Crisis In The Middle East

Originally Posted: July 16th, 2006

I wrote this during the summer of 2006, about Hezbollah's rocket attacks against Israel, and the Israeli response. It was more of a rant than anything else. It was intended to be a neutral appraisal of the situation, with an eye to a potential solution. I still believe the only way that Israel and its neighbors will come to any sort of permanent peace is if the severe trust-deficit that exists on both sides is somehow repaid. More on that some other time.

I won't be so bold as to offer up my moral judgment of which side is right or wrong - or which side is more wrong. I won't even be so presumptuous as to attempt to accurately predict the future of this crisis, and what it might have in store for the rest of the world. There is already altogether too much of that going on. Every time I look up at the television or pick up a newspaper I'm inundated by more political posturing, useless moralizing, half-assed guesswork and half baked theories. Pundits, politicians, analysts, bureaucrats; all of them throwing their 2 cents in, and almost every single one trying to place or defer blame on some other party. Attempting to "take a stance", but for most of them it's nothing more than a further attempt to either be seen as doing or saying something honorable, or yet another instance in which their own personal brand of ethics is yet again being proven to be at great odds with any sort of system of morality. That's not what this blog is about. Has humanity really become so self-righteous that we are more fixated on laying blame than solving the problem at hand?

However, if this blog were about who is to blame, I would only have one thing to say. I would quite simply cite one of my favorite quotations by a profoundly astute journalist named Gwynne Dyer: "Actions do have consequences." It's not enough to simply say that, "Israel has a right to defend itself." Or that, "The people of Lebanon are being unjustly persecuted for the crimes of a terrorist organization." If you're laying blame, you MUST take into consideration all of the other players in this sordid tale. When I say "take into consideration," I don't mean, make a bunch of accusations about other countries that have played a negative role in creating this crisis, whether it was through actions 20 years ago or actions 2 months ago. You MUST provide hard evidence and accurate intelligence to back up your accusations. Have we seen a single person volunteer such, since the beginning of this crisis?

If you haven't been following things, the answer is an emphatic NO. Therefore, return to what we do know. Not what accusations have been made, and not all of the unverifiable accusations that have been made. How did the Middle East get this bad? Which actions were taken long ago in the past that have led to the geopolitical scene before us today? It is very easy to blame the player directly involved for their actions today, but one must also take into consideration all of the verifiable facts of the past when laying blame. It is the consequences of those actions that the world feels today.

Once again, I could editorialize at this point, and begin to lay blame as I see fit to the culprits in the current crisis; but I will refrain from doing so. This blog is about failure. The failure of the Middle East peace process. The failure of powerful men and women to take decisive action when it has mattered the most. The failure of the international system (note: NOT the United Nations, but the international system) to deal effectively with injustice. Most importantly, it is about what I believe must be the initial steps to resolving these failures.

The so-called "Middle East Peace Process" has failed, and failed miserably. Quite frankly, the burden of the blame must fall on the West for failing to exert political and diplomatic pressure on Israel to keep them at the negotiating table, and failing to put incentives in place to keep not only the Palestinians, but the rest of the conservative Arabic states at the same table. The game has been played for years and any analyst worth his salt knows how it works; one side accepts offered concessions only to renege on them because of suspected or actual foul play by the other. It cuts both ways; there is no escaping it. The only way to stop this type of behavior by states at the negotiating table is through co-operating with non-traditional allies to bring pressure on both sides in order to achieve a common goal.

Which brings us to the failure of powerful men and women to take decisive action when it was most important. The Clinton administration excelled at consensus building and bringing the pressure of the international system to bear on the Middle East in order to keep both parties at the table. The lack of political will and effort by the world's leaders is what has most clearly failed here - not only the lack of concern or involvement by the Bush administration, but that of the EU, Russia, China, and many other states that should have been involved in fostering peace in the Middle East.

The international system has also failed where this crisis is concerned, what with resolutions being circumvented or broken over the years, resolutions being vetoed, dangerous precedents having being set, but most importantly, through rampant statism. Statism, whereby supposed sovereign states are held accountable for the actions of their citizens. This is not a bad thing in and of itself, but this world is far from perfect, and if conflicts are to be resolved there must be a willingness to bend to the international system. For states to 1) openly accept responsibility for the actions of their citizens, but 2) have options within the system to seek assistance if they cannot fulfill their sovereign duty. All of these events point to inadequacies in the post-Bretton Woods system. It is up to the world as a whole to fix the system, and it is up the more and most powerful countries in the system to reduce inequalities so that when incentives are offered their intentions are not as dubious. Such injustices are not the fault of the UN or any single international organization, but of the proctors of the international system who quite frankly, the fate of all of our lives lie with.

So regardless of blame, states must put pride aside to resolve these differences. If innocent lives are to be saved in the Middle East, Israel must cease military action immediately and offer an olive branch to not just Lebanon, but all of the Arab states. The only way the cycle of violence in the Middle East will end is through co-operation and mutual understanding. The different parties involved need not love each other; everyone must simply respect the others right to exist. The international community must collectively exert pressure all parties to enter negotiations and remain at the table; especially the United States, the EU, Russia, and China. What most people fail to realize is that while someone out there is supporting Hezbollah, no country as a whole benefits from its existence. INDIVIDUALS benefit from its existence. This entire idea of "state sponsored terrorism" has become a misnomer - you can blame leaders, even entire administrations, for the actions of a terrorist group, but you cannot justly blame an entire country.

Therefore, the third piece of the puzzle in stopping this thing before it gets to World War III is establishing an independent, and if not, a multi-national anti-terrorism force, that is mandated by the international community, supported by a repaired international system, and accountable to the countries that sponsor it. Short of that, we need an agreement between the Israelis and the Lebanese so that the Israelis can be allowed a limited incursion into Lebanese territory to wage war against terrorists, while shoring up the Lebanese military so that they can deal with the same extremists as they go into hiding, and police their country successfully in the future. Conservative hawks on each side will undoubtedly have no hope in such a process, but these and similar solutions are the only ones that will stop this conflict from spreading throughout the Middle East. Consequently, one should concede that if the international system were more effective, such a solution would be viable because further pressure could be accurately applied to support peace-loving governments. Destroying the lives of innocent civilians should never have to be an option; the terrorist is wrong in doing so, but so is any country that behaves similarly.