By coincidence, I happened to pick up another book while reading Hussein Ibish’s excellent, precise dismantling of the agenda for a single Jewish-Arab state in the area of historical Palestine. The book in question, which provided a handy conceptual context to Ibish’s, was Robert Conquest’s “The Dragons of Expectation,” which discusses how ideological delusion has “seized the mind of many in the West and elsewhere – with misleading thought about what faces us, much of it bred and projected from unreal obsessions about the still-living past.”
The phrase sums up well the failings of those advocating a one-state agenda, particularly Palestinians and Arabs living in the West. For as Ibish writes, such a project is largely a diasporic one, far removed from Palestinian and Israeli realities. Yet its proponents continue to press on with the binational state idea, oblivious to its unpopularity and their own specious assumptions, because they believe in the pure idea, a dragon of expectation that, left unquestioned, can be destructively consuming.
Conquest has fought such dragons for decades, particularly those to which many in the West succumbed at the time of the Soviet Union. His masterpiece on the Stalinist purges, “The Great Terror,” was maligned by so-called “progressives” when it was published in 1968, particularly his estimation of the number of victims, which he placed at some 20 million. The critics pointed out that Conquest later lowered his figure once the Soviet archives were opened. The joke was on them. So appalling did these remain, that they only confirmed how right he was early on in regarding the decades of Stalin as a defining monstrosity of the 20th century.
The delusions of Western or Western-educated Arab progressives have also shaped views of other Middle Eastern issues after the 9/11 attacks. Yet why focus on the left when the right, too, is afflicted with myriad faults? Principally because it is the left that has purported to speak in the name of universalist, humanistic values, while those on the right – old-line realists or neoconservatives – have either tended to preoccupy themselves with maintaining stability, regardless of its repercussions for liberal values, or have placed American power at the center of their contemplations.
There is also the reality that the left, more than the right, has allowed its discourse to be overtaken by a utopian urge, by the Ideal. And those like Ibish, or Conquest, each in their very different worlds, are commendable, and set upon, because they cannot stomach the bending of reality to satisfy that Ideal. They know that when ideas take on a greater import than the evidence sustaining them, in other words when they become counterintuitive, those holding onto these ideas will fall in love with their own moral righteousness, denouncing dissenters as immoral.
Let’s take two examples from the contemporary Middle East. In the last decade and more, not a few Western progressives have embraced Hizbullah as a regenerative force among Lebanon’s Shiites and in the midst of the country’s fractured political culture. Because Shiites tend to be poor, this sympathy has been accompanied by a form of ethical sanction, a sense that the party is a dispenser of social justice, a righter of past wrongs. Hizbullah’s hostility toward Israel and the United States, like its successful resistance in the south up to May 2000, have fed into a broader mood that the party, even if it is not what a Westerner, or a Westernized Arab, would naturally gravitate toward, nonetheless has come down on the right side of history, against outside hegemony and a Lebanese system that is corrupt, archaic, and morally indefensible.
These thoughts tell us more about those thinking them, than about Hizbullah and the Shiite reality. It is a mystery how individuals who consider themselves partisans of humanistic principles can identify these in an autocratic religious, militarized party whose ideological mindset and political continuity is reliant on the perpetuation of violence. And this against a Lebanese social and political order that, for all its faults, is organically pluralistic, allowing invigorating variety and dissent.
A second example. For years after the invasion of Iraq, progressives referred to the foes of the “neo-imperialistic” United States and its allies there as a “resistance.” This sloppy, expansive term did not filter out former regime criminals or Al-Qaeda, at a time when it was beheading foreigners and representatives of Iraqi institutions. I vividly recall one left-wing professor with tenure at an American university regretting the capture of Saddam Hussein, because, he said, this would strengthen George W. Bush. There was “the resistance” and there was America. In the odd zero-sum moralism of the time, what one gained the other lost, and no self-respecting humanist was going to side with the US president.
Today, this neat dichotomy is falling apart. Whatever “resistance” there may be is undermining the emergence of a sovereign Iraqi state. Iraq’s leaders openly accuse Syria of continuing to allow Al-Qaeda militants across its border to strengthen the Syrian hand in a post-America Iraq. Regional cynicism has taken over. The US is on its way out. Progressives are lost. Who to blame? Who embodies the total Ideal? There are no clear answers, except perhaps one: The nasty, brutish rule of Saddam Hussein is over, a new Iraq is emerging, and the US, basically responsible for this, is evidently averse to playing the neo-imperialist bogeyman by lingering.
In defense of their virtuous choices – that of endorsing a supposedly just Hizbullah against a Lebanese state riddled with shortcomings or the idealization of a purported Iraqi resistance against Western domination – progressives have sided with the very forces most dedicated to thwarting liberal outcomes. In that way they are defined more by what they oppose than by what they stand for. To paraphrase Robert Conquest, they have failed in their duty to clear the ground of false witness.
Thursday, October 8, 2009
Thursday, October 1, 2009
Ignorance pervades the 'neocon' debate
Recently, an American researcher in Beirut wrote a commentary in which he disapprovingly referred to me as a “neoconservative.” Though the subject struck me as dated, when the author sent me a version for review before publication, I explained that I was no such thing. More maliciously, he accused me, without any evidence, of coordinating a piece I had written on American policy toward Syria with those of three former Bush administration officials. This time my denial was angrier.
Slapdash indictments are common these days in journalism about the Middle East – where the aim of writers is frequently to gain access to one side in an often polarized political situation, or to catch the eye of potential political sponsors. Far from stimulating exchange, such polemics inhibit an understanding of intellectual trends in the region.
A major source of disagreement is the Iraq war. I happened to welcome the war because it overthrew a brutal regime responsible, directly or indirectly, for the death of some 1 million people. In 2005 I also approved of American and international efforts to end Syrian hegemony over Lebanon. Among “progressives” who identify with Arab issues, these positions earned me and other Arabs sharing my views a “neocon” label.
I am not a neocon, though I have found myself on their side on occasion. To be viewed as a neocon, even a hawk, is by definition to be categorized as someone having an American perspective on regional affairs. Yet my motives (being half-Lebanese) and those of other Arabs for welcoming Saddam Hussein’s downfall and the end of Syria’s long Lebanese interregnum derived almost entirely from an Arab standpoint. Our approach to the debate in the United States on the Middle East has been that of outsiders; we’re interested in how it affects us, but we cannot, reasonably, be portrayed as representatives of a particular faction.
Let’s define “neocon.” Neoconservative thought has changed greatly in three decades, so it’s best outlined through its main features during the Bush years. The most forceful compendium of neocon thinking was the National Security Strategy of 2002, though the document was a mishmash that included liberal internationalist notions as well. What was new, however, was its focus on US military superiority and its justification of Washington’s right to engage in pre-emptive strikes against emerging threats and to advance its interests unilaterally. Drawing from the heightened imperative of security, neocons, though they were hardly the only ones, were inclined to go along with the tenuous legal system for holding terrorist suspects at Guantanamo prison and other military facilities, extraordinary rendition, even torture.
There is a strong domestic American component to the neocon agenda. The neocons saw 9/11 as allowing for the relative curtailment of civil liberties and freedom of markets through the USA Patriot Act, and they have repeatedly encouraged (without success) the introduction of national identity cards, using intrusive biometric data. Though neocons, sensibly, argued in favor of advancing liberalism abroad, almost none of those present in the Bush administration actively opposed the undermining of liberal values when the White House and the administration’s judiciary bureaucracy tortuously validated the mistreatment of foreign detainees.
If you call someone a neocon, particularly an Arab, you should be pretty sure that he or she meets those criteria. However, it’s likely that almost no Arab who supported the removal of the Taliban in Afghanistan, the Baathists in Iraq, or the Syrian army from Lebanon does. Most either opposed abusive American behavior or were indifferent. But all knew that every time the US neglected human rights, liberals who had initially supported the premises of American intervention were discredited.
By transforming the discussion of the desirability of confronting Middle Eastern autocracies into a parochial American bellyache about neocons versus anti-neocons, the polemicists have emptied it of everything interesting, for example disregarding how, during its second term, the Bush administration moved away from neocon tenets of the first term.
Take Lebanon’s emancipation movement against Syria, following the murder of the former prime minister, Rafik Hariri. The US played a key role in forcing the Syrians out by working multilaterally, through the United Nations. Even administration neocons endorsed this strategy, showing the discrepancy between theory and practice. The reality is that the legalistic, internationalist US response to the Lebanese crisis was a far cry from what neocons had earlier advocated. Nevertheless, those in Lebanon publicly lauding this conduct, by virtue of being with America, were still branded hawks, ideologues, and, yes, neocons.
Credit the neocons with one thing. After 9/11 they filled the gap of comprehension in the US when it came to the attacks. Left-liberals, old-line realists, and libertarians had little credible to say about why the crimes were committed. The neocons alone saw them as the consequence of a systemic problem deriving from a lack of Arab democracy. They were right. But the riposte was haphazard, contradictory, and ultimately counterproductive, so that America soon found itself isolated. That’s why Bush adopted more consensual policies during his second term.
Grasping these subtleties is compulsory to avoid tossing the word neocon around with abandon. As for my American accuser, I found instructive that when a mutual friend criticized his statement that I had coordinated with the former officials, all he could reply in an e-mail was: “You’re right on the coordination – I have no idea.” Fabrication seems to be par for the course whenever the neocon bogeyman is brought up.
Slapdash indictments are common these days in journalism about the Middle East – where the aim of writers is frequently to gain access to one side in an often polarized political situation, or to catch the eye of potential political sponsors. Far from stimulating exchange, such polemics inhibit an understanding of intellectual trends in the region.
A major source of disagreement is the Iraq war. I happened to welcome the war because it overthrew a brutal regime responsible, directly or indirectly, for the death of some 1 million people. In 2005 I also approved of American and international efforts to end Syrian hegemony over Lebanon. Among “progressives” who identify with Arab issues, these positions earned me and other Arabs sharing my views a “neocon” label.
I am not a neocon, though I have found myself on their side on occasion. To be viewed as a neocon, even a hawk, is by definition to be categorized as someone having an American perspective on regional affairs. Yet my motives (being half-Lebanese) and those of other Arabs for welcoming Saddam Hussein’s downfall and the end of Syria’s long Lebanese interregnum derived almost entirely from an Arab standpoint. Our approach to the debate in the United States on the Middle East has been that of outsiders; we’re interested in how it affects us, but we cannot, reasonably, be portrayed as representatives of a particular faction.
Let’s define “neocon.” Neoconservative thought has changed greatly in three decades, so it’s best outlined through its main features during the Bush years. The most forceful compendium of neocon thinking was the National Security Strategy of 2002, though the document was a mishmash that included liberal internationalist notions as well. What was new, however, was its focus on US military superiority and its justification of Washington’s right to engage in pre-emptive strikes against emerging threats and to advance its interests unilaterally. Drawing from the heightened imperative of security, neocons, though they were hardly the only ones, were inclined to go along with the tenuous legal system for holding terrorist suspects at Guantanamo prison and other military facilities, extraordinary rendition, even torture.
There is a strong domestic American component to the neocon agenda. The neocons saw 9/11 as allowing for the relative curtailment of civil liberties and freedom of markets through the USA Patriot Act, and they have repeatedly encouraged (without success) the introduction of national identity cards, using intrusive biometric data. Though neocons, sensibly, argued in favor of advancing liberalism abroad, almost none of those present in the Bush administration actively opposed the undermining of liberal values when the White House and the administration’s judiciary bureaucracy tortuously validated the mistreatment of foreign detainees.
If you call someone a neocon, particularly an Arab, you should be pretty sure that he or she meets those criteria. However, it’s likely that almost no Arab who supported the removal of the Taliban in Afghanistan, the Baathists in Iraq, or the Syrian army from Lebanon does. Most either opposed abusive American behavior or were indifferent. But all knew that every time the US neglected human rights, liberals who had initially supported the premises of American intervention were discredited.
By transforming the discussion of the desirability of confronting Middle Eastern autocracies into a parochial American bellyache about neocons versus anti-neocons, the polemicists have emptied it of everything interesting, for example disregarding how, during its second term, the Bush administration moved away from neocon tenets of the first term.
Take Lebanon’s emancipation movement against Syria, following the murder of the former prime minister, Rafik Hariri. The US played a key role in forcing the Syrians out by working multilaterally, through the United Nations. Even administration neocons endorsed this strategy, showing the discrepancy between theory and practice. The reality is that the legalistic, internationalist US response to the Lebanese crisis was a far cry from what neocons had earlier advocated. Nevertheless, those in Lebanon publicly lauding this conduct, by virtue of being with America, were still branded hawks, ideologues, and, yes, neocons.
Credit the neocons with one thing. After 9/11 they filled the gap of comprehension in the US when it came to the attacks. Left-liberals, old-line realists, and libertarians had little credible to say about why the crimes were committed. The neocons alone saw them as the consequence of a systemic problem deriving from a lack of Arab democracy. They were right. But the riposte was haphazard, contradictory, and ultimately counterproductive, so that America soon found itself isolated. That’s why Bush adopted more consensual policies during his second term.
Grasping these subtleties is compulsory to avoid tossing the word neocon around with abandon. As for my American accuser, I found instructive that when a mutual friend criticized his statement that I had coordinated with the former officials, all he could reply in an e-mail was: “You’re right on the coordination – I have no idea.” Fabrication seems to be par for the course whenever the neocon bogeyman is brought up.
Thursday, September 24, 2009
Hizbullah: still strong, getting weaker
As the permanent members of the UN Security Council, along with Germany, prepare for a dialogue with Iran in October over its nuclear program, Hizbullah is closely watching what happens. The party will almost certainly be at the vanguard of Iranian retaliation for an attack against its nuclear facilities, but it must also be ambivalent, because the political and social environment in Lebanon today does not favor Hizbullah’s entering into a new border conflict.
At three levels – the tactical military level in southern Lebanon, that of the Shiite community at large, and Hizbullah’s relationship with the rest of Lebanese society – genuine difficulties are looming for the party, even if it is stronger than ever militarily and its popularity among Shiites is intact.
One needn’t be a military expert to grasp that the next war against Israel will be very different for Hizbullah than the last one. By most accounts the party’s arsenal has been upgraded. It may well have anti-aircraft missiles today, some are suggesting the SAM-24 (Igla-S), and the secretary general, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, has warned that if Beirut’s southern suburbs are bombed, Hizbullah will respond by firing missiles at Tel Aviv. Israel, in turn, is training units to enter Lebanon, displaying a greater willingness to engage in a ground war than in 2006. The Israelis are also likely to devastate Lebanese infrastructure, particularly the electricity network, so that what they did three years ago may seem tame in comparison.
What would this mean for Hizbullah’s ability to fire rockets at Israel? The party is setting up its main defensive line north of the Litani, near Jezzine. However, some observers point to the fact that Hizbullah relies considerably on short-range rockets for its deterrence capability, rockets it can fire from primitive launching pads south of the Litani. They argue that the party’s military infrastructure in the area has, of necessity, been thinned out since 2006 after the deployment of the Lebanese Army and UNIFIL, so that even once-closed military zones such as Wadi Hujayr are now open to traffic. That’s why, these observers believe, Hizbullah will not have the same capability of firing rockets that it did three years ago, let alone to defend against Israeli incursions to prevent the launches.
As for the longer-range missiles, there remains some question of how extensively Hizbullah can rely on them. Given Nasrallah’s threats, these would effectively become strategic weapons, targeting Israeli cities and infrastructure, so their use would introduce frightening military realities that Hizbullah would have to withstand and defend domestically. For example, we can assume that if Tel Aviv is bombed, so too will be central Beirut, and it’s not at all clear that Hizbullah could sustain such an escalation politically and militarily for very long. On top of that, who would be launching these missiles, Lebanese or Iranians? If it’s the latter, Lebanon would be the front line in a regional battle, which neither the Shiite community nor other Lebanese would welcome.
Which takes us to the second obstacle Hizbullah must face: that put up by its own community. The party still dominates the Shiites, but as a visit to southern Lebanon will show, Hizbullah must address a more subtle challenge to its priorities, that provided by normalcy. Nasrallah dodged a bullet in summer 2006 by containing Shiite discontent following a month when hundreds of thousands of his coreligionists were turned into internal refugees. The secretary general showed psychological flair by declaring that shipwreck a “divine victory,” a notion the Shiites embraced because it lent meaning to their suffering. But Nasrallah can only play that game once.
We are almost a decade into the Shiite return to the South after Israel’s military withdrawal, a decade in which its inhabitants have been leading a more or less normal life, or aspiring to do so. Yet the destruction from 2006 is everywhere visible – the market of Bint Jbeil, for example, is still being rebuilt. Hizbullah has placed posters of its martyrs in every village, but even that perennial reminder of the debt owed by the community to the party cannot forever displace a Shiite yearning for a life without fear.
There is an assumption that the way Hizbullah “packages” a war with Israel will determine how Shiites react to it. In other words if Israel is perceived as the clear culprit, the community will remain loyal to Hizbullah, whatever the consequences. Perhaps, but it will not be easy for the party to disguise retaliation in defense of Iran with another pretext. Nor will Hizbullah readily dispel a disquieting feeling among Shiites that the party, for all the advantages it brings to the community, every few years demands a prohibitive blood tax in exchange.
Then there is Hizbullah’s relation with Lebanon in general. The party has perfected a persona of indifference to Lebanese preferences disputing the imperatives of resistance, but it also knows that its countrymen will virulently oppose any new conflict, particularly one on behalf of the regime in Tehran, which could undermine Hizbullah’s status. That was one message from the March 14 victory in the June elections, in many respects a vote against Michel Aoun for his alliance with Hizbullah. But the party is also paying for May 2008, when it overran western Beirut and tried doing so in the mountains. That enterprise may have won Hizbullah a temporary victory against unarmed civilians, but what it really did was sweep away any national consensus in support of its armed struggle.
A postwar Lebanon would be nothing like the one that emerged in August 2006, which nonetheless defied Hizbullah for over 18 months. This new Lebanon, battered, impoverished, bitter, could well demand a final showdown with the project of a party that cannot possibly coexist with the project of a sovereign state. This begs the question: Might Israel precipitate a pre-emptive strike to take advantage of the Lebanese contradictions? It’s possible, and we’re not doing the slightest thing to prevent this.
At three levels – the tactical military level in southern Lebanon, that of the Shiite community at large, and Hizbullah’s relationship with the rest of Lebanese society – genuine difficulties are looming for the party, even if it is stronger than ever militarily and its popularity among Shiites is intact.
One needn’t be a military expert to grasp that the next war against Israel will be very different for Hizbullah than the last one. By most accounts the party’s arsenal has been upgraded. It may well have anti-aircraft missiles today, some are suggesting the SAM-24 (Igla-S), and the secretary general, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, has warned that if Beirut’s southern suburbs are bombed, Hizbullah will respond by firing missiles at Tel Aviv. Israel, in turn, is training units to enter Lebanon, displaying a greater willingness to engage in a ground war than in 2006. The Israelis are also likely to devastate Lebanese infrastructure, particularly the electricity network, so that what they did three years ago may seem tame in comparison.
What would this mean for Hizbullah’s ability to fire rockets at Israel? The party is setting up its main defensive line north of the Litani, near Jezzine. However, some observers point to the fact that Hizbullah relies considerably on short-range rockets for its deterrence capability, rockets it can fire from primitive launching pads south of the Litani. They argue that the party’s military infrastructure in the area has, of necessity, been thinned out since 2006 after the deployment of the Lebanese Army and UNIFIL, so that even once-closed military zones such as Wadi Hujayr are now open to traffic. That’s why, these observers believe, Hizbullah will not have the same capability of firing rockets that it did three years ago, let alone to defend against Israeli incursions to prevent the launches.
As for the longer-range missiles, there remains some question of how extensively Hizbullah can rely on them. Given Nasrallah’s threats, these would effectively become strategic weapons, targeting Israeli cities and infrastructure, so their use would introduce frightening military realities that Hizbullah would have to withstand and defend domestically. For example, we can assume that if Tel Aviv is bombed, so too will be central Beirut, and it’s not at all clear that Hizbullah could sustain such an escalation politically and militarily for very long. On top of that, who would be launching these missiles, Lebanese or Iranians? If it’s the latter, Lebanon would be the front line in a regional battle, which neither the Shiite community nor other Lebanese would welcome.
Which takes us to the second obstacle Hizbullah must face: that put up by its own community. The party still dominates the Shiites, but as a visit to southern Lebanon will show, Hizbullah must address a more subtle challenge to its priorities, that provided by normalcy. Nasrallah dodged a bullet in summer 2006 by containing Shiite discontent following a month when hundreds of thousands of his coreligionists were turned into internal refugees. The secretary general showed psychological flair by declaring that shipwreck a “divine victory,” a notion the Shiites embraced because it lent meaning to their suffering. But Nasrallah can only play that game once.
We are almost a decade into the Shiite return to the South after Israel’s military withdrawal, a decade in which its inhabitants have been leading a more or less normal life, or aspiring to do so. Yet the destruction from 2006 is everywhere visible – the market of Bint Jbeil, for example, is still being rebuilt. Hizbullah has placed posters of its martyrs in every village, but even that perennial reminder of the debt owed by the community to the party cannot forever displace a Shiite yearning for a life without fear.
There is an assumption that the way Hizbullah “packages” a war with Israel will determine how Shiites react to it. In other words if Israel is perceived as the clear culprit, the community will remain loyal to Hizbullah, whatever the consequences. Perhaps, but it will not be easy for the party to disguise retaliation in defense of Iran with another pretext. Nor will Hizbullah readily dispel a disquieting feeling among Shiites that the party, for all the advantages it brings to the community, every few years demands a prohibitive blood tax in exchange.
Then there is Hizbullah’s relation with Lebanon in general. The party has perfected a persona of indifference to Lebanese preferences disputing the imperatives of resistance, but it also knows that its countrymen will virulently oppose any new conflict, particularly one on behalf of the regime in Tehran, which could undermine Hizbullah’s status. That was one message from the March 14 victory in the June elections, in many respects a vote against Michel Aoun for his alliance with Hizbullah. But the party is also paying for May 2008, when it overran western Beirut and tried doing so in the mountains. That enterprise may have won Hizbullah a temporary victory against unarmed civilians, but what it really did was sweep away any national consensus in support of its armed struggle.
A postwar Lebanon would be nothing like the one that emerged in August 2006, which nonetheless defied Hizbullah for over 18 months. This new Lebanon, battered, impoverished, bitter, could well demand a final showdown with the project of a party that cannot possibly coexist with the project of a sovereign state. This begs the question: Might Israel precipitate a pre-emptive strike to take advantage of the Lebanese contradictions? It’s possible, and we’re not doing the slightest thing to prevent this.
Thursday, September 17, 2009
Lebanon must avoid the crimes of Gaza
Even before a United Nations fact-finding mission led by the South African judge Richard Goldstone released its report on the Gaza war earlier this week, accusing Israel and Hamas of having perpetrated war crimes and crimes against humanity, you knew what direction the ensuing discussion would take: Israeli officials, like supporters of Israel all over, would condemn the report as biased, while Hamas and its enthusiasts would sidestep blame, insisting the movement acted in self-defense.
The members of the mission also called on Israel’s government and the Palestinian Authority (which, in reality, has no jurisdiction over Gaza) to conduct independent investigations within six months, otherwise the UN should take the matter to the International Criminal Court.
The debate over war crimes can be tiresome, shot through with self-righteousness and deceit. When Hamas, to defend itself, insists that its rockets during the Gaza war were primed to hit Israeli military positions, but because of their shoddiness veered off course to hit civilian targets, this is nonsense. From the start, the movement’s rocket arsenal served no purpose but to be a terror weapon against civilians. Attacking nonmilitary targets has long been a cornerstone of Hamas’ deterrence capability, as when it dispatched suicide bombers to Israeli cities.
By the same token, officials in Israel will intentionally miss the forest for the trees when defending their state’s military actions. Most Israeli war crimes, it seems, have some overriding justification. But anyone who has been on the receiving end of Israeli attacks knows that the targeting of civilians and of nonmilitary objectives is also a vital component of Israel’s deterrence strategy. Nothing, for example, could possibly validate Israel’s malicious firing of many thousands of rounds of cluster munitions into southern Lebanon in the final days of the 2006 war, except to make large swathes of the border area inaccessible to civilians.
The Gaza mission is but one in a long line of fact-finding missions investigating conflicts between Israel and the Arabs. Israel itself has examined its misdeeds on occasion, most significantly in the devastating Kahan commission report on the Sabra and Shatila massacre of September 1982. Much has been made of how the report stated that Israel’s then-defense minister, Ariel Sharon, bore “indirect responsibility” for the massacre. In fact that misunderstood statement only delimited who executed the victims and who stood back and allowed it to happen.
In a devastating passage, the writers made their meaning clear: “When we are dealing with the issue of indirect responsibility, it should also not be forgotten that the Jews in various lands of exile … suffered greatly by pogroms perpetrated by various hooligans … The Jewish public’s stand has always been that the responsibility for such deeds falls not only on those who rioted and committed the atrocities, but also on those who were responsible for safety and public order, who could have prevented the disturbances and did not fulfill their obligations in this respect.”
Ultimately, Sharon resigned after the report’s release, only to be elected two decades later as Israeli prime minister. However, what the UN report on Gaza, like the Kahan report, shows, is that even a simple document can rip away the veneer of false rectitude in wartime. We shouldn’t overstate things. While a more developed international architecture is in place than ever before to impose humanitarian laws and standards, future wars may be as brutal as they are today. What behavior does this impose on states?
Lebanese officials should be asking that question more urgently than others. A war with Israel may or may not happen in the coming years, but if there is one place in the Middle East where such a probability remains high, it’s Lebanon. The 2006 war brought about efforts by some groups to formally blame Israel for war crimes, just as the Israelis pointed out that Hizbullah’s targeting of civilians also constituted a violation of the laws of war. Both sides had a case, even though the burden in terms of victims tilted very much more the Lebanese way, with some 1,200 people, mostly noncombatants, killed and hundreds of thousands displaced. If the Lebanese ever discuss the UN report on Gaza, their first aim should be to determine how it can be used to limit the fallout in Lebanon in the event of a new conflict. With present and former Israeli officials promising that the country will pay an onerous price, there is a need to lay the groundwork internationally to make this more difficult. And such an effort must not only include governments, but public opinion. Beirut must also examine its options with respect to the International Criminal Court.
However, for the Lebanese case to have any real meaning, there must be a commitment from Lebanon’s side to avoid breaching the laws of war. The chances of Hizbullah respecting these are as slim as the Israelis doing so. But that doesn’t prevent the next Lebanese government from taking a clear position on the matter in its ministerial statement, to the effect that Lebanon’s right to defend itself will not preclude its respect for the Geneva Conventions and the protection of civilians. Hizbullah will resist this, since its ability to bombard Israeli population centers defines its brand of asymmetrical warfare. However, the party could find it difficult to oppose such a step if it were framed as a way of protecting the hundreds of thousands of Shiites who would suffer most from an Israeli onslaught.
The UN Gaza report may well be filed away like most other documents on wartime abuse. But it can be used imaginatively, particularly by Lebanon. To avoid becoming a victim also means to avoid victimizing others, and even if that rule is almost certain to break down in a new confrontation with Israel, doing nothing about this today is indefensible.
The members of the mission also called on Israel’s government and the Palestinian Authority (which, in reality, has no jurisdiction over Gaza) to conduct independent investigations within six months, otherwise the UN should take the matter to the International Criminal Court.
The debate over war crimes can be tiresome, shot through with self-righteousness and deceit. When Hamas, to defend itself, insists that its rockets during the Gaza war were primed to hit Israeli military positions, but because of their shoddiness veered off course to hit civilian targets, this is nonsense. From the start, the movement’s rocket arsenal served no purpose but to be a terror weapon against civilians. Attacking nonmilitary targets has long been a cornerstone of Hamas’ deterrence capability, as when it dispatched suicide bombers to Israeli cities.
By the same token, officials in Israel will intentionally miss the forest for the trees when defending their state’s military actions. Most Israeli war crimes, it seems, have some overriding justification. But anyone who has been on the receiving end of Israeli attacks knows that the targeting of civilians and of nonmilitary objectives is also a vital component of Israel’s deterrence strategy. Nothing, for example, could possibly validate Israel’s malicious firing of many thousands of rounds of cluster munitions into southern Lebanon in the final days of the 2006 war, except to make large swathes of the border area inaccessible to civilians.
The Gaza mission is but one in a long line of fact-finding missions investigating conflicts between Israel and the Arabs. Israel itself has examined its misdeeds on occasion, most significantly in the devastating Kahan commission report on the Sabra and Shatila massacre of September 1982. Much has been made of how the report stated that Israel’s then-defense minister, Ariel Sharon, bore “indirect responsibility” for the massacre. In fact that misunderstood statement only delimited who executed the victims and who stood back and allowed it to happen.
In a devastating passage, the writers made their meaning clear: “When we are dealing with the issue of indirect responsibility, it should also not be forgotten that the Jews in various lands of exile … suffered greatly by pogroms perpetrated by various hooligans … The Jewish public’s stand has always been that the responsibility for such deeds falls not only on those who rioted and committed the atrocities, but also on those who were responsible for safety and public order, who could have prevented the disturbances and did not fulfill their obligations in this respect.”
Ultimately, Sharon resigned after the report’s release, only to be elected two decades later as Israeli prime minister. However, what the UN report on Gaza, like the Kahan report, shows, is that even a simple document can rip away the veneer of false rectitude in wartime. We shouldn’t overstate things. While a more developed international architecture is in place than ever before to impose humanitarian laws and standards, future wars may be as brutal as they are today. What behavior does this impose on states?
Lebanese officials should be asking that question more urgently than others. A war with Israel may or may not happen in the coming years, but if there is one place in the Middle East where such a probability remains high, it’s Lebanon. The 2006 war brought about efforts by some groups to formally blame Israel for war crimes, just as the Israelis pointed out that Hizbullah’s targeting of civilians also constituted a violation of the laws of war. Both sides had a case, even though the burden in terms of victims tilted very much more the Lebanese way, with some 1,200 people, mostly noncombatants, killed and hundreds of thousands displaced. If the Lebanese ever discuss the UN report on Gaza, their first aim should be to determine how it can be used to limit the fallout in Lebanon in the event of a new conflict. With present and former Israeli officials promising that the country will pay an onerous price, there is a need to lay the groundwork internationally to make this more difficult. And such an effort must not only include governments, but public opinion. Beirut must also examine its options with respect to the International Criminal Court.
However, for the Lebanese case to have any real meaning, there must be a commitment from Lebanon’s side to avoid breaching the laws of war. The chances of Hizbullah respecting these are as slim as the Israelis doing so. But that doesn’t prevent the next Lebanese government from taking a clear position on the matter in its ministerial statement, to the effect that Lebanon’s right to defend itself will not preclude its respect for the Geneva Conventions and the protection of civilians. Hizbullah will resist this, since its ability to bombard Israeli population centers defines its brand of asymmetrical warfare. However, the party could find it difficult to oppose such a step if it were framed as a way of protecting the hundreds of thousands of Shiites who would suffer most from an Israeli onslaught.
The UN Gaza report may well be filed away like most other documents on wartime abuse. But it can be used imaginatively, particularly by Lebanon. To avoid becoming a victim also means to avoid victimizing others, and even if that rule is almost certain to break down in a new confrontation with Israel, doing nothing about this today is indefensible.
Thursday, September 10, 2009
As always: It's the Syrians, stupid!
So it’s as clear as a bomb explosion on St. Valentine’s Day: Lebanon’s government crisis is and always was about Syria and its yearning to regain the power over Lebanon that it lost in 2005. Prime Minister-elect Saad Hariri’s decision to present a cabinet lineup to President Michel Sleiman, by provoking an angry reaction from Syria’s allies, tore away the ambiguities surrounding the government formation process. The Syrians don’t want a government unless they can be seen as having blessed it themselves – which means Hariri must make a notable act of submission to Damascus. The Americans are telling Syria that its failure to facilitate a government will harm US-Syrian relations. And the Saudis have remained publicly quiet, but only because while they disagree with Syria over Lebanon, they appear to have an implicit understanding with President Bashar Assad in Iraq, where both countries, each for reasons of its own, seek to prevent stabilization of the country.
The latter detail may explain why Hariri himself did not press the cabinet issue very hard until this week. Perhaps he was hoping for a Saudi-Syrian breakthrough that would spare him headaches; or maybe he simply sought to avoid a Saudi-Syrian row, knowing Riyadh didn’t want one. Whatever the reason, to understand what is happening today we should watch closely what develops on the Saudi-Syrian front, and then see whether all the others involved in Lebanon accept it.
It was no coincidence that Walid Jumblatt sent Ghazi Aridi to Saudi Arabia on Monday to discuss Lebanon with Saudi officials. Nor was it surprising that the Parliament speaker, Nabih Berri, met with the kingdom’s ambassador in Beirut on Tuesday. Jumblatt has insisted, echoing Berri, that a solution to the deadlock requires concord between Syria and Saudi Arabia. The Druze leader was forced to backtrack on his “withdrawal” from March 14 last month, but hopes to reposition himself as a middleman, along with Berri, to facilitate a government. This means the two must channel and reconcile the Saudi and Syrian mood.
The situation in Iraq has complicated matters in Beirut. The Maliki government’s decision to confront Syria over its support for Al-Qaeda and for former Baath members violently undermining Iraqi normalization has made Syria more obstinate in Lebanon. Nor has this been alleviated by the fact that the United States, which initially (and mildly) advised a diplomatic resolution of the crisis between Baghdad and Damascus, is now gravitating toward greater criticism of the Syrian regime. The irony is that Iraq’s animosity toward Syria means the Saudis may be less eager to clash with Assad in Lebanon. The flip side of this is that it may facilitate a Syrian-Saudi arrangement over a new Lebanese government.
That’s what Jumblatt and Berri are wagering on. Jumblatt was much criticized for his turnaround against March 14. His reading of the situation at the time was that the Saudis, keen to firm up their reconciliation with Syria to better contain Iran, were willing to hand Assad much leeway in Lebanon; not what Syria held before 2005, but more than it had after its withdrawal. Jumblatt assumed that part of the arrangement would be Hariri’s ascent to Damascus, so the Druze leader calculated that to remain politically relevant, he had to make it there first, or at least show a deep change of heart toward Syria first.
Then something happened. Apparently the United States, with Egypt, blocked Hariri’s visit to Damascus before he became prime minister. The Saudis stepped back. A scheduled meeting between Assad and King Abdullah was cancelled, and when Jumblatt made his Beau Rivage speech the Saudis sent their information minister, Abdel-Aziz Khoja, to Beirut to bring the Druze leader back into line – mainly to avoid undercutting Hariri. However, judging from Jumblatt’s subsequent behavior, the Saudis never opposed his rapprochement with Syria, which Jumblatt has justified in the framework of improved Syrian-Saudi ties.
However, the new situation led to deadlock, exacerbated by inter-Lebanese discord. Aoun, sensing Syria’s displeasure, decided to take advantage of this by pushing for Gebran Bassil as a minister and demanding a “sovereign ministry.” Hizbullah, which had promised Hariri that it would mediate with Aoun once cabinet shares were apportioned, instead did nothing at all, respecting Syria’s desire to obstruct an accord. Nonetheless, the party probably prefers that a government be finalized soon, both to gain legal cover for its weapons and to create a situation more propitious for addressing financially the Salah Ezzedine fiasco, which depends on a functioning state being present. The question today, therefore, is what will the Saudis give Syria so it can sign off on a new government, and will the Americans, Iranians and Egyptians accept?
The Iranian role is more subtle. Iran and Hizbullah, not Syria, hold real power on the ground. Where Syrian interests have been protected in Lebanon, they have been protected by Hizbullah, so that Iran has gradually sidelined Syria as the main opposition sponsor. In the June elections the extent of Syrian weakness was obvious, though the Assad regime tried to use the Hizbullah-led opposition’s setbacks to regain the influence it lost to Iran after 2005. This it did by packaging its prospective Lebanese return as a case of curtailing Iranian influence. Little has come of this scheme because Syria is weak and Iran won’t surrender to Assad its Lebanese card.
All sides have an advantage in reaching a settlement at some stage over a new government. The Syrians don’t want an outright divorce with the Saudis and still hope to advance their dialogue with Washington; the Iranians need a new government in place to legitimize Hizbullah’s weapons at a crucial time in the nuclear standoff; and Saudi Arabia and Washington want to avert a conflict in Lebanon that might hinder their other regional priorities – most importantly inhibiting Iran and advancing regional peace talks. That means a government may come sooner than we think, but you would be right in keeping your wager low.
The latter detail may explain why Hariri himself did not press the cabinet issue very hard until this week. Perhaps he was hoping for a Saudi-Syrian breakthrough that would spare him headaches; or maybe he simply sought to avoid a Saudi-Syrian row, knowing Riyadh didn’t want one. Whatever the reason, to understand what is happening today we should watch closely what develops on the Saudi-Syrian front, and then see whether all the others involved in Lebanon accept it.
It was no coincidence that Walid Jumblatt sent Ghazi Aridi to Saudi Arabia on Monday to discuss Lebanon with Saudi officials. Nor was it surprising that the Parliament speaker, Nabih Berri, met with the kingdom’s ambassador in Beirut on Tuesday. Jumblatt has insisted, echoing Berri, that a solution to the deadlock requires concord between Syria and Saudi Arabia. The Druze leader was forced to backtrack on his “withdrawal” from March 14 last month, but hopes to reposition himself as a middleman, along with Berri, to facilitate a government. This means the two must channel and reconcile the Saudi and Syrian mood.
The situation in Iraq has complicated matters in Beirut. The Maliki government’s decision to confront Syria over its support for Al-Qaeda and for former Baath members violently undermining Iraqi normalization has made Syria more obstinate in Lebanon. Nor has this been alleviated by the fact that the United States, which initially (and mildly) advised a diplomatic resolution of the crisis between Baghdad and Damascus, is now gravitating toward greater criticism of the Syrian regime. The irony is that Iraq’s animosity toward Syria means the Saudis may be less eager to clash with Assad in Lebanon. The flip side of this is that it may facilitate a Syrian-Saudi arrangement over a new Lebanese government.
That’s what Jumblatt and Berri are wagering on. Jumblatt was much criticized for his turnaround against March 14. His reading of the situation at the time was that the Saudis, keen to firm up their reconciliation with Syria to better contain Iran, were willing to hand Assad much leeway in Lebanon; not what Syria held before 2005, but more than it had after its withdrawal. Jumblatt assumed that part of the arrangement would be Hariri’s ascent to Damascus, so the Druze leader calculated that to remain politically relevant, he had to make it there first, or at least show a deep change of heart toward Syria first.
Then something happened. Apparently the United States, with Egypt, blocked Hariri’s visit to Damascus before he became prime minister. The Saudis stepped back. A scheduled meeting between Assad and King Abdullah was cancelled, and when Jumblatt made his Beau Rivage speech the Saudis sent their information minister, Abdel-Aziz Khoja, to Beirut to bring the Druze leader back into line – mainly to avoid undercutting Hariri. However, judging from Jumblatt’s subsequent behavior, the Saudis never opposed his rapprochement with Syria, which Jumblatt has justified in the framework of improved Syrian-Saudi ties.
However, the new situation led to deadlock, exacerbated by inter-Lebanese discord. Aoun, sensing Syria’s displeasure, decided to take advantage of this by pushing for Gebran Bassil as a minister and demanding a “sovereign ministry.” Hizbullah, which had promised Hariri that it would mediate with Aoun once cabinet shares were apportioned, instead did nothing at all, respecting Syria’s desire to obstruct an accord. Nonetheless, the party probably prefers that a government be finalized soon, both to gain legal cover for its weapons and to create a situation more propitious for addressing financially the Salah Ezzedine fiasco, which depends on a functioning state being present. The question today, therefore, is what will the Saudis give Syria so it can sign off on a new government, and will the Americans, Iranians and Egyptians accept?
The Iranian role is more subtle. Iran and Hizbullah, not Syria, hold real power on the ground. Where Syrian interests have been protected in Lebanon, they have been protected by Hizbullah, so that Iran has gradually sidelined Syria as the main opposition sponsor. In the June elections the extent of Syrian weakness was obvious, though the Assad regime tried to use the Hizbullah-led opposition’s setbacks to regain the influence it lost to Iran after 2005. This it did by packaging its prospective Lebanese return as a case of curtailing Iranian influence. Little has come of this scheme because Syria is weak and Iran won’t surrender to Assad its Lebanese card.
All sides have an advantage in reaching a settlement at some stage over a new government. The Syrians don’t want an outright divorce with the Saudis and still hope to advance their dialogue with Washington; the Iranians need a new government in place to legitimize Hizbullah’s weapons at a crucial time in the nuclear standoff; and Saudi Arabia and Washington want to avert a conflict in Lebanon that might hinder their other regional priorities – most importantly inhibiting Iran and advancing regional peace talks. That means a government may come sooner than we think, but you would be right in keeping your wager low.
Thursday, September 3, 2009
Manipulation mars the Hariri tribunal
We’ve reached the point where we can assume that virtually everything currently being said about the Special Tribunal for Lebanon dealing with Rafik Hariri’s assassination is manipulation. That includes the statements last week by the former head of the General Security directorate, Jamil al-Sayyed, the former parliamentarian Nasser Kandil, the former minister Wi’am Wahhab, and various pro-Syrian Lebanese mouthpieces, not to mention Syria’s own foreign minister, Walid al-Moallem.
In his press conference on Sunday, Sayyed stated that Hariri had been killed three times: on the day of his assassination; when the four generals, including himself, were arrested; and when they were released. But it’s Syria and its followers who this year have tried three times to kill the Hariri tribunal: after the generals were released, when the opposition falsely described this as a declaration of innocence; when someone leaked selective information to Der Spiegel, which published a flawed account of the Hariri assassination suggesting it was mainly a Hizbullah operation; and this past week, when Syrian and pro-Syrian figures and media made a concerted effort to discredit the tribunal, declaring its work “politicized.”
The Syrians continue to concentrate their forces against the conclusions reached by Detlev Mehlis, the first commissioner of the United Nations team conducting the Hariri investigation. It’s not difficult to see why: Mehlis was the only one of the three commissioners who began cornering the culprits. Since then, neither of his successors, Serge Brammertz or Daniel Bellemare, has distanced himself from Mehlis’ broad findings. Had they done so, this would have been difficult to conceal even in their exceedingly terse reports. That is why a Syrian priority is to smear the German judge, even as Syria’s peons have now started biting at Bellemare, whom Wahhab affirmed is dying of cancer.
The misinformation surrounding the tribunal forced its spokeswoman, Radhia Achouri, to issue a statement last week saying that speculation about when the body would accuse suspects was unfounded. “There is no set deadline for an indictment,” she said, adding “but this does not at all mean that the prosecutor does not see a need to inform the Lebanese public on whether there is one or not.” It’s a pleasure to know that Bellemare will inform us of something, since we don’t even know what ailment he has been suffering from for the past two months, though some leaked information and an educated guess suggest it is not cancer.
For all the talk of indictments coming soon, Achouri made it indirectly clear that Bellemare just doesn’t have enough yet to accuse anyone. This may be obvious, however repeated enough times it sounds remarkable when we realize that the Hariri investigation began four years ago. A tribunal source admitted to me this past summer that the investigation was “a tough, tough one.” Did this mean there might in fact be no indictment at all? “Theoretically yes,” the person answered, “yet we are optimistic enough to think that this is not a likely scenario.”
However, the prosecutor continues to leave important questions unanswered. For example, Achouri has said that Bellemare no longer considers the so-called “crown witness,” Mohammad Zuheir al-Siddiq, of interest to his case. That’s a peculiar assertion. Recall that it was on the basis of Siddiq’s deposition, among other factors, that the four generals were arrested. Mehlis also felt he had enough to arrest Siddiq as a suspect. Therefore, does his now being off the hook mean the generals are innocent? Prosecution sources say no, that the generals may still be indicted, but that their release was necessary under by the tribunal’s rules. Had Bellemare kept them in preventive detention, he would have had 90 days to indict or declare them innocent. He did not have enough to indict, so he released them to avoid declaring them innocent.
But back to Siddiq. The prosecution today says that it no longer considers him a suspect or a witness. However, if he gave false testimony, there must have been a reason for this. He could have been planted to mislead or discredit investigators, which begs the question as to who put him in such a position. There are also legal implications for lying under oath. Yet the tribunal has simply decided that Siddiq isn’t of value to its work anymore, case closed. How is that remotely explainable or credible?
It is ambiguities like these that have allowed opponents of the tribunal to damage its credibility. Achouri has insisted several times that the tribunal is not “politicized.” Doubtless she’s right, but she’s also missing the point: What’s important is that it’s the others, those who want the tribunal to fail, who are playing politics – perpetually placing the institution on the defensive, seeking to tarnish its conclusions even before they come out. There is no sense being an ostrich on such matters. Punch the tribunal enough times and it will soon feel the pain – all the more so when it has no rejoinder in the way of solid evidence to indentify the guilty.
The continued, coordinated denunciations of the tribunal by Syria and its Lebanese partisans are further evidence of who was behind the killing of Rafik Hariri. There never was anyone else, and United Nations investigators reached that conclusion long ago, which worries Damascus. But what worries those who want to see justice done is something else: Is the Hariri tribunal actually moving closer to punishing the criminals?
In his press conference on Sunday, Sayyed stated that Hariri had been killed three times: on the day of his assassination; when the four generals, including himself, were arrested; and when they were released. But it’s Syria and its followers who this year have tried three times to kill the Hariri tribunal: after the generals were released, when the opposition falsely described this as a declaration of innocence; when someone leaked selective information to Der Spiegel, which published a flawed account of the Hariri assassination suggesting it was mainly a Hizbullah operation; and this past week, when Syrian and pro-Syrian figures and media made a concerted effort to discredit the tribunal, declaring its work “politicized.”
The Syrians continue to concentrate their forces against the conclusions reached by Detlev Mehlis, the first commissioner of the United Nations team conducting the Hariri investigation. It’s not difficult to see why: Mehlis was the only one of the three commissioners who began cornering the culprits. Since then, neither of his successors, Serge Brammertz or Daniel Bellemare, has distanced himself from Mehlis’ broad findings. Had they done so, this would have been difficult to conceal even in their exceedingly terse reports. That is why a Syrian priority is to smear the German judge, even as Syria’s peons have now started biting at Bellemare, whom Wahhab affirmed is dying of cancer.
The misinformation surrounding the tribunal forced its spokeswoman, Radhia Achouri, to issue a statement last week saying that speculation about when the body would accuse suspects was unfounded. “There is no set deadline for an indictment,” she said, adding “but this does not at all mean that the prosecutor does not see a need to inform the Lebanese public on whether there is one or not.” It’s a pleasure to know that Bellemare will inform us of something, since we don’t even know what ailment he has been suffering from for the past two months, though some leaked information and an educated guess suggest it is not cancer.
For all the talk of indictments coming soon, Achouri made it indirectly clear that Bellemare just doesn’t have enough yet to accuse anyone. This may be obvious, however repeated enough times it sounds remarkable when we realize that the Hariri investigation began four years ago. A tribunal source admitted to me this past summer that the investigation was “a tough, tough one.” Did this mean there might in fact be no indictment at all? “Theoretically yes,” the person answered, “yet we are optimistic enough to think that this is not a likely scenario.”
However, the prosecutor continues to leave important questions unanswered. For example, Achouri has said that Bellemare no longer considers the so-called “crown witness,” Mohammad Zuheir al-Siddiq, of interest to his case. That’s a peculiar assertion. Recall that it was on the basis of Siddiq’s deposition, among other factors, that the four generals were arrested. Mehlis also felt he had enough to arrest Siddiq as a suspect. Therefore, does his now being off the hook mean the generals are innocent? Prosecution sources say no, that the generals may still be indicted, but that their release was necessary under by the tribunal’s rules. Had Bellemare kept them in preventive detention, he would have had 90 days to indict or declare them innocent. He did not have enough to indict, so he released them to avoid declaring them innocent.
But back to Siddiq. The prosecution today says that it no longer considers him a suspect or a witness. However, if he gave false testimony, there must have been a reason for this. He could have been planted to mislead or discredit investigators, which begs the question as to who put him in such a position. There are also legal implications for lying under oath. Yet the tribunal has simply decided that Siddiq isn’t of value to its work anymore, case closed. How is that remotely explainable or credible?
It is ambiguities like these that have allowed opponents of the tribunal to damage its credibility. Achouri has insisted several times that the tribunal is not “politicized.” Doubtless she’s right, but she’s also missing the point: What’s important is that it’s the others, those who want the tribunal to fail, who are playing politics – perpetually placing the institution on the defensive, seeking to tarnish its conclusions even before they come out. There is no sense being an ostrich on such matters. Punch the tribunal enough times and it will soon feel the pain – all the more so when it has no rejoinder in the way of solid evidence to indentify the guilty.
The continued, coordinated denunciations of the tribunal by Syria and its Lebanese partisans are further evidence of who was behind the killing of Rafik Hariri. There never was anyone else, and United Nations investigators reached that conclusion long ago, which worries Damascus. But what worries those who want to see justice done is something else: Is the Hariri tribunal actually moving closer to punishing the criminals?
Thursday, August 27, 2009
Obama's Mideast vision: Confusion
There is great discomfort these days among those who backed Barack Obama’s “new” approach to the Middle East when he took office 10 months ago. That shouldn’t surprise us. Everything about the president’s shotgun approach to the region, his desire to overhaul all policies from the George W. Bush years simultaneously, without a cohesive strategy binding his actions together, was always going to let the believers down.
As the president’s accelerated pullout from Iraq begins to look increasingly ill-thought-out, as his engagement of Iran and Syria falters, as Arab-Israeli peace looks more elusive than ever, and as Americans express growing doubts about the war in Afghanistan, Obama is discovering that personal charisma is not enough to alter the realities of a Middle East that has whittled down better men than he.
For the US president, the clearest articulation of his approach to the region was his speech in Cairo last June. However, there was always more mood to that address than substance. The president put out a wish-list of American objectives, padded with reassurances and self-criticism, but there was no solid core to what he said – a discernible sense of the values and overriding political ambitions the United States was building toward. As Obama himself admitted, no single speech could answer all the complex questions the Middle East has tossed up. However, American behavior on the ground has made things no easier to understand, which is why regional uncertainties are turning to bite the administration in the leg.
For example, what is the policy in Iraq? In recent weeks, following the American military withdrawal from Iraqi cities, the upsurge in devastating suicide attacks has threatened to reverse years of efforts by Washington to stabilize the country. Ultimately, Obama’s priority can be summed up in one word, reflecting his psychological hesitation to commit to an enterprise that he associates, in a dangerously personalized way, with his predecessor. That word is “withdrawal,” and Obama described his Iraqi policy this way in Cairo: “Today, America has a dual responsibility: to help Iraq forge a better future – and to leave Iraq to Iraqis. I have made it clear to the Iraqi people that we pursue no bases, and no claim on their territory or resources. Iraq’s sovereignty is its own.”
Those were noble thoughts, but how do they square with other American concerns, such as the containment of Iran, the avoidance of sectarian conflict that might engulf the region, the stability of oil supplies, and much else? Obama feels that an America forever signaling its desire to go home will make things better by making America more likable. That’s not how the Middle East works. Politics abhor a vacuum, and as everyone sees how eager the US is to leave, the more they will try to fill the ensuing vacuum to their advantage, and the more intransigent they will be when Washington seeks political solutions to prepare its getaway. That explains the upsurge of bombings in Iraq lately, and it explains why the Taliban feel no need to surrender anything in Afghanistan.
Engagement of Iran and Syria has also come up short, though a breakthrough remains possible. However, there was always something counterintuitive in lowering the pressure on Iran in the hope that this would generate progress in finding a solution to its nuclear program. Engagement is not an end in itself, it is a means to an end among countless others. Where the Obama administration erred was in not seeing how dialogue would buy Iran more time to advance its nuclear projects, precisely what the Iranians wanted, while breaking the momentum of international efforts to force Tehran to concede something – for example temporary suspension of uranium enrichment. For Obama to rebuild such momentum today seems virtually impossible, when the US itself has made it abundantly clear that it believes war is a bad idea.
Attacking Iran is indeed a bad idea, but in the poker game he has been playing with Tehran, Obama didn’t need to show all of his cards. He’s virtually folded over Iraq, is stumbling in Afghanistan, and does not occupy himself very much with Lebanon, all places where the Iranians can and are hurting the Americans. By placing most of his chips on engagement, the president has failed to develop a more multifaceted strategy while relinquishing other forms of coercion that could have been effective in Washington’s bargaining with the Islamic Republic.
On Syria, the US has been more steadfast, particularly in trying to deny Damascus the means to reimpose its will in Lebanon. However, the Assad regime has shown no signs of breaking away from Iran, a major US incentive in re-engaging with the Syrians, even as it has facilitated suicide attacks in Iraq and encouraged Hamas’ intransigence in inter-Palestinian negotiations in Cairo. The Obama administration can, of course, take the passive view that Syria is entitled to destabilize its neighbors in order to enhance its leverage; or it can behave like a superpower and make the undermining of vital US interests very costly for Bashar Assad. But it certainly cannot defend its vital interests by adopting a passive approach.
With respect to the Palestinian-Israeli negotiations, Obama has taken Israel on over its settlements. It was about time, since the Bush administration’s permissiveness on settlement construction neutralized its own “road map”. However, there is more to Palestinian-Israeli peace than settlements. Obama is exerting considerable political capital to confront Israel, but it may be capital wasted at a moment when Hamas can still veto any breakthrough from the Palestinian side. In other words, Washington is working on a narrow front whereas its failure to weaken Hamas may render the whole enterprise meaningless. But how can the US weaken Hamas when improving relations with the movement’s main regional sponsors, Iran and Syria, remains a centerpiece of American efforts?
Barack Obama’s devotees may imagine that because he spent a few years abroad as a boy, he is well equipped to understand our complicated world. Perhaps he is, but his approach to the greater Middle East, shorn of the soaring rhetoric, has been artless and arrogant. The president is being tied up every which way by his foes, who can plainly see that the Obama vision is an unsystematic one. If ever the US has been close to achieving potentially terminal self-marginalization in the region, it is now.
As the president’s accelerated pullout from Iraq begins to look increasingly ill-thought-out, as his engagement of Iran and Syria falters, as Arab-Israeli peace looks more elusive than ever, and as Americans express growing doubts about the war in Afghanistan, Obama is discovering that personal charisma is not enough to alter the realities of a Middle East that has whittled down better men than he.
For the US president, the clearest articulation of his approach to the region was his speech in Cairo last June. However, there was always more mood to that address than substance. The president put out a wish-list of American objectives, padded with reassurances and self-criticism, but there was no solid core to what he said – a discernible sense of the values and overriding political ambitions the United States was building toward. As Obama himself admitted, no single speech could answer all the complex questions the Middle East has tossed up. However, American behavior on the ground has made things no easier to understand, which is why regional uncertainties are turning to bite the administration in the leg.
For example, what is the policy in Iraq? In recent weeks, following the American military withdrawal from Iraqi cities, the upsurge in devastating suicide attacks has threatened to reverse years of efforts by Washington to stabilize the country. Ultimately, Obama’s priority can be summed up in one word, reflecting his psychological hesitation to commit to an enterprise that he associates, in a dangerously personalized way, with his predecessor. That word is “withdrawal,” and Obama described his Iraqi policy this way in Cairo: “Today, America has a dual responsibility: to help Iraq forge a better future – and to leave Iraq to Iraqis. I have made it clear to the Iraqi people that we pursue no bases, and no claim on their territory or resources. Iraq’s sovereignty is its own.”
Those were noble thoughts, but how do they square with other American concerns, such as the containment of Iran, the avoidance of sectarian conflict that might engulf the region, the stability of oil supplies, and much else? Obama feels that an America forever signaling its desire to go home will make things better by making America more likable. That’s not how the Middle East works. Politics abhor a vacuum, and as everyone sees how eager the US is to leave, the more they will try to fill the ensuing vacuum to their advantage, and the more intransigent they will be when Washington seeks political solutions to prepare its getaway. That explains the upsurge of bombings in Iraq lately, and it explains why the Taliban feel no need to surrender anything in Afghanistan.
Engagement of Iran and Syria has also come up short, though a breakthrough remains possible. However, there was always something counterintuitive in lowering the pressure on Iran in the hope that this would generate progress in finding a solution to its nuclear program. Engagement is not an end in itself, it is a means to an end among countless others. Where the Obama administration erred was in not seeing how dialogue would buy Iran more time to advance its nuclear projects, precisely what the Iranians wanted, while breaking the momentum of international efforts to force Tehran to concede something – for example temporary suspension of uranium enrichment. For Obama to rebuild such momentum today seems virtually impossible, when the US itself has made it abundantly clear that it believes war is a bad idea.
Attacking Iran is indeed a bad idea, but in the poker game he has been playing with Tehran, Obama didn’t need to show all of his cards. He’s virtually folded over Iraq, is stumbling in Afghanistan, and does not occupy himself very much with Lebanon, all places where the Iranians can and are hurting the Americans. By placing most of his chips on engagement, the president has failed to develop a more multifaceted strategy while relinquishing other forms of coercion that could have been effective in Washington’s bargaining with the Islamic Republic.
On Syria, the US has been more steadfast, particularly in trying to deny Damascus the means to reimpose its will in Lebanon. However, the Assad regime has shown no signs of breaking away from Iran, a major US incentive in re-engaging with the Syrians, even as it has facilitated suicide attacks in Iraq and encouraged Hamas’ intransigence in inter-Palestinian negotiations in Cairo. The Obama administration can, of course, take the passive view that Syria is entitled to destabilize its neighbors in order to enhance its leverage; or it can behave like a superpower and make the undermining of vital US interests very costly for Bashar Assad. But it certainly cannot defend its vital interests by adopting a passive approach.
With respect to the Palestinian-Israeli negotiations, Obama has taken Israel on over its settlements. It was about time, since the Bush administration’s permissiveness on settlement construction neutralized its own “road map”. However, there is more to Palestinian-Israeli peace than settlements. Obama is exerting considerable political capital to confront Israel, but it may be capital wasted at a moment when Hamas can still veto any breakthrough from the Palestinian side. In other words, Washington is working on a narrow front whereas its failure to weaken Hamas may render the whole enterprise meaningless. But how can the US weaken Hamas when improving relations with the movement’s main regional sponsors, Iran and Syria, remains a centerpiece of American efforts?
Barack Obama’s devotees may imagine that because he spent a few years abroad as a boy, he is well equipped to understand our complicated world. Perhaps he is, but his approach to the greater Middle East, shorn of the soaring rhetoric, has been artless and arrogant. The president is being tied up every which way by his foes, who can plainly see that the Obama vision is an unsystematic one. If ever the US has been close to achieving potentially terminal self-marginalization in the region, it is now.
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