Tag: Qatar

Stevenson’s army, January 3

– US intelligence believes Hamas used al-Shifa hospital for command and hostages

– NYT reports pushback to State limits on Chinese Americans

– NYT explains concerns over Ethiopia-Somaliland deal

– CNN says US will keep base in Qatar for ten more years

– Chips War author says enforcement is lax

-FP has good list of conflicts to watch in 2024

– History lesson: compare now to 103 years ago [I also liked the Hochschild book]

Use debaters for national security jobs [I like this idea, too]

My SAIS colleague Charlie Stevenson distributes this almost daily news digest of foreign/defense/national security policy to “Stevenson’s army” via Googlegroups. I republish here, with occasional videos of my choice. To get Stevenson’s army by email, send a blank email (no subject or text in the body) to stevensons-army+subscribe@googlegroups.com. You’ll get an email confirming your join request. Click “Join This Group” and follow the instructions to join. Once you have joined, you can adjust your email delivery preferences (if you want every email or a digest of the emails).

– New Yorker says the Mongols had a great civilization

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Stevenson’s army, December 10

– NYT recounts how Israel agreed to Qatar’s financial support to Hamas in Gaza for years

– Mort Halperin recounts Kissinger’s lies to him. [Full disclosure: Halperin was my junior year tutor and later my boss in Policy Planning at State]

– State uses emergency authority to bypass Congress on weapons sale to Israel

– WSJ has background information on Hamas leader

– Kevin Drum explains the generational division over Israel

My SAIS colleague Charlie Stevenson distributes this almost daily news digest of foreign/defense/national security policy to “Stevenson’s army” via Googlegroups. I republish here, with occasional videos of my choice. To get Stevenson’s army by email, send a blank email (no subject or text in the body) to stevensons-army+subscribe@googlegroups.com. You’ll get an email confirming your join request. Click “Join This Group” and follow the instructions to join. Once you have joined, you can adjust your email delivery preferences (if you want every email or a digest of the emails).

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Stevenson’s army, October 13

– Israel demands Gazans move to south; Egypt won’t open its border.

– NYT reminds of earlier Israeli debates over Gaza.

– US & Qatar re-freeze Iranian funds.

– WSJ has details of Hamas planning.

– Reuters has authenticated some Gaza videos.

Tuberville holds affect 12 Centcom officers.

– Scalise is out, nobody’s in. [If the GOP can’t compromise among selves, dare they compromise with Democrats?]

– Politico notes history of conservative media dominating GOP Congresses.

My SAIS colleague Charlie Stevenson distributes this almost daily news digest of foreign/defense/national security policy to “Stevenson’s army” via Googlegroups. I republish here, with occasional videos of my choice. To get Stevenson’s army by email, send a blank email (no subject or text in the body) to stevensons-army+subscribe@googlegroups.com. You’ll get an email confirming your join request. Click “Join This Group” and follow the instructions to join. Once you have joined, you can adjust your email delivery preferences (if you want every email or a digest of the emails).

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Syria is in good company in the Arab League

Towards the end, I trust she meant Sudan and Syria, not Saudi Arabia, were on the agenda in Cairo

The Arab League decided yesterday in Cairo to readmit Syria. The League had suspended Syria’s membership in response to its violent crackdown on demonstrators in March 2011. President Assad will presumably attend the May 19 Summit in Riyadh. This comes on top of several bilateral normalization moves, including by the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia.

Conditions aren’t likely to be fulfilled

The readmission is supposedly conditional. Though I’ve been unable to find the official statement, press reports suggest the conditions include allowing humanitarian assistance and return of refugees, clamping down on Syria’s burgeoning Captagon drug exports, and the beginnings of a political process called for in UN Security Council resolution 2254.

I’ll be surprised if much of that comes to pass. Assad could and should have done all those things long ago. Preventing humanitarian assistance, blocking return of refugees, financing his regime with drug smuggling, and blocking any transition are all part of his strategy. Readmission to the Arab League is unlikely to change his behavior, which aims at restoration of his personal authority on the entire territory of Syria.

Fighting abates but conflict continues

That is still far off. The mostly Islamist remains of Syria’s opposition control parts of northwestern Syria while Turkish troops control several border areas, where they have pushed hostile Kurdish forces farther east and south. Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces control a large part of the east, with support from the U.S. Damascus requires Iranian and Russian support to maintain sometimes minimal control over the west and south. Israel continues to bomb Syria pretty much at will, to move Iranians and their proxies away from its border and to block military supplies to Hizbollah in Lebanon.

None of these conflicts is settled, but fighting has abated from his heights. None of the forces involved has the will and the wherewithal to change the current situation. Assad no doubt hopes that normalization with the Arab world will solve his economic problems and enable him to mount the effort required to regain more territory. He may negotiate to regain territory from Turkey in exchange for promises to clamp down on the Kurds. He’ll wait out the Americans, who aren’t likely to want to remain in Syria much longer.

Autocracy restored

If Assad is successful in restoring his autocracy, he won’t be alone in the Middle East. It is a long time since the Arab Spring of 2011. Tunisia’s fledgling democracy is gone, as is Egypt’s. Bahrain’s democratic movement was snuffed out early. Yemen’s and Libya’s “springs” degenerated into civil war. Sudan is headed in the same direction. Iraq has suffered repeated upheavals, though its American-imposed anocracy has also shown some resilience. Saudi Arabia has undertaken economic and social reforms, but driven entirely by its autocratic Crown Prince. The UAE remains an absolute monarchy.

Only in Morocco and Qatar have a few modest reforms survived in more or less stable and relatively open political environments. They are both monarchies with a modicum of political participation. Though Qatar allows nothing that resembles political parties, there is limited room for freedom of expression. Morocco is a livelier political scene, but the monarchy remains dominant whenever it counts.

America has already adjusted

The Biden Administration has already adjusted. It is treating democratic values as tertiary issues with any Middle Eastern country with a claim to good relations with the US. There is no more talk of Saudi Arabia as a rogue state. Washington is silent on the restorations of autocracy in Egypt, Tunisia, and Bahrain. The Americans want to see negotiated solutions in Yemen, Libya, and Sudan. Those are more likely to restore autocracy, or something like Iraq’s power-sharing anocracy, than any sort of recognizable democratic rule.

The Americans are not joining the Syria normalization parade. They are not blocking it either. Washington no doubt figures the conditions are better than nothing. We’ll have to wait and see if that is true.

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A Biden Middle East doctrine full of holes

Brett McGurk, the senior White House Middle East official, last month set out a “Biden doctrine” for the region. It is based on partnerships, deterrence, diplomacy, integration, and values. Best you read it yourself. It is blessedly short and clear.

Jonathan Lord, formerly Iraq director at the Defense Department and now at the Center for New American Security, has taken Brett to task for ignoring both Syria and Iraq, where the US still has a few thousand troops doing counter-terrorism work. In fact, McGurk never mentions terrorism, the threat on which he worked for many years.

What else isn’t mentioned

Those are glaring omissions, but not the only ones. As Lord notes, McGurk says little about economic issues. He omits oil entirely, though he mentions freedom of navigation. It is hard to imagine the US would be concerned with the Middle East if there were no oil there. He fails to note the growing geopolitical competition in the region with Russia and China. Brett ignores the more than 18,000 deployed US troops in Turkey, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and Saudi Arabia.

He forgets the Palestinians entirely, as well as the Kurds, with whom the US is allied in Syria. There is not a word about the disastrous state of Lebanon and Hizbollah’s role there, though he boasts about Beirut’s maritime boundary agreement with Israel. He ignores the plight of women in much of the region.

McGurk also fails to note the contradictions among his five principles. He acknowledges the main tension between values and partnerships with autocrats. But he ignores the current and growing tensions on human rights issues with Israel, as well as the more traditional ones with Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE. What do the five principles tell us to do about the UAE and possibly Saudi Arabia reestablishing diplomatic relations with Syria? There are also problems reconciling diplomacy and deterrence. The US has essentially abandoned the former for the latter when it comes to Iran. And there are obstacles to integration arising from human rights, like the Saudi refusal to recognize Israel without real progress on creating a Palestinian state.

Iran, Iran, Iran

Brett is clever. I imagine he would reply to this critique that it is about time we had a Middle East policy focused on partnerships rather than oil, the Palestinians, or competition with Russia and China. He might also claim that it is obvious US troops are in the Middle East for deterrence purposes, against both terrorism and Iran. He would be correct to say that any discussion of economic and social issues requires more time and space than this short presentation allowed.

But there is no excuse for many of the other omissions. They reflect prioritization, not ignorance. Brett knows the the current Israeli government is a threat to its already ethnically-limited democracy. He knows Iraq is drifting away from the US, Syria is a drug-exporting nightmare, and Lebanon is in a downward spiral. The Biden Administration has simply decided to ignore these developments and focus on whatever will help the US confront Iran. That is the real purpose of four of the five principles: partnerships, deterrence, diplomacy, and integration. Values play a distinctly secondary role.

If that’s what it’s about, say so

Iran’s role in Yemen, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and with Hizbollah more than justifies priority treatment. Moreover Tehran’s increasingly successful nuclear program could ignite an arms race in the region. Turkey’s President Erdogan and Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman have explicitly stated they will not stand idly by if Iran gets nuclear weapons. That could put the US in an awkward situation, as it would increase the need for security guarantees and make criticism of human rights behavior impossible.

If it’s all about Iran, say so. Don’t hide it behind five nice principles. Then we can debate whether you’ve got the priorities right.

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Goodies but mostly oldies

President Biden’s first trip to the Middle East took him to Israel and the occupied territories of the West Bank and East Jerusalem as well as Jeddah and Riyadh. So what difference will this much-anticipated trip make?

Israeli security first

In Jerusalem, Biden reaffirmed, for the umpteenth time, US commitment to Israeli security. He promised, again for the umpteenth time, that the US would use all necessary elements of national power to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons. He also reiterated support for the Abrahamic accords and for an (eventual) two-state solution for the Israel/Palestine conflict. The Israelis did not join that commitment. Both Lapid and Biden favored improvement of the Palestinian economy and quality of life. They opposed anti-Semitism and BDS (the peaceful boycott, divest, sanctions movement against Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory).

The only novelty was a new dialogue on technology. That is a natural extension of the decades-long, fruitful cooperation on air defense. Also new to me was reference to India/Israel/UAE/US (I2U2) cooperation of a vague sort.

Notably missing was any reference to Israeli repression in the occupied territories. Biden ignored the killing in May by Israeli security forces of Palestinian American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh.

Palestine not even a close second

President Biden’s visit to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in Bethlehem was low key. Biden made it clear the two-state solution is not for now. But he announced hundreds of millions in assistance to hospitals in the occupied territories (without of course calling them that).

The only novelty was a visit, without an Israeli escort, to a Palestinian hospital in East Jerusalem. The Palestinians hope it will some day house the capital of their state. But that sop did not do anything to reduce Palestinian disillusion with American policy. The Americans support the Palestinian Authority’s repressive security apparatus but fail to press Israel for meaningful concessions on Jewish settlements in the West Bank

Riyadh reconnected

Biden’s objective in Saudi Arabia was to get past a years-long rough patch in US/Saudi relations. Despite Trump’s sword-dancing with the Saudis at the beginning of his term, his Administration was a disappointment to the Saudis. They thought it did not do enough to respond to Houthi attacks on the Kingdom’s oil infrastructure. Biden as a candidate labelled Saudi Arabia a pariah, because of the murder of Washington Post journalist and Saudi citizen Jamal Khashoggi in the Kingdom’s consulate in Istanbul. But oil prices are peaking as a result of the Ukraine war and Israel is anxious to extend the normalization process to Saudi Arabia. Washington decided continuing friction was not advisable.

So with a fist bump and a private complaint to Mohammed bin Salman about the murder, Biden sought to reset relations. Their immediate reciprocal gesture was minimal. The Saudis will allow Israeli civilian aircraft to fly over the Kingdom, as Biden’s did from Tel Aviv. There was no public commitment on oil production. The Saudi Foreign Minister made it clear the opening of airspace was not a gesture only to Israel and that the Saudis will continue to insist on a peace settlement with the Palestinians before diplomatic recognition of Israel. Riyadh and Washington agreed however on a long agenda for US/Saudi cooperation.

Normalization is a process. It appears to be proceeding in internal security and air defense, even if the Israelis exaggerate that cooperation in public. Three years ago I was sitting in the business class lounge in Riyadh hearing nothing but Hebrew around me, spoken by mostly men carrying the kind of cases that contain electronic equipment. When I asked why the somewhat cold-eyed response was clear enough: if I told you, I’d have to kill you.

Notable, but little noted

Notable, but not much noted, is that the US will withdraw its multinational observer force from the strategically important island of Tiran. It sits just outside the Bab al Mandeb at the entrance to the Red Sea. Egypt has agreed to transfer sovereignty over Tiran and another small island to the Kingdom. US withdrawal wouldn’t be happening without Israeli concurrence, as the observers were put there in fulfillment of the 1979 Egypt/Israel peace treaty.

Horror vacui

Biden met in Jeddah Saturday with leaders of the six GCC states (Saudi Arabia, UAE, Oman, Qatar, Bahrain, and Kuwait) as well as Egypt, Iraq, and Jordan. This was a first for an American president. He also held bilateral meetings with Egyptian President Sisi, Iraqi Prime Minister Kadhimi, and United Arab Emirates President Sheikh Zayed. The Americans were keen to underline that they do not want to leave a vacuum in the Middle East that China and Russia can occupy.

Even if they don’t, Moscow and Beijing will be more present in the region than in recent decades. Russia is OPEC’s partner in maintaining oil prices, a protector of the Syrian regime, and increasingly an arms supplier in the region. Moscow is seeking drones from Iran to use in Ukraine. Beijing is the major consumer of regional oil and gas and supplier of manufactured goods.

Bottom lines

Only time will tell how the geopolitical rivalry in the Middle East will work out. So far, the perception of reduced American commitment has led to a process of rapprochement in several directions. Saudi Arabia has been busy improving relations not only with Russia and China but also with Turkey, Qatar, and Iran. Normalization with Israel may not be in the cards anytime soon, but Israel’s technology is welcome because it comes with few strings attached. The Americans are not going to find it easy to press the case for democracy, which Biden vowed to do, while their proxy befriends the autocrats.

Here is the event on the trip I did with Gulf International Forum and a great lineup of speakers on Monday, after the trip:

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