A HERO BESTRIDE TWO CENTURIES? :

A Cold Warrior's lessons for the Middle East (Amity Shlaes, June 4, 2002, Jewish World Review)

With his new plan to drive Cuba towards freedom with human rights demands, George W. Bush is taking a page out of the old cold war book. His support for the continued embargo, his requirement for freer trade unions and his demand for free elections resemble the carrot-stick approach laid out by the Helsinki Accords for the Communist east. But can the cold war's lessons also be applied to the west's central problem, the Middle East?

Yes indeed, says at least one party on the scene -- Natan Sharansky, Israel's deputy prime minister. Mr. Sharansky is pushing a reform plan for the Palestinians. Our great mistake in the Middle East over the past decade, he says, is failing to recognize the truths of the old superpower stand-off.

"The surprising thing is that after such a unique victory, this lesson was fully abandoned and ignored" when it comes to the Middle East, he says.

[Mr. Sharansky argues that] it is important not to underestimate the yearning for democracy among Palestinians and other Arabs. The subtext of the current western view, he says, is that Arabs do not necessarily want democracy. He recalls that the Nixon administration made the same sort of cultural argument: "that Russia is not built for democracy; that for 1,000 years we [Russia] never had democracy" -- except briefly -- and so on. This
argument is a convenient excuse for inaction. But Palestinians are like anyone else: given a chance at freedom, they will stop becoming suicide bombers. [...]

Yet Sharansky opposes instant elections for the Palestinian people. Instant elections in a society of fear such as that led by Mr Arafat would be a sham, he says, just as they were in the fearful Soviet Union of the mid-1970s. Instead, the US and those Arab states that recognize the state of Israel should establish a new democratic authority, with Israel's only input being a veto on documented terrorists' participation.

For three years, this coordinating body would work, dismantling refugee camps, teaching democracy, fostering a freer press. Just as Germany and Japan had to undergo a process of political and economic rehabilitation, says Mr. Sharansky, so must the Palestinians. "Elections are in the end of this period." [...]

The west is in part responsible for Palestinian despair and Arab suffering under dictators, he concludes. "We, the leaders of the free world, are betraying our own principles --- that all people are equal and that all people deserve to live in freedom and democracy." In other words, only if we learn the cold war's lesson of action can we avoid a conflict as long and terrible as that one.

Natan Sharansky is one of the genuine heroes of the 20th Century, for leading the fight against communism from within the USSR. It would be truly remarkable if he were to also become one of the heroes of the 21st, by fighting authoritarian Islam from within the Middle East. But he, unlike far to many, seems to understand the lessons of that earlier fight--including the all important realization that democracy is no panacea for societies as sick as these.

This is the most worthwhile column I've read on the Middle East in quite some time.

Posted by Orrin Judd at June 4, 2002 1:26 PM