Superb analysis: "Time to Ignore the Middle East?" A must-read!

[scarletwoman]

Time to Ignore the Middle East?

Leon Hadar | June 7, 2007

These days, conventional wisdom in Washington, DC holds that the Iraq War has been lost, that the Bush Doctrine of promoting unilateral regime change and spreading democracy in the Middle East has failed, and that the neoconservative ideologues who have dominated U.S. foreign policy since 9/11 are "out" while the realists are "in."

But the same conventional wisdom says you shouldn't hold your breath—even if an anti-war Democrat wins the White House in 2008, don't expect a revolutionary change in U.S. policy on the Middle East. In the best-case scenario, some U.S. troops would probably remain based in Iraq, and certainly in other parts of the Persian Gulf, as a way of demonstrating U.S. resolve to defend Saudi Arabia and the other oil-producing countries in the region; Washington would still maintain its strong military and economic support for Israel and try to mediate another peace process.

If anything, the election of one of the three leading Blue candidates, Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY), Sen. Barack Obama (D-NY), or former Sen. John Edwards (D-NC)—all of whom have little experience in national security—might make it more likely that the United States could be drawn into a military confrontation with Iran as the new White House occupant tries to demonstrate that he or she is "tough." Hence, under either a Democratic or a Republican president, one should not be surprised to discover that the major element in the neoconservative agenda—maintaining U.S. military and diplomatic hegemony in the Middle East—will likely remain alive and well, producing the never-ending vicious circle: more U.S. military interventions, leading to more anti-U.S. terrorism, resulting in more regime changes.

A lack of change in U.S. policy could be due to the power of inertia combined with the influences of the entrenched bureaucracies and powerful interest groups, the military-industrial complex, the "Israel Lobby," and the oil companies. But although all these players have major impacts on the policies pursued by the White House and Congress, the most important factor that makes it likely that U.S. interventionism in the Middle East will continue is the survival of what could be described as the U.S. Middle East Paradigm (MEP), whose origins go back to end of World War II and the start of the Cold War. Central to the MEP was the belief that competition with the Soviet Union made U.S. involvement in the Middle East a costly but necessary way to protect U.S. interests. The United States simply had to counter to Soviet ambitions. Notwithstanding the end of the Cold War, the MEP has continued to dominate the thinking of policymakers, lawmakers, and pundits in Washington. To paraphrase the famous saying, policy paradigms don't die, and unlike old generals, they don't even fade away.

<snip>

This essential paradigm has been accepted not only by U.S. neoconservatives, who have dominated post-9/11 U.S. foreign policy, but also by liberal internationalists and conservative and liberal realists. There may have been disagreements about tactics and emphasis among these elements of the U.S. foreign policy establishment, but all agreed that Washington should dominate policy in the region, or at least serve as balancer of last resort when conflicts arose.

<snip>

The costs of following neoconservatives' advice have become apparent. But most critics of the Bush administration still fail to offer anything other than different strategies to achieve U.S. hegemony in the region; they prefer to maintain the current MEP instead of replacing the bankrupted policy paradigm by challenging the need for U.S. intervention in the Middle East.

(much more at link -- these excerpts simply cannot do justice the scope of the author's argument)

Please go to the link and read the whole thing -- it's the most intelligent and trenchant alternative policy proposal I've read to date.

sw