Secretary of Defense, Leon Panetta, has played a key role in the
misreading of the Mid-East by the CIA and the Pentagon. Panetta's severe
miscomprehension of the Mid-East, and oversimplified worldview, were
reflected by his December 2, 2011 speech at the Brookings Institute in
Washington, DC.
Panetta was a member of the 2006 Iraq Study Group, which recommended
that Iran and Syria be coopted into the effort to stabilize Iraq. He was
unfamiliar with a basic Mid-East truism: Iran and Syria have been the
historical arch-enemies of Iraq, as well as two of the most ruthless,
anti-US terrorist regimes in the world.
Marshaling his experience as a former Chairman of the House Budget
Committee, Clinton's White House Chief-of-Staff and member of the board
of the New York Stock Exchange, Panetta has praised the "Technological
Youth Revolution" on the Arab Street. He misperceives the eruption of
the Islamic political lava, which consumes and destabilizes relatively
pro-Western Arab regimes, as an "Arab awakening" and the "March of
Democracy."
Panetta supported the 2009 decision to court the (then) illegal
anti-Mubarak, anti-US, subversive, Islamic-supremacist Muslim
Brotherhood. He backed the decision to invite Muslim Brotherhood leaders
to Obama's Cairo University speech on June 4, 2009, which was perceived
by Egyptians as the abandonment of Mubarak by the US - a repeat of
President Carter's abandonment of the Shah of Iran
In 2010, he perpetuated the Assad-placating legacy of the Iraq Study
Group, considering the return of the US Ambassador to Damascus - after
five years of absence - as a worthy engagement with Bashar Assad, who
was perceived as a potentially constructive leader by the Obama
Administration.
The December 2, 2011 rebuke of Israel, by Secretary Panetta - "just
get to the damn table" - was symptomatic of the Iraq Study Group state
of mind. The Iraq Study Group believed in the centrality of the
Palestinian issue in Mid-East politics, as well as in shaping Arab
attitudes toward the US. Therefore, Panetta and his colleagues assume
that an American-driven resolution of the Palestinian issue would be a
key panacea to regional conflicts, improving Arab sentiments toward the
US.
Unimpressed by the Palestinian-free turmoil in each Arab country,
Panetta still believes in the Palestinian centrality and in the linkage
between the Israel-Palestinian negotiation on the one hand and the
seismic developments, which threaten the survival of pro-US Arab regimes
irrespective of the Palestinian issue or Israel's existence.
Undeterred by the anti-Western about-face of Ankara's policy and the
expected 180 degrees turn of Cairo's alignment in regional and global
affairs, Panetta urges Israel to mend fences with Turkey, Egypt and
Jordan, as a major step toward regional stability. He maintains that a
strategic common ground exists between solidly pro-US Israel and Turkey,
which has anointed itself the leader of the Muslim world, Egypt, which
is trending toward a Muslim Brotherhood dictatorship and Jordan, which
collaborated with Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait in 1990.
Secretary Panetta warns Israel of its isolation in the Mid-East,
failing to realize that Israel's splendid isolation sets it apart from
the treacherous, unreliable, unstable and increasingly anti-US region.
Contrary to Panetta's observation, Israel's isolation from the Arab
Street has been its badge of honor, highlighting its shared
Judeo-Christian values with the US. Israel's isolation from the
hate-driven region has made it a unique unconditional, democratic,
added-value ally of the US, providing the US with cutting-edge
commercial and defense technologies, invaluable intelligence and
unshakable alliance.
Secretary Panetta's simplistic view of the Mid-East erodes the US
posture of deterrence. His rebuke of Israel forces the Arabs to further
radicalize their demands, policy and terrorism, lest they be outflanked
by the US from the hawkish side. It does not get them to "the damn
table;" it gets them away from "the damn table."
Ambassador (ret.) Yoram Ettinger
The Ettinger Report
"Second Thought: A US-Israel Initiative"
First published in "Israel Hayom" Newsletter, December 5, 2011
