Regional politics in the Middle East are in transition: the US needs to overhaul the convention wisdom of its foreign policy
The Middle East refuses to let us sink into our US and European stovepipes, and challenged us with two sets of developments that will have potentially lasting implications for all three regions. Egypt's interim military government claimed credit for brokering a deal between Israel and Hamas to win the release, after more than five years, of captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, in exchange for several hundred Palestinian prisoners. And in Washington, an Iranian-American was indicted on charges of conspiring, with agents of Iran's Revolutionary Guards and a Drug Enforcement Agency informant posing as a Mexican drug lord, to assassinate the Saudi Ambassador to Washington and launch attacks on the Saudi and Israeli embassies, with additional casualties to American civilians in the process.
These developments – about which much remains to be clarified– demonstrate how much conventional wisdom is one of the first casualties of the Arab Spring. Israelis and Palestinians "cannot negotiate"? Egypt's transitional rulers are "newly-hostile" to Tel Aviv? Forces inside Iran have "nothing to gain" from provoking the US and Israel as well as Iran's regional rival Saudi Arabia simultaneously? All, apparently, wrong.
At a moment where Egyptians are flexible enough to bring Hamas and Likud together, and Iranian Revolutionary Guards somehow conspire to transfer $100,000 to US banks supposedly immobilised by sanctions against Iran, the challenge events pose to Washington is a severe one: are we able to respond with flexibility and long-term strategic thinking ourselves? Or are we trapped in the same conventional wisdom our opponents are undermining? If Washington challenged its own conventional wisdom about threats and opportunities emanating from the Middle East, what would that look like?
First, it would have – and promote – more confidence about its own staying power and resilience in the face of terror threats that, while not existential, are unfortunately still real. The FBI, DEA, Justice and State Departments cooperated to respond to the plot – and partnered with the government of Mexico to arrest the suspect. If the worst Iran's terror masterminds can do is lose agents in the Mexican borderlands negotiating with faux drug lords, Americans can rest easy. The United States has a crucial obligation to protect diplomatic missions on its territory … but no government would have ceased to function had the plot succeeded.
Second, partnering with other governments – allies and otherwise – is going to be crucial going forward, and in fact, the US is off to a rather good start. Mexico stepped in to ensure that the suspect was arrested. Washington was in close touch with the Saudis regarding the plot. Secretary Clinton said that the alleged scheme "creates a potential for international reaction that will further isolate Iran, that will raise questions about what they're up to, not only in the United States and Mexico". Egypt's government was eager to show its key regional role, just as Iran, Saudi Arabia and Turkey, all in different ways, have sought to showcase their regional leadership in recent weeks. Can Washington get beyond unilateral, unthinking responses to play successfully in such a new, complex environment? It's not clear. GOP presidential candidates Romney and Huntsman have both tried to give nuanced views of the Arab Spring in recent weeks – but can their nuance stand up to strident calls for punishing Egypt and bombing Iran?
Finally, it is clear that extremist forces in the region – from Iran to Palestine to Egypt – are eager to incite US overreaction. Who loses most if the US bombs Iran or cuts off aid to Palestine or Egypt? Not extremists, unfortunately, but moderates who have argued for engagement with the US and the west.
Washington's counter-terrorism policies have done a good job protecting it from attacks in the US coming to reality. Whether the civilian pragmatism of those policies at their best can be adapted to deal with the complex realities of the new Middle East is another question entirely.