Already published on AGS
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Since the antiquity, the Middle East has been the seat of powerful empires: empires, Persian, Babylonian, Egyptian, Byzantine, Ottoman ... According to the historian Rene Grousset, this geographical area is needed for several millennia a commercial, religious and political cooperation among great civilizations. It is also the heart of crises between powers.
Delineation of the Middle East varies by country and authors. At the heart of the arc of crises, including the Middle East and includes the area stretching from the Egyptian Nile valley to Iran and the Turkish coast of the Black Sea to the Gulf of Aden. Despite the rise of new countries like China and India and increased commercial traffic in the Pacific, the Middle East is always a geopolitical issue. Ironically, the three regional powers are Turkey, Israel and Iran, in this predominantly Arab area.
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1. Natural resources: a challenge internal and external
Water and oil are the two vital natural resources for Middle East, considering their economic and security aspects. Trade routes are also of strategic importance.
1.1. Water
Freshwater is used for domestic, agricultural and industrial. Given the prevailing climate in the Middle East, this parameter is vital for all of these countries.
The distribution of water reserves is very uneven. The ancient Fertile Crescent (Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Lebanon) concentrates about 80% of renewable freshwater resources. This results in significant disparities regarding water resources. In poor countries in freshwater, waters are overfished or renewable fuels and the use of desalination, half of which is done in the Arabian Peninsula, remains extremely energy consuming. This situation tends to worsen due to high population growth. Indeed, the population of Syria, Iran, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, has at least doubled during the past 25 years. Aggravating factor, urban consumption also increases due change behaviors that tend to align with those of Westerners.
Moreover, agriculture accounts for over 80% of water consumed. Overconsumption farm does not benefit only partially to the diet of people and competition develops between the water required for urbanization and waters for the farming industry. In Yemen, the lucrative cultivation of qat, a shrub whose leaves have a psychoactive effect, is responsible for the decline in water reserves, so that half of children under 5 are malnourished. The culture of the narcotic is not without liability to the destabilization of the country. Competition between bound water and urban or agricultural crops between food and non food has geopolitical consequences internal undeniable.
The water management remains an issue that translates into practical cooperation but also of confrontation. Iraqi and Syrian waters depend on the Turkish waters of the Tigris and Euphrates. The draft Güneydogu Anadolu Projesi (GAP) that aims to the development of these two rivers has led to conflict at times the limit of the confrontation military. The filling of the Ataturk dam in January 1990 has reduced the flow of the Euphrates by a quarter. This situation will worsen until the completion in 2015, in the absence of a tripartite agreement between Turkey, Iraq and Syria. Moreover, the Jordan River basin is irrigated by the territories occupied by Israel in Lebanon (Ghajar, Shebaa Farms and the hills of Shuba Kafer) and Syria (Mount Hermon and Golan) since 1967. The occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip were placed on the two most important aquifers of mandatory Palestine.
Tensions resulting from management Water is real within the region and between them. These tensions are in addition to those generated by oil.
1.2. The hydrocarbon resources
Hydrocarbons are internal and external geopolitical issues for almost two thirds of world reserves are being exploited located the Middle East. They constitute half of global sources of energy.
Money hydrocarbons irrigates the region directly or indirectly, in the form of revenue extraction, transit or public or private donations. Oil has funded urban expansion, the arrival of immigrants and the construction of infrastructure: ports, airports, roads, communication networks, etc.. 98% of Kuwait's population are city dwellers as 87% of those in Saudi Arabia. The cities are cosmopolitan and are sometimes made up to 80% of foreigners attracted by revenues from oil Eldorado. In Kuwait, 15% of the population is Indian and 13% are Egyptian nationals, while 31% of the population. Oil revenues has primarily a transformative impact of demographic and urban countries.
exploitation, export of oil and currently developing a petrochemical industry are political and financial goals for many countries. They allow countries to receive dividends, sometimes important as oil prices. In turn, this requires them to establish a security stability with implications for political and military practices. At a speech opening the Yemen liquefied natural gasproject , 7 November 2009, supported militarily by Saudi Arabia, Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh said fighting against Al-Houthi rebellion, which began two months ago, would go to completion to restore security and stability needed for this project.
Developed economies based mainly on oil for energy production, agriculture, transport and production of raw materials. Hydrocarbon resources of the Middle East belong to their country but also to oil companies like Total and Exxon, which represent powerful external actors. For the United States and the European Union, demand for oil in the Middle East has tended to decline, to reduce their dependence on this politically unstable region. According to figures from the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, the rapidly growing Asian demand, particularly from India and China offset widely this fall.
Ultimately, the Middle Eastern oil remains a challenge worldwide.
1.3. trade flows and digital
roads of any type that cross the Middle East go far beyond their local significance because They bring together Asia Europe and East Africa.
The importance of air routes and land often remains limited. The Middle East represents a particularly important area of transit and stopovers for air and land transport, mainly road, remains local or regional level. The submarine cable telecommunications award for the most part, for a century, the Red Sea to join the Southeast Asia, from Europe. The current digital interconnection can catch up on transatlantic routes or "trans". It a major regional power, with regard to the relative isolation of Iran in this respect.
The sea routes are among the most strategic global pass through the region. The importance of the straits and the Suez Canal is still true whether the Bab El-Mandeb, the Bosphorus and Dardanelles or of Hormuz. For proof, one third of the fleet of World War vogue in the waters around the Middle East. Iran regularly threatens to block oil exports through the Strait of Hormuz, from its naval base at Bandar Abbas. In 1987 and 1988, the operation Marine Cleansweep Union of Western Europe has been raised for the clearance. More recently, operations against piracy, as Atalanta, and the French and U.S. bases in Djibouti help secure the strait of Bab el-Mandeb. In 1956, the Suez Canal crisis, daily taken by 60 vessels, demonstrated the importance of the canal and the power loss of the Europeans.
Roads borrow international oil shipping lanes, oil and gas pipelines. These last two limited political risk crossing the Straits and are generally subject to international agreements for the transit of hydrocarbons. For example, the Iraqi Kurdish oil may be exported via the port of Fao, on the Persian Gulf or through the port of Ceyhan in Turkey, which allows direct access to the Mediterranean. Since the 1980s, the Saudi oil areas of Al-Ghawar, located east of the country, is partly transported by the East-West pipeline to the port of Yanbu. This avoids a possible blockade of the Strait of Hormuz in the event of a serious crisis with Iran.
water, hydrocarbons and interregional trade routes represent the geopolitical internal and external. However, they are closely related to Kurdish and Palestinian territorial problems.
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2. challenges people landless
Palestine and Kurdistan are the geopolitical. These territorial problems, from the shares determined by western frontier in the early twentieth century th have undeniable impact on security throughout the region and world stability.
2.1. The partition of Palestine
The partition plan for Palestine of 1947 fixed the breakdown of borders between Israel and an Arab state in Transjordan. Jerusalem, a city holy to Muslims, Christians and Jews, should be placed under international status. This plan represents the beginning of the Palestinian problem and a result of armed conflict destabilizing the region: Arab-Israeli war of 1948, 6 Day War (1967), Black September (1970), Yom Kippur War (1973), civil war Lebanon (1975-1990), Cast Lead operation in Gaza (2008-2009), etc..
The general trend for the past 60 years is an increase in the West Bank and Israeli control reflux IDF land occupied since 1967, outside the West Bank. The process of creating a Palestinian state, from the Palestinian Authority following the Oslo process, is still erratic.
The Palestinian Authority, dominated by the Organization for the Liberation of Palestine, the nationalist tendency, is facing problems:
- occupation and Israeli settlement in the West Bank and Jerusalem;
- the emergence of terrorist groups in Palestinian majority as Fatah al-Islam linked to al-Qaeda, and the existence of powerful nationalist movements as terrorist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command;
- political instability related to the election of Hamas victory, January 26, 2006, then the civil war of June 2007 between Fatah and Hamas which led to the secession from Gaza (1.5 million) and the West Bank (3 million);
- fate of the divergence of the different Palestinian population outside the territory of the Palestinian Authority: 600 000 refugees camps of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, about 4 million Palestinians living outside camps in the Middle East and 1.5 million Palestinian citizens of Israel.
The "return" of refugees, if it remains a permanent claim of the Palestinians economically and politically unrealistic given the current state of things. Few of them have already gone to Gaza or the West Bank. No serious plan has been submitted to international bodies that fund the Palestinian Authority, to prepare for the return of hundreds of thousands of refugees. Israeli Arabs are often more attached to their country they do not claim, under their very moderate support to the other Palestinian.
In the short term, the complexity of the situation, the Israeli nuclear power and conventional power and irregular Palestinian who spoke during the Intifada (uprising) render futile any simple solution to these problems. The problem of the Palestinian state seems unable to be resolved in the medium term by an agreement between Israel and the Palestinians, through inter-Palestinian reconciliation and peace treaties between Israel with the Arab countries still officially war, including Lebanon and Syria. In the longer term, some Palestinian factions rely on an Arab fertility deemed more important than fertility and Jewish immigration to Israel by overwhelming numbers.
2.2. The Kurdistans
The Kurdish population is spread over the territories of Turkey, Iraq, of Syria, Iran and Armenia, since the Treaty of Lausanne of 1923 and despite the creation of a Kurdish state in the Treaty of Sevres of 1920. Almost a century later, the Kurdish problem remains a regional issue, especially in the three major Kurdish regions.
Turkish Kurdistan has an undeniable interest in geopolitics as a water tower in the area (cf. 1.1) and represents one quarter of the area of Turkey. The problem of the guerrillas formed from the Kurdish Workers' Party and the dissolution in 2009, the party of democratic society representing the Kurdish parliament, shows that this area remains a key political and security of Turkey. The Kurdish issue also puts pressure directly on the candidacy of Turkey to enter the European Union.
The Kurdistan region is not an official. Its population is about 7 million Kurds and its area is estimated at 195 000 km 2 , slightly less than Turkish Kurdistan. Iran faces Kurdish terrorist groups including the "Party for a Free Life in Kurdistan," which addresses the security forces of Iran. In August 2009, Iran obtained tactical success against the guerrillas , but failed to eliminate it. The territorial integrity of Iran is the main issue.
Iraqi Kurdistan can be considered autonomous since 1991, after Operation Desert Storm against Iraq's Saddam Hussein. Autonomy has been strengthened following the U.S. intervention of 2003. Its geopolitical interest lies in its hydrocarbon reserves in the Mosul area. He also serves as a rear base for Kurdish separatists in neighboring countries and has an army, the Kurdish Regional Guards, being integrated into the Iraqi army. This earned him military interventions border of Iran (May 2009) and Turkey (February 2008) which could, if intensified, degenerating into interstate conflict.
In sum, the creation of a Kurdistan would upset the geopolitical balance in the Middle East, that does not want Turkey and Iran.
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3. Three regional powers
Turkey and Iran have historically ancient traditions based on the one hand, on Seljuk and Ottoman empires and, secondly, on a succession of empires from the Achaemenid. The anchorage is not less ancient Israel despite a discontinuity of the control of the land by the Hebrews. The historical particularity of Iranian and Turkish republics is to have at one time or another in their history, dominated the Middle East and parts of Central Asia and Balkan Europe. For its part, the origins - the horizon of a century - a European majority of the Israeli population make it a unique player in this region.
3.1. Israel apparently isolated power
Israel is a regional power in the Middle East, which is known and it is not necessary to discuss in detail in this article. It is still necessary to remember some things. First Israel is nuclear power - unreported - the Middle East. Beyond regional conflicts, it gives it a unique place that creates an imbalance with its neighbors, most conventionally weaker than the Jewish state. Call for the physical destruction of the State of Israel is calling for its own destruction with the fact nuclear. Moreover, Iran moved slowly in a dialectic of deterrence (nuclear , conventional ) with Israel, well before the outcome of a possible Iranian nuclear weapons program.
Israel can also rely on the IDF, his army is strong soldier 160,000 (400,000 mobilized), 2500 tanks, 15 warships, 48 patrol boats, 3 submarines class Dolphin, 200 combat helicopters, 900 combat aircraft (non-exhaustive and indicative list) ... Do not forget his secret service able to intervene in many countries.
Israel still has territorial disputes with Syria and Lebanon, a country which does not recognize it and treat it as an enemy in official speeches. Nevertheless, there is a cease-fire monitored by UNIFIL and UNDOF. These countries are currently excluded from formal peace talks in Palestine. But how to discuss Israel's security by not seeking peace on its northern front, knowing the number of Palestinians present in these countries?
Still, Israel is less isolated than it seems. This country is primarily supported by many countries, first and foremost the United States. It is the subject of objective support, undeclared, Jordan, Egypt and Turkey still often on many subjects. The current challenge its security is certainly related to Palestine, but we must look to the rising power of Iran in the regional plan.
3.2. Iran: the power reconstruction
Iran provides a model for reconstruction of a regional power that supports its external actions on the fight against Zionism and especially against the United States. The Islamic Revolution of 1979 is primarily a reaction to the forced Westernization of the country, under the pro-American Shah. Despite his efforts, Iran, Persian and Shiite majority population, never fully succeeded in establishing itself in the Middle East, predominantly Arab and Sunni. Two current lines of regional policy is to break its isolation and to sanctify geopolitical front in the U.S. and its allies.
Since the country's international marginalization after the 1979 revolution and war against Iraq (1980-1988), Iran has installed a logic siege for Iran has been strengthened by the strengthening of U.S. allies. They have reinforced their system since 2001 on the Iranian border: implantation in Qatar Iraq war Afghanistan war, "strategic alliance" with Pakistan against al-Qaida, strengthening the U.S. Navy in the region (5 th and 6 th fleets), NATO bases in Turkey , creation of a French base in Abu Dhabi ...
Iran and the United States lack the political and military means to compete directly with a reasonable chance of early success. Both countries therefore have indirect confrontation strategies based on geopolitical ones. In the twenty th century, the conflict in Iraq (2003), the war in Yemen between government and rebel Sanaa Zaydi North (2004), the Lebanon War (2006), between Israel and Hezbollah, the Gaza operation (2009), between Israel and Hamas, reflect the clash. In one camp, the United States rely on their allies Egypt, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Yemen or Jordan. In the other camp, the alliance hybrid (state and non-state) between Iran, Syria, Hezbollah and Hamas itself as a counterweight to American power. The official visit of Iranian President Ahmadinejad to Damascus, 25 February 2010, attended by Mr. Hassan Nasrallah, Secretary General of Lebanese Hezbollah, and Hamas officials illustrates. So Iran is developing alliances, supporting Shia and Sunni Islamic resistance, to break its geopolitical isolation.
Strategically surrounded and subjected to international economic sanctions, Iran had to find workarounds to its power deficit. He has developed an industry almost entirely autonomous defense: fighters, drones, ballistic missiles, satellites, frigate, radar, etc.. Signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, Iran has the right to develop a civilian nuclear program. However, the development of ballistic missiles of increasing suggests that a civilian nuclear program hiding military applications. There are also the regular statements of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad about Israel's destruction. They allow him to become a leader of Zionism in the Muslim world and strengthen its position in the file "nuclear," using threats during the phases of negotiation.
The development of an Iranian nuclear weapons program his term would allow Iran to weigh against two of its neighbors with the atomic bomb, Pakistan and Russia - Turkey enjoy "protection" of NATO nuclear - and to sanctify against Israel and the United States, for deterrence. This a priori regionally and internationally unacceptable, result in a major geopolitical upheaval in the Middle East, even armed confrontation to reduce Iranian power.
3.3. Turkey or power swivel
Turkey has a special geopolitical role in the Middle East because it itself as an area hub between Central Asia, the Europe and the Arab world . Its diaspora present in these regions is about 20% of the Turkish population. Turkey is the inheritor of the Ottoman Empire but also the heiress of Turkic nomadic tribes of Central Asia. For its population of 77 million inhabitants, like Iran, it's economy is relatively prosperous and open country that is not based on an annuity. It derives its main resources and its development of globalization. This enabled him to benefit from European industrial relocations. The country also represents a market with real opportunities for expansion, related to agreements with the European Union. Its demographic and economic (15 th global economy) attributes naturally to the Republic of Turkey undeniable importance in the Middle East.
Turkey is one of the oldest and the only secular country in the Middle East. Although led by an Islamist party, the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), its political model based on the Army allows him to have extensive diplomatic relations with all countries of the region, including Israel. The Turkish army, powerful institution, has indeed become a factor regulator, because of his membership in the integrated command of NATO and its role as guarantor of constitutional secularism. Despite a recent decline, due to European applications, and the government's willingness to subject the military, the armies are proving that an institutional pillar powerful force. Their participation in the operations of peacekeeping as the UN Interim Force in Lebanon, Afghanistan Stabilization and coercion in northern Iraq, giving them a real regional credibility.
The Cyprus issue remains sensitive to the army and the Turkish public opinion. It is the only country to recognize the "Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus". The approximation involved with Greece since 1999 limits the geopolitical consequences of this conflict that appears somewhat anachronistic and instability.
Besides this example, Turkey wants to promote stability in the Middle East on the basis of recognized borders and boundaries to be demarcated. Enjoying the confidence of many countries, it has served as mediator in bilateral negotiations between Syria and Israel from 2006. It develops good relations with Iran, another regional power and also arises as a mediator in the Iranian nuclear issue. She remains on good terms with all Lebanese parties and most Palestinian factions, which allows him to have a real influence in the Middle East. Relations it has with Iraq were marked by the Kurdish problem and economic considerations. Turkey has been heavily involved, including by force, since 2003 to prevent the dismemberment of Iraq. Ankara has also provided a significant effort to strengthen its ties with many countries of the Middle East, like Egypt and Jordan.
Turkey can rely on a very good diplomatic network and its military force to strengthen its influence in the Middle East in various crises. It is a power hub between East and West.
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Conclusion
The Middle East remains a major geopolitical issue in the twenty th century, as it was in previous centuries. The issues on resources will increase with the declining stocks of oil and water, linked to the expected increase in population in the Middle East. Palestinian peoples' issues Kurdish and does not seem to have solutions in the near future. They will claim to be resolved for years, even after eventual political agreement. The emergence of Israel as a result, two other leading Middle Eastern non-Arab Iran and Turkey, could change the regional balance of power. The consequence could be to build a true regional power and Sunni Arab, like Egypt or Saudi Arabia. This could trigger new conflicts, possibly violent, between the regional powers which are all supported by external actors ayant des besoins énergétiques et commerciaux ...
Sources chiffres: wiki et MAE
Vtrkya Israel and Iran, Valhrb, İsrail, Türkiye, İran, savaş, Israel, Turkey, Iran, War, ישראל, טורקיה, איראן, המלחמה
