The Middle East
A Silver Lining Amid Region's Clouds?
By Gerald F. Seib
Wall Street Journal
August 26, 2006
It is an article of faith in the Middle East that every crisis also carries the seeds of opportunity. It is hard to see any such seeds in the current, wall-to-wall mess in the region, but they might be there.
The coming week will bring another flurry of diplomacy, designed to finally put a badly needed international peacekeeping force in place in Lebanon, and to get the wheels rolling on imposing penalties on Iran for its nuclear program.
The United Nations Security Council has approved creation of a peacekeeping force, and France and Italy have agreed to send troops. But diplomats still are trying to resolve nagging questions about its precise size and scope. At the same time, the U.S. will be trying to start serious discussions at the Security Council about imposing economic sanctions on Iran, which has refused to stop its program for enriching uranium into a fuel that could be used to make bombs.
From the American perspective, the goal of all such diplomacy is much broader: To contain the rising influence of Iran by reining in Hezbollah, which serves as a kind of proxy army for its Iranian friends, and by shutting down Iran's nuclear ambition.
But it is starting to occur to some people in Washington that there is an opportunity -- and maybe a need -- to do something much bolder, that would go a lot further toward recasting power in the region. Why not, the argument goes, start to look anew for a comprehensive solution to the ever-festering dispute over Palestine?
It is hard to remember now, but the perennial Palestinian problem is at the heart of the current conflagration. Palestinians' dissatisfaction, with their own stateless plight and with their own feckless leaders, led to the election of an extremist Hamas government to run the Palestinian Authority. Hamas then precipitated a crisis by kidnapping an Israeli soldier. Hezbollah, not to be outdone by Hamas, then kidnapped more Israeli soldiers from its base in southern Lebanon. Israel counterattacked, and off to the races things went.
Start making progress on the Palestinian problem, the argument goes, and you remove the underlying dispute that spawned Hamas -- while robbing Hezbollah of its main calling card among the Arab masses. And if Hezbollah's relevance is diminished, Iran loses its chief tool in the region. Perceptions of America might improve in the region too, if only for the effort being made, and the odds of an Iranian-led Shiite alliance spanning southern Lebanon, Iraq and Iran diminish.
Former national security adviser Brent Scowcroft wrote a recent article laying out this argument, and it has gotten some quiet high-level attention within the Bush administration and in the region. It might seem an odd time to talk Palestinian peace. But some of the alternatives are distinctly unpleasant.
By Gerald F. Seib
Wall Street Journal
August 26, 2006
It is an article of faith in the Middle East that every crisis also carries the seeds of opportunity. It is hard to see any such seeds in the current, wall-to-wall mess in the region, but they might be there.
The coming week will bring another flurry of diplomacy, designed to finally put a badly needed international peacekeeping force in place in Lebanon, and to get the wheels rolling on imposing penalties on Iran for its nuclear program.
The United Nations Security Council has approved creation of a peacekeeping force, and France and Italy have agreed to send troops. But diplomats still are trying to resolve nagging questions about its precise size and scope. At the same time, the U.S. will be trying to start serious discussions at the Security Council about imposing economic sanctions on Iran, which has refused to stop its program for enriching uranium into a fuel that could be used to make bombs.
From the American perspective, the goal of all such diplomacy is much broader: To contain the rising influence of Iran by reining in Hezbollah, which serves as a kind of proxy army for its Iranian friends, and by shutting down Iran's nuclear ambition.
But it is starting to occur to some people in Washington that there is an opportunity -- and maybe a need -- to do something much bolder, that would go a lot further toward recasting power in the region. Why not, the argument goes, start to look anew for a comprehensive solution to the ever-festering dispute over Palestine?
It is hard to remember now, but the perennial Palestinian problem is at the heart of the current conflagration. Palestinians' dissatisfaction, with their own stateless plight and with their own feckless leaders, led to the election of an extremist Hamas government to run the Palestinian Authority. Hamas then precipitated a crisis by kidnapping an Israeli soldier. Hezbollah, not to be outdone by Hamas, then kidnapped more Israeli soldiers from its base in southern Lebanon. Israel counterattacked, and off to the races things went.
Start making progress on the Palestinian problem, the argument goes, and you remove the underlying dispute that spawned Hamas -- while robbing Hezbollah of its main calling card among the Arab masses. And if Hezbollah's relevance is diminished, Iran loses its chief tool in the region. Perceptions of America might improve in the region too, if only for the effort being made, and the odds of an Iranian-led Shiite alliance spanning southern Lebanon, Iraq and Iran diminish.
Former national security adviser Brent Scowcroft wrote a recent article laying out this argument, and it has gotten some quiet high-level attention within the Bush administration and in the region. It might seem an odd time to talk Palestinian peace. But some of the alternatives are distinctly unpleasant.
posted by Hanan Elbadry at 5:38 PM
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