Mideast Status Quo Will Destroy "Pax Americana"

By Leon T. Hadar

Notwithstanding the July displacement of southern Lebanon's population by Israeli bombardment, since the Gulf war ended the Middle East has been experiencing an uneasy feeling of the calm before the storm. In Washington, however, there seems to be a sense that Pax Americana is alive and well in the region, that the interests of America and its allies there are relatively secure, and that maintaining the status quo is an effective policy.

Several times in its modern history, however, the Middle East has experienced such a sense of temporary calm, only to have the area explode around its occupants.

Until the end of World War II and the establishment of Israel, the regional status quo had been maintained by the continued British military and diplomatic presence. But a series of events, including the 1951 assassination of King Abdallah of Jordan and the 1952 revolution in Egypt, cracked the foundations of the old order. The 1956 Suez Campaign symbolized the end of British power, the rise of Pan Arabism and the entry of the U. S. and the U.S.S.R. into the region as the two dominant powers.

Nevertheless, the balance of military power between Israel and the Arab states seemed stable in the mid-1960s. Egypt's Gamal Abdel Nasser had suffered a setback in the Yemen civil war, and Washington and its allies were confident of their ability to contain threats to the pro-Western regimes in the area. The Palestinian national movement existed only as a skeletal political and military organization.

The 1967 war seemed to transform everything in six days. Israel no longer seemed threatened. Soon Egyptian President Nasser, the personification of pan-Arabism, was dead. Nasser's successor, Anwar El-Sadat, was perceived as nothing more than a nuisance. U. S. interests in the region no longer seemed challenged.

The 1973 war—and the oil embargo that was a direct result of U. S. support to Israel during that war—burst the bubble of American and Israeli confidence. The status quo again had been shattered, forcing the U.S. to re-examine many of its previous policies toward the region.

The U.S. victory in the Gulf war again has produced that sense of "don't worry, be happy" when it comes to America's Middle East policies. After all, argue the same analysts who failed to predict the Middle East earthquakes of the past, the extension of America's military power in the Gulf is securing Western access to the region's oil, which comprises more than 60 percent of the world's proven reserves.

There is no more Soviet Union to be concerned about. Europe, Japan and Russia seem happy with U.S. policy in the region, and the pro-Western Arab states, who are not happy, seem too concerned with the dangers posed by Iran and Iraq to complain. As for Iraqi and Iranian hegemonic ambitions, neither yet has the strength to do anything about them.

It's true that the U.S.-led peace process launched in Madrid is going nowhere. But there is no threat of an oil embargo, Soviet meddling, or a potential Arab-Israeli war to focus American minds on the area.

So the pro-Israel administration of President Bill Clinton has adopted a formula to deal with the Israel-Arab dispute: Pretend there is momentum in the peace process, convene the Israeli and Arab delegations in Washington, send an emissary once in a while to the region, make optimistic statements to a gullible or co-opted press, and let the Israelis propose unworkable peace plans. Meanwhile, perpetuate economic and military aid to Israel and turn a blind eye to its policies toward the Palestinians. For peace at home, the Arabs will insist the "peace process" is working, while the Israelis and their U.S. supporters extol the Clinton administration.

The "Indyk Doctrine's" Drawbacks

The "Indyk Doctrine," named after Clinton's White House Middle East adviser Martin Indyk, reflects this sense of arrogance. The notion of a "dual containment" of Iraq and Iran by the United States and its four Middle Eastern "pillars"— Israel, Turkey, Egypt and Saudi Arabia— looks good in Washington. Viewed from the Middle East, it has major drawbacks.

Turkey's new leaders are not interested in becoming a pro-American military bastion against Iraq and Iran. Nor are Egypt and Saudi Arabia comfortable supporting America's tough stand against Muslims—bombing Iraq, turning Iran into America's new global enemy, and treating with benign neglect Serbian genocide against Bosnian Muslims and Israel's scorched-earth policy in southern Lebanon.

Without any progress in the Arab-Israeli peace process, the costs to the four pillars of being used to preserve the Pax Americana in the region are bound to rise. A stalemate in the negotiations plays into the hands of both religious and secular radicals in the region, and weakens the power of the pro-Western regimes there.

Clinton More Hawkish Than Peres?

If anything, the Clinton administration finds itself today to the right of the majority of the Knesset members of the ruling Labor Party. These include Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, who has been urging Washington to revise the Madrid formula, try to bring the PLO to the center of the negotiations, and move toward discussing the shape of the final agreement between Israelis and Palestinians—instead of focusing on an interim "autonomy." These ideas are backed by PLO officials with whom Peres met in Cairo in June.

But the U.S. message has been "slow down and don't get excited." Supported by an American-Jewish leadership whose members sometimes seem more Catholic than the Israeli Pope, the Clinton administration has been rejecting all proposals to change the structure of the Arab-Israeli negotiations. It is this attitude in Washington that has stalemated the talks.

The fighting between Israeli forces and Lebanese Shi'i guerrillas provided a glimpse of the dangers in stalemate. Although all sides to the talks have an interest in preventing all-out war, time is on the side of the Israeli, Iranian and Arab radicals who benefit most from the status quo.

America, like Great Britain between and after the two world wars, may think it can continue to enjoy the benefits of this status quo because of its unipolar moment in the Middle East. But, the idea that "what is, will be forever" is the kind of intellectual trap into which all other great powers that have controlled the Middle East for a time eventually have fallen.

If there is no progress soon on the peace front, the Mideast clock will begin ticking as the region moves toward new political and military configurations with regional powers like Iran and Iraq and outside powers like a resurgent Russia, Europe and Japan. All are waiting in the wings for the post-Pax Americana era in the region.