Analysing Middle Eastern Foreign Policies: The Relationship With Europe

ANALYZING MIDDLE EAST FOREIGN POLICIES AND THE RELATIONSHIP WITH EUROPE At a time when the Middle East and North Afric...

Author: Gerd Nonneman

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ANALYZING MIDDLE EAST FOREIGN POLICIES AND THE RELATIONSHIP WITH EUROPE

At a time when the Middle East and North Africa – host to most of the world’s oil and gas reserves – are often identified with threats of instability, ‘rogue states,’ terrorism and migration, Europe has its own particular concerns about the region that sits on its doorstep. Yet a genuine understanding of what drives the behaviour of these states remains elusive. This book provides a conceptual framework for the analysis of Middle Eastern foreign policies in general, and for understanding these states’ relations with Europe in particular. It examines the domestic, regional and international environments that condition these policies, and investigates the actual policy output through a wide range of country studies drawn from the Maghreb, the Mashreq, the Gulf and Turkey. Europe is treated here both as a target of these foreign policies, and as part of the environment that shapes them. This south-to-north perspective, using the tools of Foreign Policy Analysis, fills a major gap in the literature on Euro-Middle Eastern relations. It also adds to the study of International Relations by throwing light on wider questions about ‘Third World’ foreign policy. This book is an extensively revised, expanded and updated version of a special issue of The Review of International Affairs. Gerd Nonneman is Reader in International Relations and Middle East Politics at Lancaster University, and a former Executive Director of the British Society for Middle Eastern Studies.

ANALYZING MIDDLE EAST FOREIGN POLICIES AND THE RELATIONSHIP WITH EUROPE

Edited by Gerd Nonneman

First published 2005 by Routledge, an imprint of Taylor & Francis 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 270 Madison Ave, New York, NY 10016 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2005. “To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.”

Ó Gerd Nonneman 2005 All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. The publisher makes no representation, express or implied, with regard to the accuracy of the information contained in this book and cannot accept any legal responsibility or liability for any errors or omissions that may be made. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication Data

ISBN 0-203-00882-0 Master e-book ISBN

ISBN 0–714-65530-9 (hbk) ISBN 0-714-68427-9 (pbk)

CONTENTS Notes on Contributors

v

Introduction

1

GERD NONNEMAN

Analyzing the Foreign Policies of the Middle East and North Africa: A Conceptual Framework

6

GERD NONNEMAN

The Three Environments of Middle East Foreign Policy Making and Relations with Europe

19

GERD NONNEMAN

Analyzing Moroccan Foreign Policy and Relations with Europe

43

MICHAEL WILLIS AND NIZAR MESSARI

Egyptian–European Relations: From Conflict to Cooperation

64

EMAD GAD

Globalization and Generational Change: Syrian Foreign Policy between Regional Conflict and European Partnership

81

RAYMOND HINNEBUSCH

Lebanon and Europe: The Foreign Policy of a Penetrated State

100

TOM PIERRE NAJEM

Propaganda versus Pragmatism: Iraqi Foreign Policy in Qasim’s Years, 1958–63

123

ALBERTO TONINI

Dynamics and Determinants of the GCC States’ Foreign Policy, with Special Reference to the EU

145

ABDULLA BAABOOD

Revolution, Theocratic Leadership and Iran’s Foreign Policy: Implications for Iran–EU Relations

174

ZIBA MOSHAVER

The Determinants of Turkish Foreign Policy, and Turkey’s European Vocation

197

MUSTAFA AYDIN

Shades of Opinion: the Oil Exporting Countries and International Climate Politics PAUL AARTS AND DENNIS JANSSEN

223

Explaining International Politics in the Middle East: The Struggle of Regional Identity and Systemic Structure

243

RAYMOND HINNEBUSCH

Afterword Small States’ Diplomacy in the Age of Globalization: An Omani Perspective

257

BADR BIN HAMAD AL BU SAID

Index

263

Notes on Contributors Gerd Nonneman is Reader in International Relations and Middle East Politics at Lancaster University (UK), a Council member of the European Association for Middle Eastern Studies and a former Executive Director of the British Society of Middle Eastern Studies. Educated at Ghent (Belgium) and Exeter Universities, he lived and worked in Iraq and has conducted research throughout the Middle East and North Africa. He previously taught at the Universities of Exeter, Manchester and the International University of Japan. Among his previous books are War & Peace in the Gulf (Ithaca Press, 1991) (with Anoushiravan Ehteshami) and, as editor, The Middle East and Europe: the Search for Stability and Integration (Federal Trust/European Commission, 1993), Political and Economic Liberalization: Dynamics and Linkages in Comparative Perspective (Lynne Rienner, 1996), and Muslim Communities in the New Europe (Ithaca Press, 1997). He has published an extensive range of articles and policy papers, including Terrorism, Gulf Security and Palestine: Issues for an EUGCC Dialogue (Robert Schuman Centre, European University Institute, 2002). Paul Aarts is Senior Lecturer in International Relations at the Department of Political Science, University of Amsterdam. He has published widely on Middle East politics and economics, including five edited volumes (all in Dutch) and numerous contributions to scholarly journals (in Dutch, French, English and Japanese) and books (in Dutch and English). His recent publications include The Oil Weapon: a One-Shot Edition? (Abu Dhabi: ECSSR, 1999). He has undertaken consultancy work on the Middle East for the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the European Commission and other institutions. Sayyid Badr bin Hamad Al Bu Said serves as Undersecretary for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Sultanate of Oman. He joined the Ministry in 1989 as First Secretary, heading the Office of Political Analysis. In 1990, he received the rank of Counselor in the Office of the Minister of State for Foreign Affairs. In this capacity, he accompanied the Minister on numerous foreign visits and he represented Oman in a wide range of international contexts: with the Gulf Cooperation Council, the United Nations, the United States, the European Union, the Arab League and in the Middle East peace process. In 1995 he was promoted to rank of Ambassador and appointed Head of the Minister’s Office. In 1998 he was appointed Undersecretary. Sayyid Badr was educated in Oman and subsequently at St Catherine’s College, Oxford University, where he obtained an M.Litt. in Politics, Philosophy, and Economics.

.

Mustafa Aydin is Associate Professor of International Relations at Ankara University and the Turkish National Security Academy. He was UNESCO Fellow at the Richardson Institute for Peace Studies, Lancaster University (1999), and Fulbright Scholar at the John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University (2002). Besides his books and articles on Turkey, its foreign policy and Caucasian security and geopolitics, he is currently co-editing three volumes on Turkish foreign policy: Greek-Turkish Relations in the 21st Century: Escaping from the Security Dilemma in the Aegean (with K. Ifantis); Turkey’s Foreign Policy in the 21st Century: A Changing Role in World Politics (with T. Y. Ismael); and Turkish-American Relations: 200 Years of Divergence and Convergence (with C. Erhan). Abdulla Baabood is an Omani analyst with over 15 years of international business experience and a keen interest in GCC economic and political development, an area on which he has presented papers at international seminars and workshops. He is a member of a number of academic and professional bodies and institutions and has been called on for expert briefings and brainstorming sessions at the Royal Institute of International Affairs and the UK Foreign & Commonwealth Office. He holds an MBA and an MA in International Relations and has just completed a PhD thesis on EU–GCC InterRegional Dialogue at the University of Cambridge. Emad Gad is a Senior Researcher at the International Relations Unit of the Center for Political and Strategic Studies (CPSS), Al Ahram Foundation, in Cairo. He holds a PhD in Political Science, with a thesis on ‘The Impact of World Order on International Alliances’. His research interests encompass alliance theory, regional conflicts, the Middle East Peace Process, security dialogue in the Mediterranean and the Middle East, European Affairs and future studies in World Order. Among his books (in Arabic) are Palestine: The Land and the People from 1948 to Oslo Agreement (CPSS, 1999) and, as editor, European Union: from Economic Cooperation to Common Foreign and Security Policy

(CPSS, 2001), European Union and Middle East, the Experience of the Past and Perspectives of the Future (CPSS, 2001), The Israeli election 2001 (CPSS, 2001) and International Intervention between the Political and the Humanitarian (CPSS, 2000). Raymond Hinnebusch is Professor of International Relations and Middle East Politics at the University of St Andrews in Scotland. His most recent publications include The International Relations of the Middle East (Manchester University Press, 2003) and, co-edited with Anoushiravan Ehteshami, The Foreign Policies of Middle East States (Lynne Rienner, 2001). He has also published widely on Syrian politics and foreign policy, including Syria: Revolution from Above (Routledge, 2000), Syria and Iran: Middle Powers in a Penetrated Regional System (with Anoushiravan Ehteshami) (Routledge, 1997), ‘The Politics of Economic Liberalization in Syria’, in Third World Quarterly, Vol.18, no.2, 1997, ‘Pax Syriana? The Origins, Causes and Consequences of Syria’s Role in Lebanon’, in Mediterranean Politics, Vol.3, no.1, 1998, and Syria and the Middle East Peace Process (with Alastair Drysdale) (Council on Foreign Relations Press, 1991). Dennis Janssen is completing postgraduate studies in International Relations at the University of Amsterdam. Nizar Messari is an Assistant Professor at Pontifı´ cia Universidade Cato´lica in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Until 2001 he taught International Relations at Al Akhawayn University in Ifrane, Morocco. Among his recent publications are ‘Identity and Foreign Policy – The Case of Islam in US Foreign Policy’, in Vendulka Kubalkova (ed.) Foreign Policy in a Constructed World (New York: ME Sharpe, 2001), ‘National Security, the Political Space and Citizenship: The Case of Morocco and the Western Sahara’, Journal of North African Studies, Vol.6, no.4, and ‘The State and Dilemmas of Security’, Security Dialogue, Vol.33, no.4, December 2002. Ziba Moshaver is a Research Associate at the Centre of Near and Middle Eastern Studies, at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London. She obtained an MA from the University of Tehran and a DPhil from Oxford University. She specializes and has taught on the politics and international relations of the Middle East. She has published, among other works, The State and Global Change: The Political Economy of Transition in the Middle East and North Africa (Curzon, 2001) (edited with Hasan Hakimian). Tom Pierre Najem is Associate Professor and Head of the Department of Politics at the University of Windsor, Canada. He previously taught political economy at the universities of Al-Akhawayn (Morocco) and Durham (UK). His publications include Lebanon: The Politics of a Penetrated Society (London: Routledge, 2003), Lebanon’s Renaissance: The Political Economy of Reconstruction (London: Ithaca Press, 2000) and, as editor, Good Governance in the Middle Eastern Oil Monarchies (CurzonRoutledge, 2002). Among recent articles are ‘Privatisation and the State in Morocco: Nominal Objectives and Problematic Realities’, Mediterranean Politics, Vol.6, no.2, 2001 and ‘Human Rights Development in Morocco: A New Era?’, Mediterranean Journal for Human Rights, Vol.4, no.1, 2000. Alberto Tonini obtained his PhD in the History of International Relations from the University of Florence, Italy, with a published thesis on The Western Countries and the Arab-Israeli Conflict (in Italian). He was then granted a post-PhD fellowship and he is now completing a new book on Italy and the quest for oil during the era of Mattei’s stewardship of Italy’s state energy company, ENI. From November 1995 to March 2003 he was National Secretary of Sesamo, the Italian Society for Middle Eastern Studies. Michael Willis is King Mohammed IV Fellow in Moroccan and Mediterranean Studies at St. Antony’s College, Oxford University. He previously taught North African politics and International Relations at Al Akhawaya University (Ifrane, Morocco). His previous publications include The Islamist Challenge in Algeria: A Political History (Reading: Ithaca Press, 1996) and ‘The Arab Maghreb Union’ (with Nizar Mesari) in David Lesch (ed.) History in Dispute: The Middle East Since 1945, Vol.14 (Manly, 2003). He is currently writing a book on the comparative politics of North Africa.

Introduction GERD NONNEMAN This study is the outcome of a two-year project, sponsored by the Mediterranean Program of the European University Institute’s Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies, which aimed to bring a new perspective to the study both of Middle Eastern–European relations and of Foreign Policy Analysis of developing states – hoping to contribute, in order words, both to the discipline of International Relations and to Middle East Area Studies. The ‘Middle East’ is used here as encompassing the Arab world plus Iran, Turkey and Israel (although Israeli policy itself is not part of our enquiry, as it is not a developing state, features quite different dynamics, and has, in any case, received considerably more attention already). An alternative label spells out the inclusion of the Maghreb by specifying the region of interest as ‘The Middle East and North Africa’, or ‘MENA’ region – the latter acronym having become familiar in a number of policy fora and initiatives. While Euro-Arab and Euro-Middle Eastern relations have received a fair degree of academic attention over the past decade, most of this attention has taken one or more of ﬁve forms: 1.

2. 3. 4. 5.

Overviews of a presumed Mediterranean system – whether as a security complex, or as a merely geographically deﬁned theatre within which economic and security interests are played out.1 Studies of Europe’s interests in the MENA region. Reviews of European policy.2 Policy recommendations for Europe. Explorations of the causes of cultural misunderstanding.

Amid all this, an obvious lens through which to view one half of the equation has been left strikingly underused: namely, Foreign Policy Analysis (FPA) focusing on the determinants of the foreign policies of the MENA states themselves – which would allow the South-to-North perspective to be placed in its proper context. This reﬂects a similar bias in the study of International Relations and Foreign Policy Analysis: by and large, ‘North–South relations’ have been studied in a fashion that reﬂects the ordering of those labels more generally – either because, in most cases, the focus was on the policies and interests of the ‘Northern’ end of the equation; or, from a more critical perspective, because of an assumption that the key determinant was the straightjacket of Northern-imposed dependency within which Southern states have found themselves. It is hoped that the analytical framework suggested in the editor’s own contribution – honed through discussion with the other members of the group – together with the case

2

ANALYZING MIDDLE EASTERN FOREIGN POLICIES

studies that follow it, may help enrich the theoretical debate on the context and determinants of the foreign policies of states of the South – or indeed the multifarious category of ‘small’ states. Nine of the 13 contributions to this volume began as papers presented in a workshop on ‘The Determinants of Middle Eastern and North African States’ Foreign Policies: with Special Reference to their Relations with Europe’, directed by the editor, at the Third Mediterranean Social and Political Research Meeting, Florence and Montecatini Terme, March 20–24, 2002, which was organized by the Mediterranean Program of the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies at the European University Institute. The workshop participants were selected on the basis of a large number of responses to an international call for papers, based on an early version of the editor’s ‘Framework for Analysis’ (which became the ﬁrst two chapters in this study). Intensive discussion at the workshop was followed up over the following year, and all contributions which were eventually selected for inclusion in this study were substantially rewritten. In addition, two further contributions, on Egypt and Morocco, were brought in shortly after the workshop; these authors, too, became integral members of the project and based their work on a consideration of the framework put forward. This book was developed from a Special Issue of the journal Review of International Affairs, which included a book reviews section. While the latter has no place in the book, a review article by Raymond Hinnebusch that appeared in the Special Issue (‘Identity in International Relations: Constructivism versus Materialism and the Case of the Middle East’) was felt to be of such importance in deepening the exploration of some conceptual issues introduced in the volume, that the author was asked, and gracefully agreed, to turn this paper into a proper ﬁnal chapter for the purpose of the book. The ﬁrst chapter was signiﬁcantly amended for the book version, to bring greater clarity and comprehensiveness to the conceptual framework, hopefully furthering more effectively our aim of integrating the study of International Relations (IR) with that of the Middle East. The second chapter was extensively updated. Minor corrections were also introduced in a number of other chapters. In a sense, therefore, the book is already in its ‘revised and expanded second edition’ from the start. The common starting framework and subsequent exchange and coordination, however, did not mean that the contributors were wholly constrained: where variations on, departures from, or even clear disagreements with the original framework were judged appropriate, either in conceptual terms or because authors felt particular emphases and formats of presentation better brought out the salient points of their argument, this was encouraged. We hope the reader will agree the result is all the more enriching for it. The ﬁrst chapter suggests an analytical framework for studying the foreign policies of MENA states both in general and with special reference to their relations with Europe. It argues for an approach to studying MENA states’ foreign policy that is rooted in an eclectic (or ‘theoretically pluralist’) ‘complex model of international politics’. Explanations in Foreign Policy Analysis, it is argued, must be multi-level and multi-causal, as well as contextual.

INTRODUCTION

3

The levels on which MENA states’ foreign policy determinants must be examined are domestic, regional, and international. At the domestic level, the key categories of determinants are: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

The nature of the state (secure/insecure, extent of ‘national’ identity consolidation, authoritarian/liberalizing, rentier/non-rentier). The nature and interests of the regime. Capabilities (especially economic and technological). The decision-making system. Decision-makers’ perceptions and role conception.

The regional level combines, on the one hand, these states’ immediate strategic environment; and, on the other, the transnational ideological issues of (pan)Arabism and Islam. These latter issues retain some force as a constraint on regimes’ foreign policy behavior, and in some cases as a resource to be deployed in the pursuit of the maintenance of a domestic or regional constituency, against domestic, regional or international threats. But it is suggested that their salience has diminished relative to interests deﬁned within the context of the territorial state, as states and associated identities have become consolidated. The international environment presents a range of resources (economic, military, political) as well as challenges and constraints (threats, dependence). The composition of this environment will vary from state to state, depending among other things on the state’s location. The increasing hold of the ‘globalizing’ trend in economics and politics also changes the environment within which regimes have to make their domestic and foreign policy choices. Europe, and European policy, are part of this international environment In ‘omnibalancing’ between the pressures and opportunities in these three environments, foreign policy orientation and behavior has increasingly focused on the pragmatic pursuit of regime and state interests, rather than ideology, especially since the 1970s. These interests are essentially those of regime survival and consolidation, and state consolidation, and the acquisition of the political and economic means to ensure them. In this pursuit, the chapter argues, the extent of autonomy MENA states have, or can carve out, from ‘core’ actors in the international political economy is greater than dependency thinking has allowed for, because, among other things, there has been competition between core actors themselves, and core powers’ interests tend to lie in different areas and are much more globally scattered than is the case for those of MENA states. This, it is suggested, creates potential room for maneuver for adept leaders. The higher the level of state formation already achieved, the greater the autonomy from domestic pressures, and hence the easier the omnibalancing game and the attendant ‘polygamy’ (or ‘managed multi-dependence’) are likely to become. The second chapter homes in more speciﬁcally on the three environments (domestic, regional, and international) that shape MENA states’ foreign policies. Since Europe, and European policies, are a crucial part of the external environment (regional/international) which contributes to shaping

4

ANALYZING MIDDLE EASTERN FOREIGN POLICIES

MENA states’ own policies, not least towards Europe itself, the study also provides a brief overview of the evolution of European policy towards the region and its component parts. It ends with some preliminary conclusions about MENA states’ policies towards Europe. Nine salient features are suggested: 1. They are by and large pragmatic rather than ideological. 2. They are based in the ﬁrst place on a view of Europe as a source of economic resources and technology. 3. Nevertheless, some constraint continues to be imposed by the Palestine issue and nationalist motifs. 4. Policies are also in some measure based on a view of Europe as a counterweight to the US. 5. There is a residual but strongly varying effect of colonial/imperial relations. 6. MENA states differentiate between European states also because of existing levels of economic links and interests, and because of perceived differences in European states’ foreign policy stances. 7. There are large variations ﬂowing from the nature, needs and location of the MENA state/regime in question – variables that encompass both ‘material’ and ‘ideational’ factors. 8. Two signiﬁcant irritants are European reluctance genuinely to open up its own market in key sectors, such as agriculture and petrochemicals, and European political pressure over political reform. 9. Finally, MENA policies towards Europe are individual (state) at least as much as collective (Arab/Muslim/Gulf/Maghreb), as a consequence both of the intra-MENA differences listed above, and Europe’s own approach, which has been predominantly bilateral (albeit masked by a wider framework in the case of the Mediterranean). In subsequent chapters, a range of case studies covering the region from Morocco to Iran engage with this framework in more detail (although, as already indicated, it was left to authors’ judgement how explicit this should be made – or indeed whether they wished to diverge from it – to achieve the most effective analysis). The cases of Morocco (Michael Willis and Nizar Messari), Egypt (Emad Gad), Syria (Raymond Hinnebusch), Lebanon (Tom Pierre Najem), the states of the Gulf Cooperation Council (Abdulla Baabood), Iran (Ziba Moshaver) and Turkey (Mustafa Aydın) are examined systematically, drawing attention to the speciﬁcities of each while also allowing the reader to discover the parallels. With Iraq in post-Saddam ﬂux, any treatment of that country’s foreign policy must of necessity be historical; rather than offer a survey of the much-analyzed Saddam era, Alberto Tonini offers a useful historical comparative case, considering the reign of Abdulkarim Qasim, the country’s ﬁrst republican president, whose foreign policy was driven and constrained by many of the same factors. Paul Aarts and Dennis Janssen examine one illuminating aspect of foreign policy of special importance both to the MENA region and to Europe – viz. the positions taken by key Middle East oil producers

5

INTRODUCTION

on the question of climate change, in particular vis-a`-vis the European Union. Here, they speciﬁcally bring to bear the insights of the constructivist approach in IR – insights which, alongside ‘materialist’ realist and systemic foci, are introduced in the ﬁrst chapter and also feature implicitly or explicity throughout much of the text. This wider conceptual debate, and the question of regional speciﬁcity versus universal rules in the study of International Relations, is then ﬁnally taken up again in a second contribution by Hinnebusch, through a focus on the struggle between regional identity and systemic structure in the Middle East (taking his case material from across the whole region but also contrasting the Jordanian case in particular – not represented among the country chapters – with that of Syria). We were fortunate in being able to also include an afterword by Sayyid Badr bin Hamad Al Bu Said, Oman’s Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs, on the diplomacy of small states. Based on a lecture delivered to Belgium’s Royal Institute for International Affairs, on the occasion of the ﬁrst formal OmaniBelgian bilateral negotiations in September 2003 not long after the initial version of our project was completed, this presents quite independently a senior practitioner’s view of many of the issues at the heart of this volume. A thoughtful contribution in its own right, both in general and with regard to Oman’s foreign policy, it links with a number of academic debates in the ﬁeld of international relations, meshing rather strikingly with some of the insights emerging from our project. At the same time, as a view by one well-placed actor in the making and implementation of the very policies under examination, it can serve as a valuable ‘primary source’, illustrating some of the themes explored in the essays that follow. NOTES 1. The most recent is Dimitris Xenakis and Dimitris Chryssochoou, The Emerging EuroMediterranean System (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2001). 2. The most recent of these is Søren Dosenrode and Anders Stubkjær, The European Union and the Middle East (London/New York: Shefﬁeld Academic Press, 2002).

Analyzing the Foreign Policies of the Middle East and North Africa: A Conceptual Framework GERD NONNEMAN

INTRODUCTION

This chapter sets out a suggested framework for looking at Middle Eastern– European relations from the perspective of MENA states’ foreign policies. This adds an important dimension to the usual approach which views those relations as part of a global ‘Mediterranean’ relationship and largely from the perspective of European policy. An obvious lens through which to view one half of the equation has been left strikingly underused, viz. Foreign Policy Analysis (FPA) focusing on the determinants of the foreign policies of the MENA states themselves – which would allow the South-to-North perspective to be placed in its proper context. This reﬂects a similar ‘Northern’ bias in the study of International Relations and Foreign Policy Analysis more generally.1 It can also be explained partly by the predominance of European interests in this academic equation; partly by the relatively less developed Foreign Policy Analysis discipline in the MENA region; and partly by the relative dearth of analytical work on Middle Eastern foreign policies tout court. With the exception of a limited number of case studies, and a few works on the Middle East’s position in the international political economy, there was no recent systematic attempt to study Arab foreign policies until the publication of the collective work directed by Korany and Dessouki in 1984. This was followed only by a second edition of the same work in 1991,2 and then another contribution on an aspect relating to foreign policy, in the shape of the collective volume on national security in the Arab world edited by Korany, Brynen and Dessouki (1993).3 Only very recently has there appeared a comparable new contribution on Middle Eastern foreign policies in the shape of an edited volume by Hinnebusch and Ehteshami.4 There is a need, then, to develop further the systematic comparative study of Middle Eastern foreign policy(ies) in general, and an even more glaring need to consider Euro-Middle Eastern (or rather, ‘Middle Eastern-European’) relations through that prism. Only thus can one hope to arrive at a genuine understanding of what underlies MENA states’ policy orientations and behavior towards Europe, and therefore how they might develop in the future.

THE FOREIGN POLICIES OF THE MENA STATES

7

AN APPROACH TO FOREIGN POLICY ANALYSIS ROOTED IN A COMPLEX MODEL OF INTERNATIONAL POLITICS

In viewing the relationship instead as one part of the MENA states’ overall foreign policy orientation, this chapter argues for an approach to studying MENA states’ foreign policy that is rooted in an eclectic ‘complex model of international politics’. Explanations in Foreign Policy Analysis, it is argued, must be multi-level and multi-causal, as well as contextual. The analysis of any country’s foreign policy is necessarily rooted in a number of assumptions. In explaining the dynamics of International Relations (IR), and by extension in the analysis of foreign policy, Realist thinking has focused largely on the ‘power’ impulse and has usually taken states as monolithic actors rationally calculating costs and beneﬁts in a power-balancing game, the rules of which, in the ‘anarchic society’ of world politics, are presumed as given. For neo-realists such as Waltz, it is the international system, rather than the statelevel desire for power in its own right, that should be the prime focus of analysis, as its anarchic structure (with different varieties of polarity) drives states to adopt the behavioural patterns of ‘power politics’, in order to ensure survival. Although Waltz admits that changes in the international system itself may result from structural factors within states, he has little or no interest in descending below the system level.5 Other schools, more usually self-deﬁned as part of the ‘Foreign Policy Analysis’ (FPA) discipline, do delve into the inner workings of these states, focusing on decision-making, the bureaucracy, and/or the elites and personalities making policy. So-called ‘neotraditional realism’ from the late 1990s, too, refocused on the role of leaders’ perceptions and other state-level factors, while retaining the structural insights of neorealism.6 A relatively recent contribution that stands out, as it conceptually links the state and system levels, comes in the shape of the so-called ‘constructivist’ approach (with Wendt as its most prominent ﬁgure), which stresses cultural and ideational factors as co-determining both state behaviour and the structure of the international system. For state actors, in the constructivist conception, it is the (socially constructed) meanings of facts and objects they encounter in their domestic and external environments, that inspires their actions. Wendt argues that the state and the structures in which it sits shape each other, as a result of a web of ‘intersubjective understandings’. Or, as he puts it, ‘anarchy is what states make of it’.7 But constructivism’s equal weighting of the domestic and the system level, and of the ideational and the material (let alone the prioritising of the domestic in the other FPA approaches brieﬂy referred to) runs counter (as does straight realism) to a ﬁnal set of approaches: although structuralist/materialist like neorealism, this set is broadly Marxian-derived (even if not all its authors would consider themselves Marxist). Here, as in neo-realism, states’ interaction and foreign policy are seen as shaped largely by structures beyond the state level, but particular emphasis is given to the persistent dominance of some states – those of the ‘rich’, ‘developed’, ‘core’ – over a group of poorer, ‘peripheral’,

8

ANALYZING MIDDLE EASTERN FOREIGN POLICIES

‘dependent’ ones, in a capitalist international political economy. In these latter approaches, what transpires within states may be of relatively little importance, nor are so-called ‘dependent’ actors (a category usually covering all developing states, as well as, in some interpretations, ‘small’ states) usually seen as having any signiﬁcant autonomy. Some versions of dependency thinking, admittedly, see developing states’ policy as constrained, rather than simply determined, from without. It has also been suggested that there may be coincidence of interests between elites in ‘periphery’ and ‘core,’ while there may be conﬂict between the interests of elites and populations within the periphery. There is certainly an element of such ‘coincidence’ in the case of several MENA elites, who are linked to the ‘core’ economies through education, leisure, commercial interest, and the revenues they derive from the sale of hydrocarbons or aid. There is a potential conﬂict also between these elites and the nationalist and Islamist aspirations of some of the population – necessitating a careful balance in policy so as to maintain legitimacy. But this conﬂict should not be exaggerated. It is true that at particular junctures of regional/domestic crisis it may take on special signiﬁcance (imagine for instance a further worsening of the Palestine conﬂict combined with an uncertain aftermath of the war on Iraq and economic downturn in countries such as Saudi Arabia and Egypt). But such popular aspirations are, taken separately, by no means supreme: they compete for attention with other themes, and themselves ﬂuctuate in importance. There also is not the level of ‘comprador’ exploitation in the case of the Middle East that inspired the analyses of some dependencia thinkers. Finally, partial coincidence in such elite interests at a very general level, does not explain speciﬁc variations in policy towards different outside actors. What this caveat does already indicate, however, is the variations that particular kinds of developing states may present on the usual patterns of explanation of foreign policy (mainly related to developed states) – indeed the dependency school itself of course focused on developing states. In any case, it must be clear that reference to structures, even structures in which states are seen as ‘dependent’, can never be sufﬁcient on its own to explain their foreign policy behavior. One would be left without explanation for the sudden U-turn in policy of states following a domestic regime change (such as in the case of Iran after the fall of the Shah), or policy changes that occurred even without such a regime shift – as in the case of Egyptian president Sadat’s sudden switch from pro-Soviet to pro-US policies in 1972. Neither of these can be understood without taking into account a combination of domestic forces and changes, regional linkages, and developments at the international level, together with the role played by particular personalities and their particular choices. The assumptions that should guide any attempt to understand the foreign policies of any state or group of states, then, would seem to be:8 1. The search for ‘power’ is indeed an important impetus for states and regimes, as is that for ‘security’ – related but distinct, and in many cases the object of the former.

THE FOREIGN POLICIES OF THE MENA STATES

2. 3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

9

There is, however, no single ‘national interest’ but a range of ‘national interests’. States are not monoliths but involve various groups and individuals, with the concomitant variety of interests that may or may not be clothed as ‘national’. Between interests and policy intervenes a decision-making process which depends, inter alia, on the nature of the state, the administrative machinery involved, the ‘bureaucratic politics’ within it,9 and the personalities and perceptions of those involved.10 Foreign policy is often domestically oriented: indeed, the search for ‘power’ and ‘security’ may well in the ﬁrst place be domestic (as argued by Ayoob11). The importance of decision-makers’ perceptions relates not only to such material or political interests. Their perceptions of the nature of regional and/or international policies, and of their own identity and role as well as those of their state (and of how these may be related to transnational identities), also feed into policy-making. Indeed, as the constructivist school in IR holds, such perceptions, at a collective as well as individual level, are likely themselves in turn to help shape the nature of the regional and international systems these states operate in. States and decision makers do have to face objective external challenges and opportunities, whether in their immediate environment or in the pattern of global political and economic relations. These range from the more speciﬁc and one-off – such as a military threat emerging next door after a revolution – to broader, longer-term inﬂuences. The latter comprise the ‘structural’ context focused on by ‘structuralists’ – but such structures do not determine outcomes, rather they constrain and enable.

In other words, my approach follows such diverse writers as Keohane,12 Gilpin,13 Snyder,14 and Siverson and Starr,15 in insisting on integrating domestic political factors and dynamics into IR thinking – in essence opting for ‘complex models of international politics’.16 Explanation, consequently, must inevitably be multi-level and multi-causal. At the same time, it is difﬁcult, at the very least, to generalize about the precise effects of particular types of states and regimes on foreign policy, in any one-dimensional way. Instead, ‘political effects [of particular kinds of states and regimes] vary across different issues, situations, and leaders’.17 Explanation, therefore, must incorporate contextuality. Hence the crucial importance of empirical work, and of bringing area specialization and indepth case studies to the study of IR. FOREIGN POLICY ANALYSIS AND DEVELOPING STATES

The extent to which foreign policy determinants in ‘developing states’ differ from those in other states varies widely from case to case – quite apart from the difﬁculty in drawing sharp boundaries between the categories in the ﬁrst place. Apart from these states’ arguably ‘dependent’ position, the causes of their

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divergence from the ‘developed’ pattern would include their relative lack of resources (here the Gulf states are atypical), lower levels of state formation (and hence legitimacy), and – in part linked with this latter point – their susceptibility to trans-state identities and loyalties. Arguably, too, they will often ﬁnd themselves in relatively less stable regional environments. Third World foreign policy studies have often overplayed some factors deemed to differentiate the two groups, at the expense of others. Thus an overemphasis on the role of a leader’s personality can obscure the domestic and external environmental determinants without which the foreign policy pattern cannot be properly interpreted; at the other extreme, an excessive focus on a country’s ‘structural’ position obscures variations in foreign policy that may result from particular domestic conﬁgurations and policy choices.18 I suggested elsewhere19 that the most appropriate FPA approach for developing states – including those of the MENA region – would be: 1. Start an interpretation from the domestic environment and the survival imperative of regime and state.20 2. View this in the context of the regional environment and transnational ideological factors. 3. Appreciate the overall limiting and enabling effects of the international environment. 4. Take into account decision-making structures and decision makers’ perceptions, since particular policy choices are indeed capable of making the sort of difference that cannot be explained by structural factors alone. MENA STATES’ FOREIGN POLICY DETERMINANTS

The foreign policy ‘role’21 of MENA states (as that of many other developing states), must be seen as deﬁned through the lens of the leaderships’ perceptions about the security of their regime, about the opportunities and challenges presented by both their domestic and their external environments; and, to varying extents, about their own identities. These various perceptions are, of course, interlinked. Holsti has observed that regimes’ role conceptions, often in part built on domestic political culture, can, over time, in turn ‘become a more pervasive part of the political culture of a nation [and thus become] more likely to set limits on perceived or politically feasible policy alternatives’.22 Yet it is misleading to think of a single role: foreign policy roles are plural, depending on the issue and the arena in question. They are also changeable: as Hill has pointed out, ‘The ‘‘belief system’’ of the practitioner is a deep-rooted legacy of experience and political culture, but it is also an organic set of attitudes which is capable, within limits, of self-transformation’.23 While the foreign policies of MENA states do show long-term patterns, one of them is precisely that they also show the adaptability that this analysis suggests. Explanations of the foreign policies of MENA states, as those of other states, therefore, should avoid the conceptual extremes of both realism and Marxian/ dependencia structuralism, without at the same time falling into the trap of over-

THE FOREIGN POLICIES OF THE MENA STATES

11

privileging purely domestic factors. Instead the enquiry should be open to the range of possible determinants that different schools in IR theory and Foreign Policy Analysis have drawn attention to, and systematically address them. Key questions that need to be addressed concern the relative importance of the following factors: . . . . . .

The domestic versus the external environment. Personalities/leaders versus environmental factors. Economic versus political interests. The role of the decision-making process versus other factors. Autonomy versus dependence (or the debate over ‘agency’ versus ‘structure’). The relative importance of the regional system(s), especially in terms of its (their) transnational ideational/ideological/identity features. In the MENA case the Arab and Islamic themes are especially pertinent factors at a regional level. Contrasting approaches towards the MENA case are adopted in this respect by Barnett,24 who insists on the persisting importance of the theme of Arabism, and Walt,25 who paints a Realist picture of alliance politics; Korany and Dessouki’s edited volume adopts an intermediate position tending towards the Barnett end of the spectrum; a decade later (and perhaps this explains the difference), Hinnebusch and Ehteshami edge away from this, adopting an ‘adjusted realist’ approach.26

MENA states’ foreign policies, I suggest, have in varying ways been determined by the needs of the regimes at home, the changing availability of resources, and the international strategic and economic framework within which these countries have played a subordinate but not necessarily powerless role. They have also been inﬂuenced and circumscribed by the regional ideological and political context (with especially Islamic and Arab themes), both because this links into the domestic security imperative, and because it has been a genuine element among the various role conceptions of at least some of these leaderships. MENA countries’ policies towards, and relations with, Europe should be examined in this light. Clearly Europe’s presence on the northern shores of the Mediterranean will, itself, be part of the explanatory mosaic, as will be European policies. But the explanation should go beyond the assumption that the relationship is determined simply by the ‘Mediterranean system’ – if indeed such a system can be thought to exist. The EU and European states are, for MENA states, merely one part of a much wider, and complex, external environment determining foreign policy; by the same token, even the external environment as a whole, with its regional and global components, must be joined to the domestic environment if any credible explanation of foreign policy – and therefore also of policy towards Europe – is to emerge. The levels on which MENA states’ FP determinants must be examined, therefore, are domestic, regional, and international. At the domestic level, the key categories of determinants are:

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1. The nature of the state (secure/insecure, extent of ‘national’ identity consolidation; authoritarian/liberalizing, rentier/non-rentier). 2. The nature and interests of the regime. 3. Capabilities – in particular economic and technological as well as demographic resources. 4. The decision-making system. 5. Decision-makers’ perceptions and role conception. The central aim of the regime is likely to be its own consolidation and survival, along with the two sets of aims that enable this: the acquisition of resources, and the state- and nation-building exercise. The regional level combines, on the one hand, these states’ immediate strategic environment; and, on the other, the transnational ideological issues of (pan-)Arabism and Islam. These latter issues retain some force as a constraint on regimes’ FP behavior, and in some cases as a resource to be deployed in the pursuit of the maintenance of a domestic or regional constituency, against domestic, regional or international threats. But it is suggested that their salience has diminished relative to interests deﬁned within the context of the territorial state, as states and associated identities have become consolidated. Nevertheless, they may become more problematic in times of crisis, not least because of popular pressure (e.g. over combined crises in Iraq and Palestine). The international environment presents a range of resources (economic, military, political) as well as challenges and constraints (threats, dependence). The composition of this environment will vary from state to state, depending, among other things, on the state’s location. The increasing hold of the ‘globalizing’ trend in economics and politics also changes the environment within which regimes have to make their domestic and foreign policy choices. It is worth noting at this point that Europe, and particular European states, do have particular importance in this international environment, because of: 1. Europe’s very proximity. 2. The former colonial or semi-colonial ties between many of the countries of the region and European states, and their continuing impact. 3. Europe’s own position in the international system. I will return to this in the following chapter. The three levels – or three environments – that Middle Eastern states ﬁnd themselves in, need to be managed, or responded to, simultaneously. The ways in which they do this will change over time, as the relative weight of the three levels in shaping foreign policy may change along with changes taking place at the state, regional and global levels.27 One should add to this a fourth possible environment, or a ‘sub-environment’ within the regional system: that of their immediate surroundings, for example the Gulf sub-system, the Maghreb, or the Nile Valley. Here, too, transnational issues compete with ‘realist’ power calculations.

THE FOREIGN POLICIES OF THE MENA STATES

13

The interrelated domestic and regional environments impose a host of potential constraints, then, on the presumed raison d’e´tat calculations the realist school would posit. Indeed, it makes the foreign policy calculations of Middle Eastern regimes arguably more fraught than those of other states. They are a good case study, therefore, of Steven David’s concept of ‘omnibalancing’ – which suggests that policy makers must balance between internal and external pressures, in a decision context shaped by the main location of threats and opportunities.28 In other words, policy makers not only balance different elements (threats and opportunities) in the different parts of the external environment (the traditional view), they also need to balance these with the variable pressures at home. The precise ‘package’ that results will depend on the importance and location of these threats and opportunities. This mirrors Ikenberry’s view of the way in which states and the elites that staff them must engage in a constant bargaining relationship with their societies, balancing this with strategies to adjust to pressures and changes in the international environment – with the particular choices made varying according to the relative costs and beneﬁts of these interrelated domestic and external strategies: Adjustment may be directed outward at international regimes, or inward at transforming domestic structures, or somewhere in between in order to maintain existing relationships. Which strategy is chosen will depend in large part on the gross structural circumstances within which the state ﬁnds itself – deﬁned in terms of state–society relations on the one hand, and position within the international system on the other.29 Inherent in this analysis is that a strong, domestically secure leader will have much greater room for manoeuvre in his external bargaining, than is likely to be the case for a regime that is under serious pressure at home – an observation directly relevant to the question of ‘relative autonomy’ which I deal with later. The shifting relative importance of the three levels which was referred to earlier, may, of course, mean that particular theoretical models may be more appropriate for understanding the dynamics of particular periods. Thus, Hinnebusch30 has suggested that Rosenau’s view of the most important determinants of Third World foreign policies – the global level (including military intervention), and the Leader – might be most appropriate for the early post-independent period. The 1950s and 1960s, by contrast, arguably were a period where the external factor became relatively less dominant given the Cold War context, while the domestic scene became commensurably more important – making David’s omnibalancing model especially relevant. During the 1970s and 1980s, war became more pervasive in the region and the threat from neighbors much more important; at the same time, states were beginning to master the domestic environment. Consequently, here the Realist model might become a better approximation of the dynamics observed (the exception would be Iran, with its 1979 revolution, which would be comparable with the 1950s to 1960s period in the Arab world). Finally, Hinnebusch suggests, the 1990s might be viewed as ushering in a new era, where decision makers are sandwiched

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between much increased pressures from the global level, and growing pressures domestically. In this new context, the hegemon’s ability to intervene militarily is back on the agenda (possibly making it less likely that MENA states will opt for military action), while economic asymmetry is perceived to be on the increase. The combined effect of these factors, and attempts to resist them, may be one explanation for a re-emergence of transnational ideology as a salient factor in the politics of the region. At the same time, ‘bandwaggoning’, as opposed to ‘balancing’ by MENA states may become more likely. While the jury is still out on the latter assessment, it is clear that, over the period since the 1950s, the foreign policy orientation and behavior of MENA states have increasingly focused on the pragmatic pursuit of regime and state interests, rather than ideology, especially since the 1970s. This holds also for supposed ‘rogue’ states such as Libya, Iraq and Iran (save for exceptional periods such as the aftermath of revolution in the latter), and is especially clear in their relations with Europe.31 These interests are essentially those of regime survival and consolidation, and state consolidation, and the acquisition of the political and economic means to ensure them. In this, the dynamics at work are reminiscent of (albeit less extreme than) the foreign policy aims that Clapham attributes to the ‘monopoly states’ of Africa – with their negative (juridical) sovereignty, their personalist rule, and their clientelist domestic and international relations.32 THE QUESTION OF (RELATIVE) AUTONOMY

A central question raised in the above debate concerns the extent to which policies are determined by the ‘dependency’ of these ‘developing’ or ‘peripheral’ states on the ‘core’ or ‘hegemonic’ actors in the international political economy – including on former colonial masters. The obverse of this question is what level of autonomy MENA and other states of the South have, or can carve out – including how and under what conditions they can do so. While recognizing that the answer may vary – for instance due to the varying global/regional contexts as suggested by Hinnebusch – I suggest that, overall, this potential for relative autonomy is greater than dependency thinking has allowed for. Pragmatic adaptation to changing circumstances in all three environments (domestic, regional, global) and adjusting policy accordingly, will often be necessary if they are to be dealt with effectively simultaneously. This need not mean that these states are necessarily at the whim of greater powers. I have presented some evidence elsewhere for the case of the Gulf states, showing that they have often been able to carve out a very signiﬁcant relative autonomy from the main ‘hegemon’ of the day – the Ottoman Empire, Britain and the US.33 I would argue, moreover, that this can be combined even by a very small and vulnerable state such as Qatar, with simultaneous relative autonomy from its vastly larger regional would-be hegemon, Saudi Arabia.34 While allowing for the ﬂuctuations suggested by Hinnebusch, I would interpret the available evidence as showing that states are rarely totally without at least the potential for some such relative autonomy. A different way of approaching this question is to ask whether they ﬁnd themselves forced to align their foreign policy with that of larger powers,

THE FOREIGN POLICIES OF THE MENA STATES

15

whether in the region or beyond: what patterns of alliance emerge. The traditional assumption is that the smaller, weaker, and more ‘dependent’ a state is, the smaller the chance that it can do anything but align with a major outside power. Even here, it theoretically could, during the Cold War, choose between two camps – although other domestic factors and agendas would often make the choice almost inevitable. For the case of sub-Saharan Africa, Clapham has shown that domestic insecurity and dearth of resources have combined there with small size to predispose a state towards alignment, while only the larger and domestically better established states and regimes had more of a chance to opt for non-alignment, or for aligning with one power while cultivating links with its rival, thus pre-empting any challenge from this rival through domestic or regional opponents of the regime.35 A domestically secure leader, argues Clapham, will have a freer choice between an alignment (bandwaggoning, or clientelist) strategy, and a non-aligned, balancing strategy – both offering beneﬁts and disadvantages. By contrast, ‘[w]hen leaders faced appreciable domestic threats, the demands of omnibalancing became considerably more intricate, and their scope for independent action was correspondingly reduced’.36 The usual assumption is that the end of the Cold War has reduced that room for maneuver. In fact, opportunities for pragmatic balancing and ‘polygamy’ persist – not least in the case of the MENA region, although I will argue that here too, the factor of domestic strength is and remains important. What is clear is that this balancing game may require gradual adaptation in general foreign policy roles. In turn, such pragmatic adaptation both in role conceptions and performance requires a degree of autonomy from the domestic and regional constraints already referred to. Indeed, while it is the very interlocking of the different levels in their foreign policies that helps give regimes room for maneuver, at the same time it is precisely by ﬂexibly activating this degree of autonomy at one or more levels relative to one or more other levels (domestic, regional, international), that it can ultimately be maintained most securely. The room for maneuver which adept local leaders may be able to turn into the required relative autonomy at the three levels, emerges from the combination of two sets of circumstances, domestic and external. The domestic factors are, in essence, the availability of material and political resources. Material resources come in many forms, including most prominently that of hydrocarbon riches. With political resources I mean ﬁrst and foremost the already established level of political legitimacy for state and regime, alongside those tools that allow further consolidation. Or as Hinnebusch and Ehteshami put it: ‘the higher the level of state formation, the lower the level of constraints on the pursuit of reason of state from international dependency and trans-state penetration’.37 The external circumstances include limitations on, and competition between, great powers – a factor which will signiﬁcantly ﬂuctuate over time. Crucially, they also include the global scattering of great power interests, as opposed to local actors’ ability and propensity to concentrate on their immediate region – often compensating to some extent for the absolute power differential. Moreover, some states’ possession of a valued resource, whether in strategic position, in oil, in wealth, or otherwise, may afford it some leverage with greater

16

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powers. By contrast, the very insigniﬁcance of a state may mean that it does not command the level of external powers’ attention and resources needed to constrain its autonomy.38 Indeed, the question of the relative power and inﬂuence of ‘developed’ and ‘developing’ states needs to be considered not in overall absolute terms, but by considering what, for the supposedly weaker party, is most relevant in terms of its foreign policy aims. For most developing states, this is unlikely to be the battle with the great powers. Even if in a direct trial of strength at the global level, they would probably lose out, that sort of trial of strength is not where their main attention is likely to be focused. Rather, they are likely to direct their attention and energy towards the regional arena – in addition to those global issues that directly affect their interests, such as negotiations over trade regimes and, for the Gulf states, the world energy markets. Within their region there are many dynamics over which outside powers have little or no control, and which they cannot predict. In the case of the MENA states, a partial exception may be policy on Israel. Even this, however, arguably is rarely the top concern for these states, unless the domestic position of the regime is in question. Another possible exception would be the Gulf arena, as here such vital interests for outside powers are concentrated. In fact, the evidence shows that having such interests does not equate with ability to direct things at will – indeed quite the contrary: Turkey’s and Saudi Arabia’s refusal to give the US the assistance it wanted in the Iraq operation of 2003 and, indeed, the Qatari government’s refusal to rein in the satellite TV channel Al-Jazeera, are telling examples. To sum up the argument: the international-level constellation of factors referred to above (which will vary from period to period and from case to case) provides the ﬂuctuating room for maneuver within which the pragmatic multilevel balancing game becomes possible. The long-term foreign policy patterns of managed multi-dependence and pragmatism which I suggest can be observed in a number of MENA states are a crucial part of this. Indeed, the pragmatic adaptation in role conception and performance displayed by these regimes in playing off outside powers against each other and avoiding ‘mono-dependence’, is necessary to take advantage of this constellation of factors. Yet this in turn will at times require a degree of regime autonomy from domestic and regional ideological pressures or constraints. Such autonomy can be acquired through the judicious use of resources available from outside powers and at home, and is itself potentially reinforced as an outcome of the overall ‘game’. On the one hand, as already suggested, a key domestic resource in this game is domestic legitimacy; the further advanced the level of state formation, the easier it will be to transcend regional constraints. On the other, successful deployment of the omni-balancing strategy may ultimately help the process of state formation and increase regime legitimacy. In other words, if this game is played successfully, it may in turn lead to greater autonomy at all levels – not only international, but also domestic and regional, creating a positive feedback loop. None of this is to claim that such autonomy is anything but relative. Indeed, while the states beneﬁting from the most helpful combination of the factors above are in a position of asymmetrical interdependence rather than dependence

THE FOREIGN POLICIES OF THE MENA STATES

17

tout court, they remain vulnerable and the weaker part of the asymmetry. Similarly, my conclusions about the predominance of pragmatism certainly do not mean that transnational issues would lose their importance altogether as a factor in foreign policy; yet it does mean that, against the background of state consolidation and under the conditions outlined, their impact lessens relative to other concerns, as merely one inﬂuence among many. While astute policy making, as displayed for instance by the Gulf ruling families, has been important in making the most of this potential virtuous circle, it seems plausible that the underlying dynamic applies more generally to small states – indeed perhaps even more so: most states face less powerful transnational ideological pressures and constraints than do those of the Middle East. In the following contribution, the speciﬁc domestic, regional, and international environments that impact on MENA states’ foreign policy making, are analyzed in greater detail, before offering some preliminary conclusions about the deﬁning features of MENA states’ foreign policies towards Europe. NOTES 1. This was particularly so during the period of the Cold War. As Clapham puts it: ‘the dominant focus was on the relationship between the superpowers, with a secondary but still important emphasis on relations between other industrial states such as those of Western Europe. Even the study of ‘‘North–South’’ relations characteristically had a heavy emphasis on North–South relations, . . . rather than on South–North ones’. Christopher Clapham, Africa and the International System: the Politics of State Survival (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), p. 3. 2. Bahgat Korany and Ali Dessouki (eds.), The Foreign Policies of Arab States (Boulder: Westview, 1991 – 2nd edition). 3. Bahgat Korany et al., (eds.), The Many Faces of National Security in the Arab World (London: Macmillan, 1993). 4. Raymond Hinnebusch and Anoushiravan Ehteshami (eds.), The Foreign Policies of Middle Eastern States (Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 2002). 5. Kenneth Waltz, Theory of International Politics (Reading, Mass.: Addison Wesley, 1979). 6. For the latter, see for instance John Vazquez, The Power of Power Politics: From Classical Realism to Neotraditionalism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998). 7. Alexander Wendt, ‘Anarchy is what States Make of it: the Social Construction of Power Politics’, International Organization, Vol. 46 (1992), no. 2, pp. 391 – 425. 8. This list draws on an earlier version in Gerd Nonneman, ‘Saudi–European Relations, 1902– 2001: a Pragmatic Quest for Relative Autonomy’, International Affairs, Vol. 77, no. 3 (July 2001), pp. 631–61: at p. 633. 9. Graham Allison, Essence of Decision (Boston: Little, Brown, 1971). 10. Michael Brecher, Crisis Decision–Making: Israel 1967 and 1973 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980). 11. Mohammed Ayoob, The Third World Security Predicament (Boulder: Lynne Rienner); and see J. Hagan, ‘Domestic Political Explanations in the Analysis of Foreign Policy’, in Laura Neack et al. (eds.), Foreign Policy Analysis: Continuity and Change in its Second Generation (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice–Hall, 1995), pp. 117–44. 12. Robert Keohane, After Hegemony: Cooperation and Discord in the World Political Economy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984). 13. Robert Gilpin, War and Change in World Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981). 14. J. Snyder, Myths of Empire: Domestic Politics and International Ambition (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1991). 15. R. Siverson and H. Starr, ‘Regime Change and the Restructuring of Alliances’, in American Journal of Political Science, Vol. 38 (1994), pp. 145–61.

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16. H. Mu¨ller and T. Risse–Kappen, ‘From the Outside In and from the Inside Out: International Relations, Domestic Politics and Foreign Policy’, in D Skidmore and V Hudson (eds.), The Limits of State Autonomy: Societal Groups and Foreign Policy Formulation (Boulder: Westview, 1993). 17. Joe Hagan, ‘Domestic Political Explanations in the Analysis of Foreign Policy’, p. 120. 18. Bahgat Korany, ‘Foreign Policy in the Third World: an Introduction’, in International Political Science Review, Vol. 5 (1984), no. 1, pp. 7–20. 19. Nonneman, ‘Saudi–European Relations, 1902–2001’. 20. See for instance Bruce Moon, ‘The State in Foreign and Domestic Policy’, in Laura Neack et al. (eds.), Foreign Policy Analysis: Continuity and Change in its Second Generation, pp. 187–200. 21. A term much used but variously deﬁned in the literature. In essence, it is meant to be a state’s characteristic patterns of behavior – whether seen as the result of the state’s position in a system of balance of power (James Rosenau, Turbulence in World Politics (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990), or, as rightly observed by Holsti, as also driven by policy makers’ own perceptions and deﬁnitions, and thus as much domestically as externally generated (K.J. Holsti, ‘National Role Conceptions in the Study of Foreign Policy’, in Stephen Walker (ed.) Role Theory and Foreign Policy Analysis (Durham: Duke UP, 1987), pp. 5–43. For a good review see Lisbeth Aggestam, ‘Role Conceptions and the Politics of Identity in Foreign Policy’, ARENA Working Papers 99/8, available on 5 http://www.arena.uio.no/ publications/wp99_8.htm 4 . 22. K. Holsti, ‘National Role Conceptions in the Study of Foreign Policy’, in Stephen Walker (ed.) Role Theory and Foreign Policy Analysis (Durham: Duke University Press, 1987), pp. 5–43: at pp. 38–9. 23. Christopher Hill, ‘The Historical Background: Past and Present in British Foreign Policy’, in Michael Smith et al. (eds.), British Foreign Policy: Tradition, Change and Transformation (London: Unwin Hyman, 1988), pp. 25–49: at p. 30. 24. Michael Barnett, Dialogues in Arab Politics (New York: Columbia University Press, 1998). 25. Stephen Walt, The Origin of Alliances (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1987). 26. Korany and Dessouki (eds.), The Foreign Policies of Arab States; Hinnebusch and Ehteshami (eds.), The Foreign Policies of Middle Eastern States. 27. A point suggested by Raymond Hinnebusch, at the Workshop on ‘The Determinants of Middle Eastern and North African States’ Foreign Policies: With Special Reference to Their Relations with Europe’, at the Third Mediterranean Social and Political Research Meeting, Florence and Montecatini Terme, March 20–24, 2002. 28. Steven David, ‘Explaining Third World Alignment’, in World Politics, Vol. 43, no. 2 (1991), pp. 233–56. 29. John Ikenberry, ‘The State and Strategies of International Adjustment’, in World Politics, Vol. 39 (1986), no. 1, pp. 53–77. 30. Discussion paper at Workshop on ‘The Determinants of Middle Eastern and North African States’ Foreign Policies: With Special Reference to Their Relations with Europe’, at the Third Mediterranean Social and Political Research Meeting, Florence and Montecatini Terme, March 20–24, 2002. Subsequently elaborated also in the new chapter added to this book (pp. 243 – 256) (developed from his review article in the original version of this volume in the Special Issue of Review of International Affairs (vol. 2, no. 3 (Winter 2003/04)). 31. This is notwithstanding the stress laid on the ideological factor in Moshaver’s contribution on Iran, in this volume: indeed, in the ﬁnal analysis, the ‘average’ of Iran’s policy output since the late 1980s does in fact conform to the pattern I outline. 32. Clapham, Africa and the International System. 33. Gerd Nonneman, ‘Constants and Variations in Gulf–British Relations’, in J. Kechichian (ed.), Iran, Iraq and the Arab Gulf States (London: Palgrave, 2001), pp. 315–50. 34. Gerd Nonneman, ‘The Autonomy of ‘‘Dependent’’ States: the Case of the Arab Gulf States’, paper presented at the MESA Conference, San Francisco, Nov. 2001 (available from the MESA [Middle East Studies Association of North America] secretariat). 35. Clapham, Africa and the International System, p. 64 and passim. 36. Ibid., p. 65. 37. Raymond Hinnebusch, ‘Introduction and Framework of Analysis’, in Hinnebusch and Ehteshami (eds.), The Foreign Policies of Middle Eastern States, pp. 1–27. 38. Morgenthau made a similar point with reference to the independence of small states: Morgenthau, Politics among Nations (New York: Knopf, 1964 – 3rd ed.), p. 177, where he refers to ‘their lack of attractiveness for imperialistic aspirations’. Morgenthau also already recognized the factor of great power competition.

The Three Environments of Middle East Foreign Policy Making and Relations with Europe GERD NONNEMAN

Given the framework for analysis presented in the previous chapter, which proposed that MENA states’ foreign policy needs to be analyzed as shaped by three inter-linked and interacting environments – domestic, regional and international – this contribution takes a closer look at each of these speciﬁc environments for the states and policy makers of the Middle East and North Africa. At the domestic level, the evolving questions of state and regime consolidation and legitimacy are central, with the related issues of political economy and political development. At the regional level, the salient features, with respect to foreign policy, of the Arab and Middle East region as a whole are considered, before looking at each of the region’s component sub-regions: the Gulf, the Mashreq, and the Maghreb. Attention is also drawn to the impact of states’ immediate environment. Europe, and European policy towards the region, are a key part of the external environment, straddling the regional and international categories. The signiﬁcance of this European factor is assessed, and an outline given of the evolution of European policy towards the region. Finally, a number of preliminary conclusions are offered about the deﬁning features of MENA states’ foreign policies towards Europe. THE DOMESTIC ENVIRONMENT

The central pursuit of most MENA regimes remains that of domestic survival – and the search for legitimacy, acquiescence and control to assure this, in turn supported by a search for resources to deploy in this domestic quest. The root of these dynamics remains in the inadequate ‘stateness’ of many of the countries in question, combined with a failure to ‘perform’ either politically or economically. After the bankruptcy of quasi-socialist experiments from the 1950s to the early 1980s, there has been no real economic take-off under the half-hearted economic reforms introduced since the mid-1980s (and since the 1970s in Egypt). The oil revenues which aided the rich oil producers directly, and the rest of the Middle East indirectly through aid and opportunities for migrant employment, lost their luster even in the Gulf with the 1986 slump in prices that badly affected the regional economy as a whole. Indeed, after the temporary

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boom of the 1970s and early 1980s, came a decade in which the countries south of the Mediterranean suffered the sharpest decline in real wealth (GNP per capita) of any region in the developing world, amounting to some 2 percent per year.1 At the political level, the prevailing pattern remained one of autocratic rule – albeit with some variations. By and large, governments have reacted with clamp-downs to the challenges posed by these economic difﬁculties (including large-scale unemployment), even in places where there had been some evidence of liberalization previously – such as Tunisia, Egypt, and Jordan. It is interesting to note that it is in the monarchies of the Gulf that some contrary dynamics appear to emerge: parliamentary politics remains as lively as ever in Kuwait (though still constrained in its inﬂuence), while Qatar and Bahrain appear to be moving in the same direction at the beginning of the twenty-ﬁrst century. Following the adoption of its new constitution, turning the country into a Kingdom, Bahrain held the ﬁrst elections for its new parliament in October 2002 (although the elected lower chamber is balanced by an appointed second chamber); the elections brought a respectable turn-out even though boycotted by some, and were free and fair. The political reforms brought the King and Crown Prince unprecedented popularity (and strengthened their position relative to rival voices within the royal family). In Qatar, a new constitution was approved by referendum in April 2003, stipulating a parliament that will be two-thirds elected, one-third appointed, and that will have legislative power; elections are expected in 2004. In both cases the move appeared to be a conscious policy by the ruler to strengthen domestic legitimacy. In the case of Qatar the announcement of the referendum coincided with the winding down of the Qatar-based but domestically unpopular US–UK operation against Saddam’s Iraq – a policy which the key decision makers felt was in Qatar’s best raison d’e´tat interests given its immediate regional environment (not least Saudi Arabia): in sum, a perfect example of omni-balancing, while also still maintaining some distance from the US by contrary policies on other issues (for example, al-Jazeera).2 Iran remains a case apart, with the most lively of parliamentary political dynamics combined with a determined battle to contain it by the Supreme Leader and the political conservatives. There is no space here to delve deeply into the debates on democratization and its problems in the Middle East. Yet very worthwhile work has been undertaken in the past decade or so, in which it possible to discern an implicit consensus on a number of points:3 1. The discourse of democracy and pluralism has become more widespread. Yet Arab commentators have pointed out that while ta‘addudiya (which can mean anything from multipartyism to pluralism) has become somewhat more prevalent, dimuqratiyya is still some considerable way off. 2. It has been shown that there is no such thing as an overarching Arab– Islamic political culture which might provide an explanation, and that political behavior and attitudes are to a large extent adaptive to social settings and shaped by political context.4 ‘The self-described Islamist

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3.

4.

21

character of a movement tells us nothing useful about its behaviour unless placed in the appropriate political and social context’.5 Different types of impulses towards liberalization can be identiﬁed – from mass pressures (caused by changes in the implicit ‘social contract’ driven by state failure, ﬁnancial crisis, and the effects of globalization-induced economic reform); to external pressures; and, thirdly, voluntary limited reform from above. The latter type has been most in evidence, with regimes taking pre-emptive action to maintain a constituency or create new ones. The effects of regime change in Iraq will be multifarious and by no means uni-directional. The limitations to liberalization so visible in much of the MENA region are explained in terms of two main structural factors. The ﬁrst lies in the dynamics of rentierism, where the state has a large degree of autonomy from society by virtue of external revenue; it delivers ‘goods’ to the population, demanding little in return except acquiescence. Yet, as recognized by one of the concept’s most prominent advocates,6 the rentier dynamic proved to have its limits: on the one hand, state resources were declining relative to demands; on the other, it appeared that other factors could cut across the presumed ‘no taxation, no representation’ implications. The second type of structural explanation contradicts the optimistic assumption found in some strands of democratization studies, that with economic liberalization comes an expansion of the bourgeoisie, which in turn becomes an increasingly signiﬁcant pressure group for political liberalization. Work by Hinnebusch and others showed that in many cases, the new bourgeoisie was created by, and allied with, the state, and thus did not have an interest in any political opening up beyond that which safeguarded their own economic position and inﬂuence.7 Economically, domestic freedom to exploit opportunities is welcomed, as is ability to import – but the threat of real international competition that would result from lifting protection is not.8

Murphy presents a related and compelling argument, based in part on an indepth study of Tunisia, with implications for foreign policy.9 On the one hand, internal economic weaknesses combine with the pressure of the international political economy to undercut the regime’s existing tools to build legitimacy. Two key tasks in which the state is seen as performing deﬁciently – and which were central to the state–society bargain – are the role of provider and that of defending the ‘Arab cause’. The falling away of these pillars of legitimacy, combined with the painful effects of economic liberalization, force regimes to adapt. At the same time, however, the corporatist structures in society and politics upon which the system relied, are directly affected by economic liberalization: the latter ‘reinforces horizontal stratiﬁcation at the expense of the vertically stratiﬁed interest group articulation which provides the political structures of corporatism’. The tactical, limited political liberalization that may be adopted as a policy response, tends to ‘become unstuck when the state is forced to choose between its own survival and the emerging popular political demands . . . [and] between limited political openings for its potential allies in

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economic reform . . ., and its desire to prevent challenges to its own supremacy’.10 Clearly, this has implications for regime strategies of getting access to resources from the external environment: on the one hand, they often need such resources; on the other, the 1990s have also seen an increasing trend in political conditionality being imposed on economic (or indeed wider) agreements. A striking example, of course, is the Barcelona process. This inevitably means further pressure to loosen the reins adding to the already existing pressure coming from the economic liberalization agendas that form the other side of such outside agreements. It is likely that regimes in such cases will at least temporarily try to insulate themselves from the political consequences of these pressures. This may take the form of stalling on the most sensitive ‘governance’ elements of such agreements (which would become visible in protracted or stalled negotiations); shelving implementation of the domestic commitments made in such agreements, or emasculating them in other ways; and possibly, an eventual willingness to forego active pursuit of such resources where the conditions are politically unpalatable. The case of Tunisian policy towards Europe, for instance, would seem to include all three strategies. Moreover, the economic liberalization strategy being urged on the southern Mediterranean countries – not least in the context of the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership initiative (EMP) – may itself be problematic. Several economists and political economists working on the issue have recently argued that these measures are likely to bring hardship.11 Indeed, ‘it may not be possible to fully offset any decline in existing manufacturing production and employment by attracting new investment’, as one economist puts it.12 In addition, trade diversion may become larger than trade creation, and because tariffs still vary so widely within the region, additional ‘shifting’ effects would be added to this.13 One of the most damning criticisms, perhaps, is that EMP is in any case not to be a consistent application of the Washington consensus principles for the developing world – both because geographically selective trade liberalization may introduce welfare-reducing distortions and because EMP goes against the key assumption that resources will be moved into agriculture.14 Indeed, the EU’s southern ‘partners’ complain with justiﬁcation that agriculture has been virtually excluded from EMP, in order to protect Europe’s own agricultural sector. As already suggested, there are, of course, considerable differences among MENA states that mean the above cannot simply be applied across the board as implying one undifferentiated dynamic. Some states, such as Egypt and Morocco, have a stronger historical pedigree as political entities than the recent constructions of, for instance, Iraq, Jordan, or Libya. In some, such as Jordan, Kuwait, and today perhaps Qatar and Bahrain, the regimes have managed to establish a certain level of legitimacy in part through astute inclusive policies and the provision of outlets for grievances. Some, such as Jordan and Yemen, suffer from extremely precarious economies – in contrast to, for instance, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates with their small populations and large hydrocarbon revenue sources. All of this tends to be reﬂected in greater or lesser degrees of security – and ultimately levels of stateness. In turn this will

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23

affect the basic ‘average’ dynamic described earlier and consequently its impact on foreign policy. It can also affect foreign policy in other ways. For instance, even within the group of oil producers different needs may lead to different policies. Iran has relatively lower oil reserves and a very large population, and will therefore be relatively less interested in the very-long-term future of the oil market. Moreover, it faces higher immediate needs than Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the UAE, where the opposite applies. Iraq falls in between these two ends of the spectrum, although its reconstruction and eventual rearmament needs (or desires) nudged it towards a higher-price stance (a new, Western-friendly regime might slant somewhat in the other direction, but this is not a foregone conclusion). Finally, a word on the decision-making structures. Clearly, they vary from state to state, along with the particular make-up of the regime – a subject which is the task of individual case studies rather than a general analysis such as this one. With the exception of Lebanon and Iran, however, where the decisionmaking picture is complex and conﬂicting domestic factions need to be satisﬁed and are themselves involved, the general pattern is one of the total domination by the very top of the executive – be it the ﬁgure of the ruler alone, or a very small oligarchy (as, for instance, in the case of the senior princes of the Al-Saud, or the Syrian leadership under Bashar al-Asad). THE REGIONAL ENVIRONMENT

As indicated above, the ‘regional’ category in MENA states’ external environment can itself be subdivided. First there is the widest, ‘Middle East’ system, which includes all the themes and complexities of ethnic and religious rivalries, ‘Arabism’, and Islam, as well as the stresses caused by protracted conﬂicts – most prominently the Palestinian issue. This category, of course, is inﬂuenced by both the domestic and the international environment. Within this, the largest sub-category is the ‘Arab system’. There are in addition a number of recognizable sub-systems, with differentiating consequences for the foreign policies of the states of the Middle East region, and all of them inﬂuenced by the domestic, regional, and international environments. Finally one could also argue that Europe itself also forms part of the ‘regional’ environment by virtue of its proximity. The Arab World and the Middle East The ‘Arab system’ has become gradually less dominant as a policy determinant since the 1970s. Pan-Arabism as an ideology has virtually vanished from the scene. Arab themes in general no longer have the force they had between the 1940s and the use of the oil weapon in 1973. State and regime interests have become predominant, in a context of interdependence both within the region and with the world beyond it – even if this interdependence is skewed in favor of the industrialized economies. Yet an Arab dimension persists. In part this is true because of residual convictions among ruling elites, but probably more so because many perceive the danger of ignoring what remains a potent, albeit no

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longer the dominant, value among their populations.15 The Palestine question is still an issue to be reckoned with in this respect. It also has its Islamic resonance, focusing in particular on Jerusalem. This not only reinforces its relevance in the Arab world, but extends it to non-Arab Iran (and the Islamic world at large). Together, lingering memories of outside domination, grievances over Palestine and the perception of the USA as Israel’s uncritical supporter, continue to fuel the persistence of nationalist motifs in popular feelings. Consequently, close collaboration with the USA retains elements of political risk. That is the main reason why most Arab regimes sharply limited even their de facto collaboration with the US–UK operation against Iraq in 2003, while adopting an anti-war declaratory foreign policy. Moreover, the relative eclipsing of Arab and Islamic ideological themes is not necessarily irreversible. As Hinnebusch suggests,16 it is at least conceivable that the combined increasing pressures on regimes from above (the attempted assertion of US hegemony plus globalization/economic liberalization) and below (due to government failure and economic liberalization, together with restiveness over Western and regime policy in the region), could result in a return to greater prominence of regional themes. But this would most likely be a shift in degree rather than in kind, could itself prove temporary, and would not affect all of the region equally. Regimes’ omni-balancing strategies are both an illustration of, and further reinforce, a trend that reduces the salience of such transnational themes relative to others in determining foreign policy, leaving them as just one inﬂuence among many. The Middle East system also contains straightforward strategic features, quite separate from Arab or Islamic values. One of these is Israel’s regional superpower status and nuclear capability, which remain a central concern. It is at least part of the reason for feelings of insecurity on the part of other states and attempts to ameliorate this. By the same token, one may note that Israeli objections to other states’ acquisitions of sophisticated weaponry have long bedeviled US–Gulf relations, for instance, hence giving opportunities to European competitors.17 The other factor consists of the implications of the rich–poor divide in the region – with the Gulf states, and the GCC in particular, falling in the rich camp. This has long been a source of potential insecurity for the latter, again feeding into their foreign policies towards the Middle East, the Muslim world, and potential protectors elsewhere. The region also features a number of sub-regional environments, or ‘systems’, viz. the Gulf, the Eastern Arab world, the Western Arab world and the Arab– Israeli theatre. The latter can also be seen both as part of general Middle Eastern environment already discussed, and as a sub-set of the Mashreq dynamics. The Gulf The dynamics of regional relations in the Gulf since the 1970s have been driven mainly by four factors:18 1. Ideological clashes. 2. Differential attitudes to outside powers.

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3. 4.

25

National security interests/raison d’e´tat – in economic, military security, and territorial terms. The interests of rulers/ruling families (including dynastic rivalries).

For the GCC states in particular, the two key driving concerns in their regional foreign policy have been external and domestic security. For the former, three means have been pursued: external protectors; collective security within the GCC; and the ‘management’ of regional relations through cautious diplomacy (including ‘riyal-politik’). The maintenance of domestic security has meant the need to keep revenues ﬂowing; to avoid being seen as totally dependent; and to collaborate in the GCC. Moreover, in contrast to the smaller Gulf states, Saudi Arabia has also seen itself as rightfully dominant on the Arabian peninsula. The sub-system of the Gulf has featured several types of clashes. The most obvious ones have been the ideological ones between Arab-nationalist, secular republican Iraq, revolutionary-Islamic republican Iran, and the neo-traditionalist conservative pro-Western GCC monarchies. It goes without saying that this forms a large part of the explanation for the monarchies’ continued desire for outside protection. It also helps explain the support Western powers gave Iraq during the 1980s against the perceived threat emanating from Iran’s revolution. Yet by the 1990s, Iran had matured into essentially a status-quo power and was increasingly being perceived as such, even if concerns about radical factions (and, for the UAE, about territorial claims) remained.19 Instead, a common concern and wariness about Iraq united Iran and most of the GCC states – and arguably helped bring Iran closer to the West as well. The issue of Palestine continues to link non-Arab Iran with the Arab world. Genuine concern with the asymmetrical nature of the Israeli–Palestinian peace process is reﬂected in Iran’s foreign policy stances. Although these perceptions are no longer translated in ofﬁcial support for the eradication of the Jewish State, Iran (and not merely that country’s ‘conservative’ factions) still reserves the right to disagree with the nature of the process, outside pressure notwithstanding. This, just like the whole question of outside involvement in the ﬁrst place, ties in to the nationalist reﬂex. Tehran has also reserved the right to support, for instance, Hizbullah, as a Lebanese movement resisting foreign occupation. Iranians reasonably argue this is quite different from ‘sponsoring terrorism’. In contrast to the US and Israel, European governments have generally recognized this distinction, which in turn has facilitated Iranian relations with Europe (even if there remain concerns over actions by radical factions in Iran, and over WMD questions). Yet clearly, such trans-national causes and ideological differences have been only one factor in Gulf tensions, as plain geostrategic and economic interests were also at stake. With the gradual disappearance of the ideological causes of threat in the region (Iraq’s since the mid-1970s, and Iran since the mid-1980s), the remaining potential causes for clashes in the Gulf include: 1.

Attitudes to outside powers (with the GCC states on one side of the fence, Iran on the other, and Iraq as yet undetermined).

26 2. 3. 4. 5.

ANALYZING MIDDLE EASTERN FOREIGN POLICIES

Hegemonic clashes between Iran versus Iraq versus Saudi Arabia. Economic policy, given the different interests of the various states. The question of access to the sea, between Iraq and Kuwait. Other boundary and dynastic disputes – although these are now being contained, the most problematic issue being the Iran–UAE dispute over Abu Musa and the Tunbs.

The ﬁrst of these needs little further comment, except to note the modest gradual readjustment in Saudi security policy from 2001, towards a less visible reliance on the US presence and greater cooperation with Iran. This will only be reinforced following the Iraq war of 2003. As regards the second point, both Iran and Iraq have traditionally viewed themselves as meriting a leading role in the region. Saudi Arabia has, pragmatically, not aimed to eclipse either of the two, but has rather played a balancing game whenever possible. With regard to the smaller Arab Gulf states and Yemen, however, the Saudi leadership maintained a hegemonic ambition. It is worth noting, ﬁnally, the growing inﬂuence of non-Gulf powers in the expanding Middle East on the Gulf states themselves. Turkey and Syria present threats and opportunities for Iraq and Iran, while Iran faces a range of potential threats along its Northern and Eastern borders. In turn, such factors inevitably inﬂuence perceptions in the Gulf, and beyond. The Mashreq, or Eastern Arab World The Mashreq presents a complex foreign policy environment because of its direct and close inter-linkage with those of the Gulf (Iraq, Iran, aid) and the Arab–Israeli theatre, and the domestic effects which both have had in Mashreq states, combined with the ideological and historical rivalries that have long riven it. This sub-region is also, through Syria, Iraq and Israel, linked to Turkey and that country’s domestic politics (regarding secularism and the Kurdish issue) and foreign policies (with regard to water, NATO and the EU in particular). A subset of this environment comprises the Israel–frontline states encounter: the local expression of the wider regional Arab–Israeli theme. These states, albeit in varying ways and employing different ideological frameworks and ‘patrons’, inevitably always needed to devote a signiﬁcant amount of attention and resources to this theatre, balancing the Israeli threat with the resources available from the Arab world on the one hand and the international environment on the other, and with the pressures from their domestic audience. Indeed, for the Mashreq as a whole, it is clear that the theme of Arabism has been signiﬁcantly stronger than in either the Maghreb or the Gulf. The Maghreb, or Western Arab World Factors characterizing the Maghreb sub-region include the Algerian domestic troubles and their spill-over effects; the partial exclusion of Libya from outside powers’ relations with the region (Libya remains outside the Barcelona framework at the time of writing, for instance); the proximity of Europe, and a European colonial past; and these countries’ borderline and interaction with

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27

black Africa. They share a common history of attempts at North African unity, culminating in the creation of the Arab Maghreb Union (AMU or, in its French acronym, UMA). Sharp disagreement over the Western Sahara between Morocco on the one hand and Tunisia and Algeria on the other continues to obstruct the effectiveness of such attempts. As Joffe´ has observed, the fate of moves towards regional integration in North Africa has also depended to a signiﬁcant extent on the region’s relations with Europe.20 Indeed, the very dependence of these countries’ economies on the link with Europe, alongside the European policy of fostering integration in North Africa since the start of the 1990s – but at Europe’s own pace and in accordance with European choices (witness the exclusion of Libya) – did have a huge impact on the regional politics and economics of the Western Arab world. Indeed, contrary to the Mashreq and the Gulf, it has been Europe, not the US, that has been the dominant outside power here: Washington has evinced much less interest – although it is conceivable that energy concerns might yet change this.21 The Immediate Environment As will already have become clear from some of the above, much of the foreign policy calculations of MENA states’ regimes derive simply from their immediate environment, quite apart from wider regional or subregional factors – even if the latter often inﬂuence the former, and vice versa. Yemen’s relationship with Saudi Arabia has long been one of mutual suspicion and rivalry, mixed with Yemen’s economic need for aid from, and labor markets in, its large neighbor: part of the country’s, and the regime’s, general need for access to resources. Yemen’s relationship with the GCC as a whole and its attempts to gain a closer association with the grouping is similarly predicated on Yemeni economic needs, but suffers from lingering resentment over Yemen’s position during the Gulf war, and, more fundamentally, from the country’s very poverty, the state’s incomplete political control and its size as a potential threat. In turn, the ﬁve small GCC states’ foreign relations are shaped to a signiﬁcant extent by their proximity to their vastly larger and more powerful Saudi neighbor – bringing a mix of opportunities and constraints (the latter in turn giving rise to strategies to overcome them, by looking beyond the Gulf: Qatar is perhaps the prime example). Iraq’s and Iran’s strategic rivalry looms large in both countries’ foreign policy calculations. Iraq (regardless of regime change) also has a speciﬁc concern over the water link with Turkey, as does Syria. Damascus, moreover, has two other immediate environmental concerns (apart from that of Israel): the persistent rivalry with Iraq and the historical–nationalist theme of Lebanon. By the same token, Lebanese foreign policy cannot be understood without taking into account the large inﬂuence of the Syrian factor. Egypt’s particular local environment encompasses the Nile valley and attendant questions, as well as relations with its troubled southern neighbor, Sudan. For Libya, the presence of large and inﬂuential Egypt – long the heart of Arabism – next door, has long had a particular inﬂuence. In addition, Libyan oil wealth and its small population offered a natural market for Egyptian migrant

28

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labor. For Tunisia, the presence of turbulent Algeria on one side, and maverick Libya on the other, has inevitably posed major concerns. And for Morocco, a similar concern over Algeria has been combined with the local dispute over the Spanish Sahara (which also became one of the obstacles to North African integration). THE INTERNATIONAL ENVIRONMENT

The end of the Cold War remains a watershed also for the foreign policy environment of the MENA states. Prior to this, states in the region (as elsewhere in the developing world) had the option of aligning with either of the two superpowers, or balancing between the two – as indeed many did. The usual assumption is that the falling away of the Soviet Union, leaving a single superpower dominant in world politics, has meant a concomitant reduction in states’ ability to maneuver. I have already argued that this fails to acknowledge the various other mechanisms through which states can carve out a measure of autonomy. Moreover, the disappearance of the Soviet Union did not mean there were not other signiﬁcant actors to be turned to, or resources to be had, for regimes that cared to look. The evidence is that, while there was indeed a reassessment of their options, leading to a partial Syrian alignment with the West in the 1990–91 Gulf War, for instance, this re-ordering of foreign policy patterns was neither universal nor permanent. Nor was the US always able or willing to enforce compliance where it was not forthcoming. September 11, 2001, did put further pressure on foreign policy elites in the region and beyond, but again subsequent developments showed that regimes were, once more, omnibalancing – leading, for instance, to considerable friction in the Saudi–US relationship. States resisting forced compliance with US policy preferences could also derive succor from the existence of other poles of inﬂuence in the world system – including Russia, China, India, and Europe – and of other sources of aid, trade and military supplies. The fate of the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein is sui generis: the combination of factors which caused and enabled massive military action here in 2003, is not present for any of the other states – even if some in the neo-conservative camp in the US might wish it otherwise. Indeed, it can be argued that the disappearance of bi-polar clarity in world politics brought a less predictable pattern which in some ways increased states’ options. Nevertheless, one major source of balancing did disappear. Equally importantly, perhaps, was the change in international assumptions on governance and good economic management that coincided with the end of the Cold War, and the increasing hold of ‘globalization’. ‘Good governance’ became the new hegemonic discourse both of the West and international organizations. At the same time principles of economic restructuring and liberalization became increasingly forcefully propagated. Combined with the declining economies and domestic resources of the vast majority of the MENA regimes, and their consequent need for aid and full integration in the world

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29

trading system via membership of the WTO, this has meant that they have come under increasing pressure to adjust at home (see above). In turn, the combination of these external and internal pressures may be reﬂected in adjustments in foreign policy, if regime legitimacy is at stake. It is also undeniable that changes at the global level have inﬂuenced developments within the region and its sub-regions. Without such changes, the course of the Iran–Iraq war might have been somewhat different and the Kuwait crisis might not have occurred. When it did, its outcome would certainly have been different. Nor is it likely that without the combined effects of these developments, alongside the internal dynamics of the intifada in Palestine, there would have been a ‘peace process’, however ﬂawed, that in its turn drastically affected the policy options of regional states. Similarly, the combined effects of the election of George W. Bush as US President, and September 11, leading to a different US policy stance in general and to the military overthrow of Saddam Hussein in particular, brought both new strains to MENA governments (US pressure in one direction, domestic and regional pressures in another), as well as offering some opportunities – even if the question of whether or how to make use of such opportunities needed careful weighing up against the multi-level balance of other threats and resources. EUROPE

Europe, and particular European states, have particular importance in this external environment of the MENA states. It straddles, and interacts with, their ‘regional’ and ‘international’ environments. One reason is its very proximity and thus the inevitably close interaction at the economic, security and political levels, both in substance and in (mutual) perception. A second is the former colonial or semi-colonial ties between many of the countries of the region and European states – mainly Britain and France, and to a lesser extent Italy. While such ties have in some cases left a strong nationalist reﬂex, they also left a legacy of personal, linguistic and economic links that continue to play a role today. A third reason is Europe’s own position in the international system, as a set of relatively important actors in their (and to a lesser extent, its) own right and both ally and rival to the one remaining superpower. The Europe–US–MENA Triangle US–European relations have a signiﬁcant impact on the region and its foreign policy options and choices. Europe does, on the one hand, provide an alternative – one that has been vigorously pursued by many MENA states. This ties in with the divergence in interests between Europe and the US in different parts of the Middle East. On the other, it, or some of its Member States, have also retained their close security relationship with Washington, which in turn impacts on their policy towards the Middle East. By the same token, European inﬂuence has on occasions had an effect on US policy output. It is important to note, also, that the respective impact of the US and Europe varies depending on the particular subregion involved. As Aliboni has put it, on the one hand there is ‘the Mashreq,

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where the US is strongly committed both politically and militarily, with the EU playing only a secondary role in the economic ﬁeld; on the other, the Maghreb, where the EU is the dominant, if not sole, actor’.22 In other words, when assessing the impact of the international environment on the foreign policies of MENA states, it is essential to differentiate sharply within the overall MENA category: the relevant external environment varies very signiﬁcantly not only at the immediate and sub-regional level, but at the international level as well. A number of further sets of observations can be made with speciﬁc reference to the European aspect of the MENA states’ external environment. The ﬁrst relates to the contrasts and tensions between the southern and northern shores of the Mediterranean; the second to the economic links, based on proximity and colonial history; and the third to the evolving European Mediterranean and Middle East policy. Contrasts and Tensions Historical and cultural tensions are perhaps the most commonly commented upon, having developed a mythological quality all their own quite apart from the underlying facts. Their current impact can only be understood, however, in the context of speciﬁc modern political and economic tensions. The political category comprises domestic as well as regional issues in the MENA region. Domestic, in that Europe (in particular France and Britain) are often perceived locally as helping to shore up regimes of dubious legitimacy (quite apart from the role they played in bringing these regimes into being in the ﬁrst place). Regional, in the conﬂation of the memory of colonial or imperial domination with the contemporary issues of Palestine and Iraq. Here the picture is complex, however, with Britain being singled out for criticism over its support for US policy on Iraq and contrasted against other European states, and with Europe generally being positively contrasted with the USA. The economic tension inherent in the Mediterranean space comes in the obvious form of the huge disparity in wealth between the northern and southern shores, and the opposite direction in which they have seen their economic fortunes move since the mid-1980s. As has been observed elsewhere, ‘such a widening gap causes dramatic structural instability in Europe’s international system, while projecting images of instability to the rest of the world’.23 By the same token, it helps shape the foreign policies of states on both sides. It must be recognized, of course, that these tensions are yet again anything but uniform across the MENA region, given the huge disparities with that region itself, setting apart the rich oil producing states from the rest. Finally, the structural political difference between MENA and Europe must be stressed as a factor in relations past, present and future: as shown in the above section on the Domestic Environment, the ‘actors’ on the northern and southern sides are fundamentally different, even if both wear the label ‘state’. Although in European states too, foreign policy is to a large extent the domain of the executive, this executive can be considered to be a reasonably true representative of the society; there is, in other words, some sense in which

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31

the ‘state’ as a whole can be seen to be engaged (although the caveats listed in the previous contribution (p. 120) must still be borne in mind). By contrast, the MENA ‘state’ that engages in foreign policy and relations with Europe is, for most purposes, the regime. That is not, of course, to say that only the regimes are signiﬁcant in foreign relations (as opposed to policy): one example of this would be the migration pressures from the south. Links The importance of Europe’s colonial and imperial involvement in the region can hardly be overstated. Virtually all of the MENA states came under the direct or indirect rule of European powers and in many cases were in fact created by them. Leaving aside Turkey, the main exceptions are Saudi Arabia and North Yemen – but here too the inﬂuence of Britain in particular was strongly felt and, in the Saudi case, effectively used by the local regime. This history has led to persisting linkages in a number of ways, mirroring the experience of former colonies in other parts of the world. At an elite level, a pattern of personal, educational, and social connections emerged that in many cases persists today. Politically, in those states where these elites remained in power, strong links with the former metropolitan power have been maintained – as evidenced by British relations with the monarchical Gulf states.24 Even where nationalist struggles had swept away the former colonizer, the regimes that ended up running the state have retained strong connections – witness relations between France on the one hand, and Algeria and Tunisia on the other (this again mirrors the situation elsewhere, for instance in the former colonies of sub-Saharan Africa, including those where nationalist leaders took over at independence). A particular case is that of Lebanon, where there had long been a Christian population that looked to Europe. Following the French construction of ‘Greater Lebanon’, and the consequent complication of the domestic confessional makeup of that country, the European outlook of part of the population and the elite has continued to play a role in the Lebanese foreign policy role, in an uneasy compromise with the Arab orientation of the majority. The economic links between MENA and Europe are self-evident if varied. For MENA states, Europe offers actual and potential markets (for oil, gas and petrochemicals in the case of the oil producers, and mainly for textiles and agricultural produce for the remainder) and, in the case of North Africa, labor markets. Viewed from the European side, it is the secure supply of predictably priced energy resources – mainly from Algeria, Libya and the Gulf – that is the key economic concern, along with access to the markets of the Gulf. Europe’s dependence on MENA energy exports (running at about 30 percent) is in itself a potential resource for the MENA exporters, either passive or active – although its active deployment has been shown to be highly problematic. European Policy The evolution of European policy towards the Middle East and North Africa up to 2000 has been adequately covered in a few recent studies, and there is a somewhat more extensive literature on the overlapping subject of Europe’s

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‘Mediterranean policy’.25 Here, an interpretive survey and update is offered. Europe’s relations with the MENA region fall into ﬁve categories: 1. Early bilateral agreements between the EC and individual MENA states. 2. The multilateral Euro-Arab relationship through the Euro–Arab Dialogue since 1973. 3. The ‘multi-bilateral’ relations in the context of a series of Mediterranean policy frameworks since 1972. 4. The more recent EU-to-subregion agreements, since the late 1980s. 5. Subgroup-to-subgroup relations such as the ‘Five-plus-Five’ cooperation among the states of the western Mediterranean. Early Bilateral Agreements The EC’s formal relations with the MENA region started out with a number of bilateral agreements, beginning with preferential trade agreements with Lebanon and Israel in 1964, followed by an early form of association agreements with Morocco and Tunisia in 1969 and a trade agreement with Egypt in 1972. At this time, the European intention was increasingly aimed at developing a regionwide network of bilateral agreements. This would soon be followed up also in the Euro-Arab Dialogue and the development of the early Mediterranean policy. In parallel with those new directions, it also led to ‘cooperation agreements’ with Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia in 1976, and Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon in 1977 and 1978. These included trade preferences as well as aid (ﬁnancial protocols) that were renewed every ﬁve years. The motivation for these agreements was essentially economic and cannot simply be explained by the 1973–74 oil crisis: they had after all, begun before. It is worth noting that the EC for political reasons excluded Syria from the third and fourth of these protocols.26 The evolution of the Mediterranean policy would eventually attempt to bring all these bilateral agreements within a common framework. The Euro-Arab Dialogue Initiated in 1973, in the context of the Yom Kippur war and its aftermath, and formalized from 31 July 1974, the Euro-Arab Dialogue27 suffered from the outset from the basic fact that the two sides had ‘fundamentally different perceptions of the nature and purpose of the dialogue’:28 The Arab side wished it to be primarily political, the Europeans economic and technical. A working compromise led to the highest-level meetings being mainly concerned with the political aspects (including the Arab–Israeli theatre) and the specialist working groups with technical and economic matters.29 The EC made a major move on the Palestine issue in the form of the Venice declaration of 1980, which, issued in reaction to the Camp David agreements of 1979, codiﬁed existing policies and became the basis for European policy ever since: insisting on a comprehensive solution, the return of occupied land, the ending of settlement, and the need to refrain from changing the status of Jerusalem. Yet the subsequent deterioration in the Palestine question, and the related labeling of Syria and Libya as ‘terrorist states’, virtually paralyzed the political dialogue and thus, in effect, scuppered

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any real overall Euro-Arab Dialogue. Arguably, the failed Athens summit of 1989 sounded the Dialogue’s death knell.30 The ‘Multi-Bilateral’ Mediterranean Policies From 1972, the series of bilateral agreements between the EC and the southern Mediterranean countries began to be turned into a ‘Global Mediterranean Policy’. This ‘overall’ policy rather masked the contrast between the agreements offered to the northern Mediterranean non-EC countries (Spain, Greece, Portugal), Israel and Turkey, and those in the South: agreements with the former were signiﬁcantly more far-reaching in the envisaged level of economic cooperation and free trade. Also, agreements with the southern Mediterranean states were ‘still . . . more to do with the idea of development aid than with trade in the proper sense’, the new collective-bilateral approach being in some way a reﬂection of the EC’s Lome´ agreements with the ACP (Africa, Caribbean and Paciﬁc) countries.31 After the political crisis of 1973 when the Arab states told the Community that they wanted to end all cooperation, the existing agreements had to be re-negotiated; it was, of course, also the trigger for the institution of the Euro-Arab Dialogue. By 1977, new trade and ﬁnancial agreements were reached with the Maghreb and Mashreq countries. While ﬁnancial ﬂows were increased, and small, incremental advances were made in opening the EC’s market in terms of tariffs, at the same time the looming accession of Greece, Spain and Portugal led to protectionist constraints on agricultural imports being put in place, in the form of various non-tariff barriers. This would remain a source of frustration for the southern Mediterranean ‘partners’. Until the end of the 1980s, the Global Mediterranean Policy remained little more than a haphazardly coordinated set of bilateral agreements on trade concessions and ﬁnancial cooperation – the only common threads being that they comprised a framework for the EC’s relationships with those Mediterranean states not eligible for EC membership, and the common (but largely unmet) demand by these states for a stronger political dialogue. Awareness on both sides of the various shortcomings combined with the changing international environment to lead to the institution of a ‘Renewed Mediterranean Policy’ (RMP) in December 1990.32 This continued the system of bilateral agreements and ﬁnancial protocols (the third of which was about to expire), but brought, ﬁrst, a signiﬁcant increase in the funds allocated to over ﬁve billion ECU over its ﬁrst ﬁve-year period (1992–96); and second, for the ﬁrst time speciﬁcally allocated funds for regional projects, thus aiming at fostering regional integration within parts of the MENA region (‘horizontal funding’). Other signiﬁcant features were a greater emphasis on environmental issues, improved market access for agricultural produce from the southern Mediterranean countries, and the establishment of a fund for compensation of the painful effects of economic adjustment programs in the region. Within the RMP, the Community also began to explore sub-regional cooperation arrangements more actively. The idea of fostering sub-regional integration in the MENA region, and cooperating with such sub-regional groupings, had been raised in 1990, in part in recognition of the failure of the

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more broad-based attempts until then. Indeed, the Commission found that the southern Mediterranean states had ‘not made any use of the regional facility available through the ﬁnancial protocols for the 1986–91 period and, as a result, not a single project involving two or more countries of the region has been ﬁnanced by the Community’.33 As part of this new impetus, the Commission’s Directorate for External Relations commissioned an independent study group report in 1991, which focused on the related issues of stability, economic development and regional and sub-regional integration in the MENA region, and the implications for EC policy.34 The report chimed with, and highlighted the possibilities of, the incipient EC sub-regional focus (while stressing the importance of still maintaining an overall focus alongside it). The new line was reﬂected in, among other things, a new approach towards the Maghreb, with the new Euro-Maghreb Document being agreed at the June 1992 Lisbon summit, and the Maghreb being agreed on as an ‘area of common interest’ under the EU’s new Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP). Yet the possibility of extending the new framework beyond the Maghreb was held out. Such extension became more plausible with the 1993 Oslo agreements between Israel and the PLO, the EU’s involvement in the subsequent peace process, and the de´tente in Arab–Israeli relations that followed: a global Mediterranean framework now seemed somewhat more feasible.35 This new trend in turn led to the holding of the Euro-Mediterranean Conference in Barcelona in November 1995, which ushered in the ‘Barcelona Process’, and its Euro-Mediterranean Partnership initiative (EMP). In the underlying Commission paper, the rationale was clearly set out. Peace and stability in the region was recognized as of ‘the highest priority’ for Europe, and the key means to achieve this were: . To support political reform, respect for human rights and freedom of expression as a means to contain extremism. . To promote economic reform, leading to sustained growth and improved living standards, a consequent diminution of violence and an easing of migratory pressures.36 By this stage, the Maghreb had been joined by the Eastern Mediterranean as an ‘area of joint action’ for the EU. It seemed to make sense, therefore, to consider a common EU policy towards the Mediterranean as a whole. The EMP claimed to establish a comprehensive partnership among the participants, involving three ‘baskets’: a strengthened political dialogue; improved economic and ﬁnancial cooperation; and a more extensive and intensive socio-cultural basket.37 Yet the process remained troubled by several factors: Libya’s exclusion, thus complicating integration efforts even within the Maghreb; the continuation of the ‘multi-bilateral’ nature of the framework, in effect (at least in trade) working against rather than in favor of MENA integration; the continuing reluctance of the EU genuinely to open its markets to textiles and agricultural produce in particular;38 the persisting vagueness over the implementation of the political basket, in particular over the papered-over democratic deﬁcit in the MENA

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region; and the worsening of the Arab–Israeli conﬂict since the accession of Likud Prime Minister Netanyahu in 1996 (only partially alleviated by the Barak interregnum, which was followed by a seemingly terminal downward spiral under Ariel Sharon’s stewardship in Israel since 2001). In addition, there were the MENA regimes’ fears, already indicated above, of the domestic political and economic implications of the reforms envisaged in the EMP principles. European attention for some of these difﬁculties was heightened in the aftermath of 9/11 and the Iraq War, not least in the context of the ‘war on terrorism’. At the same time, the EU itself was entering a new era, with the expansion from 15 to 25 members, and the changes in political geography this brought with it: extending its borders to Russia in the East, bringing two of the three non-Arab EMP partner countries into the EU itself (Malta and Cyprus), while Turkey’s entry seemed to inch closer. These developments brought a number of policy responses from the EU, three of which are of particular relevance for our discussion. The ﬁrst was the adoption of a ‘New Neighbourhood Policy’, or the ‘Wider Europe’ policy framework, ﬁrst introduced in a communication from the Commission in March 2003. This aimed to develop a zone of prosperity and a friendly neighbourhood – a ‘ring of friends’ – . . . In return for concrete progress demonstrating shared values and effective implementation of political, economic and institutional reforms, . . . [these countries] should be offered the prospect of a stake in the EU’s internal market and further integration and liberalisation to promote the free movement of persons, goods, services and capital. The Commission document explicitly recommended consideration of how the EU ‘could incorporate Libya into the neighbourhood policy’. Yet it still left the Gulf and the Arabian Peninsula outside its remit.39 The European Council of Thessaloniki in June, however, speciﬁcially requested the Commission and the High Representative for CFSP (Javier Solana) to formulate a policy framework and working plan to strengthen relations with the whole Arab world (building on existing frameworks including the New Neighbourhood context). The resulting policy document, Strengthening EU’s Relations with the Arab World, was presented to the Brussels Council meeting in December 2003. Notwithstanding its title, it calls in fact for complementing the EMP with a regional strategy for the ‘Wider Middle East’, i.e. including Iran. Its key foci are (1) linking the EMP (and indeed the ‘Wider Europe’ framework) with the ‘Wider Middle East’ – i.e. bringing in the Gulf and Arabian Peninsula region, not least by ‘the linking of EU-MED and EU-GCC free trade agreements, [and] including Yemen’; (2) fostering reforms; (3) making the EU’s policies and policy instruments towards the MENA region more coherent; and (4) the need to resolve the Palestine issue. On the latter, strikingly, the document states: ‘the solution of the Arab-Israeli conﬂict is essential. There will be little chance of dealing fully with the other problems in the Middle East until this conﬂict is resolved; such a solution is therefore a

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strategic priority for Europe’.40 Indeed, this ties in with the new European security strategy (A Secure Europe in a Better World) adopted at the December 2003 Council meeting (but originally presented by Javier Solana to the June Council meeting that commissioned the Arab strategy paper): this uses an almost identical form of words.41 An important part of the context for this evolving European policy was the evolution of US policy, not least the Greater Middle East Initiative (GMEI) put forward in 2003 and 2004, which could be (and was) construed as potentially duplicating or cutting across some of the EU’s existing initiatives. Not surprisingly, EU responses combined a concern for maintaining trans-Atlantic cooperation and coordination, with clear, if diplomatic, indications of concern. Thus, a follow-up report on the progress of work towards an ‘EU Strategic Partnership with the Mediterranean and the Middle East’ in 2004 stipulated that the Union should deﬁne a role that was complementary to, ‘but distinct’ from, that of the US.42 Meanwhile, it remained to be seen whether the renewed emphasis on political reform in the MENA states, and the stated intention to make policies in this regard more coherent, would be given tangible and effective form. Unsurprisingly, the context of the ‘war on terror’ brought both a recognition of the desirability of such reform and a reluctance to pressure friendly regimes too hard, while there was also a strong awareness of the complexity of democratisation dynamics. The previous pattern, featuring declaratory policy combined with hesitant and inconsistent political pressure, may well in effect persist, shifting in degree only. Formally, the 2003 EU guidelines for democracy and human rights promotion commit the EU to put together agreed national plans for human rights with the Arab states in the EMP, while there has been greater pressure on the GCC to begin a dialogue on human rights. At the national level, since 2002 several EU states (Germany, the UK, France, Sweden, Denmark, The Netherlands, and most recently Finland) established or expanded government programmes, initiatives or sections related to the MENA region and to reform in particular. As of 2004, though, actual follow-through remained very limited.43 Any attempt to understand the limitations of EU policy towards the MENA region must also take into account a number of internal institutional constraints that are sometimes overlooked (not least by critics in the MENA region itself). Monar has shown how the dualistic nature of the EU system with regard to foreign policy (the EC having competence for external economic relations, the CFSP for foreign and security policy), has shaped the Union’s external representation, decision-making procedures, instruments and implementation – as well as being evident in the system of democratic control. This, he argues, has had a threefold impact on the EU’s MENA policy. First, the EU remains ‘a clearing house of different interests rather than a unitary actor’ – the Barcelona process itself, for instance, ﬂowing largely from the interests of southern Member States. Second, there is ‘an in-built tilt towards the economic domain’, since ‘CFSP is by far the weaker structure of the EU’s dual system of foreign affairs’. And third, this dualism has created difﬁculties for the MENA partners in terms of transparency and predictability. In addition, Monar exposes serious

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problems of management, arising not least because the administration of EMP has been shifted to the Commission without any new posts being created to cope with this. The dualism also exacerbates the institutional problem of ﬁnancing initiatives, while, ﬁnally, causing problems in the conduct of negotiations. Monar concludes: ‘Its partners have to accept that . . . the Union has in-built limitations to its capacity to act and a considerable potential for blockages in the decision making and policy implementation process’.44 A ﬁnal observation is the imbalance which has been inherent in the ‘Partnership’. Instead, EU agendas and structures have remained central, with southern Mediterranean states essentially acceding to, modestly amending, or rejecting EU initiatives and formats. The recognition shown in EU policy documents since 2003 (from the New Neighbourhood policy to the paper on strengthening relations with the Arab world) of the need to address this and foster a greater sense of ‘ownership’ on the part of the southern partner countries, seems unlikely to reverse the underlying situation. Even so, the enhanced focus on the Arab world as a whole, the strong emphasis placed publicly on a resolution of the Palestine issue, and the attention for establishing linkages between the EMP and EU relations with the GCC and Yemen, are beginning to address some of the concerns felt on the Arab side about the nature of the relationship.45 Sub-regional Approaches For reasons of space I will not comment further here on the sub-regional European initiatives towards the Maghreb, Mashreq and Arab–Israeli theatre, already mentioned earlier, beyond pointing out the increased attention given to them from the 1980s, and the subsequent revival of the more global approach; this revival did not, however, mean the end of sub-regional initiatives. It is worth brieﬂy pausing in particular with the case of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), which, together with Iran, Iraq and Yemen, was left outside the RMP and EMP. Both sides had long-established interests that could be served by group-togroup cooperation. From the Gulf point of view, these lay in access to Europe’s market for petrochemicals and, generally, trade concessions similar at least to those enjoyed by Israel. Europe’s interest was in domestic and regional stability in the Gulf; the creation of a framework for petroleum imports from the Gulf; and the fact that they had no formal cooperation agreements with any of the countries concerned (nor were any of the members of the GATT). The establishment of the GCC in 1981 appeared to hold out an opportunity to create effective group-to-group cooperation – especially attractive given the contrast of the faltering Euro-Arab Dialogue. In 1985, EC and GCC ministers agreed to work towards a comprehensive trade and cooperation agreement. Yet is was not until 1988 that the resulting framework cooperation accord was complete, and 1990 before it went into effect. The agreement followed the model of the EC’s agreements with the ASEAN countries, laying the emphasis on economic cooperation, and putting in place a joint council. Later in 1990, under the added spur of the Gulf crisis, negotiations began on the full-ﬂedged preferential trade

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accord that the GCC states wanted to see. For some years, however, the process remained essentially deadlocked. The initial EC mandate was rejected by the GCC as too restrictive (implying protection for Europe’s petrochemical industries) and a new round began in 1992. GCC access to the EC market remained a stumbling bloc, and the European Energy Charter (December 1991) seemingly aiming at reducing Europe’s dependence on oil, and the idea of a ‘carbon tax’ became further points of disagreement. Nevertheless, some cooperation was progressing in other ﬁelds – including on environmental issues in the Gulf, and in the form of a working party on energy cooperation.46 The hold of the European petrochemical producers’ lobby appeared gradually to wane as the 1990s wore on, and the EC stance softened. But the EU pointed to the GCC’s own failure to establish a customs union, as a major factor in blocking a free trade agreement. With the GCC’s sudden acceleration in the direction of just such a customs union (it was formally declared in January 2003 although practical implementation progressed more slowly) and an August 2003 EU-Saudi agreement regarding the Kingdom’s accession to the WTO (Saudi WTO negotiations with some other countries remained to be completed), the conclusion of an EU-GCC free trade agreement now seems a real possibility. It remains the case, however, that gradual progress on the trade aspects of the relationship have continued to be accompanied by frustration on the GCC side over the lack of a political component and the grievance over being outside the EMP orbit.47 This has been partly addressed by attempts to expand cooperation in other areas – including the 1995 decision to include instruments of ‘decentralized cooperation’ (eventually encompassing such cooperation in business, media and university/higher education – none of which had advanced very far by 2004). As shown above, the gap was also recognised in a number of policy documents in 2003 and 2004, which stressed the need to broaden and deepen the EU-GCC dialogue, and link the EU-GCC and EU-MED frameworks in some way, while also tying in Yemen. This ﬁts into the second of the two lines of action that appear to guide EU policy towards the MENA region as of 2004: one pursuing a deepening of EMP in the Wider Europe framework; one working to develop a strategy for the ‘Wider Middle East’.48 MENA STATES’ FOREIGN POLICY TOWARDS EUROPE: SUMMARY FEATURES

The results of the factors and environments discussed above, for MENA states’ policies towards Europe, are several. I would suggest they can be summarized as follows: 1. They are pragmatic rather than ideological. 2. They are based in the ﬁrst place on a view of Europe as a source of economic resources (markets, aid, investment) and technology. 3. Nevertheless, some constraint continues to be imposed by the Palestine issue and its ‘Arab’ and ‘Muslim’ echoes; this is heightened when perceptions of increasing US hegemony combine with crisis in the Israeli–

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4.

5. 6.

7.

8.

9.

39

Palestinian equation and a sense of government failure. The Iraq crisis of 2003 reinforced this. Policies are also in some measure based on a view of Europe as a counterweight to US. The experience of the Iraq conﬂict of 2003 may have added some weight to this. There is a residual effect of colonial/imperial relations, varying strongly between different states. MENA states differentiate between European states not only because of the above factor, but also because of existing levels of economic links and interests, and because of perceived differences in European states’ foreign policy stances: differing reactions to France and Britain during the Iraq crisis and war of 2002–03 are one instance that may have lingering effects, although Britain continues to be judged as clearly on a ‘European’ trajectory over the Palestine question. There are large variations ﬂowing from the nature, needs, and location of the MENA state/regime in question. Those factors may be ‘material’ – such as domestic political structure and interests, economic proﬁle, and strategic position – as well as ‘ideational’, in the perceptions and world views of the leaderships (the latter in turn shaped by the interplay between the regional, domestic and international ideational and material environments). Two signiﬁcant irritants are European reluctance genuinely to open up its own market in key sectors such as agriculture and petrochemicals and European political pressure over political reform (made more problematic albeit perhaps more necessary in a context of painful economic adjustment). MENA policies towards Europe are individual (state) at least as much as collective (Arab/Muslim/Gulf/Maghreb), as a consequence both of the intra–MENA differences listed above, and Europe’s own approach, which has been predominantly bilateral (albeit masked by a wider framework in the case of the Mediterranean).

Detailed case studies should allow us to illustrate and/or test these preliminary conclusions. The remainder of this volume hopes to constitute a ﬁrst step in this direction; to add more generally to our understanding of the dynamics of the international relations of the Middle East; and to help feed back these insights from the case of the Middle East into the wider ﬁeld of foreign policy analysis and IR. NOTES 1. World Bank Data Series 1985–95. 2. Observation and conﬁdential discussions in Doha, Qatar, April 2003. 3. The summary which follows is drawn from my ‘Rentiers and Autocrats, Monarchs and Democrats, State and Society: the Middle East between Globalisation, Human ‘‘Agency’’ and Europe’, in International Affairs, Vol. 77, no. 1 (Jan. 2001), pp. 175–95. 4. Bahgat Korany, Rex Brynen and Paul Noble (eds.), Political Liberalization and Democratization in the Arab World. Vol. 2: Comparative Experiences (Boulder: Lynne Rienner: 1998), pp. 269– 71.

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5. Ibid., p. 271 – an assessment based in large measure on the work of Gudrun Kra¨mer (especially her ‘Islam and Pluralism’, in Rex Brynen, Bahgat Korany and Paul Noble (eds.), Political Liberalization and Democratization in the Arab World. Vol. 1: Theoretical Experiences (Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 1995, pp. 113–28) along with other case studies. 6. Giacomo Luciani, ‘Resources, Revenues and Authoritarianism in the Arab World: Beyond the Rentier State?’, in Brynen, Korany and Noble, Political Liberalization and Democratization in the Arab World. Volume 1: Theoretical Experiences, pp. 211–28. For his and some others’ earlier work on rentier states in the Middle East, see Luciani (ed.), The Arab State (London: Routledge, 1990). 7. See, for example, Raymond Hinnebusch, ‘Democratization in the Middle East: The Evidence from the Syrian Case’, in Gerd Nonneman (ed.), Political and Economic Liberalization: Dynamics and Linkages in Comparative Perspective (Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 1996), pp. 153– 68; and Hinnebusch, ‘Calculated Decompression as a Substitute for Democratization’, in Korany, Brynen and Noble (eds.), Political Liberalization and Democratization in the Arab World. Volume 2: Comparative Experiences, pp. 223–40. 8. See Tim Niblock and Emma Murphy (eds.), Political and Economic Liberalisation in the Middle East (London: British Academic Press, 1993); and Nonneman (ed.), Political and Economic Liberalization. 9. Emma Murphy, Economic and Political Change in Tunisia: From Bourguiba to Ben Ali (London: Macmillan, 1999). Also her ‘Legitimacy and Economic Reform in the Arab World’, in Sven Behrendt and Christian-Peter Hanelt (eds.), Bound to Cooperate – Europe and the Middle East (Gu¨tersloh: Bertelsmann Foundation Publishers, 2000), pp. 311–41. 10. Murphy, Economic and Political Change in Tunisia, p. 8. 11. See especially the collection by George Joffe´ (ed.), Perspectives on Development: The EuroMediterranean Partnership (London: Frank Cass, 1999). 12. Diana Hunt, ‘Development Economics, the Washington Consensus, and the European– Mediterranean Partnership Initiative’, in ibid., pp. 16–38: p. 17. This is a useful review of the ‘Washington Consensus’ and critiques of it, along with a careful examination of the case of the southern Mediterranean countries. 13. See especially the chapter by Alfred Tovias, ‘Regionalisation and the Mediterranean’ in Joffe´ (ed.), Perspectives on Development, pp. 75–88, as well as the contributions from Jon Marks, Grahame Thompson and Bernard Hoekman in the same volume. 14. Hunt, ‘Development Economics, the Washington Consensus, and the European–Mediterranean Partnership Initiative’, p. 30. 15. See Michael Barnett, Dialogues in Arab Politics (New York: Columbia University Press, 1998); Stephen Walt, The Origin of Alliances (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1987); F. Gregory Gause III, ‘Systemic Approaches to Middle East International Relations,’ in International Studies Review 1:1, Spring 1999, pp. 11–31; and Hinnebusch and Ehteshami (eds.), The Foreign Policies of Middle Eastern States. 16. See the discussion in the previous chapter pp.13–14. 17. For the case of Saudi Arabia, see Anthony Cordesman, The Gulf and the West (London: Mansell Publishing, 1988), and id., Saudi Arabia: Guarding the Desert Kingdom (Boulder: Westview, 1997). 18. This section draws on an earlier analysis in Nonneman, ‘Constants and Variations in British– Gulf Relations’, in J. Kechichian (ed.), Iran, Iraq and the Arab Gulf States (London: Palgrave, 2001), pp. 315–50, at p. 339. 19. As illustrated in Iran’s posture during the Kuwait crisis and the 2001 campaign against Al-Qa’ida and the Taliban in Afghanistan. For analysis underpinning this assessment see also Anoushiravan Ehteshami and Raymond Hinnebusch, Syria and Iran: Middle Powers in a Penetrated Regional System (London: Routledge, 1997), pp. 43–6; Gerd Nonneman, Terrorism, Gulf Security and Palestine (Robert Schuman Centre, Policy Paper no. 2002–02) (Florence: European University Institute, 2002) (obtainable from the EUI, 5 www.iue.it 4 ). I recognize this assessment is somewhat at variance with the analysis of Moshaver in this volume. 20. George Joffe´, ‘The Western Arab World: Background Assessment’, in Gerd Nonneman (ed.), The Middle East and Europe: the Search for Stability and Integration (London: Federal Trust, 1993), pp. 197–201: at p. 200. 21. That is at least the view of Sid Ahmad Ghozali, former Prime Minister of Algeria, as expressed at the Ve`me Forum International de Re´alite´s: Le Maghreb et l’Europe une vue a` moyen terme (Tunis, April 24–26, 2002).

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22. Roberto Aliboni, ‘Collective Political Cooperation in the Mediterranean’, in Roberto Aliboni, George Joffe´ and Tim Niblock (eds.), Security Challenges in the Mediterranean Region (London: Frank Cass, 1996), p. 57. 23. Dimitris Xenakis and Dimitris Chryssochoou, The Emerging Euro-Mediterranean System (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2001), p. 17. 24. See Nonneman, ‘Constants and Variations in British–Gulf Relations’. 25. Some of the most useful include Christopher Piening, Global Europe: The European Union in World Affairs (Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 1997), Chapter 4; Xenakis and Chrysochoou, The Emerging Mediterranean System, part II; and Søren Dosenrode and Anders Stubkjær, The European Union and the Middle East (London: Shefﬁeld Academic Press, 2002), Chapters 3–5. 26. Piening, Global Europe, pp. 72–3. 27. Haifaa Jawad, The Euro-Arab Dialogue: a Study in Collective Diplomacy (London: Ithaca Press, 1986). 28. Gary Miller, ‘An Integrated Communities Approach’, in Gerd Nonneman (ed.), The Middle East and Europe: The Search for Stability and Integration, pp. 3–26: at p. 7. 29. Piening, Global Europe, p. 74. 30. Ibid., p. 90. 31. E. Grilli, The EC and Developing Countries (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), p. 198. 32. See the ‘Rome II’ European Council decisions of December 14–15, 1990, and the Commission review that underlay it, ‘Re-directing the Community’s Mediterranean Policy’ (23 November 1989); EC Commission, Bulletin of the European Community, November 1989, paragraph 2.2.29. Also Commission Document SEC (90) 812, 1 June 1990. 33. EC Commission, DG External Relations, ‘Internal Paper on Regional Integration’ (mimeo) of April 9, 1991, p. 4. 34. The report was ﬁrst published in 1992, and, in its 1993 edition, as Gerd Nonneman (ed.), The Middle East and Europe: the Search for Stability and Integration. 35. See Commission document COM (93) 375, September 8, 1993, laying out a new direction for EU cooperation with the Middle East; and Commission Document COM (93) 458, 29 September 1993, on Europe’s possible role in the peace process. 36. ‘Strengthening the Mediterranean Policy of the European Union: Establishing a EuroMediterranean Partnership’: COM (94) 427, October 19, 1994 (quote taken from p. 5). 37. For a recent review of the Barcelona Process, see Xenakis and Chrysochoou, The Emerging Euro-Mediterranean System, Chapter 4: ‘The Barcelona Process: Structure and Evolution’ (pp. 74–94). 38. Wolf observes that the EU’s approach to the EMP combines ‘liberalism within and mercantilism without’. See his ‘Co-operation or Conﬂict? The European Union in a Global Economy’, in International Affairs, Vol. 71 (1995), no. 3, p. 333. See also the analyses in the edited collection by Joffe´ (ed.), Perspectives on Development. 39. ‘Wider Europe – Neighbourhood: A New Framework for Relations with our Eastern and Southern Neighbours’, Communication from the Commission to the Council and the European Parliament, COM (2003) 104, Brussels, 11 March 2003. 40. ‘Strengthening EU’s Relations with the Arab World’, document presented by Romano Prodi, Javier Solana, and Chris Patten to the President of the Council, 12 December 2003. Available at http://ue.eu.int/ueDocs/cms_Data/docs/pressdata/EN/reports/78372.pdf. 41. Council of the European Union, ‘A Secure Europe in a Better World. European Security Strategy’ Brussels, 12 December 2003. Available on http://ue.eu.int/ueDocs/cms_Data/docs/ pressdata/EN/reports/78367.pdf. 42. ‘Interim Report on an ‘‘EU Strategic Partnership with the Meditteranean and the Middle East.’’ ‘ Note from the Council Secretariat to the Council (7498/1/04 REV1, 19 March 2004). Available on http://ue.eu.nit/ueDocs/cms_Data/docs/pressdata/EN/reports/79886.pdf. 43. See also Richard Youngs, ‘Europe’s Uncertain Pursuit of Middle East Reform’ (Carnegie Papers, Middle East Series, No. 45, June 2004). 44. Jo¨rg Monar, ‘Institutional Constraints on the EU’s Middle East and North Africa Policy’, in Behrendt and Hanelt, Bound to Cooperate, pp. 209–43. 45. For a good southern perspective see Mohammad El-Sayed Selim, Arab Perceptions of the EuroMediterranean Partnership (Abu Dhabi: Emirates Center for Strategic Studies and Research, 2001) (The Emirates Occasional Papers, no. 42). See also the chapter by Emad Gad on Eygpt in this volume.

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46. Gerd Nonneman: ‘The Gulf: A Background Assessment’, in Nonneman (ed.), The Middle East and Europe, pp. 55–62: see pp. 60–61; and Miller, ‘An Integrated Communities Approach’, p. 11. 47. These assessments are based in part on informal conversations with EU Commission ofﬁcials and GCC ofﬁcials and academics, in a number of meetings in Brussels, Riyadh, Kuwait, Abu Dhabi, and other locations over the period 1995–2003. 48. This was the explicit proposal in ‘Strengthening the EU’s Partnership with the Arab World’.

Analyzing Moroccan Foreign Policy and Relations with Europe MICHAEL WILLIS and NIZAR MESSARI

ANALYTICAL FRAMEWORK

As the Arab state closest geographically to Europe, Morocco has long had extensive ties and interactions with the European continent. These extend back in history to the Muslim Kingdoms of the Iberian peninsula (Al-Andalus) in the medieval period and stretch into the twentieth century and beyond with the European colonization of North Africa. The central place Europe has come to hold in Moroccan foreign policy since it achieved its independence from French and Spanish colonial control in 1956 is demonstrated by several factors. There are the high level of European trade with Morocco and the extent of Moroccan emigration towards European countries. Over two thirds of Morocco’s trade is with Europe, and around two million Moroccans live in Europe. At the level of individual European states, France plays a particularly crucial role in this relationship. But beside the economic and social interests that link Morocco to Europe, Morocco also deﬁnes itself as part of the Arab, Islamic and African worlds. These different dimensions of identity have all been fairly clearly expressed in aspects of Moroccan foreign policy. The country’s Arab and Islamic identity has been expressed through Morocco’s engagement in Middle Eastern issues. Its African dimension has been demonstrated through the support Morocco gave in the 1950s to several sub-Saharan African independence movements, and through the fact that Morocco was one of the founding countries of the (now defunct) Organization of African Unity. However, limiting the study of Moroccan foreign policy to these dimensions would miss the full picture. To obtain this picture, it is necessary to add two further dimensions: the wider Maghreb and the United States. The Maghreb has played a part in the dynamics of Moroccan policy since the early years of the country’s independence, whereas the US was present in the agenda of Moroccan foreign policy even prior to independence. For the Maghreb, the fact that Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia were not only immediate neighbors, but were also French colonies, thus sharing similar political agendas in the 1950s (to obtain independence from France), led their political leaders to articulate the vision of a uniﬁed Maghreb in the tripartite Tangiers conference of April 1958 and ensured

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that relations among the states would continue to be a major feature of each state’s foreign relations. Regarding the US, the Atlantic Charter signed by US President Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Churchill, together with the meeting between the then Sultan Mohammed Ibn Youssef and his son Moulay Hassan with President Roosevelt at the allied war conference in Anfa, Casablanca in 1943, convinced Moroccan political leaders of US support for independence movements after the end of World War II. The fact that that did not materialize – the US privileged its relationship with its main allies, Britain and France, to an eventual and elusive support of newly independent states – was more a disappointment than a motive for a Moroccan rupture with the US and indeed Morocco developed a good relationship with the US after the eventual achievement of its independence. In this perspective, and ﬁtting perfectly Steven David’s concept of ‘omnibalancing’, Moroccan foreign policy following independence established several complex equilibria among all these different dimensions, and between these dimensions on the one hand and the Moroccan domestic environment on the other.1 In a nutshell, Morocco’s alignment with the West, its relationships with Spain, and its open links with Israel can only be explained if mutual considerations and inﬂuences from one dimension to the other are taken into consideration. Hence, Morocco’s alignment with the West was due to domestic politics and domestic preferences, as will be brieﬂy explained in the following pages. Spain’s relationship with Morocco was mediated by the US more than once (the most prominent examples being the issue of the Western Sahara in the mid-1970s and the crisis of Leila/Perejil in 2002). And, whether under correct assumptions or not, one of the reasons why Morocco tried to befriend Israel was to attract US support on the Western Sahara issue. In all three instances, domestic, regional and international factors were played simultaneously in order to obtain some advantage at another level. The international environment served the domestic environment in the ﬁrst case, the international environment served to obtain results at the regional level in the second case, and the reverse situation took place in the third case: the regional environment serving Morocco at an international level. Instead of realism, and since it lacked the power dimension of mainstream realism, Morocco demonstrated pragmatism in its foreign policy. However, without the liberal input of ‘opening the black box’ of the state and understanding the mechanisms of decision making in Moroccan foreign policy, very little can be understood about the dynamics of Moroccan foreign policy. By the same token, Morocco took advantage of its geographic location and of its international and regional environments to score points that would have been harder to make had dependency been the only prism through which Morocco dealt with the world. Nevertheless, removing dependency totally from the spectrum of explanation would also be unwarranted. Morocco’s political system and domestic environment mark it out from its neighbors in being the only monarchy in North Africa amongst a sea of republics. However, unlike the monarchies of the Gulf region it does not have access to the hydrocarbons resources that condition the domestic environment

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of these states. The economy of scarcity that characterizes Morocco has in a way marked its politics, both domestically and internationally. Instead of the abundance that allows the Gulf monarchies to ask for obedience from their domestic populations in exchange for welfare, in Morocco, legitimacy is the product of a permanent conquest in which politics plays a central role. In this way, the other MENA state Morocco perhaps most resembles is Jordan even if Morocco’s history and geographical position make it rather different from Jordan in most other ways. In this sense, Morocco is inﬂuenced by events in the Middle East, but not as much as Jordan or any other Arab country of the region is. Simultaneously, and in an attitude that is only apparently contradictory, Moroccans look at themselves in the mirror of Europe, and try/hope to imitate Europe, while at the same time remaining faithful to their Arab heritage. In sum Morocco is both Arab ma non troppo and European ma non troppo. The argument of this article follows the general framework of the volume. Three environments are emphasized: the domestic, the regional and the international. At all three levels, the intricate intertwining between them is stressed. Hence, Europe is both part of the regional and the international environments, and on some issues, Morocco also deals with the US both at the regional and the international levels. As a good example of this, it should be noted that requests by leftist and Islamist groups to hold a march protesting against US-led attacks on Afghanistan in October and November 2001 were denied and successfully prevented by the authorities from occurring. The concern of the Moroccan authorities was not with the demonstrations per se, although these were of some concern too. The main concern was with the strong likelihood of US ﬂags being publicly burnt during the demonstrations at a time the US and former US State Secretary James Baker, now UN Secretary General representative for the Western Sahara, was making crucial decisions relative to the future of the Western Sahara. In other words, it was not the right time to anger the Americans by burning their ﬂag. In constructing our analysis of Moroccan foreign policy, we begin by enlarging upon the constraints and resources deriving from the domestic, the regional and the international environments. We stress the overlap and interaction between these levels both as determinants and as arenas of policy, using the concept of ‘omnibalancing’ as a useful deﬁnition of the dynamics at work. On this basis, and as an integral part of these observations, we offer an analysis of Moroccan policy towards the EU. THE DOMESTIC ENVIRONMENT

The inﬂuence of the Moroccan domestic environment in the country’s foreign policy making is certain but complex. Morocco identiﬁes itself as an Arab country although a large part of the population would identify itself as being Berber. This other, Berber, component of national identity does not appear in foreign policy making, but is still part of Moroccan identity construction. Decision making also reﬂects a high level of complexity, since the monarchy

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concentrates more decision-making powers in the Palace, although it has constantly taken into consideration domestic factors while making foreign policy. The decision making process in Moroccan foreign policy is a very singular one since institutions do not function the same way they do in liberal Western democracies. The dominating logic in Moroccan foreign policy decision making is bandwaggoning rather than balancing, since none of the actors openly dares to oppose the monarch, and all of them try to take advantage of the policies and decisions the monarch takes. The issues of the Western Sahara, the relationship with Europe and support to the Arab cause in the Middle East are clear indications of this dominating yet concerted policy-making role of the monarchy in Morocco. Unlike most other MENA states, Morocco enjoys a historical identity going back many centuries and, some would argue, more than a millennium. More importantly, this historical identity has been linked politically to the existence of a national monarchy stretching back nearly eight hundred years. More importantly still, the current ruling Alawite dynasty in Morocco has ruled over the territory covered by modern Morocco since the middle of the seventeenth century. This historical continuity, both in terms of geography and in terms of political structures, has served to give the contemporary Moroccan state a sense of identity and basic legitimacy lacked by many of its neighbors. Nevertheless, the turbulent nature of the Kingdom’s domestic politics, most notably in the ﬁrst two decades of the country’s independence from European colonial rule, has worked to counter-balance the otherwise stabilizing effects of the country’s historical and territorial inheritance. This period of turbulence signiﬁcantly underpins understanding of Morocco’s current political development and thus its foreign policy. Morocco’s post-independence politics and political structures were shaped by the political power struggle that took place between the two actors that had successfully led the campaign for independence from French and Spanish colonial rule: the traditional Alawite Monarchy on the one hand and the nationalist movement, headed by the Istiqlal (Independence) party on the other. In the aftermath of independence, the Monarchy, in the person of the Sultan (after independence, King) Mohammed V, out-maneuvered the nationalist movement in general, and the Istiqlal party in particular, to take the pre-eminent political position in the state. Signiﬁcantly, though, because of the Istiqlal’s strength, historical legitimacy and previous partnership with the Monarch in the independence struggle, the Monarchy did not seek to fully eliminate it, preferring to allow it a carefully circumscribed place in the new royally crafted political system and institutions in the Kingdom. The smooth succession to the throne of Hassan II upon the death of Mohammed V in 1961 opened the way for the full domination of the monarchy and the near total exclusion of the Istiqlal and its political allies and offshoots from decision making in the 1960s. In 1965 both the Moroccan constitution and the parliament (in which the Istiqlal and its leftist offshoot the Union Nationale des Forces Populaires – UNFP – were strongly represented) were suspended and Hassan assumed full political power – ruling by decree and by reliance on the Kingdom’s military (Royal Armed

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Forces or FAR) with whom he had build up a close relationship as Chief-of-Staff since his time as Crown Prince. The fact that the most serious challenge to the Moroccan monarchy since independence was to come from the hitherto trusted military through two narrowly unsuccessful coup d’e´tats in 1971 and 1972 shook the Monarchy and Morocco to the core. A third, albeit less serious, attempt to violently seize power by leftist elements linked to the UNFP in 1973 not only further demonstrated the vulnerability of the Monarchy but also showed that the political opposition was far from being cowed and marginalized. In a perfect illustration of omnibalancing, a foreign policy objective was used in the domestic political struggle in Morocco: the campaign to ‘reintegrate’ the formerly Spanish Sahara in 1976 served to give a renewed legitimacy and strength to the monarchy. It attracted the enthusiastic support of both the opposition parties and the Moroccan military.2 By adroitly placing himself symbolically and politically at the head of the Saharan campaign, Hassan II saw both his own legitimacy and that of the Monarchy as an institution rise substantially by the late 1970s. Political and military opposition to Morocco’s claim on the Western Sahara on the part of the Polisario Front, backed by Algeria and initially Libya, served only to strengthen Moroccan resolve at both the popular as well as elite level to take full legal and political control of the territory. The political unity and stability the Sahara issue brought to the domestic Moroccan political scene largely explains the tenacity with which Morocco has pursued its claim on the territory. Indeed, since the mid 1970s every other domestic and foreign objective of the Moroccan state has been ofﬁcially placed below that of the Sahara in terms of priority. In fact, Hassan II was apt to stress the importance of a given issue by stating that it was the second most important issue facing the country after that of the priority of ‘territorial integrity’. Although the Sahara remained a hugely popular cause for most Moroccans, the Monarchy was very aware of the extent to which it had tied its own legitimacy and prestige to the issue. It thus feared that should the Sahara issue fail to be resolved in Morocco’s favor or even fade from the national consciousness, the Monarchy could itself be threatened. In other words, there was a concern that Morocco could return to the instability of the early 1970s. Any analysis that fails to take into account the importance of the issue of the Western Sahara to the Moroccan state leadership, treating it as just one policy objective among others, is therefore seriously ﬂawed. The regime has shown itself willing to make virtually any sacriﬁce necessary to achieve its objectives in the Sahara.3 As John Damis has observed, Morocco was even willing to damage its close and longstanding relationship with the US to avoid compromising its claim on the territory.4 The greater stability Morocco has experienced over recent decades explains in part the steps taken by the Kingdom towards greater political liberalization. Two sets of constitutional reforms in 1992 and 1996 established more settled political institutions and electoral calendars and gave some extra new powers to parliament and the government. These fairly modest institutional reforms have

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been accompanied by substantial changes in the human rights policy in Morocco. The release of most ‘prisoners of conscience’, the closure of sites like the infamous prison of Tazmamart and the expansion in freedom of expression that has occurred since the mid-1990s are clear examples of this political liberalization.5 An independent and diverse press in particular has been willing to subject Morocco’s governing assumptions, structures and elites to a degree of critique unimaginable in earlier decades. These liberalizing reforms were not solely due to the more stable political climate that Morocco began to enjoy but were also due to a clutch of other factors. These included concerns about a smooth and peaceful royal succession (which duly occurred in 1999 with Mohammed VI succeeding Hassan II), eagerness to avoid the disastrous path taken by neighboring Algeria as well as gentle pressures from abroad to democratize. Political opposition to the monarchy has historically been located in the parties of the historic opposition – mainly the Istiqlal and the USFP – which whilst criticizing the nature of constitutional arrangements no longer question the pre-eminence of the Monarchy in the Moroccan system.6 More radical opposition to the regime came from the radical left in the 1960s and 1970s but its challenge was defeated by a combination of ruthless repression by the state and the consensus on the Western Sahara. As in other MENA states the mantle of radical opposition to the state has been assumed since the 1980s by the Islamists. However, Morocco’s Islamists have not exhibited either the same strength or radicalism seen in other countries. This is partly due to the religious dimension the Moroccan Monarchy has accrued to itself, but also due to the rather diverse nature of the main Islamist organizations in the Kingdom that have stood in the way of the creation of one mass movement as occurred elsewhere. One of the two main Islamist groups has chosen to enter into the ofﬁcial political arena and has been allowed to contest elections and is now the third largest party in the national parliament. However, in being permitted by the authorities to do so, the movement has had to explicitly commit itself to respecting the existing political system and the dominance of the Monarchy. The other main Islamist organization has refused to endorse the system in this way and has thus been excluded from formal politics. However, despite the radical nature of its critique of the political system and even the Monarchy, it has committed itself to an explicitly peaceful and gradualist path.7 Nevertheless, growing levels of poverty and inequality within the Kingdom indicate for some a growing popular constituency for an even more radical opposition force that could launch a far more direct challenge to the political status quo. Decision-making structures in Morocco have remained, as in nearly all other MENA states, in the hands of the head of state. In spite of reforms that have strengthened the role of the parliament and the prime minister, all the key decisions of the state are taken in the royal palace. Decisions relating to foreign policy are no exception. Indeed, the Palace has shown a particular interest in retaining control of this domain. In 1998 when the King made the groundbreaking decision to appoint a new government based mainly on parties from the long-time opposition (including the Istiqlal and the successor to the UNFP – the Union Socialiste des Forces Populaires or USFP) the Foreign Ministry was

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excluded from this arrangement – the Foreign Minister remaining a direct appointee from the Palace. Decisions are not taken by the King alone but in concert with a team of advisors whose opinions and inﬂuence are of far greater weight than the ofﬁcial government ministers. In some ministries a deputy minister (secretary of state) reports directly to the King himself thus wielding far greater power than the actual Minister. This is even true in the Foreign Ministry where despite being directly appointed by the Palace, the Minister often ﬁnds himself cut out of key decisions. This was said to be the case during the Leila/ Perejil crisis with Spain in the summer of 2002 when key decisions were taken by the Secretary of State in the Foreign Ministry, Taib Fassi Fihri, in direct consultation with the King and without the involvement of the actual Foreign Minister, Mohammed Benaissa. In the early years of independence, the Palace was obliged to take into consideration the views of the Istiqlal and the UNFP given the strength these parties had during this period. But with the Monarchy gradually exerting full control over the political system, decisions came to be taken by the Palace alone. As one Moroccan academic euphemistically put it, the ﬁnal triumph of Hassan II over the nationalist parties ‘liberated [the King] from the pressures of currents of opinion’ and gave him much greater freedom of maneuver. This concentration of decision making in the hands of the King then allowed for a number of surprise initiatives in foreign policy – notably the famous ‘Green March’ into the Sahara in November 1975 – which would not have been possible with a more pluralistic and time-consuming decision-making process.8 Although in institutional terms, all the key decisions on foreign policy are taken within the walls of the Palace this process is not isolated from outside inﬂuence. Government ministers may be consulted but two other forces have also increasingly made their inﬂuence felt. First, Morocco’s independent press has increasingly shown itself willing to address the subject of foreign policy and has not been afraid to criticize what it sees as the mishandling of issues such as the Western Sahara issue and more recently the Leila/Perejil crisis. Certain newspapers have indeed taken the daring step of broaching the subject of the Western Sahara – a topic once seen as off limits to any press coverage except propagandist assertions of Moroccan ownership. Although no journalist has yet dared to question the objectives of Moroccan policy on the Sahara, many have been critical of the strategy and tactics adopted by the Moroccan government towards regaining the territory.9 Although it is clearly difﬁcult to gauge the impact of this press coverage and comment on the policy-making process, it is likely that it has had an impact on the second new force that has had increasing inﬂuence on foreign policy: public opinion. The 1990s have witnessed two clear incidences where ordinary public opinion could be seen to have had a direct effect on decisions on foreign policy. The ﬁrst occurred in early 1991 during the Gulf war when public hostility to the war against Iraq obliged King Hassan to curb his support for the anti-Iraq coalition.10 The second occurred in October 2000 when public pressure pushed King Mohammed to close the Israeli liaison bureau in Rabat and its Moroccan counterpart in Tel Aviv following the start of the second Palestinian Intifada. Signiﬁcantly, in both cases public opinion made

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itself felt not through the media or the fragmented political parties, but through mass rallies in Rabat attended by hundreds of thousands of people. It was signiﬁcant also, that in the case of the 1991 rally (and perhaps even that of 2000) the public demonstration took place against the initial wishes of the Palace – the authorities only allowing it to occur out of concern that they were not in a position to prevent it. These two events demonstrated the growing relevance of popular feeling to decision-making processes. Such developments have potentially wider and more profound potential implications for not just the foreign but also the domestic policies of Morocco and possibly other MENA states. THE REGIONAL ENVIRONMENT

The list of Morocco’s regional environments should contain, besides the Middle East and Europe, the sub-region of the Maghreb since this – through the conﬂict over the Western Sahara and the Kingdom’s troubled relations with Algeria – has arguably been Morocco’s most important foreign policy arena. Morocco’s foreign relations with Africa have been largely limited to promoting full decolonization of the continent in the 1950s and, from the 1970s, to soliciting support for its claim on the Western Sahara in bodies such as the Organization of African Unity (OAU). The OAU’s vote to admit as a full member the Polisario state in exile – the Saharan Arab Democratic Republic (SADR) – in 1984 led to Morocco’s withdrawal from the Union (and its successor body, the African Union, created in 2001), thus largely isolating Morocco from the politics of the wider continent from that point on. To compensate for that isolation, Morocco has been active in the substantially smaller Franco-African annual meetings, which represent an opportunity for Morocco’s diplomacy to remain in touch with parts of sub Saharan Africa. The Maghreb Morocco’s relations with the neighboring states in the Maghreb have been largely governed by its commitment to regaining what it terms as its full ‘territorial integrity’. Morocco has traditionally believed that its formal independence from France and Spain in 1956 was only a partial independence given that much of the territory it believed to belong rightly to the Kingdom remained in the hands of its neighbors after 1956, the most prominent example of this being the territory of the Western Sahara.11 As a result, Morocco’s relations with its neighbors have frequently been conﬂictual although it has also regularly sought more consensual and cooperative means of resolving its differences with the surrounding states as a means of regaining territory. Morocco’s difﬁcult relations with its eastern neighbor, Algeria, have been well documented.12 In short, they relate to arguments over territory, clashes of personalities between leaders and, most importantly, differences in view over the future of the Western Sahara. In broader perspective, the very different origins of the two states, with Algeria being essentially born out of its long and bitter colonial experience and liberation struggle and Morocco being a product

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of a much longer political and historical evolution, has created two very different states with very different political systems and ideological outlooks. The two states fought a short war in the Autumn of 1963 over the disputed mutual border demarcated by the departing French. Their armed forces clashed again directly and very brieﬂy in 1976 at the beginning of the Saharan conﬂict – whereafter Algeria conﬁned its role to the sheltering and supply of the Polisario Front in its struggle against the Moroccans. Algeria maintained that its support for the Polisario was based on support for the principle of self-determination for the Saharan people which it has equated with its own liberation struggle against the French. However, as the dispute has worn on, more basic geopolitical considerations based on regional rivalry and a desire not to lose face have arguably also played their part. Relations between the two countries remain strained with mutual recriminations over alleged support for subversives within each other’s borders (Islamists in Algeria and Polisario in Morocco) ensuring that the land border between the two countries has remained shut since 1994. One period during which Morocco and Algeria enjoyed relatively good relations was that surrounding the creation of the Arab Maghreb Union (AMU) in February 1989. The Union brought together the Maghrebi states of Libya, Tunisia and Mauritania as well as Morocco and Algeria in an attempt to create a regional grouping that would combat regional problems such as unemployment, debt and the relationship with the deepening and expanding European Community to the north.13 Morocco has traditionally enjoyed good relations with moderate and pro-Western Tunisia, but had had more difﬁcult relations with Libya and Mauritania. Muammar Qadhaﬁ’s ideological hostility to the ‘feudal’ monarchy of Morocco had led to Libya becoming one of Polisario’s earliest and most enthusiastic backers. However, relations improved markedly in the 1980s culminating in the two states forming a brief treaty of union in 1984. Despite lofty rhetoric and grand plans of common markets and open frontiers the Arab Maghreb Union failed to deliver on its promises – its progress foundering and then ﬁnally stalling on the issue of the Western Sahara.14 Europe By virtue of geographical proximity alone, the European continent is clearly part of Morocco’s regional environment. Long-standing historical contact, not least the 44 years Morocco spent under French and Spanish colonial control from 1912 to 1956, ties Morocco to Europe. More importantly and tangibly is the commercial relationship that exists between them. Morocco’s trade with Europe dwarfs that with any other state or region. In 1999, 74 percent of Morocco’s exports went to the states of the EU whilst 66 percent of its total imports came from the EU.15 However, the fact that Morocco’s trade with the EU accounts for less than one percent of the EU’s total trade indicates the severe asymmetry in the economic relationship. Although the EU is far and away Morocco’s largest trading partner, Morocco ranks only thirty-fourth in the Union’s list of trading partners.16 Morocco achieved independence just one year before the signing of the Treaty of Rome in 1957 and thus has seen its relations with the European continent

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become increasingly synonymous with its relationship with the European Community and then the EU as the regional body expanded its membership and deepened its integration. The importance of commercial links with Europe led to Morocco seeking to gain special trading concessions from the EC which it secured in an Association Agreement in 1969 and then a Cooperation Agreement in 1976. The 1976 Agreement was ﬁnally succeeded by a new Association Agreement signed in 1995 as part of the broader EuroMediterranean Partnership Initiative (EMP) or Barcelona process. However, in all of these agreements Morocco remained unhappy about the commercial concessions it was granted. Signiﬁcant restrictions were imposed on Morocco’s ability to export agricultural produce – one of its main exports to Europe. These were the result of pressure from Mediterranean members of the EC/EU concerned that cheap Moroccan agricultural produce would undercut their own farmers’ ability to sell within Europe.17 Morocco has accepted the restrictions imposed on its trade with Europe largely because it has no choice. Trade with other regions or states nowhere near approaches – or is likely to approach – the levels of that with the EU, and thus Morocco is in no position to reject the conditions set by Brussels. Morocco had held to the hope that changes to the EU’s protectionist policies towards European agriculture might occur – particularly with the likely strains put on the policy with the Union’s planned expansion to include new members from eastern Europe in 2004. However, deals in October 2002 between key EU member states to essentially preserve the protectionist Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) have stymied this hope. Morocco’s acceptance of disadvantageous trading agreements can also be explained in terms of wanting to preserve relations with Europe that are beneﬁcial in other ways. Europe has long been Morocco’s main source of external ﬁnance, as well as of bilateral and private commercial loans and aid. Morocco’s development needs as well as its substantial external debt ($20.7 billion in 1998 with a debt-service ratio of roughly 20 percent)18 has made it very dependent on Europe in this regard. Direct aid from the EC/EU has increased over time and particularly within the framework of the EMP where some $576 million worth of aid was made available under the MEDA program to support social and economic development and aid the process of transition to the projected free trade agreement. This together with a further $705 million worth of loans from the European Investment Bank is likely, in the view of Damis, to ‘have a meaningful impact on Morocco’s development needs’.19 Europe is also an important source of foreign exchange through the large number of Moroccans who work in EU countries and send home remittances that in 1999 were annually worth roughly $2 billion.20 Indeed, the presence of expatriate workers in Europe has cemented the relationship in other ways by providing much needed labor in certain key economic sectors in a number of European countries. However, domestic political pressures within European states produced by unemployment cycles and fears of the spread of radical Islamism from North Africa have produced periodic counter pressures to reduce the number of Moroccan and other North African nationals living and working in Europe.

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Although Morocco has increasingly been forced to deal with the EU as a collective body, it has maintained important and differentiated bilateral relations within individual European states. First and foremost of these is France. As the former dominant colonial power, France has maintained its dominant trading position being the destination of 36 percent of total Moroccan exports in 1999 and the source of 26 percent of its imports – totals unmatched by any other individual state.21 France is also the source of over half the total value of Moroccan workers’ remittances sent back to Morocco.22 France has also been able to maintain a dominant role in diplomatic terms. Its diplomatic representation in the Kingdom dwarfs that of any other foreign country both in terms of size and numbers of personnel. Most other states, even within the EU, have long recognized that Morocco, along with the rest of former Francophone North Africa, remains a ‘chasse garde´e’ of the French. In turn, Morocco clearly regards its relationship with France as its most important foreign bilateral relationship. Colonial and commercial links have ensured, for example, that the French language retains a strong place in Morocco’s political, educational and especially business life. Morocco’s political and business elite follows events in France closely – not least French views of Morocco – and frequently sends its children to French run schools and universities often in metropolitan France itself. One European state that has sought to possibly challenge France’s privileged relationship with Morocco has been Spain. As Morocco’s closest European neighbor, Spain sought from the late 1980s on to strengthen its ties with its southern neighbor with particular focus on the economic dimension of the relationship. Substantial economic growth prompted by Spain’s membership of the EC from 1986 has enabled Spain to increase exchanges with Morocco to the point where it became Morocco’s second largest trading partner (after France) by the late 1990s.23 However, relations between the states have long had a number of points of potential conﬂict that saw Morocco withdraw its Ambassador in Madrid in October 2001 and Spain do the same in July of the following year and engage in a war of words. Spanish unhappiness with Morocco related to Morocco’s failure to agree a new ﬁshing agreement with the EU (an existing one expired in 1999) and upon which large numbers of Spanish ﬁshermen who traditionally ﬁshed in Moroccan waters depended. Spain has also consistently complained about drug trafﬁcking originating in Morocco and affecting Spain’s main urban areas. More substantially, Spain was concerned by the growth in illegal emigration from Morocco to Spain which had – in its view – grown to unmanageable proportions and which it accused the Moroccans of doing little to stem. From Morocco’s side, Spain’s refusal to support proposals at the UN relating to the Western Sahara and favorable to Morocco provoked anger as did pro-Polisario sentiments expressed by sections of the Spanish media and certain regional governments which Morocco (mistakenly) believed were the responsibility of the central government in Madrid. More at the level of ideas than substance, Morocco constantly complains about the contemptuous Spanish attitude towards Morocco. Spain’s ambivalent policy towards Morocco reﬂects divisions within Spain between a traditional and European oriented elite that is

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wont to see Moroccans as the threatening Moors coming from the south and a more open and less ideological section of the Spanish leadership that sees Morocco as just a partner among many others. The dispute over the islet of Leila/Perejil that came to the fore in July 2002 was only a symptom – not a cause – of these broader tensions and differences. The relationship with Europe remains a priority for Morocco’s foreign policy makers, perhaps second only in importance to that of the issue of the Western Sahara. Beyond the overarching economic signiﬁcance of the relationship, the Palace’s close personal and educational ties with the continent – particularly France – ensures that Europe will remain the primary focus of Moroccan diplomacy. The importance attached by the Palace to the relationship with Europe was most graphically illustrated by the fact that King Mohamed VI, when Crown Prince, not only performed a stage (internship) in the ofﬁce of the President of the then European Commission, Jacques Delors but also chose to write his PhD dissertation on the subject of relations between the EU and the states of the Maghreb.24 The choice of this area of study was a clear indication of where the monarchy felt Morocco’s future interests lay. The Middle East (Mashreq) Morocco’s relationships with the Middle East proper have been complex and often subject to conﬂicting inﬂuences and pressures. Despite being the Arab state most geographically removed from the Levant and the Gulf, Morocco has long paid a close interest to developments in the region and has played a far more active role diplomatically in Middle Eastern politics than either Tunisia or even, arguably, Algeria. Like the other states of the Maghreb, Morocco’s historical, cultural and religious links with the Middle East are strong. The religious dimension of the Moroccan Monarchy’s position and legitimacy, not least its claim to descent from the Prophet Mohammed link Morocco even closer to the region. However, in formulating policy towards the region, Morocco has been forced to consider a range of more speciﬁc and contemporary factors beyond the ties of history, culture, language and religion that link it to the region. First, Morocco’s status as a traditional monarchy with close ties to Europe and the West have generally set it against the more radical trends that have emerged over the last 50 years in the Middle East. This was particularly the case with the rise of Arab nationalism. Although Mohammed V enjoyed good relations with Jamal Abd-al-Nasser in Egypt and beneﬁted from Egyptian support for Morocco’s anti-colonial struggle, relations between Hassan II and the Egyptian leader were much cooler. Hassan’s closer relations with the West and his belief in a negotiated settlement to the Arab–Israeli dispute set him at odds with Nasser and other prominent Arab nationalists such as Muammar Qadhaﬁ. In this way, during the so-called ‘Arab Cold War’ of the 1960s – Hassan found himself having much more in common with the similarly conservative and pro-Western traditional monarchies of the Gulf than those states that espoused forms of radical Arab nationalism. Morocco’s good relations with states such as Saudi Arabia allowed it to beneﬁt from substantial

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amounts of aid from the Gulf states which was of particular help during the height of the war in the Western Sahara. Morocco’s close relationship with the West was a second factor that inﬂuenced its policy towards the Middle East. Following his accession to the throne in 1961, Hassan II had taken the strategic decision to ally himself much more closely to the states of the Western World and this led him to try and align Moroccan policy much more closely with that of Europe and the US. Hassan II’s moderate perspective and commitment to dialogue in the region drew praise and support from the US in particular which sought to recruit allies in a region that was frequently hostile to the US. The third and most particular factor in Morocco’s foreign policy towards the Middle East was the Kingdom’s unusually good relationship with the state of Israel. Although Morocco has never actually established full relations with Israel (‘liaison ofﬁces’ were established in Rabat and Tel Aviv between 1994 and 2000) it has maintained unbroken links with senior Israeli leaders, many of whom visited Morocco (both openly and covertly) from the 1970s. Morocco has also been an early and enthusiastic supporter of most attempts to reach a peace settlement in the Arab–Israeli dispute. There are two principal reasons for this state of affairs. First, there is the fact that Morocco has traditionally had (and continues to have) the largest Jewish community in the Arab world. Indeed, Morocco is unique in the Arab world in having Jewish members of parliament, having had Jewish cabinet ministers and, most importantly of all, a senior advisor to the King who is Jewish. Morocco has also maintained close links with the several hundred thousand Moroccan Jews who emigrated to Israel following its creation. Second, Moroccan policy towards Israel was greatly inﬂuenced by Hassan II’s personal perspective on Israel’s role in the Middle East. He was one of the very ﬁrst Arab leaders to argue that the Arab states would ultimately have to make peace with the Jewish state. From the mid-1970s he began to meet covertly with Israeli leaders and helped facilitate early meetings between Israeli and Egyptian ofﬁcials in negotiations that ultimately culminated in the Camp David Accords and the peace treaty between the two states. Hassan’s view of the relationship between the Arabs and the Israelis was shaped by what MaddyWeitzman has described as ‘a particular view of renewed Semitic brotherhood based on an idyllic Jewish–Arab past in Morocco and Muslim Spain, which could contribute to an economic and human renaissance in the contemporary Middle East’.25 Unlike many other Arab and Muslim leaders, Hassan believed Arab and Jew could not only live together but could ﬂourish together as they had during the period of Al-Andalus in Muslim Spain, and this explains his continued commitment in searching for a negotiated solution to the Arab–Israeli dispute. Parallel to this policy, however, King Hassan maintained strong support for the Palestinians. Morocco has never normalized relations with Israel and refused to endorse the eventual peace accord between Egypt and Israel on the grounds that too little had been done for the Palestinians. Both Hassan II and Mohamed VI chaired the Al-Quds (Jerusalem) committee of the Organization of the Islamic Conference of Muslim states that is charged with protecting Muslim interests and sites in Jerusalem.

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THE INTERNATIONAL ENVIRONMENT

Moroccan foreign policy can safely be described as solidly pro-Western. Within the West, Morocco has established privileged links with its former colonial power, France, and is also considered a solid US ally in the region. This alignment to the West was symbolically demonstrated at the funeral of Hassan II in 1999. Besides US President Bill Clinton and French President Jacques Chirac, the most noted presence at the funeral was that of the Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak as well as that of King Juan Carlos of Spain and the Spanish Prime Minister Jose´ Maria Aznar. These four countries (the US, France, Spain and Israel) have played a major role in Moroccan foreign policy since independence. The conduct of Moroccan foreign policy since the country’s independence provides a clear example of the limitations of overstating the weight of dependency in the conduct of Third World countries’ foreign policies. In order to compensate for its lack of power resources and inability to pressure its partners, Morocco’s foreign policy has played with different diplomatic triangles throughout its recent history: between the US and the Soviet Union, between France and the US, between Israel and the US, and between Spain and the US. In all these different triangles, Morocco usually tried to obtain results from side A either by drawing closer to side B (with the objective of pushing side A to react and respond positively to Morocco’s demands) or by using side B to pressure or mediate for it with side A. In all these triangles, Morocco represents one point, and each other partner represented the two remaining points of the triangle. Morocco has not always been successful at playing this game, but it has played it heavily time and again. The end of the Cold War did not signiﬁcantly change this framework and this mode of action, neither did the events of September 11, 2001 in the US. In this part of the article, these triangles will be analyzed, and the effect of the end of the Cold War as well as of the terrorist attacks on the US will also be discussed. A brief but necessary explanation of Morocco’s identiﬁcation with the West is important at this stage. Two factors contributed to Morocco aligning itself with the West: ideological tendencies and business interests. On the one hand, the monarchy and several key political players leaned ideologically towards the West during the Cold War. This political elite either favored the private ownership of land and the means of production, and/or rejected the materialist (that is atheist) view of the world held by communism. While this view did not enjoy full consensus among all political players (for instance the large socialist party the USFP, and Mehdi Ben Barka, then a young and dynamic left wing activist, clearly leaned towards a more collectivist view of the economy) it represented the dominating tendency of those at the helm of power both within the palace and within government. On the other hand, business, factory and land owners were highly dependent on their link with both the former colonial power, France, and Europe in general, since the market for their exports was France and its EC partners. Therefore, provoking a rupture with the former colonial power and its EC partners was clearly not beneﬁcial to their economic interest.26 A further explanation is needed in order to bring the US into this picture. As we

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mentioned in the introduction to this article, the US was viewed positively by the Moroccan political elite even before independence. The fact that the US was a key player which consistently and clearly defended the right for self determination encouraged the Moroccan political elite to consider it a potential ally in its struggle for independence. The key role President Eisenhower played in the Suez crisis when he publicly requested French, British and Israeli armies to withdraw from the Suez Canal, siding thus with Egypt, reinforced this perception. There is also a widespread belief in Morocco that strong bonds link Morocco to the US because Morocco was the ﬁrst state to formally recognize US independence. All of this together explains Morocco’s attempt in the early years of its independence to establish optimal relations with the US.27 The poles of the ﬁrst triangle put together by Moroccan diplomacy were Morocco, the US and the Soviet Union. In the late 1950s,28 Morocco was still without clear links to either superpower. It associated itself with the emerging non-aligned movement which sought neutrality in the superpower conﬂict with the possible beneﬁt of being able to play the two superpowers off against each other to secure certain beneﬁts. One government dominated by left wing leaning forces from the recently created UNFP tried to link Morocco to the Soviet Union by seeking expanded commercial relations both for ideological reasons as well as a means of exerting pressure on the US and the other Western countries. The Western leaning forces in Morocco (headed by the monarchy) resisted the move, and received the support of the US. As a result, Morocco became securely anchored in the West, a fact recognized by both the US and the Soviet Union. In the mid-1960s, when Morocco’s relations with France were at their lowest ebb because of the Ben Barka affair, Hassan II tried again to revive the Soviet ‘card’.29 Concerned with the lack of support he was receiving from France following the latter’s decision to cut diplomatic relations with Morocco in 1966 over the Ben Barka affair, Hassan sought US support, which he could only have by threatening to lean towards the Soviet Union. Berramdane afﬁrms that this new attempt was not as successful as the ﬁrst one for two reasons. On the one hand, Morocco was seen by the Soviet Union as clearly part of the Western camp, and not worth any serious effort to attract. On the other hand, Morocco was seen by the US as blufﬁng, and the threat was not taken seriously. Morocco also tried to play the US against France. In order to obtain beneﬁts from France, Morocco threatened in the early years of independence to draw closer to the US. As shown, Morocco tried that same approach again in the mid1960s, after the Ben Barka affair and the consequent cooling of France’s relations with Morocco. But, both times, the US considered Morocco to be part of France’s backyard, or chasse garde´e (to use the appropriate French term) and privileged its links to France over those with Morocco, whom it already considered an ally. This triangle eventually worked to Morocco’s favor in the early years of the Reagan administration.30 With the revival of the Cold War by US president Ronald Reagan, Hassan II successfully placed the Western Sahara within the framework of the Cold War (which he had unsuccessfully tried to do with the Carter administration) and obtained some material support from the Reagan administration in the Western Sahara conﬂict.31 He succeeded in doing

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so at a time when France was under the ﬁrst years of the long presidential mandates of the socialist Franc¸ois Mitterand which witnessed Moroccan–French relations decline to new lows, particularly during the early 1990s. These years were also the years of the consolidation of Moroccan–American links. Morocco’s relations with Spain have been mostly tense. Lo´pez Garcia and Larramendi argue that it was not until the early 1980s that Spain ﬁnally gave up its old colonial view of Morocco.32 Until then, Spain was continuously suspicious of Morocco regarding its territorial claims in the Sahara and in relation to the Spanish North African enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla. In contrast to the socialists in France, Spain’s socialist governments of the 1980s and 1990s developed relatively good relations with Morocco. Nevertheless, in the 1970s Spanish withdrawal from the Western Sahara was only achieved following US pressure on Spain,33 and more recently in 2002, the US had to intervene and mediate in the conﬂict between Morocco and Spain regarding the islet of Leila/ Perejil. On both occasions, the US did not want to see two of its main regional allies ﬁghting over relatively easily solved issues. The other triangle Morocco has played towards Spain is with Algeria. When Hassan II felt encircled by an alliance between Spain and Algeria (supported by Mauritania) in the early 1970s,34 he did all he could to strike individual deals with each one of them in order to break the alliance. In 2002, the Moroccan press seemed to suspect that the same kind of alliance between Spain and Algeria was again emerging prompting the question as to whether Morocco will respond in the same way again. The last, but certainly not least, important triangle to discuss is the one which is composed of Morocco, Israel and the US. In common with the triangle with Spain and the US, and as opposed to the two other triangles (Morocco–US– USSR and Morocco–US–France), this triangle was established by Moroccan policy makers not as a balancing act, but in an effort to attract US sympathy through befriending Israel. As we mentioned earlier, Hassan II believed in the possibility of coexistence and cooperation between Muslims and Jews. The existence of a sizeable community of Jewish Sefaradis of Moroccan descent was hence perceived by Hassan II as an opportunity for Morocco to play a role in any eventual rapprochement between Israel and its Arab neighbors. Morocco could, in sum, be a bridge builder between Arabs and Jews. Hassan II was also consistently careful to engage the Moroccan Jewish community in national political life. As we observed earlier, besides the fact that Moroccan Jews have participated in the legislative as well as the executive branches of the Moroccan political system, there is also a world wide association of Jews of Moroccan descent, allowing them thus to maintain symbolic links with their country of origin. Within this perspective, Morocco played the role of intermediaries/ emissaries on several occasions between Arab states and Israel. For instance, Moshe Dayan secretly visited Morocco prior to and in preparation for Sadat’s visit to Jerusalem in 1977, and in 1986, one of Shimon Perez’s ﬁrst acts when he became Israel’s Prime Minister in a national unity government between Labor and the Likud, was to publicly pay a visit to Hassan II. But Hassan II’s intentions were not as disinterested as they might appear to be. Through being a bridge

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between the Arabs and Israel, Morocco intended to play a positive role in the conﬂict in the Middle East, but Morocco also intended to serve its own ends through this. Hassan II wanted these particular links with Israel to cultivate US good will with regards to Morocco’s ﬁrst and most urgent priority: the Western Sahara. By playing – in US eyes – a positive role in the Middle East, Morocco hoped for some US support in its regional struggle with Polisario and Algeria. Although this did not materialize as strongly as Morocco had hoped for, it remained part of Morocco’s calculation in formulating its policy towards the Middle East. The Cold War had only a passing inﬂuence on Moroccan foreign policy. As we already argued, Morocco was solidly aligned with the West from its early post-independence years. But as we also argued, Hassan II tried twice to portray the conﬂict in the Western Sahara as a Cold War conﬂict in order to obtain US support. He was successful in his second attempt with the Reagan administration. Other than that, the Cold War did not really affect Moroccan foreign policy. The end of the Cold War had a clearer effect on domestic politics than on foreign policy. Indeed, with the collapse of the Soviet Union, Hassan was an enthusiastic adept of Fukuyama’s concept of the end of history. According to Hassan II, the end of the Cold War indicated the end of the ideological conﬂict and the victory of liberalism.35 That was translated domestically by the end of any meaningful conﬂict between his way and the opposition way of leading the economy. Consequently, he spent the 1990s inviting the socialist opposition into the government and offering it the Finance ministry – an invitation that was only ﬁnally accepted in 1998. The end of the Cold War could have had a negative effect on Moroccan foreign policy by weakening US support in terms of weapons and credits. However, the important role Hassan II played in efforts to resolve the conﬂict in the Middle East allowed him to keep a prominent position in US policy in the region. This was due to the new priorities of the US government under President Clinton. Indeed, Clinton engaged himself in what started to be called the Middle East peace process as early as 1993 and the signing of the Oslo agreement at the White House in September of that year. In a world where the US was the only remaining superpower, and within what Krauthammer called the ‘unipolar moment’,36 the Clinton administration adopted a discourse of multilateralism and strengthening of the existing international organizations. The expansion of trade, democracy and peace were considered to be crucial within that perspective. The success of the peace process in the Middle East was a central piece in that framework. As Morocco was solidly anchored in the West even before the end of the Cold War, this newly found relevance of the Middle East in US foreign policy during the 1990s played to Morocco’s favor in this decade. Clinton’s presence at the funeral of Hassan II was hence a clear testimony of that relevance. More than the end of the Cold War, the events of September 11 could have posed a more troubling threat to Morocco. At that point Mohammed VI had only recently become king, and his hold on power might have still been somewhat shaky. But the King smoothly moved to show the US its sympathy in its moment

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of grief, and to support it in ‘the war against terror’. He considered that any other move would harm Morocco’s interest in the Western Sahara at a moment when the US was playing an increasingly major role in mediating the conﬂict. Mohammed VI did not ignore the risk that supporting the US meant. Islamist groups could condemn his move and weaken him domestically. But he took the risk, conﬁrming that the highest priority of the Moroccan state is the Western Sahara issue. The equation of stability depended much more on the issue of the Western Sahara than on an eventual Islamist mobilization that could be controlled and which was far less potentially threatening than the risk of losing the Western Sahara. This scale of priority has remained unchanged over the last quarter of a decade in Moroccan foreign policy. CONCLUSION

Morocco has long promoted the idea of it being part of a number of different worlds. Hassan II himself somewhat poetically argued that: Morocco is like a tree nourished by roots deep in the soil of Africa, which breathes through foliage rustling to the winds of Europe. Yet Morocco’s existence is not only vertical. Horizontally, it looks to the East, with which it is bound by ties of religion and culture.37 These different worlds do not necessarily coexist in space and time. From time to time, parts of the ‘tree’ can be developed more acutely, making it look dominant. However, this does not mean that the other parts have ceased to be part of the expression of Moroccan identity. More importantly, these different parts of the tree feed each other, and provide the necessary resources for each other’s continuation. Morocco is hence the representation of all this complexity, and not only of parts of it. What Moroccan foreign policy analysis teaches us is that different environments and different ways of thinking dominate policy making at different moments. Power is not the only resource available for foreign policy makers and several other tools are there to be used. In this sense, politics is not all about local issues, or at least, not only about them. Morocco’s symbolic (and sometimes more than symbolic) alignment with the US after September 11 runs the risk of energizing domestic Islamist groups. The regime took this path because of the broader picture that included the regional environment of Morocco. This illustrates the concept of omnibalancing. Moroccan foreign policy towards the EU ﬁts within this framework. Morocco depends largely on its economic, ﬁnancial and trade links with the EU. But once again, Morocco is trying to create a new triangle, this time at the economic level. In order to try to get a better deal with the EU, Morocco is accelerating the pace of its negotiations with the US towards creating a free trade zone with that country. But the credibility of this triangle is dubious. Nobody in the US or in the EU really believes Morocco can swap America for Europe. But the establishment of a free trade zone between the US and Morocco is undoubtedly a

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card Morocco wants to play with in its negotiations with the EU.38 However, it is a card Morocco must play with care. Following a visit to Morocco in January 2003, the French Foreign Trade Minister, Franc¸ois Loos warned Morocco that ‘You cannot say you want a closer partnership with the EU and at the same time sign a free trade agreement with the US’.39 The lack of credibility of this triangle is compensated by yet another triangle, this time strictly Morocco–European. Morocco relies on its privileged links with France to make up for its chronically bad relations with Spain. A Spanish initiative (supported by the UK) at the Seville European summit in June 2002, which sought to penalize countries who do not do enough to control immigration ﬂuxes towards Europe, through the reduction of EU’s ﬁnancial assistance to them, was clearly aimed partly at Morocco. Signiﬁcantly it was the intervention of France that stopped it from being approved. In other words, the EU is too important for Morocco to neglect, but it is too powerful to be dealt with on a one-to-ﬁfteen basis. Morocco relies on its privileged relationship with France, and on its current good relations with the US to try to strike better deals with the EU. The international context, with pressures put on the EU to reform its agricultural policy coming from the US, the World Trade Organization (WTO) and Mercosur, and suggestions from within the EU to reform its immigration policies could represent opportunities for Morocco to establish better – and more balanced – relations with the EU. But it remains crucial for Morocco to try to achieve better negotiating positions with the EU. In the absence of any positive perspective for the AMU, establishing a free trade zone with the US is the only remaining – but very weak and unlikely – card for Morocco in this highly unbalanced game. NOTES 1. Steven R. David, ‘Explaining Third World Alignment’, World Politics, Vol. LXIII, no. 2 (January 1991), pp. 233–56. 2. For the Istiqlal and the UNFP, the claim on the Sahara was part of the historic agenda of the nationalist movement of which they had been an integral and historic part. For the military, the Sahara presented an opportunity to display both their readiness and ability to defend the Kingdom as well as confront their adversaries in the Algerian military with whom they had clashed in the brief border war of 1963. 3. Morocco had been willing to make concessions on ﬁshing rights with Spain in order to secure Spain’s withdrawal from the Sahara. It had similarly agreed to fully recognize Algeria’s claim on disputed border territories in 1969 in order to tacitly pave the way for Algeria’s recognition of Morocco’s claim on the Western Sahara. 4. See John Damis, ‘The Impact of the Saharan Dispute on Moroccan Foreign and Domestic Policy’ in I.W. Zartman (ed.), The Political Economy of Morocco (New York: Praeger, 1987), p. 198. 5. The jail of Tazmamart in Southern Morocco was the prison where the soldiers who had attempted a coup d’e´tat against King Hassan in the early 1970s were jailed in inhuman conditions. 6. The Istiqlal gave up questioning the monarchy’s legitimacy in the 1970s whereas the USFP did so effectively and deﬁnitely only in the 1990s. 7. For details on Morocco’s Islamist movements see Mohamed Tozy, Monarchie et Islam Politique au Maroc (Paris: Presses de Sciences Po, 1999) and Michael J. Willis, ‘Between Alternance and the Makhzen: At-Tawhid wa Al-Islah’s Entry into Moroccan Politics’ The Journal of North African Studies Vol. 4, no. 3 (Autumn 1999).

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8. Hammad Zoutini, ‘Les Interets Nationaux: Entre la pratique de la Politique Exterieure du Maroc el les Besoins d’une Redeﬁnition par Rapport au Nouveau Systeme international’ in Mohamed Jari (ed.), Rapport Annuel sur l’Evolution du Systeme International (RAESI) 1997 (Rabat: GERSI [Groupes d’Etudes et Recherches sur le Syste`me International], 1997), p. 321. 9. There are, however, still limits to press coverage of the Sahara. In 1999 an edition of the Le Journal newspaper was banned for carrying an interview with the leader of the Polisario Front, Mohammed Abdelaziz Marrakechi. 10. See Yahia H. Zoubir, ‘Reactions in the Maghreb to the Gulf War’, Arab Studies Quarterly Vol. 15, no. 1 (Winter 1993). 11. King Mohammmed VI has argued that Morocco had been ‘literally carved up’ during the course of the twentieth century. Mohamed Ben El Hassan Alaoui [King Mohamed VI]: La Coope´ration entre l’Union Europe´enne et les Pays du Maghreb (Paris: Editions Nathan, 1994), p. 102. 12. See particularly John Damis, ‘The Western Sahara Dispute as a Source of Regional Conﬂict in North Africa’ in Halim Barakat (ed.), Contemporary North Africa: Issues of Development and Integration (Kent: Croom Helm, 1985) and Yahia H. Zoubir, ‘Algerian–Moroccan Relations and their Impact on Maghribi Integration’, The Journal of North African Studies, Vol. 5, no. 3, (Autumn 2000). 13. On the origins of the Arab Maghreb Union see Mary-Jane Deeb, ‘The Arab–Maghribi Union and the Prospects for North African Unity’, in I. William Zartman and William Mark Habeeb (eds.), Polity and Society in Contemporary North Africa (Boulder: Westview, 1993). 14. On the problems encountered by the Arab Maghreb Union see Robert A. Mortimer, ‘The Arab Maghreb Union: Myth and Reality’ in Yahia H. Zoubir (ed.), North Africa in Transition (Florida: University Press of Florida, 1999). 15. The Economist Intelligence Unit: Morocco: Country Proﬁle 2001 (London: The Economist Intelligence Unit, 2001) pp. 63–4. 16. Imports from Morocco to the EU constituted just 0.6 percent of total EU imports in 2001, whilst EU exports to Morocco made up 0.8 percent of the Union’s total exports in the same year. European Commission: Bilateral Trade Relations: Morocco (http://europa.eu.int/comm/trade/ bilateral/ mor.htm). 17. For details on the agreements signed between the EC/EU and Morocco and the restrictions placed on Morocco’s export capabilities see Alaoui, La Coope´ration entre l’Union Europeenne et les Pays du Maghreb, pp. 34–40; and John Damis, ‘Morocco’s 1995 Association Agreement with the European Union’, The Journal of North African Studies Vol. 3, no.4 (Winter 1998). 18. Economist Intelligence Unit, Morocco: Country Proﬁle 2001, p. 43. 19. Damis: ‘Morocco’s 1995 Association Agreement with the European Union’, p. 106. 20. Economist Intelligence Unit, Morocco: Country Proﬁle 2001, p. 42. 21. Economist Intelligence Unit, Morocco: Country Proﬁle 2001, pp. 63–4. 22. Economist Intelligence Unit, Morocco: Country Proﬁle 2001, p. 42. 23. Economist Intelligence Unit, Morocco: Country Proﬁle 2001, p. 63. 24. Mohamed VI performed his internship in the ofﬁce of Jacques Delors in the period 1988–89 and obtained his Doctorate of Law from Sophia Antipolis University in Nice in 1993. His doctoral thesis was published in 1994: Mohamed Ben El Hassan Alaoui [King Mohamed VI], La Coope´ration entre l’Union Europe´enne et les Pays du Maghreb (Paris: Editions Nathan, 1994). 25. Bruce Maddy-Weitzman, ‘Israel and Morocco: A Special Relationship’, The Maghreb Review Vol. 21, 1–2, (1996), p. 37. 26. See Abdelkhaleq Berramdane, Le Maroc et l’Occident (Paris: Karthala, 1987). 27. See: Miguel Hernando de Larramendi, La Polı´tica Exterior de Marruecos (Madrid: Mapfre, 1997). 28. See Berramdane, Le Maroc et l’Occident. 29. Mehdi Ben Barka was the main leader of the UNFP and a key ﬁgure of the Moroccan left. He was in exile in Paris when he was kidnapped – and later assassinated – by Moroccan security forces. His kidnapping and disappearance provoked the ire of French authorities in general, and General De Gaulle in particular. French Moroccan relations were cool for a long period of time after the event. 30. See Yahia H. Zoubir ‘The Geopolitics of the Western Sahara Conﬂict’ in Yahia H. Zoubir (ed.) North Africa in Transition (Talahasse: University Press of Florida, 1999). 31. See M. Larramendi, La Polı´tica Exterior de Marruecos. 32. Bernabe´ Lo´pez Garcia and Miguel H. de Larramendi, ‘Spain and North Africa: Towards a ‘‘Dynamic Stability’’’ Democratization, Vol. 9, no. 1 (Spring 2002), pp. 170–91. 33. See Larramendi, La Polı´tica Exterior de Marruecos. 34. See A. Berramdane, Le Maroc et l’Occident.

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35. Francis Fukuyama, The End of History and the Last Man, (London: Penguin, 1993). 36. Charles Krauthammer, ‘The Unipolar Moment’, Foreign Affairs, Vol. 70, no. 1 (Winter 1990– 91). 37. Hassan II, The Challenge (London: Macmillan, 1978), p. 169. 38. Maghrebi states could also have tried to negotiate with the EU in uniﬁed ranks. This would have strengthened their hands in the negotiating process. However, the current state of the AMU does not allow for any hope of possible co-ordination in that direction. 39. BBC News: Business: ‘Morocco Warned Over EU–US Trade Deals’ (http://news.bbc.co.uk/ go/ em/fr/–/2/hi/business/2661081.stm).

Egyptian–European Relations: From Conﬂict to Cooperation EMAD GAD

INTRODUCTION: FIVE KEY FACTORS

Although Egypt’s relations with Europe have always ﬂuctuated between conﬂict and cooperation, the policy consensus in Egypt today is that relations with Europe are vitally important and that any enterprise to reinvigorate Egypt must rely on expanded relations with that continent. These relations have always occupied an important place in Egypt’s foreign policy agenda, regardless of the ideology adopted by the Egyptian regime. Their contours have been shaped to a large extent by ﬁve factors. The ﬁrst of these factors in Egyptian–European relations is the historical legacy of colonialism and the era when Europe held sway over the international order; this had a lasting negative impact on Egyptian perceptions of Europe. Without delving into details, modern history holds for Egyptians the experience of the French campaign in Egypt, led by Napoleon Bonaparte in 1798; the 1830 abortion of Mohammed Ali’s experiment by a coalition of major European powers; the British occupation of Egypt in 1882; and the 1956 Tripartite Aggression of France, Britain, and Israel. All of these historical experiences created a strong association in the minds of Egyptians between Europe, on the one hand, and colonialism and the exploitation of Egypt on the other. Indeed, many felt that Europe did not allow Egypt to develop as a nation that could play an effective role as a major power in the southern Mediterranean. Yet these historical experiences should not be seen in a completely negative light; there were some positive aspects to this contact, even if they were unintentional. The debate among Egyptian intellectuals and writers occasioned by the bicentennial anniversary of the 1798 French campaign is a good example. While one camp felt there should be no commemoration of what was essentially a colonialist military campaign, others felt that Napoleon’s expedition, regardless of the subsequent French occupation, had extremely important consequences for Egypt, lifting it out of its isolation and setting it on the path of modernization. In short, historical relations between Egypt and Europe are ﬁlled with contrasting experiences, both positive and negative, which allow this legacy to be interpreted in various ways. Those who prefer to speak of the negative

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dimensions of Egyptian–European relations can easily point to the colonial past, to Europe’s abortion of Mohammed Ali’s experiment, and to the participation of France and Britain with Israel in the October 1956 attack on Egypt. At the same time, those who prefer to highlight the positive aspects of Egyptian–European relations can ﬁnd much to support their point of view, citing Europe’s political, economic, social, and scientiﬁc achievements and the desire to latch onto these as reason enough to further relations with Europe. The second factor inﬂuencing the course of Egyptian–European relations is the ideology of the ruling Egyptian elite, which deﬁnes the sphere of Egyptian foreign policy, usually in one of two directions: the Mediterranean or the Red Sea. The ﬁrst outlook tends to view Egypt as a Mediterranean nation, seeing Europe as the favored sphere of action. Relations with Europe and the West in general have evolved within this framework. The second outlook seeks to bind Egypt to the Arab and Islamic worlds, turning foreign policy to the sphere of action delineated by the 1952 revolution: the Arab, African, and Islamic worlds and the international non-aligned movement. This shift in direction came at the expense of Mediterranean nations, which ultimately means Europe, though in this context Egypt showed interest in Eastern Europe, which was part of the socialist camp. Egyptian–European relations were in large part deﬁned according to the nature of Egypt’s ideological vision. In those periods in which Egypt subscribed to Arab nationalism, putting politics before the economy and pan-Arab interests over strictly national interests, relations with Europe were stormy. Yet as Egyptian nationalism took the forefront, with the economy taking precedence over politics and the national over the pan-Arab, relations between the two parties witnessed positive developments. After the 1952 revolution, Egyptian foreign policy focused on three areas: the Arab, the African, and members of the non-aligned movement. The Mediterranean only came into play after the 1975 Helsinki Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe.1 Nor did the European Community (EC) raise the matter until 1972. The third factor that will aid our understanding of the course of Egyptian– European relations is the Arab–Israeli conﬂict and the Palestinian issue. The Palestinian cause is a vital part of Egyptian strategic thought. The issue is not only linked to the question of Egypt’s Arab ties, but, more importantly, it has signiﬁcant security and geo-strategic dimensions. Egypt views a powerful state on its north-eastern border as a major threat to its national security, particularly as these borders have always been the entry point for foreign invaders. Moreover, that this nation is armed with weapons of mass destruction represents an additional source of anxiety, compounding the sense of threat. This is, of course, in addition to Israel’s occupation of territory belonging to a number of Arab countries, including Egypt, after the 1967 war. This factor has had a substantial impact on Egyptian–European relations due to the role Europe played in establishing, supporting, and arming Israel with both conventional weapons and weapons of mass destruction. Britain bears primary responsibility for establishing Israel, laying the basis through the Balfour Declaration and handing over part of Palestine for the project, which

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was at that time under the British Mandate. France also supplied Israel with the materials necessary to develop nuclear weapons, and both countries joined Israel in attacking Egypt in 1956. With time, however, the Arab–Israeli conﬂict came to be a positive factor in European–Egyptian relations. As the US began backing Israel, European countries started to support certain aspects of Arab rights, particularly after the October 1973 war. A European role in resolving the Arab–Israeli conﬂict is viewed with much esteem, and Egypt is currently urging Europe to play a more important role, hoping European even-handedness will counterbalance America’s absolute bias towards Israel. The fourth factor affecting Egyptian–European relations is the US. The US was extremely important to Egypt as the country started opening up to the West after the October war. Especially during the presidency of Anwar al-Sadat (1970–81), the US represented a budding ally and hopes for economic aid that would relieve the hardships created as Egypt sought to rid itself of its socialist system. Egypt gave priority to relations with the US, viewing it as the only party that could truly support it by offering assistance and aid, as indeed occurred after the peace treaty with Israel was signed in 1979. Yet with the end of the Cold War, Egyptian–American relations began to witness tension, while relations with Europe continued to evolve, until ultimately the Partnership Agreement was signed, to the great interest of both parties. The ﬁnal factor in Egyptian–European relations is the economic or developmental element, which, since the end of the Cold War, has become the most prominent part of Egyptian foreign policy. The European Union is now Egypt’s largest trading partner and the most readily prepared to embark on new ﬁelds of economic cooperation. Europe has thus come to occupy a prominent spot on Egypt’s foreign policy agenda. A shared vision between the parties on a number of international issues has also encouraged closer ties. Together, these different factors have shaped the general course of relations between Egypt and Europe. These relations have witnessed their ups and downs, ﬂuctuating between conﬂict and peace, before settling most recently into a state of general cooperation due to the coincidence of a number of considerations that will be discussed below. THE HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

Ever since ancient times, geographic proximity has been an important factor in weaving ties and forging a shared history between Europe and the Middle East. We have the example of the Phoenicians, originally from modern-day Lebanon, who spread as far as southern Spain and the shores of Morocco. Control of the Eastern Mediterranean later passed to the Greeks, followed by the Romans from the ﬁrst century BCE, who controlled most of the Mediterranean basin in Europe, Africa, and Asia. From 750–1453, the Islamic Empire extended to include most of the territory of the Roman Empire, with the exception of France and Italy. With the eclipse of the Ottoman Empire, most Arab countries, both Mediterranean and non-

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Mediterranean, were part of European protectorates or mandates, which gave way to colonial rule from the end of the nineteenth century to the mid-twentieth century. Several important battles between the Allied and Axis powers during World War II were fought on Arab lands.2 European–Egyptian relations go back to the most ancient times, always ﬂuctuating between integration and conﬂict.3 Before the emergence of the modern state, relations were characterized by conﬂict, as the ancient Egyptians extended their power or inﬂuence over much of the civilized Mediterranean. As ancient Egypt weakened, control passed to the Asian Persians, then on to the Greeks, who established most of the ports in Egypt. The Romans spread European inﬂuence in the area for a long period, but with the appearance of Islam, things changed once more, as that empire became the primary power in the Middle East and parts of Europe up to France.4 The Crusades exemplify the period of conﬂict between the Middle East and Europe, as Egypt was exposed to three Crusader campaigns in the twelfth century. The Mamluk period and Turkish colonization came close behind, followed by the reign of Mohammed Ali, at which point the conﬂict between Egypt and European powers began anew. Ultimately, European powers put an end to Mohammed Ali’s experiments with reform, considered to be the ﬁrst true attempt to modernize Egypt.5 Egypt’s geopolitical and strategic importance increased with the establishment of the Suez Canal, and with the eclipse of the Ottoman Empire, European powers set in motion a new conﬂict to gain control of Egypt, which ended with the British occupation of Egypt in 1882.6 With the end of World War I, nationalist movements appeared in the Middle East; the 1952 revolution achieved Egypt’s independence, which brought a new stage in Egyptian–European relations. From the end of World War II, the states of the region gradually won their independence from European colonial regimes, including Britain, France, and Italy. No sooner had World War II drawn to a close than tension began to permeate Arab–European relations, as European colonial powers resisted independence movements in the Arab world and established the state of Israel on part of Palestine. Strains in relations reached a peak when France and Britain joined with Israel to attack Egypt in October 1956. The Tripartite Aggression represented the beginning of the end of European inﬂuence in the Arab world, particularly given the strong position taken by US President Eisenhower, which led to the withdrawal of the attacking forces. Despite the withdrawal, Egyptian–European relations – and Egypt’s dealings with the West in general – continued to be rocky in the mid-1950s and the 1960s due to Egypt’s close relations with the socialist camp. Egypt’s adherence to the non-aligned movement and its rejection of Western regional pacts, such as the Baghdad Pact of 1955, CENTO, and the Eisenhower Doctrine of 1957, led to increased tension in Egypt’s relations with the West in general. At the same time, Egypt’s close ties to the countries of the socialist camp headed off further development of Egyptian relations with countries of the Western camp.7 Notwithstanding Moscow’s initial reservations about the non-aligned movement, which it considered ‘morally corrupt’, it was faster than

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Washington in responding to the movement and dealing with it as a nonhostile power.8 While Egypt’s relations with the West were growing more distant, the foundation was being laid for an objective encounter between Egypt and Eastern Europe. Relations ﬁrst developed between Egypt and the Soviet Union before extending to the rest of the Eastern camp. Even so, Egypt’s relations with Eastern European countries were often no more than dealings with Moscow in another guise, as in the Czech arms deal of September 1955. Although Egypt’s relations with Eastern Europe began and developed in the context of its relations with the Soviets, Yugoslavia and Romania were exceptions to this rule. Both enjoyed political independence from Moscow, and Yugoslavia joined with Egypt and India in drawing up the foundation of the non-aligned movement. Romania, meanwhile, enjoyed special relations with Israel, the consequences of which were clear when all Eastern European nations except for Romania decided to cut diplomatic ties with Israel after the June 1967 war. At the same time, the general Western (and especially American) support of Israel created tensions in Egypt’s relations with the West. When the US supported Israel in the 1967 war, Egypt and the US cut diplomatic ties.9 Indeed, there was a general deterioration of Arab–European relations in the 1950s and 1960s, which reached its peak with the June 1967 war when most European nations supported Israel – with the exception of De Gaulle’s France, which announced its condemnation of nations initiating aggression.10 From June 1967 until the October 1973 war, Arab relations with Europe continued to deteriorate. With the exception of the meeting of foreign ministers held in Munich in November 1970, the EC did not put the Middle East question and the issue of occupied Arab lands on its agenda. The 1970 convention produced the so-called Schumann Document, which remained classiﬁed until French Foreign Minister Maurice Schumann released it himself a year later. The most important point in the document was a proposal to adjust the borders between Israel and its Arab neighbors, to the detriment of the Arabs.11 Although this document coincided in many ways with US policy, Washington was quick to reject it, refusing any independent European action in the Middle East on issues that it viewed as being the sole province of the US. The US refused to allow the EC to put forth initiatives or to adopt independent positions, even if they were in perfect accord with US views. Rather, the US wanted Europe to act solely through US policy, proposing no action that might appear to be an independent European initiative. The October 1973 war marks the transitional point in Egypt’s relations with the capitalist camp, and particularly with the countries of Western Europe. President Anwar al-Sadat was certain that the US possessed the means to resolve the Arab–Israeli conﬂict, and he believed that Egypt’s future lay with the West, which could lead Egypt to economic development and a total rebirth. The EC also inaugurated the Euro-Arab Dialogue and began taking positions that were more cognizant of Arab grievances. This marked the beginning of the thaw in Egyptian–European relations.

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THE OCTOBER 1973 WAR AND A REVISION OF THE EUROPEAN POSITION

The October 1973 war saw a fundamental shift in Europe’s stance towards Middle Eastern issues of and its relations with Egypt and the Arab world. For Europe, the war was signiﬁcant for four reasons: 1. 2.

3. 4.

It threatened Europe’s southern boundaries. Arabs used the oil weapon to support their position, with oil-producing Arab countries implementing a selective embargo on European countries according to their stance on the conﬂict. The US supplied Israel with weapons and spare parts from its military bases in Western Europe. The US announced a massive mobilization on its strategic bases in Western Europe as a response to the Soviet threat to send troops to the Middle East to impose UN resolutions. This represented a grave threat to the security of Western Europe, which feared a confrontation between the two superpowers on its territory.12

The October war impelled the nations of Europe to take rapid steps independent of US policy, and the EC issued a statement on October 13, 1973, calling for a cease-ﬁre and the initiation of negotiations to resolve the conﬂict in the framework of UN Security Council Resolution 242.13 This was followed by another statement issued on November 7, 1973, in which Europe recognized for the ﬁrst time two important principles. First, it acknowledged that the Israeli occupation of Arab lands must end and it condemned the acquisition of land through force. The proposal in the Schumann Document to make ‘minor’ adjustments to international borders to the detriment of the Arabs was dropped. Second, it mentioned the necessity of taking the legitimate rights of Palestinians into consideration. Previously, Europe had viewed the Palestinian issues merely as a matter of refugees who required either resettlement or compensation.14 When the war had come to an end, Arab governments sought to use this evolution of the European stance to reach a peaceful settlement to the conﬂict. They thus pushed Europe to support Arab demands for an Israeli withdrawal from all Arab lands occupied in the June 1967 war. The Sixth Arab Summit, held in Algeria in late November 1973, resolved to intensify talks with the EC and ask it take a clear stance on the conﬂict while pressuring Israel to withdraw from occupied Arab land.15 The European response came in the Copenhagen Conference held in December 1974, attended by four Arab foreign ministers representing the Algeria summit. The conference adopted the aforementioned declaration to support UN Resolution 242 in its entirety, in addition to a French proposal for a Euro-Arab Dialogue to deﬁne political and economic relations between Europe and the Arab world.16 This is the ﬁrst appearance of the idea of the Euro-Arab Dialogue, which saw periods of both vitality and atrophy depending on the interplay of several factors, including the nature of Arab stances and their degree of cohesion,

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Europe’s ability to resist Arab pressure, and the ability of the US to dissuade Europe from adopting independent policies on the Arab–Israeli conﬂict. Soon enough, however, the initiative faded away, coming to naught. This was due to the following factors: 1 The waning of Arab pressure on Europe The European Community’s stance as it appeared in the declaration of November 6, 1973, was taken under the pressure of the oil crisis and in the midst of fears of a nuclear confrontation between the US and the Soviet Union on European soil. Thus, Europe had to act fast, taking more objective stances to convince Arab states to lift the oil embargo and put an end to the war, thus avoiding the threat of a nuclear clash between the two superpowers. With the end of the war, however, Arab nations began gradually to lift the embargo, allowing Europe to catch its breath. Egypt, too, began to show its willingness to settle the conﬂict, and the Arab consensus began to unravel. Thus, Europe no longer found any reason to continue with its independent policy, which had led to conﬂicts with the US.17 2 The disintegration of the Arab consensus Undoubtedly, the unprecedented Arab consensus to use the oil weapon in the service of the Arab military machine in its confrontation with Israel bears the primary responsibility for forcing Europe to take a more objective stance towards the conﬂict. When this consensus unraveled and the Arabs splintered, it took the pressure off Europe to continue with its independent policies. From Europe’s point of view, there was no longer any justiﬁcation for continuing on an independent course that created difﬁculties with the US. 3 US pressures on Europe The statement issued on November 6, 1973, and the Euro-Arab Dialogue that ensued, disquieted the US, which viewed it as a challenge to Washington’s role in the Middle East and to its vision of the nature of the conﬂict and the means to resolve it. Washington took the statement as an assault on its working framework that put Europe in the shade of the US umbrella. Thus, the US put enormous pressure on Europe, making it clear that Europe’s newly found independence was hindering US efforts at a political settlement of the Arab– Israeli conﬂict. The US succeeded completely in its efforts, as reﬂected in the series of statements on the conﬂict released by the EC (see Table 1). Given this context, the US did not hesitate to threaten to abandon Europe to the Soviet menace if it persisted in pursuing its independent course towards the Arab–Israeli conﬂict. When the Euro-Arab Dialogue was inaugurated in March 1974, the US accused Europe of hindering its efforts to resolve the settlement, and Washington asked European policy makers to consult it before making any decisions. Washington added that European unilateral actions had offered concessions to the Arabs which had only encouraged them to hold to their position, thus hindering political efforts at a settlement.

European Council Venice Declaration, June 13, 1980

Brussels Declaration, November 23, 1987

5. Israeli settlements in the occupied territories represent a dangerous obstacle to the pursuit of peace in the Middle East.

4. A rejection of any unilateral initiative that aims to change the status quo in Jerusalem, which must remain open to followers of all religions.

1. Justice for all peoples which 1. A call to convene an requires recognizing the international conference legitimate rights of the for peace in the Middle Palestinian people. East under the auspices of the UN. 2. Recognition that the Palestinian issue is not a 2. The need for 2. The need for participation problem of refugees. participation by all by representatives of the Palestinians must be allowed concerned parties in Palestinian people in any to determine own destiny. the conference negotiations; representatives to be selected in 3. Need for participation of consultation with relevant representatives of the Palestinian parties; no mention of the people and the Palestinian Palestinian Liberation Liberation Organization in peace Organization. negotiations.

1. Reiteration of previous principles plus the need to establish a home for the Palestinian people; no mention of the nature of this home.

European Council London Declaration, June 9, 1977

4. A recognition that the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people must be taken into account in any ﬁnal settlement of the conﬂict.

3. Respecting the sovereignty and 3. Resolving the Palestinian independence of refugee issue by giving countries in the region refugees the choice and their right to live in between returning or peace within secure, settling in other states. internationally recognized borders.

2. Making Jerusalem an international city.

1. The illegality of acquiring land through war.

1. A call for Israel to withdraw from Arab lands occupied in the June 1967 war; minor adjustments to the borders to the beneﬁt of Israel.

2. Putting an end to the Israeli occupation in effect since June 1967.

EC Declaration of November 6, 1973

Schumann Document (1971)

TABLE 1 T H E E VO L U T I ON O F T H E E U R OP E A N S T A NC E T O W A R D S T H E A R A B – I S R A E L I C O N F L I C T

EC Declaration of 1989 1. Reiteration of previous principles plus the need to include the Palestinian Liberation Organization in the Middle East peace process.

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The extent to which the US was successful in putting an end to Europe’s independent course of action in the Arab–Israeli conﬂict was made clear when the EC convened in West Germany, in April 1974. The meeting produced a declaration stipulating that the US must be included in some form in the Community’s political deliberations. The resolution, proposed by Britain, stated: ‘If any of the nine member countries of the community wish to discuss an issue, the head of the community, in concert with the other eight nations, will consult the US before taking any ﬁnal political decision. If the member states do not agree to these consultations, they may conduct these consultations bilaterally’. With this resolution, Europe’s independent stance towards the Arab–Israeli conﬂict gradually faded, and its policies fell in line with US policies. When the EC tried to produce another Middle East declaration in 1977, Washington quickly buried the attempt, claiming that it would impede the efforts of US Secretary of State Cyrus Vance. Britain, West Germany and the Netherlands supported the American view, which subsequently transformed the declaration into a call for the parties of the conﬂict to respond to US diplomatic efforts. When Europe started once more to act according to US policy, the united Arab stance began to unravel. Europe subsequently decided to avoid politics in its dialogue with the Arab world. This became abundantly clear in the second meeting of the general committee of the Euro-Arab Dialogue in Tunisia in February 1977. When Arab states condemned the European refusal to recognize the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) and its desire to strengthen ties with Israel, the head of the European delegation replied: ‘I am certain that you will realize that the European Community cannot allow others to deﬁne the course of European–Israeli relations’. He added that since the council had taken a united stance on the Arab–Israeli conﬂict, Arabs must also unite, while the Palestinians must accommodate new developments on the international stage.18 Thus, the Euro-Arab Dialogue ended in futility, coming to a standstill in 1978. When it began anew in 1983, it was completely paralyzed by Europe’s insistence on conforming to US policy, which sought to keep European actions subordinate to its own. Europe continued to work in the shadow of the US throughout the 1970s and 1980s. The evolution of Europe’s position, the initiatives it proposed, and its drift away from the general framework of US policy only came about as a result of the oil crisis, when Arab oil-producing states caught Europe off guard by imposing a selective oil embargo that gave preferential treatment to nations according to their stance on the Arab–Israeli conﬂict. Europe’s ﬂedgling attempt at developing a stance of its own towards the conﬂict and settlement efforts came as policy makers feared an interruption of oil supplies and a nuclear clash between the two superpowers with disastrous consequences for Europe. The stimulus for the EC’s new position was not in the ﬁrst place its conviction of the justice of the Arab cause or its belief in the right of the Palestinian people to obtain their legitimate rights; nor was it the product of a comprehensive vision that sought to maintain security and stability in the southern Mediterranean. The newly found independence of European declara-

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tions and actions at the end of the October war emerged essentially out of a sense of a fear – a fear of the lack of Arab oil or of nuclear holocaust between the two superpowers. Thus, when the sense of danger subsided, Europe once more began pursuing its policies within the general framework of US policy, surrendering to Washington its ability to take the initiative. The decline of independent European action coincided with a transformation in Egypt’s vision as well, as the focus shifted from the political to the economic, and from the pan-Arab to the Egyptian. As a result, a new stage in European– Egyptian relations began, which ultimately ended in the signing of the EU– Egypt Partnership Agreement. We must stress, however, that this transition in Egyptian policy did not mean that Egypt no longer placed any value on the political or wider Arab concerns in its foreign dealings. Rather, it meant that the economic was no longer a prisoner to the political and that national interests were no longer subsidiary to an allencompassing Arab nationalism. Each of these issues now had its own course, which should not be allowed to interfere with progress in another sphere. Egypt continued to be interested in Arab issues, particularly the Palestinian cause. It also continued to adopt Arab causes, but without sacriﬁcing its national interests or holding them hostage to political or wider Arab constraints. The new separation between the economic and political, and between the national and the supra-national, was particularly strong in the second half of the 1970s, after Sadat led Egypt to improve relations with the US and resolve its conﬂict with Israel ﬁrst by visiting Jerusalem in November 1977 and later by signing a peace treaty with Israel in 1979. As a result most Arab states cut their ties with Egypt, and the Arab League moved its headquarters from Cairo to Tunis. The reinstatement of Arab–Egyptian ties and Egypt’s resumption of its Arab role in the 1980s have once again raised the proﬁle of the political and the panArab in Egypt’s policy, but it has not been at the expense of the economic, or of Egypt’s national interests generally. This has freed Egypt from bearing the burden of pan-Arabism, which might inﬂuence its foreign relations and international ties. Certainly, Egypt has attempted to use its international relations to achieve Arab higher interests, but this has been in large part due to its desire for the regional security and stability that will allow it to continue on the road of development. Egypt has thus strengthened its ties to Europe, at the same time using these ties to demand an active European role in resolving the Palestinian issue and the Arab–Israeli conﬂict. A POLITICAL SETTLEMENT IN THE MIDDLE EAST

Once the oil crisis ended, and despite Europe’s vital interests in the Middle East and the relationship between security in both regions, EC policymakers turned over the affairs of the region to the US. This tendency was reinforced by Europe’s lack of a clear, joint stance on matters of foreign policy and security through the 1980s and much of the 1990s. Regional cooperation among countries of the EC was still largely limited to the social and economic spheres,

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or what is termed ‘low politics’, rather than issues of ‘high politics’, which includes foreign affairs and security. The Madrid Peace Conference of October 1991 revealed the degree to which the EC had retreated from political involvement in Middle Eastern regional affairs, even as the group was on its way to becoming the European Union. Europe did not participate at all in the direct bilateral negotiations that discussed the issue of occupied Arab lands, the heart of the conﬂict, limiting itself to attending the signing ceremonies held by Washington for agreements that grew out of the negotiations. The same thing occurred in the ceremony held at the signing of the Oslo Agreement in the White House Garden on September 13, 1993, and the signing of the Israeli–Jordanian treaty on October 14, 1994. Europe, however, did provide economic and technical aid to the parties involved to strengthen the agreements and increase their chances for success, but played no tangible role in the bilateral negotiations that led to the ﬁnal agreements. At the same time, however, the EU Member States have played a tangible role in multilateral regional negotiations, hosting several conferences and overseeing talks on its ﬁve main issues of concern: water, refugees, the environment, economic cooperation and arms control. Although European efforts produced positive results, particularly in the ﬁelds of refugees, environment and water, the Arab parties involved have not necessarily viewed them positively – and this because of a number of factors: 1. The Arabs have tended to see multilateral regional negotiations as an attempt to undermine the Arab boycott of Israel and inaugurate a state of normalization. Arabs have thus linked progress on the multilateral front with progress in direct bilateral negotiations that deal with the heart of the conﬂict: the Israeli occupation of Arab lands. In turn, Europe’s focus on multilateral negotiations has created the impression among Arab parties that Europe is seeking to separate the two paths of negotiations. In other words, Arab parties have viewed Europe’s role as a contributing factor in regional divisions, not a priority among Arab states. 2. The Arabs believe that the EU has the ability to play a political role in direct bilateral negotiations, using its relations with Israel and the US. Nevertheless, the EU Member States have made no real effort to involve themselves in these negotiations, leaving them completely to the supervision of the US. 3. The EU has preferred to distance itself from any political role in the Middle East, using Israel’s rejection of a European role in the peace process as its justiﬁcation. Europe has repeatedly stated that if it is to play a role in the peace process, it must be accepted by all parties to the conﬂict – a remote possibility given Israel’s continued rejection of any role save that of the US. With time, it has become clear that the EU will limit its actions to the economic sphere. In addition to attending signing ceremonies, the most the EU can do to resolve the Arab–Israeli conﬂict is to pump in various forms of economic aid to the concerned parties and supervise multilateral regional talks. Europe’s

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surrender in this regard dovetails perfectly with US and Israeli policies, but it conﬂicts with the Arab view, which would like to see an active European role given the continent’s substantial interests in the region and the strong ties between security in Europe and the Middle East. THE BARCELONA PROCESS: A ONE-SIDED EUROPEAN VISION

Though the Barcelona process has been extremely important in cementing ties between the EU and Mediterranean Arab nations, the process faces a major problem in the EU’s insistence on maintaining a one-sided vision. Despite its substantial interests in the region, its role as the main source of aid to the countries of the region, and the objective links between the two regions, the EU has maintained an extremely narrow vision in its dealings with the area. In short, it has consistently sought to preserve its interests and guarantee its security by trying to avert dangers that may originate in the south, such as an armed conﬂict or a regional war, a serious economic crisis, political instability, illegal immigration, or fundamentalist activity. Its vision has not yet evolved to include the possibility of achieving these same objectives through cooperative means, by adopting shared Mediterranean policies that can preserve the interests of both parties to the relationship. Just as Mediterranean Arab countries have a number of criticisms of the political role of the EU in the Arab–Israeli conﬂict, they are also critical of the Barcelona Process. Their criticisms can be summarized as follows: 1.

2.

3.

The primary motive behind the EU’s proposal of the Barcelona process is its desire to minimize the sources of instability and head off any potentially harmful ramiﬁcations for Europe. That is, the EU is seeking to avoid problems rather than reap the fruits of joint cooperation. Security and political concerns dominate the dealings of the EU with the countries of the southern Mediterranean. Through the Barcelona Agreement, the EU is striving to achieve a number of security and political objectives that will minimize its exposure to crises stemming from southern rim Mediterranean countries. The primary objective is not to help the countries of the south overcome their problems, but to help them in crisis management, thus containing the problem within a conﬁned geographic area and preventing their export northwards. The economic programs of the EU, including aid, grants, and the partnership initiative, are all part of this framework that seeks to use economic means to achieve political and security objectives. The EU has thus far controlled the course of interactions between southern and northern Mediterranean countries. Despite the various terms used to describe the relationship – labeled as cooperative, participatory, or a partnership – the EU has the upper hand. The EU approaches the relationship as one bloc yet it wants to deal with states of the southern rim on an individual basis. While it is true that the EU is not responsible for the lack of an effective regional framework among southern Mediterranean

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countries themselves since the inauguration of the Euro-Arab Dialogue, Europe has willfully shot down any framework for joint action suggested by southern rim countries. It appears to continue believing that it can only secure its interests by dealing with these states individually. Even when the EU began to impress on its southern peers the need to forge some sort of regional cooperation framework, it appeared to many in the south that this was used as a justiﬁcation for its own tendency to deal with these nations unilaterally. Moreover, latent in the European proposal was the EU’s desire to stimulate the process of normalization between Arab nations and Israel. 4. The EU is undoubtedly the stronger, wealthier, and more developed party in the relationship. It has thus sought to maintain the unidirectional nature of its interaction with the south: economic aid, ideas, and even theoretical frameworks ﬂow only from the north to the south. Thus far, the EU has not allowed the relationship to ﬂourish into one of true interaction, and it does not take into consideration the economic, social, and cultural differences between the two sides. The EU Member States, most of which are advanced economies and long-standing democracies, tend to deal with the countries of the southern Mediterranean as backward and needing to accustom themselves to playing the role of recipient, whether it is of ﬁnancial aid, ideas, or theoretical frameworks. In general, the EU presents its own experiences and concepts to southern rim nations as a package deal, without bothering too much with the domestic state of affairs in these countries or the signiﬁcant cultural differences between the north and south. This vision has created difﬁculties on a number of common issues, including, for example, the issue of human rights. While there is no disagreement over the general issue, the south has taken issue with various details on the human rights agenda of the West. Thus, the EU must reconsider the package it offers to southern rim nations to protect the cultural particularities of these societies. This cannot happen until Europe sees the relationship as one between true partners, rather than that between donor and recipient. 5. The EU does not distinguish between, on the one hand, European states aspiring to join the EU and, on the other, countries that only wish to forge partnerships or cooperative relations. Neither the EU nor the Arab states of the southern Mediterranean want the latter to join the EU. It is true that the political, economic, and cultural packages offered by the EU to each set of countries does differ, but the nature of the relationship between the EU and southern Mediterranean countries needs to be further clariﬁed and the distinction, at least in the cultural sphere, must be acknowledged. 6. This lack of differentiation is clearly illustrated in a number of ideas proffered by the EU to the countries of the southern Mediterranean rim. For example, at an early stage in the peace process, the EU proposed that Middle Eastern states create a body similar to Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe without stopping to consider the differences between Europe and the Middle East, the requirements for creating such an organization, or the general nature of relations in the region. Latent in this proposal is one of the most criticized aspects of Europe’s view of regional

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security issues: Europe focuses on preventing conﬂict rather than giving the priority to resolving already existing conﬂicts. Thus, Europe believes it is necessary to implement deﬁned projects to prevent conﬂicts and resolve them in the early stages; while this is no doubt important, it is even more important from the Arabs’ point of view to reach a comprehensive settlement to the Arab–Israeli conﬂict. As long as this conﬂict is not resolved, they cannot imagine initiating any other program for conﬂict avoidance, since the Arab–Israeli conﬂict is itself the source of so many other conﬂicts in the region. Moreover, conﬂict prevention of the European sort necessitates creating an organization that cooperates fully in political, security, military, and intelligence affairs, none of which is possible until a comprehensive, just settlement of the Arab–Israeli conﬂict is reached. The sum of these shortcomings was crystallized in Europe’s inability to play any effective role in putting a stop to the rapid deterioration of the situation in the occupied territories seen since late 2000. As the situation deteriorates not only between Palestinians and Israelis, but also between Israel and all its Arab neighbors, including those with which it has signed peace agreements – Egypt in particular – the EU has not been able to defuse the situation or demand that Israel abide by its international agreements. Indeed, the EU is still a prisoner of US policy in the region. EGYPT, THE EU AND THE PARTNERSHIP AGREEMENT: A LOOK TO THE FUTURE

Despite the importance of economic relations between Egypt and Europe and the positive impact these relations can have on both parties, a number of factors delayed formalizing these relations in the framework of an accord: 1. 2.

3.

The end of the 1950s and the 1960s was a period of confrontation rising out of negative historical experiences, as has been previously explained. This period did not allow for the crystallization of any economic cooperative framework, as Egypt gave precedence to the political over the economic and the pan-Arab over the national. The EC/EU Member States themselves did not have a shared vision towards the countries of the Mediterranean and particularly the nations of the southern rim, Egypt included. The 1957 Treaty of Rome, which established the European Economic Community, did not deﬁne a Mediterranean policy. Indeed the outlines of this policy only began to come into focus in June 1973.19

Egypt began negotiations to achieve favored-nation trade status with the EC in 1969. The ﬁrst agreement was signed in December 1972, effective in 1973. A wider-ranging agreement replaced this accord in January 1977, in the context of the community’s collective Mediterranean policy. These accords stipulated trade privileges, ﬁnancial cooperation, and the establishment of joint organizations

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between the parties. Egypt was the ﬁrst country to received food aid from the EC in 1986 and 1987.20 Despite the cooperation, Europe’s Mediterranean policy did not live up to Egypt’s expectations. The two continued to be unequal trading partners, and by 1988 Egypt had a trade deﬁcit with the EC of $2.4 billion. Moreover, Egyptian exports to the EC were largely primary commodities, with petroleum representing 68 percent of the value of Egyptian exports to EC members, or $2 billion. Egypt received the largest share of aid allocated to Mediterranean countries by the EC, receiving 29 percent of the total guaranteed in the three ﬁnancial protocols.21 Egypt sought to further its relations with the EU within the framework of an EU–Egyptian Partnership Agreement, which policymakers hoped would raise the competitiveness of Egyptian products and grant Egypt trade privileges with the EU – particularly important after the EU became Egypt’s biggest trade partner. In 1998, the EU received about 42 percent of all Egyptian exports and accounted for 46 percent of its imports.22 Egypt ﬁrst embarked on its Partnership Agreement with the EU in September 1993, when the Union invited Egypt to draw up a new framework for relations that would include all possible spheres of cooperation. Egypt decided to begin negotiations when President Mubarak gave a speech before the European Parliament in April 1994 asking it to cancel the 1977 accords. The executive resolution was passed in October 1994. An agreement to start preliminary negotiations was concluded in a meeting of the EU–Egypt Cooperation Council in Brussels. Soon after, on December 19, 1994, the ministerial council issued its negotiation instructions to the European committee, and negotiations between Egypt and the EU began. The ﬁrst round was held in Brussels on January 23–24, 1995, followed by a round in Cairo on April 1–2, 1995. Further sessions followed, with the ﬁnal session in Brussels on June 14–18, 1999. The foreign ministers of the EU approved the agreement on June 21, 1999.23 The Partnership Agreement between Egypt and the EU was signed in Brussels on June 25, 2001. The agreement must now be ratiﬁed by the parliaments of the parties involved, including Egypt and the 15 members of the EU.24 In general, Egypt views the Partnership Agreement as more than simply an economic accord, expecting it to have a positive impact on economic, political, and cultural life in Egypt.25 CONCLUSION

It is clear from the previous discussion that the ﬁve factors mentioned at the outset of this study have undergone tangible changes: 1. Both Europe and Egypt have completely overcome the negative legacy left by their past association, as the last four decades have seen an accumulation of positive experiences. At the same time, the various forms the relationship has taken have added further positive dimensions to their relations. Indeed,

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the most recent developments in European–Egyptian relations have begun to cement a positive legacy to replace the negative experiences of the past. In terms of the ideology adopted by the Egyptian elite, it is clear that ideological considerations have receded, and the current elite gives priority to the Mediterranean and its relations with Europe. This is reﬂected in Egypt’s balance of trade, where Europe is Egypt’s largest trade partner. Moreover, Egypt’s expectations for economic and scientiﬁc development are pinned ﬁrmly on Europe, which poses further opportunities to develop relations in the coming years. As for the Arab–Israeli conﬂict and the Palestinian issue, Europe’s stance has evolved greatly from the Egyptian point of view, and it is now much more cognizant of the rights of the Palestinian people and more actively supportive of the idea of establishing an independent Palestinian state. It is also less biased towards Israel than is the US. The EU has become the largest economic donor to the Palestinian Authority, and Europe, on both the ofﬁcial and popular levels, has taken stances supportive of Palestinian national rights. All of this has relieved certain historical tensions in Egyptian–European relations. The US factor has actually driven Egypt to further its relations with Europe. Despite the importance of its political, economic, and military relations with the US, the US dealings with Egypt and other Arab countries in the postCold War period, and particularly after September 11, have led the Egyptian government to fear future pressure from the US. It has also raised the fear that the US will use the issue of economic aid to extract political stances and force Egypt to adopt policies that it feels are inimical to its own interests and in conﬂict with its Arab and international ties. At the same time both popular and ofﬁcial opinion in Egypt sees Europe as more sympathetic to the Arab point of view. Thus, Egypt can work in harmony with Europe in a number of ﬁelds. Even as the Egyptian government increasingly believes that Europe is more cognizant of the nature of the region and more sensitive to issues of stability, public opinion has been moving in the same direction. That leaves the economic or development factor. Here, as Egypt has switched its focus from the political to the economic, the EU is in the vanguard of those states with which Egypt hopes to further relations and build ties that can beneﬁt the country on all levels.

For all these reasons, it is clear that Egyptian–European ties have the potential to develop further, particularly since Egypt has not raised the issue of joining the EU, but rather seeks to build strong ties and beneﬁt from Europe’s technological and scientiﬁc capabilities to enact a true rebirth in Egypt. While there are some disagreements within the Egyptian private sector over the Partnership Agreement with the EU arising from conﬂicting interests, in general, Egypt’s relations with the EU are ripe for improvement. Indeed, the possibilities are even greater given new US pressures on both Europe and the Arab world, clearly illustrated in the Iraqi crisis of late 2002 and early 2003. The US management of the crisis and the growing inﬂuence of conservatives in

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Washington has reinforced Egypt’s turn towards Europe, a shift enacted with the support of public opinion, which sees Europe as more objective, rational and understanding. NOTES 1. Muhammad Abd al-Wahhab, ‘al-‘Alaqat al-Misriya al-Urubiya’ [Egyptian–European Relations], paper presented in a panel discussion on The Middle East in light of Globalization, the National Center for Middle East Studies, Cairo, Feb. 22–23, 1999, p. 1. 2. Hana Ebeid, ‘al-Siyasa al-Urubiya tujah al-Sharq al-Awsat’ [European Policy toward Middle East], in Emad Gad (ed.), al-Ittihad al-Urubi wa al-Sharq al-Awsat: Khibra al-Madi wa Afaq alMustaqbal, [The European Union and the Middle East: The Experience of the Past and the Prospects of the Future] (Cairo: Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies, 2002). 3. Muhammad Abd al-Wahhab, ‘al-‘Alaqat al-Misriya al-Urubiya’, p. 2. 4. Ibid. 5. Ibid., p. 3. 6. Ibid. 7. See Emad Gad, ‘al-Ittihad al-Urubi wa al-Sharq al-Awsat’ [The European Union and the Middle East], in Gad (ed.), al-Ittihad al-Urubi wa al-Sharq al-Awsat. 8. Moqbool Ahmed Bhatty, ‘Great Powers and South Asia: Post Cold-War Trends’, South Asian Studies (Institute of Regional Studies, Islamabad), Vol. 5, 1996, p. 103. 9. Muhammad Abd al-Wahhab, ‘al-‘Alaqat al-Misriya al-Urubiya’, p. 4. 10. Emad Gad, ‘Uruba 1992 wa al-‘Arab Siyasiyan wa ‘Askariyan’ [Europe 1992 and the Arabs Politically and Militarily], in Al-Siyasa al-Duwaliya, no. 99, Jan. 1990, p. 137. 11. Ibid., p. 138. 12. Abd al-Meneim Said, Al-Hiwar al-‘Arabi al-Urubi: Dirasa lil-Nahj al-Urubi idha al-Hiwar [Arab European Dialogue] (Cairo: Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies, 1977), p. 49. 13. Ibrahim Abd al-Hamid, ‘al-Jama‘a al-Urubiya wa al-Siraa al-Arabi al-Israili: 1970–85’ [The European Community and the Arab–Israeli conﬂict], in Al-Siyasa al-Duwaliya, no. 83, Jan. 1986, p. 36. 14. Sami Mansur (ed.), al-Hiwar al-‘Arabi al-Urubi: Bahth ‘an Bidaya Jadida, [Arab European Dialogue] (Cairo: Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies, 1984), pp. 18–19. 15. Adnan al-Hamd, ‘La Hiwar bidun al-Filistin’, [No Dialogue without Palestinians], in Al-Siyasa al-Duwaliya, no. 27, July 1974, p. 62. 16. Ibid., p. 63. 17. Emad Gad, ‘Uruba 1992 wa al-‘Arab Siyasiyan wa ‘Askariyan’, pp. 138–9. 18. Al-Ahram, Nov. 18, 1977. 19. Duriya Shaﬁq Basyuni, ‘al-‘Alaqat al-Misriya al-Urubiya’ [Egyptian–European Relations], paper presented in a panel discussion on The Middle East in Light of Globalization, the National Center for Middle East Studies, Cairo, Feb. 22–23, 1999, p. 2. 20. Ibid., p. 2. 21. Ibid., p. 3. 22. Ibid., p. 15. 23. Al-Taqrir al-Istratiji al-‘Arabi [Arab Strategic Report] 2000 (Cairo: Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies, 2001), pp. 31–324. 24. Hasan Abu Talib, ‘Ittifaqiyat al-Musharaka al-Misriya al-Urubiya’, Malaff al-Ahram al-Istratij [Al-Ahram Strategic File] 79, July 2001, pp. 61–2. 25. Al-Taqrir al-Istratiji al-‘Arabi 2000, p. 317.

Globalization and Generational Change: Syrian Foreign Policy between Regional Conﬂict and European Partnership RAYMOND HINNEBUSCH*

The Middle East is in the process of a generational change in leadership and nowhere is this more striking than in Syria where the long-serving leader, Haﬁz al-Asad, has passed on power to his son, Bashar, arguably representative of a new generation more attuned to the norms of globalization. This change follows profound international transformations accompanying the end of the Cold War, including the emergence of US hegemony and the drive to incorporate the ‘periphery’ into a West-centric and liberal ‘New World Order’. A major manifestation of globalization is the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership (EMP) that seeks, among other things, to bring Middle Eastern states into conformity with international economic norms. It has been widely anticipated that the conjunction of globalization from without and the succession of a new generation of leaders from within could produce sea changes in Middle East states such as Syria. Expectations of the inevitable transformation of the region under globalization are consistent with structuralist theories giving priority to the systemic level, including realism’s belief that great powers dictate the rules of the international system and the dependency school’s view that economic dependency turns Third World leaders into clients of the core. Moreover, globalization, for its enthusiasts, brings only good things – economic growth, government accountability and zones of peace in place of regional conﬂicts – which Middle Eastern states ought, in their own interests, to embrace.1 Yet, it is indisputable that the Middle East has shown the greatest resistance to globalization of any ‘periphery’ region: economic liberalization is far less advanced, conﬂict resolution has broken down and democratization experiments have been reversed. Globalization enthusiasts might argue that this resistance reﬂects a merely temporary blocking by ‘gerontocratic’ authoritarian regimes of pent-up pressures for change. Others, however, see it as symptomatic of a deeprooted cultural ‘exceptionalism’ expressive of a ‘clash of civilizations’ with the West. Though exaggerated, this view is compatible with the constructivist view that states, far from responding uniformly to systemic constraints, do so *The author wishes to acknowledge the support given to the research for this article by the US Institute of Peace.

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according to the way their identity shapes particular conceptions of their interests. In Halliday’s view, moreover, globalization is merely the latest phase in an uneven incorporation of the region into the world capitalist order which, being frequently damaging, is naturally viewed warily by regional opinion.2 To this must be added L. Carl Brown’s view that local actors seek to use the penetration of the region by external powers for their own purposes.3 What casts doubt on both the inevitability of the region’s homogeneous globalization and its supposedly unrelenting exceptionalism is the variation in responses to globalization by different states within the Middle East. This contribution will argue that the speciﬁc response of any given Middle East state is a function of a changing interaction between the systemic (inter-state) and state (domestic) levels. At the systemic level, globalization is a complex process constituting both threats and opportunities for regional states. It has gone through several phases in which the balance of threat and opportunity has differed: 1. Western imperialism’s reduction of the area to an economic periphery of the core and its imposition of a Western-style regional states system (1800– 1940). 2. The Cold War period (1945–90), in which regional states consolidated themselves by exploiting superpower rivalries to access arms, economic resources and political technology. 3. The current phase, in which a more united core displays both benign (EU) and malign (US) faces to the region. The balance of opportunities and threats at the system level inevitably shapes regional responses to globalization, but whether policy-makers perceive the latter or the former to dominate is partly determined by domestic-level factors: 1. The relative satisfaction or frustration of the interests and identities of the social forces incorporated into regimes during state formation locks them into either more system-resistant or system-adaptive orientations; these can, however, be altered by changes over time in the composition of these social forces. 2. Whether a state is able effectively to defend its interests in the international system instead of remaining a victim of it; this, in turn, depends on whether the state attains the requisites – cohesion and leadership autonomy – of a ‘rational actor’.4 Syria, for its part, has been profoundly shaped by the international system in its three phases of differential impact on the region. First, the frustration of Syria’s Arab identity institutionalized at the founding of the regional states system generated a profound irredentism that put Syria on a revisionist systemchallenging tangent. Second, the wars that this helped unleash reshaped Syria into a national security state. Finally, the current phase of globalization combined with leadership change has initiated a new effort to negotiate Syria’s inclusion in the world order but in a way that preserves its identity and interests.

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In this transition period, Syria has wavered between two contrary orientations: ﬁrst, an older strategy of power-balancing against perceived external threats (chieﬂy, Israel and, to a lesser extent, its US ally) through regional alliances and the rent-seeking that provides resources to sustain the ruling coalition; and second, a new liberalizing strategy which would move Syria away from rentseeking and power politics toward a developmental state through a cautious integration into the world system; this is being pursued chieﬂy via a strategic alliance with the EU which would access economic resources while buffering the country from US hostility. Syria’s course exposes how regional states are threatened by globalization yet, can also resist, adapt to and try to exploit these forces for their own ends. SYSTEMIC IMPACT, STATE FORMATION AND FOREIGN POLICY

The Imposition of the Regional System and the Frustration of Identity Syria was set on a relatively durable foreign policy tangent by the frustration of its identity at its very birth amidst imperialism’s imposition of a fragmented regional states system. The resulting radical dismemberment of historic Syria created a deep-seated irredentism, expressed in the impulse to merge the Syrian state, seen as an artiﬁcial creation of imperialism, in a wider Arab nation. The Zionist colonization of Palestine, viewed as a lost portion of historic Syria, together with subsequent border conﬂicts with Israel, deepened Syrian rejection of the status quo. While, in consequence, no Syrian politician could hope to gain or keep power without demonstrating commitment to pan-Arabism and to the rejection of Israel, the Syrian state was initially too weak to be an actor rather than a victim of the regional power struggle and foreign policy amounted to a largely rhetorical expression of radical nationalism. The 1950s political mobilization of the middle class reinforced Syria’s revisionist tangent. The failure of oligarchic-dominated political institutions to absorb the middle class and to address the growing agrarian unrest from the country’s extremely unequal land tenure structure destabilized the postindependence state. Simultaneously, the West’s backing of Israel and its attempt to sustain its inﬂuence in the region through alliance systems against the pan-Arab alternative promoted by Egypt’s Nasser, de-legitimized pro-Western politicians and the Western economic ties of the landed-commercial oligarchy. It fuelled the rise of radical parties – notably the Ba’th Party – which inﬁltrated the army and ruled the schools and streets.5 The military, expanding to meet the Israeli threat and recruited from middle class and peasant youth, became a hotbed of nationalist and populist dissent. This ferment culminated in the Ba’thist coup of March 1963. The new regime faced opposition, not just from the oligarchy it had overthrown, but also from rivals such as Nasserites and the Muslim Brotherhood, and hence initially rested on a very narrow support base. On top of this, the regime itself was wracked by a power struggle along sectarian, generational and ideological lines in which ‘expeasant’ radicals, in particular Alawis, assumed power at the expense of middle class (usually Sunni) moderates. Foreign policy was an issue in this struggle,

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with the Ba’thi radicals seeking nationalist legitimacy by sponsoring Palestinian fedayeen raids into Israel. This, however, ignoring Israeli military superiority, brought on the 1967 defeat, the Israeli occupation of the Syrian Golan Heights, and the discrediting of the radical Ba’thists. War and State Consolidation The occupation of the Golan made Syria a permanently dissatisﬁed and insecure state and further locked it into the struggle with Israel; yet, Syria had learned the hard way the costs of ignoring the systemic power balance. This dilemma provoked the rise to power of a new ‘realist’ wing of the Ba’th under Haﬁz al-Asad who was determined to pursue the struggle with Israel within the bounds of realistic goals and strategies.6 This required the consolidation of a national security state. The consolidation of the Ba’th state had begun under the radicals who, facing powerful urban opposition, launched a revolution from above which, through land reform and nationalizations, secured the socio-economic bases of power. Syria’s turn to ‘socialism’ was also driven by the belief that a nationalist foreign policy could not be pursued without cutting the webs of shared interests between the Syrian bourgeoisie and the West. The regime also forged a strong ideological party which mobilized a largely rural base of support and which institutionalized the Ba’th’s socialist and Arab nationalist ideology. The other pillar of the regime was the army, already radicalized by the conﬂict with Israel, which increasingly became the preserve of initially property-less peasant minorities, especially Alawis, who had to prove their commitment to the Arab identity they shared with the majority Sunni community.7 After his 1970 seizure of power within the Ba’th, Haﬁz al-Asad added two other legs to the regime, a security apparatus recruited from Alawi kin and a regime-dependent segment of the Sunni bourgeoisie appeased by economic liberalization and state patronage. Crucial to Asad’s consolidation of the regime was rent – oil revenues and aid from Arab oil states – that allowed him to service clientele networks within and alongside state institutions and helped fund construction of a huge national security state buttressed by Soviet arms and designed to confront Israel over the Golan Heights.8 The regime’s Arab nationalist role as the most steadfast defender of the Arab cause in the battle with Israel became the basis of its domestic legitimacy and of the regional stature that entitled it to the ﬁnancial backing of other Arab states, further locking the state into the struggle with Israel. Yet the stake in the state acquired by the newly privileged interests incorporated during its consolidation resulted in a recasting of Arab nationalism in a form compatible with Syrian sovereignty. It was now taken to mean not the uniﬁcation of the Arab states at the expense of Syrian sovereignty, but their mere cooperation against outside threats and, speciﬁcally, the obligation of other states to support Syria against Israel. Parallel to state consolidation, power was concentrated in a ‘presidential monarchy’ from which Asad commanded and ‘balanced above’ the rival pillars of the state. This power concentration was accepted within the political elite as necessary to confront the gravest threat the country had ever faced, the 1967 defeat and occupation brought on by the recklessness of the previous factionalized leadership. Indeed, his power consolidation enabled Asad to

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pursue a rational strategy toward Israel: it gave him the autonomy of domestic pressures to discard Syria’s impotent irredentism and mobilize the country behind the more realistic, if still very ambitious, goals of recovering the Golan Heights and achieving a Palestinian state in the West Bank/Gaza. The tenacity with which he refused for a quarter century to settle for less than a full Israeli withdrawal from the Golan or to accept a separate settlement with Israel at the expense of the Palestinians reﬂected the persisting power of Syria’s Arab identity. But it also depended on Asad’s ability to manipulate for his own ends the international and regional systems of which Syria had hitherto been a victim. Thus, while he took advantage of every opportunity presented by US attempts to broker an Arab–Israeli settlement to reach his goals by diplomacy, he simultaneously struck the ideologically disparate alliances – with both the Soviet Union and the conservative Gulf oil states – needed to enhance Syria’s military capability. This enabled him to challenge Israel’s hold on the Golan in 1973, to resist its 1982 attempt to expel Syria from Lebanon, to avoid bargaining from weakness in the periodic peace negotiations, and even to apply military pressure on Israel in southern Lebanon at reasonable risk.9 LEADERSHIP SUCCESSION AND THE DETERMINANTS OF FOREIGN POLICY CHANGE

Haﬁz’s Final Legacy: The Failure of The Peace Negotiations Perhaps the single most important factor constraining Bashar al-Asad’s foreign policy options was Syria’s failure under his father to reach a peace settlement with Israel. This was by no means inevitable as Haﬁz had made a ‘strategic decision’ to exploit Washington’s post-Gulf War reach for regional hegemony through sponsorship of an Arab–Israeli peace in order to get an acceptable settlement for Syria. This was made much easier after the Oslo accord relieved Damascus of the responsibility to make its own recovery of the Golan contingent on the satisfaction of Palestinian rights. While Haﬁz aimed to maximize territorial recovery and minimize the ‘normalization of relations’ and security concessions Israel expected in return, once Israel signaled its willingness to return the Golan, Syria made several concessions, such as its willingness to open diplomatic relations after a settlement and its acceptance of de-militarized zones on the border which would favor Israel. In fact, the two sides came very close to a settlement but Israel’s demands to keep its surveillance station on Mt Hermon and its insistence on adjusting the pre-1967 boundary around Lake Tiberias to its advantage fell short of Haﬁz’s insistence on complete withdrawal; in the last failed negotiations at the March 26, 2000 Clinton–Asad Summit, the Americans mistakenly believed that Haﬁz, anxious to settle the conﬂict before his son’s succession, would agree to Israel’s terms. In the end, both Syria and Israel, having played realist hardball throughout the protracted negotiations, missed the chance for a settlement. The failure of the peace negotiations had important consequences inside Syria. At the end of the 1990s Syria was, in the expectation of imminent peace, seemingly gearing up for a protracted transition from a national security state

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living off strategic rents to a developmental state. Haﬁz, with Bashar as his chief lieutenant, was preparing or initiating major liberalizing and anti-corruption reforms needed to take advantage of a hoped-for major inﬂux of (mostly Arab and expatriate) investment. But with the failure of the peace process, these initiatives were truncated. Leadership Change: Bashar as ‘Modernizer’? Bashar’s succession to the presidency in June 2000 nevertheless brought to power a leader widely described as a ‘modernizer’ representative of the new generation and committed to reform. Indeed, Bashar’s political socialization took place in a radically different environment from that of his father and the regime ‘old guard’. While the latter were socialized in the era of Arab nationalism, war with Israel, and non-alignment, their sons came of age in an era in which state-centric identities were fragmenting the Arabs, US hegemony had become a fact of life in the region, a peace agreement with Israel seemed attainable and economic globalization and democratization had started to impact on public opinion. While his father had remained hunkered down in Damascus and had little direct experience of the outside world, Bashar had acquired education in the liberal environment of the UK, married a British citizen of Syrian descent and, as president, traveled widely in Europe. Evidence of Bashar’s modernizing worldview was his persuasion of his father to start opening Syria to the internet on the grounds that a closed society was handicapped in the competitive world of globalization. It is worth cautioning, however, that Bashar’s exposure to the West does not compare with that of most other Middle Eastern leaders. Moreover, the father–son relation, a presumably powerful socialization mechanism, would have committed him to the preservation of his father’s Arab nationalist legacy while the apprenticeship he served under his father, including time within the military, would have socialized him into the code of operation of the establishment. Bashar’s vision of ‘modernization’ (as articulated, for example, in his inauguration speech)10 was not necessarily incompatible with major parts of his father’s heritage. It entailed, ﬁrst of all, economic liberalization, reduction of rent-seeking corruption and a controlled opening to the world market while still preserving the public sector. Bashar also hoped to expand political liberalization, albeit limited to the extent that it could be made to support rather than undermine regime legitimacy, economic reform and his own power position. Good relations with the West and an equitable settlement of the conﬂict with Israel were understood to be essential to the deepening and consolidation of internal reforms. However, new leaders cannot simply translate their personal preferences into policy. In adapting Syria to globalization, Bashar’s challenge was to give momentum to domestic reform without so threatening the establishment that vested interests combined against him; and to reconstruct Syria’s foreign relations in a way still compatible with the Arab identity of his people. Substantial change depends on leaders’ calculations of its costs and beneﬁts: while in the long term the status quo is probably unsustainable for Syria, the

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opportunities and beneﬁts of change remain uncertain, the risks are high and short-term alternatives exist. Economic Pressures for Globalization Syria has suffered from a chronic economic crises, rooted in the exhaustion of statist import substitute industrialization from at least the 1980s, exacerbated by the decline of petroleum rent after 1986, but interspersed with recoveries when new resources, mostly rent, have been accessed. Thus, in the half decade (1990– 95) following Syria’s receipt of rent for its stand in the Gulf War and the inﬂux of investment stimulated by its 1991 liberalization of investment laws, the economy grew 7 percent per year and GNP per capita at 4.3 percent; but when these inﬂows were exhausted, in part because no follow-up economic liberalization measures (e.g. allowing the operation of private banks and a stock market) were taken to sustain a favorable investment climate, GNP growth fell to 2.2 percent in 1996, 0.5 percent in 1997 and 71.5 percent in 1998.11 Economic troubles – stagnant growth, combined with a burgeoning population resulting in unemployment rates reputedly reaching 25 percent – were likely to deepen as revenues from oil exports seemed set to decline. There may be no long-term solution except a sustained take-off of private investment which depends on Syria’s conformity to the standards of the global market. Its economic difﬁculties did force the regime to experiment with increasing economic liberalization, to revive the private sector, and to encourage exports and foreign investment. There were, however, formidable obstacles to the deepening economic liberalization needed to attract signiﬁcant investment: the main constituencies of the regime, in particular the politically dominant Alawis, were dependent on the state sector and extracted rent from state regulation of the economy, while their rivals – the Sunni business class – dominated the private sector. To be sure, business and marriage alliances are amalgamating parts of these groups into a new bourgeoisie proﬁting from private business; but this class continues to be rent seeking, exploiting state-granted import monopolies and contracts that would be threatened by the competition unleashed by a more open and transparent market. Other obstacles to integration into the global economy include a residue of socialist ideology, the ‘social contract’ – under which regime legitimacy is contingent on state provision of subsidized food, jobs and farm support prices – and a refusal to conform, on nationalist principle, to externally dictated (IMF) structural change. The ability of the regime to dispense patronage, on which the whole ‘loyalty system’ supporting it depends, would be put at risk by withdrawal of the state from the economy. Moreover, private investment depends on a stable, paciﬁc investment climate, but without a settlement with Israel, this could not be established or the rent-dependent national security state dismantled. The consequent bureaucratic obstacles, lack of rule of law, and the continued ability of privileged rent seekers to monopolize opportunities, inevitably deterred investment. Inﬂows of foreign ﬁnancing were a mere $217 million in 1997–99. The accumulated stock of FDI in 1998 was only 8 percent of Syria’s total GNP while foreign trade as a proportion of GDP actually fell in the

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nineties.12 The incremental liberalization Bashar sponsored after his succession was not enough to encourage the signiﬁcant new private investment needed to kick-start the economy. Traditionally, when faced with similar economic dilemmas, the regime used foreign policy to extract the strategic rent to sustain itself; but with the oil bust of 1986, the end of the Cold War, and the erosion of pan-Arab solidarity behind Syria’s struggle with Israel during the 1990s peace process, this resource dried up. In this period of vulnerability, suspended between security and developmental priorities, the opening to Iraq in the late 1990s promised to give the regime a substitute lifeline with which to negotiate the transition at its own pace. Political Obstacles to Change The smooth June 2000 presidential succession engineered by the state establishment, in spite of the regime’s seeming dependence on the personality of the deceased top leader, was evidence that Syria’s state structures were, to a degree, institutionalized and hence constrained how the new leader dealt with the outside world. Indeed, Bashar’s inheritance of a state constructed by his predecessor meant the Presidency was much reduced in power and surrounded by several centers of power – the party politburo, the cabinet, the army high command and the security forces – dominated by the old guard with whom the new President had to consult and share power. Bashar also inherited an experienced foreign policy team from his father. Bashar was able to begin efforts to adapt the statist system to the age of globalization – launching an anti-corruption purge, placing reforming technocrats in government, restricting the interference of the party and security forces in economic administration, and passing legislation creating the framework for a more market oriented economy – including the approval of private banks. But he made no direct assault on the new class of ‘crony capitalists’ – the rent-seeking alliances of Alawi political brokers (now led by his own mother’s family, the Makhloufs) and the regime-supportive Sunni bourgeoisie – whose corrupt stranglehold on the economy deterred productive investment. While Bashar initially encouraged civil society to express constructive criticism, seemingly in an effort to foster forces which would strengthen his own position and reformist agenda, when this threatened to snowball into a wider critique of the regime – including the legacy of his father (from which he derived his own legitimacy) and when it threatened to put the spotlight on the corrupt activities of regime barons, the old guard and security forces insisted Bashar rein in the opposition. This shut off a potential route by which Bashar might have restored the regime’s faltering legitimacy and consolidated his power on behalf of reform. Inevitably, therefore, Bashar’s strategy was one of incrementalism: retiring the old guard as it aged and promoting a younger generation in the army and security forces which was personally beholden to him. It was, however, unclear whether these ‘young Turks’ were more friendly to the reforms he wanted than were the old guard. The regime’s unwillingness to make the internal break with the past which might have permitted a more radical move toward Syria’s integration into the

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world capitalist economy corresponded to a foreign policy equally positioned between the old and the new. SYRIAN FOREIGN POLICY UNDER BASHAR

Bashar’s main foreign policy challenge was to access the resources, support, and protection to cope with Israel and the US while sustaining the regime in its period of transition. However, the world order Syria faces today is very different from that which Haﬁz manipulated so astutely. Syria under Bashar can no longer maneuver between Soviet and American superpowers. The fragmentation of the Arab world makes it harder to mobilize pan-Arab political support or ﬁnancing. Bashar has, nevertheless, attempted to defend Syria’s position by constructing multiple alliances, at both the regional and the international levels, through which he seeks to dilute and use the diverse pressures Syria faces. This policy of ambiguity without corresponds to Syria’s ambiguous transition within. Israel The failure of the Syrian–Israeli peace process was the watershed event constraining Bashar’s foreign policy. To be sure, even after the breakdown of the Geneva Summit, he afﬁrmed that Syria was willing to resume peace negotiations on condition that Israel acknowledged what Syria took to be the commitment made under Yitzhak Rabin to a full withdrawal from the Golan. This was deﬁned, as his father had done, as withdrawal to the June 4, 1967 borders, leaving Syria access to Lake Tiberias. The major constraint on Bashar’s ﬂexibility in this regard was the need to preserve the legitimacy that Haﬁz’s demand for total Israeli withdrawal had conferred on the regime. But thereafter the rise of Sharon to power pushed a Golan settlement off the agenda while his repression of the Palestinian intifada inﬂamed public opinion against Israel creating a situation in which Bashar had an incentive to assert his own Arab nationalist credentials. As a result, Bashar’s policy actually became less accommodating toward Israel than that of his father in the late 1990s. Syria returned to its earlier insistence that a Syrian–Israeli settlement had to be part of a comprehensive settlement which included a Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital and preservation of the Palestinian right, under UN resolutions, of return or compensation.13 Bashar’s rhetoric, far from seeking to appeal to the Israeli public ‘over the head’ of its hard–line leader, castigated Israelis for their repeated rejection of leaders who were prepared to make concessions in peace negotiations. At the October 2000 Arab summit immediately after the outbreak of the intifada, Bashar’s ﬁrst appearance on the Arab stage, he advocated renewed support for the rejectionist Palestinian factions based in Damascus and demanded, against the resistance of Jordan and Egypt, that Arab relations with Israel be cut and the economic boycott reinstated. In line with his father’s traditional posture, Bashar insisted that Arab states should aim for the ‘peace of the strong’ based on a balance of power between the Arabs and Israel rather than

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a ‘peace of the weak’, such as the Oslo agreement, which had allowed Israel to evade a just settlement.14 Nor did Syria bend before the increased US threat after September 11; at the post-September 11 Cairo Arab summit, while the Egyptians, Saudis and Jordanians all wanted to dampen down the intifada to appease the US, Syria, Lebanon and Iraq called for keeping it going as a way of making the costs of Israeli occupation prohibitive. If Syria had reverted to its previous policy of ‘steadfastness’ against Israel, it now had, however, fewer means of inﬂicting costs on Israel for its retention of occupied territories, especially after the Israeli withdrawal from south Lebanon. South Lebanon had hitherto served as a surrogate battleﬁeld in a proxy war in which Syria was able to exert military pressure on Israel, at minimal risk, through Hizbollah attacks on Israel’s so-called ‘security zone’. Through its support for continued Hizbollah operations against the disputed Shebaa Farms enclave still occupied by Israel, Syria sought to ensure there would be no separate Israeli–Lebanese peace and to send the message that Israel could not have peace without a settlement with Syria. But this was a risky policy. By contrast to the conﬂict over Israel’s so-called ‘security zone’ in south Lebanon, Hizbollah operations against the Shebaa farms enjoyed no international legitimacy. The UN and the Western powers rejected Lebanon’s claim to the area and wanted the Lebanese army to pacify the southern zone now wholly in Hizbollah hands. Following several Hizbollah operations that killed Israeli soldiers in April 2001, Israel bombed a Syrian radar station in Lebanon, killing three Syrian soldiers and wounding six, the heaviest Israeli military attack on Syrian forces in nearly 20 years. Syria refrained from retaliation but failed to get Washington to restrain Israel and, after another Hizbollah attack in June 2001, Israel launched a second attack on Syrian positions: Syria again refrained from retaliation. Hizbollah was thereafter restrained and, after the September 11 events, Syria reputedly agreed to a European request to maintain calm in south Lebanon. By ending Syria’s ability to sponsor attacks against Israeli forces in south Lebanon with impunity, Israel seemed to deprive Damascus of a relatively cost-free means of pressuring it to return to the negotiating table.15 To be sure, when Israel’s Spring 2002 drive against the Palestinian Authority inﬂamed the Arab world, Syria evidently was unprepared to restrain Hizbollah’s brief opening of a ‘second front’ in south Lebanon; however, this was not sustained despite continued Israeli repression on the West Bank. Mending Regional Fences Bashar inherited a deteriorating strategic situation from the late Haﬁz period, including an emerging Turkish–Israeli–Jordanian alliance threatening to put Damascus in a pincer. He seized the opportunity of his succession to neutralize this threat by mending fences with Turkey and Jordan. Relations with Turkey, with which Syria had been on the brink of war in the 1990s, rapidly warmed. While Euphrates water remained a main bone of contention, Syria, having forfeited the PKK card (support for anti-Turkish Kurdish guerillas) that it had used against Turkey in this conﬂict, could only fall back on establishing the

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friendly relations that would appease Ankara. Several high level Syrian delegations to Turkey forged a series of economic agreements. Bashar’s relations with Jordan’s King Abdullah II also grew close (although Abdullah rejected his call to sever ties with Israel). For example, Syria helped ease Jordan’s water crisis. Bashar also attempted to improve the dismal Syrian–PLO relations he inherited from his father. He personally intervened to ensure Yasir Arafat was invited to his father’s funeral and, after the eruption of the al-Aqsa intifada, Syria recognized the legitimacy of the Palestinian Authority; however Arafat’s unwillingness to be bound by Syria in any bargaining with Israel obstructed any genuine de´tente.16 The loose alliance with Saudi Arabia and Egypt that Bashar inherited remained the centerpiece of Syria’s regional strategy. As the al-Aqsa intifada began and tension mounted with Israel in southern Lebanon, Bashar made his ﬁrst trip as president to Cairo and Egypt declared it would reconsider its relations with Israel if it attacked Syria. Saudi Arabia, which had welcomed and supported Bashar’s accession, also warned against Israeli attacks on Syria or Lebanon. After September 11, Syria needed more than ever to be part of an Egyptian–Saudi triangle to protect itself from US pressures. Yet, unlike them, Syria remained (as long as the Golan was occupied) a dissatisﬁed power and this inclined it to an opposing alignment with Iran and Iraq. Syria was, thus, trying to position itself to manipulate two opposing regional alliance networks, the traditional pro-Western one that tied it to Cairo and Riyadh and what at times looked like a potential new anti-Western one with Iraq and Iran. Relations with Iraq: Strategic Relation or Tactical Card? One of the most strategic shifts in Syria’s policy under Bashar was the deepening rapprochement with Iraq, although this was already on the cards under Haﬁz. With the failure of the peace process, Haﬁz had decided to set aside his enmity toward Saddam Hussein in order to confront the Israel–Turkish axis, to send a message to the US that Syria had other options than peace with Israel, and to ﬁnd solutions to Syria’s economic stagnation. Relations did not progress far until Bashar’s succession when the outbreak of the intifada, demolishing remaining peace hopes, gave the relation a new urgency. To woo Syria to its side against the UN sanctions regime, Iraq began re-routing trade and switching import contracts from Jordan to Syria. In October 2000, following talks between Bashar and Tariq Aziz, a Syrian plane took humanitarian aid to Iraq and Bashar later assured Saddam of the ‘support of the Syrian people for Iraq and its solidarity with the ﬁght to lift the unjust embargo’.17 The Iraq relation was primarily a matter of geo-economics. Its centerpiece was the reopening at the end of 2000 of the oil pipeline from Iraq to Syria’s Mediterranean port of Banias that had been closed during the Iran–Iraq war. Damascus was said to receive about 200,000 bpd of Basra Light crude from Iraq at below market prices (thought to be around $10–15 per barrel), enabling it to then export an equivalent amount of Syrian Light crude at much higher international prices. The pipeline had the potential to produce as much as $1 billion per year in revenue for the government, about 5 percent of Syria’s gross

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domestic product. There were also plans to build a new pipeline to Iraq and Syria received contracts to exploit gas ﬁelds on the Iraqi side of the border. In addition, Syria hoped to take advantage of the Iraqi market, a critical element in reviving its stagnant economy. Syrian business which coveted the prospects of monopolies over the Iraqi market, sought to establish a foothold there at a time when an end to the sanctions seemed to be on the horizon. The gradual elimination of most trade restrictions between the two countries was expected to double or even triple the 2000 ﬁgure for annual trade of $500 million. Indeed, a huge informal commerce subsequently developed across the border. All this, in helping to stabilize the troubled Syrian economy while replenishing the regime’s coffers and reviving its patronage networks, relieved pressures on Syria to conform to the neo-liberal demands of ‘globalization’. This was less a personal preference of Bashar’s – indeed it went against his longerterm vision of modernization and offered no permanent solution to Syria’s economic dead-end; but the failure of the peace process and regime survival interests made it unavoidable. The new alignment also had potential geo-political signiﬁcance. Syrian leaders spoke of Iraq as Syria’s strategic, economic and scientiﬁc depth. Syrian– Iraqi military cooperation was also reputedly discussed when Qusay Hussein visited Damascus in October 2000. Were Syrian–Iraqi hostility, a regional constant for decades, to have been replaced by a new strategic alignment, this, together with the Syrian–Iranian alliance, held the potential to transform the region’s power balance to Israel’s detriment. Nevertheless, a true Iraqi–Syrian alliance did not mature, indicated by the fact that Syria did not (by contrast with Jordan) actually establish full diplomatic relations with Iraq. Overt alignment with Iraq was deterred by the risk that it would draw US accusations of UN sanctions busting. Then, Washington’s post September 11 determination on regime change in Iraq increased the risk that the alignment would focus US hostility on Syria. Syria feared the installation of a pro-US regime in Iraq, encircling it with unfriendly regimes and it was outspoken in its opposition to an US attack on Iraq, going so far as to announce that it would be considered an attack on all the Arabs. But, as insurance against a regime change, Syria cultivated its traditional ties to the Iraqi opposition, notably the communists and Kurdish factions, hoping thereby to be in a position to retain or increase its inﬂuence in a post-Saddam Iraq, together with Iran, which had close ties to the Shia opposition. Damascus also sought to forestall any move toward an independent Kurdistan that could threaten its own partly Kurdish-populated and oil-rich northeast. It appeared that for Damascus, Iraq was viewed as a geopolitical card that Syria could play, perhaps in return for concessions from the US in a post-Saddam Iraq or in renewed peace negotiations with Israel. This impression was reinforced by Syria’s vote for the November 2002 Security Council Resolution 1441 calling on Iraq to readmit weapons inspectors: while Syria insisted this resolution would spare Iraq a war if it complied, and while voting against it could have isolated Syria from its European and Russian allies on the issue, in fact, the resolution may well have added legitimacy to a US attack.18

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Uneasy Syrian–US Relations In realist thinking, foreign policy change responds, ﬁrst of all, to shifts in the external power balance. With the collapse of bi-polarity and the emergence of American hegemony in the region, Syria came under severe pressure to ‘bandwagon’ with (that is, sacriﬁce elements of its Arab nationalist foreign policy) to appease the US hegemon, partly in order to divert the greater threat from Israel. Indeed Syria’s entry into the Gulf war coalition and the Madrid peace process can be seen in this light. Yet, if for Damascus, the US was the one state in the post-Cold War period which could restrain Israel and conceivably broker an acceptable Syrian–Israeli settlement, because the US remained, at the same time, Israel’s main backer and little sympathetic to Syrian interests, Syria had every incentive to simultaneously seek the alliances needed to balance against Washington. Multiple issues bedeviled Syrian relations with Washington. President Clinton blamed Syria for the failure of the Syrian–Israeli negotiations. In a brief discussion in October 2000 with Secretary of State Madeline Albright, Bashar reportedly rejected US requests to rein in Hizbollah and to cease ﬂights to Baghdad. The Iraqi pipeline became a bone of contention with the US after reports that Syria was receiving Iraqi oil outside the oil-for-food regime. US Secretary of State Colin Powell visited Damascus; his claim to have won Bashar’s agreement to refrain from violating international sanctions on Iraqi oil and to put proceeds from Iraqi oil in UN escrow accounts was disputed by Syria. The Syrians also made cooperation with Washington’s proposed ‘smart sanctions’ contingent on ‘ﬁrm positions regarding the Israeli aggression against the Arabs’. Syria did not want to defy the US, which it needed to contain and deal with Israel, and it could not afford to be outside ‘international legitimacy’. But it hoped to make the price of cooperation in keeping Iraq isolated, at the expense of its own economic interests in Iraqi ties, signiﬁcant.19 Especially after September 11, leaders and interest groups hostile to Syria achieved dominance in Washington. Washington’s deeply pro-Israeli bias during the intifada in Palestine precluded the role of third-party mediator needed to revive the peace process while the US campaign against terrorism raised regional tensions. Worse, hostile forces in the US were trying to use the old image of Syria as a terrorist state to advance an aggressive agenda against Damascus. Particularly after September 11, the US was insistent that the ofﬁces of Hamas and Islamic Jihad, responsible for suicide bombings in Israel, be closed; but Syria resisted on the grounds that these were not operational bases and that the radical Palestinian groups represented Palestinian diaspora opinion with a legitimate right to be heard.20 Bashar told US ofﬁcials that its war in Afghanistan was simply revenge and that an effective war on terrorism meant dealing with the injustice that breeds it. Syria was threatened by US attempts to pressure the Lebanese government to freeze Hizbollah’s assets. Syria was also alarmed by US threats to invade Iraq while the US was antagonized by Syria’s role in facilitating arms transfers to Baghdad. Pro-Israeli congressmen tabled a so-called ‘Syria Accountability Act’ which mandated sanctions against

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Damascus because of its ‘occupation of Lebanon’, possession of ‘Weapons of Mass Destruction’ (that is, its chemically armed missile deterrent against Israel), and its purported sponsorship of Hamas and Hizbollah. As long as Syria and Israel were not at peace and as long as Syria backed radical Palestinians, Syria could expect Washington to keep it on its terrorism list, threaten economic sanctions, refrain from restraint of Israel in southern Lebanon and conceivably even target Syria militarily. Syria sought to neutralize these threats by tightening its inter-Arab, Iranian, Russian and European links. Information Minister Adnan Omran argued that the Arab states had to raise with the US the ‘unbalanced relationship’ wherein Arab friendship was met by US support for Israel’s violations of international law.21 At the same time, Damascus sought to appease the US by ‘assisting’ its war on terrorism through intelligence exchanges and by acceding to UNSC Resolution 1441. While some in the regime believed Washington was pursuing deeply hostile efforts to literally redraw the regional map, others, putting their hopes in State Department moderates, were more optimistic that Syria could avoid being brought into direct conﬂict with US ambitions; they took heart from Bush’s stand against the Syria Accountability Act, Washington’s seeming tolerance of Syria’s Iraqi oil imports and a semi-ofﬁcial ‘dialogue’ organized by the Baker Institute. Syria was caught between the impulse to balance against and the need to bandwagon with the US hegemon. Bashar’s Opening to Europe A major alteration in Syria’s policy under Bashar was the strategic priority given to relations with Europe. The attendance by French president Jacques Chirac at Haﬁz’s funeral (the only western head of state to do so) indicated that France was committed to Bashar’s succession and to the alliance forged with his father as part of a traditional policy of promoting French inﬂuence in the Middle East. Signiﬁcantly, Bashar’s ﬁrst state visits outside the Arab world were not to Moscow, the old ally, but to Western Europe – France, Spain, Germany and Britain. Bashar viewed alignment with Europe as crucial to Syria’s economic regeneration and as providing a political shield against US hostility. Nevertheless the deepening of relations was obstructed by several factors. The Europeans were somewhat impatient with Syria’s slowness to embrace Western foreign policy positions. For example, after the September 11 events, the EU representative disagreed with Syria’s insistence that national liberation against occupation must not be conﬂated with terrorism and rejected Syria’s support for the hard-line Palestinian factions in the intifada. On the other hand, Europe and Syria were on the same side in trying to restrain US aggression against Iraq. Relations with the EU were strained by human rights concerns, not least by the arrests of leading dissidents after the reversal of Bashar’s brief political liberalization experiment. Syria complained that the EU was trying to use the partnership negotiations to force political changes in Syria, although EU representative Marc Perini insisted that it was merely engaged in a ‘constructive dialogue’. However, European pressures to observe human rights arguably strengthened Bashar’s hand in constraining the old guard and the security forces.

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Ultimately, the depth of Syrian–European alignment depended on the institutionalization of their economic relations through an agreement under the EMP that was under negotiation by the two sides beginning in 2000. Syria’s approach to the partnership had, at ﬁrst, been dictated by political objectives: at the 1995 Barcelona meeting, which launched the partnership, Syria tried to obtain European pressure on Israel to return occupied territories and it boycotted the later Marseilles conference on the grounds that Israel would be there. However, Syria had an increasing economic incentive to participate in the partnership since, after the collapse of the East Bloc, its trade had shifted signiﬁcantly westward, making the EU Syria’s main trading partner. The EU took 60 percent of Syria’s exports and provided 30 percent of its imports in 2000.22 With its huge market and potential as a source of investment and tourism, the EU was a potential engine of growth for Syria. Within the Syrian regime, opponents were nevertheless skeptical of the partnership, arguing that it would impose a neo-liberal framework on what was a statist-dominated economy. It would require Syria’s economic legislation to be brought in line with EU practice, including adoption of EU law on foreign property rights and full freedom of movement of investment capital and repatriation of proﬁts. The opening of Syria’s markets would expose its industries to unequal competition, leading to unemployment and trade deﬁcits. The price controls that kept inﬂation down would be considered a restraint on trade by the EU. The agreement had, as well, built in inequities. While the EU Council and national parliaments had the right to amend the agreement, the southern Mediterranean countries did not. The end result would be free industrial exchange advantaging EU exporters, but the maintenance of mutual quotas on agricultural exports that would protect the EU’s subsidized agriculture. While the EU claimed that agriculture, having a social function, had to be treated differently, it refused to acknowledge that in Syria industry had a social function or that the differences in levels of development between the EU and Syria justiﬁed Syria indeﬁnitely retaining some, perhaps reduced, level of tariff protection. Liberals within the regime nevertheless argued that short-term losses from the agreement would be greatly outweighed by long-term gains, notably direct investment, technology transfer and the creation of productive enterprises. The decision to negotiate the partnership was a strategic one taken at the highest level. The regime also applied to the WTO which was likely to impose even more demanding conditions for membership. These initiatives by the liberal wing of the regime – Bashar and his economy ministers – were perhaps weapons to move entrenched interests toward the market economy. For example, the import licenses which gave crony capitalists lucrative monopolies would have to be suppressed under the Euro-Med agreement. That even Syria’s modernizers had objections to the terms of the partnership agreement was, however, clear from a policy paper23 which argued that Syria would not allow its policies to be imposed by foreign economists biased by the ideology of Western ‘economic schools’ and ‘far removed from the dynamic situation of life in Syria’. Development had to promote social balance, rights of

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employees had to be protected, and privatization for its own sake was not in Syria’s interest. Syria’s ability to bilaterally reschedule debts with European states in 2000, avoiding IMF imposed conditionality, may have given the regime the conﬁdence that it could negotiate adjustments and exceptions that would allow it to tailor the pace and extent of conformity to EU standards to its own needs. As such, Bashar’s negotiators sought EU tolerance of Syrian restrictions on investment and currency freedom of movement; a transition period for application of intellectual property rights laws; and tariff protection and the right to prohibit certain imports. They also argued that partnership could not be reached just by changes in Syria and that the EU would have do adopt certain measures as well. While the EU insisted that adhesion to the partnership would force economic discipline on the government and provide the security needed to attract investors, Syria argued that this would also require that the EU provide increased and subsidized credit for potential investors, while lowering Syria’s risk designation and insurance costs; Syria also wanted loan repayments reinvested in Syria and more compensation for the loss in state tariff revenues than the EU was offering. It wanted the EU to bear half the cost of adapting European technology to Syrian conditions and to sponsor joint industrial companies to assist in training and technology transfer. Syria complained that MENA countries were being offered only 20 percent of the aid given to East Europe to make the adjustment to the free market. Given the gap in the positions of the two sides, the negotiations have been protracted. In December 2000, Planning Minister Issam al-Zaim afﬁrmed that Syria was committed to the partnership but that the negotiations would be shaped by the debate over reform in Syria. He objected to Europe’s effort to force the pace: EU Commission head Romano Prodi wanted agreement to be reached by the summer of 2002 while Syria insisted its ﬁrms were not ready for rapid change, wanted ﬁrst to concentrate on building the infrastructure and legislative framework for private investment before any opening, and wanted a gradual opening to avoid ﬁnancial and social shocks.24 However, after the EU sent a tough signal that negotiations could not continue unless Syria accepted the basic principle of the partnership – an open economy – Syria began to fall in line. By the autumn of 2002, Damascus had made fundamental concessions, namely accepting that prohibitions on industrial imports would be replaced by tariffs which would themselves be phased out after 12 years. Syria’s position was perhaps softened by the adhesion to the partnership of Lebanon, with which Syria’s economy was increasingly integrated and by the need, after September 11, to solidify Syria’s protective alliance with the EU. Thereafter, negotiations focused on such speciﬁcs as the amount of assistance Syria would get and agricultural quotas for each side. Syria wanted substantial compensation for its loss of tariff revenues and to prepare its industry to compete which the EU negotiators rejected. The EU wanted Syria’s agricultural export quotas to be based on its very limited ‘traditional ﬂows’ to Europe while Syria, now enjoying a large exportable surplus, wanted much larger quotas. Symptomatic of trade tensions were EU complaints of increased

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Syrian cotton yarn exports, which it claimed were subsidized, and demands that Syria lift these or face quotas on such exports. The regime was caught in a bind. It needed deeper ties with Europe but the Euro-Med agreement potentially threatened Syrian public industry, the monopolies and rent opportunities enjoyed by regime-connected entrepreneurs, and protection for Syria’s agricultural producers – in a word all the regime’s main constituencies, its very social base.25 Yet the agreement by no means guaranteed an inﬂux of investment and, indeed, might well facilitate capital export. The root of the problem was the power imbalance built into the process. Instead of the EU and Arab states collectively negotiating a mutually acceptable framework allowing some level of protection to make up for the competitive advantage of EU industries, the EU sets the terms unilaterally and the Arab states individually negotiate accession. Nevertheless, the regime continued to hope it could negotiate, at the highest political level, greater tolerance than that shown by EU negotiators for a middle way between full conformity with EU standards and its own interests and practices. CONCLUSIONS

Syria has been profoundly affected by systemic-level forces, both core– periphery inequality and inter-state insecurity, as predicted by the various (Marxist and realist) forms of structuralism. But its responses to these forces have been anything but passive or fully determined by systemic structures. Rather, Syria has consistently tried to challenge, revise and re-negotiate its position in the systemic structures that constrain it. In the ﬁrst wave of global intrusion into the Middle East, imperialism imposed a states system that fragmented the region into rival, insecure and economically dependent states and deeply frustrated Syria’s identity. The weak, dependent Syrian state should, in structuralist thinking, have become a client of the core and appeased (bandwagoned with) the powerful or threatening Western and Israeli states. However, as constructivism suggests, identity shapes perceptions of interests and the frustration of Syrian identity put Syria on a revisionist foreign policy tangent rejecting the status quo. To be sure, the resulting (1967) war and the post-defeat rise of the pragmatic Haﬁz al-Asad is compatible with neo-realism’s expectation that survival imperatives amidst systemic insecurity force states, via elite socialization and ‘selection’, to subordinate identity and ideology to realist power politics. But, far from passively accepting systemic constraints, Asad manipulated both global bipolarity and regional (Arab) identity in order to maximize autonomy and diversify the resources that allowed him to sustain a struggle with Israel. This struggle expressed a notion of the national interest shaped, as constructivism suggests, not by purely state survival interests or economic gain, which indeed were risked by or sacriﬁced to this endeavor, but also by Syria’s Arab identity. In the post-bi-polar age of globalization, the restoration of systemic constraints, brieﬂy eased under bi-polarity, combined with the accumulated economic costs of the national security state, vastly reduced the regime’s

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maneuverability and put the post-Haﬁz leadership under renewed pressure to subordinate identity to external demands. While the US hegemon (and Israel) deployed military threat against Syria’s nationalist foreign policy, the EU sought to impose its neo-liberal economic practices as the price of the partnership Syria needed. Appeasing such superior power would seem, from a realist perspective, to be dictated by regime survival needs. However, Bashar attempted to balance against Israel and exploit divisions in the ‘systemic core’ to preserve a measure of economic and foreign policy autonomy. Hence, he sought to use Europe to contain US threats while also trying to use the opening to Iraq to ease EU pressures for liberalization. Analysts of globalization are divided between enthusiasts who believe it is weakening, bypassing or actually transforming states from buffers against global pressures into transmission belts for them, and skeptics who argue that globalization must still be mediated through states which retain considerable ability to tailor its impact to their own interests.26 Syria’s record to date would seem to support the skeptics, but should the resistance of this ﬁercely independent state succumb to the globalization deluge, what other state is long likely to stand against it? NOTES 1. Etel Solingen, Regional Orders at Century’s Dawn: Global and Domestic Inﬂuence on Grand Strategy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998). 2. Fred Halliday, ‘The Middle East and the Politics of Differential Integration’, in Toby Dodge and Richard Higgott (eds.), Globalization and the Middle East (London: Royal Institute of International Affairs, 2002), pp. 36–56. 3. Leon Carl Brown, International Politics and the Middle East: Old Rules, Dangerous Game (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984), pp. 3–18. 4. Speciﬁcally the autonomy of external constraints and internal pressures needed to adapt to the exigencies of the changing power balance in order to minimize costs and maximize beneﬁts. See Raymond Hinnebusch and Anoushiravan Ehteshami (eds.), The Foreign Policies of Middle East States (Boulder CO and London: Lynne Rienner, 2002), pp. 10–11, 20. 5. Patrick Seale, The Struggle for Syria (London and Oxford: RIIA, Oxford University Press, 1965). 6. Raymond Hinnebusch, Syria: Revolution from Above (London: Routledge, 2001), pp. 52–7; Avner Yaniv, ‘Syria and Israel: The Politics of Escalation’, in Moshe Ma’oz and Avner Yaniv (eds.), Syria under Assad: Domestic Constraints and Regional Risks (London: Croom-Helm, 1986, pp. 157–78. 7. Hinnebusch, Syria: Revolution from Above, pp. 67–88. 8. Patrick Clawson, Unaffordable Ambitions: Syria’s Military Buildup and Economic Crisis (Washington, DC: Washington Institute for Near East Policy, 1989). 9. Patrick Seale, Asad: The Struggle for the Middle East (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1988), pp. 226–66, 267–315, 344–9, 366–420; Moshe Ma’oz, Asad: the Sphinx of Damascus: a Political Biography (New York: Grove Weidenfeld, 1988), pp. 113–24, 135–48; Hinnebusch, Syria: Revolution from Above, pp. 151–5. 10. Bashar’s acceptance speech, The Syrian Arab News Agency website, July 21, 2000, ‘http:// www:basharassad.org/english.htm’. 11. The Middle East, March 1999, p. 35; Sept. 1999, p. 27. 12. UNCTAD, World Investment Report (New York: UN, 1999); World Bank, The Little Data Book (New York: World Bank, 2001), pp. 9–12. 13. Middle East International, April 6, 2001, pp. 7–8; 13 July 2001, p. 5; David Makovsky ‘Syria’s Foreign Policy Challenges US Interests’, Policywatch, No. 513, The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Jan. 19, 2001. 14. Patrick Seale, lecture, London, 2001.

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15. Rachel Bronson, ‘Syria: Hanging Together or Hanging Separately’, The Washington Quarterly, v. 23, Autumn, 2000; Yotam Feldner, ‘Escalation Games: Syria’s Deterrence Policy, Part I: Brinkmanship’, MEMRI. (Middle East Media Research Institute), May 24,2001 www.memri.org; Middle East International, July 13, 2001, pp. 10–11. 16. Middle East International, June 16, 2000, pp. 21–2. 17. Middle East International, July 28, 2000, p. 14; Stratfor.com, ‘Global Intelligence Update’, February 29, 2000. 18. Gary C. Gambill, ‘Syria’s Foreign Relations: Iraq’, Middle East Intelligence Bulletin, March, 2001, www.meib.org; Ibrahim Hamidi, Daily Star, Dec., 14, 2001. 19. Makovsky, ‘Syria’s Foreign Policy Challenges US Interests’; Middle East International, Feb. 9, 2001, p. 12; Yotam Feldner, ‘Escalation Games: Part II: Regional and International Factors Between Washington and Damascus: Iraq’, MEMRI, May 25, 2001. 20. Al-Hayat, Sept., 28, 2001. 21. BBC Summary of World Broadcasts, Middle East and North Africa, Jan. 7, 2002. 22. ‘Joining the European Trade Club’, in Oxford Business Group, Emerging Syria 2002, London, 2002, p. 45. 23. Ayman Abdul Nour, ‘Syria: Economic Reform and European Partnership’, unpublished policy paper, Damascus, June 12, 2001. 24. Middle East International, March 23, 2001, pp. 14–15. 25. The EU claims that it is not demanding an end to support prices in agriculture or of subsidies to the public sector. Its insistence is on transparency of trade rules and suppression of charges and barriers that distort import and export prices and ﬂows. However, subsidizing products which could not compete with imports would be very costly for Syria. 26. Skeptics include Michael Mann (1997), ‘Has Globalization ended the rise and rise of the Nationstate?’ Review of International Political Economy, v. 4, n. 3, Autumn, 1997, pp. 472–96; see also Toby Dodge and Richard Higgott, ‘Globalization and its Discontents’, in Dodge and Higgott (eds.), Globalization and the Middle East, pp. 13–35. Enthusiasts include K. Ohmae, The Borderless World (London: Collins, 1990) and The end of the Nation-State (New York: Free Press, 1995).

Lebanon and Europe: The Foreign Policy of a Penetrated State TOM PIERRE NAJEM

INTRODUCTION

Although a great deal of literature has been produced on Lebanon in the last two decades, the vast majority of it has focused almost exclusively on various aspects of the protracted and disastrous Lebanese ‘civil war’ (1975–90). Very little has been written on post-war Lebanese affairs, and almost nothing has been written on Lebanon’s foreign policy.1 In fact, even if one looks at studies which examined Lebanese society prior to the civil war, one would be hard pressed to ﬁnd a good account of the forces that have historically shaped the country’s foreign policy. With respect to the contemporary situation, a crucial problem is that many scholars and policy makers look at the dominant role which the Syrians now play in Lebanese politics and tend to assume that Lebanon really has no authentic foreign policy of its own. In short, it is assumed that, if one wishes to understand the reasoning and processes which underlie Lebanon’s actions on the regional and international stages, one simply needs to understand Syria’s national interests. It must be acknowledged that Syria has undoubtedly been the dominant player in Lebanese politics since the end of the civil war and that effective Syrian hegemony in Lebanon seems likely to continue.2 Consequently, there might be considerable merit in an approach to examining contemporary Lebanese foreign policy that stresses Syrian involvement and Syrian interests. However, such an approach does have signiﬁcant limitations in the sense that it ignores: 1. The fact that the internal forces which have historically shaped Lebanese foreign policy are still present, and strongly relevant, in Lebanese society. 2. The desire of the vast majority of the Lebanese people to pursue a foreign policy based on Lebanese interests. 3. Contemporary political and economic circumstances which have generated Lebanese foreign policy imperatives that are separate from, and in some cases contrary to, Syria’s interests.

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Indeed, I would argue that forces opposed to Syrian domination might well have pursued, and might yet pursue, more aggressive opposition to the Syrian presence if given a green light by Washington. Consequently, it is important to consider in detail not only Syria’s inﬂuence, but also these three areas, in order to arrive at a more developed understanding of Lebanon’s post-war foreign policy, both generally, and with respect to Lebanese relations with Europe. I will argue that, although Lebanon has been and remains a heavily penetrated state with a limited capacity to deﬁne and pursue its own foreign policy, it would be wholly mistaken to disregard the indigenous determinants. Indeed, even among elements that tend to support Syria’s position in Lebanon, there have been indications of a desire to pursue policies which accord more with Lebanon’s independent interests than with Syria’s interests. For example, quite a few Lebanese policy makers would clearly welcome an increase in European inﬂuence in Lebanon. On the one hand, this would counterbalance Syrian inﬂuence to some extent and, on the other, it would serve some of Lebanon’s pressing economic concerns. This contribution is divided into two main sections. In the ﬁrst section I will identify and examine in some detail the major determinants of Lebanese foreign policy. The purpose of the section is to consider the interplay of Syrian and Lebanese national interests in order to understand how the dynamic relationship between the two has shaped Lebanese foreign policy generally since the end of the civil war. In the second section, I will apply the observations and conclusions established in the ﬁrst, to a more speciﬁc examination of Lebanon’s relations with Europe from 1990 to the present. THE DETERMINANTS OF LEBANESE FOREIGN POLICY

Lebanese Foreign Policy in Historical Context Before proceeding to consider various contemporary interests and circumstances that, for the most part, trace their genesis to developments during the civil war, I think it is crucially important brieﬂy to consider four key factors that have had an extremely signiﬁcant bearing on Lebanese foreign policy since the foundation of the modern state in the early 1940s. Although present circumstances, particularly Syrian hegemony in post-war Lebanon, have tended to blunt the inﬂuence of these factors to some extent, I would argue that they remain largely unchanged and continue to constitute the basic imperatives and restraints that give rise to an authentic Lebanese foreign policy. The ﬁrst factor is the relative weakness of the Lebanese state throughout the country’s history. Essentially, the state structures created in the context of the 1943 National Pact were not designed to impose a well deﬁned national vision or any kind of ideological or religious/cultural uniformity on Lebanon’s sharply divided confessional communities. On the contrary, the purpose of the pact was to create a political order that embraced Lebanon’s religious/cultural diversity and enabled the various sectarian elite to come together, to negotiate with each other and to resolve disputes, while at the same time maintaining effectively autonomous control within their traditional spheres of inﬂuence. In short, the

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fundamental pillar of the Lebanese state was compromise among the sectarian elite, and its function was simply to provide a forum for the representatives of the different confessions to resolve disputes arising in the sphere of national politics. Consequently, the state was never in a position to dictate policy to the sectarian elite. Rather, national policy was consistently dictated by the need to ensure that none of the major sects was alienated to the extent that it would opt out of the system and disrupt the national compromise.3 Inevitably, the nature of the state had major implications with respect to deﬁning the parameters of Lebanon’s foreign policy, and this is strongly related to the second major factor that has historically characterized Lebanese foreign policy: the necessity of maintaining a neutral orientation vis-a`-vis the West on the one hand and the Arab/Islamic world on the other. This imperative is the consequence of a longstanding rift between the Christian and Muslim sects concerning what Lebanon’s basic international alignment should be. While Christian elements, particularly the Maronite community, have historically tended to favor strong ties with the West (I will return to the particular role of France in the second part of this contribution), the Muslim elements have favored close ties with the Arab/Islamic world. The National Pact sought to defuse potential conﬂict over this issue once and for all by committing the nation to a neutral foreign policy orientation. Ostensibly, Lebanon would remain somewhat detached politically and ideologically, while at the same time retaining functional relations with both the West and its Arab/Muslim neighbors. Hence, during the 1950s and 1960s Lebanon avoided engagement in the panArab movement and limited its participation in the Arab–Israeli conﬂict to the extent that it was possible to do so (successfully staying out of the 1967 and 1973 Arab–Israeli wars. The need to maintain non-alignment accounts to a very great extent for the third key factor, the traditional primacy of economic interests with respect to deﬁning Lebanon’s foreign relations, at least in so far as these relations were conducted within the formal state context. Since issues of political and cultural relations were extremely sensitive, and generally downplayed, the overwhelming preoccupation of formal Lebanese foreign policy for most of the period prior to the civil war was economic relations, especially the promotion and maintenance of Lebanon’s status as the key ﬁnancial and commercial center of the Eastern Mediterranean. Obviously, the health of Lebanon’s economy has always been a common interest that transcended confessional divisions, and indeed, it may be no exaggeration to say that many Lebanese have historically viewed it as the one truly national interest that the state exists to serve. However, the relative weakness of the state structures coupled with the continuing importance of sectarian divisions, also accounts for the fourth factor that has historically characterized the Lebanese system and impacted signiﬁcantly upon its foreign relations: a high level of susceptibility to penetration by external actors. The fact that the Lebanese as a nation ofﬁcially adopted a neutral foreign policy did not mean that the different sectarian communities completely abandoned their traditional aspirations with respect to shaping the future direction of Lebanese society as a whole. Furthermore,

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although policy in the state context remained neutral for the most part, it should be remembered that the sectarian elite continued to be effectively autonomous actors and to wield most of the real power in Lebanese society. This meant that the different communities historically tended to continue developing informal relations with their preferred international partners in the West and in the Arab world respectively. Consequently, foreign elements probably always had a greater inﬂuence on the Lebanese system than the ofﬁcially neutral foreign policy of the state would have suggested. Certainly, the actual or perceived existence of sectarian foreign agendas generated considerable inter-communal mistrust and greatly increased tensions in Lebanese society. Undoubtedly this became a critical problem in the years leading up to the civil war. Lebanese Muslim support for the PLO presence in Lebanon during the early 1970s had two catastrophically destabilizing consequences: 1. 2.

It dramatically inﬂamed internal tensions between the Maronites and the Muslim communities. It opened Lebanon to much more extensive, and more visible, penetration by the international actors engaged in the Arab–Israeli conﬂict.4

Syrian Penetration of the Lebanese System: 1990–Present Because the focus of this contribution is on contemporary Lebanese foreign policy, I will not comment in detail on the signiﬁcance of developments during the civil war period. At this point, it will sufﬁce to observe that probably the most important lasting development, not just in terms of Lebanon’s foreign policy but with respect to the political order as a whole, was that the country became exposed to overwhelming penetration by Syria, to the extent that Lebanon’s existence as a truly independent national entity may now be legitimately questioned.5 The Ta’if Accord which brought an end to the civil war in 1989–90 actually also established the preconditions for effective Syrian hegemony in the Lebanese context. While the accord called for the reassertion of central authority, the disarmament of the sectarian militias and the withdrawal of external forces from the country, it did not set a date for the withdrawal of the Syrian forces which had, by this point, become the most powerful military presence in the country. In fact, the accord speciﬁcally empowered the Syrians to assist the restored Lebanese government with its implementation and thereby left Syria in a strong position to interpret and enforce the agreement in such a way as to secure its own interests and its long-term control of the country.6 One very important consequence of Syrian involvement in the implementation of the accord was that, in deﬁance of the actual speciﬁcations of the accord, some of the sectarian militias, most notably, the Shi’ite Hizbollah, were not ultimately disarmed. The ofﬁcial reason given was that Hizbollah had the right to continue its attempts to liberate territory illegally occupied by the Israelis, but this explanation clearly made very little sense in relation to the interests of the Lebanese state or the people as a whole. Even if one assumes that there was a compelling need to take forcible action against the Israelis at this time, which is

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not at all clear given an already war-devastated Lebanon’s other critical priorities, it is still difﬁcult to understand why it was deemed necessary to involve paramilitary irregular troops rather than employing the reconstituted state forces. As events developed, and as any informed observer of the Lebanese scene surely would have anticipated, continuing Hizbollah operations against the Israelis merely served to give Israel a pretext to maintain its occupied ‘security zone’ in South Lebanon indeﬁnitely and to launch reprisal attacks against whatever Lebanese targets it could justify in terms of its leaders’ prevailing objectives at any given time. In short, the main result of the decision not to disarm Hizbollah was to establish that a high level of potential instability and conﬂict would continue to be a long-term feature of the Lebanese context. Needless to say, this was not at all helpful with respect to the country’s attempts to reconstruct itself and rehabilitate its image on the international stage. The situation did, however, give the Syrians a bargaining chip in their ongoing dispute with Israel, as it enabled them to successfully represent themselves, to the Israelis and the international community as a whole, as the only force capable of reining in Hizbollah and securing the Lebanese–Israeli border. It is by no means incidental that the possibility of a major resurgence in the border conﬂict also supplied Damascus with an effective pretext for continuing its own indeﬁnite occupation of Lebanon. And indeed, given these considerations, it is hardly surprising that Hizbollah’s continuing armed-status can almost certainly be traced in the ﬁrst instance, not to the Lebanese government or even to Lebanese–Syrian deliberations on the issue, but rather to an agreement negotiated by Syria and Iran in April 1991. The Ta’if Accord also called for a normalization of relations between Lebanon and Syria, a process that was meant to entail equal negotiations between the two countries on a whole range of bilateral issues. As it happened, the most prominent result of these provisions was ‘The Treaty of Brotherhood, Cooperation and Coordination’ signed in Damascus on May 22, 1991 by the Lebanese and Syrian heads of state. This document stipulated that the two states agreed to work for the highest possible level of coordination in all matters of political, economic, security and cultural policy, and established a joint institutional framework to achieve that end. The chief institution was a ‘Supreme Council’ chaired by the heads of state and empowered to make ‘mandatory and enforceable’ decisions in virtually all policy areas. Additional coordination committees were established for speciﬁc areas, including, to cite only the most signiﬁcant examples, a Foreign Affairs Committee and a Defense and Security Affairs Committee. In effect, these developments established a quasi-legal framework for Syrian domination of the Lebanese political order as a whole and its foreign and security policies particularly. This was widely recognized, and protested, both in Lebanon and in the international community, but was essentially a fait accompli given Syria’s continuing military occupation and the general unwillingness of all actors to risk the possibility of a new and potentially even more devastating escalation of the Lebanese/regional conﬂict.7 Obviously, it is extremely important to examine the interests that led Syria to push for long-term control of the Lebanese system. Simply put, the fundamental

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reasons for Syria’s continuing refusal to withdraw its forces from Lebanon and its interest in exerting almost complete control over the country, especially in the areas of defense and security policy, were grounded initially, and continue to be grounded to a great extent, in Syria’s long-term objectives vis-a`-vis the Arab– Israeli conﬂict. Subsequently, other factors, particularly Syrian economic interests and internal politics, have also become increasingly important. The recovery of the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, irrespective of any overarching peace settlement, has been a major pillar of Syrian foreign policy since the end of the 1967 Arab–Israeli War.8 However, short of either threatening a direct military conﬂict over the issue or offering the Israelis a unilateral peace settlement, both of which Damascus was unable or unwilling to countenance throughout the 1980s and early-1990s, Syria had very little that it could use to inﬂuence the Israelis in negotiations. As I indicated previously, the ongoing conﬂict between Hizbollah and Israel along the South Lebanese border presented the Syrians with a new bargaining chip. They were able to assert convincingly to the Israelis that only they were able to effectively rein in Hizbollah and resolve the conﬂict. It was generally understood that the return of the Golan Heights would be their asking price for this favor. Consequently, most observers and involved parties came to see the resolution of the South Lebanon conﬂict, and the broader issue of Lebanese relations with Israel, as inextricably intertwined with the resolution of Syria’s territorial claims. The sweeping geo-political changes of the early 1990s had a strong impact on regional politics, and affected Syrian policy accordingly. The decline and eventual dissolution of the Soviet Union, their long-time superpower patron, left them in a weaker position strategically, but their support for the anti-Iraqi alliance in the Gulf War of 1991 improved their relations with Washington somewhat and also defused much of the tension that had characterized their relations with other key Arab states like Egypt and Saudi Arabia throughout the previous decade. The Israeli–Palestinian Oslo Accords and the Israeli–Jordanian peace settlement in 1993 apparently paved the way for Syria to negotiate its own peace agreement with Israel. Although the practical obstacles to a settlement were more difﬁcult than those that had ﬁgured in the Israeli–Jordanian negotiations, many observers hoped that an agreement could be concluded fairly quickly. Yitzhak Rabin’s Israeli government and the Clinton administration in Washington anticipated that the ‘ﬁnal status’ negotiations of the Oslo process would be difﬁcult, and they wanted to neutralize Syria as soon as possible to secure the peace process for the long term. With respect to Lebanon, these developments simply made the continuation of the South Lebanon conﬂict an even more urgent priority from the Syrian perspective, as Damascus clearly intended to use the issue as a lever to extract concessions from the Israelis. It should be remembered, of course, that even as late as 1992 no one would have been particularly optimistic about the prospect of serious peace negotiations between Syria and Israel. The Syrian government under Haﬁz al-Asad had long been adamant in its ideological refusal to negotiate a separate peace until the grievances of the Palestinians had been addressed. The Oslo Accords took the world by surprise and apparently removed this obstacle.

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If an Israeli–Syrian peace deal had been successfully negotiated shortly thereafter, an Israeli–Lebanese agreement would almost certainly have followed, and the South Lebanon conﬂict would have ended much more quickly than anyone would have expected the previous year. As events developed throughout the 1990s, the initial Israeli–Syrian negotiations were inconclusive, and the Oslo process developed into a long and frustrating war of wills between the Israelis and the Palestinians. Leaders in the region and in Washington became preoccupied with the stalled and increasingly tense Israeli–Palestinian process and the Israeli–Syrian negotiations became a background priority that was pursued only sporadically, and that never bore substantial fruit. Consequently, the South Lebanon conﬂict continued unabated as Asad’s government waited for a conﬂuence of circumstances that would allow Syria to use the issue to its advantage. In the meantime, due largely to internal political considerations, the Israeli governments of the mid-1990s became increasingly obsessed with security and launched occasional reprisal attacks against Lebanon to demonstrate to the Israeli people that they were willing and able to take action to protect the northern Israeli border. The reprisals included two large-scale military operations, one in 1993 and another in 1996. The 1996 attack, which was dubbed ‘The Grapes of Wrath’, was a major component of Shimon Peres’ unsuccessful attempt to win that year’s Israeli elections by demonstrating his competence in the security domain. It was, however, successful in the respect that it inﬂicted substantial damage on the South Lebanon infrastructure, led to a signiﬁcant number of civilian Lebanese casualties and seriously undermined the Lebanese government’s vital economic reconstruction program. The ‘Peace with Security’ platform of Peres’ successor Binyamin Netanyahu did not allow for any substantive change in the Lebanese situation during the next few years. However, the election of Ehud Barak did inaugurate some signiﬁcant developments that raised hopes both in Lebanon and in the international context, and that complicated matters from the Syrian perspective. Barak was elected with a mandate to push ahead vigorously with the peace process, and part of his platform included withdrawing Israeli forces from South Lebanon and attempting to negotiate a deﬁnitive peace settlement with Syria. And indeed, Israeli forces did withdraw from their security zone in South Lebanon in May 2000, in a move which many Lebanese and international observers hoped would mark the ﬁnal end of Israeli–Lebanese border disputes. Yet it was not in the interest of either Syria or Hizbollah to let the matter rest at that and the relatively minor issue of Israel’s continued retention of the Shebaa Farms was seized on as pretext for Hizbollah to retain its arms and its belligerent stance against Israel. The continuing potential for a conﬂict over this issue was, in turn, used to justify the continued presence of Syrian troops in Lebanon. The Israeli–Syrian negotiations were once again inconclusive despite real pressure from Washington and the complete collapse of the Oslo process and a renewal of the Palestinian intifada ensured that additional negotiations would have to be postponed until the crisis in Israeli–Palestinian relations could be resolved. At the time of writing, this remains a distant prospect. 9

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The death of Haﬁz al-Asad in 2000 and the accession of his son Bashar alAsad to the leadership in Damascus further complicated matters, because it was not clear, and to some extent remains unclear, that Bashar would be able to exert the same kind of dominance within the Syrian context that his father did. There was little question that Haﬁz was in a strong enough position vis-a`-vis the Syrian political elite to make the difﬁcult decisions that a settlement with Israel might require and push through with their implementation. Bashar may face stiffer opposition. As time has passed, Syria’s interests in Lebanon, quite independent of its desire for leverage in the Arab–Israeli dispute, have been steadily increasing. One might certainly make a case that these interests alone have become sufﬁciently important that Syria would be very reluctant to cede any of its present inﬂuence in Lebanese affairs even if the dispute with Israel were to be resolved to their satisfaction with immediate effect. To begin with, it must be recognized that the Lebanese and Syrian economies have become increasingly tied together over the course of the past decade. For example, in the autumn of 1994 the Syrian and Lebanese leaders signed a Labor Accord that essentially served to legitimize the penetration of the Lebanese labor market by Syrian workers. Estimates of the number of Syrian workers in Lebanon vary from 500,000 to around one million, contributing something like $1 billion to the Syrian economy. Naturally, given consistently high domestic unemployment levels, Lebanese workers strongly resent the Syrian presence and a number of mass demonstrations and strikes have been held over the years in protest about this and the penetration of other Syrian economic and business interests. The continued occupation by Syrian military forces is probably the most effective lever Syria has to prevent such protests from escalating into a more damaging form of opposition. In addition to this sort of macro-economic tie, it should also be noted that the individual members of the Syrian political elite have developed extensive personal business interests in Lebanon throughout the period, which they will no doubt wish to use every means at their disposal to protect. Indeed, it would probably be no exaggeration to say that continuing economic and political control of Lebanon has become a vital component of internal Syrian politics, as access to the country represents a vast source of patronage which the leadership can use to placate powerful individuals who might oppose them. This has perhaps been particularly signiﬁcant since Bashar al-Asad has assumed the leadership, given his need to secure his dominant position in the Syrian context. Depending on the extent to which this kind of patronage arrangement has been developed, even a partial withdrawal from the Lebanese context may now be practically unthinkable from the Syrian political standpoint. The Residuum of Authentic Lebanese Foreign Policy: 1990–present Clearly, it is impossible ﬁrmly to establish what contemporary Lebanese foreign policy would be like in the absence of overwhelming Syrian inﬂuence. However, I would suggest that it is possible to make some very defensible educated guesses. For example, it seems likely that an independent Lebanese government

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would have disarmed Hizbollah along with the other sectarian militias in the early 1990s, and would have proceeded to work for a negotiated resolution of the border dispute with Israel.10 With respect to the disarmament issue, it is not clear that any of the sectarian communities really would have supported continuing Hizbollah military operations. On the contrary, there was a fairly apparent consensus across the confessions that it was time to end hostilities and concentrate on rebuilding the country. Moreover, it is probable that strong Maronite feelings about the issue, and the speciﬁc disarmament provisions of the Ta’if Accord, would have forced the state to take action even if the other sects were not broadly supportive concerning the disarmament of Hizbollah. Having carried out the complete disarmament of the militias, the next compelling priority would have been the resolution of other security issues, particularly the settlement of the Southern border. The stability that would have followed from this was, after all, viewed by most Lebanese and outside observers at the time as critically important because it would have created the most favorable environment for carrying out the reconstruction of the country’s shattered infrastructure and economy. In the sphere of foreign policy, it would have advanced two important objectives related to the recovery process: 1. Attracting foreign aid and investment to support the recovery process. 2. Facilitating the positive involvement, and even partial reintegration, of Lebanon’s signiﬁcant expatriate communities. In the absence of Syrian involvement, and assuming that Lebanon and Israel could have come to a mutually satisfactory settlement, these two priorities would almost certainly have become the fundamental basis of Lebanese foreign relations throughout most of the 1990s. Even as events actually developed, the Lebanese government attempted to pursue these objectives, but, as I will shortly explain in more detail, their efforts to do so were severely hampered by the continuing conﬂict in the South and by Syrian interference whenever they attempted to engage any foreign actor that Syria feared might pose a challenge to its interests in Lebanon. This last point is particularly signiﬁcant, because the purpose of the above speculation about what the shape of a truly independent Lebanese foreign policy might have looked like over the last decade is to clarify the nature of the relationship between Lebanon and Syria with respect to deﬁning the country’s foreign policy. I would suggest that the key fact one needs to bear in mind is that Syria does not control Lebanon to the extent that authentic Lebanese interests have been effectively subsumed by Syrian interests. On the contrary, a clear distinction can still be made between the two, and it seems likely that the nature of Lebanese interests throughout the 1990s would have been virtually identical irrespective of Syrian involvement. That is to say, the settlement of the South Lebanon conﬂict, the attraction of foreign aid and investment for the recovery process and the establishment of closer relations with Lebanese expatriate communities would have been Lebanon’s key foreign policy objectives one way

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or the other. Syria’s inﬂuence in Lebanon, in the pursuit of Syrian foreign policy objectives such as the continuation of the South Lebanon conﬂict, has clearly compromised the Lebanese government’s ability to effectively pursue these objectives, but at least to the extent that the government has attempted to pursue them, the residuum of an authentic Lebanese foreign policy may still be said to exist. In order fully to understand the imperatives and constraints that have shaped authentic Lebanese foreign policy initiatives since the end of the civil war, it is necessary to assess the continuing inﬂuence of the four major factors that have historically helped to shape Lebanese foreign policy. Although Syrian dominance of the Lebanese political order has affected all of these factors to some extent, I would argue that they are all still present, and still strongly relevant in Lebanese society. With respect to the ﬁrst factor, the traditional weakness of the Lebanese state, the post-Ta’if political order was intended to create a more even balance of power between the Christian and Muslim sects, but otherwise did not envisage major changes with respect to the role and/or the power of the state institutions. The Lebanese state is still fairly weak and its function is still, at least ostensibly, dependent on the voluntary cooperation of the sectarian elites. These elites continue to wield much of the real political power and inﬂuence within Lebanese society through their control of communal patronage networks. An extremely important point which must be made with respect to this observation, however, is that Syrian hegemony has actually disrupted the sectarian balance and led to the effective marginalization of the Maronite community from the formal political process. Most Maronites strongly opposed the Ta’if Accord, largely because of Syria’s role in its implementation, and substantially detached themselves from the state institutions by boycotting the 1992 parliamentary elections. From that point forward, the Syrians have worked to keep inﬂuential Maronite leaders out of the state set-up in order to avoid further legal challenges to their ongoing role in the country. They have maintained the illusion of Maronite participation in the state institutions by cultivating their own Maronite clients and inserting them into the Presidency and the Chamber of Deputies. While a small number of these ﬁgures, like the current President, Emile Lahoud, do apparently enjoy genuine popularity in the Maronite community, even they are not representatives of the traditional Maronite elite, and their inﬂuence outside the state context is very limited. These developments have severely undermined the legitimacy of the restored state institutions and have made it almost impossible for the state to engage in constructive relations with expatriate Maronite elements. This was a fairly signiﬁcant blow to economic reconstruction efforts, since the expatriate Maronite communities potentially had much to contribute. Clearly, the ‘Treaty of Brotherhood, Cooperation and Coordination’ with Syria was a critical departure from the historic neutrality of Lebanese foreign policy vis-a`-vis the West and the Arab/Islamic world. One may certainly question, however, the extent to which the Lebanese people at the mass level have ever viewed such a close alignment with Syria as legitimate. It is not

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surprising that the Maronites have been strongly opposed from the beginning, but there is evidence to suggest that the majority of Lebanese Muslims have also been deeply concerned about the nature and extent of Syria’s continuing role in Lebanon throughout the last decade. Rhetorical support for greater Islamic solidarity and Arab brotherhood aside, the Muslim communities have frequently joined with Christians in mass protests about: 1. Syria’s continuing occupation of Lebanon. 2. Syrian penetration of the Lebanese labor market and other segments of the economy. 3. Policies that have threatened the economic recovery or the stability of the post-war political order. 4. The great extent to which Syrian interference in the electoral process and the formation of governments has limited the public accountability of the state institutions. The third major historical factor, the primacy of Lebanese economic interests in the foreign policy sphere, continues to be crucially signiﬁcant. In fact, the international climate of the 1990s has helped to shift the balance of Lebanon’s post-war foreign policy orientation back towards the West despite the unprecedented alignment with the Arab world that Syrian inﬂuence has imposed. In short, since much of the Arab/Muslim world, including Syria to some extent, has been attempting to cultivate closer relations to the Western powers in order to attract aid, to improve trade relations, and to become more engaged in the economic globalization process generally, Lebanon has also been free to attempt to cultivate closer relations. Furthermore, for most of the post-war period, Syria has been quite happy to allow the Lebanese government substantial autonomy in the economic sphere, provided that its basic foreign policy and security interests were not threatened.11 In due course, this created opportunities for the Lebanese government to pursue some more or less independent foreign policy initiatives designed to support the economic recovery. There were several reasons for Syria’s willingness to cede control to the Lebanese government in the economic sphere. First, protests over worsening economic conditions brought down the ﬁrst two post-war Lebanese governments, which had concentrated on implementing the Ta’if Accord and pushing through the 1992 parliamentary elections respectively. The implementation process and the elections had enabled Syria to strongly secure its long-term dominance of the Lebanese system, but by this point the pressing need to do something about the economy had begun to threaten the viability of the post-war order as whole. As Syria did not have a particularly strong interest in becoming engaged in an economic recovery process that was bound to be fraught with difﬁculties, it was content to allow a new, primarily economically motivated, Lebanese government under Raﬁq Hariri to direct the reconstruction efforts. Second, allowing the Lebanese government substantial autonomy in the economic sphere reduced both international and internal Lebanese protests at

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Syria’s dominance of the country, both of which had become very signiﬁcant after the 1992 elections. Recognizing the traditional importance accorded to economic matters in the Lebanese context, the Syrians clearly hoped that granting the Lebanese substantial autonomy in this area would placate many Lebanese opponents of the post-war order. And, indeed, in retrospect it must be conceded that this policy was fairly effective. It encouraged many Lebanese, not so much to accept the legitimacy of the Syrian presence, as to accept that, since the political situation could not be effectively addressed in the short term, they should make the best of things and start to re-engage in fairly normal economic and social relations. Finally, by placing substantial control of the economy in Lebanese hands, it seems likely that the Syrians were hoping to immunize themselves to some extent from ultimate responsibility in the case of economic crisis. In the 1992 protests, many Lebanese made little distinction between their discontent at economic conditions and their discontent at the Syrian presence because the Lebanese governments up to that the time were clearly perceived to be working for Syria’s interests and neglecting the economy. A similar problem was rendered much less likely by the new arrangement in which the Lebanese government would be more directly responsible for economic affairs. And, in fact, when the reconstruction process stalled and the economy went into recession in the late 1990s, Hariri and his government did take most of the blame, even though Syrian policies and priorities had caused some serious problems. One of these problems was related to Syria’s tendency to play major Lebanese political ﬁgures off against each other to keep any one Lebanese leader from becoming too powerful: for example, opposing Hariri to Speaker of the House Nabih Birri, or bringing in Lahoud to further erode Hariri’s inﬂuence. This produced frequent political deadlock within the Lebanese state context and certainly negatively affected the recovery process. Other problems were located more properly in the foreign policy sphere. For example, Syria’s need to maintain the conﬂict in South Lebanon had serious economic consequences. The periodic Israeli reprisal attacks against Hizbollah, particularly the two major operations in 1993 and 1996, not only inﬂicted substantial material damage but also had an incalculable negative impact on the Lebanese government’s abilities to enlist much needed foreign aid and investment to support the recovery process. Additional damage of the same kind was caused by Syria’s constant efforts to limit Lebanese government contacts with major powers like France and the US that could potentially organize greater international pressure for a Syrian withdrawal from Lebanon, a resolution of the South Lebanon conﬂict and so on. The overriding point that must be stressed concerning Syria’s foreign policy and security interests on the one hand and Lebanon’s economic interests on the other is that the two have never been particularly compatible. In fact, it is difﬁcult to escape the conclusion that they are almost diametrically opposed. Syria needs a certain amount of instability in the Lebanese context in order both to justify its own military presence in the country, and retain the Lebanese situation as a useful bargaining chip in its ongoing negotiations with Israel.

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Furthermore, in order to protect against Lebanese state challenges to its dominant role in Lebanon, it needs to continue to play Lebanese government leaders off against each other. By doing so, Syria is able to pursue three aims of its own: 1. Keep any one leader from becoming too strong. 2. Insure against the possibility of an inter-confessional anti-Syrian coalition in the Lebanese government. 3. Secure its own position as the arbiter through which individual Lebanese leaders must work if they wish to advance any kind of policy agenda. Conversely, the long-term interests of the Lebanese economy would require (or would at least be greatly facilitated by): 1. A greater level of systemic stability to secure the beneﬁts of reconstruction and enhance the country’s economic relations with external elements. 2. A higher level of consensus and cooperation within the government so that economic policy can be smoothly and effectively drawn up and implemented. 3. A more satisfactory resolution of internal sectarian tensions to achieve and safeguard both of the above. 4. Some effort to get the expatriate communities involved once again in the economic life of the country. It is worth noting, at this point, that the increasing intertwining of the Syrian and Lebanese economies may have already begun to generate a signiﬁcant conﬂict of economic versus security interests for Syria. In short, if the Lebanese economy continues to perform poorly, it will not be good for the Syrian economy, and furthermore, it will almost certainly eventually lead to even greater public protest in Lebanon about Syria’s continuing restrictions on Lebanese foreign policy. These considerations may compel the Syrians to allow the Lebanese government to pursue freer relations with major international economic powers, even if this does hold some risk that the major powers will become more closely involved in the politics of Syrian–Lebanese relations. Of course, it is also possible that, as Syria becomes more and more invested in the health of Lebanon’s economy, the Syrian leadership may rethink its willingness to let the Lebanese exercise so much autonomy in the economic sphere. The practical difﬁculties of reasserting economic control would, however, probably be very signiﬁcant. Lebanese public opposition would certainly be difﬁcult to manage, and Syria would also have to consider its own need to cultivate closer relations with major Western actors who would be very likely to strongly oppose such a move. A new complication in terms of Lebanon’s international standing and the government’s ability to promote better relations with potential trading partners and international aid donors has been introduced by September 11 and the ensuing war on terrorism. These events have resulted in a considerable amount

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of negative world attention towards Lebanon as a hot-bed of international terrorism, and the major Western powers have urged the Lebanese government to do something about Hizbollah and Islamic radicalism within the Lebanese context. Of course, the Lebanese government in and of itself is not really in a position to do very much about the situation. Syria, for its part, has been taking a very ambiguous line, openly condemning terrorism in principle but also taking every possible opportunity to highlight the grievances of the Islamic world and, above all, pointing to the absolute lack of progress with respect to the Israeli– Palestinian dispute as a justiﬁcation for the sort of hard-line rhetoric Hizbollah continues to espouse. Because there is some awareness among Western policy makers that Syrian compliance will be required before the Lebanese government can take any effective action against Hizbollah, it is unclear how this situation will affect Lebanon’s foreign relations in either the short or long term. This developing situation brings us directly to a consideration of the fourth factor that has historically played a crucial role in shaping Lebanon’s foreign policy: the country’s high level of susceptibility to penetration by foreign actors. Obviously, with respect to the whole issue of foreign penetration the post-war period has been the worst in Lebanese history even if one only considers Syrian penetration of the Lebanese system. Israeli penetration has also been signiﬁcant for much of the period, although this has been less of a factor since Israel’s withdrawal from South Lebanon. Other foreign actors like Iran have also continued to exert inﬂuence via ties with Hizbollah and other Shi’ite Lebanese elements. Meanwhile, the Maronites, marginalized from the formal political process, have attempted to use their traditional connections and expatriate communities to raise Western awareness about the continuing disenfranchisement of the Lebanese people.12 I would suggest that something very interesting, and basically unprecedented, is also happening with respect to the fourth factor. As indicated previously, the main reasons underlying Lebanon’s traditional susceptibility to foreign penetration have been the weakness of the state and the existence of strong sectarian tensions about the country’s political alignment vis-a`-vis the West and the Arab/Muslim world. The weakness of the state continues to be signiﬁcant, particularly since the critically important Maronite community now has very little involvement in the formal institutions, and therefore must, to a very great extent, pursue its interests outside the state context. However, there are some indications that sectarian tensions about the country’s foreign policy alignment have been signiﬁcantly defused by developing circumstances throughout the last decade or so. The important policy shift which has led many Arab/Muslim states to pursue closer relations with the West has already been cited. This means that, for the time being at least, closer relations with the West and with Lebanon’s Arab/ Muslim neighbors are not mutually exclusive. A second, and probably even more signiﬁcant development, is the existence of a fairly stable consensus across confessional lines, and at both the elite and popular levels, that Syria must eventually withdraw from Lebanon. Although Syria continues to exert almost complete dominance over the state institutions, it must be noted once again that

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Lebanon has a fairly weak state and that the sectarian elites still exercise massive inﬂuence in Lebanese political life, even if much of this is informal and difﬁcult to explore in detail. It is probably no exaggeration to say that, for most Lebanese operating outside the formal state context, the most important foreign policy objective of the Lebanese nation at present is to work for a Syrian withdrawal and a reassertion of Lebanese autonomy both domestically and with respect to foreign affairs. Popular opposition to the continuing Syrian presence has increased steadily throughout the last decade and has become particularly pronounced since Israel’s withdrawal from South Lebanon in May of 2000.13 The Syrians’ repressive response to this increasing pressure has not really helped their cause as far as the Lebanese people are concerned, and it has also raised some concerns internationally. LEBANON AND EUROPE

The purpose of this section is to apply the observations and conclusions established in the previous section to a more speciﬁc examination of Lebanon’s relations with Europe from 1990 to the present time. The overriding conclusion one must draw here is that Lebanese–European relations during this period have been rather limited. Partly, of course, this is attributable to the fact that Syria, unquestionably the dominant player in the Lebanese context, has strongly opposed close Lebanese relations with any external actors who might potentially pose a challenge to its long-term interests in Lebanon. Needless to say, this certainly includes permanent UN Security Council members like Britain and France and also inﬂuential economic powers like the EU collectively and many European countries individually. Potentially, adjustments may be needed in this strategy as a result of increased US pressure in the context of the Iraq crisis of 2003: in an effort to counter such pressure, Syria may turn for support to France and other members of the EU and the international community. In such a situation, the leadership may have to compromise on the Lebanese front. Even in the absence of Syrian objections however, it is not clear that Lebanese–European relations would have been developed to a signiﬁcantly greater degree. There are three major points that one must consider here. The ﬁrst point is that European inﬂuence in the Middle Eastern region as a whole is not particularly great, even though the EU is the region’s largest trading partner and one of its main sources of ﬁnancial assistance. However, Europe has never been able to translate these economic factors into particularly signiﬁcant political inﬂuence. This would seem to be partly a result of great resistance to outside inﬂuences by many key regimes in the region. It is also partly explained by the importance attached to the region by the US, and its consequently quite high level of involvement in regional affairs. The nature of European–US relations is such that the EU is reluctant to act contrary to US policy initiatives, as these are often seen to be beneﬁcial to Western interests taken as a whole. A ﬁnal factor is the nature of inter-European relations. Although there is some

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policy coordination within the auspices of the EU, this does not generally extend into the political dimension of foreign policy. Furthermore, as the EU currently lacks an effective common security mechanism of its own, its ability to apply coercive force in the region is very limited. The second major point is that the continuation of the Arab–Israeli conﬂict has led most major global actors to treat those states actively engaged in the conﬂict with a great deal of sensitivity. The common international interest in resolving the conﬂict and securing regional stability is generally perceived as a higher priority than individual countries’ policy initiatives and preferences with respect to economic relations and issues such as political reform. In short, there is no desire at present to potentially antagonize any of the participants in the conﬂict by pressing them to resolve urgently what are perceived as lesser political and economic differences. With respect to the Lebanese situation, this means that most of the major global actors are very wary about pressing for an immediate Syrian withdrawal, since this issue will presumably be addressed as part of a Syrian–Israeli and/or Lebanese–Israeli peace settlement. The third, and to some extent related, point is that international actors, including most European countries, are also reluctant to press for a Syrian withdrawal from Lebanon due to fears about internal Lebanese stability in the absence of a strong external presence. No one wants to risk a new eruption of sectarian conﬂict in the country, particularly as this might escalate once again into a regional conﬂict and thereby critically destabilize an already precarious situation. The remainder of this section is divided into four parts. In the ﬁrst, I will brieﬂy look at the history of European involvement in Lebanon up to the end of the civil war. In the second I will consider the nature and extent of European responses to Syrian hegemony in the Lebanese context over the past decade. In the third part, I examine European involvement in Lebanon in the context of authentic Lebanese foreign policy initiatives designed to support the economic recovery. In the fourth and ﬁnal part, I turn to the potential inﬂuence of Lebanese expatriate communities living within European countries. Lebanese–European Relations in Historical Context The signiﬁcant involvement of the Europeans in modern Lebanese affairs can be traced to 1860, when the ﬁve European powers (France, Prussia, Russia, Britain and Austria) intervened in a Lebanese sectarian conﬂict and helped to establish a largely Christian autonomous entity in Mount Lebanon. From this point, Lebanon’s Christians looked to the Europeans, particularly the French, for support with security issues, as well as assistance with economic and cultural development. 14 The relationship with France obviously became more strongly developed after World War I, when the French established a political mandate over Lebanon. The French proceeded to solidify their relationship with the Christians, particularly the Maronites. Essentially on their behalf, France initiated the expansion of Lebanese territory to encompass the nation’s modern borders, which became known as Le Grand Liban (Greater Lebanon). After this point,

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Lebanon’s Christians looked increasingly to France to help them secure their political and economic inﬂuence in relation to the other sectarian communities within Lebanese territory. Additionally, they relied on France to support them in their relations with neighboring Arab/Muslim countries. By the early 1940s, with French inﬂuence in the region declining as a result of World War II, the elites of the two leading sectarian communities, the Maronite Christians and the Sunni Muslims, agreed to divide political power and create an independent Lebanese state, thereby ending French rule. As part of this arrangement, which became known as the National Pact, the Christians and Muslims established a compromise whereby the new state would have a neutral foreign policy orientation with respect to France and other European powers on the one hand, and the Arab world on the other. At least in theory, this principle of neutrality guided Lebanese foreign policy from 1943 to the early 1970s. Although Christian elements continued to look to Europe for support even after this point, the Suez Crisis of 1956 basically brought an end to European power in the region. For example, two years later, when civil conﬂict erupted in Lebanon between pro-government and pro-Nasserist factions, it was not the Europeans but the US that intervened militarily to support the government. Subsequently, Western intervention in Lebanese affairs was quite limited, even when the introduction of the PLO into Lebanon in the early 1970s dramatically increased sectarian tensions and set the stage for the outbreak of the civil war in 1975. Although Europe was greatly concerned by developments within Lebanon, such as the violence of the conﬂict, intervention by regional powers such as Israel and Syria, the taking of Western hostages, and other terrorist activities, their actual involvement in attempting to end the civil war was quite limited. Ultimately, the European powers supported the Ta’if Accord, even if they did not actively promote it. This was partly because the US was pushing for it and partly because they felt it would bring an end to the conﬂict and restore much needed regional stability, even if the proposed peace arrangements were problematic in some important respects. The European Response to Syrian Penetration: 1990–Present European support for the Ta’if Accord became increasingly muted as the implementation process proceeded and it became clear that Syria was using its status as external guarantor of the accord in order to effectively take long-term control of the Lebanese political system. The European Commission and some individual countries, France particularly, were outspoken in their criticism of developments in the early 1990s, particularly the ‘Treaty of Brotherhood’ and the 1992 elections, which many external observers perceived to have been rigged by Syria in order to produce a compliant Lebanese parliament. There were additional sporadic protests throughout the balance of the decade about the extent of Syrian inﬂuence and the increasingly repressive policies used to secure it. The fundamental point that must be stressed here, however, is that apart from making occasional vocal protests about the situation, Europe has done very little in terms of pressuring Syria to rethink its policy with respect to Lebanon. It is

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telling that Syria has not even been subjected to economic sanctions or other mild forms of practical coercion as a means of encouraging it to withdraw its forces from the country and/or to allow for greater Lebanese autonomy. I would suggest that this lack of European activity is almost certainly wholly attributable to the three factors I cited in the introduction of this section: 1.

2.

3.

Europe’s relatively low ability to exert inﬂuence due to Syrian resistance, the predominance of US policy initiatives, and the EU’s lack of policy coordination and enforcement mechanisms. The international community’s reluctance to adopt policies that might potentially antagonize Syria and thereby jeopardize the possibility of a Syrian–Israeli peace settlement. Widespread concerns about internal Lebanese stability, and ultimately even regional stability, in the event of a Syrian withdrawal.

The latter two points are probably particularly signiﬁcant, and it seems unlikely that European actors will adopt more forceful measures in support of indigenous Lebanese national aspirations until greater regional stability is achieved. Obviously a viable Arab–Israeli peace settlement would be the cornerstone of such stability. Since, at the time of writing, this seems a rather distant prospect, one must assume that the Lebanese opponents of the Syriandominated political order will be waiting for more effective European help for a very long time to come. European Involvement via Authentic Lebanese Foreign Policy Initiatives: 1990–Present As I have indicated previously, economic interests have been at the core of most of Lebanon’s more or less independent foreign policy initiatives throughout the post-war period. And in this context, Lebanon has enjoyed considerably more European support for its authentic national interests than it has received with respect to the more purely political issue of continuing Syrian hegemony. However, it is worth noting at this point that all of the observations in the ﬁrst section of the contribution about the conﬂict of Syrian and Lebanese interests apply. In short, continuing instability, particularly in the context of the South Lebanon conﬂict, and Syrian interference in Lebanese negotiations with powerful external actors, have made it extremely difﬁcult for Lebanon to attract the amount of foreign aid and investment it has really needed to secure an effective economic recovery. With respect to funding for the Hariri government’s ambitious economic reconstruction program, European donors were very important. Of the $3.1 billion of foreign funding (including grants and loans) that the Lebanese government raised between 1992 and 1996, 13 percent came from the European Investment Bank, 11 percent from Italy, 9 percent from France, and 3 percent from the Commission of European Communities. Additionally, around $800 million was raised from a series of very well received Eurobond issues from 1994 to 1996.15

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However, it should probably also be observed that this level of support did not meet the Lebanese government’s (perhaps unrealistic) external fundraising targets for the ﬁrst stage of the program. Furthermore, a large part of the program was supposed to be funded by projected Lebanese budget surpluses that, as events developed, never actually materialized. Consequently, the reconstruction program was dogged by ﬁnancial difﬁculties. In any case, it is clear that the European ﬁnancing was not necessarily based on the most altruistic of motives. Only about 13 percent of the money came from outright grants, and it has also been suggested that much of the aid supplied by Italy and France was tied to guarantees that lucrative infrastructure reconstruction projects would be awarded to Italian and French companies.16 Apart from ﬁnancial aid ear-marked speciﬁcally for the reconstruction program, various EU actors have contributed close to $2 billion since 1978 for various purposes, including humanitarian aid and EU-funded projects designed to foster economic development and structural adjustment. Since 1995, Lebanon has been among the leading percapita beneﬁciaries of EU assistance to EuroMediterranean partners. In the area of attracting foreign private sector investment into the Lebanese economy, also a crucial imperative for a successful post-war recovery, continuing systemic instability and a range of other problems have seriously undermined Lebanon’s efforts. Although there was some investment in banking and property development, much of this was either short-term investment or yielded only short-term beneﬁts in terms of providing jobs and other stimulation for the economy. Investment in key long-term sectors such as the stock market, tourism and industry was very limited.17 Lebanon’s post-war efforts to restore traditionally good trade relations with Europe, and to achieve closer trade integration, have generally met with greater success. Europe has long been Lebanon’s leading trade partner, although it should be recognized that the balance of trade has always heavily favored Europe, with the value of Lebanese imports vis-a`-vis Europe far outweighing that of their exports. From 1978 until early this year Lebanese–European trade relations were governed by a Cooperation Agreement under which Lebanese industrial goods enjoyed duty and quota free access to EC/EU markets. In January of 2002, as part of the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership Initiative (EMPI), the EU and Lebanon concluded a new Association Agreement which provides for the further liberalization of bilateral trade. European duties on most Lebanese agricultural products were immediately removed, and, in turn, Lebanon has committed itself to the reduction of tariff barriers on EU industrial and agricultural products over periods of time speciﬁed in the agreement. The agreement also entails, at least in principle, intensiﬁed political dialogue and cooperation across a wide range of ﬁelds from education and culture to international law enforcement and improvements in human rights and democratization.18 Particularly given these ﬁnal provisions calling for closer political relations, it may seem somewhat surprising that Syria actually allowed Lebanon to conclude the Association Agreement. In the past, the Syrian leadership has tended to veto

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any agreement that raises even the possibility of greater European involvement in Lebanese affairs outside the strictly economic sphere. Their willingness to allow more latitude in this case may be partly explained by the agreement’s economic importance, and Syria’s own increasing stake in the Lebanese economy. Additionally, it should be noted that Syria itself is also involved in the EMPI and may elect to enter into a similar agreement at some stage. A ﬁnal point worth making concerning authentic Lebanese foreign policy initiatives and the EU is that the types of mostly economic interaction examined above have generally helped Lebanon to greatly rehabilitate its image on the international stage. As recently as the early 1990s, Lebanon was effectively a pariah state, shunned by much of the international community due to the intensity of its sectarian conﬂicts and its, admittedly somewhat deserved, reputation as a hot-bed of anti-Western terrorism. It reﬂects great credit on the efforts of the Lebanese governments of the last decade that the country now enjoys a much-improved international standing. However, it should also be recognized that this improvement would have been much more difﬁcult, if not impossible, if European and other Western actors had not welcomed and fostered Lebanon’s return to the international fold. It may be a signiﬁcant indicator of European support for Lebanon that the negotiations for the new EMPI Association Agreement were concluded some months after September 11, at a time when some Western actors, most notably the US, are heavily criticizing the Lebanese government for its failure to deal with Hizbollah and other alleged terrorist elements in the country. Lebanese Expatriate Communities in The EU A ﬁnal issue that merits some consideration in the context of Lebanese– European relations is the presence of Lebanese expatriate communities in some EU states. The expatriate Maronite community in France is probably the most signiﬁcant example in terms of size and inﬂuence. It includes some of the most prominent Lebanese political exiles and opponents of the Syrian dominated post-war order, such as General Michel Aoun, and works tirelessly to call Western attention to Syrian abuses of Lebanese sovereignty, and to lobby the French government and the EU to give more support to authentic Lebanese interests and to impose greater pressure on Syria to withdraw from the country. Although these efforts have certainly done the Lebanese cause no harm, and have probably helped to raise the general level of French and Western awareness of and sympathy for continuing problems in Lebanon, it is clear that, as already shown, they have not translated into much practical support from European actors. CONCLUSION

In spite of the fact that a great deal has been written on Lebanon, particularly with respect to the civil war period, very little attention has been given to Lebanese foreign policy and the underlying forces that deﬁne it. A crucial problem is that many observers of the contemporary Lebanese scene look at

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Syria’s almost complete dominance of the political order and tend to assume that Syrian foreign policy and security interests are so predominant that Lebanon effectively has no foreign policy of its own. In the ﬁrst section of this contribution, I attempted to demonstrate that this impression of post-war Lebanese foreign policy, while not entirely incorrect, is somewhat overstated. Certainly, Syrian interests are strongly established, particularly with respect to the South Lebanon conﬂict, continued Hizbollah military activity, Syria’s own military occupation of Lebanon and the increasing linkage of the Lebanese and Syrian economies. Moreover, all of these interests undoubtedly have a great impact in terms of limiting what the Lebanese government is able to accomplish in the sphere of foreign relations. However, Lebanon does have authentic foreign policy interests of its own and has been able to pursue them to some extent over the course of the last decade. It is important not to lose sight of: 1. The fact that the internal forces which have historically shaped Lebanese foreign policy are still present, and strongly relevant, in Lebanese society. 2. The desire of the vast majority of the Lebanese people to pursue a foreign policy based on Lebanese interests. 3. Contemporary political and economic circumstances which have generated Lebanese foreign policy imperatives that are separate from, and in some cases contrary to, Syria’s interests. As was the case for most of the period prior to the civil war, economic interests have been at the heart of Lebanese foreign policy objectives since 1990. Yet, despite the fact that Syria has allowed the Lebanese government at least some freedom to try advancing independent foreign policy initiatives in support of the economic recovery, Syrian security and foreign policy imperatives have generally been almost directly opposed to core economic interests. Obviously this has made it very difﬁcult for the Lebanese government to achieve its objectives. Ironically, as the Lebanese and Syrian economies are steadily becoming more intertwined, it is possible that Syria will be confronted by a serious conﬂict between its own foreign policy and economic interests. These observations and conclusions were incorporated in the second section, in an analysis of Lebanon’s contemporary relations with Europe. Although Europe has expressed some protest at Syria’s thorough penetration of the Lebanese political order and has engaged in some economic relations broadly supportive of Lebanon’s authentic foreign policy interests, I would argue that, on the whole, truly signiﬁcant relations between Lebanon and Europe in the post-war period have been rather limited. I think it would be very difﬁcult to argue that these relations have had much of a practical impact with respect either to improving Lebanon’s prospects for greater autonomy vis-a`-vis Syria; or providing the kind of external economic assistance and investment that Lebanon needs to really regenerate its economy. A ﬁnal caveat is in order with respect to both Syrian and EU interest in Lebanon. Although overwhelming Syrian dominance of Lebanon continues as of

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this writing, it is possible that it may weaken in the near future. Syria is currently under greater US pressure to change its policies in Lebanon (and elsewhere in the region). Whether or not this pressure is sustained or even intensiﬁed very much depends on developments elsewhere in the region and in Washington itself. However, it is certainly likely that in the meantime, Syria will need to turn to the EU to counterbalance US pressure, thereby giving the latter increasing leverage in its relations with both Syria and Lebanon. NOTES 1. Even works which focus on the foreign policies of Middle East states tend simply to ignore Lebanon. In the ﬁrst systematic study of Arab foreign policies – Bahgat Korany and Ali Dessouki (eds.), The Foreign Policies of Arab States (Boulder: Westview Press, 1984) – the editors found not a single ‘systematic study of Lebanon’s foreign policy’ (p. 10); even in the period leading up to the volume’s second edition in 1991, they note that among the plethora of writings on Lebanon, the country is mostly ‘discussed as a battleﬁeld for various forces, whereas Lebanon itself as well as its foreign policy is not discussed’. (p. 15). This is replicated in the otherwise excellent volume by Raymond Hinnebusch and Anoushiravan Ehteshami (eds.) The Foreign Policies of Middle East States (London: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2002). 2. Of course, a more aggressive US foreign policy towards Syria by the current US administration may affect Syrian capabilities to control the situation in Lebanon. 3. See Helena Cobban, The Making of Modern Lebanon (London: Hutchinson, 1985); David Gilmour, Lebanon: The Fractured Country (London: Sphere Books, 1984); and Tabitha Petran, The Struggle over Lebanon (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1987). 4. For an examination of the period leading to the war, see: Farid el Khazen, The Breakdown of the State in Lebanon, 1967–1976 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2000); Walid Khalidi, Conﬂict and Violence in Lebanon: Confrontation in the Middle East (Cambridge, Mass: Centre for International Affairs, Harvard, 1979); Roger Owen, Essays on the Crisis in Lebanon (London: Ithaca Press, 1976). 5. See in particular, Tom Pierre Najem, Lebanon’s Renaissance: The Political Economy of Reconstruction (London: Ithaca Press, 2000); Habib Malik, Between Damascus and Jerusalem: Lebanon and the Middle East Peace Process. (Washington: Washington Institute for Near East Policy, 1997); Habib Malik, ‘Lebanon in the 1990s: Stability Without Freedom?’ Global Affairs, Part 7 (Winter 1992). 6. For various analyses of the Ta’if Accord, see: Augustus Richard Norton, ‘Lebanon after Ta’if: Is the Civil War Over?’ Middle East Journal 45, no.3 (1991), pp. 457–73; Augustus Richard Norton and Jillian Schwedler, ‘Swiss Soldiers, Ta’if Clocks, and Early Elections: Toward a Happy Ending in Lebanon?’ Middle East Insight 10, no.1 (1993), pp. 46–7; Habib Malik, ‘Lebanon in the 1990s: Stability without Freedom?’; Najem, Lebanon’s Renaissance, pp. 23–49. 7. A detailed discussion of this can be found in Najem, Lebanon’s Renaissance, pp. 23–49. 8. For detailed studies on Syrian foreign policy, see Patrick Seale, Asad: The Struggle for the Middle East (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988); Neil Quilliam, Syria and the New World Order (London: Ithaca Press, 1999); and Hinnebusch’s chapter in Hinnebusch and Ehteshami (eds.) The Foreign Policies of Middle East States. See also Hinnebusch’s contribution in this volume. 9. However, as noted earlier, an aggressive US policy toward Syria with respect to disarming Hizbollah may force Syria’s hand in this regard. 10. For an analysis of state/resistance dynamics in Lebanon, see: Ilya Harik, ‘Syrian Foreign Policy and State/Resistance Dynamics in Lebanon’. Studies in Conﬂict and Terrorism 20, no. 3 (1997), pp. 249–65. 11. For a detailed examination of this dynamic, see Najem, Lebanon’s Renaissance. 12. One may also expect to see a growing and increasingly vocal alliance between right wing Maronites and Israelis in order to lobby Washington to pressure Syria on Lebanese and other matters. 13. Although press censorship in Lebanon exists, especially with respect to Syria’s role in the country, the Lebanese press has nevertheless reported on opposition against Syria. 14. The role of France is of course of particular importance. See Cobban, The making of Modern Lebanon, on the French–Lebanese Treaty of 1936: pp. 66, 69 and 72; and on France’s role more

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generally in the pre-1943 period: pp. 43–75, passim. On France’s early role also see Petran, The Struggle over Lebanon, pp. 13–16, 24, 28–33. A good overview of the context of the emergence of modern Lebanon and the French role can be found in William Cleveland, A History of the Modern Middle East, 2nd edition (Boulder: Westview, 2000), pp. 213–24. For extensive data and analysis on the EU role in the reconstruction of Lebanon, see Najem, Lebanon’s Renaissance, Chapter 5. Ibid. Ibid., Chapter 6. It should be noted that the Lebanese government under P.M. Hariri did much to advertise opportunities for Europe in Lebanon’s reconstruction. For an ofﬁcial EU view on the Agreement, see the ofﬁcial EU website: http://europa.eu.int/ comm/external_relations/lebanon/intro/index.htm. The website also covers other forms of cooperation between the EU and Lebanon.

Propaganda versus Pragmatism: Iraqi Foreign Policy in Qasim’s Years, 1958–63 ALBERTO TONINI

Abdulkarim Qasim was Iraq’s ﬁrst republican Prime Minister, following the overthrow of the pro-Western Hashemite monarchy in 1958. This revolution set in motion the sequence of nationalist republican and more or less authoritarian regimes that have ruled Iraq until the demise of Saddam Hussein’s regime in April 2003. Saddam’s Iraq was in many ways only an extreme example of the dynamics that shaped the country’s politics under his predecessors. Iraqi foreign policy under Saddam, too, in several ways reﬂected the challenges and determinants that had shaped Iraqi foreign policy since 1958 – indeed in some respects since the days of the monarchy. The fragility of state cohesion and legitimacy; the largely futile and often counter-productive means which the leadership employed to shape Iraq according to their vision – cracking down hard on any dissenting voices; the domestic and trans-border identity questions of the Kurds and the Shia; the external vulnerabilities deriving from these questions as well as from the looming presence of Persian Iran and the problem of secure access to the Gulf’s shipping lanes; and the historical/nationalist grievance over the British-imposed border with Kuwait which underlay that access question: all of these help explain the Iraqi foreign policy environment. Iraq also, of course, was part of the Arab world, themes from which strongly impacted on this environment; indeed, Qasim ruled at a time when Arab nationalism and pan-Arabism were reaching their most potent form, swept along by Gamal Abdul-Nasser’s charismatic leadership. Perhaps the best-known instance of foreign policy ﬂowing from this combination of factors also pre-ﬁgured more recent events – viz Qasim’s 1961 claim on Kuwait and the threat to invade the emirate shortly after its independence from Britain. Equally important, though, was Qasim’s role in the establishment of OPEC a year earlier. As an illustration of Iraqi foreign policy dynamics, then, his time in power offers a particularly interesting comparative case which allows parallels to be drawn not only with other Iraqi periods, but also with the patterns suggested in the framework underlying this volume. The evidence of Qasim’s regime demonstrates how the foreign policy of Iraq was determined by a combination of domestic and regional factors: Qasim’s need to weaken the old dominant elites led to the withdrawal of the country from

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the Baghdad Pact, which had been the main expression of the collusion among Britain and the monarchy. The desire of keeping down the Iraqi Communist Party restrained the Iraqi leader from further developing relations with the Soviet Union. The never-ending rivalry with Egypt left Iraq completely isolated in the region, as Nasser was not amenable to sharing his prestige with Qasim, while Saudi Arabia, the other regional power, looked with suspicion to the Iraqi revolutionary regime and ﬁrmly condemned its rupture with the Western world. Qasim’s foreign policy led to a collision with the other regional powers, to the point that on the Kuwait issue the Arab League, dominated by Nasser, chose a position in conﬂict with the Iraqi claim. Qasim’s reply was the withdrawal from the Arab League and the increasing isolation of his country, that helped bring about the end of his rule. T H E J U L Y 1 9 5 8 C O U P D ’ E´ T A T

‘Baghdadi lawyers and politicians seem to regard it as almost a matter of honor to have a coup d’e´tat. It has happened in Egypt and Syria, and even in the despised Lebanon. The Baghdadis are hanging their heads in shame: they have not yet murdered a Prime Minister’. This was the opinion of Sir John Troutbeck, British ambassador in Iraq in the early 1950s. In expressing this opinion, Troutbeck, who was a quintessential British ofﬁcial, shared the view that in 1932 Iraq achieved its independence too soon. This situation meant that the Royal House of Iraq might be in danger, and that ‘the moment has come when we must make a real effort to move things in the right direction, both in our interests and in those of Iraq’. The right direction, in Troutbeck’s view, would have been taken if the British had forced the pace of reform and modernization.1 One of the issues that preoccupied British ofﬁcials just before the Revolution was the ethnic and religious fragmentation of Iraq. British rule during the Mandate imposed a fragile unity over the six and a half million people, and the outcome was an artiﬁcial state. To use Hanna Batatu’s words, ‘the national or patriotic idea was in 1958 still very weak’.2 The overthrow of the monarchy in the military coup d’e´tat of July 14, 1958, brought to an end one important and ambiguous phase in the history of Iraq, but it did not solve the basic contradictions of the Iraqi state and society. That phase had been largely shaped by Great Britain, the Hashemites, the landowners, and the elites of the many communities that constituted Iraqi society. They had relied on their economic power and on their network of patronage to secure their privileges and to advance their interests. At the same time, they had shown little compunction about relying on coercion when these interests were seriously threatened. Ruthless and effective as this strategy was in the short term, it did little to address the structural causes of grievance. Above all, the strategy adopted by Great Britain and the Iraqi government assumed the loyalty of the major disciplinary instrument – the armed forces – which neither the brief history of the Iraqi ofﬁcer corps nor the circumstances of its creation could justify.

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As General Qasim and his cohorts seized the reins of government on July 14, 1958, army detachments surrounded the royal palace. Before order was restored, they had murdered king Faisal II, his cousin, the regent ‘Abd al-Ilah, and Iraq’s strongman Nuri al-Said, who for more than a quarter of a century dominated political life in the country, and who to Arab nationalists had become a tool of ‘Western imperialism’. The seizure of power by Qasim and his military allies in 1958 was relatively quick and easy, as they found themselves almost immediately in command of all the ﬁnancial and administrative resources of the state. The very easy transfer of power made the Iraqis believe that the political life would be refounded on a more liberal basis, through a radical assault on the system of privilege which characterized Iraq’s inegalitarian society. However, the seductions of ofﬁce worked on the victors as they had on the previous rulers during the monarchy: in seeking to master the state and to stay in command, Qasim followed a logic suggested both by the distinctive politics of Iraq and by the way he had come to power. In the ﬁrst place, conspiracy and the use of violence within the ofﬁcer corps and beyond became the practical norm and a general rule of the political game; secondly, the tendency to centralize and to dominate negated any attempts to create autonomy, frustrating efforts to represent the plurality of Iraq’s society. As a consequence, the genuine and widespread hopes for a radical break with the past and for the creation of a more open society were gradually disappointed. Iraqis found themselves subject to the command of individuals, preoccupied with the immediate struggle for power, and whose various claims of ‘revolution’ would never challenge an order from which they derived so much strength. Their interests were essentially those of regime survival and consolidation, and the acquisition of the political and economic means to ensure them.3 Iraqi politics after the coup soon became characterized by fragmentation of political forces and high level of politicization of the social groups. The coalition of political parties, which had cooperated with the armed forces to overthrow the monarchy, soon ended in a power struggle. Not all the contenders survived the political upheaval. The traditional parties – populists, liberals and national socialists – lost their popular support, as they were identiﬁed with the interests of the previous regime. They were dislodged by the militant parties – the Communists and the Ba’th. Both these parties shared common characteristics which contributed to their success in capturing power. First, both the Ba’thists and the Communists were ideological parties. Their ideologies, although they varied in consistency and content, were action-oriented, which aroused the zeal and emotions of their activists. Second, they were mass-mobilizing parties calling for revolutionary change. Finally, both parties were trans-national: their organizations in Iraq were linked to outside structures, one to the international Communist movement, the other to the Ba’th branches throughout the Arab world. The two parties competed for the loyalty of the same social groups: thus, workers, peasants, and middle class professionals were divided ideologically

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between the two. The result was not only political fragmentation, but also fragmentation of ‘social identity’, which retarded the development of social class consciousness.4 This outcome was also due to the fragile and evanescent ‘identity’ of the July revolution: the revolution was a revolution without a philosophy and initially without a program. It was essentially a revolt against a Western-oriented regime, a regime remote from the people and intolerant of their liberties, a regime that, despite the relative abundance of its oil revenues, had done little to improve the lot of the great majority of its citizens, who lived close to a subsistence level, impoverished, illiterate, and diseased. The July 1958 revolution’s aims were not precisely articulated nor clearly deﬁned. Although they ran largely in terms of symbols and slogans, they can be grouped into three categories: 1. Eliminating all traces of Western imperialism, freeing the country from the inﬂuence of the West in all its aspects. 2. Improving the living conditions of the people, ensuring them social justice. 3. Unifying the Iraqi people and achieving a closer political cooperation with all Arab states, for the sake of the Arab world’s uniﬁcation. These aims temporarily captured the loyalty of the masses, but they afforded a poor amalgam with which to bind the revolution’s leaders, who lacked a community of ideals and were united only by a common hatred of the old regime.5

QASIM, THE WEST, AND THE OIL COMPANIES

Of its three broad aims, the revolution clearly realized only the ﬁrst, but even this was more the result of events than a resolute decision of the Iraqi leaders. At the outset even the break with the West was not clear-cut. In a Baghdad broadcast on the day of the revolution, the new government made known its intention to honor all the foreign commitments consistent with the interests of the country. This declaration had a special signiﬁcance for the oil industry, long the symbol of imperialism throughout the Arab world, and for the consuming countries dependent on it. The new leader, recognizing the importance of oil revenues to the revolution’s political success and the country’s economic stability, and perhaps inﬂuenced by the landing of the US Marines in Lebanon and the British troops in Jordan, endeavored to reassure Western Europe over the continuity of oil supplies. In a radio broadcast on July 18 he stated: In view of the importance of oil for the Iraqi national wealth and the world economy, the Iraqi government announces its wishes for continued production and export of oil to world markets. It also upholds its obligations to all parties concerned. The government has taken the

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necessary measures to preserve the oil ﬁelds and installations. It hopes the parties concerned will respond to the attitude taken by it toward the development of this vital source of wealth.6 On July 19, Sir Michael Wright, the British ambassador in Baghdad, could write to the Foreign Ofﬁce: I have received a communication from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs enclosing the text of Prime Minister’s statement saying that Iraq government do not intend nationalise the production of oil, which is of economical importance and the subject of national and international agreements.7 The following day he wrote: Among decisions taken and announced by the Administration are the following: a [. . .] b Iraq desires friendly relations with all countries including the West. c At least for the time being Iraq will maintain existing international agreements. d At least for the time being Iraq retains her membership in the Baghdad Pact. e The production of oil will not be nationalized f Prime Minister and Minister of Finance have said to me that Iraq and Britain have always been friends and allies and they wished this to continue.8 Other reassurances were soon forthcoming. On July 21, spokesmen for the Iraqi government in London and New York asserted that their government did not intend to nationalize the oil industry. The London spokesman, senior assistant military attache at the Iraqi embassy, was particularly comforting when he said: ‘It is not the intention of the Republic to think about this, because we believe that if the oil ﬂow continues to the usual markets, it will be for the beneﬁt of both parties – you get your oil and we get our pounds’.9 On July 23, Sir Michael Wright met the Prime Minister, Foreign Minister and Minister of Finance. Among other things, the Iraqi leaders declared to the ambassador that ‘as regard British and Iraqis, who have always been friends and allies, it was our wish that the same relationship should continue, if you wished it’. They also said that ‘it was not our wish to alter any existing agreements except by negotiation’.10 This was language that businessmen understood. Following this announcement Western ofﬁcials breathed more easily, and shares of British Petroleum and Shell, which on news of revolution had declined on the London market, rose briskly.

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The British government did not cut its relations with the new regime in Baghdad, and tried to ﬁnd a ‘modus vivendi’ with Qasim, who did not reject this attempt. The British Ministry of Defence circulated a note stating that Her Majesty’s government agreed that for the time being there should be no interference with the movement to Iraq of arms consignments. The British Foreign Ofﬁce informed the other departments that they agreed to the lifting of the administrative measures by which shipments have been delayed immediately after the coup, and that the US had raised no objection to Britain’s continuing to send arms and equipment to Iraq.11 The new Iraqi government obtained British and American recognition at the end of July; this move was reported by Baghdad radios and press with a friendly commentary. Iraqi government members were clearly pleased about recognition and expressed the usual sentiments about close cooperation with those two countries on the basis of friendship and mutual interests.12 As noted by the British ambassador in early August: it would be unwise for us to press the new government on bilateral AngloIraqi questions, e.g. special agreements or institutions such as the Baghdad Pact. Our efforts at the moment should be concentrated on showing that we desire the welfare and prosperity of Iraq and are prepared to contribute to it, if the Iraqis so wish, within a relationship of general friendship and cooperation. There seems to be every advantage in playing our hand very quietly, carefully and cautiously.13 Ten days after the revolution another British senior ofﬁcial, Mr Crawford of the British Embassy in Baghdad, wrote: in very many ways the revolution in Iraq has not changed the basic facts of Iraq’s position in the world. If we can satisfy the new government that we are sincere when we express our sympathy with Arab nationalism in its aspiration for unity and our friendship for those manifestations of it which do not lend themselves to Soviet manipulation, we may have a better chance to win the cold war in the Middle East than we had in the past. [. . .] There are fairly solid grounds for thinking that the protestations of the new Iraqi leaders are sincere and that they genuinely desire friendship with Britain and America. If such friendship could be built (or rather continued) it might prove a lead-in to improved relations with Nasser, by showing him that we are not opposed to Arab nationalism.14 Looking for support in consolidating its international prestige, the new Iraqi government tried to recover its relations even with France, the colonial power that was occupying Algeria and that colluded with Israel during the Suez crisis. No diplomatic relations had been maintained between the two countries since 1956 and the Swiss diplomatic representatives in Baghdad were acting also on behalf of France. Speaking to the Swiss Charge´ d’Affaires, the Iraqi

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Minister for Foreign Affairs afﬁrmed that the French citizens were welcome in Iraq: ‘They will be treated as friends, just are the citizens of other friendly countries. The policy of the previous regime in regard to France can be regarded as out of date. The Iraqi republic and people have nothing against the French people’.15 In addition, the Paris daily Le Monde reproduced an appeal for French support from a number of Iraqi intellectuals who had studied in France: Les intellectuels irakiens, qui ont fait leurs e´tudes en France et qui sont profonde´ment attache´s aux traditions glorieuses de la Re´volution franc¸aise, vous annoncent grande joie pour la naissance de la Re´publique irakienne. Notre re´volution du 14 juillet a de´truit la grande bastille irakienne qui conservait notre pays pendant des dizaines d’anne´es dans la mise`re, l’esclavage et l’humiliation. Nous nous adressons [. . .] a` tous les re´publicaines de France pour qu’ils soutiennent notre jeune Re´publique qui accueille l’approbation de notre people unanime. Nous vous appellerions pour de´jouer toute intervention e´trange`re dans les affaires inte´rieures du Moyen-Orient qui pourrait de´ge´ne´rer en guerre totale et destructrice de toute l’humanite´.16 Another Western European country was prepared to be friendly toward the new Iraqi regime: immediately after the coup in Baghdad, the Federal German government declared that everything pointed to the new Iraqi government being genuinely disposed to be friendly toward the West. The German ambassador in London expressed the opinion that the Western government should do everything possible to encourage this friendly tendency and keep Iraq from falling into the Nasserite fold. The authorities in Bonn in fact implied that there was a lot to be said for very early recognition of the new regime by the Western governments. The German ambassador also spoke of the anxiety of his government lest Her Majesty’s government were contemplating some move to upset the new Iraqi government: he was referring to the statement by King Hussein that he regarded himself as Head of the Arab Union, created in March 1958 by Jordan and Iraq, and said that Bonn was worried that this meant the king was going to try to enforce his authority on Baghdad with British support.17 But the following weeks showed that the British government had not, at the moment, any intention of jeopardizing the position of Qasim. On the contrary, during the Autumn of 1958, when it was necessary to stand against the attempts to take power by some pro-Nasser ofﬁcials in Baghdad, the Iraqi Prime Minister was glad to discover that he could count on the discreet support of the British.18 Iraq’s prosperity depended on selling oil and the experience of Mossadeq in Iran showed that there was no alternative to the major Western companies for marketing it. The Iraqis were well aware of the market surplus in those years, and they also knew that Western Europe could do without Iraqi oil, if necessary. The new government was bound to see that they needed the good ofﬁces of the Iraq Petroleum Company (IPC) and of its shareholders, as clearly Nuri al-Said did.

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Although continuing to deny any intention of nationalizing the oil industry, various government ofﬁcials, including Qasim himself, made it clear from the outset that to carry out the aims of the revolution – one of which was to improve the standard of living of its citizens – Iraq would need and expected to receive larger oil revenues. Qasim’s government could not afford to see the execution of the development program interrupted, for the effect would have been immediately felt in the standard of living and level of employment. Yet the program could only be kept going if oil continued to ﬂow.19 Aware that the country needed technical cooperation by the Western companies involved in the IPC, once again the Iraqi government preferred pragmatism to ideology. Beginning in August 1958 Qasim entered long negotiations with IPC over a range of issues, from the price of oil to the desire by the Iraqi government for equity participation in the company. But he never looked for a show-down nor pushed for a rupture of the negotiations, until the second half of 1961. Convinced that nationalization was of no immediate threat, IPC reafﬁrmed its intention to carry through an expansion program designed to increase substantially its Iraq production and exports over the long run. Speciﬁcally, in January 1959, it announced investment plans that would increase Iraq’s annual export capacity within two years from 34 million tons to 57 million tons. Occurring in a period of world oil surplus, this announcement may be reasonably interpreted not merely as an expression of conﬁdence in the revolutionary government but as a strategic move in negotiations on demands that had not yet been formally presented, but about which rumors continued to circulate. In the same weeks, the European governments were adjusting their attitude toward Iraq and Qasim’s regime: one of their most important objectives was to remove Qasim’s suspicion that the Western powers were acting against him: it was not an easy task, as at the same time Allen Dulles, the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, described the situation in Iraq as ‘the most dangerous in the world’.20 In addition, there was the consideration that it would be more of a liability than a help to Qasim if it were known that the European governments were backing him: therefore, any help they could give must be very discreet and largely conﬁned to avoiding action which might embarrass him. They were available, when possible, to respond to any particular request for military and technical help, but they did not intend to take the initiative in offering help which had not been asked for.21 In the Spring of 1959 informal talks were conducted between representatives of the oil company and the government, in which Lord Moncton, chairman of IPC, and Prime Minister Qasim participated. These talks put the rumors to rest and conﬁrmed the companies’ conviction that the issues in dispute could be resolved within the framework of the existing agreements and that nationalization was not Qasim’s aim. Following these talks, Ibrahim Kubbah, Minister of National Economy, stated on April 8:

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the question of oil nationalization was never discussed between the oil companies and the Iraqi government. In fact, the government still adheres to the oil policy declared on the ﬁrst day of the Iraqi revolution. This policy is based on upholding the oil agreements with the oil companies operating in Iraq and the possibility of amending them only with the full consent of these companies.22 Lord Moncton on his return to London, in declaring that he saw no immediate danger of nationalization, stated: ‘I do not remember any discussion conducted in a more amicable spirit, and they were continually saying that they wanted to work with us to our mutual advantage’.23 This was all the more striking since only one month earlier, the Iraqi government had announced its withdrawal from the Baghdad Pact, after signing an economic aid agreement with the Soviet Union. Thereafter, in quick succession, Iraq withdrew from the sterling area, ordered British air force units out of Habbaniya base, and cancelled the Point Four Agreement with the USA. Yet the search for ‘power’ and ‘security’ was pragmatic rather than ideological: Qasim reached an agreement with Moscow for Soviet military and economic assistance, but he did not see the Soviet model of economic development as being relevant to Iraq. The two major obstacles to making USSR a relevant ally of Iraq were domestic and regional ones: at the domestic level, Qasim was worried by the growing strength of the Iraqi Communist Party and its possible challenge to his leadership; at the regional level, he was disturbed by the close relations between the USSR and Egypt, which strengthened Nasser’s evident project to take the lead of the Arab world.24 In April 1959 the British government informed the Iraqis of its willingness to sell them certain heavy arms for which they had asked: this decision was taken in full awareness that it was a calculated risk. It seemed the only way to bolster Qasim and the Army, which London thought might prove the only possible defense against the Communists.25 The British ambassador was convinced that: the situation is still ﬂuid and it would be a great mistake to take premature action which might inﬂuence it to our disadvantage. We should try and avoid adopting ﬁrm policies until we can see more clearly which way things are going. [. . .] The arms question is crucial. I still believe that we should agree to sell [Iraq] and that if we refuse we may ﬁnd an atmosphere here much more hostile to our interests and a further swing to the other side. [. . .] This is our chance. If we don’t take it, Qasim will presumably go to the Russians and will not come to us for anything again.26 On another occasion, Sir Humphrey wrote about Qasim: we don’t like the thesis that Qasim is the best Prime Minister we have got. It rather suggests that we have the pick of a number and, having run through the candidates, we choose him. The point surely is that he is there, and so long as he is there, we had better try and make the best of him and

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not the worst of him. We are not in a position to knock him over and put somebody else in his place, even if we think that there are other candidates who would suit us a great deal better.27 In 1960 the British continued to supply the Iraqis with small quantities of military equipment which they needed for spares and maintenance for their forces and eight Iraqi Army ofﬁcers were training in Britain; the Iraqi armed forces had been entirely equipped and trained by the UK (and the US). It would have been a lengthy and expensive task to replace this entirely with Russian equipment.28 Furthermore, a small number of British technicians and experts were working in Iraq for the Iraqi government, while two British professors were being subsidized by the British authorities to teach at the Medical College of Baghdad University. British and American professional training of Iraqis and knowledge of the English language were so widespread that a reversal of the Western-linked education programs would have been a major undertaking. At the beginning of 1960 there were about 1,500 Iraqi students in Britain, undergoing academic training throughout the country.29 The European governments’ friendly attitude toward Qasim was dictated by the consideration that the Iraqi Prime Minister was to be regarded as the main obstacle to the Soviet penetration in the country: the Iraqi Communists had a real fear that Qasim might be able to carry out his declared policy of neutrality and independence and that, in their terms, the revolution could be stopped in its tracks. In the European view, the only likely alternatives to a regime carrying out a policy of independence and neutralism were regimes subservient to either Cairo or Moscow. Consequently, the British and the other European governments were trying to adjust their position to a neutralist Iraq and their support of Qasim’s policy which was interpreted as opposed to Russian interests. Their policy had to be very cautious, because they wanted to avoid the impression that Qasim’s new line was in any sense pro-West. The suspension of all political activities in Iraq, decided by the Iraqi government in May 1959, was a major setback for the Communists, who represented the biggest party and occupied important positions in the administration.30 After the clash between Qasim and the Communists, the latter lost some positions and changed their tactics: they switched from the seizure of power to the consolidation of their base and the building up of their strength when party life would be resumed, in the hope of gradually pulling a neutralist Iraq more and more to the left. This strategy was to some extent conﬁrmed by the line taken by the Soviet representative in Baghdad: he declared that Iraq was not in a condition ﬁt for the establishment of socialism, and that in the Soviet opinion what was needed was internal stability and an improvement of relations between Iraq and the United Arab Republic (UAR).31 INTER-ARAB RIVALRY AND THE INTERNATIONAL CONTEXT

The regional environment was a determinant of Iraqi foreign policy much more than the wider international context. Although Qasim proclaimed his support for

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Arab solidarity, he had no desire to become subordinate to Nasser. Iraq might have appeared to desire close cooperation with the United Arab Republic – the Egyptian–Syrian union of 1958 which was in effect dominated by the Egyptian leader – but not membership. It is true that for several years Nasser had done his utmost to produce the collapse of the monarchy. Through Cairo broadcasts the Egyptian president persistently inﬂamed the Iraqi currents of discontent, which might otherwise have worked themselves out without an explosion. But when the change eventually came, the general impression was that Nasser did not directly inspire nor was involved with the coup d’e´tat. Immediately after, however, full pressure was exerted for union between Iraq and the UAR. Nasser speciﬁcally assured the Iraqis that there would be no interruption of the Syrian pipeline (transporting Iraqi oil to the Mediterranean) and offered the UAR’s cooperation in the construction of an additional one.32 But the new Baghdad government preferred to play for time, as no ﬁrm decisions had been reached on the matter. The movement against union was fuelled by a strong reluctance that Iraqi revenues could be diverted to Egypt and a dislike of the prospect of rule by a rigid military government in Cairo.33 This uncertainty produced a rupture with the Nasser regime, which had staked so much on the achievement of Arab unity. During Qasim’s years of rule, Iraq and Egypt, two reformist states that shared many of the same goals, again became rivals in the struggle for the leadership in the Middle East. On the ﬁrst anniversary of the revolution Qasim ordered a cabinet reorganization, dismissing some of the Arab nationalist ministers. These developments reﬂected the struggle for power among the revolutionary leaders: the Mosul revolt in March 1959 (which ended with the intervention of the Army) was led by some Arab Nationalist Army ofﬁcers who were sympathetic to Nasser and alleged that Qasim had been unfaithful to the revolution. The attempt on his life in October that year was also believed to have been inspired by Nasser-sympathizers. In his ﬁrst interview following the attempt on his life, Qasim revived the idea of the union of Iraq, Jordan and Syria. The ‘Fertile Crescent’ scheme, touted by Nuri al-Said prior to the revolution: from being considered an imperialistic project during the monarchy, it now became a patriotic one. In Qasim’s words: ‘this project was an imperialistic project when Iraq was a strong imperialist base but now that Iraq has become a free, liberated, fully sovereign and independent country, this project does not constitute a danger. [. . .] Also the Syrian people had the right to decide their destiny’.34 This idea was anathema to president Nasser, who described it as the ‘Futile Crescent’: two days later he spoke on Cairo Radio and said the project was ‘the utterance of a sick man who has lost control of his nerves. General Qasim is repeating exactly what Nuri al-Said used to say’.35 The increasingly hostile relations with Egypt shaped the Iraqi leadership’s attitude toward Syria. Qasim could not acknowledge the permanence of the United Arab Republic, dominated by Nasser. Accordingly he revived the Fertile Crescent scheme, embracing Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq. But in the aftermath of the breaking up of the United Arab Republic in 1961, he was

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extremely guarded. In his ﬁrst public statement after the September 28 coup in Damascus, he avoided the main issue and conﬁned himself to threatening military actions against any ‘foreigners’ who might intervene in Syrian internal affairs, leaving the others to decide whether ‘foreigners’ included Egyptians. Qasim then warned the press against any strongly anti-Syrian or pro-Nasser line, but did not attempt to humiliate Nasser publicly. However, he reafﬁrmed on October 3, 1961 that when Iraq found Syria free, liberated, independent and sovereign, there would be nothing to prevent solidarity with it on a basis of fraternity. When Iraq recognized Syria’s independence on October 9, the Iraqi Prime Minister invited a delegation from the new Syrian government to visit Iraq and indulged in a show of great cordiality towards the visitors. Much as he welcomed the deﬂation of Nasser in Syria, Qasim had also to think of the less attractive consequences of the coup in Damascus. The ease and smoothness with which the coup was carried out showed that it was possible for the Syrians to turn the Egyptians out with little effort. The implications of this would not be missed by Qasim’s enemies. Nor could Qasim feel his position strengthened by the way in which the Syrian military, after achieving their goal, promptly handed over a good measure of power to a civilian government and announced elections for December 1961. In this connection, the Iraqi Prime Minister was also obsessed by the question of Britain: in his opinion, his tenure of power as a counterweight of Nasser was in British interests. Once Nasser had been reduced in stature by the failure of the UAR, he might no longer be of use to the United Kingdom in this respect. Qasim feared that this might have removed any reason which might in the past have stopped the British from removing him from power.36 Such considerations brought Qasim to rethink his attitude toward Egypt (and induced Nasser to reshape his attitude toward Iraq): from his point of view, better terms with the UAR (now really only including Egypt itself), with the object of getting Nasser’s support to secure the withdrawal of the Arab League’s contingents from Kuwait, could help Iraq to strengthen its position in the Arab world and vis-a`-vis Great Britain. The Iraqi Prime Minister may have thought that he could eventually make a deal with Nasser, under which he might get support in the Gulf in return for supporting Nasser in the Levant. The UAR’s acquiescence to the Soviet veto of Kuwait’s membership of the United Nations, their decision to proceed with the withdrawal of the Egyptian contingent from Kuwait, the delay in sending a UAR ambassador to Kuwait and the Cairo propaganda being delivered against Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Syria, all made Qasim feel that he could expect a favorable response from an approach to Cairo.37 Indeed, in the same weeks Nasser’s thesis was that a reactionary bloc was being formed by Syria, Jordan and Saudi Arabia to resist the spread of Arab socialism. The way was therefore open for Nasser to make a tactical move towards a rapprochement with Iraq. The isolation of the UAR increased the attraction of such a move. But, according to the British ambassador in Cairo, ‘the rivalry between Egypt and Iraq is so fundamental that no rapprochement between them would be likely to last long’.38

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The Iraqi position in the regional context was weakened not only by the longlasting rivalry with Egypt, but also by the fundamental difﬁculties in maintaining cordial relations with the other Arab countries. The other opponent of Nasser in the Fertile Crescent, King Hussein of Jordan, did not welcome the July 14 revolution, during which his Hashemite relatives, King Faisal II and the former regent Abd al-Ilah, were killed. It was not until October 1960 that King Hussein ofﬁcially recognized the Iraqi republic. The Iraqi press gave a cautious welcome to the improvement in relations between Iraq and Jordan, on the lines that Iraq wanted good relations with its Arab brothers. King Hussein was, of course, still classed as a servant of imperialism, but hopes were expressed that his new relations with Iraq might help to bring him back to the path of true Arabism. This development gave rise to talk of a revival of the Arab Union of 1958, but Qasim denied expressly in a public intervention that there was any question of this. The Iraqi Nationalists, of course, regarded the possible rapprochement with Jordan as straight anti-Nasser, inspired by the British in Amman and Baghdad, and regarded it as another cause of strong complaint against Qasim. But there were many moderates in Iraq who welcomed the move as reducing tension between two Arab countries and as a return towards normality. There were also quite a number of people who beneﬁted from the revival of trade and of restoration of communications with Jordan. It seems doubtful, however, that it did Qasim much good internally: according to the British ambassador, ‘we seem to have got to the stage when, even when Qasim does something sensible, people of varying political persuasions ﬁnd some reasons for holding it to his discredit’.39 King Saud of Saudi Arabia, although never friendly with the Hashemite family, could scarcely view with equanimity the revolutionary overthrow of a neighboring kingdom. Notwithstanding the common antagonism with Egypt, the Iraqi claims on Kuwait and its active policy in the Persian Gulf did not help to improve relations with Riyadh. In June 1960 the Iraqi Minister for Foreign Affairs could only state that the relations with Saudi Arabia were ‘good’.40 The eastern ﬂank offered no better scenario for Iraqi diplomacy: after its withdrawal from the Baghdad Pact, Iraq was challenged by Iran, its former ally, demanding a new drawing of the border line along the Shatt al-Arab – into which Tigris and Euphrates merge to form what long constituted Iraq’s primary access to the Gulf. Virulent press campaigns were exchanged between the two countries. In mid1959 the Iranians stopped the Shiite pilgrim trafﬁc to Iraq and introduced a ban on the import of Iraqi dates, in reprisal for the Iraqi ban on imports of Iranian carpets and pistachios. Tehran asked Baghdad to withdraw the Iraqi Charge´ d’Affaires, failing which he would be declared ‘persona non grata’. The charges against him were that he had constantly made mischief in the relations between the two countries and that he had Communist afﬁliations. In the following months, relations deteriorated to such an extent that shots were exchanged across the Shatt, and ships were prevented from using the ports of Basra and Abadan.41

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In June 1960 the Iraqi authorities welcomed the arrival of the new Iranian ambassador in Baghdad and they hoped he could recognize the strength of Iraqi feeling about the ‘comparatively minor’ matters which were in dispute between the two countries. They hoped that the ‘artiﬁcially created’ problem of the Shatt could be resolved amicably, now that Ambassadors had been exchanged between Baghdad and Tehran.42 Consequently, in the spring of 1961, an agreement between Iran and Iraq allowed shipping to use the waterway once again, even if it did not solve the fundamental differences over the question. In mid-December 1961 the Iranian government lifted the ban on exit visas for Iranian pilgrims who wished to visit the Shiite Holy Places in Iraq;43 commenting on this move, the Iranian ambassador in Baghdad outlined his government’s desire to come to an understanding about all questions ‘in a spirit of neighborliness’. A few days later Qasim received the Iraqi military delegation to the Iranian Army Day celebration in Tehran; he told the delegation to take his good wishes to the friendly people of Iran and to the ofﬁcers of the Iranian Army and added that Iraq was ‘a neutral, peaceful republic which established relations with all countries on a basis of mutual interests and equality, and was bound to its neighbour Iran by bonds of Islamic brotherhood’.44 Notwithstanding these exchange of courtesies (the Iranians sent a delegation to the July 14 celebrations that year), the Iranian ambassador had little hope of progress over any of the subjects at issue between Iraq and Iran. In the assessment of British diplomats, he was very pessimistic and seemed to harbor considerable apprehension in regard to Iraqi designs in the Gulf. In the ambassador’s view, the cordiality towards Iran was probably nothing more than another instance of Qasim seeking to mend his fences.45 Generally speaking, the Iranians subscribed to the policy of non-intervention which the British, the Americans and the Turks favored, but at the same time they cultivated the relations with the conservative elements among the Iraqi Kurds, not with a view to immediate trouble, but as an insurance for the time being.46 Relations between the two countries worsened again in 1962, when Qasim accused the Iranian government of supporting the Kurds in Iraq in their struggle against Baghdad; they would never recover while Qasim was in power. THE BIRTH OF OPEC

In the summer of 1960, Standard Oil of New Jersey did something which united the oil countries of the Middle East as nothing before: when Jersey cut the posted price of its Middle East oil by 14 cents a barrel, news of the company’s unilateral action shocked all the Arab world. Soon the other major companies began cutting their prices, too. Within a few weeks, the leaders of the oil producing countries decided to take joint action against the cuts, to save the posted-price system upon which Middle East oil production was then based.47 The signiﬁcance of the posted-price system for the oil industry should be noted. Except for the new independents, all the oil companies operating in the Arab countries and Iran were subsidiaries of the Anglo-American majors.48

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These subsidiaries were producers of oil and had no hand in marketing it outside the producing countries. They sold their oil to their parent companies, whose responsibility it was, in turn, to sell it to the world. In the old days the subsidiaries sold crude oil to their parent companies at low prices, and paid a royalty based on these deliberately low prices to the governments of the countries in which they operated. Their parent companies would then sell this bargain-rate crude at the prevailing world prices, which were based on more expensive US oil. When the system of payment was changed from royalties to the so-called 50– 50 deals in 1950–51 and then to joint ventures, the producing countries became involved in the sale of their oil; their revenues now depended, as never before, on how much their oil was sold for, and they wanted assurance about this price. The companies answered this point by agreeing to formally posting a price for Middle Eastern oil, and to promising that anyone could buy their crude oil at that price. Since henceforth the formally posted prices were high – although not so high as the more expensive US oil – the solution was generally accepted by Middle East governments, and the posted-price system was welcomed. Things changed in August 1960 when, without informing any of the governments concerned, Jersey Standard dropped the posted price of a barrel of oil by 14 cents. From a commercial standpoint, Jersey had good argument for the cut: Russian petroleum was ﬂooding Europe, the emergency situation caused by the Suez crisis was over, and Libyan and Algerian oil was beginning to enter the market. It would have had a better argument if it had cut not only the posted prices at which its subsidiaries were prepared to sell Middle East crude, but also the price at which it sold the reﬁned petroleum in its gasoline pumps in Europe. But this, it did not do. At that time, it was suggested by some Arabs that Standard’s action was part of the Anglo-American pressure on General Qasim for the forthcoming round of negotiations with IPC. If so, Jersey Standard did not appear to have informed its British partners of its decision, and BP, in fact, protested against the reduction before reluctantly dropping down its own prices. Whatever the case may be, at once Sheikh Abdullah Tariki, the Saudi Minister of Petroleum, rushed to Baghdad to announce his solidarity with Qasim in face of the pressure the Anglo-Americans were exerting. Other Middle East oil ministers followed him to the Iraqi capital, where they were joined by Juan Perez Alfonzo, minister of hydrocarbons in the Venezuelan government.49 From this accidental congress in Baghdad emerged a body called the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, consisting of Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Venezuela. Interestingly enough, the co-founders with Iraq were Iran and Saudi Arabia, two regional rivals that, for their own practical reasons, decided to enter cooperation with Iraq in the search for a better distribution of oil wealth. The secret of the OPEC success, that in the following years would have emerged as the main counterpart of the oil companies, was to a large extent due to the Arab oil experts’ ability in preventing oil affairs being drawn into the maelstrom of ordinary politics. The non-political ambitions of the oil

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technocrats created an atmosphere in which OPEC could come into being in isolation from everyday Arab politics. Since the technocrats had no political commitment, they inevitably found themselves moving closer and closer to their colleagues and fellows in other Arab countries, whose problems and aims were essentially the same: thus the uniﬁcation of Arab oil policies was a technocrat’s ambition, not a political target.50 At this point it is interesting to note how, in the months preceding the formation of OPEC, the uniﬁcation of the Arab oil policies became more and more a concern of the producers at the expense of the Arab countries in general. A uniﬁed Arab oil policy in the framework of the Arab League would have introduced interests alien to the one common objective of all oil producers – to increase their beneﬁts from the oil industry. The main aim of the oil-poor Arab countries, on the other hand, was to ensure that the oil revenues were distributed more equally through the Arab world as a whole – an objective that would have brought oil into the arena of inter-Arab politics. To the non-producers the main premise for a uniﬁed Arab oil policy was that Arab oil belongs to the Arab nation as a whole. This meant that oil revenues should be distributed among the Arab countries according to individual needs. This was clearly a non-producer’s view. Iraq, an important producer, was the ﬁrst country to put forward an ofﬁcial proposal for the coordination of the Arab oil policies, but this turned out to be far from the ‘regional’ concept of oil policy. Convinced that, in the subject of oil exploitation, diplomatic isolation corresponded to a weakened leverage, from 1959 the Iraqi government actively encouraged the creation of trust among the oil producers. The Iraqi proposal was submitted to the Arab League Economic Council in January 1959. What the Iraqi government had in mind was that the producers should confront the international oil companies with a solid front of their own. This implied a power relationship in which Arab non-producers had no part; their place was to be taken by non-Arab producers. Among the steps envisaged under this proposal were the following: 1. The formulation of a uniﬁed petroleum law regulating the relations with the oil companies. 2. Conservation of Arab oil reserves and maintenance of oil prices through production controls and the coordination of the policies of the Arab producers with those of other producing countries. 3. Arrangements for Arab states to exchange information, technicians and other experts and to standardize oil accounting methods. 4. Ensuring that oil is transported exclusively through Arab territory (this being the only provision to be included for the special beneﬁt of the nonproducers). 5. The establishment of an Institute of Petroleum Studies, which would be attached to the Arab League.51 This proposal clashed with the idea Nasser had of the future of oil when he convened in Cairo the First Arab Petroleum Congress in April 1959. During the

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congress, a basic idea was presented to the 500 participants: the idea that a great deal of the social and political tension in the Middle East arose from the unequal distribution of oil wealth among the several territories. Only a high degree of economic cooperation among the Arab countries could remedy this inequality and grant stability and security, as well as economic development.52 The idea of improved cooperation among the Arab states, which emerged during the Congress and was sponsored by the oil-poor countries, was so divergent from the Iraqi project that only the intervention of an external factor – the oil companies’ unilateral decision to cut the posted price in August 1960 – eventually gave one of the two contenders the necessary strength to achieve its aim. IRAQ’S CLAIM ON KUWAIT AND THE COLLAPSE OF THE NEGOTIATIONS WITH IPC

On June 19, 1961 Great Britain cancelled its protectorate agreement with the Sheikh of Kuwait and recognized Kuwait as a sovereign state. On June 25, Qasim demanded that Kuwait be returned to Iraq, on the assertion that Kuwait had been a district of the Ottoman province of Basra, unjustly severed by the British from the main body of the Iraqi state when it had been created in the 1920s. At a press conference in Baghdad, Qasim announced that Kuwait was and always had been a part of Iraq. He proclaimed that ‘the Iraqi republic will never cede a single inch of this land’.53 Within days of Qasim’s voicing of the Iraqi claim, Kuwait requested British protection, Great Britain sent forces to Kuwait and introduced a resolution in the Security Council of the United Nations demanding that all states respect Kuwait’s sovereignty and promised to withdraw its troops at Kuwait’s request. Iraq introduced a counter resolution afﬁrming its peaceful intentions toward Kuwait and demanding that Great Britain immediately withdraw its troops. When the Security Council failed to approve either resolution, the Arab League took up the issue: they admitted Kuwait as a member state, promised to safeguard its independence and asked the ruler to request the withdrawal of British troops. In August 1961, the British forces were replaced by an Arab League force, composed largely of Egyptian troops. It eventually adopted, over Iraq’s protest, a resolution providing that the British troops be withdrawn and that the Arab countries preserve Kuwait’s independence by dispatching an Arab military force to its assistance. In response, Iraq withdrew its representative from the Arab League and froze diplomatic relations with a number of countries which had recognized Kuwait.54 In the eyes of the pan-Arab faction in Iraq, the crisis was a further indictment of Qasim’s regime, victim of his own logic that had isolated Iraq in the Arab world and had led to a climb-down in the face of Britain. During the Kuwait crisis rumors were current that Qasim was contemplating the nationalization of the oil industry in an effort to distract attention from his reverses over Kuwait. General Qasim was more than ever in need of a resounding propaganda victory: his failure to annex Kuwait, after proclaiming it

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to be an integral part of Iraq, had been one more blow to his battered prestige. The Iraqi government approached the Italian state-owned oil corporation ENI, with a view to hiring technicians to replace all non-Iraqi technicians employed by IPC. The President of ENI, Mattei, replied favorably to this approach, and some Italian engineers arrived in Baghdad to evaluate the concrete feasibility of such project. When the news was published by some prominent British newspapers, the Italian government asked Mattei to deny any involvement in Iraq’s oil industry, while London let it be known that any help given to Qasim would be interpreted as an act of hostility against the UK. Eventually, in mid-July, Mattei reluctantly accepted the Italian government’s dictate, observing that ENI’s setback in Iraq was likely to have opened the gates of Mesopotamia to the Soviet Union.55 On September 28 the talks between IPC and the Iraqi government resumed for the last time, but the deadlock was complete. Predictably, the Iraqi press greeted the news of breakdown with unanimous expressions of support for the government and the Prime Minister. In order to gain in popularity and to obtain more revenues from the oil concessions, in December 1961 the Iraqi government issued Law no. 80, deﬁning the areas of exploration permitted of each oil companies: it allowed IPC to retain only 1,937 square kilometers (out of 435,780), approximately 0.5 percent of the original concessions, this being the closely conﬁned areas of producing oilﬁelds. Having hitherto failed to exploit the vast concessions granted to it, IPC was effectively frozen out of further development in Iraq, having to content itself with the nevertheless substantial ﬁelds it already operated in the remaining 0.5 percent. Some of Qasim’s supporters, indeed, had expected this portion to be nationalized as well.56 In the explanatory statement that accompanied Law 80, the government alleged that IPC, concerned with its own, not Iraq’s, interests, was slow to develop its concessions until the July revolution and that it speeded up operations only when confronted with the demand that they relinquished the unexploited area. The areas now returned to the full control of the Iraqi authorities would be offered to other oil companies, interested in developing new activities for the beneﬁt of all the Iraqi people.57 The rupture of the negotiations with IPC and the consequent cancellation of almost all of its concessions were the real turning point in the relations between Iraq and the Western countries: after the approval of Law 80, both the US and the British government dispatched diplomatic notes to Qasim, urging him to accept the companies’ arbitration proposal. In early January, Qasim alleged that the British had accompanied their note by pressure of troop movements and belligerently characterized such move as ‘aggression that will be destroyed by lightning blows from us and the nations that support us’.58 From the propaganda point of view, the law was ideal. It was simple, clearcut, symbolic. The ordinary man in the street could not fail to be impressed by what he could immediately understand: the government had asserted its sovereignty, taking over almost all of the companies’ concessions (almost the whole territory of Iraq).

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The government was anxious that the law should make an impact throughout the Arab world as a whole, not just in Iraq. But the Arab press outside Iraq deliberately paid it a minimum of attention. Iraq’s political rivals, of whom Egypt was the most important, could not concede Qasim the merits of any achievements. The attitude of the rest of the Arab world was strongly resented by the Iraqi leaders, who suggested that the Arab countries should at least lay aside their differences in confronting a common adversary.59 During the next several months Qasim ignored the companies’ request for arbitration. Meanwhile the government was preparing a new law, designed to bring the conﬁscated areas under active exploitation. In September 1962, at a press conference, Qasim submitted the draft of a proposed law to the journalists. This unique procedure, he explained, would give politicians, journalists and the public in general an opportunity to suggest improvements in a law of vital signiﬁcance. The records indicate only a limited response to this unique opportunity in law-making and the draft was still in abeyance when the February 1963 revolution brought the Ba’thists to power.60 CONCLUSION

The inability to get more wealth from oil, the too slow process of welfare building and the country’s cut-off from the Arab world were at the root of the growing discontent among the military units and the Ba’thist national leaders, who in February 1963 organized the rebellion against Qasim and his regime. The deep fragmentation and the high level of politicization of the Iraqi society were major factors of the domestic environment that constantly endangered Qasim’s regime. Entrapped by his own propaganda, as time passed the Iraqi Prime Minister was more and more unable to hide the failure of his policy. The decision-making structure of his regime was so identiﬁed with his personal role that it was impossible to pin the blame indeﬁnitely on other factors or actors, were they domestic or external. Qasim’s unwillingness to devolve power meant that he focused all animosity on himself: the absence of any devolution of power left untouched the already privileged elites, who could continue to decide the fate of the governments. His foreign policy was effective when dealing with the Western countries, particularly with Great Britain: Qasim managed to maintain a good degree of cooperation with the former mandatory power and the other Western European states on a wide range of issues. At the same time he was able not to appear as an Imperialism-backed puppet. But foreign policy proved totally disastrous at the regional level, driving Iraq towards complete isolation, and embroiling it in quarrels with almost all its neighbors. Qasim behaved, ruled, and died as an autocrat, reinforcing the authoritarian structures of Iraqi politics that remained unaltered until the armed overthrow of Saddam Hussein in April 2003.

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NOTES 1. W. Roger Louis, ‘The British and the Origins of the Iraqi Revolution’, in Robert Fernea and W. Roger Louis (eds.), The Iraqi Revolution of 1958: the Old Social Classes Revisited (London: I.B. Tauris, 1991), p. 35. 2. Hanna Batatu, The Old Social Classes and the Revolutionary Movements of Iraq (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1978), p. 764. 3. Charles Tripp, A History of Iraq (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), pp. 147–9. 4. Russel Stone, OPEC and the Middle East: the Impact of Oil on Societal Development (New York: Praeger Publishers, 1977), p. 214. 5. George Stocking, Middle East Oil: A Study in Political and Economic Controversy (Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 1970), pp. 230–31. 6. Middle East Economic Survey, July 25, 1958. 7. Telegram 11 from Wright to Foreign Ofﬁce, July 19, 1958, in Public Record Ofﬁce, Kew, London (hereafter PRO, London), FO371/134205, V531/91. 8. Telegram 15 from Wright to Foreign Ofﬁce, July 20, 1958, in PRO, London, FO371/134205, VQ1015/112. 9. Financial Times, July 22, 1958. 10. Telegram 24 from Wright to Foreign Ofﬁce, July 23, 1958, in PRO, London, FO371/134205, VQ1015/137. 11. Letter 624/58 from Mr Powell, British Ministry of Defence, to Board of Trade, July 24, 1958, in PRO, London, AIR20/10317, VQ1015/137. 12. Telegram unnumbered from Wright to Foreign Ofﬁce, Aug. 3, 1958, in PRO, London, FO371/ 134205, VQ1022/12. 13. Telegram 72 from Wright to Foreign Ofﬁce, Aug. 12, 1958, in PRO, London, FO371/134205, VQ1022/13. 14. Memorandum on ‘Policy towards Iraq’ by Mr Crawford, Baghdad, July 23, 1958, in PRO, London, FO371/134220, VQ1051/33. 15. Letter 10615/42/58 from British Embassy in Paris to Foreign Ofﬁce, July 29, 1958, in PRO, London, FO371/134207, VQ10317/2. 16. Le Monde, July 27, 1958. The relations with France deteriorated rapidly, due to the worsening of the Algerian crisis. In Dec., 1958, the Iraqi government severed all economic relations with France, stopped all imports from that country and asked the Development Board to refrain from concluding any new contracts with French ﬁrms. Letter 1038/1/59 from British Embassy in Baghdad to Foreign Ofﬁce, Jan. 21, 1959, in PRO, London, FO371/140975, EQ11317/2. 17. The Foreign Ofﬁce replied that Her Majesty’s Government had no such intentions, that they would not support king Hussein in any ventures and that the sole purpose of their intervention in Jordan was to prevent that country from falling a victim of subversion. Telegram 1465, unsigned, from Foreign Ofﬁce to British Embassy in Bonn, July 20, 1958, in PRO, London, FO371/ 134220, VQ1051/2G. In April 1959 the German Minister for Foreign Affairs accepted an invitation by the Iraqi authorities for a visit to Baghdad. That invitation was later postponed. Letter 10229 from the British Embassy in Bonn to Foreign Ofﬁce, May 19, 1959, in PRO, London, FO371/140942, EQ10318/2. 18. Letter from the British ambassador in Ankara to the Foreign Ofﬁce, Jan. 10, 1959, in PRO, London, FO371/140956, EQ1071/1. 19. David Lesch, Syria and the United States: Eisenhower’s Cold War in the Middle East, (Boulder: Westview, 1992), p. 173. 20. The New York Times, April 29, 1959, cited in Batatu, The Old Social Classes and the Revolutionary Movements of Iraq, p. 899. 21. Telegram 51 from Sir Bernard Burrows, British ambassador in Ankara, to Foreign Ofﬁce, Jan. 9, 1959, in PRO, London, FO371/140956, EQ1071/8. 22. Iraq Times, April 9, 1959, cited in Stocking, Middle East Oil: A Study in Political and Economic Controversy, p. 216. 23. The Times, April 24, 1959. 24. Only in 1962 did Qasim ask for and obtain relevant Soviet technical and military support: in 1962 a total of 168 Soviet advisers were attached to the Iraqi armed forces, and about 500 technicians from the Eastern bloc were active in the civilian sector. The role of the military experts appeared to be to give instructions on technical matters, such as maintenance of aircrafts and radar systems, training of pilots, etc. (Letter unnumbered from the UK Delegation to Nato, to Foreign Ofﬁce, Jan. 5, 1962, in PRO, London, FO371/164251, EQ1071/1).

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25. No orders were placed, and it rather looked as though the Iraqis had second thoughts about the cost or the political implications. Memorandum on ‘The Anglo-Iraqi Relations’ by Mr Le Quesne, Foreign Ofﬁce’s Eastern Department, Jan. 26, 1960, in PRO, London, FO371/149875, EQ1051/6. 26. Letter 1041 from Trevelyan to Foreign Ofﬁce, March 24, 1959, in PRO, London, FO371/140952, EQ1051/13. 27. Letter 1013 from Trevelyan to Foreign Ofﬁce, Oct. 24, 1959, in PRO, London, FO371/140953, EQ1051/38. 28. Memorandum on ‘Policy towards Iraq’ by Mr Crawford, Baghdad, July 23, 1958, in PRO, London, FO371/134220, VQ1051/33. 29. Memorandum on ‘The Anglo-Iraqi Relations’ by Mr Le Quesne, Foreign Ofﬁce’s Eastern Department, Jan. 26, 1960, in PRO, London, FO371/149875, EQ1051/6. But in a subsequent letter the British Council’s representative in Baghdad complained about the fact that only two Iraqi students beneﬁted of a British scholarship, while in the US 93 Iraqi students were on scholarships (out of 928), and in Soviet Union 101 out of 779. Letter 680/2 from Mr. Frean, Baghdad, to the British Council’s Overseas Division, March 22, 1961, in PRO, London, FO371/ 157737, EQ1746/1. 30. The Ministers of Defense and Economics were Communists, as was Qasim’s Chief of Staff and the Head of Broadcasting System. According to the British, trade unions, universities and schools were also alive with Communists, who received their support mainly from the Christian and the Kurdish elements of the population. The armed forces had been purged in the senior ranks and penetrated by Communists in the junior ranks, but the British did not think that the Army would go Communist: it was determined to hold on to its gains and could be relied on to resist efforts from any quarter to take away from them what they had won with the July revolution. See the memorandum of Mr Nutting’s visit to Baghdad, June 12, 1959, in PRO, London, FO371/140953, EQ1051/24. 31. Letter 1041/87/59 from Trevelyan to Foreign Ofﬁce, Nov. 25, 1959, in PRO, London, FO371/ 140953, EQ1051/42. 32. Telegram 432 from Hood, British ambassador in Washington, to Foreign Ofﬁce, Aug. 4, 1958, in PRO, London, FO371/134213, VQ10345/1. 33. Some politicians were thinking of a possible compromise in the form of a federation, with Nasser as president, under which Iraq would be solely responsible for its own internal affairs, while having a common foreign and defense policy with the UAR. 34. The interview with Qasim was published by the Baghdad daily newspaper Al-Thawra on Nov. 16, 1959 and it is quoted in the Telegram 1633 from Sir Humphrey Trevelyan, British ambassador in Baghdad, to Foreign Ofﬁce, Nov. 17, 1959, in PRO, London, FO371/140933, EQ1021/25. See also Benjamin Shwadran, The Power Struggle in Iraq, (New York: Council on Foreign Relations Press, 1960), p. 50. 35. Daily Telegraph, Nov. 19, 1959, in PRO, London, FO371/140933, EQ1021/26B. The tension between the two countries lowered at the beginning of 1960: Cairo press and radio stopped their propaganda campaign and many Iraqi broadcasts about the UAR had been left unanswered. Nasser told the Pakistani President that he had accepted that Qasim was the only alternative to Communism in Iraq and that he had no intention of meddling further. According to some British ofﬁcials, the Egyptians did not want to see Qasim overthrown in that phase: the time was not ripe for Iraq federation or union with UAR, because of the chaotic situation in Iraq. If the Iraqis were left alone – observed some close collaborators of Nasser – they might come to their senses in the long run and some stable relationship with UAR might emerge. Letter 1035/60 from Trevelyan, British diplomatic mission in Cairo, to Foreign Ofﬁce, May 4, 1960, in PRO, London, FO371/ 149863, EQ10316/1. 36. Letter 10319/1/61 from Mr Robey, British Embassy in Baghdad, to Foreign Ofﬁce, Nov. 20, 1961, in PRO, London, FO371/157676, EQ1022/10. 37. Telegram 2192 from Foreign Ofﬁce to the British Embassy in Baghdad, unsigned, Dec. 11, 1961, in PRO, London, FO371/157676, EQ1022/11. 38. Telegram 1245 from Sir Harold Beeley, Cairo, to Foreign Ofﬁce, Dec. 27, 1961, in PRO, London, FO371/157677, EQ103116/7. 39. Letter 1031/18/60 from Trevelyan to Foreign Ofﬁce, Oct. 18, 1960, in PRO, London, FO371/ 149873, EQ10380/2. 40. Letter 10717/1/60 from Mr Hayman, British Embassy in Baghdad, to Foreign Ofﬁce, July 5, 1960, in PRO, London, FO371/149861, EQ1021/3. 41. Tripp, A History of Modern Iraq, p. 164.

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42. Letter 10717/1/60 from Mr Hayman, British Embassy in Baghdad, to Foreign Ofﬁce, July 5, 1960, in PRO, London, FO371/149861, EQ1021/3. 43. Amongst the ﬁrst pilgrims to Iraq there was Mrs Amini, the wife of the Iranian Prime Minister. Letter 10310/61 from the British Embassy in Tehran to the Foreign Ofﬁce, Dec. 20, 1961, in PRO, London, FO371/157678, EQ103134/7. 44. Letter 10313/6/61 from the British Embassy in Baghdad to the Foreign Ofﬁce, Dec. 13, 1961, in PRO, London, FO371/157678, EQ103134/5. 45. Letter 10313/9/61 from the British Embassy in Baghdad to the Foreign Ofﬁce, Dec. 20, 1961, in PRO, London, FO371/157678, EQ103134/6. 46. Letter 10310 from Hiller, British ambassador in Tehran, to Foreign Ofﬁce, Jan. 15, 1959, in PRO, London, FO371/140945, EQ10334/5. 47. Leonard Mosley, Power Play: Oil in the Middle East (New York: Random House, 1973), p. 289. 48. Aramco of Saudi Arabia was divided between Standard of California, Standard of New Jersey, Texaco and Mobil. Kuwait Oil Company was a condominium of British Petroleum and Gulf. IPC of Iraq belong to BP, Shell, Compagnie Franc¸aise des Pe´troles, and Shell. The Iranian consortium was owned by BP, CPF, Shell, and a quintet of American oil giants (Standard of California, Standard of New Jersey, Mobil, Gulf and Texaco). 49. As chief supplier of oil to the US domestic market, Venezuela had a vested interest in persuading the Middle East to maintain high prices for its oil. Venezuela charged the US companies operating inside its territories a 60 percent tax on their proﬁts, and could not afford to be undercut by exports from the Persian Gulf. Leonard Mosley, Power Play: Oil in the Middle East, p. 292. 50. David Hirst, Oil and Public Opinion in the Middle East (London, 1966), pp. 105–6. 51. Middle East Economic Survey, Sept. 16, 1960. 52. A contribution from a business man from Lebanon sought to grapple with the problem of oil wealth’s maldistribution: his proposal, supported by the Lebanese government, was an Arab Development Bank, to which governments and oil companies in Arab producing countries should each contributing, as capital, 5 percent of their oil revenues or proﬁts. The Bank would lend its funds, at 2.5 percent, for development projects, initially in the transit countries, Jordan, Lebanon, and the UAR. This would give them a real stake in continuance of the ﬂow of the oil to the West. About 35 million pounds a year would be available in the early years, but this would gradually rise. As a corollary, this project would induce the transit countries to enter into international treaties with the oil-producing states, to guarantee the use of the pipelines crossing their territories. A project of this kind clearly postulated a high degree of Arab unity to be achieved, the champion of which was the Congress organizer. The Congress took note of the scheme at its ﬁnal session and recognized the advisability of referring it to the Arab League. Petroleum Press Service, May 1959, pp. 168–70. 53. B. Shwadran, ‘The Kuwait Incident’, Middle Eastern Affairs, Jan. 2, 1962. 54. A year after the break-up of the crisis, Iraq had asked for and obtained the departure from Baghdad of the ambassadors from Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, Iran, Japan and the US (and, from long past, the UAR). Richard Schoﬁeld, Kuwait and Iraq: Historical Claims and Territorial Disputes (London: Royal Institute of International Affairs, 1991). 55. Financial Times, July 7, 1961; The New York Times, July 8, 1961; Corriere della Sera, July 9, 1961; Financial Times, July 10 and July 26, 1961. 56. Charles Tripp, A History of Modern Iraq, p. 167. 57. G. Stocking, Middle East Oil: A Study in Political and Economic Controversy, p. 251. 58. Qasim’s speech at the reception on the anniversary of the Iraqi Army’s creation, quoted in ibid., p. 252. 59. David Hirst, Oil and Public Opinion in the Middle East, p. 98. 60. Middle East Economic Survey, Oct. 5, 1962. It would fall to the Ba’th government in June 1972 to nationalize the IPC, removing the last element of Western control from Iraq’s national life. To secure the continued ﬂow of oil from its wells, Iraq had signed an agreement with the Soviet Union in July 1969, whereby the USSR would help Iraq to exploit its oil ﬁelds, while in April 1972 a new trade agreement guaranteed that the USSR would purchase Iraq’s oil.

Dynamics and Determinants of the GCC States’ Foreign Policy, with Special Reference to the EU ABDULLA BAABOOD

INTRODUCTION

The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), which encompasses the monarchical systems of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and Oman, is a relatively successful attempt at regional integration in the Arab world. Born in 1981, at the height of the Iran–Iraq war, the GCC has been viewed by many observers as an answer to the perennial dilemma of maintaining stability and security in this oil-rich strategic region. Given these small states’ vulnerabilities and inherent weaknesses, the GCC forum offered them the politics of scale. The declared ambitions of the GCC are to create a cohesive regional group and to effect deeper integration and closer cooperation between its member states. Indeed, since the inception of the GCC, its member states have moved closer to each other in several ways in the economic, social and political spheres. A free trade area has been created and an agreement on a customs union entered into force in January 2003. A monetary union has been mooted for 2005, to be followed by a single currency in 2010. There is already free movement of people, goods and capital between its member states and there are discussions aimed at achieving a common Gulf citizenship. Along with integration in these ‘soft’ areas there has been some limited cooperation in the security and political ‘hard’ issues. On political cooperation, for example, the GCC states created a platform for their foreign ministries to coordinate their foreign policies. Close consultations and regular foreign ministers’ meetings take place to arrive at a common position and act as a collective group in regional and international fora. However, despite their declared attempt at political cooperation and some signs of foreign policy coordination, the GCC states have not exhibited much joint foreign policy making, let alone arrived at a common foreign and security policy (CFSP). Scholarly interest in the GCC states’ politics has for the most part approached the subject from the perspective of foreign and regional power interests and of geopolitics and oil security.1 Studies of GCC foreign policy have most often focused on the region’s (and the states’) small size and geographical location –

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and consequently external and material factors – as constraining and shaping GCC states’ foreign policy.2 While this approach is certainly valid, it has also led to neglect of the domestic political, economic, or personal components of GCC foreign policy. The aim, here, is to redress the balance. To this end, the broad aim of this contribution is to provide an analysis of the dynamics of foreign policy in the GCC and examine its determinants. The nature of domestic politics, as well as the GCC’s historical and long-standing domestic concerns are examined. This is followed by a consideration of the GCC states’ regional environment, where traditional security and foreign interests and policies impinge on these states’ foreign policy output. The nature of foreign policy decision making and the main foreign policy orientations followed by these states is examined, before deriving from this analysis a number of observations on the content and future of the GCC–EU relationship. THE INSTITUTIONAL FRAMEWORK IN GCC JOINT FOREIGN POLICY MAKING

Foreign policy analysis usually focuses on the policies of individual nationstates. The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), like other regional groups, does not lend itself to such traditional study. It has been recognized that the search for theory or a conceptual framework to provide formulae for explaining foreign policy actions is fraught with difﬁculties. Most foreign policy theories or concepts are formed with the nation-state in mind. Joint foreign behavior of a group of states is so unorthodox in international relations that it deﬁes traditional political science theories. The GCC’s multidimensional nature – six sets of national interests sometimes converging and sometimes diverging, with the added complication that one of the states, the UAE, is itself a confederation of seven emirates – means no one conceptual perspective can fully describe and explain its foreign policy behavior. As political scientists cannot agree on policy theory at state level, it is not surprising that there is no consensus on a theory of regional foreign policy; this is certainly true for the case of the GCC. The way regional groups approach their collective foreign policy and external relations depends, to a large extent, on the level, intensity, and the process of their integration and the institutional structures created. Collective policy making does not imply an automatic transfer of competencies from the national to the regional level, as the neo-functionalist theory would suggest, but it implies rather a convergence of interests when the ‘beneﬁts’ of joint policy making are greater than the ‘costs’. Convergence of interests sometimes enables diverse states to act as one in a number of international areas, but equally divergence of interests encourages them to deal alone at the expense of collective action. A collective approach, especially for smaller states, offers a better bargaining position from which to gain economic beneﬁts and political leverage. In most cases, member states of a given group may pursue quite different goals, but positions seem to converge at a given stage without anyone obstructing the approach completely.

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The integrative formula chosen for the GCC as a legal political framework, is that of a comprehensive regional inter-governmental organization. Unlike the EU, which has intergovernmental and supranational elements of integration, the GCC does not aim to create a ‘supranational’ institution (like the European Commission) or a decision-making process in which aspects of sovereignty are shared through, for example, qualiﬁed majority voting. It is simply a loose arrangement of sovereign/independent states cooperating within an organization for a common purpose. The organization is presided over by the Supreme Council, which is the highest authority of the GCC and comprises the six Heads of State. Its presidency rotates according to the Arabic alphabetical order of the names of the member states. It convenes for at least one regular session every year. However, extraordinary sessions may be convened at the request of any member state seconded by another. On international affairs, the Supreme Council approves and ratiﬁes the basis for dealing with other states and international organizations. The GCC Charter states that the Supreme Council is the authority entitled to ‘approve the bases for dealing with other states and international organizations’. The Basic Statute of the GCC used broad language when dealing with the powers and functions of the Supreme Council, especially in provision 1 of Article 8, thus making no limitations or restrictions as to what the Council can review during its meetings. The Supreme Council is not accountable for its actions to anyone: it is an extension of the centralized political structures that exist in the member states, where power is concentrated in the hands of the rulers with little organized popular input (see below). It should be noted, however, that GCC decisions are more like a recommendation, akin to those in the Arab League or the UN. Most of the organization’s joint decisions are deliberated and reached at the Ministerial Council. The Ministerial Council is the executive power and the second highest authority in the GCC. It consists of the Foreign Ministers, or other delegated ministers, of the six member governments and supports the function of the Supreme Council. The Ministerial Council’s basic function is to study issues and make recommendations to the Supreme Council for decisions and to develop and propose the various means by which greater cooperation can be effected: the Ministerial Council proposes and the Supreme Council disposes. The Council Presidency is exercised by the Member State that presided over the last ordinary session of the Supreme Council on a rotating basis. The Ministerial Council convenes every three months, and may hold extraordinary meetings at the request of one Member State seconded by another. The Secretariat-General, based in Riyadh, is charged, among other functions, with preparing studies and programs for joint work. It is also entrusted with the preparation of periodic reports, follow-up implementation of the resolutions, and preparation for meetings, agendas and draft resolutions for the Ministerial Council. The Supreme Council appoints a Secretary-General for a period of three years, renewable only once. There are three Assistant Secretaries-General for political, economic and military affairs, as well as the head of the GCC delegation to Brussels, who are appointed by the Ministerial Council for three renewable years, as well as other staff appointed by the Secretary-General.

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In 1997 a new body was added; known as the Consultative Commission it is formed of 30 GCC citizens (ﬁve from each Member State) chosen according to their experience and qualiﬁcations for a period of three years. The Consultative Commission is charged with studying matters referred to it by the Supreme Council. As a new body its role in decision making is still not clear. Resolutions on substantive matters are issued by unanimous approval of the members present, while a majority is enough to approve those of a procedural nature. Hence, GCC decision making is carried out through consensus and incrementalism. However, while the organization is somewhat handicapped by internal decision-making requirements, the dynamics of the GCC regional organization and its decision making, especially in the areas of political cooperation and foreign policy making, have been so constructed as to allow member states both the option of working in a collective group or acting individually. The GCC has no explicit treaty-based foreign policy powers in a strictly political sense. Its Charter only calls for a coordination of foreign policy and political cooperation. Member governments retain sovereignty in most aspects of political and economic foreign policy. Any limitation on their sovereignty would have been ﬁercely resisted by these relatively newly formed states and would have, most likely, stymied their regional cooperation.3 THE DOMESTIC POLITICS OF THE GCC STATES

It has become more accepted within the literature that foreign policy is an extension of domestic politics and that it is a reﬂection of domestic reality.4 In recent years, the classical distinction between foreign and domestic policy has been broken.5 James Rosenau asserts that ‘domestic and foreign affairs have always formed a seamless web and the need to treat them as such is urgent in this time of enormous transformation’.6 In line with the analytical framework proposed by Nonneman in this volume, the present analysis also proceeds from this realization. The GCC states easily ﬁt in the ‘small state’ category – even if Saudi Arabia stands somewhat apart in terms of geographical size and its unique leverage as the only major ‘swing producer’ in the oil market. At least some of these states have also been characterized as ‘accidental’ states, owing their survival to regional upheavals, British policy, and political convenience. Yet they also have clear local roots, with the link between state and ruling family in some cases going back two-and-a-half centuries. They are shaped in part also by aspects of Islam and tribalism, which are central concepts for understanding the origins of these regimes and are important markers of their personal and social identity. The GCC states are an integral part of the Arab world and are members of the Arab League and its many different institutions.7 They are also members of Islamic international organizations, like the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC), which was set up 1969 with it headquarters in Jeddah, and the Muslim World League, a non-governmental organization based in Mecca and founded in 1962 to promote Islamic unity. More important, however, is that Saudi Arabia is

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the home of the two most Holy Places of Islam (Mecca and Medina) and the birthplace of Islam. Indeed, one of the claimed objectives of the GCC, as a subregional organization, is to complement more general Arab aspirations, such as Arab unity, as expressed in the Charter of the Arab League, and to channel their efforts to reinforce and serve the higher goals of Arab nationalism and Islamic causes.8 The preamble of the GCC Charter provides that ‘Having the conviction that coordination, cooperation and integration between them serve the sublime objectives of the Arab Nation; . . . and in order to channel their efforts to reinforce and serve Arab and Islamic causes, the Member States agreed to establish the Gulf Cooperation Council’. Thus the GCC states’ basic political tenets and their foreign policy objectives can be seen within the overall framework of their Arab and Muslim identity and heritage, which sometimes are not co-incident with those of other political and economic power blocs. The evolution of the modern nation states had been shaped among other things, by Islamic history and tradition. A fundamental practice in the political history of Islam has been the connection between religion and policy. Islamic institutions do not recognize a strict separation between church and state. Islam permeates every aspect of Muslims’ lives and, as such, also permeates every aspect of their states and society. That is not to say that there has not, in practice, often been a conventional distinction between temporal or state power on the one hand and that of religious scholars and imams on the other; indeed a central tenet in Sunni Islamic political thought became that only the most egregious breaches of Islamic rule could justify disobeying the ruler, while in Shia Islam, Khomeini’s concept of rule by the top Islamic jurisconsult (the Faqih) was quite revolutionary. Yet, while there is no detailed blueprint for ‘Islamic politics’, there are certainly basic principles which Islamically acceptable rule must observe; and a collective memory of the early Islamic community ruled by the Prophet Muhammad pervades the perceptions of many Muslims. At the same time, there is a long-standing pattern of the state appropriating religion for its own purposes. Finally, critics and opponents of regimes have always had the option of using Islamic themes to challenge their rulers – an option perhaps reaching a period of particular potency in the context of the stresses and opportunities of globalization. In various ways, then, the linkages between Islam and politics remain highly salient – not least in the original heartlands of Islam themselves.9 Moreover, Gulf society remains largely tribal in nature, and sovereignty and citizenship are closely guarded by the predominantly tribal population that has its roots in the Arabian Peninsula. ‘Tribal,’ of course, does not equal bedu or pastoral: the Peninsula has always featured an interplay between the settled and the nomadic, and today the latter has dwindled to a minority. The existence of the ruling families is perhaps the most obvious manifestation of Arab tribalism; these families’ fundamental legitimacy for roughly the past two hundred years has derived from a combination of tribal authority and Islamic precepts. Peterson has observed that the lack of established rules for succession among the ruling families, as in Kuwait, leads to uncertainty and even malaise while reliance on primogeniture may eliminate uncertainty but may also on occasion

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result in unsuitable leaders, as happened in Saudi Arabia.10 It is worth noting, of course, that the very conventions responsible for this also allowed the king in question to be replaced by the exceptionally able King Faysal. More recently, moreover, some of the monarchies have begun to institute more formal rules of succession. Until recently, the tribal structure of the population dominated political and social life. The modern institutions which have been established since independence, have been adapted to the traditional forms. The way in which government ofﬁcials are appointed reﬂects the importance of tribal connections. Generally, members of the ruling family are accommodated ﬁrst, followed by families and tribes with whom the rulers have been traditionally allied. The ruling family also participates in shaping the various consultative bodies that exist to advise the leader. Such bodies, which include ﬁgures outside the ruling family, arguably help to institutionalize the more or less authoritarian, maledominated, hierarchical and patriarchal system in these states.11 Here again, though, a ﬂedgling opening-up can be observed in recent years, with the Kuwaiti parliament often ﬂexing its muscles, an elected lower chamber now in place in Bahrain, a two-thirds elected parliament due in Qatar in 2004, and an elected Majlis al-Shura in Oman, though without legislative powers, increasingly pushing for a greater role (as well as including a number of women). The causes of this change will be discussed in the following section. Recent signs of tentative reform notwithstanding, the pattern in these states in the twentieth century, retaining much of its potency today, has been one where the institutions of tribalism and Islam have developed into signiﬁcant supports for the existing political systems in the Gulf monarchies, while losing much of the ability they had in the earlier past to challenge those systems. Ideological constructs based on interpretations of tribalism and Islam have been used to legitimize those systems to their citizens.12 The regimes, empowered by oil wealth, have been largely successful at taming and using Islam and tribalism as institutional and ideological supports. The oil revolution of the 1970s profoundly affected politics in the Gulf States. Unprecedented oil income gave GCC governments access to enormous resources, particularly in light of their relatively small populations, without having to tax their societies. The nature of the GCC oil-based economy is such that it concentrates great power and wealth in the hands of the governments, and its effect on the rest of the economy as a whole is mediated through the governments, in their decisions on how to spend oil revenues. The relationship between state and society in such an economy is much different from the models best known in the West. Because of the oil boom, the rulers of these states have been concerned with how to spend money rather than how to extract it from society through taxation. Oil revenues enabled the rulers to build large bureaucratic apparatuses, to distribute beneﬁts to society and to control political behavior. Oil proceeds coming directly into the hands of the state, unmediated by the local economy, meant that the personal interests of many more people came to be vested directly in the state and the ruling family. The state became stronger relative to its potential domestic competitors and

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constituencies than it had ever been in the past. That strength, however, was of a particular nature.13 Citizens did not have to pay for these increased services through taxation. The state did not have to engage in the kinds of political bargains with society, worked out over centuries and with no small amount of violence, which produced representative governments in the West. The terms of the exchange, from the point of view of the rulers, were simple: citizens would receive substantial material beneﬁts in exchange for political loyalty, or at least political quiescence. The states became detached from the their local socioeconomic realm by virtue of rent and they acquired relative autonomy from society, which gave them the ability to pursue national goals without accountability. The connections between state and society in this situation are unidirectional and they all run from the top down. This historical anomaly has given rise in the literature to a new category to describe these states: the ‘distributive,’ ‘allocation,’ or ‘rentier’ state.14 The Challenges to the Rentier State and the Evolution of Civil Society It must be remembered that the region as a whole was one of the poorest in the world before the advent of oil.15 After a slow start, the region’s share of world production rose substantially after World War II, which made it one of the most globally important sources for energy exports. All other traditional economic activities gave way to the oil industry and its revenues, creating what is known in the literature as the ‘Dutch Disease’. The post-World War II period can rightly be termed the oil era. Paradoxically, although these revenues and the new ‘rentier’ dynamics strengthened the states and the position of the ruling dynasties, the oil boom also brought oil-dependence, as well as social and economic upheavals. The latter’s longer-term effects began to upset the ‘traditional’ political order, calling into question its survival – especially once oil revenues no longer kept pace with expanding populations and growing expectations.16 The GCC states are major oil producers. Their combined oil production is over 20 percent of the world total and their oil and gas reserves are around 40 and 15 percent respectively. Oil and gas revenues account on average for about 75 percent of total government revenue and such exports comprise 65 percent of total exports. While there are variations among countries, these shares are nevertheless signiﬁcant in all countries. As all six GCC states rely almost exclusively on oil revenues as the main source for public funds, ﬂuctuation of oil prices has complicated their efforts at long term planning. Oil is not only the main source of national income in the six GCC states but it is also the main motor for the transformation of the region. Besides the obvious impact on government ﬁnances and the balance of payments, changes in oil earnings have broader implications for domestic economic activity in the GCC countries. Non-oil economic activity is heavily inﬂuenced by domestic government expenditure, which itself is dependent on oil revenue. Moreover, most large-scale economic activities in the public domain (petrochemicals and oil-based basic manufacturing) are closely linked to developments in the oil sector.

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This has important consequences for foreign policy. Clearly, the long-term security of oil (and gas) exports and markets is of crucial importance for these regimes. This has clear foreign policy implications, both in terms of economic foreign policy and in terms of maintaining Gulf security and outside powers’ goodwill. Aside from export volumes, both the rise and fall of oil prices have signiﬁcant impact on Gulf societies and economies. It is not surprising, therefore, that the GCC states would favor stability of the oil price and an expansion (or at the very least the maintenance) of oil consumption and markets. More broadly, this also affects their views on questions of international climate change politics, and fosters a concern with the health of the wider world economy. The era of abundance, however, came to end in the mid 1980s with the fall in the oil price, mainly due to a rise in non-OPEC production, diversiﬁcation and conservation policies of industrial states and advances in technology. This, coupled with a diminishing value of the US dollar, dealt a blow to the GCC economies.17 In addition, two more developments presented challenges and contributed to the relative decline in their ﬁnancial resources: high population growth and rising military expenditure. Indeed, the Gulf welfare state was built in the 1970s, when populations were small and money seemed limitless. Now the reverse is true. Population growth in some Gulf States – which has averaged an almost 4 percent annual growth in the last two decades – has been among the highest in the world and has created a large and restive youth population.18 Each of these countries is projected, at current growth rates, to double its current population in about 20 years. Some of this growth has come from immigration, but the lion’s share is accounted for by high birth rates and longer life expectancies for citizens. The age pyramids in these societies are heavily weighted toward the younger end, and this population growth is occurring at a time when oil prices are declining. On the other hand, huge military expenditure since the early 1980s has transferred declining wealth to arms purchases instead of investments in the socio-economic infrastructure. According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, Saudi Arabia was the world’s largest recipient of major conventional weapons in the ﬁrst half of the 1990s.19 The London-based International Institute of Strategic Studies forecast defense expenditure in the Gulf as increasing by 10 percent in 2001, from $59 billion in 2000. Despite the weakening oil price, defense spending was thought likely to increase further into 2002. Furthermore, the Gulf States’ support of Iraq in its long war against Iran and the expenses of the Gulf War added more heavy ﬁnancial burdens to their struggling economies. The liberation of Kuwait added yet another burden, with a total cost in excess of $200 billion.20 In fact, the ﬁscal impact of Desert Storm upon the well-being of Saudi Arabia was as signiﬁcant as its geopolitical counterparts.21 The almost ideal-type distribution state, thus, came to an end by the late 1980s and the GCC states began considering the need for the introduction of economic, political and social reforms, although they were initially mainly cosmetic and

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carried out half-heartedly.22 Concepts like economic liberalization and diversiﬁcation as well as privatization, opening up for foreign investments and political participation were on the agenda. The Gulf Crisis accelerated the process as the GCC states’ leaderships, willingly or unwillingly, had to deal with the new realities brought about by the economic and political impact of its aftermath.23 This, of course, coincided with the end of the Cold War in 1989, the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 and the subsequent democratic wave in Central and Eastern Europe, which did not go entirely unnoticed in the region. These sweeping changes, coupled with the unavoidable impact of globalization, and especially in communication and media, encouraged the GCC citizens to call for more genuine reforms and pushed the GCC leaders to open up more of their political space for the public. GCC leaders also realized that economic rationalization would need political reform to make it successful. As a consequence, the GCC States have instituted further reforms, especially in Kuwait, Bahrain and Qatar, and have since come a long way from the days in which these countries were famous for their political stagnation.24 Such reforms being implemented at different rates and with different intensity are, however, some way short of creating democracies and representative governments. Kuwait is still the only country in the Gulf to have a parliament with a genuine popular mandate and a proven track record, a proper division of powers, free speech (with some restrictions) and a written constitution – even though the government-appointed cabinet (always including royals in key positions) are ex ofﬁcio members of the parliament.25 The effects of September 11 and the war on Iraq on the GCC states and their reforms are still too early to contemplate but it is clear that the US and Europe, which used to favor the status quo, have begun pressing GCC governments for more liberalization of their systems. The US and its coalition partners have long claimed that post-Saddam Iraq is to be a beacon for human rights and democracy in the area. Meanwhile, in any case, the new Bahraini parliament, with its fully elected lower chamber and its appointed second chamber, has functioned since 2002 on the basis of the new constitution brought in, which turned the emirate in to a constitutional kingdom, and much increased popular support for the King and Crown Prince in the process. In Qatar a new constitution was approved by referendum in April 2003, as the Qatar-based operation against Saddam’s Iraq was being wound down, stipulating free elections for a national parliament which will have real powers. Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, too, appears to favor some gradual political reform, but remains hemmed in by other factions within the royal family. These various intertwining dynamics all shape the ways in which these regimes, in the ‘omnibalancing’ act suggested in Nonneman’s analytical framework for this volume, respond to the challenges and opportunities which their regional and international environments present. The resources and strengths they possess (wealth, a degree of traditional and performance legitimacy), even if under strain, may offer them a window of opportunity for domestic adjustment while maintaining some room for maneuver in foreign policy; at the same time, these strains do necessitate careful treading.

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TRADITIONAL GULF SECURITY AND DEFENSE CHALLENGES

The state, although not the only player, is the principal foreign policy actor.26 This is particularly the case in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region where the state role is most prevalent and state elites have an interest in maximizing the autonomy and security of the state. The MENA region arguably exempliﬁes the realist claim that a built-in feature of a state system, anarchy, has generated profound insecurity and a pervasive struggle for power.27 On the other hand, we should not ignore the fact that the Middle East is also a dependent, fragmented and penetrated system, with various levels of stateness and multiple identities that inspire trans-state movements and constrain purely state-centric behavior.28 The GCC states’ security challenge remains the all too common one of seeking to maintain regional security and a credible defense against signiﬁcant regional and internal threats within the constraints of continuing budgetary shortfalls. The ﬁscal strains precipitated by the dramatic mid-1980s decline in global oil prices and exacerbated by the costs of the two Gulf conﬂicts, together with the fast-growing population, will add even more constraints on the GCC’s quest for regional security and internal stability. The new challenge now is that external threats could emerge in a social environment that is, at the same time, rife with seeds of potential internal political destabilization. Future domestic turbulence, intertwined with the rising trend of ‘political Islam’ and increased resentment against the Western presence in the aftermath of the 1990–91 Gulf War, can be seen as coalescing to produce political and socio-economic climates more complex than those confronted in the past. The new economic realities will inhibit future GCC efforts to build effective deterrent capabilities against both larger armies, such as Iraq and Iran, and face the challenge of internal instability. The six countries all face economic problems to one degree or another, which limits the extent of defense expenditures – although the UAE and Qatar remain better placed given generous reserves of oil and gas, respectively, relative to their indigenous populations.29 The GCC region is now more deeply embedded in an increasingly interconnected wider region, than it was during the 1970s. In terms of security, connections include an increase in both conventional and non-conventional weapons; nuclear weapons and missile proliferation (Israel, Pakistan, and India); the Israel–Palestine conﬂict; Israel’s growing strategic ambitions; Iranian– Saudi–Pakistani rivalries in Afghanistan and Central Asia; and spillover from international radical Islam. A strategy of self-reliance for defense and security is both inadequate and politically troublesome for the Gulf leaders.30 There are societal and structural reasons why this potential in unlikely to be realized. As they continue to spend heavily on modern, high-tech defense equipment, particularly air force and navy, the GCC states could, together, theoretically be a match for Iran and Iraq in any high-intensity conﬂict scenario.31 However, technological superiority and air and naval power can provide deterrence, but only up to a point. Iran and, in future potential, Iraq, both have enormous armies compared to the small ground forces in most of the GCC states. Their inability to

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utilize fully the human resources that they have compounds those complications. The GCC states’ ability to mobilize their population for defense is limited by their small size and the ethos of the rentier state, but also because of government policies. Their small populations, relative to potentially threatening neighbors, complicate their defense planning. Oil-age Gulf society has no tradition of military service. Ironically, moreover, suspicion of the military still exists, especially from the perspective of rulers who remember the prevalence of Arab military coups in the 1950s and 1960s. Historically, demands by the state upon citizens such as military service have been avoided because such demands could bring forth pressures from the latter to have a say in state policy. The ruling elites in the Gulf want to avoid exacerbating the already growing demands from their societies for greater participation. The argument that the GCC states simply do not have the population to support a large army is only partly true. The GCC States’ population is comparable to Switzerland’s and larger than Israel’s, and both of those countries have built credible defense forces.32 Another major stumbling block to effective self-defense in the Gulf States is their inability to forge a uniﬁed defense and security posture among themselves. The creation of the GCC itself in 1981 was a response to the Iranian revolution and the Iran–Iraq war (being, at the same time, made possible by the elimination of Iraq’s earlier opposition to the formation of a regional bloc that excluded it). In an attempt to forestall Arab and Iranian criticism, the new organization was portrayed as a collaborative step in the wider ambition of Arab integration and not aimed against anyone – hence it did not have an explicit security component. Soon, however, after the discovery of the 1981 coup plot in Bahrain later that year, security cooperation was added to the GCC’s brief. Yet more than two decades on, there is very little to show for the discussions on security and military cooperation under the aegis of the GCC which have taken place since then. The most important achievements cited in the military ﬁeld are: the creation of the joint 15,000 Peninsula Shield Force in 1982; the resolution taken during the Kuwait summit in 1997, which entailed the linking of the GCC member states with a military communication network for early warning; and the formation of a Joint Defense Council endorsed by the Muscat summit in December 2001.33 The GCC has, in other words, done little in real terms to promote collective defense; hopes that it would evolve into a real security alliance have not been realized. Indeed, after the Gulf War the GCC states looked at two options to bolster their defense. The ﬁrst one was contemplated when the GCC states met with two of their Arab coalition partners, Egypt and Syria, and issued the ‘Damascus Declaration’, which envisioned a long-term partnership to provide for security for the GCC states. However, the ambitious Damascus Declaration, for all practical purposes, is dead.34 Second, the GCC states pledged to increase their mutual defense cooperation. At successive meetings of the GCC, Oman pushed for a genuine, quantitative and qualitative upgrade of the joint defense force ‘Peninsula Shield’, including an eventual 100,000-man joint force. The other Gulf States were reluctant as there were misgivings about command and control

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of the joint GCC force, its location, and individual member states’ manpower contributions. The Omani proposal was shelved at the December 1991 summit, and is effectively dead.35 Another fault line in the GCC separates Saudi Arabia from the others. The smaller GCC states resent what they regard as Saudi hegemony. As the largest country – with 55 percent of GCC oil reserves, over 50 percent of GDP, and 75 percent of its population – it is hard for Saudi Arabia not to dominate the GCC, and it has thrown its weight around in dealing with its neighbors in the past. Each of the member states is extremely hesitant to give up any aspect of its sovereignty, and the smaller states remain wary of Saudi dominance. Historic and border disputes and dynastic rivalries add to the smaller states’ suspicions of Saudi designs and intentions.36 The Saudis have never been very comfortable when their neighbors hold elections, though until recently that has been mostly a Kuwaiti idiosyncrasy.37 Self-reliance in defense and security matters is a difﬁcult, if not unachievable, goal for the GCC States. Their narrow demographic bases, political constraints, and problems in cooperating among themselves all work against real selfdefense and make them dependent on external support. Due to the lack of consensus on security issues, the GCC states opted for an outside guarantee for their security. Following the Gulf Crisis, the GCC states put themselves under the umbrella of the US and some European powers. It should be noted that the absence of an EU common foreign and security policy meant that the GCC states had to contract with individual EU Members States, like the UK and France, and not with the EU as such. Even here, it can be seen that each GCC member state has been forging its own defense agreements with outside powers, rather than negotiating overall GCC deals with them.38 Indeed, each state maintains its own procurement policies, without real coordination to promote compatibility or economies of scale. At an individual level, however, there has been evidence of these states’ attempting to keep some room for maneuver by diversifying their external understandings and procurement.39 DECISION MAKING AND STYLE IN GCC STATES’ FOREIGN POLICY

Given the nature of these states, regime and dynastic interests are the focus of the GCC states’ foreign policy. The core foreign policy goal is regime security, which conﬂates with state interest. Regime security is the paradigm through which policy is deﬁned and the prism through which events are analyzed, and at the top is how they will affect the future of the ruling family. For the GCC regimes, the objectives of survival and security have required neutrality, secret diplomacy, reliance upon international powers and international legal norms and negotiation, and attempts to balance protection by the main great power with channels to others; these foreign policy calculations and means also always had to be conceived as part of the wider omnibalancing strategy that takes in the domestic challenges and resources. This has been conducted through a particular style of diplomacy and on the basis of a particular type of decision-making system.

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Studies abound in the literature of the decision-making process in foreign policy. Foreign policy making, even in democratic societies, is normally the preserve of the elites. The actual choices of policy-making elites are shaped by their values and interests within the constraints of the framework of the state’s governing institutions and inﬂuential interest groups. As discussed earlier, the absence of organized, popular and effective opposition, the paucity of institutionalized channels of participation, the family basis of rule, and the power that oil wealth concentrates in the hands of the rulers all coalesce to limit even further the circle of policy makers in the GCC.40 In developing countries, the number and relative inﬂuence of the policy-making process varies according to the type of political regime, the nature of the civil society and issue areas. In the GCC states, the trend has been that most of the policy makers are from the ruling families or from the most trusted ruling class. This is particularly so in foreign policy making and in the post of their foreign ministers. Ambassadorships and top diplomatic posts are usually used as rewards to the most trusted individuals and, in most cases, have a tribal, or family basis.41 Al-Alkim has observed that GCC foreign policy decisions involve three concentric circles.42 The ﬁrst circle exclusively comprises the head of state, key members of the royal families, and their close associates from the political elites who hold senior posts such as foreign minister or advisor to the head of state. The second circle includes other members of the executive authority, namely the Council of Ministers. The third circle encompasses bureaucrats involved in the formation and execution of the policies. Naturally, standard decisions are taken on a hierarchical basis, while in crisis the inner circle or the Head of State takes decisions. Input into foreign policy making from outside the governing establishment is typically very limited. Business and commercial interests, which in some countries play a central role in foreign policy, have only very limited access to decision makers.43 Media, except to some extent in Kuwait and Qatar, are subject to government censorship and scrutiny. Satellite stations (like Al-Jazeera) and the Internet have lessened government control on information but have not greatly empowered the public. Public political space still remains limited. Despite the growth of some parliamentary or semi-parliamentary activities, like the majlis and consultative councils, few areas of public life are legitimate objects of public scrutiny, and acceptable formal means to express speciﬁc concerns remain few. Foreign policy is broadly speaking an acceptable topic for the population to comment upon, perhaps more so than issues rather closer to home. When allied with existing pressures – such as adverse demographics, lower personal income and rising levels of unemployment – the foreign policies of the Gulf states act as vehicle to express discontent not simply with the way a state conducts itself in relations with other countries, but also with the way in which the elite deals with domestic issues. Foreign policy often serves as the litmus test for a regime’s popularity at home. However, broader public opinion has only an indirect impact on foreign policy if leaders must defend their legitimacy under attack from rivals or if the mass public is aroused by crisis. In normal times and when the public is

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divided, for example, by class or ethnicity, elites enjoy more autonomy for action.44 The effects of geography and demography – small populations, vulnerable borders and territories, valuable natural resources – combine with the domestic features of societies and regimes to create a special Gulf political culture and diplomatic style. That style can be characterized as a highly personal, subtle approach conducted mainly through quiet, personal and secretive diplomacy, avoiding, where possible, headlines and publicity. In such a diplomatic personal style, informal political understandings and personal relationships mean more than formal agreements. In the personalized authoritarian regimes typical of the GCC states, the choice and the style of the leader are decisive, particularly in a crisis or critical bargaining situation.45 The leader’s experience plays a critical role. Policy makers in these states are, for the great part, extremely sophisticated players in the international arena, in many cases with decades of experience in dealing with foreign leaders. In fact, despite the obituaries regularly written for the Gulf States’ regimes, their rulers have shown great resilience and have survived the arrival and departure of Britain, the trial of independence, the challenge of populist pan-Arabism and radical Islam and, ﬁnally, the demands of oil wealth. Their durability and their success in building international alliances to protect them from their neighbors stand as evidence of their skills. However, this was achieved at the cost of forgoing the institutionalized bureaucratic decisionmaking bodies with clear rules and procedures and professional diplomatic services found in neighboring states like Egypt, Iran or even Jordan. The GCC’s diplomacy, then, remains highly personal; authority and lines of responsibility for decision making are often blurred and muddled by the informal but central role played by leading family members. The dominance of the ruling families in foreign policy making means that the decision-making process will not follow neatly constructed rational bureaucratic lines. There is a ﬂuidity in the decision-making process that depends more upon the dynamics of intra-family politics than upon neatly deﬁned bureaucratic lines of responsibility.46 FOREIGN POLICY PATTERNS

The GCC states have always been viewed as not being strong enough to direct regional or international politics on their own. In fact, their vulnerability has often been cited as the key to understanding their foreign policies. As has already been made clear, these vulnerabilities can be found in both internal and external sources. Susceptible to the wishes of their more powerful neighbors and allies, the GCC states have usually followed a cautious, conservative and pragmatic foreign policy, including reliance on international allies, to maintain their independence and avoid involvement in destructive wars and outright invasion. GCC diplomacy has aimed wherever possible at preserving the status quo through maintaining a delicate regional balance.47 GCC policy makers have always exhibited a desire for accommodative diplomacy, conciliation and

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evasion of direct confrontation. They try to appease potential foreign adversaries with non-controversial foreign policies, generous aid (‘Riyal-Politik’), and, especially in the case of Saudi Arabia, symbolic policies to shore up Islamic legitimacy at home and abroad.48 They have tried to avoid, whenever possible, over-close identiﬁcation with any regional power, both out of fear of offending other regional players and in order to hedge against the possibility that today’s friend will be tomorrow’s enemy. They have learned that developing a close relationship with a major Arab or Muslim power means giving that power an entry point into their domestic societies, which could come to be used against the regimes. The cold water thrown on the Damascus Declaration is a case in point. When faced by a confrontation, the GCC states will pick sides and declare themselves only after much internal and external consultation. That was true against Iran during the reﬂagging of the Kuwaiti ships by the United States in 1987–88, and against Iraq after the invasion of Kuwait. But when the crisis passes, they once again seek some regional middle ground, avoiding, if at all possible, friendships that are too close and enmities that are too intense. Their survival instinct has led these regimes to ﬁnding room to maneuver between the competing domestic, regional and international pressures and opportunities – creating ‘wriggle room’ which they have used to try to maintain relative autonomy at all three levels. They have attempted to make the most of particular conﬁgurations in the external environment that facilitated the acquisition of such autonomy, and have been helped in the pragmatic pursuit of what Nonneman has called ‘managed multi-dependence’ by the domestic material and political resources they have had available to them, as these resources allowed them a measure of autonomy from domestic constraints on their freedom of action. Part of this ‘game’, of course, has been to avoid depleting, and if possible augmenting, these domestic resources by their external policy.49 Of course the domestic and international constraints on the menu of their foreign policy choices remain very real – no GCC state is ever likely to adopt a wholly US-unfriendly stance, for instance; none will ever abandon reference to the Palestinian cause; and the Al-Saud are particularly sensitive to Islamist critiques given their Islamic claim to legitimacy – but careful omnibalancing has allowed greater room for maneuver than has usually been appreciated.50 In terms of collective policy making, the GCC states have displayed both the ability to work together on some issues, especially ones related to regional, Arab and Islamic causes. The GCC states through the Arab League and the Organization of Islamic States displayed group solidarity with the many Arabic and Islamic concerns. For example, this was clearly demonstrated on the Arab–Israeli conﬂict and the Palestinian plight (see below) as well as in the cases of Afghanistan in 1980s and Bosnia and Kosovo in the 1990s. Sometimes, of course, collective fora such as the GCC itself have been used to subscribe to alternative declaratory policies than the policies being pursued individually – a trait not unique to the Gulf states or the Middle East. Policy on Iran and Iraq during the Iran–Iraq war of 1980–88 provides several

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examples of this.51 Indeed, this can be seen as yet another aspect of the omnibalancing strategy. Given their economic vulnerability there have been many efforts to coordinate oil production and pricing policy. It is instructive to note that not all the GCC states are members of the Organization of the Arab Oil Exporting Countries (OAPEC) or the Organization of the Oil Exporting Countries (OPEC).52 Saudi Arabia, given its central role in OPEC and its ﬁscal and budgetary deﬁcits, especially following the Gulf Crisis, has tended to coordinate the GCC states’ oil policy before the OPEC oil meetings. In fact, Saudi efforts with non-OPEC producers like Oman, Mexico and Russia for production cuts have yielded some stabilization to the oil price. The GCC states have also acted as one group in trade negotiations with their major trade partners, as in their negotiations and dialogues with the EU, Japan and the US. However, it has been clear also that on many occasions narrow national interests prevailed over collective interests. This is reﬂected in differences in their intra-GCC relations and their relations with regional and international powers, as well as in their voting patterns in international organizations.53 The lack of long-term planning meant that GCC states policies have usually been based on a short-term reactive strategy and, given their small size, they have tended to respond rather than initiate policies. This is not a blanket rule, however: the Fahd peace plan for the Palestine question was one contrary example in the 1980s, Crown Prince Abdullah’s peace plan of 2002 is another. Qatar, of course, since the mid-1990s has on occasion exhibited a rather striking and more proactive policy pattern (often riling others in the GCC) – much of which can be attributed to the personal convictions and calculations of the Emir and the Foreign Minister about the best way to play the omnibalancing game given their changing domestic, regional and international environments (Shaikh Hamad ousted his father in 1995). The current period is an interesting test of the resilience of the style of GCC diplomacy outlined above. Regional and international upheavals, at a time of mounting internal socio-economic and political pressures, will still add still further dimensions to the foreign policy challenges they face. THE ARAB–ISRAELI DIMENSION

The linkage between the Gulf and the Arab–Israeli conﬂict is not new. On the one hand, there is the perceived Israeli threat to the vital installations of the Gulf States due to its conventional and unconventional military superiority and especially the fear of its nuclear capability. That imbalance between the Arab and Israeli military powers encourages regional arms build up and increases tension. There is also the remote, but not unimaginable, possibility of the outbreak of another Arab–Israeli war, which by its nature would be different and would have serious security repercussions on the area including the GCC states. On the other hand, there is the fear that a deadlock on the Palestinian issue could cause more popular unrest and incite violence, which could spread into the GCC states themselves.54 The failure of the peace process could lead to a

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radicalization of Arab politics through the Islamist tendency currently sweeping the region. Several public demonstrations have taken place in GCC capitals in support of the Palestinian intifada. GCC governments and their security allies could become targets due to their inability to help resolve the conﬂict, and in particular to US support for Israel.55 Al-Alkim has argued that it might lead to ‘geometric progression’ through unity between the Islamists and the residual pan-Arab nationalists in one front against their political regimes.56 Regional domestic stability is strongly connected to the progress achieved in the Middle East peace process and the GCC states will not be immune from such political turmoil if such a scenario materializes. Hence, the GCC states have continuously supported Arab positions on the Palestinian question and strongly endorsed Arab and Muslim claims in the old city of Jerusalem, which is the third-holiest site in Islam. They recognize the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) as the legitimate representative of the Palestinian people, despite the PLO’s support for Iraq in 1991, and they continue to contribute ﬁnancially to support the Palestinians in the form of aid and donations.57 GCC states have obviously favored a peaceful solution to the Arab– Israeli conﬂict and have encouraged their international partners, especially the US and Europe, to help towards this end. GCC decision makers realize that the EU has a potentially signiﬁcant role as a major global political and economic actor in the Israeli–Arab Peace Process. Indeed, the EU’s basic position on the Middle East Peace Process was expressed in its Venice Declaration at the June 1980s European Council and was repeatedly reafﬁrmed by subsequent European Councils of Heads of State and Government as well as by General Affairs Councils of Foreign Ministers. However, the EU role has only been supplementary to that of the US, despite its being the largest donor to the Palestinians.58 Throughout the EU–GCC dialogue (see below), the GCC states have pressed the EU to go beyond the declaratory and aid policy in ﬁnding a tangible solution to the intractable problems of the Middle East. In agreement with the various Arab summit resolutions, and taking pains to stress consistently their support for the realization of a just, comprehensive and durable peace in accordance with the principle of land-for-peace and UN Security Council resolutions 242, 338 and 425, the GCC states have continued to promote the Middle East peace process.59 However, they lack the power to make much difference, which subjects them to both domestic and Arab criticisms. The Saudi Fahd Plan in the early 1980s and Crown Prince Abdullah’s initiative in March 2002 were constructive attempts by a GCC state’s leader to overcome some of the impasses on this front and to avoid criticism of impotence. THE US CONUNDRUM

The Arab–Israeli factor, together with those that produce the Gulf regional diplomatic style, also complicate these states’ relations with the United States, their international security guarantor. Their fear of external threat and the necessity of a supplementary power to make up for their inherent weakness

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prompted closer cooperation between the GCC countries and the US and, to varying degrees, placed a number of constraints on their foreign policy. However, given the domestic and regional sensitivities discussed earlier, GCC regimes worry that an excessive identiﬁcation with the US will create problems for them at home with publics that resent many aspects of America’s Middle East policy and oppose any relationship that appears to compromise national independence. Indeed, given the public perception of unfair and one-sided US support for Israel and its ‘double standards’ in the region, there is an increasingly negative public attitude towards US policies; US forces on Gulf soil have become targets for some subversive action.60 The GCC states’ traditional desire to keep US forces ‘over the horizon’ encapsulates these tensions – they want the US to be close enough to protect them, but not so close as to create problems. The presence of US forces in the region also has created tension with neighboring states (Iran and Iraq in particular) and adds to the potential for a regional arms race. The effect of the New World Order and Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait on the GCC states’ foreign policy was striking. Since 1991, each of the six Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) concluded security agreements with the US; Saudi Arabia was the only one not to turn this into a formal defense pact, given domestic sensitivities. Yet, having provided the main base for the allied operation against Iraq in 1991, the Kingdom continued to host over 5000 US troops until 2003, engaged in enforcing the no-ﬂy zones in Iraq and monitoring ‘Dual Containment’. With the Kuwait Crisis, in other words, the US changed its ‘over the horizon’ policy to one involving extensive forward basing and regular military engagements, sometimes escalating into large-scale deployments (for example, in 1990, 1992, 1994, 1998, 2002, and 2003). The EU as a civilian power, while a desired security partner and a required balance to US preponderance, cannot in its current shape substitute for US security, despite the involvement and aspirations of some of its member states. The GCC states, however, did what they could to keep other powers engaged in the region and water down US prevalence. Most GCC states, thus, signed defense agreements with the UK, France, Russia, China and other regional powers. They hoped to keep some options open for security and defense cooperation with other powers as well as to avert domestic and regional criticism with over identifying with the US. However, they also realize that only the US, and to some extent the UK and France, can credibly project power in the area. There are, of course, variations among the GCC states in how closely they ﬁt the pattern described above, with Kuwait and Qatar being ahead of their GCC neighbors in their military cooperation with the US. Having suffered from military occupation, Kuwait has conducted a radical rethinking of foreign policy and enjoys a strong public consensus on the need for close military ties with the United States and other foreign powers, setting it apart from its neighbors and setting the trend for the rest of the GCC states.61 Qatar too, has adopted a policy of military alliance with the US – culminating in providing the headquarters for CENTCOM in the 2003 war against Saddam’s Iraq. Here, though, public opinion is more equivocal.

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It is instructive to see that the GCC states did not always follow the wishes of their security guarantor in their foreign policy. They have shown independent thinking, especially in regional politics where, as discussed earlier, domestic interest is strong. For example, the GCC states not only disagree with US policy on the Arab–Israeli conﬂict, but also disagreed and openly criticized its unilateral policies on Iran and Iraq and its ‘axis of evil’ statement. Most of the GCC countries refused in February 1998 to grant permission for US forces to use their facilities to launch air strikes against Iraq.62 Continuing in this vein, the post-9/11 era has proved a hard test for US–GCC, and especially US–Saudi relations. The GCC states, while condemning the atrocities and carnage in New York and Washington, qualiﬁed their condemnation of ‘terrorism’ by condemning all kinds of terrorism including state terrorism (for which one can read Israeli terrorism). The GCC states’ support for the US war on ‘terrorism’ in Afghanistan remained less than fulsome, and they qualiﬁed it by pointing out that there are other ways of ﬁghting terrorism by ﬁghting its roots and causes, rather than just military action. Given the record and mistrust of US policies in the region people remained highly skeptical about how the war on terrorism would end. This has made it impossible for many Arabs, even those who would accept that the US cause is just, to give the US unconditional support.63 It is also at least partly for this reason that there was no public support in the GCC for an expansion of the war on terrorism into Iraq or elsewhere. The fear was that any military action inside Iraq would simply leave a bigger mess behind. The US suffers from a major credibility gap in convincing the region that it is truly going after terrorism, and not just doing the bidding of Israel through domestic political pressure. A more immediate concern regarding military action in Iraq was the lack of conﬁdence in the US’s ability and will to ‘solve’ the Iraqi problem by replacing Saddam’s regime with a system that would allow for Iraq’s rehabilitation, both in the region and globally. Apart from Kuwait, all the GCC governments heeded their populations’ ﬁerce opposition against the US-led coalition against Iraq in 2003, by publicly declaring their reservations or opposition to a military operation and, with the striking exception of Qatar, limiting the extent of military cooperation. That did not, of course, preclude a signiﬁcant level of quiet cooperation. Even Qatar, however, remained a critical voice on aspects of US policy in the Gulf and on Palestine, continuing its earlier record of independent policy on Iran and the question of sanctions on Iraq. It also, of course, refused to rein in AlJazeera even when pressed to do so during the Iraq war by the US Administration. In late April 2003, it was mutually agreed between the US and Saudi Arabia that most of the troops based in the Kingdom would be withdraw over the summer:64 with the disappearance of Saddam Hussein’s regime, both the no-ﬂy zones and the Iraqi threat were removed, and the presence of the US troops in the Muslim holy land, which had been the ﬁrst of Osama bin Ladin’s grievances, could be removed as a spark to political stability. For the same reason, Saudi Arabia had not provided bases as major launch platforms for the assault on Iraq

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in 2003. Even so, it provided lower-proﬁle access to command-and-control and intelligence facilities, as well as covert access for limited numbers of forces. Following the agreed withdrawal, cooperation in training and technical assistance and maintenance will continue (400 troops were scheduled to remain), as will arms supplies and, no doubt, an understanding on safeguarding Saudi security. Nevertheless, the attitude of Saudi Arabia in particular proved a major irritant to the US guarantors of their security, especially since a large number of the culprits on September 11 are of GCC (Saudi) origin, and large-scale US public and ofﬁcial criticism of the GCC states, and Saudi Arabia in particular, has ensued. At the same time, other policy differences – not least over the Palestine question – remain between most GCC capitals and Washington, most acutely so at the popular level, and they remain a signiﬁcant challenge to stability and to future US interests in the region. GCC opposition to some of the US policies in the Middle East is shared with the EU.65 The GCC states, while aware of the weight of the US, have found here an opportunity to try and ﬁnd some room to maneuver and to escape some of the US’s pressure. RELATIONS WITH THE EU

The GCC states have both bilateral and collective relations with the EU and its Member States. Although there is a growing trend towards inter-regional diplomacy and group-to-group dialogue, security issues have remained, by and large, bilateral. The GCC states have signed a number of defense and security agreements with the UK and France and some of the EU Member States are major defense equipment exporters to the region. This offers the GCC states an alternative to the US. The EU is not only seen by the GCC as a counterbalance to the dominant US position but it is their closest international trade partner. Trade between the EU and the GCC is very signiﬁcant. In 2000, GCC imports from the EU were e29 billion whereas EU imports from the GCC amounted to e22 billion, giving a trade balance in favor of the EU. Since the mid-1980s, the GCC states have been trying to address this trade imbalance with the EU through the EU–GCC dialogue. In fact, since 1988 the EU and the GCC have been formally linked by a Cooperation Agreement. The 1988 Agreement, which entered into force on January 1, 1990, provided a framework for inter-regional cooperation and included a provision for establishing a free trade area (FTA). To complement the agreement, the two parties also initiated a political dialogue aimed at fostering their relations. The Agreement institutionalized the special relationship between the EU and the GCC with, among other things, annual Joint Ministerial Councils and provided for cooperation in the ﬁelds of economic relations, agriculture, energy, investment promotion and technology. Its principal aims were to improve economic relations between the two groups, intensify EU–GCC trade and investment exchange, strengthen inter-regional interdependence, and initiate a close political dialogue.

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However, since 1988, EU–GCC relations have traveled a rocky road. Negotiations for the FTA are still without issue. In large part, this has been because of several long-standing reasons for reluctance to conclude a free trade agreement on the part of the EU. These have included the effectiveness of the European chemicals and petrochemicals industry in warning against the negative effects of the FTA.66 Another obstacle was the proposed 1992 carbon tax (CO2).67 Such a tax if implemented could threaten the oil revenues of the GCC states given its intended effect of reducing oil consumption. It is, therefore, not too surprising that the GCC states should have reacted with disapproval to the EU environmental tax proposals. However, the EU must not carry sole blame for the lackluster results. The GCC states themselves failed to organize properly. They had very little experience in collective diplomacy and inter-regional dialogue and their negotiation team did not have a proper mandate. Indeed, in part this may be due to divergent interests among the six: the petrochemicals issue, for instance, is generally recognized to be mainly pushed by Saudi Arabia. Most importantly, however, they had not yet formed a custom union, an economically logical precondition laid down by the EU for forming a bloc-to-bloc FTA with the GCC. Still, the GCC states were disheartened by the slow progress towards an FTA, given their economic weight and prominent position in world energy. After all, given its size of oil reserves and production, the region plays a decisive role in the energy policy of both the EU and the world. Indeed, the GCC states will become a critical supply source in meeting Europe’s future growing need for imported energy. Moreover, the GCC represents the third most important export market for the EU, accounting for 4 percent of extra-EU exports, larger than China and even the Commonwealth of Independent States. The GCC is the only one of the top ﬁve trade partners with which the EU consistently has a trade surplus and is an important source of an enormous amount of investment capital in ﬁnancial and real estate markets. GCC states have felt slighted by the fact that the Barcelona process, which envisaged the creation of a Euro-Mediterranean Partnership and a free trade zone between signatory states, included several Arab countries but excluded the GCC states.68 They view the hoped-for FTA with the EU not only as a signiﬁcant political achievement, but one with obvious economic beneﬁts. Free trade with the EU will guarantee free and unfettered access for their oil and oil products, the lifeline of their economy, which are threatened by environmental taxes. The high level of domestic taxation on oil in Europe has worried the GCC states. The broad issue of various levels of domestic taxation in the EU on oil has generally been both a sore and a moot point in EU–GCC energy relations but the issue has only been dealt with passively, ephemerally and at a low level. Another economic beneﬁt to the GCC of the FTA would be that it would eliminate EU taxation of their petrochemical products exported to the union. Petrochemical production in the Gulf region is considered by the GCC states as a means of industrialization and economic diversiﬁcation away from oil exports, and they clearly enjoy a comparative advantage. Finally, the EU, as the GCC’s largest, closest region for investment, trade, industry and technology, has a

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special attraction for the GCC states’ attempt to attract foreign direct investment with the associated know-how to diversify their production base. The recognition by the European side of these grievances and of the interests at stake, together with the GCC states’ own wish to upgrade the relationship, led to an initiative to make up for some of the perceived earlier neglect.69 The scheduled Joint Ministerial Council for 1995 was postponed until the following year and instead a Ministerial meeting between the GCC and the EU ‘Troika’ was held in Granada to set the relationship on a new footing.70 The Troika Ministers made three recommendations, which have since become the the central basis for all joint initiatives: . To step up political dialogue between the EU and the GCC. . To increase clear economic cooperation and propose solutions for unlocking the ongoing free trade negotiations. . To draw up cooperation instruments to promote and achieve greater knowledge and understanding of each party by the other, particularly in the ﬁelds of culture and science.71 The three ‘baskets’ in which cooperation between the two regions could be strengthened were identiﬁed as: 1. Economic and trade relations. 2. Cultural and scientiﬁc cooperation. 3. Political and security matters. An expert group was to be established to recommend solutions for the conclusion of a free trade agreement, the GCC was to be able to participate in EC horizontal programmes, on a co-ﬁnancing basis, and regular meetings at a senior level were to be established to reinforce the political dialogue. These recommendations were approved by the Sixth Joint Ministerial Council in Luxembourg in April 1996, following a European Commission ‘Communication to the Council’ in November 1995, encouraged by the January 1996 EU General Affairs Council, on improving relations, and in particular recommending ‘decentralized cooperation’ with the GCC.72 The opening of an EU delegation in Riyadh was also proposed. The year 1995, therefore, was something of a turning point in the EU–GCC relationship. Contacts between the two sides intensiﬁed, bringing with it, over the next few years, frequent meetings and conferences on issues such as energy cooperation, environment, free trade, the private sector, technology cooperation, and education. In addition, the political dialogue between the EU and the GCC did result in a partial meeting of minds and interests, evidenced in declaratory policy. Indeed, the political issues make up the bulk of their joint communique´s after each of their Joint Ministerial Council meetings. EU and GCC positions converged, for example, on the solution for the Arab–Israeli problem and the protection of Palestinian human rights and their right to an independent state, as well as on a range of global security issues.

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Perhaps the most innovative element introduced by the 1995 Troika meeting, was to add ‘decentralized’, horizontal cooperation between civil societies and non-governmental organizations to the ofﬁcial-level cooperation carried out under the agreement. The idea, which had been tested already in the EU’s Mediterranean policy and elsewhere, aimed to increase non-governmental contacts, and assumes co-ﬁnancing, with each side covering the cost of its participation. At subsequent meetings it was agreed to establish decentralized cooperation in three areas: business, media and universities/higher education. In each area there would be initial workshops where experts should identify a number of possible projects for a pilot phase of three years. A universities project aiming to expand Gulf Studies in Europe and European Studies in the Gulf was the ﬁrst to move towards realisation, but it eventually fell by the wayside due to unintentional internal mishaps within the EU.73 The results in the other two areas also remained extremely modest. This was perhaps symbolic for the overall progress of relations: heightened interaction notwithstanding, major tangible achievements remained elusive, with the various irritants mentioned continuing to put sand in the works (Although decided on in principle, the opening of the EU delegation in Riyadh mooted for 2002, only ﬁnally happened in November 2004). The sense of continued lagging would only be breached, at least in part, as a result of an internal GCC development in 2003, and a ﬂedgling new direction in EU policy thinking in the same year – of which more below. The GCC states will remain, for the foreseeable future, an important partner for the EU both in energy and trade relations. A Saudi oil minister has summed up the tenets of his country’s oil strategy as: ‘ensuring market stability and transparency, maintaining the relative share of oil in world energy mix and realizing a fair return per barrel of oil’.74 The GCC states are highly unlikely to pursue their oil policies in a political vacuum, without taking into consideration the consequences of such policies on the economies of their war allies and business partners.75 In an interdependent and highly integrated world economy, where the economic well-being of the GCC states is dependent on world economic growth and continued oil demand, it is virtually inconceivable that the GCC states would pursue oil policies that will harm the world economy in the short, medium or long term. Given EU needs for imported energy and the GCC’s large reserves and production there is a strong case for energy interdependence between the two regions. Indeed, Saudi Arabia has proposed to establish a Permanent Secretariat for International Energy Forum in Riyadh, which among other things, would enhance producer–consumer dialogue. Europe cannot afford to ignore this strategically important region and should assist further in ensuring its security and stability. There are several areas where the EU and its Member States can help the region to achieve stability by anchoring the Gulf States to Europe through their inclusion in a re-fashioned ‘Mediterranean partnership’ – although it would then presumably have to be renamed. Although the EU is already involved in Middle East politics and is a major contributor to the peace process, the EU could push further for a fair and comprehensive resolution of the Israeli–Palestinian and the Arab–Israeli

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disputes. A peaceful resolution of the Arab–Israeli conﬂict is bound to add much needed stability to the region. The EU could also help GCC states, through its various instruments, to implement further economic, social and political reforms, which would help assure long-term domestic stability.76 The events of September 11, 2001 could yet have a profound effect on the EU–GCC political relationship, given that there has been somewhat of a cooling down in the US–GCC relationship. Europe could have the opportunity to play a major role in the region, to the beneﬁt of both sides. The GCC’s announcement in 2001 that the formation of a customs union would be moved forward from 2005 to 2003, already led the EU to change its negotiating directives. The formal start of the customs union in January 2003, even though many locally protected products were temporarily excluded and full implementation appeared unlikely until 2005,77 removed perhaps the key obstacle to the FTA negotiations. Indeed, a conclusion of that particular question, with the establishment of an EU–GCC FTA, was mooted for 2005. In 2003, the EU also began to put a new emphasis on strengthening the EU-GCC dialogue, and to explore ways of linking the EU-GCC framework more into the Union’s relationship with the rest of the MENA region.78 Together, these developments may well lead to a reinvigoration of the wider EU–GCC relationship. This would reﬂect a continuation of a longer-established pattern, noted by Nonneman, in force for a century or more, of local Gulf rulers’ seeking protection from the most powerful external player while cultivating partially balancing relations with lesser, but still important powers. Since the emergence of the US as the main superpower, the Gulf states – both before and since the formation of the GCC – appear to have continued with such a strategy, including in particular the cultivation of political, security, and economic relations with European states. This arguably found expression also in the ﬁelds of defense and arms supplies, with several Gulf states diversifying their military procurement early on, Saudi Arabia itself turning to British supplies for its airforce in the 1980s when the US proved unwilling to override Israeli objections to US arms deliveries, or the UK and France being attracted as secondary defense partners in the post-Kuwait Crisis agreements.79 Even if the implications of the 2003 operation in Iraq still await clariﬁcation, the pattern, ﬁtting well with the omnibalancing strategy and the pursuit of managed multi-dependence outlined earlier, is likely to persist in some way. NOTES 1. See, for example, Nazar Alaolmolki, ‘The Struggle for Dominance in the Persian Gulf, Past, Present and Future Prospects’ in Bruce Kuniholm, The Persian Gulf and United States Policy: A Guide to Issues and References (Claremont, California: Regina Books. 1984, New York: Peter Lang, 1991); Robert Litwak, Security in the Persian Gulf, Sources of Inter-State Conﬂict, Vol. 2, Security in the Persian Gulf (London: IISS, Gower, 1981); Alvin Z. Rubinstein (ed.), The Great Game, Rivalry in the Persian and South Asia, Praeger, 1983); Herman Eilts, ‘The Persian Gulf Crisis: Perspectives and Prospects’, Middle East Journal, 45, (1), 1991, (Winter), pp. 7–22; Graham Fuller and Ian Lesser, ‘Persian Gulf Myths’ Foreign Affairs, Vol. 76, (no. 3), (May/ June), 1997, pp. 42–52; Zalmay Khalilzad, ‘The United States and the Persian Gulf: Preventing Regional Hegemony’, Survival, 37, (2), 1995, pp. 95–120; Ralph Magnus, ‘The GCC and

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2.

3. 4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9. 10. 11. 12.

13. 14.

15. 16.

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Security: The Enemy Without and Enemy Within’, Journal of South Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, Vol. XX, (no. 3), (Spring), 1997, pp. 72–94. See Richard Hermann and R. William Ayers, ‘The New Geo-Politics of the Gulf: Forces for Change and Stability’, in Gary Sick and Lawrence Potter (eds.), The Persian Gulf at the Millennium, Essays in Politics, Economy Security and Religion (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1997), pp. 31–60. The question of pooling or ceding sovereignty would conceivably create a problem under the constitutions of some Gulf States, e.g. Kuwait, Article 1; Qatar, Article 2; UAE, Article 4; Bahrain, Article 1(A). For discussions on the internal–external debate see Ronald Rogoswski ‘Internal vs. External Factors in Political Development: An Evaluation of Recent Historical Research’ PS: Political Science and Politics, Vol. 18, no. 4 (Fall) 1985; Bruce Russet, ‘International Interactions and Processes: The Internal External Debate Revisited’, in Ada Finifter (ed.), Political Science: The States of the Discipline, (Washington, DC: American Political Science Association, 1983). Edward Morse argues that the process of modernization has altered the character of foreign policy in three ways. It has effectively broken down the classical distinction between foreign and domestic policy; it has changed the balance between ‘high’ and ‘low’ politics in favor of the latter; and it has signiﬁcantly reduced the level of control that any state can exercise in the domestic or the international arena. Edward Morse, ‘The Transformation of Foreign Policies: Modernization, Interdependence and Externalities’, in Richard Little and Michael Smith, (eds.) Perspectives on World Politics, Second Edition (London and New York: Routledge, 1991), pp. 169–81. Furthermore, he adds, ‘Border guards may check passports and custom ofﬁcials may impose duties, but to conceive of the foreign–domestic distinction in this simple way is to mislead, to mistake surface appearances for underlying patterns’. James Rosenau, Along the Domestic– Foreign Frontier, Exploring Governance in a Turbulent World (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), p. 4. The Arab League (ofﬁcially, the League of Arab States) was formed in 1945. The founder members were the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan (then Transjordan), Lebanon, Iraq, Syria and Yemen. The purpose of the League was to foster Arab cooperation and unity. Since its formation, another 14 Arab states have joined the League. Mohammed Saud Al-Sayari, ‘The GCC as a Regional Organisation and its Relations with the UN and the Arab League (in Arabic)’, At-Ta’awun, (3), (July 1986), pp. 121–35; Joseph Kechichian, Security Efforts in the Arab World: A Brief Examination of Four Regional Organizations, (Santa Monica: Rand, 1992). John Esposito, Islam and Civil Society (Badia Fiesolana: Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies, European University Institute), Working Paper, RSC No. 2000/57, 2000; Nazih Ayubi, Political Islam (London: Routledge, 1991). John E Peterson, ‘Succession in the States of the Gulf Cooperation Council’, Washington Quarterly 24, no. 4 (Autumn, 2001): 173–86. Ibid. See for example, Gregory Gause, Oil Monarchies: Domestic and Security Challenges in the Arab Gulf States (New York: Council on Foreign Relations Press, 1994); Jill Crystal, Oil and Politics in the Gulf: Rulers and Merchants in Kuwait and Qatar (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995); Rosemarie Said Zahlan, The Making of the Modern Gulf States, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Oman (Reading: Ithaca Press, 1998). See for example, Crystal, Oil and Politics in the Gulf; Gause, Oil Monarchies. The rentier state is one where government relies for the lion’s share of its revenues (certainly over 50 percent, in the GCC cases usually over 75 percent) on direct transfers from the international economy, in the form of oil revenues, investment income, foreign aid, or other kinds of direct payments. Oil was discovered on a commercial basis ﬁrst in Bahrain in 1932 and then in the rest of the region. Signiﬁcant production did not take off until after World War II. For good discussions on this subject see the various contributions in Abbas Abdelkarim (ed.), Change and Development in the Gulf (St Martins Press, 1999); Jill Crystal, ‘Social Transformation, Changing Expectations and the Gulf Security’, in David Long and Christian Koch (eds.), Gulf Security in the Twenty-First Century (Abu Dhabi: The Emirates Centre for Strategic Studies and Research, 1997), pp. 208–25. For a recent assessment see Gerd Nonneman, Governance, Human Rights, and the Case for Political Adaptation in the Gulf (RSC Policy Paper 01/3) (Badia Fiesolana: European University Institute, 2001).

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17. Middle East Economic Digest, ‘MEED Special Report: Oil and Gas’, Vol. 39, no. 14, 7 (April 1995), p. 24. 18. In Oman and Saudi Arabia, in particular, the youth population is large. In these two countries the percentage of the population under 14 in 1997 was over 40. CIA Fact Book 1997. 5 http:// www.odci.gov/cia/publications/factbook/country-frame.html 4 Accessed on Oct. 19, 1998. 19. The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, SIPRI Yearbook 1995: Armaments, Disagreements and International Security, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995), p. 21. 20. SIPRI has estimated the Saudi cost of assisting Iraq at $25bn and that of the Gulf War at $55bn. The cost to Kuwait was even higher. 21. Its costs in military operations, operations reimbursements, and regional aid commitments are estimated at $64 billion; in an economy whose 1991 GDP was just over $100 billion. See , C.A. Woodson, Saudi Arabian Force Structure Development in a Post Gulf War World (Fort Leavenworth, KS: Foreign Military Studies Ofﬁce, June 1998). 22. Vahan Zanoyan, ‘After the Oil Boom: The Holiday Ends in the Gulf’, Foreign Affairs, (Nov./ Dec. 1995), pp. 2–7. 23. Roger Hardy, Arabia After the Storm: Internal Stability of the Gulf Arab States (London, RIIA, 1992). 24. Anoushiravan Ehteshami, ‘Reform from Above’, International Affairs, 79, 1, (2003), pp. 53–75. 25. While Kuwait is often presented as a model for development in the Gulf-region, democracy in Kuwait faces many obstacles and rests on a precarious balance between inclusion and exclusion. See Democracy in the Arab world: the case of Kuwait, 5 http://www.opendemocracy.net/ debates/article-2-95-1097.jsp 4 ; and ‘WE DON’T WANT TO BOX ISLAM IN’ Kuwait’s Islamists, ofﬁcially unofﬁcial’, 5 http://mondediplo.com/ 2002/06/04kuwait 4 , both sites accessed April 13, 2003. 26. For a discussion of the topic see Chris Brown, Understanding International Relations, Second Edition (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2001), especially ‘The State and Foreign Policy’, Chapter 4. 27. As Hinnebusch puts it: ‘The Middle East is one of the regional subsystems where this anarchy appears most in evidence: it holds two of the world’s most durable and intense conﬂict centers, the Arab–Israeli and the Gulf arenas; its states are still contesting borders and rank among themselves; and there is not a single one that does not feel threatened by one or more of its neighbours’. Raymond Hinnebusch, ‘Introduction: The Analytical Framework’ in Raymond Hinnebusch and Anoushiravan Ehteshami (eds.), Foreign Policies Middle East States (Boulder and London: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2002), pp. 1–27. 28. See for example, Abbas Alnasrawi, Arab Nationalism, Oil and the Political Economy of Dependency (New York and London: Greenwood Press, 1991); Samir Amin, The Arab Nation: Nationalism and Class Struggle (London: Zed Press, 1978); Simon Bromley, Rethinking Middle East Politics, (Oxford: Polity Press, 1990); Simon Bromley, American Hegemony and the World Oil: The Industry, the State System and the World Economy, (Oxford: Polity Press, 1990); L. Carl Brown, International Politics and the Middle East: Old Rules, Dangerous Game (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1984), pp. 3–5; Barry Buzan, ‘New Patterns of Global Security in the Twenty-First Century’, International Affairs 67, no. 3, (July) 1991, pp. 246–47. 29. In Kuwait’s case, defense procurement has come under ﬁre from the elected parliament. 30. John Peterson, Saudi Arabia and the Illusion of Security, Adelphi Paper 348, IISS, 2002. 31. Andrew Rathmell, The Changing Military Balance in the Gulf, London: RUSI, 1996. 32. Of the six GCC states, the four smaller Gulf States – Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar and the UAE – have small populations and cannot hope to build up large armies. Saudi Arabia has a larger population but its army has always been small and deployed on the periphery of its vast territory. The separate National Guard, traditionally recruited from tribes close to the ruling family, is used for internal security and is in effect a counterweight to the formal military. Oman lacks the funds for keeping a large force. Only in Kuwait is there obligatory service, and before the Iraqi invasion such service was easily avoidable. 33. See GCC Muscat Summit, Final Communique´, 31 Dec., 2001. 34. Rosemary Hollis, ‘Whatever Happened to the Damascus Declaration?’ in M. Jane Davis, (ed.) Politics and International Relations in the Middle East (Aldershot: Edward Elgar, 1995). 35. For a report on the summit’s resolutions, see al-Hayat, Dec. 27, 1991, pp. 1, 3, and 4. 36. Qatar, Oman and the UAE, for example, sometimes follow policies designed solely to thwart Saudi power. It is no exaggeration to say that both Bahrain and Qatar are also always looking over their shoulder at their big brother, Saudi Arabia, next door. For regional disputes see, for example, Richard Schoﬁeld, ‘Down to the Usual Suspects’, in Joseph Kechichian (ed.), Iran, Iraq and the Arab Gulf States, (New York: Palgrave, 2001), pp. 213–36.

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37. The Estimate, Volume XI, no. 6, 12 April 1999. 5 http://www.theestimate.com/ public/ 031299a.html 4 . 38. Rosemary Hollis, ‘Gulf Security: No Consensus’. Whitehall Paper Series, (London: Royal United Services Institute, 1993). 39. See Gerd Nonneman, ‘Constants and Variations in Gulf–British Relations’, in J. Kechichian (ed.), Iran, Iraq and the Arab Gulf States (London/New York: Palgrave, 2001), pp. 315–50. 40. Gause, Oil Monarchies: Domestic and Security Challenges in the Arab Gulf States, pp. 120–1. 41. Both Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, for example, have as their ambassadors in Washington – their most important foreign relationship – members of their ruling families. In 2003, Saudi Arabia’s ambassadorship in the UK pass to the former head of Saudi intelligence, Prince Turki al-Faysal (the son of the former King Faysal, and brother of the foreign minister, Prince Saud al-Faysal). 42. Hassan Hamdan Al-Alkim, The GCC States in an Unstable World, Foreign Policy Dilemma of Small States, (London: Saqi Books, 1994), pp. 154–5. 43. For a discussion of the role of business in foreign policy see Jeffrey Garton, ‘Business and Foreign Policy’, Foreign Policy, 76, 3, (May/June 1997), pp. 67–79 44. Hinnebusch, ‘Introduction: The Analytical Framework’, p. 17. 45. Tariq Y. Ismael, International Relations of the Contemporary Middle East: A Study in World Politics (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1986), pp. 35–37 46. See for instance, Bahgat Korany, ‘Defending the Faith Amid Change: The Foreign Policy of Saudi Arabia’, in Bahgat Korany and Ali E. Hillal Dessouki, The Foreign Policy of Arab States: The Challenges of Change, Second edition, (Westview Press, 1994), pp. 310–53; Gause, ‘The Foreign Policy of Saudi Arabia’, in Hinnebusch and Ehteshami, Foreign Policies Middle East States, pp. 193–211. 47. Nadav Safran, Saudi Arabia: The Ceaseless Quest for Security, Boston: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1985; David Long, ‘Saudi Arabia and its Neighbors: Preoccupied Paternalism’, in Crosscurrents in the Gulf, (eds.) Richard Sindelar and John E. Peterson, New York: Routledge, 1988, p. 190 48. For example, though in the 1960s and 1970s, the Gulf States funded Palestinian groups and ‘front-line’ states – Syria, Egypt, and Jordan – in their ﬁght against Israel in order to insulate themselves from criticism, they did little to advance the Arab nation’s cause. They also initiated the oil embargoes of 1967 and 1973 to offset criticism that they were not on the side of Arab nationalism. Kuwait, in the 1970s, bought Soviet arms in an effort to appease Iraq, and all the Gulf leaders have at times made token gestures related to Iran’s importance in regional security, even as they have carefully avoided any substantial Iranian role. Similarly, when political Islam rose, the Gulf States aided some radical Islamist groups and burnished their international Islamic credentials to pre-empt any criticism. Saudi Arabia founded the Islamic Conference in the mid1960s and has kept it strong as a way of demonstrating its commitment to international Islamic causes. In response to the seizure of the Grand Mosque in Mecca by Islamic radicals in 1979, Riyadh tried to become the champion of Islamic opposition to the Soviet Union, which had just invaded Afghanistan. In the 1990s, the Gulf regimes publicly pressed the West on the peace process, Bosnia and resolution of other conﬂicts in the Islamic world to demonstrate their Islamic solidarity. 49. Nonneman, ‘Analyzing the Foreign Policies of the Middle East and North Africa’, in this volume, p. 16. 50. The evidence from the Saudi case is laid out in Gerd Nonneman, ‘Saudi–European Relations 1902–2001: a pragmatic quest for relative autonomy’, International Affairs, Vol. 77, no. 3 (July 2001), pp. 631–61; for the GCC states more generally, see id., ‘Constants and Variations in British–Gulf Relations’. 51. Anoushiravan Ehteshami and Gerd Nonneman, War and Peace in the Gulf: Domestic Politics and Regional Relations into the 1990s (Reading: Ithaca Press, 1991), pp. 45–8. 52. Oman is not a member of either body, while Bahrain is only a member of OAPEC. 53. Al-Alkim, The GCC States in an Unstable World, pp. 75–100. 54. Hassan Hamdan al-Alkim, The Foreign Policy of the United Arab Emirates (London: Al-Saqi Books, 1989), p.175. 55. The al-Khobar bombing in 1996 and the September 11 attack on the US cannot be far removed from these undercurrents of resentment and the sense of helplessness of some of these radical groups. 56. Hassan Hamdan al-Alkim ‘The Gulf Subregion in the Twenty-First Century: US Involvement and Sources of Instability’, American Studies International, XXXVIII, 172, (Feb. 2000). 57. For example, at an Arab League meeting on October 22, 2000, Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia took the lead in creating a $1 billion fund: $800 million to help preserve the ‘Arab and

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60. 61.

62. 63.

64. 65.

66.

67.

68. 69. 70. 71. 72. 73.

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Islamic identity of Jerusalem’ and $200 million to help the families of Palestinians killed in the unrest. Saudi Arabia pledged a total of $250 million to these two funds, providing an additional $30 million to the Palestinian Authority as a separate donation. At an informal international donors’ conference in Stockholm in April 2001, Saudi Arabia pledged $225 million in direct monetary support to the Palestinian Authority over a six-month period to cover emergency expenses. Philip Robins, ‘Always the Bridesmaid: Europe and the Middle East Peace Process’. Cambridge Review of International Affairs, Vol. 10. no. 2, Winter/Spring 1997, pp. 69–83. For example, at their Supreme Council Meeting in Muscat in December 2001, the GCC heads of state accused the Israeli government of causing a serious deterioration in the situation in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, called on the international community to help resolve the impasse and welcomed the statement by President George W. Bush at the United Nations, in which he deﬁned the US vision of a viable Palestinian state and of ending the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories in accordance with UN Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338. Even in Kuwait, where the US military remains most welcome at the popular level, questions are being raised about the long-term consequences of the US role in the country. Kuwait, which used to oppose any form of foreign military bases in the region, was the ﬁrst GCC country to sign to sign an ofﬁcial defense pact with the US, on September 18, 1991, and followed it up by pacts with Britain and France. Kuwait and Qatar agreed to pre-position US equipment to support one brigade each, and the UAE may follow suit, giving the US enough equipment on the ground to support a division. For a commentary from a GCC analyst, see Mohammad Al Rumaihi, ‘The Gulf Monarchies, Testing Time’, Middle East Quarterly, (Dec. 1996), pp. 45–61. See Al-Alkim, The GCC States in an Unstable World, pp. 75–100 There remains a perception that a lack of stamina to see things through makes the US an unreliable and dangerous ally. People are very quick to point out that the Taliban itself is a type of ‘unﬁnished’ American business – as is Iraq, Lebanon, Somalia and the Peace Process. These are all operations in which the US has been heavily involved, and some that it started, but none of which were properly ﬁnished. Announcement by US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, in Riyadh on April 29. See Oliver Burkeman, ‘America signals withdrawal of troops from Saudi Arabia’, The Guardian, 30 April 2003 (also via http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,946237,00.html). See Martin Ortega, ‘Euro-American Relations and the Gulf Region’. In: Christian Hanelt, Felix Neugart and Matthias Peitz, (eds.) Future Perspectives for European Gulf Relations, (Munich: Bertelsmann Group for Policy Research, 2000), pp. 41–53; see also the individual contributions of Phebe Marr and Rosemary Hollis in Sven Behrendt and Christian Hanelt (eds.), Bound to Cooperate – Europe and the Middle East (Gu¨tersloh: Bertelsmann Foundation Publishers, 2000), pp. 263–86. The European petrochemicals lobby has argued that since the FTA, in its ﬁnal stage, would eliminate tariff barriers, the import of low-cost GCC petrochemical products into Europe could decimate the European domestic industries in this sector, which has already suffered from overcapacity. European petrochemicals producers have ﬁercely lobbied against the FTA with the GCC to protect their industry; the petrochemicals issue became a stumbling block in EU–GCC negotiations towards further economic integration. To make matters worse, the EU, in response to global environmental concerns proposed in the early 1990s the introduction of a global carbon tax (CO2) in addition to the taxes already levied nationally. The objective of the Community carbon tax proposal was to stabilize CO2 emissions by year 2000 by reducing carbon dioxide emission. Although the idea was eventually moved to the backburner, it remains ‘live’. Out of the 11 Mediterranean partners that have entered the Barcelona process, eight are Arab: Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, and the Palestinian Authority. Commission of the European Communities, ‘Improving Relations Between the European Union and the Countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC)’, CEC, Com (95) 541 ﬁnal, Brussels, Nov. 1995. ‘The GCC–EU Dialogue’, Gulf Report, no. 69, March 1997, pp. 3–7. European Parliament, ‘The Gulf Cooperation Council and its Relations with the European Union’, Directorate-General for Research, European parliament, Luxembourg, Nov. 1995, p. 31. Commission of the European Communities, ‘Improving Relations Between the European Union and the Countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC)’. See the account by the Leader of the EU’s group of experts for the project: Gerd Nonneman, ‘An Experiment in Decentralised Cooperation: the EU–GCC Project in Regional Studies’, in

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74. 75. 76.

77. 78. 79.

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Giacomo Luciani et al., EU–GCC Cooperation in the Field of Education (Badia Fiesolana: Robert Schuman Centre, European University Institute, 2002) ( = RSC Policy Paper 02/1). Hisham M. Nazer, ‘The Role of Saudi Arabian Oil Industry in the National Economy and Worldwide’, Paper presented as The Inaugural Euro-Arab Lecture, at The Arab British Chamber of Commerce, London, Oct. 1,1993. Peter Bild, ‘How Much Inﬂuence will the US and Its Allies have on Oil Policy?’ Paper presented at RIIA Conference on The Gulf in the 1990s, at Chatham House, London, May 9 and 10, 1991. For some speciﬁc recommendations on how the EU could help the GCC states in the areas of governance, human rights and political adaptation, see a recent policy paper prepared for an informal task force of European ofﬁcials and academics on this subject: Nonneman, Governance, Human Rights and the Case for Political Adaptation in the Gulf: Issues in the EU–GCC Political Dialogue (Badia Fiesolana: Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies, European University Institute, Nov. 2001) Policy Paper RSC No. 01/3. Statement by GCC customs ofﬁcials, Agence France Press dispatch March 5, 2003. See the discussion on pp. 35–36 in this volume. The phenomenon was noted for the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries by Frederick Anscombe, The Ottoman Gulf (New York: Columbia University Press, 1997). Nonneman traces the long-term foreign policy patterns conﬁrming this for the case of Saudi Arabia in ‘Saudi– European Relations 1902–2001’, and for the GCC states more generally in ‘Constants and Variations in British–Gulf Relations’.

Revolution, Theocratic Leadership and Iran’s Foreign Policy: Implications for Iran–EU Relations ZIBA MOSHAVER INTRODUCTION

Iran’s post-revolutionary theocracy provides a unique case for the study of international politics of the developing states as it challenges many of the paradigms traditionally prevalent in the discipline. It challenges the view that developing states in general, and Middle Eastern states in particular, are merely subordinate actors in an international system dominated by ‘core’ powers. Iran also challenges the notion of a ‘global society’ that is based on rules and norms of behavior that all actors need to accommodate. And ﬁnally, Iran’s international relations challenge many of the established deﬁnitions of ‘national interest’. The approach adopted here assumes that Iran’s foreign policy and its decisionmaking processes over the last quarter century can only be usefully examined through an understanding of its internal policy in interaction with regional and international levels. In a ﬁrst section, the sources of Iran’s foreign policy are examined by looking at the impact of revolution and establishment of the theocratic state under the guidance of its religious leadership. It is argued that Iran’s foreign policy is closely connected to, and indeed an extension of, policies and priorities of the theocratic regime and its dominant elite. What has been reformed in the past quarter a century is not the basic structure of the theocratic regime: instead, what we have seen is policy changes to meet internal challenges in view of regional and international opportunities and constraints. This is because fundamental reform of foreign policy requires reform of the theocratic state as a whole and of its basic hierarchical structure. This has not yet been initiated, as the prime objective of foreign policy, as of domestic policy, remains regime survival. Three phases in foreign policy are examined: 1979–89 or Ayatollah’s Khomeini’s era; 1989–97, identiﬁed with the presidency of Hashemi Rafsanjani; and 1997 to the present, associated with president Khatami’s project to reform the Republic. In a second section, the implications of Iran’s foreign policy for its relationship with the EU are explored. It is argued that this relationship, summed up as functional accommodation, is more a by-product of transformation in the Islamic Republic’s internal and international circumstances than a deliberate

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political/strategic change in favor of Iran–Europe relations. It is suggested that the Iran–EU functional accommodation is not based on the kind of long-term strategic, political and security considerations that underpinned Iran’s prerevolutionary relations with the US. Europe–Iran relations have been functional, based on common economic interests and on Iran’s continued estrangement from the US. Apart from economic relations, the other area where some understanding has been reached in the past was Iran’s recognition of European interests in the Middle East and of European home security interests affected by Tehran’s ﬁght against Iranian dissidents. As a result, a number of important issues have been given much lip-service, but little serious effective attention. They include, among others, differences over democratic, civil and human rights and over views over proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (WMD), including in particular the issue of nuclear weapons and delivery capacity. While regional ‘order’, ‘disorder’, or US inﬂuence in the region have not been central to the EU–Iran relationship, they have nevertheless entered into policy makers’ calculations since the end of the Cold War and have been once again brought to the fore during the 2003 Iraq crisis. Iran and some EU countries – France and Germany in particular – seem to have forged a partnership to challenge US attempts at implementing the Bush doctrine that regards regime change as a legitimate foreign policy goal. Their post-September 11 relationship shows an increased diplomatic collaboration to challenge what Iran’s leadership and at least some in the EU see as the US’s desire to change the Middle East regional order to achieve regional hegemony. GENESIS OF IRAN’S POST-REVOLUTIONARY FOREIGN POLICY

Post-World War II international relations thinking, dominated primarily by the realist and neo-realist paradigms, has largely overlooked the impact of internal changes in the making of foreign policy.1 According to these paradigms the international system creates rules and norms that all states need to accommodate: internal changes, even changes of revolutionary magnitude, are not, by and large, expected radically to alter a state’s behavior in the international arena, except perhaps for initial disruptions. But it is safe to argue that while in the long run post-revolutionary states may conform to international rules and norms, in the shorter run, however, revolutions do inﬂuence foreign policy, since the successful revolutionaries’ ideology is used for legitimation and consolidation of the regime. Post-revolutionary Iran, especially in its ﬁrst phase to 1989, when the main foreign policy guidelines were formulated, provides a good example of the impact of an ideologically-based revolution on foreign policy. It shows how revolution has transformed the country’s foreign policy as a result of transforming key elements of the basic structure of the state and society. Political Islam and the ‘regime clergy’ (not all clerics agreed or agree with the concept of the Khomeini-style Islamic republic – indeed a majority may not) came to play an important role as the Iranian revolution transformed the state

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and society by a ‘class-based revolt from below’ as Theda Skocpol notes. This transformation had a number of consequences: 1. It brought to power a new ruling elite whose ideology was the main source of legitimacy. 2. It accentuated the role of Islamic ideology in the country’s internal and international politics – this is what Skocpol calls the combination of societal structural change with class upheaval, and of political with social transformation.2 3. Closely related, the Islamic revolutionaries had a vision of a new and ‘perfect world, the beginning of an age when all would be different’.3 In view of this theoretical analysis, the Iranian revolution – as against other social and political changes in the Middle East (including Nasser’s coup in 1952 or the Ba’thist coups in Syria and Iraq) – inﬂuenced the country’s foreign policy in three important ways: 1. It brought to power a new ruling elite that had felt excluded from the privileges of the old ‘westernized’ elite, and viewed Islam as a true and authentic path for the salvation of both Iranian Muslims as well as Muslims around the world. 2. It gave the new leadership reigns of power and state institutions to implement the ideal of a better world (at least for Iranian and other Muslims). 3. It carried an in-built antagonism towards Iran’s traditional foreign policy. The new leaders regarded the pre-revolutionary policy as serving the interest of the old state and its privileged classes and not that of the new Islamic state, its new ruling elite, and the ‘oppressed’ masses they represented. The new conﬁguration incorporating those beliefs challenged the realist paradigm in three areas. . The notion of national interest – the realist maxims of states acting in their national interest – becomes highly ambiguous. ‘The national interest’ of the Islamic state was closely connected to, and, identiﬁed with, the interests and ideological priorities of the theocratic regime and their perception of Islam as the source of elite legitimacy. . Such beliefs did not show a decline or ‘loss’ of sovereignty as suggested by the ‘globalization’ paradigm. This has not necessarily enabled the country to defend its territorial interest more effectively, nor has it enhanced its autonomy vis-a`-vis the international system, but it has helped to maintain the theocratic regime. . The regional and international systems played a role as arenas where opportunities and constraints inﬂuenced the elite’s ability to pursue its foreign policy, rather than simply forcing it to conform with international rules and norms.

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These beliefs – based on the interpretation of Islam by the regime clerics as the representatives of what Barrington Moore termed an ideological class – as the source of state and elite legitimacy, have largely remained unchanged in the quarter-century of the Islamic Republic’s existence. Reforms that have taken place over this period consisted in essence of: 1. 2. 3.

Controlling radicalism by a section of the elite (largely the executive branch). Emphasizing diplomacy in the face of regional and international isolation. Maintaining, nevertheless, fundamental guidelines in domestic as well as foreign policy.

In other words, it would be misguided to interpret categories such as ‘reformists versus conservatives’ or ‘pragmatists versus radicals’ as indicating the existence of groups within the policy elite that stand for fundamental change in the underlying principles of the Islamic Republic. These categories are only useful in so far as they reﬂect different trends, interpretations and strategies, all of which operate within the parameters of the Islamic theocracy, its institutional arrangement, and its fundamental guidelines. That is not to say, of course, that there are not signiﬁcant sections of informed opinion – including among non-regime clergy – that do question those fundamentals; but such voices have not yet had much impact on the structures and policies of the regime. TRENDS IN FOREIGN POLICY

As far as trends in foreign policy are concerned, three distinct phases may be recognized. The ﬁrst phase, 1979–89, was shaped primarily by Ayatollah Khomeini’s vision of Islamic theocracy (Velayat-e-Faqih) and overshadowed by the eight-year war with Iraq. The second phase, 1989–97, identiﬁed with the presidency of Hashemi Rafsanjani and the post-war program of economic and diplomatic reconstruction. The third phase, 1997 to the present, has been associated with the attempt at reforming the political, socio-economic and diplomatic system by president Khatami and his supporters. Foreign Policy Priorities, 1979–89 Domestic politics preoccupied the emerging clerical leadership in the ﬁrst few years and foreign affairs took a back seat – although some incendiary statements along with the fearful assumptions of regimes in the region at times made it seem otherwise. The prime task of the new theocratic elite was to take over the reins of state power and state institutions against competing forces including the left and the nationalists. The revolution had succeeded by way of a coalition of diverse and competing forces within the society. Clerical domination based on Khomeini’s particular interpretation of Islamic ideology was by no means a ‘natural’ outcome of the revolution, even though clerics were the most prominent and organized of the revolutionary forces.

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Moreover, the political system envisaged by the clerics under Ayatollah Khomeini was inherently problematic. It had to satisfy two diverse and at times contradictory objectives. On the one hand, the aim was to create a new political system that addressed the popular movement against the monarchical dictatorship: hence, a republic based on the sovereignty of the people. On the other hand, the system had to respond to the ideological preferences of the revolutionary clerical elite: hence an Islamic system based on the sovereignty of God. Such a novel political system had to be invented as there was no model to emulate. A further task was to create institutions that would accommodate this political system and safeguard it against internal and external enemies. Initially, the new leadership had no choice but to operate within the existing bureaucracy as the theocratic elite and their followers had been marginalized from the old bureaucracy. This novel system had, and has, both elected bodies and non-elected ones. The main institutions of the Islamic Republic are: The Vali-ye-Faqih or Supreme Leader (appointed by the Assembly of Experts); the President (elected every four years); the Majlis or Parliament (elected every four years); the Cabinet; the Assembly of Experts (in principle elected from a limited pool every eight years, with the speciﬁc responsibility of agreeing on a successor to the Vali-ye-Faqih); the Council of Guardians (which vets legislation by the Majlis, as well as candidates for Presidential and Parliamentary elections); the Expediency Council (established in 1988 to adjudicate between the Majlis and the Council of Guardians); the Judiciary (whose head is appointed by the Supreme Leader); the Armed Forces; and the Revolutionary Guards corps. In addition there are several powerful para-statal or non-state Foundations, or Bonyads, that have formal or informal links to the revolutionary clerical elite, including the Supreme Leader. In sum, the President and Parliament are fully elected but the rest are either non-elected or controlled by the non-elected organs. Moreover, President and Parliament are elected only after candidates are vetted by the powerful but nonelected Council of Guardians. Constitutionally, both of these institutions have far less executive and legislative powers than in any other democratic system. The non-elected Supreme Leader and Council of Guardians are the most powerful decision-making institutions. As will be discussed later, this political structure has considerable bearing on both domestic and foreign policies, and will continue to do so for as long as the basic theocratic state structure remains in place. As a result, foreign policy turned at least in part into an instrument of legitimation of theocratic control and, effectively, into an extension of domestic policy. The seizure of the US embassy on November 4, 1979 was a turning point in this legitimation process. This went hand in hand with the strong antiimperialist sentiment of the revolutionaries. Certain foreign policy guidelines were accordingly established that had a strong tier-mondisme orientation, reminiscent of the post-colonial era: 1. The ﬁrst guideline could be captured in the slogan: ‘Neither West nor East but only the Islamic Republic’. This was also justiﬁed in ideological

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terms: ‘Islam is not the path of either East or West, but it is the straight path and the Islamic Republic is based on Islam and is not following either’.4 The second guideline was based on Khomeini’s perception of Islamic Iran as a vanguard state that was not territorially bound. Islam, in his words, ‘does not regard the various Islamic countries differently’. The Islamic Republic was ‘the supporter of all the oppressed people of the world’. This position included struggling to ‘uproot’ Zionism, capitalism and communism although he noted that ‘we do not want to export it [the revolution] with the sword’.5 The third guideline was anti-Americanism and an anti-status quo approach, especially in the Middle East. The American hostage crisis of November 1979 effectively excluded the moderate nationalists from power and contributed to political radicalization. The nationalist Prime Minister Mehdi Bazargan tried to regain control of the streets after the event, but had to resign two days later. The slogan ‘neither West nor East’ came to be incorporated in the Constitution of the Islamic Republic ratiﬁed in December 1979. For the radicals, the US, perceived as the leader of an unjust hierarchical international system, had to be challenged by the postrevolutionary Islamic model.6

These guidelines transformed Iran’s post-revolutionary foreign policy in several important ways: . . . .

Close ties with the US turned into an open hostility. The regional alliance pattern shifted away from a pro-Israel, to an anti-status quo and pro-Palestinian policy: an important outcome of this radicalization was support for militant Islamic groups in the Middle East. Pro-US/West foreign policy changed into active participation at the UN, the non-aligned movement, the Islamic Conference and other international fora. Finally, these trends forced Iran to explore possible links with the Soviet bloc as well as with EU countries.

This radicalization, coupled with Western and in particular US diplomatic and military pressures, and the economic sanctions following the hostage crisis, all contributed to isolating Iran regionally and internationally. Indeed, the anti-US, anti-Israel, and anti-status quo thrust of the new revolutionary system, made explicit in the constitution and in Khomeini’s own statements, not only shunted Iranian foreign policy in a sharply different direction in the short term, but arguably has constrained the country’s foreign policy choices ever since; relations with the US or Israel should be looked at in this context. AntiAmerican radicalism proved particularly harmful to Iran’s economic, military, diplomatic and strategic interests during the war with Iraq that began shortly after in 1980 – a war that would force a number of adjustments on the policy elite in the course of the next decade.

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1989–97: Post-War, Post-Khomeini Foreign Policy The passing of the ﬁrst decade, and the international isolation and economic, military and diplomatic exhaustion from a costly eight-year war, demonstrated the difﬁculties of being revolutionary and anti-status quo, forcing the Islamic Republic to suppress its revolutionary, ideological aspirations. The Islamic Republic’s failure to achieve its war aim of ‘liberating Jerusalem via Baghdad’, forced Ayatollah Khomeini to make the long-delayed decision of accepting the ceaseﬁre resolution put forward by the United Nations, as urged by the then Speaker of Parliament and acting Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, Hashemi Rafsanjani.7 The decision to end the war (which Khomeini said felt worse than drinking poison) could be made by none other than the Supreme Leader. However, the one-sided ceaseﬁre and international isolation brought home hard realities about the working of international diplomacy and the damage to Iran of advocating radical revolutionary foreign policy. Khomeini’s death in 1989 cleared the path to what amounted to a policy of reform with Rafsanjani’s presidency. Within weeks following his death, power was turned over to a team headed by Rafsanjani, the new President, and the new supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamenei (who had only been elevated from the rank of Hojatolislam to that of Ayatollah when made President in 1989 – to the irritation of many senior Shia scholars). The constitution was reformed to strengthen the executive but not at the expense of other centers of power. Ayatollah Khamenei, like his predecessor Ayatollah Khomeini, as the supreme leader remained, and remains today, the ultimate decision maker and arbiter in the Islamic Republic. This dominant position, sanctioned in the Constitution, makes the elected executive and legislative effectively subordinate to the nonelected supreme leader. With the new executive power, Rafsanjani’s government initiated two reform programs: to change Iran’s regional and international isolation by reducing the fallout of revolutionary radicalism; and to change economic policies by introducing a program of economic reconstruction. As a ﬁrst step in foreign policy reform, the government tried to mend fences with the Gulf monarchies and re-established diplomatic ties with countries such as Egypt, Jordan and Tunisia among others. The Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in August 1990 gave Rafsanjani an opportunity to pursue the process of normalization with the Gulf states. With the invasion, Iraq replaced Iran as the immediate threat to security and integrity of these countries. The improvement in Iran–Gulf relations was shown by the Gulf Cooperation Council’s (GCC) declaration in its December 1990 summit in Qatar, whereby they welcomed the prospect of future cooperation and Iranian participation in regional security arrangement.8 As will be shown later, this also marked the beginning of a new phase in Iran’s relations with Europe. The second policy reform of the Rafsanjani presidency was economic reconstruction. The First Five-Year Economic Plan was introduced in 1989.

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The Plan’s main aim was to revive the national economy that had been suffering from widespread unemployment, reduced industrial productivity, high inﬂation and an increasing gap between the new rich and the poor. By 1991 the Islamic Republic had reached the same volume of GDP as in 1977; given population growth over the period, this meant per-capita income had been cut by half.9 However, by the end of Rafsanjani’s second term in 1997, neither his diplomatic nor his economic reconstruction had produced the hoped-for results. Diplomatically, Iran’s relations with the US remained unchanged. While the Clinton Administration showed some ﬂexibility, US policy towards Iran did not change in any major ways.10 For any normalization of relations, Washington required that Iran publicly and categorically change policy on three contending issues: 1. 2. 3.

Efforts to build weapons of mass destruction (WMD). Support for terrorism. Opposition to the Israel–Palestinian peace initiative.

In the absence of such a public policy change, the US continued to keep sanctions in place, block Iran’s access to international ﬁnancial institutions, and put pressure on Europe, Russia and others to sever ties with Iran. Facing US– Western opposition during the ﬁrst decade, Iran had tried to forge ties with the Soviet Union. Indeed, playing one major power against the other had been Iran’s defensive strategy since the nineteenth century. But the end of the Cold War and the subsequent implosion of the Soviet Union made Iranian policy makers’ calculations far more difﬁcult. Economically, restructuring did not deliver the improvements that were hoped for. The ﬁrst ﬁve-year plan had introduced a set of structural adjustment policies recommended by the IMF that emphasized privatization of large industries, ending multiple exchange rates, encouraging direct and indirect foreign investment, establishing free trade zones, inviting skilled Iranian immigrants, etc. To ﬁnance these, Iran had to borrow from international monetary institutions. This changed two important tenets of post-revolution foreign policy: taking up international loans, and looking for foreign investments. The $250 million loan from the World Bank in 1990 marked Iran’s return to the international capital market after a decade. Rafsanjani emphasized, however, that his government remained ‘true to the ideals of the revolution’ by creating a successful model of an Islamic state that would be independent, economically prosperous and politically progressive.11 In practice, however, these economic aims were not fulﬁlled and more problems were created than solutions. In the context of unresolved political struggles over what were the ‘right’ Islamic economic policies both at home and towards the outside world, and ineffectual, contradictory implementation, the overall effect was a large deﬁcit with foreign debt reaching alarming levels, massive inﬂation and economic stagnation. But the diplomatic opening that started with Rafsanjani continued into the third phase.

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1997–2003: the Reform Movement and the Khatami Presidency Due to the constitutional two-term limit, Rafsanjani could not run for President a third time. The Iranian public, especially the young and women, showed increasing dissatisfaction with the political, social and economic performance of the theocratic regime. Dissatisfaction had been also mounting among the Islamic revolutionaries, ‘the children of the revolution’ that felt increasingly marginalized from the center of power during Rafsanjani’s presidency. The pressure from below was felt at the top with the approaching presidential election in 1997. In response, the Council of Guardians in charge of vetting Presidential candidates approved three candidates out of over 270 volunteers, including Hojatolislam Mohammad Khatami, a minister in Rafsanjani’s ﬁrstterm cabinet, who had resigned in disagreement over restrictive cultural policies. The dissatisﬁed ‘children of the revolution’ and large numbers of predominantly young women, students, and intellectuals, later known as the Second Khordad movement (named after the date of Khatami’s election) organized an effective campaign in support of Khatami. Khatami’s campaign had three main themes: political reform, empowerment of civil society, and the rule of law. Khatami’s landslide victory (with nearly 70 percent of the popular vote) gave hope to the voters who had decided to use the limited democratic opening to express their preference for change. The non-reformist faction, represented primarily by non-elected institutions seemed also willing to experiment with controlled reform led by Khatami. He was an insider, respectful of all the components of the Islamic Republic. The experiment could take pressure off the system both at the national and international level and give a more appealing face to the Islamic Republic. The EU proved most willing to embrace the promise of reform by Khatami’s election and encourage Iran’s integration as an economic and, in part, diplomatic partner. Over the following years, hardline conservative factions entrenched in the judiciary, the Revolutionary Guards, and elsewhere in the non-elected parts of the system, began a ﬁght-back, with ﬂuctuating levels of harshness and success – and effectively using the courts and the Council of Guardians to emasculate reformist media and other actors, such as students, and parliament itself. Yet, especially after Khatami’s second election four years later, with an even larger majority, an awareness remained that the old-style system struggled with a legitimacy problem, and that Khatami and a measure of reform could be useful tools to keep mass opposition to the system as a whole contained – as well maintaining economic and diplomatic links abroad which were needed for domestic economic reasons and to help circumvent US pressure. IRANIAN–WESTERN EUROPEAN RELATIONS

Iran’s relations with Europe (bilateral and multilateral) reﬂected closely the changes in the country’s foreign policy trends discussed above. Relations,

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strained during the ﬁrst decade, picked up during the second phase under Rafsanjani, and reached its heights in the 1990s. The relationship could be described as one of functional accommodation, and has been mainly a byproduct of economic, political, and diplomatic necessities. EU–Iran Relations During the First Phase: 1979–89 During the ﬁrst phase of the revolution, Western Europe’s relations with Iran followed a trans-Atlantic solidarity pattern despite Europe’s interest in the Iranian market and oil. There was an overall atmosphere of what might be categorized as Cold Peace with sporadic strains revolving around Tehran’s support for militant Shia groups responsible for taking Western hostages, and Tehran’s involvement in assassinations of Iranian dissidents in Europe. Several factors contributed to this cold peace. 1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

There were European fears of revolutionary Islamic Iran destabilizing the region, especially the Gulf states, on which Europe was heavily dependent for oil, in addition to having signiﬁcant markets. The Iran–Iraq war divided the region between Shia Iranians and the Arabs, as Iraq claimed to be defending Arab integrity against the Persian threat.12 European governments were, therefore, not prepared to get close to Iran at the expense of undermining their standing among the Arab countries. Trans-Atlantic solidarity with the US required keeping a distance from Iran. The EC followed the US arms embargo after the hostage crisis and declared neutrality in the Iran–Iraq war, while, like the US, quietly supporting Iraq. (Iran, indeed, blamed the Iraqi attack in September 1980 on the US and its Western allies.) Only Germany, among major EC Member States, remained engaged by keeping both its trade links with Iran and by taking its neutrality more seriously. As such, Germany became Iran’s biggest European trade partner by the 1980s, followed by Britain. France, by contrast, was still heavily engaged with Iraq and other Arab states. Interest in the Iranian market was not all that great during the ﬁrst phase.13 Pursuit of national sovereignty in line with the slogan ‘neither West nor East’, coupled with anti-Americanism, forced Iran to explore diplomatic and economic ties with the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe as well as the Far East. One area where this policy left Europe out in the cold was in arms purchases: these mainly went to Eastern bloc countries. Iran’s links with and support for the Lebanese militant Shia was another factor contributing to strained relations between Iran and Western Europe. During the 1980s, direct or indirect support for hostage taking in Lebanon had effectively become an instrument of the Islamic Republic’s foreign policy – or perhaps more accurately the policy of certain hardline groups within and on the edges of the government, not always entirely under the control of the formal executive branch but often well connected, directly or indirectly, to the Supreme Leader.14 While increasing Iran’s leverage vis-a`vis the EC countries, this made it difﬁcult for the EC and its Member States themselves to develop links with Iran.

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Moreover, one of Khomeini’s last interventions further disturbed relations, when he issued a fatwa, on February 14, 1989, calling for the death sentence of British writer Salman Rushdie, over his book The Satanic Verses. When the UK government refused to condemn Rushdie, Iran broke off diplomatic relations. The other EC Member States withdrew their heads of mission from Tehran. While this produced a sharp setback, and while its effects would be felt for several years to come, the edge would soon be taken off it by Khomeini’s death and the accession of Hashemi Rafsanjani to the Presidency. Europe’s own reluctance to damage other interests was already illustrated by the announcement one month after the withdrawal of the ambassadors, that they would be returning – even if a ban on high-level contacts remained in place for another seven months. Iran’s Relations with Western Europe During the Second Phase: 1989–97 The second phase, marked by diplomatic and economic reform in Iran, cleared the way for a new phase in Iran–Europe relations whereby exploring mutual functional interests took an upper hand over differences. At the same time, the changing international context provided an added impetus. As noted before, the Islamic Republic tried to suppress its revolutionary, ideological aspirations during this phase. Efforts to normalize relations with the Arab states helped to clear one of the obstacles in the way of European rapprochement with Iran. Similarly, the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union meant that Iran could not bank too much on that counterweight to the US. During this phase, therefore, Iran and Western Europe saw in each other potentials to be explored. Iran viewed the EC (and, as it now became, the EU) as a source of foreign loans, credit and investment that economic restructuring needed. Moreover, as US–Iran relations remained frosty and sanctions stayed in place, the EU was the second best choice as trade and diplomatic partner. The EU, on the other hand, saw Iran as an important source of oil and gas in a strategically important area with a population of over 60 million that offered trade and investment opportunities. Iran was the only major market in the Middle East that had not already been dominated by the EU’s competitors, the US in particular. In addition, the EU needed to accommodate Iran to help free its hostages and to avoid subversive activities on European territory – such as the assassination of Iranian political dissidents in France, Germany and Switzerland, including former Iranian Prime Minister Bakhtiar in Paris, and that of the leading members of the Kurdish opposition in Berlin, known as the Mykonos affair (after the restaurant where the assassination took place). The new trend in the relationship was reﬂected in increased diplomatic ties with all the EU countries and with France in particular. One result of this was Iran’s assistance in freeing Western hostages held by the Lebanese Shia militants. Economically, by the mid-1990s Iranian–European relations had taken a fundamentally new turn with increased trade between Iran and, especially, Germany, France, Britain and Italy. Indeed, diplomatic relations had been reestablished with Britain in 1990, albeit only at the level of charge´ d’affaires.

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In order to promote this functional accommodation, Europe needed to ignore US sanctions and separate economic interests from other issues. There was also quite clearly a different analysis in European capitals of the nature of the evolution in Iranian politics, to that prevailing in Washington. This meant a decline in the trans-Atlantic solidarity characteristic of the earlier phase and a growing gap between Europe and the US. Indeed, in addition to earlier-established US sanctions against Iran, and the inclusion of Iran in the so-called ‘Dual-Containment Policy’ announced in 1993, 1995 saw the introduction of a new sanctions regime under Executive Order 12959, banning virtually all US trade and investment with Iran. Later the same year, a new Iran Oil Sanctions Act was introduced according to which any US or foreign trading company that invested more than $40 million per year in oil and gas development in Iran would be penalized by boycotting their imports and denying them loans and government contracts. Although the House initially accepted some of the White House’s requested moderating provisions in what became known as the Iran–Libya Sanctions Act (ILSA), the bill that was ﬁnally approved by the Senate, and again by the House, re-introduced the full measures ﬁrst intended. Once signed into force by the President in August 1996, the ‘secondary boycott’ became an uncomfortable fact of international diplomacy.15 The bill was intended to put pressure on Europe (and others) to follow the American line over sanctions. From this point diverging US and European views led to different policies towards Iran. The EU chose engagement plus trade, the US isolation plus sanctions. The Europeans responded to the secondary boycott by categorically labeling it illegal in international law. At the same time, they developed the so-called ‘Critical Dialogue’ with Iran, which had begun after its announcement at the December 1992 Edinburgh Council of Ministers.16 The Critical Dialogue was meant to acknowledge US concerns in principle and at the same time allow improved relations with Iran. The argument was that engagement rather than isolation would encourage Iran to moderate its radicalism. In practice, however, engagement proved more effective in facilitating trade and economic links than in moderating policies on WMD, on the Middle East peace process, or on human rights (as will be discussed later, the EU would use the same argument in its increased economic ties during the later phase under Khatami’s presidency). Difﬁculties of course remained – including over human rights and the concerns of the US, as well as the unresolved Rushdie case and developments such as the Mykonos case. On the matter of Rushdie, Rafsanjani produced a signiﬁcant goodwill gesture by maintaining the line, from the early 1990s, that the edict would not be carried out or supported by the government, although it could not formally be changed on religious grounds.17 That did not fully ‘liberate’ British–Iranian relations in particular, but it did enable the EU’s Critical Dialogue to proceed. More problematic proved the trial in Berlin on the Mykonos case. The tensions, raised to a height in 1996, ﬁnally erupted in a crisis when the verdict in April 1997 judged several high-level Iranian ofﬁcials, including Rafsanjani, as having been involved in the case. All EU ambassadors

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were withdrawn from Tehran, and the Critical Dialogue was suspended. As had happened with the original Rushdie fatwa, however, another changing of the guard in Iranian politics would soon allow the pattern of functional accommodation to be resumed – and indeed the Rushdie case itself to be removed as an irritant in Iranian–British relations. Iranian policies and relations with Europe in this period were by no means problem free; yet running through it all was nevertheless an awareness of the interests to be served by mutual functional accommodation. Iran’s policy output in this period also arguably shows a pattern in the working of Iranian diplomacy that indicates a tacit distribution of tasks – a pattern that had been established and practiced much earlier. In this pattern, the government announces policies that are meant to show progress and moderation, while the non-elected political–religious elite, mainly in their Friday sermons, conﬁrm the fundamental guidelines of the theocracy. Neither can be taken wholly at face value. In part they are evidence of intra-Iranian dissension, in part of a systemic, implicit or explicit, understanding. This is not quite the same as pluralism. In any case, Europe’s trade and ﬁnancing of development projects in Iran increased further during the second phase. France became a prime beneﬁciary of improved relations with Iran. An important and controversial oil deal between the French company Total for the development of offshore oil and gas ﬁelds in Sirri was concluded in July 1995.18 This was the same contract that had been previously given to the US company Conoco but withdrawn after the US’s ILSA Act. In addition, Iran and France concluded contracts to develop airport, rail, land and sea facilities for the transit of French goods to Central Asia. Germany also remained a leading partner with considerable oil imports and exports. Relations were also improved with Italy, the UK, Norway, and the Netherlands. As a result, the EU became Iran’s largest trading partner by 1995 with over 40 percent of total Iranian imports. Iran’s exports to the EU represented 36 percent of the country’s total exports, and were dominated by petroleum (over 75 percent of the total). Iran’s external debt to the EU (rescheduled in 1996–99) amounted to $10 billion by 2001.19 Iran–EU Relations since 1997: The Khatami Era The improved EU–Iranian relationship of the Rafsanjani period continued with the election of President Khatami in 1997. His landslide victory on the back of a campaign for political reform, civil society, and the rule of law appealed to both the Iranian electorate and the EU. Seeing Khatami’s election as a victory for the forces of reform and modernization of theocracy was clearly in line with the EU’s policy, validating the Critical Dialogue. The realists, or pragmatists, on both sides found in Khatami a more appealing and defensible face of the Islamic Republic. Khatami’s mandate and his emphasis on the need for a ‘dialogue of civilizations’ cleared the way for increased political, economic, and diplomatic ties without appearing indifferent to US concerns. The change of climate was marked by the return of EU ambassadors (except for Britain’s) six months after they were withdrawn. This was followed by the ﬁrst high-proﬁle visit by the

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Italian Prime Minister in 1997, and a visit by Khatami in 1999 to Italy, France and Germany. British–Iranian relations were also unblocked in September 1998 when the President conﬁrmed during his visit to the United Nations in New York, that he considered Rushdie controversy settled, and that his government would make no effort to carry out the fatwa. This conﬁrmed assurances to Britain by Iran’s foreign minister Kamal Kharrazi. That is not to say that there were not dissident voices on the matter in Iran; indeed, the Chairman of the Council of Guardians, Ayatollah Jannati, declared on the occasion of the anniversary of the Revolution in February 1990 that the fatwa remained ‘valid, regardless of what has been said’.20 Yet this could not alter the basic trend, and Iran and Britain ﬁnally exchanged ambassadors in mid-1999. With Khatami, the EU’s critical dialogue gave way to the ‘Comprehensive Dialogue’.21 The argument was, as with the critical dialogue, that closer relations with Iran would help the reform movement. On the occasion of a Trade and Cooperation Agreement signed in February 2001, Chris Patten, Commissioner for External Relations, noted: ‘This proposal makes the case for developing relations with Iran in order to support and reinforce the reform movement process there’.22 The Comprehensive Dialogue, replacing the critical dialogue of the earlier phase, allowed discussions on a range of issues, including: . . .

Areas of cooperation, trade and investment, energy, drugs, refugees. International issues, terrorism, human rights and proliferation. Regional issues, Iraq, Gulf, Central Asia, the Middle East Peace Process.23

Of these, trade and energy were the most prominent. As Table 9.1 shows, EU imports from Iran, primarily oil, nearly doubled in one year from 1999 to 2000 and the trade deﬁcit increased more than six-fold from 1998 to 2000. The Commission and the Iranian government also established a number of working groups in 1998 to further mutual cooperation. These include: .

Working Group on Energy. This meets roughly annually, alternating between Tehran and Brussels; the ﬁrst meeting was held in Tehran in May 1999. Iran also became an observer of the Commission-funded INOGATE (Inter-state Oil and Gas Transport to Europe) program with the possibility of becoming a full member.24

TABLE 1 E U – IR AN T R A DE ( IN e M I L L I ON )

Imports* Exports Balance

1998

1999

2000

3711 4323 613

4720 3869 7851

8462 5238 73244

* More than 75 percent are oil products ‘EU–Iran: commission proposes mandate for negotiating trade and cooperation agreement, IP/01/1611’ (Brussels, November 19, 2001), p. 2.

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. Working Group on Trade and Investment, which met for the ﬁrst time in Tehran in November 2000. . The Experts’ Meeting on Drugs, which ﬁrst met in December 1999. . The Experts’ Meeting on Refugees, which ﬁrst met in April 2000 to discuss Afghan and Iraqi refugees and common projects with UNHCR and NGOs involved with refugees. However, while both sides have been anxious to increase economic ties, there is a limit to long-term development in the overall EU–Iran relationship as uncertainties remain. These limits are shown by the fact that despite over a decade of increased economic contacts, the two sides remain far apart over a range of key issues: the Arab–Israeli conﬂict; WMD and long-range delivery systems; terrorism; and legal and social systems relating to human rights, minorities, women and civil rights etc.25 Assessment of the EU–Iran Partnership Despite the EU’s considerable effort at giving Khatami’s reform movement credence and talking up EU’s ability to inﬂuence that trend, ultimately the EU appears to have only limited leverage over reform in Iran. As a result, the EU– Iran relationship has been and remains functional, based on economic and shortterm diplomatic interests – although from the European side there is also a concern to avoid ostracizing Iran and giving succor to the hardliners. Iranian economic aims under Khatami, like his predecessor Rafsanjani, coincide with the EU’s trade interests. The 2000–2005 Five-Year Plan aims at removing trade restrictions, modiﬁcation of the economic structure, and harmonizing the rules and regulations governing production and investment. The plan expects an average of 16 percent growth per year with exports increasing by 18 percent.26 In its own words, the plan ‘pursues two important aims’: Institutionalization of the required structures; and ‘Employment of political, economic and cultural obligations’ and essential works, which would make the achievement of stable growth possible.27 Such economic reforms are also in line with EU policies. In its General Affairs Council of 20 November 2000, discussing bilateral relations and closer ties with Iran, the Commission recommended: 1. Promotion of bilateral economic relations through negotiation of a Trade and Cooperation Agreement and continuation of working groups on energy, trade and investment. 2. Encouragement of political and economic reform through ofﬁcial and unofﬁcial bilateral contracts; cooperation in areas of mutual interests and concerns such as drugs, rule of law, refugees, etc; dialogue on human rights; improving dialogue on regional security, weapons of mass destruction and nuclear proliferation.28 Yet Iran remains to a large extent a rentier state, and thus is likely to maintain signiﬁcant structural resistance to the EU’s encouragement to reform its

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economy: indeed, the difﬁculty Iran’s own ﬂedgling reform ideas have had in ﬁnding coherent translation into actual policy, is a domestic illustration of the problem. This has arguably been not simply the result of differing interpretations over what a ‘proper’ Islamic economic system should look like, but also of these rentier dynamics, both directly in the realm of economic policy, and indirectly in that of the political dynamics that rest on the availability of rent.29 Indeed, the Islamic Republic displays many of the characteristics of a rentier state that are usually held to work against democratization of the political system. These include a set of patrimonial processes and institutionalized relationships between state actors and the source of revenue. The clerical elite in Iran, like its counterparts in the region, collects the oil rent which it uses to dispense patronage to social and political groups that back its power position – rather than responding to broad-based civil society and its needs. One might even argue that the EU, like interest groups within Iran, has been sharing the rent that is controlled and distributed by the ruling elite and, therefore, is not in a good position to have much leverage over elite politics. There is a plausible case to be made that the EU, as a beneﬁciary, is only in a position to keep those links by supporting the ruling elite irrespective of reform, and thanks to the absence of US as the EU’s main competitor. If one adopts that position, it plausibly follows that the EU may have lent the reform movement, at least temporarily, greater credibility than its chance of success warranted. The evidence of President Khatami’s two terms in ofﬁce shows how little his government or elected bodies as a whole have been able to reform the theocratic system either politically or socio-economically. This is in spite of his reform project having enjoyed huge support both from the Iranian public and the EU. The public expressed its support for change through repeated endorsement of reformers through democratic channels.30 But those with ultimate power appear to have tolerated political divisions only insofar as they steered clear of the fundamentals and the basic ethos of the Islamic Republic and its constitution. Ayatollah Khamenei has reminded Iranians that ‘all three branches [of government] – the legislative, the judiciary, and the executive – are the pillars of the system . . . the solution is that the three branches work together in unity’.31 He has also complained about ‘baseless disagreements’ and threatened to apply a ‘remedy’.32 The modest attempt by the President and Parliament in 2002 and 2003 to whittle down the hold of the Council of Guardians over legislation and the executive by two key bills passed by the Majlis, proved futile. One of the bills aimed to increase the executive’s power and reduce that of the Council of Guardians. Khatami explained that his program and priorities had been encountering ‘obstacles’, saying that ‘although the president is responsible for implementing the constitution’, he does not possess the ‘minimum’ powers needed to do so.33 The second bill, aimed at limiting the power of the Council of Guardians to vet candidates for elections, was passed by the Majlis in September 2002. Predictably, the Council of Guardians rejected both bills. Khatami forcefully expressed his disagreement with the Council’s decision and vowed that the bills would be modiﬁed but not fundamentally changed. Key ﬁgures

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such as Khamenei and Rafsanjani (now the head of the Expediency Council) attempted to engineer a compromise to avoid a further, possibly dangerous drop in the already low popular legitimacy of the system, without undermining the fundamental structures of the theocratic state. Yet an offer that the bill to enhance the President’s power could be accepted if the other bill was withdrawn, was rejected by Khatami in September 2003. But his threat to resign unless the bills became law, was never carried out. In April 2004, he formally withdrew both bills from further parliamentary consideration.34 In practice, then, Khatami’s reform policy, a ‘belief in democracy, pluralism and the dialogue among civilizations’,35 has been more successful in introducing an intellectual and theoretical debate, along with a modest relaxation of social life (albeit ﬂuctuating and insecure), rather than tangible political, economic, social and legal reform of the system. Public disillusionment was clearly demonstrated by a stunningly low turnout in the municipal elections of February 2003 – with the side effect that the conservatives ended up the victors by default.36 Any reform of foreign policy remains a function of reform of the internal politics of the theocratic regime. The most important obstacle on the way of fundamental reform continues to be the nature of the Islamic Republic’s political structure with its multiple and parallel centers of power. The most powerful of these centers remain the Supreme Leader (currently Ayatollah Khamenei), the Council of Guardians, the Expediency Council, and the judiciary – the latter controlled by the Supreme Leader and frequently used to suppress reformist challenges. None of these centers are elected but they have a considerable hold over political, economic, legal and social affairs. These non-elected institutions and their supporters have a vested interest to hold on to the system, structures and policies that bring them political power and economic resources.37 Given this power structure, policies can only change if supported by the nonelected institutions. In 2003, this resulted in another episode of tension not merely between Tehran and Washington, but also between Iran and the EU – viz. over the issue of Iran’s nuclear program. At the same time, the episode also conﬁrmed once again the importance of the key non-elected ﬁgures. Against the background of increased US pressure and of ﬁndings by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) of discrepancies in Iran’s declarations (after it admitted in February, after years of denials, that it had been enriching uranium), the IAEA pressed for more comprehensive information from Iran to demonstrate its adherence to the constraints on its nuclear program that the country’s membership of the IAEA required. Iran continued to insist that its program was entirely for peaceful purposes, but worries and suspicions were mounting, as was pressure from the EU and the IAEA, as well as Russia and the other G8, for Iran to sign the additional IAEA protocol that requires signatories to permit shortnotice inspections. This time, Iranian tactics of evasion, limited cooperation and delay while relying on divisions between the EU and the US to stave off effective sanctions, failed – or, as The Economist put it, ‘backﬁred spectacularly.’38 Indeed, the EU had already adopted a clear common position demanding evidence of compliance, European policy-makers having come to

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the conclusion that the reassurances from reformist members of the government, who were no longer believed to have the ﬁnal say on nuclear issues in Tehran, could no longer be seen as credible in the absence of other evidence. After all, earlier in the year, President Khatami had indicated he was willing to allow greater access to IAEA inspectors, only to be overruled by the non-elected establishment. It is telling that when Ayatollah Khamenei in the same year tasked the National Security Council, chaired by President Khatami, with deﬁning Iran’s nuclear policy, it was the Council’s Secretary, Khamenei’s representative Hassan Rohani, who was put in charge. Against the Iranian negotiators’ expectations, the other 34 members of the IAEA Board in September in a collective statement strongly criticized Iran’s for failing to provide adequate reassurance and information, and presented it with an October 31 deadline to come up with a satisfactory response on the outstanding issues: the Board asked the Agency to prepare a comprehensive report by that date that would ascertain whether Iran was in compliance with its obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Non-compliance, under the NPT’s rules, would mean referral of the matter to the UN Security Council. The pressure appeared to pay off, when, with the deadline approaching, it was announced that three EU foreign ministers (of France, Germany and the UK) would visit Iran on October 21, 2003: the assumption was that an agreement was in the ofﬁng, resulting from direct European negotiations with Tehran. Indeed, the visit did bring an Iranian announcement of its intention to sign the additional protocol and to cooperate with the IAEA. Strikingly, it was Hassan Rohani who stated Iran’s commitment to accepting the short-notice inspections that were implicit in the protocol, to suspending Iran’s program of uranium enrichment, and to hand over a comprehensive list of past and current nuclear activities. This could be seen as conﬁrmation that, while the non-elected conservative elements had to adjust to the building pressure, it was only they who could deliver the necessary policy decision. European diplomats and policy makers clearly recognized this throughout their negotiations leading up to the 21 October result. Arguably, therefore, it was the pre-eminence of the non-elected rather than the elected part of the regime that was highlighted by this apparent Iranian climbdown. At any rate, the move was welcomed internationally as a positive step. Yet views differed both on where the credit for it should lie, and how reassuring Iran’s pledges are given the country’s past record of concealment, the ‘suspension’ rather than deﬁnitive ending of enrichment, and the future possibility of short-notice withdrawal from the NPT. EU diplomats claimed credit for Europe’s policy of engagement, while in the US the stress was put on the effect of international pressure and the threat of Security Council action. Europeans too point to the importance of the strong common stance of the EU and the other key international actors; at the same time, it is clear that European mediation did play a role in helping to avoid an international crisis that no-one seemed to want – at least for the time being. In exchange, the EU put forward a milder resolution to the IAEA’s Board of Governors that prevented the matter from being referred to the UN Security Council, by avoiding use of the term

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‘non-compliance’ and reference to Iran’s past record of concealment. The EU, in other words, continued to believe in the power of engagement. The view from the US remains quite different; as Secretary of State Colin Powell phrased it: ‘The fact of the matter is that Iran has been in non-compliance’.39 CONCLUSION

Iran’s foreign policy, like its domestic politics, follows certain patterns that suggest the Islamic Republic has not yet fully passed its revolutionary phase. The main reason for the slow transition, it has been argued here, is the complex hierarchical structure of the Islamic Republic and its institutional arrangement, along with the interests that have accreted to these. The question remains unresolved as to whether post-revolutionary Iran is a republic based on the sovereignty of the people or a theocracy based on the sovereignty of God as interpreted by the religious hierarchy. This duality remains integral to the institutional arrangement of the Islamic Republic, affecting both internal and foreign policy. Accordingly, thorough reform of foreign policy requires reform of the theocratic system and its inherent duality. Two types of institutions exist side by side: those dealing with day-to-day administrative issues, namely the executive led by an elected president, and those deciding political trends in the Islamic Republic, namely the Supreme Leader, the Council of Guardians and the Expediency Council, along with the security services and the judiciary. They do not really form a system of checks and balances essential to a democratic republic, and they are non-elected, chosen through consensus among the religious elite. The elected executive and legislature are both subordinate to these non-elected centers of power. The foreign policy implication of this system is that Iran, at times, follows policies that appear more ideological than justiﬁable in terms of the interests of the territorial state, even though at other times pragmatic policies predominate. One possible explanation would query the usefulness in this respect of categories such as ‘pragmatists’ or ‘reformers’ versus ‘conservatives’ or ‘hardliners,’ and instead argue that what appears to be the working of a pluralist system should be looked at as a tacit division of labor between the political/religious elite that decide policy issues, and the administrative elite that implements them. The ﬁrst level, in this interpretation, would then be policy issues being presented by the non-elected but supreme institutions, while the second-level policies are presented by the government including the ministry of foreign affairs. Even if one accepts that some of the personnel of the latter level (the executive and parliament) may at times disagree with aspects of higherlevel policies, they remain ultimately unable to reverse them. It is, therefore, increasingly clear that the success of the reform project has less to do with the Iranian voters or foreign supporters such as the EU but has to do with the willingness of the non-elected centers to decide whether to withdraw their control over the political, economic and socio-cultural arenas. This poses the question common to all post-revolutionary regimes: whether the system can

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be reformed from within. The reform project associated with President Khatami as the agent of change from within, has so far failed to change the structural contours of the Islamic Republic, nor has it been successful in altering the balance of power in its favor. This remains at the heart not only of domestic politics but also of foreign policy in general, and therefore must affect our understanding of, and the prospects for, Iran–EU relations. This contribution has argued that these relations remain primarily functional. The EU and its Member States have argued that engagement and economic ties with Iran would help encourage the reform movement and help nudge Iran’s policies on contending issues such as WMD, the Middle East peace process, support for radicalism, human rights etc., in the desired direction. But this may well be to overstate both the power of the reformists and the EU’s ability to make much difference.40 It is argued that Iran, as a rentier state, is in the position to choose with whom to share its rent and the EU’s interest in the Iranian market does not place it in a position to exert much inﬂuence. Apart from Iran’s ﬁnancial resources and the economic interests of both sides, the other key reason for EU–Iran functional accommodation has been the continued freeze in the US–Iran relationship. Europe became a focus of Iran’s foreign policy since the 1980s, as an economic and diplomatic partner to replace Iran’s pre-revolutionary ties with the US. Initially there was a very limited European response, given, chieﬂy, the Iran–Iraq war and the demands of the trans-Atlantic relationship in a Cold War context. Yet this changed from the late 1980s, as both those factors disappeared and Iran itself intensiﬁed its charm offensive in the Gulf and internationally. Some European states proved more willing than others to accommodate Iran – France being the most prominent, followed by Germany, Italy and others. The EU as a whole then adopted its common dialogue with Iran, which, in the shape of the Comprehensive Dialogue, continues today. Nevertheless, bilateral relations with EU Member States have in many respects remained more important. For the Iranian policy makers and European governments alike, the relationship has continued to revolve around the beneﬁts to be derived from trade on the one hand and diplomatic relations on the other – the latter in turn serving a number of aims: from both sides, such relations help to safeguard the economic interest; from the Iranian side, they provide a means to demonstrate their international acceptance and circumvent US sanctions and pressure; from the European side, they are viewed as serving the aim of avoiding a radicalization of Iranian politics and policy in the Gulf and the wider region, instead preserving what is seen as the cooperative, status quo role Iran has played in areas such as the 1990–91 Gulf War, Afghanistan, and the 2003 Iraq war. Yet the EU–Iran relationship is likely to remain rather limited in scope. The internal political scene does not make it possible to judge with any conﬁdence that Iran can become the long-term partner the EU hopes to have, nor the EU quite the kind of ally Iran needs given its huge socio-economic problems. Under the present circumstances, the EU has sufﬁcient interests in Iran to make it

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worthwhile cultivating the relationship even without thorough reform of the theocratic regime, while the beneﬁts from the Iranian regime’s vantage point are obvious. But it is not certain that this close partnership will continue in the longrun. The EU beneﬁts from the breakdown in the US–Iran relationship. From the mid-2000s, Iran may well need to adjust its relations with Washington in view of the Bush doctrine that allows for regime change if necessary. This interventionist policy – having already been applied to Iraq – coupled with Iran’s inclusion in the ‘axis of evil’ for its alleged nuclear weapons program, its stance on the Arab–Israeli dispute, and the support given by at least some sections of the regime to radical Islamist movements, is bound to create uncertainty over the regime’s future. Arguably this also helps explain the apparent Iranian climb-down over nuclear policy in October 2003 – although that occasion at the same time highlighted both the centrality of the non-elected element of the regime and the role of the EU, albeit less as a factor in major policy change than as a mediator and channel of communication. The EU’s subsequent crucial role in negotiating US acquiescence in an IAEA resolution that avoided labeling Iran as being in ‘non-compliance’ with its obligations (which would have brought referral to the Security Council for action), once more illustrated the usefulness for Iran of its European policy. Admittedly, the multiple and parallel decision-making centers characterizing Iranian policy making make a clear and radical change of policy difﬁcult. Nevertheless, Tehran would appear to be considering two parallel strategies. One is to bank on the EU–Iran partnership to contain US freedom of action in the region: an approach shared by some EU members that opposed the Iraq war.41 The other is to indicate the regime’s willingness to improve relations with Washington, which would inevitably include having to accommodate Washington’s demands.42 Whether Washington accepts Tehran’s olive branch or continues with its attempt at re-ordering the region’s political landscape and in confronting Iran as a member of the ‘axis of evil’ remains to be seen. Given the Iranian public’s disillusionment with the theocratic regime, the hawks in Washington may prevail and decide not to accept the branch that is offered at a time when the theocratic regime is seen to be at its least popular. There is of course, in that case, also a danger of some nationalist backlash, as happened when President Bush ﬁrst listed Iran as part of the ‘axis’, just as Tehran saw itself as having been helpful over the question of Afghanistan. Alternatively, Washington may this time decide to accept Tehran’s offer of friendship and improve relations with the regime. Either way, Washington is likely to have greater inﬂuence on Iranian foreign relations in the future, and this inevitably makes the future of the EU– Iran partnership less certain. NOTES 1. As Fred Halliday suggests, International Relations theory has neglected revolution as a subject of enquiry: see his Rethinking International Relations (London: Macmillan, 1994), in particular

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2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10.

11. 12. 13. 14.

15. 16. 17.

18. 19. 20. 21.

22. 23. 24. 25.

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‘The Sixth Power: Revolutions and the International System’, pp. 124–43. On the implications of revolution see also Henry Kissinger, A World Restored (Gloucester, MA: Peter Smith, 1973); James Rosenau (ed.), International Aspects of Civil Strife (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1964); and Peter Calvert, Revolution and International Politics (London: Francis Pinter, 1984). Theda Skocpol, State and Social Revolution (Cambridge University Press, 1979), p. 4 and introduction. Halliday, Rethinking International Relations, p. 130. Quoted in Ali Mohammadi and Anoushiravan Ehteshami, Iran and Eurasia (Reading: Ithaca Press, 2000), pp. 60–61. Ibid. Article 154 of the Constitution reads: ‘[Iran] supports the rightful struggle of the oppressed people against their oppressors anywhere in the world’. UN Security Council Resolution 598 demanded a ceaseﬁre that effectively required nothing other than a return to the pre-war status quo – understandably long seen as one sided by Iranians given that they viewed Iraq as the original invader. See R.K. Ramazani, ‘Iran’s Foreign Policy: both North and South’, The Middle East Journal, Vol. 46, no. 3 (Summer 1992). Kaveh Ehsani, ‘‘‘Tilt but don’t spill’’: Iran’s Development and Reconstruction Dilemma’, Middle East Report, Nov.–Dec. 1994. The US under the Clinton administration allowed some minor trade concessions such as import of Iranian pistachio nuts and carpets, and US Secretary of State Madeline Albright acknowledged US involvement in the 1953 US inspired military coup in Iran to topple the democratically elected nationalist Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddeq. For this Islamic model see Farhang Rajaee, ‘Iranian ideology and worldview: the cultural export of revolution’, in John Esposito (ed.), The Iranian Revolution: Its Global Impact (Miami: Florida University Press, 1990). This fear was one of the main reasons behind the creation of the Gulf Cooperation Council in 1981. See Anoushiravan and Gerd Nonneman, War and Peace in the Gulf (Reading: Ithaca Press, 1991), Chapter 3. On the ﬁnancial and trade factor see Anoushiravan Ehteshami, ‘Iran and the European Community’, in Anoushiravan Ehteshami and Manshour Varasteh (eds.), Iran and the International Community (London: Routledge, 1991), pp. 60–72. Some state institutions identiﬁed as supporting terrorist groups, that are not entirely under the control of the executive branch, include the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) and the Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS). See US Department of State, Patterns of Global Terrorism Reports for 1999, 2000, and 2001 (also on 5 http://www.usis.usemb.se/ terror/ 4). For a detailed examination of US sanctions on Iran, see Hossein Alikhani, Sanctioning Iran (London and New York: IB Tauris, 2000). See V. Matthias Struwe, The Policy of ‘Critical Dialogue’ (Durham Middle East Papers no. 60, Durham University, Nov. 1998). Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Velayati announced, for instance, that ‘our government is not going to dispatch anybody, any commandos, to kill anybody in Europe’, although the Speaker of Parliament said that the it was an ‘irrevocable edict’. Quoted in Mohammadi and Ehteshami, Iran and Eurasia, p. 71. Total has won many large oil and gas development contracts since then. But since early January 2002, the Iranian government has complained about France’s breach of the oil contract by not providing investment funds. ‘Communication from the Commission, Brussels, 7.2.2001, COM (2001) 71.’ Al Hayat, Feb. 20, 1999. ‘EU–Iran: Commission proposes mandate for negotiating Trade and Cooperation Agreement, IP/ 01/1611’ (Brussels, Nov. 19, 2001), p. 1. Iranian–European relations were discussed in a conference in Tehran organized by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. See monthly bulletin no. 125, Political and International Research Ofﬁce (Tehran: Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 2000), pp. 61–4. ‘Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament and the Council: EU relations with the Islamic Republic of Iran, Brussels, 7.2.2001, COM, (2001) 71.’ Ibid. See INOGATE’s website on 5 http://www.inogate.org/ 4. This was part of the Commission’s framework of Producer–Consumer Dialogue to create closer relations with energy-producing countries in order to increase market transparency and price stability. Iran is not a member of the EU–Mediterranean Partnership, or Barcelona Initiative, where these issues are discussed collectively. For an overview of that initiative see Richard Gillespie (ed.),

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26. 27. 28. 29.

30.

31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36.

37. 38. 39. 40.

41. 42.

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The Europe–Mediterranean Partnership (London: Frank Cass, 1997) and Gerd Nonneman, ‘The Three Environments of Middle Eastern Foreign Policy Making and Relations with Europe’, in this volume. Iran Trade Yellow Pages 2001–2002, ‘The New Millennium: the Dialogue among Civilizations’, (available from iranecommerce.net, or email [email protected]). Ibid. ‘Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament and the Council, Brussels, 7.2.2001, COM (2001) 71.’ On the phenomenon of the rentier state, see Giacomo Luciani (ed.), The Arab State (London: Routledge, 1990). The term was, in fact, ﬁrst suggested for the case of Iran (under the Shah) itself: Hossein Mahdavi, ‘The Pattern and Problems of Economic Development in Rentier States: the Case of Iran’, in M. Cook (ed.), Studies in the Economic History of the Middle East (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1970). Iranian voters expressed their support for Khatami and the reform project through the ballot box on several occasions: ﬁrst in the 1997 presidential election, giving Khatami nearly 70 percent of the popular vote; second in the 1998 municipal elections by overwhelming participation (63.4 percent) that resulted in the election of predominantly reformist candidates; third, in the 1999 parliamentary elections where reformers won most seats; and fourth, in the June 2001 presidential election, when they reelected Khatami with an even larger majority. The CNN World News, Jan.2, 2002. RFE/RL Iran Report, Dec. 31, 2001. RFE/RL Iran Report, Sept. 30, 2002. RFE/RL Iran Report, Sept. 3, 2003 and April 19, 2004; Arab News, June 2, 2003. Quoted in Iran Trade Yellow Pages 2001–2002, ‘The New Millennium: the Dialogue among Civilizations’, part 1. In this election on Feb. 28, the turnout was as low as 12 percent according to ofﬁcial sources and as low as 5 percent in the capital Tehran. This is compared with over 63 percent in the 1999 municipal election. Not only was the turnout was low but, with most of the reformists’ supporters staying at home in disillusionment, conservatives won most seats – indeed in Tehran all council seats went to conservatives. The regime relies heavily on interests such as the Bonyads (foundations) that control over a quarter of the economy, the traditional Bazaari merchants, the informal networks sometimes referred to as ‘the Islamic maﬁa’, and so on. ‘Iran’s Nuclear Diplomacy’, The Economist, Dec. 20, 2003, p. 73. Financial Times, Nov. 19, 2003. The EU’s limited ability to inﬂuence reform has been illustrated even in matters of principle that are at the heart of stated EU values. For example in an EU–Iran meeting on Dec. 16, 2002 to discuss human rights, delegates from Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch were excluded despite having prepared the expert documents for that occasion. These documents outline many of the key problems and make speciﬁc suggestions (information from Gulf2000 website, Dec. 14, 2002). Another example came in the understanding reached between the EU and Iran’s reformist executive, over the issue of stoning as a form of punishment. Although this understanding indicated that the implementation of stoning punishments would be suspended, a member of the Council of Guardians, the body responsible for conﬁrming constitutional and religious compatibility commented that Islamic rulings do not depend on societal tastes: ‘stoning is a sanction for ethical problems . . . no other punishment could be suggested as a replacement for stoning’. Report by William Samii, Gulf2000, Jan. 2, 2003. Foreign Minister Kharrazi stressed the common EU and Iranian concern over US policies in the region, in a meeting in London on Dec. 10, 2002. The powerful head of the Expediency Council, Hashemi Rafsanjani, expressed this view in a low-key interview published in Rahbar, the formal journal of Strategic Research Center of the Council. This Center, headed by the former Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Velayati, advises the Council on foreign affairs. 5 http://www.csr.ir/pr/index.htm 4.

The Determinants of Turkish Foreign Policy, and Turkey’s European Vocation MUSTAFA AYDIN

INTRODUCTION

Although not one of the great powers of the twentieth century, its geopolitical location has enabled Turkey to play a potentially higher role in world politics than otherwise would have been possible.1 It not only holds the key to the Turkish Straits but sits astride the roads from the Balkans to the Middle East and from the Caucasus to the Persian Gulf. It is a member of the largest surviving military bloc, that is, NATO, as well as an associate member of the European Union (EU). Its political involvement and exposed position assign an importance hardly matched by any other middle power. Further, it successfully expanded its strategic importance in general amidst the dust created by the important systemic changes in world politics since the end of the Cold War in 1989. Thus Turkey has, once more, emerged as an important actor, poised to play a leading role across a vast region extending ‘from eastern Europe to western China’.2 Yet Turkey lives in a perennial ‘insecurity complex’, or a ‘national security syndrome’ as phrased by the former Prime Minister Mesut Yılmaz, not suited to its position and inﬂuence in regional and international politics.3 Moreover, a sense of confusion dominates the discussion both abroad and within the country about the exact nature of Turkey, its people and foreign policy priorities.4 This is only too natural as it is very difﬁcult to place Turkey into any neat geographical, cultural, political or economic category. About 97 percent of its land mass lies in Asia, yet Turkey’s progressive elite consider their country as part of Europe. About 98 percent of its population is Muslim, and yet Turkey is a secular state by choice and its religious development has taken a different path from that of other Muslim countries. Culturally, most of the country reﬂects the peculiarities of wider Middle Eastern culture, and yet it participates, with an equal persistency, in European cultural events. It professes to have a liberal economic system, but the remnants of the planned economy hamper the country’s development. In the religious, historical and geographical senses it is a Middle Eastern country, yet any development impinging upon the status quo of the Balkans, the Caucasus, Caspian and Black Sea regions, and the Mediterranean directly affects Turkey just as much. Isolated by Ottoman history, language and culture from the West, and by its Republican history and political choices from the East, Turkey thus stands as a

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unique case, which has rarely appeared to be of great interest to scholars of the general ﬁeld of international relations. As there is, in the early twenty-ﬁrst century, a new surge of argument and speculation about Turkey’s options and possible ‘Turkish moves’ after the events of September 11, 2001, the time seems right to reassess the Turkish experience to uncover what the key drivers of Turkish foreign policy are. This will have implications also for our understanding of Turkey’s relations with Europe into the future. It is generally assumed that there are patterns in the foreign policy of nations, and not just single acts.5 But there is a danger that such generalisations may prevent us from recognising the diversity of forms which foreign policy can actually take. Although there is a temptation among foreign policy scholars to generalise when evidence of apparently similar experiences and development processes is readily at hand, it is also clear that ‘the foreign policy of every single state is an integral part of its peculiar system of government’ and reﬂects its special circumstances.6 Indeed, each case needs to be located in its speciﬁc conditions within the international system. Clearly, foreign policies are not made in a vacuum. Foreign policy making bodies of any state receive inputs (demands for action, values, threats, feedback) from the outside world and respond to them. To make sense of the foreign policy process we need to look at these inputs and their interrelationships. However, what makes it difﬁcult to use these factors (inputs and outputs) as a useful tool of analysis is their elastic character, which needs to be adjusted and changed to ﬁt a given historical and concrete situation. Hence it becomes virtually impossible to specify a precise number of factors that affect the foreign policy making of all countries in the same way across time. Nevertheless, experience and tradition over time – in combination with basic values and norms – create a set of relatively inﬂexible principles. What affects the process of formation of these principles varies from state to state. Yet, while looking at the elements that shape the foreign policy of any country, one can see, with some degree of over-simpliﬁcation, the interplay of two kinds of variables. One kind, which may be called structural variables, are continuous, fairly static and not directly related to the international political medium and the daily events of foreign politics. They can exert a long-term inﬂuence over the determination of foreign policy goals. Geographical position, historical experiences, cultural background together with national stereotypes and images of other nations, and long-term economic necessities would fall into this category of structural variables. The other group, which may be termed conjunctural variables, are dynamic, made up of a web of interrelated developments in domestic politics and international relations, and subject to change under the inﬂuence of domestic and foreign developments.7 In this context, it can be argued that Turkey’s foreign policy is shaped, to a large extent, by: 1. Its historical experiences. 2. Its geopolitical and geo-strategic location which provide a unique position in world politics.

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3. 4. 5.

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A number of vulnerabilities. The political ideology of its governing elite (i.e. Kemalism). The demands of systemic, regional and domestic changes on the country’s external relations at any given period.

Due to the strong inﬂuence of these underlying determinants upon Turkey, it has displayed a remarkable degree of continuity in its foreign policy, in contrast to the frequent internal changes. It is largely due to these factors that Turkish foreign policy has been praised for its high degree of rationality, sense of responsibility, long-term perspective, and ‘realism found in few developing nations and far from universal even among the democracies of the West’.8 Accordingly, this contribution ﬁrst looks at the historical context of foreign policy making in Turkey, before turning to the geopolitics of foreign and security policies. Following an evaluation of the place of ofﬁcial ideology in foreign policy making, the changing nature of Turkish foreign policy after the end of the Cold War, and the effects of systemic changes, will be assessed. HISTORICAL CONTEXT OF TURKISH FOREIGN POLICY MAKING

It is clear that Turkey’s contemporary foreign and security policies can only be understood within a unique historical and cultural context, since ‘the legacy of history is heavily discernible in [Turkey’s] relations with [its neighbours] as well as its Western allies’.9 The fact that Turkey both inherited the heartland of the Ottoman Empire, and thus its advantages as well as complications, and the legacy of its problematic relations, affects its foreign policy in a fundamental way. The effects can be divided into ‘constructive’ and ‘problematic’ legacies. Among the constructive legacies are: established traditions in state governance, importance given to territory and its continuity, and wellthought-out and carefully articulated foreign and security policies, beneﬁting from the hindsight gained from a long experience. More important for our purposes are the negative or ‘problematic’ legacies, including the bitter memories of neighbouring countries, misleading images about the country and the people, and remembrance of past misdeeds of foreign states, all of which create a sense of continual harassment and thus a ‘security syndrome’ within the country. The Turkish Republic was born out of the Ottoman Empire, but bore little resemblance to its forerunner. The new Turkey was not an empire, but a relatively small nation-state; not an autocracy or theocracy, but a parliamentary democracy; not a state founded on expansionist principles, but one dedicated to the existing status quo; not the kind of multinational, multiracial, and multireligious state the Empire had been, but a more ‘homogenous’ society.10 Its aims were not to create and expand an empire, but to build and perpetuate a strong, stable nation within the boundaries of its homeland. Though at one time the Turks formed an important part of the ruling classes, they were actually one of the smaller nations within the multi-ethnic empire.

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Moreover, the Ottoman sultans did not consider themselves Turks as such, but as Ottomans. Therefore when the Turks fought for their independence after World War I, they did not ﬁght only against the Entente invaders, but also against the Ottoman Sultan and the forces of the old system – a point that is usually overlooked.11 Hence, it is not surprising to see that the leaders of the new Turkish state sought to break with the Ottoman past which they identiﬁed with ignorance, corruption, backwardness and dogmas. To establish a truly new state, they had to clear away the ruins of the Empire, disown its legacy and discover new virtues based on the ‘Turkish nation’. The new Turkey had to have no relationship with the old.12 Yet this refusal to recognise its past did not mean that the Turkish Republic did not inherit some of the fundamental features of the Ottoman Empire; this has created what has often been referred to as an ‘identity problem’. The new Turkey was established not only in the very heart of the old Empire’s geopolitical setting – that of Asia Minor and Thrace, therefore acquiring its complications – but it also retained most of its ruling elite. Since the bureaucratic elite of the Empire in its last days was dominated by Turks, the new Turkish state found itself with an experienced bureaucracy. Nineteenth-century experiments with Western education had produced an educated ofﬁcial class. Later this elite group of administrators, within the one-party authoritarian regime, formed the nucleus of Turkey’s modernizing elite – the Republican People’s Party – and imposed revolutionary changes from the top.13 One of the fundamental facets of Turkish society and politics that has developed since the eighteenth century, and grew full-ﬂedged in the last quarter of the twentieth, is the process of westernization. This was carried to the Republic by the progressive elite from the Empire, and ‘has greatly motivated Turkey’s Western-oriented policies and introduced liberal and internationalist elements’ into foreign and security policies.14 On the other hand, it has also given a push to the already acute identity problem which dominated the discussions in the country throughout the 1980s and 1990s, as well as complicating the understanding of its foreign and security policy behavior for outsiders. Throughout history, the Turks have been connected to the West, ﬁrst as a conquering superior and enemy, then as a component part, later as an admirer and unsuccessful imitator, and in the end as a follower and ally. Ottoman settlement in Anatolia was the beginning of the inﬂuence which had such a profound effect on their subsequent history. Before they had any status in Asia Minor, the Ottomans were already an empire based largely on south-eastern Europe: It is an important historical fact which is not often appreciated that the Ottoman Turks started their career as a people in the extreme north-west of Asia Minor, facing Europe; that they founded their Empire not in Asia but across the Sea of Marmara in Thrace and the Balkans, in other words in Europe, and that then expanded eastwards into Asia Minor a century after they had already become a European power.15

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Not only did Europe have an effect on the Ottoman Empire, the Turks, from the time that they ﬁrst entered the European continent, also played a role in the destiny of Europe. They were not only the enemy of the European monarchs, but frequently allied themselves with one or more of the European countries against the others, and operated within the European system. It is, however, one of the ironies of history that the Ottoman Empire, whilst it had progressively become more and more alienated from Europe through the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, was ‘ofﬁcially’ re-admitted to the European legal system at the Paris Congress of 1856. As Thomas Naff observed, though the Ottoman Empire ‘for half a millennium, from the fourteenth century until the nineteenth, . . .occupied, controlled, and administered one-quarter to one-third of the European continent’, and ‘the logical conclusion ought to be that the Ottoman Empire was, empirically, a European state, the paradox is that it was not. Even though a signiﬁcant portion of the Empire was based in Europe, it cannot be said to have been of Europe’.16 This paradox, ‘being in Europe but not of Europe’, may be taken as the characteristic feature of Turkish–European relations from the very beginning to the present day. Despite the European reluctance to accept the Turks as part of Europe, it is only natural that the Ottoman rule over one-third of Europe for four hundred years would have important effects on the Empire’s outlook and consequently that of the Turks.17 Its adaptation of a somewhat secular state system, especially in the conduct of foreign affairs and in the administration of the various millets, was part of this inﬂuence. In fact, the Ottoman Empire, in time, had created its own peculiar understanding of Islam, somewhat ‘secular’ and different from that of the Arabs. Given this background, the introduction of the Western-oriented secular state in the 1920s was not at all contradictory to the overall experience of the Turkish people. In fact, modernization in terms of the West was started after a series of Ottoman defeats at the hands of the Western powers.18 Most Ottoman and Turkish modernizers did agree upon one basic assumption: ‘there is no second civilization; civilization means European civilization, and it must be imported with both its roses and thorns’.19 Turkey owed a great deal to the late-Ottoman intellectuals who advocated most of the reforms that were ﬁnally realized under the guidance of Atatu¨rk in the 1920s and 1930s. Another point of historical signiﬁcance has been the realistic outlook of Ottoman diplomacy, which was shaped during the nineteenth century with extraordinary success. During the last hundred or so years of its life, the Empire was weak in comparison to the Western Powers and was forced to pursue its foreign policy among the tensions between its own interests and those of other powers. Nonetheless, by playing one great power against another for survival, the Ottomans were able to maintain the territorial integrity of much of the Empire for a long time; the Empire’s decline took three hundred years and its collapse came only with a world war. As students of this remarkable diplomacy, the Turks later used all the advantages of the international system, such as the differences between England, France and Italy at the end of World War I, and

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the greater antagonism between the Western powers and the Soviet Union after World War II. This continuity from the Empire to the Republic has prompted one shrewd observer of Turkish affairs to argue: ‘Turkey has historically displayed a relatively consistent security culture of realpolitik which has evolved across the centuries from a dominant offensive character into a dominant defensive one. [. . .] The latter continues to affect foreign policymaking in modern Turkey’.20 During the heyday of the Ottoman Empire, its external relations were dominated by its holistic expansionism and military-offensive character. Thus, ‘the Ottoman policy until the end of the seventeenth century can be deﬁned as offensive realpolitik, the objective of which was to maximise power by acquiring territory, population and wealth’.21 Subsequently, when the Empire ﬁrst stagnated and then started to crumble from the seventeenth century onwards vis-a`-vis European powers, ‘Ottoman realpolitik began to acquire a defensive character’ in order to slow down the retreat;22 its main foreign policy objective became the preservation of the status quo by military and diplomatic means, of which the latter had had very little signiﬁcance until that time.23 Its unavoidable decline and continuous relations with European powers made the concept of ‘balance of power’ an indispensable component of its diplomatic–strategic behaviour – an attitude that was inherited by Turkey. As ‘the Ottoman Empire was reduced to a secondary power and became increasingly dependent on European powers’ in the nineteenth century, ‘the fear of loss of territory and [. . .] of abandonment became a major aspect of Turkish security culture’. This was carried over into the Turkish Republic through the Treaty of Se`vres that marked the partition of the Ottoman territories among its adversaries. Turkish imperial history ended with the collapse of the Ottoman Empire at the end of World War I. The Treaty of Lausanne, signed after three years of nationalist struggle on July 24, 1923, replaced the dictated Peace Treaty of Se`vres and established the new Turkish nation-state with complete sovereignty in almost all the territory included in the present day Turkish Republic. Lausanne essentially represented international recognition of the demands expressed in the Turkish National Pact.24 The Se`vres Treaty in contrast was detrimental to Turkish independence and destructive of its homeland:25 The Turks were only allowed to keep a small part of desolate central Anatolia under various restrictions. Although the Treaty of Se`vres remained still-born as the Nationalists refused to accept it and successfully fought to overturn its terms,26 the fact that the sovereign rights and independence of the Turkish people had been disregarded by the Entente powers, and that the Turks were forced to ﬁght to regain their independence and the territory they considered as their ‘homeland’ after rapidly losing an empire, was to have an important effect both on subsequent Turkish attitudes vis-a`-vis foreign powers and on their nation-building efforts. Moreover, the Treaty of Se`vres formed a basis for subsequent Armenian claims on Turkish territory and had given form and inspiration to Kurdish nationalism: Kurdish nationalists still refer to it today as evidence of international recognition of their aspirations for an independent

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Kurdish homeland.27 ‘Inherited by the Republic, these fears continue to haunt some of the elite and public opinion’ even today.28 Thus, one can argue that Turkey’s national security policy continues to be inﬂuenced by ‘Se`vres-phobia’ or ‘Se`vres Syndrome,’ that is the conviction that the ‘external world and their internal collaborators are trying to weaken and divide Turkey’.29 The perceived international, especially European, insensitivity towards these fears, also exacerbated this conviction. For example, suggestions by the German and Italian foreign ministers that the future of Turkey’s Kurds be decided by an international conference, inevitably bring into the minds of large segments of the Turkish society, the earlier big-power conferences which carved a new bit of territory from the Ottoman Empire each time they were convened. Turkey also inherited further complications from its Ottoman past which still affect Turkish foreign and security policy formulations. The line of foreign policy pursued by the Ottomans through their last years, of playing powers off against each other for survival, required them to be extraordinarily wary about their environment and suspicious about other powers’ intentions. They also learned, as a result of centuries-long hostilities with their neighbors, not to trust any state, to rely on nothing but their power, and to be ready to ﬁght at any given time. This ﬁnds reﬂection in such common Turkish sayings as ‘water sleeps, the enemy never sleeps’ and ‘prepare for war, if you want peace’. Consequently, the Turkish diplomatic apparatus is known today, among other things, for being skeptical and cautious to the extreme. The Foreign Ministry always takes its time in answering any given foreign statement or memorandum as if trusted diplomats are searching for the real intentions behind the lines. The traditional sense of insecurity and suspicion about ever-intriguing foreign powers thus reigns supreme in modern Turkey as a direct legacy of the Ottoman Empire, reﬂected even in statements at the highest level, such as this assessment by President Kenan Evren in 1984: ‘Turkey’s historical position indicates that she is obliged to pursue a policy based on being strong and stable within her region [. . .since] she is surrounded by unfriendly neighbours’.30 When discussing suspicion and skepticism in Turkey about foreign intentions and possible intervention, one should bear in mind that the Ottoman Empire had been subjected repeatedly to propaganda attacks, exploitation and outright aggression by the self-appointed protectors of its minorities. The Empire had restricted itself to a minimum of interference in the affairs of its subjects, and granted authority to the head of millets (religious communities) in church administration, worship, education, tax collecting and supervision of the civil status of their co-religionists. As the Ottoman rulers did not seek to impose Turkish language on their subjects and did not oblige conversion of Christians and Jews but rather used the religious leadership of these communities to administer their co-religionists, the persistence of strong non-Muslim religious identities and linguistic differences served as a natural basis for the growth of nationalism and eventual separatism by the subject peoples in the nineteenth century. Thus, when the central authority weakened, the millet system, once an excellent instrument of governing, helped precipitate the self-destruction of the Empire.

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These religious communities, by attracting European attention, also caused the continued involvement of the ‘West’ in Ottoman affairs. In particular Greek Orthodox and Armenian communities had been used as a means of interfering in Ottoman authority throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The last days of the Empire even saw some of its minorities used as a ‘ﬁfth column’ during the Great War. Hence, Turkish sensitivity about Greek efforts to internationalize Orthodox Patriarchy in Istanbul or any possibility of accepting Armenian genocide claims, have to be seen against this background. Moreover, conscious that European powers, playing protector to one of its many minorities, were able to meddle with the internal affairs of the Ottoman Empire during its declining years due to the societal organization of the Empire along religious–ethnic lines (the Millet system), Turkey developed an extreme reluctance, persisiting to this day, to recognize the rights, and even the existence, of national minorities, lest they, too, be exploited by Dıs¸ Mihraklar (external powers) and create further vulnerabilities for the integrity and survival of the state. Another bitter legacy of the late Ottoman Empire for the Turks is the memory of ﬁnancial control exercised by European powers through Duyun-u Umumiye (Public Debt Service) on Turkish soil after the Empire went bankrupt in 1881. Thus it was not surprising to hear from Atatu¨rk that ‘. . .by complete independence, we mean of course complete economic, ﬁnancial, juridical, military, cultural independence and freedom in all matters. Being deprived of independence in any of these is equivalent to the nation and country being deprived of all its independence’.31 Knowing that the Ottoman Empire, in its last years, had lost its independence, to a large extent due to foreign interventions, privileges granted to foreigners, and the capitulations, successive Ankara governments have thus been very sensitive about perceived infringements upon their sovereignty as well as about foreign economic entanglements. In the economic sphere, this suspicion showed itself by tight control over foreign companies operating in Turkey and strict rules governing ﬁnancial problems even after the economic liberalization the country has experienced since 1980. Yet another point of historical signiﬁcance is that there is a sense of greatness, in the common Turkish mind, based on belonging to a nation that had established empires and been master of a world empire, which was only brought down by a world war. Thus, centuries-old Ottoman supremacy over the Middle Eastern lands and the Balkans left the Turks with a conviction of their superiority. But a vicious circle was established as the others react to Turkish haughtiness.32 Moreover, the long, and in its last days inefﬁcient and unpopular, Ottoman domination in these countries left ill will against the Turks, and modern Turkey had to face the legacy of neighbors who have bitter memories of Ottoman rule; this, too, affects modern-day foreign and security policies. Certainly, the imperial past is linked to later bitterness between Turkey and Greece. The late nineteenth century witnessed rising Greek nationalism and the modern Greek state was the ﬁrst nation-state in the Balkans to come out of clashes between nationalism and the Ottoman Empire. After gaining independence in 1832,

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Greece’s territorial expansion against the Ottoman Empire continued until 1922, when its adventure in Asia Minor ended with a catastrophe. On the other side, the Turkish struggle for independence reached a climax when the Greek army landed in Izmir in 1915 to attain the Megali Idea (the long-lived Greek dream of reconstituting the Byzantine Empire), and in the end the Turks had to ﬁght the Greeks to claim their own independent nation-state. The frustrated hopes of achieving the Megali Idea on the Greeks’ part, and the fact of having been forced to ﬁght against their former subjects for their independence on the part of the Turks, together with the stories about wartime atrocities on both sides, provided ample reason for the continued bitterness in the early 1920s and 1930s.33 Implications of this violent past and mutuallyconstructed suspicion are clearly discernible in present Turkish–Greek relations, creating a shared distrust between the two nations and complicating the settlement of the protracted conﬂicts over the Aegean and Cyprus. Though some of the potential for conﬂict was eliminated by the arrangement of a compulsory population exchange in the 1920s, past bitterness provided a base for hostility when differences erupted from the mid-1950s onwards. Another of the main principles of Turkish security policy, that of its northern neighbor representing the primary threat to its security, also has its roots deeply embedded in history.34 Since the seventeenth century, Russia’s expansionist policies had helped it to become the ‘arch enemy’ of the Ottomans. A succession of major defeats at Russian hands had consistently confronted the Ottoman Government with the realities of its declining power. Moreover, it was Tsar Nicholas I, who described the Ottoman Empire as the ‘sick man of Europe’ when he proposed to the British in 1853 that the Ottoman Empire be partitioned.35 The last of the thirteen Russian–Turkish wars was World War I, which ended the Ottoman Empire. This course of conﬂict over four centuries had naturally generated a good measure of hostility and distrust between Turks and Russians. Even during the period of the Treaty of Friendship and Neutrality, when good neighborly relations were enjoyed mainly as a result of common opposition to Western imperial policies, the historical Turkish distrust of the Russians was well evident and the temporary convergence of interests did not last long. As the history of distrust, hostility and continued wars made the Turks extraordinarily wary, they did not hesitate to accept American aid when this state of mind exacerbated Ankara’s perception of the Soviet pressures on Turkey after World War II for territorial cessions and special privileges in the straits. THE GEOPOLITICS OF TURKISH FOREIGN AND SECURITY POLICIES

As Rosenau puts it: The conﬁguration of the land, its fertility and climate, and its location relative to other land masses and to waterways. . .all contribute both to the psychological environment through which ofﬁcials and publics deﬁne their links to the external world and the operational environment out of which their dependence on other countries is fashioned.36

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The Turkish Republic, which has inherited from the Ottoman Empire the historic role of serving as both a land bridge and a fortress connecting Europe, Asia and the Middle East, constitutes a very good example of how and to what degree geography determines a country’s foreign policy. Turkey has undergone profound changes since the 1920s. But its location and strategic value have not changed. Even if Turkey’s relative importance to other states has changed, what Turkish decision makers perceive about their geographical importance and about threats reasoned from this particular location has not yet radically changed. As far as the foreign policy making of a country is concerned, the perception of decision makers about themselves, their country and other countries, is the most important factor to take into account.37 Thus, modern Turkey, thanks to its geo-strategic location and borders with Europe, the Middle East, and the Caucasus, has been able to play a role in world politics far greater than its size, population, and economic strength would indicate.38 Historically, Turkey is located on one of the most strategic and traditionally most coveted pieces of territory anywhere. Its particular geographical position makes Turkey a Balkan, Mediterranean, Caucasian and Middle Eastern country all at the same time. It also makes Turkey doubly susceptible to international developments near and far and, therefore, greatly sensitive to the changes in the international as well as regional political balance. Being at the crossroads of land connections between Europe, Asia, and Africa, has increased the importance of any state established in Anatolia. However, being also the main channel for migrations from the east, and invasions from both the east and the west, has created a sense of insecurity as well. The physical features of a land may make it easy to defend or penetrate from outside. From the military point of view, the Anatolian peninsula is a ‘strategic region’.39 The seas on both sides and the fortress-like mountainous terrain in the east are difﬁcult to penetrate by using force, and make natural boundaries for Turkey. European Turkey, on the other hand, is difﬁcult to defend and the Straits are also vulnerable to air attacks. It is true that possession of the Straits conveys political and military advantages, and raises Turkey from the position of a purely local power to one having crucial international inﬂuence. Simultaneously, however, the Straits pose one of Turkey’s major security concerns by attracting potential aggressors. The deployment of Turkey’s most powerful First Army to protect the Straits and the area surrounding them demonstrates Turkey’s decision makers have been fully aware of this.40 Another important factor in Turkish security thinking is that the Aegean islands, if under the control of an enemy power, would deny Turkey the use of its two principal harbours, Istanbul and Izmir, and could prevent access to the Straits. In this case, navigation would be safe from the eastern Mediterranean so long as the island of Cyprus, which could bloc the area, was controlled by a friendly government. Hence, the scenario that Enosis (union of Cyprus with Greece) would cut Turkey off from the open sea, has encouraged Turkey’s resistance to such designs since the 1950s.41 It is the very same fear that is behind the Turkish declaration of casus belli against the Greek claims about 12-

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mile territorial waters in the Aegean, thus putting all open-sea exits from the Aegean within her territorial seas.42 Another important reason for Turkey’s geographical insecurity is the fact that it is surrounded by many neighbours with different characteristics, regimes, ideologies and aims; and that the relations between them and Turkey would not always be peaceful, and might occasionally take the form of armed clashes. A country’s borders may be a source of strength or of weakness depending on their length, the number and intentions of the neighbours, and the relative power available to the affected parties.43 Turkey’s sense of insecurity is linked in particular also to the very multiplicity of neighbors: as Most and Starr put it, ‘. . .a nation that borders on a large number of other nations faces a particularly high risk that it may be threatened or attacked by at least some of its neighbours [. . .] and confronts its neighbours with uncertainty because it must protect and defend itself against many potential opponents’.44 A further geographical inﬂuence on Turkish security derives from the fact that Turkey effectively controls the only seaway linking the Black Sea with the Mediterranean. This intercontinental position has proved an element of strength as well as of weakness. For ﬁve centuries, Istanbul provided a home-base for the Ottomans ‘from which they were able to exercise control in all directions, in the Balkans and central Europe, the Black Sea region, the Aegean and Mediterranean, Mesopotamia and Arabia, Syria and North Africa’.45 The Straits have also supplied a resource for the Ottoman Empire and its successor, the Turkish Republic, which could not be duplicated in manpower as a means to inﬂuence the actions of the Russian Empire, later the Soviet Union, and ﬁnally the Russian Federation.46 On the other hand, controlling these vital waterways brought the Ottoman Empire into perennial conﬂict with the Russians, beginning in the seventeenth century. It has always been vitally important for Russia to have its outlet to the Mediterranean unimpeded, independent of its neighbors’ goodwill. But it has been equally important for Western powers not to let Russia gain control over this important passage. Indeed, during the nineteenth century, the struggle for control of the Ottoman Empire in general, and of the Straits in particular, was the major part of the exertions of European diplomacy. And in the latter half of the nineteenth century the fate of the Ottoman Empire became the major factor in the global balance of power. Consequently, the Ottomans, ‘even though militarily weak, economically bankrupt and politically anomalous’, were still able to subsist for another century ‘on the conﬂict of interests between Russia, on the one hand, and Austro-Hungary, France, Britain, on the other’.47 While the question of the Turkish Straits and the historic hostility between the Russians and the Turks has been at the heart of Turkish–Soviet relations for many years, having a superpower neighbour also had its effects on Turkish security policy. During the ﬁrst two decades of the Republic, relations with the Soviet Union, which supplied political and material support to Turkey, were good and were strengthened by the Treaty of Neutrality and Non-aggression of 1925. This era of mutual understanding came to end on March 15, 1945, with the Soviets’ unilateral denunciation of the 1925 Treaty and demands for a new treaty

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‘in accord with the new situation’.48 They further demanded territorial concessions from Turkey and bases on the Bosphorus. These Soviet demands strongly inﬂuenced Turkish foreign policy attitudes and reinforced its Western orientation. Since Turkey was only able to refuse these demands with US backing, the Turkish Government sought a formal alliance, and the link with the Western defence system was formalised with Turkey’s accession to NATO on February 18, 1952. Though, after Stalin’s death, the Soviet Government ofﬁcially declared that its policy towards Turkey had been wrong and that the Soviet Union had not any kind of territorial claims on Turkey,49 the time had already passed for the Soviet Union to revise its relations with Turkey, as the historic Turkish distrust of the Russians had reappeared on the horizon. The belief that the Soviet Union posed a primary threat to Turkey’s security dominated relations between the two countries during the Cold War, and it was only after the blow of Johnson’s letter in 1964 that Turkey showed interest in Soviet efforts to normalize relations. It took nearly a decade for Turkey to accept the fact that de´tente between the Soviet Union and the West had been started in the 1960s, and a further decade to improve its relations with the Soviet Union. Nevertheless, having a common border with the Soviet Union was still a cause of concern and remained one of the factors contributing to Turkey’s extremely cautious foreign and security policies.50 Another complication for Turkey’s political and security thinking is the fact that Turkey is a Middle Eastern country as well as a Balkan and Mediterranean one.51 The strategic importance of the Middle East region does not need further elaboration. The single fact that the Middle East owned most of the known oil resources made the region one of the most important in the strategic thinking of all parties concerned. Turkey, like most of the West, has been dependent on Middle Eastern oil. Not only is the functioning of the Turkish economy dependent on continuous ﬂows of Middle Eastern petrol, but also military strategy has become increasingly reliant on massive wartime fuel needs, for mounting a viable conventional defence during international crises and war.52 Therefore, Turkey’s growing political and diplomatic concern in the region has been, in part, a result of the intensifying economic ties which were forced upon her by her dependence on Middle Eastern oil. Apart from oil, there are other reasons why the Middle East occupies an important place in Turkish security thinking.53 The region has been continuously unstable since World War I and the breakdown of the Ottoman Empire. Turkish foreign policy in the Middle East, while depending on status quo, requires stability, and any destabilizing development in the region creates security problems for her. Thus, the general insecurity of the region has attracted a great deal of concern from Turkey. It is sufﬁcient to point out that four Arab–Israeli wars, the festering Palestinian problem, the Lebanese civil war and foreign interventions, the Suez crisis, the Iranian revolution, the Iran–Iraq war, and the two subsequent Gulf Wars, have all occurred within the immediate reach and security zone of Turkey. Such developments, and the ever-increasing possibility of international involvement, have inevitably created great concern in Turkey

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about its immediate security. This was once again highlighted during the Iraq crisis and war of 2003. Thus, its position in a highly unstable and insecure region has meant that a secure place within the main multinational fora has always had a considerable attraction for Turkey. THE IDEOLOGY OF TURKISH FOREIGN POLICY: KEMALISM

Mustafa Kemal Atatu¨rk not only completely controlled Turkish foreign policy in his lifetime, but also put forward the ideological framework that identiﬁed the path Turkish foreign policy would follow. Though the original Kemalist goals of national foreign policy underwent various mutations, especially under the relatively free democratic system of the 1961 Constitution, practically all Turkish governments, regardless of their standpoints, put his ‘indisputable dogma’ into their programs and have not – indeed could not have – implemented policies that ran counter to Kemalist principles. His inﬂuence over the Turkish people in general, and Turkish foreign policy in particular, has been so fundamental that there have been at times warnings that following anything other than his principles would be disloyal to him and to the country in general. In particular, Turkey’s foreign policy has been inﬂuenced by such Kemalist principles as the establishment and preservation of a national state with complete independence conditioned by modern Turkish nationalism; promotion of Turkey to the level of contemporary civilization, and attachment to a realist approach in foreign policy actions. Atatu¨rk’s foreign policy views, like his political views in general, represented a break with the past. He aimed at a renunciation of three strains which had been important during Ottoman times: the imperial-Ottomanism, Pan-Islamism, and Pan-Turanism. Incidentally, policies which could break these strains coincided with the three of his political principles: Republicanism, Secularism and Nationalism respectively. Atatu¨rk’s foreign policy was clearly an extension of his domestic policies. He realized that a peaceful foreign policy was needed in order to achieve his farreaching reforms inside Turkey. However, in order to achieve this, a change was necessary, apart from in the system of government, ‘in the mental disposition of the Turkish people’.54 His political reforms were directed toward this aim, and the ideological guidance necessary to achieve it was formalised at the 1931 Congress of the Republican People’s Party and written into constitution on 1937.55 It was symbolized by the emblem of the RPP: six arrows, each of which represented one of the key words of Kemalist ideology: Nationalism, Secularism, Republicanism, Populism, Etatism, and Revolutionism. As the foundation of Kemalist ideology, Republicanism comprises the notions of popular sovereignty, freedom and equality before the law. It was against the totalitarian tendencies and revisionist and imperialist notions of being an Empire. While accepting the existing status quo as a main foundation of the new state, Republicanism was not only a change in the governmental system, but also a turning point in the political philosophy of the Turkish political elite and, increasingly, of signiﬁcant sections of the population. The new Turkish

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Republic, in contrast to earlier Turkic states, was a nation-state founded by the Turkish nation. Therefore, the extra stress on republicanism was necessary to help accustom the Turkish people to the idea that the change in regime after the War of Independence was non-reversible. From this point of view, republicanism constituted a doctrinal barrier against those who still hoped for a return to the Sultanate and the Caliphate. Secularism was seen as a necessary component of modernization, covering not only the political and governmental but the whole social and cultural life.56 From the foreign policy point of view, it has a much more general meaning than one which refers more narrowly to a speciﬁc process of separating religion from the state.57 Indeed, the main struggle of Kemalist secularists was not over the question of separating the spiritual and temporal, but over the difference between democracy and theocracy. A theocratic Islamic state, as a way of government, was obliged to see Christian powers as inﬁdels and according to Islamic belief the state of warfare never ended between believers and inﬁdels. By choosing a democratic system of government and dismissing the idea of the state as the protector of Islam, the new Turkish state ended centuries of hostility and established the basis for peaceful relations with Western Christian countries. Another reﬂection of Secularism in terms of Turkish foreign policy can be seen in its rejection of the idea of Pan-Islamism. To unite different Muslim states under one common name, to give these different elements equal rights and found a mighty state, was seen as a brilliant and attractive political solution for the Empire’s problems in its last years. But it was a misleading one. The new state would not be world-conquering or Islam-protecting any longer. Such claims could endanger the existence of the state. Moreover, since the Islamic Ottoman Empire could not try its Christian subjects with Sharia (Islamic law), it allowed them to be tried before Christian courts, which in turn resulted in foreign interventions and caused the Ottoman Empire to become involved in conﬂicts against the Western powers over the supremacy of the Millets. Hence, it seemed that the Islamic religious establishment of the Empire had played a major role in accelerating and exacerbating the Empire’s decline and decay. Consequently, Atatu¨rk was determined not to allow the same thing happen to the new Turkish state.58 In other words, he could not afford to give Western powers a reason to intervene in Turkish affairs. Nationalism, as a source of Turkish existence, stood for a Turkish-nation state in place of Ottomanist or Pan-Turanist ambitions, and was bound up with the national borders, which were ﬁrst laid down by the National Pact of 1920 and later legalized by the Lausanne Treaty of 1923. Nationalism did not become a real concept for the Turkish people until the early twentieth century. When the Entente powers started to partition the Empire’s heartland, it became clear that they were taking advantage of the lack of a uniﬁed nationalist movement. It was obvious that the main requirement for the independence of a nation was the effort towards a common goal and public awareness of the nation’s historical consciousness. The creation of nationalism on the European model was essential for a successful independence struggle against the supremacy of the imperialist

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European powers.59 Therefore, the idea of a Turkish nation in Turkey was the basic innovation in the early days of the Kemalist revolution. But it was no easy task to accustom a people who had been attached to a religion and a dynasty, to the new meaning of Turkey. Even the expression ‘Turkey’ (Tu¨rkiye) was neither used nor known by the people. The concept of nationalism, and the establishment of a national state, which had begun in the West centuries before, was unfamiliar to the Turks. Therefore, with the Independence War and the following reforms, non-national political and social values of the state and the society were replaced by what were identiﬁed as the values of ‘the Turkish people’. Yet the nationalist claims had to be supported by a very strict deﬁnition of national identity in order not to spend the country’s energy on unobtainable goals. Therefore, the utopian ideas of Pan-Islamism and Pan-Turkism were rejected out of hand, and Turkish nationalism, like that of Europe (outside Germany), was based on common citizenship, and did not extend its aims beyond the national borders. The population of Turkey consisted, and still does, of ‘individuals from many different ethnic backgrounds but, according to the Turkish Constitution, all citizens of Turkey are Turks’.60 This ofﬁcial, legalistic, approach to Turkish ‘national homogeneity’ allowed the early Turkish leaders, in accordance with the principle of populism, to be representative of all the peoples of Turkey irrespective of their class, religion, or ethnic origin. The role of nationalism then, was to ‘form a bond between the people’s collective memories of the past and adherence to the goals of the future’.61 From this point of view, various ethnic groups within the Turkish state were accepted as ‘building blocks of the nation’ which ‘joined together to create the national culture’. Consequently, the demands of ethnic groups for national status, ‘regardless of the social anxiety causing the demand’, were considered contradictory to ‘the spirit and law of history’ and thus ‘unrealistic and wrong’.62 As a result, when faced with different ethnic claims emerging within the ‘uniﬁed Turkish nation’, the Kemalist regime chose to dismiss them as plots of ‘enemy agents’, an attitude which has continued into the early twenty-ﬁrst century. In the process, however, what started as an attempt to create a homogeneous Turkish nation through constitutionalism using public consensus, turned into an attempt to force various elements within the Turkish state into a homogenous society through demographic homogenization.63 On the one hand, this contradicted the original claims of the Kemalist ideology, and on the other, it alienated the masses who felt ethnically distinct from the Sunni Turkishspeaking majority.64 When coupled with the persistent denial by the Turkish ruling elite of these other groups’ existence, especially since the mid-1970s onwards when these groups started to express and demand recognition of their cultural distinctiveness through organizational structures, the ‘ethnicity’ issue came to determine the ideological boundaries of Turkish national identity, and also constrained its constitutional evolution. This aspect of Turkish nationbuilding is especially relevant to the discussion of Turkish foreign policy

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during the 1980s and 1990s as it interacted with the Kurdish issue which became an element of Turkey’s domestic and external policies during the period.65 Turkish national liberation should also be distinguished from the antiimperialist movements of the post-1945 period during which the African and Asian peoples who struggled for their independence came into conﬂict with the colonial powers in so far as political, economic and social ideas were concerned. Nationalism in Turkey, however, was an anti-imperialistic program for independence on the one hand, but it was also, paradoxically, a program for cultural and political Westernization. Atatu¨rk himself often reiterated that his struggle was directed against Western imperialism rather than against the West itself. Turkey fought the West, but by ﬁghting with the West, entered into the Western sphere and the Western system of society. Such Kemalist principles led Turkey to develop good neighborly relations and to join in with international collaborations for collective security and peace. Moreover, Turkey’s Western orientation in foreign policy was a natural adjunct to Atatu¨rk’s overall embracing of the West and rejection of the East. In his view, expressed at the end of the War of Independence, ‘there are many nations, but there is only one civilisation. For the advancement of a nation, it must be a part of this one civilisation. . .We wish to modernise our country. All of our efforts are directed toward the establishment of a modern, therefore Western, government’.66 As can be seen, Atatu¨rk identiﬁed ‘modernization’ with ‘Westernization’ and used them synonymously. In the Atatu¨rk period Turkey’s Western-directed foreign policy was carried out in conjunction with the establishment of cultural ties with the West. The victories won against the Western states during the National Struggle gave a psychological boost to the Turkish nationalist movement and thus, as already stated, enabled swift Westernization to take place. Turkey’s peculiarity of never having been a colonized country, and the consequent lack of post-colonial resentments, was also an important factor affecting Turkey’s attitude towards the West. But above all, the inﬂuence of Atatu¨rk, who even during the period of National Struggle favored a Western style of thinking, was of seminal importance in this orientation. As a state which was defeated in World War I, Turkey’s position with regard to the situation existing in Europe after the war is noteworthy. Had Turkey acted ‘emotionally’ it would have been natural for it to join the bloc of nations opposed to the status quo. Instead Turkey established closer ties with nonbelligerent states in their opposition to those states which were attempting to destroy the international peace; in contrast to a good number of other contemporary states, Turkey showed great willingness to solve its major problems by legal means without resorting to fait accompli.67 Most and Singer have observed that ‘success may embolden a nation’s leaders’ notion of conﬁdence and optimism and thereby stimulate their entry into subsequent conﬂicts’.68 The Turkish case, however, has proved otherwise: the victory over the Entente powers decreased the likelihood of subsequent conﬂicts. As Edward Weisband has concluded, of all the ‘great socio-political revolutions

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in the history of the modern state . . . the Kemalist Revolution in Turkey represents the only one that has produced an ideology of peace’.69 This line of foreign policy also shows the full realisation, on the part of Turkish leaders, of the country’s limitations. As Lenczowski puts it, ‘perhaps the greatest merit of Kemal [Atatu¨rk] and his followers was their sober realization of limitation and their moderate, realistic foreign policy. There was nothing romantic or adventurous in Kemal’s foreign policy’.70 THE END OF THE COLD WAR AND THE EFFECTS OF SYSTEMIC CHANGES ON TURKISH FOREIGN POLICY

Turkey’s geo-politically important location has meant that systemic changes or any alteration of regional or global balance of power affect Turkey and its foreign policy substantially. Moreover, as it aims to become part of European state system, Western European reactions to its domestic and external policies become more important and inﬂuential. Towards the end of the twentieth century, an important impetus for change, originating in the external environment, came to dominate Turkish foreign policymaking and forced it to reconsider its place and standing in the world. This was the transformation of Eastern Europe and the dismemberment of the Soviet Union, which had enormous impacts both on Turkish foreign and security policies and on the Turkish worldview in general. It has been argued that ‘perhaps no other country outside the former Soviet block has seen its strategic position more radically transformed by the end of the Cold War than Turkey’.71 Throughout the Cold War, Turkey was a distant outpost on the European periphery, a barrier to Soviet ambitions in the Middle East, and a contributor to the security of Europe. Turkey’s geostrategic value was largely limited to its role within the Atlantic Alliance and, more narrowly, its place on NATO’s southern ﬂank. By the end of the Cold War, however, all these were altered by the appearance of new zones of conﬂict on three sides of Turkey which arguably enlarged Turkey’s role in the world. Although the emergence of six independent Muslim states to its north-east opened Turkey’s eyes to a vast territory inhabited by fellow Muslim Turkic-speakers which presented the country with an unprecedented opportunity, at least potentially, of political, economic and psychological gains,72 the fact that the new situation also presented challenges created a lukewarm attitude in Turkey regarding the end of the Cold War. Mainstream analysts concluded that the collapse of Soviet power and the disintegration of the Soviet Union were a mixed blessing for Turkey. While the century-old Soviet/Russian threat to Turkey’s security has disappeared, the vacuum created by this departure in the Transcaucasia and the Central Asia has become the breeding ground on Turkey’s borders for potential risks and threats to regional security because of the deep tensions between mixed national groups, contested borders, economic difﬁculties, and competition of outsiders for inﬂuence. Under the prevailing atmosphere of euphoria following the collapse of the Soviet Union, Turkey’s common cultural,

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linguistic, and religious bonds with the newly independent Central Asian and Caucasian republics were frequently mentioned, both within and without Turkey, and the country was held up as an economic and political model for these new states.73 Even limited pan-Turkist ideas were circulated freely. In return, the Turks and Muslims of the former Soviet Union turned to Turkey to help them achieve momentum, consolidate their independence, and gain status and respect in the world. It was not long, however, before this euphoria became tempered by reality, and it soon became clear that Turkey’s ﬁnancial and technological means were too limited to meet the immense socio-economic needs of the underdeveloped former Soviet republics as Turkey also gradually discovered that the links between the Central Asian republics and Russia, in some cases forged over centuries and reinforced by need and dependency, were far more solid than originally suspected. While optimism was gradually replaced by disillusionment, there even emerged a suspicion that earlier enthusiasm had been merely an empty pretence, ‘that in reality Turkey [was] too weak to have more than a marginal impact on these republics’.74 Moreover, as a country that attributes the utmost importance to stability and constancy, Turkey has always been sensitive against attempts to change the existing equilibrium in its surrounding region, to the extent that the preservation of the current balance is usually considered as part of the Turkish national interest. In this context, the disintegration of the Soviet Union and the constant evolution of Eastern Europe in the recent past have affected both Turkey’s foreign and security polices, and its world-view in general. In a similar pattern, the three Gulf wars in the Middle East, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosovo crises in the Balkans, and the conﬂicts over Nagorno-Karabakh, Chechnya and Abkhazia in the Caucasus, all took place within the immediate vicinity of the country and accentuated in decision makers’ minds the dangers of involvement in regional conﬂicts that do not represent immediate threats to her borders. The concerns that emerged from the possibility of setting up an independent Kurdish state in Northern Iraq after the 1990–91 Gulf War, as well as the effects of Nagorno-Karabakh, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Chechnya conﬂicts over the radicalization of certain groups within Turkish society, have brought to light emergent public pressure within Turkey for a more interventionist policy on behalf of ethnic minorities within Turkey’s vicinity. The discussion over the new European security architecture that might leave Turkey out, may substantially affect Turkey’s orientation and possible openings in her foreign policy in the near future. In particular, as a result of discussion especially among western Europeans about the relevance of NATO in the ‘new world order’ and attempts to move towards a new defense arrangement without Turkey, the latter suddenly found itself in a situation where it felt threatened both by the lingering uncertainties regarding its immediate neighbourhood and by the fact that its Western security connection, the anchor of her European vocation, was fundamentally damaged by the end of the Cold War, which hitherto provided her with relative safety and stability in the region. The realization that it may ﬁnd itself facing military

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threats virtually all around it without the possibility to evoke the Western security umbrella for protection, shook the very foundations of Turkish security thinking and policy. The need to reassess its post-Cold War situation vis-a`-vis potential threats was expressed with alarm at the highest levels. Turkey has traditionally avoided involvement in regional politics and conﬂicts. However, international developments, as well as the evolution of Turkish domestic policies, now compel it to concern itself more with regional events, and to attempt to acquire greater prominence in international politics and a higher proﬁle in the Middle East and Muslim/Turkic areas of the former Soviet Union. It has already been unavoidably drawn into the volatile new politics within the Caucasus (especially the Nagorno-Karabakh conﬂict), the Balkans (Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosovo), and the Middle East (Kuwait–Northern Iraq), where it has been forced to take sides and follow an ‘active’ foreign policy. Mindful of the disruptive impacts of sub-nationalism and ultranationalism, Turkey has been eager to promote the positive aspects of national formation around its environs. However, the hopes for creating a form of Turkic Commonwealth able to accommodate most of the new states in Central Asia and Caucasus, which would have countered more ugly manifestations of nationalism and related problems, has proved unrealizable, at least in the short or medium term. It is clear that a transitional arrangement based on Islam or political panTurkism will not materialize either in the foreseeable future, although a Turkic belt of inﬂuence stretching from the Caspian Sea to China may yet emerge. Accordingly, Turkey has already made clear that such transitional concepts are not part of her policy in her external relations. In the meantime, a deepening Turkish rivalry with Iran emerged over inﬂuence in the new states of Central Asia and especially Azerbaijan. If the independence of the former Soviet Azerbaijan were to stimulate a parallel separatist movement in northern Iran, it could bring two rivals into a severe conﬂict with each other – even if Ankara does not seek to provoke it. On the other hand, if Russia comes to believe that Turkey’s moves in the region are aimed at some sort of Central Asian Turkic unity, it will certainly lead to confrontation in the region between Turkey and Russia, especially if Russia perceives that Turkey is willingly undermining its territorial integrity by playing with the existing tendencies in the Northern Caucasus for separation from Russia. Moreover, the recent developments in the Russian ‘near abroad’ in general, and in the southern Caucasian republics of Georgia and Azerbaijan in particular, have shown that Russia would be both willing and capable to overwhelm buffers if it resolved to do so. Thus, Russian behavior close to the Turkish border since the collapse of the Soviet Union, has increased Turkish suspicion about the future intentions of the Russian Federation, especially if the latter saw Turkey as an agent of the West or as a barrier to its ambitions in the region. On the other hand, under the more optimistic scenarios, Turkey, as a moderate secular state, could help direct the newly independent Turkic states of the former Soviet Union in a moderate and secular direction, and thus could play a moderating role in the Muslim regions of the former USSR, support secular government, and

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seek closer ties with Russia as well as with the Turkic republics. It should not be forgotten that mutual Turkish–Russian interest in maintaining peace in the Caucasus and Central Asia, and in regional cooperation in the Black Sea is considerable, and that Turkey’s trade relations with Russia are larger than those with all of the former Soviet republics put together. Dramatic changes in Turkey’s traditional policy of isolationism from regional conﬂicts and the country’s increasingly active participation in regional issues have, on the one hand, provided it with the potential to fulﬁl its economic and political expectations, while at the same time also bringing about new challenges and security problems. Moreover, the success of its newly emerging posture and its inﬂuence in its region is limited by its own modest economic and industrial resources, and will depend in part on its success in dealing with ethnic issues within Turkey. TURKEY’S FOREIGN POLICY TODAY, AND RELATIONS WITH EUROPE

The end of the Cold War has not brought much of a peace dividend to Turkey.75 The instability and conﬂicts in the Balkans, Caucasus, Middle East and eastern Mediterranean have further complicated Turkey’s traditional foreign policy options with additional security challenges. While Turkey’s foreign and security policies during the Cold War were dominated by the country’s place at the periphery of Europe and by its role in containing the Soviet Union, the 1990s saw extensive changes in the country’s capabilities and strategic reach. Reﬂected in its expanded concept of space, this change affects the current discourse of the foreign and security policy debate in the country in a fundamental way.76 Moreover, the rise of Turkish nationalism as a result of the rise of ethnicity and centrifugal forces in World politics since the end of the Cold War, have led Ankara to pay closer attention to sovereignty issues within Turkey and to vigorously defend its interests abroad. Recent examples of Turkey’s enlarged interest abroad include defending the welfare of Turkish/Ottoman descendants/remnants in the Balkans; attempts for a more active diplomacy in the Caucasus; the threat to attack Russian-supplied S-300 surface-to-air missile sites if the system was deployed on Cyprus; and the threat to act against Syria if Damascus did not end its support for the PKK and expel its ¨ calan. leader, Abdullah O Along the way, we have seen the increasing role and inﬂuence of public opinion in the changing foreign and security concerns of the country. As a result of internal and external pressures, the Turkish security discourse now extends to a broader range of actors than it did few years ago, to include the media and public opinion. The nationalist rhetoric which has at times dominated sections of both, inevitably distorts perceptions regarding external and internal threats facing the country. Although as a result ‘Turkish foreign and security policy has become more far ranging and assertive, [. . .demonstrating] a willingness and an ability to act decisively in its own interests’,77 it has consistently preferred multilateral approaches to regional issues whether in the Balkans, the Middle East or the Caucasus. Moreover, as Turkey’s place in the emerging European

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structure remains ambiguous to say the least, the bilateral relationship with the US, the NATO link and the new trend of cooperation with Israel, all within the traditional security areas, have acquired a new resonance among the Turkish policy-making elite. Traditionally, Turkey’s important and sensitive geostrategic position has meant that national security concerns have always been paramount in foreign policy considerations. A critical element in these concerns has been Turkey’s proximity to and traditional distrust of the former Soviet Union. Moreover, the fact that Turkey has borders with the Balkans and the Middle East, areas of traditional conﬂict, makes those who make and inﬂuence policy very sensitive to changes in both the international and regional political balance. This security vulnerability was further increased after the end of the Cold War as 13 of the 16 most likely security threats to the North Atlantic area identiﬁed by NATO, are within the immediate vicinity of Turkey. Its sensitive location at the intersection of the ‘West’ and the ‘East’ also resulted in an identity crisis, both national and international. The tendency of the Kemalist ruling class to look towards the West for inspiration has not diminished the cultural and religious afﬁliation to the Middle Eastern–Islamic world on the part of the general public. As Turkey moves into the twenty-ﬁrst century, the question of religion and secularism on the one hand, and the related issues of ethnicity, nationhood and the territorial state on the other, are coming to the fore. Although the old certainties of the ruling class’s self-image as belonging to a modern, European-oriented, secular Turkey, which has been based almost exclusively on the territory of Anatolia, is coming under increasing challenges both from the left and the religious right, the legacy of the Turkish state and nationalism, embodied in a ruling class or elite with a strong commitment to Kemalist principles, still greatly affects Turkey’s internal and external policies. In this context, despite the emergence of a seemingly homogeneous Turkishspeaking, traditionally Sunni-Muslim, society within Turkey’s borders, the obvious failure of the Kemalist attempt at homogenizing Turkey on the basis of a majority language and Western ideals, continues to haunt both the Turkish identity and the Turkish state, as the ruling elite still refuses to acknowledge the ethnic and structural pluralism of Turkish society – something ‘which should be understood as essential to the formation of a modern multiethnic democracy’. 78 This, in turn, has signiﬁcant implications for relations with Europe. Europeans and Turks have been in close contact, confrontation or otherwise, since at least the ﬁfteenth century, which has contributed to the formation of their modern identities. Although a perception of ‘the Turk’ as one of the others is more clearly discernable in modern European identity, the modern Turkish identity, too, has been formed in relation to modern Europe. During the zenith of the Ottoman Empire, Europe was considered as the enemy against which the Turkish/Ottoman identity was afﬁrmed. Although Europe, as a result of its growing power and dominance, has assumed a somewhat positive connotation in the deﬁnition of the modern Turkish identity, the negative perception, reinforced by the memories of intervention in Ottoman affairs, also continued in the Turkish mind.

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Despite the close contact and mutual inﬂuence in each other’s identity, the Ottomans were not considered as part of Europe until the late eighteenth century, ‘because Europe was still deﬁned in terms of religion and the Turk had a different religion’, the heresy of Islam.79 Despite the Treaty of Paris, which accepted the Ottoman Empire as part of the European state system, the Turks were still not considered as European since the European identity in the nineteenth century came to be deﬁned on the basis of being ‘civilized’, which the Turks were apparently not.80 There is clear evidence that today’s Europeans still think that the Turks have not yet achieved the ‘standard of civilization’, that is, the Copenhagen criteria in today’s European Union, and therefore the EU has not yet contemplated opening accession negotiations with Turkey. The historically-explained reluctance of the Kemalist policy elite to recognize the pluralism of Turkish society, and the persistence of some authoritarian responses to signs of such pluralism, inevitably feed into such European perceptions. On the other hand, it is clear that Turkey and Europe have been highly engaged with each other throughout history, and not always in negative terms. A re-reading of history reveals that the confrontations between the Turks and the Europeans were no more belligerent than those among the European nations. The so-called religious difference, too, reﬂect a one-sided reading of the texts and history. . . . Historically, conﬂicts between the Muslims and the Christians have not been bloodier than the internal conﬂicts of these religious groupings.81 With such a reading of history, presenting a wide range of interaction involving both cooperation and confrontation, Turks and Europeans may yet come to a higher level of understanding and move beyond existing prejudices on both sides. Only then might we see an increase in the level of integrative cooperation between Turkey and the European Union, and perhaps eventually the fulﬁllment of Turkey’s long-standing vocation to become part of ‘European civilization’ as it is understood today. Within Turkey, the signiﬁcant domestic reforms and extensive revisions of the constitution since the late 1990s, aimed at creating a more conducive environment for further democratization, respect for human rights and the rule of law and to give more space to civil society in general, has been in part a byproduct of Turkey’s desire to join the EU. European pressure in terms of the Copenhagen Criteria has provided the necessary external impetus to overcome, ﬁrstly, existing inertia within the country and, more importantly, resistance among Turkey’s traditional elite to further reforms. It still remains to be seen, however, how the reﬂexes of the traditional Kemalist elite (including the military) towards both domestic reforms and Turkey’s place in Europe will develop as the country gradually moves closer to EU membership: that would undoubtedly raise the need for more domestic reforms, and for a new interpretation within the country of Turkey’s historicallyshaped security interests and of the very delicate and hotly-debated sovereignty

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issue. In this context, the discussion within Turkey about how to deal with the problem of identity, especially accommodating demands from different ethnic and religious groups, will be crucial in determining the extent of the reforms in Turkey, as well as ultimately affecting Turkey’s ability to join the EU. On the regional front, a solution of Greek–Turkish disputes in the Aegean and ﬁnding a mutually acceptable solution in Cyprus will remain critical for in the further realization of Turkey’s European vocation. Despite the failure of the Annan Plan to bring about a speedy solution to the Cyprus problem before the decision in 2003 on Cyprus’ accession to the EU, subsequent developments on the island and an apparent softening of tones on both sides, as well the sudden opening-up of cross-border travel between the Greek and Turkish sectors, (creating an environment in which Greeks and Turks, separated since 1974, would be able to ‘get to know’ each other and ‘learn to live together’), have increased the hope that a solution might be found. Such a development, together with the signiﬁcant improvements already achieved in Greek–Turkish relations in recent years (provided they continue), would remove one more obstacle to Turkey’s long standing aim truly to become a part of Europe. NOTES 1. Mustafa Aydın, ‘Determinants of Turkish Foreign Policy: Historical Framework and Traditional Inputs’, Middle Eastern Studies, Vol. 35, no 4 (Oct. 1999), p. 152. 2. Mustafa Aydın, ‘Turkey and Central Asia; Challenges of Change’, Central Asian Survey, Vol. 15, no 2 (1996), pp. 157–77; and Su¨kru¨ Sina Gu¨rel and Yoshihura Kimura, Turkey in a Changing World (Tokyo: Institute of Developing Economies, 1993). 3. See Milliyet, August 7, 2001, pp. 1 and 16. 4. For different, and sometimes contradictory, explanations of Turkish foreign policy see David Barchard, ‘Turkey and Europe’, Turkish Review Quarterly Digest, Vol. 3, no. 17 (1989); Walter F. Weiker, ‘Turkey, the Middle East and Islam’, Middle East Review, Special Issue on Turkey, Vol. 17, no. 3 (1985); Dankwart A. Rustow, ‘Turkey’s Liberal Revolution’, Middle East Review, Vol. 17, no. 3 (1985); Feroz Ahmad, ‘Islamic Reassertion in Turkey’, Third World Quarterly, Vol. 10, no. 2 (1988); Ola Tunander, ‘A New Ottoman Empire? The Choice for Turkey: EuroAsian Center versus National Fortress’, Security Dialogue, Vol. 26, no. 4 (1995); Andrew Mango, ‘Turkey in Winter’, Middle Eastern Studies, Vol. 31 (1995); S. Hunter, Turkey at the Crossroads: Islamic Past or European Future?, CEPS Paper no. 63 (Brussels: CEPS, 1995). 5. Kjell Goldman, Change and Stability In Foreign Policy; The Problems and Possibilities of De´tente (New York: Harvester and Wheatsheaf, 1988), p. 3. 6. Joseph Frankel, The Making of Foreign Policy; An Analysis of Decision Making (London: Oxford University Press, 1963), p. 1. 7. These variables are discussed at greater length within the Turkish context in Mustafa Aydın, ‘Foreign Policy Formation and the Interaction between Domestic and International Environments: A Study of Change in Turkish Foreign Policy, 1980–1991’, unpublished PhD Thesis, Lancaster University, UK, 1994. 8. Dankwart Rustow, Turkey, America’s Forgotten Ally (New York, London: Council on Foreign Relations, 1989), p. 84. 9. Ali Karaosmanog˘lu, ‘The Evolution of the National Security Culture and the Military in Turkey’, Journal of International Affairs, Vol. 54, no. 1 (Fall 2000), p. 199. 10. For deﬁnition of ‘homogeneity’ in the Turkish context, see Stephen D. Salamonee, ‘The Dialectics of Turkish National Identity: Ethnic Boundary Maintenance and State Ideology – Part Two’, East European Quarterly, Vol. 23, no. 2 (June 1989), pp. 225–48. 11. In early 1920, Sheikh-ul-Islam issued a fetva encouraging the killings of rebels as a religious duty. Accordingly, Mustafa Kemal and other nationalist leaders were court martialed in Istanbul and condemned to death, in absentia. Also irregular troops, the ‘Army of the Caliphate’ were

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12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18.

19. 20. 21. 22. 23.

24.

25.

26.

27.

28. 29. 30. 31.

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organised to ﬁght the nationalists. For more detailed analysis of the early nationalist struggle against ‘internal opposition’ see, Mustafa Kemal Atatu¨rk, Nutuk (The Speech, delivered in Oct. 1927), Vol. I (Ankara: TTK, 1981); Dog˘u Ergil, Social History of the Turkish National Struggle, 1919–22: The Unﬁnished Revolution (Lahore, Pakistan: Sind Sagar Academy, 1977), pp. 10–95. Atatu¨rk, Nutuk, p. 59. Fredrich Frey, The Turkish Political Elite (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1965); Leslie Ross and Noralov P. Ross, Managers of Modernisation; Organisations and Elites in Turkey, 1950–1969 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1971). Karaosmanog˘lu, ‘The Evolution of the National Security Culture and the Military in Turkey’, pp. 200 and 204–7. Morgan Philips Prise, A History of Turkey; From Empire to Republic (London: Allen & Unwin, 1961), p. 44. Thomas Naff, ‘The Ottoman Empire and the European States System’ in Hedley Bull and Adam Watson (eds.), The Expansion of International Society (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984), p. 143. Emphases added. For analysis of the impact of the West in Ottoman Empire see Arnold Toynbee and Kenneth Kirkwood, The Modern World; A Survey of Historical Forces, Vol. VI: Turkey (London: Ernest Benn, 1926), pp. 31–61. For modernisation attempts in the Ottoman Empire see Bernard Lewis, The Emergence of Modern Turkey (London, New York: Oxford University Press, 1961); Robert Ward and Dankwart Rustow, Political Modernisation in Japan and Turkey (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1964). Abdullah Cevdet (1869–1932) was one of the co-founders of the Society of Union and Progress, and a political writer. Quotation taken from Ictihad (Istanbul), No. 89 (1909), by Lewis, The Emergence of Modern Turkey, p. 236. Karaosmanog˘lu, ‘The Evolution of the National Security Culture and the Military in Turkey’, pp. 200–201. Ibid., p. 201. Ibid. For a detailed study of early foreign relations of the Ottoman Empire and the system of the ‘foreign ofﬁce’ see Lord Kinross, The Ottoman Centuries: The Rise and Fall of the Turkish Empire (London: Jonathan Cape, 1977); and Stanford Shaw and Ezel Shaw, History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey (London: Cambridge University Press, 1977). The only exception was Hatay, the district around Iskenderun (Alexandretta), which remained in Syria as an autonomous region for the time being, and later in 1939 re-joined Turkey by majority vote of its parliament. For the text of the Lausanne Peace Treaty see Jacob Hurewitz, Diplomacy in the Near and Middle East: A Documentary Record, 1535–1956, Vol. II (Princeton, NJ: Van Nostrand, 1956), pp. 119–27. For text of the National Pact see Atatu¨rk, Nutuk, Vol. 3, Doc. no. 41. Also reprinted in Hurewitz, Diplomacy in the Near and Middle East, pp. 74–5. For the text of the Treaty of Se`vres see Hurewitz, Diplomacy in the Near and Middle East, pp. 81–9. For the Entente plans to partition the territories of the Ottoman Empire see Harry Howard, The Partition of Turkey: A Diplomatic History (New York: Howard Fertig, 1966); Salahi Sonyel, Turkish Diplomacy, 1918–1923: M. Kemal and the Turkish National Movement (London: Sage, 1975), pp. 1–13; Toynbee and Kirkwood, The Modern World, pp. 61–8 and 136–42. For detailed study of Turkish nationalists’ struggle for independence and its external relations see Mehmet Go¨nlu¨bol, et al., Olaylarla Tu¨rk Dis Politikası, 6th ed. (Ankara: Siyasal, 1987), pp. 3–48; Sonyel, Turkish Diplomacy, 1918–1923; Edward Reginald Vere-Hodge, Turkish Foreign Policy, 1918–1948, PhD Thesis, Imprimerie Franco-Swisse, Ambilly-Annemasse, 1950, pp. 23– 50; and Atatu¨rk, Nutuk. Philip Robins, ‘The Overlord State: Turkish Policy and the Kurdish Issue’, International Affairs, Vol. 69, no. 4 (1993), p. 659; and Richard Sim, ‘Kurdistan: The Search For Recognition’, Conﬂict Studies, no. 124, 1980, p. 4. The Treaty itself, although it did not deﬁne the exact territory of proposed autonomous Kurdistan, stipulated that after one year it might ask the League of Nations for a conformation of its status as an independent state. Conformation of this status was to be based on the evaluation of mandatory power(s). Karaosmanog˘lu, ‘The Evolution of the National Security Culture and the Military in Turkey’, p. 202. Malik Mufti, ‘Daring and Caution in Turkish Foreign Policy’, Middle East Journal, Vol. 52, no. 1 (1998), p. 43. Statement by Kenan Evren, 7th President of Turkey, Newspot, ofﬁcial weekly, Sep. 7, 1984, p. 1. Atatu¨rk, Nutuk, pp. 135–8.

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32. Richard Robinson, The First Turkish Republic (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1963), p. 170; Philip Robins, ‘Turkey and the Eastern Arab World’, in Gerd Nonneman (ed.), The Middle East and Europe, 2nd ed. (London: Federal Trust for Education and Research, 1993), pp. 189–94; Nu¨lu¨fer Narlı, ‘Civil–Military Relations in Turkey’, Turkish Studies, Vol. 1, no. 1 (Spring 2000), pp. 107–27. 33. Mustafa Aydın, ‘Cacophony in the Aegean: Contemporary Greek–Turkish Relations’, Turkish Yearbook of International Relations, no. 27 (1997), pp. 111–13. 34. Aydın, ‘Determinants of Turkish Foreign Policy’, p. 164. 35. Shaw and Shaw, History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey, p. 483. 36. James Rosenau, The Scientiﬁc Study of Foreign Policy (New York, Free Press, 1971), pp. 19–20. 37. See Richard Snyder, H. W. Bruck and Burton Sapin, ‘The Decision-Making Approach to the Study of International Politics’ in James N. Rosenau (ed.), International Politics and Foreign Policy: A Reader In Search and Theory (New York: Free Press, 1961), pp. 189–90. 38. Aydın, ‘Determinants of Turkish Foreign Policy’, pp. 152 and 165. 39. Ferenc Va´li, Bridge Across the Bosphorus; The Foreign Policy of Turkey (Baltimore and London: John’s Hopkins University Press, 1971), p. 46. 40. Aydın, ‘Determinants of Turkish Foreign Policy’, p. 166. 41. Ibid.; and Aydın, ‘Cacophony in the Aegean’, pp. 116–17. 42. Andrew Wilson, The Aegean Dispute, Adelphi Papers, No. 155 (London: International Institute for Strategic Studies, 1980), pp. 36–7. 43. In the early days of the Republic, Turkey had borders with seven states, including four with major powers: Greece, Bulgaria, the Soviet Union, Iran, Great Britain (mandate in Iraq and possession of Cyprus), France (mandate in Syria), and Italy (possession of the Dodecanese Islands). After World War II, Turkey’s borders dropped to six, leaving Greece, Bulgaria, the Soviet Union, Iran, Iraq and Syria as neighbours, and the Republic of Cyprus joined them in 1960. At the end of the Cold War, while Soviet Union disappeared, Azerbaijan (Nahichevan), Armenia and Georgia became independent on Turkey’s north-eastern border, adding further uncertainties. 44. Benjamin Most and Harvey Starr, ‘Diffusion, Reinforcement, Geopolitics and the Spread of War’, The American Political Science Review, Vol. 74, no. 4 (1980), p. 935. 45. Va´li, Bridge Across the Bosphorus, p. 44. 46. Legg and Morrison, Politics and the International System, p. 101. 47. Nuri Eren, Turkey Today and Tomorrow: An Experiment in Westernization (London: Pall Mall Press, 1963), p. 227. 48. Nuri Eren, Turkey, NATO and Europe; A Deteriorating Relationship? (Paris: The Atlantic Institute for International Affairs, 1977), p. 16. 49. Ferenc Va´li, Turkish Straits and NATO (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1972), pp. 302–5. ¨ lman and Oral Sander, ‘Tu¨rk Dıs¸ Politikasına Yo¨n Veren Etkenler-II’, Siyasal Bilgiler 50. Haluk U Faku¨ltesi Dergisi, Vol. 27, no. 1 (1972), pp. 1–24. 51. Aydın, ‘Determinants of Turkish Foreign Policy’, p. 169. 52. Ali Karaosmanog˘lu, ‘Turkey’s Security and the Middle East’, Foreign Affairs, Vol. 62, no. 1 Fall 1983), p. 99. 53. Aydın, ‘Determinants of Turkish Foreign Policy’, pp. 169–70. 54. Va´li, Bridge Across the Bosporus, p. 55. 55. The 1982 Constitution (as well as the 1961 Constitution) presented a modiﬁed version of Kemalist principles, declaring in Article 2: ‘The Republic of Turkey is a democratic, secular and social state governed by the rule of law; bearing in mind the concepts of public peace, national solidarity and justice; respecting human rights; loyal to the nationalism of Atatu¨rk, and based on the fundamental tenets set forth in the Preamble’. The preamble gave renewed credit to the Kemalist achievements and ideology by expressing ‘absolute loyalty to. . .the direction of concept of nationalism as outlined by Atatu¨rk. . .[and] the reforms and principles introduced by him’. It also expressed ‘desire for, and belief in peace at home, peace in the world’, and its determination not to protect any ‘thoughts or opinions contrary to Turkish National interests. . .the nationalism, principles, reform and modernism of Atatu¨rk, and that as required by the principle of secularism’. 56. Niyazi Berkes, The Development of Secularism in Turkey (Montreal: McGill University, 1964), pp. 479–503. 57. Berkes, The Development of Secularism in Turkey, p. 6. 58. Turhan Feyziog˘lu, ‘Secularism: Cornerstone of Turkish Revolution’ in Turhan Feyziog˘lu (ed.), Atatu¨rk’s Way (Istanbul: Otomarsan, 1982), p. 208. For Nationalist resentment and objections at

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59. 60. 61. 62. 63. 64.

65. 66. 67. 68. 69. 70. 71. 72.

73.

74. 75. 76. 77. 78. 79.

80. 81.

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the Lausanne Peace Conference to the abuse of the Millet system by Western powers see Toynbee and Kirkwood, The Modern World, pp. 143–8. Oral Sander, ‘Turkish Foreign Policy; Forces of Continuity and of Change’ in Ahmet Evin (ed.), Modern Turkey; Continuity and Change (Opladen: Lesle Verlag, 1984), p. 119. Salamone, ‘The Dialectics of Turkish National Identity’, p. 226 quoted from the US Department of State, Turkey, Post Report: The Host Country (Jan. 1986), p. 1. From a speech delivered at the Fourth National Convention of the RPP by its Chairman and ideologue, Recep Peker, on May 9, 1935. Cited in Fahir Armaog˘lu, CHP Tarihi, Vol. 1 (Ankara: TTK, 1971), p. 46. Sadri Maksudi Arsal, Milliyet Duygusunun Sosyolojik Esasları (Istanbul: n.p., 1963), p. 103. For further discussion see Salamone, ‘The Dialectics of Turkish National Identity’. The term that Mustafa Kemal used during the War of Independence to refer to the people lived then in Anatolia was ‘Nation of Turkey’ (Tu¨rkiye Milleti), which was replaced after the war by ‘Turkish Nation’ (Tu¨rk Milleti). See Baskın Oran, Atatu¨rk Milliyetc¸ilig˘i; Resmi ˙Ideoloji Dıs¸ı Bir ˙Inceleme (Ankara: Bilgi, 1993), p. 208. Robins, ‘The Overlord State: Turkish Policy and the Kurdish Issue’, p. 658. Atatu¨rk, Nutuk, Vol. 3, pp. 67–8. I˙smet I˙no¨nu¨, ‘Negotiations and National Interest’, in Perspectives on Peace, 1919–1960 (London: Stevens, 1960), pp. 137–8. Most and Starr, ‘Diffusion, Reinforcement, Geopolitics and the Spread of War’, p. 934. Edward Weiseband, Turkish Foreign Policy, 1943–1945 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1973), p. 7. George Lenczowski, The Middle East in World Affairs (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1980), p. 121. Edward Mortimer, ‘Active in a New World Role’ in Turkey, Europe’s Rising Star; The Opportunities in Anglo-Turkish Relations (London: Lowe Bell, 1993), p. 44. ¨ zal, in his opening speech of the Turkish Grand National The then Turkish president Turgut O Assembly in Sept. 1, 1991, described the situation created by the end of Cold War and breaking up of the former Soviet Union as an ‘historic opportunity’ for the Turks to became a ‘regional power’, and urged the Assembly not to ‘throw away this change which presented itself for the ﬁrst time in 400 years’. See Minutes of the TGNA, Term: 19–1, Vol. 1, no. 3 (1992), p. 25. As the then Turkish Prime Minister Su¨leyman Demirel put it, ‘we share a common history, a common language, a common religion and a common culture. We are cousins cut off from each other for over a hundred years, ﬁrst by the Russians under the Czars, and then by the Communist regime’. See Mushahid Hussain, ‘Iran and Turkey in Central Asia; Complementary or Competing Roles?’, Middle East International, 19 February 1993, p. 19. Also see ‘Turkey; Central Asia’s Dominant Power’, Newsweek, 28 January 1992. See Philip Robins, ‘Between Sentiment and Self Interest: Turkey’s Policy Toward Azerbaijan and the Central Asian States’, Middle East Journal, Vol. 47, no. 4 (1993), p. 595. S¸u¨kru¨ Elekdag˘, ‘2 12 War Strategy’, Perceptions, Vol. 1, no. 1 (March–May 1996), p. 13. Ian O. Lesser, ‘Turkey in a Changing Security Environment’, Journal of International Affairs, Vol. 54, no. 1 (Fall 2000), pp. 1956. Lesser, ‘Turkey in a Changing Security Environment’, p. 197. Salamone, ‘The Dialectics of Turkish National Identity’, p. 226. For an extended discussion of the relation between Turkish and European identities see Nuri Yurdusev, ‘Perception and Images in Turkish (Ottoman)–European Relations’ in Tareq Ismael and Mustafa Aydın (eds), Turkey’s Foreign Policy in the Twenty-First Century; A Changing Role in World Politics (Aldershot: Ashgate, forthcoming), pp. 69–92. For a discussion of the requirements of the standard of civilization as understood by the nineteenth century European elite and statesmen see Gerrrit W. Gong, The Standard of ‘Civilization’ in International Society (Oxford: Clarendon, 1984), pp. 14–15. Yurdusev, ‘Perception and Images in Turkish (Ottoman)–European Relations’, p. 88.

Shades of Opinion: The Oil Exporting Countries and International Climate Politics PAUL AARTS and DENNIS JANSSEN

INTRODUCTION

At the beginning of the twenty-ﬁrst century the future role and importance of the oil exporting countries in the Middle East is rather uncertain. The clear ColdWar division of the world has disappeared and states are in the process of redeﬁning their national interests. The major dilemma is the future role of their primary source of income. Oil is still king, but scientiﬁc and industrial developments tell us that we are in the midst of a transformation process that indicates a global shift from oil (and other fossil fuels) to alternative sources of energy. A new energy paradigm is emerging, forged by technological advances, resource and environmental constraints, and socio-economic demands. The main fuel for the second half of the twenty-ﬁrst century could be hydrogen, the lightest and most abundant resource in the universe. Like the hydrocarbon era that precedes it, the dawning hydrogen age not only carries with it its own set of risks and uncertainties, but also its own set of winners and losers. Oil exporting countries are confronted with this challenge and are reaching varying conclusions. One of the most important fora where opinions of the new energy paradigm are being formed is the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). In the climate change debate the oil exporting countries are usually seen as obstreperous, employing a foot-dragging strategy (occasionally supported by the US or other OECD countries, though never by any EU member country). At the meetings of the Conference of Parties, these countries ‘vie’ with one another for the ‘Fossil-of-the-Day’ award, presented by the Climate Action Network, an environmental NGO. Although in climate-change-related publications the oil exporters are usually presented as a bloc – a view that for obvious reasons is very much supported by the organization itself – different members have different national circumstances and interests when it comes to climate change. In this contribution we will argue that in order to understand the different positions of oil exporting countries in the climate change debate it is not sufﬁcient to focus solely on the material costs and beneﬁts that climate change abatement policies have for oil exporting countries. Material interests matter, of

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course, but what matters equally is how interests are thought to be constituted. Therefore, the ‘politics-of-interest’ approach has to be complemented with a ‘perception-oriented’ approach, based on an analysis of attitudes and views on climate change in the countries concerned. In the ﬁrst section, we will make a case for our constructivist approach and its relevance as a research methodology within the discipline of International Relations. The second section sheds light on the international arena itself where the climate change debate, the focal point of this research, is constituted. We will explore the role of oil exporting countries within the Kyoto process and the different degrees of vulnerability to climate change abatement policies. In the fourth and ﬁnal section we will examine in particular the positions of two key players in the Gulf region: the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the Islamic Republic of Iran. We will argue that in these countries, two quite distinct interpretations of the costs and beneﬁts of abatement policies leads to different approaches towards the diplomatic process related to this question. Such approaches clearly have an impact – indeed are an intrisic part of – Gulf oil producers’ relations with Europe: the EU, after all, is both a key trading partner and widely regarded as occupying the benchmark position in the climatechange negotiations. HOW TO UNDERSTAND INTERNATIONAL CLIMATE CHANGE POLITICS

International environmental issues pose particular challenges for some of the dominant approaches in International Relations. Without going into a detailed survey of IR theories, a simple division can be made between ‘rationalists’ on the one hand and ‘reﬂectivists’ on the other hand, with ‘constructivism’ taking the middle ground.1 The ‘rationalist’ label applies to a wide range of IR approaches – covering the ﬁeld of realism, neorealism, and neoliberal institutionalism – all of which prefer to explain international relations as simple behavioral responses to the forces of physics that act on material objects from the outside. The two ‘neo’ variants are increasingly getting closer to each other, sharing a view of the world of international relations in utilitarian terms: ‘an atomistic universe of self-regarding units whose identity is assumed given and ﬁxed, and who are responsive largely if not solely to material interests that are stipulated by assumption’.2 Clearly, the neo-neo synthesis dominates the professional literature in the discipline of International Relations. This means that most studies in the ﬁeld of climate change politics are also based on rational choice theory, taking the identities and interests of actors as given. This established agenda in IR theory – summarily characterized as state-centric, strongly attached to the ‘Great Divide’ between the domestic and the international spheres of political activity, and lack of attention to the relationship between knowledge, power and interests – needs a substantial revision. One way this has been done is through a reﬂectivist approach (although it is difﬁcult to speak of one theory of reﬂectivism). According to most postmodernists, poststructuralists, critical theorists and feminist theorists it is

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only – or mainly – ideas that matter. They build on a relativist philosophy of science and in their own way each is post-positivist. Students of International Relations who identify themselves as postmodernists and poststructuralists embrace the constitutive position and propose textual and discourse analysis as the basis for understanding international politics. In that sense, reality ‘can be nothing other than a text, a symbolic construction that is itself related to other texts – not to history or social structure – in arbitrary ways’.3 Not surprisingly, very few reﬂectivist studies have been done in the ﬁeld of climate change politics. Trying to understand an individual state’s international policy positions visa`-vis the global warming phenomenon makes clear that neither a purely ‘materialist’ nor a purely ‘idealist’ explanation can work. Here the ‘constructivist’ school may have more to offer. This term subsumes writers from a host of different positions, but all agree on the assumption that material things acquire meaning only through the structure of shared knowledge in which they are embedded. In general, constructivists give priority to cultural over material structures on the grounds that actors act on the basis of the meanings that objects have for them, and meanings are socially constructed. ‘A gun in the hands of a friend is a different thing from one in the hands of an enemy, and enmity is a social, not material, relationship’.4 Reasoning along this line, a more sociological orientation would lead to the conclusion that states’ (and other actors’) identities and interests need to be problematized because these are not exogenous and given. Identities, interests and behavior of political agents are socially constructed by collective meanings, interpretations and assumptions about the world. Constructivists hold the view that the building blocks of international reality are ideational as well as material; that they express not only individual but also collective intentionality; and that the meaning and signiﬁcance of ideational factors are not independent of time and place.5 While it is accepted that there is a real world out there, it is nevertheless believed that it is not entirely determined by physical reality and is socially emergent. Such an approach looks particularly promising when trying to get a grip on the ‘the national interest’ of the state. Following constructivism, it must be emphasized that national interests are not ﬁxed and given; they are equally not merely the collective interests of a group of people; nor, with rare exceptions, are they the interests of a single dominant individual. Rather, national interests are intersubjective understandings about what it takes to advance power, inﬂuence and wealth, that survive the political process, given the distribution of power and knowledge in a society. Constructivism is thus conducive to the empirical study of the conditions that make one particular intersubjective conception of interests prevail over others. In sum, constructivism is equipped to show how national interests are born, how they acquire their status of general political understandings, and how such understandings are politically selected in and through political processes.6

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In a constructivist research agenda in the ﬁeld of international environmental policy the concept of ‘sustainable development’ becomes one such intersubjective understanding, on the basis of which problems and solutions regarding the environment and development are analyzed and repertoires for action formulated. ‘Sustainable development’ is a new collective understanding, which, in turn, shapes the identities and interests, and consequently expectations, of social actors. This is not to say that there is only one interpretation of sustainable development. Some may even conﬂict and a consensual intersubjective deﬁnition develops only in and through practice. It is in this context that material factors are allowed to leave their mark. ‘In any case, this understanding has begun to determine policies that act on the material world, affecting the physical environment, people and their well-being’.7 It has to be noted that climate change, as a scientiﬁc issue, is still dominated by uncertainty (or, in Hannigan’s words, characterized by the existence of contradictory certainties).8 This implies that dealing with climate change in the international diplomatic arena therefore is ﬁrst of all dealing with uncertainties in a ‘game’ where the stakes are high. Much can be lost or won, depending on a correct assessment of (future) societal risks, costs, and the beneﬁts. To understand this assessment by policy makers requires a thorough analysis of the structural environment in which the foreign and environmental policy of a country is embedded. As suggested by Nonneman, three levels of analysis can be distinguished: the domestic environment and survival imperative of regime and state, the regional context and transnational ideological context and the overall limiting and enabling effects of the international environment. This has to be complemented by an evaluation of the decision-making structures and the perceptions of the decision makers.9 Climate change politics cannot be explained in terms of ‘objective’ interests alone and an analysis of the perceptions of the climate change policy making elite is crucial to understand the diverging positions in the climate change debate. At a more fundamental or theoretical level, the insufﬁciency of the politics-of-interest explanation reﬂects the postulate that ‘reality’ can never be objectively observed nor interpreted. On the contrary, perceptions of reality will always be structured by worldviews, in this particular case exempliﬁed by (growing versus lacking) environmental consciousness. Hence, worldviews of actors (also) have to be taken into account, to analyze how various actors observe and interpret climate change, and how on the basis of this assessment they deﬁne their interests. All this leads to a dual research strategy, in which an interest- and a perception-oriented line of inquiry are complemented.10 DIVERGING POSITIONS IN THE CLIMATE CHANGE DEBATE

It was in the face of possibly disastrous consequences from climate change, such as droughts, extreme weather events, the rise of sea levels, etc., that during Rio de Janeiro’s ‘Earth Summit’ in 1992, the debate on global warming ofﬁcially started. The United Nations set up its Framework Convention on Climate Change (FCCC), which should lead to the stabilization of greenhouse gas

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concentrations ‘at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system’. The ensuing ‘Kyoto Protocol’ is the result of a long negotiating process, culminating in the Third Conference of Parties (COP-3) in Kyoto in December 1997. ‘Kyoto’ commits developed countries to reduce their collective emissions of greenhouse gases by on average 5.2 percent from 1990 levels in the period 2008–12. In several follow-up meetings – including COP-7 in Marrakesh in October–November 2001, where some of the attitudinal research for this study was conducted – further decisions on the implementation of the Convention and operational details of the Protocol were taken. With the foreseen ratiﬁcation by Russia, possibly in the course of 2003, the Protocol will be put into effect.11 The compromises reached in Kyoto and during follow-up negotiations reﬂect major differences in climate change perceptions and policy preferences, both between and within the different alignments. The main fault lines are the North– South dimension of climate politics, the difference of interests due to the countries’ degree of vulnerability to climate change and the conﬂict between energy exporters and importers. The clearest division is the North–South division with the OECD countries forming the North and the G77/China representing the developing world. As the Kyoto Protocol sets its targets and timetables ﬁrst of all for the industrialized countries, the main negotiations for the Protocol itself were among the industrialized, so called Annex-I, countries. The industrialized world is divided between two blocs, with the EU and the US as the acting opponents. In the climate change negotiations, the EU has been one of the most pro-active players and is widely seen as an agenda setter in the global warming debate. More reluctant to commit themselves to any quantiﬁed targets is the ‘Umbrella Group’, an informal group composed of non-EU developed countries. The US can be seen as the frontrunner of this group, although President Bush alienated himself from most other members with his decision not to ratify the Protocol. The EU is widely acknowledged as the most energetic player in the climate negotiations, where it has usually played a progressive role, despite serious setbacks in developing its own internal strategy. Throughout the capitals of Europe, global warming is seen as a serious threat and the COPs are acclaimed as a stage to explore the opportunities of a single European foreign policy. As one author put it rather bombastically, ‘Europe thus has the chance to demonstrate that it has matured from the object of globalization to a driver of politics that ensure the decent survival of humanity in the centuries to come’.12 He makes it clear that the EU – the ‘green conscience’ of the negotiating countries – should not wait for the US to take further action. Both with regard to ozone layer depletion and climate change, the European Commission quickly embraced these concerns and helped to establish them on the agenda even of reluctant Member States at the earliest possible stage of the relevant negotiations. With regard to the issue of the greenhouse effect, the ﬁrst Communication of the Commission to the Council of Ministers was presented in November 1988. Since then the European Commission has taken many climaterelated initiatives such as the 1991 Community strategy to limit CO2 emissions

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and improve energy efﬁciency. In March 2000 the Commission launched its European Climate Change Program (ECCP), followed in 2001 by the publication of an extensive Green Paper.13 It was in particular during COP-6 in The Hague (November 2000) that the Europeans were in the forefront of the negotiations, backed by many developing countries and environmental NGOs. The chief US negotiator accused ‘green fundamentalists’ in the European delegation of having obstructed a deal: COP-6 collapsed. In contrast to the ‘Umbrella Group’, which wanted more ﬂexibility to help its members meet any emissions targets by using the Kyoto mechanisms (and by crediting ‘sinks’ in forests and agricultural soils), the EU countries toughened their negotiating positions. It was only in Bonn during ‘COP-6b’ (July 2001) that the Europeans were prepared to make some signiﬁcant concessions. The US nonetheless dropped out. The developing world is roughly divided in three groups: the Association of Small Island States (AOSIS); the oil exporting developing countries; and a diverse group of other developing countries, including China and India. These three groups represent diverging interests, but in the negotiations with the industrialized countries they have tried to operate as one group through the G77/ China. With the exception of the formation of a ‘Green G77’ at the 1995 Berlin Mandate negotiations, the G77 has been able to operate as a workable coalition at the ﬁnal stage of the decision-making process.14 Yet the oil exporting countries, of which the most vocal have been Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, have been relatively isolated within the negotiations. They have consistently sought allies. One route available was through the G77, with which the relationship has been an uneasy one. A more successful alliance was with the United States over quantiﬁed emissions targets. But the most durable partnership has been with prominent business lobbyists in the negotiations, representing (mainly US) coal and oil industries. Due to the prominent position of the EU in the climate change negotiations, it is obvious that the oil exporting countries direct their diplomatic actions more towards Brussels than to Washington or Tokyo. For years on end, OPEC has been complaining about the disproportionate energy tax in the OECD, and the West-European countries in particular. OPEC suggests more equitable energy taxation using a pro rata tax system based on carbon content and targeted at all green house gases. Europe is blasted for exercising a ‘visible bias’ against oil, noting that these countries take on average a tax bite of 65 percent of the pump price of oil. OPEC’s Secretary General Ali Rodriguez Arique calculated that over the past 20 years, taxes on oil products have increased by an average of 350 percent in OECD countries – especially (again) in the EU.15 At the same time it is known that coal continues to be subsidized, despite its high carbon content which contributes to higher CO2 emissions. OPEC can indeed reach no other conclusion: ‘There is a bias against petroleum’.16 This is in line with Robert Mabro’s cri de coeur that: [T]hey [OPEC countries] should not be afraid to oppose carbon tax proposals that retain a bias in favor of coal, and should persuasion fail,

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they may have regretfully no other options than to impose tariffs on imports from countries which adopt anti-oil policies under an environmental label, when the true objectives are protection of coal or nuclear, revenue raising or sheer petrophobia.17 Though the Europeans in general do not seem very impressed by OPEC’s lamentations, there are a few indications that in some circles at least the oil exporting countries’ predicament is being taken seriously. Reacting to the concerns about the adverse impacts of global climate change abatement policies on OPEC’s revenues, several studies have been undertaken. One of these – commissioned by the Dutch National Research Program on Global Air Pollution and Climate Change – resulted in a plea for different formats of cooperation with the OPEC countries in the implementation of the Kyoto Protocol. These include not only the perfunctory ‘strengthening of producer–consumer relations’, but also improved access to the EU market, non-oil investments in the oil exporting countries and an attractive formula for the imposition of CO2 tax (either levied at the source or levied in the Annex-I countries, but with revenue redistribution to the OPEC countries).18 One swallow, however, does not make a summer and the oil exporting countries remain very worried about the future, albeit to different degrees. RESPONSES BY MIDDLE EASTERN OIL EXPORTING COUNTRIES

In a recent World Energy Outlook, the International Energy Agency (IEA) predicted that the world’s thirst for oil shows no sign of waning over the next 20 years.19 This may seem a reassuring sign for several oil exporting countries in the Middle East and North Africa who see themselves currently confronted with huge economic problems. However, relating the possible increase in oil revenues to the increase in population, it becomes clear that the nominal increase of the export revenue of a number of countries will deﬁnitely lag behind population growth. Today nearly 40 percent of the Gulf population is under 14 years of age. This means that within a decade a major chunk of the population is going to enter the job market. Yet most oil exporting countries have not been very successful in breaking the stranglehold of the one-sector economy, thus largely failing to expand the job market. Moreover, the ‘Gulf baby boomers’ will through their sheer numbers put severe pressure on the state infrastructure and social services. They will not only require employment, but also housing, medical facilities, education, etc. Oil in itself is certainly not going to provide all the answers. Preparing for the long term where demand for alternative energy will grow, can provide welcome additional sources of income. Seen against the backdrop of the fact that the oil exporters have been forced for many years now to play by the rules of a buyer’s market, it is not surprising that they do not feel at ease. It goes without saying that a repeat of the 1973–74 events – that is, a reasonably successful use of the oil weapon – is highly unlikely, leaving the Arab world saddled with a permanent feeling of nostalgia.20

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The situation could even get worse if the IEA’s predictions are not borne out. Clearly, alternative views of the future are possible which make the oil exporting countries’ situation look much bleaker than the World Energy Outlook presumes. Paul Stevens, for instance, draws a more pessimistic scenario by pointing out several discontinuities that are often glossed over or paid insufﬁcient attention to in other studies. He reaches the conclusion that oil revenues (for the members of the Gulf Co-operation Council) over a medium- to long-term horizon are likely to rise little and could easily go lower. He draws attention to the effects of possible changing demand patterns, increased taxes on oil products in consuming countries, and security concerns, and in particular to possible demand discontinuities as a result of the growth of alternative sources of energy, which of course is closely related to – though not solely determined by – environmental concerns.21 The former Oil Minister of Saudi Arabia, Sheikh Ahmed Zaki Yamani, also stresses the technology factor: ‘Technology is a real enemy for OPEC. [It] will reduce consumption and increase production from areas outside OPEC’. He sees hybrid engines for automobiles and hydrogen fuel cells drastically cutting the consumption of gasoline. ‘The Stone Age came to an end not for the lack of stones and the oil age will end, but not for the lack of oil’, he wisely remarks.22 Effects of Implementing the Kyoto Protocol The oil exporting countries’ predicament may indeed be ampliﬁed by the implementation of climate change policies within the Kyoto framework. Some pundits argue that it is not unlikely that climate change abatement policies by industrialized countries will prove to be ‘[t]he last straw that broke the camel’s back’.23 Since the start of ‘global warming diplomacy’ in the early 1990s, the oil exporting countries have taken the issue of environmental concerns seriously, though not unequivocally. On the one hand, OPEC studies argue that the oil producers should take a pro-active position and take the lead, wherever possible, by effectively participating in the international debate on environmental protection. This should preferably be done in a concerted way, not on an individual and uncoordinated basis. On the other hand, OPEC ofﬁcials quite often take an openly recalcitrant position and do not tire of claiming that global warming is ‘more politics than science’. Without any doubt, implementation of the Kyoto Protocol will affect the income of the oil exporting countries. Much less certain is the amount of damage that will be caused by greenhouse gases mitigation measures and the time span within which this loss of revenue is expected to be realized. Analysts vary in their beliefs about the future, and about the mechanism at play (see for instance the difference between the scenarios suggested by the IEA and Stevens). This results in different choices of methodology and modeling, among which it is often impossible to allocate objective preference (although there are, of course, high-quality and low-quality modeling approaches). A comparison of some of these scenarios leads to wide divergence in estimates of reduced oil exports in ten or twenty years from

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now (that is, some time after the ﬁrst commitment period under the Kyoto Protocol has started). This divergence produces, in turn, varied assessments of the urgency to oppose the Kyoto abatement policies. The OPEC Secretariat’s own ﬁgures – revenue losses in 2010 are between $20 and $60 billion per annum – are even surpassed by several scenarios as developed in the analysis commissioned by the Dutch National Research Program on Global Air Pollution and Climate Change (where in the worst-case scenario income loss may amount to up to $94 billion in 2010 – that is, almost 30 percent below the Business-as-Usual scenario.24 Others come to less spectacular losses of revenue.25 Marcel Berk et al. even conclude that ‘the losses projected on the short term are often within the range resulting from historical price ﬂuctuations. During the twenty-ﬁrst century, the depletion of conventional oil will make a shift to other energy sources and/or economic activities inevitable for most oil exporting countries even without climate change. Climate policies are likely to delay the depletion of conventional oil and extend revenues over a longer period’.26 Yet it is clear that oil-exporting countries have reason to worry about the future. In some cases, considerations of raison d’e´tat (sometimes narrowed down to raison de famille) make them focus almost exclusively on the ‘Kyoto effects’, disregarding the undemocratic character of the powers that be and the regimes’ policies of misspending the oil money. Degrees of Vulnerability Very few studies have paid explicit attention to the differentiation within the group of OPEC countries in terms of their vulnerabilities to Kyoto abatement policies. While it is understandable that OPEC should present its case as much as possible as a bloc, this is much less justiﬁable in academic studies of these countries’ climate change policies. Most scholarly analyses of this ﬁeld stick to the notion of ‘the’ OPEC countries or ‘the’ oil exporters.27 In an otherwise excellent study by Matthew Paterson, the author notes that ‘the assumption that these groups [AOSIS, OPEC, etc.] are internally coherent is itself problematic’, but largely fails to follow the logic of this through in his analysis – mirroring a similar failing in other studies.28 However, in 1997 Paterson and Kassler made a more sophisticated attempt to differentiate between degrees of vulnerability of oil exporting countries.29 In this study, attention is paid to a range of factors, such as economic wealth; dependence of oil exports; the ability to expand gas production and exports in relation to the changing interfuel competition; contribution of the oil sector to GDP; and remedial action options and costs. Bringing all these factors into account, Kassler and Paterson come to the conclusion that the impact of revenue losses will fall most heavily on less afﬂuent exporters such as Nigeria, Iraq, Iran and Angola. Loss of oil income could pose severe problems of economic management and the continuation of development plans. They discern a second group of oil exporters who are also exposed through their high export dependence, but who appear to have more robust economies. This, they argue, applies to the other Gulf states, Libya, Algeria and Venezuela (although one can

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question the inclusion of Algeria in this group). These countries could face problems of a different nature if internal spending on infrastructure and, more especially, social provisions, cannot be maintained at levels that preserve political stability. Kassler and Paterson’s project, which explicitly hints at the inclusion of the energy exporting countries in negotiations to further commitments under the UNFCCC, has even more added value because the authors are the ﬁrst to shed light on the changing position of the OPEC countries in these negotiations. This is in stark contrast to other studies (and nearly all journalistic accounts) in which a static picture of OPEC’s position is presented. Yet any observant analyst would have found that even hardliners such as Saudi Arabia and Kuwait have somewhat softened their position during the course of the successive COP gatherings. Before the Framework Convention was signed – and more or less until the Berlin Mandate was agreed upon – the oil exporting countries acted purely to defend their own interests as producers. An interesting parallel could be drawn with evolving corporate strategies in international climate politics. Here also we note a shift from a defensive bloc strategy to a more diversiﬁed, pro-active approach. The OPEC countries’ strategies covered the whole gamut from simple but consistent complaining about the economic damage as a result of possible implementation measures, to outright obstruction of the negotiating process. One of the mainstays of the oil exporters’ overall approach has been to focus on remaining scientiﬁc uncertainties regarding climate change, in order to justify resisting calls to limit CO2 emissions. Ever since the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) started to publish its Assessment Reports in 1990, the energy industry has been conducting a ferocious public relations campaign meant to sell the notion that science, any science, is always a matter of uncertainty. A prominent role in this campaign has been taken by the Global Climate Coalition, the Climate Council and a small band of skeptic academics. Representatives of OPEC countries have always been in close contact with these ‘negationists’. The most notorious example of this confrontational attitude has been their response to the proposed carbon/energy tax in the EU. OPEC representatives threatened to retaliate by taxing and limiting European imports, reducing oil exports, and curbing planned increases in production capacity. One commentator suggested that relations were so strained that ‘[t]he Gulf countries. . .even threatened to break off diplomatic relations’.30 Another strand of the oil exporting countries’ strategies can be labeled as outright obstructive behavior. Saudi Arabia in particular, sometimes seconded by Kuwait, has tried to slow the pace of negotiations, quite often by simply haggling over the rules of procedure. Examples of this tactic abound.31 As Kassler and Paterson note, it was in late 1996 that the Saudi and Kuwaiti position could be observed to soften somewhat. For the moment at least, they toned down the argument of scientiﬁc uncertainty and, ostensibly, their hostility towards emissions reduction measures.32 They switched to the argument that the oil exporters should be compensated for economic losses incurred through adoption of emissions abatement. In that context, they made their voices heard

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in the debate about the implementation of article 4.8(h) of the UNFCCC, which stipulates that due account should be taken to the adverse effects of greenhouse gases mitigation measures on the oil and gas revenues of energy exporting countries. We will not pursue the debate here whether the compensation claim is fair and reasonable, and whether Annex-I countries are prepared to pay. Instead, we now turn to a comparative analysis of two key players in the Gulf region, Iran and Saudi Arabia. Shades of Opinion: Saudi Arabia and Iran Compared Even studies which differentiate between the oil exporting countries’ varying vulnerabilities do not take the consequences of that approach and usually refrain from making various ‘country proﬁles’. At best, they differentiate between several sub-groupings – as in the case of Kassler and Paterson (see above), who in the end still leave the image of ‘the’ oil exporters very much intact. But even if we were to go one step further, and try to develop several ‘national climate change interest proﬁles’,33 this would not necessarily lead to an optimal result. Both because of the huge number of uncertainties involved – both in general and more speciﬁcally regarding global warming issues – and because of the existence of differing world views among the elites in the oil exporting countries, positions in the climate change debate may vary. The formulation of these positions becomes dependent on actors’ subjective assessments of the effects, urgency and seriousness of the issue. This is in line with Nonneman’s argument for ‘taking into account both the decision-making structures and the decision makers’ perceptions, since particular policy choices are indeed capable of making the sort of difference that cannot be explained by structural factors alone.’34 For that reason, we supplement the interest line of inquiry by a perception-oriented line of inquiry.35 States’ interests are constituted intersubjectively, and states spend quite some time and energy on working towards some sense of what their interests are, rather than in trying to realize some pregiven interest. Both academic and journalistic publications generally stress that in the case of the oil exporting countries the pre-given interest with regard to climate change policies and diplomacy, is largely framed by the fear that ‘Kyoto’ will reduce their oil exports and subsequently their level of income dramatically. Governmental positions on climate change abatement policies, it is assumed, can be easily reduced to this given interest. We would argue, however, that oil exporting countries are no exception to the rule that national interests are the result of choices made by the elites based on their assessment of the effects, the urgency and the seriousness of both global warming and climate change abatement policies. Keeping this in mind we will now turn to a comparison between the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the Islamic Republic of Iran: two rentier states, both key players in OPEC and in the climate change negotiations, and both highly dependent on hydrocarbon exports. With oil reserves of 90 billion barrels and gas reserves of 23 trillion cubic meters, there is no doubt about Iran’s prominence in the hydrocarbon world. The ﬁgures represent 9 percent and 15.3 percent respectively of the world’s total

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reserves; further exploration may lead to a substantial increase.36 In the early twenty-ﬁrst century, some 80–85 percent of the country’s total foreign exchange receipts and around 60 percent of the budget depend on oil sales. Saudi Arabia’s oil revenues make up 90–95 percent of the country’s total export earnings, and the state revenues depend for more than 70 percent on the sales of oil and oil reﬁned products. Furthermore, Saudi Arabia is by far the most prominent player on the oil market, with a share of 11.8 percent of total world production and 24.9 percent of the world’s reserves of crude oil.37 This might lead to a conclusion that Iran and Saudi Arabia must both be hostile to any international agreement that can lower their primary source of income, and that only a minor disparity in policy is to be expected. However, several other factors have to be taken into account to understand the positions of both governments. In line with Nonneman’s analytical framework,38 we would stress that the foreign policy positions of the MENA states are shaped by a combination of domestic forces and changes, regional linkages, and developments in the international arena. In the remaining part of this contribution, we ﬁrst examine the relevant socio-economic and political domestic environment of the two countries. Secondly, we focus on the climatic circumstances and the levels of environmental awareness in both countries, and examine their respective attitudes towards changes in the energy pattern. Thirdly, we deal with the positioning of the two governments in the international climate change arena and their attitudes vis-a`-vis the EU and the US. In doing so, we aim to show how differences in perception inﬂuence the policymaking procedures. Expectations are that with the current growth of Iranian domestic oil consumption, largely caused by population growth and inefﬁcient use of resources, the rates of consumption will bypass the rates of production within the next ten years.39Thus, Iran has ambitious plans to double national oil production by 2025 or so, and it is counting on foreign investment to accomplish this. By 2005, Iran is aiming to double foreign investment in the hydrocarbon sector to $24 billion.40 Secondly, the reformist part of the Iranian government is exploring ways to diversify the Iranian economy,41 but the urgency is not felt in all sectors. One way to lower the dependency on oil is to prioritize the development of Iran’s gas resources. For the moment, however, many factors, mainly of a political nature, are obstructing a successful shift to a gas-driven economy.42 Economical reform is part of a heated political debate in Iran. A full entry into the global economy is faced with resistance from different parts of the political spectrum. The ﬁnancial incentives of the Kyoto Protocol might offer opportunities for the proponents of economic reform to enforce their arguments to open the Iranian economy for foreign investors. Compliance with the regulations of Kyoto, therefore, in part depends on the assessments made by the various policy makers in the internal economic debate. For the House of Saud too, a rapidly increasing and young population – 50 percent is under 18 – is the greatest challenge for the next decade. Real economic growth has fallen behind population growth and unemployment poses a major risk of social imbalance. As of 2001, Saudi Arabia was reeling under a public debt of nearly SR630 billion because of heavy borrowing from local

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banks to ﬁnance budget deﬁcits that have piled up since the end of the oil boom.43 Reforms that can lead to liberalization and privatization to attract foreign direct investment are implemented slowly and will not prove to be sufﬁcient to change the tide. Some elements of reform are supported by the Saudi government, such as the installment of a customs union among GCC countries, which is to take effect in 2003, but the main priority of the kingdom remains the security of its oil wealth, a defensive policy that is contradictory to the ambitions of the Kyoto Protocol. The dynasty’s legitimacy is paid for by the country’s oil industry and, as Dr Mohammed Al-Sabban, a key adviser to the Minister of Petroleum, projects that Saudi Arabia alone would lose annually more than $25 billion by 2010 as a consequence of the climate change abatement measures of the Kyoto Protocol,44 this Protocol is not interpreted as in the interest of the royal family. Another factor that has to be taken into account is the level of urgency in protecting the national environment. Iran, though slightly better off than Saudi Arabia, is a vast, mainly arid country that faces desertiﬁcation, soil erosion, biodiversity loss and major oil and industrial pollution. Since the late 1990s a shift of approach has become noticeable in Iran, while in Saudi Arabia very little has changed. Environmental issues are on the political agenda in Tehran. One explanation is that during the last four years large parts of the Iranian society met with extreme weather events. For four consecutive years the Islamic Republic experienced an extreme drought that in 2000 alone affected over 37 million people. The persistent drought has caused signiﬁcant damage to the country’s biological diversity, agricultural crops, drinking water supplies and consequently the public’s health.45 At the same time the country experienced extraordinary ﬂoods in 2001 and 2002. A ﬂash ﬂood of August 10, 2001 alone affected more than one million people.46 These extreme weather events raise environmental awareness, although it has to be said that the consequences of the changing weather pattern are ampliﬁed by human mismanagement and many Iranian politicians appear more concerned with mitigating the consequences of the weather pattern than with dealing with the root causes of the problem. The largest structural environmental problem of Iran is, by far, the air pollution problem of its capital city, Tehran. According to Iranian governmental statistics, around 4,600 people die in Tehran each year from ‘air pollution-related illnesses’. The policy makers in Tehran therefore literally feel the urgency of reducing polluting emissions. As the transport sector produces more than 71.2 percent of the exhaust of greenhouse gases in the metropolitan area of Tehran, several projects to upgrade the urban ﬂeet of cars and buses are in the pipeline.47 The structures of the Iranian policy and implementation process are, however, obstructing an efﬁcient approach and chances of success are small.48 Environmental protection issues in Saudi Arabia are inseparable from natural resource development. The arid landscape of the peninsula is highly sensitive to oil-production related pollution, as is the delicate coastal marine environment of the peninsula. In partnership with the oil industry, initiatives have been developed to limit the impact of the industry on its surrounding biosphere.

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Especially after the environmental disasters of the second Gulf War, protection of the marine environment has been successfully promoted. Yet governmental environmental concern seems to end here. The urgency of addressing environmental degradation is not felt. In contrast to the ﬁgures for Iran in recent years, there have been no extreme weather events with an impact large enough to inﬂuence the general understanding on climate change. Furthermore, although Saudi Arabia’s carbon emissions have risen in the last twenty years and the Kingdom is still the regional leader in its per capita emissions,49 this increase has not resulted in alarming air quality rates in the major cities and, contrary to Iran, limiting or transforming fossil-fuelled transportation is not being discussed. Environmental awareness is low in Saudi Arabia. The political discourse is not about social responsibility or environmental constraints and there seems to be a consensus that environmental issues end at the borders.50 This does not mean, however, that there are no other opinions within the Saudi Arabian political elite that can ultimately inﬂuence the position of the COP delegates. The Meteorological and Environmental Protection Agency (MEPA), responsible for all environmental matters in Saudi Arabia, announced in 2000 that global warming will adversely affect Saudi Arabia’s weather conditions. Climate change has already led to an increase in rainfall in parts of the country and the MEPA predicts that global warming will cause even more extreme heat waves during the summer, as well as more extreme weather conditions in the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea Coast.51 Secondly, the government itself initiated in May 1999 a national committee to raise public awareness about the environment. These are just minor steps, but they may lead to a more diversiﬁed internal debate. Peritore sets out a number of constraints which Iran, at least till the early 1990s, suffered in trying to call a halt to environmental degradation: poor enforcement programs, lack of public awareness and wrong budget appropriation policies.52 Since 1997, Iran’s ﬁrst woman Vice-President (Dr Masoumeh Ebtekar), has headed the Department of Environment (DOE). Apparently, she has given a stimulus to the level of environmental awareness both among politicians and the public at large, among others through launching the National Environmental Plan of Action in 1997 and further stimulating environmental education at the higher level. Her proposals gained a more receptive audience as the environmental problems in the late 1990s grew. The DOE, however, has only limited powers, both within the national context as in the Iranian delegations at the international fora. Domestically, there are at least eleven other policymaking structures that deal with the environment, including the Ministry of Oil. Through cooperation with a small but growing environmental civil society the inﬂuence of the DOE can and probably will increase.53 Illustrative of the difference in orientation towards a more sustainable future between Iran and Saudi Arabia is the attitude towards alternative energy. In Iran there is a large amount of interest in exploring the possibilities for non-oil products. This is primarily the result of the projection that exploitation of its gas resources can substitute the loss in oil revenues. The development of the nonassociated gas resources can lower the loss of oil income by reducing the

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domestic consumption of oil, but the export opportunities for gas in the near future are still limited. The development of new technologies such as gas-toliquid conversion methods can expand export options and with the possibility of natural gas as a source for hydrogen, required for fuel cell technology, the prospects for the long term are more promising. Anyhow, dealing with these issues by itself does bring alternative energy strategies into the public and political debate. There is a clear appreciation that for Iran ‘oil is not the best energy source and that we have to diversify our energy options’.54 One spokesman went as far as stating that ‘[e]ven without UNFCCC/Kyoto we should go for alternative sources of energy. In that context we should lift subsidies on petrol as soon as possible, although that will be very difﬁcult to achieve. In the long run, however, the government has no choice, also because it needs revenues (i.e. through taxes)’.55 On the other hand, it has to be noted that the discussion on alternative energy is often used as a plea for Iran’s nuclear program. Whether that in turn has other motivations is a moot question. The Saudi government, however, does not seem to be interested in any constructive debate about changing energy patterns. Until now, there has been no substantial research on the beneﬁts of alternative energy for the Kingdom. At most, a cleaner and more efﬁcient use of the existing fuels can meet the approval of the Saudi government. On the other hand, it should be noted that the Saudis seem to be familiar with Yamani’s much quoted adage that ‘the oil age will end, but not for the lack of oil’. Al-Sabban confessed to realizing that the introduction of the hybrid car ‘is imminent, that is to say within ten to ﬁfteen years’.56 It remains to be seen, however, whether that will be translated into concrete policies. The positioning of the respective governments in the climate change debate is also linked to a government’s perception of its role in the international political system and subsequently the role that the other actors expect it to play. The views of a government are translated into its delegation’s attitude towards initiatives of their counterparts at the negotiations. While the composition and demeanor of the Iranian delegation has changed over the years, the Saudi delegation’s mode of operation remained constant, perhaps symbolized by the fact that the delegation is still headed by Dr Al-Sabban. During COP-7, for instance, the Saudi delegation was not only small (12 members): more striking was the background of its members, most of whom came from the petroleum sector. In the case of Iran, the delegation was not only larger (20 members) but it included also a relatively large number of people with an ‘environmental’ background. Whereas Iran, during the resumed session of COP-6b in Bonn (July 2001), was even occasionally praised for its constructive facilitative role as president of the G77/China, the Saudi Arabian Oil Minister, Ali bin Ibrahim alNaimi, once more displayed a non-cooperative attitude when he warned that OPEC would seek to reduce output should any treaty have a negative impact on global oil markets.57 Within the climate change debate the US and the EU are the dominating rival actors. Thus, we have to take into account a country’s position vis-a`-vis these two adversaries. Saudi–European relations should be seen against the back-

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ground of the underlying tension – occasionally turning into overt hostility – between European economic and environmental instincts to limit consumption of oil, and the exporters’ need to maintain it. Above all, the Saudis – and the other GCC states – are very frustrated about the continued lack of access of oil products, in particular petrochemicals, to the European market. And last but not least, all GCC states – and Saudi Arabia as the grouping’s heavyweight in particular – feel treated as second-rate Arabs because of their exclusion from the ‘Euro-Mediterranean Partnership’.58 It should not cause any surprise that the Saudis are intractable vis-a`-vis the European position in the Kyoto negotiations. ‘The EU just wants mitigation and is not willing to give ﬁnancial help. . .All Annex-I countries resist our demands, but the EU is the most adamant’, notes Al-Sabban.59 In its attitude towards the EU, Iran shares to a large extent the same frustration as other oil exporting countries do.60 Iran is also worried that Europe’s concrete ﬁnancial and technical support under ‘Kyoto’ will be inversely proportional to its actual economic power, although it has already proﬁted from the UNFCCC’s ‘Global Environmental Facility’(GEF).61 There is a clear difference, however, with Saudi Arabia’s basic attitude towards Europe. The Iranians are clearly aware of Al-Sabban’s obstreperous behavior and the way he sometimes tries to block and delay the negotiating process. As an Iranian ofﬁcial puts it: ‘Since Kyoto we have taken a different style. We believe in the protection of the environment and we don’t want to block the negotiations. Let’s continue the process’. And as if the point was not clear yet: ‘We want to cooperate; that’s why the European Union likes our position’.62 As Nonneman has suggested, the disappearance of bi-polar clarity transformed the international arena in its basic elements but this did not eliminate countries’ room for maneuver; indeed, it may have provided countries like Iran with both the stimulus and the opportunity to approach the EU as a counterweight to the US.63 Iran’s relationship with the US is, to say the least, a painful one. Since the Islamic revolution of 1979 and the following 444 days hostage crisis around the US Embassy in Tehran, ofﬁcial diplomatic contacts have remained frozen. During the late 1990s a subtle rapprochement started, but ‘9/11’ brought this to a halt. Naturally, this difﬁcult relationship has had its effect on the Iranian position towards the US proposals at the COPs. Saudi Arabia, on the contrary, remained one of the main pillars of American foreign policy in the Persian Gulf region. Ever since the discovery of oil in Saudi Arabia, the relationship between Washington and Riyadh has been warm and intense – although not without ﬂuctuations. In the climate change debates too, they have promoted their shared interests. (It is only recently, after the September 11 attacks, that the US–Saudi relationship turned somewhat sour). When US president George W. Bush announced his retreat from the Kyoto Protocol, the Saudis were among the ﬁrst to declare that they ‘understand the economic concerns raised by the US that forced it to abandon the accord’.64 When asked their opinion at the COP-6b in The Hague on the Bush administration’s decision, the Saudi representative could not suppress his feelings of delight while his Iranian colleague was wholly negative in his appraisal of the USA’s unilateralist move.

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CONCLUSION

Using a constructivist frame of reference, departing from the materialism and methodological individualism upon which much contemporary IR scholarship has been built, it has been demonstrated that a politics-of-interest approach alone will not sufﬁce to understand oil producers’ stances and diplomacy on the question of climate-change abatement policies. A structural analysis at the domestic, regional and international levels has to be complemented with a perception-oriented approach fully to understand a country’s present and future position. States’ identities and interests are not exogenous and given. They are intersubjective understandings which suggests that states are engaging less in strategies to meet pre-deﬁned ends – in this case CO2 abatement – than they are grappling intersubjectively to develop norms and a sense of what their interests are in relation to global warming. In that sense, world views matter. These views have to be taken into account if one is to analyze successfully how various actors observe and interpret climate change, and how on the basis of this assessment they deﬁne their interests, potentially in very different ways. Here the contrast between Saudi and Iranian climate-change perceptions is salient. While in the Saudi arguments there is a predominance of economic concerns, distrust of scientiﬁc research, and public disinterest, this is clearly not so in the Iranian case. Obviously, this has to do with the general political climate, both in the ﬁeld of internal and external politics, which is very different. Domestically, this is exempliﬁed by the almost complete absence of any kind of societal involvement in environmental matters in Saudi Arabia, while in the Iranian case there appears to be a growing level of public awareness. Internationally, the contrast is even stronger. While the Saudis regularly show a kneejerk reaction and behave in a non-cooperative manner, the Iranians on the whole are much more accommodating, especially vis-a`-vis the EU. Clearly, the material differences alone cannot adequately explain the divergent attitudes of the two actors during the Kyoto negotiations. The countries’ governments deﬁne their positions on the basis of a subjective assessment of all costs and beneﬁts involved – both material and immaterial. Contrary to received wisdom, OPEC countries do not always act or speak in unity, and accordingly hold varying positions in the climate change debate. Different perceptions on climate change abatement policies exist within the group of developing countries as within the oil exporting countries. With the emergence of a new energy paradigm it is clear that individual oil exporting countries can and will follow diverse strategies to respond to this decisive challenge. NOTES 1. Emanuel Adler, ‘Seizing the Middle Ground: Constructivism in World Politics’, European Journal of International Relations, Vol. 3, no. 3 (1999), pp. 319–63. 2. John Gerard Ruggie, Constructing the World Polity. Essays on International Institutionalization (London/New York: Routledge, 1998), p. 3.

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3. Jeffrey Alexander as quoted in Adler, ‘Seizing the Middle Ground: Constructivism in World Politics’, p. 324. 4. Alexander Wendt, ‘Identity and Structural Change in International Politics’, in Yosef Lapid and Friedrich Kratochwil (eds.), The Return of Culture and Identity in IR Theory (Boulder/London: Lynne Rienner, 1996), p. 50. 5. Ruggie, Constructing the World Polity, p. 33. 6. Adler, ‘Seizing the Middle Ground: Constructivism in World Politics’, p. 337. 7. Ibid., p. 343. 8. John A. Hannigan, Environmental Sociology. A Social Constructionist Perspective (London/ New York: Routledge, 1995), p. 30. 9. The analytical framework proposed by Gerd Nonneman at the workshop on ‘The Determinants of Middle Eastern and North African States’ Foreign Policies: with Special Reference to their Relations with Europe’, at the Third Mediterranean Social and Political Research Meeting, Florence and Montecatini Terme, March 20–24, 2002. See his contribution ‘Analyzing the Foreign Policies of the Middle East and North Africa: an Analytical Framework,’ in this volume. 10. Richard van der Wurff, ‘International Climate Change Politics. Interests and Perceptions’ (Amsterdam: PhD. dissertation, University of Amsterdam, 1997), pp. 71–6. 11. At the September 2002 Johannesburg Summit both Prime Minister Kasyanov and President Putin announced Russia’s intent to ratify the Protocol. But by the Spring of 2003, doubts about timing had appeared; Russian ofﬁcials said in January that although the political question had been solved, the economic scenarios remained to be worked out (Reuters, Jan. 15, 2003). 12. Hermann E. Ott, ‘Climate Change: An Important Foreign Policy Issue’, International Affairs, 77, 2 (2001), p. 295. 13. European Commission, Green Paper: Towards a European Strategy for the Security of Energy Supply (Brussels, 2001), p. 105. 14. During the course of the negotiations different member states of the G77 follow their own national interests and the structure of the process provides them with the opportunities to lobby solely for their own preferences or to form ad hoc coalitions on speciﬁc issues with varying partners. In this complex process in and outside the plenary hall of the negotiations, the G77/ China is all but a uniﬁed coalition, but in drafting the ﬁnal texts they more or less operate as a bloc countering the EU and the Umbrella Group. 15. OPEC Bulletin, Feb. 2001, p. 5. 16. Quote from Ali bin Ibrahim al-Naimi, Saudi Arabian Oil Minister, during COP-6b in Bonn. 5 earthtimes.org.jul/bonnconferencearabsbalkjul21-01.htm 4, viewed Nov. 13, 2001. Also see Gerd Nonneman, ‘Saudi–European Relations 1902–2001: A Pragmatic Quest for Relative Autonomy’, in International Affairs, 77, 3, (2001), pp. 631–61: p. 655. Similar arguments and conclusions are, not surprisingly, also put forward by OAPEC, as illustrated in the editorials of that organization’s monthly Bulletin. 17. Robert Mabro, ‘The Consumers’ Environmental Policies and the Oil-Exporting Countries’, in OPEC Seminar on the Environment (Vienna: Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, April 1992), p. 188. 18. Dutch National Research Programme on Global Air Pollution and Climate Change, Analysis of the Impact of the Kyoto Protocol on the Export Revenues of OPEC Member States and on the Oil Import Requirements of Non-Annex I Countries (Bilthoven, 2002), Report No. 410 200 044. 19. International Energy Agency (IEA), World Energy Outlook 2000 (Paris, 2000); and Richard Mably, ‘IEA Says Fossil Fuels to Stay King over Next 20 Years’, GULF2000, 5 www1.columbia.edu/sec-cgi-bin/ 4, viewed Dec. 6, 2000. 20. This has been distressingly illustrated by the deployment of the oil weapon ‘in reverse’ (against Iran, Libya and Iraq). See Paul Aarts, The Arab Oil Weapon: A One-Shot Edition? (Abu Dhabi: The Emirates Center for Strategic Studies and Research, 1999), The Emirates Occasional Papers, no.34. 21. Paul Stevens, ‘Future Prospects for Oil Revenues in the Gulf Cooperation Council’, GULF2000, 5 www1.columbia.edu/sec-cgi-bin/g 4, viewed Dec. 8, 2000. 22. ‘Yamani Says OPEC Accelerating End of the Oil Era’, GULF2000, 5 www1.columbia.edu/seccgi-bin/ 4, viewed Dec. 6, 2000. 23. Dutch National Research Programme on Global Air Pollution and Climate Change, Analysis of the Impact of the Kyoto Protocol, p. 8. 24. Ibid. 25. For OPEC ﬁgures, see OPEC Bulletin, Dec. 2000, p. 9; D. Ghasemzadeh’s presentation at the UNFCCC Workshop on the Implementation of Articles 4.8 and 4.9 of the UNFCCC and 2.3 and 3.14 of the Kyoto Protocol (Bonn, Sep. 1999); D. Ghasemzadeh and F. Alawadhi’s presentation

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26. 27.

28.

29.

30. 31. 32.

33.

34. 35.

36.

37. 38. 39. 40. 41.

42. 43. 44. 45. 46.

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at the IPCC Experts Workshop on Sectoral Economic Costs and beneﬁts of GHG Mitigation (Eisenach, Feb. 14–15, 2000). Different estimates are given by Ulrich Bartsch and Benito Mu¨ller, Fossil Fuels in a Changing Climate (Oxford: Oxford University Press 2000), pp. 186– 213 and 297–310, and by Peter Kassler and Matthew Paterson, Energy Exporters and Climate Change (London: The Royal Institute of International Affairs, 1997), pp. 30, 83. Marcel Berk et al., Keeping Our Options Open. A Strategic Vision on Near-Term Implications of Long-Term Climate Policy Options. Results from the COOL Project (Bilthoven: RIVM, 2001), p. 11. This shortcoming is peculiar to studies on these states’ climate change policies. By contrast, with regard to oil price policies interesting research has been done on coalition building within OPEC. Different producers’ varying economic proﬁles and interests, and consequent production and pricing policies, of course, have been recognized more readily. Matthew Paterson, Global Warming and Global Politics (London: Routledge, 1996), p. 104. The same applies to Dutch National Research Programme on Global Air Pollution and Climate Change, Analysis of the Impact of the Kyoto Protocol; and Bartsch and Mu¨ller, Fossil Fuels in a Changing Climate. Kassler and Paterson, Energy Exporters and Climate Change. For ﬁgures on net fossil fuel exports as a percentage of GDP and oil’s share as in total exports, see Ghasemzadeh and Alawadhi, presentation at the IPCC Experts Workshop on Sectoral Economic Costs and beneﬁts of GHG Mitigation (Eisenach, Feb. 14–15, 2000); and recent issues of the OPEC Annual Statistical Bulletin. As quoted in Kassler and Paterson, Energy Exporters and Climate Change, p. 88. Ibid., p. 95–8; and interviews during COP-7 in Marrakesh (Oct.–Nov. 2001). Interviews with Saudi ofﬁcials at a later point in time (The Hague, July 2001) indicate, however, that this shift – concerning the issue of scientiﬁc (un)certainty – has not been a permanent one. In an interview with Benito Mu¨ller, Senior Research Fellow at the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies, changing Saudi tactics were further elucidated: plus c¸a change. . . (Marrakesh, Nov. 2001). Following Van der Wurff (‘International Climate Change Politics’), the label ‘interest’ as such will be understood to refer to ‘objective’ interests. These objective interests are deﬁned as ‘relative stable properties of actors that follow. . .from [the countries’] position in a social structure and that provides these actors with reasons for action’ (p. 271). Nonneman, ‘Analyzing the Foreign Policies of the Middle East and North Africa’, this volume, p. 10. In that case we look for perceived needs and desires, and for environmental views (or wider worldviews). It is only then that we have ‘reclaimed power and interest from materialism by showing how their content and meaning are constituted by ideas and culture’ (Alexander Wendt, Social Theory of International Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), p. 371). BP statistical Review of World Energy 2002, 5 http://www.bp.com 4, viewed Aug. 18, 2002. These numbers, however, should be taken with a pinch of salt. They nominally represent the amounts extractable at current prices, but reserve estimates do not rise and fall appropriately as oil prices rise and fall. Ibid. ‘Analyzing the Foreign Policies of the Middle East and North Africa: an Analytical Framework’, this volume. As stated in interviews with several Iranian ofﬁcials, Tehran, Aug. 2001. EIA Country Analysis Briefs, 5 http://www.eia.doe.gov 4, viewed Aug. 19, 2002. The prevalence of the ‘Dutch Disease’ among energy exporters, including the Islamic republic of Iran is one of the factors making diversiﬁcation difﬁcult. This is the tendency for the exporters’ exchange rates to become too strong as a result of the weight of petroleum revenues in their economies, leading to weakness and non-competitiveness of their non-petroleum sectors. For more details, see Dennis Janssen, A Gas-Driven Economy in an Oil-State. An Inventory Research on the Oil-to-Gas Conversion Program of the Islamic Republic of Iran (Tehran: Royal Netherlands Embassy, Aug. 2001). Nadim Kawach, ‘Saudi Budget Deﬁcit May Be Lower than Expected’, Gulf News, Jan. 14, 2002. Dr Mohammed Al-Sabban interviewed by Middle East Economic Survey, April 2, 2001. For more details, see: United Nations Inter-agency Assessment Report on the Extreme Drought in the Islamic Republic of Iran (Tehran: UNDP, July 2001). EM-DAT: The OFDA/CRED International Disaster Database (Catholic University of Leuven, Brussels, 2002).

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47. DOE: The Comprehensive Plan of Air Pollution Reduction in Tehran (Tehran: Department of the Environment, 2001), p. 7 48. Dennis Janssen, A Gas-Driven Economy in an Oil-State. 49. 5 http://www.eia.doe.gov 4, viewed Aug. 19, 2002. 50. As stated by Dr Jonathan Pershing, Head of Division Energy and Environment of the IEA, Paris, Aug. 2, 2002. 51. 5 http://www.eia.doe.gov 4, viewed Aug. 19, 2002. 52. For more details, see N. Patrick Peritore, Third World Environmentalism. Case Studies from the Global South (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1999), p. 213. 53. For an excellent survey on Iranian environmental NGOs, see Persian Lion, Caspian Tiger. The Role of Iranian Environmental Organizations in Environmental Protection in Iran (Washington: Search for Common Ground, 2000). 54. Interview with Iranian ofﬁcial, The Hague, June 2001. 55. Interview with Mohammad Soltanieh, manager of the Enabling Project in the Field of Climate Change and Professor at the Department of Chemical Engineering of Sharif University of Technology, Marrakesh, Nov. 2001. 56. Interview with Mohammed Al-Sabban, The Hague, June 2001. 57. Roman Rollnick, ‘Arabs Balk at Kyoto Protocol’, 5 http://earthtimes.org/jul/ bonnconferencearabsbalkju21_01.htm 4, viewed 13 Nov. 2001. 58. For more on this, see Nonneman’s recent contribution, ‘Saudi–European Relations 1902–2001’, op. cit.; and Paul Aarts, Dilemmas of Regional Cooperation in the Middle East (Lancaster: Lancaster University, 1999), The Lancaster Papers, no.4. 59. Interview with Mohammed Al-Sabban, The Hague, June 2001. 60. A more general analysis of Iran’s (quite ambiguous) policies vis-a`-vis the EU is given by Fred Halliday, ‘Western Europe and the Iranian Revolution, 1979–97. An Elusive Normalization’, in Barbara Roberson (ed.), The Middle East and Europe: the Power Deﬁcit (London/New York: Routledge), pp. 130–50. 61. The Climate Change Convention established a ﬁnancial mechanism to provide funds on a grant or concessional basis to help developing countries to implement the Convention and address climate change. The role of operating this mechanism was assigned to the GEF. The World Bank, the UN Development Program (UNDP) and the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) established this multi-billion-dollar fund. 62. Interview with Iranian ofﬁcial, June 2001. 63. See Nonneman’s two contributions to this volume: ‘Analyzing the Foreign Policy of Middle Eastern and North African States’, p. 15, and ‘The Three Environments of Middle Eastern Foreign Policy Making’, pp. 28–39. 64. A Saudi ofﬁcial cited in Middle East Economic Survey, April 2, 2001.

Explaining international politics in the Middle East: The struggle of regional identity and systemic structure RAYMOND HINNEBUSCH

Analysis of the international politics of the Middle East has long been polarized between International Relations (IR) specialists, typically neo-realists, who insist that universal rules apply to all regions1 and area specialists who defend the cultural uniqueness, and consequent political exceptionalism of the Middle East. More recent theoretical advances have sought, with only partial success, to bridge this gap. Thus, constructivists supply a universal theory that takes account of area-speciﬁc identity, yet seem to understate the weight of the material factors stressed by realism; Buzan and Waever, advocates of a ‘thicker’ form of realism, acknowledge the importance of regional variations in material structure without, however, paying much attention to identity per se. 2 The debate over the Middle East can be located within the larger one in IR between those who advocate the primacy of material structures and those that champion ideational factors – an argument already introduced by Gerd Nonneman in chapter I.3 For what has been called the neo-utilitarians,4 the dominating world system-level is constituted of material structures, speciﬁcally the core-periphery hierarchy for Marxist structuralists and the global power balance for neo-realism; these, outside of the control of most small powers, largely constrain their behavior. This is because utilitarians assume states seek material interests (wealth and power) and their strategies toward this end are shaped by their position in systemic structures. For the mostly-weak Arab states, this is normally one allowing limited autonomy from the core powers and entailing threats from more powerful non-Arab neighbors and likely, therefore, to induce ‘bandwagoning’ (appeasing more powerful states) that adapts to material constraints (and opportunities). Identities and norms, for neoutilitarians, are merely used by state elites, either as instruments of power (e.g. using foreign threats to stir up supportive nationalism) or to legitimize their material interests. By contrast, for constructivism, the system level is at least partly constituted by normative inter-subjective understandings which state elites construct through their discourse and interactions with their populations and each other and which both derive from and help constitute their identities. In the Arab world, region-speciﬁc Pan-Arab and Islamic identities and norms carry powerful credibility. Reversing the utilitarian view, constructivism sees states’ identities as shaping conceptions of their interests; thus the high value put by Arab and

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Islamic identities on autonomy from Western domination infuses conceptions of Arab state interest with a natural anti-imperialism, even if this has material costs. A more qualiﬁed version of constructivism acknowledges that the pursuit of material interests may motivate state elites but the necessity to legitimize this in terms of the norms and identity (Arabism, Islam) shared with their populations constrains their policy options.5 Analysts of the Middle East tend to lean to one or the other of the rival material and normative poles, seeing one dimension shaping the other or at least concentrating on one to the neglect of the other. This chapter aims to point the way toward an analysis of the interaction between the material and the normative that gives comparable consideration to both. It starts from the view that both kinds of variables are autonomous (neither reducible to epiphenomena of the other), but that a stable social order depends on a relative congruence between them. When norms do not correspond to economic or power structures, the former lack the material anchor to endure and the latter lack the legitimacy to survive without the continual application of coercive power. At the level of agency, actors are not exclusively motivated either by interests or by norms but by both and when the two conﬂict, actors suffer from an uncomfortable psychological incongruence that they seek to overcome. In the case of the Middle East, a sharp contradiction between the material and the normative, structure and identity, was built in at the founding of the regional order. This generated chronic instability and conﬂict that, in turn, stimulated ongoing attempts to bridge the structure-identity gap. One was Nasser’s attempt to construct a regional states system based on normative understandings congruous with Arab identity in the face of intractable material obstacles; his failure left the regional system a mix of more or less incongruent normative and material structures. State responses to these structures were differentiated by the distinctive interrelations of identity and interest congealed in each individual state’s formation process, but, with the failure of Pan-Arab order, states increasingly attempted to manipulate material resources and constraints to foster state identities compatible with (the largely externally–imposed) systemic structures.6 STRUCTURE VERSUS IDENTITY: THE IMPOSITION OF THE MIDDLE EAST STATE SYSTEM

The imposition from without by the superior material power of the imperial West of a state system at odds with regional identity deﬁned the problematique of Middle East international politics. The region was fragmented, on the basis of great power interests, not indigenous wishes, into a multitude of competing, often artiﬁcial, state units bound to be dependent on great power patrons for their security and economic well-being. This sacriﬁced the nation-building potential of the pre-existing cultural unity and disrupted a multiplicity of regional ties while reorienting many economic links to the Western ‘core.’ One consequence of the creation of new artiﬁcial states was that loyalties might remain attached to pre-existing sub-state identities which often spilled

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across the haphazardly imposed state boundaries – becoming trans-state and giving rise to irredentism that fostered inter-state conﬂict; the Kurds are the most striking case.7 Another is the enduring power of supra-state identities, expressive of the lost cultural unity. The collapse of the Ottoman empire created an identity vacuum and the region-wide struggle against Western imperialism allowed Pan-Arab nationalism to ﬁll this gap among the educated Arabic speaking classes. Pan-Islam arose among the traditional lower middle classes and after the loss of the 1967 war by Arab nationalist states captured the loyalties of large parts of the middle classes as well. Both challenged the legitimacy of the individual states and spawned movements promoting their unity as a cure for the fragmentation of the felt community. Given this, the durability of the regional system is all the more remarkable. There was of course considerable variation in the level of incongruence of identity and territory and where indigenous state builders managed to carve out boundaries that relatively satisﬁed identities, as in Turkey and Saudi Arabia or where there was some historical experience of separate statehood, as in Egypt and Morocco, the outcome had considerable legitimacy. Even where this was not the case, once ruling elites and state apparatuses were created in the individual states, they acquired vested material interests in the new postOttoman fragmentation. In nearly a century of on-going state formation, they struggled to insulate their territories against the penetration of supra-state ideologies while tenaciously defending their sovereignty. The most arbitrary boundaries and artiﬁcial states would probably not have survived without great power guarantees, particularly against Bismarckian adventures such as Saddam Hussein’s attempted annexation of Kuwait. But, as peoples became habituated to the individual states, state identities developed as supplementary bases of legitimacy. State leaders vacillated between legitimizing their regimes in terms of state or of supra-state identities; or they tried to ‘statize’ a supra-state identity as the ofﬁcial state ideology, as when Ba’thist Syria claimed to be the special champion of Arabism or Saudi Arabia of Islam. Because Arab/Islamic identities remained powerful and became especially salient in times of crisis with the West, states’ legitimacy remained contingent on the congruence of their foreign policies with these identities. EXPLAINING THE REGIONAL ARENA: CONSTRUCTIVIST VERSUS UTILITARIAN APPROACHES TO THE RISE AND DECLINE OF PAN-ARABISM

The rise and decline of Arabism allows an assessment of the relative power of constructivism and its claim that norms and identity matter.8 According to Michael Barnett’s classic constructivist account, Dialogues in Arab Politics, norms had a decisive impact on state behavior but not in any pre-determined way. Rather, owing to the rivalry built into the Arab system between the norms of sovereignty and Pan-Arabism and because Pan-Arab norms had themselves to be interpreted in changing contexts, the actual impact of norms on foreign policies was inevitably a product of on-going contestation among the Arab

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states, what he calls inter-Arab ‘dialogues.’ 9As a result of this dialogue the balance between Pan-Arabism and sovereignty was continually altered, swinging ﬁrst against sovereignty and then back in its favor. Although the ingredients of Arab identity (language, historical memories, etc.) had long existed, only as the educated middle class started to be politically mobilized and as independence allowed Arab leaders to seek regional leadership, did Arab nationalism become ideologically hegemonic. It was inter-Arab leadership competition that played the central role in the ‘construction’ of an overt Pan-Arab identity and the semi-institutionalisation of its norms at the inter-state level. In this competition leaders ambitious for Pan-Arab leadership, trumpeting their own Arab credentials and impugning those of rivals, sought to sway public opinion and to mobilize the Arab ‘street’ to pressure (even overthrow) rival governments from below. The ﬁrst episode in this struggle was the early 1950s debate over the Baghdad Pact, a scheme to bring the Arab states into a Western-sponsored security alliance against the Soviet Union. While pro-Western Iraq wanted to join, Egypt’s Nasser, seeing it as a form of imperialism, mobilised Arab public opinion on behalf of an alternative Arab collective security pact. Nasser’s victory in this debate established a powerful Pan-Arab norm against foreign treaties or bases. His emergence from the 1956 Suez war as a popular Arab hero and the 1958 overthrow of the pro-Western Iraqi regime put all those who contested his view of Pan-Arabism on the defensive. Egyptian hegemony was thereafter exercised on behalf of an informal ‘Pan-Arab regime’ that substantially constrained the foreign policy options of individual Arab states within bounds determined by Cairo’s view of the overarching Arab national interest. The core issues that deﬁned Arabism were rejection of Western domination, defence of the Palestine cause, the desirability of Arab unity, and the expectation that the Arab states should act in concert in world politics in defence of all-Arab interests. Once Nasser’s Pan-Arab discourse galvanised trans-state Arab nationalist movements across the region, even pro-Western elites were forced to protect themselves from subversion by being seen to adhere to Arabist norms. As Barnett convincingly argues, this inter-Arab competition, though intense, was quite different from a conventional ‘realist’ power struggle. It was not chieﬂy over territory or other material assets but over the desired normative order of the Arab system. Crucially, the typical currency in this struggle – in stark contrast to that between the Arab and non-Arab Middle East – was not military power but ideological appeal: it was legitimacy, derived from being perceived to observe the norms and play roles grounded in Arabism, which gave the power to affect outcomes.10 Nasser’s blessing was sought and his censure feared not because of his army but because he was seen as the guardian of Arab nationalist norms and could bolster or subvert the domestic legitimacy of other leaders. Before Nasser, Egypt had enjoyed no such advantage over its Arab rivals and after he died, Egypt’s trans-state power dissipated overnight; for while its material power had barely changed, his successor had none of the moral authority that had enabled him to make Egypt a pole of attraction for the populations of other states.11

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With Pan-Arabism on the ascendancy as the dominant discourse, a process of ‘outbidding’ began in which rival state leaders sought to mobilize mass support by escalating its standards. This led to demands for more militancy toward imperialist footholds in the region (in the Gulf States), for greater integral unity between Arab states (as embodied in the UAR and subsequent unity projects) and for greater militancy of behalf of the Palestine cause. Even if Arabism was manipulated to serve the interests of states in their competition more than to advance all-Arab interests, this competition tended, Barnett argues, to establish norms of behaviour that constrained all states. Even Nasser, the main architect of the Pan-Arab order, found that he, too, was bound by it, so long as he wished to retain his Pan-Arab leadership, even as the material costs of his Arab commitments (such as his support for the Yemen revolution) rose. Indeed, trans-state Pan-Arab movements were autonomous of Cairo; they used Nasser as much as he used them and they constantly pressured him into increasing his commitment to the common cause against his own better judgement. At a certain point, however, Pan-Arabism began an apparent decline or at least underwent a reinterpretation to the advantage of sovereignty, a ‘deconstruction’ driven, in Barnett’s view, by the zero-sum interactions of Arab leaders. First, the very trans-state vulnerability of most Arab states gave them an incentive to defend the rival norm of sovereignty (implying noninterference in their domestic affairs). As Walt rightly pointed out, even at the height of Pan-Arabism, balancing against Egypt’s use of Pan-Arabism to impose hegemony was pervasive within the Arab world, at the expense of co-operation for common interests.12 This was practised not just by the conservative monarchies but even by ostensibly Pan-Arab regimes in Syria and Iraq when Nasser posed a threat to them. However, the power of Pan-Arab norms could still be seen in the fact that ‘balancing’ against him took the form of propaganda wars over who was truest to Pan-Arabism and in the effective exclusion of certain non-Arab alliance partners which might have made sense in classic forms of balancing, notably alliances of the weaker Arab monarchies with Israel against stronger radical republics. A second explanation for Pan-Arab decline was that the ‘out-bidding’ stimulated by inter-Arab rivalry ‘entrapped’ Arab leaders in unrealistic or risky Pan-Arab commitments that were damaging to the interests of their states. This tendency climaxed in the provocative rhetoric by which Syria and Egypt blundered into the 1967 war with Israel. As Sela shows, once the costs of outbidding had become prohibitive for many individual states and once it became manifest that the actions of one Arab state affected them all, the individual states agreed to institutionalise the Arab summits system in which all could participate in a mutual deﬂation of the standards of Arabism. The most portentous outcome of this was the collective legitimization of a political settlement with Israel in return for its evacuation of the territories occupied in 1967. The growing acceptance of the view that Pan-Arab norms had to be deﬁned by an inter-state consensus in which the interests of the individual states would inevitably be prioritized shifted the normative balance

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toward sovereignty.13 Sadat’s separate peace with Israel was a further watershed in the prioritizing of sovereignty (the right to recover lost Egyptian territory) over Pan-Arab norms; Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait shattered what remained of a Pan-Arab normative order. In Barnett’s view, the zero-sum interactions of Arab leaders led to a norm dissensus that broke the moral power of Pan-Arabism over their conduct. Gradually, the disillusionment of the public with Arabism’s failures and costs also lessened popular constraints on the pursuit of state-centric policies. In essence, just as the Arab leaders constructed Pan-Arabism through their rivalries and rhetoric, so they also de-constructed it. While constructivist accounts give valuable insights into the micro-processes at the level of actor ‘agency’ where interactions and discourse shape normative change, they typically make only passing reference to costs and constraints deriving from underlying macro-level material structures. A full appreciation of why Arabism, an identity so thoroughly grounded in the stuff of nationhood (language, history), should have failed to sustain enduring normative power over Arab states is impossible without careful analysis of the material context within which Barnett’s ‘Arab dialogues’ took place. This context was a mix of (1) the global core-periphery hierarchy in which great powers penetrated the region and local states were made dependent; (2) the growing military insecurity of the regional states system; and (3) the increased material consolidation of the individual states. All of these factors were hostile to the institutionalisation of a Pan-Arab normative regime. Firstly, the imposition of the states system by the West set regional states on opposing foreign policy tangents that obstructed consolidation of a Pan-Arab order. On the one hand, the West entrenched protected client states dominated by traditional oligarchies and monarchies, social forces satisﬁed with the status quo which tenaciously protected the sovereignty of their individual states against Pan-Arab norms. On the other hand, where rising more plebeian and dissatisﬁed social forces challenged the status quo order, radical versions of Arabism became their ideological weapon; ex-plebeian elites newly arrived in power, especially in states insecure in their separate identity or with the potential for Pan-Arab leadership, used Pan-Arabism to legitimize their often-precarious rule at home. Their threats to the status quo regimes, issuing in what Kerr called the ‘Arab Cold War,’ 14 paralyzed inter-Arab co-operation. Then, once plebeian elites evolved into new state bourgeoisies, they also began to embrace the ideology of sovereignty. Identities were, as Marxist materialism holds, intimately connected with the social structural position of the social forces that advocated them and the rivalry between states with different socialcompositions partly determined the rise and fall of Arabism. Thus, the contest between Arabism and sovereignty was not exclusively played out at the level of inter-state discourse (as in Barnett’s account); a state’s adoption of Pan-Arabism (or not) was in good part a result of differential state formation and internal struggles over state power. Secondly, neglect of material constraints leads constructivists to exaggerate the agency possessed by ‘periphery’ powers such as the Arab states to construct

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their own regional order. While Nasser did mobilize popular identity to successfully defy the West in constructing a Pan-Arab order, this was only temporarily possible because of the unique bi-polar structure of world power. It was the existence of counter-vailing Soviet power that to some extent temporarily sheltered the Arab world from direct Western intervention against nationalist projects; the truth of this is dramatically revealed by the resumption of such intervention in the post bi-polar era. Thirdly, identity and norms, to endure, must be congruent with economic structures. Amin15 has shown how the region-wide trade interdependence fostered under extensive historic empires was associated with universalistic Arab-Islamic identities. However, with the West’s fragmentation of the regional market into state-bounded economies dependent on the export of primary products to the ‘core,’ the economic interests of dominant classes (exporting landlords, petro-shaikhs) were pulled out of correspondence with Arabism even as it was itself struggling to emerge as the dominant trans-state identity. Ironically, the efforts of Arab nationalist states to break their economic dependence only issued in protected inward-looking economies and demolished the potential Pan-Arab industrial bourgeoisie which might have had a stake in regional markets. Only about 10% (if oil is excluded) of MENA foreign trade is with other regional states and over 90% of Arab foreign investment takes place outside the Arab world.16 Thus, Pan-Arab norms corresponded to no Pan-Arab economy, no material infrastructure that could sustain them in the face of adversity. Fourth, a dynamic, beginning in the 1970s, whereby the anarchic structure of the regional states system shaped state-centric conceptions of state interests at the expense of Pan-Arabism is indisputable. The much increased insecurity issuing from Israel’s overwhelming post-1967 military superiority and the growing militarization of the Arab-Israeli conﬂict increasingly encouraged, as realism predicts, a resort by each Arab state to ‘self-help’ both in defending itself and seeking exit from war at the expense of shared Arab norms. Speciﬁcally, Egypt’s pursuit of a separate peace with Israel upset the ArabIsraeli power balance, heightening the insecurity of other Arab states, notably Syria, and encouraging them to similarly look to self-help through militarization and separate diplomacy. The Iran-Iraq war similarly stimulated the regional drive to self-help. In this new environment where survival depended more on raw military power than success in ideological competition, the world of constructivism was giving way to that of realism. Fifth, neo-utilitarian approaches agree that a stable transnational ‘regime,’ far from being self-enforcing (as constructivism implies), requires a ‘hegemon’ which, as the chief beneﬁciary of this order, is prepared to use its ideological hegemony and its material power to enforce regime norms. Arguably Egypt performed this role (although not very effectively) for the Pan-Arab order under Nasser but abandoned it under Sadat. Egypt has historically wavered between more Arab and Egypt-centric identities and, as constructivism would predict, these have indeed been associated with quite different conceptions of Egypt’s interests and different foreign policies. However, it was only as long as Pan-

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Arabism corresponded to elite views of Egypt’s interests that Pan-Arab identity dominated and Egypt played the Pan-Arab hegemon; once Sadat found it would serve his material interests in winning American aid and diplomatic help, he defected from the Arab consensus and fostered a rival Egypt-centric identity. To be sure, this was a contested, not a mechanical process and Coldwell’s17 constructivist account shows that much of Egypt’s attentive public continued to hold Arab or Islamic identities and perceived Egypt’s interest as inseparable from that of the Arab world. Nevertheless, for Egypt’s ruling elites, identity seemed to shift according to material costs and beneﬁts which, in turn, were a function of objective systemic constraints, much as neo-utilitarians would predict.18 And Egypt’s foreign policy transformation had far-reaching consequences: Pan-Arabism lost its hegemon and the same Egypt that had once enforced Pan-Arab standards pioneered their sacriﬁce to individual state interests under the banner of sovereignty. Finally, the material consequences of the 1970s oil boom had an ambivalent but mostly deleterious effect on Arabism. Oil differentiated the interests of the Arabs between rich and poor states. As the oil producers invested their petrodollars in Western banks and real estate, their interests were increasingly detached from the rest of the Arab world and attached to the core. Oil also ﬁnanced a decade of state building which made states’ populations less susceptible to trans-state ideological mobilization and consolidated the individual states as the sources of wealth and welfare on which citizens now depended, allowing parts of the formerly Pan-Arab middle classes to be co-opted by the individual states. As the Pan-Arab mobilization of the public declined, elites were freer to put state interests over Pan-Arab interests in their foreign policies. Thus, if sovereignty later displaced Pan-Arabism as the dominant ofﬁcial norm governing foreign policy, this was not simply because it won a contest of discourses among publics, which did not decisively embrace it. Rather it was because it better corresponded to the short-run material (security, wealth) interests of local elites who normally (not always) prioritized these over the identity they shared with each other and their publics, realities congruent with Marxist structuralism and realism. Compared to the pull of such elite interests, Arabism remained un-anchored in a material substructure. Yet, the persistence of Arab identity as well as its partial transmutation into an alternative supra-state identity, political Islam, remained, as constructivism would expect, a durable obstacle to the legitimization of elite interests. The embedding of the Arab states system in a supra-state community built an enduring tension into it, trapping foreign policy-makers between the logic of sovereignty, in which each regime, insecure both at home and amidst the anarchy of the regional states system, pursues its own interests and security, often through bandwagoning with the Western powers and against its Arab neighbors, and the counter-norm held by their publics which expect the individual states to act together for common interests, largely against Western and Israeli penetration and domination of the region.

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EXPLAINING FOREIGN POLICY: STATE-FORMATION, IDENTITY AND INTERESTS

While there is little doubt that structure matters, as the preceding account has indicated, it is complex and multi-layered – with both material aspects (the global core-periphery hierarchy, an anarchic and insecure regional states system), and ideational ones (indigenous trans-state identities and norms). Pressures emanating from these three analytically distinct levels by no means push states in identical directions and indeed supra-state norms largely prescribe behavior in opposition to the incentives emanating from the material structures which encapsulate the region. As such, precisely how a state responds to structural constraints cannot be understood or predicted without attention to ‘domestic’ factors, notably identity; however, it is by no means necessarily the case that states express in any straightforward way local identity in opposition to externally-imposed structures; rather the region’s regimes are afﬂicted with identity conﬂict and the speciﬁc role adopted by an individual state depends on its particular material process of state formation. Speciﬁcally, whether a state tends to embrace the externally imposed order or challenge it in the name of indigenous identity depends on whether the identities and interests of the dominant social forces incorporated in the process of state formation were largely satisﬁed or not by the material order. This set states on differential status-quo or revisionist tangents that have proven remarkably enduring. Only a combination of cascading systemic pressures and opportunities coinciding with an internal transformation in a regime’s dominant social forces (as perhaps in Sadat’s Egypt) would be likely to issue in a permanent re-orientation of a states’ original foreign policy tangent. This dynamic is nowhere better illustrated than in the case of Jordan and Syria. Starting out as severed parts of the same country, they might have been expected to follow similar (Arab nationalist) policies if identity mattered as much as constructivists believe. If realists were right, their similar systemic situations as small states subjected to powerful external pressures should have dictated similar bandwagoning with the great powers. But in fact, they have largely pursued opposing policies: Syria has been locked into nationalist resistance to the Western great powers and Israel while Jordan has bandwagoned with them. Only differential state formation explains this divergence. Syria and Jordan were initially set on these quite different and enduring tangents by the differential consequences for each of the imperial imposition of the states system: in Jordan the Hashemite regime was established under imperial patronage as a buffer state charged with containing popular mobilization on the basis of Arab/Palestinian identity;19 its very survival was dependent on regular budget subsidies from imperial patrons and threatened or actual Western intervention against Arab nationalist movements and their state patrons.20 In Syria, identity was frustrated by the same imperial fragmentation of historic Syria in which Jordan was founded (plus the ceding of a part of it to Zionist settlers), hence the post-independence regime emerged in a struggle against imperialism amidst profound dissatisfaction with the status quo. The

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1950s Arab nationalist political mobilization against the ancien regimes reinforced these original opposing tangents: in Jordan, the King turned back this challenge with Western help; in Syria, Arab nationalist forces led a revolution that brought a revisionist regime to power. Differential origins meant the incorporation into ruling regimes of differing social forces and drove differing patterns of state consolidation, with opposing foreign policy consequences.21 The Hashemite regime was established around a pre-nationalist tribal core; depending on Western protection and facing a majority Palestinian population whose loyalty was suspect, it did not invest in society incorporating political institutions and survived by demobilizing the nationalist opposition. The King relied on traditional techniques of governance, namely balancing above, and playing off the segments of, a divided society. Nor could Jordan create a mass conscription military since such an army would have posed a greater threat to the regime than external threats; hence, unable to deter Israel, the Hashemites sought to appease it. By contrast, because the Ba’th regime, rising out of anti-imperialist and antioligarchy revolution, could not depend on protective external intervention, it had to establish the institutions enabling it to mobilize a base among the nationalist middle class and peasantry against conservative and foreign opposition. While minority Alawis formed a patrimonial core of the state elite similar to Jordan’s tribalist core, the Alawis not only embraced Arab nationalism as a means of integration into the dominant identity (of the Sunni majority), but, as a minority, were especially constrained to demonstrate their ﬁdelity to it. The Ba’th’s dependence on its domestic social base and Arab nationalist legitimacy, locked it into chronic conﬂict with Israel, which in turn required it to develop signiﬁcant military capabilities and a mass conscription army enabling it to balance against its stronger neighbour. Both states depended on rent to consolidate themselves but Jordan received its from conservative Gulf and Western sources which expected it to play a status quo and buffer state role against radical forces; Syria, by contrast, received Soviet arms and Arab rent to sustain its resistance to Israel while its sources were too diversiﬁed to give its donors the leverage over its foreign policy that Jordan suffered. Hence differing identity prescribed differing dependencies which, in turn, reinforced the original divergent foreign policy tangents of the two states. In both states identity certainly mattered but in different ways shaped by patterns of state formation. In the Jordanian case, had popular identity shaped that of the state, Jordan’s foreign policy would have been very different. Indeed the association of breaks in Jordan’s traditional pro-Western policy with brief episodes of internal democratization is striking, notably in the 1950s when the elected Nabulsi government contested the king’s West-centric foreign policy. Had the Hashemites been overthrown in the Arab nationalist wave of the ﬁfties, it is likely that the successor regime’s identity, hence its interests, threat perceptions, and policies would have been similar to Syria’s. Jordan did face chronic Arab nationalist/Palestinian subversion but it was repeatedly sustained in its buffer state role by some combination of the Western economic

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dependence of the country and actual or threatened intervention by Israel or the West against threats to the monarchy – that is, by the structure of material power in which the state was embedded. By contrast, in Syria, Arab nationalist identity was institutionalized in (material) party-state structures and reinforced by the external enmities (with Israel and the US) generated in pursuit of nationalist foreign policies. Differential patterns of state consolidation entrenched elites with contrary identities. King Hussein, the product of British boarding schools, had internalized Western culture and political discourse:22 he conceived Jordan’s role as a force for stability, moderation against nationalist extremism in the Arab-Israeli conﬂict, and a bridge between the West and the Arab world; in the 1990s the dynasty fostered a ‘Jordan-ﬁrst’ identity compatible with its buffer state role.23 Haﬁz al-Asad, a product of the Syrian village, school and military, who seldom left Damascus, saw the world through undiluted Arab eyes; for him, Syria was the ‘beating heart of Arabism’ and bearer of a revolution against Western imperialism and Zionism. While for Syria Arab nationalism was a mission to be pursued, for Jordan it became a threat to be countered. Both states pursued ‘rational’ state interests, as neo-utilitarians expect, but, as constructivists argue, opposing identities meant that what was seen as the state interest in Damascus seldom corresponded to that in Amman and these contrary conceptions of interest were expressed in contrary foreign policy tangents. While Syria chieﬂy balanced against stronger powers seen as hostile to Arabism, Jordan chieﬂy bandwagoned with them. Thus, in the Cold War, Syria relied on the Soviets to balance American support for Israel and to achieve the military capability to deter Israeli power. Jordan tried, through a history of secret relations, to appease Israel and relied on a US security umbrella against regional threats. Despite their common historic origins, differential state formation put the two states on opposing sides on most regional issues and relations were more often bad than good. Structural pressures on the two regimes were not, of course, unimportant and could either divert them from or reinforce their original tangents. Thus, in Jordan, on those crisis occasions when the wider public was mobilized by suprastate (Arab/Islamic) identities (the normative structure), the regime, lacking instruments of control comparable to Syria’s, had to appease it, even when this went against the interests of the regime itself – as in joining the 1967 war against Israel – until public arousal subsided. In Syria’s case, the 1967 defeat forced a major alteration in its struggle with Israel: limiting its aims (to the recovery of the occupied territories), combined with a build-up of its capabilities, issued in a foreign policy more congruent with the material balance of power with its foe. Interestingly, Syria’s growing pragmatism and the threat Jordan perceived from Egypt’s separate peace with Israel actually drove a brief alignment between Damascus and Amman in the mid-seventies. Then, in the 1991 Gulf war, while public arousal drove Jordan to stand against the anti-Iraq coalition,24 Syria responded to the transformation of the global power balance toward uni-polarity by bandwagoning with the US (entering the anti-Iraq coalition and the Madrid peace process) – in order to deal with the greater challenge from Israel.

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Yet, over the longer term, in both cases the original foreign policy tangent was soon substantially restored, partly because regime social compositions (hence identities) remained relatively unchanged. But it was also because the external environment provided no incentives for permanent change: Jordan was traditionally on the winning side in the new world order while the US hegemon was unwilling to provide the satisfaction of Syria’s vital interests (return of the Golan) needed to bring it in. Hence while Jordan signed a separate peace with Israel in return for its restoration to US favor and supported the post-9/11 US war on terrorism and attack on Iraq, Syria failed to reach agreement with Israel, incurred increased US hostility, and was the only Arab state to overtly oppose the invasion of Iraq in 2003. CONCLUSIONS

Arguably, the main source of the enduring instability of the Middle East is the continuing contradiction between externally imposed material structures (the fragmenting states system, the region’s international dependency) and the region’s dominant Arab-Islamic supra-state identity. Stability requires bringing identity and material structures into congruence but this has proved elusive. Nasser’s initial partial success in forging a Pan-Arab normative order responded to deep-seated aspirations across the Arab world and demonstrated the power of a mobilized and aroused identity. But it depended on temporary material conditions – (bipolarity, Egyptian regional hegemony) and encountered intractable material obstacles (economic and political fragmentation of the Arab world, Israeli military superiority). When shifts in material power engendered by defeat in war and the oil boom undermined Egyptian hegemony while consolidating the material power of the individual states, Pan-Arab norms, un-anchored in a material sub-structure, proved unenforceable. Yet states did not react uniformly to this evolving systemic structure: they did so according to the material process of state formation. In particular, whether their foreign policies deﬁed or reﬂected trans-state popular identities depended on whether the state was dominated by social forces empowered from without that had a material stake in the regional order (the Hashemites) or that rose to power from below and saw their interests damaged by this order (Syrian Ba’thists). Today, however, as material constraints – Israeli and American power, economic dependence on the West – have narrowed room for the expression of supra-state identity in foreign policy, state elites have an incentive to foster state-centric identities that better suit the structural conditions to which they must adapt if they are to preserve their material interests (whether security or wealth). Because, as a recent collection of studies shows,25 identities in the region, as elsewhere, are multiple and ﬂuid, state elites, deploying the material structures of repression, socialization (schools, media), and co-optation (reinforced from without), can alter identities sufﬁciently to give them increased discretion in the conduct of foreign policies rooted in undiluted raison d’e´tat; yet, they are contested at every step by counter-elites seeking to mobilize

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support on the basis of Arabism and Islam, identities too deeply rooted in historic memory and social communication to be readily marginalized: hence, foreign policies seen to sacriﬁce identity and autonomy to appeasement of an increasingly intrusive US hegemon carry mounting legitimacy costs, obstructing the congruence between identity and interests needed for stability. The durability of the core-enforced regional state system afﬁrms the ultimate dominance of superior material power over identity; but the continuing illegitimacy and instability of the regional order bears witness to the power of resistance rooted in historic identity. NOTES 1. Stephen Walt, The Origin of Alliances (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1987). 2. Shibley Telhami and Michael Barnett (eds.), Identity and Foreign Policy in the Middle East (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 2002), explores the constructivism-realism debate as applied to the Middle East; Barry Buzan and Ole Waever, Regions and Powers: the Structure of International Security (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003) examines the Middle East as one of several distinct ‘regional security complexes.’ 3. This present chapter thus returns to some of the themes of Nonneman’s conceptual discussion in the ﬁrst two chapters of this book, which aim precisely (as does the conception of the volume overall) at helping to bridge the gap between IR and area expertise, and at exploring the extent to which the insights of different theoretical approaches might be brought to bear or integrated. (See in particular the ‘Introduction’, pp. 1 – 5, and Chapter 1. For his own take on the ‘regional’ Arab/Islamic environment of foreign policy-making in particular, see pp. 23–28). The intervening chapters have provided ample material to ﬂesh out this conceptual debate, and, I would argue, to corroborate the argument of the present chapter. 4. John Ruggie, ‘What makes the world hang together: neo-utilitarianism and the social constructivist challenge,’ in Peter Katzenstein, Robert Keohane and Stephen Krasner, Exploration and Contestation in the study of World Politics (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1999), pp. 215–245. 5. This ‘qualiﬁed constructivist’ view is perhaps closest to, or compatible with, the approach put forth in Nonneman’s framework chapter (chapter I), and followed up in his discussion of the three-fold environment of Middle Eastern foreign-policy making (chapter II). 6. Elements of the following arguments were ﬁrst developed in my book, International Politics of the Middle East (Manchester and London: Manchester University Press, 2003). 7. Gregory Gause ‘Sovereignty, statecraft and stability in the Middle East,’ Journal of International Affairs, Vol. 45 (1992), no. 2, pp. 441–67; Mohammed Ayoob, The Third World Security Predicament (Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 1995), pp. 7, 47–70. 8 While the analysis which follows is consistent with the hypotheses on the determinants of Middle East (and other) states’ foreign policy advanced by Nonneman in Chapters I and II (summarised on pp. 8–12) – in particular with his incorporation of the ideational factor – it takes a number of further analytical steps to suggest how one might move to an understanding that integrates the ‘material’ and the ‘identity’ factor more explicitly and dynamically. 9. Michael Barnett, Dialogues in Arab Politics: Negotiations in Regional Order (New York: Columbia University Press, 1998), pp. 6, 28, 40. 10. Paul Noble, ‘The Arab system: pressures, constraints, and opportunities,’ in Bahgat Korany and Ali E. Hillal Dessouki (eds.), The Foreign Policies of Arab States: the Challenge of Change (Boulder: Westview Press, 1991), p. 61; Barnett, Dialogues in Arab Politics, pp. 2, 6, 16. 11. Michael Hudson (ed.), Middle East Dilemmas: The Politics and Economics of Arab Integration, (London/New York: I. B. Tauris, 1999), p. 86. 12. Walt, The Origin of Alliances. 13. Sela, Avraham, The End of the Arab-Israeli Conﬂict: Middle East Politics and the Quest for Regional Order (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1998), pp. 3–8; Barnett, Dialogues in Arab Politics, pp. 49–53. 14. Malcolm Kerr, The Arab Cold War: Jamal Abd al-Nasir and his Rivals, 1958–1970 (London: Oxford University Press, 1971). 15. Samir Amin, The Arab Nation: Nationalism and Class Struggles (London: Zed Press, 1978).

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16. Alan Richards and John Waterbury, A Political Economy of the Middle East (Boulder: Westview Press, 1996), pp. 366–67. 17. Dominic Coldwell, ‘Egypt’s Autumn of Fury: the Construction of Opposition to the EgyptianIsraeli Peace Process,’ Oxford: St. Anthony’s College Masters Thesis, 2003. 18. Ibrahim Karawan, ‘Identity and Foreign Policy: the Case of Egypt,’ in Telhami and Barnett, Identity and Foreign Policy, pp. 155–168. 19. Kamal Salibi, The Modern History of Jordan (London & New York: I.B. Tauris, 1998), pp. 86– 95. 20. Laurie Brand, Jordan’s Inter-Arab Relations: The Political Economy of Alliance Making, (New York: Columbia University Press, 1995). 21. Basil Salloukh, ‘Organizing Politics in the Arab World: State-Society Relations and Foreign Policy Choices in Jordan and Syria,’ Ph.D thesis, McGill University, 1999. 22. Andrew Shyrock , ‘Dynastic modernism and its contradictions: testing the limits of pluralism, tribalism and King Hussein’s example in Hashemite Jordan,’ Arab Studies Quarterly, Vol. 22, no. 3, Summer 2000, pp. 60–61. 23. Marc Lynch, State interests and public spheres: the international politics of Jordan’s identity, (New York: Columbia University press, 1999). 24. Richard Harknett and Jeffrey A. VanDenBerg, ‘Alignment Theory and inter-related threats: Jordan and the Persian Gulf Crisis,’ Security Studies, Vol. 6, no.3 (Spring 1997), pp. 112–53. 25. Telhami and Barnett, Identity and Foreign Policy.

Small States’ Diplomacy in the Age of Globalization: An Omani Perspective BADR BIN HAMAD AL BU SAID

Editor’s note: This is the edited text of a lecture delivered to the Royal Institute for International Affairs, Brussels, September 30, 2003, on the occasion of the ﬁrst formal bilateral Omani-Belgian negotiations. The lecture was originally unconnected to the project. It has not subsequently been adjusted to take account of the other contributions. Rather, the realization, at the time of its delivery in Brussels, of the striking parallels with – and illustration of – some of the analysis in the present volume, and the light shed on Omani foreign-policy thinking in particular, led to the editor’s request for it to be included. Apart from minor editing, it was decided to preserve the original lecture format, so that it could also serve as a primary source document. May I begin by thanking you for the invitation to speak to you today. It gives me great pleasure to address such a distinguished gathering. I hope my visit and this gathering will make a further positive contribution to the excellent and developing relations between Belgium and Oman, to our mutual understanding and to our capacity to act together in support of our shared values and objectives. I have chosen to speak on the subject of small states and their diplomacy in this age of globalization because it seemed to me, ﬁrst of all, that this might be a topic on which you, as much as I, might have interesting and constructive thoughts to offer. It seems to me that Belgium’s approach to the challenges and opportunities facing small states has been very successful, and that an exchange of experiences on this subject would be highly beneﬁcial, at least for me. I shall, of course, be speaking from a speciﬁc personal Omani perspective and will do my best to generalize or abstract from our particular experience, in the hope of offering some points of contact or comparison that might illuminate our respective situations or, at least, provoke some thought and discussion. There are several conceptual frameworks generally used by academic specialists in their attempts to understand the foreign policy or diplomacy of small states. I have to say I like the idea that there are people out there trying to explain what we are doing, attempting, it seems, to work out our motives and account for our actions. Perhaps we smaller states are a little mysterious. In any

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case, it seems that our foreign policies are often discussed in terms either of relations of ‘dependency’, or relations between ‘core’ and ‘periphery’. Now, it will be immediately clear to all of you that such frameworks are at best only partially adequate as the basis for understanding what we do. For a start, I doubt very much that anyone sitting here in Brussels – a multilingual and multicultural city, at the very heart of one of the most densely populated and economically dynamic regions of the world, and the location for the headquarters of perhaps the most successful interstate collaboration in the world – feels themselves to be at the periphery. Indeed, I would imagine that you feel yourself to be pretty much the deﬁnition of ‘core’. While Oman cannot make such incontrovertible claims to be at the ‘core’, we certainly do not feel as though we are at the ‘periphery’. Nor are we really ‘dependent’. Of course I am not suggesting that we are not tied into a whole set of relations of mutuality and interdependency and that in many cases these relations involve inequalities of power and inﬂuence. But I am suggesting that dependency is not an appropriate term to describe this situation. Indeed, as I hope I will show in a moment, there are a number of ways in which small states can make decisive contributions to international relations and in which we can exercise considerable freedom of action: that is to say – independence. So, we are neither peripheral, nor are we wholly dependent. May we take that for the moment as read, as the working assumption upon which to base our exploration of how we might face the speciﬁc challenges and opportunities that arise? Good. Because we also need to recognize that, however much we may feel we are in control of our own destinies, we are of course operating in an external environment that is largely shaped by others. In some cases our external environment might be shaped by the actions and indeed the conﬂicts of larger and more powerful neighbors or by basic geo-strategic realities over which we can exercise little or no choice. This is very obvious in Oman’s case, where the basic geo-strategic reality of our position at the Straits of Hormuz ties us immediately into large global structures involving industrialized economic growth and energy demand, as well as maritime security. It is equally obvious that our external environment is strongly shaped both by a historic conﬂict between Arab states and Israel and by the projection of American power and interests in our region. While these factors do not determine our actions, they most certainly deﬁne the ﬁeld within which we can take action. To put this abstract idea into concrete terms: the presence of American power in the Gulf region does not force Oman to follow the American line and adopt a hostile stance towards Iran (for example). But it does mean that we have to conduct our relations with Iran in a context framed (to some extent) by American hostility to Iran, and by Iran’s complex responses to that hostility. We make our own choices: in this case we continue to develop and enhance our relations with Iran, at least in part in order that we might exercise some reverse inﬂuence as regard the United States, and encourage some moderation of the underlying hostility and suspicion. This example is perhaps typical of a particular feature of Omani foreign policy, in which we try to make use of our intermediate position

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between larger powers to reduce the potential for conﬂict in our immediate neighborhood. To return from this particular example to the more general question of the foreign policy determinants of small states, I think we can see fairly clearly that it is possible for a small state to carve out for itself a degree of relative autonomy, not just from one dominant regional or neighboring power, but from two competing and antagonistic forces. We genuinely have the potential to be ‘neither Washington nor Tehran’ – to adapt an old formula. So, we can create space for our own actions. And furthermore, and this seems to me to be crucial, it is precisely in that space that we – that is to say, small states – may be able to act in ways that others cannot. In the space between the big states, the major powers, both regional and global, we have room for maneuver that the big states themselves do not enjoy. We can operate without attracting too much attention, conduct diplomacy discreetly and quietly. Here the example of Norway comes to mind. Norway’s contribution to the Middle East Peace Process in the ﬁrst half of the 1990s was possible because no one was looking at Norway. Norway could act as a facilitator in a way that the United States couldn’t, during a delicate phase of Palestinian–Israeli rapprochement, because as a small nation it did not represent either a challenge to the interests of the core parties themselves or a highly public diplomatic arena under constant media scrutiny like Washington. To a certain extent, Oman’s own engagement with the Peace Process at that time, including our moves towards relations with Israel and Prime Minister Rabin’s visit to Oman, was possible because we are a small nation not always exposed to the public gaze. In order to maximize our capacity for action small states need to identify those features of the external environment – shaped as it is by other, larger players – that are likely to work most effectively to our advantage. I expect that some of the features that I am going to identify as being in Oman’s interests may well strike a chord with you and that we will ﬁnd a number of general, global issues upon which we can both agree as small states, that we can pursue shared objectives. I would like to identify, as brieﬂy as I can, four speciﬁc areas in which I think it is important that small states share their experience and work together. I say work together because one key factor, certainly for us, is that as a small nation with limited resources we simply do not have enough diplomats to do everything on our own. 1.

The ﬁrst of these is what I call ‘good neighbor policies’. Underlying Omani foreign policy for over three decades now has been the principle that we should seek always to maintain and enhance relations with immediate neighbors. This is, of course, a principle enhanced by a fair degree of pragmatism: it would be foolish recklessly to antagonize your neighbors under any circumstances and certainly when they are bigger and more powerful than you. But it is also a principle and one that we apply without, for instance, any regard for passing ideological or political differences. It is a matter of principle for us that our neighbors, because they are our neighbors, deserve our particular respect and consideration, and that such

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respect and consideration contributes to the development of a harmonious regional environment which is of beneﬁt to all parties. It is also a principle which we are developing over time, in keeping with the processes of globalization, which redraw the geographical maps to some extent, creating new proximities, new neighborhoods. In our case this is evident in the development of our relations with India, for example, as the Indian Ocean region becomes a neighborhood in which we identify ourselves, and as our historic relations with India, based on trade and commerce, become increasingly valuable to both parties. 2. The second, and closely related, is support for regional associations. Belgium of course needs no lessons from anyone on the value of taking a leading role in regional associations. Although our cases are very different and comparisons between, say, the GCC and the EU are often more misleading than illuminating, I think we share a perspective here. Oman has consistently sought to enhance the integration of the GCC, supporting moves towards customs and eventually monetary union as well as advocating greater and more effective security and military coordination. I do not need to rehearse here the many reasons why such a policy is worth pursuing. I should perhaps mention that counter arguments do exist and that there are some countries who seek a different kind of relationship to their region, both in economic terms and in terms of collective security. Such different paths have their appeal and it is easy enough to understand, for instance, why countries such as Switzerland might wish to remain outside such structures. But you do need to be very wealthy to do so, so much so that even the traditionally neutral Scandinavian states seem to me, at least in the long term, to be destined for greater rather than less integration with their European neighbors and partners. 3. The third area – and one which I would like particularly to emphasize here, because I think it is an area in which enhanced cooperation between small states could be achieved – is international respect for the rule of law. I will put the basic proposition as simply as possible. In a world of complex interdependency, the more the system is governed by rules rather than by force the better it will be – for us and for everyone. The rule of law operates as a constraint on the actions of the powerful, through international institutions such as the United Nations. For small states, then, the strengthening of the rule of law in the space of international relations is intimately connected to the practice of multilateralism, so much so that I think it is helpful to think of the two ideas side by side because that way we begin to develop more strongly the idea that certain kinds of action are simply not legal unless they carry some minimal degree of multilateral agreement. I think this is one of the paths leading from the fork in the road that Koﬁ Annan spoke of in his address to the United Nations General Assembly last week and I think we need to decide deﬁnitively in favor of this path. The implications of such a decision and its wholehearted implementation by the international community have substantial implications in ﬁelds as diverse as arms control, sovereignty, economic relations

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(especially trade) and human rights. Not only do we see major advantages to be gained from the extension of rule-based systems and general international respect for such systems, but we also recognize an important task ahead in making sure that we establish rules that do not simply legitimize the interests of the powerful. I am sure you will not fail to see the signiﬁcance of such efforts in relation, for instance, to the rules governing global trade and the conduct of efforts to secure non-proliferation in the ﬁeld of weapons of mass destruction. The fourth area is one that is perhaps less widely discussed and that, to the specialists in international relations, may seem rather strange or out of place. I have suggested earlier that there may be some areas in which smaller states will have a distinctive contribution to make. One of those areas is what we might broadly term ‘ethics’. Now I am not going to claim that there is any general rule according to which ‘small is ethical’, or that our larger and more powerful neighbors and allies are lacking in ethical considerations. However, I do think that in considerations of supposedly universal values, the kind of values that might underpin, for example, a rulebased system of international law, we may have something particular to contribute. Not, as I say, because we are any better or more ethically inclined than anyone else, but simply because the particularities of our experience make available to the wider international community a certain diversity of perspective. That sounds very abstract. Let me try and be concrete and speciﬁc. What I mean is that a small nation may have a very particular historical experience, not shared by the ‘Great Powers’ of our world, which might shed a different light on ethical and legal problems, which might, for example, offer a new approach to the management of international situations. I will leave it to you to think about what particular Belgian realities might mean you have a distinctive contribution to make, while talking for a moment about something that is part of the Omani experience that might not otherwise be available to the wider international community. As you know many Omanis are adherents of the Ibadhi tradition of Islam, a distinctive strand in the Muslim community with a strong tradition of tolerance, in which the practice of shura – consultative participation – is a central feature. The tradition of shura itself may contain within it ideas, ways of resolving problems, approaches to debate, that could be useful more widely. This means that the particularity of our practice and way of thinking about and doing things is something we need to hold onto, not because it’s something special of our own, but because it constitutes a potential and living contribution to the sum total of human cultural possibilities. The preservation of the local and speciﬁc, because of its wider value to humanity as a whole and not simply because it is picturesque or quaint, seems to me to be a project particularly appropriate for small states, especially in the context of contemporary globalization.

And it is on the issue of globalization that I would like to close. I have not perhaps referred to it a great deal, at least explicitly, but I think you will

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understand the way in which it provides a background or context in which all my thinking aloud here today has been shaped. In a globalized world it simply does not make sense to think about dependency as an alternative condition to ‘independence’. We are all to some degree interdependent and within those relations power and resources are distributed unevenly. But the extent and nature of the connections are such that only those who choose to insist upon their ‘dependency’, or alternatively their complete ‘independence’, are likely to be wholly dependent. That is, those who complain that globalization is a process that strips them of all power and opportunity are likely to be self-fulﬁlling prophets because they will fail to make use of whatever space for action they possess. At the same time those who want to close themselves off from global interdependency are most unlikely to remain independent for long (at least in any meaningful way). Globalization also puts into question the relationship between periphery and core. It is perhaps too early to start evaluating the impact of changes in how we understand the organization of our global space. But even so it seems to me very clear that the ﬂuidity and multiplicity that characterizes contemporary economic relations is going to break down any stable sense of core and periphery. The moment I can do business with American companies via operation centers in India while sitting here in Brussels, it seems to me that the spatial model of core and periphery is beginning to look out of date. In building new models for understanding relations between states both large and small, a complex set of interactions between external and internal factors, regions and global stages, contexts and circumstances needs to be taken into account. There is a sense in which smaller states like ours may have been living an early version of this reality slightly longer than some of the larger states and that, as a result, the kinds of diplomacy and foreign policies we have been developing for some time will increasingly be taken up by others. I have tried today to blend some of my own experiences and perceptions with some of the ideas used by specialists in international relations theory. I am no academic theorist and I make no special claim to expertise in international relations as a discipline. But I hope these reﬂections, this attempt by a professional amateur, if you like, to make some sense of changing realities and the theories we use to account for them will at the very least provoke a few thoughts and perhaps even, if you like, some questions and debate.

INDEX

Aarts, P.: and Janssen, D. 4 Al-Alkim, H.H. 157, 161 al-Asad, B. 85–97, 107; as a modernizer 86–7 al-Asad, H. 81, 84–6, 105 Al-Jazeera 16, 20, 157, 163 al-Naimi, A. 237 al-Sadat, A. 249, 250 al-Said, N. 129 Alawite dynasty: Morocco 46 Alfonzo, J.P. 137 Ali, M. 64–6 Aliboni, R. 29 Aoun, Gen.M. 119 Arab League 147, 148, 159 Arab Maghreb Union (AMU) 27, 51, 61 Arab–Israeli conﬂict 115, 154, 167–8; and Europe 69–75 asymmetrical interdependence 16 Atatu¨rk, M.Kemal (1881–1938) 209–13 Atlantic Charter 44 Austria 115 Ayatollah Khomeini 149, 174, 177–9 Ayoob, M. 9 Aziz, T. 91 Aznar, J-M. 56 Baghdad Pact (1955) 67, 124, 131; Iraqi withdrawal 124, 135 Bahrain 22, 145, 150, 153; elections 20 Baker, J. 45 Balfour Declaration (1917) 65 Barcelona Process 22, 26, 34, 52, 165; as one-sided European vision 75–7 Barnett, M. 11, 248 Batatu, H. 124 Ba’thism 141, 245, 252; Iraq 125 Bazargan, M. 179 Ben Barka, M. 56, 57

Benaissa, M. 49 Bonaparte, N. 64 Brown, L.C. 82 Bush, G.W. 29, 227 Buzan, B.: and Waever, O. 243 Camp David Accords 55 Central Treaty Organization (CENTO) 67 Chirac, J. 56 Churchill, Sir W. 44 Clapham, C. 15 climate change politics: diverging positions 226–9; European Climate Change Program (ECCP) 228; fuel cell technology 237; and George W. Bush 227; global warming 225; Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 232; Kyoto Protocol 227; Middle Eastern oil exporting countries 229–39; oil exporting countries 223–42; Saudi Arabia and Iran compared 233–8; understanding 224–6 Clinton, B. 56, 59, 93 Cold War 13, 15, 28, 56, 81 Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) 52 constructivism 2, 7 Damascus Declaration (1992) 155, 159 Damis, J. 47 David, S.: omnibalancing 13, 15, 44 Dayan, M. 58 Delors, J. 54 democratisation 20–1 dependencia 8, 10 Dessouki, A.: and Korany, B. 6, 11 developing states: foreign policy 9–10

264 dimuqratiyya 20 drought: Iran 235 Dulles, A. (CIA) 130 Egypt 8, 19, 20, 105, 155; 1952 revolution 65; Tripartite Aggression (1956) 64, 67 Egyptian-European relations 64–80; Arab-Israeli conﬂict 66; Barcelona Process 75–7; European Union (EU) Partnership Agreement 77–8; future 77–8; historical background 66–9; key inﬂuencing factors 64–6; Middle East political settlement 73–5; and United States of America (USA) 66, 68, 72; and the Yom Kippur War (1973) 68–73 Ehteshami, A.: and Hinnebusch, R. 6, 11, 15 Eisenhower, D. 57, 67; Eisenhower Doctrine (1957) 67 Euro-Arab Dialogue 32–3, 69–73; end 70–3 Euro-Mediterranean Partnership (EMP) 22, 34–7, 52, 81; Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) 165; Lebanon 118–19; Morocco 52; and Syria 95–7 Europe: and the Arab–Israeli conﬂict 69–75; Mediterranean policy 32; relations with Lebanon 114–19; relationship with Syria 94–7 European Climate Change Program (ECCP) 228 European Energy Charter 38 Evren, K. 203 Fihri, T.F. 49 Foreign Policy Analysis (FPA) 1, 2, 7, 11 France 53, 114, 115, 116, 162 fuel cell technology 237 Germany 129 Gilpin, R. 9 Golan Heights 84–5, 89

INDEX

Great Britain 14, 65, 114, 115, 124; and recognition of Kuwait 139–40 Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) 24, 25, 27, 37, 38, 180; Barcelona Process 165; birth 145; challenges to rentier state 151–4; Charter 149; Damascus Declaration (1992) 155, 159; and democracy 153; domestic politics 148–54; European trade 165–7; European Union (EU) Troika recommendations 166–7; evolution of civil society 151–4; identity and heritage 149; impact of 1970’s oil revolution 150–4; impact of September 11th on reform process 153; internal reforms 152– 3; Joint Defense Council 155; liberalization 153; media 157; military expenditure 152; oil production 151–2; Peninsula Shield Force 155; perception of Saudi hegemony 156; population growth 152; reasons for birth 155; relations with European Union (EU) 164–8; relations with United States of America (USA) 161–4; self–reliance 154–6 Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) foreign policy 145–73; accommodative diplomacy 158–9; Arab-Israeli dimension 160–1; collective policy-making 159–60; Consultative Commission 148; decision making and style 156–8; Gulf security and defence 154–6; impact of Gulf War (1990–1) 162; institutional framework 146–8; Iraq War (2003) 163–4; and oil production 152; patterns 158–60; public opinion 157; Secretariat–General 147–8; survival instinct 159; and United States policy 159 Gulf War (1990–1) 28, 154, 155 Halliday, F. 82

INDEX

Hariri, R. 110, 111 Hashemite regime: Jordan 251–2 Helsinki Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (1975) 65 Hinnebusch, R. 2, 5, 13, 14, 21, 24; and Ehteshami, A. 6, 11, 15 Hizbollah 25, 90, 105, 106, 108, 111, 113, 120 Holsti, O.R. 10 Hussein, Q. 92 Hussein, S. 28–9, 91–2, 123, 245 Ibrahim Kubbah 130 Ikenberry, J. 13 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 232 International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA): and Iran 190–1 International Energy Agency (IEA) 229 International Relations (IR) 2, 11, 224; rationalism 224; reﬂectivism 224 Iran: Comprehensive Dialogue and Europe 187, 193; Critical Dialogue and Europe 185, 186; drought 235; fall of the Shah 8; ﬁrst ﬁve-year economic plan (1989) 180–1; institutions of Islamic Republic 178; parliamentary political dynamics 20; pollution 235; Salman Rushdie fatwah 184–7 Iranian foreign policy 174–96; assessment of relations with European Union 188–92; and Ayatollah Khomeini 177–9; European trade 184, 186, 187; genesis of post-revolutionary policy 175–7; Hashemi Rafsanjani 180–2, 184, 185, 186, 188; nuclear program tension 190–2; post-Khomeini policy (1989–97) 180–1; priorities (1979–89) 177–80; reform movement and Mohammad Khatami (1997–2003) 182, 186–8, 189; relations with European Union

265 (1989–97) 184–6; relations with European Union (1997–) 186–94; relations with European Union (1997–89) 183–4; relations with United States of America (USA) 179, 181, 185; Soviet Union 181; trade with European Union 187 Iraq 8, 22; Ba’thists 125; claim on Kuwait 123, 139–41; Coup d’Etat (1958) 124–6; growth of Communist party 131–2; inter-Arab rivalry 132–6; Iraq Petroleum Company (IPC) 139–41; Oil Companies 126–32; Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) 136–9; relations with Syria 91–2 Iraq Petroleum Company (IPC) 129, 130, 137, 139–41; collapse of negotiations with government 139–41 Iraq War (2003) 16; and Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) 163–4 Iraqi foreign policy: American hostage crisis (1979) 178, 179 Iraqi foreign policy (1958–63) 123–44; coup d’etat (July 1958) 124–6; Fertile Crescent scheme 133; and Great Britain 134; Iraqi Communist party 131–2; regional environment 132–6; relations with Egypt 133–5; relations with Iran 135–6; relations with Syria 133–4 Israel 89–90, 108, 111; nuclear capabilities 24 Israeli-Jordanian peace settlement (1993) 105 Isreal: growing strategic ambitions 154 Italy 186 Janssen, D. and Aarts, P. 4 Joffe´, G. 27 Jordan 20, 22, 45; Hashemite regime 251–2; state formation 251–4

266 Kemalism: Turkey 209–13 Keohane, R. 9 Khatami, M. 174, 177, 182, 186–8, 189, 189–91 King Faysal 150 King Hassan II (Morocco) 46–9, 55, 57, 60 King Hussein of Jordan 135, 253 King Juan Carlos (Spain) 56 King Mohammed VI (Morocco) 54, 55, 59 Korany, B.: and Dessouki, A. 6, 11 Krauthammer, C. 59 Kubbah, I. 130–1 Kurds: Turkey 203 Kuwait 22, 145, 153, 162; Arab League admission 139; British recognition as sovereign state 139; Iraqi claim 139–41; parliamentary politics 20 Kyoto Protocol 227; implementation 230–1; vulnerability of OPEC countries 231–3; vulnerability of Saudi Arabia and Iran compared 233–8 Lahoud, E. 109 Larramendi, M.H.: and Lopez Garcia, B. 58 Le Monde 129 Lebanese foreign policy 100–22; consensus for ultimate Syrian withdrawal 113–14; determinants 101–14; Europe 114–19; historical context 101–3; key objectives 108–9; limited European inﬂuence 114–15; primacy of economic interests 110–12, 120; residuum of authentic independent 107–14; susceptibility to penetration by foreign actors 113; Syrian inﬂuence 103–7, 108, 109, 110; Treaty of Brotherhood Cooperation and Coordination (1991) 104, 109, 116; unpopularity of Syrian alignment 109–10; weakness of state 109

INDEX

Lebanon: Euro-Mediterranean Partnership (EMP) 118–19; European criticism of 1992 elections 116; European expatriate communities 119; European involvement (1860–1990) 115–16; European involvement (1990–) 117–19; European response to Syrian penetration (1990–) 116–17, 120; Muslim support for Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) 103; National Pact (1943) 101, 102; pressure for Syrian withdrawal 111; South Lebanon conﬂict 108–9, 111; Ta’if Accord 109, 116 Lenczowski, G. 213 liberalisation 20–3, 47 Libya 22 Loos, F. 61 Lopez Garcia, B.: and Larramendi, M.H. 58 Maddy-Weitzman, B. 55 Madrid Peace Conference (1991) 74 managed multi-dependence 16 Mediterranean system 11 Mercosur 61 Meteorological and Environmental Protection Agency (MEPA): Saudi Arabia 236 Middle East: democratisation 20–1; international politics 243–56; liberalisation 20–3; regional identity and systemic structure 243–56; state formation and structure 251–4; state system 244–5 Middle East and North Africa (MENA) 1; autonomy 14–17; determinants 10–14; developing states 9–10; domestic environment 3, 11–12, 19–23; Euro-Arab Dialogue 32–3, 69–72; Europe 4, 11, 29–39; foreign policy 3, 6–18, 23–4; Gulf 24–6; immediate

INDEX

environment 27–8; international environment 3, 12, 28–9; Maghreb(W.Arab World) 26–7; Mashreq(E.Arab World) 26; model of international politics 7–9; multi-bilateral Mediterranean policies 33–7; regional environment 3, 12, 23–8; three environments 19–42 Monar, J. 37 Moore, B. 177 Moroccan foreign policy 43–63; Alawite dynasty 46; analytical framework 43–5; domestic environment 45–50; Europe 51–4; France 53; impact of Cold War 59; internal opposition to Gulf War (1990–1) 49; international environment 56–61; King Hassan II 46–9; Maghreb 50–1; Mashreq 54–6; regional environment 50–6; relations with Israel 55, 58; Spain 53–4; United States of America (USA) 45, 57, 58; W.Sahara issue 44, 47, 48, 49, 50, 59 Mubarak, H. 78 Murphy, E.C. 21 Naff, T. 201 Nasser, G.A. 83, 123, 124, 133, 134, 138, 249 neo-realism 7 Netanyahu, B. 106 Nonneman, G. 153, 159, 226, 243; Saudi Arabian and Iranian oil policy 233 North Atlantic Treaty Association (NATO) 197, 214, 217 Norway 187; Middle Eastern diplomacy 259 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) 191 Nuri al-said 129 oil exporting countries: and climate change politics 223–42

267 Oman 145, 155; foreign policy 257–62; relations with Belgium 257–8 omnibalancing 13, 15, 20, 47, 153, 160 Organization of African Unity (OAU) 43, 50 Organization of the Arab Oil Exporting Countries (OAPEC) 160 Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC) 148 Organization of the Oil Exporting Countries (OPEC) 160 Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries: Kyoto Protocol 230–3; vulnerability to Kyoto policies 231–3 Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) 123; birth 123, 136–9; climate change politics 228–39; secret of success 137–8 Oslo Agreement (1993) 74 Ottoman Empire 14, 199–205, 218 Palestine 25 Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) 161 Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) 72; and Syria 91 Pan-Arabism: rise and fall 245–51 Paris Congress (1856) 201 Patten, C. 187 Peres, S. 58, 106 political Islam 154 pollution: Iran 235 Powell, C. 93, 192 Prodi, R. 96 Prussia 115 Qadhaﬁ, M. 51, 54 Qasim, A. 4; Fertile Crescent scheme 133; Iraqi foreign policy (1958–63) 123–44; and Kuwait 139–41; Oil Companies 126–32; role in OPEC establishment 123

268 Qatar 22, 145, 153, 154, 160, 162; new constitution 20; unpopular Iraq War cooperation 20 Rabin, Y. 89, 105 Rafsanjani, H. 174, 177, 180–2, 184, 185, 186, 188 Reagan, R. 57 realism 10, 12 rentierism 21 Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies 2 Rohani, H. 191 Rohani, R. 191 Roosevelt, D. 44 Rosenau, J. 13, 148, 205 Rushdie, S. 184–7 Russia 115 Sadat, A. 8, 58, 66, 73 Saharan Arab Democratic Republic (SADR) 50 Satanic Verses (Rushdie) 184 Saudi Arabia 8, 105, 145, 148, 149, 164; Meteorological and Environmental Protection Agency (MEPA) 236; military expenditure 152; oil production 156 Schumann Document 68 Sharon, A. 35 Siverson, R.: and Starr, H. 9 Skocpol, T. 176 small states: ethics 261; foreign policy 257–62; globalization 261 Snyder, J. 9 Solana, J. 35 Soviet Union 131, 181; relations with Turkey 205, 207, 213–16 Spain 53–4 Standard Oil 136, 137 Starr, H.: and Siverson, R. 9 state formation and structure: Jordan and Syria 251–4; Middle East 251–4 Suez Canal 67 Suez Crisis (1956) 57, 116

INDEX

Syria 155, 245; Bashar al-Asad as a modernizer 86–7; Ba’thist coup (1963) 83; failure of Arab-Israeli peace negotiations 85–6; and Israeli occupation of Golan Heights 84–5, 89, 105; lack of European pressure regarding Lebanon policy 116–17; protection of dominant role in Lebanon 112; relations with United States of America (USA) 93–4; state formation 251–4; turn to socialism 84; United States pressure 121 Syrian foreign policy 81–99; and Bahar al-Asad 87–97; determinants of change and leadership succession 85–9; dissolution of Soviet Union 105; economic pressures for globalisation 87–8; EuroMediterranean Partnership (EMP) 95–7; Europe 94–7; Gulf War support 105; Iraq 91–2; Israel 89–90; mending regional fences 90–1; obstacles to change 88–9; Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) 91; state formation 83–5; Treaty of Brotherhood Cooperation and Coordination (1991) 104, 109, 116; war and state consolidation 84–5 Tonini, A. 4 Treaty of Lausanne (1923) 202 Treaty of Rome (1957) 77 Troutbeck, Sir J. 124 Tunisia 20, 21 Turkey: birth of nation-state 202; European vocation 199–222; insecurity complex 197; Kurds 203; millets (religious communities) 203; national homogeneity 211; nationalism 210–11; Ottoman Empire 199–205, 218; relations with Greece 206, 219; Republicanism 209–10; Secularism 210; Treaty of Friendship and Neutrality 205, 207

269

INDEX

Turkish foreign policy 197–222; Aegean islands 206–7; ambiguous position in European security structure 216–17; conjunctural variables 198; contemporary 216–19; geopolitics 205–9; historical context of policy formulation 199–205; ideology and Kemalism 209–13; post-Cold War 213–16; relations with Europe 216–19; relations with Soviet Union 205, 207, 213–16; structural variables 198; Treaty of Lausanne (1923) 202 unemployment 20 Union Nationales des Forces Populaire (UNFP) 47, 48, 57 Union Socialiste des Forces Populaire (USFP) 48, 56 United Arab Emirates (UAE) 22, 23, 145, 154 United Arab Republic (UAR) 133, 134 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) 223, 226

United States of America (USA) 14, 28–9; relations with Egypt 66; relations with Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) 161–4; relations with Iran 181; relations with Israel 24; relations with Syria 93–4, 121; and Turkey 217 Vance, C. 72 Waever, O.: and Buzan, B. 243 Waltz, K. 7 Weisband, E. 212 Wendt, A. 7 World Trade Organization (WTO) 29, 61, 95 Wright, Sir M. 127 Yemen 22 Yilmaz, M. 197 Yom Kippur War (October 1973): Egyptian-European relations 69–73; Euro-Arab Dialogue 32