RubinReports: Obama At AIPAC: Beneath The Flattery, He Revealed His Indifference to Israel’s Needs and His Tilt Against It

Obama At AIPAC: Beneath The Flattery, He Revealed His Indifference to Israel’s Needs and His Tilt Against It

This article is published on PajamasMedia.
By Barry Rubin

I expected President Barack Obama’s AIPAC speech would be a bunch of feel-good clichés to persuade the audience that he is Israel’s best friend. Thus there would be nothing worth analyzing in it. But as I read the speech carefully I was astonished at how thoroughly Obama reveals his underlying miscomprehension, indifference, and even hostility toward Israel.

Examine this speech and you see everything wrong—far more than in his Cairo or State Department speeches on the Middle East—with Obama’s view of Israel and why he cannot be trusted on this issue.

There are some remarkable Freudian slips in his formulations and they have nothing to do with his discussion of the framework for Israel-Palestinian peace.

He spoke at great length of his support for Israel, how he wants it to be strong and secure, and the common values of the two countries. Yet if he really thinks that, why didn’t he say such things in his State Department speech on the Middle East or elsewhere?

Obama stated:

“We also know how difficult that search for security can be, especially for a small nation like Israel in a tough neighborhood….When I went to Sderot, I saw the daily struggle to survive in the eyes of an eight-year old boy who lost his leg to a Hamas rocket. And when I walked among the Hall of Names at Yad Vashem, I grasped the existential fear of Israelis when a modern dictator seeks nuclear weapons and threatens to wipe Israel off the map.”

Yet his regional policies have undermined Israel’s security:

--Without getting anything from Hamas (the group that shoots rockets at Sderot) he pressed Israel to reduce sanctions against Hamas, helped bring into power a pro-Hamas government in Egypt, and sent $400 million in U.S .taxpayer money that objectively strengthens the Hamas regime.

--By not actively opposing Hizballah and Syria taking over Lebanon, thus increasing the threat on Israel’s northern border.

--By waiting so long before he moved on Iran sanctions and by failing to support the Iranian democratic opposition.

--By acting as apologist for the Syrian terrorist-sponsoring dictatorship.

--By not keeping U.S. promises to Israel on countering Hizballah’s return to southern Lebanon and arms’

--By helping create a situation in Egypt that will definitely lead to a radical, anti-American, anti-Israel takeover and probably leading to an Islamist regime there.

--By becoming an apologist and booster of the most anti-Israel (and Islamist) Turkish government ever he has done nothing to help Israel deal with the enmity of its closest regional ally. Obama quickly capitulated to the Gaza flotilla.

--By never really criticizing or pressuring the Palestinian Authority on anything at all, even when it rejected his initiatives, broke its promises to him, or made him look foolish. Consider Vice-President Joe Biden’s temper tantrum about a Jerusalem zoning board okaying a construction project in the distant future to the administration’s basic indifference to ongoing PA incitement and the naming of things against terrorists who murdered Israelis.

That’s not a complete list.

(Incidentally, Obama doesn't even seem to grasp the existential fear of U.S. Arab allies about Iran's power or Islamist revolutions that will wipe them off the map.)

He may talk a good game on Sderot and Yad Vashem but in practice his policies have largely ignored the points he made to AIPAC.

“Because we understand the challenges Israel faces, I and my administration have made the security of Israel a priority. It’s why we’ve increased cooperation between our militaries to unprecedented levels.”

Obama is correct that U.S.-Israel military cooperation remains quite strong but his policy shows he definitely does NOT understand the challenges Israel faces.

“Today, Iran is virtually cut off from large parts of the international financial system, and we are going to keep up the pressure. So let me be absolutely clear – we remain committed to preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.”

Nice words but in fact Iran is finding a lot of loopholes; Obama is not cracking down on Russia, China, and Turkey (to name the three main countries that are helping Iran).

“As I said on Thursday, the Iranian government has shown its hypocrisy by claiming to support the rights of protesters while treating its own people with brutality. Moreover, Iran continues to support terrorism across the region, including providing weapons and funds to terrorist organizations. So we will continue to work to prevent these actions, and will stand up to groups like Hezbollah who exercise political assassination, and seek to impose their will through rockets and car bombs.”

As you already know, the Obama administration has distinguished itself by the minimum it has done regarding Iran’s repression of the democratic opposition. And how has the U.S. government stood up to Hizballah? In fact, it has most definitely NOT stood up to Hizballah.

“And I indicated on Thursday that the recent agreement between Fatah and Hamas poses an enormous obstacle to peace. No country can be expected to negotiate with a terrorist organization sworn to its destruction. We will continue to demand that Hamas accept the basic responsibilities of peace: recognizing Israel’s right to exist, rejecting violence, and adhering to all existing agreements. And we once again call on Hamas to release Gilad Shalit, who has been kept from his family for five long years.”

Once again, though, the opposite is true. Up to Obama’s recent State Department speech, the administration’s talking points were NOT to condemn the agreement but to take a wait and see approach. Even Obama’s discussion of the issue in his major speech did not attack the agreement (much less pressure the PA against doing it) but merely said that they would have to prove to Israel they were going to adhere to the Quartet conditions. Indeed, the PA and Hamas have already come up with clever ways to get around these issues.

“As I said to Prime Minister Netanyahu, I believe that the current situation in the Middle East does not allow for procrastination.”

In principle, Obama’s idea that we must do something quick to resolve the Israel-Palestinian issue because of current conditions (I’ve been hearing that exact line for 40 years) sounds nice. In practice, though, here’s what it amounts to: The Palestinians are intransigent. They should not be punished. Israel must make more concessions.

Obama doesn’t take the Hamas threat seriously, nor does he take a real tough line on incitement. The only thing he presses the PA on is that it should talk, not that it should give.

Consider this carefully:

“There is a reason why the Palestinians are pursuing their interests at the United Nations. They recognize that there is an impatience with the peace process – or the absence of one. Not just in the Arab World, but in Latin America, in Europe, and in Asia. That impatience is growing, and is already manifesting itself in capitols around the world.”

So Obama doesn’t say that the Palestinians are trying to circumvent negotiations with Israel and mutual compromise! No, their problem is that they are too eager for peace.

Ok. Here’s a quiz for you: If the Palestinians are impatient with the slow pace of progress, who is responsible for the lack of progress? If the Palestinians are so eager to make a deal, the fault must be with…Israel.

That paragraph is a Freudian slip on Obama’s part. Yet since the PA wouldn’t negotiate for two years, including almost nine months during an Israeli construction freeze, that would throw into question its eagerness.

(I recall how in 2000 we were told the same thing about Arafat being in a hurry to make a deal. Then when he refused to negotiate more and went to violence, the same people told us how foolish we were in rushing him!)

“But the march to isolate Israel internationally – and the impulse of the Palestinians to abandon negotiations – will continue to gain momentum in the absence of a credible peace process and alternative.”

Think about how this is totally in contradiction to the history we lived through. The march to isolate Israel internationally will continue no matter what Israel does, whether it is involved in talks or now. Why? Because the goal of those behind it—mainly the Western leftists and Islamists—is to destroy Israel.

Again, though, there’s a Freudian slip here. For Obama’s failure to recognize the motivation means he doesn’t understand the problem. And Obama has contributed to the delegitimization of Israel. What’s he saying here: Israel hasn’t given enough and made enough concessions to move the peace process forward and that’s the reason for growing hostility to Israel.

That means he doesn’t realize the sacrifices Israel has made for the cause of peace: withdrawing from Sinai, southern Lebanon, the Gaza Strip and much of the West Bank; losing more than 2000 people murdered by terrorism; and so on.

Israelis have drawn the precise opposite conclusion. If years of demonstrating our desire for peace, making concessions, taking risks, and empathizing with Palestinian suffering has only intensified the hostility toward us, perhaps that hostility isn’t our fault and is due to something else.

On that point, Obama is totally clueless. For him, Israel still needs to prove it wants peace. But the PA doesn’t.

One more Freudian slip. Israel isn’t doing enough to keep the Palestinians to abandon negotiations. So the fact that the PA doesn’t want to make true peace is…Israel’s fault once again.

Incidentally, can you imagine Obama talking about how Palestinian and Arab behavior might create an “impulse” of Israel “to abandon negotiations”? Of course not.

Obama can quote the Talmud but he can’t deal with the impending catastrophe in Egypt. How can he speak at AIPAC and not mention that the most important country in the Arab world is moving quickly to tear up its peace treaty with Israel, end sanctions on Hamas in the Gaza Strip, and create a massive new security problem for Israel! A fitting symbol of his total indifference about, “How difficult that search for security can be.”

On the surface, President Obama’s speech to AIPAC will reassure many about his care and commitment to Israel. Yet a careful reading of the speech shows the exact opposite.

Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center, editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal, and a featured columnist for PajamasMedia at http://pajamasmedia.com/barryrubin/. His latest books are The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley), and The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan). The website of the GLORIA Center is http://www.gloria-center.org.

RubinReports: Obama At AIPAC: Beneath The Flattery, He Revealed His Indifference to Israel’s Needs and His Tilt Against It

RubinReports: U.S. Policy: To Understand the Middle East Why Not Study The Real Middle East?

U.S. Policy: To Understand the Middle East Why Not Study The Real Middle East?

This article is published in PajamasMedia.

By Barry Rubin

A lot of people may think that I’m too tough on President Barack Obama and the New York Times. Yet every day they do something that—despite my high suspicions and low expectations—amazes me.

Consider a New York Times article, “Obama Seeks Reset in Arab World. First, the concept of “reset” was invented by the Obama Administration and has been used by it to describe the new policy about to be announced on the Middle East. One could not possibly think of an idea more unsuited to the region.

Reset implies starting over, forgetting everything that has happened before. Yet there is arguably no part of human society that is more obsessed with history than the Middle East. You have people ready to die and kill to realize a vision of society from more than twelve centuries ago, a reborn country that had been destroyed more than nineteen centuries ago, and the world’s longest-lasting continuing conflict that has been going full steam now for more than six decades. And those are only three examples.

Who thinks like this, that you can press a button and have history disappear? Americans, or at least a certain kind of American. The concept of reset is so remarkably ignorant and doomed to fail that it is shocking that the great geniuses who guide America haven’t thought of this problem. To my best knowledge not a single person has pointed out this fatal flaw though everyone in the Middle East innately understands it!

The Arab world isn’t erasing history so much as reliving it, heading back to the 1950s and 1960s, but with revolutionary Islamism replacing Arab nationalism. And that’s even worse.

Then there is this shocking quote from the same article:

"Obama has ordered staff members to study transitions in 50 to 60 countries to find precedents for those under way in Tunisia and Egypt. They have found that Egypt is analogous to South Korea, the Philippines and Chile, while a revolution in Syria might end up looking like Romania's."

I’m not a big fan of this type of political science, which never produces useful results. But leaving that aside, doesn’t anyone notice a few details? Revolutionary Islamism doesn’t really exist as a national factor in those countries. Neither does radical Arab nationalism. The three countries mentioned as being like Egypt are in fact dominated by a basic pragmatic approach, an absence of dominating ideology, a strong social flexibility.

No matter how many degrees he might have anyone who would use such a method as a guide to policymaking on a life-and-death issue is a fool. (Oops! There goes my hope of a job in the Obama Administration!)

Now, in about 400 words and taking about three minutes of your time I have explained why the current policy plans of this U.S. government are doomed. Why not instead study Egyptian history and society, the Muslim Brotherhood, and things like that?

Yet I suspect there is one more hidden factor here. The American government has this thing called the State Department and sections of the Defense Department that do this kind of thing. There are people who have been following Arab politics and ideology and the military for decades. Why not call on them for their analysis?

I think that Obama is instead turning to his clueless National Security Council staffers (the ones who wanted Husni Mubarak overthrown in 24 hours) and left-wing academics or think-tanks, and a couple of pundits (the names Zakaria and Friedman have in fact been mentioned) instead. The result is going to be something of a combination of hilariously stupid and the kind of policy that ends up setting off wars and getting tens of thousands of people killed.

But then if your advisors deny that the Muslim Brotherhood is a radical Islamist anti-American group favoring genocide against Jews—indeed argue it is sort of secular—what can one expect? If the courtiers keep calling you the smartest president in all of history how are you going to correct your errors?

Now if one could only reset Obama’s worldview….

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/12/us/politics/12prexy.html?_r=1

RubinReports: U.S. Policy: To Understand the Middle East Why Not Study The Real Middle East?

RubinReports: Obama's Middle East Speech: The Opposite of Strategy Is Catastrophe

Obama's Middle East Speech: The Opposite of Strategy Is Catastrophe

This article is published on PajamasMedia.

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By Barry Rubin

President Barack Obama’s big Middle East speech is extraordinarily important. I think that it has been largely misinterpreted and deserves a very detailed examination. Forgive me then for analyzing it at length but that’s necessary to understand both Obama’s thinking and policy.

First and foremost, this could be called Obama’s George Bush speech. The intention was to find some way to make the main priority of U.S. policy the support of democracy in the Arab world. This is precisely the theme that Obama’s supporters ridiculed when Bush did it. So Obama had to find some way to approach the issue without anyone realizing he had copied Bush. He succeeded! No one seems to have caught on yet.

One of the tricks is that he began by saying that he was opening “a new chapter in American diplomacy.” But in his main theme he wasn’t doing that at all. He said, “The United States supports a set of universal rights.” Isn’t this in a real sense the exact opposite of multiculturalism? Doesn’t it contradict everything Obama and his supporters have stood for up to now?

Bush, whatever his failings, combined a policy of supporting democracy with one of fighting revolutionary Islamism. If Obama only supports revolutionary change and goes soft on America’s enemies, his policy will promote revolutionary Islamism.

Obama claimed, “Now, already, we've done much to shift our foreign policy following a decade defined by two costly conflicts.” In other words, Bush is to be identified with the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan; Obama is to be identified with ending those wars successfully and promoting democracy.

Second, this was not a speech about Israel-Palestinian issues. On the contrary, he was trying to find a framework for pushing that question onto a backburner. Here he failed completely. Since Obama has such low credibility with Israel and its supporters, some relatively band statements blew up into such a huge crisis that some are describing it as the end of the traditional U.S.-Israel alliance.

The main problem with Obama’s speech is not what he said about Israel but what he said about developments in the Arab world.

Basically, the difficulty is that he embraced change in the Arab world with no strategic sense whatsoever and not even a gesture toward the dangers involved. Obama wanted to put himself on the side of the “Facebook kids.” It is an approach that has nothing in common with a serious approach to foreign policy.

Everything about the upheavals is good according to Obama. He has zero comprehension of the revolutionary Islamist threat. For Obama there is only al-Qaida (bad); the existing regimes (bad) and those who want freedom and democracy (good). There is no mention of the Muslim Brotherhood. There is no mention of Hizballah.

“Two leaders have stepped aside. More may follow.” Here he refers to Egypt and Tunisia. Who are the more who might follow? Obviously, Libya is implied here and also Yemen. Yet these eight words contain much of the huge flaw in Obama’s policy.

On one hand, no U.S. ally is given an exemption. There is nothing in the speech to indicate that Obama does not favor the overthrow of the governments of Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Bahrain, Oman, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Morocco, or Algeria. Have no doubt: These governments will see this speech as favoring their demise.

On the other hand, there is no special emphasis on the overthrow of America’s enemies. There is no explicit call for the overthrow of the Iranian and Syrian governments, nor of Hamas in Gaza, now keeping Hizballah out of power in Lebanon, nor the mass-murdering regime in Sudan.

It might be noble and consistent for Obama to say, “If America is to be credible, we must acknowledge that at times our friends in the region have not all reacted to the demands for consistent change- with change that's consistent with the principles that I've outlined today.” But what that means is, for example, that friends will be treated the same way as enemies.

This is one more example of the upside down, non-strategic, absent of all concept of national interest that characterizes Obama’s policy. President Obama is no foreign policy Realist.

Obama stresses that al-Qaida is faltering. True. But other Islamists are advancing. I won’t list all the examples here but there are a dozen of which Obama never seems to take notice: Muslim Brotherhood gains in Egypt; Hizballah on the verge of power in Lebanon; Hamas ruling the Gaza Strip; Turkey joining the enemy camp; Iran still going full-speed ahead toward nuclear weapons.

Iran and nuclear weapons? There are three mentions but what is one of the most important factors in the region barely registers. One of those is to say that having nuclear weapons doesn’t benefit anyone. That should be a laugh line.

As I’ve said before, a basic concept of this administration is that al-Qaida is the enemy because it attacks America. Yet the much larger strategic threat posed by revolutionary Islamism—Iran, Syria, Hamas, Hizballah, the Muslim Brotherhood, smaller groups, and with Turkish government cooperation—is not perceived as a threat.

That is a catastrophe.

Most of the speech is a celebration of the revolutionary upheavals as if they were the American civil rights’ movement (he mentions Rosa Parks) or indeed the American Revolution.

What he wants to do is an extension of his view on domestic politics: get on the side of the people, encourage rebellion, and everything will work out all right.

And here is all he says about the threat to that rosy picture:

”Not every country will follow our particular form of representative democracy, and there will be times when our short-term interests don't align perfectly with our long-term vision for the region. But we can, and we will, speak out for a set of core principles –- principles that have guided our response to the events over the past six months:”

Really? What did Obama say about 2011 that might not be said about Iran in 1978? Or before the Palestinian elections that brought Hamas to power?

After the leading candidate for the presidency of Egypt predicted an Islamist majority in parliament can the president of the United States not have that disaster on his mind? Notice how he says “short-term interests.” But why can’t countries follow a path totally opposite to a Western concept of democracy, an Islamist dictatorship?

And why can’t the results be the opposite of “align perfectly” and be totally in opposition to U.S. interests? Why can’t the results be catastrophic for U.S. long-term interests, as the revolution in Iran was?

There were gestures toward women’s rights and a sentence on Christians. But notice how these are just put in to cover the administration. The Christians of Egypt are mentioned but not those suffering far more in Iraq. The problem must be portrayed as narrow not symptomatic of a much wider intolerance and extremism.

What could Obama have easily said? Something like this:

We favor forces of stability and democracy but recognize that there are powerful forces that want to divert these revolutions into the creation of new, anti-Western dictatorships that will add more decades of suffering and bloodshed to the region. We stand with the moderates and oppose those radical forces, recognizing the dangers of the current moment. Past revolutions have shown how things can go wrong and we are aware of this possibility.

We also recognize that in countries like Iran, Syria, and Libya, and also in the Gaza Strip, that there are especially brutal dictatorships incapable of reform and dangerous to regional peace and our interests. We will oppose those governments and favor their departure from the scene.

But there is no hint that such ideas have entered Obama's mind or those of the advisors to whom he's listening.

Finally what does Obama propose as his great policy for implementing his ideas?

Answer: He’s going to send money. But in foreign policy as on domestic issues this is not a solution. Consider all the aid the United States gave to Egypt or the Palestinians. What political advances did that bring?

And all the money won’t be enough. Food prices are rising. Egypt will continue to be anarchic. A democratic state will suffer a bigger crisis than a dictatorship under such conditions.

So that’s it. Obama’s policy is to cheer the revolutionaries, boo the dictators, and send money.

That is not a strategy, it’s a formula for catastrophe and the destruction of U.S. allies and interests in the region. Moreover, when anti-American radicals--the Brotherhood, other revolutionary Islamists, radical nationalists, and far-left parties--dominate Egypt's parliamentary elections in September (an outcome that is 100 percent predictable) this Obama policy will collapse overnight.

I’ll write about the aspects dealing with Israel and the "peace process" separately.

Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center, editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal, and a featured columnist at PajamasMedia http://pajamasmedia.com/barryrubin/ His latest books are The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley), and The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan). The website of the GLORIA Center is http://www.gloria-center.org. His PajamaMedia columns are mirrored and other articles available at http://www.rubinreports.blogspot.com/.

RubinReports: Obama's Middle East Speech: The Opposite of Strategy Is Catastrophe

RubinReports: America: Once A Leader Now Brags About Being A Follower

America: Once A Leader Now Brags About Being A Follower

This article is published on PajamasMedia

By Barry Rubin

I'll bet your mother said to you at least once: "If all your friends jumped off a cliff would you do it also?"

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's statement on Libya reminded me of that kind of admonition:

"I would point out that Europe led the way in our response on Libya, and they were fully supported by the Arab League. So with respect to Libya, the United States is very willing to be part of this coalition, and we have contributed a great deal. But it was concern from Arab leaders and European leaders at the United Nations that really moved us forward with respect to Libya."

This is a very unusual U.S. government. It is eager to show that it isn't a leader. The underlying belief is that America must prove it isn't a bully so that the rest of the world will love it. What's important, however, is that in international affairs the strong are criticized but also get respect.

There is a strain in American political culture, from the founders, of not wanting to be too pushy in international affairs. At times in history this could shade off into isolationism, though that's pretty unlikely in today's world. Before the United States entered World War One, there was a slogan explaining that policy: Too proud to fight.

What the assassination of Usama bin Ladin proved is that America can get things done when it wants to do so. And also that it can act alone when necessary. It is less proof of President Barack Obama's brilliance and courage than it is of America's ability.

The question that must be foremost is whether a given action is in U.S. interests NOT whether it polishes the U.S. image. A willingness to be unpopular at times is a necessity for any country that wants to survive and prosper.

Just because the Arab League says it's ok is not a sufficient criterion for U.S. foreign policy to do something.

To be fair, I understand that this isn't precisely what Clinton is saying. I'm sure she would add that the intervention in Libya is in U.S. interests. But I still don't think that's true.

Moreover, this argument about what everyone else does becomes the rationale for not doing more about Iran or Syria. And one fears it will shape mistakes yet to come.

RubinReports: America: Once A Leader Now Brags About Being A Follower

RubinReports: The Myth of President Obama's Middle East Speech

The Myth of President Obama's Middle East Speech

This article is published in PajamasMedia.

By Barry Rubin

I don’t want to speculate about President Barack Obama’s Middle East speech. I’ll wait to hear it. But the opening line in the New York Times story about the forthcoming presentation tells us all we need to know:

“Mr. Obama will have a chance to reshape the debate on Thursday, when he delivers a major speech on the region at the State Department.”

Which debate will he reshape? The debate in the Middle East? Absolutely not.

The struggle between revolutionary Islamists, on the one hand, and everyone else will continue. Iran will still be going full speed ahead not only on developing nuclear weapons but also in subverting lots of countries. Syria will continue to shoot demonstrators. Egypt will still be headed toward a radical and perhaps even Islamist regime. Israel will go on facing a Palestinian leadership that won’t make a compromise peace. The Saudis and other Gulf Arab states will still know that the United States isn’t protecting it properly from Iran. The Turkish regime will continue its quiet Islamization of the country and developing alliance with Iran. And so on.

Perhaps Obama thinks that by making a speech he will reshape that debate. But he won’t. It’s hubris.

Either the New York Times headline writer just took the lead to make the headline or has a sense of irony in titling the article: "As Uprisings Transform Mideast, Obama Aims to Reshape the Peace Debate."


Does Obama think that liberal Arabs will be encouraged by their struggle by a few words of encouragement from the president when he has done nothing to help them in Syria and Iran? Does he think that the “Facebook kids” in Egypt who now organize violent demonstrations against Israel will love America?

Perhaps it will reshape the debate within the United States? But that’s just talking about distant problems. Most likely he hopes to reshape the debate over the competence of his policy without actually affecting the events in the region.

What needs to happen instead is that U.S. policy must be reshaped in the face of the regional realities that it persists in ignoring.

No matter what he says remember that reality.


Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center, editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal, and a featured columnist at PajamasMedia http://pajamasmedia.com/barryrubin/ His latest books are The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley), and The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan). The website of the GLORIA Center is http://www.gloria-center.org. His PajamaMedia columns are mirrored and other articles available at http://www.rubinreports.blogspot.com/.

RubinReports: The Myth of President Obama's Middle East Speech

RubinReports: The Foreign Policy Elite and Bureaucracy Starts Parting Ways with Obama

The Foreign Policy Elite and Bureaucracy Starts Parting Ways with Obama

This article is published on PajamasMedia. The full text is published here for your convenience.

By Barry Rubin

"Please release me let me go
for I don’t love you anymore
To waste our lives would be a sin
Release me and let me love again."

--"Please Release Me Let Me Go"
By Barry Rubin

Perhaps the most important policymaking development of the last month has been President Barack Obama’s increasingly visible loss of a lot of the foreign policy elite, including considerable segments of the State and Defense departments. Why this is happening is one of the most interested—and highly neglected—stories of this period.

Consider the factors involved:

--Most of the foreign policy elite is liberal and for this reason they were enthusiastic about Obama and contemptuous of his predecessor, George W. Bush. You already know a lot of this story. Obama combined several irresistible qualities for them including being apparently polished, cosmopolitan, and “smart.”

Of special importance, Bush had embarrassed them in front of the foreigners they dealt with. They were ashamed of his policies. If America was unpopular, they were unpopular. That’s why the idea that Obama would make foreigners love America again was of such huge importance for them.

But now Obama is embarrassing them because while Bush was disliked as a reckless cowboy, now Obama is seen as something just as bad: a naïve amateur.

--There is something of huge importance that few people understand in the distinction between those who focus on domestic policy and those who deal professionally with international affairs. Domestic policy elite members can be liberal or leftist to an unlimited extent. Since all of the factors are within the American system, they can believe that everything is controllable and everything is doable. They can also identify the “enemy” as political opponents within the system, meaning those who are rich, corporations, etc.

To be part of the foreign policy elite, however, is very different.

First, one must possess an element of realism. You cannot, in contrast to domestic staff or experts, merely imagine the ideal health policy according to your theories or believe that spending can be unlimited. Instead, you must deal with existing situations in which information, control of events, and resources are limited.

Idealism, at least openly expressed, is not respected. Someone who insists that solutions are painless and cheap is more likely to be sneered at than cheered at. At some point the facts smash down the door.

Second, it is much harder to cover up mistakes for very long because they are just too visible and undeniable. Consider the Egyptian revolution. One might have insisted that it was wonderful in February but not possible to do so in May. You can maintain that revolutionary Islamism is not a real threat before September 11 but it is harder to do so afterward.

Professionals have to deal with the uses of power and violence—which is why the left’s answer to a serious study of international affairs is the joke subject of “conflict resolution—of containment, credibility, and commitment.

S. Powers may sit in the White House and talk about protecting foreign civilians as the highest priority of U.S. policy but those who have to deal with such issues must ask the question: How do we decide where that applies? And they might also remember little examples of that philosophy like Somalia.

Can the foreign policy elite so easily forget the importance of maintaining allies and the fundamental principle of helping your friends and hurting your enemies? They loved Obama for stressing multilateralism—a large part of their job is building such links—but are starting to be cross with him for abandoning American leadership and sabotaging the relationships they have spent lifetimes building.

Or, to put it in a single sentence, it is far easier—and more rewarding career-wise—to be pragmatic and moderately liberal rather than starry-eyed and too far to the left. Where a domestic affairs Obama groupie may get a thrill up his leg from the president, American allies and hence large elements of the foreign policy elite gets the feeling of a noose around their necks.

Third, some specific aspects of international affairs contribute further to the need to be realistic and tough-minded. There are quite a few academics who hate America but are teaching about international affairs and various parts of the world. Yet off-campus and in the actual world a certain element of patriotism is hard to ignore. The enemies are more likely to be external, foes of America, and the priorities are supposed to relate to strategic and economic interests.

There was a British joke -that shows us the key point here: We have the agriculture ministry for the farmers, the labor ministry for the unions, and the Foreign Ministry for the foreigners. Ah, but which foreigners?

Here is where the concept of “clientitis” comes in. Professionals tend to become advocates for those they deal with. That’s why Middle East experts, for example, are generally “pro-Arab” and “anti-Israel.” These people have based their entire strategy on building alliances with more moderate Arab regimes, namely Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, the smaller emirates, and so on.

They don’t like revolutionary Islamists because they want to overthrow their friends and change the societies where they feel comfortable, aside from the threats to U.S. interests. Islamists have in the past targeted them for murder.

And so when their own government starts being nice to radical Islamists and overthrow—or abandons—their friends it makes them angry. The Saudis, for example, scream at them privately that the U.S. government has taken leave of its senses. Why is Washington dumping them in favor of Iran or Syria? Why should we pay you lobbyists, do deals with American companies, be nice to you diplomats and officers if Obama shows such disrespect for us?

Indeed, policies can make one's work harder and put one's life at risk. That's a big reason why a lot of foreign policy elite people hated Bush: their European contacts mocked America; their Muslim ones got angrier at America.

Let's say, for example, that people working in the armed forces and Department of Defense started concluding that the war in Libya made their job impossible because they can't fight three wars with the existing resources. Or that administration grandstanding to win reelection placed counterterrorism forces and intelligence-fathering at risk because it released too much information.
At that moment the member of the foreign policy elite starts rethinking his previous views of the president. People who deal with Central Europe hear complaints about Obama and Russia; those in Africa hear about this unfathomable neglect by the first “African-American” president; in Latin America they speak of Venezuela and in Asia of China.

Even in Western Europe, where Obama’s snob appeal was highest, there are now once again sneers about an inept American president who is so frustrating because he is, in his own way, another provincial American.

Of course, the military and those around it tend to be more conservative from the start. Yet much of the military and strategic foreign policy elite resented Bush’s Iraq war as either unnecessary or wrongly conducted.

Now they deal with a president who has involved them in a new, ill-defined war that literally not a single Pentagon official wants. He is unsympathetic to their culture and is now forcing them to spend as much time on sensitivity to gays as they have for life-and-death skills. The last Quadrennial Review—the Pentagon’s most important planning document—spent a lot more time on fuel efficiency and “green energy” than on terrorism. Many of them are starting to think that the war in Afghanistan is unwinnable and not worth pursuing.

Has anyone really thought through the implications of Leon Panetta being named as secretary of defense? Obama has already put in a colorless, inexperienced political hack as national security advisor (sorry to be mean but a lot of lives are at stake here). Here is the account of his hometown newspaper, the Monterey County Herald, about Panetta's background:

"Panetta served eight terms in Congress, representing the Monterey area. In Washington, D.C., he earned a reputation as a budget hawk, working on budgetary matters, environmental causes and civil rights issues. He also repeatedly voted against President Ronald Reagan's military initiatives, particularly the administration's program of aiding Contra rebels in Nicaragua.

"He led an unsuccessful effort to convince the military to keep Fort Ord open, then presided over early reuse planning for the base. He also wrote legislation creating the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary."

In other words, someone who has no real background or knowledge on defense issues; a budget-cutter (good in principle but won't endear him at the Pentagon); historically focused on environmental and civil rights issues; and no friend of the armed forces except when it comes--hypocritically--to wasting money for his own district.

Oh, that's going to work out real well!

This is only the beginning of discontent. Obama simply isn’t the inspiring leader on international affairs that they expected. And this unhappiness spills over into the media. If you want to see a prime example of this phenomenon, read Michael Gerson’s Washington Post article entitled, “Obama's serial indecision on the Middle East.”

It is devastating for anyone—and that means everyone—used to the idea that the media is in love with Obama and he can do no wrong in their eyes. Here’s a sample quotation

“It is no longer credible to blame these failures on inexperience - an argument that years of experience tends to undermine. A novice can learn from his mistakes. Obama apparently doesn't view these outcomes as mistaken.”

Once the foreign policy elite concludes a president cannot learn then they cannot enthusiastically support him. That doesn’t mean they will act politically against him. But their options are limited to: trying to mitigate the damage he’s doing, resign if they are appointees, or seek an alternative president if a better option seems available. And, of course, leak their discontent to journalists whenever possible to make it clear that the mess isn't their fault.

The honeymoon is over. Divorce proceedings are beginning.

RubinReports: The Foreign Policy Elite and Bureaucracy Starts Parting Ways with Obama

RubinReports: U.S. Middle East Policy Becomes Clinically Insane

U.S. Middle East Policy Becomes Clinically Insane

This article is published on PajamasMedia.

By Barry Rubin

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's latest pronouncements are just plain horrifying. Consider what she said in this interview:

On Egypt:

"QUESTION: Should we fear the Muslim Brotherhood?

SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, I think we don’t know enough yet to understand exactly what they’re morphing into. And I’m – I mean, for me, the jury is out. There are some Islamist elements that are coming to the surface to Egypt that I think on just the face of it are --

QUESTION: Coming out of jails, in fact.

SECRETARY CLINTON: Coming out in jails, coming out of the shadows that are inimical to a democracy, to the kind of freedom of expression, freedom of assembly, freedom of conscience that was the aspiration in Tahrir Square."

"We don't know enough...."

Really? Read any speech or interview by the leader and deputy leader of the Brotherhood, full of Jihadist rhetoric, genocidal rage against Jews, insistence on making Egypt an Islamist state, and loathing of America. What's morphing? It's just an illusion based on clever efforts to fool the dim-witted dhimmis.

Those people "coming out of jails"

They are openly holding joint meetings and demonstrations with the Muslim Brotherhood. The two are allied now. Even probable next president of Egypt Amr Moussa knows that. I know it, why doesn't she know it?

"The jury is out"

And when will the U.S. government see the danger of the Brotherhood, after it takes power and starts down the road to war with Israel and open enmity to the United States?

The jury is as much out on the Muslim Brotherhood as it is on Usama bin Laden.

2. Syria

And here's another equally horrifying interview:

"Q: At this point, [Syria] is a country where they have killed most people in the street.

"CLINTON: Well, I don't have that comparison, but what I do know is that they have an opportunity still to bring about a reform agenda. Nobody believed [Libyan leader Muammar] Qadhafi would do that. People do believe there is a possible path forward with Syria."

So the U.S. government still hopes that President Bashar al-Assad will be a reformer? I won't bother to list once again all the evidence to the contrary both in his past performance and in understanding his interests.

But here is something remarkable. Clinton mentions Qadhafi. Yet Qadhafi did "reform" his foreign policy after he was scared, following the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, that he'd be next on the list. So pressure showed successful results in Libya while the Obama Administration's appeasement of Syria failed totally--and will continue to fail totally. Pay attention and learn the lesson please.

3. Hamas

But apparently the "jury is still out" on Hamas, too. What, we don't have enough information to evaluate that group? Perhaps it is "morphing?" The Obama Administration strongly criticized Israel for withholding the transfer of tax revenue tothe Palestinian Authority. Of course, that money is only due to be handed over according to the Oslo agreement, which the PA no longer observes and Hamas opposes completely.

American officials said the administration, is, “Waiting to see what this reconciliation agreement looks like in practical terms, before we make any decisions about future assistance.”

Memo to Obama Administration: A country doesn't just watch and wait as others trash its interests. It does something. When one of your clients, who you are ceaselessly helping and to which you are giving large amounts of money, joins forces with an openly genocidal terrorist organization allied with your worst enemies, how long do you have to wait to see what's going to happen?

From Clinton's first interview:

"We are losing the war of ideas because we are not in the arena the way we were in the Cold War."

Well, if you cannot define the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas, and Syria as hostile you certainly are not in the arena. Imagine the Cold War in these terms! How long would the United States have been saying the "jury is out" on the nature of the Soviet Union? Thank goodness President Harry Truman understood the situation in 1947. By Obama Administration standards it would have taken until the mid-1960s.

But Clinton isn't that stupid. She's stuttering so much in these interviews because she has to follow the president's political line, and that is very stupid indeed. And much worse, it is very dangerous.

RubinReports: U.S. Middle East Policy Becomes Clinically Insane

RubinReports: Middle East: Much Worse Off Than a Year Ago

Middle East: Much Worse Off Than a Year Ago

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By Barry Rubin

Let’s take a deep breath, clear our heads of any ideological or partisan preconceptions, and then ask a simple question: How has the Middle East changed in the last year?

If one approaches this in a fair-minded, calm, and honest manner, the answers are quite shocking.

Let’s start with Iran. While some companies and banks have been discouraged from doing business with Iran, the sanctions or barriers to Tehran are almost the same as they were a year ago. That means that Iran has moved one year closer to obtaining nuclear weapons without serious hindrance. This is not good. No blather about conferences, plans, meetings, speeches, and efforts should conceal this fact.

The Obama Administration's effort to engage Iran failed. Then it missed repeated self-set deadlines for imposing sanctions. The engagement strategy was supposed to produce strong international support for sanctions--including from Russia and China--but that plan also failed. Now, at best, some kind of sanctions cannot be expected until the second half of the year.

What about the keystone of Iranian strategy, its alliance with Syria? Despite much Western talk about pulling Syria away from Iran—which isn’t going to happen—the relationship is closer than ever. This is not good. No blather about conferences, plans, meetings, speeches, and efforts should conceal this fact.

Lebanon? It is more in the grip of Iran, Syria, and Hizballah than a year ago. The Lebanese moderates have retreated and some have changed to a neutral position, because they know that the West will not back them up. Lebanon’s president is ready to align with the Iran-Syria access. Walid Jumblatt, the lion of the opposition, has made his peace with the Syrians, as has Said Hariri, despite the fact that Damascus was responsible for killing both their fathers. Hizballah, says the U.S. secretary of defense, has more missiles than most industrialized country though the UN promised to block these supplies back in 2006. This is not good either. No blather….

Turkey? Both the Iranian and Syrian governments have bragged that Turkey is now their ally. The Turkish regime does military maneuvers with Syria and not Israel. Turkey’s government opposes any sanctions or pressure on Iran regarding nuclear weapons. Today, Turkey is no longer a reliable ally of the United States. This is not good either. No blather….

U.S.-Israel relations? For the moment, they are on a better footing but they have gone through several crises since the Obama Administration took office for no gain whatsoever. On at least two occasions—settlement blocs and also the freeze on West Bank construction only—the administration broke previously made promises to Israel by itself or its predecessor. Moreover, a tone of distrust and hostility has set in on Washington’s side that has hardly ever existed in the entire history of Israel.

Palestinian Authority (PA): Despite extensive American efforts to prove how pro-Palestinian it is, the PA has yet to do anything for the United States, including breaking its promise not to take the lead in pushing the Goldstone Report or to hold direct negotiations with Israel. With U.S. policy unwilling to press the PA on concessions, the Obama Administration has given the PA a lot of support but obtained nothing in return. This is not good.

What about the Israel-Palestinian peace process? Well, the best hope at present is that it might return to indirect negotiations, which puts it roughly at the level of contacts prevailing back in 1991. Indeed, getting the two sides to talk—however distantly, however slowly—is going to be regarded by the Obama Administration as a huge victory meriting the opening of champagne. This is pretty pitiful.

How about U.S. relations with the relatively moderate Arab states, moderate compared to Syria that is? Despite the Cairo and Istanbul speeches of Obama, the outreach to Muslims, the hint that Islamists would be welcome to dialogue, the distancing from Israel, there is not one iota of improvement. Arab regimes will literally not do anything the United States wants. And rather than cheering Obama as a pro-Arab president they are frightened that he is a pro-radical forces or pro-Shia president, that is he favors their enemies and is weak in protecting them. This is also not good.

This brings us to the one great achievement claimed by the current U.S. government—high popularity in the Arabic-speaking world. Whatever numbers can be pulled out of polls, and they aren’t as good as many people think, any popularity Obama has is totally useless from the standpoint of U.S. interests.

Iraq? It is a relative bright spot, with the U.S. withdrawal under way. There are terrible problems with infighting in Iraq’s government, which might turn quite unstable. This is not the Obama government’s fault so much but what is worthy of blame is its cowardly refusal to back up Iraqi protests against Syria’s sponsorship of terrorism. At any rate, the calm that does exist is due in no small part to Tehran’s wanting to keep things quiet until the United States pulls out, then try to increase its own influence in the country. Not great.

Pakistan should be a big disappointment. True, the government is holding together. But despite the massive tidal wave of American aid the regime is only willing to defend itself, not exert a real effort to wipe out the Taliban and al-Qaida on the border. And of course Pakistan is shielding its own terrorist assets that have been used to commit horrendous murders in India. Not good.

Finally, Afghanistan where the president has made a public relations’-oriented decision: send in the troops in a pseudo-surge to show his apparent toughness, then pull them out to show his apparent dovishness. And with all good intentions the military and political leadership has set an impossible program of stabilizing Afghanistan and providing it with a good government. Meanwhile, bilateral relations have hit an all-time low. Not good.

Have I missed some bright spot or great achievement? I don’t think so. It’s a pitiful situation. What is the point of making this list? Not, despite what you might think, to bash Obama. The real problem is the refusal of policymakers to recognize just how bad things are and how negative has been the impact of their policy.


It is not too late to change course. But how can opinionmakers explain this to the administration when most of them don’t see how much has gone wrong? Waking up is the first step.

RubinReports: Middle East: Much Worse Off Than a Year Ago

RubinReports: Has the Obama Administration, against U.S. interests, declared diplomatic war on Israel?

Has the Obama Administration, against U.S. interests, declared diplomatic war on Israel?

As things heat up in the Middle East, with major developments daily, please be subscriber 9,740

By Barry Rubin

Has the Obama Administration, against U.S. interests, declared diplomatic war on Israel?

Up to now my view has been that the U.S. government didn’t want a crisis but merely sought to get indirect negotiations going between Israel and Palestinians in order to look good.

Even assuming this limited goal, the technique was to keep getting concessions from Israel without asking the PA to do or give anything has been foolish, but at least it was a generally rational strategy.

But now it has become reasonable to ask whether the Obama White House is running amuck on Israel, whether it is pushing friction so far out of proportion that it is starting to seem a vendetta based on hostility and ideology. And if that's true, there is little Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu or any Israeli leader can do to fix the problem.

A partial explanation of such behavior can be called, to borrow a phrase from the health law debate, a "single-payer option" as its Middle East strategy. That is, the administration seems to envision Israel paying for everything: supposedly to get the Palestinian Authority (PA) to talks, do away with any Islamist desire to carry out terrorism or revolution, keep Iraq quiet, make Afghanistan stable, and solve just about any other global problem.

What makes this U.S. tactic even more absurd is doing so at the very moment when it is coddling Syria and losing the battle for anything but the most minimal sanctions on Iran.

During his visit to Washington, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu tried to defuse the tension. His partners in government, we should never forget, are Defense Minister Ehud Barak, leader of the Labour Party, and President Shimon Peres, who has done more to promote Middle East peace than any other living Israeli leader.

But according to reliable sources, Obama went out of his way to be personally hostile, treating Netanyahu like some colonial minion who could be ordered around.

It is not entirely clear what demands the White House has made on Israel. Those most often mentioned are the release of more Palestinian prisoners, the permanent end of construction in the West Bank, and the permanent end to construction in parts of Jerusalem over the pre-1967 border.

Palestinian prisoners: It is ironic, given U.S. statements that Israel must "prove" its commitment to peace, that there have been so many prisoner releases in the past. Thus, Washington is not giving Israel credit for these. Moreover, many of those arrested have committed terrorism against Israeli civilians in the past and may well do so in future. Finally, releasing prisoners will not bring any gratitude from the PA or increased willingness to negotiate. If such a release is forced, the PA will merely assume that it doesn't matter if Palestinians attrack or kill Israelis because Washington will secure the release of those captured in future without the PA having to do anything.

West Bank and Jerusalem Construction: Only five months ago, the U.S. government agreed to a temporary halt to construction and Israel's government agreed. If this did not prove Israel's commitment to peace--and the White House broke the deal--why should Israel assume that it will get any credit for this step either? What is its incentive for such a big concession? Such construction should give the PA an incentive to make a deal faster. But, again, if this goal is achieved by U.S. pressure, why shouldn't the PA presume that all settlements will be removed in future by a similar mechanism without its having to make full peace and any concessions?

I won't take space here to restate all the arguments regarding Israel's claims to areas of Jerusalem under Jordanian rule before 1967. Note that President Clinton, in the Camp David and Clinton plan proposals in 2000, supported Israeli rule over much--though definitely not all--of east Jerusalem.
Why should the administration believe that it can press Israel to make big concessions, a: with no PA concessions; b. with its U.S. ally showing itself so unreliable that it is unlikely to credit Israel with concessions it does make or to keep agreements based on Israeli concessions; and c. at a time when the U.S. government is not workin very hard to stop Iran's nuclear weapons campaign?

The one answer the administration gives is so factually inaccurate as to call into question--if I may coin a phrase--its analytical sanity.

Judging from the evidence, such as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s AIPAC speech, the administration thinks it can force Israel's government to give in because it knows better what Israelis want than do Netanyahu, Barak, and Peres.

Actually, a poll by the highly respected Smith Research company for the Jerusalem Post, found that only 9 percent of Israeli Jews considered the administration pro-Israel, while 48 percent said it was more pro-Palestinian. To understand these figures, you have to know that most Israelis are very reluctant to say anything critical of the United States, out of genuine respect, concern not to damage relations, and speaking on the basis of their hopes.

So does the administration want to resolve this issue or to break Israel's willpower? Is it going to keep piling on demands in hope of giving the PA so much that it will agree to talk about getting itself even more unilateral Israeli concessions? Is the goal to overthrow Netanyahu—which isn’t going to happen—or turn him into a servant who will follow orders in future—which also isn’t going to happen?

Doesn’t this U.S. government understand that if it proves itself hostile that will destroy any incentive Israel has to enter negotiations with Obama as the mediator? If he's this much acting solely based on PA interests now, does any Israeli government want to make him the arbitor of the country's future, deciding on its borders, security guarantees, and other existential issues? Of course not.

By the same token, can't he comprehend that he is giving the PA every incentive to keep raising the price, especially since it doesn't want to talk any way?

Is there no real sense--probably not--that if this administration undermines Israel's trust in Washington it will push the whole country further to the right. If the U.S. government politely asks to stop building in east Jerusalem in exchange for some tangible benefit and for a limited time, lots of Israelis would be willing to agree. But if this happens in a framework of enmity and threat, with the "reward" being no benefit and even more concessions to follow, even doves will grow sharp beaks.

It seems as if the Obama Administration has chosen just one country in the world to try to pressure and intimidate. And it has picked the worst possible target in this respect, both because of how Israelis think and also given very strong domestic U.S. support for Israel (especially strong in Congress).

Won’t it see that if it bashes Israel while ignoring the PA’s commemoration of a major square in honor of a terrorist who murdered a score of Israeli civilians, with Clinton even claiming this was done by Hamas and not the PA? And as the administration betrays Israel’s main priority—failing to put serious pressure on Iran to stop building nuclear weapons—why should Israel want to do big favors and take big risks for this president?

Finally, since this administration has already unilaterally abrogated two major U.S. promises—the previous president’s recognition that settlement blocs could be absorbed by Israel as part of a peace agreement, and the Obama administration’s own pledge to let Israel build in east Jerusalem if it stopped on the West Bank—why should it put its faith in some new set of promises?

So the Obama Administration will have to decide, and do so in the coming days.

Does it want to try to get some limited concessions from Israel to use as capital in trying to get talks started, using these to brag--futilely, of course--to Arabs and Muslims how they should be nicer to the administration in Iraq and Afghanistan?

Or does it want to live up to the negative stereotypes held by its worst enemies while simultaneously committing political suicide and destroying U.S. credibility in the Middle East. We will know the answer pretty soon.

RubinReports: Has the Obama Administration, against U.S. interests, declared diplomatic war on Israel?

RubinReports: Obama Foreign Policy: One-Third of Its Term Done; Not A Hundreth of the Lesson Learned

Obama Foreign Policy: One-Third of Its Term Done; Not A Hundreth of the Lesson Learned

By Barry Rubin

Thinking about the Obama administration’s foreign policy makes me keep coming back to the following joke:

Three men are on a small plane, the pilot, a very important person (various names are used when people tell this joke), and a young hiker. The plane’s motor goes out and it is going to crash. The pilot tells the two passengers: Sorry but we only have one extra parachute.

The celebrity sneers, “I should get it because I’m the smartest person in the world.” He grabs a pack and jumps out of the plane.

“Sorry, son,” says the pilot. “We don’t have any more parachutes.”

“Oh, yes we do,” answers the teenager, “the smartest man in the world just jumped out of the plane with my backpack.”

If I were a cartoonist illustrating the joke in this case, I’d show a smug Obama jumping out of the plane with the backpack labeled, “U.S. national interests.”

This reflection is prompted today by a very predictable story—predicted by me repeatedly—that the administration is now further, and futilely, watering down projected sanctions on Iran in hope of getting Russian and Chinese support. Spring 2010 has arrived and after fifteen months higher sanctions, or indeed any credible U.S. deterrent, on Iran hasn’t.

Note that this is probably the last material effort the West will make to stop Iran from getting nuclear weapons. Even if it takes Tehran a couple of years to do so, it's unlikely--given how long and hard it is to get even some symbollic sanctions adopted--that low administration will-power and international support will lead to anything else being done.

(Incidentally, the administration was supposed to be ready for this step, according toits own statements) in September and then December 2009. That it still hasn't worked out a broadly based plan is a sign of its incompetence. And remember this was a presidency which supposedly enjoyed strong international support.)

Some are saying that sanctions wouldn't deter Iran any way, therefore implying it doesn't matter if nothing much is done at this point. There is some truth in the first part of that statement but not in the second portion. By implementing strong sanctions, an effective president would be forging an international coalition to get tougher down the road, reduce the assets available to Iran in order to slow down their project, scare large elements of the Iranian elite so they would be more cautious even when they get nuclear arms, make the Gulf Arabs more likely to resist Iranian demands and influence, along with other benefits.

That the administration seems to understand none of these points is part of the problem. Here’s a statistic that might shock you: the Obama administration is almost precisely one-third of the way through its term. If it hasn’t learned how to understand the world by now, prospects aren’t good for the remainder of its term. The best hope of improvement--that the administration itself wakes up to the problem--is just about gone.

Let’s put it bluntly: The foreign policy of the Obama Administration, especially in the Middle East, is a disaster and a future of very dangerous problems is completely foreseeable. Indeed, all of this was pretty obvious before the last Election Day.

About the only point the administration and its supporters can claim--even the Guantanamo prison is still open!--is that this administration has made the United States more popular in the world. Actually, the polls don’t reflect that assertion to an impressive degree. Even when the numbers went up, they are Obama’s personal popularity, not that of the United States. And in key countries—Turkey and Pakistan come to mind but there are many others—the changes have not been big ones.

And even then, there is the point that popularity doesn’t get you anything material, as the lack of a consensus on Iran shows. In addition, the country which stands up for its interests is always going to be less popular in many places than the one which asks for nothing and gives away too much.

In the Middle East, U.S. policy is bad for Iranians who want to be free of their oppressive regime; for Turks who don’t want to live under an increasingly Islamist government; for Arabs who don’t want to face Islamist rule, growing internal instability because of a revolutionary challenge, or to bow down to Iranian power.

It is also bad for Israel, but that is scarcely an isolated case. Even if U.S.-Israel relations were perfect every other problem would still be there.

By systematically showing weakness, by favoring enemies over friends, the administration is destroying U.S. credibility in the region. By unintentionally encouraging enemies, the government is inspiring them to strike harder and faster. By unintentionally discouraging friends, the government is signalling them to shut up, back down, and even appease the radicals.

In Iran, the lack of White House support--despite formal statements about repression there--encourages the opposition to give up. In Turkey, the rivals of the regime believe that U.S. policy is on the side of their own government. In the Arabic-speaking world, the process of avoiding trouble with Tehran and its ally Damascus because the United States is not seen as a reliable protector is well under way.

Israel will make the small, relatively costless concessions necessary to maintain normal relations in the hope that this will satisfy an administration that just wants to look good. If the White House proves vindictive beyond rational considerations, Israel will ride that out. Of course, the more the U.S. government bashes Israel, the more it convinces the other side that it doesn’t need to make any concessions for peace. Indeed, it gives them an incentive to be more intransigent, since they know that U.S. frustration at the failure to make any progress in a peace process will be taken out on Israel.

If one were to continue this survey elsewhere in the world, the situation would be parallel if less dire. Central Europeans fear Russia; Latin Americans are annoyed at perceived U.S. favoritism toward Venezuela. China is angry about various U.S. actions and worried about holding so much of the American debt. Russia is almost openly contemptuous.

Yet the pretence continues in all too many places that things are going fine.

A hope that should not be ignored is that the action of radical forces themselves will force the administration to take notice and revise its behavior. No matter what the White House thinks, it doesn’t want to look like a failure having made a big mess, suffered losses, and been defeated.

The next best hope is that a wave of public criticism and congressional complaints—which many think will be intensified by the results of next November’s election—will force the administration to be more restrained. Obama has other items on his agenda, especially domestically, that he does not want to compromise by getting Congress angry with him. The most likely beneficiary of this process would be U.S.-Israel relations but it is unlikely to help a great deal on other issues.

The problem is that such factors can stop the White House from doing mistaken things but cannot force it to take productive steps. Perhaps the best one can hope for is the lack of any big and open crisis in the world, allowing the administration to muddle through and claim that it has kept the United States out of trouble. But some very big trouble is building up, have no doubt about that.

RubinReports: Obama Foreign Policy: One-Third of Its Term Done; Not A Hundreth of the Lesson Learned

RubinReports: Russia Defies Obama Administration in Midst of Clinton's Visit; Clinton Defines U.S. Goals with Peace Process in a Way Sure to Fail

Russia Defies Obama Administration in Midst of Clinton's Visit; Clinton Defines U.S. Goals with Peace Process in a Way Sure to Fail

By Barry Rubin

Here's the headline: Secretary of State Hilary Clinton says in a BBC interview:

"I think we're going to see the resumption of the negotiation track and that means that it is paying off because that's our goal. Let's get the parties into a discussion, let's [get] the principle issues on the table and let's begin to explore ways that we can resolve the differences."

Let's consider this a moment. What happens if the Palestinian Authority (PA)--as I expect--refuses to return to indirect talks? By making such a statement, Clinton is once again setting up the administration for a fall, promising something it cannot fullfil.

She is making U.S. policy subject to PA whims, in a situation where the U.S. government refuses to pressure the PA and the PA will escalate its demands to a point which Israel can't meet and which the U.S. government can't deliver. The PA acts this way for three reasons: it wants more, it doesn't want to talk to Israel, and it seeks to deepen the U.S.-Israel conflict.

But Clinton's statement, and that of other U.S. officials, also makes clear also that the U.S. goal here is not some grand comprehensive settlement or plan but simply to get talks going so that the administration can claim a success. Yet repeatedly the administration is its own worst enemy, something it has in common with its predecessor.


Meanwhile, we can see that the world's biggest issue isn't an Israeli announcement, during a visit by Vice-President Joe Biden, that in a few years and after three more stages of government consideration it will build some apartments in Jerusalem?

Russia openly defies the Obama Administration by insisting it will finish a nuclear plant for Iran, just when Secretary of State Hilary Clinton is visiting! A real slap in the face.

China, even more angry about U.S. arms sales to Taiwan and congressional human rights criticism, continues to make clear it won't support sanctions on Iran.

Increased sanctions on Iran seem no closer today than they were on January 21, 2009, the administration's first full day in office.

Syria, emboldened by U.S. criticisms of Israel, now says it will never reach peace with this government, while Palestinian Authority officials openly encourage violence.

Everything I've been saying for more than a year is--unfortunately--coming to pass. The administration has not a single foreign policy success and American credibility is shot to Hell. Efforts to deny this situation become increasingly ridiculous. Yet there is no sign that the administration is waking up--despite Clinton's sporadic and limited efforts to get it back into reality mode.

RubinReports: Russia Defies Obama Administration in Midst of Clinton's Visit; Clinton Defines U.S. Goals with Peace Process in a Way Sure to Fail

RubinReports: Why What General Petraeus said is Wrong about the Middle East (or is it just being misinterpreted?)

Why What General Petraeus said is Wrong about the Middle East (or is it just being misinterpreted?)

By Barry Rubin

General David Petraeus is a smart guy, one of the smartest in the U.S. government at present. But he’s no Middle East expert. Let’s examine two remarks he made in his congressional testimony. Before we do, though, promise me you will read paragraph 17 because there's a very explosive point made there you won't find anywhere else. Agreed? OK, let's go.

Please note, by the way, that what he actually said is far milder than earlier leaks claimed. In addition, of course, Petraeus has to support White House policy, whatever he really thinks or knows. The Defense Department's recent Quadrennial review, also written to please the White House, contained not one mention of Iran's drive to get nuclear weapons or the threat of revolutionary Islamism. And he also has advisors who tell him the wrong stuff.

Statement One:

“A credible U.S. effort on Arab-Israeli issues that provides regional governments and populations a way to achieve a comprehensive settlement of the disputes would undercut Iran’s policy of militant ‘resistance,’ which the Iranian regime and insurgent groups have been free to exploit.”

On the surface this makes a lot of sense. But let’s examine it closely. Let’s assume there is a comprehensive settlement to which the Palestinian Authority (PA) agrees. It isn’t going to happen but this is for demonstration purposes.

In order to get an agreement, the PA would have to make some concessions, let’s keep them to the minimum for our discussion. At a minimum, it would have to say that the conflict is at an end, recognize Israel, renounce Palestinian claims to all of Israel, and agree to settle all Palestinian refugees in Palestine. In addition, it might have to make some small territorial swaps, not get every square inch of east Jerusalem, and agree to some limits on its military forces.

What would happen?

First, none of this would apply to the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip. Hamas, Hizballah, Syria, Iran, Muslim Brotherhoods, and many others would renounce this as treason. Hamas would continue to attack Israel; its forces in the West Bank would stage cross-border raids into Israel and try to seize power in the West Bank.

Would the kind of people who are now prone to support revolutionary Islamism then say: “What a fair settlement. This settles all our grievances. Thank you, America for being so wonderful!”

While to many Western observers such a reaction would seem logical this is not what would happen. The Western onlooker is assuming a pragmatic, facts-based response rather than an ideological response based on massive disinformation by governments, media, religious leaders, and political movements.

They would say, paraphrasing the words of an ancient Chinese military theorist: The enemy retreats, we advance. They are weak and fearful. The day of victory is near! They would denounce the puppet Palestinian state as a Western lackey. They would redouble their efforts to sabotage the settlement.

Moreover, it would change nothing regarding their goal of overthrowing their own governments.

What about the U.S. effort being “credible?” Credible to whom? It might be credible to the New York Times but will it be credible to al-Safir in Lebanon, to pick a newspaper at random? No matter how hard the United States tries it will not satisfy the criteria of those who profoundly mistrust America as inevitably infidel, imperialist, or both. It might be credible to an upper middle class intellectual in Cairo who has been educated in the West but will it be credible to the masses who believe in conspiracy theories?

Would people in Egypt or Jordan not support the Muslim Brotherhoods there, to give only one example, because there was a “credible” peace process? Would anyone in Iraq or Afghanistan behave differently at all, distracted by their struggle to gain or hold power and to fight communal rivals because of such a “credible” process? The idea is absurd.

And if what Petraeus says on this point is true, why aren’t the regimes—and the PA, too--doing everything in their power day and night to bring about such a settlement? Why do they just keep repeating: You owe us, it’s all your fault. Solve the problem?

Why didn’t, say, Israel’s withdrawal from the Gaza Strip trigger a rush by Arab regimes to help establish and maintain a stable, moderate regime there?

PARAGRAPH 17
BUT WAIT! There's something remarkable here. Why should we assume--as most people remarking on the testimony have--that a "credible" effort means pressuring Israel for concessions? Actually, if there's going to be a credible effort it requires pressuring the PA, which has been the main force opposing a serious peace process. Remember it was the PA who wrecked the peace process in 2000, and it was the PA which refused to negotiate for 14 months. Maybe there is no credible process because the current U.S. government has never once publicly criticized the PA! So, how about this: In order to have a credible effort, the U.S. government must tell the PA to stop incitement to murder Israelis, to start preparing their people for a two-state solution, to agree to compromises of its own. That's the most important step to having a credible effort. Petreus never said that it is Israel which is blocking such an effort. And it isn't Israel. Of course, Petraeus never said it was Israel's fault. Perhaps he knows that. After all, if Israel doesn't build one more apartment in east Jerusalem--something the PLO agreed it could do in 1993 as part of the framework for negotiations, something the U.S. government accepted last November--nothing would change.

Here’s Petraeus’s second statement:

“Additionally, progress on the Israel-Syria peace track could disrupt Iran’s lines of support to Hamas and Hizballah.”

Why would this be so? What does Hamas care about the Israel-Syria track? Why should Iran give less support to Hizballah as a result? After all, Hizballah is trying to take over Lebanon, not the Golan Heights.

Presumably, the subtext here is that Syria would be so happy to be making progress that it would subvert Iran’s relationship to Hamas and Hizballah. But why should Damascus undercut its relationship with Tehran just to have talks with Israel? Shouldn’t we remember the 1991-2000 period when there was “progress on the Israel-Syria peace track” and yet it had no effect on Syria’s relationship with Iran or the two Islamist revolutionary movements?

The truth is that Syria knows it can give support to these groups and hold negotiations with Israel. True, Syria would not foment an attack by Hizballah on Israel that would set off a war (which it did foment in 2006) but it isn’t doing that any way. Hizballah is busy trying to take over Lebanon. The best guarantee that Hizballah won’t attack Israel at least for a while is the drubbing it received at Israel’s hands in 2006, even though Hizballah will never admit that.

Let’s suppose there would be intensive Israel-Syria talks. Would that reduce by one dollar or by one gun the support Iran is giving to Hamas and Hizballah? Of course not.

Of course, to be fair to Petraeus, he only said “could” disrupt not would disrupt.

Oh and another "Paragraph 17":

Might not progress on the Israel-Syria track require a tougher U.S. stand on Syria so that Damascus would understand that it cannot back Hizballah (disrupting Lebanon) and Hamas (helping to make any Israel-Palestinian peace process impossible) while still getting U.S. concessions. How about, U.S. to Syria: If you ever want to get the Golan Heights back you better change your policy!

So perhaps Petraeus could be interpreted in a totally different way.

Yet the telling thing about the kind of points made by Petraeus--at least as they are generally interpreted--is that they are ridiculously easy to puncture. I wonder if he knows that also.

Like so much said about the Middle East, the two statements analyzed above--at least as they are generally interpreted (yes, the repetition is on purpose) might make sense to someone who wandered off the street into the middle of the movie and who hadn’t seen the first hour. Moreover, if there is close to a monopoly in the universities and mass media, where contrary arguments like those made above virtually never appear, it is even easier to reach such conclusions.

RubinReports: Why What General Petraeus said is Wrong about the Middle East (or is it just being misinterpreted?)

RubinReports: Explaining the U.S.-Israel Crisis

Explaining the U.S.-Israel Crisis

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By Barry Rubin

It is important to understand that the current controversy over construction in east Jerusalem is neither a public relations’ problem nor a bilateral policy dispute. It arises because of things having nothing directly to do with this specific point.

What are the real issues involved:

1. The U.S. and most European governments are determined not to criticize the Palestinian Authority’s (PA) sabotage of the peace process. The facts are clear: The PA rejects negotiations for fourteen months. No reaction. The PA makes President Barack Obama look foolish by destroying his September 2009 initiative saying there would be talks within two months. The PA broke its promise to Obama not to sponsor the Goldstone report. In the end, the PA still won’t talk directly. Yet during fourteen months in office the Obama administration has not criticized the PA once. The point is clear: The U.S. government will never criticize the PA no matter what it does. (We’ll talk about why this is so in a moment.)

2. Same thing regarding Syria. Dictator Bashar al-Assad supports terrorists who kill the United States in Iraq; kills Lebanese politicians; openly laughs at U.S. policy; and invites Iran’s president immediately after a major U.S. concession. Yet the Obama Administration makes no criticism and in fact offers more concessions.

3. The United States will criticize Iran but will not take a tough and vigorous stand against it. Now it is mid-March and no higher sanctions. Indeed, the administration’s sanctions’ campaign is falling apart.

4. On whom can the Administration’s failures be blamed? Answer: Israel. Since it is a friend of the United States and to some degree dependent on it, no matter what the Obama Administration does to Israel that country has no wish or way to retaliate. It is safe to beat up on Israel.

5. By doing so, the Administration gets Europeans to go alone easily and can say to Arabs and Muslims: See we are tough on Israel so you should be nice to us.

6. What does the U.S. government want? A lot of things. An easier withdrawal from Iraq; popularity; quiet; nobody attacking it verbally or materially (at least not so its constituents will hear the attacks); an ability to claim success or at least claim it would have been successful on the peace process if not for Israel; supposedly, Arab support for its doing something on Iran; hopefully, less terrorism; and so on.

7. There is also an ideological aspect given the Administration’s general worldview, which need not be repeated here at length. But large elements in the government apparently have so accepted the manifestly untrue idea that everything in the region is linked to the Arab-Israeli conflict that high-level officials have reportedly remarked that the construction of apartments in east Jerusalem jeopardize the lives of American soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan or that Arab states won't cooperate with the United States because of the U.S.-Israel relationship.

The argument that U.S.-Arab relations rests on U.S.-Israel relations has been repeated for a half-century and repeatedly proven wrong. American attempts to resolve the conflict have rarely received help from the Arab world, and often been bitterly opposed. At the same time, Arab states have repetedly functioned on the basis of their own interests to seek U.S. help because they recognized American power: to convoy tankers and deter Iran during the Iran-Iraq war, to reverse Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, to protect them from Iran and revolutionary Islamists today, and in dozens of other cases. They may say that everything depends on Israel but that is propaganda.

By the same token, if the Arab world--that is the relative moderates--isn't being helpful to the United States now, this is due to the fact that such action is often against the interests of states and precisely because they do not view America as a strong and reliable power today. That is the result of Administration policies.

No matter what the Administration does to Israel, these things won't change. In short, the Administration is falling for the oldest trick, the most venerable con-game, in the Middle East book: Move away from Israel, pressure Israel, solve the conflict, and all the Arab governments will love America and do what it wants them to do.

What makes this even more ridiculous is that now the United States is focusing on Iran and Afghanistan, places where Israel-Palestinian issues clearly have zero effect on events. Sunni and Shia Iraqis aren't in conflict because of Israel; Sunni insurgents aren't attacking American troops because of Israel. Al-Qaida and the Taliban aren't fighting to seize power in Afghanistan and Pakistan because of Israel. And al-Qaida isn't seeking to overturn all Arab regimes, create an Islamist government, and destroy any Western role in the Middle East because of Israel.

And even if the Israel issue may be one factor affecting the attitudes of Arabs toward revolutionary Islamism it is only a single factor among many. The people prone to supporting revolutionary Islamism won't interpret an American conflict with Israel as showing the goodness of Obama but the weakness of Obama and the coming triumph of Iran in the region.

8. The handling of this issue is also counterproductive because it ensures Israel-Palestinian talks won't get going again. After all, if the United States is so angry at Israel why should the PA and Arab states defuse the crisis? They will raise their demands because they win either way: If the United States forces Israel to make more concessions then they get something for nothing. But if Israel doesn't make those concessions then it gets blamed for the impasse and the Arab side profits from reduced U.S. support for Israel. As for the radical forces--Iran, Syria, Hamas, and Hizballah--they aren't going to become pro-American or support a real peace process no matter what happens.

Consequently, just as with the original demand for a freeze on construction, the Administration has once gain shot itself in the foot. The chances for even indirect talks in 2010 has gone to virtually zero as a result. Israel didn't do it; the U.S. government did. Ironically, the United States will end up losing more from this than Israel because nothing much is going to be altered regarding Israel-Palestinian issues but a great deal is changing in the larger regional situation.

Why is this all not more worrisome for Israel? This is so for several reasons. First, the Administration is not going to do much or anything against Israel in material terms. It is not a tough government and doesn’t want confrontations. Its goal is not to injure Israel but to make itself look good. Moreover, it knows that pushing harder won’t bring any reward since Israel won’t yield and the peace process is going nowhere.

Second, Israel is protected by a very strongly favorable American public opinion and by Congress. At this point, Congress is no longer cowed by Obama. Indeed, the Democrats are angry with him for endangering their survival by the unpopular actions he is pressing on them. They know that the November elections look very bad for them. Taking on Israel will make things even worse. And they also have a better understanding of the radical forces in the region and the threat they pose. In other words, they are not so far left as is the White House. After the November elections, the Administration will be on even weaker political ground, especially vis-à-vis Israel.

Third, the Obama Administration’s strategy won’t work. The radicals will become more aggressive; the more moderate Arabs know that the Administration won’t credibly defend them. Sensing blood (albeit mistakenly) the PA will raise its demands higher. The PA could only exploit the opportunity if it demanded final status talks—something it would never do—and try to get the best possible peace agreement with U.S. support. But since they won’t deliver for the Administration, they won’t collect much from it.

Eventually, the extremism of Iran, Syria, the Iraqi insurgents, Hamas, Hizballah, Libya, and to a lesser degree the PA will force a shift in U.S. strategy. Either the Obama Administration will adjust accordingly—at least partly—or will not survive its own electoral test. (This is not to underrate economic factors, which remain the highest priority for Americans, but it is unlikely that these will “save” the Administration, quite the contrary. A continuing economic mess plus foreign policy disasters would make its situation worse.)

This current crisis will blow over when the Administration grows tired of it and has wrung all the benefits it can from the issue, and not before.

Optional notes: This is not to underrate the importance of the bad timing by an Israeli ministry, letting the PA pretend that Israel wrecked a negotiating opportunity. The one thing a politician can never forgive is someone else making him look bad. Unfortunately, this Administration is only concerned about friends making it look bad, letting enemies get away with it repeatedly.

But a more serious U.S. government would not have let that game happen and would have been more even-handed in attributing blame. Such a government would have seized on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s apology, asked that the building be postponed, and pushed the two sides together to talk. Instead, the Obama Administration just accepted the PA walk out as if it were powerless to do anything.

I have been informed that on a number of occasions that my criticisms of the Obama Administration have led to my being denied certain opportunities regarding projects and writing venues. I can only repeat that my criticism is a response to the government’s policies. I’d be far happier if they had a better policy and more competent implementation so that it would be possible to praise the government of the United States rather than have to criticize it.

RubinReports: Explaining the U.S.-Israel Crisis