text: Leon T. Hadar 2015-07-02T23:34:40-04:00 Leon T. Hadar http://www.huffingtonpost.com/author/index.php?author=leon-t-hadar Copyright 2008, HuffingtonPost.com, Inc. HuffingtonPost Blogger Feed for Leon T. Hadar Good old fashioned elbow grease. Jeb Bush, the GOP and the Iraq War: 'Knowing What We Know Now' tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2015:/theblog//3.7337672 2015-05-19T17:58:20-04:00 2015-05-19T18:59:01-04:00 Leon T. Hadar http://www.huffingtonpost.com/leon-t-hadar/ When asked if "knowing what we know now" -- that U.S. intelligence was faulty and Saddam Hussein didn't have weapons of mass destruction (WMD) -- he would have invaded Iran, the former Florida Governor responded in the affirmative. But then in the days following the interview, Bush insisted that he "misinterpreted" the question and corrected himself. "Knowing what we know now," he would not have invaded Iraq. Bush's faltering performance, which many saw as a reflection of his reluctance to criticize his brother who made the decision to go to war in Iraq, provided an opening for the declared and undeclared GOP presidential candidates, including those who had actually backed the invasion of Iraq, to attack Bush and then to reiterate what has become the Republican mantra. "Knowing what we know now," they all believe that the decision to invade Iraq was a mistake. This evolving "debate" over the Iraq War seemed to be integrated into a historical narrative in which the U.S. intelligence agencies are being depicted as the villain in the story. After all, they provided the intelligence on the non-existent WMD in Iraq that left Bush and Cheney no other choice but to go to war in Iraq. The underlying assumption of this narrative is that if Saddam Hussein had possessed WMD, Bush would have been justified in declaring war on Iraq, and in ousting Saddam Hussein and invading the country. Noting that that leading Democrats, including then Senator Hillary Clinton, as well as large segments of the media and public opinion had supported the Iraq before they were against it ("knowing what they know now") tends to bolster the argument that "almost everyone" believed that Saddam had WMD, and concluded that Saddam had to go. But this popular narrative disregards one important point. The question should be not whether U.S. intelligence had faulty intelligence, but whether the existence of WMD in Iraq by itself should have been regarded as a casus belli -- as a justification for going to war against, and invading, a foreign country. The United States, it should be recalled, didn't declare war against its Cold War rivals, the Soviet Union and China when they went on to develop atomic weapons. It may have been ready to go to war against the Soviet Union over the placement of nuclear missiles in Cuba, but that move that was seen by most Americans as a clear and present danger to U.S. national security. In a way, the source for the strategic rationale for going to war against Iraq was the so-called Bush Doctrine that assumed that the United States had the right and the obligation to launch "preemptive strikes" as a defense against a perceived threat to its security posed by anti-American states and groups. Note that there was never was a serious debate in Congress or in the media over this central part of the Bush Doctrine. In fact, the main reason that the Bush Administration succeeded in mobilizing congressional and public support for attacking Iraq was the sense of fear that engulfed the American people in the aftermath of 9/11, and led many of them to believe that Saddam had something to do with those terrorist attacks. Even if the intelligence community was right, and Iraq did possess WMDs in 2003, the correct response based on traditional U.S. concepts of national security would have been to draw a strategy based on the use of diplomatic means -- including the threat of military power -- to force Iraq to give up its WMD, and if that failed, to embrace of policy of containment, and work together with regional and global powers, to deal with the Iraqi threat. In fact, these are exactly the policies that Washington has been pursuing in response to the threat that North Korea and Iran could become nuclear powers. Which brings us back to the 2016 presidential race and the phony debate over the Iraq War between the Republican presidential candidates. Since "we know now" that North Korea has acquired nuclear military technology and that Iran could do that in the future, would Jeb Bush and the his Republican rivals be ready to follow at the footsteps of President George W. Bush and use U.S. military force to reverse these developments? Replace the regimes in North Korea and Iran? Invade these countries? It's doubtful that any of the Republican presidential candidates would advocate doing a rerun of the Iraq War in North Korea, and it would be interesting to find out why they would reject such an option with all that "we know now" based on the (apparently) correct intelligence at our disposal. More intriguing would be to ask Bush the Third and other Republicans what exactly they think we should do in light of what "we know now" about the Iran nuclear program. If they oppose the current deal with Iran being negotiated by the Obama Administration, would they be ready to go to war against Iran if it took steps to develop nuclear military technology? Will they support a "preemptive strike" against Iran in case U.S. intelligence provides them with evidence that Iran was about to go nuclear? You don't have to be political expert to predict that the Republican candidates, fully aware that a majority of Americans oppose a new U.S. military intervention in the Middle East, would equivocate on the issue and suggest that a more muscular American posture would supposedly force Iran to accept a "better deal." But if their entire case against Iraq War boils down to faulty intelligence, why not launch a preemptive military strike against Iran, when we supposedly do have all intelligence we need about Iran's nuclear military program. Or perhaps we don't have all the intelligence we need (we never do) or we are not sure about what we have. Which raises the following question: Shouldn't American presidents only go to war, as a last resort after the threat to U.S. security is seen by most Americans as immediate, clear and undeniable? That is the question -- which is the real question about the Iraq War -- that should be posed to Bush and the other presidential candidates. One of them may have to decide on whether to go to war, and they shouldn't be allowed to shift the responsibility for the choices they make to the imperfect intelligence agencies that advise them. Moreover, "knowing what we know now," we also have to conclude that President Bush was responsible for one of the worst strategic decisions in American history that, among other things, led to the disintegration of Iraq, ignited a war between Shiites and Sunnis that has spread into Syria and the rest of the Middle East, and has helped strengthen the power of Iran and its regional proxies while creating the conditions for the rise of ISIS. But don't expect presidential candidate Bush and the other Republican presidential contenders to admit that President Bush II was responsible for the much of the current chaos in the Middle East. "Faulty intelligence" led to the Iraq War and then Barack Obama was elected as president and messed up Iraq and the Middle East. Let's not mention what happened in between.]]> Wishful-Thinking Foreign Policy tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2015:/theblog//3.7167346 2015-04-29T16:35:01-04:00 2015-06-29T05:59:02-04:00 Leon T. Hadar http://www.huffingtonpost.com/leon-t-hadar/ "I think the election of [President Hassan] Rouhani indicated that there was an appetite among the Iranian people for a rejoining with the international community, an emphasis on the economics and the desire to link up with a global economy," suggested Obama in an interview with The New York Times' Tom Friedman. "And so what we've seen over the last several years, I think, is the opportunity for those forces within Iran that want to break out of the rigid framework that they have been in for a long time to move in a different direction," stated the president, predicting that a nuclear deal with Iran would strengthen "those forces inside of Iran that say, 'We don't need to view ourselves entirely through the lens of our war machine. Let's excel in science and technology and job creation and developing our people.'" According to Friedman, the notion that American engagement with Iran would help accelerate political and economic reforms in that country was part of a new "Obama Doctrine." But in fact, some version of this "doctrine" has been the focus of U.S. foreign policy since the end of the Cold War and has been promoted by leading American pundits, including Friedman. Hence the decisions to normalize our trade relationship with China and allow it to join the World Trade Organization (WTO), which reflected the expectation not only that the United States would benefit economically from greater access to Chinese markets but also that China would become a more open society. "In the new century, liberty will spread by cellphone and cable modem," said then-President Bill Clinton in a speech he delivered in 2000. "We know how much the Internet has changed America, and we are already an open society. Imagine how much it could change China," he stressed as he marketed his policy of engagement with China. "In the knowledge economy, economic innovation and political empowerment, whether anyone likes it or not, will inevitably go hand in hand," he predicted. Like Obama, who admits that the political future of Iran remains uncertain, Clinton conceded in 2000 that bringing China into the WTO "doesn't guarantee that it will choose political reform." But "accelerating the progress, the process of economic change, will force China to confront that choice sooner, and it will make the imperative for the right choice stronger," Clinton insisted. Anyone who goes through the speeches delivered by U.S. officials and the op-eds authored by American columnists since 2000 would discover that Clinton's prognosis about China would become a foreign policy axiom in Washington. It assumed that whether it was in China or Russia or the Middle East, economic and diplomatic engagement with the United States and the West would help drive political reform and lead to the embrace of a more accommodative foreign policy. Very few people would deny that the introduction of capitalism into China and its integration into the global economy helped pull millions of people out of poverty and make the country more prosperous. There is a continuing debate over the long-term impact of China's rise as an economic power on American economic interests. But no one would seriously argue today that China is on the verge of being transformed into a democratic system and, by extension, into an ally of the United States. In fact, Maoist China in the 1970s probably shared more common interests with the United States than today's China does. In a way, in trying to forecast political changes in China, Russia, and elsewhere, American officials and analysts proved to be more often wrong than right. That is not surprising if you consider that most of them probably wouldn't be able to predict who would be elected as the next sheriff in their town, not to mention as the next president of their country. To paraphrase Yogi Berra, while it's difficult to make predictions, especially about the future, it's quite dangerous to make critical policies for the future based on predictions that can prove to be nothing more than wishful thinking. But that is certainly what Republican and Democratic administrations have been doing when it comes to making decisions about war and peace in the Middle East in recent years. Thus President George W. Bush ousted Iraq's Saddam Hussein as part of a campaign to democratize Mesopotamia and advance the freedom agenda in the greater Middle East, while President Obama assumed that helping eject Egypt's Hosni Mubarak from power would allow the United States to ride on the rising wave of history powered by the Arab Spring. It is amusing that Republican lawmakers and neoconservative pundits who were the leading advocates of the Bush administration's plans to remake the Middle East along democratic and liberal lines have been bashing Obama's response to the Arab Spring and his proposed nuclear deal with Iran by depicting it as the foreign policy naïveté of a spacey peacenik. In a way, not unlike Obama, these critics are also fantasizing about the day when Iran would become a thriving democracy and boast a prosperous free-market economy. But while Obama expects that to take place as a result of American engagement with Iran, Republicans and neoconservatives believe that America could help that happen through a U.S.-led regime change in the country. In fact, they criticized the current White House for not providing support for the anti-government demonstrations led by the Green Movement in Iran in 2009. But while it's clear that the majority of Iranians would like to see the lifting of the economic sanctions on the country as well as expansion of trade and investment ties with the West, in Iran today there doesn't seem to be a lot of popular pressure for political reforms that would lead it in a more democratic and liberal direction. It is quite conceivable that the integration of Iran into the global economy and the ensuing economic growth that the country would experience could strengthen the hands of the leaders of the Islamic Republic, and that, like in the case of China or Russia, a more economically powerful Iran would embrace a nationalist agenda that could even win the support of many secular Iranians. The prospect that a nuclear accord and American engagement with Iran would not necessarily turn Iran into a democratic ally of the United States doesn't necessarily mean that Washington shouldn't reach a diplomatic deal with Tehran that would make sense based on U.S. national interests. But it then should let the Iranians write their own political history that would reflect their own hopes and not American wishful thinking.]]> The Israel-Egypt-Saudi Arabia Axis: Come the Counter-Revolution tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2014:/theblog//3.5684834 2014-08-16T18:07:54-04:00 2014-10-16T05:59:01-04:00 Leon T. Hadar http://www.huffingtonpost.com/leon-t-hadar/ But now, American vision of reforming and democratizing the Middle East lies in tatters. The ousting of Iraq's Saddam Hussein, which was supposed to be the first step in the implementation of the Freedom Agenda of President George W. Bush -- who compared the struggles to forge a "democratic future" to the troubles the United States -- have unleashed a bloody sectarian and ethnic wars in Iraq and in neighboring Syria and Lebanon and led to the rise of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) ruled by murderous and medieval thugs that make Saddam's brutal Baath regime look like an experiment in Jeffersonian democracy. And as the war between Hamas and Israel continues to rage, one should recall that it was the Bush Administration's dogmatic commitment to spreading democracy in the Middle East that helped the Palestinian Islamist movement win election for the first time in January 2006. When Palestinian and Israeli officials frantically lobbied in Washington for the postponement of the parliamentary elections in the West Bank and Gaza, noting that polls pointed to a possible victory by Hamas, America's top democracy cheerleader, Condoleezza Rice, was dismissive. "Holding free and fair Palestinian Legislative Council elections on January 25 represents a key step in the process of building a peaceful, democratic Palestinian state," Rice insisted. If the Middle East agenda promoted by President Bush and his neoconservative advisors was activist and transformative in nature, including through the use of military power, the approach adopted by President Barack Obama and his liberal internationalist aides was more reactive and accommodative in its response to the political earthquakes ignited by the Arab Spring, including the challenges to the pro-America autocrats in Egypt and Tunisia. Indeed, with both neoconservative and liberal pundits as well as the elite media welcoming the ousting of Egypt's Hosni Mubarak -- in the same way that they and the conservative media had once hailed the fall of Iraq's Saddam Hussein - as a democratic revolutions akin to those that had taken place in Eastern Europe after the fall of communism in 1989, President Obama and his aides seemed to suggest that America needed to take a ride on this wave of change - or be left behind. The United States needed to address the Arab Spring, "the forces that are driving it, and how we can respond in a way that advances our values and strengthens our security," Obama stressed. "The question before us is what role America will play as this story unfolds," beyond traditional American interests such as counterterrorism and counter-proliferation, he insisted. Unlike President Bush, President Obama's approach wasn't a product of a hard-core ideological doctrine and a coherent strategy. He has been muddling through most of the time, giving a green light to holding free elections in Tunisia but not in Bahrain, or using American military power to help oust Libya's Muhammar Kaddafi but reusing to do so when it came to the insurgents fighting the Syria's Bashar Assad. Yet Obama's decision to abandon the long-time American ally Hosni Mubarak and allow the Muslim Brotherhood to come to power through free election in Egypt amounted to a major reversal in American policy in the Middle East and reverberated across the region. It shook up the Israeli and the Saudi leaders who believed that the young and inexperienced president was operating in a foreign policy la la land in by assuming that Turkey's democratic Islamist model would eventually take hold in the New Middle East emerging out of the Arab Spring. Unlike Western intellectuals and political elites, the Saudis and the Israelis -- very much like most leaders in the Middle East -- have never bought into the notion that the region was about to enter into a new historical epoch under which it would embrace the principles of the Enlightenment Project. Instead, much of the swift changes that have been sweeping the region since 9/11, through the Iraq War, and until the Arab Spring -- with the direct and indirect help of the United States -- were seen by those who had a stake in maintaining the status-quo as a struggle for power between ethnic, religious, and tribal groups and the regional and global powers that support them. From that perspective, the Israelis and Saudis perceived the fall of friendly and accommodating ruler of the largest and most powerful Arab state and the ensuing election of the Muslim Brotherhood as a direct threat to their national interests while benefiting the interests of Turkey (Not to mention the absurd notion that replacing a leader committed to supporting the rights of women and religious minorities with a radical Islamist group was a step advancing liberty in the Middle East). Hence it was not surprising that based on pure Realpolitik considerations, the overthrow of the Muslim Brotherhood and the return of the military to power in Egypt were applauded in both Riyadh and Jerusalem. That the Israelis and the Saudis have also both apprehensive over the Obama Administration's effort to accommodate Iranian interests, and that the Egyptians and the Israelis -- with Saudi blessing and despite a certain American reservations -- cooperated in trying to decimate Hamas' military power in Gaza, may not be signs of a new strategic realignment in the Middle East but more of an emerging partnership that reflects some common interests; and in particular, the need to fill the strategic vacuum created by the inability of the United States to continue maintaining its role as a hegemonic power in the region. To put it in more simple terms, while the Obama Administration responded to this new reality by trying to accommodate some anti-status-quo players, the Saudis, Egypt and Israel are resisting the current American approach that seems to run contrary to their interests. And as their policies during the war in Gaza demonstrated, they are not expecting the Americans to do the job for them and are even willing to take steps that are not in line with Washington's positions. In a way, this evolving partnership recalls the one that Jerusalem maintained with Ankara as part of the common struggle against Arab radicalism during the Cold War. Indeed, even when it comes to such a contentious issue as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, it's not inconceivable to envision a gradual process of reconciliation involving Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas based on the 2002 Arab League peace initiative. In fact, an effort to re-assert a more conservative order in the Middle East, along the lines of settlements that took place in Europe after the 1848 revolutions, doesn't preclude the possibility of co-opting Iran into the system in addition to providing for some forms of Palestinian and Kurdish independence. Americans should welcome the re-assertion of the old order in the region while continuing to encourage gradual political and economic reforms instead of operating as democratic missionaries in the region, now that the fantasy of a New Middle East has been buried in Irbil and Gaza.]]> American Peace Processing: Forget About It tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2014:/theblog//3.5125683 2014-04-10T12:42:28-04:00 2014-06-10T05:59:01-04:00 Leon T. Hadar http://www.huffingtonpost.com/leon-t-hadar/ The most recent act in this Middle Eastern theatre of the absurd has been Secretary of State John Kerry's shuttle diplomacy that, like other exercises aimed at reviving the always-dormant peace process, seems to be reaching a dead-end. It is not clear what has driven Kerry to spend so much time in a fool's errand in a diplomatic la-la land despite the fact that anyone with some basic knowledge and experience in Arab-Israeli negotiations would have told him that his chances of success were close to zero, a sentiment that has probably been shared by some White House officials: Wishful thinking? Missionary zeal? Personal hubris? More likely, Kerry was operating under what has, since the 1973 Middle East War, become a Washington axiom. That the United States has the interest and the obligation to "do something" to resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict or else it would have to pay high costs for inaction: Backlash from the Arab oil producers, regional wars that could draw in the United States, the empowerment of Arab radicals, the threat to Israeli security. Indeed, the components of such a worst-case scenario evolved during the 1973 Yom Kippur War. It had triggered an oil embargo, ignited a dangerous confrontation with the Soviet Union, and forced the United States to use its diplomatic and military force to protect the Jewish State and reach a cease-fire between Israel and Egypt. That in turn helped create the conditions for the U.S.-led diplomatic initiative that was concluded with the 1979 Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty. If the 1973 war demonstrated the danger of U.S. inaction, the successful outcome of the Camp David negotiations in 1977 created the belief that American activism was not only necessary and likely to succeed, but that it could also advance U.S. interests. In a way, the decision by President Bill Clinton to launch his own Israeli-Palestinian peace summit at Camp David in 2000 was based in part on the assumption that the old axiom was still relevant. Washington needed to "do something" to avert a regional disaster that could harm core U.S. interests and had the power to resolve the conflict. But in the aftermath of the end of the Cold War and the signing of peace accords between Israel, Egypt and Jordan, and against the backdrop of a more stable global energy market and a thriving American economy, the conflict between the Jews and Arabs over the Holy Land was being "localized" and transformed into a tribal war which was unlikely to draw the United States into a confrontation with another global power or lead to an oil embargo. In fact, the two sides were able to end the Palestinian intifada and take some steps towards resolving their conflict through the Oslo Process in which the United States played no direct role. But unable to reach an agreement on core existential issues, such as the status of Jerusalem and its holy sites, and the Palestinian demand for the "right of return" of refugees, each side had hoped that the Americans would pressure the other side to make concessions. And President Clinton obliged after concluding that the United States was enjoying its unipolar moment in the Middle East and was in a position to do business with the relatively moderate Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Palestinian President Yasser Arafat, and conclude a peace agreement a la the Israeli-Egyptian peace accords. That it didn't happen only helped to highlight an important point that both Clinton in 2000 and Kerry 14 years later failed to recognize: The conflict between Egypt and Israel had reached a stalemate after the 1973 war and both sides recognized that it was in their national interest to reach an agreement based on the peace-for-territories formula that was agreed upon before Carter convened Anwar Sadat and Menachem Begin at Camp David. While Carter proved to be a creative peace negotiator, the Israelis and the Egyptians could probably have concluded a bilateral peace agreement without direct American intervention, which explains why Egypt even under the rule of the Muslim Brotherhood would have not gone to war against Israel. Egyptian national interests and not American aid dictated such a policy. And while the Israelis and the Palestinians were able to agree in Oslo on some basic modalities of co-existence, the main obstacle to concluding a final-status agreement has been the lack of willingness among the public and the elites on both sides to betray what they consider to be central and cherished components of their respective national and religious identities. One of the myths that was embraced by Israeli and American peace proponents after the collapse of the 2000 Camp David talks was that the two sides were close to reaching an agreement and that "if only" they had more time to negotiate and with some added American pressure they would have been able to make a deal on the key issues, including Jerusalem and the "right of return." But that is, well, a myth, which assumes a willingness on the part of the Palestinian-Arabs to give up what they see as their right to return to the lands they lost in their Nakba, or that the Israeli-Jews would agree to withdraw their claims for control of the Temple Mount. Ain't gonna happen. If anything, with the power of the radical nationalist and religious forces in the Israeli and Palestinian communities gaining more strength as a result of demographic and domestic political changes since 2000, and with the United States losing some of its influence in the Middle East following the Iraq War and the Arab Spring, it made no sense for Kerry to assume that he could succeed where Clinton had failed. Kerry's almost Pavlovian urge to get the Israelis and the Palestinians together may have lifted the spirit of the members of Israel's peace camp, who, recognizing their failure to win the support of the Israeli electorate, were hoping that American intervention and pressure on Benjamin Netanyahu would help tip the political balance in Israel in their favor. But advancing positions on resolving the conflict with the Palestinians that are in line with those of the Israeli Labor party has failed to change Israeli public opinion, and has been seen by the Palestinians as an indication that Washington was siding with Jerusalem. At the end of the day, the United States should recognize that much of what has driven its diplomatic hyper-activism in trying to make peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians has been over-ridden not only by growing belligerence on both sides, but by regional and geo-political changes that are not only reducing dependency on Middle Eastern oil but are also making that region of the world less central as far as long-term U.S. strategic and economic interests are concerned. Moreover, even if Washington were to resolve the conflict over the Holy Land, it is unlikely that that would help reduce the power of the radicals to lessen the chances for war in the region. Much of what is happening in the Arab world today reflects political, economic and social pressures that have very little to do with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. From that perspective, there is no pressure on Washington to "do something" to resolve this dispute. In fact, U.S. involvement may be encouraging both sides to refrain from taking steps that are in their own interests as they operate under the expectations that Washington would force Israel to make the necessary concessions (which is the Palestinian hope) or leave no choice for the Palestinians but to accept the current status-quo (which is the Israeli goal). An attitude of American benign neglect toward the Israel/Palestine conflict could create incentives for both sides to reassess their positions and to make the hard choices. Or it could lead to new cycles of violence that could help establish a new balance of power, or end with a stalemate under which both sides would be pleading with Washington to save them from themselves instead of the American begging them to do what is in their own interest. In any case, the time had come for Washington to conclude that when it comes its role in resolving the dispute between Israelis and the Palestinians enough is enough, or as the Johnny Depp's character in the 1997 movie, Donnie Brasco explained, "Sometimes it just means Fuhgeddaboudit (forget about it)."]]> Is John Kerry Too 'European' for American Diplomacy? tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.4251473 2013-11-10T15:57:00-05:00 2014-01-23T18:58:21-05:00 Leon T. Hadar http://www.huffingtonpost.com/leon-t-hadar/ The election was taking place at a time when the supposedly wimpy Europeans were mocked as being from Venus (as opposed to the manly Americans from Mars) and when patriotic Americans were boycotting French Fries and dismissing the French as "Cheese-eating Surrender Monkeys." So it was not surprising that the Republicans tried to highlight the European disposition and Gallic roots of the man whose mother was born in Paris when his grandfather was working there in the 1920s. Donald Evans, one of Bush's aides, suggested that Kerry was "of a different political stripe and looks French." No one would argue that Kerry's alleged French connection was responsible for his defeat in the 2004 presidential race, in the same way that the "accusations" that Barack Obama was a "Muslim" and/or a "Kenyan" probably had very little effect on the results of the 2008 presidential election. But the notion that there is something European if not Old Worldish in Kerry's demeanor may seem less far-fetched today when he is serving as America's chief diplomat under the first African-American president who was born in Hawaii and who spent some of his childhood in Indonesia. President Obama, who described himself as the "first American Pacific president" and has set as his strategic goal to re-orient American foreign policy from Europe and its Middle Eastern peripheries to East Asia may discover that his top foreign policy advisor who feels more at home on the shores of the Atlantic is not up to the task of shifting Washington's focus to the Pacific Rim. Kerry's nomination as Secretary of State came after that position was occupied for 16 years by either an African-American or a woman (or both), then returned to Foggy Bottom a figure who looks and sounds like one of the members of the old Foreign Policy Establishment that for better or for worse was in charge of handling American foreign policy for much of the twentieth century. In a way, Kerry's affinity with this now moribund elite goes beyond style. Trying to resolve conflicts in the Middle East, launching another set of Arab-Israeli subtitle diplomacy, investing time and energy on dealing with Iran, or schmoozing with the Russians, seem like parts of an outline for a plot of a movie from the 1970s or the 1980s starring European-born Henry Kissinger or Zbigniew Brzezinski. More specifically, just as President Obama has been trying to extract the United States from the costly and un-winnable wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and to prevent it from being drawn into new military quagmires in that region, Secretary Kerry has been leading the efforts to raise American profile in the Middle East and to invest resources in high-stake diplomacy there. This continuing hyperactive American diplomacy in the Middle East that Kerry is pursuing, including by launching a new Set of Israeli Palestinian negotiations and managing the rapprochement with Iran, reflects the same commitment that Washington had made at the start of the Cold War and against the backdrop of the collapse of the British and French empires to defend the political and economic interests of the Western alliance in the region which traditionally was considered to be the strategic backyard of Europe. Containing regional and global threats to stability there, protecting the access to the oil resources, and working to advance Arab-Israeli peace were the kind of national security services that Washington that benefited European interests during the Cold War and its aftermath. And Kerry seems too intent on continuing to provide these services to the Europeans who, unlike the Americans, are dependent on the oil supplies from the region and are affected directly by instability in that region, including through the flow of Muslim immigrants from there, while their cities could be threatened by Iranian nuclear missiles more than, say, New York or Chicago. And let's not forget the sense of nostalgia they may feel towards their former imperial outposts in the Levant and North Africa. Medium and message seemed to become one and the same when Kerry was speaking at length in well-accented French at a joint press conference with French counterpart Laurent Fabius in Paris when presenting case for military action against the Syrian regime the French public. "This is our Munich moment, this is our chance to join together and pursue accountability over appeasement," Kerry said, employing a historical analogy that has been so central to the evolution of the trans-Atlantic and even adding a Middle Eastern flavor to it, as he urged U.S. military intervention in the formerly French-ruled province, a move which had the potential to turn into another Iraq and consume the rest of President Obama's term in office if the current White House occupant had not decided to stay out of the civil war there and sending Kerry to make a deal with the Russians in Geneva. But Kerry may be creating now the conditions for costly new diplomatic entanglements in the Middle East by raising expectations for success on the Israeli-Palestinian and the Iranian fronts, making it more likely that if the Obama Administration fails to deliver a final-status Israel/Palestine agreement and to defuse the Iran nuclear crisis, American position in the Middle East would be even more damaged than it is today. There are very few serious observers on either side who believe that the current Palestinian-Israeli talks taking place now under American guidance would lead to a deal to resolve such core issues like Jerusalem, the Palestinian refugees or the Jewish settlements. If anything, both the Israelis and the Palestinians are hoping to be able to score points in the blame game that could follow a breakdown in the talks. Yet much of the blame for the collapse in the negotiations would end-up falling on the Americans. If the Obama Administration faults the Palestinians for the stalemate, it would ignite new waves of anti-Americanism in the Arab World, while a diplomatic clash between the White House and the Israeli government would prove to be politically costly for President Obama. At the same time, any serious move towards détente with Tehran, like relaxing some of the economic sanctions on Iran, would produce outcries of betrayal by the Israelis and the Saudis, and are bound to galvanize the Evangelical Christians and the neoconservative wing of the Republican Party who together with the traditional supporters of Israel in the Democratic Party are expected to mount a political Jihad against Obama. Moreover, if the negotiations with Iran would be deadlocked as a result of a refusal by Tehran to accede to American demands despite the progress that made thanks to what would be seen as Iranian moderation, Washington may face the prospects of the crumbling of its international coalition while the White House could come under even more pressure in Congress to punish Tehran. Either way, the Obama Administration is making huge bet that its diplomacy on Israel/Palestine and Iran would work, without considering the disastrous outcome in case it loses the gamble on making a progress on these two issues. In any case, the continuing pre-occupation with the crises occurring on the peripheries Europe in the Middle East would make it even less likely that the Obama Administration would be able to carry out its ambitious strategy of bolstering its security ties in East Asia. That in turn plays directly into the hands of the Chinese who probably breath a sigh of relief every time the Americans are being drawn into a new mess in the Middle East. A more Pacific Secretary of State may not have allowed that to happen.]]> Echoes of China Opening in Iran Detente: It's the Interests, Stupid! tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.4080715 2013-10-11T10:02:11-04:00 2014-01-23T18:58:21-05:00 Leon T. Hadar http://www.huffingtonpost.com/leon-t-hadar/ Under that scenario, Israeli annexationist policies and the evolution of an Apartheid-like system in Greater Israel would eventually produce some sort of American disengagement from Israel along the lines of the collapse of the U.S. partnership with the white-minority government in South Africa. But that kind of thinking disregarded some basic facts in the reality of U.S.-Israeli relationship, including massive American public support for Israel and very minimal concern about the plight of the Palestinians. Hence, according to results of a Gallup opinion poll published in March 2013 before President Barack Obama's visit to Israel, Americans' sympathies leaned heavily toward the Israelis over the Palestinians, 64 percent vs. 12 percent. Americans' partiality for Israel has consistently exceeded 60 percent since 2010, noted Gallup pollsters. But today's 64 percent "ties the highest Gallup has recorded in a quarter century, last seen in 1991 during the Gulf War." The same Gallup poll as well as other studies do show a major gap between the attitudes of Republicans, conservatives, and older white Americans whose support for Israel runs above 70 percent and those of belong to what could be described as the Obama Coalition, including Democrats, liberals, younger Americans, African-Americans and Latinos whose sympathies towards Israel lie in the low 50 percent. But even in their case, the less enthusiastic attitudes toward Israel have not translated into a more favorable approach vis-a-vis the Palestinians. So while disagreements between Washington and an Israeli right-wing government over the buildup Jewish settlements could have an impact on the relationship between the two countries, it is unlikely that they would produce a major crisis during which large segments of the American public would rally behind a call to punish Israel for its policies towards the Palestinians, and force the White House to downgrade the ties with Israel. But while the Israelis may have less to be concerned about the way a transformation of the American political-cultural zeitgeist could affect their ties with the United States, they should consider that the possibility that changes in U.S. geo-strategic interests could be more powerful in their impact on U.S.-Israeli relationship, and could over-ride the high level of sympathy that Americans continue to feel towards Israel. Just ask Taiwanese. It's important to recall that the U.S. opening to China, including President Nixon's historic visit in 1962, didn't reflect any major changes in American public opinion vis-a-vis the communist regime in Beijing or its pro-American nemesis in Taiwan (then Formosa). In fact, China was still in the midst of the Cultural Revolution with no major reformist political movement in sight and the powerful pro-Taiwan China Lobby was still playing a dominant role in affecting the attitudes of Congress and elite opinion. What led to the dramatic changes in U.S. policy instigated by President Richard Nixon, himself a once proud member of the China Lobby, had to do with the geo-strategic challenges facing the United States at the time, including the efforts to extricate itself from the Vietnam War and the need respond to the split in the Communist Bloc. The Americans hoped that the opening to China would increase U.S. diplomatic leverage over Moscow and provide incentives to Beijing to press its ally in Hanoi to make a deal with the Americans that would create the conditions for the end of the war in Southeast Asia. But establishing diplomatic ties with China was almost by definition a diplomatic betrayal of America's traditional ally, Taiwan, and a major shock to other partners in East Asia, including Japan and South Korea (think about Saudi Arabia's reaction to reports about U.S.-Iran rapprochement today). Yet the move was seen as advancing American national interests, an argument that President Nixon was able to sell to a skeptical Congress and public that was programmed to believe that Taiwan was a friend of America and Red China was its leading global ideological and strategic foe, a view that seemed to be supported by China's stream of anti-American invective. From that historical perspective, the evolving detente between Washington and Tehran, coming after the American decision not to launch a military strike against Iran's partner, Syria, and the Israeli angry response sound echoes of the opening to China of the 1960s. Like in the case of Red China, the main concern driving American policies toward the Islamic Republic of Iran are not whether President Hassan Rouhani is a "moderate" or not (although his alleged reformist tendencies could help market a detente with Iran to the American media and public). After all, Zhou Enlai, the leading Chinese negotiator may have been a pragmatist, but was never considered a "reformer." What are central to the calculations of the Obama administration are strategic interests, and in particular, to need to readjust American policies in the Middle East in the aftermath of the wars in Iraq and Iran and the Arab Spring, and against the backdrop of a fiscal crisis that requires major defense cuts and an effort to shift more U.S. resources and attention from the Middle East to East Asia. In that context, there is a recognition that any serious strategy aimed at restructuring U.S. policy in the Middle East and maintaining American influence in the region would require cooperation with Iran, a regional power with its axis of Shiite partners in the Levant, the Persian Gulf and South Asia. To put it in concrete terms, no agreements to end the civil war in Syria and avert one in Lebanon, to stabilize post-war Iraq and Afghanistan could be achieved without Iranian support. And without such agreements Washington would not be able to extricate itself from the political and military mess it is finding itself in the Middle East, where it is being drawn to one crisis after another, while China continues to strengthen its position in East Asia. That isn't to say that preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons would not continue to be a central U.S. goal, but it does suggest that President Obama is more willing than the Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to adopt a more flexible approach that would allow the Iranians to maintain the capacity to pursue a nuclear program. A deal along these lines would not be accepted by Netanyahu and is bound to cause tensions if President Obama is able to win the support of the war-weary American public and a even get divided Congress behind a new Iran policy. In a way, an American deal with Iran that is seen as advancing U.S. interests shouldn't be seen as "anti-Israeli" but as an indication that American and Israeli interests are not always compatible. While Netanyahu and many Israelis are committed to a strict adherence to the goal of preserving Israel's nuclear hegemony in the Middle East, Washington has other more urgent strategic priorities in the region. Adjusting to these new realities could prove to be a traumatic experience for Israel. Just ask Taiwan.]]> Who Really 'Lost' the Middle East? tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.1919264 2012-09-27T13:03:43-04:00 2012-11-27T05:12:01-05:00 Leon T. Hadar http://www.huffingtonpost.com/leon-t-hadar/ It would probably be a waste of time and space to recall here for the one-hundredth-and-one time the many ways in which the geo-strategic thinkers aka the neoconservatives, who occupied top positions in the administration of President George W. Bush, and who now dominate Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney's foreign policy team, had led the United States into one of the most horrendous strategic disasters in American history in the name of doing a "regime change" in Iraq and spreading democracy in the Middle East. It's difficult to imagine that there is anyone out there who still believes that it made sense for the United States to pay the huge costs, in terms of lives and treasure, military over-stretching and loss of diplomatic credibility, for carrying out the military adventure in Mesopotamia and launching the so-called Freedom Agenda in the rest of the Middle East. Oops! I forgot. Our former Iraqi ally Ahmed Chalabi, the Shiite rulers in Baghdad and their patrons in Tehran beg to disagree with the American critics of the Buscheney administration and of the policies concocted by the neocons. The members of Iran-led Shiite Axis would tell you that ousting Saddam Hussein from power was actually a great idea and helped strengthen Iran's position in the Persian Gulf and the rest of the Middle East. And the guys in the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), the Weekly Standard, FOX News, and Wall Street Journal editorial board, and the rest of the cheerleaders for the Iraq war continue to argue that the script they had written for "liberating" Iraq was great. The diplomats and the generals were the ones who screwed up and should be held responsible for the lousy production. Indeed, with few exceptions, none of the neocons have apologized for the mess they had made in the Middle East, and have instead been trying to defend their foreign-policy narrative, especially after the election of a new president who seemed to be offering a different one. But then how can you attack President Barack Obama for "appeasing" the Ayatollahs in Tehran, if it was your own policy of removing Saddam Hussein from power that helped strengthen Iran and its satellites in the region? Or can you really criticize the White House for failing to back Egypt's Hosni Mubarak and for supporting the Arab Spring or for helping oust Muammar Gaddafi after urging Americans to spread democracy in the Middle East before, during, and after the Iraq War? In fact, much of what President Obama has been doing in the Middle East in the last four years has been to try to save U.S. hegemony in the region, in the aftermath of the fiasco in Iraq and the series of other diplomatic and military failures in the region that occurred under the Bush administration, including the emergence of Hezbollah as the main power-broker in Lebanon; the holding of the election in Palestine that brought the radical Islamist Hamas to power; the stalled Israel-Palestine peace process; and the growing tensions between Washington and Ankara. While trying to get out of the quagmire in Iraq and to improve the relationship with Turkey and other Arab and Muslim countries, President Obama has embraced a cautious and cost-effective approach in response to the so-called Arab Spring which recalled a similar and successful strategy employed by the administration of President George H. W. Bush in dealing with the fall of communism and the collapse of the Soviet Union 25 years ago. The notion that Obama has "lost" the Middle East, that his policies were responsible for the fall of the pro-American autocrats in Tunisia and Egypt and that his administration could (or should) have prevented that from happening is quite preposterous. Are Romney and his neoconservative advisors proposing that President Obama should have called on the military rulers in Tunisia and Egypt to suppress the popular uprising in those countries? Would the American people have supported such a policy that could have led to direct U.S. military intervention in domestic political crises that would have evolved into full-scale civil wars? In reality, the U.S. has neither the power nor the will to determine the outcomes of the political changes taking place in the Arab World, but only to try to influence them at the margin by working together with other regional and global powers. Moreover, in Libya, where the Obama administration -- operating "from behind" -- did provide some indirect military support for the uprising there, the ousting of Muammar Gaddafi occurred without any American casualties. Would the United States be better off today if it had deployed ground troops in Libya that would have become targets for attacks by radical Islamist groups? Obama's critics in the Romney campaign seem to be suggesting that launching new wars of choice in Iran or Syria a la Iraq would advance U.S. interests in the Middle East. Assuming that the American people, exhausted by the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, would support such new military crusades in the Middle East (and opinion polls suggest that they won't), are the Republicans ready to increase the defense budget to the stratosphere in order to achieve these ambitious goals, perhaps by raising new taxes? I didn't think so. Operating against the backdrop of the mess in Iraq, the continuing war in Afghanistan and the expanding federal deficits and a slow economic recovery, and as he tries to shift U.S. geo-strategic focus to East Asia and respond to the economic and military rise of China, President Obama has wisely resisted the pressure to open new military fronts in the Middle East. It remains to be seen whether a President Romney would end up following the advice of his neoconservative foreign policy advisors. But the fact that he has recruited them to play such an active role in his campaign raises doubts about his judgment. The kid who killed his parents may have been pardoned by the judge, but it is doubtful many couples were standing in line to adopt him.]]> Asian-American Voters as a Republican Parable tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.1590016 2012-06-12T12:27:37-04:00 2012-08-12T05:12:06-04:00 Leon T. Hadar http://www.huffingtonpost.com/leon-t-hadar/ Indeed, based on these and other social and economic indications, Asian-Americans as an electoral bloc should have been a natural ally of a Republican Party that is, after all, committed to the principles of the free market, supports the interests of small businesses and celebrates social-conservative values. In fact, if presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney wanted to demonstrate to voters that energizing the private sector -- and not growing government -- is the most effective way to provide Americans with an opportunity to advance their economic standing, he could point to Asian-Americans, whose median weekly earnings have been greater than those earned by whites during the last decade and whose unemployment rate has remained relatively low even during the recent recession. Indeed, a 2011 U.S. Labor Department report concluded that Asian-Americans are more likely than either whites or blacks to be employed in the private sector, with more than 8 to 10 percent of employed Asian-Americans working for private companies, and that the number of Asian-owned businesses expanded at the rate of 40.4 percent, a rate that more than doubled the national average between 2002 and 2007. Moreover, that many Asian-Americans trace their roots to countries that have been and still are under the control of Communist regimes that had repressed their families should have been another reason for many of them to vote for the party of Ronald Reagan and the other Republican Presidents with impressive anti-Communist credentials. Yet, according to a recent study conducted by Lake Research Partners, Asian-American and Pacific Islander voters prefer Democratic President Barack Obama over his Republican challenger Mitt Romney. There are an about 17.3 million people of Asian or Pacific Islander descent in the United States, comprising 5.6 percent of the population. Many of them are concentrated in key "swing" states, like Virginia, Nevada and Florida and close to 80 percent of these voters plan to take part in the 2012 election. The Lake Research survey showed that Asian-Americans tend largely now to identify themselves as Democrats by more than a three-to-one margin. Fifty-nine percent of Asian-Americans favored U.S. President Barack Obama, while only 13 percent preferred presumed Republican nominee Mitt Romney. Twenty-seven percent said they were undecided. That Democrat-Republican split remained largely unchanged since the 2004 presidential election. During the post-1945 era the majority of Asian-Americans voters that included refugees from Communist-ruled China, Korea and Vietnam tended to identify with the conservative and anti-communist agenda of the Republican Party. Republican George H. W. Bush received 55 percent of the Asian-American vote compared to 31 percent for Democrat Bill Clinton. But in 2004 it was Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry who won the majority (56 percent) of Asian-American vote, with Obama making even a stronger showing in 2008, getting 62 percent of the Asian-American vote. While Korean-Americans resist the voting trend among Asian=Americans and continue to lean Republican -- not unlike Cuban-American voters who remain a faithful Republican voting bloc among the pro-Democratic Hispanic community -- the indications are that younger and more educated Asian-Americans are drifting by large numbers to the Democratic side. According to the Labor Department study, 57.5 percent of employed Asian-Americans who are 25 or older have a degree, a proportion that is 60 percent higher than among whites, and more than twice that of blacks. Moreover, 7.8 percent of jobs in this the high-tech industries are going to Asian-American workers, making them well-represented there compared with their overall representations in the labor force (5 percent). And Asian-Americans are similarly well represented in science, technology, engineering and math occupations, accounting for more than 9 percent of jobs there. In short, the younger and more educated Asian-Americans tend to fit into the demographic profile of the highly-educated and upper-middle class professionals who reside in area like northern Virginia or North Carolina's Research Triangle who voted for Obama in 2008 and made it possible for him to win these two crucial "swing" states. In a way, these Asian-American voters -- very much like the white members of what sociologist Richard Florida refers to the "creative class" -- mirror image the problem that Democrats face when it comes to white blue collar workers. In both cases, it's cultural affinity and not economic interests that seem to determine voting behavior. Your average Asian-American (or white) high-tech entrepreneur, software engineer or graphic designer may have benefited professionally and economically from the free market environment of the 1990's. But he or she feels less comfortable with a political party perceived to be dominated by white politicians that exhibits what many see as being intolerant toward minorities and immigrants. Most Republican leaders and voters don't share xenophobic and anti-immigration attitudes. Republican politicians of Indian-American ancestry (who converted to Christianity) were elected as governors of Louisiana and South Carolina. And when Republican politicians, like former California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, adopt an election platform that is tolerant of minorities and immigrants, the majority of Asian-Americans are inclined to support him. Indeed, if the Republican Party would have elected such a pro-immigration candidate as former Utah Governor (and former U.S. Ambassador to Singapore and China) Jon Huntsman to run against Obama in November, it's quite likely that when it came to Asian-American voters, he would have given the Democratic president a run for his money. But the continuing obsession of so many Republican and conservative activists with "birtherism" and with the president's alleged "Muslim" faith only helps to accentuate the notion that Republicans are hostile toward immigrants and toward Americans who are non-white and non-Christian. Republicans should recognize the obvious: that they cannot rely in the long run in their quest for the presidency and other national political offices on the votes of the diminishing demographic groups of white blue-collar workers, and that changing economic and sociological trends are strengthening the electoral power of the fastest growing immigrant community of Asian-Americans, many of whom are joining the ranks of the "creative class" whose members could determine the outcome of elections in key states. The GOP is probably not going to win the support of the majority of African-American and Hispanic voters anytime soon. But Republicans are now in danger of losing the votes of another important demographic group that could have been its natural political ally.]]> The Reality of American Power: Why Robert Kagan Is Wrong tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.1293836 2012-02-22T12:40:48-05:00 2012-04-23T05:12:01-04:00 Leon T. Hadar http://www.huffingtonpost.com/leon-t-hadar/ I could imagine the poor guy confronting family and friends and insisting to no avail that what he had was more than just the common cold or the seasonal flu. 'You are not sick' is the kind of reassuring message that Robert Kagan is sending to the nation's foreign policy hypochondriacs aka 'declinists' in his new non-fiction book The World America Made, contending that America is in tip-top military and economic health and ready to take care of the rest of the world. He recalls that the same kind of hypochondriacs had complained that America was really, really in decline in the aftermath of the Vietnam War. But, as the sad case of our late Key Westerner demonstrates, even hypochondriacs do get sick. In the same way, great powers do decline, both in relative and absolute terms. Hence American global economic power started to decline relative to rising economic players like Japan and Germany in the post-1945 era, and relative to China and India more recently. And while in absolute terms the US continues to maintain the largest economy -- and remains the pre-eminent military superpower based on any standard one applies -- it still has to operate by the realist axiom that in the long run, no great power can preserve its military superiority on the basis of a weakening economic superstructure. Kagan, the son of a renowned historian who had studied the Peloponnesian War and the brother of the author of a book on the Napoleonic Wars, likes to present himself as a hard-core Realpolitik analyst of foreign policy, and tends to bash his intellectual rivals, the so-called 'declinists' as idealists. He says they place their faith in the dreamy notions of an evolving international community and the abolition of war through peaceful diplomacy and international law. Not unlike your average hypochondriac who dismisses the advice of the medical doctor, these declinists refuse apparently to face reality and listen to a rational scientist of power like Kagan, and instead assume that the US interests and values would continue to prosper in the more multipolar system in the kind of post-American world that commentator Fareed Zakaria imagined in his book on the same subject. His views matter now as he is a top foreign adviser to Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney. But if anything, it is Kagan who refuses to face the reality of current American global power. He also misrepresents the views of Zakaria and other realist foreign policy analysts who believe that the most ineffective way to maintain American power and influence is by continuing to do what Kagan has been advocating since the end of the Cold War -- engaging in unnecessary and wasteful wars in the Middle East and picking-up costly diplomatic fights with China and Russia while raising US defense budget to the stratosphere, igniting anti-American sentiment worldwide and eroding US credibility. Which brings me back to the inscription in the Key West cemetery. Imagine now that the physician who was taking care of that very sick Key Westerner -- let's call him Dr Kagan -- was not only dismissing the dangerous symptoms exhibited by his patient. How would we have reacted when we found out that the medical doctor was actually the one who had recommended that his patient take an health-inducing (and democracy promoting) trip to the Greater Middle East -- with a long stay in Iraq -- where the poor man contracted the deadly virus that led eventually to his demise? Military quagmires Indeed, there is an element of the theatre of the absurd in the spectacle of Kagan, the geo-strategist who was the leading intellectual cheer-leader for the decisions to invade Iraq and launch the Freedom Agenda in the Middle East that were so central to the erosion of US global position. He is now lashing out at others for their lack of faith in American power that he had so helped to diminish so much. Kagan also fails to recognise that the policies he and other neo-conservative intellectuals advocated -- that were embraced by the Administration of George W Bush -- played directly into the hands of the Chinese, who were delighted to see the Americans drown in the military quagmires in the Middle East while they were spending their time and resources in opening new markets for their trade and investments, including in Afghanistan and Iraq where security was being provided by US troops. And much of what Kagan writes about the potential threat to the post-World War II international system created by the US makes little sense. The policies pursued by the second Bush Administration based on the unilateral and pre-emptive strikes against against real and imaginary aggressors with weapons of mass destruction, and right and obligation of the US to do 'regime changes' in other sovereign nation-states, were the ones that ran contrary to the set of international rules promoted by the US and its allies after 1945. In fact, these policies violated international rules established by the Westphalian Peace of 1648 to which China and Russia continue to adhere (hence, their most recent opposition to Western military intervention in Syria). Moreover, it seems that Kagan believes that continuing to accumulate power and using it more often is the surest way prevent American decline. Preoccupied with the high-brow discourse about high-power he refrains from engaging in such 'boring' subjects, like how to fix America's fiscal problems, to revive its manufacturing base, and to reform its ailing public education system. All Americans need to do is to believe in their power -- and it will come to be. It is quite depressing to see that despite the fact that Kagan the geo-strategist has been so wrong in the past and helped to contribute so much to the decline in American power, he continues to be taken seriously by American policymakers and the media. Dr Kagan, our imaginary medical doctor from Key West, would have lost his license to practice medicine a long time ago. The commentary was originally published in the Singapore Business Times on 2.21.12]]> What Happens After an Iran-Israel War? tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.1266412 2012-02-09T16:05:05-05:00 2012-04-10T05:12:01-04:00 Leon T. Hadar http://www.huffingtonpost.com/leon-t-hadar/ And while research institutions have conducted interesting exercises to try to figure out the military, diplomatic and economic repercussions of a confrontation between Israel and Iran, the dictum that no military plan survives the contact with the enemy applies also here -- in addition to the unintended consequences, blowbacks and the proverbial 'black swans' that are bound to show up even in the unlikely scenario under which Israel achieves all or most of its military goals. If I can put my ten cents worth of strategic thinking, it seems to me that the ousting of Saddam Hussein and the American fiasco in Iraq helped tip the balance of power in the Persian Gulf and the Levant in the direction of Iran and its allies. And that made it more likely that Israel and other Sunni Arab players that regard the Islamic Republic as a threat to their core national interests would use all their available resources to deprive Iran from having access to a military instrument that would allow it to formalize the new regional balance of power. In his magisterial study of the 1812-1814 military campaigns in Europe, Russia Against Napoleon, historian Dominic Lieven suggests that while Tsar Alexander recognized that France would never be able to control Europe, he also concluded that the price of adhering to Napoleon's Continental System would have undermined Russia's position as a great power and that the Russians had no choice but to use the full power of their military to prevent that from happening. My guess is that Israel, as well the Saudis and their Arab-Sunni allies, know that it would be possible to contain a nuclear Iran -- in the same way that Russia could have embraced a cost-effective strategy to contain Napoleon's France. But as long as Israeli leaders believe that they have a realistic option of blocking Iran's nuclear program -- and by extension, of setting major constraints on its ability to assert its position as a regional power -- they will probably use their military capacity. The Saudis and their Gulf partners would probably cheer them behind close doors while publicly condemning them. But as quite a few Israeli and American military experts have warned, a military strike on Iranian facilities would not achieve the declared Israeli goal of ending Iran's alleged nuclear military program and the expected costs in terms of Israeli casualties could be very high. Moreover, if Iran gives the green light to its Shiite Hezbollah allies in Lebanon to attack Israel and mobilize the Shiites in Iraq and the Persian Gulf to retaliate against American and Saudi targets, Tehran would be in a position to strengthen its regional power. The ayatollahs would also be able to exploit an Israeli attack to ignite Iranian nationalism and win support even from those Iranians who actually oppose the ruling clerics and would like to see them removed from power. And while the Obama administration insists that it wants to apply peaceful means to get Iran to freeze its nuclear enrichment program, it is not clear that Washington and its Europeans allies would succeed in coming up with a diplomatic formula that would be acceptable to Iran and to Israel (and its supporters in Washington) or that the Americans would be able to prevent Israel from taking military action against Iran. Those of us who believe that an Israeli military attack would not serve American and Israeli interests and may actually help consolidate the power of Iran in the Middle East and that of the clerics in Teheran should also recognize that President Barack Obama -- who probably agrees with these assumptions -- is not in a position for a diplomatic confrontation with Israel during a presidential election year. In fact, even in a non-election year, there will be very little incentive for Mr Obama to launch a creative diplomatic opening to Iran at a time when the Iranian leadership does not have the power to make a deal with Washington and is facing strong opposition at home from liberal and conservative forces alike (who, despite their differences, want Iran to acquire nuclear military capacity). And at a time when the Middle East is going through the political turmoil of the Arab Spring and the US is engaged in a steady drawdown from its military occupation of Iraq, the shaky balance of power in the region would make it difficult for Washington to try to reach a 'grand bargain' with Iran. Such a move, coming in the aftermath of the collapse of the pro-American regimes in Egypt and Tunisia, would be perceived by the Saudis and other Arab-Sunni governments as another sign of US weakness. If Israel decides to attack Iran, expect the Obama administration to provide it with logistical and other support, including by vetoing a UN Security Council resolution condemning Israel (unlike the Reagan administration which did join the Security Council's censure of the Israeli attack on the Iraq nuclear reactor in Osirak in 1981). Leaf from History Yet, in the same way that the outcome of the 1973 Middle East War provided the then Nixon administration with an opportunity to protect and even strengthen its position in the Middle East, by renewing diplomatic relations with Egypt and working to bring peace between the Egyptians and the Israelis, the Obama administration could find itself in a position to advance its interests in the aftermath of an Israel-Iran military confrontation and an ensuing Middle Eastern war. A potential leading player in such a post-war scenario would be Turkey which until now has played a clever diplomatic game vis-a-vis Iran. In the most significant act of military cooperation between Washington and Ankara since 2003, Turkey agreed last year to station sophisticated American radars, part of a US-led system to defend Europe against a potential Iranian missile attack, and has expressed strong opposition against any move by Iran to acquire nuclear military weapons. At the same time, the Turks have also been in the forefront of the diplomatic opposition against a military strike against Iran and, working with Brazil, it proposed a diplomatic deal to freeze Iranian uranium enrichment in exchange for ending the US-led sanctions against Iran. And while Turkey is a member of NATO and remains a close military ally of Washington, its recent diplomatic assertiveness and its tensions with Israel coupled with its strong support for democratic activists in the Arab World, has strengthened its status in the Middle East and could allow it to play the role of grand mediator between the US and Iran in a post-war scenario. Indeed, working with Turkey and Saudi Arabia and the Arab League, as well with the permanent members of the UN Security Council and the European Union, the Obama administration could propose the convening of a Middle East Conference chaired by Turkey that would bring together all the Arab states, Iran and Israel and that would set the stage for the establishment of a nuclear-free zone in the region (which would apply also to Iran as well as to Israel's nuclear arsenal) and to a series of diplomatic initiatives to help stabilize Iraq, Syria and Lebanon and revitalize the Israeli-Palestinian peace process along the lines of the old Arab League proposal. In that context, the US and Iran could also start repairing their diplomatic ties and Teheran would be encouraged to support any resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that is agreed on both sides. Not for the first time in history, the end of a war could help create the conditions for stability, cooperation and peace. It could be worth the try. The commentary was published originally in the Business Times of Singapore on 2.9.12]]> Impressive Show for Anti-War Republicans: Is Neoconservatism Now Outside Republican Mainstream? tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.1199603 2012-01-11T18:03:52-05:00 2012-03-12T05:12:01-04:00 Leon T. Hadar http://www.huffingtonpost.com/leon-t-hadar/ New York Times' headlines would be proclaiming "A Huge Victory for Anti-War Democrats," and Fox News pundits would be warning that the Democratic Party was being taken over by "anti-American appeasers" and "secret Muslims." But Kucinich ended up winning only 1.35 percent of the New Hampshire primary vote in 2008. Chicago Senator Barack Obama who was a critic of the Iraq War did get 36.45 percent of the vote in the Democratic primary in the Granite State that year. But his foreign policy views had never amounted to a coherent anti-interventionist agenda. If anything, when it comes to foreign policy, it is former Utah Governor Jon Huntsman and this year's Republican presidential candidate who is calling for a U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan that sounds today like candidate Obama did in 2008 when he was urging an end to the war in Iraq. You can describe both Huntsman and Obama as "realist internationalists" in the tradition of Republican President George H. W. Bush and Democratic President Bill Clinton. They have never pretended they that they were waving the anti-war flag; but still, they were critical of the neoconservative let's-invade-the-world agenda. So if you consider that Huntsman came in third in New Hampshire, winning 17 percent of the vote, and you combine that number with the 23 percent that Paul mustered there, it is possible to conclude that 40 percent of the Republican voters in New Hampshire have rejected President George W. Bush's global military adventures and democratic crusades. Moreover, the three most radical neocons in the race -- former House Speaker News Gingrich, former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum, and Texas Governor Rick Perry -- who cannot wait to start bombing Iran -- in the case of Perry, to re-invade Iraq -- got altogether 20 percent of the vote in New Hampshire. The MSM will probably continue dismissing Paul as "unelectable" and argue that his anti-interventionist foreign policy positions are "outside the mainstream" while continuing to take seriously the push for war with Iran by Gingrich and Santorum (not to mention their support for the bizarre anti-Sharia campaign in this country). It is true that it may too early to predict whether Paul would do as well (and perhaps even better) in the primary in South Carolina and other states in the South and the Mid-West -- where Republicans tend to espouse more nationalist positions -- as he did in New Hampshire and Iowa. And the fact is that former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney who did win in Iowa and New Hampshire continues to adhere to foreign policy positions that are very similar to those of former President George W. Bush and former presidential candidate John McCain. And he could win the Republican primary race. In fact, Romney has surrounded himself with national security advisors that belong to the neo-conservative wing of the Republican Party and the conservative movement and continues to accuse President Obama -- under which Osama bin Ladin was killed, the number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan have increased, and an effort to raise the diplomatic status of the Palestinians at the United Nation was averted -- of "appeasement," of gutting the U.S. military and of abandoning Israel. But Romney whose main strength has been his ability to adjust his earlier more moderate political views on social-cultural issues -- like abortion of gay rights -- to the prevailing ultra-conservative views of rank-and-file Republican, will now have to deal with another changing political reality: W's era neoconservative strategy of maintaining American global hegemony has ceased to be the dominant view among Republican voters. At the minimum, there is going to be a serious and heated debate among Republicans about the direction of U.S. foreign policy in the coming years. Indeed, many conservatives have concluded that the notion of using the power of the U.S. government to do "regime change" and "nation building" around the world runs very much contrary to conservative values that highlight skepticism about the ability of government to promote political and social change -- whether it is in Dubuque, Iowa, or in Baghdad, Iraq. Moreover, the emphasis that Republicans and conservatives have been placing on the need to cut the federal deficit has already forced many of them to figure-out that it is not possible to put the U.S. fiscal house in order without slashing the gigantic defense budget. That in turn, is also leading these Republicans and conservative to start reassessing the expensive U.S. military presence abroad. If Republican candidate Romney wants to ensure that the supporters of Ron Paul and Jon Huntsman -- that include many young voters and the kind of middle class professionals that constitute the critical bloc of "independent voters" -- he would need to respond to their opposition to military adventurism in the name or regime change and nation building and accommodate their views by embracing a more prudent and realist foreign policy agenda that looks more like that of George H. W. Bush than that of his son. Or Romney is going to find out in the general election that it is his own neoconservative foreign policy views that may be "outside the mainstream" of the Republican Party and majority American opinion.. ]]> Another War That Nobody Wants tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.1194814 2012-01-09T19:00:00-05:00 2012-03-10T05:12:01-05:00 Leon T. Hadar http://www.huffingtonpost.com/leon-t-hadar/ Or to put it differently, if Iran with nukes is indeed a strategic threat, it is the Europeans more than the Americans who should be worried about it. Some Europeans were hoping to pursue once again their all-too-familiar approach of free riding on U.S. military power -- counting on the United States and/or Israel to attack Iranian nuclear facilities (Win I for Europe) while allowing European nations that depend heavily on Iranian oil to continue doing business with the Islamic Republic (Win II for Europe). They could have then distanced themselves from the American and/or Israeli action while facing no disruption in the flow of Iranian oil into their economies (Win III for Europe). But as the Obama administration has already demonstrated in Libya, with the U.S. military overstretched (hence, the plans to shrink it) and the American fiscal house in a mess (while the Europeans continue to maintain their expensive welfare programmes), the Americans were not going to allow the Europeans to do more free riding on their military power in the Middle East -- which is (and that includes Iran) in Europe's strategic backyard. Hence, the Obama administration has made it clear that it would not launch a unilateral military strike against Iran and would instead pursue a 'graduated' strategy of slowly escalating economic and military pressure on Iran. But that would require a unified Western front for it to succeed, since any proposed sanctions would not bite Iran without EU participation. The expected EU decision to ban Iranian oil imports comes after President Barack Obama signed into law last month a measure (included in the Defense Bill) targeting Iran's central bank and financial sector following similar steps against Iran's financial institutions that the British had taken last November (in retaliation for demonstrators' storming of the British embassy in Teheran). The new measures signed by Mr. Obama in December would punish foreign firms that continue dealing with Iran's central bank to facilitate oil transactions by imposing restrictions on their access to the American economy and its financial sector. But it would take some time for the U.S.-EU moves to go into effect. The southern European countries that are heavily dependent on Iranian oil import (and are also in the midst of a devastating financial crisis) will probably resist the planned EU ban. Moreover, Turkey and Japan have already requested waivers from the U.S. financial sanctions against Iran (and Mr. Obama has the authority to grant them), while China and Russia, two leading trade partners of Iran, could circumvent the sanctions, by shifting to barter deals with Teheran. Feeling the heat It is obvious that the Iranian economy has taken a hit in the form of rising food prices and a dramatic drop in the value of the Iranian currency as a result of the sanctions imposed on it by the U.S. and the United Nations in recent years. So the new sanctions that would target Iranian oil exports on which its economy is dependent could have the effect of forcing it to the brink of bankruptcy. But it is not clear that these Western steps are going to bring about the desired changes in Iranian policy. If anything, against the backdrop of the Iranian parliamentary elections in March and a growing split inside the leadership -- pitting President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his political allies against even more conservative clerical groups -- policymakers in Teheran are under pressure to project diplomatic and military toughness vis-Ã-vis Washington and its partners. That explains Teheran's threats to stop the flow of oil through the Strait of Hormuz if sanctions were imposed on its oil exports. It also threatens to stop U.S. warships crossing this strategically important strait. The West has cheered the emergence of the anti-clerical and more liberal Green Movement in Iran. But Iran's clerics and its notorious Revolutionary Guards could exploit the confrontation with the U.S. to mobilise public support by stirring up nationalist sentiments. The set of financial sanctions imposed on Iran by the U.S. in September 2006, and that were integrated into a UN Security Council resolution in March 2008, have targeted Iran's elites and highlighted the growing isolation of the country. It also allowed the Obama administration to demonstrate that its non-military strategy on Iran was working while insisting the military option world 'remain on the table.' White House officials argue that a war with Iran would not be cost-effective in terms of securing long-term U.S. interests. A military strike against Iran's nuclear facilities could perhaps slow down Iran's drive to build nuclear weapons by a year or so. But it could also ignite an all-out Middle Eastern war involving Israel and the Hizbollah (Iran's allies in Lebanon) and lead to a major rise in world energy prices that could bring the U.S. economic recovery to a halt. At the same time, the Obama administration is facing enormous pressure from the Israeli government that has threatened to use military force against Iran if intelligence reports indicate that the Iranians are close to manufacturing a nuclear bomb. Interestingly enough, leading Israeli national security figures have echoed the American view by arguing that a war with Iran would result in many casualties while failing to end its nuclear programme. Playing into the hands of Israeli and American supporters of the military option was a report issued earlier in the year, the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency that expressed its concerns that Iran may be on the threshold of making a nuclear warhead small enough to be put on top of a ballistic missile. Republican lawmakers and the leading presidential candidates of the party -- and their neo-conservative allies in the media and the think tanks -- have accused the Obama administration of failing to force the Iranians to end their nuclear programme and have urged that Washington take immediate military action -- or at least give Israel a green light to do the job. Saddam-era scenario These let's-bomb-Iran crowd consists of the same politicians and pundits that not so long ago were warning that Saddam Hussein's Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and that the world-as-we-know-it would come to an end unless the U.S. invaded Iraq. Recent reports suggest that the Israelis have agreed to refrain from taking military action against Iran while the Obama administration continues to use diplomatic means and widen the anti-Iran international coalition to pressure the clerics in Teheran to change course. American and Israeli officials have apparently drawn a set of 'red lines' that would determine if and when a use of a military option against Iran becomes acceptable to both sides. Mr. Obama and his diplomatic and national security aides are confident that they have a relatively long window of opportunity -- at least until after this year's presidential and congressional elections -- in pursuing their diplomatic option. They believe that the collapse of the Assad regime in Damascus is imminent and this has deprived Iran of a central regional partner, making it much more difficult for the Iranians to provide support for Hizbollah if war breaks out with Israel. At the same time, the withdrawal of U.S. military from Iraq makes it unlikely that American troops there would be threatened by Iranian retaliation in case of a war with Iran. These developments coupled with the more assertive anti-Iran position of Saudi Arabia and its Gulf allies (that pledged to increase oil exports to the West and China if tighter sanctions on Iran's oil exports go into effect) may have weakened the diplomatic bargaining power of Iran and putting may be more pressure on Teheran to reach a compromise of sorts with the U.S. and its European allies. Turkey's role Turkey, which notwithstanding some of the recent tensions with Washington and Paris -- not to mention Israel -- remains a Nato member and a key U.S. ally, is emerging as a leading Middle Eastern power that is counter-balancing Iran and certainly does not want to see Teheran with nuclear arms. But it also wants to avert a military confrontation between the U.S. and Iran and could play a major role in trying to facilitate a diplomatic deal under which Iran could agree to put its nuclear programme on hold in exchange for enhanced diplomatic and economic ties with the West. Moreover, notwithstanding the heated rhetoric coming out of Teheran, its leaders are worried about its growing diplomatic and economic isolation and the disastrous impact that a war with the U.S. could have on the ability of the regime to continue maintaining its power in the long-run. Similarly, there is very little support for a war with Iran in the Obama administration, which recognises that such a course could draw the U.S. into a new costly military quagmire in the Middle East. And considering that both on Iraq (over the issue of maintaining U.S. military presence there) and on Afghanistan (over the issue of changing the timeline for withdrawing troops) Mr. Obama has been able to resist the pressure from the political right, it is not inconceivable that he could continue pursuing his graduated approach on Iran and counter the calls to go to war. But things can go wrong. As Britain's prime minister during World War I, David Lloyd George, explained in his memoirs: 'Nobody wanted war' in 1914. 'The nations slithered over the brink into the boiling cauldron of war without any trace of apprehension or dismay,' he recalled. Indeed, the danger is in a regional and global strategic environment under which the balance of power remains very shaky. U.S. power is being challenged. The Iranian leadership feels that it is being pushed into a corner. The Israelis are feeling isolated as the Middle Eastern political system continues to go through dramatic changes. Unexpected provocations and miscalculations could lead the kind of war that once again nobody wants. The article was originally published in the Business Times of Singapore on January 9, 2012]]> 2012: The Year of Counter-Revolution? tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.1176503 2011-12-30T12:36:25-05:00 2012-02-29T05:12:01-05:00 Leon T. Hadar http://www.huffingtonpost.com/leon-t-hadar/ Time magazine. The insurgency targeting the ruling political elites, first in Tunisia, and then in Egypt, Libya, Syria, Yemen and Bahrain, has not been confined to the Middle East. Protests have taken place in Spain, Greece, Italy, France, Britain and Israel. And in the United States, the Occupy Wall Street protesters began demonstrating first in New York, and then in Washington, Chicago, and in other cities across the country. The 2011 global uprisings against the status quo have been compared to the revolutions that swept through Europe in 1848, when working-class socialists and middle-class liberals in Paris, Milan, Vienna, Prague, Budapest and Berlin tried to bring down the old regimes. And indeed, not unlike the Spring of Nations of 1848, the Arab Spring and the ensuing protests in New York's Zuccotti Park or Tel Aviv's Rothschild Avenue have raised expectations for change and the forging of a new order based on the principles of freedom and equality. But with the benefit of hindsight, the 1848 revolutions are seen as failures. The old social and political order remained in power. So is it possible that the rebellions of 2011 could also leave some disappointment behind in 2012 if and when the members of the old order start fighting back to protect the status quo just like the counter-revolutionaries in 1849? Of course, history does not repeat itself. But some of the reasons that led to the expiration of the revolutionary momentum in Europe after 1849 -- tensions between and inside the opposition movements, the lack of wide public support and the enormous power retained by the ruling elites -- could also end up stalling the pressure for change in 2012. Come the Counter-Revolution? In the Middle East, expect the military to reassert its power and force fragile and precarious ruling coalitions with the rising Islamist movement. Expect Saudi Arabia and Turkey, with the support of the US and its allies, to lead an effort aimed at re-establishing a delicate regional status quo that protects Israel. In the West, centrist political parties will contain the pressure for reining in the financial markets and take baby steps to reform the bloated welfare state. Washington will count more and more on its partners worldwide to help sustain its global interests. The fall of the Arab nationalist rulers of Tunisia (Zine El Abidine Ben Ali), Egypt (Hosni Mubarak), Libya (Muammar Gaddafi) and Yemen (Ali Abdullah Saleh) in 2011 could be followed by the collapse of the Assad regime in Syria in 2012. But it has already become clear in 2011 that the secular, liberal and social-democratic members of the Arab opposition are not going to emerge as winners in the post-revolutionary struggle for power. Indeed, the elections that took place in Egypt and Tunisia have demonstrated that the young, multilingual and Internet-savvy spokesmen for the revolution who had become prominent on Al Jazeera and CNN television coverage from Tahrir Square lack any strong base of electoral support. Instead, Arab-Sunni Islamist political parties are expected to take power not only in Egypt and Tunisia, but also in Libya, Yemen and Syria, countries that will continue to be plagued by divisions along religious, ethnic and tribal lines. Shiite-Arab Islamist parties are already playing a dominant role in post-Saddam Hussein Iraq and in Lebanon, where Sunni Arabs are playing political defense. The end of authoritarian rulers such as Mubarak, Gaddafi or, for that matter, Bashar Al-Assad, and the holding of free elections, giving citizens their first taste of political freedom, may provide some hope for those clamoring for change. But majority rule in countries that lack constitutional guarantees that protect individual rights, gender equality and religious freedom is likely to become rule by the Islamist parties that could pose a threat to women and religious minorities, such as the Coptic Christians in Egypt and Chaldean Christians in Syria and in Iraq. This could accelerate ethnic, sectarian and tribal rivalries in Libya, Yemen, Syria and Egypt and create the conditions for a series of civil wars in 2012 in these countries. Moreover, much of the sectarian tensions between Sunnis and Shiites in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq or in Bahrain -- where a Sunni minority rules over the Shiite majority -- is going to be exacerbated by the growing concern by Saudi Arabia and its allies in the Gulf Cooperation Council -- which is shared by Turkey -- over the rising power of Shiite Iran and the potential for growing secessionist movements among their own Shiite minorities. And like the Saudis, the Turks are interested in preventing the disintegration of Iraq, Syria and Lebanon into civil wars -- which could provide an opportunity for Kurdish secession from Iraq -- and in ensuring peaceful transition to power in Egypt, Tunisia and Libya; in maintaining the status quo in Jordan and Morocco; and in moving towards a resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In that context, helping create mechanisms for cooperation between political forces affiliated with Egypt's military and the Muslim Brotherhood aimed the establishing law and order and opening the road for economic recovery in that country will be one way that Turkey and Saudi Arabia, with the backing of the majority of Egyptians and the support of the US and Europe, will try to control the revolutionary change. Thus, Saudi Arabia and Turkey will emerge as the two leading counter-revolutionary players in the Middle East in 2012, pursuing the kind of regional policies that seem to align with the interests of the US. Indeed, at a time of weakening American military power and eroding economic base, Washington will encourage regional powers such as the Turks and the Saudis in the Middle East, or its partners in East Asia (Japan; Korea; Australia) to play a more active role in promoting the global US security agenda. This strategy could prove to be effective in 2012 but could face serious challenges in the coming years as these players embrace policies that may run counter to US interests. But even as it sheds come of its military commitments in the Middle East (Iraq), the US will continue to play the role of a global balancer of the last resort in 2012, especially if it ends up being drawn into a diplomatic and military confrontation with Iran that will probably not ignite a full-blown war next year but could allow President Barack Obama to engage in an exercise in brinkmanship with Teheran around the time of the 2012 presidential campaign. Western scenario Not a lot will change in the way fiscal and monetary policies will be pursued in Washington whether Mr Obama vacates the White House in the aftermath of a Republican presidential victory in November or if he is re-elected. (And the same applies to France, if President Nicolas Sarkozy loses in next year's election.) The interests of the financial industry and Corporate America that fund the election campaigns of both parties will continue to pre-dominate the legislative and policy-making process while pressure from the electorate and labour unions representing public workers will make it difficult to slash the major government-backed retirement and health-insurance programmes. There is no reason to believe that short of a devastating economic catastrophe, this kind of political-economic order that prevails also in much of Western and Central Europe will be brought down anytime soon. Indeed, neither the Occupy Wall Street protesters on the left nor, for that matter, the members of the Tea Party movement on the right -- or their political counterparts in Europe -- have come up with new sets of ideas to help bring about major structural changes in the current political and economic status quo. If anything, at a time of economic insecurity and political uncertainly, angry voters in the West or, for that matter, in the Middle East gravitate to the politics of identity that merge the explosive ingredients of nationalism, ethnicity and religion. So if the most important legacy of the 1848 springtime of hope was the rise of German, Italian and other forms of nationalism in Europe, the insurgencies of 2011 could start igniting similar pressures in the Middle East and even in Europe in 2012 as disillusionment with the promise of change starts setting in. (The commentary was originally published in the Singapore Business Times on December 30, 2011)]]> Obama's Gradualist Strategy on Iran May Not Prevent War tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.1096418 2011-11-16T09:20:49-05:00 2012-01-16T05:12:02-05:00 Leon T. Hadar http://www.huffingtonpost.com/leon-t-hadar/ Well, if you believe that, I've got a nuclear reactor in Dimona to sell you. Even before the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) issued a report last week concluding that "Iran worked to re-design and miniaturize a Pakistani nuclear-weapon design" and conducted "some activities relevant to the development of a nuclear explosive device," which "may still be ongoing," the Israeli media was speculating that the nation's political leaders were debating whether or not to bomb Iran's nuclear research centers. And that a decision on that issue would come sooner than later. Moreover, Israeli journalists reported that both Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak favored a military strike against Iran while other members of the Israeli cabinet, intelligence officials, and the military chiefs as well as the Obama Administration were opposed to the idea, arguing that the costs of a military confrontation with Iran would outweigh any likely benefits. Indeed, U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said last week that a military strike would have "unintended consequences" and "could have a serious impact in the region, and it could have a serious impact on U.S. forces in the region." His comments were the latest in series of similar remarks by U.S. officials, including former Defense Secretary Robert Gates expressing strong reservations about the wisdom of a military option as a way of preventing the development of Iranian nuclear military capability. But the notion that there is a major policy split between Washington and Jerusalem over Iran and that the Obama Administration is perhaps the only remaining obstacle to an Israeli military action is far-fetched, as is the suggestion that if push came to shove and Israeli leaders concluded that Iran is on the verge of acquiring nuclear military capabilities, they would move unilaterally to attack Iran despite American opposition. Unlike the in the cases of Israeli attacks on the nuclear reactors in Iraq (1981) and Syria (2007), an Israeli strike against Iran is bound to trigger a regional war involving Hizbollah, Iran's ally in Lebanon, which is expected to use its current arsenal of 50,000 missiles and rockets to launch attacks on Israeli cities, and could become an opportunity for Syria's leaders to shift attention from their domestic political problems by joining Iran and the Hizbollah in a full-blown war with Israel. Moreover, Iran and its allies in neighboring Iraq -- ruled by a Shiite-led government -- would probably try to target some of the remaining U.S. troops in Iraq and to destabilize Saudi Arabia and its Arab partners in the Persian Gulf, triggering an American military retaliation. So in practical terms, a unilateral Israeli military strike against Iran would force the U.S to open a new and costly military front in the Middle East, not to mention the economic repercussions in the form of rising energy prices that could threaten an already fragile economic recovery. That Israel would take unilateral action that could help set the Middle East on fire and devastate core U.S. national interests doesn't make a lot of sense and runs contrary to political or military logic, especially when other non-military means are still available to slow-down Iran's nuclear military program. More likely, much of the current "noise" over Iran in the media is part a coordinated American-Israeli psychological warfare against Tehran as the Obama Administration puts pressure on Russia and China to join in a UN-led set of sanctions against Iran. My guess is that during the Israeli Prime Minister's first visit to Washington he and Obama reached an agreement on a gradualist political and military strategy to undermine Iran's nuclear military program through diplomacy and covert action. Part of that agreement also included an understanding that a military action against Iran would be considered if such a strategy would fail and Iran does get close to enriching enough uranium to develop a bomb. President Barack Obama is hoping that his strategy vis-à-vis would not be a re-rerun of Bush's Iraq adventure and would look like the policy he followed in Libya. Hence, it is the IAEA and not the CIA that is publicizing Iran's effort to develop weapons of mass destruction, and the pressure on Tehran is promoted as a multilateral action, starting with the current diplomatic pressure and use of sanctions with the use of military force considered to be the last resort. The problem is not only that there is no assurance that this gradualist strategy would work. More troubling is the fact that there has not been any serious debate in Washington over whether the acquisition of nuclear military capabilities by Iran is a direct threat to U.S. national interests and that military force should be used against Iran if diplomacy fails. If anything, the Republican "opposition" seems to be even more intent on forcing Iran to give up its nuclear military program, even if that would lead to a war with Iran. In a way, Obama can present himself to the American public as the "grownup" who refrains from "appeasing" Iran while at the same time resisting the pressure to go to war against that country. Ironically, there has been more a vigorous public debate in Israel over whether to attack Iran where the idea of a nuclear Iran is seen by many as an "existential threat" than in the United States which, after all, had not gone to war to prevent the Soviet Union, China, Pakistan or North Korea from developing nuclear weapons, and has concluded that a policy of deterrence is the most cost-effective way to deal with them. President Obama should be applauded for not rushing to war with Iran. But the gradualist strategy he is implementing could eventually lead to the military confrontation that he wants to avoid. ]]> When Condi Did Peace Processing tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.1064092 2011-10-28T18:13:57-04:00 2011-12-28T05:12:01-05:00 Leon T. Hadar http://www.huffingtonpost.com/leon-t-hadar/ The major elements of Olmert's offer have already been described early this year in Olmert's memoirs, in a long article by Bernard Avishai in the New York Times magazine as well as in internal Palestinian documents leaked to Al Jazeera. These and similar reports suggested that the two sides may have been close to reaching a final-status agreement and that "if only" Olmert's political career had not come to a swift end (following police investigation of corruption charges), Israelis and Palestinians would be on the road to concluding a peace accord by now. Rice tries to place herself at the center of this narrative by creating the impression that under her leadership the Bush Administration played an active role in bringing back to life the dormant Israeli-Palestinian negotiations during the peace conference in Annapolis in 2007 and in producing a diplomatic momentum that helped propel Olmert's initiative, and that both President George W. Bush and Rice made serous attempts to exploit the opportunities for peace provided by the Israeli Prime Minister's plan. This spin seems to be part of a concerted effort by Rice to counter the criticism that during the eight years during which she helped set U.S. policy in the Middle East (first as the National Security Advisor to the president, and later as Bush's Secretary of State) she had placed Arab-Israeli peace on the bottom of Washington's foreign policy priorities and that combined with her role in the Iraq War fiasco, she should be held responsible for diminishing U.S. influence in the region. Ironically, Rice with the help of her cheerleaders in the American media seems to be blaming President Barack Obama and his foreign policy team for failing to pick-up the torch of Palestinian-Israeli peace processing from her and for picking up instead a fight with the Israeli government by pressing it to freeze the establishment of Jewish settlements in the occupied Jewish territories. Nice spin if you can sell it. Rice, a Sovietologst by training, like a deer caught in the Middle Eastern headlights describes herself as stunned when Olmert during a meeting in Jerusalem in 2008 presented the outlines of his plan. "Am I really hearing this?" she writes in No Higher Honor. Yet the notion that an ardent Zionist like Olmert was willing to advance a peace plan that was based on setting the borders between Israel and Palestine along the 1967 cease-fire lines together with mutually-agreed swaps should not have come as a huge surprise to anyone who was following events in the Middle East at the time. In a way, Olmert's plan involved a recycling of the ideas included in the so-called Clinton Parameters which were regarded by the leaders of the Kadima Party -- an off-shoot of the Likud Party to which Olmert and former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon belonged -- as a realistic basis for any viable Israeli-Palestinian accord. So in essence what the Bush Administration did during its last year in office was to join the then Israeli government in embracing the diplomatic parameters in President Clinton's old plan -- which did not amount to a profile in ingenuity or courage. And this was the same Bush Administration that had wasted eight years trying to "remake" the Middle East while putting the Israeli-Palestinian peace process on the policy backburner, with its officials declaring that the road to Jerusalem led through Baghdad. Also let us not forget one of the main reasons that the Israeli-Palestinian talks have been deadlocked for so long: The decision by the Bush Administration -- as part of its proclaimed Freedom Agenda -- to hold free parliamentary elections in the West Bank and Gaza in 2006 that helped to bring Hamas into power, setting in motion a series of events -- the military conformation between Hamas the more secular Fatah and the establishment of a Hamas-led mini-state in the Gaza Strip that remains at war with Israel -- that are responsible for much of the current Israeli-Palestinian mess. Even more ridiculous than the self-congratulatory tone of Rice's recollections of her role as a peace processor is the criticism directed at the Obama Administration for supposedly failing to continue pursuing his predecessor's creative Israeli-Palestinian diplomacy. In fact, Obama elevated the Israeli-Palestinian peace process to the top of his policy agenda and like his predecessor seemed to be operating based on the Clinton Parameters. Hence, his support for a peace agreement based on setting the borders between Israel and Palestine along the 1967 cease-fire lines together with a mutually-agreed swap of land has been blasted by Republicans as "anti-Israeli." The fact is that even if Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas had accepted the Olmert Plan (which he did not), there was no chance that the newly elected Israeli Likud-led government of Benjamin Netanyahu would do so. Obama's call for Israel to accept a temporary halt in the buildup of Jewish settlements in the occupied territories as a part of an effort to revive the direct Israeli-Palestinian peace talks made a lot of sense but was rejected by Netanyahu. But then Netanyahu would not have agreed under any conditions to conduct negotiations with the Palestinians on the basis of his predecessor's plan. But the focus on the Clinton Parameters repackaged as Olmert's plan suggest that partitioning the territory between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea is not a mission impossible. The idea of land swaps would allow Israel to maintain control over large settlements in the West Bank in exchange for Israeli territory that would be transferred to the Palestinians could probably win the support of mainstream Israelis and Palestinians. At the same time, reaching Israeli-Palestinian agreement on security would be difficult but attainable, especially in the context of wider regional arrangements backed by the Arab League that could be backed but outside powers, like NATO. But the main reason why no serious movement towards Israeli-Palestinian peace is going to happen any time soon has to do with two so-called core existential issues that continue to separate Jews and Arabs and that the ideas proposed by Clinton or Olmert were not able to resolve: The religious sites in Jerusalem and the Palestinian "Right of Return." It is important to emphasize that resolving the territorial dispute over Jerusalem is manageable, with the areas of the city with a Jewish majority becoming the capital of Israel while the Arab neighborhoods constituting the capital of the Palestinian state. The two sides, however, have failed to even come close to an agreement on the future of the area known in Judaism as the Temple Mount, and in Islam as the Haram Ash-Sharif (Noble Sanctuary) where the Al Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock are located, and the surrounding Old City of Jerusalem. The Palestinians have demanded exclusive sovereignty over the holy sites and the Old City while all the Israelis have been willing to accept is some sort of Palestinian administrative control over the Temple Mount and parts of the Old City. The issue has acquired a semblance of zero-sum-game, making it impossible to develop a formula that would be accepted to most conciliatory figures on either side. Similarly, notwithstanding some efforts to square the circle over the issue of the Right of Return, it is difficult to imagine even the most moderate Palestinian leadership agreeing to give-up the Right of Return in exchange for a financial package to help settle the Palestinian refugees in the West Bank (and elsewhere) and for allowing a few thousand Palestinian refugees to re-settle in Israel. It is possible to imagine an alternate universe in which Israel would agree to allow the Palestinians to maintain complete sovereignty in the holy sites and the Old City (excluding the Western Wall and the Jewish Quarter) in exchange for a Palestinian agreement to renounce the principle of the Right of Return. But in the real world that is not going to happen anytime soon, Instead, Israelis and Palestinians should try to use the Clinton Parameters as a basis for a long-term coexistence agreement -- a la the Sino-American agreement over Taiwan -- and postpone the resolution of the two core existential issues -- Jerusalem's holy sites and the Right of the Return -- to the distant future. ]]>