This is my third podcast for “Five Minutes to Midnight”, speaking about the Middle East in a Changing World, 7 May 2023
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1M88BgzqaQR3mX6FxH3dcoSUNiTj_Wqol/view
Transcript
Mohammed al Dafani (Host):
This is Five Minutes to Midnight. I am Mohammed al Dafani. In this age of 24-hour news, the internet, social media, and the virtual demise of in-depth journalism, we tend to see international problems and conflicts as isolated events, disconnected from one another and from the past.
In this episode, Middle East analyst Dr Farhang Jahanpour views the current problems of the Middle East and its relations with the West from a historical perspective. He outlines a vision whereby Middle Eastern peoples might regain their position as great members of the international community.
Welcome to Five Minutes to Midnight, Dr Farhang Jahanpour.
Farhang Jahanpour (Guest):
Thank you very much indeed for inviting me to take part in another of your podcasts.
I would like to talk about the Middle East in a changing world. As you know, the whole world is in turmoil at the moment, and so is the Middle East. As a part of the world, events in the world will obviously affect the Middle East and its future.
As you have recorded a large number of excellent programmes and interviews with a number of experts on individual Middle Eastern countries, I will try to talk in general terms about the Middle East as a whole: its past history, its challenges, and where it is going in the future, hopefully.
The first thing to bear in mind is that the term “Middle East” is a European concept. They regarded India as “the East”, China as “the Far East”, and therefore what was closer to them was the “Middle East”. But of course, it depends on where you are looking from and where you are sitting. From a Chinese point of view, India is the Near West, and the Middle East is the Far West. From Russia, the Middle East is the Near South. From Africa, it is the Near North. So, the whole concept is actually a very muddled one.
But the way the West is regarding the Middle East at the moment includes a number of major countries such as Iran, Iraq, Turkey, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, and the six members of the GCC: Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, the UAE, and Saudi Arabia. Sometimes they also include Afghanistan, although Afghanistan is really more in Central Asia. But because of its linguistic and cultural affinity with Iran, I think it is acceptable to include it.
I have travelled to most parts of the Middle East: Iran, Turkey, Egypt, Jordan, Bahrain, Israel, and the Palestinian territories, and so on. Sadly, what I found in all those countries is that there is a situation which is not very satisfactory. Most of them lack democracy. And something which I found in practically all the Arab countries, in Iran, and even in Israel, is a feeling of uncertainty and vulnerability. None of the regimes feels very secure, and people are also mainly unhappy about their plight.
However, it is important to point out that both Middle Eastern people and the West have a rather poor understanding of the Middle East. As a result, we are facing major problems in mutual understanding, and these are among the reasons for some of the conflicts during the past few decades.
It is important to bear in mind, both for the sake of Middle Eastern people and to remind the West, that the Middle East is heir to great civilisations. Civilisation as we know it really started in the Middle East. The Sumerians were the first people to develop complex systems that we can call civilisation. As far back as the fifth millennium BC, Mesopotamia was home to several powerful empires and civilisations, including the Babylonian and the Assyrian empires. What is important to bear in mind is how long these civilisations and empires lasted. The Assyrian Empire lasted from the 14th century BC to the 7th century BC; the Neo-Assyrian Empire from 911 to 879 BC.
Egyptian civilisation coalesced around 3150 BC with the political unification of Upper and Lower Egypt, and created a great civilisation.
The Persian Empire started with the Medes from 678 BC to 555 BC; the Achaemenids from 550 to 330 BC; then the short-lived period of Alexander’s invasion and his successors, which was replaced by a Persian Empire again: the Parthian Empire from 247 BC to 224 AD, over 470 years; then the Sasanian Empire from 224 AD to 651 AD, over 420 years, which ended with the Islamic conquest of Iran.
After the Islamic conquest and the Islamisation of Iran, Iran produced powerful empires within the Islamic world. As you can see, Iran remained a powerful country, competing first with the Babylonians, then the Greeks, then with the Romans, then with the Byzantines, and later on during the Islamic period.
If you come to the Arabs in more recent times—leaving the ancient world aside—you come to the Arab empires. The first was the Rashidun (the “Rightly Guided”) Caliphate, the heirs to the Prophet Muhammad, which lasted from 632 to 661 AD. Then the Umayyad Caliphate, based in Damascus, from 661 to 750 AD. Then, the long and very powerful Abbasid caliphate from 750 to 1258, when it was destroyed by the Mongols. There was a second Abbasid period from 1261 to 1517, and the Mamluks were located in Cairo from 1250 to 1517.
Then we come to the Ottoman Empire, which lasted over 600 years, from 1299 to 1922. In 1453, Mehmed the Conqueror conquered Constantinople and put an end to the Byzantine Empire. The Ottoman Empire did not become just a Middle Eastern empire but also a European empire: a large part of Eastern Europe was under Ottoman rule. They even laid siege to Vienna twice—in 1529 and 1532—under Suleiman the Magnificent.
So, we can see that the Middle East has played a very important role in ancient history and also in modern history.
Geographically, it is a pivotal place. Before great navigation started, the Middle East was the link between the East and the West. Iran is bordered to the north by the Caspian Sea and the frozen Siberian regions; to the south, there is the Persian Gulf and the Indian Ocean. Historically, the Middle East provided the link between East and West.
One historian and thinker I am very fond of is Halford Mackinder (former principal of Reading University and the first director of the London School of Economics). He coined the term “geopolitics” and stressed the significance of what he called the “World Island”, or the pivotal area. In 1904, he formulated the Heartland Theory and argued that whoever controls Central Asia and the Middle East controls the world, because this is where East and West meet.
Later, with the development of global navigation, this was bypassed, and European seaports became central to the new world; the Middle East went into eclipse. But I would argue that it is coming back to achieve great importance again.
Because of its geographical position, it has always been a centre for conflict and of great interest to powers in the East and West. As our colleague Jeremy Bowen wrote in his book The New Middle East, the Middle East attracts outsiders, and the desire to control it has led to suffering and slaughter. It possesses great resources, as well as sacred and strategic territory. Once the world entered the industrial era and craved carbon energy, the planet’s biggest reserves of oil and gas in the Middle East were impossible to ignore.
It is also the home of great religions which have influenced the world: Zoroastrianism and Mithraism in Iran; then Judaism, Christianity, Islam; and, in more modern times, the enormous energy resources of the region.
Since about 1909, when Iran became a major oil producer, and later with the development of Aramco and BP, huge sums flowed to Western companies and Western treasuries. The Middle East’s period of eclipse coincided with the Age of Discovery and the rise of European empires in the 15th and 16th centuries.
However, the period of Western domination in the Middle East was relatively short-lived. One major early inroad was Napoleon’s invasion of Egypt in 1798. France’s empire in Algeria began in 1830 and ended in 1962. The British Raj started in 1858 and lasted until 1947, following the East India Company period.
During the Second World War, European empires tore into each other. The latest revised figures suggest enormous losses: the USSR lost some 26.6 million; China about 20 million; Germany suffered approximately 2 million dead in World War I and between 6.9 and 8.8 million total deaths (military and civilian) in World War II. Japan had about 3 million; France had about 567,000; the UK had about 384,000; and the United States had about 450,000. It is often not realised that the number of people in European colonies who were used to fight European wars was immense: India, for example, lost very large numbers, over 87,000 Indian troops, and 3 million civilians died in World War II.
Protected by two oceans, the United States emerged relatively unscathed and more powerful than any former European power. At the end of the Second World War, the United States was producing nearly half of global industrial output.
I am not a leftist or anti-American; I love America. My father lived the best part of his youth in America. The US Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights made major contributions to the development of democracy in the world, although, like all systems, they have shortcomings that can be amended.
After the Second World War, the two major powers were the United States and the Soviet Union, and they were locked in rivalry. In 1941, Henry Luce, an important journalist who founded Time magazine, coined the term “the American Century”, and he was not entirely wrong. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, America became a hyperpower in a unipolar world.
I think this has been disastrous for the Middle East, with wars in Iran, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Yemen, Somalia, and elsewhere. The images of Fallujah and other places—victims of depleted uranium and devastation—are as familiar to people in the Middle East as the 9/11 attacks are to Americans.
There has been a strong but mistaken view that the West has always been the land of democracy and human rights, while the Middle East has been the land of despotism. Historically, this is not really true at all. The rise of the West involved genocide and ethnic cleansing in parts of the Americas, slavery on an industrial scale, and the development of totalitarian ideologies—communism in Russia (with intellectual roots in Western Europe), fascism in Italy and Spain, Nazism in Germany—alongside militarism.
America’s military budget is larger than that of the next nine biggest powers combined, and it has a very large network of global bases. It is time for Middle Eastern people to look at the reality: they have had a bad period of some 200 years of colonisation (most Islamic countries, except Turkey and Iran, were colonised), but they also have a glorious history of freedom, invention, art, culture and development. They can revive that legacy, not as an empire, but by regaining their position as great members of the international community.
I won’t speak in detail about Iran, but the revolution led by women—under the slogan “Woman, Life, Freedom”—has subsided, yet it has not ended. There are major developments: trade unions, women, and different classes are demanding greater democracy and freedom.
Turkey, after losing its empire after the First World War, saw a series of military coups, often supported by the West, when governments moved toward greater independence or a different identity. Eventually, it achieved a form of stability with the rise of the Justice and Development Party led by Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, first as prime minister and then as president. With elections coming, Turkey is at a crossroads between Islamism and secularism. The main challenger appears to be Ekrem İmamoğlu, the mayor of Istanbul, and the polls have suggested a close contest.
As far as the Arab world is concerned, there are historical reasons for the sad state of affairs. One is the legacy of colonialism, which has changed form but still continues: many Arab states are still clients of the West, especially the United States, spending tens of billions on Western weapons and relying on Western support.
A second is the Arab–Israeli conflict and Israel’s influence on US policy, leaving Arab countries on the receiving end of interventions and pressure.
A third is the dominance of military rule, which began in the 1950s. After the colonialist period, the military was often the only organised force with weapons, so independence was achieved through coups in Egypt, Algeria, Syria, Iraq, and elsewhere. Western domination was replaced by military domination. The military lacked legitimacy, so rulers either adopted religious ideology to legitimise themselves, or their opponents used religion as the only countervailing social force—hence the rise of Islamist movements and outcomes such as the Iranian Revolution and the brief rule of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt.
We should speak honestly about the state of Israel. There has been ugly anti-Jewish feeling among some fundamentalists in the Middle East—even Holocaust denial—which must be rejected. The Holocaust was a horrific crime, which involved the killing of some six million Jews under the Nazis in Europe. Middle Eastern societies need to come to terms with the Jewish sense of loss and vulnerability. But we should also have the courage to oppose the attacks and injustices inflicted on Arabs and Palestinians by the state of Israel.
Israel’s origins started with the Balfour Declaration of 2 November 1917. It stated that His Majesty’s Government viewed with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, while supposedly safeguarding the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities. As Winston Churchill said, Britain gave a piece of property from one people to another, though in 1917 it did not even belong to Britain.
Balfour’s motivations were political: to appeal to world Jewry and to influence American policy and support for the Allied cause. The British Prime Minister David Lloyd George later described the declaration as driven by propagandist reasons, aimed at securing Jewish support and finance for the Allied war efforts.
Then there was the UN General Assembly’s partition plan. A state was created and has existed for 75 years, but at a huge cost to Arabs: wars and continuing conflict.
My point is that the Middle East has to accept the state of Israel. But more importantly, Israel must come to terms with being a Middle Eastern country rather than an extension of the West. It should establish peace and agreement with its neighbours and the Palestinians, who were displaced during the establishment of Israel and have lived as second-class citizens in many respects.
Many Israelis have come to realise that Israel must change course. The novelist David Grossman wrote that Israelis have handed their fate over to security people; the army runs the country because there is a lack of political vision beyond military survival. “Survival becomes our only aim. We are living to survive, not to live.”
Israel is secure: it has the biggest conventional force in the Middle East and the only nuclear force. It should achieve genuine peace with the Palestinians and Arabs. Unfortunately, the trend under Benjamin Netanyahu has been toward religious fundamentalism and nationalist supremacy. A line from a coalition agreement stated that the Jewish people have an exclusive and inalienable right to all parts of the land of Israel, and that settlements will be promoted in all parts, including Judaea and Samaria—implying no Palestine.
Basing legitimacy on biblical promises is dangerous. If Israel reduces democracy to a religious state based on scripture, people will question biblical claims. Israel should instead base its legitimacy on international law and democratic principles, live in peace with its neighbours, renounce nuclear weapons, join the NPT, and work for a nuclear-free zone in the Middle East.
Recently, there have been major regional developments. Efforts to create confrontation between Arabs and Iran have been challenged by China’s mediation, bringing Iran and Saudi Arabia together, a major development. There is talk of re-establishing embassies, direct flights, and investment between the two countries.
There is also a discussion of a summit between the GCC and Iran. Iran and Iraq are Gulf littoral states; cooperation could be transformative. Beyond that, one could revive broader regional cooperation—including Iran, Turkey, Pakistan, various Arab states and potentially others—to create a large economic bloc focused on cooperation and development, not military confrontation.
After the Second World War, the international system was Western-dominated: the UN Security Council with five permanent members; institutions such as the World Bank and the IMF; and the dominance of the dollar and systems like SWIFT. This has enabled sanctions and immense losses to sanctioned states, including Iran.
The post-1945 architecture has been shaken by Russia’s war in Ukraine and the expansion of NATO. If the UN Security Council were revised, it should reflect major contemporary powers (Japan, Indonesia, Australia, India, and others), and it should also include major Middle Eastern states—such as Iran, Turkey, and Egypt—as permanent members to create balance.
All this depends on whether the transition to a future world is peaceful. Graham Allison’s idea of the “Thucydides Trap” suggests that great-power transitions often lead to war. I hope America, as a diverse democracy, chooses to lead the world toward equality, the end of colonialism, and cooperation—rather than empire.
For the Middle East, the requirements are that states get their act together: develop democracy, move away from dictatorial regimes, reduce religious fanaticism and extremism, and move towards moderation. Democracy and the rule of law are essential. If Arabs, Turks, Iranians, and Israelis can accept one another as members of a regional order and work towards union for development and peace, the Middle East could have a glorious future.
Mohammed al Dafani (Host):
Thank you very much, Farhang, for a hugely interesting talk about the history and possible future developments of the Middle East.
A few questions. Earlier, you spoke about continued misunderstanding between the West and Middle Eastern countries. How much of this would you attribute to the media in the West?
Farhang Jahanpour (Guest):
Very much. People often underestimate the influence of media: perception is everything. The main issue is not direct censorship, but the selection of news. When you listen to radio and television stations in different countries, you find that reporting reflects a point of view.
Take Ukraine: in the West, reporting is largely from the Ukrainian side. In the Gulf War, the media was closely aligned with the American military, and reporting was the opposite in tone to that from Iraq. The media can demonise one part of the world and exaggerate the virtues of another.
The BBC is supposed to be impartial, but impartiality is extremely difficult. Every broadcast media has a point of view shaped by history, culture and politics. The BBC represents Britain, just as Russian media represents Russia. In America, Fox and CNN represent different American viewpoints.
Now we also have the internet, which is partly a good development but has also become ugly, rude and antagonistic. We need to revise our idea of global media and try to reflect news as it is, not as a partisan exercise.
Host:
You mentioned the dominance of the military after colonialism, and how military rulers have used religion to legitimise themselves. One seminal event in Arab history was the defeat in 1967, which was a final nail in the coffin of secular pan-Arabism or secular nationalism. To what extent would you say the 1967 defeat gave a push to religious fanaticism in the Arab world?
Jahanpour:
It gave a push not only to religious fanaticism in the Arab world, but also to Jewish fanaticism in Israel. Israel shifted from democracy toward a belief that biblical prophecies were coming true and that it was becoming a great power.
Naturally, when you are in a weak position, you turn to religion as solace, explanation and justification. In a multipolar world, if we are going to avoid catastrophe, we need balance and moderation. Secularism does not mean atheism; it means religion belongs to the private domain, while politics should be based on collective judgment and the people selecting their governments and abiding by laws.
If we in the Middle East—including Israel—realise that democracy is more important than Judaism, Islam or Christianity, and move toward globalisation, democratisation, unification and mutual understanding, we can change course. This also applies to America, where the religious right and Christian Zionists have significant influence.
We need a new Renaissance, Reformation, and the Age of Enlightenment: we must base our ideas on science, rationality and peace, not militarism, but cooperation. That is the only way to avoid a global catastrophe.
Host:
Poor governance and economic mismanagement in Arab countries go hand in hand with corruption. Do you see any way out, given how endemic corruption has become?
Jahanpour:
My experience in the Middle East—in Egypt, Iran, Turkey and elsewhere—is that people are not as fanatical as governments suggest. Religious extremism is often government-supported and induced. Historically, Islam included periods of openness: in the Abbasid era, there was freedom of expression and rationalist thought. In Iran, under the Safavids, Western travellers experienced religious freedom, much more than existed in the West at that time.
Religious fanaticism is a recent phenomenon—fundamentalism is the result of weakness and a search for strength. Despotism and fanaticism lead to corruption. Democracy and the rule of law allow corruption to be challenged and punished. Democracy, secularism and the rule of law are the recipe for development.
Host:
Israeli behaviour towards Palestinians and unconditional Western support for Israel have led to a resurgence of antisemitism in the West and Arab countries. Would you agree?
Jahanpour:
I agree. Unfortunately, there is a rise of antisemitism in ugly forms. Jews are an important part of religious, cultural and intellectual history, but they should be regarded as one among many. The idea of the “Chosen People” and “Holy Land” can distort democracy and fuel fanaticism within Israel, too.
The remedy is that the region as a whole—Arabs, Jews, Iranians, Turks—must move away from religious fanaticism and corruption toward democracy and rule of law. That would reduce both antisemitic and anti-Islamic feelings.
Historically, Jews, Muslims and others lived together for millennia. In the Ottoman Empire, the millet system recognised communities. In Iran, there was no historic anti-Jewish feeling in the way often imagined, and Jewish life flourished. The antagonism between Jews and Muslims, Israel and Iran, is fabricated. We are living in the same region. Many Iranian Jews, for example, retain their Persian cultural ties.
More unity, more friendship, more democracy.
Host:
My final question is about the US. Do you think the continued US pursuit of empire or global dominance will inevitably put it on the path of irreversible decline, as all empires have declined?
Jahanpour:
The American ideals of a republic, “city on a hill,” were not an empire. Early founders advised avoiding entanglement in foreign conflicts. But America moved towards militarism and the military-industrial complex. It would be of great benefit to America and the world if America returned to its ideals and spread them by example, not by force.
Democracy is not instant; it is a process. The West achieved it with pain and evolution. Other civilisations should be allowed to develop their forms of democracy through peace, evolution and cooperation.
If we continue the current course—militarism, escalation, expansion—the result is war and catastrophe. The “Doomsday Clock” suggests we are very close to midnight. A change of course must take place in Russia, China, Europe and America. Militarism leads to catastrophe.
Host:
Thank you very much for an excellent and enlightening talk, and I hope it finds a wide audience.
Jahanpour:
Thank you very much for being so kind and patient with this long interview.
Host:
That was Middle East analyst Dr Farhang Jahanpour, talking to me, Mohammed al Dafani, on Five Minutes to Midnight about the problems of the Middle East, its relations with the West, and how Middle Eastern countries might regain their position as great members of the international community.
F Jahanpour 