RE-THINK THE MIDDLE EAST

by Michael Lame, posted February 5, 2010

It’s time for President Obama to bring George Mitchell home. No, Mitchell shouldn’t be fired, nor should he resign, as Stephen Walt recently suggested in Foreign Policy. Rather, I would encourage Obama to reassign the former Senate majority leader to duty in the White House.

I advocate this for two reasons. First, the likelihood of success in his current position is small and getting smaller. Second, he is needed more at home than abroad to help address a matter of national importance which is even more pressing than Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Why Leave

In the last month, George Mitchell and Barack Obama have each made fascinating and revealing statements about the prospects for Palestinian-Israeli peace. President Obama, in an interview with Time magazine on January 15, said the following:

[T]he Middle East peace process has not moved forward. And I think it’s fair to say that for all our efforts at early engagement, it is not where I want it to be. . . This is just really hard. Even for a guy like George Mitchell, who helped bring about the peace in Northern Ireland. This is as intractable a problem as you get…

Both sides — the Israelis and the Palestinians — have found that the political environment, the nature of their coalitions or the divisions within their societies, were such that it was very hard for them to start engaging in a meaningful conversation. And I think that we overestimated our ability to persuade them to do so when their politics ran contrary to that…

[W]hat we did this year didn’t produce the kind of breakthrough that we wanted, and if we had anticipated some of these political problems on both sides earlier, we might not have raised expectations as high. Moving forward, though, we are going to continue to work with both parties to recognize what I think is ultimately their deep-seated interest in a two-state solution in which Israel is secure and the Palestinians have sovereignty…

Let’s parse this a bit. Obama provides a fair analysis of reasons for the continuing gridlock in the non-negotiations. He then claims that, despite the internal dissensions among Israelis and Palestinians, the US can help the two parties recognize what their own “deep-seated interest” really is, which apparently they are too myopic to see clearly on their own. But what he offers is basically more of the same – “to continue to work with both parties”.

The Obama administration did put forward two new ideas in 2009: a total Israeli construction freeze and an opening up by Arab countries to Israel. The freeze idea was embraced by the Palestinian Authority and rejected by the Israeli government, while Arab countries declined to expand commercial or other ties with Israel at this time. The upshot is a temporary partial freeze with no reciprocal moves and no negotiations.

To better understand the US approach,  I recommend watching or reading Charlie Rose’s January 6th interview with George Mitchell. It’s quite revealing of the administration’s strategy and of its blind spots.

Understandably enough, Mitchell’s primary point of reference for how to conduct a tough negotiation is the work he did on Northern Ireland in the 1990s. He speaks several times in the interview of the five years that he labored on it. His take-away from those years of struggle and apparent success is that you keep negotiating and you don’t give up.

I wrote “apparent success” because the ultimate question in dispute for Northern Ireland has not been resolved: Will the six counties of the North join the Republic of Ireland or remain separate from it? The great accomplishment of the negotiations Mitchell chaired was to kick that can down the road while removing violence from the equation.

But is Mitchell correct in considering Northern Ireland an analog of the Middle East? And if so, is the approach he employed with unionists and nationalists – to keep on slogging through the negotiating process with a commitment to eventual success – the most productive way to address the Israeli-Palestinian conflict? The answer to both questions is unclear.

Every analogy reveals as well as conceals. Certainly both conflicts are old and deep, but there are overlapping regional and global dimensions to conflict in “the holy land” that simply are not present in Northern Ireland.

Mitchell hopes for a more permanent result to the Israeli-Palestinian dispute than he found for Northern Ireland. He says he believes that two years or less of intensive negotiations will yield the result that this administration seeks and that the president spoke of: an independent and economically-viable Palestine living in peace alongside a secure and regionally-accepted Israel.

Of course, the two-year clock won’t start ticking until negotiations begin, and even getting to that point seems problematic. The current PA position is that Israel must suspend all building activity in the West Bank and East Jerusalem before it will return to talks. But as Mitchell acknowledges in his interview, “The Israelis are not going to stop settlements in, or construction in East Jerusalem. They don’t regard that as a settlement because they think it’s part of Israel.” Supposedly Mitchell is now offering the Palestinians a package of inducements to restart negotiations without a Jerusalem building ban. We shall see if that works.

The Missing Factor

No current conflict in the world has been more studied, written about, and negotiated over than this New Jersey-size stretch of land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. Perhaps two more years of negotiating will do the trick, but there is no good reason to believe that it will. And, in the absence of an external factor to push the parties towards a breakthrough, negotiation fatigue is likely to set in.

Some fundamental aspects of the political dynamic need to change in order for negotiations to succeed or even to be replaced by a more coercive process. There are several candidates for “the missing factor”: different or additional parties to the negotiation, such as Hamas, Egypt, or Jordan; more carrots and/or sticks offered; a larger frame of reference for the process; a looming threat that frightens parties on both sides; a decisive military victory or defeat; a political or social transformation of one or more parties; a new consensus on either side; a redefinition of issues. But there needs to be something, something big, perhaps something unforeseen that is added to the equation before we can assume that negotiations, no matter how long they last or how effectively they are facilitated, will be more likely to succeed than to fail.

More time, more energy, more trips back and forth won’t do it. In any case, shuttle diplomacy is a young man’s game, or at least a middle-aged man’s (or woman’s) game. In the mid-1970s, Henry Kissinger shuttled back and forth between Cairo, Jerusalem, and Damascus when he was in his early fifties. Dennis Ross, still in his forties, flew endlessly around the Middle East on behalf of President Clinton. Warren Christopher, who, from all appearances, was born old, shuttled back and forth between Israel and Syria in 1993 in his late sixties. George Mitchell, still spry at 76, cannot keep up the pace forever of hopping back and forth between Jerusalem, Ramallah, Cairo, and DC, especially with so little to show for his efforts.

Come home, George

The new White House job I envision for Mitchell would be that of senior political counselor, a sort of latter-day Clark Clifford. This administration is sorely in need of a seasoned statesman with a pre-Clinton-era pedigree, a venerated pol among all the rambunctious and hard-charging Chicagoans who now surround the president and feed him advice of questionable merit.

Although I stopped being an Obama fan some time ago, still I am concerned that our high-flying president is rapidly losing altitude. Both at home and abroad, Obama’s first year in office has been characterized by too many zigs and zags, too many full-throated but half-hearted calls to arms, too many conflicting messages, too little follow through.

Even if Obama only serves a single term, neither the United States nor the world can afford a weak presidency for the next three years. Something must be done to stop the slide. A president of either party requires some semblance of credibility with the American people as a whole for our democracy to function properly. And around the world, our nation’s friends need to know we can be counted on and our foes – yes, we do still have foes – need to know that the US remains a force to be reckoned with.

So the President needs senior advisors – “wise men” and wise women – who can tell him, respectfully, when he’s off course. He needs at least one person of political sagacity he can turn to, someone beyond ambition and impervious to flattery, someone of independent judgment and strong moral fiber, someone who understands domestic politics as well as the wider world. Few fit that bill as well as George Mitchell.

Of course, more will be required to put the Obama presidency back on track than the sage advice of a Nestor. Yet Mitchell could play a useful cautionary role, especially if he returns with an increased awareness of the dangers as well as the opportunities facing America in the wider Middle East.

2010 will likely be a year of decision regarding the most critical problem-area in the Middle East today, Iran – a year of decision for the Iranian people, the Israeli military, and the U.S. government. From across the political spectrum, America needs the best people with the best ideas available to the President to deal with the tough choices he will have to make this year.

by Michael Lame, posted on Nov. 19, 2009

“Did Obama grovel?” asks the AP headline.

“Washington (AP) – Some conservative commentators seized on President Barack Obama’s deep bow to Japan’s Emperor Akihito over the weekend, accusing the U.S. commander in chief of groveling before a foreign leader.

“So did he?”

According to the State Department, “Protocol, in general, is about respecting the customs and traditions of a host country. The president was simply showing respect.”

Showing genuine respect for that which deserves respect makes sense – both political sense and common sense. But when is a show of respect just that – a show? And when does that show hit a false note?

Over the last several decades, Western leaders have been increasingly careful to honor diversity, to show respect for different religions and cultures, and to empathize with the suffering of others. These are healthy developments, provided that the honor, respect, and empathy do not result in undermining essential distinctions. There are genuine, critical, and irreducible differences between various cultures, ethnicities, religions, and political systems. These differences reflect the deepest of human beliefs and hopes.

Christianity, Islam, and Judaism are not interchangeable, nor are their values identical. Abraham, in the Tanach, may or may not refer to the same man as Ibrahim, in the Qur’an. One God is worshipped by adherents of all three faiths. It does not necessarily follow, however, that they all worship the same God. The current popular presumption, voiced by numerous religious leaders from all sides, is that “Elohim,” “God,” and “Allah” are simply names in different languages for the same Deity. Perhaps they are. Perhaps they are not.

Diplomats, peace activists, and conflict resolvers with the best of intentions may seek to blur the distinctions, but we cannot respect our differences without acknowledging their existence.

Japanese culture and American culture are obviously quite different. An American can show respect for Japan’s traditions without pretending to share them. For a Japanese person to bow before the emperor of Japan is an appropriate sign of deference, even reverence. But what rings true in behavior between two Japanese is not necessarily appropriate for non-Japanese. To this observer it seemed that Barack Obama’s bow before the emperor struck a false note. After all, Akihito is not his emperor. Nor can we say that bowing for Japanese is like shaking hands for Americans. If that were the case, the emperor would have bowed back to the president, which he did not.

In a similar way, honorific titles bestowed upon religious figures are appropriate when used by adherents of that religion. “Your Holiness the Pope” is a completely legitimate form of address when the pope is spoken to by a Catholic. But for Protestants, there’s nothing particularly holy about a pope. Christians don’t recognize the holiness of the Qur’an or the prophetic mission of Muhammad. Jews don’t accept Buddhism or its leaders as holy. Therefore, it is false respect for a Protestant to speak of the pope as “his holiness.” It is false respect for a Christian to speak of “the holy Qur’an” or of “the prophet Muhammad, may peace be upon him.” It is false respect for a Jew to speak of “his holiness the Dalai Lama.” And it is false respect for the president of the United States of America to bow before any other head of state, whether his title is Emperor, King, Big Brother, or Supreme Leader.

Captain Horatio Hornblower, in one of his seagoing adventures, encountered a Central American megalomaniac who called himself and insisted that others call him El Supremo. In the 1951 film version, starring Gregory Peck, the incredulous Hornblower, on first hearing of this, responds, “El Supremo? That means the Almighty.” When Hornblower meets the diminutive ruler, he addresses him as “señor” but is immediately rebuked: “Human beings do not address me as señor.” Of course, we can each call ourselves whatever we wish, but that doesn’t mean that others must adhere to our wishes.

In the wake of Iran’s stolen election and subsequent violent repression of dissent, is it still appropriate for Ayatollah Khamenei to be dignified by our president’s referring to him as Iran’s “Supreme Leader”? The title itself implies a legitimacy which now seems unwarranted.

Ways must be found to show honest, authentic respect between nations and, in particular, between peoples in conflict – without creating a false impression that we all believe the same or think the same or share the same values when we don’t. Nor should we allow a misimpression that we accept, honor, or respect others’ values or actions which we don’t.

We should not bow down before other people’s leaders. Neither should we bow down before other people’s beliefs about the future or their interpretations of the past. The Native American view of the last 500 years is necessarily different from that of “the white man.” Both views have power as historical interpretations. Neither tells the whole story.

How can people speak with respect to their adversaries regarding matters still in contention? No episode of modern Middle Eastern history is more contentious – to this day – than the events of 1948.

There is more than one interpretation of what happened that year, and the known facts do not all point in one direction. It is no more appropriate for Jews to call the ’48 war al Nakba, the Catastrophe, than it is for Arabs to call it the War of Independence. The outcome was a disaster for the Palestinians and a cause of celebration for the Jews.

For Israeli Jews, ’48 remains a source of pride and honor. The recent writings of Israel’s “new historians” temper that traditional Israeli view without fundamentally undermining it. Yet Israelis can – if they wish – listen and learn and empathize enough to begin to appreciate the tragedy visited upon the Palestinians in ’48, who lost home and homeland. Still, the partisan interpretations and the judgments of the past are unlikely to change any time soon.

One can show respect for another’s suffering without agreeing with his view of the past or his political agenda. An Israeli can express understanding for Palestinian perspectives without embracing or endorsing Palestinian political aspirations. The reverse is also true, though given the power differential, it may be asking much more of Palestinians to step into Israelis’ shoes and appreciate that point of view.

This is one area in which Israeli and Palestinian political leaders have consistently failed. They have not spoken with real respect to the people on the other side. They may have demonstrated a superficially respectful demeanor, correct and polite, but genuine respect goes far beyond that.

Whether in the Far East or the Middle East, customs matter, titles matter, differences matter, and perhaps most of all, respect matters.

Michael Lame, posted July 17, 2009

William Goldman, the legendary screenwriter of such classic Hollywood films as Marathon Man, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, and All the President’s Men, wrote a terrific book, Adventures in the Screen Trade: a personal view of Hollywood and Screenwriting, telling what he had learned from decades in the motion picture business. On page 39 he imparts to his readers the key lesson of making successful movies, which he identifies as

“. . . the single most important fact, perhaps, of the entire movie industry:

Not one person in the entire motion picture field knows for a certainty what’s going to work. Every time out it’s a guess . . .”

This same principle of humility can be applied to policy formulations and peace-making efforts in the Middle East. For all the books and op-ed pieces, position papers and peace plans, speeches and symposia, conferences and conference calls, summits and retreats, nobody really knows how to resolve Arab-Israeli-Palestinian conflict or how to bring a peaceful conclusion to Iran’s stand-off with the West regarding its nuclear program.

Some pundits (and presidents) claim to know which side history is on. They don’t. No one knows – no one can know – the future. Fifteen years ago, in the heyday of the Oslo era, activists claimed that peace between Israelis and Palestinians was inevitable and the peace process was irreversible. Those claims turned out not to be true. Many experts now say that there are no good options for the U.S. regarding Iran, for Israel regarding Hamas, for the Palestinians trapped in Gaza. But such conclusions are based on what we see now, and we see through a glass, darkly. Tomorrow some new possibilities may emerge; a new option could become viable.

So, given that NOBODY KNOWS ANYTHING and that, according to most commentators and analysts, the current prospects for peace in the Middle East are not encouraging, where can we find leverage? What actions can be taken that may cause one or more key Middle East players to get off the dime? What provocative declarations or initiatives could shake up the status quo in a positive manner and open some new pathways to the future?

Asking these questions and finding answers to them is really what Re-Think the Middle East is all about. Too much of the thinking about the future of the region has been narrowed down to a short set of options – we keep rounding up the usual suspects – and that set of options tends to focus on peace plans and pressuring parties to move towards negotiations.

The U.S. government threatens Israel with unspecified dire consequences if it doesn’t halt settlement activities. Our government refuses to talk directly to Hamas until it meets the conditions set by the Quartet. The Obama administration reaches out a hand to the rulers in Tehran but also hints at tougher sanctions. Sticks and carrots. Carrots and sticks. They work on mules. Surely they must also work on mulish leaders. But perhaps not.

The idea of settling the land of Israel lies at the heart of the Zionist vision. So it has been for more than a hundred years. If that animating idea is to be changed, modified, or replaced with a new vision, it will not happen quickly or easily. And while that sort of shift is not impossible, George Mitchell is unlikely to be the catalyst for such a momentous occurrence. As crucial as the relationship with the United States is to Israel, external threats and promises will only go so far in moving Israelis to re-examine their basic identity and their connection to the land.

One particular Palestinian vision is of that same land, but completely free of Zionism. Hamas’s opposition to the existence of the State of Israel is principled, deep-seated, and frequently reiterated. It would be difficult, possibly even fatal to the movement itself, to step away from that opposition. It could happen, but even with massive pressure being exerted on the Hamas leadership, from multiple sources, to modify its stance regarding Fatah, the PLO, and Israel, Hamas seems to move at its own pace in a direction of its own choosing.

Iran has been committed to the development of nuclear power since the days of the Shah.
Its nuclear program has continued to move forward regardless of domestic politics or presidential elections. Iran’s nuclear capabilities progressed during the days of the pragmatist Rafsanjani, during the two terms of the liberal reformer Khatemi, and during the last four years of the confrontational Ahmadinejad. Personality has not mattered to this national project. To curb this nuclear ambition, especially if it is seen as a result of U.S. “encouragement”, would be gut-wrenching, maybe even humiliating, for millions of Iranians.

Carrots and sticks are blunt instruments, and we talk about them bluntly. In each of the instances listed above – and there are others in the region, including Fatah, Syria, Hezbollah – where the United States would like to see “behavior modification” take hold, it is essential that we appreciate the difficulties the parties face in making the changes we deem desirable. Those difficulties include the parties’ potential loss of credibility with their own constituents if fundamental principles are seen as compromised in order to receive American largesse or avoid America’s wrath.

Do we imagine that America’s fundamental interests reflected in its foreign policy can be reshaped by other countries offering to feed us carrots or hit us with sticks? Perhaps on peripheral matters, less critical concerns, and dollars and cents issues such gross inducements will have a decisive effect. But will they change the basic direction in which our country moves? I’m not so sure.

There must be options other than carrots and sticks. Surely there are deeper conversations worth having with the peoples of the Middle East. Where aren’t we looking? What don’t we hear? What haven’t we said? Remember: NOBODY KNOWS ANYTHING.

Paul Scham, posted July 3, 2009
(Paul Scham is a visiting professor of Jewish Studies at the University of Maryland at College Park and executive director of the University’s Gildenhorn Institute for Israel Studies.)

Dear Michael,
Thanks for your thoughtful piece. However, I’m afraid I agree with Obama and Bruce Riedel in this. In the current state of instability I think that announcing a policy is premature. No one knows what posture the Iranian government will take when it emerges from this, even though most of us assume that Ahmadinejad will prevail. Of course, I assume contingency planning is proceeding full speed, but this should not be announced.

Second, I think the probability, analytically, is that the world will have to live with a nuclear Iran. This does not mean not engaging it with both carrots and sticks to attempt to prevent it, including international sanctions. These cannot be imposed without the Russians and Chinese being aboard, which requires some deference to their views, hypocritical as we may regard them. Thus, both will be needed. It is a fact that previous American policies, including but not limited to the Bush administration, gave many Iranians, including many who despise Ahmadinejad, a strong feeling that the US was quite prepared to engage in regime change once again, and created a sizable internal consensus in favor of a nuclear capability. This will make it harder to deter Iran from this, no matter who governs it. The only possible deterrence will have to include American recognition of Iran’s place of importance in its region, a recognition that will go down very badly with the Arab world.

I agree with those who do not see a nuclear Iran as a fundamental mortal danger to Israel and the rest of the world. I see Iran as a rational country in the way the USSR was. Rational does not imply approval. But Khamenei is not Qadafi. There is absolutely no evidence I have ever seen suggesting credibly that any significant Iranian leader, including Ahmadinejad, is prepared to even contemplate national suicide in order to destroy Israel.

Conversely, the danger of attacking Iran is clear and probably much worse for all concerned. Iran would have no reason to impose any restraint on its affiliated organizations. For only one example, Hezbollah would likely launch a full-scale missile attack on Israel. Of course Israel could, and might, nearly obliterate southern Lebanon. But Israel would be hurt far worse than it was in 2006. And there would be large and small attacks launched through much of the world probably including the attempted, and likely temporarily successful, stopping of shipping through the Straits of Hormuz.

What really worries me are views like John Bolton’s in Thursday’s Post. I am comforted by the fact that we have a rational administration that does not believe it has all the answers. And, actually, Riedel’s candid answer, recognizing the limits of American power, does make me feel better.

I do not like the prospect of a nuclear Iran but, analytically, I do not see that it can necessarily be prevented though, of course, we should seriously attempt to do so.

All the best
Paul