Giulia Fournier, doctoral student in political science at CERDAP²

Daniel Meier, Junior Professor, GMO-Borders Chair, CERDAP² researcher

On January 9, Sciences Po Grenoble-UGA held a scientific event in honor of the retirement of Professor Jean Marcou. An eminent colleague, professor of public law, internationalist, expert on Turkey and former Director of International Relations at Sciences Po Grenoble, where he founded and directed the Mediterranean and Middle East Integration and Change (MMO) program from 2011 to 2024, Jean Marcou is a cosmopolitan and interdisciplinary personality like few others. His career, made up of long stays in Turkey and Egypt, varied and multilingual teaching, research within European programs, countless links with colleagues all over the world - in short, a universe rich in passions and curiosity brought together in a collection, the Mélanges, published under the direction of Jean-Paul Burdy and Jamil Sayah with the support of the Cerdap2 laboratory and Sciences Po Grenoble. The 350-page work, which was presented to him on this occasion, is an elegant volume soberly titled "Réflexions sur les relations et les coopérations internationales" ("Reflections on international relations and cooperation"). In four sections and 24 chapters, preceded by an introduction by the editors, these Mélanges offer a series of reflections on law and constitutions, geopolitics and international relations, Turkey and its regional environment and, finally, Jean Marcou's international work. Whether scientific texts on political science, law or economics, in-depth analyses, more personal reflections or even poetry, the varied registers and disciplinary perspectives presented in this volume bear witness to a certain eclecticism that reflects the relationships Jean Marcou forged during his career.

The day was divided into two parts. The morning was introduced by the Institute's Director, Sabine Saurugger, followed by two brief speeches in the form of moving memories and testimonials of friendship from two former directors of the IEP, Henri Oberdorf and Jean-Charles Froment, who each shared important moments with Jean Marcou, who recalled a few moments from his career, recalling one of his scientific maxims: "There is no good research without solving a riddle".

In the second half of the morning, the audience had the privilege of listening to Ahmet Insel, Professor Emeritus of Economics at Panthéon-Sorbonne University (Paris 1) and Galatasaray University, who delivered a contrasting analysis on the theme of "War and Peace in the Middle East". This region of the world is plagued by a variety of conflicts, the origins of which lie in complex relations with the West, accelerated social, economic, cultural and demographic change, and a political trajectory shaped by nationalist and Islamist ideologies. In short, an "untenable" political geography where the sum total of frustrations, particularly among aggrieved peoples such as the Palestinians and Kurds, is matched only by the violently anti-Western harangue of religious nationalism. But then, is peace still possible in the Middle East?

The states born of the Sykes-Picot agreements (1916) have never managed to reconcile their ethnic and religious diversity. Authoritarianism prevails when a minority holds power (Sunni in Iraq, Alawite in Syria), with a process of inversion after their overthrow. A nation-state model therefore prevails, based on an ethno-nationalist identity after the purging of minorities (with the multi-faith exception of Lebanon). Israel is not far from this model, with the expulsion of the Palestinians in 1947-48 and the war in Gaza. The consequences have been the collapse of states, sometimes at the end of permanent wars (Baathist Iraq against its Kurds), a privatization of violence mixing nationalist, independence and even terrorist movements (from the PLO, PKK, to Hezbollah...) with recurrent foreign interventions spreading/redoubling instability. What's more, violence reinforces identity referents everywhere, and the deregulation of violence allows many state actors in the region to use proxies. Peace is therefore hard to see, particularly after the destruction of Gaza, Turkish military operations in Syria and Iraq on its southern border, Israeli military interventions in Lebanon (massive civilian destruction) and Syria (massive targeted military destruction, expansionist temptations). All are convinced that their individual, ethnic, community, national or state existence is threatened. Internationally, things are even worse, with the implosion of the UN and the success of windfall opportunities on the part of state actors. Existential anguish has spread, particularly in view of the threats made by the new American president to his allies (Canada, Denmark). Indeterminacy is thus becoming global. And international law is the only compass that can serve as a reference for international organizations... if their founders are prepared to abide by their decisions.

In the second half of the day, a round-table discussion brought together several researchers around Jean Marcou. In addition to Ahmet Insel, who chaired the round table, there were Jean-Paul Burdy, historian and teacher-researcher at Sciences Po Grenoble, Hisham Mourad, Professor at the French University of Egypt, Daniel Meier, political scientist and GMO-Borders Junior Professor at Sciences Po Grenoble, Zakaria Taha, Senior Lecturer in Arabic Civilization at the UGA, Jamil Sayah, Professor of Public Law at the UGA. Discussions focused on current conflicts in the region, as well as short-term geopolitical prospects. The following development summarizes the content of these exchanges.

Analysis of ongoing conflicts in the Middle East and outlook.

The year that followed October 7, 2023, the date of the "al-Aqsa deluge" operation launched by Hamas against several Israeli villages and kibbutzes close to the Gaza Strip, killing around 1,300 people, was marked by a change in the geopolitical landscape of the Middle East. While this change is due to internal developments (Israeli military response in Gaza, confrontation between Israel and Iran, Houthi piracy in the Red Sea, Israeli military attacks in southern Lebanon, Turkish military attacks in northern Syria, an attempt at a Turkish-Kurdish political solution in Turkey, the fall of Bashar al-Assad's regime, among others), it is also due to a shift in the international balances that had prevailed until then. The war on the Gaza Strip has highlighted the unwillingness and/or inability of European countries and the United States to invest diplomatically in curbing the Israeli army's unleashing of violence against the population of Gaza, which to date has claimed more than 45,000 lives, the majority of them civilians, under the pretext of eradicating Hamas. At the same time, the failure of international organizations to uphold international law is ushering in a new era in international relations, marked by the weakness of these same international organizations and the advent of "variable-geometry bilateral relations", to use Ahmet Insel's expression. The continuation of violence in Gaza and the intensification of colonization in the West Bank are aligned with the massification, even in the West Bank, of Palestinian support for Hamas, perceived as the sole guarantor of their security. The dislocation of the Palestinian Authority and the quarrels between Fatah and Hamas also play to Hamas's advantage. Thus, while Hamas has emerged weakened from the war in Gaza, its influence remains strong, even stronger than before October 7, contributing to the extreme polarization of the conflict. If the radicalization of the political forces involved in this conflict is confirmed, the radicalization of the populations is also noteworthy, on the one hand in Palestine with the growing support for Hamas, and on the other hand in Israel with the massive support for Israeli military actions and colonization practices in the West Bank. In addition, the opening (or reopening) of new fronts by the Israeli army (southern Lebanon, Golan Heights) is once again making the prospects of peace more remote.

The fall of the Bashar al-Assad regime on December 8, 2024, triggered by the offensive of the Salafist movement Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), has reshuffled the cards in Syria and throughout the region. Against this backdrop, northern Syria has become the scene of intensified Turkish-Kurdish clashes, with the Turkish-funded militias making up the Syrian National Army (SNA) on one side, and the People's Protection Units (YPG) on the other, mainly Kurdish armed forces linked to the Autonomous Administration in Northern and Eastern Syria (AANES). While Turkey struggles to retain the loyalty of ANS mercenaries, it also continues to mobilize its own armed forces to destabilize the Syrian Kurds. At the same time, Syria is also an area of unprecedented proximity between Russia (Tartous naval installations, Hmeimim military base) and the United States (al-Tanf military base). In this respect, the arrival of Donald Trump in the White House on January 20, 2025 creates uncertainty about the future of the US military presence in Syria. As Jamil Sayah points out, the only institutional counterweight to the decisions of the new man in the White House will be the Pentagon. The diplomatic corps of European countries, for their part, find it hard to rejoice at the liberation of "Syrians [by] Syrians", as Daniel Meier puts it, and see the arrival of the rebels in Damascus mainly through the prism of their domestic agendas, including the question of Syrian refugees in Europe and that of jihadists of European origin in Syrian prisons. The latter concern has justified the adoption of a language of "minority diplomacy", as Zakaria Taha explains, particularly towards the Kurds - the latter being the guards of the prisons where a large proportion of the Islamic State's jihadists are locked up - and the Christian populations, whose protection is profitable on the domestic front for European rulers. Under these conditions, the question of lifting the sanctions weighing on the Syrian economy, as well as that of European support for reconstruction and the launch of the transitional process in Syria, were sidestepped. As the only bright spot in the gloomy skies of the Middle East, the Syrian case opens the way to new possibilities in terms of a "model" to follow, a "model" that is difficult to characterize at this stage.

What 'model' for Middle Eastern countries?

At the time of the Arab revolutions of 2011, the "Turkish model", both Islamic and secular, was widely acclaimed by the street, as Jean Marcou explains. During his tour of Egypt, Libya and Tunisia, the Turkish head of state, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, then Prime Minister had defended the "secular state", reinforcing its very positive image but deepening his disagreement with the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood. In this respect, if the revolutions of 2011 were the manifestation of a desire to improve the living conditions of the region's populations, they were also the voice of a desire for democratization, recalls Zakaria Taha. The gradual disappearance of this "Turkish model" is concomitant with the multiplication of examples of de-democratization through the return of authoritarianism in the region. Institutional weakness and the confusion of executive and judicial powers appear to be the first manifestation of this de-democratization. Hisham Mourad recalls that in Egypt, the practice of administrative detentions (detentions without trial) by the military power is multiplying. Turkey, for its part, has a large number of political detainees, particularly since the attempted coup of July 2016 and the anti-Güllenist purges that led to the executive branch "locking up the criminal justice system", as Ahmet Insel explains. This phenomenon in Turkey is amplified by the unprecedented increase in the practice of corruption in judicial and customs circles. In Israel, the judicial reform proposed by Benjamin Netanyahu at the beginning of 2023 provoked an outcry among the Israeli population, underlining the population's attachment to the country's democratic institutions. Yet this attachment is no guarantee of the ability or willingness of Israeli institutions to counter the Israeli army's violations of international law in Gaza. The penetration of the judiciary by the executive and/or institutional weakness are both the cause and consequence of the installation of hegemonic powers, particularly in the region's most assertive democracies (Turkey, Israel). Thus, government narratives against "internal enemies", particularly in Turkey with the Kurds and in Israel with the Palestinians, are also becoming hegemonic and finding solid relays within the populations.

Against this backdrop of de-democratization, what "models" will be followed on both sides of the region in the years to come? In Syria, while European countries' fears about the jihadist nature of HTS have been confirmed, observers on the ground are noting a "de-radicalization" "from aboveas Patrick Haenni puts it, following the group's autonomy from Al-Qaeda, and thus a distancing from its transnational jihadist ideological component. Unlike the Muslim Brotherhood, which quickly positioned itself against women and Copts when it ruled Egypt in 2012-2013, as Hisham Mourad recalls, HTS has shown during its governance of Idlib since 2017 a more inclusive practice of power towards minorities. However, while the new Syrian central power has attempted to lay down several guarantees in favor of the establishment of a democratic and inclusive transitional process, uncertainty persists as to the actual application of these democratic standards, not only by the central power but also by local authorities. On the Palestinian side, the "model" remains torn between Hamas or stalemate. While the possibility of a third way seems difficult to envisage, particularly in the context of the disengagement of countries supporting the Palestinian cause (mainly the Arab League), Jamil Sayah believes that there is still hope for the development of a Palestinian civil movement with the will and capacity to exert pressure and negotiate peace. In Lebanon, as Daniel Meier points out, the election of a new President of the Republic at the time of this round table offered no guarantee of a way out of the stalemate linked to the excesses of confessional politics that have characterized the government since the end of the civil war in 1990. Finally, in Iran, Jean-Paul Burdy explains that the regime is in disarray in the face of its unpopularity, on the one hand because of questions of morality (the regime has suspended the application of a law on the obligation to wear the Islamic headscarf) and on the other because of the poor socio-economic conditions suffered by the population. It is thus important to take into account the popular capacity to influence future political "models", i.e. to force the redirection or redesign of regimes. Moreover, the attribution of responsibility for poor socio-economic conditions to Iran's external alliances makes Iran's foreign policy unpopular at home. Slogans such as "Neither Lebanon nor Gaza, Iran first" can be heard. In this respect, Jean-Paul Burdy explains that the Iranian regime finds itself forced to redirect its foreign policy towards less ambitious and more domestically beneficial objectives, particularly as the fall of the Bashar al-Assad regime has illustrated the propensity of regimes to fall under the consequences of their own authoritarianism.

The weakness of international organizations, European countries and the United States in their ability and/or willingness to enforce international law in Gaza has ushered in a new era of deregulation of violence, as Ghassan Salamé writes in his latest book, "The Temptation of Mars", and the risk of a rise in power of "little Spartans" intent on imposing their agenda by force. On the military fronts, participants agreed that the status quo will prevail in the short term in the absence of a "revitalization of international law", i.e. in the absence of arbitration and justice. Overcoming the divisions between "victims" and "perpetrators", in which community and/or religious affiliations are instrumentalized, through the implementation of transitional justice mechanisms could provide an opportunity to bring peace to the region.