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Middle Eastern Politics: Structural Stability in Political Relationships

One of the most obvious applications of structural balance to complete graphs is international politics. However, this dynamic could be no clearer, with far-reaching impacts, than the current situation in the Middle East. As ISIS continues to expand its hold on Syria, Iraq, and so many other countries within the Levant, it becomes in the interest of all countries, even those outside the Middle East, to find allies to counteract the spread. In keeping, for the most part, with previous policy, the US has decided to make use of its friendly relationship with Israel and Saudi Arabia to coordinate its assaults. Even diplomatic talks in Iran have shown seeds of success, a country which for decades has been a primary antagonist within the Middle East. Although the relationship is nowhere near a positive edge, the winds of change are blowing. Syria represents a slightly more complicated situation – the simplest answer would be to say that the US has largely backed off from direct engagement in the country, superficially condemning the abuses of Assad but not really taking any direct action.

To formalize all of this into graph theory, the United States maintains a positive edge with Israel and Saudi Arabia, while having an improving negative edge with Iran, and a begrudging neutral edge with Syria. The reason for this is ultimately very clear: ISIS. No matter the abuses the Saudi Arabian government continues to hurl upon its people in the form of nonrepresentation, misogyny, and so many other human rights abuses, they pale in comparison to the horrendous enemy of ISIS. As we covered in class, a triangle of nodes with three negative edges connecting them is unstable. If ISIS were not in the picture, it is very likely that pressure within the US might have forced it to distance itself from Saudi Arabia, and potentially (although more unlikely) Israel as well. However, because the common enemy of ISIS still holds so much sway in the Middle East, the US continues to tolerate Saudi Arabia and Israel. Even the relationships with Iran and Syria have improved.

The existence of Russia in this graph, as the article points out, complicates things. Russia also has an incentive to combat ISIS. However, they have chosen Syria, and the strengthening of Assad’s regime, as a method of doing so. This makes sense in the context of a negative edge US-Russia and Syria-US, and perhaps explains why the US has a slightly neutral relationship – the balance of the ISIS-Syria-US triangle would be stable with a positive bond, but the Russia-US-Syria triangle can only be balance by a negative bond US-Syria. Ultimately, the choice is clear for Russia: Syria is in desperate need of a powerful international friend, and Russia can gain an ally in the Middle East that is independent of US interests in Syria.

So is ISIS the great peacemaker? It seems almost laughable to say. It is certainly true that the universal antagonism of ISIS has put strain on the negative relationships between many different countries, from the US and Iran to Turkey and the Kurds. However, it would be unwise to assume all of these unlikely alliances are positive outside of the context of combatting ISIS – the US has lost a lot of ground in moving Saudi Arabia towards a more representative government, and many of the alliances that have been created are bound to shatter as soon as ISIS begins to fall. Moreover, Russia’s involvement in Syria only creates more likelihood that the Syrian rebellion will be crushed, leaving the country trapped in Assad’s grip once more.

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2015/09/11/why-russia-is-in-syria/

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