| With 70 per cent of the Arab population under 25 years of age, the Middle East needs peace in order to groom an educated open-minded generation of Arabs capable of leading domestically and competing internationally.
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Posted on 12/15/2002 11:25:50 AM PST by SJackson
The US should consider diplomacy as a first and last resort, writes Marwan Bishara*; Washington need only look to Europe to see the wisdom of this view
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A sweeping fatalism is gripping the Middle East as the spectre of war defies UN diplomacy. Washington's conservatives reckon if force doesn't work, more force will, and if things don't worsen they won't improve.
Pursuing this apocalyptic path can only lead to regional chaos and eventually bring down the curtains on an American era. The proponents of another Gulf War reckon it's time for a regional "shake up" among friends and foe alike. They are betting on the easy part -- a quick victory in the war -- but ignore the impossible task of winning the peace.
Putting out fire with fire could set the whole region aflame and, no doubt, the Arab democrats will be the first to burn. Today, a fragile democratic movement in the Arab world is torn between Washington, whose methods and goals they do not share, and a defiant radical Islam whose values they cannot bare. Adhering to the liberal democratic values that America preaches is increasingly labelled as treasonous. By falling in line with the Islamists, though, democrats would betray their own values.
In most Arab countries the political alternative is the non-democratic Islamists who have evolved into the most potent political force owing to oppression and underdevelopment. Because of political repression, many people have taken refuge in religion and have been manipulated by fanatics. In authoritarian Saudi Arabia, the alternative to the royal family is an Arabian Taliban.
With 70 per cent of the Arab population under 25 years of age, the Middle East needs peace in order to groom an educated open-minded generation of Arabs capable of leading domestically and competing internationally. War and conflict will only deepen hatred of the West among youth and further alienate them from democracy.
Democratic change in the Arab world is possible through social and economic reforms that are strengthened by participatory citizenship in an atmosphere of stability -- not war. Otherwise, a repeat of the 1990 Algerian elections, in which the Islamic Front's victory was met by an army crackdown, could lead to civil strife throughout the region.
War also has the potential to open the floodgates of ethnic/religious conflict. In Iraq, the Shi'ites who make up 60 per cent of the population expect to rule. But the Sunnis are unlikely to relinquish power peacefully after centuries of rule. As for the Kurds, anything short of autonomy bordering on statehood in the oil-rich north would be unacceptable. Federalism as a way out of the impasse could lead to the break-up of Iraq under Kurdish and Iranian pressures, which would mean redrawing the map for territory between Iran and Turkey.
Shaking up the ethnic balance in Iraq has the potential to spill over into neighbouring countries with precarious ethno- demographic balances of power. The aspirations held by a Syrian Sunni majority under Alawite minority rule, the Jordanian Palestinian majority under Hashemite rule, the Bahraini Shi'ite majority under a Sunni monarch could all be awakened by changes in Iraq. A similar fate, too, could befall Saudi Arabia, Lebanon and various North African countries.
In Israel/Palestine the threat of a widening war has been clearly spelled out by Israeli ministers: Some have explicitly threatened to transfer Palestinians outside their homeland as a way of dealing with growing Israeli insecurity. A repeat of the 1948 war could only initiate another century-long cycle of conflict.
For these and other reasons, Washington must reconsider its plans for embarking on a "preemptive" war when all indications are that its aftermath would be a disaster. Such advice is not only in the region's best interest, but also in Washington's interests.
The Bush administration's most obvious alternative at this juncture is to promote United Nations Security Council resolution 1441 as the beginning of a true diplomatic process rather than taking it as a green light for war. Diplomacy is most effective when it's seen as a strategic choice. The disdain among Washington's conservatives for UN diplomacy -- the "D word" -- stems not only from faulty reasoning, but also from a growing loss of identity. Once defined by its geo- strategic confrontation with the Soviet Union, Washington is increasingly defined by its geo-economic disadvantage vis a vis the European Union's rising star -- and that bloc will soon be 25 countries-strong.
According to Charles Kupchan, director of Europe Studies and a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, the end of Pax Americana is near. What will replace American supremacy, and how American leaders should prepare for this new era are the central questions of Kupchan's new book, The End of the American Era: US Foreign Policy and the Geopolitics of the Twenty-first Century. Kupchan reckons that the next challenge to America is fast emerging not from the Islamic world or an ascendant China, but from an integrating Europe, whose economy already rivals America's.
Washington's use of force has become the means by which to maintain its superpower status even though the 20th century has taught us that power is anything but restricted to military means. The 20th century is eyewitness to how the pseudo-academic Clausewitzian notion of embarking on war, as diplomacy by other means, has compromised rather than served the interests of states.
America could learn a thing or two from Israel's failures. In spite of its adherence to a doctrine of taking preemptive action and its experience in combating terrorism, Israeli casualties have been continually mounting in recent decades.
Ten times more Israelis are killed today in Palestinian attacks than were three decades ago. Worse, according to Israel's leading military historian Martin van Creveld, "If you are strong, and you are fighting the weak for any period of time, you will become weak yourself."
That's why American conservatives' criticism of European diplomacy is counterproductive. The Americans claim that European diplomacy is driven by weakness, while their own is power-based. If Washington continues to augment its military budget and embark on offensive wars while Europe, meanwhile, grows and prospers, the US has only to look forward to a future in which it is Europe's mercenary.
Turkey and Iraq are two important examples of the limitations of force and the effectiveness of geo-economic power. Motivated by the hollow promise of membership in the European community, Turkey's secular military came to accept the results of the most recent elections; its Islamist- like government, for its part, has vowed to respect and uphold the democratic rules of the game and all of Ankara's commitments to the international community. America's use of force could hardly show a similar achievement in Iraq or elsewhere in the region.
Fortunately, America is not only the biggest military spender, it's also an economic and cultural super-power. Its programme of expanding democracy and free market economics is best served not through preemptive wars, but rather through the prevention of crisis and the promotion of peaceful resolutions to conflict.
* The writer teaches at the American University in Paris and is the author of Palestine/Israel: Peace or Apartheid.
That "failure" is far better than extermination, which Israel's neighbors want and its doctrine has prevented.
The US should consider diplomacy as a first and last resort, writes Marwan Bishara*; Washington need only look to Europe to see the wisdom of this view.
Lets see, WWI, WWII, yep we should certainly look to Europe as to the efficacy of diplomacy only in resolving conflicts.
When someone is trying to kill you, negotiations are over.
It's certainly going to get very hot in the Middle East (and Pakistan and Indonesia), but it'll be Muslims sorting out among themselves the best way to protect their own futures.
A lot is going to change, and a lot of Islamists are going to die in that process.
The current status quo in the Middle East (and Islam) is intolerable to civilization.
They are right to be afraid.
| With 70 per cent of the Arab population under 25 years of age, the Middle East needs peace in order to groom an educated open-minded generation of Arabs capable of leading domestically and competing internationally.
|
Russo-Japanese War (ended by American Mediation)
Balkan conflicts and genocide (precursor to World War I)
Turkish massacre of Amenian Civilians
World War I-- which never was supposed to happen because of the strong trade relationships between England, Germany, Russia and others.
The Bolshevik Revolution brought on by European conniving to alternately keep Russia in the war and give Lenin a free pass to overthrow, not the Tsar, but the democratically inclinded government of Alexander Kerensky
Versailles and Reparations-- two factors which directly let to hyperinflation in Germany and the rise of Hitler.
Militarization of the Rhineland in direct violation of Versailles-- Europe does nothing.
"Peace in Our Time"-- the Munich accords in which a Tory Prime Minister signed away part of Czechslovakia. In all deference to Chamberlain, he had no support to do more from either England's allies or public. Within weeks, Hitler takes over the rest of Czechslovakia.
Less than a year later, Germany and the Soviet Union sign a deal to wipe Poland off the map, troops invade from either direction, England and France declare war but are militarily unprepared to do anything.
Same winter, Russia launches an aggressive war on Finland. Europe denounces the action but does nothing (after the war, they do award Russia even more of Finland).
With all due respect to the Brits who alone stand against Hitler from the Fall of France in 1940 until Russia's entry into the war in the summer of 1941, the course of the war does not change until the American barbarians come to the rescue.
Korea-- MacArthur turns the tables and starts kicking ass until the Europeans decide the war should be under United Nations command. The American President foolishly complies.
Belgian Congo-- Europe supports a post Colonial pro-Communist leader named Patrice Lumumba and decides to send troops to surpress a movement by a pro-America anti-Communist named Tshombe in the only peaceful, orderly province in the country-- Katanga. The United Nations complies.
Vietnam-- from the stalemate sown in Korea, the American Administration once again decides to bow to world opinion and let the United Nations dictate an armistice in Vietnam-- it ends exactly as Korea-- at least at first. The Americans keep their part of the bargain and withdraw. Within months of the completed withdrawal, North Vietnam overruns the south.
The 1980's turn out to be the first relatively quiet decade of the century due, in no small part, to an American president who pulls a couple of unilateral actions-- overthowing a CASTROITE in Greneda and bombing a Libyan leader out of the terrorist business. Europe is totally agast and unprepared when the iron curtain falls.
Then there are the 1990's-- a sucessful ejection of an Iraqi invasion of Kuwait is completed, but a regime change in Iraq is stopped short by United Nations declarations that we need to give sanctions a chance to work, and an American Administration all too willing to comply. We have another American intervention in Haiti to restore an overthrown Marxist leader who is supposed to be the answer to all their problems and in Bosnia and Kosovo because Euporean diplomacy can't manage a mess in their own backyard.
So, tell me, where are the shining examples of successful European diplomacy in the last 100 years?
Nice post.
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But this can only take place if they remain alive. If war in Iraq is averted, and the result turns out be an attack on the U.S. with biological or nuclear weapons, this "educated and open-minded generation of Arabs" will not live to see the following week. It is only when this principle is fully understood that Arab policy toward Iraq and terrorism can be formulated. This is not a game. We are not going to sit here and get murdered by shadowy figures who claim no state while "educated and open-minded Arabs" slip them dollars and recruits under the table. Right now we're on a collision course with genocide. If you try to make it us, we'll make sure it's you instead. Capice?