The Case for Pragmatism

William G. Hyland

From Foreign Affairs, America and the World 1991/92

Summary:  With the end of the Cold War, and of the concerns it involved, it is natural that US attention should turn to the solution of domestic and economic problems. It is exaggeration to read such a shift as "some form of isolationism".

William G. Hyland is Editor of Foreign Affairs.

Washington is gradually weakening its close identification with Israel, conciliating the Arabs and trying to entice the Palestinians into some sort of settlement. Apparently President Bush and Secretary Baker concluded that victory in the Gulf War created a great strategic opening for Arab-Israeli peace. It neutralized a principal enemy of Israel, Iraq. It revealed the impotence of the Soviet Union as a patron of the radical Arabs, exposed the dependence of the moderate Arabs on Washington and, finally, demonstrated that the United States could defend its interests in the area by force if necessary.

But all of this also meant an adjustment, if not a historic shift, from unqualified support for Israel to a more even-handed policy. This has already been painful and controversial. It will have to pay dividends at the peace table if it is to be sustained. In Europe and Asia the future will be determined by regional and local forces, with or without the United States, but in the Middle East a stalemate is likely to continue, or change very slowly, without some occasional forays of aggressive American diplomacy.

The great danger is that Israel, for the first time in several decades, may become the object of a contentious domestic debate, especially in Congress; the further danger is that beneath the veneer of support for Israel lies a virulent antisemitism. It is beginning to break through in the debate over Israeli settlements. If this aspect does grow stronger, then Israel will instinctively strengthen its resistance at the peace table, and a vicious circle will accelerate. Even in an era of pragmatism, the United States (and western Europe) owes a moral debt to the people of Israel.

IX

Looking back over the past fifty years, America has been both lucky and wise. As a young and powerful nation it has enjoyed a rather large margin for error, even as late as 1941. In the face of various challenges, disasters, setbacks and gains both at home and abroad, the United States has proved an amazingly resilient country. Its reward is not only to have survived the Cold War without a nuclear holocaust but to have prevailed in the struggle for freedom. This is no small accomplishment. In this light, the current debate somehow does not seem all that important.

But, as we are being reminded almost every day, history does not end. The real difference between now and 1941 is that the greatest challenges are within our shores, not beyond them. Choices between domestic and foreign priorities are always difficult, but the facts of today reveal the current vulnerabilities of the American position to be much greater at home than abroad. If the United States wants a new world order that reflects traditional American values and principles, then the first place to achieve the goal is in this country. "Put America first" is a dangerous old slogan, but in light of this decade?s realities it is not altogether wrong.