The 13th Annual Arab-US Policymakers Conference (AUSPC) was convened in Washington, DC on September 12-13, 2004 with the theme "Restoring Arab-U.S. Mutual Trust and Confidence: What is Feasible? What is Necessary?"  

A panel of distinguished leaders from the United States and Saudi Arabia shared their insights in a panel addressing the "Strategic Overview" of US-Arab relations.  The panel included: Chair, The Hon. Frances D. Cook, President, The Ballard Group and former Ambassador to Oman; Dr. Anthony H. Cordesman, Arleigh Burke Chair in Strategy, Center for Strategic and International Studies; and Dr. Michael C. Hudson, Director, Center for Contemporary Arab Studies.

We are pleased today to share Dr. Cordesman's presentation on a new strategy for U.S.-Arab relations.

In the coming days we will feature more presentations from the AUSPC.  For a complete list of the agenda items presented in SUSRIS click here. 

The AUSPC conferences are organized by the National Council on US-Arab Relations (NCUSAR), a Washington-based not for profit organization that seeks to improve understanding of the Arab world among Americans.

Beyond Anger and Counterterrorism: A New Grand Strategy for U.S. and Arab Relations Anthony Cordesman

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Nearly one thousand years ago, at the time of the Crusades, a Syrian Arab poet warned that most people thought that the world was divided into three parts: Christian, Jew, and Muslim. He stated that the truth was very different; the world was divided into two parts--those who believe and those who think.

It is time for governments to take the side of those who think. In practice, this means we need a new approach to grand strategy; and one that openly addresses the need to create common bonds between what the Koran calls the "peoples of the book." We need action to create what Prince Turki Al Faisal Al Sa'ud of Saudi Arabia has called a Judeo-Christian-Islamic ethic.

The Need for a New Approach to Grand Strategy

The actions of Osama Bin Laden and other Islamic extremists have exposed a fundamental failure to bridge the ideological and cultural gaps between Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.

The end result is a common threat in forms of Islamic extremism that cannot tolerate other interpretations of Islam, much less Judaism and Christianity.

We are seeing a breakdown of long-standing alliances, and growing bitterness that is becoming underlying hatred in the Arab-Israeli conflict. We see religiously inspired insurgency and asymmetric war in Afghanistan and Iraq. We see efforts to acquire and use weapons of mass destruction against those with different cultures and religions.

The Underlying Forces at Work

So far, governments have reacted largely by treating the symptoms and not the disease. Counterterrorism is essential to deal with the most obvious and damaging symptoms, but it cannot deal with the underlying causes.

Military force is sometimes necessary. However, it is now all too clear in Iraq that it can create as many -- or more -- problems than it solves.

The practical results are all too clear from an August survey by the Pew Research Center, and one that clearly shows how the divisions between the West and Middle East affect moderate and traditionally friendly states.

The Pew group reported, "In the predominantly Muslim countries surveyed, anger toward the United States remains pervasive.. Osama bin Laden is viewed favorably by large percentages in Pakistan (65%), Jordan (55%) and Morocco (45%). Even in Turkey, where bin Laden is highly unpopular, as many as 31% say that suicide attacks against Americans and other Westerners" are justifiable.

Empty US calls for instant, region-wide democracy and political reform are producing a dangerous counterreaction in much of the Arab world. A Western focus on counterterrorism -- without a balancing focus on creating bridges between the West and Middle East -- is often breeding extremism rather than defeating it.

At the same time, token pledges and efforts at reform within the Arab world fall far short of the needs of Arab peoples, and are weak and ineffective counters to extremism. Neither Middle Eastern governments nor Middle Eastern intellectuals have yet shown they can honestly address the scale of the region's problems or act decisively at the speed and depth required.

These problems are also generational. They are not the product of one temporary series of conflicts and tensions, or of the threat posed by today's groups of terrorists and extremists. Weak regimes, population growth, demographics, hyperurbanization, and a failure to develop and diversify regional economies all act to create pressures on the Middle East that will outlive Bin Laden and Al Qaida by decades.

Most of the nations of the Arab and Islamic world face far broader and more disturbing changes:

Unlike today's crises and conflicts, these forces will play out over decades. They cannot be dealt with simply by attacking today's terrorists and extremists; they cannot be dealt with by pretending religion is not an issue, and that tolerance can be based on indifference or ignorance.

The "Opportunity Cost" of Business as Usual

History has shown the cost if governments do not act or are passive in dealing with challenges this severe: Two thousand years of mindless anti-Semitism in the West culminated in the Holocaust. A heritage of racism in the United States only began to be openly and frankly addressed once the Supreme Court took judicial action nearly a century after the civil war. Conflicts in Bosnia and Kosovo took the form of ethnic cleansing based on age-old and half-forgotten divisions between Christians and Muslims.

Most tangibly and dangerously, the practical result is terrorism and violence; endless conspiracy theories, vicious stereotypes; detentions; and growing barriers to travel and immigration. We see it in the breakdown of long-standing alliances, in the growing bitterness and underlying hatred in the Arab-Israeli conflict. We see it in Afghanistan and Iraq in the form of religiously inspired insurgency and asymmetric war. We see it in threats to acquire and use weapons of mass destruction against those with different cultures and religions.

Taking a New Approach to Public Policy

For all these reasons, we need a new approach to public policy that goes beyond the traditional approach to strategy, and one that must have the active support of both Western and Islamic governments. Governments -- and particularly the US government and the moderate governments of the Arab world -- need to make a concerted effort to make religious and cultural tolerance a matter of public policy. They need to support this effort in the ways they structure education, diplomacy, law enforcement, immigration, and all of the other tools available to the state.

What are some of the practical actions that governments need to employ to bring balance and depth to their actions, and to implement such a grand strategy? The answers must be empirical, and many must be found on a nation-by-nation and case-by-case basis. The best approach should be the subject of an intense debate in both the West and at appropriate points along the continuum of the Arab countries, the Middle East, and the Islamic world.

We have, however, already made enough mistakes on all sides to suggest what some of the answers must be:

The Role of Non-Governmental Organizations

Creating the Climate for Such Common Action

It is going to take time and a great deal of debate to change this situation. It may well be that things must grow worse for governments to accept the true nature of the risks involved and the depth of action they must take. Certainly, it is going to require both leadership and courage.

It also is going to require concerted efforts to address three other issues that now divide the US and the Arab world and the West and the Middle East:

• The Arab-Israeli conflict;
• Iraq, and;
• Political, economic, demographic, and social reform.

I do not want to belabor the obvious point that any strategy to bridge the gap between the West and Islam cannot succeed without addressing these individual issues as well. There is no time to address all three of these issues in depth, but there are some quick points that do need to be made.

The Arab-Israeli Conflict

There is absolutely nothing to be gained from waiting for two inadequate governments to bludgeon each other into peace. A common solution cannot be imposed by force, and the US and Arab world will never agree on all the details of a final settlement. The time has come, however, for an open and continuing effort by both the Quartet and Arab world to define a final settlement, and to build on the lessons of Camp David and Taba.

The time has come for both sides to take every possible measure to persuade the Palestinians to reject terrorism and the Israelis to roll back settlements in both the Gaza and the West Bank. At the same time, 35 years of facts on the ground are facts on the ground. The worlds of 1949 and 1967 are gone forever, and peace must be based upon this reality.

The challenge is to persuade Israel to make as many compromises as possible, and to find ways to compensate the Palestinians. The time has come to look beyond the narrow terms of a settlement and see what a massive aid program could do to guarantee a future Palestinian state's economic and political success, and give the Palestinians living standards that could underpin a peace. More ambitiously, it is to look at how Jordan, Israel, and a Palestinian state could cooperate to live in peace.

Boundaries are the past. With the exception of the holy places, the focus should be economics, demographics, living standards, and security in the broadest sense. This may well require a Western and Arab economic aid program totaling billions of dollars over a period of years. It will certainly require a continuing US aid program to Israel as well.

Moreover, it requires Palestinians and Arab governments to look honestly at the demographics of Gaza and the West Bank, and to understand that it is going to be an incredible challenge to deal with the inherent population growth in both areas.

Gaza only had less than 245,000 people in 1949, and around 330,000 in 1967. The CIA estimates it now has more than 1.3 million, a growth rate of more than 3.8%, and 49% of its population is 14 years of age or younger. The US Census Bureau estimates that it will grow to 1.7 million by 2010, and 4.2 million by 2050.

The West Bank had 775,000 people in 1949, and around 680,000 at the end of the 1967 war. The CIA estimates it now has more than 2.3 million, a population growth rate of more than 3.2%, and 44% of its population is 14 years of age or younger. The US Census Bureau estimates that it will grow to 2.8 million by 2010, and 5.6 million by 2050.

Far too many generations of young Palestinians have already been wasted in conflict. If the generation that now exists and the generations to come are to have hope, then the Palestinian refugees outside the Gaza and West Bank - nearly 90% of which have never seen what will be "Palestine," must be made full citizens of the countries where they now are refugees.

Iraq

It is all too clear that there is no simple end to the insurgencies in Iraq. It is equally clear that the goal is no longer for the Coalition to win in Iraq, but rather to keep the Iraqi people from losing. Three things are necessary to ease the tensions between the US-led coalition and the Arab world:

• Build up the Iraqi security forces as quickly as possible, and create a sound path for Coalition withdrawal;
• Put the current economic aid effort under Iraqi, not US or Coalition control, and plan for an aid effort that will last at least half a decade beyond 2004, and;
• Internationalize the outside political and economic aid effort as much as possible.

This does not, however, mean the Coalition can cut and run, or transfer responsibility to international institutions that cannot do the job. It rather means that a far more constructive and active role is needed on the part of the Arab world. The only thing worse than today's reality in Iraq is a future power vacuum, insecurity and massive unemployment, and ethnic and sectarian civil conflict.

Political, Economic, Demographic, and Social Reform

More generally, the West and the Middle East, and particularly the US and Arab world, need to take a more honest approach to reform. Today, both sides take a dysfunctional approach. The Arab world tends to live in a state of denial about both the scale of its need for reform, and the ineffectiveness of most of its present efforts. Arab governments and Arab intellectuals have generally failed their peoples. They promise, plan, and talk but falter in taking meaningful action. The end result is that the failure of evolution breeds revolution, and the failure of moderates breeds extremists.

Far too many of these failures also transcend culture and religion. A failed state sector is a failed state sector. Policies that block economic growth block economic growth. Bad education is bad education, and rote learning is rote learning. A development plan that is never really implemented cannot lead to development. Slow progress in the rule of law and basic human rights is simply too slow to be acceptable. A virtual conspiracy of silence on the subject of population growth and demographics is pure intellectual cowardice.

There is no question that much in the US and the West also deserves criticism. The answer, however, is not to stifle criticism, but rather to encourage mutual criticism and common pressure for reform and change. Moreover, the problems involved are relative and the Arab world and Middle East simply are moving too slowly, making far too many excuses, and exporting a great deal of the problems that they can only solve though action at home.

Blaming the West, "globalism," the US, and a colonial heritage, are all further forms of moral and intellectual cowardice. At least 90% of the problems of Arab states and Middle Eastern governments are self-inflicted wounds. They will only be solved when individual Arab countries have the courage and will to solve them on their own.

The other side of this coin, however, is that US calls for instant progress towards region-wide "democracy" and "elections" -- the kind of vague generalities that called for the initial drafts of the US "Greater Middle East Initiative" -- only make things worse. They treat all countries as the same, ignore the need for political parties, experience with elections, and moderate opposition movements. They also ignore the human rights, rule of law, economic, demographic, educational, and social reforms that often have a higher priority and are the precursors to meaningful pluralism. Far too often, the US has adopted a "one man, one vote, one time" approach to change in the Middle East, and has ignored the need for evolution by its friends in the search for a revolution that would bring extremists and its enemies to power.

The vague generalities of the G8 communiqu� that took the place of the "Greater Middle East Initiative" were far less damaging, but also provide no basis for real progress. They do not offer incentives in terms of economic aid, accession to the WTO, better trade, or foreign investment. They talk in meaningless terms about regional solutions and intra-regional cooperation.

A broad debate, indeed dialectic, is needed on reform in the Arab world and Middle East. The primary force for this debate must come from within, but it must be provoked, challenged, and aided from without. At the same time, the US, EU, and all of the members of the G8 need to move beyond both political mirror imaging and vacuous good intentions.

Calls for reform need to be evaluated, planned, and prioritized on a country-by-country basis. They need to build on what countries, and their reformers, are doing wherever possible. They need to find out the best evolutionary path to human rights, rule of law, economic, demographic, educational, and social reforms in a given country; and provide real incentives and not just criticism. They need to understand that democracy without stability, and the proper checks and balances, is simply a different form of extremism.

One other thing is clear. All three of these issues must be addressed simultaneously; and with far more realism, and far more cooperation between the US, Arab world, and Israel than has been the case to date.

The Cost of Not Acting

In closing, it would be unfair not to acknowledge that governments and NGOs are already making some efforts in these areas.

President Bush has repeatedly recognized that Islam is one of the world's great religions and that Islamic extremism and terrorism are the aberrations of a small minority, and not norms.

Nations like Saudi Arabia have seen the need for dialog and have attempted to create it. The G8 and Arab League have both called for progress in dialog and reform.

It would, however, be equally unrealistic to say that the governments of the US and the West, or the Arab and Islamic worlds have begun to do enough.

I began this speech by paraphrasing an Arab poet, and I apologize if I did so by taking his words out of context and expanding upon them. Let me close, however, by quoting several lines from another poet - a Western one - writing after the horrors of World War I:

Counterterrorism and military force are not an effective strategy for either the West or Middle East. Anger, conspiracy theories, and paralysis are even less effective.

A successful strategy requires a concerted effort to create bridges between nations and cultures, and between Islam, Christianity, and Judaism.

Furthermore, we must recognize that this struggle is not a clash between civilizations. It is rather a struggle for civilization - a struggle for a common future that is not imprisoned in the hatreds and fears of the past.

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