A Reason for Hope in the Middle East

A war on terrorism, it seems, can be difficult to wage. Particularly if it is conceived in overly stark black-and-white terms, and especially if it is pushed beyond its original target.

Since September 11, George W. Bush has been pressing the so-called Bush Doctrine, claiming that anyone who supports, feeds, or harbors terrorists is the moral equivalent of a terrorist and a potential target of U.S. might. While doing so, he has asserted there are only two sides -- ours and theirs -- and that every nation of the world must decide whether it stands with the United States or against it.

Additionally, Bush has rhetorically widened the war, hurling threatening words at Iran, North Korea, and, most of all, Iraq -- countries so far unconnected to the awful attacks of September 11. In recent weeks, Bush has directed his verbal wrath more against Saddam Hussein than what's-his-name, that al Qaeda guy. (Or as the White House might say, Osama? Osama Who?) Whether or not the administration was truly planning a near-term action against Iraq, Bush was certainly talking war.

Then came the latest troubles in the Middle East -- and the policy contradictions and liabilities of Bush's war on terrorism were shoved right into the President's face. I confess to experiencing schaudenfreude while watching Bush spinman Ari Fleischer uncomfortably respond to reporters asking why Bush could do what he wants in his war on terrorism, but Ariel Sharon could not in his war on terrorism. Or why the Bush Administration (on some days, but not others) would call on Israel to refrain from smashing Yasir Arafat, whom the Bush Administration claimed was not doing all he could to stop terrorist attacks upon Israel. After all, under the one-size-fits-all Bush Doctrine, Arafat was as bad as bin Laden -- a point pro-Israel neocon hawks have been enthusiastically and exploitatively peddling of late.

This is not to say that Bush was wrong to urge Israeli restraint (on those days when he was not winking at Sharon), only that it was entertaining to watch the Bushies be compelled to realize that life isn't as simple as evildoers-versus-good-doers.

Bush was not able to apply his grand war-on-terrorism template to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. To do so, on his terms, would entail branding Arafat a terrorist and blessing a Sharon rampage, and that could lead to an all-out war that spreads beyond the West Bank and eclipses Bush's own war on terrorism. (Certainly, Israeli attacks on Palestinians can be characterized as state terrorism. But don't expect Bush and his gang to rethink their position on terrorism that far.)

When Bush finally announced he was dispatching Secretary of State Colin Powell to the Middle East to seek a cease-fire, he said Israel should end its incursions into the West Bank and he seemed to indicate his support for reviving political negotiations immediately, perhaps even before a cease-fire is brokered and proven. With this statement -- which also blasted Arafat -- he was breaking with the Sharon government (and its hardline backers in the United States), which insists that talking about Palestinian gripes before the suicide bombings end is rewarding terrorism. Bush was implicitly acknowledging that in some instances a counter-terrorism strategy must include addressing the grievances that give rise to desperate, hateful, and immoral measures.

A conceptual breakthrough? Let's not be that optimistic. But occasionally the realities of a situation cannot be ignored -- even by a president and his advisers.

There might be more good news. The events in the Middle East may well have put the kibosh on Bush's plans to extend the war on terrorism to Iraq. When the Arab League met in Beirut recently, its members declared that any attack on Iraq would be considered an attack on all of them. With these words, they raised the bar for any U.S. military move against Saddam Hussein and formed something of an Arab NATO. Bush can no longer easily shift his war on terrorism to a war on Saddam.