A Rightwing Blueprint For The Middle East
by Jim Lobe
George
W. Bush's silence in the face of the destruction of the Palestine Authority
(PA) -- and with it, the nine-year-old Oslo peace process --marks a
sweeping change in U.S. policy in the Middle East.
The
appeals of Arab allies to rein in Sharon have fallen on utterly deaf
ears. The lack of response to date suggests that the Bush White House
has now fully embraced the rightwing view that Israel is the U.S.' only
strategic ally in the region. And that the interests of Arab states,
such as Saudi Arabia and Egypt, will have to take second place to the
broader "war against terrorism."
This
shift in perspective marks a huge and potentially decisive victory for
a coalition of largely Jewish neo-conservatives and Christian Right
Republicans both inside and outside the administration. They have argued
with increasing vehemence in recent months that Washington's traditional
deference -- which they label as "appeasement" -- to Arab
rulers is ultimately counter-productive.
Who
is the Pro-Israel Lobby?
Members
of the anti-Arab lobby within the administration include: Paul Wolfowitz
and Douglas Feith, the second and third in command at the Pentagon respectively;
Lewis Libby, Vice President Cheney's chief of staff and national security
adviser; Elliott Abrams, a senior member of the National Security Council
Staff; John Bolton, Undersecretary of State for international security;
and John Ashcroft, the evangelical Christian who heads the Department
of Justice. It is also evident that Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney
generally share the views of their immediate deputies.
Outside
the White House, William Bennett-- the influential former Reagan and
Bush Sr. appointee who often spans the divide between neo-cons and the
Christian Right -- is one of the prominent advocates of Israel. "America's
fate and Israel's fate are one and the same," he wrote two weeks
ago. Criticizing the State Department for calling on Sharon to exercise
restraint, Bennett claimed that "Israel is being pressured so that
we can assuage countries such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia. Yet it just
so happens that those countries are responsible for the reappearance
of the worst forms of anti-Jewish propaganda since (Nazi Propaganda
Minister) Joseph Goebbels."
Bennett's
article was one of dozens that have been churned out by the pro-Likud
Right through publications such as the Wall Street Journal, the Weekly
Standard, the National Review, and Washington Times, as well as the
nationally syndicated columns of Charles Krauthammer, William Safire,
and Michael Kelly.
Targeting
the State Department
Many
of these sources favor the even harder line of Sharon's main Likud rival,
Benyimin Netanyahu. They have not hesitated to attack Sharon himself
when he has shown any hesitation in destroying the Oslo peace process
-- an initiative they have opposed from the outset.
But
their principal target has been the State Department, and especially
its Near East Bureau, which the Right believes has long been a hotbed
of pro-Arab, if not anti-Semitic, sentiment. In their view, the Bureau's
analysts (and Mideast specialists in the Central Intelligence Agency
which tend to back up the Bureau) are simply wrong.
For
example, the State Department's perspective -- which is shared by virtually
all Mideast specialists in the United States, Europe, and even Israel
--sees the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as a central factor in the region's
politics. Bureau analysts argue that any effort by Washington to build
Arab support for an attack on Iraq will be made far more difficult by
an escalation of the conflict or, worse, the complete collapse of the
peace process. Their view of Israeli actions is best summed up by Nicholas
Veliotes, retired head of the Bureau and ambassador to Egypt, who told
CNN that the situation "in the West Bank and Gaza is an obscenity,"
which will badly damage U.S. interests in the region.
The
right-wing lobby however disagrees.
"Washington
needs to wean itself from viewing the Israeli-Palestinian collision
as the center of the Middle East," according to Reuel Marc Gerecht,
a former CIA covert operator who is now at the staunchly neo-con thinktank
American Enterprise Institute. It is a view repeatedly echoed on the
editorial pages of the Wall Street Journal, which noted just last week
that "the path to a calmer Mideast now lies not rhough Jerusalem
but through Baghdad."
A Radical
Plan of Action
To
the argument that Sharon's march into the Palestinian territories inspires
"fury and hatred against the United States on the Arab "street,"
Gerecht responds, "Arabs only respect strength."
"In
the Middle East, America's awe -- the key element that gives both us
and our Israeli and Arab friends security -- can only be damaged by
a Bush administration publicly fretting about Ariel Sharon's prosecution
of his war against the Palestinian Authority," he writes. "Though
the Near East Bureau at State hates the notion, the tougher Sharon becomes,
the stronger our image will be in the Middle East."
Regional
experts have also repeatedly argued that the conflict in Israel and
Palestine makes it far more difficult for long-time U.S. allies and
clients, especially Saudi Arabia and Egypt, to maintain their control
--and hence their "moderate" policies -- since their people
demand strong action against Israel.
The
Right subscribes to the radical view that the destabilization of such
autocratic governments may be a good thing.
Permitting
Arafat to set up a Palestinian Authority "is only the latest example
of how dealing with Mideast dictators has become a Faustian bargain,
not just for Israel but also for the U.S.," wrote the Journal's
editorial staff Wednesday. "American presidents have gambled for
40 years that these rulers can buy stability, and that the alternative
is far worse; in the long run they come back to haunt us."
The
answer, according to this view, is to invade Iraq and establish a democratic
government that can serve as a model for the region. "Liberating
Iraq from Saddam and sponsoring democracy would not only rid the region
of a major military threat. It would also send a message to the Arab
world that self-determination as part of the modern world is possible,"
according to the Journal, which dismisses Arafat as a petty despot rather
than leader elected by the population of the Palestinian Authority.
This
view received strong support from Joshua Muravchik in The Standard few
months ago. Reviewing a survey by another neo-con group, Freedom House,
he noted that people in the Arab world enjoy the least freedom.
"Far
from pointing toward a relaxation of military efforts (in the war against
terror)," Muravchik wrote, "(the survey) suggests that the
more terror-loving tyrannies the United States can topple the better."
And
what if the Saudi royal family were replaced by a democratic government
that was nonetheless hostile to the United States? The Wall Street Journal
would be ecstatic: "It would force a decision on whether to take
over the Saudi oilfields, which would put an end to OPEC."
Source:
http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=12785