CHICAGO — This past week has been filled with intriguing diplomatic activity in the Middle East in the form of American and British contacts with the three principal parties that Washington and London see as trouble-makers and bad guys, namely Iran, Syria and the Hamas half of the Palestinian coalition government. It is not yet possible to draw firm conclusions about the consequences of the past week’s contacts on the basis of the scanty available evidence, but some fascinating options seem to be in the air now that were not so plausible last week. The implications for American policy in the Middle East are particularly important.
The three principal contacts that occurred last week were the British-Iranian exchanges that led to the release of the 15 British sailors the Iranians had captured in the Gulf; a British diplomat’s meeting with the Palestinian Prime Minister from Hamas to seek the release of the abducted BBC correspondent in Gaza; and US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s talks with the Syrian leadership in Damascus. Also, in the same vein of diplomatic novelty where stern rigidity had once reigned, the US State Department declared that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice did not rule out holding bilateral meetings with Iranian officials at the next meeting of Iraq’s neighbors in Turkey later this month.
I have followed these events from two fascinating places in the United States — the Harris School of Public Policy at the University of Chicago, where I have been lecturing, and the US Army War College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, where I attended an international conference on strategic threats around the world. In discussions with Middle East experts, scholars, foreign policy specialists, ex-officials and others who follow strategic threat issues around the world, it seems that the policy elite in the United States is in the midst of serious self-analysis and reassessment.
Behind the bravado and exaggerated confidence of President George W. Bush, many Americans who follow foreign policy issues exhibit a string of telling sentiments. They are aware of and uncomfortable with the isolated position the United States has worked itself into throughout the world. They are irritated and often angered by the constant criticism of US foreign policy they hear from most parts of the world. They are totally lost and clueless about what to do in Iraq, now that their government has brought that country and the entire Middle East to the brink of catastrophe, anchored in sectarian warfare. And, most importantly, they are debating very intensely the possible options and alternatives to the current hard-line American policy towards Iran, Syria, Hamas, Hizbullah and others who line up with them in defying and challenging Washington.
Last week’s events, coming so soon after high-level Saudi-Iranian meetings and flatfooted Arab and Israeli calls for renewed peace-making, hold out the simple prospect that talking with your foes, antagonists and nemeses is not only a real option, but also could be a productive one that is mutually beneficial. The release of the British sailors by Iran was a welcomed end to that episode, which was primarily a consequence of relying more on diplomacy and direct contacts than boycotts or military threats and maneuvers. The happy ending is important, but the process that led to it is also significant.
Iran is the most extreme example of the new attitude to the United States and the United Kingdom that has spread to many quarters of the Middle East in the past few years, especially since the Anglo-American attack on Iraq. It is characterized by a combination of defiance and resistance, anchored in an explicit, if slightly reckless, fearlessness that also is projected towards Israel. Many in the West characterize this as madness, irrationality, or incomprehensible extremism or fanaticism. Many in the Middle East, on the other hand, point out the limited options the US and UK have at hand to force a change in the policies of defiant Middle Eastern states or militant organizations.
The key question is, how should Western countries respond to this sort of behavior? A serious debate is underway in the United States about this point, reflecting primarily the perceived dangerous situation that Washington has created for itself and for the Middle East through its Iraq adventure. The Bush administration is not totally blind to this fact. It is not making any dramatic changes in its foreign policy, but it does appear to recognize that some adjustments and symbolic or logistical shifts must occur in what had heretofore been a rigid and aggressive foreign policy. This is due both to domestic politics and foreign policy consequences. Staying the course, for Washington these days, is a recipe for certain foreign policy catastrophe, and political exile for the Republican Party.
Rami G. Khouri is an internationally syndicated columnist, the director of the Issam Fares Institute at the American University of Beirut, editor-at-large of the Beirut-based Daily Star, and co-laureate of the 2006 Pax Christi International Peace Award.
Copyright ©2007 Rami G. Khouri / Agence Global
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Released: 09 April 2007
Word Count: 784
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