David C. Gompert is vice president and director of the National Security Research Division at RAND. Jerrold Green is director of RAND's Center for Middle East Public Policy, and F. Stephen Larrabee is a RAND senior political scientist.
The United States and its European allies are at loggerheads in the region where cooperation between them is most urgent: the lands between Gibraltar and India, also known as the greater Middle East. Where shared purpose, joint strategy, and alliance solidarity are needed, commercial rivalry and diplomatic grandstanding prevail. If only the Atlantic democracies would rise above their current squabbles, the dangers of the greater Middle East could be met.
Sharply different U.S. and European responsibilities in the Middle East, however, have led to divergent motivations and behavior. Because the United States has assumed the role of regional security guarantor, it necessarily predicates its policies on sober realism about what could go wrong--the "downside." The United States is far more disturbed than Europe is by any Iraqi or Iranian weapons of mass destruction (WMD)--including biological, chemical, and nuclear weapons--because U.S. troops would be the ones to die. In contrast, Europeans have little responsibility for security in this region, and so they can work the "upside." Naturally, they are more inclined than Americans to engage Iran and Iraq: They have more to gain if engagement succeeds and less to lose if it fails.
What is needed is a strategy toward the greater Middle East that unifies U.S. and European approaches. On neither side of the Atlantic will such a strategy thrill sitting officials. It calls on the Europeans to take more responsibility, burden, and risk, and on the United States to share leadership. From Palestine to the Persian Gulf to Turkey, this strategy prescribes U.S.-European partnership as the key to coping with a region whose dangers threaten both.
The most important goals of the Atlantic democracies--low inflation, balanced budgets, full employment, less poverty, free trade, better infrastructure, and education--presuppose the availability of inexpensive oil. But that oil lies mainly beyond the control of the Atlantic democracies. Two-thirds of the world's proven oil reserves, and 90 percent of the proven reserves found in the last 10 years, sit beneath the sands and waters of the greater Middle East, primarily around the Persian Gulf. With dependence on Persian Gulf oil supplies growing (see map), the region's instability is an omnipresent threat to global security, even though oil markets are flush at the moment.
The other great danger in this region is the spread of biological, chemical, and nuclear weapons. Efforts to prevent this spread are failing. The states we would least like to see in possession of such weapons are well on their way to getting them. Those for whom nuclear weapons are too difficult or too risky to obtain are finding biological weapons all the more tempting. While Iraq and Iran top the list of WMD aspirants, there are also known or presumed nuclear, biological, or chemical weapons programs in Libya, Syria, Israel, Pakistan, and India. The WMD problem compounds the oil security problem, because a credible WMD threat by a rogue Middle Eastern state could undermine the ability and, more likely, the political will of the United States to intervene to assure the flow of Persian Gulf oil.
This epicenter of the most severe dangers to global security--oil and WMD in hostile hands--is also the world's least stable region. At every level, the region is barren of responsible leadership. Undemocratic regimes, friend and foe, rule most nations. The ruling elite cling to the status quo and eschew political openness, which could threaten their hold on power. Ironically, the region's two notable democracies--Israel and Turkey--have no oil. Meanwhile, five of the world's seven worst state-sponsors of terrorism, by the U.S. State Department's reckoning, are in this region, as are the most rabid terrorists.
Perhaps the greater Middle East has the potential to "emerge," as have other once-troubled regions: Eastern Europe, Southeast Asia, and Latin America. With democratic reform, information technology, and investment, perhaps the human capital of the Middle East can be uplifted. Were it possible in the near future, such reform would be the goal of Western policy, because reform would ease our fears of weapons of mass destruction, terrorism, fanaticism, and violent change. But for most nations of the Middle East, reform does not appear realistic for now.
Therefore, although we wish it were otherwise, we must regard the Middle East as that dangerous patch of the planet where the precious oil is. While reform should be the ultimate goal, the Atlantic democracies must, in the absence of hopeful signs, protect their standard of living and their stake in the global economy from this region's perils.
Yet there are problems with this picture. For starters, the United States is overextended: It is manager of an unmanageable region, broker among parties averse to compromise. It has accepted responsibility for achieving Palestinian-Israeli and Syrian-Israeli peace; for bankrolling the Camp David Accords (indefinitely, it would appear); for guaranteeing access to Persian Gulf oil supplies; and for preserving the stability and friendship of pivotal states, notably Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Turkey. The costs and risks of these duties are at the limits of what is politically possible and could exceed those limits as Middle East terrorists increasingly turn their weapons, including WMD, against the "Great Satan" itself.
In addition, the United States is attached to a status quo that is unstable and dangerous. It is content with Arab autocrats who rule on borrowed time. It brooks intransigence in the Arab-Israeli peace process. And it relies excessively on the threat of force, even though WMD-toting rogues will cast doubt on that option.
Moreover, the United States has confused "leadership" with success, clinging to the former even at the expense of the latter. Its diplomats do not welcome European meddling in the region. Its generals like the tidiness of unilateral (at most Anglo-American) operations, as opposed to coalition operations. It jealously guards its role as Arab-Israeli peacemaker, even though little peace is being made. It polices third-country involvement with Iran, when U.S. policy itself has been more isolated than Iran. While claiming, fairly enough, to be the "indispensable nation," the United States has failed to overcome--except on the battlefield--any of the grand challenges it has accepted in the greater Middle East.
If the United States is overextended in the region, Europe is underextended. Most European Union (EU) countries are more active in the search for contracts than the search for security. Should force be required to defeat an attack on common interests, do not count on the Europeans to play more than a cameo role. Should an unpopular stand be needed against some regional tough, do count on the Europeans to hold the Americans' coat. Given that they are as rich and at least as exposed as the United States, what accounts for the Europeans' expedient, accommodating posture in the greater Middle East?
Conventional wisdom is that U.S. and European interests are at odds in the region, leading to conflicting policies. In truth, it is U.S. and European responsibilities, not interests, that are asymmetric. Common interests are clear: secure oil, Arab-Israeli peace, peaceful change, democratization, and economic advancement based on human productivity, not fossil availability. But as long as there is a sharp asymmetry in their respective responsibilities, the United States and Europe will work at cross-purposes despite their common interests--indeed, to the detriment of them.
Americans have not offered to share responsibility for security in the greater Middle East, and Europeans have not volunteered to accept it. Both are making a big mistake. Their disjointed strategies are doomed to fail--indeed are failing. In the Persian Gulf, the United States must confront adversaries that suspect it cannot count on its allies. In the Arab-Israeli dispute, the Europeans do not have the confidence of Israel that the United States does; yet the United States does not have enough influence with any of the parties to push them toward peace. The more the Europeans snub the Turks, the harder it is for Americans to retain Turkish confidence. And across the board, the United States feels no obligation or self-interest to weigh European opinions about the region, for opinions are cheap and responsibilities dear.
An Atlantic strategy toward the Middle East can get a boost if the United States and European allies redefine NATO's strategic purpose--namely, to protect common interests wherever threatened, not just on European soil. This definition could mean the projection of U.S.-European military power to defend world energy supplies and to thwart weapons of mass destruction. The United States is asking its NATO allies to improve their ability to project power beyond NATO's borders. To the extent the Europeans do improve their power projection capabilities, they will help remedy the asymmetry in risks and burdens that now produces transatlantic discord. The prospect of Europeans fighting alongside Americans should also toughen European policy while rattling rogues accustomed to U.S.-European differences.
If the United States wants Europeans to shoulder more responsibility for defense of common interests in the Middle East, the United States must give Europeans a voice in setting strategy. If the United States does not respect European views on regional dangers because it alone will face the consequences, it follows that European willingness to face the consequences will warrant American respect. In return for responsible partnership, the United States will have to listen to the allies regarding the peace process, Iraq, Iran, and Turkey. As U.S. policy is hardly "on a roll" on any of these matters, listening to and even heeding European opinions would do no harm.
Israel's main concern is its security. A joint U.S.-European strategy aimed at neutralizing the region's WMD dangers, which is needed anyway, would address the most severe threat Israel faces. Of particular concern to Israel is the Moscow-Tehran connection. A united U.S.-European front categorically opposing Russian nuclear and ballistic missile cooperation with Iran could do more good than the limp and lonely opposition mounted thus far by the United States, which the Russians have essentially ignored. To this and other reckless Russian activities in the Middle East--comforting Saddam Hussein, selling missiles to Cyprus--the United States and the EU should say, simply: "The Middle East is vital to Atlantic interests; it is therefore off-limits to opportunistic Russian mischief. Western support for Russia is hereafter contingent on Russian restraint in this region." Similarly, a new U.S.-European partnership could further Israeli, as well as Atlantic, security by going on a counteroffensive against terrorism and by applying united military pressure on Israel's enemies, thereby encircling Iraq and restraining Iran.
Of course, there will be no lasting peace without a Palestinian state. But this state will never come to be if Israelis are convinced it will jeopardize their security. Thus, the attitude of the United States and Europe about a Palestinian state is critical. Yasser Arafat has been under pressure to announce Palestinian state hood sooner rather than later, over Israeli objections. The United States and Europe can manage this volatile situation, provided they work together. If they split over whether to recognize a Palestinian state, Israel will be outraged by European recognition and embold- ened by American refusal--and the Palestinians vice versa. The United States and the EU could make it clear that they will recognize a Palestinian state, provided the state results from negotiations and enhances Israeli security. While Israel would be disappointed with such a U.S. stance, it could take comfort knowing that Europe stands alongside the United States in its commitment to Israeli security and refusal to recognize a Palestinian state unconditionally.
Another way the partnership can improve conditions for peace is by supporting the economic development envisioned by the original peacemakers: Shimon Peres, Arafat, and the late King Hussein of Jordan. The economic strategy ought to encompass financial and technical assistance, trade and investment, water, education, refugees, and the environment. Because the failures of the Palestinian National Authority are largely economic and the refugee problem is aggravated by a dim economic outlook, a new economic strategy by the partnership would help Arafat pursue peace and build a stable Palestinian state. More fundamentally, genuine economic development and cooperation in this part of the Middle East could bring Israelis, Palestinians, Jordanians, and Egyptians together in a bond of collective prosperity that they would hesitate to jeopardize by conflict. U.S. and EU support for an Israel-Jordan free-trade area and sustained development of Gaza and the West Bank could in turn stimulate investment by U.S. and European industrial giants in this area of exceptional but untapped human potential.
AP/WIDE WORLD PHOTOS/
MASSIMO SAMBUCETTI
The visit of Iranian President Mohammad Khatami, right, with Italian Prime Minister Massimo d'Alema in Rome on March 10, 1999, marked the first trip by an Iranian leader to the West since the Islamic Revolution in 1979.
Although the United States has been reluctant to share power in the Arab-Israeli sphere, it is increasingly open to alternatives for providing Gulf security, particularly with regard to Iran. The Iranian policies of greatest concern to the United States are attempts to acquire WMD, use of terrorism, and opposition to the Arab-Israeli peace effort. Although Iran has shown little or no moderation on these issues, the election and conduct of reform-minded President Mohammad Khatami have convinced Washington that attempts to engage Iran are now worth the effort. Collaborating with Europe would greatly enhance this effort. A joint U.S.-European strategy would have to concentrate for now on pinching off the supply of WMD materials from Russia and from any European companies that continue to provide them. At the same time, if Iran tempers its support for terrorism and its opposition to the peace process, the Atlantic allies should be prepared to restore and expand more-normal political and economic relations with Iran, notwithstanding its WMD programs.
Gradual Iranian reentry into the broader family of nations could go a long way toward shifting Iran's focus--either reducing its interest in WMD or mitigating the dangers of its possession of WMD. In this process, Italy, France, Turkey, and Germany, with the United States as a semi-silent partner, could achieve far more than the United States and Europe acting at cross-purposes. Not only is it difficult for the United States alone to deal directly with Tehran, but policymakers in Tehran also find it difficult to appear to make concessions to Washington.
Regarding Iraq, the United States and the Europeans are further apart. The issue has become the utility of sanctions, which many argue punish the Iraqi people but not Saddam Hussein. The goal of a new Atlantic strategy should be to weaken Hussein. If sanctions are ineffective, they should be supplanted by tools that will undermine him. A coordinated U.S.-European policy of increased openness toward Iran combined with tougher policies toward Iraq could produce a more moderate Iran and a weakened, permanently cornered Saddam Hussein.
One way to pursue this strategy would be to lower the U.S. military profile in the Gulf while expanding that of the Europeans. This rebalancing of responsibilities would support a harder European stance against Saddam Hussein, while allowing the United States to shrink its footprint in the Gulf and thus improve its ties with Iran. A joint U.S.-European military presence would also make it easier for other Gulf regimes to explain a foreign presence as not merely American but international. It would not remove the risk of terrorism but at least would diffuse it among the Atlantic allies.
Turkey's participation could help the new partnership make headway on several fronts. In the Persian Gulf, Turkey could play a useful role in a unified strategy that differentiates between Iran and Iraq. Although the Turkish military remains suspicious of Iran because of its support for terrorism, Turkey would benefit, on balance, from an allied policy that encourages Iranian moderation in return for normal economic relations. As a result, Iran could become Turkey's main source of energy. Turkey is equally crucial for any allied policy toward Iraq. Many Turks fear that the Western policy of protecting the Kurds of Northern Iraq will lead to a de facto partition of Iraq and an independent Kurdish state, which could stoke the fires of Kurdish separatism in Turkey itself. The United States and the EU must convince Turkey that they are committed to Iraq's territorial integrity and that a unified Iraq can take its place in the community of nations once Saddam Hussein is gone. This would assuage Turkish concerns and also align Turkey more squarely with a strategy of isolating and undermining Saddam Hussein.
As for WMD dangers in the Gulf, Iraqi Scuds can reach Turkish population centers, and Iran's test of a medium-range missile places Turkey well within range. These threats could enervate Turkish resolve and deprive the United States and the EU of a sturdy ally in any showdown with Iraq or Iran. It is therefore important to integrate Turkey into the partnership's counterproliferation strategy, including theater missile defense.
Finally, including Turkey in the new partnership would require Turkey to address its internal weaknesses more forthrightly. The main problem is human rights. The United States and Europe should adopt a common attitude, recognizing that Turkey does indeed have serious internal and external security problems but that this does not excuse a human rights record that is consistently beneath Atlantic standards. Turkey might listen to its partners' views on human rights if they are expressed both more empathetically and more uniformly. By heeding those views, Turkey will be all the more welcomed into the partnership and eventually into the EU.
Adding Turkey to this partnership can make the strategy more compelling still--while also brightening the outlook for Turkish security and democracy.
Beyond protecting shared interests, a joint strategy might make more realistic the long-term goal of reforming this region and integrating it with the progress of the rest of the world. One thing is certain: For the United States and Europe to continue to work at cross-purposes in the greater Middle East endangers the region and their own vital interests. There is an alternative.