Failing states, international blindness and the rise of radical Islam. Unintenteded interdependence and unexpected powerlessness in the Middle East

Right after 9/11, the first UNDP Report on Arab Human development unveiled deeply rooted shortcomings in the Arab states. Most demographic, social, economic and political indicators sketched an unsustainable future, highlighting the need for new policies and changed patterns of governance. However, the following years were marked by the global “war on terror” and its regional and local ramifications. Little attention was devoted to the need for governance; instead, coercive approaches were preferred, ranging from the war waged by the USA to defeat a member of the “axis of evil” and to allegedly bring democracy to Iraq and the Greater Middle East, to the dismissal of Palestinians’ electoral choices in 2006, and to the deepening of “anti-terrorist” (and often anti-Islamist) cooperation with authoritarian allies. This paper will argue that such strategies have interacted with many local and regional problems, significantly deepening them and further eroding prospects for improved regional and local governance, a situation that contributed to the popular uprisings in several Arab states and the ensuing convulsions. The research will notably focus on the building up of dynamics with transnational and trans-border effects that are constitutive of what can be termed as ‘unintended interdependence’, or interconnectedness of trans-border logics that surreptitiously develop through the perceptions and behavior of social actors who circumvent the authority and control of the state, and feed on the fragility of the latter and its alienation of its own citizens. Such dynamics have contributed to the collapse not only of regimes but also of states previously perceived as “strong” and to the breakdown of their social contracts (hence the notion of unexpected powerlessness). Focusing on Syria, where the Arab Spring wind blew but ultimately led to an all-out war, and Iraq, which escaped the Arab Spring diffusion but not the dynamics it unleashed, the paper will also inquire into the relationship between governance shortcomings and state failures.