WHETHER TO DEPLOY U.S. PEACEKEEPERS ON THE GOLAN: WHAT ARE THE AMERICAN INTERESTS?

(Washington, D.C.): On the eve of meetings next week
between President Clinton and Israeli Prime Minister
Yitzhak Rabin, Rowland Evans and Robert Novak authored a
syndicated column that misidentified the source of
American opposition to a possible deployment of U.S.
forces on the Golan Heights. They focused only on Rabin’s
domestic political opponents, who were said to be aiming
at “severely damag[ing]” Mr. Rabin and
“subverting [his] efforts to add Syria to the list
of Arab states signing peace treaties.”

Messrs. Evans and Novak did not address the large
American interests that would be endangered by a
commitment of U.S. forces to a Golan Heights deployment.
The question now is: Will President Clinton make the same
mistake — and, in so doing, set the stage for what may
be his most reckless foreign policy error to date?

Erroneous Premise

Those in and outside the Clinton Administration who
favor an American Golan deployment generally base their
case on a false syllogism. First, they assert that U.S.
troops are crucial to an Israeli-Syrian peace agreement.
They then make the unassailable point that peace between
these long-time enemies is enormously desirable. Finally,
they argue that the United States should agree to deploy
peacekeeping forces on the Heights in order to secure
such a peace agreement.

The syllogism is false because the first premise is
not correct; it is a contention, not a demonstrated fact.
Given the stakes involved, this issue should be decided
on the basis of analysis, not bald assertion.
And rigorous analysis — like href=”../studies/golan94.html”>that performed recently
under the sponsorship of the Center for Security Policy
by eleven former senior U.S. civilian and military
officials (including five retired four-star general
officers, three of whom served as members of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff)⁽¹⁾
— leads to a clear conclusion:

“There is no mission or rationale for
a U.S. peacekeeping force on the Golan that would
justify the resulting costs and risks.
Indeed, the net effect could be negative for Israel’s
security and regional stability, while the
consequences could include the loss of U.S. lives
and, possibly, a credibility-damaging retreat of the
U.S. forces under terrorist fire. In any event, such
a deployment would increase the danger of direct U.S.
involvement in a future Middle East war and undermine
Israel’s standing with the U.S. public as a
self-reliant ally.”

American
Interests, Equities and Responsibilities

The Center’s study did not attempt to weigh the merits
of the Arab-Israeli negotiating process. Neither did it
take a position as to whether Israel should withdraw from
the Golan Heights in pursuit of peace with Syria. In
fact, the signatories hold a range of opinions regarding
Israel’s peace policies and the issue of Israeli
territorial concessions to Syria.

All the authors of the Center study agreed, however,
that the decision to deploy U.S. forces on the
Golan Heights is one that will affect U.S. equities and
interests. Accordingly, the American people and their
elected representatives are entitled — indeed, have a
duty — to consider it independently on its merits.

Those merits are all the more problematic since even a
relatively small number of U.S. troops on the Golan
Heights would represent a significant commitment of
American personnel and resources. This is particularly
true if the stationing of U.S. forces on the Golan is
actually meant to affect the security situation in the
area. That would require the deployed forces to be backed
up by a large military component. Even if this were
affordable financially, it may not be logistically
feasible. The United States cannot be confident that its
forces could, in the event of renewed hostilities, get to
the Middle East fast enough to make a difference.
Moreover, even if feasible, it is far from clear that a
formal commitment to defend Israel — something that
would require the United States to get involved
in wars when there is no necessity to do so — is in
either the U.S. interest or Israel’s.

If there were any lingering doubts that such new
peacekeeping or “peace monitoring” commitments
would have adverse implications for the United States
armed forces, they should have been dispelled by
Secretary of Defense Perry’s recent admission that the
Pentagon is already experiencing significant shortfalls
in combat capability.⁽²⁾
Specifically, he has acknowledged that far-flung U.S.
peacekeeping missions have prompted a cash-strapped
Defense Department to cut back on training, maintenance
and operations in ways that have seriously degraded the
war-fighting potential of three of the Army’s 12
active-duty divisions.

The Bottom Line

There is a possibility that President Clinton will be
tempted in the course of his upcoming meetings with Prime
Minister Rabin in Washington to formalize a commitment of
U.S. troops to a Golan deployment. Last week’s
elections pointedly underscored, however, that the
President of the United States cannot afford to ignore
the concerns of the American people and their elected
representatives.

Yet, if President Clinton does, in fact, commit
American personnel and resources next week to a dangerous
Golan mission, he will be doing just that. As the Center
noted recently, polling data indicates that U.S. public
opinion is strongly opposed to such a deployment.⁽³⁾ And the
incoming chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations
Committee, Sen. Jesse Helms (R-NC) — among other
influential legislators (e.g., Sens. Daniel Patrick
Moynihan and Alphonse D’Amato and Senator-elect Jon Kyl)
— has within the past few days expressed reservations
about the process that is leading toward a deployment of
U.S. forces on the Golan Heights:

“Syria doesn’t want peace with Israel. What
Syria wants is the Golan Heights plus, of course,
access to the American taxpayer’s money. Congress
needs to get off the dime and demand a reassessment
of the entire Middle East peace process so that we
can know, in advance,
what our commitments are likely to be.”

The Center for Security Policy urges President Clinton
to permit a full and informed debate about any U.S.
deployment on the Golan before making any
commitment to such a deployment.

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1. The Center’s href=”index.jsp?section=papers&code=00-golan94″>study entitled
U.S. Forces on the Golan Heights: An
Assessment of Benefits and Costs was
authored by: General John Foss, former
Commanding General, U.S. Army Training and Doctrine
Command who had responsibility for U.S. forces in the
Sinai; General Al Gray, former
Commandant, U.S. Marine Corps; Lieutenant General
John Pustay (USAF, Ret.) former President,
National Defense University; General Bernard
Schriever, former Commander, U.S. Air Force
Systems Command; Admiral Carl Trost,
former Chief of Naval Operations; Admiral Elmo
Zumwalt, Jr., former Chief of Naval Operations; Douglas
J. Feith, former Deputy Assistant Secretary of
Defense and Middle East specialist on the National
Security Council; Frank Gaffney, Jr.,
former acting Assistant Secretary of Defense and Deputy
Assistant Secretary of Defense; Richard Perle,
former Assistant Secretary of Defense; Eugene
Rostow, former Director of the Arms Control and
Disarmament Agency and Under Secretary of State for
Political Affairs; and Henry Rowen,
former Assistant Secretary of Defense for International
Security Affairs and chairman of the Central Intelligence
Agency’s National Intelligence Council.

2. For more concerning Secretary
Perry’s admission, see the Center for Security Policy’s
Decision Brief entitled, ‘Pentagate’:
What Did D.O.D. Know about the Readiness Crisis and When
Did It Know It? (No.
94-D 113, 17 November 1994).

3. See the Center’s Press
Release entitled, Flash: The
American People Do Not Want U.S. Troops on the Golan
Heights (No. 94-P
112, 15 November 1994).