Stephen Walt's blogs

Stephen Walt currently has 126 blogs on his FP blog. They cover a wide range of issues in international relation and US foreign policy that are his area of expertise. Thirty-nine blogs, thirty percent, are on Israel, US foreign policy toward Israel and Israel’s influence on US foreign policy in the Middle East. The main motif in his writing on the topic is that Israel’s policies toward the Palestinians are the main obstacle to peace and that the US needs to put pressure on Israel to agree to a Palestinian state. Once such a state is created most of the problems in the regions would be solved.

Walt says that his preoccupation with Israel’s misconduct is not a reflection of some psychopathological obsession with the issue, but his concern with US interests in the area, interests that are undermined by Israel’s behavior. A foreign policy expert who is concerned with causes that can undermine US foreign policy in the Middle East would also have blogs on regime instability in the region, economic challenges in the area, oil, demographic trends, democratization, civil-military relations, leadership, WMD proliferation and terrorism, the inter-Arab conflicts as well as the Arab-Persian “Cold War.” One would be hard pressed to find any blogs on these issues that threaten US interests in the area.

Of course what is also missing are blogs that trace the causes for the absence of peace to Arab and/or Palestinian leaders. In The Iron Cage, Rashid Khalidi, who is also critical of Israeli policies, has the intellectual honesty to discuss the dysfunctional Palestinian leadership as one of the causes for the non-resolution of the conflict.

And, finally, Israeli leaders do not get credit for when they change their positions and take chances for peace. There are no blogs describing Begin's dream to retire in the Sinai and his decision to withdraw from there when he found a real partner for peace. Sharon used to say that the settlements in Gaza are no different than Tel-Aviv, yet he unilaterally withdrew from Gaza. This is described negatively as an attempt to hold on to the West Bank. And Barak doesn’t get credit for taking the courageous step to unilaterally withdraw from Lebanon because according to Walt’s reading of history Hezbollah chased the IDF out of Lebanon!

I am still reading his blog on the irrelevancy of academics to policy-makers, but reading his analysis I am relieved to know that this indeed is the case.