By Nawaf Obaid 

The so-called Arab Spring generated a wave of hope among those fighting or advocating for democratization of the Arab world’s authoritarian regimes. Now, following the leadership changes in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Yemen, and with a brutal civil war raging in Syria and increasingly fraught conditions in Bahrain, Sudan, Jordan and Iraq, there is much talk of a major shift – and hope for improvement – in both the nature and prospects of the Arab state.

 

But hope – “the thing with feathers,” as the American poet Emily Dickinson once put it – often bears little resemblance to the realities on the ground. Indeed, looking earthward, the beauty of the Arab Spring seems to have given way to an almost unbearable winter.

 

For all the optimism that was ushered in two years ago, ominous political realities may be rendering the nation-state system incompatible with the emerging new Arab world. As a result, how the region can maintain stability without stable nation-states is becoming a burning question.

 

Admittedly, the problems of the Arab countries vary by degree and type. Some countries, such as Egypt and Tunisia, have institutions that are historically entrenched, which allows them to steer the post-conflict institution-building process and prevent a complete collapse of the state. Other countries, such as Bahrain and Jordan, appear to be relatively stable. But most countries are experiencing disastrous contractions in output amid severe fiscal constraints and monetary systems that have nearly collapsed. This situation has consequently undermined two integral components of a successful nation-state: economic independence and self-sustaining growth.

 

Moreover, each Arab country has elected leaders (or widely supported rebels) with ties to the pan-Arab revolutionary Islamist movement the Muslim Brotherhood (or, in the case of Bahrain, where the opposition has had ties to Iran’s revolutionary Islamist objectives). They are thus subject to a religious ideology that transcends the nation-state, rather than to organizations with viable plans for social stability, economic prosperity and political security within national borders.

 

The vulnerability that this has created has already resulted in Sudan’s recent disintegration into two states. Sudan’s authoritarian rule and social division along religious lines, together with economic difficulties and political ineptitude, precipitated the collapse of the central government’s authority in the Christian-majority south.

 

The same process appears to be playing out, albeit at a slower pace, in Iraq, amid an ongoing struggle to unite two ethnicities, Arabs and Kurds, as well as adherents of Sunni and Shiite Islam, into a single nation-state. Central authority is gradually eroding as the country has continued to splinter into ethnic and sectarian regions, with a de facto Kurdish sovereign state already well established in the north.

 

Meanwhile, in Yemen, the possibility of adequate central authority is slipping away as the country confronts several seemingly intractable problems – from internal divisions and separatist movements to Al-Qaeda’s franchise in the Arabian peninsula and a failing economy. The south (Aden) and east (Hadramaut) are both on a trajectory toward independence, dragging Yemen toward another secession struggle nearly 25 years after the country’s fragile unification.

 

In Libya, the collapse of Colonel Moammar Gadhafi’s regime has thrown the country into chaos and decimated central-government authority. The south remains lawless, while the east is ruled by the Benghazi regional council; only the west of Libya remains subject to the poorly consolidated government in Tripoli.

 

The situation is even worse in Syria, where the bloodiest of the Arab revolutions has already claimed more than 75,000 lives, owing mainly to the behavior of President Bashar Assad’s tyrannical regime. As the Syrian state melts away, the regime’s inevitable collapse will lead to the country’s permanent dismemberment, bringing a de facto Kurdish state in the northeast, an eastern autonomous enclave for the surviving Alawites, and a southern entity for the Druze.

 

While the Bahraini and Jordanian states have proven much more stable in relative terms, they are not immune to volatility. Certainly, the Shiite revolt in Bahrain, which has been hijacked by an opportunistic Iranian revanchist faction, has failed to foment the collapse of the Al-Khalifa monarchy. And in Jordan, the religious legitimacy of the Hashemite monarchy has sustained the state in the face of the growing challenge posed by the Muslim Brotherhood, while the fear of regional violence spilling over into the kingdom has temporarily curbed the Jordanian public’s appetite for rebellion.

 

But both states lack the domestic revenues needed to sustain their institutions. If they wish to survive well into the next century, they will probably need to be subsumed under a union supported by a larger, more powerful, and more established nation-state.

 

Furthermore, the disintegration that the Middle East has already witnessed – and will undoubtedly continue to witness – will reverberate beyond the Arab countries with the creation of a sovereign Kurdish state. Such a state, whether it exists as a de facto entity or whether it enjoys widespread formal recognition, will have an ever-lasting effect on the boundaries of the Arab world (Syria and Iraq) and of the wider Middle East (Turkey and Iran).

 

The Arab Spring has toppled some regimes, though not others. But, more important, everywhere in the Arab world – and beyond – it has called into question the viability of the nation-state. The days of revolts may have passed, but the days of reckoning still lie ahead.