Tag: Israel/Palestine
The Security Council speaks, at last
After decades of opposing Israeli settlements in the West Bank, Washington yesterday finally did something about it: it abstained on a UN Security Council resolution fully consistent with US policy. This is being interpreted by some as a “kick in the teeth” to Israel and a sign that President Obama is anti-Semitic.
Give me a break. Obama has provided ample military, economic, political and diplomatic support for Israel, whose Prime Minister Netanyahu has returned the favor with efforts to undermine the President at every turn, including blatant support to his Congressional opposition and to candidate Trump, who is promising that things will be different at the UN after January 20. The fact is US abstentions and vetoes of UNSC resolutions critical of Israel have been much more common under previous presidents than under Obama:
The operational part of UN Security Council resolution 2334 includes this on settlements:
The Security Council…
1. Reaffirms that the establishment by Israel of settlements in the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967, including East Jerusalem, has no legal validity and constitutes a flagrant violation under international law and a major obstacle to the achievement of the two-State solution and a just, lasting and comprehensive peace;
2. Reiterates its demand that Israel immediately and completely cease all settlement activities in the occupied Palestinian territory, including East Jerusalem, and that it fully respect all of its legal obligations in this regard;
3. Underlines that it will not recognize any changes to the 4 June 1967 lines, including with regard to Jerusalem, other than those agreed by the parties through negotiations;
4. Stresses that the cessation of all Israeli settlement activities is essential for salvaging the two-State solution, and calls for affirmative steps to be taken immediately to reverse the negative trends on the ground that are imperiling the two-State solution….
This is blunt language by diplomatic standards, but it is not unfair. What it essentially does is to try to preserve the possibility of a two-state solution by preventing unilateral Israeli occupation of territory that is vital to the formation of a Palestinian state. A UNSC resolution of this sort has substantial support among Americans, especially but not only Democrats:
The resolution also includes this, clearly directed for the most part at the Palestinians:
6. Calls for immediate steps to prevent all acts of violence against civilians, including acts of terror, as well as all acts of provocation and destruction, calls for accountability in this regard, and calls for compliance with obligations under international law for the strengthening of ongoing efforts to combat terrorism, including through existing security coordination, and to clearly condemn all acts of terrorism;
The “stabbing” intifada is not acceptable, in other words.
The Council seems to me to have understood Donald Trump perfectly well: while he promised to be fair to the Palestinians early in his campaign, he has shown no sign since the election of anything but willingness to accommodate the most radical Israeli views, both on Jerusalem and settlements.
This resolution is an attempt to send a strong message to him and to those Israelis who want to ditch the idea of a Palestinian state. Their thinly disguised subterfuge of settlement expansion is being called out for what it is: opposition to the two-solution and imposition by one state of unequal protection of rights for Palestinians.
The immediate impact is unlikely to be salutary. Trump, who got the Egyptians to withdraw the resolution two days ago only to see it reintroduced by others and passed on Friday, will want to do something to show he is Israel’s great white hope. Netanyahu will no doubt tell Trump that the resolution is one more reason to signal strong support for Israel by moving the US embassy to Jerusalem.
I’m not sure that will trigger a third intifada or other dire consequences, as some predict. Arabs have a lot of other things on their minds these days. But it is still the wrong thing to do, as the issue of which capitals are where has always been regarded as a “final status” issue subject to negotiations. That is not true of settlements, which have long been regarded, including by the US, as a violation of international humanitarian law that prejudices the outcome of negotiations.
No end of the Israel/Palestine conflict is on the horizon. But this Security Council resolution is a useful reiteration of norms that Israel is violating. When the time comes for final status negotiations, it will make a difference that the Israeli settlements beyond the 1967 lines, including in Jerusalem, are illegal. They will have to be abandoned or legalized, with proper compensation. Anything less would be unjust and unsustainable.
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Trump’s future crises
My recommended reading for today is Eric Chenoweth’s Let Hamilton Speak, which is the best argument I’ve seen to date for the Electoral Colleges meeting today in state capitals to fulfill the founders’ intent by rejecting Donald Trump and electing Hillary Clinton, who beat him in the popular vote by close to 3 million votes. Virtually none of those votes has been officially questioned.
But Trump is going to win in the Electoral College. Nate Cohn has an admirably short explanation for how that happened:
Mr. Trump had an advantage in the traditional battlegrounds because most are whiter and less educated than he country as a whole.
The electors, who are basically chosen for their party loyalty, are not going to desert Trump en masse, even if a few may be tempted to bolt. The situation Hamilton anticipated and believed the Electoral College designed to prevent is about to happen. We will elect a prevaricating demagogue spectacularly ill-suited to wield the powers of the American presidency, one who is demonstrating daily by means of ill-considered tweets and soundbites that he has none of the good judgment and restraint required.
It is anyone’s guess how this will end. Some hope Trump will moderate, despite ample evidence to the contrary, in particular in his radical cabinet appointments. Others hope the Congress and courts will block his less judicious moves. But Congressional Republicans are lining up to salute and restraint by the courts is always delayed and rarely applicable to foreign policy. As Trump is astoundingly concerned with his image, public opinion might have an impact. But he has been remarkably successful at making any publicity into good publicity. There is no sign yet that any of these forces will be sufficient to block Trump’s worst instincts.
My own guess is that we are headed for an early international crisis.
Trump has already provoked China twice, once by accepting the Taiwan president’s phone call and once by a harsh remark about Chinese military activity in the South China Sea. Beijing reacted mildly to the first, suggesting it was Taiwan’s fault, and more harshly to the second, seizing an American underwater drone. Much worse could lurk in the future, as Trump has promised a trade war with China that would cause Beijing to retaliate and devastate American exports.
While provocative towards China, Trump is accommodating towards Russia. He has indicated he will end US support to the Syrian revolution (even while promising safe areas that cannot be created due to Russian air defenses) and try to make common cause with Russia against the Islamic State and Al Qaeda. Secretary of State Kerry has been trying to pull off that partnership for months, without success because the Russians are unwilling to target extremists. They prefer to help Assad retake territory, most recently Aleppo, without regard to civilian casualties. This will strengthen extremism, even as it benefits Russia and Iran. Trump will no doubt be tempted to strike out at Iran, not Russia, but doing so would propel the world into another major Middle East crisis.
That may not, however, be the first Middle East crisis Trump precipitates. He and his nominated ambassador to Israel, who is a strong supporter of West Bank settlements and an opponent of a two-state solution, have pledged to move the US embassy to Jerusalem, a promise other presidents-elect have made but never fulfilled. The reason is clear: it is a final status issue that needs to be part of the negotiations between Palestinians and Israelis. Jumping the gun will make it even more difficult than it is today for the US to enlist Arab support for American goals, as will abandonment of the Syrian revolution.
There are other possible crises in the offing. Trump’s promised renunciation of the Iran nuclear deal would certainly precipitate a sharp break with Europe and make it likely that the US would need to use force to block Tehran from nuclear weapons. Conceding Crimea’s annexation to Russia would create serious doubts inside NATO about US willingness to fulfill its alliance obligations. Withdrawal from the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the negotiations for the Trans Pacific Partnership will cast a pall over trade worldwide and raise serious questions about whether China rather than the US will lead in setting the pace of trade liberalization.
All these possible crises can be brought on more or less unilaterally by the new president quickly and easily. I’ll be in Beijing on Inauguration Day. It will be an interesting perch from which to see what happens.
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Peace Picks December 12-16
- US Security Assistance and Human Rights | Monday, December 12 | 10:00am – 11:30am | Brookings Institution | Click HERE to Register Understanding the linkage between U.S. security policy and human rights policy is a complex and difficult challenge, but critical to ensuring that U.S. national interests in promoting stability and peace are properly served. While protection of human rights is integrated in U.S. security policy through such mechanisms as the Leahy Law and international military education and training, large gaps exist in both policy and practice. As a new Congress convenes and the Obama administration prepares to pass the baton to a new administration, the time is ripe to examine the effectiveness of the tools at hand and how they can be strengthened.On Monday, December 12, the Project on International Order and Strategy at Brookings will host a discussion on the complex issue of understanding how U.S. assistance to foreign security forces is linked to U.S. human rights objectives, with particular attention to cases like Afghanistan, Colombia, and Mexico. Assistant Secretary of State Tom Malinowski will offer opening remarks, followed by a discussion with Brookings Senior Fellows Daniel Byman and Ted Piccone.
- The Arab Spring and the Shia-Sunni Divide | Monday, December 12 | 12:00pm | Atlantic Council | Click HERE to Register
Nearly six years after the Arab uprisings began, the dream of a pan-Islamic awakening is now more elusive than ever. The wave of unrest has deepened ethnic and religious tensions between Sunni and Shia, pushing them once again to the fore. Religious differences and how Muslims define themselves have emerged as salient characteristics within Arab society, rivalling the broader conflict between Muslims and the West as the primary challenge facing Islamic societies of the Middle East.The New Sectarianism considers the causes of the growing Sunni-Shia animosity in key countries such as Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Iran, and Saudi Arabia. This renewed sectarianism is particularly corrosive in the face of generally weak states, which today characterize many countries in the region. The event will illustrate how Shia and Sunni perceive one another after the Arab uprisings, and how these perceptions have affected Arab life. Featuring Ms. Geneive Abdo, a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East and Ms. Joyce Karam, the Washington Bureau Chief for Al-Hayat Newspaper. - The Tribes of Israel: Diversity, Cohesion and Conflict | Tuesday, December 13 | 2:30pm – 5:00pm | Brookings Institution | Click HERE to Register
Israel is undergoing a profound transformation, from a society with one politically and socially dominant group—secular Jews—to a society of several groups of roughly similar size. Israeli President Reuven Rivlin has gone as far as to describe four “tribes” of Israeli society and has proposed the creation of a new social compact among these groups. Others argue that Israel should resist institutionalizing identity-based politics, and should focus instead on society-wide concerns.On December 13, the Center for Middle East Policy will convene a public event to explore these social rifts and what Americans might learn from the Israeli experience about managing diverse societies and about the proper role of group identities in national politics. The event will feature two sessions titled: “Visions of Israel: Citizenship, common cause, and conflict” and “Secularism, religion, and the state.”This event is part the center’s series on “Imagining Israel’s Future,” which is designed to help Washington audiences engage with voices from today’s dynamic Israeli society.Featuring Martin S. Indyk, Exective Vice President of the Brookings Institution, Natan Sachs, Fellow for Foreign Policy at the Center for Middle East Policy, Stav Shaffir, Member of Knesset, Labor, Mohammad Darawshe, Co-Executive Director at The Center for a Shared Society at Givat Haviva, Yehudah Mirsky, Associate Professor of Near Eastern and Judaic Studies at Brandeis University, Shibley Telhami, Nonresident Senior Fellow for Foreign Policy, at the Center for Middle East Policy, U.S. Relations with the Islamic World, Ksenia Svetlova, Member of Knesset, Hatunah, Rabbi Dov Lipman, Former Member of Knesset, Yesh Atid, Noah Efron, Senior Faculty Member, Department of Science, Technology & Society at Bar-Ilan University, Elana Stein Hain, Director of Leadership Education at the Shalom Hartman Institute of North America. - The Annual Michael Van Dusen Lecture on the Middle East: Syria, Sectarianism and ISIS, Where are we Heading? | Wednesday, December 14 | 4:00pm – 5:00pm | Woodrow Wilson Center | Click HERE to RegisterFeaturing Joshua Landis, Director of the Center for Middle East Studies at the University of Oklahoma’s College of International Studies and Henri Barkley, Director, Middle East Program at the Wilson Center.
- Polling Middle Eastern Views: Current Conditions and the Road Ahead | Thursday, December 15 | 11:00am – 12:30pm | Middle East Institute | Click HERE to RegisterThe Middle East Institute (MEI) and the Arab-American Institute (AAI) are pleased to host James Zogby (AAI and Zogby Research Services) for the presentation of fresh polling results from across six Arab countries, Iran, and Turkey. With the public release of the report Middle East 2016: Current Conditions and the Road Ahead, Dr. Zogby will examine views about the war in Syria, the roles of the United States, Russia, and Iran in the region, and causes of extremism, violence, and instability.Commentators Steven Cook (Council on Foreign Relations), Ellen Laipson (Stimson Center), and Hassan Mneimneh (MEI) will provide their analysis of the poll’s findings in a discussion with Dr. Zogby moderated by Gerald Feierstein (MEI).The poll and resulting report were commissioned by the Sir Bani Yas Forum, convened annually in the United Arab Emirates on the initiative of H.H. Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the U.A.E. Foreign Minister. The findings are being made available for use by the public; print copies of the report will be available.
- Long Game or Gamble? Middle East Policy from Obama to Trump | Friday, December 16 | 10:00am – 11:15am | Bipartisan Policy Center | Click HERE to Register The Middle East continues to challenge U.S. policymakers. From the rise of ISIS, to the spread of ethnosectarian violence, to dealing with Iran, the region played an outsize role in President Obama’s foreign policy and is one of the top concerns for President-elect Trump. Two recent books, the first by an outspoken critic of Obama’s foreign policy, the second by one of its most articulate defenders, examine how presidents have defined and pursued U.S. interests in the Middle East.Michael Doran’s (Former Senior Director in the National Security Council and Senior Fellow, Hudson Institute) Ike’s Gamble retells the story of President Eisenhower’s handling of the Suez Crisis in 1956, suggesting that many of the same pitfalls encountered then still plague policymakers today. And in The Long Game, Derek Chollet (Former Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs
Counselor and Senior Adviser for Security and Defense Policy, German Marshall Fund) describes how President Obama – seeking to model himself on Eisenhower – transformed U.S. foreign policy to overcome the obstacles of the Middle East.Please join us for a debate between Chollet and Doran about the lessons learned from Eisenhower and Obama about U.S. Middle East policy and how President-elect Trump might apply those lessons.
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Peace picks, November 28-December 2
- Can Interfaith Contact Reduce Extremism Among Youth? | Monday, November 28th | 1.30pm – 3pm | US Institute of Peace | click HERE to register
The Pakistani government banned more than 200 groups as extremist or terrorist organizations last year in a significant move to stop the spread of ideological, religious and political extremism that can feed violent conflict. But many ideologically extreme groups still operate openly, especially recruiting young university students. In Sri Lanka, Buddhist ideological extremism fuels negative attitudes about minority ethnic and religious groups. Join a U.S. Institute of Peace Jennings Randolph Fellow Rabia Chaudry and other experts to discuss the findings of her research on these trends.
The panel discussion also will include two USIP experts and Ayub Ayubi, who heads a research organization in Pakistan, the Renaissance Foundation (Mashal-e-Rah), that has been a partner for USIP.
- What’s Next, For America and Israel? Challenges and Opportunities in an Uncertain World| Monday, November 28th | 4.30pm – 6pm | Johns Hopkins SAIS| click HERE to register
Dean Vali Nasr and The Philip Merrill Center for Strategic Studies cordially invite you to join Ambassador Ron Dermer, Ambassador of Israel to the United States, for a discussion on “What’s Next, For America and Israel? Challenges and Opportunities in an Uncertain World.”
The event will be moderated by Laura Blumenfeld, Senior Fellow, The Philip Merrill Center for Strategic Studies.
- Domestic Security in the Age of ISIS | Monday, November 28th | 6.30pm | Council on Foreign Relations | click HERE to register
Experts discuss how the United States can better prepare for and protect the homeland with the growing threat of ISIS inspired terrorist attacks on U.S. soil.
Speakers:
Michael Chertoff – Executive Chairman and Cofounder, Chertoff Group; Former Secretary, U.S. Department of Homeland Security
Christopher T. Geldart – Director, Homeland Security and Emergency Management Agency, District of Columbia
Farah Pandith – Adjunct Senior Fellow, Council on Foreign Relations
Presider:
Thom Shanker – Assistant Washington Editor, “New York Times”
- Conference: Facing a World in Turmoil | Tuesday, November 29th | 7.30am – 2pm | Women’s Foreign Policy Group | click HERE to register
Join us November 29th for our conference on Facing a World in Turmoil. The conference will include two panels. The first panel, Security at Home and Abroad, will focus on threats and challenges to national and international security and will include a discussion of the role of cybersecurity. The second, A World in Chaos: Challenges for the Next Administration, will address transnational issues like mass migration and terrorism. We are honored to announce that Secretary of State John Kerry will be our luncheon speaker.
- Beyond Borders: Reshaping Media Narratives around Migration | Tuesday, November 29th | 9am – 11am | International Women’s Media Foundation | click HERE to register
The International Women’s Media Foundation invites you to attend Beyond Borders: Reshaping Media Narratives around Migration, a panel discussion at the Newseum on Tuesday, November, 29th.
The Beyond Borders panel will feature Howard G. Buffett and IWMF Reporting Fellows Kimberly Adams, Raquel Godos, and Jika González. The Fellows joined the IWMF on reporting trips to the Mexico-U.S. border and Colombia as part of the IWMF Adelante Initiative discussing media coverage of migration in Latin America. Their reporting has appeared on Marketplace Radio, EFE and Univision.
The panel discussion will be moderated by Maria Hinojosa, anchor and executive producer of Latino USA on National Public Radio.
- What to Do about Russia’s Rising Profile in the Middle East | Tuesday, November 29th |9.30am | Atlantic Council | click HERE to register
Russia’s dramatic intervention in the Syrian civil war, expanding military relationship with Iran and overtures to long-time U.S. partners such as Egypt and Turkey present a new challenge to American leadership in a vital and conflict-ridden part of the world.
A conversation with:
Anna Borshchevskaya – Ira Weiner Fellow, The Washington Institute for Near East Policy
Thomas Cunningham – Deputy Director, Global Energy Center, Atlantic Council
Alireza Nader – Senior International Policy Analyst, Rand
Aaron Stein – Senior Fellow, Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East, Atlantic Council
- A New Saudi Arabian Regional Policy? | Tuesday, November 29th | 2.30pm| Atlantic Council | click HERE to register
Saudi Arabia is engaged in two simultaneous wars, the first in Yemen, as leader of the Arab Coalition there, and the second, in Syria as a member of the anti-ISIS coalition in Syria. The Kingdom is also challenging the view that its foreign policy revolves around aid: it has cut financial support to the Lebanese Armed Forces while rolling back aid and suspending oils transfers to Egypt. Moreover, Saudi Arabia is witnessing shifting alliances and relationships with traditional partners and adversaries.
In light of the election of Donald Trump, how will Saudi Arabia’s relations with its neighbors and allies change, if at all? On November 29 at the Atlantic Council, the panelists will discuss these and other critical issues including intra-GCC relations, the future of Iraqi-Saudi relations, the war in Yemen, and the growing regional rivalry with Iran.
Faisal bin Farhan Al-Saud, a businessman and investor primarily active in the defense and security sector, is the Chairman of Shamal Investments and the Chairman of Alliance Services. Mohammed Khalid Alyahya, a Saudi Arabian political analyst and commentator, is also a research fellow at the Gulf Research Center and serves on the advisory board for the Future Trends in the GCC Program at Chatham House. Frederic C. Hof is the director of the Atlantic Council’s Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East and specializes in Syria.
- Should We Fear Russia | Wednesday, November 30th | 10.30am – 12pm | Carnegie Endowment for International Peace | click HERE to register
Please join the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace for the launch of Dmitri Trenin’s new book, Should We Fear Russia? (Polity, 2016).
Since the outbreak of the Ukraine crisis, there has been much talk of a new Cold War between Russia and the West. Russian President Vladimir Putin is widely seen as volatile, belligerent, and willing to use military force to get his way.
In this latest book, Dmitri Trenin, the longtime director of the Carnegie Moscow Center, explains why the Cold War analogy is misleading. Relations between the West and Russia are certainly bad and dangerous but, he argues, they are bad and dangerous in new ways. Trenin outlines the crucial differences, which make the current rivalry between Russia, the EU, and the United States more fluid and unpredictable. By unpacking the dynamics of this increasingly strained relationship, Trenin makes the case for handling Russia with pragmatism and care and cautions against simply giving into fear.
- A New Approach for the Middle East | Wednesday, November 30th | 12pm| Atlantic Council | click HERE to register
Under the bipartisan Co-Chairmanship of former US Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright and former US National Security Advisor Stephen J. Hadley, the Atlantic Council convened the Middle East Strategy Task Force (MEST) in February 2015 to examine the underlying issues of state failure and political legitimacy that drive extremist violence and threaten fundamental interests broadly shared by the peoples of the region and the rest of the world.
The result of almost two years of intensive study, Albright and Hadley’s final report proposes nothing short of a paradigm shift in how the international community and the Middle East interact. Not only does the report present solutions to the region’s most immediate crises in Syria, Iraq, Yemen, and Libya, it also puts forward a pragmatic and actionable long-term strategy that emphasizes the efforts of the people of the Middle East themselves, with an eye toward harnessing the region’s enormous human potential.
- China’s Role in the Middle East | Friday, December 2nd | 8.30am – 1pm| Johns Hopkins SAIS | click HERE to register
At the beginning of 2016, President Xi Jinping visited Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt signaling Beijing’s new level of engagement with the Middle East. Chinese state media labeled China’s approach “bright, clear dawn.” But what are Beijing’s goals and how does it aim to achieve them? Focusing on both the security and soft-power dimension as well as energy and infrastructure, the Institute of Current World Affairs and the Johns Hopkins-SAIS China Studies Program will bring together leading experts to illuminate China’s evolving relationship with the Middle East.
SPEAKERS
Keynote: Kent Calder – Edwin O. Reischauer Professor at the School of Advanced Inter-national Studies (SAIS), Director of the Edwin O. Reischauer Center for East Asian Studies, Director of Asian Studies Programs
Naser al-Tamimi (from Doha) – Independent UK-based Middle East Researcher, Political Analyst, and Commentator
Jon B. Alterman – Director and Senior Fellow of the Middle East Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS)
I-wei Jennifer Chang – Program Specialist in the China Program at the U.S. Institute of Peace
Joshua Eisenman – Assistant Professor at the University of Texas at Austin’s Lyndon Baines Johnson School of Public Affairs and Senior Fellow for China Studies at the American Foreign Policy Council in Washington, DC
Chaoling Feng – Senior Research Associate, KNG Health
Sarah Kaiser-Cross (from Dubai) – Works for a private financial institution based in Dubai, focusing on the nexus of contemporary security threats and finance in the Middle East.
Camille Pecastaing – Senior Associate Professor of Middle East Studies at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University
Robert Sutter – Professor of Practice of International Affairs at the Elliott School of George Washington University
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Trust is the Middle East’s big problem
A report on the upcoming challenges for the Arab World—titled “Real Security: The Interdependence of Governance and Stability in the Arab World”—was presented at Brookings Monday. The report was launched by the Atlantic Council and Brookings to explore how the US can best help stabilize the Middle East in coming years. The report was written by Tamara Cofman, Senior Fellow and Director for the Center for Middle East Policy at Brookings, and commissioned by the Atlantic Council’s Middle East Strategy Task Force, which is co-chaired by former Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright and former National Security advisor, Stephen Hadley. All three convened for a panel yesterday, joined by Amr Hamzawy, a Senior Associate for the Middle East and Democracy & Rule of Law Programs at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Hadley moderated the panel.
Albright believes that the region is destined for good governance. Many others believe that a country needs to be secure before it can start pursuing practices of good governance, but Albright believes that they must occur at the same time in order to be sustainable. “People want to vote and eat,” she said.
Cofman believes that the civil wars and unrest throughout the region are a symptom of a general breakdown of social order in these countries. With the advent of easily accessible technology and constant global communication, authoritarian ideology began to break down in 2011. People were able to see what they did not have by communicating with others around the world and began to hold their leaders accountable for failing to fulfill their social contract. When people arose in protest, the authoritarian governments responded by cracking down. This did not stop the protests but instead led to the rise of independent militias who could provide security for the people against government aggression.
Trust between the government and the governed needs to be rebuilt in these countries if they want to see peace, Cofman said. Simply building more democratic institutions won’t cut it, since the problem lies with who populates those institutions. Creating more borders will not solve the problem either, as any new borders will be fought over. Dialogue is the only way forward and social trust needs to be built from the bottom up.
Hamzawy complimented Cofman on her report, but suggested that perhaps the Middle East is heading to a revival of autocracy rather than a new democratic order. To reverse this trend, he suggests focusing on generating social capital and reinvigorating civil society, rather than on constitutional reforms and institution building. There also needs to be a new focus on combating corruption in the judicial system and among law enforcement, as people need to feel as though they can trust the state to protect them. Additionally, the US needs to look closely at which countries are being run by the military and which are being run by the people since countries that are run by the military are very difficult to reform.
When asked which countries she sees as fragile, Cofman said she is keeping a close eye on Algeria and the Palestinian Authority. Both governments have aging leaders and no clear plans for succession. In an uncertain environment, people are more likely to rise up in protest. Albright added that Jordan may also be an issue in the future, as the monarchy there is losing trust with the people and not delivering on promises. She summarized saying that in the Middle East, “people are talking to the government on 21st century technology, but the government only listens on 20th century technology and ia responding to problems with 19th century technology.”
Hamzawy pointed out that while supporters of autocracies claim that they provide better national security than democracies, that security is not sustainable. Autocracies may provide better security against external threats, but by breaking trust with their citizenry, they are causing internal insecurity.
During the Q&A session, the German Ambassador to the US asked the panel whether the United States and its allies are doing enough to promote human rights in the region. Albright responded that more can certainly be done, though it cannot be accomplished solely by external actors. People living in the region need to make a commitment to preserving human rights and cannot simply rely on the West to guarantee these rights.
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What to expect in the Middle East
What to expect from the Trump administration is the question on everyone’s mind this morning in DC. My students are worried about their career plans, my interviewer from Voice of America is worried about its fate, my Italian solar energy friend is worried about global warming and the fate of the alternative energy industries. Is there anyone who doesn’t think this new administration will make or break their thing?
Meanwhile Trump has appointed both a pragmatist Republican apparatchik to run his day-to-day White House as chief of staff and a white nationalist, anti-Semitic ideologue to be its chief longer-term strategist. He has denied knowing that his supporters have indulged in racial, ethnic and anti-gay slurs but also suggested they stop it. Contradiction knows no limits with this man. See also my short piece on possible appointees, published by the Middle East Institute this morning.
What do I expect on policy issues relevant to the Middle East?
First, a long and steep learning curve. Trump is a radical: he says he wants to change Washington in fundamental ways and was elected to do just that. I expect him to make some dramatic decisions that some will regret: remember Ronald Reagan’s withdrawal from the anti-ballistic missile treaty and George W. Bush’s withdrawal from the International Criminal Court.
One likely international victim of these initial mistakes is the Paris climate change accord, from which it is easy to withdraw. Trump will not want the controls on coal-burning power plants and on automobile fuel conservation that are vital to fulfilling the American commitment on green house gases. His supporters will enjoy a big dose of defiance to the international community. The longer-term consequences for the Middle East will be dramatic: agricultural land will be surrendered to the desert and more of the region will become uninhabitable over the longer term. Never mind the flooding of Mar a Lago, Trump’s Florida resort.
I do not expect Trump to withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal, since it is obviously preferable to freeing Iran to pursue nuclear weapons immediately. Instead, he will seek to impose new sanctions on Iran because of its ballistic missile program, with extra-territorial application to non-American companies, making it difficult or impossible for them to do business in the US if they continue to do business with Iran. This could be the source of a major row with Europe, which wants to expand its business dealings with Iran.
We’ll no doubt see a serious effort to convert Trump’s admiration for Russian President Putin into some sort of result, especially in Syria. This could take the form of ending all assistance to the Syrian opposition to Bashar al Assad. This would please Moscow no end and presumably enable Putin to declare a new era of understanding with the US, brought about by his steadfastness.
I expect Trump to move the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, an explicit promise he made that would enable him to claim to be Israel’s best friend and stem the loss of Jewish support that his anti-Semitic supporters would otherwise generate. He will be unconcerned with Palestinian reaction and only slightly more concerned with more general Arab reaction. To compensate, the Saudis will continue to get a green light for whatever they want to do in Yemen.
Trump will announce some major new offensive against the Islamic State that won’t be much different from the air plus special ops war that the Obama administration is already conducting. Libya will be abandoned to its fate. Turkey’s President Erdogan and Egypt’s President Sisi, both aspiring autocrats, will get ample rhetorical as well as military support, though Erdogan’s conflict with the Syrian Kurds will pose a quandary if Raqqa is still under Islamic State control.
I could of course be wrong on any of these points. Trump prides himself on unpredictability and ignores incoherence. He will not yield readily to logic or facts. But he will have to satisfy at least some of his constituents that he will do what he has said he will do. The consequences could be grave.
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