More “ripped from the classroom” blogging. I’m going to make an analogy between the Bush doctrine and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict–and the U.S. gets compared to a side you will not like. So let me be clear : I am not making a moral or historical parallel between Bush and Arafat, let alone our military and suicide bombers. I would never do that, and if I did you’d be quite right to scream at me. I am only trying to point to a shared strategic problem.
Yesterday my terrorism class had, as a guest speaker, a prof at my law school from Egypt, who had done research for the Palestinian negotiating team during the Camp David and Taba negotiations. He was there to give the Palestinian side of story of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and he made a very good presentation, changing my mind about a few things though not my overall view of what’s going on there. But my professor asked him a question at the end of the class that he could not respond to. To paraphrase:
“The main thing that makes me pessimistic, is: how can any Palestinian negotiator ever make a credible promise to Israel that the terror will stop, no matter how many concessions Israel makes?”
His point was not that the Palestinians all want to drive Israel into the sea, or that they are all untrustworthy. Nor was it that Arafat wants to drive Israel into the sea (which I don’t believe, I think he’s a horrible combination of self interested and inept and self pitying, but not especially fanatical) or that Arafat is much too untrustworthy for any Israeli government to believe. I do think Arafat has proven himself untrustworthy for any Israeli government to believe, but the problem goes deeper than that: I don’t think any Palestinian leader, no matter how moral he was or how much he negotiated in good faith, could promise that the violence would stop. The polls of Palestinians make it hard to believe that they would accept a two state solution right now, and while I think a healthy majority could be convinced, there is a significant minority who probably never can be.
Palestinian violence, my prof said, was probably a strategically effective tactic in one way: it made Israelis willing to make concessions to the Palestinians to stop the violence, that they wouldn’t have considered and did not consider when the violence wasn’t as bad. But it also stops Israel from actually making those concessions, because Israelis now believe, with a lot of justification, that nothing they give to the Palestinians will ever stop the bombing.
This struck me, partly because it reminded me of something that Henry Farrell (now of Crooked Timber) wrote a while ago about the Bush war and the pre-emption doctrine:
You see, the thing about credible threats is that they have to be conditional if they’re going to be effective. In other words, you threaten to do something nasty to someone, unless that someone does whatever it is that you’re telling them to. Presumably, then, if your threatened punishment is severe enough, and is credible, the offending party does whatever it is that you wanted him to do….
But this isn’t what the US and its allies were up to at all. They weren’t using the threat of invasion in order to make Saddam cough up his WMD. Instead, they were making it quite clear that they were going to invade anyway, regardless or not of whether Saddam started to make nice. They didn’t go through the UN in order to enhance the UN’s credibility, but rather to daub a thin patina of legitimacy over the course of action that they had decided to take anyway. The threatened invasion of Iraq was not intended to deter Hussein, it was intended to depose him. Nor is US policy likely to deter other dictators from building up WMD; when they look at the lily-livered US attitude towards North Korea, they may reasonably draw the conclusion that going nuclear is the best way to stop Uncle Sam from sending in the troops.
(Shrug) I’m not offended by the comparison, but I could have told you in early 2002 that we weren’t going to offer Saddam Hussein something that he could accept and keep his regime. I’m guessing that most of the Righties here would say something similar. His time was long past up, and his destruction was intended to be an instructive object lesson to the rest of the region – and, Crooked Timber to the contrary, it generally was, in a positive sense.
Let us now pause for the standard third-party ritual denunciations of the previous sentence, followed by generic heavy-handed rhetorical questions sparked by same. 🙂
Moe
Now Katherine, a serious question (actually two questions).
Why did the Paleos reject Taba?
And why, at the very least, did they not make a counteproposal at Taba?
But what lesson, exactly, were we trying to teach? I’m not speaking rhetorically; could you give me a paraphrase of the message we were trying to send, and successfully sent?
It’s one thing to think war was inevitable because Saddam would not give up his WMD, and another to think it was inevitable because he would not step down (which a lot of commentators noted would probably mean death) and that’s the only way we wouldn’t invade.
Good question, Timmy. He made a decent case for why they rejected the Camp David proposal–showed maps about how the Palestinian state was four non-contiguous pieces that you couldn’t move between without going into Israel; and Israel controlled all the water; and things of that nature. I wish I could remember more. He said the Taba proposals were better, and were very close, but they simply ran out of time before the elections.
He did not, or could not, explain the lack of counter-proposal or the turn to violence in response to the Camp David offer–which, whatever its flaws, was a good faith attempt and a serious risk for Barak. And he didn’t go into much more detail on Taba.
But what lesson, exactly, were we trying to teach? I’m not speaking rhetorically; could you give me a paraphrase of the message we were trying to send, and successfully sent?
I’m not Moe (clearly), but perhaps you’d still hear my answer. With respect to Iraq, the purpose was not to send a message; the purpose was to depose Saddam. Not every thing is a lesson; not every thing has a grander purpose. Those who hope that deposing Saddam will remake the middle east, well, in my view, they’re hoping for too much. The world ain’t that easy.*
I felt (and still feel) that Bush horribly bungled the lead-up to the war, and that we could have sent a message, and a good one, while we pursued our interests in Iraq. But there was an inherent benefit — the removal of a clear threat to our interests — in simply removing Saddam.
von
*I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again: The road to reform the middle east does not pass through the Pentagon, but rather through a much ignored and maligned Bush foreign policy initiative: The Middle East Free Trade Zone. It ain’t quick, it don’t look good on Fox News, but it has the best chance of working.
“But what lesson, exactly, were we trying to teach? I’m not speaking rhetorically; could you give me a paraphrase of the message we were trying to send, and successfully sent?”
“The old rules are no longer in effect, especially the ones that we had about what constituted an ‘acceptable risk’. This fellow here was probably the most successful in breaking the old rules, so excuse us while we implaciably tear down his regime around him; also, please note that the methods that worked in the past for avoiding our ire are currently not working at all, at all. So, how badly do you wish to emulate him now?”
I understand why the Paleos turned down Camp David but Taba seemed to an excellent opportunity for a sustainable Paleo state. They only gave up the “right of return.
Thanks
But what lesson, exactly, were we trying to teach? I’m not speaking rhetorically; could you give me a paraphrase of the message we were trying to send, and successfully sent?
The message we sent is that were going to get involved with those states who were bent on destabilizing the west. We were willing to project our military and economic power to that end.
Now I’m pushing the envelope here but Iraq generated leverage in our dealings with North Korea, the Indian/Pakistan relationship, Central Asia and North Africa for a start.
The role of out of a Iraqi democracy will generate additional benefits in the long term.
But I’m interrupting the trio here.
Von, that’s exactly why I wasn’t convinced the war was a bad idea but I am convinced the doctrine was.
Moe, I’ll just say, degrading our actual ability to deal with much more serious (to us) threats is much too high a price to pay for a vague ominous warning to bad guys. Ah well, what’s done is done. As von said getting rid of Saddam is an instrinic good, and if we can build a stable, benign, as-democratic-as-humanly possible government in Iraq, maybe it will be worth the considerable costs and risks in the end. But I think that even if the war is justifiable for other reasons, the pre-emption doctrine is an immoral and dangerous mistake that needs to be scrapped.
“The main thing that makes me pessimistic, is: how can any Palestinian negotiator ever make a credible promise to Israel that the terror will stop, no matter how many concessions Israel makes?”
They can’t–any more than Israel can promise to dismantle illegal settlements and return to pre-1967 borders as long as the Israelis who have settled there are unwilling.
Arafat and the Palestinian leadership up until now cannot be taken seriously because while they make the right noises about wanting peace, they do not take the measures necessary to crack down on the Palestinian terror groups who refuse to respect the cease-fires.
Similarly, Sharon cannot be taken seriously because while he makes similar noises about acknowledging Israel’s responsibility to respect international law and human rights, including dismantling the illegal settlements, the Israeli government does not actually back their words up with substantive action.
The obstacles to peace in the I/P situation are complex, but essentially boil down to this: the leadership of neither side is interested in a true, lasting, equitable peace. Each would prefer that the other cease to exist. Because of this, they continue to seize upon any violation by the other side as justification to retaliate, while continuing even through periods of relative peace to take unilateral actions.
The only way for peace to truly come about is for there to be a significant change of leadership or heart on at least /one/ of the sides involved. That side will have to take the moral high road–and no small amount of risk–by refusing to antagonize or relatiate in any way.
The cycle of violence MUST be broken. Unfortunately, I do not see either Arafat or Sharon as being the men to do this.
Katherine, I think that we’re at a polite impasse here over causes and intentions, even though we share the same desire for the same results.
agreed.
But I’m interrupting the trio here.
Life’s better when the trio gets interrupted, TtWD. Although I think that Moe Lane‘s genius in picking his co-bloggers (and this was Moe’s idea, I believe) was that we could easily fill our own comments section with our own commentary.
Frankly, I’ve found this to be some of the best commentary in Blogistan precisely because of the wild diversity of civil opinions.
“was that we could easily fill our own comments section with our own commentary.”
Either that or the thought that this way we could all alibi each other if any particular Revolution came. 🙂
I should add, there’s great commentary elsewhere too, but the comments sections at some of my other favorite places are so active that I quickly lose track of the conversation if I’m away for more than a few hours.
Well, if we’re going to be all gooshy about it, I invited both of them in because I thought that their comments over at Tac were intelligent, to the point and free of bile; I knew that von could blog, as he was a guestblogger for Tac, and Katherine showed all the signs of being able to do it too (she was also showing a hint of frustration at the din that goes on other there sometimes). I was going to invite some of the other guestbloggers from Tac in for guest posts here, but as it turns out there’s no need.
Which reminds me.
Which reminds me.
Of what, pray tell?
Do we have to pray in order for Moe to tell? :>
No mystery; just had to remember to post about Trickster’s Tactical apotheosis. 🙂
Like they say, the Palestinians never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity. The Palestinians need to realize that it costs more to keep intifada and terrorist attacks going than to sit and negotiate. Sadly, I think it’ll be a long coming before that happens. Here’s some survey info: