The
much-discussed reconciliation between Fatah and Hamas, which only days ago
brought an abrupt end to the latest round of attempted peace talks,
is likely to have more legs than such reconciliations have had in the
past. As conditions change across the Middle East, the forces that can
drive Hamas and Fatah together are becoming stronger than those that have
largely kept them apart. The same forces are already affecting the
calculations of other players, from Egypt to Saudi Arabia and Iran.
But at
this critical juncture, the U.S. is stuck in an old framework, one that pits
American policy advocates against each other, somewhat uselessly, across an
outdated dividing line. An announcement this past weekend has put the
issue in perspective. The Palestinian Authority, according to Ma’an News,
is sending 3,000 security troops to Gaza to operate
jointly with the security forces of Hamas. The PA troops are funded
substantially through American aid. Hamas, of course, is a designated
terrorist group, and for good reason.
Hamas goes nation-state. (Graduation ceremony of Hamas security
forces held in Gaza, April 2014. Credit: Xinhua, Wissam Nassar)
The much-discussed reconciliation between Fatah and Hamas, which
only days ago brought an abrupt end to the latest round of attempted peace talks,
is likely to have more legs than such reconciliations have had in the
past. As conditions change across the Middle East, the forces that can
drive Hamas and Fatah together are becoming stronger than those that have
largely kept them apart. The same forces are already affecting the
calculations of other players, from Egypt to Saudi Arabia and Iran.
But at this critical juncture, the U.S. is stuck in an old
framework, one that pits American policy advocates against each other, somewhat
uselessly, across an outdated dividing line. An announcement this past
weekend has put the issue in perspective. The Palestinian Authority,
according to Ma’an News, is sending 3,000 security troops to Gaza to operate
jointly with the security forces of Hamas. The PA troops are funded
substantially through American aid. Hamas, of course, is a designated
terrorist group, and for good reason.
The growing menace:
State-Islamism
But it’s more than that. Hamas is a category of entity that
the U.S. has so far failed to recognize and develop a meaningful policy on: a
state-Islamist entity, one that runs a “government” and rules a people, using a
combination of brutality, corruption, and guerrilla tactics in the name of a
totalitarian vision of sharia. Hamas is very much like the Taliban in
this respect. But it’s also like the mullahs of Islamist Iran, and like
Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, the jihadis of the regionalist “ISIS” insurgency in Syria and Iraq,
and the self-declared “Caucasus Emirate” that serves as a focus for the Islamist
insurgency in southern Russia.
The Muslim Brotherhood itself – i.e., in its nominally more
respectable incarnations in formal political parties – is pursuing a
state-Islamist agenda in nations from Malaysia and Indonesia to Iraq, Turkey,
and the Arab-Spring nations of Egypt and Tunisia. “State-Islamism” is a
better definition of the Eastern hemisphere’s big, systemic security problem
today than “terrorism” is. State-Islamism is only a few breaths away (if
that) from menacing multiple borders – and it’s going to be about control of
territory and central governments, rather than just undermining the confidence
of shaky status-quo governments and a spiritually exhausted, skittery West.
Terrorism per se will continue, of course, although
state-Islamists will increasingly muscle out its practitioners where it
inconveniences them. Strongmen like Egypt’s al-Sisi will try to suppress
and corral it, when they get in power. What’s important, however, is that
we have left behind the day when mere “terrorism,” untethered to larger
territorial strategies, was the model
of Islamist manifestation. And in a new and perilous way, the momentum in
the Hamas-Fatah marriage is with Hamas.
That means everything else has changed. It’s impossible to
overemphasize how the longstanding outline of the “Israeli-Palestinian” problem
has been transformed in the last three years. The alignment of partisans
surrounding the problem is more in flux than it has been in a century, if not
longer. Hamas and Fatah see possibilities that are not limited by any
boundaries set by American power – and so does everyone else, from Moscow to
Ankara to Tehran, Riyadh, and Cairo. Beijing doesn’t despair of getting a
piece of the action. Even less politically engaged players, like Japan
and India, recognize the importance to their interests of the developments in
the region.
The outdated policy
argument in Washington
But in the United States, the conversation continues in the same
old conceptual ruts. Here are Hamas and Fatah proposing to conduct joint
security operations in Gaza, and the framework for considering that undesirable
seems to be bounded, in the shallowest terms, by “Rand Paul,” on one side, and
pro-Israel traditionalists on the other.
Senator Paul wants to set stringent conditions for the continuation of aid to the
Palestinian Authority, with the U.S. fully prepared to withdraw the
aid if the conditions aren’t met. Sending U.S.-funded PA security troops
to Gaza to labor alongside Hamas would certainly disqualify the PA for aid
under such a scheme. Naturally, Americans don’t want our taxpayer dollars
going to fund joint operations with Hamas, so score one, at least
superficially, for the Paul posture.
As discussed in considerable detail by columnists in
the “pro-Israel traditionalist” mold, however (see here as well), the Paul posture is
short-sighted. Given Rand Paul’s isolationist streak, it’s also suspect
on principle. Paul’s stance is at a minimum one-dimensional, dismissing
the reality that the U.S. needs to have a big-picture policy on the Levantine
region, one that acknowledges the reasons for engaging with the PA and keeping
it shored up.
This whole argument is frankly misdirected. The problem with
the U.S. policy today is that it’s comprehensively outdated. In strategic
terms, it helps neither to keep throwing money down the rat-hole of PA
institutions, such as they are, nor to propose simply cutting that money off for
bad behavior. Our whole policy, starting with the premises and
expectations, is out of position. It has fallen off the back of a moving
train, and is lying inert across the tracks as the train chugs away in the
distance.
Some thoughts for the
future
It would require a separate, multi-part post to frame everything
we need to be doing to develop a better policy. But we should start by
tallying up how conditions have changed, with the Arab Spring, resurgent
Russian aggression, the change in regional governments, the internal conflicts,
Iran’s nearness to having a bomb, etc. Integral to any valid assessment
is recognizing the importance to the whole equation of American
passivity. Conditions have changed in large part because we have become inert,
and are failing to support our interests and allies assertively.
That said, these acknowledgments are necessary measures for
developing good policy; they’re not sufficient ones. The serious look we
haven’t given the situation centers on the “who” and “what” that we can work
with in the region. Cynicism about this question is short-sighted; we
would pay a high price in the long run for merely trying to pick winners from
among strong and weak horses. A future for American security lies in a
more visionary approach: cultivating moderates, liberalizers, and pragmatists
where we can find them, across the great swath of territory from North Africa
to Southeast Asia.
The task may be a very difficult one, but it is
indispensable. Such people exist, and four or five years ago, we knew –
and said – more about them (see here and here as well). We need to find these
people, and develop through iterations and interaction a resonance of vision
with them. We need to seek them out, care about them, encourage and
support them, and not give up hope for regional models of liberality and
consensual government, on which they would
be the ones to put the important stamp of authenticity.
We can’t fail as this task unfolds to protect boundaries and
allies, with the force of arms and ceaseless vigilance. But a great
conflict of visions has been inaugurated, and the time has passed when it was
adequate to police the hinterland for terrorists, and tend, mechanically, the
old institutions and alliances. The alternative to reforming our own vision
is letting state-Islamism drive us into a new and potentially worse “cold war,”
one that will probably move faster and more dangerously than the last
one. One way or another, we can end it only in one of two ways: by
surrendering; or by winning the conflict on a political, moral, and spiritual
level.
Winning, of course, will require a renewal of the West’s own
spirit. Not exactly simple stuff. I’m as well aware as the next
person of how far we seem to be from such a goal. And we will be routed
on an excruciating detour of some kind over the next three years, as the Obama
administration and the rest of the West flounder.
But we mustn’t lose sight of the endgame, and where we really want
to be. It isn’t enough to punish the PA for sending security troops to
Gaza, as if that can satisfy America’s real security requirements.
Neither is it enough to prop up the PA in a situation that’s falling apart in
other ways. Doing that will equate more and more, with each passing day,
to signing checks to our enemies.
Frankly, it should not be out of bounds to consider changing our
approach to the PA. We must do it deliberately, and while retaining the
initiative for ourselves. Handing the PA triggers to pull, in the form of
ultimatums, would be foolish. But it would be equally foolish to ignore a
changing reality.
The touchstone
Fortunately, as we contemplate all this, we do have a ready
touchstone in the Israeli-Palestinian aspect of the global state-Islamist
problem. Israel is an ally whose character and value have not changed,
and will not. In important ways, Israel is not just an outpost of the
West but a gateway to it. This will become more apparent in the days
ahead, although the lies about it are sure to proliferate as well. But
the more we are told that Israel is a liability, the more true it will be that
Israel is actually indispensable to the grand-strategic project of cultivating
peace partners in the Islamic world.
There are ways in which America’s strategic vision will always be
larger than Israel’s, as long as a recognizable America endures. But in
at least one way, our interests can’t be larger than the fate of Israel.
The measure of our commitment to human spiritual freedom is whether we will
passively accept its extinction there. If we will not, then we will, for this generation at least, and quite probably
for the next, win the fight.
J.E. Dyer is a retired Naval Intelligence officer who
lives in Southern California, blogging as The Optimistic Conservative for
domestic tranquility and world peace. Her articles have appeared at Hot Air,
Commentary’s Contentions, Patheos, The Daily Caller, The Jewish Press, and The
Weekly Standard.
More by J.E. Dyer
Read more at http://libertyunyielding.com/2014/05/06/state-islamism-hamas-fatah-love-fest-lagging-u-s-policy/#UJLPAXFDecuU4xQh.99
Hamas goes nation-state. (Graduation ceremony of Hamas security forces held in Gaza, April 2014. Credit: Xinhua, Wissam Nassar)
But at this critical juncture, the U.S. is stuck in an old framework, one that pits American policy advocates against each other, somewhat uselessly, across an outdated dividing line. An announcement this past weekend has put the issue in perspective. The Palestinian Authority, according to Ma’an News, is sending 3,000 security troops to Gaza to operate jointly with the security forces of Hamas. The PA troops are funded substantially through American aid. Hamas, of course, is a designated terrorist group, and for good reason.
Read more at http://libertyunyielding.com/2014/05/06/state-islamism-hamas-fatah-love-fest-lagging-u-s-policy/#UJLPAXFDecuU4xQh.99
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