Middle East Policy, Volume VI, Number 3, February 1999

Book Review

Central Asia Meets the Middle East, edited by David Menashri. Portland, OR: Frank Cass Publishers, 1998. 240 pages, with map, notes and index. $49.50, hardcover; $24.00, paperback.

David Nalle
Washington editor, Central Asia Monitor

The body of this work consists of nine separate essays by authors who, for the most part, have their academic base in the history and politics of Turkey and Iran. They were convened, apparently some time in 1995, under a project sponsored by the Moshe Dayan and Cummings Centers of Tel Aviv University. The editor's introduction, "Is There a ‘New Middle East'?" recaps and comments on their contributions, while an Epilogue by Brenda Schaffer, a researcher at the Cummings Center, is specifically intended to provide an updated context.

The rich initial essay by Robert McChesney describes the historical playing field on which the "meeting" contemplated in the book's title will take place. In fact, it makes a persuasive case that "getting together again" would be a better characterization of what we can expect to happen in this southern heartland of the Eurasian continent. McChesney makes the essential point: "To conceptualize ‘Central Asia' and the ‘Middle East' as distinctive regions is to allow [the] past 70 years to set the parameters of our understanding today." (p.29) He details the evidence of a close relationship -- intellectual, economic, scientific and religious -- from the beginning of recorded history. Study of this relationship can, he says, lead us to "a more profound understanding of how the regions known today as Central Asia and the Middle East formed a single cultural sphere, sharing a literary language (Arabic) by means of which ideas could be freely exchanged" (p. 49).

The other contributors do not have the luxury of the relative certainties of long-term history. Farhad Kazemi and Zohreh Ajdari, contemplating "Ethnicity, Identity and Politics," have to deal with relationships obviously in transition: Turkey and Iran relating to each other in the context of their evolving ambitions with regard to the newly available states of Central Asia. These two authors suggest why the early expectations of the two countries have had to be downgraded, but they expect the competition for influence to continue, with the reservation that "[a]lthough there are elements in Turkey and Iran who fantasize about pan-Turkic and pan-Iranian ideas..., the reality is more complex" (p. 68).

David Menashri, in his essay on Iran and Central Asia, probes more deeply into that country's motivations and policy after "the retreat from initial euphoria." The ambiguities of Iran's policy have reflected the conflict within the country, between those who "...questioned the advisability of pursuing a strongly revolutionary path [and those who] blamed the government for abandoning the genuine revolutionary doctrine in its approach to this region...." Among his conclusions Menashri makes the point that "...Iran has real and significant interests in Central Asia and Transcaucasia. Having difficulties with its other neighbours and with most countries of the Middle East, it views this region as a place to expand its foreign relations, promote its interests, and spread its ideology. It therefore gives [the area] a fairly high priority." However, he adds the realistic judgment, quoting the Financial Times, that "Iran and Central Asia lack economic ‘complementarity': Central Asians need capital, strong private sectors and contact with international business, which is exactly what Iran needs itself" (pp. 91-93).

Shireen Hunter discusses current relations between Iran and the countries of Transcaucasia against a useful background of that area's turbulent history. She analyzes various "myths" about Azerbaijan today; that it is, for example, one country artificially divided by the Russians and the Iranians. As do most of the other authors, she speculates on the likelihood of the Russians reasserting their control over the "near abroad."

In a parallel treatment of Turkey, Philip Robins covers that country's relations with Central Asia, while William Hale does the same for Turkey and Transcaucasia. Robins is particularly interesting on the "Period of Euphoria" when massive trade and political delegations were exchanged between Ankara and the Central Asian capitals, leading up to the failed "Turkic Summit" of October 1992 in Ankara. He characterizes then President Turgut Özal's speech opening that conference as "a monumental act of political misjudgment" which in effect introduced a "Period of Despondency" (p. 137). Stephen Blank expands the scope of this section in his essay, "The Eastern Question Revived: Turkey and Russia Contend for Eurasia."

Patrick Clawson takes something of a contrarian approach in discussing the "Economic Consequences for the Middle East" of the disintegration of the Soviet Union. The disintegration, he says, "affected the Middle East primarily through its impact on the security environment." Arguably, he writes, the most important economic effect was "the migration of some 581,000 ex-Soviet Jews to Israel in 1990-95" (p. 191).

Clawson displays World Bank data to establish that the FSU in general, and Central Asia in particular, do not at present make much economic difference to the Middle East: "Another way of expressing the weight of Central Asia in economic affairs is to note that their GNP was less than that of Thailand and their trade with all countries (Russia included) was less than half that of Thailand." A cogent discussion of world oil markets is inevitably marred by the subsequent fall in real and projected oil prices.

The final essay, by Graham Fuller, comes across as agreeably well written. This may be due to the fact that it is the only essay that is not massively footnoted, a record 126 footnotes in one case. Fuller puts an interesting focus on Turkey, which "once at the remote eastern end of the Western alliance and with no ties north or east in the areas of the Soviet Union, is no longer isolated in these regions and finds itself at the center of a new geostrategic world." At the same time, he acknowledges the unavoidable importance of Iran to the calculations of the Central Asian and Caucasian states. Here, as in most of the essays, Russia looms larger and more consequential than subsequent events have rendered it.

Fuller's essay is followed by Brenda Shaffer's brief "Epilogue" which thoughtfully reviews some of the trends and events that emerged after the book was prepared. She rightly points out that the main arguments of the authors remain valid and that there have been "no dramatic changes" in relationships between Central Asia, the Caucasus and the Middle East.

The reader is reminded not to forget "the long view," and Graham Fuller's concluding remarks echo Robert McChesney's opening scene-setter:

Islamic solidarity may grow in the longer future -- not necessarily in terms of political co-ordination, but as broad awareness of a shared civilization . . . . Islam will not overcome other more profound political differences, or conflicts of interest, but no group is likely to eschew the benefits of extended ties and contacts that rest on historical cultural ties. In this way the emergence of Central Asian states is likely to figure more broadly in the overall political context of the Muslim world, as that group of nations receives six new states (with Chinese Turkestan yet to come), witnesses a resuscitation of old centres of Islamic culture, and observes a yet larger swathe of the globe that can now be coloured green.