by Robert E. Hunter
Following President Barak Obama’s decision to restore diplomatic ties with Cuba, it is remarkable to see so much speculation about whether this will set a precedent for a restoration of US ties with Iran
The word “remarkable” is chosen deliberately because, on the face of it, the two situations seem so different. The Cuban revolution has long since lost its force, with few true adherents outside of the gerontocracy, while that in Iran, if somewhat attenuated, still has a major, perhaps decisive, impact on society as well as on foreign policy.
Further, any geopolitical arguments for US efforts aimed at isolating Cuba, themselves imperfect at best, died with the Soviet Union, 23 years ago this week. But the geopolitics for the US to continue trying to isolate Iran are alive and well, flowing from some basic disagreements, not least the Iranian nuclear program but also Iran’s support for Syria’s Bashar al-Assad, for Hezbollah and, to a lesser degree, for Hamas. These cannot just be wished away, in contrast to the outmoded argument that somehow Cuba could act as another country’s proxy or could destabilize any part of its neighborhood.
So what can we make of a possible connection with Iran? At one level, what Mr. Obama has done takes the United States at least one step beyond the quixotic American practice of deciding whether to have diplomatic relations with other countries based at least in part on how we view their governments. (If we don’t like them or what they do, we call them “regimes,” which is a dead giveaway.)
Few other countries in the world impose their standard of a nation’s behavior, at home or abroad, in deciding whether to have at least some semblance of normal diplomatic intercourse—though there are major exceptions, such as the unwillingness of a number of Arab countries to deal formally with Israel. The US also tends to lose from imposing a test of purity regarding another country’s government or its international behavior. Not only do many countries not follow our lead but, more importantly, we deprive ourselves of the capacity to gain direct experience of the other country’s leaders.
Of course, it is rarely true that diplomatic relations are totally severed: some contacts are inevitable and are conducted by so-called “protecting powers.” In Iran, the US protecting power is Switzerland; in the United States, Iran’s protecting power is Pakistan. (All members of the United Nations also have diplomats in New York, and informal corridor contacts can always take place, “plausibly denied.”)
This round-about practice can have its price, however. For example, in 2003, when the US was about to invade Iraq—thus “putting the wind up” Iran’s clerical leadership—the Iranians made a proposal, through the Swiss, which, if it had worked out (a big imponderable) could have wrapped up the nuclear issue at that time. But in part because of the indirect nature of the proposal, the US was able simply to ignore it—such was the attitude of the US administration at the time to anyone in the Middle East out of step with US preferences. That would have been harder to do if American and Iranian diplomats had been dealing directly with one another.
Despite President Obama’s break with the tired old precedent regarding what governments we are prepared to deal with, he is not likely to follow suit with Iran, at least not just to tidy things up. US domestic politics is a major factor. The “Cuba lobby” may still have an important role to play in Florida’s politics—one of the “swing states” in US presidential elections—but the passage of time and a rising generation of young Cuban-Americans has attenuated the lobby’s power. Not so in regard to the domestic lobby that wants no part of relations with Iran. This lobby is mostly Israeli-inspired, but also includes some Christian evangelicals and a lot of neoconservatives, especially in Congress, who are not prepared to compromise with any government that is a challenge to the United States.
We thus cannot expect a “Nixon to China” opening to Iran, as much as that would bring us into line with the practice of most nations on the planet in terms of diplomatic relationships. Indeed, Obama will have enough trouble selling the opening to Cuba to Congress—whose Republican majority come January would love to deal him a setback, whatever the merits of the case. And without congressional action, a lot of what the president has in mind can’t be done. At least in this case, executive action has severe limits. Selling an opening to Iran that would have practical consequences, like the freeing-up of trade and investment with Cuba, could only be done if Iran came across on issues important to the US, with the nuclear program topping the list.
It also takes two to make something like this work. Despite the potential for success in the negotiations between Iran and the so-called P5+1 countries on the former’s nuclear program, and despite the pressures exerted on the Iranian economy both by Western sanctions and by the Saudi-driven drop in the price of oil, it is not clear that Iran wants improved relations with the United States, at least unless the US were willing to remove at least a large part of the economic sanctions. This the United States will not do without a nuclear agreement. In fact, the hostile reception in much of Congress to the opening to Cuba has not helped the climate needed to foster success in the negotiations with Iran over its nuclear program: if a relatively simple thing like getting rid of congressional strictures on dealing with a tired old Cuban oligarchy that has long since ceased posing any threat to any US national security interest is so difficult to achieve, Iranian skeptics can wonder whether President Obama could deliver on any agreement that would include sanctions-lifting. No doubt, the same point has occurred to US domestic opponents of any deal with Iran.
The geopolitics of Iran’s situation has a further twist. Despite the emphasis put on the Iranian nuclear program and the pressures from the Israeli and other domestic lobbies, this is only part of the story. Several countries in the Middle East oppose Iran’s reemergence into regional society for a much broader set of reasons and—for at least some of them—the nuclear issue is simply the one that most easily catches the attention and support of outsiders, particularly the United States.
Sunni countries oppose “apostate” Shia Iran, an ideological point reinforced by the fact that most of Saudi Arabia’s oil reserves are located in the Eastern Province, with its large Shia population. Iran also supports the Alawite-dominated Syrian government, another poll of the region’s Sunni-Shia civil war. Other Gulf Arab states (though not Oman) also feel threatened by Iran, for reasons that have nothing to do with the nuclear question. Turkey would just as soon see Iran continue to be isolated, and this also applies to Israel, which does not want to see Washington and Tehran reconciled, even if the nuclear issue were resolved, at least without a major and credible change in Iran’s attitude toward the Jewish state.
Judged in its own terms, President Obama’s opening to Cuba is a useful departure from a sclerotic policy of many US administrations that has long outlived its value for the United States, if it ever indeed had any value. But while it does say something about the president’s cast of mind, in and of itself the new Cuba policy will not have much if any influence on US policy toward Iran. In fact, if fears on the part of the opponents of change see Obama as likely to continue cleaning up the past—as a president who has fought his last electoral battle—they may simply ramp up their opposition to a sensible US approach to the current talks with Iran.
Here is where the president needs to show his mettle: to persevere with the negotiations with Iran over its nuclear program, provided, of course, that Iran’s leaders will do the same. Success could then open up possibilities for the two countries to work together on areas of compatible interests, including Afghanistan, freedom of navigation in the Persian Gulf, countering Islamic State forces, and exploring possibilities for stability in Iraq. Such a course would put US national interests ahead of domestic politics, which is what we expect our presidents to do.
]]>by Robert E. Hunter
It’s too early to tell all there is to be told about the negotiations in Vienna between the so-called P5+1 and Iran on the latter’s nuclear program. The “telling” by each and every participant of what happened will surely take place in the next several days, and then better-informed assessments can be made. As of now, we know that the talks did not reach agreement by the November 24 deadline—a year after the interim Joint Plan of Action was agreed—and that the negotiators are aiming for a political agreement no later than next March and a comprehensive deal by June 30.
This is better than having the talks collapse. Better still would have been a provisional interim fill-in-the-blanks memorandum of headings of agreement that is so often put out in international diplomacy when negotiations hit a roadblock but neither side would have its interests served by declaring failure.
An example of failing either to set a new deadline or to issue a “fill in the blanks” agreement was vividly provided by President Bill Clinton’s declaration at the end of the abortive Camp David talks in December 2000. He simply declared the talks on an Israeli-Palestinian settlement as having broken down, rather than saying: progress has been made, here are areas of agreement, here is the timetable for the talks to continue, blah, blah. I was at dinner in Tel Aviv with a group of other American Middle East specialists and Israel’s elder statesman, Shimon Peres, when the news came through. We were all nonplussed that Clinton had not followed the tried and true method of pushing off hard issues until talks would be resumed, at some level, at a “date certain,” which had been the custom on this diplomacy since at least 1981. One result was such disappointment among Palestinians that the second intifada erupted, producing great suffering on all sides and a setback for whatever prospects for peace existed. Poor diplomacy had a tragic outcome.
This example calls for a comparison of today’s circumstances with past diplomatic negotiations of high importance and struggles over difficult issues. Each, it should be understood, is unique, but there are some common factors.
Optimism
The first is the good news that I have already presented: the talks in Vienna did not “break down” and no one walked away from the table in a huff. The other good news is that the official representatives of the two most important negotiators, the United States and Iran, clearly want to reach an agreement that will meet both of their legitimate security, economic, and other interests. Left to themselves, they would probably have had a deal signed, sealed, and delivered this past weekend if not before. But they have not been “left to themselves,” nor will they be, as I will discuss below.
Further good news is that all the issues involving Iran’s nuclear program have now been so masticated by all the parties that they are virtually pulp. If anything is still hidden, it is hard to imagine, other than in the minds of conspiracy theorists who, alas, exist in abundance on any issue involving the Middle East. A deal to be cut on specifics? Yes. New factors to consider? Highly unlikely.
Even more good news is that the United States and the other P5+1 countries (US, UK, Russia, China, France plus Germany), have got to know much better than before their official Iranian counterparts and overall Iranian interests, perspectives, and thinking (US officials, long chary of being seen in the same room with “an Iranian,” lag behind the others in this regard). We can hope that this learning process has also taken place on the Iranian side. This does not mean that the actual means whereby Iran takes decisions—nominally, at least, in the hands of the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei—is any less opaque. But even so, there is surely greater understanding of one another—one of the key objectives of just about any diplomatic process.
A partial precedent can be found in US-Soviet arms control and other negotiations during the Cold War. The details of these negotiations were important, or so both sides believed, especially what had to be a primarily symbolic fixation with the numbers of missile launchers and “throw-weight.” This highly charged political preoccupation took place even though the utter destruction of both sides would be guaranteed in a nuclear war. Yet even with great disparities in these numbers, neither side would have been prepared to risk moving even closer to the brink of conflict. Both US and Soviet leaders came to realize that the most important benefit of the talks was the talking, and that they had to improve their political relationship or risk major if not catastrophic loss on both sides. The simple act of talking proved to be a major factor in the eventual end of the Cold War.
The parallel with the Iran talks is that the process itself—including the fact that it is now legitimate to talk with the “Devil” on the other side—has permitted, even if tacitly, greater understanding that the West and Iran have, in contrast to their differences, at least some complementary if not common interests. For the US and Iran, these include freedom of shipping through the Strait of Hormuz; counter-piracy; opposition to Islamic State (ISIS or IS); stability in Afghanistan; opposition to the drug trade, al-Qaeda, Taliban and terrorism; and at least a modus vivendi in regard to Iraq. This does not mean that the US and Iran will see eye-to-eye on all of these issues, but they do constitute a significant agenda, against which the fine details of getting a perfect nuclear agreement (from each side’s perspective) must be measured.
Pessimism
There is also bad news, however, including in the precedents, or partial precedents, of other negotiations. As already noted, negotiations over the fate of the West Bank and Gaza have been going on since May 1979 (I was the White House member of the first US negotiating team), and, while some progress has been made, the issues today look remarkably like they did 37 years ago.
Negotiations following the 1953 armistice in the Korean War have also been going on, with fits and starts, for 61 years. The negotiations over the Vietnam War (the US phase of it) dragged on for years and involved even what in retrospect seem to have been idiocies like arguments over the “shape of the table.” They came to a conclusion only when the US decided it was time to get out—i.e., the North Vietnamese successfully waited us out. Negotiations over Kashmir have also been going on, intermittently, since the 1947 partition of India. The OSCE-led talks on Nagorno-Karabakh (Armenia versus Azerbaijan) have gone on for about two decades, under the nominal chairmanship of France, Russia, and the United States. All this diplomatic activity relates to a small group of what are now called “frozen conflicts,” where negotiations go on ad infinitum but without a lot of further harm done.
But with the exception of the Vietnam talks, all the other dragged-out talking has taken place against the background of relatively stable situations. Talks on Korea go nowhere, but fighting only takes place in small bursts and is not significant. Even regarding the Palestinians, fighting takes place from time to time, including major fighting, but failure to get a permanent end of hostilities does not lead to a fundamental breakdown of “stability” in the Middle East, due to the tacit agreement of all outside powers.
Dangers of Delay
The talks on the Iranian nuclear program, due to restart in December, are different. While they are dragging along, things happen. Sanctions continue and could even be increased on Iran, especially with so many “out for blood” members of the incoming 114th US Congress. Whether this added pressure will get the US a better deal is debatable, but further suffering for the Iranian people, already far out of proportion to anything bad that Iran has done, will just get worse. Iran may also choose to press forward with uranium enrichment, making a later deal somewhat—who knows how much—more difficult to conclude and verify. Israel will have calculations of its own to make about what Iran is up to and whether it should seriously consider the use of force. And chances for US-Iranian cooperation against IS will diminish.
So time is not on the side of an agreement, and any prospects of Iranian-Western cooperation on other serious regional matters have been further put off—a high cost for all concerned.
Due to the contentious domestic politics on both sides, the risks are even greater. In Iran, there are already pressures from the clerical right and from some other nationalists to undercut both the Iranian president, Hassan Rouhani, and the lead negotiator, Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, both of whom, in these people’s eyes, are now tainted. We can expect further pressures against a deal from this quarter.
The matter is at least as bad and probably worse on the Western side—more particularly, on the US side. The new Congress has already been mentioned. But one reason for consideration of that factor is that, on the P5+1 side of the table, there have not just been six countries but eight, two invisible but very much present, and they are second and third in importance at the table only behind the US itself: Israel and Saudi Arabia.
Both countries are determined to prevent any realistic agreement with Iran on its nuclear program, even if declared by President Barack Obama, in his judgment, to satisfy fully the security interests of both the United States and its allies and partners, including Israel and the Gulf Arabs. For them, in fact, the issue is not just about Iran’s nuclear program, but also about the very idea of Iran being readmitted into international society. For the Sunni Arabs, it is partly about the struggle with the region’s Shi’as, including in President Bashar Assad’s Syria but most particularly in Iran. And for all of these players, there is also a critical geopolitical competition, including vying for US friendship while opposing Iran’s reemergence as another regional player.
The United States does not share any of these interests regarding Sunni vs. Shi’a or geopolitical competitions among regional countries. Our interests are to foster stability in the region, promote security, including against any further proliferation of nuclear weapons (beginning with Iran), and to help counter the virus of Islamist fundamentalism. On the last-named, unfortunately, the US still does not get the cooperation it needs, especially from Saudi Arabia, whose citizens have played such an instrumental role in exporting the ideas, money, and arms that sustain IS.
Thus it is to be deeply regretted, certainly by all the governments formally represented in the P5+1, that efforts to conclude the talks have been put off. The enemies of agreement, on both sides, have gained time to continue their efforts to prevent an agreement—enemies both in Iran and especially in the United States, with the heavy pressures from the Arab oil lobby and the Israeli lobby in the US Congress.
What happens now in Iran can only be determined by the Iranians. What happens with the P5+1 will depend, more than anything else, on the willingness and political courage of President Obama to persevere and say “Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead” to the Gulf Arab states, Israel, and their allies in the United States, and do what he is paid to do: promote the interests and security of the United States of America.
]]>As Iran and six world powers scramble to reach a deal over Iran’s nuclear program by the deadline of Nov. 24 in Vienna, Washington is seeing a flurry of last-minute events focused on the pros and cons of pursuing diplomacy with Tehran.
While advocates from both sides made their arguments on Capitol Hill this week, two distinguished former US ambassadors told an audience here Wednesday that a deal between world powers and Iran over its nuclear program offers “huge advantages” and that the chances of a “complete breakdown” in the talks at this stage are low, even if the prospect of a comprehensive accord being signed before the looming deadline is also unlikely.
Stuart Eizenstat, who played a key role in promoting sanctions against Iran under both Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton, endorsed the diplomatic process with Iran at a Nov. 19 panel discussion hosted here by the Atlantic Council.
“I am of the belief that an agreement is important, and that there are huge advantages—to the United States, to the West, and to Israel—in having an agreement along the lines of what we see emerging,” he said.
Last month the veteran diplomat, who was named special adviser to the secretary on Holocaust issues last year, offered a key endorsement of diplomacy with Iran in an interview with the Jerusalem Post.
Eizenstat, who currently chairs the Coucil’s Iran Task Force, also emphasized the consequences of failing to reach an accord with Iran:
Without an agreement, one always has to ask, “What’s the alternative?” No deal means an unrestrained [Iranian] use of centrifuges, it means a continuation of the Iranian plutonium plant in Arak, it means no intrusive inspections by the IAEA, it means no elimination of [Iran’s] 20% enriched uranium, it means less likelihood of eliminating weaponization, it means undercutting those who are relative moderates in Iran. So there are enormous implications.
Thomas Pickering, who served as Washington’s chief envoy in virtually every hot spot—from Moscow to San Salvador and from Lagos and Tel Aviv to Turtle Bay (in the run-up to and during the first Gulf War)—meanwhile explained why a negotiated settlement to Iran’s nuclear program is highly preferable to the “military option.”
“Nobody believes that the use of force is a guaranteed, one-shot settlement of the problem of Iran’s nuclear program,” said Pickering, who co-runs the Iran Project, which promotes diplomacy between Iran and the United States, along with several other top foreign policy experts.
Pickering also argued that a deal would open the door to “further possibilities” for US-Iranian cooperation on a host of regional issues, most immediately in serving the president’s plan of “degrading and destroying” Islamic State (ISIS or IS) forces in Iraq and Syria and in bringing stability to Afghanistan.
“I remain optimistic,” he said, “but only on the basis of the fact that reasonable people could agree.”
Pickering argued that domestic politics in both countries could be the ultimate impediment to a final deal.
“The real problem is that there is a lot of unreasoned opposition, in both countries, that is affecting the situation,” he said.
On the American side, the “unreasoned opposition” Pickering referred to is rooted in Congress, where key members of the House and Senate advocate the Israeli government’s position that any deal should completely or almost completely dismantle Iran’s nuclear infrastructure, which would be a non-starter for the Islamic Republic.
Yet whereas Pickering was critical of Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu for having “overreached” last November in calling last year’s interim Joint Plan of Action (JPOA) a “historic mistake,” Eizenstat suggested that his hardline stance may actually have toughened the P5+1’s (US, UK, Russia, China, France plus Germany) resolve to minimize Iran’s enrichment program as much as possible.
But Uzi Eilam, the former director general of the Israeli Ministry of Defense Mission to Europe, argued that Netanyahu is “getting used” to the idea that Iran will retain some enrichment capacity under a comprehensive deal.
A deal that includes stringent monitoring by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and a third party (Russian) commitment to process Iran’s enriched uranium into fuel and assume responsibility for spent reactor fuel would be enough to meet Israeli security concerns even with an active Iranian enrichment program, said Eilam.
Pickering also noted that sanctions relief remains a sticking point, with the Iranians wanting full relief immediately and the P5+1 insistent on maintaining some sanctions in order to ensure Iran’s continued compliance with the terms of the final accord. But he was joined by Eizenstat in arguing that it would be “almost impossible” (Eizenstat’s words) for both sides to just walk away from the talks at this point.
While both Iran and the P5+1 continue to insist that they are focused on reaching a comprehensive accord by the deadline, with just three days to go, it appears highly unlikely.
As to how long the talks would go on in the event of an extension, Pickering argued that “short-term would be better than long-term,” though he acknowledged that “short-term is harder to get because everybody’s tired, they want to go home and think.”
Eizenstat added that the impending political change in Washington, where Republicans will take control of the Senate in January and are expected to oppose any deal with Iran, would make a short extension more desirable than a long-term one.
]]>Within a few days we will know whether President Obama’s efforts to negotiate an agreement with Iran over the latter’s nuclear power ambitions have proven successful or not and, if final compromises are not reached, whether the talks can be continued. The tens of thousands of words devoted to these efforts by negotiators over the last year have naturally focused on the details of an agreed protocol on the number of operating centrifuges in Iran and the pace of sanctions relief.
The president has invested much political capital into this endeavor and the failure to reach a final accord could end his aim of trying to alter the political and military balance of power in the Middle East. The effort has been so arduous and controversial that he has very carefully avoided a full explication of his strategic aims. The recent letter he reportedly sent to Iran’s Ayatollah Ali Khamenei—the full text of which has not been released—in which he is said to have suggested working together in battling Islamic State forces in Iraq and Syria, might be the closest we could get to Obama’s reasoning.
The long freeze in US-Iranian affairs is softening but where that process is headed is yet to be determined. The election last year of Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and the delegation of authority to him of testing US intent by the supreme leader reflects not only the pressures of broad economic sanctions but also the slight easing of revolutionary strictures, as well as the shared concern by both countries that events were threatening to run out of control. The US policy of aligning with Israel and the Sunni monarchies has long required adjusting, and President Obama has taken on that initiative with Iran in mind.
Every area of the globe presents a complex mix of old and new frictions, serious and minor conflicts of interests, and the rise of new and challenging issues that further the sense of confusion and helplessness. More than anywhere else, the Middle East evades a clear US strategy or a broad domestic political consensus on clear, rational, and practical interests. In the Middle East the United States contends today with the consequences of its failure to bring democratic governments to old societies; the rise of well-armed militias based in part on extremist Islam; severe tensions between political and religious divisions within Islam; waves of anti-western and anti-American sentiment; the regional antagonism to the close US-Israeli relationship; and the regional efforts to adjust the political boundaries of a post-Ottoman world. American financial assistance to the Sunni militias from the Arab monarchies has meanwhile created a monster that defies our interests.
The Bush administration’s efforts to cope with new and old adversaries and challenges typically were military—the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. Both have had, charitably, very limited success and have further distorted the political landscape. At the moment, there is no recognizable and acceptable balance of power, no consensus on limits of national rights and no regional institutions to cope with shared questions.
President Obama has recognized this hapless and dangerous condition and accordingly tried to adjust American policies in the region. He has tried to withdraw militarily from Iraq and Afghanistan while pursuing a more diplomatic posture, starting with the Israel-Palestine conflict. Until recently this year, he was also reluctant to engage militarily in Syria, having understood that the collapse of the country’s government would introduce an array of additional threats to regional peace.
Ending the 35-year-long cold war with Iran has also been a top priority in Obama’s vision of America’s future, but resolving fears, both regional and domestic, over Iran’s putative ambitions for nuclear weaponry has been the prerequisite. Beyond allaying fears of regional nuclear proliferation is the hope that over time, a new relationship will constitute a path to political realignments—a new direction for us and the nations of the area.
Of course, the president still has to contend with his predecessors legacy in Iraq. Following the withdrawal of US forces in 2011, Obama repeatedly said that there would be no more US boots on the ground in that country, yet nearly all his military officers have been quoted saying that without ground forces, air power will be insufficient in thwarting the new militant force of Islamic State (ISIS or IS). If not us, then who? Turkey, the Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt? Wishful thinking; they are hardly equipped for the job.
Iraq, of course, has its own vision and demands. What is necessary is the very ephemeral realization of greater cooperation and coordination of those who recognize a common threat to their well being—if not their existence. Like it or not, Iran can play a significant part in the attempts to defeat IS and find an acceptable solution for Syria, which is currently the most affected by the rise of Islamic militancy.
Quarantining Syria makes little sense; it’s domestic politics may be loathsome but its leaders are not causing American casualties and losses. It may be time for a realistic debate over the role of Syria in its own defense and the struggles against IS and the other extremist forces ravaging the country.
Unfortunately, nothing is easy in the Middle East, and such initiatives will also continue to meet the strong opposition of American conservatives who do not trust Iran and are subject to lobbying pressure from Israel, the Sunni Arab states and Turkey. In this light, the reach for a greater rationality may simply prove impossible.
]]>by Derek Davison
In March of this year, the US Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) sent a delegation of religious and academic figures to the Iranian religious city of Qom to begin a dialogue with Shia scholars and ayatollahs. According to Bishop Richard Pates, chair of the USCCB’s Committee on International Peace and Justice, the discussion in Qom focused heavily on the morality of weapons of mass destruction. It also revealed that the Catholic Church and the Iranian Shia establishment share similar official views on the subject.
Pates said there was “no discussion” during the trip about capital punishment, a topic upon which there would be clear divergence between the Catholic Church, which opposes the practice, and the Iranian judiciary, which has been executing prisoners at a remarkable rate. But the Iranians were completely open to discussing their nuclear program, which has become an international issue.
“We were told in the clearest terms that Shia Islam opposes and forbids the production, stockpiling, use, and threat to use [weapons] of mass destruction,” said Pates at an event in Washington Wednesday hosted by the Arms Control Association.
“We noted that the Catholic Church is also working for a world without weapons of mass destruction, and has called on all nations to rid themselves of these indiscriminate weapons,” he added.
At several points during the negotiations between world powers and Iran over its nuclear program—the talks are now in their final month before the Nov. 24 deadline—top US officials have called upon the Iranian government to prove to the world that its nuclear program is entirely peaceful.
In a Sept. 27 speech, White House Coordinator for the Middle East Phil Gordon echoed President Obama’s position on the issue by saying that the negotiations “can actually be boiled down to a very simple question: Is Iran prepared to demonstrate to the world that its nuclear program is exclusively peaceful?”
More recently, Under Secretary of State Wendy Sherman said Oct. 23 in a widely cited speech that “we hope the leaders in Tehran will agree to the steps necessary to assure the world that this program will be exclusively peaceful and thereby end Iran’s economic and diplomatic isolation and improve further the lives of their people.”
These messages, while undoubtedly intended as much for a skeptical American audience as they are for Iran’s negotiating team, omit the fact that to date, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which monitors Iran’s nuclear program, has produced no evidence of a current Iranian nuclear weapons program. The US intelligence committee (IC) also reports that Iran does not have a nuclear weapons program, even if the IC assesses that it does not know if Iran will decide to take this path in the future.
Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, also issued a fatwa several years ago to the effect that the manufacture and use of nuclear weapons contradicts the teachings of Islam and is therefore prohibited. American policymakers and journalists frequently cite this edict, but won’t acknowledge it as a binding element of Iranian policy.
Yet there is evidence that the fatwa worked in the past. In a recent interview, the former Iranian minister of the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC), Mohsen Rafighdoost, described to Gareth Porter how Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s predecessor, Ayatollah Khomeini, prohibited the manufacture of chemical and biological weapons at the height of the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq War, even after Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein had used chemical weapons against Iranian troops. To date, there has been no reliable evidence that Iran used any weapons of mass destruction in that war. Khomeini’s refusal to produce or use WMDs (even in such trying circumstances) formed the basis for Khamenei’s more recent fatwa against nuclear weapons.
“It might be taken into consideration that even though Iraq used chemical weapons in the [Iran-Iraq] War, Iran did not respond with the use of similar weapons,” said Pates in reference to the negotiations.
Pates also noted that his hosts not only “affirmed” the existence of a fatwa against nuclear weapons but also “confirmed that it is a matter of public record and is highly respected among Shia scholars and Iranians in general.” Ebrahim Mohseni of the Center for International and Security Studies at Maryland agreed with Pates on that last point.
Mohseni, who was part of the delegation and whose recent polling has helped illuminate how the Iranian public views the nuclear issue, said that a majority of Iranians (65%) share the religious view that the production and use of nuclear weapons is contrary to Islamic principles, and an even larger majority (78%) agree with the sentiment that Iran was right not to respond in kind to Iraq’s use of chemical weapons in the 1980s.
As to whether Khamenei’s fatwa could be reversed, Pates said that the Qom scholars “argued that the fatwa could not be reversed or made to contradict itself, even if Iran’s strategic calculations changed.”
“This would undermine the authority of the supreme leader, which guides, in a general way, Iran’s political class,” he said.
This point was echoed by USCCB Director, Stephen Colecchi, another member of the Qom delegation who pointed out that the fatwa “is clearly pervasively taught and defended within Iran,” and that for Khamenei to contradict his earlier edict “would undermine the whole teaching authority of [Iran’s] system.”
The “bottom line” coming out of the Qom dialogue, according to Colecchi, is that “we’re asking our people, our government, and others…at least take [the fatwa] into account.”
“It is a factor, and it might make the negotiations easier to really understand the nature of Iran,” he said.
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Photo: (From left) Seyyed Mahmoud, US Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, Bishop Richard Pates, Bishop Denis Madden, and Stephen Colecchi meet in March at the Ayatollah Marashi Najafi Library in Qom, Iran. Credit: CNS/Courtesy Stephen M. Colecchi
]]>by Derek Davison
They say “everybody’s a critic,” and they’re right. Who wouldn’t want to be a critic? Not only is criticism important, but being a critic can be fun and easy. The Greek historian Plutarch once wrote, “It is a thing of no great difficulty to raise objections against another man’s [...]]]>
by Derek Davison
They say “everybody’s a critic,” and they’re right. Who wouldn’t want to be a critic? Not only is criticism important, but being a critic can be fun and easy. The Greek historian Plutarch once wrote, “It is a thing of no great difficulty to raise objections against another man’s oration, it is a very easy matter; but to produce a better in its place is a work extremely troublesome,” and he was also right. As long as you don’t have to come up with an alternative, being a critic is awesome.
Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham carefully consider the many problems with US foreign policy.
When it comes to President Obama’s foreign policy, no two people have availed themselves of the ease and joy of being critics more than Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham. Luckily, the American news media is always ready to offer them optimal TV time to expound on their nuanced view that Things Are Really Bad Right Now, Because Barack Obama. They’re a formidable pair; the venerable senators’ foreign policy critiques are so often in agreement that when even a sliver of daylight appears between the two, it’s literally national news.
For the critic, then, the only hard and fast rule is to avoid talking about what you would do at all costs. However, when Senator Graham shared his critical thoughts about Obama’s foreign policy record July 20 on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” he let his guard down a little, and we got a glimpse of what a Lindsey Graham foreign policy agenda might look like:
DAVID GREGORY:
Well, Senator, there’s a lot to unpack there, specifically with regards to Russia. This crisis over the downing of the Malaysia Airlines flight. What did Secretary Kerry not say? What is the administration not yet prepared to do that you think must be done?
SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM:
One, he didn’t call Putin the thug that he is. He didn’t call for arming the Ukraine so they can defend themselves against rebel separatists supported by Russia. All of the enemies of our nation are being well supplied. Russia and Iran are helping Syria. 160,000 Syrians have been slaughtered, John Kerry, by Russian-supplied weapons to Assad.
While “arming the Ukraine” to help it defeat an enemy it’s already soundly defeating on the battlefield might seem a bit redundant (also, it’s not “the” Ukraine, but I digress), it’s really the first part of the Graham Agenda that could break new ground in international diplomacy. It’s impossible to know for sure without reviewing all the relevant literature, but it seems safe to say that Senator Graham’s “Call Other Leaders Names if You Don’t Like Them” tactic is a real innovation in the field.
Imagine the implications of the Graham Plan on the world stage. If President Obama were to call Vladimir Putin a “thug,” for example, he would decisively “pwn” the Russian leader and thus fundamentally shift the balance of power throughout Eurasia. Similar “pwns” of other key US adversaries, if deployed strategically, could have comparable effects.
While Senator Graham is understandably reluctant to reveal the rest of his foreign policy playbook, given how much it could benefit President Obama and damage Republican chances of a big victory this fall, we have exclusively obtained a few of his other key insights from a reliable source, though we are unable to confirm the authenticity. Still, it’s no exaggeration to say that this is world-changing stuff:
- Russian Prime Minister Dimitri Medvedev: “Thug Junior”
- Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi/Caliph Ibrahim: “Jerk-Faced Jerk”
- Chinese President Xi Jinping: “Putzy McPutzerson”
- Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei: “Captain Doody-Head”
- Syrian President Bashar al-Assad: “Polly Prissypants”
- Hamas leader Khaled Mashal: “Mr. I.P. Freely”
- Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar: “Amanda Hugnkiss”
- Al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri: “President Lamewad”
- Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro: “El Matón”
- Former Cuban President Fidel Castro: “Barack Obama”
Hopefully someone will be able to make good use of this information. The future security of the United States — indeed, of the entire world — could hang in the balance.
Photo: Martin E. Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, speaks with Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) during a break in testimony at the Senate Armed Services Committee on Feb. 7, 2013. Credit: US Navy Petty Officer 1st Class Chad J. McNeeley/DOD
]]>by Mitchell Plitnick
There are many false clichés about the Israel-Palestine conflict. There are also some very true ones, though these are heard less frequently. Perhaps the most profound of these was proven once again this week: the United States is incapable of playing a positive role in this arena.
There is [...]]]>
by Mitchell Plitnick
There are many false clichés about the Israel-Palestine conflict. There are also some very true ones, though these are heard less frequently. Perhaps the most profound of these was proven once again this week: the United States is incapable of playing a positive role in this arena.
There is nothing about that statement that should be controversial. A decades-long line of US politicians and diplomats have spoken of the need to resolve this conflict. In recent years, these statements have often been accompanied by an acknowledgment of the need for “Palestinian self-determination.” But Israel is the one country, among all of the world’s nations, of whom those very same leaders speak in terms of an “unbreakable bond,” a country between whose policies and ours there “is no daylight.”
Let’s say my brother gets in a dispute with someone else, perhaps even someone I am acquainted with. Would anyone think that I would be the appropriate person to mediate that conflict? If my brother also had a lot more money and influence in the conflict, and therefore a fair mediation required a broker who was willing to pressure my brother into compromise because, right or wrong, he does not have incentive to do so, am I the right person for that job?
Of course that would be absurd, yet that is exactly what has been expected of the United States. The comparison goes even deeper because the political forces in the United States, as my father would do in this scenario, exert personal pressure (familial and financial) favoring my brother. While being quite natural, this isn’t justice, and it’s a recipe for disaster, not resolution.
US Secretary of State John Kerry now says that the United States is going to “re-evaluate” its efforts for Israel-Palestine peace. But will that be an honest evaluation, one that asks the hard questions? Because after twenty years of failure, there is but one fundamental question: is the United States, given its self-imposed diplomatic parameters and its AIPAC-directed domestic political obstacles, capable of mediating this conflict?
We need to understand, when evaluating the Obama administration’s performance here, that, reality aside, it is perceived as the toughest on Israel since George H.W. Bush. And, to be sure, it worked harder to get small concessions from Israel than its predecessor in the George W. Bush administration. But for those who still don’t understand the extent to which US policy prioritizes Israeli preferences over basic Palestinian needs, this past week’s events should have made it clear. Indeed, it is because of that potential clarity that Israel has moved immediately to replace the facts with its own, demonstrably false, narrative.
A Clear US Failure
Let’s review the collapse of the Kerry Talks. Eight months after scoring his victory in getting Israel and the Palestinians back to talks, Kerry had nothing but increased acrimony between the two parties to show for it. For many weeks, both Israel and the Palestinians had tacitly recognized the futility and had directed their efforts toward jockeying for a position to emerge from the inevitable collapse of talks as the more reasonable side. As the date that had been designated for the fourth and final release of 26 long-time Palestinian prisoners approached, Israel began to signal it would not follow through on its agreement to let them go. And Kerry’s frank incompetence started to become even more apparent.
Israel had been saying for weeks that the last batch of prisoners included Palestinian citizens of Israel whom they had not agreed to release. It is unclear exactly what happened here, but Kerry gave no indication that Israel was not being honest about that claim. The picture that emerged was that Israel agreed to the 104 prisoners being released but not necessarily to these specific ones, who, as citizens of Israel, do fall into a different category. Rather than clarify, it looks like Kerry simply assured Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas that he’d convince the Israelis to get it done. If that is what happened, it indicates a serious lack of understanding on Kerry’s part of the difference the Israeli status of those prisoners made in Israel. It would mean that the US secretary of state was woefully ill-suited to this task.
Had Kerry bridged this gap, it might have been enough to move the prisoner release forward. This was the objection Israel started with. But by March 29, the date designated for the last prisoner release, Israel, certainly with US agreement, shifted gears and made the release contingent on the Palestinians committing to continuing the talks for another twenty months. This sat well with Kerry, since at this point, all he was really after was continuing the talks. Any goals of substance had long since evaporated.
Seeing that the Palestinians were not going to agree to this arrangement, Kerry tried to get Israel to sweeten the deal with a phony limitation on settlement construction that committed Israel to nothing at all and guaranteed accelerated settlement expansion in the Jerusalem area, and the freeing of 400 additional prisoners of Israel’s choosing which would have almost certainly meant freeing thieves and other common criminals whom the Palestinians would not necessarily even want to give back. In exchange for this Israeli “largesse” not only would the talks be extended, but the US would give Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu a massive political plum to please his right-wing: the freeing of convicted US spy Jonathan Pollard.
Kerry secured Netanyahu’s agreement then started to show the Palestinians this deal he had worked out with Israel and wanted them to accept. He never got that far, because that was when the Palestinians finally said “enough” and began applying for membership in numerous international bodies, as is their right.
When Kerry left the region in a huff, he blamed both sides for taking “unhelpful” and “unilateral” steps. That, in itself, is an inaccurate description of a collapse that was largely engineered by Israel. But it was clear that the Obama administration was planning to go further. The US Ambassador to the United Nations, Samantha Power, expressed the administration view clearly in her testimony before a House of Representatives subcommittee hearing on UN funding.
“On the Palestinian question, it just would underscore that we will oppose attempts at upgrades in status anywhere,” Power testified. “The [International Criminal Court] is, of course, something that we have been absolutely adamant about. Secretary Kerry has made it very, very clear to the Palestinians, as has the president, I mean, this [the Palestinians joining the ICC and bringing cases against Israel] is something that really poses a profound threat to Israel. It is not a unilateral action that will be anything other than devastating to the peace process…”
So it is either the Palestinians’ fault for threatening to hold Israel accountable for its actions in the international legal system or it’s both sides’ fault. No administration official has singled out Israel for its actions as they have the Palestinians, despite the fact that the Palestinians were acting on their rights which they had only agreed to hold off on as long as Israel lived up to its commitments and kept the talks going. It was Israel, not the Palestinians who reneged, and while the United States is well aware of this, they won’t say it.
Instead, US officials are helping clean Netanyahu’s image by shifting the blame for the announcement of new settlement units to Housing Minister Uri Ariel. Ariel, of the Jewish Home party, which is a right-wing rival of Likud, certainly seized an opportunity to torpedo any peace talks, in line with his views and his party’s policies. But the idea that this was done behind Netanyahu’s back is absurd. Netanyahu has offered no rebuke of Ariel, nor has he distanced himself at all from the announcement of the new settlement units or the timing of the announcement. Given that Kerry had made an emergency trip to the region just at that time, even most of the right-wing would not have had a problem with Netanyahu putting the new buildings on hold for a while. No, this was not Ariel’s initiative. It was Netanyahu’s.
Where to now: Israel
The Palestinians applied to fifteen international bodies. But the ones they chose to apply to pose no threat to Israel. Indeed, if anything, the choices they made, which largely consist of various human rights conventions, serve to make the Palestinian Authority (PA), not Israel, more accountable. The PA made a point of not applying to the International Criminal Court, which is Israel’s chief concern. The applications they made only moderately upgrade the Palestinians’ status, acquired over a year ago when they won admission to the UN General Assembly as a non-member observer state. The applications are, certainly, a threat that they will do more if things keep going as they have been.
Israel has declared that it will punish the Palestinians, though so far, aside from officially cancelling the last prisoner release, the only specific measure they have announced is the withdrawal of a permit for a West Bank telecommunications company to start building its wireless infrastructure in Gaza. There will likely be more measures soon. But the telling point is the absolute absence in Israel of any criticism of Netanyahu for the collapse of the talks.
The parties in the governing coalition that were supposed to hold Netanyahu to the peace track, Yesh Atid and HaTnuah, have been unwavering in their support of Netanyahu since the talks collapsed. The major opposition parties, particularly Labor and Shas, have either been silent or offered measured support to Netanyahu. It is clear that Netanyahu faces no pressure to modify his position.
This tells us that Israel is going to continue on its present course. It leaves little doubt that Netanyahu is perfectly comfortable with Kerry simply giving up and turning his attention to other matters. And why shouldn’t he feel that way? Congress remains locked into mindless obedience to any and all Israeli actions, and the Obama administration has made it clear it is not going to expend the political capital necessary to bring about any changes.
Where to now: Palestine
Now that Abbas has finally reached the point where he could not accept another one-sided US proposal, he needs to consider his options. He has thrown down a gauntlet with his applications to the international bodies. The message: Palestine will take full advantage of its rights if Israel remains unwilling to negotiate in a spirit of compromise that acknowledges the legitimacy of Palestinian claims. Remember that the Palestinians have surrendered 78% of Palestine, accepted the principle that Jerusalem will be shared and acknowledged that the implementation of refugee rights would be negotiable and considerate of Israel’s demographic needs.
Abbas absolutely cannot be seen to be bluffing. If Israel does not change its stance, he must apply to the International Criminal Court (ICC) for recognition of Palestine and begin bringing war crimes cases there. There is a reason Ambassador Power considers this a real threat to Israel. The United States will indeed shield Israeli leaders from imprisonment if they are found guilty by the ICC, but Israeli leaders will find themselves unable to travel to Europe, which, despite US largesse, is by far Israel’s biggest trading partner. That matters, a lot.
Abbas must be willing to follow through, even if he is unlikely to be around for the endgame. Israel would certainly respond harshly to such actions, and the PA is not going to survive that kind of Israeli action. That’s why Abbas will be sorely tempted to find another way. But, as we’ve already seen, popular pressure is beginning to boil in the West Bank.
Where to now?
The breakdown of these talks is a turning point. Yes, there will be desperate cries for another “last chance” for the Oslo-based two-state solution, but there is a growing realization that this is now a pipe dream. The United States will likely continue for some time to play the same role it has for twenty years, but if this round generated miniscule hope, future attempts will be met with virtually absolute cynicism.
The politics of all of this is going to move farther away from Washington, although the pull from Congress will slow the process. But even the bought and paid for Congress won’t be able to stop it. Europe will be forced to take more actions, and Israel is going to be increasingly isolated. The parameters are becoming more fluid and, in a departure from the Oslo years, the new ones are going to be dictated by events in Israel and the Palestinian Territories more than in Washington.
The smart thing for Washington to do is to reset the process, bring together real experts — rather than AIPAC-endorsed lawyers for Israel like Martin Indyk, Dennis Ross and David Makovsky — with leaders from Israel, Palestine, Europe and the Arab world and start over. There may be a way to find a formulation, whether one state or two, that justly addresses Palestinian rights as well as Israeli ones, but it must start with admitting that the Oslo process is dead. Continuing self-deception, whether from right-wingers like Netanyahu who gamed the system, or well-meaning centrists like J Street who staked their existence on the vain hope that this process, ill-formed at birth, could ever succeed, must be treated now like the threat to any progress that it is.
Photo: US Secretary of State John Kerry leaves US Ambassador to Israel, Dan Shapiro behind as he ends his failed trip to Israel. Credit: State Department
]]>by Mitchell Plitnick
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas met with US President Barack Obama this week, following in the footsteps of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu earlier in the month. But unlike Netanyahu, Abbas is a much less heralded or even well-known figure in Washington. And, above all, he is a [...]]]>
by Mitchell Plitnick
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas met with US President Barack Obama this week, following in the footsteps of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu earlier in the month. But unlike Netanyahu, Abbas is a much less heralded or even well-known figure in Washington. And, above all, he is a man with far fewer options.
With a deadline looming at the end of April by which US Secretary of State John Kerry had promised first to broker a permanent Israel-Palestine agreement and, later, a more modest goal of a framework for continuing talks, Abbas arrived in Washington with little to offer and less room to make further concessions. It’s a familiar position for the Palestinian leader, one he has been in since 2004 when he assumed the leadership of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) upon the death of Yasir Arafat.
Arafat was a universally respected leader to the Palestinian people, even, grudgingly, among his rivals; a fighter who had proven his worth in conflict. Abbas, by contrast, had long been Arafat’s number two, but he was more intellectual, having been an advocate, a resistance politician and a fundraiser for most of his time in exile and then after his return to the Palestinian Territories in 1994.
Abbas was watching the West Bank disappear inch by inch even well before he took office, while, since 2006, he has seen Gaza grow even more impoverished under Israel’s siege while Hamas manages what little there is to run internally. In recent years, he has faced political infighting in Fatah, from both a new generation of activists and older rivals like Mohammed Dahlan, who is currently trying once again to make a comeback. Abbas has consistently been under siege himself, and has stuck fast to his credo of diplomatic, rather than violent, responses to Israeli actions. He is no Gandhi; he simply understands that violence is not an arena where the Palestinians are likely to win.
But Abbas has handicaps of his own, beyond the political, economic, social, and military impediments any Palestinian leader would face. He is dogged, as was Arafat, by the corruption in the Palestinian Authority and by the sense that has been building since the mid-1990s among Palestinians that the PA in general is a tool of Israel and the United States; administering the occupation in the major and mid-size Palestinian cities, thus relieving Israel of much of that burden, while being a “partner for peace” rather than an advocate for the Palestinian cause.
Abbas feels the weight of these much more powerfully because he does not have anything like the prestige Arafat had. Yet he shares some of Arafat’s weaknesses in his dealings with Israeli and US politics and how that plays out in the negotiations that drag on year after year, when they are held at all. An example emerged as he left Washington this week.
The Israelis have been making noises about the next and final release of prisoners that they agreed to last year, as a way to restart negotiations. Some members of the Israeli government (crucially, not including Prime Minister Netanyahu) are saying that the prisoner release will not happen unless Abbas agrees to a framework agreement. The prisoner release is slated to occur a full month before the deadline Kerry imposed on the framework agreement.
Abbas, not surprisingly, urged Israel to complete the prisoner release, “…because this will give a very solid impression about the seriousness of these efforts to achieve peace.” In the wake of that statement, even the so-called “moderate” Tzipi Livni, Israeli’s Minister of Justice who is leading negotiations with the Palestinians, reiterated the conditioning of the release on Abbas’ agreement to the framework.
Abbas unwittingly helped the Israelis set him up. No one in Israel or the Occupied Territories believes Kerry’s effort is going to lead to an agreement, even if he can ram his framework through and extend the talks beyond the end of April. For months now, Israeli and Palestinian leaders have been jockeying to avoid being blamed for what they know is the inevitable failure of Kerry’s efforts. Abbas handed this round to Israel on a platter.
Netanyahu can now show the world that, by Abbas’ own standard, he is ready to make the “painful choices” for peace by releasing Palestinian prisoners “with blood on their hands” in order to keep the talks alive, even fighting his own people to do it.
Can Abbas do likewise? It seems unlikely, unless the framework won’t include Palestinian recognition of Israel as a “Jewish state” (the Palestinians long ago recognized Israel’s right to exist, which is all any state recognizes in any other state). That is something Netanyahu has insisted on and, though downplayed lately by Kerry, it is a position the United States has accepted.
Indeed, Netanyahu laid bare this strategy when, on Tuesday, he called on his ministers and Likud leaders to refrain from making statements that would make Israel appear to be the intransigent party in the talks. It was, in fact, in response to a question about the release of Palestinian prisoners that Netanyahu responded with this: “At this very moment it is becoming clear that the Palestinians are the balkers. Instead of disinclination, we should be demonstrating willingness. I suggest that now we let everybody realize who the reluctant one is, and let this perception take root in the international community.”
Netanyahu may be well off the mark regarding “this moment,” but he has never really been concerned about the international community. He is concerned about the United States. He is well aware that if he can create a narrative, as Ehud Barak did after the failure of the Camp David II talks, where Israel is willing to go along with the US peacemaking plan and the Palestinians refuse, he will win US and Congressional opinion, and with it at least parts of Europe and other key countries. And Abbas gave him the opening to do it.
Mahmoud Abbas is not Yasir Arafat, and it could well be argued that neither of these two very different men was the right one for the job of trying to win Palestinian freedom from Israeli domination. But both played their part in crafting a strategy that depended on the Unites States. Abbas has spoken of moving to the international arena if talks fail. But if he does, he is likely paving the way for the next Palestinian leader to take the stage and try it his way.
]]>by Robert E. Hunter
Accidents happen, even to seasoned US diplomats. In this case, the Assistant Secretary of State for Europe and Eurasia was caught in a highly sensitive conversation on Ukraine’s future with the US ambassador in Kiev. Not much out of the ordinary in their talk, conducted in diplo-speech, except [...]]]>
by Robert E. Hunter
Accidents happen, even to seasoned US diplomats. In this case, the Assistant Secretary of State for Europe and Eurasia was caught in a highly sensitive conversation on Ukraine’s future with the US ambassador in Kiev. Not much out of the ordinary in their talk, conducted in diplo-speech, except for one almost inaudible expletive by Victoria Nuland.
The State Department turned it all into a joke, a kind of “boys [and girls] will be boys [and girls]” and blamed the leaking of the conversation on the Russians, a “new low in trade-craft” — more diplo-speech for spying. This barb at Moscow, although thousands of hackers around the globe could have picked up the phone call; and the Russians would naturally patrol the US embassy in Kiev (and everywhere else) listening for unguarded talk, just as (we hope) the US does likewise against them. And, if Moscow had been urging its ambassador in Kiev to try manipulating Ukrainian politics, as the State Department was doing, and if we had picked up one of their phone calls, we would broadcast it to the world, as part of the continuing struggle for Ukraine’s soul now being conducted by the old Cold War superpowers.
There is irony. The recently much-maligned National Security Agency spends huge amounts of money providing US diplomats with easy access and highly secure telephones; and every junior diplomat is trained never, ever to hold a conversation as sensitive as the one revealed except through classified email or on one of those NSA instruments.
With “egg on their faces” and a well-merited rebuke from the Federal German Chancellor, whose own phone calls were hacked by the NSA, what’s not to like in this B movie? Ambassador Nuland ‘fessed up; so let’s all have our laugh and move on.
Yet this accident has revealed issues that merit study. First was the expletive, directed against what the US diplomats — and much of Washington — see to be the European Union’s fecklessness, not just in regard to Ukraine — “a day late and a Euro short” — but also in getting its act together in general.
Not so fast. It’s not as though the United States had been consistently leading for the West in helping Ukraine define its future, a country pinioned by geography between the Russian Federation and Europe Proper, in an effort to provide Jeremy Bentham’s “greatest good for the greatest number.” Nor has the US been paying much attention to the European Union — or to Europe, for that matter. When he spoke at the Brandenburg Gate last year, President Obama made only a passing reference to NATO and referred to the EU only as “your union.” He will stop off for a brief summit meeting with the EU in Brussels next month, but for years these have been pro forma, a couple of hours of shop talk and then back on Air Force One to some place more important. There will be a NATO summit in Wales this September, but as of now it will focus on what should be done about Afghanistan after Dec. 31 when NATO troops in the International Security Assistance Force depart. Charting NATO’s future? So far an empty basket.
The fact is that for years Europe has been the low region on the US’ Northern Hemisphere totem pole. The one saving grace is the administration’s commitment to negotiating the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), which has become the touchstone of transatlantic relations, now that NATO is in fast decline. But even TTIP may not make it, unless Congress gives the President so-called Fast Track Negotiating Authority, whereby he can sign a deal without Congress’ picking it apart. Even that is now in doubt, as those who oppose more open trade, mostly in the President’s own Democratic Party, are pushing back.
So, lesson 1. Mr. President and Secretary of State John Kerry: pay more attention to Europe, and if there is something as important as the future of Ukraine, get involved at a more senior level. As skilled as Ambassador Nuland is, negotiating this issue should be happening above her pay grade to show that the US is really serious. And as important as Mr. Kerry’s diplomatic heavy-lifting in the Middle East is to that benighted region, the US has to be able to “walk and chew gum at the same time.”
Lesson 2: stop looking at what is happening in Ukraine as though it is simply a replay of Cold War confrontation. It’s striking how much rhetoric, both in the US government and in the American commentariat, is reveling in the prospect of a return to the Good Old Days when the Russians were the bad guys. At the same time, it’s striking that, with all the efforts to load political issues onto the Sochi Olympics, however important LGBT rights and Syria may be, there has been no use of this moment to get President Vladimir Putin to understand that his Sochi glory also depends on controlling his ambitions in Central Europe, with all its geopolitical importance.
In the 1990s, the remaking of European security — George H.W. Bush’s grand strategy of a “Europe whole and free” and at peace — fell short in integrating the Russian Federation into the future. While it was brought into the Partnership for Peace and into a special relationship with NATO, it was too long kept largely isolated economically, so its people did not see that playing ball with the West pays dividends in their own lives.
Is it too late to try building an overarching political, economic, and security structure throughout Europe, in which the US, Canada, Western Europe, Central Europe, Ukraine, and Russia can all play legitimate parts, minus “spheres of influence because everyone gains something more important in terms of prosperity and, yes, respect? Maybe, maybe not. It is past time for the US, as the West’s leader, to start trying. And without ignoring — and stigmatizing — its indispensable partner, the EU.
]]>by Mitchell Plitnick
There is an odd sort of atmosphere today around the soon-to-fail Israel-Palestine talks. A dramatic gesture by the United States, presenting its own security plans to both Israel and the Palestinians, has engendered mostly yawns. Yet the events of recent days have clarified the likely results of these [...]]]>
by Mitchell Plitnick
There is an odd sort of atmosphere today around the soon-to-fail Israel-Palestine talks. A dramatic gesture by the United States, presenting its own security plans to both Israel and the Palestinians, has engendered mostly yawns. Yet the events of recent days have clarified the likely results of these talks, despite the ongoing secrecy around them.
Secretary of State John Kerry has apparently proposed that Israel agree to abandon the Jordan Valley (constituting some 20% of the West Bank and situated in Area C, which falls under complete Israeli control under the current arrangement) in stages over an extended period of time and subject to the “good behavior” of the Palestinians. The current plan seems to be that Israeli forces would remain in the Jordan Valley for ten years while Palestinian forces are “trained.”
Not surprisingly, the Palestinians, including PA President Mahmoud Abbas disapprove of this idea. But they do so in lukewarm terms, not wanting to offend Kerry, with the hope that when the April deadline for the current round of talks rolls around that the Palestinian side will not, as it was in 2000, be portrayed as the party who refused peace. Still, as former US President Jimmy Carter once told me, a continued Israeli presence in the Jordan Valley is unacceptable to the Palestinians. Indeed, it is impossible to say that an occupation has ended when the occupying army is still there. That should be obvious.
But that’s apparently not the case for Kerry and President Barack Obama. There should be no confusion on this point: however much the US administration has shifted its Mideast position regarding Iran and the broader Arab world, nothing has changed with regard to the occupation. The friction between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Obama administration can obscure this reality, but a lot of that friction is based on Netanyahu’s frustration that the United States will not follow his regional designs. With regard to the Palestinians, the rhetoric may be different, but the actions of both Israel and the United States on the ground in the real world are little different than they have been for twenty years.
The Jordan Valley issue has been a known point of contention all along. Kerry and Obama have insisted that matters like this one can be worked out, but Kerry’s proposed solution is simply the Israeli position rehashed. Netanyahu objects to Kerry’s proposal simply because he wants the Jordan Valley to be part of Israel in any final agreement. That is not workable, but a long term Israeli presence that can easily be extended — all that has to happen is the Palestinians need to be declared “not ready” at the end of ten years — effectively accomplishes the same thing, with Israel still controlling the territory, although they might not be able to build more settlements there for some time.
Palestinian forces have already been trained by the US, and even Israel agrees that has worked well, so this insistence on more training is absurd. But the real problem here is more fundamental and points to exactly how we will know that the United States is serious about brokering a permanent agreement between Israel and the Palestinians, if they can ever reach that stage.
As many critics of US policy in Israel-Palestine and the role of the Israel lobby in creating that policy have pointed out, a US President is capable of taking on the lobby and winning, but it involves a big political fight and expending a lot of political capital. This has happened in recent weeks with regard to Iran — the Lobby has backed off. When an administration wants to fight that battle for resolving the issue of the occupation, it will do so by changing the terms of the discussion. Right now, as it has been for decades, the occupation is approached in Washington as a security issue for Israel. In reality, Israel is the regional superpower, both militarily and economically, while the Palestinians have no way at all to defend themselves. When the occupation is the priority and is treated as intolerable, then the discourse can be centered around security for all within the framework of ending the occupation rather than being a security issue within which perhaps there is some way to end the occupation.
Obama and Kerry probably know this, and have chosen to work within the existing framework and just do the best they can under those conditions. They must also know that this approach will likely fail, but the very effort will augment their efforts regarding Iran and the general reorientation away from involvement in any of the other current and brewing conflicts in the region.
The reason the United States will not engage in that political battle touches on the myths that are so often heard about the Israel-Palestine conflict; particularly the one that tells us that resolving that conflict is a “US national security interest.” That is somewhat true, but it is a far less urgent concern than ratcheting down the conflict with Iran, for instance, or extricating the United States from the regional conflicts that our other “dear friend” Saudi Arabia is so intimately involved in.
Both the rapprochement with Iran and broader regional shifts offer clear benefits to the United States. In the wake of the Iraq debacle, they go a long way to ensure that such an enormous expense in blood, capital, and regional stability doesn’t happen again. They also help boost the potential for US engagement in trade and diplomacy throughout the region — engagement with Iran is a huge boon toward that goal while staying away from regional conflicts. Continuing to work with whomever is in power also allows the United States to protect future relationships with these states, rather than with only the current regimes. Threats by the Saudis to shift their business to Russia or China are empty. Neither of those countries have anything more than the smallest fraction of money and military assistance the US can and will continue to offer.
But the Palestinian issue, despite its higher profile, offers little to entice a US president to go to war politically. No one in the Muslim world will suddenly forget the decades of US support for Israel’s occupation. There are no obvious economic benefits to finally addressing the legitimate claims of the Palestinians. The military benefits are mostly the removal of some obstacles to US operations, the sort of thing David Petraeus got in so much trouble for pointing out when he said, in testimony before Congress, “…The conflict foments anti-American sentiment, due to a perception of U.S. favoritism for Israel. Arab anger over the Palestinian question limits the strength and depth of U.S. partnerships with governments and peoples in the AOR and weakens the legitimacy of moderate regimes in the Arab world. Meanwhile, al-Qaeda and other militant groups exploit that anger to mobilize support.”
So, yes, this issue could be addressed, but it’s a lot less potentially beneficial than the positive results of other policy shifts Obama is pursuing, and it would entail a considerably bigger political battle. So, it’s not going to happen. Indeed, the Palestinian issue is probably being pushed now by Washington in order to manufacture a payoff to Netanyahu for his acquiescence to real US priorities.
The path to resolving the Israel-Palestine conflict has been clear for some time. The Palestinians need to abandon their dependence on the United States, which will not ever deliver the goods. They need to pursue an international strategy that creates real political pressure on Israel. The ground is fertile — Israel’s obvious unwillingness to abandon the key territories on the West Bank, well beyond the major settlement blocs, and its refusal this past weekend to permit Holland to provide an electronic scanner that would have allowed Palestinians in Gaza to export goods without putting Israeli security at risk have exposed the hollowness of Israel’s security arguments. Israel’s actions are not about security, but about power, and this fact is something the Palestinians and their supporters around the world can exploit. It can also be used by true friends of Israel who recognize that Israel’s security is at risk not because of Iranian threats that never existed (see Juan Cole’s excellent explanation of that here) or some small bands of Palestinian militants, but by Israel’s continued refusal to compromise.
Europe seems to be taking some steps toward reorienting the politics around the occupation to create the incentives Israel needs to change its policies. The Palestinians need to follow their lead, as do the many supporters of a just peace throughout the world, including in Israel. Waiting for the US to deliver the goods is more futile than waiting for the Messiah.
Photo: U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry speaks with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas at the outset of a meeting focused on the Middle East peace process in Bethlehem, West Bank, on November 6, 2013. Credit: State Department.
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