The more time passes, the more the conflicts in the Middle East seem intractable.
If you were writing a novel that began with the Middle East as it is today, and ended with a state of permanent peace in the region, how would you write it? How would you make it happen?
The only criterion is that your solution has to be possible. We all know mistakes were made, but you can’t undo any of them for this exercise. Same rule moving forward in your story: no deus ex machina or magical thinking.
I don’t think my solution would generate peace, so to speak, but I’d just totally arm up the Kurds and support their independence and make them a prickly porcupine that nobody could invade. And then let everything else sort itself out. Even the Taliban, or ISIS, would get fatigued of fighting eventually.
I think the only viable peace plan would have to come in the form of a new wave of Arab Spring which is focused on secular principles and dismantling of the power structures of the Parties of God. That would also need to necessarily include the dismantling of the orthodox right wing in Israel.
Only one of a massive social change at a grass roots level. A New New Enlightenment, if you will. If reporting is to be believed (and I’m not sure I do anymore), Iranian youth are demanding a more secular and more democratic society. The other feels like there is a fundamental change in the House of Saud, which seems on the back foot ever since the brutal assassination of the journalist. The flagging demand for oil is making the authoritarians and oligarchs in the middle east much less influential and much less consequential to western nations. A weaker economy will drive the grass roots demands for change.
The Middle East sits on Oil and Gas fossil resources every developed economy needs as a source of energy or a raw material.
We are approaching an inflexion point that will see the energy generation migrate from this dependency to localised renewable sources.
The Middle East and other Oil and Gas reservoirs will steadily diminish in strategic importance and the local economies will revert to agriculture or whatever other activity sustains the population… Some of the more far sighted governments may develop new industries in preparation for this, but many will not. The regional conflicts will be decline because there will be little spare cash to spend on expensive war materials needed to project power and further their geopolitical interests at the expense of their rivals.
The curse of Oil will be over, or much reduced, in a generation. The geopolitical questions of the region, that have so perplexed the world, will become localused issues that will have little relevance to states outside the region.
Sure, but are you quite certain that will have an effect on centuries old conflict between Shia and Sunni. They’ve been at each other’s throats for far longer than oil has been a regional asset. They also don’t much care for Christian and Jewish competing claims on Jerusalem and greater Israel.
If your premise is that it’s the ruling class who are causing hostility in the Middle East, I disagree. Democracy would not solve all their problems. Because in most Middle Eastern countries, ethnic and religious hostility has widespread popular support. Most democratically elected governments would be more violent than the dictatorships that are now in power.
How miraculous is miraculous? For instance, there’s nothing scientifically impossible about a large meteor demolishing the Dome of the Rock. It’s a perfectly possible thing that could happen. But I imagine that, if it were to happen, an awful lot of folks in the Middle East, of all three major religions, would take it as a Sign.
Then again, another awful lot of folks would insist that it was actually a missile, which would probably lead to a net increase in the violence. So maybe never mind that idea.