Directionless in the Dunes

A Path Out of the Desert: A Grand Strategy for America in the Middle East By Kenneth M. Pollack Random House 2008, $30.00, pp. 539

Gamal Abdul Nasser, who came to power in 1952, was the first Egyptian to lead his country in nearly 1,000 years. Whether our State Department liked him or not, for the Arab world he was the symbol of independence from foreign rule that its citizens had won after World War II.

In a meeting soon afterward with Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, according to Nasser’s good friend and biographer Mohammed Heikal, Nasser argued that what the Arab states needed now was an era of convalescence in which they could begin the hard work of building institutions of self-government. Dulles, however, insisted they sign on as allies of the West in the intensifying Cold War, which to him was a struggle between good and evil. Nasser replied that while Russia had never conquered Arab lands, Western powers had dominated them for a very long time. When he proposed to organize a bloc of neutral countries, according to Heikal, Dulles said the U.S. could not accept neutrality.

So, for the remainder of the Cold War, neither side made an effort at reconciliation. Nasser found friends in Moscow who were sympathetic to his needs, while the U.S. meddled ceaselessly in the affairs of the Arab states, cultivating enemies.

In his latest book, Kenneth Pollack, who calls himself a “liberal internationalist,” urges more meddling. A Path Out of the Desert: A Grand Strategy for America in the Middle East, offers a series of well-intentioned and generally conventional internal reforms for which the United States should press to promote democratization: economic aid to the poor, a program of microloans, respect for human rights and training in good government. Neocons would take no exception to such proposals, though by adding coercion and regime change to the mix, they have ignited a catastrophic conflict in Iraq that has imposed huge costs on American lives and resources. Is Pollack a neocon, or maybe a crypto-neocon? A former member of Bill Clinton’s National Security Council, in 2002 he wrote The Threatening Storm, subtitled “The Case for Invading Iraq.” Now he blames President George W. Bush’s entourage for messing up a good idea, and advocates regime change only in Iran. “I believe strongly,” Pollack writes blandly, “in the importance of U.S. involvement in the world and that the involvement should be conditioned by American values.” It is a formulation to which few neocons—to say nothing of Bush—would object.

Early in this lengthy book, Pollack states that America has no real interests in the Arab states, save oil. But a few hundred pages later on, he acknowledges that radical Islamic terrorism is rooted in the chronic social and economic instability of broken Arab states. The anger Arabs feel for their own rulers, he says, nurtures terrorist movements, postulating that U.S.-led reforms would go far toward drying them up. Sadly, Pollack fails to grasp that, after centuries under imperial masters, Arabs most want the power to determine their own destiny. They do not want outsiders to tell them what reforms they need. Pollack provides an interesting factoid: Arab societies have translated fewer books in the last millenium than Spain now translates in a single year. Can Washington-led reforms transform the intellectual climate of Islam, opening a global dialogue among thinkers that can transform values? It is Arabs, not Americans, after all, who have to decide to remake a society that can thrive in the modern world.

Curiously, Pollack does not concede that Israel’s conflict with the Palestinians is also a major factor in Arab instability. “America’s unequivocal backing of Israel’s security and existence,” he contends, “…has actually helped dampen the conflict,” though he offers little evidence to refute those who believe the contrary. It is not just his biases that cast doubt on his argument; it is also his factual mistakes. He claims, for example, that in the Yom Kippur War of 1973, Prime Minister Golda Meir “famously” rejected a preemptive Israeli attack on Egypt out of respect for U.S. wishes when, in fact, she learned too late of the impending Egyptian assault across Suez to mobilize Israel’s air force in time. Still more surprising is Pollack’s assertion that Israel would have “handily” defeated Egypt in the war even without American military support. Not even the most jingoistic Israeli believes that.

Pollack does appreciate that Arab-Israeli peace would advance U.S. interests in “mollifying” the Arabs. But he hastens to add, “This is not an argument for selling Israel out.” Neither party should be forced to accept a deal it dislikes, he says. But doesn’t a peace agreement, by definition, require both sides to compromise, accepting elements they dislike? Would American insistence on ending military rule over two million Palestinians constitute “selling out” Israel? By not “selling out,” does he mean the U.S. should endorse the presence of a half-million Israeli settlers living on conquered Palestinian soil? These are tough but essential questions that Pollack chooses to ignore.

To be sure, even Arab-Israeli peace is no guarantee of regional stability. But it would fundamentally change the quality of Israeli life. No less importantly, it would remove a major obstacle to the Arab world’s need for “convalescence” for which Nasser pleaded a half-century ago, thereby offering Arabs who yearn for a better future an opportunity to enact their own reforms. As for U.S. policy, the “grand strategy” Pollack promises consists of little beyond the wishy-washy course American administrations have followed for decades. Instead of “a path out of the desert,” I fear his ideas will only lead us further into trackless dunes.

Milton Viorst has written about Middle East conflicts during 40 years as a journalist and author. His latest book is Storm From the East: The Struggle Between the Arab World and the Christian West.