Sunni Arab States – Strategic Paradigms

Dealing with Iran’s Exercise of “Smart Power”

The Financial Times, a right of center but highly respected newspaper, could not resist about coming up with a sensational headline: “Hizbollah confirms broad aid for Hamas.” The Hizbollah-Hamas connection is not exactly an unknown variable, only its specifics are. Even after the admission of Hezbollah’s deputy leader that his organization is providing military assistance to Hamas, the issue still remains murky and unconfirmed by other sources. Why, then, is there so much hoopla about Hezbollah’s admission of support for Hamas? Because that reality only underscores the effective exercise of “smart power” on the part of Iran–Hezbollah’s chief backer–in the Sunni Middle East. That is also worrying the United States, which, under the Obama administration, is relearning to come up with its own smart power-related maneuvers towards Iran.

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The Shia-Sunni Power Play in the Middle East

The continuing public spat between Hezbollah and Arab states is a mixture of old and new styles of power play. The “old” part implicitly involves Iran–the chief supporter of Hezbollah–while the new aspect of this power play is between the antiquated monarchies and the nexus between Iran and Hezbollah. Iran is the “rising power” of the Middle East, while the Sunni Arab states belong to the category of “declining” powers. Hezbollah’s status will be determined most significantly after the impending elections in Lebanon. As an example of how the U.S. foreign policy toward the Middle East is more of an expression of continuity than change (despite President Barack H. Obama’s rhetoric of “change’) Vice President Biden was dispatched to Lebanon to influence the outcome of the Lebanese elections, an action that is likely to backfire and, in the process, only enhance the political clout of Hezbollah.

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The “End” or The “Return” of History: When Will History Make Up Its Mind?

There is something imprudent about strategic thinkers when it comes to history. For some reason, for some of them, it has to come to an end when an idea experiences a temporary–but significant–success. But when that idea appears to fail, they make an equally rash extrapolation, and start talking about the “return” of history. Francis Fukuyama became ebullient regarding the “end” of history when the Soviet Union–the archetype of communist totalitarianism–collapsed. For him, the triumph of liberal democracy in a dialectical sense was an end of history, where no idea emerged as a superior one. Robert Kagan, in his new book, The Return of History and the End of Dreams, argues that history did not come to end when the Soviet Union imploded or when the Berlin Wall collapsed in 1989. The triumph of liberal democracy–which then appeared as a shining example of success–proved illusory. In this sense, he sees a “return” of history. The end of dreams might be another hasty conclusion regarding the sustained survival of autocratic regimes.

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