Turmoil in the Middle East - February 2011

The upheavals in the Middle East raise all the contradictions of foreign policy that we have always had to wrestle with. To what extent should foreign policy be the vehicle by which we spread our values of democracy, liberty, and the rule of law throughout the world, and to what extent is it just a means of securing our national interest. It is surprising seeing ministers criticising and demanding reforms from long standing friends of Britain and British policy over so many years, when they have so often loyally supported our endeavours and been willing markets for our exports.

Of course, the same was once true of Saddam Hussein: he was always a dreadful dictator, but for a time he was ‘one of ours’ and we supported him as an instrument of our policy in the region.

We might celebrate Egypt’s liberation but we are nervous about the unpredictability of the regime that will follow.  Will secular modern Egypt become an hostile Islamic state?
And what about friendly and pro-western Bahrain?
Bahrain is more problematical because the minority Sunni regime rules a Shiite majority. If the regime is overthrown will its replacement continue to be our ally in the face of revolutionary Shia Iran?

The Shiite – Sunni divide adds a complicating factor to the politics of Islam. After the death of the prophet Mohammed the majority of his followers, the Sunnis,  accepted that his regime –uniting in one person all secular and spiritual authority- had been unique and was at an end. Thenceforward there would be a separation between the Caliph, and spiritual authority which would reside in the Ummah -the body of the educated faithful or clergy. The Shiites, did not accept this distinction.   For them the Prophet was supposed to have been followed by a succession on Imams -starting with his cousin Ali- who would continue to wield both temporal and spiritual authority. There are a number of varieties, but the majority of Shiites accept a line of 12 Imams until in the 9th century when the twelfth was hidden by God until sometime in the future when he will return as the Mahdi ,  together with Jesus to sort out the world. This poses a problem for Shiites in the meantime: during the Imam’s period of occultation who, if anyone, should exercise his spiritual and temporal authority?  Frankly there are different schools of thought, but what was a minority view -held by the Grand Ayatollah Khomeini- has prevailed in Iran where ultimate authority now rests with the Supreme Leader, effectively making the country a theocracy where the Supreme Leader is ‘God’s Shadow on earth’.

The arrival of any more Shiite regimes supporting Iran in the region would be alarming.

The acquisition of nuclear weapons by Iran, a regime steeped in millenarian beliefs about hastening the end of the world and the return of the twelfth Imam, is even more so.