Since the publication of his controversial book, Palestine: Peace not Apartheid two years ago, former US President Jimmy Carter has incurred wholesale criticism from policy informants, think-tanks, and his closest admirers. Even at his own Emory University in Atlanta, student protest and ridicule followed a highly publicized campaign of condemnation from senior faculty.
While Carter s most recent engagement with Hamas will win him few new friends, his move should be seen on par with Nixon s 1972 China visit. Carter s long conflict resolution experience, visionary leadership, and non-ideological approach to peace building should be emulated by global leaders dealing with Islamic activist groups in various contexts. Such pragmatism not only offers a path for future stability, but seems to moderate otherwise unseemly enemies – proving once more that political engagement is the primary deterrent of political violence.
Carter s engagement with Hamas, however, is not entirely novel or radical.
Rather, it is merely emblematic of the way in which many qualified observers, humanitarian workers and Middle East scholars have approached the rise of Islamic political organizations and movements.
Contrary to the Islamophobic depictions of a monolithic wave of fanatical violence, most experts have noted that constituent-based Islamic political groups regularly engage in democratic political procedures and respond favorably to diplomatic overtures. That the former president can validate Hamas long standing call for a truce further proves that even radical Islamic groups, whose vitriolic rhetoric we may find unpalatable, moderate when given a seat at the power-sharing table.
This phenomenon, despite being obvious to observers and political scientists around the world, has been ignored and sidelined by political elites in Western democracies and Middle Eastern oligarchies alike in favor of the politics of fear, exaggeration, and control.
Consider the Mubarak regime s approach to the Muslim Brotherhood: Despite the fact that the organization has consistently renounced violence as a political strategy and endorsed free and fair elections, the Egyptian government has obstructed democratic reform itself by vetting and arresting its candidates, water-hosing polling lines, and amending the constitution. At this stage, allowing free and fair elections in the country seems absolutely necessary lest Egypt follow the course of Algeria s civil war.
On another front, presumed Republican presidential nominee, John McCain, has consistently resorted to the ubiquitously imminent threat of radical Islam in order to coax voter support. McCain has accepted the endorsement of the zealot pastor John Haggee, who describes the current historical impasse as a clash of civilizations.
He says, This is a religious war that Islam cannot and must not win.The end of the world as we know it is rapidly approaching… Rejoice and be exceedingly glad the best is yet to be. McCain s policy following the Bush s administration – now being endorsed by Hillary Clinton – is that the United States must never politically engage with its enemies. Like throwing sand in the eyes, such rhetoric entirely obscures the political challenges faced by global leaders, and ignores the historic successes made by implementing the opposite policy.
In fact, even the Bush administration has found that engaging with resistant political parties, be they religious or secular, has immediate benefits. US military leaders on the ground have now come to depend upon Abd Al-Aziz Al-Hakim – leader of the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council (SIIC), an Iranian backed outfit whose Badr Corps militia was entirely trained by Iran s Revolutionary Guards – to provide basic security guarantees.
SIIC s involvement in the political process over the last few years has moderated its ideological positions, which compromise democratic processes. It should be kept in mind that SIIC s original name was the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq. This political alliance should be seen alongside the endorsement of the Sunni Awakening Councils and US backchannel communication with Ayatollah Sistani.
Ironically, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki s struggle to maintain power might have led him to fall into the Bush-McCain mindset with his confusing approach to the young firebrand cleric, Muqtada Al-Sadr. Although Maliki depended upon Al-Sadr s support to enter office, now that the youngster has challenged his elder, Maliki is threatening to ban Al-Sadr s party from the political process. In 2004, Al-Sadr raised a rebellion against the coalition authorities. Given the chance to participate in the political process he organized politically and voted his policies into power in 2006. Following Maliki s stonewalling in recent weeks, he threatened open war early this week.
It should be quite obvious by now that dealing with Islamist parties is no different than dealing with resistant political movements in other contexts. Humanitarian workers and military administrators around the world have come to learn that step one in the conflict resolution process is to prioritize political action and commitment over political rhetoric.
If Hamas has agreed to enter into a permanent cease-fire which recognizes 1967 borders as the framework for the creation of a Palestinian state, then it seems refusing to engage with them is premised upon an ideological commitment only. Considering the shameful state of Gaza s humanitarian catastrophe, not to mention the deteriorated security situation, one would imagine that leaders in Washington and Tel-Aviv would rush to the opportunity to solve the crisis. Instead, the ideological commitments of Olmert and Bush, two beleaguered sitting ducks waiting for history to turn its page on them, trump the priority of human security.
It would be an ironic, if not romantic, finale if Jimmy Carter, whose presidency is most remembered by Iranian hostage crisis and the rise of Ayatollah Khomeini, becomes the symbol for pragmatic engagement and peaceful solution to the West s alleged collision course with the Islamic world. In any case, it took many steps to eventually crush the Berlin Wall; one hopes that we can learn a little from our past, if not our present.
Abbas Barzegar is a Ph.D. candidate at Emory University. His research focuses on the complexity and cultural, religious, and political diversity of the American Muslim community. This article was written for the Common Ground News Service (CGNews) and can be accessed at www.commongroundnews.org.
