The September Issue of Commentary

Gary Rosen’s article in the current Commentary -- “Bush and the Realists” -- is worth reading in its entirety.

Here is Rosen’s description of the approach of “realist” Richard Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations, to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict:

Haass declares the need for high-level American pressure to bring about, as soon as possible, a Palestinian state, in order to improve “perceptions of the United States” and our “diplomatic prospects” in the Arab world. Whether this state would stand any real chance of eluding the grip of the Islamists does not appear to interest him; it is enough that the Palestinian Authority’s new leadership has “disavowed” terrorism.

For establishing a Palestinian state, Haass’s time frame is tomorrow or sooner; for advancing democratic reform, it is eventually, if then. . . . [H]e would deal with the [threat we face] in the mild, temporizing way that passes for assertiveness among realists:

[Our] public statements and private advice can create support for change and help launch debates. Economic resources can empower civil society. Exchanges that bring students and young professionals to the United States can introduce new ideas and provide valuable experience. Teacher and language training, translation of texts, the adoption of modern curricula—all can improve the quality of education. Radio, television, and the Internet can be used to . . .

And so forth, and so on.

Rosen points out that “public statements and private advice,” combined with “economic resources” and student exchanges, teacher training and “translation of texts” have been around for quite awhile, but did not exactly solve the problem.  He credits the recent (and unprecedented) progress in political reform in the Arab world (including developments in Lebanon, Syria, Saudi Arabia and Egypt) to a more realistic cause:  the U.S. campaign in Iraq.

In the Letters section, Wilfred M. McClay thanks Gary Bauer for his generous response to McClay’s article in the June Commentary (“Bush’s Calling”):

I fear that it will take years, perhaps even decades, before the visceral disdain for this President felt in so many centers of influence subsides enough to allow the remarkable coherence in his vision to be fully visible. As Mr. Bauer well knows, it would not be the first time in recent American history that an energetic conservative President has been so treated -- shabbily by his most vocal contemporaries, and then quite differently by history.

Other articles in this month’s Commentary worth reading include:  Nidra Poller’s “Myth, Fact, and the al-Dura Affair” and Hillel Halkin’s review of Kenneth Levin’s monumental book “The Oslo Syndrome.”