As the world undergoes rapid political and economic transformations with escalating conflicts shaking the Middle East, the region has witnessed over a full year of genocide in Gaza – and no clear prospect for an end.
The conflict has expanded to southern Lebanon, reverberated in Yemen and Iraq, and reached Iran.
The Future of the Middle East series seeks to explore these challenges through interviewing prominent politicians, theorists, intellectuals, and current and former diplomats, providing various regional and international perspectives.
Through these discussions and insights, lessons from the past are shared in order to chart a path forward.
From the roots of the Arab-Israeli conflict to regional interventions and the rise of new non-state actors, this series engages in enlightened discussions regarding what can be learned from history and how it will impact the region’s future.
It aims to explore visions for the future and highlight the vital role that Arab nations can play if historical alliances are revived, pushing towards sustainable stability while safeguarding their interests.
The structure of the series involves two parts – the first being a series of seven fixed questions based on requests from readers on the future of the region. The second part features questions tailored to the interviewees specific background, providing new insights into the overarching vision of the interview.
Ultimately, this series aims to explore how the Arab region can craft its own unified independent project – one free of external influence.
In the previous interview of our “Middle East Dialogues” series, conducted with Professor of International Relations and Political Economy at the American University in Cairo and Professor Emeritus at the University of Montreal, Canada, and Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, Bahgat Korany, asserted that the term “Middle East” is an imported expression lacking in scientific basis.
He argued that “the Arab Region” is a more appropriate designation, as “Middle East” is based on a relative, fluid, and constantly changing division and perspective.
Korany noted that Israel operates in the region as a military superpower, now seemingly able to act as it pleases, presenting itself to Washington as America’s aircraft carrier in the region.
In this second interview, Korany stated that there should have been clearer signs of objection from Arab regional states, especially Gulf nations, to curb the excessive practices of the ruling class in Tel Aviv. He expressed his concern about further expansion of the occupation outside Palestinian territories, particularly in the absence of a unified Arab response.
Interview:
■As a political science professor, do you believe that history is repeating itself? During the medieval period, there were attempts by the kings of Abyssinia and their European allies to divert the course of the Nile, aiming to undermine the Mamluk state. Also during the Mamluk era, the discovery of the Cape of Good Hope rerouted shipping away from Egyptian coasts. Do you see us facing a similar historical scenario today, as embodied by the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) and the search for alternatives to the Suez Canal?
Regarding the Cape of Good Hope, that’s not the primary concern. The real threat now is the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC), for which a memorandum of understanding has been signed.
This route connects Asia, Europe, and the Middle East, bypassing the Suez Canal by running from India through Eilat and the Middle East to Europe. We must coordinate with the UAE to prevent their participation in this project, as it would weaken the Suez Canal’s position.
As for the Nile and the GERD, we first need to understand just how Ethiopia is presenting this project.
Addis Ababa claims that the current water distribution is based on colonial-era agreements and that Egypt’s share under these agreements is excessive, while Ethiopia needs the water for development. So, on the one hand, Ethiopia promotes a populist idea appealing to many African nations, asserting that the current situation is a product of colonial agreements that should be rejected.
On the other hand, they claim a need for water for development, which is also a populist notion. This overall argument is flawed for two reasons:
First, some colonial agreements, such as border treaties, cannot be approached or altered currently. The entire world adheres to these agreements, and we cannot simply reject every colonial agreement, as this would open the door to unforeseen disasters. Second, Ethiopia can certainly achieve development, but with enough water for both parties—Cairo and Addis Ababa. Ethiopia must consider that there are lost water flows and another portion that evaporates. Therefore, the water must be sufficient for both sides. This issue is existential for Egypt and non-negotiable, as Egypt relies on Nile water for 94 percent of its resources. Consequently, there is no intention to relinquish its right.In my opinion, Egypt should have acted preemptively and engaged with international bodies and parties. This would have involved convincing donors, including the World Bank, to condition their funding to Ethiopia on not impacting Egypt’s share of the Nile or the Egyptian presence, since the lives of Egyptians are tied to the Nile River.
We don’t oppose development or funding, but it must be done in a way that preserves everyone’s rights. Here, I believe, there was a shortcoming in Egyptian diplomacy.
■About 10 years ago, most of the region’s conflicts were civil wars, not international ones. I highlighted this issue in an article where I noted that the number of civil wars increased from 62 in 2016 to 82 in 2017. Do you believe the use of this pattern of warfare was merely a precursor to the wars Israel wages, aimed at exhausting rival military capabilities before engaging them directly, as it does now?
In my view, external conspiracies are a given. Every nation, especially one that’s coveted, faces external plots designed to maximize gains. However, the crucial aspect is strengthening the internal front to prevent any vulnerabilities that would allow outside penetration. I emphasize the necessity of rejecting any internal conflicts, be they ethnic, tribal, or even economic.
Inequality within a society makes external temptations strong and weakens national belonging.
Therefore, the strength of the internal front is the greatest defense against external forces. A significant portion of the war in Syria was orchestrated by Israel, which was preparing for the collapse of the Syrian state and army. With the army virtually non-existent, Bashar al-Assad imposed himself by force, transforming protests into a civil war that outside powers—Iran and Russia on one side, Turkey and Israel on the other—then exploited.
■The Huthi group recently targeted Tel Aviv with a hypersonic missile. It’s known that only a very limited number of countries, fewer than the fingers on one hand, possess this type of missile, and Iran is not among them. From your perspective, who supplied the Huthis with this kind of missile? And are we seeing a new backer for the Huthis, replacing Tehran, which has recently distanced itself from the Huthis for the sake of its negotiations with Washington?
In international relations, there are Private Military Companies (PMCs). Americans sometimes rely on these companies instead of their military to limit casualties, just as the Russians relied on the Wagner Group in Africa. It’s possible the Huthis have dealings with some of these companies, and they could be the ones who supplied them with this missile.
■In one of your articles published in 2012, you discussed Sadat’s initiative to visit Tel Aviv and stated that we were facing a ‘New Middle East’ where Israel was an integral part of its cooperative and military interactions. Meanwhile, the conflict intensified between Morocco and Algeria. Given current events and Israel’s forceful expansion in the region, how do you see the map of this ‘New Middle East,’ and how do you assess the relations of some Gulf states with Israel?”
I wrote an article about two months ago that garnered significant reactions, both domestically and internationally, from prominent figures whom I won’t name. The article was titled “The Question from Foreign Friends I Couldn’t Answer.” I was in a discussion with a number of foreigners, and we were talking about Israel’s unprecedented genocide in Gaza, its brutality and war crimes.
My foreign friends then posed a question that I couldn’t answer: “What are the stakeholders doing?”
Here, I’m not referring to Egypt, but to the Gulf states and other Arab nations. Where is their role in this war?
Within international relations, there’s an option which involves recalling the ambassador for consultation, as a form of protest. This is a step before withdrawing the ambassador, which is then followed by severing diplomatic relations.
We don’t wish to reach the point of severing diplomatic relations, but at the very least, resorting to the simplest means of protest and suspending commercial deals. There are specific initiatives to demonstrate objection to a particular political behavior concerning the ruling class in Tel Aviv, especially after the International Criminal Court designated Netanyahu and his defense minister as war criminals, necessitating their arrest and extradition for trial.
Furthermore, the Human Rights Council in Geneva condemned the unprecedented starvation of Gaza’s population.
Therefore, there should have been clearer signs of objection to curb the excesses of the ruling class in Tel Aviv, whose actions have even faced protests from within Israel itself.
The reality is, I am very pessimistic about the group currently governing Israel. They are planning to annex the West Bank and Gaza, and I fear further expansion beyond the occupied Palestinian territories, especially given the absence of a unified response from Arab states.
■As a political science professor, you received a unique honor from the International Studies Association in the US, the first of its kind for a Middle Eastern political science scholar. The Director of the Governance Program presented your award as a welcome to ‘the Other.’ In your opinion, why does American hegemony extend even to intellectual and theoretical fields, causing international relations theories to revolve around the American perspective?
First, let’s start with a simple observation: despite some who oppose the US and speak of America’s “ugly side,” their main interests is often to send their children to American universities because of their excellence.
However, I believe the Trump administration’s handling of universities will harm the US.
He began cutting funds for research teams conducting studies on cancer and other fields. This scientific dominance is one of America’s greatest strengths, surpassing even Europe, China, and Russia. This educational and research aspect is one of the most prominent tools of American soft power, and what he’s doing to Harvard and other universities will harm scientific research, including for cancer.
The funds allocated by US administrations to scientific research and America’s openness to the world in this regard have given the US a significant lead over other nations.
From this perspective, I’d like to reference what Stanley Hoffmann, an Austrian-born professor at Harvard University, wrote in a 1977 article titled “International Relations: An American Social Science.”
This title reflects American intellectual dominance, which no one, not even England or France, can rival.
From here, we as researchers from the Global South began to question: Does this serve the interest of international relations as a science and a practice?
All sciences aim to be open and universal, especially international relations. I cannot establish a science of international relations with a perspective confined solely to American society. This, of course, is not in the best interest of the US itself, as the perspectives of its researchers are often limited to an American internal view, and most are not familiar with other regions outside the US borders, such as the Far East and Middle East.
Therefore, we agreed on the necessity of collaborating with others from those regions to produce a universal science.
However, there are some obstacles preventing this, such limited resources in third-world countries. American universities, for instance, provide opportunities for international travel to attend conferences and so forth, while local universities lack the financial means to offer such opportunities. These resources are also necessary to produce strong research that promotes the thinking of the Global South.
This is why the International Studies Association resorted to organizing grants for researchers to overcome this obstacle. There’s also the language barrier, which the association has tried to overcome so that research from the region can be published.
■What hinders the Global South from reaching this same level of development?
Years ago, I was selected as a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, the first non-Canadian to be granted this membership. After that, I worked with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), which publishes the Arab Human Development Report. This report is incredibly important for anyone interested in development issues.
It’s an outstanding report, and the team responsible for it began its publication in 2002. The head of that team was Nader Fergany, an Egyptian statistics professor, who always produced an exceptional version of the report that I frequently refer to.
In 2009, the UNDP assigned me the task of preparing a new edition of the report. I tackled the issue of political empowerment and titled the report “The Importance of Empowerment”. Through it, I highlighted the idea that while economic development is crucial, the political aspect is even more important. Resources matter, but it’s the politician or policymaker who decides how those resources are used.
For example, Japan has limited economic resources but is highly developed, whereas Congo has abundant minerals and pearls yet remains embroiled in continuous wars, leading to the absence of state authority. This underscores the importance of the political apparatus.
I recall now the tragedy of Syria, which wasn’t caused by the Arab Spring as much as by the incompetence in confronting political challenges. The difference between Mubarak’s Egypt and Bashar’s Syria is that the latter imposed himself on his people for about 11 years, during which Israel funded and fueled the civil war, while Mubarak chose to relinquish power. This demonstrates the critical importance of political decisions and how a state is directed.
In reality, economic reform is important, but political reform is paramount and takes precedence, even if it takes time. I focus on three main pillars: transparency and data availability, openness to others (especially experts who provide modern scientific insights), and tolerance, which is also a crucial foundation.
■The American President, during his election campaign, claimed he could end wars with a single phone call, yet these wars have not ceased. Do you believe what he said was mere election propaganda, or has Israel become so influential that Washington can no longer affect it, or is the matter ultimately a calculation of profit and loss?
Politics, in general, is a calculation of profit and loss.
However, Trump arranges his political affairs in a crude, direct, and immediate manner, without considering the long-term nature of relationships. He is fundamentally a liar, whether this stems from ignorance, malice, or even limited thinking. When he participated in the debate with former President Joe Biden, American journalists found that 67 percent of his statements were falsehoods, and some journalists recorded nearly 17,000 lies during his first term.
His pronouncements are sometimes pure propaganda, and sometimes they are the result of insufficient information. This, of course, poses a danger to the international community: for the president of the world’s most powerful nation to have such a shortsighted perspective.
When he cuts the Department of Education, curtails scientific research, and approaches matters based on immediate results without foresight, this naturally raises concerns.
■For a period, before the era of Richard Nixon, the US treated Taiwan as if it were China. While Biden has supported the island’s independence, Trump, true to form, has used it as a bargaining chip, promising protection in exchange for specific demands, such as reclaiming the electronic chip industry currently dominated by Taiwan. How do you foresee the future of the China-Taiwan crisis, given China’s insistence on annexing the island?
Taiwan is one of the most prominent global issues right now. It could trigger a war far more difficult than the one in Ukraine, fundamentally because China views Taiwan as an integral part of its territory, just as we view Hala’ib and Shalateen as inseparable parts of Egyptian land.
The relationship between US and China used to baffle us as political science researchers. How could the world’s largest country not be represented in the United Nations? When communism triumphed in China, America took a stance, declaring that the true representative of China was not the mainland as we know it today, but rather the small island of Taiwan.
This continued until 1972, with Taiwan holding a seat and veto power in the Security Council, a small island that separated from China after its defeat in the civil war, until Nixon visited China in 1972.
What’s striking is that throughout this period of non-recognition by Washington, China remained consistent with its “One China” policy, which Washington eventually accepted. To this day, China considers Taiwan part of its territory, and if it decides to invade it at any point, it will.
Thus, the reality confirms that the Taiwan crisis is not like the Russia-Ukraine situation; the latter are two independent states. Taiwan, however, is not represented in the United Nations, and therefore, the world does not view it as a state.
I believe Trump will not intervene in this crisis, nor will he fight China for Taiwan. He might resort to sanctions, and perhaps some European countries might exert pressure to prevent an invasion, but the matter will not escalate to the point of armed conflict with China over Taiwan.
Trump, as an individual, is unpredictable, save for one indicator that helps us discern his stances: he acts like a real estate magnate, adopting a transactional approach. His entire mindset is focused on deals, just as he did with Ukraine, when he demanded minerals in exchange for defense, even though Kyiv was his biggest ally in Europe and, along with the US, formed what was known as the Atlantic Front.
Trump operates in a crude and direct quid pro quo manner.
■Setting aside Trump’s unpredictability, does the Jewish lobby also influence American decision-making regarding Israel?
The lobby indeed has significant influence, but I believe its impact is often exaggerated. External actors, in many instances, indirectly contribute to inflating the lobby’s perceived power. Some mistakenly believe that reaching the US administration is solely achievable through the Jewish lobby, and they approach it as a means of gaining proximity to Washington.
This, ironically, grants the lobby even greater power, even within the administration itself.
The US Congress sometimes intimidates non-Jewish members or those not loyal to Israel, which ensures the lobby maintains a loyal bloc within Congress. Therefore, I believe it’s crucial to focus studies on Congress as well, not just the White House.
Second interview with AUC professor Bahgat Korany discusses Suez Canal, GERD concerns & global politics Egypt Independent.
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