Remarks by Consul General Deborah K. Jones at Bahçeşehir University

Istanbul
May 12, 2007

Hepiniz hoşgeldiniz. Welcome, thank you very much for this invitation, to the rector, our distinguished fellow speakers and to the most important audience we have here, I think, the students, at this Global Leadership Forum. It is a real honor for me, a particular honor, to sit on the same podium with these gentlemen both of whom I’ve read and certainly with Ambassador Mack, who never was a boss but certainly was a mentor over the 21 years that I have known him as he served in the Foreign Service.

I was very relieved that I was not asked today to address Turkish domestic politics but rather the relatively easy topic of impediments to peace in the Middle East. And I’m going begin my remarks today by quoting from Sir Ronald Storrs, the last British governor of Jerusalem, who said: “The Near East is a university from which the scholar never takes his degree.” I’d also like to make the point that what I am going to say today, apart from questions and answers later on, largely represents my personal views based on a couple of decades serving in the region and my background there. So with those important caveats, let me begin.

First, I’d like to take a closer look at some of the assumptions inherent in the title of this panel. What do we mean by peace? Is it merely the absence of conflict? And what do we mean by the Middle East? I assume that we are all talking about the same thing; we are talking about Israel and the Arab Muslim States of the Middle East. The latter are 22 different countries, the vast majority of which are not engaged in open hostilities at this time, and which have to varying degrees different systems of governance, different social and economic situations, and even different kinds of relationships with Israel, some overt and open such as Jordan and Egypt, and some much more discrete but nonetheless there in terms of trade and other types of quiet exchanges. So I think it important to bear that in mind.

Moreover, despite the usual adjectives that are broadly applied to this whole region, such as “volatile” and “unstable,” in fact, over the past decade and a half or so, we have witnessed leadership transitions in at least nine of these countries--Jordan, Morocco, Bahrain, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Oman--that did not result from revolutionary movements, that did not produce revolutionary actions, and didn’t really even produce major disruptions. Admittedly, the last two, in Qatar and Oman, were typical of palace coups in a way; they involved sons rebelling against fathers. But that said, these were all relatively stable transitions. The affected populations accepted that these were going to be a kind of hereditary, or combination of authoritarian governance and hereditary take-over. But, again, this is stability of a certain type, a “stability” which the United States has been criticized for supporting in the past, or at least accepting. Nonetheless, having lived in a number of these places, I can tell you that day to day life is pretty mundane for most people: you go to work; your children go to school; you eat; you shop; you are not living in a war zone.

So what are we really talking about here? What is the real issue? I have often shared with people my belief that one of the primary qualifications to be a successful diplomat is to have an unjustified sense of optimism, and so I am probably going to look through that prism. I hope it is not too “Pollyanna-ish,” but I am going to change the title here: I‘d like to talk more about what kinds of challenges -- and I know that there is no word in Turkish for that -- but what lies ahead on the path to peace and stability in this part of the world. And I am going to suggest that there are a couple of other issues at play here besides conflict.

If you have read something like David Fromkin’s book, A Peace to End All Peace, about the end of the Ottoman Empire and the reordering of the Middle East, Fromkin and others would argue that with the demise of the Ottoman Empire and with the British Imperial-–largely,and to some extent French--imposition of artificial states, the ground work was laid for perpetual disruptions because of these artificial states. Fromkin in fact named four places--Israel, Iraq, Lebanon and Jordan--as being four completely artificial countries that would always cause disruptions, in part, in his analysis, because there was an inherent conflict between European political systems and Islamic models of governance.

Now, I have a couple of questions about that. Number one is that I am not sure what, even under the Ottoman Empire, could be defined as an “Islamic model” of governance. I am not sure we have a clear idea of what that is. But I would also argue that if you look at Europe, and you look at it not within the context of the last 50 years, but through the prism of the last 1500 years, in fact European states--as well as the United States, as well as every other country--we are all artificial constructs. Because that is the nature of political life. It is about transition and the evolution of political entities.

What we are talking about today is identifying what the challenges are to Middle East peace and stability. They are undergoing transitions there from tribal governance to modern nation-state. And, by the way, Thomas Jefferson, who was one of our Founding Fathers, thought that the ideal form of governance was indeed tribal, because in a tribe, as in American Indian tribes - which as you know historically, didn’t withstand very well another colonial disruption -- in an Indian tribe, Indian leaders, the patriarchal leader, understands his people because the tribe is relatively small. He understands and shares their needs, and his people all have access to the leader. In some tribes that could be a matriarchy as well, as amongst the Navajos, in the south-western United States, but the point is that Jefferson thought that was probably a pretty good system of governance. The only problem with it, and its great limitation, is that it doesn’t withstand the test of accommodating global forces such as the growth of demographic population, the intervening of external economic forces and other political impulses that come.

But again, if you look at things, what do we need for peace and stability? We need: clear boundaries that are accepted internationally; we need legitimacy, legitimate governance, and by that I mean governments which have earned the right to rule through good governance, not merely through inheritance; we need justice. This is a huge concept in Islam; it is a huge concept in Western governance as well. Rule of law and the establishment of an independent judiciary and rule of law that’s not politicized are hugely important to successful governance. It is also hugely difficult to achieve. My own country, the United States, had a long struggle with that as well. And then I would add back in the area of good governance the creation of economic circumstances and stability that allow for gainful employment which enables people to look forward to their own futures with hope and optimism.

Let’s look back again at Europe. Let’s go back through the 1500 years it has taken after the fall of the Roman Empire, when Europe disintegrated, to get to where they are today. And when you look at some of the forces that were in conflict with each other in Europe, you might find some familiar themes, such as church versus secular state, “Catholic” versus “Protestant.” Replace those words with “Sunni” versus “Shi’a.” Does that sound familiar? But there were many disruptions. People forget it was not until the 19th century that Italy and Germany had clearly drawn geographic lines, geopolitical lines, which resolved endless boundary disputes. And even then, we had to fight a couple of major wars in the 20th century. One of the great things that we all now take for granted is a Europe at peace with itself, which functions now as an economic bloc. There is a certain irony in the fact that Europe functions as a stable economic bloc in no small part thanks to the security umbrella that was provided by the United States. And now it is one of our great economic competitors.

What I am trying to say here, is that we need to look at the Middle East in the context of an organic society, different societies, which are going along evolutionary paths that are very similar to paths that have been traveled by other countries in their growth over the years. And to those who say, “Yes, but why can’t they just look at us and learn from our mistakes?” - and immediately hop from being very new states, which many of them are, relatively very new states who have relatively recently gone from tribal society to different variants of what are international systems of governance, I say: “Yes, I always said the same thing to my second daughter when she was born. I said look at your older sister: she walks already; she is potty trained; and she talks. Why don’t you?” Humans are organic; political systems and governance are organic; that is why we believe so strongly in democracy. Because democracy may not be efficient, but it is the only form of government that creates a dynamic of participatory progress, a system of obligation between the governed and the governor which allows for people to speak and shape their world and evolve without a revolutionary situation. That doesn’t mean there aren’t any bumps along the way. There have been a lot of bumps along the way.

And again I don’t mean to be Pollyanna-ish, but I believe that if we always look at the world -- and it doesn’t mean there is not evil in the world too-- but if you are always going look at the world through a Hobbesian prism, you are going to see a Hobbesian world. And if you take a hammer to every screw you find out there that just needs tightening, and then curse the screw for not working properly, you are going to have a problem as well.

Anyway those are my brief remarks. And now I’ll sit down and wait for Q’s and A’s afterwards. Thank you very much.

Q and A:

Question: [original in Turkish, translated into English] My first question is for Mr. Mack and Ms. Jones. I’d like to present it as a combination of several questions. Keeping in mind that democracy is not a process that one can arrive at overnight, and that there are different processes and steps involved according to the structure of societies. At this point, how productive can the democracy brought to Iraq by external forces be, and what kind of a democratic process do you expect in Iraq, especially considering the societal structure there?

Deborah Jones: Both Ambassador Mack and I have lived in Iraq at different times, so obviously I am going to have a slightly different point of view here. Personally, based on my own experience there, for anyone to argue that the circumstances in Iraq were fundamentally overall better or with greater promise before, under Saddam Hussein, is absurd. Let us not forget that millions of people had died in a series of wars over which they had no say. At least a half of million young Iraqi men were sent to the front with Iran. There was deprivation, there was poor distribution in the state economic system. I am not saying that what is going on now is not a tragedy, and certainly no one in the U.S. government is contending that it is not a serious situation that has required a shifting in our basic approach. But I would also say that one thing people have to recall is the absolute sincerity of President Bush’s view: that individual liberty and democracy is the natural state of human beings, and what all human beings seek. Why does he have that view? He has that view because he grew up in a country, as I did, where people have come from all over the world, from every culture in the world, and have participated in that American dream, of democracy, individual freedom and playing by institutional rules that allow everyone to have a say in society and for the society to evolve. So that’s number one.

I also think people have to remember that the United States was enormously traumatized by the events of 9/11. There have been three traumatizing events of this nature in U.S. history, which have caused us to fundamentally change the way that we have operated from a foreign policy basis, because you’ll remember the U.S. began as a country that was adamantly opposed to foreign intervention. With our Founding Fathers we had come out of a Europe where there was a lot of war, a lot of mucking about in other people’s affairs, the government intervening in people’s personal affairs, religion, etc. They came to the United States and said that is not what we want. But what happened?

In 1812 the British burned the White House, and that was one change, and then at Pearl Harbor we also had an invasion on domestic U.S. soil that led us to enter a war we had tried desperately to stay out of. And finally we come to 9/11, where there was an attack on U.S. territory, not by a foreign government, but by non-state actors, following an ideology. What does that mean for policy makers in Washington and other people? The fundamental job of the President of a country, or the leadership of a country, is to protect its domestic constituency. So people scramble around, they note the days of signing treaties with countries at war is apparently no longer. There is no longer going to be a total surrender on the deck of the USS Missouri, in which a leader speaks for, signs for, and obviously can control everyone in his nation. So you look at the broader region, and you ask “What is driving this kind of thinking; what is radicalizing the young people of this society? What is radicalizing people to the extent that they feel compelled to come and strike out against a country,” which, by the way none of them really knew? Because again that is another one of the interesting little quirks about 9/11: everyone focused on those fifteen undereducated, underemployed, unmarried Saudis. And Osama Bin Laden used them simply because he could get them into the United States. The real question, to my mind, was why these four other pilots, none of whom was from Saudi Arabia--one was Egyptian, one was Lebanese, and educated in a Christian high school, two were from the UAE--who were elites in many respects, and had received elite educations as pilots, were radicalized in Europe, in Germany. Perhaps because they weren’t integrated into society? Who knows. So you look at that and you say what is going on in these societies? What can we do to integrate people and to make them feel a part, so that somehow you diminish that radical edge? And the President’s view, in addition, was the fact that Saddam Hussein was a trouble maker in the region. As we all know. he was responsible for three wars at least; but he ruled a country viewed as having tremendous potential. Of all the countries in the region, this was a country that had a large population; had a high educational standard; had strong institutions, as most ancient riverine societies do in that part of the world; had a legacy of engineers; had a strong military, and all these other elements that somehow, if you could tap in, remove the head of the serpent--as some people said to us at the time and argued-– and doubtless there will be a thousand books written about the mistakes of the war and we are all going to read them--but cut off the head of the serpent and you can transform that society. In an interesting and perhaps ironic way, it was a statement of faith in the Iraqi people. Because of all the countries in that region, Iraq was seen as being capable of providing a model that could be followed, with its educated bourgeoisie and all the other elements, that could establish a path or a model that could be followed in the Arab Muslim world.

I agree largely with what Ambassador Mack has said, that a fundamental problem in the aftermath of the war was that people were operating on the basis of theories constructed by people who had no practical experience of the Middle East; had never lived there, didn’t know the players, were very captured by certain philosophical constructs and the notion that Iraq’s Shi’a majority might be more amenable to democracy than the Sunni Ba’athists had been. But I think the objectives of the President were sincere, in terms of what he was trying to do, who he was trying to get rid of. No one would argue that it was a bad thing to remove Saddam Hussein, across the board. The controversy exists about how it was done, and how the mechanics following his removal were carried out, or not carried out. And I think everybody can agree now that it would be a huge mistake for the United States to leave a vacuum there. Because I do happen to believe that failed states are a huge threat to all of us, and frankly I‘d rather deal with a strong state, that controls its borders, than with the unpredictability of terrorism, unlike my colleague to my left, who has suggested that a failed state with terrorist offshoots is preferable to a strong state with an evil leader.

Question: My next question is for Mr. Mack. Since the Ottoman’s have left western Asia, there’s not only one dominant country. They have been in wars with each other, even [though] they believe in the same religion. Do you agree with the idea that the Middle East needs its new heroic country to find the way to peace?

Deborah Jones: If I may, I feel it important to add one point about U.S. leadership in the Middle East: On the Israel-Palestine issue. It tags on a bit to what Ambassador Mack just said about the importance of developing other governments, that can come to the table in a moderate way or with positions that are amenable to peace. President Clinton invested enormous personal and political capital and prestige in trying to bring about a peace agreement, and in fact spent much of the final stages of his administration working with Prime Minister Rabin and with Yasser Arafat, on creating a plan, a road map that could have led to something. But at the end of the day, frankly and for all kinds of reasons that one can come up with, Arafat -- despite his personal relationship with the President, which the President had spent a long time cultivating, and despite the trust and confidence there-- could not take that “final leap of faith,” could not make the transition from being a revolutionary leader to being a statesman. And I am always reminded of, I think it was Chaim Weizmann, who said, prior to the founding of the State of Israel: “If you give me a legitimate state, the size of a postage stamp, I will grow it. I will grow it into a real state that functions.” And had Arafat had that kind of vision and courage to create a Palestinian state, no matter the size, no matter the dimensions or the boundaries, we would be in a very different situation today. But make no mistake that the United States has invested a lot of political capital, a lot of money, and lives and everything else, in trying to resolve that problem.

Question: [original in Turkish, translated into English]

You indicated that the secular state versus Church conflict that took place in Europe has been played out in the Middle East recently, or this is how I understood it. Can you provide an example of this conflict?

Deborah Jones: No, what I was referring to was the fall of the Roman Empire and later on when the state and the church were in a struggle with each other over who had dominance. This struggle has been a part and parcel of western histories we have studied in Europe. And all I am saying is that it is not uncommon in the evolution of states for there to be tensions and frictions between those organizations or those entities that have dominated the order of society. Which again with Constantine’s conversion--need I tell you, all you who live here in Istanbul-- But with Constantine’s conversion to Christianity, it brought the church and state into a union of governance that than began to fall apart later on with the Emperors, and that were actually struggles where you had the Pope competing for power, and territorial sovereignty and collection of taxes, and all these other things with the Emperors. I am just saying that you see these tensions in all societies. Let me talk about American society. I think these notions of the overlap and the influence of religion and governance can be very subtle. In our own experience, which is very different from the Turkish experience --which is more based on the French, Jacobin anti-clerical, keep religion out of governance model than in our case, which was keep governance out of religion-- but in our own laws, in the United States, if you go back to the books, in Massachusetts, in our early colonies, our laws were very much based on Judeo-Christian principles of behavior, or “biblical rules”, you know, and we still have in many states laws on the books that reflect this influence, and sometimes it creates tensions. Ultimately, as you know, the Emperors got rid of the popes, in terms of determining whether church or state would dominate civil society. My only point was that it is not uncommon or unnatural for institutions that play the largest part in our lives, in many of our lives, to have a natural struggle about who controls what. And in our system we try to set clear lines. But it doesn’t mean we don’t have a lot of public discourse or public displays of personal piety in the United States as a part of that even as we have a secular government.

I wasn’t trying to be provocative or make any allusions to Turkey; I am just saying within the Middle East we are seeing a lot of the same tensions and dynamics. Let’s look at the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, if you want to take an example. There was an interesting political arrangement very similar -- you can probably go back to the Middle Ages and find things similar in European history, or even in the history of Spain when El Cid was around and would alternately make deals with rulers on the Muslim side, or rulers on the Catholic side, depending on what suited his political purposes -- but in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, for example, you had a political compact of sorts made between Abdul Aziz Ibn Saud and what are commonly known as the conservative “Wahhabi” or “Salafist” tribes in the Nejd. Abdul Aziz brought them into a political relationship as part of his goal to unify the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. This relationship is undergoing interesting transformations and stresses now too, because King Abdullah is moving in a different way, very incrementally, to reform his society. But that is exactly the kind of thing I was referring to. You have traditional societies where religion plays a certain role. And gradually as governments gain legitimacy, they undertake a protective role that allows people to live in a broad way under them, hopefully with institutions that protect the right to be part, or not part, of whatever that religious situation is. But those things evolve, that is all. That was my only point.