An enduring Arab army is an improbable necessity [THE NATIONAL]
March 26, 2015
When Arab leaders meet in Sharm El Sheikh tomorrow, it will be an even more charged atmosphere than usual for members of the Arab League. Yemen is unravelling. The Israeli-Arab conflict continues. Syria and Iraq show no sign of becoming stable any time soon. Libya is at risk of being overrun by ISIL.
It’s a troubling time for the Arab world. It’s unsurprising then that increasing calls for internal Arab military interventions have led to action in Yemen.
Such calls have been heard before in recent history from Arab leaders seeking an Arab military intervention in the region.
Indeed, the Egyptian presidency has been openly and publicly calling for a permanent multinational Arab military force to be formed, in order to address what it sees as the challenges emanating from within the region. Yemen’s unwinding will only add to the volume of that call for a permanent force, after the situation in Libya and the wider issue of ISIL in the region continues to worsen.
Alongside that call, you have Riyadh also pushing for, essentially, a pan-Sunni front to confront what it perceives as the threat of Iranian influence in the region. That would be primarily Arab in nature, but might also include states such as Turkey and Pakistan – at least in the Saudi calculus. Indeed, one of the reasons behind assembling such a large number of allies in the Yemeni operation may be to simply send a message to the Iranians.
There are some positive notes to be expressed about the notion of a pan-Arab military force. While most conflicts in the region ought to be solved using political solutions, some also have a very clear security component. One cannot negotiate, for example, with ISIL.
It is also the case that in many instances when military force has been utilised in the region, Arab military forces were not given a leadership role.
When Iraq was forced from Kuwait in 1991, it was the West that led the charge. Twenty years later, when Muammar Qaddafi was overthrown in Libya, it was Nato at the helm.
Today, western forces also operate against ISIL. It is unthinkable to imagine an Arab military force engaging in Europe if there were any military conflict there to assist Europeans – they would want to do the job on their own. Not so, however, in the Arab world.
Theoretically, there is a good case for a kind of multinational, multilateral Arab military force – an army to take care of the region’s own problems. But practically speaking, there are serious issues with a pan-Arab force, let alone a pan-Sunni force or anti-Iranian one.
While the hazards in the Arab world are many, it’s unclear how a pan-Arab consensus could be formed.
The European Union is a collection of more than two dozen states, and is divided on many issues. Nevertheless, it also agrees on many key points, and the European Union is a genuine, if not always quite effective, piece of institutional machinery. There is no corresponding entity within the Arab world – and analysts of the Arab League have known this for decades.
When it comes to military interventions, Arab states differ tremendously. On Libya, for example, Algeria, Egypt and Tunisia, all neighbouring countries, have quite opposing points of view. Within the Gulf there are also differences on Libya. It may well come to pass that an Arab military intervention is in Libya’s future – but if so, it is unlikely to be as part of some kind of broad Arab multinational force.
When it comes to Syria, there are great differences of opinion on the Syrian opposition, with some states backing certain opposition groups rather than others – and some quite comfortable with the notion of Bashar Al Assad remaining in power altogether.
In the long-run, it is untenable for the Arab world’s conflicts to be settled by non-Arab countries.
Conversely, the issue with a multi-Arab military force is that 22 Arab countries do not agree on all that much. There is a way to get to that point, but it requires a sustainable consensus, based on two key building blocks.
Those two points are simple. The first is the autonomy of the Arab citizen, in his or her own country, as well as in every other Arab country. When Arab citizens feel dignity in their own countries, they will extend it to each other, which leads to the second point – a genuine effort to build unity in the region in different realms on the country level.
In the meantime, the security challenges continue and worsen. Addressing them cannot wait – but it is far more likely they will be addressed in an ad hoc fashion, such as the current effort in Yemen, rather than through a strategically placed permanent one. That will not change until efforts are taken to develop the autonomy of Arabs, as citizens as well as countries. The Arab world cannot really afford to wait to start on that.
Dr HA Hellyer is an associate fellow of the Royal United Services Institute in London, and the Centre for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution in Washington DC
On Twitter @hahellyer
Source: The National
Photo Credit: Wiki Commons. CC.