Iraq, Lebanon, The Middle East:
In Search of a Rational Foreign Policy
Foresight and connecting the
Dots: The politics of worldviews and disowned selves/collectivities
Sohail Inayatullah
For the foresight practitioner, what is most stunning about the war in
Iraq, the recent war in Lebanon and the war on terror is the lack of
capacity of Western governments to connect the dots.
While surveillance continues to
heighten, the British Prime Minister Tony Blair appears to have
forgotten part two of his formula, that is, tough on crime/terror and
tough on the causes of crime/ terror. The links between recent foiled
terror attacks in England and the war against Lebanon (or Hezbollah) are
not noticed. While radio stations take calls by Muslims asking for a
fairer more balanced – reasonable and rational – policy and strategy
from England, Blair continues to tow the American line.
Taking the future into account,
the American response appears neither reasonable nor rational. That is,
we have seen that sanctions and wars do not isolate particular groups -
Serbs have not become more democratic since they were bombed (the
extreme right remains ever alive), and Iraq certainly is far from having
become democratic; rather it is in a midst of a civil war and may have
become a haven for terrorists –the exact opposite of USA strategy and
planning goals. Bombing people into democracy does not appear to be a
viable strategy; in fact, the violence becomes internalized, and is
considered by those bombed as the rational strategy.
However, the memory of World War
II remains – total destruction followed by rebuilding. Generals appear
to continue to fight today’s wars with the memory of previous wars. What
made the German experience different was near total annihilation
followed by a real hearts and minds rebuilding. The war in Lebanon has
weakened if not destroyed any possibility of hearts and minds changing.
Indeed, conspiracy theories, already the dominant currency in the Arab
world, have become even more inflated.
Irrespective of one’s views
toward Al-Qaeda – their demand of withdrawal of western armies from the
Arabian Peninsula appear reasonable. Earlier, they offered a ceasefire
in Iraq, and yet, most reasonable and rational parties would look toward
dialogue. Of course, the trauma of 9/11 in the USA – the pain of the
families who lost loved ones along with the shock of an attack on the
world’s imperial power removes any chance of a dialogue.
Or is there some other worldview
that is so forceful that rationality is lost, something deeper than
trauma as well. We know that after the USA initial victory in Iraq, the
entire Iraqi army was disbanded: 400,000 solders fired. Certainly a bit
of foresight could see that unemployed, angry, dishonored men would
provide a reserve army for outside recruiters. Iraq, once authoritarian
and totalitarian, is now the Wild West - the site of the terrorism and
Sunni-Shia fault lines. But it was not the rational that was victorious
but a desire for revenge and the deep Orientalism of the victors, i.e.
Iraqis are inferior. Subsequent rapes and prisoner abuse point this out.
Orientalism creates the framework wherein others are reduced to
sub-humanity. In short: war others all.
OTHER DISCOURSES
What are other discourses that
explain the irrationality of today’s geo-politics?
First, as mentioned above is
Orientalism – they are barbaric, evil, to be destroyed. A “new”
form of this is extreme evangelism, the hope for a united Israel,
leading to Armageddon – with two billion to die – followed by the return
of Jesus, and heaven on Earth. It appears that the President of the USA,
Bush supports this view. Secondly, the inverse holds true also. The
extreme Islamic version of this appears to be supported by the President
of Iran, who too waits for the 12th Imam to come back and
save the world.
A third related discourse is
that of the triumph of democracy – eventually a new middle east will
emerge once Iraqis, Hezbollah, and others discover the joys of
Westernism. In the Iranian case, however, it is the CIA disposal of the
Iranian prime-minister Mohammad Mossadegh in1953
that is a more recent memory, not to the mention the Iranian’s own
desire for Empire.
At another level, this is merely
the paradigm of good versus evil being played out in the body politic.
American society lives out this drama and cannot rest unless this
struggle is played on CNN nightly and now far more disturbingly on Fox
News. That is, the USA needs an enemy to exist – with the fall of
Russia; Islam has taken its place. Next will be China and East Asia in
general. Islam, as part of the Judaeo-Christian- tradition (the three
brothers), is also part of the good-evil field.
Perhaps far saner discourses are
the feminist and the environmentalist. War itself is the problem – it is
inequitable, killing the most vulnerable on each side. War is not an
equal opportunity killer, as we have seen in Lebanon and in Israel. The
environment too suffers – mountains are destroyed, and now with the Oil
spill in Lebanon, water too is destroyed. Nature is the victim of
patriarchy. Democracies do not attack democracies because they are busy
attacking ‘lesser forms of governance’, ‘more vulnerable humans,’ and
‘nature herself,’ as Ivana Milojevic has argued (www.metafuture.org)
Equally valuable is the work of
Hal and Sidra Stone (http://www.enotalone.com/authors.php?aid=14)
[1]
with their focus on disowned selves. The self disowned is the problem;
it is seen as ‘out there’, objective and in need of colonization,
conversion or destruction. However, this objective external reality is
created by the evolution of the dominant self – thus extreme Islam is
the disowned self of the West.
Less internal is classic
political-economy. We know that who gains from conflict are the arms
merchants underwritten by the usual suspects: USA, Britain, Israel,
China and France.
These discourses help explain
the irrationality – why the USA would support a war that will only
create more terrorism, i.e. dysfunctionality will be met by more
dysfunctionality. With a youth boom predicted to continue for the next
20 years in the Arabian Peninsula, we can see that more rather than less
war is likely.
Solving Israel-Palestine on
terms of dignity for the Palestinians remains the issue. It is
absolutely stunning that there are still refugee camps in Lebanon –
these are now permanent camps. Generations of pathology have been
created and will continue to be created. The neural pathways of
Palestinians and Israelis remain focused on fear and war – that is what
is now normal. They may not even be able to find a solution themselves –
it may require a super-ordinate power, i.e. no more funding to either
group until they find systemic solutions. We know that
worldview/cultural solutions will take much longer – i.e. creating
identities not based on fear and revenge but on forgiveness.
GLOBAL LEVEL – MOVING FORWARD
While there are certainly
excellent ways forward, as for example developed by Johan Galtung
through his Transcend conflict resolution method (www.transcend.org)[2],
at the global level, I believe we cannot move forward in our human
evolution until this problem is solved. Hoping that a massive war will
solve it forgets that war creates more memories, more stories of revenge
and hate – healing does not occur. For Israel to succeed, or for the
Israeli haters to succeed, every last person must die. Who has the
stomach for that, not to mention morality? Yet, without transformation
we face more irrational bleeding, fighting with no solutions in sight,
only temporary winners and losers. Arab populations remain lost in
conspiracy theories, on the problem of Israel, or when that is solved
(on the problem of the Kurd, or Shia, or…)
Most leaders cannot see this –
their worldview does not allow it. Perhaps this is just our evolutionary
stage – we remain locked in vicious lock-ins – but if we are to survive,
certainly more robust global governance is needed, as well as ways to
move past our worldviews of co-dependency, of good and evil, and
Armageddon. Until then, our disowned selves keep coming back to kill.
Can we listen and change?
If not, perhaps this poem by
Patricia Kelly will remind us why we must!
Bomblet meditation
The let of the past was a dainty diminutive.
Anklets jingled on chubby legs
Circlets of flowers crowned gods and brides
Ringlets flounced on moppets’ heads.
‘Bomblets’ are a lethal present.
Metal shards shatter
anklets and circlets
ringlets and moppets
brides and gods
and language
alike.
[1]
Essential here is the work of Hal and Sidra Stone. They focus on the
disowned selves – selves that we push away as we focus on particular
identities. For academics, in the search for the purity of truth,
the business self is pushed away. Classically for the corporate
world, the ethical self is pushed away in the drive for profits.
Integrating these various selves may be the most important challenge
for academics. See http://www.enotalone.com/authors.php?aid=14
[2]
See Johan Galtung, The Middle East: Building Blocks for Peace.
Journal of Futures Studies. Vol 11, No2, November 2006.