JANUARY - JUNE 2008 7

Redefinition of the MiddleEast: Interconflict

and Intercontinental •reg10nBosko Piculs'

Original paperUDC 327.5(5-11)

Received in February 2008

Even though it is one of the most recognisable world regions,the Middle East is not an unambiguous concept even today.

As any other world region, it is not easy to define the Middle East exactly due tothe fact that, in its case, the geographical criterion is not sufficient, and neitheris there consent on how to apply this criterion. Therefore, the need arises thatthe geographical criterion be accompanied by a criterion of conflicts, whichhave been one of the key determinants of the region for centuries, just as oilexploitation with which some of these conflicts has been closely correlated.

When it comes to conflicts, are, then, Iraq, Afghanistan, Israel andthe Palestinian Authority - the countries that have been most oftenreferred to in the media today - part of one and the same region?If the key Middle-Eastern criterion is applied, the region obtains

its clear borders. The only question is -for how long.

Keywords: the Middle East, region, conflicts, intra-conflict,United States of America, oil, terrorism.

1. Introduction

Oil and conflicts are the two concepts that willbe right away associated by many with a single worldregion. This is, of course, the Middle East, which,linked to these concepts, marks two anniversaries in2008. The first one is the centenary of the discoveryof oil, which was found in 1908 in what was thenPersia. The second one is the sixtieth anniversary ofthe State of Israel, whose establishment in 1948marked the beginning of the multi-stage Arab-Israeliconflict, which is, despite the multitude of peace ini-tiatives and agreements, still unresolved. Even thoughthe Middle East is characterised by other determi-nants, too, oil exploitation and the (non- )resolvingof conflicts remain its constant and - determinant.

. PhD Candidate at the Faculty of Political Science, University ofZagreb

And while the end of the Cold War was markedby the fall of the Berlin Wall on 9 November 1989,the beginning ofthe American war against terrorismwas marked by the wrecking of the World TradeCenter towers in New York on 11 September 2001.Almost symbolically, twelve years of internationalrelations, which most often received the determinant"the New World Order", went by between 1119 (9November 1989) and 9/11 (11 September 2001). Thisdeterminant was launched by the ex-president of theUnited States of America, George Bush Sr., in orderto define new relations among countries after the endof the Cold War political and ideological oppositions.According to him, this term included the rule of lawand peaceful resolution of conflicts, acceptance ofdemocratic standards and solidarity against aggres-sion, decrease in, and control over, conventional andnon-conventional weapons, strengthening of the role

8 CROATIAN INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS REVIEW

of international organisations led by the UN, and uni-versal observance of human rights.

With the terrorist attacks on New York andWashington in 200 I, for which the American gov-ernment accused AI-Qaida, their leader Osama bin-Laden and the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, theidea of a New World Order became a thing of thepast, which was, in the US international politicalstrategy, replaced by preventive attacks on countrieswhich have sponsored terrorism and/or developedweapons of mass destruction (WMD). With the firstjustification, the USA attacked Afghanistan in Oc-tober 2001, and with the second, they attacked Iraqin March 2003. After a relatively short military re-sistance, the US armed forces, together with theirallies, overthrew the existing regimes and have main-tained their military presence in both countries up tothe present.

On the other hand, in September 2000 the sec-ond Intifada of the Palestinian population at the WestBank and in Gaza Strip, the parts of the PalestinianAuthority since 1994 as a tentative solution towardsthe establishment of a sovereign and independent Pal-estinian State, began. In this way, all neuralgic pointsof the Middle East conflicts were activated, from theIsraeli-Palestinian conflict, through the civil war andforeign military intervention in Afghanistan, to anidentical development in Iraq. At the same time, allthree conflicts were sought to be resolved by hold-ing democratic elections. The topical examples ofAfghanistan, Iraq and the Palestinian Authority con-firm that elections, which, in a substantial sense, meetthe important functions of competitive elections fromassociating political institutions with voters' prefer-ences to the political elite recruitment, can be or-ganised even within the conflicts themselves. Intra-conflict elections are the latest concept even withinelectoral studies and within international relations,in view of the role of international political actorsand the international community in their preparationand implementation.

The intra-conflict elections has been held in aregion which has been intra-conflict for decades. Thelast escalation of conflicts in the Middle East againcalled for the need to analyze their causes and im-pacts, in a new geopolitical context. However, theneed to (re)defIne the concept of the region itselfhas also appeared, since compared to other worldregions, there is no agreement on its exact borders.Does not it mean that, besides the geographical andhistorical criteria at least one more criterion shouldbe introduced in determining the Middle East, i.e.the conflicts. I

2. The Concept:Eurocentric or Intercontinental?

Even though it is a case of a region with afirm historical and political identity, the Middle Eastdoes not have unambiguously accepted geographi-cal borders. For analysts, what is at issue is not itsintercontinental core in Southwest Asia and NorthAfrica? but its radius, that is, to which final points inAsia and Africa the Middle East reaches. Besides,the concept itselfin all its linguistic varieties is com-paratively recent, though some of the most ancientcivilisations developed in the area of today's Mid-dle East. The English concept Middle East, which inits meaning, but not in the literal translation, corre-sponds to the Croatian concept Blish istok (NearEast), began to be used in mid-l S'" century, and gotits present meaning in the early 20th century.

This meaning was given to it by the Americanstrategist and naval officer Alfred Thayer Mahan(1840-1914), who used it to describe the area aroundthe Persian Gulf as a region of an exceptionalgeostrategic significance, particularly in the contextof the then British and Russian rivalry. He used it inthis sense in its paper The Persian Gulf and Interna-tional Relations, published in 1902 in the Britishjournal National Review. The concept became widelyused after the British publicist and diplomat SirIgnatius Valentine Chirol (1852-1929), used it whileworking on his book on the Middle East based on aseries of newspaper articles published in the dailyThe Times, whose correspondent he was at the time.He extended the Middle East to the western Indianborders, while in the English language another termwas used for the area of the Balkans and the Otto-man Empire - the Near East. The concept was dis-continued with the end of the World War I and thecollapse of the Ottoman Empire. A shift "from theEast to the West" of a kind occurred between thetwo World Wars, when the interpretation of the Mid-dle East as the area stretching from Mesopotamia toBurma, i.e. the Middle Asia, was discontinued in theEnglish language, and its definition as a regionwhich, to the West, starts from Egypt, took root.

In the Croatian language, even today, there isa duality of the use of the concepts Blish istok (NearEast) and Srednji istok (Middle East), but the literaltranslation of the English term has ultimately givenway to the term Bliski istok (Near East). This differ-ence between the Croatian and English terms is notsurprising if we are aware that in both cases the re-gion in question is defined in relation to the geo-graphical location of interpreters, where this region

JANUARY - JUNE 2008 9

is literally "near" (cro. bliski) East to Croatia andother countries in Southeast Europe.

Most disputes are caused by the Eurocentricdefinition of the Middle East, no matter whether it iscalled "near" or "middle" in particular European lan-guages.' In other words, the concept has a geographi-cal meaning only from a European perspective. How-ever, it is the European colonial powers, led by theUnited Kingdom and France after the World War I,and the United States of America after the WorldWar II, who crucially determined the political andeconomic developments in the Middle East, and it istherefore understandable that in international com-munication predominated by the English languagethe concept from their perspective has been accepted.This does not, of course, prevent particular coun-tries in this area from defining and calling the regionin accordance with their linguistic and historical tra-dition, and the linguistic equivalents to the MiddleEast exist even in Arabic and other languages spo-ken in the region.

The concept which partially overlaps with theMiddle East is the Levant (following the Italian wordlevante meaning the East), and it has been applied tothe group of countries in the Eastern Mediterranean:Greece, Cyprus, Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, Israel withthe Palestinian Authority, Jordan and Egypt. Origi-nally, these are countries "in which the Sun rises(comes up)." The Levant has a historical meaningand is today rarely used to denote the region to whichit has been applied.

3. Old Conflicts, New Definition

Along with the linguistic one, another key is-sue regarding the Middle East is a geographical one,i.e. which countries are included in the region of theMiddle East. There is no unequivocal position onthis issue, not even on whether it is a question ofexclusively one part of the West Asia or whether weare talking about a broad intercontinental regionwhich encompasses smaller or larger parts of Africaand Asia. An agreement has been reached concern-ing the core of the Middle East. It is thus made up ofIsrael with the Palestinian Authority, then of thecountries of the so-called Fertile Crescent - Jordan,Lebanon, Syria and Iraq, the countries in the Arabpeninsula - Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Kuwait, Oman,United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Qatar, and Egypt,which has been included in the region even by theopponents of the extension of the concept onto Af-rica, because it belongs to the Asian continent with

its north-eastern part - the Sinai peninsula. Exceptfor Israel, all the above-mentioned countries have amajority of Arabic population, and the ethnic crite-rion is one of the criteria used in defining the region,while the other criterion is the religious one, because,the majority of the population in all the listed coun-tries, except for Israel, is Muslim. The first and thesecond criterion, according to some analysts, qualifyas part ofthe region even the countries in North Af-rica west of Egypt - Libya, Tunisia, Algeria andMorocco, while the second criterion includes Iran,which thus becomes the most heavily populatedcountry of the region, although its population is notArabic."

According to the religious criterion and thegeographical location, Turkey could also be includedin the region, but this has been done only by sometheorists of the Middle East.' In doing so, the inclu-sion of Turkey as the most northerly country of theregion is not unequivocal. Some theorists favouringTurkey's belonging to the region define the MiddleEast extensively and thus add up to it even Sudan inthe south and Afghanistan and Pakistan in the east,while others do not include Turkey with other coun-tries on which there is no unanimous position in theirconcept of the Middle East. For them, Turkey is anintegral part of the region not only because of itslocation and religion, but also because of the his-torical legacy of the Ottoman Empire, which haslargely defined the region, as well as due to the Kurdissue being one of the key political issues of theMiddle East, which, by its nature, keeps causing con-flicts in Iraq, Iran and Turkey itself. On the otherhand, the majority of analysts do not consider Tur-key a part of the Middle East, despite the historicaldeterminants and the fact that Turkey has its longestunbroken land border with three countries from theregion - Syria, Iraq and Iran. In this view, Turkey isan Eurasian country which is, by its European part,more connected to Southeast Europe than to theMiddle East by its Asian part. Besides, in politicalsense, Turkey aspires to the full membership in theEuropean Union (alongside the existing ATO mem-bership), by which it legitimates itself as a countrycommitted to Euro-Atlantic integration even at theinternational level. This, of course, does not excludean analysis of Turkey's influence on the develop-ments in the Middle East, particularly in the contextof the topical conflict in Iraq and the retroactive ef-fect of the Kurd entity in Iraq on Turkey.

Finally, there remains the question of the east-ern border of the Middle East. Considering the factthat in the majority of theoretical approaches to the

Table 1 Countries of the Middle East as an intra-conflict and intercontinental region *

Country Subregion Area(kr02) Population GDP Per capita Governrnent~e Regional Conflicts (1948-today)(2008 est.)

Afghanistan Iranian plateau 647,500 32,738,376 $ 1,000 Islamic Yes:Civil Wars (1979-1989, 1992-today),(South Asia) (2007 est.) presidential republic Gulf War (1990/91),

US led military intervention (2001-today)

Bahrain Arabian Peninsula 665 718,306 note: $33,900 Constitutional Yes:GulfWar (1990/91)includes 235,108 (2007 est.) monarchynon-nationals

Egypt North Africa 1,001,450 81,713,520 $5,000 Semi-presidential Yes:Arab-Israeli Wars (1948, 1956, 1967,(2007 est.) republic 1969170, 1973),

Gulf War (1990/91)

Iran Iranian plateau 1,648,000 65,875,224 $11,700 Islamic (theocratic) Yes.Iran-Iraq War (1980-1988)(South Asia) (2007 est.) republic

Iraq Fertile Crescent 437,072 28,221,180 $3,700 Parliamentary republic Yes:Arab -Israeli Wars(1948),(2007 est.) Iran-Iraq War (1980-1988),

Gulf War (1990/91),US led military intervention (2003-today)

Israel Fertile Crescent 20,770 7,112,359 note: $26,600 Parliamentary republic Yes:Arab -Israeli Wars(1948, 1956, 1967,(The Levant) ine!. Israeli settlers in (2007 est.) 1969170, 1973),

the West Bank, Golan I- . Military intervention in Lebanon(1982,2006)and East Jerusalem Israeli-Palestinian conflict (1948-today)

Jordan Fertile Crescent 92,300 6,198,677 $4,700 Constitutional monarchy Yes:Arab - Israeli Wars(1948, 1956, 1967),(The Levant) (2007 est.) Black September (1970)

Kuwait Arabian Peninsula 17,820 2,596,799 note: $55,900 Constitutional emirate Yes: Iraqi Occupation (1990/91)includes 1,291,354 (2007 est.)non-nationals

Lebanon Fertile Crescent 10,400 3,971,941 $10,300 Parliamentary republic Yes:Civil War(1975-1990)(The Levant) (2007 est.) Lebanon War (2006)

* Source: The World Factbook, United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), 23 October 2008. (www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbookL)

•••o

Table 1 Countries of the Middle East as an intra-conflict and intercontinental region *

Country Subregion Area(km2) Population GDP Per capita Government type Regional Conflicts (1948-today)(2008 est.)

Oman Arabian Peninsula 212,460 3,311 ,640 note: $19,000 Monarchy Yes:GulfWar (1990/91)includes 577,293 (2007 est.)non-nationals

Pakistan Iranian plateau 803,940 172,800,048 $2,400 Federal Yes:GulfWar (1990/91),(South Asia) (2007 est.) parliamentary republic Conflict in the tribal areas adjacent to the

border with Afghanistan(200 l-today)

Palestinian Fertile Crescent 6,220 inc!' 3,907,883 $1,100 Transitional form of Yes.Israeli-Palestinian conflict (1948-today),NationalAuthority (The Levant) as a means of (2006 est.) Palestinian self-rule First Intifada (1987-1993)

depicting the with elements of Second Intifada(2000-today)entire area occ semi-presidential republicupied by Israelin 1967

Qatar Arabian Peninsula 11,437 824,789 $87,600 Emirate Yes:GulfWar (1990/91)(2007 est.)

Saudi Arabia Arabian Peninsula 2,149,690 28,146,656 note: $19,800 Monarchy Yes:GulfWar (1990/91)includes 5,576,076 (2007 est.)non-nationals

Syria Fertile Crescent 185,180 19,747,586 note: $4,700 Semi-presidential republic Yes:Arab-Israeli Wars (1948,1956,1967, 197 )(The Levant) in addition, about 40,0 o (2007 est.) Military intervention in Lebanon (1976-2005)

people live in the Gulf War (1990/91)Israeli-occupiedGolan Heights

United Arab Arabian Peninsula 83,600 4,621,399 $37,000 Federation with specified Yes:Gulf War (1990/91)Emirates (2007 est.) powers delegated to the

UAE federal governmentand other powers reservedto member emirates

Yemen Arabian Peninsula 527,970 23,013,376 $2,500 Semi-presidential republic Yes:Conflict between North and(2007 est.) South Yemen (1970-1990)

* Source: The World Factbook, United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), 23 October 2008. (www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbookL)

Noo00

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Middle East Iran has been regarded its undeniablepart, dilemmas are raised by Afghanistan and Paki-stan. Like Iran, both countries have predominantlyMuslim, ethnically heterogeneous population, whichduring the last years has been increasingly linked tothe unquestionable countries of the Middle East dueto the political circumstances. This has been particu-larly facilitated by the years-long civil war in Af-ghanistan and the US military intervention againstthe local Taliban regime in 2001, as well as by usinga part ofthe Pakistani territory as an emergency front-line and logistic base of particular parties in the con-flict, which extended the conflict in the "core" Mid-dle East to Iranian eastern neighbours. While Af-ghanistan and Pakistan, in a geographical sense, donot belong to Southwest Asia, which is de facto asynonym for the Middle East" (with Egypt and Iranadded), in the geopolitical sense both countries havemore links to other countries in the region, and it is aquestion of the criteria against which they are in-cluded in, or excluded from, defining the region. Ifthe origin of the conflicts and the way of their reso-lution are accepted as a key criterion, Afghanistanand Pakistan are integral parts of the Middle Eastregion.

Considering the fact that alongside the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, still awaiting a sustainable reso-lution, and the bulk of the Middle East conflicts hastaken place in the countries of the Persian Gulf (lraq-Iran war 1980-1988, Iraqi occupation of Kuwait andthe Gulf War 1990-19917, the US military interven-tion in Iraq 2003) for almost for three solid decades,the original definition of the Middle East by AlfredThayer Mahan as a region surrounding the PersianGulf is gaining increased significance today morethan ever before. This is the reason why the regioncan be understood as a geopolitical area onboth sidesof the Gulf. In this case, the inclusion of Afghani-stan and Pakistan is beyond dispute. The conflictsmade both countries the parts of the Middle East.

4. Conflicts asa Regional Characteristic

In identifying conflicts as a key trait of theMiddle-Eastern region, it is necessary to define thetypes of conflict predominant in these areas, begin-ning with the definition of conflict itself as a spe-cific form of behaviour. Etymologically, the wordconflict comes from the Latin conflictus, meaning astriking together or friction. Theoretical approachesoffer various ways of interpreting conflicts, but al-most all of them try to identify the opposing parties,

the issues over which they clash, the dynamics ofthe conflict's development and the context in whichit occurs. To this, we must also add the use of theconcept which encompasses an analysis of the causesand effects of the conflict, its direct, indirect and in-tervening causes, as well as the correspondingbehavior patterns." The definition of conflict in so-cial sciences varies from a struggle for status in asociety to a struggle for social resources and changesin a society. However, the basic definition of con-flict relevant for its interpretation in issues of do-mestic and foreign policy starts from a situation inwhich the opposing sides use conflict behaviouragainst each other in order to realize mutually in-compatible goals and/or express mutual hostility."These three components of conflict - behaviour di-rected against the opposing party, goal incompatibil-ity and open expression of hostility - appear in vari-ous conflict theories, regardless ofthe interrelation-ships the authors put them in. For example, conflicttheorist and one of the founders of contemporarypeace studies Johan Galtung defines conflict as a tri-angle (triadic construct), the three points of whichrepresent opposing attitudes/assumptions, manifestbehaviour and contradiction in the sense of the ex-istence of goals whose realization is mutually exclu-sive. In addition, Galtung differentiates between"conflicts as hypotheses" and "manifest conflicts,"depending on whether or not they include a type ofdestructive behaviour which is manifested, beyondthe usual application of force, and evident in show-ing physical or some other type of violence towardthe other parties in the conflict. 10

Conflicts defined by incompatible politicalgoals can be divided into three groups. The first twoare intra-state and inter-state conflicts, while the thirdtype is a sort of mix between the first two: conflictsin which intra-state conflicts such as civil wars in-tertwine with inter-state conflicts, most typically for-eign military interventions. Conflicts in the MiddleEast in the last sixty years have mostly exhibited thecharacteristics of the third group. When it comes tointra-state conflicts in combination with inter-stateinterventions, such as those that currently exist inIraq, Afghanistan and the Palestinian Authority, it isimportant to determine the basis of the conflict, i.e.whether it is an ideology, in the sense of a revolu-tionary change of the existing regime, a secessionbased on different identities, or a factional separa-tion from the central government. II

Various Middle-Eastern conflicts since WorldWar II have belonged to all three subgroups of intra-state conflict, but it should be noted that they were

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usually accompanied by an inter-state conflict or atleast foreign military and political interference instates' internal issues. Another approach very use-ful in analyzing Middle-Eastern conflicts is the Pro-tracted Social Conflict (PSC) theory, developed bythe Lebanese-American author Edward Azar. Pro-tracted Social Conflicts are characterized by longduration and violent struggle between social groupsfor such basic needs as security, recognition and ac-ceptance, free access to political institutions and in-clusion in economic activities. The elements of a PSCare: 'communal content', mainly groups with a clearidentity (racial, religious, ethnic, cultural or other),the denial of basic 'human needs' and rights, thedomicile 'governance and the state's role', and 'in-ternational linkages' in the conflict. 12 All the mainMiddle-Eastern conflicts in the last six decades havecontained these elements, with certain clusters moredominant than others, but all comprising a conflictspiral which can be stopped only through simultane-ous actions within the society, by the authorities andby the international community, e.g. such as thosethat ended the civil war in Lebanon (1975-1990).Failing that, a conflict in a latent stage can becomemanifest under changed circumstances (e.g. the 1991and 2003 Gulf Wars).

The chronology of contemporary conflicts inthe Middle East and their spatial continuity are di-rectly related to events during and after World WarI, when the Ottoman Empire, which had ruled thegreater part of these areas, weakened and collapsed(in 1914 Egypt became a British protectorate, Persiawas an independent state with Russian and Britishinterest zones, Afghanistan was an area of rivalrybetween great forces, and what is today Pakistan waspart of British India). The famous British-Frenchagreement, which was drawn up in 1916 by Sir MarkSykes and Charles Francois Georges-Picot, definedthe post-war apportionment of the Middle-Easternpossessions of the Ottoman Empire to the signato-ries. The 1917 Balfour Declaration (authored by theBritish foreign secretary Arthur James Balfour), onthe other hand, showed the willingness of the UnitedKingdom to establish a national state of the Jewishpeople in Palestinian territory. The former documentwas a betrayal of the Entente Powers' Arab allies,who had believed in the founding of a pan-Arabianitate in the territory of the defeated Ottoman Em-pire, while the latter document facilitated the settle-ment of Jewish settlers in the British Mandate ofPalestine between the two world wars. Even thoughthe Sykes-Picot Agreement did not prevent the found-ing of individual Arab states prior to, during and af-ter World War II (Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Syria,

Jordan), it rendered impossible a unified Arab po-litical appearance. After the San Remo Conferencein 1920 and the reaffirmation of its conclusions inthe League of Nations in 1922, the Arab areas of theformer Ottoman Empire were divided up definitivelybetween the United Kingdom and France. The UKgained control over the areas of Palestine,Transjordan and Iraq, while France controlled theareas of the future Syria and Lebanon.

Even though the first armed conflicts betweenthe domicile Arab population and the Jewish settlershad begun even before World War II, the continuityof conflicts in the Middle East began on May 14,1948, when the State of Israel declared independ-ence on the basis of the 1947 UN General AssemblyResolution 181, in the area of Palestine that had beendesignated for a Jewish state by the Resolution. Theother part of Palestine, designated for the Arab state,never came into existence as an independent statebecause the Arab states of Egypt, Syria, Lebanon,Jordan and Iraq rejected the Resolution and attackedIsrael immediately after its declaration of independ-ence. The first Arab-Israeli conflict ended with Isra-el's victory in 1949 and its expansion into areas ofthe would-be Arab state, while the West Bank(Cisjordan) and the Gaza Strip were occupied byJordan and Egypt, respectively. A new Arab-Israeliconflict broke out in 1956, when Egypt nationalizedthe Suez Canal, denying Israel the right of passage.It was followed by the Six-Day War in 1967, in whichIsrael won a flash victory and took over the WestBank, Gaza, Sinai and the Golan Heights, and byWar of Attrition across the Suez Canal in 1969 and1970. In the 1973 Yom Kippur War, despite the shift-ing success of the opposing parties, a status quo waspreserved. The animosities started to loosen after theIsrael-Egypt Peace Treaty signed at Camp David in1978, but were rekindled by Israel's intervention inLebanon in 1982 and the beginning of the firstIntifada of the Palestinian population in the occu-pied areas in 1987.

The Madrid Peace Conference in 1991 and theOslo Accords in 1993 (formally signed at the WhiteHouse) finally resulted in bringing the Israeli andPalestinian negotiators to set up a truce and a planfor conflict resolution through the coexistence of in-dependent Israeli and Palestinian states. Aiming tofound the latter, the Palestinian National Authoritywas created within Israel, in areas of the West Bankand the Gaza Strip. The Authority has some elementsof an international subject. However, the conflictescalated again in September 2000, with the begin-ning of the second Intifada and the failure of the

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Camp David negotiations on the "final status" be-tween Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafatand Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, mediated byUS President Bill Clinton. The oldest conflict in theMiddle East has yet to be resolved through a peacetreaty which has been in the making since 2002 bythe Quartet, i.e. the UN, the European Union, theUSA and the Russian Federation.

At the moment, infinitely more intense con-flicts are under way in Iraq and Afghanistan, bothbeing cases of a foreign military intervention headedby the USA with elements of civil war, particularlyin Afghanistan. The almost-thirty-year-long continu-ous conflict in Afghanistan began in December 1979,when military units of the former USSR entered thecountry, which led to an internal rebellion againstthe pro-Soviet regime and foreign military presence.It is estimated that by 1989, when Soviet units be-gan to leave Afghanistan, between six hundred thou-sand and two million Afghans were killed, while fivemillion fled to the neighbouring Pakistan. Three yearsafter the departure of the USSR, a civil war brokeout in the country. The war was ended in 1996 in thebiggest part of the country (only North Afghanistanwas controlled by anti-regime forces) with the es-tablishment of an Islamic Emirate lead by the Taliban.Accusing the Taliban regime of supporting AI-Qaidain planning and carrying out the terrorist attacks onSeptember 11, 2001, the USA launched a militaryintervention in Afghanistan the same year and over-turned the regime. However, today, seven years af-ter the military intervention and the attempt to im-prove the situation by holding democratic elections(presidential in 2004 and parliamentary in 2005), theconflict has not ended. To the contrary, a number ofmilitary and political analysts consider the conflictin Afghanistan the most severe Middle Eastern con-flict at the moment, with Taliban forces being thebest-organized internal participant and increasinglytaking over initiative. Afghanistan is thus taking thefront role in America's involvement in the MiddleEast. In comparison, Iraq has shifted from the stageof intense military conflict with opponents of theAmerican military intervention in 2003, to a newgovernment legitimized in the democratic electionin January 2005 (pre-constitutional) and December2005 (constitutional), into the stage of controlledconflict.•

In Afghanistan and Iraq alike, the USA hasturned its former allies into key enemies (theMujahideen in Afghanistan, Saddam Hussein inIraq), and in both cases the outcome of the conflictwill depend on the local population's support for the

newly-elected government. In this sense, Iraq is in abetter position because its three constituentethnicities (Arab Shi'a Muslims, Arab Suni Muslimsand Iraqi Kurds) have the opportunity to politicallydefine the territories in which they are the majority,which could allow Iraq to reconstitute as a sustain-able federation. Afghanistan, on the other hand, isin the tight position between trying to set up con-temporary political institutions and a traditional so-ciety burdened by interethnic rivalries and conflicts.Thus all three of the most conflicted points in theregion - Iraq, Afghanistan and the Palestinian Au-thority within Israel - must first define and makesustainable their own statehood: Iraq through a po-tential federal organization or peaceful dissolution,Afghanistan by detecting the capacities of the stateitself, and the Palestinian Authority by turning itspresent autonomous status into an independent statecoexisting with Israel.

Alongside the conflicts covered above, wemust also mention the conflict in Lebanon, which isalso characterized by time continuity and the issueof statehood. In terms of religion, Lebanon is themost heterogeneous state in the Middle East. It wasalmost destroyed in a civil war which lasted from1975 to 1990. Even though it seemed that the politi-cal situation had been stabilized for the long term,the conflict between Hezbollah and Israel at the southof the country in July and August 2006 and the roleof Syria in Lebanese domestic issues confirm thatLebanon is also a part of the continuous Middle-East-ern conflicts which are still far from a final resolu-tion.

5. Characteristicsof the Middle Eastern Conflicts

In addition to intra-state and inter-state con-flicts and their combination, the Middle East as aregion is also characterized by the tensions and openhostilities that arise from the types of political sys-tems. If the sixteen states and one autonomous terri-tory that make the Middle East (Egypt, Israel withthe Palestinian territories, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria,Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Oman, United Arab Emirates,Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, andPakistan) are arranged according to criteria adoptedearly on - geographical continuity and the continu-ity of conflicts - in two large groups composed ofdemocratic and undemocratic political systems, onlyIsrael simultaneously has a consolidated democraticpolitical system" and fulfils the eight institutionalrequirements 14 that one of the theorists of democ-

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racy Robert A. DaW listed as the preconditions forestablishing and a functioning of poliarchy as a demo-cratic system. In the cases not conforming to theserequirements, states are either in the early phases ofdemocratic transition or they have undemocraticpolitical systems.

Free and fair elections, one of Dahl's require-ments for poliarchy, however, exist in countries likeIraq and Afghanistan but their armed conflicts are abarrier for their political systems to move signifi-cantly on the continuum from undemocratic systemsto democratic ones. A major issue remains of whetherdemocracy is possible with the ongoing armed con-flicts and tens of casualties daily. 'Confessionalism'democracy that characterizes Lebanon since theadoption of that concept in 1943, in addition to asyet unresolved internal conflicts and foreign inter-ventions, prevents Lebanon from being includedamong the states with advanced democratic transi-tion. The same is true for the 'inter-state' temporaryarrangement of Palestinian territories despite hav-ing competitive parliamentary and presidential elec-tions, as well as for Pakistan in which elections andgoverning, between periods of dictatorship, is char-acterized by violence and authoritarian tendencies.Authoritarian political systems with elements ofsultanism" also characterize Egypt, Yemen, Libya,and Syria, while theocracy characterizes Iran inwhich there is universal suffrage but the electionsare semi-competitive (Council of Guardians of theConstitution can vet candidates for suitability). SaudiArabia, Oman, Qatar, Bahrain, and United ArabEmirates, states with monarchies as forms of gov-ernance and without representative democracy, varyin the range of power that monarchs and advisorybodies have, while the other two Middle Easternmonarchies, Jordan and Kuwait, do have certain el-ements of representative democracy.

Undemocratic and 'faulty' democratic systemsof the Middle Eastern countries represent not onlythe context for conflicts but very often they are alsotheir generators, especially in cases when there alsoexist rivalries between individual states having inits background personal (the issue of leadershipamong Arab leaders), national (the Kurd issue), orreligiousantagonisms (relations between Sunnis andShi'a Muslims within countries or between them).The latter characterize the current conflicts in Iraqwhere there are some mutually conflicted factionsof Sunni and Shi'a Muslims. This conflict has beensustained for centuries by the Ottoman Empire byprivileging the Sunni minority over Shi'a majority,and after the British troops left and the republic was

established, Saddam Hussein also sustained it by, atthe same time, carrying out state terror directed atboth the Arab Shi'a and Sunni Kurds. Finally, theexisting and potential conflicts in the Middle Eastare related to the large differences in national wealthbetween and within countries whereas these differ-ences vary from the poorest countries such as Yemen,Afghanistan, and Iraq to the Gulf oil exporters whereKuwait and United Arab Emirates predominate, aswell Israel with a very diverse economy.

6. Other Determinantsof the Middle East

In addition to geography and conflicts as wellas ethnic and religious heterogeneity, the Middle Eastregion is furthermore geopolitically characterized byat least a few more determinants. These are Islam,the Ottoman Empire, the politics of the Europeanpowers after the World War I, oil exploitation, set-tlement of Jewish immigrants in Palestine and thecreation ofIsrael, politics of the United States afterthe World War II, and international terrorism 16. Eachof these determinants influenced the Middle Easteither independently or in interaction with other de-terminants, in the sense ofa historical, political, eco-nomical, cultural, and geostrategically rounded offregion. Above all, contemporary Middle East is char-acterized by a long history of its territories in whichnumerous ancient civilizations developed beginningwith the Sumerian civilization in the delta of'Euphra-tes and Tigris, and with the emergence of three greatmonotheistic religions, Judaism, Christianity, andIslam.

Since the 7th century, Islam has been the mostsignificant determinant of the Middle East. Aboutone fifth of the world population is Muslim, and outof the abovementioned countries in the Middle East,only in Israel Muslims are not the majority. Ever sincethe Prophet Muhammad left Mecca (the Hijra), anevent that Muslims recognized as a historical turn-ing point, during the coming centuries Islam ex-panded from the far end of Africa all the way to In-donesia. Although Indonesia is the most populatedcountry with the majority Muslim population, whileIndia is, according to the absolute number of Mus-lims, among the leading countries in the world, theMiddle Eastern countries, when it comes to identity,are the first to be associated to Islam. This is not soonly because of its history and sacred places, butalso because of the key influence of Islam on thepolitical circumstances in the region as well as onthe relationship that the region has with the rest of

16 CROATIAN INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS REVIEW

the world. Moreover, the differences between theSunni and Shi'a Muslims have also affected the de-velopment of within and between state relations,which have often been marked by conflict.

In that sense, the political presence of the Ot-toman Empire in the Middle East, from the conquestsof Sultan Selim I the Grim who conquered the terri-tories of contemporary Syria, Palestine, and Egyptuntil the defeat in the World War I in 1918, strength-ened Islam in the region and acted politically as an'umbrella' rule just as the ancient Roman Empiredid. This means that during the four centuries of con-tinuing rule of the Ottoman Empire the region has,excluding the countries of the Iranian plateau, de-veloped within the same political and cultural frame.In addition, the administrative division of the Otto-man Empire later on served the European colonizersin their political and administrative arrangementswithin the region, while the Ottoman political legacyin combination with the traditional social relationswas also preserved in the later forms of governmentand political systems in most Middle Eastern coun-tries.

Although the European colonial powers,United Kingdom, France, and Italy, have begun torip parts of the Ottoman Empire in Africa already atthe end of 19th century, fundamental changes oc-curred after the World War 1.Great Britain and Francethen received the mandate to govern, which in factmeant they were the colonial rulers of the territoriesfrom the east coast of the Mediterranean to the west-ern Persian border. During that period, France wantedto use its political presence in the mandate areas toexercise a stronger influence on the existing socialcircumstances, while Great Britain that controlledthe territory from Egypt, which achieved formal in-dependence in 1922, through Palestine and theTransjordan to Iraq, that achieved its independencein 1932, limited its activities on realizing its strate-gic interests. Access to the largest raw oil wells inthe world was certainly among these. Its commer-cial exploitation began in 1911 when, after the dis-covery of oil in Persia in 1908, Anglo-Persian OilCompany (APOC) was founded, and it continuedwith the discovery of oil in Iraq (1927), Bahrain(1932), Sauii Arabia (1935), and Kuwait (1938)17.Franco-British presence in the Middle East preventedthe advance of the Third Reich into the region dur-ing the World War II, but by sustaining the existingconflicts and by not resolving the new ones it largelyinfluenced the regional political circumstances afterthe end of the war in 1945 when the region enteredinto the most conflicted phase in which political and

economic interests were intertwined with one an-other.

With its efforts to resolve the Jewish questionin the British mandate territory of Palestine, thenewly established United Nations Organization, withits Resolution 181, anticipated the creation of twonew states, one Jewish and one Arab. Creation ofIsrael, however, provoked the reaction of the neigh-bouring Arab states and caused the continuation ofmilitary and armed conflicts. Among the Arab statesand political actors with which Israel was in con-flict, up until today Israel was only recognized byEgypt, Jordan, and the Palestine Liberation Organi-zation. The Arab-Israeli conflict and the need forcreating an independent and sustainable Palestinianstate are still at the core of the Middle Eastern con-flicts. At this point, the entire peace agreement ismore a question of to what extent the confronted sidesare prepared to compromise, rather than of achiev-ing the main goals. While there is no dispute aboutthe main goals - mutual recognition of the states ofIsrael and Palestine, and a peaceful resolution ofconflicts -the contention still remains when it comesto the status of Jerusalem, the issue of war refugees,and up to which borders in the West Bank is Israelprepared to concede the territory it controls.

Among all the international relations actors,Israel's position is the most influenced by the UnitedStates whose political and economic role in the Mid-dle East in the last 50 years is crucial. United Statesimmediately recognized Israel in 1948, while in 1957the American foreign policy in regard to the MiddleEast followed the principles of the Eisenhower doc-trine. In the midst of the Cold War, this doctrine pos-tulated that American military assistance will be of-fered to every Middle Eastern country that is fight-ing against an aggression of a country that is underthe influence of international communism. Its de-rived versions were the Nixon doctrine in 1969 andthe Carter doctrine in 1980. After September 11,2001, the United States acknowledged terrorism asits most serious international enemy, and in the Mid-dle East this was in particular the case with terror-ism perpetrated in the name of Islam. Therefore, theAmerican foreign policy during the last seven yearswas led by the Bush doctrine of preventive warsagainst the subjects that sponsor international ter-rorism. This doctrine served as a rationale behindthe armed interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq.There is no doubt that the American presence in theMiddle East in the coming years will depend on anew doctrine. Such a new doctrine will be createdby the new American president Barack Obama in

JANUARY - JUNE 2008 17

line with his foreign policy vision in which unilater-alism should be replaced by multilateralism.

7. Conclusion

The Middle East is a region whose definitiondemands a multidimensional approach. Its assess-ment depends not only on the usual geographical andhistorical criteria, but also on the geopolitical impli-cations that are a result of its 'organic' characteris-tics. Conflicts are not only a politico-military con-stant in the Middle East, but they have also becomea part of its identity, as much as, for instance, peace-ful conflict resolution is part of the identity ofScandinavian countries. By taking into account bothcriteria - geographical continuity and the continuityof conflicts - in the area studies 18, the Middle East isbecoming a unique field of analysis. Although thereis no full agreement about its exact borders, and inthat sense about the reach of the analysis, every ap-

1 .Torn by strife for the last half century, the Middle East hasbeen the stage for, perhaps, the world's most notorious regionalconflicts. It best fits the realist view of international politics, butdespite this, it is also an area where international law and or-ganization have played significant roles. What is the cause ofso much conflict? Nationalism, religion, and balance-of-powerpolitics each provide part oft he answer." (Nye, J. S., Jr. (2007).Understanding International Conflicts; New York: PearsonLongman, p. 185)

2 .Three geographic features have had much to say about thecharacter of the Middle East and its people. The first is the re-gion's location between Europe, Asia, and Africa. ( ... ) The sec-ond key geographic factor is the Middle East's abundant oil re-serves. The region possesses some 68 percent oft he world'soil, most of which is found in four countries: Saudi Arabia (25%),Iraq (11%), Kuwait (9%), and Iran (8,5%). These figures do notinclude vast reserves of natural gas. ( ... ) The final geographicfactor that shaped the Middle East's unique character is the scar-city of its water. The Middle East contains 5 percent of the world'spopulation, yet possesses less than 1 percent of its freshwater."(Palmer, M. (2002). The Politics of the Middle East; Belmont:Thomson Wadsworth, pp.2-3)

3 In the German language, the term Nahren Osten has beenused, even though the concept MittiererOsten is becoming moreand more common; the Russian language uses the termSJlUJlCHUU Bocmox in French the term Moyen-Orient is used, inItalian Medio Oriente, and in Polish Bliski Wsch6d. Depending,then, on the geographical distance of a particular European coun-try from the region being described, both .near" and .middle"east are used. •

4 Because of their geographic remove they are sometimes con-sidered separately from the Middle East proper, but because oftheir ethnicity and their religion they are sometimes included aspart of an .extended" definition of the Middle East. Iran is Mus-lim but not Arab, and its Shiite Muslim majority distinguishes itfrom most other Muslim states of the Middle East, which arecommonly dominated by Sunni Muslims. Though sometimesassigned to .South Asia" or .Southwest Asia", Iran is usuallyconsidered part oft he Middle East, particularly since it is a rna-

proach is relevant if it follows its own argumentsabout the 'formation' of the Middle East. The analy-sis of conflicts and attempts at solving them in ademocratic manner, when looking at the examplesof individual Middle Eastern countries, but also atthe region as a whole, enables one to identify a fewcommon characteristics. These are: multiple stagesand the complexity of conflicts that cannot be un-ambiguously resolved, the complexity of historical,cultural, and demographic characteristics of the re-gion, the economic importance of oil as its strategicresource, and the crucial foreign policy role of theinternational community currently led by the UnitedStates. It is the United States in particular, with anew administration, that can largely determine whichdirection will the definition of the Middle East inthe coming years move: as an intercontinental andintra-conflict region or as an intercontinental andpost-conflict one. •

NOTESjor oil-producing power in the Persian Gulf along with Iraq andSaudi Arabia. (Yambert, K. ed. (2006), The Contemporary Mid-dle East. Boulder I Oxford: Westview Press, p.1.

5 Ziring, L. (1984.). The Middle East Political Dictionary, SantaBarbara I Oxford: ABC-CLIO Information Services, p. 28.

6 In the proceedings and documents by the United Nations Or-ganisation, the concept of the Middle East has been regularlyused regardless the fact that the categorisation of regions bythe UNO does not list a region under this name, but uses theconcepts of South Asia and Central Asia respectively as twoareas in which some countries of the Middle East are included.

7 The Coalition of the Gulf War made the 34 countries opposedto the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. It was led by USA. Among othercountries, the Coalition was formed of the troops of Saudi Ara-bia, Egypat, Syria, Kuwait, Oman, Pakistan, United Arab Emir-ates, Qatar, Bahrein and Afghanistan.

8 Bartos, O.J., Wehr, P (2002). Using Conflict Theory; Cam-bridge: University Press, p.12

9 Ibidem, p.13

10 Galtung, J. (1996). Peace by Peaceful Means; Oslo: Interna-tional Peace Research Institute, pp. 70-71

11 Ramsbotham, 0., Woodhouse, T., Miall, H. (2007). Contem-porary Conclict Resolution; Cambridge I Malden: Polity Press,p.64

12 Ibidem, pp. 84-89

13 Among the definitions of a consolidated democracy, whichmeans the end of the process of democratic transition, the mostplastic is the description of democracy as the 'only game in town.'Democratic theorists Juan L. Linz and Alfred Stepan believe thatthe democratic transition is completed when "sufficient agree-ment is achieved about the political actions that bring about anelected government, when the government gains power directlyon the basis of free and general elections, when such govern-

18 CROATIAN INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS REVIEW

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14 These are freedom of forming and joining political organiza-tions, freedom of expression, the right to vote, the right to runfor public offices, the right of political leaders to compete forsupport, that is, compete for votes, alternative sources of infor-mation, free and fair elections, and institutions that secure thatthe governmental politics depends on the number of votes andother means of expression of preferences that citizens have(Dahl, R. J. (1998). Poliarhija; Participacija i opozicija; Zagreb:Politicka kultura, p. 13)

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