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Week 2Olivier Roy – The chaos of politics in the middle East
Introduction
Six years after 9/11 it is clear that none of America’s objectives have been achieved. This failure
emanates from Washington. The bush administration’s strategy was based on two major errors
- Conceiving the retaliation for 9/11 as a ‘’global war on terrorism’’
- Making the military intervention in Iraq the linchpin of this new strategy
These two decisions are the result of an ideological vision of IR developed within the neoconservative
group. The neoconservatives claim they have a duty to carry out a humanitarian intervention. The
neoconservatives pushed to extremes the idea that western values are universal and must be promoted,
through direct intervention if need be. In this sense, they are closer to a left-wing progressivism that
rejects cultural relativism of any kind to a colonialism anxious above all to maintain the prevailing
order. The Third-Worldist, anti-American left on the other hand, found itself on the defensive, forced
to deny there was any validity in the neoconservative line which they claimed spoke of freedom solely
to guarantee US oil interests. This left has ended up supporting undemocratic movements.
Left and right alike are divided over their attitude towards Islam. Both are fighting against the Islamic
threat. But the globalisation of the threat (like the clash of civilisations) makes any rational strategy
impossible and paves the way for hollow bombastic rhetoric, which above all serves western societies
internal debates. The problem of immigration and Islam in the west is externalised by projecting it
onto the Middle East, which obeys a different logic.
Analysis of the evolution of the various middle east crises cannot be divorced from a discussion of the
major concepts of society being bandied about today. The aim of this book is to relocate the conflicts
of the Middle East in their own context, while attempting to understand how they are related to the
major issues facing western societies. In short, it is a matter of demolishing the idea that there is a
‘’geostrategy of islam’’ that would explain all the present conflicts. There is a growing rift between
Shia and Sunni muslims which puts the conservative Arab regimes in the same camp as Israel and
could ultimately redraw the map of the middle east.
Chapter 1: Who is the enemy? Where is the enemy?
Unquestionably, the US had to react to the events of 9/11. Initially the intervention on the ground in
Afghanistan was a success. Launching the global war on terror, the plan of the Bush administration
was to erase terrorism. In order to do this its causes had to be uprooted. It remained for these
‘’causes’’ to be established.
When one goes the war, the first priority is to define the enemy and the objective. The first problem is
that the Bush administration had already designated the main enemy prior to 9/11. Saddam Hussein’s
Iraq, so it implied a regime change was necessary. The second problem is that the Bush administration
categorically refused to acknowledge that there was no connection between Saddam Hussein’s regime
and international terrorism, even though it is a war on terror. The last problem is that the
administration was never able to tailor its resources to its objectives, either in military terms, or
political ones, or even in terms of propaganda
The obsession with Iraq
instead of responding appropriately to 9/11, the American leadership took advantage of the American
public’s thirst for vengeance to impose its original objective: the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. The
idea went back a long way - to the gulf war. Neoconservatives had opposed to leaving Hussein in
power. When Bush junior took office they were in senior positions and thought they could finally
implement their strategy.
,From the outset, the priorities were reversed and the fight against Al-Qaeda replaced by that against
Saddam or rather against Baghdad. Three arguments were necessary to legitimise the shift in objective
1. Paint Hussein as an enemy more dangerous than Bin Laden.
2. Present Bin Laden as an agent and instrument of Hussein
3. Reduce Bin Laden to a secondary phenomenon
The motivations behind this were sincere given that the American establishment never grasped the
new terrorist phenomenon, systematically seeking to hold the state reliable.
An illusion: the influence of the oil lobby in the decision to invade Iraq
The oil magnates’ Texan exile
The aftermath of 9/11 was explained by saying that George Bush represented the interest of the
American and Saudi oil lobby. Meanwhile, the oil lobby was opposed to the intervention in Iraq. In
actual fact, the Iraq war changed nothing as regards the energy equation. Washington’s avoidance of a
policy of military control over the oil producing areas is of course not motivated by a respect for
national sovereignty, but by faith in the primacy of the market over production. Regulation is destined
to fail. As long as no country has a monopoly, it is the market that determines prices. So the priority is
to guarantee the freedom of the market, not take control of production. This was also a reason for the
first Gulf war, preventing Iraq from becoming to powerful when it invaded Kuwait. It is thus about the
oil market, not the oil itself.
Israel: a sacrosanct ally, fiercely independent and hard-pressed
Any American Middle East policy assumes the unconditional defence of Israel, but goes beyond this
imperative. If support for Israel has been even stronger under the Bush administration, it is not because
of what Washington has done, but what it has not done. Not putting any effort into the peace process is
tantamount to allowing Israelis free rein.
Bush’s policy towards Israel has two strands
1. Israel must have a completely free hand in order to guarantee its security and define and fulfil
its strategic interest.
2. Bush did not want to put a great deal of effort into shuttle diplomacy between the protagonist
of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
If the pro-Israel lobby in Washington supported the intervention in Iraq it was out of concern to back
to the administration, but also because it wanted to dissociate the overall question of the Middle East
from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: leave Israel to deal with the Palestinians.
Naturally, they were delighted to see the back of Saddam’s regime. But even so, the Israeli leadership
never believed in the policy of democratising the Arab world which was at the core of the
neoconservative project. It also feared that the obsession with Iraq would distract the Americans from
what Israel considered the real threat: Iran. For Israel, it is definitely Iran that is the main threat,
especially because Hezbollah’s power in Lebanon has increased.
What actually motivated the American decision to invade Iraq was a ideological project : The Greater
middle East’’ program (GME).
The Greater Middle East reform project
After 9/11, the neoconservative team was the only one to put forward a ‘’constructive program’’ that
was compatible with the president and Rumsfield (defense) views. There’d be a period of occupation,
a transition to democracy and elections and then a new government that would take charge of the
country and adopt a pro-American policy. The agenda was definitely to bring about regime change,
but without lasting occupation.
The neoconservatives immediately ruled out any western responsibility for the root causes of radical
Islamic violence. They attributed it to structural causes; both political and cultural. For the
,neoconservative lobby, the structural explanation of terrorism argues that it is spawned by poor
‘’governance’’ of the Muslim countries in general and of the Arab ones in particular. Reforming the
Muslim countries was therefore at the heart of the neoconservatives anti-terrorist strategy. They do not
have a negative view of Islam; or at least did not initially. Their policy is opposed to that of
Huntington, they focus on social and political factors. They focus on grassroots movements and
distrust of a ruling elite, which coincides with their objective of cutting state bureaucracy. They are
universalist and think that political values such as democracy can be shared by everyone. They are
interventionist. They actually borrow a great deal from left-wing reformist. The main difference
however is that for neoconservatist is that democracy implies the full acceptance of the principles of
market economy, and therefore privatization.
For neoconservatives and the entire ‘’sustainable development’’ movement, the actor is the individual.
They neglect the importance of cultural sentiments.
The greater middle east: a textbook example of development theory
The GME philosophy can be summed up as follows: a democratic society based not on the state but on
enterprising individual citizens removed from the web of nepotistic, tribalist and ethnic networks,
operating within a framework of a market economy and practising religion as the expression of
personal faith and not in allegiance to a community.
This doctrine has reclaimed the concept of civil society as a society outside the state and even against
it. It has three pillars: civil society, privatisation and good governance, and belongs to a universalist,
Wilsonian and anti-culturalist (therefore anti-huntington) view.
The doctrine’s aim is to identify factors likely to trigger a democratisation process from within. This
social engineering aim assumes a pedagogical voluntarism that often seems somewhat naïve. The idea
is that DIY democracy can be built from nothing: once stripped of all ideology, the ‘’other’’ is putty
that can be remodelled.
Democratisation is also a market
The civil society philosophy has become the doctrine of NGOs working to promote political
development and democratisation, not so much because of their member’s convictions but more due to
market forces. Only NGOs that promote development and foster democratisation and civil society
have access to funding. This is used as a way to spread political thinking. But GME also creates an
internal market in target countries.
Civil society is very often an artificial construct which has little impact, other than a harmful one, on
society itself. Civil society is first and foremost a market: the sums of money brought into play
destabilise the balance of microcosms, because its actors are placed directly on the market, with no
state intervention. This leads to an internal brain drain (doctors earn less than taxi drivers who support
civil society) . Thus the actors of civil society are ostracised by their less fortunate peers, who end up
endorsing authoritarian governments. Lastly, privatisation has pernicious effects: it goes hand in hand
with corruption.
The failure of top-down democratisation
And yet, democratisation certainly reflects popular demand, as is evident in peoples eagerness to vote,
even when elections take place under dangerous conditions. Why is there talk of failure? Because for
the neoconservatives and international institutions alike, democracy is a simple question of building
institutions and electoral mechanisms. Building is an end in itself.
By explaining the problems of the Middle East as cultural or social obstacles that should be
disregarded or circumvented, the political dimension of these issues and in particular everything
relation to the US policy is ignored. But the key point that is forgotten is that there can be no
democracy without political legitimacy, which supposes that actors are deeply rooted in a countries
history, traditions and social fabric.
, What is lacking in this theory of democratisation is the entire political dimension of a modern society,
and the entire anthropological depth of a traditional society. The fundamental question is that of the
political legitimacy of the actors suddenly placed centre stage to embody this new democracy.
According to the civil society doctrine, it is sufficient that the actors represent this civil society for
them to be ipso facto legitimate; but most of the time they are perceived as a new type of businessmen
or agents of Americans/Zionist. On the other hand, while the west sees them as new men, they have
their family, tribal, ethnic and community connections and their own political aims. Democratisation
policy has not been altogether ineffectual. It has helped open up the political arena, and for political
voices to grow stronger. This also applies to the Islamist movements, since they are based on the two
pillars of political legitimacy in the region: nationalism and islam.
The other issue is that of the state: while regimes are hated everywhere; the state is not. the societies of
the Middle East remain torn between community affinities and statism, and consider that only the state
can supersede community loyalties. It is not possible to bypass the state, and therefore internal reform
of the sate is required, but this reform must be conceived in political rather than technocratic terms.
A third point relates to islam: anthropology provides an implicit lexicon of political solidarity groups
while islam provides the explicit discourse for Islamist parties to overcome social and tribal
segmentation. How is democracy to be introduced into societies where tribal and clan identity is
central and where people vote for the group’s candidate rather than for a political program? In
Afghanistan and Somalia sharia was introduced to bypass tribal loyalties. It is the arguments based on
Islam that have been the most successful in surmounting clan and clientelist divisions.
However, combating these radicals in the name of secularism or ‘’liberal islam’’ would only make
sense if the alternative actors had credibility, which is rarely the case. The rallying cry in the middle
east today is Islamo nationalism. Sharia is often sought for purely political reasons. In fact, the key
issue is nationalism: no reform will be successful if it is not part of a national, even nationalist vision.
But the American project is clearly aimed against nationalism.
Ultimately the democratisation policy has not found the right instruments or interlocutors. The war on
terror, waged with bureaucratic and police tactics, is contradictory to a policy of democratisation and
respect for human rights, without being any more effective, as is illustrated by the Guantanamo bay
detention camp. This same contradiction is visible in the behaviour of the army on the ground, where
it acts outside any political framework of democratisation.
The return to a policy of curbing or eradicating Islamism
The failure of the democratisation policy ushered in a false alternative: the return of realpolitik based
on negotiation and the balance of power between states irrespective of the ruling regime; and a
redefinition of a global ideological foe within the ongoing war on terror, which this time would be
Islamism, even Islam itself.
After the neoconservatives failure, the battle is now between ‘’realist’’ and ‘’eradicators’’. They both
agree on the need to prop up existing authoritarian regimes, but for different reasons. Both concur in
advocating support for secular authoritarian regimes and are opposed to any democratic opening that
would provide a gateway to power for the Islamist.
- The realist consider that ideologies in fact mask national interest or simple power stratagems.
In the long term, no ideology is capable of superseding national or ethnic allegiances, so one
must fight and/or negotiate according to strategic interest and the balance of power on the
ground.
- Eradicators go further in urging the destruction of Islamists, depicting it as the latest ideology
to threaten Western values.
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