An Interview with David Makovsky

Editor's Note: Analyst and journalist David Makovsky is the Ziegler distinguished fellow and director of The Washington Institute's Project on the Middle East Peace Process. He is also an adjunct lecturer in Middle Eastern studies at Johns Hopkins University's Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS). RealClearWorld spoke with Makovsky about his new book - Myths, Illusions and Peace.

Co-author Dennis Ross, now serving in the Obama administration, was unable to join him.

RCW: Myths, Illusions and Peace deals extensively with the threat from Iran and how the U.S. should deal with it. What do you make of recent events in Iran?

Makovsky: It’s been astonishing and heartbreaking to watch these developments play out. I’m glad to see President Obama becoming more forceful in recent days in condemning the violence. I basically think the U.S. approach [to Iran] should be like what Reagan did in the 1980s with the Soviet Union – he pursued arms control with the regime, but at the same time he spoke out on human rights and spoke out on dissidents. He kept casting a spotlight on the legitimacy deficit of the Soviet regime.

RCW: Are we in a better place diplomatically with Iran following these protests?

Makovsky: This could actually preoccupy Iran and distract them from nuclear talks. The Obama administration will have to digest developments on the ground.

RCW: What was your impression of President Obama’s speech in Cairo?

Makovsky: Looking at the big picture, he was trying to reach out to young Muslim communities around the world and he was trying to put distance between these mainstream communities and extremists. And I think he did an excellent job in trying to focus their attention on the future. If this President, with his life story, cannot make a dent in Muslim opinion it’s unclear to me that anyone can. So I think it was very salutary.

The anxieties of Israel and the American Jewish community was that, when [President Obama] looked at the past, he was internalizing a Muslim narrative of the Arab-Israeli conflict and of the Middle East in general. I think we could have had more artful phrasing of some of those issues. But we shouldn’t lose sight of the purpose, which was future-driven.

RCW: In the book you lay out in very clear terms the steps you feel should be taken to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian dispute. What’s your impression of this administration’s approach to peace making?

Makovsky: I like football analogies, OK? We’re standing at the goal line and we have to go 100 yards across the field at this point. What if we throw a long pass to the end zone? Odds are we’ll get sacked or intercepted. We’re better off throwing shorter passes and trying to move the ball 70 yards down the field. Will it score a touchdown? No. But it will advance things.

RCW: The administration has pressed Israel rather publicly on settlement building. In the book, you argue putting pressure on Israel rarely works. Can the Obama administration succeed?

Makovsky: Of the four key issues in this conflict- Jerusalem, refugees, security and land – ironically the differences over land have been the most narrow. Jerusalem and refugees are not ripe for a settlement. The issue that is most ripe to solve is land. This issue of settlements has been on the table for 40 year. It is an irritant. It is not the only impediment to peace in the Middle East – Arab rejectionism plays a big role - but the goal should be to end this issue. How? The Palestinians get 100 percent of the West Bank and Israel gets 75 to 80 of the settlements. This is where demography meets geography – 85 percent of the settlers live in 5 percent of the West Bank. You reconcile this through land-swaps. The PA can get a contiguous West Bank state. For Israel, they can annex those 208,000-220,000 people that live in the 5 percent of the West Bank.

RCW: Other than your co-author, is there a constituency for this in the Obama administration? To hear the President’s chief of staff tell it, it sounds like they’re looking downfield quite a bit.

Makovsky: [This land-swap approach] would be a blockbuster. It’s a major territorial breakthrough. Look, whenever it’s all or nothing in the Middle East, it’s nothing. We should do what we can, even if it doesn’t solve the entire conflict.

RCW: Given that countless administrations have tried and failed to bring an end to the Israeli-Palestinian dispute, what do you say to those who wish the U.S. could simply wash her hands of the whole thing?

Makovsky: After 9/11 we’ve had a crash seminar on the Middle East. From Iraq to al Qaeda – we understand that a breakthrough in the peace process won’t solve all our problems. But that’s a false standard. [The conflict] has gone on too long. We’ve been historically engaged in it. The differences are so narrow and there is a way forward. After 9/11, we do have to admit that this issue is evocative. It is exploited by extremists. 

RCW: You write in the book that once the U.S. really committed to Israel – in 1973 – that our position in the Mideast has improved dramatically. But since 1973 there have been a large number of Americans killed by Arab terrorists and the U.S. has resorted to military force multiple times in the region. Are we really getting anything from this?

Makovsky: On a regional basis, thanks to some skillful diplomacy, Egypt went from enemy of America to part of America’s zone of influence during the Cold War. From 1948 to 1973 there were a number of interstate wars. Some of Israel’s critics, like [Stephen] Walt and [John] Mearshimer – they don’t question the value of the U.S.-Israel relationship during the Cold War. They argue that after 9/11, the relationship looks different.

But if you sit and talk with Arab officials, as Dennis and I do, you see a more nuanced picture. A lot of the countries and movements that are the enemies of the Arab state are also the enemies of Israel. The Arab states see Israel as a counter-weight to the terrorists.

RCW: But isn’t 9/11 tied to these regimes – like Egypt and Jordan and Saudi Arabia – that the U.S. and Israel are defending from their rivals?

Makovsky: That’s a fair question and our chapter on democracy addresses this. Realists thinks there’s no connection with a state’s internal and its external behavoir. Neoconservatives are transformationalists, thinking they’ll defeat the Arab world through attrition.

We do see a link between [a regime’s] internal behavior and external behavior but we have to focus reforms where they’re meaningful – the court system, women’s rights and media. It’s not just about a ballot but creating a democratic culture. It is more painstaking, and less transformative, but it’s not the realist view that it’s one big irrelevancy.

But we can’t throw the baby out of the bath water, and say, ‘well, Bush failed so let’s go Scowcroft.’