By Aaron David Miller – The Wall Street Journal –
Threats to state authority:
The Arab state structure is under enormous stress: There is fragmentation and civil war in Yemen, Libya, and Syria; in Iraq, there is serious dysfunction and sectarian division. Although Saudi Arabia’s monarchy has survived the Arab Spring, leaders there and elsewhere in the Gulf are looking warily at falling oil prices, rising deficits, a surging Iran, neighboring unrest, and potential complexities around succession. Jordan and Tunisia seem to be holding their own, but they are not Middle East heavyweights. Egypt is under military rule and in many respects has become more authoritarian and less representative than it was under Hosni Mubarak; that’s a prescription for further instability. Not a single Arab state has leaders who can rise above their narrow ethnic or sectarian affiliations or individual interests to think of the nation as a whole. Nor does any have institutions that are representative, inclusive, and reflect the public’s will.
The emergence of transnational and local actors:
Militants and groups with millennialist ideologies or local grievances are taking advantage of the weak or nonexistent governance to tear at the fabric of the state. ISIS’s gains in Iraq have been checked and reversed; but its militants have jumped borders, expanding into Sinai, Libya, and Yemen. Al Qaeda is rearing its head again in Afghanistan. In Syria and Iraq, the Kurds carve out local autonomies at the expense of state authority, as do pro-Iranian Shiite militias in Iraq. In Yemen, al Qaeda derivatives continue to hold ground and pose a serious threat of international terrorism. In the putative state of Palestine, Hamas rules alone in Gaza, effectively dividing the Palestinian national movement and making statehood impossible.
Rising Iran and Russia:
The leadership vacuum in the Middle East has also created opportunities for external actors to expand their influence. Russian President Vladimir Putin will be the key actor in the resolution or perpetuation of Syria’s years-old civil war. An increasingly emboldened Iran is key to stability, or instability, in Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq. Both seem determined to avoid any kind of Pax Americana and have invested in local actors and military and political assets to prevent it. Turkey, too, has regional ambitions that conflict with Washington’s agenda–specifically, controlling the Kurds in Syria and Iraq–though it is assisting the West in the campaign against ISIS by better monitoring its border with Syria.
Few problems in the Middle East have comprehensive or definitive solutions, and ailments flowing from dysfunctional political systems, extractive leaders, and sectarian and religious tensions are not really susceptible to U.S. power or persuasion. The situation is made worse by administration policies that create the impression of the U.S. ceding the field to others while it ramps up its military campaign in Iraq and Syria with some success.
Dynamics can change quickly, but the Middle East is a region to study with a very long view. Maybe 2016 will usher in further successes against ISIS in Mosul; maybe international intervention will end Syria’s civil war; and maybe Iran’s supreme leader and Vladimir Putin will come around to Barack Obama‘s agenda. But I wouldn’t bet on any of it. All of these problems will continue to await the next president, whoever he or she may be.
Aaron David Miller is a vice president at the Woodrow Wilson Center for Scholars and most recently the author of “The End of Greatness: Why America Can’t Have (and Doesn’t Want) Another Great President.”
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http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2015/12/30/why-the-middle-east-isnt-likely-to-look-better-in-2016/
