Hostname: page-component-7c8c6479df-7qhmt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-03-27T15:12:04.228Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

The New Arab Cold War: rediscovering the Arab dimension of Middle East regional politics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 August 2011

Abstract

This article provides a conceptual lens for and a thick interpretation of the emergent regional constellation in the Middle East in the first decade of the 21st century. It starts out by challenging two prevalent claims about regional politics in the context of the 2006 Lebanon and 2008–09 Gaza Wars: Firstly, that regional politics is marked by a fundamental break from the ‘old Middle East’ and secondly, that it has become ‘post-Arab’ in the sense that Arab politics has ceased being distinctly Arab. Against this background, the article develops the understanding of a New Arab Cold War which accentuates the still important, but widely neglected Arab dimension in regional politics. By rediscovering the Arab Cold War of the 1950–60s and by drawing attention to the transformation of Arab nationalism and the importance of new trans-Arab media, the New Arab Cold War perspective aims at supplementing rather that supplanting the prominent moderate-radical, sectarian and Realist-Westphalian narratives. By highlighting dimensions of both continuity and change it does moreover provide some critical nuances to the frequent claims about the ‘newness’ of the ‘New Middle East’. In addition to this more Middle East-specific contribution, the article carries lessons for a number of more general debates in International Relations theory concerning the importance of (Arab-Islamist) non-state actors and competing identities in regional politics as well as the interplay between different forms of sovereignty.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © British International Studies Association 2011

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Hinnebusch, Raymond, ‘Hegemonic Stability Theory Reconsidered: Implications of the Iraq War’, in Fawn, Rick and Hinnebusch, Raymond (eds), The Iraq War: Causes and Consequences (Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 2006), pp. 297298Google Scholar .

2 Cf. Fawn, Rick, ‘Regions and their study: wherefrom, what for and whereto?’, Review of International Studies, 35 (2009), pp. 534CrossRefGoogle Scholar ; Hurrell, Andrew, ‘One world? Many worlds? The place of regions in the study of international society’, International Affairs, 83 (2007), pp. 127146CrossRefGoogle Scholar ; Buzan, Barry and Wæver, Ole, Regions and Powers – The Structure of International Security (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003)CrossRefGoogle Scholar .

3 Cf. Haass, Richard N., ‘The New Middle East’, Foreign Affairs, 85 (2006), pp. 212CrossRefGoogle Scholar ; Lennon, Alexander T. J. (ed.), The Epicenter of Crisis. The New Middle East (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2008)Google Scholar ; Malley, Robert and Harling, Peter, ‘Beyond Moderates and Militants’, Foreign Affairs, 89 (2010), pp. 1829Google Scholar ; Nasr, Vali, The Shia Revival: How Conflicts Within Islam Will Shape the Future (New York: Norton, 2007)Google Scholar ; Ottaway, Marina et al. , The New Middle East (Washington DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2008)Google Scholar ; Pelham, Nicolas, A New Muslim Order: The Shia and the Middle East Sectarian Crisis (London: I. B. Tauris, 2008)Google Scholar ; Seib, Philip, New Media and the New Middle East (New York: Palgrave, 2009)Google Scholar .

4 Zisser, Eyal, ‘Trends in Middle East Politics and their Implications for Israel’, Israel Affairs, 12 (2006), p. 688CrossRefGoogle Scholar .

5 Halliday, Fred, ‘A New Global Configuration’, in Booth, Ken and Dunne, Timothy (eds), Worlds in Collision – Terror and the Future of Global Order (New York: Palgrave, 2002), p. 235Google Scholar .

6 Kerr, Malcolm, The Arab Cold War, 1958–1964. A Study of Ideology in Politics (London: Oxford University Press, 1965)Google Scholar . It is important to stress that our intention is not to draw parallels to the rivalry between the superpowers during the global ‘Cold War’ as the case has been with some of the recent calls to contain and deter Iran in a manner similar to the USSR. Besides the ‘cold’ dimension, that is, the ideological nature of the rivalry carried on by methods short of sustained overt military action, the reason for employing the notion about an ‘Arab Cold War’ is instead to bring attention to similarities with distinct features of Arab politics during the 1950–60s, the era examined by Kerr.

7 Rice, Condoleeza, Special Briefing on Travel to the Middle East and Europe (21 July 2006)Google Scholar .

8 Green, Jerrold, ‘Are Arab Politics Still Arab?’, World Politics, 38 (1986), pp. 611625CrossRefGoogle Scholar .

9 Halliday, Fred, The Middle East in International Relations – Power, Politics and Ideology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), p. 321CrossRefGoogle Scholar .

10 Hamzawy, Amr, ‘Adventurism versus submission’, Al-Ahram Weekly Online, 805 (2006)Google Scholar .

11 Susser, Asher, ‘Iraq, Lebanon and Gaza: Middle Eastern Trends’. Tel Aviv Notes (23 July 2007)Google Scholar .

12 Nasr, Shia Revival. Cf. also Pelham, New Muslim Order.

13 Cf. Sedgwick, Mark, ‘Measuring Egyptian Regime Legitimacy’, Middle East Critique, 19 (2010), pp. 251267CrossRefGoogle Scholar . Egyptian president Mubarak, one of the quintessential ‘moderate reformists’, was also among the first to fall in the ‘Arab Spring’ of 2011.

14 Levy, Daniel, ‘Picking up the Peace’, Prospect for Peace Blog (21 January 2009)Google Scholar . Cf. also Malley/Harling, ‘Beyond Moderates’.

15 Gause, F. Gregory, ‘Saudi Arabia: Iraq, Iran, the Regional Power Balance, and the Sectarian Question’, Strategic Insights, 6 (2007)Google Scholar .

16 Being an outstanding legal scholar, a major Islamist ideologist and the famous host of al-Jazeera's most popular religious programme, ‘Islamic Law and Life’, Yusuf al-Qaradawi is arguably the best-known Sunni religious figure in the Arab world today. Cf. Graf, Bettina and Skovgaard-Petersen, Jakob (eds), The Global Mufti: The Phenomenon of Yusuf Al-Qaradawi (London: Hurst, 2009)Google Scholar .

17 Kifaya– Arabic for ‘enough’ – is the popular term for the ‘Egyptian Movement for Change’. Cf. El-Mahdi, Rabab, ‘Enough!: Egypt's Quest for Democracy’, Comparative Political Studies, 42 (2009), pp. 10111039.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

18 Telhami, Shibley, Anwar Sadat Chair for Peace and Development University of Maryland/Zogby International 2006 Annual Arab Public Opinion Survey (8 February 2007)Google Scholar .

19 Lynch, Marc, ‘Power Ploy – Why three Arab regimes are publicly aligning themselves against Hezbollah and Iran’, American Prospect (20 July 2006)Google Scholar .

20 For a further discussion of how Hizballah framed itself and how the movement was popularly portrayed during the Lebanon War 2006 cf. Fuller, Graham, ‘The Hizballah-Iran Connection: Model for Sunni Resistance’, The Washington Quarterly, 30 (2006), pp. 139150CrossRefGoogle Scholar ; Valbjørn, Morten and Bank, André, ‘Signs of a New Arab Cold War: The 2006 Lebanon War and the Sunni-Shi'i Divide’, Middle East Report, 242 (2007), pp. 611Google Scholar .

21 Khouri, Rami, ‘Heed the Changes in Arab Public Opinion’, Agence Global (28 July 2006)Google Scholar .

22 On this terminological distinction and the general debate on ‘who are the Arabs’ cf. Valbjørn, Morten, ‘Arab Nationalism(s) in Transformation: From Arab Interstate Societies to an Arab-Islamic World Society’, in Buzan, Barry and Gonzalez-Pelaez, Ana (eds), International Society and the Middle East – English School Theory at the Regional Level (New York: Palgrave, 2009), pp. 142144Google Scholar .

23 These three variants of Arab nationalism constitute an analytical distinction, which does not directly correspond with the classical Arabic dichotomy of ‘qawmiya’ (trans-state Arab nationalism) vs. ‘wataniya’ (nation-state nationalism).

24 Kerr, Arab Cold War.

25 While Kerr also addresses the effects of the international structure of bipolarity on the Middle East, his focus and main contribution is on the ‘relative autonomy’ of intra-regional dynamics within an Arab framework. On the complex implications of the global Cold War for Middle Eastern regional politics until the early 1990s cf. Hinnebusch, Raymond, The International Politics of the Middle East (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2003), pp. 14ffCrossRefGoogle Scholar ; Sayigh, Yezid and Shlaim, Avi (eds), The Cold War and the Middle East (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997)Google Scholar .

26 Noble, Paul, ‘The Arab System: Pressures, Constraints, and Opportunities’, in Korany, Bahgat and Dessouki, Ali E. Hillal (eds), The Foreign Policies of Arab States (Boulder: Westview, 1991), p. 55Google Scholar .

27 Noble, ‘Arab System’, p. 56.

28 Hinnebusch, International Politics.

29 Kazziha, Walid, ‘The Impact of Palestine on Arab Politics’, in Salamé, Ghassan and Luciani, Giacomo (eds), The Politics of Arab Integration (London: Croom Helm, 1988), pp. 300318Google Scholar .

30 Barnett, Michael, Dialogues in Arab Politics: Negotiations in Regional Order (New York: Columbia University Press, 1998)Google Scholar .

31 Barnett, Dialogues in Arab Politics.

32 The United Arab Republic (UAR) existed between 1958 and 1961. Cf. Barnett, , Dialogues in Arab Politics, pp. 129ffGoogle Scholar .

33 Noble, , Arab System, p. 57Google Scholar .

34 On permeability cf. Salloukh, Bassel F. and Brynen, Rex (eds), Persistent Permeability? Regionalism, Localism and Globalization in the Middle East (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2004)Google Scholar .

35 Halliday, Fred, ‘The Middle East and Conceptions of “International Society”’, in Buzan, Barry and Gonzalez-Pelaez, Ana (eds), International Society and the Middle East – English School Theory at the Regional Level (New York: Palgrave, 2009), p. 15Google Scholar .

36 Korany, Bahgat, ‘The Arab World and the New Balance of Power in the New Middle East’, in Hudson, Michael C. (ed.), Middle East Dilemma – the Politics and Economics of Arab Integration (London: I. B. Tauris, 1999), p. 57Google Scholar .

37 Kazziha, ‘Impact of Palestine’.

38 Barnett, , Dialogues in Arab Politics, p. 158Google Scholar . Cf. also Bank, André and Valbjørn, Morten, ‘Bringing the Arab Regional Level Back in… – Jordan in the New Arab Cold War’, Middle East Critique, 19 (2010), p. 308fCrossRefGoogle Scholar .

39 Hinnebusch, Raymond, ‘The Foreign Policy of Egypt’, in Hinnebusch, Raymond and Ehteshami, Anoushiravan (eds), The Foreign Policies of Middle East States (London: Lynne Rienner, 2002), pp. 91114Google Scholar .

40 Ajami, Fouad, ‘The End of Pan-Arabism’, Foreign Affairs, 57 (1978), pp. 355373CrossRefGoogle Scholar ; for an overview of this debate, cf. Dawisha, Adeed, Arab Nationalism in the Twentieth Century: From Triumph to Despair (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003)Google Scholar .

41 Zisser, ‘Trends’.

42 Humphreys, Stephen, Between Memory and Desire: The Middle East in a Troubled Age (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000), p. 82Google Scholar .

43 On the transformations of Arab nationalism before and after the 1950–60s cf. Valbjørn, ‘Arab Nationalism(s)’, pp. 157ff.

44 Halliday, Fred, Nation and Religion in the Middle East (London: Saqi Books, 2000), p. 50Google Scholar .

45 Sirriyeh, Hussein, ‘A New Version of Pan-Arabism?’, International Relations, 15 (2000), pp. 5366CrossRefGoogle Scholar .

46 Telhami, Shibley, ‘Power, Legitimacy and Peace-Making in Arab Coalitions – The New Arabism’, in Binder, Leonard (ed.), Ethnic Conflict and International Politics in the Middle East (Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1999), pp. 4360Google Scholar ; Lynch, Marc, Voices of the New Arab Public – Iraq, Al-Jazeera, and Middle East Politics Today (New York: Columbia University Press, 2006)Google Scholar .

47 It remains to be seen to what extent and in what ways the ‘Arab Spring’ of 2011 will really change the traditionally prevalent authoritarianism in the region.

48 On the ‘hardening’ of state institutions in the Arab world cf. Gause, F. Gregory, ‘Sovereignty, Statecraft and Stability in the Middle East’, Journal of International Affairs, 45 (1992), pp. 441469Google Scholar . Besides the rise of the new trans-Arab media, this ‘hardening’ has also been challenged by privatisation policies in recent decades leading to the restructuring of state power across the region. Cf. Guazzone, Laura and Pioppi, Daniela (eds), The Arab State and Neo-Liberal Globalization. The Restructuring of State Power in the Middle East (Reading: Ithaca, 2009)Google Scholar .

49 On new Arab media and Arab nationalism cf. Pintak, Lawrence, ‘Border Guards of the “Imagined” Watan: Arab Journalists and the New Arab Consciousness’, Middle East Journal, 63 (2009), pp. 191212CrossRefGoogle Scholar .

50 Lynch, New Arab Public.

51 Furia, Peter A. and Lucas, Russell E., ‘Determinants of Arab Public Opinion on Foreign Relations’, International Studies Quarterly, 50 (2006), pp. 585605CrossRefGoogle Scholar .

52 On the Islamisation of Arab nationalism cf. Roy, Oliver, The Politics of Chaos in the Middle East (New York: Columbia University Press, 2008)Google Scholar .

53 Telhami, Shibley, ‘America in Arab Eyes’, Survival, 49 (2007), pp. 107122CrossRefGoogle Scholar .

54 Lynch, , New Arab Public, p. 4Google Scholar .

55 The New Arab Cold War conception also acknowledges the importance of shifts in the global political structure for regional politics in the Middle East. In this article, however, we concentrate primarily and almost exclusively on the regional level of Middle Eastern politics. For a more substantial analysis of the global-regional interplay cf. Valbjørn, Morten, ‘The ‘New Middle East’ and the Encounter with the Global Condition’, in Stetter, Stephan (ed.), Globalisation and the Middle East, forthcomingGoogle Scholar . For a thorough analysis of the regional-domestic interplay in the New Arab Cold War context cf. Bank/Valbjørn, Jordan, pp. 313ffGoogle Scholar .

56 Fuller, ‘Hizballah-Iran Connection’.

57 Valbjørn/Bank, ‘Signs’.

58 On Iran playing ‘the Arab card’ cf. Roy, , The Politics of Chaos, p. 117Google Scholar .

59 This regime/people divide as regards the perception of Iran can also be traced in a more recent Arab opinion poll. Contrary to the hype about Arab support for a US attack on Iran based on official Arab statements about an ‘Iranian threat’, 57 per cent of the Arab public did in 2010 describe Iran's possession of nuclear weapons as a ‘more positive’ development for the Middle East region. Cf. Telhami, Shibley, 2010 Arab Public Opinion Poll (5 August 2010)Google Scholar .

60 Murphy, Dan, ‘In war's dust, a new Arab ‘lion’ emerges’, Christian Science Monitor (29 August 2006)Google Scholar .

61 Rubin, Barry, ‘Arab Politics: Back to Futility’, Middle East Quarterly, 14 (2007), pp. 5362Google Scholar .

62 The war left more than 1,300 Palestinians dead and large parts of the socioeconomic infrastructure in the Gaza Strip destroyed. Cf. Human Rights Council, Human Rights in Palestine and other Occupied Territories. Report of the UN Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict (15 September 2009)Google Scholar .

63 For the moderate-radical narrative of the Gaza War cf. Susser, Asher, ‘The War in Gaza – A View from Israel’ (RUSI.org 2009)Google Scholar . The sectarian narrative has been partly superseded by the view that Hamas fights a proxy war for Persian-Shi'i Iran, cf. Halevi, Yossi Klein and Oren, Michael B., ‘In Gaza, the Real Enemy Is Iran’, Los Angeles Times (4 January 2009)Google Scholar .

64 Baroud, Ramzy, ‘Gaza: A New Middle East Indeed’, Middle East Times (12 January 2009)Google Scholar .

65 Blanford, Nicholas, ‘Deepening Israeli Assault on Hamas Divides Arab World’, Christian Science Monitor (9 January 2009)Google Scholar .

66 Pew Global Attitudes Project, Little Enthusiasm for Many Muslim Leaders – Mixed Views of Hamas and Hizballah in Largely Muslim Nations (Washington DC: PEW {www.pewglobal.org}, 2010)Google Scholar .

67 Under President Mubarak, the Egyptian regime's approach with regard to Gaza, for instance by keeping the Rafah border crossing closed, was less driven by a sense of ‘positive cooperation’ with Israel. Rather, it can be explained by the fear of a political success for the Palestinian Hamas, which could then serve as an inspiring example for the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood and, generally, for the strength of status quo challenging Arab-Islamic organisations – a key characteristic of the New Arab Cold War.

68 Bank/Valbjørn, Jordan, p. 316Google Scholar .

69 Halevi/Oren, Real Enemy Iran.

70 Khouri, Rami, ‘Gaza's Impact on the Arab World’, Agence Global (7 January 2009)Google Scholar .

71 Lynch, Marc, ‘“Gaza” or “Hamas”’, Abu Aardvark Blog (2 January 2009)Google Scholar .

72 See references in fn. 2.

73 This controversy is not only played out between the various IR traditions but also within these. Within Realism, it is for instance possible to find both global-centric perspectives, for example, Hansen, Birthe, Unipolarity and the Middle East (New York: St. Martin's Press, 2001)Google Scholar , and regional-centric perspectives, Karsh, Efraim, ‘Cold War, post-Cold-War: does it make a difference for the Middle East?’, Review of International Studies, 23 (1997), pp. 271291CrossRefGoogle Scholar .

74 Buzan/Wæver, Regions and Powers, p. 26Google Scholar .

75 This has been reflected in a debate on whether the Middle East is to be perceived as a region like ‘any other’ or like ‘no other’. Cf. Valbjørn, Morten, ‘Culture Blind and Culture Blinded: Images of Middle Eastern Conflicts in International Relations’, in Jung, Dietrich (ed.), The Middle East and Palestine: Global Politics and Regional Conflicts (New York: Palgrave, 2004), pp. 3978CrossRefGoogle Scholar .

76 For an example of how a growing attention to the regional level does not necessarily imply a concern for non-state actors and of how this may result in a neglect of distinct regional features, cf. Buzan/Wæver, Regions and Powers.

77 Noble, Paul, ‘From Arab System to Middle Eastern System? – Regional Pressures and Constraints’, in Korany, Bahgat and Hillal, Ali E. Dessouki (eds), The Foreign Policies of Arab States: The Challenge of Globalization (Cairo: American University Press 2008, 3rd ed.), pp. 67167Google Scholar .

78 Buzan, Barry, ‘The English School: an underexploited resource in IR’, Review of International Studies, 27 (2001), pp. 471488CrossRefGoogle Scholar ; Buzan, Barry, From International to World Society – English School Theory and the Social Structure of Globalization (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004)Google Scholar ; Buzan, Barry and Gonzalez-Pelaez, Ana (eds), International Society and the Middle East – English School Theory at the Regional Level (New York: Palgrave, 2009)Google Scholar .

79 Gause, ‘Sovereignty’.

80 Krasner, Stephen, Sovereignty: Organized Hypocrisy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999)CrossRefGoogle Scholar .

81 Buzan, Barry, ‘International Political Economy and Globalization’, in Bellamy, Alex (ed.), International Society and Its Critics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), pp. 131135Google Scholar .

82 Cf. Teti, Andrea, ‘Bridging the Gap: IR, Middle East Studies and the Disciplinary Politics of the Area Studies Controversy’, European Journal of International Relations, 13 (2007), pp. 117145CrossRefGoogle Scholar ; Valbjørn, Morten, ‘Toward a ‘Mesopotamian Turn’: Disciplinarity and the Study of the International Relations of the Middle East’, Journal of Mediterranean Studies, 14 (2004), pp. 4775Google Scholar .