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My Goldilocks solution for the Middle East

In the final report of their Middle East Strategy Task Force issued yesterday, Steve Hadley and Madeleine Albright say

…the days of external powers trying to orchestrate and even dictate political reality in the region are finished. So is a regional political order of governments demanding obedience in return for public sector employment and related state subsidies.

They paint instead a future of external powers collaborating to help end civil wars, listening to local voices, and interacting with more responsive and inclusive governments. Their sovereignty restored, if need be by military action, these governments would join in partnerships with each other and compacts with external powers to encourage local initiatives, harness human resources, and incentivize regional cooperation. What’s not to like?

It’s that premise, which looks to me wrong. The US decisions not to or orchestrate or dictate a political outcome in Syria and Libya do not mean that the days of international intervention are over. Russia and Iran are for now doing quite well at it, even if in the end I think they will regret it. Egypt has in fact restored its autocracy and Bashar al Assad clearly intends to do so in Syria. Does anyone imagine that the post-war regime in Yemen will be a more inclusive and responsive one? It isn’t likely in Libya either.

I agree with Madeleine and Steve that failing to implement something like the reforms they point to will likely mean continuation of instability, incubation of extremists, and jihadist resurgence, even if the war against Islamic State is successful in removing it from its control of territory in Iraq and Syria. The instability in the Middle East is clearly the result of governance failures associated with the Arab republics, which had neither the direct control over oil resources required to buy off their citizens nor the wisdom to empower them and enable more decentralized and effective governance.

The question, which Ken Pollack rightly asks, is whether the US has the will and the resources required even to begin to end the civil wars and encourage the required reforms. I think the answer is all too obviously “no.” Ken suggests this means the US would be wiser to flee than to fight with inadequate means.

But the way in which we flee matters. It is the US military presence in the Middle East, which represents upwards of 90% of the costs, that needs to draw down, if only because it is a terrorist target and helps them to recruit. It totals on the order of $80 billion per year, a truly astronomical sum. While I haven’t done a detailed analysis, it is hard to imagine that we couldn’t draw down half the US military in the Middle East once the Islamic State has been chased from the territory it controls without much affecting the things Ken thinks we should still care about: Israel, terrorism, and oil.

Oil is the one so many people find inescapable, including Ken. It is traded in a global market, so a disruption anywhere means a price hike everywhere, damaging the global economy. But there are far better ways to avoid an oil price hike than sending a US warship into the strait of Hormuz, which only makes the price hike worse. For example:

1. getting India and China to carry 90 days of imports as strategic stocks (as the International Energy Agency members do),
2. encouraging them to join in multilateral naval efforts to protect oil trade,
3. getting oil producers to build pipelines that circumvent Hormuz (and the Bab al Mandab), and
4. encouraging Iran and Saudi Arabia to build a multilateral security system for the Gulf that enables all the riparian states a minimum of protection from their neighbors while encouraging protection as well for their own populations.

I would add that we need to continue to worry about nuclear proliferation, because the Iran deal only provides a 15-year hiatus, and to provide assistance to those in the Middle East who are ready and willing to try to reform their societies in directions that respect human rights.

All of this requires far more diplomatic commitment than we have been prepared to ante up lately, but it is not expensive (for the US) or unimaginable for others. A vigorous diplomatic effort far short of what Madeleine and Steve advocate but far more than Ken’s “flight” is the right formula in my view.