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.
]]>by Robert E. Hunter
Accidents happen, even to seasoned US diplomats. In this case, the Assistant Secretary of State for Europe and Eurasia was caught in a highly sensitive conversation on Ukraine’s future with the US ambassador in Kiev. Not much out of the ordinary in their talk, conducted in diplo-speech, except [...]]]>
by Robert E. Hunter
Accidents happen, even to seasoned US diplomats. In this case, the Assistant Secretary of State for Europe and Eurasia was caught in a highly sensitive conversation on Ukraine’s future with the US ambassador in Kiev. Not much out of the ordinary in their talk, conducted in diplo-speech, except for one almost inaudible expletive by Victoria Nuland.
The State Department turned it all into a joke, a kind of “boys [and girls] will be boys [and girls]” and blamed the leaking of the conversation on the Russians, a “new low in trade-craft” — more diplo-speech for spying. This barb at Moscow, although thousands of hackers around the globe could have picked up the phone call; and the Russians would naturally patrol the US embassy in Kiev (and everywhere else) listening for unguarded talk, just as (we hope) the US does likewise against them. And, if Moscow had been urging its ambassador in Kiev to try manipulating Ukrainian politics, as the State Department was doing, and if we had picked up one of their phone calls, we would broadcast it to the world, as part of the continuing struggle for Ukraine’s soul now being conducted by the old Cold War superpowers.
There is irony. The recently much-maligned National Security Agency spends huge amounts of money providing US diplomats with easy access and highly secure telephones; and every junior diplomat is trained never, ever to hold a conversation as sensitive as the one revealed except through classified email or on one of those NSA instruments.
With “egg on their faces” and a well-merited rebuke from the Federal German Chancellor, whose own phone calls were hacked by the NSA, what’s not to like in this B movie? Ambassador Nuland ‘fessed up; so let’s all have our laugh and move on.
Yet this accident has revealed issues that merit study. First was the expletive, directed against what the US diplomats — and much of Washington — see to be the European Union’s fecklessness, not just in regard to Ukraine — “a day late and a Euro short” — but also in getting its act together in general.
Not so fast. It’s not as though the United States had been consistently leading for the West in helping Ukraine define its future, a country pinioned by geography between the Russian Federation and Europe Proper, in an effort to provide Jeremy Bentham’s “greatest good for the greatest number.” Nor has the US been paying much attention to the European Union — or to Europe, for that matter. When he spoke at the Brandenburg Gate last year, President Obama made only a passing reference to NATO and referred to the EU only as “your union.” He will stop off for a brief summit meeting with the EU in Brussels next month, but for years these have been pro forma, a couple of hours of shop talk and then back on Air Force One to some place more important. There will be a NATO summit in Wales this September, but as of now it will focus on what should be done about Afghanistan after Dec. 31 when NATO troops in the International Security Assistance Force depart. Charting NATO’s future? So far an empty basket.
The fact is that for years Europe has been the low region on the US’ Northern Hemisphere totem pole. The one saving grace is the administration’s commitment to negotiating the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), which has become the touchstone of transatlantic relations, now that NATO is in fast decline. But even TTIP may not make it, unless Congress gives the President so-called Fast Track Negotiating Authority, whereby he can sign a deal without Congress’ picking it apart. Even that is now in doubt, as those who oppose more open trade, mostly in the President’s own Democratic Party, are pushing back.
So, lesson 1. Mr. President and Secretary of State John Kerry: pay more attention to Europe, and if there is something as important as the future of Ukraine, get involved at a more senior level. As skilled as Ambassador Nuland is, negotiating this issue should be happening above her pay grade to show that the US is really serious. And as important as Mr. Kerry’s diplomatic heavy-lifting in the Middle East is to that benighted region, the US has to be able to “walk and chew gum at the same time.”
Lesson 2: stop looking at what is happening in Ukraine as though it is simply a replay of Cold War confrontation. It’s striking how much rhetoric, both in the US government and in the American commentariat, is reveling in the prospect of a return to the Good Old Days when the Russians were the bad guys. At the same time, it’s striking that, with all the efforts to load political issues onto the Sochi Olympics, however important LGBT rights and Syria may be, there has been no use of this moment to get President Vladimir Putin to understand that his Sochi glory also depends on controlling his ambitions in Central Europe, with all its geopolitical importance.
In the 1990s, the remaking of European security — George H.W. Bush’s grand strategy of a “Europe whole and free” and at peace — fell short in integrating the Russian Federation into the future. While it was brought into the Partnership for Peace and into a special relationship with NATO, it was too long kept largely isolated economically, so its people did not see that playing ball with the West pays dividends in their own lives.
Is it too late to try building an overarching political, economic, and security structure throughout Europe, in which the US, Canada, Western Europe, Central Europe, Ukraine, and Russia can all play legitimate parts, minus “spheres of influence because everyone gains something more important in terms of prosperity and, yes, respect? Maybe, maybe not. It is past time for the US, as the West’s leader, to start trying. And without ignoring — and stigmatizing — its indispensable partner, the EU.
]]>by Robert E. Hunter
The consensus in Washington is that President Barak Obama had a bad year in 2013. Indeed, the Washington Post selected him as the person who had the worst year. The problem with a “consensus,” of course, is that it is often wrong.
This column will not try [...]]]>
by Robert E. Hunter
The consensus in Washington is that President Barak Obama had a bad year in 2013. Indeed, the Washington Post selected him as the person who had the worst year. The problem with a “consensus,” of course, is that it is often wrong.
This column will not try to assess how Obama “did” in domestic affairs — except to note that the economy is getting stronger, there is a powerful US automobile industry, the mess he inherited in the financial world has largely been dissipated (in major part through his efforts) and the so-called “Obamacare” fiasco, which was a problem waiting to happen that an honest assessment and delay in requiring signups could have handled, will eventually sort itself out. The only problem with Obamacare (in my judgment) is that interest groups with a lot of money refused to allow the United States to join the rest of the civilized world and adopt some form of national health insurance — single payer.
Now, to foreign policy. In 2013, how Obama fared can be measured in part by what happened at home, and what happened at home will continue to plague him.
Thus the best news this year was undoubtedly the “the curious incident of the dog in the night-time” — what bad things did not happen to the US economy, the global financial structure, and US leadership of both. 2013 was only one step in a progression that began when Obama took office, facing the worst financial meltdown since the Great Depression. By the end of 2013, the domestic US economy still has a way to go, in particular with the living standards of the middle class (as opposed to the burgeoning wealth of the so-called 1%), but the US reputation abroad in this area has been fully salvaged. This was no mean feat, and one for which the US president will get little credit, despite the steady nerves he had to show throughout.
A sideline to this good news is the sudden appearance in US popular perceptions of something the “oil business” has known for some time: that new explorations and new techniques for oil and gas extraction in the US and Canada are rapidly diminishing US dependence on foreign sources, including the politically volatile Middle East. That will change the “terms of political trade” in relation to the Persian Gulf oil producers, but it won’t make the US truly independent, since other major Western states will still be as dependent as before, and as China, especially, begins to compete heavily in these once Western-exclusive preserves.
The next most important item of “good news” was Obama’s selection of John Kerry to be the Secretary of State, which has brought the State Department back into the fray on major issues after a too-long hiatus. Kerry did initially get ahead of himself by pressing for the resumption of Israeli-Palestinian peace talks and setting a deadline (April 2014) for the conclusion of an “interim agreement” that has little hope of being fulfilled (I hope and pray that this prediction will be confounded!). And he did delay in putting together a first-rate team to “mind the store” and “do strategic thinking” while he was travelling, but some of his travels have been paying off, big time.
First was Kerry’s adeptness — or in part good luck (Ronald Reagan: “I would rather be lucky than smart”) — in rescuing President Obama from his unfortunate drawing of a “red line” over the use of chemical weapons in Syria. That ill-thought-out statement became grist to the mill of Obama’s domestic political opponents, without their thinking of the damaging consequences for the United States if the President had actually redeemed his rash pledge.
That Secretary Kerry needed help from Russia in gaining Syrian agreement to eliminate its chemical weapons does not detract from the fact that a US use of force in Syria would have led us into yet another Middle East war, with untoward consequences and opposition of the American people (at least after the first blush, when we all “rally ’round the flag”). Note, as well, that a few months later, the “Syrian chemical weapons” issue has all but been forgotten. Some casus belli!
The denouement of this mini-crisis did complicate another major achievement that was not negative — a trap escaped. This was the first genuine opening to Iran in 34 years. Key, of course, was the Iranian presidential election, which brought to power — or at least semi-power, given the leading role of the Supreme Leader — the Western-educated Hassan Rouhani, who looked even better compared to his wildcat predecessor. With his experienced and also Western-educated foreign minister, Mohammad Javid Zarif, Rouhani reached out to the West. The result has been the first direct official US-Iranian contacts since the period following the Iranian Revolution: a cell-phone call between Obama and Rouhani and a limited agreement that could gain for both sides a lid on Iran’s nuclear program and some lifting of economic sanctions. Still a long way to go. Still the risk of a “slip ‘twixt the cup and the lip.”And still intense rear-guard actions attempting to defeat a sensible agreement led by the Revolutionary Guards in Iran and, on the other side, by Israel, the Gulf Arab states, and their American supporters — the domestic angle for Obama that is his most potent threat to defusing the festering Iran time-bomb.
On top of his escape in Syria and a chance for major success with Iran — both, note, in the Middle East — Obama also wrote an end to the direct US military involvement in the ill-gotten war in Iraq (the worst US blunder in foreign policy since Vietnam), and set a goal for getting most forces out of Afghanistan by the end of this year — though with the future as murky as it always is in that benighted and much-abused country with its unfortunate people.
Not a bad year’s work. But then there is the Dark Side, again, in the Middle East. President Obama made another unfortunate pledge two years ago, that Syria’s president Bashar Assad “must go.” Well, he hasn’t gone. And there is no obvious way of ending the civil war in Syria. It has also now become obvious that the revolt in Syria was not just a spontaneous occurrence like that in Tunisia (a success), in Egypt (a failure) and Libya (jury still out, but progress poor). What happened in Syria is also an extension of — yes, the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq, as Saudi Arabia and other Sunni states sought to “right the balance” of Sh’ia-Sunni power in the region by trying to get rid of a Sh’ia (Alawite) minority regime in a largely-Sunni country (Syria), the reverse of what happened in Iraq.
In the process, while the US government tried to figure out a workable outcome to the Syrian civil war (there might not be one) and to keep the US powder dry (heartily desired by the American public), al-Qaeda and its affiliates flooded into Syria, thus increasing the chances that, if Assad and his Alawite community are forced from power, the Islamists will reign supreme. That would be a major failure, but in part one of America’s own making, by refusing, for the umpteenth time since 9/11, to tell Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and other Sunni regimes to stop permitting their rich and religiously-zealot citizens to inspire, fund and arm Islamists who, among other things, promote the killing of US and other troops in Afghanistan and elsewhere in the region.
One consequence of the continued turmoil in the Middle East and continued US preoccupation with it — while trying to ignore Pakistan, still one of the most dangerous places in world politics — is that the so-called “pivot to Asia” (more diplomatically termed by the Pentagon as “rebalancing”) will have to take place while the US and its European allies remain mired in Middle East messes. Taking seriously the rise of China (and India) is, of course, inevitable; and so is the need to fashion a set of coherent policies, especially toward China, that are now dominated in the US by competing satrapies — military/security, economic/business, geopolitics (North Korea), and human rights in the Middle Kingdom. The “pivot” was also inelegantly launched, such that the European allies feel slighted and, indeed, have been. To be sure, the risk of conflict in Europe, beyond a skirmish or two in the Balkans, died by the end of the 1990s with the successful building of a post-Cold War political, economic, and security regime on the Continent, except, of course, for the continuing ambitions of Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, based more on illusion, continued hurt pride over losing the Cold War, and his own domestic agenda of reaffirming the centrality of Moscow-power.
The specter of Russia, hanging in particular over Eastern Europe, continues to lead the NATO allies to want the US strategically committed to Europe — hence, the willingness of all the allies (and others) to “go to Afghanistan” when almost none of them had a direct strategic interest. What will now replace that impetus for the US to continue being strategically engaged in Europe (though without a sizeable military presence, which is not needed to show political will)? The Europeans need to be involved, at least economically as well as in private and public sectors in the new preoccupation with Asia, as well as with deep (non-military) engagement in the Middle East, North Africa (both economically and politically), and Africa south of the Sahara (in part militarily — with France in the lead).
The best news for President Obama in Europe is the silent weapon that both sides are developing: the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) between the US and the European Union, which will, when completed, bind the two sides of the Atlantic even more closely together economically, and also help to provide glue for the overall transatlantic relationship that NATO no longer provides to the degree it did before. The TTIP may not get done in 2014, but it is already having a positive impact, though on neither side of the Atlantic have governments sufficiently brought together, with a clear sense of purpose and mandate, the old compact of politics, economics and strategic engagement. This dearth includes the US, where overall strategic thinking has been in short supply.
There is much more to consider about President Obama’s foreign policy record in 2013. Notable was a moment’s work: shaking hands with Cuba’s president, Raoul Castro and potentially presaging the ending of one of the stupidest acts of US foreign policy driven by Florida politics: the isolation of Cuba two decades after the collapse of the Soviet Union provided any rational basis for continuing to penalize the Cuban people for their government.
Leaving aside other developments, including the upward drift of US reputation in the world (except in some countries in the Middle East that have for too long believed that the US will forever deny its own self-interests in order to support theirs), all of this will do to get on with. And to return to my first point, Obama got much worse press this past year than he deserved. He faces as much a challenge with domestic constituencies — where, especially, on Iran, major parts of the US Congress are ignoring US interests in promoting further sanctions – - as he does abroad. He also did well in changing his team in Washington (Kerry at State, Susan Rice at the NSC and Chuck Hagel at Defense) — though there is still not a team-in-depth, nor people at the top reaches of the administration who are adept at the strategic thinking needed for the long haul.
Nevertheless, at the dawn of 2014, Mr. Obama and the US are in better shape in the world than at this time a year ago. A sigh of relief, of course; but also a possible sign of the good work that this president can still achieve, abroad as well as at home.
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