Month: December 2013
For those who couldn’t make it
I gave the last of my pre-holiday talks on Righting the Balance yesterday at the Middle East Institute. Here is the latest iteration of the talking points I’ve been using, admittedly with occasional departures to tell a story or respond to a skeptical look.
1. Thank you for that kind introduction. It is truly an honor to present at MEI, which welcomed me as a scholar after I moved to SAIS from USIP three years ago and provided a steady flow of interns who did essential fact-checking, footnoting and commenting on the manuscript.
2. As I am going to say some harsh things about the State Department and USAID, and even suggest they be abolished in favor of a single Foreign Office, I would like to emphasize from the first that I have enormous respect for the Foreign Service and the devotion of its officers to pursuing America’s interests abroad. I feel the same way about the US military.
3. But I don’t think the Foreign Service is well served by the institutions that hire, pay and deploy our diplomats and aid workers. And I don’t think our military should be called upon to make up for civilian deficiencies.
4. My book, Righting the Balance, is aimed at correcting those imbalances. But it does not start there. Read more
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Sharp differences on Syria
Al-Monitor and Johns Hopkins SAIS teamed up last week for a full-day conference on “The United States, Russia and the Middle East”. The afternoon session had a panel on the Syrian regional crisis, which moderator David Sanger of The New York Times described as not the typical panel in Washington, with everyone getting along.
Josh Landis, Director of the University of Oklahoma’s Center for Middle East Studies, said the US is now mostly concerned with the al-Qaeda presence in Syria and the refugee problem affecting Syria’s neighboring countries. Inside Syria there are no good guys. The military cannot be a substitute for Assad. The idea that the military and Ba’th Party can stay in power if Assad is removed is fictional. These institutions are expressions of Assad. If there is no plan to remove Assad then the civil war inside Syria is going to continue. The only two alternatives for Syria would be either to partition the country or to allow Russia to support Assad with arms in order to regain control of the country. Neither option is good for the rebels. Read more
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This John Kerry should have been president
Here is John Kerry today at the House Foreign Affairs Committee on the Iran nuclear deal. I’ve added some related comments below.
Congressman Royce put his finger on a critical point: will lran in a permanent agreement be able to enrich? Kerry ducks, but the answer is yes, as the President said to the Saban Forum just the other day. There is simply no way to remove the knowledge of how to enrich uranium using centrifuges from Iranian minds. That is the price we have to pay for failure over the past ten years to stop Iran from acquiring enrichment technology. It will make no difference if ultimately we are able to get a permanent nuclear deal that verifiably and irreversibly limits enrichment to Iran’s peaceful nuclear program. Read more
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The risks of overplaying a hand
With the snow blanketing Washington, it is time for a post on the things I haven’t recently discussed. Two in particular have been gnawing:
1. Afghanistan
President Karzai has negotiated a long-term security agreement with the United States and convened a loya jirga (grand council) to approve it. Now he is hesitating to sign it, demanding that the US clear all raids with his government and release Afghan prisoners from Guantanamo.
The explanations for this behavior are many and various (and more): Read more
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Fascinating but lopsided
Few think tanks can assemble the President of the United States, the Secretary of State and a Prime Minister (via video link) for a serious discussion of issues like the Iranian nuclear program, the Israel/Palestine peace process and the war in Syria. That’s what Brookings’ Saban Forum did this weekend. Even more impressive is that they said interesting things. As the Israeli daily Haaretz noted:
…if you piece together the details and principles that were set forth matter-of-factly by Obama and much more forcefully by Kerry, and if you mix in a bit of reading between the lines, it is hard to escape the conclusion that Israel and the Palestinians are engaged in negotiating a “framework agreement” that will include elements of a final status agreement but will be carried out in stages.
And that there will be an interim period in which Israel maintains security control of some of the West Bank. And that the United States will play a major role in providing security along the border with Jordan. And that there will be a declaration of principles that will be based on various peace formulas discussed in the recent past, from the Clinton Parameters of 2000 and onwards.
And, most significantly, that Israel is well aware that the reference points for such a declaration will include the 1967 borders, a Palestinian presence in Jerusalem and a mutual recognition of each other’s “homeland.”
This is pretty hefty stuff. You wouldn’t want to try to cash the check written on this account yet, but you would be wise to hold on to it. Read more
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Time for one person, one vote?
Q: Is the US stepping in Bosnia again with the aim to fix it? [Assistant Secretary of State] Victoria Nuland recently talked ab0ut it.
A: I’ve heard a lot of rumbling, but I have not heard a clear plan. The only kind of plan that will work is one that mobilizes at least a few of the Europeans as well. See With Europeans, not without them | peacefare.net.
Q: How do you see attempts to implement Sejdic – Finci verdict?
A: I’m a simple guy. The first solution I think of is one president, no ethnic or territorial restrictions. As there will always be more than one Bosniak candidate, in order to win, there would be a strong incentive to assemble a cross-ethnic coalition. That would be good. What’s wrong with that? If you don’t like it, try one president and two vice presidents, elected as a package. No ethnic or territorial restrictions. Two rounds of voting. Or elect the president in parliament if you prefer.
Q: The negotiations with the EU representatives are going for sometime. Is it going nowhere? Read more
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