Showing posts with label The Hedgehog and the Fox. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The Hedgehog and the Fox. Show all posts

Monday, May 3, 2010

Hedgehogs and Foxes in the Middle East

Multa novit vulpes, verum echinus unum magnum


Noah Pollak
Contentions/Commentary
30 April '10

The fox, as Isaiah Berlin wrote, knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing. Reagan was a hedgehog because his presidency was animated by a basic belief in the superiority of democracy and free markets to Communism. When it comes to the Middle East, President Obama is what could be called a reverse hedgehog: he is animated by one grand vision, and it is completely wrong.

In this vision, the conflicts, failures, and policy difficulties of the Middle East revolve around the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. All roads in the Middle East, for Obama, lead back to Israel, and probably to the West Bank and the Golan Heights. As Tony Badran notes, another high-level administration official has confirmed this fixation:

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