Oh-So-Moderate Fatah Party Attending Iranian-Led Coordination Meetings (Plus: Engaging Lunatics Fails? No Way)

By
Omri Ceren
– September 15, 2007Posted in: Iran, Palestinians

They’re very very moderate. That’s why they send representatives to Iran. That’s what moderates do:

Iran recently held a summit meeting bringing together Palestinian leaders. Hamas was there, of course, and Islamic Jihad, too. No surprise that. But there was someone else participating in the gathering: Farouq Qaddumi. Qaddumi is a veteran Fatah and PLO bureaucrat who now heads the former group… He has never accepted even the 1993 Oslo agreement. In most ways, he is more representative of Fatah leadership than… Mahmoud Abbas and Salam Fayyad… [He] has long been an ally of Syria which is Tehran’s closest ally. But there is something else going on here which is of historic importance and which shows the difference between reality and what is said in the Western media or governments. Not Egypt, not Saudi Arabia but Iran is now the mediator between Hamas and Fatah.

Barry Rubin goes on to say that: (1) Fatah is preferable to Hamas so even though they’re willing to take order from Tehran they should still be supported, (2) that support should come with a strong does of cynicism and (3) wow, doesn’t that situation totally suck and wouldn’t it be great if the West hadn’t pressured Israel for close to two decades to take “risks for peace” that ended up empowering genocidal lunatics? That last point is actually ours, but we’re confident that you can find it if you read between the lines. Or maybe not. But it’s still pretty compelling, no?

The serious upshot of the article is after the jump, and then we’re going to send you to the main article for a compare and contrast between Republican and Democratic policies – both of which are found wanting.

Iran employs the appeal of intoxicating revolutionary rhetoric, a seductive use of Islam (the divine will wants you to do what we say), a cathartic orgy of hatred, an appeal to macho heroism, money into one’s pocket (to buy guns or live high on the non-hog), direct provision of social services to supporters, and encouraging macho and supposedly heroic violence. If people were saints, the U.S. approach would be better. Given the reality of the Middle East, a combination of rewards (only in return for actual deeds) and punishments would be more effective. This is called power diplomacy and politicians or diplomats seem to understand it perfectly well except when it comes to the Middle East… The problem with both approaches is that they insist on expecting Middle Easterners to act like Americans.

There are some hysterically – and tragically – misguided quotes in the main article, including pretty concise descriptions of how all the different schools of American foreign policy seem to have in common the feature of being recipes for failure in the Middle East.

Probably nothing for American policy makers to worry about. It’s not like Barry Rubin, the director of the International Affairs Center at one of Israel’s most important policy campuses, knows anything about political dynamics in the Middle East. He’s probably even a Zionist. And you know what that means.

References:
* Pilgrimage to Tehran [GLORIA]

Previously:
* This Summer’s War With Syria – Sucking Up To Dictators Doesn’t Work Edition
* Syria Expert Barry Rubin Underwhelmed By Nuanced Liberal Insight That Sunnis and Shiites Are Different
* Sarkozy: Let’s Engage Syria! Barry Rubin: Let’s Not!

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