The first and only time I met Ambassador Martin Indyk was in February 2020, national interest, a magazine I worked for after college. Indy is there give a speech closest to him wall street journal article“The Middle East is not worth it anymore.” Unlike many who view U.S. interventionism in the region as destructive and wasteful, Indyk believes that Washington has essentially gotten what it wanted and can now refrain from intervening in the region. area.
Indy will know. The former White House official and diplomat died Thursday at the age of 73. Indy’s most famous contribution was the announcement that “double containment“policies that pitted the United States against both Iran and Iraq in an almost endless battle. In his later years, he was skeptical about continuing those commitments.
Last year, India call to end U.S. military aid to Israel is something he has fought for throughout his career.
“People who really believe the Middle East no longer matters think I have become a defector from the isolationist crowd,” Indyk joked. this national interest During the event, he wore a unique Australian accent. But the United States does have legitimate reasons to intervene in the region, Indy insists: “The first three are oil, oil, oil. The fourth is Israel.” It is because these interests are guaranteed that the Americans can back down. He pointed out that the global energy market has got rid of its dependence on Persian Gulf oil, and “Israel today is fully capable of being self-reliant.”
In the last months of his life, his tone changed again. Indy’s last public statement was Series of social media posts Lamented Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s leadership of the country and failure to thank the United States for its support. “Israel, wake up! Your government is leading you toward greater isolation and destruction,” Indy said. wrote May 22nd. They seem to be starting to fall apart.
It was Israel that got Indy interested in the Middle East in the first place. Born in England and raised in Australia, he witnessed the outbreak of the Arab-Israeli war in 1973 while studying at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. indik short service He worked as a Middle East expert in the Australian intelligence service before moving to the United States in 1982 to work at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. He helped found another pro-Israel think tank, the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
In 1991, before announcing his candidacy for president, Bill Clinton sit down Indyk promised that they could reach four peace deals: an Israeli-Palestinian treaty, an Israeli-Jordanian treaty, an Israeli-Lebanese treaty and an Israeli-Syrian treaty. Clinton liked what he heard. Indy became a U.S. citizen in 1993 and joined Clinton’s National Security Council a week later. Clinton later appointed Indyk as U.S. ambassador to Israel and assistant secretary of state.
Those were the first optimistic days of the Arab-Israeli peace process, but it quickly soured. While Israel and Jordan did normalize relations, Palestinian-Israeli negotiations have been delayed. (Diplomacy with Lebanon and Syria had not even come to fruition.) In 2000, at the end of the Clinton administration, negotiations broke down and brutal Israeli-Palestinian violence erupted. Clinton and his envoy Dennis Ross accuse this Palestinian leadership. Other officials, including Robert Malley and Aaron David Miller, also placed some of the blame Israel’s intransigence and Clinton’s tendencies”Israeli lawyer”, in Miller’s words.
The Clinton era also intensified U.S. conflicts with Iran and Iraq. The two countries were at war in the 1980s, with former President Ronald Reagan supporting Iraq to prevent Iran from winning. Then, in 1991, Iraq invaded U.S. partners Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, leading U.S. forces to crush the Iraqi army. The Clinton administration decided it could and should play a permanent police role in the region. Indyk announced the “dual containment” policy in a statement 1993 speech Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
“The current regimes in Iraq and Iran are both hostile to U.S. interests in the region. Therefore, we do not accept the argument that we should continue the old balance of power game, establishing one to balance the other,” Indyk said. “As long as we can maintain a military presence in the region,” he declared, the United States will use that presence “to confront the regimes of Iraq and Iran.”
Indyk’s speech contained the seeds of more radical policies. Indy announced that the Clinton administration would “provide stronger support to the Iraqi National Assembly as a democratic alternative to Saddam Hussein’s regime.” Ahmed Chalabi, later chairman of the Iraqi National Congress Party Help with feeding President George W. Bush was delusional that Iraqis would welcome U.S. troops as liberators and provided much help disinformation On “Weapons of Mass Destruction,” justifying the U.S. invasion of 2003.
At the same time, containment of Iran should go hand in hand with the normalization of Arab-Israeli relations. “Our strategy is to use the engine of peacemaking to transform the region while containing [Iranians] Through sanctions and isolation. The more successful we are in making peace, the more isolated we become [Iran] will become,” Indyk later said, according to the 2007 book treacherous alliance Author: Trita Parsi. Indyk told Passi that he did not foresee Iran “outwit us by participating in the peace process” and supporting hardline Palestinian factions such as Hamas to undermine any Arab-Israeli alliance.
After Clinton left office, Indy spent the remainder of his career in academia and think tanks, returning to government only for a few months in 2013 and 2014 to serve as President Barack Obama’s special envoy for the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. By then, Indyk was already considered a skeptic of Israel’s stance and a dove on Iran.
In 2014, shortly before Indyk left office, he Anonymous complaint The “major disruption” to peace talks has come from settlements. (Israeli media unmask him As an anonymous source. publicly reiterate Palestinians who “grew up under Israeli occupation” have no reason to hope that “Israelis will ever grant them rights.”
In 2015, he testify to congress Support Obama’s grand negotiation on Iran’s nuclear program. Indyk said that “the agreement has won at least ten years of breathing space,” but he also called for “a strong push for a regional security strategy to use the breathing space to start rebuilding a more stable order.” He proposed providing more military support to Israel and friendly Arab countries and placing these countries under the US “nuclear umbrella.”
After President Donald Trump took office, Indy testify again, urging Trump to abide by Obama’s agreement. (Trump famously did not follow that advice.) “Confronting Iran in a conflict-ridden Middle East is no easy task, but it would be easier if we were not also dealing with the Iranian nuclear threat,” Indyk said. He added: “As long as they are supported by sanctions and other elements of the strategy and fully coordinated with our regional allies, negotiations are not a concession to Iran or a sign of weakness.”
Maybe it wasn’t Indy that changed. Since the Clinton era, both American and Israeli politics have become more hawkish. Indy has always wanted to use the United States’ influence on Iran to force it to make concessions; the hawks in Trump’s inner circle hope to use this influence to carry out full-scale operations regime change Activity. The Israeli government of the 1990s agreed with Indyk that Palestinian autonomy was vital to Israel’s security;The Israeli Knesset voted overwhelmingly this month to declare Palestinian autonomy”existential danger” Indyk was a hawk in his day, but now he looks like a dove.
Yet his own role in the creation of these monsters cannot be ignored. In the 1990s, the United States could have made peace with Iran and Iraq through strength. Dual containment has led to decades of war and tension, squandered Washington’s advantages and made peace more difficult to achieve. Clinton-era vision of Arab-Israeli alliance against Iran becomes Netanyahu’s strategy Beyond the Palestinian Question.
In other words, Indyk wants the United States to build up its power in the Middle East until it reaches a satisfactory level and then consolidate its gains. However, those who follow Indyk see no reason to stop moving forward. As long as America “wins,” caution and restraint seem like a cowardly half-measure. The disaster of October 2023 and everything that followed reminded American leaders of the limits of their power. Some people still don’t want to admit it.
The story of Indyk’s life is the story of America’s relationship with the Middle East. Those who were in charge of U.S. foreign policy in the 1990s were suddenly thrust into the position of absolute hegemon, with the Middle East like putty in their hands. By the time the unintended consequences of their overconfidence become apparent, it’s too late to prevent them. Despite his best efforts, Indyk created a world that would outlast him.
