It is likely that Syria will again become a field of rivalry between the Arabian monarchies. Thus, in the Persian Gulf zone, there is a tendency to establish ties on the internal contour, but at the same time, competition on the external borders is intensifying. This trend is likely to intensify in the future, writes Dmitry Polyakov, researcher at the Centre for Arab and Islamic Studies of the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences. The author is a participant of the Valdai – New Generation project.
The topic of a “new” Middle East taking shape returns every time significant changes occur in the region, and is most often associated with another round of violence. The main shock of recent years has been the return of the hot phase of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, which has spilled out of its usual geographical boundaries. The events of October 7, 2023, significantly changed the balance of power in the Middle East. Two major regional non-state actors – Hamas and Hezbollah – are now significantly weakened. Indirectly, the conflict has affected Syria, where the government of Bashar al-Assad fell in 13 days. All of this was reflected in the positions of regional powers. The current escalation of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict may become the starting point for the formation of a “new” Middle East. During this period, the trends that have been forming in the region over the past years will receive further development and determine the model of its existence for the near future.
It is noteworthy that the Middle East subsystem of international relations has lived in the paradigm of the Arab Spring for the past 15 years. Its first result was a change in the socio-economic structure of the region. Today, most republican regimes have yet to return to the economic indicators of 2010. At the same time, the Arabian monarchies turned out to be virtually immune to the crises and conflicts of 2011, which has allowed them to increase the economic gap between them and their republican neighbours. Today, the monarchies are trying to make the transition to more advanced development, which is impossible in the short and medium term for other Middle Eastern states.
However, the most obvious consequence of the Arab Spring was the emergence of new armed conflicts: in Libya, Syria, Yemen and Iraq. While the Iraq conflict took the form of a counter-terrorism operation against ISIS (banned in Russia), the other three became systemically important for many years. As a result of their emergence, the long-standing regional conflicts between Israel and Palestine as well as the one in Western Sahara receded into the background. Moreover, the new struggles led to the emergence of new Middle Eastern leaders. Three non-Arab states came to the fore: Iran, Turkey and Israel, which was determined by their political, military, economic and technological leadership.
It is important that the three conflicts became an arena of rivalry between the Middle Eastern powers and defined the parameters of the bloc confrontation. As a result, the term “Cold War in the Middle East” appeared. Each of the regional players began to build its own network of allies. The most famous is the pro-Iranian “Axis of Resistance”. Turkey also expanded its influence both directly, by building channels of military and political communications in the region, and indirectly – through the support of various non-state actors. The active and unconventional actions of Tehran and Ankara caused discontent among many states in the region, which ultimately predetermined cooperation on anti-Iranian and anti-Turkish grounds. The most famous format of such cooperation is the so-called “Abraham Accords”. Normalisation with Israel became possible, since the Jewish state was seen as a potential security provider.
Meanwhile, by the beginning of the third decade of the 21st century, the parameters of the system laid down after the Arab Spring began to change. First of all, there were changes in the balance of power. The economy took precedence over military dealings. The Arab monarchies, having adopted ambitious national development programmes and partially implemented them, were able to regain their lost positions. Iran and Turkey, meanwhile, reached the limit of their capabilities and faced difficulties in implementing large-scale projects. This is especially true of Tehran. In the second half of 2024, the capabilities of the “Axis of Resistance” were significantly reduced as a result of the weakening of Hezbollah and the loss of Syria as a strategic bridgehead that ensured the coherence of the project. As for Israel, after the events of October 7, 2023, its integration into the fabric of the Middle East slowed down, as did the process of expanding the “Abraham Accords” with the inclusion of other Arab countries.
Another important aspect is that the Libyan, Syrian and Yemeni conflicts have ceased to be systemically important. At the same time, ignoring “forgotten” conflicts has led to them coming to the fore again. This is due to the fact that the expectation of an “eternal” status quo did not work. The Palestinian-Israeli conflict has again taken a central position in the region. Now it is again taking on the outlines of a larger Middle East conflict after the Israeli special operation in Lebanon in the fall of 2024. Another “forgotten” conflict – Western Sahara – today is one of the key elements of the confrontation between Algeria and Morocco. To ignore it is to risk destabilising the situation in the Western Maghreb at any time.
It is noteworthy that the three main armed conflicts of the Arab Spring period reached their limits at a certain point and were frozen. However, the events that took place in November-December 2024 in Syria showed that the status quo cannot be eternal. The lack of a political solution and the reluctance of all internal forces, especially the government of Bashar al-Assad, to succeed in this direction led to the collapse of the Baathist regime. Similar problems exist both in Libya, where the issue of holding presidential elections has been frozen since 2021, and in Yemen, where the ceasefire reached in the spring of 2022 did not lead to progress in the negotiations between the Ansar Allah movement in Sana’a and the Presidential Governance Council in Aden. Therefore, the persistence of the root problems and reliance on the “eternal” status quo may lead to the resumption of the aforementioned conflicts.
Another key parameter is that the three conflicts of the Arab Spring have ceased to be a field of rivalry within the framework of bloc confrontation. Today, the Middle East détente has become a new trend. In recent years, Iran has restored diplomatic ties with Saudi Arabia and is in the process of normalising relations with Bahrain. Turkey, meanwhile, has improved relations with Egypt and the UAE. Therefore, cooperation on anti-Iranian and anti-Turkish grounds have begun to lose relevance. Moreover, after October 7, 2023, Israel has been perceived not as a guarantor of security, but as a source of danger.
Meanwhile, the trend towards rapprochement is most clearly manifested in the Persian Gulf zone and even has its own contour within the GCC. The process, launched in 2021 after the end of the blockade of Qatar, received new impetus against the backdrop of the escalation of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Fear of a major war in the Middle East has forced states to coordinate their actions to stabilise the situation. At the same time, competition between the GCC leaders in other parts of the region is becoming increasingly noticeable: Sudan and Iraq have now been added to Libya and Yemen. It is likely that Syria will again become a field of rivalry between the Arabian monarchies. Thus, in the Persian Gulf zone, there is a tendency to establish ties on the internal contour, but at the same time, competition on the external borders is intensifying. This trend is likely to intensify in the future.
In general, we can identify several key parameters that have determined the appearance of the Middle East since the events of the Arab Spring. First, old conflicts are again in the spotlight, while the conflicts of the Arab Spring have faded into the background. However, they may become relevant again, as has already happened in Syria. Second, the balance of power has changed. The Arab states, especially the Gulf monarchies, have significantly strengthened their positions in the region over the past few years. The powers of the Arab Spring period, on the contrary, have reached their peak and their influence is declining. Third, the bloc system is giving way to a flexible system of situational relations. This is especially evident in the Persian Gulf region. In this regard, the events of October 7, 2023, may indeed become a turning point for all the trends that have formed in the Middle East in recent years, just as it happened in 2011.
