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Since the publication of my retrospective article on Israel in the fall 25th anniversary issue of World Policy Journal, a few colleagues have wondered if I considered revising my somewhat “pessimistic outlook” (the way one of my correspondents put it) about the chances of resolving the Israeli-Palestinian with Barack Obama in office. So have I changed my tune?

First, what I was trying to do in my WPJ article was to highlight the gap between the high expectations that many of us seemed to share regarding the Israeli-Palestinian peace process in 1991 (the end of the Cold War, increasing globalization, etc.) with the depressing reality of today’s Holy Land—post-9/11, post-Iraq War, and amidst the present global economic crisis. If anything, my retrospective reflected my sense of realism about the ability and willingness on the part of Israelis and Palestinians—with or without outside intervention—to settle their differences and achieve peace in the near future.

I was not encouraged after reading David Unger’s article in the same issue of WPJ that seemed to be trying to lift our spirits by forecasting that “by 2033, two states, Israel and Palestine, will be living side-by-side in uneasy peace.” Unger makes all the right arguments to support his thesis that a resolution of their conflict would serve the long-term interests of both the Israelis and Palestinians. But same arguments that focus on the horrific human and economic costs of a long and protracted conflict and the potential enormous benefits resulting from a peace agreement could apply to the national, ethnic, and religious clashes over Cyprus, Kashmir, Sri Lanka, Nagorno-Karabakh, Kosovo, Abkhazia and South Ossetia, and Darfur. These are just few of the regional disputes that have remained unresolved and to some extent “frozen,” neither full-blown war nor peace. The main reason for that reality is that, for most players in these conflicts, the costs of challenging the status-quo outweigh the perceived benefits of taking action to end the dispute (either through military victory and/or a peace settlement).

This kind of cost-benefit analysis explains why President George W. Bush and his aides decided after 9/11 not to invest too much time or resources in resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Operating under the assumption (or self-delusion) that the promotion of the “Freedom Agenda” in the Middle East, starting with Iraq, would create the conditions for resolution of the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians (witness the oft-repeated neoconservative argument that the “road to Jerusalem leads through Baghdad”).

Indeed, Bush’s advisors were committed to the axiom that what is good for America is good for Israel (and vice versa). They argued that a Pax Americana in the region would also tilt the balance of power in favor of Tel Aviv, forcing the Palestinians to accept an arrangement that would favor Israeli interests. Hence, it made no sense to spend Washington’s diplomatic capital by pressing Israel, a so-called “strategic ally in the war on terror” to relieve the pressure from, and to make concessions to, the Palestinian leadership. Instead, Washington decided to “park” the Palestinian issue while trying to remake the Middle East by force. 

However, by moving beyond the Palestinian-Israeli issue and dealing with the threat of “Islamo-fascism,” the Bush administration has pursued policies that have only exacerbated Israel’s relations with other Arab countries. Hence, it tried dissuade Israel from pursuing Turkish-backed negotiations with Syria (a junior member of the Axis of Evil). Bush also gave Israel the green light to attack the Hezbollah forces in Lebanon, leading to a war that ended with a strategic stalemate and possibly tipped the balance of power against the American-Israeli alliance.

In any case, when Bush’s Middle East “Freedom Agenda” crashed into the reality of the Hamas’s electoral victory in Palestine and the strengthening of Iran and its satellites in the region, the administration decided to placate the members of the Saudi-led Arab-Sunni coalition by going through motions of a grand peace-process in Annapolis earlier this year. This same Saudi coalition, based on neoconservative wishful thinking, was expected to form a “strategic consensus” with Israel to contain Iran. Read the rest of this entry »

Since Barack Obama’s victory on November 4, I’ve been musing about the parallels between this amazing moment and another world-altering event I was privileged to witness in November almost two decades ago—the demise of the Berlin Wall. Then, too, a barrier that had seemed insurmountable fell. Then, too, the desire for unity helped propel momentous change. For Germans, though, ambushed by their own differences, unity has proved elusive. Their experience may be a cautionary tale for Americans working to bridge our own particular divides.

I lived in West Berlin in 1989, when the Berlin Wall fell, and had been making regular forays across the Wall to East Berlin, helping dissidents and getting to know their society. After sharing in their struggles, in a small way, for two years, I watched East and West Germans party together and experienced the joy and disbelief, the exhilaration and sense of limitless possibility that accompanied the unexpected end to decades of German separation.  

Last month, I watched a similar outpouring of emotion as Barack Obama was elected our first black president. Once again, I saw people dancing together in the streets, yearning to transcend longstanding divisions. It was, once again, a moment full of hope. But I was also reminded that change does not happen overnight, and that overcoming legacies of distance and distrust—as Germany’s experience shows—is an ongoing and difficult process. Read the rest of this entry »

Since I finished my article, “Africa: Many Hills to Climb,” for World Policy Journal’s 25th anniversary issue in October, the world has changed dramatically. A financial crisis has engulfed the developed economies. The American populace elected Barack Obama as president. And, Africa (the continent, not the country!) is a part of these world historical events.
 
Kenya declared a national holiday in honor of the election of Barack Obama, whose father was born in rural Kenya. Obama’s hybrid identity is a powerful symbol of Africa’s complicated relationship with the West. America’s most inspiring modern politician is but one generation from rural Kenya. This week, the African media outlet Allafrica.com had a blogger in Kisumu, in western Kenya, who reported on the outpouring of joy at Obama’s election. If Kisumu sounds familiar, it should, for the city was the site of violent conflict after Kenya’s disputed election last December. But, this week, Kisumu’s residents were unified in their joy over Obama’s election.

Though Africa is intimately connected to American politics, fortunately, its growing economies have not been undermined by the financial crisis. Read the rest of this entry »

Several new developments have taken place since I wrote my retrospective article on Afghanistan a few weeks ago, an article that has just appeared in the 25th anniversary issue of World Policy Journal.

Firstly, the world financial crisis has worsened precipitously, which could impel a new American administration to break the cycle of expeditionary wars in Muslim countries in the Middle East.

Secondly, both the Pakistani Army in Pakistan and the American forces from Afghanistan have become more aggressive toward the Taliban and Al Qaeda, while at the same time offers of negotiation have been extended, mainly through the intermediary of the Saudis, to those who are considered the less extremist among the Taliban.

Thirdly, and perhaps most importantly, a new cast of characters has arrived on the scene, principally: President-elect Barack Obama; and Gen. David Petraeus, the new head of the Central Command, whose writ stretches from Egypt and the Horn of Africa to the Indian subcontinent, including Pakistan and Afghanistan. Petraeus has already been to Pakistan to confer with the civilian and military leadership there.

Putting more troops into Afghanistan, as Mr. Obama recommended during the election campaign, would seem to be counterintuitive to history. The more Western troops that are introduced amidst the fiercely nationalistic Pashtuns and other Afghans seems likely to generate more resentment and more resistance. Meantime, civilian casualties continue to mount, both by American Predator drone attacks into Pakistan’s tribal areas and by Allied bombings and ground attacks in Afghanistan, provoking the legendary spirit of vengeance in that part of the world.

The Russian example in the twentieth century and the British example in the nineteenth century are there for all to see. Both were driven out of the country ignominiously. Afghans dislike intensely armed foreigners, especially Westerners, operating with impunity in their own country. Why turn our eyes away from this fact of history? Read the rest of this entry »

In trying to imagine how a Marshall Plan for the Middle East might look 25 years from now, I naturally did a lot of guessing in my essay for World Policy Journal’s 25th anniversary issue. We don’t, as yet, have a clear idea of the help and advice that the Arab states in the Middle East are prepared to accept from the West, let alone the United States.

But the election of Barack Obama shows that under the right circumstances change can come faster than we imagine. Obama’s belief in a sixteen-month schedule for withdrawing American combat brigades from Iraq, a timetable twice as fast as that provided for in the current draft of the American and Iraqi accord, is already paying dividends in how America is seen. “Before the Iraqis were thinking that if they sign the pact, there will be no schedule of troop withdrawal by December 31, 2011,” Hadi al-Ameri, a powerful member of the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, told The New York Times three days after Obama’s election victory. “This is a positive step to have the same theories about the timetable as Mr. Obama.”

Obama demonstrates that it is possible to change the tarnished image the Bush administration has given the country—without losing sight of American interests. On a personal level, Obama shows that if America gets its own internal social problems in order, it can pay in foreign policy dividends. Obama’s personal appeal to the Muslim world as a result of his color and ancestry is not just symbolic. It makes clear that the widespread stereotypes about racism in American society need to be seen with much more subtlety than they traditionally have. American democracy—and by extension racial American attitudes—are capable of genuine change.

Even more important, Obama’s commitment to a foreign policy based on political realism rather than ideology illustrates America’s capacity for approaching the Middle East as a thoughtful partner rather than a dominant superpower. Obama is no softy.

“I’m not opposed to all wars,” he said in his memorable 2002 speech against the invasion of Iraq. “I’m opposed to dumb wars.” Obama will, when it is necessary, use force, but clearly force is not a first step for him, and in that sense of proportion he harkens back to the diplomatic values of post-World War II America. The pragmatism he promises to bring to American foreign policy suggests the route by which a future Marshall Plan for the Middle East might not be such a dream after all.

Nicolaus Mills, a professor at Sarah Lawrence College, is author of Winning the Peace: The Marshall Plan and America’s Coming of Age as a Superpower. His article, “A Marshall Plan for the Middle East,” can be found in World Policy Journal’s 25th anniversary issue, on newsstands now.

The election of Barack Obama is perhaps America’s greatest achievement since the Declaration of Independence, and President George W. Bush, for all his missteps and misplaced conservatism, deserves a share of the credit. His decision to put two African Americans, Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice, in charge of America’s national security was a tremendous step forward that helped pave the way for the arrival of our new president.

The effect on the rest of the world of an African-American president will be stunning. No European nation (including Russia, with it’s revered part-black national poet, Pushkin) is within sight of electing a man of color as head of government, yet Europeans will be profoundly thankful that the America they began to hate these past eight years can now again be admired, even loved. Africa, needless to say, will be electrified. Asia will nod sagely, recalling that India, in modern times, has had a woman prime minister, a Muslim president, and now a Sikh prime minister.

The Middle East will rejoice too. Muslims have always had less hang ups about racial equality than Western Christians. Now they will expect to see a man who understands poverty and prejudice, and who will profoundly and instinctively understand the plight of the Palestinians. Perhaps he will really put America’s strength in motion to enable a two-state solution.

All the continents—including South America, where blacks and indigenous peoples remain largely powerless—will sense the importance of this victory. Read the rest of this entry »

BERLIN, GERMANY—Barack Obama has come and gone, but excitement remains, along with sober analysis. Obama was again on the front of every newspaper the day after his appearance, and most of the coverage and photos were flattering. (In a recent New York Times op-ed, Susan Neiman refers to Spiegel Magazine’s sardonic cover, but Spiegel is always sardonic and condescending, about everyone; it’s hardly representative.)

The day of the speech, people were already making their way to the Siegessäule hours before Obama was scheduled to take the stage. The crowd was international and ethnically mixed, and largely young. The mood was not so much passionate as curious. One longtime American resident of Berlin called it an anti-Bush demonstration of a sort (though with many people waving American flags)

I asked an Eritrean friend I met on the way, who’s lived in Berlin for years and is now a German citizen, what people were saying about Obama. He told me everyone likes him, but they don’t believe Americans will actually elect him. That is, indeed, a concern; many people have asked me whether I really think he has a chance.

Obama’s speech touched on many of the points Germans, especially younger people, are most interested in, but he also alluded to some issues they are not excited about. Back where I was standing, there was little applause for his call for more German troops in Afghanistan or his praise for NATO. To me, his rhetoric about the Cold War and the airlift came across as clichéd and somewhat condescending, but not everyone saw it that way; the airlift still means something to Berliners, particularly older ones. He received a great deal of applause when he spoke of Darfur, several times, and Zimbabwe; of ending the Iraq war and eliminating nuclear weapons; of climate and the environment; and of breaking down barriers between races and religions.

Still, Obama’s rhetoric is American, for example in its tendency towards what one commentator called “light and darkness metaphors,” and sounds strange to German ears. One young woman I spoke to afterwards found the speech superficial (“bullshit” was one of her adjectives). And others have made the same arguments as Roger Cohen in the New York Times—that it was abstract and feel-good.

The staging of an American campaign is equally alien. In a poll by the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung on the day of his appearance, a majority of respondents nationally felt either that too much fuss was being made, that Obama was using Berlin for his campaign, or that European expectations of him were too high. Most people seemed quite aware that the speech was, in fact, aimed more at the U.S. then at Germany. But many commentators, as well as listeners, found substance in the speech nevertheless. Obama’s admission that the U.S. has made mistakes, for example, and his acknowledgment that many Europeans see the U.S. as a cause of the world’s problems, meant a great deal.
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Barack Obama will speak to an anticipated crowd of 100,000 people in Berlin tonight, and the city is brimming with anticipation. Pretty much every newspaper and magazine has featured him on its cover or front page. A few weeks ago, the story was where he would speak. At the Brandenburg Gate? Angela Merkel (Christian Democrat) opposed a foreign politician making a campaign speech at such a historic site; her foreign minister, Frank-Walter Steinmeier (Social Democrat) didn’t see the problem; and Berlin’s mayor, Klaus Wowereit (Social Democrat), seemed to be looking forward from the start to a photo op with Obama anywhere in the city. But the Obama campaign, loath to create friction, decided on a different location: the Siegessäule or Victory Column. Not that the Siegessäule doesn’t have its own issues: as many have pointed out, it’s a monument to Prussian victories over Denmark, Austria and France, and the Nazis liked it too; they even made it taller. Berlin’s like that, though—there’s hardly a spot in the city without some problematic history, be it Prussian, Nazi or Communist. It’s sometimes hard to remember, with surveys showing a majority of Germans opposing Bundeswehr participation in Afghanistan, but Germans weren’t always pacifists…
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