US strategic objectives in Mideast hard to achieve

It is not difficult to understand why Arabic countries have criticized Bush administration's supports to Israel's military strikes against Hezbollah in Lebanon, the interests say. However, even the Americans and US allies have criticized President Bush's Middle East policy. Why were even the people from their own side opposed to Bush's policy in the Middle East?

The US has been insincere in telling its policy objectives in the Middle East. The Bush Administration claimed that their policy objectives in this region are to achieve peace and democracy. But right after George W. Bush came into power, the US launched the Iraq war in the absence of legitimate reasons. Now President Bush has also supported Israel's escalating military strikes in Southern Lebanon. The Bush Administration has showed quite a different attitude towards the elected Palestinian Hamas and the Lebanese Governments. These made those Western freedom fighters believe that the Bush Administration actually aim to establish a pro-American regime rather than democratic politics in the Middle East. Its hypocritical policy objectives also received attacks from the conservatives who believe that the Bush Administration has sacrificed US strategic interest in the Middle East for the sake of illusory democracy. This has also made the Middle East become an anti-American terrorist base.

Bush's strategies objectives in the Middle East can hardly be realized: neither the peace nor democracy they have claimed nor their actual strategic goal, to eradicate anti-American terrorism and control the whole Middle East region. The US strategy will not bring peace to this region. After the 9/11 Incident in 2001, a series of wars took place in this area, such as the Afghanistan war, the Iraqi war, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the Israeli military strike against Hezbollah, which have been fostering the revenge mentality of the Arabic people towards Israel and the United States. The Israel-Afghanistan conflict has lasted for more than 50 years and the Iraqi war has shown a tendency in following the Vietnam War trend. If the US military can not solve these kinds of military conflicts in the past, it can hardly find an effective way to permanently end the military conflict in the future.

The US Middle East strategy can hardly promote the democratic development in the Middle East. The present Iran governments, the Palestinian Hamas, the Chavez government in Venezuela are all established through democratic elections. However, all of them stick to anti-America political position. After the US troops withdraw from Iraq, the Shiite Iraqi government may also become an anti-American force. Democracy and anti-American psychology co-worked in creating anti-American democratic regimes. President Bush has taken a double-standard policy to deal with democracy in the Middle East: to combat anti-American democratic governments and to support pro-American undemocratic governments, such as Saudi Arabia. This strategy is obviously detrimental to the United States in promoting the American democracy in the Middle East since democratic governments have an even greater possibility of being attacked than undemocratic governments.

The US Middle East strategy cannot eradicate anti-American terrorist forces. Terrorism is a military strategy chosen by the weak to fight against the strong. In the Iraqi war, the US has been attacking the Arabs in Iraq. The more relentlessly they treated Iran in the sanction and the more strongly they supported Israel's attacks Hezbollah in Lebanon, the more Arabs will support the terrorists to attack the United States. In fact, since the Afghan War broke out in 2001, the number of anti-American terrorist organizations has been increasing instead of decreasing.

US Middle East strategy can hardly dominant the Middle East. By controlling the Middle East region, the United States can exert its influence on the entire region from Afghanistan to Europe. Although most of the countries in the Middle East are Muslim countries, they have significant differences in sects and have all kinds of conflicts with others. The Iran-Iraq war is a typical example. Since Israel launched military strikes against Hezbollah, the Arab countries have shown a different attitude. Even the Lebanese government refused to cooperate with Hezbollah. Unless a country can make a full military occupation of the Middle East, no one can really have an effective strategic control of the Middle East.

Even if the Bush Administration understands that their current strategy can hardly help them realize their strategic goals, they will never change it, which means otherwise slapping on their own face. To this end, the United States is likely to continue pursuing its existing strategy in the Middle East untill February 2009.

By People's Daily Online; The author Yan Xuetong, director of Tsinghua University's Institute of International Studies