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Message: <br /><br /> If you are having trouble reading this email, you may view this article online at: http://www.jweekly.com/40724/full/40724/former-diplomat-says-u.s.-is-lost-in-middle-east/ <br /><br /> <b>Former diplomat says U.S. is ‘lost’ in Middle East</b> <br /> Thursday, December 3, 2009 | by dan pine <br /><br /><p>Anyone seeking an upbeat assessment of the Middle East peace process should steer clear of Aaron David Miller. The author, academic and former State Department official cannot put a happy face on what he sees as a deteriorating diplomatic mess.</p> <p>“We are in an investment trap,” he said of the United States’ role as mediator-in-chief, “stuck in a region we cannot fix and cannot extricate ourselves from. That for a great power is a bad place to be.”</p> <p> <div class="capDivLeft" style="width: 126px;"><img alt="BAmiller, aaron david" class="left" height="177" src="http://www.jweekly.com/images/uploads/z_photos_2009/c12_04_09/BAmiller, aaron david.jpg" title="Aaron David Miller" width="126" /> <div class="caption">Aaron David Miller</div> </div> Miller, 60, was in San Francisco earlier this week to speak at the Commonwealth Club. He titled his lecture “Gulliver’s Troubles: How America Lost Its Groove in the Middle East,” drawing on the image of Jonathan Swift’s hero roped down by tiny tribesmen.</p> <p>Under that metaphor, America is Gulliver, while the Israelis, Palestinians and neighboring Arab states are the dinky Lilliputians that tied the great power up in knots.</p> <p>The United States, Miller says, has put in “a lot of effort … But somehow the notion that we can fix this is wrongheaded.”</p> <p>Miller detailed his years as a senior policy planner under six secretaries of state and four presidents in his 2008 book, “The Much Too Promised Land.” It documents his contacts with the region’s major players — from Yasser Arafat to Ariel Sharon — and his frustrations with the process.</p> <p>In the book, and in an interview with j., Miller was especially harsh on U.S. peacemaking efforts from the Clinton administration on. It mattered little whether the president was a Republican or Democrat.</p> <p>“Our incompetence,” he said, “is truly bipartisan. This is not a Clinton or Bush or Obama-specific problem.</p> <p>“We keep relating to this region in a way that allows hope to triumph over experience. I see no indication in the first 10 months of the Obama administration that there’s any sense that we are learning from our past mistakes.”</p> <p>He cited the example of a U.S. pronouncement earlier this year demanding Israel freeze all settlement activity, and then appearing to back away from the demand. This sparked Palestinian ire and may have left Israelis unsure about U.S. intentions.</p> <p>“This president came out faster, louder and harder than any of his predecessors,” Miller said. “What has happened was he received three no’s: no from Israelis on a settlement freeze, no from Arab [countries] on partial normalization, and no from Palestinians on returning to negotiations. That’s a bad place to be.”</p> <p>Add it up and Miller rates the prospects of a conflict-ending agreement and two-state solution at slim to none.</p> <p>Though Miller may have played the part of a grey-suited State Department bureaucrat, the Cleveland native grew up in a home in which “Jewish identity was steeped in my DNA.” His grandfather, a Cleveland Jewish community philanthropist, considered Golda Meir and David Ben-Gurion personal friends.</p> <p>After earning a Ph.D. in history from the University of Michigan, Miller joined the State Department in 1978. He held several positions, including a senior post with the policy planning staff and as senior adviser on Arab-Israeli negotiations.</p> <p>He was a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, and after leaving government served as president of Seeds of Peace, a nonprofit that brings together Palestinian and Israeli youth.</p> <p>Rather than hide his Jewish identity during his government career, Miller chose to embrace it, even as he maintained the role of impartial U.S. interlocutor.</p> <p>That led to some interesting encounters, none more so than his 1997 experience during delicate negotiations with Palestinians and Israelis. In mourning at the time, Miller reluctantly called a halt to the discussion so he could say Kaddish for his mother. Negotiators, including Mahmoud Abbas — now the president of the Palestinian Authority — looked on in amazement.</p> <p>“It was quite fascinating to get their take,” Miller recalled. “They said, ‘We never understood that these Americans could be religious.’ I thought about it from the standpoint of  ‘was this an important thing for a U.S. negotiator to do?’ I concluded it was, that it showed a degree of humanity and respect.”</p> <p>That was 12 years ago, and in many respects Arab-Israeli relations have gone from bad to worse since then.</p> <p>“My new trope is: No more illusions,” he said. “You can still have hope without thinking illusory thoughts.”</p>

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