Baby Steps in Afghanistan

The Obama administration rolled out its revised approach to Afghanistan this past week. Most of it was leaked before the actual announcement, which seems to be the Obama style of making sure there are no major shock waves when formal announcement time occurs. The “strategy” it laid out was hardly surprising, shocking, or innovative. Rather, it looked like one more incremental step into the Afghan morass. As such, it pleased neither the advocates of the war, who would like more decisive additions, or to the opponents, who want the war ramped down, not up.What it proposed were in essence baby steps of escalation, which is eerily reminiscent of Vietnam.

The President essentially proposed three things. The first, and most significant, was to state unequivocally what the mission is: to “disrupt, dismantle, and destroy” Al Qaeda. All actions are tied to that goal. That meant, among other things, that Obama has abandoned to the pile of hoped-for-but-not-expected-or-required outcomes of the conflict producing a democratic Afghanistan (a staple part of the Bush goals). Since democratizing Afghanistan in any western sense has always been a chimera, that at least makes the approach a little more realistic. It is not, however, quite clear either what outcome the United States expects or will tolerate in the August Afghan elections, or how our actions will contribute to those ends. The goal of what David Petraeus called the “Af-Pak” strategy (ycch!), however, is clearly Al Qaeda. No one is likely to dissent from that goal; there is still plenty of room for disagreement about how to get there.

Presumably the United States seeks an outcome where Afghanistan and Pakistan will be hostile grounds for Al Qaeda–where they will no longer be able to find refuge. The second and third elements of the strategy are aimed at that end. The second is the dispatch of an additional 4,000 (beyond the 17,000 already ordered) Americans to Afghanistan, although in the role of trainers of the Afghan security forces (the Afghan National Army or ANA). The goal is to speed the development of the ANA to a point that it can take on increasing parts of its own self-defense. There was no mention about altering the tribal constitution of the ANA, a problem raised in an earlier post in this space. This goal is reminiscent of the parallel effort in Iraq (outcome in progress) and in Vietnam (outcome a failure).

The third element is to funnel additional economic and developmental funding into both Afghanistan and Pakistan, especially into the contested Pashtun areas (the strategy does not specifically identify the areas as Pashtun). This element of the strategy begs the questions both of where the money is supposed to come from and whether it will do measurable good. In the case of both additional troop numbers and aid levels, expect there to be additional requests. Petraeus hinted as much in his interview with John King today, saying Obama had not denied a single request for more yet and that we will all have to wait and see if this is enough (want to guess whether it is or not?).

These are all small, timid, baby steps reminiscent of how the United States got gradually deeper and deeper into Vietnam, and the fact that Obama has adopted this approach is puzzling, even troubling. His support base wants out of Afghanistan, but he has joined forces with the opposition who believes Afghanistan is too important to abandon. His supporters say we cannot win in Afghanistan; his opponents say Afghanistan is too important to lose. Something has convinced him that the latter argument has sufficient merit that he is turning his back at least part of the way on those who oppose the war and thought he would lead us out of it. In this confusing situation, he has chosen the least risky, politically safest route–that of incrementalism.

This strategy makes short term, tactical sense, but does it wash in the longer haul? Probably not. An extra 4,000 trainers and a few billion dollars is not going to transform Afghanistan from an environment hostile to the U.S. to one hostile to Al Qaeda. When it does not, there will be cries to do just a little more; we heard that in Vietnam and succumbed to it, and it was a losing strategy. Moreover, the longer we are there and the more effort we pour in, the more two contradictory things will happen. One is that war weariness will increase, and Obama’s popularity will decline. The other is that the sunk costs will continue to increase, and with each increment, it will become a little harder to disengage because of the investment already made. One force suggests it is better to get out while the getting is no worse; the other says stay because it is too expensive to leave. This sounds like a Hobson’s choice.

President Obama, in justifying his economic policies, chides those who would defer one or more elements with the accusation their calls for delay simply “kick the can” down the road for others to solve. But isn’t an incremental increase in the American commitment–baby steps–simply a way to kick the Afghan war down the road for some future time? It certainly looks that way to me.

New Lines in the Palestinian Sand

With the addition of the 13-seat Labor party to its coalition, the Netanyahou government is basically in place. The accession of Labor–at the insistence of its leader, Ehud Barak–is controversial and may tear the former largest party in Israel apart, because it aligns pro-peace Labor with a Likud/Yisrael Beitenu coalition whose commitment to peace is, to put it politely, questionable. It also sets the basis for a more-or-less open confrontation between Israel and its most important supporter, the United States. The basis of that confrontation is, of course, the question of Palestinan statehood: the two-state solution. Likud/Yisrael oppose the two-state solution (although they do not openly say so in the present climate); the Obama administration clearly favors it. New lines are being drawn in the sand over Palestine. Who will prevail?

The mounting change in U.S.-Israeli relations could be both fundamental and traumatic. It is, of course, also part of a cyclical debate about that relationship. The two sides in the American debate have, roughly speaking, been between those who side decisively with Israel on Middle Eastern issues and those who propound a more balanced view of Israel and its Muslim neighbors. The pro-Israeli faction was in control under Bush, where American policy often appeared to be initiated in Tel Aviv (or Jersualem). The drivers of this policy position are what I called American Likud in a recent posting. The Obama administration represents a return to the more balanced position often associated historically with the old “Arabist” group in the State Department and last having official  influence under Clinton. The fact of fluctuation is, in and of itself, not unusual.

What is unusual and potentially incendiary is the combination of an American regime committed to a two-state solution and an Israeli government that opposes such a position. The last time that combination existed was in the latter 1990s, when Bill Clinton led an American government committed to the peace process and Bibi Netanyahou led a Likud government in Israel. In the 1990s, Netanyahou lost the confrontation and was replaced–admittedly for reasons going well beyond the confrontation with the U.S. over Palestine. Nonetheless, some precedent does exist, and it may help explain why Bibi is going to some length to appear more conciliatory on the Palestine issue than he really is.

There are two evidences of Bibi’s attempt to move toward the political middle on the two-state issue. One is the addition of Labor to the ruling coalition, since Labor has been one of the most prominent voices for peace in Israeli politics. Barak has said one of his motivations for joining the Netanyahou government was his hope of being able to influence the government toward peace. Whether the bargain he made toward that end will prove to be heroic, quixotic, or faustian remains to be seen. For Netanyahou, it is a win-win proposition: he hopefully gains credibility with the Americans, but is not committed to anything more than politiely listening to Labor entreaties, which he can ignore without endangering his governing majority.

The other evidence is Netanyahou’s attempt to portray his position as pro-peace, at least partially to help align himself more closely with the Americans. Obama this week declared that movement toward a Palestinian state is “critical” to ending what he describes as an “unsustainable” Palestinian situation: in other words, the two-state solution already endorsed by Hillary Clinton. There is nothing in Netanyahou’s past that suggests he agrees, but he does not want to appear to disagree. To that end, he declared yesterday that “the Palestinians should understnad that they have in our government a partner for peace, for security, and for rapid development of the Palestinian economy.” Peace, in other words, with no sovereign Palestinian state. That outcome is standard Likud party line, and because it means that continued settlement of the West Bank can fit under its conceptual umbrella, it also expressed Yisrael sentiment.

No matter how much lipstick one puts on the pig, however, it is still a porker. The simple fact is the Palestinians will accept no peace settlement that does not include a sovereign state. As noted in the last posting, Bibi’s “conciliatory” position is warmed-over 1990s stuff, a think coating of make-up for the pig. It does not fool the Palestinians, and it will not fool the Obama administration. If Obama and his emissaries are serious about peace in a way others have not been, there is confrontation in the future. How it plays outs and who wins will be an absolutely fascinating case in the real workings of international power politics, and I will be watching and reporting on  it.

Is Bibi Blinking?

The drama of creating a new Israeli government continues. Binyamin (Bibi) Netanyahou has the votes to form a right-wing government of which his Likud Party and Avigdor Lieberman’s Yisrael Beiteinu would be the pillars surrounded by other small right-wing parties. To this point, Bibi is holding out against that option, trying instead to reach across the ideological divide to form a “unity government” that includes parties of the left. Is Bibi blinking?

One issue above all others divides the political right and left in Israel, and that is the peace process. As noted several times in this space, the major symbol of the peace process is the question of Israeli settlements on the West Bank. The left (Kadima and Labor) places a high priority on progress in peace negotiations and is thus willing to negotiate on the settlements, up to and including dismantling some or all of them.The right (Likud and especially Yisrael) say they want peace, but are not willing to negotiate removal of the settlements. This is particularly true of Yisrael, many of whose supporters are settlers. Bibi, on the other hand, favors negotiations with the Palestinians based on economic development and security provisions rather than on emphasizing negotiation of a sovereign Palestinian state. There is not a lot of wiggle room between these two positions.

The approach of the Israeli right has two primary opponents. One, of course, is the Palestinians, who see the Israeli right as anti-Palestinian state and view Bibi’s negotiating stance as no more than a warmed over 1990s attempt to divert attention from the real demand for a sovereign state (which it largely is). The other opponent is the Obama administration which, as noted earlier here, believes a two-state solution to be “inevitable” (Hillary Clinton’s term). The position of the Israeli right precludes that outcome, thereby placing Bibi and the Americans on a collision course. For the Israelis, life was so much simpler when they had George Bush acting as Ariel Sharon’s poodle!

In this context, Bibi’s conciliatory stance toward the left makes sense. To cool off the Americans, he needs to reduce the apparent anti-peace position of the right, and coopting a peace-favoring left coalition partner is one way to do that. Kadima leader Tzipi Livni has ruled out the possibility, sniffing that she will not provide a “fig leaf” for the anti-peace Likud-Yisrael right.

That leaves the Labor Party, which has fallen on hard times, as the candidate for the grand coalition. In the recent elections, Labor–once the largest Israeli party–fell to fourth, electing only 13 members (it placed behind Kadima, Likud, and Yisreal, in that order). Ehud Barak, its leader and a former Prime Minister, is entertaining the possibility of joining Likud as a way to regain some relevance for Labor. Under promises made public, Labor would get five cabinet portfolios, incldung the retention of defense by Barak.

Not all members of Labor accept this idea. Bibi has promised the foreign minister’s post to Lieberman, and his views are so internationally toxic that they would likely undermine any possibility of peace progress (imagine Lieberman sitting across the table from Hillary Clinton and George Mitchell!). Eitan Cabel, a Labor leader, argues that entering a coalition with the right would represent a faustian bargain that would “”spell death” for the future of Labor. This is clearly no done deal.

The wild card in all this is the Americans. Although this point was not always obvious during the Bush years, the Israelis need the Americans far worse than the other way around. During the last eight years, the Bush team acted as if it had nop choice but to accept the Israeli poisition on everything. That has clearly changed, and Bibi’s reluctance to plow ahead with a right-wing government on a collision course with his major supporter indicates he at least has some appreciation for the way things have changed.

Where is all this going? Shimon Peres, the Israeli president, has given Bibi some time to try to form a unity government, but the prospects are not that great, and the alternatives may be for him to form the right wing regime or to step aside and let the pro-peace left have a go at forming a cabinet. Stay tuned!

A Victory for American Likud?

The Obama administration had another proposed appointee remove his name from consideration this past week. That in and of itself hardly qualifies as news, and the incident was a one-day story in the national print media. Its implications, however, are wider than that.

The appointee who withdrew his name was Charles W. Freeman Jr., and the post from which he withdrew his name was that of chairman of the National Intelligence Council, a position for which he had been nominated by Dennis Blair, the Director of National Intelligence (DNI). The chief public job of the chairman of NIC is the production of the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE), which forms the basis for the daily briefing given the president on the state of the world every day (the so-called daily intelligence brief).  

Freeman’s nomination was criticized on two levels, both of which are troubling, if for different reasons. One reason was that Freeman had vested interests that might cause him to be prejudiced in forumlating the daily NIE. He has, for instance, ties to the regime in Beijing, both from his tenure as ambassador to China from 1989 to 1992 and for membership on the board of the state-owned China National Offshore Oil Corporation. Likewise, he has served as president of the Middle East Policy Council, a position he followed George McGovern in holding. The Council receives some of its funding from Saudi Arabia. He has also been an outspoken critic of the position of the Israeli government, adopting a stance quite similar to that taken in his space. More on that in a moment.

Freeman is both a very bright and controversial person. A graduate of Yale and Harvard Law, he entered the Foreign Service in 1965 and has had a distinguished career there, the kind of career that would commend it to an Obama administration that seems to prize bright people. On the other hand, the “no drama” Obama style suggests that someone like Freeman is an odd fit for the administration. It would appear to be another case of the puritanical vetting process of the new team breaking down; at least, however, he does appear to have paid his taxes.

It is the other aspect of Freeman’s rejection that is more troubling. Freeman himself once began an October 18, 2000 New York Times op-ed column (reproduced in the March 15, 2009 edition of the paper) with the comment, “No American politician ever lost an American election by speaking too fondly of Israel or too poorly of the Palestinians.” Freeman has broken with his own observation, making the anti-Likud argument that, among other things, the Israeli settlement policy is self-defeating and destroys the prospects of peace–especially the two-state solution that is official U.S. policy–and has even been so bold as to suggest that the failure to make progress is attributable both to Palestinian and–gasp!–Israeli actions. This position, of course, is in direct opposition to Likud policy in Israel, and thus to Likud supporters in the United States. Thus, Likud-on-the-Potomac went out to get Freeman, and they succeeded.

The political ambush has familiar roots. It is based in an observation made by Robert W. Jordan, former U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia (2001-2003) quoted in the March 12, 2009 Times story on th Freeman withdrawal, “The reality of Washington is that our political landscape finds it difficult to assimilate any criticism of any segment of the Israeli leadership.” Criticism came from Congressional Democrats like Charles Schumer of New York, who accused Freeman of an “irrational hatred of Israel” that Freeman would deny, and Representative Steve Israel, also of New York.

The most interesting criticism, however, came from a private source. It is interesting because, on the other side of the ledger, the accuser is easily as controversial and, in Schumer’s description of Freeman, “over the top” as the withdrawn nominee. That comment comes from Steven J. Rosen, a former official of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) who was at one point  under federal indictment for passing U.S. secrets to Israel. Rosen is also one of the charter neo-conservatives so popular in the Bush administration. He said of Freeman’s views that they are “what you would expect in the Saudi Foreign Ministry,” which means they were anti-Likud. Presumably had Freeman’s views echoed those of the Israeli Foreign Ministry–as Bush policy did–he and other American Likudniks would have found his ideas more acceptable.

The purpose of these comments is not to advocate Charles Freeman for the post he has been denied. Probably, his history of ties with the Saudis and Chinese raised enough concerns that he should not have been nominated, which is a question of how much dissonance the “no drama” team wants to broach. Rather, the real concern is whether American foreign policy appointments should be effectively subject to veto on the basis of conformance or divergence from the Likud Party line. Governments, of course, interfere in the operation of other governments all the time, but it is generally in subtler ways than this. Is it time to to rein in the power of Likud in American politics? At the same time, conformance to Likud implies acceptance of Likud policies. If the analysis presented in this space and by Freeman make any sense, then such compliance runs directly counter to the offocial American policy on Middle Eastern peace. Did anyone think this through?

Charles Freeman has argued consistently that Israeli policies toward the Palestinians are misguided and counterproductive. That is close to the exact argument I have made in this space. Thus, I find it troubling that its opponents are able to hammer dissent based on this position into submission. The reader may feel differently about the issues, but what about the process? Is this victory for American Likud a victory or a defeat for American democracy?

Making Nice with Iran?

In yet another example of the cascade of ways the Obama administration is abandoning the policies of its predecessor, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced last week the willingness of the Obama administration to talk directly to representatives of Iran. The vehicle for this change of policy was offering an invitation for Iran to attend an American-sponsored conference on the future of Afghanistan.

The United States has not had diplomatic relations with Iran since April 7, 1980, during the Iranian hostage crisis where the American embassy staff in Tehran were held hostage by Iranian “students”. The result is that any discussions between the two governments have been indirect, either through intermediaries or at the Iranian interest section in Washington or the Iranian mission at the United Nations in New York. Otherwise, the two countries do not exist for one another officially.

If the United States is going to reopen relations with Iran, the Afghanistan meeting is agood place to start a dialogue. For one thing, there is precedent in the region, where the Iranians have in fact cooperated with the United States on a number of matters of mutual interest regarding Iraq. The situation is parallel over Afghanistan: both the United States and Iran dislike the Taliban and want either to see it remain out of power or at least have its power muted. Both also want to see the flow of heroin from Afghanistan stemmed. It may not be a broad area of mutual interest, but it is enough to get talks started.

Both sides are, of course, inhibited in agreeing to talks. There is a presidential election campaign going on in Iran, and the incumbent president, Ahmadinejad, has made a career or America-bashing that he can hardly reverse without looking ridiculous. The hysterical tone of American policy toward Iran, based in the fear of Iran’s nascent nuclear weapons program, that was set by the Bush foreign policy team makes it hard to talk to the Iranians as well.

It is, of course, the Iranian nuclear program that forms the basis of why the Obama administration needs to talk to the Iranians. Those talks begin with a clear delineation of the state of that program by the Iranians and, to a degree rarely publicized in this country, firm promises by the United States that Iran has nothing to fear if it does not go forward with its program.

The discussions begin with why Iran has a nuclear program that could easily become a weapons program. As I have discussed elsewhere (see Chapter 8 of the new fourth edition of my Cases in International Relations text, “Pivotal States: Confronting and Accommodating Iran”), there are various reasons the Iranians may be unwilling to abandon the nuclear option. One is a question of prestige: some Iranians believe that nuclear weapons are the calling card of great powers and that the inheritors of the Persian Empire need the nuclear option to be able to claim that distinction.

There is, however, another and more basic reason: the belief that nuclear weapons may be necessary for Iranian self-defense. Some Iranians argue that nuclear weapons possession may be necessary to deter the United States, which has certainly muttered frequently(admittedly under Bush) that it might exercise military options. Those fearful of that possibility argue, quite correctly, that the United States has never attacked a nuclear possessor and that Saddam Hussein might still be alive and in control of Iraq had he not abandoned his program. The other nuclear threat some Iranians fear is from the region’s only nuclear power, Israel, which has also grumbled about an Iraq-style excising of the Iranian program. 

In the United States, of course, the acknowledged reasons for the Iranian program are much more ominous. They center on the belief the Iranians want these weapons to threaten and, in the extreme, to attack the United States or its allies. More indirectly, opponents of Iran argue the Iranians might make these weapons available to terrorists.

Both sides, of course, deny the validity of the other’s concerns. The United States denies any aggressive intent toward Iran and argues the Israelis are not a threat either as long as Iran does not try to become a nuclear power. The Iranians are skeptical. The Iranians, in turn, deny any aggressive, offensive intent and argue, quite plausibly, that the terrorist connection is ridiculous, since virtually all the important terrorist enemies of the West are Sunni. The United States remains suspicious of these denials.

Clearly, there is much to be gained and little to be lost by making nice with one another. The key to the “nuclearization” of Iran is convincing the Iranians that they do not need those weapons, which means reducing the animosity between the sides. In turn, Iran must convince the West that it presents no threat to them. If that hurdle can be overcome, the rest may become possible. And while it will likely not be easy to get talks started as the two sides circle one another like the proverbial two scorpions in the bottle, meetings about Afghanistan are at least a beginning.