By: Geoffrey Aronson for Al-Monitor Posted on April 12.
Albert Einstein famously defined insanity as doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different outcome. What is known of the initial efforts of the Obama administration’s ideas about constructing a working diplomatic model for peace between Israel and the Palestinians — measures to build “trust and confidence” in pursuit of an undefined “broad vision of peace” — may well fit Einstein’s definition.
The judgment of history, as the saying goes, is merciless. From this cold-blooded perspective one can only marvel at the expenditure of American blood and treasure throughout the Middle East by successive US governments — Republican and Democrat alike — in past decades, particularly since the Clinton administration, for so little in return.
In the future, those looking back upon this extraordinary era will be able to do so liberated from the passions and prejudice driving the today’s policy debates. A more objective evaluation of US efforts, stripped of the sentimentality and conventional thinking that mark contemporary assessments, will then be possible.
Yet, even today it is indeed possible to make some historical and objective judgments about contemporary US policies in the Middle East.
During this period, the unrivaled power of the United States to manage and shape the system of relations in the Middle East has been extraordinary. In the last 25 years, US forces have occupied capitals in Libya and Kuwait, Iraq and Afghanistan. The forces of its ally Israel have strolled triumphantly in the streets of Beirut, Ramallah and Gaza. Washington has spent unprecedented trillions of its own citizens’ earnings, far more than any of history’s great conquering powers, from Alexander to Britannia — to remake the region according to its preferences. The power and resources it has been able to bring to bear have been magnitudes of order greater than its local adversaries, who can hardly mobilize the power to claim such a status. And for what? Where is the payoff, the return on such an extraordinary investment? “Soft power,” “hearts and minds,” ”nation building” and now “leading from behind” — the slogans employed our foreign policy and defense mandarins cannot escape or rationalize the harsh and relentless verdict of history.
Categories: Americas, Defence, Democracy, United States
Well, then there are those who believe that in fact the USA never intended to really ‘build’ nations, rather that their aim is to destroy them. And they do that very successfully…