As I see it, there are basically two alternatives facing the middle east, and not only the Muslim middle east at the present time, and these are those embodied in Turkey and Iran. In the Arab countries there is general disillusionment. The great ideologies which were so powerful in the recent past are now virtually dead. It is surely significant that not a single Arab ruler at the present time, has any following outside his own country, and most of them can survive only in their own country by the ruthless exercise of force. Today, there is no Nasser who was not only the president of Egypt, but the great leader of Arabism and the pan-Arab aspirations.

For a long time, the dominant ideal was nationalism. That was supplemented and then supplanted by socialism, through the immense prestige and influence enjoyed for a while by the Soviet Union. Today, both nationalism and socialism are discredited, nationalism by its success, socialism by its failure. Nationalism was supposed to bring freedom. What it brought, was independence. At one time, people used freedom and independence as interchangeable terms. Now they know, that freedom and independence are two different things, and may at times even be incompatible. The attainment of independence begins, freedom ends. I quote in passing the example of Hong Kong. In some countries in the former British and French empires independence has weakened or ended such freedom as they possessed. Socialism again led to total disillusionment with the miserable failures of the various types of socialist regimes which were established all over, in most of the countries of the Arab world. Today, there is no generally accepted ideology, no leadership which has much appeal even at home, let alone outside. Turkey and Iran each have an ideology, a diagnosis what is wrong, a prescription for its cure.

The Turkish program basically is to modernize, meaning to become part of modern civilization. There were some Turkish ideological writers in the early years of this century who put it with brutal frankness. There was much talk about the need to establish harmony between civilizations, to borrow what is needed from other civilizations, while preserving one's own. A Turkish writer of the time said "It is nonsense to talk about this civilization and that civilization. At the present time, there is only one civilization in the world that is living and advancing, all the others are dead or dying. We must join that one civilization, or be uncivilized." That's an extreme formulation. Most Turks would put it in a rather less radical form than that. But it makes fairly clear the basic philosophy of Kemalism, that one has to become part of modern civilization, which means accepting a large part of what is distinctively western, and this includes equal rights for women, a symphony orchestra, teaching modern science, and disestablishing religion so that religion is no longer part of the apparatus of government, as it still is in most other countries of the Muslim world.

The exact opposite view is that of the Islamic revolution in Iran. Basically their line is "all our troubles arise from the fact that we have abandoned our religion, abandoned our culture, we have gone aping the ways of the infidel and the only way to achieve what we hope and want in life - the next one as well as this one - is to return to authentic Islam". Obviously, there are some, shall we say, elements of sophistication in how that is applied, but that is the basic idea. Both of these ideas have tremendous appeal. Not only in the two countries concerned, but in many others, including in the Muslim states which emerged from the breakup of the Soviet Union, as earlier from the breakup of the British, Italian, Dutch and French empires. We are more familiar with the latter, because the Western Empires broke up some time ago. The breakup of the Soviet Empire is more recent, and we haven't yet fully appreciated the role of these post-Soviet countries. But the same forces are at work in them as in the former Western dependencies, and the same choices confront them. There are of course important differences between the two ideologies. One is deliberately and self consciously promoted. The government of Iran maintains a whole series of special agencies for what is called the promotion of the Islamic revolution, by word and deed. They operate especially in Syria and the Lebanon, but also in a number of other places. The Turks disclaim any desire to play a missionary role, or to bring Kemalism to other countries. They don't try. But nevertheless, they set an example, which others see and admire, and seek to imitate.

Now, obviously, there are internal oppositions in both countries. In Turkey, there are significant elements who regard the whole Kemalist revolution as at best an error, but more probably a crime and a sin, and who would like to go back and establish a Muslim state. Since Turkey holds free and fair elections, we can approximately assess their strength, which is roughly one fifth. The electoral strength probably overstates their real strength in the country. In Iran we can only guess, since the Islamic republic does not permit second parties or arguments, but certainly after twenty years of government by the Mullahs there must be at least a significant proportion of Iranians who would prefer something more along Turkish lines.

In the rest of the Islamic world, the choices come in various forms, and sometimes even to some degree mixed. We can see it most dramatically in Algeria. In Egypt, there is a powerful militant religious opposition. In some countries, the militants are in control, as in Afghanistan and in Sudan, but the militants do not necessarily agree with each other, and it would be difficult and dangerous to predict which way things are going. People always ask, can we learn the future from the past? No. But we can help formulate alternatives by looking at the past. There are other factors that come into the equation, determining what is going to happen.

There is the economic factor. The economic situation in the Arab world is catastrophic. It depends overwhelmingly on fossil fuels, on the export of oil and gas. And that by its very nature is limited. Sooner or later it will end, because oil will either be superseded by other sources of energy or exhausted. The total exports, other than oil and gas, of the whole Arab world, according to World Bank figures, amount to less those of Finland. Growing population, more mouths to feed, less food to feed them because the growing population extends housing at the expense of arable land. All this is heading for a major economic catastrophe, unless something is done about it. The Turks have the good fortune not to have much oil, and they have therefore been obliged to develop their economy in other ways, and have been doing pretty well. In Iran, they have oil. And their economy is heavily dependent on it. So the development of the economy will obviously have a considerable impact on this larger question.

There is also the development of the global situation. For something like two hundred years the ultimate deciding powers in the middle east were external powers. In the earlier stages, England versus France, England versus Russia, in the final stages the United States versus the Soviet Union. That has come to an end. There are today no imperial powers concerned in the middle east. The Soviet Union can't, the United States hasn't the slightest desire to do so. Those who talk about American Imperialism misunderstand both America and Imperialism. This is an entirely different phenomenon. The great danger to the middle east from America is that America will lose interest and go away, not that America will move in and take over. But this is a phase, a window of opportunity, when the countries of the middle east can decide their own fate. Obviously they find this an unfamiliar and even an incomprehensible situation. They constantly look for outside support, try to involve outside powers in their region, because in two hundred years, they have lost the habit of deciding their own affairs, except for the Turks and the Iranians, who of course never lost their independence, and therefore never lost that particular skill. But elsewhere it is more difficult. This window of opportunity is open for the moment. But it won't last indefinitely.

The countries of the middle east have an opportunity to set their affairs in order, to build reasonably sensible and stable societies, which will feed and clothe and educate their people. But their time is limited, because sooner or later, the imperial game will start again. I don't know who it will be. It is highly unlikely to be the United States, it is unlikely, though not impossible, that it will be the European Union. What is much more likely is a resurgent Russia and an expansionist China. At the moment, Russia is obviously in no condition to play any kind of role. But a country of the size, the resources, the skills of Russia is not going to remain in its present crippled state indefinitely.

Sooner or later, a new power will rise in Russia. It may be fascist, it may be, it is unlikely to be, communist, it may be tsarist, it may be pan-orthodox, it may even be democratic. But sooner or later, something will happen in Russia and a new great power will emerge. And that great power will obviously be interested in a region so close to its southern frontier, where-ever that southern frontier may ultimately lie, that is not very clear at the moment. China is obviously growing more powerful, economically and militarily, and in other respects. China has a very significant middle eastern population within its own frontiers. There is a large population of Turkish speaking Muslims within the frontiers of the Chinese People's Republic. Most of the western provinces of the Peoples Republic have a native population of Turkish speaking Muslims. They are inevitably affected by what is happening beyond the frontier. They are of course an increasing concern to the rulers of China. And China as a Muslim power may well become involved in central Asia, and from central Asia move westwards. These are fantasies, obviously, but I think they are not impossible. India is another possibility for a role in the middle east. If the governments and peoples of the middle east continue in their present way, then it seems to me virtually inevitable that sooner or later, the great game, as it used to be called, will be reopened, but with different players.

Published 2001-07-11