Middle East's Black Box - Middle East in World Politics

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                                                 YALOVA UNIVERSITY

 Faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences 

          Department of International Relations

             MIDDLE EAST IN WORLD POLITICS

               BOOK REVİEW: MİDDLE EAST’S BLACK BOX

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CONTENT

ABOUT THE BOOK        

REVIEW OF THE BOOK        

Introduction: Middle East: From the Perspective of a Journalist        

Arab Spring        

Egypt, Arab Spring and Muslim Brother        

Turkey – Syria Relations and Turkmens        

In General: Turkish Foreign Policy in Middle East        

Algeria…        

The End of the Ghaddafi        

Situation of Kirkuk        

And…        

GENERAL CRITICS OF THE BOOK        

ABOUT THE BOOK

     The Black Box of the Middle East (Ortadoğu’nun Kara Kutusu in Turkish) was written by Kenan Akin who is an experienced journalist. This book is published by Diasan  publications and it published in Esenyurt, Istanbul  in 2013.

     This book consists of five different chapters. In the first chapter, we can see some observations and critics of the author about the region. In the second part, we can see some notes of the author from the recent history of the Middle East. On the contrarily, we can see that author’s some notes about the past history of the Middle East in the third part. These first three chapters are the main informative chapters of the book. Different than first three chapters, we can see some photos about the region and author’s himself in the fourth and fifth chapters.

     Before I summarize and evaluate the book, I should state that this book is not easy to summarize so much. Because, the first three chapters of this book has 74 sub-chapters. Also, there is no structural unity between these sub-titles of these first three chapters. Because of this factor, when I summarize and evaluate this book, I will try to do classification among sub-chapters: This means that, I will try to summarize all related things about some important dynamics and actors in the region and in the book.

REVIEW OF THE BOOK

Introduction: Middle East: From the Perspective of a Journalist

     At the beginning of this book, Kenan Akin tries to define Middle East from his perspective. In the introduction part, he mentions from Middle East with the notion of ‘chaotic’. But, despite this chaotic structure, he claims that Middle East is still attractive. According to the author, the existence of oil and gas, religions and imperial motives of the Great Powers are the main sources of this chaotic structure. People in this region have mostly same race, same religion and same or different states. But, even though they have some similarities, there is no permanent peace in the region. In this point, author of this book exemplifies the situation of Arabs. As is known, there are lots of common characteristics between Arabs. But, there is no unity without some core issues such as Palestinian Issue.  Author also defends that chaos in this region is derived by the oil. But, there is a dilemma here, I think. Because, in the one of the first pages of this book, he mentions some prophets who was killed by Middle Eastern society. But, in the following sections, he claims that ‘’chaos came with oil in the region.’’ As we can see, there is kind of chronologic dilemma in here.

     In the following sections, the author of this book defines this region with some terms such as battles, conflicts, uprisings, invasions and revolutions. These terms are a kind of evidence for the chaotic situation in the region, according to him. He also claims that USA’s imperialism and Iran’s sectarian perception are main responsible for this chaotic structure in the region. Even, he claims that the sectarian perception of Iran is relatively effective on the Egypt, Palestine, Lebanon, Jordan, Syria, Iraq and even Turkey. Because of the effects of the Shia expansionism, some states such as Qatar and Saudi Arabia hesitate from the Iran’s perceptions in the region. So, we can shortly say that Shi’ism is very important notion for the regional dynamics in Middle East When the author of this book defines Middle East, the role of Turkey is very crucial. According to Kenan Akin, after the establishment of Justice and Development Party’s government in 2002, Turkey is willing to join and to be leader of Sunni front in the region.   This is called neo-Ottomanism by the author.

     In the following pages of the book, the author mentions from the ‘’Greater Middle Eastern Initiative’’. According to author of this book, the main goals of this project are to support moderate Islam rather than fundamentalist Islam; to guarantee the existence of Israel, to reduce the effects of the Iran in the region and to secure the sources and ways of the oil. So, we can see in this definition, the existence of oil and religious issues are in the core position in the GMEI. In related pages with the GMEI, we can easily see some emotional analysis about this project by the author. So, according to him, main targets is Muslim countries in the context of GMEI. In this direction, he mentions from the some scenarios over the Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Syria, Kuwait and the Gulf War, the invasion of Iraq and the collapse of the Saddam Regime in the context of the Great Middle Eastern Initiative.