3 good articles to ponder this election season….Wisdom comes late and at cost for America. Hopefully we will learn finally to base our policies soberly/cogently in realism/shared interests and realize the need to use the locals esp the Turks, Israelis, Egyptians, Jordanians, etc!! We can help around the edges for sure in this morass they call the Mid-East, but ultimately it will be up to the locals in area to seal the deal in getting their “houses” in some semblance of order. It is in their interests and our interests to bring that sustainable stability and progress.
Where were/are the James Baker’s and George Mitchell’s and Sam Nunn’s when we needed/need them back in 2001 and 2002?? Where might they be now?? The Iraq Study Group findings are starting to resonate more and more IMHO – required reading (along with anything George Kennan wrote) for BOTH McCain and Obama in starting the Long March to rebuild American Diplomacy, Statecraft, and a Cogent Grand Foreign Policy Strategy connecting our present vast policy ends-means disconnects that is so vitally needed as we go forth in the 21st century!
We need to finally get Smart and learn to Use the LOCALS to recapture and effective leadership role built around the locals and vtheir interests!! Esp in the Mid-East things never go in straight lines and we need to adjust to that fact accordingly and quick. We are slow on our feet and have been too emotional with head in the sand and not quick. Too often we speak with too many voices and incoherently. No wonder many parts of the world avert their eyes at us. Time to change that and build on what works – use the locals - learn about the locals - and we will be just fine in terms of realizing our National Interest and synching effectively with theirs….John
http://www.usip.org/isg/iraq_study_group_report/report/1206/index.html
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Going Their Own Way in The Mideast
By David IgnatiusSunday, June 1, 2008; B07 – Washington Post
What happens when a superpower becomes preoccupied by a costly war and loses some of its ability to coerce friends and enemies toward the outcomes it favors? We're seeing a demonstration of that change now in the Middle East, as Arabs and even Israel reckon with the limits of American power -- and begin to cut their own deals.
The new power dynamic is clear in two developments over the past several weeks -- the Lebanon peace deal brokered by Qatar on May 21 and the Israel-Syria peace talks, with Turkish mediation, that were announced the same day. Both negotiations could help stabilize the region, albeit not on the terms the United States might prefer.
This independence from American tutelage is arguably one advantage of the new diplomacy: It is grounded in realism among the Middle Eastern nations about their own interests, rather than in wishful thinking about what the United States can accomplish. It reflects, as well, the growing strength of Iran and its radical allies, and the diminished clout of the United States -- and in that sense, it accords with the altered balance of power in the area.
The best explanation I've seen of this rebalancing came from Beirut-based Daily Star columnist Rami Khouri: "We are witnessing the clear limits of the projection of American global power, combined with the assertion and coexistence of multiple regional powers (Turkey, Israel, Iran, Hezbollah, Syria, Hamas, Saudi Arabia, etc.)," he wrote. This new alignment, he added, "is not a full defeat for the United States -- more like a draw."
The Lebanon peace deal negotiated in Doha is a classic piece of Arab diplomacy -- a compromise that straddles disparate factions and deep hostilities for the sake of expediency. The Qataris who brokered the deal are themselves a walking embodiment of all the region's contradictions. As Nicholas Blanford noted in the Christian Science Monitor, Qatar is chummy with Iran and at the same time hosts the biggest U.S. air base in the Persian Gulf; it has open links with Israel and also sponsors the anti-Israel polemics of al-Jazeera.
Qatar stepped in to mediate after Hezbollah had defied America and its allies and taken control of West Beirut in a naked display of power. Recognizing that U.S. efforts to check the radical militia had failed, the Lebanese did the pragmatic thing -- they sued for peace under the formula the Bush administration has been resisting for more than a year. The Qatari compromise broke the logjam at last: Lebanon has a new president and an agreement for elections next year. Even some senior administration officials aren't all that unhappy with this outcome.
The Syria-Israel dialogue through Turkey is another example of Middle East realpolitik. It illustrates that when it comes to protecting its own interests, even America's closest ally in the region is going its own way.
The American-Israeli split on Syria has been widening for the past several years. One point of difference was what to do about the nuclear reactor the Syrians were secretly building at Al Kibar, in the northeastern desert, with help from North Korea. The Bush administration wanted to confront the Syrians last year with the intelligence and use the issue to pressure them to dismantle the facility. The Israelis decided they couldn't wait -- and bombed the suspected reactor site on Sept. 6.
The United States feared the Israeli attack might trigger a wider war and insisted on American-Israeli silence to avoid humiliating Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. In the end, the Israelis were right in their prediction that Syria wouldn't retaliate. Instead, according to U.S. intelligence, the Syrians scrambled to hide traces of the reactor they had secretly been building.
The Bush administration was dubious about the Turkish negotiating channel, just as it had balked at the airstrike. But here again, the Israelis ignored their superpower patron. They want to exploit tensions between Syria and Hezbollah, open at least a small gap between Syria and Iran -- and in the process enhance the clout of Turkey as an alternative to a rising Iran. In this intricate dance, Washington has been essentially irrelevant.
America isn't withdrawing from the Middle East, despite its recent difficulties -- that's an Iranian fantasy. And in the long run, it's surely to America's advantage if regional powers can create a stable security architecture -- even if it isn't precisely the one we would have designed for them. We've tried imposing our own solutions, and frankly that hasn't worked very well.
The writer is co-host ofPostGlobal, an online discussion of international issues.
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Peace Fills a Vacuum
By HUSSEIN AGHA and ROBERT MALLEY - June 3, 2008 - NYT
IN the last few weeks, three long-frozen conflicts in the Middle East have displayed early signs of thawing. Israel and Hamas may be inching toward a cease-fire that would end attacks by both sides and, perhaps, loosen the siege imposed on the impoverished Gaza Strip. The factions in Lebanon, after a long period of institutional paralysis and a near civil war, have reached a tentative political agreement. And eight years after their last negotiations, Israel and Syria have announced the resumption of indirect peace talks.
That so many parties are moving at the same time in so many arenas is noteworthy enough. That they are doing so without — and, in some cases, despite — the United States is more remarkable still.
The Gaza deal is being brokered by Egypt. Qatar mediated the Lebanese accord. Turkey is shepherding the Israeli-Syrian contacts. All three countries are close allies of the United States. Under normal circumstances, they would be loath to act on vital regional matters without America’s consent.
Yet in these cases they seem to have ignored Washington’s preferences. The negotiations either involved parties with whom the United States refuses to talk, initiated a process the United States opposes or produced an outcome harmful to its preferred local allies.
The region is in a mess, and Washington’s allies know it. They privately blame the United States and have given up waiting for the Bush administration to offer them a way out.
By acting as they did, Egypt, Qatar and Turkey gave the true measure of America’s dwindling credibility and leverage after American debacles in Iraq, the Palestinian territories and Lebanon. They are willing to take matters into their own hands and overlook American ambivalence about their doing so.
Intent on isolating its foes, the United States has instead ended up marginalizing itself. In one case after another, the Bush administration has wagered on the losing party or on a lost cause.
Israel wants to deal with Hamas because it — not America’s Palestinian partners — possesses what Israel most wants: the ability to end the violence and to release Cpl. Gilad Shalit, the Israeli soldier held by Hamas. Israel has come around to dealing with Syria because Damascus — not America’s so-called moderate Arab allies — holds the crucial cards: Syria has a clear strategy of alliance with Iran; it supports the more powerful forces on the ground in Lebanon; and it provides refuge to opposition and Islamist forces in Palestine.
Likewise, America’s Lebanese friends had to give in to Hezbollah’s demands once it became clear that the support of the United States could not undo their country’s balance of power. Meanwhile, the process President Bush seems to care about most — that elusive Israeli-Palestinian track — is also the least likely to go anywhere.
The United States has cut itself off from the region on the dubious assumption that it can somehow maximize pressure on its foes by withholding contact, choosing to flaunt its might in the most primitive and costly of ways. It has pushed its local allies toward civil wars — arming Fatah against Hamas; financing some Lebanese forces against Hezbollah — they could not and did not win. And it has failed to understand that its partners could achieve more in alliance than in conflict with their opposition.
How much more powerful would Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president and leader of Fatah, have been if, at the head of a national unity coalition, he could deliver a truce and Corporal Shalit to Israel while simultaneously broadening the support he needs to sell a peace agreement? How much stronger would Prime Minister Fouad Siniora of Lebanon and his colleagues have been had they agreed two years ago to the very power-sharing accord they were forced to swallow last month?
Many questions surround these three still-incomplete deals. They could collapse or move in unintended directions. They may end up serving a quite different purpose, like constraining Syria’s, Hezbollah’s or Hamas’s ability to retaliate in the event of an American or Israeli attack against Iran. On all this there is understandable uncertainty.
But for now at least, there’s no great mystery about where the United States stands. At a critical time in a critical region, it is quite simply missing in action.
Hussein Agha is the author, with Ahmed S. Khalidi, of “A Framework for a Palestinian National Security Doctrine.” Robert Malley, the director of the Middle East Program at the International Crisis Group, was a special assistant for Arab-Israeli affairs to President Bill Clinton from 1998 to 2001.
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A Surprise Negotiation
By David IgnatiusWednesday, June 25, 2008; A13 – Washington Post
What's going on between Syria and Israel? Are the indirect peace negotiations through Turkish mediators that were announced last month for real? I've been talking with sources on all sides, and they present an upbeat view of a peace process that has taken many people (including top Bush administration officials) by surprise.
As with any secret diplomatic initiative, this one is surrounded by mysteries and riddles. So I'll examine the Syria-Israel dialogue as a series of puzzles and offer my best guesses about what's happening:
(1) How did these negotiations begin?
The channel opened in the fall of 2006, just after the summer war in Lebanon that had made both Damascus and Tel Aviv nervous about the destabilizing role of Hezbollah, Iran's proxy in Lebanon. Syria proposed indirect "proximity" talks and insisted on Turkey, a rare friend of both countries, as intermediary.
For many months, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert wasn't sure he trusted the channel. The Bush administration was skeptical about whether the process would lead anywhere, but it didn't try to stop it. About a year ago, Olmert decided to test the Syrian track. He had strong encouragement from the Israeli defense establishment -- the defense minister, Ehud Barak; the army chief of staff, Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi; and Israeli military intelligence.
(2) What's in it for the two sides?
The Israeli military brass favored engagement with Syria because they didn't think the status quo in the region was sustainable. Lebanon had become a surrogate battleground between Israel and Iran, and the Israelis arguably had lost the first round. Meanwhile, the Syrians were increasing their arsenal of missiles and other weapons. The judgment in Tel Aviv was that Israel stood to lose strategically by letting things continue as they were.
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad favored an opening to Israel to counter attempts by the United States, France and Saudi Arabia to isolate his country. Syrian confidence in the Turkish negotiating channel increased after Israel indicated informally that it was prepared to accept terms for return of the Golan Heights (and related issues, such as water rights) that had been reached in direct Syrian-Israeli negotiations during the 1990s.
(3) Can Syria be decoupled from Iran?
Israel's overriding goal has been to draw Syria away from its alliance with Iran. So far, the Israelis see no sign that the peace talks have achieved this goal. Syria-watchers caution that this sort of decisive transfer of loyalties is unlikely. But eventually, Syria may move away from Iran (and toward Turkey) because the Baath regime in Damascus is secular to its core -- and mistrusts the religious fervor of the mullahs. The decoupling would be cultural and political, rather than a matter of security policy.
(4) Who assassinated Imad Mughniyah in Damascus in February?
The car bomb that killed Iran's key covert operative in Hezbollah is still echoing in the Middle East. Suspicion immediately focused on Israel. But on Feb. 27, a London-based newspaper called Al-Quds Al-Arabi, with very good sources in Damascus, alleged that several Arab nations had conspired with Mossad to assassinate Mughniyah.
Adding to the speculation are reports that shortly before his death, Mughniyah was attempting to heal a split within Hezbollah between the group's leader, Hassan Nasrallah, and its former leader, Subhi Tufaily. Tufaily's power base is the Bekaa Valley, which has lost influence in Hezbollah to Shiites from southern Lebanon. According to one Arab source, Mughniyah -- traveling under his longtime pseudonym, "Haj Ismail" -- paid a visit shortly before his death to Tufaily's village of Britel, just south of Baalbek.
Mughniyah usually traveled without bodyguards, believing that his protection was the surgical alteration of his features, which prevented even old friends from recognizing "Haj Ismail." For that reason, the Syrians insisted they weren't at fault. But a sign of tension was Tehran's announcement that a joint commission would investigate the killing, a statement that Damascus promptly denied.
(5) What about Syria's secret nuclear reactor, which was destroyed by the Israelis on Sept. 6, 2007?
Oddly enough, that attack on what CIA analysts called the "Enigma Building" may have helped the peace talks. The Israelis felt that their decisive action helped restore the credibility of their deterrence policy. The Syrians appreciated that Israeli and American silence allowed them time to cover their tracks. Finally, the fact that Assad kept the nuclear effort a secret, and that he managed the post-attack pressures, showed Israelis that he was truly master of his own house, and thus a plausible negotiating partner.
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