Slo-mo train wreck
I’ve been hesitating to comment on the “Middle East peace process,” but I guess there comes a point at which you can’t ignore it any longer. When even President Obama has turned gloomy, you’ve got to wonder whether the time has come. So here goes:
Leverage in negotiations comes from having “BATNA”: a best alternative to a negotiated solution. The Israelis have one: they just keep on building settlements in the West Bank. The Ramallah Palestinians don’t really have one: Mahmoud Abbas doesn’t want to go back to the Intifada, and there is really nothing he can do to block the settlements. Hamas is trying out a new BATNA, as its last one (rockets into Israeli population centers) did not work so well. It is lying (relatively) low, figuring time is on its side.
The Israelis have got a BATNA, but what Netanyahu lacks is the ability to deliver Israel to a negotiated solution. His government is fractious, and he sees no need to take the political risks a negotiated solution would necessarily entail. Of course Mahmoud Abbas has a similar problem, only his government is just plain broken, since he doesn’t control what Hamas does or does not do. So neither side can deliver its own people to a negotiated peace.
Continuing to build Jewish settlements in the West Bank is making it hard to picture a viable two-state solution. Netanyahu says he wants the Arabs to accept Israel as a Jewish state, but his pursuit of his BATNA is putting the country into a demographic trap: the more settlements he builds, the harder it gets to picture a viable Palestinian state, which is an indispensable component of a two-state solution, and the more likely it gets that Israel/Palestine will end up as a single state, which eventually won’t have a Jewish majority.
So Israel and Palestine are careening towards an outcome neither wants, with leadership on the Israeli side that doesn’t want to take the risks required to prevent it and leadership on the Palestinian side that lacks any means to prevent it. Slo-mo train wreck.
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Still getting ready to sing
Anti-Kurd hardliner Osama al Nujaifi has been elected Speaker of the parliament in Baghdad, but then he and the rest of Iraqqiya walked out, apparently in protest against the treatment of some of its former Baathist members. Kurdish leader Jalal Talabani has been voted back into the Presidency, which however has lost the veto and is now almost entirely ceremonial. Its one substantial function is to designate a prime minister; Talabani almost immediately named Maliki, who gets a month to put together a government.
Allawi and Maliki reportedly sat together in parliament as a sign of solidarity, which won’t mean much in light of the subsequent walk-out.
Still no naming of ministers, or other devilish details like precisely what Allawi has been promised on the national security front.
No need yet to take your seats for the finale. The scruffily bearded guy won’t sing until the ministerial nominations are ready, which could still be weeks away.
Iraqi parliament convenes in 1st steps to new govt – Yahoo! News.
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The Balkans can still be lost
The International Herald Tribute surprised me yesterday by publishing a piece I did a couple of weeks ago with Soren Jessen-Petersen (formerly head of the UN Mission in Kosovo, now a co-lecturer at Georgetown) on how the Balkans could still go haywire. For those interested in an overview of what remains to be done there to make peace irreversible, check it out:
The Balkans Can Still Be Lost – NYTimes.com.
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The scruffily bearded guy gets ready to sing
Maliki and Allawi have at long last apparently cut a deal putting Allawi’s people in as speaker of the parliament and as head of a committee overseeing national security (but is this the old, ineffective one, or a new one?). This is the deal Reidar Visser proposed several days ago (Iraq leaders reach deWhy Iraqiyya Should Accept the Speakership « Iraq and Gulf Analysis). Kudos to Reidar!
Hard to believe this saga is at an end until we see a list of ministers approved in parliament. Is Moqtada al Sadr in or not? In where? What is the overall Iraqiyya role? What is Allawi’s specific role? Lots of devilish details before it is possible to judge what this all means.
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Europe has to go on a diet
President Obama scored points this week by supporting India’s bid for a permanent (non-veto) seat on the 15-member UN Security Council. He is likely to do the same for Brazil when he next meets its President, newly elected Dilma Rousseff. Neither Brazil nor India, however, can expect to occupy their cushions any time soon. Among the many obstacles, two bear mention:
1. Regional opposition is strong. Pakistan (and other Asian countries) are unlikely to applaud loudly as archrival India gets a permanent seat among the world’s mighty. Nor are Argentina and Mexico likely to applaud for lusophone Brazil to represent Latin America permanently on the Council.
2. Europe is over-represented and needs to give up seats so that the Council can be kept at a reasonable size. As many as five, more often four, seats on the Council are occupied by European Union members, including two permanent seats for France and the UK. To make room for Brazil and India, plus increased regional representation from Africa, the Middle East and Asia, will require Europe to go on a diet, as it has (barely) begun to do at the IMF: IMF Survey: G-20 Ministers Agree ‘Historic’ Reforms in IMF Governance.
This won’t be easy: Germany has long campaigned for a permanent seat of its own. But with EU countries coordinating their foreign and security policies, is there really any need for so many different European voices to be saying much the same thing? Or would European weight in peace and security issues be greater if the Union had fewer seats (and a louder voice)?
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Kerry still running
Even for the chair of Senate Foreign Relations, this is an unusually frenetic trip to important places.
The envoy: Kerry in Turkey, Israel, West Bank – Laura Rozen – POLITICO.com.
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