The Holy Grail of Foreign Policy

"What specific priorities should your country have for the 21st century?"

At a forum a week ago with my 14 Stanford classmates and 15 students from the National University of Singapore, we each were given 30 seconds to give our best answer to the above question. Where do you begin? And more importantly, how do you answer such a question in 30 seconds?

My thoughts wandered until I stumbled upon a seemingly simplistic yet commonsensical answer: a viable and sustainable solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict.

I know, I’ve probably lost 75 percent of my readers right there. Such a solution—especially on the heels of Hezbollah and the Lebanon conflict—sounds just about as silly as Pluto dropping from the ranks of planethood.

But it needs to happen sooner rather than later. No less than the future of American foreign policy is at stake.

Think about it. What are America’s major concerns overseas? Terrorism, energy/oil, and, unless you’re John Bolton, our worsening image problem with allies, former allies and neutral parties. New York Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman frequently cites his “geo-green” solution, namely that if America were to take the lead on developing sustainable, renewable energy sources it could wean itself off oil—taking away a major source of money and power for autocratic Arab regimes and making sure the United States doesn’t suffer when China and India reach their peak oil consumption and throw a wrench in the world market.

I agree with Friedman to a large extent. From the standpoint of political economy, it’s a great initiative—he often compares it to a modern quest for a moon landing. But I think if coupled with a shift in foreign policy priorities, away from Iraq and Iran and toward Israel-Palestine, we would really get somewhere. Call it the “Pluto mission” if you must.

Such a viable and sustainable solution to Israel-Palestine wouldn’t win the “War on Terror,” but it would go a long way to that end. A sense of justice is missing in the Middle East, and until we find that justice, millions of Muslims worldwide will still eye the United States with the slight edge of suspicion. “The War on Terror” isn’t even a war on terrorism—terror is only a tool, a means to an end. The war must be won in the hearts and minds of the people of the Middle East, the alienated and repressed youth who are increasingly turning toward radicalism and violent jihad because they have nowhere else to go.

A solution to Israel-Palestine would restore a sense of justice to the region, and as my advisor Larry Diamond speculates, would remove the political climate where Arab autocrats can cover their abuses by placing the blame on Israel. Once oppressed societies “can focus on the real sources of their misery and frustration,” the U.S. can finally get on with its goal of democracy promotion—a noble goal in my mind. It’s a goal that has simply been sought on the wrong front, in Iraq. If we took the billions spent on Iraq and poured them into universities, think-tanks, and summits aimed at finding a solution to Israel-Palestine, we’d be looking at a freer, friendlier Middle East—and a less smug Iran—then the current mire we’re bogged down in.

I’m not going to sit here and pretend to have all the answers. It’s a terribly complicated situation, a tragic saga of exploitation, hatred and misguided colonialism that won’t be undone easily. My guess is that a solution begins with Israel withdrawing to pre-1967 borders, getting security assurances from its neighbors. The Palestinian state would have to be essentially demilitarized, and non-state militias such as Hezbollah would have to be disarmed. UN peacekeepers would likely be deployed to enforce the situation, and NATO and the EU may have to threaten to use force to enforce the peace as well.

It’s not a perfect answer, but it’s a start. There can be many debates and arguments, but the reality is that our foreign policy should, for the time being, begin and end with finding a solution. There’s simply too much to lose—security from terror, stable energy markets and perhaps globalization itself—if we don’t. We should at least try. Who knows, if you shoot for the moon, you may just land on Pluto.