Stephen P. Cohen: Take a tip from Eisenhower, Truman on the Mideast
[Stephen P. Cohen, president of the Institute for Middle East Peace and Development, is the author of Beyond America’s Grasp: A Century of Failed Diplomacy in the Middle East.]
Many who believed in the feasibility of achieving Israeli-Palestinian peace have concluded that it is no longer a realistic hope, at least in the first term of the Obama presidency.
They are largely disillusioned by Israel’s dogged insistence on expanding settlements, even though Israel well knows that it angers Palestinians. They also fault President Obama for his focus on Israel’s self-destructive policy of putting settlements before peace. In doing so, though, they ignore a major transformation in the Middle East.
The emergence of Iran is seen by many as displacing Israel as the dominant power in the Middle East, making Tehran the main source of instability and vulnerability of regimes in the region.
That perception, even if an exaggeration, illustrates how far Iran has come. And yet, Obama is not dealing with Middle East issues as embedded in an international security crisis, as Presidents Truman and Eisenhower did. Both these presidents dramatically changed America’s policy after World War II to face the security challenge of their time: the combination of the communist threat and the nuclearization of the Soviet Union.
Truman concluded that this new challenge required the United States to promote the creation of a Jewish state in Palestine as a bulwark against the Soviet Union in the Middle East. Israel would be an ally that could be counted upon to share American values and security interests, and to support the primacy of the United States in the world system.
When France and Britain joined Israel in the invasion of Egypt in 1956, Eisenhower realized that the American international stance against the Soviet Union could not be sustained when allied secondary powers reinforced the enmity of the nonaligned world against the United States. Eisenhower felt strong enough in his convictions and political power to disregard the election pressures to be passive in the Suez crisis. Instead, he forced the British and the French to undergo a major embarrassment in the Security Council. He gave Israel’s prime minister, Ben Gurion, a clear ultimatum to leave Sinai. This ultimatum worked in a way and at a speed Obama can only dream of.
Why does Obama lack the capability Eisenhower had to force Israel’s hand so decisively? The answer lies in Gurion’s decision immediately after the Suez crisis to instruct Shimon Peres to establish Israel’s nuclear capability. Peres went to France, then the key supplier of arms to Israel, to seek its help in creating Israel’s nuclear deterrent.
France’s secret services provided Israel with the necessary uranium and the advanced designs of its own nuclear installation. Peres carried these back to Israel, and Israel’s nuclear physicists were able to transmute quickly Gurion’s weakness into Israel’s primary source of strength.
Gurion’s weakness vis-a-vis Eisenhower should be the magic key to Obama’s success to bring about a different Israeli policy...
Read entire article at Boston Globe
Many who believed in the feasibility of achieving Israeli-Palestinian peace have concluded that it is no longer a realistic hope, at least in the first term of the Obama presidency.
They are largely disillusioned by Israel’s dogged insistence on expanding settlements, even though Israel well knows that it angers Palestinians. They also fault President Obama for his focus on Israel’s self-destructive policy of putting settlements before peace. In doing so, though, they ignore a major transformation in the Middle East.
The emergence of Iran is seen by many as displacing Israel as the dominant power in the Middle East, making Tehran the main source of instability and vulnerability of regimes in the region.
That perception, even if an exaggeration, illustrates how far Iran has come. And yet, Obama is not dealing with Middle East issues as embedded in an international security crisis, as Presidents Truman and Eisenhower did. Both these presidents dramatically changed America’s policy after World War II to face the security challenge of their time: the combination of the communist threat and the nuclearization of the Soviet Union.
Truman concluded that this new challenge required the United States to promote the creation of a Jewish state in Palestine as a bulwark against the Soviet Union in the Middle East. Israel would be an ally that could be counted upon to share American values and security interests, and to support the primacy of the United States in the world system.
When France and Britain joined Israel in the invasion of Egypt in 1956, Eisenhower realized that the American international stance against the Soviet Union could not be sustained when allied secondary powers reinforced the enmity of the nonaligned world against the United States. Eisenhower felt strong enough in his convictions and political power to disregard the election pressures to be passive in the Suez crisis. Instead, he forced the British and the French to undergo a major embarrassment in the Security Council. He gave Israel’s prime minister, Ben Gurion, a clear ultimatum to leave Sinai. This ultimatum worked in a way and at a speed Obama can only dream of.
Why does Obama lack the capability Eisenhower had to force Israel’s hand so decisively? The answer lies in Gurion’s decision immediately after the Suez crisis to instruct Shimon Peres to establish Israel’s nuclear capability. Peres went to France, then the key supplier of arms to Israel, to seek its help in creating Israel’s nuclear deterrent.
France’s secret services provided Israel with the necessary uranium and the advanced designs of its own nuclear installation. Peres carried these back to Israel, and Israel’s nuclear physicists were able to transmute quickly Gurion’s weakness into Israel’s primary source of strength.
Gurion’s weakness vis-a-vis Eisenhower should be the magic key to Obama’s success to bring about a different Israeli policy...