Posted 164 days ago
The Modern Middle East: Can the Kingdom come in a world of realpolitik?
By James Lee
The Middle East has long been a politically tense region where tribalism, infighting, foreign occupation, and the machinations of world empires have weighed heavily on the region’s collective history and cultural memory. Though it has been much obscured by the distance of time and culture, the world of the Gospels bears striking similarities to the one we still read about in the daily news. Jesus ministered in a world of foreign military occupation and Empire (Roman), insurgents with their violent reprisals and asymmetric warfare (Zealots and Sicarii), sellouts and collaborators (Herod, Sadducees, priests, and scribes), profiteering (Temple-based religious exploitation and the debt-land loss-poverty system), terrorism of both the guerilla and state-sponsored variety (Barabbas’ uprising and Herod’s response to Jesus’ birth respectively), and culture wars (Pharisees, Essenes, Sadducees, rural poor and urban elites). Truly, there is nothing new under the sun.
Having said that however, we must immediately note that we have witnessed some rather startling developments in the Middle East in recent years. First and foremost is the ongoing disintegration of Iraq. These past five years have seen Iraq go from a stable but repressive and deeply troubling, though quite typical, dictatorship to a virtual anarchy. This is an anarchy whose existence is punctuated daily by car bombings, death squad murders, political assassinations, thuggery, corruption and all the attendant signs of the destruction of the civil infrastructure, not to their mention its cultural life. This while the current U.S. administration is no longer bothering to offer explanations, new or old, for why we invaded in the first place and the opposition party, majority though it has, is consistently failing to oppose further escalation on our part. Just the other day the House rejected a measure to prevent the president from attacking Iran without Congressional approval.
Though it may sound like a tired mantra from the liberal left (of which, I would note, I do not consider myself a part), I think wise observers are right in keeping their eye on Iraq’s oil as the key to understanding the Bush administration’s policy in Iraq. Legislation being moved forward in the Iraqi parliament this year gives foreign (mostly American) oil companies the right to roughly 2/3 (possibly more) of Iraq’s yet to be developed oil reserves for the next 30+ years; that is until the projected end of the oil fields’ profitability. This barely concealed act of mass looting is passing without much notice or serious discussion in the Western media. Bear in mind that oil accounts for a full 95% of Iraq’s government revenues. The administration’s goal is an Iraq stable enough to get the oil industry back in business. Secondarily they hope to gain a greater foothold in the Middle East where we can keep our permanent (yes, permanent) military bases. Expect future policy to reflect that.
Elsewhere in the Middle East, pressure has been mounting for some time for Israel’s Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to resign, particularly in light of a recent and deeply critical government report on last year’s 34 day assault on Lebanon/Hezbollah. Having used the abduction of two Israeli soldiers as a flimsy pretext for launching an already planned attack on Lebanon/Hezbollah, Israel is finding that it not only failed to cripple Hezbollah but that it significantly enhanced their perceived stature and turned its leader, Hassan Nasrallah, into an icon of anti-Israeli resistance (much to the consternation of many conservative Sunni regimes and clerics). Not only that, but Hezbollah was on the ground in the aftermath reimbursing families in Southern Lebanon with cash for their damaged houses and humanitarian aid before anyone else. By the time Fouad Siniora’s governmental assistance arrived, it was too late to avoid appearing like a Johnny come lately. For Hezbollah it was a PR coup that even still is hastening the loss of public trust in the elected government and what is left of its genuine political clout. Israel’s assault, which incidentally did not succeed in rescuing the abducted soldiers, may well prove to have significant, though unintended, long-term consequences in Lebanese national politics, not to mention the drift of public opinion and regional stability in the broader Middle East.
Palestine, for its part, is currently struggling under the weight of infighting between Hamas and Fatah that has already claimed dozens of lives. This being a somewhat unsurprising, if long in coming, result of the most recent elections there that saw Palestine vote overwhelmingly against Fatah and its notorious corruption rather than for Hamas, per se.
Together, the infighting in Palestine and the tremendous fragility of Olmert’s government are drawing attention away from the recently revived Saudi-sponsored peace plan. This plan, first proposed in 2002 offered Israel a normalization of its diplomatic and economic relations with the Arab nations in return for a return to pre-1967 borders, the creation of a Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital, and the willingness to allow Palestinian refugees to return to Israel. While the plan initially received a very cool reception from Israel, there is apparently a new openness to the plan.
If the plan is to have any substantial success, it will hinge on at least two crucial factors. First, whether the Arab nations are willing to negotiate the conditions. As it stands, there is no Israeli ownership of the plan. It is merely a trade being offered on terms set entirely by the Arab world. Though relatively moderated compared to say Hamas’ official platform, these terms cannot be the basis of a lasting peace apart from a two-sided negotiation. Second, if genuine negotiation is allowed for by the Arab states and entered into in good faith by all sides, Israel will undoubtedly seek to remove the “right of return” demands. Were the Palestinian refugees permitted to return en masse to Israel, it would fundamentally alter Israel’s political and religious, not to mention economic and social, landscape in a way that would significantly undercut its uniquely Jewish character. It would mean the end of Israel as it is currently known. For Israel this will remain an unacceptable idea indefinitely. They have shown themselves willing to give up land, but they will not give up their state. The Arab world knows this. Whether this is a genuine attempt at a just peace will become apparent by way of their approach to this particular pre-condition. At this point, however, the internal struggles of the Palestinians on the one hand and Israel on the other seem likely to keep them from serious and far reaching engagement with one another.
Nonetheless, perhaps these difficult times may create an opening on both sides as they seek to end their internal battles. Further, it is within the Bush administration’s options to press hard diplomatically upon the leadership of Israel and Palestine to come to the table. If Congress were to turn up the heat on the president, he may be more inclined to initiate the effort. On the ground level, a significant show of public support could be what is necessary to make that happen. To that end, I would encourage Americans to contact their Congressional representatives and express their support for increased diplomatic efforts to bring a more permanent end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Congress fears losing public support over issues like this and so a culture of inaction can easily develop. For them to know they have the support of the voting public to make their voices heard, will go a long way.
Moving to the north of Israel, Turkey appears locked in a struggle for the future of its national soul with its controversial bid for E.U. membership on the one hand and the Islamism movement and Kurdish question on the other. Finally, there is Iran who is proving deeply defiant in the face of U.N. sanctions and U.S. threats. Emboldened by American troubles in Iraq and Israel’s ostensible defeat by Hezbollah, they move forward with their nuclear ambitions which almost certainly include nuclear weapons, their denials notwithstanding. Iran is well poised to become America’s next huge problem in the Middle East whether de facto or as a result of future U.S. intervention.
Whatever the exact course events take with regard to Iran, there are a few things about which we can be reasonably confident. First, expect the Bush administration to increasingly conflate the Iraq war and the Iran problem. We have seen some of this already with the vague American accusations that Iran is training, funding, and otherwise assisting the Shiite insurgency in Iraq. There is also the ongoing press coverage of the detained Iranian-American scholar Haleh Esfandiari, which stands in stark contrast to the scant attention given to the American detention of five Iranian government employees who were working at a government liaison’s office in Arbil, Iraq. They have been held in a U.S. prison camp in Iraq since January.
Second, do not expect any meaningful coverage (or critical questioning) of any lead up or follow up to future military action taken against Iran from any of the corporate news outlets (e.g. FOX, ABC, NBC, etc.). There was little to no critical questioning or suspicion of motives by the corporate media in the lead up to Iraq or even now, four years hence. There is little reason to suspect it will be significantly different in relation to Iran. Even Hollywood is getting on board with the release of the thinly veiled anti-Iran film 300 in which the noble, virtuous, and proud Spartans (read US) defend themselves and their way of life valiantly against the monstrous, violent, and gathering threat of the only partly human Persian (read Iran) forces. The church would do well to exercise a hermeneutic of suspicion that consistently attempts to decode the signals we are receiving from the popular media, not to mention many of our nation’s leaders.
Third, there is good reason for the church to plan its response to any future calls to attack or invade Iran (or any need to respond to a fait accompli). There are indications that far from moderating President Bush and his administration, their increased isolation and the Republican mid-term election losses may be increasing their brazenness. There is even speculation that there are plans to attach Iran once the 2008 elections are done and Bush is truly a lame duck president. Whether this is the case remains to be seen. Either way, now is the time for the church to think critically about our support for violence and war, our culpable quietude regarding torture, our trust and consumption of the corporate media, and the fact that simply disagreeing with American foreign policy in private settings amounts to public silence.
In all this, though, let despair not reign lest we fail to run the race. I must admit that even to talk negatively like this grieves me, for I am an idealist by nature and recoil at realpolitik. Yet, naïve assumptions about the goodness of all intentions do not serve the church or the world at these times. Nonetheless, it is with joy that I note the largely hidden but important parables of the Kingdom that occasionally appear to overcome the profanity of violence. In the aftermath of the Virginia Tech shootings, for example, students at Baghdad Tech hung signs to express their solidarity with the victims. In a city where simply going to school is an act of faith over and against the daily violence, those students lived into the truth that our hope is in solidarity across dividing lines rather than in the empty promises of violent force.
My great, Kingdom-based hope is that we will find ways to build upon these types of connections which the Iraqi students created (rather than simply react to the horrors) and that the fruit of these connections might be resistance to violence, solidarity with all who are poor and oppressed, and joyful community. As I said at the start, Jesus ministered in a world of violence, greed, empire, occupation, terrorism, insurgency, political tumult, and culture wars. Within His own creative, grassroots, actively non-violent response to these things lies the hope of our witness today. If you see how we might do this, let me know, for assuredly the Kingdom is not far behind.
The author holds an MDiv from Princeton Theological Seminary and maintains an active interest in the Middle Eastern affairs and the Kingdom of God.
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