A bipartisan group of senators sent a letter to President Obama in September asking him to “mount a diplomatic offensive” against Turkey in the aftermath of souring Israeli-Turkish relations last summer. Now House Democrats are throwing their weight behind the anti-Turkey campaign. A round-up of [...]]]>
A bipartisan group of senators sent a letter to President Obama in September asking him to “mount a diplomatic offensive” against Turkey in the aftermath of souring Israeli-Turkish relations last summer. Now House Democrats are throwing their weight behind the anti-Turkey campaign. A round-up of weekly news from Americans for Peace Now highlights two Democratic-led efforts to re-evaluate the U.S. relationship with Turkey, long since a close U.S. ally and partner in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).
The first is a letter from seven congressional Democrats to Obama calling for an “an urgent review of our relations with Turkey”:
It is our hope that an intensified and frank dialogue with Turkey can convince Ankara to deescalate some of its rhetoric and roll-back its increasingly destabilizing policies. However, if that cannot be achieved, we look forward to working with your Administration to review the changed environment and develop an approach which better suits the situation.
Spearheaded by Rep. Eliot Engel (D-NY) and signed by Democratic Reps. Howard Berman (CA), Nita Lowey (NY), Shelley Berkley (NV), Brad Sherman (CA), Steve Israel (NY), and Adam Schiff (CA), the letter — in language reminiscent of Islamophobic attempts to portray Turkey as in the U.S.’s “enemy camp” — decries Turkish “confrontation with our closest friends and allies.”
Following up on the letter, Engel and Berkeley introduced legislation that would block a proposed $111 million sale of helicopters and support equipment to Turkey. A release from Engel’s office helpfully explains that during a 15-day notification period, Congress can try to pass legislation blocking arms sales. “The resolution introduced by Berkley and Engel would prohibit this sale,” the release said.
The lawmakers justified the block with the same rhetoric as the letter. “The U.S. should be busy raising these very serious concerns with Turkey, rather than selling arms to them,” they said in the release.
After a hyperventilating neoconservative proclaimed last week that Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan was an “enemy” of the U.S., Foreign Policy’s Dan Drezner pointed out that Turkey bankrolled the U.S.-supported Libyan revolution and is “now creating an enclave for the Free Syrian Army.” He didn’t mention that Turkey also recently agreed to host a radar for a U.S. missile defense system designed as a bulwark against Iran (which criticized the move). Drezner went on:
Erdogan has clearly made life difficult for another ally — Israel. On the other hand, lots of America’s allies make life difficult for other American allies (see: Gibraltar).
Turkey’s relations with Israel went south after unheeded Turkish complaints about the Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip, and collapsed completely after nine Turks and an American were killed by Israeli forces on a humanitarian flotilla to the besieged Palestinian territory.
“If other countries disagree with Israel,” asks Drezner to conclude his post, “does that mean… that they no longer qualify as either friend or ally? Are there any other of America’s friends that fall into this super-special status? I really want to know.”
]]>The two main problems with Ayalon’s analysis is that he seems not to have actually read the WikiLeaks cables—which offer ample evidence confirming the centrality of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the minds of Arab leaders—or bothered to understand how promoters of linkage define the concept.
(Matt Duss has an excellent post up on the Wonk Room that covers many of the same problems with Ayalon’s rather selective (when not downright misleading) interpretation of WikiLeaks and linkage.)
Linkage, as defined by Gen. David Petraeus last March, is [my emphasis]:
The enduring hostilities between Israel and some of its neighbors present distinct challenges to our ability to advance our interests in the AOR. Israeli-Palestinian tensions often flare into violence and large-scale armed confrontations. The conflict foments anti-American sentiment, due to a perception of U.S. favoritism for Israel. Arab anger over the Palestinian question limits the strength and depth of U.S. partnerships with governments and peoples in the AOR and weakens the legitimacy of moderate regimes in the Arab world. Meanwhile, al-Qaeda and other militant groups exploit that anger to mobilize support. The conflict also gives Iran influence in the Arab world through its clients, Lebanese Hizballah and Hamas.
Rather conveniently, Ayalon’s definition of linkage misinterprets the concept and fails to address the concerns raised by Petraeus and members of the Obama administration who have endorsed the idea. Matt Duss accurately describes Ayalon’s description as “an obvious strawman.”
While right-wing blogs, political pundits, and columnists quickly embraced the talking point that WikiLeaks showed an Arab world that is deathly afraid of Iran’s nuclear program — but didn’t have much to say about the Arab-Israeli conflict — an actual reading of the cables suggests a very different message.
Here are a set of excerpts from WikiLeaks that show Arab leaders endorsing the concept of linkage (the Petraeus definition, not the Ayalon one) in the most blunt way possible.
The Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al Nahyan, in a December 9, 2009 meeting with the U.S. Deputy Secretary of Energy Daniel Poneman:
Emphasized the strategic importance of creating a Palestinian State (i.e., resolving the Israeli- Palestinian conflict) as the way to create genuine Middle Eastern unity on the question of Iran’s nuclear program and regional ambitions.
A cable from the U.S. embassy in Amman, written shortly after the end of the Gaza War in January 2009, reads:
Speaking to PolOffs [political officers] in early February 2009, immediately after the Gaza War, Director of the Jordanian Prime Minister’s Political Office Khaled Al-Qadi noted that the Gaza crisis had allowed Iranian interference in inter-Arab relations to reach unprecedented levels.
An April 2, 2009 cable from Amman repeated the Jordanian position:
Jordanian leaders have argued that the only way to pull the rug out from under Hizballah – and by extension their Iranian patrons – would be for Israel to hand over the disputed Sheba’a Farms to Lebanon.
It went on:
With Hizballah lacking the ‘resistance to occupation’ rationale for continued confrontation with Israel, it would lose its raison d’etre and probably domestic support.
And a February 22, 2010, cable describes UAE foreign minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nayan as he warns a Congressional delegation against a military attack on Iran, led by Nita Lowey:
The cable remarks that bin Zayed:
Concluded the meeting with a soliloquy on the importance of a successful peace process between Israel and its neighbors as perhaps the best way of reducing Iran’s regional influence.
During a February 14, 2010, meeting with Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry, Qatar Emir Hamad bin Khalifa Al-thani suggested one reason that Israel might be hyping the threat of a nuclear Iran.
The cable summarizes bin Khalifa as saying:
[The Israelis] are using Iran’s quest for nuclear weapons as a diversion from settling matters with the Palestinians.
Ayalon twisting the definition of linkage and misstating the messages contained in the WikiLeaks cables is indicative of the increasing desperation that the Israeli right-wing must be experiencing as authoritarian Middle Eastern governments, that have helped Israel maintain the status quo, are under increasing pressure to make democratic reforms. There’s no guarantee that the governments in Middle Eastern capitals will be as cooperative in helping Israel maintain its occupation of the West Bank or its siege on Gaza in the future. The time for Israeli hardliners to face their nation’s political realities and make difficult but necessary concessions may be drawing closer. Danny Ayalon is choosing to ignore the shifting political winds.
]]>Jim Lobe and I took a closer look at the cables and found ample evidence that Arab leaders consistently mentioned the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as the biggest impediment to countering Iran’s growing regional influence.
Indeed, as documented in our article, diplomats from the UAE, Jordan, Egypt and Qatar made statements which clearly endorsed linkage.
The Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al Nahyan, in a December 9, 2009 meeting with the U.S. Deputy Secretary of Energy Daniel Poneman:
Emphasized the strategic importance of creating a Palestinian State (i.e., resolving the Israeli- Palestinian conflict) as the way to create genuine Middle Eastern unity on the question of Iran’s nuclear program and regional ambitions.
Gamal Mubarak, son of Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak was described in a May 27, 2008 as telling Rep. Jeff Fortenberry:
“Egypt and Saudi Arabia, as well as Jordan, are the ‘heavyweights’ that can counter Iran.”
The cable goes on to describe Mubarak as:
Advocat[ing] movement on the Israeli/Palestinian track to remove a prime issue that Iran can use as a pretext
A cable from the U.S. embassy in Amman, written shortly after the end of the Gaza War in January 2009, reads:
Speaking to PolOffs [political officers] in early February 2009, immediately after the Gaza War, Director of the Jordanian Prime Minister’s Political Office Khaled Al-Qadi noted that the Gaza crisis had allowed Iranian interference in inter-Arab relations to reach unprecedented levels.
An April 2, 2009 cable from Amman repeated the Jordanian position.
Jordanian leaders have argued that the only way to pull the rug out from under Hizballah – and by extension their Iranian patrons – would be for Israel to hand over the disputed Sheba’a Farms to Lebanon.
It went on,
With Hizballah lacking the ‘resistance to occupation’ rationale for continued confrontation with Israel, it would lose its raison d’etre and probably domestic support.
And a February 22, 2010 cable, describes UAE foreign minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nayan warning a Congressional delegation led by Nita Lowey against a military attack on Iran.
The cable remarks that bin Zayed:
Concluded the meeting with a soliloquy on the importance of a successful peace process between Israel and its neighbors as perhaps the best way of reducing Iran’s regional influence.
While Jennifer Rubin writes that the cables have shown that Obama misrepresented to the American people that “the non-peace talks are necessary to curb the Iranian threat,” and David Frum writes that, “Governments in the region do not in fact care very much about the Israeli-Palestinian dispute,” our examination of the cables reveals the extent to which Iran hawks must go to claim that Arab leaders don’t buy into the concept of linkage.
Indeed, even Netanyahu espoused this rather backward reading of the WikiLeaks cables.
He told a media conference in Tel Aviv, immediately after the first WikiLeaks were released:
[T]here is a gap between what is said by leaders in private and what they say in public, especially in our region, because our region is hostage to a narrative, and that narrative is the result of nearly 60 years of propaganda. In this narrative, the single greatest threat to regional peace and to the region’s future is the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and Israel’s alleged aggression.
The Obama administration and the U.S. military leadership appear to embrace the concept of linkage. So too do Arab leaders, when speaking in private with U.S. diplomats. Despite the misrepresentations of the WikiLeaks cables by American Iran Hawks and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, it’s becoming increasingly obvious that voices opposing linkage represent an increasingly small minority of people who deny the fundamental truths of the linkage argument.
During a February 14, 2010, meeting with Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman John Kerry, Qatar Emir Hamad bin Khalifa Al-thani suggested one reason that Israel might be hyping the threat of a nuclear Iran.
The cable summarizes bin Khalifa as saying:
]]>[The Israelis] are using Iran’s quest for nuclear weapons as a diversion from settling matters with the Palestinians.