A Wave of Change in the Middle East

As the Middle East, literally, goes up in flames the Obama administration is struggling with how to react to the inevitable outcome of decades of failed Middle East policies. Nowhere was this struggle more evident than during an embarrassing performance by VP Joe Biden throughout an interview on the PBS Newshour. (The whole interview is here) The normally voluble Biden, who rarely has his brain engaged when he opens his mouth, was parsing every word and trying his best not to say anything quotable. This effort failed when he declared that Hosni Mubarak, who, with US backing, has ruled Egypt as the sole center of power for over 30 years, was not a dictator.

The demonstrations against undemocratic authoritarian regimes, that have been propped up by billions of dollars of US aid have spread across North Africa and the Middle East. Starting in Tunisia, the uprisings have spread to Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Palestine and Yemen. The decades long policy of supporting these unpopular regimes as a buffer against resistance groups who oppose US/Israeli dominance in the region and as an ally in the “global war on terror”, has made the US extremely unpopular with the man on the street. 85% of respondents to a recent poll had an unfavorable or very unfavorable view of the US and over 60% see US policy toward Israel/Palestine as the most disappointing.

It is, therefore, inevitable that any representative government in the region is going to oppose US policy of unquestioned support for Israel. Egypt and Jordan are the key players here as they have peace treaties with Israel and have aided the US/Israel blockade of Gaza and occupation of the West Bank. If the current regimes are replaced by representative governments, this game is over. Trying to defend the indefensible is recipe for disaster for US strategic interests in the region.

It is long past time for the US to seek new approaches and new partners. The US needs to listen to Turkey with its policy of “zero problems with its neighbors”, reverse its policy of confrontation with Iran and engage with non-state players like Hamas and Hezbollah. Creative, out of the box thinking is required by administration officials. Unfortunately, long careers inside the beltway are not conducive to this kind of thinking. We will probably defend these regimes to the bitter end, just as we did with the Shah of Iran, with similar outcomes.

Technorati Tags: Middle East,Egypt,Biden

A US Foreign Policy Success?

As the referendum on the separation of South Sudan from the north appears to be reaching a relatively peaceful conclusion after years of unrest and civil war, we may be witnessing a rare US foreign policy success. The conflict between the central government of Sudan and the tribal regions in the south and west is long standing and dates to British colonial rule. The British colonial authorities concentrated power in Khartoum and disadvantaged the outlying areas. This pattern continued after independence.

Shortly after taking office in 2009, President Obama appointed, with much fanfare, a number of “special envoys” with responsibility for managing specific foreign policy issues. These included the late Richard Holbrooke in Afghanistan and Pakistan, George Mitchell in Israel/Palestine and Dennis Ross in Iran. Without much fanfare he also appointed General J. Scott Gratian as special envoy to Sudan.

At the time, some of us asked the question, what circumstances and qualities need to be in place for a special envoy to be successful? I concluded that in order to have any possibility of success there needs to be the right situation, the right envoy and support at the top. None of these were in place for Holbrooke, Mitchell and Ross. However, in the case of General Gratian we had a low key envoy who was willing to work with all parties to find a solution. The situation in Sudan was relatively isolated from outside influences and General Gratian appears to have had the support of both Secretary of State Clinton and President Obama.

As Gratian and his fellow diplomats assigned to this issue, Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Johnnie Carson and special envoy Princeton Lyman, worked to forge compromises among the Sudanese and to persuade the influential Chinese that it was in their interest to have a peaceful and stable outcome, Clinton and Obama had his back. This allowed him to fend off attacks by UN Ambassador Susan Rice and the Save Darfur activists who seemed to want to blow up the whole deal by attacking Sudan.

While there seems to be good will emerging on all sides, a peaceful outcome is clearly not a done deal. The Abyei border region between north and south is a volatile mixture of oil, long standing tribal animosities and nomadic versus settled lifestyle. Finding a peaceful, workable solution in an area in which everybody has a weapon will be a difficult task. If Gratian and his team can accomplish this, I would nominate them for the Nobel Prize. As opposed to most recent prize winners, they will have actually accomplished something for the cause of peace.

Technorati Tags: Sudan

Have we been “snookered”.

As I began to read the recently released book, Washington Rules – America’s Path to Permanent War, I became immediately engaged. The author Andrew Bacevich, a retired US Army Colonel and professor of history and international relations at Boston University, had taken the same journey of discovery that I had taken. Although his journey started in a different place and at a different time we ended up at the same destination.

We both can define specifically when this journey began. Professor Bacevich started his journey in 1990 when, as an active duty Army officer, he visited the German Democratic Republic and observed a Soviet military exercise. He noted that the trucks were 1950’s vintage and one of their battle tanks suddenly belched smoke and burst into flames. My journey began in 1994 in St. Petersburg, Russia when I consulted with a Russian grocery store chain. During a meeting with the VP of distribution about his vehicle acquisition practices, he told me that he could buy a Russian made truck for 15,000 USD or a Volvo or Mercedes Benz (MB) for 45,000 USD. He bought the Volvo or MB every time because it “would actually run and not break down every week”.

Like Professor Bacevich I had been indoctrinated during my military career that we were faced off against the vaunted Soviet military which posed an existential threat to the US and its allies and required enormous expenditures for personnel, armaments and foreign bases. I asked myself; how did I miss the fact that the Soviet Union was a paper tiger? Was I not paying attention or had I been “snookered”?

In the last 15 years as I have traveled to countries that are classified by the US government as existential threats and met with militant groups that are said to require invasion and occupation of countries around the world, I have concluded that we have been “snookered”. Despite the collapse of the Soviet Union, the US government continues to try and persuade us the “world’s only superpower” has an obligation to project power around the globe in order to make the world a safer and more peaceful place.

As we consider our policies in places like Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Lebanon, Palestine and North Korea it would be well to remember some of the wise remarks of Senator William Fulbright of Arkansas during the Vietnam War that were quoted by Bacevich.

“What I do question is the ability of the United States …to go into a small, alien, undeveloped Asian nation and create stability where there is chaos…democracy where there is no tradition of it and honest government where corruption is almost a way of life.”

“Any people setting out upon self-appointed missions to police the world, to defeat all tyranny, to make their fellow man rich, happy and free were less likely to advance the cause of world peace than to bring misery to their beneficiaries and destruction upon themselves.”

“I think that the world has endured about all it can of high-minded men bent on the regeneration of the human race.”