James Baker and Edward Djerejian (credit: Rice University)Edward Djerejian, director of the Baker Institute for Public Policy, and one of James Baker’s most trusted aides, wrote an eye-opening article in Foreign Affairs Magazine, urging a new U.S. policy toward Syria. Normally, such an article would be worthy of a read, but not much more. But in this case, what Djerejian says has added import because young Bush has assigned his father’s consigliere to get him out of the Mideast quagmire in which he’s foundering. Just how serious a project is the Iraq Study Group created by Baker? Will Junior listen if it’s directives counter his own notions? The jury is still out. But one thing is for sure–if George Bush takes what Baker offers seriously, then what Djerejian writes has extreme significance in terms of engineering a possible U-turn in policy toward Syria.
Instead of the current ‘freeze-out’ in relations with the Assad government, Djerejian calls for re-engagement with Syria in an effort that could both resolve the Israeli-Arab conflict and detach Syria from Iran’s sphere of influence. And the Baker ally has an even larger ambition. He wishes to set the stage for a tamping down of Islamic radicalism and especially the deep hatred of the U.S. engendered by our policies since 9/11:
The United States should seize this moment to transform the cease-fire in the Hezbollah-Israeli conflict into a step toward a comprehensive Arab-Israeli peace settlement. Doing so would facilitate the marginalization of the forces of Islamic radicalism and enhance the prospects for regional security and political, economic, and social progress.
The Hezbollah-Israeli confrontation has further proved what should already have been painfully clear to all: there is no viable military solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict. Even with its military superiority, Israel cannot achieve security by force alone or by unilateral withdrawal from occupied territories. Nor can Hezbollah, Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and similar groups destroy Israel. Peace can come only from negotiated agreements that bind both sides.
Hezbollah may have ignited the spark that set off this latest confrontation, but it is not the root cause. The fighting was the combined result of the unresolved Arab-Israeli conflict and the struggle between the forces of moderation and those of extremism within the Muslim world — two issues that are linked by the radicals’ exploitation of the Arab-Israeli conflict for their own political ends. U.S. policy in the region should thus focus both on trying to promote a peaceful settlement of the Arab-Israeli dispute and on helping Muslim moderates by facilitating political and economic reform across the Middle East.
The former U.S. diplomat focuses on Syria as a key player in the potential resolution of the Israeli-Arab conflict:
Syria, meanwhile, poses both a danger and an opportunity. The Assad regime could undermine security arrangements in southern Lebanon, hinder progress in Iraq, and continue to support Hezbollah, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and radicals in Hamas. But it could also play a constructive role in the region — a possibility that has yet to be fully explored…Since the 1991 Madrid peace conference, Damascus has looked to Washington as the key interlocutor between itself and Israel in negotiations over the return of the Golan Heights. The extensive talks that took place during the administrations of George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton may not have resulted in a final agreement, but they came very close…
Even more radically, considering the absolute Nyet the Bush Administration has uttered regarding Iran is this conciliatory advice from Djerejian:
Any sustainable agreement with Hezbollah in southern Lebanon…would also have to involve Iran.
Dealing with Iran is problematic. Nevertheless, Washington and Tehran have engaged each other on Afghanistan (constructively), Iraq (less so), and the nuclear issue (as part of an international process). And although Iran sees it as being in its interest to have the United States suffer in Iraq, it does not want U.S. policy there to fail and the country to slip into full-scale civil war or territorial disintegration. Iran’s population is just over half Persian, but almost a quarter of the population is Azerbaijani and a small part is Kurdish or Arab, making communal unrest a constant worry. Accordingly, the United States should consider dealing more directly with Iran on specific areas of interest, disavowing regime change as a specific goal and focusing on long-term policies to encourage and support political and economic liberalization and indigenous reform efforts there.
Now, wouldn’t that be a breath of fresh air if that were the real policy of our government toward Iran? Somehow, I simply cannot see George Bush, who has invested so much political and emotional capital is painting Iran as the ultimate evil, turning his back on such received wisdom and walking such a radically different path. Bush is not a man who makes U-turns as we can see with his current truculent “defense” of our failed Iraq mission. But perhaps Baker can work a miracle that no other moderate Republican can.
The Ambassador’s prescription on the Palestinian front are far less specific and illuminating. Nevertheless they diverge strongly from current policy:
The external wing of Hamas, led by Khaled Meshal in Damascus, has demonstrated a more militant and radical bent, while Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, who is from Hamas, and his colleagues inside the territories are struggling with the requirements of governing and have to consider difficult political compromises. U.S. policy should be sensitive to these political dynamics and encourage Hamas to move in a more moderate direction.…
On the economic front, the international community must help promote reforms and avoid a humanitarian disaster in the Palestinian territories, particularly Gaza, by focusing on four key issues: the payment of monthly salaries to the PA’s civil and police employees; the financing of health, education, and social programs for the population at large; covering the running costs of essential public institutions and municipal services; and the financing of infrastructure projects. Israel should also be encouraged, with all due consideration for its legitimate security needs, to increase the number of Palestinian workers inside its economy and facilitate the movement of goods across its borders.
This is not earth-shattering stuff. Any high school student could tell you that these are the types of things that need to be done to restore a possibility for good will and dialogue on both sides. But this is so far from our current policy that it appears as a radical and welcome prescription for change.
In the essay’s conclusion Djerejian rather remarkably addresses President Bush directly as if to say, “Sonny, you can buckle down and solve this thing or you can continue to drift into the political ether. What’ll it be?”
…With strong presidential leadership, the United States can be an effective interlocutor between the Arabs and the Israelis.
President George W. Bush should therefore reiterate the vision of a comprehensive Arab-Israeli peace settlement that he presented in June 2002, including his explicit call for a two-state solution involving a Palestinian state living in peace and security next to the state of Israel, and make it clear that he will work toward that end with the international community for the remainder of his presidency. This could give the parties in the region the political space they need to make the tough decisions and compromises for a negotiated peace. This thorough approach to peace, which would bring all the Arab and Israeli parties together to address the issues on the Palestinian, Lebanese, and Syrian fronts in a parallel manner, could be modeled after the Madrid peace conference of 1991.
All of the key issues in the Middle East — the Arab-Israeli conflict, Iraq, Iran, the need for regionwide political and economic reforms, extremism, and terrorism — are inextricably linked. Nothing short of a comprehensive strategy can solve the problems, marginalize the radicals, and promote the values and interests of the United States and the parties in the region. Washington has waged war in Afghanistan and Iraq. The question now is whether it can muster the political will to wage peace as well.
Once again, the essay is long on generalities and short on specifics. But it so different from the current bankrupt policy that one can only hope (yes, sometimes I do wish for Bush’s success strange as it may be to admit it) for its success and wish Baker well in his efforts to set the ship of state aright after six years of absolute foundering on the shoals of radical triumphalist foreign policy.
Interesting stuff as always here. I want to focus my comment on the Baker angle you bring up. My prediction: You are right that Daddy has brought the family consigliere in to clean up the son’s mess. So now Junior will have the perfect excuse to change course, oh sorry we’re not staying a course now.. excuse me. Baker has been hired to provide cover for Bush’s retreat. He will be hardpressed to ignore Baker’s advice for many reasons. If he does, then we will be seeing the rebellion of the stupid son against his father’s shackles. If that happens then things will really get interesting. Unfortunately, we are talking human lives here so maybe I shouldnt be so flippant.
It seems fairly clear that if the Golan Heights are returned to Syria then Israel — and Lebanon too — will find themselves even more within the shadow of that nation’s physical policies than they are now. One need not even think about Iran’s plans for the future map of the middle east.
If we in these United States have finally decided to remove our support for Israel and to allow her to simply crumble into a short historical memory similar to that which followed the events of 70AD then perhaps Messrs. Baker and Djerijian would care to tell us what they plan to do with the millions of Jews now living in what they are pleased to call their own ‘homeland.’
Is there a plan of evacuation, or are we simply going to allow matters to follow their own course as we did when, once, a couple of million Armenians were slaughtered in that very same arena?
Surely Mr. Djerijian’s father did not come to this country to spend years in difficult labor, simply in order to educate his sons so that they might forget such history.
Isn’t it just a tad hysterical to suggest that Israel will be eliminated if it negotiates or makes peace w. Syria?
RE: “TAD HYSTERICAL”
As a small – entirely irreligious – child growing up in Jackson Heights, NY during the 1940’s and 50’s I thought that my parent’s fears of anti-semitism were a “tad hysterical” until several of my non-Jewish friends (including one of Armenian heritage who later became quite prominent in the U.S. State Department) joined together one night to throw rocks at me as I walked along the street; each yelling “Dirty Jew!” as they did so. The Armenian boy was later brought to our front door by his father where, crying bitterly, he was forced to apologize. “I can’t understand it,” said the boy’s father to my own mother, “they were always such good friends!” I couldn’t understand it either. I still don’t but I accept it as fact; then and now.
There are many situations which are difficult to understand, at least for me, in this life and anti-semitism, particularly the hatred of Jews, is one of them but I know that it exists everywhere upon the Planet. Perhaps because I am not religious, was never ‘Bar-Mitvohed’, have never visited Israel, am married to a Christian woman, and do not resemble anything other than a blue-eyed, sandy haired, western European, I am made privy to this hatred from its very source by people who simply do not realize that they are speaking to a Jewish “friend.”
This is why I find it so very difficult to understand when someone who describes himself as an orthodox Jew responds to my concern about the possible Israeli surrender of the Golan Heights with the statement “a tad hysterical.”
You are characterisitic of a psychological trauma we Jews sometimes have whereby we believe that events that happened in 70CE or 1492CE or when we were 8 years old will happen now as well because circumstances in the world or our own lives have not changed since then. But the truth is that circumstances do & have changed. You were a young child when you were pummeled so cruelly by those children. You are now an adult. You are now capable of taking care of yourself & excoriating that child who taunted you with terrible names. But the problem is that psychologically you are still that young child & have never come to see yrself as an adult Jew capable of taking care of yrself.
Similarly, you were being hysterical in imagining that because the U.S. or Israel negotiates for peace with Syria that this means the U.S. will withdraw support for Israel or that Israel will be exterminated. This is merely the incohate nightmare of someone who doesn’t trust in Israel’s power or Israel’s rightful place in the world which I do. Israel has a rightful place both in the ME & the world. But it can only achieve its place by acknowledging it is bound by international law to return to 67 borders which includes the return of the Golan to Syria in return for that country recognizing Israel & ending the state of war.
Almost everyone in Israel & the U.S. except for George Bush, Ehud Olmert & you agree that this must happen.
“THOSE WHO IGNORE THEIR HISTORY WILL BE CONDEMNED TO RE’LIVE IT.”
I hope that I have quoted this correctly.
OVERTAKE:
How did you know that I was 8 years old when that incident occured? Just a lucky guess?
Yes, I agree. It is important to know history and to react appropriately to the bad things that happened in the past to ensure they don’t happen again. But I’m saying the past doesn’t necessarily repeat itself over & over again as so many Jewish people seem to believe. There are times when one must take risks & break away fr. past patterns of behavior in order to make a better world. That is the case imo betw. Israel & her neighbors.
As for guessing yr age, it was a lucky guess. But the story you told seemed like it might’ve happened to someone at about that age. Plus, I myself have both bullied & been bullied around about that age as well.
Jonah,
I’ve tried to reply but it seems that something is interfering.
Well,I’ll try again…
One cannot react to the past. One can only react to present circumstances and prepare to react to future ones whenever they become the present circumstances. To say that the past “doesn’t necessarily repeat itself” is to ignore the possibility that it might. When the consequences of a repetition are extremely dire then one must adopt worst case reasoning. That is a good scientific algorithm!
In 1933 many Jewish Germans spoke as you do now: “It can’t happen here” was an all too common attitude. But of course it DID happen there. Why then should it not happen in a place where Israel’s neighbors insist that it can – and will – happen; because they are actively preparing to MAKE it happen?
It is not only the Jewish people who must – and do – behave this way. Preparations for self defense are ongoing throughout Europe and the United States. I do not see Russia, for instance, negotiating with the terrorists who, weekly, create havoc in the streets of Moscow and elsewhere inside that nation. What would you have them do? Offer Danegeld to the terrorists? Seems to me a man named Chamberlain tried that once.
Rudyard Kipling was quite right when he said “Once you have paid out the Danegeld you will never get rid of the Dane.”
I sense, Jonah, that you may be a kindly person who would like to see a peaceful planet emerge from all the present bloodshed but that sort of thing has never occured inside the world’s history… This is not, I fear, a gentle world and we must deal with it as it exists, not as we would wish it to be.
You may not have intended this but frankly I resent yr implication that I am like a totally assimialted German Jew with my head stuck in the sand believing that evil cannot strike. I know full well that evil can strike. But the point is: do you embrace the evil of a status quo that provides for endless bloodshed against yr people & their neighbors; or do you reach out for a future in which yr people have a chance to live within limits, but at peace w. their neighbors.
Again, Stanley you are speaking from traumatized Jewish fear and not fr. any real understanding of what is really happening in the ME. THere is aboslutely no chance for any Israeli enemy to harm Israel in any existential way. Israel will not be vanquished or exterminated or anything of the sort. To believe that this is possible not only flies in the face of reality, it also blinds you to the real options for peace that Israel could embrace if it were only bold enough to do so.
My son’s name is Jonah, not mine. He doesn’t blog yet.
Human beings have never lived at peace w. ea. other? Jews have never enjoyed peace with their neighbors? How little you know about world & Jewish history.
RE: “I resent”
H.G. Wells once said that “People who resent the opinions of others should not ask for their commentary.”
I AGREE.
Instead of trying to understand my feelings of resentment for yr low rhetorical blow you quote a statement which makes it appear that I solicited yr commentary here. Anyone is able to comment here as you have. But that doesn’t mean I invited yr commentary.
Stanley. Was that eight year old boy who called you a dirty jew and then got punished by his father who made him apologze Edward Derijan?