It must have been 30 years ago that the New Yorker magazine ran a cartoon of two Arabs sitting under a palm tree. One is reading a newspaper and remarks to the other, “It says we’re in ferment.”
How little things have changed! Wherever you look in the Middle East today, you see turmoil – most of it destructive, some of it potentially constructive, but all of it adding up to what is undoubtedly the biggest headache afflicting the Bush administration in the field of foreign affairs.
First, Afghanistan, where Bush intervened earliest. To the chagrin of such journalistic pessimists as the New York Times’ Johnny “Quagmire” Apple, American forces swiftly toppled the Taliban regime, and have subsequently installed a new pro-democratic and pro-American leader, President Hamid Karzai. But it’s clear that the Karzai regime is far from stable, with a writ that doesn’t run much beyond its capital, Kabul. Most of the country is in the hands of local warlords of uncertain loyalties. Progress toward democracy, let alone prosperity, is glacially slow.
Bush’s critics can blame him for this state of affairs if they want to, but the central fact remains: Afghanistan, for all its problems, is today a net plus for the West, and especially the United States, rather than a sanctuary and training-ground for Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaida.
Next, Iraq. The overthrow of Saddam Hussein and his regime took Gen. Tommy Franks and his troops about three weeks – once again to the despair of Bush’s enemies. Bush opponents predicted big American casualties, countless innocent Iraqi civilians killed and a bloody street-by-street battle for Baghdad. They couldn’t have been more mistaken.
It would have been nice, of course, if the Iraqis had all greeted our soldiers with smiles and flowers, but 30 years of a brutal despotism have left this deeply divided country unsure of anything – unfamiliar with democracy, dubious about a free economy, uncertain even that Saddam may not return. And Saddam, having – in a final gesture – flooded the country with the hundred thousand criminals in its prisons, has disappeared, leaving a few die-hard supporters to pick off individual American and British soldiers in an effort to wreck the morale of the occupying forces.
He will not succeed, of course. Bush – and, for that matter, the American people – are made of sterner stuff. It was only after 50,000 Americans had died in Vietnam, in a war that Lyndon Johnson had no idea how to either win or stop, that Americans finally (and rightly) blew the whistle on that disaster. Iraq will in due course be tranquillized and democratized, but it will be a long and painful process.
Then there are Israel and Palestine. Every three years or so, I write a column explaining that there can be no permanent peace between these two, because they are equally determined on two irreconcilable goals: a secure Israel, and a Palestine that rules the entire region – to the total exclusion of Israel. Bush has used his brilliant military victory in Iraq to put some practical momentum, plus his own impressive determination, behind a “roadmap” to peace. Lord knows I wish him well, but I don’t believe he will succeed. If I am wrong, his success will go far toward tranquillizing the entire Arab world, as well as its many European friends. If not, this wound will continue to fester indefinitely.
And we haven’t even mentioned yet the apparent determination of the Iranian mullahs to make their country a nuclear power. Fortunately, internal discords – fueled by the country’s youth (especially its university students) – may bring down the current fanatical regime before that happens. If they don’t, Bush may have to impose grimmer measures on the mullahs.
Luckily, Bush isn’t one of those people who asks God to make life easy. He asks only to be made strong.
