In the New Middle East, No One Is In Charge

ELI5/TLDR

A former foreign minister of Jordan walks through why the Middle East feels like chaos right now: there are too many countries jockeying for the top spot and none of them is strong enough to set the rules, not even the United States. The recent war on Iran didn’t fix anything — it deepened the cracks. But the guest’s real argument is sneakier: the thing that will actually reshape the region isn’t any war, it’s the slow death of oil money over the next few decades, which will force these governments to renegotiate the bargain they’ve struck with their own people.

The Full Story

The conversation is between John Baitman of Carnegie and Marwan Muasher, who was Jordan’s foreign minister and deputy prime minister, and the first Jordanian ambassador to Israel after the two countries signed peace. He has spent decades inside the rooms where this stuff actually gets negotiated, so he speaks without the usual hedging.

A new Middle East, but not the calmer one people hoped for

The framing question is whether October 7th, 2023 and everything after it created a “new Middle East.” Muasher says yes, but not the version optimists wanted. The new one is “more divided, more fractured.” The war on Iran, rather than uniting the region against a common enemy, opened a deeper split inside the Gulf — Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates now disagree on how to handle Iran, the US, and Israel.

His central diagnosis is the title of the video. There is no organizing force. Every other region of the world has built what he calls a security architecture — basically a standing club where countries sit at a table and talk through conflicts before they explode. The Middle East never built one.

“Every few years there’s a major conflict in the region and there is no proper mechanism to address these conflicts regionally.”

He’s clear it can’t be a military alliance — you’re not going to get Arab states, Iran, and Israel into one army. Just a forum. A place to talk. The idea is decades old and has never happened.

Iran: you can’t bomb it into submission, and you can’t wish it away

The Trump administration, in his telling, hoped Iran was “Venezuela 2.0” — cut off the head and the whole system collapses. It didn’t. The Iranian regime is too entrenched to fall to anything short of a ground invasion, which nobody will do. So you’re left having to deal with Iran one way or another, except now the Strait of Hormuz is closed and the “best case scenario” is reopening shipping lanes that were already open before the war started. A war, in other words, whose best outcome is getting back to where things were.

A quieter point lands hard here: Gulf states have noticed that US military bases on their soil did not protect them from Iranian missiles. That has started a rethink of how much to rely on Washington at all.

Israel and the bet on brute force

Muasher argues Israel has decided it can sustain itself through “military dominance” alone — against Hamas, all Palestinians, Syria, Lebanon. His response is a demographic argument, not a moral one:

“No other country in the world has been able to exist by brute force indefinitely.”

The numbers: in 1948 there were 650,000 Israeli Jews to 150,000 Palestinians — a manageable majority. Today there are roughly 7.2 million Israeli Jews and 7.5 million Palestinians living under Israeli control. A minority ruling a majority, which he and a growing number of observers call apartheid. As long as people believe a two-state solution is coming, the world looks away. The moment that hope dies — and he thinks it’s dying — the international community has to confront the apartheid label directly.

The two-state solution is, by the numbers, dead

This is the most concrete stretch. The Oslo accords of 1993 promised a negotiated solution by 1999. It’s now 2026. The tell is the settlers: 250,000 in the West Bank and East Jerusalem when Oslo was signed, 750,000 today. A two-state solution depends on physically separating the two populations, and that’s no longer geographically possible. Both sides have given up — over 80% of Israelis don’t want two states; a majority of Palestinians still want it but no longer believe it can happen.

The American politics are shifting

Muasher’s most attention-grabbing claim is about America. He says US pressure on Israel is treated as taboo but historically wasn’t — Carter, Reagan, and George H.W. Bush all leaned on Israel, and Bush senior once withheld $10 billion in aid over settlements. He then stacks up recent data points: 40 of 47 Democratic senators voting to block arms sales, candidates bragging about not taking AIPAC money, and a Pew survey showing 60% of Americans now view Israel negatively — 80% of Democrats and 57% of Republicans under 50.

He punctures a comforting myth: that the problem is just Netanyahu. If Netanyahu loses, the likely alternative is Naftali Bennett, who is more hardline on peace, not less. Muasher’s point is that there is “no constituency for peace” left in Israeli politics. When he was ambassador, the pro-peace bloc held 60 of 120 Knesset seats; today Labor has four and Meretz has zero.

Who even speaks for the Palestinians

Nobody with a mandate. President Abbas polls around 10%. Hamas is unpopular in Gaza too, after the destruction. Neither the Palestinian Authority, nor Israel, nor America wants elections, because nobody likes the likely result. So everyone calls for a “reformed Palestinian Authority” while refusing to say how reform happens without a vote. On violence, Muasher insists it can be given up — the IRA in Northern Ireland did it — but only if people are offered a “political horizon.” Tell people to disarm while promising them nothing, and you’re asking for utopia.

The real story: the end of oil

The interview’s pivot, and its best idea, is that the security headlines are a distraction from a structural shift. The World Bank estimates Gulf oil revenues will be cut in half by 2050, driven by electrification — the US is now a net energy exporter, China is electrifying fast, global oil demand is receding.

The consequence is political, not just economic. Gulf states have run as welfare states: generous subsidies in exchange for citizens having no say in government. That bargain runs on oil money. As the money shrinks and taxes appear, citizens will start demanding a voice. Reforms so far have been social — women driving, cinemas reopening — but Muasher doubts that’s enough to hold once unemployment and taxation bite.

And it’s not just the oil producers. Oil-importing neighbors like Egypt and Jordan lived off remittances and aid from the Gulf. Egypt now spends 62% of its budget on debt service — no room to maneuver. The whole region over-relied on oil, which bred a “culture of reliance” where patronage matters more than merit.

His closing note is oddly hopeful: the loss of oil money might force the reckoning that no war could — a rebuilt social contract between rulers and the ruled. He ends with a plug for thinking in 30-year windows instead of 6-month ones.

Key Takeaways

The war on Iran widened, rather than closed, the rift inside the Gulf — Saudi Arabia favors caution toward Israel and the US; the UAE wants to double down on both.
The “best case” outcome of the Iran war is reopening the Strait of Hormuz, which was open before the war started.
Gulf states noticed US bases didn’t shield them from Iranian missiles, prompting a rethink of dependence on Washington.
A loose, untested coalition is forming — Saudi Arabia, Qatar (enemies until a few years ago), Egypt, Jordan, and non-Arab Turkey coordinating positions more closely.
West Bank/East Jerusalem settlers grew from 250,000 at Oslo (1993) to 750,000 today, making physical separation for a two-state solution geographically impossible.
Oslo promised a solution by 1999; it’s 2026 and the parties are further apart.
Demographics: ~7.2M Israeli Jews vs ~7.5M Palestinians under Israeli control — a minority governing a majority.
40 of 47 US Democratic senators recently voted to block arms sales to Israel; Pew shows 60% of Americans view Israel negatively (80% of Democrats, 57% of Republicans under 50).
Removing Netanyahu wouldn’t soften Israeli policy — his likely successor Naftali Bennett is more hardline on peace.
Abbas polls around 10%; no Palestinian elections have been held in years because no major party wants the likely outcome.
Saudi position: will normalize with Israel only in exchange for a “credible path” to a Palestinian state — a condition Israel won’t even nominally accept.
World Bank projects Gulf oil revenues halving by 2050 due to global electrification.
Egypt spends 62% of its national budget on debt service.
George H.W. Bush once withheld $10 billion in aid to pressure Israel over settlements — US pressure on Israel has precedent.

Claude’s Take

This is a clean, well-structured interview that does what good foreign-policy talk should: it replaces a blur of headlines with two or three load-bearing ideas. The “no one is in charge” framing is genuinely useful, and the oil-as-the-real-story pivot is the kind of long-horizon thinking that’s rare in cable-news geopolitics. The demographic and settler numbers are specific and checkable, which I appreciate over vibes.

The honest caveat: this is one man’s perspective, and a Jordanian-Arab diplomat’s perspective at that. The framing is sympathetic to the Palestinian position and treats “apartheid” as a settled descriptor rather than a contested one. That’s a defensible view, widely held, but a viewer should know they’re hearing an argument, not a neutral survey. The interviewer pushes lightly — he raises Hamas’s authoritarianism and the violence question — but mostly serves up cooperative prompts. There’s no Israeli or Emirati voice to counter.

The oil thesis is the strongest part precisely because it’s the least partisan. Whether or not you buy his read on Israel-Palestine, the claim that collapsing hydrocarbon revenue will crack the Gulf’s subsidies-for-silence social contract is a serious structural argument with hard data behind it. That alone is worth the hour.

A 7: substantive, specific, clearly argued, but it’s a single sympathetic viewpoint rather than a debate, and it ends right where the interesting counterarguments would begin.