This is a comment by me published on G2K, a platform for debate among Middle East experts, in response to an article by Thomas Friedman in the New York Times published on 31 January 2024, arguing for the destruction of Hamas, a demilitarised Palestinian entity and an alliance between the United States, Saudi Arabia and Israel to counter Iran.
While agreeing wholeheartedly with Barbara Slavin’s as-usual balanced and rational comment on Friedman’s sensational and fanciful article, I believe that after the Israeli genocide in Gaza and the destruction of most of the Strip, as well as the rise of the extreme right in Israel, it would be unconscionable to return to what existed prior to 7th October.
This terrible tragedy should be used as an opportunity to change the US’s failed policies in the Middle East, her blind support for the excesses of various Israeli regimes, her backing for mainly dictatorial Middle Eastern autocracies and her unrelenting hostility towards Iran. US hostility towards Iran has been constant even under Iranian reformist or moderate presidents who have extended the hand of friendship towards the West and have signed landmark agreements to limit the country’s nuclear program in order to get closer to the West and even to recognise Israel.
The outcome of those failed policies has fostered a feeling of impunity by Israeli politicians, spread chaos in the region, disillusioned Iranian reformers and pushed them and the Iranian people towards Russia and China. Even now, the majority of the Iranian people, especially young educated Iranians, look up to the West and are fighting for more democracy and human rights, as we have seen in the “Women, Life and Freedom” movement.
President Biden can put forward a truly revolutionary doctrine by reining in Israeli extremists, forcing them to form a truly democratic state that recognises the rights of the Palestinians, instead of a militant supremacist Zionist regime, pushing the US’s Arab allies towards some rudimentary forms of democracy, such as elections, bringing Iran in from the cold by ending longstanding and some would say irrational hostility towards any form of government in Iran, and reviving the nuclear deal. Iran is an ancient, large and influential Middle Eastern state. Under the Shah, it served even as the US’s main pillar of regional order. It is futile to try to isolate her and keep her out of all regional equations, in the same way, that it is not possible to isolate Turkey or Egypt in the region.
Above all, the United States and its European allies must work towards a new, comprehensive regional security system that will enable Middle Eastern governments to recognise a reformed Israeli government that allows a viable Palestinian state or a single democratic state comprising of both Arabs and Jews without the current apartheid laws. Such a security system, which must also include Iran, Iraq, Syria and Yemen, as well as the GCC and other current Western allies, will bring lasting peace to the Middle East, will put an end to the forever US wars, and will prevent the slide of the region towards more chaos and authoritarian rule that will ultimately lead to a regional conflagration.
We have tried a policy of exclusion, maximum pressure, sanctions and wars for long enough. It is time to turn a page and work towards bridge-building, diplomacy, inclusion and cooperation for a change.
F Jahanpour 