Another way
There are real, progressive alternatives to U.S. policy in the Middle East.

By Stephen Zunes

THE LOOMING INVASION of Iraq is an unusual case. In most previous instances of U.S. military intervention abroad, it was generally enough for the peace movement to simply demand that the United States stay out. The foes the United States is battling in the Middle East today, however, cannot be ignored. Al-Qaeda and like-minded terrorist networks are a real threat, and the Iraqi regime more closely resembles the fascist governments of the 1930s than it does the third-world socialist governments of the 1970s. The antiwar movement, therefore, must put forward credible alternatives to the Bush administration's policy.

As most Muslims recognize, Osama bin Laden is not an authority on Islam. He is, however, a businessperson who – like any good one – knows how to take a popular fear or desire and use it to sell a product: in this case, anti-American terrorism. Although very few Muslims support his ideology and tactics, the grievances expressed in his manifestos – the ongoing U.S. military presence in the Persian Gulf, the humanitarian consequences of the U.S.-led sanctions against Iraq, U.S. support for the Israeli government, and U.S. support for autocratic Arab regimes – have widespread appeal in the Middle East. For the struggle against terrorism to be successful, the United States must redefine security, moving from the current militarist paradigm to one that addresses the root causes. This is where a strong progressive movement must take the lead.

The emphasis on a largely military response to the threat of terrorism, for example, ignores the fact that it has been the dramatic militarization of the Middle East in recent decades, encouraged by successive U.S. administrations, that has helped create this violent anti-American backlash. Indeed, the more the United States has armed the region, the less secure the American people have become.

While Iraq's threat to regional and world security has been greatly exaggerated, it does exist. The best way of challenging this potential danger is to support a comprehensive effort at nonproliferation. The current U.S. policy of "nuclear apartheid" – in which allies of the United States, such as Israel and Pakistan, are allowed to have nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction while countries like Iraq are threatened with invasion for even trying to develop them – is untenable.

The clear alternative is put forward in United Nations Security Council Resolution 687, which requires Iraq's unilateral disarmament of any weapons and delivery systems or facilities for the development of either. The strict enforcement of that resolution is the basis of the Bush administration's call for war against Iraq.

However, the resolution also states – in a frequently overlooked clause – that the action should be taken within the context of regional disarmament, an idea the U.S. government has rejected. The establishment of a WMD-free zone covering the entire Middle East – similar to agreements in Latin America and the South Pacific – would make it far more difficult for demagogues like Saddam Hussein to use the logic of deterrence to develop such weapons of their own.

Regional security

Similarly, the peace movement should call on the Bush administration to support the ongoing efforts by Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the five Arab sheikdoms that also border the Persian Gulf to establish a regional security agreement. This would include arms control, a nonaggression pact, and various confidence-building measures and other verifiable mechanisms to promote peace and security. As with the Contadora process in Central America in the 1980s, however, the U.S. government has sought to sabotage these regional-based initiatives, which may be the best hope for bringing peace and security to the Gulf.

Radical anti-American movements – both Islamist and secular – tend to rise out of countries where there has been either widespread social dislocation or repressive governments. It is no accident that the first al-Qaeda attack against U.S. interests was against American military personnel training the Saudi National Guard, which is used exclusively for "internal security" (that is, repression).

Indeed, no extremist Islamic movements have ever evolved in democratic societies. It would seem that supporting democracy would be a major step in the direction of moderating political Islam.

People power

Scores of dictatorial regimes have been ousted around the world in recent decades, but no transition to democracy has come through foreign invasion, and few have come through indigenous armed struggle. Instead, the vast majority came through nonviolent people-power movements, such as those that ousted the Marcos and Suharto governments in Southeast Asia, the Communist regimes in Eastern Europe, and autocratic regimes in such diverse countries as Bangladesh, Zambia, Bolivia, Haiti, Nepal, and Madagascar. Massive nonviolent action by the people of Serbia in fall 2000 did what 11 weeks of NATO bombing a year and a half earlier could not: oust Slobodan Milosevic.

Most such movements arise out of the urban middle class, which, in the case of Iraq – thanks to the damage to Iraq's civilian infrastructure from the 1991 U.S. bombings and the subsequent sanctions – has been reduced to penury, with large numbers forced to emigrate. It has been replaced by a new class of black-marketers who have a stake in the status quo. Because they are dependent on the regime for rations, people are even less likely to resist. Lifting the nonmilitary sanctions against Iraq could play a major role in making possible the necessary regime change without the devastating consequences of a U.S. invasion.

In the case of Israel and Palestine, the peace movement must explain that Israeli security and Palestinian rights are not mutually exclusive but mutually dependent. While U.S. military, financial, and diplomatic support for the occupation policies of the rightist Israeli government needs to be challenged, it is also important to stress the fact that those policies are harmful to Israel's long-term security interests as well. Demanding that the United States join the international consensus – now belatedly supported by the Palestinians, other Arab governments, and a growing segment of Israeli society – that calls for a full Israeli withdrawal from the occupied territories in return for security guarantees, a shared Jerusalem, an end to illegal Jewish settlements, and a just resolution of the refugee situation can help ease the polarization on this hot-button issue and would present a clear alternative to the pro-Sharon agenda of the Bush administration and both political parties.

It is important that the peace movement separate Israel's legitimate right to exist in peace and security within its internationally recognized borders from its illegitimate occupation and repression. Calls for a suspension of military and economic aid to Israel until the Israelis end their ongoing violations of U.N. Security Council resolutions and human rights are quite appropriate. However, such a move should be part of a comprehensive arms-control process in the Middle East, requiring the United States to suspend arms shipments and economic aid to any other government in the region that engages in similar violations.

Any kind of sustainable development will be impossible as long as the United States sends six times as much military aid to the region as it does economic aid and while armaments are the number one U.S. export to the region. The demilitarization of the entire Middle East should be a major focus for those interested in a just and lasting peace.

Building a U.S. Middle East policy based more on the promotion of human rights, international law, and sustainable development and less on arms transfers, support for occupation armies and dictatorial governments, air strikes, and punitive sanctions would make the United States much safer. We are not hated because of our values but because we have strayed from them.

Never before has there been such a convergence of those in the peace movement and those who have focused primarily on national security issues. The United States has certainly violated international law and human rights on many occasions in the past, but the Vietnamese and Nicaraguans never flew airplanes into buildings. Stressing that there is in fact no contradiction between peace and security can help build a broad-based coalition that could grow way beyond the leftist and pacifist core of the antiwar movement and that could not only stop an invasion of Iraq but perhaps also lead to a paradigm shift that redefines what constitutes national security in an increasingly dangerous world.

Stephen Zunes is an associate professor of politics and chair of the Peace and Justice Studies program at the University of San Francisco. He serves as Middle East editor for the Foreign Policy in Focus Project (www.fpif.org) and is the author of the recently released Tinderbox: U.S. Middle East Policy and the Roots of Terrorism (www.commoncouragepress.com).