SHOULD Pakistan be a player in the Middle Eastern conflicts? The perennial question, today being asked in light of the Yemen situation. Sadly, we can’t seem to think beyond the obvious in comprehending what is going on in this region. We still seem caught up in the classic geopolitical-cum-sectarian framework traditionally applied here.

I am not pretending that the often talked about factors in the Middle East are irrelevant. These states are real entities; so are their regimes; our traditional alliances do matter; sectarian divisions are also non-trivial; Saudi-Iran proxy war is going on; etc. But this is talking symptoms, not the disease. These are framings in which regional problems manifest themselves; these aren’t the actual problems or even their real causes.

Pakistani leaders need to think differently. Forget states, classic state alliances, and classic sectarianism for a moment. Instead, think history, think of societies within states, and think of suppressed ideologies and how the most violent of them speak the loudest in chaotic situations.

We tend to forget that the Middle East, as it is configured today, is a largely artificial construct coming out of the decolonisation process. You’ve got essentially multi-tribe societies existing within state boundaries that were handed over to dictatorial monarchies/regimes that used their resource wealth or state alliances to suppress all dissent and maintain a monopoly over violence within their territory.

The important common threads: tribal societies; immense resources; and borderline totalitarianism. Study the geopolitics of these countries and you’ll find them driven purely by regime perpetuation concerns. All of them viewed monopoly over violence as their main tool to achieve this.

In doing so, these regimes created highly constricted patronage networks and deliberately kept a number of tribes and identities out of this coveted club given their historical mistrust, enmity or opposition to the regimes. Therefore, beneath the calm that these regimes managed for years were simmering tensions — tribal, socio-economic, and political in varying degrees.

Pakistan must think differently about the Middle East fires.

As if they were mirroring each other, none of the regimes in question created any rules for contestation that would allow for non-violent resolution of conflicts or afford even the most basic of civil liberties to those out of favor. Exceptional attempts to buy out opponents aside, dissent was met with repression.

Since those deprived and alienated by the regime were often from opposing religious sects or belonged to particular tribes/collective identities that saw eye-to-eye with regimes of other states, the popular analysis saw their problems as synonymous with sectarianism, proxy warfare between regional states, or broader geopolitics. In reality, the grievances were often deeper, more basic and more indigenous.

Examine the Middle East through this lens and a longitudinal view becomes essential: decolonisation was only the start of the nation-building process even if it supposedly advanced state building to a greater extent. We are now in the next phase of this unfinished process, one that threats to totally overhaul the previous one.

But the status quo bubble has burst. It has become clear to those who have felt alienated from their regimes, both individually and collectively, that the monopoly over violence of their ruling class is not infallible. The demonstration effect in the Middle East (and North Africa) is real — and has got dictatorial regimes in trouble.

None of these regimes have real answers. The problem is that a genuine effort to allow for non-violent contestation may be the only solution. But this won’t happen as it requires an overhaul of the entire state structures — this being synonymous with the ouster of these regimes.

And thus, the anti-state (read anti-regime) violence we see today.

In countries that had some form of organised political opposition, you find an attempt to use that to upset the apple cart. The anti-Mubarak drive in Egypt and the post-Ben Ali politicking in Tunisia are examples. Where not, you have immediate resort to violence: sub-nationalist rebels in Libya; nationalist ones like the initial anti-Bashar drive in Syria or currently in Yemen; or Islamist outfits now filling the vacuum in places like Iraq where key anti-regime segments of society even saw working with the devil as worth it to oust those controlling the state. And yes, the proxy warfare among regional states is there to continue fuelling the fires.

When all of this is done, we would have seen excessive violence, regime changes, and perhaps even changes in state boundaries, de facto or de jure. Phase II of the post-Second World War nation-building process in the Middle East shall be no picnic!

The only states with a chance of avoiding the chaos are ones that do have rules and norms of non-violent political contestation, no matter how imperfect. The Irans, Turkeys, and Israels of the world stand out.

So to those who matter in Islamabad and Rawalpindi, take this long-term view before jumping in this fire.

The writer is a foreign policy expert based in Washington, DC.

Published in Dawn, April 7th, 2015

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