Today’s topic:
New governments and the consolidation of power in the postcolonial MENA region.
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Exam on Monday the 21st
• Will post all power points to date after class
• Will post a review sheet (draft) after class
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READING QUIZ
• Adnan Menderes
• White Revolution
• United Arab Republic
• Nasserism
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MOVING FORWARD…
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Jews in Europe before emancipation
• Haskalah movement toward integration, secularization, “come out of ghetto”
• Continued pogroms and Jewish political movements (Zionism, Folkism,
Territorialism)
• Nationalist Ideology of Zionism
 Important works & figures establishing the Zionist Movement
 Hebrew over Yiddish – culture at work
 Imagining Palestine as Empty Land
 Jabotinsky’s Revisionist Zionism (“Historical Israel”)
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British Mandate
 Conflicting White Papers
 Balfour Declaration
 1922 White Paper under Sir Herbert Samuelson
• Division of Opposition (Husayni-Nashashibi Rivalry)
• Peel Commission and 1939 McDonald White Paper (Partition)
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Yishuv
• Histadrut
• Haganah
• David Ben Gurion (kibbutznik)
• Immigration and settlement efforts
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Jewish State
• Jewish insurgency (Haganah, Irgun, Lehi) against British Mandate
• British give up Mandate to UN that formed Palestine Commission
(UNSCOP) that decided to partition the land between Jewish & Arab states
 Zionist reluctant acceptance
 Arab rejection and their reasoning
• British withdraw, Ben Gurion declares state
• Arab-Israeli War 1948 and the parties involved
 Post World War
II State Consolidation
 How do states consolidate power?
 Cases of Turkey, Egypt, Iran
Cold War Lens:
• WWII brought about change in international
environment
• Support by both US and Soviets (financial & weaponry)
• General Characteristics of the cold war in developing
states:
• military bases
• keep imperial territories after independence (patronage)
(Great Britain in Iraq, Jordan, Egypt; France in Lebanon)
• Anti-nationalist fights
(France against Algerian FLN)
• Regional security alliances
(Baghdad Pact, 1954)
Different regime types just after independence:
• Self-imposed monarchs (Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia)
• Monarchs imposed or supported by colonial powers
(Muhammad Reza, King Faruq, Libyan Sanusis (King Idris),
King Abdullah, King Feisel
• Governments based on nationalist liberation movements
(FLN – Algeria, Destour - Tunisia)
• Democracies (Lebanon, Israel, Turkey)
Changes after independence:
• Some liberalization (Jordan, Morocco)
• Military coups (Libya, Syria, Egypt, Iraq…)
• Revolution (Iran)
• Civil war (Yemen, Lebanon, Taliban)
• Foreign invasion & war (Afghanistan, Arab-Israeli Conflict, Iraq
and Afghanistan today)
• Elections (Turkey, Mossadegh episode)
How do governments
consolidate power?
Distributing rents (oil income, Suez canal, or
wooing foreign aid) as Patronage
 Ideology (Islamization, Zionism, Arabism,
Ba’athism)
 Riding popular waves (Egyptian Islamization,
Jordanian Nasserism, Saddam’s use of Islamic
symbols in 90s)
 Encouraging rival dissent groups under guise
of pluralism (Sadat’s blunder, Hamas)
 Social reengineering (Iraq)
 Suppression (Savak in Iran) or seeming benign
 Weakening potentially political structures like
but still threat (Morocco, Jordan)
tribes and clans
 Outright brutality (Hama Massacre ’82, Black
 Leveraging minorities (2-step leverage): Jews
September)
in Morocco, Shah’s Bahais, Circassians in Jordan,
all non-Sunnis in Syria, Sunni regional minorities
 Saturation & Cult of Personality (Asad)
in Iraq
 Elections to diffuse dissent (Jordan)
 Create balanced and redundant security and
 Partial concessions to opposition
military forces (Syria)
 Use of foreign powers (Saudis, Bahrain)
 Use of foreign threats as pretext for action
 Controlling the economy
 Use of sophisticated strategies: Divide & rule
(Jordan), cooption (M.R. Shah and attempted w/
Mossadeq), Hearts and Minds
 State employment (Egypt, Syria)
 Institutional changes (courts, election
procedures, etc.)
When are governments overthrown?
When they fail to do these things well.
The strategy consists of:
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Differentiating among active fighters, passive
supporters, genuine neutrals, and government loyalists.
This, of course, requires a centralization of the flow of
information to know who’s who.
Geographically, physically or psychologically isolating
those identified as the active rivals of the state from
others. This requires a highly coordinated and thus
centralized military effort.
Providing positive sanctions to potential supporters of
rival organizations and protecting them from abuse by
undisciplined troops to discourage them from
supporting rivals.
 Cooption
is a strategy initiated by a
dominant organization or coalition of
organizations that consists of offering
positive sanctions to other threatening
organizations or key individuals within
them in return for accepting the norms of
interaction desired by the dominant
organization or coalition
Saturation (Hafez al-Asad)
Why did some monarchies last while others were
overthrown?
• The influence of the royal family
(Michael Herb’s “All in the Family” theory)
• Rentier state
• Oppression & dissatisfaction
• Strategic skills of ruler
• Strategic skills of coup leaders
• External forces (relationships w/ major powers)
Divergent roles played by armies:
• Army as arbiter & veto player (Turkey, Algeria)
• Army as providing leadership (Egypt)
• Army as pillar of support (Jordan)
• Army as potential rival to ruler (Syria)
Turkey
Turkey
• Democrats win election in 1950
• Did not like intrusiveness of Kemalist RPP
• Smaller changes, not major reversal of Kemalism (education,
private property, scale back secularism, etc)
• Growing national debt and repression
• Reactionary protests
• 1960 Coup d’etat through military junta
• New Constitution and 2nd Republic (1961-1980)
• Turmoil, urbanization, demographic change
• Proxy conflicts (Cold War influence) in 1970s
•Military let fester then intervened in 1980 with ‘Coup by
Memorandum’
• Restoration of Democracy in 1983 w/ election of Motherland
Party
Iran and its oil fields
Iran
• Muhammad Reza Shah
• Domestic coalition  tribal leaders, ulama, landowning elite
• Domestic opposition  labor movement & middle class
• Foreign Powers
• UK – support of MRS, tribal leaders, landowning class
• Control of oil through Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (AIOC)
• Soviets – support of Tudeh Party
• US – supported Iranian army for stability and opposition to
Soviet ambitions (containment)
• Widespread sentiment against foreign interference
• Mohammed Mossadeq and National Front Coalition
• Key Issue: Nationalizing the AIOC
• Passed nationalization law in Majlis and elected Mossadeq to
position of Prime Minister (1951-53)
• US and UK boycott Iranian oil after nationalization
• Boycott hurts Mossadeq’s ability to implement democratic reforms
• Fissure in Mossadeq’s National Front
Iran (cont.)
• US (CIA) and UK (MI6) assist in overthrowing Mossadeq in coup to
reinstate Muhammad Reza Shah
• First failed, then succeeded
• Return of royal dictatorship and authoritarian rule (even more
oppressive)
• Agreement b/w UK and Iran for 50/50 revenue split of oil revenues
• Military aid for MRS to consolidate power
• period of harsh authoritarianism
• opposition led by Ayatollah Khomeini
• White Revolution (bloodless, top down) starting in 1963
• Major social, economic, political reforms
• private ownership of land, increase in education, social welfare,
women’s enfranchisement, etc.
• Maintained corrupt regime
• uneven distribution of income and continued political repression
• Growing opposition (especially by religious establishment)
Egypt, Sinai, Strait of Tiran
EGYPT
• Corruption of Faruq and Wafd
•Displeasure after embarrassing 1948 War
• Wafd Split
• Free Officers Coup (1952), RCC, in-fighting, MB opposition
• Nasserism (from Pan-Arab nationalism to Arab Socialism)
• Transition Period and Consolidation
• Cold War Lens
• Complex Relationship with British
• Baghdad Pact
• Search for Arms
• Aswan High Dam issue
• Nationalization of Suez
• 1956 Suez War
• United Arab Republic