العلاقات العربية - العربية: أحضان، قبلات، وخناجر

الصورة من من المجموعة الخاصة بأحمد زكي - جزء من مبنى المكتبة الخاص بجامعة كينجز كوليدج

"العلاقات العربية البينية: البحث عن نماذج"، Inter-Arab Relations: Finding Patterns. هذا هو عنوان ورقة بحثية تقدمت بها خلال دراستي للماجستير في مجال "العلاقات الدولية" بجامعة كينجز كوليدج بلندن.

مثل كثيرين، كنت أعتقد قبل بدء الدراسة أن المقصود بالعلاقات الدولية هو العلاقات بين الدول، كيف تدار، وكيف تنظم. وكانت معرفتي محصورة في التجارب التاريخية للعلاقات الدولية مثل: أزمة الصواريخ الكوبية أو حرب الخليج الأولى أو الصراع العربي الاسرائيلي. لكن حين بدأت علاقتي بعالم الأكاديميا، اكتشفت أن مصطلح "العلاقات الدولية" يقصد به العلم الذي يبحث في الأساس التنظيري لعلاقات الدول ببعضها وببناء الدول وبالظواهر التي يمكن أن تتعرض لها "الدولة". كما يبحث هذا العلم في علاقة الفرد بالدولة كمؤسسة. وبالنظريات الحاكمة لهذه العلاقة، بالإضافة الى علاقة الدولة بالأسواق المالية والبعد الاقتصادي لهذه العلاقات.

ويعتبر علم "العلاقات الدولية" من العلوم التي تخصص وبرع فيها الأنجلوساكسون. لذا فإن أغلب منظريه من بريطانيا، الولايات المتحدة، كندا وأستراليا. لكن ذلك لا ينفي أن فرنسا بها عدد من المنظرين الكبار الذين لهم تأثيرهم البارز على هذا العلم، على الرغم من اشتغالهم بالفلسفة مثل ميشال فوكو وجاك دريدا. كما أن الإيطالي ميكيافيلي يعتبر من أوائل المنظرين لهذا العلم. وهو ينتمي الى مدرسة تحمل اسم "الواقعية" في العلاقات الدولية.

وتعتبر جامعة كينجز كوليدج، التي تحتل المرتبة 23 على العالم وتعتبر من الجامعات الخمسة الأوائل في بريطانيا، من بين الجامعات الأفضل في تدريس علم "العلاقات الدولية"، والتي عهدت به الى قسم "دراسات الحرب".

وعلى الرغم من أن هذا القسم يعتبر الأفضل عالمياً في مجال دراسات الحرب، إلا أن تأثيره الفكري على طلاب "العلاقات الدولية" يجعلهم يركزون على الصراعات العسكرية في التعامل مع المشكلات الدولية.

في السطور القادمة سأنشر مقتطفات من ورقة أكاديمية قدمتها خلال دراسة مادة تحمل اسم "السياسات الدولية في الشرق الأوسط". ويجب أن أنوه الى عدة أمور: 1. نظراً لطول الورقة التي تقع في 16 صفحة (أكثر من 4000 كلمة) قمت بحذف الهوامش والمراجع. 2. لم أنشر الفقرات المتعلقة بالأساس النظري لهذه الورقة، حتى لا أثقل على القارئ بمصطلحات أكاديمية، قد تكون بعيدة عن اهتماماته. كما أنني لم أنشر المفاهيم الثلاثة لمفهوم النظام الإقليمي. تجنبت أيضاً نشر نماذج وأنماط العلاقات العربية البينية وفق مدارس التفكير المختلفة في العلاقات الدولية.  3. الفقرات المنشورة تستعرض نماذج للتحالفات والمحاور الإقليمية التي تشكلت في العالم العربي منذ 1945 ومن بينها أمثلة لاستعانة دول عربية من داخل ما يعرف باسم "النظام الإقليمي العربي" لقوى خارجية مثل إسرائيل أو الولايات المتحدة من أجل التدخل في صراعاتها العربية.

القمة العربية الطارئة في القاهرة 1970 لبحث أيلول الأسود

Introduction

Since 1945, bitter disputes and conflicts between Arab states are considered among the behavioral characteristics that have shaped the political map of the Middle East. The creation of alliances between old foes in the Arab world and the breakup of other alliances are considered to be norms of inter-Arab relations. However the volatile nature of these relations does not mean that an Arab regional order is non-existent. In fact the Arab regional order has roots that date back to the formative years of Arab politics (1920-1945). At that time Arabism was considered to be an early form of the Arab regional order, which ‘revolved around the quest for independence, the cause of Palestine, and the search for unity’.

This essay will look at the different patterns of inter-Arab relations since 1945 which prove the existence of an Arab regional order. It will discuss the concept of that Arab regional order based on two approaches to the International Relations Theory: the Realist approach, and the Neoliberal Institutionalist approach.

Regional alliances and axes

Since 1945, the map of regional orders has been constantly changing due to the formation of alliances and axes among Arab states. During the Arab Cold War in the 1960s Saudi Arabia resisted the Nasserist wave of change by forming an alliance with another monarchy, Jordan. They were part of a military alliance that backed the royalist forces during the Yemen War against the Egyptian forces. According to an Israeli report published in the Haaretz daily in 2004, Israeli jets provided arms to the Yemeni royalist forces.

This unprecedented incident when an external player was asked to intervene in an Arab dispute was repeated in September 1970 when King Hussein of Jordan asked the U.S. and Israel to take military action against Syrian forces invading Jordan to help the Palestinian Liberation Organization forces during its battles with the Jordanian army. The Americans asked the Israelis to intervene. Israeli Air Force jets flew low over the Syrian forces and made sure that IAF insignia were visible, yet they did not intervene on the ground. This incident provided an example where a member of the Arab regional order (King Hussein) asks for assistance from foreign actors (U.S. and Israel) in order to deter a military threat from another member of the Arab regional order (Syria). The same situation occurred when Iraq invaded Kuwait and the members of the Arab regional order asked the US to intervene and liberate Kuwait. It was a declaration that the Arab regional order is exposed to foreign intervention due to its unstable nature.

The Saudi attack on a Qatari border checkpoint in September 1992, and the Egyptian mediation between Riyadh and Doha, was the first crack in the regional order of the ‘Damascus Declaration’ axis. The Qataris considered the Egyptian mediation not fair and aligning with the Saudi position in the dispute. After the deposing of the Emir of Qatar Khalifa bin Hamad by his son Hamad bin Khalifa in 1996, Saudi Arabia and UAE backed the former Emir. Doha accused Riyadh, Cairo and Abu Dhabi of backing a coup against the new Emir in order to re-instate his father Khalifa. The ‘Damascus Declaration’ as a regional order was declared unviable by the behaviour of its members. It was therefore replaced with an axis that involved Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Syria, which was known as the axis of Cairo-Riyadh-Damascus. From the mid 1990s till the death of the Syrian President Hafiz Al Assad in 2000, this axis was based on the personal relations between President Mubarak of Egypt, King Fahad of Saudi Arabia (later the crown prince Abduallah due to Fahad's illness) and Assad of Syria.

القمة العربية في بغداد 1978 لبحث طرد مصر من الجامعة العربية

After Bashar Al Assad rose to power in Syria he started a new regional order which involved a strategic alliance with Iran. His father, Hafiz, had a very special relationship with Iran but he managed to keep the balance between this relation and his other relations with Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states. After the assassination of the former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Al Hariri in 2005, Syria was isolated from the Arab regional order and the Cairo-Riyadh-Damascus axis was declared dead. The Syrians then decided to form a regional axis that involved Iran, the Lebanese Shiite Hizb-Allah group, and the Palestinian ‘Islamic Resistance Movement’ Hamas.

In 2006 Israel launched an attack against Hizb-Allah in order to eliminate its military capabilities. After the end of the war, the Emir of Qatar Hamad bin Khalifa pledged to finance the reconstruction of the Shiite villages and neighbourhoods that suffered destruction during the war. This move made Qatar a valuable member of the axis that included Damascus, Tehran, Hamas and Hizb-Allah. It was called ‘the axis of resistance’ and was promoted via Al-Jazeera TV channel (owned by and based in Qatar) to the Arab public as a political force that resists the dominance of Israel on the region and works for liberating the occupied Arab land. The anomaly was that Qatar had relations with Israel and the biggest American military presence in the region. Yet this did not prevent it from becoming the closest friend to Bashar in the Arab world. The newly formed axis proved that the regional order in the Middle East can consist of state actors (Qatar, Syria and Iran) and non-state actors (Hamas and Hizb-Allah).

Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, and UAE looked suspiciously at the axis of Iran, Syria, Qatar, Hizb-Allah and Hamas. They decided to form a counter-axis which was called ‘the bloc of moderates’. The Palestinian Authority (PA) joined the bloc as it was in dispute with Hamas after their conflict in the Gaza Strip in 2006. The regional order in the Middle East was divided between two different visions: a vision calling for confrontation and represented by ‘the axis of resistance’, and a vision calling for peace between Arabs and Israelis while considering Iran as the main threat to the Arab regional order, represented by the ‘bloc of moderates’. Abdullah of Jordan warned of a ‘Shiite crescent’ in the region, while Mubarak warned that the real loyalty of the Shiites of the Gulf states is for Iran. This created a regional order based on confrontation between two sects in Islam, the Shiites and the Sunnis.

In 2011 the map of axes in the region changed dramatically, as Qatar backed the Syrian revolt against Bashar Al Assad and decided to break the alliance with Hizb-Allah. Hamas followed Qatar and closed its bureau in Damascus. The fall of Mubarak in January 2011 and the election of a president from the Muslim Brotherhood had a negative effect on the bloc of moderates. Saudi Arabia and the UAE looked suspiciously at the Muslim Brotherhood's regional intentions. On the other hand, Hamas and Qatar welcomed the rise of Islamists in Egypt and a new axis was formed between the three parties.

الملك حسين والذي استعان بإسرائيل خلال مواجهته العسكرية مع سورية عام 1970

Conclusions

Since 1945, the Arab regional order has taken different forms. By applying the Realist definition of the concept of order, one can argue that the Arab Cold War in the 1960s was the regional order of the Arab states, which was later replaced by the emerging role of Saddam Hussein and his alliance in the Arab world during his war with Iran. From the Neoliberal Institutionalist prospective, the League of Arab States can be viewed as the oldest form of Arab regional order. During its summits, Arab leaders formulated their positions on issues such as foreign intervention, the Palestinian cause, and relations with Israel. According to this concept, other forms of Arab regional order existed, such as the GCC among the Arab states of the Persian Gulf, or the ACC (1989-1990).

From the Realist prospective, the Arab regional order can be divided into two patterns:  inter-Arab disputes and conflicts (direct conflicts: the invasion of Kuwait in 1990, indirect conflicts: the role played by Iraq and Libya in backing Lebanese militias during Lebanon’s Civil War); and the formation of regional alliances and axes ('Damascus Declaration' states after the 1991 war, the Cairo-Riyadh-Damascus axis, the axis of resistance, the bloc of moderates).

The Arab regional order included not only state actors. In the 1970s and 1980s, non-state actors played a significant role in shaping the Arab regional order, as they were used by the Arab regimes to settle their regional and international disputes.

The Arab regional order was not immune from foreign intervention, as the Arab regimes often asked the two superpowers to intervene in their regional disputes and conflicts. In most cases, however, these foreign interventions were implemented under Arab diplomatic cover.