04/18/2002
Richard Nixon - The Middle East
Richard Nixon has not received a lot of favorable press recently, with the release of more White House tapes, but no one can knock his political acumen when it came to foreign affairs, and his writings in his later years largely stand up to the passage of time.
So I picked up his 1994 book “Beyond Peace” and now pass on some of the former president’s thoughts on the Middle East, including where the West’s experience in the Balkans contains some lessons for our current travails. I offer the following with limited comment and for the purpose of showing how prescient many of his musings proved to be, as well as to point out some of the issues that the West and the U.S. continue to fail to address, as what may have once been soluble problems now verge on the explosive.
---
[1994]
“The large-scale dispersal of arms to eager buyers in the Middle East, the Persian Gulf, and elsewhere creates a time bomb with direct implications for Europe and America. Europeans are deeply concerned about refugees from Eastern Europe and economic migration from North Africa ”
Nixon quotes Belgian Foreign Minister Mark Eyshen, who during the Gulf War advocated a strong NATO, as opposed to the growing sentiment at the time that the organization should be replaced by newer, Euro-centric outlets.
“The European Community was an economic giant, a political dwarf, and a military worm.”
Nixon adds, “America took the lead (in the Gulf) (but) the collective indecisiveness of the major European powers have frustrated an effective response to the violent and tragic breakup of the former Yugoslavia. Europe can unite behind a common purpose only if the United States continues to play a leading role.”
On the Japanese and their role in the Gulf and other foreign missions:
“Like the Germans, the Japanese have refused to provide military personnel for U.N. peacekeeping operations on the grounds that their constitution limits the use of their armed forces to the defense of the home islands. This line sounds increasingly like a self-serving rationalization. No one should expect the wealthy Japanese to supply foreign aid and peacekeeping support on demand, like cash at an automatic teller machine. No one should expect them to do other than act according to their interests, as great nations must do. But if they want to be taken seriously in the world and to share fully in the fruits of global stability, they must use their vast power to promote the interests of other countries as well as their own.”
On Turkey:
“One Muslim nation that deserves its place in a full partnership with the United States is Turkey, whose recent emergence as a major diplomatic player in the Gulf region has been a highly positive development
“Regardless of objections from the anti-Turkish Greek lobby in the United States, we should increase our economic and military cooperation with Turkey. It can play a pivotal role as a bridge between the Muslim and Western worlds and can help check Iranian advances in the Middle East ”
[In case you ever wondered where your editor’s pro-Turkey stance originated.]
On Iran and Iraq:
“With their vast oil wealth, and in view of the weakness of Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf states, the Iraqi and Iranian regimes will be in a position to threaten the Gulf indefinitely. Consequently, the United States should assume the responsibility of guaranteeing Gulf security with its military power
“Because these regimes cannot openly embrace the United States for fear of inciting domestic violence, we should look the other way when they fail to follow our lead on other international issues. It is more important that they work with us on Gulf security issues.
“ (The Gulf states) are military midgets in comparison with their Iraqi and Iranian neighbors. The United States must accept the fact that it is the only Western power with the military resources to project force and block Iranian and Iraqi advances in the region.
“ While Iraq gave us the time to prepare, the next aggressor probably will not make the same mistake. [Nixon then discussed the need to pre-position as many armaments as possible, which the U.S. is frantically attempting to do more of in places like Qatar.]
[On the siege of Sarajevo, particularly the massacre in February 1994 of shoppers and their children, for which Nixon blames the West in not acting sooner.]
“It is an awkward but unavoidable truth that had the citizens of Sarajevo been predominantly Christian or Jewish, the civilized world would not have permitted the siege to reach the point it did on February 5, when a Serbian shell landed in the crowded marketplace
“The siege of Sarajevo can have a redeeming character only if the West learns two things as a result. The first is that enlightened peoples cannot be selective about condemning aggression and genocide. When the communist Khmer Rouge massacred two million Cambodians in the late 1970s, Americans’ outrage was muted The situation in Cambodia, it seemed, was too fraught with contradiction, especially for those Americans who had opposed our efforts to defeat the communists who carried out the massacre
“(The U.S. failure to act early on in Bosnia) tarnished our reputation as an evenhanded player on the international stage and contributed to an image promoted by extreme Muslim fundamentalists that the West is callous to the fate of Muslim nations but protective of Christian and Jewish nations *[Ed. The admission this week by the Dutch government that it abandoned the Muslims of Srebrenica in ‘95 is a telling example of this.]
“The nightmare scenario invoked by some, of fanatical Islam on a collision course with the West, will come true only if fundamentalist forces take over the Muslim world, (however) Fundamentalist regimes are still a minority, comprising only 10 percent of the Islamic world’s total population. If the peoples of the Muslim world are able to chart their own destinies, extreme fundamentalism will not triumph [Ed. Of course this hasn’t been the case, except in Turkey, to a great extent.]
“Whittaker Chambers wrote that communism was a faith and that it was only as strong as the failure of all other faiths. Muslim fundamentalism is a strong faith. Its appeal is religious, not secular. It appeals to the soul, not the body. Secular Western values cannot compete with this faith. Neither can secular Muslim values. In the clash of civilizations, the fact that we are the strongest and richest nation in history is not enough. What will be decisive is the power of the great ideas, religious and secular, that made us a great nation. Though the West and the Muslims have profound differences in their cultural and historical development, we can learn from each other, studying the reasons for our past successes and failures.”
Well, regarding this last point, I wish it were possible. Unfortunately, other forces, even if but a small minority, have hijacked the agenda. The only thing that will change the future at this point would be the emergence of new, modern leaders in the Arab world. None have to date stepped forward.
Next week, a look at Henry Kissinger and his Mid East shuttle diplomacy of 1973-4.
Brian Trumbore
|