Road Maps and Trade Routes

One of the sillier things Nancy Pelosi did shortly after becoming Speaker of the House last year was to meet with Syrian President Bashar Assad and declare “that the road to Damascus is a road to peace." Shades of Hanoi Jane! Not that her foreign policy meddling did any real harm, on the contrary it served to highlight an emerging a new order in the Middle East that could finally bring peace to a region that has frustrated the best diplomatic efforts of every US president since Harry Truman. If, as seems increasingly likely, Iraq can be stabilized as a peaceful and responsible player then Syria and Iran will be the sole remaining recalcitrants. Turkey, Jordan, and Egypt have all long since made their peace with Israel. Now Saudi Arabia and the rest of the Arab League have decided that a settlement establishing Israel as a permanent regional power is in everyone’s best interest and are taking an active role in trying to make it happen. If they follow it up with efforts to tone down the anti-Israeli rhetoric in their media this could be the most positive development since the founding of the Jewish state. The Iraqi if is a big one but if 2008 produces anything like the progress of 2007 prospects look pretty good. Barack Obama is a potential loose cannon. Of all the presidential candidates he is the most determined to pull American troops out precipitously regardless of consequences. A Vietnam style mad rush for the exits is the single greatest risk for a catastrophic collapse into chaos that could rapidly spread. By now it has become obvious to everybody except Iran, Syria, and Obama that it is in everyone’s security interest to see a strong, stable and peaceful Iraq emerge from the ashes of the Saddam Hussein regime. My guess is it will be years yet before all this is sorted out and there is still a critical need for policies that will have positive effects over the long term. The two players that have the most to offer here are the US and the European Union. The single most effective tool they have is trade. Every major country in the Middle East save possibly Turkey has a stagnant economy and massive demographic problems with increasingly well educated, youthful underemployed populations, oil revenues not withstanding. They need the prosperity that comes with trade. Both the US and the EU have spent years negotiating more liberal trade with corresponding benefits all around. Unfortunately John McCain is the only current presidential candidate inclined to continue it and even if he is elected anti-trade talk in congress is likely to present major obstacles. The good news is the EU is the nearer and more important trading partner and is actively negotiating improved political, economic, and social relations with no fewer than ten countries around the Mediterranean, including Syria. It’s a shame that the US appears to be ready to take a back seat on this. America’s economic interest will be harmed most. We will be debating the wisdom of invading Iraq for many years but it is looking as though George Bush may be about to accomplish what six decades of diplomacy have failed to do. He had a lot of help but it was he who took the fullest responsibility for changing a status quo that was going not exactly nowhere but certainly not anywhere very fast. He could still fail but it’s looking more and more likely that he will leave office with prospects for peace in the world the best they’ve ever been. North Korean nuclear ambitions look a lot more manageable. Iran is almost completely isolated. Syria is her only ally and Syria’s own neighbors are warning her that Iranian hegemony would be a dangerous beast. Sounds like quite a Bush legacy to me.