Security dilemma in the Middle East Essay

Introduction

Since 2008, Arab nations in the Middle East have been facing a dilemma of how to resolve and prevent insecurity within their borders and across the entire region. The possibility of uprisings in the region remains high, but mitigation measures are few.

One of the major concerns for the region is the Muslim Brotherhood’s capability of igniting violent protests, thus resulting in insecurity, especially after the Egyptian uprising in 2008 and 2012. This paper explores some of the pertinent issues surrounding the matter, like the reluctance of some governments to change their model of governance coupled with some of the options available to the governments, including acquisition of foreign aid and quashing the Muslim Brotherhood.

Systems of government

The form of governance that a country’s leadership adopts has serious implications on the state of its security. Many responsibilities rest on the leaders’ ability to prioritize and make objective decisions on behalf of their citizens. In most cases, people prefer to choose their leaders through elections.

However, sometimes people feel content with alternative forms of leadership choices. Most Arab nations, especially those bordering the Persian Gulf, which form the Cooperation Council for the Arab States of the Gulf (GCC), have been under absolute monarchies since the abolition of colonization. This paper reveals some of the benefits that the country has experienced from this type of leadership.

One of the most influential and memorable leaders that Saudi Arabia has had to date is Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan. His father, Sheikh Sultan bin Khalifa Al Nahyan, was the ruler of Abu Dhabi when Sheikh Zayed was born. However, Abu Dhabi did not have much in terms of development at the time. There were no schools and most of the inhabitants survived on subsistence fishing and farming despite the region’s wealth in oil.

The state of the economy was poor owing to lack of formal education and healthcare facilities. However, this scenario changed thanks to Sheikh Zayed’s revolutionary leadership. The Sheikh came out as a selfless leader by putting the needs of his people before his own (Killgore 2005). Some of the significant changes that he made in the region include harnessing the benefits of oil and applying the revenue to the development of hospitals and schools.

Others include advocating for female empowerment through the provision of equal rights in the labor market and fostering unity between Abu Dhabi and other members of the United Arab Emirates. The leadership council reappointed him for the position three more times in 1981, 1986, and 1991. He was also famous for his insistence on preservation of Islamic values as evidenced in his move to make Islam the national religion for the UAE (Killgore 2005).

Although Qatar and Saudi Arabia experienced some land disputes during Sheikh Zayed’s reign due to disagreements based on the Treaty of Jeddah, he ensured that the two states kept the matter civil and carried out trade with each other peacefully. Issues on the dispute did not arise until a year after his death in 2004.

During his reign, Sheikh Zayed formulated policies that allowed the entry of expatriates into Abu Dhabi as a solution to the labor force problem. This aspect created goodwill between the state and Western nations, thus increasing trade opportunities for the entire region in addition to expansion of oil markets for the UAE into the United States, Russia, and other western nations. This case is an example of how contentment in the leadership style that leaders adopt can generate lasting peace.

A lot has changed since Sheikh Zayed’s leadership, with citizens of Arab states accusing leaders of using their positions to commit social and political injustices such as human rights violations and unequal distribution of wealth. Other accusations against governments in Arab states include the denial of leadership opportunities to citizens with great potential despite calls of dissatisfaction on current leadership.

Such views have created concerns over potential uprisings and security issues for governments all over the Middle East. For instance, there is a possibility of a security crisis in Iraq if the government fails to make radical changes to policies regarding its Sunni minority. The Sunni community has been retaliating to ill treatment by the Iraqi government comprising human rights violations such as mass arrests, lengthy detention periods, and absence of procedures present in most fair trials.

Such retaliation has been worsening since 2008, resulting in approximately five thousand deaths to date (“Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood declared “terrorist group”” 2013). The situation has created a dilemma on how to improve the security situation in the county without attracting an uprising from the minority Sunni community resulting in a sectarian war.

According to “Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood declared “terrorist group”” (2013), experts and human rights groups blame the Iraqi prime minister, Nuria al-Maliki, for not reaching out to the minority groups and not starting work on anti-terror laws on time. The state also lacks rules barring members of Sadam Hussein’s political party from participating in public politics.

Although the government has made some changes in policy concerning the issue, analysts describe them as minor fixes that fail to address the severity of the situation. The matter remains pertinent as the nation prepares for parliamentary elections scheduled for April 30, 2014. The major concern for the government is that the minority group may seek aid from the Muslim Brotherhood, which is a supposedly terror group and political activism faction with links in most Arab countries.

The group’s influence and ability to attract attention through political activism makes it a potential option through which the Sunni minority can destabilize the government. The group played a huge role in the ousting of former Egyptian President, Hosni Mubarak (Rutherford 2008). The group’s application of violence in furtherance of its agenda in the past is a threat to the Iraqi national security measures.

The Muslim Brotherhood

The organization, which most Arab nations consider as a terrorist group, is an Islamic political activist group and social movement founded in Egypt in 1928 by Scholar Hassan al-Banna during the persistence of the Second World War. It mainly comprises Sunni Muslims who feature a minority population in most Islamic nations.

The group’s original main objectives included conducting charity work in addition to political activism while instilling values from the Quran and Sunna to the Muslim community. In the initial stages of its development, the group received massive support from Arab countries of the Middle East, which was understandable considering that most nations were undergoing colonization from Western nations.

Some of the activities that the group conducted during the early years of its inception included teaching illiterate members of the community, preaching Islam, and establishing health care centers among others. Fisk (2007, p.67) notes that in 1936, ‘after substantial growth in its influence, the group started to oppose the British rule in Egypt and substantially contributed in the country’s struggle for independence’.

However, Lia (2006, p.101) posits that the Islamic community in Egypt ‘credits a series of violent killings during this period to the movement and the Egyptian government banned the group in 1952 after rumors of its plans to assassinate the president after the Egyptian Revolution’.

Over the years, the group has attracted many members from different countries around the world, most of which are Arab-speaking nations. It receives financial backing as a requirement from all its members often obliging them to give a part of their financial gains to the movement regularly.

Some of its members originate from oil-rich Arab countries, thus creating concern over its activities in countries such as Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Iran. The violent history of the group and current significant political influence have caused great concern from Middle Eastern nations as fear of the group’s activities in the Arab Spring looms. A key example is the election of Mohamed Morsi – a member of the group, as the president of Egypt in 2012 after the ousting of the former president, Hosni Mubarak, and his oppressive regime.

The election was an important milestone for the group and a cause of concern for other Arab nations considering that the group was only one year-old after its legalization in Egypt in 2011. Morsi was a product of a democratic election, which proves the view that the group has been dormant for several years and its social influence persists in the country and possibly in other countries within the Arab Peninsula.

According to the “Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood declared “terrorist group” (2013), the military overthrew of ‘’Morsi’s government in July 2013 and the interim government declared it a terrorist group in December of the same year after members of the group attacked a police station in Mansoura’’ (par. 13).

One of the goals that the group has made clear over the years is that it strives to liberate Arab nations from Western rule as part of the unification process that it hopes to implement for all Arab nations.

Although the move sounds noble, it creates a problem for most governments in Arab nations due to the view that the countries see Western nations as valuable trade partners and lucrative markets for their products. For instance, Saudi Arabia and Iran produce 12% and 5.2% of the world’s oil respectively and they consider the United States and Russia as their main markets.

Any activities by the group that interfere with the trade relations between western nations and Arab nations in the Middle East threaten the economic stability of these countries (Rabi 2006). The most obvious reaction to such a threat would be to curtail the group’s activities. However, the view that most members of the group originate from these very countries creates a security dilemma for governments in the Middle East, as the resultant effect would most likely be an uprising or protests.

Such an occurrence will subsequently create an environment that hinders overall trade activities with Western, as well as Eastern trade partners. In addition, governments’ efforts to quell such uprisings would most likely result in political instability, as citizens question the actions of their governments leading to full- blown civil unrests, thus leading to a social, political, and economic disasters.

The Arab Spring

According to “Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood declared “terrorist group” (2013), the term “Arab Spring” describes ‘a series of political demonstrations that have taken place in most Arab nations, mostly in Africa and the Middle East, since December 2010’ (par. 8). Some of the countries affected so far include Egypt, Libya, Algeria, Yemen, Syria, Bahrain, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Morocco, and Saudi Arabia.

One of the main causes for such political protests is the authoritarian manner in which governments in these countries run their affairs. Citizens in these nations desire changes that these governments were not willing to incorporate in their style of governance, thus resulting in backlash from the civilian populations. Human rights violations is the second reason for such protests while others include unfair distribution of resources, corruption, unemployment, and in some nations, opposition against Western influences.

During the initial stages of this wave of protests, the intensity of its impact was unforeseeable for most nations. For instance, the occurrence of a major uprising on the grounds of bad governance in Tunisia in 2008 contributed to the intensity of the uprising in Egypt to oust President Hosni Mubarak’s dictatorial leadership and replace it with a democratic system (Rutherford 2008).

Analysts consider the success of the Egyptian uprising as a major contributor to the Libyan uprising in 2011 that resulted in the ousting and death of a dictatorial leader Muammar al-Gaddafi in October of the same year. Other causes for the Libyan demonstrations were accusations of the government of human rights violations, poor distribution of the country’s resources, including earnings from oil reserves and lack of democratic rights to choose leaders that best serve the interests of people.

Between 1800s and the 1900s, the focus of such protests was colonial rule and the attainment of self-governance. In recent years, such focus has changed to concerns over internal problems the Arab community is facing, especially with regard to governance.

For instance, most people express their dissatisfaction with the anarchist mode of leadership that Arab countries, especially those along the Persian Gulf, practice whereby power is hereditary, which limits the chances that other citizens in these countries can take leadership positions (Rabi 2006).

Analysts point out the use of media as one of the main catalysts to the unrest and eventual uprising in most Middle Eastern countries. For instance, they mention the fact that technology savvy youth in universities and colleges with access to information on current events from other countries played a great role in influencing protests, particularly those in Egypt, which resulting in the intense nature of protests.

Initially, protests in Egypt were about rights of workers, but gradually escalated to protests against the entire political administration, as it was word spread in social media sites.

Another catalyst that analysts highlight is globalization. Globalization has made concepts such as international trade and communication prominent in the development of these countries, thus resulting in intercultural interactions whereby citizens in Arab nations learn about the benefits of other forms of governance and rights that other countries grant their citizens. Such interactions foster a form of enlightenment and sense of empowerment that leads to revolutionary action in cases where governments take a hard stance to change.

The outcome of such uprisings has resulted in security concerns in countries where governments opt for their traditional forms of rule without sparking violence from their indigenous populations.

For instance, the Saudi Arabian government experienced pressure from its population following the September 11 attacks on the United States in 2001. Some Saudi Arabian citizens and those from the UAE considered trade and policy relations with the American government as traitorous and demanded the government to cut ties with the West (Dilanian 2011).

Although the governments have made slight policy changes regarding the freedoms that citizens from western countries enjoy on their territories, most oil rich Arab nations along the Persian Gulf continue to conduct trade with the west. However, the possibility of looming public uprising in countries such as Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Oman, Lebanon, and Kuwait is still a nightmare for governments with regard to a peaceful resolution and prevention.

Mitigation of the security dilemma

The Cooperative Council for the Arab States of the Gulf (GCC) measures

The Cooperative Council for the Arab States of the Gulf, which also goes by its original name, the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), is a union comprised of nations along the Persian Gulf that deal with the political, social, and economic development in the region.

The council presently comprises states of Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE with its headquarters in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. However, there have been talks about including Jordan, Morocco, and Yemen since Saudi Arabia proposed the formation of a confederation in December 2011.

Since the council’s formation in 1981 in Abu Dhabi, the region has experienced great economic integration and political stability. Some of the measures that the council leaders have put in place to ensure continued prosperity include formulation of similar regulations regarding finance, trade, practice of religion and legislation, establishment of scientific research centers, cultural integration, and encouragement of cooperation of private sector institutions (Deutsch Federal Foreign Office 2012).

The council has also proposed the creation of a monetary union and the project is under careful consideration by the nations. The fact that the economies in question are some of the fastest growing in the world due to the presence of oil and natural gas reserves and adequate development plans proves a testament to the success of the council.

The occurrence of the Arab Spring in 2008 created security concerns for the GCC in addition to raising questions on the extent of involvement that the council should exercise in solving security problems of its members. Although the council has a unitary military force, the Peninsula Shield Force, member nations have to deploy service men to operate as part of the force when the need arises.

For instance, the Bahrain Uprising that has been persistent since 2011 saw Saudi Arabia and the UAE sent ground troops to ensure maintenance of peace. Although Kuwait did not send ground troops, it sent a naval unit. On the other hand, Oman chose not to get involved in the matter in terms of military actions.

The differences in agreement on the type of aid to offer member states during security situations created a dilemma for the members as they formulated policies to mitigate the effects that the looming uprisings might cause. The GCC troops involved in the current security situation in Syria began going back to their nations through Kuwait due to injuries and threats from the resident government over illegal involvement in internal relations (“Kuwait set to receive GCC fighters back from Syria” 2014).

During the 52^nd UN’s social development committee, Kuwait gave a briefing of the GCC’s plan for social development (“Kuwait highlights GCC social development plan at UN” 2014). The plan includes programs such as provision of justice to the minority and majority groups in member states, enlarging the job market, providing social security and technological developments for the government to mitigate issues leading to uprisings adequately.

The plan is compliant with the UN’s Millennium Development goals for 2015. According to the Diplomatic Attache Aliya Al-Mzaini, social justice and development form the core concepts surrounding strategies that the GCC hopes to adopt (“Kuwait highlights GCC social development plan at UN” 2014).

International aid

The American government is one of the few governments in the West that have openly declared non-tolerance for terrorist activities, regardless of the origin of such groups. The United States’ anti-terror campaign began in 2001 after the 9/11 twin bombings in New York and Washington by Al Qaeda, which left dozens of people dead, scores injured, and properties worth millions of dollars destroyed.

Apart from following up on the perpetrators of the attacks, the government developed a preemptive strategy that resulted in its declaration of a global war against terror (Wright 2007).

During its investigations into the Al Qaeda terror group, the American government founds links between the group and the Muslim Brotherhood, and thus it considers the latter as a terrorist sect in its own right. The resolution that the Muslim Brotherhood is a terror institution in Egypt following the political atmosphere in 2011 after a coup that ousted President Mohamed Morsi from power further strengthened the American government’s resolve to quash the faction.

The group has had links with the Saudi Arabian government in the past owing to similarities in principles regarding the application of Islam in governance. However, the Saudi Arabian government has recently indicated concerns of the possibility of the group sparking chaos in the country. The government explains one of the reasons behind such fear as the group’s preference for a democratic style of governance in place of the present monarchial system.

The government also expresses concerns over the lack of satisfaction that its minority population has shown, thus leading to fears that the said population may reach out to the group for help (Lewis 2002). The most likely result in this case would be an uprising similar to that experienced in Egypt in 2008 that culminated in the election of former President Morsi -an influential member of the group.

Although Saudi Arabia has its own military force, it relies largely on alliances to ensure that such force is sufficient for adequate protection. A common interest between the United States government and the government of Saudi Arabia makes it easier for the Saudi Arabian government to reach out for help from the US.

However, the American government is largely infamous to most citizens in Arab nations due to history with executions of Islamic personalities including Sadam Hussein, Osama bin Laden and involvement in events leading to the death of Muammar Gaddafi.

The situation creates a dilemma for the Arabian government for fear of backlash from its citizens likely to resort in protests leading to insecurity. Middle Eastern nations thus need to develop strategies that appeal to both the resident populations and the interests of the government without resorting to violent situations likely to achieve insecurity in the region.

Conclusion

Although the governments in the Middle Eastern region have various choices open to them in the resolution of the insecurity issue, most options carry the likelihood of backlash from resident populations. Therefore, it is up to the involved governments to formulate lasting solutions regionally in order to prevent future dilemmas of a similar nature.

Reference List

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“Kuwait highlights GCC social development plan at UN”, The Peninsula. Web.

“Kuwait set to receive GCC fighters back from Syria 2014”, Arab Times. Web.

Deutsch Federal Foreign Office: Gulf Cooperation Council 2012. Web.

Dilanian, K 2011, ‘’CIA led U.S Special Forces mission against Osama bin Laden‘’, Los Angeles Times. Web.

Fisk, R 2007, The Great War of Civilization: The conquest of the Middle East, Vintage Books, New York.

Killgore, A 2005, ‘Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan AL Nahyan (1918-2004)’, The Washington Report, vol. 24 no. 2, p.41.

Lewis, B 2002, What Went Wrong: Western impact and Middle Eastern Response, Oxford University Press, New York.

Lia, B 2006, The Society of the Muslim Brothers in Egypt: The Rise of an Islamic Mass Movement 1928-1942, Ithaca Press, New York.

Rabi, U 2006, ‘Oil Politics and Tribal Rulers in Eastern Arabia: The Reign of Shakhbut (1928-1966)’, British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, vol. 33 no.1, pp.37-50.

Rutherford, B 2008, Egypt after Mubarak, Princeton University Press, Princeton.

Wright, L 2007, The Looming Tower: Al Qaeda and the Road to 9/11, Vintage Books, New York.