The Arab-Israeli Conflict and United States’ Geo-Strategic and Economic Interest
Chapter One
OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY
The main objective of this study is to ascertain the US interest in the Arab-Israel conflict. But for the successful completion of the study, the researcher intends to achieve the following sub-objectives:
- To ascertain the economic interest of the United States of America in the Arab-Israel conflict
- To evaluate the US geographical strategy in the Arab-Israel conflict
- To ascertain the root cause of the Arab-Israel conflict in the Middle East
- To proffer possible solutions to the problems identified.
CHAPTER TWO
REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE
Introduction
Israel’s major geopolitical dilemma is how to sustain itself as a Jewish and democratic state within secure and recognized borders. At the core of this dilemma is the balance between four components: geography (territorial depth required for security); demography (degree of national homogeneity); democracy (human rights and control of another people); and regional and international legitimacy. The dilemma poses two primary questions: One is about how to map out borders that can create the optimal balance between the four components. Will this map imply territorial convergence in an effort to guarantee national homogeneity and democracy, or will it be based on territorial dispersion in an effort to guarantee strategic depth? The second question relates to the best way to achieve this map: Is it based on negotiations and agreement or on confrontation and rivalry? The geopolitical problem and its underlying questions are not new. Although the geopolitical dilemma emerged in 1967 with the assumption of control of the West Bank, Golan Heights and Sinai, it has accompanied Israel from the dawn of its creation in 1948; and in some shape or form from the start of modernity, when Jews began returning to the Land of Israel. What has changed dramatically in recent years is the geopolitical context underlying this dilemma. New regional developments call for original geopolitical thinking and bold policies. Alongside these developments, the following processes can be traced:
The collapse of the old geopolitical order, originating in the Cold War and at the center of which was the rivalry over positions and resources between the U.S. and the Soviet Union. In this old order, the Middle East was a relatively stable place, where stability was based on a balance of power between two world powers and their local allies. The fall of the Soviet Union left the U.S. as the sole superpower. However, America’s invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan, its unconditional support for Israel and its ongoing economic crisis have weakened its international standing.
The decline of these two superpowers has left a vacuum filled by geopolitical rivalries over regional hegemony between Iran, Turkey, Egypt and Israel. The future relations among these regional powers are surrounded by uncertainty and may include agreements, rivalries and outright conflicts.
CHAPTER THREE
ISRAEL, THE ARAB STATES AND THE GREAT POWER
The 1948 Palestine War
The conflict between Israel and the Arabs is one of the most profound and protracted conflicts of the twentieth century and the principal precipitant of wars in the Middle East. There are two major dimensions to this conflict: the Israeli-Palestinian dimension and the Israeli-Arab dimension. The origins of the conflict go back to the end of the nineteenth century when the Zionist movement conceived the idea of building a national home for the Jewish people in Palestine. This project met with bitter opposition on the part of the Arab population of the country. The upshot was a clash between two national movements for possession of Palestine. There were two peoples and one land, hence the conflict.
CHAPTER FOUR
MOSLEM FUNDAMENTALIST MOVEMENTS AND THEIR IMPACT ON MIDDLE EASTERN POLITIC
Most observers of the Arab world point out that Islam has and is currently playing a significant role in the region’s political life. In particular, the fanatical, religiously based political movements have and are determining the internal stability of the Middle East and consequently affect the United States’ political and economic position in the world. The success of the Iranian-Islamic revolution has dramatically underscored the United States’ ignorance of the political impact of Islam. Not only has the revolution embarrassed the United States but it has also threatened the stability of those regimes which America currently depends upon economically and politically;
CHAPTER FIVE
SUMMARY CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION
Introduction
It is important to ascertain that the objective of this study was to ascertain the Arab-Israel conflict and United State geo strategic and economic interest.
In the preceding chapter, the relevant data collected for this study were presented, critically analyzed and appropriate interpretation given. In this chapter, certain recommendations made which in the opinion of the researcher will be of benefits in addressing the Arab-Israel conflict.
Summary
Deterioration of the US position as a result of attacks against the U.S. position in Central Asia, America has lost the base at Karshi Khanabad, faces constant pressure in Kyrgyzstan where its hold on Manas remains precarious and elsewhere, and it and its NATO allies are fighting a revived and strengthened Taliban under conditions that are in many ways less favorable than in 2001. Worse yet, a situation where only Russia and possibly China can engage Uzbekistan decisively during a crisis, while Washington is wholly excluded from doing so, is a strategic loss for America. Indeed, Professor Alexander Cooley of Barnard College wrote that “This eviction represented the worst of all possible outcomes for the United States. The United States did not receive credit for standing on political principle and voluntarily leaving K2, nor did it manage to secure operational use of the base.” Uzbekistan evidently listens only to Moscow and Beijing, and America certainly is not Kazakhstan’s priority partner even under the best of circumstances. Therefore, the State Department’s hope of relying upon Kazakhstan as potentially America’s strongest partner in Central Asia and as a potential leader for advancing the goals we wish to see there is fundamentally unsound and cannot serve as a basis for a successful U.S. policy in the future. Certainly one cannot truly call Kazakhstan “a corridor for reform” as Secretary Rice has done, while its domestic developments incline in the opposite direction.58 Although Kazakhstan has made numerous proposals for regional cooperation among the local governments and occasionally has stood up to Russia by selling gas to Georgia and joining the BTC pipeline, its calls for regional integration have 18 gone nowhere, and the limits upon it for independent action are quite clear because its primary orientation, as a series of recent deals reconfirms, remains Russia. Indeed, as one Russian news report observed, “not once in the years of independence has Astana’s policy gone counter to Moscow’s interests.” While Kazakhstan will continue to work with Washington on pipeline issues, to obtain equipment and training for its self-defense in and around the Caspian, take part in the PfP, and accept foreign investment, nobody should expect it to be a leader in Central Asia on Washington’s behalf against Moscow and Beijing and forego the balanced policy its government rigorously follows.61 Neither should the U.S. Government ignore opportunities for comprehensive engagement with all the other states. Indeed, doing so would be a serious mistake. As Assistant Secretary of State for Europe and Eurasia Daniel Fried has said, America “cannot and will not have a one-dimensional relationship with any country in the region based solely on security concerns or economic interests.”62 Similarly, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense James MacDougall has observed that, “You cannot allow your security interests to prevent the agenda of political development, and you cannot prevent your agenda of political development from stopping your interests in the security and energy fields. These have to go hand in hand.” Any U.S. Central Asian policy must take advantage of every opportunity to interact productively with all of the local governments.
Conclusion
To regain its footing in Central Asia, the United States must first understand where it has gone astray. U.S. mistakes consist, first of all, in shortcomings in its own policy processes and equally, if not more importantly, in its policies as seen in and from Central Asia. The administration cannot recover the American position in Central Asia without addressing both sets of issues quickly and decisively. First of all, the policy process, including the interagency process, with regard to Central Asia and many other issues, e.g., Korea and Russia, and security cooperation in general, is broken. Indeed, some analysts and observers believe that there is no such thing as a regular policy process, and that this has happened because the administration prefers it that way. Often the Pentagon was sought to arrogate ever more control of foreign policy under its auspices and take a hard line in so doing or else administration officials are divided against each other with no clear line being able to emerge. Or alternatively, the State Department invokes democratization and democracy as absolutes and elevates values to interests, e.g., that the main agenda item in regard to Central Asia is democracy, not security interests, thus blocking consideration of other alternatives. Indeed democratization trumps the latter in its view.67 For example, in advance of an October 2005 trip to the region by Secretary Rice, Assistant Secretary Fried proclaimed that, “U.S. interests in advancing political and economic reform in the region will not be subordinated to security concerns.”68Thus the Pentagon emphasizes U.S. strategic interests in the region, while the State Department emphasizes democracy as its main priority and invokes President Bush’s statements on the subject dating back to his second inaugural.69 Under conditions of the war in Afghanistan and on terrorism beginning in late 2001, American security interests naturally prevailed in U.S. policy towards 20 the region and in its assistance packages. Central Asian leaders realized soon enough that this situation translated into a freer hand for them as long as they gave the right verbal assurances about ameliorating the internal conditions in their own countries that give rise to unrest. Once Western funders, including the U.S. Government, grasped this reality, their sources of funding for institutitonal and other reforms began to dry up under pressure of domestic declines in spending on democracy promotion and heightened regional repression. Thus the Bush administration’s rhetoric on democracy was belied by the fact that it steadily spent less and less money on democratization projects in 2003-05, and the funds involved were relatively small to begin with. And since there was no real penalty for Central Asian leaders who disregarded the imperatives of reform at home for their own security, by 2005 U.S. policy in the area had neither carrots nor sticks with which to secure its overall objectives. Consequently, that policy and its instruments, like the base at Karshi Khanabad, were vulnerable to any reversal of fortune that came our way. As part of this agreement, the Pakistani military will cease its unpopular military campaign in the semiautonomous North Waziristan region. In exchange, the local Taliban militants will halt their attacks on 26 Pakistani forces and stop crossing into nearby eastern Afghanistan to attack Western and Afghan forces hunting Al-Qaeda and Taliban militants. For Pakistan, this was an acceptance of the ground reality that its military would never be able to defeat tribal militants in a region where Pakistan’s writ has never extended. For the critics, however, the deal amounts to giving an effective amnesty to the insurgents, allowing them even more freedom to cross into Afghanistan and pursue their militant agenda. While Pakistani officials claim that foreign militants can stay in the region only if they obey Pakistan’s laws and stay away from militancy, it is unclear how this can be enforced in a region that has become even more out of bounds for the Pakistani government after this agreement
Recommendations
A successful policy must learn from these mistakes and surmount them. Therefore the administration must undertake the following steps. First, it must repair the broken policy process. The administration must decide what Central Asia’s real importance is to the United States and assign sufficient material and political resources to back up that investment. Toward this end, the President and his cabinet must impose policy discipline on the players after arriving at a consensus among themselves on these issues. They must establish clear and coordinated interdepartmental priorities for the U.S. emplacement in Central Asia and then proceed to implement them. Given the existing situation throughout the region, the security and independence of these states must come first for otherwise no democratization is remotely conceivable. But this does not mean neglecting democratization as an issue. Rather, America must engage both governments and civil society or opposition groups who are not terrorists. It must engage governments with the argument that they have signed international conventions upholding these practices and that the United States is not trying to supplant them, but rather ensure that their countries become both more secure and prosperous. Since their interest is at stake in a violent overturn, this argument may have some resonance. But it must be backed up by increased assistance and concrete economic and other policies that address their needs.
References
- Jim Nichols, “Central Asia: Regional Developments and Implications for U.S. Interests,” CRS Issue Brief for Congress, Congressional Research Service, Library of Congress, December 10, 2004, p. 3.
- John D. Negroponte, “Annual Threat Assessment of the Director of National Intelligence for the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence,” February 2, 2006.
- Strobe Talbott, “A Farewell to Flashman: American Policy in the Caucasus and Central Asia,” July 21, 1997, www.state.gov/www/ regions/nis/970721talbott.html; “Statement of Stephen Sestanovich, Ambassador-at-Large, Special Adviser to the Secretary of State for the New Independent States, Before the House International Relations Committee, April 30, 1998,” Turkmanistan Newsletter, 36 Vol. 98, No. 2, May 6, 1998, p. 89 (henceforth Sestanovich, Testimony); and the statements by Ashton Carter and John Deutsch in “Caspian Studies Program Experts Conference Report: Succession and Long-Term Stability in the Caspian Region,” Strengthening Democratic Institutions Project,
- John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, 1999, pp. 10-12 (henceforth Conference Report); Elizabeth SherwoodRandall, “US Policy and the Caucasus,” Contemporary Caucasus Newsletter, Berkeley Program in Soviet and Post-Soviet Studies, Berkeley: University of California, Issue 5, Spring 1998, pp. 3-4. 4.
- Svante E. Cornell and Niklas L. P. Swanstrom, “The Eurasian Drug Trade: A Challenge to Regional Security,” Problems of PostCommunism, Vol. LIII, No. 4, July-August 2006, pp. 24-25. 5. Sestanovich, Testimony; Carter and Deutsch; Talbott; Sherwood-Randall. 6.
- Federal News Service, Testimony of Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor,
- Lorne W. Craner, to the U.S. Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, June 24, 2004, retrieved from Lexis Nexis (henceforth Craner, Testimony). 7.
