Geopolitics of the New Middle East: Perspectives from Inside and Outside

Abstract

In the last decade, the broader Middle East and North Africa (MENA) regional security environment has been shaped by the cycle of insecurity and instability. The structural transformation in the MENA has unleashed such forces whereby the region has been destabilized by multi-faceted conflicts, which have seen the involvement of many local, regional and global actors. The risks and security challenges produced by the wave of instability and conflicts have altered the international relations of the MENA region to a significant extent. A retroactive reading suggests that a decade of turmoil was triggered mainly by the demands for political transformation observed in several countries. The broader transitions in the international order have also significantly accelerated the pace and direction of regional restructuring. The transformation of the regional order has been sparked by wave of popular uprisings, called the Arab Spring. Although the promise of democratic transformation heralded by the initial phase of the Arab Spring generated optimism, in its second phase, the regional transformation has increasingly been viewed in pessimistic terms. The initial prognoses for democratization produced mixed feelings about the future direction of regional transformation. However, no actor's efforts alone were enough to assist the political transformation agenda, and diverging positions pursued by different international actors resulted in the stalling of political reforms. Increasingly, the region has been drawn into a cycle of violence as observed in Libya, Syria or Iraq, creating myriad security challenges that are threatening the local actors, as well as producing security externalities for the international system at large. This new security environment eventually altered the regional and extra-regional attitudes towards the issue of political transformation, narrowing the scope for a reform agenda.