Lowering Expectations II

On the day after Christmas, the imprisoned residents of Gaza were greeted with the sounds of bombs and rockets falling on Gaza City as Israel began a major attack on this small, heavily populated area which, thus far, has killed close to 300 people. The attack had been widely expected since the end of a six month ceasefire between Israel and the Hamas controlled territory.
It was almost inevitable that the Israelis were going to feel the need to attack Gaza. Sooner or later one of the widely inaccurate rockets fired from Gaza was going to hit a school or synagogue causing significant casualties which would require the Israelis to respond. This attack, however, was more the result of the upcoming Israeli elections and Israeli politics than anything else. As the Israeli political spectrum has moved further to the right, the Labor party of Defense Minister Ehud Barak and the Kadima party of Ehud Olmert and Tzipi Livni have found themselves outflanked by the growing strength of the rightist Likud party. They have felt the need to show how tough they are, first with rhetoric and then with action.
The devastating attack is a disaster not only for Gaza, but also for the region and the peace process which was already on life support. Everybody’s finger is on the trigger and slightest miscalculation could result in a regional conflict. The authoritarian governments of US allies Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Jordan are under pressure from Islamist opposition groups to respond more aggressively. The large anti US/Israel demonstrations, currently peaceful, could turn violent, destabilizing these regimes. Once again the Christmas message of “peace on earth, good will toward men” will be put away with the Christmas decorations.
The only one to benefit from this mess may be President Elect Obama. He has been burdened with high expectations that he would take the ongoing negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority and help move them forward toward some sort of agreement. Hamas and other Islamist groups will be strengthened by the conflict and in no mood to negotiate. The high expectations for peace and stability are now gone. Obama will now have plenty of time to deal with the other messes that he has inherited. In the Middle East he will become a fire fighter.

Changing Landscape

One of the trends that became apparent during my recent visit to the Middle East was the changing political landscape. During discussions with Hezbollah and Hamas, two groups isolated by the western powers as terrorist organizations, the words that I heard most frequently were respect, dialogue and the need to solve the Israeli/Palestinian situation in order to have peace and stability in the region.

What I saw in Hamas and Hezbollah spokesmen were reasonable people who, although they remain committed to resistance to the occupation, were open and desirous of dialogue on the basis of mutual respect to solve the regions problems. They certainly did not come across to me as the fanatical terrorists that are portrayed in the west. One of the Hezbollah spokesmen that I talked to was married to an American woman who insisted that her first child be born in NYC. His daughter, therefore, is an American citizen.

Hesham Youssef, the Chief of Staff of the Arab League, talked about their efforts to bring Hamas and Hezbollah to the mainstream.


At the time that Arab politics is moving towards moderation, Israeli politics is moving sharply to the right. It appears that Likud, the hard right Israeli party, will win the February elections and Bibi Netanyahu will be asked to form a government. He is being pulled further to the right by members of his own party such as Moshe Feiglin (His manifesto is here) and other right wing parties such as Yisreal Beiteinu whose leader Avigdor Lieberman advocates expelling Israeli Arabs to the West Bank. Even Kadima leader Tzipi Livni, who portrays herself as a moderate, has advocated transferring Israeli Arabs to the Palestinian territories. (Her comments are here)

I met with Ephraim Sneh, former general and Labor party member of the Knesset, who has formed his own party, Strong Israel, which he describes as center-left. His comments left members of our group in shock.



This is not a recipe for peace and stability.

Balloon Festival

Impatience on the part of commentators to put the Bush administration and its policies behind us and to get on with “change you can believe in” has led them to bemoan the long transition period between elections in early November and inauguration in late January. They have pointed out that the extended power vacuum with a lame duck President and an incoming President Elect with no power but promising changed policies is dangerous. This, they say, is particularly true in a time of global conflict and economic crisis.

The transition period is, however, an opportunity, not only to assemble the new team, but also to float policy trial balloons in order to ascertain public and government reaction. The Obama team has made good use of the transition period for this purpose. They have floated trial policy options on healthcare, climate change and the economic crisis.

This week they have launched balloons with respect to the Middle East. Obama discussed an Iran policy that included economic carrots and potential increases in sanctions. This balloon was greeted in the region with yawns and comments of “so what’s new”.

A more interesting balloon was the suggestion that the US might negotiate a formal nuclear umbrella agreement with Israel to provide deterrence against a nuclear attack on Israel. This was first mentioned by Hilary Clinton during the primary race, but in the context of a threat to “obliterate Iran”.

The idea was greeted in Israel with uniform opposition. Their rational was that this would indicate that the US accepts a nuclear armed Iran and it would not give Israel complete control over their nuclear response options. They could, however, have another problem with this suggestion. It may indicate that the US might sign on to the concept of a Middle East free of weapons of mass destruction.

The potential usefulness of this concept can be seen in the negotiations that are currently going on in the Organization for Prohibition of Chemical Weapons. (OPCW) The OPCW is the only arena where the US is currently engaged in direct negotiations with the Islamic Republic of Iran.
One of the objections that Iran has expressed to eliminating chemical weapons is that the “chemical and nuclear weapons” of the “Zionist regime” is the “most dangerous threat to regional and international peace.” Egypt and Syria, who along with Israel are not signatories to the current Chemical Weapons Convention, have said that they cannot join until the Middle East is free of WMD.

Iran has, in the past, indicated that they are open to any US proposal for a WMD free Middle East. This scares the h___ out if Israel. Former Israeli MK Ephraim Sneh told me “no way, no way” would Israel agree to this.

Trail balloons are generally hot air balloons and float with the political winds. We will have to wait and see which way the wind blows this one.

Lessons learned

It has been interesting to observe the US government reaction to the terrorist attacks in Mumbai and the apparent counsel that they have given to the Indian government concerning their reaction to these attacks. The US appears to have learned some lessons from its own reaction to the 9/11 attacks.
As one considers how to react to attacks such as these there are several points worth remembering. Despite the fact that attacks like these are terrible tragedies for those killed and wounded and their families and friends, they are not existential threats to either the US or India. In terms of a threat to the existence of major powers like the US or India, they are better classified as a nuisance.
It is also important to ask not only who perpetrated the attacks, but why they did it and what did they intend to accomplish. “They hate us for our values” is not a particularly useful answer.
In the case of the 9/11 attacks, Al Qua’da was very up front about its goals and objectives; it published them on all of its web sites.
Osama bin Laden had learned some lessons from his experience as an American ally in the Afghanistan war against the USSR, the “godless Communists”. If one can lure them into an un-winnable war in Afghanistan, one can bleed them until they collapse. A major attack on the “godless Americans” would lure them into un-winnable war in Afghanistan. In the case of 9/11, he got a “two for”. He lured us into Iraq as well and came close to getting us into Iran.
Although he didn’t succeed in bleeding the US to collapse, he certainly inflicted a lot of pain, emotional, physical and economic.
In Mumbai, we seem to be asking not only who did it, but why. The answers to these questions are not yet clear, but we seem to be counseling a measured response and seem to be determined to insure that we don’t play into the hands of the terrorists.
One can only hope that the incoming Obama administration will not have to relearn these lessons in the “school of hard knocks”.

Lowering expectations

One of the issues that President Elect Obama will have to deal with in the Middle East is that of high expectations. Except in Israel, the election of a black man with the middle name Hussein, with a background that included Kenya and Indonesia to the most powerful office in the world has been greeted with great happiness and high hopes for significant changes to American policy in the region. In Syria the headlines blared “Abu Hussein wins” and a countdown to the end of the Bush administration began on the front pages. In Egypt we were told by a member of the Egyptian Institute on Foreign Policy “Obama is a rock star”.
Political leaders certainly recognize that there are limitations on the ability of any President to make changes to American foreign policy. He does not operate in a vacuum. Advisors, Congress, lobbying groups and corporations will all have input. He will face many competing priorities, a crisis in the American and worldwide economies, unpopular and messy wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, reform of the healthcare system, etc. The Chief of Staff of the Arab League told us that “Our biggest challenge is to lower expectations.”
Obama has helped to lower expectations with some of his early appointments. The appointment of ardent Zionist Rahm Emmanuel as Chief of Staff was greeted with uniform disappointment and comments of “more of the same”. A shepherd in the South Hebron hills on the West Bank, who lives with his extended family in tents after having been evicted several times from his land by Jewish settlers and the IDF, when asked about his expectations for change said, “Not great. He has surrounded himself with Zionist Jews”. (How he even knew that, much less its implications, was not clear to anyone.)
The news that Hilary Clinton would be Secretary of State was greeted with a rolling of eyes and shaking of heads.
Despite these disappointments, the news is not all bad. (One has to be a perpetual optimist in this region.) Although the Bush policies have been a complete disaster for the region, he has managed to leave the incoming Obama administration in a better position than he inherited from the Clinton administration. Bush inherited a 2nd Intifada and failed Israeli/Palestinian talks at Camp David and Taba whereas the Obama administration inherits ongoing Israel-Palestinian talks (albeit with no results) and a fragile cease fire in Gaza.
All is not bad on the appointments front. Hilary Clinton is a very bright person who certainly understands the failures of her husband’s policies. National Security Advisor designate General Jim Jones has been engaged as an envoy in the region and certainly understands what is happening, what is not and why.
Whether they will be willing and able to translate this knowledge into policies that better reflect US national interest is uncertain. The mantra of many in the Middle East is probably applicable. “We are hopeful, but we will have to wait and see.”