Hubris.

Future historians writing about America's Middle East forAeign policy during the last quarter century should include a lengthy chapter entitled 'American Hubris.' Hubris is our fatal flaw. It speaks to our: arrogance; inability to see others as our equals or care about their perceptions; and flawed judgments about our capabilities.

The last decade of the 20th century was a heady time. We believed that the collapse of the Soviet Union and end of the Cold War left us as the world's sole superpowAer. Building on this, we mobilised an international coaliAtion to liberate Kuwait, convened the Madrid Peace ConAference to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, held the White House signing of the Oslo Accords. American hubris fuAelled the feeling that our leadership made all things now possible. Two years into the Oslo process, peace clearly wasn't happening. Settlements were increasing, alongside Palestinian unemployAment and frustration. When I sent Clinton a memo outlining the damaging consequences of Israeli behaviours, his 'peace team's' response was, in effect, 'Leave it to us, we know what we're doAing.' They didn't-and the 'peace process' died on their watch.

Then came the George W Bush administration's response to September 11th. While the world stood ready to collectively adAdress the scourge of terrorism, our hubris led us on a crusade not only to invade and occupy Afghanistan and Iraq, but also to reshape them into democratic states to 'spread democracy throughout the Middle East.' The hubris of this neo-conservative vision blinded them to repeated failure. They dismissed the Iraqi insurgency as 'a handful of disgruntled supporters of the former regime.' They scorned major allies in Europe who refused to supAport our adventurism as 'the old Europe.' And when polling demAonstrated Iraqis' fury with our occupation, they deliberately misArepresented the findings, saying we were winning Iraqis' hearts and minds. In their hubris, they couldn't admit reality.

During the Bush years, we polled across the Arab World to unAderstand what Arabs thought about America. President Bush suggested that Arabs hated us and our values of democracy and freedom. Yet, in country after country, we learned that ArAabs loved our values, products, accomplishments, and people-but not the way we treated them. Our policies, not our values...

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