“Americans are engineers by temperament. We look for problems we can solve and then move on,” according to Michael Nacht, a U.C. Berkeley dean with credentials as both a NASA rocket scientist and a political adviser.
“The problem in the Middle East is not how to build a suspension bridge,” he said during a talk last week. “It’s more like how to get along with your mother-in-law. You can make it better over time, but it will never be perfect.”
Before an audience of about 100 at the Commonwealth Club of California in San Francisco, Nacht described U.S. policy in the Middle East as a “roller-coaster ride” lacking any grand strategy. Until recently, the area was seen just as a rook in the global chess game with the former Soviet Union.
Now, Iraq is the single most important focus for U.S. Mideast policy, said the dean and professor at U.C.’s Richard and Rhoda Goldman School of Public Policy. It provides an opportunity for Islam and democracy to live side by side. But it won’t be easy.
Nacht, a political scientist with expertise in national security and international affairs, served the Clinton administration as an assistant director in the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency and is an adviser to the current secretary of defense. His May 22 talk was part of a lecture series funded by the Koret Foundation to provide education and dialogue about conflicts in Israel and the Middle East.
He thinks chances for democracy are better in Iraq than in Afghanistan. Iraq has an educated middle class and wealth from oil. Afghanistan, a largely tribal society, does not.
In the Arab states of the Middle East, 38 percent of the population is younger than 14, he said. Although once the “cradle of civilization,” the area now lacks freedom, knowledge and equality for women. Foreign books are neither translated nor read. The area’s educational system is based on the transmission of knowledge, not on critical inquiry.
As a result, the region is fertile ground for terrorist recruitment.
In sketching the history of Israel, Nacht said that Arabs have always seen the Jewish state as illegitimate and an entity created by colonial powers. Article seven of the Hamas charter calls for Israel’s destruction.
The intifada has all but destroyed Israel’speace movement, according to Nacht, who sees no regime change while the country’s security is so threatened. “All countries in similar circumstances turn to the right.”
Other Mideast leaders, such as those in Iran and Syria, exploit the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to stay in power.
Nacht said it is difficult to judge how Israeli withdrawal from settlements might foster the peace process. Israel’s exit from Lebanon seemed like a rational step toward peace. Instead, it emboldened Israel’s enemies who felt it demonstrated weakness.
The U.C. dean does not think the removal of Yasser Arafat from office would make more than a symbolic difference. “No matter who leads the PLO [Palestinian Liberation Organization], forces stand ready to wreck the peace process.”
Turning to the situation in Arab countries, he said the recent terror attacks in Morocco are meant as a lesson to those who would collaborate with the enemy. Morocco, a country with strong Western influences and less poverty, has tried to play a constructive role in the peace process.
“Everything in the Middle East is related to everything else, but more so now than before,” according to Nacht. The stability of Pakistan is critical. Iran has the capability of developing nuclear weapons, Syria has chemical weapons and Libya has tried to buy weapons in China.
Nacht told the audience that America’s first priority is to stabilize Iraq.
He said it is not surprising that Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden might remain at large. Even with millions of American troops in Europe it took years to hunt down Nazi leaders after World War II, and some were never found.
He also does not see an early resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. “Probably not in my lifetime, and I speak with my head and not my heart.” What Arabs call “the right of return” would make Jews a small minority in their own country.
“But compromises can be made; People can fudge if they’re in a ‘fudge-able’ mood,” said Nacht.
Nacht concluded that nothing in the Middle East is as it appears. He summed up with a fable:
A tarantula that wants to cross the Nile approaches a camel about to swim across.
The spider requests a ride and the camel naturally refuses, knowing he’ll be stung and die. The spider protests that if he did that he would die too. The camel reluctantly agrees and the spider climbs on his back.
Halfway across, the spider inserts its poison and both begin to sink and drown.
“Why?” asks the camel.
“I don’t know,” said the spider. “It’s the Middle East.”