Fawaz A. Gerges
Says More…
Aug 27, 2024
This week in Say More, PS talks with Fawaz A. Gerges, Professor of International Relations at the London School of Economics and the author of What Really Went Wrong: The West and the Failure of Democracy in the Middle East.
Project Syndicate: In January, you lamented that for many in the Middle East and across the Global South, Israel’s military campaign in Gaza is “as much US President Joe Biden’s
war as it is Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s,” and Biden
will be remembered as “just another American leader whose actions betray
a lack of concern for Arab lives.” When the next US administration
takes over, is there a US policy approach toward Israel that is both
realistic, from a domestic political perspective, and more responsive to
the needs of Arabs?
Fawaz A. Gerges: Any
discussion of what is politically “realistic” within the United States,
in terms of responding to the needs of the Arab people, runs up against
a fundamental problem: America’s Middle-East policy is shaped
significantly by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC).
This precludes an approach that is fair, balanced, and even-handed
And
it is not just AIPAC: special interests and lobbyists have a
stranglehold on US foreign policy, in what amounts to a crisis of
democracy. Until their grip is broken – through campaign-finance reform
and the broadening and diversification of the foreign-policy community
(a generational aspiration) – any substantive change in American policy
is unlikely.
PS: As you pointed out in your commentary – and detail in your new book, What Really Went Wrong: The West and the Failure of Democracy in the Middle East
– the US and other Western powers have, for nearly a century, pursued
an “interventionist, militaristic, and anti-democratic foreign policy”
driven largely by the “desire to roll back communism and secure the
dominance of liberal capitalism.” Is it too late for the West to mend
fences with the Global South, and what risks arise when alternative
powers like China attempt to fill gaps left by the West?
FG: It
is never too late for the West to mend fences with the Global South;
history is not destiny. But doing so would require the US immediately
and fundamentally to change how it acts on the world stage. As I have written
elsewhere, America’s preponderant support for Israel’s war in Gaza may
ultimately represent a great rupture in international relations,
hardening long-dormant fault lines between the West and the Global South
and shattering the international liberal order that has underpinned
American hegemony since the end of World War II.
A growing number of people in the Global South think that the rules are different for “the West” and “the rest,” and recent opinion polls
suggest that China is gaining ground in the Global South at America’s
expense. That said, China has neither the desire nor the hard military
power to establish an informal “empire” in the Middle East, as the West
has. Unlike the US, China is interested mainly in geoeconomics, not
geopolitics, and it pursues transactional relations with Middle Eastern
states.
PS:
Understanding the flaws in America’s approach to the Middle East, you
explain in your book, is “fundamental to imagining a new future for the
region.” Following the election in Iran of a reformist president, do you
see opportunities not only for a more constructive Western policy
toward the country, but also for “diplomatic openings and new security
arrangements” of the kind that seemed possible in 2021?
FG: It
is difficult to see opportunities for the normalization of relations
between Iran and Western governments, particularly the US – to put it
mildly. If Donald Trump wins the US presidential election this November,
there is a real danger of a military confrontation between the US and
Iran.
As I explain in my
book, the US and Iran remain caught in a deadly dance. Over the past
four decades, they have nearly come to military blows several times,
with potentially devastating implications for international peace and
security, yet both sides have remained unwilling fully to come to terms
with the past and reconcile. Now, Israel’s war in Gaza risks escalating
into a wider regional conflagration, which would drag the US, France,
and the United Kingdom into direct military conflict with Iran and its
local allies.
BY THE WAY . . .
PS:
Your book explores what might have been in the Middle East, had the
region’s newly independent countries been “allowed to chart their own
development immediately after the end of European colonial rule.” Where
do we see this historically? Which decisions, had they been different,
might have contributed to making the region more “stable, prosperous,
and pluralistic”?
FG: Let us consider Iran, which is a central case study in my book. In 1953, a US-backed coup
removed the country’s democratically elected progressive leader,
Muhammad Mossadegh, and installed Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. This
ruptured political life in Iran, triggering a cascade of crises that
radically altered the country’s political and developmental trajectory.
Values were corrupted, and constitutionalism, liberalism, and pluralism
suffered a powerful blow, making way for the rise of radical and
revolutionary ideologies like Marxism and Shia Islamism. It thus set the
stage for the 1979 Iranian Revolution.
We know the legacies
of America’s 1953 intervention: uninterrupted authoritarianism – under
both the repressive rule of the Pahlavi monarchy and the clerical rule
that followed Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s subsequent takeover – and an
acrimonious US-Iran relationship. But what would have happened if the
US had not intervened? As I show in my book, most Iranians seem to
believe that democracy and political secularism – values that are
routinely invoked by the US – may well have established deep roots in
their country. A democratic Iran could have been a peaceful country and
an example for its neighbors.
PS:
While your book focuses on the Middle East, you also consider
Guatemala’s experience for comparative purposes. Which parallels and
divergences stand out, and what do they imply about the motivations and
impact of US policy toward both regions?
FG: The
Middle East has experienced more than its share of covert and overt
American interventions, but it is not alone. The US waged multiple
battles on many fronts in its efforts to roll back Soviet communism,
tame assertive nationalist leaders, and secure the dominance of liberal
capitalism. One of those fronts was Guatemala.
The CIA toppled
Guatemalan President Jacobo Árbenz just a year after engineering
Mossadegh’s ouster, for many of the same reasons – just replace “oil”
with “land.” Whereas Mossadegh “sinned” (according to US President
Dwight D. Eisenhower’s administration) by nationalizing the oil
industry, Árbenz transgressed by launching agrarian reforms and
undertaking land redistribution. Both Mossadegh and Arbenz pursued
centralized economic development and “neutralism” in foreign policy –
approaches that were anathema to the US.
The consequences of
America’s intervention in Guatemala can be considered even more
catastrophic than what happened in Iran. Whereas Iran descended into
political authoritarianism, Guatemala was plunged into a brutal 36-year
civil war that cost over 200,000 lives in a country of just 4.1 million.
PS: In What Really Went Wrong,
you describe Egyptian leader Gamal Abdel Nasser as an “enduring symbol
of Arab unity,” who “continues to inspire those seeking dignity.” What
lessons does Nasser’s story hold for the people of the Middle East and
their leaders?
FG: Western-backed
rulers learned that human-rights abuses and clampdowns on popular
dissent would be ignored as long as the US government’s orders were
followed. And the people of the Middle East learned that, in the eyes of
oil-addicted US policymakers dedicated to maintaining the authoritarian
status quo, their rights are dispensable.
After World War II,
ordinary people in the region had genuine goodwill and admiration for
the US. But that has since been replaced by mistrust, suspicion, and
even hatred. Whatever lingering doubt the people of the Middle East
might have had about American hostility was destroyed by the
decades-long US “war on terror.”
America’s complicity in Israeli crimes in Gaza was the final straw. In a survey
conducted by the Doha Institute’s Arab Center for Research and Policy
Studies this past January, more than 75% of respondents across the Arab
world cited the US (and Israel) as the “biggest threat” to the region’s
“security and stability.”