My comprehensive plan for US policy on the Middle East …

Ah the inscrutably complex, tragic, intractable Middle East …

But is it really as complicated as all that?

What you really have to spell out though, is that “leave them to sort it out”, does not mean, “leave them to sort it out themselves, with the small exception that the most extreme hawk/Likud tendency gets a blank check for whatever arms, subsidies, and political muscle it wants the US to expend on its behalf to insure its continued dominance”.

People in this country have an amazing ability to mistake our current policy for a sort of hands-off, laissez-faire. If the most extreme hawk/Likudnik tendency is on top, well, that’s just the undisturbed natural order of things, how we found conditions when we first noticed the problem at about 3PM yesterday. Removing the tiniest jot or tittle of the generations-long US support that made things the way they are is unimaginably radical, because it would be such an arbitrary and decisionistic assault on the stable and settled order of things.

“UN vote on Palestinian statehood threatens to delay negotiated peace by intensifying Israeli concerns” – Times leading article.

You know how we said satire was dead?

Cian: “tacit support for the Palestinians”

Are you here applying this general principles: not continuing to give enormous economic and military support for party A is tacit support for party B?

Are you here applying this general principles: not continuing to give enormous economic and military support for party A is tacit support for party B?

I am of course speaking the language of the venerable NYT.

Otto – the US was supporting the Afrikaaners, so leaving them alone would have been an improvement, no?

It’s revealing that on this thread, “Middle East” means “territory known prior to 1947 as Palestine.” Aren’t there a few issues for the USA in Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and Egypt as well — for which blank might also be the best response?

@16

Shia/Sunni/Christian, national territory/identity, challenges of post-colonialism, forms of governance, role of women in society, impact of natural resources in these countries and in the nearby region on their economies and societies, and their not always-harmonious relationships with each other.

I do not think very many people in the US, certainly not the media, politicians, and other power brokers would care very much about anything having to do with Lebanon, modern Egypt, Syria or Jordan if the State of Israel did not exist. These are considered problem countries precisely because of their historical opposition to Israel and US unconditional support for Israel. They do not have a lot of oil or other resources. Yes, the US would still be interested and involved in places like Saudi Arabia, Iran, UAE, etc. if Israel did not exist. But, the oil poor Arab states would register no more importance than most of Africa does with the US government and media.

The main goal of current US policy in the Middle East is supporting Jewish colonialism. So, yes, the discussion necessarily turns to how that particular situation would be different if the US adopted a policy of “leave them to sort it out”. Any other response was rather odd. I hope you understand that US policy towards e.g. Egypt and Jordan are very much influenced by that primary objective.

And so the question still applies: would you have left the white and black South Africans alone to sort it out? do you mean ‘leave them to existing power inequalities’, for example? because some versions of “leaving them to sort it out” would seem to imply permanent apartheid for the Palestinian arabs.

Our behavior in Bahrain, for example, doesn’t make sense if one thinks it is just all about Israel. Saudi Arabia also has a significant influence on Pakistan, for example, which is another place we are that doesn’t have much to do with Israel.

The US cares about the Suez canal.

Iran is about the humiliation of the revolution, right? I mean lets be honest. If it was just about the oil, an accommodation would have been reached years ago.

Yes, there is an oil-rents question too. Well done. And much else besides, to be sure. But US foreign policy on the ME is driven above all by the goal of promoting jewish colonialism, so it would be good for JQ to specify what sort of outcome he is expecting there from this change in policy.

The canal doesn’t seem to be connecting the US with anything. Europeans care about the canal, that’s why they (and Israel) invaded and occupied Egypt in 1956. The US at the time didn’t care about the territory known prior to 1947 as Palestine, or, apparently, about the canal, and so Eisenhower, instead of explaining how the occupation equals ‘the right to defend yourself’, told them to get out.

The responses are very revealing. It’s sort of a Rorschasch (sp?) blot with no blot.

Except that variations on your post are often made by Americans who seem to believe that the US is a neutral party in the Israel/Palestinian conflict, or even the only one capable of sorting it out. So maybe the responses are less revealing than you think. If you unintentionally write a post which fits into an existing propaganda narrative, don’t be surprised if people read it that way.

@20
Yeah, but why would any these things be an issue for the USA?

JQ’s original post, QED.

“Before that its main international sponsor was France and its main intellectual supporters were on the left.”
Not sure what that has to do with current US policy that JQ wants to change. Israel is certainly the driving force of US ME policy now.

“My proposed policy is particularly applicable as regards oil”
Particularly applicable, or only applicable?

@Henri,
Because when slavery and patriarchy rule in far off lands we are all diminished?

when slavery and patriarchy rule in far off lands we are all diminished

If they rule at home, it’s no problem naturally.

John Quiggin, the naughty psychoanalyst. Tsk-tsk….

The canal doesn’t seem to be connecting the US with anything.

7.5% of world trade goes through the canal. I’m just guessing here but I suspect that the US might notice if it was shut. And you can’t say that ME oil is important to the US and then discount the channel that most of it goes through (even if the oil itself doesn’t all go to the US).

Even without Isr**l, the Middle East would still be a region of 350 million people, with above-normal cultural, linguistic and political links between countries (compared to, say, South-East Asia), and a huge amount of economic importance because of the oil issue. The US would still need a policy towards it just as it has a Russia policy and a Latin America policy and a Japan policy and so on.

I do think natural resources are viewed as more important by US policymakers and always have been viewed that way.

Hektor, think back. What happened when the US was explicitly given a choice between supporting Israel in war and ensuring the continued free flow of oil? Which way did the US jump?

Egypt clearly was policy inertia. As soon as supporting Mubarek proved to more than epsilon work, the US shrugged his shoulders while he was driven from power. This is even though the regime change has considerably weakened Israel’s strategic position.

Otherwise, the US has intervened in the region in a large scale for reasons only tangentially related to Israel — for example, two wars with Iraq, the second of which ending with military occupation.

I’m just guessing here but I suspect that the US might notice if it was shut.

It wouldn’t affect the US directly. Again, what about the evidence, clear empirical evidence: Eisenhower’s actions in 1956, at the time when the US wouldn’t give a fuck about Israel? He forced Europeans out of Egypt and Israel out of Sinai; the canal remained nationalized. Simple as that.

It wouldn’t affect the US directly.

France and Britain had financial stakes in the Suez canal; the US did not. Completely different thing. The US navy depends upon the Suez canal. Its not the only factor, but its certainly a strategic consideration. If there was ever a serious threat of closing it to international shipping, you’d probably see just how little the US cares, once the smoke cleared from the bombing raids.

Again, what about the evidence, clear empirical evidence: Eisenhower’s actions in 1956, at the time when the US wouldn’t give a fuck about Israel? He forced Europeans out of Egypt and Israel out of Sinai; the canal remained nationalized.

1956 was about who owned the canal. Not about whether it stayed open or not.

…but its certainly a strategic consideration

Of course it is. But also everything else is a strategic consideration. Read those wikileaks cables: Turkmenistan ruler’s quirks is a strategic consideration. My point is that there is no direct clear reason for the US, as in ‘US national interests’, at least as I see them, to care about the canal.

My point is that there is no direct clear reason for the US, as in ‘US national interests’, at least as I see them, to care about the canal.

Egypt is taken over by a government that makes it clear if it has a beef with the west, it will close the canal:
1) This would have a material affect on oil supplies to the US
2) It would materially affect the US’s ability to project naval power around the world (currently they can go through the canal).

Do you really think the US would let that happen?

It’s one thing to consider the right of Israel to exist after all these years, and another to support an ongoing invasion.

I think I should have said “last resort” rather than “hobgoblin.” Sorry, got carried away.

A question for John: would your proposed Middle East policy include ending tax exemption for Israeli settlers, and rather broadly treating Muslim charities as terrorist organizations? Or any restrictions on Americans funding and arming settlers and manning the settlements? A lot of focus, both by critics and supporters of Israel, is on the US govt and its policies, but while the non-state stuff is probably insignificant to what the US govt does, in a situation where that massive source of support for Israel is removed, these things might become important.

I think many, if not most, of the US Congress would like to be shot of Israel, but they can’t because they have AIPAC on their case. If you gave them the chance to lance the AIPAC boil, I suspect they’d jump on it.

I guess you have to give credit for the Israel lobby in the US- they’ve done a hell of a job of brainwashing the US political class.

“Will it withdraw from UN Human Rights Commission, with its one sided focus on Israel?”

Weird. I just went to the UN Human Rights Commission website and found a lot of stuff about Syria and Libya and the Sudan and drinking water and children and so forth-

link

ajay,

1973 was the US taking the opposite side from the Soviets in the Cold war. When OPEC retaliated with the oil embargo, the Nixon administration quickly forced Israel to the negotiating table and produced land for peace.

I really don’t see why control of natural resources and neocolonialism are being treated as different objectives here – after all colonialism was mainly about extraction of resources. The ideological ueberbau, be it the white man’s burden, democratization or religion, has always been merely a fig leaf for domestic consumption. The aim is to control the region and make a profit. This applies to all major players involved.

otto, Israel is a first-world country occupying a third-world country. It’s nice of the US to help defray the costs of occupation, but Israel could keep it up indefinitely without outside help.

And what do you see as the solution? The expulsion of the Israelis from the area?

not to be stupid, but I can’t find the full post. where is the “below the fold”?

That seems to be the both the just and by far the most likely eventual outcome, as in South Africa, although continued colonial apartheid (under the propaganda guise of various ‘peace processes’) is the other possibility. Again, per South Africa, those seem to be the two essential alternatives.

John Quiggin,

I’m not saying that the US policy vis a vis natural resources in the ME is cost-effective, just that that is the dominant concern. I wholly agree with you on the relative costs of the issue. :)

The whole Israeli settler state meme is somewhat unusual. After all, the population of Israel is already majority Arab-origin. More than half of the Jews in Israel are Mizrahi and they or their parents spoke Arabic, Persian, or Kurdish before the founding of Israel. Some of them have lived there for hundreds of years (or longer, though records are spotty.) This isn’t a case where a straightforward European origin/Israeli vs. non-European origin/Palestinian makes sense. It’s true that the Ashkenazim were the elite at the founding, but that is no longer true. Israel has been a Middle Eastern country for a long time.

So your passion on this issue, otto, is to someday see that the Israelis be ruled by a Palestinian majority? You’ll be happy with nothing less?

What does this question mean, exactly; are you implying ethnic exceptionalism of some sort? Otherwise, how come the Palestinians are not Israelis, and Israelis not Palestinians?

I do believe that South Africa may be the only historical analogy you know. There’s nothing intrinsically just about a majority ruling a minority, any more than the reverse. So far, South Africa has worked out pretty well, but what reason is there for thinking this is a plausible outcome in Israel/Palestine?

Right now, Syria is ruled by an Alawite minority that been shooting protestors. Should there be a global boycott of Syria?

It’s true that the Ashkenazim were the elite at the founding, but that is no longer true.

It largely still is, as it happens.

83: this is correct. There was a lot of sympathy in Britain, especially on the right, for the white Rhodesians, but British government policy, whatever the government, was as you describe it.

South Africa was a bit different – the nonwhite population was gradually disenfranchised over the first half of the 20th century. Their political position actually got worse (contrast with Rhodesia where they were always pretty badly off politically and had started to get their hands on a bit of political power in the Federation years immediately before UDI) and this ended up with South Africa becoming a republic in 1960, at the urging of the conservative and anti-British Afrikaner population, and leaving the Commonwealth.

There wasn’t the same Afrikaans/English split in Rhodesia; the white settlers were pretty much all Anglophone. Also, key point: South Africa already was independent in 1960 – it was a sovereign Commonwealth state, like Canada and Australia. Rhodesia was an actual British colony, a part of the Empire that declared independence.

There’s nothing intrinsically just about a majority ruling a minority, any more than the reverse.

I agree. Democracy isn’t the same thing as majority rule, though.

Hmmm… my comments started going into moderation since I added a link to my name.

@72 But the US doesn’t even do that. It maintains a gigantic military machine, in substantial measure on the theory that, at some future date, it might be useful to maintain access to oil.

Indeed, this does seem inexplicable. But you don’t address an important alternative explanation (besides wanting to be able to seize oil), which is that the Israel lobby (broadly defined–maybe it’s even better to talk about this in terms of American cultural tendencies) has some role in this–at least to the extent of influencing which way the resources of the military industrial complex are directed. Walt and Mearsheimer’s argument focuses on the lobby as a lobby, but there is also the whole question of American culture more generally. And the description of American culture as having become “militaristic” I think is very apt.

@91 Oh my god… {hangs head in shame}

JQ@72: John, you keep making the characteristic economist’s mistake of improperly aggregating. (Cf. per capita GDP.) As I argued at length in a previous thread, policymakers don’t add up all the costs and benefits of a policy — either to the entire society or even just to the entire ruling class — and make policy accordingly. They respond to intense pressure from those with most to gain or lose from the policy in question — in this case the energy and defense industries. The rest of the ruling class, not having the same stake in the policy, will not commit anything like the same resources as the industries who consider it vital, on the principle that when their own vital interests are at stake over another policy in another situation, those less affected will not oppose their pressure in that case. The state may be (indeed is) the executive committee of the ruling class, but it does not calculate the aggregate benefit in every case; rather, it operates on the principle that anything a committee member (ie, a powerful industry) wants done will be done, unless there is even more powerful opposition from the other members, which there will only be when the interests of the other members are adversely affected enough to generate an outlay of resources greater than the resources being expended to push the policy.

So in this case, in order to establish either that US interventions in the ME are not motivated by the desire for a favorable investment position in energy and/or by the strategic advantages of military control over oil-producing regions, you would have to argue that intervention to control oil is cost-ineffective not for the society or economy as a whole but rather for those industries — energy, defense, and their financiers — whom leftists claim are lobbying for those policies.

1. The military power doesn’t actually have any effect

The State Department Postwar Policy Planning Group in 1944 or 1945 described Middle Eastern oil as “a stupendous prize … the world’s greatest strategic asset.” When Mossadegh was overthrown in 1953, the New York Times applauded the coup as “an object lesson to developing nations in the consequences of going berserk with fanatical nationalism.” When Eisenhower asked his National Security Council to assess perceptions of the US in the Middle East, they reported back that the US was extremely unpopular because it was perceived to be on the side of cooperative elites subservient to the great powers and against independent development under nationalist auspices. The Carter Doctrine was explicitly about oil. Every generation of US strategists and policymakers has believed it to be utterly crucial that control over the production and marketing of the 20-25 percent of world oil capacity in the Middle East not be lost to a rival great power or to the region’s own population. Moreover, the actual personnel involved in making policy in this area has been recruited, to a significant degree, from the energy industry. You may believe that energy industry executives and their flacks in government have been, to a man, deluded about their interests and would have been as colossally, uniquely profitable as they have been over the last few decades if the US had not frequently intervened in or continuously garrisoned the Middle East since WW2, but rather had saved the money and let the market take its efficiency-maximizing way. I don’t see this.

Of course, it’s true that spending on the military helps the military industry. This doubtless helps to explain why it continues, but not why the dominant class as a whole supports it.

As I keep trying to explain, what the dominant class as a whole supports is the principle that the state will intervene when necessary on behalf of any member of the class, subject to the objections of other members of the class, and on behalf of the class as a whole against the rest of the population. Now, what arouses “the objections of other members of the class”? Not, as you seem to believe, a calculation (by an advisory committe of economists?) that the sum of the (small) costs to all of them would outweigh the large benefits to the member pushing for the intervention. Rather, they reflect that they themselves will probably be in the position some day of urging a policy that, though absolutely vital for them, will nevertheless impose lesser costs on the other members of the class, and that they must now go along in order to secure acquiescence from others in the future.

Of course, this is not all decided at a committee meeting. (Though who knows what they discuss at the Business Roundtable or the US Chamber of Commerce? Or at Davos or Bavarian Grove, for that matter?) It is a matter of who is willing to commit what resources to promoting or opposing a given policy. Employers in general may have realized that they were going to pay more for inferior health care, and lose more productivity, with the Access to Health Care Act (or whatever it’s called) than with single-payer. But the insurance, hospital, and pharmaceutical industries would have considered it a life-or-death matter to defeat single payer, and would have spent virtually unlimited resources. It simply wasn’t an important enough issue to employers in general for them to have spent anything like commensurate resources supporting single care.

As a wise man once said: “Disaggregate! Disaggregate! This is the Law and the prophets!”

@100: High oil prices and the loss of alternative suppliers are GOOD for oil companies. This is Econ 101. If US policy worked as it supposed to, it would benefit US consumers and harm producers

Yes, yes, John but you’re thinking in a vacuum again about policy formation. Of course there are constraints on any ruling class. They have to keep the population alive, consuming, and contented or at least passive. The reason the ruling class went as a group to Johnson and told him to stop the Vietnam war was not that it was hurting them as a group more than it was benefiting the military and the defense industry, but that the population was becoming seriously disaffected and potentially rowdy, and that could be very bad for business. If gas and heating oil prices rise too steeply too quickly, there will be political discontent. This is a constraint the energy industry has to take into account, though they can sometimes (as with the OPEC boycott and the post-Iraq-invasion spike) blame high prices on external factors.

The win against Mossadegh in 1953 was about the last

No, not at all. Radical Arab nationalism had the US quite worried in the 1950s. Very skilfully, it brought Egypt, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia into the fold, while organizing a virtually invincible regional alliance among Israel, Turkey, and Iran that lasted until 1979. Intervention doesn’t just mean the Marines.

JQ: “If US policy worked as it supposed to, it would benefit US consumers and harm producers.”

You look at a U.S. policy formed by the likes of Richard Cheney, and you thought it was “intended” to increase consumer surplus?

Oh boy.

I shouldn’t complain, I guess – you are describing pretty accurately the thinking of US policymakers as you say. It’s just that that thinking is delusional.

I don’t think it is even so much of policymakers as of voters. Supposedly, US popular support for the Iraq war declined from ~75% not based on casualties or any other measure of success, but the price to fill up at the pump. The politicians were chasing that demand, more than that of lobbyists.

Obviously, as any oil industry lobbyist would have predicted, a war lead to either failure and infrastructure destruction, or success and the creation of a government with a stronger bargaining position (lower need for high-tech weaponry or UN votes). Either naturally lead to higher prices and less profitable contracts.

But that was in the future. The votes from denying, without quite winking, ‘this is a war for oil’ were here and now. And you can’t make any money from government office if you are not in office.

Seth:

There is no way that the Israelis could establish any lobbies in India or China a fraction as successful as the one in the US. Look at the recent talks by Obama and Perry. I can not ever imagine a leader of another independent country kowtowing to the Israelis like we have. What do you think would happen if Israel sank a Chinese naval ship? Do you honestly believe there is any possible way they would cover it up and give unconditional support to Israel the way the US did after the Israelis sank the USS Liberty? No, the Chinese and Indians are going to look out for their own interests not those of Israel. The US is unique among major powers in having the tail wag the dog. Other states value their independence over the lobbies of foreign countries.