13 July 2007
How to Piss Everyone Off
Take note, folks, here is the most practicable plan for stabilizing the Middle East. You read it here first, before any journal or member of the Administration articulates it.
To stabilize the Israeli-Palestinian contested land and governance, use the example of how the United States and the UN created a demilitarized zone between North and South Korea. I would run the zone completely around the 1966 borders of Israel and it would include the entire city of Jerusalem as a UN-protectorate. Military forces from UN members would include Israeli and Arab League member states, the United States and Turkey. The Palestinian national government would have authority over the entire area, including all Israeli-created settlements. Israeli citizens desiring to remain in the West Bank would have to obtain a residency visa from the Palestinian government. Likewise, non-citizen Palestinians wanting to live in Israel would require work/residency permits from the Israeli government. Unlike Korean, personal and commercial transit points along the Demilitarized Zone would formalize such travel. The goal of having a DMZ between Israel and Palestine is to allow the Palestinian people to build their nation's institutions and political process in a stable territory without having to focus on external threats and intramural violence. The US should provide equal support to Palestine and Israel.
To deal with Afghanistan, Iraq and Iran, concentrate all US military and non-military resources in the region toward an independent, self-governing Afghanistan. Tasks would be: first, to enable the central government to create a border police with physical markings along their now porous Southern border with Pakistan. Then the US and the UN would establish a Marshall-Plan level effort to build an energy and transportation infrastructure within Afghanistan to enable local commerce and regional governance within a federal nation-state. To accomplish this, the model would be a canton, regional government using the Canadian model for provincial self-governance within a sovereign nation.
A key element of the restoration of Afghanistan has to emphasize that Afghans are not Arabs culturally, racially or ethnically. Also, the historic enmity between Pakistan and Afghanistan over territorial claims should be held in limbo or in stasis until formal negotiations resolve ancient claims.
By deploying US and UN military forces to support the Afghan central government, neighboring countries would be aware of a long-term US presence that would obviate a strike force deployment in the Balkans, thus defusing Russian fears of a resumption of the Cold War.
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To stabilize the Israeli-Palestinian contested land and governance, use the example of how the United States and the UN created a demilitarized zone between North and South Korea. I would run the zone completely around the 1966 borders of Israel and it would include the entire city of Jerusalem as a UN-protectorate. Military forces from UN members would include Israeli and Arab League member states, the United States and Turkey. The Palestinian national government would have authority over the entire area, including all Israeli-created settlements. Israeli citizens desiring to remain in the West Bank would have to obtain a residency visa from the Palestinian government. Likewise, non-citizen Palestinians wanting to live in Israel would require work/residency permits from the Israeli government. Unlike Korean, personal and commercial transit points along the Demilitarized Zone would formalize such travel. The goal of having a DMZ between Israel and Palestine is to allow the Palestinian people to build their nation's institutions and political process in a stable territory without having to focus on external threats and intramural violence. The US should provide equal support to Palestine and Israel.
To deal with Afghanistan, Iraq and Iran, concentrate all US military and non-military resources in the region toward an independent, self-governing Afghanistan. Tasks would be: first, to enable the central government to create a border police with physical markings along their now porous Southern border with Pakistan. Then the US and the UN would establish a Marshall-Plan level effort to build an energy and transportation infrastructure within Afghanistan to enable local commerce and regional governance within a federal nation-state. To accomplish this, the model would be a canton, regional government using the Canadian model for provincial self-governance within a sovereign nation.
A key element of the restoration of Afghanistan has to emphasize that Afghans are not Arabs culturally, racially or ethnically. Also, the historic enmity between Pakistan and Afghanistan over territorial claims should be held in limbo or in stasis until formal negotiations resolve ancient claims.
By deploying US and UN military forces to support the Afghan central government, neighboring countries would be aware of a long-term US presence that would obviate a strike force deployment in the Balkans, thus defusing Russian fears of a resumption of the Cold War.
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