Middle East: Waking From The Middle East Nightmare - by Javier Solana

The Middle East is caught in a seemingly endless spiral of instability. The possibility of military intervention in Syria, together with the deteriorating situation in Egypt since the army’s coup, has placed the region on a razor’s edge. Moreover, despite the changes in Iran since its presidential election in June, international negotiations over its nuclear ambitions remain a dead letter.

Paradoxes abound, as the United States’s traditional Middle East allies (Saudi Arabia, Israel, Turkey, Egypt, and the Gulf states) have taken opposing – and sometimes seemingly contradictory – positions on the region’s key conflicts. And, in all of today’s hotspots, the assertion of interests by neighboring or nearby countries has complicated matters further.

Saudi Arabia, fearing severe domestic consequences from the Muslim Brotherhood’s empowerment in Egypt, does not want to see an Islamist movement legitimized democratically. So it has taken a consistently harsh position against the Brotherhood, despite the latter being more moderate than the Saudis’ own brand of Islam.

Israel, for its part, is exerting pressure in two ways. First, it is supporting the Egyptian coup and international recognition of the military regime, thereby ensuring – it hopes – greater stability along the Sinai border.

Second, it is making progress in its negotiations with the Palestinians dependent on events in Egypt and elsewhere in the region, such as Iran. US Secretary of State John Kerry has invested considerable political capital in the revival of peace negotiations, and Israel can use that to its advantage as well.

The civil war in Syria, meanwhile, has inflamed the Sunni-Shia fault line that traverses the entire region, and that defines, for example, the rivalry between Saudi Arabia and Iran. In fact, while Saudi Arabia opposes elected Islamists in Egypt, it supports insurgent Islamists in Syria, owing entirely to Iran’s support for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime.

The Egyptian coup has already proved to have been a mistake. The military seems to be reverting to the governing methods – and even the feared security institutions – of former President Hosni Mubarak’s 30-year rule. Even Mubarak himself has now been released from prison.

The army’s repression of the Muslim Brotherhood is more a question of competition for power than of religion. As the only organized force in the country that could seriously challenge the military, the Brotherhood is the greatest threat that the Army faces, as demonstrated by Mohamed Morsi’s victory in the election that made him president a year before he was overthrown.

And, on top of it all, the problem posed by Iran’s nuclear program remains unresolved. That may not be surprising, given the violence and turmoil elsewhere in the region. But, since Iran’s new president, Hassan Rouhani, took office at the beginning of August, the West, to put it bluntly, has not demonstrated sufficient will to explore possible openings.

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