Newsletter No. 579
Editorial-Opinion
April 10, 2007

 

The Asahi Shinbun is smoking! Today they ran the op-ed piece by Azzam Tamimi that we introduced here in Shingetsu Newsletter No. 552 on March 17th. They also posted a new editorial that is very strong. It seems that someone on the Asahi editorial board “gets it” in a way that is rare to see in the Japanese mainstream media. Let’s hope that they can keep this up for a while.

CONFUSION IN THE MIDDLE EAST
By the Asahi Shinbun

It has been four years since the fall of Baghdad. At that time, the prowess of U.S. forces which quickly conquered the Iraqi capital was so impressive that many people were optimistic about achieving peace in the country. But peace has not come, and the turn of events has been horrendous.

What is even more hard to bear is the sense of deadlock and the lack of stability hanging over the entire Middle East. The future of peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians is in total confusion; Lebanon is in disarray; and Iran is pursuing a nuclear program.

Dialogue has ceased and antagonism permeates the region. Yet in this deadlocked situation, new efforts have been made to seek a way out of the mess. The League of Arab States held a summit in late March and issued a peace initiative for reviving the defunct Palestinian peace plan. Israel has shown interest.

Everyone in the region is well aware that the Palestinian issue lies at the very root of all the confusion, but negotiations had stopped. In that vacuum, the Arabs finally moved to break the impasse.

On another front, Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic Party congresswoman who is the speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, recently visited Syria, a country designated by the Bush administration as a "state sponsor of terrorism." Pelosi conferred with Syria's president, Bashar al-Assad, and urged him to cooperate in the security of Iraq.

Furthermore, Iran released 15 British soldiers captured in the Persian Gulf. Perhaps the release is a signal that Tehran wishes to shift the mood away from antagonism.

President George W. Bush, however, has criticized Pelosi's visit to Syria. Although the United States has increased the number of troops in Iraq, terror attacks persist and the death toll continues to rise.

The Middle East has been mired in disarray and stagnation these past four years, but the various initiatives give rise to expectations that perhaps a change is on its way. Recently at the Arab summit, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, a long-time friend and ally of the United States, said the presence of U.S. troops in Iraq was an "illegitimate occupation." No doubt the king sees the withdrawal of the U.S. military as a crucial key to resolving the Middle East crisis. The presence of U.S. troops in Iraq creates military tensions that affect the entire Middle East and stir up strong anti-American sentiment among the public.

Perhaps the Iranians are developing their nuclear program because they feel beleaguered, caught between Iraq and Afghanistan where U.S. troops have been deployed. Al-Qaida, the international terror organization, has become a symbol of jihad because of growing anti-American feelings in the Muslim world.

If nothing is done about the presence of American troops in Iraq, political initiatives will have no chance of succeeding. The United States should define a schedule for a troop withdrawal from Iraq and place that exit plan on the diplomatic negotiation table. Once the plan is presented, many political maneuvers, among the Arab states and others, can be put into action. It would then be possible for Iraq's neighbors, Europe and the United Nations to cooperate toward pulling Iraq out of its state of disarray.

The Middle East needs U.S. political input for both peace in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and stability in Iraq. But that political influence will never be used as long as Washington maintains a huge military presence in Iraq and tries to control the region by force. As long as the United States holds on to this stance, diplomatic initiatives by surrounding countries will be smothered.

Political initiatives must soon be allowed to take center stage in the Middle East. The whole world is waiting.

COMMENTARY

1) From Sandra R. Leavitt of Georgetown University on April 11, 2007:

The Asahi Shinbun editorial about contention in West Asia is a welcome breath of sanity, with one caveat. I wholeheartedly agree that the US military presence in Iraq has destabilized the region beyond the tensions present there four years ago. The diplomatic initiatives we are seeing on the part of Arab states are a direct result of the failures of American military occupation of Iraq and, importantly, of the vacuum in US diplomacy. If the US invasion had been successful, instead of creating the conditions for civil war, we would not see the other governments in the region stepping up. If the Bush Administration were now leading efforts at regional dialogue and cooperation, most regional governments would join such efforts, not as initiators but as participants.

However, it is foolhardy to assume that the governments in the region will continue to embrace diplomatic solutions if the US military pulls out of Iraq. Of course, this is what we all hope and it is possible. But, such behavior will depend upon two factors:

a) The US stepping up to the plate and encouraging dialogue and compromise, including talking with its "enemies."

b) The actions of Iraqi political leaders and conditions.

It is just as likely that Arab diplomatic initiatives will give way to ugly interstate struggles for influence in Iraq, either directly or through proxies. This scenario may be averted by intelligent US diplomatic leadership and/or competent Iraqi leadership and increased security across Iraq's communities.