The Palestinian Authority (PA) has now moved a step closer to making good on its threat to go to the International Criminal Court (ICC) and bring charges against Israel. There is little doubt that this was a move Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas tried desperately to avoid. In the end, he was forced to do it by a combination of U.S.-Israeli rejectionism, Palestinian desperation to do something to try to end Israel’s occupation, and his own many missteps.
Abbas signed on to 18 international agreements after the quixotic attempt to pass a resolution at the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) predictably failed. Among them was the 1998 Rome Statute, which established the ICC and took formal effect in 2002. This is the step that the U.S. and Israel have warned Abbas against most strongly. Among all the “unilateral steps” the Palestinians could take (which, one should note, is no more “unilateral” than any number of actions taken by Israel on a routine basis), this is the one Israel worries about most.
The reason, of course, is obvious. Israel knows it has committed war and other international crimes—some very serious—in the course of its occupation. While Israel generally scoffs and waxes indignant at critical world opinion, it is concerned that being hauled before the ICC could further negatively impact public and elite opinion in Europe, Israel’s main trading partner, where patience with Israeli policies has grown ever thinner.
Abbas knows only too well that he risks losing what little power he has in the West Bank. There are many ways this move can blow up in his face, and most of the roads to success are going to take more time than he has. That he has taken this step testifies to his desperation.
When, on behalf of the Palestinians, Jordan submitted its resolution to the UNSC last month, it did so under tremendous pressure from other Arab states. Abbas and Jordan’s King Abdullah had preferred to wait until France was ready with its own resolution, which the United States had strongly hinted it would support, or at least not oppose. Abbas knew full well that, even if the Palestinian resolution had mustered the nine votes needed to pass the UNSC, Washington would have vetoed it. Approval of the French version, while toothless and lacking a fixed deadline to end Israel’s occupation, would at least have had virtue of demonstrating the international community’s insistence on a two-state solution.
But internal pressure to submit the Palestinian version, as well as the external pressure that turned out to be decisive, seems to have pushed the French version to the back burner, at least for the time being. With the expected failure of the Palestinian resolution at the UNSC, Abbas was forced to carry through with his threat to sign the Rome Statute, a move that many Palestinians, including many in his own Fatah faction, had been clamoring for ever since the 2012 U.N. General Assembly vote that granted Palestine non-member observer state status, thus enabling it to join international agreements and UN specialized agencies.
In the long run, this is a move that could pay off for the Palestinians, but it carries enormous risks, especially to the PA. The most obvious and immediate threats lie with the responses that can be expected from Israel and its most important foreign backer, the new Republican-led U.S. Congress. Many in Congress have made it clear that they intend to push for suspension of aid to the PA if it signs the Rome Statute. And Israel will surely ramp up its settlement expansion and likely once again withhold taxes it collects on the PA’s behalf. The resulting economic impact could very well lead to the PA’s collapse.
That outcome has been forestalled in the past by Israel’s recognition that the security and economic costs it would inherit would be exorbitant. Israeli officials not only allowed their own cooler heads to prevail, but also urged restraint on their friends in Congress. Despite the recent splash the Labor Party made by joining forces with peace process veteran Tzipi Livni, Bibi Netanyahu’s main challenge still comes from his right in the elections scheduled for mid-March, and he can’t afford to look soft on the Palestinians.
That certainly won’t help Abbas. He knows the dangers that confront him. Moreover, the approach to the ICC carries another risk. Even if Abbas survives the Israeli-U.S. response, it is very possible that Hamas will also face charges at the ICC. The case against Hamas, while covering crimes involving far less destruction and loss of life, is also more clear-cut than one likely to be brought by the PA against Israel, whose acts in Gaza and in the day-to-day occupation of the West Bank will require lengthy investigation. Should Hamas find itself on the losing end of the law before Israel does, Abbas’s position is likely to weaken further.
Despite his moves toward internationalization, Abbas still much prefers to work with Washington. U.S. fecklessness in the face of persistent Israeli opposition to any diplomatic initiative, however, has essentially brought him to this Rubicon. And his own clear reluctance to cross it will itself likely diminish the chance of success.
Under the Rome Statute, the Palestinians will not be able to formally file any cases with the ICC prosecutor for 60 days from the date of signing. That time will certainly be used by the Obama Administration, which will no doubt argue that such a filing could bolster the Israeli Right in the critical final days of the election campaign, to pressure the Palestinians against going forward. Still, the repeated failure of the Security Council to address the occupation in any substantive way, coupled with the failed history of the U.S.-brokered peace process, has sent the Palestinian people the message, however unintentionally, that diplomacy and cooperation are dead-end strategies. That is going to lead to more Palestinians embracing the violent paths called for by Hamas and other, considerably more militant, factions.
At the same time, Palestinians have seen the futility of armed struggle over the decades. Failure at the UNSC and joining the ICC — but then forgoing charges against Israel – will only increase Palestinian despair and desperation. That will no doubt lead to more of the kind of “lone wolf” attacks that Israelis endured in 2014.
The one party that could make a difference is the European Union (EU). It can exert serious pressure on Israel of a kind even the United States cannot match. The EU accounts for nearly one-third of Israel’s export business. (By comparison, the U.S. accounts for just under one-quarter). Labeling settlement products (as some EU countries currently require, but don’t generally enforce) could be a first step. And if it is couched as a warning that sterner measures are in the offing, the impact on Israeli thinking could be significant, perhaps even a game-changer.
Indeed, ultimately, that sort of European action is what Israel fears. If the Obama administration wants to see a reversal of the downward spiral its own peace-making efforts have helped create in Israel-Palestine, it could quietly encourage the EU in that direction.
Such a course would be wise. Abbas’s strategy of relying entirely on U.S. help to pull him through has clearly failed, and his reign, whether due to a P.A. collapse or just his own advancing age, will not last much longer. He has no clear heir apparent, so what comes after is a mystery. The United States won’t exert significant pressure on Israel in the near future, and, absent some unanticipated shock, Obama’s successors in the White House are unlikely to spend as much political capital as he has on resolving the conflict. The pressure must come from Europe and from the Palestinians using whatever international tools are at their disposal.
This is, after all, just what was always demanded of the Palestinians—that they pursue their goals without recourse to violence. If a peaceful path to statehood is denied them, ongoing and escalating violence is all we can expect to see.
]]>by Mitchell Plitnick
Former American diplomat Aaron David Miller is a frequent and worthwhile contributor to US foreign policy discussions in both Washington and the news media. His long career in Middle East diplomacy and strong focus on Israel have enabled him to clarify for the general public the many difficulties that exist under the surface of these issues. Unfortunately, as shown by his recent piece in Foreign Policy magazine, he sometimes obscures them as well.
Miller correctly points out that the Israel-Palestine conflict is not the major source of regional instability and that Secretary of State John Kerry was foolish to imply that the lack of progress on this issue had in some way become a contributing factor to the rise of the group that calls itself the Islamic State. But he also elides the enormous amount of responsibility the United States has and continues to hold not only for the Israel-Palestine conflict itself, but also for the difficulty in making any progress on the issue, let alone resolving it.
Miller states it explicitly: “Washington isn’t responsible for the impasse…The primary responsibility for fixing the problem lies with Israelis and Palestinians, and the lack of resolution is a direct result of their lack of leadership and ownership.”
That is unequivocal nonsense. It adds yet another layer to the enduring myths that surround the long-term lack of progress on this conflict. It is not lack of leadership and ownership that is the problem, it is the massive imbalance of power between the two parties that is the single biggest obstacle to a resolution. And that is an area where the United States is a major factor.
The power imbalance leads to a very simple reality: Israel has very little incentive to compromise. It is a regional superpower militarily, it has by far the most stable government in the Middle East, and it’s a member of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), with a relatively strong economy. Israelis would undoubtedly prefer a cessation to the Palestinian rocket fire that periodically flares up as it did this past summer, and certainly want to stop incidents such as the one on October 22, when a Palestinian drove into a Jerusalem light rail station, killing an infant and wounding seven other people. But these concerns are not nearly enough to sway Israelis into the sort of compromises that would be bare minimums for a deal with the Palestinians.
From Israel’s point of view, the Palestinians’ minimal demands include a free Gaza and West Bank, including the Jordan Valley, a shared Jerusalem and the recognition of Palestinian refugee rights. In each case, there is a huge risk perceived by the Israelis.
Indeed, because most Israelis believe the narrative telling them that when Israel withdrew from Gaza and Southern Lebanon, all it got in return was rocket fire, they see a similar but much graver risk of that repeated outcome in the West Bank. In fact, most Israelis join their prime minister in rejecting the idea of giving up the Jordan Valley, a huge chunk of the occupied West Bank.
Sharing Jerusalem, and particularly the area of the Temple Mount, conjures fears of the years from 1949-67 when Israelis could not visit the holiest site in Judaism. More than that, Israel’s capture of the Old City in 1967 has become a powerful nationalistic symbol—a compromise on this issue strikes at the very heart of Israeli identity, and that arouses passionate responses.
The refugee question, which I explored in depth recently, is also seen by virtually all Israelis as implying the end of the Jewish State, something they desperately want to avoid. Finally, Israelis remain bitterly divided ideologically on many points, and there is a deep fear that making compromises will set off civil disturbances between secular, religious, nationalist and liberal camps within the country. Recent events around the Gaza war, where demonstrators for peace were repeatedly attacked, give credence to this fear.
The point is not to argue about the legitimacy or realism, or absence thereof, behind any of these fears. They are there, and they must be contended with in some fashion. But that involves confronting those fears, which, in turn, implies that Israelis perceive some pressure—be it military, economic or political—that forces them to take risks. The rewards of peace are, at best, uncertain to Israelis who don’t trust Palestinian intentions and perceive rising militancy in the Arab world and therefore an uncertain future no matter what commitments the current Arab regimes may offer. After all, as many contend, these governments may not be around for long.
Due to its position of relative power, the potential incentives for Israel are negative. The Israeli reaction to the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign, which has not yet had any significant economic effect (though it has certainly altered the public discourse), is a testament to how worried Israel is at the prospect of true economic pressure. The Israeli government’s reaction to the EU’s relatively minor moves to adhere to its own laws regarding partnering on projects in the Occupied Territories and labeling products imported from the West Bank is further proof of this trend.
But whenever Europe, which is an even more indispensable trade partner for Israel than the US, has started to move in this direction, the United States has worked hard behind the scenes to change European minds. In a similar, but far more visible and impactful way, the US has used its veto power repeatedly at the UN Security Council to protect Israel from any consequences of its constant violations of international law. And we do this despite Israel’s defiance of stated US policy in the region.
These are the realities that Miller’s viewpoint elides. They have nothing to do with the Islamic State, and Miller is correct to chide Kerry for trying to tie the two together. But this ongoing hand-wringing about how the Israelis and Palestinians can’t be brought together needs to end. Even more, the nonsensical view that this is due to the personal mistrust between Benjamin Netanyahu and Mahmoud Abbas has to be shunted into the dustbin. Roosevelt and Churchill didn’t trust Stalin at Yalta. Gerry Adams and David Trimble in Northern Ireland didn’t trust each other either, and many of us who were paying attention at the time can remember the constant accusations of bad faith they hurled back and forth, which were very similar to what Netanyahu and Abbas say about each other today. Yet there are also other examples of leaders coming together. It is becoming a cliché, but it is nonetheless true that peace is made between enemies, not between friends, and it is also generally made between parties that neither like nor trust each other.
The reason this is even an issue in the Israel-Palestine conflict is because of the imbalance of power. Because Israel is so powerful and because US policymakers—for reasons that have nothing to do with the Palestinians or the occupation—continue to see Israel as an indispensable ally in security, intelligence and business matters, diplomacy has become ineffective. That’s why we keep hearing excuses for the ongoing failure. Miller makes one of the classic excuses. But it all covers up for US fecklessness and for the fact that, despite the pronouncements, peace between Israel and the Palestinians may be official US policy, but it is not a high priority. Kerry, in a credit to his character and his naiveté, tried to buck this, but found that he didn’t have the diplomatic tools he thought he had.
For all of these reasons, the US bears an enormous responsibility for the ongoing and deepening conflict in Israel and the Occupied Territories. And yet, that doesn’t mean the US needs to be doing more to resolve it.
On the contrary, the US needs to do less. The American commitment to Israel’s military superiority is now law, but even without that, the ties between the US and Israeli militaries, intelligence communities and businesses are extremely deep. There is no realistic path to threatening these things.
But that doesn’t mean the United States has to keep acting to thwart European efforts to raise the price of its occupation for Israel. Nor does it mean that the US has to keep running interference for Israel at the Security Council. Most of all, it does not mean the US has to keep insisting on its exclusive role as the mediator of this conflict.
If the United States simply refrains from doing these things, and takes no other action to pressure Israel, the change in the status quo would be enormous. But that would, itself, be a major shift in US policy on the ground. And it is not going to happen as long as we delude ourselves into believing the status quo is not our fault and that we bear no responsibility for changing it.
]]>by Mitchell Plitnick
Today, I’m asking my readers to please support the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). The group has been working hard on some new legislation and it’s really important to help get this bill to the floor of the Senate and the House.
According to a report in Buzzfeed, [...]]]>
by Mitchell Plitnick
Today, I’m asking my readers to please support the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). The group has been working hard on some new legislation and it’s really important to help get this bill to the floor of the Senate and the House.
According to a report in Buzzfeed, AIPAC has been working with congressional staff members for months on the bill, trying to find the formula for success. The bill would “…aim to prevent U.S. companies from participating in the (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions against Israel) campaign without infringing on Americans’ First Amendment rights to political speech. It would also try to make the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership being negotiated between the U.S. and E.U. conditional on whether the E.U. takes action to stop BDS.”
And how would they prevent US companies from participating in BDS? By “…authorizing states and local governments to divest from companies deemed to be participating in BDS,” and by denying “…federal contracts to such companies.” This bill should be at the top of the agenda for American activists in the United States who wish to see our country change its policies towards Israel and Palestine.
AIPAC hasn’t been doing very well of late. Their attempt to weasel a provision into another bill that would have allowed Israelis to enter the United States without a visa while Israel refused to make the same arrangement for US citizens raised a lot of hackles on Capitol Hill, even in some offices that are very AIPAC-friendly. The proposed provision was killed. AIPAC was unable to sway the Senate against the nomination of former Senator Chuck Hagel for Secretary of Defense. Nor has it been able to significantly impact the Obama administration’s efforts to reach an agreement with Iran on its nuclear program.
There have been a lot of failures lately, including the failure to get Congress to push hard for an attack on Syria last year. But this bill, if it ever reaches the floor, could be the biggest bust of all, with some serious ramifications for the powerful lobbying group.
Let’s just start with the First Amendment issues this raises. If this bill ever sees the light of day, AIPAC is going to try to convince people that it is similar to the laws passed forty years ago in response to the Arab League’s boycott of Israel. Put simply, it isn’t.
Those laws–the 1977 amendments to the Export Administration Act (EAA) and the Ribicoff Amendment to the 1976 Tax Reform Act (TRA)–were drawn up narrowly, to apply only in the case of abetting or cooperating with a boycott directed at Israel by other countries. The mentions of boycott “by a foreign nation” or similar words are so frequent that the meaning cannot be missed. This is no surprise, of course; Congress is loath to dictate to US businesses, and it is especially tricky where a national interest is not clearly and immediately at stake. So these laws were contrived so that they only barred supporting boycotts by foreign countries against Israel.
In the case of BDS, no government is running this program, not even the pseudo-governments of the Palestinian Territories. The Palestinian Authority (PA) has not endorsed boycotts of Israel and is, itself, completely incapable of boycotting Israeli goods and services. It is in most ways a captive market to Israel. Hamas has, frankly, paid little attention to such measures, though they have encouraged them rhetorically from time to time.
There is a call for BDS from Palestinian civil society, but that is not covered by the 1970s laws. Moreover, any law that would target BDS would need to be constructed in such a way so that it would not have made boycotts of Apartheid South Africa illegal. Those boycotts also came in response to a call from the African National Congress. If businesses could not engage in such activities, there would be great outrage.
So the Arab League boycott is moot as a basis for anti-BDS legislation. The right to boycott is also not limited by what the government decides is an acceptable boycott and what is not. People, and businesses, are free to choose with whom they will do business. Congress making such decisions violates the very essence of the First Amendment, and it is highly unlikely that such a law could pass as a result and, if it could, even less likely that it could withstand legal challenges.
The bit about the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) is even more toxic. The point of TTIP is to make international trade between the United States and European Union easier, to reduce tariffs and lessen bureaucracy. The idea is to significantly improve the speed, and thus the volume and value, of trade between the two economic giants. Adding stipulations like ensuring that EU states are working against BDS is precisely what TTIP is designed to avoid. Whatever my own objections to TTIP (and they are many), it clearly holds great appeal for businesses on both sides of the Atlantic.
It is one thing for US citizens with influence in Washington to go along with the powerful lobbying forces defending Israel’s ability to act with impunity in the region; for the most part, that has not had a negative effect on trade. But this would be a very different matter. Now we are talking about AIPAC going up against powerful, domestic business interests. That is a whole new ballgame.
Even bringing the bill to the floor would demonstrate in a clearer way than ever before that AIPAC is willing to compromise US commercial interests and even one of the most cherished and basic freedoms the US prides itself on for the sake of Israeli interests.
Consider also that the overwhelming majority of boycott actions, divestment decisions and even popular proposals for sanctions against Israel have focused squarely on Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. They have not targeted Israel as a whole, with the exception of some of the attempts at cultural and academic boycott. But these are not major concerns for Israel nor do they have the same impact potential as economic boycotts and divestment. So, the threat to free speech and to international trade that this bill represents would be demonstrably in the service of the settlement enterprise, the siege of Gaza and the occupation regime more generally. The mask would be off.
In reality, I very much doubt any such legislation is ever going to move forward, at least not from AIPAC. They know the problems as well as anyone and, while I don’t doubt that they are working constantly with their closest friends in Congress to see if something could work, I don’t think they’ll be successful. But if you want to see AIPAC suffer major damage, such a bill would do it. I can’t think of a better strategy to oppose AIPAC than to do everything we can to make sure this sort of doomed anti-BDS legislation hits the floor in Congress with a resounding thud.
]]>The awakening of the ghost of nationalism is at length the result of a double failure of the European Union and its leadership. The financial crisis [...]]]>
The awakening of the ghost of nationalism is at length the result of a double failure of the European Union and its leadership. The financial crisis and the immigration crisis that hit Europe during the last decade have proven the unsteadiness of the unification project. In both cases, European leaders’ capitulation to business elites’ interests led them to flawed responses — eventually turning the Union into a battleground where national political agendas of member states are played off against each other.
In its handling of the financial and immigration crises, EU leadership has repeated historical mistakes, surrendered democratic functions to turbo-capitalism and unlocked the door to authoritarianism. Photo Credit: Apostolis Fotiadis
But the elites’ commitment to democracy is not very sincere. They mostly remember it when the interests they represent are under threat. In a case in point, last month the German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble started leaking versions of rescue strategies about the future of the Greek bailout program, hoping to find a new balance between additional rescue money and austerity obligations that the overburdened Greek public would have to digest.
In this way, Schäuble hopes to rescue the Greek pro-austerity coalition government from the likely beating in the municipal and European elections next May. To put it in a simpler way, his problem is that democracy might work and drive things out of control. Thus, he is hurrying to exercise preventive measures for a possible derailment of his strategy.
Schäuble’s last example of strategic thinking is the embodiment of the nature of European politics since the beginning of the debt crisis in 2009. It is also the kind of thinking that has failed Europe.
Austerity — and the international institutions created to implement it, most notably the Troika and the (European Stability Mechanism (ESM) — have become a structure through which some member states, with the participation of the European Commission and the European Central Bank (ECB), critically undermine the sovereignty of other member states. European institutions have become a vehicle for imposing hegemony on others, while any corrective mechanism like the European Court of Justice and the European Parliament have been marginalised in the process.
Immigration
The immigration crisis that’s been evolving since the end of the 1990s on the borders of Europe has also degenerated to brinkmanship between southeastern and northwestern member states.
When xenophobia dominated the debate on migration, instead of a humane immigration system with regular controls, European leaders away from any kind of public scrutiny chose to build a xenophobic high-tech fortress. A project promoted by the emerging security-industrial complex which today actively co-dictates European immigration policy.
In both cases, there were other ways to go. The Eurobond or a controlled debt restructuring were serious options that would have changed the course of the eurozone crisis from very early on. With the correct political navigation, they could have also deepened the European project politically.
The Dublin regulation was created in 1997 to identify the country liable to accept and consider an asylum application; The Common European Asylum System that outlines common high standards and stronger co-operation to ensure that asylum seekers are treated equally in an open and fair system was put on paper in 1999. Instead of utilising these further to create a just burden-distribution system, member states came up with an externalisation mechanism that pushed responsibility to others.
History repeating itself
Now, at the peak of the crisis, Europe’s technocrats react again like political dwarves. To defend the future they have chosen for Europe, they will flirt with the monster. They watch as Greece begins to turn into an authoritarian state where journalists are persecuted and racist neo-nazis have been offered appalling impunity, only because its government keeps up with fiscal consolidation.
During the boom years, European leaders promised that if we all run faster away from our history, unconditional and unlimited progress would wait for us around the corner.
What we managed instead was to start repeating Europe’s historical mistakes, surrender democratic functions to turbo-capitalism and unlock the door to authoritarianism.
Europe’ future has been captured by some who pay lip service to its vision while they do business for themselves and their patrons. The negotiation for the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership between Europe and the US, cloaked in secrecy and aimed at lifting any barriers to the corporate domination of both markets, epitomizes this evolution.
Nevertheless, we shouldn’t destroy Europe and give in to nationalism because of them; we should fight to recapture it and reinstitute its purpose: peace and dignity.
Apostolis Fotiadis is a freelance correspondent based in Athens with a focus on ethnic conflict, human rights and the politics of immigration and the economic crisis in Europe. You can find him on his website and on twitter at @Balkanizator.
]]>by Mitchell Plitnick
The so-called “renewed” Israel-Palestine peace process is turning out to be nothing more than an illusion, as many observers from across the political spectrum expected. But the United States is apparently intent on blowing more smoke to maintain that hallucination as long as possible. And the Palestinian Authority, typically, [...]]]>
by Mitchell Plitnick
The so-called “renewed” Israel-Palestine peace process is turning out to be nothing more than an illusion, as many observers from across the political spectrum expected. But the United States is apparently intent on blowing more smoke to maintain that hallucination as long as possible. And the Palestinian Authority, typically, is falling into a trap.
US Secretary of State John Kerry’s idea to keep a tight lid on the proceedings was a good one if talks lead somewhere. If they don’t, the aggrieved side is likely to head to the media to air their grievances, feeling that the process is not getting them where they want and that public pressure is their only option. Doing so, however, will surely anger the United States and open the door for the party causing the leaks to end up with the lion’s share of the blame for the talks’ failure.
Amid reports of deep Palestinian dissatisfaction with the way the talks are going, the US seems to be offering the public the same long-view analysis that they did months ago. Not commenting on what is actually taking place between the Israelis and Palestinians in their discussions, a senior State Department official offered the view that the turmoil in Syria and Egypt is spurring the two sides toward compromise.
“Both sides have made clear to us and to each other that they do not want the turmoil to engulf them and that therefore it motivates them to try to resolve their conflict to prevent that from happening,” the official told reporters. This rationale was part of the explanation Kerry offered as he was bringing the sides together as to why this time would be different from previous rounds of talks. It fails, however, to address the matters that are bringing the talks crashing down, which are just like those problems from previous talks.
Palestinian negotiators have been telling reporters that Israel is insisting on a new interim agreement, where a provisional Palestinian state would be established on 60% of the West Bank and no settlements would be removed in the initial stage. That is a non-starter for Palestinians, and they were making that clear before the talks even resumed. For their part, the Israelis, and specifically Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, have been making it equally clear that they will not use the 1967 borders as a reference and are not seeking anything more than establishing a new interim arrangement. So, the new impasse was entirely predictable. And this gives the US view the air of a performance, hiding the very real evidence that these talks were doomed from the first and the US should have, and may well have, known it.
Kerry’s decree that both sides refrain from talking to the media suits Israel just fine. The talks progressing at a snail’s pace or making no progress at all is very much in Netanyahu’s interest. Should there be measurable progress, it would set off a firestorm of political controversy in Israel, and would jeopardize his coalition, which is sympathetic to Israel’s settler population in the West Bank and is overwhelmingly committed to blocking any compromise on the key issues of Jerusalem and Palestinian refugees. Netanyahu’s biggest concerns thus far have centered around his own people; his man in the negotiating team, Yitzhak Molcho, is there to restrain Minister of Justice and lead negotiator Tzipi Livni from actually negotiating too much. So he is more than content to abide by Kerry’s diktat about talking to the media.
But the Palestinian team has to be concerned about the perception among their populace that they’ve been dragged back to the table to talk and allow Israel to claim it is negotiating in good faith while new settlement construction continues apace. Israel certainly has not made it any easier for them, announcing several new expansion projects in key settlement areas in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. And Israel’s refusal to recognize the 1967 borders as a starting point, and the US’ acceptance of that stance, gives the Palestinian people even more reason to see these talks as nothing more than a sham. The PA negotiators are desperate to find a way to get the United States to change this framework, but the US was playing an understated role from the beginning. That led to the first Palestinian complaint of US mediator Martin Indyk not being involved in the discussions. With US eyes fixed now on Syria and the soap opera playing around that issue on Capitol Hill, it is far less inclined to reconsider its approach to Israeli-Palestinian talks. So, they go to the media, leaking their complaints in the probably vain hope the US will care.
While the US is not very concerned about these Palestinian leaks for now, that is likely to change at one of two points. The first possibility could occur if the Syrian crisis diminishes in some way, Egypt doesn’t erupt again and there is a comparative calming. Then people might start paying attention to these sputtering talks and the Palestinian complaints could become a more prominent story. This doesn’t seem as likely as the second possibility: the talks fail and the blame game begins. That raises the question of whether the Obama administration will follow the example of Bill Clinton and blame the Palestinians. It might consider the devastating effect on any hope for peace that Clinton’s initial blaming of the Palestinians resulted in (he later modified his story, but by then it was too late and, in any case, a lot less people were paying attention). But Netanyahu will surely be portraying the Palestinians as the party responsible for the failure, and will be able to use as evidence the fact that they, publicly, went along with Kerry’s program while the Palestinians did not.
The fact that Kerry this week entreated the European Union to back off even their very meager ban on funding projects in and with Israeli settlements while the question of bombing Syria was raging says a lot about his disposition in these talks and the naiveté of the Palestinians in ever thinking the US would even try to get Israel to negotiate toward a Palestinian state based on the 1967 borders. There hasn’t been even the slightest hint of US pressure on Israel to make any concessions whatsoever, and this is why the Palestinians have run to the media, despite knowing that Kerry and Obama would be displeased. Unfortunately, US behavior in these revived talks has met and exceeded even the lowest expectations of fecklessness and fully reaffirmed its position as a thoroughly dishonest broker.
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by Mitchell Plitnick
Russia is not staying silent as the US appears to be positioning itself for an attack on the Bashar al-Assad regime in Syria. Defending its last key ally in the region, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov warned the West against intervention. Western nations [...]]]>
by Mitchell Plitnick
Russia is not staying silent as the US appears to be positioning itself for an attack on the Bashar al-Assad regime in Syria. Defending its last key ally in the region, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov warned the West against intervention. Western nations should avoid repeating “past mistakes,” said Lavrov.
More importantly, Lavrov illustrates just how broken and vaporous the system of “international law” is when it comes to conflict and protecting civilians. “The use of force without the approval of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) is a very grave violation of international law,” he said. And there is no question that he is correct.
An intervention in Syria requires the approval of the Security Council in order to be comply with international law. Such authorizations are, quite naturally, exceedingly rare. Not only does it require a majority vote in the Council, but, more importantly, all five permanent members of the Council (the US, Russia, China, Great Britain and France) must also agree. Any one of those countries can exercise its right to veto any resolution before the Council.
The idea, in 1945, made some sense. In the post-World War II era, there was still some question as to whether the US and USSR would perhaps build on their wartime alliance and find a way to work together, but it seemed unlikely. An incentive to maintain some sense of order in the world by working together on such matters and being able to block one-sided moves might have seemed sensible. It’s even worked out that way from time to time. But for the most part, it’s been a recipe for paralysis and a means to prevent action on matters of global concern, rather than to promote it.
The most obvious example of this is the matter on which there has been, by far, more Security Council vetoes than any other: Israel’s occupation of territories captured in the 1967 war. From 1946-1971, the USSR was the overwhelming leader in Security Council vetoes; no other country was even close. These were, of course, mostly Cold War-related resolutions that directly or indirectly took aim at Soviet actions and policies in various parts of the world. Since then, the overwhelming leader has been the United States, with the clear majority of those vetoes being made on behalf of Israel, protecting its occupation and concomitant violence and settlement expansion.
Indeed, in recent years, the problem has gotten so bad that most resolutions regarding Israel-Palestine have been withdrawn in advance, knowing the US will veto as a matter of course. The matter reached its ultimate absurdity in 2011, when the Obama administration vetoed a UNSC resolution that stated nothing at all that was not already official US policy. But the veto was expected and required. The fact that it was such a moderate resolution raised fears among AIPAC and its various fellow travellers in the Israel lobby, and there was a lot of public pressure on Obama to veto. But there’s no reason to think he wouldn’t have done so anyway.
Politics and power, not international law, govern international matters. The fact is that legality will have no bearing on the US decision to attack Syria or refrain from taking action. The decision will be based on strategy and politics.
The system of international law is irreparably broken. Ultimately, any system of law depends entirely on the ability of the judicial body to enact penalties and sanctions on lawbreakers. Such penalties don’t exist for the United States, nor for Russia or China or the other members of the Security Council. Britain and France are more compliant with international law than the others, but this is due not to fear of censure but because their own situations (including widespread European support for abiding by international law, as well as the experience of the two World Wars and the end of colonialism, the latter having removed a lot of European disincentives toward international law) push them in that direction.
Indeed, it is worth asking this question: if one believes that intervention in Syria is needed to stop what is already a humanitarian disaster from getting much worse, should international law be ignored in doing so? It seems inescapable that the answer to that question is yes, and one is then left with only the question of whether military intervention will help or hurt the millions of Syrians in the crossfire.
But at what point can we claim with reasonable certainty that the moral imperative trumps the law? Particularly in a hypothetical world where the law actually matters, where should that line be drawn? In point of fact, few people are so naïve as to believe that military intervention ever occurs for purely humanitarian reasons. It is generally done in order to pursue the invading country’s interests, and if some humanitarian good is done on the way, well that is just fine. And most of the time, the humanitarian interests are only a cover for other goals; the situation is often oversimplified so the public will support the intervention, which is sometimes vastly distorted.
In this instance, it is Russia warning the United States against violating international law, but the US has played the same game on many occasions — the 2003 push for a UN imprimatur for the invasion of Iraq being perhaps the most prominent and revolting instance.
The alternative to a world governed by international law is a world where might makes right. That is, indeed, the world in which we live. The point here is not that international law should be done away with. On the contrary, it must be strengthened exponentially. A legal system that can enjoy at least some insulation from the whims of politics, both domestic and international, is crucial, and the International Criminal Court and International Court of Justice have at least some of that. But more importantly, there must be a mechanism where even the most powerful country can be held accountable for violating the law.
Such a system will never be perfect, of course. Even in the realm of domestic law, we regularly see differences in how it is applied and defied by the rich and the poor. But even the wealthiest individuals have to at least consider their actions when breaking the law. Some system where powerful actors are treated the same as everyone else must be put into place. The answer to how that can be achieved is for better minds than mine, but asking the question is the first step.
Other aspects need revision or at least revisiting as well. Sovereignty is a crucial principle, without a doubt, but it is also used by tyrants to shield themselves from, for example, reprisals under international human rights law. The debate over intervening in Syria following alleged chemical weapons use by the Syrian government is inherently related to the current system of international law, which is broken far beyond the point of having any effectiveness. In many ways, it is an obstacle. It needs to be rebuilt, before more Syrias confront us.
]]>by Mitchell Plitnick
I’m always pleased when something surprises me in the realm of Israeli-Palestinian diplomacy. It doesn’t happen often. Today’s announcement that Secretary of State John Kerry has apparently succeeded at bringing Israel and the Palestinian Authority back to the table was one such surprise.
The announcement [...]]]>
by Mitchell Plitnick
I’m always pleased when something surprises me in the realm of Israeli-Palestinian diplomacy. It doesn’t happen often. Today’s announcement that Secretary of State John Kerry has apparently succeeded at bringing Israel and the Palestinian Authority back to the table was one such surprise.
The announcement should not be overstated, of course. At this writing, there is a proviso out there that a few details still need to be worked out. So, there’s a convenient back door that both parties can exit through.
Even if the talks did resume, there is no reason to believe they will succeed. As Stephen Walt details, Israel’s governing coalition remains hostile to a two-state solution, the Palestinians remain divided and, despite whatever pushes and prods Kerry used to achieve this outcome, the US remains politically paralyzed and feckless. Coming up with a positive scenario that is even marginally realistic is therefore not easy. But here is one shot at it.
One aspect of Kerry’s bridge-building between Benjamin Netanyahu and Mahmoud Abbas presumably included negotiating based on the 1967 borders without stating that publicly as a specific frame. But any talks that proceed in that fashion could result in Naftali Bennett’s Jewish Home party bolting the coalition. If that happens over peace talks, Labor and perhaps Meretz could join to support two states. Labor alone would increase the governing majority from 68 seats to 71 (out of 120) in the Knesset; if Meretz joins too, that makes 77 seats. Shas has also indicated willingness to support such a deal, but they have historically been pro-two-states while opposing a compromise on Jerusalem. Shahs’ joining would bring 11 more seats and potentially create a dominant majority, but they’re such a wild card that a two-state coalition might be better off without them.
A coalition that includes Labor and excludes Jewish Home would certainly be capable of approving any deal Netanyahu could conceivably sign. But it would still be restrained by the leading party, Likud’s opposition to two states and by the desire of the Israel Beiteinu party to minimize the Arab minority in Israel, not to mention Netanyahu’s own disposition against a viable and sovereign Palestinian state. Still, Bibi could probably count on enough votes outside his coalition — from Arab parties and some others — to get a deal done.
On the Palestinian side, things are more complicated. A sine qua non for any deal to actually take hold is the reunification of the West Bank and Gaza. No West Bank-only deal can possibly be acceptable. Robert Danin of the Council on Foreign Relations presented a plan to reconnect the West Bank and Gaza while marginalizing Hamas. A more ambitious route, with a much higher chance of success, would be for the US and Israel to allow and support new elections, treating both territories as a single unit and, this time, actually abiding by the outcome. If a realistic two-state deal is on the horizon — one which stands a chance of being at least minimally acceptable to the Palestinians in the Occupied Territories — Hamas would probably lose such an election, and in any case, it would have to find ways to accommodate itself to such an agreement. That is far from impossible for Hamas, as they can work in a government which they consider accountable to the will of the people while holding its own stances, such as refusing to recognize Israel. On the other side, the Likud would be doing something similar.
Any realistic agreement is probably going to involve Israel keeping the three large settlement blocs, which is going to be a tough sell to the Palestinians because of the way the Ariel and Ma’ale Adumim settlements slice apart the West Bank. Conversely, any conceivable agreement would also mean sharing Jerusalem and Israel taking at least token responsibility for the creation and long-term plight of Palestinian refugees, which might be an even tougher sell.
Therein lies the rub for all of this. For the past several years, I’ve maintained that the Oslo Process is dead, and the solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict needs to be reformed. This does not imply that a solution revolving around two states for two peoples cannot be reached, but that the Oslo parameters and thinking have failed. The upcoming round of talks may finally prove that thesis right or wrong.
Although it has become much more difficult as the Israeli public and body politic has drifted well to the right from where it was in the mid-1990s, there is reason to believe that enough Israelis would support an Oslo deal to make it work. It is not at all clear that the same can be said about the Palestinians.
The mistrust and frustration that resulted from Oslo has certainly hardened the resolve of many Palestinians. And while Palestinian refugees have always been central to the national narrative, few would argue that the refugees have a more prominent place in Palestinian negotiations today than they did twenty years ago. It will be much harder to sell an agreement now where Israel takes in zero or close to zero refugees than it was when the Oslo Accords were agreed upon. It will also be much harder to sell a demilitarized state to Palestinians weary and wary from years of violence from Israel.
If the United States was willing to allow a Palestinian unity government to form again, that might assuage some of the skepticism among Palestinians. Kerry was able to push Netanyahu a little more than usual this week, but that was nothing compared to what will be required to get Netanyahu to agree to sharing Jerusalem, provide some concession on the refugee issue and limit his own draconian security demands, which currently include a very large Israeli presence remaining in the Jordan Valley. There is no indication that the Obama administration is prepared to apply that kind of pressure or weather the ensuing political firestorm such a move would bring.
Still, some things have changed. It is no coincidence that the agreement to return to talks comes on the heels of the European Union’s announcement of new guidelines forbidding “grants, prizes and financial instruments funded by the EU from 2014 onwards” to be given to or shared with official entities of Israeli settlements. This was not a very significant financial blow, but even that bit of action caught Israel’s attention. It’s a lesson in what even the most moderate pressure on Israel can do, and why the major reason that peace is farther away than ever is that the US, and to a lesser extent other international actors, are shielding Israel from the consequences of its occupation.
by Mitchell Plitnick
It may seem like US Secretary of State John Kerry is chasing his own tail with regard to the Israel-Palestine issue. But he is, intentionally or otherwise, raising some important questions. One is what the official Israeli position really is on the two-state solution. Perhaps the most [...]]]>
by Mitchell Plitnick
It may seem like US Secretary of State John Kerry is chasing his own tail with regard to the Israel-Palestine issue. But he is, intentionally or otherwise, raising some important questions. One is what the official Israeli position really is on the two-state solution. Perhaps the most important one is how foolish, inept and impotent will the United States allow Israel to make it appear? And of greatest concern to Americans, why is this President even less willing to confront Israel, at so dire a time, than any of his predecessors?
At some point during President Barack Obama’s and Kerry’s last trip to Israel earlier this year, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu agreed to put a hold on issuing any new tenders for more settlement construction. To most, this means a settlement freeze, but it’s nothing of that kind.
Building continues at a fast pace, due to a very large number (some 1,500 residential units) of tenders approved between the Israeli elections and Obama’s visit. This was, of course, intentional, as Netanyahu knew he would probably need to make some kind of gesture to Obama. And another huge round of approvals is just waiting, held up in channels, and will probably be approved sometime in the next couple of months. In terms of construction work, there is likely to be almost no noticeable break.
But even this was not enough for Netanyahu. For much of the past months, the temporary hold on new tenders was only rumor. But a few days after Israel’s Army Radio announced it and the settlement watchdog group, Peace Now, confirmed it, Israel announced the approval of tenders for 296 units in the settlement of Beit El. Shortly after that, the Israeli government announced that it would declare four “settlement outposts” newly legal. The outposts are wildcat settlements set up without governmental approval (all settlements on territory captured by Israel in the 1967 war are illegal under international law). Sometimes Israel destroys them, sometimes it ignores them; in recent years, it has taken to legalizing some of them retroactively.
That Israel took these steps mere days before Kerry’s return to the region cannot be ignored. It was yet another direct slap in the face by Israel to its benefactor and the one country that stands behind it no matter how egregious Israeli behavior may be. This time, even Kerry took note.
He took the unusual step of summoning the Israeli ambassador for an explanation, and, from reports, at least some degree of dressing down. Which is all well and good, but Israel has no reason to worry about it. Apart from a perhaps unpleasant conversation for its Ambassador to the US, Michael Oren, Israel will face no consequences for once again embarrassing the United States.
How do we know this? Well, despite these Israeli actions, the United States pushed the European Union into delaying a vote on labelling imports from Israeli settlements, distinguishing them from products made in Israel proper. Of course, the US is willing to do this in part because it feeds the illusion that there’s a peace process for Kerry to work on, one which would be hindered by an EU move of this sort.
The middle of June has been set as an arbitrary deadline for Kerry’s efforts. Not coincidentally, Iran’s presidential election is scheduled for June 14. At that point, we can expect the Palestinian issue, already pushed aside by first, the Iran war talk, and more recently by the escalating Israeli involvement in Syria, to be completely shunted. Mid-June is also the point at which the EU is now scheduled to vote on labelling settlement products.
This would seem to be a process of going through the motions for the Obama Administration. Obama himself subtly indicated to the Israeli public in his speech there that he was not going to stop them from committing national suicide if that was their chosen course. Meanwhile, he seems only too eager to please AIPAC and the rest of their lobbying cohorts. Meanwhile, his Secretary of State is becoming a laughingstock as a result.
The Palestinians have been cynical about Kerry’s efforts from the beginning. Before this latest trip, one unnamed Palestinian “senior official” expressed his pessimism, saying that the Palestinian position of insisting that Israel release Palestinian prisoners and cease all settlement activity has not changed and neither has the Israeli position. Israel, for its part, continues to mouth platitudes about supporting Kerry’s efforts while acting to thwart them on the ground at every turn.
But while the Israelis are making the right official statements, they are also sneering at Kerry. The Israeli journalist Barak Ravid sums up the view of Kerry, both in Israel and among more veteran diplomatic hands in the US: “A senior Israeli official who has met with Kerry several times said the secretary of state has a messianic enthusiasm for the Israeli-Palestinian issue and acts like someone who was sent to bring the redemption. A Western official familiar with Kerry’s activity agreed with this assessment. ‘Sometimes there’s a feeling that Kerry thinks the only reason his predecessors in the job didn’t bring about a peace agreement is that they weren’t John Kerry,’ he said.”
This is not a negotiator who is inspiring confidence either at home or abroad. And he’s allowing Israel to make a fool of him. Even if this is, as one hopes, a strategy to move the United States out of the center of this conflict, which it is politically incapable of resolving, the cost is becoming very high. And while Israel laughs at Kerry, the only Israeli cabinet member who has shown any semblance of interest even in the failed Oslo process, Tzipi Livni, is isolated in that cabinet and fending off assaults from her left and right as she debates the governmental majority over whether Israel is even interested in a two-state solution. Likud and HaBayit HaYehudi, two of the four major coalition partners, both officially oppose it in their party platforms. The other two, Yesh Atid and Yisrael Beiteinu, both officially support some kind of two-state solution, but with conditions that are incompatible with any conceivable agreement.
Kerry’s credibility as Secretary of State is off to a shaky start, to say the least, and the lack of regard with which he is being held by not only the Israelis but also the Palestinians is going to hurt him throughout the world and especially in the Middle East. In the worst case scenario, that will severely handicap US diplomatic options, which would inevitably mean a focus on non-diplomatic means to secure perceived US interests.
In the article, Ravid mentions former US Secretary of State James Baker, who managed to get the ultra-right wing Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir to the Madrid Conference, which ultimately led to the Oslo peace process. The surrounding circumstances have certainly changed in more than twenty years since Baker’s day. But while the circumstances that both forced and allowed Baker and his boss, George H.W. Bush, to push Shamir to Madrid are radically different, that’s not the greatest factor.
The real difference is that Baker and Bush were willing to exercise real pressure on Israel to get Shamir to acquiesce. That is something Obama has repeatedly shown he won’t do. No matter how insulting Netanyahu’s behavior, no matter how much Israel acts to counter the best interests of the United States, as well as of itself, Obama will do no more than make mild statements calling Israel “unhelpful.” And Israel couldn’t care less about that.
It’s easy, and certainly correct, to blame AIPAC for this state of affairs. But even AIPAC has its limits, and they cannot brazenly defy a second-term President who is determined to get something done. Bush the Elder did it. Bill Clinton did it at Wye River. Even Bush the Younger did it in 2003, when he reduced Israel’s loan guarantees after Israel refused to alter the route of its security fence according to US wishes.
Somehow, Obama can’t find the same backbone. And ultimately, even if Kerry’s efforts were far more sensible than they are, without that level of presidential backing — a level that all of Obama’s predecessors reached, despite their own one-sided and destructively myopic support of Israeli excesses — there is no chance for success.
]]>via IPS News
Graphic: The figures signify the number of times each country was mentioned in the Oct. 22 presidential debate. Credit: Zachary Fleischmann/IPS
U.S. strategy in the Greater Middle East, which has dominated foreign policy-making since the 9/11 attacks more than 11 years ago, similarly dominated the third and last debate between [...]]]>
via IPS News
Graphic: The figures signify the number of times each country was mentioned in the Oct. 22 presidential debate. Credit: Zachary Fleischmann/IPS
U.S. strategy in the Greater Middle East, which has dominated foreign policy-making since the 9/11 attacks more than 11 years ago, similarly dominated the third and last debate between President Barack Obama and Governor Mitt Romney Monday night.
The biggest surprise of the debate, which was supposed to be devoted exclusively to foreign policy and national security, was how much Romney agreed with Obama’s approach to the region.
His apparent embrace of the president’s policies appeared consistent with his recent efforts to reassure centrist voters that he is not as far right in his views as his primary campaign or his choice for vice president, Rep. Joe Ryan, would suggest.
The focus on the Greater Middle East, which took up roughly two-thirds of the 90-minute debate, reflected a number of factors in addition to the perception that the region is the main source of threats to U.S. security, a notion that Romney tried hard to foster during the debate.
“It’s partly because all candidates have to pander to Israel’s supporters here in the United States, but also four decades of misconduct have made the U.S. deeply unpopular in much of the Arab and Islamic world,” Stephen Walt, a Harvard international relations professor who blogs on foreignpolicy.com, told IPS.
“Add to that the mess Obama inherited from (George W.) Bush, and you can see why both candidates had to keep talking about the region,” he said.
But the region’s domination in the debate also came largely at the expense of other key regions, countries and global issues – testimony to the degree to which Bush’s legacy, particularly from his first term when neo-conservatives and other hawks ruled the foreign-policy roost, continues to define Washington’s relationship to the world.
Of all the countries cited by the moderator and the two candidates, China was the only one outside the Middle East that evoked any substantial discussion, albeit limited to trade and currency issues.
Romney re-iterated his pledge to label Beijing a “currency manipulator” on his first day in office, while Obama for the first time described Beijing as an “adversary” as well as a “partner” – a reflection of how China-bashing has become a predictable feature of presidential races since the end of the Cold War.
With the exception of one very short reference (by Romney) to Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and another to trade with Latin America, Washington’s southern neighbours were completely ignored by the two candidates, as was Canada and all of sub-Saharan Africa, except Somalia and Mali where Romney charged that “al Qaeda-type individuals” had taken over the northern part of the country.
Not even the long-running financial crisis in the European Union (EU) – arguably, one of the greatest threats to U.S. national security and economic recovery – came up, although Romney warned several times that the U.S. could become “Greece” if it fails to tackle its debt problems.
Similarly, the big emerging democracies, including India, Brazil, South Africa, and Indonesia – all of which have been wooed by the Obama administration – went entirely unmentioned, although at least one commentator, Tanvi Madan, head of the Indian Project at the Brookings Institution, said Indians should “breathe a sigh of relief” over its omission since it signaled a lack of controversy over Washington’s relations with New Delhi.
Another key emerging democracy, Turkey, was mentioned several times, but only in relation to the civil war in Syria.
And climate change or global warming, which has been considered a national-security threat by U.S. intelligence agencies and the Pentagon for almost a decade, was a no-show at the debate.
“There was no serious discussion of climate change, the Euro crisis, the failed drug war, or the long-term strategic consequences of drone wars, cyberwar, and an increasingly ineffective set of global institutions,” noted Walt.
“Neither candidate offered a convincing diagnosis of the challenges we face in a globalised world, or the best way for the U.S. to advance its interests and values in a world it no longer dominates.”
Romney, whose top foreign-policy advisers include key neo-conservatives who were major promoters of Bush’s misadventures in the region, spent much of the debate repeatedly assuring the audience that he would be the un-Bush when it came to foreign policy.
“We don’t want another Iraq,” he said at one point in an apparent endorsement of Obama’s drone strategy. “We don’t want another Afghanistan. That’s not the right course for us.”
“I want to see peace,” he asserted somewhat awkwardly as he began his summation, suggesting that it was a talking point his coaches told him he must impress upon his audience before he left the hall in Boca Raton, Florida.
“Romney clearly decided he needed to head off perceptions of himself as a throwback to George W. Bush-era foreign policy adventurism, repeatedly stressing his desire for a peaceful world,” wrote Greg Sargent, a Washington Post blogger.
So strongly did he affirm most of Obama’s policies that, for those who hadn’t been paying close attention to Romney’s previous stands, the president’s charge that his rival’s foreign policy was “wrong and reckless” must have sounded somewhat puzzling.
As Obama was forced to remind the audience repeatedly, Romney’s positions on these issues have been “all over the map” since he launched his candidacy more than two years ago.
“I found it confusing, because he has spent much of the campaign season in some ways recycling Bush’s foreign policy, and, at least for one night, he seemed to throw the neo-cons under the bus,” said Charles Kupchan, a foreign policy specialist at the Council on Foreign Relations.
“Whether it was accepting the withdrawal timetable in Afghanistan, walking back a more aggressive stance on Syria, or basically agreeing with Obama’s approach on Iran, he seems to be stepping away from a lot of the positions he was taking just a few weeks ago,” he noted. “At this point, it’s impossible for voters to actually know what he thinks because he spent most of the campaign embracing a platform that was much further to the right.”
That Obama, who took the offensive from the outset and retained it for the next 90 minutes, won the debate was conceded by virtually all but the most partisan Republican commentators, with some analysts calling the president’s performance as decisive a victory as that which Romney achieved in the first debate earlier this month and which reversed his then-fading fortunes.
A CBS/Knowledge Networks poll of undecided voters taken immediately after the debate found that 53 percent of respondents thought Obama had won; only 23 percent saw Romney as the victor.
Whether that will be sufficient to reverse Romney’s recent gains in the polls – national surveys currently show a virtual tie among likely voters – remains to be seen.
Foreign policy remains a relatively minor issue in the minds of the vast majority of voters concerned mostly about the economy and jobs – one reason why, at every opportunity, Romney Monday tried, with some success, to steer the debate back toward those problems.
]]>The New York Times reports:
In a two-paragraph letter answering an invitation offered more than three months ago by the bloc’s foreign affairs chief, Catherine Ashton, the [...]]]>
The New York Times reports:
In a two-paragraph letter answering an invitation offered more than three months ago by the bloc’s foreign affairs chief, Catherine Ashton, the Iranians said their senior negotiator, Saeed Jalili, could hold discussions as of Nov. 10. Iran’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, said last month in New York that Iran was prepared to resume talks, but gave no specifics. [...]
Ms. Ashton called the Iranian agreement “very important,” but given the tortuous path of past talks, there was no sense that it signaled any breakthrough. [...]
Western officials have said they are not in any particular rush themselves to revive negotiations. New sanctions agreed to this summer are just beginning to bite, officials have said, and seem to be having an even greater impact on Iran than expected. On the other hand, they say, the longer this drags out, the more time Iran has to add to its stockpile of enriched uranium.
The Iranian letter pointed out that the talks would have to resume under the conditions of Mr. Jalili’s “letter of 6 July.” In it, the Iranian negotiator said that talks should aim to engage and cooperate, that they should be committed to the rationale of dialogue, and that Ms. Ashton should state her “position on the nuclear weapons of the Zionist Regime” — a reference to Israel, which does not confirm or deny that it has nuclear weapons.
On Saturday, Reuters added to the mix new comments from a media adviser to Ahmadinejad who said that Iran’s nuclear program would not be on the table at these talks (which are meant to be on Iran’s nuclear program):
Both sides have said the talks could happen after November 10, but Ali Akbar Javanfekr, a media adviser to the president, said they would not cover the nuclear issue — the one subject the other countries want to address.
“We will not be talking with the Western party about the nuclear energy issue in this round of the negotiations,” Javanfekr said, according to the semi-official Fars news agency. [...]
Javanfekr said the P5+1 countries had yet to address Ahmadinejad’s conditions for resuming talks. He did not say what the talks would cover if they do not address the nuclear issue.
Reuters went on to print recent comments by Ahmadinejad on the subject, including his demand that negotiating parties recognize Israel’s covert nuclear weapons arsenal (estimated at some 200 missiles); the Iranians seem delighted to draw attention to this hypocrisy.
The Obama administration, via a leak to the Times, recently tipped its hand about its soon-to-be-renewed fuel swap proposal.
In its report about the Iranian offer, the Christian Science Monitor noted that Turkey and China — two countries which Iran hawks view as part of the problem because of their trade ties to Iran and hesitance to endorse escalation measures — deserve credit for helping encourage the Iranians to get back to the table.
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