Middle Eastern Primer
Beginner's Guide to the Middle East
With the renewed interest in Afghanistan and the Middle East I thought that I would do a Starter's guide or overview of the various factions competing in the Middle East. I think this will provide a useful framework to digest news coming out of the area as well as to provide some basic motivation for why each actor acts as it does. I will attempt to list the main factions in the Middle East as well as the countries that make them up. I may very well miss some countries in these lists but that usually means that I consider them to weak to effectively contribute to geopolitics.
The Middle East is always a fun place to begin studying geopolitics as it has a unique mix of religion, national interest, great game politics and historical acrimony which motivates its principle actors. I would even go so far as to say you would be hard pressed to find another region of the world where religion plays such a motivating factor in conflicts.
Saudi Arabia - Israel
The Sunni-Jew alliance principally made up of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and Israel make up the dominant faction in the Middle East. Egypt, Jorda, Bahrain, The United Arab Emirates, and even Sudan make up some of the other notable members of this faction. Countries in this faction are generally located in the South and West of the Middle East. As can be expected by a faction headlined by Israel and Saudi Arabia, two principle US allies, this faction is backed by the US. At this point I would have to put a qualification to this backing though. Republican governments tend to heavily back this faction to the exclusion of all others in the region while Democrats tend to back the Quataris.
The strength of this faction cannot be understated even without the backing of the United States. Israel arguably commands the most well respected fighting force in the area while Saudi Arabia, which holds the two holiest cities in Islam (Mecca and Medina), has enormous cultural sway amongst its neighbors. In the Middle Ages there was a position called Caliph, which essentially transalates to the successor of Muhammad as the principle Muslim ruler of the age. It would not be far fetched to say that the leader of Saudi Arabia would have greater claim to the title of Caliph than any other Islamic nation.
One of the most amazing things about this faction is that as little as 50 years ago ago both of its principal factions were at war with each other with Saudi Arabia and the other neighboring countries trying to eradicate Israel. As time went on both countries found that they had more and more common interests, primarily the rise of Iran, which gave way to an alliance. While this alliance was in the shadows in the past it has been formalized by the Trump administration in the Abraham Accords. It is worth noting that Saudi Arabia itself is not part of these accords but everyone believes that Egypt, UAE, Sudan, and other nations would not have joined without thier blessings.
If your main area of interest lies in the fortunes of the Palestinians the existence of these accords is the primary reason why their geopolitical position grows worse day after day. In the past they enjoyed near unanimous support from the nations surrounding Israel which meant lots of local supplies and operational support for their activities. As time goes on the Islamic countries in the immediate region began to side with Israel. In fact it is not uncommon for the only Islamic countries to support Palestine nowadays would be far off Qatar or Turkey.
Iran
Serving as the principal antagonist to the Abraham alliance or principal protagonist depending on your view stands Iran. It is mostly made up of Shia muslims and that being the case has no natural allies in the region. As a quick refresher there was a schism in the Islamic faith before which let to a divide between Shia and Sunni muslims. I wont go into the specifics of what each believe but suffice it to say they hate each other more than Protestants and Catholics. As the US supports the Abraham alliance, Russia and China, have both at different times supported Iran.
This lack of natural allies from the official governments in the area has led to the various resistance, rebel, and erstwhile terrorist groups to seek support from Iran. To their credit Iran has been able to take a pragmatic stance and look beyond immediate religious divisions and support both Sunni and Shia groups. This has led to Iran and the Abraham alliance engaging in various proxy wars in the region. The most famous currently being the War in Yemen where the Houthis backed by Iran rebelled against the Yemenese government backed by Saudi Arabia for various reasons.
This lack of formal allies in the area seems to indicate that while Iran can be an effective spoiler it does not really have a path towards becoming the regional hegemon.
Qatar and Turkey
In truth these two countries could very well be divided into their own factions. For simplicities sake I have grouped them together as they currently have tied interests. For all intents and purposes this is the "I want to replace Saudi Arabia as the head of Sunni Muslims" faction. Of course with this goal they are primarily made up of Sunni Muslims.
Very few countries can actually make it into this list as not only do you have to have the national power to be a viable alternative to Saudi Arabia but have the will to act as well. While Saudi Arabia holds tremendous culutural influence by being the care taker of the holy sites, Qatar and Turkey have their own methods to compete as well. Qatar wields powerful but subtle cultural influence by controlling the popular Al Jazeera telivision network while Turkey has significant economic influence as the gateway to Europe. Turkey has even been able to bend Europe to its will in recent years thru the threat of economic migrants from the Middle East.
Both parties hold no qualms in working with Iran and the United States themselves as they attempt to supplant Saudi Arabia. It is a little known fact that the largest natural gas field in the world (South Pars) is jointly owned by Qatar and Iran. So far most Islamic nations in the area have held firm in the Middle East and it is slightly difficult to think of what Qatar and Turkey could do to win their loyalty.
These 3 factions make up the powers in the Middle East. I hope you enjoyed this article and learned something and if you have any questions please go ahead and send them to me.