IDEOLOGY vs. THE NATIONAL INTEREST: BUSH, SHARON, AND U.S. POLICY IN THE ISRAELI-PALESTINIAN CONFLICT

摘要

George W. Bush and his main foreign policy officials pride themselves on being "realists"―that is, tough-minded pragmatists devoted to the national interest as the touchstone of American foreign policy. In fact, though, Bush's insistence on allying the United States with the government of Ariel Sharon in Israel is a function both of naive misconceptions about Sharon's policies in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and, more fundamentally, of ideological fixations that are counter to the national interest. The de facto Bush-Sharon alliance has been created in defiance of a substantial segment of the professional foreign policy bureaucracy in Washington; of the entire Arab and Muslim world; of every important American ally in the West; and even of important sectors of informed Israeli opinion. The alliance has effectively given Israel a green light to maintain and even to expand its occupation and repression of the Palestinians. Since the Palestinians have continued to resist, the most likely consequences of the Bush-Sharon alliance will be not only escalating warfare between the Israelis and the Palestinians, but also increasing risks to the overall American national interest: the continuing conflict threatens to undermine stability elsewhere in the Middle East, to increase hatred of America in the Arab and Muslim world and, indeed, to engender the spread of anti-Americanism everywhere, even in Western Europe. Should this occur the global war on terrorism will be undermined, and, in the worst but by no means implausible case, enraged Palestinian or other Arab terrorists may attack both Israel and the United States with weapons of mass destruction.