The missing hegemon in the Middle East

T he past always teaches us about the present and there is no greater resource than learning from history. The Middle East had its great hegemon in the shape of Ottoman Empire. West always feared a united Islam and the last time that Islam was united was under the Arab Ottoman rule when Ottomans not only attacked but conquered parts of Europe, Africa and Asia.

This Middle Eastern hegemon died over hundred years ago and the region since then has been locked in the great geopolitical contest to determine: who is the true heir to the Middle Eastern hegemony — USA, Israel, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Russia or Iran? One can only see some patterns and follow the ongoing trends to say that since the demise of the Ottoman Empire no power has been able to claim uncontested and true hegemony in the region.

Israel — a deliberate wedge put in place by the West to prevent a united Sunni power from re-emerging — lacks the geographic element of geopolitics as well as the moral standing to be considered as a hegemon despite showcasing the strongest military and being the only nuclear power in the region.

Saudi Arabia, being the wealthiest, oil rich and most influential country in the region, has spent too much time in the pocket of the West and thus lacks the credibility to lay a claim to such a status. For even its own security it relies on US and therefore this takes away from Saudi Arabia the military prowess needed to even lay claim to such a status. Besides this till recent past Saudi Arabia has been advocating, promoting and even financing an extremist version of Islam that has made it more an actor participating in various ongoing civil wars (Yemen, Syria, Libya, Lebanon) than being a hegemon in a capacity to direct, drive or control events.

Turkey is the oldest claimant to the seat of Middle Eastern hegemony. Its claim is driven from the Islamic Ottoman heritage, rich Muslim history and a geography and physicality of the state that positions it suitably to lay claim of being such a power. President Erdogan has in fact claimed that Turkey is the only Muslim country that can be the leader of the Muslim world. However, Turkey’s claim to Middle Eastern hegemony was put to real test with the arrival of the Russian military and influence in Syria.

It was forced to invade northern Syria to protect its vulnerability against the Syrian Kurds and it is the likelihood of the creation and emergence of an independent Kurdistan which is Turkey’s Archilles heel. Gripped with the concern of such a geopolitical reality materialising, Turkey has relied on Russia as the likely outside power that can act as a restraining influence on such an eventuality getting materialised. The Turkish embrace of Russia is a response to the US warm embrace of the Syrian Kurds in the Syrian civil war — doing this it has allowed another outside power room in the Middle East to lay claim to become its eventual hegemon.

The Russian intervention in the Middle East through its military’s arrival in Syria in 2016 was a consequence of a deliberate Putin assessment which was that the US and its allies may win the Syrian war but they will never be able to win the peace. President Putin had witnessed the Arab Spring unfold and while the US believed that Arab Spring will result in the birth of democracy in the region, Putin continued to claim that West’s democratic seed was breakable and fragile and the Middle East neither had the welcoming soil for such a seed, nor did it have the enabling political environment to allow the democratic seed to take root and flourish.

The fallout of the autocratic leaders (Tunisia, Egypt, Libya) who were all American allies and led client states in the region sent a clear message to all Middle Eastern countries that the US could not be trusted. It could ditch its clients when opposing winds blew strong. The lack of trust in the US opened the Middle Eastern door to Russia. Today the Tartus naval base in Syria is the only such facility Russia has outside former Soviet Union.

Putin has signed a deal with President Bashar Assad of Syria for the lease of this facility for next 49 years. The deal allows Russia to keep warships, including the nuclear-powered ones, at the facility and helps Russia bring its military machines close to the Mediterranean and keep a vigil there. Iran is considered as a rouge state by the West and despite being the heir to the great Persian civilisation its core religious ideology revolves around the minority Shia community in the Middle East and thus it fights many proxies in the region against the dividing Sunni-Shia faultline.

Despite the Western sanctions and Western concern on its ability to export terrorism, Iran ends up facilitating the great Western grand Middle Eastern strategy of keeping the region divided. It is in this context that one must read the Trump Administration’s turnabout from the signed agreement of JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action) made possible through the efforts of P5+1 (Five permanent members of UN Security Council and Germany). Had the US not backtracked from the agreement, Iran could have laid claim to its frozen foreign assets and reserves abroad, and without economic sanctions it could have created the economic base to further its interests in the region. This was not acceptable to Saudi Arabia and Israel and so Iran has been fixed at a place from where it can only muddle through.

Yet, Iran remains a great actor and even other powers restrain its ability to rise it can continue to challenge any emerging order in the Middle East. Forced to sideline if Iran is prevented from actively participating in the construction of an emerging new Middle Easter order then it will instead continue to participate and invest in the prevailing Middle Eastern disorder if for nothing else than to prevent any new order from emerging. All claimants to Middle Eastern hegemony are present in the region except the US which is distancing from the Middle East to participate in the Asian Century by pivoting towards Asia. Where will this leave the future of the Middle East’s order?

With Saudi Arabia showing a clear tilt towards Russia and also likely to join BRICS, will the Middle Eastern Order change for good? Will the Middle East having suffered in the world’s unipolar moment breathe a sigh of relief in an emerging multipolar world? Does it even need a hegemon? The world keeps its fingers crossed for interesting times ahead in Middle Eastern politics