[Originally published in the Valley News.]
Watching the Bush Administration purposefully avoid doing anything concrete about the Middle East gives any observer a very clear picture of what their policy is, at least for the moment. The United States is going to do nothing, because this is consistent with our policy in the Israel-Palestine conflict.
The Bush administration believes that democracy, which in America is viewed as just about the best existing system of governance and the one most consistent with our beliefs, is a commodity that can be exported like wheat or Coca Cola. And, of course, if they are right about this, the successful imposition of democracy on the Middle East would solve many of our problems there. Unfortunately, there are over a billion Muslims who do not share that belief. They hold their certainties just as tenaciously as we hold ours. Their belief system is focused on the Koran, an authoritarian scripture which makes our Bible look like an invitation to misbehavior.
Last year’s elections in Palestine and the growing political power of Hizballah in Lebanon demonstrate clearly that there are a lot of Arabs/Muslims who aren’t really interested in our democracy except insofar as it provides them with the mechanism to gain power themselves through free elections. Trying to understand why there are souls in the world who are disinterested in democracy is a futile endeavor. Suffice it to say that they have always existed and are growing in numbers, in some ways thanks to our policies in the Middle East, including our war in Iraq and our disinclination to become involved in Lebanon.
They see our invasion of Iraq as an arrogant American attempt to force democracy on them. They see our uninvolved posture in Lebanon as yet another American effort to support Israeli tactics in their struggles with Hizballah. Arabs in particular and Muslims in general see American policy in the Middle East as anti-Arab/Palestinian and Pro-Israel. One may see this as an unfair characterization, but it doesn’t really matter, because fair or not, true or not, that is their position and like it or not, that is the position we have to deal with.
The Bush Administration has chosen to ignore these realities. They have said they will not deal with Syria, Iran, Hamas or Hizballah – who are causing all this trouble. If they remain uninvolved, if there is no resolution of the one major issue that underlies this matter, there will be no peace for the Middle East, and as we already know from 9/11, Madrid and London, for the rest of the world.
The vast majority of Arabs in particular and Muslims in general, want to see a viable, independent Palestinian state living next to and at peace with Israel. Only a tiny minority seeks to “throw Israel into the sea” and if the Palestinians were ever to get their own state, that hostile minority would quickly be subdued by the majority. That is the only hope that exists for peace.
This approach does not abandon Israel. Quite the contrary, it would have to be preceded by iron-cast guarantees of Israeli security.
The problem today lies in Arab desires to destroy Israel and Israeli settlement policy on Palestine’s West Bank. This is a problem that Americans do not want to hear or discuss. Significant groups in Israel and the United States support not only Israeli settlement policy, but would like to see Israel expand into the old Biblical lands of Samaria and Judea. The numbers of Israelis supporting the settlement policy wax and wane with the level of Palestinian threat to their country. Right now, with Hizballah rocketing Northern Israel, the support is at its maximum. The wild card in the equation is America’s Evangelical Christian Right which believes that the second coming of Christ will not take place until Samaria and Judea have been reoccupied by Israel.
As long as radical dreamers on both sides can indulge their destructive fantasies – Arabs pushing Israelis into the sea and Israelis occupying Samaria and Judea – there will be war, hate and destruction.
These are extraordinarily difficult issues. We all wish they would go away. But they won’t. As long as there is no peace in Israel/Palestine, there will be no peace in Iraq, the Middle East or the world. Fair or not, America is viewed universally as the only country that has any hope of addressing this problem, and our current behavior in that area is daily diminishing our credibility and prospects as a peacemaker. This may be our last best chance to help. To try and fail would be far better than to sit back, do nothing and watch it burn.
Haviland Smith retired as a CIA Station Chief in 1980. He served in East and West Europe and the Middle East and as Chief of the Counterterrorism Staff. He lives in Williston, Vt.
