I’ve learned many important things from Barry Rubin. Last week’s column taught me something new: Celine Dion covered Eric Carnen’s “All by myself.” Dr. Rubin used the lyrics to illustrate the shifting sands of politics of the Middle East.
For more than a half-century, the region’s politics revolved around Arab nationalism. Individual states sought to have influence, leadership, or just to survive. The Arab-Israeli conflict was an important issue in this framework, though not the sole or even the most significant one.
Now, as Celine Dion sings, “Those days are gone.” Today, the centerpiece is a struggle between two blocs, one well-organized, the other weak and facing internal conflict. The former is the Tehran-led alliance of the HISH (Hamas-Iran-Syria-Hizballah); the latter is just about everyone else, call it the coalition of the unwilling.
So how do the moderate Arab states deal with this?
Still, their behavior is understandable. They want to use the radical appeal of Arab nationalism, Islamism, anti-Americanism, and xenophobia to divert attention from their own failings while mobilizing support for themselves as the true defenders against all those big and little satans out there. At the same time, they are happy to appease their foes if possible.
A particularly blatant example is Kuwait’s foreign minister who denounced those who want to wage a false jihad at home. He explained that instead of murdering innocent Muslims, young people should kill Israelis instead. Much of the regimes’ “anti-terrorist” rhetoric is merely really aimed at shifting the targets away from themselves.
On one hand, the Saudis host a global interfaith dialogue conference; float a peace initiative toward Israel, fight domestic terrorism, and battle Syria and Hizballah in Lebanon. On the other hand, they aid terrorists and spread extremist forms of Islam. Egypt is horrified by radical Islamism but refuses to go all-out against Hamas. The official media demonize the West and Israel, while the official Islamic religious apparatus endorses terrorism against Israel and in Iraq.
I’d say that this is a somewhat generalized form of what Dr. Rubin writes in “The truth about Syria,” in that the Assads use all means at their disposal to deflect criticisms of themselves and preserve their family’s tenuous hold on power.
So how does the West respond. I once wrote in a letter to the editor that every time Hafez Assad or Yasser Arafat sneezed it was interpreted as a signal of moderation. It appears that I was more or less correct.
By apologizing, conceding, refusing to defend themselves, or by negotiating, exaggerating the potential for moderation, and dropping sanctions, they can strengthen the extremists and undercut the regimes. When that happens, the regimes know they might better cut their own deal. So while there are arguable reasons to bargain with Hamas, Hizballah, Iran, or Syria, such a strategy splits the anti-HISH alliance and starts a race toward appeasement.
In the Dion song, “Love so distant and obscure, Remains the cure.” But this is politics. The best one can hope for is the wisdom to build on coinciding interests and courage to stand up to unrelenting enemies
And strengthening the extremists, no matter how well they keep the trains running on time, does not help.
Crossposted on Soccer Dad.
