Historically speaking, the countries that make up the WANA, or West Asia and North Africa, have been embroiled in regional turmoil for decades. During the latter half of the 20th century, it was a proxy war battlefield for the Western and the Eastern Blocs. In the late 90s and the early 21st century, this region saw significant conflict over Western efforts to control the crude oil production in the Middle East, which also gave rise to a deep resentment of Western powers and wide-spread insurgency. The USA has military bases in multiple countries in the Middle East to spearhead their plans of destroying insurgency and guerrilla warfare. Apart from this, there is a civil war raging in Yemen, exacerbated by the involvement of multiple key players in the Middle East, and backed by Western interests. The Israelis and the Palestinians are caught up in a decades-long conflict over control of territory, especially the West Bank.
IMPORTANCE OF THIS REGION
The countries that make up this region are – Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Oman, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Tunisia, Turkey, United Arab Emirates and Yemen. From a geopolitical point of view, the Middle East is a region of significant political and strategic importance. Especially so, when some major countries like the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Iran help shape so much of the region’s politics. This region occupies an important position in terms of international relations due its proximity to South Asia, China, Central Asia, Europe, and Africa. From a religious and historic point of view, it is a place of origin for the Abrahamic religions. From a trade point of view, the Middle East is home to large quantities of energy resources and trade routes that link to different parts of the world. It is the world largest oil-producing region accounting for 34% of world production, 45% of crude oil exports and 48% of oil proven reserves. All powers seek a stake in the affairs of the region due to the abundance of natural resources.
THE COLD WAR
The central strategic agenda of the Soviet Union was neutralizing the American strategic advantage in this region, and assuming a position of increased strategic strength through establishing naval and military bases. The Soviet-led invasion of Afghanistan directly caused the emergence of groups like the Mujahideen. The USSR entered Afghanistan in 1979, attempting to shore up the newly-established pro-Soviet regime in Kabul. In short order, nearly 100,000 Soviet soldiers took control of major cities and highways. Rebellion was swift and broad, and the Soviets dealt harshly with the Mujahideen rebels and those who supported them, leveling entire villages to deny safe havens to their enemy. Foreign support propped up the diverse group of rebels, pouring in from Iran, Pakistan, China, and the United States. In the brutal nine-year conflict, an estimated one million civilians were killed, as well as 90,000 Mujahideen fighters, 18,000 Afghan troops, and 14,500 Soviet soldiers. Civil war raged after the withdrawal, setting the stage for the Taliban’s takeover of the country in 1996.
Afghans wait outside the Kabul central Pulicharkhi prison on January 14, 1980, days after the Moscow-installed regime of Babrak Karmal took over.
THE CIVIL WAR IN YEMEN
In 2010, an uprising took place in Tunisia, which then spread to other Arab states. This uprising started when people got tired of oppressive regimes, poor living conditions and lack of basic necessary resources. A series of uprisings, protests against governments and armed rebellions broke out across multiple countries, which came to be referred to as the Arab Spring. Heads of State in Egypt, Libya and Yemen were deposed. When Ali Abdullah Saleh, the authoritarian president of Yemen got deposed as a result of the Arab Spring, power went to his deputy Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi in 2011.
The Hadi government failed to set up an efficient interim government, having to deal with insurgent attacks by jihadists, separatists and Saleh loyalists, corruption and poverty. It was around this time that support for the Houthi Movement began to rise in Yemen. The Houthi Movement, also known as the Ansar Allah, was an armed political movement that started in the 1990s in northern Yemen who claimed to fight for the Zaidi Shia minority. The Houthi rebels managed to capture the largest city in Yemen – the national capital Sana’a. Rebel forces infiltrated and captured Sana’a in the Battle of Sana’a in 2014. This battle lasted for 5 days, from 16-21 September, 2014. It ended with the Houthi forces capturing the government headquarters on 21 September, and the consequent fall of Sana’a. The Houthi group dissolved the Parliament and declared an interim revolutionary government led by Mohammed Ali al-Houthi. President Hadi retreated to the city of Aden. When the Houthi forces started expanding their sphere of control, they caught up to President Hadi, who then fled to Riyadh (Saudi Arabia) in March, 2015 to evade Houthi forces and seek asylum.
On 26 March, 2015, a group of countries led by Saudi Arabia announced that they had commenced military operations against Houthi forces in Yemen. Countries like UAE, Qatar, Egypt and Morocco, among other countries, were part of this coalition. This group carried out multiple airstrikes, shelling and ground attacks throughout the country against the Houthis, leading to countless deaths among both Houthis and civilians. The war has cost thousands of lives, and even led to a major cholera outbreak with about 2.2 million suspected cases. Almost 20 million Yemeni citizens do not have access to adequate health-care and 18 million have no access to proper sanitation and drinking water. Millions of people have been displaced from their homes, almost 2 million children suffer from acute malnutrition. Yemen has 3500 medical facilities, but only half are at full-functioning capacity now. This civil war has been raging on for almost 5 years now with no end in sight.
THE ISRAEL-PALESTINE CONFLICT
The Israeli–Palestinian conflict is the ongoing struggle between Israelis and Palestinians that began in the mid-20th century. Various attempts have been made to resolve the conflict as part of the Israeli–Palestinian peace process. The origins to the conflict can be traced back to Jewish immigration and sectarian conflict in Mandatory Palestine between Jews and Arabs. It has been referred to as the world’s “most intractable conflict,” with the ongoing Israeli occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip reaching 53 years.
After the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, the Holy Land was divided into three parts: the State of Israel, the West Bank (of the Jordan River), and the Gaza Strip. Successive wars resulted in minor shifts of territory until the Yom Kippur War in October 1973, when Egypt and Syria launched a surprise attack on Israel because of Israel’s occupation of the Sinai Peninsula and the Golan Heights. The conflict was calmed by the Camp David Accords in 1979, which bound Egypt and Israel in a peace treaty.
Yet once the wars over territory were over, a surge in violence and uprisings among the Palestinians began. The first intifadah, in 1987, was an uprising comprising hundreds of thousands of Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The 1993 Oslo Accords mediated the conflict, setting up a framework for the Palestinians to govern themselves and establish relations between the newly established Palestinian Authority and Israel’s government. In 2000, inspired by continuing Palestinian grievances, the second intifadah began and was much bloodier than the first. In 2013, the United States attempted to revive the peace process between the Israeli government and the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank. However, peace talks were disrupted when the Fatah—the Palestinian Authority’s ruling party—formed a unity government with its rival faction, Hamas, in 2014. After a wave of violence between Israelis and Palestinians in 2015, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas announced that Palestinians would no longer be bound by the Oslo Accords. The rivals’ reconciliation process has proceeded haltingly since, with the two signing an additional agreement in October 2017.
Since taking office, the Donald J. Trump administration has made achieving an Israeli-Palestinian deal a priority, but has yet to release its long-awaited proposal for a peace process. Trump’s decision to relocate the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem, reversing longstanding U.S. policy, was met with applause among the Israeli leadership but condemned by Palestinian leaders and others in the Middle East and Europe. Israel considers the “complete and united Jerusalem” its capital, but Palestinians claim East Jerusalem for the capital of their future state. Recently, the Abraham Accord between Israel and the UAE, which is a peace treaty between these two nations, came to be. One of the crucial guidelines of this treaty is to immediately cease Israeli annexation of the West Bank and stop all hostilities against Palestinian citizens. If this treaty is enforced successfully, it could usher in a new age of peace and prosperity in this region.
THE ISLAMIC STATE OF IRAQ AND THE LEVANT (ISIS/ISIL)
The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant is a militant group and a former unrecognized proto-state that follows a fundamentalist, Salafi Jihadist doctrine of Sunni Islam. ISIL gained global prominence in early 2014 when it drove Iraqi government forces out of key cities in its Western Iraq offensive, followed by its capture of Mosul and the Sinjar massacre.The group has been designated a terrorist organization by the United Nations. ISIL is known for its videos of beheadings and other types of executions of both soldiers and civilians, including journalists and aid workers, and its destruction of cultural heritage sites. The United Nations holds ISIL responsible for committing human rights abuses, genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. ISIL also committed ethnic cleansing on an unprecedented scale in northern Iraq.
In Syria, the group conducted ground attacks on both government forces and opposition factions, and by December 2015, it held an area extending from western Iraq to eastern Syria, containing an estimated 8 to 12 million people, where it enforced its interpretation of sharia law. ISIL is believed to be operational in 18 countries, including Afghanistan and Pakistan, with aspiring branches in Mali, Egypt, Somalia, Bangladesh, Indonesia, and the Philippines. In 2015, ISIL was estimated to have an annual budget of more than US$1 billion and a force of more than 30,000 fighters.
ISIL originated in 1999, which pledged allegiance to al-Qaeda and participated in the Iraqi insurgency following the 2003 invasion of Iraq by Western forces at the behest of the United States. In June 2014, the group proclaimed itself a worldwide caliphate and began referring to itself as the Islamic State. As a caliphate, it claimed religious, political, and military authority over all Muslims worldwide. Its adoption of the name Islamic State and its idea of a caliphate have been criticized, with the United Nations, various governments, and mainstream Muslim groups vehemently rejecting its statehood.
The U.N. Counter-terrorism chief’s statement to the Security Council on the continuing presence of the Islamic State (IS) terrorists in West Asia, Africa and elsewhere should be seen as a serious warning by the countries in these regions. Two years after the Sunni Jihadist group was declared defeated, more than 10,000 IS fighters remain active in Iraq and Syria. IS-driven terror attacks are on the rise. Besides these two countries, where the IS had established a proto-state in 2014 destroyed by multilateral war efforts that lasted four years — the terror outfit has a “province” in West Africa with nearly 3,000 fighters, according to the UN. In war-torn Afghanistan, it continues to stage attacks, targeting ethnic and religious minorities. The IS may no longer control any big city, but its rise from a breakaway faction of al-Qaeda in Iraq to one of the world’s most potent terrorist groups should be a lesson for all stakeholders. Ever since they lost territories, IS fighters withdrew from the front lines and started operating in cells in the deserts, mountains and hinterlands of conflict-ridden countries.
Iraq and Syria are particularly vulnerable to the ISIS’s resurgence as these countries are yet to be fully stabilised after the wars. In Syria, the Bashar al-Assad government has practically won the civil war. But Syria is now a divided country. While the government controls most of the territories, a coalition of jihadists and rebels is running the Idlib province. In the northeast, the Kurdish rebels have declared autonomy. On the Syrian-Turkish border, Turkey, backed by pro-Turkish rebels, has carved out a buffer and has been in permanent conflict with the Kurds. Though there is an uneasy quiet in Syria, the situation is inflammable. If wide scale conflict breaks out again, it could tip the scales again, sending the country into yet another war.
THE CURRENT GEOPOLITICAL SCENARIO OF THE WANA REGION
Political upheaval will characterize the next five years in the Middle East and North Africa, as populations demand more from entrenched elites and civil and proxy wars are likely to continue in a number of failed states. Contests among religious and political forces are likely as low energy prices weaken institutions. Such contests are likely to include security competition among Iran, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Israel, and perhaps Egypt, and could involve China, Russia, and the United States. The endemic leadership and elite disconnect from the masses will almost certainly persist for many countries in the region through the period. Socioeconomic and popular challenges will worsen and tension rooted in the region’s legacies of authoritarian rule, repression, and dependency could stoke calls by sub-national groups, particularly the Kurds, for greater representation.
The central challenge for the region is to boost growth and create political conditions and economic opportunities to engage its young working-age residents. If this is not done in ways that recognize the potential of people and are consistent with traditional beliefs, however, the absence of justice and respect will continue to foster despair and maltreatment of others. In extreme cases, the absence of dignity can contribute to religious radicalization, often in tandem with the rise of secularism, which the Arab world experiences through globalization, Western foreign policies, and social media that conservative religious believers find offensive.
IN CONCLUSION…
Marred by decades of conflict and ideological rifts in politics and religion, the WANA region is also home to centuries of rich history and culture. The vast natural gas and crude oil resources here have been a source of contention for a long time now, with Western powers vying to gain a permanent foothold and secure their investments. The difference in ideology between the Shia and the Sunni Muslim populations has caused a lot of bloodshed, leading to destruction of countless homes and families, and hundreds of thousands of deaths. Millions of people live below the poverty line with little to no resources, almost no access to proper healthcare, sanitation and drinking water. Yet countries like Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, to name but a few, are thriving on the strength of their natural resources and economic and military support from the West. There are countless insurgent groups operating in this area with almost absolute impunity, preying on civilians and anyone who rejects their twisted ideals.
The region’s troubles are unlikely to be contained, ensuring that growing humanitarian crises and civilian victimization will continue to undermine international conflict and human rights norms. Heavy touting of these norms by the West without sufficient backing or material support further weakens the West in the eyes of Arab publics. Perceptions in the region’s capitals that the United States is not a reliable partner—whether due to the US pivot to Asia or Washington’s decision not to support Mubarak and other Arab incumbents in 2011—has opened the door to geopolitical competition with Russia and possibly China and to hedging by Arab states regarding commitments to Washington. Amid persistent conflict, refugee flows will persist—although some may be forced to seek destinations other than increasingly inhospitable Europe.
