Ok. It is official. There are more urgent matters than mediating between Israel and its neighbors. For ten years now, the U.S. has exercised little to no pressure on Israel to go back to the negotiations table. During the Bush years, we witnessed absolute disengagement of the U.S. from the so-called peace process. During the first year of Obama’s presidency, we witnessed an attempt to engage with the issue, only second to fixing the economy and managing two ongoing wars. Mr.Obama is right to put the issue on the back burner. This reshuffle of priorities has manifested itself in the State of the Union Address when Mr.Obama omitted the Middle East issue. In an interview last week with Time’s Joe Klein, the President conceded that the administration overestimated its ability to advance talks at a time when the domestic politics of both Israel and the Palestinians “ran contrary to that.” Imposing sanctions on Iran, were alluded to in the speech to appease the Hawks in the Senate, Congress and AIPAC. Today, however, the New York Times reported that the U.S. is accelerating deployment of weaponry of defensive nature in the Gulf States.
These changes in the attitude of the U.S. towards the Middle East issue did not develop overnight. For the Last decade, the U.S has been fighting off a recession and two wars that have bled the morale and the treasury of the country. While most can attest to the support that Israel enjoys, this support has not been blind or unconditional. After the Iraq debacle, former President Bush and during his second term, had every chance to attack Iran and exit the White House. But due to the anger inside the country and outside it against the Iraq war and the administration’s false claims, we saw him bowing out in the face of unpredictable response from Iran and uncertainty of the State of Union thereafter.
Hitherto, Israel has taken the lead in sounding the drums of war. It has announced that it may attack Iran on its own in an attempt to destroy the country’s nuclear facilities. It has declared that a conflict against Hezbollah is looming, which by extension, against the country of Lebanon. The likelihood of this war spreading to other Middle Eastern countries is not inconceivable. Israel is also dismissing all calls of the international community to ease the suffering and the blockade against the people of Gaza. It has not stopped building settlement. And it is continuing to undermine all of its neighbors, even the friends among them, the insult of the Turkish Foreign Minister two weeks ago is a case in point. These Israeli actions and policies render our political involvement in the region irrelevant at best and counterproductive at worst.
Where do we go from here?
If we interpret the New York Times report of the deployment of U.S. missiles in the Middle East against Iran as scare tactic to coerce Iran to come to the negotiations table. Can we guarantee that Israel will play along and do not instigate a war with its neighbors, or worse, attacking Iran? The answer, we cannot. Israel, just like any nation, reserves the right to interpret threats to its national security as it sees, and act on those threats. But threats to Israel’s national security are not necessarily threats to our national security. Our domestic politics, the state of our Economy, the great deficit that our government is facing, the ambitious and costly agenda of President Obama to reform the Health care; to rebuild our economy; and last but not least, our mediocre stature in the international scene today do not allow us to be involved in another war past our shores.
We have to come to terms with the fact that some goals are simply out of our capacity. Without an international consensus on how to deal with Iran, going to war against Iran will be catastrophic for our country. The problems of the Middle East are ideological in nature and will be resolved by the power of gun, it will take an armed regional conflict to resolve it. It will take what resembles the Thirty Years War in Europe for the Middle East conflict to end. Our involvement in such a conflict will only weaken and exhaust us against relentless enemies such Al-Qaeda and potentially formidable enemies such as China and Russia.
In conclusion, we ought to continue the path of diplomacy in our approach to the Middle East issue. We must not succumb to any pressure from Israel to be involved in any war that does not directly threaten our interests. Israel is our ally, but if Israel does not value the U.S. current predicaments and put its interests above all else, the U.S. must respond in-kind.
