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NYTimes.com Article: When Savage Passions Set a Trap for the World(fwd) by Boris Stremlin 15 April 2002 04:15 UTC |
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The Guns of April? With systemic bifurcation upon us, it is good to know we have such competent and intelligent leadership... \----------------------------------------------------------/ When Savage Passions Set a Trap for the World April 14, 2002 By R. W. APPLE Jr. WASHINGTON - As events spun disastrously out of control in August of 1914, Sir Edward Grey, the British foreign secretary, summed up the situation in a despondent remark that has been remembered ever since. "The lamps are going out all over Europe," he said. "We shall not see them lit again in our lifetime." Things in the Middle East have not reached that point yet, and Secretary of State Colin L. Powell is an inveterate optimist. But a less sanguine man, confronted with the task of promoting peace at a time when the Israelis and the Palestinians are locked in a cycle of reciprocal violence, savage even by their standards, might pronounce a verdict almost as gloomy as Sir Edward's. The Middle East has been one of the most flammable parts of the world for many decades, of course. War and near-war have been the norm there for much of the half-century since the end of World War II. But there are good reasons to consider the current crisis not only more severe but significantly different from those in the recent past. It has potential implications far beyond the Holy Land, indeed far beyond the Middle East - implications for the American war on terror, for the relationship between the United States and its European allies, for India and Pakistan. It could spill over into Syria, which might jump at the chance to confront Israel if Israeli officials follow up on their veiled threats to hit Syrian targets. It could destabilize Jordan, a force for moderation. Until it is defused, the prospect of significant European or Islamic support for an attempt to oust Saddam Hussein of Iraq is next to nil. And if an explosion in the Middle East should tempt someone like Mr. Hussein to interrupt oil flows or unleash weapons of mass destruction, the stakes quickly become global, challenging the major powers, even more than they are challenged today, to distinguish what is prudent from what is rash. In that way, if in no other, the situation today evokes the trap of out-of-control events that history set for Europe in 1914. Then vanity, miscalculation and new weapons and tactics set the stage for military stalemate on a catastrophic scale, and once war started, rigid alliances assured that virtually all of Europe would be involved. Rigid alliances are not the problem today, of course, and Americans seem justifiably confident of their superiority on the battlefield. But broad resentment of the United States - in the third world especially, but in corners of Europe too - could unite other countries in ways that frustrate American faith in an inevitable victory in the long war against terror. "Afghanistan and Iraq, the Middle East and the rest of the Islamic world - they're separate now, but they're all related, and none of us knows exactly how they will interact," said Richard C. Holbrooke, the veteran diplomatic trouble-shooter under Democratic presidents. "Many different scenarios could lead us into `The Guns of August.' Our goal must be to prevent that." But that will be difficult to do at a time when the leaders of both the Israelis and the Palestinians appear to believe that the very existence of their people is at stake (whether that is correct or not), and that only the use of brute force will keep them from being exterminated. Mr. Powell tried last week, without immediate success, to disabuse them of that view, warning Prime Minister Ariel Sharon of Israel that no matter how long he pursued his offensive, it would not end terrorism. "The violence and anger and frustration which feeds that will still be there unless we find a negotiating process," he said. But at almost the same moment, the White House was describing Mr. Sharon as "a man of peace," and the events of the last few weeks have only strengthened the two leaders' popularity with their publics. They have little incentive to change course. A European diplomat, not at all unfriendly to the United States, commented last week: "It has become a self-fulfilling prophecy - in the Middle East, terrorism pays. The extremists have destroyed the Oslo peace process. Meanwhile, I fear we're creating more terrorists by the minute." Mr. Sharon and his nemesis, Yasir Arafat of the Palestinian Authority, are both playing much stronger hands now than they held a year or so ago. Seemingly fading in his role as the international spokesman for the Palestinians earlier this year, Mr. Arafat has been accorded near-martyr status by the Israeli tanks that have pinned him down in Ramallah. Under formidable international pressure to pull back from the West Bank, Prime Minister Sharon has been reinforced in his defiance by a series of Palestinian suicide bombings that have come at crucial moments. "The situation is totally, completely out of control, in a way it has never quite been before," said Judith Kipper, a top Middle East specialist at the Council on Foreign Relations. "There's no adult supervision, which can come only from the United States." Early on, the Bush administration adopted a more passive approach to the Middle East than most of its predecessors. For a time, it had no special envoy to the region, and when it began sending prominent officials there, most recently Secretary Powell, it did so without explicit mandates, according to American and other diplomats. AT a time when the United States boasts the greatest military force in its history, when it is able to project that force around the world, it faces a precipitous decline in its influence in one of the arenas of greatest importance. In large part, this has resulted from the rashness of the two leaders, which makes the usual diplomatic, political and economic pressures less useful; but the United States did little to restrain them before the situation began going rapidly downhill. Neither the European Union nor the United Nations has any significant influence over Israel, and public opinion in Europe has turned sharply against United States policy in the region. The sweeping support enjoyed by President Bush's anti-terror policy has dissolved on the Continent. European leaders argue that the American president has failed in what they see as his responsibility to rein in Mr. Sharon, on whom they place much of the blame for the current violence. On the surface, Britain has proved a more steadfast ally. Prime Minister Tony Blair has not only dispatched Royal Marines to Afghanistan but also made a speech in Texas pledging support for any American campaign in Iraq. But he is well out ahead of public opinion, especially within his own Labor Party. "I don't remember the last time Europe and the United States looked at an important issue as differently," said Anthony Sampson, the British author and journalist. "Maybe Vietnam." In truth, Europe is still trying to adjust to a world with a single superpower, and it is having a hard time doing so. It sees American military spending that far outstrips its own and worries, but is unwilling to allocate more money to defense. Respect for American military successes in Afghanistan coexists with resentment of American power. They fear being left out of big decisions, even as Mr. Bush appeals for unity against terrorists. "To tell you the truth," a European minister told an American acquaintance recently, "we really don't know where we are. We don't know what the United States will do, or the Israelis, or the Palestinians, or the other countries in the Middle East. And we don't know what we should do, either." As Barbara Tuchman wrote about the beginning of World War I in "The Guns of August" (Macmillan, 1962), when so many elements in the equation are changing it is easy for strategists to delude themselves into thinking that, with a bit of luck, they can prevail. Rational calculations become difficult. So they appear to be these days. If all the lights are not yet out in the Middle East, they are rapidly blinking off. In the murk of death and destruction, with alliances in flux, it is harder and harder, even for the experts, to see who will be able to switch them back on, and when. http://www.nytimes.com/2002/04/14/weekinreview/14APPL.html?ex=1019764892&ei=1&en=3d323ee660b54145 HOW TO ADVERTISE --------------------------------- For information on advertising in e-mail newsletters or other creative advertising opportunities with The New York Times on the Web, please contact onlinesales@nytimes.com or visit our online media kit at http://www.nytimes.com/adinfo For general information about NYTimes.com, write to help@nytimes.com. Copyright 2002 The New York Times Company
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