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Your guide to what the 2024 US elections mean for Washington and the world
The writer is a former head of MI6 and the UK's ambassador to the United Nations
We often think about The Middle East It was also built throughout the Arab world. Baghdad and Damascus were the historical centers of power. In the twentieth century, Cairo and Beirut became cultural capitals of the region until they declined and the oil and gas wealth of Saudi Arabia and the Gulf overwhelmed their influence.
It is striking today that the three most assertive and powerful countries in the region – Israel, Turkey and Iran – are non-Arab countries. Each of them is led by an old war horse. Benjamin Netanyahu has served as Prime Minister of Israel for 17 of the past 28 years. Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been in power in Türkiye for nearly 22 years, and Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has been Iran's supreme leader for 35 years. Like the Bourbons in France 200 years ago, they learn nothing and forget nothing.
After the humiliating disaster of Hamas's brutal attack on October 7, 2023, Israel backed down. Its armed forces and intelligence services have turned the tables not only on Hamas, but also on Hezbollah and its sponsors in Iran. In the process, Netanyahu ignored the advice of Israel's closest friends and showed little respect for protecting civilian lives. Long-standing support for Israel in the West has eroded, but its primary enemies have been seriously weakened.
Israel has shown itself to be a new Sparta, a small state with unparalleled military power. But its politicians reject the idea that it is necessary to reach a political solution with the Palestinians if the Jewish nation wants to enjoy lasting peace and security. Israel has no plan for Gaza that goes beyond indefinite occupation, unless the undeclared plan is to push the Palestinians there into Egypt and in parallel annex as much of the occupied West Bank as possible. One of the predictions that we can make with confidence, unfortunately, is that an independent Palestinian state will not be any closer than it is now within one year.
With the beginning of the new year, Israel's attention is focused on Iran, which was the biggest loser in 2024. Khamenei has clearly become weaker, both physically and politically. The main candidate to succeed him is now his son Mojtaba. The second generation of tyrants rises to power on the back of privileges and entitlements. They neither bear the scars of struggle nor learn the hard lessons their parents acquired. Hafez al-Assad was a ruthless leader of Syria, but he knew the limits of power and when to negotiate. His son Bashar had none of these skills. The result was more brutality and, over time, the collapse of the system.
The experience of losing their Syrian ally should make the Iranian military wary of dynastic succession. They will try to ensure that the new supreme leader does not have absolute power within the regime. But new leaders of stagnant autocracies can bring surprises. Clear examples of this are Deng Xiaoping and Mikhail Gorbachev. Closer to home for Iran is the transformation that Saudi Arabia is witnessing under Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Each of them realized the weakness of their country and sought an economic and just solution political It is a strategy that usually involves some openness to the outside world, to support the authoritarian regime for decades to come. This seems unlikely in Iran, but it should not be ruled out.
The weak regime represents an opportunity for new negotiations, even if Khamenei continues in office for another year or two. Donald Trump may prefer a political agreement to participating in Netanyahu's preferred military option of destroying Iran's nuclear facilities. Israel will argue that Tehran will extend the talks while secretly making progress toward a nuclear weapon, a strategic situation that is now more pressing for Iran. These are legitimate concerns. Khamenei also does not trust America more than American politicians do not trust Iran. It may take new leadership in Tehran before Iran changes course.
The most welcome surprise of 2024 was the collapse of the Assad regime and the opening of the way to a better future for the Syrian people. Türkiye, like Israel, was last year's winner, but it too has problems seizing new opportunities. Erdogan appears to view Syria through a distorted perspective of the Kurdish issue, which would make it more difficult for Syrian opposition leaders to meet and draft a new constitution that recognizes the diversity – religious and ethnic – in their country.
Erdogan, who has survived remarkably well, has built Türkiye's power across the region and in Africa. He showed that the philosophy of political Islam can be successful and does not need to lead to an Islamic state and strict Sharia law. In this sense, he can provide a model for Ahmed al-Sharaa, the leader of the Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham Islamist group that now controls power in Damascus.
There is a lesson here for Western capitals, and for Riyadh and Abu Dhabi. We are right to be wary of the extreme background of Sharia. But the journey of young extremists from political violence to national leadership is a familiar one. The next diplomatic mission is to maximize the chances of success in Syria, by being bold in lifting sanctions, removing the terrorist ban, and doing everything in our power to support the Syrian opposition to unite.
It seems that the instinct of Western capitals is to push the rope slowly and resist the Islamists on ideological grounds. But this path would increase the possibility that we would end up either with fragmentation, as is the case in Libya, or with a new dictator, as is the case in Tunisia. Western countries must also avoid the mistakes of Bourbon.
