Christopher Preble: Let me just say a few words about this book before I introduce Leon. I had the privilege of reading an earlier draft of this manuscript and I was already familiar with Leon's work on U.S. policy in the Middle East going back to the early 1990's I had helped edit a paper the Cato had published in August of 2003, which in some respects formed the col. of what became Sandstorm. And you know, from the very beginning Leon has impressed me as knowledgeable and opinionated. There are a lot of knowledgeable and opinionated people in this town, but he is also, which is equally important, an original thinker. And lets be honest, because original thinking is really desperately needed right now against this back drop of quagmire in Iraq, the f ighting in southern Lebanon, the nuclear crisis with Iran and the moribund, I think that's the best I can say about it, the moribund Israeli- Palestinian peace process, it seems clear that U.S. policy in the Middle East has failed to advance American national interest. In yet, even as the mystic of American power slips by, by the day, too few people, I think, have kind of contemplated the ramifications of this shift and come up with some new solutions. In Sandstorm, Leon surveys the historical evolution of what he calls the U.S.-Middle East paradigm and concludes that its costs have outweighed its benefits. He argued instead for a policy for constructive engagement for the Middle East, whereby the United States would transfer greater responsibility for security in the area, to other global players, while encouraging the formation of regional security institutions. And I think, I'm happy to say it's an idea whose time might finally come. I'll note a few of the several positive reviews of the book, including in the Journal of Middle East Policy, which praises Sandstorm for "pushing the reader outside the warn out language of the Arab-Israeli conflict and the Middle East peace process, and the conventional terminology of foreign policy. His style compliments the boldness of his suggestions and the strength of his argumentation in achieving his primary objectives, stimulating new thinking about the U.S. role in the Middle East". James Fallow, national correspondent for the Atlantic Monthly writes, "the United States needs a fundamental reconsideration of its approach to the Persian Gulf and the Middle East and Sandstorm is a big help in this effort." The situation in the Middle East today is dire. It is extremely difficult, even painful, to squarely and honestly discuss the U.S. role and even harder to come up with creative solutions with what have so, for so long seemed intractable, intractable problems. And I want to congratulate Leon for tackling this controversial and difficult subject and I really want to thank him sincerely for writing such a timely book and it's an honor to introduce him today. Dr. Leon Hadar is a research fellow in foreign studies at the CATO Research Institute, he's written on global politics and economics for a number of newspapers and magazines, including the New Work Times, the Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, World Policy Journal, and the Journal of Middle East Policy. He's been interviewed by quite a number of broadcasters including CNN, BBC, CBC and FOX News. He's also covered U.S. foreign policy and U.S. issues for a number of foreign newspapers including as the U.N., United Nations correspondent for the Jerusalem Post. He's taught at a number of academic institutions, including American University and in addition t o his affiliation with Cato, he's been affiliated with other think tanks such as the Institute on East-West security studies and New York at the Center for International Development and Conflict Management at the University of Maryland. He's a graduate of Hebrew University in Jerusalem and he earned his Master's degree from the school of Journalism and International Affairs at the Middle East Institute at Columbia University and he earned his PhD in International Relations from American University. In addition to Sandstorm, Leon is also the author of Quagmire: America in the Middle East, which was published by Cato in 1992. Please join me in welcoming Leon Hadar.
Leon Hadar: Leon Hadar: Thank you Chris and thank you for coming. Timing in life is everything and someone even suggested that I (unidentified) the current crisis in the Middle East in order to get some boost for my book. And talk about bad timing, in 1992 the Cato Institute published my first book, the title was, get this, Quagmire: America in the Middle East. This was published, unfortunately, a year after the first Gulf War after the feat of George Bush the first, the start of the era of Bill Clinton and Bill Gates, you know, the end of history, the dawn of the age of globalization and the Internet and people were asking, you know, what quagmire and the Middle East, where is even the Middle East? Now the editor of Sandstorm cautioned me that its not very dignified to brag, I told you so, but since I recall the famous pundit in Washington who a few days or weeks before the U.S. attacked the Belgrade, the suggesting that the nations with McDonalds don't attack other nations with McDonalds, I thought to myself you know, leave the dignity and I decided to quote from my first book in Sandstorm just read you a few, one or two paragraphs and keep in consideration again that this was written in, it was published in 1992 and written in 1991. "The successful military conclusion of the war against Iraq, created unrealistic expectations that will (unidentified) by President Bush readily. The outcome of the Gulf War illustrates the policy dilemma that Washington faces in the Middle East that the Gulf emancipated by President Bush, President Bush the first, readily establishing democracy in the Middle East and making peace between Israelis and Arabs, only created the unfulfilled expectations that are bound to lead to new American commitments and entanglements. Americans who thought it was difficult to bring democracy and free markets to the former Soviet Union, that its strong (unidentified) to the west will discover that trying to implant those concepts, the Middle East system (unidentified) emerged from the Middle Ages is a long and almost impossible mission. (Unidentified) intellectuals in the United States ," again this is in 1992, "insists that the global spread of democracy will also produce an increasing pro-American sentiment. But that is not the case with the Middle East. Americanism pervades the Arab and Muslim worlds and stems from resentment Arab-Israeli alliance and the direct American intervention in the Middle East and the chances of making the Middle East safe in democracy along with Washington's power to move the regions states in that direction are extremely limited. Washington will ultimately begin to fill the regional political repercussions of the Gulf War." Again, I wrote in '91, "Middle East societies have always exhibited delayed reaction to domestic and regional crisis. The continuing socioeconomic problems in the world, coupled with growing hostility towards Washington because of its support for Israel and the war against Iraq, could contribute to similar delayed reactions to the Gulf War. We might even see a resurgence of sodomism, combination of Arab radicalism and Islamic fundamentalism that might as well outlive Saddam himself. The United States and the conservative Arab regimes will then face a regional anti-American intifada that will threaten American interest as well as spoil American interest." I also add two chapters in the book where I predicted that there are going to be growing tensions between Europe and the United States over the Middle East. Again, this was written, fourteen years ago after the first Gulf War and its not very surprising that after 9/11 and also during the second Gulf War a lot of people send me emails and suggested that I should write a sequel, you know, "Quagmire II" and this is exactly what I had done. I also should mention that each time we add the, one of those tipping points in Iraq, if you recall the toppling of Saddam Hussein's statue, the capturing of Saddam, the killing of his sons, the first election, the purple finger, unfortunately, now they are giving us the other finger it seems. But in any case, after every tipping point it seems that people would either, some of them hoped and some of them warned me that probably proved to be wrong. But I think now against the backdrop of what Chris mentioned, is happening in the Middle East, I think its very difficult for someone to argue that the United States is not descending into some sort of a quagmire in the Middle East. Now, I'm not auditioning for the psychic of the Middle East like one of those shows like the Dead Zone, what I am trying to do is basically make a point that the actually thesis that I stated in my earlier book, will sustain relevant today as they were fourteen years ago. What is my goal, is basically to reexamine and rethink U.S. policy in the Middle East, which was fashioned during the Cold War and which I call "The Middle East Paradigm." Now let me give you a short definition of what I call the "Middle East Paradigm". The beliefs and assumptions that have guided those making and analyzing U.S. policy in the Middle East for most of the 20th century, you have to remember that in many respects, the Cold War started on the periphery of the Middle East and the Eastern Mediterranean, Turkey, Greece and Iran, after the United States replaced Britain as the great super power and the Cold War actually ended on the periphery of the Middle East and Afghanistan. The Middle East was a major geo-economic and geo-strategic arena (unidentified) the Middle East. Now, let me summarize, when I talk about the Cold War, the "Middle East Paradigm", if you will, there are three components there. One is geo-strategy, which I think all of us are familiar with, the U.S. use, basically a strategy to contain the Soviet Union in the Middle East. As I said, it will replace Great Britain and also France as the major Western power in the region, protecting Western interest in the region. The Soviet was clearly and aggressive, global power with an ideological disposition that was regarded as a (unidentified), very much like Nazi Germany during World War II, hence the willingness on the part of the United States during the Cold War to pay the cost of maintaining a strong presence and commitment in the Middle East, the containment policy in the region. The other was geo-economic, that's the second component. Since the end of World War II, the U.S. basically assumed the responsibility of protecting the free access of the Western economy, including Western Europe, Japan and South Korea, to the energy resources in the Persian Gulf for very costly partnership with Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and other Arab oil producing states. The Americans were basically willing to provide those nations, those economy, a free ride, you know, we'll protect, we are willing basically, to serve as a protector of the axis to the oil sources in the region. And I think that can only be explained in the context of the Cold War, since I mentioned several times in my book, and we can come to that later, the U.S. is not dependent at all on oil resources from the Middle East. Its Europe, Japan and South Korea that are. Free idealism, this is the third component if you will. Israel. Israel was established in the aftermath of the European Holocaust and the U.S., the United States, American political elite and public decided that they were willing to provide Israel as a democratic Jewish state in the Middle East with a certain margin of security visa a vie the Arab states. And this eventually, although it was based initially on idealistic arguments and also respondent to domestic political pressure, eventually intertwined with the Middle East paradigm, which made it, you know when you talk about the cost of Middle East policy, there was the need to juggle Europe commitment to Israel with U.S. commitment and support for the Arab states, especially the Arab oil producing states. So when the United States was trying to make peace between the Israelis and the Arab, it wasn't so much that they were concerned over the fact that Jews were killing Arabs and vice versa, it was really to bring a certain balance into the Middle East paradigm, that we can support both Israel and both the Saudis. You can do that only by trying and achieving peace in the region. Now my argument is that the Middle East paradigm became almost the genetic makeup, if you will, policy makers, (unidentified) and law makers in Washington. It actually explains the Pavlovian response in Washington, whenever someone says Middle East crisis, you know, it immediately ignites those memories of, especially the 1973 war, the notion that if you have a Middle East crisis, the Soviet Union is going to get involved, we'll have an oil embargo, Israel's security will be threatening, you know, those were the images of 1973. And since then, every time there is a Middle East crisis, that's the images that come to mind as far as policy makers in the region are concerned. Now, the main (unidentified) in my book is that the changing realities of the world and the Middle East, the collapse of the Soviet Union, the changing relationship between the United States and Europe and the transformation of the Arab-Israeli conflict forming major international dispute into a more regional and local conflict, makes the "Middle East paradigm" obsolete in some ways. And I suggest that we reexamine those three components of the Middle East paradigm. Look at the geo-strategic issue. The demise of the Soviet Union, clearly the main rationale of the Middle East paradigm, suggests that, you know, in many respects, the reason any major political outside power that threatens Western interest in the Middle East. If anything, one can make the argument that U.S. intervention in the Middle East since the end of the Cold War actually helped ignite anti-Americanism, terrorism, 9/11 eventually, the Gulf War, and you have to ask yourself, why can't the balance of power in the region be maintained for regional security arrangements as well, as I suggest in my book, more commitment on the part of the Europeans? My argument is, if you look at the map and the statistics, the Middle East is for the European, and the eastern Mediterranean states, what Mexico and Latin America is for the United States. Its their strategic backyard. I mean if you're talking geographic proximity, economic ties, as well as demographic, this is their Mexico. And my question is, you know, why shouldn't the Europeans begin paying some of the costs in terms of protecting their interests in the Middle East, which are immediate and urgent and are very different from the United States. If Iraq, for example, if Iran, for example, develops a nuclear weapon, it will be able to attack Paris, it won't be able to attack Los Angeles. And you have the demographic issues that all of you are familiar. Again, the geo-economic issue. Since the economies of the E.U. as well as Japan, and not the U.S., are dependent on oil resources from the Middle East, and especially since the Europeans have become, in some ways, in many ways, economic competitors of the United States, the question you have to ask yourself, why should the United States continue to subsidize free security protection in the Middle East for the Europeans? It doesn't make sense to me. If you bring an end to free riding, and maybe if we do that, if we create incentives for them to do that, they'll spend less money on their wasteful welfare programs and more money on the fence. Again, one of the points I make in my book, and I know it goes very much against the conventional wisdom, because people take it for granted that we are dependent on oil for the Middle East. The fact is that America gets about 30% of its foreign energy sources from Latin America. You can make an argument that the United States is more dependent on Latin American oil, whatever that means, than on Middle Eastern oil. In fact one of the last figures I saw that Daniel Yergin in the Financial Times, he actually argues that 90% of America's crude supplies, if you take into consideration domestic production, do not originate in the Middle East. So the United States is not dependent on the Middle East, if anything, the Europeans get most of their energy resources as well as Japan and maybe in the future, China, from the Middle East. Also, another conventional wisdom is that you know, that you know, the European and Japanese pay a lot for their gas. The United States supposedly, or American consumer gets cheap and affordable oil. That is not the case. I mean if you go today to the pump and you pay X dollars to fill your tank, the fact of the matter is that you have to factor into that cost also the cost of several wars in the Middle East, 9/11, the Department of Homeland Security, which means that actually you pay much more for the gas that you pay today than the actual price. Now idealism or what about Israel, which is always the question that comes up when I raise this issue, well Israel today is the most powerful military force in the region it has nuclear regions high tech economies in the world. It has peace with Egypt, Jordan and other Arab states. It has the military capability to deal with any perceived threat that you could imagine, including any nuclear. One of the arguments that you can make in the same way that we have a situation in which India and Pakistan are both nuclear weapons, they deter each other, its kind of a regional mutual destruction, I don't see why that cannot happen in the Middle East if Iran and when Iran will have a nuclear weapon. Israel has a nuclear weapon, it can deter Iran and Iran can deter Israel and we have the same situation that we have in South Asia. The main threat that Israel is facing today is not the lack of U.S. support, is the continuing control of the Palestinians, which threatens, I think in the long run, Israel's demographics, Israel as a Jewish or democratic state, which I think most Israelis today like to think. And that as far as we talk about Lebanon today, you know Israel, this is the threat in Lebanon, it clearly doesn't need U.S. support to deal with that, it faces dilemmas, morals, strategic and other in terms of dealing with non-state guerilla threat, but it has no thing to do and it doesn't need again U.S. support. If anything, one of the arguments I make in my book, is that, to some extent, the U.S. ability to resolve the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, which is really a tribal conflict, a civil war in the holy land, if you will, it quite limited. The U.S. can act as a facilitator on some level, when both sides try to make peace, but the U.S. cannot deliver a peace agreement, as many people think, in, between Israel and Palestine and if anything, as we saw in the last (unidentified) agreement, U.S. involvement tends to create high expectations and creates eventually a backlash against the United States. Most of my book is devoted to discussing why the paradigm, the Middle East paradigm has not changed after the Cold War. It remained in place, as I suggest and it created the conditions for 9/11 eventually, the Iraq war, I paraphrase what McArthur, what General McArthur once said about all of the generals, aging foreign policy paradigms do not simply fade away. Now why didn't the paradigm die? You know there are many reasons, inside the box factor, bureaucratic and congressional pressures, institutional inertia, the most important factor has to do with the international system, the fact that the Soviet Union collapsed, we have the uni-polar system, there are no more check and balances as far as the U.S. power is concerned. So you know, U.S. does what U.S. can, which means, you know, if they want to dominate the Middle East, then do it. The other side of the coin, and I think that many policy makers think that by controlling the oil sources in the Middle East, the U.S. will have leverage over potential global competitors like the E.U. and maybe China at one point. You know, we own the gas station and you have to pay for it in diplomatic terms. Now from the first Gulf War to the second Gulf War there has been an effort to maintain U.S. hegemony. Under Bush the first and Clinton the first, I think what you had was one can call a kind of cost free Pax Americana was a duel containment policy visa a vis Iran and Iraq. There were attempts to create the impression that the U.S. is doing something to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. But eventually the hegemony ignited I think, back to 9/11, first to the second antifada and then to 9/11, demonstrating that if you want hegemony, you have to pay for it. And I think that the debate today in Washington is really between the Bush vision of democratic empire and those in the republican and democratic party that support what I call "empire light" that the U.S. can still maintain its hegemony for, you know, if we just cooperate with the allies, if we try to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict things are going to work like in the good 'ole days of Clinton and Bush the first. What I'm proposing is the new Middle East paradigm, the process of gradual, constructive disengagement from the Middle East. As I said, we'll create incentives for the creation of new regional balance of powers system, make it more likely that the U.S. will play a more active role in the region. And by the way, I've just, as you've probably read, that E.U. is actually now, I think is good news, will probably be willing to deploy peace keeping troops in Lebanon. And eventually, for the big picture, what I have in mind is the consumption of great power along the lines of the Congress of Vienna system, I call it the Northern alliance, an alliance sort of between the United States, the E.U. and Russia which will really have two major challenges. One, to deal with the so called instability with the arc of instability, the Islamic arc of instability ranging from the Balkan to China, and two try to cooperate China and eventually India into this great power system. Now before I finish, I just want to make one more important point which I think is very relevant, which is the cost of maintaining hegemony in the Middle East goes beyond military and economic resources. We have to remember that the collapse, since the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, we really don't have a stable nation state system in the region. One of my main arguments is that the lack of legitimacy of political regimes in the Middle East is not a lack of democracy, not because of the lack of democracy, but because of the lack of a sense of national identity. Saddam Hussein was really a very good example of that. Using military power both internationally and domestically, in order to create a sense of Iraqi national identity. So what you have in the Middle East today is basically not stable nation states, but a mish mesh of tribal, religious, ethnic, national and regional players combining a shifting pattern of alliances. Now the story of (unidentified) and I think, I always like that metaphor, compare the Middle East to a kaleidoscope. He said, outside is like the United States get involved and try to tilt the kaleidoscope. He said just as we have tilted the kaleidoscope, the many tiny pieces of color and glass all move to form a new configuration so any diplomatic initiative or military intervention sets a new realignment of the player. This explains why (unidentified) intervention comes so costly. Unintended consequences in the Middle East are not the exception, but is basically rule of the game. And the Iraq war is an excellent example, I think we are witnessing what is happening now. The United States devastates Iraq which was the counterbalance to Iran. It encouraged the rise of the pro-Iranian Shiite regime for election in Baghdad. It encourages elections in Lebanon which strengthened the power of Hezbollah. As the result of all of this, Iran emerges as the major power in the Persian Gulf and with its all ies (unidentified) to some extent Hamas decided to challenge the proxy of the United States, Israel. So, you know, now we have this new crisis, we have this new war, the kaleidoscope is tilted and the United States is trying again to get involved and you know, resolve the conflict until the next conflict. And by the way, I think that one of the problems that we are going to face in the coming months, if Iraq will split into three mini states, it is possible very much that with Israel, the possible intervention of Turkey in Iraq, especially northern Iraq, in order to prevent the Kurds from establishing or reasserting their power, especially over (unidentified). So basically outside powers have attempted to establish hegemony in the Middle East in the past. I mean the best example is the Great Britain Empire. We saw that movie, its called the Lawrence of Arabia and many of the characters and the plot lines are similar, if you go back to that time, yo u know the (unidentified) trying to bring peace between Jews and Arabs in the Holy Land, maintaining the unity of Iraq, that's an old story. What the neo-cons, I think, try to do as far as this issue is concerned, is provide uh, a (unidentified) soundtrack if you will, to this movie, which is the democratic empire. As I suggested in my book, its as though Queen Victoria, the imperialist and Woodrow Wilson who wanted to make the war for the sake of democracy, got married and had a child which is called democratic empire. It's a very ugly child and I think one of the problems that you have when you deal with the democratic empire, is that I think the reasons, the major contradiction between the goals of an empire, which is achieving hegemony and order and then the goals of democracy, empowering the people, you want to control with power to challenge you. I mean its like, if you saw the television commercial, its like, the men who is sticking it to himself, you know, it doesn't make a lot of sense to me, and we saw that happening in Iraq. I mean if you saw the historical context, President Bush was responsible for probably the two most revolutionary events that have taken place in the Middle East since the Iranian Revolution in 1979, which is the rise of the radical Shiite regime with ties to Iran in Baghdad, which I think is going to transform the Middle East in terms of relationship between Shiites and Sunnis and so on. And the other is the election of the Hamas, also known as the Muslim brotherhood in western Gaza, which is going to have a lot of effect also, not only on the Israeli-Palestinian issue as (unidentified), but also the rest of the Arab Sunni world. So, I think you see now, which is kind of ironic, I saw an article by Edward (unidentified) who was a journalist that suggested that maybe now we should bring (unidentified) back to Lebanon to establish order after we kicked him out of there to establish democracy in Lebanon. And again, everyone is talking about how can we bring back into the picture? I am beginning to worry that at some point people might ask maybe we should bring Saddam back to Iraq because of his power to stabilize the people in Iraq. Anyway, I'll be happy later to answer questions about more current developments.
