Musings on Conflict in The Middle East

The Middle East is - to Western eyes - a perplexing place. It is seemingly in a state of perpetual war, with periodic outbreaks of peacefulness to disturb the normal pattern.

Superficially, the nations of the Middle East appear to suffer from the imposition of a Western European notion of "the nation state" in the post-WWI era. When the borders were drawn up by the European powers after WWI ended, entire nations were created without regard to the natural divisions between regions that had emerged. Iraq, it turns out, is an excellent case study - with three major ethnic groups slammed together into a single "nation", but they perceive themselves as having very distinct traditions and contexts socially and culturally.

In today's era, we find "negotiations" taking place between the various "heads of state", but they seldom seem to come to any lasting peace. Well, perhaps that's a little more comprehensible when we recognize that the combatant factions do not recognize the heads of state as representative of their interests.

For example, I think that the Kurdish peoples in northern Iraq would have argued that the Baghdad government under Saddam Hussein was not "their legitimate government" for a variety of reasons.

Some of Israel's opponents - groups like Hezbollah for example - are both military and political organizations that are the de facto government in some regions. They not only control a geographic region, but go as far, in some cases, as to provide traditional government services such as education, welfare, police etc. (I'm not making any qualitative assessment of their behaviour in this regard, merely the fact of its existance). Meanwhile, the "negotiation" process ignores this reality, focusing instead upon "official" leaders that have little or no real influence.

For a world that depends upon the hydrocarbon resources lying under the soils of much of the "Middle East", this presents a serious conundrum. Not only are negotiations with the "governments" of the region somewhat suspect, but negotiating with groups like Hamas or Hezbollah grants them a political legitimacy that we would prefer not to grant them. Yet, failing to recognize the political realities on the ground in these areas simply continues the current pattern of tit-for-tat conflict.

I do not know what solutions might apply to this mess - at the very least, I fully expect that the region will remain a quagmire of conflict until the political borders begin to reflect whatever remains of the "traditional" tribal/ethnic history of the people that live there. The current presence of groups like Hamas is a reflection - in part - of the fact that the current borders and political artifices have rendered significant voices in the region impotent in the political dialogue of the region.

In practical terms, I suspect that traditional "western" powers will ultimately find themselves irrelevant to the political dialogue. I suspect the most practical model in the short term is the approach that Baghdad had been taking with the Kurdish region of Northern Iraq - namely that of allowing the region to develop autonomy in a relatively quiet fashion. It may have been imperfect, but it is notable that Kurdish Iraq has been far more prosperous and peaceful than much of the rest of the country. A clue perhaps?