WASHINGTON (AFP) — The appeal of Al-Qaeda-like terrorism is waning in the Middle East, but the region is beset by multiple problems that are likely to make it unstable for years to come, a senior US intelligence official said Tuesday.
Whether the more dire scenarios for the region materialize depends on what kind of leaders emerge and how they deal with the demands of a young, expanding and potentially alienated population, said Thomas Fingar, deputy director of national intelligence.
"The Middle East, really from the Mahgreb across into Central Asia, is one in which almost every problem that will challenge political leadership anywhere around the globe is to be found there, and many at a higher rate of severity or intensity," Fingar said.
Fingar spearheaded an effort by a council of US intelligence analysts to divine what the world will look like in 2025.
The results are an unclassified report that will be released soon in hopes of influencing an incoming Barack Obama administration, he said.
In the analysts' view, a major shift in wealth from west to east will be underway by 2025, multiple power centers will compete for influence and advantage, and the world will have 1.4 billion more people.
But the Middle East will still be "at the center of an arc of instability," Fingar said in a speech at the Washington Institute for Near East Studies.
He said terrorism will remain at least a potential problem "as an instrument of the weak against the strong."
"Terrorism writ large has less appeal, less recruits, less of a problem: again, the fading appeal of international Al-Qaeda type of ideology," he said.
But it will be more dangerous because of the growing availability of biological agents and the increasing lethality of conventional weapons, Fingar said.
"One can imagine in the aggregate the threat diminishes but specific incidences are much more devastating," Fingar said.
Issues surrounding nuclear weapons also will be played out in the region, Fingar said.
"Whether this is a nuclear arms race in the region, which could be triggered by what happens in Iran, by 2025 the issues of today will in one way or another will be resolved," he said.
"It clearly makes a difference how it is resolved," he added, noting that the threat of nuclear weapons could draw outside powers into the reigon in a way not seen before.
"War is a potential disruptive," he said.
Scarcity of resources like water coupled with a lack of mechanisms for resolving conflics "creates at least potential for a resort to arms," he said.
Demographic changes, including a "youth bulge," also will challenge the region's governments and institutions, he said.
"A complicating factor is that a very large segment of the population is raging hormones, of an age where challenges to authority are the norm," he said.
The communication revolution means they will be connected and aware of the rest of the world as never before, he said.
And demands on government for services and accountability will grow, even in autocratic states, he said.
"They're going to want a lot more from government than simply being left alone," Fingar said.
"The demands of performance that are levied by populations on governments is almost certain to go up. Whether the capacities of the regimes goes up commensurately is at least an open question," he said.
Some states could use rising oil income as a cushion to preserve the status quo, but wiser leaders will take the initiative to diversify their economies, he said.
The large youth population could power an industrial takeoff as it did in Taiwan or Korea, Fingar said, but the region is hampered by inadequate levels of education, and a gap in the education of males and females.
"The youth bulge means that challenge gets bigger and bigger -- the cost, the need for teachers, the need for facilities expand because the numbers requiring education goes up," he said.
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