The Middle East's Leading English Language Daily
Friday 12 December 2008 (14 Dhul Hijjah 1429)
Arabs should leave Israel, says Livni
Mohammed Mar'i | Arab News —
RAMALLAH: Israeli Foreign Minister and leader of ruling Kadima party, Tzipi Livni yesterday said that Arab Palestinians should leave Israel for a Palestinian state once such a state is established. This call is viewed as a new Israeli move to confiscate Arab lands.
Speaking to high school students in Tel Aviv, Livni said, "My solution for maintaining a Jewish and democratic state of Israel is to have two nation-states with certain concessions and with clear red lines."
"And among other things I will also be able to approach the Palestinian residents of Israel, those whom we call Israeli Arabs, and tell them, 'your national solution lies elsewhere,'" the Israeli Radio quoted her as saying.
In response to Livni's comments, the Arab member of Israeli Cabinet Ghaleb Majadeleh said, "The roots of the Arab citizens of Israel were planted before the state was established. They are residents of this country with rights; their residency and citizenship are not open for negotiation."
The Arab Member of Israeli Knesset of Balad party, Ahmed Tibi, called on Livni to clarify her position on Arabs. "Livni is again speaking in (opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu) Bibi's voice... She must decide whether she means to leave a million Arabs without political rights or a national identity, or what she really intends is to transfer a million Arab citizens to the new state that will be established," he said.
Copyright: Arab News © 2003 All rights reserved.
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By Douglas Macgregor, a former U.S. Army colonel who contributed a chapter, encapsulated here, to the new anthology, "America's Defense Meltdown: Pentagon Reform for President Obama and the New Congress."
Mr. Obama, Weigh the Price of War
President-elect Barack Obama confronts stark choices in U.S. foreign and defense strategy. A fourth Indo-Pakistani war is brewing, and this time, both states have nuclear weapons. Given the determination to commit more conventional ground forces to Afghanistan, a narco-state without a legitimate central government that shares an open border with Pakistan, choosing wisely is vital.
Today's world is different from the world of 1991 or 2001. Outside of the United States and Western Europe, nation-building with U.S. military power is a euphemism for imperialism. American financial hegemony has collapsed. As seen in Iraq, the "total victory" construct as it equates to the imposition of Western-style government and a free-market economy subservient to the United States is in full retreat.
In the broader Middle East, as well as in most of Africa, Latin America and Asia, "damage control," not "total victory," is the most realistic goal for U.S. national security strategy.
India's looming conflict with Pakistan, along with Russia's recent scrap with Georgia, may be a foretaste of future wars, rather than the insurgency model some mistakenly believe we have mastered. In fact, conflicts in Asia, Africa, Latin America and the Middle East are more likely to resemble the Balkan Wars of the early 20th century, except that future wars for regional power and influence will overlap with the competition for energy, water, food, mineral resources and the wealth they create.
But these conflicts need not involve the United States. In fact, direct American military involvement in future conflicts, where the United States itself is not attacked and its prosperity and security are not at risk, should be avoided. Otherwise, the United States risks repeating Britain's mistake in 1914: over-estimating its national power by involving itself in a self-defeating war it does not need to fight, and precipitating its own economic and military decline.
When word reached Britain on Aug. 1, 1914, of Germany's mobilization for war, Winston Churchill recorded of the British Cabinet, "At least three-quarters of its members were determined not to be drawn into a European quarrel unless Great Britain was herself attacked, which was unlikely."
German-speaking and English-speaking peoples had a long history of cooperation, not conflict. British leaders also knew the English Channel and the massive Royal Navy made a German channel crossing impossible.
However, war was popular with the British people, whose recent experience was limited to a short conflict with the Boers in South Africa, a valiant but vastly outnumbered and comparatively weak enemy. Ultimately, the feeling of limitless power combined with the new idea that Britain had a moral obligation to save her historic enemy, France, from defeat.
In the end, Britain's human losses were staggering; one in 16 British men between 15 and 50, or nearly 800,000 died. Paying for Britain's participation in World War I led to a tenfold increase in Britain's national debt. Paying the interest alone consumed half of British government spending by the mid-1920s.
Britain's Pyrrhic victory cost the British people their national power, their standard of living, and, in less than 20 years, their empire. Had anyone in London's leadership stopped to seriously examine what outcome it was they wanted to achieve with military power, and what military capabilities were at their disposal to do so, it is doubtful they would have reached the decisions they did.
After the decision to fight was made, Field Marshal Sir Herbert Kitchener, the newly appointed British minister of war, briefed the British Cabinet on how Britain would fight Germany and Austria-Hungary. He stunned Britain's leaders with the news that their empire would have to maintain an army of millions, the war would last for at least three years and that it would be decided on the continent, not at sea.
The possibility that Britain's small, professional army could not sustain a war with Germany and Austria for more than a few months, that Germany would decline to fight on Britain's terms (at sea), and that the war on land would consume Britain's national wealth did not seem to occur to most of the Cabinet members until Kitchener made his presentation.
How did this happen? The British interpreted the world that existed beyond their empire in ways that flattered Britain's national self-image of limitless money and power.
The lesson for Obama is instructive: When national military strategy fails to answer the questions of purpose, method and end-state, military power becomes an engine of destruction not just for its intended enemies, but for its supporting society and economy. Regardless of how great or how small the military commitment, if the price of victory is potentially excessive, then the use of force should be avoided.
Changing how America thinks about the use of force won't be easy, but Obama needs to do it. The 21st century is no time for misinformed decisions
Mr. Obama, Weigh the Price of War
President-elect Barack Obama confronts stark choices in U.S. foreign and defense strategy. A fourth Indo-Pakistani war is brewing, and this time, both states have nuclear weapons. Given the determination to commit more conventional ground forces to Afghanistan, a narco-state without a legitimate central government that shares an open border with Pakistan, choosing wisely is vital.
Today's world is different from the world of 1991 or 2001. Outside of the United States and Western Europe, nation-building with U.S. military power is a euphemism for imperialism. American financial hegemony has collapsed. As seen in Iraq, the "total victory" construct as it equates to the imposition of Western-style government and a free-market economy subservient to the United States is in full retreat.
In the broader Middle East, as well as in most of Africa, Latin America and Asia, "damage control," not "total victory," is the most realistic goal for U.S. national security strategy.
India's looming conflict with Pakistan, along with Russia's recent scrap with Georgia, may be a foretaste of future wars, rather than the insurgency model some mistakenly believe we have mastered. In fact, conflicts in Asia, Africa, Latin America and the Middle East are more likely to resemble the Balkan Wars of the early 20th century, except that future wars for regional power and influence will overlap with the competition for energy, water, food, mineral resources and the wealth they create.
But these conflicts need not involve the United States. In fact, direct American military involvement in future conflicts, where the United States itself is not attacked and its prosperity and security are not at risk, should be avoided. Otherwise, the United States risks repeating Britain's mistake in 1914: over-estimating its national power by involving itself in a self-defeating war it does not need to fight, and precipitating its own economic and military decline.
When word reached Britain on Aug. 1, 1914, of Germany's mobilization for war, Winston Churchill recorded of the British Cabinet, "At least three-quarters of its members were determined not to be drawn into a European quarrel unless Great Britain was herself attacked, which was unlikely."
German-speaking and English-speaking peoples had a long history of cooperation, not conflict. British leaders also knew the English Channel and the massive Royal Navy made a German channel crossing impossible.
However, war was popular with the British people, whose recent experience was limited to a short conflict with the Boers in South Africa, a valiant but vastly outnumbered and comparatively weak enemy. Ultimately, the feeling of limitless power combined with the new idea that Britain had a moral obligation to save her historic enemy, France, from defeat.
In the end, Britain's human losses were staggering; one in 16 British men between 15 and 50, or nearly 800,000 died. Paying for Britain's participation in World War I led to a tenfold increase in Britain's national debt. Paying the interest alone consumed half of British government spending by the mid-1920s.
Britain's Pyrrhic victory cost the British people their national power, their standard of living, and, in less than 20 years, their empire. Had anyone in London's leadership stopped to seriously examine what outcome it was they wanted to achieve with military power, and what military capabilities were at their disposal to do so, it is doubtful they would have reached the decisions they did.
After the decision to fight was made, Field Marshal Sir Herbert Kitchener, the newly appointed British minister of war, briefed the British Cabinet on how Britain would fight Germany and Austria-Hungary. He stunned Britain's leaders with the news that their empire would have to maintain an army of millions, the war would last for at least three years and that it would be decided on the continent, not at sea.
The possibility that Britain's small, professional army could not sustain a war with Germany and Austria for more than a few months, that Germany would decline to fight on Britain's terms (at sea), and that the war on land would consume Britain's national wealth did not seem to occur to most of the Cabinet members until Kitchener made his presentation.
How did this happen? The British interpreted the world that existed beyond their empire in ways that flattered Britain's national self-image of limitless money and power.
The lesson for Obama is instructive: When national military strategy fails to answer the questions of purpose, method and end-state, military power becomes an engine of destruction not just for its intended enemies, but for its supporting society and economy. Regardless of how great or how small the military commitment, if the price of victory is potentially excessive, then the use of force should be avoided.
Changing how America thinks about the use of force won't be easy, but Obama needs to do it. The 21st century is no time for misinformed decisions
The Mutual Suicide Pact of Israelis and Palestinians
William Pfaff
Paris, December 11, 2008 – Israel today is as much the prisoner of the Palestinians as the Palestinians are prisoners of Israel. Israel's imprisonment is moral and political, in that it has now seemingly lost the ability to extricate itself from the dilemmas created by successive governments' cowardice and connivance with the settlement lobby's campaign to seize all of Palestine for Israel, and the American government's passive acquiescence in this.
The steady expansion of illegal colonies into the Palestinian territories, which previous governments have been unwilling to check (one cannot say truthfully they have been unable to check it; they simply have chosen not to) has reached the point where the major political parties are now incapable of disengaging from the settlement enterprise.
The goal of the settler movement – there is no secret about it – is the annexation of Palestine, logically requiring expulsion of the Palestinians from the entire country, or their reduction to a permanent condition of subordination, in which they would be deprived of elementary political rights.
Even now they are deprived of legal rights that under international law should be accorded to the subjects of a military occupation. Their supposed independent or autonomous political status under the Palestinian Authority is meaningless so long as no Palestinian state exists.
Whether Israel can keep the Palestinians in this status indefinitely, free from effective external interference by international institutions or the democratic states, may be questioned, but Israel has successfully done so until now.
A novel factor in the situation is the appointment of a new United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestine territories occupied since 1967, Richard Falk, a law professor at Princeton University. He is himself Jewish, but his arrival has provoked furious criticism from the Israeli (and American Jewish) right.
One understands why when one reads the statement his office has just issued describing "the desperate plight of the civilian population of Gaza." This document states that:
"Many leaders have commented on the cruelty and unlawfulness of the Gaza blockade imposed by Israel,... allowing only barely enough food and fuel to enter to stave off mass famine and disease. Such a policy of collective punishment, initiated by Israel to punish Gazans for political developments within the Gaza strip, constitutes a continuing flagrant and massive violation of international humanitarian law as laid down in Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva
Convention....At the very least, an urgent effort should be made at the United Nations to implement the agreed norm of a 'responsibility to protect' a civilian population being collectively punished by policies that amount to a Crime Against Humanity.
"In a similar vein, it would seem mandatory for the International Criminal Court to investigate the situation, and determine whether the Israeli civilian leaders and military commanders responsible for the Gaza siege should be indicted and prosecuted for violations of international criminal law."
Until fairly recently an indifferent international public has accepted the argument that this could be construed as a temporary condition, awaiting solution through one or another of the initiatives, plans, agreements, accords, and road maps that have been drafted in language allowing both sides to prevent their realization. The Palestinians have in the past accepted the minimal settlement terms offered but with reservations concerning the return of refugees and the implied threat, in extremis, of renewal of resistance in a third Intifada.
The Israelis have invariably found obstacles to agreement in Palestinian behavior, a result of the Israeli government's increasing reluctance to impose its will on the settler movement. Only Ariel Sharon did so with respect to evacuation of settlers from Gaza, and it is doubtful that he would, or could, have attempted that full withdrawal of settlements inside the Palestinian territories that Ehud Ohmud now (only now, when he is deprived of power!) has told the world (by way of an interview in the mass circulation newspaper Yedioth Ahronath) is Israel's only way out of its dilemma.
"We must reach an agreement with the Palestinians, meaning a withdrawal from nearly all, if not all, of these territories. Some percentage of these territories would remain in our hands, but we must give the Palestinians the same percentage elsewhere – without this, there will be no peace." He adds: "Including Jerusalem."
The shackles of Israel's political imprisonment have been further tightened by the Likud party internal election, which former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu was expected easily to dominate, but in which the front-running Likud Party chose a slate of candidates even more hawkish than Netanyahu. The principal winner was Netanyahu's nemesis, Moshe Feiglin. While Netanyahu opposes the current peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians and hopes to limit contacts to economic relations, Feiglin goes much further.
His theocratic platform calls for banning minority Arab citizens from the parliament, encouraging non-Jews to leave the country, and pulling Israel out of the United Nations. Parties even further to the right of Likud prosper in the polls, which suggest that in the national election, set for February 10, Netanyahu's Likud has a 10-seat lead over Olmert and Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni's Kadima party. The polls also indicate that the presence of Feiglin on the Likud list could scare away a significant number of potential voters.
In addition, the dramatic fighting produced by the recent police explusion of settlement extremists from a house they occupied in Hebron has inspired new talk of grave civil violence between the settlers' community, supported by the religious bloc, and any elected government that attempted a realistic settlement with the Palestinians. Such would threaten the moral substance of Israel, and its future itself.
© Copyright 2008 by Tribune Media Services International. All Rights Reserved.
This article comes from William PFAFF
http://www.williampfaff.com
The URL for this article is:
http://www.williampfaff.com/article.php?storyid=365
William Pfaff
Paris, December 11, 2008 – Israel today is as much the prisoner of the Palestinians as the Palestinians are prisoners of Israel. Israel's imprisonment is moral and political, in that it has now seemingly lost the ability to extricate itself from the dilemmas created by successive governments' cowardice and connivance with the settlement lobby's campaign to seize all of Palestine for Israel, and the American government's passive acquiescence in this.
The steady expansion of illegal colonies into the Palestinian territories, which previous governments have been unwilling to check (one cannot say truthfully they have been unable to check it; they simply have chosen not to) has reached the point where the major political parties are now incapable of disengaging from the settlement enterprise.
The goal of the settler movement – there is no secret about it – is the annexation of Palestine, logically requiring expulsion of the Palestinians from the entire country, or their reduction to a permanent condition of subordination, in which they would be deprived of elementary political rights.
Even now they are deprived of legal rights that under international law should be accorded to the subjects of a military occupation. Their supposed independent or autonomous political status under the Palestinian Authority is meaningless so long as no Palestinian state exists.
Whether Israel can keep the Palestinians in this status indefinitely, free from effective external interference by international institutions or the democratic states, may be questioned, but Israel has successfully done so until now.
A novel factor in the situation is the appointment of a new United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestine territories occupied since 1967, Richard Falk, a law professor at Princeton University. He is himself Jewish, but his arrival has provoked furious criticism from the Israeli (and American Jewish) right.
One understands why when one reads the statement his office has just issued describing "the desperate plight of the civilian population of Gaza." This document states that:
"Many leaders have commented on the cruelty and unlawfulness of the Gaza blockade imposed by Israel,... allowing only barely enough food and fuel to enter to stave off mass famine and disease. Such a policy of collective punishment, initiated by Israel to punish Gazans for political developments within the Gaza strip, constitutes a continuing flagrant and massive violation of international humanitarian law as laid down in Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva
Convention....At the very least, an urgent effort should be made at the United Nations to implement the agreed norm of a 'responsibility to protect' a civilian population being collectively punished by policies that amount to a Crime Against Humanity.
"In a similar vein, it would seem mandatory for the International Criminal Court to investigate the situation, and determine whether the Israeli civilian leaders and military commanders responsible for the Gaza siege should be indicted and prosecuted for violations of international criminal law."
Until fairly recently an indifferent international public has accepted the argument that this could be construed as a temporary condition, awaiting solution through one or another of the initiatives, plans, agreements, accords, and road maps that have been drafted in language allowing both sides to prevent their realization. The Palestinians have in the past accepted the minimal settlement terms offered but with reservations concerning the return of refugees and the implied threat, in extremis, of renewal of resistance in a third Intifada.
The Israelis have invariably found obstacles to agreement in Palestinian behavior, a result of the Israeli government's increasing reluctance to impose its will on the settler movement. Only Ariel Sharon did so with respect to evacuation of settlers from Gaza, and it is doubtful that he would, or could, have attempted that full withdrawal of settlements inside the Palestinian territories that Ehud Ohmud now (only now, when he is deprived of power!) has told the world (by way of an interview in the mass circulation newspaper Yedioth Ahronath) is Israel's only way out of its dilemma.
"We must reach an agreement with the Palestinians, meaning a withdrawal from nearly all, if not all, of these territories. Some percentage of these territories would remain in our hands, but we must give the Palestinians the same percentage elsewhere – without this, there will be no peace." He adds: "Including Jerusalem."
The shackles of Israel's political imprisonment have been further tightened by the Likud party internal election, which former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu was expected easily to dominate, but in which the front-running Likud Party chose a slate of candidates even more hawkish than Netanyahu. The principal winner was Netanyahu's nemesis, Moshe Feiglin. While Netanyahu opposes the current peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians and hopes to limit contacts to economic relations, Feiglin goes much further.
His theocratic platform calls for banning minority Arab citizens from the parliament, encouraging non-Jews to leave the country, and pulling Israel out of the United Nations. Parties even further to the right of Likud prosper in the polls, which suggest that in the national election, set for February 10, Netanyahu's Likud has a 10-seat lead over Olmert and Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni's Kadima party. The polls also indicate that the presence of Feiglin on the Likud list could scare away a significant number of potential voters.
In addition, the dramatic fighting produced by the recent police explusion of settlement extremists from a house they occupied in Hebron has inspired new talk of grave civil violence between the settlers' community, supported by the religious bloc, and any elected government that attempted a realistic settlement with the Palestinians. Such would threaten the moral substance of Israel, and its future itself.
© Copyright 2008 by Tribune Media Services International. All Rights Reserved.
This article comes from William PFAFF
http://www.williampfaff.com
The URL for this article is:
http://www.williampfaff.com/article.php?storyid=365
rom USA Today's weekend issue
Recalibrating America 's Global Role
By Patrick M. Cronin
After 9/11 the United States reduced its role in the world to one big idea: prosecuting the "Global War on Terrorism." Inevitably terrorism, a tactic, not a philosophy, failed to provide a universal organizing principle for U.S. security. Now President-elect Barack Obama faces a wicked dilemma: how to recalibrate America 's strategy to meet myriad complex challenges with diminished power.
A sobering agenda awaits crisis managers: leaving Iraq more secure; stanching Afghanistan's declining order; closing down Pakistan's safe-havens; preventing an Indo-Pakistan war; averting the stark choice between an 'Iranian bomb or bombing Iran'; rebuilding a fractured Arab-Israeli peace; balancing North Korea's twin dangers of proliferation and instability; forging a limited nuclear partnership with Russia while tightrope-walking over its 'near abroad;' preserving the non-use of weapons of mass destruction; and steadying wobbling financial markets. Each of these issues--and others, including strategic surprises--will require tailored approaches, in-depth knowledge and strategic patience.
Conflating disparate challenges under a single banner will not make them more manageable. We will have to do many things well, and we might begin by recognizing that today's immediate 'crises' are inseparable from larger tectonic shifts.
The Institute for National Strategic Studies' forthcoming Strategic Global Assessment has identified eight global trends driving tomorrow's complex security environment, and five pathways to dealing with them.
The challenges amount to a paradigm shift, and policy makers may increasingly find themselves operating in terra incognito.
First, even prior to the subprime mortgage crisis and Wall Street meltdown, a gradual global redistribution of economic power from the West to "the Rest" was underway. The saliency of this swing is rooted in history: economic power is the bedrock of enduring military and political power. Unless some rising nations that have spent decades on the sidelines of the world's economic and trading system are engaged and bound by a common set of rules, the available means for dealing with security will shrink.
Second, we are on the cusp of but not yet in a multipolar world. Cold War bipolarity is moribund, even if major-power hostility is not. Unipolarity was derived from subtraction while the world leapt into multiplication. No single power can mobilize others around its parochial agenda. And handling 21st century challenges with 20th century international machinery is Sisyphean. But while political power has fragmented, emerging or resurgent powers—including China , Russia , India and Brazil —lack the desire or capacity to assume the mantle of leadership.
Third, the globalization of communications is challenging more than the virtual foundations of the post-modern information society. Technology is shifting power to the edge, allowing dispersed but networked groups, including terrorists and transnational criminals, to compete with the state's hierarchical structures. Personal, national, and international security are jeopardized by the heightened risk of pernicious cyber attack. Networks are vulnerable; the wider the network the wider the vulnerability.
Fourth, energy and environmental security have reached a tipping point. The industrial-era system based on cheap hydrocarbons and scant ecological regard is finished. Volatility in the price of oil and gas weaken the global economy, create potential flashpoints, and transfer wealth to autocratic oil-exporting regimes. Even with energy conservation and innovation, the world faces another looming resource crisis over water. Consider just one fact: a person's access to fresh water in the Middle East is half of what it was 20 years ago, and it will be half again less in another two decades.
Fifth, the 9/11 tragedy and growing insecurity in Afghanistan today remind us of the growing challenge posed by fragile states and 'ungoverned' spaces. There is no surefire way to build effective states. And there are too many weak states to address them at once or to consider investing everything in a solitary problem. There are some billion people in some 60 countries, especially in sub-Saharan Africa , left behind in dire poverty. While weak states are not automatically threats, fragile states may aid and abet a host of other problems, from piracy, to trafficking, to incubating terrorism and pandemics.
Transnational terrorism poses a sixth global trend. Stateless actors can inflict unprecedented damage, and we must be on our guard against catastrophic terrorism. Meanwhile, we will have to brace ourselves for conventional terror strikes, not just from al Qaeda central and the general Salafi jihadist movement, but also by aggrieved local groups as a still-simmering Mumbai reminds. But passion is not strategy, and overreaction strengthens terrorists. Extensive use of military force will make our strongest instrument the leading liability.
Seventh, the character of war is changing. Low-level uses of force and greater civil-military integration, whether to interdict traffickers or conduct humanitarian operations, are becoming more necessary. Meanwhile, 'modern' wars in Afghanistan , Iraq , and Lebanon have produced a renaissance in counterinsurgency and irregular warfare. In future, capable opponents may seek to pursue 'hybrid warfare'—combining conventional, irregular, and catastrophic forms of warfare. Hedging against potential peer competitors means balancing immediate demands with future requirements, not least with respect to conventional forces and space power.
An eighth trend shaping tomorrow's security environment is the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. Our worst fears regarding mass-disruption weapons have not been realized, but important developments have made it increasingly possible that nuclear or biological weapons may be used in the coming years. Iran 's prospective status as a nuclear 'threshold' state may be the leading indicator that suggests that we are on the verge of a second nuclear age. Meanwhile, there is a growing danger that flourishing life sciences may spawn uncontrolled biological agents.
There is nothing foreordained about another American Century. Constraints on the nation's resources preclude costly trial and error. Global order is not something managed on a budget. The Obama administration will be hard pressed to manage global disorder, and, even less, to create global order, without a game-changing strategy. Here are five pathways to initiate recalibration.
- Heal thyself: to a remarkable degree, security hinges on America having its house in order. A stable economy is step one. Restoring legitimacy will lower U.S. transaction costs around the world. Americans need to export hope not fear, preparing as much for a long search for peace and prosperity rather than just a long war. Over time, better national education is the prerequisite for joining a globalized world.
- Redefine problems: ends should be realistic. In seeking to transform a region one is more likely to be transformed; in a quixotic search for definitive victory or permanent peace, one is more apt to hasten exhaustion and failure. Preventing a 9/11 sequel is hard, but it need not produce bankruptcy. A broader definition of security will be needed, recognizing emerging interrelationships, for instance, among energy, the environment, food, and climate change.
- Surge civilians: complex challenges require a larger whole-of-government team of national security professionals, with particular new investments in diplomats and development specialists, as well as the arts of planning, implementation, and assessment. It's time to construct a serious civilian expeditionary corps for complex operations, including conflict prevention. A permanent surge of civilian capacity within the career bureaucracy might enhance government's ability to be more strategic, better trained, and more integrated.
- Counter-mobilize: The United States can use its considerable standing to mobilize emerging power centers into action, through bilateral alliances and coalitions of the willing, but also through multilateral institutions. Only a multitude of actors have a chance of tackling complex challenges. Some problems can become opportunities around which society and international actors may be catalyzed into action. For example, when it comes to countering a general threat such as terrorism, the most important partners are Muslims, who are best placed to marginalize a radical Salafi jihadist ideology.
- Exercise strategic restraint: The United States cannot afford quagmires that drain resources without providing lasting security. Playing world policeman from the Potomac is a seductive temptation. Its allure is encouraged by inertia and by free riders. But it is neither America 's sole responsibility nor its remit. A strong military is the US ace in the hole, but better still are indirect approaches, strategies of leverage, and 'smart power.'
America cannot afford to be the world's exclusive security guarantor, but the world is ill prepared for American retrenchment. A shrewd and realistic strategy that balances broadening strategic ends with narrowing national means will require visionary leadership and the best that America has to offer.
The Greek poet Archilochus said that the fox knows many things and the hedgehog has one big idea. Similarly, any Obama Doctrine will have to be as clever as the fox. Above all, the United States must keep its eye on multiple challenges, taking care not to exert its finite resources on any single problem.
Dr. Patrick M. Cronin is the Director of the Institute for National Strategic Studies at the National Defense University in Washington, D.C., and the editor of the forthcoming Global Strategic Assessment 2009. The views expressed here are solely those of the author and not those of the U.S. Government.
Recalibrating America 's Global Role
By Patrick M. Cronin
After 9/11 the United States reduced its role in the world to one big idea: prosecuting the "Global War on Terrorism." Inevitably terrorism, a tactic, not a philosophy, failed to provide a universal organizing principle for U.S. security. Now President-elect Barack Obama faces a wicked dilemma: how to recalibrate America 's strategy to meet myriad complex challenges with diminished power.
A sobering agenda awaits crisis managers: leaving Iraq more secure; stanching Afghanistan's declining order; closing down Pakistan's safe-havens; preventing an Indo-Pakistan war; averting the stark choice between an 'Iranian bomb or bombing Iran'; rebuilding a fractured Arab-Israeli peace; balancing North Korea's twin dangers of proliferation and instability; forging a limited nuclear partnership with Russia while tightrope-walking over its 'near abroad;' preserving the non-use of weapons of mass destruction; and steadying wobbling financial markets. Each of these issues--and others, including strategic surprises--will require tailored approaches, in-depth knowledge and strategic patience.
Conflating disparate challenges under a single banner will not make them more manageable. We will have to do many things well, and we might begin by recognizing that today's immediate 'crises' are inseparable from larger tectonic shifts.
The Institute for National Strategic Studies' forthcoming Strategic Global Assessment has identified eight global trends driving tomorrow's complex security environment, and five pathways to dealing with them.
The challenges amount to a paradigm shift, and policy makers may increasingly find themselves operating in terra incognito.
First, even prior to the subprime mortgage crisis and Wall Street meltdown, a gradual global redistribution of economic power from the West to "the Rest" was underway. The saliency of this swing is rooted in history: economic power is the bedrock of enduring military and political power. Unless some rising nations that have spent decades on the sidelines of the world's economic and trading system are engaged and bound by a common set of rules, the available means for dealing with security will shrink.
Second, we are on the cusp of but not yet in a multipolar world. Cold War bipolarity is moribund, even if major-power hostility is not. Unipolarity was derived from subtraction while the world leapt into multiplication. No single power can mobilize others around its parochial agenda. And handling 21st century challenges with 20th century international machinery is Sisyphean. But while political power has fragmented, emerging or resurgent powers—including China , Russia , India and Brazil —lack the desire or capacity to assume the mantle of leadership.
Third, the globalization of communications is challenging more than the virtual foundations of the post-modern information society. Technology is shifting power to the edge, allowing dispersed but networked groups, including terrorists and transnational criminals, to compete with the state's hierarchical structures. Personal, national, and international security are jeopardized by the heightened risk of pernicious cyber attack. Networks are vulnerable; the wider the network the wider the vulnerability.
Fourth, energy and environmental security have reached a tipping point. The industrial-era system based on cheap hydrocarbons and scant ecological regard is finished. Volatility in the price of oil and gas weaken the global economy, create potential flashpoints, and transfer wealth to autocratic oil-exporting regimes. Even with energy conservation and innovation, the world faces another looming resource crisis over water. Consider just one fact: a person's access to fresh water in the Middle East is half of what it was 20 years ago, and it will be half again less in another two decades.
Fifth, the 9/11 tragedy and growing insecurity in Afghanistan today remind us of the growing challenge posed by fragile states and 'ungoverned' spaces. There is no surefire way to build effective states. And there are too many weak states to address them at once or to consider investing everything in a solitary problem. There are some billion people in some 60 countries, especially in sub-Saharan Africa , left behind in dire poverty. While weak states are not automatically threats, fragile states may aid and abet a host of other problems, from piracy, to trafficking, to incubating terrorism and pandemics.
Transnational terrorism poses a sixth global trend. Stateless actors can inflict unprecedented damage, and we must be on our guard against catastrophic terrorism. Meanwhile, we will have to brace ourselves for conventional terror strikes, not just from al Qaeda central and the general Salafi jihadist movement, but also by aggrieved local groups as a still-simmering Mumbai reminds. But passion is not strategy, and overreaction strengthens terrorists. Extensive use of military force will make our strongest instrument the leading liability.
Seventh, the character of war is changing. Low-level uses of force and greater civil-military integration, whether to interdict traffickers or conduct humanitarian operations, are becoming more necessary. Meanwhile, 'modern' wars in Afghanistan , Iraq , and Lebanon have produced a renaissance in counterinsurgency and irregular warfare. In future, capable opponents may seek to pursue 'hybrid warfare'—combining conventional, irregular, and catastrophic forms of warfare. Hedging against potential peer competitors means balancing immediate demands with future requirements, not least with respect to conventional forces and space power.
An eighth trend shaping tomorrow's security environment is the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. Our worst fears regarding mass-disruption weapons have not been realized, but important developments have made it increasingly possible that nuclear or biological weapons may be used in the coming years. Iran 's prospective status as a nuclear 'threshold' state may be the leading indicator that suggests that we are on the verge of a second nuclear age. Meanwhile, there is a growing danger that flourishing life sciences may spawn uncontrolled biological agents.
There is nothing foreordained about another American Century. Constraints on the nation's resources preclude costly trial and error. Global order is not something managed on a budget. The Obama administration will be hard pressed to manage global disorder, and, even less, to create global order, without a game-changing strategy. Here are five pathways to initiate recalibration.
- Heal thyself: to a remarkable degree, security hinges on America having its house in order. A stable economy is step one. Restoring legitimacy will lower U.S. transaction costs around the world. Americans need to export hope not fear, preparing as much for a long search for peace and prosperity rather than just a long war. Over time, better national education is the prerequisite for joining a globalized world.
- Redefine problems: ends should be realistic. In seeking to transform a region one is more likely to be transformed; in a quixotic search for definitive victory or permanent peace, one is more apt to hasten exhaustion and failure. Preventing a 9/11 sequel is hard, but it need not produce bankruptcy. A broader definition of security will be needed, recognizing emerging interrelationships, for instance, among energy, the environment, food, and climate change.
- Surge civilians: complex challenges require a larger whole-of-government team of national security professionals, with particular new investments in diplomats and development specialists, as well as the arts of planning, implementation, and assessment. It's time to construct a serious civilian expeditionary corps for complex operations, including conflict prevention. A permanent surge of civilian capacity within the career bureaucracy might enhance government's ability to be more strategic, better trained, and more integrated.
- Counter-mobilize: The United States can use its considerable standing to mobilize emerging power centers into action, through bilateral alliances and coalitions of the willing, but also through multilateral institutions. Only a multitude of actors have a chance of tackling complex challenges. Some problems can become opportunities around which society and international actors may be catalyzed into action. For example, when it comes to countering a general threat such as terrorism, the most important partners are Muslims, who are best placed to marginalize a radical Salafi jihadist ideology.
- Exercise strategic restraint: The United States cannot afford quagmires that drain resources without providing lasting security. Playing world policeman from the Potomac is a seductive temptation. Its allure is encouraged by inertia and by free riders. But it is neither America 's sole responsibility nor its remit. A strong military is the US ace in the hole, but better still are indirect approaches, strategies of leverage, and 'smart power.'
America cannot afford to be the world's exclusive security guarantor, but the world is ill prepared for American retrenchment. A shrewd and realistic strategy that balances broadening strategic ends with narrowing national means will require visionary leadership and the best that America has to offer.
The Greek poet Archilochus said that the fox knows many things and the hedgehog has one big idea. Similarly, any Obama Doctrine will have to be as clever as the fox. Above all, the United States must keep its eye on multiple challenges, taking care not to exert its finite resources on any single problem.
Dr. Patrick M. Cronin is the Director of the Institute for National Strategic Studies at the National Defense University in Washington, D.C., and the editor of the forthcoming Global Strategic Assessment 2009. The views expressed here are solely those of the author and not those of the U.S. Government.
A Legacy of Lies and Delusion
By Rami G. Khouri
DAILY STAR
10 Dec 2008
BEIRUT -- In the past week, both President George W. Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice have given us the intellectual equivalent of what lame ducks do when they paddle away into oblivion, as they offer one more flap of the wings and spread of the tail feathers.
Both Bush and Rice have been attempting valiant but ultimately pitiful efforts to attract some praise for what most would see as deserving of ignominy and isolation. In separate media interviews, they have tried their hand at real-time historical revisionism and plain old-fashioned political fantasy, by claiming that they leave the Middle East in better shape than it has been for decades.
It is hard to imagine a more false statement of fact, but perhaps this is no surprise for an administration that has based its policies in the Middle East on a foundation of falsehoods, constructed it largely of misdiagnoses, and buttressed it by recurring misperceptions.
These two otherwise honorable citizens rose far beyond their political and intellectual abilities, to wander in alien and confusing corridors where they have understood little, fantasized often, and done much more harm than good.
Their claim of leaving the Middle East in better shape than they found it is their ultimate insult and lie. Here, from the vantage point of the Middle East, is what Bush and Rice leave behind in our region:
1. The situation in Iraq is very delicate and violent, and is likely to remain so for years to come. Ethno-sectarian tensions in Iraq have been institutionalized, and have started to spill over into other countries (for instance, Shiite-Sunni tensions and occasional clashes in Lebanon are new, and a direct consequence of the Iraq war).
2. The precarious situation in Iraq could -- if it deteriorates as the United States withdraws -- spark trouble or active warfare with several neighboring countries, notably Turkey, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Iran.
3. Iran's influence in the region is far greater now than it was in 2001, due in large part to the Iraq war adventure.
4. Iranian relations with the United States and major Western powers have deteriorated badly, while the American-led strategy of confronting Iranian nuclear ambitions with sanctions and threats has failed. Iran has advanced rapidly in its nuclear enrichment industry, and this has generated new tensions with some Arab governments and Israel.
5. Major Arab allies of the United States -- such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan -- are in more precarious condition now than they were eight years ago. They find themselves uncomfortably perched between their own reliance on U.S. support and protection and their people's growing anti-American sentiments, and also between their fears of Iran and their people's cheering on of Iran's defiance of Israel and the United States.
6. The hysterical American over-reaction to 9/11 -- a combination of warfare and aggressive ideological exhortations and pressures for freedom and democracy -- has neither promoted democracy nor reduced terrorism. In fact it may have achieved the opposite: Terrorism is a continuing and expanding problem in the Arab-Asian region that has been exacerbated in part by on-the-job terror training and recruitment in Iraq; meanwhile, Arab allies in the U.S. "global war on terror" have strangled and silenced the few nascent liberal or democratic openings that existed in the Arab world eight years ago. Indigenous Arab democrats are an extinct species for the moment, partly due to their association with Washington's deadly policies.
7. Worse than this perhaps is the damage done to the United States' own standing in the Middle East, where Washington is deeply marginalized, and is neither feared nor respected -- an astounding situation for a country of such immense global power, vital national interests in the region, and natural allies in the hundreds of millions of Middle Easterners who gravitate to its historical principles of justice, equality, freedom, democracy and opportunity.
8. Every internal or local political battle the United States has entered -- such as in Lebanon, Palestine, Somalia -- it has lost, and its enemies have been strengthened.
9. This has bolstered the broad regional alliance of forces that is headed by Iran, Syria, Hizbullah and Hamas, and that gravitates heavily -- perhaps primarily -- around resistance to American-Israeli policies.
10. Political violence that had once been episodic and locally anchored is now chronic and often inter-linked throughout the region, in part as a response to the actual or threatened use of force by the United States all over the Middle East and South Asia.
11. The Arab-Israeli conflict remains beyond resolution for the moment, partly due to the United States heavily siding with Israel and refusing to deal with Hamas, which is now entrenched in its own little mini-state that it will not easily give up.
This is the pathetic legacy of the Bush-Rice years, and an even more enormous tragedy and burden for the people of the Middle East who inherit this mess, and cannot retire to Dallas or Palo Alto. For Bush-Rice to claim they leave the region in better shape than before is to add both delusion and insult to their already formidable legacy of lies, illusion and destruction.
By Rami G. Khouri
DAILY STAR
10 Dec 2008
BEIRUT -- In the past week, both President George W. Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice have given us the intellectual equivalent of what lame ducks do when they paddle away into oblivion, as they offer one more flap of the wings and spread of the tail feathers.
Both Bush and Rice have been attempting valiant but ultimately pitiful efforts to attract some praise for what most would see as deserving of ignominy and isolation. In separate media interviews, they have tried their hand at real-time historical revisionism and plain old-fashioned political fantasy, by claiming that they leave the Middle East in better shape than it has been for decades.
It is hard to imagine a more false statement of fact, but perhaps this is no surprise for an administration that has based its policies in the Middle East on a foundation of falsehoods, constructed it largely of misdiagnoses, and buttressed it by recurring misperceptions.
These two otherwise honorable citizens rose far beyond their political and intellectual abilities, to wander in alien and confusing corridors where they have understood little, fantasized often, and done much more harm than good.
Their claim of leaving the Middle East in better shape than they found it is their ultimate insult and lie. Here, from the vantage point of the Middle East, is what Bush and Rice leave behind in our region:
1. The situation in Iraq is very delicate and violent, and is likely to remain so for years to come. Ethno-sectarian tensions in Iraq have been institutionalized, and have started to spill over into other countries (for instance, Shiite-Sunni tensions and occasional clashes in Lebanon are new, and a direct consequence of the Iraq war).
2. The precarious situation in Iraq could -- if it deteriorates as the United States withdraws -- spark trouble or active warfare with several neighboring countries, notably Turkey, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Iran.
3. Iran's influence in the region is far greater now than it was in 2001, due in large part to the Iraq war adventure.
4. Iranian relations with the United States and major Western powers have deteriorated badly, while the American-led strategy of confronting Iranian nuclear ambitions with sanctions and threats has failed. Iran has advanced rapidly in its nuclear enrichment industry, and this has generated new tensions with some Arab governments and Israel.
5. Major Arab allies of the United States -- such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan -- are in more precarious condition now than they were eight years ago. They find themselves uncomfortably perched between their own reliance on U.S. support and protection and their people's growing anti-American sentiments, and also between their fears of Iran and their people's cheering on of Iran's defiance of Israel and the United States.
6. The hysterical American over-reaction to 9/11 -- a combination of warfare and aggressive ideological exhortations and pressures for freedom and democracy -- has neither promoted democracy nor reduced terrorism. In fact it may have achieved the opposite: Terrorism is a continuing and expanding problem in the Arab-Asian region that has been exacerbated in part by on-the-job terror training and recruitment in Iraq; meanwhile, Arab allies in the U.S. "global war on terror" have strangled and silenced the few nascent liberal or democratic openings that existed in the Arab world eight years ago. Indigenous Arab democrats are an extinct species for the moment, partly due to their association with Washington's deadly policies.
7. Worse than this perhaps is the damage done to the United States' own standing in the Middle East, where Washington is deeply marginalized, and is neither feared nor respected -- an astounding situation for a country of such immense global power, vital national interests in the region, and natural allies in the hundreds of millions of Middle Easterners who gravitate to its historical principles of justice, equality, freedom, democracy and opportunity.
8. Every internal or local political battle the United States has entered -- such as in Lebanon, Palestine, Somalia -- it has lost, and its enemies have been strengthened.
9. This has bolstered the broad regional alliance of forces that is headed by Iran, Syria, Hizbullah and Hamas, and that gravitates heavily -- perhaps primarily -- around resistance to American-Israeli policies.
10. Political violence that had once been episodic and locally anchored is now chronic and often inter-linked throughout the region, in part as a response to the actual or threatened use of force by the United States all over the Middle East and South Asia.
11. The Arab-Israeli conflict remains beyond resolution for the moment, partly due to the United States heavily siding with Israel and refusing to deal with Hamas, which is now entrenched in its own little mini-state that it will not easily give up.
This is the pathetic legacy of the Bush-Rice years, and an even more enormous tragedy and burden for the people of the Middle East who inherit this mess, and cannot retire to Dallas or Palo Alto. For Bush-Rice to claim they leave the region in better shape than before is to add both delusion and insult to their already formidable legacy of lies, illusion and destruction.
INDIA: Mumbai Terror Probe Leads to Pakistan's "Epicenter of Terrorism"
By Animesh Roul
Originaly Published as "Mumbai Terror Investigation Leads to Pakistan’s “Epicenter of Terrorism” in Terrorism Focus (Jamestown Foundation), Vol. 5 (42), December 12, 2008.
………The probe so far has pointed to four LeT operatives. The “masterminds” are identified as Zaki-ur Rehman Lakhvi, who was seized by Pakistani police after a raid on a LeT camp in Kashmir, and Yusuf Muzammil, whose current whereabouts are unknown. Based on the results of police interrogations, two individuals identified as Abu Hamza and Khafa have been named as trainers who provided maritime lessons and training in the handling of explosives and weapons (Times of India, December 6; Daily Times [Lahore], December 12). According to Rakesh Maria, the Joint Commissioner of Police and a lead investigator in the Mumbai attacks, Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD, a charity and front organization for LeT) chief Hafiz Muhammad Saeed was also involved with Lakhvi, Hamza and Kahfa in the Mumbai plot, from planning to execution (Press Trust of India, December 10). Earlier, government sources claimed that the investigators had “incontrovertible proof” of the names of the ISI handlers and trainers and the locations in Pakistan where the terrorist training was carried out. Police also claimed to have recovered some of terrorists’ communications through Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) (The Hindu, December 5). With the help of foreign investigating agencies, especially the FBI, Mumbai police tracked the VoIP number brought from Orlando, Florida, which was used by the terrorists to talk to Zaki-ur Rehman Lakhvi, who is currently under detention in Pakistan along with 20 other LeT and Jaysh-e-Mohammed operatives (Indian Express, December 10).
The fishing trawler in which the terrorists reached the Mumbai coast, the MV Kuber, had an inventory of items that established a Pakistani hand in the attacks, including wheat flour, dental gel and shaving cream all bearing “Made in Pakistan” tags. The Thuraya satellite phone recovered from the abandoned trawler contained records of a conversation between LeT chief Yusuf Muzammil, based in the Kashmiri city of Muzafarabad, and an individual known as Yahya, believed to be a point man for the LeT and Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami (HuJI) in Bangladesh. Yahya reportedly arranged SIM (subscriber identity module) cards and fake ID cards, primarily from countries like Mauritius, the UK, the United States and Australia. The satellite phone also has records of calls traced to Zaki-ur Rehman Lakhvi in Jalalabad in Afghanistan (Times of India, November 30).
Interrogation of the lone surviving terrorist has revealed details of LeT training camps in Danna, Abdul-Bin-Masud, Mangla Dam, Akas, Um-Al-Qura, Badli and Muzafarabad in Pakistan-Administered Kashmir. Mumbai’s Crime Branch denied the involvement of more than ten terrorists in these multiple attacks, adding that the terrorists behind the Mumbai attacks were trained at four places inside Pakistan: Manshera, Muridke, Muzafarabad and Karachi (Daily News and Analysis [Mumbai], December 7).
For complete article, read here
http://www.jamestown.org/single/?no_cache=1&tx_ttnews[tt_news]=34262
Read More
http://www.jamestown.org/programs/gta/single/?tx_ttnews[tt_news]=34261&tx_ttnews[backPid]=26&cHash=ec0ceabcc5
Jihadis React to Mumbai Attacks
By Animesh Roul
Originaly Published as "Mumbai Terror Investigation Leads to Pakistan’s “Epicenter of Terrorism” in Terrorism Focus (Jamestown Foundation), Vol. 5 (42), December 12, 2008.
………The probe so far has pointed to four LeT operatives. The “masterminds” are identified as Zaki-ur Rehman Lakhvi, who was seized by Pakistani police after a raid on a LeT camp in Kashmir, and Yusuf Muzammil, whose current whereabouts are unknown. Based on the results of police interrogations, two individuals identified as Abu Hamza and Khafa have been named as trainers who provided maritime lessons and training in the handling of explosives and weapons (Times of India, December 6; Daily Times [Lahore], December 12). According to Rakesh Maria, the Joint Commissioner of Police and a lead investigator in the Mumbai attacks, Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD, a charity and front organization for LeT) chief Hafiz Muhammad Saeed was also involved with Lakhvi, Hamza and Kahfa in the Mumbai plot, from planning to execution (Press Trust of India, December 10). Earlier, government sources claimed that the investigators had “incontrovertible proof” of the names of the ISI handlers and trainers and the locations in Pakistan where the terrorist training was carried out. Police also claimed to have recovered some of terrorists’ communications through Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) (The Hindu, December 5). With the help of foreign investigating agencies, especially the FBI, Mumbai police tracked the VoIP number brought from Orlando, Florida, which was used by the terrorists to talk to Zaki-ur Rehman Lakhvi, who is currently under detention in Pakistan along with 20 other LeT and Jaysh-e-Mohammed operatives (Indian Express, December 10).
The fishing trawler in which the terrorists reached the Mumbai coast, the MV Kuber, had an inventory of items that established a Pakistani hand in the attacks, including wheat flour, dental gel and shaving cream all bearing “Made in Pakistan” tags. The Thuraya satellite phone recovered from the abandoned trawler contained records of a conversation between LeT chief Yusuf Muzammil, based in the Kashmiri city of Muzafarabad, and an individual known as Yahya, believed to be a point man for the LeT and Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami (HuJI) in Bangladesh. Yahya reportedly arranged SIM (subscriber identity module) cards and fake ID cards, primarily from countries like Mauritius, the UK, the United States and Australia. The satellite phone also has records of calls traced to Zaki-ur Rehman Lakhvi in Jalalabad in Afghanistan (Times of India, November 30).
Interrogation of the lone surviving terrorist has revealed details of LeT training camps in Danna, Abdul-Bin-Masud, Mangla Dam, Akas, Um-Al-Qura, Badli and Muzafarabad in Pakistan-Administered Kashmir. Mumbai’s Crime Branch denied the involvement of more than ten terrorists in these multiple attacks, adding that the terrorists behind the Mumbai attacks were trained at four places inside Pakistan: Manshera, Muridke, Muzafarabad and Karachi (Daily News and Analysis [Mumbai], December 7).
For complete article, read here
http://www.jamestown.org/single/?no_cache=1&tx_ttnews[tt_news]=34262
Read More
http://www.jamestown.org/programs/gta/single/?tx_ttnews[tt_news]=34261&tx_ttnews[backPid]=26&cHash=ec0ceabcc5
Jihadis React to Mumbai Attacks
EURASIA INSIGHT
IRAN: TEHRAN'S NUCLEAR PROGRAM COULD CREATE IMMEDIATE CRISIS FOR OBAMA ADMINISTRATION
Kamal Nazer Yasin 12/11/08
Iran is going to pose an immediate headache for Barack Obama's incoming presidential administration. Fresh estimates indicate that Tehran may be able to make a nuclear weapon in 2009.
New information that has come to light in recent weeks has caused experts to readjust their thinking on Iran's nuclear capabilities. On November 25, Iran's nuclear chief, Gholam Reza Aghazadeh, revealed that the Islamic Republic has 5,000 centrifuges operating. While it is not easy to verify the authenticity of the claim, it is clear that Iran has entered an important phase of its long-contentious nuclear program. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive].
In his last report to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) board of governors on November 19, the agency's secretary general, Mohammad AlBaradei, stated that as of November 7, Iran had produced 630 kilogram of Low Enriched Uranium (LEU). This suggests Iran is producing an average of 2.2 kilograms of LEU per day. According to nuclear experts, it would take between 700 and 1,700 kilograms of LEU to produce enough weapon-grade uranium for a single crude nuclear weapon. This means, technically speaking, Iran could potentially test a nuclear device in as soon as six months. This conclusion is spelled out in a recent report by the Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS) [To view the complete report in PDF format, click here].
Jacqueline Shire, one of the authors of the ISIS report, told the EurasiaNet that given the technical difficulties that Iran has had recently, the six-month mark "seems rather unlikely," although not completely out of reach. She puts her own estimate at a year to two years.
During the presidential campaign, Obama signaled a willingness to engage Iran in ways that the outgoing Bush administration shunned. But in recent weeks, as the Obama administration has taken shape, the president-elect has sent signals that he is willing to get tough, if need be. He has characterized Iran's nuclear program as a "grave threat" and has refused to rule out the use of force as an American policy option. The president-elect has also called on Iran to suspend enrichment activities, action that Tehran categorically refuses to take. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive].
On December 7, Obama repeated his intention to engage Iran, offering both incentives and possible punishments to secure Tehran's cooperation. Top Iranian leaders brushed off the comment, with a former president, Akhbar Hashemi Rafsanjani deriding Obama for supposedly mimicking departing US President George W. Bush.
Obama's top adviser on Iran is reportedly former Clinton administration Middle East expert, Dennis Ross, who liberal Democrats are assailing for having neo-conservative tendencies. Some insiders in Washington's incoming foreign policy team see Ross as having the most influence over the shaping of the new administration's approach to Tehran's nuclear program. Even if Ross' influence is not as extensive as portrayed, other leading members of Obama's national security team -- including Hillary Clinton, the likely secretary of state, and Defense Secretary Robert Gates - are no doves when it comes to Iran.
The first clues as to the Obama administration's Iran policy-- should Tehran refuse to cease enrichment-- emerged in a surprisingly hardline report published in October by the Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC) in Washington, DC. The report called for implementation of a series of escalating measures designed to coerce Iran into abandoning its nuclear ambitions. The punitive measures include; a halt to fuel imports, sanctions on oil exports, followed by tightening sanctions and military encirclement.
While such a scenario seems to come straight out of the Bush/Cheney playbook, it is important to note that Ross, Obama's advisor, was a prominent member of the BPC and has officially endorsed the report.
Another Obama advisor, speaking on the condition of anonymity, told the EurasiaNet that in the event that Iran refuses to cease its enrichment, a forced confrontation is "the only possible scenario." At the same time, the advisor didn't specify the form or shape of such a confrontation, leaving open the possibility that it would not include armed action.
While there would seem to be little room for maneuver to prevent some sort of confrontation, both Iranian and US experts believe the two countries will make some moves to explore conciliation, once Obama assumes power in January. Both sides are eager to court international opinion. Thus, neither wants to be seen as aggressive or intransigent. Ultimately, however, experts at present cannot envision a scenario under which a suitable compromise over Iran's enrichment activities can be reached.
US officials insist on suspension of enrichment activities, while Iran's entire political leadership from the Supreme Leader down to lower-level officials have repeatedly stressed the fact that they would not give up their hard-won nuclear program-- including the right to enrich uranium-- under any circumstances.
"Only a huge package of concessions from the United States and its allies would allow Iran's leaders to give it [enrichment] up without losing face," said a veteran Iranian journalist to EurasiaNet recently. So far, no one in Iran's decision-making apparatus has spelled out clearly what the specifics of this "huge package" would have to include, even if the incoming Obama administration felt inclined to opt for an incentive-laden diplomatic approach.
It is hard to know just what decision-makers in Tehran are thinking on the nuclear issue these days. The tightly controlled Iranian press is stonily silent on the matter, and politicians are similarly reluctant to publicly discuss the topic.
There are some exceptions, though. For example, Ali Shamkhani, a former defense minister in the reformist Khatami administration, was quoted by the ISNA press agency as saying on November 27 that incentives offered thus far by the United States and its allies -- he mentioned specifically "technology, relations, money and prestige" - are insufficient, considering the point at which Iran now finds itself in its nuclear program. He went on to express concern that the departure of Bush from the White House would put Iran at a disadvantage when it came to waging an international public relations battle with Washington.
"Obama's rhetoric is different, while his objectives remain the same," Shamkhani said, going on to caution that "Iran must not allow Obama to win the rhetorical and the diplomatic wars."
Some experts believe that, at a minimum, Iran would insist on security guarantees, political normalization, major economic incentives and recognition of its regional status in exchange for a suspension of its enrichment activities. Such an extensive wish list is unlikely to be accepted by Washington.
Adding to the complexity of the nuclear issue is the global economic crisis. In Iran, falling energy prices have exacerbated domestic economic difficulties while heightening the anxieties of the political leadership. Perhaps the most significant indicator that the Iranian government is feeling tremendous pressure is the fact that starting December 5, Special Forces troops, dressed in camouflage attire, started directing traffic at intersections throughout Tehran. The last time there was such a military presence on the streets of the Iranian capital was back during the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s.
Wayne White, a former top intelligence expert at the US State Department, believes that US and European strategists are going to have to overhaul policy toward Iran. "Although practically never discussed, because Tehran almost certainly will not significantly back off on enrichment, Obama will be the one who must finally decide whether the US 'military option' is on or off the table. If Obama wisely does not do so [opt for military confrontation], all involved need top adopt an entirely new approach to Iran."
Editor's Note: Kamal Nazer Yasin is a pseudonym for a freelance journalist specializing in Iranian affairs.
Posted December 11, 2008 © Eurasianet
http://www.eurasianet.org
IRAN: TEHRAN'S NUCLEAR PROGRAM COULD CREATE IMMEDIATE CRISIS FOR OBAMA ADMINISTRATION
Kamal Nazer Yasin 12/11/08
Iran is going to pose an immediate headache for Barack Obama's incoming presidential administration. Fresh estimates indicate that Tehran may be able to make a nuclear weapon in 2009.
New information that has come to light in recent weeks has caused experts to readjust their thinking on Iran's nuclear capabilities. On November 25, Iran's nuclear chief, Gholam Reza Aghazadeh, revealed that the Islamic Republic has 5,000 centrifuges operating. While it is not easy to verify the authenticity of the claim, it is clear that Iran has entered an important phase of its long-contentious nuclear program. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive].
In his last report to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) board of governors on November 19, the agency's secretary general, Mohammad AlBaradei, stated that as of November 7, Iran had produced 630 kilogram of Low Enriched Uranium (LEU). This suggests Iran is producing an average of 2.2 kilograms of LEU per day. According to nuclear experts, it would take between 700 and 1,700 kilograms of LEU to produce enough weapon-grade uranium for a single crude nuclear weapon. This means, technically speaking, Iran could potentially test a nuclear device in as soon as six months. This conclusion is spelled out in a recent report by the Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS) [To view the complete report in PDF format, click here].
Jacqueline Shire, one of the authors of the ISIS report, told the EurasiaNet that given the technical difficulties that Iran has had recently, the six-month mark "seems rather unlikely," although not completely out of reach. She puts her own estimate at a year to two years.
During the presidential campaign, Obama signaled a willingness to engage Iran in ways that the outgoing Bush administration shunned. But in recent weeks, as the Obama administration has taken shape, the president-elect has sent signals that he is willing to get tough, if need be. He has characterized Iran's nuclear program as a "grave threat" and has refused to rule out the use of force as an American policy option. The president-elect has also called on Iran to suspend enrichment activities, action that Tehran categorically refuses to take. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive].
On December 7, Obama repeated his intention to engage Iran, offering both incentives and possible punishments to secure Tehran's cooperation. Top Iranian leaders brushed off the comment, with a former president, Akhbar Hashemi Rafsanjani deriding Obama for supposedly mimicking departing US President George W. Bush.
Obama's top adviser on Iran is reportedly former Clinton administration Middle East expert, Dennis Ross, who liberal Democrats are assailing for having neo-conservative tendencies. Some insiders in Washington's incoming foreign policy team see Ross as having the most influence over the shaping of the new administration's approach to Tehran's nuclear program. Even if Ross' influence is not as extensive as portrayed, other leading members of Obama's national security team -- including Hillary Clinton, the likely secretary of state, and Defense Secretary Robert Gates - are no doves when it comes to Iran.
The first clues as to the Obama administration's Iran policy-- should Tehran refuse to cease enrichment-- emerged in a surprisingly hardline report published in October by the Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC) in Washington, DC. The report called for implementation of a series of escalating measures designed to coerce Iran into abandoning its nuclear ambitions. The punitive measures include; a halt to fuel imports, sanctions on oil exports, followed by tightening sanctions and military encirclement.
While such a scenario seems to come straight out of the Bush/Cheney playbook, it is important to note that Ross, Obama's advisor, was a prominent member of the BPC and has officially endorsed the report.
Another Obama advisor, speaking on the condition of anonymity, told the EurasiaNet that in the event that Iran refuses to cease its enrichment, a forced confrontation is "the only possible scenario." At the same time, the advisor didn't specify the form or shape of such a confrontation, leaving open the possibility that it would not include armed action.
While there would seem to be little room for maneuver to prevent some sort of confrontation, both Iranian and US experts believe the two countries will make some moves to explore conciliation, once Obama assumes power in January. Both sides are eager to court international opinion. Thus, neither wants to be seen as aggressive or intransigent. Ultimately, however, experts at present cannot envision a scenario under which a suitable compromise over Iran's enrichment activities can be reached.
US officials insist on suspension of enrichment activities, while Iran's entire political leadership from the Supreme Leader down to lower-level officials have repeatedly stressed the fact that they would not give up their hard-won nuclear program-- including the right to enrich uranium-- under any circumstances.
"Only a huge package of concessions from the United States and its allies would allow Iran's leaders to give it [enrichment] up without losing face," said a veteran Iranian journalist to EurasiaNet recently. So far, no one in Iran's decision-making apparatus has spelled out clearly what the specifics of this "huge package" would have to include, even if the incoming Obama administration felt inclined to opt for an incentive-laden diplomatic approach.
It is hard to know just what decision-makers in Tehran are thinking on the nuclear issue these days. The tightly controlled Iranian press is stonily silent on the matter, and politicians are similarly reluctant to publicly discuss the topic.
There are some exceptions, though. For example, Ali Shamkhani, a former defense minister in the reformist Khatami administration, was quoted by the ISNA press agency as saying on November 27 that incentives offered thus far by the United States and its allies -- he mentioned specifically "technology, relations, money and prestige" - are insufficient, considering the point at which Iran now finds itself in its nuclear program. He went on to express concern that the departure of Bush from the White House would put Iran at a disadvantage when it came to waging an international public relations battle with Washington.
"Obama's rhetoric is different, while his objectives remain the same," Shamkhani said, going on to caution that "Iran must not allow Obama to win the rhetorical and the diplomatic wars."
Some experts believe that, at a minimum, Iran would insist on security guarantees, political normalization, major economic incentives and recognition of its regional status in exchange for a suspension of its enrichment activities. Such an extensive wish list is unlikely to be accepted by Washington.
Adding to the complexity of the nuclear issue is the global economic crisis. In Iran, falling energy prices have exacerbated domestic economic difficulties while heightening the anxieties of the political leadership. Perhaps the most significant indicator that the Iranian government is feeling tremendous pressure is the fact that starting December 5, Special Forces troops, dressed in camouflage attire, started directing traffic at intersections throughout Tehran. The last time there was such a military presence on the streets of the Iranian capital was back during the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s.
Wayne White, a former top intelligence expert at the US State Department, believes that US and European strategists are going to have to overhaul policy toward Iran. "Although practically never discussed, because Tehran almost certainly will not significantly back off on enrichment, Obama will be the one who must finally decide whether the US 'military option' is on or off the table. If Obama wisely does not do so [opt for military confrontation], all involved need top adopt an entirely new approach to Iran."
Editor's Note: Kamal Nazer Yasin is a pseudonym for a freelance journalist specializing in Iranian affairs.
Posted December 11, 2008 © Eurasianet
http://www.eurasianet.org
The December 15 "Defense News" is running two commentaries by authors in the Center for Defense Information's new anthology, "America's Defense Meltdown." The second Defense News commentary, "Mr. Obama, Weigh the Price of War," reminds us of previous decisions for war made for expedient reasons; decisions that proved far more costly than the politicians making them imagined in their worst nightmares. We now appear to have a president-elect who could be making the same kind of mistake: making decisions in favor of a broader conflict presupposed on a potentially unrealistic appreciation of real world conditions. The argument is made by retired Army Colonel Douglas Macgregor. Col. Macgregor is a decorated combat veteran and the author of the new book, "Warrior's Rage: the Battle of 73 Easting."
In addition to writing "Mr. Obama, Weigh the Price of War," Col. Macgregor is the author of a chapter in the new anthology, "America's Defense Meltdown." That chapter, "Maneuver Forces: The Army and Marine Corps after Iraq," can be found at http://www.cdi.org/pdfs/ADMlandforceheavy.pdf. Macgregor's commentary in the December 15 "Defense News" can be found at www.DefenseNews.com, and it is reproduced below:
By DOUGLAS MACGREGOR
President-elect Barack Obama confronts stark choices in U.S. foreign and defense strategy. A fourth Indo-Pakistani war is brewing, and this time, both states have nuclear weapons. Given the determination to commit more conventional ground forces to Afghanistan, a narco-state without a legitimate central government that shares an open border with Pakistan, choosing wisely is vital.
Today's world is different from the world of 1991 or 2001. Outside of the United States and Western Europe, nation-building with U.S. military power is a euphemism for imperialism. American financial hegemony has collapsed. As seen in Iraq, the "total victory" construct as it equates to the imposition of Western-style government and a free-market economy subservient to the U.S. is in full retreat.
In the broader Middle East, as well as in most of Africa, Latin America and Asia, "damage control," not "total victory," is the most realistic goal for U.S. national security strategy.
India's looming conflict with Pakistan, along with Russia's recent scrap with Georgia, may be a foretaste of future wars, rather than the insurgency model some mistakenly believe we have mastered. In fact, conflicts in Asia, Africa, Latin America and the Middle East are more likely to resemble the Balkan Wars of the early 20th century, except that future wars for regional power and influence will overlap with the competition for energy, water, food, mineral resources and the wealth they create.
But these conflicts need not involve the United States. In fact, direct military involvement in future conflicts, where the United States itself is not attacked and its prosperity and security are not at risk, should be avoided. Otherwise, the United States risks repeating Britain's mistake in 1914: overestimating its national power by involving itself in a self-defeating war it does not need to fight, and precipitating its own economic and military decline.
When word reached Britain on Aug. 1, 1914, of Germany's mobilization for war, Winston Churchill recorded of the British Cabinet, "At least three-quarters of its members were determined not to be drawn into a European quarrel unless Great Britain was herself attacked, which was unlikely." German-speaking and English-speaking peoples had a long history of cooperation, not conflict.
British leaders also knew the English Channel and the massive Royal Navy made a German channel crossing impossible.
However, war was popular with the British people, whose recent experience was limited to a short conflict with the Boers in South Africa, a valiant but vastly outnumbered and comparatively weak enemy. Ultimately, the feeling of limitless power combined with the new idea that Britain had a moral obligation to save her historic enemy, France, from defeat.
In the end, Britain's human losses were staggering; one in 16 British men between 15 and 50, or nearly 800,000 died. Paying for Britain's participation in World War I led to a tenfold increase in Britain's national debt. Paying the interest alone consumed half of British government spending by the mid-1920s.
Britain's Pyrrhic victory cost the British people their national power, their standard of living, and, in less than 20 years, their empire.
Had anyone in London's leadership stopped to seriously examine what outcome it was they wanted to achieve with military power, and what military capabilities were at their disposal to do so, it is doubtful they would have reached the decisions they did.
After the decision to fight was made, Field Marshal Sir Herbert Kitchener, the newly appointed British minister of war, briefed the British Cabinet. He stunned Britain's leaders with the news that their empire would have to maintain an army of millions, the war would last for at least three years and that it would be decided on the continent, not at sea.
Britain's leaders, including Winston Churchill, First Lord of the Admiralty, believed a war with Germany would be short, and the Royal Navy, not the British, French and Russian armies, would decide its outcome.
The possibility that Britain's small, professional army could not sustain a war with Germany and Austria for more than a few months, that Germany would decline to fight on Britain's terms (at sea), and that the war on land would consume Britain's national wealth did not seem to occur to most of the Cabinet members until Kitchener made his presentation.
How did this happen? The British interpreted the world that existed beyond their empire in ways that flattered Britain's national self-image of limitless money and power.
The lesson for Obama is instructive: When national military strategy fails to answer the questions of purpose, method and end-state, military power becomes an engine of destruction not just for its intended enemies, but for its supporting society and economy. If the price of victory is potentially excessive, then the use of force should be avoided.
Changing how America thinks about the use of force won't be easy, but Obama needs to do it.
The 21st century is no time for misinformed decisions. ?
By Douglas Macgregor , a former U.S. Army colonel who contributed a chapter, encapsulated here, to the new anthology, "America's Defense Meltdown: Pentagon Reform for President Obama and the New Congress."
Copyright © 2008 Defense News 12/15/2008
_________________
Winslow T. Wheeler
Director
Straus Military Reform Project
Center for Defense Information
winslowwheeler@msn.com
301 791-2397
CDI | 1779 Massachusetts Ave, NW | Washington, DC 20036 | US
In addition to writing "Mr. Obama, Weigh the Price of War," Col. Macgregor is the author of a chapter in the new anthology, "America's Defense Meltdown." That chapter, "Maneuver Forces: The Army and Marine Corps after Iraq," can be found at http://www.cdi.org/pdfs/ADMlandforceheavy.pdf. Macgregor's commentary in the December 15 "Defense News" can be found at www.DefenseNews.com, and it is reproduced below:
By DOUGLAS MACGREGOR
President-elect Barack Obama confronts stark choices in U.S. foreign and defense strategy. A fourth Indo-Pakistani war is brewing, and this time, both states have nuclear weapons. Given the determination to commit more conventional ground forces to Afghanistan, a narco-state without a legitimate central government that shares an open border with Pakistan, choosing wisely is vital.
Today's world is different from the world of 1991 or 2001. Outside of the United States and Western Europe, nation-building with U.S. military power is a euphemism for imperialism. American financial hegemony has collapsed. As seen in Iraq, the "total victory" construct as it equates to the imposition of Western-style government and a free-market economy subservient to the U.S. is in full retreat.
In the broader Middle East, as well as in most of Africa, Latin America and Asia, "damage control," not "total victory," is the most realistic goal for U.S. national security strategy.
India's looming conflict with Pakistan, along with Russia's recent scrap with Georgia, may be a foretaste of future wars, rather than the insurgency model some mistakenly believe we have mastered. In fact, conflicts in Asia, Africa, Latin America and the Middle East are more likely to resemble the Balkan Wars of the early 20th century, except that future wars for regional power and influence will overlap with the competition for energy, water, food, mineral resources and the wealth they create.
But these conflicts need not involve the United States. In fact, direct military involvement in future conflicts, where the United States itself is not attacked and its prosperity and security are not at risk, should be avoided. Otherwise, the United States risks repeating Britain's mistake in 1914: overestimating its national power by involving itself in a self-defeating war it does not need to fight, and precipitating its own economic and military decline.
When word reached Britain on Aug. 1, 1914, of Germany's mobilization for war, Winston Churchill recorded of the British Cabinet, "At least three-quarters of its members were determined not to be drawn into a European quarrel unless Great Britain was herself attacked, which was unlikely." German-speaking and English-speaking peoples had a long history of cooperation, not conflict.
British leaders also knew the English Channel and the massive Royal Navy made a German channel crossing impossible.
However, war was popular with the British people, whose recent experience was limited to a short conflict with the Boers in South Africa, a valiant but vastly outnumbered and comparatively weak enemy. Ultimately, the feeling of limitless power combined with the new idea that Britain had a moral obligation to save her historic enemy, France, from defeat.
In the end, Britain's human losses were staggering; one in 16 British men between 15 and 50, or nearly 800,000 died. Paying for Britain's participation in World War I led to a tenfold increase in Britain's national debt. Paying the interest alone consumed half of British government spending by the mid-1920s.
Britain's Pyrrhic victory cost the British people their national power, their standard of living, and, in less than 20 years, their empire.
Had anyone in London's leadership stopped to seriously examine what outcome it was they wanted to achieve with military power, and what military capabilities were at their disposal to do so, it is doubtful they would have reached the decisions they did.
After the decision to fight was made, Field Marshal Sir Herbert Kitchener, the newly appointed British minister of war, briefed the British Cabinet. He stunned Britain's leaders with the news that their empire would have to maintain an army of millions, the war would last for at least three years and that it would be decided on the continent, not at sea.
Britain's leaders, including Winston Churchill, First Lord of the Admiralty, believed a war with Germany would be short, and the Royal Navy, not the British, French and Russian armies, would decide its outcome.
The possibility that Britain's small, professional army could not sustain a war with Germany and Austria for more than a few months, that Germany would decline to fight on Britain's terms (at sea), and that the war on land would consume Britain's national wealth did not seem to occur to most of the Cabinet members until Kitchener made his presentation.
How did this happen? The British interpreted the world that existed beyond their empire in ways that flattered Britain's national self-image of limitless money and power.
The lesson for Obama is instructive: When national military strategy fails to answer the questions of purpose, method and end-state, military power becomes an engine of destruction not just for its intended enemies, but for its supporting society and economy. If the price of victory is potentially excessive, then the use of force should be avoided.
Changing how America thinks about the use of force won't be easy, but Obama needs to do it.
The 21st century is no time for misinformed decisions. ?
By Douglas Macgregor , a former U.S. Army colonel who contributed a chapter, encapsulated here, to the new anthology, "America's Defense Meltdown: Pentagon Reform for President Obama and the New Congress."
Copyright © 2008 Defense News 12/15/2008
_________________
Winslow T. Wheeler
Director
Straus Military Reform Project
Center for Defense Information
winslowwheeler@msn.com
301 791-2397
CDI | 1779 Massachusetts Ave, NW | Washington, DC 20036 | US
ISRAEL POLICY FORUM 12/12/08
Settler Scourge
M.J. Rosenberg
The Chicago Tribune reported this week that President-elect Barack Obama intends to visit the Middle East very early in his term, perhaps within his first month as President. He will visit an Arab capital and deliver an address to the Arab world stating his determination to fight global terrorism and establish Middle East peace. In general, I like the idea although—given the security situation in the region— I'd rather have our President stay out of the Middle East and deliver the address from the Oval Office.[/color]
[color="black"]During his campaign, Obama repeatedly said that he would work on a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in his first year in office. It now appears that he may move even faster than that.
It makes sense.
Obama clearly does not buy into the conventional wisdom (propagated by the neocons), which deems it unnecessary to address the Arab-Israeli conflict immediately. Yes, the neocons say, it's a tinderbox—but there are others that are more dangerous, like the conflict over Kashmir and Pakistan's inability to control its home based terrorists.
Obama seems to understand that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is at the heart of virtually all of America's problems in the Middle East. Paradoxically it is the Middle East problem most amenable to resolution by way of American leadership. Indians and Pakistanis care what the United States thinks, but neither depends on us the way Israelis and Palestinians do. Israelis and Palestinians need us, both for our aid and for political and moral support. Neither side can say "no" to an American President with impunity—especially when all he is demanding is that each live up to commitments they have already made.
Of course, issuing demands to the Palestinians is nothing new. We have been doing that for 20 years. Our first demand was that the PLO recognize Israel's right to exist and renounce terrorism. It did that first with a unilateral statement in 1988 and then, again, in 1993 with the Oslo Declaration. Today the Palestinian Authority works with Israel to combat terrorism, is fully committed to the two-state solution, and is engaged in negotiations with Israel on a final status agreement. The Palestinians have also acceded to our demands that the PLO amend its charter to remove references to the destruction of Israel and eliminate anti-Semitic references in Palestinian textbooks.
The most significant Palestinian concession was to give up the claim to all of historic Palestine. For the first 30 years of its existence, the PLO (and Palestinians in general) rejected Israel's right to any part of Palestine. Today they concede 78% of the land to Israel—i.e. the land encompassed by the '67 borders—while insisting on establishing a state in the 22% that is the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem.
Israel's most significant concession was recognizing the Palestinian right to statehood. It took five decades but today the government of Israel accepts the Palestinian claim to that 22% figure, although it wants some flexibility in determining what lands will constitute it. (For instance, it would swap some land in Israel proper in exchange for West Bank territory adjacent to Israel).
Essentially, the two sides are already in agreement about what an Israeli-Palestinian peace treaty will look like.
The main obstacle to achieving it remains the occupation. Ironically, the number of Israeli settlements, and settlers, has increased dramatically since Israel committed itself to ending it. There is no need to spell out the details here. Everyone knows about the checkpoints, the wall, the roads reserved for settlers only, the systematic destruction of the Palestinian economy, the incessant harassment by settlers.
Worst of all, the occupation keeps getting more violent. There are settler pogroms against Palestinians in Hebron. Settlers are grabbing Silwan, the very heart of Arab Jerusalem, which was long considered immune to settler squatting because it is 100% Arab. Settlers are fighting the Israeli army to preserve their right to expropriate Palestinian land and destroy Palestinian livelihood. In their minds, Biblical promises infinitely trump the rights of people who have been living continuously on the land for millennia. And they have no respect for the government of Israel or its laws; their Zionism is more about Hebron than Tel Aviv (they despise Israel's largest city for being secular, tolerant, and, by their lights, godless). They get away with murder and have for forty years.
The United States barely protests. How many times have Israeli prime ministers pledged to stop the expansion of settlements, pledged to take down the illegal outposts, pledged to remove the checkpoints that serve no purpose but harassment?
But none of the pledges have been implemented. The very land being negotiated over is being taken, acre by acre. Continuation of the settlement enterprise contradicts the entire premise of the peace process: land for peace. Pretty soon the land will all be gone, grabbed up by settlers while the Israeli government alternatively encouraged them or turned a blind eye. And the United States, terrified to be seen as "pressuring Israel," has issued only the mildest of criticisms along with some winks and nods. Issue demands? Heaven forfend.
President Bill Clinton alluded to this phenomenon when he told Prime Minister Ehud Barak that he was tired of the President of the United States being treated as if its sole role was to do precisely what Barak wanted—no more, no less.
"I'm tired of being a wooden Indian . . . doing your bidding," Clinton said.
The next President should not be in that position and, hopefully, the Israelis will not expect him to be.
The good news is that the Israeli government may actually be waking up. Understanding at last that the settler movement is as much a threat to the State of Israel as to the Palestinians, the Olmert government has acted.
Last week, the Israel Defense Forces stormed the house in Hebron that settlers grabbed, and which they had pledged to fight to the death to hold. They didn't. Sure, they cursed and spat at Israeli soldiers but they were quickly overwhelmed by IDF force. The settlers had wanted to send a message to the people of Israel that West Bank settlers could not be removed as their Gaza brethren were. Instead, with their quickly collapsed resistance, they sent the opposite message. When the Israeli government wants them out, they will leave. Like the white supremacists of Mississippi and Alabama in the 1960's, they can't fight the army.
The settler surrender in Hebron empowers the United States too. No more does an American President have to "understand" that the settlers are too powerful to confront. No, the 44th President can, and should, tell the Israeli prime minister that settlement growth must be permanently frozen, illegal outposts must be taken down, and plans for the removal of the vast majority of settlements must be put in place now.
The Israelis themselves have taken an important step by evacuating the Hebron house. It's only a start, but it shows the way. President Obama, and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, can help Olmert, and his successor, by making clear that they expect promises to be fulfilled, pledges to be lived up to. They can, and must, tell Israel's next prime minister that America stands behind Israel's security as it always has—but not behind the occupation that is destroying it.
Friends don't let friends drive drunk.
It's that simple.
Settler Scourge
M.J. Rosenberg
The Chicago Tribune reported this week that President-elect Barack Obama intends to visit the Middle East very early in his term, perhaps within his first month as President. He will visit an Arab capital and deliver an address to the Arab world stating his determination to fight global terrorism and establish Middle East peace. In general, I like the idea although—given the security situation in the region— I'd rather have our President stay out of the Middle East and deliver the address from the Oval Office.[/color]
[color="black"]During his campaign, Obama repeatedly said that he would work on a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in his first year in office. It now appears that he may move even faster than that.
It makes sense.
Obama clearly does not buy into the conventional wisdom (propagated by the neocons), which deems it unnecessary to address the Arab-Israeli conflict immediately. Yes, the neocons say, it's a tinderbox—but there are others that are more dangerous, like the conflict over Kashmir and Pakistan's inability to control its home based terrorists.
Obama seems to understand that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is at the heart of virtually all of America's problems in the Middle East. Paradoxically it is the Middle East problem most amenable to resolution by way of American leadership. Indians and Pakistanis care what the United States thinks, but neither depends on us the way Israelis and Palestinians do. Israelis and Palestinians need us, both for our aid and for political and moral support. Neither side can say "no" to an American President with impunity—especially when all he is demanding is that each live up to commitments they have already made.
Of course, issuing demands to the Palestinians is nothing new. We have been doing that for 20 years. Our first demand was that the PLO recognize Israel's right to exist and renounce terrorism. It did that first with a unilateral statement in 1988 and then, again, in 1993 with the Oslo Declaration. Today the Palestinian Authority works with Israel to combat terrorism, is fully committed to the two-state solution, and is engaged in negotiations with Israel on a final status agreement. The Palestinians have also acceded to our demands that the PLO amend its charter to remove references to the destruction of Israel and eliminate anti-Semitic references in Palestinian textbooks.
The most significant Palestinian concession was to give up the claim to all of historic Palestine. For the first 30 years of its existence, the PLO (and Palestinians in general) rejected Israel's right to any part of Palestine. Today they concede 78% of the land to Israel—i.e. the land encompassed by the '67 borders—while insisting on establishing a state in the 22% that is the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem.
Israel's most significant concession was recognizing the Palestinian right to statehood. It took five decades but today the government of Israel accepts the Palestinian claim to that 22% figure, although it wants some flexibility in determining what lands will constitute it. (For instance, it would swap some land in Israel proper in exchange for West Bank territory adjacent to Israel).
Essentially, the two sides are already in agreement about what an Israeli-Palestinian peace treaty will look like.
The main obstacle to achieving it remains the occupation. Ironically, the number of Israeli settlements, and settlers, has increased dramatically since Israel committed itself to ending it. There is no need to spell out the details here. Everyone knows about the checkpoints, the wall, the roads reserved for settlers only, the systematic destruction of the Palestinian economy, the incessant harassment by settlers.
Worst of all, the occupation keeps getting more violent. There are settler pogroms against Palestinians in Hebron. Settlers are grabbing Silwan, the very heart of Arab Jerusalem, which was long considered immune to settler squatting because it is 100% Arab. Settlers are fighting the Israeli army to preserve their right to expropriate Palestinian land and destroy Palestinian livelihood. In their minds, Biblical promises infinitely trump the rights of people who have been living continuously on the land for millennia. And they have no respect for the government of Israel or its laws; their Zionism is more about Hebron than Tel Aviv (they despise Israel's largest city for being secular, tolerant, and, by their lights, godless). They get away with murder and have for forty years.
The United States barely protests. How many times have Israeli prime ministers pledged to stop the expansion of settlements, pledged to take down the illegal outposts, pledged to remove the checkpoints that serve no purpose but harassment?
But none of the pledges have been implemented. The very land being negotiated over is being taken, acre by acre. Continuation of the settlement enterprise contradicts the entire premise of the peace process: land for peace. Pretty soon the land will all be gone, grabbed up by settlers while the Israeli government alternatively encouraged them or turned a blind eye. And the United States, terrified to be seen as "pressuring Israel," has issued only the mildest of criticisms along with some winks and nods. Issue demands? Heaven forfend.
President Bill Clinton alluded to this phenomenon when he told Prime Minister Ehud Barak that he was tired of the President of the United States being treated as if its sole role was to do precisely what Barak wanted—no more, no less.
"I'm tired of being a wooden Indian . . . doing your bidding," Clinton said.
The next President should not be in that position and, hopefully, the Israelis will not expect him to be.
The good news is that the Israeli government may actually be waking up. Understanding at last that the settler movement is as much a threat to the State of Israel as to the Palestinians, the Olmert government has acted.
Last week, the Israel Defense Forces stormed the house in Hebron that settlers grabbed, and which they had pledged to fight to the death to hold. They didn't. Sure, they cursed and spat at Israeli soldiers but they were quickly overwhelmed by IDF force. The settlers had wanted to send a message to the people of Israel that West Bank settlers could not be removed as their Gaza brethren were. Instead, with their quickly collapsed resistance, they sent the opposite message. When the Israeli government wants them out, they will leave. Like the white supremacists of Mississippi and Alabama in the 1960's, they can't fight the army.
The settler surrender in Hebron empowers the United States too. No more does an American President have to "understand" that the settlers are too powerful to confront. No, the 44th President can, and should, tell the Israeli prime minister that settlement growth must be permanently frozen, illegal outposts must be taken down, and plans for the removal of the vast majority of settlements must be put in place now.
The Israelis themselves have taken an important step by evacuating the Hebron house. It's only a start, but it shows the way. President Obama, and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, can help Olmert, and his successor, by making clear that they expect promises to be fulfilled, pledges to be lived up to. They can, and must, tell Israel's next prime minister that America stands behind Israel's security as it always has—but not behind the occupation that is destroying it.
Friends don't let friends drive drunk.
It's that simple.
Wednesday, December 17, 2008 (SF Chronicle)
Bush's Mideast legacy - shoes
Robert Scheer, Creators Syndicate, Inc.
They hate us for our shoes. Somewhere in what passes for the deeper
regions of President Bush's mind might come that reassuring giggle of a
thought as he once again rationalizes away Iraqi ingratitude for the
benevolence he has bestowed upon them. Ever at peace with himself, despite
many obvious reasons not to be, Bush quipped, "I didn't know what the guy
said but I saw his sole." But the lame jokes no longer work.
The shoe-throwing Iraqi journalist is now a venerated celebrity throughout
the Mideast, and his words to the president - "this is the farewell kiss,
you dog" - will stand as the enduring epitaph in the region on Bush's
folly, which is the reality of his claimed legacy of success in the war on
terror. That and the shoe-thrower's devastating follow-up as he threw his
second shoe, "This is from the widows, the orphans and those who were
killed in Iraq," a reminder that we have used much deadlier force than a
shoe in the shock-and-awe invasion once celebrated in the American media
as a means of building respect for democracy.
This was more than a presidential photo-op gone wildly awry. One might
suspect that the weekend event was designed originally to draw attention
from the Friday release of the long awaited Senate Armed Services
Committee's report on Bush's torture policy. A report that unanimously
concluded that it was the White House and not a few bad apples that
"damaged our ability to collect accurate intelligence that could save
lives, strengthened the hand of our enemies, and compromised our moral
authority." The report, endorsed by all Republican senators on the
committee, including ranking minority member Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.,
cited former Navy General Counsel Alberto Mora's testimony that "the first
and second identifiable causes of U.S. combat deaths in Iraq - as judged
by their effectiveness in recruiting insurgent fighters into combat - are,
respectively the symbols of Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo."
Not only has the Bush administration subverted the image of the United
States' commitment to the rule of law and justice, but it has done similar
damage to our reputation for economic efficiency. On Sunday, the New York
Times reported on an unpublished 513-page federal history of the Iraq
reconstruction that it termed "a $100 billion failure by bureaucratic turf
wars, spiraling violence and ignorance of the basic elements of Iraqi
society and infrastructure."
This invasion, which according to then-Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul
Wolfowitz, was supposed to be financed by Iraqi oil money, but instead has
cost U.S. taxpayers more than $1 trillion. The results, as the Times'
account of the report put it, are abysmal: "The hard figures on basic
services and industrial production compiled for the report reveal that for
all the money spent and promises made, the rebuilding effort never did
much more than restore what was destroyed during the invasion and the
convulsive looting that followed."
No wonder then that we are perceived as blundering bullies by so many in
the region that we claimed to be interested in modernizing. That an Iraqi
journalist, whose family had been victimized by Saddam Hussein and who was
kidnapped by insurgents while attempting to work as a journalist, came to
so loathe the American president, as does much of the world, should serve
as the final grade on the Bush administration. It should also serve as a
caution to President-elect Barack Obama, as he seeks to triangulate
withdrawal from Iraq with an escalation of the far more treacherous
attempt to conquer Afghanistan.
In the end, it does not matter that our claimed intentions appear noble,
if our practice on the ground adds up to an mélange of brutal
incompetence. It is significant that increased troop deployment to
Afghanistan was recently announced by Secretary of Defense Robert Gates,
who will hold that same post in the new Administration. This is the same
Gates who in his 1996 memoir details how, as a member of the Carter
administration, he was involved in supporting the Mujahedeen Islamic
fighters against the secular government in power in Kabul six months
before the Soviet invasion.
These foreign adventures always start out so wonderfully: We will be
greeted as liberators, democracy will flourish, the West will be safer,
and instead we end up ever more scorned. The media traveling with Bush
reported it as a victory of sorts that no reporters in Kabul threw shoes
at our president during his press conference there. So much for lowered
expectations.
Robert Scheer is author of a new book, "The Pornography of Power: How
Defense Hawks Hijacked 9/11 and Weakened America." To comment, e-mail him
at rscheer@truthdig.com. ------------------------------
----------------------------------------
Copyright 2008 SF Chronicle
Bush's Mideast legacy - shoes
Robert Scheer, Creators Syndicate, Inc.
They hate us for our shoes. Somewhere in what passes for the deeper
regions of President Bush's mind might come that reassuring giggle of a
thought as he once again rationalizes away Iraqi ingratitude for the
benevolence he has bestowed upon them. Ever at peace with himself, despite
many obvious reasons not to be, Bush quipped, "I didn't know what the guy
said but I saw his sole." But the lame jokes no longer work.
The shoe-throwing Iraqi journalist is now a venerated celebrity throughout
the Mideast, and his words to the president - "this is the farewell kiss,
you dog" - will stand as the enduring epitaph in the region on Bush's
folly, which is the reality of his claimed legacy of success in the war on
terror. That and the shoe-thrower's devastating follow-up as he threw his
second shoe, "This is from the widows, the orphans and those who were
killed in Iraq," a reminder that we have used much deadlier force than a
shoe in the shock-and-awe invasion once celebrated in the American media
as a means of building respect for democracy.
This was more than a presidential photo-op gone wildly awry. One might
suspect that the weekend event was designed originally to draw attention
from the Friday release of the long awaited Senate Armed Services
Committee's report on Bush's torture policy. A report that unanimously
concluded that it was the White House and not a few bad apples that
"damaged our ability to collect accurate intelligence that could save
lives, strengthened the hand of our enemies, and compromised our moral
authority." The report, endorsed by all Republican senators on the
committee, including ranking minority member Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.,
cited former Navy General Counsel Alberto Mora's testimony that "the first
and second identifiable causes of U.S. combat deaths in Iraq - as judged
by their effectiveness in recruiting insurgent fighters into combat - are,
respectively the symbols of Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo."
Not only has the Bush administration subverted the image of the United
States' commitment to the rule of law and justice, but it has done similar
damage to our reputation for economic efficiency. On Sunday, the New York
Times reported on an unpublished 513-page federal history of the Iraq
reconstruction that it termed "a $100 billion failure by bureaucratic turf
wars, spiraling violence and ignorance of the basic elements of Iraqi
society and infrastructure."
This invasion, which according to then-Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul
Wolfowitz, was supposed to be financed by Iraqi oil money, but instead has
cost U.S. taxpayers more than $1 trillion. The results, as the Times'
account of the report put it, are abysmal: "The hard figures on basic
services and industrial production compiled for the report reveal that for
all the money spent and promises made, the rebuilding effort never did
much more than restore what was destroyed during the invasion and the
convulsive looting that followed."
No wonder then that we are perceived as blundering bullies by so many in
the region that we claimed to be interested in modernizing. That an Iraqi
journalist, whose family had been victimized by Saddam Hussein and who was
kidnapped by insurgents while attempting to work as a journalist, came to
so loathe the American president, as does much of the world, should serve
as the final grade on the Bush administration. It should also serve as a
caution to President-elect Barack Obama, as he seeks to triangulate
withdrawal from Iraq with an escalation of the far more treacherous
attempt to conquer Afghanistan.
In the end, it does not matter that our claimed intentions appear noble,
if our practice on the ground adds up to an mélange of brutal
incompetence. It is significant that increased troop deployment to
Afghanistan was recently announced by Secretary of Defense Robert Gates,
who will hold that same post in the new Administration. This is the same
Gates who in his 1996 memoir details how, as a member of the Carter
administration, he was involved in supporting the Mujahedeen Islamic
fighters against the secular government in power in Kabul six months
before the Soviet invasion.
These foreign adventures always start out so wonderfully: We will be
greeted as liberators, democracy will flourish, the West will be safer,
and instead we end up ever more scorned. The media traveling with Bush
reported it as a victory of sorts that no reporters in Kabul threw shoes
at our president during his press conference there. So much for lowered
expectations.
Robert Scheer is author of a new book, "The Pornography of Power: How
Defense Hawks Hijacked 9/11 and Weakened America." To comment, e-mail him
at rscheer@truthdig.com. ------------------------------
----------------------------------------
Copyright 2008 SF Chronicle
Truthdig
Israel's 'Crime Against Humanity'
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/200812...ainst_humanity/
Posted on Dec 15, 2008
By Chris Hedges
Israel's siege of Gaza, largely unseen by the outside world because of Jerusalem's refusal to allow humanitarian aid workers, reporters and photographers access to Gaza, rivals the most egregious crimes carried out at the height of apartheid by the South African regime. It comes close to the horrors visited on Sarajevo by the Bosnian Serbs. It has disturbing echoes of the Nazi ghettos of Lodz and Warsaw.
"This is a stain on what is left of Israeli morality," I was told by Richard N. Veits, the former U.S. ambassador to Jordan who led a delegation from the U.S. Council for the National Interest Foundation to Gaza to meet Hamas leaders this past summer. "I am almost breathless discussing this subject. It is so myopic. Washington, of course, is a handmaiden to all this. The Israeli manipulation of a population in this manner is comparable to some of the crimes that took place against civilian populations fifty years ago."
The U.N. special rapporteur for human rights in the occupied Palestinian territory, former Princeton University law professor Richard Falk, calls what Israel is doing to the 1.5 million Palestinians in Gaza "a crime against humanity." Falk, who is Jewish, has condemned the collective punishment of the Palestinians in Gaza as "a flagrant and massive violation of international humanitarian law as laid down in Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention." He has asked for "the International Criminal Court to investigate the situation, and determine whether the Israeli civilian leaders and military commanders responsible for the Gaza siege should be indicted and prosecuted for violations of international criminal law."
Falk, while condemning the rocket attacks by the militant group Hamas, which he points out are also criminal violations of international law, goes on to say that "such Palestinian behavior does not legalize Israel's imposition of a collective punishment of a life- and health-threatening character on the people of Gaza, and should not distract the U.N. or international society from discharging their fundamental moral and legal duty to render protection to the Palestinian people."
"It is an unfolding humanitarian catastrophe that each day poses the entire 1.5 million Gazans to an unspeakable ordeal, to a struggle to survive in terms of their health," Falk said when I reached him by phone in California shortly before he left for Israel. "This is an increasingly precarious condition. A recent study reports that 46 percent of all Gazan children suffer from acute anemia. There are reports that the sonic booms associated with Israeli overflights have caused widespread deafness, especially among children. Gazan children need thousands of hearing aids. Malnutrition is extremely high in a number of different dimensions and affects 75 percent of Gazans. There are widespread mental disorders, especially among young people without the will to live. Over 50 percent of Gazan children under the age of 12 have been found to have no will to live."
Gaza now spends 12 hours a day without power, which can be a death sentence to the severely ill in hospitals. There are few drugs and little medicine, including no cancer or cystic fibrosis medication. Hospitals have generators but often lack fuel. Medical equipment, including one of Gaza's three CT scanners, has been destroyed by power surges and fluctuations. Medical staff cannot control the temperature of incubators for newborns. And Israel has revoked most exit visas, meaning some of those who need specialized care, including cancer patients and those in need of kidney dialysis, have died. Of the 230 Gazans estimated to have died last year because they were denied proper medical care, several spent their final hours at Israeli crossing points where they were refused entry into Israel. The statistics gathered on children—half of Gaza's population is under the age of 17—are increasingly grim. About 45 percent of children in Gaza have iron deficiency from a lack of fruit and vegetables, and 18 percent have stunted growth.
"It is macabre," Falk said. "I don't know of anything that exactly fits this situation. People have been referring to the Warsaw ghetto as the nearest analog in modern times."
"There is no structure of an occupation that endured for decades and involved this kind of oppressive circumstances," the rapporteur added. "The magnitude, the deliberateness, the violations of international humanitarian law, the impact on the health, lives and survival and the overall conditions warrant the characterization of a crime against humanity. This occupation is the direct intention by the Israeli military and civilian authorities. They are responsible and should be held accountable."
The point of this Israeli siege, ostensibly, is to break Hamas, the radical Islamic group that was elected to power in 2007. But Hamas has repeatedly proposed long-term truces with Israel and offered to negotiate a permanent truce. During the last cease-fire, established through Egyptian intermediaries in July, Hamas upheld the truce although Israel refused to ease the blockade. It was Israel that, on Nov. 4, initiated an armed attack that violated the truce and killed six Palestinians. It was only then that Hamas resumed firing rockets at Israel. Palestinians have launched more than 200 rockets on Israel since the latest round of violence began. There have been no Israeli casualties.
"This is a crime of survival," Falk said of the rocket attacks. "Israel has put the Gazans in a set of circumstances where they either have to accept whatever is imposed on them or resist in any way available to them. That is a horrible dilemma to impose upon a people. This does not alleviate the Palestinians, and Gazans in particular, for accountability for doing these acts involving rocket fire, but it also imposes some responsibility on Israel for creating these circumstances."
Israel seeks to break the will of the Palestinians to resist. The Israeli government has demonstrated little interest in diplomacy or a peaceful solution. The rapid expansion of Jewish settlements on the West Bank is an effort to thwart the possibility of a two-state solution by gobbling up vast tracts of Palestinian real estate. Israel also appears to want to thrust the impoverished Gaza Strip onto Egypt. There are now dozens of tunnels, the principal means for food and goods, connecting Gaza to Egypt. Israel permits the tunnels to operate, most likely as part of an effort to further cut Gaza off from Israel.
"Israel, all along, has not been prepared to enter into diplomatic process that gives the Palestinians a viable state," Falk said. "They [the Israelis] feel time is on their side. They feel they can create enough facts on the ground so people will come to the conclusion a viable state cannot emerge."
The use of terror and hunger to break a hostile population is one of the oldest forms of warfare. I watched the Bosnian Serbs employ the same tactic in Sarajevo. Those who orchestrate such sieges do not grasp the terrible rage born of long humiliation, indiscriminate violence and abuse. A father or a mother whose child dies because of a lack of vaccines or proper medical care does not forget. A boy whose ill grandmother dies while detained at an Israel checkpoint does not forget. All who endure humiliation, abuse and the murder of family members do not forget. This rage becomes a virus within those who, eventually, stumble out into the daylight. Is it any wonder that 71 percent of children interviewed at a school in Gaza recently said they wanted to be a "martyr"?
The Israelis in Gaza, like the American forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, are foolishly breeding the next generation of militants and Islamic radicals. Jihadists, enraged by the injustices done by Israel and the United States, seek to carry out reciprocal acts of savagery, even at the cost of their own lives. The violence unleashed on Palestinian children will, one day, be the violence unleashed on Israeli children. This is the tragedy of Gaza. This is the tragedy of Israel.
AP photo / Hatem Moussa
A Palestinian worker sweeps out the empty storeroom of a U.N. food distribution center in Gaza City.
A Progressive Journal of News and Opinion. Editor, Robert Scheer. Publisher, Zuade Kaufman.
Copyright © 2008 Truthdig, L.L.C. All rights reserved.
Israel's 'Crime Against Humanity'
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/200812...ainst_humanity/
Posted on Dec 15, 2008
By Chris Hedges
Israel's siege of Gaza, largely unseen by the outside world because of Jerusalem's refusal to allow humanitarian aid workers, reporters and photographers access to Gaza, rivals the most egregious crimes carried out at the height of apartheid by the South African regime. It comes close to the horrors visited on Sarajevo by the Bosnian Serbs. It has disturbing echoes of the Nazi ghettos of Lodz and Warsaw.
"This is a stain on what is left of Israeli morality," I was told by Richard N. Veits, the former U.S. ambassador to Jordan who led a delegation from the U.S. Council for the National Interest Foundation to Gaza to meet Hamas leaders this past summer. "I am almost breathless discussing this subject. It is so myopic. Washington, of course, is a handmaiden to all this. The Israeli manipulation of a population in this manner is comparable to some of the crimes that took place against civilian populations fifty years ago."
The U.N. special rapporteur for human rights in the occupied Palestinian territory, former Princeton University law professor Richard Falk, calls what Israel is doing to the 1.5 million Palestinians in Gaza "a crime against humanity." Falk, who is Jewish, has condemned the collective punishment of the Palestinians in Gaza as "a flagrant and massive violation of international humanitarian law as laid down in Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention." He has asked for "the International Criminal Court to investigate the situation, and determine whether the Israeli civilian leaders and military commanders responsible for the Gaza siege should be indicted and prosecuted for violations of international criminal law."
Falk, while condemning the rocket attacks by the militant group Hamas, which he points out are also criminal violations of international law, goes on to say that "such Palestinian behavior does not legalize Israel's imposition of a collective punishment of a life- and health-threatening character on the people of Gaza, and should not distract the U.N. or international society from discharging their fundamental moral and legal duty to render protection to the Palestinian people."
"It is an unfolding humanitarian catastrophe that each day poses the entire 1.5 million Gazans to an unspeakable ordeal, to a struggle to survive in terms of their health," Falk said when I reached him by phone in California shortly before he left for Israel. "This is an increasingly precarious condition. A recent study reports that 46 percent of all Gazan children suffer from acute anemia. There are reports that the sonic booms associated with Israeli overflights have caused widespread deafness, especially among children. Gazan children need thousands of hearing aids. Malnutrition is extremely high in a number of different dimensions and affects 75 percent of Gazans. There are widespread mental disorders, especially among young people without the will to live. Over 50 percent of Gazan children under the age of 12 have been found to have no will to live."
Gaza now spends 12 hours a day without power, which can be a death sentence to the severely ill in hospitals. There are few drugs and little medicine, including no cancer or cystic fibrosis medication. Hospitals have generators but often lack fuel. Medical equipment, including one of Gaza's three CT scanners, has been destroyed by power surges and fluctuations. Medical staff cannot control the temperature of incubators for newborns. And Israel has revoked most exit visas, meaning some of those who need specialized care, including cancer patients and those in need of kidney dialysis, have died. Of the 230 Gazans estimated to have died last year because they were denied proper medical care, several spent their final hours at Israeli crossing points where they were refused entry into Israel. The statistics gathered on children—half of Gaza's population is under the age of 17—are increasingly grim. About 45 percent of children in Gaza have iron deficiency from a lack of fruit and vegetables, and 18 percent have stunted growth.
"It is macabre," Falk said. "I don't know of anything that exactly fits this situation. People have been referring to the Warsaw ghetto as the nearest analog in modern times."
"There is no structure of an occupation that endured for decades and involved this kind of oppressive circumstances," the rapporteur added. "The magnitude, the deliberateness, the violations of international humanitarian law, the impact on the health, lives and survival and the overall conditions warrant the characterization of a crime against humanity. This occupation is the direct intention by the Israeli military and civilian authorities. They are responsible and should be held accountable."
The point of this Israeli siege, ostensibly, is to break Hamas, the radical Islamic group that was elected to power in 2007. But Hamas has repeatedly proposed long-term truces with Israel and offered to negotiate a permanent truce. During the last cease-fire, established through Egyptian intermediaries in July, Hamas upheld the truce although Israel refused to ease the blockade. It was Israel that, on Nov. 4, initiated an armed attack that violated the truce and killed six Palestinians. It was only then that Hamas resumed firing rockets at Israel. Palestinians have launched more than 200 rockets on Israel since the latest round of violence began. There have been no Israeli casualties.
"This is a crime of survival," Falk said of the rocket attacks. "Israel has put the Gazans in a set of circumstances where they either have to accept whatever is imposed on them or resist in any way available to them. That is a horrible dilemma to impose upon a people. This does not alleviate the Palestinians, and Gazans in particular, for accountability for doing these acts involving rocket fire, but it also imposes some responsibility on Israel for creating these circumstances."
Israel seeks to break the will of the Palestinians to resist. The Israeli government has demonstrated little interest in diplomacy or a peaceful solution. The rapid expansion of Jewish settlements on the West Bank is an effort to thwart the possibility of a two-state solution by gobbling up vast tracts of Palestinian real estate. Israel also appears to want to thrust the impoverished Gaza Strip onto Egypt. There are now dozens of tunnels, the principal means for food and goods, connecting Gaza to Egypt. Israel permits the tunnels to operate, most likely as part of an effort to further cut Gaza off from Israel.
"Israel, all along, has not been prepared to enter into diplomatic process that gives the Palestinians a viable state," Falk said. "They [the Israelis] feel time is on their side. They feel they can create enough facts on the ground so people will come to the conclusion a viable state cannot emerge."
The use of terror and hunger to break a hostile population is one of the oldest forms of warfare. I watched the Bosnian Serbs employ the same tactic in Sarajevo. Those who orchestrate such sieges do not grasp the terrible rage born of long humiliation, indiscriminate violence and abuse. A father or a mother whose child dies because of a lack of vaccines or proper medical care does not forget. A boy whose ill grandmother dies while detained at an Israel checkpoint does not forget. All who endure humiliation, abuse and the murder of family members do not forget. This rage becomes a virus within those who, eventually, stumble out into the daylight. Is it any wonder that 71 percent of children interviewed at a school in Gaza recently said they wanted to be a "martyr"?
The Israelis in Gaza, like the American forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, are foolishly breeding the next generation of militants and Islamic radicals. Jihadists, enraged by the injustices done by Israel and the United States, seek to carry out reciprocal acts of savagery, even at the cost of their own lives. The violence unleashed on Palestinian children will, one day, be the violence unleashed on Israeli children. This is the tragedy of Gaza. This is the tragedy of Israel.
AP photo / Hatem Moussa
A Palestinian worker sweeps out the empty storeroom of a U.N. food distribution center in Gaza City.
A Progressive Journal of News and Opinion. Editor, Robert Scheer. Publisher, Zuade Kaufman.
Copyright © 2008 Truthdig, L.L.C. All rights reserved.
bitterlemons-international.org
Middle East Roundtable
bitterlemons-international will not be published on December 25 because of the Christmas holiday. We wish our Christian readers a merry Christmas.
Edition 46 Volume 6 - December 18, 2008
The US-Iraqi status of forces agreement
• Inching toward the exit in Iraq - Greg Bruno
American involvement in Iraq remains a work in progress.
• A win-win deal - Safa A. Hussein
Restoring sovereignty will provide momentum for the political process and outweigh the security risks that may result from the withdrawal.
• Agreement to withdraw or permission to remain? - Saad N. Jawad
The agreement has deprived Iraqis of the right to compensation for the destruction of their country.
• A US drawdown requires the support of Iraq's neighbors - Mohammad K. Shiyyab
Imposing a foreign agenda could destabilize an already fragile emerging democracy.
Inching toward the exit in Iraq
Greg Bruno
After nearly six years of combat and over 4,200 American casualties, the US military in Iraq is eyeing the exits. Passage of a new security agreement by Iraq's parliament last month sets the stage for a complete US departure by the end of 2011. US Defense Secretary Robert Gates, in accepting president-elect Barack Obama's offer to stay on as Pentagon chief, said the agreement--which goes into effect January 1--ends the withdrawal debate, leaving only the question of how to get out responsibly. "We are ...in terms of the American commitment in the endgame here in Iraq," Gates told troops during a visit to Iraq on December 13.
Game-over rhetoric is likely welcome talk for war weary Iraqi and American publics. Yet for all the buzz of a burgeoning Iraqi sovereignty, military analysts say the US exit strategy is no clearer today than it was before the security agreement's passage. Brookings Mideast expert Kenneth M. Pollack says the Status of Forces Agreement eroded any leverage Washington may have had over Iraqi politicians, leaving leaders like Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki free to call the shots. The top US commander in Iraq, Gen. Raymond T. Odierno, has warned US troops that the agreements "will require a subtle shift in how we plan, coordinate, and execute missions throughout Iraq." He did not offer directions for how these changes will be implemented.
Cracks in the accord's intent--to give Iraqis greater control of US military operations--are also beginning to emerge. While the security agreement calls for all "combat forces" to withdraw from "Iraqi cities, villages, and localities" by July 2009, for instance, it says nothing of American trainers. On December 13, Odierno acknowledged that some US forces with likely remain in urban areas after the mid-summer deadline. "We believe we should still be inside those after the summer," the general said at the US base in Balad, adding that a beefed up US presence will be necessary to ensure Iraqi elections run smoothly. The general's acknowledgement came a day after Iraqi government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh told reporters in Washington the Iraqi military could need US military training assistance for another decade (a claim Maliki quickly denied). Similar vagaries have emerged regarding the readiness of Iraq's fledgling air force. Once the pact is implemented, responsibility for ! "surveillance and control over Iraqi airspace" will fall to Iraqis. But like other provisions detailed in the accord, Iraq is free to request US help. Many military experts believe Baghdad will have no choice.
Among the most discussed changes outlined by the security agreement are requirements that US combat troops coordinate missions with the Iraqi government; hand over prisoners to Iraqi authorities (and into a heavily strained legal system); and relinquish control of the Green Zone. Sunni lawmakers also inserted language in the legislation passing the agreement that calls for a nationwide referendum this summer, essentially giving the Iraqi public an opportunity to junk the accord. Doug Brooks, president of the International Peace Operations Association, a trade group representing security contractors, sees another potential pitfall. He says changes that give Iraqis jurisdiction over non-military contractors could force some US-based companies to pull out over concern their employees--who will be subject to Iraqi law--might be unfairly prosecuted. "The question is, 'How far has the Iraqi legal and penal system come since Saddam?' We don't think it's up to international standard! s."
Beyond the emerging legal loopholes are doubts that the US can or even should plan on a full withdrawal within three years. Retired Gen. Barry R. McCaffrey, whose reports on Iraq have become required-reading for Iraq war observers, says the Pentagon "should assume that the Iraqi government will eventually ask us to stay beyond 2011" with a residual force of trainers, counter-terrorist experts, logistics officers and air power specialists. McCaffrey estimates Washington should plan on staging between 20,000 and 40,000 troops in Iraq for the long haul. Council on Foreign Relations senior military fellow Stephen Biddle, meanwhile, suggests that if provincial and national elections in 2009 go off without incident, it might be possible to cut American force commitments in half by late 2010 or 2011 (there are currently about 149,000 troops in Iraq). "Faster reductions would be ill-advised," Biddle writes in a report co-authored with Brookings experts Pollack and Michael E. O'Hanlo! n. Even president-elect Barack Obama has hinted a long-term presence might be necessary.
Such admissions shouldn't undermine the historic importance of the document hailed by President Bush as "a major achievement" in the evolution of post-Saddam Iraq. Disagreements in the past that were settled by gunfire and explosives are now being handled in the Iraqi political arena. Yet American involvement in Iraq remains a work in progress. And as the admissions of military and political leaders suggest, any eventual US exit strategy will be dictated as much by events on the ground as the neat, orderly security agreement Washington and Baghdad have just entered into.- Published 18/12/2008 © bitterlemons-international.org
Greg Bruno is a staff writer for CFR.org, the website of the Council on Foreign Relations.
A win-win deal
Safa A. Hussein
On December 14, US President George W. Bush and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki signed the controversial security pact between their countries in Baghdad. The Iraqi parliament approved the agreement on November 28 (149 voted in favor out of the 198 who attended the session). The agreement is a win-win deal for both leaders.
Bush started the war in Iraq, and in a way is concluding it victoriously before the end of his term. Maliki will be credited as the Iraqi national leader who paved the way for a US force withdrawal from Iraq by 2011. The agreement will allow the US military to remain in Iraq for another three years during which Iraqi security forces will assume all security and law enforcement missions required to stabilize the country and implement the rule of law.
When the first meeting between the Iraqi and American negotiating teams took place in the Iraqi Ministry of Foreign Affairs on March 11, 2008, there were doubts that a fair deal would be reached before the expiry date of the multinational forces mandate in Iraq. There were also deep concerns about the aftermath of such a deal, if one could be struck. An agreement similar to the 80 publicized SOFAs the US has with other countries was simply unacceptable to Iraqis, who wanted a fixed date for withdrawal of American forces and required that Iraq either request or approve American military operations.
In addition, the major Iraqi political parties did not have a clear vision as to the shape of a security relationship with the US. Many politicians were sure to exploit the agreement or its implementation in order to criticize the government; some fundamentally opposed it. Moreover, the agreement was liable to invoke the fears of neighboring Syria and Iran; both countries have the means to influence stability in Iraq. Finally, there was the question: what would be the effect of the withdrawal of American forces on Iraq's stability.
Iraqi political parties that rejected the agreement for fundamental reasons are the Association of Muslim Scholars (a Sunni group that does not participate in the political process), the remnants of the Sunni insurgents and the Sadrists. The Association of Muslim Scholars is now quite isolated and has very limited influence on the Sunni community. The position taken by the remnants of the insurgents reflects their steady opposition to the political process, hence does not alter the Iraqi security/political balance.
The Sadrists' impact is more difficult to calculate. Muqtada al-Sadr, who has been in Iran since last year, thereby loosening his relationship with his followers, had previously called for a scheduled withdrawal of American troops. Now he calls for an immediate departure of US forces from Iraq, threatening that otherwise both the armed and the political wings of his organization will act to force them out. But some of his followers do not see the point of using violence now that the agreement has fixed a date for withdrawal of troops. Hence a split in his movement is probable.
Sadr's capacity to act militarily against US forces is a matter of speculation. The main areas where his supporters reside are stable now and under the tight control of the Iraqi forces. Many of his senior militia leaders fled to Iran earlier this year and have not yet returned. Then too, initiating military activity during the agreement era would be very difficult without violating his public commitment to avoid fighting among Iraqis. This commitment is very important for his stature as a national leader and a religious figure. Finally, the Iraqi government's agreement to hold a referendum on the SOFA on July 30, 2009 renders the rejectionists' reasoning a hard sell.
Syria and Iran have concerns regarding the US troop presence in their neighborhood. Both countries have consistently and systematically expressed their concerns about the agreement since negotiations began. Maliki visited Iran and dispatched a minister of state to the Arab League to assure Arabs and Iranians that the agreement would not allow the use of Iraqi territory to launch attacks against other countries. Iran's informal endorsement of the deal on November 17 was a signal that Tehran was given sufficient security guarantees. The agreement not only sets a hard deadline for the complete withdrawal of US troops by the end of 2011, it also bans cross-border attacks from Iraqi soil. Meanwhile, Iraq's neighbors are going to have to start adjusting to a reality in which US forces depart Iraq in three years.
Senior American officials have stated that victory has not yet been achieved in Iraq. Many Iraqis agree that the war is not finished, but they believe that at least the first phase of the war--regaining security--has been victorious. Accordingly, they believe that the fixed date for withdrawal and the new legal framework set up by the agreement will restore Iraqi sovereignty. This will provide substantial momentum for the political process and outweigh the security risks that may result from the withdrawal.- Published 18/12/2008 © bitterlemons-international.org
Safa A. Hussein is a former deputy member of the dissolved Iraqi Governing Council. Prior to joining the Transitional Government he served as a brigadier general in the Iraqi Air Force and worked in the military industry as director of a research and development center. Currently he works in the Iraqi National Security Council.
Agreement to withdraw or permission to remain?
Saad N. Jawad
In November, the Iraqi and US governments finally signed a long-discussed and much-disputed security agreement. The agreement provides for the possibility of a US troop withdrawal by 2011, but it would seem to be more a permission to postpone a full withdrawal indefinitely.
Before the signing, there had been disputes over every little detail of the agreement, including over the name. While the US government called it the "Status of Forces Agreement" and sometimes simply the "Security Agreement", the Iraqi government chose to call it the "Agreement for the Withdrawal of American Forces". The US administration did not object to this since it knew the Iraqi government was in an embarrassing position. It was, after all, negotiating a prolongation of the presence of occupying forces in a country that was declared fully sovereign in 2005.
The SOFA affords US forces a guaranteed and facilitated presence in Iraq until 2011 and is an extension and enlargement of the November 2007 Declaration of Principles and Cooperation, which passed unnoticed and stipulated cooperation in three areas, the political and diplomatic, economic and security fields. Yet despite all the fuss around it, all opposition evaporated when it came to crunch time, and the agreement was passed by the Iraqi government and approved by parliament with a simple majority. Indeed, rumors circulated that the Iraqi and American governments spared little expense in securing MPs' approval. Certainly, the difference between the vocal opposition of most parliament members to the SOFA and their eventual acquiescence set tongues wagging.
The Iraqi government and pro-government parliament members justified their position by saying that after seven months of negotiations and amendments, the last version of the SOFA was the best possible and would surely lead to the withdrawal of US troops in 2011. They also argued that the Iraqi SOFA is better than all similar agreements the USA has signed with different countries in the past half a century, including with Turkey, Japan and Germany.
What nobody said was that until the SOFA was approved by the Iraqi parliament, nobody in the government, apart from the negotiating team, or in parliament had seen or were allowed to study the agreement in detail. And it was later discovered that the version approved in parliament was the poorly translated Arabic version. The detailed English original, with all its attached protocols, annexes, etc., was not released until approval was secured.
In both versions, the clause about withdrawal in 2011 is clear. But those who were able to study the two versions insist that there are nevertheless significant differences between the two. The devil is in details such as the clause that stipulates that any renewal of the agreement can be done by the two governments alone and does not need parliamentary approval, or the clause that deprives each party of the option of withdrawing or annulling the agreement unilaterally.
Cracks in the apparent resolve to rid Iraq of US troops have in fact already appeared. Last week, an Iraqi government spokesman declared in Washington that Iraqi security forces would need ten years before they were ready to replace US forces. Meanwhile, the senior US commander in Iraq said his forces would not leave the centers of cities by June, as indicated in the SOFA.
The agreement also includes a clause that allows US forces to act freely and without Iraqi approval to fight "terrorism" in and around Iraq. This, obviously, is a very elastic term, and essentially means blanket permission to liquidate any elements inside Iraq or in Iran and Syria at US discretion in addition to constituting implicit permission to stay as long as there is "terrorist" danger.
These shortcomings and loopholes are entirely to be expected. No one could possibly have believed that the US came so far and fought so long without also achieving its main objectives of securing the supply of oil, preserving the security of Israel and silencing dissent in the Arab world. Many Iraqi politicians reached their positions on the SOFA entirely out of narrow political interests. Some believe their eminence in Iraqi politics cannot be guaranteed without an American presence; some feel the exact opposite.
In the middle stand the majority who resent the SOFA for being simply a different face of the same colonialism, a legitimization of the presence of US forces. The agreement has deprived Iraqis of the right to compensation for the destruction of their country and the killing of their compatriots. It also omitted any mention of rebuilding Iraq. It was, in short, an entirely undeserved victory for the outgoing neo-conservative US administration.- Published 18/12/2008 © bitterlemons-international.org
Saad N. Jawad is professor of political science at Baghdad University.
A US drawdown requires the support of Iraq's neighbors
Mohammad K. Shiyyab
Barely a day after the Status of Forces Agreement in Iraq was adopted by the Iraqi parliament the deal prolonging the stay of US forces in the country was already being questioned in different and unexpected quarters.
The SOFA stipulates a total US withdrawal from all Iraq over the next three years. It gives Baghdad oversight over US military activities, provides for immunity from prosecution for US troops while taking part in operations and prohibits the United States from using Iraqi territory for launching attacks on neighboring countries. What ramifications will it have on the region?
Iran rejects any long-term agreement between Iraq and the United States. Tehran knows that a US presence impedes its growing influence in Iraq and provides Iraqi political parties with a non-Iranian source of support. Ali Larijani, Iran's speaker of parliament, stated in a recent interview that, "the Iraqi nation should courageously resist the US security pact just as they have so far resisted the occupiers." Other Iranian officials have made similar statements.
Egypt, the Gulf Cooperation Council (Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates) and Jordan see an extended US presence in Iraq as an insurance policy against Iran's regional hegemony. Syria, interestingly, has been hesitant to take a formal position on the issue. Damascus apparently is trying to balance its alliance with Iran with improving ties with the United States; Syria has been willing to explore a possible peace treaty with Israel (via Turkish mediators) and has been silent on the US-Iraqi SOFA.
Turkey supports an extended US presence in Iraq. It hosts US bases and is a key regional ally of Washington. Moreover, Ankara's comfort level with US policy in Iraq has increased as a result of American support for recent Turkish operations against Kurdish insurgents in northern Iraq.
Kurdish leaders also support a long-term agreement with the United States, since they still consider it their strongest ally. This, despite occasional reports of discontent with some US policies, especially Washington's support for recent Turkish incursions in northern Iraq.
Ironically, the Sunni Arabs, who previously made up the backbone of the nationalist insurgency and al-Qaeda supporters, also favor an extended US presence. Many, especially those involved in the US-backed Awakening movement, are still skeptical of the Shi'ite-led government and see an American presence as a guarantee of their representation in pending provincial and national elections. On the other hand, Iraqi secular parties such as al-Iraqiya and some independents in the parliament are hovering in between. They support a long-term US presence but cannot say so publicly for fear that their mostly nationalist constituency would punish them in forthcoming elections.
As for Jordan, last August His Majesty King Abdullah II arrived in the Iraqi capital for the first visit to the country by an Arab leader since the US-led invasion in 2003. The king voiced his willingness to support the security and stability of Iraq, which, he said, is an integral part of the security and stability of the Arab nation.
"We hope that this step will boost the already strong ties between our two countries in various fields of cooperation even further," stated Iraqi Ambassador to Jordan Saad Hayyani. Jordan's newly appointed ambassador to Iraq, Nayef Zeidan, presented his credentials to Iraq's President Talabani late last month. He told The Jordan Times that President Talabani expressed his appreciation for Jordan's "important step", which will boost cooperation between the two countries.
The way forward for Iraq lies in political rather than armed struggles. The agreement is good for Iraq for a number of reasons. It opens the door to officially ending sanctions imposed through 14 UN Security Council resolutions. The SOFA puts all foreign forces under the control of the Iraqi government and fixes a timetable for the withdrawal of US military personnel by the end of 2011. The agreement gives Iraq three years during which it will hold two crucial elections: local government elections on January 31, 2009 and parliamentary elections in 2010--both positive steps toward the country's democratization.
Coming into effect at the start of 2009, the SOFA gives Iraq time in which to complete building its new army. By the middle of 2009, the new Iraqi army should have replaced all foreign troops in urban areas while the remaining four of the 18 provinces will come under Iraqi government control.
The next US administration should use its leverage to positively influence regional behavior toward Iraq. A successful drawdown of US troops will not be possible without the support of Iraq's neighbors. Each country in the region desires to see an outcome that benefits its strategic priorities. Such priorities are not inherently at odds with American interests. The next administration should pursue bilateral or multilateral agreements with Iraq's neighbors to invest in a secure, stable and sovereign Iraq.
American interests rightly drive US policy in Iraq. But imposing a foreign agenda could destabilize an already fragile emerging democracy. Iraq needs to be treated as a sovereign country. Iraqis themselves will set the pace of progress in Iraq. With appropriate policies focused on strengthening governance, ensuring free and fair provincial elections and engaging Iraq's neighbors, the Obama administration can help facilitate that progress. - Published 18/12/2008 © bitterlemons-international.org
General (rtd.) Mohammad K. Shiyyab is director general of the Cooperative Monitoring Center, Amman.
Middle East Roundtable
bitterlemons-international will not be published on December 25 because of the Christmas holiday. We wish our Christian readers a merry Christmas.
Edition 46 Volume 6 - December 18, 2008
The US-Iraqi status of forces agreement
• Inching toward the exit in Iraq - Greg Bruno
American involvement in Iraq remains a work in progress.
• A win-win deal - Safa A. Hussein
Restoring sovereignty will provide momentum for the political process and outweigh the security risks that may result from the withdrawal.
• Agreement to withdraw or permission to remain? - Saad N. Jawad
The agreement has deprived Iraqis of the right to compensation for the destruction of their country.
• A US drawdown requires the support of Iraq's neighbors - Mohammad K. Shiyyab
Imposing a foreign agenda could destabilize an already fragile emerging democracy.
Inching toward the exit in Iraq
Greg Bruno
After nearly six years of combat and over 4,200 American casualties, the US military in Iraq is eyeing the exits. Passage of a new security agreement by Iraq's parliament last month sets the stage for a complete US departure by the end of 2011. US Defense Secretary Robert Gates, in accepting president-elect Barack Obama's offer to stay on as Pentagon chief, said the agreement--which goes into effect January 1--ends the withdrawal debate, leaving only the question of how to get out responsibly. "We are ...in terms of the American commitment in the endgame here in Iraq," Gates told troops during a visit to Iraq on December 13.
Game-over rhetoric is likely welcome talk for war weary Iraqi and American publics. Yet for all the buzz of a burgeoning Iraqi sovereignty, military analysts say the US exit strategy is no clearer today than it was before the security agreement's passage. Brookings Mideast expert Kenneth M. Pollack says the Status of Forces Agreement eroded any leverage Washington may have had over Iraqi politicians, leaving leaders like Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki free to call the shots. The top US commander in Iraq, Gen. Raymond T. Odierno, has warned US troops that the agreements "will require a subtle shift in how we plan, coordinate, and execute missions throughout Iraq." He did not offer directions for how these changes will be implemented.
Cracks in the accord's intent--to give Iraqis greater control of US military operations--are also beginning to emerge. While the security agreement calls for all "combat forces" to withdraw from "Iraqi cities, villages, and localities" by July 2009, for instance, it says nothing of American trainers. On December 13, Odierno acknowledged that some US forces with likely remain in urban areas after the mid-summer deadline. "We believe we should still be inside those after the summer," the general said at the US base in Balad, adding that a beefed up US presence will be necessary to ensure Iraqi elections run smoothly. The general's acknowledgement came a day after Iraqi government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh told reporters in Washington the Iraqi military could need US military training assistance for another decade (a claim Maliki quickly denied). Similar vagaries have emerged regarding the readiness of Iraq's fledgling air force. Once the pact is implemented, responsibility for ! "surveillance and control over Iraqi airspace" will fall to Iraqis. But like other provisions detailed in the accord, Iraq is free to request US help. Many military experts believe Baghdad will have no choice.
Among the most discussed changes outlined by the security agreement are requirements that US combat troops coordinate missions with the Iraqi government; hand over prisoners to Iraqi authorities (and into a heavily strained legal system); and relinquish control of the Green Zone. Sunni lawmakers also inserted language in the legislation passing the agreement that calls for a nationwide referendum this summer, essentially giving the Iraqi public an opportunity to junk the accord. Doug Brooks, president of the International Peace Operations Association, a trade group representing security contractors, sees another potential pitfall. He says changes that give Iraqis jurisdiction over non-military contractors could force some US-based companies to pull out over concern their employees--who will be subject to Iraqi law--might be unfairly prosecuted. "The question is, 'How far has the Iraqi legal and penal system come since Saddam?' We don't think it's up to international standard! s."
Beyond the emerging legal loopholes are doubts that the US can or even should plan on a full withdrawal within three years. Retired Gen. Barry R. McCaffrey, whose reports on Iraq have become required-reading for Iraq war observers, says the Pentagon "should assume that the Iraqi government will eventually ask us to stay beyond 2011" with a residual force of trainers, counter-terrorist experts, logistics officers and air power specialists. McCaffrey estimates Washington should plan on staging between 20,000 and 40,000 troops in Iraq for the long haul. Council on Foreign Relations senior military fellow Stephen Biddle, meanwhile, suggests that if provincial and national elections in 2009 go off without incident, it might be possible to cut American force commitments in half by late 2010 or 2011 (there are currently about 149,000 troops in Iraq). "Faster reductions would be ill-advised," Biddle writes in a report co-authored with Brookings experts Pollack and Michael E. O'Hanlo! n. Even president-elect Barack Obama has hinted a long-term presence might be necessary.
Such admissions shouldn't undermine the historic importance of the document hailed by President Bush as "a major achievement" in the evolution of post-Saddam Iraq. Disagreements in the past that were settled by gunfire and explosives are now being handled in the Iraqi political arena. Yet American involvement in Iraq remains a work in progress. And as the admissions of military and political leaders suggest, any eventual US exit strategy will be dictated as much by events on the ground as the neat, orderly security agreement Washington and Baghdad have just entered into.- Published 18/12/2008 © bitterlemons-international.org
Greg Bruno is a staff writer for CFR.org, the website of the Council on Foreign Relations.
A win-win deal
Safa A. Hussein
On December 14, US President George W. Bush and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki signed the controversial security pact between their countries in Baghdad. The Iraqi parliament approved the agreement on November 28 (149 voted in favor out of the 198 who attended the session). The agreement is a win-win deal for both leaders.
Bush started the war in Iraq, and in a way is concluding it victoriously before the end of his term. Maliki will be credited as the Iraqi national leader who paved the way for a US force withdrawal from Iraq by 2011. The agreement will allow the US military to remain in Iraq for another three years during which Iraqi security forces will assume all security and law enforcement missions required to stabilize the country and implement the rule of law.
When the first meeting between the Iraqi and American negotiating teams took place in the Iraqi Ministry of Foreign Affairs on March 11, 2008, there were doubts that a fair deal would be reached before the expiry date of the multinational forces mandate in Iraq. There were also deep concerns about the aftermath of such a deal, if one could be struck. An agreement similar to the 80 publicized SOFAs the US has with other countries was simply unacceptable to Iraqis, who wanted a fixed date for withdrawal of American forces and required that Iraq either request or approve American military operations.
In addition, the major Iraqi political parties did not have a clear vision as to the shape of a security relationship with the US. Many politicians were sure to exploit the agreement or its implementation in order to criticize the government; some fundamentally opposed it. Moreover, the agreement was liable to invoke the fears of neighboring Syria and Iran; both countries have the means to influence stability in Iraq. Finally, there was the question: what would be the effect of the withdrawal of American forces on Iraq's stability.
Iraqi political parties that rejected the agreement for fundamental reasons are the Association of Muslim Scholars (a Sunni group that does not participate in the political process), the remnants of the Sunni insurgents and the Sadrists. The Association of Muslim Scholars is now quite isolated and has very limited influence on the Sunni community. The position taken by the remnants of the insurgents reflects their steady opposition to the political process, hence does not alter the Iraqi security/political balance.
The Sadrists' impact is more difficult to calculate. Muqtada al-Sadr, who has been in Iran since last year, thereby loosening his relationship with his followers, had previously called for a scheduled withdrawal of American troops. Now he calls for an immediate departure of US forces from Iraq, threatening that otherwise both the armed and the political wings of his organization will act to force them out. But some of his followers do not see the point of using violence now that the agreement has fixed a date for withdrawal of troops. Hence a split in his movement is probable.
Sadr's capacity to act militarily against US forces is a matter of speculation. The main areas where his supporters reside are stable now and under the tight control of the Iraqi forces. Many of his senior militia leaders fled to Iran earlier this year and have not yet returned. Then too, initiating military activity during the agreement era would be very difficult without violating his public commitment to avoid fighting among Iraqis. This commitment is very important for his stature as a national leader and a religious figure. Finally, the Iraqi government's agreement to hold a referendum on the SOFA on July 30, 2009 renders the rejectionists' reasoning a hard sell.
Syria and Iran have concerns regarding the US troop presence in their neighborhood. Both countries have consistently and systematically expressed their concerns about the agreement since negotiations began. Maliki visited Iran and dispatched a minister of state to the Arab League to assure Arabs and Iranians that the agreement would not allow the use of Iraqi territory to launch attacks against other countries. Iran's informal endorsement of the deal on November 17 was a signal that Tehran was given sufficient security guarantees. The agreement not only sets a hard deadline for the complete withdrawal of US troops by the end of 2011, it also bans cross-border attacks from Iraqi soil. Meanwhile, Iraq's neighbors are going to have to start adjusting to a reality in which US forces depart Iraq in three years.
Senior American officials have stated that victory has not yet been achieved in Iraq. Many Iraqis agree that the war is not finished, but they believe that at least the first phase of the war--regaining security--has been victorious. Accordingly, they believe that the fixed date for withdrawal and the new legal framework set up by the agreement will restore Iraqi sovereignty. This will provide substantial momentum for the political process and outweigh the security risks that may result from the withdrawal.- Published 18/12/2008 © bitterlemons-international.org
Safa A. Hussein is a former deputy member of the dissolved Iraqi Governing Council. Prior to joining the Transitional Government he served as a brigadier general in the Iraqi Air Force and worked in the military industry as director of a research and development center. Currently he works in the Iraqi National Security Council.
Agreement to withdraw or permission to remain?
Saad N. Jawad
In November, the Iraqi and US governments finally signed a long-discussed and much-disputed security agreement. The agreement provides for the possibility of a US troop withdrawal by 2011, but it would seem to be more a permission to postpone a full withdrawal indefinitely.
Before the signing, there had been disputes over every little detail of the agreement, including over the name. While the US government called it the "Status of Forces Agreement" and sometimes simply the "Security Agreement", the Iraqi government chose to call it the "Agreement for the Withdrawal of American Forces". The US administration did not object to this since it knew the Iraqi government was in an embarrassing position. It was, after all, negotiating a prolongation of the presence of occupying forces in a country that was declared fully sovereign in 2005.
The SOFA affords US forces a guaranteed and facilitated presence in Iraq until 2011 and is an extension and enlargement of the November 2007 Declaration of Principles and Cooperation, which passed unnoticed and stipulated cooperation in three areas, the political and diplomatic, economic and security fields. Yet despite all the fuss around it, all opposition evaporated when it came to crunch time, and the agreement was passed by the Iraqi government and approved by parliament with a simple majority. Indeed, rumors circulated that the Iraqi and American governments spared little expense in securing MPs' approval. Certainly, the difference between the vocal opposition of most parliament members to the SOFA and their eventual acquiescence set tongues wagging.
The Iraqi government and pro-government parliament members justified their position by saying that after seven months of negotiations and amendments, the last version of the SOFA was the best possible and would surely lead to the withdrawal of US troops in 2011. They also argued that the Iraqi SOFA is better than all similar agreements the USA has signed with different countries in the past half a century, including with Turkey, Japan and Germany.
What nobody said was that until the SOFA was approved by the Iraqi parliament, nobody in the government, apart from the negotiating team, or in parliament had seen or were allowed to study the agreement in detail. And it was later discovered that the version approved in parliament was the poorly translated Arabic version. The detailed English original, with all its attached protocols, annexes, etc., was not released until approval was secured.
In both versions, the clause about withdrawal in 2011 is clear. But those who were able to study the two versions insist that there are nevertheless significant differences between the two. The devil is in details such as the clause that stipulates that any renewal of the agreement can be done by the two governments alone and does not need parliamentary approval, or the clause that deprives each party of the option of withdrawing or annulling the agreement unilaterally.
Cracks in the apparent resolve to rid Iraq of US troops have in fact already appeared. Last week, an Iraqi government spokesman declared in Washington that Iraqi security forces would need ten years before they were ready to replace US forces. Meanwhile, the senior US commander in Iraq said his forces would not leave the centers of cities by June, as indicated in the SOFA.
The agreement also includes a clause that allows US forces to act freely and without Iraqi approval to fight "terrorism" in and around Iraq. This, obviously, is a very elastic term, and essentially means blanket permission to liquidate any elements inside Iraq or in Iran and Syria at US discretion in addition to constituting implicit permission to stay as long as there is "terrorist" danger.
These shortcomings and loopholes are entirely to be expected. No one could possibly have believed that the US came so far and fought so long without also achieving its main objectives of securing the supply of oil, preserving the security of Israel and silencing dissent in the Arab world. Many Iraqi politicians reached their positions on the SOFA entirely out of narrow political interests. Some believe their eminence in Iraqi politics cannot be guaranteed without an American presence; some feel the exact opposite.
In the middle stand the majority who resent the SOFA for being simply a different face of the same colonialism, a legitimization of the presence of US forces. The agreement has deprived Iraqis of the right to compensation for the destruction of their country and the killing of their compatriots. It also omitted any mention of rebuilding Iraq. It was, in short, an entirely undeserved victory for the outgoing neo-conservative US administration.- Published 18/12/2008 © bitterlemons-international.org
Saad N. Jawad is professor of political science at Baghdad University.
A US drawdown requires the support of Iraq's neighbors
Mohammad K. Shiyyab
Barely a day after the Status of Forces Agreement in Iraq was adopted by the Iraqi parliament the deal prolonging the stay of US forces in the country was already being questioned in different and unexpected quarters.
The SOFA stipulates a total US withdrawal from all Iraq over the next three years. It gives Baghdad oversight over US military activities, provides for immunity from prosecution for US troops while taking part in operations and prohibits the United States from using Iraqi territory for launching attacks on neighboring countries. What ramifications will it have on the region?
Iran rejects any long-term agreement between Iraq and the United States. Tehran knows that a US presence impedes its growing influence in Iraq and provides Iraqi political parties with a non-Iranian source of support. Ali Larijani, Iran's speaker of parliament, stated in a recent interview that, "the Iraqi nation should courageously resist the US security pact just as they have so far resisted the occupiers." Other Iranian officials have made similar statements.
Egypt, the Gulf Cooperation Council (Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates) and Jordan see an extended US presence in Iraq as an insurance policy against Iran's regional hegemony. Syria, interestingly, has been hesitant to take a formal position on the issue. Damascus apparently is trying to balance its alliance with Iran with improving ties with the United States; Syria has been willing to explore a possible peace treaty with Israel (via Turkish mediators) and has been silent on the US-Iraqi SOFA.
Turkey supports an extended US presence in Iraq. It hosts US bases and is a key regional ally of Washington. Moreover, Ankara's comfort level with US policy in Iraq has increased as a result of American support for recent Turkish operations against Kurdish insurgents in northern Iraq.
Kurdish leaders also support a long-term agreement with the United States, since they still consider it their strongest ally. This, despite occasional reports of discontent with some US policies, especially Washington's support for recent Turkish incursions in northern Iraq.
Ironically, the Sunni Arabs, who previously made up the backbone of the nationalist insurgency and al-Qaeda supporters, also favor an extended US presence. Many, especially those involved in the US-backed Awakening movement, are still skeptical of the Shi'ite-led government and see an American presence as a guarantee of their representation in pending provincial and national elections. On the other hand, Iraqi secular parties such as al-Iraqiya and some independents in the parliament are hovering in between. They support a long-term US presence but cannot say so publicly for fear that their mostly nationalist constituency would punish them in forthcoming elections.
As for Jordan, last August His Majesty King Abdullah II arrived in the Iraqi capital for the first visit to the country by an Arab leader since the US-led invasion in 2003. The king voiced his willingness to support the security and stability of Iraq, which, he said, is an integral part of the security and stability of the Arab nation.
"We hope that this step will boost the already strong ties between our two countries in various fields of cooperation even further," stated Iraqi Ambassador to Jordan Saad Hayyani. Jordan's newly appointed ambassador to Iraq, Nayef Zeidan, presented his credentials to Iraq's President Talabani late last month. He told The Jordan Times that President Talabani expressed his appreciation for Jordan's "important step", which will boost cooperation between the two countries.
The way forward for Iraq lies in political rather than armed struggles. The agreement is good for Iraq for a number of reasons. It opens the door to officially ending sanctions imposed through 14 UN Security Council resolutions. The SOFA puts all foreign forces under the control of the Iraqi government and fixes a timetable for the withdrawal of US military personnel by the end of 2011. The agreement gives Iraq three years during which it will hold two crucial elections: local government elections on January 31, 2009 and parliamentary elections in 2010--both positive steps toward the country's democratization.
Coming into effect at the start of 2009, the SOFA gives Iraq time in which to complete building its new army. By the middle of 2009, the new Iraqi army should have replaced all foreign troops in urban areas while the remaining four of the 18 provinces will come under Iraqi government control.
The next US administration should use its leverage to positively influence regional behavior toward Iraq. A successful drawdown of US troops will not be possible without the support of Iraq's neighbors. Each country in the region desires to see an outcome that benefits its strategic priorities. Such priorities are not inherently at odds with American interests. The next administration should pursue bilateral or multilateral agreements with Iraq's neighbors to invest in a secure, stable and sovereign Iraq.
American interests rightly drive US policy in Iraq. But imposing a foreign agenda could destabilize an already fragile emerging democracy. Iraq needs to be treated as a sovereign country. Iraqis themselves will set the pace of progress in Iraq. With appropriate policies focused on strengthening governance, ensuring free and fair provincial elections and engaging Iraq's neighbors, the Obama administration can help facilitate that progress. - Published 18/12/2008 © bitterlemons-international.org
General (rtd.) Mohammad K. Shiyyab is director general of the Cooperative Monitoring Center, Amman.
The Irresponsibility of Thomas Friedman
by Jerome Slater
[Editor's Note: Jerome Slater's critique of Thomas Friedman raises important questions about the role of journalists in mis-shaping public understanding of the Israel/Palestine struggle. As we have repeatedly argued in Tikkun, the mistakes made in the creation and perpetuation of that struggle come from both sides, and any historical reading must acknowledge the continued propensity on both sides to engage in acts of violence. Palestinian extremists and terrorists are culpable too—not just Israelis. Because this magazine emerges from the West, where Israel's side of the story is well known and largely accepted blindly, while the Palestinian side is systematically kept from public consideration, we have often tried to re-balance the story by presenting the facts that the American media and the cheerleaders for the right wing in Israel have kept out of public view. Slater's critique of Thomas Friedman is part of that effort. In 2003 Tikkun published the book Healing Israel/Palestine in which we try to give a more fully balanced account of the struggle, recognizing that both sides have full culpability for the origin and continuation of the struggle, and we are proud to say that the book is as relevant today as it was when we first published it. Saying that does not diminish the importance of Slater's challenging of the deep misunderstandings of the situation perpetrated in Western media—misunderstandings which continue to constrain the possibilities of rational pro-peace intervention by the United States.]
As close observers of the century-old conflict between the Zionist movement and the Arab residents of Palestine increasingly understand, the Zionist narrative is riddled with historical mythologies that do not stand up under close and dispassionate examination. But these myths have had the devastating consequence of blinding Israelis—and their unthinking American supporters—to their own role in the never-ending Israeli-Palestinian conflict, as well as in the wider Arab-Israeli conflict.
To be sure, the Palestinians and the Arabs as a whole have their own historical mythologies, and it is obvious that Israel does not bear all the blame for the ongoing conflict. Still, it is the Israeli mythologies, largely accepted by most Americans, which have been the greater obstacle to a peace settlement, especially in recent years.
Before 2000, three major mythologies were refuted by serious historians and journalists—most of them Israeli. First, there was the myth that in 1948 a weak Israeli army (David) heroically overcame a strong Arab army (Goliath) that intended to destroy the new Jewish state; in fact, the Israeli armies outnumbered and outgunned a small coalition of half-hearted Arab armies, whose primary purpose was to prevent each other from grabbing off pieces of Palestine, rather than to "drive the Jews into the sea." Second, there was the myth that hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees voluntarily fled their homes and villages in 1947-48; the evidence is overwhelming that the main reason the Palestinians fled was either out of the justified fear they might be massacred, as had happened at Deir Yassin and elsewhere, or because the Zionist armed forces rounded them up and forced them across the borders into Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan, and Syria. Third, there was the myth that both the Palestinians and their Arab neighbors "never lost an opportunity to lose an opportunity" to reach peaceful political settlements with Israel; in fact it is Israel that has repeatedly turned down real opportunities for peaceful settlements—with Egypt until the 1970s, with Jordan until the 1980s, and with the Palestinians, Syria, and the Arab world as a whole today.
In all these cases, Israel's leading enemies, as well as the Arab League, representing most Arab countries, were and still are ready not only to end their conflict with the Jewish state but to normalize diplomatic and economic relations with it, in exchange for full Israeli withdrawal from the Golan Heights, the West Bank, Gaza, and Arab East Jerusalem, followed by the creation of an independent Palestinian state with its capital in East Jerusalem. Consequently, the main reason for the continuation of Israel's conflict with the Arab world (other than with Egypt) is that Israel has refused to withdraw from the expanded territory it conquered in 1967.
Since 2000 there has been a new myth, one that may be even more factually wrong and pernicious in terms of its consequences in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. According to this myth, the last serious peace negotiations between the Israelis and the Palestinians, at Camp David in July 2000, broke down because Yasir Arafat and the Palestinians rejected a generous settlement offered by Prime Minister Ehud Barak. This myth says the Palestinians made no counteroffers of their own, and turned instead to terrorist violence against the Israeli population.
One of the most important purveyors of this myth has been Thomas Friedman, the lead foreign policy columnist of the New York Times. In part because of the position he holds as a writer for the world's most influential newspaper, in part because he often appears to be moderate and balanced in his analyses and commentaries, and perhaps even because of the glibness of his writing style, it is reasonable to assume that Friedman has had an important influence on U.S. understanding of the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict.*
*Dennis Ross, the head of the U.S. delegation at Camp David and a close adviser to Bill Clinton, has been equally influential, and equally misleading, in placing most of the blame for the breakdown of the peace process on the Palestinians in general and Yasir Arafat in particular. It is unlikely, however, that Ross had much influence on Friedman's thinking, because Ross's book on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, The Missing Peace, appeared in the spring of 2004, whereas most of Friedman's columns on Camp David and the intifada appeared in the 2001-03 period. I have criticized Ross's arguments in "The Missing Pieces in The Missing Peace," Tikkun, May-June 2005.
The Camp David mythology underlies the policies of the Bush administration, as well as the dominant attitudes in Congress, the general American public, and the American Jewish community. Within a few months of Camp David, however, a number of important works began appearing, all of them challenging various aspects of the mythology. Within the next three years, the literature became extensive, and today no part of this mythology has survived serious examination by numerous Israeli, American, Palestinian, and European scholars and journalists, and—especially—by Israeli diplomats and academic advisors who were directly involved in the events of 2000, as well as former military, intelligence, and government officials (see box on p. 49).
Thomas Friedman, however, continued to reiterate the mythology. According to a number of Friedman columns, at Camp David Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak sought to test whether Arafat and the Palestinians were ready for a real peace, offering them a comprehensive settlement in which, in return for a definitive Palestinian decision to end its historic conflict with Israel, they would get an independent state in "virtually all" of the West Bank and Gaza; half of Jerusalem, including all the key Arab areas; the removal of all the Jewish settlements within the new Palestinian state, with territorial compensation for the areas that would be annexed to Israel; and a return to Israel of a symbolic number of Palestinian refugees and either the right of return to the new Palestinian state or financial restitution to the others.
The Palestinians failed the test, Friedman wrote, leaving the Israelis without "a partner for peace." To be sure, Friedman concedes, Barak's (and, later, Clinton's) proposals had defects and were not perfect from the Palestinian point of view, but this did not justify Arafat's decision to walk away from continued negotiations and launch the intifada: the right response would have been to make a counteroffer and then employ diplomacy or even nonviolent resistance to extract more out of Israel. The Palestinians' alleged failure to follow this course convinced Friedman that Arafat and his followers did not want a peaceful settlement with Israel but were continuing to seek its destruction.
There is a rather bizarre contradiction between Friedman's acknowledgement of the realities of the Israeli occupation and his condemnation of the intifada as so inexplicable as to definitively demonstrate that Arafat was an extremist with whom it was impossible to negotiate. For example, Friedman has written that the Israeli occupation is both morally and practically disastrous—in his own words, at varying times, "brutal," "idiotic," "lunatic," "rapacious," and "a cancer for the Jewish people … [threatening] the entire Zionist enterprise" ("Dead Man Walking," January 30, 2002).
Moreover, Friedman has conceded that Barak was negotiating with one hand while he "seized more Palestinian land for settlements" with the other; that this understandably led the Palestinians to "feel their living space was shrinking while Israel's was constantly expanding, all under the umbrella of 'peace'" ("Lifelines to the Future, April 2, 2002); and that the continued expansion of the settlements, checkpoints, and fences are "shameful act[s] of colonial coercion" ("It Only Gets Worse," May 22, 2001) that have "transformed the West Bank into a series of cages … that will become factories of despair" ("One Wall, One Man, One Vote," September 14, 2003).
Yet, Friedman professes not to understand why the Palestinians resorted to an uprising. While on one occasion observing that the Palestinians could hardly be expected to "just roll over and take it" ("Six Wars and Counting," May 29, 2002), he nonetheless on various occasions characterized the intifada as "idiotic," "brain-dead," "insane," and "a reckless, pointless, foolish adventure." According to Friedman, Arafat never explained why an uprising was necessary or what its precise objectives were, never "offered a peace plan of his own that explicitly lays out for Israelis how their own Jewish state will be accepted by the Palestinians" ("A Mideast Policy for Mr. Bush," January 19, 2001), and refused even to begin to prepare his people for the historic compromises a settlement would require. What he should have done, Friedman argued, was to have built on Barak's "opening bid" and continue the negotiations; instead, Arafat preferred "to play the victim rather than the statesman," and sought to "provoke the Israelis into brutalizing the Palestinians again" ("Arafat's War," October 13, 2000).
Friedman on Palestinian Intentions
If the intifada was unjustified and unnecessary, what conclusions should be drawn about Arafat's purpose in "launching" it? Friedman can't quite make up his mind about this crucial question, for at varying times he has offered four quite different answers:
1. Even if Arafat is still seeking a two-state solution, he will not accept it by means of a peaceful negotiations process; he and the Palestinians, "blinded by narcissistic rage," didn't want a state handed to them by Israel and the United States, preferring "to win their independence in blood and fire" ("Suicidal Lies," March 31, 2002).
2. Anyway, Arafat will not settle for a two-state solution, for his rejection of the Barak/Clinton offers "leads to only one conclusion: that the priority of the Palestinians is not achieving an independent state. Their priority, apparently, is to kill Jews ... [and] attempt to eliminate 100 percent of Israel" ("The Intifada is Over," December 5, 2001).
3. The violence has no political purpose at all. The suicide bombings inside Israel demonstrate that "the Palestinian national movement was being taken over by bin Ladenism, which is the nihilistic pursuit of murderous violence against civilians, without any political program and outside of any political context" ("Intifada is Over").
4. In a variation on the no-political-purpose explanation, Friedman suggests that the intifada can be explained by symbolism or, alternatively, Palestinian self-hatred: "Palestinian youths [are] lashing out at the symbol of their failure to build a modern society ... [and] at the instruments of their decline—their own leaders. Their message to Israelis is: 'We are somebody. We may not be able to make microchips, but we can make you miserable and we will do that even if it is making us destitute' " (" The New Mideast Paradigm," March 6, 2001).
Camp David Demythologized
A detailed review of the voluminous literature and evidence that has decisively refuted the Camp David/intifada mythology is beyond the scope of this article, but the main points can be briefly summarized. To begin with, Barak was the wrong man to negotiate a peace settlement with the Palestinians, which inevitably would require serious Israeli concessions and Palestinian trust that the concessions would later be implemented in good faith. In fact, the Palestinians had excellent reasons to distrust Barak: he had been a lifelong hawk who had opposed all earlier partial Israeli-Palestinian agreements and who regularly and publicly denigrated Arabs in general and Palestinians in particular, sometimes in barely disguised racist language. Even more importantly, as prime minister, Barak had continuously expanded the Israeli settlements in the West Bank—at a pace that exceeded even that of his hard-line Israeli predecessor, Benjamin Netanyahu—and had refused to carry out several of the Israeli troop withdrawals and other measures that had been mandated by the 1993 Israeli-Palestinian Oslo agreements. All of this could hardly inspire Palestinian confidence that Barak would be willing to implement a genuine peace settlement that would necessarily go far beyond Oslo, requiring a near-complete Israeli withdrawal of settlements and armed forces from the occupied territories.
Even at Camp David, it was unclear how far Barak was prepared to go to reach a peace agreement—evidently even to Barak himself. Although at some level he had apparently come to believe that some kind of settlement with the Palestinians was a practical necessity, Barak continued to be of two minds on the matter. Moreover, even at the Camp David "negotiations," astonishingly Barak refused to meet with Arafat and in other ways treated him with contempt. Later, a number of Palestinian and Israeli commentators, including members of the Israeli delegation, described Barak's treatment of Arafat as a puzzling and gratuitous humiliation, and one which could hardly inspire Palestinian confidence in Barak's willingness to reach a true peace settlement.
That aside, Barak made no concrete or verifiable offers at Camp David on any of the many specific areas of dispute, refusing to put anything in writing until the entire package he had in mind was agreed to by the Palestinians. Indeed, Barak now actually brags that he gave less to the Palestinians—in fact, as he puts it, "not a thing"—than did his hard-line Likud predecessor, Benjamin Netanyahu.
Even so, there is a general consensus on the broad outlines of what Barak verbally seemed to be offering at Camp David: a demilitarized Palestinian state in some 85-90% of the occupied territories, but with Israel retaining (1) most of Jerusalem, (2) most of the largest Jewish settlements, typically located on the most fertile lands in the West Bank and some of them extending far from the Green Line into the Palestinian areas, (3) most of the West Bank water aquifers, and (4) direct military control over the Jordan River valley and adjacent mountains.
Thus, if Arafat had accepted Barak's concept of a "fair and generous" settlement, the Palestinians would have gained only a tiny, impoverished, water-starved Palestinian "state," divided into at least three different enclaves—in effect, Bantustans separated from each other by Israeli armed forces, roads, and settlements. Moreover, the Palestinians would be denied full sovereignty and control even over Arab East Jerusalem and the Muslim religious sites on the Temple Mount.
In short, Barak's past history, his continued contempt for the Palestinians, and his ongoing policies of deepening and expanding the Israeli occupation suggested—and not merely to the Palestinians, but to Israeli critics as well—that his true goal was to make only the minimal concessions necessary to allow Israel to prolong and solidify what were, to him, the most important areas of the Israeli occupation.
No Palestinian Counteroffers?
Even so, it is demonstrably untrue that Arafat refused to articulate his goals, refused to make counteroffers, walked away from diplomacy, and launched the intifada. First of all, in 1988, again in the 1993 Israeli-Palestinian Oslo agreements, and publicly reiterated on many occasions thereafter, Arafat and other Palestinian leaders formally and publicly recognized and accepted the state of Israel within its pre-June 1967 boundaries and called for a two-state solution, with the Palestinian state to be created only in what was left of Palestine after the establishment of the state of Israel and its further expansion in the 1948 war. None of this stopped Friedman from writing that "If I had a dime for every time someone agreed to recognize Israel on behalf of Yasir Arafat, I would be a wealthy man today" ("Ballots and Boycotts," January 13, 2005).
Put differently, Arafat personally and the Palestinian leadership generally committed itself to accept the established fact that Israel composed 78% of Palestine as defined by the League of Nations in 1919, so long as the Palestinians could get their own state in what re- mained. Indeed, not even quite that, for at Camp David Arafat agreed to accept the incorpo- ration into Israel of settlements near the Green Line and a number of Jewish neighborhoods in formerly Arab East Jerusalem, as well as the principle of Israeli sover- eignty over the Jewish parts of the Old City of Jerusalem.
As Abu Ala (Ahmed Quray), the chief Palestinian negotiator at Camp David, put it in an interview with an Israeli journalist in October 2001, "We have agreed to settle for the borders of 1967.... We get to keep only 22% of the historic land of Palestine and you get to hold on to all the rest. We have recognized Israel and agreed to its demands for secure borders and security arrangements.... You did not consider all this to be concessions on our part. You pocketed these incredible concessions and made more demands. You wanted massive settlement blocs that would have turned us into a state of cantons.... As far as you are concerned, Palestine is all yours, as though we never existed" (Ma'ariv, October 28, 2001).
In short, it is hardly the case that the official Palestinian goals are unknown—it's just that Friedman simply refuses to believe that they are so limited, mainly because of the rather odd inferences he insists on drawing about the Palestinian resort to violence. First, there appears to be no evidence at all that Arafat rejected Barak's offer at Camp David because he wanted to win a Palestinian state only through "blood and fire"—it would appear that this assertion is uniquely Friedman's. Furthermore (as I shall argue below), there is no basis for the inference that the Palestinian uprising could only be explained by the desire to destroy Israel rather than simply to gain an independent Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza.
The Intifada
On several occasions, Friedman wrote that, after Camp David, Arafat "walked away" from further negotiations and "launched" the intifada. The facts are clearly otherwise, however. To begin with, the intifada did not erupt until two months later, and the precipitating cause was not a negotiations deadlock but Ariel Sharon's highly provocative "visit" (accompanied by over 1,000 Israeli police officers) to the Temple Mount. Before that—and even afterwards—there continued to be a variety of contacts between Palestinian and Israeli officials. As a result of these secret negotiations as well as the "Clinton Plan" for a settlement, both sides met again in December at the Taba conference. At these meetings the Israeli delegation, this time led by Yossi Beilin and including other prominent peace activists, made significant new concessions over Jerusalem, the settlements, the territorial disputes, and the extent of a continued Israeli military presence in the West Bank. In turn, the Palestinian delegation effectively (though not in so many words) dropped its demand for a large-scale right of return of Palestinian refugees to Israel, made concessions of its own over several Jerusalem issues, and agreed to accept an international force in the Jordan River valley. Tragically, the Taba conference came too late, in part because Barak began backing away from the concessions of his own negotiating team, and in part because there was no doubt that the impending victory of Ariel Sharon in the Israeli elections of January 2001 would render irrelevant any agreement reached at Taba.
Furthermore, there is no known evidence that the intifada was ordered by Arafat, despite Friedman's repeated assertions, as in: "Please don' t tell me you can' t control your own people. You've sold us that carpet one too many times" ("Dear Ariel and Yasir," October 23, 2001). The best evidence today strongly suggests that the intifada was a grassroots and spontaneous explosion of Palestinian rage—indeed, one that was directed not only at the occupation but at Arafat's failure to have ended it. It is probably the case that Arafat later gained a significant degree of control over the non-Islamist groups participating in the intifada, and therefore over some of the Palestinian violence; even so (Friedman to the contrary notwithstanding), few informed observers believed that Arafat controlled the suicidal terrorists from Hamas and Islamic Jihad.
In short, far from following a "strategy" that employed the intifada as its main tool, Arafat was riding on the back of the tiger. That was the conclusion, in effect, of the Mitchell Commission, a blue-ribbon international commission headed by former Senator GeorgeMitchell whose task was to investigate the Palestinian intifada and the Israeli response. Friedman was not pleased that the Mitchell Commission found no persuasive evidence Arafat ordered the uprising; his response was, "Take all the Mitchell reports, make a big pile out of them, and set them ablaze into a gigantic bonfire" ("It Only Gets Worse," May 22, 2001).
Subsequently, much of the Israeli intelligence establishment, including Military Intelligence and the Shin Bet, confirmed the findings of the Mitchell Commission. One could hardly find a more decisive refutation of Friedman than that of Ami Ayalon, who headed the Shin Bet in 2000:
"[Yasir] Arafat neither prepared nor triggered the Intifada. The explosion was spontaneous, against Israel, as all hope for the end of occupation disappeared, and against the Palestinian Authority, its corruption, and its impotence. Arafat could not repress it ... he can fight neither against the Islamists nor against his own base. The Palestinians would end up hanging him in the public square" (Ha'aretz, January 7, 2002).
What If Arafat Had Launched the Intifada?
Still, for the sake of argument, let us suppose that Arafat did order the intifada: What would that prove? For centuries it has been an established tradition in the West (and certainly in the United States) that an oppressed people who have exhausted political methods of redress have a right of armed revolution. In that case, it was hardly unreasonable—let alone "idiotic," "insane," etc—for the Palestinians to have concluded in 2000 that political methods of redress had failed.
To be sure, armed revolution must be distinguished from terrorism; attacks on an oppressive state and its military forces may sometimes be legitimate, but attacks on innocent civilians can never be. It has been widely (and conveniently) forgotten, and not only by Thomas Friedman, that in its early stages the Palestinian uprising did not employ terrorism. Indeed, there was very little Palestinian armed violence against anyone in the first few weeks of the intifada, during which hardly any Israelis were killed—although hundreds of Palestinians were shot dead by Israeli police and military units.
Even after the Palestinians turned to violence, Arafat and other Palestinian leaders repeatedly stated that the intifada was not directed against the state or the people of Israel proper (i.e. within its pre-1967 boundaries) but only against the continued occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. Its behavior was generally consistent with this claim; with but a few exceptions, until the election of Ariel Sharon in early 2001 ended all chances of a negotiated political settlement, Palestinian violence was directed at either Israeli military forces or the most extremist settlers within the occupied territories.
Thus, while the Palestinian resort to terrorism after 2001 can never be justified, neither can it be ignored that it was most likely a response to the increasingly repressive and violent Israeli occupation. Indeed, Israeli journalists, intellectuals, retired military and intelligence officials, and even some politicians have publicly drawn an explicit connection between Israeli actions and the Palestinian response. Not Thomas Friedman, however. On the contrary, Friedman wrote: "The world must understand that the Palestinians have not chosen suicide bombing out of 'desperation' stemming from the Israeli occupation. That is a huge lie. Why? To begin with, a lot of other people in the world are desperate, yet they have not gone around strapping dynamite to themselves.... Let's be very clear: Palestinians have adopted suicide bombing as a strategic choice, not out of desperation" ("Suicidal Lies," March 31, 2002).
The question of Palestinian terrorism aside, no fair examination of the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict can avoid discussing Israel's own attacks, direct and indirect, on Palestinian civilians—which under Ariel Sharon included the deliberate devastation of the Palestinian government bureaucracy, economy, and even society as a whole, including schools and universities, and even public health institutions. Remarkably, in one of his rare (though backhanded) acknowledgments of the connection between this Israeli behavior and the Palestinian response, Friedman blamed Arafat rather than Sharon: "By provoking Israel with repeated suicide bombings, Mr. Arafat triggered an Israeli retaliation that didn't just destroy Arab cities—as he did in Amman in 1970 and Beirut in 1982. This time he provoked the destruction of Palestinian cities" ("Six Wars and Counting," May 29, 2002).
However bizarre the upside-down moral analysis implied in this kind of argument, it doesn't necessarily follow that Friedman was wrong in recommending to the Palestinians that they "oppose the Israeli occupation with nonviolent resistance ... and build a Palestinian society, schools, and economy, as if [there was] ... no occupation." Had the Palestinians done so, he concluded, "they would have had a quality state a long time ago" ("The Core of Muslim Rage," March 6, 2002). The problem, of course, is that Friedman's blithe confidence in the efficacy of nonviolent resistance was woefully disconnected from the harsh realities of the Israeli occupation. First of all, there is no evidence that even Barak, let alone Sharon, would have responded to the largely moral pressures of nonviolence and ended the Israeli occupation. Even more importantly, in recent years Israeli actions in the occupied territories have been clearly designed precisely to prevent the Palestinians from building a viable state, economy, or functioning society.
Even so, in retrospect and in light of what we now know about the consequences of the intifada, it is hard to deny that the Palestinians should have at least tried nonviolent resistance. However, that was hardly clear at the time, especially because the historical record of Israel's occupation of the West Bank after 1967 had made it unmistakably clear that the longer the "peace process" was stretched out, the more Israel would take advantage of its unconstrained power to create "facts on the ground." Moreover, there was ample historical evidence to show that Israel might change long-held policies if subjected to high costs, but only if subjected to high costs, as it did in its withdrawals from Egypt's Sinai Peninsula after the 1973 Yom Kippur War and from Lebanon in 2000 and again in 2006. Indeed, it was only after the first Palestinian intifada in the late 1980s that Israel agreed to recognize Arafat and the PLO as the legitimate representatives of the Palestinian people and enter into negotiations with them.
Does Anti-Semitism Explain Western Criticism of Israel?
It probably is the case that there is no country in the entire world—not even Israel itself—that is less critical of the Israeli occupation and repression of the Palestinians than the United States. Perhaps that is to be expected in the Arab and Muslim world, or maybe in the non-Western world in general; however, the anger and disillusionment with Israel is also widespread in the democratic and previously strongly pro-Israel societies of Western Europe.
Thomas Friedman's explanation for the growing hostility to Israel is anti-Semitism, including in the West. Indeed, he has been especially vitriolic about Europe. In 2002, in several of his more remarkable columns, he denounced "the European fools who now rush to protect Mr. Arafat" ("What Day Is It?" April 24, 2002). Not only was Arafat seeking the end of Israel rather than just an independent Palestinian state alongside of Israel, but so were the Euro- peans, he argued, writing, "Yes, yes, many Europeans really do just want an end to the Israeli occupation, but the anti-Semitism coming out of Europe today suggests that deep down some Europeans want a lot more: They want Mr. Sharon to commit a massacre against Palestinians ... so that the Europeans can finally get the guilt of the Holocaust off their backs and be able to shout: "Look at these Jews, they're worse than we were" ("Nine Wars Too Many," May 15, 2002).
About a year later, as if to demonstrate that he had not merely temporarily lost his head, Friedman essentially repeated the charge. After accusing the Europeans of focusing only on the plight of Arabs living under Israeli occupation while ignoring those living under Arab dictators, he wrote, "We all know what this is about: the Jewish question." In case his readers did not quite understand what he meant, Friedman then approvingly quotes a friend of his that the Arabs are of interest to "many Europeans" only because of their desire "to stick it to the Jews" (" The Gridlock Gang," February 26, 2003).
The Irresponsibility of Thomas Friedman
In the introduction to his 2002 book that reprinted many of his columns on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict (Longitudes and Attitudes: Exploring the World After September 11), Friedman boasts that he has "total editorial freedom to take whatever stance I want on an issue," that no one but the copy editor sees his column before it is published, and that the publisher of the Times has never commented on anything he has written. "I am completely home alone," he writes in his preface.
It shows. In his columns on the Israeli- Palestinian conflict, especially in the first three or four years after Camp David, Friedman utilized this complete freedom from criticism and accountability (1) to make arguments, statements, and charges that had been repeatedly demonstrated to be factually wrong; (2) to make a number of assertions for which there was no evidence, as if they were so self-evident that no evidence was required; (3) to oversimplify and even, on occasion, vulgarize the issues; and (4) on several occasions to indulge in emotional diatribes that managed to be simultaneously unpersuasive and self-contradictory.
At least on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, then, Friedman's unbounded self-confidence in his own views is an unearned one, for he has not been seriously interested in learning in depth about the events in recent years, or in correcting his many errors or poorly-grounded arguments as new information and analyses became available. As a result, Friedman's discussions of the breakdown of the peace process at Camp David and after, as well as his analyses of the causes of the Palestinian intifada, are neither intellectually respectable nor, given his great influence, morally responsible.
<h3 align="center">Further Reading:
</h3><h3 align="center">"The literature became extensive…" </h3>It includes Hussein Agha and Robert Malley, "Camp David: The Tragedy of Errors," New York Review of Books, August 9, 2001; Agha and Malley, "Camp David and After: A Reply to Ehud Barak," New York Review of Books, June 13, 2002; Moshe Amirav, interview with Ha'aretz journalst Aryeh Dayan, "Barak Began Referring to 'Holy of Holies,'" December 9, 2002; Shaul Arieli, interview with Akiva Eldar, "They Just Can't Hear Each Other," Ha'aretz, March 11, 2003); Yossi Beilin, The Path to Geneva (New York: RDV Books, 2004); Beilin, "What Really Happened at Taba," Ha'aretz, July 15, 2002; Akiva Eldar, "On the Basis of the Nonexistent Camp David Understandings," Ha'aretz, November 16, 2001; Charles Enderlin, Shattered Dreams (New York: Other Press, 2003); Gershon Gorenberg, "The Real Blunders," Jerusalem Report, November 20, 2000; Akram Hanieh, "The Camp David Papers," Journal of Palestine Studies, Vol. 30, No. 2 (Winter 2001), pp. 75-97; Baruch Kimmerling, "From Barak to the Road Map," New Left Review, Vol. 23 (September-October 2003); Menachem Klein, "Shattering the Myths of Camp David," Ha'aretz, August 8, 2003; Robert Malley, "Israel and the Arafat Question," New York Review of Books, June 13, 2002; "Palestinian Response to the Clinton Proposal," December 30, 2000, text in Report on Israeli Settlement in the Occupied Territories, (Washington, D.C.: Foundation for Middle East Peace, January-February 2001; Jeremy Pressman, "Visions in Collision: What Happened at Camp David and Taba?" International Security, Vol. 28, No. 2 (Fall 2003): pp. 5-43; Ron Pundak, "From Oslo to Taba: What Went Wrong?" Survival, Vol. 43, No. 3 (Autumn 2001), pp. 31-45; William B. Quandt, "Clinton and the Arab-Israeli Conflict," Journal of Palestine Studies, Vol. 30, No. 2 (Winter 2001), pp. 26-40; Yezid Sayigh, "Arafat and the Anatomy of a Revolt," Survival, Vol. 43, No. 3 (Autumn, 2001), pp. 47-70; Jerome Slater, "What Went Wrong? The Collapse of the Israeli-Palestinian Peace Process," Political Science Quarterly Vol. 116, No. 2 (Summer 2001), pp. 171-199; Deborah Sontag, "A Special Report: Quest for Mideast Peace," New York Times Magazine, July 26, 2001; Clayton E. Swisher, The Truth About Camp David: The Untold Story About the Collapse of the Middle East Peace Process (New York: Nation Books, 2004)
Malley was a member of the U.S. delegation to Camp David; Amirav, Arieli, Beilin, Klein, and Pundak were either members of the Israeli delegation or close military or political advisers to Barak; Hanieh was a member of the Palestinian delegation. The others are Israeli, American, and Palestinian scholars and journalists.
More recently, two other major books by participants at Camp David have blamed the failure of the negotiations on both Barak and Arafat, though more so on Arafat; even so, they are far more balanced than Friedman, and provide plenty of evidence of Israeli rigidities: Shlomo Ben-Ami, Scars of War, Wounds of Peace: The Israeli-Arab Tragedy (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006), and Gilead Sher, The Israeli-Palestinian Peace Negotiations, 1999-2001 (London: Routledge, 2006). Ben-Ami was the Israeli Foreign Minister under Barak and Sher was the chief Israeli negotiator at Camp David.
Jerome Slater is the University Research Scholar at SUNY/Buffalo. He writes regularly on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and other foreign policy issues for professional journals, and is the author of many articles in Tikkun.
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by Jerome Slater
[Editor's Note: Jerome Slater's critique of Thomas Friedman raises important questions about the role of journalists in mis-shaping public understanding of the Israel/Palestine struggle. As we have repeatedly argued in Tikkun, the mistakes made in the creation and perpetuation of that struggle come from both sides, and any historical reading must acknowledge the continued propensity on both sides to engage in acts of violence. Palestinian extremists and terrorists are culpable too—not just Israelis. Because this magazine emerges from the West, where Israel's side of the story is well known and largely accepted blindly, while the Palestinian side is systematically kept from public consideration, we have often tried to re-balance the story by presenting the facts that the American media and the cheerleaders for the right wing in Israel have kept out of public view. Slater's critique of Thomas Friedman is part of that effort. In 2003 Tikkun published the book Healing Israel/Palestine in which we try to give a more fully balanced account of the struggle, recognizing that both sides have full culpability for the origin and continuation of the struggle, and we are proud to say that the book is as relevant today as it was when we first published it. Saying that does not diminish the importance of Slater's challenging of the deep misunderstandings of the situation perpetrated in Western media—misunderstandings which continue to constrain the possibilities of rational pro-peace intervention by the United States.]
As close observers of the century-old conflict between the Zionist movement and the Arab residents of Palestine increasingly understand, the Zionist narrative is riddled with historical mythologies that do not stand up under close and dispassionate examination. But these myths have had the devastating consequence of blinding Israelis—and their unthinking American supporters—to their own role in the never-ending Israeli-Palestinian conflict, as well as in the wider Arab-Israeli conflict.
To be sure, the Palestinians and the Arabs as a whole have their own historical mythologies, and it is obvious that Israel does not bear all the blame for the ongoing conflict. Still, it is the Israeli mythologies, largely accepted by most Americans, which have been the greater obstacle to a peace settlement, especially in recent years.
Before 2000, three major mythologies were refuted by serious historians and journalists—most of them Israeli. First, there was the myth that in 1948 a weak Israeli army (David) heroically overcame a strong Arab army (Goliath) that intended to destroy the new Jewish state; in fact, the Israeli armies outnumbered and outgunned a small coalition of half-hearted Arab armies, whose primary purpose was to prevent each other from grabbing off pieces of Palestine, rather than to "drive the Jews into the sea." Second, there was the myth that hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees voluntarily fled their homes and villages in 1947-48; the evidence is overwhelming that the main reason the Palestinians fled was either out of the justified fear they might be massacred, as had happened at Deir Yassin and elsewhere, or because the Zionist armed forces rounded them up and forced them across the borders into Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan, and Syria. Third, there was the myth that both the Palestinians and their Arab neighbors "never lost an opportunity to lose an opportunity" to reach peaceful political settlements with Israel; in fact it is Israel that has repeatedly turned down real opportunities for peaceful settlements—with Egypt until the 1970s, with Jordan until the 1980s, and with the Palestinians, Syria, and the Arab world as a whole today.
In all these cases, Israel's leading enemies, as well as the Arab League, representing most Arab countries, were and still are ready not only to end their conflict with the Jewish state but to normalize diplomatic and economic relations with it, in exchange for full Israeli withdrawal from the Golan Heights, the West Bank, Gaza, and Arab East Jerusalem, followed by the creation of an independent Palestinian state with its capital in East Jerusalem. Consequently, the main reason for the continuation of Israel's conflict with the Arab world (other than with Egypt) is that Israel has refused to withdraw from the expanded territory it conquered in 1967.
Since 2000 there has been a new myth, one that may be even more factually wrong and pernicious in terms of its consequences in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. According to this myth, the last serious peace negotiations between the Israelis and the Palestinians, at Camp David in July 2000, broke down because Yasir Arafat and the Palestinians rejected a generous settlement offered by Prime Minister Ehud Barak. This myth says the Palestinians made no counteroffers of their own, and turned instead to terrorist violence against the Israeli population.
One of the most important purveyors of this myth has been Thomas Friedman, the lead foreign policy columnist of the New York Times. In part because of the position he holds as a writer for the world's most influential newspaper, in part because he often appears to be moderate and balanced in his analyses and commentaries, and perhaps even because of the glibness of his writing style, it is reasonable to assume that Friedman has had an important influence on U.S. understanding of the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict.*
*Dennis Ross, the head of the U.S. delegation at Camp David and a close adviser to Bill Clinton, has been equally influential, and equally misleading, in placing most of the blame for the breakdown of the peace process on the Palestinians in general and Yasir Arafat in particular. It is unlikely, however, that Ross had much influence on Friedman's thinking, because Ross's book on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, The Missing Peace, appeared in the spring of 2004, whereas most of Friedman's columns on Camp David and the intifada appeared in the 2001-03 period. I have criticized Ross's arguments in "The Missing Pieces in The Missing Peace," Tikkun, May-June 2005.
The Camp David mythology underlies the policies of the Bush administration, as well as the dominant attitudes in Congress, the general American public, and the American Jewish community. Within a few months of Camp David, however, a number of important works began appearing, all of them challenging various aspects of the mythology. Within the next three years, the literature became extensive, and today no part of this mythology has survived serious examination by numerous Israeli, American, Palestinian, and European scholars and journalists, and—especially—by Israeli diplomats and academic advisors who were directly involved in the events of 2000, as well as former military, intelligence, and government officials (see box on p. 49).
Thomas Friedman, however, continued to reiterate the mythology. According to a number of Friedman columns, at Camp David Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak sought to test whether Arafat and the Palestinians were ready for a real peace, offering them a comprehensive settlement in which, in return for a definitive Palestinian decision to end its historic conflict with Israel, they would get an independent state in "virtually all" of the West Bank and Gaza; half of Jerusalem, including all the key Arab areas; the removal of all the Jewish settlements within the new Palestinian state, with territorial compensation for the areas that would be annexed to Israel; and a return to Israel of a symbolic number of Palestinian refugees and either the right of return to the new Palestinian state or financial restitution to the others.
The Palestinians failed the test, Friedman wrote, leaving the Israelis without "a partner for peace." To be sure, Friedman concedes, Barak's (and, later, Clinton's) proposals had defects and were not perfect from the Palestinian point of view, but this did not justify Arafat's decision to walk away from continued negotiations and launch the intifada: the right response would have been to make a counteroffer and then employ diplomacy or even nonviolent resistance to extract more out of Israel. The Palestinians' alleged failure to follow this course convinced Friedman that Arafat and his followers did not want a peaceful settlement with Israel but were continuing to seek its destruction.
There is a rather bizarre contradiction between Friedman's acknowledgement of the realities of the Israeli occupation and his condemnation of the intifada as so inexplicable as to definitively demonstrate that Arafat was an extremist with whom it was impossible to negotiate. For example, Friedman has written that the Israeli occupation is both morally and practically disastrous—in his own words, at varying times, "brutal," "idiotic," "lunatic," "rapacious," and "a cancer for the Jewish people … [threatening] the entire Zionist enterprise" ("Dead Man Walking," January 30, 2002).
Moreover, Friedman has conceded that Barak was negotiating with one hand while he "seized more Palestinian land for settlements" with the other; that this understandably led the Palestinians to "feel their living space was shrinking while Israel's was constantly expanding, all under the umbrella of 'peace'" ("Lifelines to the Future, April 2, 2002); and that the continued expansion of the settlements, checkpoints, and fences are "shameful act[s] of colonial coercion" ("It Only Gets Worse," May 22, 2001) that have "transformed the West Bank into a series of cages … that will become factories of despair" ("One Wall, One Man, One Vote," September 14, 2003).
Yet, Friedman professes not to understand why the Palestinians resorted to an uprising. While on one occasion observing that the Palestinians could hardly be expected to "just roll over and take it" ("Six Wars and Counting," May 29, 2002), he nonetheless on various occasions characterized the intifada as "idiotic," "brain-dead," "insane," and "a reckless, pointless, foolish adventure." According to Friedman, Arafat never explained why an uprising was necessary or what its precise objectives were, never "offered a peace plan of his own that explicitly lays out for Israelis how their own Jewish state will be accepted by the Palestinians" ("A Mideast Policy for Mr. Bush," January 19, 2001), and refused even to begin to prepare his people for the historic compromises a settlement would require. What he should have done, Friedman argued, was to have built on Barak's "opening bid" and continue the negotiations; instead, Arafat preferred "to play the victim rather than the statesman," and sought to "provoke the Israelis into brutalizing the Palestinians again" ("Arafat's War," October 13, 2000).
Friedman on Palestinian Intentions
If the intifada was unjustified and unnecessary, what conclusions should be drawn about Arafat's purpose in "launching" it? Friedman can't quite make up his mind about this crucial question, for at varying times he has offered four quite different answers:
1. Even if Arafat is still seeking a two-state solution, he will not accept it by means of a peaceful negotiations process; he and the Palestinians, "blinded by narcissistic rage," didn't want a state handed to them by Israel and the United States, preferring "to win their independence in blood and fire" ("Suicidal Lies," March 31, 2002).
2. Anyway, Arafat will not settle for a two-state solution, for his rejection of the Barak/Clinton offers "leads to only one conclusion: that the priority of the Palestinians is not achieving an independent state. Their priority, apparently, is to kill Jews ... [and] attempt to eliminate 100 percent of Israel" ("The Intifada is Over," December 5, 2001).
3. The violence has no political purpose at all. The suicide bombings inside Israel demonstrate that "the Palestinian national movement was being taken over by bin Ladenism, which is the nihilistic pursuit of murderous violence against civilians, without any political program and outside of any political context" ("Intifada is Over").
4. In a variation on the no-political-purpose explanation, Friedman suggests that the intifada can be explained by symbolism or, alternatively, Palestinian self-hatred: "Palestinian youths [are] lashing out at the symbol of their failure to build a modern society ... [and] at the instruments of their decline—their own leaders. Their message to Israelis is: 'We are somebody. We may not be able to make microchips, but we can make you miserable and we will do that even if it is making us destitute' " (" The New Mideast Paradigm," March 6, 2001).
Camp David Demythologized
A detailed review of the voluminous literature and evidence that has decisively refuted the Camp David/intifada mythology is beyond the scope of this article, but the main points can be briefly summarized. To begin with, Barak was the wrong man to negotiate a peace settlement with the Palestinians, which inevitably would require serious Israeli concessions and Palestinian trust that the concessions would later be implemented in good faith. In fact, the Palestinians had excellent reasons to distrust Barak: he had been a lifelong hawk who had opposed all earlier partial Israeli-Palestinian agreements and who regularly and publicly denigrated Arabs in general and Palestinians in particular, sometimes in barely disguised racist language. Even more importantly, as prime minister, Barak had continuously expanded the Israeli settlements in the West Bank—at a pace that exceeded even that of his hard-line Israeli predecessor, Benjamin Netanyahu—and had refused to carry out several of the Israeli troop withdrawals and other measures that had been mandated by the 1993 Israeli-Palestinian Oslo agreements. All of this could hardly inspire Palestinian confidence that Barak would be willing to implement a genuine peace settlement that would necessarily go far beyond Oslo, requiring a near-complete Israeli withdrawal of settlements and armed forces from the occupied territories.
Even at Camp David, it was unclear how far Barak was prepared to go to reach a peace agreement—evidently even to Barak himself. Although at some level he had apparently come to believe that some kind of settlement with the Palestinians was a practical necessity, Barak continued to be of two minds on the matter. Moreover, even at the Camp David "negotiations," astonishingly Barak refused to meet with Arafat and in other ways treated him with contempt. Later, a number of Palestinian and Israeli commentators, including members of the Israeli delegation, described Barak's treatment of Arafat as a puzzling and gratuitous humiliation, and one which could hardly inspire Palestinian confidence in Barak's willingness to reach a true peace settlement.
That aside, Barak made no concrete or verifiable offers at Camp David on any of the many specific areas of dispute, refusing to put anything in writing until the entire package he had in mind was agreed to by the Palestinians. Indeed, Barak now actually brags that he gave less to the Palestinians—in fact, as he puts it, "not a thing"—than did his hard-line Likud predecessor, Benjamin Netanyahu.
Even so, there is a general consensus on the broad outlines of what Barak verbally seemed to be offering at Camp David: a demilitarized Palestinian state in some 85-90% of the occupied territories, but with Israel retaining (1) most of Jerusalem, (2) most of the largest Jewish settlements, typically located on the most fertile lands in the West Bank and some of them extending far from the Green Line into the Palestinian areas, (3) most of the West Bank water aquifers, and (4) direct military control over the Jordan River valley and adjacent mountains.
Thus, if Arafat had accepted Barak's concept of a "fair and generous" settlement, the Palestinians would have gained only a tiny, impoverished, water-starved Palestinian "state," divided into at least three different enclaves—in effect, Bantustans separated from each other by Israeli armed forces, roads, and settlements. Moreover, the Palestinians would be denied full sovereignty and control even over Arab East Jerusalem and the Muslim religious sites on the Temple Mount.
In short, Barak's past history, his continued contempt for the Palestinians, and his ongoing policies of deepening and expanding the Israeli occupation suggested—and not merely to the Palestinians, but to Israeli critics as well—that his true goal was to make only the minimal concessions necessary to allow Israel to prolong and solidify what were, to him, the most important areas of the Israeli occupation.
No Palestinian Counteroffers?
Even so, it is demonstrably untrue that Arafat refused to articulate his goals, refused to make counteroffers, walked away from diplomacy, and launched the intifada. First of all, in 1988, again in the 1993 Israeli-Palestinian Oslo agreements, and publicly reiterated on many occasions thereafter, Arafat and other Palestinian leaders formally and publicly recognized and accepted the state of Israel within its pre-June 1967 boundaries and called for a two-state solution, with the Palestinian state to be created only in what was left of Palestine after the establishment of the state of Israel and its further expansion in the 1948 war. None of this stopped Friedman from writing that "If I had a dime for every time someone agreed to recognize Israel on behalf of Yasir Arafat, I would be a wealthy man today" ("Ballots and Boycotts," January 13, 2005).
Put differently, Arafat personally and the Palestinian leadership generally committed itself to accept the established fact that Israel composed 78% of Palestine as defined by the League of Nations in 1919, so long as the Palestinians could get their own state in what re- mained. Indeed, not even quite that, for at Camp David Arafat agreed to accept the incorpo- ration into Israel of settlements near the Green Line and a number of Jewish neighborhoods in formerly Arab East Jerusalem, as well as the principle of Israeli sover- eignty over the Jewish parts of the Old City of Jerusalem.
As Abu Ala (Ahmed Quray), the chief Palestinian negotiator at Camp David, put it in an interview with an Israeli journalist in October 2001, "We have agreed to settle for the borders of 1967.... We get to keep only 22% of the historic land of Palestine and you get to hold on to all the rest. We have recognized Israel and agreed to its demands for secure borders and security arrangements.... You did not consider all this to be concessions on our part. You pocketed these incredible concessions and made more demands. You wanted massive settlement blocs that would have turned us into a state of cantons.... As far as you are concerned, Palestine is all yours, as though we never existed" (Ma'ariv, October 28, 2001).
In short, it is hardly the case that the official Palestinian goals are unknown—it's just that Friedman simply refuses to believe that they are so limited, mainly because of the rather odd inferences he insists on drawing about the Palestinian resort to violence. First, there appears to be no evidence at all that Arafat rejected Barak's offer at Camp David because he wanted to win a Palestinian state only through "blood and fire"—it would appear that this assertion is uniquely Friedman's. Furthermore (as I shall argue below), there is no basis for the inference that the Palestinian uprising could only be explained by the desire to destroy Israel rather than simply to gain an independent Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza.
The Intifada
On several occasions, Friedman wrote that, after Camp David, Arafat "walked away" from further negotiations and "launched" the intifada. The facts are clearly otherwise, however. To begin with, the intifada did not erupt until two months later, and the precipitating cause was not a negotiations deadlock but Ariel Sharon's highly provocative "visit" (accompanied by over 1,000 Israeli police officers) to the Temple Mount. Before that—and even afterwards—there continued to be a variety of contacts between Palestinian and Israeli officials. As a result of these secret negotiations as well as the "Clinton Plan" for a settlement, both sides met again in December at the Taba conference. At these meetings the Israeli delegation, this time led by Yossi Beilin and including other prominent peace activists, made significant new concessions over Jerusalem, the settlements, the territorial disputes, and the extent of a continued Israeli military presence in the West Bank. In turn, the Palestinian delegation effectively (though not in so many words) dropped its demand for a large-scale right of return of Palestinian refugees to Israel, made concessions of its own over several Jerusalem issues, and agreed to accept an international force in the Jordan River valley. Tragically, the Taba conference came too late, in part because Barak began backing away from the concessions of his own negotiating team, and in part because there was no doubt that the impending victory of Ariel Sharon in the Israeli elections of January 2001 would render irrelevant any agreement reached at Taba.
Furthermore, there is no known evidence that the intifada was ordered by Arafat, despite Friedman's repeated assertions, as in: "Please don' t tell me you can' t control your own people. You've sold us that carpet one too many times" ("Dear Ariel and Yasir," October 23, 2001). The best evidence today strongly suggests that the intifada was a grassroots and spontaneous explosion of Palestinian rage—indeed, one that was directed not only at the occupation but at Arafat's failure to have ended it. It is probably the case that Arafat later gained a significant degree of control over the non-Islamist groups participating in the intifada, and therefore over some of the Palestinian violence; even so (Friedman to the contrary notwithstanding), few informed observers believed that Arafat controlled the suicidal terrorists from Hamas and Islamic Jihad.
In short, far from following a "strategy" that employed the intifada as its main tool, Arafat was riding on the back of the tiger. That was the conclusion, in effect, of the Mitchell Commission, a blue-ribbon international commission headed by former Senator GeorgeMitchell whose task was to investigate the Palestinian intifada and the Israeli response. Friedman was not pleased that the Mitchell Commission found no persuasive evidence Arafat ordered the uprising; his response was, "Take all the Mitchell reports, make a big pile out of them, and set them ablaze into a gigantic bonfire" ("It Only Gets Worse," May 22, 2001).
Subsequently, much of the Israeli intelligence establishment, including Military Intelligence and the Shin Bet, confirmed the findings of the Mitchell Commission. One could hardly find a more decisive refutation of Friedman than that of Ami Ayalon, who headed the Shin Bet in 2000:
"[Yasir] Arafat neither prepared nor triggered the Intifada. The explosion was spontaneous, against Israel, as all hope for the end of occupation disappeared, and against the Palestinian Authority, its corruption, and its impotence. Arafat could not repress it ... he can fight neither against the Islamists nor against his own base. The Palestinians would end up hanging him in the public square" (Ha'aretz, January 7, 2002).
What If Arafat Had Launched the Intifada?
Still, for the sake of argument, let us suppose that Arafat did order the intifada: What would that prove? For centuries it has been an established tradition in the West (and certainly in the United States) that an oppressed people who have exhausted political methods of redress have a right of armed revolution. In that case, it was hardly unreasonable—let alone "idiotic," "insane," etc—for the Palestinians to have concluded in 2000 that political methods of redress had failed.
To be sure, armed revolution must be distinguished from terrorism; attacks on an oppressive state and its military forces may sometimes be legitimate, but attacks on innocent civilians can never be. It has been widely (and conveniently) forgotten, and not only by Thomas Friedman, that in its early stages the Palestinian uprising did not employ terrorism. Indeed, there was very little Palestinian armed violence against anyone in the first few weeks of the intifada, during which hardly any Israelis were killed—although hundreds of Palestinians were shot dead by Israeli police and military units.
Even after the Palestinians turned to violence, Arafat and other Palestinian leaders repeatedly stated that the intifada was not directed against the state or the people of Israel proper (i.e. within its pre-1967 boundaries) but only against the continued occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. Its behavior was generally consistent with this claim; with but a few exceptions, until the election of Ariel Sharon in early 2001 ended all chances of a negotiated political settlement, Palestinian violence was directed at either Israeli military forces or the most extremist settlers within the occupied territories.
Thus, while the Palestinian resort to terrorism after 2001 can never be justified, neither can it be ignored that it was most likely a response to the increasingly repressive and violent Israeli occupation. Indeed, Israeli journalists, intellectuals, retired military and intelligence officials, and even some politicians have publicly drawn an explicit connection between Israeli actions and the Palestinian response. Not Thomas Friedman, however. On the contrary, Friedman wrote: "The world must understand that the Palestinians have not chosen suicide bombing out of 'desperation' stemming from the Israeli occupation. That is a huge lie. Why? To begin with, a lot of other people in the world are desperate, yet they have not gone around strapping dynamite to themselves.... Let's be very clear: Palestinians have adopted suicide bombing as a strategic choice, not out of desperation" ("Suicidal Lies," March 31, 2002).
The question of Palestinian terrorism aside, no fair examination of the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict can avoid discussing Israel's own attacks, direct and indirect, on Palestinian civilians—which under Ariel Sharon included the deliberate devastation of the Palestinian government bureaucracy, economy, and even society as a whole, including schools and universities, and even public health institutions. Remarkably, in one of his rare (though backhanded) acknowledgments of the connection between this Israeli behavior and the Palestinian response, Friedman blamed Arafat rather than Sharon: "By provoking Israel with repeated suicide bombings, Mr. Arafat triggered an Israeli retaliation that didn't just destroy Arab cities—as he did in Amman in 1970 and Beirut in 1982. This time he provoked the destruction of Palestinian cities" ("Six Wars and Counting," May 29, 2002).
However bizarre the upside-down moral analysis implied in this kind of argument, it doesn't necessarily follow that Friedman was wrong in recommending to the Palestinians that they "oppose the Israeli occupation with nonviolent resistance ... and build a Palestinian society, schools, and economy, as if [there was] ... no occupation." Had the Palestinians done so, he concluded, "they would have had a quality state a long time ago" ("The Core of Muslim Rage," March 6, 2002). The problem, of course, is that Friedman's blithe confidence in the efficacy of nonviolent resistance was woefully disconnected from the harsh realities of the Israeli occupation. First of all, there is no evidence that even Barak, let alone Sharon, would have responded to the largely moral pressures of nonviolence and ended the Israeli occupation. Even more importantly, in recent years Israeli actions in the occupied territories have been clearly designed precisely to prevent the Palestinians from building a viable state, economy, or functioning society.
Even so, in retrospect and in light of what we now know about the consequences of the intifada, it is hard to deny that the Palestinians should have at least tried nonviolent resistance. However, that was hardly clear at the time, especially because the historical record of Israel's occupation of the West Bank after 1967 had made it unmistakably clear that the longer the "peace process" was stretched out, the more Israel would take advantage of its unconstrained power to create "facts on the ground." Moreover, there was ample historical evidence to show that Israel might change long-held policies if subjected to high costs, but only if subjected to high costs, as it did in its withdrawals from Egypt's Sinai Peninsula after the 1973 Yom Kippur War and from Lebanon in 2000 and again in 2006. Indeed, it was only after the first Palestinian intifada in the late 1980s that Israel agreed to recognize Arafat and the PLO as the legitimate representatives of the Palestinian people and enter into negotiations with them.
Does Anti-Semitism Explain Western Criticism of Israel?
It probably is the case that there is no country in the entire world—not even Israel itself—that is less critical of the Israeli occupation and repression of the Palestinians than the United States. Perhaps that is to be expected in the Arab and Muslim world, or maybe in the non-Western world in general; however, the anger and disillusionment with Israel is also widespread in the democratic and previously strongly pro-Israel societies of Western Europe.
Thomas Friedman's explanation for the growing hostility to Israel is anti-Semitism, including in the West. Indeed, he has been especially vitriolic about Europe. In 2002, in several of his more remarkable columns, he denounced "the European fools who now rush to protect Mr. Arafat" ("What Day Is It?" April 24, 2002). Not only was Arafat seeking the end of Israel rather than just an independent Palestinian state alongside of Israel, but so were the Euro- peans, he argued, writing, "Yes, yes, many Europeans really do just want an end to the Israeli occupation, but the anti-Semitism coming out of Europe today suggests that deep down some Europeans want a lot more: They want Mr. Sharon to commit a massacre against Palestinians ... so that the Europeans can finally get the guilt of the Holocaust off their backs and be able to shout: "Look at these Jews, they're worse than we were" ("Nine Wars Too Many," May 15, 2002).
About a year later, as if to demonstrate that he had not merely temporarily lost his head, Friedman essentially repeated the charge. After accusing the Europeans of focusing only on the plight of Arabs living under Israeli occupation while ignoring those living under Arab dictators, he wrote, "We all know what this is about: the Jewish question." In case his readers did not quite understand what he meant, Friedman then approvingly quotes a friend of his that the Arabs are of interest to "many Europeans" only because of their desire "to stick it to the Jews" (" The Gridlock Gang," February 26, 2003).
The Irresponsibility of Thomas Friedman
In the introduction to his 2002 book that reprinted many of his columns on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict (Longitudes and Attitudes: Exploring the World After September 11), Friedman boasts that he has "total editorial freedom to take whatever stance I want on an issue," that no one but the copy editor sees his column before it is published, and that the publisher of the Times has never commented on anything he has written. "I am completely home alone," he writes in his preface.
It shows. In his columns on the Israeli- Palestinian conflict, especially in the first three or four years after Camp David, Friedman utilized this complete freedom from criticism and accountability (1) to make arguments, statements, and charges that had been repeatedly demonstrated to be factually wrong; (2) to make a number of assertions for which there was no evidence, as if they were so self-evident that no evidence was required; (3) to oversimplify and even, on occasion, vulgarize the issues; and (4) on several occasions to indulge in emotional diatribes that managed to be simultaneously unpersuasive and self-contradictory.
At least on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, then, Friedman's unbounded self-confidence in his own views is an unearned one, for he has not been seriously interested in learning in depth about the events in recent years, or in correcting his many errors or poorly-grounded arguments as new information and analyses became available. As a result, Friedman's discussions of the breakdown of the peace process at Camp David and after, as well as his analyses of the causes of the Palestinian intifada, are neither intellectually respectable nor, given his great influence, morally responsible.
<h3 align="center">Further Reading:
</h3><h3 align="center">"The literature became extensive…" </h3>It includes Hussein Agha and Robert Malley, "Camp David: The Tragedy of Errors," New York Review of Books, August 9, 2001; Agha and Malley, "Camp David and After: A Reply to Ehud Barak," New York Review of Books, June 13, 2002; Moshe Amirav, interview with Ha'aretz journalst Aryeh Dayan, "Barak Began Referring to 'Holy of Holies,'" December 9, 2002; Shaul Arieli, interview with Akiva Eldar, "They Just Can't Hear Each Other," Ha'aretz, March 11, 2003); Yossi Beilin, The Path to Geneva (New York: RDV Books, 2004); Beilin, "What Really Happened at Taba," Ha'aretz, July 15, 2002; Akiva Eldar, "On the Basis of the Nonexistent Camp David Understandings," Ha'aretz, November 16, 2001; Charles Enderlin, Shattered Dreams (New York: Other Press, 2003); Gershon Gorenberg, "The Real Blunders," Jerusalem Report, November 20, 2000; Akram Hanieh, "The Camp David Papers," Journal of Palestine Studies, Vol. 30, No. 2 (Winter 2001), pp. 75-97; Baruch Kimmerling, "From Barak to the Road Map," New Left Review, Vol. 23 (September-October 2003); Menachem Klein, "Shattering the Myths of Camp David," Ha'aretz, August 8, 2003; Robert Malley, "Israel and the Arafat Question," New York Review of Books, June 13, 2002; "Palestinian Response to the Clinton Proposal," December 30, 2000, text in Report on Israeli Settlement in the Occupied Territories, (Washington, D.C.: Foundation for Middle East Peace, January-February 2001; Jeremy Pressman, "Visions in Collision: What Happened at Camp David and Taba?" International Security, Vol. 28, No. 2 (Fall 2003): pp. 5-43; Ron Pundak, "From Oslo to Taba: What Went Wrong?" Survival, Vol. 43, No. 3 (Autumn 2001), pp. 31-45; William B. Quandt, "Clinton and the Arab-Israeli Conflict," Journal of Palestine Studies, Vol. 30, No. 2 (Winter 2001), pp. 26-40; Yezid Sayigh, "Arafat and the Anatomy of a Revolt," Survival, Vol. 43, No. 3 (Autumn, 2001), pp. 47-70; Jerome Slater, "What Went Wrong? The Collapse of the Israeli-Palestinian Peace Process," Political Science Quarterly Vol. 116, No. 2 (Summer 2001), pp. 171-199; Deborah Sontag, "A Special Report: Quest for Mideast Peace," New York Times Magazine, July 26, 2001; Clayton E. Swisher, The Truth About Camp David: The Untold Story About the Collapse of the Middle East Peace Process (New York: Nation Books, 2004)
Malley was a member of the U.S. delegation to Camp David; Amirav, Arieli, Beilin, Klein, and Pundak were either members of the Israeli delegation or close military or political advisers to Barak; Hanieh was a member of the Palestinian delegation. The others are Israeli, American, and Palestinian scholars and journalists.
More recently, two other major books by participants at Camp David have blamed the failure of the negotiations on both Barak and Arafat, though more so on Arafat; even so, they are far more balanced than Friedman, and provide plenty of evidence of Israeli rigidities: Shlomo Ben-Ami, Scars of War, Wounds of Peace: The Israeli-Arab Tragedy (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006), and Gilead Sher, The Israeli-Palestinian Peace Negotiations, 1999-2001 (London: Routledge, 2006). Ben-Ami was the Israeli Foreign Minister under Barak and Sher was the chief Israeli negotiator at Camp David.
Jerome Slater is the University Research Scholar at SUNY/Buffalo. He writes regularly on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and other foreign policy issues for professional journals, and is the author of many articles in Tikkun.
Please consider subscribing to Tikkun. Your financial support helps us keep the magazine running and allows us to provide you with these exciting writers. You can subscribe online or by calling (510) 644-1200.
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CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR
12/17/08
Mideast awaits new leaders, direction in 2009
Former President Jimmy Carter urged new focus on Israeli-Palestinian peace last week. But other accords may be more feasible.
Nicholas Blanford
Beirut, Lebanon - Exhausted by years of conflict and political stagnation, the peoples of the Middle East are looking to President-elect Barack Obama to help shape a new direction for the region after he assumes office next month.
But it is a former US president that is pushing once more for a renewed effort to resolve the festering Israeli-Palestinian conflict that many believe lies at the heart of the region's woes.
On a recent tour of Lebanon and Syria, former President Jimmy Carter urged a back-to-basics approach to one of the world's most intractable political predicaments.
"I don't consider myself an oracle or authority on the subject… but the minimum message I bring is that peace is necessary not only for Israelis and Palestinians but the entire region and indeed the entire world," he told an audience at the American University of Beirut last week.
Mr. Carter has remained deeply involved in Israeli-Palestinian peace efforts since helming the Camp David peace talks in 1978 during his presidency which led to a peace agreement between Israel and Egypt.
Despite the optimism engendered by those breakthrough talks 30 years ago, the Israeli-Palestinian track has grown increasingly complicated and bitter.
Israeli settlements continue to expand on territory earmarked for the Palestinians. Despair among Palestinians has given rise to increased militancy and two intifadas, further eroding goodwill on both sides. Some analysts say the Israeli Palestinian peace track is almost blocked for now, given the distrust between the two sides, the rising popularity of Hamas (which rejects a two-state solution), and the inherent weakness of Israel's unwieldy coalition governments.
"The situation on the ground is really terrible," says Ousama Safa, director of the Lebanese Center for Policy Studies in Beirut. "The Palestinian house is in complete disorder… and the Israelis are not in a position to make decisive conclusions."
Still, Mr. Carter recommends a return to several key proposals that he says present a mutually acceptable basis for a durable peace. They include:
• United Nations resolutions such as 194 and 242, which deal with Palestinian refugees' right of return and exchanging land for peace.
• The proposal of the International Quartet – the US, the European Union, Russia, and the UN – which has called for Israeli withdrawal from occupied Arab territory and recommended that Jerusalem be a shared capital for Israel and Palestine.
• The Arab Peace Initiative, unveiled in 2002, in which Arab countries agreed to recognize Israel in exchange for the return of Arab territory occupied in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.
• The Geneva Initiative, an unofficial agreement in 2003 between Israeli and Palestinian negotiators, which called for a viable Palestinian state in the West Bank, with minor land swaps allowing Israel to keep some of the larger settlement blocs. Israel would also decide how many Palestinian refugees could return to Israel, with the rest moving to the Palestinian state or being financially compensated.
The Middle East is in a limbo period while it awaits the arrival of the Obama administration and the outcome of several key elections in the first half of 2009, which could define the future course of the region.
In February, Israelis head to the polls to choose new leadership. Benjamin Netanyahu, leader of the hawkish Likud Party, appears to be the favorite to head the next government, probably a right-wing coalition. That does not augur well for continued peace talks with the Palestinians and Turkey-brokered indirect negotiations with Syria.
Parliamentary elections in Lebanon slated for May will determine if the country remains a US ally or returns to the orbit of neighboring Syria.
US-Iranian relations also could hang in the balance if Mahmoud Ahmadinejad secures a second term as president of Iran in June.
Given the complications of the Palestinian process, some policymakers view an agreement with Iran as the main regional goal.
Even the Israeli-Syrian track is a simpler prospect for peace, especially after it was given a boost this year with the revelation that the two countries were negotiating via Turkish mediation.
"I agree with everything Carter said in diagnosing the situation, but I just don't think the circumstances are propitious right now," says Rami Khouri, director of the Issam Fares Center for Lebanon, which invited Carter to speak at the AUB. "I think [the Obama administration] should grab the Iranian issue by the horns, get an agreement and then work backwards to Syria and then to the Palestinians."
Carter articulates his peace ideas in a new book, "We Can Have Peace in the Holy Land: A Plan That Will Work," whose publication is timed to Obama's inauguration next month.
"I found that the American president has great influence with the leaders of Israel. That has grown and still holds, in my opinion, the foremost opportunity for progress," he says.
But success, Carter said, largely hinges on Obama's commitment to Middle East peace, especially given the "tremendous pressure in the US to side completely by Israel."
"It's not a hopeless case, but it depends on the commitment and political courage of the next president of the United States," he said.
12/17/08
Mideast awaits new leaders, direction in 2009
Former President Jimmy Carter urged new focus on Israeli-Palestinian peace last week. But other accords may be more feasible.
Nicholas Blanford
Beirut, Lebanon - Exhausted by years of conflict and political stagnation, the peoples of the Middle East are looking to President-elect Barack Obama to help shape a new direction for the region after he assumes office next month.
But it is a former US president that is pushing once more for a renewed effort to resolve the festering Israeli-Palestinian conflict that many believe lies at the heart of the region's woes.
On a recent tour of Lebanon and Syria, former President Jimmy Carter urged a back-to-basics approach to one of the world's most intractable political predicaments.
"I don't consider myself an oracle or authority on the subject… but the minimum message I bring is that peace is necessary not only for Israelis and Palestinians but the entire region and indeed the entire world," he told an audience at the American University of Beirut last week.
Mr. Carter has remained deeply involved in Israeli-Palestinian peace efforts since helming the Camp David peace talks in 1978 during his presidency which led to a peace agreement between Israel and Egypt.
Despite the optimism engendered by those breakthrough talks 30 years ago, the Israeli-Palestinian track has grown increasingly complicated and bitter.
Israeli settlements continue to expand on territory earmarked for the Palestinians. Despair among Palestinians has given rise to increased militancy and two intifadas, further eroding goodwill on both sides. Some analysts say the Israeli Palestinian peace track is almost blocked for now, given the distrust between the two sides, the rising popularity of Hamas (which rejects a two-state solution), and the inherent weakness of Israel's unwieldy coalition governments.
"The situation on the ground is really terrible," says Ousama Safa, director of the Lebanese Center for Policy Studies in Beirut. "The Palestinian house is in complete disorder… and the Israelis are not in a position to make decisive conclusions."
Still, Mr. Carter recommends a return to several key proposals that he says present a mutually acceptable basis for a durable peace. They include:
• United Nations resolutions such as 194 and 242, which deal with Palestinian refugees' right of return and exchanging land for peace.
• The proposal of the International Quartet – the US, the European Union, Russia, and the UN – which has called for Israeli withdrawal from occupied Arab territory and recommended that Jerusalem be a shared capital for Israel and Palestine.
• The Arab Peace Initiative, unveiled in 2002, in which Arab countries agreed to recognize Israel in exchange for the return of Arab territory occupied in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.
• The Geneva Initiative, an unofficial agreement in 2003 between Israeli and Palestinian negotiators, which called for a viable Palestinian state in the West Bank, with minor land swaps allowing Israel to keep some of the larger settlement blocs. Israel would also decide how many Palestinian refugees could return to Israel, with the rest moving to the Palestinian state or being financially compensated.
The Middle East is in a limbo period while it awaits the arrival of the Obama administration and the outcome of several key elections in the first half of 2009, which could define the future course of the region.
In February, Israelis head to the polls to choose new leadership. Benjamin Netanyahu, leader of the hawkish Likud Party, appears to be the favorite to head the next government, probably a right-wing coalition. That does not augur well for continued peace talks with the Palestinians and Turkey-brokered indirect negotiations with Syria.
Parliamentary elections in Lebanon slated for May will determine if the country remains a US ally or returns to the orbit of neighboring Syria.
US-Iranian relations also could hang in the balance if Mahmoud Ahmadinejad secures a second term as president of Iran in June.
Given the complications of the Palestinian process, some policymakers view an agreement with Iran as the main regional goal.
Even the Israeli-Syrian track is a simpler prospect for peace, especially after it was given a boost this year with the revelation that the two countries were negotiating via Turkish mediation.
"I agree with everything Carter said in diagnosing the situation, but I just don't think the circumstances are propitious right now," says Rami Khouri, director of the Issam Fares Center for Lebanon, which invited Carter to speak at the AUB. "I think [the Obama administration] should grab the Iranian issue by the horns, get an agreement and then work backwards to Syria and then to the Palestinians."
Carter articulates his peace ideas in a new book, "We Can Have Peace in the Holy Land: A Plan That Will Work," whose publication is timed to Obama's inauguration next month.
"I found that the American president has great influence with the leaders of Israel. That has grown and still holds, in my opinion, the foremost opportunity for progress," he says.
But success, Carter said, largely hinges on Obama's commitment to Middle East peace, especially given the "tremendous pressure in the US to side completely by Israel."
"It's not a hopeless case, but it depends on the commitment and political courage of the next president of the United States," he said.
The Egyptians – known among the Arabs for their exceptional wit and sense of humor – have had a field day with creating jokes, particularly in the form of news headlines, about shoes, Bush, the war on terror, U.S.-allied Arab leaders, and the general Arab state of affairs. A few examples of headlines that can be translated into English:
-- U.S. occupation forces comb areas throughout Iraq in search of terrorist shoe factories.
-- A man wearing a shoe-belt around his waist has been arrested by a U.S. patrol in Baghdad as a would-be shoe-icide bomber.
-- Washington adds footwear to its terror list and passes a bill allowing wire taps on shoe stores and factories.
-- Several international shoe manufacturers deny U.S. charges of aiding terrorist organizations.
-- A top U.S. intelligence official, saying Zaidi's shoes were made in Syria and Iran, calls for their invasion.
-- Bush asks Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and his accompanying delegation to remove their shoes in the White House, and provides them with soft long-haired bunny slippers.
-- An emergency Arab League meeting elects to shut down all shoe stores when Western officials visit.
-- By presidential decree, Hosni Mubarak is now to hold all his press conferences inside mosques [where shoes are taken off outside].
The last joke has been applied to almost every other Arab leader.
-- U.S. occupation forces comb areas throughout Iraq in search of terrorist shoe factories.
-- A man wearing a shoe-belt around his waist has been arrested by a U.S. patrol in Baghdad as a would-be shoe-icide bomber.
-- Washington adds footwear to its terror list and passes a bill allowing wire taps on shoe stores and factories.
-- Several international shoe manufacturers deny U.S. charges of aiding terrorist organizations.
-- A top U.S. intelligence official, saying Zaidi's shoes were made in Syria and Iran, calls for their invasion.
-- Bush asks Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and his accompanying delegation to remove their shoes in the White House, and provides them with soft long-haired bunny slippers.
-- An emergency Arab League meeting elects to shut down all shoe stores when Western officials visit.
-- By presidential decree, Hosni Mubarak is now to hold all his press conferences inside mosques [where shoes are taken off outside].
The last joke has been applied to almost every other Arab leader.
from Abu Aardvark
US bases in Gulf not especially popular, except with Americans [with update]
The Project on International Policy Attitudes just released an intriguing result from its multi-national surveys of international public opinion: outside of the United States, there isn't a lot of support for U.S. bases in the Gulf.
Gulfbases
As the above chart shows, 70% of Americans think that bases in the Gulf are a fine idea. The UK and France are roughly evenly split (43-39 and 41-43, respectively), but 52% of Germans are opposed. Only 4% of Russians and 8% of Chinese approve -- ah, the smell of great power politics in the air. And then you get to the Arab and Muslim world: 11% of Jordanians approve, 6% of Turks, 4% of Palestinians, 5% of Indonesians, and a statistically insignificant number of Egyptians. A pity they didn't (couldn't?) ask the question in the Gulf itself... would be interesting to hear what the Kuwaitis, Qataris, Bahrainis -- or Iraqis -- in question have said about their "protectors".
Even allowing for the problems with such opinion surveys, these numbers should be sobering -- especially as they track with lots of other surveys about regional views of American foreign policy. Americans generally believe that their military presence in the Gulf represents an "international public good", protecting energy supplies and global stability, and consider their military hegemony to be cushioned by "soft power" through which American leadership is perceived as benevolent and desirable. Most of the world's publics, especially Arab and Muslim publics, don't seem to agree. Public diplomacy -- and grand strategy -- need to take such findings a bit more seriously.
UPDATE: Spencer Ackerman asks WorldPublicOpinion.org why they didn't survey the Gulf - check out the answer. Regarding his question about who else will guard the shipping lanes, well, India and Qatar did just sign that big security cooperation deal. Not that I think the changing of the guard will (or should) happen any time soon, but a lot of those Gulf countries do seem to be looking East towards the big energy markets lately... and historically speaking, great powers do seem to have a way of seeing the need to protect their interests abroad.
TWO MORE UPDATES: Right on cue, "A vice foreign minister and a leading naval strategist were quoted in Chinese state media on Wednesday as saying that Beijing was close to mounting a naval mission in the gulf." Great powers, state interests, and all that.
Meanwhile, Jon Alterman reads the NIC's Global Trends 2025 report and concludes (no idea how to find a direct link, sorry, but will add when one appears) that Gulf leaders reading the tea leaves are likely to conclude that "the United States sees their region become far less central to global security than it is now... [which] indicates a far weaker U.S. security commitment to the Gulf come 2025. Put bluntly, the report suggests that over the next two decades, the U.S. security commitment to the Gulf will shift from being a constant to a variable." He therefore expects Gulf leaders to rationally start looking around, "diversifying their strategic relationships" -- most likely with France, Russia, China, and India -- and seeking an accommodation with Iran.
US bases in Gulf not especially popular, except with Americans [with update]
The Project on International Policy Attitudes just released an intriguing result from its multi-national surveys of international public opinion: outside of the United States, there isn't a lot of support for U.S. bases in the Gulf.
Gulfbases
As the above chart shows, 70% of Americans think that bases in the Gulf are a fine idea. The UK and France are roughly evenly split (43-39 and 41-43, respectively), but 52% of Germans are opposed. Only 4% of Russians and 8% of Chinese approve -- ah, the smell of great power politics in the air. And then you get to the Arab and Muslim world: 11% of Jordanians approve, 6% of Turks, 4% of Palestinians, 5% of Indonesians, and a statistically insignificant number of Egyptians. A pity they didn't (couldn't?) ask the question in the Gulf itself... would be interesting to hear what the Kuwaitis, Qataris, Bahrainis -- or Iraqis -- in question have said about their "protectors".
Even allowing for the problems with such opinion surveys, these numbers should be sobering -- especially as they track with lots of other surveys about regional views of American foreign policy. Americans generally believe that their military presence in the Gulf represents an "international public good", protecting energy supplies and global stability, and consider their military hegemony to be cushioned by "soft power" through which American leadership is perceived as benevolent and desirable. Most of the world's publics, especially Arab and Muslim publics, don't seem to agree. Public diplomacy -- and grand strategy -- need to take such findings a bit more seriously.
UPDATE: Spencer Ackerman asks WorldPublicOpinion.org why they didn't survey the Gulf - check out the answer. Regarding his question about who else will guard the shipping lanes, well, India and Qatar did just sign that big security cooperation deal. Not that I think the changing of the guard will (or should) happen any time soon, but a lot of those Gulf countries do seem to be looking East towards the big energy markets lately... and historically speaking, great powers do seem to have a way of seeing the need to protect their interests abroad.
TWO MORE UPDATES: Right on cue, "A vice foreign minister and a leading naval strategist were quoted in Chinese state media on Wednesday as saying that Beijing was close to mounting a naval mission in the gulf." Great powers, state interests, and all that.
Meanwhile, Jon Alterman reads the NIC's Global Trends 2025 report and concludes (no idea how to find a direct link, sorry, but will add when one appears) that Gulf leaders reading the tea leaves are likely to conclude that "the United States sees their region become far less central to global security than it is now... [which] indicates a far weaker U.S. security commitment to the Gulf come 2025. Put bluntly, the report suggests that over the next two decades, the U.S. security commitment to the Gulf will shift from being a constant to a variable." He therefore expects Gulf leaders to rationally start looking around, "diversifying their strategic relationships" -- most likely with France, Russia, China, and India -- and seeking an accommodation with Iran.
WALL STREET JOURNAL
DECEMBER 19, 2008
Bush Has Made Us Vulnerable
Two incompetently prosecuted wars have undermined our deterrent power.
By MARK HELPRIN
In his great Civil War history, "Decision in the West," Albert Castel describes the last Confederate hope of victory. If in 1864 the Confederate armies continue to exact a steep cost from the North, "the majority of Northerners will decide that going on with the war is not worth the financial and human cost and so will replace Lincoln and the Republicans with a Democratic president and Congress committed to stopping hostilities and instituting peace negotiations." He cites the resolution of the Confederate Congress that: "Brave and learned men in the North have spoken out against the usurpations and cruelties daily practiced. The success of these men over the radical and despotic faction which now rules the North may open the way to . . . a cessation of this bloody and unnecessary war." Plus ça change . . . .
The administrations of George W. Bush have virtually assured such a displacement by catastrophically throwing the country off balance, both politically and financially, while breaking the nation's sword in an inconclusive seven-year struggle against a ragtag enemy in two small bankrupt states. Their one great accomplishment -- no subsequent attacks on American soil thus far -- has been offset by the stunningly incompetent prosecution of the war. It could be no other way, with war aims that inexplicably danced up and down the scale, from "ending tyranny in the world," to reforging in a matter of months (with 130,000 troops) the political culture of the Arabs, to establishing a democracy in Iraq, to only reducing violence, to merely holding on in our cantonments until we withdraw.
This confusion has come at the price of transforming the military into a light and hollow semi-gendarmerie focused on irregular warfare and ill-equipped to deter the development and resurgence of the conventional and strategic forces of China and Russia, while begging challenges from rivals or enemies no longer constrained by our former reserves of strength. For seven years we failed to devise effective policy or make intelligent arguments for policies that were worth pursuing. Thus we capriciously forfeited the domestic and international political equilibrium without which alliances break apart and wars are seldom won.
The pity is that the war could have been successful and this equilibrium sustained had we struck immediately, preserving the link with September 11th; had we disciplined our objective to forcing upon regimes that nurture terrorism the choice of routing it out with their ruthless secret services or suffering the destruction of the means to power for which they live; had we husbanded our forces in the highly developed military areas of northern Saudi Arabia after deposing Saddam Hussein, where as a fleet in being they would suffer no casualties and remain at the ready to reach Baghdad, Damascus, or Riyadh in three days; and had we taken strong and effective measures for our domestic protection while striving to stay within constitutional limits and eloquently explaining the necessity -- as has always been the case in war -- for sometimes exceeding them. Today's progressives apologize to the world for America's treatment of terrorists (not a single one of whom has been executed). Franklin Roosevelt, when faced with German saboteurs (who had caused not a single casualty), had them electrocuted and buried in numbered graves next to a sewage plant.
The counterpart to Republican incompetence has been a Democratic opposition warped by sentiment. The deaths of thousands of Americans in attacks upon our embassies, warships, military barracks, civil aviation, capital, and largest city were not a criminal matter but an act of war made possible by governments and legions of enablers in the Arab world. Nothing short of war -- although not the war we have waged -- could have been sufficient in response. The opposition is embarrassed by patriotism and American self-interest, but above all it is blind to the gravity of the matter. Though scattered terrorists allied with militarily insignificant states are not, as some conservatives assert, closely analogous to Nazi Germany, the accessibility of nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons makes the destructive capacity of these antagonists unfortunately similar -- a fact, especially in regard to Iran, that is persistently whistled away by the Left.
An existential threat of such magnitude cannot be averted by imagining that it is the work of one man and will disappear with his death; by mousefully pleasing the rest of the world; by hopefully excluding the tools of war; or by diplomacy without the potential of force, which is like a policeman without a gun, something that doesn't work anymore even in Britain. The Right should have labored to exhaustion to forge a coalition, and the Left should have been willing to proceed without one. The Right should have been more respectful of constitutional protections, and the Left should have joined in making temporary and clearly defined exceptions. In short, the Right should have had the wit to fight, and the Left should have had the will to fight.
Both failed. The country is exhausted, divided, and improperly protected, and will remain so if the new president and administration are merely another face of the same sterile duality. To avoid the costs of a stalled financial system, the two parties -- after an entire day of reflection -- committed to the expenditure of what with its trailing ends will probably be $1.5 trillion in this fiscal year alone.
But the costs of not reacting to China's military expansion, which could lead to its hegemony in the Pacific; or of ignoring a Russian resurgence, which could result in a new Cold War and Russian domination of Europe; or of suffering a nuclear detonation in New York, Washington, or any other major American city, would be so great as to be, apparently, unimaginable to us now. Which is why, perhaps, we have not even begun to think about marshaling the resources, concentration, deliberation, risk, sacrifice, and compromise necessary to avert them. This is the great decision to which the West is completely blind, and for neglect of which it will in the future grieve exceedingly.
Mr. Helprin, a senior fellow at the Claremont Institute, is the author of, among other works, "Winter's Tale" (Harcourt) and "A Soldier of the Great War" (Harcourt).
Copyright ©2008 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
DECEMBER 19, 2008
Bush Has Made Us Vulnerable
Two incompetently prosecuted wars have undermined our deterrent power.
By MARK HELPRIN
In his great Civil War history, "Decision in the West," Albert Castel describes the last Confederate hope of victory. If in 1864 the Confederate armies continue to exact a steep cost from the North, "the majority of Northerners will decide that going on with the war is not worth the financial and human cost and so will replace Lincoln and the Republicans with a Democratic president and Congress committed to stopping hostilities and instituting peace negotiations." He cites the resolution of the Confederate Congress that: "Brave and learned men in the North have spoken out against the usurpations and cruelties daily practiced. The success of these men over the radical and despotic faction which now rules the North may open the way to . . . a cessation of this bloody and unnecessary war." Plus ça change . . . .
The administrations of George W. Bush have virtually assured such a displacement by catastrophically throwing the country off balance, both politically and financially, while breaking the nation's sword in an inconclusive seven-year struggle against a ragtag enemy in two small bankrupt states. Their one great accomplishment -- no subsequent attacks on American soil thus far -- has been offset by the stunningly incompetent prosecution of the war. It could be no other way, with war aims that inexplicably danced up and down the scale, from "ending tyranny in the world," to reforging in a matter of months (with 130,000 troops) the political culture of the Arabs, to establishing a democracy in Iraq, to only reducing violence, to merely holding on in our cantonments until we withdraw.
This confusion has come at the price of transforming the military into a light and hollow semi-gendarmerie focused on irregular warfare and ill-equipped to deter the development and resurgence of the conventional and strategic forces of China and Russia, while begging challenges from rivals or enemies no longer constrained by our former reserves of strength. For seven years we failed to devise effective policy or make intelligent arguments for policies that were worth pursuing. Thus we capriciously forfeited the domestic and international political equilibrium without which alliances break apart and wars are seldom won.
The pity is that the war could have been successful and this equilibrium sustained had we struck immediately, preserving the link with September 11th; had we disciplined our objective to forcing upon regimes that nurture terrorism the choice of routing it out with their ruthless secret services or suffering the destruction of the means to power for which they live; had we husbanded our forces in the highly developed military areas of northern Saudi Arabia after deposing Saddam Hussein, where as a fleet in being they would suffer no casualties and remain at the ready to reach Baghdad, Damascus, or Riyadh in three days; and had we taken strong and effective measures for our domestic protection while striving to stay within constitutional limits and eloquently explaining the necessity -- as has always been the case in war -- for sometimes exceeding them. Today's progressives apologize to the world for America's treatment of terrorists (not a single one of whom has been executed). Franklin Roosevelt, when faced with German saboteurs (who had caused not a single casualty), had them electrocuted and buried in numbered graves next to a sewage plant.
The counterpart to Republican incompetence has been a Democratic opposition warped by sentiment. The deaths of thousands of Americans in attacks upon our embassies, warships, military barracks, civil aviation, capital, and largest city were not a criminal matter but an act of war made possible by governments and legions of enablers in the Arab world. Nothing short of war -- although not the war we have waged -- could have been sufficient in response. The opposition is embarrassed by patriotism and American self-interest, but above all it is blind to the gravity of the matter. Though scattered terrorists allied with militarily insignificant states are not, as some conservatives assert, closely analogous to Nazi Germany, the accessibility of nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons makes the destructive capacity of these antagonists unfortunately similar -- a fact, especially in regard to Iran, that is persistently whistled away by the Left.
An existential threat of such magnitude cannot be averted by imagining that it is the work of one man and will disappear with his death; by mousefully pleasing the rest of the world; by hopefully excluding the tools of war; or by diplomacy without the potential of force, which is like a policeman without a gun, something that doesn't work anymore even in Britain. The Right should have labored to exhaustion to forge a coalition, and the Left should have been willing to proceed without one. The Right should have been more respectful of constitutional protections, and the Left should have joined in making temporary and clearly defined exceptions. In short, the Right should have had the wit to fight, and the Left should have had the will to fight.
Both failed. The country is exhausted, divided, and improperly protected, and will remain so if the new president and administration are merely another face of the same sterile duality. To avoid the costs of a stalled financial system, the two parties -- after an entire day of reflection -- committed to the expenditure of what with its trailing ends will probably be $1.5 trillion in this fiscal year alone.
But the costs of not reacting to China's military expansion, which could lead to its hegemony in the Pacific; or of ignoring a Russian resurgence, which could result in a new Cold War and Russian domination of Europe; or of suffering a nuclear detonation in New York, Washington, or any other major American city, would be so great as to be, apparently, unimaginable to us now. Which is why, perhaps, we have not even begun to think about marshaling the resources, concentration, deliberation, risk, sacrifice, and compromise necessary to avert them. This is the great decision to which the West is completely blind, and for neglect of which it will in the future grieve exceedingly.
Mr. Helprin, a senior fellow at the Claremont Institute, is the author of, among other works, "Winter's Tale" (Harcourt) and "A Soldier of the Great War" (Harcourt).
Copyright ©2008 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
Being a Nation that Tortures People
William Pfaff
Paris, December 18, 2008 -- Vice President Richard Cheney was on American television last weekend to say that he directly approved CIA torture of American prisoners, and that he favors keeping the Guantanamo prison camp open until "the end of the war on terror," a date which "nobody can specify".
Those of Cheney's persuasion are trying to convince Barack Obama that "realism" requires continued torture and the offshore prison system by which, under George W. Bush and Richard Cheney, the United States took up the precedent and practices of Nazi Germany, Stalinist Russia, and other criminal regimes that gave the 20th century its reputation for moral depravity.
Pleas are beginning to appear in the American press in support of torture. Reuel Marc Gerecht, a former CIA officer now with the Foundation for the Defense of the Democracies, writes (in the New York Times and International Herald Tribune) that such practices are essential to "stopping the slaughter of civilians by Islamic holy warriors" and dealing with "ticking bomb situations" where water-boarding the enemy "mastermind" can save "thousands of civilians." Extrajudicial rendition to client-nation torturers, he says, has the advantage of keeping illegal practices out of sight, and away "from Congressional prying.
Another man who has addressed the question is Philip Bobbitt, a law professor at Columbia University, former official of the National Security Council, and author of a book published earlier this year ("Terror and Consent: The Wars for the 21st Century").
He argues that a radically new international situation exists in which the market is replacing the state as we have known it (a judgement he might today wish to revise?). This benefits the terrorist who operates without frontiers. To deal with such terrorists "extreme" measures of coercion may be necessary, as well as global "preclusive" interventions to protect civilians and smash terrorist groups, with a legalized "total information awareness" program providing America with unlimited access to international communications.
His position on torture is that it should only be applied after a warrant has been obtained from the courts that cites necessity -- raison d'état. He foresees need for an extensive reordering of American and international law concerning civil liberties, and a large new grant of power to the executive branch of the U.S. government.
Harvard law school professor Alan Dershowitz also advocates the issuance of torture warrants when there is an "absolute need to obtain immediate information in order to save lives, coupled with probable cause that the suspect has such information and is unwilling to reveal it."
According to his personal website, he is in principle opposed to torture, but argues that authorities should be permitted to use non-lethal torture in a "ticking bomb" scenario, regardless of international legal prohibitions, as it would be less destructive to the rule of law than to leave such matters to the discretion of law-enforcement agents.
"If torture is going to be administered as a last resort in the ticking-bomb case, to save enormous numbers of lives, [then] it ought to be done openly, with accountability, with approval by the president of the United States or by a Supreme Court justice."
The case for torture always rests on the "ticking bomb" case. The argument is always that torture is the "only way" to save the city from the nuclear explosion, or prevent the deaths of tens of thousands of "innocent civilians" or the children in the kindergarten your own child attends. The "ticking-bomb/only way" argument has been described as the card-shark's "forcing" onto his victim the card he wants him to select.
From what we know about CIA and American-outsourced torture during the Bush administration, there must have been a lot of ticking bombs in recent years. (Would they have ticked slowly enough for Professors Dershowitz or Bobbitt to get their warrants?).
The argument always ignores the point repeatedly made by FBI and police officials, and other professional interrogators: that professional techniques of crisis negotiation, dealing with hostage-takers, and criminal investigation have been proven beyond doubt superior to torture in obtaining serious information. Torture produces lies, fabulation, telling the torturer whatever he wants. It corrupts the torturers and their superiors, as well as the legal and intelligence systems involved.
It also ignores the possibility that if someone has been determined and clever enough to plant a nuclear weapon or anthrax bomb or doomsday machine in the middle of Washington, he might be sufficiently committed to endure some "non-lethal" torture for the cause. It's the serious terrorist's professional hazard. And if the bomb is indeed ticking, he (or she) will soon be out of their misery, together with the torturers.
There is a sense in which this simply is not a serious argument.
George W. Bush's war against terror has brought out from the darker places in America a lot of people who want to torture, or like the idea of it. By now we know the names of the principal such figures in the Bush administration, even without the benefit of Richard Cheney on television or the bi-partisan Senate report, just made known.
If these are the kind of people who remain in charge, the United States will earn its permanent place in history as the kind of nation that tortures people.
The country used to be governed by a different class of people, who took for granted that the United States was not a nation that tortured people. It seems reasonable to hope that in Barack Obama the United States has elected president someone who possesses the values of that other America.
© Copyright 2008 by Tribune Media Services International. All Rights Reserved.
William Pfaff
Paris, December 18, 2008 -- Vice President Richard Cheney was on American television last weekend to say that he directly approved CIA torture of American prisoners, and that he favors keeping the Guantanamo prison camp open until "the end of the war on terror," a date which "nobody can specify".
Those of Cheney's persuasion are trying to convince Barack Obama that "realism" requires continued torture and the offshore prison system by which, under George W. Bush and Richard Cheney, the United States took up the precedent and practices of Nazi Germany, Stalinist Russia, and other criminal regimes that gave the 20th century its reputation for moral depravity.
Pleas are beginning to appear in the American press in support of torture. Reuel Marc Gerecht, a former CIA officer now with the Foundation for the Defense of the Democracies, writes (in the New York Times and International Herald Tribune) that such practices are essential to "stopping the slaughter of civilians by Islamic holy warriors" and dealing with "ticking bomb situations" where water-boarding the enemy "mastermind" can save "thousands of civilians." Extrajudicial rendition to client-nation torturers, he says, has the advantage of keeping illegal practices out of sight, and away "from Congressional prying.
Another man who has addressed the question is Philip Bobbitt, a law professor at Columbia University, former official of the National Security Council, and author of a book published earlier this year ("Terror and Consent: The Wars for the 21st Century").
He argues that a radically new international situation exists in which the market is replacing the state as we have known it (a judgement he might today wish to revise?). This benefits the terrorist who operates without frontiers. To deal with such terrorists "extreme" measures of coercion may be necessary, as well as global "preclusive" interventions to protect civilians and smash terrorist groups, with a legalized "total information awareness" program providing America with unlimited access to international communications.
His position on torture is that it should only be applied after a warrant has been obtained from the courts that cites necessity -- raison d'état. He foresees need for an extensive reordering of American and international law concerning civil liberties, and a large new grant of power to the executive branch of the U.S. government.
Harvard law school professor Alan Dershowitz also advocates the issuance of torture warrants when there is an "absolute need to obtain immediate information in order to save lives, coupled with probable cause that the suspect has such information and is unwilling to reveal it."
According to his personal website, he is in principle opposed to torture, but argues that authorities should be permitted to use non-lethal torture in a "ticking bomb" scenario, regardless of international legal prohibitions, as it would be less destructive to the rule of law than to leave such matters to the discretion of law-enforcement agents.
"If torture is going to be administered as a last resort in the ticking-bomb case, to save enormous numbers of lives, [then] it ought to be done openly, with accountability, with approval by the president of the United States or by a Supreme Court justice."
The case for torture always rests on the "ticking bomb" case. The argument is always that torture is the "only way" to save the city from the nuclear explosion, or prevent the deaths of tens of thousands of "innocent civilians" or the children in the kindergarten your own child attends. The "ticking-bomb/only way" argument has been described as the card-shark's "forcing" onto his victim the card he wants him to select.
From what we know about CIA and American-outsourced torture during the Bush administration, there must have been a lot of ticking bombs in recent years. (Would they have ticked slowly enough for Professors Dershowitz or Bobbitt to get their warrants?).
The argument always ignores the point repeatedly made by FBI and police officials, and other professional interrogators: that professional techniques of crisis negotiation, dealing with hostage-takers, and criminal investigation have been proven beyond doubt superior to torture in obtaining serious information. Torture produces lies, fabulation, telling the torturer whatever he wants. It corrupts the torturers and their superiors, as well as the legal and intelligence systems involved.
It also ignores the possibility that if someone has been determined and clever enough to plant a nuclear weapon or anthrax bomb or doomsday machine in the middle of Washington, he might be sufficiently committed to endure some "non-lethal" torture for the cause. It's the serious terrorist's professional hazard. And if the bomb is indeed ticking, he (or she) will soon be out of their misery, together with the torturers.
There is a sense in which this simply is not a serious argument.
George W. Bush's war against terror has brought out from the darker places in America a lot of people who want to torture, or like the idea of it. By now we know the names of the principal such figures in the Bush administration, even without the benefit of Richard Cheney on television or the bi-partisan Senate report, just made known.
If these are the kind of people who remain in charge, the United States will earn its permanent place in history as the kind of nation that tortures people.
The country used to be governed by a different class of people, who took for granted that the United States was not a nation that tortured people. It seems reasonable to hope that in Barack Obama the United States has elected president someone who possesses the values of that other America.
© Copyright 2008 by Tribune Media Services International. All Rights Reserved.
Uri Avnery
20.12.08
Spot the Difference
A MAN was asked about his sons. “I have three,” he said, “but one of them is a complete idiot.”
“Which one?” they asked.
“Take your pick,” he replied.
In 51 days, we shall vote for a new Knesset and a new government.
Three big parties are competing for the prize: Kadima, Likud and Labor.
>From there on, see the joke.
IS THERE a real choice? In other words, are there any real differences between the three parties?
As in the game “Spot the Difference”, they are so tiny that one needs really good eyes to discover them.
There are, of course, political differences between the three. But what the three parties, and the three leaders, have in common is far more important than what divides them.
Binyamin Netanyahu says that this is not the time for peace with the Palestinians. We have to wait until conditions are ripe. Not on our side, of course, but on the Palestinian side. And who is going to decide whether the conditions are ripe on the Palestinian side? Binyamin Netanyahu, of course. He or his successors, or the successors of his successors.
Tzipi Livni says – or so it seems – the very opposite. We have to talk with the Palestinians. What about? Not about Jerusalem, God forbid. And not about the refugees. So about what? About the weather, perhaps? Tzipi’s plan, one has to conclude, is to go on talking and talking and talking, and never to reach any practical agreement.
Ehud Barak has not withdrawn his fateful pronouncement of eight years ago, when he came back from the failed (thanks to him) Camp David conference: “We have no partner for peace.”
Not one of the three has stood up and told the public in simple words: I am going to make peace with the Palestinians in the course of 2009. This peace will include the establishment of a Palestinian state based on the pre-1967 borders, with agreed minor border changes on the basis of 1:1, turning Jerusalem into the capital of the two states and agreeing on a reasonable solution of the refugee problem, a solution Israel can live with.
Not one of the three has offered any peace plan at all. Only hollow words. Only spin.
Like the alternative offered by Netanyahu: to ameliorate the living conditions of the Palestinians. Living conditions under occupation? When 600 roadblocks in the West Bank prevent free movement? When every violent act of resistance leads to collective punishment? When death-squads go out in the night to liquidate “wanted men”? Only a madman would invest money in such a territory.
ALL THE THREE are united in their view that Hamas must be eliminated. True, not one of them declares publicly that the Gaza Strip should be reoccupied – something that is wildly unpopular both with the public and the army chiefs. But all three support the tight blockade on the Gaza Strip, believing that if the population has no bread and the hospitals no medicaments or fuel, the Gaza public will rise up and overthrow the Hamas regime. For now, the opposite is happening. This week a quarter of a million people – almost half the adult population of the Strip! – took part in a rally to celebrate the birthday of Hamas.
Not one of the three has stood up and said: I shall talk with Hamas and bring them into the peace process.
Neither did one of the three get up and say: I shall make peace with Syria in the course of 2009. The terms are known, I accept them, I intend to sign.
Perhaps all three of them secretly think so. But each of them tells himself/herself: “What, am I crazy? To take on the Golan settlers and their supporters in Israel?” Someone who is not prepared to remove even one miserable outpost in the West Bank, for fear of a clash with the fanatical settlers there, will not take any such risk on the Golan Heights either.
ON THE other hand, all three have the same emergency exit: the Iranian bomb. What would we do without it! “The main danger to the existence of Israel is the Iranian bomb!” declares Barak. Declares Tzipi. Declares Netanyahu. A finely attuned choir.
Since the beginnings of Zionism, it has been looking for ways to escape from the “Palestinian problem”. Why? Because if the Zionist movement had admitted that there even exists a Palestinian people, it would have had to find a solution to the actual situation and to the moral problem. Therefore, a hundred different pretexts have been found, each in its time, to ignore the dilemma.
Nowadays the Iranian bomb fulfils this function. Here is a clear and present danger. An existential danger. Stop bothering me about the Palestinian problem. Nothing urgent there. It can be postponed for a few years (or a few generations). The Iranian bomb is what needs immediate attention. After we solve this problem (it’s not clear how) we shall be free to deal with the Palestinian nuisance.
Logic, of course, says the opposite. If we sign a peace agreement with the entire Palestinian people and put an end to the occupation, the Persian rug will be swept from under the feet of Ahmadinejad and the likes of him. When the Palestinians recognize Israel and make peace, the anti-Israeli Crusade (or, rather, Crescentade) will lose its steam.
OK, SO in matters of war and peace there is no difference between the three. But what about the other issues?
The economic crisis fills the headlines. All the candidates promise to deal with it. To find any difference between their pronouncements, one would need a microscope.
One might have expected Netanyahu to be different from the others. After all, he was the High Priest of privatization. To privatize everything, from steel cables to shoestrings. This dogma has now collapsed in the United States, and is collapsing in Israel too. Does this bother Netanyahu? Does it make him more humble? Not in the least. Now he demands, without batting an eyelid, massive state intervention. Like Livni. Like Barak.
State and religion? Not one of the three demands separation between them. Not one demands civil marriage, or the rolling back of religious coercion, or the calling up of thousands of yeshiva students. Not one demands the inclusion of the core subjects – like English and mathematics – in the curriculum of the state-financed religious schools. God forbid! God forbid! After all, all of them will need Shas and/or the Orthodox party tomorrow.
The Arab citizens? All of the parties court them ardently. But not one of them promises them anything real. Real equality? Only in words. Cultural autonomy? Of course not. The implementation of the recommendations of the government commission of inquiry that was appointed after the October 2000 killings? Not a chance!
And the list goes on. Subject after subject.
SO IS THERE really no difference between the three? Is a vote for one of them the same as a vote for any of the other two?
I would not go that far.
There are small differences – but when we are dealing with fateful matters, even a small difference is significant.
Netanyahu, for example, brings with him a very rightist crew. They include fascist elements that must not be ignored. There is a danger that he would set up a government that would include “extreme-right” (meaning: outright fascist) parties, on top of the rightist-orthodox Shas party. His victory would signal to the whole world that Israel has chosen the path to the abyss. It may also bring up the possibility – the nightmare of Israeli politics – of a clash with the United States, now led by Barack Obama.
The battered (and rightly so) Labor Party at least includes a social-democratic element that makes it different from the other two. It is weak but not entirely insignificant.
Kadima, that cross-breed of leftist rightists and rightist leftists, is in spite of everything better than Likud, from which most of its candidates have sprung. Netanyahu and Livni grew on the same tree, but on different branches. Tzipi may still surprise us for the better. If Netanyahu springs any surprises at all, that would be a miracle.
Aside from the three big ones, there are, of course, several smaller one-issue parties, each in its own niche, which address specific sectors of the public and which have at least a clear and honest message: the Arab parties, Meretz, the Orthodox list, Shas, the Liberman party, the “Jewish Home” (formerly National-Religious party). Probably they will be joined by some new election lists. Each of them is a story in itself, but none of them will set up the next government.
The real story is between the Three Big, and it is a sad story indeed.
The choice between them is a choice between bad, worse and still worse. Between toothache, migraine and backache.
Nothing good will come out of this election. The question is only how bad the results will be.
THE CONCLUSION: This must not happen again!
Quite probably, the next Knesset, too, will not last for more than a year or two. Then there would be new elections, which might well be fateful.
On February 11, 2009, the day after the coming elections, those who seek change must start to think anew. Those who long for a democratic, secular, progressive Israel, an Israel at peace with its neighbors and imbued with social justice within, must decide to take matters into their own hands,
They must start a new intellectual and organizational effort to realize these important aims. No longer to be satisfied with voting for the “lesser evil” but finally to vote for the greater good, and - together with sectors that have not been partners up till now - to work out solutions that have not yet been tried in ways that have not yet been tried. To bring about an Obama-like miracle.
Instead of the three good-for-nothing sons, a fourth son must appear.
=
20.12.08
Spot the Difference
A MAN was asked about his sons. “I have three,” he said, “but one of them is a complete idiot.”
“Which one?” they asked.
“Take your pick,” he replied.
In 51 days, we shall vote for a new Knesset and a new government.
Three big parties are competing for the prize: Kadima, Likud and Labor.
>From there on, see the joke.
IS THERE a real choice? In other words, are there any real differences between the three parties?
As in the game “Spot the Difference”, they are so tiny that one needs really good eyes to discover them.
There are, of course, political differences between the three. But what the three parties, and the three leaders, have in common is far more important than what divides them.
Binyamin Netanyahu says that this is not the time for peace with the Palestinians. We have to wait until conditions are ripe. Not on our side, of course, but on the Palestinian side. And who is going to decide whether the conditions are ripe on the Palestinian side? Binyamin Netanyahu, of course. He or his successors, or the successors of his successors.
Tzipi Livni says – or so it seems – the very opposite. We have to talk with the Palestinians. What about? Not about Jerusalem, God forbid. And not about the refugees. So about what? About the weather, perhaps? Tzipi’s plan, one has to conclude, is to go on talking and talking and talking, and never to reach any practical agreement.
Ehud Barak has not withdrawn his fateful pronouncement of eight years ago, when he came back from the failed (thanks to him) Camp David conference: “We have no partner for peace.”
Not one of the three has stood up and told the public in simple words: I am going to make peace with the Palestinians in the course of 2009. This peace will include the establishment of a Palestinian state based on the pre-1967 borders, with agreed minor border changes on the basis of 1:1, turning Jerusalem into the capital of the two states and agreeing on a reasonable solution of the refugee problem, a solution Israel can live with.
Not one of the three has offered any peace plan at all. Only hollow words. Only spin.
Like the alternative offered by Netanyahu: to ameliorate the living conditions of the Palestinians. Living conditions under occupation? When 600 roadblocks in the West Bank prevent free movement? When every violent act of resistance leads to collective punishment? When death-squads go out in the night to liquidate “wanted men”? Only a madman would invest money in such a territory.
ALL THE THREE are united in their view that Hamas must be eliminated. True, not one of them declares publicly that the Gaza Strip should be reoccupied – something that is wildly unpopular both with the public and the army chiefs. But all three support the tight blockade on the Gaza Strip, believing that if the population has no bread and the hospitals no medicaments or fuel, the Gaza public will rise up and overthrow the Hamas regime. For now, the opposite is happening. This week a quarter of a million people – almost half the adult population of the Strip! – took part in a rally to celebrate the birthday of Hamas.
Not one of the three has stood up and said: I shall talk with Hamas and bring them into the peace process.
Neither did one of the three get up and say: I shall make peace with Syria in the course of 2009. The terms are known, I accept them, I intend to sign.
Perhaps all three of them secretly think so. But each of them tells himself/herself: “What, am I crazy? To take on the Golan settlers and their supporters in Israel?” Someone who is not prepared to remove even one miserable outpost in the West Bank, for fear of a clash with the fanatical settlers there, will not take any such risk on the Golan Heights either.
ON THE other hand, all three have the same emergency exit: the Iranian bomb. What would we do without it! “The main danger to the existence of Israel is the Iranian bomb!” declares Barak. Declares Tzipi. Declares Netanyahu. A finely attuned choir.
Since the beginnings of Zionism, it has been looking for ways to escape from the “Palestinian problem”. Why? Because if the Zionist movement had admitted that there even exists a Palestinian people, it would have had to find a solution to the actual situation and to the moral problem. Therefore, a hundred different pretexts have been found, each in its time, to ignore the dilemma.
Nowadays the Iranian bomb fulfils this function. Here is a clear and present danger. An existential danger. Stop bothering me about the Palestinian problem. Nothing urgent there. It can be postponed for a few years (or a few generations). The Iranian bomb is what needs immediate attention. After we solve this problem (it’s not clear how) we shall be free to deal with the Palestinian nuisance.
Logic, of course, says the opposite. If we sign a peace agreement with the entire Palestinian people and put an end to the occupation, the Persian rug will be swept from under the feet of Ahmadinejad and the likes of him. When the Palestinians recognize Israel and make peace, the anti-Israeli Crusade (or, rather, Crescentade) will lose its steam.
OK, SO in matters of war and peace there is no difference between the three. But what about the other issues?
The economic crisis fills the headlines. All the candidates promise to deal with it. To find any difference between their pronouncements, one would need a microscope.
One might have expected Netanyahu to be different from the others. After all, he was the High Priest of privatization. To privatize everything, from steel cables to shoestrings. This dogma has now collapsed in the United States, and is collapsing in Israel too. Does this bother Netanyahu? Does it make him more humble? Not in the least. Now he demands, without batting an eyelid, massive state intervention. Like Livni. Like Barak.
State and religion? Not one of the three demands separation between them. Not one demands civil marriage, or the rolling back of religious coercion, or the calling up of thousands of yeshiva students. Not one demands the inclusion of the core subjects – like English and mathematics – in the curriculum of the state-financed religious schools. God forbid! God forbid! After all, all of them will need Shas and/or the Orthodox party tomorrow.
The Arab citizens? All of the parties court them ardently. But not one of them promises them anything real. Real equality? Only in words. Cultural autonomy? Of course not. The implementation of the recommendations of the government commission of inquiry that was appointed after the October 2000 killings? Not a chance!
And the list goes on. Subject after subject.
SO IS THERE really no difference between the three? Is a vote for one of them the same as a vote for any of the other two?
I would not go that far.
There are small differences – but when we are dealing with fateful matters, even a small difference is significant.
Netanyahu, for example, brings with him a very rightist crew. They include fascist elements that must not be ignored. There is a danger that he would set up a government that would include “extreme-right” (meaning: outright fascist) parties, on top of the rightist-orthodox Shas party. His victory would signal to the whole world that Israel has chosen the path to the abyss. It may also bring up the possibility – the nightmare of Israeli politics – of a clash with the United States, now led by Barack Obama.
The battered (and rightly so) Labor Party at least includes a social-democratic element that makes it different from the other two. It is weak but not entirely insignificant.
Kadima, that cross-breed of leftist rightists and rightist leftists, is in spite of everything better than Likud, from which most of its candidates have sprung. Netanyahu and Livni grew on the same tree, but on different branches. Tzipi may still surprise us for the better. If Netanyahu springs any surprises at all, that would be a miracle.
Aside from the three big ones, there are, of course, several smaller one-issue parties, each in its own niche, which address specific sectors of the public and which have at least a clear and honest message: the Arab parties, Meretz, the Orthodox list, Shas, the Liberman party, the “Jewish Home” (formerly National-Religious party). Probably they will be joined by some new election lists. Each of them is a story in itself, but none of them will set up the next government.
The real story is between the Three Big, and it is a sad story indeed.
The choice between them is a choice between bad, worse and still worse. Between toothache, migraine and backache.
Nothing good will come out of this election. The question is only how bad the results will be.
THE CONCLUSION: This must not happen again!
Quite probably, the next Knesset, too, will not last for more than a year or two. Then there would be new elections, which might well be fateful.
On February 11, 2009, the day after the coming elections, those who seek change must start to think anew. Those who long for a democratic, secular, progressive Israel, an Israel at peace with its neighbors and imbued with social justice within, must decide to take matters into their own hands,
They must start a new intellectual and organizational effort to realize these important aims. No longer to be satisfied with voting for the “lesser evil” but finally to vote for the greater good, and - together with sectors that have not been partners up till now - to work out solutions that have not yet been tried in ways that have not yet been tried. To bring about an Obama-like miracle.
Instead of the three good-for-nothing sons, a fourth son must appear.
=
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/20...-united-nations
My expulsion from Israel
When I arrived in Israel as a UN representative I knew there might be problems at the airport. And there were
Richard Falk
guardian.co.uk,
Friday 19 December 2008
On December 14, I arrived at Ben Gurion airport in Tel Aviv, Israel to carry out my UN role as special rapporteur on the Palestinian territories.
I was leading a mission that had intended to visit the West Bank and Gaza to prepare a report on Israel's compliance with human rights standards and international humanitarian law. Meetings had been scheduled on an hourly basis during the six days, starting with Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority, the following day.
I knew that there might be problems at the airport. Israel had strongly opposed my appointment a few months earlier and its foreign ministry had issued a statement that it would bar my entry if I came to Israel in my capacity as a UN representative.
At the same time, I would not have made the long journey from California, where I live, had I not been reasonably optimistic about my chances of getting in. Israel was informed that I would lead the mission and given a copy of my itinerary, and issued visas to the two people assisting me: a staff security person and an assistant, both of whom work at the office of the high commissioner of human rights in Geneva.
To avoid an incident at the airport, Israel could have either refused to grant visas or communicated to the UN that I would not be allowed to enter, but neither step was taken. It seemed that Israel wanted to teach me, and more significantly, the UN a lesson: there will be no cooperation with those who make strong criticisms of Israel's occupation policy.
After being denied entry, I was put in a holding room with about 20 others experiencing entry problems. At this point, I was treated not as a UN representative, but as some sort of security threat, subjected to an inch-by-inch body search and the most meticulous luggage inspection I have ever witnessed.
I was separated from my two UN companions who were allowed to enter Israel and taken to the airport detention facility a mile or so away. I was required to put all my bags and cell phone in a room and taken to a locked tiny room that smelled of urine and filth. It contained five other detainees and was an unwelcome invitation to claustrophobia. I spent the next 15 hours so confined, which amounted to a cram course on the miseries of prison life, including dirty sheets, inedible food and lights that were too bright or darkness controlled from the guard office.
Of course, my disappointment and harsh confinement were trivial matters, not by themselves worthy of notice, given the sorts of serious hardships that millions around the world daily endure. Their importance is largely symbolic. I am an individual who had done nothing wrong beyond express strong disapproval of policies of a sovereign state. More importantly, the obvious intention was to humble me as a UN representative and thereby send a message of defiance to the United Nations.
Israel had all along accused me of bias and of making inflammatory charges relating to the occupation of Palestinian territories. I deny that I am biased, but rather insist that I have tried to be truthful in assessing the facts and relevant law. It is the character of the occupation that gives rise to sharp criticism of Israel's approach, especially its harsh blockade of Gaza, resulting in the collective punishment of the 1.5 million inhabitants. By attacking the observer rather than what is observed, Israel plays a clever mind game. It directs attention away from the realities of the occupation, practising effectively a politics of distraction.
The blockade of Gaza serves no legitimate Israeli function. It is supposedly imposed in retaliation for some Hamas and Islamic Jihad rockets that have been fired across the border at the Israeli town of Sderot. The wrongfulness of firing such rockets is unquestionable, yet this in no way justifies indiscriminate Israeli retaliation against the entire civilian population of Gaza.
The purpose of my reports is to document on behalf of the UN the urgency of the situation in Gaza and elsewhere in occupied Palestine. Such work is particularly important now as there are signs of a renewed escalation of violence and even of a threatened Israeli reoccupation.
Before such a catastrophe happens, it is important to make the situation as transparent as possible, and that is what I had hoped to do in carrying out my mission. Although denied entry, my effort will continue to use all available means to document the realities of the Israeli occupation as truthfully as possible.
• Richard Falk is professor of international law at Princeton University and the UN's special rapporteur on the Palestinian territories
My expulsion from Israel
When I arrived in Israel as a UN representative I knew there might be problems at the airport. And there were
Richard Falk
guardian.co.uk,
Friday 19 December 2008
On December 14, I arrived at Ben Gurion airport in Tel Aviv, Israel to carry out my UN role as special rapporteur on the Palestinian territories.
I was leading a mission that had intended to visit the West Bank and Gaza to prepare a report on Israel's compliance with human rights standards and international humanitarian law. Meetings had been scheduled on an hourly basis during the six days, starting with Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority, the following day.
I knew that there might be problems at the airport. Israel had strongly opposed my appointment a few months earlier and its foreign ministry had issued a statement that it would bar my entry if I came to Israel in my capacity as a UN representative.
At the same time, I would not have made the long journey from California, where I live, had I not been reasonably optimistic about my chances of getting in. Israel was informed that I would lead the mission and given a copy of my itinerary, and issued visas to the two people assisting me: a staff security person and an assistant, both of whom work at the office of the high commissioner of human rights in Geneva.
To avoid an incident at the airport, Israel could have either refused to grant visas or communicated to the UN that I would not be allowed to enter, but neither step was taken. It seemed that Israel wanted to teach me, and more significantly, the UN a lesson: there will be no cooperation with those who make strong criticisms of Israel's occupation policy.
After being denied entry, I was put in a holding room with about 20 others experiencing entry problems. At this point, I was treated not as a UN representative, but as some sort of security threat, subjected to an inch-by-inch body search and the most meticulous luggage inspection I have ever witnessed.
I was separated from my two UN companions who were allowed to enter Israel and taken to the airport detention facility a mile or so away. I was required to put all my bags and cell phone in a room and taken to a locked tiny room that smelled of urine and filth. It contained five other detainees and was an unwelcome invitation to claustrophobia. I spent the next 15 hours so confined, which amounted to a cram course on the miseries of prison life, including dirty sheets, inedible food and lights that were too bright or darkness controlled from the guard office.
Of course, my disappointment and harsh confinement were trivial matters, not by themselves worthy of notice, given the sorts of serious hardships that millions around the world daily endure. Their importance is largely symbolic. I am an individual who had done nothing wrong beyond express strong disapproval of policies of a sovereign state. More importantly, the obvious intention was to humble me as a UN representative and thereby send a message of defiance to the United Nations.
Israel had all along accused me of bias and of making inflammatory charges relating to the occupation of Palestinian territories. I deny that I am biased, but rather insist that I have tried to be truthful in assessing the facts and relevant law. It is the character of the occupation that gives rise to sharp criticism of Israel's approach, especially its harsh blockade of Gaza, resulting in the collective punishment of the 1.5 million inhabitants. By attacking the observer rather than what is observed, Israel plays a clever mind game. It directs attention away from the realities of the occupation, practising effectively a politics of distraction.
The blockade of Gaza serves no legitimate Israeli function. It is supposedly imposed in retaliation for some Hamas and Islamic Jihad rockets that have been fired across the border at the Israeli town of Sderot. The wrongfulness of firing such rockets is unquestionable, yet this in no way justifies indiscriminate Israeli retaliation against the entire civilian population of Gaza.
The purpose of my reports is to document on behalf of the UN the urgency of the situation in Gaza and elsewhere in occupied Palestine. Such work is particularly important now as there are signs of a renewed escalation of violence and even of a threatened Israeli reoccupation.
Before such a catastrophe happens, it is important to make the situation as transparent as possible, and that is what I had hoped to do in carrying out my mission. Although denied entry, my effort will continue to use all available means to document the realities of the Israeli occupation as truthfully as possible.
• Richard Falk is professor of international law at Princeton University and the UN's special rapporteur on the Palestinian territories
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/20...raq-afghanistan
Rosy rewriting of the Iraq debacle will fuel worse disaster in Afghanistan
An inquest into Blair's support for the invasion could fit on a postcard. Eager inquirers should turn their gaze to Kabul
Simon Jenkins
The Guardian,
Friday 19 December 2008
Now they want to bolt the stable door. With British troops at last due to leave Iraq next spring, everyone is for a public inquiry. That is fine. But what about an inquiry into where they are going, straight from the frying pan into the fire, from Iraq to Afghanistan? In Basra the British army had at least a tattered remnant of a war plan. In Helmand the only plan is to be target practice for the Taliban.
The Iraq inquest can be written on a postcard. A British force was sent on the false claim by Tony Blair that Iraq was a threat to Britain. How this made sense was never explained, despite the efforts of Alastair Campbell and his colleagues. It has since emerged that Blair simply could not bring himself to desert the American president, George Bush. That in a nutshell is why 178 British servicemen and women have died in Iraq.
The conduct of the war saw British troops at their professional best. They did not bomb villages, wear lavish armour, or smash their way into women's bedrooms as did the Americans. They were good at hearts and minds. But as months stretched into years, they proved unable to build local leadership and were handicapped by the incompetence and corruption of the Pentagon's provisional executive in Baghdad.
By 2005 they had all but lost control of Basra to local militias. When these started feuding, the British retreated to the airport, leaving Iraqi units (with American help) to achieve an exhausted peace. After five years, Britain has not reconstructed Basra or given it prosperity and stable government as promised. As for finding Blair's weapons of mass destruction, forget it.
The British army commander, General Sir Mike Jackson, said two years ago that the army's best hope in Basra was "withdrawal with honour". That realistic assessment has just about been realised, but it was refreshing yesterday to hear the Archbishop of Canterbury apply one simple word to the Iraq war: "wrong".
The greatest honour Britain could pay the dead of Iraq is to inquire into why any more should die in Afghanistan. Why wait for the same number of soldiers to be killed (already 134)? Why wait for the same multiple of civilian deaths, the same villages bombed, the same infrastructure destroyed? Why wait for the same bombast to die down and truth-telling and realism to gain the upper hand? Why tip another billion pounds into this craziness, billions that we can ill afford?
British diplomats and military experts returning from Kabul have three performance modes. In public they declare Afghanistan to be tough but winnable. In private they admit it is getting worse not better, but might turn round in a decade if only the Afghans were less corrupt. In totally secret mode, their eyes turn to the sky and they declare the whole business a "total effing disaster".
Which mode is ever communicated to Gordon Brown? He has recently returned from Helmand, where he won plaudits for bravely standing without body armour in a British fort. Nobody asked why it should be brave to stand where Britain has supposedly won hearts and minds for two years - if not seven - and why he could not go anywhere by road. Brown is to be commended for supporting the professionalism and courage of British soldiers, but he owes them more than words. He owes them brutal honesty in reviewing the political and strategic purpose that is now so costly of that courage.
Unless he is enveloped in sycophants, Brown must be hearing the same intelligence as the rest of us hear and read. Hapless spin doctors can point to schools built here, poppies eradicated there, soldiers "trained" somewhere else. But Kabul is ever more insecure and journeys out of the capital are confined to armoured cars or helicopters.
Monday's remarkable report from inside the Taliban by the Guardian's Ghaith Abdul-Ahad showed his hosts clearly able to roam free through 70% of populated Afghanistan, collecting tribute and dispensing favours and rough justice. Taliban units appear to control the Khyber Pass, forcing all supplies into costly convoys. It can only be a matter of time before they acquire the ground-to-air missiles that enabled them to drive out the Russians in the 1980s. British soldiers dying by the week within miles of their Helmand base indicate the failure of a military campaign launched with such bravado two years ago.
Brown's repeated thesis that the occupation of Helmand is vital "to keep terror from the streets of Britain" is nonsense. It fuels an insurgency that sucks guns, money and recruits into this benighted region. Arrested terrorists in Britain may be lying when they invariably cite the war as their rallying cry, but cite it they do. Brown cannot plausibly cite the antithesis, that they are being deterred by the war in Helmand.
As for blaming Pakistan, its regime has been thoroughly corrupted by American aid for a decade and its border with Afghanistan is beyond policing. Earlier this week, Brown registered his "disgust and horror" at the Taliban insurgency using suicide bombers against British troops. This outrage is hardly novel. Child bombers have been used by insurgents since the Vietcong in Vietnam.
What Brown failed to acknowledge, and what is used by Britain's enemies in Pakistan and elsewhere, is Nato's use of cluster bombs and aerial missiles, knowing that they kill civilians, including children, "collaterally". The coalition has almost certainly killed more children in Afghanistan by its reckless use of tactical air strikes than have died at the hands of the Taliban. War is no place for such hypocrisy.
Nato forces in Kabul are now devoid of strategy. The Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, is proving adept at the old Afghan game of shuffling warlords and druglords. It is common knowledge that lines of contact are opening on every front with commanders of the "new Taliban", whose role in governing a future Afghanistan is beyond dispute. This leaves Nato's leaders - other than America and Britain - justifiably refusing to throw good troops after dead ones. Afghanistan is proving a classic of sunk cost fallacy, with commanders unwilling to change policy for fear of admitting that the existing one has been a colossal failure.
Frankness continues to be the greatest casualty of these wars. Those who cheered on Iraq and Afghanistan - from left as well as right - dare not admit they might have been wrong. Now a rewriting of the Iraq epilogue as a mission well accomplished is acting as a lethal magnet, drawing British policy to similar disaster and British troops to their deaths in Helmand.
The essence of moral judgment is universality. Eager inquirers should now be turning their gaze to the dusty heights of Kabul. Brown may be relying on the army's spirit of "their's not to reason why; their's but to do or die". That is a soldier's duty, but it is not the duty of a democrat. His duty is precisely to reason why.
simon.jenkins@guardian.co.uk
Rosy rewriting of the Iraq debacle will fuel worse disaster in Afghanistan
An inquest into Blair's support for the invasion could fit on a postcard. Eager inquirers should turn their gaze to Kabul
Simon Jenkins
The Guardian,
Friday 19 December 2008
Now they want to bolt the stable door. With British troops at last due to leave Iraq next spring, everyone is for a public inquiry. That is fine. But what about an inquiry into where they are going, straight from the frying pan into the fire, from Iraq to Afghanistan? In Basra the British army had at least a tattered remnant of a war plan. In Helmand the only plan is to be target practice for the Taliban.
The Iraq inquest can be written on a postcard. A British force was sent on the false claim by Tony Blair that Iraq was a threat to Britain. How this made sense was never explained, despite the efforts of Alastair Campbell and his colleagues. It has since emerged that Blair simply could not bring himself to desert the American president, George Bush. That in a nutshell is why 178 British servicemen and women have died in Iraq.
The conduct of the war saw British troops at their professional best. They did not bomb villages, wear lavish armour, or smash their way into women's bedrooms as did the Americans. They were good at hearts and minds. But as months stretched into years, they proved unable to build local leadership and were handicapped by the incompetence and corruption of the Pentagon's provisional executive in Baghdad.
By 2005 they had all but lost control of Basra to local militias. When these started feuding, the British retreated to the airport, leaving Iraqi units (with American help) to achieve an exhausted peace. After five years, Britain has not reconstructed Basra or given it prosperity and stable government as promised. As for finding Blair's weapons of mass destruction, forget it.
The British army commander, General Sir Mike Jackson, said two years ago that the army's best hope in Basra was "withdrawal with honour". That realistic assessment has just about been realised, but it was refreshing yesterday to hear the Archbishop of Canterbury apply one simple word to the Iraq war: "wrong".
The greatest honour Britain could pay the dead of Iraq is to inquire into why any more should die in Afghanistan. Why wait for the same number of soldiers to be killed (already 134)? Why wait for the same multiple of civilian deaths, the same villages bombed, the same infrastructure destroyed? Why wait for the same bombast to die down and truth-telling and realism to gain the upper hand? Why tip another billion pounds into this craziness, billions that we can ill afford?
British diplomats and military experts returning from Kabul have three performance modes. In public they declare Afghanistan to be tough but winnable. In private they admit it is getting worse not better, but might turn round in a decade if only the Afghans were less corrupt. In totally secret mode, their eyes turn to the sky and they declare the whole business a "total effing disaster".
Which mode is ever communicated to Gordon Brown? He has recently returned from Helmand, where he won plaudits for bravely standing without body armour in a British fort. Nobody asked why it should be brave to stand where Britain has supposedly won hearts and minds for two years - if not seven - and why he could not go anywhere by road. Brown is to be commended for supporting the professionalism and courage of British soldiers, but he owes them more than words. He owes them brutal honesty in reviewing the political and strategic purpose that is now so costly of that courage.
Unless he is enveloped in sycophants, Brown must be hearing the same intelligence as the rest of us hear and read. Hapless spin doctors can point to schools built here, poppies eradicated there, soldiers "trained" somewhere else. But Kabul is ever more insecure and journeys out of the capital are confined to armoured cars or helicopters.
Monday's remarkable report from inside the Taliban by the Guardian's Ghaith Abdul-Ahad showed his hosts clearly able to roam free through 70% of populated Afghanistan, collecting tribute and dispensing favours and rough justice. Taliban units appear to control the Khyber Pass, forcing all supplies into costly convoys. It can only be a matter of time before they acquire the ground-to-air missiles that enabled them to drive out the Russians in the 1980s. British soldiers dying by the week within miles of their Helmand base indicate the failure of a military campaign launched with such bravado two years ago.
Brown's repeated thesis that the occupation of Helmand is vital "to keep terror from the streets of Britain" is nonsense. It fuels an insurgency that sucks guns, money and recruits into this benighted region. Arrested terrorists in Britain may be lying when they invariably cite the war as their rallying cry, but cite it they do. Brown cannot plausibly cite the antithesis, that they are being deterred by the war in Helmand.
As for blaming Pakistan, its regime has been thoroughly corrupted by American aid for a decade and its border with Afghanistan is beyond policing. Earlier this week, Brown registered his "disgust and horror" at the Taliban insurgency using suicide bombers against British troops. This outrage is hardly novel. Child bombers have been used by insurgents since the Vietcong in Vietnam.
What Brown failed to acknowledge, and what is used by Britain's enemies in Pakistan and elsewhere, is Nato's use of cluster bombs and aerial missiles, knowing that they kill civilians, including children, "collaterally". The coalition has almost certainly killed more children in Afghanistan by its reckless use of tactical air strikes than have died at the hands of the Taliban. War is no place for such hypocrisy.
Nato forces in Kabul are now devoid of strategy. The Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, is proving adept at the old Afghan game of shuffling warlords and druglords. It is common knowledge that lines of contact are opening on every front with commanders of the "new Taliban", whose role in governing a future Afghanistan is beyond dispute. This leaves Nato's leaders - other than America and Britain - justifiably refusing to throw good troops after dead ones. Afghanistan is proving a classic of sunk cost fallacy, with commanders unwilling to change policy for fear of admitting that the existing one has been a colossal failure.
Frankness continues to be the greatest casualty of these wars. Those who cheered on Iraq and Afghanistan - from left as well as right - dare not admit they might have been wrong. Now a rewriting of the Iraq epilogue as a mission well accomplished is acting as a lethal magnet, drawing British policy to similar disaster and British troops to their deaths in Helmand.
The essence of moral judgment is universality. Eager inquirers should now be turning their gaze to the dusty heights of Kabul. Brown may be relying on the army's spirit of "their's not to reason why; their's but to do or die". That is a soldier's duty, but it is not the duty of a democrat. His duty is precisely to reason why.
simon.jenkins@guardian.co.uk
“What matters to me is I didn't compromise my soul
to be a popular guy." --President George W. Bush
“But what the President stood for and what was important about that trip to Iraq was he got to stand next to a freely elected prime minister of Iraq, in front of journalists who could speak their minds and even vent their anger. … So if America stands for its values, it might not always be popular,
but it will be respected.”
--Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice
to be a popular guy." --President George W. Bush “But what the President stood for and what was important about that trip to Iraq was he got to stand next to a freely elected prime minister of Iraq, in front of journalists who could speak their minds and even vent their anger. … So if America stands for its values, it might not always be popular,
but it will be respected.”
--Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice
VIDEO: Public Diplomacy 2.0 with Undersecretary of State James Glassman – Washington Note: 
"Steve Clemons and James Glassman discuss how the government can use Facebook, YouTube, and other online social networking tools to discourage violent extremism."
"Steve Clemons and James Glassman discuss how the government can use Facebook, YouTube, and other online social networking tools to discourage violent extremism."
Bush and the new soft-shoe: People around the world understood why an Iraqi journalist threw his shoes at Bush - Rosa Brooks, Los Angeles Times: To much of the world -- less rich and less powerful than the United States -- the United States in the Bush era looks like a greedy, bullying nation. 
No surprise if plenty of people would be delighted to emulate Zaidi and throw their own shoes at Bush.
Bush Has Made Us Vulnerable: Two incompetently prosecuted wars have undermined our deterrent power - Mark Helprin, Wall Street Journal: For seven years we failed to devise effective policy or make intelligent arguments for policies that were worth pursuing. Thus we capriciously forfeited the domestic and international political equilibrium without which alliances break apart and wars are seldom won.
Bush Haters Worldwide Finally Have Their Unifying Symbol - Princess Sparkle Pony's Photo Blog I keep track of Condoleezza's hairdo so you don't have to: “Indeed, al-Zeidi performed a valuable public service by providing pretty much the entire world with a single, potent symbol of dislike for our dreadful outgoing president. Well done!”
No surprise if plenty of people would be delighted to emulate Zaidi and throw their own shoes at Bush. Bush Has Made Us Vulnerable: Two incompetently prosecuted wars have undermined our deterrent power - Mark Helprin, Wall Street Journal: For seven years we failed to devise effective policy or make intelligent arguments for policies that were worth pursuing. Thus we capriciously forfeited the domestic and international political equilibrium without which alliances break apart and wars are seldom won.
Bush Haters Worldwide Finally Have Their Unifying Symbol - Princess Sparkle Pony's Photo Blog I keep track of Condoleezza's hairdo so you don't have to: “Indeed, al-Zeidi performed a valuable public service by providing pretty much the entire world with a single, potent symbol of dislike for our dreadful outgoing president. Well done!”
The Bubble of Empire: It's been popped … - Justin Raimondo, Antiwar.com: The idea that the United States is the global hegemon, that we have first dibs on the title of world policemen -- indeed, our entire post-WWII foreign policy -- is nothing but a delusion.
SYRIA COMMENT
12/23/08
Syria is the Only Game in Town
Joshua Landis
Syria is the only game in town for those wishing to advance peace between Arabs and Israel. This has the Jewish right apoplectic. Danielle Pletka who worked under John Bolton in the State Department tries sarcasm and insults in her "The Syrian Strategy" to embarrass those who would advance this strategy.
Barry Rubin, publisher of MERIA journal and author of The Truth About Syria gathered several Washington Institute types such as Patrick Clawson and David Schenker and other likeminded policy types to tell Americans that they are foolish to negotiate with Syria and Iran. Equally foolish is to try to make peace between Arabs and Jews or to withdraw from Iraq anytime soon. Rubin knowingly asserts that Obama's "belief, that [America] can make friends with Iran and Syria, soothe grievances that have caused Islamism and terrorism, and solve the Arab-Israeli conflict …. is a miscalculation about the Middle East."
Americans perennially make the mistake of viewing the Middle East "in Western terms," Rubin informs us, which leads "to frustration and even disaster." Why? Because "You have to inspire fear in your enemies." "Unfortunately, the change they want means wiping other states off the map."
This "good versus evil" world view is repeated by the other participants of this round table, who seem to be nodding at each other in their desire to sound the toxin of existential extinction should the new administration lift its foot off the throat of its Arab and Persian enemies. The US's only choice is to keep its many enemies in the region in a state of abject fear.
David Schenker explains that Bush viewed Bashar al-Assad as "basically as irredeemable." Schenker basically agrees. He worries that "Obama appears to believe that Syria can play a more productive role in the region." To Schenker's chagrin, even "Dennis Ross, himself who is being mentioned as the possible Middle East coordinator has written that Assad should be tested." Dennis Ross is The Washington Institute's counselor and Ziegler distinguished fellow. David Schenker is a senior fellow and director of the Program on Arab Politics at The Washington Institute.
Schenker concedes that if Syria were to flip, and cut its relations with Iran and "jettison Hizballah and Hamas and other Palestinian terrorist groups and move into the Western camp," it would be a good thing. Like, Barry Rubin, Schenker clearly does not expect Syria to do any such thing. To guard against the Golan being given away for what he seems to believe will be nothing, Schenker will have to police the Obama administration and encourage it to make many up front demands for change.
He and his colleagues will work assiduously to hang all kinds of Christmas balls and bobbles on the engagement tree, such that it is hard to imagine any progress or deal being struck. In order to protect her flank from such criticism, Israel's foreign minister Livni reassured Israelis that she would be tough and not accept a "humus" peace. She said,
"What is important to us is not a peace of opening embassies and eating Humus in Damascus, but the halting of arms smuggling through Syria to Hezbollah, their strong ties to Iran and their endless support of terrorist organizations such as Hamas," said the foreign minister.
Olmert has defended his drive to continue negotiations:
Referring to the ongoing indirect talks, Olmert said "the talks with Syria were thorough and important. Removing Syria from the radical axis is one of Israel's top priorities.""Tough sacrifices will be required," Olmert said, "but the prevention of lost lives is worth it. Syria is not interested in belonging to the axis of evil and wants to forge ties with the U.S."
For his part, Bashar al-Assad also has demands and wants to tamp down expectations that he flip. He wants Israelis to agree on the exact 1967 Golan borders, (see: Assad seeks Israeli stance on Golan) so that the two sides will not get stuck in Geneva as they did in 2000 with very different expectations about borders. Assad also told European diplomats that he isn't responsible for restraining Hezbollah, and won't be "Israel's bodyguard."
Syrian President Bashar Assad has told a number of European foreign ministers and senior diplomats this month that he would not lift a finger to restrain Hezbollah's arming in Lebanon. "I am not Israel's bodyguard," he reportedly said…. On the one hand, the officials said their impression was that the Syrian president was serious about negotiations, but that Assad's positions remained uncompromising.
The source said Assad told the Europeans that Syria was willing to take significant steps in talks with Israel only after an Israeli declaration that it would withdraw from the entire Golan Heights.
Assad refuses to make concessions before he gets guarantees about withdrawal. Israel will also refuse to make concessions until it has guarantees.
Another topic that will be interesting to those of us that follow Syria closely is David Schenker's successful enticement of Andrew Tabler to work for the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
Andrew Tabler will give the Institute's Program on Arab Politics some real expertise on Syria. As WINEP's site explains, "Andrew Tabler …. will focus on how to engage Syria in a way that best advances U.S. interests."
Anyone who follows Syria will know Tabler for his long and founding association with "Syria Today," Syria's first English language magazine. He has been a powerful and creative presence in the expat scene in Damascus for almost eight years. This is how Tabler describes himself for WINEP's bio:
A journalist and researcher, Mr. Tabler has achieved unparalleled qualitative and long-term access to Bashar al-Assad's Syria. He is the cofounder and former editor-in-chief of Syria Today, Syria's first private-sector English-language magazine, and has been a media consultant for Syrian nongovernmental organizations (2003-2004) under the patronage of Syrian first lady Asma al-Asad.
Lebanon Now carries a lengthy interview with Tabler as he prepared to leave Beirut, where he has lived half the time.
On the surface, we're [American and Syria] very, very similar. But there are fundamental differences. The Arab world is badly ruled. Its rulers are not accountable to their people, and they often make very bad decisions. Because of that, people keep a lot of their personal feelings to themselves. When you get a chance to know people and find out about how they feel, you realize about their everyday frustrations, especially from the lack of reform. It's not just a lack of democracy. It's a lack of reform in these countries. …
There are many people in Washington right now that believe that Syria can be flipped and so on, and that by getting Syria to agree to sign a peace agreement with Israel is the key. It's true, that if you had a peace treaty between Israel and Syria, it would definitely change the way Syria is regarded by the international community [and] would definitely change the way the regime would govern the country. But there is no silver bullet when it comes to Syria. There is no easy solution. ….
[The Obama people] have indicated they will use sanctions and other punitive measures to cajole their adversaries into cooperation. I expect the Obama administration… to use all the arrows into America's quiver to bring Syria around…. I was the only foreign correspondent to ever travel with the Syrian president on a foreign state visit (China, 2004), and so I understand… [Syria's] strengths and weaknesses. I want to try and make it so that whatever discussions come about are based on Syria as it is as well as what it could realistically be.
What do you think of Syria's role in Lebanon?
I just think it's important to not go back to the way things were in the 1990s. The 1990s for some people was an era of stability. For other people, especially in Lebanon, it was a nightmare. So it's very important for US policymakers… [and] people who work on Syria in general to make sure that the US says very clearly to Syria that whatever happens, we can't go back to the way things were in the 1990s. It's not good for Lebanon, and it's not good for Syria. … I don't think [Obama's] advisors are naïve. I don't think they'll be handing Lebanon back to Syria like in the 1990s. That was the historical exception. This isn't going to happen again. It shouldn't happen again because the first time, it didn't work out very well. Also, perhaps most importantly here, this would also not be very good for Syria. During those years that Syria was in Lebanon and controlled Lebanon, they used Lebanon as the economic lung that stifled economic reform at home. Syria has to reform in order to accommodate the globalization. I recently attended a conference where Obama and McCain's senior foreign policy advisors spoke in detail. I found Obama's advisors very well-informed. We'll have to see, but I'm optimistic.
I must say that I was a bit surprised to hear that Tabler was successfully recruited by WINEP. Some critics argue that the Institute acts as a quasi arm of the pro-Israel lobby. All the same, it does make sense in that it is the most influential Washington think tank on things Middle Eastern, in particular on the Arab-Israeli conflict. Martin Indyk helped to found it and Dennis Ross has hangs his hat there when he isn't working for the president. What is more, precious few think tanks would hire a Syria specialist, so it is quite possible that Tabler had few choices. It is hard to think of a pro-Arab think tank in Washington that supports fellows - certainly not one that would hire a scholar for his knowledge of Syria. Unlike Jewish-Americans, Syrian-Americans don't give money to think tanks, perhaps for the reasons that Tabler outlined in his interview.
As Tabler says, he is the "only foreign correspondent to ever travel with the Syrian president on a foreign state visit (China, 2004), so I imagine that someone in Syria is catching hell for his choice of employer after eight years in Damascus.
12/23/08
Syria is the Only Game in Town
Joshua Landis
Syria is the only game in town for those wishing to advance peace between Arabs and Israel. This has the Jewish right apoplectic. Danielle Pletka who worked under John Bolton in the State Department tries sarcasm and insults in her "The Syrian Strategy" to embarrass those who would advance this strategy.
Barry Rubin, publisher of MERIA journal and author of The Truth About Syria gathered several Washington Institute types such as Patrick Clawson and David Schenker and other likeminded policy types to tell Americans that they are foolish to negotiate with Syria and Iran. Equally foolish is to try to make peace between Arabs and Jews or to withdraw from Iraq anytime soon. Rubin knowingly asserts that Obama's "belief, that [America] can make friends with Iran and Syria, soothe grievances that have caused Islamism and terrorism, and solve the Arab-Israeli conflict …. is a miscalculation about the Middle East."
Americans perennially make the mistake of viewing the Middle East "in Western terms," Rubin informs us, which leads "to frustration and even disaster." Why? Because "You have to inspire fear in your enemies." "Unfortunately, the change they want means wiping other states off the map."
This "good versus evil" world view is repeated by the other participants of this round table, who seem to be nodding at each other in their desire to sound the toxin of existential extinction should the new administration lift its foot off the throat of its Arab and Persian enemies. The US's only choice is to keep its many enemies in the region in a state of abject fear.
David Schenker explains that Bush viewed Bashar al-Assad as "basically as irredeemable." Schenker basically agrees. He worries that "Obama appears to believe that Syria can play a more productive role in the region." To Schenker's chagrin, even "Dennis Ross, himself who is being mentioned as the possible Middle East coordinator has written that Assad should be tested." Dennis Ross is The Washington Institute's counselor and Ziegler distinguished fellow. David Schenker is a senior fellow and director of the Program on Arab Politics at The Washington Institute.
Schenker concedes that if Syria were to flip, and cut its relations with Iran and "jettison Hizballah and Hamas and other Palestinian terrorist groups and move into the Western camp," it would be a good thing. Like, Barry Rubin, Schenker clearly does not expect Syria to do any such thing. To guard against the Golan being given away for what he seems to believe will be nothing, Schenker will have to police the Obama administration and encourage it to make many up front demands for change.
He and his colleagues will work assiduously to hang all kinds of Christmas balls and bobbles on the engagement tree, such that it is hard to imagine any progress or deal being struck. In order to protect her flank from such criticism, Israel's foreign minister Livni reassured Israelis that she would be tough and not accept a "humus" peace. She said,
"What is important to us is not a peace of opening embassies and eating Humus in Damascus, but the halting of arms smuggling through Syria to Hezbollah, their strong ties to Iran and their endless support of terrorist organizations such as Hamas," said the foreign minister.
Olmert has defended his drive to continue negotiations:
Referring to the ongoing indirect talks, Olmert said "the talks with Syria were thorough and important. Removing Syria from the radical axis is one of Israel's top priorities.""Tough sacrifices will be required," Olmert said, "but the prevention of lost lives is worth it. Syria is not interested in belonging to the axis of evil and wants to forge ties with the U.S."
For his part, Bashar al-Assad also has demands and wants to tamp down expectations that he flip. He wants Israelis to agree on the exact 1967 Golan borders, (see: Assad seeks Israeli stance on Golan) so that the two sides will not get stuck in Geneva as they did in 2000 with very different expectations about borders. Assad also told European diplomats that he isn't responsible for restraining Hezbollah, and won't be "Israel's bodyguard."
Syrian President Bashar Assad has told a number of European foreign ministers and senior diplomats this month that he would not lift a finger to restrain Hezbollah's arming in Lebanon. "I am not Israel's bodyguard," he reportedly said…. On the one hand, the officials said their impression was that the Syrian president was serious about negotiations, but that Assad's positions remained uncompromising.
The source said Assad told the Europeans that Syria was willing to take significant steps in talks with Israel only after an Israeli declaration that it would withdraw from the entire Golan Heights.
Assad refuses to make concessions before he gets guarantees about withdrawal. Israel will also refuse to make concessions until it has guarantees.
Another topic that will be interesting to those of us that follow Syria closely is David Schenker's successful enticement of Andrew Tabler to work for the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
Andrew Tabler will give the Institute's Program on Arab Politics some real expertise on Syria. As WINEP's site explains, "Andrew Tabler …. will focus on how to engage Syria in a way that best advances U.S. interests."
Anyone who follows Syria will know Tabler for his long and founding association with "Syria Today," Syria's first English language magazine. He has been a powerful and creative presence in the expat scene in Damascus for almost eight years. This is how Tabler describes himself for WINEP's bio:
A journalist and researcher, Mr. Tabler has achieved unparalleled qualitative and long-term access to Bashar al-Assad's Syria. He is the cofounder and former editor-in-chief of Syria Today, Syria's first private-sector English-language magazine, and has been a media consultant for Syrian nongovernmental organizations (2003-2004) under the patronage of Syrian first lady Asma al-Asad.
Lebanon Now carries a lengthy interview with Tabler as he prepared to leave Beirut, where he has lived half the time.
On the surface, we're [American and Syria] very, very similar. But there are fundamental differences. The Arab world is badly ruled. Its rulers are not accountable to their people, and they often make very bad decisions. Because of that, people keep a lot of their personal feelings to themselves. When you get a chance to know people and find out about how they feel, you realize about their everyday frustrations, especially from the lack of reform. It's not just a lack of democracy. It's a lack of reform in these countries. …
There are many people in Washington right now that believe that Syria can be flipped and so on, and that by getting Syria to agree to sign a peace agreement with Israel is the key. It's true, that if you had a peace treaty between Israel and Syria, it would definitely change the way Syria is regarded by the international community [and] would definitely change the way the regime would govern the country. But there is no silver bullet when it comes to Syria. There is no easy solution. ….
[The Obama people] have indicated they will use sanctions and other punitive measures to cajole their adversaries into cooperation. I expect the Obama administration… to use all the arrows into America's quiver to bring Syria around…. I was the only foreign correspondent to ever travel with the Syrian president on a foreign state visit (China, 2004), and so I understand… [Syria's] strengths and weaknesses. I want to try and make it so that whatever discussions come about are based on Syria as it is as well as what it could realistically be.
What do you think of Syria's role in Lebanon?
I just think it's important to not go back to the way things were in the 1990s. The 1990s for some people was an era of stability. For other people, especially in Lebanon, it was a nightmare. So it's very important for US policymakers… [and] people who work on Syria in general to make sure that the US says very clearly to Syria that whatever happens, we can't go back to the way things were in the 1990s. It's not good for Lebanon, and it's not good for Syria. … I don't think [Obama's] advisors are naïve. I don't think they'll be handing Lebanon back to Syria like in the 1990s. That was the historical exception. This isn't going to happen again. It shouldn't happen again because the first time, it didn't work out very well. Also, perhaps most importantly here, this would also not be very good for Syria. During those years that Syria was in Lebanon and controlled Lebanon, they used Lebanon as the economic lung that stifled economic reform at home. Syria has to reform in order to accommodate the globalization. I recently attended a conference where Obama and McCain's senior foreign policy advisors spoke in detail. I found Obama's advisors very well-informed. We'll have to see, but I'm optimistic.
I must say that I was a bit surprised to hear that Tabler was successfully recruited by WINEP. Some critics argue that the Institute acts as a quasi arm of the pro-Israel lobby. All the same, it does make sense in that it is the most influential Washington think tank on things Middle Eastern, in particular on the Arab-Israeli conflict. Martin Indyk helped to found it and Dennis Ross has hangs his hat there when he isn't working for the president. What is more, precious few think tanks would hire a Syria specialist, so it is quite possible that Tabler had few choices. It is hard to think of a pro-Arab think tank in Washington that supports fellows - certainly not one that would hire a scholar for his knowledge of Syria. Unlike Jewish-Americans, Syrian-Americans don't give money to think tanks, perhaps for the reasons that Tabler outlined in his interview.
As Tabler says, he is the "only foreign correspondent to ever travel with the Syrian president on a foreign state visit (China, 2004), so I imagine that someone in Syria is catching hell for his choice of employer after eight years in Damascus.
ABU AARDVARK 12/23/08
Despite the optimism, Iraq is close to the edge[/color]
Troops are preparing to withdraw as a peace of sorts descends, yet all the elements for civil war remain. Barack Obama will need all the goodwill he can garner
Toby Dodge
From the Guardian (UK) -- George W Bush, barely a month away from leaving office, flew to Baghdad last weekend for an eight-hour visit. On Wednesday, it was Gordon Brown's turn. The arrival of president and prime minister in the Iraqi capital is part of a concerted effort to draw a line under the debacle that [color="black"]Iraq has become for the American and British governments. After nearly six years of occupation, Bush was keen to stress the progress he claimed had been made.
"The Iraq we're standing in today is dramatically freer, dramatically safer and dramatically better," he told American troops. Brown was a little more circumspect, simply declaring: "We leave Iraq a better place." The startling actions of Iraqi journalist Muntazar al-Zaidi in throwing his shoes at Bush indicates that all is not as positive as Bush would have the world believe. There is a grave danger that by overstating the good news from Iraq, both Bush and Brown are making a return to civil war more likely.
I have been travelling back and forth to Iraq for the last seven years. I witnessed the violent aftermath of the invasion in the spring of 2003 when looting and lawlessness descended into an all out insurgency. I returned in 2007 to see a country in the midst of civil war. On my last trip to Iraq this year, the population was holding its breath, waiting to see if the internecine strife had finished or simply stalled while all sides rearm.
Bush and Brown's visits were heralded by what could be a final date for both US and British troops to go home. The agreement between Baghdad and Washington, passed by the Iraqi parliament at the end of November, should see US combat troops removed from all Iraqi cities by June and then out of the country entirely by the end of 2011. Britain's remaining 4,000 soldiers in Basra will leave Iraq by July. With an end to the occupation in sight, both Bush and Brown are attempting to put the best possible gloss on a military adventure that has seen 178 British and 4,209 Americans troops killed and anything between 90,000 and 650,000 Iraqi deaths.
Anglo-American declarations of progress and stability need to be treated with caution. Even today, Iraq is far from peaceful; an average of 500 people are murdered each month, making it one of the most dangerous countries in the world. Baghdad at the end of 2008 is a deeply divided city. Neighborhoods that were religiously and ethnically cleansed by the wave of violence that engulfed the city before 2007 are now fortified by row upon row of concrete blast walls.
Bush "surged" US troops at the beginning of 2007 to reduce violence and trigger some form of political reconciliation and a negotiated settlement. This is yet to happen, so there is a real danger all-out conflict could reignite. Bush and Brown are loathe to use the term "civil war" to describe what took place in Iraq in 2006 and 2007 but this is exactly what happened.
The manner in which key political groups responded to the violence raises grave doubts about the future stability of the country. In the wake of al-Qaida car bomb and suicide attacks, militias claiming to represent the Shia community retaliated, abducting and murdering innocent Sunni men across Baghdad. This cycle of atrocity and counter-atrocity resulted in the murder of 3,700 people in October 2006 alone. Some were victims of car bombs but the majority of the dead had been bound, frequently tortured and shot in the back of the head, the work of death squads claiming to defend the Shia community of Baghdad.
The ultimate aim of this campaign was to reduce drastically the numbers of Sunnis resident in Baghdad. Previously affluent suburbs on the western side of the Tigris such as Mansour and Yarmouk were targeted for violent population transfer. There is also strong circumstantial evidence to suggest that government services were withdrawn from these areas as part of a co-ordinated campaign to drive Sunnis from Baghdad. In early 2007, as I travelled through these previously affluent suburbs of Baghdad, I found them to be largely deserted, their markets and shops closed, their populations either trapped inside their houses or forced to flee.
The optimism that both Bush and Brown displayed in Baghdad is naive. Al-Qaida in Mesopotamia have shown that they have the continuing ability to send car and suicide bombers into Baghdad. Across Iraq as a whole, there were 24 such attacks in November alone. The problem is that without meaningful political reconciliation and a sustainable peace deal, Iraq could once again descend into all-out civil war.
After nearly almost six years of occupation, a US withdrawal from Iraq is both inevitable and desirable. There is little that the Americans can now achieve on their own. Obama has committed his government to having all of its combat troops out of the country within 16 months of him entering the White House. Even with a clear electoral mandate to pursue this policy, there are potential problems he has to avoid. If violence does increase as he draws down US troops, then the Republicans and especially ex-President Bush will accuse him of "losing Iraq", of squandering the gains in security made in the two years before he took office.
There is a way of reducing this risk. The election of Obama was greeted with something like a global sigh of relief. The new American president will enter the White House with an immense amount of international goodwill. He could utilise this in Iraq to very good effect. Obama's international influence will be at its peak when he visits the United Nations in New York for the first time as president. A speech before the General Assembly will have to acknowledge the damage that his predecessor did to America's standing in the world. A clear request for international help in sorting Iraq out would have immense appeal.
Iraq faces two elections in 2009. The first, in January, is for provincial councils in the south and centre of the country. The second, more important, one in December will elect a new parliament which, in turn, will pick the next prime minister. It is hard to overstate the importance of this election. If successful, it has the potential to revitalise Iraq's governing elite, bringing in new, more representative politicians and reconnecting the ruling elite, presently tucked away in the Green Zone, with their long-suffering electorate.
There is a grave danger that the elections could be undermined, either by increased violence or by widespread electoral fraud. At present, the United Nations is set to play a minor role in the elections. By December, the US, already redeployed to remote bases, will also have little ability to oversee the vote. However, Obama could use the Iraqi national elections as a vehicle for greatly increasing the international community's involvement in Iraq.
An appeal by him at the UN for assistance would be hard to reject. This could act as the trigger for much greater international participation in the country, reducing the potential for Iraq to descend into civil war and help the United States to withdraw without leaving a political vacuum in Baghdad. The alternative was on display in Baghdad last week, the unrealistic and deeply opportunistic optimism of Bush and Brown. That approach offers little help to Iraq beyond wishful thinking.
Toby Dodge teaches Middle Eastern politics at Queen Mary University of London.
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Despite the optimism, Iraq is close to the edge[/color]
Troops are preparing to withdraw as a peace of sorts descends, yet all the elements for civil war remain. Barack Obama will need all the goodwill he can garner
Toby Dodge
From the Guardian (UK) -- George W Bush, barely a month away from leaving office, flew to Baghdad last weekend for an eight-hour visit. On Wednesday, it was Gordon Brown's turn. The arrival of president and prime minister in the Iraqi capital is part of a concerted effort to draw a line under the debacle that [color="black"]Iraq has become for the American and British governments. After nearly six years of occupation, Bush was keen to stress the progress he claimed had been made.
"The Iraq we're standing in today is dramatically freer, dramatically safer and dramatically better," he told American troops. Brown was a little more circumspect, simply declaring: "We leave Iraq a better place." The startling actions of Iraqi journalist Muntazar al-Zaidi in throwing his shoes at Bush indicates that all is not as positive as Bush would have the world believe. There is a grave danger that by overstating the good news from Iraq, both Bush and Brown are making a return to civil war more likely.
I have been travelling back and forth to Iraq for the last seven years. I witnessed the violent aftermath of the invasion in the spring of 2003 when looting and lawlessness descended into an all out insurgency. I returned in 2007 to see a country in the midst of civil war. On my last trip to Iraq this year, the population was holding its breath, waiting to see if the internecine strife had finished or simply stalled while all sides rearm.
Bush and Brown's visits were heralded by what could be a final date for both US and British troops to go home. The agreement between Baghdad and Washington, passed by the Iraqi parliament at the end of November, should see US combat troops removed from all Iraqi cities by June and then out of the country entirely by the end of 2011. Britain's remaining 4,000 soldiers in Basra will leave Iraq by July. With an end to the occupation in sight, both Bush and Brown are attempting to put the best possible gloss on a military adventure that has seen 178 British and 4,209 Americans troops killed and anything between 90,000 and 650,000 Iraqi deaths.
Anglo-American declarations of progress and stability need to be treated with caution. Even today, Iraq is far from peaceful; an average of 500 people are murdered each month, making it one of the most dangerous countries in the world. Baghdad at the end of 2008 is a deeply divided city. Neighborhoods that were religiously and ethnically cleansed by the wave of violence that engulfed the city before 2007 are now fortified by row upon row of concrete blast walls.
Bush "surged" US troops at the beginning of 2007 to reduce violence and trigger some form of political reconciliation and a negotiated settlement. This is yet to happen, so there is a real danger all-out conflict could reignite. Bush and Brown are loathe to use the term "civil war" to describe what took place in Iraq in 2006 and 2007 but this is exactly what happened.
The manner in which key political groups responded to the violence raises grave doubts about the future stability of the country. In the wake of al-Qaida car bomb and suicide attacks, militias claiming to represent the Shia community retaliated, abducting and murdering innocent Sunni men across Baghdad. This cycle of atrocity and counter-atrocity resulted in the murder of 3,700 people in October 2006 alone. Some were victims of car bombs but the majority of the dead had been bound, frequently tortured and shot in the back of the head, the work of death squads claiming to defend the Shia community of Baghdad.
The ultimate aim of this campaign was to reduce drastically the numbers of Sunnis resident in Baghdad. Previously affluent suburbs on the western side of the Tigris such as Mansour and Yarmouk were targeted for violent population transfer. There is also strong circumstantial evidence to suggest that government services were withdrawn from these areas as part of a co-ordinated campaign to drive Sunnis from Baghdad. In early 2007, as I travelled through these previously affluent suburbs of Baghdad, I found them to be largely deserted, their markets and shops closed, their populations either trapped inside their houses or forced to flee.
The optimism that both Bush and Brown displayed in Baghdad is naive. Al-Qaida in Mesopotamia have shown that they have the continuing ability to send car and suicide bombers into Baghdad. Across Iraq as a whole, there were 24 such attacks in November alone. The problem is that without meaningful political reconciliation and a sustainable peace deal, Iraq could once again descend into all-out civil war.
After nearly almost six years of occupation, a US withdrawal from Iraq is both inevitable and desirable. There is little that the Americans can now achieve on their own. Obama has committed his government to having all of its combat troops out of the country within 16 months of him entering the White House. Even with a clear electoral mandate to pursue this policy, there are potential problems he has to avoid. If violence does increase as he draws down US troops, then the Republicans and especially ex-President Bush will accuse him of "losing Iraq", of squandering the gains in security made in the two years before he took office.
There is a way of reducing this risk. The election of Obama was greeted with something like a global sigh of relief. The new American president will enter the White House with an immense amount of international goodwill. He could utilise this in Iraq to very good effect. Obama's international influence will be at its peak when he visits the United Nations in New York for the first time as president. A speech before the General Assembly will have to acknowledge the damage that his predecessor did to America's standing in the world. A clear request for international help in sorting Iraq out would have immense appeal.
Iraq faces two elections in 2009. The first, in January, is for provincial councils in the south and centre of the country. The second, more important, one in December will elect a new parliament which, in turn, will pick the next prime minister. It is hard to overstate the importance of this election. If successful, it has the potential to revitalise Iraq's governing elite, bringing in new, more representative politicians and reconnecting the ruling elite, presently tucked away in the Green Zone, with their long-suffering electorate.
There is a grave danger that the elections could be undermined, either by increased violence or by widespread electoral fraud. At present, the United Nations is set to play a minor role in the elections. By December, the US, already redeployed to remote bases, will also have little ability to oversee the vote. However, Obama could use the Iraqi national elections as a vehicle for greatly increasing the international community's involvement in Iraq.
An appeal by him at the UN for assistance would be hard to reject. This could act as the trigger for much greater international participation in the country, reducing the potential for Iraq to descend into civil war and help the United States to withdraw without leaving a political vacuum in Baghdad. The alternative was on display in Baghdad last week, the unrealistic and deeply opportunistic optimism of Bush and Brown. That approach offers little help to Iraq beyond wishful thinking.
Toby Dodge teaches Middle Eastern politics at Queen Mary University of London.
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Gas Producers' Club, Based on OPEC, Will Have Doha Headquarters
By Lucian Kim and Stephen Bierman
Dec. 24 (Bloomberg) -- Russia, Iran and other countries controlling the world's biggest natural-gas reserves agreed to coordinate forecasts, investments and relations with consumers to defend their market interests amid volatile energy prices.
The 15-member Gas Exporting Countries Forum, which adopted a charter in Moscow yesterday, will locate the headquarters of its new secretariat in Doha, Qatar, the biggest source for world liquefied natural gas shipments. LNG may eventually form the basis for more global gas trading.
Western consumer countries have warned against a "gas OPEC" modeled after the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries. Producers will face a challenge shaping the market, where 70 percent of gas is still sent by pipeline to regional consumers and no global benchmark price exists on an exchange.
"This is a significant event for the market," Russian President Dmitry Medvedev told reporters after the meeting. "Global stability, energy security and the balance of interests between exporters, transit states and consumers depend on the agreed position of the exporting countries."
The charter transforms it from a loose, consultative body into a formal organization. Russia, which spearheaded the drive for closer coordination, says gas producers won't be able to copy OPEC and need a forum similar to the International Energy Agency, which represents consumer nations.
"A new organization was born today," Russian Energy Minister Sergei Shmatko said. "We didn't limit ourselves in any of the tasks facing gas producers. We agreed that nothing would be off-limits." The group will choose a secretary-general at its meeting next year, Shmatko said.
Regional Market
Unlike oil, which is traded internationally and has global exchange-based prices, gas is sold regionally, frequently under long-term, private contracts where pricing is more opaque. Where exchange-based prices exist, they reflect local supply and demand fluctuations.
On the New York Mercantile Exchange, U.S. natural gas futures fell to $5.294 per million British thermal units on Dec. 22, the lowest settlement since September 2006, before rallying yesterday. The decline reflects the drop in crude oil, which has fallen about 60 percent this year.
"Coordination will prevent unnecessary and harmful competition in the market that may be to the detriment of exports," Iranian Oil Minister Gholamhossein Nozari told the forum. Gas market participants should be able to "adjust and revise gas export prices whenever necessary." Yesterday's summit in Moscow was postponed several times amid reports that member nations disagreed over the group's future direction.
Oil Volatility
OPEC itself failed to prevent oil rising to a record $147.27 a barrel in July, driven by demand from China and other Asian economies and speculative purchases. The oil producers' group has also been unable to stem the plunge in oil to below $40 this week amid recession in the U.S. and Europe, even with an announced cut of 4.2 million barrels a day in production from its September levels.
Venezuelan Energy Minister Rafael Ramirez told the Moscow meeting that gas producers should adopt the "same principles" as OPEC. "We need mechanisms and tools that will let us better interact between gas exporters to avoid competition," he said.
Russia, which supplies a quarter of Europe's gas, has argued that the gas market can't be compared with the spot trades and mobility of the global oil market. The world's largest crude producer outside of OPEC, Russia has been reluctant to coordinate supply cuts with other countries.
Doha Selection
"I believe exporters can find the balance between competition and the harmonization of their energy policies," Shmatko said. "Our most important task is the synchronization of our investment plans so that oversupply doesn't emerge in one part of the world that would put pressure on prices."
Doha beat competition from three other cities to host the forum's permanent secretariat. St. Petersburg, Algiers and Tehran were also under consideration.
OPEC was founded in 1960 by Venezuela, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. The Gas Exporting Countries Forum held its first meeting in Tehran in 2001.
Forum members include Algeria, Bolivia, Brunei, Egypt, Equatorial Guinea, Indonesia, Iran, Libya, Malaysia, Nigeria, Qatar, Russia, Trinidad & Tobago, the United Arab Emirates and Venezuela. Norway and Kazakhstan have observer status.
Largest Producer
Russia is the world's largest natural gas producer, with output of 607 billion cubic meters in 2007, according to BP Plc statistics. Iran produced 112 billion, Algeria 83 billion and Qatar 60 billion that year. Production in the U.S. in 2007 was 546 billion cubic metres, and in Canada 184 billion.
Russia also has the largest proven natural gas reserves in the world, with 44.7 trillion cubic meters at the end of 2007, followed by Iran with 27.8 trillion and Qatar with 25.6 trillion.
The meeting coincides with a dispute between Russia and Ukraine over gas supplies. Russia has told its neighbor, which ships about four-fifths of the nation's gas exports to Europe via its pipelines, that it will cut deliveries in the event of a failure to be paid for energy shipments in 2008.
To contact the reporters on this story: Lucian Kim in Moscow at lkim3@bloomberg.net; Stephen Bierman in Moscow at sbierman1@bloomberg.net
Last Updated: December 23, 2008
By Lucian Kim and Stephen Bierman
Dec. 24 (Bloomberg) -- Russia, Iran and other countries controlling the world's biggest natural-gas reserves agreed to coordinate forecasts, investments and relations with consumers to defend their market interests amid volatile energy prices.
The 15-member Gas Exporting Countries Forum, which adopted a charter in Moscow yesterday, will locate the headquarters of its new secretariat in Doha, Qatar, the biggest source for world liquefied natural gas shipments. LNG may eventually form the basis for more global gas trading.
Western consumer countries have warned against a "gas OPEC" modeled after the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries. Producers will face a challenge shaping the market, where 70 percent of gas is still sent by pipeline to regional consumers and no global benchmark price exists on an exchange.
"This is a significant event for the market," Russian President Dmitry Medvedev told reporters after the meeting. "Global stability, energy security and the balance of interests between exporters, transit states and consumers depend on the agreed position of the exporting countries."
The charter transforms it from a loose, consultative body into a formal organization. Russia, which spearheaded the drive for closer coordination, says gas producers won't be able to copy OPEC and need a forum similar to the International Energy Agency, which represents consumer nations.
"A new organization was born today," Russian Energy Minister Sergei Shmatko said. "We didn't limit ourselves in any of the tasks facing gas producers. We agreed that nothing would be off-limits." The group will choose a secretary-general at its meeting next year, Shmatko said.
Regional Market
Unlike oil, which is traded internationally and has global exchange-based prices, gas is sold regionally, frequently under long-term, private contracts where pricing is more opaque. Where exchange-based prices exist, they reflect local supply and demand fluctuations.
On the New York Mercantile Exchange, U.S. natural gas futures fell to $5.294 per million British thermal units on Dec. 22, the lowest settlement since September 2006, before rallying yesterday. The decline reflects the drop in crude oil, which has fallen about 60 percent this year.
"Coordination will prevent unnecessary and harmful competition in the market that may be to the detriment of exports," Iranian Oil Minister Gholamhossein Nozari told the forum. Gas market participants should be able to "adjust and revise gas export prices whenever necessary." Yesterday's summit in Moscow was postponed several times amid reports that member nations disagreed over the group's future direction.
Oil Volatility
OPEC itself failed to prevent oil rising to a record $147.27 a barrel in July, driven by demand from China and other Asian economies and speculative purchases. The oil producers' group has also been unable to stem the plunge in oil to below $40 this week amid recession in the U.S. and Europe, even with an announced cut of 4.2 million barrels a day in production from its September levels.
Venezuelan Energy Minister Rafael Ramirez told the Moscow meeting that gas producers should adopt the "same principles" as OPEC. "We need mechanisms and tools that will let us better interact between gas exporters to avoid competition," he said.
Russia, which supplies a quarter of Europe's gas, has argued that the gas market can't be compared with the spot trades and mobility of the global oil market. The world's largest crude producer outside of OPEC, Russia has been reluctant to coordinate supply cuts with other countries.
Doha Selection
"I believe exporters can find the balance between competition and the harmonization of their energy policies," Shmatko said. "Our most important task is the synchronization of our investment plans so that oversupply doesn't emerge in one part of the world that would put pressure on prices."
Doha beat competition from three other cities to host the forum's permanent secretariat. St. Petersburg, Algiers and Tehran were also under consideration.
OPEC was founded in 1960 by Venezuela, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. The Gas Exporting Countries Forum held its first meeting in Tehran in 2001.
Forum members include Algeria, Bolivia, Brunei, Egypt, Equatorial Guinea, Indonesia, Iran, Libya, Malaysia, Nigeria, Qatar, Russia, Trinidad & Tobago, the United Arab Emirates and Venezuela. Norway and Kazakhstan have observer status.
Largest Producer
Russia is the world's largest natural gas producer, with output of 607 billion cubic meters in 2007, according to BP Plc statistics. Iran produced 112 billion, Algeria 83 billion and Qatar 60 billion that year. Production in the U.S. in 2007 was 546 billion cubic metres, and in Canada 184 billion.
Russia also has the largest proven natural gas reserves in the world, with 44.7 trillion cubic meters at the end of 2007, followed by Iran with 27.8 trillion and Qatar with 25.6 trillion.
The meeting coincides with a dispute between Russia and Ukraine over gas supplies. Russia has told its neighbor, which ships about four-fifths of the nation's gas exports to Europe via its pipelines, that it will cut deliveries in the event of a failure to be paid for energy shipments in 2008.
To contact the reporters on this story: Lucian Kim in Moscow at lkim3@bloomberg.net; Stephen Bierman in Moscow at sbierman1@bloomberg.net
Last Updated: December 23, 2008
A short path, from Gaza to Somalia
By Daniel Levy
As the defined period for the Gaza cease-fire comes to an end today, preceded by a new cycle of violence, Israelis are being treated to a predictable dose of political posturing and chest-thumping. "We must do something, exact a price," we hear. Yes, the rocket fire needs to stop, but there is no military answer to this predicament.
To recap: For most of the six months of the cease-fire, relative quiet prevailed, and life returned to near-normal for the residents of Sderot and environs (though not for Gazans, who remained under siege). Then on November 4, an Israeli operation sparked a new round of dangerous, if controlled, violence - characterized by occasional Israeli strikes and incursions, matched by Palestinian rockets and shooting across the border.
The cease-fire, while far from ideal, was an improvement over what had preceded it. Of course, Hamas sought to upgrade its military and defensive capacities during this period, as Israel should have been doing on the other side of the border - it would have been absurd to expect otherwise. Hopefully, cooler heads will prevail and the cease-fire will be extended - it is in the interests of both sides. The military alternative is not an attractive one - from Israel's side, escalation leading to partial or full reoccupation of Gaza, from Hamas, rockets and perhaps armed attacks from the West Bank in response. It also has no obvious exit strategy.
But the debate in Israel about continuing the cease-fire largely misses the point. Whether or not it's extended, Israel's overall approach toward Gaza is dangerously mistaken. A siege designed to depose Hamas rule (a problematic goal in itself, but that's another story) risks triggering a social collapse that would have devastating consequences for all concerned. Anyone in search of a cautionary tale, and a peek at a possible future scenario for Gaza, should look at Somalia - which has the dubious distinction of having reintroduced piracy to the daily news lexicon, and from which Ethiopian troops are now planning to withdraw following an ugly two-year occupation.
Somalia has gone through 17 years of impoverishment, chaos, destruction and warlords, featuring 13 transitional governments - and is somehow still getting worse. In June 2006, having overrun most of the country, a coalition known as the Islamic Courts Union (ICU), together with businessmen and clan leaders, ousted the various warlords and the woefully ineffectual Somali Transitional Federal Government (TFG) from the capital Mogadishu. The following months of ICU rule, despite the often unpopular imposition of strict Islamic law, according to The New York Times, "turned out to be one of the most peaceful periods in modern Somali history."
But that December, the Ethiopian military, with American support and at the invitation of the discredited TFG, invaded Somalia and has been there ever since. Though the initial military victory was a rout, the illegitimacy and brutality of the Ethiopian presence soon led to the inevitable - a bloody insurgency.
The insurgents, now divided and including the ICU and other armed factions, are winning. The Ethiopian military and a small African Union force are readying their withdrawal, and the TFG is bitterly divided. The future looks bleak.
What, if anything, might Israel learn from all this?
The humanitarian crisis in Gaza is beginning to approximate that of Somalia, where 77 percent of the population requires emergency humanitarian support, and the rate of malnutrition is the world's highest. Food insecurity in Gaza currently runs at 56 percent and is deteriorating rapidly, 42 percent of the Strip's population is unemployed and 76 percent is receiving humanitarian assistance (all UN figures). Harsh closures have effectively led to Gaza becoming deindustrialized, and Israeli reluctance even to replenish tattered banknotes is demonetizing the economy. There is a slippery slope from an entrenched humanitarian crisis into bloody anarchy and ungovernable chaos - especially when arms are ubiquitous and there is an open wound of unresolved national grievance.
One thing that can prevent a descent into the abyss is the existence of recognized and accepted political leadership. At the very least, Hamas today is an address for possible deals and decision-making, but Israel's assassinations and imprisonment of its leaders take their toll. An Israeli military escalation would likely accelerate the splintering of Hamas' leadership and the emergence of more radical alternatives; that was the effect of Ethiopia's intervention in its backyard. Both Somalia and Palestine are in need of broad and inclusive power-sharing arrangements, brokered internationally and insulated from neighborhood vetoes.
If Israel were again to find itself stuck in Gaza, don't expect international forces to come riding to the rescue. Ethiopia's military hoped to be replaced by an internationally sanctioned African Union force, but the troops couldn't be summoned. Handing over a Gaza that's been re-invaded by Israel to Arab and international forces is equally unrealistic.
Finally, there is the destabilizing regional effect of failed states. In Somalia's case, it was Eritrea and Djibouti that bore the brunt of the impact, in addition to Ethiopia, and of course the infamous piracy in the oil-shipping lanes of the Gulf of Aden. Alongside Israel, Egypt is most immediately affected by turmoil in Gaza - with potentially severe consequences for regime stability and legitimacy, and for security in the Sinai and beyond.
Gaza is not yet Somalia. But the warning signs are there. There was nothing inevitable about the disintegration of Somalia. It happened as a result of misguided policies - notably of the current Bush administration and Ethiopia - which should not be repeated by Israel in Gaza.
Israel must do more than extend a cease-fire - Israel must allow Gaza to breathe, to reconnect to the world, to live on more than international handouts, and to reclaim its dignity. Could Hamas benefit in the short term? Perhaps. But worse things can happen - and not just to the Palestinians. For Israel, too, much is at stake. It's no fun to live in a Somalia, and no picnic either being its next-door neighbor.
Daniel Levy, a senior fellow at the New America and Century Foundations, was previously an adviser in the Israeli Prime Minister's Office, and the lead Israeli drafter of the Geneva Initiative.
By Daniel Levy
As the defined period for the Gaza cease-fire comes to an end today, preceded by a new cycle of violence, Israelis are being treated to a predictable dose of political posturing and chest-thumping. "We must do something, exact a price," we hear. Yes, the rocket fire needs to stop, but there is no military answer to this predicament.
To recap: For most of the six months of the cease-fire, relative quiet prevailed, and life returned to near-normal for the residents of Sderot and environs (though not for Gazans, who remained under siege). Then on November 4, an Israeli operation sparked a new round of dangerous, if controlled, violence - characterized by occasional Israeli strikes and incursions, matched by Palestinian rockets and shooting across the border.
The cease-fire, while far from ideal, was an improvement over what had preceded it. Of course, Hamas sought to upgrade its military and defensive capacities during this period, as Israel should have been doing on the other side of the border - it would have been absurd to expect otherwise. Hopefully, cooler heads will prevail and the cease-fire will be extended - it is in the interests of both sides. The military alternative is not an attractive one - from Israel's side, escalation leading to partial or full reoccupation of Gaza, from Hamas, rockets and perhaps armed attacks from the West Bank in response. It also has no obvious exit strategy.
But the debate in Israel about continuing the cease-fire largely misses the point. Whether or not it's extended, Israel's overall approach toward Gaza is dangerously mistaken. A siege designed to depose Hamas rule (a problematic goal in itself, but that's another story) risks triggering a social collapse that would have devastating consequences for all concerned. Anyone in search of a cautionary tale, and a peek at a possible future scenario for Gaza, should look at Somalia - which has the dubious distinction of having reintroduced piracy to the daily news lexicon, and from which Ethiopian troops are now planning to withdraw following an ugly two-year occupation.
Somalia has gone through 17 years of impoverishment, chaos, destruction and warlords, featuring 13 transitional governments - and is somehow still getting worse. In June 2006, having overrun most of the country, a coalition known as the Islamic Courts Union (ICU), together with businessmen and clan leaders, ousted the various warlords and the woefully ineffectual Somali Transitional Federal Government (TFG) from the capital Mogadishu. The following months of ICU rule, despite the often unpopular imposition of strict Islamic law, according to The New York Times, "turned out to be one of the most peaceful periods in modern Somali history."
But that December, the Ethiopian military, with American support and at the invitation of the discredited TFG, invaded Somalia and has been there ever since. Though the initial military victory was a rout, the illegitimacy and brutality of the Ethiopian presence soon led to the inevitable - a bloody insurgency.
The insurgents, now divided and including the ICU and other armed factions, are winning. The Ethiopian military and a small African Union force are readying their withdrawal, and the TFG is bitterly divided. The future looks bleak.
What, if anything, might Israel learn from all this?
The humanitarian crisis in Gaza is beginning to approximate that of Somalia, where 77 percent of the population requires emergency humanitarian support, and the rate of malnutrition is the world's highest. Food insecurity in Gaza currently runs at 56 percent and is deteriorating rapidly, 42 percent of the Strip's population is unemployed and 76 percent is receiving humanitarian assistance (all UN figures). Harsh closures have effectively led to Gaza becoming deindustrialized, and Israeli reluctance even to replenish tattered banknotes is demonetizing the economy. There is a slippery slope from an entrenched humanitarian crisis into bloody anarchy and ungovernable chaos - especially when arms are ubiquitous and there is an open wound of unresolved national grievance.
One thing that can prevent a descent into the abyss is the existence of recognized and accepted political leadership. At the very least, Hamas today is an address for possible deals and decision-making, but Israel's assassinations and imprisonment of its leaders take their toll. An Israeli military escalation would likely accelerate the splintering of Hamas' leadership and the emergence of more radical alternatives; that was the effect of Ethiopia's intervention in its backyard. Both Somalia and Palestine are in need of broad and inclusive power-sharing arrangements, brokered internationally and insulated from neighborhood vetoes.
If Israel were again to find itself stuck in Gaza, don't expect international forces to come riding to the rescue. Ethiopia's military hoped to be replaced by an internationally sanctioned African Union force, but the troops couldn't be summoned. Handing over a Gaza that's been re-invaded by Israel to Arab and international forces is equally unrealistic.
Finally, there is the destabilizing regional effect of failed states. In Somalia's case, it was Eritrea and Djibouti that bore the brunt of the impact, in addition to Ethiopia, and of course the infamous piracy in the oil-shipping lanes of the Gulf of Aden. Alongside Israel, Egypt is most immediately affected by turmoil in Gaza - with potentially severe consequences for regime stability and legitimacy, and for security in the Sinai and beyond.
Gaza is not yet Somalia. But the warning signs are there. There was nothing inevitable about the disintegration of Somalia. It happened as a result of misguided policies - notably of the current Bush administration and Ethiopia - which should not be repeated by Israel in Gaza.
Israel must do more than extend a cease-fire - Israel must allow Gaza to breathe, to reconnect to the world, to live on more than international handouts, and to reclaim its dignity. Could Hamas benefit in the short term? Perhaps. But worse things can happen - and not just to the Palestinians. For Israel, too, much is at stake. It's no fun to live in a Somalia, and no picnic either being its next-door neighbor.
Daniel Levy, a senior fellow at the New America and Century Foundations, was previously an adviser in the Israeli Prime Minister's Office, and the lead Israeli drafter of the Geneva Initiative.
See No Evil and Evil
FOREIGN RELATIONS
From left to right: Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic, who was later charged with war crimes but died before his trial ended; the Rev. Jesse Jackson; and U.S. Rep. Rod Blagojevich, who is now governor of Illinois and facing federal corruption charges for allegedly trying to sell Barack Obama’s vacant Senate seat, among other things.
ABOVE PHOTO FROM: New York Times via Whirled View
From left to right: Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic, who was later charged with war crimes but died before his trial ended; the Rev. Jesse Jackson; and U.S. Rep. Rod Blagojevich, who is now governor of Illinois and facing federal corruption charges for allegedly trying to sell Barack Obama’s vacant Senate seat, among other things.ABOVE PHOTO FROM: New York Times via Whirled View
The Man in the Black Cape: Randolph Bourne
American Interest January/February 2009
Andrew J. Bacevich
In his 1932 novel Nineteen Nineteen, John Dos Passos paid tribute to a "little sparrowlike man",
tiny twisted bit of flesh in a black cape,
always in pain and ailing,
[who] put a pebble in his sling
and hit Goliath square in the forehead . . . .
The man in the black cape was Randolph Bourne, who in an unfinished essay shortly before his death in 1918 uttered one of the contemporary era's great truths: "War is the health of the State." Ninety years on, as Americans contemplate the implications of waging what the Pentagon is now calling "the Long War", Bourne's biting observation demands renewed attention.
Beset from birth by agonizing physical deformities, Bourne was an intellectual, a radical and a patriot who cherished freedom and loved America. His crucial contribution to political discourse was to draw a sharp distinction between Countryhe people and their aspirationsnd State, an apparatus that perverts those aspirations into a relentless quest for aggrandizement at the expense of others. "Country", Bourne wrote, "is a concept of peace, of tolerance, of living and letting live. But State is essentially a concept of power, of competition."
Bourne abhorred war, describing it as "a frenzied, mutual suicide", devoid of redeeming value. America's 1917 entry into the apocalyptic European conflict then known as "the Great War" appalled him, not least because, as he saw it, U.S. intervention signified the triumph of State over Country. A war fought to make the world safe for democracy, as President Woodrow Wilson promised, was more likely to undermine authentic democracy at home.
As Wilson whipped up popular fervor for his great crusade (and as his Administration relied on what Bourne described as "white terrorism" to punish anyone who opposed the war or questioned Wilson's policies), Bourne devoted himself to enumerating the perils of allowing State to eclipse Country. War, he warned, inevitably produces "a derangement of values", with the interests of the people taking a back seat to the purposes of the State. Prestige and authority shift: from the periphery to the center, from the legislature to the executive, from domestic concerns to foreign affairs. During times of war, the future is expected to take care of itself; only the present matters. The imperative of victory overrides all other considerations.
War imbues the State with an aura of sanctity. Those who purport to represent the Statehe insiders, those who are in the knowxpect deference and to a remarkable extent receive it. The more urgent the emergency, the more compliant the citizenry. A people at war, Bourne observed, become "obedient, respectful, trustful children again, full of that naive faith in the all-wisdom and all-power of the adult who takes care of them."
Above all, the sacralization of the State exalts the standing of the First Warrior, investing in the commander-in-chief something akin to blanket authority. "The President", wrote Bourne, "is an elected king, but the fact that he is elected has proved to be of far less significance . . . than the fact that he is pragmatically a king." As with the French monarchs in their heyday, so too with wartime American presidents: L't, c'est moi. In times of crisis, Bourne explained, the Legislative Branch effectively ceases to function "except as a wholly mechanical ratifier of the Executive's will."
The very concept of a democratic foreign policy, therefore, becomes "a contradiction in terms." Statecraft remains "the secret private possession of the executive branch." The deliberations that matter occur behind closed doors, with participants limited to those "able to get control of the machinery of the State" or the handful of outsiders with privileged access either conferred or purchased outright.
To those who most fully identify themselves with the State's interestshe king-president's inner circlear signifies liberation, triggering, in Bourne's words, "a vast sense of rejuvenescence" that accompanies the full-throated exercise of power. The "State-obsessed" are drawn to war like moths are drawn to flame. Only through war and the quasi-war of recurrent crisis and confrontation can they express themselves fully.
When war erupts, it typically does so as a result of "steps taken secretly and announced to the public only after they had been consummated." Although Congress may issue a formal declaration, in Bourne's eyes this amounts to no more than "the merest technicality." Not infrequently, those dealing in secrets cross the line into deception and dissembling. Yet even when this occurs, Congress shies away from demanding accountability. After all, any legislator asserting that "the country had been grossly deceived by its own Government", with war the product of "almost criminal carelessness", would risk the charge of disloyalty, complicity or sheer negligence. Better just to register a few complaints and quietly vote the money needed to fund the enterprise.
The architects and advocates of armed conflict broadcast "appealing harbingers of a cosmically efficacious and well-bred war." Such rosy predictions inevitably turn out to be illusory, but no matter: Once thrust into the conflagration, the Country succumbs to "a spiritual compulsion which pushes it on, perhaps against all its interests, all its desires, and all its real sense of values." It's not that the people will war's perpetuation, but when told that no alternative exists except to persist, they acquiesce. Thus, according to Bourne, does the State have its way.
As it was in 1918, so it is in 2008. Granted, in its attempts to silence or discredit its critics, the Bush Administration's actions, however egregious, fall considerably short of constituting "white terrorism." On every other point, however, Bourne's critique of the State during the Age of Wilson describes with considerable precision State behavior during the Age of Bush and Cheney.
Since September 11, war has certainly enhanced the health of the State, which has grown in size, claimed new prerogatives, and expended resources with reckless abandon while accruing a host of new acolytes and retainers, a.k.a. "contractors." Once again, we have witnessed the compromise of democratic practices, as the imperatives of "keeping America safe" take precedence over due process and the rule of law. Once again, the maneuvering of insiders has produced war, cheerfully marketed as promising a clean, neat solution to messy and intractable problems. When that war went sour in Iraq, opponents in the Congress solemnly promised to end it, but instead obligingly appropriated billions to ensure its continuation. Although the people profess unhappiness with all that the State has wrought, their confidence in the institutions of government all but exhausted, they remain reliably docile, if not apathetic. None of this, it seems fair to say, would have surprised Randolph Bourne.
By almost any measure, the Country has fared poorly of late, a point that presidential candidates John McCain and Barack Obama both explicitly endorsed. The State meanwhile has fattened itself on seven years of plenty. Unlike the biblical cycle, when abundance gave way to want, this pattern seems likely to continue. With the Long War projected to last for decades if not generations, the ascendancy of the State bids fair to become a permanent condition.
When McCain and Obama competed with each other in promising to "change the way Washington works", they held out the prospect of re-subordinating State to Country. Install me as king-president, each proclaimed, and I will employ the apparatus of the State to fulfill the people's fondest hopes and dreams. The State will do my bidding and therefore the Country's.
"Only in a world where irony was dead", as Bourne once mordantly observed, could such claims be taken seriously. Doing so requires us to ignore the extent to which the parties that the candidates represented, the advisers on whom they relied for counsel, and the moneyed interests to which they looked for support all share a vested interest in ensuring the State's continued primacy. This is as true of liberal Democrats as of conservative Republicans.
The reality is this: The election that so many saw as promising salvation was rigged. Its outcome was predetermined. Whichever candidate won in November and whichever party ended up governing, the State was guaranteed to come out on top. Barring the truly miraculous, our new President will continue to serve as primary agent of the State, privileging its well-being over that of the people. And the American penchant for war that Bourne decried and that has in our own day returned with a vengeance will persist. Piously wishing it were otherwise won't make it so.
Although ninety years ago the man in the black cape may have struck Goliath a sharp blow, the giant barely noticed and quickly recovered. Today Goliath is running the show.
American Interest January/February 2009
Andrew J. Bacevich
In his 1932 novel Nineteen Nineteen, John Dos Passos paid tribute to a "little sparrowlike man",
tiny twisted bit of flesh in a black cape,
always in pain and ailing,
[who] put a pebble in his sling
and hit Goliath square in the forehead . . . .
The man in the black cape was Randolph Bourne, who in an unfinished essay shortly before his death in 1918 uttered one of the contemporary era's great truths: "War is the health of the State." Ninety years on, as Americans contemplate the implications of waging what the Pentagon is now calling "the Long War", Bourne's biting observation demands renewed attention.
Beset from birth by agonizing physical deformities, Bourne was an intellectual, a radical and a patriot who cherished freedom and loved America. His crucial contribution to political discourse was to draw a sharp distinction between Countryhe people and their aspirationsnd State, an apparatus that perverts those aspirations into a relentless quest for aggrandizement at the expense of others. "Country", Bourne wrote, "is a concept of peace, of tolerance, of living and letting live. But State is essentially a concept of power, of competition."
Bourne abhorred war, describing it as "a frenzied, mutual suicide", devoid of redeeming value. America's 1917 entry into the apocalyptic European conflict then known as "the Great War" appalled him, not least because, as he saw it, U.S. intervention signified the triumph of State over Country. A war fought to make the world safe for democracy, as President Woodrow Wilson promised, was more likely to undermine authentic democracy at home.
As Wilson whipped up popular fervor for his great crusade (and as his Administration relied on what Bourne described as "white terrorism" to punish anyone who opposed the war or questioned Wilson's policies), Bourne devoted himself to enumerating the perils of allowing State to eclipse Country. War, he warned, inevitably produces "a derangement of values", with the interests of the people taking a back seat to the purposes of the State. Prestige and authority shift: from the periphery to the center, from the legislature to the executive, from domestic concerns to foreign affairs. During times of war, the future is expected to take care of itself; only the present matters. The imperative of victory overrides all other considerations.
War imbues the State with an aura of sanctity. Those who purport to represent the Statehe insiders, those who are in the knowxpect deference and to a remarkable extent receive it. The more urgent the emergency, the more compliant the citizenry. A people at war, Bourne observed, become "obedient, respectful, trustful children again, full of that naive faith in the all-wisdom and all-power of the adult who takes care of them."
Above all, the sacralization of the State exalts the standing of the First Warrior, investing in the commander-in-chief something akin to blanket authority. "The President", wrote Bourne, "is an elected king, but the fact that he is elected has proved to be of far less significance . . . than the fact that he is pragmatically a king." As with the French monarchs in their heyday, so too with wartime American presidents: L't, c'est moi. In times of crisis, Bourne explained, the Legislative Branch effectively ceases to function "except as a wholly mechanical ratifier of the Executive's will."
The very concept of a democratic foreign policy, therefore, becomes "a contradiction in terms." Statecraft remains "the secret private possession of the executive branch." The deliberations that matter occur behind closed doors, with participants limited to those "able to get control of the machinery of the State" or the handful of outsiders with privileged access either conferred or purchased outright.
To those who most fully identify themselves with the State's interestshe king-president's inner circlear signifies liberation, triggering, in Bourne's words, "a vast sense of rejuvenescence" that accompanies the full-throated exercise of power. The "State-obsessed" are drawn to war like moths are drawn to flame. Only through war and the quasi-war of recurrent crisis and confrontation can they express themselves fully.
When war erupts, it typically does so as a result of "steps taken secretly and announced to the public only after they had been consummated." Although Congress may issue a formal declaration, in Bourne's eyes this amounts to no more than "the merest technicality." Not infrequently, those dealing in secrets cross the line into deception and dissembling. Yet even when this occurs, Congress shies away from demanding accountability. After all, any legislator asserting that "the country had been grossly deceived by its own Government", with war the product of "almost criminal carelessness", would risk the charge of disloyalty, complicity or sheer negligence. Better just to register a few complaints and quietly vote the money needed to fund the enterprise.
The architects and advocates of armed conflict broadcast "appealing harbingers of a cosmically efficacious and well-bred war." Such rosy predictions inevitably turn out to be illusory, but no matter: Once thrust into the conflagration, the Country succumbs to "a spiritual compulsion which pushes it on, perhaps against all its interests, all its desires, and all its real sense of values." It's not that the people will war's perpetuation, but when told that no alternative exists except to persist, they acquiesce. Thus, according to Bourne, does the State have its way.
As it was in 1918, so it is in 2008. Granted, in its attempts to silence or discredit its critics, the Bush Administration's actions, however egregious, fall considerably short of constituting "white terrorism." On every other point, however, Bourne's critique of the State during the Age of Wilson describes with considerable precision State behavior during the Age of Bush and Cheney.
Since September 11, war has certainly enhanced the health of the State, which has grown in size, claimed new prerogatives, and expended resources with reckless abandon while accruing a host of new acolytes and retainers, a.k.a. "contractors." Once again, we have witnessed the compromise of democratic practices, as the imperatives of "keeping America safe" take precedence over due process and the rule of law. Once again, the maneuvering of insiders has produced war, cheerfully marketed as promising a clean, neat solution to messy and intractable problems. When that war went sour in Iraq, opponents in the Congress solemnly promised to end it, but instead obligingly appropriated billions to ensure its continuation. Although the people profess unhappiness with all that the State has wrought, their confidence in the institutions of government all but exhausted, they remain reliably docile, if not apathetic. None of this, it seems fair to say, would have surprised Randolph Bourne.
By almost any measure, the Country has fared poorly of late, a point that presidential candidates John McCain and Barack Obama both explicitly endorsed. The State meanwhile has fattened itself on seven years of plenty. Unlike the biblical cycle, when abundance gave way to want, this pattern seems likely to continue. With the Long War projected to last for decades if not generations, the ascendancy of the State bids fair to become a permanent condition.
When McCain and Obama competed with each other in promising to "change the way Washington works", they held out the prospect of re-subordinating State to Country. Install me as king-president, each proclaimed, and I will employ the apparatus of the State to fulfill the people's fondest hopes and dreams. The State will do my bidding and therefore the Country's.
"Only in a world where irony was dead", as Bourne once mordantly observed, could such claims be taken seriously. Doing so requires us to ignore the extent to which the parties that the candidates represented, the advisers on whom they relied for counsel, and the moneyed interests to which they looked for support all share a vested interest in ensuring the State's continued primacy. This is as true of liberal Democrats as of conservative Republicans.
The reality is this: The election that so many saw as promising salvation was rigged. Its outcome was predetermined. Whichever candidate won in November and whichever party ended up governing, the State was guaranteed to come out on top. Barring the truly miraculous, our new President will continue to serve as primary agent of the State, privileging its well-being over that of the people. And the American penchant for war that Bourne decried and that has in our own day returned with a vengeance will persist. Piously wishing it were otherwise won't make it so.
Although ninety years ago the man in the black cape may have struck Goliath a sharp blow, the giant barely noticed and quickly recovered. Today Goliath is running the show.
Lame Duck Bush Administration Continues to Inflame Islamist Terrorism – Ivan Eland, Antiwar.com: Perhaps the incoming Obama administration will be more perceptive; learn the lessons of Somalia, Iraq, and Afghanistan; and develop a more restrained military policy overseas.
The neighborhood bully strikes again
By Gideon Levy, Haaretz, 28 December 2008
Israel embarked yesterday on yet another unnecessary, ill-fated war. On July 16, 2006, four days after the start of the Second Lebanon War, I wrote: "Every neighborhood has one, a loud-mouthed bully who shouldn't be provoked into anger... Not that the bully's not right - someone did harm him. But the reaction, what a reaction!"
Two and a half years later, these words repeat themselves, to our horror, with chilling precision. Within the span of a few hours on a Saturday afternoon, the IDF sowed death and destruction on a scale that the Qassam rockets never approached in all their years, and Operation "Cast Lead" is only in its infancy.
Once again, Israel's violent responses, even if there is justification for them, exceed all proportion and cross every red line of humaneness, morality, international law and wisdom.
Advertisement
What began yesterday in Gaza is a war crime and the foolishness of a country. History's bitter irony: A government that went to a futile war two months after its establishment - today nearly everyone acknowledges as much - embarks on another doomed war two months before the end of its term.
In the interim, the loftiness of peace was on the tip of the tongue of Ehud Olmert, a man who uttered some of the most courageous words ever said by a prime minister. The loftiness of peace on the tip of his tongue, and two fruitless wars in his sheath. Joining him is his defense minister, Ehud Barak, the leader of the so-called left-wing party, who plays the role of senior accomplice to the crime.
Israel did not exhaust the diplomatic processes before embarking yesterday on another dreadful campaign of killing and ruin. The Qassams that rained down on the communities near Gaza turned intolerable, even though they did not sow death. But the response to them needs to be fundamentally different: diplomatic efforts to restore the cease-fire - the same one that was initially breached, one should remember, by Israel when it unnecessarily bombed a tunnel - and then, if those efforts fail, a measured, gradual military response.
But no. It's all or nothing. The IDF launched a war yesterday whose end, as usual, is hoping someone watches over us.
Blood will now flow like water. Besieged and impoverished Gaza, the city of refugees, will pay the main price. But blood will also be unnecessarily spilled on our side. In its foolishness, Hamas brought this on itself and on its people, but this does not excuse Israel's overreaction.
The history of the Middle East is repeating itself with despairing precision. Just the frequency is increasing. If we enjoyed nine years of quiet between the Yom Kippur War and the First Lebanon War, now we launch wars every two years. As such, Israel proves that there is no connection between its public relations talking points that speak of peace, and its belligerent conduct.
Israel also proves that it has not internalized the lessons of the previous war. Once again, this war was preceded by a frighteningly uniform public dialogue in which only one voice was heard - that which called for striking, destroying, starving and killing, that which incited and prodded for the commission of war crimes.
Once again the commentators sat in television studios yesterday and hailed the combat jets that bombed police stations, where officers responsible for maintaining order on the streets work. Once again, they urged against letting up and in favor of continuing the assault. Once again, the journalists described the pictures of the damaged house in Netivot as "a difficult scene." Once again, we had the nerve to complain about how the world was transmitting images from Gaza. And once again we need to wait a few more days until an alternative voice finally rises from the darkness, the voice of wisdom and morality.
In another week or two, those same pundits who called for blows and more blows will compete among themselves in leveling criticism at this war. And once again this will be gravely late.
The pictures that flooded television screens around the world yesterday showed a parade of corpses and wounded being loaded into and unloaded from the trunks of private cars that transported them to the only hospital in Gaza worthy of being called a hospital. Perhaps we once again need to remember that we are dealing with a wretched, battered strip of land, most of whose population consists of the children of refugees who have endured inhumane tribulations.
For two and a half years, they have been caged and ostracized by the whole world. The line of thinking that states that through war we will gain new allies in the Strip; that abusing the population and killing its sons will sear this into their consciousness; and that a military operation would suffice in toppling an entrenched regime and thus replace it with another one friendlier to us is no more than lunacy.
Hezbollah was not weakened as a result of the Second Lebanon War; to the contrary. Hamas will not be weakened due to the Gaza war; to the contrary. In a short time, after the parade of corpses and wounded ends, we will arrive at a fresh cease-fire, as occurred after Lebanon, exactly like the one that could have been forged without this superfluous war.
In the meantime, let us now let the IDF win, as they say. A hero against the weak, it bombed dozens of targets from the air yesterday, and the pictures of blood and fire are designed to show Israelis, Arabs and the entire world that the neighborhood bully's strength has yet to wane. When the bully is on a rampage, nobody can stop him.
By Gideon Levy, Haaretz, 28 December 2008
Israel embarked yesterday on yet another unnecessary, ill-fated war. On July 16, 2006, four days after the start of the Second Lebanon War, I wrote: "Every neighborhood has one, a loud-mouthed bully who shouldn't be provoked into anger... Not that the bully's not right - someone did harm him. But the reaction, what a reaction!"
Two and a half years later, these words repeat themselves, to our horror, with chilling precision. Within the span of a few hours on a Saturday afternoon, the IDF sowed death and destruction on a scale that the Qassam rockets never approached in all their years, and Operation "Cast Lead" is only in its infancy.
Once again, Israel's violent responses, even if there is justification for them, exceed all proportion and cross every red line of humaneness, morality, international law and wisdom.
Advertisement
What began yesterday in Gaza is a war crime and the foolishness of a country. History's bitter irony: A government that went to a futile war two months after its establishment - today nearly everyone acknowledges as much - embarks on another doomed war two months before the end of its term.
In the interim, the loftiness of peace was on the tip of the tongue of Ehud Olmert, a man who uttered some of the most courageous words ever said by a prime minister. The loftiness of peace on the tip of his tongue, and two fruitless wars in his sheath. Joining him is his defense minister, Ehud Barak, the leader of the so-called left-wing party, who plays the role of senior accomplice to the crime.
Israel did not exhaust the diplomatic processes before embarking yesterday on another dreadful campaign of killing and ruin. The Qassams that rained down on the communities near Gaza turned intolerable, even though they did not sow death. But the response to them needs to be fundamentally different: diplomatic efforts to restore the cease-fire - the same one that was initially breached, one should remember, by Israel when it unnecessarily bombed a tunnel - and then, if those efforts fail, a measured, gradual military response.
But no. It's all or nothing. The IDF launched a war yesterday whose end, as usual, is hoping someone watches over us.
Blood will now flow like water. Besieged and impoverished Gaza, the city of refugees, will pay the main price. But blood will also be unnecessarily spilled on our side. In its foolishness, Hamas brought this on itself and on its people, but this does not excuse Israel's overreaction.
The history of the Middle East is repeating itself with despairing precision. Just the frequency is increasing. If we enjoyed nine years of quiet between the Yom Kippur War and the First Lebanon War, now we launch wars every two years. As such, Israel proves that there is no connection between its public relations talking points that speak of peace, and its belligerent conduct.
Israel also proves that it has not internalized the lessons of the previous war. Once again, this war was preceded by a frighteningly uniform public dialogue in which only one voice was heard - that which called for striking, destroying, starving and killing, that which incited and prodded for the commission of war crimes.
Once again the commentators sat in television studios yesterday and hailed the combat jets that bombed police stations, where officers responsible for maintaining order on the streets work. Once again, they urged against letting up and in favor of continuing the assault. Once again, the journalists described the pictures of the damaged house in Netivot as "a difficult scene." Once again, we had the nerve to complain about how the world was transmitting images from Gaza. And once again we need to wait a few more days until an alternative voice finally rises from the darkness, the voice of wisdom and morality.
In another week or two, those same pundits who called for blows and more blows will compete among themselves in leveling criticism at this war. And once again this will be gravely late.
The pictures that flooded television screens around the world yesterday showed a parade of corpses and wounded being loaded into and unloaded from the trunks of private cars that transported them to the only hospital in Gaza worthy of being called a hospital. Perhaps we once again need to remember that we are dealing with a wretched, battered strip of land, most of whose population consists of the children of refugees who have endured inhumane tribulations.
For two and a half years, they have been caged and ostracized by the whole world. The line of thinking that states that through war we will gain new allies in the Strip; that abusing the population and killing its sons will sear this into their consciousness; and that a military operation would suffice in toppling an entrenched regime and thus replace it with another one friendlier to us is no more than lunacy.
Hezbollah was not weakened as a result of the Second Lebanon War; to the contrary. Hamas will not be weakened due to the Gaza war; to the contrary. In a short time, after the parade of corpses and wounded ends, we will arrive at a fresh cease-fire, as occurred after Lebanon, exactly like the one that could have been forged without this superfluous war.
In the meantime, let us now let the IDF win, as they say. A hero against the weak, it bombed dozens of targets from the air yesterday, and the pictures of blood and fire are designed to show Israelis, Arabs and the entire world that the neighborhood bully's strength has yet to wane. When the bully is on a rampage, nobody can stop him.
Haaretz
29/12/2008
Trying to 'teach Hamas a lesson' is fundamentally wrong
By Tom Segev
Channel 1 television broadcast an interesting mix on Saturday morning:
Its correspondents reported from Sderot and Ashkelon, but the pictures
on the screen were from the Gaza Strip. Thus the broadcast, albeit
unintentionally, sent the right message: A child in Sderot is the same
as a child in Gaza, and anyone who harms either is evil.
But the assault on Gaza does not first and foremost demand moral
condemnation - it demands a few historical reminders. Both the
justification given for it and the chosen targets are a replay of the
same basic assumptions that have proven wrong time after time. Yet
Israel still pulls them out of its hat again and again, in one war
after another.
Israel is striking at the Palestinians to "teach them a lesson." That
is a basic assumption that has accompanied the Zionist enterprise
since its inception: We are the representatives of progress and
enlightenment, sophisticated rationality and morality, while the Arabs
are a primitive, violent rabble, ignorant children who must be
educated and taught wisdom - via, of course, the carrot-and-stick
method, just as the drover does with his donkey.
The bombing of Gaza is also supposed to "liquidate the Hamas regime,"
in line with another assumption that has accompanied the Zionist
movement since its inception: that it is possible to impose a
"moderate" leadership on the Palestinians, one that will abandon their
national aspirations.
As a corollary, Israel has also always believed that causing suffering
to Palestinian civilians would make them rebel against their national
leaders. This assumption has proven wrong over and over.
All of Israel's wars have been based on yet another assumption that
has been with us from the start: that we are only defending ourselves.
"Half a million Israelis are under fire," screamed the banner headline
of Sunday's Yedioth Ahronoth - just as if the Gaza Strip had not been
subjected to a lengthy siege that destroyed an entire generation's
chances of living lives worth living.
It is admittedly impossible to live with daily missile fire, even if
virtually no place in the world today enjoys a situation of zero
terror. But Hamas is not a terrorist organization holding Gaza
residents hostage: It is a religious nationalist movement, and a
majority of Gaza residents believe in its path. One can certainly
attack it, and with Knesset elections in the offing, this attack might
even produce some kind of cease-fire. But there is another historical
truth worth recalling in this context: Since the dawn of the Zionist
presence in the Land of Israel, no military operation has ever
advanced dialogue with the Palestinians.
Most dangerous of all is the cliche that there is no one to talk to.
That has never been true. There are even ways to talk with Hamas, and
Israel has something to offer the organization. Ending the siege of
Gaza and allowing freedom of movement between Gaza and the West Bank
could rehabilitate life in the Strip.
At the same time, it is worth dusting off the old plans prepared after
the Six-Day War, under which thousands of families were to be
relocated from Gaza to the West Bank. Those plans were never
implemented because the West Bank was slated to be used for Jewish
settlement. And that was the most damaging working assumption of all.
29/12/2008
Trying to 'teach Hamas a lesson' is fundamentally wrong
By Tom Segev
Channel 1 television broadcast an interesting mix on Saturday morning:
Its correspondents reported from Sderot and Ashkelon, but the pictures
on the screen were from the Gaza Strip. Thus the broadcast, albeit
unintentionally, sent the right message: A child in Sderot is the same
as a child in Gaza, and anyone who harms either is evil.
But the assault on Gaza does not first and foremost demand moral
condemnation - it demands a few historical reminders. Both the
justification given for it and the chosen targets are a replay of the
same basic assumptions that have proven wrong time after time. Yet
Israel still pulls them out of its hat again and again, in one war
after another.
Israel is striking at the Palestinians to "teach them a lesson." That
is a basic assumption that has accompanied the Zionist enterprise
since its inception: We are the representatives of progress and
enlightenment, sophisticated rationality and morality, while the Arabs
are a primitive, violent rabble, ignorant children who must be
educated and taught wisdom - via, of course, the carrot-and-stick
method, just as the drover does with his donkey.
The bombing of Gaza is also supposed to "liquidate the Hamas regime,"
in line with another assumption that has accompanied the Zionist
movement since its inception: that it is possible to impose a
"moderate" leadership on the Palestinians, one that will abandon their
national aspirations.
As a corollary, Israel has also always believed that causing suffering
to Palestinian civilians would make them rebel against their national
leaders. This assumption has proven wrong over and over.
All of Israel's wars have been based on yet another assumption that
has been with us from the start: that we are only defending ourselves.
"Half a million Israelis are under fire," screamed the banner headline
of Sunday's Yedioth Ahronoth - just as if the Gaza Strip had not been
subjected to a lengthy siege that destroyed an entire generation's
chances of living lives worth living.
It is admittedly impossible to live with daily missile fire, even if
virtually no place in the world today enjoys a situation of zero
terror. But Hamas is not a terrorist organization holding Gaza
residents hostage: It is a religious nationalist movement, and a
majority of Gaza residents believe in its path. One can certainly
attack it, and with Knesset elections in the offing, this attack might
even produce some kind of cease-fire. But there is another historical
truth worth recalling in this context: Since the dawn of the Zionist
presence in the Land of Israel, no military operation has ever
advanced dialogue with the Palestinians.
Most dangerous of all is the cliche that there is no one to talk to.
That has never been true. There are even ways to talk with Hamas, and
Israel has something to offer the organization. Ending the siege of
Gaza and allowing freedom of movement between Gaza and the West Bank
could rehabilitate life in the Strip.
At the same time, it is worth dusting off the old plans prepared after
the Six-Day War, under which thousands of families were to be
relocated from Gaza to the West Bank. Those plans were never
implemented because the West Bank was slated to be used for Jewish
settlement. And that was the most damaging working assumption of all.
The New York Review of Books
Volume 56, Number 1 · January 15, 2009
How Not to Make Peace in the Middle East
By Hussein Agha, Robert Malley
The Much Too Promised Land: America's Elusive Search for Arab–Israeli Peace
by Aaron David Miller
Bantam, 407 pp., $26.00
Negotiating Arab–Israeli Peace: American Leadership in the Middle East
by Daniel C. Kurtzer and Scott B. Lasensky
United States Institute of Peace Press, 191 pp., $16.50 (paper)
Innocent Abroad: An Intimate Account of American Peace Diplomacy in the Middle East
by Martin Indyk
Simon and Schuster, 494 pp., $30.00
1.
Foreign affairs had no more than a small part in Barack Obama's presidential campaign, and the Middle East peace process only a fraction of that. Yet the sorry prospects for peace between Israelis and Palestinians make a break with past US policy on this matter imperative, regardless of the new administration's priorities.
The need for a move away from the lethal mix of arrogance and ignorance characteristic of George W. Bush's presidency is hard to dispute. That is not all that needs breaking away from. Some observers have welcomed the past year's surge of older-style US diplomacy, with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's multiple visits to the region, efforts to build Palestinian institutions and security forces, and negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians over a final status agreement. Yet spin aside, these efforts hardly can be deemed successful. Realities on the ground—from settlement construction to deepening divisions within Palestinian and Israeli societies to growing disillusionment with a two-state solution—render the possibility of a peace accord increasingly remote.
The failings of Bush's efforts have also revived nostalgia for President Clinton's. But it is a nostalgia born as much of anger with the present as of longing for the past. The 1990s were a time of US activism on behalf of peace, yet there is a record to contend with. It is not as forgiving. On this issue, Clinton's term concluded in failure, and it is a failure that bears at least some relation to the policies so lamented today.
President Obama will need to make a change, of that there can be little doubt. But it will take more than turning the page on the worst of the Bush years. It will mean writing an entirely different script.
2.
Recent books by veteran US policymakers attempt to shed light on the mistakes of the past and offer guidance for the future. The Much Too Promised Land is Aaron Miller's highly personal account of what he calls "America's elusive search for Arab–Israeli peace." The result of a study undertaken by the US Institute of Peace, Daniel Kurtzer and Scott Lasensky's Negotiating Arab–Israeli Peace focuses on the Clinton and the two Bush presidencies, presenting a manual on what future officeholders should and should not do. Martin Indyk's Innocent Abroad gives a broader picture. An ambitious comparison of the last two failed American attempts to transform the Middle East—Clinton through peace and Bush via war—it explores both the Arab–Israeli conflict and US policy toward Iran and Iraq. Somewhere at the heart of this quest, as Indyk's title suggests and all three books conclude, are the labors of an often well-intentioned, frequently bewildered, and almost perpetually outmaneuvered superpower.
The three books offer sharp, at times unyielding critiques of the last two presidents. Yet none of the authors was a passive spectator during their terms in office. Miller, Kurtzer, and Indyk all had prominent parts in shaping or executing US policy. Kurtzer, who served as ambassador in Cairo and Tel Aviv between 1997 and 2005, held positions from which it was difficult to shape critical policy decisions and, in fairness, he constantly raised questions from afar.
No such luck for Miller or Indyk. Miller was an adviser to every administration since Ronald Reagan's and, under Clinton, deputy to the Middle East peace envoy; as he repeatedly and self-critically acknowledges, he more often than not advocated the policies he now laments. Indyk is in a class all his own. Head of the Middle East office at the White House, assistant secretary for Near East affairs, and twice ambassador to Israel (1995–1997 and 2000–2001), he has held virtually every conceivable position of influence on the issue. The books also quote a myriad of former high-ranking officials who do not take a charitable view when it comes to their respective administration's performance.
One should be only mildly surprised. There is a long tradition of former US Middle East officials retroactively bemoaning the strategies they once helped shape. Retrospective hand-wringing, far from an anomaly, has become something of a job hazard. None of the books fully confronts this phenomenon, which is a pity. The ritual has become pervasive enough and of sufficient consequence to warrant some discussion.
The Much Too Promised Land, Negotiating Arab–Israeli Peace, and Innocent Abroad tell broadly similar tales of an America that, naive, overzealous, or both, lost itself in the Middle East maze, was repeatedly outfoxed by those it sought to influence, and time and again fell short of its objectives. All three books should be read by analysts and those in the Obama administration who will be charged with picking up where Bush leaves off.
Their principal differences are stylistic. Kurtzer and Lasensky have written a sober, rigorous, no-frills account relying heavily on dozens of interviews with an imposing cast of current and former policymakers. The result is an impressive and refreshingly concise book. Indyk's is part memoir, part political analysis, elegantly written, and hard to put down. Miller's book is of a different sort. Informal, personal, and conversational, it is deeply introspective, as is its writer, who reveals himself to be at once intensely self-confident and inherently self-doubting. For much of his professional life, Miller worked in the large shadow of an outsized boss, Dennis Ross. Most of that time, one gathers, Miller believes he could not, or at least did not, speak his mind. Now is his chance. The Much Too Promised Land is not so much a history book or even an autobiography. It is Miller's declaration of independence.
3.
For all three authors, George W. Bush provides a straightforward and relatively uncontroversial target. We are left with the portrait of a man—and an administration—who were uninterested in the peace process, inattentive to the impact of their policies, uninformed about reality, incapable of follow-through, and utterly unembarrassed by it all. Ideologically, the new Bush team was inclined to downgrade the importance of the Arab–Israeli conflict; politically it was inclined to do the exact opposite of what Clinton had done. "There's no Nobel Peace Prize to be had here," Indyk quotes Bush as saying early in his tenure.
Of the accusations leveled against Bush's policy, the most commonly voiced is that it was "disengaged." Kurtzer and Lasensky condemn him for not being "actively engaged" in the peace process and regret that the "administration effectively disengaged for close to eight years." Indyk evokes the President's "default position of disengagement." And Miller writes disapprovingly that "George W. Bush came into office with a mindset already predisposed to disengag- ing America from the Arab–Israeli issue." Forget about the "Decider"; in Miller's account, Bush has become the "Disengager."
It is a curious charge, at once too mild and off-target. It suggests a passive, flaccid, laissez-faire attitude that could hardly be further from the historical truth and that would have been far preferable to it. Bush's policies did not reflect disengagement; they were the outcome of a uniquely ambitious, often brutal, and always intensely engaged effort to reshape the Middle East. At its core, Bush's Middle East strategy was as intrusive and interventionist as one could imagine.
Almost from the outset, the administration clumsily intervened in Palestinian politics, helped rewrite the Palestinian Basic Law, proclaimed Arafat a pariah, anointed its own favorite substitute leaders, insisted on Palestinian internal reform as a precondition for peace, took positions on a final agreement in a 2004 letter from Bush to then Prime Minister Ariel Sharon that tilted the playing field, encouraged confrontation between the nationalist Fatah and Islamist Hamas, imposed sanctions on Syria, and discouraged the resumption of Israeli–Syrian talks. Throughout, the Bush administration misread local dynamics, ignored the toxicity of its embrace, overestimated the influence of money and military assistance, and neglected the impact of conviction, loyalty, and faith.
On the dubious premise that talking to an enemy is a reward, the administration cut itself off from, and left itself with little leverage over, the region's more dynamic actors, whether Islamist organizations, Syria, or Iran. It propped up local Palestinian and Lebanese allies, who mimic the West's language, depend upon the US for resources and support, yet lack an effective domestic base. In short, it helped them in ways that hurt. How much more the US could have achieved by doing much less.
Bush's sin was not disengagement, assuming disengagement is a sin at all. Judiciously deployed, actual disengagement—that is, taking a step back, forcing local parties to deal with one another, and demonstrating that the United States is neither excessively eager nor overly available—can be an effective, and often is an underused, tactic. Certainly, it is superior to a surprisingly common form of US engagement: the impulse to take a trip, roll out an initiative, or call a summit regardless of timing or consequence.
The past twelve months provide ample proof of the limitations of such practices. Bush's empty promise of a final agreement by the end of 2008—like Condoleezza Rice's peripatetic schedule, hollow feel-good pronouncements, and repeated unproductive meetings with Palestinian and Israeli leaders at a time when, with politically frail leaderships on both sides, even the most admirable peace accord would have lacked all credibility—lent engagement a bad name. The flaw was not that Bush failed to engage. It was how he chose to do so.
4.
If Bush is easy prey, Clinton makes for more complicated and intriguing quarry. Whereas Miller, Indyk, and Kurtzer left the current administration midway through and with barely concealed frustration, they stayed with Clinton till the bitter end. Their books are full of praise for his personal devotion to Arab–Israeli peace. They laud his team's unremitting efforts. They also elucidate how what they describe, in almost identical terms, as "an ideal strategic environment for peacemaking" gave way to the collapse of the Israeli–Palestinian and Israeli–Syrian negotiations as well as to the second Palestinian uprising.
Many explanations have been offered for this turn of events. All three books suggest deep deficiencies among Israelis and Arabs; none is sparing when it comes to evaluating Palestinian, Israeli, or Syrian leaders. But that is not their principal interest. Judging America is.
For all its positive qualities, the books argue, the Clinton approach was excessively undisciplined; it privileged process to the detriment of substance, and too often failed to hold parties accountable. Indyk argues that as Clinton's presidency came to a close, he projected his timetable on Israelis and Palestinians who lacked his sense of urgency. He assumed they were driven by the sort of American pragmatism for which they had little appetite. Kurtzer and Miller complain that the US kept potential Arab and European allies at arm's length and sought to resolve the conflict step by step rather than aim for a final resolution. They also regret the insularity of an American peace team whose insufficient balance and diversity led it to see things, according to Miller, "mainly from an Israeli perspective." Mostly, they fault the Clinton administration for lacking a coherent strategy that would have enabled it to promote its own ideas rather than be subject to the parties' will and whims.
One cannot read these books without thinking back to the controversy surrounding the 2000 Camp David summit. Following that meeting, instant analysis laid all blame on the Palestinians for rejecting Barak's "unprecedented offer." Whatever else might have affected the outcome was dismissed as inconsequential.
Outwardly, Miller, Kurtzer, and Indyk do not claim to take part in the debate over who lost Camp David, though, practically speaking, they close it. They castigate Arafat and the Palestinians for excessive passivity and an inability or unwillingness to seize the moment. But they do not stop there. Miller, who attended the summit, contradicts the accepted view with a detailed account demonstrating that each party bears heavy responsibility. Barak eroded the Palestinians' confidence during the months preceding the summit by renegotiating past agreements and reneging on promises. The Israeli proposals at Camp David, says Shlomo Ben-Ami, Israel's foreign minister at the time, "fell far short of even modest Palestinian expectations." The Americans had "no sustained strategy," did not put a negotiating text on the table, and caved in when faced with the parties' objections. They did not consult with other Arab countries and, in deciding to blame Arafat at Barak's request, betrayed a prior commitment not to do so and also jeopardized hopes for a peaceful aftermath of the conference.
Likewise, Kurtzer and Lasensky describe the US as "unprepared," lacking its own positions on fundamental issues, and, eager to embrace "Barak's priorities...but also Barak's tactics," ultimately "ced[ing] effective control over US policy to the Israelis." Even Indyk, the harshest of the three toward Arafat, disputes the conventional wisdom. "Camp David," he writes, "was hardly a good laboratory" for Barak's proposition that the Palestinian leader was unwilling to reach a historic deal, because no Arab statesman could have accepted what had been presented.
All three books describe the abortive Israeli–Syrian talks in 1999–2000 in strikingly similar ways, again contesting the view held by many ascribing sole liability to Damascus. Indyk in particular argues that Barak missed an opportunity when, concerned about the need to show the Israeli public that he was a tough negotiator, he refused to show flexibility at a time when President Hafez Assad appeared ready for a deal. Others who participated in the peace process during that period have reached a remarkable consensus that responsibility for the debacle was shared by all the parties. To Miller, Kurtzer, and Indyk must be added the countless US, Israeli, and Palestinian officials they interviewed.
To readers of The New York Review, all this must leave a familiar sense of déjà-lu. In 2001, we published an article in these pages putting forward similar arguments. Barak responded angrily, challenging our "revisionist" narrative of the Camp David summit. [1] He has since denounced Indyk's account of the Syrian negotiations on the curious pretext that the senior-level American diplomat "was unaware of the full picture." Still, even he cannot help but observe that while seven years ago our interpretation prompted consternation and considerable outrage, today it barely elicits a raised eyebrow. Revisionism has become orthodoxy.
5.
Historical polemics aside, the three books aim to answer a central question: What should the US do now? Each shapes itself in part as advice to the next administration, and their authors enjoy more than passing influence. Kurtzer is one of Obama's principal Middle East advisers and Indyk is close to Hillary Clinton.
All three share the view that the next president should make a priority of resolving the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, claiming that this will be critical to improving America's image in the Arab and Muslim worlds and to drying up the appeal of militant Islam. They argue that in doing so, the US cannot ignore harmful behavior, whether Israeli settlement construction or Palestinian violence. They call for monitoring of performance on all sides, clear accountability, and, should it come to that, real consequences for breaches of commitments. They suggest that the President publicly articulate detailed core principles for a workable Israeli–Palestinian deal that will mobilize peace constituencies and reinforce the outlines of a two-state solution. Greater involvement by Arab countries is seen as essential to reassure Israel and provide political cover to the Palestinian leadership.
All three books offer advice of a more general sort: talk to your enemies; avoid summits for the sake of summits; do not grant outside powers a veto over US policy; neither fret obsessively about Israeli domestic politics nor meddle intrusively in internal Palestinian affairs by selectively cultivating those "considered to be more accommodating." Echoing a shared sentiment, Indyk delivers something more valuable than a detailed plan when he exhorts the US to "lower [its] sights...avoid raising regional expectations... [tone] down the rhetoric and [allow] the results of American diplomacy to speak for themselves."
On some points, emphasis varies. For Miller, the chances for success virtually boil down to personnel and personality. In his pantheon of US leaders he holds in high esteem (James Baker, Jimmy Carter, and Henry Kissinger), the rough, the tough, and the devious stand out. He longs for what he calls real "sons-of-bitches" to navigate the treacherous shoals of Arab, Israeli, and American politics. Kurtzer stresses the importance of moving from a step- by-step approach to one that concentrates on the endgame. Indyk highlights the regional context; he wants to combine pursuit of Israeli–Palestinian peace with US engagement with Iran and Syria as well as US encouragement of Israeli–Syrian talks. He shows sensible pragmatism in suggesting a different approach toward Hamas, arguing that if it abides by its cease-fire with Israel, the US should support efforts at reconciliation among Palestinians.
On the whole, these appear to be worthy and well-considered recommendations, a far cry from Bush's policies and a respectable distance from Clinton's. Inspired by them and the inevitable clamoring from Arab and European leaders to move early and decisively to resolve the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, President Obama will be tempted to act immediately—deepen his involvement, name a special envoy, train Palestinian Authority security forces, bolster so-called moderate Palestinian allies, accelerate Israeli–Palestinian talks. Such a response would be predictable; it also is understandable. But would it be wise?
6.
Before Obama plunges into the morass, several thoughts merit consideration. The inability to reach a two-state solution has persisted for fifteen years under countless different configurations of policy and power.
There have been strong, determined leaders (Ehud Barak and Yasser Arafat) who, it was thought, possessed the ability to forge compromises and sell them to their people. There have been enlightened, forward-looking leaders (Ehud Olmert and Mahmoud Abbas) who, it was felt, appreciated the desperate need for a two-state solution.
At times the US was deeply involved; at others it took a step back. It mostly sought to run affairs on its own but also opened the door to others. It focused at some points on interim agreements and at others on a final deal. There also have been US plans aplenty. Reagan had his Peace Initiative, George H.W. Bush organized the Madrid conference, Clinton introduced his parameters, and, during the outgoing president's administration alone, Israelis and Palestinians were treated to Bush's vision, the Mitchell report, the Tenet work plan, the Zinni plan, and the road map.
Throughout the years, polls consistently showed respectable Israeli and Palestinian majorities in favor of a negotiated two-state settlement. The world held its breath awaiting a breakthrough, promising wholehearted support for a resolution. Even traditionally passive and cautious Saudi Arabia put forward the Arab Peace Initiative in 2002, persuaded Arab and Islamic nations to sign onto it, and formally presented it to Israel via the Arab League. Yet throughout, regardless of set-up, content, or style, the outcome has been depressingly the same. The plans were greeted with violence, bewilderment, and, more recently, a yawn. Why would more of the same, even if more intense, more vigorous, and more sustained, produce a different outcome?
Equally striking, three of the most significant Arab–Israeli breakthroughs occurred with the US nowhere in sight: Anwar Sadat's trip to Jerusalem, the Oslo negotiations, and Israel's treaty with Jordan. Nor is this merely a historical reflection. When Israeli–Syrian negotiations restarted this year, they were under Turkish, not American, sponsorship and the US sought to prevent, not facilitate them. America was and will be needed to capitalize on opportunities or crown a deal. But it is worth contemplating why it has been so unfailingly inept at launching successful initiatives—the Camp David summit of 2000 and the Annapolis process of 2007 and 2008 being only the latest, saddest examples.
Obama ought to take note of another intriguing feature: arguably the most momentous shift in the Israeli–Palestinian landscape since the 1993 Oslo accords has occurred as a result not of US policy and bilateral negotiations but of a unilateral decision. Israel's withdrawal from Gaza in 2005 has left much to be desired. But had then Prime Minister Sharon and President Abbas sought to negotiate its details with American help, Israeli tanks and settlements almost certainly would still be there, as they are in much of the West Bank, despite endless negotiations. US-sponsored bilateral negotiations have become a formula for sustaining an otherwise untenable status quo.
Finally, the region into which the new president is being pressed to plunge has changed dramatically over the past decade. During recent years, the transformations include the death of Arafat, father of Palestinian nationalism, and the incapacitation of Sharon, Israel's last heroic leader; the spread and further entrenchment of Israeli settlements; Hamas's electoral triumph; Israel's withdrawal from Gaza; the Palestinian internal conflict and Hamas's seizure of Gaza; the withering away of Fatah; Israel's failure in the 2006 Lebanon war; US setbacks in Iraq and Afghanistan; Iran's increased influence; and the growing role of other regional actors like Turkey and Qatar. This is not a mere change in scenery. It is a new world.
A more assertive US policy, greater fortitude in the face of Israeli or Palestinian pressure, a focus on the endgame, and sustained Arab and European backing might have made a difference at Camp David. These factors might still have changed the course of events in the months following the summit or perhaps even during the first few years of the Bush administration. [2] But these ideas, ignored when they were ripe, may now be on the verge of being accepted just as they are becoming obsolete. That is because so much of what the peace process relied upon has been transfigured. It was premised on the existence of two reasonably cohesive entities, Israeli and Palestinian, capable of reaching and implementing historic decisions, a situation that, today, is in serious doubt; continued popular faith and interest in a two-state solution, which is waning; significant US credibility, which is hemorrhaging; and a relatively stable regional landscape, which is undergoing seismic shifts.
In Israel, endemic governmental weakness and instability and deepening social fragmentation, combined with the spoiling capacity of small yet increasingly powerful settler constituencies, call into question the state's ability to achieve, let alone carry out, an agreement that would entail the uprooting of tens of thousands of West Bank settlers. The generation of Israeli founding fathers, perhaps, might have succeeded in carrying off such a withdrawal, though it says something that even they didn't try. Their successors, more factional chiefs than national leaders, are not so well equipped.
The graver problem today is on the Palestinian side. If one strips away the institutional veneer—Fatah, the Palestine Liberation Organization, various secular political groupings, the Palestinian Authority—what is left is largely empty shells with neither an agreed-upon program nor recognized leadership. The national movement, once embodied by Fatah and Arafat, is adrift. From its vestiges, the Islamist movement Hamas has flourished and, amid the flurry of negotiations between Abbas and Olmert over a putative albeit wholly theoretical deal, it cannot have escaped notice that the more practical and meaningful negotiations have been between Israel and Hamas—over a cease-fire, for example. Still, the Islamist movement cannot, any more than Fatah, claim to represent the Palestinian people or to be empowered to negotiate on their behalf. The rift between the two organizations, most visibly manifested in the increasingly deep split between the West Bank and Gaza, makes a two-state solution harder to achieve. Israel long complained it had no Palestinian partner and, at the outset, the complaint had the feel of a pretext. Increasingly, it has the ring of truth.
Among Palestinians, moreover, the prize of statehood is losing its luster. The two-state solution today matters most to those who matter least, the political and economic elite whose positions, attained thanks to the malpractices of the Palestinian Authority, would be enhanced by acquiring a state. To many others, the dividends of such a solution—a state in Gaza and much of the West Bank—risk being outweighed by the sacrifices: forsaking any self-defense capacity, tolerating Israeli security intrusion, renouncing the refugees' right of return, and compromising on Jerusalem.
Arafat embraced the two-state solution and sold it to his people. It took him fifteen years—from 1973 to 1988—to turn it from an act of betrayal and high treason to what most of his people saw as the culmination of the Palestinian national movement. He did so with a militancy his successors lack and which seemed to both defy and negate the concessions such a solution entailed. He exhibited perpetual defiance, which was one of the many reasons why the US and Israel distrusted him even in the best of times, and why Palestinians continued to be drawn to him even at the worst of them. With his passing, it is hard to see who among his heirs can acquiesce in the necessary compromises and still pull off a solution.
When word recently leaked of a deal purportedly proposed by Olmert to Abbas in their one-on-one negotiations, the world got a glimpse of how little Israelis and Palestinians have begun to care. The proposal—a Palestinian state based on the 1967 lines with one-to-one territorial exchanges; a limited number of refugees coming into Israel; a Palestinian capital comprising the Arab neighborhoods of East Jerusalem; a special regime for the holy sites—was not ideal for either side. It was probably better for Palestinians than what was suggested at Camp David; arguably better for Israelis than what has been mooted in a series of unofficial agreements over the ensuing eight years. In earlier days such a plan would have generated immense interest and large political waves. It provoked neither. Familiarity has bred indifference. The two-state solution, it turns out, is endangered, not rescued, by being endlessly discussed.
Such changes in Israeli and Palestinian realities have taken place against the backdrop of deep alterations in the regional balance of power. Where traditional US allies such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia once set both the agenda and tone of Middle East diplomacy, they appear worn out and bereft of a cause other than preventing their own decline. Their energy seems to have been sapped and their regional authority diminished. On issue after issue—Iraq, Lebanon, Iran, Israel-Palestine—they have proved passive or, when active, feckless, unable to influence events or buttress their allies. Their close ties to Washington damage their credibility without being of much help to the US.
They are progressively upstaged by more dynamic players: those leading the charge against America's allies—Iran, Syria, Hezbollah, and Hamas—and those—Qatar and Turkey—seeking to mediate between the two. All these developments challenge a US strategy that relies exclusively on so-called "moderate" Arab states and leaders, which are losing steam, in order to counter "radical" Islamist states and movements, which are gaining it.
The image of President Obama unveiling his vision of an Israeli–Palestinian settlement to overjoyed Arab leaders and universal endorsement may not, under the circumstances, be quite so alluring. A peace plan that has grown tedious by virtue of repetition is unlikely to generate popular enthusiasm; its backing by fading Arab leaders is unlikely to give it a boost.
The new president enjoys an enormous, perhaps unprecedented reservoir of regional goodwill. Yet it is goodwill based on hope that Obama can break from past American conduct and style, not reinforce them. The surest way to diminish Obama's appeal to the region would be for him to present a plan with no real future in the company of leaders burdened by their past.
7.
Obama has other Middle Eastern worries. On January 9, President Abbas's term will end, raising challenges to his legitimacy should he remain in office. In February, Israel will elect a new prime minister. It is likely to be either Tzipi Livni, a relative newcomer who displayed boldness in pursuing a Palestinian agreement and clumsiness in dealing with Israel's political leaders, or Benjamin Netanyahu, a relative old-timer who has had problems with both. Lebanon's elections in May 2009 could bring to power a coalition that would be less sympathetic to the US, worrying Israel, heartening militants, and raising questions for all. During 2009 there will also be a referendum in Iraq on the US–Iraq security agreement, presidential elections in Iran, a possible succession crisis in Egypt, and a scramble to find an heir to the eighty-four-year-old Saudi monarch. Meanwhile, Iran's nuclear program marches on.
Amid all this, the question of what ought to be done on the Arab–Israeli front remains unanswered, and that may not be a bad thing. With so much that is novel, and with so much having gone so wrong for so long, basic issues should first be addressed. Among them are the reasons for recurring failures, the effectiveness of US mediation, the wisdom and realism of seeking a comprehensive, across-the-board settlement of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, or even the centrality of that conflict to US interests and the benefits that would accrue to America from its resolution. One also might ponder reasons behind America's chronic ineffectiveness in persuading lesser powers (Arafat, Hamas, Syria, or Hezbollah) to acquiesce in its demands, a pattern that suggests incapacity to identify local political forces, understand their interests, or comprehend their appeal.
Raising such questions might lead to heretical answers, or impractical ones, or none at all. But it is preferable to a headfirst rush to follow costly familiar patterns and to seek the comforting embrace of ideas that have been tried but never worked or that were never tried but can no longer work. Among the flurry of recommendations the next administration will receive, Obama could do worse than consider some simple advice. Don't rush. Take time, take a deep breath, and take stock. Who knows, fresh and more effective policies might even ensue. Now that would be change we could believe in.
— December 17, 2008
Notes
[1]See Hussein Agha and Robert Malley, "Camp David: The Tragedy of Errors," The New York Review, August 9, 2001; Benny Morris "Camp David and After; An Exchange (1. An Interview with Ehud Barak)," with a reply by Agha and Malley, The New York Review, June 13, 2002; and Barak, Morris, Agha, and Malley, "Camp David and After—Continued," The New York Review, June 27, 2002.
[2]We advocated similar ideas over six years ago. See "The Last Negotiation: How to End the Middle East Peace Process," Foreign Affairs, May/June 2002.
Volume 56, Number 1 · January 15, 2009
How Not to Make Peace in the Middle East
By Hussein Agha, Robert Malley
The Much Too Promised Land: America's Elusive Search for Arab–Israeli Peace
by Aaron David Miller
Bantam, 407 pp., $26.00
Negotiating Arab–Israeli Peace: American Leadership in the Middle East
by Daniel C. Kurtzer and Scott B. Lasensky
United States Institute of Peace Press, 191 pp., $16.50 (paper)
Innocent Abroad: An Intimate Account of American Peace Diplomacy in the Middle East
by Martin Indyk
Simon and Schuster, 494 pp., $30.00
1.
Foreign affairs had no more than a small part in Barack Obama's presidential campaign, and the Middle East peace process only a fraction of that. Yet the sorry prospects for peace between Israelis and Palestinians make a break with past US policy on this matter imperative, regardless of the new administration's priorities.
The need for a move away from the lethal mix of arrogance and ignorance characteristic of George W. Bush's presidency is hard to dispute. That is not all that needs breaking away from. Some observers have welcomed the past year's surge of older-style US diplomacy, with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's multiple visits to the region, efforts to build Palestinian institutions and security forces, and negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians over a final status agreement. Yet spin aside, these efforts hardly can be deemed successful. Realities on the ground—from settlement construction to deepening divisions within Palestinian and Israeli societies to growing disillusionment with a two-state solution—render the possibility of a peace accord increasingly remote.
The failings of Bush's efforts have also revived nostalgia for President Clinton's. But it is a nostalgia born as much of anger with the present as of longing for the past. The 1990s were a time of US activism on behalf of peace, yet there is a record to contend with. It is not as forgiving. On this issue, Clinton's term concluded in failure, and it is a failure that bears at least some relation to the policies so lamented today.
President Obama will need to make a change, of that there can be little doubt. But it will take more than turning the page on the worst of the Bush years. It will mean writing an entirely different script.
2.
Recent books by veteran US policymakers attempt to shed light on the mistakes of the past and offer guidance for the future. The Much Too Promised Land is Aaron Miller's highly personal account of what he calls "America's elusive search for Arab–Israeli peace." The result of a study undertaken by the US Institute of Peace, Daniel Kurtzer and Scott Lasensky's Negotiating Arab–Israeli Peace focuses on the Clinton and the two Bush presidencies, presenting a manual on what future officeholders should and should not do. Martin Indyk's Innocent Abroad gives a broader picture. An ambitious comparison of the last two failed American attempts to transform the Middle East—Clinton through peace and Bush via war—it explores both the Arab–Israeli conflict and US policy toward Iran and Iraq. Somewhere at the heart of this quest, as Indyk's title suggests and all three books conclude, are the labors of an often well-intentioned, frequently bewildered, and almost perpetually outmaneuvered superpower.
The three books offer sharp, at times unyielding critiques of the last two presidents. Yet none of the authors was a passive spectator during their terms in office. Miller, Kurtzer, and Indyk all had prominent parts in shaping or executing US policy. Kurtzer, who served as ambassador in Cairo and Tel Aviv between 1997 and 2005, held positions from which it was difficult to shape critical policy decisions and, in fairness, he constantly raised questions from afar.
No such luck for Miller or Indyk. Miller was an adviser to every administration since Ronald Reagan's and, under Clinton, deputy to the Middle East peace envoy; as he repeatedly and self-critically acknowledges, he more often than not advocated the policies he now laments. Indyk is in a class all his own. Head of the Middle East office at the White House, assistant secretary for Near East affairs, and twice ambassador to Israel (1995–1997 and 2000–2001), he has held virtually every conceivable position of influence on the issue. The books also quote a myriad of former high-ranking officials who do not take a charitable view when it comes to their respective administration's performance.
One should be only mildly surprised. There is a long tradition of former US Middle East officials retroactively bemoaning the strategies they once helped shape. Retrospective hand-wringing, far from an anomaly, has become something of a job hazard. None of the books fully confronts this phenomenon, which is a pity. The ritual has become pervasive enough and of sufficient consequence to warrant some discussion.
The Much Too Promised Land, Negotiating Arab–Israeli Peace, and Innocent Abroad tell broadly similar tales of an America that, naive, overzealous, or both, lost itself in the Middle East maze, was repeatedly outfoxed by those it sought to influence, and time and again fell short of its objectives. All three books should be read by analysts and those in the Obama administration who will be charged with picking up where Bush leaves off.
Their principal differences are stylistic. Kurtzer and Lasensky have written a sober, rigorous, no-frills account relying heavily on dozens of interviews with an imposing cast of current and former policymakers. The result is an impressive and refreshingly concise book. Indyk's is part memoir, part political analysis, elegantly written, and hard to put down. Miller's book is of a different sort. Informal, personal, and conversational, it is deeply introspective, as is its writer, who reveals himself to be at once intensely self-confident and inherently self-doubting. For much of his professional life, Miller worked in the large shadow of an outsized boss, Dennis Ross. Most of that time, one gathers, Miller believes he could not, or at least did not, speak his mind. Now is his chance. The Much Too Promised Land is not so much a history book or even an autobiography. It is Miller's declaration of independence.
3.
For all three authors, George W. Bush provides a straightforward and relatively uncontroversial target. We are left with the portrait of a man—and an administration—who were uninterested in the peace process, inattentive to the impact of their policies, uninformed about reality, incapable of follow-through, and utterly unembarrassed by it all. Ideologically, the new Bush team was inclined to downgrade the importance of the Arab–Israeli conflict; politically it was inclined to do the exact opposite of what Clinton had done. "There's no Nobel Peace Prize to be had here," Indyk quotes Bush as saying early in his tenure.
Of the accusations leveled against Bush's policy, the most commonly voiced is that it was "disengaged." Kurtzer and Lasensky condemn him for not being "actively engaged" in the peace process and regret that the "administration effectively disengaged for close to eight years." Indyk evokes the President's "default position of disengagement." And Miller writes disapprovingly that "George W. Bush came into office with a mindset already predisposed to disengag- ing America from the Arab–Israeli issue." Forget about the "Decider"; in Miller's account, Bush has become the "Disengager."
It is a curious charge, at once too mild and off-target. It suggests a passive, flaccid, laissez-faire attitude that could hardly be further from the historical truth and that would have been far preferable to it. Bush's policies did not reflect disengagement; they were the outcome of a uniquely ambitious, often brutal, and always intensely engaged effort to reshape the Middle East. At its core, Bush's Middle East strategy was as intrusive and interventionist as one could imagine.
Almost from the outset, the administration clumsily intervened in Palestinian politics, helped rewrite the Palestinian Basic Law, proclaimed Arafat a pariah, anointed its own favorite substitute leaders, insisted on Palestinian internal reform as a precondition for peace, took positions on a final agreement in a 2004 letter from Bush to then Prime Minister Ariel Sharon that tilted the playing field, encouraged confrontation between the nationalist Fatah and Islamist Hamas, imposed sanctions on Syria, and discouraged the resumption of Israeli–Syrian talks. Throughout, the Bush administration misread local dynamics, ignored the toxicity of its embrace, overestimated the influence of money and military assistance, and neglected the impact of conviction, loyalty, and faith.
On the dubious premise that talking to an enemy is a reward, the administration cut itself off from, and left itself with little leverage over, the region's more dynamic actors, whether Islamist organizations, Syria, or Iran. It propped up local Palestinian and Lebanese allies, who mimic the West's language, depend upon the US for resources and support, yet lack an effective domestic base. In short, it helped them in ways that hurt. How much more the US could have achieved by doing much less.
Bush's sin was not disengagement, assuming disengagement is a sin at all. Judiciously deployed, actual disengagement—that is, taking a step back, forcing local parties to deal with one another, and demonstrating that the United States is neither excessively eager nor overly available—can be an effective, and often is an underused, tactic. Certainly, it is superior to a surprisingly common form of US engagement: the impulse to take a trip, roll out an initiative, or call a summit regardless of timing or consequence.
The past twelve months provide ample proof of the limitations of such practices. Bush's empty promise of a final agreement by the end of 2008—like Condoleezza Rice's peripatetic schedule, hollow feel-good pronouncements, and repeated unproductive meetings with Palestinian and Israeli leaders at a time when, with politically frail leaderships on both sides, even the most admirable peace accord would have lacked all credibility—lent engagement a bad name. The flaw was not that Bush failed to engage. It was how he chose to do so.
4.
If Bush is easy prey, Clinton makes for more complicated and intriguing quarry. Whereas Miller, Indyk, and Kurtzer left the current administration midway through and with barely concealed frustration, they stayed with Clinton till the bitter end. Their books are full of praise for his personal devotion to Arab–Israeli peace. They laud his team's unremitting efforts. They also elucidate how what they describe, in almost identical terms, as "an ideal strategic environment for peacemaking" gave way to the collapse of the Israeli–Palestinian and Israeli–Syrian negotiations as well as to the second Palestinian uprising.
Many explanations have been offered for this turn of events. All three books suggest deep deficiencies among Israelis and Arabs; none is sparing when it comes to evaluating Palestinian, Israeli, or Syrian leaders. But that is not their principal interest. Judging America is.
For all its positive qualities, the books argue, the Clinton approach was excessively undisciplined; it privileged process to the detriment of substance, and too often failed to hold parties accountable. Indyk argues that as Clinton's presidency came to a close, he projected his timetable on Israelis and Palestinians who lacked his sense of urgency. He assumed they were driven by the sort of American pragmatism for which they had little appetite. Kurtzer and Miller complain that the US kept potential Arab and European allies at arm's length and sought to resolve the conflict step by step rather than aim for a final resolution. They also regret the insularity of an American peace team whose insufficient balance and diversity led it to see things, according to Miller, "mainly from an Israeli perspective." Mostly, they fault the Clinton administration for lacking a coherent strategy that would have enabled it to promote its own ideas rather than be subject to the parties' will and whims.
One cannot read these books without thinking back to the controversy surrounding the 2000 Camp David summit. Following that meeting, instant analysis laid all blame on the Palestinians for rejecting Barak's "unprecedented offer." Whatever else might have affected the outcome was dismissed as inconsequential.
Outwardly, Miller, Kurtzer, and Indyk do not claim to take part in the debate over who lost Camp David, though, practically speaking, they close it. They castigate Arafat and the Palestinians for excessive passivity and an inability or unwillingness to seize the moment. But they do not stop there. Miller, who attended the summit, contradicts the accepted view with a detailed account demonstrating that each party bears heavy responsibility. Barak eroded the Palestinians' confidence during the months preceding the summit by renegotiating past agreements and reneging on promises. The Israeli proposals at Camp David, says Shlomo Ben-Ami, Israel's foreign minister at the time, "fell far short of even modest Palestinian expectations." The Americans had "no sustained strategy," did not put a negotiating text on the table, and caved in when faced with the parties' objections. They did not consult with other Arab countries and, in deciding to blame Arafat at Barak's request, betrayed a prior commitment not to do so and also jeopardized hopes for a peaceful aftermath of the conference.
Likewise, Kurtzer and Lasensky describe the US as "unprepared," lacking its own positions on fundamental issues, and, eager to embrace "Barak's priorities...but also Barak's tactics," ultimately "ced[ing] effective control over US policy to the Israelis." Even Indyk, the harshest of the three toward Arafat, disputes the conventional wisdom. "Camp David," he writes, "was hardly a good laboratory" for Barak's proposition that the Palestinian leader was unwilling to reach a historic deal, because no Arab statesman could have accepted what had been presented.
All three books describe the abortive Israeli–Syrian talks in 1999–2000 in strikingly similar ways, again contesting the view held by many ascribing sole liability to Damascus. Indyk in particular argues that Barak missed an opportunity when, concerned about the need to show the Israeli public that he was a tough negotiator, he refused to show flexibility at a time when President Hafez Assad appeared ready for a deal. Others who participated in the peace process during that period have reached a remarkable consensus that responsibility for the debacle was shared by all the parties. To Miller, Kurtzer, and Indyk must be added the countless US, Israeli, and Palestinian officials they interviewed.
To readers of The New York Review, all this must leave a familiar sense of déjà-lu. In 2001, we published an article in these pages putting forward similar arguments. Barak responded angrily, challenging our "revisionist" narrative of the Camp David summit. [1] He has since denounced Indyk's account of the Syrian negotiations on the curious pretext that the senior-level American diplomat "was unaware of the full picture." Still, even he cannot help but observe that while seven years ago our interpretation prompted consternation and considerable outrage, today it barely elicits a raised eyebrow. Revisionism has become orthodoxy.
5.
Historical polemics aside, the three books aim to answer a central question: What should the US do now? Each shapes itself in part as advice to the next administration, and their authors enjoy more than passing influence. Kurtzer is one of Obama's principal Middle East advisers and Indyk is close to Hillary Clinton.
All three share the view that the next president should make a priority of resolving the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, claiming that this will be critical to improving America's image in the Arab and Muslim worlds and to drying up the appeal of militant Islam. They argue that in doing so, the US cannot ignore harmful behavior, whether Israeli settlement construction or Palestinian violence. They call for monitoring of performance on all sides, clear accountability, and, should it come to that, real consequences for breaches of commitments. They suggest that the President publicly articulate detailed core principles for a workable Israeli–Palestinian deal that will mobilize peace constituencies and reinforce the outlines of a two-state solution. Greater involvement by Arab countries is seen as essential to reassure Israel and provide political cover to the Palestinian leadership.
All three books offer advice of a more general sort: talk to your enemies; avoid summits for the sake of summits; do not grant outside powers a veto over US policy; neither fret obsessively about Israeli domestic politics nor meddle intrusively in internal Palestinian affairs by selectively cultivating those "considered to be more accommodating." Echoing a shared sentiment, Indyk delivers something more valuable than a detailed plan when he exhorts the US to "lower [its] sights...avoid raising regional expectations... [tone] down the rhetoric and [allow] the results of American diplomacy to speak for themselves."
On some points, emphasis varies. For Miller, the chances for success virtually boil down to personnel and personality. In his pantheon of US leaders he holds in high esteem (James Baker, Jimmy Carter, and Henry Kissinger), the rough, the tough, and the devious stand out. He longs for what he calls real "sons-of-bitches" to navigate the treacherous shoals of Arab, Israeli, and American politics. Kurtzer stresses the importance of moving from a step- by-step approach to one that concentrates on the endgame. Indyk highlights the regional context; he wants to combine pursuit of Israeli–Palestinian peace with US engagement with Iran and Syria as well as US encouragement of Israeli–Syrian talks. He shows sensible pragmatism in suggesting a different approach toward Hamas, arguing that if it abides by its cease-fire with Israel, the US should support efforts at reconciliation among Palestinians.
On the whole, these appear to be worthy and well-considered recommendations, a far cry from Bush's policies and a respectable distance from Clinton's. Inspired by them and the inevitable clamoring from Arab and European leaders to move early and decisively to resolve the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, President Obama will be tempted to act immediately—deepen his involvement, name a special envoy, train Palestinian Authority security forces, bolster so-called moderate Palestinian allies, accelerate Israeli–Palestinian talks. Such a response would be predictable; it also is understandable. But would it be wise?
6.
Before Obama plunges into the morass, several thoughts merit consideration. The inability to reach a two-state solution has persisted for fifteen years under countless different configurations of policy and power.
There have been strong, determined leaders (Ehud Barak and Yasser Arafat) who, it was thought, possessed the ability to forge compromises and sell them to their people. There have been enlightened, forward-looking leaders (Ehud Olmert and Mahmoud Abbas) who, it was felt, appreciated the desperate need for a two-state solution.
At times the US was deeply involved; at others it took a step back. It mostly sought to run affairs on its own but also opened the door to others. It focused at some points on interim agreements and at others on a final deal. There also have been US plans aplenty. Reagan had his Peace Initiative, George H.W. Bush organized the Madrid conference, Clinton introduced his parameters, and, during the outgoing president's administration alone, Israelis and Palestinians were treated to Bush's vision, the Mitchell report, the Tenet work plan, the Zinni plan, and the road map.
Throughout the years, polls consistently showed respectable Israeli and Palestinian majorities in favor of a negotiated two-state settlement. The world held its breath awaiting a breakthrough, promising wholehearted support for a resolution. Even traditionally passive and cautious Saudi Arabia put forward the Arab Peace Initiative in 2002, persuaded Arab and Islamic nations to sign onto it, and formally presented it to Israel via the Arab League. Yet throughout, regardless of set-up, content, or style, the outcome has been depressingly the same. The plans were greeted with violence, bewilderment, and, more recently, a yawn. Why would more of the same, even if more intense, more vigorous, and more sustained, produce a different outcome?
Equally striking, three of the most significant Arab–Israeli breakthroughs occurred with the US nowhere in sight: Anwar Sadat's trip to Jerusalem, the Oslo negotiations, and Israel's treaty with Jordan. Nor is this merely a historical reflection. When Israeli–Syrian negotiations restarted this year, they were under Turkish, not American, sponsorship and the US sought to prevent, not facilitate them. America was and will be needed to capitalize on opportunities or crown a deal. But it is worth contemplating why it has been so unfailingly inept at launching successful initiatives—the Camp David summit of 2000 and the Annapolis process of 2007 and 2008 being only the latest, saddest examples.
Obama ought to take note of another intriguing feature: arguably the most momentous shift in the Israeli–Palestinian landscape since the 1993 Oslo accords has occurred as a result not of US policy and bilateral negotiations but of a unilateral decision. Israel's withdrawal from Gaza in 2005 has left much to be desired. But had then Prime Minister Sharon and President Abbas sought to negotiate its details with American help, Israeli tanks and settlements almost certainly would still be there, as they are in much of the West Bank, despite endless negotiations. US-sponsored bilateral negotiations have become a formula for sustaining an otherwise untenable status quo.
Finally, the region into which the new president is being pressed to plunge has changed dramatically over the past decade. During recent years, the transformations include the death of Arafat, father of Palestinian nationalism, and the incapacitation of Sharon, Israel's last heroic leader; the spread and further entrenchment of Israeli settlements; Hamas's electoral triumph; Israel's withdrawal from Gaza; the Palestinian internal conflict and Hamas's seizure of Gaza; the withering away of Fatah; Israel's failure in the 2006 Lebanon war; US setbacks in Iraq and Afghanistan; Iran's increased influence; and the growing role of other regional actors like Turkey and Qatar. This is not a mere change in scenery. It is a new world.
A more assertive US policy, greater fortitude in the face of Israeli or Palestinian pressure, a focus on the endgame, and sustained Arab and European backing might have made a difference at Camp David. These factors might still have changed the course of events in the months following the summit or perhaps even during the first few years of the Bush administration. [2] But these ideas, ignored when they were ripe, may now be on the verge of being accepted just as they are becoming obsolete. That is because so much of what the peace process relied upon has been transfigured. It was premised on the existence of two reasonably cohesive entities, Israeli and Palestinian, capable of reaching and implementing historic decisions, a situation that, today, is in serious doubt; continued popular faith and interest in a two-state solution, which is waning; significant US credibility, which is hemorrhaging; and a relatively stable regional landscape, which is undergoing seismic shifts.
In Israel, endemic governmental weakness and instability and deepening social fragmentation, combined with the spoiling capacity of small yet increasingly powerful settler constituencies, call into question the state's ability to achieve, let alone carry out, an agreement that would entail the uprooting of tens of thousands of West Bank settlers. The generation of Israeli founding fathers, perhaps, might have succeeded in carrying off such a withdrawal, though it says something that even they didn't try. Their successors, more factional chiefs than national leaders, are not so well equipped.
The graver problem today is on the Palestinian side. If one strips away the institutional veneer—Fatah, the Palestine Liberation Organization, various secular political groupings, the Palestinian Authority—what is left is largely empty shells with neither an agreed-upon program nor recognized leadership. The national movement, once embodied by Fatah and Arafat, is adrift. From its vestiges, the Islamist movement Hamas has flourished and, amid the flurry of negotiations between Abbas and Olmert over a putative albeit wholly theoretical deal, it cannot have escaped notice that the more practical and meaningful negotiations have been between Israel and Hamas—over a cease-fire, for example. Still, the Islamist movement cannot, any more than Fatah, claim to represent the Palestinian people or to be empowered to negotiate on their behalf. The rift between the two organizations, most visibly manifested in the increasingly deep split between the West Bank and Gaza, makes a two-state solution harder to achieve. Israel long complained it had no Palestinian partner and, at the outset, the complaint had the feel of a pretext. Increasingly, it has the ring of truth.
Among Palestinians, moreover, the prize of statehood is losing its luster. The two-state solution today matters most to those who matter least, the political and economic elite whose positions, attained thanks to the malpractices of the Palestinian Authority, would be enhanced by acquiring a state. To many others, the dividends of such a solution—a state in Gaza and much of the West Bank—risk being outweighed by the sacrifices: forsaking any self-defense capacity, tolerating Israeli security intrusion, renouncing the refugees' right of return, and compromising on Jerusalem.
Arafat embraced the two-state solution and sold it to his people. It took him fifteen years—from 1973 to 1988—to turn it from an act of betrayal and high treason to what most of his people saw as the culmination of the Palestinian national movement. He did so with a militancy his successors lack and which seemed to both defy and negate the concessions such a solution entailed. He exhibited perpetual defiance, which was one of the many reasons why the US and Israel distrusted him even in the best of times, and why Palestinians continued to be drawn to him even at the worst of them. With his passing, it is hard to see who among his heirs can acquiesce in the necessary compromises and still pull off a solution.
When word recently leaked of a deal purportedly proposed by Olmert to Abbas in their one-on-one negotiations, the world got a glimpse of how little Israelis and Palestinians have begun to care. The proposal—a Palestinian state based on the 1967 lines with one-to-one territorial exchanges; a limited number of refugees coming into Israel; a Palestinian capital comprising the Arab neighborhoods of East Jerusalem; a special regime for the holy sites—was not ideal for either side. It was probably better for Palestinians than what was suggested at Camp David; arguably better for Israelis than what has been mooted in a series of unofficial agreements over the ensuing eight years. In earlier days such a plan would have generated immense interest and large political waves. It provoked neither. Familiarity has bred indifference. The two-state solution, it turns out, is endangered, not rescued, by being endlessly discussed.
Such changes in Israeli and Palestinian realities have taken place against the backdrop of deep alterations in the regional balance of power. Where traditional US allies such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia once set both the agenda and tone of Middle East diplomacy, they appear worn out and bereft of a cause other than preventing their own decline. Their energy seems to have been sapped and their regional authority diminished. On issue after issue—Iraq, Lebanon, Iran, Israel-Palestine—they have proved passive or, when active, feckless, unable to influence events or buttress their allies. Their close ties to Washington damage their credibility without being of much help to the US.
They are progressively upstaged by more dynamic players: those leading the charge against America's allies—Iran, Syria, Hezbollah, and Hamas—and those—Qatar and Turkey—seeking to mediate between the two. All these developments challenge a US strategy that relies exclusively on so-called "moderate" Arab states and leaders, which are losing steam, in order to counter "radical" Islamist states and movements, which are gaining it.
The image of President Obama unveiling his vision of an Israeli–Palestinian settlement to overjoyed Arab leaders and universal endorsement may not, under the circumstances, be quite so alluring. A peace plan that has grown tedious by virtue of repetition is unlikely to generate popular enthusiasm; its backing by fading Arab leaders is unlikely to give it a boost.
The new president enjoys an enormous, perhaps unprecedented reservoir of regional goodwill. Yet it is goodwill based on hope that Obama can break from past American conduct and style, not reinforce them. The surest way to diminish Obama's appeal to the region would be for him to present a plan with no real future in the company of leaders burdened by their past.
7.
Obama has other Middle Eastern worries. On January 9, President Abbas's term will end, raising challenges to his legitimacy should he remain in office. In February, Israel will elect a new prime minister. It is likely to be either Tzipi Livni, a relative newcomer who displayed boldness in pursuing a Palestinian agreement and clumsiness in dealing with Israel's political leaders, or Benjamin Netanyahu, a relative old-timer who has had problems with both. Lebanon's elections in May 2009 could bring to power a coalition that would be less sympathetic to the US, worrying Israel, heartening militants, and raising questions for all. During 2009 there will also be a referendum in Iraq on the US–Iraq security agreement, presidential elections in Iran, a possible succession crisis in Egypt, and a scramble to find an heir to the eighty-four-year-old Saudi monarch. Meanwhile, Iran's nuclear program marches on.
Amid all this, the question of what ought to be done on the Arab–Israeli front remains unanswered, and that may not be a bad thing. With so much that is novel, and with so much having gone so wrong for so long, basic issues should first be addressed. Among them are the reasons for recurring failures, the effectiveness of US mediation, the wisdom and realism of seeking a comprehensive, across-the-board settlement of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, or even the centrality of that conflict to US interests and the benefits that would accrue to America from its resolution. One also might ponder reasons behind America's chronic ineffectiveness in persuading lesser powers (Arafat, Hamas, Syria, or Hezbollah) to acquiesce in its demands, a pattern that suggests incapacity to identify local political forces, understand their interests, or comprehend their appeal.
Raising such questions might lead to heretical answers, or impractical ones, or none at all. But it is preferable to a headfirst rush to follow costly familiar patterns and to seek the comforting embrace of ideas that have been tried but never worked or that were never tried but can no longer work. Among the flurry of recommendations the next administration will receive, Obama could do worse than consider some simple advice. Don't rush. Take time, take a deep breath, and take stock. Who knows, fresh and more effective policies might even ensue. Now that would be change we could believe in.
— December 17, 2008
Notes
[1]See Hussein Agha and Robert Malley, "Camp David: The Tragedy of Errors," The New York Review, August 9, 2001; Benny Morris "Camp David and After; An Exchange (1. An Interview with Ehud Barak)," with a reply by Agha and Malley, The New York Review, June 13, 2002; and Barak, Morris, Agha, and Malley, "Camp David and After—Continued," The New York Review, June 27, 2002.
[2]We advocated similar ideas over six years ago. See "The Last Negotiation: How to End the Middle East Peace Process," Foreign Affairs, May/June 2002.
http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/...iew_from_a_pal/
View From a Palestinian Leader: Palestine's Guernica and the Myths of
Israeli Victimhood
This is a guest post written by Mustafa Barghouthi, Secretary General
of the Palestinian National Initiative. These comments and views are
his own and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Washington
Note or Huffington Post. Barghouti is a former secular candidate for
President of Palestine and has been a strong advocate of non-violent
responses to Israeli occupation. Barghouti is thought by many to be a
leading contender in the next Palestinian presidential election. The
Washington Note has also solicited perspectives from various national
leaders and incumbent Knesset leaders in Israel.
Here is a link to an interview that Steve Clemons did with Barghouti
in July 2008 regarding Barack Obama's trip to Israel and Palestine:
http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/...iminishing_hop/
Palestine's Guernica and the Myths of Israeli Victimhood
The Israeli campaign of 'death from above' began around 11 am, on
Saturday morning, the 27th of December, and stretched straight through
the night into this morning. The massacre continues Sunday as I write
these words.
The bloodiest single day in Palestine since the War of 1967 is far
from over following on Israel's promised that this is 'only the
beginning' of their campaign of state terror. At least 290 people have
been murdered thus far, but the body count continues to rise at a
dramatic pace as more mutilated bodies are pulled from the rubble,
previous victims succumb to their wounds and new casualties are
created by the minute.
What has and is occurring is nothing short of a war crime, yet the
Israeli public relations machine is in full-swing, churning out lies
by the minute.
Once and for all it is time to expose the myths that they have created.
1. Israelis have claimed to have ended the occupation of the Gaza Strip in 2005.
While Israel has indeed removed the settlements from the tiny coastal
Strip, they have in no way ended the occupation. They remained in
control of the borders, the airspace and the waterways of Gaza, and
have carried out frequent raids and targeted assassinations since the
disengagement.
Furthermore, since 2006 Israel has imposed a comprehensive siege on
the Strip. For over two years, Gazans have lived on the edge of
starvation and without the most basic necessities of human life, such
as cooking or heating oil and basic medications. This siege has
already caused a humanitarian catastrophe which has only been
exacerbated by the dramatic increase in Israeli military aggression.
2. Israel claims that Hamas violated the cease-fire and pulled out of
it unilaterally.
Hamas indeed respected their side of the ceasefire, except on those
occasions early on when Israel carried out major offensives in the
West Bank. In the last two months, the ceasefire broke down with
Israelis killing several Palestinians and resulting in the response of
Hamas. In other words, Hamas has not carried out an unprovoked attack
throughout the period of the cease-fire.
Israel, however, did not live up to any of its obligations of ending
the siege and allowing vital humanitarian aid to resume in Gaza.
Rather than the average of 450 trucks per day being allowed across the
border, on the best days, only eighty have been allowed in - with the
border remaining hermetically sealed 70% of the time. Throughout the
supposed 'cease-fire' Gazans have been forced to live like animals,
with a total of 262 dying due to the inaccessibility of proper medical
care.
Now after hundreds dead and counting, it is Israel who refuses to
re-enter talks over a cease-fire. They are not intent on securing
peace as they claim; it is more and more clear that they are seeking
regime change - whatever the cost.
3. Israel claims to be pursuing peace with 'peaceful Palestinians'.
Before the on-going massacre in the Gaza Strip, and throughout the
entirety of the Annapolis Peace Process, Israel has continued and even
intensified its occupation of the West Bank. In 2008, settlement
expansion increased by a factor of 38, a further 4,950 Palestinians
were arrested - mostly from the West Bank, and checkpoints rose from
521 to 699.
Furthermore, since the onset of the peace talks, Israel has killed 546
Palestinians, among them 76 children. These gruesome statistics are
set to rise dramatically now, but previous Israeli transgressions
should not be forgotten amidst this most recent horror.
Only this morning, Israel shot and killed a young peaceful protester
in the West Bank village of Nihlin, and has injured dozens more over
the last few hours. It is certain that they will continue to employ
deadly force at non-violent demonstrations and we expect a sizable
body count in the West Bank as a result. If Israel is in fact pursuing
peace with 'good Palestinians', who are they talking about?
4. Israel is acting in self-defense.
It is difficult to claim self defense in a confrontation which they
themselves have sparked, but they are doing it anyway. Self-defense is
reactionary, while the actions of Israel over the last two days have
been clearly premeditated. Not only did the Israeli press widely
report the ongoing public relations campaign being undertaken by
Israel to prepare Israeli and international public opinion for the
attack, but Israel has also reportedly tried to convince the
Palestinians that an attack was not coming by briefly opening
crossings and reporting future meetings on the topic. They did so to
insure that casualties would be maximized and that the citizens of
Gaza would be unprepared for their impending slaughter.
It is also misleading to claim self-defense in a conflict with such an
overwhelming asymmetry of power. Israel is the largest military force
in the region, and the fifth largest in the world. Furthermore, they
are the fourth largest exporter of arms and have a military industrial
complex rivaling that of the United States. In other words, Israel has
always had a comprehensive monopoly over the use of force, and much
like its super power ally, Israel uses war as an advertising showcase
of its many instruments of death.
5. Israel claims to have struck military targets only.
Even while image after image of dead and mutilated women and children
flash across our televisions, Israel brazenly claims that their
munitions expertly struck only military installations. We know this to
be false as many other civilian sites have been hit by airstrikes
including a hospital and mosque.
In the most densely populated area on the planet, tons upon tons of
explosives have been dropped. The first estimates of injured are in
the thousands. Israel will claim that these are merely 'collateral
damage' or accidental deaths. The sheer ridiculousness and inhumanity
of such a claim should sicken the world community.
6. Israel claims that it is attacking Hamas and not the Palestinian people.
First and foremost, missiles do not differentiate people by their
political affiliation; they simply kill everyone in their path. Israel
knows this, and so do Palestinians. What Israel also knows, but is not
saying publically, is how much their recent actions will actually
strengthen Hamas - whose message of resistance and revenge is being
echoed by the angry and grieving.
The targets of the strike, police and not Hamas militants, give us
some clue as to Israel's mistaken intention. They are hoping to create
anarchy in the Strip by removing the pillar of law and order.
7. Israel claims that Palestinians are the source of violence.
Let us be clear and unequivocal. The occupation of Palestine since the
War of 1967 has been and remains the root of violence between Israelis
and Palestinians. Violence can be ended with the occupation and the
granting of Palestine's national and human rights. Hamas does not
control the West Bank and yet we remain occupied, our rights violated
and our children killed.
With these myths understood, let us ponder the real reasons behind
these airstrikes; what we find may be even more disgusting than the
act itself.
The leaders Israel are holding press conferences, dressed in black,
with sleeves rolled up.
'It's time to fight', they say, 'but it won't be easy.'
To prove just how hard it is, Livni, Olmert and Barack did not even
wear make-up to the press conference, and Barak has ended his
presidential campaign to focus on the Gaza campaign. What
heroes...what leaders...
We all know the truth: the suspension of the electioneering is exactly
that - electioneering.
Like John McCain's suspension of his presidential campaign to return
to Washington to 'deal with' the financial crisis, this act is little
more than a publicity stunt.
The candidates have to appear 'tough enough to lead', and there is
seemingly no better way of doing that than bathing in Palestinian
blood.
'Look at me,' Livni says in her black suit and unkempt hair, 'I am a
warrior. I am strong enough to pull the trigger. Don't you feel more
confident about voting for me, now that you know I am as ruthless as
Bibi Netanyahu?'
I do not know which is more disturbing, her and Barack, or the
constituency they are trying to please.
In the end, this will in no way improve the security of the average
Israeli; in fact it can be expected to get much worse in the coming
days as the massacre could presumably provoke a new generation of
suicide bombers.
It will not undermine Hamas either, and it will not result in the
three fools, Barack, Livni and Olmert, looking 'tough'. Their
misguided political venture will likely blow up in their faces as did
the brutally similar 2006 invasion of Lebanon.
In closing, there is another reason - beyond the internal politics of
Israel - why this attack has been allowed to occur: the complicity and
silence of the international community.
Israel cannot and would not act against the will of its economic
allies in Europe or its military allies in the US. Israel may be
pulling the trigger ending hundreds, perhaps even thousands of lives
this week, but it is the apathy of the world and the inhumane
tolerance of Palestinian suffering which allows this to occur.
'The evil only exists because the good remain silent'
View From a Palestinian Leader: Palestine's Guernica and the Myths of
Israeli Victimhood
This is a guest post written by Mustafa Barghouthi, Secretary General
of the Palestinian National Initiative. These comments and views are
his own and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Washington
Note or Huffington Post. Barghouti is a former secular candidate for
President of Palestine and has been a strong advocate of non-violent
responses to Israeli occupation. Barghouti is thought by many to be a
leading contender in the next Palestinian presidential election. The
Washington Note has also solicited perspectives from various national
leaders and incumbent Knesset leaders in Israel.
Here is a link to an interview that Steve Clemons did with Barghouti
in July 2008 regarding Barack Obama's trip to Israel and Palestine:
http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/...iminishing_hop/
Palestine's Guernica and the Myths of Israeli Victimhood
The Israeli campaign of 'death from above' began around 11 am, on
Saturday morning, the 27th of December, and stretched straight through
the night into this morning. The massacre continues Sunday as I write
these words.
The bloodiest single day in Palestine since the War of 1967 is far
from over following on Israel's promised that this is 'only the
beginning' of their campaign of state terror. At least 290 people have
been murdered thus far, but the body count continues to rise at a
dramatic pace as more mutilated bodies are pulled from the rubble,
previous victims succumb to their wounds and new casualties are
created by the minute.
What has and is occurring is nothing short of a war crime, yet the
Israeli public relations machine is in full-swing, churning out lies
by the minute.
Once and for all it is time to expose the myths that they have created.
1. Israelis have claimed to have ended the occupation of the Gaza Strip in 2005.
While Israel has indeed removed the settlements from the tiny coastal
Strip, they have in no way ended the occupation. They remained in
control of the borders, the airspace and the waterways of Gaza, and
have carried out frequent raids and targeted assassinations since the
disengagement.
Furthermore, since 2006 Israel has imposed a comprehensive siege on
the Strip. For over two years, Gazans have lived on the edge of
starvation and without the most basic necessities of human life, such
as cooking or heating oil and basic medications. This siege has
already caused a humanitarian catastrophe which has only been
exacerbated by the dramatic increase in Israeli military aggression.
2. Israel claims that Hamas violated the cease-fire and pulled out of
it unilaterally.
Hamas indeed respected their side of the ceasefire, except on those
occasions early on when Israel carried out major offensives in the
West Bank. In the last two months, the ceasefire broke down with
Israelis killing several Palestinians and resulting in the response of
Hamas. In other words, Hamas has not carried out an unprovoked attack
throughout the period of the cease-fire.
Israel, however, did not live up to any of its obligations of ending
the siege and allowing vital humanitarian aid to resume in Gaza.
Rather than the average of 450 trucks per day being allowed across the
border, on the best days, only eighty have been allowed in - with the
border remaining hermetically sealed 70% of the time. Throughout the
supposed 'cease-fire' Gazans have been forced to live like animals,
with a total of 262 dying due to the inaccessibility of proper medical
care.
Now after hundreds dead and counting, it is Israel who refuses to
re-enter talks over a cease-fire. They are not intent on securing
peace as they claim; it is more and more clear that they are seeking
regime change - whatever the cost.
3. Israel claims to be pursuing peace with 'peaceful Palestinians'.
Before the on-going massacre in the Gaza Strip, and throughout the
entirety of the Annapolis Peace Process, Israel has continued and even
intensified its occupation of the West Bank. In 2008, settlement
expansion increased by a factor of 38, a further 4,950 Palestinians
were arrested - mostly from the West Bank, and checkpoints rose from
521 to 699.
Furthermore, since the onset of the peace talks, Israel has killed 546
Palestinians, among them 76 children. These gruesome statistics are
set to rise dramatically now, but previous Israeli transgressions
should not be forgotten amidst this most recent horror.
Only this morning, Israel shot and killed a young peaceful protester
in the West Bank village of Nihlin, and has injured dozens more over
the last few hours. It is certain that they will continue to employ
deadly force at non-violent demonstrations and we expect a sizable
body count in the West Bank as a result. If Israel is in fact pursuing
peace with 'good Palestinians', who are they talking about?
4. Israel is acting in self-defense.
It is difficult to claim self defense in a confrontation which they
themselves have sparked, but they are doing it anyway. Self-defense is
reactionary, while the actions of Israel over the last two days have
been clearly premeditated. Not only did the Israeli press widely
report the ongoing public relations campaign being undertaken by
Israel to prepare Israeli and international public opinion for the
attack, but Israel has also reportedly tried to convince the
Palestinians that an attack was not coming by briefly opening
crossings and reporting future meetings on the topic. They did so to
insure that casualties would be maximized and that the citizens of
Gaza would be unprepared for their impending slaughter.
It is also misleading to claim self-defense in a conflict with such an
overwhelming asymmetry of power. Israel is the largest military force
in the region, and the fifth largest in the world. Furthermore, they
are the fourth largest exporter of arms and have a military industrial
complex rivaling that of the United States. In other words, Israel has
always had a comprehensive monopoly over the use of force, and much
like its super power ally, Israel uses war as an advertising showcase
of its many instruments of death.
5. Israel claims to have struck military targets only.
Even while image after image of dead and mutilated women and children
flash across our televisions, Israel brazenly claims that their
munitions expertly struck only military installations. We know this to
be false as many other civilian sites have been hit by airstrikes
including a hospital and mosque.
In the most densely populated area on the planet, tons upon tons of
explosives have been dropped. The first estimates of injured are in
the thousands. Israel will claim that these are merely 'collateral
damage' or accidental deaths. The sheer ridiculousness and inhumanity
of such a claim should sicken the world community.
6. Israel claims that it is attacking Hamas and not the Palestinian people.
First and foremost, missiles do not differentiate people by their
political affiliation; they simply kill everyone in their path. Israel
knows this, and so do Palestinians. What Israel also knows, but is not
saying publically, is how much their recent actions will actually
strengthen Hamas - whose message of resistance and revenge is being
echoed by the angry and grieving.
The targets of the strike, police and not Hamas militants, give us
some clue as to Israel's mistaken intention. They are hoping to create
anarchy in the Strip by removing the pillar of law and order.
7. Israel claims that Palestinians are the source of violence.
Let us be clear and unequivocal. The occupation of Palestine since the
War of 1967 has been and remains the root of violence between Israelis
and Palestinians. Violence can be ended with the occupation and the
granting of Palestine's national and human rights. Hamas does not
control the West Bank and yet we remain occupied, our rights violated
and our children killed.
With these myths understood, let us ponder the real reasons behind
these airstrikes; what we find may be even more disgusting than the
act itself.
The leaders Israel are holding press conferences, dressed in black,
with sleeves rolled up.
'It's time to fight', they say, 'but it won't be easy.'
To prove just how hard it is, Livni, Olmert and Barack did not even
wear make-up to the press conference, and Barak has ended his
presidential campaign to focus on the Gaza campaign. What
heroes...what leaders...
We all know the truth: the suspension of the electioneering is exactly
that - electioneering.
Like John McCain's suspension of his presidential campaign to return
to Washington to 'deal with' the financial crisis, this act is little
more than a publicity stunt.
The candidates have to appear 'tough enough to lead', and there is
seemingly no better way of doing that than bathing in Palestinian
blood.
'Look at me,' Livni says in her black suit and unkempt hair, 'I am a
warrior. I am strong enough to pull the trigger. Don't you feel more
confident about voting for me, now that you know I am as ruthless as
Bibi Netanyahu?'
I do not know which is more disturbing, her and Barack, or the
constituency they are trying to please.
In the end, this will in no way improve the security of the average
Israeli; in fact it can be expected to get much worse in the coming
days as the massacre could presumably provoke a new generation of
suicide bombers.
It will not undermine Hamas either, and it will not result in the
three fools, Barack, Livni and Olmert, looking 'tough'. Their
misguided political venture will likely blow up in their faces as did
the brutally similar 2006 invasion of Lebanon.
In closing, there is another reason - beyond the internal politics of
Israel - why this attack has been allowed to occur: the complicity and
silence of the international community.
Israel cannot and would not act against the will of its economic
allies in Europe or its military allies in the US. Israel may be
pulling the trigger ending hundreds, perhaps even thousands of lives
this week, but it is the apathy of the world and the inhumane
tolerance of Palestinian suffering which allows this to occur.
'The evil only exists because the good remain silent'
NEWSWEEK
Israel's End Game
The attack on Gaza shows that the Olmert government feels it may be running out of options
John Barry
Does the Gaza offensive signal that the Israeli government has decided to embark on the end game? The scale of the effort—a massive aerial assault, with Israeli tanks massing along Gaza's border in evident preparation for a ground-assault—certainly suggests that. What does the "end game" mean? I quote a longtime senior Israeli defense adviser: A military effort to crush Palestinian resistance for a generation.
Wars end in one of two ways: by negotiation, or by the decisive defeat of one side. But, as that Israeli adviser argued to me in a session in Washington a couple of months ago neither party to the sixty-year conflict between Israel and the Palestinians has given its full support to either outcome. Each side has held back from commitment either to a negotiated settlement or to military victory.
Consider the Palestinian resistance. The carnage in Iraq from 2003 to 2007 demonstrates what a truly determined insurgency can achieve. By comparison the three Palestinian intifadashave been amateurish: disorganized, limited in intensity and territory—low-level unrest largely confined to the West Bank. Israel itself was barely touched; and the toll of Israeli military casualties, though steady, was slight compared to those inflicted by Hizbullah in one month's fighting in southern Lebanon in 2006. In cold military terms, suicide bombers striking in Israeli cities—the tactic Hamas, in particular, espoused from the mid-1990s—offered the Palestinians their first strategic weapon, as Israel's political leaders acknowledged at the time. But the suicide-bombing campaign waned, in part, no doubt, because the Israelis managed to kill its early organizers. But such evidence as we have suggests that Hamas itself decided to halt the suicide-bombings. Why? A theory credited by significant Israeli analysts is that Hamas feared the campaign's success would provoke an overwhelming Israeli military response. In short, the Palestinians have held back from waging an all-out military effort, aiming, on this analysis, to do enough to force Israel to meet their settlement terms, but not enough to provoke Israeli wrath.
Now consider the Israelis' response. The mountains of rubble in Nablus and Jenin after the Israeli air and tank assaults in the summer of 2002 invite derision at any talk of Israeli restraint. But the reality is that the Israelis have, for most of this long-running conflict, showed remarkable military restraint. The destruction in Jenin and Nablus—or across southern Lebanon in 2006—could have been repeated many times over. That it was not suggests that the Israelis, like the Palestinians, have held back from a military resolution to the conflict.
Yet neither side has really committed itself to the painful compromises that a negotiated outcome would entail. Accords, interim settlements, intermediate steps—of these there has been no shortage. What all have in common is that the difficult issues are postponed to some future Age of Aquarius. The status of Jerusalem; the right of Palestinian return; Israel's withdrawal from the lands won in 1967: on none of these has there ever been any evidence that either side is prepared to meet the other's core political needs. Nor is there any reasonable hope that, even if Israeli or Palestinian leaders could nerve themselves to make a deal, they could sell the compromises to their followers. The "two-state solution" pressed so fruitlessly by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is arguably merely the latest delusion. Any plausible blueprint for West Bank withdrawal would require Israel to forcibly evacuate tens of thousands of settlers who are armed, determined to stay, and have powerful allies in Israel and in the United States. The likely outcome would be something close to civil war in Israel. Some Israeli defense officials even wonder, privately, whether the Israeli Army might sunder. And to what end? Hamas would remain committed to the destruction of Israel; and any attempt by, say, the Fatah leadership to impose settlement terms would entail something close to civil war among the Palestinians too.
Against that bleak background, what might Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Defense Minister Ehud Barak see as Israel's options? Olmert, about to leave office, has publicly lamented years of lost opportunities for peace. But might-have-beens are for historians; political leaders have to play the hands they're dealt. And, as one senior British official concluded after a recent trip to the region, "Israel's leadership sees Israel as facing an existential crisis." Wherever they look, they see the balance of power tilting against Israel. Nothing seems likely to halt Iran's nuclear weapons program and, macho rhetoric aside, Israel's ability to destroy this militarily are limited, short of a nuclear strike of its own. Oil-rich and Shia-dominated Iraq and Iran will have ample resources to fund and supply any Palestinian group they choose to support. (The Bush neocons' belief that a democratic Iraq would make peace with Israel looks to be as flawed as their other judgments.) Washington's desperate efforts to bail out the U.S. banking system by soliciting cash from the sovereign wealth funds of the Gulf states will give the Arabs more clout on Wall Street, which in time will surely influence America's policies in the region. And Israeli leaders fear that President Obama will push them harder than any of his predecessors to agree settlement terms none wants to contemplate.
The great Athenian historian Thucydides, writing almost 2500 years ago, concluded that one reason a nation goes to war is a perception of waning power: act now because the future looks worse than the present. The scale of the assault on Gaza suggests that the Olmert government is validating Thucydides' analysis: embarking on the end game to crush Hamas before it gets stronger, and Israel's position gets weaker. As Thucydides also observed, though, nations taking this gamble tend to be poor judges of what the consequences will be.
Israel's End Game
The attack on Gaza shows that the Olmert government feels it may be running out of options
John Barry
Does the Gaza offensive signal that the Israeli government has decided to embark on the end game? The scale of the effort—a massive aerial assault, with Israeli tanks massing along Gaza's border in evident preparation for a ground-assault—certainly suggests that. What does the "end game" mean? I quote a longtime senior Israeli defense adviser: A military effort to crush Palestinian resistance for a generation.
Wars end in one of two ways: by negotiation, or by the decisive defeat of one side. But, as that Israeli adviser argued to me in a session in Washington a couple of months ago neither party to the sixty-year conflict between Israel and the Palestinians has given its full support to either outcome. Each side has held back from commitment either to a negotiated settlement or to military victory.
Consider the Palestinian resistance. The carnage in Iraq from 2003 to 2007 demonstrates what a truly determined insurgency can achieve. By comparison the three Palestinian intifadashave been amateurish: disorganized, limited in intensity and territory—low-level unrest largely confined to the West Bank. Israel itself was barely touched; and the toll of Israeli military casualties, though steady, was slight compared to those inflicted by Hizbullah in one month's fighting in southern Lebanon in 2006. In cold military terms, suicide bombers striking in Israeli cities—the tactic Hamas, in particular, espoused from the mid-1990s—offered the Palestinians their first strategic weapon, as Israel's political leaders acknowledged at the time. But the suicide-bombing campaign waned, in part, no doubt, because the Israelis managed to kill its early organizers. But such evidence as we have suggests that Hamas itself decided to halt the suicide-bombings. Why? A theory credited by significant Israeli analysts is that Hamas feared the campaign's success would provoke an overwhelming Israeli military response. In short, the Palestinians have held back from waging an all-out military effort, aiming, on this analysis, to do enough to force Israel to meet their settlement terms, but not enough to provoke Israeli wrath.
Now consider the Israelis' response. The mountains of rubble in Nablus and Jenin after the Israeli air and tank assaults in the summer of 2002 invite derision at any talk of Israeli restraint. But the reality is that the Israelis have, for most of this long-running conflict, showed remarkable military restraint. The destruction in Jenin and Nablus—or across southern Lebanon in 2006—could have been repeated many times over. That it was not suggests that the Israelis, like the Palestinians, have held back from a military resolution to the conflict.
Yet neither side has really committed itself to the painful compromises that a negotiated outcome would entail. Accords, interim settlements, intermediate steps—of these there has been no shortage. What all have in common is that the difficult issues are postponed to some future Age of Aquarius. The status of Jerusalem; the right of Palestinian return; Israel's withdrawal from the lands won in 1967: on none of these has there ever been any evidence that either side is prepared to meet the other's core political needs. Nor is there any reasonable hope that, even if Israeli or Palestinian leaders could nerve themselves to make a deal, they could sell the compromises to their followers. The "two-state solution" pressed so fruitlessly by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is arguably merely the latest delusion. Any plausible blueprint for West Bank withdrawal would require Israel to forcibly evacuate tens of thousands of settlers who are armed, determined to stay, and have powerful allies in Israel and in the United States. The likely outcome would be something close to civil war in Israel. Some Israeli defense officials even wonder, privately, whether the Israeli Army might sunder. And to what end? Hamas would remain committed to the destruction of Israel; and any attempt by, say, the Fatah leadership to impose settlement terms would entail something close to civil war among the Palestinians too.
Against that bleak background, what might Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Defense Minister Ehud Barak see as Israel's options? Olmert, about to leave office, has publicly lamented years of lost opportunities for peace. But might-have-beens are for historians; political leaders have to play the hands they're dealt. And, as one senior British official concluded after a recent trip to the region, "Israel's leadership sees Israel as facing an existential crisis." Wherever they look, they see the balance of power tilting against Israel. Nothing seems likely to halt Iran's nuclear weapons program and, macho rhetoric aside, Israel's ability to destroy this militarily are limited, short of a nuclear strike of its own. Oil-rich and Shia-dominated Iraq and Iran will have ample resources to fund and supply any Palestinian group they choose to support. (The Bush neocons' belief that a democratic Iraq would make peace with Israel looks to be as flawed as their other judgments.) Washington's desperate efforts to bail out the U.S. banking system by soliciting cash from the sovereign wealth funds of the Gulf states will give the Arabs more clout on Wall Street, which in time will surely influence America's policies in the region. And Israeli leaders fear that President Obama will push them harder than any of his predecessors to agree settlement terms none wants to contemplate.
The great Athenian historian Thucydides, writing almost 2500 years ago, concluded that one reason a nation goes to war is a perception of waning power: act now because the future looks worse than the present. The scale of the assault on Gaza suggests that the Olmert government is validating Thucydides' analysis: embarking on the end game to crush Hamas before it gets stronger, and Israel's position gets weaker. As Thucydides also observed, though, nations taking this gamble tend to be poor judges of what the consequences will be.
TIME – MIDDLE EAST BLOG
12/29/08
Bush Legacy in Gaza
Scott MacLeod
The shoe throwing episode in Baghdad almost quaintly summed up the disaster the Bush administration leaves in its wake in Iraq--thousands dead in an ill-conceived and ill-planned invasion, thousands more dead in the explosion of sectarian and factional violence unleashed by the power vacuum, the strategic gains handed to Iran on a silver platter, the moral abomination of Abu Ghraib, and on and on. The "democracy" Bush created is one where Iraqi journalists exercise their rights of free expression by hurling potentially deadly objects at people they are quizzing at press conferences--in this case, the president of the United States, no less. It's hardly sufficient to say that that disgraceful gesture is a sign of Iraq's progress-- "things are better than they were under Saddam Hussein" is hardly the standard by which we should judge our performance in Iraq.
But the more tragic wreckage Bush leaves behind is in Israel-Palestine, as evidenced by the latest spasm of violence including the latest and ultimately futile Israeli blitz on Gaza against Hamas with the inevitable victims of "collateral damage." After too many Israeli invasions and incursions and bombing raids to count over the last six decades, somehow it's hard to be optimistic that the latest one will finally silence the Palestinian bombers and rocketers so Israelis can live in peace. The Bush administration's inexcusable neglect is partly responsible for the carnage we're seeing in Gaza today-- Katrina-like botch-ups are the legacy of this administration in the Middle East, too. Bringing peace to the Middle East is no easy task but it's a pathetic testimony if you don't even try.
The U.S. has the indispensable role to play in ending the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. But after spending most of its two terms walking away from negotiations and aimlessly supporting unilateral moves by Israeli hard-liners, the huge death tolls and continuing bloodshed are not the only results of the mismanagement of America's role. Israeli and Palestinian politics have become more severely fragmented, making it more difficult to find leaders who can make necessary and courageous decisions and make them stick for peace. The latest unspeakable round of killing is as much about the factional jockeying for power as it is about anything else--it's surely not about liberating Palestine or winning the war on terrorism, is it?
If there's anything good to come out of it, perhaps it's that the fighting on the eve of Barack Obama's inauguration as the next American president will further concentrate his mind on the need to get serious about U.S. diplomacy in the Middle East. A year ago, Bush convened the Annapolis peace conference in a clumsy, last-ditch effort to correct the mistake he made by abandoning U.S. mediation for nearly seven years. He optimistically predicted the parties would reach some kind of an agreement before he left office in January 2009. What happened instead? His legacy in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the scene of dead and wounded on the streets of Gaza.
12/29/08
Bush Legacy in Gaza
Scott MacLeod
The shoe throwing episode in Baghdad almost quaintly summed up the disaster the Bush administration leaves in its wake in Iraq--thousands dead in an ill-conceived and ill-planned invasion, thousands more dead in the explosion of sectarian and factional violence unleashed by the power vacuum, the strategic gains handed to Iran on a silver platter, the moral abomination of Abu Ghraib, and on and on. The "democracy" Bush created is one where Iraqi journalists exercise their rights of free expression by hurling potentially deadly objects at people they are quizzing at press conferences--in this case, the president of the United States, no less. It's hardly sufficient to say that that disgraceful gesture is a sign of Iraq's progress-- "things are better than they were under Saddam Hussein" is hardly the standard by which we should judge our performance in Iraq.
But the more tragic wreckage Bush leaves behind is in Israel-Palestine, as evidenced by the latest spasm of violence including the latest and ultimately futile Israeli blitz on Gaza against Hamas with the inevitable victims of "collateral damage." After too many Israeli invasions and incursions and bombing raids to count over the last six decades, somehow it's hard to be optimistic that the latest one will finally silence the Palestinian bombers and rocketers so Israelis can live in peace. The Bush administration's inexcusable neglect is partly responsible for the carnage we're seeing in Gaza today-- Katrina-like botch-ups are the legacy of this administration in the Middle East, too. Bringing peace to the Middle East is no easy task but it's a pathetic testimony if you don't even try.
The U.S. has the indispensable role to play in ending the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. But after spending most of its two terms walking away from negotiations and aimlessly supporting unilateral moves by Israeli hard-liners, the huge death tolls and continuing bloodshed are not the only results of the mismanagement of America's role. Israeli and Palestinian politics have become more severely fragmented, making it more difficult to find leaders who can make necessary and courageous decisions and make them stick for peace. The latest unspeakable round of killing is as much about the factional jockeying for power as it is about anything else--it's surely not about liberating Palestine or winning the war on terrorism, is it?
If there's anything good to come out of it, perhaps it's that the fighting on the eve of Barack Obama's inauguration as the next American president will further concentrate his mind on the need to get serious about U.S. diplomacy in the Middle East. A year ago, Bush convened the Annapolis peace conference in a clumsy, last-ditch effort to correct the mistake he made by abandoning U.S. mediation for nearly seven years. He optimistically predicted the parties would reach some kind of an agreement before he left office in January 2009. What happened instead? His legacy in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the scene of dead and wounded on the streets of Gaza.
WASHINGTON NOTE
12/28/08
What Next on Israel/Gaza? Why Should Americans Care?
Daniel Levy
For many people, what has happened today between Gaza and Israel may have all too familiar a ring to it - Israel warns and then retaliates to an alleged or real Palestinian escalation of violence, there is Arab condemnation and international exasperation, eventually things de-escalate but according to Israel's timetable as the U.S. prevents effective early international mediation, and we're back to where we started - with the addition of more blood and death (many innocent, some less so), more wounded and more shattered families.
Most of those involved, often including Israel, tend to regret things not coming to a halt sooner. The Israel Defense Forces with their modern weaponry try to pinpoint targets but invariably, predictably, and painfully there are plenty of "misses"; the Palestinians - well their weaponry is by definition more crude, they use what is available and the results are correspondingly messy and indiscriminate. Bottom line - Arabs and Jews are killing each other - so what's new?
And why on earth would America want to be involved?
Here's the bad news folks - America is involved, up to its eyeballs actually. Today, after Israeli air-strikes that killed over 200 Palestinians in Gaza, the Middle East is again seething with rage.
Recruiters to the most radical of causes are again cashing in. If Osama Bin Laden is indeed a cave-dweller these days then U.S. intel should be listening out for a booming echo of laughter. Demonstrations across the Arab world and contributors to the ever-proliferating Arabic language news media and blogosphere hold the U.S., and not just Israel, responsible for what happened today (and that is a position taken, for good reasons, by sensible folk, not hard-liners).
America's allies in the region are again running for cover. America's standing, its interests and security are all deeply affected. The U.S.-Israel relationship per se is not to blame (that is something I support), the unresolved Israeli-Palestinian conflict is - and thankfully we can do something about that.
Why did today's events occur?
The list of causes is a long one and of course depends who you are asking. Here are five of the most salient factors as I see them:
(1) Never forget the basics - the core issue is still an unresolved conflict about ending an occupation and establishing an independent Palestinian state - everything has to start from here to be serious (this is true also for Hamas who continue to heavily hint that they will accept the 1967 borders).
(2) The immediate backdrop begins with the Israeli disengagement from Gaza of summer 2005, ostensibly a good move, except one that left more issues open than it resolved. It was a unilateral initiative, so there was no coordinating the 'what happens next' with the Palestinians. Gaza was closed off to the world, the West Bank remained under occupation and what had the potential to be a constructive move towards peace became a source of new tensions - something many of us pointed out at the time (supporting withdrawal from Gaza, opposing how it was done).
(3) U.S., Israeli and international policy towards Hamas has greatly exacerbated the situation. Hamas participated in and won democratic elections to the Palestinian Legislative Council in January 2006. Rather than test the Hamas capacity to govern responsibly and nurture Hamas further into the political arena and away from armed struggle, the U.S.-led international response was to hermetically seal-off Hamas, besiege Gaza, work to undemocratically overthrow the Hamas government and thereby allow Hamas to credibly claim that a hypocritical standard was being applied to the American democracy agenda.
American, Israeli and Quartet policy towards Hamas has been a litany of largely unforced errors and missed opportunities. Hamas poses a serious policy challenge and direct early U.S. or Israeli engagement let alone financial support was certainly not the way forward, but in testing Hamas, a division of labor within the Quartet would have made sense (European and U.N. engagement, for instance, should have been encouraged, not the opposite).
Every wrong turn was taken - Hamas were seen through the GWOT prism not as a liberation struggle, when the Saudi's delivered a Palestinian National Unity Government in March 2007 the U.S. worked to unravel it, Palestinian reconciliation is still vetoed which encourages the least credible trends within Fatah, and unbelievably Egypt is given an exclusive mediation role with Hamas (Egypt naturally sees the Hamas issue first through its own domestic prism of concern at the growth of the Muslim Brothers, progress is often held hostage to ongoing Hamas-Egypt squabbles).
(4) Failure to build on the ceasefire. Israel is of course duty bound to defend and protect its citizens, so as the intensity of rocket fire in 2007-8 increased, Israel stepped up its actions against Gaza. But there was never much Israeli military or government enthusiasm for a full-scale conflict or ground invasion and eventually a practical working solution was found when both sides agreed to a six-month ceasefire on June 19th 2008. Neither side loved it. Both drew just enough benefit to keep going. That equation though was always delicately balanced.
For the communities of southern Israel which bore the brunt of the rocket attacks, notably Sderot, the ceasefire led to a dramatic improvement in daily life, and there were no Israeli fatalities during the entire period (only today, following the IDF strikes did a rocket hit the town of Netivot and kill one Israeli). Israel was though concerned about a Hamas arms build up and the entrenching of Hamas rule (which its policies have actually encouraged). For Gaza the calm meant less of an ongoing military threat but supplies of basic necessities into Gaza were kept to a minimum - just above starvation and humanitarian crisis levels - an ongoing provocation to Hamas and collective punishment for Gazans. The ceasefire needed to be solidified, nurtured, taken to the next level. None of this was done - the Quartet was busy with the deeply flawed Annapolis effort.
(5) A disaster was waiting to happen, and no-one was doing much about it. There was of course a date for the end of the ceasefire - December 19th. As that date approached both sides sought to improve their relative positions, to test some new rules of the game. Israel conducted a military operation on November 4th (yes, you had other things on your mind that day), apparently to destroy a tunnel from which an attack on Israel could be launched, Hamas responded with rocket-fire on southern Israeli towns.
That initiated a period of intense Israeli-Hamas dialogue, albeit an untraditional one, largely conducted via mutual military jabs, occasional public messaging and back-channels. Again though the main reliance was on Egypt - by now in an intense struggle of its own with Hamas. When Hamas pushed the envelop with over 60 rockets on a single day (December 24th), albeit causing no serious injuries and mostly landing in open fields (probably by design), Israel decided that it was time for an escalation. That happened today - on a massive scale - with an unprecedented death toll.
Israel clearly felt it was time to make a point, there was pressure (often self-generated) to act, and don't forget that Israel is in an election campaign (the vote is on Feb 10th). Hamas too had scores to settle - not only with Israel, but it was also time to pressure Egypt, Fatah, and Arab actors who had done little to address the blockade of Gaza.
So here we are, in a dangerous escalatory cycle that is already sweeping the region, with scores of Palestinian dead, horrific images, a highly-charged blame-game and no obvious exit-strategy. Both Israel and Hamas are looking to emerge with a better deal than what previously prevailed - both are preparing their publics to take harsh hits over the coming days, weeks or even longer, and over 200 families in Gaza and one family in Israel already know what that means, first-hand.
So, what needs to happen next?
Sadly it is too late for preventive action but there is an urgent need for a de-escalation that can lead to a new ceasefire - and that will not be easy.
Useful lessons can be drawn from some very recent, and ugly, Middle East history - though it seems that to its dying day the Bush Administration is refusing to learn (today the White House called on Israel only to avoid civilian casualties as it attacks Hamas - not to cease the strikes, Secretary Rice was more measured).
In the summer of 2006 an escalation between Israel and Hezbollah led to a Lebanon war whose echoes still reverberate around the region. There were well over one thousand civilian casualties (1,035 Lebanese according to AP, 43 Israelis), thousands more injured, and other fatalities including the Israeli government which never recovered its poise, what little American credibility remained in the region (Secretary Rice was literally forced to return to Foggy Bottom as allied Arab capitals were too embarrassed to receive her) and much Lebanese infrastructure. That time it took 33 days for diplomacy to move and for a U.N. Security Council Resolution (1701) to deliver an end to fighting. The U.S. actively blocked diplomacy, Rice famously called this conflict "the birth pangs of a new Middle East" - it was no such thing, and the Middle East itself did not know whether to laugh or cry (the latter prevailed).
Just as in 2006, Israel needs the international community to be its exit strategy - and there is no time to waste. Even what appears as a short-term Israeli success is likely to prove self-defeating over a longer time horizon and that effect will intensify as the fighting continues. Over time, immense pressure will also grow on the PA in Ramallah, on Jordan, Egypt and others to act and their governments will be increasingly uneasy.
Demonstrations across the West Bank are calling for a halt to all Israeli-Palestinian talks and for Palestinian unity.
If the U.S. is indifferent or still under the neocon ideological spell then Europe, the rest of the Quartet, Arab States and other internationals must act - with a variety of players using leverage with Israel and Hamas to de-escalate. Escalation poses dangers at a humanitarian and regional-political level. International leaders should head to the region before the new year, even if the warring parties discourage it, and for some of them Gaza must be on the itinerary, the boycott (anyway unwise) is a secondary matter now. High-level visits in themselves can create a de-escalatory dynamic.
Both sides will want to land the final big punch and both will need a dignified narrative for home consumption - any ceasefire deal will have to take this into account (and this during an Israeli election campaign, with violence usually helping the right, and the centrist government desperate for an image make-over after that Lebanon 2006 debacle).
The obvious ingredients will have to be creatively re-configured for this to be possible, including ending rocket fire at Israel and removing the blockade on Gaza. New ingredients may also be necessary and while extending the ceasefire to the West Bank is (unfortunately) probably out of the question, it might be possible this time to establish a monitoring mechanism for the ceasefire. Such a mechanism could serve both sides' interests (Israel gets a more solid guarantee, Hamas gets more recognition).
There is a precedent for this - after the April 1996 Israel-Hezbollah conflict a formal Ceasefire Understanding was reached that included the establishment of a Monitoring Group consisting of the U.S., France, Syria, Lebanon, and Israel (with Syria basically acting as guarantor for Hezbollah). That mechanism proved useful and met with constructive IDF cooperation - something similar might be needed now.
In addition efforts need to be revived for achieving Palestinian national reconciliation (which itself could ease the management of the Gaza situation) and for allowing Gaza greater access to the outside world through Egypt via the Rafah border crossing.
But there is a bigger picture - and it is staring at the incoming Obama administration. Today's events should be 'exhibit A' in why the next U.S. Government cannot leave the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to fester or try to 'manage' it - as long as it remains unresolved, it has a nasty habit of forcing itself onto the agenda.
That can happen on terms dictated to the U.S. by the region (bad) or the U.S. can seek to set its own terms (far preferable). The new administration needs to embark upon a course of forceful regional diplomacy that breaks fundamentally from past efforts. A consensus of sorts is emerging in the U.S. foreign policy establishment that this conflict needs to be resolved - evidenced in the findings of a recent Brookings/Council of Foreign Relations Report or the powerful statements coming from elder statesmen like Zbigniew Brzezinski and Brent Scowcroft, themselves building on the findings of the Baker-Hamilton Iraq Study Group.
It will require tenacity and bold ideas - in framing the solution, bringing in previously excluded actors, creating mechanisms to implement a deal (such as international forces) and utilizing the Saudi-led Arab Peace Initiative - but the alternative is far worse, its what we see today and it guarantees ongoing instability in a region of paramount importance to the United States.
This is a guest post by New America Foundation Middle East Task Force Co-Director Daniel Levy
12/28/08
What Next on Israel/Gaza? Why Should Americans Care?
Daniel Levy
For many people, what has happened today between Gaza and Israel may have all too familiar a ring to it - Israel warns and then retaliates to an alleged or real Palestinian escalation of violence, there is Arab condemnation and international exasperation, eventually things de-escalate but according to Israel's timetable as the U.S. prevents effective early international mediation, and we're back to where we started - with the addition of more blood and death (many innocent, some less so), more wounded and more shattered families.
Most of those involved, often including Israel, tend to regret things not coming to a halt sooner. The Israel Defense Forces with their modern weaponry try to pinpoint targets but invariably, predictably, and painfully there are plenty of "misses"; the Palestinians - well their weaponry is by definition more crude, they use what is available and the results are correspondingly messy and indiscriminate. Bottom line - Arabs and Jews are killing each other - so what's new?
And why on earth would America want to be involved?
Here's the bad news folks - America is involved, up to its eyeballs actually. Today, after Israeli air-strikes that killed over 200 Palestinians in Gaza, the Middle East is again seething with rage.
Recruiters to the most radical of causes are again cashing in. If Osama Bin Laden is indeed a cave-dweller these days then U.S. intel should be listening out for a booming echo of laughter. Demonstrations across the Arab world and contributors to the ever-proliferating Arabic language news media and blogosphere hold the U.S., and not just Israel, responsible for what happened today (and that is a position taken, for good reasons, by sensible folk, not hard-liners).
America's allies in the region are again running for cover. America's standing, its interests and security are all deeply affected. The U.S.-Israel relationship per se is not to blame (that is something I support), the unresolved Israeli-Palestinian conflict is - and thankfully we can do something about that.
Why did today's events occur?
The list of causes is a long one and of course depends who you are asking. Here are five of the most salient factors as I see them:
(1) Never forget the basics - the core issue is still an unresolved conflict about ending an occupation and establishing an independent Palestinian state - everything has to start from here to be serious (this is true also for Hamas who continue to heavily hint that they will accept the 1967 borders).
(2) The immediate backdrop begins with the Israeli disengagement from Gaza of summer 2005, ostensibly a good move, except one that left more issues open than it resolved. It was a unilateral initiative, so there was no coordinating the 'what happens next' with the Palestinians. Gaza was closed off to the world, the West Bank remained under occupation and what had the potential to be a constructive move towards peace became a source of new tensions - something many of us pointed out at the time (supporting withdrawal from Gaza, opposing how it was done).
(3) U.S., Israeli and international policy towards Hamas has greatly exacerbated the situation. Hamas participated in and won democratic elections to the Palestinian Legislative Council in January 2006. Rather than test the Hamas capacity to govern responsibly and nurture Hamas further into the political arena and away from armed struggle, the U.S.-led international response was to hermetically seal-off Hamas, besiege Gaza, work to undemocratically overthrow the Hamas government and thereby allow Hamas to credibly claim that a hypocritical standard was being applied to the American democracy agenda.
American, Israeli and Quartet policy towards Hamas has been a litany of largely unforced errors and missed opportunities. Hamas poses a serious policy challenge and direct early U.S. or Israeli engagement let alone financial support was certainly not the way forward, but in testing Hamas, a division of labor within the Quartet would have made sense (European and U.N. engagement, for instance, should have been encouraged, not the opposite).
Every wrong turn was taken - Hamas were seen through the GWOT prism not as a liberation struggle, when the Saudi's delivered a Palestinian National Unity Government in March 2007 the U.S. worked to unravel it, Palestinian reconciliation is still vetoed which encourages the least credible trends within Fatah, and unbelievably Egypt is given an exclusive mediation role with Hamas (Egypt naturally sees the Hamas issue first through its own domestic prism of concern at the growth of the Muslim Brothers, progress is often held hostage to ongoing Hamas-Egypt squabbles).
(4) Failure to build on the ceasefire. Israel is of course duty bound to defend and protect its citizens, so as the intensity of rocket fire in 2007-8 increased, Israel stepped up its actions against Gaza. But there was never much Israeli military or government enthusiasm for a full-scale conflict or ground invasion and eventually a practical working solution was found when both sides agreed to a six-month ceasefire on June 19th 2008. Neither side loved it. Both drew just enough benefit to keep going. That equation though was always delicately balanced.
For the communities of southern Israel which bore the brunt of the rocket attacks, notably Sderot, the ceasefire led to a dramatic improvement in daily life, and there were no Israeli fatalities during the entire period (only today, following the IDF strikes did a rocket hit the town of Netivot and kill one Israeli). Israel was though concerned about a Hamas arms build up and the entrenching of Hamas rule (which its policies have actually encouraged). For Gaza the calm meant less of an ongoing military threat but supplies of basic necessities into Gaza were kept to a minimum - just above starvation and humanitarian crisis levels - an ongoing provocation to Hamas and collective punishment for Gazans. The ceasefire needed to be solidified, nurtured, taken to the next level. None of this was done - the Quartet was busy with the deeply flawed Annapolis effort.
(5) A disaster was waiting to happen, and no-one was doing much about it. There was of course a date for the end of the ceasefire - December 19th. As that date approached both sides sought to improve their relative positions, to test some new rules of the game. Israel conducted a military operation on November 4th (yes, you had other things on your mind that day), apparently to destroy a tunnel from which an attack on Israel could be launched, Hamas responded with rocket-fire on southern Israeli towns.
That initiated a period of intense Israeli-Hamas dialogue, albeit an untraditional one, largely conducted via mutual military jabs, occasional public messaging and back-channels. Again though the main reliance was on Egypt - by now in an intense struggle of its own with Hamas. When Hamas pushed the envelop with over 60 rockets on a single day (December 24th), albeit causing no serious injuries and mostly landing in open fields (probably by design), Israel decided that it was time for an escalation. That happened today - on a massive scale - with an unprecedented death toll.
Israel clearly felt it was time to make a point, there was pressure (often self-generated) to act, and don't forget that Israel is in an election campaign (the vote is on Feb 10th). Hamas too had scores to settle - not only with Israel, but it was also time to pressure Egypt, Fatah, and Arab actors who had done little to address the blockade of Gaza.
So here we are, in a dangerous escalatory cycle that is already sweeping the region, with scores of Palestinian dead, horrific images, a highly-charged blame-game and no obvious exit-strategy. Both Israel and Hamas are looking to emerge with a better deal than what previously prevailed - both are preparing their publics to take harsh hits over the coming days, weeks or even longer, and over 200 families in Gaza and one family in Israel already know what that means, first-hand.
So, what needs to happen next?
Sadly it is too late for preventive action but there is an urgent need for a de-escalation that can lead to a new ceasefire - and that will not be easy.
Useful lessons can be drawn from some very recent, and ugly, Middle East history - though it seems that to its dying day the Bush Administration is refusing to learn (today the White House called on Israel only to avoid civilian casualties as it attacks Hamas - not to cease the strikes, Secretary Rice was more measured).
In the summer of 2006 an escalation between Israel and Hezbollah led to a Lebanon war whose echoes still reverberate around the region. There were well over one thousand civilian casualties (1,035 Lebanese according to AP, 43 Israelis), thousands more injured, and other fatalities including the Israeli government which never recovered its poise, what little American credibility remained in the region (Secretary Rice was literally forced to return to Foggy Bottom as allied Arab capitals were too embarrassed to receive her) and much Lebanese infrastructure. That time it took 33 days for diplomacy to move and for a U.N. Security Council Resolution (1701) to deliver an end to fighting. The U.S. actively blocked diplomacy, Rice famously called this conflict "the birth pangs of a new Middle East" - it was no such thing, and the Middle East itself did not know whether to laugh or cry (the latter prevailed).
Just as in 2006, Israel needs the international community to be its exit strategy - and there is no time to waste. Even what appears as a short-term Israeli success is likely to prove self-defeating over a longer time horizon and that effect will intensify as the fighting continues. Over time, immense pressure will also grow on the PA in Ramallah, on Jordan, Egypt and others to act and their governments will be increasingly uneasy.
Demonstrations across the West Bank are calling for a halt to all Israeli-Palestinian talks and for Palestinian unity.
If the U.S. is indifferent or still under the neocon ideological spell then Europe, the rest of the Quartet, Arab States and other internationals must act - with a variety of players using leverage with Israel and Hamas to de-escalate. Escalation poses dangers at a humanitarian and regional-political level. International leaders should head to the region before the new year, even if the warring parties discourage it, and for some of them Gaza must be on the itinerary, the boycott (anyway unwise) is a secondary matter now. High-level visits in themselves can create a de-escalatory dynamic.
Both sides will want to land the final big punch and both will need a dignified narrative for home consumption - any ceasefire deal will have to take this into account (and this during an Israeli election campaign, with violence usually helping the right, and the centrist government desperate for an image make-over after that Lebanon 2006 debacle).
The obvious ingredients will have to be creatively re-configured for this to be possible, including ending rocket fire at Israel and removing the blockade on Gaza. New ingredients may also be necessary and while extending the ceasefire to the West Bank is (unfortunately) probably out of the question, it might be possible this time to establish a monitoring mechanism for the ceasefire. Such a mechanism could serve both sides' interests (Israel gets a more solid guarantee, Hamas gets more recognition).
There is a precedent for this - after the April 1996 Israel-Hezbollah conflict a formal Ceasefire Understanding was reached that included the establishment of a Monitoring Group consisting of the U.S., France, Syria, Lebanon, and Israel (with Syria basically acting as guarantor for Hezbollah). That mechanism proved useful and met with constructive IDF cooperation - something similar might be needed now.
In addition efforts need to be revived for achieving Palestinian national reconciliation (which itself could ease the management of the Gaza situation) and for allowing Gaza greater access to the outside world through Egypt via the Rafah border crossing.
But there is a bigger picture - and it is staring at the incoming Obama administration. Today's events should be 'exhibit A' in why the next U.S. Government cannot leave the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to fester or try to 'manage' it - as long as it remains unresolved, it has a nasty habit of forcing itself onto the agenda.
That can happen on terms dictated to the U.S. by the region (bad) or the U.S. can seek to set its own terms (far preferable). The new administration needs to embark upon a course of forceful regional diplomacy that breaks fundamentally from past efforts. A consensus of sorts is emerging in the U.S. foreign policy establishment that this conflict needs to be resolved - evidenced in the findings of a recent Brookings/Council of Foreign Relations Report or the powerful statements coming from elder statesmen like Zbigniew Brzezinski and Brent Scowcroft, themselves building on the findings of the Baker-Hamilton Iraq Study Group.
It will require tenacity and bold ideas - in framing the solution, bringing in previously excluded actors, creating mechanisms to implement a deal (such as international forces) and utilizing the Saudi-led Arab Peace Initiative - but the alternative is far worse, its what we see today and it guarantees ongoing instability in a region of paramount importance to the United States.
This is a guest post by New America Foundation Middle East Task Force Co-Director Daniel Levy
The Independent
December 29, 2008
Johann Hari: The true story behind this war is not the one Israel is telling
The world isn't just watching the Israeli government commit a crime in Gaza; we are watching it self-harm. This morning, and tomorrow morning, and every morning until this punishment beating ends, the young people of the Gaza Strip are going to be more filled with hate, and more determined to fight back, with stones or suicide vests or rockets. Israeli leaders have convinced themselves that the harder you beat the Palestinians, the softer they will become. But when this is over, the rage against Israelis will have hardened, and the same old compromises will still be waiting by the roadside of history, untended and unmade.
To understand how frightening it is to be a Gazan this morning, you need to have stood in that small slab of concrete by the Mediterranean and smelled the claustrophobia. The Gaza Strip is smaller than the Isle of Wight but it is crammed with 1.5 million people who can never leave. They live out their lives on top of each other, jobless and hungry, in vast, sagging tower blocks. From the top floor, you can often see the borders of their world: the Mediterranean, and Israeli barbed wire. When bombs begin to fall – as they are doing now with more deadly force than at any time since 1967 – there is nowhere to hide.
There will now be a war over the story of this war. The Israeli government says, "We withdrew from Gaza in 2005 and in return we got Hamas and Qassam rockets being rained on our cities. Sixteen civilians have been murdered. How many more are we supposed to sacrifice?" It is a plausible narrative, and there are shards of truth in it, but it is also filled with holes. If we want to understand the reality and really stop the rockets, we need to rewind a few years and view the run-up to this war dispassionately.
The Israeli government did indeed withdraw from the Gaza Strip in 2005 – in order to be able to intensify control of the West Bank. Ariel Sharon's senior adviser, Dov Weisglass, was unequivocal about this, explaining: "The disengagement [from Gaza] is actually formaldehyde. It supplies the amount of formaldehyde that is necessary so that there will not be a political process with the Palestinians... this whole package that is called the Palestinian state has been removed from our agenda indefinitely."
Ordinary Palestinians were horrified by this, and by the fetid corruption of their own Fatah leaders, so they voted for Hamas. It certainly wouldn't have been my choice – an Islamist party is antithetical to all my convictions - but we have to be honest. It was a free and democratic election, and it was not a rejection of a two-state solution. The most detailed polling of Palestinians, by the University of Maryland, found that 72 per cent want a two-state solution on the 1967 borders, while fewer than 20 per cent want to reclaim the whole of historic Palestine. So, partly in response to this pressure, Hamas offered Israel a long, long ceasefire and a de facto acceptance of two states, if only Israel would return to its legal borders.
Rather than seize this opportunity and test Hamas's sincerity, the Israeli government reacted by punishing the entire civilian population. It announced that it was blockading the Gaza Strip in order to "pressure" its people to reverse the democratic process. The Israelis surrounded the Strip and refused to let anyone or anything out. They let in a small trickle of food, fuel and medicine – but not enough for survival. Weisglass quipped that the Gazans were being "put on a diet". According to Oxfam, only 137 trucks of food were allowed into Gaza last month to feed 1.5 million people. The United Nations says poverty has reached an "unprecedented level." When I was last in besieged Gaza, I saw hospitals turning away the sick because their machinery and medicine was running out. I met hungry children stumbling around the streets, scavenging for food.
It was in this context – under a collective punishment designed to topple a democracy – that some forces within Gaza did something immoral: they fired Qassam rockets indiscriminately at Israeli cities. These rockets have killed 16 Israeli citizens. This is abhorrent: targeting civilians is always murder. But it is hypocritical for the Israeli government to claim now to speak out for the safety of civilians when it has been terrorising civilians as a matter of state policy.
The American and European governments are responding with a lop-sidedness that ignores these realities. They say that Israel cannot be expected to negotiate while under rocket fire, but they demand that the Palestinians do so under siege in Gaza and violent military occupation in the West Bank.
Before it falls down the memory hole, we should remember that last week, Hamas offered a ceasefire in return for basic and achievable compromises. Don't take my word for it. According to the Israeli press, Yuval Diskin, the current head of the Israeli security service Shin Bet, "told the Israeli cabinet [on 23 December] that Hamas is interested in continuing the truce, but wants to improve its terms." Diskin explained that Hamas was requesting two things: an end to the blockade, and an Israeli ceasefire on the West Bank. The cabinet – high with election fever and eager to appear tough – rejected these terms.
The core of the situation has been starkly laid out by Ephraim Halevy, the former head of Mossad. He says that while Hamas militants – like much of the Israeli right-wing – dream of driving their opponents away, "they have recognised this ideological goal is not attainable and will not be in the foreseeable future." Instead, "they are ready and willing to see the establishment of a Palestinian state in the temporary borders of 1967." They are aware that this means they "will have to adopt a path that could lead them far from their original goals" – and towards a long-term peace based on compromise.
The rejectionists on both sides – from Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran to Bibi Netanyahu of Israel – would then be marginalised. It is the only path that could yet end in peace but it is the Israeli government that refuses to choose it. Halevy explains: "Israel, for reasons of its own, did not want to turn the ceasefire into the start of a diplomatic process with Hamas."
Why would Israel act this way? The Israeli government wants peace, but only one imposed on its own terms, based on the acceptance of defeat by the Palestinians. It means the Israelis can keep the slabs of the West Bank on "their" side of the wall. It means they keep the largest settlements and control the water supply. And it means a divided Palestine, with responsibility for Gaza hived off to Egypt, and the broken-up West Bank standing alone. Negotiations threaten this vision: they would require Israel to give up more than it wants to. But an imposed peace will be no peace at all: it will not stop the rockets or the rage. For real safety, Israel will have to talk to the people it is blockading and bombing today, and compromise with them.
The sound of Gaza burning should be drowned out by the words of the Israeli writer Larry Derfner. He says: "Israel's war with Gaza has to be the most one-sided on earth... If the point is to end it, or at least begin to end it, the ball is not in Hamas's court – it is in ours."
December 29, 2008
Johann Hari: The true story behind this war is not the one Israel is telling
The world isn't just watching the Israeli government commit a crime in Gaza; we are watching it self-harm. This morning, and tomorrow morning, and every morning until this punishment beating ends, the young people of the Gaza Strip are going to be more filled with hate, and more determined to fight back, with stones or suicide vests or rockets. Israeli leaders have convinced themselves that the harder you beat the Palestinians, the softer they will become. But when this is over, the rage against Israelis will have hardened, and the same old compromises will still be waiting by the roadside of history, untended and unmade.
To understand how frightening it is to be a Gazan this morning, you need to have stood in that small slab of concrete by the Mediterranean and smelled the claustrophobia. The Gaza Strip is smaller than the Isle of Wight but it is crammed with 1.5 million people who can never leave. They live out their lives on top of each other, jobless and hungry, in vast, sagging tower blocks. From the top floor, you can often see the borders of their world: the Mediterranean, and Israeli barbed wire. When bombs begin to fall – as they are doing now with more deadly force than at any time since 1967 – there is nowhere to hide.
There will now be a war over the story of this war. The Israeli government says, "We withdrew from Gaza in 2005 and in return we got Hamas and Qassam rockets being rained on our cities. Sixteen civilians have been murdered. How many more are we supposed to sacrifice?" It is a plausible narrative, and there are shards of truth in it, but it is also filled with holes. If we want to understand the reality and really stop the rockets, we need to rewind a few years and view the run-up to this war dispassionately.
The Israeli government did indeed withdraw from the Gaza Strip in 2005 – in order to be able to intensify control of the West Bank. Ariel Sharon's senior adviser, Dov Weisglass, was unequivocal about this, explaining: "The disengagement [from Gaza] is actually formaldehyde. It supplies the amount of formaldehyde that is necessary so that there will not be a political process with the Palestinians... this whole package that is called the Palestinian state has been removed from our agenda indefinitely."
Ordinary Palestinians were horrified by this, and by the fetid corruption of their own Fatah leaders, so they voted for Hamas. It certainly wouldn't have been my choice – an Islamist party is antithetical to all my convictions - but we have to be honest. It was a free and democratic election, and it was not a rejection of a two-state solution. The most detailed polling of Palestinians, by the University of Maryland, found that 72 per cent want a two-state solution on the 1967 borders, while fewer than 20 per cent want to reclaim the whole of historic Palestine. So, partly in response to this pressure, Hamas offered Israel a long, long ceasefire and a de facto acceptance of two states, if only Israel would return to its legal borders.
Rather than seize this opportunity and test Hamas's sincerity, the Israeli government reacted by punishing the entire civilian population. It announced that it was blockading the Gaza Strip in order to "pressure" its people to reverse the democratic process. The Israelis surrounded the Strip and refused to let anyone or anything out. They let in a small trickle of food, fuel and medicine – but not enough for survival. Weisglass quipped that the Gazans were being "put on a diet". According to Oxfam, only 137 trucks of food were allowed into Gaza last month to feed 1.5 million people. The United Nations says poverty has reached an "unprecedented level." When I was last in besieged Gaza, I saw hospitals turning away the sick because their machinery and medicine was running out. I met hungry children stumbling around the streets, scavenging for food.
It was in this context – under a collective punishment designed to topple a democracy – that some forces within Gaza did something immoral: they fired Qassam rockets indiscriminately at Israeli cities. These rockets have killed 16 Israeli citizens. This is abhorrent: targeting civilians is always murder. But it is hypocritical for the Israeli government to claim now to speak out for the safety of civilians when it has been terrorising civilians as a matter of state policy.
The American and European governments are responding with a lop-sidedness that ignores these realities. They say that Israel cannot be expected to negotiate while under rocket fire, but they demand that the Palestinians do so under siege in Gaza and violent military occupation in the West Bank.
Before it falls down the memory hole, we should remember that last week, Hamas offered a ceasefire in return for basic and achievable compromises. Don't take my word for it. According to the Israeli press, Yuval Diskin, the current head of the Israeli security service Shin Bet, "told the Israeli cabinet [on 23 December] that Hamas is interested in continuing the truce, but wants to improve its terms." Diskin explained that Hamas was requesting two things: an end to the blockade, and an Israeli ceasefire on the West Bank. The cabinet – high with election fever and eager to appear tough – rejected these terms.
The core of the situation has been starkly laid out by Ephraim Halevy, the former head of Mossad. He says that while Hamas militants – like much of the Israeli right-wing – dream of driving their opponents away, "they have recognised this ideological goal is not attainable and will not be in the foreseeable future." Instead, "they are ready and willing to see the establishment of a Palestinian state in the temporary borders of 1967." They are aware that this means they "will have to adopt a path that could lead them far from their original goals" – and towards a long-term peace based on compromise.
The rejectionists on both sides – from Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran to Bibi Netanyahu of Israel – would then be marginalised. It is the only path that could yet end in peace but it is the Israeli government that refuses to choose it. Halevy explains: "Israel, for reasons of its own, did not want to turn the ceasefire into the start of a diplomatic process with Hamas."
Why would Israel act this way? The Israeli government wants peace, but only one imposed on its own terms, based on the acceptance of defeat by the Palestinians. It means the Israelis can keep the slabs of the West Bank on "their" side of the wall. It means they keep the largest settlements and control the water supply. And it means a divided Palestine, with responsibility for Gaza hived off to Egypt, and the broken-up West Bank standing alone. Negotiations threaten this vision: they would require Israel to give up more than it wants to. But an imposed peace will be no peace at all: it will not stop the rockets or the rage. For real safety, Israel will have to talk to the people it is blockading and bombing today, and compromise with them.
The sound of Gaza burning should be drowned out by the words of the Israeli writer Larry Derfner. He says: "Israel's war with Gaza has to be the most one-sided on earth... If the point is to end it, or at least begin to end it, the ball is not in Hamas's court – it is in ours."
China destined to be America's best friend
By TOM PLATE
BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. — When the holiday season ends and Barack Obama takes the U.S. presidential oath of office next month, will he notice that life has become less merry and more naughty and un-nice? This brilliant American politician will soon become aware that suddenly everyone wants to be his friend.
But as outgoing President George W. Bush can tell him with authority, the concept of true friendship and Washington political life is all but oxymoronic. In the nation's capital, most political players can count the number of genuine friends on the fingers of their hands and still have almost enough spots left over for the starting lineup of the Washington Redskins.
This is almost as true in international relations as in the domestic political sphere. Friendship inside the Washington beltway is more a shifting mosaic of ad hoc political alliances — not much more stable than desert sands in a windstorm. In international relationships, a measure of friendship can be obtained due to the relative immobility of national interests: They do change, but only slowly, and almost always with warning.
Obama will be beseeched with overtures for political intimacy. The most unabashed applicants will come from Europe and the Middle East. None is to be believed. European friendship has always been treacherous and little needs to be said about the Middle East — where even the government of Israel has spied on us, Saudi Arabia is fertile soil for terrorists, etc., etc.). And Latin America, as usual, is a political basket case.
Instead, Obama should be sensitively attuned to good-faith overtures for friendship from certain leaders in Asia, particularly from a most unlikely capital indeed, Beijing.
Here's why: China is undergoing a measure of unholy hell right now. The growth rate is dropping with implications of social disruption as ominous as the hulking likeness of Mao Zedong in Tiananmen Square. The scale and complexity of China is such that, when President Hu Jintao looks for someone to talk to, hardly anyone on the face of the Earth belongs in the same league of intense difficulty, except for Obama.
For the last 100 years or so, the U.S. has dominated the world stage as a national player in almost everything, including economy, culture and technology. It has also had the most global ambition. The consensus call now is that the U.S. has to start downsizing the scope of its ambitions. At the same time, China will be expanding in every sense, except possibly in territoriality.
This duo-dynamic is reshaping the world. Few countries can relate, emphasize, sympathize, understand and indeed shape what is going on. Probably this is understood, however quietly, by President Hu, sitting precariously atop a sprawling nation where more than one out of every five human beings lives.
This fateful Sino-U.S. commonality is dramatically underscored by the current global economic crisis. Never have China and the U.S. been in the same deep soup together — at least not since the Japanese expansionism of the 1940s. This is why Hu and Obama need to achieve a special relationship at this pivotal moment.
Forget reaching out to France's Nicolas Sarkozy or Canada's Stephen Harper or even Britain's Gordon Brown. These are small fish in a giant pond; it is the rare whales that need to get along. The Sarkozys of the world don't have enough spout or clout to help Obama ease through this crisis. But Hu does — and vice versa.
In this sense, the two leaders of the two leading giant nations are meant for each other. Hu needs Obama as much as Obama needs Jintao. Each wastes their own time to the extent that they are not grabbing for a quality meeting with each other. Huge differences in value systems and history divide the two great nations, to be sure, and make cooperation difficult. But the global sailing will be smoother when they share the rudder, especially in such perfect-storm financial weather as we have now.
This means, on the U.S. side, that President Obama listens with a great measure of skepticism to those advisers who claim that the Middle East needs to occupy space No. 1. He should understand that, while perhaps he walks on water, the desert sands of the Middle East suck every Westerner down who decides to dance on it.
The real opportunity for friendship and deeper alliance-building lies with China. This isn't because the People's Republic is either good-natured or benevolent. Like the U.S. or any other nation, it has its share of narrow-minded national interests and internal moral inconsistencies. It's because China and America are the only two powers right now with the commensurate capacity to relate to one another fully, frankly and meaningfully. Obama hasn't said much about China or perhaps even thought deeply about it. But he should start now, before it's too late.
Properly managed, Sino-U.S. relations offer the largest upside potential for improvement of any bilateral relationship in the world.
Veteran journalist and syndicated columnist Tom Plate is a member of the China task force of the Pacific Council on International Policy. © 2008 Pacific Perspectives Media Center
The Japan Times: Sunday, Dec. 28, 2008
© All rights reserved
By TOM PLATE
BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. — When the holiday season ends and Barack Obama takes the U.S. presidential oath of office next month, will he notice that life has become less merry and more naughty and un-nice? This brilliant American politician will soon become aware that suddenly everyone wants to be his friend.
But as outgoing President George W. Bush can tell him with authority, the concept of true friendship and Washington political life is all but oxymoronic. In the nation's capital, most political players can count the number of genuine friends on the fingers of their hands and still have almost enough spots left over for the starting lineup of the Washington Redskins.
This is almost as true in international relations as in the domestic political sphere. Friendship inside the Washington beltway is more a shifting mosaic of ad hoc political alliances — not much more stable than desert sands in a windstorm. In international relationships, a measure of friendship can be obtained due to the relative immobility of national interests: They do change, but only slowly, and almost always with warning.
Obama will be beseeched with overtures for political intimacy. The most unabashed applicants will come from Europe and the Middle East. None is to be believed. European friendship has always been treacherous and little needs to be said about the Middle East — where even the government of Israel has spied on us, Saudi Arabia is fertile soil for terrorists, etc., etc.). And Latin America, as usual, is a political basket case.
Instead, Obama should be sensitively attuned to good-faith overtures for friendship from certain leaders in Asia, particularly from a most unlikely capital indeed, Beijing.
Here's why: China is undergoing a measure of unholy hell right now. The growth rate is dropping with implications of social disruption as ominous as the hulking likeness of Mao Zedong in Tiananmen Square. The scale and complexity of China is such that, when President Hu Jintao looks for someone to talk to, hardly anyone on the face of the Earth belongs in the same league of intense difficulty, except for Obama.
For the last 100 years or so, the U.S. has dominated the world stage as a national player in almost everything, including economy, culture and technology. It has also had the most global ambition. The consensus call now is that the U.S. has to start downsizing the scope of its ambitions. At the same time, China will be expanding in every sense, except possibly in territoriality.
This duo-dynamic is reshaping the world. Few countries can relate, emphasize, sympathize, understand and indeed shape what is going on. Probably this is understood, however quietly, by President Hu, sitting precariously atop a sprawling nation where more than one out of every five human beings lives.
This fateful Sino-U.S. commonality is dramatically underscored by the current global economic crisis. Never have China and the U.S. been in the same deep soup together — at least not since the Japanese expansionism of the 1940s. This is why Hu and Obama need to achieve a special relationship at this pivotal moment.
Forget reaching out to France's Nicolas Sarkozy or Canada's Stephen Harper or even Britain's Gordon Brown. These are small fish in a giant pond; it is the rare whales that need to get along. The Sarkozys of the world don't have enough spout or clout to help Obama ease through this crisis. But Hu does — and vice versa.
In this sense, the two leaders of the two leading giant nations are meant for each other. Hu needs Obama as much as Obama needs Jintao. Each wastes their own time to the extent that they are not grabbing for a quality meeting with each other. Huge differences in value systems and history divide the two great nations, to be sure, and make cooperation difficult. But the global sailing will be smoother when they share the rudder, especially in such perfect-storm financial weather as we have now.
This means, on the U.S. side, that President Obama listens with a great measure of skepticism to those advisers who claim that the Middle East needs to occupy space No. 1. He should understand that, while perhaps he walks on water, the desert sands of the Middle East suck every Westerner down who decides to dance on it.
The real opportunity for friendship and deeper alliance-building lies with China. This isn't because the People's Republic is either good-natured or benevolent. Like the U.S. or any other nation, it has its share of narrow-minded national interests and internal moral inconsistencies. It's because China and America are the only two powers right now with the commensurate capacity to relate to one another fully, frankly and meaningfully. Obama hasn't said much about China or perhaps even thought deeply about it. But he should start now, before it's too late.
Properly managed, Sino-U.S. relations offer the largest upside potential for improvement of any bilateral relationship in the world.
Veteran journalist and syndicated columnist Tom Plate is a member of the China task force of the Pacific Council on International Policy. © 2008 Pacific Perspectives Media Center
The Japan Times: Sunday, Dec. 28, 2008
© All rights reserved
HAMAS AND ISRAEL: CONFLICTING STRATEGIES
An improved understanding of the dynamics of the conflict between Hamas and Israel -- one that goes beyond "they started it" -- is probably a prerequisite to any enduring reduction of the violence and the terrible human suffering that the conflict now entails.
A detailed new assessment (pdf) by an analyst at the U.S. Army Strategic Studies Institute traces the evolution of the Israel-Hamas conflict prior to the end of the recent ceasefire and identifies steps that both sides would likely have to take in order to arrive at a long-term truce.
"Neither Israel nor the Palestinians have a unified position towards the other," writes Sherifa Zuhur, professor of Islamic and regional studies at the Strategic Studies Institute. "Each group is socialized in particular ways, through the educational system, employment experiences; and for Israelis, in the military, in political parties, families, and bureaucracies."
Based on her own interviews and analyses, the author attempts to elucidate the social, cultural and political factors at work.
A struggle to control the narrative of the conflict is itself part of the conflict and Prof. Zuhur's account may not be fully embraced by anyone. On the whole, her analysis seems more sympathetic to Hamas, whose objective, she says rather incongruously, "is not the destruction of Israel" but only the "liberation of Palestine."
But even those who cannot accept her terms or the way she frames some of the issues may find food for thought in her 100-page paper (which does not represent an official U.S. Army position).
She concludes optimistically that "each side is still capable of revising its desired endstate and of the necessary concessions to establish and preserve a long-term truce, or even a longer-term peace."
See "Hamas and Israel: Conflicting Strategies of Group-Based Politics" by Sherifa Zuhur, U.S. Army Strategic Studies Institute, December 2008.
THE 1970 CRISIS IN JORDAN, AND MORE FROM FRUS
Many of the roots of today's conflicts in the Middle East can be discerned in the crises of the past, some of which are newly documented in the latest volume of the official Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS) series.
The new FRUS volume includes a section on the Nixon Administration's response to the intense fighting between the Jordanian military and the Palestine Liberation Organization in September 1970, which threatened to topple the monarchy of King Hussein.
Another section treats "the Nixon administration's efforts to replace the political and military structure left by the former British Empire with a newer structure that met America's ... needs," as well as "the Nixon administration's efforts to articulate a grand strategy toward the Middle East region through arms sales and military modernization for its regional allies."
See Foreign Relations of the United States, 1969-1976, Volume XXIV, Middle East Region and Arabian Peninsula, 1969-1972; Jordan, September 1970 (published December 23, 2008).
The new FRUS volume was completed earlier this year, prior to the unexpected departure of Dr. Edward C. Keefer from the State Department Office of the Historian. He had served for years as General Editor of the series, but left abruptly in what was perceived as a sign of mounting turmoil in the Historian's Office.
Widespread concerns about continuing upheaval in the Historian's Office were addressed by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in a meeting with historians on December 22.
Secretary Rice announced that she had established "an outside Review Team to provide recommendations about how to ensure the FRUS series remains the gold standard for diplomatic history scholarship."
Aside from its importance to diplomatic historians and other specialists, the FRUS series embodies the vital principle that all U.S. foreign relations activities, no matter how highly classified they may initially be, will eventually be brought to light and published for the world to see. Thanks to a remarkable 1991 statute, it is actually against the law for the FRUS series to be anything other than "thorough, accurate, and reliable."
An improved understanding of the dynamics of the conflict between Hamas and Israel -- one that goes beyond "they started it" -- is probably a prerequisite to any enduring reduction of the violence and the terrible human suffering that the conflict now entails.
A detailed new assessment (pdf) by an analyst at the U.S. Army Strategic Studies Institute traces the evolution of the Israel-Hamas conflict prior to the end of the recent ceasefire and identifies steps that both sides would likely have to take in order to arrive at a long-term truce.
"Neither Israel nor the Palestinians have a unified position towards the other," writes Sherifa Zuhur, professor of Islamic and regional studies at the Strategic Studies Institute. "Each group is socialized in particular ways, through the educational system, employment experiences; and for Israelis, in the military, in political parties, families, and bureaucracies."
Based on her own interviews and analyses, the author attempts to elucidate the social, cultural and political factors at work.
A struggle to control the narrative of the conflict is itself part of the conflict and Prof. Zuhur's account may not be fully embraced by anyone. On the whole, her analysis seems more sympathetic to Hamas, whose objective, she says rather incongruously, "is not the destruction of Israel" but only the "liberation of Palestine."
But even those who cannot accept her terms or the way she frames some of the issues may find food for thought in her 100-page paper (which does not represent an official U.S. Army position).
She concludes optimistically that "each side is still capable of revising its desired endstate and of the necessary concessions to establish and preserve a long-term truce, or even a longer-term peace."
See "Hamas and Israel: Conflicting Strategies of Group-Based Politics" by Sherifa Zuhur, U.S. Army Strategic Studies Institute, December 2008.
THE 1970 CRISIS IN JORDAN, AND MORE FROM FRUS
Many of the roots of today's conflicts in the Middle East can be discerned in the crises of the past, some of which are newly documented in the latest volume of the official Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS) series.
The new FRUS volume includes a section on the Nixon Administration's response to the intense fighting between the Jordanian military and the Palestine Liberation Organization in September 1970, which threatened to topple the monarchy of King Hussein.
Another section treats "the Nixon administration's efforts to replace the political and military structure left by the former British Empire with a newer structure that met America's ... needs," as well as "the Nixon administration's efforts to articulate a grand strategy toward the Middle East region through arms sales and military modernization for its regional allies."
See Foreign Relations of the United States, 1969-1976, Volume XXIV, Middle East Region and Arabian Peninsula, 1969-1972; Jordan, September 1970 (published December 23, 2008).
The new FRUS volume was completed earlier this year, prior to the unexpected departure of Dr. Edward C. Keefer from the State Department Office of the Historian. He had served for years as General Editor of the series, but left abruptly in what was perceived as a sign of mounting turmoil in the Historian's Office.
Widespread concerns about continuing upheaval in the Historian's Office were addressed by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in a meeting with historians on December 22.
Secretary Rice announced that she had established "an outside Review Team to provide recommendations about how to ensure the FRUS series remains the gold standard for diplomatic history scholarship."
Aside from its importance to diplomatic historians and other specialists, the FRUS series embodies the vital principle that all U.S. foreign relations activities, no matter how highly classified they may initially be, will eventually be brought to light and published for the world to see. Thanks to a remarkable 1991 statute, it is actually against the law for the FRUS series to be anything other than "thorough, accurate, and reliable."
“Don't f*** with Jews? Sounds a lot like bring it on.”
--New Republic reader alexmh, commenting on Martin Peretz’s article, "Do Not F*ck With The Jews" regarding events in Gaza
"I will play music and celebrate what the Israeli air force is doing."
--Words spoken by Ofer Shmerling, an Israeli civil defence official, speaking on Al Jazeera about Gaza
"’If somebody was sending rockets into my house, where my two daughters sleep at night, I'm going to do everything in my power to stop that,’ Obama told reporters in Sderot, a small city on the edge of Gaza that has been attacked repeatedly by rocket fire. ‘And I would expect Israelis to do the same thing.’"
--Barack Obama, during a visit to Israel in July
Can Israel win the 'soft power' war in Gaza? - Gerald M. Steinberg, Jerusalem Post: “[I]n a long war to regain the moral high ground that Israel lost by default, and in the face of a very intensive and professional Arab attacks … [,] efforts require a much wider and highly professional strategy of public diplomacy, involving all of the major officials and government offices.”
Analysis: Don't forget the Iranian connection - David Horovitz, Jerusalem Post: “Many signs … suggest that Israel is making an effort, albeit not wholly successful, to improve on the abject public diplomacy of the 2006 war. What is not yet clear, by contrast, is whether the official spokespeople have internalized the necessity to highlight Iran in their message to the world - Iran, the state champion and major enabler of Hamas's terror-state in Gaza.”
Olmert asks Netanyahu to help explain Israel’s Gaza war - Forecast Highs: “Just heard that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert met today with opposition leader Likud MK Binyamin Netanyahu and updated him on the security situation, as is required by law. The Prime Minister’s Office also reports that Olmert asked Netanyahu to step up and help in Israel’s public diplomacy efforts during this round of fighting with Hamas in Gaza.”
Please help Israel win the online public diplomacy battle – Shimson 9: News and Views from Israel: “After years of rockets, Israel decided restraint is not an option anymore. To support Israel in its war with Hamas, Giyus is stepping up its Facebook activitles. We’ll be using our Facebook page to post Facebook related actions supporing Israel’s actions against Hamas.”
Palestinian propaganda machine in high gear: Hamas calls Israeli strikes "Holocaust" – Jihad Watch
Anti-Israel and anti-semitic propaganda in overdrive - the elder of ziyon
Analysis: Don't forget the Iranian connection - David Horovitz, Jerusalem Post: “Many signs … suggest that Israel is making an effort, albeit not wholly successful, to improve on the abject public diplomacy of the 2006 war. What is not yet clear, by contrast, is whether the official spokespeople have internalized the necessity to highlight Iran in their message to the world - Iran, the state champion and major enabler of Hamas's terror-state in Gaza.”
Olmert asks Netanyahu to help explain Israel’s Gaza war - Forecast Highs: “Just heard that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert met today with opposition leader Likud MK Binyamin Netanyahu and updated him on the security situation, as is required by law. The Prime Minister’s Office also reports that Olmert asked Netanyahu to step up and help in Israel’s public diplomacy efforts during this round of fighting with Hamas in Gaza.”
Please help Israel win the online public diplomacy battle – Shimson 9: News and Views from Israel: “After years of rockets, Israel decided restraint is not an option anymore. To support Israel in its war with Hamas, Giyus is stepping up its Facebook activitles. We’ll be using our Facebook page to post Facebook related actions supporing Israel’s actions against Hamas.”
Palestinian propaganda machine in high gear: Hamas calls Israeli strikes "Holocaust" – Jihad Watch
Anti-Israel and anti-semitic propaganda in overdrive - the elder of ziyon
The Politics of the Gaza Massacre; Forget Hamas – it's all about the home front – Justin Raimondo, Antiwar.com: The real focal point of the Israeli assault isn't Gaza -- it's Washington, D.C. The whole point of this exercise in futility -- which will not create a single iota of security for Israel, will not topple Hamas, and will not prove any more successful than the second Lebanese war -- is to set the terms by which the Israelis will deal with the incoming U.S. president.
Leaders Lie, Civilians Die, and Lessons of History are Ignored - Robert Fisk, Independent, UK/Common Dreams: It's not clear how many of the Gaza dead are civilians, but the response of the Bush administration reaffirms for Arabs what they have known for decades: however they struggle against their antagonists, the West will take Israel's side.
Sistani Calls for Action on Behalf of Gaza; Third Day of Bombardment; Gaza Hospitals Overwhelmed – Juan Cole, Informed Comment: Thoughts on the Middle East, History, and Religion: By refusing to negotiate with Hamas, Israel and the United States leave only a military option on the table.
A Hundred Eyes for an Eye - Norman Solomon, Common Dreams: What's going on in Gaza right now is not just an eye for an eye. It's a hundred eyes for an eye. And the current slaughter is not only an ongoing Israeli war crime. It has an accomplice named Uncle Sam.
Gaza: The Logic of Colonial Power: As so often, the term 'terrorism' has proved a rhetorical smokescreen under cover of which the strong crush the weak - Nir Rosen, Guardian, UK/ Common Dreams: The persistence of the Palestine problem is the main motive for every anti-American militant in the Arab world and beyond. But now the Bush administration has added Iraq and Afghanistan as additional grievances. America has lost its influence on the Arab masses, even if it can still apply pressure on Arab regimes.
But reformists and elites in the Arab world want nothing to do with America.
'A new spiral of despair' – Editorial, San Francisco Chronicle: No one could have expected Israel to sit by passively as Hamas marked the end of a six-month truce by firing rockets into Israeli territory. Israel had a compelling need to take action to defend itself. Still, the scale and destruction of Israel's weekend aerial bombardment of Hamas targets in Gaza stunned and inflamed the Arab world and beyond.
Needed in Gaza: US inspectors, peacekeepers, and aid workers: We must stop lecturing – and start helping - Timothy Rieger, Christian Science Monitor
No Comment and No Leadership From Obama - Joshua Frank, Antiwar.com: If Barack Obama does indeed support the bloodshed inflicted upon innocent Palestinians by the Israeli military, there should be no celebration on Inauguration Day 2009, only mass protest against a Middle East foreign policy that must change in order to begin a legitimate peace process in the region.
Obama Should Engage Now for Middle East Peace - John Nichols, Nation/Common Dreams
Leaders Lie, Civilians Die, and Lessons of History are Ignored - Robert Fisk, Independent, UK/Common Dreams: It's not clear how many of the Gaza dead are civilians, but the response of the Bush administration reaffirms for Arabs what they have known for decades: however they struggle against their antagonists, the West will take Israel's side.
Sistani Calls for Action on Behalf of Gaza; Third Day of Bombardment; Gaza Hospitals Overwhelmed – Juan Cole, Informed Comment: Thoughts on the Middle East, History, and Religion: By refusing to negotiate with Hamas, Israel and the United States leave only a military option on the table.
A Hundred Eyes for an Eye - Norman Solomon, Common Dreams: What's going on in Gaza right now is not just an eye for an eye. It's a hundred eyes for an eye. And the current slaughter is not only an ongoing Israeli war crime. It has an accomplice named Uncle Sam.
Gaza: The Logic of Colonial Power: As so often, the term 'terrorism' has proved a rhetorical smokescreen under cover of which the strong crush the weak - Nir Rosen, Guardian, UK/ Common Dreams: The persistence of the Palestine problem is the main motive for every anti-American militant in the Arab world and beyond. But now the Bush administration has added Iraq and Afghanistan as additional grievances. America has lost its influence on the Arab masses, even if it can still apply pressure on Arab regimes.
But reformists and elites in the Arab world want nothing to do with America.'A new spiral of despair' – Editorial, San Francisco Chronicle: No one could have expected Israel to sit by passively as Hamas marked the end of a six-month truce by firing rockets into Israeli territory. Israel had a compelling need to take action to defend itself. Still, the scale and destruction of Israel's weekend aerial bombardment of Hamas targets in Gaza stunned and inflamed the Arab world and beyond.
Needed in Gaza: US inspectors, peacekeepers, and aid workers: We must stop lecturing – and start helping - Timothy Rieger, Christian Science Monitor
No Comment and No Leadership From Obama - Joshua Frank, Antiwar.com: If Barack Obama does indeed support the bloodshed inflicted upon innocent Palestinians by the Israeli military, there should be no celebration on Inauguration Day 2009, only mass protest against a Middle East foreign policy that must change in order to begin a legitimate peace process in the region.
Obama Should Engage Now for Middle East Peace - John Nichols, Nation/Common Dreams
Published on Taipei Times
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/editorials...2/30/2003432445
In the end, you always have to deal with Hamas
It may be politically necessary for Israel to respond to Hamas' outrages with bombs, even an invasion ... but the end is the same By Shlomo Ben-Ami
Tuesday, Dec 30, 2008, Page 9
With barrages of Kassam rockets being launched daily on Israeli towns from the Hamas-ruled Gaza strip and Israeli politicians competing over who would offer the harshest response, the question for Israel today has been reduced to whether or not to invade. But neither side is free of contradictions, and both are trapped in a seemingly insoluble conundrum.
As a government, Hamas is to be judged by its capacity to provide security and decent governance to Gaza's population, but as a movement it is incapable of betraying its unyielding commitment to fight the Israeli occupier to the death. After all, Hamas was not elected to make peace with Israel, nor to improve relations with the US. However encouraging some sporadic signs of a shift toward political realism might be, it is not on Hamas' immediate agenda to betray its raison d'être by endorsing the US-led Annapolis peace process.
Hamas' offensive is not an attempt to draw Israel into a costly invasion that might shake its regime. Rather, it is a move aimed at establishing a balance of threat based on sustaining a low-intensity conflict even if a new lull is agreed upon.
A now increasingly arrogant and extremely well armed Hamas expects such a lull to be agreed upon only in exchange for new concessions from both Israel and Egypt. These include the opening of Gaza's borders, including the Egyptian-controlled Rafah crossing, the release of Hamas detainees in Egypt, the suspension of Israeli operations against Hamas activists in the West Bank, and the right to respond to any perceived Israeli violation of the ceasefire.
But Hamas' brinkmanship is a dangerous exercise, for a low-intensity conflict can easily degenerate into an all-out flare-up if its rockets cause a politically unbearable number of casualties on the Israeli side. In fact, Israel's top leaders have already approved the army's plans for an invasion of Gaza, with the timing and the nature of the casus belli left open.
Hamas is playing with fire on the Egyptian front, too, having haughtily interrupted the Egyptian-led reconciliation process with Mahmoud Abbas' Palestinian Liberation Organization and pledging to derail the Egyptian and Saudi initiative to extend Abbas' presidential term until 2010. Hamas has made clear its intention to appoint as president the Palestinian parliament speaker — a Hamas member now in an Israeli prison — once Abbas' presidency ends on Jan. 9.
Hamas radicalism is not devoid of a political purpose — to bury whatever remains of the two-state solution. The meager results of the Oslo peace process are regarded by Hamas as vindication of its consistent view that the Oslo accords were doomed to failure, and that Israel and the US never intended to respect the minimal requirements of Palestinian nationalism.
But while Hamas has never been indifferent to daily political calculations, nor is it confined to them. A fundamentally religious movement for whom the future belongs to Islam, Hamas sees itself as being engaged in a long-term armed struggle for the liberation of all of Palestine.
Nor is the movement's brinkmanship entirely irrational, for the legacy of Israel's abortive attempt in 2006 to destroy Hezbollah is that, for the first time in the country's history, the military establishment is advocating restraint and actively curbing the more hawkish measures being proposed in Cabinet meetings. Israel's reluctance to invade Gaza stems from a sober analysis of the meaning of such a move. Indeed, Defense Minister Ehud Barak, the Labor Party leader, might be ready to pay a high political price during an electoral season by accepting even a new lull that is intermittently violated by Hamas.
The invasion of such a small and densely populated strip of land where civilians have been systematically used by Hamas as human shields is bound to expose Israel's military to accusations of war crimes.
However justified Israel's action might be, and however critical of Hamas' repressive regime the international community might be, it will not take long before the wide media coverage of civilian casualties will put Israel, not Hamas, in the dock of world opinion. Moreover, reoccupation of Gaza would force Israel to reassume full and exclusive responsibility for the 1.5 million Palestinians now under Hamas control.
But even if Israel is ready to pay the price of harsh international condemnation, it is not clear what "success" in such a war really means. Is toppling the Hamas regime a realistic option? Ismail Haniyeh's government might collapse, but Hamas would remain a powerful indigenous Palestinian organization around which the population would certainly rally. And even under renewed occupation, with Israeli armored divisions deployed throughout the strip, Kassam missiles might still be launched — the ultimate humiliation for the occupier.
And, finally, after a mortal blow had been dealt to whatever remains of the peace process, and cemeteries in Israel and in devastated Gaza are again filled with new casualties, Israel would want to withdraw and negotiate yet another ceasefire with … the same Hamas.
Shlomo Ben-Ami is a former Israeli foreign minister and the vice president of the Toledo International Center for Peace. He is the author of Scars of War, Wounds of Peace: The Israeli-Arab Tragedy.
COPYRIGHT: PROJECT SYNDICATE
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/editorials...2/30/2003432445
In the end, you always have to deal with Hamas
It may be politically necessary for Israel to respond to Hamas' outrages with bombs, even an invasion ... but the end is the same By Shlomo Ben-Ami
Tuesday, Dec 30, 2008, Page 9
With barrages of Kassam rockets being launched daily on Israeli towns from the Hamas-ruled Gaza strip and Israeli politicians competing over who would offer the harshest response, the question for Israel today has been reduced to whether or not to invade. But neither side is free of contradictions, and both are trapped in a seemingly insoluble conundrum.
As a government, Hamas is to be judged by its capacity to provide security and decent governance to Gaza's population, but as a movement it is incapable of betraying its unyielding commitment to fight the Israeli occupier to the death. After all, Hamas was not elected to make peace with Israel, nor to improve relations with the US. However encouraging some sporadic signs of a shift toward political realism might be, it is not on Hamas' immediate agenda to betray its raison d'être by endorsing the US-led Annapolis peace process.
Hamas' offensive is not an attempt to draw Israel into a costly invasion that might shake its regime. Rather, it is a move aimed at establishing a balance of threat based on sustaining a low-intensity conflict even if a new lull is agreed upon.
A now increasingly arrogant and extremely well armed Hamas expects such a lull to be agreed upon only in exchange for new concessions from both Israel and Egypt. These include the opening of Gaza's borders, including the Egyptian-controlled Rafah crossing, the release of Hamas detainees in Egypt, the suspension of Israeli operations against Hamas activists in the West Bank, and the right to respond to any perceived Israeli violation of the ceasefire.
But Hamas' brinkmanship is a dangerous exercise, for a low-intensity conflict can easily degenerate into an all-out flare-up if its rockets cause a politically unbearable number of casualties on the Israeli side. In fact, Israel's top leaders have already approved the army's plans for an invasion of Gaza, with the timing and the nature of the casus belli left open.
Hamas is playing with fire on the Egyptian front, too, having haughtily interrupted the Egyptian-led reconciliation process with Mahmoud Abbas' Palestinian Liberation Organization and pledging to derail the Egyptian and Saudi initiative to extend Abbas' presidential term until 2010. Hamas has made clear its intention to appoint as president the Palestinian parliament speaker — a Hamas member now in an Israeli prison — once Abbas' presidency ends on Jan. 9.
Hamas radicalism is not devoid of a political purpose — to bury whatever remains of the two-state solution. The meager results of the Oslo peace process are regarded by Hamas as vindication of its consistent view that the Oslo accords were doomed to failure, and that Israel and the US never intended to respect the minimal requirements of Palestinian nationalism.
But while Hamas has never been indifferent to daily political calculations, nor is it confined to them. A fundamentally religious movement for whom the future belongs to Islam, Hamas sees itself as being engaged in a long-term armed struggle for the liberation of all of Palestine.
Nor is the movement's brinkmanship entirely irrational, for the legacy of Israel's abortive attempt in 2006 to destroy Hezbollah is that, for the first time in the country's history, the military establishment is advocating restraint and actively curbing the more hawkish measures being proposed in Cabinet meetings. Israel's reluctance to invade Gaza stems from a sober analysis of the meaning of such a move. Indeed, Defense Minister Ehud Barak, the Labor Party leader, might be ready to pay a high political price during an electoral season by accepting even a new lull that is intermittently violated by Hamas.
The invasion of such a small and densely populated strip of land where civilians have been systematically used by Hamas as human shields is bound to expose Israel's military to accusations of war crimes.
However justified Israel's action might be, and however critical of Hamas' repressive regime the international community might be, it will not take long before the wide media coverage of civilian casualties will put Israel, not Hamas, in the dock of world opinion. Moreover, reoccupation of Gaza would force Israel to reassume full and exclusive responsibility for the 1.5 million Palestinians now under Hamas control.
But even if Israel is ready to pay the price of harsh international condemnation, it is not clear what "success" in such a war really means. Is toppling the Hamas regime a realistic option? Ismail Haniyeh's government might collapse, but Hamas would remain a powerful indigenous Palestinian organization around which the population would certainly rally. And even under renewed occupation, with Israeli armored divisions deployed throughout the strip, Kassam missiles might still be launched — the ultimate humiliation for the occupier.
And, finally, after a mortal blow had been dealt to whatever remains of the peace process, and cemeteries in Israel and in devastated Gaza are again filled with new casualties, Israel would want to withdraw and negotiate yet another ceasefire with … the same Hamas.
Shlomo Ben-Ami is a former Israeli foreign minister and the vice president of the Toledo International Center for Peace. He is the author of Scars of War, Wounds of Peace: The Israeli-Arab Tragedy.
COPYRIGHT: PROJECT SYNDICATE
Israel, Hamas, and moral idiocy: Much of the world's response is a false moral equivalence that simply encourages the terrorists - Alan M. Dershowitz, Christian Science Monitor
Can discontent loosen Putin's grip on Russia? TheStar.com - World - Can discontent loosen Putin's grip on Russia? 
ILYA NAYMUSHIN/REUTERS FILE PHOTO Drivers protest car import duties, just one government measure linked to the economic crisis, at a rally in Krasnoyarsk, Siberia, on Dec. 21, 2008. December 29, 2008 Olivia WardFOREIGN AFFAIRS REPORTER
Chaos or control.
For centuries, Russians have feared both extremes, and moderation has made little headway.
In the "wild East" 1990s, it was chaos, with a crumbling Soviet Union, crashing economy, destructive territorial war, and society galloping in all directions.
The needle swung back in the 21st century, with president Vladimir Putin in charge, oil prices spiralling upward, and "managed democracy" the new order.
But, after almost a decade in power, Putin, now prime minister to Dmitry Medvedev's president, is faced with the most dangerous crisis of his leadership. As oil prices plummet and the ruble slides, discontent is stirring and his popularity, once guaranteed, is now uncertain.
For the first time, analysts are pondering whether Putin can maintain his widespread public support, and whether a Russia seething with discontent is more or less threatening than one that is under increasingly tight control.
Putin's personal rating remains at about 59 per cent. But a recent poll by the Moscow-based Public Opinion Foundation found that 39 per cent of responders were unhappy with the government he heads, and in some of the sprawling regions, the number climbed to 50 per cent.
Putin's rollback of democracy, with centralization of power, control of the media and crackdowns on opponents, has been widely criticized in the West.
To many Russians, Putin's an icon of stability, and the tradeoff of economic security for civil liberties worth the wager.
A new law to extend the president's term from four to six years makes it likely Putin will take at least one more turn in the country's top job, and that Medvedev may move aside for him before a new election is due.
The decision to rush the bill through two houses of parliament reflects the seriousness of the economic crisis, and possible anxiety over keeping unrest under control.
Although Putin has substantial power as premier, the president controls the security services. Last month, Medvedev ordered law enforcement officials to suppress social unrest, but he has less personal clout with officers than Putin, and less experience in the use of force.
"There's no doubt that Putin is willing to use force," says Russia expert Kathryn Stoner-Weiss of Stanford University. "The question is how much force is he willing to use?"
There are signs discontent is on the rise in Russia.
Small groups of protesters have taken to the streets, and about two million people barraged Putin with questions about the economy in a nationally televised program earlier this month.
"The worse the crisis gets, the more dissatisfaction will grow, especially with regional authorities," the Public Opinion Foundation poll's organizer, Lyudmila Presnyakova, told Bloomberg news service.
But discontent is unlikely to loosen Putin's hold on Russia, experts say.
"If there's an uprising, it could be a nationalist one – not one against Putin," says Angela Kachuyevski of Arcadia University's international peace and conflict resolution program. "The growing middle class would be badly harmed."
Under Putin, nationalistic youth groups called Nashi ("ours") have hurled insults at opposition members and dissidents, calling them traitors, while police break up rallies with violence. Recently, Moscow city police have recruited volunteers from Nashi to prevent "destabilization" from demonstrations and opposition events.
"Nashi is no neutral group," said Holly Cartner of Human Rights Watch in New York. "Our fear is that instead of keeping order, Nashi will try to silence critics."
The repressive tactics have shattered much of the opposition. And this week, Nikita Belykh, one of the liberal opposition's best hopes, announced he was quitting to work for the Kremlin: "When you cannot even get close in the elections, when all your paths are being cut off, then you just can't have a political party," he told reporters.
Putin's grip on Russia is tightening in the economic sector, too, with a series of moves against natural resources companies to bring them under the influence, if not control of the Kremlin.
More shocks to the economy would make them more vulnerable to takeover, and further weaken Russia's investment climate.
Meanwhile, the plunging price of oil has sent the ruble spinning downward for the first time in a decade, recalling the bank meltdown in 1998 that devastated many Russians. As the country's surplus ebbs and foreign currency reserves are drained, many worry whether they will once again face daily fear that their money is losing its value.
Since those traumatic years under president Boris Yeltsin, Russians have looked to Putin as a steady hand on the wheel, and a generation has come of age in an era of rising living standards that many attribute to him.
With the opposition decimated, most of the media under Kremlin control and the security forces ready to back up Putin in time of crisis, there's little room for open dissent, even as unease grows.
"Will people in Russia lose confidence in Putin? Absolutely," says Stoner-Weiss. "Do they have an alternative? Probably not. Change in the short term looks unlikely."
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The Militia Mistake:
Expecting tribal militias to help solve Afghanistan's problems is a dangerous error by America
Michael Williams
The Guardian
Monday 29 December 2008
The US has decided to arm local militias to help fight the Taliban in Afghanistan. It is a very high-risk strategy, that cuts directly against counter-insurgency theory and will most likely be seen in hindsight as a serious mistake.
The US plan draws on the supposed success of the strategy in Iraq where the Sunni awakening played into American hands. "The Awakening" occurred when Sunni insurgents, upset at the scale of the bloodshed being wrought by al-Qaida in Iraq, turned on the foreign insurgent forces. The US seized this opportunity, choosing to arm, train and work with the very fighters who only days before had been trying to kill US troops. It was a risky strategy, and one that many now feel paid good dividends.
Many others, however, are critical of the strategy. Arming militias in Iraq essentially created a third military force in the country. The Iraqi National Police and Iraqi National Army under the control of the government are supposed to be the principal security instruments. But with the creation of the militias a parallel security structure emerged. One that could eventually be used to challenge the Iraqi government.
Thus, it remains to be seen how successful the militia strategy in Iraq has really been. If they disarm and are brought into the mainstream security force, then the project may be called a success. If not, the situation could turn very grim. At the moment there are only plans to integrate a few hundred of the several thousand militia forces into the mainstream security forces.
Afghanistan is not Iraq. The Americans say they are aware of this, but they seem to have short memories. Answering a critique of the proposed plan to start arming groups in Wardak province early in 2009, American officials said they were confident they could keep the militias under control. Are these by any chance the same officials who thought they controlled where Pakistani intelligence funneled CIA money during the jihad against the Soviets? Are these the same officials who thought Washington controlled the mujahideen who fought the Russians, only to then see many of them join the ranks of al-Qaida? Are these the same officials who thought because they doled out large sums of money in 2001-2002 to Afghan warlords that they had somehow bought their loyalty in perpetuity?
The idea of arming militia groups to support the creation of a centralised government predicated on the rule of law is foolish. It runs against the most basic tenet of counter-insurgency to place all control of the use of force under the government. Arming loose militia groups is not the same as training the army or equipping the police. It is because these two enterprises have failed that the Americans are now leaning towards this less than optimal third option.
Proponents of arming militia groups will point to Afghanistan's tribal nature and the fact that power has never before been centralised. They thus argue that the militias are the best way forward. But this is an incredibly simplistic view of Afghan culture, that undercuts the desires of ordinary Afghans sick and tired of warlordism and violence. Part of the reason corruption is so rampant today is because the US chose to work with warlords and then placed them back in power after the Taliban was ousted. Now it wants to add to their arms stockpiles and strengthen more forces, that may one day be used against the Afghan central government and its international allies.
Afghanistan is a country of shifting loyalties. Afghans know what side their bread is buttered on. To assume that the US and the Afghan government will be able to control these militia groups is irresponsible. Control is a word rarely successfully applied to Afghans. For the time being the strategy may pay off, but in the long-run it is an extremely dangerous proposition. If you have doubts, just ask a fella named Osama bin Laden. The US thought it could control him once upon a time as well. The incoming Obama administration would do well to think long and hard about this rather lacklustre plan.
_______________________________________________
Expecting tribal militias to help solve Afghanistan's problems is a dangerous error by America
Michael Williams
The Guardian
Monday 29 December 2008
The US has decided to arm local militias to help fight the Taliban in Afghanistan. It is a very high-risk strategy, that cuts directly against counter-insurgency theory and will most likely be seen in hindsight as a serious mistake.
The US plan draws on the supposed success of the strategy in Iraq where the Sunni awakening played into American hands. "The Awakening" occurred when Sunni insurgents, upset at the scale of the bloodshed being wrought by al-Qaida in Iraq, turned on the foreign insurgent forces. The US seized this opportunity, choosing to arm, train and work with the very fighters who only days before had been trying to kill US troops. It was a risky strategy, and one that many now feel paid good dividends.
Many others, however, are critical of the strategy. Arming militias in Iraq essentially created a third military force in the country. The Iraqi National Police and Iraqi National Army under the control of the government are supposed to be the principal security instruments. But with the creation of the militias a parallel security structure emerged. One that could eventually be used to challenge the Iraqi government.
Thus, it remains to be seen how successful the militia strategy in Iraq has really been. If they disarm and are brought into the mainstream security force, then the project may be called a success. If not, the situation could turn very grim. At the moment there are only plans to integrate a few hundred of the several thousand militia forces into the mainstream security forces.
Afghanistan is not Iraq. The Americans say they are aware of this, but they seem to have short memories. Answering a critique of the proposed plan to start arming groups in Wardak province early in 2009, American officials said they were confident they could keep the militias under control. Are these by any chance the same officials who thought they controlled where Pakistani intelligence funneled CIA money during the jihad against the Soviets? Are these the same officials who thought Washington controlled the mujahideen who fought the Russians, only to then see many of them join the ranks of al-Qaida? Are these the same officials who thought because they doled out large sums of money in 2001-2002 to Afghan warlords that they had somehow bought their loyalty in perpetuity?
The idea of arming militia groups to support the creation of a centralised government predicated on the rule of law is foolish. It runs against the most basic tenet of counter-insurgency to place all control of the use of force under the government. Arming loose militia groups is not the same as training the army or equipping the police. It is because these two enterprises have failed that the Americans are now leaning towards this less than optimal third option.
Proponents of arming militia groups will point to Afghanistan's tribal nature and the fact that power has never before been centralised. They thus argue that the militias are the best way forward. But this is an incredibly simplistic view of Afghan culture, that undercuts the desires of ordinary Afghans sick and tired of warlordism and violence. Part of the reason corruption is so rampant today is because the US chose to work with warlords and then placed them back in power after the Taliban was ousted. Now it wants to add to their arms stockpiles and strengthen more forces, that may one day be used against the Afghan central government and its international allies.
Afghanistan is a country of shifting loyalties. Afghans know what side their bread is buttered on. To assume that the US and the Afghan government will be able to control these militia groups is irresponsible. Control is a word rarely successfully applied to Afghans. For the time being the strategy may pay off, but in the long-run it is an extremely dangerous proposition. If you have doubts, just ask a fella named Osama bin Laden. The US thought it could control him once upon a time as well. The incoming Obama administration would do well to think long and hard about this rather lacklustre plan.
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