"What would make for a stable Middle East?
Cal Thomas is a conservative columnist. Bob Beckel is a liberal Democratic strategist. But as longtime friends, they can often find common ground on issues that lawmakers in Washington cannot. View the video version of this column at www.opinion.usatoday.com or at USA TODAY's YouTube channel at youtube.com/usatoday.
Cal: The countries collectively referred to as the Middle East have been a thorn in America's side almost from our beginning. Thomas Jefferson sent frigates to the Mediterranean in 1801 to confront Barbary pirates who had been capturing merchant ships and holding crews for ransom. Sound familiar? Now we have to deal with Somali pirates, but the Obama administration has chosen not to engage them as Jefferson did. My question is: Does the U.S. have a policy for the region, other than demanding that Israel stop building "settlements"?
Bob: You have people-led revolutions spreading across the region, and you want to talk about pirates? OK then. Well, first, I believe it was President Obama who ordered the killing of Somali pirates after they took American hostages off of a merchant ship. Ah, the selective memory of the right. But to answer your broader question, no single policy can cover the entire Middle East. It is the most diverse and complex region in the world. What was the Bush regime policy in the region? Bomb Iraq and Afghanistan. Talk about Iran while doing little. Let Pakistan simmer. Ignore the rest.
Cal: What President Bush didn't do was antagonize our allies while believing that kind words would soothe our enemies.
Bob: Republicans and Democrats really need to get on the same page when it comes to U.S. national security interests. We should be able to agree that the Israeli/Palestinian issue has been a lightning rod for radical Islamic countries like Iran, but has little interest in Tunisia, Libya or Somalia. Egypt, despite the overthrow of Hosni Mubarak, will maintain diplomatic relations with Israel, and so will Jordan.
Cal: There are three causes for the poverty, ignorance, joblessness and despair that characterize much of the region. None of them has to do with Israel, which serves as a lesson and a rebuke to each of these causes. The three: a bad governmental system, a bad economic system, and a bad religious system that oppresses women and blames successful nations for Arab dysfunction.
Bob: We have got to stop seeing the entire Middle East through the prism of Israel and the Palestinians. Frankly, the issues involving them may well go on for decades without resolution. I mean, the names have changed over the years but the scripts have remained the same. The United States must take a longer view, which I suspect Obama is doing. Yes, U.S. support for Israel — which will remain solid — has been used to stir anti-Americanism on "the Arab street" for decades.
Cal: And those stirring the pot want to see Israel destroyed.
Bob: Agreed, but in the years ahead we may well be dealing with democracies rather than despots in many Mideast countries. I'm optimistic that when the dust settles on the current Arab revolutions, the U.S. will emerge with stronger relationships in the region — and so will Israel. The heart of these revolutions has more to do with poverty than ideology. The United States and Israel are both in positions to assist economic development in the region. This might be the best way to change perceptions among everyday Arabs.
Cal: What concerns me is the uncertain trumpet from the Obama administration. First the many stumbles leading up to the revolution in Egypt. Vice President Biden laughingly said that Mubarak was not a dictator. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the country was stable. The list goes on. And then on Libya? The U.S. is tongue-tied until every citizen is out of harm's way? Is that the message we want to send to the world? Yet when it comes to sheer politics, President Obama has a quick trigger finger, as we saw him inject himself into the standoff between Republicans and Democrats in the Wisconsin Legislature.
Bob: Besides just gratuitous bashing of the president, what's your point?
Cal: My point is that his voice seems uncertain, or muted, when it comes to the upheaval in the Middle East — except for criticizing Israel and withholding arms sales while he demands a halt to settlement construction. When the president went to Cairo in 2009 and spoke to the Muslim world about a "new beginning," I don't think he had this seemingly spontaneous revolution in mind, do you?
Bob: No one — from the most astute Arab scholars to the average Arab citizen— saw this coming. Piling on Obama is silly and counterproductive. He has been confronted with more complex foreign policy developments in the past month than your boy Reagan had to deal with in eight years. Even conservatives like Henry Kissinger have praised Obama for his handling of all this, and you should join him.
Cal: Comparing Obama's foreign policy acumen to Ronald Reagan's is like comparing a novice swimmer with arm floaties to Michael Phelps. You really don't want to go there.
Bob: So where do we want to go?
Cal: Where every honest debate about the Middle East should end up: oil. Crude reserves are why much of the world pays attention to this region. This is why Obama, instead of nickel-and-diming us with his broken-record "green jobs" rhetoric, ought to propose an energy initiative as bold as President Kennedy's pledge to go to the moon before the end of the 1960s. He could start by fully lifting his offshore drilling ban. We will need a transition period and a market prepared for the new cars that will run on fuel other than just petroleum.
Bob: At last we are in agreement — with the exception of drilling in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. In the past two weeks, we have seen the price of oil skyrocket to more than $100 a barrel as the world has tried to figure out where the Middle East is headed. For too long — at least the last six presidents — we've had a "we'll do something soon" approach to U.S. energy independence. Even with the best ending to today's chaos, we should never again have to depend on the Middle East to provide us with half of our oil imports.
Cal: We also can't ignore the religious aspect of the Middle East and even global instability. The world needs to acknowledge that Islam must be reinterpreted for the modern age. Judaism has done so. So has Christianity. The pillars of each religion are still intact, but while Jews and Christians no longer stone adulterers, for example, people in some Muslim countries do. Same with genital mutilation on women and girls. This sort of thing would end were Islam to be reinterpreted for a modern age.
Bob: I'm optimistic on this point as well. These revolutions have been instigated and led by students and unemployed young people rather than Islamic extremists. That's a very positive development. These young Arabs appear to be much less committed to ancient Islamic shariah laws than their parents' generation. Even in theocratic Iran, the young people are much more Westernized and even secular in their view of what government should do. There's hope, if not a revolution, in Tehran. With more exposure to the West — aided by innovations such as Facebook and Twitter — these young Arabs are much less likely to care about establishing an Islamic caliphate and much more concerned about jobs and a better life, not just afterlife.
Cal: In the end, though, the U.S. is limited in what it can do. If these people want true democracy, they must establish it. If they want tolerance and religious pluralism, they must begin to practice it and stop thinking that their God wants them to kill the "infidels." Other religions — think Mormonism when it came to African Americans— have updated their faiths. Islam can do the same, but it will take years to undo what has been done in Islam's name.
Bob: You're right. Islam can and will change, eventually shedding its jihadist mentality while embracing the peaceful interpretation of the faith held by the vast majority of Muslims. And it may happen sooner than you think.
Cal: I hope you're right, but radical voices are being heard inside Egypt, loudly in Yemen as well as in other countries. This should be of great concern to United States and the world. The Middle East is clearly at a historic fork in the road: Will these countries go the way of al-Qaeda fanatics or will they shed their violent tendencies and establish stable governments? Osama bin Laden has made no secret of his desire to topple the Saudi regime. Imagine the cost to the world — in blood and in treasure — if Saudi Arabia and its vast oil reserves were to fall into the hands of bin Laden's forces.
Bob: I believe historians will look back at the current events in the Middle East and determine that the big loser in all of this was Osama bin Laden and his cowering minions. Many young Arabs recognize that while pockets of Islam focused on jihad, the rest of the world focused on economic development and new technologies. I suspect Arabs will want to catch up, turning their back on bin Laden's perverse vision that would send the Arab people back into the Dark Ages."
I posted your article only because it will be harder to find a week from now.
