Robert Malley
40 μ¢¤³£ ¬μμ¬
geometry o the Middle East’s internal
schisms may Áuctuate, yet one struggles
to think o another region whose
dynamics are as thoroughly deÄned by a
discrete number o identiÄable and
all-encompassing fault lines.
One also struggles to think o a region
that is as integrated, which is the second
source o its precarious status. This may
strike many as odd. Economically, it ranks
among the least integrated areas o the
world; institutionally, the Arab League is
less coherent than the European Union,
less eective than the African Union, and
more dysfunctional than the Organization
o American States. Nor is there any
regional entity to which Arab countries
and the three most active non-Arab
players (Iran, Israel, and Turkey) belong.
Yet in so many other ways, the Middle
East functions as a uniÄed space. Ideologies
and movements spread across borders: in
times past, Arabism and Nasserism;
today, political Islam and jihadism. The
Muslim Brotherhood has active branches
in Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, the Palestinian
territories, Syria, Turkey, the Gul states,
and North Africa. Jihadi movements
such as al Qaeda and the Islamic State,
or , espouse a transnational agenda
that rejects the nation-state and national
boundaries altogether. Iran’s Shiite
coreligionists are present in varying
numbers in the Levant and the Gulf,
often organized as armed militias that
look to Tehran for inspiration or sup-
port. Saudi Arabia has sought to export
Wahhabism, a puritanical strain o Islam,
and funds politicians and movements
across the region. Media outlets backed
by one side or another o the Sunni-
Sunni rift—Qatar’s Al Jazeera, Saudi
Arabia’s Al Arabiya—have regional reach.
The Palestinian cause, damaged as it mayconstituencies but are in reality moved by
power politics, a tug o war for regional
inÁuence unfolding in Iraq, Lebanon,
Syria, Yemen, and the Gul states.
Finally, there is the Sunni-Sunni rift,
with Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the ¬¤
vying with Qatar and Turkey. As Hussein
Agha and I wrote in The New Yorker in
March, this is the more momentous, i
least covered, o the divides, with both
supremacy over the Sunni world and the
role o political Islam at stake. Whether in
Egypt, Libya, Syria, Tunisia, or as far
aÄeld as Sudan, this competition will
largely deÄne the region’s future.
Together with the region’s polarization
is a lack o eective communication,
which makes things ever more perilous.
There is no meaningful channel between
Iran and Israel, no ocial one between
Iran and Saudi Arabia, and little real
diplomacy beyond rhetorical jousting
between the rival Sunni blocs.
With these fault lines intersecting in
complex ways, various groupings at times
join forces and at other times compete.
When it came to seeking to topple Syrian
President Bashar al-Assad, Saudi Arabia
and the ¬¤ were on the same side as
Qatar and Turkey, backing Syrian reb-
els—albeit dierent ones, reÁecting their
divergent views on the Islamists’ proper
role. But those states took opposite
stances on Egypt, with Doha and Ankara
investing heavily to shore up a Muslim
Brotherhood–led government that Riyadh
and Abu Dhabi were trying to help bring
down (the government fell in 2013, to be
replaced by the authoritarian rule o Abdel
Fattah el-Sisi). Qatar and Turkey fear Iran
but fear Saudi Arabia even more. Hamas
stands with Syria in opposition to Israel
but stood with the Syrian opposition and
other Islamists against Assad. The