Petraeus was CENTCOM chief when the report emerged
Hezbollah and Hamas just went mainstream. According to Foreign Policy magazine’s Mark Perry, in a recent US military report “senior CENTCOM intelligence officers question the current U.S. policy of isolating and marginalizing the two movements” and encourage a “mix of strategies that would integrate the two organizations into their respective political mainstreams.”
The groundbreaking report is a product of CENTCOM’s “Red Team,” a group formed in 2006 to “think outside of the box and offer contrarian thinking” on critical issues for the benefit of senior military officials. The whole point of the Red Team, according to CENTCOM spokesman Major John Redfield, is that “it is meant to sharpen the reasoning and force intellectual rigor on these issues so that we can ultimately produce more informed decision making.”
The extraordinary five-page report entitled “Managing Hezbollah and Hamas” produces some critical conclusions and recommendations — Perry highlights some of these key points in his article:
- The report recognizes Hezbollah and Hamas as “pragmatic and opportunistic,” a nuanced distinction that is a world away from the current one-dimensional U.S. position that simplistically characterizes these groups as “terrorists.”
- The report recommends the integration of Hezbollah and Hamas into their national security forces and governing entities, recognizing that the existing political bodies “represent only a part of the Lebanese and Palestinian populace respectively.”
- The report downplays the view relentlessly promoted by Israel that Hezbollah is merely a proxy for Iran, instead claiming that the Lebanese resistance group’s “activities increasingly reflect the movement’s needs and aspirations in Lebanon.” Tellingly, Foreign Policy magazine also published an interview this week with Israeli Ambassador to Washington Michael Oren, in which he warns that Iran may use Hezbollah and Hamas to start a new Middle East war.
- The report draws parallels between the IRA’s gradual participation in peace talks and the possibility of taking a similar tack to integrate Hezbollah into the Lebanese Armed Forces. Citing a meeting between British Ambassador to Lebanon Frances Guy and Hezbollah in 2009, the report urges the British to pursue further talks with “vigor.”
In a twist I couldn’t possibly make up, an hour before reading Perry’s article, I was meeting with the very same Ambassador Guy, a universally-respected senior diplomat who speaks fluent Arabic and knows her terrain well. In a conversation about the peace process deadlock, I asked about her views on engaging Hamas, which is currently excluded from the talks.
Pointing to Russia’s recent statements advocating for Hamas’ inclusion in direct talks, Ambassador Guy volunteered an increasingly familiar refrain heard in Western policy circles: “You are not going to have peace without Hamas, obviously. They are going to have to be involved eventually.” (more…)
