November 19,2007

Counselor for Public Affairs John Berry delivers Lecture at Kuwait University


Counselor for Public Affairs John Berry spoke with students and faculty at a lecture organized by Dr. Abdullah Al-Shayji of the Kuwait University Department of Political Science on November 19.   After touching on the highlights of U.S. Middle East policy and U.S.-Kuwaiti relations, several of the students and local reporters asked questions.  One person said that the Administration’s handling of Iraq has made America disliked in the Middle East.  Berry urged patience on the Iraq front, pointing out that the United States would receive even more disapproval if it were to pull out precipitously and leave the Iraqi people to face the consequences. 

He also stressed that we hoped that Iraq’s neighbors would do more to help Iraq.  Berry referred to his own experience in Iraq to make the point that even though not everything has gone as well as initially hoped in the area of security, the coalition forces have nevertheless made considerable progress in Iraq, especially at the provincial level.  Morever, Berry pointed out, no Iraqi would want to return to the Saddam regime.  Berry said that the U.S. decision to topple Saddam was not due to ulterior motives, but was in fact rooted in a widespread perception that he was developing a weapons program with a mass destruction capability and that he had in fact already demonstrated his willingness to use such weapons against his own people and others.  Berry added that Saddam’s invasion of Kuwait in 1990 and the wanton destruction of its infrastructure and abuse of its people were what had inclined Mr. Berry personally to support the war against Saddam.

Questions arose about the perception that America has held double standards on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict; Berry urged his interlocutors to take the long view as he traced some of the major changes in attitudes that have taken place on both sides over the past thirty years, but particularly Israel’s; e.g., Israelis no longer say there is no such thing as a Palestinian people and Sharon implicitly relinquished the claims to Judea and Samaria when he started building the wall of separation. 

Berry also mentioned the fact that America has spent more of its top diplomats’ time during the past thirty years on the Middle East problem than on almost any other problem in the world.  He said the fact that Arab leaders consistently look to the U.S. as mediators is an indication that they trust the United States to be fair.  Berry stressed that it is crucial for Israelis and the Palestinians to first reach an agreement, and then work together to build the mutual trust that will lead to a true solution of the remainder of their differences.  Other countries that have historically been enemies have resolved their differences, He pointed out, using France and Germany as an example.  French and German youth back-pack in each other’s countries today and do not entertain the same prejudices about each other that their great-grandfathers held, he said. 

On why the U.S. is unhappy with Hamas winning the elections in Gaza, Berry pointed out that the U.S. does not have a problem with the process by which the Hamas government came to power, but rather with the policy of the Hamas government; i.e., their refusal to recognize the right of Israel to exist and to abjure violence.  Berry pointed out that democracy is not a panacea for all problems and that people have elected irresponsible governments democratically, citing as an example the experience of the Czechs in 1948 who freely elected a Communist government that did not relinquish power for fifty years, just to show how terribly things can go wrong.