I didn't realize this at first, but what Barack Obama was
really doing in the Middle East last week was setting up a test of competing IR
theories.
As we've come to expect, the centerpiece of Obama's trip was
a beautifully crafted speech to a select group of Israeli students. It's really what he does best: offer a cloud
of rhetoric designed to seduce, cajole, and convince. Remember back in 2009, when he gave great
speeches in Istanbul, Prague, Cairo, and Oslo, and then failed to follow
through on any of them? Having been
reelected, it's back to the 2009 playbook.
This time around, he went to great lengths to convey his
deep affection and regard for Israel and his commitment to Zionism. He told Israelis that the U.S.-Israel
relationship was "eternal" (a pledge no mortal can actually make), and offered
up the usual bromides about keeping Iran from getting a nuclear bomb. A lot of that stuff was just pandering to the
Israel lobby, but he played his part effectively, and the Israeli reaction has
been quite positive.
Obama also offered rhetorical support for Palestinian
aspirations, and his speech went further than any of his predecessors. He spoke openly of their "right to
self-determination and justice" and invited his Israeli listeners "to look at
the world through their eyes." He also
told them "neither occupation nor expulsion is the answer" and said "Palestinians
have a right to be a free people in their own land." He reiterated his call for direct negotiations -- though
he no longer suggests that Israel stop building more settlements -- and he called
upon his youthful audience to "create the change that you want to see."
But that's all he did.
He did not say that a Palestinian state would have to be fully
sovereign (i.e., entitled to have its defense forces). He did not give any indication of where he
thought the borders of such a state might lie, or whether illegal settlements
like Ariel (whose presence cuts the West Bank in two) would have to be
abandoned. He did not say that future American
support for Israel would be conditional on its taking concrete steps to end the
occupation and allow for the creation of a viable state (i.e. not just a bunch of vulnerable Bantustans). On the contrary, his every move and phrase
made it clear that Israelis could count on the United States
providing generous and unconditional support to the vastly stronger of the two
parties. He made no mention of a special
envoy or an "Obama plan." In short, he
did not announce a single concrete policy initiative designed to advance the
vision of "two states for two peoples" that he first laid out in the
almost-forgotten Cairo speech of June 2009.
And therein lies the test of competing theories. There is a broad school
of thought in international relations -- often labeled "social
constructivism" -- which maintains that discourse can be of
tremendous importance in shaping the conduct of states. In this view,
how leaders talk and how
intellectuals write gradually shapes how we all think, and over time
these
discursive activities can exert a tremendous influence on norms,
identities, and
perceptions of what is right and what is possible.
It is this view of the world that President Obama was
channeling during his trip. By telling
Israelis that he loved them and by telling both Israelis and Palestinians that
the latter had just as much right to a state as the former, he was hoping to
mold hearts and minds and convince them -- through logic and reason -- to end their
century-old conflict. And make no
mistake: He was saying that peace would require a powerful and increasingly
wealthy Israel to make generous concessions, because the Palestinians have hardly
anything more to give up. As Churchill
put it, "in victory, magnanimity."
Discourse does matter in some circumstances, of course, and
perhaps Obama's words will prompt some deep soul-searching within the Israeli
political establishment. But there is
another broad family of IR theories -- the realist family -- and it maintains that
what matters most in politics is power and how it is applied. In this view, national leaders often say
lots of things they don't really mean, or they say things they mean but then fail
to follow through on because doing so would be politically costly. From this perspective, words sometimes
inspire and may change a few minds on occasion, but they are rarely enough
to overcome deep and bitter conflicts. No matter how well-written or delivered, a speech
cannot divert whole societies from a well-established course of action. Policies in motion tend to remain in motion; to
change the trajectory of a deeply-entrenched set of initiatives requires the application
of political forces of equal momentum.
For realists like me, in short, halting a colonial
enterprise that has been underway for over forty years will require a lot more
than wise and well-intentioned words. Instead, it would require the exercise of
power. Just as raw power eventually
convinced most Palestinians that Israel's creation was not going to be reversed,
Israelis must come to realize that denying Palestinians a state of their own is
going to have real consequences. Although Obama warned that the occupation was preventing Israel from gaining
full acceptance in the world, he also made it clear that Israelis could count
on the United States to insulate them as much as possible from the negative effects
of their own choices. Even at the purely
rhetorical level, in short, Obama's eloquent words sent a decidedly mixed
message.
Because power is more important than mere rhetoric, it won't
take long before Obama's visit is just another memory. The settlements will keep expanding, East
Jerusalem will be cut off from the rest of the West Bank, the Palestinians will
remain stateless, and Israel will continue on its self-chosen path to
apartheid. And in the end, Obama will
have proven to be no better a friend to Israel or the Palestinians than any of
his predecessors. All of them claimed to
oppose the occupation, but none of them ever did a damn thing to end it. And
one of Obama's successors will eventually have to confront the cold fact that
two states are no longer a realistic possibility. What will he or she say then?
http://walt.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2013/03/25/empty_words
Wednesday 27 March 2013
Empty words
Posted @ 23:53
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