Marc Lynch spoke at the plenary session of the Soref Symposium, the annual spring conference of Washington Institute for Near East Policy on the future of public diplomacy and the "war of ideas" in the Obama administration. (God bless WINEP for diversity.) Some of what he said, posted on FP:
"…My remarks contrasted sharply with the vision outlined by General
Michael Herzog (Ehud Barak's chief of staff at the Israeli Ministry of
Defense) in the plenary session. Herzog offered this graphic, if
familiar, imagery: Iran is the head, Syria the body, and Hamas and
Hezbollah the two arms reaching out to strangle Israel. I countered
that this conflation of different challenges was misleading, dangerous,
and unhelpful. Hamas and Hezbollah are two of the most popular forces
in the Arab world — why "give" them to Iran? Treat Hezbollah as a
Lebanese issue, Hamas as a Palestinian issue, and resolve them on their
own terms. Address Syria's national interests in a direct dialogue. And
engage with Iran seriously, not just as a show before getting on to
sanctions or military confrontation…"
Believing that Arabs would rally to the side of Israel against Iran –
especially without any progress on the Israeli-Palestinian issue — is
wishful thinking of the highest (and most strategically dangerous)
order. The lessons of the last few years should be that the better
approach is to take away the appeal of "resistance" by reframing the
confrontation, disaggregating the challenge, and dealing pragmatically
with the political issues rather than engaging in rhetorical wars of
ideas.
[From Friday Lunch Club, Journal of Prickly and Lame Writings and Thoughts on the Middle East (fabulous site-name, I'm jealous)]
