By Maggie Goodlander

Maggie Goodlander is a junior in Berkeley College. She serves as Editor-in-Chief of The Politic.

Through a series of conversations, seminars, and lectures around the world, Michael Oren has brought to life the early history of America’s involvement in the Middle East. A Senior Fellow at the Shalem Center, a Jerusalem-based research facility, Oren specializes in the diplomatic and military history of the Middle East. Over the last three years, Oren has taught several courses at Yale and written extensively for the New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The New Republic, of which he is a contributing editor, and has been interview on CNN, Fox, The Charlie Rose Show, The Daily Show, and Today Show. Oren is currently the CBS Middle East expert. Last January, he published his third book, Power, Faith, and Fantasy: America in the Middle East 1776-2006.

While modern historical memory might trace America’s involvement in the Middle East to President Harry Truman’s recognition of the state of Israel in 1948, Oren brings us back nearly two centuries earlier to America’s first and longest overseas conflict: the Barbary Wars (1783-1815). Oren recounts how the first American soldiers to fight in an overseas battle were killed by “Arabic speaking hijackers,” or “pirates”; perhaps by modern standards, we might deem “terrorists.” By 1805, Jefferson had named the Middle East a top priority in American foreign policy.

Oren explains that, in the First Barbary War, Thomas Jefferson, then the Minister to France, learned an important diplomatic lesson that may be relevant to America’s policies in the region today, particularly with respect to Iran. When the Dey of Algiers took two American ships hostage and asked for US $60,000 in ransom, Jefferson—wildly unpopular at the time, and, according to Oren, considered a “man of contradictions”—
held firm in his belief that the spirit of the American people made them utterly incapable of yielding to blackmail. Oren recalls Jefferson’s claim that Americans would rather “raise ships and men to fight the pirates into reason than money to bribe them.”1 Jefferson maintained that the tyrannical Barbary leaders would never live up to any agreements or treaties and that if Americans paid them off, they would sense American weakness and demand more. Jefferson hoped to establish “an erect and independent attitude” in America’s early foreign policy, an attitude that would prevent the United States from falling victim to pirates, hijackers, and terrorists for centuries to come.

Unfortunately, U.S. policy towards the Barbary pirates never fully integrated Jefferson’s ideas. Troubled by domestic instability, America’s early and inexperienced government paid Algiers the extraordinary ransom and continued to pay one million dollars each year for the next fifteen years to secure the return of hostages and the safe passage of American ships through the Mediterranean. By 1800, Oren reports, payments to the Barbary pirates amounted to 20 percent of the United States government’s total revenues.

The lessons from America’s first encounters with Middle Eastern pirates in the late 18th century apply today in America’s approach to terrorism, but we seem to have forgotten them. Oren points to the Iran-Contra Scandal as a moment in which Ronald Reagan failed to learn from Jefferson’s central point; America cannot negotiate with hostage-takers in the Middle East and combat them at the same time.

Oren argues that, from the start, America has proven far more successful in combating terrorists than negotiating with them; he does not, however, deny the importance of dialogue. To negotiate successfully with state sponsors of terrorism, the United States must find a delicate balance of diplomacy and strength. America, Oren argues, must conduct a dialogue with all major players—including Iran—but must balance this dialogue with threats and substantial force when necessary.

As the United States works to formulate a successful strategy for dealing with state sponsors of terrorism, Oren calls for bi-partisan cooperation in Washington. The Middle East, he says, is a region of “invariable vicissitudes” that will remain connected with the United States indefinitely. America ought to continue investing in its troops’ presence, advanced intelligence, and active reinforcements in the region and approach diplomatic challenges with equal vigor.

Oren argues that, though Washington may believe that the December 2007 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) undermines America’s military and diplomatic options against Iran, the report must not render America impotent in the face Iran’s dangerous tendencies. Oren recalls that the NIE’s release just one week after the Annapolis Conference of November 27, 2007, trumped Israel’s attempts to forge an international consensus against the nuclearization of Iran at Annapolis, 49 countries and organizations rallied against Iran’s production of nuclear weapons, with America taking the lead on the issue.

If earnest diplomatic initiatives and economic sanctions fail, America must turn to its credible military threat and use military force; in this instance, its use is not only justified, but mandatory. As Oren tells it, even Thomas Jefferson would agree.

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