5. Conclusion: Policy Considerations for Middle East Conflict in COVID-19’s Wake

The Middle East, historically heavily shaped by outside powers, has started in recent years to shape itself, albeit in a violent and destructive way. This turmoil is ongoing, at a moment now when COVID-19 has made the nations of the region more, not less, connected with each other and with the international community. Ameliorating the risks posed by the region’s deep-rooted and volatile conflicts in the face of the pandemic demands thoughtful policy and other actions at the national, regional, and global levels, all at the same time.

Our scenarios posit that any moves toward stability and comity between regional powers as the responses to COVID-19 play out will be tentative and fragile. They could be quite sensitive to the right — and the wrong — actions by the range of stakeholders in the region. Our view, “from 2025,” suggests these will be particularly important.

Recognize That We’re Playing Three-Dimensional Chess

The three dimensions we focus on in this paper with respect to the Middle East COVID-19 response each will have profound impacts on life in the region. The interrelationships between them are already playing out and are already on the radar of leaders, not only in the Middle East but around the world. Acknowledging those interrelationships, and recognizing the second- and third-order effects they have on conflict in the region, is simpler than managing and shaping them in an integrated way. But that is the imperative — crafting truly multi-dimensional response policies and action plans. It is essential that leaders not only think but also work, now, at the nexus of the health response to the virus, its impact on economies, the social dynamics complicated by the pandemic, and the region’s endemic conflicts.

For success against the pandemic and regional conflict to “trend” together in a positive, constructive way over the next few years, we see several keys. One is that efforts by regional and extra-regional actors in the health response dimension be pursued as not just a “stat” response to the virus. They must also be a purposefully designed and enduring improvement in the public health systems and infrastructure of every country in the region. Collaboration among these actors should also extend beyond the health care and health policy sector itself to their counterparts in the economic response and in the foreign policy and domestic security spheres. A degree of coordinated policymaking is apparent at the seam of health and economy. Work at the seams with foreign and domestic security policymakers isn’t — not necessarily because it isn’t happening, but it is at least not prominent, and it should be.

The importance of integrated approaches to the three dimensions is reinforced when we see in different scenarios how dependent the economic responses are on how the health response goes, and how social reactions lag both. One thing this suggests is how support from outside the region should be designed to free the countries of the region from wrenching dilemmas in their economic responses. Choosing between easing the impact on populations today at the potential expense of already-fragile fundamentals, putting at risk a solid long-term economic recovery, is potentially very destructive. Debt relief is one idea gaining attention that might preclude such choices. What the right policy decisions are, and by who, is beyond our expertise, but our analysis tells us that policies to put the region on a middle path between “triage” and “traction” are needed. It also tells us that governments in the region, local religious and sectarian leaders, and international actors (nations and institutions) must recognize the importance of giving one another the breathing space to let the economic measures move forward. Politicizing them, or using them as a prop to fuel longstanding unrelated grievances, will only undermine the integrated health, economic, and social policy response the region needs to stave off conflict.

Build Pandemic Response Collaboration Over Time into a “Regional Resilience Architecture”

In order for the Middle East to stabilize in and for a post-COVID era, there needs to be a strengthening of regional institutions. The eye should be toward a broad regional architecture that encompasses a multiplicity of issues and interests. Today this certainly seems a bridge too far. Cooperation on matters related to security, water, and climate has been elusive and the trendlines have moved in the wrong direction.

But the opportunity should be taken to build on the baby steps taken thus far in the response to the virus, like the UAE sending medical supplies to Iran at the beginning of the crisis.2 This and similar actions show the virus as a leveler appealing to common interests even of adversaries. Moving deliberately from steps like this as a “one-off” transaction to a structured, enduring system of such steps, would not only blunt the effects of more pessimistic COVID-19 scenarios. It would also build the resilience of public health infrastructures across the region against future pandemics and other risks, and build trust to undergird cooperation on other issues over time.

From there, sooner rather than later, the opportunity should be taken to build on cooperation on the health front to move toward a broader “architecture” encompassing security, economic, and other factors. In the past, this concept has centered only on security and other geopolitical concerns. The public health factor in a future regional cooperation framework will be essential — and may always have been. Now that health concerns are front and center for all in the region, they could be the missing link enabling such a framework to be considered in a new way. Framing it in terms of resilience — “the ability to adjust to deformation caused especially by compressive stress” — could help as well. The conflicts of the past 70 years are a “compressive stress” to which the region has been unable to adjust. Perhaps this is because efforts to create institutional mechanisms for doing so have only ever been framed in geopolitical terms that themselves carry an aura of competitiveness. If the scenarios show anything, it is that health, the economy, and security are inextricably linked. Working in an integrated way to strengthen them all is essential to elevating resilience over competition in the region.

While expecting this to happen in the short term is unrealistic, steps toward institutionalizing health cooperation could be used as a foundation for building broader forms of cooperation. An analogue may be the European Coal and Steel Community, which at the end of World War II laid the foundation for what became the European Union. It would be foolhardy to suggest that an EU-like structure could emerge in the Middle East. But the notion of using the response to COVID-19 as an opportunity to move in that direction is far from naïve.3

Hippocratic Foreign Policy — At Least for Now

In most of our scenarios, unsurprisingly, the relationships between the major regional powers — Iran, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Israel — are pivotal. These relationships are a primary hinge determining not only how the region as a whole trends toward stability or conflict, but also the success of the pandemic response. The degree of cooperation or hostility between these powers also drives the civil wars in the region to either more or less intensity.

Right now the United States is doubling down on its effort to squeeze Iran, and seems to have given a very long leash to allies Saudi Arabia and Israel. This runs the risk of stoking, rather than reducing, regional power hostilities, and thereby in a very real way undermining the response to COVID-19. And the scenarios suggest that a conflictual or self-interested response to the pandemic will in turn further fuel conflict, in a vicious circle. While it is important to maintain U.S. alliances in the region, there needs to be a greater willingness in Washington’s and other powers’ foreign policies to “do no harm.” Deployment of pressure tactics against Iran with no diplomatic pathway runs a risk of reinforcing bad Iranian (and Saudi and Israeli) behavior, and increasing the risk of bad COVID-19 outcomes. The hostilities between the United States and Iran also are taking place in Iraq, Lebanon, and Syria, countries that are bearing the brunt of weak governments, restive populations, and a looming COVID disaster. Foreign policy that encourages cooperation among the regional powers may be beyond the proclivities of at least some current leaders. But to avoid the worst scenarios and push the future toward the more optimistic ones, it is essential to at least take the foot off the accelerator in ongoing clashes.

In Sum

To avoid the worst outcomes for an already fraught region, there is no substitute and frankly no alternative to some form of cooperation among regional actors, and ideally international actors as well. With the Middle East likely to emerge from the COVID-19 crisis more fragile and potentially explosive than before, a cooperative architecture that can build regional resilience is an imperative. Policymakers should look at some of the scenarios outlined above as both a wakeup call and an opportunity to move toward such an architecture.

Steven Kenney is a non-resident scholar at MEI and the founder and principal of Foresight Vector LLC. Ross Harrison is a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute and is on the faculty of the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University and the political science department at the University of Pittsburgh. The views expressed in this piece are their own.

Link : https://www.mei.edu/publications/middle-east-conflict-and-covid-19-view-2025#pt5