Selecting the cover story for our November issue was particularly challenging because it coincides with two significant events: the US elections and the recent escalation in the Middle East, most notably between Israel and Iran.
In the end, we chose to look at the incoming US President and the possibility of a changed Middle East, exploring this topic through articles and interviews, looking at it from different angles. Yet the idea of a ‘New Middle East’ is anything but new.
In 1991, with Saddam Hussein being driven out of Kuwait, Arab-Israeli peace talks making progress, and the Soviet Union’s dissolution leading many to seek alternative sponsors, talk of a ‘New Middle East’ began to surface. Its most prominent proponent was former Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres. Writing in the mid-1990s, he foresaw a future of peace, cooperation, and regional integration.
Years later, in the aftermath of the 11 September 2001 attacks on the US, President George W. Bush went after the Taliban in Afghanistan and overthrew Saddam in Iraq. The idea was to set off a domino effect in neighbouring countries, creating a ‘New Middle East’ defined by democracy, pluralism, and regional integration, capable of countering terrorism and authoritarianism.
Another ‘New Middle East’ moment followed the short but destructive July 2006 war between Hezbollah and Israel in Lebanon after the assassination of Lebanese Prime Minister Rafic Hariri and the withdrawal of the Syrian army a year earlier. US National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice heralded the “birth pangs of a new Middle East”.
Shifting focus
For decades, through war and peace, negotiation and confrontation, the Middle East’s reshaping has been trumpeted to great fanfare. But Bush’s interventionism backfired, attempts to impose reform in countries like Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, and Iran floundered, and subsequent US administrations—from Obama to Trump to Biden—remained wary.
Instead, their focus shifted to ending protracted conflicts. The US withdrew from Iraq in 2011 and from Afghanistan in 2021 while remaining diplomatically, economically, and militarily engaged in the region.
