August 06 Newsletter

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Middle East Foreign Policy 101
Hassan Elsawaf

This is a new course being proposed for the benefit of foreign policy strategists in Washington who seem utterly confused these days. The course begins Viewpoints.org with a brief introduction defining past mistakes and goes on to illustrate an outline of the measures needed to get things right.

 Introduction Since the end of World War II, American policy in the Middle East has been a series of destructive blunders. In spite of a strong commitment to help the vanquished powers, notably Germany and Japan, get back on their feet, virtually nothing was done for the Arab countries.

The Marshall plan is still seen by many as the prime mover behind the economic success of its beneficiaries, a fallacy. Although it helped provide the initial jump start, the Marshall plan fades in significance when compared to the political climate the Americans preserved. The natural wealth wielded by the Arabs dwarfs anything Japan or West Germany possess, yet the Arabs are conspicuous laggards on the international economic arena and would collapse into oblivion without the oil.

 The United States’ policy in the Middle East was based on the concept that, following the end of colonial rule, the most advantageous line to follow was to buttress autocratic despots so long as they remained loyal to the cause of resisting communism and allowing the Americans use of bases and military cooperation. In the process, the populations living under those Arab regimes were completely written off, perhaps relegated in importance to the category of cattle.

 Over the course of the next half century, the ramifications of that policy became eerily evident: a growing cabal of Arab dictators, plundering and crushing their helpless citizens at will and a burgeoning extremist religious faction completely indoctrinated into the regime-serving argument that everything to do with America is evil. Blind to the insidious damage being relentlessly inflicted, one American administration after the next continued to apply that blinkered policy, building up a new culture of vitriol in the Arab world. Israel is not the real predicament of the Arab world but a convenient tool skilfully exploited by all Arab regimes to deflect attention and blame from their own shortcomings. The inevitable outcome of such parochial policies is what we have in the Middle East today: an ethos of hatred and destruction targeting not the real source of the misery, but Israel and America, its putative mentor. In the meantime, astute American policymakers strengthened their ties with the despots and ended up believing their own lie: that standing by the likes of the Saudi royal family or the Egyptian strongman would actually serve American interests. Then we have the real clincher: Americans are baffled, despite the generosity they continually bestow on a country like Egypt, that they are, in effect, an Egyptian public nemesis. The main points in ‘Foreign Policy 101 in the Middle East’:

1) American interests are never served by supporting dictatorships.

2) American indifference to implanting the same values enshrined in the Constitution of the United States to the countries of the Middle East is tantamount to self-destructing.

 3) American aid provided unconditionally to a regime like Mubarak’s is self-destructing.

4) The American belief that the advent of theocratic rule through the application of fair voting is wrong. Despite the arrival of Hamas and the parliamentary gains made by the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, suppressing freedom will only lead to more religious extremism.

 5) Establishing diplomatic ties with a country like Libya, simply because its strongman came clean on his nuclear programme, will only encourage others to follow suit and build up their own nuclear arsenals as a powerful bargaining chip designed to allow them to stay in power. Perhaps Iran and North Korea did learn a lesson or two from Mr. Gaddafi.

6) American interests are best served by encouraging free societies that will inevitably establish the selfcorrective mechanism of dealing with its problems of oppression and corruption and emerge into a responsible nation, not threatening Americans and blending into the international economic community.

 This cursory attempt to rectify the problems of the Middle East from an American perspective probably appears naïve and unrealistic to many. It would be interesting to get some recriminatory feedback from Washington, if hypocrisy does not still reign supreme.