Bad Options on Iran.

 

by Michael Rubin

An Israeli strike won't suffice.

 

On October 1, President Barack Obama ascended the podium in the Diplomatic Reception Room at the White House and declared negotiations with Iran a tentative success. "The P5-plus-1 is united, and we have an international community that has reaffirmed its commitment to non-proliferation and disarmament. That's why the Iranian government heard a clear and unified message from the international community in Geneva: Iran must demonstrate through concrete steps that it will live up to its responsibilities with regard to its nuclear program. In pursuit of that goal, today's meeting was a constructive beginning," Obama said, adding, "but it must be followed by constructive action by the Iranian government."

Where Obama sees tentative success, reality suggests failure. Faced with irrefutable evidence, Tehran acknowledged that it had built a second, covert nuclear-enrichment plant, squirreled away in an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps base near Qom. Neither Obama nor the director of national intelligence, Dennis C. Blair, acknowledged that Iranian confirmation of its second enrichment plant belied the veracity of the 2007 National Intelligence Estimate. Regardless, Tehran's decision to confess when confronted with proof of cheating should not be considered the same as Iranian transparency and goodwill. Many scientists within the International Atomic Energy Agency believe that the Iranian regime now has "sufficient information to be able to design and produce a workable" nuclear bomb.

Obama's supporters have rallied to put the best face on the P5+1 dialogue. "Obama . . . got more concessions from Iran in 7½ hours than the former administration got in 8 years of saber-rattling," Juan Cole, president of the one-man Global Americana Institute, wrote on his blog. Former Carter administration adviser (and October Surprise conspiracy theorist) Gary Sick was likewise effusive, calling the meeting a "historic moment after thirty years of mutual recriminations and hyperbole." The truth, however, is that any agreement was short of specifics. Iran pledged to allow inspections, but offered no specifics as to when and under what conditions. While Iranian authorities pledged to ship uranium to Russia for further enrichment, the West has no guarantee that Iranian scientists will not simply enrich the fuel further when it is repatriated to Iran.

Not surprisingly, the Iranian regime has been defiant in recent days. Ahmadinejad called Obama's criticism of Iran's second enrichment plant a "historic mistake," hardly a sign that the Iranian regime feels sincere about complying with international demands. Jomhouri-ye Eslami, a daily closely associated with the Islamic Republic's intelligence apparatus, editorialized, "The announcement of the enrichment facilities forced the West into a defensive position," and Kayhan, which voices the line of the "supreme leader," wrote, "The announcement of the enrichment facilities will be Iran's winning card in October negotiations."

The Obama administration may convince itself that it remains in control of the diplomatic process and has placed serious constraints upon any Iranian breakout capability, but countries with more at stake know better. Last month's Iranian test of ballistic missiles capable of hitting Saudi Arabia and Israel underscored both the danger and questions about Iranian sincerity.

 

Threat Perception

Different threat perceptions muddy the international approach to the Iranian nuclear challenge. For the European Union, the Iranian nuclear challenge revolves around the viability of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty as well as the efficacy of European foreign policy on the international stage. After all, the Islamic Republic's proliferation activities marked the first international crisis in which the European Union consciously sought to lead. Should Iran go nuclear despite years of critical engagement, it would be a blow to the multilateralism-and-incentives approach favored by European foreign ministries.

For President Obama and most of the American foreign-policy apparatus, a nuclear-weapons-capable Islamic Republic would be strategically untenable. A nuclear Iran would embolden Tehran to act out conventionally and by proxy, hiding behind its own nuclear deterrence. Growing Iranian prestige and ability to project power would force other regional states to make accommodations with Tehran that might not be in the U.S. national-security interest. Any additional nuclear power in the Middle East would also unleash a cascade of proliferation: If Iran went nuclear, Saudi Arabia and Turkey would need to develop their own capabilities. If Saudi Arabia and Turkey went nuclear, Egypt and Greece would as well. A nuclear Egypt would lead Libya to reconsider its decision to abandon the bomb, which in turn might lead Algeria to reconsider its own position. In short, a nuclear Islamic Republic would be a game-changer that would complicate U.S. interests in the region for decades to come. That said, Washington need not fear that an Iranian leadership with a handful of nuclear weapons would cause the U.S.'s demise.

Israel, however, cannot be so certain. The Jewish state's destruction is at the center of Islamic Republic foreign policy. Whereas pundits like Cole dismiss Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's 2005 declaration that "Israel must be wiped off the map," (the state-controlled press actually used the phrase in its official translation), the fact remains that various Iranian officials have subsequently repeated the call, often in equally coarse language (.pdf): an inconvenient fact that Cole ignores. While Iranian diplomats promise that the Islamic Republic has no intention to build, let alone use, a nuclear weapon, senior Iranian clerics have suggested otherwise. On December 14, 2001, former president Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani famously declared, "The use of an atomic bomb against Israel would totally destroy Israel, while the same against the Islamic world would only cause damage. Such a scenario is not inconceivable." On February 14, 2005, Ayatollah Mohammad Baqer Kharrazi, secretary general of Iranian Hezbollah, said, "We are able to produce atomic bombs and we will do that. We shouldn't be afraid of anyone. The U.S. is not more than a barking dog." Just over three months later, Hojjat ol-Islam Gholam Reza Hasani, the supreme leader's personal representative to the province of West Azerbaijan, declared possession of nuclear weapons to be one of Iran's top goals. "An atom bomb . . . must be produced as well," he said. "That is because the Qur'an has told Muslims to 'get strong and amass all the forces at your disposal to be strong.'" That Hasani is unpopular among many Iranians is irrelevant: As a confidant of the supreme leader, he provides a window into his thinking.

Many in Europe and the U.S. argue that Israel's fear of a nuclear Iran is paranoid. The Islamic Republic knows that any nuclear strike against Israel would result in massive retaliation. Because the Iranian regime is not suicidal, they say, it would never risk a first strike. This summer's unrest, however, raises another possibility, one that Israeli policymakers understand too well. Should public protest spin out of control with regime collapse inevitable, the supreme leader or the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps hierarchy might decide to launch a strike on Israel — fulfilling an ideological goal, in the knowledge that the chance of international retaliation would be slim with the Islamic Republic already having become an artifact of history.

It is for these reasons that Israeli officials across their political spectrum — from Meretz and Labor on the left to Likud and Yisrael Beiteinu on the right — consider a nuclear-weapons-capable Islamic Republic of Iran an existential threat.

 

What Can Israel Do?

On June 7, 1981, the Israeli air force destroyed Iraq's nuclear reactor at Osirak in a surprise attack. The mission was successful, but the secret deliberations ahead of the strike had been heated. Then, as now, analysts argued that a military attack would only delay the adversary's nuclear program, not end it. However, for a confluence of reasons — the Iran-Iraq War and Operation Desert Storm, sanctions, and perhaps IAEA's inspections — the Iraqi regime was never able to constitute its full nuclear program. The delay inflicted by the Israelis outlasted the Iraqi regime and, despite international outrage, most historians and analysts today acknowledge that the attack was the right decision.

Not surprisingly, therefore, the Osirak strike is often voiced as the model should Israel decide to launch a similar attack on Iran's nuclear program. The two situations, however, are not analogous. Iran is further away from Israel, and almost four times the size of Iraq. Iraq's nuclear program was concentrated in Osirak, and the nuclear reactor itself above ground and vulnerable. Iran's nuclear sites, by contrast, are scattered across the country, heavily fortified, and sometimes buried below mountains. Israeli planes would need to fly more than a thousand miles across hostile lands and require refueling only to reach Iran. Even if Israeli bombers penetrated Iran with surprise, they would need to fly several hundred miles over Iranian territory after dropping their payloads. This might require additional targeting of the Islamic Republic's air-defense and communications infrastructure. To destroy just the physical aspects of the Islamic Republic's nuclear program would require at least 1,400 sorties, the sheer scope of which Israel is incapable of executing by itself.

To cripple Iran's nuclear program, however, would require less. Israeli officials need not destroy the entire program, but only certain components — such as the centrifuge cascades — in order to delay the program by one, two, or three years. Furthermore, Israeli fighters do not have to destroy a facility to render it useless. The Islamic Republic may feel its facilities invulnerable if buried under mountains, but the Israeli military must only destroy the entrances to such facilities, entombing the scientists and engineers inside, to meet their objectives. Such a strike would not be ideal: Iran's retaliation, whether direct or by proxy, would be ferocious. What too many American pundits and analysts do not understand, however, is that if Israel feels itself facing an existential threat, then, by definition, it has no choice but to at least try to eliminate that threat.

 

Should Israel Strike?

That the Israeli military could force a delay in Iran's nuclear program is without doubt. Whether they should try, however, is another question. Put aside traditional discussion of retaliation. Hezbollah would strike. Oil would spike and terrorism would again become epidemic. And while Iran may only be capable of shutting the Strait of Hormuz for a day or two, its proxies would destroy the southern Iraqi oil fields, a far more devastating outcome for the international community. Only some of this would be of paramount concern to Israel, especially when balanced with threat of its own annihilation.

Still, the aftermath of a strike may not go as Israeli officials plan. However Iranians may feel about their current leadership, they are, without doubt, fierce nationalists. The best thing that ever happened to the Islamic Revolution was Saddam Hussein's invasion, as it allowed Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini to consolidate control at a time when the revolutionary forces threatened to spin out of control. Any attack on Iranian soil would again enable the regime to rally the Iranian people around the flag. Some analysts and Iranian exiles argue that, faced with bombing, ordinary Iranians — dissatisfied with their government's poor stewardship of the economy and repressive social policies — might turn on the regime. This is wishful thinking: Even if it were true, the Iranian government is master of the information operation. Word would soon spread that the Israelis had hit a school bus, or kindergarten, or shot down a civilian jetliner, allowing the Iranian government to exploit the cultural theme of martyrdom to the advantage of Ahmadinejad. Meanwhile, international diplomatic opinion would turn fast on Israel, even if months later, as with the Jenin massacre, Muhammad al-Durra shooting, or Gaza school bombing, the charges turned out to be false. It is doubtful that the Obama administration — or even many in Congress — would rally to Israel's defense.

Israeli officials may believe that, as with Iraq, even a temporary delay would enable the Jewish state to outlive the Islamic Republic. This too would also be a miscalculation. The Islamic Republic has long made tenuous arguments about its own defensive needs. Should there be any attack on Iran, however, Tehran would have an excuse to develop a military nuclear capacity with an international community less willing to intervene than it is now.

But would a delay not achieve Jerusalem's aims? Likely not: With regard to Iraq, Israel benefited from Saddam Hussein's stupidity. Had the Iraqi leader not invaded Kuwait, then he could have quickly reconstituted his nuclear program with the help of France or Russia. Iran will not be so constrained. Indeed, not only in China and Russia, but also in Europe and in the U.S., politicians and diplomats cite the Iraqi sanctions regime as something never to be replicated. Israel might push back completion of an Iranian bomb by a year or two, but the factors that prevented Iraq from reconstituting its bomb program simply do not exist in Iran. Nor could Israel then simply remain vigilant and hope that the international community would prevent Iranian access to uranium, as the Islamic Republic is able to mine enough uranium locally to enable it to develop enough bomb-grade material for several bombs.

 

Conclusion

In short, an Israeli strike might buy time, but it would not buy enough time. The Islamic Republic would arise from any attack with greater lethality than before. Any attack would be a huge gamble, albeit one that Israeli leaders are likely to take given the inability of the P5+1 to raise the cost of Iranian defiance to the point that the supreme leader, to paraphrase Khomeini's statement on ending the Iran-Iraq War, drinks his chalice of poison and agrees to step back from the brink. Alas, because the Western world does not share Israel's threat perception, it is neither likely to force upon the Islamic Republic the degree of coercion necessary to achieve a change of regime behavior, nor is it willing to lay the groundwork — through support for independent trade unions, independent civil society, and democratization — to assist Iranians seeking fundamental change in the nature of their regime. This will leave Israel with no choice but to act, setting off a cascade of events that will ultimately force the decisions that Obama ignores now.

 

Michael Rubin, a senior editor of the Middle East Quarterly, is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and a senior lecturer at the Naval Postgraduate School.

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

 

A "dirty little secret".

by Moshe Dann

 

Every time someone writes, speaks of ‘Palestinians’ a myth is reinforced

The establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, the Nakba (catastrophe) for Arabs, and the aggression by five well-armed Arab countries, assisting local Arab gangs and militias that had been attacking Jews for years, placed Jews in Israel and the state in mortal danger.

Fighting back, Israel eventually negotiated an armistice in 1949 that allowed a respite from open war, albeit not terrorism, and without peace. The Egyptians occupied the Gaza Strip; the Jordanians occupied Judea, Samaria and the eastern part of Jerusalem, including the Old City and Temple Mount; Syria continued to occupy the Golan Heights, from which it constantly shelled Israeli settlements; all trained and supplied terrorists who raided Israel. The UN did nothing.

Arabs who left homes and property in Israel and many from other countries who joined Arab armies and did not want to return, remained in Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, most as "refugees" under the care of UNRWA.

This heterogeneous population was called "Arab refugees," not "Palestinians," because at the time there was no such group, or people.

One reason they were called "Arab refugees" was because there were many other refugees in Palestine, who were Jewish. Hundreds of thousands of Jewish refugees from Arab countries streamed into Israel. UNRWA offered no aid, although Jewish refugees had lost everything and the newly established state had few resources.

It took a crafty Egyptian, Yasser Arafat, to create the PLO with his friends to promote the destruction of Israel and the return of Arab refugees. Arab countries saw them as convenient proxies in their war against Israel, to "liberate Palestine."

Except for Jordan, no Arab host country permitted the newcomers to obtain citizenship; as temporary residents, their civil and humanitarian rights were harshly restricted.

The designation "Palestinian" did not become widely accepted until after the war in 1967, in which Israel, in self-defense, captured areas that had been assigned to a Jewish State by the League of Nations and Mandate, and then occupied by Arab countries: Judea, Samaria, and eastern Jerusalem; the Gaza Strip, Golan Heights, rich in Jewish history and archeology, and the Sinai Peninsula.

As the PLO launched mega-terrorist attacks around the world, "Palestinianism" became accepted, backed by the Arab League, Muslim and "non-aligned" countries, and the United Nations.

As the proportion of anti-Israel countries in the UN grew, "Palestinians" were given more and more recognition, support and legitimacy, unlike any other group.

And the fraud worked! It worked so well because the world's media accepted the Palestinians' self-definition and their cause. Even the Israeli media, politicians and jurists adopted this myth. Academics promoted "Palestinian archeology," "Palestinian society and culture." Every time someone writes or speaks of "Palestinians" it reinforces this myth.

‘Liberating Palestine’

Most major newspapers use only the term "West Bank" – a Jordanian reference from 1950 to distinguish the area from the "East Bank" – rather than its authentic names, Judea and Samaria, apparently to deny its Jewish history.

"Palestinian" came to mean Arabs who lived in Judea, Samaria and Gaza – as well as those in UNRWA-sponsored "refugee camps" in Lebanon, Syria and Jordan, and hundreds of thousands of "Palestinians" living throughout the world. By UNRWA's unique and controversial definition, anyone who claims to live or have lived in Palestine, and all descendents, forever, are considered "Palestinian," with full rights and privileges.

Spread among 58 "refugee camps" (in many cases entire towns) UNRWA's over half-billion dollar budget supports about 1.5 million "refugees in camps" and 5 million "registered refugees;" the total population is expected to reach 7 or 8 million next year, and growing.

As Palestinian nationalism spread among Israeli Arabs, the term became an identity magnet for Arabs on both sides of the 1949 Armistice Line – the "Green Line," as well as those living in other countries. Today, "Palestinian" can be anyone who for whatever reason identifies as such, including their children, grandchildren, etc.

This amalgam of national identity is possible because "Palestinian" is not a separate, unique linguistic, cultural, ethnic, religious or racial group. Nor does this motley group, currently led by Fatah and Hamas terrorist organizations, aspire to a country with clearly defined borders. Their goal is not statehood, but exterminating the Jews, thereby "liberating Palestine."

The success of "Palestinianism" is a tribute to what money, influence and Jew-hatred will buy and attract. That Jewish and Israeli media and NGO's support Palestinianism stems from liberal ideals of helping those who are less fortunate, the underdog, and even a genuine, although misdirected desire to live in peace, a supreme Jewish value.

Although there's probably no way to prevent the notion of "Palestiniansm" from spreading, there's no reason to ignore it, and less to accept it. Arabs of Palestine are entitled to civil and human rights in the countries in which they have resided for generations. That there needs to be a second Arab Palestinian state, in addition to Jordan, which was carved out of Palestine and whose population is two-thirds "Palestinian," and whether such a state will resolve all the attendant problems is extremely doubtful.

That the State of Israel should commit suicide to accomplish this goal is unthinkable.

Moshe Dann, a former assistant professor of History, is a writer and journalist living in Israel.

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

 

Obama Administration and Arab-Israeli Peace Process: Grinding to a Total and Humiliating Halt.

 

by Barry Rubin

 

The newly elected Fatah Central Committee—the one that was supposedly made up of young, reform-minded moderates but actually isn't—has told Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas that he should absolutely not negotiate with Israel unless all building of apartments anywhere on the West Bank or in east Jerusalem comes to a complete halt.

That's not going to happen.

This means there won't be direct negotiations, totally contradicting President Barack Obama's absolutely clear and "firm" statement at the UN that talks much, should, and will begin immediately.

It should be remembered that this whole construction on settlements freeze idea was started by Obama himself, thus giving the Palestinians an excuse not to talk. Israel refused (Pie in Face #1). Later he backed down a bit, saying that Israel should get something in exchange for the settlement freeze, but then Arab states refused (Pie in Face #2). So he backed down again, while pretending that somebody had offered to do something.

But while Israel is eager to negotiate (not because it expects anything will be achieved), the Palestinians flatly refuse (Pie in Face #3) and keep escalating their refusal.

Israel offers a compromise in which it makes real material concessions; Palestinians remain completely intransigent. Is there a pattern here?

Obama tried to solve the problem by working out some partial freeze with Israel, an idea to which the Israeli government has responded positively. But the Palestinians simply reject such a compromise. They don't want a medium-sized unilateral Israeli concession but will only accept a very large unilateral Israeli concession, and then only as a basis for demanding more unilateral Israeli concessions.

So what are Obama's options at this point?

Option 1: Go back to having a confrontation with Israel demanding it freeze construction and get nothing in return. That's not going to happen.

Option 2: Criticize the Palestinian stand and pressure it (after all, the United States is providing all of its money or helping to raise it among allied countries) to go to talks. That's not going to happen.

Option 3: Pretend everything is going well, have officials run around as if something is getting done, develop some new photo opportunities, and hope no one notices. Yep, that's the one.

After nine months in office and after having declared it would hit the ground running on Israel-Palestinian issues and get peace very fast, the Obama Administration has achieved nothing. In fact, it has set back the process and is getting less done than the supposedly criminally passive Bush Administration.

 

 

Barry Rubin

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

 

Understanding the Middle East: Me, You, The Scorpion, The Frog, and Barack Obama.

 

by Barry Rubin

 

There’s a little fable that’s often used to explain the Middle East. You’ve probably heard it but for those of you who haven’t I’ll tell it briefly and then analyze it in detail to explain better about this most perplexing yet highly important part of the world.

First, the story:

One day, a frog and a scorpion are standing by the river bank. They both want to get across to the other side. The frog can swim; the scorpion can’t. So the scorpion asks the frog to carry him across.

“But,” protests the frog, “if I let you on my back you’ll sting me!”

“Don’t worry,” answers the scorpion. “Why would I do that since if I sting you I’ll drown?”

This makes sense to the frog. He lets the scorpion climb aboard, jumps into the water, and starts swimming. In the middle of the river the scorpion does indeed sting the frog, paralyzing him. And as they sink down into the depth, the frog speaks his last words: “Why did you do that! Now we’ll both die!”

The scorpion shrugs his carapace and says, “Oh well, after all this is the Middle East. Glub. Glub. Gl….”

What I’ve never liked about this story is that the scorpion’s action seems to be irrational and is clearly suicidal. But what if the scorpion has good reason for acting as he does and isn’t just committing suicide? I’ll come back to this point in a few sentences.

Before that, though, let’s consider some scenarios.

Scenario One: The nice, pragmatic scorpion.

Assume a rational Western policymaker who thinks that everyone in the world thinks and acts pretty much the same because they have the same goals. In his other experiences handling domestic issues or with friendly foreign powers, he knows that if you make concessions to reach a deal, the other side will do so as well. Everybody seeks to arrive at a mutually beneficial solution.

Or, in Obama’s words: "I'm not interested in victory. I'm interested in resolving the problem."
So in that sense, the frog is dealing with a ”scorpion” he can trust—say Canada, Britain, Israel, Colombia, Botswana, or Japan.

Scorpion and frog want to get to other side, scorpion and frog cooperate (the scorpion will even put his claws into the water and paddle since he’s interested in success), problem solved.
Scenario Two: The nasty but rational scorpion.

But the policymaker isn’t so naïve. He knows there are some real differences, but he chalks these down to misunderstandings. Perhaps previous frogs haven’t treated the scorpion properly. If he apologizes and shows he’s a different kind of frog than the scorpion won’t sting him but will be one over by his charm and willingness to compromise.

So he makes a speech: Scorpions have a long and proud history. Frogs have often been arrogant in their treatment of scorpions. Let’s be friends.

You don’t have to assume blindly good will on the scorpion’s side. You will give more than the scorpion in terms of concessions but in the end the scorpion will give something because it has an interest in making the arrangement work.

So the frog jumps in with the scorpion on its back, the scorpion lets the frog do all the work, demands refreshments, and doesn’t say “thank you” at the end. But at least it doesn’t sting the scorpion. The other bank is reached; peace and quiet is achieved.

Perhaps this can be said to characterize places like Egypt, Pakistan, Russia and Saudi Arabia. They put a higher value on getting along but will give the absolute minimum in exchange no matter how much they get from America and Europe.

Scenario Three: The Radical Frog-Hating Scorpion That Wants to Rule the Habitat

Here is where our problem is today. Briefly, the radical scorpions of the world—which include in alphabetical order: Cuba, Hamas, Hizballah, Iran, North Korea, the Palestinian Authority, Sudan, Syria, Venezuela, Zimbabwe, and some others that could be mentioned don’t want to compromise and be friends.

Unlike the pragmatic scorpion, they won’t give a lot; unlike the nasty but pragmatic scorpion, they won’t give a little. They will take everything they can get and give nothing in return.

Does this make them irrational? No, because if they believe they can win by this strategy then it is quite a rational one to follow. And if you give them reason to think you are weak, stupid, naïve, or sympathetic enough to give them everything in exchange for nothing then you have persuaded them of that fact.

But now I have to redeem my promise about explaining why the scorpion isn’t committing suicide. In effect, answering this question has been one of my main efforts for 30 years now.
Briefly, the scorpion has good reason to think he is more likely to die if he doesn’t sting the frog.

Let’s put it this way: the scorpion stings the frog, the frog dies but becomes like a boat that the scorpion can use to stay afloat and to paddle wherever he wants. By using his stinger, the scorpion improves his situation.

Or to elucidate:
--Radical regimes use anti-American, anti-Western, and anti-Israel doctrine and conflicts as rationales for their many failures. Support your dictator; don’t complain about low living standards or lack of freedom because I’m saving you from the imperialist-Zionist-infidel plots against you.

--By stinging, radical regimes show how tough they are, thus pleasing and intimidating their own people and outdoing their rivals at home and competitors abroad.

--Not stinging is more dangerous than stinging. After all, if radical dictators had good relations with the Western democracies they could more easily influence the dictatorship’s society by opening up its economy and society more. The dictator will forego benefits in order to sustain his rule.

--They believe in their ideology. The scorpion must sting or he isn’t a scorpion. Iran’s leaders really believe what they say, as did Saddam Hussein or Yasir Arafat or Fidel Castro. Down with the frogs! Long live the scorpions!

--Finally, these regimes are ambitious. They want to rule their region and know that the West truly is an adversary. It isn’t a friend to be hugged or a limited rival with which you make a deal after tough bargaining, but rather an enemy to be defeated.

So it doesn’t matter whether Obama wears an “I love Scorpions” T-shirt, or speaks at the Scorpions’ Club (I mean the UN), or apologizes for previous frogs croaking too loud.

To the scorpions of the world, though, he's making America look like a plate of frogs’ legs.

 

 

Barry Rubin

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

 

Netanyahu's Quiet Success.

 

by Daniel Pipes

Almost unnoticed, Binyamin Netanyahu won a major victory last week when Barack Obama backed down on a signature policy initiative. This about-face suggests that U.S.-

Israel relations are no longer headed for the disaster I have been fearing.

 

Four months ago, the new U.S. administration unveiled a policy that suddenly placed great emphasis on stopping the growth in Israeli "settlements." (A term I dislike but use here for brevity's sake.) Surprisingly, American officials wanted to stop not just residential building for Israelis in the West Bank but also in eastern Jerusalem, a territory legally part of Israel for nearly thirty years.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton launched the initiative on May 27, announcing that the president of the United States "wants to see a stop to settlements – not some settlements, not outposts, not natural growth exceptions," adding for good measure, "And we intend to press that point." On June 4, Obama weighed in: "The United States does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements. … It is time for these settlements to stop." A day later, he reiterated that "settlements are an impediment to peace." On June 17, Clinton repeated: "We want to see a stop to the settlements." And so on, in a relentless beat.

Focusing on settlements had the inadvertent but predictable effect of instantly impeding diplomatic progress. A delighted Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority responded to U.S. demands on Israel by sitting back and declaring that "The Americans are the leaders of the world. … I will wait for Israel to freeze settlements." Never mind that Abbas personally had negotiated with six Israeli prime ministers since 1992, each time without an offer to stop building settlements: why should he now demand less than Obama?

In Israel, Obama's diktat prompted a massive popular swing away from him and toward Netanyahu. Further, Netanyahu's offer of even temporary limitations on settlement growth in the West Bank prompted a rebellion within his Likud Party, led by the up-and-coming Danny Danon.

 The geniuses of the Obama administration eventually discerned that this double hardening of positions was dooming their naïve, hubristic plan to settle the Arab-Israeli conflict within two years. The One's reconciliation with reality became public on Sept. 22 at a "summit" he sponsored with Abbas and Netanyahu (really, a glorified photo opportunity). Obama threw in the towel there, boasting that "we have made progress" toward settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and offering as one indication that Israelis "have discussed important steps to restrain settlement activity."

Those eight words of muted praise for Netanyahu's minimal concessions have major implications:

• Settlements no longer dominate U.S.-Israel relations but have reverted back to their usual irritating but secondary role.
• Abbas, who keeps insisting on a settlement freeze as though nothing has changed, suddenly finds himself the odd man out in the triangle.
• The center-left faction of the Obama administration (which argues for working with Jerusalem), as my colleague Steven J. Rosen notes, has defeated the far-left faction (which wants to squeeze the Jewish state).

Ironically, Obama supporters have generally recognized his failure while critics have tended to miss it. A Washington Post editorial referred to the Obama administration's "miscalculations" and Jonathan Freedland, a Guardian columnist, noted that "Obama's friends worry that he has lost face in a region where face matters."

In contrast, Obama critics focused on his announcing, just one day after the mock summit, that "America does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements" – a formulaic reiteration of long-established policy that in no way undoes the concession on settlements. Some of those I admire most missed the good news: John Bolton, former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, stated that Obama "put Israel on the chopping block," while critics within the Likud Party accused Netanyahu of having "prematurely celebrated" an American policy shift. Not so. Policy winds can always change, but last week's capitulation to reality has the hallmarks of a lasting course correction.

I have repeatedly expressed deep worries about Obama's policy versus Israel, so when good news does occur (and this is the second time of late), it deserves recognition and celebration. Hats off to Bibi – may he have further successes in nudging U.S. policy onto the right track.

Next on the agenda: the Middle East's central issue, namely, Iran's nuclear buildup.

 

Mr. Pipes is director of the Middle East Forum and Taube distinguished visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution of Stanford University.

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

 

Silencing Dissent.

by Lee Smith

 

Something is rotten in the state of Egypt.

The Obama administration's Arab-Israeli peace process is in more trouble than even the White House realizes. To be sure, the Israelis and Palestinians are both dug in, and when the president sought baby steps from the Arabs toward normalizing relations with Israel, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Kuwait rebuffed the administration. But now even Cairo, where Obama hit his reset button with the Muslim world, has made its stand, albeit much less publicly. The campaign against Egyptian editor and analyst Hala Mustafa for meeting with Israel's ambassador to Cairo is sufficient evidence that the first country to have a peace treaty with Jerusalem is no closer to normalization than it was when Anwar Sadat signed the Camp David Accords 30 years ago.

Recently, Israel's envoy to Egypt, Shalom Cohen, visited Mustafa at her office in the Al-Ahram newspaper building, home to the semi-official daily to which Mustafa often contributes, and where she edits the quarterly Arabic-language journal, Democracy.

"The ambassador had a proposal to convene a symposium and asked me to participate," Mustafa told me by phone. "Egyptians, Israelis and Palestinians were to discuss Obama's initiatives and the peace process. Since we would need authorization from Al-Ahram and other state institutions, I didn't give him any final decision."

Nonetheless, chairman of the Egyptian press syndicate Makram Muhammad Ahmed claimed that Mustafa's brief interview with Cohen violated the boycott of the Zionist enemy that the syndicate adopted in 1983.

"But there have been many exceptions" over the past two decades, Mustafa says. "A lot of  journalists at Al-Ahram have met with Israelis and even traveled to Israel. Even the chairman of Al-Ahram met with Israelis when he took part in the Copenhagen movement in the '90s. There is no way my act could be considered a violation."

A member of the ruling National Democratic Party's policy planning staff, Mustafa says that the regime still considers her an independent intellectual, and wants to limit interactions with Israel to intellectuals and journalists with connections to the security establishment. "The issue with me is not a legal one," she says, "since the constitution endorses the right of individuals to think and act freely, and we have a peace treaty with Israel and Cohen is the ambassador whose credentials have been accepted by the state. Rather, it is a political issue."

The context is not just normalization, but an Egypt gorged, fat, and sleek with anti-Israel sentiment as well as anti-Semitism.

"The press syndicate's probe is part of a paranoid reflex against any contact with Israel or Israelis," says Raymond Stock, an American writer and academic who has lived in Cairo

for nearly two decades. "It harms not only Egypt's psyche but also makes it more difficult for them to actually understand their alleged enemy to the northeast."

It also affects Egypt's soft power, or those intangible qualities of national honor that enable states to advance their interests by way of what statesmen once called prestige.

Egypt's Culture Minister Farouk Hosni was considered the front-runner to take over UNESCO, the United Nations' organization devoted to cultural diversity and cooperation until some of his less tolerant opinions were aired in public. For instance, to prove his anti-Zionist credentials at home, Hosni, as Stock reported in a recent Foreign Policy article, told the "Egyptian parliament that he would 'burn right in front of you' any Israeli books found in the country's libraries."

Hosni was passed over in favor of the Bulgarian candidate, Irina Bukova, which is to say that if the Culture Minister's anti-Israel bias had crossed even UN redlines, then something is decidedly wrong with Egypt. And indeed Hosni confirmed those suspicions when he told reporters after the vote that he saw the hand of international Jewry at work. A "conspiracy cooked up in New York" masterminded by a "group of the world's Jews," said the part-time painter, " had a major influence in the elections."

The Mubarak government, Mustafa believes, missed an opportunity in the Hosni affair to make a constructive point. "It was a chance for the state to say, 'Egypt has nothing against Israelis or Jews.' It is the same thing with my meeting the ambassador," she says. "My act was helpful. But the government has made no statements about my affair. Instead, there has been complete silence. If they were against it, they could've put the whole story to rest."

Mustafa, a frequent visitor to Washington during the heyday of the Bush administration's Freedom Agenda, says that the campaign against her is a reflection of the Egyptian regime's desire to keep the peace with Israel cold. "After all this time, no one can have a free discussion about what Egypt gets from its anti-normalization posture for three decades. This is ridiculous."

Egypt, after all, is supposed to be part of the moderate Arab trend, those U.S.-backed Sunni states that share a common interest with Washington and Israel in setting back the Iranian-led resistance bloc. And it is true that while Hezbollah and Hamas have warred against Israel, Tehran's allies have targeted Egypt as well; Hassan Nasrallah went so far as to invite the Egyptian masses to bring down the regime. In return, Hosni Mubarak rounded up Hezbollah cells in the Sinai, but has done nothing to confront the ideology of his enemies. Nor does it seem that President Obama has it in his power to compel him to do so. In the Middle East right now, it is the resistance that wields the predominance of soft power.

"The regime is comfortable now that Obama has dropped political reform and democracy, contrary to Bush," says Mustafa. "But the message is clear: Egypt cannot adopt normalization with Israel as part of Obama's plan."

 

Lee Smith is the author of 'The Strong Horse: Power, Politics, and the Clash of Arab Civilizations' (Doubleday), forthcoming in January.

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

 

 

Terrorism: Hizballah's Brand is Tarnished.

by Jonathan Spyer

A famous Hizbullah marching song, "Hizbullah ya ayuni" (Hizbullah - my eyes), contains the following verse: "And today through the blood of the brave, the merciful creator has given us victory, and the whole world and all people have begun to speak of our glory." Unfortunately for the Lebanese Shi'ite Islamist movement, the main world news story in which it currently features concerns matters of a distinctly inglorious type, with which it would undoubtedly prefer not to be associated.

The revelations concerning the activities of the so-called Lebanese Bernie Madoff - Salah Ezz el-Din of the south Lebanese village of Ma'aroub - are serving to tarnish the image of selflessness and idealism in which Hizbullah likes to present itself. The movement has long sought to differentiate itself from the notoriously corrupt, distinctly nonidealistic political and financial practices with which Lebanon is often associated. Ezz el-Din's activities suggest that on close observation, Hizbullah may be less different from its surroundings than its admirers (especially in the west) like to think.

Ezz el-Din, a Lebanese Shi'ite in his 50s, is accused of embezzlement and defrauding investors of hundreds of millions of dollars. The means by which he chose to part his victims from their money are familiar. He promised quick returns on investments in what he claimed were construction, oil and gas projects outside of Lebanon. He is reported to have guaranteed investors 20 percent-25% profits within 100 days on certain investments.

It now appears that Ezz el-Din was running a Ponzi scheme - paying clients with funds gleaned from newer investors. The sums involved are large - though nowhere near Madoff-like proportions. He is believed to have defrauded investors of around $500 million.

But Ezz el-Din was no ordinary financier. Rather, he enjoyed close links to Hizbullah. He ran a variety of enterprises associated with the group - most importantly the Dar al-Hadi Publishing House - named after Hadi Nasrallah. Hadi Nasrallah was the son of Hizbullah leader Hassan Nasrallah who was killed fighting the IDF in southern Lebanon, and is somewhere near the top of the movement's pantheon of "martyrs." The publishing house which bore his name was responsible for the publication of a number of books by senior Hizbullah officials.

THE PERCEPTION of Hizbullah patronage was a major factor in encouraging investors to place their trust in Ezz el-Din. As one disappointed client put it, "people put money with him because he was wearing the Hizbullah cloak." The presence of people like him does not fit with the puritanical image of Hizbullah. But it is not especially out of place with the broader pattern of the movement's activities.
As a major Lebanese political force, Hizbullah offers patronage to powerful families and individuals from the Lebanese Shi'ite community. The organization effectively operates a state within a state. Its areas are off limits to the army and police. This is particularly useful for individuals close to the movement engaged in criminal activities.

The lucrative hashish trade in the movement's heartland in the Bekaa Valley in eastern Lebanon offers an example of this patronage. Families engaged in this trade receive the protection of Hizbullah, ensuring that neither the authorities nor their rivals interfere with their activities. In return, Hizbullah takes a generous helping of the considerable profits.

The movement controls 13,000 acres in the Bekaa, which produce at least 300 tons of hashish annually. Hizbullah is reckoned to rake in profits of $180 million annually from this trade.

Most of the hashish is exported to Europe. Not all, though. The problem of drug abuse among residents in the Hizbullah-controlled Dahiyeh area of south Beirut is well known in Lebanon. Not all residents of the Dahiyeh are Shi'ite puritans.

Hizbullah is not reinventing the wheel. Rather, it is behaving in the manner of other Lebanese political forces. These activities are not particularly demonic - though the less powerful members of the various Lebanese communities are most likely to be hurt by them. But they serve to indicate the extent to which Hizbullah's pose of purity and incorruptibility and standing above the base practices of its rivals is largely a product of good public relations, rather than any observable reality.

The gradual tarnishing of the Hizbullah brand is, of course, good news for Israel. With past enemies - Arab nationalist regimes, the Yasser Arafat-led PLO - it was in the end the unbridgeable gap between proclamations and reality which served to initiate their slow decay and decline more than any single military defeat.

In this regard, another explanation for the Ezz al-Din affair is predictably doing the rounds in southern Lebanon. Haj Kamal Shour, who lost $1.03 million investing with the financier told reporters that he was sure that the "Israeli Mossad and Zionist lobby" were in some unaccountable way behind it all.

The reliable Zionist foe is enlisted to explain away failures and corruption scandals. But wasn't that exactly the political style that Hizbullah, with its selfless martyrs and its blood-curdling marching songs, was supposed to be doing away with? As Lebanon's former colonial governors might have put it - the more things change, the more they stay the same.


Jonathan Spyer is a senior research fellow at the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center, Herzliya, Israel

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

 

Camp David Syndrome.

by Ken Blackwell

Readers who are familiar with the Stockholm Syndrome will recall that it refers to a hostage-taking 1973 incident in that Swedish capital city. Over time, the hostages began to look to their captors as friends and protectors rather than the murderous kidnapers that they truly were.

We are seeing something similar in what I call the Camp David Syndrome. President Obama has just announced the latest effort toward crafting a Middle East Peace Settlement. That grand-sounding title is Beltway-speak for "let's lean on Israel to gain some street cred with the Euros." He's chosen Hillary Clinton as his negotiator.
In 1978, Jimmy Carter brought Egypt's Anwar Sadat and Israel's Menachem Begin together to his mountain top presidential retreat in Maryland's beautiful Catoctin Mountains. There, over days of intense negotiation, Carter brokered what became known in diplomatic lore as the Camp David Accords. Under those agreements, Israel agreed to withdraw her forces from the Sinai Peninsula that she had seized in the lightning Six-Day War of 1967, and re-captured during the 1973 Yom Kippur War. That war had been launched by Egypt's Sadat -- showing the characteristic respect for other faiths that Muslims habitually show -- the Jewish High Holy Days of that year.

Carter hailed his achievement as something just shy of the Second Coming. It wasn't. Carter was led up to that mountain by growing problems on the plain below. Americans were becoming increasingly disenchanted with Jimmy's fecklessness on the domestic front. High interest rates made home ownership impossible for young couples, long gas lines frayed nerves, and rising unemployment made everyone edgy. But Carter felt that success on the international scene could bring him and his embattled party some goodwill from American voters.

It didn't. Barely six weeks after the media hullabaloo over the Camp David Accords, voters trooped to the polls and spanked Carter's party. Between 1978 and 1980, voters gave Republicans 46 seats in the House of Representatives, five more seats than the GOP had lost in the watershed post-Watergate election of 1974.

Still, the myth persists that a Middle East peace agreement will translate into electoral success at home. Carter proved to be a one-trick pony. He received a sharp kick from voters in 1980. They put the pony permanently out to pasture.

What Carter achieved at Camp David is not replicable today. That's because the Israelis in 1978 did not want to occupy Sinai. They agreed that it did not materially contribute to their security. (Israel's Prime Minister Golda Meir used to joke that the Almighty had led the Children of Abraham out of bondage in Egypt, called them to wander for forty years, and told them to settle on the only piece of real estate in the Middle East that has no oil!)

So Carter's fabled diplomacy was not really necessary to persuade the Israelis to disgorge territory that had never been Israeli and that they did not really want. And President Anwar Sadat had a firm grip over Egypt, which one Egyptian diplomat described as the only real nation in the Arab world. "The rest are just tribes with flags," that Arab diplomat memorably said. Besides, Sadat needed money. And the U.S. was ready to purchase a peace.

Despite the fact that Jimmy Carter got a shellacking at the polls in 1978 and 1980, Presidents persist in pursuing the brass ring, or an elusive Nobel Prize, for brokering a Mideast Peace Settlement.

Bill Clinton tried it in 2000. He was playing out an exhausted presidency, grasping for straws. He summoned Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and the "reformed" terrorist leader, Yassir Arafat, to the U.S. He tried to arrange another Camp David breakthrough. Barak made extraordinary concessions, even dangerous ones. No dice. Arafat fomented a second "intifada" against Israel. Clinton's party lost the next Presidential Election.

Then, there was the 2007 Annapolis Conference on Mideast Peace. President George W. Bush chose that week after Thanksgiving to bring a wide range of Arab and Israeli negotiators to the U.S. Naval Academy's historic Yard. Some of the Arab delegates refused to enter the same doorway as the Israelis had entered. Some peace talks. The best we can say for this effort is that it could have been worse. It might have lasted two days instead of just one. And Bush's party lost the next Presidential Election.

What was considered historic about the Annapolis Conference is that for the first time all parties agreed to a "two-state solution." Did the Arab delegates who attended, the ones who refused to enter the same doorway as the Israelis, agree that Israel would be one of those two states? Don't ask.

What we have yet to hear is why the U.S. should want a Palestinian state to be formed in the Mideast. When the Israelis evacuated from Gaza and the local residents held elections, they promptly voted in Hamas, the terrorist organization. Hamas supporters stormed the residence of the late Yassir Arafat and stole his Nobel "Peace" Prize. Now, there's poetic justice.

On the West Bank, Arafat's loyal lieutenant, Abu Abbas, maintains a precarious perch. The U.S. is giving $900 million in aid to his so-called Authority for allegedly humanitarian purposes. This is where bombers use ambulances to run rockets to and from Palestinian hospitals and where children dance in mock explosive belts before PTA meetings in schools named for suicide bombers. This is what we want more of? For Peace's sake? For Pete's sake!

I was amazed to see President Obama come on TV so soon to call for a Mideast breakthrough. I didn't think he was in that much trouble on the domestic front already.

Ken Blackwell is a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Human Rights Commission and a senior fellow at the Family Research Council.

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

Obama Doesn’t Understand: The Alternative to Victory is Defeat.

by Barry Rubin

 

The problem with President Barack Obama is not that he makes gaffes or factual errors when he speaks but because he expresses an ideological framework so shocking and dangerous.

Take the latest such remark, made in the G-20 press conference, referring to Iran's nuclear program:

"I'm not interested in victory. I'm interested in resolving the problem."

Totally detached from actual international conflicts, this is a rational and noble statement. Hey, says Pragmatic Man, I'm not seeking something to brag about, a total victory and my opponent's humiliation. I just want to solve problems and leave everyone happy.

Yet he's not playing a game of bridge here but dueling with a dictatorship that thinks it has divine support and wants to build a massive totalitarian empire. The fact that Obama thinks this way makes him a person not fit to deal with real enemies.

Briefly, here are several reasons why:

--In a misunderstanding with those who are otherwise friends, this "no victory" approach makes sense. If the United States has some minor problem with, say, Canada or the United Kingdom, it would be good to seek a resolution in which it wasn't a victor. Sure, get the blip in an otherwise good relationship out of the way so the two allies can get back to cooperating on a hundred other matters.

But Obama doesn't seem to understand the profound difference between friends and enemies. As Obama has repeatedly shown, he is more eager to resolve conflicts with enemies than to back up friends. For him, enemies don't exist but have only been created by mistaken U.S. policy. Apologies or concessions will suffice to end any friction.

--Obama assumes the other side is rational and well-intentioned. Whether its Libya or North Korea, Cuba or Syria, Iran or Venezuela, Obama simply doesn't get the idea that dictatorship and ideology, greed and passionate hatred can create forces which don't want to be friends.

In effect, such regimes have the precise opposite approach to that of Obama: They aren't interested in resolving the problem. They are interested in victory.

--By making such a statement, Obama speaks as if Iran is a blank slate rather than a country which has repeatedly broken promises on the nuclear issue; called for genocide against Israel; been the world's leading sponsor of terrorism; killed Americans through terrorist operations in Lebanon, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and other countries; is ruled by a regime that just stole an election; has violently repressed the opposition and put peaceful activists on trial for their lives; and has a defense minister who is a wanted terrorist.

Iran is not ruled by a regime with which you can just solve problems. And any solution without victory of a sort will not be a solution.

--If Iran intends to build nuclear weapons and the United States opposes this goal how can there be any resolution of the problem without victory? If the Iranian regime builds deliverable nuclear weapons then it wins; if Tehran is stopped from doing so, the United States wins. What kind of conceivable compromise can there be without a victory for one side or the other?

--Obama's formulation could be sensible with another side whose feelings one didn't want to hurt unnecessarily. Assuring the other side you don't insist on total victory can be a soothing factor. Unfortunately in this case it is the radical side which needs to say so. (The Palestinian side and most Arab states need to say this to Israel but never do so. Israel has already said so to the other side but it hasn't done much good.)

--But most important of all is Obama's seeming inability to understand the concepts of deterrence and credibility. I'm not exaggerating here. He has never made a single statement incorporating these ideas.

Yes, you need to be tough. Yes, you sometimes have to make threats. Yes, you need to show yourself willing to use force. Yes, you sometimes have to win victories. The leader of a great power needs to do these things to discourage enemies from being more aggressive and disregarding his country's interests. In addition, the leader of a great power must do these things to encourage friends to rely on him and his country for help and protection.

Obama thinks he is reassuring America's enemies by apologizing, avoiding conflict, and insisting he doesn't seek victory. He is reassuring them—reassuring them that they can walk all over the United States without cost.

In totally misconceiving the nature of his own responsibilities and of international affairs, Obama is creating an extremely dangerous situation. One of the many things he doesn't understand is that his approach makes crisis, bloodshed, and war far more likely.

It is sobering to see the man who holds the world's most powerful job for dealing with international affairs on the planet has no previous experience dealing with this topic. It is horrifying that his ideas ensure disaster for the democratic forces and successes for the dictatorial ones.

 

 

Barry Rubin

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.