Day: July 23, 2014

Damnably inconsistent

While the Middle East burns, policymakers can’t seem to agree on how to douse the fire.  This discord was on full display Monday, at the Middle East Policy Council’s annual conference. Speakers included Kenneth Pollack, Paul Pillar, Amin Tarzi, and Ambassador Chas Freeman, with Thomas Mattair moderating.  Pollack sought a more robust military presence in the region, while Freeman advocated for a hands-off approach. Pillar and Tarzi fell somewhere in between.

Pollack said America must reengage fully with the Middle East, diplomatically and militarily. From the beginning, Obama wrongly assumed that America had overinvested in the region.  He believed that the US was in fact a major part of the problem and couldn’t affect the outcome of events in any case. These assumptions have proven demonstrably false over the last five years, he said. The Middle East today is, amazingly, in even worse shape than it was in 2006.

He noted a shift in Obama’s approach to the region in the last few years, beginning with the appointment of John Kerry as Secretary of State. Kerry’s attempt to revive the peace process signaled a more hands-on approach. The announcement of half a billion dollars in aid to the Syrian rebels was also a positive sign.

Moving forward, the old adage “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure” is especially apropos. America could have reduced the costs we are now incurring had we intervened earlier. We should have provided more support for Syrian rebels at beginning of civil war. When the US gets involved earlier, we have more leverage when things go awry.

Pillar said that the Hippocratic principle of “first do no harm” should take precedence over Pollack’s “ounce of prevention.”  “Bumper sticker” solutions will not address our problems in the region. America’s Middle East policy must be ad hoc.

We have an unfortunate Manichaean tendency to divide the world into “ally” and “enemy,” Pillar said. US policy should be more flexible than that. It should serve our interests without regard to labels. Concluding a nuclear deal with Iran is one occasion where we must deal in shades of grey. Iranian interests sometimes clash with ours, as in Syria. But other times they converge, as in Iraq.

Tarzi argued against Pillar’s “ad hoc” approach to the Middle East. We must have stable partners in the region, he said. We must also look at why Iran began seeking nuclear weapons in the first place. Khameinei realizes that possession of the bomb gets you a seat at the table with the big boys, while giving it up means you get the boot (Saddam Hussein, Gaddafi). Assad may have saved his regime by using chemical weapons on his people, setting a dangerous precedent. America cannot allow these precedents to stand.

Tarzi added that Iran would not attempt to strike Israel or the US, a belief that was echoed to him by a number of experts on a recent trip to Israel.

Freeman cautioned against confusing sanctions and military posturing with diplomacy. Obama said at West Point “Our military has no peer.” But he added, “Just because we have the best hammer doesn’t mean every problem is a nail.” Unmatched military prowess has not proven equal to many of the problems in the Middle East and elsewhere. It is hard to think of any US project in the Middle East not at or near a dead-end. American efforts at negotiating Middle East peace are not so much dead, said Freeman, as “so putrid as to not be fit for a wake.”

Our attempts at democracy building have failed spectacularly. In fact we have pulled down several budding democracies in their infancy, as was the case with Egypt. US counterterrorism programs are only fanning the flames of anti-Americanism. In Iraq we replaced secular dictatorship with a religious one, and gave birth to the jihadistan we see today.

We have repeatedly told leaders in Middle East that they must be “with us or against us,” Freeman said. They remain annoyingly unreliable in this regard. Saudi Arabia, for instance, is with us on Iran and Syria, against us in Iraq. Salafists are against us in Iraq, with us in Syria.

We cannot have a policy when people are so “damnably inconsistent.” The US should withdraw from the Middle East, he argued. We must stop protecting Israel, which would make better decisions if it weren’t shielded from the consequences of its actions by the US.

Assad miscalculated with the over-application of force early on, Freeman said. Protests quickly escalated into a civil war. However, the conflict was exacerbated by the flow of arms into the country. We should try to stop the flow of weapons into Syria, rather than attempting to find the “mythical Syrian moderates” who will rise up against Assad.

Pollack countered that it is possible to build a conventional army of non-jihadists in Syria who can oppose both ISIS and Assad. The purely diplomatic solution Freeman proposes is not possible without a shift in the balance of power on the ground.

The speakers did not see eye to eye on much. On one point, however, they did agree:  the Middle East in flames, and America has yet to articulate a coherent policy towards the region. Until we do, it will continue to burn.

PS: Here is the video of the event:

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Palestine needs new political options

After days of rising hostilities and predictions of a third intifada, Israel launched a ground invasion of Gaza last Thursday night. The number of displaced Gazans has nearly doubled and neither Hamas nor Israel has shown any sign of concession. Critiques and counter-critiques abound, from Hamas’ refusal of the Egyptian-brokered ceasefire to Israel’s relentless military offensive. On Thursday, the American Task Force on Palestine (ATFP) hosted “Israeli-Palestinian War in a New Regional Landscape” with a panel of its own experts. Ziad J. Asali, Saliba Sarsar, Ghaith Al-Omari, and Hussein Ibish discussed the current humanitarian crisis in Gaza and the political realities that could play out in the future.

Al-Omari, ATFP Executive Director, analyzed the current political dynamic between Israel and Hamas. “We are entering a posturing moment before a deal is struck for the ceasefire,” he stated. Both sides have made their priorities clear and have proven how much is at stake in this longstanding conflict.

After weeks of heightened tensions, Prime Minister Netanyahu initially accepted the Egyptian-brokered ceasefire this week, while Hamas refused it. Hamas has thus received a great deal of criticism from the international community due to the continued loss of civilian lives. Al-Omari stated that this decision derives from Hamas’ three fundamental objectives in the current conflict:

  1. Hamas wants to emerge in a position that would allow it to claim some form of victory. Thus far, they have entirely failed to do so.
  2. Hamas needs a ceasefire that provides some kind of gain. Again, Hamas has failed in this as well, with the Egyptian ceasefire proposal allowing no territorial or political advantages.
  3. Lastly, Hamas wants  Qatar and Turkey to play a role in the ceasefire. Neither has had a significant role so far, as Egypt has been in the lead.

Hamas has prioritized its own objectives, at great humanitarian cost to Gazans in the last several days. Thus, Al-Omari stated that it is absolutely necessary that we open up Gaza in the short-term. Egypt and the US can play a critical role in this context and it is ultimately in their best interests to do so.

Many other regional factors have also had an impact on the current hostilities between Hamas and Israel. Ibish, ATFP Senior Fellow, discussed divisions within Hamas, which is both a Muslim Brotherhood affiliate and an ally of Iran. Hamas is also in need of external help, as support from Syria has dried up. The rise of ISIS also causes concern.

At the end of the day, the outcome of this current violence will most likely look a great deal like the “old normal.” This is exactly what Hamas doesn’t want—it will be a crushing blow after the violence and innocent lives lost to return to the way things were. This “old normal” is a desperate box and Hamas is doing everything it can to get out of it, as evidenced by its controversial refusal of the ceasefire this week.

The Palestinians ultimately do not have a lot of options: they lack domestic choices and the great majority does not trust Hamas or Fatah. It is also evident that an increasing number of Palestinians have put more and more blame on Hamas with each rise in hostilities.

According to Asali, President and founder of ATFP, we must rebuild the credibility of the Palestinian leadership and open up the political space. If the international community is as invested in a two state solution as it claims, it can assist, with funding. International sponsors can demand the political space be opened up and another round of elections in the future. They can aid in a protracted campaign with a broader range of candidates other than Hamas and Fatah. This would allow more moderates who better represent the Palestinians to emerge. There never has been a more opportune time to put the international community’s words to the test and break the grim cycle of violence.

 

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