The Middle East : an impossible peace ?

This article was written in French as part of an exam in my Geopolitics class in highschool, in 2023. It was then later translated to English for sharing purposes.

“Let us not forget that after ending the war, we need to make peace” :  this quote is from a speech made at the United Nations by the French Minister of Foreign Affairs, looking to prevent a second Gulf War. Indeed, peace is not only the absence of war but also a process : we build peace. The Middle East is, historically, a cauldron of conflict that induced multiple attempts of peace since the end of World War 2 and the creation of the United Nations in 1945. This was a time marked with a strong desire to avoid another war of this extent, and where multilateralism shone through. To what extent can we argue that peace in the Middle East is a long and complex process which did not lead to durable results ? It is argued that the Middle East is, first of all, the subject of numerous attempts of peace which however were hampered  by multiple factors which prevented durable stability.

The Middle East’s conflicts induced multiple attempts at peace.

Those conflicts attracted a great deal of attention which resulted in foreign states’ mediation, in particular the United States’, and by multiple presidents. Those mediation efforts resulted for example in the Oslo’s Accords, signed in Washington by the OLP and the Israeli First Minister under the mediation of Bill Clinton, which established a mutual recognition of the two states, a major accomplishment for peace. In the same way, the United States intervened during the first Gulf War when Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1971. This military intervention was a victory for multilateralism and was followed by a wave of hope for durable peace. An historian even proclaimed the “end of History” – the end of all conflicts and wars.

Mediation attempts were also made by international organizations such as the United Nations. Created in 1945, it was largely modified under Koffi Annan’s mandate, notably after the failure of the organization to avoid the Tutsi’s genocide in Rwanda in 1998. In this context was created the International Penal Court under Rome’s status to punish war crimes, in the goal of collective security : the security of countries concerns indeed all States. 

The “duty to protect”, or the United Nations’ interference, manifests itself by the blue helmets who were sent to the Middle East on repeated occasions. 

Moreover, peace is not always mediated : it is also the absence of war. Indeed, the resources of the Middle East’s States are not unlimited. It is the notion of “limited war”, theorized by Clausewitz. For example, the war between Iraq and Iran in 1980, ended in 1988 for a lack of resources from both of the Nations. 

Thus the Middle East is a cauldron of conflicts which encourages attempts at peace. 

However, those attempts are hampered by numerous factors. 

The foreign influence is not always present in the pursuit of peace. It is the case of proxy war, the act of moving conflicts on a different territory. Russia, for example, supports Gaza, thus abandoning its neutral facade in the face of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, to undermine Ukraine’s alliances and remove the Ukrainian war from the front of the international political scene. Furthermore, States often act in an unilateral mindset, like during the Second Gulf War in 2003, in the post 9/11 context, with an military intervention of the United states in the Middle East which was not approved by the United Nations. Thus the UN is limited by a unilateralist stance even though it is a necessary organization. Indeed the 242 resolution, after the Israeli Palestinian conflict in 1967, wasn’t respected by the Nations. In the same way, the IPC is limited by the non-ratification of the United States of its status. The security council of the UN is also a source of problems, with the veto right not allowing certain interventions, for example during the Cold War. The UN has therefore a very limited role.

Peace is also hampered at a regional scale ; the states of the Middle East are looking for advantages, such as economic advantages with the first Gulf War and petrol, but also territorial gain like during the Israeli Palestinian conflicts. For example, Egypt attacked Israel during the Kippur war in the pursuit of acquiring Sinaï. 

Wars also became irregular with non-static states such as Al Qaeda, Hamas or Daech. Religion is also instrumentalized to encourage the population to take part in wars like with religious zionism. Likewise, the divisions of the Arab world between Sunnites and Shiites is not originally a religious conflict but was instrumentalized as such, like when the United States put the Shiite minority in charge. Non-static states make negotiations unattainable : for example, the Hamas Chart, which promotes its will to destroy Israel as a goal that all Arab States and populations must try to achieve. Terrorism, like atmospheric jihadism, moves those conflicts to the foreground of the international scale, like with the Charlie Hebdo’s attacks in Paris in 2015. 

Attempts of peace are thus hampered on both a mondial and regional scale, by different actors.

To conclude, the Middle East is a cauldron of conflicts, inducing different attempts at peace which did not result however in durable results.