The Gulf Monarchies Face the Twenty-First Century

The six Gulf monarchies form a distinct bloc within the Arab world. Saudi Arabia seeks to dominate it and is presently entangled in a struggle for regional hegemony with Iran. The 2011 uprisings failed to overturn any of the monarchies,which all became acutely aware of the threat that these uprisings posed, andthen chose to accelerate reforms in response. Five of the Gulf countries have tiny indigenous populations, most outnumbered by foreign workers. They also haveenormous oil or gas wealth andambitious 2030 visions for development. In addition, the five all face the double challenge of having an expansionist Iran and domineering Saudi Arabia as neighbors. Since independence from Britain in 1971, they have dedicated themselves, several with notable success, to establishing modern states, national identities and a global stature. Meanwhile, under the leadership of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the Saudi kingdom is finally undergoing radical social and economic changes in the midst of unprecedented political repression and major resistance to the Saudi bid for regional primacy from both Iran and other increasingly independent-minded Gulf monarchies.In addition, U.S.-Saudi relations, the bedrock of Saudi stability and security, are deteriorating.

The Unraveling

In early 2011, uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt sparked an unanticipated chain of events across the Arab world. The old Arab order unraveled with surprising speed as four well-established leaders were overthrown, and civil wars and sectarian strife consumed the region. For the first time in Arab history, Islamic parties rose to power in three countries while the state disintegrated in four others. This chapter traces the causes and course of the different uprisings and explains how and why, after four dictators had been quickly displaced, new deposition attempts were stopped in their tracks by wily monarchs and brute repression.

Egypt the Triumph of State Over Citizens

This chapter recounts the stages of the 2011 uprising in Egypt, from the fall of one military dictator to the rise of another. The upheaval ended three decades of sclerotic rule under Hosni Mubarak, and ushered in a brief period of democracy that saw the Muslim Brotherhood triumph in parliamentary and presidential elections for the first time in Egyptian history.After a year of tumultuous rule, Islamic President Mohammed Morsi was ousted in a military coup d’état in 2013thanks to the connivance of self-proclaimed democratic secularists. The new military dictator, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, has set about uprooting all traces of Islamist presence in the country and eliminating all civil society activism as well. His goal has been to turn Egypt back fifty years to restore the military state established by Gamal Abdel Nasser, and imitate his pursuit of costly mega-projects to solve the country’s crushing economic and social problems.

Why the Arab Spring?

Common explanations of why the Arab region erupted in 2011 are only partly accurate and have glaring omissions. The youth bulge is real butsuch bulges do not automatically lead to upheavals.Socio-economic conditions in Egypt or Yemen were dismal, but no more so in 2011 than in the previous decades. Tunisia, where the uprisings started, is a middle-income country, and Gulf monarchies are incredibly rich but still fearful of unrest. Artificial borders explain even less about countries’ stability. Syria and Iraq have borders drawn on maps by colonial powers after World War I, but Egypt’s date back millennia.A crucial factor in causing the disaffection of Arab citizens toward their government is the absence of “state projects,” a vision of what the country could and should be, and of inspiring leaders to embody that vision. Egypt had a project and a leader that inspired the entire Arab world in the days of Gamal Abdel Nasser, but that is no longer the case.

The Search for a State in Iraq and Syria

Iraq and Syria are countries that were designed by colonial powers after World War I and have never been able to become solidified states. After repeated attempts at statebuilding by foreign powers and later by their own authoritarian leaders, they are again in a state ofcollapseand likely to remain non-statecountries in the future.Iraq has experienced four separate efforts at state-building, and Syria has experienced three. All of these attempts have failed. Even by the most minimalist definition, a state must have a monopoly over the legal means of coercion and control over most of its territory –Iraq and Syria have neither. Both countries have a plethora of militias outside of government control, even if some are allied to it. Control of territory evades both governments, even after the official defeat of the Islamic State.Foreign intervention by the United States, Iran, Russia and Turkey, each with a different agenda, may guarantee the survival of the two countries, but not the emergence of even minimalist states.

The Changing Geopolitics of the Middle East

The 2011 uprisings had a profound impact on the geopolitics of the Middle East due to the vacuum created by the political turmoil consuming its three traditional power centers—Egypt, Syria and Iraq. Two old imperial rivals, Turkey and Iran, competed to fill the vacuum while an emerging new regional power, Saudi Arabia, made a bid for the leadership of the Arab world. At the same time, the United States, despite its efforts to disengage from Middle East conflicts, became more engaged than ever, first with Iran and then in civil wars underway in Syria and Iraq and against Islamic extremist groups. Meanwhile, Russia after two decades of absence, returned to quickly re-establish its influence there.

A Deeply Changed Region

The 2011 uprisings have changed the Arab region profoundly and irreversibly, even as protesters’ hopes were dashed. The region is now clearly splintering into four parts – the Maghreb, the Levant, the Gulf and Egypt – each gripped by different problems and influenced by different political forces. The Maghreb is moving toward greater openness; Egypt has reverted to repression; the Levant countries are disintegrating; and even the Gulf countries, which did not experience political upheavals, now feel compelled to introduce reforms from the top. The region’s geopolitics had also been greatly altered, as outside powers and emerging regional powers became deeply involved in their own efforts to shape the region. The analysis in this chapter is based on first-hand information that was gathered during numerous trips to the region since 2011, and fifty years of experience living in and writing about the region.

Some Final Reflections

The Arab uprisings in2011 did not satisfy the demands voiced by protesters, but they left the countries where they occurred changedon a fundamental level –although not always for the better. Tunisia and Morocco have become more open, while Egypt has reverted to stifling military authoritarianism. Iraq and Syria have seen the further undermining of their chronically troubled states with dim prospects for improvement. The rich oil monarchies have embarked on a risky course betting that they can join the modern world economically without undermining their ruling families politically even as they cling to tribal traditions of abygone era. Whatever the outcome, they are now headlong into a radically new and different era, onein which the myth of one Arab world with a common destiny and interests has been shattered forever.Key issues that emerged as a result of the 2011 uprisings will loom large over that splintered world for years to come: the hostility between secularists and Islamists in Egypt, the fragility of the state in Iraq and Syria, and the tension between rapid economic and social change and political stagnation—“the King’s dilemma”—in the Gulf monarchies. The importance of strategic leadershipwill be crucial everywhere, but so will decisions taken by foreign powers, whichtoday have greater involvement in shaping the region than they had a century ago.

The Maghreb a World Apart

The uprisings had unique consequences for Tunisia and Morocco. They led to the integration of Islamist parties into the political system, and introduced a political process based on carefully crafted compromises that preserved stability but left the youth deeply dissatisfied. These differences are also encouraging the two countries to turn away from the countries of the Middle East and to look to Europe and Africa for their futures.The choice of moderation and compromise on the part of Islamist parties helped greatly to achieve this outcome, but so did other factors. Tunisia is politically pluralistic, with a leftist trade union and political parties as well as an Islamist movement well embedded in a society that is embracing a mainstream centrist tradition which stems from the early post-independence period. In Morocco, the king’s ever-looming authoritywas a signal to secularists that Islamists would not be allowed to dominate, and to Islamists that they had to accept subservience to the monarch.However, this positive trajectory toward greater democracyrequires economic growth to continue. In this respect, the situation in Morocco is far more encouraging than in Tunisia.