<
http://isnblog.ethz.ch/government/the-collapsing-arab-state> The
Collapsing Arab State
Nawaf Obaid on Monday, 6 May 2013
BOSTON - The so-called Arab Spring generated a wave of hope among those
fighting or advocating for democratization of the Arab world's authoritarian
regimes. Now, following leadership changes in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, and
Yemen, and with a brutal civil war raging in Syria and increasingly fraught
conditions in Bahrain, Sudan, Jordan, and Iraq, there is much talk of a
major shift - and hope for improvement - in the nature and prospects of the
Arab state.
But hope - "the thing with feathers," as the American poet Emily Dickinson
put it - often bears little resemblance to realities on the ground. Indeed,
looking earthward, the beauty of the Arab Spring seems to have given way to
an almost unbearable winter.
For all the optimism ushered in two years ago, ominous political realities
may be rendering the nation-state system incompatible with the emerging new
Arab world. As a result, how the region can maintain stability without
stable nation-states is becoming a burning question.
Admittedly, Arab countries' problems vary by degree and type. Some
countries, such as Egypt and Tunisia, have historically entrenched
institutions to help steer the post-conflict institution-building process
and prevent a complete collapse of the state. Others, like Bahrain and
Jordan, appear to be relatively stable. But most are experiencing disastrous
output contractions amid severe fiscal constraints and nearly collapsed
monetary systems, thus undermining two integral components of a successful
nation-state: economic independence and self-sustaining growth.
Moreover, each country has elected leaders (or widely supported rebels) with
ties to the pan-Arab revolutionary Islamist movement the Muslim Brotherhood
(or, in the case of Bahrain, to Iran's revolutionary Islamist objectives).
They are thus subject to a religious ideology that transcends the
nation-state, rather than to organizations with viable plans for social
stability, economic prosperity, and political security within national
borders.
The vulnerability that this implies already has resulted in Sudan's recent
disintegration into two states. Sudan's authoritarian rule and social
division along religious lines, together with economic difficulties and
political ineptitude, precipitated the collapse of the central government's
authority in the country's Christian-majority south.
The same process appears to be playing out, albeit at a slower pace, in
Iraq, amid an ongoing struggle to unite two ethnicities, Arabs and Kurds, as
well as adherents of Sunni and Shia Islam, into a single nation-state.
Central authority is gradually eroding as the country continues to splinter
into ethnic and sectarian regions, with a de facto Kurdish sovereign state
already well established in the north.
Meanwhile, in Yemen, the possibility of adequate central authority is
slipping away as the country confronts several seemingly intractable
problems - from internal divisions and separatist movements to Al Qaeda's
franchise in the Arabian Peninsula and a failing economy. The south (Aden)
and east (Hadramaut) are both on a trajectory toward independence, dragging
Yemen toward another secession struggle nearly 25 years after the country's
fragile unification.
In Libya, the collapse of Colonel Muammar el-Qaddafi's regime has thrown the
country into chaos and decimated central-government authority. The south
remains lawless, while the east is ruled by the Benghazi regional council;
only the west remains subject to the poorly consolidated government in
Tripoli.
The situation is even worse in Syria, where the bloodiest of the Arab
revolutions has already claimed more than 75,000 lives, owing mainly to the
behavior of President Bashar al-Assad's tyrannical regime. As the Syrian
state melts away, the regime's inevitable collapse will lead to the
country's permanent dismemberment, bringing a de facto Kurdish state in the
northeast, an eastern autonomous enclave for the surviving Alawites, and a
southern entity for the Druze.
While the Bahraini and Jordanian states have proven much more stable in
relative terms, they are not immune to volatility. Certainly, the Shia
revolt in Bahrain, hijacked by an opportunistic Iranian revanchist faction,
has failed to foment the collapse of the Khalifa monarchy. And, in Jordan,
the religious legitimacy of the Hashemite monarchy has sustained the state
in the face of the growing challenge posed by the Muslim Brotherhood, while
the fear of regional violence spilling over into the Kingdom has temporarily
curbed the Jordanian public's appetite for rebellion.
But both states lack the domestic revenues needed to sustain their
institutions. If they wish to survive well into the next century, they will
probably need to be subsumed under a union supported by a larger, more
powerful, and more established nation-state.
Furthermore, the disintegration that the region has already witnessed - and
will undoubtedly continue to witness - will reverberate beyond the Arab map
with the creation of a sovereign Kurdish state. Such a state, whether
exisiting de facto or with widespread formal recognition, will have an
ever-lasting effect on the boundaries of the Arab world (Syria and Iraq) and
of the wider Middle East (Turkey and Iran).
The Arab Spring has toppled some regimes, though not others. But, more
important, everywhere in the Arab world - and beyond - it has called into
question the viability of the nation-state. The days of revolts may have
passed; the days of reckoning lie ahead.
_____
Nawaf Obaid is a visiting fellow at the Belfer Center for Science and
International Affairs at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government.
This article is adapted from a longer report,
<
http://belfercenter.ksg.harvard.edu/files/The%20Long%20Hot%20Arab%20Summer.
pdf> "The Long Hot Arab Summer," published by the Belfer Center.
Received on Tue May 07 2013 - 10:43:59 EDT
