The Mideast
Hehir, J. Bryan
I II I T HE U.S.-SOVIET relationship dominated foreign policy in 1985, culminating in the November summit in Geneva. But the year closed with one more violent reminder that the Middle East...
...JACK CLARK Commonweal: 58...
...role...
...These two views of the U.S...
...It arises from the conviction that the regional powers either will not or cannot move toward a stable solution, and that the cost, to both the region and the United States, is too high to acquiesce to Friedman's iron law and its dire consequences...
...Contrary to Carlin, it often does take courage to be publicly supportive of gay rights . . . . Carlin is absolutely right that you can't separate legislation from its social context...
...As the year begins, I I I I II three elements of the factual situation in...
...While women are a majority (53 percent) of the population, they hold only 14 percent of state legislative seats, 4 percent of gubernatorial posts, and only 5 percent of congressional seats...
...But a first step is to respond to Ajami's contention that neglect is the best policy...
...We should not walk into that trap when others set it for us...
...The notion of our own indispensability is a trap...
...The first view stresses the potential of U.S...
...First, there is little diplomatic progress in spite of some interesting diplomatic activity by King Hussein...
...Two of the essays originally appeared in Commonweal...
...regional tension can be found in many policy questions, it is particularly intense in the Middle East because no one doubts that war in the region is of global significance...
...the depoliticization of the novel and the hidden utopianism of Disneyland -- the topics illustrate both stages in Harrington's political engagement and recurring objects of his concern...
...action, the complexity of cultural, religious, and local forces which the activist conception either ignores or discounts...
...Part of the argument has been that a stand against permissive abortion laws is based on genuinely pro-life suppositions and does not imply a punitive sexual morality...
...in Egypt lack of regional progress simply intensifies the internal strains of Egyptian political and economic life...
...But what kind of engagement is required...
...can help create...
...It's doubtful if the consequences of American activism would be so benign...
...One imperative for pursuing any possible political solution in the region is to deprive irrational forces the space to shape events in the Middle East...
...Ajami contends that the I Church/world watch I I The Mideast: fashioning a U.S...
...That position was expressed in 1985 by the experienced Arabist Fouad Ajami of Johns Hopkins in an article [New York Times, April 14, 1985] entitled, "For More Benign Neglect in the Mideast...
...The second view stresses the narrow range of possibility for U.S...
...troops may be leaving Southern Lebanon within the year, creating a vacuum which the Israelis may decide to fill...
...effort...
...and Israeli responses, he risks overextending himself in the region and even in his own country...
...government...
...I believe Saunders should be read and heeded...
...policy J. Bryan Hehir II I I United States is a catalyst of the wrong kind in the Middle East...
...Not the specifics of treaties or the size of the delegations, but the political conditions which allow leaders to negotiate is something he believes the U.S...
...poverty in America...
...Saunders is closer to Friedman than Ajami...
...he believes stalemate in the region is not benign...
...I am impressed by Ajami's caution but not his conclusion...
...coercive measures are needed, but coercion devoid of a political framework simply escalates the spiral...
...Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, $16.95, 278 pp...
...in Lebanon the new internal peace accord has yet to take hold, and U.N...
...But the year closed with one more violent reminder that the Middle East cannot be ignored...
...Some wisdom comes from one of the most experienced and sober Middle East analysts in the United States, Harold Saunders...
...While this global vs...
...Third, the United States seems devoid of a consistent perspective or policy on the region...
...Without U.S...
...Peres faces the deadline of yielding the Prime Ministry to the Likud...
...Unfortunately for him, you also can't separate the social context from what legislation actually says . . . . Carlin has argued forcefully in the past on the abortion issue...
...J. BRYAN HEHIR Correspondence (Continued from page 34) gay-baiting remains alive and well...
...A set of rules for ensuring minimum social order" is a fine ambition for lawmakers...
...But the absence of a stable political order -among states and within states -- in the Middle East creates a stage where terrorists can perform and a shelter where they can hide...
...The terrorist attacks in the Rome and Vienna airports are not subject to logical analysis or rational restraint, but they point to the unresolved political issues of the Middle East...
...BOX B ST...
...If we situate the Ferraro candidacy within the context of women's continued exclusion from American politics, we may appreciate the seriousness of the bishops' error during the 1984 campaign...
...By any measure, they are grossly underrepresented in the halls of power in this country...
...role will be tested in 1986...
...At the outset of 1986 Saunders sees a modest but crucial U.S...
...LOUIS, MISSOURI 63108-3395 The Other Walls: The Politics of the Arab-Israeli Peace Process [American Enterprise Institute, $17.95, $9.95 paper, 177 pp...
...The essays are ushered onstage with a number of brief but provocative introductions and, at one point, even with some of Harrington's own poetry...
...the legacy of the New Left...
...is now expending on the Middle East...
...The consequences ultimately will be malevolent...
...Second, time is not on the side of peace: in Israel Mr...
...The fruit of that experience is found in a Foreign Affairs article (Winter 1985/86) and in a new book, I s L0uis n/tJ r itp Ig e010gitaI tubtr Doctor o! Philosophy and Master of Arts in i t0rital t!je010gp Master of Arts in religi0u ztul iez additional information...
...Michael Harrington has brought together twenty-five of the many essays he has written over the last three decades...
...It is easier to criticize the absence of policy than to construct one...
...Instead, because of the highly visible attacks of several prominent bishops, the Catholic church appeared to be reactionary rather than progressive, and failed to celebrate the history-making candidacy of the first woman ever to be nominated by a major party to high national office...
...Saunders dealt with the Middle East for twenty years in sev(Continued on page 58) I I Commonweal: 40 dent law and policy -- just as they expect public leaders to respect the right and competence of churchmen to define church teaching: this is one meaning of religious freedom and church-state separation in American politics...
...In this context, the Democratic party's nomination of Ferraro as the first female vicepresidential candidate represented a significant advance in the struggle for political equality...
...In the article Saunders distinguishes between diplomatic negotiations and the political process which makes diplomacy possible...
...Denying them space is not sufficient...
...the Middle East seem clear...
...For a year now," writes Ajami, "the United States has stayed out of trouble in the Middle East and the region has survived the consequences of its benign neglect...
...the opposition to the war in Vietnam...
...Deciding what is moral can and should be left to a broader culture, including bishops and generally eloquent columnist-legislators...
...activism is both undesirable and fated to fail...
...The viability of democratic socialism, both here and overseas...
...Those who carded the guns and grenades in the airports are not interested in conventional notions of a political settlement...
...This proposition is then joined, not by Friedman but by others, to the recommendation that the United States should be vigorously involved in "moving things forward...
...So has Commonweal...
...But the United States is too tied to the Middle East (with Israel, with the Gulf, with Muburak and King Hussein) to sustain a posture of benign neglect...
...It will take more attention and activism than the U.S...
...His reestablishment of the Jordanian-PLO link, and his limited rapproachment with Syrian President Assad are valiant attempts "to move things forward...
...The dominant view flows from a description of the region provided by New York Times correspondent Thomas Friedman on January 5, 1986: "If there is one ironclad rule of Middle Eastern politics, it is that when things are not moving forward they usually move backward...
...action in the Middle East...
...There is much activity at the second level of government (Assistant Secretary of State Richard Murphy) and occasional statements by the president, but these have not provided a sense of policy direction...
...Were the American Catholic hierarchy fully committed to the struggle for equality and equity for women, I suspect they would have refrained from the excesses of a partisan, single-issue attack on Ferraro...
...But Hussein can't act effectively in a diplomatic vacuum...
...In Brief TAKING SIDES: THE EDUCATION OF A MILITANT MIND, by Michael Harrington...
...of violence in the region...
...Church/world watch I (Continued from page 40) eral major positions in the U.S...
...Tying legislative questions into the questions of "the inner life, quest for perfection" calls that distinction into question...
...Policy steps should not be taken without detailed awareness of the regional and local complexities which Ajami knows so well...
...Pursuit of a political solution is universally praised, but the method of pursuit is vehemently disputed, particularly when it concerns the U.S...
...initiatives will only spark fundamentalist Islamic reactions which will retard diplomatic activity and may threaten the governments seen to be allied with a U.S...
...There are two views of what the United States can or should do in the Middle East...
...Neither perspective is wholly convincing, but the tension between them cuts through many problems of U.S...
...The alternative view is that U.S...
...Among those rules can be prohibitions of discrimination against homosexuals...
...The Sadat visit to Jerusalem made the Camp David negotiations possible...
...role in creating the political setting for diplomacy...
Vol. 113 • January 1986 • No. 2
