The losers of the new Middle East

Mint

2 days ago

EIGHT YEARS ago Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi was on centre stage. Donald Trump gave the Egyptian dictator a warm welcome at the White House in April 2017. A few weeks later, when Mr Trump visited Riyadh, the Saudis invited Mr Sisi to join. The former general, who seized power in a coup in 2013, took pride of place alongside the American president and the Saudi king at the launch of a counter-terrorism centre.
Yet no one bothered to summon him when Mr Trump returned to Riyadh this May. Gulf rulers were keen to talk to the American president about their vision for the Middle East, and Mr Sisi did not fit into those plans. Instead he flew to Baghdad for a desultory Arab League summit, where he was one of only five heads of state to attend (most members of the 22-country club sent mere ministers).
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This is a moment of transition in the Middle East. Iran is weakened. New governments in Syria and Lebanon want to keep it that way. Gulf monarchs are keen on detente with both Iran and Turkey, their regional rivals. Mr Trump talks hopefully of a 'bright new day", a Middle East focused on commerce rather than conflict.
The region is a rough place for optimists: this moment may not last. Whether or not it does, it shows how the Middle East has already changed. Rich and seemingly stable, the Gulf states are at the hub of things, while some countries that were once influential are now just onlookers.
At the top of that list is Egypt, and Mr Sisi has himself to blame. He has wrecked the Egyptian economy, running up unsustainable public debts (around 90% of GDP) to pay for vanity projects and refusing the common-sense reforms that might boost a stagnant private sector.
That has left Egypt reliant on bail-outs. It has received at least $45bn in aid from Gulf states since 2013, according to data from the International Institute for Strategic Studies, a think-tank. It is also the IMF's third-biggest debtor. But now it has competition. Lebanon will need at least $7bn to rebuild after last year's war with Israel. Syria will need many times more.
At least for now, both countries seem a better investment than Egypt. Their governments are promising serious economic and political reform. Syria's interim government wants to privatise state-run firms and woo foreign investors. Joseph Aoun, the Lebanese president, wants to disarm Hizbullah, a powerful Iranian-backed militia. Aid to those countries might help them achieve those goals; aid to Egypt merely buys time until its next financial crisis.
Iraq finds itself sidelined too. Iran has lost its closest state ally (the Assad regime in Syria) and its strongest proxy militia (Hizbullah). That leaves it desperate to preserve its influence in Iraq, where it supports an array of armed groups. Some officials in the Gulf describe Iraq as a lost cause: the militias are too strong and too interwoven with the state to be uprooted. Ahmed al-Sharaa, Syria's new president, could not even attend the Arab League summit in Baghdad because of threats from pro-Iranian militias.
No matter: he flew to Riyadh instead, where he met Mr Trump and secured a promise that America would lift its sanctions. The Saudis are keen to support Mr Sharaa in part because a strong Syria would be a bulwark against Iranian influence. 'Syria used to help balance Iraq," muses one Saudi official, referring to a time when the Assad regime was a rival of Saddam Hussein's dictatorship in Iraq. 'Maybe it can play that role again," this time with Iran.
The stateless Palestinians have been at the heart of Arab affairs since 1948. But there is reason to think that they too are losing their centrality. Mahmoud Abbas, the eternal Palestinian president, has done nothing to clean up his corrupt administration in the occupied West Bank. Hamas offers an even bleaker model in Gaza: it has let Israel destroy the enclave rather than cede power.
Arab leaders still pay lip service to the Palestinian cause. In practice, though, they are trying to diminish its influence. Mr Aoun wants to disarm the Palestinian militias in Lebanon's refugee camps (and some members of Hizbullah have signalled their assent). The new Syrian government has pledged to do the same. There is serious talk in both countries about peace with Israel: not full normalisation, but at least an end to decades of conflict.
All of this makes for a remarkable turnabout. A year ago Lebanon and Syria seemed like lost causes as well. The former was dominated by Hizbullah and at war with Israel; its economy was still reeling from a financial crisis that shrank its GDP by 40%. The latter was a narco-state still in the grips of a resilient-looking Assad regime. Now Gulf states and America see them as the heart of a more prosperous Middle East. To stay that way, their governments will have to deliver results.
After all, many of Mr Sisi's Arab allies had high hopes for him too a decade ago. Those hopes were dashed. For decades, the Middle East was divided along ideological lines. Perhaps now the split is between governments that can meet their promises and those that cannot.
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