The New Middle East

If the Middle East is now the scene of a confrontation between Israeli, Turkish and Iranian projects, the Mecca agreement on joint defense between Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan could signal the emergence of something different: not necessarily a fourth hegemonic project, but a new project for regional balance. The significance of the agreement lies in the fact that the three countries bring together remarkably complementary sources of power. Turkey has a powerful military, is a member of NATO, and has a rapidly expanding military and technology industry, as well as advanced capabilities in drones and electronic warfare. Pakistan is a major military power. It is the only Muslim state to possess nuclear weapons. It also has extensive military and strategic experience. Saudi Arabia, for its part, has economic and financial power, as well as energy resources, alongside its central position in the Arab and Muslim worlds and its growing political weight on the international stage. The combination of Saudi financial power, Turkish military and industrial power, and Pakistani military and nuclear capabilities thus creates, for the first time in decades, the possibility of a regional power center emerging that would not be entirely under the American umbrella. This does not mean that the three countries have decided to break with the United States. Turkey remains a member of NATO, while Saudi Arabia and Pakistan maintain important ties with Washington. But the new element is that these states are now making clear, in practice, that regional security can no longer remain exclusively dependent on the guarantees of an outside power. The agreement is thus part of a broader international transformation. The order that emerged after the end of the Cold War, in which the United States was the virtually sole power capable of setting the rules of the game in the Middle East, is beginning to evolve toward a more multipolar system. China is present both economically and strategically. Russia, despite the decline of some of its influence, remains an international power. India is emerging as an increasingly important global power. And Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan no longer want to be mere states operating within an order shaped by others; they now seek to participate in shaping it. Beyond an Alliance Against Iran It would be wrong to view the Mecca agreement as a simple Sunni alliance directed against Iran. The three countries themselves have stressed the defensive nature of the agreement, emphasizing that it is directed against no particular state. More importantly, their strategic interests extend far beyond the confrontation with Tehran. To be sure, they want to prevent the return of Iranian hegemony, but they do not want the collapse of Iranian power to automatically lead the region toward Israeli hegemony. The agreement thus becomes an instrument of balance with a dual purpose: Containing Iran, on the one hand, and preventing Israel from becoming the sole regional power capable of imposing the rules of the system, on the other. The distinction is fundamental. If, in previous decades, the Iranian project sought to build an axis stretching from Tehran to Baghdad, Damascus and Beirut, and if the current Israeli project seeks to establish a strategic supremacy that would make Israel the power no one could challenge, the Mecca agreement could usher in a third logic: Neither Iranian hegemony nor Israeli hegemony, but a regional balance among several powers. What If Egypt Joined the Agreement? The question then takes on an entirely different significance. The agreement is open to other countries joining, and Egypt has already been mentioned as a natural potential candidate. If that were to happen, the very nature of the alliance would be radically transformed. The grouping would then bring together Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Turkey and Pakistan. In other words, the Gulf’s economic power would be combined with the Arab world’s most populous country, one of the Middle East’s largest military powers, and the Muslim world’s sole nuclear power. At that point, we would no longer be looking at a simple tripartite defense agreement, but at a potential nucleus of a new regional security order. That order could subsequently take various forms and extend to other Arab and Muslim countries. From a Joint-Stock Company to a New Board of Directors And it is at this point that we can return to the image I put forward in 1988. I said then that the Middle East would be transformed into a joint-stock company, with the United States at the head of its board of directors, and that the struggle would henceforth be over who would take charge of running it. Perhaps it is time to revisit that image. The company still exists, but the chairman of the board is no longer in a position to make decisions on his own. Israel wants to become the most powerful regional executive. Turkey wants to be an indispensable partner in running the company. Iran is trying to preserve the share it holds, even as that share continues to erode. As for Saudi Arabia, together with Pakistan and perhaps Egypt and other countries, it appears to have begun asking a different question: Why should a single actor have to run the region? This is where the Mecca agreement’s potential historical significance lies. For if it evolves from a simple joint-defense agreement into a broader political, economic and security system, it could form the nucleus of a regional order based on a balance of power rather than the hegemony of a single power. From Regional Balance to International Balance But the most interesting aspect of this shift is that this grouping does not need to fully align itself with any of the major international blocs. Turkey is a member of NATO but maintains relations with Russia and China. Saudi Arabia is a longstanding partner of the United States, but in recent years has deepened its relations with China, Russia and other Asian powers. Pakistan, for its part, has a deep strategic relationship with China, while maintaining important channels with the United States and the West. This means that, collectively, these three countries have a network of relations stretching from Washington to Beijing, via Moscow, Europe and the Muslim world. The true value of this axis would therefore lie precisely in the fact that it is not a subordinate component of any international bloc, but is capable of moving between the different poles. And this may be the defining feature of the international order to come: Power will not belong solely to those who align themselves with the strongest camp, but to those capable of dealing with all camps without ever becoming subordinate to any of them. If Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan succeed in doing so, the Mecca agreement could go far beyond the question of joint defense. It could become one of the first building blocks of a regional balance within a multipolar world order. The Middle East would then have begun, for the first time in a long while, to move from a stage where others compete for influence to a region where some of its own powers seek to participate in shaping the very rules of the international game.

In 1998, my students asked me a question that, at the time, seemed too broad to have a clear answer: What is the future of the Middle East? I told them that I believed the Middle East would evolve into something resembling a large corporation, with the United States as its board of directors, and that the fundamental conflict of the future would no longer be limited to the one between the Arabs and Israel, but would also revolve around the question of who would take over the executive leadership of this regional enterprise. I added that the main contenders in this struggle would essentially be Israel, Iran, and Turkey. Nearly three decades later, it appears that we are at the heart of that struggle. The central question in the Middle East is no longer simply who controls a territory, who wins a war, or even who possesses the greatest military power. The deeper question now is: Who will set the rules of the regional order? Who will define the limits of states’ influence? Who will decide the future of Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, the Gulf, and the Eastern Mediterranean? And who has the ability to influence Arab decision-making? The region has gradually moved from a phase in which the Arab world, despite its weakness and divisions, was among the actors shaping the regional order to one in which much of that Arab world has become the arena for the struggle over that order. That is where the real tragedy lies. From the Arab-Israeli Conflict to the Struggle for the Arab World During the second half of the 20th century, the region’s principal conflict was defined as the Arab-Israeli conflict. Several competing Arab projects – Nasserist, Baathist, monarchical, and Islamist – were at work. The Arab states themselves, whatever reservations one might have about their policies, were major actors in shaping the future of the region. Today, the map has changed. We are now confronted with three major regional projects: Israeli, Turkish, and Iranian, each with its own vision of its place, its role, and the limits of its influence. Amid these competing projects, Arab states are pursuing their own paths, sometimes according to their national interests, and at other times according to the interests of their regimes and their security concerns. There is therefore no longer, strictly speaking, a single “Arab axis” facing the other axes. Some Arab states are drawing closer to the United States, while others are coordinating with Turkey. Still others have built strategic relations with Israel, while some are aligned with Iran. Others, finally, are seeking to maintain balanced relations with all of them. Even the Gulf states no longer act as a unified political bloc: each now has its own calculations, its own relationships, and its own alliances. Developments underway in 2026 show that some countries in the region are already seeking new security arrangements and new alliances, after confidence in the traditional regional order’s ability to guarantee stability has been shaken. The Israeli Project: From Control of Territory to Control of the System When we speak of “Greater Israel,” it would be wrong to reduce the idea to a specific geographical map stretching from one point to another. Some Israeli religious and nationalist currents do indeed envision territorial expansion, but the concept of greatest strategic significance is Greater Israel as the leading hegemonic power in the Middle East. In other words, Israel may not need to occupy every territory to achieve its project. The most effective form of domination could be to become the military, technological, and intelligence power that no major regional decision could afford to ignore. Israel has considerable military and technological superiority, a deep strategic alliance with the United States, and intelligence and military capabilities that are unparalleled given its size and population. From this perspective, weakening rival regional powers and preventing the emergence of a military power capable of counterbalancing Israel become essential elements of its security vision. Over the past several decades, Iran has posed the main regional challenge to this vision. But Iran’s weakening does not necessarily mean the end of the struggle over the regional order. On the contrary, it could reveal the next challenger. And that challenger is Turkey. The Turkish Project: Influence Without Occupation Turkey does not need to restore the Ottoman Empire to establish itself as the most influential power in its geographical sphere. The modern Turkish project is far more complex and pragmatic. Ankara wants to be the state whose interests must be taken into account before any decision concerning Syria, Iraq, the Eastern Mediterranean, the Caucasus, and perhaps a large part of the Arab world. To build a broad sphere of influence, it draws on its economy, trade, energy, defense industry, military power, diplomacy, and cultural ties, as well as its position within NATO. It would be wrong to simplistically describe this as “neo-Ottomanism.” Recent studies suggest that current Turkish policy is more about an attempt to build a regional order that serves Turkey’s security and interests, while preventing its adversaries from shaping the environment around it, than about seeking to recreate a historical empire. But Turkey’s growing power is increasingly bringing Ankara into confrontation with the Israeli project. The vital spheres of the two projects overlap in Syria and the Eastern Mediterranean, while extending toward the Red Sea, trade and energy routes, and the levers of influence within the regional political system. This is why Turkish-Israeli relations are beginning to shift from recurring political disputes toward an increasingly structural strategic rivalry. The Iranian Project: Defending a Shrinking Sphere of Influence Iran, for its part, has pursued its regional project according to an entirely different logic since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Tehran did not rely solely on conventional military power. It also built an extensive network of political, military, and non-state alliances stretching from Iraq and Syria to Lebanon and Yemen. The Shiite component played a central role in many of these networks. Yet reducing the Iranian project to a mere “Shiite project” fails to capture its full logic. At its core, it is the project of a state seeking to build strategic depth that can prevent its adversaries from encircling it and give it sources of leverage beyond its borders. That project, however, has suffered major setbacks in recent years, as the regional environment that enabled its expansion has changed. Today, Iran appears to be engaged in a different battle from the one it has fought over the past two decades. Its objective is no longer simply to expand its sphere of influence, but to preserve, as far as possible, what remains of it. With the direct clashes that marked 2026, the conflict between the United States and Israel on one side and Iran on the other has entered a new phase. The Strait of Hormuz crisis, meanwhile, has shown that Iran, even under military and economic pressure, still has the means to affect the global economy and security. After Iran, Will Turkey Become Israel’s Main Rival? This brings us to the question that, in my view, will be central to the next phase. If Iran’s ability to compete at the regional level were to decline sharply, that would not necessarily lead to a stable Middle East dominated by Israel without a genuine rival. Quite the contrary. It could lead to a gradual shift in the center of regional rivalry, from a confrontation between Israel and Iran to a confrontation between Israel and Turkey. Turkey possesses what Iran did not: a larger and more diversified economy, an advanced industrial base, a rapidly expanding defense industry, a substantial conventional military, NATO membership, a geographical position that gives it control over the gateways to Europe, Asia, and the Middle East, as well as extensive economic and political ties with the Arab world. Israel, for its part, could see the rise of a Turkey wielding broad regional influence as a long-term challenge to its monopoly on strategic superiority in the region. Once Iran is neutralized, Turkey could become the main obstacle to near-absolute Israeli dominance, just as Israel could become the main obstacle to a Turkish project aimed at building a broad regional sphere of influence. This hypothesis is no longer merely a theoretical exercise. Analyses published in 2026 already point to Turkish-Israeli tensions evolving into a strategic rivalry stretching from Syria to the Eastern Mediterranean and the Red Sea corridors. And the Arabs, Where Do They Stand? At this point, we must ask the painful question. Where, then, is the Arab project in all this? To be sure, there are Arab states with considerable economic, financial, and military power, and some of them are already pursuing a more independent and more assertive foreign policy. It would therefore be wrong to regard the Arabs as mere puppets manipulated by foreign powers. The real problem lies elsewhere. It is the absence of a collective Arab project for the regional order. There is a Saudi policy, an Egyptian policy, an Emirati policy, a Qatari policy, an Iraqi policy, and the policies of every other country. But where is the common Arab vision of what the Middle East should look like ten or twenty years from now? What are the acceptable limits of foreign interference? What is our conception of regional security? How can we protect smaller Arab states so that they do not become mere spheres of influence? What will become of the Palestinian cause? What kind of relationship should we have with Iran, Turkey, and Israel? And what kind of relationship do the Arabs themselves want to have with the United States, China, Russia, and Europe? It is precisely the absence of common answers to these questions that allows others to answer them on the Arabs’ behalf. The Board’s American Chairman That leaves the role of the United States. When I used the image of a “corporation” in 1998, I said that the United States would be its chairman of the board. Three decades later, the analogy still holds, but with one important qualification. Washington is no longer able to manage every detail of the Middle East as it did after the collapse of the Soviet Union. China has emerged as a major economic power in the region, Russia has sought to build military and political influence there, and regional powers have gained greater autonomy. But the United States retains an advantage that no other actor possesses: a network of bases, alliances, and military and economic relationships, as well as an unprecedented ability to influence the balance of power in the region. The US-Iran military developments of 2026 confirm this: despite recurring talk of its withdrawal from the Middle East, Washington remains a direct actor in the region’s security and wars. Perhaps today’s “corporation” is simply less disciplined than the one I imagined in 1998. The chairman of the board is still there, but he is no longer able to keep all the board members under control, while each regional director seeks to increase his share and influence. The Real Danger The greatest danger for the Arab world is not that Iran, Israel, or Turkey prevails. The real danger is that the Arab world continues to accept being a playground for others instead of reclaiming its role as an actor. For when collective Arab power is lacking, each state will choose the alliance it believes can protect it: one with the United States, another with Turkey, a third with Israel, a fourth with Iran, while a fifth will try to keep an equal distance from all of them. But the sum of these individual policies does not amount to an Arab order. It creates a vacuum. And politics, like nature, abhors a vacuum. If the Arabs do not define their own vision for the future of their region, others will define it for them. And so the question my students asked me in 1998 returns today with even greater urgency: Who will govern the Middle East? But perhaps the question we Arabs should be asking ourselves is even more important: Do we want to remain minor shareholders in a company run by others on our behalf, or do we want to regain the ability to shape a regional order in which we are genuine partners in determining its rules and its future?