The US political elite just doesn't get it. Israel is not popular
in the Middle East, and it isn't because Middle Easterners are bigots.
It is because Israel is coded as the last European colonial presence in
the region, an heir to French Algeria, British Egypt, and Dutch
Indonesia-- and because the Israelis pugnaciously continue to try to
colonize neighboring bits of territory. (This enmity is not inevitable
or eternal; in 2002 the Arab League offered full recognition of Israel
in return for its going back to 1967 borders, but the Israeli
government turned down the offer.) But for the purposes of this
analysis it does not really matter why Israel is unpopular. Let us just
stipulate that it is. Why would you associate American Iraq with such
an unpopular project, if you were trying to do public diplomacy in the
region? Bush had just announced a new push to get the American message
out to the Muslim world, the day before.
Let's just take the
analogy seriously for a moment. Israel proper is a democracy of sorts,
though its 1 million Arab citizens are in a second class position. But
it rules over several million stateless Palestinians who lack even the
pretence of self-rule. It is hard to characterize a country as a
democracy when it has millions of disenfranchised subjects. Bush
manages to only think about Jewish Israelis in the above analogy,
wiping out millions of other residents of geographical Palestine who
don't get to participate in 'democracy' or exercise popular sovereignty.
It
is true that the Israelis managed to blunt the terror attacks of
Islamic Jihad, the Qassam Brigades, and the al-Aqsa Martyrs brigades
over the years after the eruption of the 2nd Intifada. But there are
still attacks, including by rocket. The reason for those attacks is
that the Palestinians had mostly been driven from their homes and off
their land, and were militarily, politically and economically subjected
to the Israelis. The Israelis reduced the terror attacks by essentially
imprisoning millions of stateless Palestinians in the territories,
further restricting their movements, destroying their trade and
livelihoods. The Israeli government continues to grab Palestinian land
and put more colonists on it, even as we speak.
Israel-Palestine
is among the world's hottest trouble spots, and the conflict has
poisoned politics throughout the Middle East. It was among the motives
for Bin Laden's attack on the US on September 11, so it has spilled
over on America, too. A second one of those would be a good thing?
So
who would play the Palestinians in Bush's analogy? Obviously, it would
be the Sunni Arabs, who apparently are meant to be cordoned off from
the rest of Iraqis and put behind massive walls and barbed wire, and
deprived of political power. That is not a desirable outcome and is not
politically or militarily tenable in the long run.
And, let's
just stop and think. Even if it were true that an Israel-Palestine sort
of denouement were in Bush's mind for Iraq, was it wise for him to make
it public?
That sort of scenario is precisely the propaganda
message broadcast by the Jihadi websites in Iraq and the Arab world!
They say that the US military occupation of Iraq, in alliance with
Shiites, has turned the Sunni Arabs into Palestinians! Bush could not
have handed the guerrillas a better rhetorical gift. I do not think it
is an exaggeration to say that DVD's of Bush's comments will be spread
around as a recruiting tool for jihadis, and that US troops will
certainly be killed as a result of this speech. You could say that the
US military presence is already pretty unpopular in the Sunni Arab
areas. But what of the progress in al-Anbar Province? Will Bush's
speech help or hurt Sunni Arabs who want to ally with the US against
the foreign Salafi Jihadis? Hurt, obviously.
If Bush had said
something like that in 2002, you could have written it off as
inexperience and lack of knowledge of the Middle East. But he has been
the sitting president for so many years, and has had so much to do with
the Middle East that this faux pas is just inexcusable. I don't know
the man and can't judge if he is just not very bright. I can confirm
that he says things that are not very bright. And, worse, he says
things that are guaranteed to put more US troops into the grave in
Diyala, Baghdad, Salahuddin and al-Anbar Provinces.
I don't know whether to sob in grief or tear my hair out in frustration. How much longer do we have to suffer?
Bush said in a 
