“Reformulating
U.S. Foreign Policy Toward The Middle East”
By Kevin Zeese
20 september, 2006
Countercurrents.org
Transcript of Remarks
by Kevin Zeese at The Palestine Center
Washington, DC
Thank you all very much for coming
and thank you for inviting me to talk about this important topic of
Middle East policy. Today is an interesting day to have this talk. It's
the thirteenth anniversary of the 1993 agreement between President [William
J.] Clinton, Mr. [Palestinian leader Yasser] Arafat and Mr. [former
Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak] Rabin, the handshake for peace. Remember
that picture of the three of them standing together in 1993? That was
the signing of the declaration of peace where Israel agreed to get out
of the West Bank and Gaza by 1994 and to resolve all the differences
between the countries, Palestine and Israel, by 1999. Of course, we're
here and those problems are still not resolved. Of course, the assassination
of Rabin, other changes and the move to the Sharon government made that
hard to solve.
It's interesting to look
at the Middle East and try to be optimistic. There are a few things
that have happened in recent months that have given me some hope that
things can happen in a positive way. Most recently I was very pleased
to see the [George W.] Bush administration, after a lot of debate inside
the administration according to the press reports, allowing the former
president of Iran, [Mohammad] Khatami, to come visit the country and
make a series of speeches around the country, do a number of press reviews
and give a different perspective of Iran. I think that was a positive
sign. I'm curious as to why they made that decision and what that may
foretell. Hopefully, it's good news and a sign of a new direction away
from the threatening approach that we've been taking with Iran.
A second hopeful sign is,
such a clear evidence, that I think the Bush administration and the
hawkish Democrats like Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden and even the Department
of Defense generals may even be able to see it, that brute force cannot
win the day against local resistance efforts. Lebanon and Hizballah,
surviving Iraq and the resistance continuing against military might
that is so dominating, the United States spending as much as the whole
world combined on military activity and Israel being the most sophisticated
military in the region, still the resistance in Iraq and Hizballah survived
and it seems actually got stronger. My hope is that some of the hubris
of the administration in our government may change, and we may start
to recognize that we can't win this by shock and awe but need to focus
on diplomacy and negotiation. So I think it's also a hopeful sign.
The third hopeful sign for
me is the coming out of the closet and into political discussion the
reality of the Israeli lobby. Something that anyone in Washington, DC
has known about for years but was one of those kinds of elephants in
the living room that nobody discusses and thanks to [John] Mearsheimer
and [Stephen] Walt, two mainstream realist foreign policy analysts,
bringing that issue out to the front, there's actually a discussion
about the Israeli lobby and whether or not we sometimes put Israel's
interests before U.S. interests. I think that discussion is a hopeful
sign as well.
I was also pleased to see
to some degree, a [former U.S. Secretary of State] Henry Kissinger article
today in the Washington Post. It's lengthy, they gave him a lot of space,
a lengthy analysis, but what it basically comes down to is recognizing
that things are changing in the Middle East [and] that these non-state
actors like Hizballah and Hamas are people we have to recognize exist
and deal with. I don't think he quite gets into it, but I think the
reality is these actors are, he describes it as a state within a state
because they are not just military groups, they are employers, they're
social service providers, cultural groups, they provide much more than
that and they're very much intertwined and ingrained in the culture.
I think that recognizing that they exist and how to face up to that
reality is an important step as well and I'm glad to see Kissinger discussing
that.
The topic we're talking about
today, "Reformulating Policy in the Middle East," is one that
is critical to get right. We need to get Middle East policy right. If
we don't get it right, it's become clear that we can't have security
in the United States. So it's important for U.S. citizens to get it
right. Our allies need us to get it right because they can't have security,
and the people of the region need us to get it right because the destruction
that we saw in Lebanon, the destruction that we're seeing in Iraq, we
don't want to see that continue to expand to other countries in the
region. So, this is a critical moment to really look at this issue of
reformulating policy in the Middle East. It's important that we begin
to have a very honest and frank discussion about it.
One thing that struck me
recently was with the fifth anniversary of 9/11. The analysis in the
media, the discussion among the television actors, the discussion among
political elected leaders, they still can't come to grips with the question
of "Why they hate us." It's amazing to me after these five
years that President Bush's line of "they hate us because of our
freedoms" is still one that people actually believe and political
leaders actually say in their own way. Not quite as simply as he does,
but [they] come to the same kind of conclusion as he does. I think that
really is a symptom of a problem in our political discourse because
to grapple with that question really means for us to look in the mirror
honestly at our self and look in the mirror honestly at our policy in
the region. If we do that, then we see there's very good reason for
people in the Middle East not to like the activities of our government
and the policies of our government. It's not just the recent Iraq war.
That may be a current issue that's obviously highlighting things, but
it's bigger than that. It can go back really the whole century.
If you look just as recently
I think from the 1950s on our policies in Iran of removing an elected
leader because of his nationalizing the oil and putting in place the
Shah, the Shah who was a brutal dictator, repressed his people, repressed
religion, pushed Western values faster than the people wanted them leading
to the 1979 revolution in Iran. That's one example of why they hate
us. Another example, of course, is our relationship with some of the
other regimes in the Arab world that are repressive to their people.
At the root of all this, of course, is the question of oil. And the
question of do we trade oil for human rights, do we support regimes
that are allied with us on oil even if they're not good regimes, if
they're dictators, if they're repressive, and we have chosen to do that.
And so I think that is another reason.
Of course than the other
big issue that affects why they hate us is Israel. Our one-sided relationship
with Israel is one that we don't discuss very much in politics. I know
that the people I'm running against in the Maryland race, in the three-way
race with Ben Cardin and Michael Steele, they are totally typical of
American politicians in that they will not say a bad word about Israel.
I think we need to have an honest discussion about that as well if we're
going to understand and move away from the mistaken policy we've had
for the last few decades.
And because we don't discuss
these issues, because we don't look at this analysis, we continue to
make the same mistakes over and over again. The Iraq war, taking the
approach of a military invasion based on false information, false intelligence
and occupation, claiming that we're working for democracy when everything
we're doing there is actually making things worse. Our inability [to
learn from] history leads us to repeat the mistakes of history. We see
also with the saber-rattling against Iran. The threats of economic or
military force against Iran as a solution to the Iranian problem is
once again making the same mistake we've been making for more than 50
years in the region. And then of course the reaction we had in Lebanon
rushing to the aid of Israel, to the support of Israel, no matter how
extreme and how brutal their attack on Lebanese civilians and Lebanese
civilian infrastructure was, we are making the same mistake over and
over again. We need to have a more honest discussion. We need to recognize
that what we do with this use of force is often counterproductive. For
every action there is a reaction, I guess the CIA would call it "blowback."
What we're doing in the region is strengthening the most extreme elements
and weakening the moderate elements. We're working against our own self-interest.
On Iran, I think the emphasis
of the big stick rather than the carrots, the emphasis on we're going
to force you to accept our approach rather than negotiate with you to
come to a conclusion, I think is a great example of the failed Middle
East strategy. Look at Iran. After 9/11 in Tehran, there were a million
people in the streets supportive of the United States and expressing
concern about our country. You look at when we went to Afghanistan and
overthrew the Taliban, Iran helped us to create a new government there.
When we invaded Iraq initially, Iran reached out through European contacts
to try to have negotiations with us, not just on Iraq, but on a whole
range of issues. There [was] even some indication that included recognizing
Israel. And yet rather than opening up and talking with them, we took
the approach of turning down negotiations. That to me is exactly what's
wrong with Middle East policy.
I hope that the recent Hizballah
activities in Lebanon and the failure of the occupation of Iraq will
maybe start to change that and Khatami's visit may be a sign that that
might be changing. Now Iran, of course, is in the situation of being
surrounded by the United States. They have on their eastern border our
military troops in Afghanistan and on their western border our military
troops in Iraq and our military in the Persian Gulf. They're rewarded
for their offer of assistance by being part of the axis of evil and
essentially being told "take a number, you're next." We're
actually heightening the conflict and heightening the likelihood of
instability. In fact, some say that may be part of the strategy of the
Bush administration is targeted instability may be a good thing. We
keep on making the same mistake and making the situation worse because
we have not learned from history and so we keep repeating the mistakes
of history.
The most recent situation
in Lebanon I think certainly highlighted the mistake in policy with
Israel. What seems so clear now to be a pre-planned invasion and destruction
of civilian infrastructure of Lebanon, based on the capture of two [Israeli]
soldiers and then the U.S. rushing more military aid to Israel so they
continued the bombardment, allowing the bombardment to go on longer
than necessary and longer than fruitful by preventing a ceasefire. It
just shows that Israel still remains what [former U.S. Secretary of
State] Alexander Hague described it as, our unsinkable battleship in
the Middle East. That description I think is one we need to really keep
in mind as we look at Israel and recognize that the United States provides
20 percent of the Israeli military budget. Over the years of providing
that kind of support, Israel has created one of the most powerful military
forces in the world, and therefore the U.S. has to start to recognize
that when Israel acts that way, that we are complicit, that we are also
responsible.
Therefore, we need to have
a discussion about this. We can't let fear of the Israeli lobby, or
the oil interests, or the military-industrial complex stop a discussion
on these issues. They need to be discussed openly and responsibly. And
you see the conflict with Israel and our funding of Israel in a couple
different ways. If you look at our foreign policy budget, we provide
as much foreign aid to Israel as we do to sub-Saharan Africa, Latin
America and the Caribbean combined. Israel, the size of New Jersey,
gets as much money as two continents and the Caribbean.
If you look at when Israeli
aid requests come into the United States, and I'm sure there will be
some as a result of this Lebanon conflict, to rebuild their infrastructure,
they'll ask for billions of dollars from the United States. What do
the members of the Congressional Black Caucus say when they look at
their inner city neighborhoods that are like third world countries?
Instead, they're approving billions of dollars to Israel. There's a
conflict there, and the needs of the world, the needs of our own people
are put aside for the needs of Israel. I think that that needs to be
discussed. Is it rational, does it make sense? It's hard to have that
kind of discussion when you see the Lebanon attack. The response of
Congress is to endorse it with only eight members of Congress saying
no to it. Rather than debating these actions, we are silent about these
actions. I think that's starting to change. I think it's the right time
for change. I think American voters now recognize that our tie to Israel
is making them less secure. They recognize that the Israeli lobby helping
to push us into Iraq and now trying to push us into Iran, are getting
us into quagmires that we can't afford. We don't want to lose our own
soldiers to it. We don't want to lose hundreds of billions of dollars
to it. So this is the right time for change in the Middle East.
So how do we make a more
sensible Middle East policy? I think when you start to look at the Middle
East you have to start with the obvious. Once again that elephant in
the living room that the Bush administration denies exists, but the
issue is oil. There's no question that controlling the oil and the profits
from oil is a top priority in the Middle East, particularly as we are
competing with China and India for that resource. As it gets more precious
and more expensive, that becomes a higher priority. So if you want to
talk about reformulating policy in the Middle East, it starts with reformulating
our energy policy at home and by becoming a leader in the world for
a more sensible energy policy. We have the technology to change our
energy policy away from the dirty, nineteenth-twentieth century fossil
fuel economy toward a twenty-first century clean, sustainable energy
economy. A review of the wind resources, for example, in the United
States by the federal government found that three states alone could
provide enough energy through wind to satisfy all of our electricity
needs. Three states alone. One of those is Texas. Even oil-rich Texas
can profit and continue to profit from the wind resources. That's just
one source.
In my community in Takoma
Park, [Maryland] there's a house that's owned by a guy named Mike Tidwell
who runs a Chesapeake Action Center, which is concerned about climate
change, he has a house that the energy meter runs backwards on. He gives
energy back to the grid. Rather than the house being a user of energy,
it becomes a producer of energy. It is done by essentially two broad
things. First it's done by efficiency, having efficient refrigerators,
washing machines, electrical equipment and even light bulbs makes a
gigantic difference. Secondly, it's done by solar. They get enough solar
out of the sky for no charge that they're able to produce enough energy
that the meter runs backwards. Why can't we have a million solar houses
in Maryland? Why can't we transition? The technology exists. If you
take that situation and you apply it to transit, particularly automobiles,
we're in a situation where with current technology we could have most
people in the United States everyday traveling in cars that produce
no pollution, use no oil. We have that technology. Hybrid technology
with a plug in into your house for electricity, electricity provided
by wind and by solar out of the environment, and the car gets plugged
in at night, the first hundred miles will be all on electricity. That
is real, and Toyota's coming out with an upgraded Prius that will be
able to do that and all the cars. The technology exists.
So I think the missed opportunity
of 9/11, a lesson we should have taken from 9/11, particularly with
an oil President, an oil Vice President and a Secretary of State from
Chevron who has an oil tanker named after her, we had the opportunity
for a Nixon goes to China moment. Where the red baiter from the fifties
became the opening doors to Communist China in the seventies, we could
have had the oil executives who got to office through oil money and
who are drenched and marinated in oil their whole lives saying, "Enough
oil! We need to break our addiction to this fossil fuel based economy."
We have the technology and we have the need.
What's great about the moment
that we're in right now is that we're reaching a tipping point where
the public is ready for this. The public is ready for this transition.
They know it's needed. It's needed for a variety of reasons. People
come up with different sources. I've mentioned the security reason,
to get out of the Middle East and not to make oil the dominant factor
in the Middle East. There'll always be a need for some oil. So, the
Middle East will still be an issue, but it won't become a national security
issue if we can break our addiction to oil the way I'm talking about.
It's also an environmental urgency. People are being educated on that
issue thanks to the work of Al Gore's movie. He is such a great private
citizen, so much better than as a public official. He did a great job
in that movie, a great public service to educate the public. If you
haven't seen his movie you should see it. It's a very strong, factual
rebuttal to anyone who claims that climate change is not real. Once
you see it, you know it exists and your view on it will change forever.
So a tipping point is being reached on the issue of climate change and
the chaotic weather that it creates.
In my state of Maryland,
it's a very serious issue because the Chesapeake Bay has a shoreline
that's equivalent to one-third of the whole eastern coast. So we have
a lot of water to deal with and so as water rises, Maryland will be
greatly affected by that. I think now the climate change issue is being
reached, and I think also the economic realities are making the tipping
point also reached, as the price of gas goes up the price of heating
oil goes up as the scarcity of those resources goes up.
So we have a combination
of economic and environment and national security coming together with
the same conclusion. It's time to break our addiction to fossil fuels.
It's urgent. There's no time to waste on it. The missed opportunity
of 9/11 for our oil-based presidency was to say, "We need to get
all these old, dirty fossil fuel cars off the streets within ten years.
We could do it." Imagine the Midwest with the explosion in new
automobile sales and new automobile production. The Midwest would have
been growing. He would have won a landslide reelection with that kind
of an economic policy. We'd also change the way our buildings operate,
both personal, commercial and government buildings, because there's
a lot of waste there as well. The United States wastes half the energy
that it has, and so we can have a lot of room in there for that change.
I think once we break our oil addiction, which I think is very doable
and essential, then we can really look at the Middle East in a much
more sensible way.
Right now we are confused.
I come out of the drug policy reform movement so I've dealt a lot with
addicts, and we're addicted to oil. You know how an addict is, when
they need their substance, they can't think clearly. And that's how
we are as a nation. When it comes to oil, we need it, and we can't imagine
living without it. Because of that urgent need, we can't be sensible.
We can't think clearly. Breaking that addiction is key. Once we break
that addiction we can look at the Middle East more sensibly. We can
recognize that the policies that we put in place are not consistent
with the ideals of a human rights liberal democracy that we are trying
to be. If we get this right and start to recognize the need to emphasize
those kinds of values in the Middle East then we can begin to come up
with a more sensible policy and we can look at Israel also in a more
balanced way.
The Israel lobby is powerful
in part not just because of its own power, but it's powerful because
it also is combined with the need for oil, and as a result the need
for military bases. And the military-industrial complex, the big oil
lobbying power and the Israeli lobbying power combined create a powerful
threesome. Once we take out the issue of oil, the national security
issue weakens, the defense issue weakens, and we're stuck then back
down to the question of Israel. The question of Israel then becomes
when we can really deal with a more sensible way, what is right, what
is wrong, how do we make it so that Israel can have a secure and viable
country at the same time that Palestinians' rights are respected and
they can have a secure and viable country. And viable means that they
have access to water and that unilateral lines aren't drawn in such
a way to make sure that 70 percent of the water goes to Israel.
So I think the lynchpin of
all this is really coming to grips with the question of oil. Sadly,
I don't think until we do that, we're not going to really be able to
face the Middle East correctly. We're always going to be confused. That
confusion is what's leading to bad policy. It's a combination of that
confusion plus the pain of looking at ourselves honestly and what we've
done in that region for the last half a century. That even applies to
what we've done in Iraq. When I talk about getting out of Iraq responsibly,
what I mean by responsibly is facing up to our mistakes. Just as South
Africa went through a Truth and Reconciliation process when white rule
ended and apartheid ended, the Truth and Reconciliation process looked
at what really happened. We need to do the same thing with Iraq, what
really happened. We went in under false information, we got caught on
tape torturing Iraqi prisoners, we bombed indiscriminately cities like
Falluja which is the size of Baltimore, St. Louis, we got caught in
the Haditha situation and on and on. A whole series of war crimes are
now coming to light. We need to face that reality we need to face the
reality of what our intentions were. Our intentions are obvious when
we look at what's going on now not only the long-term military bases
being put in place throughout Iraq but also the largest U.S. embassy
in the world being put into Baghdad. The one construction project that's
on time in Baghdad is our U.S. Embassy. It's ten times the size of the
typical U.S. embassy. It is a walled compound that is self-sufficient
with electricity etc., and it dominates the skyline of Baghdad. That
is the direction that we're going and that is the direction we need
to change. But the only way we can change that direction is we face
up at home first to the question of oil.
As I said, this is an interesting
time for this. I've been talking around the state of Maryland on these
kinds of issues and I tell you, I've been to Republican parts of the
state, I've been to Democratic parts of the state, and I get the same
kind of reaction from both types of audiences. They are ready for this
change. I see in Hartford County, which is north of Baltimore [and]
is a Republican dominating area, their community college is being redone
as an environmental and sustainable energy run college. In Eastern Shores,
also a Republican area, biodiesel plants [are] being built and local
governments [are] talking about making sure that their fleet of cars
and school buses runs in part on biodiesel. I see north of Baltimore
the same kind of organic farming practices now using oil-based pesticides
and herbicides.
So the change is happening,
and if we had leadership not just from people in government but people
outside of government pushing these issues, it would make a gigantic
difference. These changes and problems come at a time when the mentality
of the voters, as we can see in yesterday's election, is that the incumbents
need to leave. And I see it in both parties these kind of problems that
incumbents are losing power and so voters are ready I think for change
too if they have options.
So I hope that people hearing
this will run for office themselves because we need leadership. We need
people to get up and say that we need to change direction because that
is the role of us as civic players and we need to start to be civic
participants in the government. As civic participants we need to not
just run for office, we need to be advocating these issues because I
think the time is right for change. The time is right for change. You
can see it in the polling. You can see it in the votes we've had around
the country. Currently, so far, this election season, people are ready
to see a different direction in government, and once we get a different
direction in government with an emphasis on breaking away from a fossil
fuel-based economy which I think is a lynchpin for so many issues, war
and peace issues; Middle East; economic environment, it's [a] lynchpin
issue, and once we get that one right, things start to fall in place.
Kevin Zeese is the Director of DemocracyRising.US and a candidate for
the U.S. Senate in Maryland (see www.ZeeseForSenate.org) nominated by
the Green, Libertarian and Populist Parties.
The Palestine Center is a
nonprofit, nonpolitical organization. It does not endorse political
candidates in the U.S. or abroad. This event was for educational purposes
only.
This "For the Record"
transcript may be used without permission but with proper attribution
to The Palestine Center. The speaker's views do not necessarily reflect
the views of The Jerusalem Fund.