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What the U.S. Should and Should Not Do in the Middle East

(Jerusalem Strategic Tribune) Prof. Michael Mandelbaum - Blocking dangers to American interests in the Middle East is desirable and feasible. The country that now threatens American interests is the Islamic Republic of Iran. It is conducting an active campaign to achieve dominance in the region by unseating governments friendly to the U.S. and evicting American forces from the Middle East. If the Islamic Republic should acquire nuclear weapons, as it is actively seeking to do, its capacity to harm America's friends and interests would expand dramatically. The most important task for American Middle East policy is, therefore, to prevent that from happening. Blocking an Iranian bomb will require, at the least, mounting a credible threat to use force if Iran takes the final steps in building working nuclear weapons, and attacking the Islamic Republic's nuclear facilities if that threat does not achieve its aim. American ground troops would not be needed; naval and air power would suffice. For decades, successive American administrations pursued a political settlement between Israel and the Palestinians living in Gaza and the West Bank. These efforts all failed for the same reasons that American democracy-promotion efforts in Afghanistan and Iraq came to nothing: the political, cultural, and institutional bases for a Palestinian state willing to live peacefully beside Israel have never existed, and the U.S. cannot create them. Absent the Palestinians becoming what they have thus far never been - a genuine partner for peace - the American government should waste no more time on what has come, over the years, to be called the peace process. The U.S. has more urgent Middle Eastern business that can, and must, be successfully concluded, with Iran. The writer is Professor Emeritus of American Foreign Policy at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.
2024-11-05 00:00:00
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