Rami Khouri has some excellent commentary today on the currently very evident contraction of US diplomatic power in the Middle East. He surveys the past week’s breakthroughs in intra-Lebanese reconciliation and Israeli-Syrian diplomacy– as I did here, on May 21.
Regarding the intra-Lebanese agreement, he wrote:
- The US was not fully defeated, but it was fought to a draw…
The US is a slow learner in the Middle East, where the terrain is strange to it, the body language bizarre, the fierce power of historical memory incomprehensible, and the negotiating techniques other-worldly. But the US is not stupid. It learns over time that if you retread a flat tire over and over again, and it keeps going flat on you, perhaps it’s time to buy a new tire if you hope to move forward. Now that we have a draw in the broad ideological confrontation throughout the Middle East that pits Israeli-Americanism against Arab Islamo-nationalism, we should expect the players to reconsider their policies if they wish to make new gains.
This, however, is not the most significant development this week that reflects the limits of American power in the Middle East. The remarkable manifestation of how the US has marginalized itself is the conduct of the Israeli government. The US has pushed the Israelis hard to do two things in the past two years: to not negotiate with Syria and to not engage Hamas. What has Israel done? It has been wisely negotiating with Syria via Turkey, and engaging Hamas on a truce deal through the mediation of Egypt. Hold on, Condi, this gets even worse.
It is no big deal in Washington when nearly 500 million Arabs, Iranians and Turks ignore and defy the US. But when Israel – the only democracy in the Middle East, America’s eternal ally, and the bastion of the epic modern struggle against fascism, totalitarianism, Nazism, communism and terrorism – ignores the United States, that is newsworthy.
So we now have a rare moment in the Middle East: Iran, Turkey, all the Arabs, Hizbullah, Hamas and Israel all share one and only one common trait: They routinely ignore the advice, and the occasional threats, they get from Washington. Condoleezza Rice was correct in summer 2006 when she said we are witnessing the birth pangs of a new Middle East. But the new regional configuration is very different from what she had in mind and tried to bring into being with multiple wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine, Somalia and Lebanon, and threats against Iran and Syria. The new rules of the political game in the Middle East are now being written by the key players in the Middle East, which should be welcomed.
Rami may, however, be a little too generous when he writes, “the US is not stupid. It learns over time.” Well, I guess it’s a question of over how much time the US government can “learn” what it needs to learn about the realities of the Middle East, and adjust its policies accordingly. As J. M. Keynes so memorably noted, “Over the long run, we’re all dead.”
So how steep can we expect the US government’s learning curve to be? Given the record of the past few years, I am not optimistic– unless the US public and government can both undergo a broad re-assessment of how they see the US’s relationship with the rest of the world, going forward.
Evidence about the slowness of the Middle East-related learning curve here is quite abundant… Back in 2002, just about everyone inside the US who knew much of anything about the strategic realities of the Middle East was warning vociferously that any kind of an essentially unilateral (i.e., not UN-sanctioned) US invasion of Iraq would end up as a disaster. All those voices of wisdom and understanding– which existed within various government bureaucracies and outside them– were systematically marginalized from having any impact, undercut through bureaucratic maneuverings and the wilful manufacturing of false “evidence”, and publicly derided.
Those of us who forecast that the invasion would be a medium- and long-term disaster were, however, right.
Some of us then argued that sufficient attention to running a “successful” post-invasion occupation could at least minimize the negatives arising from the decision to invade.
Due attention was not paid to that vitally important task. Instead, Iraq’s capacities for re-emerging self-governance were systematically ripped apart through Bremer’s wilfully destructive actions. (Bremer was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Wolfowitz got that plus the World Bank.)
Those of us who have argued for broad diplomatic re-engagement with Iran on a basis of mutual respect have been marginalized, undercut and publicly derided.
Those of us who argued against the strong support the Bushites gave Olmert’s disastrous assault against Lebanon in 2006 were marginalized, undercut, and derided.
Those of us who argued that the results of the 2006 elections in Palestine should be respected and the US should explore the many potential ways to deal with the elected government were marginalized, undercut, and derided.
Those of us have argued for robust and fair-minded US re-engagement in the remaining tracks of Israeli-Arab peacemaking have been marginalized, undercut, and derided.
Those of us who have argued that, given its track-record, the US is uniquely ill-suited to bringing internal reconciliation to Iraq, and that therefore it should request the UN to find a way to do so that will allow an orderly withdrawal of US forces from their expensive, vulnerable, and essentially dysfunctional positioning throughout Iraq have been marginalized, undercut, and derided.
Those of us who have argued that the US can and should find a way to include broadly supported popular movements like Hamas and Hizbullah into the diplomacy of the region rather than seeking to subvert and crush such movements have been marginalized and subjected to often withering waves of public derision…
So I’m not exactly holding my breath for “the US learning curve” suddenly to become steeper and to conform to the demands of our still-evolving present era any time soon. The Manichean mindset of “You’re either with us or against us”, the too-ready recourse to the rhetoric of a glibly anti-“terrorist” discourse that obfuscates rather than explains the realities of life in most Middle Eastern societies– these aspects of US public life are still far, far too prevalent.
But perhaps the fact that actors long considered stalwart supporters of the broad “GWOT” campaign in the region– actors like Ehud Olmert and Fouad Siniora– are now quite prepared to go off the GWOT reservation and to act in their own best interests as they perceive them, rather than as Elliott Abrams or other fevered minds in Washington might see them, might give us an opportunity, here in the United States, to start looking at the situation in a much more realistic way? Let’s hope so.
For the facts of the matter are:
- (1) the GWOT hasn’t “worked”, even in its own terms. Worldwide fatalities from terrorism in 2007 were 430 percent the level of fatalities from terrorism in that fateful year 2001– and that’s by the State Department’s own counting system; and
(2) the US has lost a considerable degree of the ability it once had to assemble and essentially control region-spanning coalitions of its own supporters throughout the Middle East.
Time for a broad conceptual re-tool, I think.
Meanwhile, we can have some fun speculating which of Condi Rice or George W. Bush might turn to the other in the weeks ahead and confess to the truth: “Honey, I shrunk the superpower.”
“Right” on Helena.
“Those of us… (in short, who dared to stand up to this and that manifestation of neoconservativism) were “marginalized, undercut, and derided.”
Time for creative and articulate voices to keep standing…. and aim high to liberate and take back Washington, the media, the inside the beltway think-tanks…. where independent voices were bought out, and “marginalized, undercut, and derided.”
Time for creative and articulate voices to keep standing…. and aim high to liberate and take back Washington,
This hot air words.
It’s not easy as you think, some one he can’t influence or make changes and on his own Son mind to run to be part of “neoconservativism” project, how about normal American public? Its very hard isn’t?
How about some kudos to Senator Kerry-Why not a HAT-TIP to him? Imagine if he were President!
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/23/AR2008052302170.html?hpid=opinionsbox1&sub=AR
DeLauro Fights
If you like to to liberate and take back Washington, start using your laws to bring those recruited retired generals to the court punish them.
After more than five years lets start in the right direction to liberate and take back Washington, can you do that?
Imbalances of Power
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
I think Ramy is too generous not only to the US regime (who are indeed stupid, and did indeed lose rather than draw in this round)but also to Israel. I don’t buy the line that the US ‘told” Israel not to engage with either Hamas or Syria. The Israelis are not known for meekly obeying orders from Washington, and had good reasons (from their own perspective) for not negotiating with either.
From: “Daniel E. Teodoru”
List Editor: Andre Kahlmeyer
Editor’s Subject: The “mushroom cloud.” it turns out was a knowing lie! (Teodoru)
Author’s Subject: The “mushroom cloud.” it turns out was a knowing lie! (Teodoru)
Date Written: Mon, 26 May 2008 07:34:29 +0200
Date Posted: Mon, 26 May 2008 07:34:29 +0200
Sent: Sun, 25 May 2008 16:49:42 -0700 (PDT)
On May 14, 2008, on the Charlie Rose Show, Sir Jeremie
Greenstock, Blair’s Special British Representative to
Iraq told the world what the French Foreign Minister
privately said back in the days of the “mushroom
cloud” allegory: BUSH IS A LIAR when he says that all
the Western world’s intelligence services believed
that Saddam Hussein was building a nuclear bomb.
President Chirac of France was the only European
leader with the courage to say “no” to Bush. Now, five
years after, a British official admits that they knew
the truth all along. Remember what the DOWNING STREET
MEMOS said about the intel being “fixed” around an
attack. After you read this portion from the
interview, you will have no doubt what “fix” meant. It
was one lie after another, covering the previous lies,
and so on. Think about this on Memorial Day when we
remember the sacrifice of all the moms and dads,
patriots who died in Iraq believing Bush and the
neocons:
[begin quote]
CHARLIE ROSE: What do you think would have happened if
there had not been an invasion of Iraq?
JEREMY GREENSTOCK: I think that the sanctions regime
around Iraq would have broken down, that Saddam
Hussein was learning to smuggle some quite dangerous
materials into his regime. He was building missiles
with engines from Russia that he got through the black
market, capable of striking Israel. I think Iraq would
have been quite a menace, but they would have shown
with time that they did not have biological or
chemical weapons.
CHARLIE ROSE: Or nuclear?
JEREMY GREENSTOCK: We knew they didn`t have nuclear.
That wasn`t…
CHARLIE ROSE: We didn`t know it then.
JEREMY GREENSTOCK: Yes, we did know it in 2003.
CHARLIE ROSE: We did?
JEREMY GREENSTOCK: Yes.
CHARLIE ROSE: Really?
JEREMY GREENSTOCK: As I told you before, Charlie, we
didn`t have any doubts about that. And if the American
people were misled on that score, they were misled.
CHARLIE ROSE: Wait a minute. I know you have said
this, but I mean, there was no question at the time of
the American invasion in your mind and in the British
government`s mind and in Tony Blair`s mind that they
had no nuclear capability?
JEREMY GREENSTOCK: No question at all. We knew that.
CHARLIE ROSE: Is that what Tony Blair says?
JEREMY GREENSTOCK: Yes.
CHARLIE ROSE: He says absolutely we did not go to war
about nuclear?
JEREMY GREENSTOCK: Correct. We knew it in 1998, when I
first came to the United Nations. The nuclear file was
on the point of being closed by the U.N. inspectors
with the agreement of the Security Council, except
that Iraq had not passed a parliamentary resolution
forbidding any meddling with nuclear materials in
Iraq. That was a demand of the U.N. resolutions. The
rest of it we knew was cleared out, was old hat, was
dead.
CHARLIE ROSE: So if you knew it, then your best ally
had to know it.
JEREMY GREENSTOCK: Yes.
CHARLIE ROSE: But did they act like they knew it?
JEREMY GREENSTOCK: They acted as though they thought
he would try and reconstitute it, but we knew he
didn`t have the materials to reconstitute it. He
wanted to reconstitute it, but he didn`t have the
capacity to do that, and we would have spotted
anything that moved on the nuclear front, because he
was well covered. But biological and chemical
materials are much smaller, are much easier to hide.
CHARLIE ROSE: Right.
JEREMY GREENSTOCK: We had big doubts about that.
CHARLIE ROSE: War without consequences.
Tell me what you — when you look at this now, having
time to write this essay and see what other people are
writing, and talk to a lot of people, and the value of
distance and 20/20 hindsight, what should we have
known, what didn`t we know? What are the consequences
for this? And is there any possibility, as the Bush
administration believes, that history will be kind to
them?
JEREMY GREENSTOCK: Well, Iraq needs time to become a
stable, decent place. We took our own decades, if not
centuries in the case of the United Kingdom, to reach
a stable democracy. We had our civil wars.
We are trying to get Iraq through this in a few years`
time rather than a few centuries. We hurried a process
that wasn`t ready to go this fast. So history might be
kind in 25 years` time, but it`s not going to be kind
as long as the violence lasts.
We`ve made Iraq a horrible place to live. And a lot of
Iraqis are saying that they preferred it under Saddam
Hussein. Well, that`s a bitter thing to say, because
they hated it under Saddam Hussein.
But some bad calculations were made. There was —
Charlie, there was tremendous wisdom in the American
system that was not used in the analysis, in the State
Department, in the CIA, of course, but also in the
think tanks and the Arab specialists that you have in
this country.
CHARLIE ROSE: OK. Tell me what that wisdom was and who
it was.
JEREMY GREENSTOCK: Well, it started with the secretary
of state, Colin Powell, who as Bob Woodward has told
us, said to the president, “You break it, you fix it.
This is going to be a difficult country…
CHARLIE ROSE: But he never said to the president,
don`t do it.
JEREMY GREENSTOCK: No. That was the president`s
decision.
CHARLIE ROSE: Yes. Don`t you depend on your people to
advise you? I mean, did you ever say to Tony Blair, “I
think this a bad idea”?
JEREMY GREENSTOCK: I said that going to war without a
smoking gun, without proof of WMD, was an unwise thing
to do, but that was done privately.
CHARLIE ROSE: OK. But Colin Powell could have done it
privately. Are you saying, you know, if he didn`t do
it privately, do you think he believed it?
I mean, it`s one thing to say, “If you break it you
own it,” Pottery Barn idea first coined by Tom
Friedman. But it`s another thing to not go to the
president and say, look, decide whether you are going
to do this or not. If you do it, I want you to know
here are the consequences. On the other hand, if you
do it I am with you.
JEREMY GREENSTOCK: Yes.
CHARLIE ROSE: Is that essentially what you said to
Tony Blair?
JEREMY GREENSTOCK: I wasn`t his advisor.
(CROSSTALK)
CHARLIE ROSE: He never asked you? He never said, what
do you think of our policy? You`re there, our guy in
the U.N., where all of the resolutions are being
brought on.
JEREMY GREENSTOCK: I told him what the circumstances
were at the U.N. and how we ought to perhaps go to the
U.N. But it wasn`t my job to advise him in London, but
I felt deeply uneasy about this timing, this kind of
attack.
CHARLIE ROSE: And you communicated that to Tony Blair?
JEREMY GREENSTOCK: Not directly, because I wasn`t in
his room when he was discussing this.
CHARLIE ROSE: But you communicated it to the foreign
minister?
JEREMY GREENSTOCK: I can`t recall exactly what I said
at any one time.
CHARLIE ROSE: But they knew?
JEREMY GREENSTOCK: They knew we were uneasy about it.
We believed there were WMD there. We knew that he was
contravening U.N. resolutions. No, we were government
servants as Colin Powell was a government servant.
CHARLIE ROSE: Is there anything — you have written a
book and you have not published it, because there was
some request or imperative that the government did not
want you to say certain things, correct?
JEREMY GREENSTOCK: I withdrew I it myself, because it
was going to be quite difficult to clear in the way
that I wanted to write it. But I withdrew it…
CHARLIE ROSE: So if you can`t clear it, meaning they
are stopping you from saying what you wanted to say?
JEREMY GREENSTOCK: I was asked not to do it on that
timing.
CHARLIE ROSE: And what is it you wanted to say?
JEREMY GREENSTOCK: I wasn`t writing a judgmental book,
Charlie. I was just offering something to the
historians about what happened at the U.N., because
the media weren`t interpreting everything in the way
that it went.
CHARLIE ROSE: Right.
JEREMY GREENSTOCK: I was offering something about how
it happened in Baghdad, in the administration under
Ambassador Paul Bremer. Just a firsthand view from the
British side about what it was like to get involved in
this extremely complex exercise.
I wanted to write something about the U.N. that taught
people a little through a real story of how the
Security Council worked, what happened in the
corridors, what happened, to some extent, in the
restricted discussions, to the extent…
(CROSSTALK)
CHARLIE ROSE: So what are they worried about? That
sounds like a good story to me.
JEREMY GREENSTOCK: I don`t think that the prime
minister or Number 10 ever had any particular problems
about what I was writing, but just bringing Iraq, the
name up, bringing it into the headlines for a few
days, was uncomfortable.
CHARLIE ROSE: The prime minister is gone.
JEREMY GREENSTOCK: Yes.
CHARLIE ROSE: How about now? How about publishing the
book now?
JEREMY GREENSTOCK: Well, I will come around to it.
I`ve lost — you know, the steam has gone out of it.
CHARLIE ROSE: Has it really? Yes, that`s an
interesting point. But you can tell me, so it`s as
good as publishing a book.
(LAUGHTER)
JEREMY GREENSTOCK: Well, we`ve had 10 conversations
lately.
CHARLIE ROSE: That`s exactly right.
JEREMY GREENSTOCK: I`ve been telling you now.
CHARLIE ROSE: I know, you have. And even more today,
by the way. I mean, I get it the first time, but
eventually we understand.
What do you thing the legacy is today of Iraq? And
where do we go from here? One, the legacy, and B,
where do we go from here?
JEREMY GREENSTOCK: Well, one of the legacies is for
the United Kingdom to understand — and I hope the
United States to understand, but that`s the job of the
American people — that the legitimacy, acting
legitimately with the approval of at least some
members of the international community these days, is
actually part of the power that you exercise. And if
you don`t act seemingly legitimately, some of that
power is taken away. Nobody can do big things in
today`s world without allies. Not even the
superpowers.
[end quote]
I saw this on TV and don’t understand why the US media
is not making an issue of it!
Daniel E. Teodoru