Debate
" The US and the Middle East"
Prof. Robert J. Lieber,
Prof. of Government and International Affairs at Georgetown University"
Brussels, 18 May 2006
Summary. This is not an official record of proceedings and specific remarks are not necessarily attributable.
Introduction: call for a more realistic analysis of the US policies
In his introduction, prof. Robert Lieber made some critical remarks on the European vision on American policy, the grand strategy, the Bush doctrine, America's Middle East policy, the US-Israel relationship. According to him, " the discussion about neo-conservative influence on US policy, US-Israel, has about as much a relationship to reality as the movie 'The Da Vinci code' has to catholic theology and the catholic church".
He was critical of the 'European narrative'
which he rejected as "a kind of fantasy version of
America, of 9/11 and the Middle East which more thoughtful diplomats, authors,
experts, would not share, but which is all too common. I’ve certainly had the
experience of being part of meetings, conferences etc. where this narrative
takes on a leave of itself."
He summarized that narrative as follows.
What is heard is that “the 9/11 attacks precipitated a
wild overreaction on the part of the US. It came an excuse for repression,
restriction of civil liberties at home, in the US, for an aggressive war abroad.
America has temporarily lost its mind and is acting in a deranged, imperial
mode. Europeans are more or les in an agreement in rejecting this approach. The
answer instead of what the US has been doing lies in complete reliance and
multilateralism on the UN and that no use of force can be even conceived as
legitimate unless it is approved by all five permanent members of the UNSC. And
at the end of the day, the real problems in the Middle East and of American
policy has to do with the Bush administration and the neoconservatives and / or
Israel”. He called for an
analysis of the US and its policies on a more realistic basis.
Three core premises help to understand the American grand strategy
In his new book, "The Amercian Era", he argues that continued US international preeminence was both likely and necessary. According to Prof. Lieber, three core premises help to understand the American grand strategy and the logic of the American foreign policy. He admitted that this doesn't mean that every single policy implementation was done flawlessly. In war time, errors always happen, there are always misjudgments.
His first premise is that 9/11 changes everything! In terms of American grand strategy, it bears comparison with December 7, 1941, the Japanese attack on the American Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor. It changed American grand strategy permanently. This premise has to do with the nature of the treat. Lieber refuted the European analysis that Americans have overreacted to terrorism, something that Europeans are familiar with. The analysis that we only should talk to these people and that would solve the problem is completely misplaced and quite wrong, according to Lieber. The Jihadists are not to be compared with the European type of terrorists that I referred to. Osama Bin Laden has said that the acquisition of nuclear weapons is a sacred duty and that killing four million Americans would be perfectly justified. "Most serious American strategists understand that the long term threat from the combination of WMD and terrorism is very great", Lieber said.
The second premise is the weakness of
international institutions, especially the UN. Examples of this weakness are Bosnia and
Srebrenica's massacre in July '95, the Rwanda genocide and Darfur today.
The UN can and do many important things – and if it did not exist, we had to
reinvent it, Lieber said. The UN should be able to act forcefully, decisively to cope with failed states, mass
murders, genocide, ethnic cleansing etc.
His third premise is "the reality that the USA possesses: an unusual combination of power that no other individual country in the world has at its command. You can measure that by size, population, military, strength, economic dynamism, technology, competitiveness, culture, prevalence of English as the lingua franca, the ability to project power anywhere in the world on a rapid basis". Lieber emphasized that "the US can't be and won't be the world's policeman. No serious and effective solutions to many of the world's most dangerous and urgent common problems is likely to be effective unless there is some role for the USA ... as a leader, supporter, participant, catalyst, organisator".
Prof. Lieber then traced this theme across a range of issues, from relations with China and Europe to the Iraq war, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Iran, Hamas and globalization.
Use of force
Concerning the use of force, he
observed that the European narrative tends to proclaim that no use of force
can be even conceived as legitimate unless it is
approved by all five permanent members of the UNSC. To a
large degree, this argument is based on a extrapolation from one data point:
Iraq. But, he emphasized that "in fact, only two major interventions with major
force have taken place with that kind of UN legitimization since the UN was
created:
a) the war in Korea and that only happened because the Russians had walked out
of the UNSC in frustration about the seating of people’s Republic of China in
1950.
b) authorization to use force against Saddam to drive him out of Kuwait. That took place at the end of the cold war,
during an unusual positive combination to cooperate.
With those two exceptions, it is extremely rare that use of force be legitimized through the UN itself. It is a
fact."
Rage at the US and the West
Lieber reiterated that we need to take into account the lethality of the new treat. Referring to the bombing of the London underground and 7/7/2005 , the Madrid train bombings of March 11 2004, the interrupted terrorist plots in France etc., he wanted to make clear that "Jihadists have adopted a lethal ideology and policy driven by a rage at socio-economic and political problems in their societies".
He argued that the rage of Bin Laden is directed in large part at years of perceived humiliation
and in a part at the more recent 21st century impact of globalization
and modernization on those societies.
The ideology of terrorism is not immediately a product of this or that policy / event or statement by this or
that Western politician leader.
First, he reminded the audience of Osama Bin Laden’s fatwa of
October 2001 which "made a reference to 80 years of perceived humiliation. 80
years ago was 1921 (...) and it was coincident with the end of WO I, the
collapse of the Ottoman empire and the end of the caliphate, that is the
combined secular and religious authority for Islam as a whole, and a tragedy in
a sense of a defeat that followed there from".
He then referred to the Arab Human Development Report" produced by the UN Development program in 2002,
to Olivier Roy's remarks on the alienated Muslim immigrants (of the second
generation) and to the riots in France last autumn. Lieber said that the report
written by 15 Arab economists "pointed to a chronic and serious problem, in
much, not all, of the contemporary urban Muslim countries, in terms of three
deficits: in the role and treatment of women in society, deficit in knowledge
and information, in liberty and political freedom. Some of the countries have
done rather well in adapting to the challenges and opportunities their society
in recent years face. Others did much less well.
Looking at the French, Lieber said: "they were at
pains to put distance between themselves and the US on Iraq and they have been
critical on US unilateralism. Nevertheless, riots took place, cities were in
flames, cars burn. Something else is going on".
According to him, "the 9/11 terrorists did not target Israel or Zionism. Al Qaida
was not born in 1948, nor after 1967, but in 1999 at the end of the Soviet
invasion in Afghanistan".
Lieber is convinced that many of the core problems that exist, be it the Middle East, radical Islamism, terrorism, etc. will continue to exist. He referred to an article of Josef Joffe, editor of Die Zeit, in the Journal of Foreign Policy, called “A world without Israel”. The article explains that the disappearance of Israel would not solve the world's problems - problems of differences of ideology, of different religions and sex, of corruption, authoritarianism, of state versus state rivalries etc. The hate of America will not disappear.
Lieber's comment on Iran and Hamas.
On the Iran nuclear issue, he stressed that to the extent the major outside powers – EU, US, Russia – agree on holding the line on a certain policy, the greater the potential is for resolving a particular situation without conflict. The more the countries are divided, the more you weaken the pragmatists within a region and make it possible for the extremists to say “why should we change our extreme policies, it is working”. He recommended that China, Russia, the US and Europe should remain united in insisting that Iran must give up its nuclear enrichment efforts and its quest to build a nuclear weapon. He warned against people who say 'other countries have nuclear weapons, so let’s not worry about it' by pointing out that "even Cold War nuclear deterrence between USSR and US was a close run thing", that after the Cuban missile crisis in October ’62, "president Kennedy judged that the odds of disaster during the crisis would be one out of three, and even" and that nuclear weapons in Saddam’s hands, a real gambler, would have been a very dangerous proposition.
He is convinced that we need a unified outside coalition to "have any prospect of success in dealing with Iran and to strengthen the more moderate or pragmatic voices within the regime". He was critical on well-meaning European friends who say "don’t threat Iran”. He said: "force is a last resort, but nothing should be kept off the table! (...) It is true that power without diplomacy is blind, but diplomacy not backed up by power is impotent! And that is something well worth keeping in mind! There are many interim steps, in terms of incentives and disincentives, carrots and sticks, but they’ll not work unless there is a general agreement!"
On Hamas, Lieber thinks it was a serious mistake to allow Hamas to run in the Palestinian elections and explained why Hamas won the elections. He said that it was due to three things: "a) the corruption and the incompetence of Fatah under Arafat, b) the fact that Hamas was able to claim that the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza was not voluntary, but caused by Hamas’s military action and c) the tragedy that since Oslo Arafat and the PA instead of preparing their people of what peace with Israel would mean - a two-state solution of Palestinians living side by side alongside Israel – they propagandized in the most violent, offensive ways against Jews and Israel through the schools, books, the media, which helped to rise a new generation of young Palestinians with the most fanatical ideas".
Lieber advised strongly to stick to the conditions which the Quartet has laid down. He was surprised to see that some of his European brothers and sisters have reservations about that. He said that "a targeted aid to the Palestinian population not through Hamas, is desirable and necessary in humanitarian terms. Doing anything which provides recognition and approval to Hamas, unless it meets those terms, is a severe mistake and makes peace and a diplomatic solution less likely rather than more likely."
The unique American role
He finally highlighted that the US is playing an unique role, because of its power and size. This is especially evident in the Middle East.
In the case of the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict, only the US has been successful or feasible as the key intermediator.
Every major agreement ceasefire treaty, whether it was the Egyptian-Israeli
peace treaty of ’79 or the Jordan Peace Treaty of ’94, or other negotiations, it
required a key role for the US.
Lieber praised the President Bush’s June 2002 speech about
the Israeli-Palestinian problem "which broke new ground in ways which are quite
remarkable". He detailed this as
follows: "Bush was much more explicit than any other American president
in saying that it is the policy of the USA to favor the establishment of a
Palestinian state. He wanted to see that happen in three years. But equally
important and as a precondition, he also said that the Palestinians must have a
leadership, not compromised by terrorism and dictatorship, meaning 'you have to
get rid of Arafat'. I would add that virtually every Arab leader in the region
neither trusted nor respected Arafat, even though he had become the legitimate,
historical symbol of Palestinian nationalism. So, there is a great tragedy in
this. Unfortunately, Hamas, because of the positions it has taken, doesn’t meet
those standards!"
Nonetheless, Lieber mentioned that opinion polls seem to show that a majority of Palestinian and of Israelis want a stable solution to end the conflict. He emphasized that "the possibilities are there, but will be only achieved at if the Europeans, the US and others, insist on the key elements of it, rather than placing myths about the conflict".
Democratization
He concluded on a reflection about democratization.
Lieber called the 2002 and 2006 National
Security Strategy documents of the Bush administration are far more subtle and
creative documents and in some respect more moderate than that European
narrative - he mentioned in the introduction - often assumes. "It is not a
doctrine of an aggressive war anywhere in the world", he said. In fact, the 2002 document includes four points: preemption a commitment to
multilateralism. There will be as much cooperation as possible, but the US will
also take as unilateral actions as necessary; a strong statement about
democratization and its importance.
He further highlighted the importance of President Bush's speeches. Bush often makes the statement that 60 years of Western excusing and accommodating the lack of freedom in the Middle East did nothing to make us safe. But, he also makes clear that the USA can encourage and provide incentives to the local peoples, but the changes have to be done by the people themselves. Philip Zelikow, the Counselor of the State department, gave a speech in Washington, 10 days ago, about Iran in which he said that a great majority of the Iranian people want something different from what they have, but it is up to the Iranian people themselves to bring that about.
According to Lieber, the defeat of the brutal
Taliban dictatorship in Afghanistan and the overthrow of Saddam’s Islamo-fascist
regime in Iraq, are considerable achievements. He added: "one can pray that the
insurgency will be defeated. The Iraqis will effectively not only install but
find ways for their new elected sovereign government to become the effective
authority expressing the democratic wish of the Iraqi people".
To conclude, he expressed his optimism
for the development in the region. He stressed that "free elections don’t always
bring the outcomes we would wish, but over the longer term change is coming. And
a good deal of this change can be a consequence of aspects of American policy
that we have seen in recent years".