The ultra-centralism of the Arab security state — whether cloaked in the fascism of the Ba’ath parties of Saddam’s Iraq and the Assads’ Syria or the religious absolutism of Wahhabi Saudi Arabia — is part of the problem, not the solution. These closed systems are recruiting sergeants for Isis.
Yet this culture of centralism has roots. When the Ottoman Empire crumbled a century ago, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk’s Jacobin republic of Turkey as well as the Wahhabi kingdom of Ibn Saud were forged by centralising force, with total disregard for minorities. As the fires of sectarianism melt regional borders, even an ancient national entity such as Persian Iran panics about its Arab, Kurd or Baluch minorities.
Conventional wisdom, in and about this convulsed region, argues that federalism — whether you dodge the word or not — is anathema, a non-starter. But the reality is that Syria and Iraq, bolted together for Anglo-French convenience from Ottoman ruins a century ago, have burst asunder.
A preference for centralised institutions, or the seductive old model of strongmen as guarantors of stability, is not going to put them back together. Most institutions except tribe and sect have collapsed. Security — to use the term loosely — is in local hands across much of the region, and mostly with warlords.
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