MB Civic

By H.D.S. Greenway | July 25, 2006 | The Boston Globe

WHENEVER I hear the Bush administration talk about a defining moment, I tremble. For it would appear that the neoconservative ideal that Middle East violence can somehow bring about a more favorable situation for the United States and Israel has not died in the wreckage of Iraq.

Make no mistake about it. Peace would reign in the Eastern Mediterranean today if Hamas, and most particularly, Hezbollah, had not overplayed their hands and provoked Israel. Arab leaders have condemned Hezbollah, and there is even uneasiness in the streets of Tehran over the trouble that Hezbollah may have gotten the whole region into. However, sensible people want to see a cease-fire as soon as possible, and then work toward a solution that will keep Israel safe from rockets, and the Palestinians and Lebanese safe from Israeli bombs.

Not so President Bush. “Sometimes it requires tragic situations to help bring clarity in the international community,” he said, and so the green light is given for more tragedy. Washington won’t push for a cease-fire until Israel gives the green light. The Wall Street Journal summed it up in a headline: “Bush’s Risky Mideast Strategy: Seek Change, Not Quick Peace.”

I had thought the idea of violence bringing clarity — the purifying flame that can sweep away all the rot so that a better world can emerge — was the purview of 19th-century radicals and anarchists. But that view still lives in today’s White House.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told reporters that the administration “has to make certain that anything that we do is going to be of lasting value. The Middle East has been through too many spasms of violence, and we have to deal with the underlying conditions for political progress there.” Quite so. But the rub is that continued violence can change the underlying conditions in ways detrimental to both Israel and the United States. Whereas Hezbollah was rightly blamed for starting this, the continued destruction of the Lebanese state can cause new chaotic realities and resentments that will hurt us all.

“The country has been torn to shreds,” said Lebanon’s prime minister, Fouad Siniora. “Is this the price we pay for aspiring to build our democratic institutions? Can the international community stand by while such callous retribution by the state of Israel is inflicted on us?” The answer is yes, as far as the Bush administration is concerned. Siniora is learning the hard way that America’s talk about democracy in the region only goes so far.

The risk is that wars have a way of creating bigger problems than they solve. The 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon pushed out Yasser Arafat and the Palestine Liberation Organization, but created Hezbollah. Could the Bolsheviks have taken over Russia if Russia had not been degraded by World War I? Mao and his Communists would not have succeeded in China had China not been torn to shreds by the Japanese invasion. I can remember being thrilled at Israel’s battle victories in the Six Day War, but in retrospect taking over the West Bank and Gaza was the worst catastrophe that Israel has had to endure.

Perhaps the best example is Iraq, which was supposed to bring democracy and a better deal for Israel. Iraq is a disaster today, and all our Sunni friends in the Middle East are aghast that the war has so empowered Shia Iran. The civil war in Iraq is now a worse problem than the insurgency.

Of course the Bush administration is quick to see an orchestrated plot. “We see a power play by Iran,” a senior US official told The Boston Globe. After all, Hezbollah missiles come from Iran, don’t they?

And Iran, as well as many Arabs, may see this as orchestrated by the United States. Don’t the bombs being dropped on Lebanon come from the United States? And the news is out now that the United States is resupplying Israel with bombs as fast as the Israelis can drop them.

My guess is that’s not the way it really works. Hezbollah and Israel may be clients of Iran and the United States respectively, but it wouldn’t be the first time that the client tail has wagged the dog. My guess is that Hezbollah and Israel have the ability to take action and get themselves into messes without either Tehran or Washington pulling the strings.

The challenge now is to walk the cat back and bring some reason to the region, and not look to continued violence to bring on a defining moment.