Everybody has a plan to save the Middle East. That guy with the bumper sticker does. Most of your friends do. Neocons have a plan. Peaceniks have a plan. Likudniks have a plan. The Bush Administration certainly thinks it has one, and we’re told the Democrats are working on theirs. Tom Clancy imagined deploying the Vatican’s Swiss Guards to keep peace on the Temple Mount. Oakland Raiders owner Al Davis told the Contra Costa Times in July that he knew how to fix the situation—but he kept the details to himself. The policy debate resembles my family’s Thanksgiving dinner conversation after I knock a glass of red wine onto my mother’s white tablecloth: everybody has an idea about how to fix it, everybody is eager to share their thoughts, many ideas sound superficially plausible, and it’s difficult to distinguish among competing solutions.

What we lack in the Middle East are not policy alternatives. The region lacks a policy process—a security framework that helps regional powers eliminate bad policy alternatives and guides them toward shared goals.

Experts here, in Europe, and in the region generally agree on the rough outlines of a durable regional peace: American redeployment from Iraq sooner rather than later, a “two-state solution” between Israel and a democratic and developing Palestine, the persistent disruption of terrorist groups, a commitment to Iraq’s current borders with increased federalism and oil revenue sharing among its factions, the implementation of the agenda set forth in the United Nations’ Arab Human Development Report, improved governance, allowing Iran nuclear energy but prohibiting nuclear weapons, negotiated settlement of the many border disputes, peace agreements between Israel and its neighbors, and the eventual integration of Arab states into global economic structures.

But how do we get there from here? And how do we get there with extremists on all sides working to prevent such a pragmatic arrangement?

The 30-year political transformation in eastern Europe may offer some lessons. In the mid-1970s, mutually suspicious and hostile adversaries agreed on a security framework that set in motion events that helped end the Cold War. The so-called Helsinki Process began as a series of negotiations over several years that eased the tension between the Soviet bloc and the west, and enshrined certain fundamental principals: the inviolability of borders, the principle of non-violent resolution of disputes, non-interference in domestic affairs, and—most importantly—a commitment to human rights. At the time, neoconservatives blasted this framework as capitulation to Soviet interests and sanction of the authoritarian regimes of Eastern Europe. Yet by building this basic security framework into East-West dealings, the Helsinki Process achieved significant results:

First, negotiations over the Helsinki Accords got the Soviet Bloc on record supporting human rights. Their flagrant hypocrisy immediately mobilized dissident movements in Eastern Europe.

Second, engaging the Soviets and addressing our shared security concerns eased pressure on the arms race, added stability to the balance of power, and gave the American military needed time to recover from the Vietnam War and the end of the draft.

Third, restoring America’s image as a pragmatic defender of human rights in the 1970s gave the US and President Reagan far greater moral authority to challenge Soviet policy in the 1980s.

Finally, the Helsinki Process established a little-known organization that was ready and able to help former communist regimes consolidate their incipient democracies in the 1990s: the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. The OSCE has a long and important menu of responsibilities, or one whose competencies are so desperately needed in the Middle East: managing state disintegration, disarming and demobilizing militias, helping prevent nuclear proliferation, settling border disputes, cooling ethnic strife. The OSCE also provides election monitors and training for media, public administration, democratic policing, and the rule of law.

Despite some high profile setbacks, the Helsinki Process established a security framework—from Kosovo to Estonia, and Warsaw to Baku—that is trending toward peace, democracy, stability, and prosperity.

We need a similar policy framework in the Middle East today. Commencing a Middle Eastern equivalent of the Helsinki Process will not solve terrorism, democratize the region, end the Iraqi civil war, solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, or prevent Iran from obtaining the bomb. Bargains would have to be struck with authoritarian regimes we find dangerous (Iran, for instance) in order to get them to the negotiating table, just as we did with the Soviets in the 1970s. Worse yet, this process may take 20 years to bear fruit.

But such a process will empower democrats working to reform their governments. It will undermine the jihadist, anti-Western rhetoric, and could siphon away potential recruits. It may ease the tension between Israel and its Arab neighbors. This process will certainly build some inertia toward our long-term objectives in the Middle East. We could do a lot worse.

Yesterday, the news broke that a National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) reported that increasing Islamic radicalism and terrorism is directly related to the war in Iraq (read the reports from the New York Times here and here). In today’s Times article, Arlen Specter is reported as commenting that “that’s a problem that nobody seems to have an answer to.” Confronted with this new evidence, the United States still has few options in Iraq and none “good.”

On one hand, the U.S. can pull all American personnel out of Iraq. If the U.S. were to withdraw from Iraq tomorrow, the country would be left in chaos. Iraq will likely spiral into a civil war, and another (or several, depending on the outcome of a civil war) despotic regime will likely gain power over the country. This could radicalize much of the moderate majority against the U.S. for removing the original Ba’ath regime in the beginning. Islamic fundamentalists could then use Iraq as an example of the U.S. destroying an Islamic society and leaving it without assistance. In sum, if the U.S. were to remove all American personnel from Iraq today, Islamic fundamentalism and terrorism directed towards the U.S. will likely increase in the long term.

On the other hand, the U.S. can “stay the course” in Iraq. In the long term, though, Americans can count on more of the same with this tactic. Americans are killed in Iraq on a daily basis, and the American presence in Iraq angers many Muslims around the world. This anger is resulting in the increasing Islamic extremism and terrorism, as the NIE reported.

American foreign policymakers need to find the middle ground between these two options. A realignment of foreign policy values may be necessary to find this middle ground. First, policymakers need to determine a gradual Iraq withdrawal plan that is amenable to both the U.S. and Iraq. Second, the U.S. needs to evaluate and reinvest in its public diplomacy program. Typically, a person who has had contact with someone from an “out” group is much less likely to perpetrate violence against that group than someone who has not had exposure to the “out” group. Public diplomacy can bring Americans and American culture to people who might otherwise never have exposure to an American. Finally, the U.S. should invest in more generous aid programs. Aid programs are a way to show that we mean what we say. The U.S. has to prove to Muslims around the world that it does not want to establish an empire and that Americans do see them as our fellow and equal human beings. These last two measures will be costly, but this might be the price of addressing the causes of hatred and violence directed towards the U.S.

The Middle East crisis has erupted into violence once again. It began on Wednesday when Hezbollah took two Israeli soldiers prisoner. Israel began a bombing campaign in southern Lebanon, and within a few days had expanded it throughout most of the country. Hezbollah has promised “open war” against Israel, and has launched rockets as far as Haifa and at Israel’s fleet in the Mediterranean Sea (click here for full summary). The quickly escalating violence has highlighted policy dilemmas facing both the Bush Administration and the global community at large.

For the Bush Administration, this conflict has put its two signature foreign policies at odds with each other. On one hand, the Administration has tried to “spread democracy” around the globe; thus, it applauded Lebanon’s democratic elections earlier this year. On the other hand, the Administration has declared a global “war on terrorism,” calling on all countries to join in eliminating terrorist organizations. Israel’s most recent military action in Lebanon is intended to disarm a globally-recognized terrorist organization. Currently, the Administration has extended its moral support to Israel, stating that “Israel has a right to defend itself,” while stipulating that Israel should try to respect the fragile democratic government in Lebanon. The Administration must confront the question of what happens when a democracy is too weak to control international terrorist groups operating within its own borders.

Previously, the two policies have not clashed in such a dramatic way, and the Administration may have even been operating under the assumption that violent terrorist organizations could not flourish and survive in democracies. However, the current crisis presents a direct trade-off for the Administration, in which it must decide how to balance the two policies in a situation where they conflict with each other. For the time being, at least, Bush has appeared to favor combating global terrorism.

It may, however, be wrong to frame this as a question that only the Bush Administration is facing. The global community has, with a few notable exceptions, agreed with combating global terrorism as a policy objective worthy of pursuing. This is not to say that various countries and even people within the same country have not disagreed on how to pursue that aim. However, international law is a state-based system. How, then, should Israel deal with a non-state actor launching attacks on its territory, if this actor launches the attacks from a sovereign nation? Much of the international community has criticized Israel for the sheer force of its attacks on Hezbollah, attacks which are devastating much of Lebanon. The international community must settle on how to balance the need to combat terrorism with the need to retain state sovereignty. For both the Bush Administration and the global community at large then, the question is not one of if Israel should deal with Hezbollah terrorists, but rather one of how it should do so.