Approaching the Americans

by George S. Hishmeh

There are two schools of thought about the reasons Senator John Kerry, the presidential nominee of the Democratic Party, continues to bash Saudi Arabia and refuses to stand up and be counted in his criticism, heretofore half-hearted, of the Bush administration on Iraq or the Arab-Israeli conflict. By and large, this posturing has been dismissed as typical American electioneering, a position that candidates can disown at the drop of a hat when they are in office.

Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright assured a pro-Israel Washington think tank last week that the senator would be more involved in the Arab-Israeli conflict. After talking to officials of the Kerry-Edwards campaign, she is convinced that should he be elected in November, he would follow in the footsteps of the Clinton administration. There will be "presidential and team involvement" on a daily basis, she insisted.

Be that as it may, to date, however, none of the campaign's senior staffers have confirmed Albright's forecast, much as this may please many in the Arab world and probably Israel, whose American Jewish supporters usually back the Democratic nominee. On the other hand, this possibility of a hands-on approach may, at this early stage in the election campaign, alienate the Christian fundamentalists who are supportive the administration's hands-off attitude on the Arab-Israeli conflict, now that Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has carte blanche from the White House to do as he pleases.

Senator Kerry's unclear stance on Iraq has baffled many of his supporters, even his opponents. Nearly two years ago, the Massachusetts legislator had warned that "if we go it alone (in Iraq) without reason, we risk inflaming an entire region, breeding a new generation of terrorists, a new cadre of anti-American zealots, and we will be less secure, not more secure, at the end of the day, even with Saddam Hussein disarmed".

He hit the nail on the head with this prediction, but, unfortunately, the senator seems at present to have abandoned this admirable observation. In the same breath, the senator went overboard. He also said if the United States did go to war, "we will have an obligation, ultimately, to the Iraqi people with whom we are not at war .... That effort is going to be long term, costly and not without difficulty, given Iraq's ethnic and religious divisions and history of domestic turbulence ... we must be prepared to stay the course over however many years it takes to do it right."

Kerry must now know full well that, considering the present degree of violence in Iraq, which has increased beyond expectations, his forecast of a lengthy stay there would not work. His views on the subject may still be evolving. He is now planning a major speech in the coming weeks on the Iraq war which he has described last week as a "catastrophic choice" that has cost the nation $200 billion and has inspired terrorist groups, yielding "the most incalculable loss of all" - more than 1,000 US military deaths.

Whether his promised speech would include additional bashing of Saudi Arabia, as when he unfairly highlighted the alleged Bush family ties to the Saudi government, remains to be seen. His promise that the US should stop its dependency on foreign oil supplies borders on wishful thinking. After all, Saudi Arabia, which has a quarter of the world's oil reserves, is not forcing the US to buy its oil. The presidential aspirant must be aware that the United States, which has less than three per cent of the world's oil reserves, consumes a quarter of the world's oil production, thanks to the gas-guzzling SUVs and the like; and the failure of US governments to raise the tax on gasoline in line with what Europeans pay, reportedly four times the cost here, is a major contributing factor for this dependency.

The continued Saudi bashing saw its worst episode last week when retiring Senator Bob Graham, a Democrat from Florida and chairman of the intelligence committee in the run-up to the Iraq war, claimed that the Bush administration had "taken every step" to shield Saudi Arabia from its links to the Sept. 11 tragic events that left nearly 3,000 people dead. The senator does not seem to have done his homework, since the Sept. 11 Commission had virtually absolved the Saudis of any wrongdoing. But what must make these charges abhorrent is the senator's conference call to reporters in which he made these claims, which was financed by the Kerry campaign.

A retired American ambassador, David Mack, who is vice president of The Middle East Institute here, told this reporter he was not surprised by Kerry's outlandish charges since the senator has just written a book, "Intelligence Matters" and is trying to sell his book. Moreover, the senator was trying to capitalise on the unpopularity of the Saudis after the tragic events of Sept. 11 - an issue that the Saudi government is trying to correct but, regrettably, is going about it the wrong way. (For example, full page advertising, as recently noted in major American newspapers, hardly help or change minds.)

The Saudis, and for that matter all the Arabs, need to understand that it pays more to send here Arab delegations from all walks of life to introduce themselves to the Americans. Once Arabs and Muslims are closely heard and observed at all fora, the hostility that is regrettably overwhelming will, in time, wither away. It's not a matter of great intelligence to realise that show-and-tell events will go a long way to nip in the bud the unfortunate ugliness that has sprouted here in the wake of the tragic events three years ago and whereby the continued carnage, in Beslan, Fallujah or Gaza serves to damage the image of Arabs and Muslims.

This article was published in the Friday-Saturday, September 17-18, 2004 edition of the Jordan Times. It is used here with permission.