in the Arab
world--including at least some countries that took part in Desert
Storm--for a relaxation of sanctions to relieve the suffering of ordinary
Iraqis. Since Desert Fox, moreover, there has been no U.N. inspection
regime in place on the ground--the United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM)
having been withdrawn prior to the U.S. airstrikes--and there is a
widespread suspicion, in the absence of U.N. inspections, that the Iraqis
are resuming their pursuit of weapons of mass destruction (WMDs).
The
United States insists that Iraq's "humanitarian problem" has
been caused by Saddam's deliberate diversion of the food and medicine made
available through the oil-for-food program, and that the suffering is
therefore Saddam's responsibility. There is no real doubt that Saddam has
calculated that there is a propaganda advantage to his own people's
suffering, but the cynicism of that calculation does not entirely undercut
the advantage: There really is a growing sympathy movement toward Iraq in
the Arab world, and that movement includes many who despise Saddam
Hussein.
U.S.
efforts to reinvigorate the Iraqi opposition have, so far, produced many
conferences and press releases, but few visible results on the ground. The
Kurdish north, which has been de facto self-governing since 1991, is
divided between the two main Kurdish factions, and U.S. efforts to bring
them together have enjoyed only the most sporadic and temporary successes.
In
the absence of U.N. inspections or any real movement by Iraq toward
compliance with international demands (or an equivalent movement toward
relaxation of U.N. sanctions), the most visible reminder of the continuing
problem posed by Saddam Hussein in 1999 was the little-publicized, but
persisting, Western campaign against Iraq's air-defense system. In the
wake of the expulsion of UNSCOM and the Desert Fox attacks, Iraq announced
that it would no longer honor the northern and southern no-fly zones that
had been imposed after Desert Storm and extended through the years. The
allies (now primarily the United States and Britain) continue to fly
patrols over northern Iraq from Incirlik in Turkey, and over southern Iraq
either from U.S. carriers on station in the Gulf or from shore bases in
Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.
Iraq
has continued to challenge the overflights, by moving its surface-to-air
missile batteries or locking on radar--but there was at least one
air-to-air encounter (in January 1999). The United States and the United
Kingdom have continued, in response to these challenges, to attack Iraq's
radar sites, missile batteries, and/or command-and-control centers. As a
result, there has been a persisting campaign to degrade Iraq's air-defense
capabilities, one far less intense than the four-day Desert Fox bombing
campaign late 1998, but one that may have a longer-term effect in
suppressing those capabilities. By the end of September 1999, there had
been nearly 250 attacks on targets in the northern no-fly zone, and some
130 on targets in the southern zone. There was no visible diminution in
numbers of Iraqi challenges, however, or in Western responses. While
receiving far less international attention than the four-day Desert Fox or
the bombing campaign over Kosovo, this enduring war of attrition continued
unabated.
By
late 1999 Iraq was increasingly accusing the United States and the United
Kingdom of attacking civilian targets; the United States was charging in
return that Iraq--in an attempt to maximize collateral damage and enhance
the propaganda value of the attacks--had deliberately moved its missile
batteries closer to civilian housing and schools.
The
continuing campaign against Iraq's air defenses appeared likely to
continue, but efforts by the United Nations to find a formula for resuming
inspections showed few signs of success, so the stalemate between Saddam
and the West seemed likely to endure with little change.
Iran:
A Power Struggle And a Divided Government
Since
the 1997 election of Mohammed Khatami as president of Iran the country has
been engaged simultaneously in an opening-up to the outside world and a
power struggle at home between reformers and hard-liners. The divisions
between the two are not always clearly demarcated, nor are the reformers
uniformly in agreement with one another.
In
1999, Iran marked the 20th anniversary of the overthrow of the Shah in the
Iranian Revolution (and the 10th anniversary of the death of the Ayatollah
Ruhollah Khomeini). In some ways the Iranian Revolution, its young
radicals now graying, has matured (or at least endured) into a political
system which is itself being questioned by a younger generation with no
memory of the Shah. Khatami, whose revolutionary credentials are
impeccable--his father was a close ally of Khomeini, and he was a personal
friend of Khomeini's son--has sought to liberalize at home and open up
abroad. But the president, even though he was elected by an overwhelming
margin in 1997 and seems to still enjoy enormous popularity, has had to
wrestle: (a) with a conservative (which often means reactionary)
parliament or Majles; and (2) with the fact that many key areas of
political power--defense, internal security, and intelligence among
them--belong not to the president but to the religious leader, Ayatollah
Ali Khamene'i. Although Khamene'i usually is portrayed as a hard-liner, on
certain key issues he has supported the reformers.
In
the first two years of his presidency Khatami faced constant challenges
from the Majles and from the conservative judiciary. His interior minister
was impeached, his culture minister frequently attacked, and his ally, the
Mayor of Tehran, was sent to jail. Liberal newspapers were frequently
licensed by the Culture Ministry, then closed by the courts, then licensed
under a new name. Khatami recently gained a new and more moderate head of
the Judiciary. There will be elections in February 2000 for a new Majles.
If Khatami can win a reformist majority he will face far fewer challenges
in the remainder of his term. (His term expires in 2001, but he is
expected to seek a second term, the maximum allowed.)
One
major indicator of Khatami's success in external affairs has been the
reentry of Iran into something like normal relations with most of the
world. Diplomatic ties were reestablished with Europe after several years'
hiatus. Saudi Arabia and Iran have been cultivating close ties--so close
that the United Arab Emirates (which has a dispute with Iran over three
key Gulf islands) has criticized the Saudis for cultivating Iran at the
expense of their Arab neighbors.
The
main holdout on restoring ties with Iran has been the United States, but
exchange visits of sporting teams, academics, journalists, and other
unofficial envoys have accelerated, and in October 1999 the United States
confirmed that President Clinton had sent a letter to Khatami seeking the
extradition of Saudis accused of the Khobar bombings. Although the
substance of the letter was hardly flattering, it did represent a direct
approach to the Iranian leader. Ironically, Iran and the U.S. have been
equally alarmed, since 1998 at least, by the behavior of the Taleban
movement in Afghanistan, and thus find themselves on the same side of at
least one issue.
This
does not mean that Iran suddenly has become a model of proper
international behavior. It continues to pursue long-range missile
technologies, and is suspected of a well-advanced nuclear program as well
as programs for developing other weapons of mass destruction. Given the
fact that its neighbors to the east, Pakistan and India, are nuclear
powers, as is Israel to the west, and that its historic enemy, Iraq, freed
of UNSCOM, may again be pursuing WMD programs, Iran has insisted on its
rights to maintain sophisticated defenses (though it does deny having a
nuclear weapons program).
The
continued support--by at least some elements of the Iranian
leadership--for underground movements abroad also serves as an impediment
to better relations with the United States.
A
major turning point in the near term will be the already mentioned
elections for the Iranian Parliament in February 2000. Most outside
observers believe that if enough reformers are allowed to run they will
win control of the Majles. But all candidacies are still vetted by the
Council of Guardians, which is still dominated by conservative clergy and
jurists. If a large number of reform candidates are disqualified, the
conservatives may retain control by default. If enough reformers are
permitted to run, and if they win, their support will greatly strengthen
President Khatami and increase his likelihood of winning a second term in
2001.
Libya:
Business as Usual?
Another
longstanding U.S. nemesis in the region also has begun to reemerge from
isolation. After Libya finally turned over--for trial in the
Netherlands--two Libyan intelligence officials accused of plotting the
1988 bombing of a Pan Am flight over Lockerbie, Scotland, the United
Nations lifted the international ban on air travel to Libya. Many European
and Arab states quickly resumed service to Tripoli, and European firms
were quick to begin negotiations for new business deals with Libya. The
United States remains aloof from any rapprochement with Muammar Qadhafi,
but many other world powers seem prepared to adopt a business-as-usual
approach toward Libya. (The two intelligence officials were turned over
under terms that bar any legal action against higher-ups, but the United
States assumes, according to several published reports, that Qadhafi
himself authorized the operation.)
Optimism
Elsewhere
As
Iran appeared to be building new bridges to the outside world, and Libya
was winning at least some outside business, there were some signs of
genuine progress elsewhere. Perhaps the most important progress was made
in Algeria, where a bloody civil conflict between the state and radical
Islamists has taken some 100,000 lives since 1992. The election of
Abdelaziz Bouteflika as president in April 1999 was marred when all
opposition candidates withdrew the day before the election, charging that
the Army had rigged the vote in Bouteflika's favor. But once in power,
Bouteflika--who served as foreign minister in the 1960s and 1970s, but had
been out of politics for 20 years--moved quickly to develop better
relations with the outside world, improving ties with traditional ally
France, moving closer to traditional rival Morocco, and even meeting with
Israeli leaders at the funeral of King Hassan of Morocco in July. More
importantly from a domestic viewpoint, Bouteflika introduced an amnesty
plan calling for the release of Islamist political prisoners (as opposed
to those charged with capital crimes); the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS),
the strongest and most moderate of the Islamist movements, backed his
endeavors.
Algeria's
violence is not over, but the attacks have decreased in frequency, and
there seems to be some genuine hope of finding a way out of the impasse
that has locked the country into a spiral of continuing violence. If
nothing else, Bouteflika has raised hopes.
Barak
and the Peace Process
Probably
the sharpest reversal from pessimism to optimism in the region came with
the election, in May 1999, of Ehud Barak as Israel's prime minister,
decisively defeating Binyamin Netanyahu, who promptly left politics. Since
Netanyahu's election in 1996, negotiations with the Palestinians had been
sporadic and frustrating--with each side charging the other with bad
faith--and negotiations with Syria nonexistent. Barak, the most decorated
officer in Israeli history and a former chief of staff of the Israel
Defense Forces (IDF), is a protegé of the late Yitzhak Rabin and, like
Rabin, can bargain from a position of strength.
Barak's
election so reversed the mood in the region that pessimism was replaced
for a while not with cautious optimism but with premature euphoria.
Israel's links with other Arab countries, which had been improving prior
to Netanyahu's election but withering since, were promptly revived, and
Israeli officials began open contacts with many Arab countries once again.
But the initial euphoria masked the very real fact that the hardest parts
of the peace process lie ahead.
From
the beginning of the "Oslo" process, stemming from the
Israeli-Palestinian Declaration of Principles negotiated in Oslo and
signed in Washington in 1993, the strategy followed had been to defer the
hard issues until the "final status" negotiations, when the most
difficult problems--e.g., Palestinian statehood, the future of Israeli
settlements, final boundaries, and the vexing question of Jerusalem--all
would be addressed. Barak is known to believe that Palestinian statehood
is inevitable and that time should not be wasted on arguing about whether
a state will be created, but about what limitations should be imposed on
it--and how. Except for that one issue, however, the other problems
enumerated seem to be as hard to resolve as ever.
In
effect, Barak's election swept away many of the obstacles to further
interim agreements; the Wye accords, negotiated with Netanyahu in October
1998 but frozen soon thereafter, were revived after new negotiations at
Sharm al-Sheikh in Egypt. But once the interim obstacles were removed, the
really hard part came next: how to shape a final-status agreement. The
parties committed themselves at Sharm al-Sheikh to seek an outline
settlement by early 2000 and a final treaty by late in the year. Those
deadlines, like most in the process so far, probably will be missed.
Nor
is the "Palestinian track" the only problem Barak is seeking to
solve. The long-stalled talks with Syria, suspended throughout the
Netanyahu years, are a priority for both sides, but as of early December
there was no agreement on the conditions needed for resuming talks. Hafiz
al-Asad made some surprisingly friendly remarks about Barak after the
latter's election, but it is clear that Syria wants to resume the talks
where it claims they ended in the Rabin-Shimon Peres years--i.e. with
Israel already having agreed to withdraw from all of the occupied Golan
Heights. Israel has not acknowledged that that position was ever formally
pledged.
Barak
is undeniably far more eager to cut a peace deal than Netanyahu was. He
also recognizes that the advanced age and declining health of both Arafat
and Asad might, if he waits too long, deprive him of negotiating partners
strong enough to deliver on their agreements. But, although the hard-line
secular Likud Party is now much reduced in power, Barak has to govern with
a fractious coalition that includes religious parties, and every
concession he agrees to will incur some domestic political costs. His
coalition is far more dovish than Netanyahu's was, but no Israeli
coalition is a rubber stamp, and Barak has pledged to put final deals to a
referendum.
In
short, the peace process is revived, and already there has been genuine
progress. But there remain enormous hurdles before all the suspicions and
memories of over 50 years of conflict can be brushed aside. Both sides
still have important fundamental decisions to make, and neither will get
its maximum demands. It may take a very long time, therefore, before all
outstanding issues are resolved. But some sort of final-status agreement
may indeed be hammered out, and that would be a major step forward.
Problems
on the Periphery
For
decades, talk about the "strategic challenges" in "the
Middle East" meant, to many analysts in the West, the Arab-Israeli
conflict and, more recently, the security of the Gulf and the flow of oil.
Despite the somewhat more optimistic outlook discussed above: (a) the
Arab-Israeli conflict has not gone away (but the likelihood of another war
is rather remote); and (b) Saddam Hussein is still around--and a definite
problem, however much he has been declawed by the continuing air campaign.
There are, moreover, lingering problems elsewhere, as always. The dispute
over the Western Sahara, for example, with the promised U.N. referendum
continuing to recede into the future--it was most recently rescheduled for
July 2000, but that is hardly a firm date. There also is the continuing
war in southern Sudan. And Turkey has made some progress against the
persistent activities of the Kurdistan Worker's Party (PKK) in eastern
Turkey since the arrest last year of PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan, who is
now under sentence of death in Turkey.
Perhaps
the greatest long-term dangers facing the Middle East, though, are along
its eastern and northern peripheries. The subcontinent is not usually seen
as part of the Middle East, but Pakistan is part of the U.S. Central
Command's area of responsibility and has close links to Saudi Arabia, the
United Arab Emirates, and other Gulf states, as well as a lengthy border
with Iran. The detonation of nuclear devices by India and Pakistan in
1998, their conflict in Kashmir in early 1999, and the coup in Pakistan in
October 1999 all have Middle Eastern repercussions, particularly in Iran
and the Gulf. The continuing civil war in Afghanistan, and the increasing
U.S. campaign to isolate the Taleban there (because of their sheltering of
Usama bin Ladin), provoked strong reactions from many political factions
in the Middle East, with conservative states backing efforts to capture
Bin Ladin and Islamist radicals openly supporting him.
To
the north, the proposed pipeline routes to carry Azerbaijani and Central
Asian oil and gas to market is a matter that directly engages both Iran
and Turkey, even as the Muslim states of the Caucasus and Central Asia
gradually resume their historic links with the heartland of the Muslim
world. The pipeline politics also involve the other Middle Eastern oil
producers--Oman, for example, which is a major investor in Kazakhstan.
Arab and other Muslim volunteers are fighting against Russia in Chechnya.
Increasingly, it seems, the previously accepted boundaries where the
"Middle East" ends no longer hold.
The
area where Turkey, Iran, and Azerbaijan come together is crucial to the
future of oil exports. Historically, though (in the United States, at
least), Turkey has been treated as part of Western Europe, Azerbaijan as
part of the Soviet Bloc, and Iran as part of the Middle East. Such
traditional divisions are no longer helpful; in fact, they probably hinder
a proper analysis of the increasingly complex and interlinked
relationships in the region.
What
has developed in recent years is something like a new "arc of
crisis" threatening the region that--unlike the earlier arc of crisis
that existed up to 1979--lies mostly to the north and east of the Middle
East: in the unstable Caucasus, in the continuing wars in Chechnya and
Afghanistan, and in the fragile peace of Tajikistan. And now, it seems,
along the tense Line of Control in Kashmir, where two nuclear powers spar
with each other.
The
interlinked problems of those regions and the more "traditional"
Middle East are probably nowhere more evident than in the related
questions of missile proliferation and WMDs. The advanced missile programs
of both India and Pakistan are each fueled by the other, of course. But
separately and in combination they give further impetus to Iran's efforts
to develop missiles and, probably, nuclear weapons. Israel's possession of
such weapons to its west, Iraq's efforts to build (or buy) them, and
Pakistan's and India's advances to the east all more or less guarantee
that any Iranian regime will seek to develop its own WMD capabilities.
(Some of Iran's advanced weapons programs began under the Shah.)
There
is a dangerous fallout effect from the proliferation of missile and WMD
programs: They deter disarmament efforts throughout the region. India has
said that it will not renounce nuclear weapons unless all powers in the
region do so. This is generally interpreted to mean not only Pakistan, but
China as well. The Indian and Pakistani tests were thoroughly watched and
reported by other nations throughout the Middle East.
By
extension, instability in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Chechnya, and other
states or areas bordering the Middle East may destabilize neighboring
countries in the region proper. Iran has wrestled for years, for example,
with the problem of dealing with the enormous numbers of refugees from
Afghanistan, Iraq, and the Armenia-Azerbaijan war.
To
conclude: In the core countries of the Middle East, there has been genuine
cause for optimism, particularly in the Arab-Israeli peace process and in
Iran's gradual reemergence from revolutionary isolation into the
"normal" world of nation-states. There is hope as well in some
of the more localized problems, such as Algeria's continuing hemorrhage.
But
the continuing confrontation between Iraq and the West, the accelerating
race for missile technologies and WMDs, and the instability of the general
periphery from Chechnya to Afghanistan to Pakistan are reminders against
being overoptimistic. Missile proliferation is already an accomplished
fact. Chemical and biological capabilities are possessed by several
regional states (and not only the "rogue" states, but also
several with close Western ties). The existing nuclear arsenals of Israel,
Pakistan, and India further serve as incentives to spur on the program in
Iran and, probably, the suppressed but not extinguished efforts of Iraq.
Some of the Middle East's oldest conflicts now actually seem to be within
reach of settlement, but some of its newest show every sign of demanding
more and more attention in coming years.
For
a sample copy of Dr. Dunn's newsletter The Estimate, please write to Dr.
Michael Collins Dunn, The International Estimate Inc., 3300 Red Pine St.,
Falls Church, VA 22041-2524; telephone: (703) 671-2997; Fax (703)
671-2998; e-mail: theestimate@aol.com
or estimate@worldnet.att.net.
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