The problem with so many realists is they allow ideological blinders to get in the way of both evidence and dispassionate analysis. Gen. Brent Scowcroft has long championed engagement with the worst dictatorships in the name of realism and a skewed perception of American national security interests.
This year’s Arab Spring should have been a wake-up call. Perhaps the tête-à-têtes with regional leaders, embassy cocktail parties, and interactions in five-star hotels did not provide a realistic notion of the issues which mattered most on the proverbial Arab street. Perhaps events should force introspection about personal biases. Alas, in the case of Scowcroft, they appeared instead to have reinforced personal biases and discredited analysis.
A columnist for Turkey’s Hurriyet Daily News recently interviewed Scowcroft in Washington. A key portion of the resulting column:
Gen. Brent Scowcroft, national security adviser to presidents Gerald Ford and George H. W. Bush, in an interview in his office a block from the White House, told me that the “dissent or the growing hostility [against U.S.] in the region really comes from what they [Arabs] see as U.S. support for Israel as much as anything else. We are identified with our support to Israel’s subjugation of Palestinians…” According to Scowcroft, as he reflected the thoughts of an important part of foreign policy elite in Washington, “because of injustice that the Arabs and Palestinians perceive, while they try to get rid of oppressive regimes through protests in various states, they also appear to want to get rid of this injustice… I think that sense of injustice is a deeper sentiment of the Arab Spring than the demands for democracy.”
It’s time for the realists to wake up and smell reality: While the lack of peace in the Middle East is problematic, it is but one of many problems which afflict the region. Of far more concern to ordinary Arabs across the Middle East are: corruption, authoritarianism, torture, lack of opportunity, and economic stagnation. None of these are Israel’s fault, and they are only America’s responsibility in that old guard officials like Scowcroft refuse to remove their ideological blinders to understand that Arabs from Syria to Saudi Arabia to the Western Sahara don’t like the White House supporting dictatorships. Scowcroft shouldn’t talk down to Arabs. When they protest for democracy, they are not simply channeling outrage at Israel. They are seeking democracy, and it should be a U.S. interest to ensure they get it rather than have their efforts channeled into another dictatorship, Islamist or otherwise.
