Eight dream solutions to Middle East conflicts

This year’s session of the UN General Assembly in New York was a fiasco. Not only did it illustrate the way great power rivalries had paralysed the international organisation, but it was also marked by misleading, misguided — and sometimes simply comic — interventions by several world leaders.

For example, President Francois Hollande declared that France was ready to recognise a Syrian government to replace the regime of President Bashar Al Assad although no such government seemed even dimly in prospect.

Meanwhile, in blatant contravention of international law, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu continued his campaign for a pre-emptive strike against Iran — a country he fears might challenge Israel’s nuclear monopoly and put a check to its aggressions against its neighbours. The child’s cartoon of a bomb which Netanyahu displayed to make his case of an imminent Iranian threat aroused international hilarity as well as serious doubts about his sanity.

Qatar Emir Shaikh Hamad Bin Khalifa Al Thani called for an Arab military intervention to put an end to the fighting in Syria, as if unaware that there was no will or capability among the Arab states to engage in such a fratricidal action.

In any event, Egypt’s President Mohammad Mursi promptly shot down the Emir’s suggestion by rejecting any military intervention in Syria.

US President Barack Obama did not do much better. Instead of putting American power, and his undoubted eloquence, to work in resolving problems and conflicts — such as the ongoing catastrophic war in Afghanistan, the poisonous Arab-Israeli conflict, the cruel and dangerous sanctions against Iran, the Muslim rage at American policies — he contented himself with hollow rhetoric, including such gems as that Americans had “fought and died around the globe to protect the right of people to express their view”.

Tell that to the oppressed and besieged Palestinians, to the tens of thousands of impoverished and displaced Iraqis, still mourning their dead, to the Afghan, Pakistani and Yemen villagers slaughtered daily by American drones.

Just imagine the world reaction if, instead of these inanities, the following dramatic events had occurred:

Imagine the cheers if Obama had announced that, after prolonged secret talks in New Delhi, American and Taliban representatives had agreed to a ceasefire in Afghanistan and to the formation of a transitional national unity government pledged to bring peace at last to the war-torn country and oversee the departure of American troops.

Imagine the prolonged applause if he had announced that, if he were re-elected in November, he would put an end to the brutal — and wholly counter-productive — ‘war on terror’, and, as an immediate measure to protect innocent civilians, he was grounding all US drones and discontinuing their missile strikes on alleged terrorists.

Imagine the excitement if he had announced a plan to phase out US bases in the Gulf region and had instructed the US Navy to revert instead to ‘over the horizon’ deployments.

Imagine the relief and jubilation if had gone on to declare that he would be ready, on re-election, to engage in comprehensive talks with Iran, in order to resolve all differences between them.

The proposed guidelines for the talks would be an agreement by Iran to end all enrichment of uranium above 3.5 per cent under strict international supervision in exchange for American guarantees of Iran’s security against military attack or subversion, the lifting of sanctions and the restoration of diplomatic relations between Tehran and Washington, thus putting an end to more than thirty years of hostility and undeclared war.

Imagine if, in the wings of the UN General Assembly, leaders of the Gulf Cooperation Council and Iran had initiated a strategic dialogue aimed at concluding a pact of non-aggression and of non-interference in each other’s internal affairs, as a first step towards integrating the Islamic Republic into the security architecture of the Gulf.

Imagine if King Abdullah Bin Abdul Aziz of Saudi Arabia and Mursi had issued a joint appeal to senior Sunni and Shiite ulema of all persuasions and schools to attend a conference in Makkah aimed at putting an end to mutual demonisation and abuse; at bridging the sectarian divide, and at uniting all Muslims against the enemies of Islam.

Imagine if Netanyahu had put away his crude cartoon and had instead declared that, after long reflection and much heart-searching, he had concluded that his dream of a Greater Israel was unrealisable. Instead, his great and overriding ambition was to ensure Israel’s future by making peace with the Palestinians and with the entire Arab world. Accordingly, he called on Arab leaders to appoint ministerial delegates to meet with their Israeli opposite numbers at a neutral venue such as Oslo to plan the immediate implementation of the Arab Peace Initiative, including the creation of Palestinian state.

Imagine if the leaders of Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Turkey and Iran were to issue a solemn joint declaration calling on the Syrian government and on leading opposition factions to end all fighting by October 15, pull armed forces back from towns and villages, and send delegates to a peace conference at Madinah. At the same time, Saudi Arabia and Qatar declared their readiness to create a joint fund of $15 billion to rebuild Syria, create jobs for the unemployed, and relaunch the economy once free and fair elections had been held and a national unity government had been formed.

Needless to say, it was no surprise that these dramatic developments in New York aroused intense international interest. On hearing the various statements, declarations and pledges, delegates attending the UN General Assembly and the horde of journalists covering the event were further astonished and overjoyed to see Barack Obama embrace Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad; Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov gallantly kiss the hand of Hillary Clinton, the US Secretary of State; Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu force himself to give Mahmoud Abbas, President of the Palestinian National Authority, a very brief and rather lukewarm hug; the Emir of Qatar exchange friendly salutations with the Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Al Mua’alem; and Egypt’s President Mohammad Mursi win long and fervent applause from all sides for his emerging role as an indispensable peace-maker on the Middle East scene.

Dear readers, dream on!

Patrick Seale is a commentator and author of several books on Middle East affairs.