Middle East War and Peace

Trump’s decision to assassinate one of the most important Iranian military and political figures has ratcheted up the conflict in the Middle East rather dramatically.  The U.S., which until recently appeared to be attempting to reduce its military role in the region, could now easily be drawn into a ‘hot’ war with Iran as response and counter-response to the assassination occur.

Americans love to see the world in black and white, good and evil.  A great many Americans will believe that Trump acted as a force of ‘good’ in killing General Soleimani.  He was, after all, the architect of many military and paramilitary (in our parlance ‘terrorist’) activities throughout the region.  For political expediency, our leaders will frame his death in terms of getting rid of a ‘bad actor’ and portray his end as a powerful deterrent to Iran for future misdeeds.

But when has the death of an adversary’s leader ever done anything but inflame passions and lead to further hatred, defiance and bloodshed?  There are dozens of Soleimani’s ready to step into his role, and they will certainly be emboldened to make even more radical antagonistic moves in the future.

And can we really say that Soleimani was any more 'evil' or dasterdly than a host of other strongmen throughout the world?  Assassinating powerful men has never been the path to more security or a better world.  It may satisfy our yearning for frontier justice, but it will do nothing but inflame the passions of our adversaries and lessen any potential for easing tensions.

The Middle East is a quagmire of tribal and religious divisions, further exacerbated by the constant irritant that Israel and its increasing settlement of formerly Palestinian territory provide.  There is ultimately no right and wrong here.  These are age-old resentments and power struggles that have been made worse by the unintended but foreseeable consequences of meddling by world powers over the last 150 years – the dismantlement of the Ottoman empire, the Balfour Agreement, the formation of Israel, the CIA-sponsored coup in Iran that installed the Shah, and the exploitation of oil by multi-national corporations and their super-wealthy Arab sponsors and benefactors, to name a few.

Our foreign policy in this region over the last 40 years is characterized by one bone-headed mistake after the next – our cold-war support of Jihadists and Islamic extremism to counter the Soviet Union in Afghanistan (which contributed, over time, to the rise of Al Qaeda, Daesh/Islamic State and a long list of other Islamic extremist groups); our support of Iraq and Saddam Hussein in the Iraq/Iran war followed by our two wars on Iraq, thus alienating, radicalizing and impoverishing those two nations and creating an ever closer bond between them; our continued unequivocal support for and armament of Saudi Arabia, the source of the most extreme form of fundamentalist Islam in the region and a horribly repressive regime; our unwillingness to use our influence with Israel to stop their settlement of the West Bank and push them to work toward an equitable Palestinian state solution.  Our post-9/11 wars and subsequent attempts at nation-building in Iraq and Afghanistan may go down in history as one of the greatest ‘empire’ mistakes ever.

The region presents complex problems to be sure.  The U.S. has operated partially on the basic principle that it must be the guarantor of stability in the region to protect world oil supplies.  But like so many world powers before us, the U.S. has let hubris and personal (Presidential) animus or caprice drive its foreign policy in this region.  Jimmy Carter’s weak position in the latter part of his presidency led to an over-reaction to Soviet incursions into Afghanistan, which were then increased substantially under the hawkish Reagan.  The first Bush also allowed his own political weakness and need to show decisiveness push him beyond economic measures to war against Iraq in 1990-91.  And the second Bush was clearly personally motivated to allow his gang of neo-cons to push a combined war and ill-fated regional nation-building after 9/11.

Would the Middle East be in a worse state today if none of these wars had been prosecuted?  Can the expense of lives, limbs and treasure be seen as anything but an incredible debacle for the U.S.?  How many millions of lives have been shattered by our military prowess?  Iraq and Afghanistan are horribly broken countries now.  Can we really convince ourselves that we have been a force for good in this region?

As we head toward a climate disaster fueled by carbon emissions from oil and gas, this region may eventually become as unimportant and neglected by the U.S. as Africa and Latin America are now. How quickly we learn to ignore hot spots in the world (remember Somalia?  Bosnia?) once they no longer seem to have 'strategic' relevance. What kind of moral high road is that?

Iran, Saudi Arabia, Israel and Turkey are all vying for regional power in the Middle East.  Now is not the time for more war and saber-rattling.  Now is the time for decreasing tensions and creating opportunites for dialog between nations.  Now is the time for diplomacy and rational strategies for conflict resolution.  Alas, our head of state is neither diplomatic or rational.  And so it goes.