The main purpose of this paper is to problematize whether a Middle Eastern Security Community
has ever gone further than a utopian mirage. Accordingly, it is inferred that a regional security
community builds upon, at least, two antecedent conditions. The needed, but not sufficient precondition
arrives when the peoples of a region re-imagine their security geography beyond its
territorialisation among the scattered islands of nation states. Sufficient condition is then the
presence of strong regional states with ideological appeal and material resources so as to build the
first momentum towards a communal sense of security. This paper argues that the Arab Spring
mostly met the first condition. The communal waves, at least briefly, united Arab people divided
across the borders of multitude of states. But this short-lived ‘spring’ was not quite enough to forge
a path from which the region could progress along the said direction. Whereas the classical cores of
strength in the Arab world (Syria, Egypt and Iraq) are currently on the edge of an ultimate collapse;
two non-Arab states (Israel and Iran) seem unwilling to cover this emergent power void.
Primary Language | English |
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Journal Section | Articles |
Authors | |
Publication Date | September 1, 2014 |
Published in Issue | Year 2014 |