The Return of History: American Instruments of Expansion and the New Middle East

Illustration by Will Allen/Europinion

In The Open Society and its Enemies Karl Popper spoke of "Social Engineering" as a tool applied domestically and internationally. Popper did not hide this and was quite open when discussing the use of social engineering, how the dominant minority can use this tool to either start or end an economic depression. He further explained how this can be used to either increase or decrease the wealth gap, depending on which of the two best suit the overarching agenda of the "open society". One could extend the argument to claim that the tool can also be applied internationally, against the foreign enemies of the "open society.” The Middle East since the decline of the Ottoman Empire exemplifies this phenomenon. The use of this tool in order to redraw the Middle East to suit the foreign policy of specific powers in the West is still a reality today. Although many may view the current developments taking place in the Middle East as the beginning of the process of liberation from Western hegemony, it could well in fact be a continuation of the same process of social engineering at the international level, albeit in a different time and with different tools. 

In 2006 the Armed Forces Journal published a proposal for a new map of the Middle East that was presented by Ralph Peters as a new map that is compatible with US foreign policy goals within the region. Furthermore, in 2014 The Atlantic published an article titled The New Map of the Middle East which was essentially a speculation of the future borders of the region. Almost a decade later, a redrawing of the Middle East borders could be a reality, especially considering the geopolitical developments that have jump-started the process. 

Western hegemony over the Middle East established itself and was further consolidated during the 19th and 20th centuries respectively. Yet the 21st century seems to be witnessing the emergence of a new international global order that could potentially weaken Western hegemony in the Middle East, and the rest of the world. If the 19th and 20th centuries were based on a unipolar global order where the West, as a civilization, was dominant, the 21st century is one of multipolarity. The balance of power is distributed across multiple emerging civilizational blocs such as China, Russia, India, South America, and, hopefully, the Middle East. I say hopefully because in an emerging multipolar order, the Middle East, Islamic world, Arabo-Persian world, whatever we may call it, is currently one of the weakest emerging poles. Unlike other poles, the Middle East possesses a number of powers, but no superpower per se. Moreover, geopolitically, it is perhaps the most negatively affected by modern paradigms. In other words, the modern nation state, as a geopolitical and economic tool utilized by Western civilization, has been deployed more successfully in this specific civilization when compared to others. It is an imposition of a foreign political form on a culture where it essentially does not belong. Thus, regardless of Samuel Huntington’s Clash of Civilizations and Alexander Dugin’s multipolarity vision materializing globally today, the Middle East, as a weak pole amongst many, remains a prey to Western instruments of expansion. In The Confessions of an Economic Hitman, John Perkins discussed how the West utilizes such tools or instruments in order to materialize their own respective foreign policy or economic goals beyond the West. More importantly, however, is how it reveals the distinction between the Western form of empire when compared to other cultures. The Western form of empire is dynamic, transformative, and covert; it is Faustian in every sense of the word. In his critique of modernity, Wael Hallaq described how capitalism, modernity, globalization, and modern-warfare are inseparable; none of the above concepts can be understood in isolation. Furthermore, Hallaq argued that the forms of Islamic culture, and perhaps other cultures, are almost incompatible with modernity. Hence, the title used for his book, The Impossible State, denoting the impossibility of producing the proper Islamic political form in a modern context. If attempted however, it is either produced in a distorted form, or the actual form is suppressed due to its incompatibility with modern paradigms. Moreover, in the context of Western adventurism, Oswald Spengler's argument is relevant. He argued that all forms emanating from the West are simply tools of empire, what Carrol Quigley defined as instruments of expansion. Of course these tools of expansion eventually become institutionalized, lose their vitality, and eat the culture from within like a cancer. 

Moreover, Perkins' concept of "Death Economies" is compatible with the concept "Necropolitics", how sociopolitical power can be utilized to dictate who may live, and who dies. The choice is almost always dictated by civilizational-cultural membership. In the case of the West, it is reflected by Huntington's case for the "West against the rest", which I view as a non-relativist political adaptation and weaponization of Spengler's philosophy of history. Huntington served as a foreign policy advisor, and it is clear how his "Clash of Civilization" thesis shaped US foreign policy beyond the Cold War. Khaled al Kassimi, explored the concept of Necropolitics further in International Law, Necropolitics, and Arab Lives: The Legalization of Creative Chaos in Arabia. His contribution reveals that beyond economic tools, international law is weaponized today to not only pave the way for Western imperium, but to legally justify the killing of specific lives beyond the West for the sake of their covert imperial objectives. In the context of modern international law, and perhaps modern journalism (all modern forms of journalism), the souls of casualties of Western adventurism are reduced to mere digits, numbers, and statistics (the current news coverage of the massacre in Gaza, and our own detached interaction with it, through social media, illustrates this accurately). This is reflected in Trump’s recently uploaded video titled “Trump Gaza”, depicting a dystopian futuristic Gaza built on top of the rubbles, and perhaps blood, of the old. But this, in my judgement, further demonstrates the anti-human, anti-cultural, and anti-organic essence of modernity as a force, which is afflicting the West as well as the rest of the world at this point. Rene Guenon's prophetic argument in The Reign of Quantity & the Signs of the Times is materializing in front of our very eyes, as quantity (matter) displaces quality (form). The reign of quantity has now reduced the human soul to an insignificant nothing, paving the way for the "kingdom of the Anti-Christ".

A shift in the global balance of power almost always leads to a change of the geopolitical landscape and the states that make these respective landscapes. Following the end of the First World War, nine new countries had emerged in Europe as a result of the decline of the German Empire, dozens of states received their independence globally after the demise of the French and British colonies post-WW2, and fifteen post-Soviet states emerged at the end of the Cold War. These patterns are not simply unique to our own modern time, rather, they are perennial and reflect the constant state of flux within history-time. Spengler and Toynbee’s philosophies of history have reflected the nature of these cycles focusing on units of analysis that function within the longue durée, civilizations or high-cultures, but other theories such as that of William Strauss and Neil Howe shed further light on these processes at the generational level. The Strauss-Howe generational theory describes the shift in social, political and economic realities within every generation – the shift which is inaugurated by every generation, and is usually an expression of the persona, ethos or spirit of that generation, is called a turning. These generational cycles are parts of larger cycles that function, or exist, temporally at the intermediate level between the large scale (longue durée) changes of civilizations and the short term events of single generations. These changes at the “conjunctures” of history, or “saeculums”, are a century long, or almost 85 years according to Strauss and Howe. What Strauss and Howe called the shift between two saeculums a “fourth turning” where the shift occurring is so severe and ultimately results in a period characterized by crises. According to Howe, America, and perhaps the rest of the West, is going through a fourth turning, usually climaxed by a conflict, catastrophe, or crisis. 

Is it too far-fetched to argue that the whole world is currently experiencing socio-, geo-, political developments as a result of these “turns” – that is to say, seismic shifts as a result of the end of one cycle, and the beginning of another? Is it too unrealistic to assume that our societies in themselves are products of larger cycles that have been shaping the human experience since our own deep past? Our connection to our past is something that we take for granted in our hypermodern world, and the result is a lack of perspective when considering the interconnection between specific past events and current developments. An event that occurred a century ago can still have catastrophic implications on our present. In Vincent Bevins’ The Jakarta Method (2020), the author explored how Washington’s anti-communist crusade in Indonesia almost half a century ago has led to a collective form of trauma that has shaped the Indonesian political landscape to this very day. The trauma response is expressed today through dysfunctional political reactions that fail to reveal the catastrophic truth behind the mass killings that had occurred during the Cold War period in Indonesia. Indonesia, as one of the founding members of the Non-Aligned movement during the Cold War, was almost forcefully pulled into the Cold War due to US interventionism, in what could be argued to be the most forgotten yet critical episode of Cold War history. These crusades were essentially expressions of what was addressed earlier; American tools of economic-imperial expansion, which Perkins had a direct experience with in Indonesia when working for institutions and organizations directly connected to such projects that were concealed as consulting firms. Nevertheless the dialogue between Perkins’ and an Indonesian student during his experience as an economic hitman is revealing. A heated debate over US adventurism in the Middle, and Far, East, led to the student telling Perkins’ that the next goal for the US is not the rest of the Asian nations in the Far East. Contrary to common belief that US will target Laos, Cambodia, and other bordering states, as a result of the “domino effect” theory following the war in Vietnam, and to the disbelief of Perkins’, the student argued that the next phase of empire will primarily target Muslim nations. The student cited the work of British historian Arnold Toynbee, who has extensively argued across his philosophy of history, that Western civilization seemed to be heading towards a collision with the Islamic world due to the extreme form of universalism adopted by both societies. This is an argument that had a clear impact on the work of Huntington who had also argued similarly. Indeed, almost half a century after Perkins’ own dialogue, US foreign policy in the Middle East was characterized by a hawkish form of interventionism that is almost unprecedented in our era. 

A century has passed since the inauguration of the Sykes-Picot agreement, an agreement that clearly still shapes the geopolitical reality of the Middle East. Yet the cycles that dominate history also express themselves in these specific agreements, as if foreign policy advisors are aware of their very existence, Toynbee, Spengler, Huntington, and Dugin, are read by such circles after all, as Henry Kissinger’s obsession with the former two demonstrates. With the rise of a new multipolar global order, the Western treaties that helped shape the past unipolar global order will be amended in order to accommodate the shift towards multipolarity. The recent statements by Trump on Gaza, the Israeli expansion over Southern Lebanon and the Golan region in Syria, incursions in the West Bank, as well as their calls for de-militarizing the Southern regions of Syria, are all expressions of this new shift in Western tools of expansion. Finally, the Middle East is home to dozens of active secessionist movements, and such shifts will either lead to the eradication, or rise, of specific secessionist movements depending on their geopolitical value for US foreign policy in a newly carved Middle East. While the Kurds were primary allies to the US, especially during the Gulf Wars, they are now neglected and facing their own demise as prey to Turkish interventionism. The Houthis, as the only political actors actively preventing this new US-Israeli redrawing, could ironically push the US to amp their support for the secessionist Southern Transitional Council in the South of Yemen, and perhaps even recognize them as a separate state. This would not come as a surprise since talks have been emerging of Trump’s administration possibly recognizing Somaliland.

The recent developments in the Middle East, and perhaps the rest of the world, is a reminder that history has not ended as Fukuyama had proclaimed after the end of the Cold War. Rather, history went through a pause induced by Pax Americana, and it is currently back and moving once more. The world could be shaped by its return through the inauguration of a new cycle – one of many that has shaped the rhythms of world history (life) across time.

Image: Wikimedia Commons/Ralph Peters

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