Trump's Recognition of Israeli Sovereignty Over the Golan Heights is an
Attempt to Provoke a Major War in the Middle East
After Iraq
invaded Kuwait in 1990, the National Security Council considered a memo I wrote
suggesting a negotiated solution to the crisis. My suggestion was that Iraq
should be allowed to keep Kuwait (subject to suitable safeguards for the
indigenous population), but to punish it for its aggression, it should have to
cede land in the west to Syria. After all, virtually landlocked Iraq has a far
more legitimate claim to Kuwait, its natural harbor, than Israel does to the
West Bank, and Golan Heights.
The land thus acquired by Syria would have
given it a reason and a face-saving device to come to an accommodation with
Israel on the Golan Heights. Then, all the countries in the Middle East could
kiss and make up, create a Palestinian State, and open their borders so that
the economies could be integrated like the rest of the world.
My peaceful
negotiated solution was rejected in favor of war for two reasons. The first was
the fear that ceding the western, mostly Kurdish parts of Iraq to Syria would
create a nucleus of an independent Kurdistan that would try and incorporate the
Kurdish parts of Turkey, a NATO member. So, Turkey would have opposed the
peaceful solution.
The second reason, the rationale
really, and the one most germane to this article, is that the United States
refused to countenance the destruction or partition of "a member of the
United Nations" according to Jon Meacham's biography Destiny and Power: The American Odyssey of George H. W. Bush. Bush
had been the United States Ambassador to the United Nations during Richard
Nixon's presidency. The real reason for
the war was to protect Saudi Arabia and Israel by degrading Iraq's military
power, that the United States and its allies had helped to build during the Iran-Iraq
War. The US had buyer's remorse.
In 1990,
when Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait and claimed it as Iraq's 19th province, the
United States cobbled together a coalition of half a million troops and
expelled Iraq from Kuwait, destroying Iraq in the process.
Iraq was then under virtual occupation, sanctions,
north, and south no-fly zones until the United States invaded in 2003 and
toppled Saddam Hussein. So, when it comes to changing the borders in the Middle
East, the United States is opposed, at least when the Arabs try to change them.
Now, Trump's recognition of Israel's sovereignty
over the Golan Heights proves the contention of the Arabs that Israel is just a
Crusader State supported by the west.
Whereas the United States went to war to prevent borders from changing
when it was a matter of one Arab state annexing another, when Israel claims to
annex Jerusalem, the West Bank, and the Golan Heights, all in violation of
United Nations resolutions, it is supported by the United States.
Trump's
clear and unrelenting bias toward Israel is a virtual declaration of war.
Israel and the United States are wrong on the merits, and they leave the
Palestinians and Arabs with no alternative than violence because ignoring the
law and flouting United Nations resolutions is also violence.