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Modern History of the Middle East (Lesson 5)

The British and French had the biggest influence in the modern Middle East, not only because they drew border lines, but also because their efforts to dominate the modern Middle East produced reactions that created and sustained political and religious movements that still govern today. Those movements include Arab and Jewish nationalism, and the forces of political Islam.

The Europeans. With the defeat of the Crusaders, European influence and interest in the Middle East waned for centuries. European powers sometimes intervened in the Middle East and North Africa because of their concern with the long decline of the Ottoman Empire and its effect on the balance of power. Britain supported the Ottomans against France, and later France supported the Ottomans against Russia; both France and Britain assisted Turkey in the Crimean War against Russia. Both Russia and Britain shared an interest in Iran, since both had interests adjacent to it. But Western interest in the Middle East proper would grow largely as a consequence of the events leading up to World War I and the war itself.Germany became a unified modern nation only in 1871, and thus was a newcomer to the colonial race. But German power and German interests grew, and Germany established colonies in East Africa, and elsewhere. Britain maintained an interest in the Middle East for two related reasons: first, Britain relied on its far-flung colonial empire for its raw materials and, to maintain that empire, Britain needed a navy. Britain built the Suez Canal linking the Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea in 1854, allowing sea passage from Europe to Asia without having to transit around Africa.

World War I. While World War I is best remembered for trench warfare in Europe, it was also fought in the Middle East. Ottoman Turkey joined Germany in 1914, in hopes of using that pact to offset pressure on the Ottoman Empire from Russia and Britain, who were both allied against Germany. Turkish forces attacked British positions on the Suez Canal in January 1915, but were driven off with heavy casualties. They tried again in August 1916, with similar results. In that same year, in June, the so-called "Arab Revolt" broke out, although Arabs had actually been revolting against Ottoman rule since long before that time.

In November 1917 the British Foreign Office issued the so-called "Balfour Declaration," proclaiming that Britain would look "with favor" on a Jewish state in Palestine (the name given the area by the Romans, and used by the Ottomans). The actual Balfour Declaration, issued by British Foreign Secretary Arthur James Balfour, was vague on where a Jewish homeland should actually be, and showed awareness of the consequences on Palestinians of such a homeland. Britain tried, under increasing Arab pressure in the 1930s, to limit Jewish immigration into Palestine, fearful in part of the tilt towards pro-German sentiment developing in parts of the Arab world.

After World War I, France solidified its hold on North Africa, except for Libya, now an Italian colony. Britain exercised a strong influence in Egypt, ruled now by the descendents of Muhammad Ali. British forces kept order in Iraq and Jordan, sometime using the new tools of war developed in World War I. The British stationed seaplanes on the Tigris River, which they used along with land-based bombers to bomb rebellious Arabs into submission. British warships policed the Arabian Gulf, even going so far as to design flags for the shaykhdoms of Bahrain and Qatar so to distinguish their boats from pirate vessels

In 1937 a British Royal Commission investigating the situation determined that the Mandate was unworkable and recommended that Palestine be partitioned into separate areas, with two-thirds set aside for the Jewish population. This group, the Peel Commission, would be the first of many efforts to find a negotiated settlement on land between Jew and Palestinian Arab. Its failure would form lessons for efforts to follow.

World War II. World War II brought new changes to the Middle East. Germany saw control of the area as a way to sever the British lifeline to her colonies in Asia, and thus German troops came into North Africa, ostensibly to support the Vichy French (the forces that capitulated to Germany under Marshal Pètain). Germany also supported several fascist nationalist movements, particularly the regime of Rashid Ali, which took power in Iraq in May 1941. British and American forces landed at several sites in Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia to support British efforts to keep Germany troops out of Egypt. This campaign was one of the earlier of the war, fought during 1941-1942 and the British and U.S. forces learned valuable lessons there for later campaigns in Europe. New American forces, inexperienced in desert warfare, found themselves vulnerable to the lack of air cover at the battle of Kassarine Pass in Tunisia. The German forces under Field Marshal Manfred Rommel retreated across the top of North Africa under American and British pressure, denied victory by, among other things, the loss of German supplies in ships sunk by the British and American naval and air forces.

The Post-World War II Era. The alliance between the Soviet Union and the Western powers quickly fell apart under mutual recriminations and suspicions, along with real differences over power and control. The Soviet Union, influenced by Stalin and a Leninist perspective that the capitalist nations would ultimately surround the one successful socialist nation, quickly expanded its own territory. Apparently beginning around the summer of 1953, Soviet leadership developed a view that the struggle between "imperialism" and "socialism" would be waged in the so-called "Third World," and that the developing Arab nations were the front lines of that struggle. One vehicle which this struggle could be waged was through the communist parties in various Arab nations. However, Arab leaders realized this also, and frequently jailed national communist party leaders and followers; Nasir imprisoned members of the Egyptian communist party shortly after assuming power (though he would release them just before a visit of a Soviet head of state).

The Cold War Turns Hot in the Middle East. The most obvious manifestations of the Cold War were the wars between the Arab nations and Israel. There were four distinct wars; the first in 1948, the second in 1956, the third in 1967 and the fourth in 1973. There was also a protracted series of battles between Israel and Egypt and Jordan between 1969-70 and the Israeli military operations in Lebanon that started on a significant scale in 1982. In another sense it could be said that there has been a continuing war between Israel and select Arab states and peoples since 1948, punctuated by sharp and costly escalations.

The 1948 War. This war has several names; in Israel it is referred to as the "War of Independence," but for Arab nations it is generally referred to as the "Palestine War." Even though the war occurred during the Cold War period, it was the Arab-Israeli war that was least impacted by superpower competition. Its root causes were much deeper. They included the Nazi Holocaust against Europe’s Jews, British efforts to hold on to its empire (some of which was largely Islamic), and nascent Arab nationalism aJewish immigration into Palestine increased rapidly as Nazism spread throughout Europe. Some 200,000 Jews arrived in Palestine between 1932 and 1938. By 1939 the Jewish percentage of the population in British Palestine grew from 4 percent in 1882 to 30 percent in 1939. Another 75,000 came after World War II, between 1945 and 1948. Following the 1948 war Israel controlled even more territory that it would have under the UN partition plan, as the war turned out to be a net loss for the Arabs living in Palestine. Israel added 2,380 square miles to the 5,760 square miles they got under the UN partition, mostly in the Negev Desert and West Galilee. Jerusalem, the old capital of the Hebrew kingdom, became the capital of modern Israel in the sense that Israelis built government building there, but only in "new" Jerusalem. Arab troops defeated Hagannah forces next to the "Old City," where the Western Wall, the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, and the Dome of the Rock and El Aqsa Mosque are located. That area became a part of Jordan, and Jordanian authorities excluded Jews from prayer at the Western Wall.

The 1956 War. Egypt and Israel would soon fight again, but this time Britain and France joined the conflict. While the origins of the war were not directly related to the Cold War, it would take on serious Cold War overtones. The United States and the USSR remained on the sidelines as far as the actual fighting, but their sideline roles had considerable influence on the outcome of the war. Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev threatened bluntly to "rain rockets" against Britain and France if they continued their war against Egypt. Thus the U.S. decided that it was time to de-escalate the situation, and led the fight in the UN to halt hostilities. The UN created the United Nations Expeditionary Force (UNEF) to monitor the cease-fire. Nasir could then announce that he had defeated both Israel and the old European imperialists together. However accurate that claim, it gained support for both Nasir and Arab nationalism in the Arab world and beyond.

The 1967 War. The 1967 war began after a long buildup of tension between Israel and its immediate neighbors, Syria and Egypt. Egypt moved to seal off the Gulf of Aqaba to any ships destined for Israel, cutting off the southern Israeli port of Elath. Iraqi troops reportedly were being moved to Egypt to reinforce the blockade. Egypt was also facing other problems, including a suspension of U.S. food assistance (worth around $150 million per year), and a war in Yemen that was increasingly going wrong.

In May 1967 Egypt received a false warning from the Soviet Union that Israeli troops were massing on the Syrian-Israeli border. On the morning of June 5, Israeli military aircraft streaked out of the rising sun to strike Egyptian aircraft as their pilots were leaving the cockpits for breakfast. Within minutes most of Egypt’s air force planes lay in smoking ruin on their runways. The day after the attack Israel reported destroying some 374 Egyptian, Syrian, and Jordanian warplanes. Egypt alone lost 309 of 340 combat aircraft in its inventory. Israeli forces crossed the Sinai and attacked into Gaza, while the government claimed that its goals "…did not include the conquest of Arab territory." The war became particularly dangerous for Syria when Israeli tanks got within 30 miles of Damascus. Consequently both Egypt and Syria accepted a cease-fire on June 9.

The "War of Attrition." After the cease-fire was concluded, Egypt sank the Israeli destroyer Elath by a Soviet-made Styx missile, claiming that the ship intruded into Egyptian waters. That action set off an Israeli retaliation against Egyptian oil refineries near Port Said, almost resulting in a renewed outbreak of the 1967 war.

Other events began the shape the coming war clouds. In Egypt Nasir died in September 1970, and his lieutenant Anwar Sadat assumed the presidency. Sadat desired to make his own place in Egyptian history. Moreover he did not trust the Soviets. Sadat had reason to believe that if he did not initiate another war that the balance might fatally tip against the Arabs.

The 1973 War. The seeds of the 1973 war (often called the "Yom Kippur War," or the "October War" - but rarely the "Ramadan War") were sown by the outcome of the 1967 war. As soon as it began on October 6^th, charges and counter-charges flew over which side initiated the conflict. The Egyptian Foreign Minister claimed that Israeli aggression (most recently against Syria on September 1973) was the cause of the war, while the Israelis charged that the Arab coalition launched the campaign. In fifteen minutes over 8,000 troops crossed to land on the Israeli side, and once they secured it they constructed 11 bridges to get heavy equipment over. By the time the sun set some 80,000 Egyptian troops were in the Sinai. The Israeli forces suffered casualties greater in proportion than the American casualties on the first day of the Normandy invasion in World War II. Syria, too, had been preparing for a surprise attack, and Syrian forces on the Golan penetrated Israeli lines in three places at the same time as the Egyptian forces crossed the Suez Canal. They moved tanks up to the so-called "Purple Line" of demarcation from the 1967 war. They struck against Israeli armored units, but the combination of Israeli preparations and poor Syrian battlefield tactics allowed Israel to temporarily stem the Syrian move forward into their positions.

As Israel began to gain advantages on both fronts, the United States became concerned about the risk of escalation from a regional to a global conflict. The Soviet Union, having seen its so-called "client states" defeated so badly in 1967, might be tempted to intervene with its own forces to save the Arab armies. The U.S. began to engage in battlefield surveillance with the SR-71 "Blackbird, " which was capable of shooting extremely detailed pictures from over 80,000 feet in altitude. In an effort to let all sides know where the forces were distributed in the area, SR-71 photos were delivered every day to Tel Aviv, Cairo, and Damascus in order to begin a cease-fire process before the USSR could intervene. The United States also began a major re-supply of Israel forces, having to draw from American equipment in the U.S. proper, since most NATO allies refused to allow the U.S. to move American equipment located in Europe. Further discussions ensued under the specter of a superpower conflict, helping to achieve a final cease-fire.

Events After the 1973 War. The combined impact of the 1967 war, the war of attrition, and the 1973 war finally galvanized efforts to achieve a diplomatic solution. In January 1974 Egypt and Israel signed an agreement to disengage their forces. That, according to Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, was the real objective of the 1973 war, to provoke Israel into discussing what the UN mandated after the 1967 war, land for peace. That would be a long time coming, but the process at least started after 1973.The United States moved to improve relations with the Arab world as the influence of the Soviet Union declined. American aid began to flow into Egypt as a reward for Camp David, and soon Egypt and Israel would account for half of the U.S. foreign assistance budget. Diplomatic relations were re-established in 1986 with Damascus, though Syria remained several rungs down from full State Department approval.

The U.S.-Iranian Hostage Crisis. Another issue arose in the Middle East that surprised both internal and outside actors. In 1979 the Shah of Iran faced growing political opposition from within his own nation. The Revolution took on a particularly strong anti-American tone, and when the Carter Administration decided to admit the Shah into the U.S. for cancer treatment, Iranian anti-Americanism erupted into a takeover of the American embassy in Tehran. Americans watched in horror as the embassy staff was paraded before cameras, with a backdrop of burning American flags and Carter hanging in effigy. The hostage situation and Carter’s inability to resolve it contributed to the election of Ronald Reagan, who was able to announce on his inauguration speech that the American hostages had finally been freed, more than 400 days after their capture.

Israel Moves into Lebanon. The border between Israel and Lebanon remained tense as Palestinian guerrillas took advantage of Lebanon’s inability to police its southern area. They fired rockets into Israeli settlements in the northern Galilee, occasionally got through border defenses to shoot settlers, … Peacekeeping forces were sent to Lebanon…

The U.S. established its base around the Beirut airport, and engaged in limited patrols by U.S. Marines. But danger was never far away. In April a bomb destroyed much of the U.S. embassy, killing 63 people, including 17 Americans. On October 23 truck bomb with around 2,000 pounds of high explosive rammed the Marine barracks, killing 241 troops. At almost the same moment terrorists attacked French headquarters, and 59 French soldiers died in the rubble. In November Israeli troops were also bombed, with a loss of 30. Those attacks, carried out by Islamic Jihad, paved the way for a complete withdrawal of French and American peacekeepers, and Israeli withdrawal to the so-called and self-proclaimed "Security Zone" in south Lebanon, where they remain to this day.

The tragic conflict situation in Lebanon appeared beyond negotiation despite numerous efforts until Saudi Arabia brought the parties to Ta’if and brokered an agreement on October 22, 1989. The agreement re-configured the Lebanese political system to give Muslims and Christians parity in the government, disarmed many of the militia groups, and created a formula for Syria to withdraw, though to this date it has not.

Iran and Iraq go to War. Iran and Iraq had disputed the border between them, along the Shatt al-Arab waterway. But Iraq signed an agreement in Algiers in 1975 with Iran that permitted Iraq to wage war against a Kurdish insurrection in the north without Iranian interference. The situation changed with the Islamic Revolution in Iran; among other differences between Iran and Iraq, Saddam had exiled the Ayatollah Khomeini from his haven in Iraq and the Ayatollah wanted revenge. Khomeini denounced Saddam Husayn as an atheist and demanded the overthrow of his regime; Saddam denounced Khomeini in turn and called for an uprising by the Arab minority in Iran. Iraqi soldiers also suppressed Shi'ia uprisings in southern Iran, and someone tried to assassinate Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz in April 1980. The stage was set for one of the bloodiest and most pointless of Middle Eastern wars.Iraq apparently initiated the conflict with its attack in September 1980, in the mistaken belief that the Iranian revolution of 1979 had so weakened the Iranian military that the country was ripe for defeat.

During the Iran-Iraq war, the U.S. "tilted" politically towards Iraq, partly out of the old adage that the enemy of my enemy is my friend. One way to do this was to provide Iraq with equipment that was useable in Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction programs. Even though the Defense Department objected to these sales, which totaled $1.5 billion between 1985 and 1990, the State and Commerce Departments approved them, and the Defense Department did not appeal once they were approved. The war ended in 1988 with Iraq gaining small pieces of Iranian territory, which, though, would be quickly be given back to Iran several years later to keep Iran out of Saddam’s next war.

Iraq Crosses the Line. Iraq and Kuwait increasingly became locked in a dispute over oil rights and debt. Kuwait had loaned Iraq billions of dollars to fend off what was believed to be a militant Islamic threat to the Arab Gulf nations. While other Gulf Arab nations also loaned Iraq money, they did not exercise the pressure that Kuwait did to get their loans repaid. Iraq and Kuwait also shared a large oil deposit, the Ramallah field. Iraq charged that Kuwait was "slant-drilling" into the Iraqi side of the field to enrich its own coffers, and demanded that the practice stop. Iraq also demanded $2.4 billion for compensation of the alleged practice. At that point, as tensions arose between the two states, and the United States, which had previously protected Kuwaiti tankers found itself with an opportunity to intervene again.

After the Gulf War. The Gulf War elevated the status of Saudi Arabia as the supporter and banker for much of the effort to defeat Saddam Husayn. It also briefly raised the status of the United States, particularly when George Bush was president. It opened doors for the United States in particular to restart the Arab-Israeli peace process begun at Camp David in 1979. But George Bush would not benefit politically from his victory in Desert Shield/Desert Storm, instead he was ignominiously defeated in his 1992 presidential reelection bid by former Arkansas governor Bill Clinton.

While the U.S. is seen favorably in much of the Middle East for refugee assistance, aid to the emerging Palestinian entity, and technological know-how to most of the area, it is also remembered critically. The U.S.-supported UN sanctions against Iraq, support for Israel, and other provocations are negative images for most Middle Easterners.