Birth Pangs

During the Israeli-Lebanese war this summer Secretary of State Condeleeza Rice famously (or infamously) described the war as the “birth pangs of the new Middle East”. It is hard to understand how an event that killed over 1000 Lebanese and Israelis and only succeeded in strengthening the position of Hezbollah, Hamas, Syria and Iran can be written off in this flippant statement. However, if we want to see “birth pangs of a new Middle East” a war with Iran will get that done. The Lebanese/Israeli war would be mild labor pains compared to the pain of a war with Iran. In addition to massive casualties, it is easy to envision $100 per barrel oil, $4.00 per gallon gasoline, a regional Middle East conflict and a worldwide recession or depression out of such a conflict. It appears, however, that such a conflict is still on the radar screen. An upcoming article in the New Yorker magazine describes debate among U.S. and Israeli government leaders of all political persuasions on how to justify such a war. (To see the complete article click here) In a recent Jordan Times op-ed piece, James Zogby, an Arab American businessman, discussed a conference held by the U.S. State Department with State Department and Arab American leaders. (To see the complete article click here) This conference was the first of its kind under the current administration. They were periodically held in this format under the Clinton administration, but the Bush administration changed them to Middle East conferences and only invited their friends. The purpose of the conference was to facilitate dialogue (some of it was heated) on U. S. Middle East policy and to encourage citizen diplomacy by Arab Americans to explain and sell U.S. policy in the Arab world. The overwhelming response that the State Department got was – you’ve got the cart way before the horse. First you have to have a policy that makes any sense at all to the Arab world before you have any chance of explaining and selling it. I don’t think that a policy of “preemptive attack” on Iran is one that I would want to try and sell.