"It looks like mission impossible but it is not," said Senior Global Challenges Fellow and Imam Sadiq University (Tehran, Iran) faculty member Mohammad Hassan Khani, speaking of hopes for regional integration in the Middle East. Khani is researching how regional integration can bring about lasting peace and stability in the Middle East and discussed his findings during a seminar at the CEU Institute of Advanced Studies on April 20.
In order to move towards regional integration, Khani emphasized the importance of finding common interests among the countries. "We need to define what these common interests might be," Khani said, "and when that happens among the four major players – Iran, Turkey, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia – then they can lead the way on the path towards regional integration in the Middle East."
Khani noted a relative degree of similarity in terms of religion, culture, history, and most importantly, geography in the Middle East. "A pre-condition for an integration process is a sense of community," he urged, "which may draw on these similarities." This sense of community draws on many elements including mutual loyalty, trust, consideration, and cooperative action.
Despite the similarities among Middle Eastern countries, the region faces numerous challenges. Khani cited historical differences, colonial legacies, ethnic and sectarian divisions, and deep and chronic misunderstandings as some of the obstacles facing the region. Another key challenge is the intervention of actors external to the region. "While external actors were a positive force in regional integration in Europe and East Asia," he explained, "they have not been so in the Middle East and are viewed rather as an obstacle that is blocking and hindering the process."
As a first step towards integration, Khani recommended finding and drawing lines of common interest in a "low-politics zone" among the countries in the region. Such efforts could include cultural exchanges through film and music festivals, regional sports events, and increased contact among NGOs and civil society in the region.
One of Khani's interests is the Middle East Regional Integration Initiative (MERII), an association of scholars and advocates of regional integration in the Middle East, which he is helping to create. "I hope that through such dialogues, we can take the very first steps in this long and rocky road moving towards lasting and durable peace and stability in the region, the benefits of which could affect all the nations in the region and beyond," he concluded.
The Global Challenges Fellowship assembles scholars from rising non-Western powers to explore questions in the humanities or social sciences relevant to the most pressing public policy challenges of the 21st century. The Global Challenges Fellowship is generously supported by Volkswagen Stiftung.