GLOBALIZATION AND THE ARAB WORLD IN MIDDLE EAST POLITICS: REGIONAL DYNAMICS IN HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE.

The middle east in general and the Arab world in particular have long held an important place in world affairs, as reflected in the attention given to the region in the Western press, both scholarly and journalistic. However, both have tended to view the area through the prism of great power politics. This paper examines regional dynamics in the Middle East from a historical perspective in order to focus on historical patterns of regional global interaction. Our purpose is to outline successive stages of development in the region over the millennium to understand the place of the Arab world in this context, and identify patterns of continuity and change.

From this perspective, the Middle East is approached as a somewhat fluid unit of analysis in international politics. At any given time, in other words, the parameters of the region are a function of historical context and are delineated in terms of core and peripheral areas.(1) The core, defined as the political center of the region, is characterized by "a relatively regular and intense pattern of interactions, recognized internally and externally as a distinctive arena, and created and sustained by at least two . . . generally proximate actors" (Thompson, 1981, p. 213). Patterns of cooperation and conflict constitute the significant dimensions of core interactions. Actors proximate to the core, but with irregular or less intense involvement in core patterns of interaction, are classified as the periphery. Another category of important actors in Middle East politics are from outside the region altogether and are classified as intrusive forces.

Thus, the concepts of core and periphery provide the basis for outlining the general geographic contours of the Middle East at any given time. The concepts of patterns of cooperation, patterns of conflict and intrusive forces provide the dimensions for examining regional dynamics in Middle East politics at different historical periods. In different historical stages, the dimensions of the region may have been changing, but the dynamics of change were a function of historical context - that is, a function of the regional dynamics driving change in a stage. These are periodized into four stages: Islamic, Ottoman, nationalist and post-nationalist. Although these periods are sequentially related, they are not bounded in time with distinct beginnings and endings. Rather, they tend to blend one into another, with patterns emerging, more or less becoming dominant, then submerging as new patterns come to the fore. The designation of a phase is simply an heuristic label used to connote the central political dynamic through which a period is being viewed.

ISLAMIC PHASE

The Islamic phase covers the period from the 7th through the 13th centuries. The emergence of Islam in Arabia in the seventh century and its rapid expansion outward from Arabia across southwest Asia and North Africa encompassed the central political dynamic of this period. With the expansion, the political center of gravity shifted from Arabia to the Fertile Crescent (first Damascus under the Ummayyad Dynasty, 661-750 A.D.; then Baghdad under the Abbasids, 750-1258 A.D.). It then began to fragment into regional dynasties: in Spain, the Ummayad, 756-1031 A.D.; in Egypt, the Tulunids, 868-905 A.D.; the Fatamids, 969-1171 A.D.; the Ayyubids, 1171-1260 A.D.; in Morocco and Tunisia, the Idrisids, 788-922 A.D.; the Aghlabids, 800-909; the Murabits, 10621145; and the Muwahhids, 1145-1223 A.D.. The socio-political character of the Islamic stage emerged in the context of the process of accommodation and integration of different socio-cultural realities that the spread of Islam presented to civil decision-makers and administrators. Composed of courtiers, clerics, artisans, jurists, the urban based ruling elite adopted Arabic as the language of culture, law and politics, and linked the ruler and ruled in what came to be called Islamic civilization (Amin, 1978, p. 21). Islamic civilization, at its zenith by the tenth century, engendered bonds of solidarity among the diverse ethno-cultural groups that were encompassed within its boundaries. Economic prosperity, catalyzed by the long distance trade made possible by an alliance between nomadic tribes and urban-based merchants, contributed to the social stability and cultural accomplishments of Islamic civilization. In tenth century Islam, the dominant worldview of a balance between the state and the individual was manifested in a strong sense of political and public conscience (Dhia'a al-Din EL-Rayes, 1977, pp. 216-220). This worldview fostered the recirculation of economic surplus (a surplus made possible by the combination of expanding markets due to territorial expansion and increasing exchange between productive centers in the region) for the benefit of socio-cultural diversification in the framework of Arabization and Islamization; and this, in turn, cultivated social solidarity within the framework of Arab-Islamic culture (Amin, 1978, pp. 22-99).

The decline of the Islamic stage coincides with the successive incursions of the Crusades throughout the 11th and 12th centuries which marked the initiation of foreign intrusions and encroachment. Catalyzed by the Crusades, and initiated with the expedition of Marco Polo in the thirteenth century, European mercantilists began the process of exploration that ultimately diverted virtually all of the trade routes of Africa and East Asia away from the Middle East. In the same period, Mongolian armies overran the region, ravishing the physical environment in their wake. Only Egypt was spared their devastation. Successive waves of Mongolian incursions culminated in the Ottoman capture of Constantinople in the sixteenth century.

Over the course of the Islamic stage, the political center or core of the Middle East encompassed the Arabized lands of the expanding Islamic world. Its periphery covered the non-Arabized lands of the Islamic world. During the first several centuries of this period, the region's elastic boundaries expanded westward across Arabia, the Fertile Crescent, and North Africa; and eastward across Persia, Afghanistan and the northern Indian subcontinent. Commerce provided the axis for patterns of cooperation; and territorial expansion was the focal point for patterns of conflict. The Crusades, in effect, provide a marker for the cessation of territorial expansion. Thereafter, patterns of conflict centered on forestalling the territorial incursions of intrusive forces from the West and from the East, and the commercial inroads of the West. Under sustained attack, the vibrancy and buoyancy of the Middle East attained in this stage went into decline.

THE OTTOMAN PHASE

With the collapse of Constantinople in 1453, the Ottomans unified the Middle East under their dominion. With this, the center of gravity of Middle East politics shifted from the Fertile Crescent and North Africa to Istanbul (the Ottoman Empire's capital). Under the banner of Islam, the empire not only brought political unity to the region, but also spread Islam into Eastern Europe, territorially expanding the empire into the Balkans. Ottoman expansion into Europe in effect triggered the initiation of the so-called Eastern Question, a metaphor for European preoccupation in international affairs with the Middle East (Brown, 1984).

Confrontation with the West constituted the dominant pattern of conflict in the Middle East throughout the Ottoman stage. It was manifested not only in military confrontation over territorial incursions/excursions, but also in the economic struggle for supremacy over world commerce, and in the political struggle for suzerainty over the Middle East. The confrontation triggered by Ottoman encroachment into Europe was incarnated as the Eastern Question by historical context. This included the emergence of capitalism, nationalism and nation-states in Europe, which synergized into the industrial revolution. The insatiable appetite of the industrial revolution for raw materials and markets fuelled Europe's onslaught on the rest of the world, known as the age of imperialism.

The penetration of capitalism into the Ottoman Empire disrupted the traditional economy and resulted in lop-sided development. This was marked by the expansion of cash crops and improvement of transportation and financial industries to service the export of cash crops. Alterations in legal and administrative systems were also made to favor the agricultural export economy to the detriment of subsistence agriculture and community economic activity. A grave consequence of the changes ushered in by the penetration of capitalism was the dislocation of the traditional industrial sectors. In effect, artisans, craftsmen, small merchants and the guilds were economically marginalized, while clusters of petit bourgeoisie formed in urban enclaves in association with foreign economic penetration (Issawi, 1982, pp. 1-14). By the turn of the 20th century, the Middle East was economically integrated into Europe's imperialist system, and the traditional economic infrastructure (comprised of local economies and regional exchange networks) was fragmented and impoverished (Amin, 1978, p. 23). The First World War resulted in the demise of the Ottoman Empire and the dismemberment of its dominions.

In the Ottoman phase, the political center or core of the Middle East encompassed not only the Arab world of the Fertile Crescent and North Africa, but also the non-Arab domains of the Ottoman Empire. Ruled from its capital in Istanbul, this huge empire was administered by a vast and complex civil service. Contiguous Islamic lands in the Middle East and southeastern Europe constituted the periphery. Islam provided the framework for the emergence of cultural patterns of cooperation among diverse peoples. Fueled by the rich cultural diversity encompassed within the empire, the era spawned distinctive music, art and architecture. Islamic centers of learning (Al-Azhar in Egypt; Qayrawan in North Africa; Najaf in Iraq) became the hub of intellectual exchange between scholars, jurists and artists from different regions in the empire.

Diversity, however, was not only a source of cultural enrichment. It was also a source of political tension (and often, conflict) in an empire held together by an elaborate decentralized administrative-military apparatus. In other words, the empire lacked a sufficient economic infrastructure to transcend local interests and loyalties. In this context, Western economic penetration faced little resistance and increased fragmentation. In response to the challenge posed by the West, the Empire initiated a process of economic and administrative modernization, known as the Tanzimat. Up to the Tanzimat period of administrative reform, 1839 through 1876, Ottoman administration was based on maintenance of the status quo among autonomous ethno-religious communities that maintained their economic viability through specialization of production (professions and crafts). Within the framework of the empire, an inter-communal pattern of life emerged around a form of community-centered corporatism. The political interests of the community visa-vis the empire were mediated by the community's notables, who formed a coalition of local forces.

The Tanzimat represented an effort to centralize administrative control in the state and threatened the autonomy of the ethno-religious communities and the viability of their corporatist economies. Thus, state organizational reform became an issue of intense conflict for important segments of Middle Eastern society. With the emergence of Turkish nationalism by the turn of the century, the political dynamic in the region had three inter-related dimensions: the threat of centralization to the corporatist formula; the threat of pan-Turanianism (Turkification) to the Arabs; Western political and economic inroads into the. Ottoman Empire.

NATIONALIST PHASE

With the collapse of the Ottoman Empire in the aftermath of the First World War, the core of the Middle East reverted to its contours in the Islamic phase; that is, to the Arab lands of Southwest Asia and North Africa. Islamic countries contiguous with the Arab world constituted the periphery. However, the political character and dynamics of the core were very different. In 1922, at the conference of al-Aqir, the boundaries between Iraq, Kuwait and Nejad were drawn by the British. With these boundaries, the Western concept of sovereignty was introduced into the political lexicon of the region. This concept was not only culturally alien to the tribal character of the area but also incompatible with the nature of the interior land trade economy. Borders were unknown, as the area was "a sea of sand that caravans, much like ships on water, crossed without a trace" (Heikal, 1992, p. 67). The borders were not based on natural geographic, ethnic, linguistic or religious cleavages; they were political facts, not geographic or demographic, and were part of Britain's grand design to preclude any unity of Arabs by creating rival but pro-Western regimes in Iraq, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. In effect, the borders set the stage for the two themes of regional political dynamics that played counterpoint to each other throughout this phase: pan-Arab nationalism and nation-state nationalism - that is, regionalism vs. localism. The counterpoint played in a context orchestrated by the big powers whose own strategic interests vis-a-vis the Middle East became a driving force in regional political dynamics in this period.

After World War I, Britain, in effective control of Egypt and the Gulf since the turn of the century, gained control over Palestine, Transjordan and Iraq through a mandate granted by the League of Nations. France, already with colonial control over Morocco, Tunisia and Algeria, was granted mandatory powers over the major portion of Greater Syria (Syria and Lebanon). While ostensibly mandate powers were to shepherd a country to independence, in effect the mandates provided little more than an international legalization of colonial exploitation.

The mandate system constituted a Western scheme for dividing the occupied territories of the defunct Ottoman Empire into political entities with boundaries designed and drawn to perpetuate political fragmentation in the face of Western economic and strategic interests. Within the political systems of these fragmented political entities, governments were installed, the management of which was given over to indigenous elites already strongly oriented to Western interests. The petit bourgeoisie, what Samir Amin (1978) called the "Third Estate", championed the struggle against the physical presence of the occupying forces by adopting, quite ironically, Western notions of self-determination and nationalism. National liberation movements were spawned throughout the Middle East, and in the inter-war period (between WWI and WWII), regional political dynamics in the Middle East were fragmented by the multiplicity of inward directed straggles for national independence.

In 1945, under British tutelage, the Arab League was established in an effort to coordinate the efforts of Arab governments to stave off the rising tide of popular resistance to neo-colonial exploitation and to manage the transition to nominal independence.(2) Thus, the end of the Second World War marked the emergence of nominally independent states throughout the region. However, the loss of Palestine to Zionist occupation, a struggle that spanned the decades of the thirties and forties, disconcerted the Arab peoples and undermined the legitimacy of the regimes in power. The partition of Palestine in 1948, and the routing of the Palestinian population in the aftermath of the war that followed partition, resulted in a profound public reaction to Western sponsorship of Zionism. By the early sixties, most of the states were governed by nationalist military regimes that had wrested control from the overtly pro-Western elite set up by Western powers. Only the sheikhdoms of the Gulf remained under the control of such regimes.

With sovereignty embedded in the state, political power was rooted in the institutions of state. The political elite of the region, ideologically bound to the political identity of their respective states, had a vested interest in the entrenchment of the state's identity. In this way, the political borders imposed by Western powers on the Middle East in the first quarter of the 20th century had become tangible artifacts in the construction of political identity by the middle of the century.

In contrast to this concrete institutional framework for national identities, pan-Arab nationalism - the sense of common identity and common destiny of the Arab people - represented little more than an intangible though popular sentiment by mid-century. In terms of the strategic interests of the big powers in the Middle East, pan-Arab nationalism was hardly a relevant factor in the geopolitical intrigues of the Cold War. Then, in 1952, Gamal Abdul Nasser overthrew the Egyptian monarchy; and pan-Arab nationalism became personified in Nasser's leadership. With Nasser as its principle narrator, pan-Arab nationalism quickly became a dominant theme in regional political dynamics, manifested in the rapid emergence of the Arab cooperative core.

The Arab cooperative core represented efforts to institutionalize pan-Arabism in regional politics. Composed of the official bilateral and multilateral relations between Arab states, as well as non-governmental agencies and popular organizations across Arab states, the Arab cooperative core's most important formal organizations were the League of Arab States, established in 1945, and the Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries, formed in 1968.3 They were complemented by the existence of councils of Arab ambassadors in every major foreign capital, as well as by Arab caucuses in the United Nations and other international agencies.

Arab heads of state (summit) conferences, initiated in January 1964 and convened irregularly thereafter (as the following list indicates) in response to crisis, constituted another significant pattern of Arab cooperative core interaction:

January 1964 in Cairo

September 1964 in Alexandria

September 1965 in Casablanca

August-September 1967 in Khartoum

December 1969 in Rabat 

November 1973 in Algiers

October 1974 in Rabat

October 1976 in Cairo

November 1978 in Baghdad

November 1979 in Tunis

November 1980 in Amman

November 1981 in Fez 

September 1982 in Fez

August 1985 in Casablanca

November 1987 in Amman

June 1988 in Algiers

May 1989 in Casablanca

May 1990 in Baghdad

August 1990 in Cairo

As well, there were regular multilateral meetings held between Arab cabinet ministers of various portfolios, including foreign affairs, justice, health, housing, development, and education. Furthermore, a careful examination of the nature of high-level intergovernmental visits within the Middle East in the period 1946-1975 reveals a clear pattern of intense political interaction between Arab states (Thompson, 1981, pp. 213-35).

The establishment and operation of national and multi-national Arab aid agencies throughout the 1960s and 1970s was another manifestation of the Arab cooperative core. These agencies functioned to redistribute wealth from the oil-rich to the poorer Arab states on a regional basis. The Kuwait Fund for Arab Economic Development, established in 1961, was the first such agency, and represented the largest regional fund. The Arab Fund for Economic and Social Development, established by the Arab League in 1968, did not actually become operational until 1972. The Abu Dhabi Fund for Arab Economic Development was set up in 1971; and was followed by the Saudi Fund for External Development in 1974. The Iraq Fund for External Development and the Arab Monetary Fund followed. Between 1963 and 1974 such agencies disbursed bilateral and multilateral development loans to Arab countries with a value in excess of $507 million. For the period 1975-80, the total rose to over $6.6 billion. The total of all inter-Arab economic assistance, including funds bilaterally disbursed outside of the major development agencies, was much higher still. While some of this increase was attributable to growing capital surplus on the part of the Arab oil-producing states, it was nonetheless a clear manifestation of Arab cooperative interaction.

Yet another pattern of Arab cooperative interaction is reflected in the repeated attempts of many states in the area to realize some form of Arab unity. The formation of the United Arab Republic in 1958 was the most conspicuous attempt, not only because it was first, but also the most enduring as it lasted for more than three years. Other less successful examples are the Arab Hashemite Union (Jordan and Iraq) of 1958; the tripartite federal union of Egypt, Iraq and Syria in 1963; the Iraqi-Egyptian union of 1964; the Egyptian-Sudanese-Libyan federation of 1970; the federation of Arab Republics (Egypt, Libya, and Syria) in 1971; the Egyptian-Libyan and North Yemen-South Yemen unity agreement of 1973; the 1974 Arab Islamic Republic (Libya-Tunisia); the Syrian-Jordanian Supreme Command of 1975; the Syrian-Egyptian United Political Leadership of 1976; and the Syrian-Iraqi unity agreement of 1979; Gulf Cooperation Council (Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Oman, Qatar) in 1981; Pan-Arab Command (Syria, Algeria, South Yemen) in 1985; Maghreb Consultative Council (Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia) in 1987; the Maghreb Union (Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, Mauritania, Libya) in 1989; the Arab Cooperation Council (Iraq, Jordan, Yemen, Egypt) in 1989.

George Lenczowski (1980) identified four major issues that fostered the development of these instruments of cooperative interaction: issues related to the struggle against imperialism; issues involving Israel and Palestine; issues of cooperation and coordination in oil affairs; and issues related to the peaceful resolution of inter-Arab conflicts and disputes (Lenczowski, 1980, pp. 749-751). The issue of Arab unity must be added to this list. While the institutionalization of the Arab state system made unity increasingly difficult to realize in practice, the issue remained a cardinal principle of Arab political culture and one of the most powerful political symbols in the Arab world in the twentieth century. In one way or another, the goal of Arab unity was enshrined in the constitution of every Arab state as a primary responsibility of government. Pan-Arab groups and political parties, most notably the Ba'ath, the Arab Nationalist Movement, the Nasserists, and the New Left groups, formed a non-governmental, transnational dimension of the cooperative core (Ismael, 1976). Pan-Arab professional and academic associations, as well as business, labor, educational, sports, and cultural organizations (such as the Union of Arab Chambers of Commerce, the Union of Arab Universities, the Union of Arab Artisans, the Union of Arab Broadcasters, the Arab Literary Union, and so forth) all represented manifestations of Arab cooperative interaction at the non-governmental level.

Playing counterpoint to the Arab cooperative core was the Arab-Israeli conflict core. This pattern of regional interaction was focussed around the conflict between Israel, the Palestine Liberation Organization and other Palestinian resistance groups, and the Arab states bordering Israel - Egypt, Syria, Jordan, and Lebanon - which all had concentrations of Palestinian refugees within their borders. The entire Arab world was symbolically engaged in this conflict core; but practically, actual conflict was for the most part confined to the interactions of Israel, Palestinian resistance groups, and the Arab states bordering Israel. For Israel and the Palestinians, the issue at stake was fundamental to national survival. For the Arab states bordering Israel, the geopolitics of Zionism made the conflict a vital strategic concern. For the rest of the Arab world, historical, cultural, religious and political factors rendered the Palestine question important through the 1948 and 1956 wars. The 1967 Arab-Israeli War and the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, Gaza Strip, Sinai, and Golan Heights raised the confrontation from strategic to national importance for border states. Other Arab states were peripheral to this core in the sense that their interaction in the conflict was not based on direct military confrontation. However, some of the Arab states - notably Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Libya, and Algeria - had considerable involvement in the issue (despite their geographic and political distance from it), and virtually all of the other Arab states showed some degree of indirect involvement.

In the aftermath of the Second World War, regional political dynamics unfolded in the international context of the Cold War. This ideological conflict within the advanced industrial world not only set the stage for the political dynamics driving inter-state relations in the Middle East, but also directly intruded into the region. Intrusive powers were involved in regional politics primarily through bilateral relations. In the fifties, there were attempts by the West (primarily Britain and the U.S.) to involve Middle East states in military alliance systems (most notably the Baghdad Pact). However, these caused such a political uproar in the Arab world that all attempts were forestalled. As a result, the Cold War was increasingly played out by proxy through bilateral relations with states in the region. An arms race, triggered by the Arab-Israeli conflict core, provided the venue for strategic alignments in the international arena.

By the mid-Sixties, all of the states in the region were identified ideologically with one side or the other in the Cold War. Hence, two ideological camps were apparent in Middle East politics: the radicals, spearheaded by Egypt, represented forces for socio-political change and were supported by the Soviet Union and its allies; the conservatives, spearheaded by Jordan and Saudi Arabia, and supported by the United States and its allies, represented the political status quo of monarchy and the economic status quo of neo-colonial exploitation of oil wealth. In addition, both Israel and kan (until the Islamic revolution in 1979) were staunchly supported and fully armed by the United States.

Tendencies toward political fragmentation and integration constituted conflicting patterns of development in regional politics. On the one hand, the Arab-Israeli conflict core contributed to the tendency toward fragmentation of the Arab world by rendering the Middle East more permeable to outside influence and exasperating inter-Arab conflicts. On the other hand, the Arab cooperative core served to reinforce the pan-Arab nationalist dynamic by providing mechanisms for inter-Arab conflict management, rendering the region less permeable to outside influences (Ismael, 1986).

By 1970, with Egypt in the role of vanguard Arab nation and Nasserism as the dominant expression of Arab nationalism, the Arab-Israeli conflict core and the Arab cooperative core were fully integrated in an essentially dialectical relationship. The 1967 Arab-Israeli war had contributed significantly to this integration by intensifying contradictions between the two cores. The most apparent contradiction was the U.S. role in the conflict core both as Israel's main ally and as an important influence in neighboring Jordan. Another contradiction between the cooperative and conflict cores was revealed in the relationship between Saudi Arabia and the United States on the one hand, and on the other, U.S. support for Israel in the 1967 war and continued occupation of Arab lands seized in the war.

Nasser's strategy of counterbalancing opposing forces relied on the contradictions implicit in the dual role played by conservative regimes in both cores. Caught between the forces of Arab nationalism on one hand and their strong ties with the United States on the other, these regimes were in effect forced to participate in the cooperative core to protect their own interests (both symbolic and strategic). The progressive and anti-imperialist thrust of Nasserism highlighted their reactionary role and forced their increased participation in the cooperative core in order to play a moderating role. Nasser's rapprochement with Saudi Arabia and Jordan after 1967, and his acceptance of the Rogers Plan in 1969 in exchange for a collective front against Israeli aggression and continued U.S. support for it were evidence of the dialectic between conservative regimes and Arab nationalist forces.

Pan-Arab nationalism came to the fore in Middle East politics in the aftermath of World War II as a result of the problems left behind by colonialism: the political, social and economic fragmentation of Arab society; an aggregation of weak national governments dependent upon external powers, an ever-increasing sub-population of Palestinian refugees, and an expansionist Israeli state. The dominant patterns of cooperation and conflict evolved in the post-war period from the efforts of national governments to deal with these problems as they threatened the sovereignty, legitimacy, and/or capability of the state itself. Thus, ironically, Arab nationalism was sponsored by nationalist regimes to serve the interests of the state. The ideology of Arab nationalism helped to mobilize the Arab people in a common struggle against the problems threatening the sovereignty of the state. This resulted not only in the increasing integration of the dominant patterns of cooperation and conflict but also in the increasing concentration of sovereignty in the hands of the political elite throughout the region, in both the core and periphery.

By increasing Arab cohesion - that is, by enhancing the probability of concerted Arab action on common problems - the power of Arab states was essentially aggregated at both the regional and international levels. Concerted Arab action in the October 1973 Arab-Israeli War and the Arab oil embargo of 1973-74 illustrated the impact of cooperative and collaborative interaction on regional and extra-regional relations. During the peak of collaboration in the early 1970s, the Arab world was able to exert significant influence on the policies of external actors. In Africa, for example, Arab policy succeeded, both bilaterally and multilaterally, in displacing a significant Israeli influence and securing African support for the Palestinian cause. Much the same thing occurred in Asia. In the developed world, the relative cohesion of Arab countries facilitated their pursuance of linkage politics. The Arab economic boycott of Israel, the oil embargo, and the Euro-Arab dialogue all demonstrated this. In a different vein, inter-Arab collaboration on the Arab-Israeli conflict facilitated regional cooperation on different international issues. Such cooperation was particularly evident in 1971-74 concerted actions that culminated in breaking the power of the multinational oil companies in the Middle East and bringing about a transformation of the global petroleum market.

In contrast to the patterns of increasing cooperation, however, the 1970s encompassed several developments that set in motion significant changes in regional political dynamics. The first of these was the weakening of the driving forces behind pan-Arab nationalism; namely Nasser, Nasserism and Egypt's vanguard role among Arab states. These forces worked to concentrate the attention of regional actors on the Arab-Israeli issue, and their decline presaged a decline in the integration of the cooperative and conflict cores. The death of Egyptian President Gamal Abd al-Nasser on 28 September 1970 in effect initiated this process. With Nasser gone, the region lacked a popular, charismatic spokesman for Arab nationalism. Nasser's successor in Egypt, Anwar al-Sadat, continued Nasser's effort to maintain inter-Arab cohesiveness in the face of Israel for the first few years following Nasser's death; however, he lacked Nasser's pan-Arab appeal and vision. More importantly, he set Egypt on the path of unilateral settlement with Israel after the 1973 Arab-Israeli War, a process that culminated in the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty of 1979. In effect, Egypt's vanguard role as a driving force in Arab nationalism was eclipsed.

Sadat's actions had a dramatic impact on the region. At first, it appeared that a new reactive Arab cohesion would be forged in opposition to Sadat's moves. At the Ninth Arab summit conference in Baghdad in 1979, twenty Arab League members condemned Sadat's policies and took action to isolate Egypt. However, this was short-lived. Nasser's death and Egypt's subsequent defection deflated the ideological force of Nasserism. The weakening of Nasserism both reflected and hastened the decline of pan-Arab ideologies during this decade. Practically speaking, Nasser's death deprived Nasserism of its charismatic core. The man was a particularly important element of the doctrine's appeal, as Nasserism had failed to create any meaningful organizational structure whereby it might be perpetuated. At an ideological level, the appeal of pan-Arabism was essentially populist, while the state itself became increasingly authoritarian in the very states that championed Arab nationalism - Egypt, Syria and Iraq.

As the 1970s progressed, the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) was seriously weakened by external and internal difficulties. In the autumn of 1970 (called "Black September"), Jordan clamped down on the PLO, essentially ejecting the organization from its territory. Saudi Arabia and the Arab states of the Gulf, which all had large numbers of Palestinians in their labor forces, clamped rigid controls on their political activity. Syria, too, significantly reduced the freedom of action of its large refugee population. In addition, the PLO was weakened by internal dissension over matters of strategy and objectives; by external interference by some Arab states in its internal affairs; by the Lebanese civil war (1975-1990); and by serious conflicts with Syria (1976-77), Egypt (1975-1982), and Iraq (1978).

These contrasting tendencies represented manifestations of the counterpoint themes of pan-Arab nationalism and nation-state nationalism in regional politics. The pan-Arab nationalist theme was the dominant voice in the first quarter of the century; and the nation-state theme dominant in the second quarter. In the third quarter, the nation-state theme did not subside in any respect but the pan-Arab voice re-emerged above it. Finally, in the last quarter of the century, the relationship between the themes reversed again. Nasser's death in 1970 earmarked the beginning of this shift with the significant weakening of the forces of political integration of the Arab world. The proliferation of regional conflicts accelerated the arms race and overloaded the conflict management capacity of the cooperative core: the Lebanese civil war; Maghrib Saharan war (1976-88); Libya-Chad war (1973-81, 1982-87); Sudan civil war (1955-72, 1983-present); the Iraqi Kurdish wars (1961-69; 1973-75; 1982-present); Iraq-Iran war, 1980-88.

In particular, the Iraq-Iran war of 1980-88 significantly bolstered the forces of political fragmentation by bringing the superpowers directly into the region and essentially mining the Gulf into an American military zone. By the end of the war, the political identity of the region was firmly rooted in the narrow self-interests of nation-states. Inter-regional relations, dictated by the strategic interests of the state, were determined in the context of dependence upon extra-regional powers. Intrusive powers had a vested interest in intensifying regional conflicts, not ameliorating them, both for pragmatic reasons (such as increases in arms sales) and for ideological reasons (such as increasing dependency on external political support). By the end of the Iraq-Iran war in 1988, the political core of the Middle East - embodied in patterns of cooperation throughout the millennium - ceased to have a determining influence on political developments in the region. Rather, the interaction of actors in the region with intrusive powers were more significant. In this context, regional dynamics of Middle East politics were driven more by patterns of conflict than patterns of cooperation.

POST-NATIONALIST STAGE

By the end of the Iraq-Iran war in 1988, the political dynamic driving both the cooperative and conflict cores of Middle East politics was severely diminished. Furthermore, new patterns of interaction, set in motion by the Soviet military incursion into Afghanistan in 1979, were emergent in Middle East politics. in response to the Soviet military adventure in support of the Marxist government in Kabul, Saudi Arabia spearheaded the mobilization of volunteers from all over the Islamic world to assist the feudal forces in Afghanistan in waging a civil war against the government. The United States armed and helped train the guerilla fighters, called Mujahidin. The guerilla war that ensued not only brought down the Kabul government in 1992, but also devastated Afghanistan and turned the majority of its population into refugees; and debilitated the Soviet Union (much as the Viet Nam war had debilitated the U.S.). With the collapse of the Marxist government in Kabul, Saudi and U.S. support were withdrawn, and the rabidly fanatical and well trained Mujahidin volunteers left Afghanistan to pursue violent Islamic activism throughout the Middle East.

Coterminous with events in Afghanistan, throughout the Middle East, disillusioned populations, abused by authoritarian regimes and disenchanted with materialist doctrines of social progress, turned to religion in reaction to the increasing alienation of their societies. As an alternative vision of social progress, Islam offered a culturally legitimate worldview (Ismael & Ismael, 1995). Iran, though not universally accepted in the Muslim world as a model for this worldview, nevertheless was a symbol of its viability and vitality (Ismael & Ismael, 1985). It was to this context that the Mujahidin volunteers returned and spawned the fanatical and violent fringe of the Islamic revival that was already gaining momentum in virtually every country of the Middle East.

The 1991 Gulf War, precipitated by Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in August 1990, constitutes a watershed in the transition of the political dynamic propelling Middle East politics. While the nationalist dynamic was already waning, and new patterns of cooperation and conflict were already emergent, the 1991 Gulf war in effect shattered the fundamental principle of sovereignty that constituted the very core of this dynamic. Iraq's violation of Kuwait's sovereignty, followed by the progressive violation of Iraq's sovereignty (by a U.S. led coalition) in the decade following the war in effect changed the basic rules of the game of nations. This occurred in the context of a unipolar world where one superpower, the United States, functions as the primary arbiter of law and order in the international community (Ismael & Ismael, 1999).

In the post-nationalist era, patterns of cooperation and conflict in Middle East politics seem to be emerging around two independent (and as yet unrelated) themes: the nature of relations between Middle East governments and the U.S., and the nature of relations of Middle East governments with politically active forces in the Islamic movement. On the first theme, three groupings of Middle East states may be identified:

1. Oil rich states with regimes that maintain either:

(a) foreign policies closely aligned with U.S. interests; this category constitutes a cohesive sub-grouping in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) organized in 1981 (composed of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman, U.A.E., Bahrain), which functions as a sub-regional alliance that in effect coordinates their regional and international patterns of interaction; or

(b) antagonistic relations with the U.S.: Iran, Iraq and Libya; U.S. policy has effectively isolated these states and marginalized their role in regional politics.

2. Poor states with regimes that are either:

(a) dependent on U.S. goodwill for their economic and/or political survival: Jordan, Egypt, and Yemen;

(b) not dependent, but accommodating to U.S. policy: Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria, Sudan; together with Libya and Mauritania, they form a sub-regional alliance in the Arab Maghreb Union (AMU), established in 1989 to coordinate their regional and international patterns of interaction, but has been largely dysfunctional.

These states align their foreign policies with the U.S. In regional politics, category (a) states tend to play surrogate roles to U.S. policy; while category (b) states maintain accommodative external policies when they act regionally at all.

3. States that have a special geopolitical relationship with the U.S.: Israel and Turkey; in 1996, they established a military alliance and in effect constitute the only power bloc in the region; in the context of their special relationship with the U.S., Israel and Turkey are able to aggressively pursue their own national interests in the region with great impunity (Gresh, 1998).

The first two groupings generate patterns of functionally localized cooperation (GCC, AMU) and patterns of geographically localized isolation in regional politics. The third grouping generates patterns of conflict: Israel's stalling of the peace process; Turkey's incursions into Iraq and threats to Syria; the over-exploitation of shared water resources by both. The common denominator of all these patterns is the relationship with the U.S.

On the second theme (the nature of relations of Middle East governments with politically active forces in the Islamic movement), patterns or trends are not readily discernible given the shadowy character of the Islamic movement. The notion of movement perhaps connotes more coordinated action than actually exists. In fact, the Islamic movement is made up of a large number of diverse groups that vary by scope and nature (location of operation, sect affiliated to, organizational character and socio-political propensities). As non-governmental voluntary associations, they constitute an important segment of civil society. However, many of the Islamic groups are clandestine or quasi-clandestine, either because they espouse political action or because they are officially suppressed by the government. The participation of Islamic groups in the socio-political spheres is actively suppressed in Algeria, Egypt, Tunisia, Bahrain, Kuwait, U.A.E., Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Syria. In most other countries in the region, they are passively suppressed. Only in Jordan, Lebanon and Yemen have there been efforts to accommodate their participation in the socio-political life of the country.

In this context, any cross-national or regional interaction within the Islamic movement is likely to be subterranean. The movement poses an ideological challenge to established power structures in the region, and fear of it has generated regional as well as national responses. The entire movement has been vilified with the terrorist label, and in April 1998, all of the Arab governments signed a protocol against terrorism, a directive clearly designed to forestall cross-national interaction and legitimate suppression.

The patterns and contours of this phase are not yet in focus. The trends identified above may signify emergent patterns; or they may merely be trends that dissipate in the face of new regional forces. Unlike patterns in the past, however, the Arab world is not at the center of regional politics at the present. In fact, unlike the patterns of Middle East politics throughout most of this millennium, regional dynamics in the post-nationalist era are driven more by intrusive power than regional interaction. Only in the colonial era was the role of foreign powers in regional dynamics so overt and dominant. But the colonial era was really only an interregnum between two phases, a link between the waning patterns of the past with the emergent patterns of the new phase.

NOTES

1. The concepts of core and periphery are borrowed from systems theory but are used here only for heuristic descriptive purposes, and are not intended to signify systems' theoretic properties. For an examination of the Middle East from the perspective of systems theory, see Ismael, T.Y. (1986). The International Relations of the Middle East. Binghampton: Syracuse University Press. pp. 41-67.

2. Egypt and Iraq had gained.formal independence earlier: Egypt in 1922 and Iraq in 1932.

3. For a list of the specialized agencies of the League and joint projects of OAPEC, see Yusuf A. Sayigh, Y.A. (1978). The Economics of the Arab world' Development since 1945. London: Croom Helm. pp. 692-693.

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Jacqueline S. Ismael is an Adjunct Professor of International Relations, Eastern Mediterranean University; and Professor, Faculty of Social Work, The University of Calgary. Tareq Y. Ismael is President, International Center for Contemporary Middle Eastern Studies, Eastern Mediterranean University; and Professor, Department of Political Science, The University of Calgary. This paper is adapted from a forthcoming book, International Relations of the Middle East: Continuity and Change.