Arab political solidarity dissolved once cold war patrons and external enemies receded.

Evidence

About a decade later, writing in the liberal 1990s, Michael Barnett declared that the system of Arab states had ended. “Certain core issues - the Arab- Israeli conflict, autonomy from the West, and unity among Arab states - that express Arab political identity, that help define the interests of the Arab state and the legitimate means of pursuing those interests,” were no longer, he said (Barnett, 1998: 215). By then, the Cold War was over and pan-Arab regimes and non-state actors had lost a strong ally: the USSR. The most bellicose pan-Arab power, that of Saddam Hussein, was destroyed in 1991. His alter ego, the pan-Arab regime of Hafez al-Assad, played a subordinate role as the wind changed. As for the third major hub of pan-Arabism, Muammar Gaddafi’s Libya, it was under international sanctions, besieged in a large but desert republic disconnected from the Arab core. The Barcelona Process, launched in 1995, showed a new Arab world less prone to conflict and more conciliatory toward the United States, Europe, and even Israel. — Youssef Cherif, Neo-pan-Arabism, 39

Categorization

• XREF: Directly relevant to the reader’s manufactured-enemy question: Barnett framing Arab identity around core issues (Israeli conflict, anti-West autonomy, unity) dissolving when those disappeared — connects to Cherif’s external-enemy thesis and to broader literature on identity depending on constitutive others. — connects to: Groups reattached war-cultivated solidarity to new enemies after the old one vanished — John Higham, Strangers in the Land: Patterns of…, 1324; Pan-Arab solidarity required Israel as an external enemy after the imperialist threat receded — Youssef Cherif, Neo-pan-Arabism: a renewed contract of…, 26; Communal and religious loyalties regained ground after pan-Arabism waned. — Bernard Lewis, From Babel to Dragomans: Interpreting…, 929 (+5 more)
• QUESTION: This claims the end of the Arab state system by 1998 — but Cherif’s whole book argues a neo pan-Arabism revived later. What mechanism reversed the decay?

Related

• Pan-Arab solidarity required Israel as an external enemy after the imperialist threat receded (similarity 0.85)
• Communal and religious loyalties regained ground after pan-Arabism waned. (similarity 0.80)
• Soviet influence weakened pan-Arabism from both the left and the right (similarity 0.80)

Broader Connections

• The 1967 Six-Day War destroyed Arab nationalism’s political legitimacy #qualifies (0.85) — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 328
• Communal and religious loyalties regained ground after pan-Arabism waned. #expands (0.80) — Bernard Lewis, From Babel to Dragomans, 929
• Post-Cold War politics reconfigured itself along cultural identity lines. #expands (0.80)
• Soviet influence weakened pan-Arabism from both the left and the right #qualifies (0.75) — Bernard Lewis, From Babel to Dragomans, 927
• Hostile enemy imagery in expellee politics faded as Cold War tensions eased. #exemplifies (0.75) — Manuel Borutta and Jan C. Jansen, Vertriebene and Pieds-Noirs in Postwar…, 916
• Palestinian elites abandoned pan-Arabism after experiencing exclusion from power. #qualifies (0.75)