by Peter Jenkins
What a pity that Mr. Netanyahu’s interviewer on CBS’s “Face the Nation”, Bob Schieffer, chose to throw Israel’s Prime Minister a succession of softballs (the cricketing equivalents are called “dollies”).
It would have been refreshing if Mr. Schieffer had asked the PM how he squared his [...]]]>
by Peter Jenkins
What a pity that Mr. Netanyahu’s interviewer on CBS’s “Face the Nation”, Bob Schieffer, chose to throw Israel’s Prime Minister a succession of softballs (the cricketing equivalents are called “dollies”).
It would have been refreshing if Mr. Schieffer had asked the PM how he squared his certainty about Iran’s nuclear intentions with the assessments that the US intelligence community has produced; queried the PM’s assertion that producing fissile material is nine tenths of the challenge of making a nuclear weapon capable of threatening Israel; reminded the PM of the numerous occasions he has claimed time to be running out for Iran diplomacy; and confronted the PM with what Saudi Prince Turki bin Faisal, a prominent spokesman for an Arab state that has coexisted peacefully with Israel, said to an interviewer from Spiegel last month:
SPIEGEL: What do you think would happen if Israel were to carry out a pre-emptive attack to prevent Tehran from building the bomb?
Prince Turki: Iran would retaliate against everybody — with its missiles, with suicide bombers, with agents. And we would be the first victims. Imagine if a nuclear installation is destroyed in Iran and there is fallout on our side of the border. The Iranian people would coalesce around their government. In short, it would be total mayhem.
An even more interesting question would have been this: “Prime Minister, have developments over the last two years ever prompted you to re-visit the decision taken by one of your predecessors, in 1992, to demonise Iran, in order to preserve the strategic value of Israel to the US?”
I doubt Mr. Schieffer would have got much of an answer. Yet it would be fascinating to know whether Israel is starting to reconsider the premise of the anti-Iranian course on which it embarked 21 years ago, with ever-greater consequences for US attitudes to Iran, especially in Congress.
According to Trita Parsi, the author of Treacherous Alliance: the Secret Dealings of Israel, Iran and the US, that course was premised on a change in the way Israeli leaders viewed their neighbourhood.
Since the time of Ben-Gurion, Israel had sought friendly ties with “the periphery” (Iran and Turkey) in order to counter-balance the threat posed by “the vicinity” (the Arab states surrounding Israel plus Iraq).
In 1992 it dawned on a new Israeli government that the defeat of Iraq in the first Gulf War, the dismantlement of Iraqi WMD programs, Egyptian passivity and the launching of the Madrid peace process had defused the Arab threat and opened up possibilities for Israeli economic penetration of Arab neighbours.
But “Israel would have no future in the new order unless it could find a rationale for Washington to continue the strategic relationship” writes Parsi, who goes on to quote an expert on Israeli foreign policy: “There’s no doubt that when the prospects for peace with the inner circle emerged [the depiction of Iran as a threat] started”.
Iran was the obvious choice because of the torrent of revolutionary, anti-imperialist and anti-Israeli rhetoric that had flowed out of Tehran since 1979, and because Iran might one day seek to rival Israeli influence in the Arab states.
Writes Parsi: “Swiftly a campaign was organised to convince the US and Europe that Iran was a global threat.”
“The charges were based not on an existing Iranian threat but on the anticipation of a future Iranian threat,” he states.
What followed is becoming history.
Now the question is whether Israel still feels as sanguine about its Arab “vicinity”, and whether it continues to want Iran to provide the rationale for its strategic relationship with the US.
One might suppose that Israel could dispense with Iran as a rationale now that the US and Europe have such need of Israel as a still point of democratic stability in a maelstrom of Arab unrest.
Can one also suppose that Israel might see value in encouraging the US and Europe to cooperate with Iran to restore stability to the Arab “vicinity”?
The point is not that Syria, Iraq and Egypt are in any condition to threaten Israel militarily. Of course they are not. The point is that instability is intrinsically unpredictable.
Some future twist in the unfolding drama of the Arab Spring could transform Israel’s strategic prospects. And meanwhile the risk of chemical weapons falling into the hands of anti-Israeli terrorists is greater than it has ever been.
The fiction that Iran is a global threat no longer serves Israel well. How long will it take the Israelis, intelligent as they are, to realise that?
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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.
]]>Washington Post columnist Walter Pincus continues to provides incisive analysis to the debate over Iran’s controversial nuclear program. Following are a few of his suggested questions for the presidential candidates’ foreign policy debate on Monday.
What are the candidates willing to do to ensure their “red lines” on [...]]]>
Washington Post columnist Walter Pincus continues to provides incisive analysis to the debate over Iran’s controversial nuclear program. Following are a few of his suggested questions for the presidential candidates’ foreign policy debate on Monday.
What are the candidates willing to do to ensure their “red lines” on Iran’s nuclear program aren’t violated and how much will Israeli concerns affect the ultimate outcome?
The president has said he would prevent Iran from “having a nuclear weapon” and has offered assurances that U.S. intelligence would be able to determine when building one had begun.
In his June “Face the Nation” appearance, Romney said he would be willing to use military force, but he did not define what that meant. Recently, he has said he would prevent Iran from having “a nuclear weapons capability,” but what does that mean?
Though the current policy of the United States and its allies rests on a U.N. Security Council resolution that calls for Iran to suspend its activities related to reprocessing uranium, Iran has produced uranium enriched to 20 percent. Enrichment up to 90 percent is considered weapons grade. Most of the enrichment has been up to 6 percent, usable as fuel in electric power reactors.
What solution is required by each candidate for this situation? Do they believe any deal with Tehran requires Israeli approval?
Does Romney or Obama believe they could attack Iran’s nuclear program without congressional authorization — as was the case with Libya — and without agreement from the United Nations or support from NATO or a group of other allies, including some countries in the region?
On March 21, 2011, Obama sent Congress a two-page letter saying that as commander in chief he had constitutional authority to authorize the military operations to prevent a humanitarian disaster. He said it would be limited in duration and noted that the U.N. Security Council had authorized a no-fly zone over Libya, and that the undertaking was done with British, French and Persian Gulf allies. Nineteen days after the strikes began, NATO took over command of the air operations from the U.S. Africa Command.
Does Obama or Romney believe that any military action against Iran would be as limited as the one in Libya? Does either believe that U.S. ground forces could be drawn into battle should Iran or its allies respond with attacks against Israel or other countries?
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Interviewer Charlie Rose asked Gates about his comment that Iran was the toughest challenge he has faced. Gates suggested, in line with the Obama administration, that a diplomatically negotiated solution to the Iranian nuclear crisis was the sole way to deal with the issues without major drawbacks. Gates said:
GATES: The only good option is putting enough pressure on the Iranian government that they make the decision for themselves that continuing to seek nuclear weapons is actually harming the security of the country and, perhaps more importantly to them, putting the regime itself at risk. And there are signs that those sanctions are beginning to really bite and some much more severe European Union sanctions will come into effect this summer.
ROSE: What if Israel does it on its own?
GATES: That would be worse than us doing it. Because I think that then has lots of regional complications that may end up in a much larger Middle East conflict. So I think that would be worse.
Watch the video:
Gates has offered warnings about attacking Iran before, declaring that even a U.S. strike would be a “catastrophe.” So his statement that an Israeli strike would be “worse” is significant. And a Pentagon wargame reported by the New York Times this year found the U.S. got dragged into the conflict after an Israeli strike.
A top U.S. security thinktank that advises the Pentagon released an article in its journal yesterday advising against a U.S. or Israeli strike against Iran. The article from the RAND Corporation by, among others, top former U.S. diplomat James Dobbins, noted that a strike “would make it more, not less, likely that the Iranian regime would decide to produce and deploy nuclear weapons” — in line with assessements from some top former Israeli officials. The RAND article called for more U.S.-Israeli cooperation and for the U.S. to quietly “support the assessments of former and current Israeli officials who have argued against a military option.” Many former top Israeli security officials have criticized Israel’s hawkish government for an eagerness to attack Iran without dealing with potential consequences of such an attack.
Gates seemed to be using shorthand when discussing Iran’s “continuing to seek nuclear weapons.” While a potential Iranian nuclear weapon is widely considered a threat to both the security of the U.S. and its allies in the region, as well as the nuclear non-proliferation regime, reports on U.S. and Israeli estimates state that these intelligence agencies don’t believe Iran has made a decision to build nuclear weapons. Those estimates give the West time to pursue a dual-track approach of pressure and diplomacy to resolve the crisis. American officials including President Obama vow to keep “all options on the table” to deal with the Iranian nuclear program, but questions about the efficacy and consequences of a strike have led U.S. officials to declare that diplomacy is the “best and most permanent way” to resolve the crisis.
]]>CBS News conducted a phone survey of 906 randomly selected participants in September, asking for the first [...]]]>
CBS News conducted a phone survey of 906 randomly selected participants in September, asking for the first question, “What would cause you to support a war with Iran?”
Laura Rozen at Politico sums up the answers:
25% of respondents said “only if Iran attacks U.S. soil;” 25% said “If Iran attacks the U.S. fleet in the Persian Gulf;” 11% said “If Iran tests a nuclear bomb;” and 10% said “If Iran attacks Israel.” 24% of respondents said they would never support a war with Iran.
While half of respondents said that they would support a war if Iran directly attacked United States ships or soil, only one in ten said they’d be willing to jump into a war if Iran attacked Israel.
Only 11 percent of respondents said they would support war if Iran tested a nuclear bomb. One might interpret this to mean most Americans would support a containment policy against Iran rather than attack as a “last resort” to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear armed state. Top military officials themselves acknowledge such “military option” is fraught with potentially devastating consequences.
And Matt Duss at Think Progress has an interesting observation about the phrasing of the question and how the hawks are surely paying attention:
It’s an oddly phrased question, but one which nevertheless indicates pretty strongly that Americans are not in favor of a U.S. war with Iran. I suspect that those who are in favor of a war with Iran understand this, which is why they like to talk exclusively about “air strikes,” “military strikes,” or my favorite, “surgical strikes.”
These results track with a Chicago Council poll last month, which we covered here at LobeLog:
Most striking (no pun intended) was that only 18 percent of respondents think the U.S. should launch a military strike on Iranian nuclear targets now. Even if diplomacy and sanctions fail to stop Iranian advancement toward a bomb, a slim plurality still think the U.S. should not bomb Iran (49 percent oppose it, 47 would support it). More than half of respondents say if Israel starts a war with Iran, the U.S. should not leap to Israel’s defense.
Vanity Fair‘s website also had a chart breaking down the poll by political affiliation. Here’s a screen grab:
With poll results such as these, it appears the efforts of Iran war hawks to rile up the U.S. populace for another Mid East war may not fly. Or, they may just choose to ignore the statistics and continue to falsely portray American public opinion as being on their side: Cliff May, when he appeared on MSNBC, said that “happily most Americans watching Ahmadinejad on TV understand” the threat posed by a nuclear Iran. Turns out what they might understand - and what they may want the United States to do – may be two very different things.
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