Security and Insecurity Dimensions of Middle East.

Introduction.

Middle East is the hub of old civilizations, linage of Abraham’s faiths Judaism,

Christianity and Islam originated from this region and impacted the most on the politics

of the Middle East. The present time conflicts meet their genesis from this divide.

The end of British Empire pushed Middle East towards security and insecurity

dilemmas. It influenced the predominant Arab socio economic psyche in the most radical

manner. Finding a new entity amongst them, who based their claim on divine history,

made the Arabs and whole region embroil in a rigid conflict. This was a new

phenomenon in the human history.

People from different cultural backgrounds, believing in one faith, claimed homeland

for its Diaspora. Religious ideology set the goal for the promised lands through its edicts.

People divided on the lines of faith, splintered out of their ethnic orbit and shaped in to

single entity under the faith. This diverted the society from ethnic, cultural and traditional

pulls and formed them into major religious groups. This contributed to the conflicts of

present time.

The creation of Israel coincided with the decolonization of other nations in the post

world war II era. The Diaspora Jewish community carved the idea of a state with the

religio-historical orchestration. Their ordeal became a strong pleader for the case of new

nation state. Arabs in general and Palestinians particularly; were most affected owing to

intermingled and overlapping religious, cultural and traditional bonds; knotted with the

power of nationalism esteem.

 The new Jewish state was deemed realization of fulfillment of aspiration of national

and religious security. At the same time it created a predicament for the Arabs and

Palestinian- an element of insecurity. The situation was further circumvented by the

power that mattered in different phases of geopolitical changes. That may be referred to

as the Western and USA interest in Middle East.

Aim

This aim of this paper is to study, what security and insecurity perspectives prevail in

the Middle East and what the options available are. The study is divided in to four parts

as following:-

• Theoretical Perspective

• Middle East Security Paradigm.

• Contemporary security environments in the Middle East.

• Conclusion

Theoretical Perspective

The security is concerns of an individual and responsibility of a state. Ullman

defined a threat to security as:-

“ an action or sequence of events that (1) threatens drastically land over a

relatively brief span of time to degrade the quality of life for the inhabitants of a

sate or (2) threaten significantly to narrow the rang of policy choices available to

a government of a state, or to private, nongovernmental entities (persons, groups,

corporations) within the state.1”

1
Hough, Peter,(2004)Understanding Global Security, London,Routledge,p.7
 In the different phases of evolution security threat was caused even from the very

institution responsible for the security of its subject or the people of a state. The ruling

entities and its militaries became the primary source of insecurity of its own people. This

is caused by the statecentricism.

“Buzan accepts that state can be the source of threats rather than of protection for

individual people but considers that this is a property of a certain type of states.

‘Strong states’ co-existing in ‘mature anarchy’, which have increasingly become

the norm through democratization and the development of international human

rights law, can be relied on to secure individual.”2

The evolution of communities from family, clan, tribe, dynasty, empire, to nation

states plays a vital dynamic to security approach.

The foregoing view corresponds to the contemporary theory of widening the

security precepts to other areas, outside the classic involvement of military force by the

state. To briefly state the interdependence of nation states and people to people

engagements have significantly influenced the security approach diametrically.

Middle East Security Paradigm

Middle East has proven the fountain head of contemporary security issues. The

center of oldest civilization is the originating source of basic human sensibilities with

religion on the top that leads multidimensional security perspectives and its responses.

It ranges from inter clan to inter racial and from inter dynastic to inter empires. It

has presumably ended the history3 with the end of cold war, started after the two world

wars and ended with the break up of USSR.

2
Hough, Peter,(2004)Understanding Global Security, London,Routledge,p.9
3
Fujilo Yokihama,( 1995 ),The End of the History.
 The new concept of security is being perceived in the terms of conflict between

the civilizations. The world has shaped itself into clear blocks based on major religions,

cultural and ethnic groups, short listed as civilizations, not like empires and dynastic rules

where all these segments made in to one empiric identity group and their interactions

remained within the context of internal issues.

Middle East gave the greater portion of human beings on the earth, source of their

major faiths. Abraham moved from Syria to Arab peninsula and laid the foundation of

monotheist faiths; Judaism, Christianity, and finally Islam. This set the chess board of

conflicts and security issues dominating the world scene till now.

This resulted in ending many inter ethnic and local securities issues converting

these in to religion based wars. Islam adjusted its presence, shortly and swiftly on

expanded regions and prevailed on the most powerful empires of that time.

Byzantine, Roman, and Persian empires overwhelmed by the new vigorous faith

of Islam searched and adjusted for the insecurity they confronted. The predominance of

Muslim faith and its expansion till the Ottomans’ empire resulted in judo-Christians

formations and nexus against the Muslim in the Middle East that prevented the Muslims

Armies, comprising of diversified converted ethnicities under the faith of Islam, to enter

Europe however, Muslims could reach to its eastern rim.

The pattern remains in practice, based on the ethos of same ideologies in the

present time international relations. Nation states have devised a new theme to take on

each others on the lines of civilizations’ fault lines, fermented with cultural, traditional,

religious and social values of societies spread over the glob.

 These prejudices seem hidden in the modern time real politic of the West and

Europe, representing Judo Christian interests and the fragmented and incohesive Islamic

states, predominantly in the Middle East, Asia Pacific, South Asia and Africa,

representing pride in the ideology of Ummah and the ultimacy of their faith.

This leads us to believe that beacon of security and insecurity of the world is

centered in the Middle East. World now deems it necessary to settle security issues of

Middle East as all the avenues leading to peace pass through this region. It remain subject

to the test of time and history whether, the prevailing realist mode would result in

complicating the security situation further to the worse or better.

The contemporary security expositions prove to the contrary and threaten global

security as that would probably lead to an ‘ultimate end of history’. This was presumed

earlier by Francis Fukuyama, in the context of end of the cold war in his 1989 essay ‘End

of the History’ (and The Last Man*)4’. Fukuyama’ theme remains oblivious of the

emergence of afresh history cycle involving clash of civilizations. Samuel Huntington

forwarded his theory of clash of civilization on much realistic line as he put it;-

“WORLD POLITICS IS entering a new phase, and intellectuals have not

hesitated to proliferate visions of what it will be -- the end of history, the

return of traditional rivalries between nation states, and the decline of the

nation state from the conflicting pulls of tribalism and globalism, among

others. “5

4
Francis Fukuyama (1992). The End of History and the Last Man. Free Press. ISBN
0029109752.
5
Samuel P. Huntington, Foreign Affairs, summer, 1993.
*The original title was suffixed with this addition later in his book expanded by him on the same theme.
 Huntington stands vindicated if we observe the “conflicting pulls of

tribalism and globalism” unleashed between the non state actors and a global

power. The group asymmetrically involved in this conflict in the Middle East

and Afghanistan is gaining strength from the tribal culture on its fringes. The

changing threat and security perception would be as following according to the

theory:-

“CIVILIZATION IDENTITY will be increasingly important in the future,

and the world will be shaped in large measure by the interactions among

seven or eight major civilizations. These include Western, Confucian,

Japanese, Islamic, Hindu, Slavic-Orthodox, Latin American and possibly

African civilization. The most important conflicts of the future will occur

along the cultural fault lines separating these civilizations from one

another.”6

The present part is being played between Western and Islamic

civilizations in the battle zones of Middle East leaving the waiting civilizations to

adjust them for the future security threat from the power that prevails.

Security Insecurity Mosaic in the Middle East.

The Muslim campaigns that started in the 7th century brought in radical changes in

the security environments of the Middle East that lead to the fall of great empires and

6
ibid
annihilation of big civilization at the hands of simple Arab nomadic warriors who were

emboldened by the Islamic ideology that provided them the justification to extend beyond

the limits of Arab peninsula.

There was no sudden reaction or threat to such expansions made by Muslims. These

campaigns were over whelming and swift. The corner stone of successful expansion was

the full support of subjects in most of the territories conquered by the Muslim generals. It

was due to the protection and dispensation of justice that made it possible. In the Middle

east from the Caliphate to Ottomans minorities particularly Jews and Christians were

protected to the sharp contrast of Crusaders’ ruthlessness, who rampaged and tried to

wipe out Muslims from the territories they captured or recaptured in the ‘holy lands’.

This model is still in vogue in the modern times even, as we see Israel using brutal and

excessive force on the Muslim Palestinians.

The sense of security which the minorities felt under the Muslim conquerors ensured

positive security conditions and response that gave time and space to Muslim rulers to

stabilize the territories under their commands.

This is again in sharp contrast to the contemporary ‘crusaders’ who are not

supported by the people of occupied territories due to injudiciousness and lack of moral

authority. The Americans have become famous for their famous query that, “Why people

hate us”. The probable answer seems simple; they disregard values of other cultures and

faiths. It has become a great cause of insecurity amongst its European friends even.
 The sense of insecurity has devastated the complete social fabric of Middle East

including Israel who is haunted by its security dilemma. They have made it their strategic

compulsion and ultimate option to respond disproportionately with excessive use of

force. The following Para about the Middle East, from the ‘Clash of Civilization’

published in the bimonthly issue of ‘Foreign Affairs’ summarizes it very smartly:-

“Conflict along the fault line between Western and Islamic civilizations has been

going on for 1,300 years. After the founding of Islam, the Arab and Moorish

surge west and north only ended at Tours in 732. From the eleventh to the

thirteenth century the Crusaders attempted with temporary success to bring

Christianity and Christian rule to the Holy Land. From the fourteenth to the

seventeenth century, the Ottoman Turks reversed the balance, extended their

sway over the Middle East and the Balkans, captured Constantinople, and twice

laid siege to Vienna. In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries at Ottoman

power declined Britain, France, and Italy established Western control over most

of North Africa and the Middle East.

After World War II, the West, in turn, began to retreat; the colonial empires

disappeared; first Arab nationalism and then Islamic fundamentalism manifested

themselves; the West became heavily dependent on the Persian Gulf countries

for its energy; the oil-rich Muslim countries became money-rich and, when they

wished to, weapons-rich. Several wars occurred between Arabs and Israel

(created by the West). France fought a bloody and ruthless war in Algeria for
most of the 1950s; British and French forces invaded Egypt in 1956; American

forces returned to Lebanon, attacked Libya, and engaged in various military

encounters with Iran; Arab and Islamic terrorists, supported by at least three

Middle Eastern governments, employed the weapon of the weak and bombed

Western planes and installations and seized Western hostages. This warfare

between Arabs and the West culminated in 1990, when the United States sent a

massive army to the Persian Gulf to defend some Arab countries against

aggression by another. In its aftermath NATO planning is increasingly directed

to potential threats and instability along its "southern tier."

This centuries-old military interaction between the West and Islam is

unlikely to decline. It could become more virulent. The Gulf War left some Arabs

feeling proud that Saddam Hussein had attacked Israel and stood up to the West.

It also left many feeling humiliated and resentful of the West's military presence

in the Persian Gulf, the West's overwhelming military dominance, and their

apparent inability to shape their own destiny. Many Arab countries, in addition

to the oil exporters, are reaching levels of economic and social development

where autocratic forms of government become inappropriate and efforts to

introduce democracy become stronger. Some openings in Arab political systems

have already occurred. The principal beneficiaries of these openings have been

Islamist movements. In the Arab world, in short, Western democracy strengthens

anti-Western political forces. This may be a passing phenomenon, but it surely

complicates relations between Islamic countries and the West.

Those relations are also complicated by demography. The spectacular

population growth in Arab countries, particularly in North Africa, has led to

increased migration to Western Europe. The movement within Western Europe

toward minimizing internal boundaries has sharpened political sensitivities with

respect to this development. In Italy, France and Germany, racism is increasingly

open, and political reactions and violence against Arab and Turkish migrants

have become more intense and more widespread since 1990.

On both sides the interaction between Islam and the West is seen as a

clash of civilizations. The West's "next confrontation," observes M. J. Akbar, an

Indian Muslim author, "is definitely going to come from the Muslim world. It is

in the sweep of the Islamic nations from the Meghreb to Pakistan that the

struggle for a new world order will begin." Bernard Lewis comes to a regular

conclusion:

"We are facing a need and a movement far transcending the level of issues

and policies and the governments that pursue them. This is no less than a clash

of civilizations -- the perhaps irrational but surely historic reaction of an ancient

rival against our Judeo-Christian heritage, our secular present, and the

worldwide expansion of both.7”

This approach would lead to the both belligerents to start battle procedure

and would add to the security predicament.

Conclusion

The securities and insecurities dimensions in the Middle East are based on

the most rigid predispositions. The only option for the lasting peace is the model

of coexistence under Muslim rules.

The new agreement can be based on the common cultural and moral

values common to all faiths and cultures in the Middle East. Middle East has the

inherent cohesive social infrastructure to peruse this approach as common

language, biological roots and geography are major factors peg the peace best.

The Middle East can only benefit from its abundant energy resources if

countries of the region are able to maintain peace and stability. Power pumping;

flow of arms and injudicious international response can doom any hope of peace.

7
Bernard Lewis, "The Roots of Muslim Rage," The Atlantic Monthly, vol. 266, September 1990, p. 60; Time, June 15k 1992,
pp. 24-28, quoted in .The clash of civilizations’ ibid.
 Israel bears greater responsibility as it recklessness in the use of power has

resulted in blatant violations of human right touching to the levels of war crimes

while using the excessive and disproportionate force.

All the conflict resolution is made on the table ultimately, the sooner it is

done the better it is.