Change of heart in the Middle East policy debate James J. Zogby

Opinion, September 2003, www.aljazeerah.info

Change of heart in the Middle East policy debate

James J. Zogby

Gulf News, 29-09-2003

Since the end of the Vietnam War, just over 30 years ago, conflict in the Middle East has been a preoccupation of every US president. During this time, the US has sent more foreign and military aid, sent more troops and weapons, fought more wars, lost more lives and invested more political capital in the Middle East than in any other region of the world.

And yet, despite the obvious importance of the region and the fact that our policy has failed to secure our interests, our allies, or peace, there has not been a substantive national debate about US-Middle East policy.

For the most part, US policy towards this region has been driven both by the strategic concerns of the Cold War and by domestic politics. As a result, the preoccupation has been to design a policy that would provide uncritical support for the State of Israel, while, at the same time, maintaining a sufficiently stable US-Arab relationship to guarantee an uninterrupted flow of oil to provide for US and world-wide consumption needs.

Repeated crises

Even when repeated crises rocked the Middle East there was no call to re-examine US foreign policy.

As a result, accepted formulations became hardened into rigid dogma, making change or debate even more difficult.

9/11 changed all of this, though not in a positive way. In response to the shock of the terrorist attacks, hard-line neo-conservatives called for, and, to a degree, implemented some revolutionary changes in US-Middle East policy, focusing on:

* The use of pre-emptive war against targets identified as threatening to our interests and security;

* Direct US involvement in promoting political reform throughout the Middle East; and

* Closer identification of US and Israeli political and military objectives and tactics in confronting what are now viewed as our "common enemies". It was this change in course that led the US into war and occupation in Afghanistan and Iraq. And it was this new vision of the Middle East that has:

* Altered the ground rules for resolution of the Arab-Israeli conflict, requiring a weakened and beleaguered Palestinian Authority to make difficult political reforms as a prerequisite to negotiations, while making very few demands on Israel; and

* Engaged the US in an experiment in regime change and nation building in Iraq as a precursor to what is viewed as a democratic transformation that should be spread to the broader region.

Such sweeping changes have not gone unnoticed in the lead up to the 2004 presidential elections. To date, there are ten Democrats seeking nomination to challenge President George W. Bush.

Many of these candidates have in their public statements taken issue with aspects of this administration's Middle East policies. But a review of their positions establishes that the challenges posed by some of the candidates are less dramatic than their rhetoric might indicate.

Before the war there was a deep debate over Iraq policy, but the point of division was on the question of unilateral military pre-emption, and not over the fundamentals of US policy towards the Middle East. With regard to how to approach the rest of the Arab World, it appears that the neo-conservatives have defined the discourse, with some of the ten Democrats displaying an even more negative view of some Arab countries.

Of the ten, Congressman Dennis Kucinich (Ohio) poses the most dramatic challenge to the tenets of the Bush administration's new Middle East policy. On the other hand, the views of Senator Joseph Lieberman (Connecticut) on many of these issues are sometimes more strident than those of the current administration.

While the ten Democrats were sharply divided during the lead up to the war on Iraq, most have criticised the Bush Administration for failing for two years to aggressively pursue the Arab-Israeli peace process.

They largely support the Administration's roadmap, including the call for two states, and its insistence on Palestinian reform. While differing on the logic of the administration's war policy in Iraq, all the Democrats now appear to agree on the need to internationalise the occupation and political process of transformation in Iraq.

There is, therefore, a growing Democratic consensus on the need to reject unilateralism and to promote international co-operation and coalition building with regard to Iraq, the "war on terror," and in other areas as well.

Political change

Similarly, most of the congressional Democrats (with the exception of Kucinich) and former Vermont Governor Howard Dean, appear to accept the argument that political change in the Arab World is an essential component in the war on terror.

A dangerous extension of this view is the effort by a number of these leading Democrats to connect US oil consumption with support for terrorism. In this way they apparently seek to establish their environmental credentials as well as their ability to "stand up" to what some describe as the "Bush administration's coddling" of Arab governments.

In conclusion, the 2004 Presidential elections, and therefore the debate over policy, is still in its early stages. It remains a work in progress.

What is clear is that both the traditional formulation of US policy and the new direction of the neo-conservatives have led to failure.

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is spiralling out of control, the venture into Iraq did not yield a quick victory and spillover of positive change, the US position in the Middle East is more precarious, and US allies in the region are more vulnerable to the forces of extremism. A new direction is needed.

The writer, Dr. James J. Zogby, is president of the Arab American Institute.

Earth, a planet hungry for peace

The Israeli apartheid (security) wall around Palestinian population centers (Ran Cohen, pmc, 5/24/03).

The Israeli apartheid (security) wall around Palestinian population centers in the West Bank (Ran Cohen, pmc, 5/24/03).