Former Ambassador Daniel Kurtzer laments that “U.S. standing in the Middle East has eroded rather considerably” in the past 15 years.
Photo by Robert Wiener
Advertisement
September 16, 2009
In a pessimistic portrait of a region where he has spent many years of his professional life, a Middle East adviser in Barack Obama’s presidential campaign said the United States continues to miss opportunities to advance peace and freedom in the region.
“It’s déjà vu all over again,” said Daniel Kurtzer, an Elizabeth native who served as American ambassador to Egypt and Israel.
“It’s not that events necessarily repeat, but very often, policy mistakes that we make in Washington are repeating. We have failed to learn enough from lessons we should have assimilated in the past.”
Kurtzer, visiting professor of Middle East policy studies at Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, spoke at the Rutgers University Student Center in New Brunswick on Sept. 9. His talk was sponsored by the Allen and Joan Bildner Center for the Study of Jewish Life.
“We have seen over the past 15 years U.S. standing in the Middle East erode rather considerably,” he said. “Our ability to get our jobs done has been reduced rather considerably. The influence that we used to carry and we used to good stead has been reduced rather considerably.”
Kurtzer acknowledged that the problems of many Arab states are of “a persistent and endemic character” and seem “impervious to change.” But, he added, those problems are only made worse by “foreign colonialism and domination and often by the policies of external actors,” including America’s.
“We care about democracy, but we project a view of democracy that most of the rest of the world doesn’t like,” he said. “Some argue it has been the policy of our previous administration: ‘You don’t want to be democratic? We’re going of make you democratic and we are going to do so by invading your country, uprooting your army, dislocating your political system, and introducing democratic institutions.’
“It has not necessarily failed, but it has not become a model that others want to emulate. There is nobody out there who wants the 82nd Airborne to invade them in the hope that 10 years later some democratic form of government will be introduced in their country…. The efforts we have made simply have not worked overseas.”
Instead, he said, many parts of the Arab world prefer the “China Model” — combining free market economic reforms with undemocratic control over the local population.
“That ‘China Model’ is quite attractive in many places in the world, because those in power in many countries understand the need to produce economic benefits to their people but are not quite willing to share the political rights and responsibilities of leadership,” said Kurtzer, who served as ambassador to Israel from 2001 to 2005 and to Egypt from 1997 to 2001.
Given some harsh criticism Obama has received from some parts of the Jewish community for a perceived weakening of support for Israel, and the suggestion in his talk that the United States has made little progress in the region since Obama’s election, NJ Jewish News asked Kurzter following his speech if he had any second thoughts about his support for the president’s Mideast policy.
“No,” he said. “I would like to see some enunciation and articulation of a more comprehensive approach to the Middle East, but otherwise I have no second thoughts at all. I think we are going to see him as a great president.”
The Arab world’s ‘deficit of knowledge’
In his talk at Rutgers, Daniel Kurtzer described the Arab world as beset by educational and economic problems, a “deficit of freedom” — especially for women — and a failure to address the root causes of Islamist violence.
The Muslim world, he said, “didn’t use 9/11 as its own wake-up call to ask why so many of the terrorists who had attacked the United States had turned to militant Islam.” Thus, they enabled the use of “religion as an avenue for violence and terrorism and creating chaos.”
But he found a “sense of hope” in two of the United Arab Emirates, Dubai and Qatar, where satellite campuses of American universities are opening. He cited branches of Georgetown, Rice, “and, of all places, Southern Methodist University” in Doha, the capital of Qatar.
“They are trying to develop indigenous educational capabilities by buying them from the West,” he said. “Is this the beginning of addressing the deficit of knowledge? Maybe.”
He said he also found hopeful signs in Syria, which he visited a year ago. “People there are complaining that the Iranians were acting too much like the United States acts with its clients. The Syrians are starting to chafe under Iranian pressure.”
He said the result might lead Syria “to pursue peace with Israel more ambitiously” or “to improve relations with us and open the possibility of Western investments and Western assistance. There may be change afoot that we can look to over the next few years,” he predicted.
Kurtzer was ambassadorial appointee of both former presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. He was a strong supporter and foreign policy adviser to Barack Obama’s presidential campaign.
— ROBERT WIENER
Reader Discussion
Comment on this article
--TOP--
