The Network of Middle Eastern International Relations Michimi Muranushi Gakushuin University There are many kinds of relations in the world. Some are objective, such as the sharing of borders or the extent of trade. Some are subjective, such as who harbors what kind of suspicion toward whom. Given the same objective reality, subjective international relations vary, depending on the person who perceives. This paper tries to determine what kind of perception on international relations is shared by most people of the world on the basis of big data. Ask a class of students what kind of human relations exist in the class and write as many essays as possible, choosing an issue. Each of the collected essays of the class indicate that at least two, probably more people are mentioned in the same essay. All the people mentioned in the same essay is in a sense connected to one another in the area of the issue selected by the students. And all the essays in the class can be seen as an aggregation of the collective perception of human relations in the class. Of course it may be wrong or right, but it is one of the most legitimate way to assess the collective perception of the class. This paper assumes that when two states are mentioned by a writer or writers in the same article, the two states are at least related. If a writer mentions the US, China, and Iran in an article on Iran s nuclear development, for example, the US and China are connected, China and Iran are connected, and Iran and the US are connected. Whether the connections mean friendly ones or antagonistic ones do not matter. They may be friends or enemies to each other, but they are related. The relations are not necessarily objective, they may exist only in the mind of the writer or the speaker of the sppeches or the articles. But anyway,, they are related in one of the two ways. If one can collect all the articles made by all the people of the world, then one can know roughly the international relations in the minds of the peoples of the world. This is a kind of analysis of big data. What this paper does is To select the relational data in the above sense concerning most middle eastern countries, as well as concerning outside powers in 1997, 2002, 2007, and 2012.And think of the relations among the states, according to the big data. The big data used here is the World News Connection (online dataset.) 1
Year 1997 2
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Saudi Arabia Saudi Arabia is connected to countries in the following order. The parenthesis means frequency of articles mentioning the two countries in the same article. US (488) Egypt (301) Iraq (279) 5
UAE US (88) Egypt (38) Iran (38) Qatar Egypt (112) US (87) Iraq (51) Oman US (40) Egypt (32) Israel (30) Yemen Egypt (41) US (33) Russia (26) Iraq US (544) Egypt (320) Saudi (278) Iran US (446) Russia (308) Pakistan (270) Kwait Iraq (181) US (169) Saudi (137) Syria Israel (375) US (270) Lebanon(242) Lebanon Israel (310) Syria (242) US (178) Jordan Israel (438) US (285) Egypt (216) Turkey US (407 ) Russia (343) Iraq (214) Tunisia Egypt (42) Morocco (31) US (27) Egypt Israel (705) US (657) Iraq (320) Libya US (165) Iraq (88) Saudi (81) Algeria Russia(525) France(244) US(81) Morocco US (50) Israel (45) Saudi (42) Israel US (791) Egypt (705) Jordan (438) Palestine Israel (251) US (133) Palestine (118) 6
Afghanistan Pakistan (415) Russia (262) US (259) Strong connections are Israel-US, Egypt-Israel Tunisia is very isolated. Year 2002 7
2007 Saudi Arabia Saudi Arabia is strongly connected to theus (3954) Israel(2597) Iraq (1820) UAE is strongly n to the US (231) Saudi (119) Egypt (83) 8
Qatar is strongly connected ot the US (549) Iraq (319) Kuwait (242) Oman The US (190) Kwait (103) Egypt (103) Yemen The US (552) Saudi (332) Iraq (282) Iraq The US (8360) Israel (2809) Russia (2629) Iran The US (2555) Iraq (1883) Afghanistan (1190) Kwait The US (1199) Iraq (1078) Saudi (688) Syria The US (1307) Israel (1048) Iraq (915) Lebanon Israel ( 1373) the US ( 1223) Saudi (677) Iraq (643) Jordan The US (2099) Egypt (1170) Iraq (1094) Turkey the US( 3915) Iraq (1793) Iran (733) Tunisia France (334) The US (242) Egypt( 208 ) Egypt Israel (3741) The US (3667) Iraq (1720) Libya The US(582) Iraq (397) Israel (307) Algeria France (629) Egypt (492) US (451) Morocco France (461) Egypt (365) Saudi (244) Israel US (7492) Palestine (2942) Russia (1705) Palestine Israel (2942) Iraq (997) Saudi (993) Afghanistan US (6172) Pakistan (3448) China (2332) 9
The strongest connections of all connections (1) Iraq-US (2) Israel-US (3) Afghanistan-US (4) Egypt/Turkey-US In the region, next to the US, Israel and Iraq occupy central positions. Compared with Asia and Africa, China presence is relatively small, but it is gradually developing The US plays a central role Some states, such as Tunisia, Oman, are relatively isolated. The neighbors of Israel, is connected to Israel. Year 2007 10
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Saudi Arabia the US (4823) Iran (3557) Iraq (3559) UAE the US (1324) Iran (933) Iraq (621) Qatar the US (1229) Iran (935) Kwait (978) Oman 12
the US (587) Iran (669) Kwait (575) Yemen Iraq (682) the US (649) Kuwait (469) Egypt (467) Iraq the US (20553) Iran (15284) Afghanistan (6930) Iran the US (19170) Israel (6932) Afghanistan (5979) Kuwait Kuwait is strongly connected to the US(2304) Israel (1515) Egypt (1416) Syria the US (4793) Lebanon (3709) Israel (3588) Lebanon the US (5350) Israel (4750) Egypt (2555) Jordan the US (2570) Egypt (2041) Israel (2003) Turkey the US (6123) Iraq (3993) EU (3310) Tunisia Egypt (382) US (293) Morocco (267) Egypt theus(4650) Iraq (3993) Israel(3882) Libya the US(1429) China(910) EU (646) Algeria the US (961) Iran (745)Iraq(724) Morocco The US(662) China (505 )Iraq ( 458) Israel the US(9678) Iran(6932) Iraq(5715) Palestine The Palestine is strongly connected to the US(3654) Iraq(3525) Iran(3229) Afghanistan the US(9296) Iran(6930) Iraq(5979) (1) Probably the center changes, like Iraq, is a characteristics of ME relations. In 2007, 13
it was Iraq, at other period, ten years later, the country is something else. (2) But in this point, Tunisia is exception; the role of the US is exceptionally small in Tunisia. (3) Countries near Israel are(jordan, Egypt) little different from the rest. They have their mutual relations. (4) In 2007, some countries are strongly connected to China. (5) For most countries, the US is the center of their relations. For others, China or Israel plays a minor but comparable status.(so are Iran and Iraq) Year 2012 14
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Saudi Arabia UAE US (4460 ) Syria (4377) Iran (3781) Qatar 16
US (2986) Syria (2707) Iran (2032) Oman Iran (842) US (721) Saud (516) UAE (516) Yemen US (1579 ) Syria (1295) Saudi (940) Iraq Iran (4586) US(4426) Syria (4323) Iran US (15087) Syria (10585) Russia (7054) Kwait US (3152) Syria (3208) Egypt (1286) Syria Lebanon (25000) US (14540) Russia (10750) Lebanon Syria (25055) US (7941) Israel (5561) Jordan Syria (2328) US (1796) Israel (1308) Turkey Syria (6547) US (5127) Iran (5040 ) Russia (3545) Tunisia Syria (1662) Egypt (1419) US (1358) Egypt US (4745) Syria (4743) Iran (3419) Libya Syria (2838) US (2747) Lebanon (1573) Algeria US (2747) Russia (1574) China (1128) Morocco US (628) Syria (626) France (453) Israel US (8102) Iran (7700) Syria (7300) Palestine Israel (2742) US (1957) Iran (1500) Afghanistan US (7600) Iran (4000) China (3000) 17
Static Observation The US is central. The US is most strongly connected with almost all states of the Middle East. US is much more strongly connected to Russia and China, than with the Middle Eastern states. Israel connections are around a half of US connections. There are relatively isolated states. (Oman, Tunisia, Morroco, Algeria etc. Japan is relatively isolated. There may be abuot two quasi-central states in the Middle East, and the two states may change. (Afghanistan plus Iraq -- Iraq and Iran Syria and Iran) Dynamic Observation The number is increasingly bigger. The US is more strongly connected to the middle eastern countries in 2012 than in 1997. (The increase of US connections is in general bigger than the increase of non-us connections.) Iraq s central positions in the Middle East in 2002 shifts to Iraq s and Iran s central positions in the Middle East in 2007. Israel is quasi central in the 1990s, but less so in the 2000s. Israel-related connections increased much less than Iraq-Iran related connections. The weight of Iraq-Iran-US triangle is increasingly bigger than the weight of Israel-Egypt-US triangle. Syria is quasi central in the 2000s. Japan is increasingly isolated in the 2000s. There is a remarkable increase in Chinese connections with the US. China is increasingly strongly connected with the middle eastern countries in the 2000s and in fact near quasi-central status in 2012. But this speed of China is slower in the Middle East than in other regions, such as Asia and Africa. It is possible that some states, which were relatively isolated, (i.e. Lybia, Morocco, or Tunisia) suddenly can become a center of international attention. Explanation Israel-US connection draws the US into the Middle East much more than the superpower status of the US demands the US to do so. China is intentionally refraining from actions in the Middle East. In contrast with the US, China tries to be less involved in the Middle East than its increasingly high 18
status of China demands China to do so. The situation is shifting in such a way that the US is increasingly unable to meet the expectation of the world, so far as the Middle East is concerned. What looks like a solution to a problem in the Middle East (for example, Iraq) produces a new problem, or highlights a hidden problem (for example, Iran.) What are essentially the same issues (i.e. Islam radicalism) shift their battlegrounds as time passes. Japan is increasingly becoming an irrelevant country in the Middle East. Comparison China was already central in Asia in the 1990s. Japan has been far from central in Asia, and almost isolated in Afirican international relations since the 1990s. Future Predictions The Middle East cannot govern itself. It refuses to be an autonomous region.. The Middle East will keep dragging the US. Or The only way the Middle East can govern itself is to draw its state boundaries, such as between Iraq and Kwait, which the US will never be willing to allow. The US will keep paying the price of this external control.. Japan will remain irrelevant in the future. China will not challenge US influence in the Middle East. The Middle Eastern hot areas only shift, not disappear.. Some sates in the Middle East will be so isolated that the world would fail to foresee what will happen in the countries in the future, as in Tunisia. In sum, the current international systems in the Middle East is made in such a way that the world makes only the US to approach a set of essentially insoluble problems of the Middle East, adding shifting troubled areas to traditional disputes on the Palestine, while keeping some states relatively isolated from others.. But if China happens to be more deeply involved in the Middle East, which China does not seem to like, the situation might change. 19