Poll: What Should Be the Priority of America's Middle East Policy?
Friday April 4, 2008
Most of the American federal budget is spoken for: Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and the interest due on America's massive debt ($237 billion last year alone) account for more than 62 percent of the federal budget. Short of a budgeting revolution, no president, not even Congress, can do much about that.
The president's agenda isn't much different. About two-thirds of it is set for him by realities largely out of the White House's control, especially when a particular administration has done such a good job of mucking things up in domestic and foreign policy. The next president, whoever it is, will have to deal with the Middle East, as has every president since Harry Truman.
The question: where should those Middle East priorities be? It's a lost cause for the current nullity in the White House. But you can help the next president decide. Here we go.
Comments
Actually a great bit overall by you Pierre - although there was no need to take the usual swipe at the Bush administration… I would make one change. Several of the priorities, including reducing our presence in Iraq, are important. I can’t pick just one so I won’t vote in the poll as presented since any vote I cast will misrepresent my views. I don’t suppose they give you the ability to present a poll where the respondents can rank their choices from most to least critical? That would be a poll I would like to see.
Pierre, I can’t do this. I can’t take the information I’ve read about U.S. policy in the Middle East and whittle it down to a “choose one” scenario. Sorry.
Linda and Gregor have a point of course: it would make more sense to rank priorities rather than choose one. And polling is by nature exclusionary and simplistic, especially when mega events and currents of history are in play. But my polling capabilities are limited, and I did specify priority, not to the exclusion of whatever doesn’t get checked off. For instance, I’m curious to know readers’ sense on this score: does peace in the Middle East go through Baghdad first, Jerusalem first, or neither?
Given the 2 options, I would consider Jerusalem a far better starting point, and an opportunity for America to regain some of its international stature. To do this would require an administration with the courage to tell Israel to, for example, stop building illegal settlements. Sadly, I can see none such in our immediate future.
Ending our occupation of Iraq is the only thing that would give us the right to mediate anything. Even then, how serious would the rest of the world take any effort by the U.S., considering the blood of a million Iraqi’s on our hands.
Ah, William seized on the magic word: settlements. Any solution begins with their dismantling. Short of that, there’s no point in hashing over inches and pleas.
Ending the “war” in Iraq would be a good first move as, however you want to express it, we need to do that before we have real hope of accomplishing some of the other goals. By that I mean the situation in Iraq should be stabilized to the point we can draw down our troops to extremely low levels.
We should continue to do what we can to encourage both sides in the Palestinian conflict to both give reasonable concessions and stop engaging in acts which reduce prospects for peace - by this I mean yes, no increases to illegal settlements (though I suggest William and I define that term differently), no rocket, mortar or suicide/homicide bomb attacks from the Palestinian side, firm, unrevocable recognition of Israel’s right to exist, etc.
We need to continue to battle al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, of course. Drawing down in Iraq will help us. We also need to battle them in Pakistan, preferably with the consent and cooperation of the Pakistani government.
Bomb Iranian nuclear facilities? I hope it doesn’t come to that. But you know, between them getting the bomb and us doing that, I’d chose the latter.
Get out of the middle east altogether? No, not a logical choice from my point of view - but you know I’m sure some will disagree and probably choose this one.
Now I see, perhaps, why you posted this poll and I thank you - as it did make me think and realize what I already knew. There was one logical choice. You knew it, too, didn’t you?
I’ll go vote now.
I’d like to take a moment to explain my vote, and give my particular order of priorities.
I voted to get out of the middle east altogether. The primary reason is the fact that western presence, whether we like it or not, is still regarded as an extension of the crusades in many arab communities. Unless and until this mindset changes, our continued presence there will only breed the kind of anger that is the underlying cause, and enabling mechanism, of events such as 9/11.
My next choice would be to mediate an end to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. It is a complex problem, one for which the solutions have eluded people much smarter than myself. That being said, some things that readily come to mind:
1. As long as Israel does not, or is not forced to, continue building settlements on land in dispute, no progress is possible. The US is complicit in this by continually showing favoritism toward the Jewish state. Successful mediation is only possible when fair and unbiased mediation is available. AIPAC is not helpful in this endeavor.
2. It has been repeatedly shown that Arab and Israeli families CAN BE and HAVE BEEN good friends. Such personal ties could be the cornerstone of something greater.
It was with some difficulty that I arrived at this order of priorities, as many go hand in hand. Which brings me to #3: get out of Iraq.
The “crusader” argument I put in the beginning, and the moral authority argument put by Jim R. both have merit in this. Unfortunately, the damage is done. The optimist within me wants to see an end to this unwarranted conflict, as quickly and correctly as possible. Considering the damage done, on all fronts, saving face in this self imposed fiasco doesn’t seem possible.
The battle against Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan seems like mostly the same thing, as the border area which is without any government control appears to be the primary battleground. Both countries claim jurisdiction on their portion of mountains designated by some line on a map, neither control a thing. Again takes me back to argument #1. Were it not for western influence, Al-Qaeda (trained by the CIA to fight the Soviet incursion into Afghanistan), or the Taliban (a result of western negligence in the country following the Soviet defeat) could not exist. We really made our bed there.
The final question, bombing anything in Iran, is one which only a certifiable lunatic would ever consider. The reason this option strikes fear into my heart: we presently have two certifiable lunatics residing at or about 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.
As I stated earlier, I’m not the brightest bulb in the chandalier, as concerning matters of foreign policy, but even I have learned, when it hurts, hammer the nail and not the thumb.