There may be little comparison between the two national movements who fought the British and each other over Palestine and the contentious groups struggling for power in Iraq today. But the danger of a foreign power fighting a long war to force compromise on combatants who have no interest in compromise is hauntingly similar.
That is the final paragraph of an op ed in today's Boston Globe by H. D. S. Greenway, entitled,as is this, as Flashbacks of a lost cause. The piece caught my attention because in the various attempts to find some parallel to what is happening in Iraq now, this is the first time I have encountered the comparison with the British Mandate in Palestine.
I want to briefly explore Greenway's piece, giving you something of a flavor for it, and then offer a very few concluding remarks of my own.
Greenway begins by reminding us that at first we were told the model for our efforts were Germany and Japan after World War II, and then we were offered Korea as an example for a long-term American presence. He then suggests we consider the 30-year British experience in Palestine after the Great War:
The British entered Palestine believing that they were liberating the land from Ottoman tyranny. Britain, "with its technological and military superiority . . . its entrepreneurial and missionary zeal, its largely democratic institutions, was to take the once-great peoples of the East into tutelage and direct their slow but sure progress under stable and just government," A.J. Sherman recalls in his book, "Mandate Days." "This clashed almost immediately with the reality of Palestine."
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Let's examine point by point to see if his comparison holds up:
- liberating from tyranny? check, Hussein = Ottomans
- technological and military superiority? semi-check: we are far stronger relative to any other nation and to Iraq than British were in the interregnum period, but an applicable comparison
- enterprenuerial and missionary zeal? definitely check on both counts
- largely democratic institutions? well, some here might say the British in the interwar period were more Democratic than the Bush administration, but still the comparison is valid
- once great peoples? well, Baghdad had been seat of Caliphate, so comparisn with period of Biblical greatness has some validity
- direct slow but sure progress under stable and just government? here I am not sure. I think this point does apply to British, and American rhetoric paralleled. I would have seen the parallel in a different sense - trying to gain some control in an environment where the dominant Western power wanted access to cheap MidEast oil. But of course Palestine lacked oil. I would have added the issue of the environment of a long-standing religious conflict.
So in general Greenway's frame does hold up. While it is not exact, few historical parallels are, and it is sufficiently similar that perhaps we could have drawn some lessons from it.
Greenway draws insight from the work of author Tom Segev, who notes that the British attempt to impose peace between the two sides let to a situation where they were fighting both, and that British optimism made them slow to realize they were caught in the middle of a civil war in which both sides were committed to victory. He reminds of the history of conflict even before the outbreak of World War II, with its increasing escalation of violence:
When Arabs and Jews weren't fighting each other they attacked the British, who were still trying to create space for national reconciliation.
Casualties mounted as the British tried troop surges to get on top of deteriorating security. An additional 25,000 soldiers sent to Palestine became the biggest troop deployment sent overseas between the two world wars.
The British were blown up in terrorist attacks, their soldiers kidnapped and killed. When they weren't surging, they holed up in Green Zone-like enclaves called "Bevingads," after Foreign Minister Ernest Bevin.
In the period from 1945 until partition, the British presence rose to over 100,00 troops. The Palestinian mandate was the size of several New Jerseys, with a total population of less than 3 million. We are trying to prevent total chaos in a country of well over 20 million people in an area the size of California - and we are only using 150,000 troops and 100,000 contractors to attempt to do the job. The British realized by 1947 the futility of their task. Then there were widespread incidents of mines against which British vehicles could not be protected. The British knew they couldn't "win" but did not know how to pull out or want to admit defeat, as their Foreign Minister acknowledged to David Ben-Gurion, who in 1919 had predicted that the situation had no resolution that could satisfy all the parties.
In 1948 Partition went into effect. We can glance at the events immediately thereafter to perhaps have a glimpse of what might be in store for Iraq. Remember that the newly declared state of Israel was invaded by all of its neighbors: Lebanon, Syria, Egypt, Iraq, with volunteers from Libya, Saudi Arabia and Yemen. The local Arab troops, the Arab Legion which had been under command of the British General known as Pasha Glubb, also participated. That conflict has never been settled, even now almost 60 years later.
I do not think it is easy for Americans to recognize that we are now viewed in much of the world, and certainly in the Muslim world, as an imperialist power, not dissimilar from the role the British asserted. e may remember that the British gave up on their attempt to dominate Iraq in the 1920's. We like to think we are better and smarter than our con-linguist cousins. We fail to recognize how similar in arrogance our attitudes are and we are perceive by others.
Britain could not afford to permanently maintain a force of 100,000 in Palestine, and that was not the only overseas crisis it faced. That should give us some caution as we examine the supposed option from which we are supposed to choose.
The parallels are certainly not exact. Thus the denouement after an American withdrawal would begin cannot be ascertained with any certainty. But perhaps we can recognize that our obliviousness to the history and culture of the are in which we are embroiled has brought us to a place very similar to that of the British, a nation who used to brag that the sun never set upon its empire. As we now have military forces stationed in 170 nations, perhaps it might be wise to realize that the costs of Empire reduced Britain from the world's dominant, most militarily powerful, and richest nation to being one almost unable to resist the pressures placed on it by another (us), and a role as at best not even the most important among its immediate neighbors.
I would hope that the word with which I so often end my postings might come to pass in the troubled nation that is still one, called Iraq, and that is opposite might not extend more widely across the region as the result of the stupidity of this administration.
Peace.