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F. Gregory Gause III

BROOKINGS DOHA CENTER ANALYSIS PAPER

Number 11, July 2014

Beyond Sectarianism:e New Middle East Cold War


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F. G G, III


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he Brookings Institution is a private non-profit organization. Its mission is to conduct high-quality, independent research and, based on that research, to provide innovative, practical

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BROOKINGS DOHA CENERSaha 43, Building 63, West Bay, Doha, Qatar

www.brookings.edu/doha


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I. Executive Summary ..........................................................................................................................1

II. Introduction ...................................................................................................................................3

III. A Sectarian Civil War? ...................................................................................................................5

IV. Te Domestic Bases of the New Middle East Cold War ....................................................................8

V. Iran and Saudi Arabia: Rivalry for Power .........................................................................................12

VI. Te Intra-Sunni Cold War ............................................................................................................16

VII. Te Paradox of Power ...................................................................................................................19

VIII. Te Role of the United States ......................................................................................................23


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he best framework for understanding theregional politics of the Middle East is as a cold

war in which Iran and Saudi Arabia play theleading roles. hese two main actors are notconfronting each other militarily; rather, theircontest for influence plays out in the domestic

political systems of the regions weak states. Itis a struggle over the direction of the MiddleEasts domestic politics more than it is a purelymilitary contest. he military and politicalstrength of the parties to civil conflicts, and thecontributions that outsiders can make to thatstrength, is more important than the militarybalance of power between Riyadh and ehran.

his new Middle East cold war shares impor-tant structural similarities with the 1950s and

1960s conflicts that Malcolm Kerr famouslydubbed the Arab cold war. he power of themajor protagonists in the Arab cold war wasmeasured in their ability to affect domesticpolitical struggles in neighboring states where

weak regimes had trouble controlling theirown societies and local players sought regionalallies against their own domestic opponents.Non-state actors played major roles. hecontending camps themselves were not always

united, with tactical alliances crossing whatappeared to be the lines of conflict. he greatpowers were important participants but notthe drivers of events. he struggle for Syria

was a key element of the Arab cold war. henew Middle East cold war shares every one ofthese characteristics.

he current confrontation has an importantsectarian element, but it cannot be accu-rately understood simply as a Sunni versus

Shia fight. Applying such a framework can

distort analytical focus, oversimplify regionaldynamics, and cause Iran and Saudi Arabiasmotives to be misunderstood. Riyadh andehran are playing a balance of power game.hey are using sectarianism in that game, butboth have crossed the sectarian fault line in

seeking regional allies. he regional cold warcan only be understood by appreciating thelinks between domestic conflicts, transnationalaffinities, and regional state ambitions. It is the

weakening of Arab states, more than sectari-anism or the rise of Islamist ideologies, that hascreated the battlefields of the new Middle Eastcold war. Indeed, it is the arc of state weak-ness and state failure running from Lebanonthrough Syria to Iraq that explains the current

salience of sectarianism. Given how difficult itwill be to reconstruct stable political orders inthese and other weak states, the likelihood isthat the new cold war will be as protracted asthe Arab cold war was.

When the Arab Spring began, Iran had been ona winning streak in the Middle East cold war.he Saudis were on the defensive, and the ArabSpring, especially with the fall of the Mubarakregime, seemed to be yet another setback in

their efforts to confront Iranian influence. hisis why Syria became so central to Saudi Arabia.By the start of 2012, Riyadh was all in forthe rebellion. How the Syrian crisis ends willlargely determine Middle Eastern perceptionsof who won this round of the contest forregional influence.

Axes of conflict in cold wars are never simplybilateral, and the same is true of the newMiddle East cold war. he Saudis, the Muslim

Brotherhood and its regional allies, al-Qaeda


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and its affiliates, the emergent Islamic State, andother Sunni groups are locked in a conflict over

what the proper political role of Islam shouldbe in the Sunni world. he Arab upheavals of

2011 were fundamentally about the basis oflegitimate rule in the Arab world. he com-bination of democracy and Islamist politicsrepresented by the electoral success of EgyptsMuslim Brotherhood and unisias Ennahda

was unsettling to the Saudi leadership. Sauditensions with the Muslim Brotherhood did notstart with the Arab Spring, but the aftermathbrought that hostility to the surface. heinability of urkey and Saudi Arabia to forma powerful axis can also be attributed, in part,

to an intra-Sunni Islamist dispute over politicalorder. Even within the Salafi camp there areserious divisions.

A final aspect of the new Middle East cold waris the paradox of power. A states own militarypower is not a particularly useful tool. Instead,the key is to be able to support non-stateactors effectively in their domestic politicalbattles within the weak states of the Arab

world. Effective patronage of regional allies

requires transnational ideological and politicalconnections that make potential clients opento a relationship with the patron. hat is whyIsrael and urkey have not been able to playvery effectively in the cold war, while Qatar hashad an outsized influence.

he United States can do little to addressthe weakness of governing institutions inmany Arab states that has caused the newMiddle East cold wars complex of conflicts.It therefore needs to take a modest approachand recall that this is not Americas war. heconflicts have not seriously impaired Americascore regional interests. he guiding principleof the American response should be to preferorder over chaos, and thereby support thestates that provide effective governance, even

when that governance does not achieve pre-ferred levels of democracy and human rights.hat means, among other things: 1) exploring

every avenue to a new relationship with the

Rouhani government in Iran, 2) ensuringthat the Islamic States momentum is reversedbefore pressuring Nouri al-Maliki to be moreinclusive, 3) continuing to engage with the

emerging military government in Egypt, and4) supporting traditional allies like Jordan,Saudi Arabia, and the Gulf states. hese poli-cies are certainly inconsistent when viewedthrough the lens of the new Middle East cold

war, but the United States needs to focus on itscore regional interests as it defines them, notas regional powers see them. Concentrating

American policy on the states that actuallygovern, acting multilaterally, and rememberingthat U.S. interests are not as directly engaged as

those of the local parties are the keys to ridingout the new Middle East cold war.


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he best framework for understanding thecomplicated and violent regional politics of theMiddle East is as a cold war among a numberof regional players, both states and non-stateactors, in which Iran and Saudi Arabia playthe leading roles. It is a cold war because these

two main actors are not confronting and mostprobably will not confront each other militarily.Rather, their contest for influence plays out inthe domestic political systems of the regions

weak states. It is a struggle over the directionof the Middle Easts domestic politics morethan a purely military contest. he militaryand political strength of parties to civil wars,and the contributions that outsiders can maketo that strength, is more important than themilitary balance between Riyadh and ehran.his struggle predates the Arab uprisings of2011, but that profound regional upheaval hasopened up new arenas in which the MiddleEast cold war is being played out. here arealso important conflict axes that fall outside themain Saudi-Iranian contest for influence. Saudi

Arabia also sees itself locked in a contest withthe Muslim Brotherhood (and to some extentQatar, as a state patron of the Brotherhood)over the direction of domestic politics in the

Sunni Muslim states of the Arab world.

his is a new Middle East cold war because itshares important structural similarities with theMiddle East regional conflicts of the 1950s and

1960s, what the late Malcolm Kerr famouslydubbed the Arab cold war.1 Ten, Gamal

Abd al-Nasir used the new technology of theday, transistor radio, to rally Arab nationalistsupport against ruling regimes in Syria, Iraq,

Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and elsewhere. Nasir

squared off against the reactionary monarchsin Saudi Arabia and Jordan, but also tangled

with fellow Arab nationalist progressives likeAbd al-Karim Qasim in Iraq and the BaathParty in Syria. It was not the power of Egyptsarmy that made Nasir influential. Te one timehe deployed it in service of spreading his influ-ence in the Arab world, in Yemen, the results

were disastrous. His military brinksmanshipwith the Israelis in 1967 was even more dam-aging, in effect ending his regional leadershiprole. It was his ability to mobilize supportacross borders and in the domestic politics ofother Arab states that made him the leadingforce in Arab politics from the mid-1950s tothe late 1960s.

Te new Middle East cold war goes beyondthe Arab world.2 Iran is a major protagonist.urkey has made a bid for a greater regionalrole. It is not an ideological battle of progres-

sives versus reactionaries. Te line-ups areless ideological and more identity-based. Yetthe similarities are striking. Te power of themajor protagonists in the Arab cold war wasmeasured in their ability to affect domestic

1Malcolm Kerr, Te Arab Cold War: Gamal Abd al-Nasir and His Rivals, 1958-1970, 3rd ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1971).2A number of analysts have asserted that the current upheaval is best understood as taking place within an Arab, rather than a MiddleEastern, context, because the core element of the regional upheaval is in being able to define what is legitimate within the context of an Arabpolitical identity. See particularly Morten Valbjorn and Andre Bank, Te New Arab Cold War: Rediscovering the Arab Dimension of Mid-dle East Regional Politics, Review of International Studies38, no. 1 (January 2012): 3-24; Curtis Ryan, Te New Arab Cold War and theStruggle for Syria,Middle East Report42, no. 262 (Spring 2012), ;

and Nabeel Khoury, Te Arab Cold War Revisited: Te Regional Impact of the Arab Uprising, Middle East Policy20, no. 2 (Summer2013), 73-87.


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political struggles in neighboring states, whereweak regimes had trouble controlling theirown societies and local players sought regionalallies against their domestic opponents. Non-

state actors played major roles. Te contendingcamps themselves were not always united, withtactical alliances crossing what appeared tobe the lines of conflict. Israel was a focus, butnot much of a player. Te great powers wereimportant participants, but not the drivers ofevents. Te new Middle East cold war sharesevery one of these characteristics.3Te currentconfrontation has even come to play a majorrole in the struggle for power in Syria, whichhas drawn in all the regional players, much as

was the case in the early years of the Arab coldwar.4

Tis new Middle East cold war has an impor-tant sectarian element, but it cannot be accu-rately understood simply as a Sunni versusShia fight. It is a balance of power game, butnot one played by impermeable state entities

with matching military power and occasion-ally clashing on the battlefield. It can only beunderstood by appreciating the links betweendomestic conflicts, transnational affinities, andregional state ambitions.5 Domestic conflictsfor power lead local actors to seek out regionalallies who can supply them with money, guns,ideological cover, and diplomatic support.Tey look for regional allies who share, in some

way, their own political and ideological posi-tions, with whom they feel some kinship onideological or identity grounds. Te regionalpowers need these ideological or identity links

to consolidate their relations with their localclients. Providing clients with material supportis important, but it is not enough to sustaininfluence. States that have the military andmaterial potential to reach for regional domi-nation but lack these ideological and identitylinks across borders, like Israel, are severely

hampered in their ability to have an impact onthe new Middle East cold war.

While Nasirs 1967 defeat marked the end of

his overwhelming stature in the Arab world,the real end of the Arab cold war came withthe solidifying of Arab state entities. Syria,Iraq, Jordan, Libya, Saudi Arabia, and theGulf states built governing regimes that wereoppressive and at times brutal, but were ulti-mately effective at controlling their societies.Te decline of the transnational ideologicalpower of Arab nationalism coincided withthe politics of many Arab states becomingincreasing difficult to penetrate. Important

outliers like Lebanon and Yemen remainedweak and open to outside interference in thisperiod of Arab state consolidation in the 1970sand 1980s, but they were bucking a regionaltrend. Many Arab states are now experiencingthe weakening, if not the collapse, of thosestate-building projects. It is that weakening ofthe state, more than sectarianism or the rise ofIslamist ideologies, that has created the battle-fields of the new Middle East cold war. Givenhow difficult it will be to reconstruct stablepolitical orders in these states, the likelihood isgreat that the new Middle East cold war will beas protracted as the Arab cold war was.

3For a similar argument, see Marc Lynch, Te Arab Uprising: Te Unfinished Revolutions of the New Middle East(New York: Public Affairs,2012), Chapter 2.4Patrick Seale, Te Struggle for Syria: A Study of Post-war Arab Politics, 1945-1958(London: Oxford University Press, 1965).5

Bassel Salloukh reaches a similar conclusion in Te Arab Uprisings and the Geopolitics of the Middle East, Te International Spectator48, no. 2 (June 2013): 32-46.


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Understanding the dynamics of the newMiddle East cold war requires an examinationof some of the alternative frameworks that havebeen put forward to explain the current phaseof regional politics. Te most common of thoseframeworks is sectarianthat the struggle for

power in the Middle East today is basicallya Sunni versus Shia contest. While nuancedobservers have stressed that other factors areinvolved, the shorthand of Sunni versusShia has come to dominate media and evenpolicy analysis.6Watching the killing in Syria,Iraq, and Lebanon, one can easily understand

why. Sectarianism is a major element of thedomestic conflicts in all of these places as wellas in Yemen and Bahrain. Regional media out-lets, from Hizballahs al-Manar television sta-tion to Sunni jihadi websites to Saudi-ownednewspapers and television stations, play up thesectarian nature of these struggles. Tere is nodenying its important role in understandingthe current regional conflicts.

An exclusive focus on sectarianism as the causeof regional upheaval, however, can distortanalytical focus. An unstated assumption in thesectarianism argument is that these conflicts areprimordial and thus beyond political solutions,but they are not. Sunni and Shia Muslimshave lived in harmony for many more years ofIslamic history than they have fought. Conflictaxes in the recent past of the Middle East did

not develop along Sunni-Shia lines. Te Arabcold war was not sectarian, but ideological. TeLebanese civil war was a sectarian fight, butChristian versus Muslim, with Sunni and ShiaLebanese largely on the same side. When Iraqfought Iran in the 1980s, Arab supporters of

Iraq played up the Arab versus Persian nation-alist fight, while Arab sympathizers with Iran(the Syrian regime most notably) emphasizedthe Islamic Republics commitment to the Arabnationalist cause against Israel. Te particu-larities of current politics, not centuries-longhatreds, have sparked this latest round ofSunni-Shia tensions, and these particularitiesare subject to change.

Te sectarian lens also over-simplifies the

dynamics of regional conflicts. Kurds are animportant part of both the Syrian and Iraqistories, and their identity is ethno-nationalist,not sectarian. Christians in Lebanon are split,some supporting the Sunni-led March 14 alli-ance and others with Hizballah in the March 8coalition. Te Sunni-Shia shorthand has madethe Alawis, a heretical offshoot of Shiite Islamin the eyes of most Shiite religious scholars,into Shia simply to fit into the Sunni versusShia schema.7What began as a political alliancebetween a secular Baathist regime in Syria and arevolutionary Islamic regime in Iran, cementedby common enemies in Israel and SaddamHusseins Iraq, has been incorrectly made over

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6See, for example, Geneive Abdo, Te New Sectarianism: Te Arab Uprisings and the Rebirth of the Sunni-Shia Divide, Analysis Paperno. 29, Saban Center at the Brookings Institution, April 2013, . Abdos report is careful and nuanced, but does privilege sectarianism as the most important lens for understanding current regionalconflicts. A more representative example of the media focus is Max Fisher, Why Sunnis and Shiites are Fighting, Explained in wo Min-utes, Washington Post, 22 January 2014, .7Martin Kramer, Syrias Alawis and Shiism, in Shiism, Resistance and Revolution(Boulder: Westview Press, 1987), 237-254.


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deciding that the FSA was not producing thedesired results, the Saudis shifted some of theirbacking to more overtly sectarian Salafi fightinggroups, supporting the formation of the

Islamic Front in 2013, but still refusing to backJabhat al-Nusra and the Islamic State of Iraqand al-Sham (ISIS), the Sunni fighting groupspublicly linked to al-Qaeda.13Sectarianism wasnever the sole basis upon which Saudi Arabiaapproached the Syrian civil war. Finally, apurely sectarian frame cannot explain Saudihostility toward the Muslim Brotherhood,an important element of post-Arab Springregional politics. If sectarianism dominatesSaudi policy-making, the Brotherhood should

be seen by Riyadh as an ally, but this is hardlythe case in Egypt, Iraq, or Syria.

12Martin Chulov, Ewen MacAskill and John Densky, Saudi Arabia plans to fund Syria rebel army, Te Guardian, 22 June 2012, ; Roula Khalaf, Arms Deliveries to Syrian Rebels Delayed, Finan-cial imes, 11 July 2012, ; Robert F.Worth, Citing U.S. Fears, Arab Allies Limit Syrian Rebel Aid, Te New York imes, 6 October 2012; Ruth Sherlock, Magdy Samaanand Suha Maayeh, Saudi Arabia backs push to carve out liberated southern Syria, Te elegraph, 5 April 2013, ; Rania Abouzeid,Te Shadow War Behind Syrias Rebellion: Foreign Backers Jockey for Influence in urkey, ime, 24 May 2013, ; Adam Entous, Nour Malasand Margaret Coker, A Veteran Saudi Power Player Works to Build Support to opple Assad, Wall Street Journal, 25 August 2013, .13Khaled Yacoub Oweis, Saudi Arabia Boosts Salafist Rivals to al-Qaeda in Syria, Reuters, 1 October 2013, ; Yezid Sayigh, Unifying Syrias Rebels: Saudi ArabiaJoins the Fray, Carnegie Middle East Center, 28 October 2013, ; Ben Gilbert, Saudi Arabia Walks a Fine Line in Backing Syrian Rebellion,Al Jazeera America, 20 January 2014, .


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Rather than seeing the new Middle East coldwar as a top-down phenomenon driven by twostates animated by sectarian rivalry, it is moreaccurate to view it as a bottom-up dynamic.Te weakness or breakdown of state authoritycreates domestic political vacuums into which

outsiders are drawn. Tese outsiders generallydo not have to force themselves into thesedomestic political arenas. Tey are invitedin by local political factions vying for poweragainst their local rivals. Te object of the cold

war rivalry for Iran, Saudi Arabia, and otherregional powers is not to defeat their regionalrivals militarily on the battlefield. It is to pro-mote the fortunes of their own clients in these

weak state domestic struggles and thus build upregional influence.

It is important to distinguish between stateweakness in the domestic political arena andweakness in international power rankings. Adomestically weak state is one where the cen-tral government exercises little effective controlover its society. It cannot enforce its writ insubstantial parts of its territory. Its courtscannot enforce decisions, it cannot providebasic services to its citizens, and it does not

control its borders. Sub-national groups havethe military power to challenge the weak statescontrol of territory, so the domestically weakstate does not even pass the basic Weberian testof statehooda monopoly on the legitimateuse of force within its borders. In domestically

weak states, citizens frequently have political

loyalties that supersede their loyalty to the stateitself, be they regional, sectarian, sub-national,or transnational.14 Kuwait is a weak state interms of international power; it cannot defenditself militarily against any of its neighbors.

Yet it is a fairly strong state in terms of its own

state-society relations. Te Kuwaiti governmenteffectively controls its territory and polices itsborders. Its citizens are generally loyal to theKuwaiti state; their identity as Kuwaitis is nottrumped by tribal, sectarian, or Arab nationalistaffiliations. Tose other identities are impor-tant in understanding how Kuwaitis behavepolitically, but they do not supersede Kuwaitiidentity as the primary political loyalty of thecitizens. Iraq ranks much higher than Kuwaitin international power rankings due to the sizeof its population, economy, and military, butit is now a weak state in terms of state-societyrelations.

Te seriousness of a regional cold war is deter-mined by the number of such domestically

weak states that exist at a given time. During theArab cold war of the 1950s and 1960s, very fewof the Arab states could be considered strongin terms of state-society relations. Loyalty to

the state was challenged by sub-national andsupra-national identities, most notably by Arabnationalism. Te states themselves were institu-tionally weak, without the large and stultifyingbureaucratic apparatuses they eventually builtto control, monitor, and direct their societiesand economies. Nasir was able to mobilize

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14Tere is extensive literature on the relative strength and weakness of states in terms of their ability to govern their societies and therelated topic of state-building. See Joel Migdal, Strong Societies and Weak States(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988); Moham-med Ayoob, Te Tird World Security Predicament: State-Making, Regional Conflict and the International System(Boulder: Lynne Rienner,

1995); Susan E. Rice and Stewart Patrick, Index of State Weakness in the Developing World, Te Brookings Institution, 2008, .


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support in many of these states, shake theirgovernments, and even help to bring downregimes in Syria, Iraq, and Yemen.

Conversely, in the aftermath of the IranianRevolution, when the salience of revolutionarypolitical Islam was at its height and the newIslamic Republic regime was actively encour-aging the export of the revolution, not asingle Arab government fell, though manyfaced serious crises and upheaval. Tis wasnot because the message of Islamist revolutiondid not resonate in the region. Te success ofIslamist political groups of various stripes sincethat time belies that contention. Rather, the

ability of the Arab regimes to blunt the rippleeffects of Irans Islamic revolution stemmedfrom the fact that they had built themselvesinto stronger institutional entities that werebetter able to coopt, control, and repress theirpopulations. Oil wealth helped, but even non-oil states like Syria and Jordan had been ableto strengthen state control over society. Tisprocess was not peaceful or entirely positivefor the citizensstate-building never is. Itinvolved civil conflict and even civil war insome places, the growth of the secret police anda concomitant loss of political freedom, andthe corruption and economic stagnation thatcomes from an overweening state. Nonetheless,it enabled the Arab regimes to survive the shockof the Iranian revolution.

Irans biggest initial success in exporting itsrevolution occurred in Lebanon with the cre-ation of Hizballah in the aftermath of the Israeli

invasion of 1982. Lebanon was an exception tothe process of state-building that absorbed itsArab neighbors in the 1970s and 1980s, andits political history has been marked by foreignintervention. Israel and Syria both intervenedmilitarily, especially during Lebanons 1975-1990 civil war, occupying substantial swathesof Lebanese territory for some time. Otherpowers intervened indirectly, supporting

various Lebanese factions. Iran was most suc-cessful on this score, helping to build its allyHizballah into the most important actor in thecountry, but Saudi Arabia and even Saddam

Husseins Iraq patronized their own clients inLebanese politics. Every Lebanese faction looksto foreign powers for financial, military, anddiplomatic support. Given the overtly sectarianbasis of the Lebanese political system, thosefactions were inevitably sectarian. Yemen isanother example of an Arab state that neverdeveloped a strong central authority. After theunity between North andSouth Yemen in 1990,the patrimonial and ad

hoc rule of Ali AbdullahSaleh in the north wasextended into the south,

with the centrifugal pres-sures that resulted stillaffecting Yemeni politicstoday. In this case, it isSaudi Arabia that has most effectively devel-oped relations with the tribal sheikhs, Islamistleaders, regional factions, and ambitious

politicians.15

As long as these areas of state weakness remainedfew and somewhat marginal to the strategiccenters of regional politics, state-to-state rela-tions dominated the international politics ofthe Middle East. From the 1970s through theearly 2000s, inter-state war and peace droveregional dynamics. Te October 1973 war ledto Egyptian-Israeli peace, followed by the Israeliinvasion of Lebanon, which pushed a major

non-state Arab actor, the Palestinian LiberationOrganization (PLO), all the way to unis. Iranand Iraq fought their eight-year war, followedby Iraqs invasion of Kuwait and the Gulf Warof 1990-91 that restored Kuwaiti sovereignty.Tat war was followed by a new round of

Arab-Israeli negotiations, leading to Jordanian-Israeli peace in 1994 and the most seriousSyrian-Israeli and PLO-Israeli negotiations in

15

For an overview of Yemens turbulent post-unity politics, see Stephen W. Day, Regionalism and Rebellion in Yemen: A roubled NationalUnion(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012).

A domesticallyweak state is one

where the centralgovernmentexcercises littleeffective controlover its society.


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history in the late 1990s. An important (at leastin retrospect) Arab non-state actor, al-Qaeda,had to find a base far from the Arab world, in

Afghanistan, from which to plan the September

11, 2001 attacks on the United States.

Te U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 shifted thispattern, starting the reversal of Arab statestrengthening that had begun in the 1970s.Te capacity of the Iraqi state had erodedseverely after the Gulf War, but the Americaninvasion was the coup de grace. Washingtonchose to tear down the authoritarian statesthree major pillarsbanning the ruling Baathparty, dissolving the military, and purging the

bureaucracy of experienced cadres who weremembers of the partyin a misbegotten effortto build the state anew.16What followed was anopening of the Iraqi political system to outside

political influence, mostnotably from Iran. Iraq,

which for decades hadbeen a player in regionalpolitics, joined Lebanonand Yemen as a battle-ground in Arab politics.Tis was the real begin-ning of the new MiddleEast cold war.

Te breaking of the Iraqi state enormouslyincreased the salience of sectarianism inregional politics, from the bottom-up. Sectarianand ethnic identities had been important inIraqi politics since the days of the Hashemitemonarchy, but when the state was strong, their

importance was mitigated by other identitiesand loyalties, including to the state itself, andkept in check by state institutions. Te weak-ening of the Iraqi state under sanctions in the1990s led Hussein to increase his reliance onsectarian Sunni and tribal loyalty to buttress hisfailing rule.17With the collapse of the state in

2003, sectarian and ethnic Kurdish identitiesbecame primary in the fight for power. Shiaparties looked to Iran for support; Sunnis simi-larly looked to Saudi Arabia.18 Te sectarian

character of the new Middle East cold war wasset.

When Syria eventually descended into civilconflict during the Arab uprisings of 2011, thesectarian element of the new Middle East cold

war intensified. Te protests that began theSyrian crisis were peaceful and broadly based,calling for political reform. Te violent over-reaction of the Bashar al-Assad regime to theseprotests drove the country into civil war. As that

conflict intensified and Syrian state authoritycollapsed in various parts of the country, theregime came to rely more and more on itsbedrock constituency, the Alawi minority, andother religious minorities fearful of change.In a mirror image, the opposition increas-ingly became characterized by Sunni sectarianappeals, and armed Sunni Islamist groupsplayed an increasing role in the conflict.19

An arc of state weakness and state failure,

running from Lebanon through Syria to Iraq,explains the salience of sectarianism in thenew Middle East cold war.20Te retreat of thestate, accompanied particularly in Syria by theviolence exercised by those who controlledthe state, drove people in these countries tolook to sectarian identities and groups for theprotection and material sustenance that thestate either could or would no longer provide.Tese groups looked to external allies for sup-

port in their domestic political and militaryconflicts. As sectarianism increasingly definedtheir struggles, it was natural that they look toco-religionistsIran for Shia and SaudiArabiafor Sunnisfor that support. Te retreat of thestate made it possible for Iran, Saudi Arabia,and other regional states to play an increasing

The breakingof the Iraqi state

enormouslyincreased the

salience ofsectarianism in

regional politics.

16F. Gregory Gause, III, Te International Relations of the Persian Gulf (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 155-168.17Phebe Marr, Te Modern History of Iraq, 2nd ed., (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2004), Chapter 10.18Dodge, Iraq: War to Authoritarianism, Chapters 1 and 6.19

Emile Hokayem, Syrias Uprising and the Fracturing of the Levant(London: International Institute for Strategic Studies, 2013).20Daniel Byman, Sectarianism Afflicts the New Middle East, Survival: Global Politics and Strategy56, no. 1 (February/March 2014): 79-100.


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role in the civil conflicts of Lebanon (for sometime), Iraq (since 2003), and Syria (since 2011).Tis is the core, bottom-up dynamic drivingthe new Middle East cold war. Saudi Arabia

and Iran did not create the state weakness andsectarian identities in these countries, but theyare certainly taking advantage, advancing theirown interests in a classic balance of powergame.


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Te new Middle East cold war predatesthe Arab Spring by at least half a decade,but increased Iranian influence in the Arab

world dates back even longer. Te Iranianrevolutionary regime was keen to spread itsrevolutionary model in the Arab world, but

was stymied by the relatively strong states. Teestablishment of Hizballah, which remains itsstrongest non-state ally, was described above.In a very different manner, ehran establisheda strong state-to-state alliance with BaathistSyria. Tis alliance was based not on commonvaluesthe secular, Arab nationalist regimeof Hafez al-Assad could not have been tothe liking of Ayatallah Khomeinibut oncommon enemies, Israel and Saddam HusseinsIraq. In general, however, Khomeinis dream ofspreading the Islamic revolution throughoutthe Muslim world, beginning in the MiddleEast, failed.21

Iranian diplomacy lost much of its revolu-tionary lan after the death of Khomeini.ehran continued to excoriate the UnitedStates and Israel on ideological grounds, butfrom the late 1980s through the early 2000sit engaged in more normal state-to-state diplo-macy. Elements of the regime never abandoned

the rhetoric of, nor the desire for, export ofthe revolution, but Iran sought improvedrelations with the Gulf Cooperation Council(GCC) states (a process accelerated on bothsides by Saddams invasion of Kuwait in 1990),urkey, and Egypt. In part, this was becausethe opportunities for ideological advances werelimited. Saddam still held tightly to the rump

of Iraq he controlled. Te aliban regime tothe east of Iran was extremely hostile. Te Gulfstates with significant Shiite communities wereable to fend off efforts at political penetrationthrough oil-driven state buildingprovidingbenefits for Shiite citizens and developing

security services that effectively monitoredand controlled the populations. Irans regionalmoderation was at least in part the result of alack of opportunities to spread its influence.22

New opportunities presented themselves in the2000s. Te American invasions of Afghanistanand Iraq opened up the political arena in twoof Irans neighbors, one of which had a majorityShiite population. United States policy createdtwo new political vacuums into which Iranian

influence could flow. Te election of MahmoudAhmadinejad as president of Iran in 2005brought to power that ever-present faction thatis more committed to the revolutionary rhet-oric of Ayatollah Khomeini and to spreadingIranian influence to the domestic politics ofother states. Tese renewed ambitions and newopportunities in Iraq propelled Iran into a newposition of power in the eastern Arab world. Bythe mid-2000s, Iran was a leading, if not theleading, foreign influence in Lebanon, Syria,and Iraq.23

As the consequences of the American inva-sion of Iraq became apparent, particularly theincrease in Iranian influence in Iraq, Saudi

Arabia gradually concluded that it would haveto take the lead in balancing, if not rollingback, Iranian power in the eastern Arab world.

21Gause, International Relations of the Persian Gulf, Chapters 3-5; akeyh, Guardians of the Revolution, Chapters 5, 6, 9, 11.22

Ibid.23Ibid.

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It is uncharacteristic of Riyadh to take thelead in regional foreign affairs, particularlyin a confrontational way. Weak militarily,the Saudis have preferred to work behind

the scenes, avoiding direct challenges thatmight lead to conflict. State-to-state relationsbetween Saudi Arabia and Iran during thepresidencies of Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjaniand Muhammad Khatami were hardly warm,but neither were they openly hostile. Even afterthe election of Iranian president Mahmoud

Ahmadinejad in 2005, who moved away fromthe more conciliatory rhetoric of his immediatepredecessors, the Saudis made a few efforts tofind some kind of regional modus vivendi with

ehran. Te two states even worked togetherto try to resolve tensions among their clients inLebanon in early 2007.24As late as March 2007the Saudis hosted Ahmadinejad in Riyadh.Clearly, however, somewhere in the mid-to-late2000s, Riyadh decided that no other Arab state

was willing or able to act as a counterweight togrowing Iranian influence in the eastern Arab

world and that it would have to do the jobitself.

Te problem for the Saudis was that the Iraniansgot the better of them at almost every turn. InLebanon, it looked like Riyadh dealt ehran asetback in 2005 with the withdrawal of Syriasforces and the victory of the March 14 coali-tion in the subsequent parliamentary elections.March 14 was led by Saad al-Hariri, son of theassassinated former prime minister and closeSaudi ally Rafiq al-Hariri. Before long, how-ever, Hizballah proved that it was still the real

power in Lebanese politics. It demonstrated itsutter disregard for the Lebanese government inits independent conduct of foreign and militarypolicy during its brief war with Israel in 2006.In 2008, during a confrontation with thegovernment over control of domestic securitypolicy, Hizballah fighters took over downtownBeirut. Despite March 14s second victory at

the polls in the 2009 parliamentary elections,Saudi Arabias Lebanese allies were unable tosubdue Hizballah. By the beginning of 2011,March 14 had lost its parliamentary majority

as some of its elements joined with Hizballahand its allies to unseat Saad al-Hariri from thepremiership.25

Te Saudis also failed to constrain Iranian influ-ence in Iraq. As Iran consolidated its influence

with newly empowered Shiite groups, SaudiArabia was unable to patronize its natural alliesin Iraqs Sunni Arab community. Members ofthis community were engaged in an insurgencyagainst the United States, whose relations with

Saudi Arabia were fragile in the post-9/11period, and part of that insurgency was identified

with the same strain of Salafi jihadism that wastrying to destabilize the Saudi regime. (Riyadhfinds itself in the same situation regarding thegains made by ISIS in the summer of 2014.)

When the al-Sahwa (Awakening) movementemerged in 2006, Saudi Arabia found an Iraqially with which it could do businessSunni,hostile to Iranian influence in Iraq, butcooperating with the United States-Riyadhbacked al-Sahwa. While the movement wasable to push back (at least temporarily) againstal-Qaeda influence in Iraqs Sunni Arab com-munity, it could do little to affect politics at itscenter. o challenge the demographic weight ofIraqs Shiite majority at the ballot box, Riyadhbacked the Iraqiya partyled by Iyad Allawi, whohad served as primeminister of the transi-

tional Iraqi governmentof 2004-05. Allawi isShiite, but constructedhis party as a cross-sectarian and multi-ethnic coalition based on Iraqi nationalism.

While the party did not do well in the 2005elections, discontent with Prime Minister Nuri

24Michael Slackman, U.S. Ally and Foe are rying to Avert War in Lebanon, Te New York imes, 30 January 2007, < http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/30/world/middleeast/30lebanon.html?pagewanted=print

25Anthony Shadid, Ousted Lebanese Leader Swallows Rivals Bitter Pill, Te New York imes, 25 January 2011, .

It is uncharacteristicof Riyadh to takethe lead in regional

foreign affairs,particularly in aconfrontational way.


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February 2012, it invited numerous Arabdelegations (but none from Syria) to a confer-ence to celebrate what it called the Islamist

Awakening.31Te Saudis, on the other hand,

were on the defensive. Te fall of the Mubarakregime in Egypt was a serious blow to Saudiregional policy. Cairo had been Riyadhs mostimportant regional partnera fellow Americanally that shared Saudi worries about the spreadof Iranian influence. Te Saudis bolsteredfellow monarchs with cash and, in the case ofBahrain, troops to support the suppression ofthe popular mobilization for political reform.Tey supported the NAO military interven-tion against Qaddafi, but that was more per-

sonal payback for decades of insults from themercurial Libyan leader and a Libyan-financedeffort to assassinate King Abdallah than regionalstrategy. Tey were able to reassert their centralrole in Yemeni politics, brokering the resigna-tion of Ali Abdullah Saleh from the presidencyas part of a GCC plan supported by the UnitedStates and the EU.32Bahrain and Yemen weremerely holding actions, though, and the fall ofQaddafi did not really shift the regional power

game. None of these marginal successes couldmake up for the loss of Egypt in Saudi regionalstrategy. In general, the Arab Spring seemed tothe Saudis to be yet another setback in theirefforts to confront Iranian influence in theeastern Arab world.

Tis is why Syria became so central to SaudiArabia. Te Syrian revolt against Bashar al-Assad was the one opportunity presented bythe upheavals of the Arab Spring for Riyadh

to roll back Iranian influence. Te Saudis wereslow to react to events in Syria, their naturalaversion to political mobilization from belowinducing caution. Moreover, urkeys and

Qatars quick embrace of the Syrian oppositionleft the Saudis behind the curve and reluctantto play second fiddle, especially to their ambi-tious Gulf neighbor (see below). By the start

of 2012, though, Riyadh was all in for theSyrian rebellion. It initially supported themore secular forces of the FSA, while urkeyand Qatar backed Islamist groups in the northof the country. As the inability of the FSA tomake much military progress became apparentand urkey and Qatar backed away from theirinitial support for the opposition, the Saudisrefocused support toward Islamist, and particu-larly Salafi, opposition groups, other than ISISand al-Qaeda-affiliated Jabhat al-Nusra.33

As of mid-2014, what has become an integratedSyria-Iraq crisis remains the major battlegroundof the new Middle East cold war. Iranian influ-ence in Lebanon seems secure, and ehranseems to hold the upper hand in both Syria andIraq. Bashar al-Assad looks more secure than he

was just a year ago. Te ISIS-led assault in Iraqhas little prospect of success outside of Sunniareas and gains by ISISnow known as theIslamic Stateare hardly victories for Saudi

Arabia. Te Saudis have successfully bolsteredtheir fellow Arab monarchs and ratified theirleading position in Yemen. How the Syrian-Iraqi crisis ends will largely determine MiddleEastern perceptions of who won this roundof the contest for regional influence.

31Robert F. Worth, Effort to Rebrand Arab Spring Backfires in Iran, Te New York imes, 2 February 2012, .32International Crisis Group, Yemen: Enduring Conflicts, Treatened ransition, Middle East Report no. 125, 3 July 2012, , 1-3.33Chulov, MacAskill, and Densky, Saudi Arabia plans; Khalaf, Arms Deliveries Delayed; Worth, Arab Allies Limit Aid; Sherlock, Sa-maan and Maayeh, Saudi Arabia backs push; Abouzeid, Shadow War; Entous, Malas and Coker, Veteran Saudi Power Player; Oweis,Saudi Arabia Boosts Salafist; Sayigh, Unifying Syrias Rebels; Gilbert, Saudi Arabia Walks a Fine Line.


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Axes of conflict in cold wars are never simplybilateral. Tere are always tangents of tensionamong what one would think of as naturalallies. China broke from the Soviet camp duringthe historic Cold War over geopolitical and ide-ological differences. During the Arab cold war

of the 1950s and 1960s, the progressive Iraqiregime of Abd al-Karim Qasim refused to follow

Abd al-Nasirs lead. Te Syrian Baath helped tobreak up the United Arab Republic in 1961.Te same is true of the new Middle East cold

war. One might assume that Sunni Islamistsof various stripes would make common causein the regional upheavals of the last few years,but the opposite has been the case. Te Saudis,the Muslim Brotherhood and its regional allieslike the Justice and Development party (AKP)government in urkey, the Salafi jihadists ofal-Qaeda, its affiliates, and its ideological coun-terparts like the Islamic State, and other Sunnigroups are locked in a conflict over what theproper political role of Islam should be in theSunni world.

From a purely sectarian frame, the MuslimBrotherhood and Saudi Arabia should havebeen close allies against Shiite Iran. In fact,the Saudis were the biggest cheerleaders (andfunders) of the military coup that ousted theelected Brotherhood president of Egypt. WhileSaudi Arabia and urkey both backed theSyrian revolt, there is no evidence that theycoordinated their support. Te two major

Sunni powers in the Middle East cold war arehardly allies. While Saudi Arabia increasinglysupported Salafi groups in Syria as the civil warthere dragged on, it still sought to differentiatethe good Salafi groups from those aligned

with al-Qaeda, which sees the Saudi regime

as one of its major enemiesa difficult taskat best.34While increasing its support for theSyrian rebellion, in early 2014 Riyadh declaredit illegal for Saudis to join the fighting thereor in other foreign countries, reacting to thenumber of Saudis who were joining al-Qaeda-linked groups in the Syrian war.35 In March2014, Saudi Arabia officially designated theMuslim Brotherhood, al-Qaeda and its affili-ates, and ISIS as terrorist organizations.36 Inthis supposedly sectarian regional conflict, theSunnis seem to distrust each other as much asthey distrust the Shia.

Te Arab upheavals of 2011 were fundamen-tally about the basis of legitimate rule in the

Arab world. In some cases, like Syria andBahrain, that original issue was transformed byregime strategies and violence into a sectarianclash. Elsewhere in the Arab world, however,

where the social fabric was not as riven bycompeting identities and the state did notcompletely collapse, that core constitutionalquestion remained at the heart of political con-tests. Egypt is the perfect example. Te resultsof the parliamentary election of 2011, wherethe Muslim Brotherhoods Freedom and Justice

34 Te commander of an Islamist rebel unit told Reuters that Saudi figures had been in touch with various Salafist groups in recent weeks,offering support in return for a common front to keep al Qaeda allies from expanding their presence around the capital. Khaled YacoubOweis, Saudi Arabia Boosts Salafist.35Angus McDowell and Yara Bayoumy, Saudi Arabia to jail citizens who fight abroad, Reuters, 3 February 2014, .36

David D. Kirkpatrick, Saudis Put errorist Label on Muslim Brotherhood, New York imes, 7 March 2014, .

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coordinated withdrawal of their ambassadorsfrom Doha. Even within the Salafi camp thereare serious divisions. As mentioned above,democratic salafis in Egypt and other Arab

states could eventually present a serious ideo-

logical challenge to the Saudi monarchy. Tatis a challenge for the future. More immediately,the Saudi government sees al-Qaeda and itsregional affiliates as a mortal threat to its owndomestic rule. Te Saudis fought a counterin-surgency campaign against the local al-Qaeda

affiliate, al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula(AQAP), in the mid-2000s. Tey succeededin driving what was left of AQAP into Yemen,

where it remains an element in the chaoticYemeni domestic scene and a latent challengeto the Saudis at home. While individual Saudishave joined al-Qaeda linked groups in Syria,there is no evidence that the Saudi governmenthas supported Jabhat al-Nusra or the IslamicState, despite their common enemy in the

Assad regime.While the severity of the conflict in Syriaand Iraq has drawn attention to the sectarianelement of the post-Arab Spring strugglesfor power, these disputes within the Sunni

world itself are as important for the future ofthe region. unisia holds out the possibilitythat democratic Islamists of the Brotherhoodvariety and more secular political forces canagree on the rules of a democratic game, but

the Egyptian experience points in the otherdirection. Te chaotic situation in Libya bearswatching in this regard. Te rise of both Islamistpolitics and Salafi jihadi groups dominated theLibyan political scene in the immediate post-Qaddafi period, but the emergence in recentmonths of renegade general Khalifa Haftar,

vowing to rid Libya of Islamist militias, chal-lenges that trend. Haftar praises President Sisiof Egypt, condemns the Qatari role in Libya,and has ordered urks to leave the country.41

While there is no concrete evidence of the kindof foreign support he isreceiving, he is certainlysinging from the Saudi-UAE-Egyptian blocs

hymnbook. Libya seems to have become a partof the intra-Sunni Islamist struggle to define

what Islam means for politics in the MiddleEast.

41Mary Fitzgerald, General Haftars Anti-Islamist Campaign Divides Libyans, BBC, 7 June 2014, ; Renegade General Khalifa Haftar Launches Offensive in East Libya, Reuters, 15 June 2014, ; Sami Kohen, Why is urkey becoming a target inLibya?,Al-Monitor, 26 June 2014, .

The Saudi Government sees Al-Qaeda and its regionalaffiliates as a mortal threat to its own domestic rule.


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It is axiomatic that as the state recedes in powerand control non-state actors become moreimportant in a countrys domestic politics.Tat has certainly been the case in the newMiddle East cold war. Te Islamic State,Hizballah, Jabhat al-Nusra, the Houthis, the

Sadrists, and more Libyan militias than anyonecan keep track of now get headlines that wereonce reserved for national governments. Tespectacular advance of what was then ISIS inIraq in June of 2014, at least temporarily atthe head of a broader Sunni revolt against theMaliki government, highlights the centrality ofnon-state actors. Tey are often the allies andclients of the regional states who are playing thenew cold war game, but they each have theirown particular agendas as well. Tose agendasare deeply embedded in their own domesticcontexts. Generalizing about them, aside fromthe obvious fact of their growing importanceas the state weakens, is not possible. A detailedanalysis of even the most important of the non-state actors is beyond the scope of this work.

In the new Middle East cold war, the key tosuccess is for a regional power to be able to sup-port these non-state clients and allies effectively

in their domestic political battles in the weakstates of the Arab world. A states own militarypower is not a particularly useful tool in thisgame. Te clearest evidence of this is the factthat the two strongest military powers in theregion, Israel and urkey, have not been ableto play very effectively in the cold war, whileQatar, a regional Lilliputian in terms of conven-tional military power, has. Effective patronageof regional allies requires money and guns,to be sure, but it also requires transnational

ideological and political connections that make

potential clients open to a relationship withthe patron. Tose connections are now moreimportant than conventional military strengthin affecting the course of regional politics.

Israel is an extreme case of a regional military

powerhouse that lacks those political connec-tions. It attempted to play into the domesticpolitics of a weak Arab state in Lebanon in the1970s and 1980s, using its superior militarypower and its alliance with the Lebanese Forcesto try to remake the Lebanese state in 1982-84. Tat effort was a costly failure and souredthe Israelis on such ambitious ventures. Eventheir more limited effort to use their militarysuperiority to cut Hizballah down to size in2006 backfired. Other than the occasional

missile strike in Syria against convoys headedto Lebanon, the Israelis have stayed out of thepost-Arab Spring struggle for regional influ-ence. Tey fear the consequences of regimechange, not only where they were comfortable

with the regime, as in Egypt, but also where theregime is an opponent, as in Syria. Tey haveno natural allies in any of the domestic strugglesfor power. Despite their overwhelming conven-tional military superiority, they are non-players

in the new Middle East cold war. Te bestthey can do is press the United States to takepositions that they prefer (in favor of the coupgovernment in Egypt, for example).

urkey is a more complicated case of militarystrength and political weakness. Te AKPgovernment does have natural allies in many ofthe arenas of the new Middle East cold war,most notably Muslim Brotherhood movementsand the Islamist opposition across the border in

Syria. It clearly had wanted to play a larger role

P P


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in the Middle East in the years leading up tothe Arab Spring. Te urkey of the 2000s por-trayed an effective model of democracy, mod-erate Islamist politics, and economic success to

a region that lacked all three. Foreign MinisterAhmet Davutoglus policy of no problemswith neighbors had eased historic strains withthe Arab world and with Iran. Prime MinisterRecep ayyip Erdogans very public criticism ofIsrael gained him fans across the Arab world.For those who saw soft power as the newmeans for increasing a countrys internationalinfluence, urkey looked like an excellent casestudy.

Te Arab uprisings of 2011 upended some ofthe premises of the AKP governments outreachin the Middle East. urkey initially expressedopposition to the NAO operation in Libya,42but Erdogan pivoted quickly, coming around toback the revolt against Qaddafi. In September2011 he took a victory lap, visiting Egypt,Libya, and unisia to tout the urkish modelfor political development.43Te electoral vic-tories of Ennahda in unisia and the Muslim

Brotherhood in Egyptseemed to herald thepossibility of a demo-cratic Islamist blocemerging in the MiddleEast with urkey in aleadership role. Soft

power seemed triumphant.

Nowhere did the Arab Spring discombobulateurkish foreign policy more than in Syria. Te

AKP government had gone out of its way tosmooth urkeys historically tense relations

with Damascus. Te two capitals droppedbarriers to their citizens crossing the borderand encouraged business investment. Erdogandeveloped a personal relationship with Bashar

al-Assad, meeting him numerous times amidstmedia portrayals of a close friendship betweenthe leaders.

Despite the warming of urkeys relationswith the Baathist government, Ankara quicklydemonstrated its sympathies with the Syrianprotesters. Foreign Minister Davutoglu vis-ited Damascus in August 2011 and publiclyurged Assad to undertake political reform. InNovember 2011, Erdogan became one of the

first world leaders to call for Assad to step downin the face of the Syrian protests.44Even earlier,

Ankara had begun to support Assads oppo-nents by allowing the Syrian National Council,the original body of exiled Syrian oppositionpoliticians, to operate out of Istanbul. TeFree Syrian Army and other armed oppositiongroups used urkish territory for bases amidevidence that the urkish government wasproviding support to Islamist factions of theopposition.45As of early 2014, urkey has alsohosted over 600,000 Syrian refugees.46

By 2013, however, urkeys enthusiasmfor involvement in the Syrian civil war wasbeginning to wane. Te 2011 hopes that theSyrian regime would fall relatively quickly, asothers had that year, had faded. Te refugeeburden was growing, with no end in sight.Te emerging strength of more extreme Sunni

jihadi elements in the armed opposition threat-

ened to bring al-Qaeda-linked groups andtheir violence into urkey itself. Meanwhile,

42Erdogans Lament, Te Economist, 7 April 2011, .43Steven A. Cook, Erdogans Middle East Victory Lap, Foreign Affairs, 15 September 2011, .44 Sebnem Arsu, urkish Premier Urges Assad to Quit in Syria, Te New York imes, 22 November 2011, .45Bayram Balci, urkeys Relations with the Syrian Opposition, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 13 April 2012, . Regan Doherty and Amena Bakr, Exclusive:Secret urkish nerve center leads aid to Syria rebels, Reuters, 27 July 2012, .46 United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Syrian regional refugee response, 19 February 2014, .

Nowhere did theArab Spring

discombobulateTurkish foreign policy

more than in Syria


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the summer 2013 demonstrations against theErdogan government in Istanbul and othercities and the political rift between the primeminister and the Gulen movement refocused

the AKPs attention on domestic problems. Bythe end of 2013, there were numerous signalsthat Ankaras focus had shifted, at least partially,from removing Assad to limiting the politicaleffects of the Syrian civil war on urkey itself.47

While Erdogan has publicly, on a number ofoccasions, called for international militaryintervention in Syria, he has been unwilling touse the powerful urkish army unilaterally inthe conflict. urkish public opinion is clearly

against military involvement. Te militaryitself, though cowed by Erdogans successfulpolitical campaign against its political role inthe 2000s, is hesitant to take the fight intoSyria.48 It is hard not to draw the conclusionthat urkeys efforts to direct the politics ofSyria have failed. When it comes to civil wars,the AKP government has learned the hard waythat soft power is not very useful.

Qatar, on the other hand, though it is a state with

a miniscule population and no military powerto speak of, has had an outsized influence onthe new Middle East cold war. Tat influence isbased in part on Dohas enormous wealth, buttwo other elements to the Qatari strategy havegiven the tiny country regional clout. Te firstis an information strategy, through its sponsor-ship of Al Jazeera. Te Qatari leadership was

smart enough to know that it had to allow thestation a wide range of editorial independencein order for it to earn the credibility necessaryto gain a widespread regional audience.49 Al

Jazeera did just that, and when the Arab upris-ings began, it became the primary mediumthrough which themomentous eventsof 2011 wereconveyed to the

Arab world (and,to some extent,beyond). As a result, the Qataris were able toinfluence regional and global perceptions ofevents with blanket coverage of the situation in

Egypt, sympathetic portrayals of the oppositionin Libya and Syria, and very little coverage ofthe uprising in fellow GCC monarchy Bahrain.

Te second element of the Qatari influencestrategy was to pick a sidethat of SunniIslamists, particularly the Muslim Brotherhood.

Al Jazeera had long broadcast the popularSharia and Life program of Egyptian MuslimBrotherhood thinker Yusuf al-Qaradawi, whomade Qatar his residence in exile. With the

uprisings of 2011, Qatar intervened moredirectly in support of Islamist elements in Libyaand Syria.50Te then-emir, Sheikh Hamad binKhalifa Al Tani, paid a state visit to Hamas-controlled Gaza in October 2012, bringinghundreds of millions of dollars in aid.51Qatar

was the largest source of financial aid for theMuslim Brotherhood-led government in post-Mubarak Egypt.52

47 im Arango, Erdogan, Syrian Rebels Leading Ally, Hesitates, Te New York imes, 17 October 2013, ; Amberin Zaman, urkey backingoff support for jihadists on Syria border,Al-Monitor, 18 November 2013, .48Drew Desilver, urkeys leader urges more aid for Syrian rebels, but most urks say no, Pew Research Center, 16 May 2013, ; Soner Cagaptay,Why urkey Wont Attack Syria, Te Atlantic, 9 April 2013, .49Te station had certainly been accused of tilting its coverage to fit Qatari foreign policy goals even before the Arab Spring. RobertF. Worth, Al Jazeera No Longer Nips at Saudis, Te New York imes, 4 January 2008, .50David D. Kirkpatrick and Rod Nordland, ripoli Divided as Rebels Jostle to Fill Power Vacuum, Te New York imes, 30 August 2011,; Colum Lynch, Qatars support for Islamists muddles its reputationas neutral broker in Middle East, Te Washington Post, 28 November 2012, ; Roula Khalaf and Abigail Fielding-Smith, How Qatar seized control of the Syrian revolution, Financial imes, 17 May 2013,.

Qatar has had anoutsized influence onthe new Middle Eastcold war


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While the Brotherhood and similar groupswere doing well, the Qatari strategy paiddividends. Sustaining such a prominent rolein regional politics was difficult for a small

country like Qatar, despite its vast wealth andthe ambition of its former emir. Its close tiesto the Muslim Brotherhood set it against Saudi

Arabia and other GCC partners, culminatingin the aforementioned March 2014 spat. Itsprominent role in Libya and Syria led to localbacklashes against it. Te United States, itsultimate security guarantor, pressed it to reinin its support for Syrian Islamists.53Te coupagainst the Muslim Brotherhood governmentin Egypt in July 2013 demonstrated the tenu-

ousness of Qatari geopolitical gains. With theabdication of Sheikh Hamad as emir in June2013, the ascension of his son amim as thenew emir and the retirement from public life ofSheikh Hamads main partner in Qatars ambi-tious global strategy, former Prime MinisterSheikh Hamad bin Jassim Al Tani, it appearsthat Qatar is scaling down its regional strategy,though it is difficult to determine just whatforeign policy line the new emir will settle

upon.54

While the costs of failure in the newMiddle East cold war are substantial, the costsof success are not inconsiderable.

51Jodi Rudoren, Qatars Emir Visits Gaza, Pledging $400 Million to Hamas, Te New York imes, 23 October 2012, .52Regan Doherty and Maggie Flick, Qatar throws Egypt $3 bln lifeline amid IMF talks, Reuters, 10 April 2013, .53Amena Bakr and Mariam Karouny, Qatar, allies tighten coordination of arms flows to Syria, Reuters, 14 May 2013, .54

Sigurd Neubauer, Qatars Changing Foreign Policy, Sada, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 8 April 2014, .


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Complaints about the inconsistency of currentAmerican policy in the Middle East are almostas common as complaints about its passivity.55Te United States is trying to limit Iranianinfluence in Syria, but negotiating with Iran onnuclear weapons. It is backing the Iranian-allied

government in Iraq against a Sunni Musliminsurgency in which Islamists play a large role,but opposing the Iranian-allied government inSyria and supporting a Sunni Muslim insur-gency in which Islamists play a large role. Itcalls for the downfall of the Assad regime butbacks away from the use of force against it,and then becomes, indirectly, its partner in anagreement to rid Syria of its chemical weapons.It argues for democracy in Egypt but refuses tocall the military coup there by its name. Onecan multiply this list further.

Tat inconsistency should not surprise. TeUnited States does not view the region throughthe lens of the new Middle East cold war.

While it is concerned about the regional bal-ance of power, its interests are not as directlytied up with every twist and turn of the contestfor influence between Iran and Saudi Arabia.o state it flatly, who rules Syria is not asimportant to Washington as it is to Riyadh andto ehran. Te Obama Administration has an

array of goals in the Middle East that cross overthe lines of the new Middle East cold war, andit seems perfectly comfortable with that.

A nuclear deal with Iran is clearly one of theAdministrations top priorities. It will not

allow Iranian behavior in Syria, Lebanon, orIraq to stand in the way of securing that deal,if the P5+1 negotiating process produces one.Tat does not mean, however, as some inSaudi Arabia and the Gulf states think, that

Washington is willing to concede the MiddleEast as an Iranian sphere of influence in orderto get that deal.56 One can hardly imagine aUnited States so closely aligned with Israelagreeing to accept a dominant Iranian regionalrole. On the contrary, the Administration sees a

nuclear deal as part of a longer-term strategy tolimit Iranian regional influence and reintegratea more moderate Iran into the global politicaleconomy. It has taken numerous steps, includingthe Presidents own visit to Riyadh in March2014, to reassure the Saudis that a nucleardeal with ehran does not mean a geopoliticalgrand bargain confirming Iranian regionaldominance. Washington is pursuing negotia-tions with Iran on nuclear issues while pressingIraq to avoid further integration into ehranssphere of influence, supporting (somewhat)

R U S

55See, for example, Doyle McManus, On foreign policy, a consistently inconsistent president, Los Angeles imes, 18 September 2013,.56Tere has been a steady stream of comments from Saudi officials and analysts around the theme of the United States unreliability as anally. Abdulaziz Sager, Wither GCC-US Relations? Arab News, 29 March 2013, ; Abdallahal-Sammari, Ma huwa al-badil an Washington? [Who is the alternative to Washington?], al-Yawm, 16 September 2013, ; Matthew Kaminski, Prince Alwaleed bin alal: An Ally Frets About American Retreat, Te WallStreet Journal, 22 November 2013, . Othersargue that the United States has cut a deal with Iran as part of its desire to distance itself from the region. Angus McDowell, Insight: Saudisbrace for nightmare of U.S.-Iran rapprochement, Reuters, 9 October 2013, ; Khalid al-Dakheel,Madha bad rafd al-saudiyya udwiyyat majlis al-amn? [What after the

Saudi Refusal of the Security Council Seat?], al-Hayat, 19 October 2013, .57US presses Iraq on report of Iran arms deal, BBC, 25 February 2014, .


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the Syrian opposition, and arming the Gulfstates.57Tough negotiating with the Iranianson nuclear issues while opposing their regionalinfluence might seem inconsistent to some,

it simply reflects the Administrations longer-term view of American regional interests.

Likewise, the Administration sees any resurgenceof al-Qaeda and its affiliates in the region as aserious threat, for understandable reasons. Itsdrone policy in Yemen and Pakistan is evidenceenough of how seriously it views this threat. Itsimmediate support for the Maliki governmentin Iraq in the face of ISIS gains in June 2014demonstrated the primacy of the Salafi jihadi

threat in its regional priorities. It is thereforenot surprising that the Administration is morecautious than Saudi Arabia in its dealings witha Syrian opposition in which an al-Qaedaaffiliate (Jabhat al-Nusra), a group even al-Qaeda disavowed (the Islamic State), and otheral-Qaeda-friendly Salafi groups are playingimportant roles. Saudi Arabia is simply morecomfortable with long-bearded Sunni Muslimfighters than is the United States, though ittoo increasingly realizes the dangerous politicalconsequences of the fighting in Syria and Iraqfor its own domestic security.

Washington would like to see Assad gone frompower, as it regularly states, but it is not willing tosubordinate its interest in preventing the regionalresurgence of al-Qaeda to that goal. It would like tosee Iranian influence in Iraq reduced, but not if theprice is an increased role for Salafi jihadis like thoseof the Islamic State. What others see as inconsis-tency is, for the Obama Administration, simplybalancing its regional interests. Tis balancing actnot only involves Americas regional interests, butalso the Administrations broader political interestin avoiding American involvement in anotherMiddle Eastern war. All this might add up to aninconsistent foreign policy toward the newMiddle East cold war, but it is an inconsistencybased on the Administrations reading of Americascomplicated regional interests.

Te longer-term challenge of the new MiddleEast cold war is as daunting as it is simple:building states that can effectively governtheir societies. Effective governance in Iraq,

Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, Yemen, and Libyawould drastically reduce the opportunities forregional powers to meddle across their bordersand thus limit the scope of regional balance ofpower struggles. Sub-state actors in effectivelygoverned states will have less reason to seek outforeign patrons, and, if they do, an effectivestate will prevent them from establishing suchties. Effectively governed states do not becomehavens for transnational terrorist groups likeal-Qaeda and its affiliates. Building effective

governance that is basically democratic andrespectful of citizens human and civil rights isan even more daunting task. Tat kind of gov-ernance is the most stable and effective in thelong-term, no doubt, but there is no consensusabout how a state reaches that sweet spot ofstable and decent government. Te road to thatpoint is not only bumpy, it is foggy.

Te United States demonstrated in Iraq that itis much better at state-destroying than state-building. With limited resources and evenmore limited political will, Washington is notgoing to play a major role in the reconstructionof effective political authority in Arab states.Tat is for the best. America has no better mapfor that bumpy and foggy road than anyoneelse. With that appropriate sense of modesty,

Washington can safeguard its interests by fol-lowing a number of relatively simple rules:

1) Remember that the new Middle East coldwar is not Americas war. While the UnitedStates has core interests to protect in theMiddle East, as of yet the new cold war hasnot directly threatened those interests. Oil con-tinues to flow from the Gulf region. As difficultas the refugee spillover from Syria has been for

American allies in urkey and Jordan, it hasnot destabilized those countries, even as it hasencouraged the upsurge in violence in Iraq.

57US presses Iraq on report of Iran arms deal, BBC News, 25 February 2014, .


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Israel is certainly affected by the events in Syriaand Lebanon, but it is not directly threatenedby them. Al-Qaeda, its affiliates, and its ideo-logical counterparts like the Islamic State have

gained from the chaos in Syria, Iraq, Libya,and Yemen, but those gains are limited and itsaffiliates are consumed with the local fightingto this point. Certainly many good things

would flow from an end to the Syrian fighting,like lessening the threat of political instabilityin Lebanon, but Lebanese political stability ishardly a sufficient reason to justify an increased

American military role in Syria. It is just notthat important for American interests.

Te Middle East is a multi-polar region, witha number of important regional powers actingin its politics: Iran, Saudi Arabia, urkey, Israel,and Egypt. If one of them seems to be emergingas a dominant force, the others will naturally

work to balance against it and limit the growthof its power.58Tat is what happened to Gamal

Abd al-Nasir in the 1960s and what happenedto revolutionary Iran in the 1980s. In each ofthese cases the United States aided the states

who were balancing against the prospectiveregional hegemon, but also kept some distance.

Washington can confidently avoid direct mili-tary involvement in the new Middle East cold

war by following a similar strategy and relyingon regional balance of power dynamics to blockIranian hegemony. It is highly unlikely that theIranians will turn the new Middle East cold

war hot by using their military power to tryto alter the regional map, as Saddam Husseindid with his invasion of Kuwait in 1990. Even

if they do, other regional powers will welcomeand cooperate with a similar American militaryintervention to restore the status-quo. Tose bal-ancing dynamics go double for non-state actorslike the Islamic State, which has no regionalfriends at all. o the extent that the Islamic Statecan consolidate its gains in Iraq, which is notassured, it will see not only Iran but also urkeyand Saudi Arabia start to work against it.

2) Order is better than chaos, so support thestates that have continued to provide effectivegovernance, even if that governance does notachieve the preferred levels of democracy and

human rights. Tat means all sorts of thingsthat run against many of the talking points onefrequently hears in Washington:

It means exploring every avenue to a newrelationship with the Rouhani governmentin Iran, despite our opposition to Iranianpolicy in various parts of the Middle East.Tis is a difficult and frustrating task,because Rouhani does not control all thelevers of power in ehran. He will not be

able to do everything the United Stateswould like. It will require patience in Wash-ington and a willingness to tolerate setbacks.Nevertheless, the success of Rouhani and hisallies against their domestic opponents isthe best long-term hope for a more normalIranian-American relationship and a lessdisruptive Iranian regional role. Americasability to affect the course of domesticpolitical struggles in Iran is very limited, tobe sure. Still, reaching a mutually acceptableagreement on the Iranian nuclear questionthat satisfies the P5+1 goal of moving Iranback from nuclear breakout capability whileallowing Rouhani to claim a victory throughsanctions reduction and the re-integrationof Iran into the world economy wouldcertainly strengthen his position in internalIranian politics.

Order and chaos are now in a delicate bal-ance in Iraq due to the gains of the IslamicState and the broader but fractious Sunnirevolt. It would be ideal if Washingtoncould leverage the threat of the revolt topush Prime Minister Maliki to broadenhis government and change his autocraticstyle, bringing credible Sunni Arab leadersinto the government and giving them theresources to combat Salafi jihadism and the

58

L. Carl Brown, International Politics of the Middle East: Old Rules, Dangerous Game(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984); StephenM. Walt, Te Origins of Alliances(Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1987).


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3) An improvement in Saudi-Iranian relationswould greatly enhance the chances for politicalsettlements in Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, andBahrain and would lessen the poisonous sec-

tarianism that so dominates the regions politicsnow. It would certainly be in the United Statesinterest to see such an improvement. Despitethe intense hostility between the two countries,it is not impossible to imagine a situation in

which both sides would see it in their intereststo work toward more normal relations. Tereare certainly serious obstacles to such a rap-prochement, but Riyadh and ehran have hada much more civil and less contentious relation-ship even as recently as the mid-2000s.59Yet it

would be counter-productive for the UnitedStates to push the Saudis toward Iran. Tere isalready considerable suspicion in Riyadh thatthe United States has cut a geopolitical deal

with Iran, and an American effort to encouragethe Saudis to come to terms with Iran wouldbe seen as part of that deal and undoubtedlyresisted. Better to let the Saudis decide forthemselves when and how to try to addresstheir differences with Iran. Tere are plenty of

incentives for them to do so, if the Iranians arewilling to respond in kind.

4) Multilateral is more effective than unilateral,if feasible. Sanctions on Iran really began to bite

when countries other than the United Statesjoined in, and negotiations with Iran requiredthe cover of the P5 + 1 to gain any momentum.Tat momentum has led to tentative bilateralcontacts between ehran and Washington,but it is hard to imagine how that would have

happened without both multi-lateral initia-tives. Multilateral approaches will also be moreeffective in cutting the Islamic State down tosize in Iraq. Any diplomatic effort to staunchthe violence in Syria will likewise have to bemultilateral, as frustrating as that process hasbeen. While the Geneva process on Syria hasnot yielded any progress on the political level, itis useful to have a process in place in case there

are changes in the correlation of forces, eitheron the ground in Syria or in Russias attitudetoward the conflict. If the nuclear negotiations

with Iran succeed, it would make sense to con-

sider including Iran in the Geneva framework,if ehran would be willing to induce theirclient Hizballah to reduce its involvement inthe conflict.

Likewise, multilateral approaches with theEU will be more effective at bolstering North

Africas (relative) success stories like Morocco,supporting the important but still fragiletransition in unisia, pushing Algeria towarda more inclusive political system and aiding,

to the extent possible, the building of stateinstitutions in Libya. For all the North Africancountries, economic relations with Europeare far more important than those with theUnited States. Any commitment of diplomaticor financial resources there will be much moreeffective if combined with European partners

whose interests in North Africa are greater thanAmericas.

Tese policies, taken together, are certainly

inconsistent when viewed through the lensof the new Middle East cold war. In someinstances they support the pro-Iranian side,in others, the pro-Saudi side. Te UnitedStates should not define its interests this way. Itneeds to focus on core interests of securing oilproduction and oil flows, combatting terroristgroups that target the United States and itsallies, and preventing the spill-over of regionalviolence into the politics of stable Americanallies. Concentrating American policy on thestates that actually govern, acting multilater-ally both to pressure foes and support friends,and remembering that U.S. interests are not asdirectly engaged in the new Middle East cold

war as those of the local parties are the keys toriding out this particular violent and difficultperiod in the region.

59F. Gregory Gause, III, Saudi-Iranian Rapprochement? Te Incentives and the Obstacles, in Visions of Gulf Security, POMEPS Studies

no. 25, Project on Middle East Political Science, 25 March 2014, , 7-9.


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A A

Gregory Gause, III is a non-resident senior fellow at the Brookings Doha Center. In August 2014 he will

take up the John H. Lindsey 44 Chair in international affairs at the Bush School of Government, exas

A&M University. He is the author of three books and numerous articles on the politics of the Middle East,

with a particular focus on the Arabian Peninsula and the Persian Gulf.

A B D C

Based in Qatar, the Brookings Doha Center is an initiative of the Brookings Institution in Washington,D.C., that advances high-quality, independent policy analysis and research on the Middle East. Te Cen-ter maintains a reputation for policy impact and cutting-edge, field-oriented research on socio-economic and

geopolitical issues facing the broader Middle East, including relations with the United States.

Te Brookings Doha Center International Advisory Council is co-chaired by H.E. Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim

bin Jabr Al Tani, former prime minister and minister of foreign affairs of the State of Qatar, and Brookings

President Strobe albott. Te Center was formally inaugurated by H.E. Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim bin Jabr Al-

Tani on February 17, 2008. It is funded by the State of Qatar. Salman Shaikh serves as its director.

In pursuing its mission, the Brookings Doha Center undertakes research and programming that engages key

elements of business, government, civil society, the media, and academia on key public policy issues in the fol-

lowing four core areas:

(i) Democratization, political reform, and public policy; (ii) Middle East relations with emerging Asian nations,

including on the geopolitics and economies of energy; (iii) Conflict and peace processes in the region; (iv) Edu-

cational, institutional, and political reform in the Gulf countries.

Open to a broad range of views, the Brookings Doha Center is a hub for Brookings scholarship in the region.


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B D C P

2014

Beyond Sectarianism: Te New Middle East Cold WarAnalysis Paper, Gregory Gause

Dynamic Stalemate: Surveying Syrias Military LandscapePolicy Briefing, Charles Lister

Personnel Change or Personal Change? Rethinking Libyas Political Isolation LawBrookings Doha Center Stanford Paper, Roman David and Houda Mzioudet

Convince, Coerce, or Compromise? Ennahdas Approach to unisias ConstitutionAnalysis Paper, Monica L. Marks

2013

Reconstructing Libya: Stability Trough National ReconciliationAnalysis Paper, Ibrahim Sharqieh

Kings for All Seasons: How the Middle Easts Monarchies Survived the Arab SpringAnalysis Paper, F. Gregory Gause III

A Coup oo Far: Te Case for Reordering U.S. Priorities in EgyptPolicy Briefing, Shadi Hamid and Peter Mandaville

Brookings Doha Energy Forum 2013 Policy PaperBrookings Doha Center Brookings Energy Security Initiative Report

Te Challenge of Syrian Unity: Reassuring Local Communities and Framing National ConsensusSyria Workshop Series Paper

Muslim Politics Without an Islamic State: Can urkeys Justice and Development Party Be aModel for Arab Islamists?Policy Briefing, Ahmet . Kuru

A Lasting Peace? Yemens Long Journey to National ReconciliationAnalysis Paper, Ibrahim Sharqieh

oward a Strategic Partnership? he EU and GCC in a Revolutionary Middle EastEvent Briefing

A Rights Agenda for the Muslim World? he Organization of Islamic Cooperations EvolvingHuman Rights Framework

Analysis Paper, uran Kayaolu

beyond sectarianism

Documents