Six Questions on the Bush Administration and the Middle East Crisis for...

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Six Questions on the Bush Administration and the Middle East Crisis for Wayne White

Posted on Sunday, July 23, 2006. Wayne White, now an Adjunct Scholar with Washington's Middle East Institute, was Deputy Director of the State Department's Office of Middle East and South Asia Analysis until March 2005. On Saturday, he replied to a series of questions about the situation in Lebanon and the Bush Administration's response. By Ken Silverstein.

1. Condoleezza Rice is leaving for the Middle East. Is her trip likely to lead to any favorable diplomatic outcome?

I don't think so. At least not anytime soon. Despite her meetings in New York at the UN, back in Washington, and her upcoming trip to the region, I believe her activities have been tailored to give the impression of action while not designed to make any real progress toward the urgent ceasefire that should be everyone's highest priority. To cite just one disappointment, the apparent failure to engage senior Syrian officials directly is a serious omission since Syria may be the only Arab government in a position to pressure Hezbollah in any meaningful way.

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3. What does Israel hope to gain from its ongoing military operations in Lebanon, and is it likely to meet with success?

Israel's civilian and military leadership appears to believe that it can destroy Hezbollah, not only by attacking Hezbollah itself, but also by showing the government and people of Lebanon what the price will be for allowing Hezbollah to operate on Lebanese territory. To the extent that Israel meets with success, that success will be of questionable long-term value. From a large and enraged Shiite population, surely there will be thousands of recruits ready to replace Hezbollah's losses in personnel. Indeed, just as the emergence of Hezbollah came in reaction to Israel's 1982 invasion of Lebanon, other groups—most likely Palestinians from vast communities in and around Tyre and Sidon, or Sunni radicals from as far away as the Tripoli area of northern Lebanon—could also mobilize against the Israelis. In fact, not learning from the American experience in Iraq—that trying to crush a guerrilla movement with conventional military force and thereby inflicting significant (in this case, even deliberate) collateral casualties might only generate thousands of other potential fighters bearing various grievances—the IDF could find itself mired in the same sort of seemingly open-ended confrontation.

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6. Will there be any negative consequences resulting from the administration's relatively passive diplomacy?

Very much so. As I have noted, the Israelis have embarked on a campaign that will most likely make matters worse over the long term. This crisis will further erode the United States' credibility in the Middle East—and beyond. Despite clearly siding with Israel, Washington used to be regarded as a party quite often useful for intercession with the Israelis, but in this case the Bush Administration has seemingly given Israel a blank check to do whatever it wants for as long as it wants. With respect to another extremely serious consequence of not working to bring this carnage to an early end, Lebanon already has absorbed billions of dollars of damage. By the end of the crisis, the cost of rebuilding Lebanon will be incredibly high and the rebuilding effort quite prolonged, leaving most Lebanese, aside perhaps from the hard-core Christian right, considerably more hostile to Israel—and the United States—than ever before. In this respect, I find scenes of devastated Lebanese urban areas not only appalling, but frightening.

http://www.harpers.org/sb-six-questions-for-wayne-white-2308402183.html

[blm]

1. Thanks for this post.

I would have missed it.

[ProSense]

2. This image captures it:

[ProSense]

3. We Have To Talk To Bad Guys

We Have To Talk To Bad Guys

By John McLaughlin
Sunday, July 23, 2006; Page B07

Although the fighting in the Middle East is still raging, it is not too soon to start drawing lessons from these tragic events. Even if this situation begins to cool, there are so many other flashpoints in the Middle East and so many other potential hot spots in the world that any respite from crisis is bound to be short.

Lesson No. 1 is that change occurs incrementally and almost imperceptibly in the Middle East, but when it reaches critical mass, the potential for surprise and disaster is enormous...

Lesson No. 2 is that the chances of detecting and heading off imminent disaster are enhanced when there is intense, unrelenting and daily attention by a senior and respected U.S. figure who wakes up every morning worrying about nothing else -- the role that Ambassador Dennis Ross played so effectively in the 1990s...

Lesson No. 3, related to all of this, is that process matters, especially in the Middle East, where the issues are so contentious and the parties so divided...

Lesson No. 4 is that even superpowers have to talk to bad guys...

Lesson No. 5 is that there are no unilateral solutions to today's international problems, not even for superpowers...

In a region as complex as the Middle East, nothing guarantees progress. But what is clear is that these problems are intertwined, that all the states in the region have vital interests at stake, and that approaching these issues serially will only prolong the familiar cycle of one step forward and two steps back.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/21/AR2006072101399.html