Three key elements will drive Middle Eastern geopolitics in the next years, continuing domestic and regional political upheaval in the Muslim world, the United States’ status as a superpower and the demand for energy (oil). What the region will look like in the next 10 years will depend on the way current situations develop—most notably, the outcome of the U.S.-jihadist war and the state of technology with respect to fuel and energy.The U.S.-jihadist war will end in favor of the United States. Al Qaeda, hit hard by U.S. military and intelligence offensives, will be unable to sustain major operations in the Western world. As a result, it will settle down inside its own core sphere of operations—the Middle East and Southwest Asia— and pursue more modest objectives.
If al Qaeda attacks on U.S. soil again, it is unlikely to be on the scale of Sept. 11 -- both in terms of grand geostrategic implications and the physical impact. That said, there is always the wild-card scenario of an attack involving weapons of mass destruction, i.e., nuclear weapons, somewhere inside the United States or overseas, which has the potential of altering the global geostrategic calculus - with respect to both transnational non-state jihadist actors and “rogue” states.
The other key development for the Middle East will be the emergence of a Shiite-dominated Iraqi state - one in which Iran will wield significant influence. This will allow Tehran to emerge as a dominant player in the Persian Gulf and Middle East -and, as a result, in the broader Muslim world.
The United States and Iran are engaged in a complex chess game over Iraq. On one hand, the Bush administration wants to secure Iranian cooperation regarding the Iraqi Shia support of U.S. objectives in the country, while ensuring the Iranians are incapable of using this interaction to reach their goal of dominating Iraq.
Tehran wants to avoid war now, but it also wants to eventually dominate Iraq (and the region), whereas Washington wants to rebalance the power between Iran and Iraq. The United States wants to ensure the relationship between Iran and Iraq is not based on pan-Shiite loyalty but is characterized by the Persian-Arab divide, and that the Iraqi Shia view their Iranian counterparts as a permanent threat.
The Iraqi Shia understand that if they choose to align with Iran, they will be caught in an intense struggle between Iran and the mostly Sunni Arab Middle East. This is because, if the Shia dominate Iraq and align with Iran, the Arabian Peninsula will lose the buffer zone that keeps the Iranian military from overrunning its oil fields.
The Shia in the Iranian-Iraqi arena - especially in the state of Iran - are at a historic juncture, with an unprecedented opportunity to establish an Iranian-led Shiite powerhouse state and upset the balance of power in the region. The question is whether they actually will take the opportunity.
The least likely scenario is a united Iraq dominated by pro-Iranian Shia, since this would destroy the region’s balance of power. If the Shia take hold of the Arabian oil fields, they will become the region’s economic and political powerhouse. The likelihood of enormous arrestors stopping this process is very high. Iranians realize they will lose in the end, given the Sunni domination in the region and beyond.
Though the historic opportunity for Iran remains huge, Tehran will not want to make a high-risk move, since it plays chess several moves out and its foreign policy has been singularly cautious. So not only do the Iraqi Shia not see it in their best interests to align with Iran, the Iranians are not willing to risk their current position; therefore, the Iraq-Iran balance of power in the region probably will be unaltered.
Iraq’s Shiite-dominated government will still face threats and attacks by Sunni guerrillas and al Qaeda. If Shia take office and remain as passive as they have been thus far, they could succumb to the assault. There are indications that the Shia expect the U.S. military to protect them, but Washington will help only if the Shia take action as well and not align themselves with Iran.
As the U.S.-jihadist war winds down, an intra-Islamic struggle in the Muslim world will begin to take shape. This conflict will pit Islamists against non-Islamists and will alter the nature of U.S. involvement in Muslim states from military action to political engagement, where Washington will—on a case-by-case basis - negotiate with Islamist forces. This trend already is under way - most visibly in Iraq, where Washington has been working with the country’s Islamist-leaning Shia.
Thus far, we have seen three different Islamist trends: moderate, radical and militant (jihadist). Sept. 11 and its aftermath, though representative of the unleashing of militant Islamism, also has caused the militant movement to weaken, given the U.S. response to the attacks. In the next years, jihadism will be relegated to the status of a low- to medium-intensity phenomenon, active for the most part within the Muslim world. Iraq and Saudi Arabia will remain as the epicenters of jihadist activity in the Middle East.
The last four years also has led to the Muslim world’s significant radicalization along religious lines. This has boosted several radical (non-militant) Islamist groups, which have been able to leverage societies’ religious currents to advance themselves. Though they have remained secure from much of the destruction that has befallen their militant counterparts, the radicals - given their dogmatic predisposition - are unable to provide the masses with more than an outlet for protest.
Here is where moderate Islamist groups increasingly will come into play, providing an expression for socioeconomic frustrations and a forum for identity politics. Moderate Islamist groups will make significant political gains in many Middle Eastern and Muslim states in the coming decade, as the establishments buckle under pressure from calls for change from within and without. That said, there are other non-Islamist political forces that will compete with the rise of moderate Islamists.
This will bring about a struggle over the question of moderate Islam. Since the Sept. 11 attacks, there has been an upsurge in the global discourse involving moderate Muslims and moderate Islam. This issue is complicated not only by the U.S.-led West’s attempts to seek out the moderates in the Islamic world but also by the diverse set of groups in Muslim states who claim to be the upholders of moderate Islam. What is curious in all of this is not the Western demand for moderation but the ample Muslim supply of moderation.
There are at least four different types of Muslims who advance themselves as the adherents of moderate Islam. They are moderate Islamists, traditional Muslims, liberal Muslims and certain moderate Islamic regimes. An intense struggle will take place over ownership of moderate and authentic Islam in the course of the next decade.
Another significant consequence of the U.S.-jihadist clash is that social and political space has opened up. This will lead to the decline of key authoritarian regimes in the Muslim world. The decline will not necessarily lead to the ouster of current ruling elites, but before the decade is out a situation will emerge in which they no longer enjoy a monopoly on authority and will have to co-opt disenfranchised but influential cross-sections of society. In this regard, pending leadership transitions in Egypt, Syria and Saudi Arabia will be major events.
Egypt and other North African countries -while economically moving toward the West because of geography, natural resources and more advanced populations - will make such moves to include members of Islamist parties in the power structure. These Islamists might not bear the names of the groups they support (i.e., Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood [MB] or its counterpart moderate Islamist groups in other North African states), but they will bring their ideas to the table and make Islam a more visible fixture in the region’s governments.
Algeria is in an advanced stage of this process. Because the country has already seen a civil war, it understands the threat of an Islamist current running through the country and has decided to deal with each group in a different manner. The government has fought the militant groups tooth and nail, but dealing with the Islamic Salvation Front has come to be recognized as a way to appease calls for Islam within the government while maintaining power. Algeria will be the first North African state to openly try this balancing act, since there are broad-based calls for such a move and Islamist leaders who have come into the government’s “good graces.”
In Egypt, the process will take longer, since the government has not reached the point at which it trusts the Muslim Brotherhood. However, Cairo realizes the coming leadership of the MB - more of an Islamist movement than a party -will be able to control some of the Islamist currents in the country and not just inside the government. The MB’s “old guard” is still in power, however, slowing the process. Over the next decade, as “post-Islamist” leaders emerge inside the MB, the movement will gain momentum while Egypt’s long-standing regime is forced to bring Islam into the government.
Elsewhere in the region, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will remain a non-strategic issue. However, the emergence of a Palestinian state -which will be under strict Israeli oversight - is a major event likely to take place toward the middle of the next decade.
Additionally, rising demands for energy coupled with the near improbability of major technological innovations regarding alternative fuel sources - at least within the coming decade - will leave the United States very much interested in the Middle East, where political instability will keep Washington occupied with the region for the better part of the next years.
nextyears.html
nextyears2.html
nextyears3.html
nextyears4.html
nextyears5.html
nextyears6.html