A Middle East strategy For The West

by Barry Rubin

The great battle of our younger years was between Communism and democratic liberalism. Its contemporary equivalent is Arab nationalism versus Islamism.

That implies some extremely important, often misunderstood, conclusions:

First, regrettably but true, democracy isn't in the running. The problem is not just that cynical rulers mislead the masses through demagoguery-though that's true; it's that the masses embrace extremist world views.

Even in Iraq or Lebanon what exists is not democracy but merely elections regulating the precise balance among ethno-religious blocs. Instead of lobbying, they have violence as a means of persuasion and leverage, periodically breaking into civil war.

Other countries are dictatorships, though repression varies. Kuwait, a sort of monarchical semi-democracy, is the exception proving the rule. There, pro-democratic liberal forces do poorly against dynasty-controlled, Islamist and tribal foes.

The Palestinian political scene provides another example. Remember, Fatah accepted Hamas's victory at the polls. Only after an agreement formed a coalition government did Hamas stage a coup.

There is nothing theoretical about this. Is democracy possible in the Arabic-speaking world? Why not, once one discounts all the actually existing political, ideological, social and organizational forces.

Will it come eventually? Probably, if eventually is long enough.

In terms of practical politics and strategy, however, these two questions are irrelevant. Democracy isn't on the agenda.

Just to give guidelines, and remembering every country differs, I'd suggest roughly 60-70 percent of the Arabic-speaking world is still Arab nationalist, 20-30 percent Islamist, and 10 percent pro-moderate democracy. Numbers and definitions are subject to challenge but the basic proportions seem right.

There are two hybrid regimes. Libya follows dictator Muammar Qadhafi's bizarre mentality. More importantly, in Syria, the regime is Arab nationalist but its international policy and domestic propaganda is largely Islamist. It backs Iraqi, Lebanese, and Palestinian Islamist terrorists and the regime is deeply committed to the Iran alliance.

Second, not all Islamists are the same or allied but all are extremely dangerous. Iran and Syria, which can subvert whole countries and sponsor large political organizations, is far more dangerous than al-Qaida.

The notion of helping groups like the Muslim Brotherhood to become more powerful or seize control of countries is insane, more likely to ensure decades of bloodshed, the deaths of many thousands of people in internal strife and foreign warfare, and the destruction of Western interests.

Third, the two contending forces are both local. The West is an outside factor whose intervention-either through force or concessions-won't decide this contest generally and certainly isn't going to transform either of the two sides. The West can, however, do some critical things if it knows how to distinguish between friends, enemies, and interests:

Help one side against the other where appropriate. The side to help is the Arab nationalists. They are as a group, at least with Saddam Hussein gone from Iraq, less internationally aggressive and less internally repressive than the revolutionary enthusiastic and ideologically idealistic Islamists.
They have also absorbed some lessons from the last half-century about their own limits and Western power. Their people suffer because they're incapable of transforming these societies for the better; their subjects benefit because they don't seek to transform these societies and govern every detail of their lives.

Don't romanticize Arab nationalist regimes. They're incompetent, corrupt, anti-democratic, and unreliable allies. We know their failings are one significant reason the Islamists have grown but, frankly, there's nothing we can do about it. There's no third alternative. The Bush administration tried and failed miserably. Ironically, a real moderate government, the Lebanese "March 14" coalition, didn't receive serious Western support and inevitably fell to Hizballah pressure and Iranian-Syrian subversion.
Arab nationalist regimes will do as little as possible to combat the Islamists internationally, appease the other side quickly if they think it's winning, and play anti-American, anti-Western, and anti-Israel cards.

Show Arab nationalist regimes that the West won't let them get away with anything nasty and show the Islamists it won't let them get away with anything at all. Any concession made to the Islamist side-including Syria-sends a signal to regimes, radical Islamist groups, and the people that the Islamists are winning and everyone better join or appease them.
Obtaining Israel-Palestinian or Arab-Israeli peace is a useless strategy, distracting from real issues. It isn't going to happen; Islamists would use any such peace to portray those signing it as traitors; and even many Arab nationalists would denounce it to raise their credibility as tough, unyielding fighters. Violence and unrest would increase, not lessen, as a result.
Similarly, the main reason to oppose Iranian nuclear weapons is not because they would threaten Israel-though that's important-but because they endanger Western interests by swinging the balance wildly in favor of the Islamists.
If you want a good analogy, think of how the United States and Britain had to ally with Joseph Stalin's USSR during World War Two (though they were too trusting of him) and with a variety of dictators during the Cold War (without countenancing their systems or practices, which didn't happen often enough but more so than many think today).

In short, the priority is not to be nice to Hamas, Hizballah, Iran, Muslim Brotherhoods, or Syria, but rather to work with-critically and sometimes pressuring-the governments of Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Morocco, the smaller Arab Gulf states, Saudi Arabia, and Tunisia, along with democratic forces in Lebanon. This group also includes Fatah's Palestinian Authority, but that group already receives far more money and diplomatic support than it needs or deserves. It should be made to work for these benefits rather than contribute so much to the problems.

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2. A pack of Palestinian paradoxes by Eran Lerman (Am J Comm)

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was here this week to push along the Israeli-Palestinian talks; but this visit, which not so long ago would have sent ripples of political excitement (and for some in Israel, consternation and anxiety) throughout the land, was barely noticed in the local media. True, international and even Israeli attention was fixed upon faraway Denver. True, closer to home, our popular press was caught up with a terrible tragedy-the story of little Rose, a girl of four, apparently murdered and cast in the river by her paternal grandfather (who was already, as it turns out, living with her mother, his former daughter-in-law)-the sort of horror we would have associated with others, not with Israeli or Jewish life: How wrong we were to think that "it couldn't happen here."

Still, there was more to the manner in which the Rice visit was treated than the mere fact that there were more titillating tales to tell. This marginalization (which may, in fact, be beneficial) is rooted in the nature of the process that she came to move forward. The paradoxes abound, and there is much they can teach us:

To begin with, with little fanfare, a new pattern of negotiations has emerged that has already gone much further than many expected when the process was launched at Annapolis. Teams from both sides, Israeli and Palestinian, meet almost daily. Intensive talks are held between Foreign Minister (and prospective prime minister) Tzippi Livni and her Palestinian interlocutor, Ahmed Qurei (Abu 'Ala). At the highest level, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) meet regularly, often without any prodding or even mediation. Whereas the Clinton Administration invested great effort in bringing together Israeli leaders and Yasir Arafat, with little to show for it, the current relationship is much closer than at any time in the past and, given the role of truly moderate voices like Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, more likely to bear fruit. And yet the Palestinians, and many others, even in Israel, openly yearn for a greater American role (and accuse the present administration of dropping the ball.) At the root of this paradox lies the thinly veiled expectation that "the world"-i.e., the U.S.-will coerce Israel into giving ground above and beyond the present (far-reaching) offers.
What Israel has been willing to put on the table is kept secret-not least, because of the extreme political sensitivity involved. (Some of Olmert's coalition partners and cabinet ministers might bolt if they face, prematurely, the full scope of Israeli concessions.) Still, there have been enough informed leaks to form an outline of the emerging deal:

Well over 90 percent of the West Bank, as well as all of Gaza, will constitute (when conditions allow; this is to be a "shelf agreement" that can only be implemented when Abbas regains control of Gaza, which is to say, not anytime soon) the future Palestinian state. There will be a secure transportation corridor that will connect the two parts without dissecting Israel in two. For the percentage of the West Bank that will be annexed to Israel-where most of the settlers now live in "blocs"-there will be some territorial compensation in the form of (empty) areas in the Negev, at the expense of Israel proper.
A certain number of refugees may be allowed into Israel for humanitarian reasons; there are some ideas being discussed as to who might be eligible (only "original" refugees from 1948-i.e., people who are no longer likely to raise a family) and various reports about the scope. But clearly, there will be no sweeping recognition of the so-called "right of return." There may be differences of nuance and substance on this question between Olmert's track and Livni's: The latter is adamant that the Jewish nature of the State of Israel is a paramount consideration.
Tight security arrangements will ensure that the Palestinian state will remain officially demilitarized, but with paramilitary forces able to fight terrorism. Israel will retain certain security rights in the West Bank, and for the foreseeable future, a role in the Jordan Valley, ensuring that there is a wedge between Palestine and the Hashemite Kingdom.
Jerusalem, except for some outlying Arab areas that may be handed over to PA governance, may well be left for the next stage (which may or may not come to be), as no agreement is now likely about the permanent disposition of the Holy Basin and the Old City.

The Palestinians, as it happens, are just happy enough with the progress already made to demand that it be enshrined in an American document that would serve as a point of departure for the next administration, whereas Israeli policy has always been that nothing is to be summed up until all is agreed. And yet, paradoxically (again) the Palestinians are also complaining loudly that nothing of real value is happening, and they are about to lose hope. Here the root of the paradox lies within a basic tenet of Palestinian public policy: As the victims, as the weaker party, they must never compromise on (their interpretation of) "international legitimacy"-i.e., as they see it, the 1967 lines, Jerusalem, and the return of the refugees "to their homes." This may differ in substance from what happens behind closed doors, in negotiating rooms, but the test of which version will prevail is yet to come.
The level of violence is, in fact, at a significant low. Despite an occasional Qassam being fired, in breach of the "tahdi'a" agreement, there has been no loss of life-and other than the individual rampages in Jerusalem, almost no major terrorist attacks have taken place for a year. Economic conditions are improving; progress is being made in training the PA security forces; Israel felt confident enough to release, in time for Rice's visit, 199 convicted terrorists (two of them murderers who already had served long terms) as a gesture to Abbas. Despite all this, the threat of violence still hangs in the air, as the Palestinian negotiators mutter darkly about dismantling the PA and inducing chaos, and on the Israeli side, the fear of a surge in Hamas and PIJ activity restrains the IDF when it comes to removing checkpoints and other security measures, and keeps alive the debate as to whether a large-scale operation in Gaza might become inevitable at some point. In this troubling respect, external factors play a role in feeding the paradox: the example set by Hezbollah in Lebanon; the failure of the moderate forces in the Arab world in their struggle to impose their will in Lebanon and the rise of Syria; and, above all, Iran's ascendancy as a regional (and in Tehran's fervid imagination, a global) power.
What all of this adds up to is a problem, some would say a failure, of leadership. Abbas is a weak reed, and his word barely runs beyond the confines of the formal power structure in Ramallah. The prospects of a reversal in Gaza are dimmer than ever; prominent Fatah clans (behind the slogans, much of Palestinian, and Iraqi, politics can be traced to family rivalries worthy of a Mario Puzo novel) continue to fight; and on the Israeli side, Olmert is a lame duck, and his ability to impose his will on the settlers' community-as any Israeli leader may need to do to be able to move forward-is at its lowest point. Even if there were a prospect of much more intensive American involvement, there would be little that could be done to push them both beyond where they have gone already: Patience, worn thin as it may be, is still better than a rush to burden the two political leaders with what they cannot carry out..