Wednesday, December 22, 2004

David Brooks Says What Must Be Said

David Brook has some questions:

How did we get to this sudden moment of cautious optimism in the Middle East? How did we get to this moment when Egypt is signing free trade agreements with Israel, when Hosni Mubarak is touring Arab nations and urging them to open relations with the Jewish state? How did we get to this moment of democratic opportunity in the Palestinian territories, with three major elections taking place in the next several months, and with the leading candidate in the presidential election declaring that violence is counterproductive?

How did we get to this moment of odd unity in Israel, with Labor joining Likud to push a withdrawal from Gaza and some northern territories? How did we get to this moment when Ariel Sharon has record approval ratings, when it is common to run across Israelis who once reviled Sharon as a bully but who now find themselves supporting him as an agent of peace?


And some answers:

t was unfortunate that Bush gave that speech on June 24, 2002, dismissing Yasir Arafat as a man who would never make peace. After all, the Europeans protested, while Arafat might be flawed, he was the embodiment of the Palestinian cause.

It was a mistake to build the security fence, which the International Court of Justice called a violation of international law. Never mind that the fence cut terror attacks by 90 percent. It was the moral equivalent of apartheid, the U.N. orators declared.

It was a mistake to assassinate the leaders of Hamas, which took credit for the murders of hundreds of Israelis. France, among many other nations, condemned these attacks and foretold catastrophic consequences.

It was unfortunate that President Bush never sent a special envoy to open talks, discuss modalities and fine-tune the road map. As Milton Viorst wrote in The Washington Quarterly, this left "slim prospects" for any progress toward peace.

It was unfortunate that Bush sided openly with Sharon during their April meetings in Washington, causing the European Union to condemn U.S. policy. It was unfortunate that Bush kept pushing his democracy agenda. After all, as some Israelis said, it is naïve to export democracy to Arab soil.

Yes, these were a series of unfortunate events. And yet here we are in this hopeful moment. It almost makes you think that all those bemoaners and condemners don't know what they are talking about. Nothing they have said over the past three years accounts for what is happening now.

It almost makes you think that Bush understands the situation better than the lot of them. His judgments now look correct. Bush deduced that Sharon could grasp the demographic reality and lead Israel toward a two-state solution; that Arafat would never make peace, but was a retardant to peace; that Israel has a right to fight terrorism; and that Sharon would never feel safe enough to take risks unless the U.S. supported him when he fought back.


My problem with the liberal view of the Middle East conflict is that it doesn't distinguish between good and bad cultural, legal and governmental ideals. It presumes the problems our enemies have with us are our fault, and so are the problems we have with them, and we deserve to be brought low for the rape of the Third World anyhow. It's more important to be contrite than successful, so doing what it takes to win is always recast as barbarity (not to say that there hasn't been US barbarity in the WoT).

European pols and the American and international press feel they must distance themselves from us, point out the Nazism of it all, partly out of fear of further terrorism and partly shame for being so craven in the face of real totalitarianism. When it comes to journalists, the truism that one who routinely accuses others of certain bad behaviors is often guilty of them in his or her own right is so true and applies in such an all-encompassing way it reminds me of when department stores hire really skilled shoplifters to catch other shoplifters. Some people really do become journalists to make sure none of the other people who are just as fucked up, greedy and devious as themselves get away with anything major.

But on the War on Terror, faced with real bad guys targeting civilians almost exclusively, they've largely punted because it's become personal; in George Bush's America, the US government really is the only bad guy, and past foreign policy failures that contribute to "root causes" are Bushitler's fault whether he was even alive then or not. The only thing that can help us now, liberal reporters (that's about 90% of them) believe, is being put in our place. An embarrassment in Iraq, some terrorist attacks here, then we beg the UN to save us and make some Peace In Our Time, and everything's right with the world.

And until then, it's about how it looks, not how it is. Being concerned about appearances and how one is thought of is utterly childish in high school, and unforgivable beyond. None of it has a thing to do with creating an environment that is conducive to peace and democracy, and yes, that is the goal, to democratize the world. Until that's done, we don't have a bigger, more important job to do.

Not sure to whom I should tip my hat as I saw this linked many other places, but the last one was Villanous Company.

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