I can think of no week in recent history when the invitation to “Re-Think the Middle East” seems more timely. How are we to make sense of the vast upheavals currently under way in the Middle East and North Africa? From the people's revolt in Tunisia, to the street battles in Egypt, to anti-government demonstrations in Jordan and Yemen, to the fall of the Hariri government in Lebanon, to the “Palestine Papers” released by Al Jazeera, to the collapse of the latest round of nuclear talks between Iran and the West, to the realignment of Israeli politics as Barak and company abandon the once-dominant Labor Party – almost everywhere one looks in the region, motion is evident. Motion, however, is not the same as movement. The region's dramatic current events do not constitute one grand movement in a particular direction. That part of the world has experienced periodic crises since before the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. Today, a multiplicity of complaints are being voiced across the region: popular resentment against corruption, nepotism, and authoritarian rule; population growth outstripping economic capacity; endemic poverty; alienation of the young from the geriatric ruling class; deep-seated conflict over the appropriate role of Islam in government and society; unresponsive, undemocratic governments not committed to the people's welfare; Palestinian statelessness; and more. Since there are multiple sources of the Middle East's problems, there is neither a single solution to rally around nor a single strategy to pursue. This complex of issues can easily baffle those trying to predict or influence the region's future. The United States seems particularly inept in its dealings with Arab countries, not just since 9/11 but going back decades. Neither Eisenhower nor Johnson knew how to deal with Nasser. No American administration, Democrat or Republican, ever made much headway with Syria. Two wars in Iraq have drained American treasure but have not assured that country's friendly orientation towards the U.S. in the future. Lebanon has stymied American presidents' plans from Reagan to Obama. Israel has fared no better than the U.S. in shaping the region to its liking. Gaza is a powder keg. The world increasingly rejects permanent Occupation and West Bank settlements. Israeli adventures in Lebanon have constituted a series of moral and media disasters, and now Hezbollah is stronger than ever. Peace with Egypt and Jordan has been maintained, but the Egyptian and Jordanian peoples have never accepted Israelis as neighbors. Nor, I suspect, are they likely to do so in coming decades, even if a sovereign Palestinian state is established. Why does the United States flounder so in its Middle East policy, president after president, regardless of political party? What should be our focus and highest priority? Promoting democracy? Advocating human rights? Enabling economic development? Forwarding the peace process? Supporting regimes that provide us military bases? Preventing the spread of nuclear weapons? Helping the enemies of our enemies? Standing by our allies? Safeguarding Israel? Ensuring our access to oil and gas? Maintaining stability? Perhaps stability itself, like security, is an illusion. How stable, after all, is the United States or Russia or China, Europe or Latin America or Africa? In an era of ever higher demands on natural resources coupled with rapid technological and environmental change on a global scale – change which is accelerating, not slowing down – why should we expect the world to reach some new equilibrium anytime soon? Whether measured by societal transformation or economic development, civil liberties protection or weapons proliferation, there are hard times ahead. The world can expect more turmoil this century, not more stability. Since 9/11, America's possible priorities for the Middle East, which constantly compete for limited dollars and attention, appear to have been organized around combating Islamist terrorism and its state sponsors. This Bush-era focus has now been taken on in practice by the Obama team, even though the current administration speaks as if the case were otherwise. Despite different rhetoric from the two presidents and their secretaries of state, the policies towards Arab countries have not differed much. Other potential priorities, listed above, are now presented in terms of their supposed contribution to an overarching anti-terrorist theme: • We need a two-state solution so as to deprive al-Qaeda, Iran, and Islamist terrorists of popular support. • We need democratic and human rights reforms so as to reduce the likelihood of Islamists coming to power through the ballot box. • We must support “friendly” regimes (even autocratic ones) so long as they cooperate in fighting al-Qaeda. • We must back Arab Sunni regimes because they oppose the Iranian Shia regime. • We must back Saad Hariri's March 14 Alliance because it opposes Hezbollah, which we label a terrorist organization, and because it opposes Syria, which we label a sponsor of terrorism. • We must back the P.A. because it opposes Hamas, which we label a terrorist organization, and which, like Hezbollah, receives funds from Iran. While America's preoccupation is terrorism, that is not true of the Arab world. And because our priorities are so different, we are out of step with the rapidly unfolding developments in the region. This is not the time to play catch-up so much as it is a time to fundamentally rethink what the United States can and should do in the region, for itself and for the hundreds of millions of people who live there. Read more from Michael Lame on his re-thinkme blog BM
