What rubbish. The United States is now bogged down, Israel is under threat, Lebanon is collapsing, Iraq is on the verge of civil war and Iran is fanning the flames across the region while pursuing its nuclear policy and calling for Israel to be wiped off the map. And in those unfortunate places where elections have indeed been held, Islamists swept the ballots, surfing on popular resentment against America, Israel and the West.
One ponders the reasons for such a total mess. In the Middle East, at least, President George W. Bush has indeed accomplished what he promised–a clean break with the policies of his predecessors. After 9/11, the Decider concluded there was precious little to be negotiated in a part of the world that was the cradle of terrorism. Only shock and awe could accomplish anything and restore the credibility and global standing of a wounded superpower. Today, precious little remains of either.
The Iraqi quagmire is only Exhibit A. Washington has lost much (if not most) of its leverage in alienated Arab capitals–chiefly because neither Arab leaders nor populations at large see any longer the faintest sign of American evenhandedness. Since coming to power, the Bush administration has jettisoned the traditional U.S. role of (relatively) honest broker. It has become partisan, deaf to Arab views. It refuses almost completely to mitigate Israeli excesses, while the region slips further into chaos.
A delusional machismo still grips Washington. Taking office, top Bush officials treated the Middle East as their hero of yesteryear, Ronald Reagan, dealt with the former Soviet Union–hard-line, uncompromising, militant. Yes, the U.S.S.R. collapsed, but along the way Reagan discovered the virtues of dialogue and partnership with Mikhail Gorbachev. That hasn’t happened today, in Iraq or elsewhere. Instead, America cleaves to the style of unilateralism that got it into such trouble in the first place.
Remember the giant Saddam statue pulled down in central Baghdad by a U.S. Army tank, recalling the toppling of similar statues of Stalin and Lenin? It signaled the welcome end of a bloodthirsty dictatorship–but not the beginning of democracy, or even a viable society, as in Eastern Europe or Russia. Why? Baghdad is no Berlin, first of all. There is no centralized power structure in the Middle East, the breakdown of which would allow for civil society to flourish among its ruins. Rather than seeking to co-opt Iraq’s Sunnis after the invasion, Washington mounted an intense de-Baathification effort. But with a strong constituency and networks reaching out to powerful tribes extending into the Levant and the Arabian Peninsula, the Sunnis were uncowed and launched their now nightmarish insurgency. Had the United States been more sensitive to their interests from the outset, the situation on the ground might today be different.
A similar unilateralism characterizes Israel’s policy, and by extension America’s. In retribution for the Al Aqsa inti-fada, Ariel Sharon all but destroyed the Palestinian Authority–with the Bush administration’s blessing. He built a wall, withdrew from Gaza and expected the Palestinians to accept what was given. As a result, a weakened Mahmoud Abbas could obtain no political credit. By contrast, the militant Hamas did, claiming Israel’s retreat was the product of its suicide attacks. Thus the Palestinian elections that might have brought to power a peaceful civil society became a Hamas victory–precipitating yet another round of U.S.-Israeli unilateralism.
The new Hamas government has been ostracized, politically and financially, as have Palestinians in general. The ethics might have been sound, but the political cost has proved disastrous: a cornered Hamas first abducted an Israeli soldier, to be followed by Israel’s attack on Gaza, the arrest of Hamas cabinet ministers and M.P.s, Hizbullah’s abduction of two more soldiers and now the havoc we have today. Unilateralism has shattered the Middle East, and yet every turn in the crisis brings more of the same. The casualty of every war is truth. Here, that truth is that there can be no peace without partners to build it.
