WITH the Middle East in turmoil and Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza having entered its eleventh month, a book that examines the region’s political experience in the postwar period makes for insightful reading. What Really Went Wrong: The West and the Failure of Democracy in the Middle East by Fawaz Gerges, published earlier this year, examines the contribution of Western, especially US foreign policy to the chaos and instability found in the region today. Gerges, who teaches at the London School of Economics, offers sharp analysis in his book on the evolution of the Middle East in the postcolonial era and seeks to explain what has led to present-day turbulence and tensions.

The main thesis of the book is that the Middle East’s instability is not rooted in factors inherent in the region such as ancient hatreds, tribalism and chronic violence, which many Western scholars and policymakers have assumed. It is mostly the consequence of America’s disastrous foreign policy decisions during the Cold War and its interventions that have left such a lasting legacy. Gerges shows convincingly that the Cold War confrontation between the US and Soviet Union turned the Middle East into a battleground for proxy conflicts, marking a continuity with the legacy of ‘dysfunction’ left by European colonialism.

Washington’s obsessive concern with countering Russian communism, efforts to establish a Pax Americana and secure access to cheap oil drove it to ally with repressive autocrats. These regimes were assured American patronage so long as they submitted to US hegemonic aims and ensured an uninterrupted supply of oil. This denuded the region of any postcolonial peace dividend and undermined these countries’ independence. “Resources that should have gone to development were directed to the military-security sector.” Washington’s aim to build a “new informal empire” thwarted the evolution of modern pluralistic political systems and strong economies independent of the West. This diminished the Middle East’s chance of achieving a peaceful future.

In relating the story of lost opportunities and dashed hopes, Gerges focuses on key flashpoints that “sowed the seeds of discontent, hubris and subsequent conflict”. They include the 1953 CIA-sponsored coup against prime minister Mohammad Mossadegh in Iran and confrontation with Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser in the mid-1950s. The author uses these ‘ruptures’ to reinterpret the history of the region and challenge the narrative popularised by Western scholars. He sees ruptures in Iran and Egypt leading to the defeat of “secular-leaning nationalist visions”. This in turn enabled “puritanical religious narratives” and movements to gain ascendancy in the 1950s and 1960s across the region and beyond. Popular leaders were replaced by those subservient to the West. The consequences of these events, writes Gerges, still haunt the region.

The consequences of policies aimed at building an ‘informal empire’ still haunt the Middle East.

He argues that before these two pivotal events, the US was viewed positively and with optimism in the region. Freed from the shackles of European colonialism, people looked forward to an era of economic and political freedom and prosperity. But soon, US policies meant Washington mimicked European imperialists by seeking to build an ‘informal empire’ — a term that resonates in the book — whose results were virtually the same as colonial rule. He cites political scientist Atul Kohli, who defined informal empire as predicated on “an alliance in which elites in the imperial country allow elites on the global periphery to share in economic growth in exchange for establishing stable but ultimately subservient governments there”. Gerges details how the US “exploited pliant local regimes, established extensive military bases, penetrated national economies, staged military interventions and imposed punishing multilateral sanctions”. These policies were obviously executed at the cost of people and countries. They hobbled political development, liberalisation and social change and, instead, pushed the region on the path of militarism, authoritarianism, strengthening of political Islam and intensification of sectarian rivalries. US decisions to ally with Islamist groups against secular-oriented nationalists proved just as fateful.

In the chapter subtitled ‘What could have been’, the author discusses the two events he sees as transformational and consequential to the region’s subsequent trajectory — ouster of Mossadegh in 1953 and American moves against Nasser that led to the Suez crisis of 1956. These triggered a chain of reactions and counterreactions that were to change the Middle East’s complexion. They also seriously undermined US relations with people in the Arab and Muslim world. Popular, progressive nationalist leaders like Mossadegh and Nasser were branded as ‘disguised communists’ because of their assertions of independence and pursuit of modernisation. Washington’s preference was to back ‘authoritarian strongmen’ on the grounds of ‘stability’ — a policy Gerges argues persists till today. Accompanying this was the expedient Western view that Islam and Arab culture were incompatible with democracy.

In answering the ‘what if’ question had the US not overthrown Mossadegh, the author posits that a democratic Iran would have evolved, at peace with itself and serving as an example to its neighbours. In Egypt, US hostility towards Nasser, although no democrat but a secular nationalist leader intent on modernising his country and pursuing an independent path, also had damaging consequences. It changed regional dynamics and shaped issues of war and peace. Gerges recalls that Nasser retaliated by turning to Moscow for arms and opposing Arab monarchs and leaders who joined the US military alliance, which in turn led to the Arab Cold War. Lost in the process was balance and equilibrium in the Arab state system with geopolitical rivalries dashing hopes of unity and regional economic integration. According to Gerges, “America’s imperial overreach and Cold War crusade ignited and escalated geostrategic rivalries in the region.”

The conclusion Gerges draws from his detailed assessment of covert and overt external interventions during the Cold War is this. Today’s grim situation in the Middle East would have been very different if Washington had shown tolerance for countries that disagreed with its foreign policy and declined to serve its economic interests at the cost of their own. Of course, one should add that blind US support for Israel drove a dagger into the heart of the region and destabilised it, which is so tragically illustrated by the catastrophe unfolding in Gaza today. This book is a must read for its riveting revisionist account of the Middle East’s modern history.

The writer is a former ambassador to the US, UK and UN.

Published in Dawn, August 19th, 2024