Table Of ContentThe New Regional Order
in the Middle East
Changes and Challenges
Edited by Sara Bazoobandi
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Sara Bazoobandi
Editor
The New Regional
Order in the Middle
East
Changes and Challenges
Editor
Sara Bazoobandi
Middle East Risk Consulting
Hamburg, Germany
Nonresident Senior Fellow
at the Atlantic Council within
the Global Business and Economics
Program and Global Energy Center
Washington, DC, USA
Nonresident Fellow at Arab Gulf State
Institute in Washington
Washington, DC, USA
ISSN 2662-2483 ISSN 2662-2491 (electronic)
International Political Economy Series
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I
ntroductIon
In recent decades, millions of people across the Middle East and North
Africa region have shared the same grievances, including: inequality, lack
of social mobility, outdated state—citizen relationships and a general
lack of hope in their political systems (to name only few). These griev-
ances have driven widespread and ongoing change across the region.
A chain of dramatic and historical events has taken place in the region
since 2010–2011. This book is a collective effort to shed light on some
of the key events, the underlying reasons behind these and the future
challenges for the region. The scope of change and the pace of events
are both broad and fast, which makes it virtually impossible to capture all
trends. That is why contributors of this book have picked up on impor-
tant themes that are also closest to their fields of expertise. The idea of
this book was born in 2015 at a Gulf Research Meeting in Cambridge,
where Dr. Neil Quilliam and myself co-authored a paper on the key fac-
tors for strategic changes in the region. The book includes six chapters.
Chapter 1 reviews a number of key socio-economic challenges that
the region faces. Many of the socio-economic challenges that the region
has struggled with in recent decades were highlighted by the chain of
political uprisings across the region. This chapter explores how changes
in a number of social factors—including identities, social and individual
values, the definition of the social roles for different genders and state–
citizen relations—have contributed to the recent political uprisings across
the region. The degree to which such changes have taken root differs
between different countries; nevertheless, the change is widespread
v
vi INTRODUCTION
and visible in every part of the region. The chapter also sets out how
these challenges are compounded by the context of the so-called water–
food-energy nexus—a set of critical environmental challenges facing the
region.
Chapter 2 reviews the changes in and the challenges associated with
oil wealth management in the Gulf Cooperation Council. It sets out how
oil income has fuelled the region’s growth and development and helped
the ruling families to establish and maintain their rule. It then looks into
the role of oil wealth in the social contracts in place across the region,
and how low oil prices have prompted debates between policymakers
and citizens over the sustainability of oil-driven economic growth mod-
els and their impact on social contracts across the region. The chapter
illustrates how mounting pressure to reduce dependency on oil by diver-
sifying the economy and instituting structural reforms has brought about
an increased repurposing of assets that traditionally have been managed
through Sovereign Wealth Funds towards domestic and regional needs.
While Sovereign Wealth Funds remain active in international markets,
they are being readjusted to ensure sustainability in terms of returns,
income and operational capabilities.
Chapter 3 analyses how and why the GCC developed as a regional
organisation and security community in the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s.
It explores the factors that favoured closer cooperation among the six
ruling families in the Gulf and examines the nature of the cooperative
mechanisms that gradually evolved after 1981. Progress was far from
seamless or linear as tensions complicated, undermined, and in some
cases held back cooperation. The chapter argues that the shock of the
Arab Spring in 2011 and the differing regional responses to the upheaval
not only widened these fissures in Gulf politics, but also altered the com-
mon threat perception that had effectively constituted a consensual base-
line in regional considerations of security up to that point. The chapter
goes on to look into how the recasting of the dynamics of Gulf secu-
rity after the blockade of Qatar heralded the rise of a multipolarity of
participants in regional security structures that for decades had been the
preserve of first the British and then the US as external guarantors of
stability.
Chapter 4 provides a review of the history of Iran’s nuclear ambi-
tions, the nuclear negotiations, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action
(JCPOA) and its impacts at domestic, regional and international levels.
Iran’s nuclear programme began in the 1960s under the government
INTRODUCTION vii
of the country’s last monarch and was restarted by the Islamic Republic
after the end of Iran–Iraq War. Although, it was never proven that Iran’s
nuclear programme had an active military dimension, Iran’s regional bal-
ance of power struggle, the experience of eight devastating years of war
with Iraq, sharing borders with a nuclear nation (Pakistan) and having
multiple domestic security challenges led the international community to
conclude that it would have made perfect sense for the Islamic Republic
to aspire nuclear military capability. The nuclear negotiations that con-
cluded with the JCPOA became a milestone in Iran–US relations since
the Islamic Revolution and a significant diplomatic achievement for all
parties involved. The unilateral withdrawal of Trump’s Administration
from the JCPOA, however, has revived uncertainties about the future of
Iran–US relations. This chapter analyses the impact of the Iran nuclear
deal and the US withdrawal from it at the domestic, regional and inter-
national levels.
Chapter 5 addresses the question whether China’s developing eco-
nomic relationship, which is promoted through the Belt and Road
Initiative (BRI), will lead it to play a more muscular political, diplo-
matic and military role in the near future. The Gulf region is undergo-
ing a series of profound changes at national, regional and international
levels. It is at a pivotal moment in its history when the balance of
power amongst external powers is transitioning from a predominantly
US-dominated order to a multipolar one in which global powers, such
as China, and regional powers, such as Russia, Turkey, India and Brazil
are beginning to shape and influence the region. This chapter argues that
since the Obama presidency (2008–2016), the US has strongly signalled
that it is no longer willing to play the role of sole external security pro-
vider and, in doing so, has left a vacuum. It examines the exact nature of
the US change in policy, its wider implications for the region and, at the
same time, the deepening of relations between China and the Gulf.
Chapter 6 builds on the analysis presented in Chapter 5 by exploring,
in more detail, how Russia, India, Turkey and Brazil are beginning to
shape and influence the political and economic landscape in the Middle
East and North Africa. It begins with an assessment of Russia’s bid to
capitalise on the immediate opportunities afforded to it by Washington’s
pause. The chapter then compares and contrasts Russia’s role in the
region with that of other key external powers influencing and shaping
the region. The chapter provides analysis on India’s strategic move to
strengthen relations with the UAE and Saudi Arabia. It also argues that
viii INTRODUCTION
in response to those strategies, countries such as Turkey and Brazil align
themselves more closely to Qatar, which has been under blockade from
its neighbours since July 2017.
The book has benefitted heavily from the support of various indi-
viduals and institutions, directly and indirectly. I would like to thank
my husband, Rupert Winckler, for his constant support and encour-
agement. I am grateful to all the contributors of this manuscript. I am
particularly thankful for the support provided by Palgrave Macmillan
Political Economy series Christina Brian, Anca Pusca and Katelyn
Zingg and the series editor, Tim Shaw. I would also like to thank my
mother-in-law Marie Winckler and Rhiannon Alexander for patiently
reading and editing my writings. I am indebted to all the individu-
als who generously took the time to answer my questions in meetings
and interviews, amongst those, I would like to extend my special grat-
itude to Ambassador Charlotta Sparre, former Swedish Ambassador
to Jordan and Egypt and Patrick Costello, Head of Division Global3
at the European External Action Service. I am also thankful to the
Economic Research Forum for their generous funding of a research pro-
ject to which I contributed in 2016. The second chapter of this book
hugely benefitted from the findings of that project. Last but not least,
I am grateful to Mani Jad, Deputy Director of Centre for Middle East
Development, University of California, Los Angeles, for providing her
generous advice and assistance.
Sara Bazoobandi
c
ontents
1 The Middle East North Africa Socio-economic Challenges 1
Sara Bazoobandi
2 GCC Oil Wealth: The Power and the People 27
Sara Bazoobandi and Rhiannon Alexander
3 The Realignment of Regional Politics and the Future
of the Gulf Cooperation Council 49
Kristian Coates Ulrichsen
4 Iran Nuclear Programme, a Brief History 69
Sara Bazoobandi
5 The Role of External Powers: Global Actors (Part I) 93
Neil Quilliam
6 The Role of External Powers: Regional Actors (Part II) 119
Neil Quilliam
ix
