Thirty years since Oslo… America and the vernacular system
On September 13, 1993, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat shook hands on the South Lawn of the White House, in the presence of President Bill Clinton. The two leaders were in Washington to formalize the Oslo Accords negotiated in August to herald a new beginning in Israeli-Palestinian relations leading to an end to the Arab-Israeli conflict. In the same year (i.e. 1993), US diplomacy was on the rise in the Middle East.
Two years earlier, in the spring of 1991, the United States and a coalition of supporters, including other members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and major Arab countries, assembled a massive military force to expel Iraqi forces from Kuwait, which they occupied in the late summer of 1990. Support was The work led by the United States is broad. The United Nations Security Council approved the operation and the Soviet Union was a supportive partner.
In the aftermath of the short war dubbed “Desert Storm,” President George HW Bush, in his State of the Union address to the US Congress, called for a “new world order” that ushered in a new era of peace in the Middle East. At the end of 1991, tremendous developments led to the dissolution of the Soviet Union.
This means the end of the Cold War. Throughout the 1990s, the United States was the sole superpower, and this era came to be known as the “unipolar” moment. But the new century quickly ended this situation. The al-Qaeda attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001, and the wars led by the United States in Afghanistan and Iraq, led to the decline of American power in the Middle East. There were signs of Russia’s return to the region and China’s growing economic relations with its growing need for fossil fuels to support its booming economic growth. The other important strategic change in the region was the growing influential and independent role of the Arab Gulf states, and the growing tensions between Washington and Tehran, particularly over the latter’s nuclear program.
Although Turkey faces economic problems, it remains a strong player, as evidenced by its major role in the Black Sea and its ability to act as a mediator between Russia and Ukraine. Indeed, it is the Ukraine war that provides the most telling example of how strategic risks have changed in the past 30 years. Few analysts believed that in this century we would witness a land war in Europe not seen since 1945, with tactics reminiscent of the First World War.
And what happens in this ongoing war is already having far-reaching implications for the rest of the world, including the Middle East. The disruption of vital food exports, especially cereals and cooking oil from Russia and Ukraine, has caused major hardships for food importing countries, including Turkey, Egypt, Tunisia and Morocco. Iran became a military ally of Russia, and its hostile relations with NATO countries worsened.
The longer the war continues, the more dangerous its repercussions will become for Europe and the Middle East. This crisis is further complicated by the fact that the internal turmoil in Israel between the government of Benjamin Netanyahu and the Israeli opposition parties threatens to weaken the country at a time when it was hoping to improve relations with its Arab neighbors, and perhaps establish diplomatic relations with most Arab countries. In addition, the new unrest of the Palestinians in the West Bank adds a new danger.
The only good news on this front is that Israel’s dormant centrist parties have recognized the stakes and are determined to block Netanyahu’s efforts to fundamentally change the Israeli constitution. But unlike in the 1990s, the United States can no longer be the main influencer in events in the region. Other countries have a more important role to play, and this is an encouraging development.
* Director of Strategic Programs at the National Interest Center – Washington
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