James A. Russell

The predictions of doom in the Middle East that are dominating thinking in the foreign policy commentariat of Washington and other capitals over the spread of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) could use a little perspective.

An unlikely source of insight transpired the other day when [...]]]> via LobeLog

James A. Russell

The predictions of doom in the Middle East that are dominating thinking in the foreign policy commentariat of Washington and other capitals over the spread of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) could use a little perspective.

An unlikely source of insight transpired the other day when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, not known for clear-headed strategic thinking, equated Hamas with ISIS. The suggestion was part of a long-running Israeli narrative that seeks to link its periodic muggings of the Palestinians with the American-led war on Islamic extremists launched in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks.

Netanyahu’s suggestion, however, is not far off the mark when it comes to framing regional events—though not for the reasons that he would think. The fact is that the Middle East is mired in several overlapping and competing national wars of liberation and state formation by various factions and states that seek a common variable in these wars: political power and authority over a demarcated geographic area. ISIS and Hamas are certainly participants in these wars, as are the Israelis.

None of these wars are in any way remarkable by historical standards—a point worth remembering as the Obama administration faces massive pressure to “do something” about the advances of ISIS. Americans generally suffer from short historic memories and easily forget their role in post-World War II era wars including in China (1949), Vietnam (1950s-60s), and Greece (1948).

Like the United States, Britain and France involved themselves in these wars directly and indirectly—most of which turned out badly for the Western powers. If anything, the involvement of outside powers in these wars prolonged them—much to the detriment of the groups involved in the struggle for political power.

The Middle East’s wars of national liberation and state formation were never really settled—hence the prevalence of the phenomenon today. The longest running is the unfinished war of Israeli independence launched in 1948. It’s unsettled because Israel’s borders are still in question due to its ongoing annexation of territory that presumably one day will become part of the state. It seems clear that the annexation fits within the governing Likud Party’s vision of “greater Israel,” which includes the Palestinian territories (Judea and Samaria) that stretch all the way to Jordan River.

This war is ongoing because Hamas and Likud share the same objective—achieving a state that stretches from Gaza to the Jordan River. Hamas is a classic radical religious nationalist movement that seeks to create its own state and, like Israel, is prepared to use force to achieve its goals. Thrown into this mix is the Palestinian Authority, the group that initially took up arms to achieve Palestinian independence but which as of late has tried in vain to achieve its objectives of state formation at the negotiating table.

We can expect this war to continue for the foreseeable future. The involvement of the United States and the blank check it has given to Israel has prolonged the battle; the Israelis have to take no responsibility for their actions and hence have no real incentive to reach a negotiated settlement until the Likud achieves its objective.

The other main war for national independence and state formation in the Middle East involves the fight for political power and authority in the Mukhabarat States of Algeria, Tunisia, Syria, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Iraq—where (except in Saudi Arabia) the security sector created during colonization seized political power after the external powers departed. Libya is also engaged in a war of state formation that, like in Syria and Iraq, will likely be bloody and take a number of years.

Egypt’s internal battles between the security sector and the Islamists, which raged for 20+ years before briefly subsiding in the 1990s, look as if they may start up again due to these two group’s opposing and perhaps irreconcilable goals for the shape and identity of the state. For its part, Algeria won its civil war against the Islamists in the 1990s. In Tunisia, there may be a process of peaceful transition away from the Mukhabarat regime of Ben Ali to some form of representational government that involves all political parties.

In Syria, Iraq, and Libya, the national wars of liberation and state formation are currently underway. ISIS must be seen as an unfortunate but perhaps inevitable consequence of the battle for power in Syria, which has seen the Saudi-Gulf State support network funnel arms, people, and money into the fight against the Assad-Mukhabarat regime.

The historic genealogy of ISIS reaches back into US-occupied Iraq and the Saudi-Pakistani-US supported war by the Mujahideen against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. Its intellectual and religious roots lie within the toxic mix of Saudi Arabia’s Wahhabi clerics and the Sayyid Qutb-inspired militant Islamic resistance to Nasser in Egypt.

To a limited extent, Hamas can be considered a distant cousin of ISIS; both spring from radical Sunni Islamic political and religious ideology. Importantly, however, they are engaged in fundamentally different wars of liberation that involve different actors with various objectives in the contest for political power and authority.

In Iraq, the 2003 US invasion turned the existing political order on its head and unleashed long-repressed political aspirations that have blossomed, like in Syria, into another national war of liberation and state formation. ISIS now straddles the Iraqi-Syrian border, and one of the casualties of this war may be the Sykes-Picot boundaries that divided up the Ottoman Empire.

Saudi Arabia is noticeably absent, at least for now, in this intra- and transnational discord in part because, like other Gulf States, it has bought off its population with subsidized good living and sent its radicals to blow themselves up elsewhere. The regime’s periodic muggings of the Shia population in its Eastern Province are supported by the majority of the population. One day, however, the radicals that survived will come home just like those who did from the Afghan jihad in the 1990s.

The only good news on this front is that there is no widespread political support for the Sunni extremist ideology espoused by groups like ISIS. These groups tend to have short shelf lives precisely because they alienate the very people they seek to govern. The bad news is that these groups’ struggle for political power will likely be long and bloody—in part because they are not interested in a negotiated settlement and/or in sharing power with other actors. The blood-soaked Algerian Civil War provides a historic example of what can happen when entrenched, committed Islamic extremists take on an established security establishment.

More bad news: developed states have had almost universally poor results with their interventions in these national wars of liberation and state formation. In almost every case, the developed states were forcibly kicked out of their former domains. The British headlong retreat from Aden in 1967, the French defeat in Vietnam and Algeria, and the American defeat in Vietnam all represented important signposts as the wars of national liberation became prominent in the post-World War II era.

Moreover, the attempts to intervene in these disputes were often marked by ill-informed choices in backing local participants. The American backing of Chiang Kai-shek turned out particularly badly as did the backing of Nguyen Van Thieu. Iraqi leader Nouri al-Maliki and Hamid Karzai must also now be added to the list of bad choices by the United States.

The hysteria sweeping the West today over who’s up and who’s down in the battle for power in Iraq and Syria and elsewhere in the region needs to be placed in this historic context. There is nothing remarkable about these wars. The lessons of past attempts to involve us in these localized struggles suggest that caution should be exercised in committing our militaries to affect the outcomes. A regrettable but perhaps enduring lesson of international politics is that sometimes keeping your powder dry and being patient is just the best option.

Protesters gathered in Ahrar Square, in the Iraqi city of Mosul, on April 3, 2013 against US-backed Nouri al-Maliki’s government. Credit: Karlos Zurutuza/IPS

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by Marsha B. Cohen

This month the Wall Street Journal reported that the Obama administration had slowed the shipment of hellfire missiles to Israel after it bombed a UN school in Gaza on Aug. 3 with the US-made weapon. The White House has insisted that weapons transfers to Israel have not been [...]]]> via LobeLog

by Marsha B. Cohen

This month the Wall Street Journal reported that the Obama administration had slowed the shipment of hellfire missiles to Israel after it bombed a UN school in Gaza on Aug. 3 with the US-made weapon. The White House has insisted that weapons transfers to Israel have not been suspended or halted, and that the administration is only “taking extra care to look at these shipments.” Yet some analysts understood the unusual decision as a warning message to Tel Aviv about the use of disproportionate force. Whether or not that’s true, it’s no secret that the United States is Israel’s biggest source of military assistance, even if the White House has not been completely aware of the extent of that support.

Two years ago, Congress passed the United States-Israel Enhanced Security Cooperation Act (P.L. 112-150), which reiterated, as a matter of policy, the US commitment “to help the Government of Israel preserve its qualitative military edge amid rapid and uncertain regional political transformation.” It expressed the non-binding “sense of Congress” favoring various possible avenues of cooperation: providing Excess Defense Articles to Israel; enhanced operational, intelligence, and political-military coordination; expediting the sale of specific weaponry including F-35 joint strike fighter aircraft, refueling tankers, and “bunker buster” bombs; as well as an US-Israel cooperative missile defense program and additional aid for Israel’s Iron Dome anti-rocket system.

Iron Dome: Approaching $1 billion—and Beyond

Iron Dome, a dual mission system built by Israeli defense contractor Rafael Advanced Defense Systems, which doubles as a very short range air defense system and an interceptor of incoming rockets, mortars and artillery, has received $720 million in American funding since the program’s inception in 2011. Israel currently has nine batteries, each costing about $100 million. The price tag for every Tamir missile fired by the Iron Dome system costs an estimated minimum of $50,000, with two missiles responding to every incoming rocket that is considered a threat to Israeli lives and property.

US support for Iron Dome will soon surpass $1 billion. In March, the Pentagon asked for $176 million for the program for Fiscal Year 2015, which begins Oct. 1, but the Senate Appropriations defense subcommittee raised the Iron Dome appropriation to $351 million on July 15—more than half the $621.6 million it had appropriated for Israeli missile defense for the upcoming year. A week later, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel sent a letter to Senate leaders and key committee chairpersons relaying the Israeli government’s request for an immediate $285 million of emergency allocation for Iron Dome. On Aug. 1—a Friday afternoon—the House (398-8) and Senate both approved adding an additional $285 million to Iron Dome’s funding, which was followed by President Obama’s signature the following Monday morning.

As of last week, according to Y-Net, Iron Dome reportedly had a 90% success rate during the first month of  “Operation Protective Edge,” intercepting more than 600 rockets headed toward Israeli population centers from Gaza.

Autopilot Foreign Policy 

After Israel’s bombing of the UN school in Gaza, and the huge loss of Palestinian civilian lives due to the war, the Obama administration apparently became aware that it was unformed about, and had very little control over US military assistance to Israel. Indeed, the Wall Street Journal reported Aug. 14 that President Obama had just discovered that the US military was authorizing and providing weapons shipments to Israel without his knowledge.

Unknown to many policy makers, Israel was moving on a separate track to replenish supplies of lethal munitions being used in Gaza and to expedite the approval of the Iron Dome funds on Capitol Hill.

On July 20, Israel’s defense ministry asked the US military for a range of munitions, including 120-mm mortar shells and 40-mm illuminating rounds, which were already stored at a pre-positioned weapons stockpile in Israel.

The request was approved through military channels three days later but not made public. Under the terms of the deal, the Israelis used US financing to pay for $3 million in tank rounds. No presidential approval or signoff by the secretary of state was required or sought, according to officials.

The White House then instituted a review process over armaments being shipped to Israel, instructing the Pentagon and the US military to hold a transfer of Hellfire missiles. According to Haaretz:

Against the backdrop of American displeasure over IDF tactics used in the Gaza fighting and the high number of civilian casualties caused by Israel’s massive use of artillery fire rather than more precise weapons, officials in the White House and the State Department are now demanding to review every Israeli request for American arms individually, rather than let them move relatively unchecked through a direct military-to-military channel, a fact that slows down the process.

One senior US official said the decision to tighten oversight and require the pre-approval of higher-ranking officials for shipments was intended to make clear to Israel that there is no “blank check” from Washington in regards to the US-made weapons that the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) uses in Gaza.

For its part, the State Department has denied reports that it has been kept in the dark about US to Israel weapons transfers. Last week spokeswoman Marie Harf disagreed with the WSJ‘s assessment that the executive branch had been blindsided, and attributed any apparent delay to “inter-agency process.”

The Times of Israel has since reported that the holdup of the Hellfire missiles has been resolved; the weapons will soon be on their way. Although the anonymous Israeli official who operated as a source for the story didn’t specify when the weapons would be arriving, according to Israel’s Channel 10 news, “the incident is behind us.”

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by Thomas W. Lippman

To understand why Israel and Hamas keep fighting, and why Secretary of State John Kerry was unable to forge a permanent peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians, it helps to do some homework. Read Volume 8 of the State Department’s “Foreign Relations of the United States” series [...]]]> via LobeLog

by Thomas W. Lippman

To understand why Israel and Hamas keep fighting, and why Secretary of State John Kerry was unable to forge a permanent peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians, it helps to do some homework. Read Volume 8 of the State Department’s “Foreign Relations of the United States” series for 1977-80, the years of Jimmy Carter.

It is a 1,303-page compilation of declassified documents—presidential letters, intelligence assessments, memoranda of conversation—covering the 20 months of intense Middle East diplomacy between Carter’s inauguration in January 1977 to his decision to convene the famous trilateral summit at Camp David. The principal characters are Carter, Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin, and Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, but much of the heavy lifting is done by their foreign affairs ministers, Moshe Dayan of Israel, Ismail Fahmy of Egypt, and Secretary of State Cyrus R. Vance, along with their professional staffs.

What the documents show is that despite herculean efforts, especially by Carter himself, and huge investments of time, diplomacy failed. Sadat undertook his daring trip to Jerusalem in November 1977 and Carter summoned the other two to Camp David because only extraordinary, game-changing gambles produced any real movement on the intractable issues the negotiators faced. Suspicion ran deep, antagonisms were entrenched, and history was implacable, especially for the Israelis. Not even the combined weight of the United States and Soviet Union could bring the Israelis and Egyptians—to say nothing of the Syrians—to the comprehensive, once-and-for-all regional solution that all professed to want.

The fate of the West Bank, which Israel referred to as Judea and Samaria, defied every formula offered for resolving it, just as it does today. As for Gaza, it was a stepchild of the negotiations throughout—nobody really wanted it. And while everyone agreed that peace must be based on US Security Council Resolution 242—the “land for peace” formula adopted after the 1967 war—the negotiators spent endless hours arguing about what that resolution required.

Resolution 242, which even today provides the theoretical framework upon which negotiations between Israel and the Arabs would be based, stipulated the “inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war” and recognized “the sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence of every State in the area and their right to live in peace within secure and recognized boundaries free from threats or acts of force.” It also called for the “withdrawal of Israel armed forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict,” but it did not say “all territories” or even “the territories.” Israel said any withdrawal from the lands it captured in 1967 was negotiable and would not necessarily apply to all of them—the Sinai Peninsula, which belonged to Egypt, the Gaza Strip, which had been under Egyptian administration, Syria’s Golan Heights, and East Jerusalem and the West Bank, which from 1948 to 1967 had been part of Jordan. The Arabs naturally argued that since 242 declared the acquisition of territory by war inadmissible, the resolution obviously applied to all the occupied lands.

Another major stumbling block at the time was the refusal of Israel, supported by the United States, to have any dealings with anyone associated with the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), which it regarded as a group of terrorists decided to Israel’s destruction. Israel’s view was that before 1967 the West Bank belonged to Jordan, and its inhabitants were citizens of Jordan, and therefore its future would be negotiated with Jordan alone. The problem with that was that an Arab summit conference had stripped Jordan of its claim to the West Bank and declared the PLO to be the “sole legitimate representative” of the Palestinian people.

And then there was the composition of the delegations that would negotiate at Geneva. Syria’s Hafez Assad, father of the current president, fearful that Sadat would strike a separate peace with Israel and abandon the other Arabs, wanted a single, unified Arab delegation. That was unacceptable to Sadat, who understood that nothing would be accomplished if every Arab participant had a de facto veto over decisions by the others.

Carter’s national security adviser, Zbigniew Brzezinski, who understood that Sadat was impatient but the Israelis were not, told Carter that “the priority of Israel’s policy now seems to be to make a fairly attractive offer to Egypt in order to tempt Sadat into a separate deal. This would allow Israel to put off movement on the Syrian front and to avoid the Palestinian-West Bank issues altogether.”

He was right about Israel’s negotiating strategy. Begin’s Likud Party was elected in the spring of 1977 on a platform that called for keeping the West Bank and encouraging Jewish settlements there. The Labor Party, which had run Israel since statehood in 1948, had been somewhat more forthcoming about the possibility of territorial compromise, but Begin was a hard-line Zionist who believed in Israel’s right to all the land from the Mediterranean to the Jordan River.

In the quest for the Holy Grail of Geneva, everyone traveled extensively in an endless summer of fruitless haggling over how to proceed. These were negotiations about negotiating, arguments of stupefying legalistic tedium about who would participate, under what circumstances, and what the agenda would be. Would there be a single Arab delegation, or several? If single, would there then be “working groups” for specific country-by-country issues? What would Israel accept on the subject of Palestinian refugees? Who would speak for the Palestinians? Would Jordan participate? Would Syria? What would be the role of the Soviet Union, co-chairman of the proposed conference? Should there be agreement beforehand on a “declaration of principles?” Would the specific language of 242 be the basic reference point, or would it be somehow modified? Would Geneva be a ceremonial event, at which agreements already reached would be signed, or the forum for the hard work of negotiating? If Israel were somehow to agree to pull out of the West Bank, who should take over now that Jordan had been stripped of its claim?

Carter, who had stunned everyone in March by volunteering the view that peace would require the establishment of a “homeland” for the Palestinians, soon concluded that Israel’s positions were the biggest obstacle to peace and let his feelings show in public—stirring anger in the American Jewish community and anxiety among his political advisers. Camp David was a last-ditch, high-stakes shot at a breakthrough.

Some of the roadblocks on the path to peace were removed at Camp David and in the subsequent negotiations over the peace between Israel and Egypt, a treaty that left the Palestinian issue unresolved and was achieved only when the United States and Egypt gave up on Geneva. Other issues, such as Israel’s refusal to negotiate with the PLO, were resolved years later, at Oslo.

The Arabs argue today that one of Israel’s greatest issues, the refusal of Arab nations other than Egypt or Jordan to recognize it or accept its existence, was resolved when all members of Arab League endorsed a plan offered by Saudi Arabia to offer peace and recognition in exchange for Israeli withdrawal to the 1967 lines. But Israel is no more inclined to accept that formula today than it would have been in 1977; after all, Hamas and Hezbollah are not members of the Arab League and not parties to that offer, and are supported in their intransigence by Iran. Even if Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party abandoned the “Greater Israel” policy of Begin’s time, anxieties about security would still prompt Israel to demand substantial revisions in the 1967 lines, as well as demilitarization of Palestine, including Gaza. If the proposed “two-state solution” is still viable—if it ever was viable—it is hard to see how Gaza could be part of it if Israel believes Hamas workers resume digging tunnels under the border from which they could attack Israelis.

At the end of 2011, according to the Foundation for Middle East Peace, there were 328,423 Israeli settlers in the West Bank. If future negotiations about the future of Palestine are to include Gaza as well as the West Bank, it is hard to see how Gaza’s status can be resolved until the question of those West Bank settlers has been resolved as part of some overall agreement. A far-reaching deal that would end the Gaza conflict by including it as part of a Palestinian state and linking it to the West Bank by some kind of corridor—as envisioned at the time of Oslo—seems far in the future. The Gazans would live better lives if Israel were to allow them greater access to the outside world, but they will still be living in a stateless limbo.

Photo: Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin and Egyptian president Anwar Sadat with US President Jimmy Carter at Camp David in 1978.

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by Henry Precht

Two significant anniversaries this month: the 1914 beginning of fighting in World War I in Europe and the 1964 Gulf of Tonkin incident in Vietnam.

The outbreak of conflict 100 years ago followed a period of intense diplomacy within and between two alliances. Germany and Austria on one side; [...]]]> via LobeLog

by Henry Precht

Two significant anniversaries this month: the 1914 beginning of fighting in World War I in Europe and the 1964 Gulf of Tonkin incident in Vietnam.

The outbreak of conflict 100 years ago followed a period of intense diplomacy within and between two alliances. Germany and Austria on one side; Russia, France and Britain on the other. Everyone feared German armed forces on land, Britain’s at sea and Russia’s quickly developing potential for both. Better to strike now rather than wait until the other side becomes more powerful; that was the dominant analysis. Statesmen and politicians engaged in stale, cliché-formed, fruitless wheeling and dealing. Both sides were confident a quick victory would be theirs. “Home by Christmas,” was the motto. Few and easily drowned out were the voices of doubt, delay and debate.

The naval incident off Vietnam in which an American ship was allegedly attacked led quickly to a congressional resolution giving the Johnson administration unfettered authority to wage war against the enemy we inherited from the French colonialists. No members of the House and only a couple of senators voted against it; they were both later defeated for re-election. Some time later convincing doubt was cast on the authenticity of the reported incident and accusations of misleading Congress were cast on LBJ. Never mind, as the incident was reported by the government-fed press, the public stood squarely behind their leader, confident of victory. Their support for the expanded conflict was the product of government fraud.

History is replete with euphoric moments at the start of a foreign adventure. Think of Afghanistan and Iraq. “Missions [Still Not] Accomplished.” Cheers — then terrible consequences, then condemnation.

How wrong, how tragically wrong initially were the leaders and their people. The four years of World War I became an utter disaster for its participants and for the future development of all nations: depression, fascism, communism, World War II and the Cold War. Vietnam became perhaps the single greatest unnecessary disaster for the US — economically and politically and for the future course of our national progress — to say nothing of the Vietnamese casualties.

Why did the enthusiastic support for war lead to deep frustrations and perverse choices? The key elements were two, in my opinion: First was the ease of going into war — much easier than taking the risks for peace, less taxing than applying creative imaginations to the issues at hand. Second was the absence of doubt, of questioning, of debate. No one asked: Could the leaders be wrong in committing forces; might there be another choice, a peaceful solution? It’s hard to be coldly analytical when surrounded by mobs calling your dissent traitorous.

Which brings me to two new statistics this month: In the Gaza war, eighty to ninety per cent of Israel’s population endorsed the actions of its army in severely punishing that hapless land. In Washington, one hundred percent of the Senate and House voted their backing for Israel without a single word of regret for the suffering of the Palestinian victims. Plus, they threw in an extra $225 million in military aid for Israeli defense. (Never mind the defense of our own borders or pressing domestic needs.)

Wouldn’t it have been a better outcome for the future of two peoples, if Israelis and Palestinians had sat together and talked through their differences — rather than hurling missiles at each other and breeding fear, distrust and hatred? Wouldn’t it have been wise if Secretary Kerry had been willing to sit and talk with Hamas, rather than keeping them at arm’s length as a “terrorist” band? It might, just might, have advanced his goal of reaching a two-state solution. Of course, while talking, it would have been necessary to deal firmly with Palestinian and Israeli extremists and essential to stand up to the super-loyal fans of Israel in the Congress. No easy options there.

In fact, generous and always reliable American support for Israel makes it unnecessary for the hardline regime even to contemplate compromise with its Palestinian antagonists.

The lessons of World War I and Vietnam are plain for all of us to read. If the public is willingly led by self- and special-interest politicians with neither courage nor vision, worse times impend. Not just for the regimes directly involved, but also unhappily for their loyal but misled and fearful citizens.

by Jim Lobe

Just as this week marks the 50th anniversary of the Gulf of Tonkin incident, as noted Wednesday by Amb. Hunter, it also marks the centenary of the outbreak of World War I, the “Great War” that, among other things, began the long (and often bloody) process of dismantling the imperial [...]]]> via LobeLog

by Jim Lobe

Just as this week marks the 50^th anniversary of the Gulf of Tonkin incident, as noted Wednesday by Amb. Hunter, it also marks the centenary of the outbreak of World War I, the “Great War” that, among other things, began the long (and often bloody) process of dismantling the imperial system that had dominated the pre-war international system. The war had many causes, but historians have generally ranked excessive nationalism — and the militarism that went along with it — pretty high on the list. While reactionary and conservative forces in each country were clearly bullish on the war from the outset, the speed and enthusiasm with which liberals and socialists throughout Europe rallied to the cause, in spite of the universalist principles that they had long espoused, offered testimony to the extraordinary magnetism of the nationalist impulse.

As I have argued previously, most neoconservatives, despite their mainly opportunistic avowals of democracy and universal rights, are exceedingly nationalistic, not to say downright chauvinist, with regard both to the United States — whose moral “exceptionalism” they believe should exempt it from the constraints of international institutions (like the UN) and international law — and to Israel, which they routinely depict as a lonely island of “democracy” and “civilization” surrounded by a raging sea of barbarism and extremism, struggling against all odds simply to survive. Virtually any means the latter’s leaders deem necessary, including violations of the laws of war as documented by independent human rights groups like Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International (as we have seen over the past several weeks in the third Israeli war in Gaza in six years), to defeat its enemies are not only defensible, but, in the words of neocon princeling Bill Kristol’s Emergency Committee for Israel, “just,” as well.

Coinciding with the Great War’s centenary, the expression of this kind of militaristic nationalism — and the mantras about “civilization” versus the ”barbarism” or “terror” of the enemy — vividly recalls the rhetoric used by both the western imperialist powers whenever they encountered violent resistance by the “natives” as they conquered most of what is now referred to as the “Global South” from the “Age of Discovery” onwards, as well as the propaganda offices of the main combatants during the war itself (just check out the war posters) would seem potentially embarrassing to the core neocon messages about the exceptional nature of the United States and Israel.

And thus it was particularly notable when, in the very first issue of the Weekly Standard of 2014, Kristol carried out what might be called a pre-emptive strike against what he thought might prove to be a major theme — the futility and stupidity of nationalism and war — in this year’s commemoration of the Great War.  In the lead editorial entitled “Pro Patria,” he rued the impact of the war on the West’s morale, blaming it for what he called “civilizational decline” and quoting with approval the ode by Horace, “Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori” (“It is sweet and fitting to die for one’s country”), which had been bitterly denounced in a famous poem by Wilfred Owen, a British soldier-poet, as an “old lie.” Kristol warned:

This year, a century later, the commemorations of 1914 will tend to take that [Owen’s] rejection of piety and patriotism for granted. Or could this year mark a moment of questioning, even of reversal?

Today, after all, we see the full consequences of that rejection in a way Owen and his contemporaries could not. Can’t we acknowledge the meaning, recognize the power, and learn the lessons of 1914 without succumbing to an apparently inexorable gravitational pull toward a posture of ironic passivity or fatalistic regret in the face of civilizational decline. No sensitive person can fail to be moved by Owen’s powerful lament, and no intelligent person can ignore his chastening rebuke. But perhaps a century of increasingly unthinking bitter disgust with our heritage is enough.

Kristol goes on to contrast Owen’s denunciation of war and nationalism to the concluding stanza of the “Star-Spangled Banner” penned 200 years ago by Francis Scott Key in celebration of the Battle of Fort McHenry — “Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just/ And this be our motto: “In God is our trust” — and asks:

A century after World War I, two centuries after Fort McHenry, do we dare take our bearings not from Owen’s bitter despair but from Francis Scott Key’s bold hope?

The essay, of course, raises not a few questions about what exactly Kristol — the quintessential chicken hawk – has in mind. No doubt he sees the “full consequences” of Owen’s attitude as including the reigning anti-war sentiment that facilitated the rise of Fascism and German Nazism in Europe in the 1930s, which, in turn, eventually resulted in an even greater war. But the “full consequences” also included the beginning of the end of European imperialism — a very oppressive system for the vast majority of the world’s population. Of course, true to his neoconservative worldview — and the fact that the State of Israel was made possible by that same system (the Balfour Declaration and all that) — Kristol clearly sees the decline of western imperialism (“civilizational decline”) as a great tragedy.

Similarly, Kristol’s celebration of the theo-nationalist spirit expressed in what became the US national anthem as an unreservedly healthy tonic for today’s popular disillusionment with wars, especially those in Afghanistan and Iraq, and over Libya, all of which he so ardently championed, is subject to different understandings. While he no doubt sees Key’s exhortation to “conquer” as applying solely today to the US, Israel, and “the West” more generally, there is no reason to think that the sentiment expressed therein is not shared by Palestinians, including Hamas militants, Arab nationalists, or, frankly, any jihadis who claim that God, or Allah, and justice are on their side. “Dulce et decorum est pro patria [and deus] mori” was not only a Roman proverb frequently invoked by denizens of the British Empire many centuries later; it’s been an inspiration to ardent nationalists and believers of all nations, creeds and religious persuasions, especially those, one might observe, who face tremendous odds in overcoming a far more powerful foreign oppressor. Indeed, is Horace’s (and Kristol’s) affirmation, conceptually at least, so very different from that line in the Islamic Resistance Movement’s (a/k/a Hamas) charter that asserts: “Death for the sake of Allah is its most coveted desire,” as was noted most disapprovingly just this week by Kristol’s fellow-Likudist, former Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith, in one of a flood of neocon and Israeli efforts to justify Israel’s hugely destructive campaign in Gaza?

For those who are more interested in Kristol’s notions of nationalism and its importance, it’s worth noting that he will be offering an intensive course entitled “The Case for Nationalism” on the subject from Dec. 8-12 for just $3,000 for non-Israelis. The course, which is co-sponsored by the Hertog Foundation — Roger Hertog is a board member of both the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) and Commentary magazine, among other neoconservative associations — and the Tikvah Fund, whose faculty and speakers constitute a veritable who’s who of the Jewish neoconservative world, will take place at (and given his nostalgia for the British Empire, Kristol will love this) King George Street 44 in (West) Jerusalem.

Here’s the rather bewildering, not to mention historically and intellectually dubious (but rhetorically very Straussian), course description, which I necessarily quote at length:

Led by Dr. William Kristol, editor of The Weekly Standard and one of the leading public intellectuals in America, this institute will examine the political and moral questions surrounding nationalism and nation-states. The course will begin by examining the case for and against nationalism, drawing upon some of the major works of modern political theory. It will then look in detail at three “regimes”—Europe, America, and modern Israel—drawing upon a mix of classic texts, speeches, and case studies.

In Europe, we see the dominant moral and political idea of our age—“human rights”—in its most advanced form. All persons everywhere are entitled to equal dignity and equal protections. The most dangerous threats to human rights—terror and empire, religious extremism, natural catastrophe, market dysfunction—all transcend national borders. Human rights cannot be secured by nations, and excessive national pride is a threat to the new ideal of the free, sovereign, cosmopolitan individual. The nation must be overcome and replaced by a centralized governing body that is large enough to protect global citizens from global threats.

In America, we see the ideals of universal liberty and natural rights combined with a belief in the exceptional character and special responsibilities of the American nation. Does American power serve the interests of world order? Do Americans believe in their own exceptionalism, or do they seek to become a nation among the nations?

The question of nationalism takes on special significance for citizens of Israel, the world’s only Jewish State. Zionism is a form of nationalism, and the founding of Israel represents the culmination of ancient longings for the rebirth of Jewish sovereignty in the Jewish homeland. But it was also founded in partial response to World War II and the Shoah it perpetrated on European Jewry. If the intellectual architects of the European Union believe that the national form causes violence and stands in the way of a more harmonious world, the intellectual architects of the State of Israel believed the opposite—that only a state dedicated to the protection of the Jewish people will ensure their welfare and prosperity.

Taken together, these urgent questions invite us to think about the deepest meaning and true character of political life, returning us yet again to the great texts and thinkers who illuminated the problems of politics with greatest clarity and force.

Of course, the belief by the architects of the European Union that nationalism can contribute to violence and “stands in the way of a more harmonious world” is based in large part on the lessons drawn from both the Great War and its successor. And doesn’t a state “dedicated to the protection” of one people foster violence and stand in the way of a more harmonious world if that “protection” translates into actively defeating the legitimate national aspirations of another people, denying their own self-determination, and occupying them militarily and colonizing their territory in violation of international law? Isn’t that the kind of question we should be pondering in this centenary year?

If you can’t get to the seminar, Kristol’s latest editorial offers what I suppose is his much-abbreviated lesson in the form of an extended quotation by Douglas Murray, the associate director of the London-based Henry Jackson Society of which Kristol, among many other prominent US neoconservatives, is an “International Patron:”

Israel is surrounded by enemies, as we have been for much of our history. But today we like to think that enemies are a thing of the past. There are no enemies, just phobias we haven’t been cured of yet.

A gap may well be emerging. But not because Israel has drifted away from the West. Rather because today in much of the West, as we bask in the afterglow of our achievements​—​eager to enjoy our rights, but unwilling to defend them​—​it is the West that is, slowly but surely, drifting away from itself.

Today Israel is also distinguished by a deep sense of its values and ethics as well as a profound awareness of their source​—​things we also used to have. Deep questions of survival, the tragedy and triumph of the past, present and future remain the stuff of every Israeli house I have ever been to. .  .  .

[I]t is Israel that remains the truly western country. It is Israel which takes its history seriously, thinks deeply about where it is going and what it exists for. It is Israel which takes western values seriously and fights for the survival of those values. .  .  . [I]t is Israel that is still truly a western country. Far more than many parts of western Europe now are.

Wow. Today’s Israel apparently would have felt right at home in August 1914.

Photo: Willy Werner’s depiction of “Flanders Fields.” Credit: Mary Evans Picture Library/Canadian Press

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Applying a familiar label or phrase can be a substitute for good analysis, or for any analysis at all. The application activates a set of presumptions associated with the label or phrase while brushing aside any other relevant facts that may contradict those presumptions. The current conflict in Gaza has stimulated a [...]]]> by Paul Pillar

Applying a familiar label or phrase can be a substitute for good analysis, or for any analysis at all. The application activates a set of presumptions associated with the label or phrase while brushing aside any other relevant facts that may contradict those presumptions. The current conflict in Gaza has stimulated a surge in application of such rote phrases to one of the belligerents: Hamas. Besides the familiar label of “terrorist group,” which ignores other dimensions of Hamas as well as ignoring who is applying most lethal force against civilians, there also is the catchphrase that Hamas is “dedicated to the destruction of Israel.” It is not just the Israeli government that keeps uttering that phrase, or even commentators seeking to justify Israel actions; one sees it in mainstream press in what are supposed to be objectively reported articles.

In assessing the validity of the phrase, let us set aside some related issues that also are very important in assessing what is going on today in the Gaza Strip. One concerns the origin of this conflagration, which began when the Netanyahu government seized upon a kidnapping and murder in the West Bank, blamed it (falsely, we now know) on Hamas, launched large-scale raids and arrests, including detentions that reneged on a previous agreement with Hamas, and applied lethal force both in the West Bank and along the Gaza Strip that killed at least nine Palestinians—all before Hamas fired a single rocket or sent a single fighter through a tunnel in this round of fighting. A second concerns how the slaughter of innocent civilians has reached wholesale proportions far beyond what can be justified by even the most nefarious intentions imputed to the adversary or by excuses about difficulties of targeting in close quarters. A third involves how given the misery that had already been inflicted on Gazans in their open-air prison, it would be astounding if many did not hold intensely hostile attitudes toward Israel; if somehow Hamas could be made to go away it would just open space for groups more radical and unyielding than it.

Hamas does not have anything close to a capability to destroy Israel, and never will. The imbalance of strength is so lopsided as to make any talk of destruction of Israel, which has one of the most able military forces in the world, ludicrous. This is reflected in the results of the current fighting—and especially in the killing of innocent civilians, which is supposedly the chief focus of worries about Hamas. Hamas is probably giving everything it has got to the military effort, but the latest tally of civilians killed is three in Israel and probably more than a thousand in the Gaza Strip.

Moreover, Hamas leaders are certainly smart enough to realize their group will never have anything close to a capability to destroy Israel, even if they wanted to do so. Remember, these are the same leaders who currently are being given much credit for cleverness with regard to use of the tunnels. Hamas is not dedicated to something it knows it could never do anyway.

Most important, Hamas now has a substantial track record that contradicts the catchphrase. A recent article by John Judis reviews some of the relevant history. Hamas has repeatedly made it clear it will accept a long-term (meaning decades)hudna or truce with Israel, and who knows how much can change in decades, especially if there were such an agreed-upon peace. Hamas has repeatedly made it clear it would accept a comprehensive peace accord with Israel if approved by a majority of Palestinians in a referendum. In its recent pact with Fatah (destruction of that pact evidently being the main purpose of the Netanyahu government’s aggressive moves leading to the current fighting), Hamas agreed to surrender power to, and to support, a Palestinian government in which Hamas was given no portfolios and which explicitly accepts all the usual Western demands about recognizing Israel, adhering to all previous agreements, and adhering to non-violence. If this is the record of a group dedicated to the destruction of Israel, then the term dedicated has some new and unknown meaning. Hamas certainly does have a longer term goal, more attractive to it; that goal is to wield power over Palestinians in a Palestinian state.

Reference keeps getting made to extreme language in a party’s charter (just as it was for years to the PLO’s charter) and to Hamas leaders not uttering explicitly some phrase such as “I recognize Israel’s right to exist”. Why should they, when Israel clearly does not recognize any right of Hamas to exist, and has given no hints that it ever would? Rather than saying Hamas is dedicated to the destruction of Israel, it would be closer to the truth to say that Israel is dedicated to the destruction of Hamas—although even that statement is not entirely true, because the current Israeli government implicitly relies on Hamas to police the Gaza Strip and explicitly relies on it as a bugbear and excuse for not negotiating seriously about Palestinian statehood.

Acceptance of statehood on the other side is indeed the critical comparison. In contrast to Hamas making it clear it would accept a two-state solution, the current Israeli government has not. Some members of the ruling coalition have been explicit in rejecting it and talking about their objective of an Eretz Israel from sea to river. Netanyahu, who in many respects is one of the most moderate members of his own coalition, has given lip service to the idea of a Palestinian state but more recently, and evidently more honestly, has talked about Israel continuing a military occupation of the West Bank permanently. In assessing barriers to a complete peace settlement, let alone to a truce to end the current hostilities, one question to ask is: which side’s ambitions, or dedication to objectives, is the larger impediment? A second question is: which matters more, words (even if they are either empty promises to the other side, or high-flown rhetoric to one’s own side) or deeds?

It will be hard enough to obtain even a short-term ceasing of the ongoing bloodshed, without feeding the fire with familiar but false phrases about who supposedly is dedicated to the destruction of whom. One of the main reasons it is hard is that Israel appears dedicated to giving Hamas no reason to stop fighting. Part of the background to this problem, which Nathan Thrall summarizes in a new article, is the last Hamas-Israeli ceasefire agreement in November 2012, which Hamas did its best to observe but Israel did not. Violent acts in the first few months after the agreement, including gunfire at farmers and fishermen, were almost all committed by Israel, which also did not fulfill a commitment to end the blockade of Gaza and to initiate indirect talks with Hamas about implementation of the agreement. As Thrall observes, “The lesson for Hamas was clear. Even if an agreement was brokered by the US and Egypt, Israel could still fail to honor it.”

Photo: Israel Defense Forces (IDF) soldiers operating in Gaza on July 31, 2014. Credit: IDF

This article was first published by the National Interest and was reprinted here with permission. Copyright the National Interest.

by James A. Russell

Watching the US-backed Israeli bombardment of Gaza makes me ashamed to be an American. The sight of US-made bombs bursting in the air, in hospitals, in homes, and over beaches is a far cry from the sense of American exceptionalism engendered by Francis Scott Key’s observations of the [...]]]> via LobeLog

by James A. Russell

Watching the US-backed Israeli bombardment of Gaza makes me ashamed to be an American. The sight of US-made bombs bursting in the air, in hospitals, in homes, and over beaches is a far cry from the sense of American exceptionalism engendered by Francis Scott Key’s observations of the British shelling of Baltimore during the war of 1812.

That sense of American exceptionalism, which has been an important part of our national psyche, has also wended its way through the nation’s foreign policy and the intellectual traditions that have supported it.

As noted by historian Walter McDougall in his eloquent and timeless essay, “Back to Bedrock: The Eight Traditions of American Statecraft” (Foreign Affairs, March/April 1997), Americans always wanted to believe that their country’s foreign policy traditions, which ineluctably flowed from the principles of our founding fathers, stood for some higher moral purpose. This in turn meant we could pursue our ideals at home and abroad with a clear conscience and the ability to tell right from wrong.

To be sure, intellectual traditions drawing upon historic ideals and moral purpose have always cloaked the cold-hearted, realist foreign policies designed to enhance America’s influence and power around the world. But it is also true that these ideals and realist policies went hand in hand — despite the obvious inconsistencies.

For example, the West’s Cold War struggle with the Soviet Union undeniably drew upon that sense of American exceptionalism; we characterized the global struggle as one that pitted freedom against oppression. We were always on the right side of this fight, as countries around the world consciously and obviously sought to free themselves from the yoke of communist oppression in pursuit of democracy and pluralist governance.

That sense of exceptionalism and moral purpose also provided the intellectual bedrock for the domestic political consensus that characterized politics in the post-World War II era. Republican and Democratic administrations for the most part pursued sensible, centrist policies at home and abroad.

After the Berlin Wall came tumbling down, however, the US stumbled into the post-Cold War era, which, after a short hiatus, became replaced by the war on terror in which anti-modern Islamic terrorists replaced the Soviet boogeyman. Upon transitioning into the era of terror and foreign wars, that domestic consensus slowly but surely unraveled as the Republican party withdrew from the centrist coalition that had governed the US in the post-World War II world and denounced any attempts at sensible compromise.

Perhaps the most grievous casualty of the war on terror has been the US’ sense of exceptionalism and higher moral purpose. Instead, we are left with the cold, hard facts of today’s America: assassinating people via robots without due process, hauling suspects off to foreign jails to be tortured, enabling and supporting reprehensible regimes so long as they swear fealty to the terror war, and a government at home that routinely pries into its citizens’ private communications (not to mention those of our allies), all justified as necessary evils for safety and security.

Now our tax dollars are funding the bombing of Gaza while our elected representatives from both sides of the aisle scarcely raise an eyebrow. Ironically, the American political and monetary blank check granted to Israel has only hastened its descent into pariah state status and international isolation — the very opposite objective that the Israelis and we claim to be pursuing.

Of course, the American reaction to the events of Gaza and the latest era of American foreign policy says more about us and our lost sense of purpose than it does about Israel’s bad behavior. This loss has enveloped the republic and its domestic politics as the Republican Party has lurched off the ideological map into its exclusionary room full of mirrors.

We can no longer agree on such rudimentary steps as fixing the country’s deteriorating road system. Instead our government responds mainly to the needs of those corporations and individuals with enticing check books while the rest of us are left with crumbling roads.

The muted reaction to Gaza by our government and our elected representatives is partly a response to the money wielded by donor groups controlled by the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), which has become the National Rifle Association of American foreign policy.

All this reveals a country that has lost the sense of conscience and purpose that were once the bedrocks of the world’s greatest democracy. Unless we find a way to recover our intellectual center of gravity, we will continue to watch as US-made bombs burst over Gaza and elsewhere with a shoulder shrug and an Alfred E. Neumann “what me worry” attitude as our great republic crumbles around us.

Photo: IDF artillery forces fire into the Gaza Strip on July 16.

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