It’s as if the countries of the region, having ditched one overweening imperium, are rejecting another. Ruling regimes and authoritarian leaders are asserting their independence and freedom of action – some democratically, most not – while courting new allies. This reflects a fundamental shift towards a multipolar world, where solo superpowers no longer dominate.
In Saudi Arabia and the UAE, ruthless royals inculcate a homogenous national identity and project power abroad through financial clout, oil and sport. Trading on their strategic importance, they reject the status of western protectorate conferred by the US and, before that, by Britain. In Israel, hardline Jewish nationalists and religious extremists battle to define the future character of the state in defiance of Washington’s wishes, echoing the violent end days of the British mandate.
In Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdo ğan, heir to another vanquished empire, sets west against east and vice versa, alternately playing kiss-me-quick with the US, Nato, the EU, Russia and China.
Since taking office in 2021, the US president, Joe Biden, mindful of recent, scarring American calamities and preoccupied by China and Ukraine, has mostly steered clear of continuing crises in the West Bank, Lebanon, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Libya and Sudan. His one big Middle East pledge – to salvage the Iran nuclear pact wrecked by Donald Trump – remains unfulfilled. In 1956, the invasion of Egypt fatally undermined Britain as dominant regional power. Is an irrelevant US approaching its own Suez-like turning point?
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