After Iraq, Itís On to the New Berlin Wall

References:

(1) ìSharon Coup: U.S. Go-Ahead: Move by White House Bypasses Palestinians,î by James Bennett, New York Times, 15 April, p. A1.

(2) ìSyrians Test Limits Of Political Dissent: Assadís Government Talks of Reform,î by Daniel Williams, Washington Post, 11 April, p. A23.

The first article speaks to the reality that Americaóand ultimately the Coreówill invariably end up giving Israel what it wants: a clear definition of its secure borders. Beyond that recognition, if we hope to advance the security agenda in the region andóby doing soógive impetus to growing connectivity between the region and the outside world, America in particular and the Core in general will need to move in the direction of providing security for the walls now going up between Israel and the West Bank/Gaza. Beyond winning the war of connectedness v. disconnectedness in Iraq, this looms as the great security task in the region.

You will say this is a failure: to accept these walls as a moment in history where walls are falling everywhere and new bridges and connectivity are arising. You will say this is a contradiction to the larger goal of connecting the Middle East up with the world at large. Both criticisms are valid but are easily put aside, because until Israel is effectively taken off the table as the whipping boy for Muslim regimes in the region, serious movement toward security solutions for the region as a whole will remain impossible.

You will say this is beyond our means or our patience, and I will tell you that the Coreóand in particular the Old Coreóis well practiced at sitting on such walls for as long as needed. We have sat on a wall in the Koreas. We have sat on a wall in Berlin, and across a Europe as a whole. We have sat on a wall in Cyprus. We know how to sit on walls.

As for the length of time, that calculation is fairly easy: roughly a generation and a half, or until the current crop of adults dies off sufficiently to be replace wholesale by a new generation or two that have never known the past struggle. In the meantime, we buy off the masses with aid and hunt down the troublemakers with a vengeance. We emphasize the inevitability of our success and the failure of their attempts to enforce disconnectedness over those who, in the end, prefer connectivity.

You will also say that our effort will go unrewarded in the region as a whole, and that weíll end up as the target of all that anger, all that rage, and all that desire to retain group identity. And I will answer that we are in a race with history, but that time is on our side. So when we sit on an Israel/Palestinian Authority stalemate and deny a Syria that outlet or venue for diversions and mischief, then we leave Syria with little else to do but to examine itself and wonder why it canít do better. There is no coincidence: we go into an Iraq and within months we hear news of Syrian reforms and discussions of reform that would have seemed unbelievable just a couple of years ago.

You can say itís all because the son took over the father, but again, that only says time is on our side.

Basic point: deny Arab authoritarian regimes the diversion of the Arab-Israeli conflict and they will be left to their own devices, their own stagnation, and their own problems to solve. But it will take time.