The Arab Moment Has Passed By Vali Nasr

For more than two decades, the United States has seen the politics of the Middle East as a tug of war
between moderation and radicalism—Arabs against Iran. But for the four years of Donald Trump’s
presidency, it was blind to different, more profound fissures growing among the region’s three non-Arab
powers: Iran, Israel, and Turkey. For the quarter century after the 1956 Suez crisis, Iran, Israel, and
Turkey joined forces to strike a balance against the Arab world with U.S. help.

But Arab stateshave beenslidingdeeper into paralysis and chaos since the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003,
followed by the failed Arab Spring, leading to new fault lines. Indeed, the competition mostlikely to
shape the Middle Eastis no longer between Arab states andIsrael or Sunnis and Shiites—but among the
three non-Arab rivals. The emerging competitions forpower and influence have become severe enough
to disrupt the post-World War I order, when the Ottoman Empire was splitinto shards that European
powers picked up as they soughtto controlthe region. European rule deepened cleavages of ethnicity
and sects and shaped rivalries and battle lines that have survivedtothisday.The colonial experience also
animated Arabnationalism,which swept across the regionafterWorldWar II andplacedthe
Arabworldattheheart of U.S. strategy in the Middle East. All ofthatis now changing. The Arab moment
has passed.Itis now the nonArab powers that are ascendant, and it is the Arabs who are feeling
threatened as Iran expands its reach into the region and the United States reduces its commitment. Last
year, after Iran was identified as responsible for attacks on tankers and oil installations in Saudi Arabia
and the United Arab Emirates, Abu Dhabi cited the Iranian threat as a reason to forge a historic
normalization agreement with Israel. But the Abraham Accords are as much a bulwark against Turkey as
they are against Iran. Rather than set the region on a new course toward peace, as the Trump
administration claimed, the agreement signals anintensification of rivalry among Arabs,Iranians,Israelis,
andTurks thattheprevious administration failed to take into consideration. In fact, it could lead to larger
and more dangerous regional arms races andwars thatthe United Statesneither wantsnor can afford to
get entangled in. Iran’s pursuit of a nuclear capability and its use of clients and proxies to influence the
Arab world and attack . US. interests and Israel are now familiar. Whatis new is Turkey’s emergence as
anunpredictabledisrupterof stability across a much larger region. No longer envisioning a future
intheWest,Turkey is now more decidedly embracing its Islamicpast,lookingpastlines andbordersdrawna
century ago.Its claimtothe influence ithadinthe onetimedomains oftheOttomanEmpire canno longerbe
dismissedas rhetoric.Turkishambition is now a force to be reckoned with. For example, Turkey now
occupies parts of Syria,has influence inIraq, and is pushing back againstIran’s influence inbothDamascus
andBaghdad.Turkey has increasedmilitaryoperationsagainst Kurds inIraq andaccusedIranof giving refuge
toTurkey’s Kurdishnemesis,the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). Turkey has inserted itself in Libya’s civil
war and most recently intervened decisively inthedispute intheCaucasus between Armenia and
Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh. Officials in Ankara are also eyeing expanded roles in the Horn of
Africa and Lebanon while Arab rulers worry about Turkish supportfor the Muslim Brotherhood and its
claim to have a say in Arab politics. Each ofthe three non-Arab states has justified such encroachments
as necessary for security, but there are also economic motivations—for example, access to the Iraqi
market for Iran or pole positions for Israel and Turkey in harnessing the rich gas fields in the
Mediterranean seabed. Predictably, Turkish expansionism runs up againstIranian regional interests in
the Levant and the Caucasus in ways that evoke Turkey’s imperial past. TurkishPresident
RecepTayyipErdogan has been for some time suggesting that Mustafa Kemal Ataturk was wrong to give
up Ottoman Arab territories as far south as Mosul.In reviving Turkish interestin those territories,
Erdogan is claiming greater patriotism than that of the founder of modern Turkey.

In the Caucasus, as in Syria, Turkish and Iranian interests are interwoven with those of Russia. The
Kremlin’s interestinthe MiddleEastis expanding, not only in conflicts in Libya, Syria, and Nagorno-
Karabakh but also on the diplomatic scene from OPEC to Afghanistan. Moscow maintains close ties with
all ofthe region’s key actors, sometimes tilting infavor of one and thenthe other. With U.S. attention on
the wane, Moscow’s complex web of ties is poised to play an outsized role in shaping the region’s
future. Israel,too, has expanded its footprint inthe Arabworld.In2019,Trump recognized Israel’s half-
century-old claim to the Golan Heights, which it seized from Syria in1967, andnow Israeli leaders are
planning outloud to expand their borders by formally annexing parts of the West Bank. But the Abraham
Accords suggestthatthe Arabs are looking past all ofthatto shore up their own position against Iran and
Turkey. They see in Israel a crutch to keep them in the great game for regional influence. The tensions
between Iran and Israel have escalated markedly inrecent years as Iranhas reachedfurther into the Arab
world.The two arenowengagedinawar of attrition, in Syria and in cyberspace. Butthe scramble for the
Middle East is not just about Iran. Turkey’s current regional posture—extending into Iraq, Lebanon,
Syria, and the Horn of Africa while staunchlydefendingQatar andthe Tripoli governmentinLibya’s civilwar
— is indirect conflictwithpoliciespursued by Saudi Arabia,the UAE, and Egypt. This all suggests
thatthedriving force inthe MiddleEastisno longer ideology or religionbut old-fashionedrealpolitik. If Israel
boosts the Saudi-Emirati position, those countries that feel threatened by it, such as Qatar or Oman, can
be expected to rely on Iran and Turkey for protection. But if the Israeli-Arab alignment gives Iran and
Turkey reason to make common cause, Ankara’s aggressive posture intheCaucasus and Iraq could
become a worry for Tehran.

Turkey’smilitary supportforAzerbaijan nowalignswithIsrael’s supportforBaku,

andIran,SaudiArabia,andtheUAEhave found themselves in agreement worrying about the implications of
Turkey’s successful maneuver in that conflict. As these overlapping rivalries crisscross the region,
competitions are likely tobecomemoreunpredictable,aswillthe patternoftactical alliances.Inturn,that
mightinvitemeddlingby Russia,which has already proved adept at exploiting the region’s fissures to its
advantage. China,too, may follow suit. The United States thinks of China in terms of the Pacific, butthe
Middle East abuts China’s western frontier, and it is through that gateway thatBeijingwill pursue its
vision for aEurasian zone ofinfluence. The Biden administration could play a key role in reducing
tensions by encouraging regional dialogue and— when possible—use its influence to end conflicts and
repair relations. Although relations with Turkey have frayed, it remains a NATO ally. Washington should
focus on improving ties between not just Israel and Turkey but also among Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and the
UAE—and that means pushing Riyadh and Abu Dhabi to truly mend ties with Qatar. The Gulf rivals have
declared a truce, but fundamental issues that divided them persist, and unless those are fully
resolved,their differences could cause another breach. Iran is a harder problem. U.S. officials will have to
first contend with the future of the nuclear deal, but sooner rather than later Tehran and Washington
will have to talk aboutIran’s expansionist push in the broader region and its ballistic missiles. Ultimately
reining inIran’s proxies and limiting itsmissiles can be achieved through regional arms control and
building a regional security architecture. The United States should facilitate and supportthat process, but
regional actors have to embrace it. Whether the Middle East’s future is peaceful hinges on what course
the United States follows. If the Biden administration wants to avoid endless U.S. engagements in the
region, it must counterintuitively invest more time and diplomatic resources there now. It has to start by
taking a broader view of regional dynamics and making the lessening of new regional power rivalries its
priority.