Saturday 20 / April / 2024
Muscat: The Middle East is becoming increasingly unstable. That could have been said about the region at virtually any time since WW2, but at no point since WW2 has there been so many failed states, so many failing states, and such broad and sustained sectarian and ethnic wars being fought across the region.
Today, even relatively stable regimes with deeply entrenched institutional structures seem compelled to keep investing in external regional power plays – with possibly serious medium-term consequences.
But one country which stands out as an island of peace right in the middle of this sea of conflict is Oman. Internally stable, relatively economically solid despite (or perhaps due to) not being solely an oil economy, aloof of the prevailing regional sectarian wars, and respected by all their neighbours. And not only their immediate neighbours: when the government of Israel needs to establish diplomatic back-channels with arch-enemies like Iran, it seems they also turn to Oman for help.
This is not a blip, or random happenstance. For a myriad of historical reasons, Oman can be thought of as a middle-eastern equivalent to Switzerland. Surrounded by larger, more powerful neighbours, culturally and religiously apart – the strand of Islam that dominates in Oman is outside of the Sunni/Shia divide, for example –, and fiercely independent, Oman has stood its political ground and has prospered historically as a trading nation able to bridge the gap and provide neutral meeting ground between rivals for centuries.
What has not been the case until only recently is that all of its bigger neighbours seem fragile at the same time, leaving a power vacuum in the region that only Oman might be able to fill, as the only country in the region that appears to be standing on rock-solid foundations.
And given its neutrality, its conciliatory political culture and its historically-proven capacity to mediate between others, this can only be a good thing.
Azeem Ibrahim biography
Dr Azeem Ibrahim is a research professor at the Strategic Studies Institute, US Army War College and member of the Board of Directors at the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation and Political Violence at the Department of War Studies at Kings College London University.
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He received his PhD from the University of Cambridge and has previously been appointed an International Security Fellow at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, a World Fellow at Yale University and a Rothermere Fellow at the University of Oxford.
Over the years, Dr Ibrahim has advised numerous world leaders on policy development. In his most recent roles, he served as National Security and Defence Policy Advisor to the Leader of the (UK) Labour Party, Rt Hon Ed Miliband MP, and the Shadow Cabinet from 2012 to 2015; and as Strategic Policy Advisor to the Chairman of Pakistan’s PTI party, Imran Khan.
He has published hundreds of articles all over the globe including in the Daily Telegraph (UK), Foreign Policy, Al Arabiya, Chicago Tribune, LA Times and Newsweek. He is the author of the seminal book: “The Rohingyas: Inside Myanmar’s Hidden Genocide”, which was published by Hurst (UK) in May 2016. His forthcoming book “Radical Virus: Why We Are Losing the War Against Islamic Extremism” will be published in November 2017 by Pegasus (New York).
Outside academia, Dr Ibrahim has been a reservist in the IV Battalion Parachute Regiment (UK’s elite airborne infantry reserve) and a multi-award winning entrepreneur. He was ranked as a Top 100 Global Thinker by the European Social Think Tank in 2010 and named a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum.
