Peter Jones outlines a process to encourage dialogue on key social, economic, and security issues in the region.
In a statement to the United Nations Security Council in December 2023, the UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process Tor Wennesland asserted that, regarding the war in Gaza, “there is no substitute for a legitimate political process that will resolve the core issues.”
Though long imagined, the increasingly evident space for a regional process in the Middle East that seeks to achieve cooperation and stability has grown clearer in recent years. Domestic civil conflicts, societal dissatisfaction, resource access, arms races, and volatile bilateral relationships between states have wracked a region stressed for decades by international intervention and great-power competition.
“It is now time for all of the region’s states and peoples to begin to move together,” Peter Jones writes in an article in Middle East Policy’s Gaza War issue that lays out the provisions of a process to encourage dialogue on key social, economic, and security issues in the Middle East.
Having chaired a series of discussions between expert groups and regional governments that ran from 1995 to 2011, Jones, the executive director of the Ottawa Dialogue with experience in Track 1.5 and Track 2 diplomacy projects, offers “the ideas and concepts…as to how such a system might be established and what its key provisions and structures might be.”
First, the process would aim to facilitate “sustained and focused dialogue, transparency and cooperation on the range of security, socio-economic and environmental challenges” of the region. This is accomplished through an inclusive process open to all states and functioning on multiple levels: governmental (Track One), informal and unofficial non-state actors (Track Two), and civil society.
This “interlocking system of dialogues…permits different issues to be discussed at different levels, depending on where the most productive discussion might be held at that moment,” Jones explains.
Fundamental to the discussions was the recognition that “no other regional process can adequately address the Middle East’s unique situation,” as the challenges it faces are unique: “All members of the various studies agreed that the proposed process must be, and must be seen to be, something that comes from the region.”
On the question of issues to be addressed, the discussants concluded they would be grouped into several subject areas: security; transnational threats; human rights, good governance, and democratic development; and economic and resource development. The Arab Spring and Covid-19 pandemic have brought about “much greater urgency” on “the relationship between such issues and regional stability.”
In a region so fraught with instability and uncertainty, the “process is meant to be dynamic and capable of evolution” to accommodate states’ needs and allow them “to join at a level that is most suitable to [those] needs at any given moment,” Jones concludes. “The ground may now be shifting in the region, and some of the ideas contained in these studies may be able to move forward.”
Among the major takeaways readers can find in Peter Jones’ Middle East Policy article, “A Middle East Cooperation and Security Process: Has the Time Come?”:
- This article describes a model process for the Middle East aimed at addressing the major social, economic, security, and political issues in the region.
- Key terms:
- “Regional cooperation and security process” is the creation of an ongoing process whereby member countries develop norms and mechanisms for cooperation.
- Key requirements:
- The process must be based on a principle of “inclusion.” This includes the clause that membership must be open to all states of the region, including Iran and Israel, and some form of engagement for Turkey, and all should be able to raise topics.
- The process should consider having three levels of dialogue: government-level discussion, an informal process to discuss issues not ready for the official government-level track, and a loosely structured forum for the engagement of civil society.
- The process should not dissolve existing regional processes but rather complement them, and must be seen as coming from inside the region, not from outside.
- Several participants in the studies noted that the “process is a valid outcome in itself.”
- Recognition that dialogue is a respected objective can provide the opportunity to create structure and a results-orientated approach to issues.
- There must exist a set of rules to manage dialogue.
- However, some noted their assumption “that dialogue is a good in itself is not widely shared by the region’s ‘political culture.’”
- Therefore, some achievable goals should be set early in the process.
- Tangible progress on the Israel-Palestine dispute would be critical.
- Several felt the issue could be addressed by the process, while others thought that the process should not simply replace those that already exist.
- Gaining membership early on may be difficult, but space must always be available.
- The less committed Track Two option may encourage engagement.
- The addition of extra-regional partners could engage their role in the region.
- States adding items to the agenda must be prepared to implement results, and discussion must be managed given that some topics may be difficult at the official level.
- Participants agreed that “soft” and “human” security concerns must be on the agenda.
- Issues should be addressed by four themes: security, transnational threats, “soft security,” and region-specific issues developing.
- “Hard” security concerns should focus on confidence and security-building measures, discussion of broad security issues like the Arab-Israeli dispute, and arms proliferation, among others.
- “Soft” security concerns include democracy, human rights, public health, etc.
- Economic development concerns should focus on “best practices” in development, transportation, energy, and youth training.
You can read “A Middle East Cooperation and Security Process: Has the Time Come?” by Peter Jones in the special Gaza War issue of Middle East Policy.