Sub‐Saharan Africa: A Theater for Middle East Power Struggles

Abstract

Africa has experienced an unprecedented level of involvement in its regional affairs by Middle Eastern states in the past few years. This is a remarkable development, indeed, given that transregional relations have been characterized by reciprocal ignorance for most of the post‐World War II period. The scope of these current transregional entanglements can be best observed along the African coast bordering the Red Sea. Middle Eastern states have facilitated peace talks in, for instance, Sudan (Qatar, 2008–2011), and Somalia (Saudi Arabia, 2007; Turkey, since 2011), as well as between Djibouti and Eritrea (Qatar, 2010–2017). More recently, concerted mediation efforts by the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Saudi Arabia have led to an agreement between Eritrea and Ethiopia - ending, finally, their 20-year war in September 2018 - and stimulated fresh negotiations between Djibouti and Eritrea. New talks have also been facilitated regarding the three-way conflict among Egypt, Ethiopia and Sudan over sharing the Nile waters. However, recent Middle Eastern spats have also left the Horn of Africa facing security-related repercussions. The intra-Gulf crisis pitting Saudi Arabia and the UAE against Qatar and Turkey has reverberated to such an extent that the African Union discussed the spillover in January 2018. And while the recent diplomatic breakthrough between Eritrea and Ethiopia has been widely praised as an important step toward regional stabilization, observers also caution that Middle Eastern geopolitical rivalries could "provoke destabilizing reactions across the Horn of Africa." This is even more true as the Red Sea has experienced notable militarization of late. Besides the permanent members of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC), which have already established military bases in the region or are planning to do so, Middle Eastern states are also emerging as regional military players. Egypt, Iran, Israel and Qatar obviously have a stake in these developments, while Saudi Arabia, Turkey and the UAE, which seem bent on becoming key actors in the Greater Horn, are constructing a series of military bases from Sudan to Somalia. The debates about the militarization of the Red Sea obscure, however, the fact that Africa as a whole has become a region of vital interest to these and other Middle Eastern states, each of them with its own history of relations there. While prospective economic benefits and international prestige have long dominated the agenda, present-day dynamics are heavily driven by the struggle for hegemony in the Middle East. This article focuses on the policies of Iran, Saudi Arabia and Turkey, the dominant regional powers at the center of the hegemonic competition. On the one hand, their turn to Africa indicates that their foreign policies have become more assertive on the international stage, especially regarding South-South relations. On the other, their current strategic approaches and their politics of alliance building follow very closely the logic of conflict dynamics in their home region.