by James A. Russell
It’s hard not to cringe watching the United States careen around the Middle East these days, dispensing bombs, money and political fealty in various doses depending on the crisis of the day to a series of supposed allies that take turns slapping us around while demanding our protection.
These unseemly and contradictory scenes are emblematic of the crumbled bookends of America’s foreign policy in the Middle East that lies scattered around the regional landscape. It’s the rubble of a broken foreign policy paradigm conceived in an earlier era that has ceased its usefulness in the 21st century.
America’s Cold-War era regional foreign policy, which has seen us construct a series of partnerships in Cairo, Tel Aviv, Riyadh, Doha, Abu Dhabi and Islamabad, is no longer relevant to US and regional interests. Moreover, it’s difficult to conceive of a more unattractive group of states to align ourselves with—all of whom engage in behaviors that do not serve American interests and that are inconsistent with our values. It’s time to recast the Sunni-state plus Israel alliance that characterizes American foreign policy in the Middle East.
The busted bookends of our policy are slapping us in the face on a nearly daily basis. On the one hand, we had Bibi Netanyahu on one of his usual forays to the White House, openly dissing President Obama and even suggesting at one point that criticisms of Israel’s ongoing and continuous annexation of Palestinian territory were “un-American.” Thanks for the lecture, Bibi.
Never mind that the United States has implemented what amounts to an expensive social and military corporate welfare program to prop up a state, Israel, which by World Bank standards is among the wealthiest countries in the world. Who’s fooling who, exactly?
Next, we were treated to Vice President Joe Biden bowing down to Gulf State familial sheiks and apologizing to them for openly stating the obvious—that these repressive and autocratic monarchies have to varying degrees supported Sunni extremist groups battling the Iranian-backed Assad regime in the Syrian Civil War.
It’s hard to imagine that these erstwhile allies didn’t think they had American backing in Syria given our own 35-year undeclared war against Iran in which we have sold these states some of the most advanced defense equipment in the world—presumably to protect them from the Iranians.
Vice President Biden has had a long history of sticking his foot in his mouth. As someone that sat through many Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearings over the years, it was clear to everyone that he was/is not one of the deepest thinkers to come from the world’s greatest deliberative body.
Whatever his failings, however, Biden is the second in command of the world’s greatest democracy and the leader of the free world. It was unsettling to see him cap-in-hand before the very sheiks that we have been protecting for the last 35 years.
Never mind that the US has now taken it upon itself to start blasting away at the group that calls itself the Islamic State (ISIS or Daesh) in one of the most mysterious and ill-conceived imperial policing operations in recent US history—in part to protect the autocratic Middle Eastern monarchies that refuse to take any responsibility for their actions.
Last, but not least, we have Secretary of State John Kerry again ricocheting around the region, recently at a donor’s conference pledging $212 million to help “rebuild” Gaza, while simultaneously stating that the current status quo between America’s two client-state antagonists (Israel and the Palestinian Authority) is not sustainable.
There is something surreal about the idea of the United States offering to spend more taxpayer money to rebuild buildings that were destroyed by American-provided bombs and planes in the first place—bombs that will no doubt be freely replenished the next time Hamas and Israel decide to start blasting away at one another.
The reality is that all parties regard the status quo as completely sustainable, in part because they are supported by American money and, in Israel’s case, unlimited political support. America’s political leaders show no interest in placing any meaningful leverage on the parties. Absent any political will to pressure the parties—particularly Israel—it is manifestly unclear why any further money or effort should be expended in trying to solve this long-running dispute. Besides, we could use that $212 million at home to rebuild the dilapidated Lincoln tunnel or one of our many deteriorated highway bridges.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, the neoconservatives that got us into the Iraq war are desperately trying to undo a possible nuclear deal with Iran—presumably so we and/or the Israelis can start another war to preserve Israel’s nuclear monopoly in the Middle East. Never mind that such a deal creates the opportunity for the United States and Iran to begin cooperation on a host of regional issues in which we share important interests. Détente with Iran would be good for American strategic interests—stakes that far outweigh anything involved in the Arab-Israeli dispute or in our bombing raids in Iraq and Syria.
How did we get to this point? How is it that the United States is shoved around and made fun of like the poor village idiot by a collection of alleged allies that just keep on cashing our checks while making fun of us as soon as our back is turned?
In the end, of course, the joke is really on us. The fact is that the United States will continue to be embarrassed by supposed friends until it decides that it doesn’t want to be pushed around in front of the international community. That requires acknowledging that the two Cold War-era “twin pillar” alliances with the Sunni autocracies and Israel need to be recast. The contradictions in each of these partnerships have now become so incongruous that not even we can square the circle.
The idea of the United States now offering up money to clean up the mess created by the American-made bombs dropped by its Israeli client state aptly describes the depths to which the US has plunged. Gulf Sheiks embarrassing the US vice president provides just another layer of icing on a cake that has been in the oven for far too long. Israel lobbyists fanning out on Capitol Hill to torpedo a nuclear deal with Iran while Israel cashes our checks bespeaks an out of control ally that has lost all sense of decorum and proportion.
The contradictions of American regional policy that have seen us dispense billions of dollars in arms and money to ungrateful and ungracious allies in Cairo, Tel Aviv, Riyadh, Doha, Abu Dhabi and Islamabad while simultaneously protecting them can no longer be reconciled. It’s time for a paradigm change.
Instead, the United States should leave these countries to their own devices and their own quarrels. Most importantly, they should solve their own problems. Perhaps we might have better fortunes in the long run in building a more integrated and peaceful regional order with other states. Anything would be an improvement over what we have now.
Oh, and another thing—let’s stop turning the other cheek the next time one of our supposed allies starts swinging.
Photo: Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal escorts US Secretary of State John Kerry after he arrived in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, on November 3, 2013.
The ones not accepting the present borders are the zionists because their plan for a Greater or Eretz Israel stretches from the Nile to the Euphrates.
That is why they keep stoking up trouble and occupying Palestinian land.
Their national judaist beliefs – like national socialist beliefs before them – make it impossible for them ever to really desire peace or to be satisfied with reasonable land allocation.
They don’t just want some Palestinian land – they want it all.
You make an excellent point John, in more ways then just stealing land. Of course, anyone who dares argue with any of the matters given over to them, are out of step in their view, including those of us who wont be cowered by their constant rhetoric. Notice that there wasn’t any rebuttal to a few of the points/facts stated, just the same old tired retreads.
Like Jordan didn’t want it all, after 1948? It took, and annexed it all. Then it immediately expelled every last Jew from the areas west of the armistice line, and bull-dozed the synagogues of East Jerusalem. As Ben Gurion used to say, Jews will take a country the size of a table cloth. If Jews had taken the same approach then as Palestinians take today and have taken for 60 years, there would be no Israel. Palestinians don’t take Ben Gurion’s approach because the real conflict is not Palestinian-Israeli, but Arab-Israeli.
Before the most recent Gaza conflict, Israel offered Hamas the same ultimatum it gave before the prior conflicts. It was: Stop the missile attacks, or we are going to stop them, and if that happens, it will be unimaginably horrible for you. Hamas answered by continuing the attacks, and during Israel’s action, continued the attacks from urban areas, even though there are fields all over Gaza that are unoccupied.
Brutality in the cause of self-defense is never viewed the same way when other countries are involved. The USA killed 15,000 innocent French civilians in pre-invasion bombing prior to D-Day. Of course that was awful, but it was a necessary evil, because the USA was acting in self-defense (although, unlike Israel, we had never actually suffered an attack on our homeland by Nazi Germany).
Why in the world would Hamas make war on a neighbor that it knows is about 5,000 times more powerful militarily than it is? I think I know why, but the answer is too unpleasant and shocking and depressing. Bill Clinton holds the same opinion I do about the answer to this question.
Poster “John” doesn’t like the actions Israel undertakes to deter future acts of violence (and includes the outrageous lie that Israelis “invaded” the Temple Mount (or Noble Sanctuary) and “molested” Muslims there. This area is Judaism’s most holy site — kind of like Mecca is to Islam. But check out the videos available at MEMRI and other places. Jews walk peacefully into the area, and are verbally harassed for doing so. Muslims often visit the Western Wall, and suffer no such indignities). Stop the killing of Israeli children, and the celebration of these killings and this harassment would cease. Keep killing, keep getting harassed.
“John” thinks he is making points by telling exactly one side of a story; well, a half-truth is as good as a lie. Did he mention how the daughter of Hamas Ismail Haniya was treated at an Israeli hospital? This happened on October 19, the same day as the other events he described! This was weeks after Haniya led a crowd in Gaza in the song, “Strike a blow at Tel Aviv — whatever you build, we will destroy.” (Apparently he didn’t mean the Tel Aviv hospital where his daughter was being treated). When has any Palestinian done anything remotely similar for an Israeli? Israelis are nuts; they gain no good will by doing these things (thousand of Gazans are treated in Israeli hospitals). Of course “John” omits this; that is because he is not interested in truth, only in a certain narrative, which is that Israel is evil.
Say James, would I be amiss if I said that the present government in Israel doesn’t care what we think, that also, like the Palestinians, those who reside in the U.S. who don’t drink their brand of koolaid, can suffer the same effects as those in the West Bank/Gaza. Considering the B.S. Netanyahoo and his minions heap on “O”, unless this is all some sort of game being played out at the American expense, it sure seems so.
Where you make reference to Jordan, I am largely in agreement with you. In 1947, the then king of Jordan entered into a secret agreement with ben Gurion in order that Plan Dalit could be launched by the zionists without any realistic intervention by Jordanian forces – the only real potential armed resistance in the area to the Haganah of any consequence.
The Jordanians also occupied parts of historic British Mandate Palestine, just like the zionists.
Half the Palestinian population was expelled from Palestine through the ethnic cleansing actions of the zionists, while Jordan occupied large parts of the West Bank and Jerusalem.
What the Jordanian “authorities” then did – in terms of denying Jews access to the Wailing Wall and other places revered by the Jews – was wrong and utterly stupid, and obviously likely to create resentment among Jews world-wide. It laid the grounds for the 1967 invasion too.
It is widely accepted that the zionists assisted the creation of Hamas in order to undermine the role of Fatah and the PLO in uniting all the Palestinians. They reap what they have sown.
Like the US in Afghanistan. Iraq and Libya, the zionists are finding they have bitten off more than they can chew. They are both now suffering from very bad indigestion as a result.
Friends of mine who were worshipping at the Al Aqsa Mosque when I was in Jerusalem last year came under attack from black uniformed Israel Police, who attacked worshippers leaving the area with sticks and sound bombs. One elderly woman was beaten up by them when she protested against them assaulting a young-ish man. A group of young Turkish visitors were also being lined up for a mass assault until their group leader got them to wave small Turkish flags and call out “Turkie, Turkie”. This brought about an intervention from the local police commander who obviously realised his thugs were about to trigger an international event at a time when the zionists were trying to repair their relationship with Turkey after nine of their citizens had been murdered on the Mavi Marmara by zionist military murderers.
I provided you with examples of the kind of oppression which Palestinians experience at the hands of the thuggish zionist military and “settlers” on just one day. I could provide you with further examples for each and every day of every year over the last 47 years.
As a free-living individual, Harrison can have absolutely no idea as to what it means to have to live with that kind of day-to-day reality. He should count himself lucky not to have to do so.
Before he starts trying to lecture us on the situation in Palestine, I suggest he goes there himself and experiences the day-to-day reality of it, instead of being the armchair critic he is.