ATFP Senior Fellow Tells NCUSAR Students US Perspective on Middle East is Evolving

On June 8, ATFP Senior Fellow Hussein Ibish spoke at a seminar for approximately 30 students at the Elliott School at George Washington University, hosted by the National Council on US-Arab Relations. Ibish spoke about evolution of US perspectives on Middle Eastern regional dynamics and peace, and about the present strategic situation with regard to Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. He told the audience that the current Israeli government and some of its supporters in the United States were struggling to deal with a new reality, in which the American foreign policy establishment and military has adopted a new perspective on Middle Eastern regional dynamics which emphasizes the interconnectedness of all developments. He emphasized that “because the situation between Israel and the Palestinians has much more political and symbolic resonance than anything else throughout the region, it has therefore assumed an even greater significance in American planning.”

Ibish said this new perspective was “largely a consequence of the ongoing and unsuccessful wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, which had forced the foreign policy and military establishments to look again at the model they were using to understand regional dynamics and to adopt a more holistic approach.” He told the students that American experts generally now recognized that because events in Palestine are more likely to impact dynamics involving Iraq, Iran, Turkey, other parts of the Arab world or even Afghanistan, than the other way around, this renews attention on the need for an end to the conflict and the occupation. He said that this means that the argument about “linkage” that began in late 1990 in the run-up to the first Gulf War has been institutionally and generationally resolved, and that linkage is now an accepted phenomenon by a consensus of the foreign policy establishment. However, he said “the form of linkage that has become a consensus is different than earlier versions that sought to simply link the Israeli occupation with US foreign policy challenges,” and that “the linkage that has prevailed in contemporary American thinking is a much broader model in which everything is linked to everything else.”

Ibish said that what this means, as a practical matter, is that, like all other Middle East actors, Israeli policies and conduct are now viewed as important elements in shaping US strategic position in the region. However, he emphasized that this is a new reality for Israel and its US supporters, since in the past the US-Israel relationship has mainly been understood in terms of the bilateral special relationship and also in terms of domestic US politics. He said “there is now a third register, that of regional strategic dynamics, in which Israel's policies and conduct are being viewed, and this new dimension has not been fully accommodated or appreciated by the current Israeli government.”

Ibish told the students all of this explains why the Obama administration has been emphasizing Middle East peace from the outset and refuses to be deterred by setbacks or false starts. He said that given this perspective, for the United States Middle East peace is not optional, it is imperative, and that the Israelis do appear to have fully understood the urgency and importance that Washington now attaches to this issue. He also said that the Palestinians and other Arabs were being judged by the same yardstick in terms of their cooperation with American peace efforts, and that the Palestinians could and should do more to present themselves as dynamic partners with the Obama administration in the pursuit of peace, whether or not Israel is being cooperative at any given stage. He added that the recent crisis over the Israeli attack on the Gaza flotilla and its fallout demonstrate that Turkey is interested in an expanded and possibly hegemonic role in the region and is now competing with Iran for “ownership” of the Palestine issue through symbolic and largely meaningless gestures that outbid all Arab parties. Ibish said that “the last thing the Palestinians need is for Turks and Iranians, or even the Arab states, to be hijacking or manipulating their national cause for their own parochial purposes.”