Bush Has Abandoned Long-Time Consensus On Mideast, Says William Quandt

By Jane Adas

Under the current Bush administration, U.S. policy toward the Middle East has undergone a paradigm shift, William B. Quandt told the audience at a Jan. 19 talk jointly sponsored by the Princeton Middle East Society and the Near Eastern Studies Department of Princeton University. Quandt, who served on the National Security Council in the 1970s, during the first Camp David accords, now is vice provost for international affairs at the University of Virginia. He is the author of seven books, including Peace Process (1993) and Between Ballots and Bullets: Algeria’s Transition from Authoritarianism (1998).

From Presidents Truman through Clinton, Quandt said, there had been a consensus on American policy, albeit with variations and obvious exceptions. First, Washington viewed the Middle East as a region that was slowly emerging from colonialism and traumatic intervention, and was therefore concerned not to be seen as a colonial interloper. He described President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s response to the 1956 Israeli, British, and French attack on Egypt as the high water mark of American distaste for colonial adventurism.

Secondly, according to Quandt, U.S. policy accepted nationalism as a legitimate, if difficult, force—although, he added, this became confused in the context of the Cold War, when the U.S. identified nationalist leaders such as Nasser with Communism.

Thirdly, Quandt continued, there was agreement that the Arab-Israeli conflict was a major issue. Prior to 1967, the U.S. assumed the conflict was not ready for diplomacy and put it on the back burner. After that, however, each succeeding administration felt it important that Washington be seen as trying to promote peace, with each president offering an initiative. Tactics differed, but the visions were all based on land for peace.

The fourth concern for U.S. policy, Quandt said, was to maintain stability to protect the oil resources of the Gulf countries.

Among the successes of the American consensus, Quandt cited the Israeli-Egyptian peace agreement, the avoidance of direct confrontation with the Soviets, and the fact that, with the exception of the 1973 war and its aftermath, oil interests were well served. Against these, Quandt counted the U.S. failure to anticipate and forestall the Iranian revolution, and, under the Reagan and Bush Sr. administrations, the failure to reassess our relationship with Saddam Hussain after supporting him during the Iran-Iraq war.

Under George W. Bush the consensus has broken down, Quandt argued, characterizing the administration’s sharp shift to a neo-conservative perspective as actually radical, with the intent to dramatically transform the Middle East. The neo-conservatives first emerged in the Reagan administration, Quandt said, but were discredited by two set-backs: the U.S. failure to discourage Israel from its 1982 invasion of Lebanon, and the Iran-Contra scandal. Now, with Donald Rumsfield, Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz, Douglas Feith and Elliott Abrams, among others, in policymaking positions, they have made a comeback.

Quandt characterized the administration’s sharp shift to a neo-conservative perspective as actually radical.

In contrast to the former American policy consensus, neo-conservatives gloss over colonialism, struggles with Zionism, and the effects of U.S. policy. Instead, Quandt said, they view the Middle East as having distinct pathologies that stem from Arab nationalism and Islam, and consider Israel and Turkey the only worthy countries in the region.

Stability, Quandt observed, is now redefined as stagnation. The major themes of the current Bush administration are that Iraq is too dangerous for containment and that the entire region is ripe for fundamental transformation—not by nurturing indigenous movements, but by getting rid of the bad guys.

The Bush team expects to go to war soon and to achieve a quick and painless victory. They predict the Iraqi people will welcome U.S. soldiers as liberators, other leaders in the region will realize that their time is up, and the Palestinians will admit defeat.

Neo-conservatives base their military models on the first Gulf war, Kosovo and Afghanistan, in none of which were many American casualties. Quandt suggested, however, that the models instead might be Lebanon in 1982, Somalia and Vietnam. If the neo-conservatives succeed, nobody knows what will happen next. If they fail, Quandt said, anti-Americanism will be at an all-time high.

Quandt concluded by noting that, if Osama bin Laden is still alive, he must be happy with the turn U.S. policy has taken under George W. Bush.

Arraf, Shapiro Inaugurate Rutgers Divestment Campaign

New Jersey Solidarity inaugurated its campaign demanding that “Rutgers University immediately divest from any and all corporations that are financing and benefitting from the apartheid regime in Israel” with a Jan. 28 talk on the campus by Huwaida Arraf and Adam Shapiro, co-founders of the International Solidarity Movement.

Shapiro described the divestment campaign as not anti-Israel, but pro-American. The campaign’s message, he said, is that U.S. citizens no longer will support oppression with their tax dollars or with American corporate profits.

Palestinians in the occupied territories, he said, cannot breathe, cannot make plans. They need politics, not Band Aids. Therefore, Shapiro urged Americans to use their freedom in a political way to reach their leaders, as in the divestment campaign.

Israeli assassinations of Palestinian leaders have become Israeli state policy, Shapiro told the audience. They are deliberately carried out when there has been quiet from the Palestinian side in order to ignite a cycle of revenge attacks. He cited two examples: the Israeli army murdered Raed Karmi after three weeks of no attacks by Palestinians, although Israelis had killed more than 30 Palestinians during that same period. Ironically—or perhaps not—Karmi was the Fatah leader responsible for ensuring the unilateral Palestinian cease-fire as required by the Mitchell Plan. Last summer, Shapiro continued, only hours after Palestinian factions had agreed to publish a cease-fire agreement, an Israeli F-16 bombed an apartment building in Gaza, killing 15 Palestinian civilians along with Israel’s target. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon described the assault as one of the most successful military missions in the history of the Israeli state.

Shapiro observed that, as he was speaking, President Bush was delivering the State of the Union address and probably pressing for war. In Israel, Sharon’s Likud Party had just won national elections by a larger than expected margin. We know what to expect, Shapiro said, from a right-wing Israeli government that advocates ethnic cleansing aligned with a pro-war U.S. administration. There will be more illegal Israeli settlements. No Israeli prime minister, of either party, has ever halted settlement expansion, he pointed out, and Sharon is the least likely to do so. With more settlements and the building of the wall, there will be more Israeli appropriation of Palestinian land. And there will be more attacks on Palestinian civilian areas with U.S.-supplied F16 fighter planes and Apache helicopters.

Huwaida Arraf went to Palestine in April 2000, to work for an organization that focused on conflict resolution. But she soon realized that dialogue was not what was needed. Palestinians had no problem talking with Israelis, but rather with the cementing of the occupation. During the seven years of the peace process, Arraf noted, Palestinians saw more of their land confiscated, the settler population double, Palestinian movement restricted by checkpoints and roadblocks, the proliferation of settler bypass roads funded by U.S. dollars, Gaza locked down, and continued home demolitions.

Even before Sharon made his famous visit to the Temple Mount accompanied by hundreds of armed Israeli guards, Arraf said, Palestinians were disillusioned and tired. They saw that Israel is not held accountable, U.N. resolutions are not enforced, and U.S. dollars continue to flow to Israel. When, within weeks of Sharon’s visit, Israeli forces had killed and injured hundreds of Palestinians with no reaction from the official international community, the hope became one for a different kind of international involvement.

Arraf invited those present to join with volunteers from around the world and come to Palestine with the International Solidarity Movement. Volunteers not only provide some protection to Palestinians, but help in getting the message out that the occupation must end, that Palestinians need freedom and human dignity. They also see the situation firsthand and tell their friends and family back home what the media fails to report. The most important role of international volunteers, Arraf said, is breaking the isolation of occupation. Palestinians feel abandoned, but when volunteers say, “We are with you. We see what is happening,” morale is lifted, if only a bit.

Merely by staying where they are, Arraf said, Palestinians engage in nonviolent resistance every day. She sees it, she said, when children insist on learning although their schools are closed, and when fathers break the curfew to get bread for their families.

Arraf concluded her remarks with an empowering image: during curfews, when Palestinians are imprisoned in their own homes, in the late afternoon when the wind picks up you can see scores of home-made kites painted with the colors of the Palestinian flag flying from rooftops. To Arraf, these kites flown by fearless and determined Palestinian kids symbolize freedom, and say “we will not give up.”

Jane Adas is a free-lance writer based in the New York metropolitan area.