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Old Myths and New Realities
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17161 |
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CURRENT ISSUES
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12 / 1990 |
2,231 Words |
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Rashid I. Khalidi
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The Gulf crisis has laid to rest a number of long-held myths about the Middle East, even as it may have seen the origins of new ones. At the same time, a number of irreducible political realities have been reaffirmed during this crisis, which has once again confirmed that the Middle East is one of the most dangerous regions on earth, and the place where world peace and the new arrangement of world power emerging in the wake of the Cold War are the most vulnerable.
The myths that have come crashing to earth as a result of the Gulf crisis include the idea once held with great tenacity in Washington that a radical Islamic regime in Iran is a permanent threat to U.S. interests in the region. It is often forgotten that this myth was at the root of the "tilt toward Iraq" engaged in by both the Reagan and Bush administrations, which was the basis of nearly 10 years of American support for Iraq in its war with Iran and afterward.
U.S. policy makers' obsession with the Islamic revolutionary regime in Iran grew out of resentment at the 1979 overthrow of the shah. Washington's lavish support for this particular despot was in turn based on an earlier myth: the threat of the expansion of Soviet power into the Middle East. This myth both necessitated and justified massive American military and other kinds of support for the shah, as well as for regional allies like Israel, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia. It led the United States to concentrate almost exclusively on the East-West balance in the Middle East, often at the expense of attention to the area's serious internal problems, and at times inflamed these problems while creating new ones.
The myth of an inexorable Soviet drive into the Middle East, already frayed at the edges before the Gulf crisis, has now also collapsed. This has happened as the USSR has become more cautious in its foreign policy and, more important, has been revealed for all to see as a giant that always had feet of clay. Throughout the Gulf crisis, the Soviet Union has adhered strictly to the international consensus that opposed the Iraqi occupation and annexation of Kuwait; it has been the leading advocate of an international approach, both to this crisis and to the resolution of other regional problems. The Soviet Union's apparent sincerity in its approach to the Gulf crisis should help the subsidiary myth that Soviet proposals for an international forum for resolution of Middle Eastern disputes are meant solely as a trap for the United States and its allies.
The Gulf crisis has pointed up yet another venerable myth regarding the Middle East, although this one still retains some life. This is the idea that Israel is an invaluable strategic asset for the United States, an "unsinkable aircraft-carrier," in the words of enthusiastic advocates of American-Israeli strategic cooperation. However, far from showing itself a strategic asset in the most serious crisis involving the United States in the Middle East since World War II, Israel has instead proven a weighty liability. As American policymakers struggle with the Gulf imbroglio, they have been obliged to request that Israeli leaders maintain a low profile and refrain from any action that might exacerbate the conflict.
In a situation where the United States finds itself engaged in a confrontation with a major Arab power like Iraq, the support of Arab states such as Egypt, Syria, and Saudi Arabia is crucial; such support can only be undermined by any Israeli
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