Tag: Israel/Palestine
When all you have is a hammer…
Both right and left (not to mention the middle) have so unanimously condemned Mitt Romney’s “A New Course for the Middle East” that it is unseemly to pile on, but I’ll do it anyway. He blamed President Obama for everything that has happened in the region, reiterated current U.S. policy goals and offered no idea of what he would do differently. Rumor has it that Karl Rove had a hand in this. I certainly can’t believe that Romney’s foreign policy advisors, some of whom sit within yards of where I am writing, would fail to recognize Romney’s lack of attention to ways and means.
But there is a deep reason for the lack of attention to ways and means: the only instruments the Romney/Ryan budget provides for are military ones, but the goals the candidate lays out require diplomacy, development assistance, state-building, law enforcement cooperation–in a word the whole panoply of civilian foreign policy instruments that they propose to slice well into the bone. This is a serious mistake, as is the impulse to retreat to fortress embassies and pull up the drawbridge.
What America needs now is more civilian outreach in the Middle East and the Muslim world generally. Romney and Ryan will not provide anything like the means required. Instead, they will provide military instruments. When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. This fallacy is playing out already in the Sahel, where the U.S. is contemplating the use of drones instead of thinking about strengthening local community resistance to the Muslim extremists who have taken over parts of northern Mali, Niger and Nigeria.
I have no doubt about the importance of military strength and economic vitality in determining what burdens the United States can carry. Mitt Romney wants to emphasize the former. Barack Obama wants to emphasize the latter. I’d like to see someone standing up for what Ambassador Chris Stevens and his colleagues represented: an approach to the world that seeks to match American interests with the interests of others, enabling the cooperative sharing of burdens and concerted action to reach common goals. Military action is always going to be an expensive option available only in the most challenging circumstances.
Diplomacy and its concomitants are not expensive. Foreign affairs amounts even today to less than 1% of the U.S. government budget (and less than 10% of the Pentagon’s). But diplomacy is difficult, time-consuming and all too often confusing. Americans simply don’t know what their diplomats do and why it is important. Nor has there been an effective effort at explanation. An enterprise that citizens don’t understand is not going to find the resources it needs to be effective, which of course leads to a further downward spiral of inadequate funding and disappointed expectations.
I dream of a day when two candidates like Romney and Obama will together declare that in addition to military strength and economic vitality, America needs diplomatic outreach. Maybe one of our fellow citizens will ask what role they see for diplomacy at the town meeting debate October 16. Or maybe Bob Schieffer will press the point at the third debate October 22.
The president is not only our commander-in-chief. He is also our diplomat-in-chief. I’d like to hear the candidates tell us what they plan to do in that role, and what resources they will require to do it well.
PS: I missed the semi-official response to Romney.
PPS: On the issue of our embassy posture, Wendy Chamberlin makes good sense.
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More talk, less eloquence, a bit of chicanery
The UN General Assembly, the ultimate talk shop, is providing a lot of opportunity this week to take the world’s pulse. Yesterday it was Egyptian President Morsy and Iranian President Ahmadinejad. Today it was Palestinian President Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu Someone at the UN has good scheduling sense.
Ahmedinejad ended his peroration with this Messianic vision for the return of the Mahdi and Jesus Christ:
-The arrival of the Ultimate Savior will mark a new beginning, a rebirth and a resurrection. It will be the beginning of peace, lasting security and genuine life.
-His arrival will be the end of oppression, immorality, poverty, discrimination and the beginning of justice, love and empathy.
-He will come and he will cut through ignorance, superstition, prejudice by opening the gates of science and knowledge. He will establish a world brimful of prudence and he will prepare the ground for the collective, active and constructive participation of all in the global management.
-He will come to grant kindness, hope, freedom and dignity to all humanity as a girl.
-He will come so mankind will taste the pleasure of being human and being in the company of other humans.
-He will come so that hands will be joined, hearts will be filled with love and thoughts will be purified to be at service of security, welfare and happiness for all.
-He will come to return all children of Adam irrespective of their skin colors to their innate origin after a long history of separation and division linking them to eternal happiness.
Our brothers and sisters in Palestine must also taste the fruits of freedom and dignity. It is shameful that the free world accepts, regardless of the justifications provided, that a member of the international community continues to deny the rights of a nation that has been longing for decades for independence. It is also disgraceful that settlement activities continue on the territories of these people, along with the delay in implementing the decisions of international legitimacy.
I say it loudly to those wondering about our position vis-a-vis the international agreements and conventions that we have previously adhered to: we are committed to what we have signed on. We also support the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people and are determined to pursue all efforts side by side with them until they regain their rights.
The obscenities recently released as part of an organized campaign against Islamic sanctities is unacceptable and requires a firm stand. We have a responsibility in this international gathering to study how we can protect the world from instability and hatred. Egypt respects freedom of expression.
One that is not used to incite hatred against anyone. One that is not directed towards one specific religion or culture.
A freedom of expression that tackles extremism and violence. Not the freedom of expression that deepens ignorance and disregards others. But we also stand firmly against the use of violence in expressing objection to these obscenities.
Settlement activities embody the core of the policy of colonial military occupation of the land of the Palestinian people and all of the brutality of aggression and racial discrimination against our people that this policy entails. This policy, which constitutes a breach of international humanitarian law and United Nations resolutions, is the primary cause for the failure of the peace process, the collapse of dozens of opportunities, and the burial of the great hopes that arose from the signing of the Declaration of Principles in 1993 between the Palestine Liberation Organization and Israel to achieve a just peace that would begin a new era for our region.
He backed this up with one of the more eloquent statements of the day:
The time has come for our men, women and children to live normal lives, for them to be able to sleep without waiting for the worst that the next day will bring; for mothers to be assured that their children will return home without fear of suffering killing, arrest or humiliation; for students to be able to go to their schools and universities without checkpoints obstructing them. The time has come for sick people to be able to reach hospitals normally, and for our farmers to be able to take care of their good land without fear of the occupation seizing the land and its water, which the wall prevents access to, or fear of the settlers, for whom settlements are being built on our land and who are uprooting and burning the olive trees that have existed for hundreds of years. The time has come for the thousands of prisoners to be released from the prisons to return to their families and their children to become a part of building their homeland, for the freedom of which they have sacrificed.
Netanyahu, usually more eloquent than Abbas, was less on this occasion:
To understand what the world would be like with a nuclear-armed Iran, just imagine the world with a nuclear-armed Al-Qaeda.
It makes no difference whether these lethal weapons are in the hands of the world’s most dangerous terrorist regime or the world’s most dangerous terrorist organization. They’re both fired by the same hatred; they’re both driven by the same lust for violence.
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Obama’s second term international priorities
I admit to being cheered last weekend looking at the TPM Electoral Scoreboard. It has President Obama over the 270 electoral votes needed to win, counting only the states that strongly favor, favor or lean in his direction. All the toss-up states save North Carolina are showing thin margins in favor of the President. Key Senate races in Massachusetts, Wisconsin and Virginia are likewise showing small margins for the Democratic contenders. It is still a long time (and three nationally televised debates) to election day, but the drift for the moment is clear.
The President is also getting over 50 per cent approval for his handling of foreign policy. Far be it from me to want to rain on his parade, but I think he should do more and better on international issues in the future.
The President hasn’t had much to say about what he would do on foreign policy in a second term, apart from completing the U.S. turnover of security responsibility to the Afghans (as well as withdrawing more troops) and preventing Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, preferably by diplomatic means but if necessary using force. He hasn’t said much on the Middle East peace process (such as it isn’t), maintained silence on Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki’s re-concentration of power, showed reluctance to do anything about Syria, hesitated to challenge China, and lacks new ideas on Pakistan and Russia.
I don’t say all this is wrong. Hesitation with China definitely beats Romney’s bellicosity, which will create the animosity we need to avoid. China has already revalued its currency significantly, something the President might want to take more credit for. It is not at all clear to me what he can do about Pakistan or Russia at this point. Maybe let them stew in its own juices for a while, until they soften up. The choices in Syria are difficult ones. Doing anything more will have real costs.
America needs, as the President never fails to say, to put its own house in order. Nation-building at home he calls it. But I would still like to know what his foreign policy priorities will be in 2013-17. The fact that Mitt Romney has failed to force Obama to specify more clearly his future foreign policy priorities is just one of the many shortcomings in a Republican campaign that will be remembered for its many unforced errors and lapses in good judgment.
But there are a few things even a convinced Obamista like me would like to see the President do or say. With no need to worry about re-election after November 6, I hope he’ll get tough with both Israelis and Palestinians. Admittedly he tried during the first term, insisting on a complete settlement freeze. But this was an ill-conceived formulation that led to intransigence on both sides rather than progress. The situation in Syria has deteriorated so badly that it may be worth another run in the Security Council at a no-fly zone. Once the Americans are down to whatever minimum numbers are required in Afghanistan, I hope Obama will find ways to toughen his stance with Pakistan. Iraq, too, needs a bit tougher love.
But none of these things comes close to the big one: avoiding a nuclear Iran and the proliferation of nuclear weapons it will precipitate. This is the overwhelming first priority, as it threatens a shift in the balance of power in the Middle East and a sharp increase in the risks of war, even nuclear war, there. Israel lacks the means to do serious and permanent damage to Iran’s nuclear program with conventional weapons, but it has all it needs to obliterate Iran with nuclear weapons.
If we fail to prevent Iran from getting nuclear weapons, the prospects are grim. What do you think Israel is likely to do if it perceives that Iran is getting ready to launch a nuclear weapon targeted on Tel Aviv? Will it wait and see whether the Iranians are, as many people think, “rational actors”? Or will it try to ensure that none of Iran’s missiles will ever get to launch? Launch on warning, which is what the Israelis will most likely do, is inherently unstable.
Lots of my colleagues are having second looks at containment, because the prospects for conventional military action against the Iranian nuclear program look so limited. Admittedly, containment is the fallback position.
But containment with two convincing rational actors who have the better part of an hour to make decisions, the best conceivable communications with each other and no serious threat to regime survival other than a single adversary is one thing. Containment with two actors who each believe the other is irrational (both could even be right), one of whom has less than full confidence in regime survivability even without a war, maybe 10 minutes to make decisions, and no reliable communications is something else. Yes, India and Pakistan have survived almost 15 years without using nuclear weapons on each other, and the increasing trade between the two creates disincentives to war. But a nuclear exchange between the two is still far more likely than war between the U.S. and the Soviet Union. And we are a long way from trade between Iran and Israel as a barrier to conflict.
Andrew Sullivan, in a fit of hopefulness, comments:
To date, Obama’s response has been like Reagan’s: provide unprecedented military defense systems for Israel, deploy our best technology against Iran, inflict crippling sanctions, and yet stay prepared, as Reagan did, to deal with the first signs of sanity from Tehran. Could Obama find an Iranian Gorbachev? Unlikely. But no one expected the Soviet Union to collapse as Reagan went into his second campaign either, and it had not experienced a mass revolt in his first term, as Iran did in Obama’s. And yet by isolation, patience, allied unity, and then compromise, the unthinkable happened. I cannot say I am optimistic—but who saw the fall of the Berlin Wall in October 1984?
Hope however is not a policy. What should Obama do to try to resolve the Iran nuclear issue in a second term?
The Administration has been understandably reluctant to put a serious package of incentives for Iran to forgo a nuclear weapon on the table before the U.S. election. Negotiating a deal with Iran is not going to help on November 6. But I hope after November 6 the Administration will make a direct and convincing offer to Tehran: temporary suspension of enrichment, a full accounting of past activities, tight and unfettered safeguards, no enrichment ever above 20%, no stockpiles of enriched uranium in a form that can be further enriched, and a permanent commitment not to seek nuclear weapons in exchange for full sanctions relief. That would be a policy, not a hope.
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Entitlement at home and abroad
The Mitt Romney video has set me thinking about entitlement. I have sat at a lot of fancy dinner tables in fabulous digs with the wealthy and powerful on several continents. The conversation is remarkably similar: success often breeds self-confidence and disdain for the powerless.
I do know people who feel we should all be entitled to food, housing and healthcare, not to mention education, free speech, equal opportunity and other things that even the right would agree with. But I know many more people who want to work for those goodies. As Mitt Romney so cleverly tried to turn it around yesterday, most people want to earn enough to pay income tax. In fact, the reason Repubican administrations have generally favored lowering taxes on the poor–even giving them subsidies–is to encourage them to work.
More interesting are the people in the video, whose clinking silver and china are a fitting accompaniment to Romney’s Ayn Randish refrain. They are the ones who seem to me to feel entitled: to their wealth, to their privilege and to their influence. Few of them likely pay more than Mitt Romney’s 14-15% in income tax. Folks with $50k to spend on dinner have smart lawyers and accountants who keep them well under a working person’s tax rate. Romney’s comment that he would be better off running for president as a Latino betrays this profound sense of entitlement: he imagines himself as a Latino with the same inherited wealth and privilege he in fact grew up with, not one who had to work his way up, as did his once welfare-receiving father.
There is a similar sense of entitlement among Romney and the guests when it comes to foreign affairs. Romney says it is difficult to imagine a Palestinian state because then the Palestinians would control the border of the West Bank with Jordan and even an airport. It is a short logical leap to the conclusion that Israel should continue the occupation of the West Bank without accepting the Palestinians as citizens, thus institutionalizing permanently the privileges of occupation. If this is not entitlement, I don’t know what is.
The Republicans’ favorite Israeli leader, Benyamin Netanyahu, betrays a similar sense of entitlement when he demands that the president of the United States specify a “red line” for Iran’s nuclear program. It apparently hasn’t occurred to the man David Gregory crowned “leader of the Jewish people” that the president of the United States is first and foremost accountable to the American people. I want a president who does what is best for America, even if I am Jewish. Obama has made it clear he will not permit Iran to get nuclear weapons. The American political system will hold him accountable to that commitment. The notion that a president might specify a trigger for going to war in order to satisfy a foreign leader is truly distasteful to me.
Romney and Netanyahu should have a look in the mirror. It is the privileged who too often feel entitled. Most of the underprivileged do not. Palestinians or poor Americans, most want equal rights and opportunity. It would be a lot smarter to offer them something substantial than to expect them to vote for you if you don’t.
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Who will make you safer?
The big news of the past two days is the Romney video that has him dissing 47% of the electorate and giving up on Middle East peace. Where did that famous resolve go? He seems to have channeled it entirely into the “no apology” policy, which apparently applies as much to offensive comments about half the American electorate as it does to killing people by mistake in Pakistan.
This would all be really funny except that it is dead serious. Dismissing the possibility of reaching an Israel/Palestine peace agreement has consequences. The Palestinians will never take Romney seriously as an interlocutor (that is what diplomats call someone they talk to). He’ll be seen, quite rightly, as someone who gained office with massive support from Sheldon Adelson, who actively opposes the two-state solution (the Romney campaign simply fails to mention it).
Whereas it is perfectly obvious that Middle East peace requires American pressure on Israel, Romney says
The idea of pushing on the Israelis to give something up to get the Palestinians to act is the worst idea in the world.
There is, in the end, a certain backwards consistency here. If you don’t want to push the Israelis, it is true that you will not get any progress on Middle East peace. But the flip side is also true: no progress on Middle East peace, combined with continuing American support (often military) for autocratic monarchs, leaves the Arab and Muslim worlds alienated and angry. I don’t need to elaborate on the consequences of that.
Romney’s foreign policy campaign has so far sown far more confusion than enlightenment. “Unforced errors” are the leitmotif. Gaffes are commonplace. What he would actually do is unclear. Romney couldn’t even pull off a visit to London without offending the locals by criticizing preparations for what turned out to be spectacularly successful Olympic games.
My colleague Eliot Cohen here at SAIS asks the debatable question, “Are you safer now than you were four years ago?” There is of course no way to answer this question until we know what happens in the next four years. What we know now is that the numbers of Americans succumbing to terrorist attacks worldwide is small (17 in 2011 to be precise). We know that Romney supports the same time schedule for ending the U.S. combat role in Afghanistan as Obama. We know that Obama has put in place the strongest ever American and multilateral sanctions against the Iranian nuclear program, and that Romney agrees with Obama on the objective of preventing Iran from getting a nuclear weapon. We know that Romney has criticized Obama for not acting more vigorously on Syria, but we have no idea what the Republican candidate would actually do as president, because he hasn’t bothered to say.
The real question is whether you will be safer with Obama as president or with Romney as president. Each of us will have to decide. I for one will prefer whoever gives me confidence that he has the interests of all Americans at heart, not just the 53% of them whose votes he covets, and will pursue peace with as much vigor as he pursues war. You can guess who that is.
PS: If you haven’t yet enjoyed the video, here it is:
If you are real glutton for punishment, you can view the rest too.
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שנה טובה! لله أكبر
It is Rosh Hashanah, the first day of the seventh month, when Jews celebrate the new year and creation of the world. Don’t ask me how or why the world was created in the seventh month. I have no idea.
I’d like to wish a happy new year (שנה טובה, shana tova) to all my readers: it was a beautiful fall morning in Washington, one that belies the horrors of the repression in Syria, the murderous attack in Benghazi, the violence against American embassies, consulates and bases in Tunis, Cairo, Khartoum and elsewhere. We are fortunate indeed to enjoy a peaceful capital, one that approaches the November election with some anxiety but no real fear. I can write what I like, say what I like, publish what I like, worrying only about who might sue me rather than who might kill or arrest me. This is not my privilege, but my right.
I talked yesterday with a Venezuelan who left her country because of a well-founded fear of persecution and found asylum in the United States. She anticipates Chavez will win again in her country’s elections next month. I’ve seen her look of pain and longing for home in the eyes of Bosnians, Kosovars, Palestinians, Iraqis, Libyans, Syrians and I don’t know how many other nationalities. My immigrant grandparents never had it though: they were glad to leave places that are now in eastern Poland and Belarus for a better life, as they had previously left Russia, and likely Spain before that. My grandmother refused to tell me where she was born. When I came back and asked what her native language was, she told me (in heavily accented New Yorkese), “Don’t be smart. I told you I did not want to talk about that!”
I feel reasonably safe in predicting that the year ahead will see many more people displaced and unable to return home. Some will be fortunate enough to find asylum in the U.S. or some other decent place. Some may even adopt my grandmother’s attitude: I’m better off now, why should I look back? But all too many will not. They will suffer violence, brutality, poverty, hunger, thirst, dislocation, discrimination, abuse. They will fight for their rights, rebel against oppression, flee for their lives. If you believe the statistics, the world is a good deal more peaceful and a good deal more democratic than it was in the last century. But there are a lot more people and a lot of bad things are still happening to a substantial percentage of them.
Jews devote most of the new year to worship of the deity. The basic message is the same as the Muslim one:
الله أكبر
Allahu akhbar. God is great.
But it is not a god who creates the problems that lead to mistreatment of people, or a god who will solve them. Sometimes nature contributes with a drought, a storm, an earthquake or something of that sort. But most of the problems that still plague large parts of the world are man-made. Even worse, they are often made with good intentions. All the people I know who have committed war crimes can give you decent rational explanations of why the did what they did: to protect their own people, to prevent massacres in the future, to respond to provocations. Their reasoning often hides greed for money or power. It almost always requires that they not be judged by the standards they use to judge others.
So the part of this morning’s synagogue service I liked the best was not the praise of our common, much-praised deity, but this part:
When will redemption come?
When we master the violence that fills our world.
When we look upon others as we would have them look upon us.
When we grant to every person the rights we claim for ourselves.
שנה טובה الله أكبر
Happy new year. God is great.
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