WHAT CAN ARABIA DO?

Continuing with the fourth work in our five-article series on the current war on Iran, we are adopting the strategic lens of Arabia, defined as the whole of Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Jordan, Palestine, Saudi-Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates (hereinafter: UAE), Oman and Yemen. In this article, we put ourselves in the position of the Arab states to understand what they can do within this war. As Arabia is multidimensionally involved in this war, we will look at a mix of different motivations and interests, as well as methods to achieve its goals. Without assessing the normative dimension of Arabia’s strategy from an external perspective, we aim to create an understanding of their position and look at the war from their perspective.

The value and purpose of this series is to display our impartiality, flexibility, expertise and the strategic strength of our analytical framework. Usually, work in the political field is limited to cognitive and conceptual frameworks of ideologies and interests. With this series, we underline that politics can, and should, be approached from a technical angle to ensure that crafted measures truly reflect functional and sustainable solutions. It follows from the above that we are not inherently adopting the stances of the parties but merely adopting their lens for the purpose of our strategic analysis. This series must therefore not be read as a positioning from our side.

Arabia’s Goals And Interests In This War

One of the first things that might raise questions is our methodological choice to view Arabia as a whole, instead of different states. Although there are religious differences and also different racial groups within the respective nations, the Arab society is quite cohesive in its entirety, which is also backed by a longstanding past together as one religious and racial society without a distinct national identity. Even with different Arab states existing today, the divergence in their interests does not have an organic origin but rather a material one. Through different material incentives, alliances and strategies, the Arab states pursue different paths due to foreign nations exercising hard power. While Saudi-Arabia and the Gulf States entertain positive relationships with the United States of America (hereinafter: USA) because they profit massively from such a strategy in economic terms, Iraq is rather forced to get along with the North Americans through military coercion and political control. Similarly, Syria and Jordan are under the political influence of Israel. Only Lebanon is somewhat independent from both foreign camps, and therefore also one of the targets of Israel.

It follows that the basis of the relationship between Arabia and the two aggressors in the Iran War is built on opportunism rather than socio-political alignment. However, this is understandable given Arab culture, which is based on a clan structure. Societal organisation in clans means that a community follows the lead of the actor that furthers the given interests of the time the most, which happens to be Israel and the USA today. However, because there is no intrinsic linkage between the two blocs, relations can change quickly. The current war has exposed that the security promise of the USA cannot be kept as easily as thought, due to the strength of Iran. With Iran pursuing a strategy of disrupting North American military capabilities by destroying their military bases in Arabia, the Arab nations are directly involved in the war, receiving damage passively. Additionally, as rentier states, they are heavily reliant on oil exports, which are currently disrupted and under massive pricing pressure. So, the two main aspects of their national policy strategies (achieving political stability and economic growth through resource exports) are endangered or already halted in some cases.

On this basis, the interest of the Arab nations is the quick end of the war to restore the past order, which would imply that Arab nations have an interest in the defeat of Iran. However, since Arabia is neither supporting this war actively nor turning against Iran (except for Syria, which is aiding Israel in their ground operations against Lebanon), it appears that this war has reached Arabia’s normative boundaries. Therefore, this option falls away. The next option for Arabia then is to find another “clan leader” – either from within or from the outside. As the clan structure is born out of a socio-historical origin, it is the only socio-political form of governance that would help Arabia to sustain its political system (or currently systems). Ideally, Arabia unites under a common leader who can fulfil this role. Seeking patronage from its former clan leader, Türkiye, is not feasible because such a course of policy would be against Turkish interests, even though it would benefit Arabia. Therefore, the only true interest of Arabs is to unite their fragmented states under a centralised leadership or at least begin the process of regional integration, while using their presence in the region to end the war first and then detach themselves from Israel and the USA. Hence, this war can and must be perceived as a chance for Arabs to reorient themselves towards unity and internal cohesion.

Arabia’s Strategy To Achieve Its Goals

Diplomatic And Political Strategy

Usually, we begin with the military strategy due to the urgency of the situation. However, since Arabia has a more pressing problem that needs to be resolved before, this time, we begin with the diplomatic and political strategy. Arab integration is paramount to achieving the layered goal of ending the war, detaching Arabia from its foreign clan leader and then working towards Arab unity. First of all, the idea must be present within the political leadership of the Arab states. While Jordan and Syria are highly influenced by Israel, Iraq, Lebanon and the nations on the Arab Peninsula do display autonomy and independence of thought to some degree. If a thought leader among them emerges to express this idea, initial sympathy would then evolve quickly into first ideas. It is very important at the current stage that such talks remain behind closed doors, because if the USA and Israel know about these dynamics, they will have to open another front in Arabia to suppress this pan-Arabic thought seed. But even if the thought is not expressed just yet, the Arab nations need to intensify multilateral communication at the diplomatic level.

The biggest challenge in Arab leadership circles is that most of them are in too comfortable positions to jeopardise it. The reason why they reached these offices is also due to a lack of pan-Arabism. If someone among Arab leadership is determined to break the cycle of nepotism and clientelism, he would most likely become the leader of the Arab world and potentially rank among the most important Arabs in history. Alternatively, the pan-Arab movement can come from the Arab people. In such a case, local groupings can try to build coalitions under the premise of a centralised leadership – federalism does not work in Arabia. This leader could then, with growing Arab support, exercise pressure on the regional Arab leadership.

What is important within all contexts is to emphasise the use of Arabia over the ideological aspect of pan-Arabism. It is not the pan-Arabic idea that would bring Arab states together; Colonel Gaddafi tried this. It is the assessment of the North Americans and Israelis as being now too weak to deliver the advantages of the past and that the new leader will be the one who brings continued prosperity and safety. By underlining the dangers of the war and how Arabia could be harmed, while simultaneously stressing the socio-economic advantages of uniting, there is a chance for Arabs to change their lead quite quickly. Of course, foreign intervention is almost inevitable when we see how certain nations reacted to past pan-Arab movements (and successfully ended those before they really started). However, the alternative for Arabia is to become the next target for the USA/Israel axis when Iran loses, regardless of whether it joins to help or withholds from the war.

Iran Relations

In the context of the war, most Arab nations already adopted a very healthy stance towards Iran. They do not show aggressive stances. Even when attacks on their soil occur because Iran is targeting foreign military bases, the diplomatic responses against such attacks clearly indicate that the leaders somehow need to say something against it, but are not fully committed to Iran. Such responses are more rhetorical necessities rather than true expressions of resentment. Continuing this approach of empty rhetorical moves to satisfy foreign allies without tackling Iran is the best way to maintain the status quo without being involved. In the whole context of this war, Arabia does not need Iran, nor would cooperation between those two actors function; and this is also not necessary. Peaceful coexistence must be the goal for both sides, in this war and beyond, when Arabia unites.

Global Public Relations

Internationally, including Israel and the USA, Arabia will also need to do its utmost to remain neutral and impartial until the integration process of Arabia is explicitly expressed. The global public needs to be convinced of Arabia’s inward-looking interest that does not interfere with Iranian and Israeli sovereignty, while also maintaining the public opinion that the desired political system is not meant to be a greater theocratic project. The basis of the political system will be theocratic, but not with the goal of converting nations beyond Arab borders to Islam. As Arab nations have struggled with various religiously oriented militant groups, this public diplomacy aspect constitutes a very difficult task. The Israel/USA axis will, at some point, try to leverage its media power to convince the global public that pan-Arabism is inherently extremist, which the Arab movement, whether from above or from below, needs to counteract in any way possible. Therefore, broader diplomatic networking with strategically important nations, such as China, Türkiye, Russia, South Africa, Brazil and more independent European nations can help to shield the pan-Arab project from public pressure to some degree.

Military Strategy

Arab armies are historically very weak. Neither do they have proper training nor combat experience in ordered warfare. In terms of guerrilla warfare, Arabs excel due to an ongoing tradition of local militant warfare. However, these groupings’ tactics and strategies are geared towards completely different goals and are close to useless in the current setting. Technologically, the Arab armies are somewhat advanced and equipped. Considering the above, Arab nations should start talks on potential defence pacts or joint exercises if the path to pan-Arab unity is initiated by political leadership. If the movement begins from a centralised and organised civil movement, it would be paramount to pool existing military resources and place them throughout strategic locations in Arabia without using them actively. A violent movement would immediately trigger corresponding responses from the USA, Israel and Arab political leadership. The military capabilities of local groups must be utilised as diplomatic leverage and an expression of strength rather than truly usable troops for toppling Arab governments. If that happens, Arabia will become even more fragmented than before, and the centralisation of the movement would quickly split.

Economic Strategy

In terms of funding, Arabia is facing a very asymmetric landscape. While the Peninsula states are quite affluent, the Arab states of the Levant are not. All Arab nations have abundant resources that can be used and leveraged. However, the dependencies that European and Neo-European nations built make it difficult for Arabs to use them. We have demonstrated that in the moment, dependent nations try to break those chains, the counterpressure breaks the socio-political system. However, the situation is different in this war, as Israel and the USA are currently burning financial, political and military capacities against Iran. This time, it could be that if Arab nations simultaneously begin to take control of their resources, the axis might be confronted with a situation they must accept. As global energy and resource markets are already under pressure, such a move would at least not lead to negative responses internationally, as many nations would profit from cheaper oil and gas prices.

Such funding could then be used to quickly advance Arab unity. In a clan system, it is important that such movements and developments produce tangible results quickly. If progress is slow, the chance of renewed fragmentation into local or national clans increases rapidly. But that also underlines that the use of resources can only be started after the diplomatic course of Arab unity has been established and expressed. This, however, is not a problem. The biggest hurdle for Arabia is to see and agree that its unity is the only way for it to emerge as the biggest winner from this war and build long-term stability for its society.

Societal Strategy

This leads to the final dimension of Arabia’s potential strategy. On the societal side, the biggest challenge is to bridge the gap between Sunni and Shia Islam within Arabia. Although most of the nations are predominantly Sunni-oriented, there is a large minority of Shia Muslims. Of course, much of the antagony between those two groups has been fed by foreign forces. It is paramount to overcome this problematic perception of incompatibility. For most of Arab history, both groups were united and lived together peacefully. Therefore, the societal strategy must emphasise the pan-Arabism and Islam as overarching concepts and not as operative ones. In building the movement, the infrastructural aspects of the united society are the key element and not the design aspects. Leaders of the movement need to be aware of this. One aspect that, on the other hand, aids this rhetoric is, again, the clan structure of Arabs. Because personal and tangible gain is the primary element of measurement, the religious aspect can be bridged by clearly communicating how the goal benefits the individual, local community and the broader good.

Final Remarks

Although we have examined the situation in the necessary depth, we stress that there are still many more policy options available to Arabia at more micro-levels of policymaking. These options, however, fall more into the category of tactics, as opposed to strategy, which is the focal point of this work. Moreover, it needs to be stressed that we are examining this topic from a perspective of limited informational resources. From what is available, we conclude that the above strategy would enable Arabia to achieve its goals. It is also very important to consider the limitations of political actors. These can be in terms of resources, normativity or structure. Therefore, the assessments above should also be read in light of those real-life constraints of the said actors.

In our next article in this series, we are looking at the second actor in this war: Türkiye. Here, too, we are going to adopt the lens of the said actor and argue in light of its interests. As we move forward in the series, we will see that interests diverge but also converge at some points among the different actors, which then paints a complete picture of the war.