I'm not going up in any planes whose mechanics or pilots think like those who misdiagnose the Middle East.
By BARRY RUBINbarry rubin new 88(photo credit: )
Once I was in India all set to take a local flight. But when everyone had sat on the plane for a while in the sweltering sun, an engine wasn't working right so we all got off again. Then I stood in front of the windowed wall watching the technicians take apart the motor. When they put it back again, there were still extra parts sitting on the runway. That's when I knew it was a good idea to travel by car instead.
It was one of the most amazing hours I've ever spent, in the backseat of an Indian-made Ambassador zigzagging amongst a colorful parade of pedestrians, tractors, three-wheeled vehicles, carts, bullocks, the occasional elephant, and ordinary cars and trucks. So I'm glad, in retrospect, that they didn't get the plane fixed.
But that's not my point today. Rather, I want to use my Indian airport experience to paraphrase lawyer Johnnie Cochran's famous line about O.J. Simpson trying on the glove used at the murder scene and found by his house. My version goes: If the parts don't fit, you can't predict!
UNDERSTANDING A political issue or a regime or the likelihood of a success for a diplomatic strategy depends on fitting all the pieces together. You can't just throw some aside and ignore them. If Palestinian leadership is too weak and too radical to make peace, it doesn't do to fantasize over these obstacles. If the Syrian regime's survival depends on maintaining confrontation and keeping its alliance with Iran, no amount of honeyed words (in English only, of course) by its dictator should mislead anyone.
Why, then, are so many leaders, politicians, academics, and journalists fooled?
Not long ago, I was at a hotel in the Golan Heights and spotted a slogan on a man's T-shirt stopped me dead in my tracks. "There is no logic whatsoever in human behavior." Did this fellow know he was discussing - next to religious issues - the most basic, central question of life on earth?
I happen to believe that there is logic in human behavior. It is not always apparent on the surface, yet it is there. Don't listen just to what people say, look at what they do. And when people are in large groups, in the context of ideologies, movements, and countries, we call this activity: politics. If you look to the structure of regimes, ideologies, and movements - their needs, true goals, and interest - then you will understand.
But there's a trap: the apparent, first impression; the official story; the easy answer based on one's own worldview or wishful thinking. And so here is my counter-slogan: There is no logic whatsoever in the human examination of human behavior.
CONSIDER THE following issues where parts are left out on the runway:
Assuming the Palestinian leadership wants peace despite its total failure to prepare its people for compromise and instead encouraging and apologizing for terrorism.
Expecting Hamas to moderate despite every statement it makes in Arabic and action it takes in Gaza.
Thinking Syria will split from Iran or make peace with Israel when its regime's interest and all the things it says to its people in their own language is the opposite.
Believing that Iran can be talked out of going for nuclear weapons and being extremist, especially when sanctions are limited and those campaigning for high office make clear their eagerness to give ground.
Bashing the United States which remains the great hope for liberty in the world and the real defense of those in democratic countries who are doing the bashing.
Demonizing Israel despite its many concessions both territorial and in its negotiating position.
Minimizing the radical Islamist threat when it is far higher than ever before. (What matters is not al-Qaida's sporadic terror attacks but other radical Islamist groups' abilities to take over countries.)
Thinking that our era is one of the End of Power Politics while Middle East regimes and Russia behave like traditional great powers. Knowing that power works and the West is weak-willed, if not necessarily materially weak, spurs them to a more aggressive policy.
Expecting that if you elect someone president of the United States who has no relevant experience, a left-wing ideology, a belief he can befriend political serial murderers, and proven bad judgment that this Pied Piper will ever decide or be able to stand up to dictators and terrorists.
Fantasizing that a media which misrepresents reality to push a political and ideological cause is going to serve society better than one that makes a real attempt to be honest and accurate.
Arguing that Western civilization, which has created more freedom and prosperity than any other system ever, is at fault for the world's problems.
Misunderstanding that Israel-Palestinian or Israel-Syria peace is achievable; that this wild goose chase be the world's main diplomatic priority; or that if this goal is achieved it would reduce other Middle East crises, defuse radical Islamism, or make the region love the West.
THESE CLAIMS cannot explain existing situations or predict the future. They are theories that don't work, though failures don't seem to reduce belief in them very much. The reason is that many people in elite positions - due to cultural misunderstanding, abandonment of the scientific method for ideology, and fear of facing conflicts - accept interpretations that have nothing to do with reality. A state or society that does this too often doesn't survive.
In all of these cases, there are parts-left-out facts, experiences, events - obviously strewn messily all over the runway. Yet without them, the motors won't function; the policy won't go anywhere. I'm not going up in any planes whose mechanics or pilots think like those who misdiagnose the Middle East.
Don't worry, though. Some day I honestly and firmly believe that there will be peace between Israel and the Palestinians, good relations between Israel and Syria, a moderate Iran, an end to Islamist radicalism, and democracy everywhere from Morocco to Afghanistan. And when that great day comes, world leaders will climb aboard their spaceships, travel at warp speed into orbit, and step into transporters so they can be beamed down to a great celebration which will be held in a neutral location: the largest convention hall on the Federation's Mars colony.
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