August 21, 2006--To the Loser Belongs the Spoils

Now Israel and the US have yet another thing in common—not only are we both “democracies,” not only are we both home to millions of Jews, but now we also both lost wars at the same time in the same region. And for many of the same reasons.

Bad news? On the contrary, quite the opposite. More jujitsu.

Ironically, by conventional measures Israel and the US, though having lost—we to the Iraqis, Israel to Hezbollah, are still by far hegemonic: Israel economically and militarily in the Middle East; we in the same ways, as well as culturally, worldwide.

They and we are obviously still exposed to external threats—especially from various forms of terrorism. But neither country is truly imperiled. No one has the capacity to do to us anything like the kinds of lethal harm both of us could potentially do to any conceivable enemies—even a nuclear Iran. And both countries remain by far the strongest regional and global economies.

Yes, radical Islamists and Hezbollah are celebrating in the streets, while also rebuilding what has been destroyed. But maybe, just maybe, their “victories” also represent a great opportunity for peace.

In a NY Times article about how Islamism may now be trumping Arabism (linked below), Dr. Fares Braizat from the Center for Strategic Studies at the University of Jordan says that one of the reasons divisions between Shiites and Sunnis are being blurred is because they share a common denominator—“People want their dignity back.” Having been losers for so long, to the West and Israel, dignity is in short supply in the region, and this may help explain all the frustration and murderous rage.

But victory, even the perception of victory, can help restore people’s dignity.

As a radical suggestion, therefore, why don't we declare the Iraqi insurgents and the Hezbollah fighters victors? Why not congratulate them as two boxers do at the end of even bloody struggles. This might help restore their essential dignity.

And, here’s the reason to do this--as they come to feel better about themselves and thereby gather psychic strength, we should seek to sit down with them, somewhere in private, as “equals” to see if we can make a deal to begin to end the violence on all sides and work out solutions to ancient problems.

There is evidence that this approach has worked in other seemingly intractable situations—in Northern Ireland (where the British “lost”) and particularly Vietnam, which may be the closest parallel, because there we clearly “lost” to a “weaker” enemy. In both cases there has been at least an outcome acceptable to both sides and there is as a result a reasonable peace.

This works best when the more powerful party (Britain, the US, Israel) acts magnanimously—recognizing its still hegemonic power while simultaneously realizing that the best way to use that power is to seek peace and not have to deploy it in the air or on the ground, which ultimately doesn’t work.

When superpowers have acted this way, out of enlightened self-interest, they have found the security that all of their power could not bring.

I know that these kinds of suggestions would be viewed as naïve and politically suicidal if promulgated by the opposition (the Labor Party in Israel, the Democrats here); but in the spirit that only a Nixon could have made a deal with “Red” China, the Bush administration could try to right its place in history by stepping back, looking at reality, and making these kinds of grand and “generous” gestures.

It might just work.