AMERICAN STRATEGY AND THE MIDDLE EAST
- From: "Adam R. Tomaszewski" <artomaszewski@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 23 Aug 2006 19:46:22 GMT
The New America Foundation American Strategy Program
AMERICAN STRATEGY AND THE MIDDLE EAST
July 20, 2006
Restaurant Nora, Washington, D.C.
The Honorable Zbigniew Brzezinski
National Security Advisor to President Carter and
Trustee and Counselor, Center for Strategic and International Studies
presider
Steven Clemons*
Sr. Fellow & Dir., American Strategy Program, New America Foundation and
publisher, www.TheWashingtonNote.com
[Text in brackets unclear or inaudible]
Let me be serious now because this is a serious time which calls for serious
reflection. I have to talk for about 15 or so minutes. I will be brief. Let
me start by sharing with you what I consider to be 3 axiomatic propositions.
The first is that today, for the United States, its policy in the Middle
East is the basic test of America's capacity to exercise global leadership.
It's become that. I see it as in many respects similar to what transpired
during the Cold War when the ultimate test of America's capacity to act as a
defender of the free world was its ability to conduct a meaningful policy in
Europe for Europe then was the central front and we know the outcome.
Today the Middle East is the fundamental test of American ability to lead,
and at stake is precisely that. If we do not do well, we will lose our
capacity to lead, and that concerns me greatly.
The second axiomatic proposition that I want to share with you is that the
experience of recent times--and much of the experience connected also with
the existence of the state of Israel--teaches us that neither Israel nor the
United States in the final analysis have the capacity to impose a unilateral
solution. There may be people who deceive themselves of that. We call them
neo-cons in this country and there are other equivalents in Israel as well.
They may think that either the United States or Israel can impose a solution
The United States has already learned--or at least it is in the process of
learning in Iraq-- that it does not have the capacity to impose unilateral
solutions to the problems it faces, by force, acting on its own, and neither
does Israel.
And my third proposition is that by now it should be very evident to all
concerned that the parties that are fighting now in the Middle East,
particularly the Israelis and the Palestinians can never resolve their
conflict peacefully, no matter how much they try, no matter how sincere they
may be. And when they are sincere, unfortunately it is in-synchronous to the
sincerity of the other side, and more often than not, one or the other is
not sincere. Quite often, neither is sincere. As a result, there has been no
peace in the Middle East.
Let me speak a little bit to each of these propositions. The use of force
and unilateral solution. There has been a great deal of talk recently about
Israel seeking a unilateral solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. .
How can one envisage it? One can envisage an imposition of a condition but
one should not confuse it with a legitimate, acceptable peace settlement. A
settlement based on the expansion, to some significant degree, of the state
of Israel beyond '67 lines without territorial compensation or accommodation
is going to be a settlement that leaves the West Bank essentially in a
condition closely approximating that of a Bantustan which had been planned
in the days of apartheid in South Africa.
A solution which is unilateral which involves the incorporation of all of
Jerusalem in the state of Israel is going to leave the roof of the Golden
Dome on top of the Temple on the Mount visible to most Palestinians in a
physical sense. Those of you who know the region know you can see it from
afar, and that will be a symbol of the illegitimacy and unacceptability of
that imposed settlement. And the failure to generate a political equilibrium
will lead to further rounds of violence.
So I do not see Israel being able to change the mindset of the peoples
involved and particularly not by use of force. Use of force can achieve
certain short-term objectives, perhaps even today in Lebanon provides Israel
some modest success in interdicting some Hezbollah military capability. But
use of force breeds its own antithesis: the mobilization of deeper
resistance, the radicalization of those around you, and a growing sense of
outrage and determination to survive.
I hate to say this but I will say it. I think what the Israelis are doing
today for example in Lebanon is in effect, in effect--maybe not in
intent--the killing of hostages. The killing of hostages. Because when you
kill 300 people, 400 people, who have nothing to do with the provocations
Hezbollah staged, but you do it in effect deliberately by being indifferent
to the scale of collateral damage, you're killing hostages in the hope of
intimidating those that you want to intimidate. And more likely than not you
will not intimidate them. You'll simply outrage them and make them into
permanent enemies with the number of such enemies increasing.
I have been involved with this problem for thirty years or so, and my sense
is that the difficulty in resolving it is increasing rather than decreasing
and that the hostility is hardening. The number of moderates is diminishing,
and the prospects for protracted violence is growing, so that is not a
solution.
The solution can only come if there is a serious international involvement
that supports the moderates from both sides, however numerous or
non-numerous they are, but also creates the situation in which it becomes of
greater interest to both parties to accommodate than to resist because both
of the incentives and the capacity of the external intervention to impose
costs. That means a deliberate peace effort led by the United States, which
then doubtless would be supported by the international community, which
defines openly in a semi-binding fashion how the United States and the
international community envisages the outlines of the accommodation. In
short, the kind of adoption of the Geneva Accords or the Taba formulations
or some of the formulations by Clinton at Camp David, and that should be the
position of the international community spelled out in black and white and
accompanied by very explicit indication that rejection by the Palestinian
side will gravely affect our degree of support and acceptance for the
Palestinian regime and exactly the same vis-a-vis Israel.
We're not prepared to do that, then we might as well kiss the prospects for
peace goodbye. Right now every indication is that we're not prepared to do
that. Worse than that, we have abandoned our traditional position from being
a mediator and have adopted a policy of almost complete partiality and that
contributes to the intensity of the conflict.
Now that brings me to my third and last point because I know Steve doesn't
want me to talk long, which is America's role in the Middle East as a whole
and that goes beyond this issue regarding which I've already indicated what
I think America ought to be doing, but by now the problems of the Middle
East, some of them endemic and generic to the region but some of them of our
making involve at least two other issues: Iraq and potentially Iran. And it's
becoming increasingly difficult to separate the three: the
Israeli-Palestinian, the Iraq problem, Iran.
The Iraq problem, look what Prime Minister al-Maliki said today--it's an
indication of things to come. The notion that we're going to get a pliant,
democratic, stable, pro-American, Israel-loving Iraq is a myth which is
rapidly eroding and which is now being contradicted by political realities.
And the problem of Iran is clearly related because of Iran's connection to
Syria... [inaudible].destabilize the region, while at the same time there
are people in this city and in Jerusalem who would like to make certain that
there is no compromise accommodation between the United States and Iran but,
on the contrary, that the United States undertakes military action against
them. It is mostly an extreme, lunatic fringe.
We have read I'm sure the editorial by [Bill] Kristol in The Weekly
Standard, but there are people in the U.S. government who lean that way, who
think that way, who agitate that way. And my grave concern is that within
the U.S. government today, the structure of authority is such that it is
quite conceivable for a key player in that system, especially endowed with a
sense of a divine mission as to reach a decision [inaudible]. It is not
concluded that such a person is even susceptible to such arguments because
of that sense of mission.
What of course imposes the limit are certain objective circumstances. And it
is a difficult thing to say, but in fact our failure in Iraq is saving us
from duplicating that misadventure vis-à-vis Iran and that is probably the
most important impediment to such a repetition.
And that leads me then to the proposition beforehand, namely that we have
now, we're not only committed to what I said earlier, regarding the
Israeli-Palestinian process, but more deliberately by terminating our
involvement in Iraq. And I have put forth a four-point program which [I am
sure] I have discussed in one of the rare occasions within the last year
administration has talked to me, some top level people in the
administration. They listened to this:
That we start talking to the Iraqis of the day of our disengagement., We say
to them we want to set it jointly, but in the process, indicate to them that
we will not leave precipitously. I asked Khalilzad what would be his
definition of precipitous and he said four months and I said I agree. Are
you saying to the Iraqis, we intend to disengage by some period? We need
to.
And then we will see what Iraqi leaders say to us and which leaders say
what. I'm convinced those who categorically say to us we don't want you to
leave are the ones who will leave with us when we leave. And ones who will
be more prepared to entertain the proposition of us leaving are the ones who
have some basis of confidence that they have political and military roots in
the country and that they, together, the Shiites and the Kurds they will
make arrangements with the Sunnis, handle it on their own.
Once we reach an agreement with the Iraqis, I would secondly announce it as
a joint decision. Not as an American decision but as a joint American-Iraqi
decision. Because that would give greater credibility to such an Iraqi
government.
Thirdly, I would then have the Al-Maliki government convene a conference of
all of their adjoining Muslim states, perhaps some of the distant ones, such
as Pakistan, Morocco, Algeria on the subject of their potential to help
stabilize Iraq after we're gone. Because once we're leaving, most of them
will be willing to help and stabilize them. Because for different reasons,
entirely different reasons, Turkey, Iran, Saudi Arabia would have their own
specific stakes in stabilizing Iraq which may not be identical stakes but
complementary stakes, and thus it would be quite worthwhile initiating this
process.
And then fourth, the United States will announce a donors' conference to
help rehabilitate Iraq's economy and particularly its energy-producing
capacity. I believe that would help the extract us in a fashion which would
not be calamitous. It would not be quite defined or what has been defined as
"victory": a secular, democratic, stable Iraq [but] probably an Iraq
[engaged] for some time in civil strife. But I believe an indigenous
government is much more likely to be effective in repressing domestic
insurgency than the occupation army that neither understands the culture of
the country nor the language, And because of psychological pressures
conducting a counterinsurgency in civilian areas, is itself becoming
increasingly affected by the contagion of demoralization that has, in
previous history, badly damaged even the most professional of forces.
As far as Iran is concerned--and with this I'll end--thanks to Iraq, I think
we have made an offer to the Iranians that is reasonable. I do not know that
Iranians have the smarts to respond favorably or at least not negatively. I
sort of lean to the idea that they'll probably respond not negatively but
not positively and try to stall out the process. But that is not so bad
provided they do not reject it. Because while the Iranian nuclear problem is
serious, and while the Iranians are marginally involved in Lebanon and to a
greater extent in Syria, the fact of the matter is that the challenge they
pose to us, while serious, is not imminent. And because it isn't imminent,
it gives us time to deal with it. And sometimes in international politics,
the better part of wisdom is to defer dangers rather than try to eliminate
them altogether instantly, because the later produces intense
counter-reactions that are destructive. We have time to deal with Iran,
provided the process is launched, dealing with the nuclear energy problem,
which can then be extended to involve also security talks about the region.
In the final analysis, Iran is a serious country, it's not Iraq. It's going
to be there. It's going to be a player. And in the longer historical term,
it has all of the preconditions for a constructive internal evolution if you
measure it by rates of literacy, access to higher education, the role of
women in society, a sense of tradition and status which is real.
I'm convinced that the mullahs are part of the past in Iran, not its future.
But that process can change in Iran, not in a confrontation but through
engagement. I think if we pursue these policies, we can perhaps avert the
dangers that we face but if we do not, I fear that the region will explode,
and for that matter, Israel will be in the long run in great jeopardy.
When we accept today's realities, American pre-eminence in Middle East
affairs is in danger and without correction, our primacy may last for a
short duration.
.
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