Gaza violence

Violent conflict and war are appealing options for politicians, particularly in democracies and particularly before elections. The conflict tends to rally citizens against a common enemy. This effect can be seen in the high popularity ratings of George W. Bush following the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. Ehud Barak, the Israeli Defense Minister and Labor Party leader, has been rescued from a political death by the attacks on Gaza.
These politicians, however, frequently ignore the longer term issues in favor of short term political gain. (This leaves out a discussion of the morality of the Bush Doctrine of preventative war.) These issues include: who is the enemy, where is the enemy, what are the objectives, can the resources be mobilized to achieve the objectives or do the objectives need to be modified to meet the resources.
In Gaza it is not clear that any of this has been considered. Besides electoral considerations, the stated Israeli objective is to stop Hamas rocket fire into Israel. How this attack will achieve this objective given the resources that can realistically be brought to bear is unclear to me.
There are a number of possible outcomes to the Israeli military attack on Gaza. Among them are:
One: Hamas accedes to Israel’s demands and meekly accepts the occupation. (Not likely)
Two: Israel ceases military operations and withdraws, threatening to return and bomb, and the cycle of violence continues.
Three: Israel succeeds in killing the Palestinian leadership and destroying the security infrastructure and Gaza deteriorates into a Somalia like failed state dominated by criminal gangs and tribal rivalries and is a fertile ground for al Qaeda.
Four: Israel invades and physically reoccupies Gaza. (Not likely as Israel would then be responsible for 1.5 mm Palestinians.)
Five: Israel invades, and, as in Lebanon in 2006, gets its nose bloodied (Like Americans, Israelis have a high tolerance for enemy deaths and a low tolerance for their own.) and agrees to a ceasefire that stops the rocket fire and opens the border crossings. (In my opinion this could have happened without the deaths of hundreds or thousands of people.)
In my recent conversation with Hamas leader Khaled Meshal he talked about Hamas’ commitment to the resistance, resistance only within Palestine (no cross border operations) and stopping the resistance when the occupation ends. (An excerpt from his comments is here)

It is likely that his view today would be different. (An interesting article on the internal politics of Hamas is here)

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.”

Whose side is time on?

Jerusalem, Israel – I came to this part of the world with some preconceived notions about where the discussions about an agreement between Israelis and Palestinians stood. Following the Annapolis conference of a year ago, parties agreed to freeze settlements, upgrade Palestinian security capability and engage in discussions regarding a final status agreement.
In the last year Jewish settlement building has continued apace, some progress has been made on security (much more needs to be done) and discussions have been ongoing between the parties. Secretary of State Rice has been to the region eight times in the interim period and has pronounced that much progress is being made on an agreement and that she expected one before the end of the year. I had asked myself, “Does she know something that I don’t know or is she being a complete Pollyanna?” I had concluded she was a complete Pollyanna.
However, as we traveled through the region, we were told by senior political leaders in Syria, Jordan and Ramallah, including Saeb Erakat, the lead negotiator for the Palestinian authority, that “The deal is 95% done. All that remains are details and the political will to implement the deal.”
Then we talked to the technocrats responsible for the actual negotiating teams. They gave a dose of reality. Nothing is done. For the most part nothing has happened in the past year. The political leaders are making optimistic statements only to prevent complete despair from setting in.
The Israelis believe that time is on their side (which may or may not be true) and therefore are just fighting a delaying action. Time, however, is certainly not on the side of peace. Saeb Erakat said to me, “If we reach an agreement soon, Hamas is gone. If we don’t reach an agreement soon, I am gone”. How do you spell “intifada”?

Signals

Amman, Jordan: One thing that is evident in this part of the world is that there are completely unrealistic expectations for an Obama presidency. Following the election, the Cairo weekly English language paper had a banner headline, “A Dream Come True”.
The US embassy personnel have told us that they are making an effort to reduce expectations. They are explaining that US policy is not made solely by the President. Many people and organizations influence the process. Lobbying groups, corporations, advisors, the State Department and others will have a say and even if a new policy is put in place it will take time to implement it.
Nevertheless, in the wake of the wave of hope for a new US policy approach in the Middle East there has been much signaling of a willingness to engage in dialogue.
On the Iranian front, President Ahmadinajad sent is congratulations to President Elect Obama. This is the first time that has happened since the Iranian revolution. The Iranian President is under domestic criticism and pressure for his bellicose rhetoric and the poor performance of the economy and a thawing of relations with the US might help him in the upcoming elections. Obama did not respond and gave the party line on Iran’s nuclear program. The Iranians returned to criticizing Obama, but it didn’t seem to have the same passion.
For the American part a US military officer was quoted as saying “The US needs an interlocutor in Afghanistan. We need to take the views of the Iranians into account. They don’t want a radical Sunni regime in Afghanistan any more than we do.”

In our meeting with Hezbollah Foreign Affairs Director Nawef Mousawi, he responded to a suggestion that they might make a gesture that would assist President Obama in implementing a change in policy by saying “That is interesting to me. I would be open to suggestions.”
The next day this Hezbollah release appeared in the Beirut media:

Mousawi says Hezbollah is ready for dialogue with US if it is recognized and respected

Hezbollah foreign relations officer Nawaf Mousawi said the "Resistance had forced a change in the American behavior in the region."Following a meeting with a delegation from the US Council for the National Interest, headed by former ambassador Edward Peck, Mousawi said that Hezbollah looks forward to setting up relations with all people on the basis of mutual recognition and respect.On the new American policy in the region, he said, "We know that wrong policies which were adopted in the past have been reviewed.""We have shown our desire for dialogue if Hezbollah is considered a resistance movement against Israeli occupation and aggression and a Lebanese political party”. He added, “The Washington based fair minded American delegation we met with yesterday joined us in dialogue on the facts as we see them and Hezbollah is grateful for that. We welcome more dialogue and frank discussions with such Americans”.
Although it is never clear that there can be a positive outcome from dialogue, one can only hope that the US is not “tone deaf” to the signals.

Our man in Washington

Beirut, Lebanon: One of the questions that I have been asking the Lebanese that I have encountered is “What is your reaction to the election of Barak Obama as President of the United States?” People tell me that the initial reaction of most Lebanese and the thousands of American ex-pats who live and work in Lebanon was one of ecstasy.
American ambassador to Lebanon Michelle Sison told us that on Election Day they had a party for the ex-pat community at which they had two jars of buttons, one for McCain and one for Obama. At the end of the night all of the Obama buttons were gone, but they had plenty of McCain buttons left over.
As time has passed, reality has set in that not much may change in US policy toward the region. They now say “We will wait and see”.
This reality was reinforced by the Obama announcement that he would appoint Illinois Congressman Rahm Emmanual as his Chief of Staff. While the western media has focused on his partisan political stance, his abrasive personality and his colorful language, the media in the region has been more concerned with his background and history.
Emmanual is an ardent Zionist and supporter of AIPAC’s hard right views. He is the son on a Chicago doctor who was a member of the Irgun, the Zionist guerilla/terrorist organization who fought the British during the founding of Israel. Arab concerns were not assuaged when Dr. Emmanual said, when asked about the Jewish community’s view of Chief of Staff Emmanual, “He is our man in Washington”.
We asked General Michel Aoun, former Prime Minister and the leader of a Lebanese Christian party allied with Hezbollah, what he hoped for from the early days of an Obama administration. He said “stop aggression, stop interfering in Lebanon, and stop Israeli settlements”. He and we will have to wait and see.

The Road Ahead

During my upcoming trip to the Middle East, it will be interesting to hear the reaction to Barak Obama’s election victory and his assumption of the role of President Elect. Although most Middle Easterners have favored an Obama victory, they have not held out much hope that a change in US administration will result in a serious change in policy.
Predicting the policies and actions of elected politicians is always a risky venture. Campaign rhetoric is probably the least reliable vehicle for understanding the views of a politician. A politician friend of mine once said that “Promises made in the heat of the campaign are retrievable”.
I learned this the hard way when I believed George W. Bush in 2000 when he was critical of Clinton administration efforts at nation building in the Balkans by using military force and advocated for “a more humble foreign policy”.
One way to get a feel for the policies of a President is to look at the advisors and staff people that are part of his team. Presidents cannot be experts in all of the complicated issues that they will face and therefore must surround themselves with people that they trust, listen to and weigh their advice before making a decision.
In an Obama administration, if Middle East advisors are architects of the Clinton administration policies such as Martin Indyck and Dennis Ross, the policies will likely look a lot like the failed Clinton policies. If the advisors are Democratic hawks like Richard Holbrook and Kenneth Pollack, the policies will likely look a lot like Bush administration policies. In either event, not much positive will happen.
On the other hand, if senior advisors include people like Susan Rice, an articulate young black woman, (Obama people like to say “Our Dr. Rice is smarter that their Dr. Rice”.) policies may be more even handed and moderate. Ms Rice is a former Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs in the Clinton administration and thus brings a different perspective to the issues. She is more likely to relate to the plight of the oppressed and disadvantaged.
The next few weeks will be interesting. Stay tuned.

Middle East Journey

Next week my wife and I will be embarking on a political pilgrimage of the Middle East, touring Egypt, Jordan, Israel, Palestine (West Bank and Gaza Strip), Syria and Lebanon with former Ambassador Edward Peck and the Council for the National Interest Foundation.

Previous delegations have interviewed those involved in Middle East politics from across the entire political spectrum. Interviews are set up in every country with officials from U.S. embassies, UN representatives, respected government officials and opposition leaders. I expect our visit to the region to be no different.

For example, last year in Egypt one group interviewed the current Prime Minister Ahmed M. Nazif, Essam el-Erian, spokesperson for the Muslim Brotherhood in Cairo, as well as the Secretary General of the Arab League Amr Moussa. The most recent delegation in May 2008, crossed from Egypt into the Gaza Strip through the Rafah Crossing. They became the first international group to enter Gaza through Egypt since May 2007, when the international boycott of the Hamas government began. While in Gaza, the delegation met with and interviewed Ismail Haniyeh, the current Prime Minister of the Hamas-led government. Every visit to Israel includes meetings with members of the Knesset and various government officials, as well as journalists.

I will be posting in this space throughout the trip with my reactions to the opinions of political leaders as well as ordinary people.

It should be interesting to be in this part of the world right after the US elections and hear the reactions of Middle Easterners to the outcome. Since the only country where this race is even close is the US, should Senator Obama hold on to his apparent lead, Americans will probably be a lot more popular than we have been in the past few years.

Disappearing from the pages of history

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran has been regularly castigated for saying that “Israel will be wiped off the face of the map”. A better translation from the Farsi of what he said is “The Zionist regime in Jerusalem will disappear from the pages of history”.
His point was that a country that is based on religion cannot long survive. He seems to have missed the irony that he is the president of the Islamic Republic of Iran. He may, however, have a point.
It may not be a large problem in Iran which is 99% Shia Muslim, but Israel’s population, on the other hand, is 20% Arab, Christians and Muslims.
During my trips to the region, I have seen a growing sense of anger and frustration among the Israeli Arab population. This anger and frustration stems not only from the treatment of their Arab brothers and sisters in the West Bank and Gaza under the Israeli occupation, but also from the discrimination that they experience within Israel in housing, education and jobs. They are, in effect, second class citizens in their own country.
After years of festering just under the surface, the frustration boiled to the surface in the last week in the Israeli northern port city of Acre. Acre is a gritty lower middle class city of mixed Jews and Arabs who live together, sometimes in separate communities and sometimes next to each other.
On the eve of the Jewish holy day, Yom Kippur, during which many observant Jews do not drive, a young Arab drove through a Jewish neighborhood on his way home from work. A group of Jewish youth, incensed by this affront to their observance, attacked the Arab. When word of the attack spread to the Arab community, a riot ensued. Over the next four days and nights the violence resulted in the destruction of cars, the burning of tires and the arrest of a number of Jews and Arabs. The houses of two Arab residents were burned.
Israeli political leaders have expressed shock that such a thing could happen in Israel. While some on the far right have advocated expelling Arabs from Acre, most leaders have tried to restore coexistence. Feelings are running so high, however, that the Jewish leaders have refused to meet with their Arab neighbors.
All this misses the larger question. What is the role of Muslims and Christians in a state defined as a “Jewish state”? Unless a satisfactory answer is found to this question, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad may well be right. The Jewish state may disappear from the pages of history.

Engaging Iran

During last week’s Presidential debate, one of the clear differences between the candidates was their approach to Iran. Senator McCain was a forceful advocate of continuing the policy of confrontation that was the policy in place during President Bush’s first term. Senator Obama, on the other hand, advocated for a policy of engagement to help resolve the disputes between the countries.
A policy of engagement has begun to emerge during Bush’s second term as the neo-conservatives in the Defense Department and Vice President Cheney’s office have begun to lose influence. This change has manifested itself in such things as the direct participation of senior diplomat Nicholas Burns in nuclear talks with Iran and the floating of an initiative to establish a US Interest Section in Tehran.
The Interest Section is a small, but important, step as it will bring American diplomats to Iran to begin to better understand the complex dynamics of Iran and will make it easier for Iranians and Americans to get visas and encourage interaction among ordinary citizens.
This week, in an extended interview with Iranian English language paper, Iran Daily (The article is here.), Gary Sick, a member of the Security Council under President Clinton and currently Professor of International Affairs at Columbia, raised the possibility that President Bush would take advantage of the window of opportunity between the elections and the inauguration of the new president to open the Interest Section.
This time period is a “window of opportunity” for three reasons.
Number one, the elections are over (unless we are still counting ballots in Florida) and therefore campaign politics will not come into play. Doing it before the elections would give Obama a chance to say; “I told you so. Even President Bush agrees that we should engage Iran”.
Number two, Congress will most likely be out of town for the holidays. This is important because the MEK (Mujahedin e’ Khalq), the violent Iranian opposition group advocating for a hard-line policy of regime change in Iran, has the best Congressmen money can buy on their side. They would try to prevent engagement.
Number three, doing it before the new President takes office would create “facts on the ground” which would be hard for a new President to reverse even if he wanted to.
It will be interesting to see what happens.

Spinning the news

This week the United Nations International Atomic Energy Agency released its report on the “Implementation of NPT Safeguards in The Islamic Republic of Iran”. When I read about this report in the news media, I thought that there must have been two reports. The western and Israeli news media articles had headlines such as “IAEA Report: Iran blocks weapons probe”. (An example is here.) The Iranian media articles were headlined “Verifications on track”. (The article is here)
It turns out that they were both right. If one takes the time to read the actual report (If you want it, it is here.) the IAEA is talking about two different issues. With respect to Iranian nuclear enrichment activities the IAEA says such things as “All nuclear material at FEP (Fuel Enrichment Plant) … remain under Agency containment and surveillance” and all records “indicate that the plants have been operating as declared (i.e. less than 5.0% U-235 enrichment)”. (The level needed for peaceful uses of nuclear energy.)
The issue of the “weapons probe” relates to an intelligence report supplied by the US to the IAEA which alleges that Iran has a program to modify missile warheads to accommodate nuclear warheads. Iran has said that this report is a fabrication and if the IAEA will provide them with a copy of the documentation they will be able to prove that it is false. As indicated in the IAEA report the US has refused to allow that to happen.
In the run up to the invasion of Iraq the US media was criticized for taking the intelligence claims of the US government at face value and contributing to the government effort to mobilize public support for the invasion. Are we headed down the same road again?

Watch out for the elephants

Since the end of the brief war between Russia and Georgia there has been a worrying escalation in confrontation between the US and Russia.
This whole mess occurred because Georgian President Mikeil Saakashvili did not understand his role in big power geopolitics. He made the mistake of believing the public rhetoric coming from Washington and thought that he was an ally of the US. He didn’t realize that Georgia was a client state of the US and he did not understand the role of a client state.
In the client - patron relationship, the patron provides political, diplomatic and economic support to the client and in return the client is supportive of the patron’s interests in the region. However, the client has the obligation not to embarrass or put the patron in a difficult position. His ill conceived and impulsive attack on the breakaway province of South Ossetia which triggered a disproportionate response by Russia certainly put the US in an embarrassing and difficult position. The US had few if any realistic options for response and the most economically and militarily powerful nation in the world was exposed as a “paper tiger”.
Since the cease fire there have been a series of “tit for tat” verbal and military escalations. The escalations began following the refusal by Russia to immediately remove all of its troops from Georgia proper as agreed to under the ceasefire agreement negotiated by France. This led to an increase in belligerent rhetoric from Washington and the delivery of “humanitarian aid” to Georgia using US Navy warships. This generated belligerent rhetoric from Moscow and a threat about their ability to destroy the NATO ships in the Black Sea. Following the entry of US warships into the Black Sea, Venezuela has invited the Russian fleet to visit and Russia has said that it will send warships to the Caribbean before the end of the year.
These increasing confrontations between two nuclear armed powers with the risk of miscalculation are very dangerous. Rational leaders (if there are any) need to “cool it”. The little guys, (Georgia, Ukraine, and Venezuela) need to remember that when elephants start stomping around it is usually the mouse that gets squashed.

A bi-national state in Israel/Palestine

One of the recent developments in the seemingly protracted and endless conflict between Israelis and Palestinians is the movement of the concept of a bi-national state in Israel/Palestine from the realm of intellectuals, like the late Edward Said, and fringe groups, like The Association for One Democratic State in Israel/Palestine, to the political mainstream. Two years ago, when I first started to write about my view that facts on the ground had made the idea of a two state solution impossible, I felt the need to title the articles “A completely absurd idea”. (For more than you wanted to know about the issue, click here, here and here.)

At that time those of us proposing a single democratic state in Israel/Palestine were generally attacked as “anti-Semitic” and advocating a second Jewish Holocaust. Today the discussion is becoming a mainstream dialogue.

Leading Palestinian Authority negotiators Saeb Erekat and Ahmed Qurei have said that the PA is considering changing their negotiating position from insisting on a Palestinian state based on the 1967 borders and with East Jerusalem as its capital to a single democratic state for all its citizens. This was the original PLO position prior to the Oslo agreements.

An in depth article appeared this week in the NY Times (The article is here.) describing the debate going on among Palestinians about how to deal with the fact that expanding Israeli settlements, construction of bypass roads and construction of the separation barrier have made as agreement on a separate viable Palestinian state nearly impossible.

Even the Israeli media has weighed in. The chief US correspondent for the Israeli newspaper Haaretz wrote an article entitled “One state solution? Let the debate begin” (This article is here.) The major points of debate will be “Should there be a single state?” and “What will be the nature of that state?” Unfortunately most of those commenting on this article advocated for a single state for Jews only and ethnically cleansed of Arab Palestinians. Some would say that this has already started. (See this article in The Guardian: “Ethnic cleansing by stealth”.) Human rights groups will have their work cut out for them.

Russia, Georgia and the Middle East

The war between Russia and Georgia is having reverberations in Middle East geopolitics. Israel has become a major worldwide supplier of arms and security services. Georgia is an important client.

The collapse of the Georgian offensive against the Russia supported province of South Ossetia was another blow to the myth of Israeli military prestige and prowess which had already suffered from their failures during the 2006 war with Lebanese Hezbollah.

The key Israeli liaison with Georgia was Brigadier General Gal Hirsch who resigned from the IDF after being severely criticized by the Winograd Commission investigating the Lebanese war. Israel was taunted by Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah saying that it was no wonder that Georgia was defeated since they were trained by Hirsch.

It is apparent that US adversaries in the Middle East are taking advantage of Russian annoyance with Israel for supporting Georgia. Syrian President Bashir Assad is visiting Russia this week for the stated purpose of “expanding military ties”. Moscow and Damascus are reportedly preparing a number of deals involving anti-aircraft and anti-tank missiles.

Secretary of State Rice called the Israeli overreaction which resulted in destruction and killing in Lebanon and Israel “the birth pangs of the new Middle East” whereas she called the destruction and killing caused by the Russian overreaction in Georgia a “return to 1938”.

In fact the Georgia war may have been the “birth pangs” of the old Cold War Middle East: US diplomatic and military support for Israel and Russian support for the Arab states.

The Georgian Mess

I had dinner Sunday evening with a former US ambassador to Moldova who described his conversation that afternoon with a retired US ambassador to Georgia. The latter’s take on the situation in Georgia was that Mikheil Saakashvili was an aggressive Georgian nationalist who had promised in his electoral platform to restore control over the entire territory of the former Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic. Saakashvili may have felt empowered by the prospect of NATO membership and the "you are our democratic beacon in the Caucasus" rhetoric that was coming from Washington. He appears to have discounted repeated private warnings from US officials that the West would not come to Georgia’s aid in the event that Georgian actions provoked a Russian military response.

The Russians have been upset with the US over our support for an independent Kosovo and our rapid recognition of Kosovo after its declaration of independence from Russian ally Serbia. The Russians told US officials that if the principle of ethnic self-determination applies to Kosovo, the same principle applies to South Ossetia and Abkhazia. The US argued that Kosovo was “a special case that did not create a precedent,” but as the ambassador noted, there had been at that time a widespread feeling outside the US government that “you guys inside the Beltway can call this a special case, but nobody in the real world thinks that it is. This is going to be a problem.”

Despite disagreements within the Republican Party between those who wanted an aggressive approach to Russia (John McCain and his advisers being among them) and those who felt that Russia had legitimate security interests in the region, the US ambassador to Georgia and other senior US officials repeatedly told Saakashvili, "If you do something stupid, don't count on us to bail you out.” Saakashvili apparently didn't listen and did something stupid and now must face the consequences.

Incidentally, with regard to the breakaway Moldovan province of Transnistria, another focus of a “frozen conflict” in the former Soviet Union, my interlocutor said there are significant differences with the territorial disputes in Georgia. One, Moldova has no common border with Russia; Ukraine is in the way, making Russian military intervention more difficult. And two, if Russia forced Moldova to relinquish its claim on Transnistria, there is a good chance that the remainder of Moldova would opt to join Romania in the interest of securing the benefits of membership in the European Union. An extension eastward of the EU’s border would presumably not be in Russia’s perceived interest.

Dealing with tribalism

The western media has, in general, portrayed the recent spate of internecine conflict in Gaza and the West Bank as a political conflict between Fatah and Hamas. Although there is a political component to the conflict, there is also a strong tribal component. One of the things that I quickly learned in my travels in the region is that tribal loyalties trump most other considerations. In Jordan the government defers to tribal leaders to settle many legal disputes.
A few weeks ago in Gaza, following a bombing that killed 5 Hamas fighters and a little girl, the Hamas led government cracked down on the Fatah associated Hilles clan, arresting many of their members and causing others to flee to Israel. Although Hilles members are associated with Fatah, some are Hamas members and in general they act in the best interest of their tribal brothers.
Western leaders have a long history of lack of understanding of tribal loyalties and the complications that they bring to political situations.
In the US this lack of understanding manifested itself early on in relations with Native American tribes. On the Flathead Reservation in Montana, the US government put two tribes, the Salish and Kootenai, historical rivals, on the same reservation and then wondered why they didn’t get along.
The tribal loyalty component that under girds Diaspora Jews’ support for Israel has long been ignored. Judaism began as a tribal religion of place, the Israelite tribe in Palestine. God chose the Israelites as his people and he lived in Jerusalem. After the exile, Judaism lost its attachment to place (although this is returning with the effort to rebuild the Temple in Jerusalem so God will have a place to live), but retains its tribal character. Even Christian Zionists appeal to this tribal loyalty. Pastor John Hagee, founder of Christians United for Israel, said in a recent speech “Christians have a debt to Jews for providing the foundation of their religion, because God made a covenant with Israel”.
The arming of Sunni tribes in Iraq against al Quada is a risky strategy because it is not clear to me what the impact will be once al Quada and the US forces are gone and old tribal conflicts resurface. We may be arming all sides of a future civil war.
Until western policy makers exhibit a greater understanding of the influence of tribalism in the Middle East and Africa and take these complications into account, they will continue to “stumble and bumble” through these regions. Things are never as simple as they seem.

Change you can believe in?

Senator Barak Obama’s recent trip to the Middle East and Europe has been closely followed not only by the US media, but also by Arab media and the average Arab on the street. The initial optimism of Middle Easterners about the potential of an Obama presidency to bring about “change” to American Middle Eastern foreign policy and to be a catalyst for peace in the region has gradually waned as Senator Obama has bowed to the political realities of running for President and has shifted his policy accordingly.

The shift began shortly after he became the presumptive Democratic nominee when, in a speech before the pro-Israel lobbying group AIPAC, he declared that “Jerusalem will be the eternal capital of Israel and it must remain undivided”. Since Palestinians see East Jerusalem as the capital of a future Palestinian state, this position is a deal breaker and even the Bush administration has not been willing to go there. A few days later, after much criticism, his campaign “clarified” the statement by saying that he did not mean to preempt final status negotiations.

Palestinians and Arabs in general were wondering what he would say when he was in Israel/Palestine and actually saw the wall and had to talk to Israelis and Palestinians. The results only served to reinforce their belief that it doesn’t matter who is elected, nothing will change. With respect to Jerusalem he said “I continue to say Jerusalem will be the capital of Israel. I have said that before and will say it again”.

In dealing with Israeli concerns about his willingness to talk to Iran without preconditions, Haaretz reported that he told Prime Minister Olmert that he wanted to meet with Iran “to issue a clear ultimatum”. After that “any action against them would be legitimate”. This sounds as hawkish as George Bush and Dick Cheney.

Even his choice of advisors sends the message that nothing will change with respect to Middle East policy in an Obama administration. Obama said “I get my Middle East advice from Dennis Ross”. Dennis Ross was an architect of the failed policies of the Bush Sr. and Clinton administrations and is currently a counselor at the pro-Israel Washington Institute for Near East Policy. He is likely to advocate for the same old policies.

Arabs are probably right when they say “nothing will change”. As Palestinian leader Mustafa Barghouti commented, “Senator Obama seems to be in favor of change everywhere except Israel/Palestine”.