The old political configurations that enabled the semblance of stability and order in West Asia and the Middle East are quickly crumbling like so many moldy cookies.
This week, the right-wing government of Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel rejected the two-state formula for peace between the Jews and the Palestinians. That formula envisioned the establishment of a Palestinian state alongside Israel. For three decades, the possibility for such an arrangement made all sides hopeful a lasting arrangement has been found.
Right-wing Israelis now insist a two-state arrangement will make Israel constantly insecure. But the only alternative – now exercised by Jewish settlers in the occupied West Bank – is to push Palestinians out of their land. That will mean the extinction of the Palestinians as a distinct national identity separate from the other Arabs.
The other event of great significance is the air assault mounted by the Pakistani air force on targets within Iran. At first blush, the assault might seem to be retaliation for Iran’s missile strikes against what it termed “terrorist bases” inside Pakistan.
So serious is this event, the Taliban in neighboring Afghanistan implored leaders of the two countries to settle their dispute in a fraternal manner. But there is actually little fraternity between predominantly Sunni Pakistan and predominantly Shia Iran.
Beyond fundamental differences in the interpretation and practice of Islam, however, there are real hard-nosed national security issues involved here. Pakistan is a nuclear-armed nation. Iran is aspiring to become one, held back only by Western sanctions.
Spilled across the border between them, there is the Baloch people and their newfound nationalism. In Pakistan’s Balochistan region, there is an armed separatist movement maintaining bases across the border in Iran. Then there are the Sunni Baloch armed militias fighting to liberate their kind from Tehran’s Shia leaders.
Like the Kurds, now spread across Iran, Iraq, Syria and Turkey, the Baloch people were forgotten when the post-colonial maps were drawn. They, too, have become more assertive of their distinct identity expressed in pursuit of their own state.
In the immediate post-colonial period, strong autocracies overwhelmed the ethnic separatist tendencies in the “national” population.
Libya, under the Gaddafi dictatorship, held Libya together and enforced a common national identity. When that dictatorship was overthrown, with the help of Western military power, Libya plunged into civil war that remains unsettled to this day.
Iraq, too, was held together by the Saddam Hussein dictatorship that overwhelmed the profound tensions between Shia, Sunni and Kurdish communities. When that dictatorship was overthrown, communal tensions broke out. The radicals of Al Qaeda and the ISIS are rooted among the Sunni population in a country that was predominantly Shia.
Saddam belonged to the Sunni community, although he was raised a Christian. The new Shia-dominated government in Baghdad continues to be resisted by the Sunnis.
The Assad dictatorship in Syria similarly overwhelmed the religious and ethnic identities in that nation. The Assad family (father and son) emanated from the Shia minority in Syria. In this case, the Sunnis were in the majority.
When the Arab Spring movement broke out, the democratic tendency of the popular movement was quickly commandeered by militant Islamist groups. These groups, identifying either with the Al Qaeda or ISIS, continue resisting the regime in Baghdad. The brutal Assad regime survives because of Russian support.
By contrast, in Tunisia, where there is no pronounced sub-national identities, the Arab Spring produced a secular and democratic political order. It is only here – not in Libya, Syria or Iraq – that the popular movements realized their democratizing potentials.
The overthrown dictatorial regimes in Libya and Iraq can never be restored. The West will not allow that to happen. We have seen the capacity of the deposed dictatorial regimes to create trouble for everyone else even as they maintained some sort of order in their “nations.”
The old formula for maintaining inter-communal order within postcolonial “nations” will no longer work in a rapidly globalized world. The paradox of globalization, as we have seen, is that it revives “localization” – the sharpened self-awareness of distinctiveness among subnational groups.
Over the past few days, the economic difficulties in the Russia Federation is expressing itself in agitation among the ethnically distinct, non-Russian “republics.” The Soviet Union may be dead, except in Putin’s mind. But the Russian Federation is still a residue of the old Tsarist empire.
Because of what Putin did in Ukraine, the quality of life in Russia will continue to deteriorate. It is cut off from the mainstream of global trade and finance. Any postwar arrangement will likely require Russia to pay reparations to Ukraine.
Europe foresees investing trillions of euros in Ukraine after peace is regained. There will be none for Russia. This will fuel disillusionment and revive separatism in the Russian Federation. The remnant of empire presided over by Putin could break up even more.
The peace the world expects for the Middle East and West Asia is one where commerce proceeds with the least friction. The “axis of resistance” sponsored by Iran creates impediments to peaceable commerce.
Predominantly Sunni nations such as Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Egypt have been reluctant to extend any material support to the beleaguered Hamas and their brothers in the Hezbollah. They see these radical militias as instruments for extending Iran’s (and therefore Shia) sphere of influence.
This part of the world, under-reported by the mainstream Western media, is being reshaped very rapidly.