US President George W. Bush and his Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice thought they could solve the Middle East’s core problem — the Palestinian-Israeli dispute — by organizing a peace conference in Annapolis late last year. Having succeeded in bringing together Israelis and Palestinians, as well as Syrians, Saudis and numerous other countries for a meeting that was big in aspect though short in context, the administration bathed in the euphoria of its temporary success. ‘Temporary’ here is the key word because since November of last year, and since Bush’s promise of peace before his mandate expires in January 2009, the Middle East once again finds itself caught in a deadly spiral of increasing violence.

Talk about misreading signals, misjudging reactions and misguided policies.
Since the Annapolis conference Gaza, with its 1.4 million inhabitants besieged by the Israeli military and under Hamas control, sits on the brink of all-out war. As Hamas continues firing Qassam rockets at Israeli population centers and Israel hits back, civilians are caught in the cross-fire on both sides; Jerusalem has been the target of one of the worst terrorist attacks in years when a lone gunman opened fire on yeshiva students, killing eight and wounding another 10; the Lebanese presidential crisis, now in its fourth month, has pitted Syria and its Lebanese allies against the country’s government who enjoys the support of the United States, France and Saudi Arabia. As a result the Saudis have recalled their ambassador to Damascus, while the United States has dispatched three naval gunboats — including the USS Cole — to the eastern Mediterranean in what can only be seen as a revival of gunboat diplomacy. Amidst all this one must not forget Iran, who is believed to be pursuing its nuclear ambitions

So much for peace within the year. Indeed, seen from Washington, the situation in the Middle East looks quite dim, and despite Bush’s misplaced optimism, try as one may, it is hard to see any light at the end of the proverbial tunnel, unless it’s those on Merkava tanks heading for Gaza or for southern Lebanon. Analysts and diplomats have voiced their pessimism regarding the short-term future of the region. As for the long term, no one is really daring enough to venture any thoughts. Suffice to say that events are affecting the region’s economy in a way that, if allowed to continue to deteriorate, may result in drastic — and dangerous — measures.

Many believe that President Bush waited far too long to become actively involved in the Arab-Israeli dispute, and now Washington’s efforts are too little and too late. Additionally, the Bush administration’s policy of refusing to recognize the importance of talking to four major players in the region — Syria, Iran, Hizbullah and Hamas — cannot possibly advance the peace process. Syria, much as Iran, holds great influence on the Lebanese Shiite organization, Hizbullah, and the Palestinian Hamas movement. Much as the White House hates to admit it, the road to peace in the Middle East unavoidably passes through Damascus.

Meanwhile, as one of former President Bill Clinton’s campaign slogans so adequately pointed out, “it’s the economy, stupid.” The dangers of a regional flair-up cannot be ignored as Israel begins to feel the economic crunch of its war with Gaza. Cities such as Sderot, well within Hamas’ range of Qassam rockets, have seen their economy take a turn for the worse. In fact, Israel’s policy regarding Hamas has met with about as much success as Washington’s and the siege of Gaza has backfired. The storming of Gazans across the border into Egypt demonstrated that the policy of trying to contain the Strip has failed to yield the desired results and is having a negative effect on Israel’s economy.

As a result of the continued bombardment, a number of businesses have been obliged to lay off personnel as residents of border localities limit their activities to the most basic and urgent needs. Hoping to incite the people of Gaza to move against Hamas by exerting pressure through the embargo maintained by Israel, ironically, this policy is coming back to bite Israel’s own economy. And herein lies what could be the tipping point. Israel’s Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, already suffering from lack of popularity, a position amplified by the fiasco of the Lebanon War and the ongoing undeclared war with Gaza, may feel obliged to address the situation through military action. As in the past, such short-

sighted policy will only serve to strengthen those opposed to the peace process; a process which can only advance under the guidance of the United States’ influence. But for that to succeed a change of policy is first required. This is unlikely to happen before there is a change in the White House’s Middle East policy, or a change in the White House.

Claude Salhani is editor of the Middle East Times.

Conrad’s description of the pointlessness of Western naval power against the impassivity of a continent came to mind with Washington’s announcement in February that it was sending warships to patrol the Levantine coast in a less than subtle message to its opponents in the region.

“This is an area that is important to us, the eastern Med,” said Admiral Mike Mullen, the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff. “It does signal that we’re engaged, we’re going to be in the vicinity, and that’s a very, very important part of the world”.

The first ship to steam to the Lebanese coastline was the USS Cole — which was badly damaged in an Al-Qaeda suicide attack in Yemen in 2000. The symbolism of deploying a ship closely associated with the “war on terror” was not lost on the Lebanese, and predictably sparked intense speculation as to what it all meant.

“Arrival of destroyer USS Cole: Is it a show of force or for the use of force?” asked a headline in Al-Hayat.

The USS Cole soon departed to be replaced by the USS Philippine Sea and the USS Ross, all part of the US Navy’s Nassau battle group, consisting of six ships including amphibious troop carriers.

Of course, US warships regularly ply the waters of the eastern Mediterranean, it falls within the purview of the US Navy’s Sixth Fleet. But the difference this time was the decision by Washington to pointedly announce the deployment beforehand.

The affair was clumsily handled by the US, however. Having apparently received no prior notice of the deployment, an embarrassed Prime Minister Fouad Siniora had to fend off opposition accusations that he was an American stooge forced to rely on US military muscle to prop up his weak government. It is hardly likely that Siniora would have requested the presence of US warships and he may well have registered his objection to a public declaration if he had been previously notified.

The Hizbullah-led opposition was handed a propaganda coup. It could point to US aggressiveness in sending warships to Lebanon, as well as the impotence of the gesture. Hizbullah and Syria, the presumed recipients of the US muscle-flexing message, would not be impressed by a couple of ships sailing a few dozen kilometers of the Levantine coast. After all, the USS Cole and the other guided missile destroyers that replaced it were hardly likely to fire their armaments of Tomahawk cruise missiles into Lebanon or Syria.

Indeed, it was a strangely old fashioned gesture for the US to make. It was redolent of a bygone era when Europe’s imperial powers responded to crises in their far flung colonies by sending a battleship — giving rise to the phrase “gunboat diplomacy”.

It may also have symbolized the frustration felt by the Bush administration at the continuing impasse in Lebanon and the inability of the US or its French and Arab partners to break the deadlock. Deploying warships to the eastern Mediterranean paradoxically demonstrated the limitations of US power in influencing developments in Lebanon and Syria. Syria long ago chose to ride out the storm of Bush administration displeasure and wait for a change in the White House. Naval maneuvers in the eastern Mediterranean will not persuade Damascus to change course.

Indeed, the history of US military muscle-flexing in Lebanon is not a happy one. The last time there was such a public display of US naval might this close to Lebanon was in 1983 during America’s ill-fated intervention in Beirut. The USS New Jersey, a World War II dinosaur armed with massive 16-inch guns, arrived off Lebanon two months after the US Marine barracks in Beirut was destroyed by a suicide bomber, killing 241 US servicemen. The USS New Jersey fired on Syrian troops and allied militia positions in what was the heaviest shore bombardment since the Korean War. Many Lebanese still recall the “flying Volkswagens”, the name given to the huge shells that struck the Chouf. The sporadic barrage, which lasted nearly two months, killed the top Syrian general in Lebanon. The shelling, in which civilians also were killed, helped cement anti-American sentiment.

In early February 1984, pro-Syrian militias took over West Beirut, spurring President Ronald Reagan to order a Marines evacuation. The Marines left by the end of the month, ending what then US Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger called a “particularly miserable assignment.”

Nicholas Blanford is a Beirut-based journalist and author of “Killing Mr. Lebanon — The Assassination of Rafik Hariri and its Impact on the Middle East.”

Politicians and media were quick to dismiss the recent elections in Iran as being undemocratic, and rightfully so, seeing the fact that the mullah-led regime carefully handpicked the candidates it thought suitable for the people to choose from. Not surprisingly, some 1,700 reformists were barred from taking part.

Seeing the overwhelming attention was given to the Iranian take on democracy, it is striking to see how little we heard about similar practices in other countries in the region. Take Egypt. With an eye on the upcoming municipal elections, the Mubarak regime thought it best to pre-select candidates. From a total of 10,000 political hopefuls mostly associated to the Muslim Brotherhood, only 60 were allowed to register, while some 700 were detained.

Ever since 1981, when the state of emergency was introduced, the Egyptian authorities routinely arrest political opponents, or prevent them from participating otherwise. Likewise, who has heard anything about the 2007 parliamentary elections in Jordan?

Nothing ever happens in Jordan, seems to be the credo among newsmakers, which remains a self-fulfilling prophecy, as long as journalists and editors fail to even scratch the kingdom’s seemingly tranquil surface. And yet, it’s common knowledge that it’s extremely difficult to found a political party in Jordan, while the electoral process is designed in such a way that the country’s tribal provinces keep the upper hand over the urban majority, which is predominantly of Palestinian descent.

According to global watchdog Human Rights Watch (HRW), the Jordanian elections were characterized by nothing less than “outright fraud”. HRW furthermore criticized restrictions on freedom of speech, public gatherings and the country’s NGO law. In response, the Jordanian government did not do itself any favors by stating that the reason for banning demonstrations was “to ensure the safety of participants.”

In its 2008 World Report, HRW went on to say that in 2007 “too many governments, including Jordan, Nigeria, Russia and Thailand, acted as if simply holding a vote is enough to prove a nation is democratic,” while “the US and Europe ignored evidence of manipulated elections, particularly when the results were favorable to their administration.”

The deafening silence regarding democracy and human rights in Iran, Syria and other ‘rogue states’ is all the more remarkable among the more conservative members of the international press corps, as they were the main cheerleaders of the US-led invasion of Iraq, proudly presenting it as the beginning of a democratic blossoming in the region. Skeptics of this rather rosy picture were swept aside by labeling them as “(extreme) leftists,” who have become “anti-

American”, ever since the free market model became the world’s dominant force. So, British author Nick Cohen argued in his book “What’s Left?” that the left had lost its soul. Once it mounted the barricades in defense of human rights and secularism, yet now it sides with countries such as Cuba and Venezuela, and Islamist groups like Hizbullah and Hamas. In their urge to be anti-American, anti-Western even, the left is ready to embrace anyone, so Cohen and many others argue.

Now, this is hardly the place to deal with such thorny issues once and for all, yet a few question marks must be raised. Firstly, it is hardly fair and frankly rather ridiculous to nullify criticism of American foreign policy by making a matter of anti-Americanism. True of not, the claim that the search for weapons of mass destruction was primarily an excuse to invade Iraq, has nothing to do with some kind of metaphysical hatred of all things American, which includes everything from freedom and democracy to Elvis Presley, Hollywood blockbusters and the Rocky Mountains.

Note that Israeli conservatives do exactly the same thing, when arguing that criticism of the Zionist state is nothing but a veiled form of anti-Semitism, i.e. a deep hatred of anything Jewish. Noam Chomsky argues that this type of reasoning stems directly from the lexicon of totalitarianism. Soviet dissidents were accused of hating their country, because of their criticism of state policies, as for the totalitarian mind “the State is identified with the country, its culture, and its people.”

Secondly, the fact that the left is, hesitantly, willing to engage with groups as Hamas, Hizbullah or the Muslim Brotherhood is not so much due to an abandoning of secular values, but born of a deep awareness that one cannot have it both ways.

One cannot force elections upon Gaza and then ignore the end result when some 80% of the population votes for a party not of your liking. One cannot criticize Syria and Iran for human rights violations without ever raising a finger regarding similar practices in countries that happen to be US allies. One cannot criticize people for somehow engaging Islamists, while Saudi Arabia is among the main US allies in the region. That has nothing to do freedom or democracy. That is just a matter of plain and simple hypocrisy.

Peter Speetjens is a Beirut-based journalist.