JustinLogan.com

The Ephemeral Middle East

Across Lebanon and the region, Arab leaders see Hezbollah for what it is: An arm of Iranian influence waging a sectarian battle in the heart of the Middle East.

An old Arab proverb goes, "Me against my brother; me and my brother against our cousin; and me, my brother and my cousin against the stranger." Forced to make a choice, Sunni Arabs are deciding: The Jews are cousins; the Shiites, strangers. U.S. diplomats may applaud the new pragmatism, but the reason behind it is nothing to celebrate.

-Michael Rubin, "Iran against the Arabs," Wall Street Journal, July 19, 2006.

Rising Arab anger over the Israeli offensive against Hezbollah appears to have pushed conservative rulers in the region to refocus their criticism away from the Shiite guerrillas and onto Israel...

Fatma Hassan Al Sayegh, a history professor at United Arab Emirates University, said Arab governments have had to back away from their initial stance as Hezbollah showed resilience and won support from the public.

Many around the Arab world seem to have put aside Shiite-Sunni animosities to concentrate on Israel.

"Oh Sunni! Oh Shiite! Let's fight the Jews!" a crowd chanted outside Cairo's Istiqama Mosque on Friday. "The Jews and the Americans are killing our brothers in Lebanon."

The protesters carried photos of Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah alongside those of Gamal Abdel Nasser, whose Arab nationalist policies helped lead to the 1967 Mideast War.

- David Rising, "Support for Hizbollah Growing in Mideast," Associated Press, July 28, 2006

Is MAD Dead?

It's of interest to me that the back-and-forth on Cato Unbound isn't really getting much play in the 'sphere.  After some haranguing (and an apparently well-timed bottle of rosé on Gerecht's part), my colleague Ted Carpenter cornered Gerecht into agreeing to attempt a grand bargain, and Gerecht acknowledged how much in our interest it would be to reopen our embassy in Tehran.  (One of the most important benefits of this, in my view, would be that it would really bolster our ability to get intel assets into that country, which I'm sure Gerecht is probably even more concerned about than I am.)

But Ted also drew Gerecht into making this admission, which I think is pretty remarkable:

Let me repeat what I said in the original submission: The United States isn't going to kill tens of thousands of innocent Iranians because of the (nuclear) terrorist actions of the clerical regime. We won't do it. And I don't think we should do it. MAD is dead. It was I think dead before the Cold War ended but the vast arsenal of the Soviet Union kept it alive even though the American heart and soul I suspect were no longer in it. The dimension of what the clerical regime might most likely do to us—thousands dead through (just) conventional terrorism—will not likely compel us to incinerate Iranian women and children. It might compel us to invade and occupy Iran, as 9/11 did Afghanistan, but we are not going to unleash hell against the Persian citizenry for the mullahs' sins. I don't think Mr. Carpenter would really want to, which is why his "deterrence theory" is a hollow bluff. (emphasis mine)

There's really a lot there, and I think it does a great deal to get to the bottom of the disagreement.  The most troubling part is not about MAD, per se, as much as it is about how Gerecht thinks the mullahs think.  He implies that they would seek to kill thousands of Americans with conventional terrorism, and that any retaliation we would threaten would not be enough to deter them from doing so behind their own nuclear deterrent.

If this line of thinking is going to be the guiding principle of our foreign policy in the years to come, it's not hard to tease out some pretty frightening implications.  But more to the point, isn't it pretty clear that our willingness to invade and occupy Iran--a willingness that Gerecht agrees exists--would likely deter the Iranians from engaging in terrorism that would kill thousands of Americans?  What possible end would they think they could achieve, given our likely response?  Wouldn't the threat of regime change deter them?

And moreover, why did it take so much teeth-pulling on Ted's part to get Gerecht to agree to try a grand bargain before firing up the B-2's?  It's one thing to suppose that a grand bargain wouldn't work (I suspect it may not, as well), but it's another thing to say that it's not even worth trying, and that we should start a war first.  I wonder whether sometimes we forget how hard diplomacy is, in all circumstances.  It seems like given the near-catastrophic probable effects of starting a war with Iran, even a torturous attempt at a diplomatic solution is worth a try.

Anyway, it's heating up over there, so go check it out.

Pathetic or Disturbing?

Click here for Media Matters' compendium of Armageddon predictions on conservative TV and talk radio.  Pat Robertson has perhaps the best prediction, where Sudan, Russia, the Central Asian republics, and maybe Turkey join with Iran to try to destroy Israel, only to get divinely pile-driven by God, who's promised an ass-whuppin' to anybody who looks cross-eyed at Israel in the book of Ezekiel.

I'm just left with the realization that these people influence the views of people who elect our government.

Cato@Liberty

I've got a long post up on the Cato blog that takes a run at Reuel Marc Gerecht's case for starting a war with Iran.  Feel free to weigh in over here if you have comments or criticism, since there aren't comments over there.

They Call Themselves Conservatives?

In today's column, David Brooks lays out a debate between Jeffrey Goldberg and Reuel Marc Gerecht on whether it's institutions in the Muslim world that need to change first, or whether the culture needs to change before the institutions.  Brooks relates the thinking of the administration:

The Bush administration's position is clear.  In some of my best arguments with senior officials, they insist...that institutions shape behavior.

"Institutions shape behavior."  Could there be any clearer a repudiation of conservatism than those three words in succession?  If I had time I'd dig up a quote from Edmund Burke or somebody, but I don't.  Still.  Yeesh...

No US Troops to Lebanon

I just wanted to give my wholehearted support to Chris Preble's statement on Lebanon on Cato's website today:

American policymakers should avoid further entangling the United States in the conflict. Unfortunately, two proposals on the table would do just that.

The first involves an expansion of the UN peacekeeping mission in southern Lebanon, an effort that has ground on for 28 years, to little effect. It is doubtful that a larger force will succeed where the current force of 2,000 has failed, even if the UN secures a new mandate and clarifies the rules of engagement. Whether or not these details can be worked out, however, U.S. forces should not be involved. The United States is not seen as an impartial actor in the region, and U.S. troops would likely end up being targets, just as they were in Lebanon in 1983. The last thing the United States needs is to become further embroiled militarily in the region.

Proposals to widen the war by attacking Syria or Iran are even more reckless. If we learned anything from the debacle in Iraq, it is that the United States is unlikely to solve the problems of the region by starting two more wars there. A U.S. attack on Syria or Iran would inflame the Muslim world, drive countless sympathizers into the arms of radical Islamists, and further undermine U.S. efforts to fight and defeat al-Qaeda and its affiliates. It could even turn our current troubles with predominantly Muslim countries into a true clash of civilizations, the costs of which would be incalculable.

The United States certainly doesn't have all the answers to the ongoing Middle East conflict, and it should not be expected to come up with them. Responsibility for the killing of dozens of Israelis, and hundreds of Lebanese, and the displacement of tens of thousands more, lies squarely with Hezbollah and Israel. This is their fight, not ours. If the violence escalates, and spreads throughout the region, the U.S. military, already engaged in a ruinous and seemingly interminable conflict in Iraq, would be caught in the middle. U.S. policy should be focused on ensuring that this does not occur.

Oddly enough, here I'm more in agreement with John Bolton than I am with Matt Yglesias.  Bolton raised several issues about a prospective UN force:

“Would such a force be empowered to deal with the real problem? The real problem is Hezbollah. Would it be empowered to deal with the countries like Syria and Iran that support Hezbollah?”

The answer is likely "no."  If the answer were "yes," it seems like sending in US troops in blue helmets to attempt to uproot in Hezbollah in Lebanon (and, *ahem* "deal with" Syria and Iran in the process) has some rather significant problems with it. 

Yglesias' apparent support for a US-led UN-mission to deploy into southern Lebanon seems, dare I say, like a Green Lantern view of multilateralism.  Where hawks go back to the bunker to get more bombs, it seems like liberals go back to the bunker to get more UN.  Sometimes, unfortunately, two sides are gonna fight, and unless either one of them's swinging at us, it'd be better to just butt out and wait for both sides to get sick of it enough that they invite mediation.  The power ring, unfortunately, doesn't exist.

It's All So Simple--Who Knew?

Readers who are having a hard time piecing together a narrative about the latest round of chaos in the Middle East will be pleased to know that Bill Kristol has boiled things down to the essentials: Israel's war against Lebanon and Palestine is really a war between liberal democratic civilization and Islamism, and the proper policy response is for the United States to start a war with Iran.

Foreign affairs is so much easier when you iron out all the, y'know, complexity, and limit your analysis to Manichaean sloganeering.

Devotchka

So how come nobody ever told me about Devotchka?  I had heard of The Devotchkas, but needless to say they're quite different.  But seriously, How It Ends is really friggin' great.

Also, apropos of nothing, does anybody else find it a little creepy to see a pigeon pecking away at a discarded chicken drumette bone?  I've seen this several times lately, and while I generally eschew the every-mundane-thing-you-see-is-a-metaphor-for-something-deep-and-interesting line of thought, I have to admit it struck me in that way.

Paging NYT Fact-Checkers

Quick, what's wrong with this paragraph?

The five permanent Security Council members, perhaps at this weekend’s Group of 8 meeting, should consider a larger initiative based on the resolution that would include: a proposal for the gradual collection of Hezbollah’s weapons; written guarantees by Israel that it will respect Lebanese sovereignty and pull its forces out of the contested Lebanese land in the Shebaa Farms; and the release of prisoners on both sides. Such a deal could find support among Lebanon’s anti-Syrian politicians, would substantially narrow Hezbollah’s ability to justify retaining its arms, and also send a signal to Syria and particularly Iran that the region is not theirs for the taking.

As any IR undergraduate worth his salt would tell you, the trouble is that the P5 members of the UNSC are, of course, the US, England, France, Russia, and China.  China, one would note, is not a member of the G8.  For such a snooty op-ed page as the NYT, this is pretty shoddy stuff.

Update: Did I speak to soon?  This from AP:

The leaders of China, India, South Africa, Brazil and Mexico were to join the G-8 leaders for some of Monday's discussions. Blair has proposed that all five become members so the group can better tackle the problems of developing nations, according to a report Thursday in London's Guardian newspaper.

Russian officials have said the presence of those countries, especially energy-hungry China, was essential to any plans to boost the stability of global energy supply and demand. The Kremlin made that topic the centerpiece of the summit, highlighting Russia's position as the world's top oil and natural gas supplier.

More substantively, Russia's initiative to bring each of these countries into the energy talks is all to the good.  Talking about "energy security" (and God only knows what that's going to mean in this venue) without China and India at the table would be pretty dumb.

Don't Start Another Preventive War

Hard to believe it needs to be said, but apparently it did, and so now it has been.

I don't have a ton of time to add my thoughts, but let me just say that while I think Gerecht adds a lot of color to the discussion, I think his piece is actually fairly long on storytelling and rhetoric, and short on seriously looking at the implications of his (and others') proposed policy.  Moreover, I think hawks have done a quite shoddy job of seriously dealing with the grand bargain approach--if we called Iran to the table today, and offered security guarantees and normal diplomatic and economic relations in exchange for their giving up the bomb, and they refused, Gerecht could still get his war.  The only real objection to the grand bargain offered by Gerecht is that a security guarantee:

means that the Bush administration would henceforth stop using rude pro-democracy, anti-clerical language, secure Iran’s admission into some kind of new regional security organization (without spooking, of course, the Arab Gulfies, who in part provide the United States bases and other assistance precisely because they fear Iranian intentions), and publicly promise never to invade Iran. The Germans, Brits, and American “realists” who like this line of argument are never particularly specific on whether this public disavowal of the use of force is an unconditional promise, or whether it would be qualified. For example, if the clerical regime did a Khobar Towers II and again killed American soldiers, would that constitute grounds for an invasion, or perhaps just an airborne military assault? They also never bother to give a history of promises kept by the Islamic Republic.

But this is a workable objection.  Gerecht wants a tougher-crafted grand bargain, with respect to what takes the security guarantees off the table?  Fine.  But that's not sufficient for killing the concept itself, in my book.

Oh, and bonus points for continually scare-quoting the word "realist."