HISTORICAL TURNING POINT FOR THE ARAB WORLD?

Just before leaving for 2+ weeks of travel, I viewed an online video by foreign affairs analyst Fareed Zakaria. Like David Ignatius whom I cite from time to time, Zakaria is, in my opinion, one of the more insightful analysts on what's going on in the Arab world. Painting on the broadest canvas of historical perspective, Zakaria said that what is occurring now is the ending of the 1000 years of rule of Arabs by non-Arabs, from the Ottoman empire to the current ousting of autocrats leftover from more recent colonial rule. Arabs are taking control of their own affairs.

As to how this is a U.S. foreign policy problem, Zakaria said any backlash against the U.S. is not for its long standing pro-Israeli bias but rather from its pro-aristocracy stand. With the disappearance of rulers whom we have long supported, our power is waning in the region.

Although Zakaria didn't say it, presumably that waning refers to the anti-U.S. view held in many parts of the Muslim/Arab world. Our 63 years of pro-Israeli policy has long ago eroded our standing in the region. With our invasion of Iraq in 2003, the view of the U.S. as a colonialist, anti-Muslim power grew. Then there is the threat of nuclear-armed Iranian hegemony in the region, a prospect we enhanced by our overthrow of Saddam Hussein, Iran's arch enemy. This, in turn, has led to the rise of a Shia-dominated Iraq more closely aligned with its Iranian co-religionists. Now going a bit beyond Zakaria to a future view.

In a few earlier postings, within a domestic political context, I talked about the "politics of irrelevance", a devastating form of politics when no one cares what you are saying. So, "are we becoming irrelevant in the Arab world?" Probably not but what we may say and do is likely to matter less, maybe a lot less, to the new Arab leaders who seem to be emerging and who view the U.S. as having been and continues to be a supporter of long time autocratic leaders in the region (although the numbers are dwindling). Our military presence in the region is still significant and certainly not irrelevant. But perhaps that presence is less significant to the new Arab leaders than to the Chinese and Indians who view the waterways of the region as major choke points, where the U.S. stands astride, of their vital energy supply lines. To stretch the canvas even further.

If Zakaria is correct about the Arab revolutions/uprisings and U.S. policy, meaning our pro-Israeli stand is unrelated to what's going on, then maybe another possibility presents itself. Perhaps the actors in another regional drama, the seemingly endless Israeli-Palestinian confrontation, can move quietly off stage and get some matters resolved without another round of headline grabbing, Washington-staged efforts to breathe new life into the so-called peace process. I never thought I would have an optimistic utterance on this issue, but maybe, just maybe, there is an opportunity to really deal with the square one issue of the problem as it now exists.

That starting point issue is not new Israeli settlements on the occupied West Bank, but rather the open schism between Hamas in Gaza and the western backed Palestinian authority (PA) under Mahmoud Abbas on the West Bank. Until these two come together peacefully, there can be no viable, credible bargaining partner to negotiate with Israel. A reconciliation won't be easy since Hamas is opposed to the very existence of Israel, while the PA has a history of seeking a deal with Israel to create an independent Palestinian state. This oversimplifies the square one problem, since there is a great division within the Israeli ruling coalition over the settlements issue to say nothing about Israel's far right opposition to the idea of even creating an independent Palestinian state and all the sticky complications attached to that U.S./western-backed goal. So while I have taken some liberties with Zakaria's basic thesis with my semi-Pollyana view of future possibilities, he did present a challenging perspective which invited further free-ranging speculation.

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I'll close on a personal note. We have left the sun and sand behind and returned to our digs in Tennessee. What we brought back with us is the memory of a mandatory evacuation to get away from the tsunami that was making its way from Japan to the Kona coast in Hawaii. We spent 12 hours with all of our luggage in our rental car, about 2/3rds of that time overnight in a Walmart parking lot. If you ever have to do this yourself, try to find a 24-hour Walmart on high ground, meaning we had invited access to their restrooms. This was no small thing. As it turned out, our part of Hawaii received considerable damage and was the last part of the state to have an all clear. There was severe damage to some homes, hotels, businesses, etc. But after reading about and seeing on television the death and destruction in Japan, we quickly came to realize how fortunate we were and how trivial any personal inconvenience.