Lee Smith’s Strong Horse: U.S. Policy in the Middle East
Mar. 30, 2010
NEW YORK CITY — Shortcomings in President Obama’s Middle East policies have been met with criticism from politicians and journalists alike.
Writer and journalist Lee Smith is one such critic. He gave a talk on his new book and presented his theory on the Middle East and U.S. policy yesterday.
Lee Smith gives a speech at New York University.
Smith spoke to a small audience of roughly 40 people on Monday afternoon at New York University’s Robert F. Wagner School of Public Service. Michael Doran, a visiting professor at Wagner, introduced Smith to the room as a unique authority on the subject.
“Lee Smith has established himself as an exciting, independent voice in Middle Eastern analysis,” Doran said. “(Most analysis) tends to take place behind bipartisan lines, along very well established ideological lines, and Lee Smith has succeeded in doing the impossible: staking out almost a middle ground.”
Smith, who is currently a fellow at the Hudson Institute, a nonpartisan policy research organization, has written articles on Middle Eastern and Islamic affairs for publications such as the Boston Globe, the New Republic, the New York Times, Slate.com, Weekly Standard and Wired. His recently published book, The Strong Horse: Power, Politics and the Clash of Arab Civilizations, was the main topic during Smith’s visit.
Doran presented the book as a combination of “personal odyssey, reportage and strategic analysis” that Lee compiled after his extensive travels to the Middle East post-9/11.
Smith presented his particular paradigm of looking at the Middle East, which he said is a region with conflicts that have evolved as escalating defenses and reactions to past events.
“The issues of this particular part of the world…has to do with the issues in the region itself,” Smith said. “If you look at the Middle East just as a place that reacts to the United States, you might as well be studying just the United States.”
Smith’s expertise with the region stems largely from his time in the Middle East and his understanding of it. His journey to various countries in the Middle East, he said, was the direct result of his own reaction to 9/11.
“It was hard not to take 9/11 personally,” Smith read from his book. “It felt like a direct attack on my family and friends and myself.” As a native New Yorker, the suicide bombings felt like an incredibly personal offense, and he undertook a mission to discover what had led to the attacks.
According to Smith, the leftists and rightists thought it was a clash of civilizations, but in his opinion, 9/11 was not about the United States.
The United States actually plays a secondary role to the Arabs’ internal clash, Smith said. This clash is created through religious rivalry and an intricate system of wars in the region that has only recently spread worldwide.
“We are now incontrovertibly a part of these wars,” he said. “September 11th is the day we woke up to find ourselves in the middle of a clash of Arab civilizations, a war that used American cities as yet another venue for Arabs to fight each other.”
Though Americans may believe that the U.S. involvement with the Middle East started with President George W. Bush’s “War on Terror,” Smith reminded his audience that an American presence in the region existed long before the Bush administration was in power. A second important fact to consider, Smith said, is that Obama’s term in office will not put an end to the problems in the Middle East.
In his speech, Smith also included a large section from his article, “A Middle East Without American Influence?” published on Slate.com the previous week, which criticized the current administration’s treatment of Israel in recent weeks.
Obama’s preoccupation in the Middle East revolves around resolving the conflicts between Israel and Palestine in the West Bank, but Smith disagreed. “The Palestinian issue is not central,” he said.
According to Smith, Obama should redirect his attentions in the region, focusing on Iran instead of resolving tensions in Afghanistan or between Israel and Palestine.
When asked how the current administration should proceed with its policy in the Middle East, Smith was also quick to criticize the president’s visit to Afghanistan on Sunday. Since assuming office over a year ago, Obama has nearly tripled the number of American troops in the war-torn country, but Smith believed this investment is futile.
“I happen to think Afghanistan is a waste of time,” he said. “We’re not going to win Afghanistan, so why are we in Afghanistan? What’s important about Afghanistan?”
He went on to say that the Obama administration has no clear strategy there; and along with the Israeli-Palestinian conflicts, Afghanistan distracts the U.S. from actively addressing Iran’s nuclear program.
Smith concluded his talk by entertaining additional questions from the audience. His book, The Strong Horse, was available for purchase after the event.
