It’s pretty nerve wracking for Middle East political and military analysts right now. With long-established governments falling faster than LeBron’s reputation last summer, many power dynamics between Middle Eastern countries are likely to be changed, with consequences both within and without the region. What’s going to happen?
The most obvious effect is the fall of the traditional secular autocrat in the Middle East. With Tunisian president Ben Ali, Egyptian president Mubarak deposed and Libya’s dictator-with-the-most-awesome-hair Gaddhafi about to be kicked out screaming, we see that Middle East youth, driven by mass unemployment and social media, will no longer meekly accept their station in their country. This newfound independence tinged with desperation means that brute force is not enough to suppress the populace anymore. Libya is a classic case in point- despite Gaddhafi trying to murder everyone in the protest movement, he’s still steadily losing hold on the country he ruled for 42 years. Even surviving absolute rulers such as the Saudi king will have to make concessions to its people in order to stay in power. The classic abusive dictator model, we can now say, is dead.
What will this mean for these countries going forward? The autocracies will likely be initially replaced by an unsteady democracy. Without much tradition in participatory government, the transition process will not be very smooth- expect heated arguments and occasional violence as different political factions fight it out for a slice of the pie. The best case scenario would be a ruling coalition synthesizing the interests of all factions involved in the protests- even then, the balance of power would likely be uneasy. In the worst case, look for one dictatorship to eventually be replaced by another. Just look at Iran.
Whatever happens, there will be instability in the Middle Eastern region as nations try to adjust to new diplomatic realities. New governments mean new agreements, new allies, and new enemies- while the other Middle Eastern nations try to figure this out, their foreign policies are in flux. In a region where being enemies can mean years of warfare, it creates a lot of uncertainty where before there was none. Is Egypt going to keep the blockade on the Gaza Strip? Will Bahrain honor its previous oil contracts? This is especially concerning for Israel, as it loses several allies and can potentially be surrounded by Arab states after the political shifts are completed, leaving it in a vulnerable position.
But what does it mean for the U.S.? We are already seeing the most immediate effects of the revolts: a rise in gas prices, inevitable whenever the Middle East shows hints of instability. Although any panic would be an overreaction- Saudi Arabia has reserve capacity twice the oil production of Libya’s- the added risk of oil supply disruption will still affect oil prices. In addition, it makes the job of U.S. diplomats that much tougher. Where before there was a clear sense of who their allies and enemies were, the revolts have shaken up the region’s politics and diplomacy so that those two lists were no longer as clear. To pick an outcome that is most beneficial to the U.S. is hard. Trying to influence a nebulous, half-formed state to attain that outcome is almost impossible. However, more optimistically, popular revolts can decrease the threat of destabilizing extremist influences. People tend to listen to extremists, Islamist or otherwise, more when they feel that they lack control over their lives. The advent of democracy in the Middle East might give people there a sense of control and security, driving them away from extremism.
The dominant theme of the revolts, then, seems to be the classic dichotomy of freedom vs. security. It exists in a sense that Middle Easterners are now trading the political guarantee of the latter in a dictatorship to the former in a democracy. It’s also true in a sense that other stakeholder countries have to come to grips that these countries are no longer stable, secure allies, but a nation with a will of its own. How those stakeholders, which include Israel and the U.S. as well as other Middle East nations such as Iran, navigate this tricky trade-off will determine how much influence they will have on the transition process- a key goal for all involved.
