Paradigm shift

Good article from Alan Bock on the United States’ “Middle Eastern Paradigm” (MEP) and how it ought to change. Bock argues, leaning on the work of Leon Hadar, that the paradigm the U.S. has used in dealing with the Middle East grew out of the Cold War and a perceived need to counter Soviet influence there.

Bock quotes Hadar:

Central to this MEP was the belief that competition with the Soviet Union made American involvement in the Middle East a costly but necessary way to protect American interests as the leader of the Western alliance.

However, with the end of the Cold War:

[T]he Arab-Israeli conflict had become, from the standpoint of core U.S. interests, simply another regional conflict that was likely to continue until both parties were exhausted enough to end it, but whose outcome had about the same genuinely geostrategic implications as Bosnian-Serb, Azerbaijani-Armenian, or any of a dozen or more other regional conflicts in the world. The continuing American effort to mediate or “do something” about the conflict, he argued – let alone American subsidies to the military capabilities of both sides – more likely prolonged the conflict rather than shortening it because it prevented the parties from shouldering the full economic and social burdens of war, thus postponing the day when they were ready to end it or negotiate a settlement.

Not only is our extensive involvement in the Middle East no longer necessary to counter the Reds, but it exacerbates problems there by delaying a settlement of the Arab-Israeli conlflict, and it has led us to prop up despotism like that of Saudi Arabia who, while not pro-Israel, could be counted on the be anti-Soviet much of the time. But of course the Saudis became one of the biggest promoters of Wahabi Islam, the source of so many of our problems today.

Bock also claims that the the idea that we must remain involved in the Middle East to keep the cheap oil flowing is a myth:

Leon Hadar argues that it is time to develop a new paradigm for relations with the Middle East. He notes that “the American economy is not dependent on Middle Eastern oil – 70 percent of American energy supplies do not originate in the Middle East.”

The United States is actually more dependent on Latin American oil than it is on Saudi and other Persian Gulf oil. And the notion that American policy in the Middle East helps to provide Americans access to ‘cheap and affordable oil’ makes little sense if one takes into consideration the military and other costs – including two Gulf Wars and the current Pax Americana in the Middle East – that are added to the price that the American consumer pays for driving his or her car. (p. 154)

He does not say so directly, but implies that U.S. military force is quite likely not necessary to maintain access to Persian Gulf oil, either for the U.S. or for Western Europe and Japan. The oil-producing states have few resources other than oil, and if they don’t sell oil to somebody they will have little wealth with which to maintain their power and curb domestic challenges. So they need to sell oil more than the United States needs to buy it. If political and military influence is required to keep the oil flowing to Western Europe and Japan (and increasingly to China) – which I rather doubt – the countries that are truly dependent should be the ones to bear the cost.

What we need, he says, is “constructive disengagement” – i.e. stepping back and letting the regional powers (and the Europeans, if necessary) deal with conflicts. This involves giving up “the idea that the U.S. should be the final arbiter, if not the actual ruler, in disputes throughout the world, which would mean not only tolerating but welcoming European activity in regions the U.S. viewed as essential during the Cold War. Abandoning what might be viewed as the imperial attitude that every problem in the world is automatically an American problem that requires American action will not be easy.”

Unfortunately for this view, this idea of the U.S. as global fixer of problems is shared by people across the political spectrum. How often does one hear from liberals who denounce American imperialism in one breath that the U.S. should impose a “just peace” on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict? This is also one of the pitfalls of a UN “collective security” model – it tends to elevate every regional conflict into a global problem.