Syndication
McCain Would Restore America’s Standing
Opinion
Print this article
Email this article
Other articles by Meyrav Wurmser
More in Forward ForumThis year’s presidential campaign season has highlighted two very different approaches to issues such as Iran, Iraq, the peace process and our ongoing war on terror. Underlying the candidates’ Middle East policy differences are two divergent views regarding the sources of the regional rage aimed at America and, indeed, the entire West.
The left’s explanations for Middle Eastern rage can be reduced to the following: misunderstanding (almost always ours), humiliation (almost always inflicted by us, or by key allies, such as Israel) or insufficient commitment to conflict resolution (almost always by us). And since we are, in large part, to blame for the problem because of either ignorance, arrogance or absence, then the solution lies in our hands as well, by pursuing some new policy initiative that remedies whatever was lacking in our previous efforts.
The right approaches the issue from a different perspective: Middle Eastern rage is a manifestation of contempt toward the West, which is itself a result of the deep agony that has gripped the Islamic world since its failed siege of Vienna half a millennium ago. The contempt emanates from a sense of entitlement and superiority, the agitation from frustration. The rejection of the West’s rise over the last millennium drives the politics of our enemies — be they secular Ba’athists or Shiite and Sunni Islamists. As long as that contempt is confirmed and stimulated by displays of Western guilt or apology, then the embers of hope for a restored Islamic empire will continue to burn.
The policies of Senators Barack Obama and John McCain — anchored as they are to such different understandings of the problem — diverge sharply. For the left, the main theme of policy toward the region must be to convince our adversaries that we respect their convictions, mean them no harm and seek to right the injustices we have inflicted. For Obama, then, the only reasonable approach to the Middle East is what has fashionably come to be called “soft power” — diplomacy, aid and rectifying grievances. These grievances, of course, are understood as having been deepened by our continued presence in Iraq, as well as by our and Israel’s inability to ameliorate Arab humiliation on Palestine. Talking to Iran, getting out of Iraq fast — victorious or not — and focusing on resolving the Palestinian issue thus assume the highest priority, as both Obama and Joe Biden have suggested in so many words.
In contrast, McCain supports policies that would reaffirm the power, resilience and solidity of the West and its informing ideas. By challenging and defeating those in the region who seek the West’s demise, we also confirm the wisdom and build the confidence of those in the Middle East who seek to lay to rest the delusional dreams of the extremists. Both McCain and Sarah Palin noted in their first two debate performances that emerging from Afghanistan and Iraq strong and victorious — rather than wheezing and humbled — is the sine qua non of winning the larger battle of ideas.
Ultimately, this debate should be argued not according to theories and assumptions, but by evidence of what works, what doesn’t and what has never been tried. The policies that Obama advocates — dialogue with Iran, investing the full weight of American prestige and presidential power on resolving the Palestinian issue, attempting to seduce the dictator of Damascus into a Western orbit — have all been tried, not once, but by almost all administrations until now.
Indeed, with the exception of the Reagan years, almost all the policies toward the Middle East in the last 35 years are anchored to the left’s assumptions, carried onward by Obama. President Carter tried dialogue and sought to preserve diplomatic relations with the new revolutionary regime in Iran to convince it we meant it no harm. Iran answered by taking our diplomats hostage. Both President Clinton and Secretary of State Madeleine Albright apologized to the Iranian regime for injustices done by the West. It was in that period that Iran’s nuclear program gained critical mass and momentum. Presidents Carter, Bush (41), Clinton and Bush (43) all invested the prestige of their office in resolving the Palestinian issue — and, for all that effort, peace is more distant and anti-Americanism more rampant than when they started. They also all courted Damascus, but have left the bazaar quite impoverished and without any goods to show for it.
Thus, the evidence amassed over decades on these sorts of policies toward Iran, Syria and the Palestinians is overwhelming: They not only fail but carry costs that further undermine American prestige, increase anti-Americanism and weaken our key allies and friends in the region. Some of the renowned Arab philosophers of past centuries would little wonder at this result. They understood the dynamic. To paraphrase one of the greatest, Ibn Hazm: Those who chase the friendship of their foes only earn the despair of their friends and the contempt of their enemies.
For a brief but ultimately aborted moment, the current administration trod a different path, leaving Afghanistan and Iraq liberated, inspiring awe of American power and resolve (which led even Libya’s Moammar Qaddafi to believe he must curry our favor to survive), and igniting a new regional discourse and momentum toward freedom (which liberated Lebanon). But this administration ultimately succumbed to old policies and nearly lost Iraq (salvaged in the end only by a return to the sort of resolve advocated by McCain), is losing Afghanistan and Lebanon, reignited rising regional contempt toward us, and endangered our closest allies and vital interests.
We do need change and a new approach to the region. But while Obama has embraced the rhetoric of change, the Middle East policies he advocates represent continuity with a failed past, not a bridge to a new future. McCain, on the other hand, correctly understands the true meaning of change and calls for the kind of policies that will bring America and Israel peace and security.
Meyrav Wurmser is director of the Center for Middle East Policy at the Hudson Institute.
Comments
Bette & Meyrav-McCain is a crazy neo-con interventionist who thinks the borders of the United States end at the Russian-Ukrainian frontier. He is willing to risk war with Moscow over Georgia when Dwight Eisenhower wisely avoided one in 1956 when Soviet tanks crushed the Hungarian revolution. I for one put America First and will be voting for Constitution Party candidate Chuck Baldwin for President this year. Obama, of course will be our next President, elected in a landslide, and I'm sure he will put the fears of alarmists like Bette to risk. This country survived the likes of Warren Harding and George W. Bush. Obama, I'm sure won't be any worse and will probably do a decent job so cut the hysterics. This "Hate Obama" political correctness is some Jewish circles is useless, irresponsible, and beneath us as a people!
Mr. Wurmser may have credentials but my reading of the facts is that the big winner in Iraq is Iran. Iraq as an enemy of Iran is no more now that the government is Shite and will continue to be. Further, Iran has influence and control among the Iraqi Shites. Iran will have pipeline access to crude oil to a third country for refining with refined products shipped to Iran. Iran has another country to train terrorists and act as its proxies as it has in Syria, Lebanon and Gaza. The US has to leave Iraq because Iraq insists upon it, within a year or so.
Yes, Iran has won the Iraq war against Saddam. The US played directly into its hands.
Has Meyrav Wurmser been asleep for the last seven years or, indeed, much longer? He seems not to have noticed that not only are there real limits to "hard power" -- military power -- as we've seen in Iraq and Afghanistan, but that the conflicts in Middle East are not simply "us vs. them" or "Israelis vs. Arabs." There are any number of complexities in the Middle East and a simplistic, bellicose approach can hardly deal with them.
As we all know, one of the biggest and most difficult problems in the region has been and is the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians. Whatever one may think of Palestinians, they are there and will not simply disappear; they have grievances -- some of which are most certainly legitimate -- and Israel would be far better off with a solution that is acceptable to most Palestinians than continued occupation and conflict which, unfortunately, Mr Wurmser seems to advocate.
With respect to Iraq -- itself a complex situation -- words like "victorious" have no value. We cannot, by force, make Iraq what we would like. This is not a conventional conflict between two countries from which one side emerges as the winner, something Mr Wurmser clearly fails to understand. Not surprising, then, that Mr Wurmser is attracted to the approaches of John McCain ("we're all Georgians," for example) and Sarah Palin (who considers geographic proximity to other countries to constitute foreign policy experience). But let us hope that the electorate will make a much wiser choice, for an administration that will understand that simplistic approaches are of little value.
Mayrav Wurmser's forum piece is a keeper. It really is the ultimate proof of the sophistry and intellectual prostitution that characterizes neocons. What she leave out, of course, is that her hero-- who was a neocon stooge until the neocons chose to go Bush instead of McCain in 2000-- is that in trying to invoke race and slander, she opens up the Jewish population to right-wing vitriol as it seeks a scapegoat for America's economic and military predicament. Her diatribe befits Bat'or's baloney about "Urabia"--an allegedly Islam controlled Europe that fell victim to its "inherent" anti-Semitism (sic). Of course, Hudson Institute introduced her with much fanfare as the ultimate expert on such issues, inevitable given that she is one of the few psychos making these slanderous charges about an entire continent!
So the maiming of history that typifies Wurmser's track record should be no surprise, given the standards of quality they exhibit at Hudson.
But there is yet another scary issue that comes up: them that slander others are little able to throw the stones of "anti-Semite" slander they fling at others. The neocon throw is as obtuse as their logic and so the critical question lies before us: IS WURMSER AND HER ILK INVITING ANTI-SEMITIC SCAPEGOATING WHEN SOME AMERICANS SEARCH FOR SOMEONE TO BLAME FOR THEIR BUSH-NEOCON ERA PLIGHT?
The wing-nut "Christian Zionist" fringe is pro-Israel as a stage en route to THEIR salvation-- with the Jews doomed to damnation for their rejection of Jesus as their Savior. It would not be far from that kind of screwball "Zionism" to blame it all, as in the 1930s, on the Jews for the plight of the flocks of these "pastors" (sic), allegedly duping their flocks to financial fire and brimstone in their 401Ks. From there it is a small step to: "The Jews duped us men of Jesus into Iraq," producing replay of horrors we all SHOULD still remember. You sleep with rats, you get badly bitten by their fleas....and God forbid these fleas should carry serious pestilence!
Recently, I asked a former US Ambassador to Israel, a self-identified proud Zionist Jew: "Could you please explain to me why, as the US is tumbling its way into depression, we should still so lavishly support a Jewish state instead of an Israeli state in Israel?" The response was jaw dropping: "Because several American presidents found it advantageous to do so".... an odd answer, given that he had in his talk affirmed that "we all believe deeply in a Jewish state in Israel." But can you imagine that he could not answer that question any better and was protected from my protestation that he did not answer my question by the moderator insisting: "No, no, no....no speeches."
Me, I'm not a Jew, but like a lot of the Jews that created the state of Israel, I am a refugee from takeover of my country. I therefore would have no trouble responding at the least that Israel must be protected because it would reflect on our global legitimacy if, once again, we allow yet another generation of Jews-- now all Israeli sabras-- to become refugees like their parents and myself to wonder stateless and homeless; many of whom were my mentors through a decade of wondering refuge across Europe. No, I do not think that the Holocaust Industry still has the arguments for a $10 billion or so lavish aid to Israel in order to keep it going as the only nuclear power in the Mideast. So exploitation of the dead victims of Nazism will not work anymore. But certainly, an Israel that becomes the leader of the Semitic Mideast in its escape from banana republics with only one crop (oil) to live on, taking them all into modernity as a "true light onto the [Arab] nations," as Zionism's founders envisioned, is an answer he could have come up with. Alas, like many Jews who speak with chutzpah about the West's "Holocaust-debt" to a "Jewish state," in a public forum, he could come up with no better justification for American largess than *momentum*!
To me this shows that the AIPAC Lobby scandals and the sinking of US troops in the Mideast while oil rises enormously in price, made him, reasonably enough, fear backlash in these economic crisis times should he call for continued largess based on "you dumb goyim owe us." Alas, Wurmser still sees us as dumb goyim, though she limits her bravura to "friendly" kosher audiences. But the FORWARD is a Jewish press that a lot of anti-Semites read for inflammatory chutzpah to exploit. For example, as if referring to some sort of Jewish conspiracy-- quietly operating "ear marks" inserted into the $700 billion bill, the FORWARD brags:
"Another piece of legislation approved was the extension of Supplemental Security Income benefits for refugees in the process of naturalization. Originally the program was designed to provide assistance for up to seven years, until these refugees become citizens. Yet as the processing period for naturalization has grown longer, many immigrants lost their benefits before gaining citizenship. The new legislation will extend the period for an extra two years, thus restoring benefits for some 8,000 Jewish immigrants from the former Soviet Union who have already lost their eligibility for assistance.
"Other measures approved by Congress and of interest to Jewish advocacy groups promoting social justice were the update of the Americans With Disabilities Act, which broadened the scope of the existing law, and the allocation of Homeland Security funds for not-for-profit groups. In recent years, this money has become a leading source of funding security needs for Jewish institutions across the country."
Have you gone mad? Do you not feel the pressure that poor ambassador perceived, forcing him to give such a blah answer to my query?
Personally, I can make the case for full-spectrum support of Israel. But, given that Sharon insisted that any Jews who do not move to Israel by 2020 will suffer damnation of their Jewish souls, my primary preoccupation is with Diaspora Jews having their Diasporic nationality challenged on grounds that we pay Israel a lot for you as Jews to have a "homeland," so get the hell out of here and go over there. THAT'S WHAT SCARES ME AND THAT'S WHAT SCARES ME ABOUT THE "CHRISTIAN ZIONISTS" that Wurmser is so foolishly counting on for Zionism, not thinking of the fate of Diaspora Jews at home in the Diaspora consequent to the vitriol of her neocon masters and her pocking "Christian Zionists" with a stick to do more, more, more. FORWARD is a press for AMERICAN JEWS, not for Jews about to be exported to Israel, as black Americans were forcibly exported to Liberia at the start of the last century.
But insolent chutzpah from professional Zionists is-- LET'S FACE IT-- putting World Jewry at risk for a repeat of the 1930s. To me that's no longer ignorance, that's a crime. McCain will lose and Obama will win because McCain has always been a man of little substance. The neocons would soon find him, should he miraculously win, indeed a "maverick." He's no Bush. He feels he owes no one anything and, knowing he is dying of metastatic melanoma (that's why he won't allow scrutiny of his medical records), he's in it all for himself....Hell, he has nothing to lose!
But when Obama wins, what are you all going to do with your poisoned ads about Obama=Ahmadinejad, etc? You must decide if you will stand-- AND FACE THE CONSEQUENCES-- of the neocon slander equating him with terrorists ads and "schwartza" slanders or you will judge him fairly as a patriotic American who wants change that is consistent with all those "Jewish causes" that FORWARD's reporting bragged about. For what FORWARD leaves out in its bombastic "reporting" is that NO JEWISH SOCIAL WELFARE AGENCY EVER DISCRIMINATED OR TURNED AWAY ANY NON-JEW IN NEED. Whatever frauds can be attributed to Zionism, Diaspora Jewish morality has been in the forefront of Western humanitarianism...Jews taught all America NOT to be racist. Neocons are scumbags, not because they are Jews (they are not really), but because they are Leninist, practicing their slanderous "polarization" tactics for hire-- gelt, gelt, gelt...and nothing more...no ideology, no principles, no realist perspective...Their circumcision is incidental, producing no more bond to Zionism than a post-1967 desire to be seen as "mensch" by Likudnik opportunists like Netanyahu (whom as Sharon's Finance Minister pledged to make Israel independent of its addiction to American welfare checks).
Wake up Jews. YOU ARE AMERICANS WHO SUPPORT ISRAEL AS OUR ALLY AND THUS WANT US TO DO WHATEVER IS NECESSARY SO THAT ISRAELI SABRAS WITH NO OTHER HOME DO NOT BECOME STATELESS REFUGEES LIKE THE FEW JEWS-- THEIR PARENTS-- WHO SURVIVED THE MOST ATROCIOUS GENOCIDE, THE HOLOCAUST, IN MODERN HISTORY.
In that sense-- AS AMERICANS-- argue why Israel leading the Arabs into modernity is the best tool we have for Mideast peace. Above all, do better than "because several presidents found it advantageous" to support Israel. We thus support Israel, not because it is Jewish, but because it is Israeli...a Mideast nation that can, with its scitech wunderkinds and schools save its Semitic brethren, the Arabs, from our avaricious appetite for their oil by modernizing them all. That's why THERE WILL be PEACE and the Palestinians will be Israel's greatest advocates to the Arabs....BECAUSE MANY PALESTINIANS SAW AND SOME EVEN LEARNED FROM ISRAELIS HOW TO SAVE THE MIDEAST THROUGH A PEACEFUL SCITECH REVOLUTION....By the way, that Ambassador had spent much time in Arab lands and confirmed enthusiastically my claim that no Arabs hate Jews for being Jews.
America's financial hemorrhage is no reason to cut off Israel; for it is the only state close enough to Islam, culturally and ethnically, to modernize the entire Mideast. Thus, every American penny invested in Israel's power and brilliance is more than worth it, no matter how burdensome. But Israel is for Israelis and Diaspora Jews are for their countries of citizenship, just like anyone else. MOST Jews will prove to vote for Obama, not McCain, for reasons of their Americaness, not Wurmser's fraudulent neocon Zionism. Likud is NOT Israel, it is only one faction in Israel. McCain's Republican neocons are not the majority of Jews; they are but a tinny faction of American Jews, the majority of whom will vote for Obama because he represents the cultural social morality that has characterized Diaspora Jews for centuries. Thus, the race-bating ex-commie neocons DO NOT speak for American Jews, just like Likud does not speak for all Israelis. The sooner than is made clear, the sooner America can be immunized against anti-Semitic tendencies. Israel is OUR ally, not the neocon's private male parts in their search for "mensch-hood"!
Some of the comments (Stanley Alekman and S.J.D. Schwartzstein) refer to Meyrav Wurmser as "he" or "Mr". Although I have never met Meyrav, nor have I ever seen her picture antwhere - I assume she is a woman. Meyrav was the daughter of King Saul, and her name is rather common (for girls) in Israel. It would be very advisable to have some acquaintance with Jewish/Israeli culture. Spending some extended time in Israel is really worthwhile in the Jewish cultural sense, and it may also be very helpful in formulating realistic opinions about the politics of the Middle East.
Mea culpa. I stand corrected with respect to Meyrav Wurmser's sex. (My knowledge of biblical characters is not extensive.) But the issues at hand have nothing to do with whether Meyrav Wurmser is a man or woman and all to do with a wide range of national security issues, international relations, domestic politics and ability to look as objectively as possible at issues.
WE fat slobering "bourgeoisie" who have gone on a consumption binge on credit and similarly aid our friends with lots of "play money" know how to deny self-imposed lean guys like Teodoru access to our heads: WE STOP READING HIS TORTURED SYNTAX AND PRETEND HE IS JUSTAN "ANTISEMITIC NUT."
Poof is that I'm gone from your thoughts....one more of those East Euro goy crazies gone from your mind. But what if Teodoru's response to Murmser is putting before you a "signal protein," like those whose increased blood values-- true, not always reliable-- but nevertheless suggrestive markers of cancer?
I only want you to know that it is the fear of love for the Jewish people who were kind enough to welcom me to America and stuck by me through my resentment against my parents for bringing me here long enough to make me like it here-- I was working with the neocons supposedly to stop Communism in the 60s to 90s-- so much as to raise three American kids and four grandkids, just like all of you, American Jews. So I owe American Jews as much as I owe my fellow East Euro Jewish refugees in post WW II-Europe who taught me the power of principle over self-interest. Now, like many of you-- my fellow 60s activists who wouldn't trust anyone over 30 (remember those days?) I am a helpless old man. And, I realize that if I can do nothing to save myself, I can do nothing to save you should the nightmare repeat itself, even in a 00000.00001% part. So, as helpless as I am in healthcare of cancer, I am crying "fire," wanting to save you all, to save all of you in the theater while neocons recklessly smoke and flick their buts accross the room. Yet, you evade the issue by arguing over Wurmser's gender. Well, the Wurmsers are a couple-- otherwise pretty bright and nice to talk to, but drunk on the crap old self serving shyster neocons put into their minds. If you want to save Islamic youths from thinking that JIHAD is the only way available to them, teach young Jews that bigger nulclear bombs in Israel and shooting Palestinians from Blackhawk helicopters in the air to protect "settler" crazies from Brooklyn is not the only way for young Jews to be good Jews, good Americans and good Zionists. Teach them that Israel can lead, not just shoot, Arabs. I thought Wurmser's article would arouse THAT dialogue, not one about her gender...That's not the American Jews I have known for decades. What's happen to you all? Have they duped you into fear, cowering in silence on substance?
I don't disagree with Meyrav Wurmser's critique of the far left, but don't buy the attempt to paint Barak Obama as a leftist. Rather, Obama has gravitated towards the center as he's matured and evolved. Further, the hard vs. soft power argument is dangerously simplistic. what is needed is a flexible approach that incorporates hard and soft power as required. Barak Obama has not been tested on the international stage but has shown himself able to understand complex issues and surround himself with experts. His statements on Israel have been supportive and he has distanced himself from individuals that have had an anti-Israel bias. Bush in the end made tragic errors that have left Iran stronger in the region and allowed Hamas to gain control of Gaza through an election.
Obama is heavily tied to the philosophy of William Ayers, Rashid Khalili (the pro Palestinian Colombia professor), black liberation theology and by extention to those do not have the best interests of Israel or the United States. The fact that the militarily impotent Europe and the Middle East Arabs are in favor of Obama should be enough to convince any Jewish person not to vote for him.