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- Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
- Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
- Serie: Blackwell History of the Contemporary World
- Sprache: Englisch
Provides a balanced historical narrative of the contemporary causes of conflict in the Middle East, ideal for students and scholars
The recent history of the Middle East has involved unprecedented violence and war. Contemporary Middle East: Foreign Intervention and Authoritarian Governance Since 1979 explores the causes of the sustained turbulence of the region by focusing on three separate yet intersecting factors: constant foreign political and military interference, failed authoritarian governance, and the ongoing Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
With a clear and accessible style, this student-friendly text presents a concise account of the region’s history, starting from the dramatic events of 1979 including the toppling of the Shah of Iran, the return of Ayatollah Khomeini, the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty, the ascendency of Saddam Hussein in Iraq, armed insurrection in Mecca, and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Succinct chapters, organized chronologically, guide students through key events and help students develop a cohesive picture of the sequence of historical developments which have shape the contemporary Middle East. This valuable work:
- Covers a broad range of topics with a focus on the geopolitical and geostrategic aspect
- Explores the Middle East's connections to broader global shifts such as Cold War rivalry and American unipolarity
- Examines the underlying causes and geopolitical consequences of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict
- Describes the evolution of the wide variety of Islamist opposition movements
- Provides background for the 2011 popular uprisings against authoritarian and corrupt rule
- Assesses how counter revolutionary forces have resorted to political repression, sectarian division, and regional conflict
Delivering invaluable insights into the factors underlying the region's ongoing geopolitical disorder, Contemporary Middle East: Foreign Intervention and Authoritarian Governance Since 1979 is an excellent resource for undergraduate courses in history and political science, and a valuable text for general readers looking for a succinct survey of the last four decades of Middle Eastern history.
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Seitenzahl: 471
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024
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Table of Contents
Cover
Table of Contents
Series Page
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication Page
List of Maps and Photos
List of Abbreviations
Preface
Why 1979?
Chapter Overview
Notes
Acknowledgments
Chapter 1: Superpower Rivalry and the Shifting Terrains of War and Peace
The Iranian Revolution
The Iran–Iraq War
The Egypt–Israel Peace Treaty
The Israeli Invasion of Lebanon
Reagan’s “War on Terror”
Jihadism in Afghanistan
The “Second” Gulf War, 1990–1991
Conclusion
Notes
Chapter 2: America’s Unipolar Moment and “The New Middle East”
“New World Order”
The Madrid Peace Conference
The Post‐1991 Role of the United Nations
Iraq
9/11
The “Third” Gulf War, 2003
“The New Middle East”
The 2008 Doha Accord and the Rising Influence of Qatar
Iran and its Nuclear Program
Conclusion
Notes
Chapter 3: The Palestinian–Israeli Conflict and the US‐shaped “Peace Process”
Introduction
The 1987 Intifada
The Madrid Conference and the Oslo Accords
Camp David II Talks and the Taba Accords
The Second Intifada and Israeli Disengagement
Palestinian Divisions
Conclusion
Notes
Chapter 4: The Authoritarian Bargain, Religious Politics and the 2011 Arab Uprisings
Introduction
The Unraveling Social Bargain and the Prominence of Religious Opposition
The 2011 Arab Uprisings
Gulf Arab States
Syria
Reverberations in Lebanon and Iraq
Conclusion
Notes
Chapter 5: Multipolarity and Regional Rivalries
Introduction
Global Geopolitical Shifts
Iranian Meddling
MbS and MbZ
The War in Yemen
The Blockade of Qatar
Normalization with Israel
Syria’s Tragedy
Kurdish Aspirations and Divisions
Erdoğan’s Wars
Conclusion
Notes
Epilogue
COVID‐19
Climate Change
Notes
Notes
Bibliography
Select Bibliography
Additional Internet Sites
Online Forums for Scholarly Debate and Discussion
Books and Articles
Index
End User License Agreement
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Map Preface.1 Core Countries of the Middle East.
Chapter 1
Photo 1.1 Protesters Calling for the Overthrow of the Shah.
Demonstrators in
...
Photo 1.2 Camp David Handshake.
Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin, Ameri
...
Chapter 2
Photo 2.1 Iraqi Kurdish Refugees.
Iraqi Kurdish refugees fleeing to the Turk
...
Map 2.1 Kurdish Homelands.
Photo 2.2 Mural of Saddam Hussein.
Saddam Hussein sought to consolidate his
...
Photo 2.3 Toppling of Saddam Hussein Statue.
US Marines topple the statue of
...
Chapter 3
Photo 3.1 Oslo Handshake.
US President Bill Clinton (C) shepherds Israeli Pr
...
Map 3.1 Israel / Palestine under the Oslo Process.
Photo 3.2 West Bank Wall.
Aerial view of what Israelis commonly refer to as
...
Chapter 4
Photo 4.1 Muslim Brotherhood Girls School.
Muslim Brotherhood school for Egy
...
Photo 4.2 Tawakul Karman.
Tawakul Karman, President of Women Journalists Wit
...
Chapter 5
Photo 5.1 China‐brokered Saudi Iran Deal.
Saudi national security adviser Mu
...
Map 5.1 Southern Arabian Peninsula, 2017.
Photo 5.2 Migrant Workers in Qatar.
Migrant laborers work at the National Mu
...
Map 5.2 Syria and Iraq, 2015.
Epilogue
Photo Epilogue.1 Iraq’s Dried Marshes.
Water buffalo walk in the shrinking m
...
Photo Epilogue.2 https://www.gettyimages.ca/detail/photo/cairo‐egypt‐slum‐bui...
Guide
Cover Page
Table of Contents
Series Page
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication Page
List of Maps and Photos
List of Abbreviations
Preface
Acknowledgments
Begin Reading
Epilogue
Notes
Bibliography
Index
WILEY END USER LICENSE AGREEMENT
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A HISTORY OF THE CONTEMPORARY WORLD
General Editor: Keith Robbins
This series offers an historical perspective on the development of the contemporary world. Each of the books examines a particular region or a global theme as it has evolved in the recent past. The focus is primarily on the period since the 1980s but authors provide deeper context wherever necessary. While all the volumes offer an historical framework for analysis, the books are written for an interdisciplinary audience and assume no prior knowledge on the part of readers.
Published
Contemporary AmericaM. J. Heale
Contemporary Global EconomyAlfred E. Eckes, Jr.
Contemporary Japan, Second EditionJeff Kingston
Contemporary Latin AmericaRobert H. Holden & Rina Villars
Contemporary ChinaYongnian Zheng
The Contemporary Middle EastMartin Bunton
THE CONTEMPORARY MIDDLE EAST
FOREIGN INTERVENTION AND AUTHORITARIAN GOVERNANCE SINCE 1979
MARTIN BUNTON
This edition first published 2024© 2024 John Wiley & Sons Ltd
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The right of Martin Bunton to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with law.
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Library of Congress Cataloging‐in‐Publication Data
Names: Bunton, Martin P., author. | Robbins, Keith, author.Title: The contemporary Middle East : foreign intervention and authoritarian governance since 1979 / Martin Bunton, Keith Robbins.Description: Hoboken, NJ : Wiley‐Blackwell, 2024. | Series: A history of the contemporary world | Includes bibliographical references and index.Identifiers: LCCN 2023053651 (print) | LCCN 2023053652 (ebook) | ISBN 9781118736296 (paperback) | ISBN 9781118736258 (adobe pdf) | ISBN 9781118736265 (epub)Subjects: LCSH: Middle East–Foreign relations–1979‐ | Middle East–Politics and government–1979‐ | Middle East–Foreign relations–United States. | United States–Foreign relations–Middle East.Classification: LCC DS63.1 .B849 2024 (print) | LCC DS63.1 (ebook) | DDC 956.05–dc23/eng/20231122LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2023053651LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2023053652
Cover Design: WileyCover Image: © Jonathan Rashad/Getty Images
To Saija
List of Maps and Photos
Map Preface.1
Core Countries of the Middle East.
Map 2.1
Kurdish Homelands.
Map 3.1
Israel / Palestine under the Oslo Process.
Map 5.1
Southern Arabian Peninsula, 2017.159Map 5.2Syria and Iraq, 2015.
Photo 1.1
Protesters Calling for the Overthrow of the Shah.
Photo 1.2
Camp David Handshake.
Photo 2.1
Iraqi Kurdish Refugees.
Photo 2.2
Mural of Saddam Hussein.
Photo 2.3
Toppling of Saddam Hussein Statue.
Photo 3.1
Oslo Handshake.
Photo 3.2
West Bank Wall.
Photo 4.1
Muslim Brotherhood Girls School.
Photo 4.2
Tawakul Karman.
Photo 5.1
China‐brokered Saudi Iran Deal.
Photo 5.2
Migrant Workers in Qatar.
Photo Epilogue.1
Iraq’s Dried Marshes.
Photo Epilogue.2
Urban Housing in Egypt.
List of Abbreviations
aQAP
Al‐Qa’ida in the Arabian Peninsula
aQI
Al‐Qa’ida in Iraq
AUMF
Authorization for Use of Military Force
COP
Conference of the Parties
CPA
Coalition Provisional Authority
FSA
Free Syrian Army
GCC
Gulf Cooperation Council
IAEA
International Atomic Energy Agency
IDF
Israel Defense Forces
IGC
Iraqi Governing Council
IRGC
Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps
ISIS
Islamic State of Iraq and Syria
KDP
Kurdish Democratic Party
KRG
Kurdistan Regional Government
LNG
Liquefied Natural Gas
MNF
Multinational Force in Lebanon
NAC
New Administrative Centre
NATO
North Atlantic Treaty Organization
NGOs
Non‐Governmental Organizations
NPT
Nuclear Non‐proliferation Treaty
OPEC
Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries
PKK
Kurdish Workers’ Party
PLO
Palestine Liberation Organization
PMF
Popular Mobilization Forces
PNAC
Project for the New American Century
PUK
Patriotic Union of Kurdistan
SCAF
Supreme Council of the Armed Forces
SDF
Syrian Democratic Forces
SOFA
Status of Forces Agreement
STC
Southern Transitional Council
UNIFIL
United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon
UNSCOM
United Nations Special Commission
WMD
Weapons of Mass Destruction
YPG
People’s Protection Units
Preface
The contemporary history of the Middle East has been engulfed in unprecedented violence and war. Over the last four decades, these violent dynamics have emerged both from widening international and regional conflict and from deepening domestic fault lines between authoritarian leaders and their citizens. Furthermore, climate crises are both exacerbated by the continual environmental stresses of war and contribute to further conflict. There are many ways to tell this story, and a multitude of perspectives to take into account. This book seeks to explain the sustained turbulence by focusing on three separate, yet overlapping and reinforcing, drivers of conflict: constant foreign intervention, the ongoing Palestinian–Israeli conflict, and failed authoritarian governance.
Although the focus of this book is primarily on the geopolitical disorder of the last four decades, social and economic themes are discussed in some detail in Chapter 4, which focuses on the 2011 Uprisings. But one book cannot cover everything. I recognize that the absence here of individual voices and actors has made it harder to capture the resilience and hospitality of Middle Eastern cultures and communities one readily recognizes when one lives and travels in the region. But it is hoped that the geostrategic focus allows for a fuller accounting of the devastating impact of international and regional interventions ‐ and, especially for a Western audience, of the entanglement of the United States in contemporary Middle Eastern history – in order for them to be fully understood and critiqued.
For the purposes here, the Middle East is defined as the territory stretching from Egypt to Iran, and from Türkiye to Yemen. The question of what exactly Middle East countries have in common that allows them to be termed a “region” remains a challenging one. Robert Malley notes that while “the Middle East functions as a unified space” with ideologies, movements, and causes rapidly mobilizing support across borders, nonetheless, “one struggles to think of another region whose dynamics are as thoroughly defined by a discrete number of identifiable and all‐encompassing fault lines,”1 each with distinct roots. A region that is at once both integrated and polarized, Malley concludes, renders it ever more vulnerable to outside interventions. Local political groups constantly seek outside support, while foreign countries seek to exploit local grievances to secure their own interests.
In this sense, the core area of the Middle East constitutes a region from a security point of view, both international and regional. It is also the main area of the Palestinian–Israeli conflict, which has intersected in so many ways with regional geopolitics. While seeking to avoid an overly reductionist account of such a large and varied part of the world, this book will also integrate neighboring regions – such as the North African states of Libya, Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco and Central Asian states, such as Afghanistan – when it is necessary to draw connections to salient issues, such as “the war on terrorism,” “political Islam,” “international law,” or “the Arab Uprisings.”
Though the history of authoritarian rule and poor governance in the Middle East is by no means unique, the key point is the extent to which a defined space known as “the Middle East” has been delimited through external interventions by foreign powers who often act with impunity. As Carl Brown long ago observed, “For roughly the last two centuries the Middle East has been more consistently and more thoroughly ensnarled in great power politics than any other part of the non‐Western world.”2 Indeed, the initial identification of a geographical place called “the Middle East” was itself a construction of foreign military and naval interests. Until the twentieth century, the term “Middle East” was virtually unknown. European imperial projects gave rise to the idea of a distinct region designated as “the Middle East,” due to its strategic location on European trade routes to the “Far East,” while its own strategic resources, especially oil, attracted increasing attention. Although today the term is widely used in the region itself, the geographical delimitation by western observers is still often accompanied by their own set of ideological assumptions. As explained by Edward Said and others, these assumptions generally shape and reduce the region to undifferentiated elements of religion or race, and represent the region as backward, inherently violent, and unchanging in relation to self‐projections of a progressive, tolerant, and dynamic “West.”3 One can recall here both President Trump’s recent description of the region as a “long blood‐stained land,” as well as his predecessor President Obama’s caution against getting involved in “conflicts that date back millennia.” Such misrepresentations tell us more about US policy debates than they do about the people living in the region. Grossly simplifying the interests and needs of Middle Easterners themselves, western misrepresentations too frequently fail to consider how external intervention and support, not least America’s own foreign policies, continue to ruin the region and structure conflicts. For Graham Fuller, this presents “a huge paradox”: on the one hand, Washington prides itself on its dominating global footprint while, on the other, fails to acknowledge the magnitude of its own role in helping to create problems and crises.4
Nonstop foreign political and military interference of course long precedes America’s dominant role, and dates back centuries, from the expansion of Western imperialism in the nineteenth century to the twentieth‐century Cold War delineation of spheres of influence. The whole history of state building in the modern Middle East, both in terms of drawing external borders and creating internal governance structures, owes a great deal to the political assumptions, designs, and interests of Britain and France specifically. After the First World War, Britain and France sought spoils of war from the defeated Ottoman Empire. Through the early 1920s, London and Paris exercised various forms of direct and indirect control over newly carved‐out colonial states. For the most part, colonial‐era borders have survived the last century. More importantly, the legacy of colonialism’s divisive sectarian policies and authoritarian political structures has also endured.
In the post–World War Two period of decolonization, colonial structures were bequeathed to new national leaders, mostly military officers. They of course had agency too. One must not fall into the trap of reducing everything to external meddling. About 70 years ago, colonial regimes were replaced by new regimes, promising political independence and economic development. Despite positioning themselves against the previous colonial administrations, military leaders in fact paid little attention to transforming the colonial governance structures they inherited into more participatory systems of government. As Roger Owen observes of both the “politically ambitious soldier” and of the conditions that marked the economics and politics of the decolonization process: “in a Middle East struggling to develop its own resources while also struggling to defend itself from external threat, it was perhaps inevitable that the goals of national security, self‐defense, and rapid industrialization should take precedence over those of political pluralism and individual rights.”5 These authoritarian systems of control were further reinforced during the Cold War which, from the start, placed the strategic location of the Middle East into American crosshairs.
One must, of course, be careful not to assume that US foreign policy is defined by a single approach or grand strategy, nor that there is one unified national interest to secure. Nonetheless, the significance of the Middle East region to US foreign policy (and vice versa) is clear, perhaps illustrated most sharply by the mounting number of American presidential doctrines, from Truman to Bush, that have concerned direct interference in the Middle East.6 Historically, these doctrines aimed to secure what have been referred to as “the holy trinity” of American interests: containing Soviet influence; securing access to oil; and, protecting Israel.7 Each of these objectives was impacted greatly by the tumult of 1979 when, in the words of David Lesch, “the Middle East, indeed, the world, had changed.”8
Why 1979?
Chronologically, this book charts the contemporary history of the Middle East from the watershed year, 1979. As noted by other volumes in this series, the dramatic events of this one year must be seen as part of broader global shifts that include the global transformations wrought by Margaret Thatcher in Britain, Ronald Reagan in the United States, and Deng Xiaoping in China. For the Middle East, the year proved especially momentous, starting with the toppling of the American‐backed Shah of Iran and the return of the dissident religious leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, in February 1979. America was shocked and alarmed by the prospect of religious extremists replacing the Shah, who had for decades proved an important ally. Events unfolding throughout the year in neighboring Afghanistan sharpened America’s focus on the strategic region. When the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in December 1979, its occupation incited an Afghan insurgency which Washington increasingly supported with cash and weapons. Washington sought to ensure that the Soviet army would become stuck in the equivalent of its own Vietnam war. Yet it was this insurgency that would be held responsible for fueling the rise of Islamist jihadi fighters, including a young at the time Saudi recruit named Osama bin Laden.
Whereas the previous decade of superpower détente had been marked by some cooperation between the United States and the Soviet Union on key issues such as arms control, conflict between them markedly increased over the course of 1979. Rising tensions were due both to an accelerating arms race and to the increasing number of insurgencies being fought across the non‐aligned world. But it was the Soviet miscalculation in Afghanistan that is most widely credited with bringing an end to the rapprochement of the 1970s. In January 1980, US President Jimmy Carter promulgated a new doctrine which planned, for the first time, for a rapid deployment of large numbers of American forces in the Persian Gulf. As the latest in a growing line of presidential global security doctrines directly prompted by events in the Middle East, the Carter Doctrine became especially emblematic of America’s reliance on military force as the ultimate guarantor of its interests in the contemporary Middle East.
Further sealing 1979’s place in history as “a bookmark in the great ledger of time,” in the words of Amin Maalouf,9 three more formative regional events played themselves out against the backdrop of intensifying Cold War rhetoric.
In March, the signing of an Egyptian‐Israeli peace treaty broke the previous consensus that there was no chance of a peace between Israel and its Arab neighbors. It would also serve as a precedent both for future negotiating parameters and for America’s dominant role in attempts to broker them. The Egyptian‐Israeli treaty also greatly disrupted regional alignments. Egypt found itself isolated from its Arab neighbors, who now jostled for regional primacy while collectively disparaging the treaty’s disregard for Palestinian rights. For its part, Israel, which no longer had to worry about its southern Egyptian front, felt empowered to act more aggressively against perceived threats coming from other directions.
Then, in July, Saddam Hussein leveraged his strong position in Iraq’s security apparatus to assume the office of president. In a brutal purge of real and imagined rivals, Hussein cemented his personal dictatorship through a chilling, videotaped show trial. The following year, he would demonstrate his ruthlessness on a regional scale when he initiated an eight‐year war with Iran, one of the longest and most destructive conflicts since the end of World War Two and the first of three consecutive Gulf Wars that would wreak havoc on the country, and region.
Finally, in November 1979, an armed group took over the Grand Mosque in Mecca, Saudi Arabia. Laying siege to Islam’s holiest site for two weeks, Juhayman al‐Utaybi’s insurrection was part of a broader protest movement of social conservativism that rejected many of the changes being adopted by wealthy Saudi society. The Saudi royal family had long sought to maintain a balancing act with local Islamist leaders, known as the Wahhabis. The clerical establishment made their continued allegiance to the Saudi monarchy conditional on maintaining their own control over public domains such as educational and cultural institutions. While this arrangement offered the ruling family additional means with which to reinforce its status and legitimacy, it also made them especially vulnerable to criticism from other clerics who refused to be so readily co‐opted or bureaucratized. Thus, al‐Utaybi’s siege posed a direct challenge to the authority of the kingdom’s royal family. Saudi forces were only able to overcome the militants after days of lethal fighting, and only then with the secret help of a French counter‐terrorism force. al‐Utaybi and dozens of his acolytes were publicly executed. Nonetheless, the Saudi royal family heeded the demand for a crackdown on many aspects of what was seen as an increasingly decadent and Western society. Closing cinemas and calling for a stricter enforcement of gender segregation, the Saudi regime so empowered the clerical establishment and the religious police that, as maintained by Kim Ghattas, “There were two Islamic revolutions in 1979.”10 Coming so soon after the Iranian revolution, which had provided Khomeini a platform from which to challenge Saudi Arabia’s regional and religious leadership, this constellation of shattering events in 1979 set the two neighboring Gulf countries on a collision course for regional supremacy over the following four decades.
Chapter Overview
Though each of the above are key moments in the historical trajectories of their own countries, their repercussions spread across the entire Middle East and reverberated throughout the world. Chapter 1 examines 1979’s momentous events in greater detail and traces their geopolitical consequences to 1991. During this time of renewed global superpower rivalry, sometimes referred to as the Second Cold War, the United States, in particular, came to view the region’s resources and strategic location as vital to securing its own national interests. The USSR played a gradually diminishing role, yet the Cold War’s legacy continued to influence continued American intervention well after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. Even when the United States became geopolitically dominant, Cold War myths of confrontation continued to impact Washington’s understanding of a complex and rapidly changing historical landscape.
Chapter 2 charts the rise and fall of America’s unipolar moment in the Middle East, from 1991 to 2008. American attempts to entrench a mostly unipolar global order had enormous ramifications for the Middle East. Following the 1991 Gulf War, unfolding as the Cold War was ending, the states of the Middle East “could all agree that they had better come to terms with a situation in which the US was now the region’s one hegemon.”11 They now formulated foreign policies in response to a US‐dominated order, whether in alignment or in resistance (and sometimes both), but always in a manner that only bolstered authoritarian rule, stifling any opportunities for democratic participation. As The Economist related, disenfranchised citizens in the Middle East would quip that they deserved voting rights in America too, given the long record of American schemes for the region.12
Chapter 3 focuses on the ongoing conflict between Palestinians and Israelis, often referred to, misleadingly, in the media as “the Middle East Question.” Again, one must be careful not to conflate different conflicts. One of the main challenges for the historian is to untangle the knot of the Palestinian–Israeli conflict from the various adversarial dynamics between Israel and other regional actors, as well as the interstate rivalry which long existed among Middle Eastern rulers for dominion over the Palestine question. This chapter focuses on the conflict between Palestinians and Israelis, while touching upon rising divisions within Palestinian and Israeli societies. The main advantage of focusing this chapter on the post‐1979 period lies in marking the monopolistic role played by the United States in shaping the so‐called “peace process.” For some, the impact of the Palestinian–Israeli conflict seemed to be fading in comparison to other destabilizing conflicts in the region. Still, there can be no denying its centrality to the geopolitics of the contemporary history of the Middle East, nor the way it continues to resonate deeply among a range of actors and advocates locally and globally.
Chapter 4 examines the 2011 Arab Uprisings, a watershed moment when citizens took to the streets demanding a say in their own political future, denied to them for decades under autocratic and corrupt governments supported by foreign powers. This chapter somewhat shifts the focus from external geopolitical factors to internal socio‐economic policies and governance crises of Middle East states (though bound closely to global economic systems). In providing background for the 2011 Arab Uprisings, the chapter underlines the failures of regimes to meet the basic needs of their populations while directing their energies instead toward political repression and sectarian division. In considering the immediate troubled trajectory of those uprisings, the chapter considers both the obstacles faced by the 2011 protesters to project a coherent political alternative to the decades‐long authoritarian order, as well as the opportunities presented to powerful counterrevolutionary forces determined to uphold the rejected status quo.
Revolutionary and counterrevolutionary activities gave rise to complex, parallel interregional conflicts which continue to this day. These form the focus point of the final chapter. Not only did regional powers start asserting themselves more forcefully, seeking to project their own influence, but Russia and China are also contesting America’s position. With cross‐border meddling reaching ever greater peaks, a brief epilogue points to some of the challenges posed by the spread of the COVID‐19 pandemic and the rapidly escalating extreme weather events caused by climate change. One cannot help but conclude by asking what the Middle East might have looked like today had, over these past four decades, the United States pursued a much more restrained foreign policy and instead, in the words of Juan Cole, “made a full court press for solar and wind energy and electric cars.”13
Notes
1
Robert Malley, “The Unwanted Wars: Why the Middle East Is More Combustible Than Ever,”
Foreign Affairs,
(November/December 2019).
2
L. Carl Brown,
International Politics and the Middle East: Old Rules, Dangerous Game
(Princeton University Press, 1984), 3. See also Roger Owen,
State, Power and Politics in the Making of the Modern Middle East
, 3rd edition (Routledge, 2004).
3
Edward Said,
Orientalism
(Vintage Books, 2003).
4
Graham E. Fuller,
A World Without Islam
(Little, Brown and Company, 2010), 6.
5
Roger Owen,
State, Power and Politics
, xii, 231.
6
Fred Halliday, “Review Article: the Study of US Foreign Policy in the Middle East” in
T
he International History Review
, 31 (December 2009), 828.
7
Michael Hudson, “To Play the Hegemon: fifty years of US Policy toward the Middle East,”
Middle East Journal
, 50 (Summer 1996), 329.
8
David Lesch, 1979:
The Year that Shaped the Modern Middle East
(Routledge, 1991), 124.
9
Amin Maalouf,
Adrift: How our World Lost its Way
(World Editions, 2019), 135.
10
Kim Ghattas,
The Black Wave: Saudi Arabia, Iran, and the Forty‐Year Rivalry that Unraveled Culture, Religion, and Collective Memory in the Middle East
(Henry Holt and Company, 2020), 71.
11
Roger Owen, “A New Post‐Cold War System? The Middle East in a Realigned World,”
Middle East Report,
(October 1993).
12
“Leaders in the Middle East are Watching the Polls in America,”
The Economist
, 24 October 2020.
13
Juan Cole, “19 Years Ago American Really Wanted Iraq's Basra for its Oil, which is Now Making it Uninhabitable” Informed Comment, 8 August 2022.
https://www.juancole.com/2022/08/america‐making‐uninhabitable.html
Acknowledgments
As a work of contemporary history, the writing of this book has necessarily relied heavily on the research, expertise, and observations of others, especially journalists and analysts working on the ground throughout the Middle East. My main debts to their work, as well as to secondary sources, are referred to in the select bibliography. I am also hugely indebted to a remarkable group of teachers, colleagues, and students whom I have come to know over the past four decades and, though they have not reviewed this manuscript, whose works and methods continue to help guide my own writing and interpretations: Terry Burke, William Cleveland, Rod Dobell, Khaled Fahmy, Michael Gilsenan, Hanna Kassis, Roger Owen, Mouin Rabbani, Andrew Rippin, Eugene Rogan, Chris Ross, Avi Shlaim, Michael Thornhill, Andrew Wender, and Ted Wooley. For preparing this particular book, I owe a great debt to Gregory Blue, Michael Carpenter, Ezra Karmel, Julianna Nielsen, and Gus Thaiss for their close and critical reading of early drafts and to Darren Reid for his help with the maps. None of these friends, teachers, and colleagues is, of course, in any way responsible for the views expressed here or the oversights committed.
I would also like to thank those at Wiley who, showing great patience, have helped bring this project to fruition: Keith Robbins, Pascal Raj Francois, Sarah Milton, Rachel Greenberg, and Farhath Fathima. I am also grateful for the helpful comments of the anonymous reviewers.
My deepest debt is owed to my family, Saija, Eila, Peter, Seth, and Cleo, for their endless support and encouragement.
Map Preface.1 Core Countries of the Middle East.
Chapter 1Superpower Rivalry and the Shifting Terrains of War and Peace
This chapter explores the significance of the Cold War, both as a source of the conflicts which unfolded in the Middle East from 1979 to 1991 (and beyond) and as a legacy of mindsets and approaches (including the exercise of military power and the construction of exaggerated threats). Both the United States and the USSR saw the region’s resources and strategic location as vital to securing their own national interests. Though rarely engaging in direct military action on the ground, during this period, they competed for influence among the regional powers. Viewing the region almost exclusively through the lens of the Cold War, superpower interventions often ignored the local roots of regional conflicts (thus exacerbating and prolonging them) or bolstered a geopolitical status quo that was centered more on their own interests than on the aspirations of the region’s peoples. However, regional actors were not simply puppets, and attempts to assess the overall impact of the Cold War in the Middle East must also consider the extent to which local leaders could manipulate superpower rivalries, accepting foreign aid or arms for their own regional or domestic designs. Either way, not only did superpower rivalry contribute to a persistent instability in the Middle East, but the legacy of Cold War interventions continued to influence the region’s politics well after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.
The Iranian Revolution
The 1979 Iranian Revolution is one of the most significant events of the modern history of the Middle East, not least for the challenge it posed to the distribution of global power. Iran’s oil resources and geographic location at the crossroads of Eurasia made it of particular strategic importance. Persistent foreign interventions throughout the twentieth century had sparked continual debates among Iranians over how best to secure their country’s independence. By the 1970s, most Iranian nationalists had concluded that the royal autocracy of the Shah, the second ruler of the Pahlavi dynasty, had become thoroughly compromised by America’s dominant economic and political influence. The Shah’s subservience, together with the authoritarianism and corruption of his own rule, fueled widespread discontent in Iran, and helps explain why the 1979 revolution became ever more focused on anti‐American agitation. In the end, the Shah’s downfall transformed Iran from a key western ally in the region into America’s new arch‐enemy.
The roots of this troubled and contaminated relationship date back to the consolidation of the Shah’s monarchical rule in the early 1950s. Up to that point, the country’s oil wealth had mostly benefitted Western oil interests. In 1951, Iranian Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh took control of his country’s oil industry. Nationalization was widely acclaimed by Iranians. But it was more than Western powers could countenance, given their own economic self‐interest as well as their intensifying Cold War struggle against the Soviet bloc. Working together, British and American intelligence services successfully orchestrated mass street protests in Iran against Mossadegh. Their intervention was facilitated by the refusal of Western oil companies to refine or market Iranian oil following its nationalization. Mossadegh’s government suffered from the loss of oil revenues and could not win a prolonged war of attrition with the Western powers. In 1953, the Shah’s authoritarian regime was reinstated with the assistance of the Central Intelligence Agency. Etched deeply into Iranians’ worldviews, the overthrow of Mossadegh caused such a rupture in Iranian‐American relations that, to this day, he remains widely revered in Iran for standing up to foreign interests.
Though the United States was not itself a significant importer of oil from the Gulf region, Washington’s Cold War allies in Europe (and Japan) were increasingly dependent. Rather than maintain direct Western corporate ownership over Persian Gulf oil resources, the United States shifted over the following decades toward building military relationships with authoritarian regimes. These regimes could now expect to receive a larger share of revenues from their oil exports, as well as higher levels of American aid and arms transfers. Such a policy was a prominent feature of President Nixon’s foreign policy in the 1970s: desperate to extricate America from the Vietnam quagmire, the Nixon regime sought in a number of strategic cases around the world to minimize the actual burden of America’s military footprint by relying on highly armed local powers. In the Gulf, this approach manifested itself through very high levels of support for the monarchical regimes in Iran and Saudi Arabia (as well as neighboring Arab sheikhdoms). They, in turn, embraced the opportunity to deepen military ties through massive arms deals. As regional rivals, such as Iraq and South Yemen, turned to the Soviet Union for weapons, the Gulf region witnessed massive militarization. In the years leading up to 1979, arms shipments to the region rose fourfold, in comparison to a doubling of the global arms trade: one‐quarter of all global arms shipments were delivered to the region.
From 1953 to 1979, the Shah of Iran ensured a pro‐Western stance for his country’s oil industry, while furthering American strategic aims in the Persian Gulf. A huge consumer of US arms, the Shah built a sophisticated armed force that acted as America’s regional ally in policing the Gulf. Iran also provided key facilities from which America could monitor neighboring Soviet activities. Further, the Shah used arms purchases to bolster his own personal rule, building a ruthlessly effective intelligence service, SAVAK, which shut down opposition. Western governments, blinded by their partiality for a valued surrogate, appeared unaware of the growing depth of the Iranian people’s dissatisfaction with the Shah’s decadent and corrupt regime. Indeed, Western observers commonly lauded the regime’s leadership: “an island of stability” proclaimed President Carter in late 1977, ignoring the stresses and strains of the Shah’s rule which would soon lead millions of people to occupy the streets.
In addition to the Shah’s subservience to US interests, a multitude of social and economic forces drove the 1979 Iranian revolution: the widespread brutality of police rule, the neglect of urban migrant workers, the mismanagement of agricultural land reform, and the growing exclusion of religious leaders from legal and educational fields all repelled a wide and diverse swathe of Iranian society, ranging from Marxist to religious, liberal to conservative. One must also underline the singular role played by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, whose charismatic leadership mobilized widespread opposition. Khomeini relied heavily on the network of mosques to spread his message within Iran. But his message was not uniformly religious, nor did it receive the backing from all religious clergy. Rather, his message was above all a populist one. On the one hand, it was the effective melding of Islamist notions of social equity and integrity with leftist revolutionary ideas of justice for the dispossessed which mobilized large segments of the urban poor.1 On the other, he galvanized nationalist resentment against an elite widely despised for its compliance with foreign interests. Above all, the appeal of Khomeini’s own uncompromising demands for an end to the corrupt Pahlavi empire made it very difficult for other opposition leaders to negotiate a different course with the Shah before he left the country, which he finally did on 16 January 1979.
Unknown / Wikimedia Commons / Public Domain
Photo 1.1 Protesters Calling for the Overthrow of the Shah. Demonstrators in Tehran calling for the overthrow of the Shah in December 1978 carry a poster of the exiled cleric Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.
Khomeini himself returned triumphantly from exile (where he had been relegated since 1963) in February 1979. But his consolidation of power occurred in stages over the following two years wherein a formative role was played by international crises, in particular the November 1979 hostage crisis and the 1980 invasion by Iraq. By turning these confrontations into domestic struggles over who should rule Iran, Khomeini successfully manipulated them in such a way as to marginalize or discredit rivals for power. He gleaned powerful national legitimation by skillfully casting himself as Iran’s protector against international and regional enemies.
For example, the crisis which erupted in November over the holding of American hostages was especially damaging for the relatively moderate Prime Minister Mehdi Bazargan and the secular, middle‐class constituency he represented. Bazargan had been appointed to lead a new government formed in the immediate wake of the Shah’s departure. At this point, there remained strong support for a more secular constitution as well as for negotiating a new trajectory in the country’s relationship with America. But his government collapsed at a critical moment: just as Bazargan was about to put a new constitution to a vote, a militant group of Iranian students in Tehran stormed the US embassy building, known colloquially in Iran as a “nest of spies.” Popular anti‐American sentiment was running high in part due to the prevailing fear of another American‐sponsored coup, similar to the 1953 restoration of Pahlavi rule. American diplomats inside the embassy were taken hostage and held for 444 days. Though Khomeini had not initially supported the students, the popularity of the embassy’s seizure led him to endorse the takeover, amid highly publicized warnings of underground plotting against the revolution. Prime Minister Bazargan’s consistent opposition to the taking of American hostages, and his failed attempts to negotiate their freedom, made him appear increasingly suspicious within revolutionary circles. In the end, the crisis brought about Bazargan’s resignation. General opposition to America had cemented its useful role in Khomeini’s rhetoric, underscoring just how powerful and highly popular was his rejection of foreign influence.
If it was the long alliance between the Shah and the United States that inflamed the anti‐American sentiment of Iran’s revolutionary movement in the late 1970s, it would be the prolonged shock of the hostage episode that imbued Americans with a reciprocal sense of deep mistrust and resentment over the following decades. With less consideration for the revolution’s internal dynamics (characterized as much by nationalism as by religion), or of the actual threat posed to their own interests, Washington saw fanatical Muslim clerics bent on a singular attack on the United States, and sought militant responses. The collapse in diplomatic relations between the United States and Iran set the scene for the following four decades during which time US leaders have openly advocated regime change, while hardliners in the Iranian regime refer to the America as “the great Satan.” Throughout all of the dramatic changes witnessed by the region, and the world, leaders in the two countries have consistently framed their interests as a “zero‐sum game.”2
The regional consequences of the Iranian Revolution were profound. While characterizing the definite break with the United States as a rejection of almost two centuries of Western exploitation in their own country, Iranian leaders also projected themselves as the region’s true defenders. They railed against Arab monarchies, especially Saudi Arabia, whose dependence on Western protection was said to compromise their Islamic credentials, and they aimed to inspire, and support, opposition movements struggling against repression throughout the region. Muslims everywhere were called upon to confront the impiety of their compromised leaders. While efforts by Khomeini to export the revolution proved largely unsuccessful, his loaded rhetoric nonetheless sought to place Iran at the vanguard of a regional “axis of resistance” to American imperialism and its network of allies. In doing so, it put Iran in the crosshairs of American foreign policy hawks who now focused on “containing” Iran. It also greatly intensified regional rivalries with both Saudi Arabia and Iraq, with devastating consequences for both countries and numerous aftershocks for the entire region.
This second conflict, following upon the hostage crisis, that dominated Khomeini’s post‐revolution foreign policy, and simultaneously helped him mobilize domestic support for the new clerical regime, began in September 1980 when Iraqi president Saddam Hussein launched a full‐scale attack across the border with Iran. The failure of Western powers, and even the United Nations, to immediately condemn Iraq’s obvious aggression further reinforced Iran’s view of a hostile international order. The eight‐year Iran–Iraq war would have dire and tragic consequences for all involved. Yet, in this time of national crisis for Iranians, Khomeini himself was provided with further opportunities to consolidate his political position. With Iranians now rallying around the flag, Saddam Hussein’s invasion stemmed the risk of an unstable post‐revolutionary situation sliding into a divisive internal conflict. Khomeini and his close allies used the threat posed by external enemies to build a more cohesive regime, strengthening their control over the state apparatus at the expense of rival political constituencies.
In this respect, one of the most significant developments to result from the Iraqi invasion was the potential to integrate the Iranian military, formerly loyal to the Shah, into the new Islamist regime. It is worth underlining Khomeini’s calculated use of modern state institutions and popular political rhetoric. Not only did Khomeini mobilize the main professional armed forces in defense of the Iranian homeland, he also established a new security organization, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), to defend his own regime against any external or internal threats. The IRGC’s mandate continued to expand significantly during the war with Iraq, as it took on greater roles in foreign policy and even economic policy. The Revolutionary Guards would become an increasingly important stepping stone for the political careers of those who could draw significant legitimacy from their commitment and service during the conflict. Indeed, the legacy of the war with Iraq became as embedded in the experience of the new leadership, and as formative a force in shaping their worldview, as the relatively shorter revolutionary period itself. In addition to its naval, air, and ground forces, the IRGC included a volunteer para‐military force known as the Basij‐e Mostazafin (Mobilization of the Oppressed), whose members were sent in human waves to their death at the front lines. Although the mobilization of urban youth had been instrumental in the overthrow of the Shah, Khomeini largely ignored their continued agitation for immediate radical socio‐economic transformations. Urging them to fight Iraq instead thus proved an effective way for Khomeini’s regime to channel their revolutionary zeal toward the defense of the homeland, while at the same time “cloaking itself in the legitimacy their sacrifice conferred.”3 The seemingly endless foreign campaigns to dominate Iran and its resources were entrenched in the memory of the new generation of revolutionary Iranians who would come to the fore in the next century. Also deeply embedded are the opportunities outside intervention can provide to leaders when rallying national support and/or suppressing domestic opposition.
Though it is difficult to exaggerate how important and defining the experience of invasion and war was for Iranians, it often seems a forgotten war in Western perceptions of the history of Iran and the Gulf region. Western observers have instead tended to assign the labels “First Gulf War” to the international conflict triggered by Iraq’s 1990 invasion of Kuwait, and “Second Gulf War” to President Bush’s invasion 2003 invasion of Iraq. But they are all closely connected, each one another horrific reminder of the fact that it is much easier to start a military conflict than extricate oneself from it.
The Iran–Iraq War
With the expectation of a swift Iraqi victory, President Saddam Hussein launched his surprise attack on Iran in September 1980. Instead, his gambit triggered a destructive war which raged until August 1988. One of the century’s longest conventional wars, it ravaged both countries and caused deep shifts in the region’s geopolitics. Saddam Hussein clearly felt the need to defend his secular nationalist regime against the threat represented by Iran’s new Islamist‐infused revolutionary ideology. Yet, his invasion of Iran mostly sought to take advantage both of the evident disorder into which Iran and its once powerful military had lapsed, and of the general international antipathy shown toward its new regime. Though often framed as an epic battle between Arab nationalists and Islamic revolutionaries, the conflict was rooted in regional rivalry and contested borders.
When Saddam Hussein rose to power in 1979, he was the latest in a long line of leaders in Baghdad who, since the time of British colonial rule, had essentially used Iraq’s state apparatus and wealth to consolidate power within a deeply connected circle of confidantes and dependents.4 Domestically, Hussein’s centralized distribution of Iraq’s growing oil revenues effectively forced the leaders of Iraq’s various social and ethnic groups to position themselves in relation to Hussein himself, lest they find themselves excluded from any access to state largesse. This pattern of rule was further sustained by Hussein’s projection of himself as Iraq’s indispensable military leader, patriotically defending the whole nation. These various components of Saddam Hussein’s rule culminated in his reaction to the 1979 Iranian Revolution.
First, Hussein, a Sunni leader committed to secular Iraqi nationalism, feared that Khomeini’s rhetoric about exporting an Islamic revolution might inspire activism among Iraq’s own Shi’i community, which constituted more than 60% of Iraq’s population. Second, Hussein, a self‐declared regional champion of the cause of Arab nationalism, sought to bolster his political position by casting himself as the protector of the Arab world against a projected Persian threat. Third, and perhaps most importantly, Hussein brandished his own military position as a defender of Iraqi territory by asserting sovereignty over all of the Shatt al‐Arab, the vital waterway which forms the boundary between the two countries. Iran and Iraq had long wrestled with this southern border demarcation: previous agreements had declared shared sovereignty of the waterway, but Hussein now sought to assert full control over both of its banks.
Not for the last time would Hussein combine his sense of fear and opportunism with tragic miscalculations. In a dangerous gamble, he presumed that the disarray of Iran’s armed forces (which had suffered from desertion of personnel during the revolution) and its growing international isolation (which separated its defense establishment from its foreign military suppliers) would ensure a quick victory for Iraq. Instead, eight years of horrific war ensued. Hussein’s initial attack did move quickly into Iran’s oil‐rich and Arab‐populated province of Khuzestan. But Iranian forces rallied to block the Iraqi advances. Feeling emboldened, Khomeini then went on the offensive, successfully taking the fight into Iraqi territory by 1982. Spurning a ceasefire proposal, Khomeini made the fall of Saddam Hussein’s regime a key war aim. It was now Iran’s turn to miscalculate, overrating the situation’s opportunities and dismissing the costs. Neither side was henceforth able to achieve any further decisive military breakthroughs, and the destructive conflict settled into a grueling war of attrition. Until 1988, neither regime was willing to accept a compromise that risked losing the respect of their nation and of their military corps.
Saddam Hussein increasingly relied upon the technological superiority he achieved through the help of the United States and the West, which simultaneously sanctioned (at least officially) Iran’s ability to restock its military equipment. Iraq used long‐range missiles and an expanded air force to attack Iranian cities. Saddam Hussein also resorted to manufacturing and using chemical weapons. In addition to deploying such weapons against Iran’s mass infantry, Saddam Hussein used them against Iraq’s own Kurdish population in the north. Iraq’s internal conflict with its Kurdish population dates to the post–First World War origins of the state. British colonial officials had determined that the new governing regime set up in Baghdad would rule over the oil‐rich areas in the north, an area which encompassed an amalgam of ethnic and religious communities with strong concentrations of Kurds. From then on, the emergence of an Iraqi Kurdish nationalist movement claiming rights over this region clashed with the Iraqi central government’s fear of the loss of vital oil reserves. During the Iran–Iraq war, with Iranian advances threatening Iraq’s oil reserves in the north, Hussein launched an especially brutal effort to repress Iraqi Kurds. “Anfal” was the name given to a series of Iraqi operations in 1988 which, it is estimated, killed over 50,000 people, most of them civilians.5 One of the worst incidents occurred in the Kurdish town of Halabja, an Iraqi city close to the border captured by Iranian forces, where mainly unarmed Iraqi civilians were killed by chemical weapons.
Though played down at the time by American and other Western supporters of Iraq, shocking images of Halabja were relayed by the Iranian media. It was, in part, Iran’s fear of Iraqi chemical attacks – and of the tolerance toward them by an international community which at the time appeared undisturbed by their use – that compelled Tehran into signing a 1988 ceasefire. That fear would also be a key factor in Iran resuming its own nuclear program. Iran’s nuclear program had first been initiated by the Shah, who had signed on to the American‐sponsored “Atoms for Peace” program, which shared atomic research for purposes such as energy and medicine. Following the war, however, Iran’s nuclear technology would be developed more clandestinely, with the Iranian regime trying to keep at bay an international community it felt it could not trust, and that did not trust it.
If the origins of Iran’s nuclear program can be traced partly to the siege mentality that evolved during the Iran–Iraq war, so too can Iran’s reliance on asymmetric warfare be traced to their search for deterrence. From the outset, Iran lacked solid support from either of the superpowers, both of which were condemned in Khomeinist revolutionary rhetoric for their exploitation of the nonaligned world. Reflecting the widespread anger at the region’s century‐long subjugation to foreign influence, the ayatollah preached a new strategic doctrine he termed “Neither West nor East.” More practically, Iran sought to build a web of influence across the Middle East. Feeding off widespread frustrations with the status quo, especially among Shi’i populations in neighboring countries, Iran took advantage of whatever opportunities were available to provide financial and military resources to local resistance fighters across the region. The Iranian regime’s development of ties with such proxy groups was rooted as much in the hard‐headed concern for its overall ability to deter shared enemies, as it was in the adventurous exporting of its own ideologies. As will be elaborated upon in later sections, the most notable example of this strategy of deterrence can be seen in the emergence of the Lebanese Hizbullah movement. When Israel invaded Lebanon in 1982, the prevailing instability, during which all Lebanese factions reached out to foreign powers, provided Iran with valuable opportunities to expand its interests and influence through the support given to members of the Lebanese Shi’i community who resisted the Israeli occupation. Iran would also draw closer with Hamas (the Palestinian movement with roots in the Sunni Muslim Brotherhood), the Dawa Party in Iraq (which struck against Saddam Hussein and his western supporters), and the Syrian government (even though Syria’s own nationalist regime was engaged in one of the region’s most brutal suppressions of an Islamist opposition). In return for its support, Tehran hoped to be able to view all these allies as an extension of their own military apparatus and expected them, if necessary, to retaliate on its behalf against the vulnerabilities of shared enemies. But it is important to note here that these various allies maintained their own political agendas, all defined very much by their own national political contexts. Iran’s leverage over them could be limited.
