When Allies Throw Tantrums

By William Boardman, Reader Supported News

01 November 13

hree Middle Eastern countries walk into a bar brawl - this is not a joke

So Turkey, Israel, and Saudi Arabia are all reportedly mad at the United States these days. How is that bad news?

Why are Turkey, Israel, and Saudi Arabia mad at the United States? Individually, their reasons are varied but overlapping - collectively it comes down to a single complaint: why hasn't the United States fixed the Middle East?

Of course that ducks the question of why these three states, all actually located in the Middle East, haven't fixed the Middle East themselves? Yes, there are a whole slew of reasons for their failure. The question is largely rhetorical.

All the same, when one lists the major nations working toward peace in the Middle East, does one immediately think of Turkey, Israel, and Saudi Arabia? Not likely.

More likely, when considering peace in the Middle East, one thinks of the United States, the United Nations, maybe Russia and other European countries. The list is not likely to include a single Middle East state, with the possible exception of Jordan, which has little effective diplomatic weight and is presently being eroded by more than half a million refugees from Syria.

Peace in the Middle East has been a chimera for decades, despite recurring, sometimes partly successful efforts to restore civility if not brotherhood. Menachem Begin and Anwar Sadat going to Camp David was one such hopeful moment, only to lead nowhere regionally and to a vicious military dictatorship in Egypt, one that held elections that could change nothing, while giving the world an excuse to look away.

How dare you step away from that despot?

And now, one of the things the Saudis are mad at the U.S. for is American failure to keep Mubarak in power at all costs. Not that the Saudis much care about Mubarak, but if the U.S. can back away from Egypt's relatively open authoritarian state, what might be in store for the even more brutal, closed police state in Saudi Arabia?

But the Turks and the Israelis aren't all that bent out of shape about the fate of the Egyptians, so why does The New York Times call the threesome of Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Israel "Allies in Revolt" in its October 29 editorial? The piece begins:

"It is not every day that America finds itself facing open rebellion from its allies, yet that is what is happening with Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Israel. The Obama administration has denied there are serious problems. But there are clearly differences, some perhaps irreconcilable."

For Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Israel, their common problem with the United States is the current U.S. willingness to engage in diplomacy, and to appear to be willing to accept compromises that diplomacy might produce. And this exposes one of the contradictions in the three countries' posture in the world: each has a history of wanting the United States to fix everything in the Middle East, and each has a history of wanting the United States to fix things their way and no other.

Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Israel have their own pathologies

Turkey has been perhaps the least intransigent of the three, having reformed itself sufficiently to be a member of NATO and having a semi-functioning democracy that is oppressive only when challenged. But Turkey is mad at the U.S. for not attacking Syria and for negotiating for the removal of Syria's chemical weapons. The Turks have failed for decades to reach a reasonable accommodation with their Kurdish population, preferring to wage a long war of attrition punctuated by atrocities against Kurdish civilians. And now the Turks are expressing their pique at the U.S. and their other NATO allies and protectors by buying a $3.4 billion missile defense system from China.

The Saudis are also mad at the U.S. for not bombing Syria. And the Saudis are mad that the U.S. has not done more for the Syrian opposition, even though that opposition is increasingly dominated by jihadists - but, hey, didn't the U.S. go for the same charade in Afghanistan, where backing the opposition to the Russians led to Saudi jihadists taking out the World Trade Center? The Saudis may be even more upset about U.S. talks with Iran, which compared to Saudi Arabia's totalitarian state is slightly more open and slightly less repressive. The Saudis, in an immature display of their annoyance, have refused to accept a seat on the U.N. Security Council, where they might have risked accountability for their longstanding intransigence. And like the Turks, the Saudis have muttered dark threats about "looking elsewhere for their security." Once a client state perhaps always a client state.

Israel is so angry about the United States even smiling at Iran that it's been lobbying the U.S. Congress to impose new sanctions on Iran in hopes that that would destroy any possible diplomacy, even though the success of nuclear talks with Iran could increase Israel's security significantly. That seems to be an expression of Israel's apparent political schizophrenia, the mindset that allows the state to be both a vibrant democracy and a vicious oppressor in its role as the occupying state in Palestinian territory. In a sea of Arab states, Israel has little opportunity to lead the region, a condition Israel has taken to mean that everyone else needs to put Israel's needs first. Of course the existential threat to Israel is real, but time and population do not appear to be on Israel's side.

Maybe American military hegemony isn't any solution at all

The diplomacy with Syria and Iran is fresh and probably fragile, but in the absence of any more positive approach, it needs to play out without interference. Success would mean a Middle East with a substantially reduced risk from both chemical and nuclear weapons. This is the possibility that Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Israel would veto for the sake of their own much narrower, short-term interests.

With predictable jingoism, the Times editorial argues that "Obama's first responsibility is to America's national interest. And he has been absolutely right in refusing to be goaded into a war in Syria or bullied into squandering a rare, if remote, chance to negotiate an Iranian nuclear deal."

This expresses the same kind of myopic self-absorption expressed by Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Israel. Yes, in a narrow sense, a more peaceful Middle East is in the American national interest, but more importantly it's in the global interest. The Times still comes at the issue rooted in the assumption that an American hegemony in the world is a good thing, an assumption that is still widely if not universally shared. But the logic of American hegemony produces catastrophes like Afghanistan and Iraq, where no one is left better off and many are devastated.

If Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Israel, as well as all the other Middle East states, want an American hegemonic solution, whether delivered by the U.S. or brought upon themselves by themselves, all they have to do is continue as they have and it becomes more likely.

Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Israel are mad at the United States for taking actions that might break the bloody, destructive impasse of past decades. How is that a bad thing again?

William M. Boardman has over 40 years experience in theatre, radio, TV, print journalism, and non-fiction, including 20 years in the Vermont judiciary. He has received honors from Writers Guild of America, Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Vermont Life magazine, and an Emmy Award nomination from the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences.

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