The Arab region. The challenges of the new decade

As we enter the third decade of the 21st century, I reflect on the chaos in Middle Eastern affairs and what can be done to advance progress in the future. Over the past two decades, she has written extensively about the region and has widely surveyed its population. I draw some of my observations from this work. Ten years ago, I published a book called “Arab Voices: What They Say and Its Importance”. The book drew its content from our opinion polls in the United States and the Arab world during the first decade of the 21st century. The book discussed what we don’t know in the West about the Arab world, the reason for our ignorance of it, and the tragic foreign policy mistakes resulting from our ignorance of the region and its people.
And what we have noticed is that there are two main events that have shaped and defined this decade, namely the terrible terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 and the US invasion and occupation of Iraq. And the days have proven that the war in Iraq is the most important. The Iraq War was launched out of arrogance and blind ideology, and has been the most devastating failure in American foreign policy since the Vietnam War. By the end of the first decade of the 21st century, the continuing impact of war was evident. The United States is engaged in a costly, bloody, and never-ending war that it can never win, even as it entered the present century as an unrivaled superpower. His army was humiliated and exhausted. And the cost in lives and money, both to the Americans and to the Iraqis, was enormous. Widespread respect for the United States has been severely affected.
And the repercussions of the war did not end there. The war sparked sectarian conflict in Iraq and increased Iran’s strength and daring to intervene in Iraq and other countries. The American occupation fueled Sunni extremism and gave Al Qaeda new opportunities to attract volunteers and strengthen its return. Ten years after the emergence of ‘Voices of the Arabs’, she published a book titled ‘A Troubled Decade’ which drew on our surveys of Arab, Iranian and Turkish public opinion during the second decade of the 21st century. century. It became clear in this book that the negative developments that shaped the first ten years of the century – exemplified by the sectarian conflict in Iraq, Iranian intervention, and the diminishing capacity and leadership of the United States – must have had an impact. increasingly devastating impact during the second decade of the century. This already unstable environment has compounded the unrest caused by what has been called the “Arab Spring”.
The old regional order was crumbling, but not in the way the gullible ideological theorists of the Bush administration had anticipated. They expected a decisive victory in Iraq that would lead to the rise of the United States as an unprecedented world power and the spread of democracy in the Middle East. In fact, the opposite has happened. Then the Obama administration launched its era with the great promise of pulling the United States out of the deep hole in which the country found itself. But the mission turned out to be greater than the administration’s promises. The problems have exacerbated and weakened the status of the United States, rendering it unable to play a constructive role in the region due to the fall of the Obama administration in Iraq and the resulting lack of follow-up and interest. decreasing for the region.
The hasty departure of the Americans from Iraq left a highly sectarian government in power, which exacerbated Sunni discontent, turning the organization “Al-Qaeda” into the bloodiest group “ISIS”. In a short time, “Daesh” made its way with terrorism to control large areas of Iraq. The Obama administration has done no better in the rest of the region. It is true that it has taken many promising initiatives to deal with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but it has backed down in the face of Israeli intransigence and strong Israeli support in Congress. In the face of the so-called “Arab Spring”, the Obama administration found itself in a dilemma. It hesitated in Egypt, Syria and Yemen, then intervened in Libya without wanting or being able to continue, which contributed to the worsening of the situation in this oil-rich country.
Even the administration’s only success, the nuclear deal with Iran, has only exacerbated regional tensions. It is true that it may have eliminated the threat of Iran’s nuclear program, but it has increased Iran’s daring to intervene in the region. This has made Sunni states more concerned about Iran’s role in Iraq, Syria and Yemen. Among the signs of this decade were the roles played by the politicized and armed Sunni and Shiite movements which profited from the deep unrest and caused chaos and conflict in Egypt, Bahrain, Yemen, Syria and certainly Iraq. Instead of a unipolar world ruled by the United States, the region has become a multipolar battleground.
In the next article, I intend to examine President Trump’s administration’s relationship with the region, which exacerbated the chaos he inherited from the previous administration, and then conclude with some bold ideas for that the Biden administration make progress in the future.

Quoted by “Al-Ittihad”