The vote in the United Nations General Assembly on the Palestinian application for non-member status is a foregone conclusion. They’re going to win and it’s not really going to matter much, at least in the short term. Nonetheless, the decidedly warped world of diplomacy around the Israel-Palestine conflict has managed to [...]]]>
The vote in the United Nations General Assembly on the Palestinian application for non-member status is a foregone conclusion. They’re going to win and it’s not really going to matter much, at least in the short term. Nonetheless, the decidedly warped world of diplomacy around the Israel-Palestine conflict has managed to give us a small degree of drama around the bid, which is also illustrative of why there seems to be so little hope for change.
I posted a draft of the resolution on my blog earlier this month. You can see the final version here (pdf). There is simply nothing there that anyone with even the mildest interest in resolving the conflict could have the slightest objection to. This says a lot about where Israel and the US stand. No, the drama lies outside, with the Israeli-US-UK efforts to scuttle the initiative.
It’s been clear for quite some time that the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) was not going to back down from bringing this resolution to the UNGA. At this stage, any threatening actions by Israel or the US could cause the PLO’s collapse, which Israel very much wants to avoid. So they had no way to stop the initiative from going forward and instead tried to change the substance of the resolution.
That, too, failed, but the changes they tried to make are instructive. Israel wanted to change or insert three conditions, none of which made any sense for the Palestinians. The US took the three conditions whole cloth and tried to convince the Palestinians to insert them. When that failed, it was passed off to the UK, who could offer the Palestinians something the US could not — namely, a yes vote on the UNGA resolution if they agreed to these conditions. Based on various reports, it seems that the Palestinians simply wanted to end the debate and went ahead and submitted the proposed resolution to forestall further discussion of it.
So, all the attempts at change seem to have failed. But the truth is that there is very little here for Israel to be worried about, at least for the time being. And this is why their reaction, as well as those of the US and UK, are all very telling. Let’s look at the three conditions Israel wanted to insert:
Ultimately, Israel knew it would have to tolerate this Palestinian move. It really couldn’t even respond to it without risking its West Bank subcontractor whose demise would mean that Israel would have to foot much more of the bill for its occupation. So, they tried to get the one thing they thought they had at least an outside shot at: talks without preconditions.
Israel’s failure to achieve that goal is not surprising. But the buy-in Netanyahu got from both the US and UK is something we should all be looking at. Abbas didn’t break off talks with Netanyahu on principle, or even because of settlement expansion itself. He broke them off because he knew that, after 17 years of negotiations in the shadow of expanding settlements, the clock had expired and the Palestinian people would no longer tolerate such a state of affairs. The peace process had been exposed as a sham to cover an entrenching occupation, and only a complete halt to settlement construction would allow Abbas to come back to the table without seriously risking the existence of the PA.
Maybe the US and UK knew that Abbas would not accept the “no preconditions” condition and that’s why they felt comfortable pressing for it. But I doubt it. Both countries simply want to see talks resume, fearing the stalemate and vacuum diplomatic silence produces while Hamas continues to establish itself as the more credible Palestinian leadership body.
And what choice do the US and UK have? The same choice they’ve always had, the same one that was always the only way this was ever going to be resolved: pressure both sides — but especially the powerful and comfortable one, Israel — to make the deal. (Pressure on Israel has been totally absent, while both the US and UK are quite practiced in pressuring the Palestinians). Remind them that the exports they both depend on, the cooperation they both need, will no longer be so forthcoming if they don’t achieve a lasting peace.
And, of course, that is an option that neither country is willing to take for no good reason other than domestic politics. This isn’t about forcing anything on anyone. Israel and the Palestinians are perfectly free to choose their own course, but if they choose one that is contrary to US or UK interests, those countries can also choose not to do business with them. This wouldn’t exactly cripple either nation, but domestic politics continue to rule the day, and the craven leaderships in both countries cannot even conceive of such actions.
]]>The always thorough Mark Hibbs has a smart piece regarding the meaning of the resolution passed last week by the International Atomic Energy Association’s (IAEA) Board of Governors regarding Iran’s nuclear program. The resolution was initiated by the P5+1 (the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council [...]]]>
The always thorough Mark Hibbs has a smart piece regarding the meaning of the resolution passed last week by the International Atomic Energy Association’s (IAEA) Board of Governors regarding Iran’s nuclear program. The resolution was initiated by the P5+1 (the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council plus Germany) and modified with South African input, with only Cuba dissenting and Egypt, Tunisia, and Ecuador abstaining.
Rather than interpreting it as a message of unity among the P5+1 , Hibbs sees the resolution as “a lowest-common-denominator product” whose main intention was to “emphasize that the diplomatic process should continue and that the war of words should not intensify.”
So the resolution was not merely intended for Iran. Its emphatic, twice-mentioned support for a “comprehensive negotiated, long term solution, on the basis of reciprocity and a step-by-step approach, which restores international confidence in the exclusively peaceful nature of Iran’s nuclear program consistent with the NPT,” Hibbs points out, was also directed at Benjamin Netanyahu who despite being told in no uncertain terms to let go of the idea of resolving the nuclear issue militarily at least for now, seems unable to do so.
By avoiding inflammatory language, the board in effect delayed serious conversation about the intricacies of dealing with Iran’s nuclear program until after the United States November 6 presidential election. In Hibbs’ words:
[T]he IAEA resolution was informed by the perspective that as long as Iran doesn’t know who will be in the White House next January, it can’t be expected to negotiate seriously with the P5+1 on a long-term solution that would require that the U.S. make some firm commitments to Iran.
In other words, the change of subject to the broad support for diplomacy versus war has in effect lent the Obama Administration a hand in keeping the real Iran question – which has to do with how it plans to address Iran’s insistence on its nuclear rights through negotiation – out of the presidential contest.
But “kicking the can down the road” does not necessarily mean progress in figuring out how to resolve thorny issues. From the looks of it, neither does the idea of “we are going to keep sanctioning until Iran decides to negotiate seriously.” To be sure, one can continue to hope that this is not so. In the words of the US ambassador to the UN, Susan Rice, the Iranian economy is “beginning to buckle” under a new round of tough sanctions. “So we think that there’s still considerable time for this pressure to work,” she said. But even Rice has to acknowledge that “this is not an infinite window.”
The reality is that sanctions may or may not prod Tehran to accept a bad deal but, after almost 9 years of negotiations, it is highly unlikely that the Iranian leadership will back down from its repeatedly declared position even in the face of a deteriorating economy. This is especially so since Tehran’s declared stance — that it will not sign onto something that will permanently treat Iran differently than other countries in terms of its permitted enrichment activities and the kind of inspection regime that is required to oversee its nuclear program — is not an especially outrageous position.
This is why Hibbs is correct to assert that a long-term solution to the stand-off will require some sort of firm commitments to Iran, including for instance “permitting Iran to continue enriching uranium after the IAEA, having implemented Additional Protocol-plus, delivers its imprimatur that Iran’s nuclear program is clearly dedicated to peaceful use.”
But the way Hibbs has laid out the end game already hints at how difficult negotiations are going to be even if – a very big if – a re-elected Obama Administration gives firm commitments to permit Iran to continue enriching eventually. Tehran will have all sorts of concerns and questions. How can it be assured that the IAEA’s imprimatur will not take forever? What does the “Additional Protocol-plus” entail? Iran knows it includes the inspection of the military site at Parchin, but is that it? Will the “plus” remain permanent or in a state of constant flux? And how does this schedule of the IAEA giving a clean bill of health to Iran coordinate with the potpourri of sanctions imposed by the UN, US, and EU?
The United States for its part will have all sorts of concerns, the most important of which is the fear that Iran will play games if sanctions are lessened in a step-by-step approach pushed by the Russians and now included in the IAEA resolution. The decision to ease up, even a little, on an instrument that has been quite successful in cornering Tehran for the sake of continued negotiations will not be easy. It could even prove impossible. But, assuming a re-election, the Obama Administration will no longer have electoral politics as an excuse for not deliberating on it.
]]>The key lines in the resolved case have been highlighted by a Washington policy expert:
(6) Strongly rejects any policy that fails to prevent the Iranian government from acquiring a nuclear weapons capability and that instead would settle for future efforts to “contain” a nuclear weapons capable Iran;
(7) Urges the President to reaffirm the unacceptability of an Iran with nuclear-weapons capability and to oppose any policy that would rely on containment as an option in response to the Iranian nuclear threat.
Laura Rozen reports that the resolution is not “technically binding”, but would “put additional pressure on the administration to limit diplomatic efforts to resolve concerns about Iran’s nuclear program, without recourse to another war.”
The pressure follows draconian measures proposed by members of Congress in 2011. In November, Ali Gharib reported about an amendment to H.R. 1905, the Iran Threat Reductions Act, which essentially bars contact between U.S. and Iranian officials unless a special waiver is requested by the president 15 days in advance. Associate Professor of Political Science at Swarthmore College, Dominic Tierney, responded in the Atlantic that the bill was based on “severe illusions” and that it would seriously limit the U.S.’s options if a “crisis” with Iran did break out.
According to Harvard’s Professor of International Affairs, Stephen Walt, the Graham-Lieberman-Casey resolution could do more harm than good:
If Congress is serious about U.S. national security, it would do nothing to tie the hands of an administration that clearly takes Iran’s nuclear program very seriously. Trying to rule out containment by fiat is worse than laughable; it is positively dangerous.
Walt added that the resolution isn’t really intended to advance U.S. interests. “It’s merely another opportunity for legislators to pander and posture to AIPAC and other hardline extremists,” he said.
Pundits and analysts that oppose diplomacy with Iran in favor of harsher measures and/or military strikes and Iranian regime change argue that Iran has failed to embrace offers of engagement and is not serious about reaching a negotiated settlement about its nuclear program. But what “options” with Iran will the U.S. be left with if official communication is almost completely prohibited and if even considering containment is being opposed?
If the Obama administration wants to avoid further confrontation with Iran, aren’t these measures making it increasingly difficult for it to do so?
Note: This post was updated with information from Laura Rozen’s Yahoo News report.
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