featuresWar

Is a New Holy Alliance Forming in the Middle East?

The last year has not been kind to the forces of political Islam. Where before they seemed to be positioned to change the face of governance, for better or for worse, across the Arab World, they are now routinely suppressed by security forces, prosecuted as terrorists, and generally pushed out of the legitimate political sphere throughout the region. This shift has been led and largely driven by a close working partnership among three “moderate” Arab states – Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and Egypt. Working together, they have systematically disrupted and persecuted the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, its counterparts elsewhere, and countless other similar groups throughout the region, using a variety of tactics and coordinated actions. These actions range from dubious legal proceedings and propaganda to outright physical intimidation and military action.

Interestingly, we’ve seen this movie before. The partnership struck by Riyadh, Abu Dhabi, and Cairo against Islamist groups bears a strong resemblance to the Holy Alliance, a loose coalition of European monarchies formed in the aftermath of the Napoleonic Wars to stifle and suppress democratic uprisings throughout the region. Like the actions of the “moderate” Arab camp today, the Holy Alliance was born out of chaos, a fear of losing control, and, most of all, the overriding necessity of regime survival. The parallels between the two are many, and do not bode well for the future of the Middle East.

 

Striving for Stasis

The Holy Alliance came into being after a geopolitical earthquake just as disruptive in its time as the Arab Spring – the Napoleonic Wars. Driven by an explosive mixture of republican rhetoric and military genius, imperial France under Napoleon Bonaparte shook Europe to its foundations, carving out a Continent-spanning empire before its eventual defeat. The experience left many of the victorious powers very concerned about the potential of further democratic outbreaks to unleash such destructive forces again, forces that they might be unable to contain a second time. This concern led Czarist Russia, Hapsburg Austria, and Prussia to form a Holy Alliance with the explicit mission of suppressing republicanism and secularism throughout Europe.

The Alliance members worked closely to respond to a number of developments over its lifetime, restricting academic freedom and political discussion in the German principalities, brutally crushing democratic and nationalist revolutions throughout Europe during the 1848 Springtime of Nations, and generally acting to ensure the survival and continued influence of the great empires. They marshaled all the forces at their disposal in their efforts to maintain the status quo, using traditional diplomacy, spying and subversion of nascent democratic movements, and military action as they deemed necessary. For a time, their efforts met with success, keeping disintegrative forces at bay at home and abroad. However, in victory they sowed the seeds of their own defeat. The democratic desires of people throughout Europe could not be denied forever, and the international order the Holy Alliance was formed to preserve eventually crumbled. In the light of perfect hindsight, the attempts by Russia, Prussia, and Austria to preserve the old ways can be seen for what they were – a dead end.

 

A New Alliance

Two centuries later, a similar pattern is playing out in the Arab World. The chaos and temporary Islamist ascendency sparked by the Arab Spring revolutions in Tunisia, Egypt, Syria, and Libya clearly was very concerning to leaders in Saudi Arabia and the UAE. While their countries remained untouched by large-scale protests or political change, they perceived in the rise of popular Islamist forces a direct threat to the legitimacy and stabil