Juan Cole: Top 10 Challenges
Facing the US in the Middle East, 2008
[Mr. Cole is Professor of Modern Middle Eastern
and South Asian History at the University of
Michigan. His website is
http://www.juancole.com.]
10. Helping broker a deal in Lebanon between the
March 14 Movement and the Shiites so that a new
president can be elected and a national unity
government can be formed.
Lebanon's economy was badly damaged by the Israeli
war on the poor little country in summer of 2006.
Tourism is a big part of that economy, and
is being hurt by the continued political
instability. Given historically high oil prices,
Iran will probably make $56 billion from petroleum
sales this year. That gives it lots of carrots to
hand out in Lebanon. If the Lebanese were better
off, foreign oil money would not be as important to
them. Likewise, the country's poverty breeds social
ills. Hizbullah militiamen might be harder to find
if there was well-paying work for young men in the
south. The dire poverty of Palestinians in camps
such as Nahr al-Bared near Tripoli has made them
open to predations by Mafia-like groups linked to
al-Qaeda. Just a couple of weeks ago, Lebanese
security broke up a plot to blow up churches in
Zahle on the part of a small group of jihadis. An
economically flourishing Lebanon would be less
likely to be beset by these ills. The Levant is not
that far away from the US or its major interests,
and it is very unwise to allow the pathological
situation in Lebanon to fester. A prosperous,
healthy Lebanon is good for US security and is less
likely to become the cat's paw of regional powers
hostile to US interests.
9. The US should exercise its good offices to
encourage continued dialogue between Iran and Saudi
Arabia. The capture of Baghdad by the Shiites and
the ethnic cleansing of most Sunnis from it have set
the stage for a big Sunni-Shiite battle for the
capital as soon as the US troops get out of the way.
It is absolutely essential to Gulf security, and to
American energy security, that Saudi Arabia and Iran
not be drawn into a proxy Sunni-Shiite war in Iraq.
Keeping in close contact with each other and with
Iraqis of the other sect is the best way for them to
avoid a replay of the Iran-Iraq War of the 1980s.
Those in the Bush administration who dream of an
Israeli-Saudi alliance against Iran are playing with
fire, a fire that is likely to boomerang on the US.
If the Persian Gulf goes up any further in flames,
the resulting unprecedentedly high petroleum prices
will likely finally produce a bad impact on the US
economy. Instead, the US should be attempting to
bring Iran in from the cold, now that the NIE has
absolved it of nuclear-weapons ambitions.
8. Congress should expand funding for, and guarantee
the future of, the
Combatting
Terrorism Center at West Point. Its researchers
do among the very best jobs of analyzing the
writings and activities of the Salafi Jihadis, and
so of combatting them. Few government institutions
are as effective. If the US government were serious
about the threat of terrorism, I would not even have
to make this plea. Of course, if Bush and Cheney had
really cared about the threat of al-Qaeda, they
would have gone after it and gotten Bin Laden and
al-Zawahiri rather than rushing off on a fool's
errand in Iraq.
7. The US must repair its tattered relations with
Turkey. Turkey has been a NATO ally for decades and
Turkish troops fought alongside American ones in the
Korean War. Turkey stood with the US in the Cold War
and gave the US bases on its soil. As a secular
country, it is an ally in the struggle against the
Salafi Jihadis, for which even religious Turks have
contempt. Turkey has among the more promising
economies in the Middle East, among non-oil states,
and is attracting billions in foreign investment.
The US has for some strange reason stiffed Turkey
several times in the past decade. The Clinton
administration promised Turkey a billion dollars in
restitution for the monies it lost during the Gulf
War, and then Congress refused to appropriate the
money. More recently, the US has unleashed a
virulent and violent Kurdish nationalism by allying
with Massoud Barzani in Iraq. Barzani in turn has
given safe harbor to guerrillas of the Kurdish
Workers Party (PKK), who have been going over the
border and killing Turks, then retreating to Iraq.
The Bush administration has tried to resolve this
probably by helping the Turks bombard PKK positions
inside Iraq, but that is not ideal. Instead, the US
should put economic and other pressure on Barzani to
expel the PKK from Iraq.
6. The US must keep the pressure on Pervez Musharraf
to hold free and fair, early elections in Pakistan.
The elections
probably cannot be held on Jan. 8, as planned,
because of the extensive turmoil and destruction of
polling stations and ballots during the past few
days. But they should not be postponed past March 1.
Musharraf's own legitimacy has collapsed, and he is
in danger of becoming a Shah of Iran figure, hated
by his own people and driven from office. Such a
scenario could be very bad for the United States.
That is why
Joe Biden is right and John McCain is wrong when
the latter warns against dumping Musharraf. Why
cannot the American Right learn that backing the
wrong horse is often worse than not having a horse
in the first place?
5. The US and NATO have to stop doing search and
destroy missions in Afghanistan. The Pushtun
tribespeople are never going to put up with tens of
thousands of foreign troops in their country, and,
indeed, in their underwear drawers. Search and
destroy missions just multiply feuds with local
people. The NATO and US military missions in
Afghanistan have to be redefined so that they are
not simply putting down tribes for the central
government. The best Afghan central governments have
ruled by playing the tribes off against one another,
not by trying to crush them. The solutions in
Afghanistan are political and economic. More
reconstruction needs to be done. Farmers need aid to
be weaned off poppies. Forced eradication of poppy
crops appears to be behind a lot of the "Taliban
resurgence," which actually often looks to me from a
distance like angry farmers taking revenge for the
destruction of their livelihoods.
4. The US must facilitate provincial elections in
Iraq. They are arguably more important than any
other step. They would solve a number of important
problems.
The Sunni Arab provinces of Al-Anbar, Salahuddin,
Ninevah and Diyala have unrepresentative governments
(Diyalah, 60% Sunni, is ruled by the Islamic Supreme
Council of Iraq, a hard line Shiite group!) The
Sunni Arab parties declined to run in January, 2005,
and there have been no subsequent provincial
elections. Representative Sunni provincial
governments could negotiate from a greater position
of strength with the federal government of Shiite
Dawa Party leader and prime minister Nuri al-Maliki.
Some of the Awakening Councils members, who are
self-appointed, might get elected and so gain
greater legitimacy.
Without legitimate provincial governments in the
Sunni Arab provinces, it is hard to see how the US
can hope to withdraw troops and turn over security
to locals, as Gen. Petraeus had planned to do in
Mosul this year.
In the south, Basra needs new elections because its
provincial government saw a major division this
year, leading to an ISCI-led vote of no confidence
in the governor, who is from the Islamic Virtue
Party. But then the governor refused to step down!
Ineffective governance in oil-rich Basra, which
contains the country's only major ports, is bad for
the whole country. In some other southern provinces,
such as Diwaniya, a more representative provincial
government might make for more social peace.
What I am saying now is not new, and Ambassador Ryan
Crocker and Gen. Petraeus have repeatedly called for
such elections. I am saying, now is the time to make
a big push for them. If the US starts drawing down
troops this year, it will make it harder to hold
elections, since the Iraqi security forces probably
cannot keep the voters dafe. If the US leaves behind
the current provincial governments, as with Diyala,
Diwaniya and Basra in particular, it is probably
leaving behind provincial civil wars.
3. The US Congress must allocate substantial funds,
on the order of $1 billion or more,
for Iraqi refugee relief in Syria and Jordan.
UNO relief funds are running out. Iraqis' own
savings are running out. Children are not in school
and are going hungry. People are being exploited,
including
young girls forced into prostitution. A majority
of the 1.5 million Iraqis in Syria went there in
2007, and almost all of them have been forced out of
Baghdad and other areas because of the political
instability that the United States unleashed in
their country. The surge is being touted as a
victory in the US press, but it seems to have
displaced 700,000 Iraqi civilians! The US is
spending $15 billion a month on the Iraqi and
Afghanistan Wars. It can afford $1 billion a year
for refugee relief. This is our responsibility. How
future generations of Iraqis view the United States
will in part depend on whether we do this. I ask all
Americans to write your congressional
representatives and press them on this humanitarian
issue.
2. The Bush administration should expend all of its
remaining political capital in the region to have
the Israelis return the Golan Heights to Syria. The
Golan was captured in 1967. By the United Nations
Charter, countries may not permanently grab the
territory of their neighbors. The Syrians will have
to agree to keep the Golan a demilitarized zone,
with UNO blue helmets patrolling as a safeguard. In
return, Syria would have to agree to cease backing
Palestinian militants and would have to play a
positive role in creating a Palestinian state.
Damascus would also have to work to restore social
peace in Lebanon. Such a deal might help to detach
Syria from its alliance with Iran. That in turn
would weaken Hizbullah. This deal would be good for
Israeli security, and if it helped speed up the
creation of a Palestinian state, might even keep
Israel from falling into the Apartheid situation
that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert recently said he
fears.
1. The US must insist that the Israeli siege of Gaza
must be lifted.
A third of Palestinians killed by Israel this year
were innocent civilians. The agricultural sector
is being destroyed because farmers cannot export
their goods owing to the Israeli blockade. Food,
water, essential medicines are all
being denied to civilian populations, including
children. If Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is so
worried about Israel being seen as an Apartheid
state, he should release Gazans from their
penitentiary and stop deploying collective
punishment against civilians.
Posted on Monday, December 31,
2007 at 4:25 PM |
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