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26-03-2023, 05:53 PM
Published on :
25 Mar, 2023, 1:30 pm
By Trita Parsi
There was a time when all roads to peace went through Washington.
......
But over the years, as America’s foreign policy became more militarized and as sustaining the so-called rules-based order increasingly meant that the United States put itself above all rules, America appears to have given up on the virtues of honest peacemaking.
......
This has perhaps been most evident in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict but is now increasingly defining America’s general posture.
......
This has perhaps been most evident in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict but is now increasingly defining America’s general posture. In 2000, when Madeleine Albright defended the Clinton administration’s refusal to veto a U.N. Security Council Resolution condemning the excessive use of force against Palestinians, she cited the need for the United States to be seen as an “honest broker.”
But since then, the United States has vetoed 12 Security Council resolutions expressing criticisms of Israel — so much for neutrality.
......
While this trend is more than two decades long, it has reached full maturity now with great-power competition with China becoming the organizing principle of U.S. foreign policy.
......
while America may have lost interest in peacemaking, the world has not.
As the Ukraine crisis has shown, America has been immensely effective in mobilizing the West but hopelessly clueless in inspiring the global south.
While the Western nations wanted the United States to rally them to defend Ukraine, the global south was looking for leadership to bring peace to Ukraine — of which the United States has offered little to none.
......
But America not only has moved beyond peacemaking. It is also increasingly dismissive of other powers’ efforts to mediate.
Though the White House officially welcomed the Saudi-Iranian normalization deal, it could not conceal its irritation at China’s new-won role as a broker in the Middle East.
And Beijing’s earlier offer to mediate between Ukraine and Russia was quickly dismissed by Washington as a distraction, even though President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine welcomed it on the condition that Russian troops would withdraw from Ukrainian territory.
As Mark Hannah of the Eurasia Group Foundation recently pointed out, there is an inherent hypocrisy “in touting Ukraine’s agency when it prosecutes war, but not when it pursues peace.”
......
Xi succeeded in bringing Iran and Saudi Arabia together precisely because he was on neither’s side. With stubborn discipline, Beijing maintained a neutral position on the two countries’ squabbles and didn’t moralize their conflict or bother with whose side history would take. Nor did China bribe Iran and Saudi Arabia with security guarantees, arms deals or military bases, as all too often is our habit.
.....
In a multipolar world, shared responsibility for security can be a virtue that reduces the burden on Americans without increasing threats to U.S. interests.
......
The greatest threat to our own security and reputation is if we stand in the way of a world where others have a stake in peace, if we become a nation that doesn’t just put diplomacy last but also dismisses those who seek to put diplomacy first.
https://www.dtnext.in/edit/2023/03/25/al...me-justice
25 Mar, 2023, 1:30 pm
By Trita Parsi
There was a time when all roads to peace went through Washington.
......
But over the years, as America’s foreign policy became more militarized and as sustaining the so-called rules-based order increasingly meant that the United States put itself above all rules, America appears to have given up on the virtues of honest peacemaking.
......
This has perhaps been most evident in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict but is now increasingly defining America’s general posture.
......
This has perhaps been most evident in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict but is now increasingly defining America’s general posture. In 2000, when Madeleine Albright defended the Clinton administration’s refusal to veto a U.N. Security Council Resolution condemning the excessive use of force against Palestinians, she cited the need for the United States to be seen as an “honest broker.”
But since then, the United States has vetoed 12 Security Council resolutions expressing criticisms of Israel — so much for neutrality.
......
While this trend is more than two decades long, it has reached full maturity now with great-power competition with China becoming the organizing principle of U.S. foreign policy.
......
while America may have lost interest in peacemaking, the world has not.
As the Ukraine crisis has shown, America has been immensely effective in mobilizing the West but hopelessly clueless in inspiring the global south.
While the Western nations wanted the United States to rally them to defend Ukraine, the global south was looking for leadership to bring peace to Ukraine — of which the United States has offered little to none.
......
But America not only has moved beyond peacemaking. It is also increasingly dismissive of other powers’ efforts to mediate.
Though the White House officially welcomed the Saudi-Iranian normalization deal, it could not conceal its irritation at China’s new-won role as a broker in the Middle East.
And Beijing’s earlier offer to mediate between Ukraine and Russia was quickly dismissed by Washington as a distraction, even though President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine welcomed it on the condition that Russian troops would withdraw from Ukrainian territory.
As Mark Hannah of the Eurasia Group Foundation recently pointed out, there is an inherent hypocrisy “in touting Ukraine’s agency when it prosecutes war, but not when it pursues peace.”
......
Xi succeeded in bringing Iran and Saudi Arabia together precisely because he was on neither’s side. With stubborn discipline, Beijing maintained a neutral position on the two countries’ squabbles and didn’t moralize their conflict or bother with whose side history would take. Nor did China bribe Iran and Saudi Arabia with security guarantees, arms deals or military bases, as all too often is our habit.
.....
In a multipolar world, shared responsibility for security can be a virtue that reduces the burden on Americans without increasing threats to U.S. interests.
......
The greatest threat to our own security and reputation is if we stand in the way of a world where others have a stake in peace, if we become a nation that doesn’t just put diplomacy last but also dismisses those who seek to put diplomacy first.
https://www.dtnext.in/edit/2023/03/25/al...me-justice
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