Tag: Israel/Palestine
Stevenson’s army, March 19
– Grandstanding in Anchorage: both sides [US & China] prolonged the photo op to make their talking points
– Administration plans to reach out to Palestinians and already is talking to Israel about Iran.
– WSJ says China will ban Tesla use by officials as a security measure.
– Sen. Cruz lifts holds on State nominees after getting promises on Nordstream 2.
Politico has more background on the project.
Even NYT goes for clickbait.
My SAIS colleague Charlie Stevenson distributes this almost daily news digest of foreign/defense/national security policy to “Stevenson’s army” via Googlegroups. I plan to republish here. 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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Foreign policy is also made by omission
Secretary of State Blinken outlined Biden Administration foreign policy yesterday. Here is the short version:
- End the pandemic
- Rebuild the economy
- Protect democracy
- Treat immigrants humanely but reduce incentives for migration
- Revitalize relations with friends
- Slow climate change
- Lead in hi tech
- Manage the rise of China
All of this is to be done with two things in mind: benefiting Americans and mobilizing other countries to carry part of the burden.
Tony is also at pains to underline that all these foreign policy issues have important domestic dimensions and that diplomacy will come before military action. The former is not new and underlay Trump’s “America First” slogan, especially on trade issues. The latter isn’t new either, but it is diametrically the opposite of what Trump was inclined to do. He thought cruise missiles and drones could get the US out of Syria without any need for talking with anyone. He tried talks with the Taliban, but did not wait for them to succeed before withdrawing half the troops.
It’s hard for me to quarrel with much of what Tony said. But there are things missing, as Tony acknowledges. Often in international affairs, as in domestic politics, what is not said is as significant as what is said.
Apart from the mention of China and some other geopolitical threats (Russia, Iran North Korea), there is no mention at all of specific regions and little of specific countries. My friends in the Middle East and the Balkans should take note. You are not going to get all the attention you crave. This is a major change from the traditional diplomatic “tour d’horizon” and suggests a shift from the State Department’s traditional emphasis on bilateral relations, as represented in its “geographic” bureaus and accentuated in the transactional Trump Administration, to “transnational” issues represented in State’s “functional” bureaus.
Among the “transnational” issues, one important one is omitted: nuclear non-proliferation. This may reflect a realistic recognition that with respect at least to North Korea and perhaps even Iran the cat is out of the bag: we are not going to be able to convince them to give up their nuclear ambitions entirely. It may also reflect a desire to leave room for some of our friends and allies to respond in kind. We’ve long exercised a tacit double standard with respect to Israel’s nuclear weapons. We might be willing to do so for other countries like Japan or South Korea whose neighbors threaten them with nukes. Trump famously uttered this heresy out loud, but his departure doesn’t make the issue evaporate. Confidence in the American nuclear umbrella fades as Pyongyang acquires the capacity to nuke Los Angeles.
Of course the urgent in foreign policy often comes before the merely important. Tony knows he won’t be able to ignore Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, the Palestinians, democratic backsliding in the Balkans, the coup in Burma, or the agreed withdrawal from Afghanistan, which the Administration needs to either confirm or postpone. This Administration’s minds and hearts are in the right place. But that does not guarantee success. They face a challenging global environment, not least from all the omissions.
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Bid farewell to the treasons of Trump
It’s been hard, but we’ve almost made it to the other side. Now comes a time for rebuilding, or in Biden terms building back better.
Domestic issues will take first priority: the epidemic, the economy, social cleavages. Biden will need to get a lot more needles into arms, a lot more jobs returned and created, a lot of injustices to black and brown people, immigrants, women, college students, and LGBTQ people rectified. Trump’s white supremacist and 2nd Amendment supporters need to know that LAW AND ORDER applies to them as well as to everyone else. Successful prosecution of the January 6 insurrectionists is critical, including an eventual conviction of Trump in the Senate.
Current Majority Leader McConnell is not only open to that possibility but has blamed Trump for provoking the January 6 insurrection:
The mob was fed lies.
This is important, as it opens the a possibility of purging Trumpism from the Republican Party and eventually also from the Senate and House. Remnants will persist, but American politics will return to a much better place if Republicans and Democrats once again come to share a common factual basis rather than being distracted constantly by Trump’s lies.
International issues will be in capable hands at the State Department, National Security Council, and the Defense Department. But they can’t do everything at once. The early moves have been telegraphed: re-entry into the Iran nuclear deal (hard) and the Paris climate agreement (easy) as well as an effort to negotiate with Russia extended limits on strategic nuclear weapons. But the enemy also gets a vote on priorities. Surprise challenges could come from North Korea, China, or Islamist extremists. Those should not distract the Bidenists from their chosen path: to restore American leadership on a multilateral basis and make the world order more rules-based than it has been for the last four years.
My own focus is on what this means for the Balkans and the Middle East.
In the Balkans it is clear: Washington needs to develop a common vision with the European Union and its member states, then implement it with vigor to stem the tide of Russian and Chinese influence and hasten the day when the countries of the region will all qualify for accession to the EU.
In the Middle East, the way forward is far less clear, because the region lacks a clear direction and American interest has declined. I might prefer that the US favor democracy and human rights, but the fact is there are few Middle East countries in which we’ll find much prospect of either. The trick will be cooperating with autocratic friends (read Egypt, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, and others) without encouraging their human rights abuses. Biden is already committed, as I understand it, to ending US support for the war in Yemen, which will displease Riyadh and Abu Dhabi.
The Israel/Palestine equation will be particularly difficult to solve, as Trump has intentionally lessened the prospects for the two-state solution America has favored. Biden won’t want to reverse the move of the US Embassy to Jerusalem, and the so-called Abrahamic accords between Israel and the UAE and Bahrain he welcomed. But he could tilt in favor of the Palestinians by renewing US contributions to the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) and re-establishing a consulate in East Jerusalem, making it clear it will become an embassy once a Palestinian state is formed and recognized.
The world will be watching. Expectations of Biden are high. Disappointments and failures are inevitable, but I do hope America can return to its proper role as a leader in the democratic world!
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Biden’s Middle East won’t look like Trump’s
If Biden wins, what difference will that make in the Middle East?
- Iran: Biden will have the same goal as Trump: an expanded and extended agreement that prevents Tehran from getting nuclear weapons, limits its missile ambitions, and gets it to pull back from interference in the region, especially in Yemen and Syria. But the two candidates differ on means. Trump used only “maximum pressure” through sanctions, gray zone warfare, and threats of military action. Biden will add incentives through some sanctions relief and possibly security assurances, but he will be critical of Iranian human rights abuses.
- Israel/Palestine: Trump has sought, with his right-wing Israeli friends, to prevent the formation of a viable Palestinian state. Biden will differ on this goal and try to restore the prospect of a two-state solution by limiting Israeli settlement expansion on the West Bank while ensuring Israel’s security. Biden will not reverse Trump’s move of the US embassy from Jerusalem. He may consider renewed American contributions to Palestinian relief through the UN.
- The Arab Gulf states: Biden will differ from Trump on both goals and means. He will be prepared to raise human rights issues and will not shield the Saudis from international criticism, as Trump has done. Acting on the basis of a growing bipartisan consensus in Congress, Biden will seek to end the Trump/Obama policy of support for the Yemen war. Wanting to phase out fossil fuels, Biden will not intervene as Trump did to raise oil prices (when Moscow and Riyadh engaged in a price war last spring). Biden will be supportive of the “Abrahamic” agreements for recognition of Israel by the UAE and Bahrain (as well as Sudan).
Biden shares with Trump the conviction that the US needs to draw down in the Middle East and will look for opportunities to do so. But he won’t do it capriciously or unilaterally, as Trump did in Syria and threatened to do in Iraq. Biden will deliberate carefully in making decisions and consult with allies and partners before making dramatic moves. That is a far better way, as abrupt withdrawal could lead to a perilous nuclear arms race among Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey that would be difficult to stop.
Here are two additional propositions for Biden to consider:
1. Cooperation with the Gulf’s biggest oil and gas customer, China, in providing security for the Gulf. The US takes little oil through the strait of Hormuz and no gas, so all of the Gulf’s Asian partners (including Japan and South Korea as well as India and China) are free-loading on gigantic US defense expenditures (12% or so of the Pentagon’s budget). It would be much smarter to get China and India to cooperate in a multilateral naval effort, as well as to join the IEA in holding 90 days of strategic stocks. China already patrols (for pirates) just outside the Gulf. Tehran will not be interested in menacing a multilateral effort to protect Hormuz that includes its main oil customers.
2. A regional security arrangement that includes the Gulf Arabs, Turkey, and Iran. Intervention in the Middle East hasn’t worked well for the US. Neither has withdrawal. We need to prepare the region diplomatically to ensure its own stability by helping its states to construct a regional security arrangement like those that exist in virtually ever other corner of the world. This diplomatic effort could be much more cost-effective than the last two decades of successful military interventions followed by governance failures.
The Middle East faces a daunting array of issues: unfinished civil wars, sectarian strife, youth bulges, climate change, water shortages, the oil curse, autocracy, state fragility, unemployment, economic underperformance, and growing geopolitical rivalry among China, Russia, and the US. No one should minimize the difficulties, but Biden can make a difference if he eschews unilateralism, seeks to consult all the countries of the region, and tries to get a minimum of agreement among the great powers on a course forward while encouraging the states of the region to stabilize their own neighborhood.
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Trouble in the Gulf will require more than arms
Here are the speaking notes I used yesterday at the Third Annual Conference of the Gulf International Forum:
- The Gulf today is engulfed with multiple dimensions of conflict and instability.
- Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are still at odds with Qatar as well as with Turkey and Iran about leadership in the region and the role of political Islam in the Muslim world.
- The US is pursuing a “maximum pressure” campaign against Iran that has repercussions throughout the Gulf and the Levant, especially Iran and Iraq.
- Iran is responding with “maximum resistance,” which includes continued support for the wars on their own people by Bashar al Assad and the Houthis as well as shifting Iranian foreign policy in the direction of Beijing and Moscow.
- Global warming, declining oil prices, youth bulges, sectarian resentments, and COVID-19 are challenging the ability of Gulf states to maintain their social contract: authoritarian stability and material prosperity in exchange for political quiescence.
US Interests and Disinterest in the Region - US priorities in the Gulf have shifted. Oil is far less important economically and politically than it once was, and America’s main terrorism threat is domestic, not international.
- Higher priority in Washington now goes to countering the spread of weapons of mass destruction and limiting the influence of rival powers in the Middle East.
- The problem for the United States is that none of its interests in the Gulf are well-served by coercion, but neither are they well-served by withdrawal, which hurts partners and allies, even giving them incentives to develop nuclear weapons, while opening new opportunities for rivals.
- Whoever is elected President next month, the US interest in reducing its commitment to the Gulf will continue, but it needs to be done without endangering friends and encouraging adversaries or unleashing a regional arms race.
- Biden and Trump should be expected to behave differently in pursuing US goals.
- President Trump is impatient and transactional. He will likely pull the plug on US troops in places not prepared to protect or pay for them (Iraq and Syria). The “Abrahamic” agreements are transactional: Israel gets recognition in exchange for its help in sustaining Gulf autocracies.
- Biden did not invent this idea, but he isn’t opposed to it.
- Where the candidates differ is on Palestine and on governance in the Arab world. Biden continues to favor a two-state outcome for Israel and Palestine, whereas Trump and his Israeli partners seek to eliminate any possibility of creating a viable Palestinian state.
- While safeguarding Israel’s security, Biden would push for a better deal for the Palestinians than the one Trump has offered. He would also be less tolerant of Gulf human rights abuses.
- Biden and Trump also differ on the value of the Iran nuclear deal, but it is important to recognize that they share the same goal: to prevent Tehran from acquiring nuclear weapons.
- Trump’s approach is “maximum pressure,” mainly through unilateral sanctions but also including the threat of kinetic action. He aims to force Iran back to the negotiating table to negotiate a “better deal” that would include regional issues, missiles, and extending and expanding the nuclear agreement.
- Biden wants to negotiate with Iran on the same issues but is prepared to lift some sanctions to incentivize a return to the status quo ante: Iranian and US compliance with the nuclear deal. Whichever candidate wins, Iran is unlikely to change course before its June election, if then.
A Much-Needed Regional Security Framework
- Neither Trump nor Biden rules out war with Iran, which would be catastrophic for the Gulf states. Doha has the most to lose.
- But war is not an attractive proposition for Riyadh, Abu Dhabi, and Manama either. Israel and the Gulf states don’t want Iran to get nuclear weapons and will cooperate to prevent it, but the Arabs will not want to risk joining Israel and the US in an overt conventional war with Iran whose winner may be predictable but whose consequences could be catastrophic for the Gulf.
- President Trump has been a welcome figure in the Arab Gulf, especially in Saudi Arabia. He has shielded the Kingdom and its Crown Prince from accountability for the murder of Jamal Khashoggi and continued the Obama Administration’s support for the Yemen war, despite growing bipartisan discomfort in the US.
- Because of his human rights commitments, Biden will be less favored in the Gulf. He will not be sword dancing in Riyadh or cheering the war in Yemen.
- But the differences should not obscure the similarities. The two candidates share the desire to reduce US commitments in the Gulf and the interest in preventing Iran from getting nuclear weapons. Several of their predecessors also had these goals and failed to achieve them.
- The reason is all too clear: the Americans have relied too heavily on coercion and too little on diplomacy.
- The United States has enormous destructive military, political, and economic power. But that alone cannot build what is needed: a regional security network that will reduce threat perceptions in all the Gulf states, Iran included, decrease incentives to develop nuclear weapons, and prevent encroachments by rival powers.
- This framework will require a stronger diplomatic nexus of mutual understanding, restraint, and respect. Continued low-intensity and gray zone conflict, or a real war, will make that much more difficult to achieve. The Gulf is not a military challenge, but rather a diplomatic one.
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Stevenson’s army, October 14
Bloomberg says Trump plans to pull US troops from Somalia.
FP says Israel is expanding settlements.
WTO says Europe can impose $4 Billion in tariffs because of Boeing subsidies.
NYT has table showing when absentee ballots will be counted by states.
FP says China’s money didn’t buy love in Australia.
Wired has big piece on Gen. Nakasone.
Some crazies in Portland pulled down a statue of Abraham Lincoln on Monday, David Van Drehle explains how uncalled for that was.
My SAIS colleague Charlie Stevenson distributes this almost daily news digest of foreign/defense/national security policy to “Stevenson’s army” via Googlegroups. I plan to republish here. 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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