The Peace to End All Peace

I just finished reading The Peace to End All Peace by David Fromkin. It was a pretty engaging book, but I've been grinding through it for a while, because I haven't had that much time to read besides 20-30 page spurts at work. The book describes the creation of the "modern Middle East" in the years during and directly following World War I. These are my thoughts on the most important/interesting themes:

1) The Use of Peoples as Pawns: Considering the British Empire was prominently involved this is not exactly a shocker, but what was interesting to me was the corollary to the rhetoric of today. The British defended its land grab in the Middle East, through the rhetoric of "Arab Independence," which of course in British eyes meant a nominally independent Arab state completely under British control. Of course the obvious parallel is to Iraq and Afghanistan today, where the United States entered with a mantra of "bringing democracy to the Iraqi/Afghan people" when in reality they only wanted a "democracy" that was receptive to US influence and interests. Yet, the United States, despite lacking a long history of direct imperialism, has treated almost every third world foreign policy encounter in the same way, lofty language disguising pure self-interest. So despite the disappearance in the last 50 years of the ideologies of colonialism, imperialism and western superiority as a proper basis for a foreign policy, the underlying mechanisms behind these discredited systems of belief still remains.

2) The Balfour Declaration: The motives behind the supporters of the Balfour Declaration were extremely diverse, which contributed to the later confusion over what exactly the Declaration promised. Fromkin identifies four main reasons for supporting the Zionist movement among the British political class: First, was the religious conviction that creating a Jewish State in Israel was a prerequisite for the Messiah to come. This was an especially large influence on Lloyd George, since he had a strong Protestant background. The vision of Zionism as a Christian religious destiny by evangelical Christians is still an important part of Israel's allure in the United States today. Second was the hope that a British-supported Zionist state would evolve into a mutually beneficial relationship, in which the Jews would bring economic and political stability to Palestine while the British would gain the vital last link on their land road between India and Egypt. Also prevalent in the British ruling class was the idea that there existed a global Jewish conspiracy (involving Bolsheviks, Germans , and Turks.) Many who believed strongly in the existence of the conspiracy believed that they could "buy" the Jews over on their side, thereby tipping the scales in the First World War by supporting a Jewish homeland in Palestine. Finally there were those (albeit a very small number) who genuinely had sympathy for the plight of the Jews and believed that creating a homeland in Palestine was the best solution (of course it can also be argued that this sympathy was misguided and created more trouble than already existed.)

Now today, 50 years after the State of Israel was founded, almost the exact same rationales with small variations are used to justify support to Israel today (minus the whole Jewish conspiracy thing.) Evangelical Christians support Israel in large numbers (82% say they have a "biblical and moral obligation" according to a Jerusalem Post article,) because of biblical prophesy. The US government supports Israel because it is the only true Middle Eastern democracy (I know debatable) and because many of our foreign policy and intelligence interests coincide. While the idea of a Worldwide Jewish Conspiracy is no longer taken seriously by any mainstream decisionmakers, the need to win over the Jewish Vote, especially in swing states like Florida, has led to support of Israel becoming a priority of many lawmakers. Now I'm not against supporting Israel, (though I do have a problem with the often unconditional support the United States gives, and its pretty biased approach to the Israeli-Palestinian question, but that's a whole other blog post) but I do find it interesting that so little has changed in the way the Great Powers approach Israel/Palestine, even after 80 years of almost constantly violent history.

3. The Soviet's Sell-out: I'm not an expert on Soviet history so there may have been many other instances before this of the new Soviet government trading their beliefs for political advantage, but in its dealings with the postwar Middle East, it becomes abundantly clear that despite whatever new creeds their leaders are preaching, the Soviet Unions foreign policy is alarmingly conventional. The Soviets make a deal with Kemalist Turkey, a strongly anti-communist force, (and a deal which actually allows Kemal to crush Turkey's burgeoning Communist movement) and grabs much of Central Asia for itself, despite its constant lecturing on anti-Imperialism. Here we can also see clearly the switch from Lenin to Stalin, as Fromkin succintly shows how Lenin supported Bolsheviks vs non-Bolsheviks in Central Asia and the rest of the Middle East, while Stalin supported Russians vs non-Russians. While there was no practical difference in these policies for the time being, the ramifications of the different principles would have important consequences over the next 80 years.

4. Unintended Consequences: This is really a lesson from almost every history book, since human events work on such a large scale that it is almost impossibly to tweak them in the direction one wishes, without bringing on a deluge of other unexpected and often unwanted results. For example, as Fromkin states in his conclusion "British policy-makers imposed a settlement upon the Middle East in 1922 in which, for the most part, they themselves no longer believed." The British attempts to shape the Middle East into the shape they desired left the region radically altered, but not in the way that they wished. The US should take strong note of this as it progresses in Iraq, Afghanistan and any other countries the Bush administration decides to invade before January 20, 2009.