THE IRAQ STUDY GROUP, ISRAEL AND THE MIDDLE EAST

• First, a few comments about the Iraq Study Group (ISG).  The ISG was comprised of non-military specialists, former diplomats, Congressman and Senators, judges, corporate leaders and others.  It was basically bipartisan and for that reason its conclusions are significant.  Its report had 79 recommendations and stated the obvious, that “the situation in Iraq is grave and deteriorating.”  The essence of the ISG is that the US military should shift to a training and advising mission so that most American troops can depart by early 2008.  But the ISG offered no silver bullet or formula for ending the mess in Iraq.  The most controversial part of the ISG is the call for an International Support Group, which would include Syria and Iran.  In short, the ISG believes that both of these terrorist states can rein in the Shiites and are the key to US extrication from Iraq.  Further, the ISG argues that resolving the Israeli-Palestinian questions over land is also a key to the Iraq challenge.  In addition, the ISG seems to be saying that Israel returning the Golan Heights to Syria will break them away from Iran.  It is difficult to be positive about this report.  In my opinion, the Bush administration has bungled the Iraqi situation.  But hindsight is always 20-20.  To bring Israel into the equation of solving Iraq so that America can go home seems a stretch!  The biggest challenge of Iraq is that there really is not Iraq!  Roger Cohen has brilliantly summed up the challenge:  “. . . It’s hard to escape the conclusion that the [ISG] report treats Iraq as an existing country needing a quick fix in the name of resurgent American realism, rather than a still-to-be-born country that needs to be ushered into being in the name of American idealism. . . Right now, Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds see ‘freedom’ more as the opportunity to be free of one another than to forge a liberal democracy.  That’s how subjugated peoples, from the Soviet Union to Yugoslavia, tend to react to the lifting of tyranny.  Iraqi behavior is not especially strange.”  This is the great shortcoming of the ISG report:  It does not identify the fundamental challenge of Iraq—“the absence of sufficient belief in the nation.”  How can this nation be formed over the 15 months the ISG charts for the US to withdraw?  There is, in the words of David Brooks, “no impartial justice, no effective law enforcement, no political organization that put[s] loyalty to nation above loyalty to sect or tribe.”  Absent this kind of government, government by militia emerges.  Historian Michael Oren has declared that there really are only three nations in the Muslim Middle East—Iran, Turkey and Egypt.  All others are make- believe with arbitrary borders and artificial governments.  The ISG did not address this reality.  The absence of strong national ties within the Middle Eastern nations means that the forces of the 21st century—religious fundamentalism, global terrorism, economic globalization and transnational communication networks—could tear them all apart.  These are in my judgment the fundamental shortcomings of the ISG report.  It was short sighted, pragmatic and solved essentially nothing. 

• Second, a word about Israel—in the center of all this.  Last month, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert of Israel called for the establishment of a sovereign Palestinian state and said he would seek the help of Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and other gulf countries.  Israel is terribly concerned about the rise of Iran and its nuclear program, especially because President Ahmadinejad has called for the extinguishment of the Israeli state.  The Sunni states of Jordan, Egypt and Saudi Arabia all share Israel’s concern about Iran, a Shiite nation.  So, Israel sees a linkage between Iran and the Palestinian problem, but wants to define this linkage on its own terms, not the terms of the ISG.  Further, just suppose that the US did broker a deal between the Palestinians and Israel, would any insurgent in Iraq lay down his weapons?  I sincerely doubt it! 

• Third, the ISG report brings up another set of issues that serious threaten Israel, one from an American leader and one from Iran itself.

1. Former President Jimmy Carter has just published a new book, Palestine:  Peace Not Apartheid.  The title itself is controversial, for the term “apartheid” refers to a system of legal racial separation once used in South Africa.  He contends that “Israel’s continued control and colonization of Palestinian land have been the primary obstacles to a comprehensive peace agreement in the Holy Land.”  Carter defends this term, “apartheid,” as appropriate for Israeli policies in the Palestinian territories.  He has in mind, for example, the wall of separation the government is building between Israel and the territories.  Carter does criticize the homicide bombers from the territories but suggests that “some Israelis believe they have the right to confiscate and colonize Palestinian land and try to justify the sustained subjugation and persecution of increasingly hopeless and aggravated Palestinians.”  Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz has criticized Carter for “use of the loaded word ‘apartheid,’ suggesting an analogy to the hated policies of South Africa is especially outrageous.”  The Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles suggests that Carter “abandons all objectivity and unabashedly acts as a virtual spokesman for the Palestinian cause.”  It is difficult not to agree.  To compare South African apartheid with Israel is intellectually dishonest and unnecessarily incendiary and inaccurate.  South Africa was trying to preserve the racial separation of two races to preserve a system of white superiority.  Israel is trying to preserve its existence as a nation against people who deny its existence, who want to drive it into the sea.  Homicide bombers are obvious proof of this proposition.  Carter’s argument does lack objectivity and is clearly biased and distorted.  To add to this contention, a veteran Middle East scholar affiliated with the Carter Center in Atlanta resigned his position there last week.  Kenneth W. Stein, a professor at Emory University, has accused Carter of factual errors, omissions and plagiarism in the book.  Stein had written Carter a lengthy critique of the book, but Carter chose not to respond.  Stein writes that the book is “replete with factual errors, copied materials not cited, superficialities, glaring omissions and simply invented segments.”  He has promised a lengthy review of Carter’s book.  Carter has always been controversial in his criticism of Israel, but this book is filled with extreme statements that seem to ignore the genuine sufferings of Israelis since 1948 as they have fought to preserve their state, recognized by the world community.  I find it incredible for Carter to argue that Israel is the primary reason for the lack of a comprehensive peace in the region.

2. Consider also Iran.  This past week, Iran hosted a major two-day conference, “Review of the Holocaust:  Global Vision,” which was initiated by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who has called the Holocaust a “myth” and has called for Israel to be wiped from the face of the map.  Among other things, Iran seeks to undermine the justification for the creation of the state of Israel.  If Iran can undermine that claim, then it will justify its argument that Israel should not exist.  This is a dangerous and ideologically based conference bent on destroying the legitimacy of Israel.  Perhaps former President Carter should factor this into his book in its next edition.  The fundamental issue in the Middle East is the existence of the nation state of Israel.  That is vital center of the Holy Land issue.  Israel fights for its survival and the Palestinians and the rest of the Muslim world fights to destroy Israel.  The world must demand that all these nations acknowledge Israel’s right to exist.  That, President Carter, is the issue!

See George F. Will, Washington Post (7 December 2006); David Ignatius, Washington Post (7 December 2006); David Brooks, New York Times (10 December 2006);  Ethan Bronner, New York Times (10 December 2006); Roger Cohen, New York Times (10 December 2006); Nasser Karimi, “Iran Opens Holocaust Conference,” Washington Post (11 December 2006);  Brenda Goodman and Julie Bosman, New York Times (7 December 2006); Karen DeYoung, Washington Post (7 December 2006).