Middle East Midterm

Why does the USA buy foreign oil?

USA wants to keep oil prices stable so it doesn't get too high and hurt buyers, but not too low where it hurts producers

Is the Middle East a poltiical or Geographical Area?

Political

Why do foriegn countries get involved in Middle East politics?

• Strategic- Geopolitical and economic importance and conflicts quickly become international

• Threats of Warfare- Conventional (ME armies are relatively weak)), and terrorism

• Migration and Illegal Goods

• Oil- Political weapon

  • Economic resource

  • Global Stability

  • ME Oil Reserves are 50% of global oil

  • Western oil companies interest

Why is Terrorism Effective?

• The state is supposed to provide you security.

• Reaction of war is often necessary to maintain this view of security

• Message to it’s own people is more important to the state

Formatiion of the Middle East

• 1869- Suez Cancel Opens

• Term “Middle East” was popularized in 1902

• Oil was discovered in Iran in 1907

• Suez + oil made Me very important

What is a state?

• Territory

• People

• soveriegnty

  • One army in a state

• Government

• ME is more useful to the West as states

Ottoman Empire Structure

• Many centers of power

• Some territories with governance and some without

• Millet System

  • Ottomans are Sunni

  • Other religions could live there peacefully if they paid taxes and acknowledged Ottoman sovereignty

  • Accept the political dominance of Sunni, and you get protection

Fall of the Ottoman Empire

• Fight Russia and lose

• Russia says Muslim Russians are free to go to OTtoman, and Orthodox Ottoman can go to Russia

  • A majority of Ottomans were Orthodox, so they no longer need Millet protection

Formation of the Middle East (Before WW1)

• Top down because of colonialism

• Internal: Evolution over centruies of the political, social, and cultural structures of the region

• External

  • Europe was a friend

  • Russia was a threat

Formation of the Middle East (During WW1)

• Hussein-McMahon Correspondence (1915-1916)

  • Hussein was a religious leader in modern SA

  • Britain asked who was willing to start a revolution in the Ottoman Empire 

  • If Hussein helps Britain, he gets land to have one Arab State

• Sykes-Picot Agreement (1916-1917)

  • UK and France secret agreement to split the ME when/if they win the war

  • Overlapped with what they promised Hussein

• Balfour Declaration

  • Basically gave Palestine to the Jewish people

  • Said no non-Jewish communities or otehrs can be harmed while this is happening

  • Didn’t end up giving land to the Zionists but it empowered them

• UK Kept promise to Europeans and not Arabs

• Bolsheviks came into power in Russia and exposed Skyes Picot

Formation of the Middle East (Dismemberment of the Ottoman Empire)

• Ottomans lost

• Creation of new ME entities- colonial states in both gepgraphical and political areas

• Britain and France breaking the Ottoman Empire in 4 states madde it harder for Russia to push to the Suez Canal

  • Strong enough to deter Russia but not to stand against West

• Borders made no sense, so people didn’t like being a part of their state. Dream of returning the Arab people like Uk originally promised

• Turkey wanted whole peninsula, UK didn’t want that, Turkey won

Saudi Arabia

• Wahhabism- Movement within Sunni which spread in the central Arab region and the Peninsula

• Official SA party until 2022

• British betrayed Hassam twice

Egypt

• Early 19th century

• Muhammad Ali Pasha was a military leader and conquered Egypt

  • Challenged Ottomans but they reached an agreement that gave Egypt de facto autonomy

• Oldest state in the Middle East

Iran

• Early 20th century they tried to go from an Empire to a state

  • Wanted to reduce religious and cultural identity

  • Wanted to reduce social and political power of the religious class

• Starts 25-30 years of modernization

“Fault Lines” for States

• State and national boundaries

• Religion: Shiites vs Sunnis

• Language and Ethinicty

• History (Persians vs Byzantine and Ottoman vs Arab)

• Economics

  • Oil-producing vs not

  • People from strict countries have rules for citizens, but go to the gulf and break them

  • Egypt refuses gulf money because of the strings attatched

• Military power (Atomic bomb)

• Historic Suffering

Geographical Shia vs Sunni

• Iran and Iraq are Shia

• Syria is Sunni, but run by minorities

• Lebanon is Sunni

• 90% of Muslims globally are Sunni

• “Shia Belt” has been an issue for the Sunni states for 30 years

Sunni vs Shia- Overview

• Sunni think they should vote for a community leader

• Shia think Muhammad is divine and can follow the bloodline

• Shia are less wealthy and feel oppressed

  • Not considered a religion for a while

• Sunnisim has a hierarchy

• Shias are all equal

Caliphs

• First 4 new Mohammad while he was alive

• All died quickly

• Political goals were not a priority but were for the 5th Caliph

• Abolished in 1924

The Great Fitna

• Civil war over who should be the 4th Caliph

• The 3rd was assassinated and people bleive the 4th did not punish the assassin enough

• Sunni accepted 4th Caliph, while Shia thought it should be a decended from Muhammad

Three Great Islamic Dynasties

• Umayyad

• Abbasia

• Ottoman

Orientalism

• Westerners travelled to the ME and all came back saying similar things about it

• They only wrote the things that deviated from the west, but this gave the west a skewed idea of the ME

• People went to the ME for work, only a few upper or middle class went for vacation

3 definitions of Orientalism

• Acedemic tradition of study 

  • Wanting knowledge ot be able to colonize

• Style of thought

• Institutions for being with the Orient

  • Colonization

Elements of 20th-century orientalist discourse

• “Ours” and “theirs” with ours being assumed as superior

• Generalizing narrative descriptions

• Essentialism

Occidentalism

• Dehumaizing of the West by it’s enemies

• Influence of colonization

• Against western values, notonly policy

• Against rationalism and Reasonablelness

  • Humans are more than a brain

  • West sees everything as a cost-benefit analysis

• West poisons the East through economic and cultural dependency

Possible Reactions to Western tenchological dominance

• Passive submission

• Pretend west doesn’t exist and retreat to traditions

• taming the machines by knowing and manufacturing them, not just using them

Why is there a Resilience of Autoritarianism

• Lack of Bourgeoisie

  • Bourgeoisie = middle class

  • No intellectual to call for a revolution

  • Middle class doesn’t like to give their money away because they worked very hard for it

  • More supportive people

• Islam

  • Mainly Sunnism

  • Sunni citizens laugh at the corrupt politicians from home, they just want to survive

  • New gov means new Fitna (war)

• Foreign Intervention

  • ME states were created by the west

  • West maintains authoritarianism because one person is easier to control

• Historical creation of socio political structures

  • the Colonial state

    • PAying for their own occupation

    • Gov. had no money when created so they had to get creative- “I will give you hell aland, but keep the epoeple on the land peaceful”

  • Independent State

    • Strengthen the State and elites control of the state

    • Elites were not popular and did not want democracy

    • States were weak because forieng powers did not orignially allow them to have armies

Consequences of Oil/Gas in ME

• ME is interesting for foriegn powers

• Distributive States

  • Resources need to be sold outside and must be controlled by a minority

• Elites and their friends get hella rich

• External revenue= citizens dont care how it is spent

International Poltiical Economy of ME

• Distributive State

  • Not increased well being fore veryone

  • Fights to access larger share of resources

• Low Factor Endowment

  • Resources are few and concentrated

  • People use what is in their territory and don’t share with oterhs

• Islam

  • Riba- lending money with interest is illegal

    • Stopped them from entering modern banking

    • Stopped social mobility

• External intervention

  • Foreign pwoers have never allowed economic independence

  • Resources exploited by foreign countries and interests

Why does ME always have conflict?

• Features of the state

  • One person holds all military power often used internally

  • Young leaders with a military backgrounf

  • Socitey has a lot of power imbalance

  • Does not have freedom of speech, so they resort to terrorism

• Political Culture

  • Violence is a political tool

  • Normalized

• External Factors

  • ME’s many groups (ethnicity, religion, etc) were split by the West when ME was created

• Interplay among the above, and regional actors

  • ME has often invited foriegn intervention for self-interest

Jihad

• Internal- personal struggle with Muslim

• External- Defense of Muslim against others