When will Bush 'get it'?
W. Scott Thompson The Straits Times Asia News Network Singapore
In Ronald Reagan's second term, those of us in his administration hoped the United States could help nudge Ferdinand Marcos from power in the Philippines, but knew that only one thing stood in our way. It was our president's personal respect for the Filipino dictator.
Late in 1985, when mobs were all but storming Manila's palace demanding change and the communist threat was growing out of disgust with the kleptocracy in power, someone very close to Reagan told me: "He's almost got it.
He's now about where he was four years ago on South Africa. After all, he 'got it' on Mandela, why can't he 'get it' on the Philippines?" And in February 1986, he "got it". American helicopters removed Marcos from Malacanang Palace.
The question for today is, when will President George W. Bush "get it" on the Middle East -- and realize that the central problem there is not terrorism, but the creation of terrorism resulting from America's policy towards Israel.
Almost everyone else seems to have got it. New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman has noted with disdain that we have "subcontracted" our Middle East policy to Israeli Premier Ariel Sharon -- and he is a Jewish American.
French writer Edward Girardet, while excoriating Osama bin Laden, writes that "much of the anger in the Islamic world, particularly its extremes, appears to be the result of their treatment, real or perceived, by the West. At the heart of the problem lies the repression of Palestinians by the Israelis and the support they receive from Washington".
A majority of Israelis even support a Palestinian state, but America's policy is now supportive only in rhetoric.
The U.S. supplies the Israeli army with offensive weapons to sweep through Palestinian territory, destroying schools, police headquarters and everything else that might make it possible for the infant Palestinian authority to manage its own people.
Is it hopeless? Those looking at the awesome power of "the lobby" in American affairs put up their arms in helplessness. Thus for example, for an anodyne op-ed I wrote in The Jakarta Post, which called for an even-handed policy in the Middle East, I received 40 pages of hate mail and death threats -- and a couple of pages of reasoned arguments -- from Jewish Americans.
One of my school colleagues attempted to have me expelled from the faculty in punishment for my views. Academic freedom, the new American style.
This, the attempt to persuade Bush to "get it" is a serious issue. But every op-ed, every letter from a friend of the U.S. to his friends in America, urging a change of policy, makes a difference. Precisely because the American president's policy is based on psychological needs, as I see it, rather than a serious strategic choice, it can be changed.
No one can seriously argue that American policy is advancing American interests, with its prestige at an all-time low (just as its military power is at an all-time high) and no serious country supporting Washington in these blind Middle East policies.
It even gets funny. I wrote to a distinguished friend, of Jewish descent, regarding Sharon, of my belief (based on intelligence I had first read in 1982 when he went on a killing spree in Lebanon) that the Israeli Premier was an "evil man". My friend wrote back saying he was not evil, he just liked to "hit people". The defense rests.
Countries can live in delusions for a long time. Singapore's Senior Minister Lee Kuan Yew has written of the delusional nature of Japanese belief systems during World War II -- and why that necessitated something system-shattering like the nuclear bombs to break through. The U.S. in its vast power, and its president with his negligible experience of world affairs, prior to his presidency, is in one of those delusional periods that are easy to see from outside.
From inside -- as I witnessed on my recent return home -- the delusion still rules. You simply cannot discuss the Israeli issue analytically. In fact you cannot discuss it at all. It is like lese majeste laws in certain countries: If you cannot even discuss majesty critically without going to jail, it will by definition be above criticism.
But delusions end quickly when they end, precisely because they are not based on reasoned argument. The whole world knows that Washington must shift its policy if it is to prevail against terrorism. The question is when will Bush "get it"?
My guess is that we are not too far off. The real friends of America have been standing up to Washington and giving candid views. The Ariel Sharon position at some point must disintegrate as this pompous and vicious old man is seen for what he is. "W" may see him as an alternative father figure, but re-elected, he may be able to think out an intelligent policy that, finally, supports American interests, rather than his own psychological needs.
The writer was an assistant to the U.S. secretary of defense from 1975 to 1976, and an assistant secretary of state in the Reagan administration. He is now a professor at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy in Boston.