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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Hawkmoon who wrote (101793)	6/16/2003 11:13:51 PM
From: Nadine Carroll	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

Good op-ed as usual from Barry Rubin: The Region: Real strategy vs. wishful thinking, By Barry Rubin Who said recently: "With such an enemy, no peace treaty is possible, no policy of containment or deterrent will prove effective. The only way to deal with this threat is to destroy it completely and utterly." No, it was not Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon on Hamas, but US Vice-President Dick Cheney on his own country's policy toward al-Qaida. Well, what's the difference between the two situations? Clearly the answer depends on what one considers the cause and continuation of terrorism to be. The answer is that these two terrorist organizations, and other like-minded ones, seek the annihilation of their victims. It follows that the only cure, such as exists, is the annihilation of the terrorists themselves, or at least the use of force to make them too intimidated and disorganized to take action. This situation reminds me of what happened to a journalist who, many years before September 11, 2001, submitted an op-ed piece on terrorism to a leading American newspaper. "We don't run articles on counter-terrorism," the editor told him. "We believe that the only effective action is dealing with the root causes of the problem." Before September 11 US policy despite the public rhetoric of presidents usually returned to a strategy based on the bedrock belief that if the Americans did not bother the terrorists, the terrorists would not bother them. One could argue that this was either a rational position or an inevitable given the sporadic threat terrorism posed to the country. It is a stance still typical of European states. But there came a point in time at the moment when the first hijacked airliner struck the World Trade Center when the United States neither could nor wanted to sustain such a claim. The terrorists themselves had begun a war which forced America to respond with an all-out conflict which led them first to Afghanistan, and then to a dozen other countries where a worldwide war on terrorism is being waged. It is nonsense to speak of a "cycle of violence" when the victims of terrorism understand and repeatedly see that their eagerness to end the fighting, readiness to make concessions, and willingness to avoid confrontation has no effect whatsoever. This point has already been reached as regards Israel. No Israeli policy shift or conceivable compromise will entice Hamas, Islamic Jihad, or, apparently, Fatah's Aksa Martyrs Brigades into making a cease-fire, much less a just and lasting peace. At present, Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat has no desire to force them to stop terrorism and Prime Minister Abu Mazen has no power to do so. One might well ask whether what is required is a George Patton or a Chris Patten. Patton, the legendary American tank commander during World War II, was effective at using force to smash the German army. Patten, the EU commissioner in charge of external relations, has fought his hardest to block any serious examination of how his organization's funding is used by Arafat to finance terrorism today. By insulating Arafat from pressure, the Europeans in effect ensure that fighting continues and more people die. Unintentionally, a US policy that puts the emphasis on reducing the material pressure on Arafat and Abu Mazen, as well as the military pressure on Hamas and the Aksa Martyrs Brigades, would have the same effect. The time has come for the US to support consistently and in real terms Israel's self-defense against these forces. Such a policy is based on recognition that only such methods can bring the Palestinian side to a real cease-fire and toward the barest possibility of a peace agreement. Both President George W. Bush and Secretary of State Colin Powell have recognized that this analysis of the situation is accurate, but for diplomatic reasons they have not drawn the logical conclusion regarding what kind of policy is necessary. In his condemnation of the bus bombing in Jerusalem, Bush stated on June 11: "It is clear there are people in the Middle East who hate peace; people who want to kill in order to make sure that the desires of Israel to live in secure and peace don't happen; who kill to make sure the desires of the prime minister of the Palestinian Authority and others of a peaceful state, living side-by-side with Israel, do not happen." Powell added the same day, "We recognize that as we proceed down the road map, as we try to make progress, there would be those who will do everything they can to stop progress from being made. There are those who do not wish to see the Palestinian people achieve a state living side by side in peace with Israel." So what should happen to the people who are so successfully pursuing such goals? The US is not going to solve the problem by hoping against all evidence that Abu Mazen can or will deal with them, or that Israeli restraint will change their minds. The problem may be unsolvable, but if it is solvable it will only be because the radical leaders are afraid or unable to act because they are dead, on the run, or unable to function. Israel is being encouraged to withdraw from territory, reduce security controls, raise the number of Palestinian workers allowed into Israel, not react to attacks and to take other such steps to persuade the Palestinian leadership to act against the terrorists. But if they don't do so, only the exact opposite policy has any hope of convincing them of the need to act in their own interest. No one thinks this is easy. But any other strategy today is merely a matter of wishful thinking. jpost.com