The French gambit

One unfortunate byproduct of President Obama's foolish attempt to make his mark on the Middle East by pressuring Israel to abandon all settlement construction is this: Obama's failure appears to have brought French President Sarkozy back onto the stage.

Anxious to make his mark in international relations, and probably hoping to show-up Obama for whom he seems to have little regard and more than a little envy, Sarkozy has offered to mediate talks between Syria and Israel.

As one would expect, Sarkozy's move is a much shrewder gambit than anything Obama has yet come up with. Syria, having rebuilt its relations with Europe, has an incentive to go along with Sarkozy and see if Israel is in the mood to make concessions. Israel, perceived as the villain of the region not just by Europe but also by the Obama administration, has an incentive to demonstrate that it will talk seriously to at least one of its adversaries.

But Jonathan Spyer argues, convincingly I think, that Israel has nothing tangible to gain from talking with Syria:

The formula for success in negotiations between Israel and Syria is no longer the '90s recipe of land for peace. A breakthrough in Jerusalem-Damascus negotiations would be predicated on the basis of "land for strategic realignment." That is, Syria would be expected to abandon its regional alliance with Iran in return for Israeli territorial concessions on the Golan Heights.

Damascus, however, has made abundantly clear that such a realignment is not on the table. The reasons are fairly obvious. Syria's current stance of alliance with Iran gives the Damascus regime most of what it needs. Syria is seen as a vital part of any regional diplomatic process, because of its ability to spoil progress through its alignment with radical forces.

As Syria's recent rapprochement with Saudi Arabia and France suggests, keeping the alliance with Iran comes at very little cost. And there is a deeper sense that the Damascus regime is comfortable with its place in the Iranian alliance, which enables it to indulge in the nationalist chest-beating and poses of "resistance," which it enjoys.

Spyer also believes that negotiating with Syria would carry a substantial price for Israel:

The bigger picture of the Israeli and broader Western interest in the region requires the containment and ultimately the rolling back of the currently emboldened Iranian-led alliance. Reviving the prospect of Israeli territorial concessions to Syria, at a time when Damascus is engaged in sponsoring organizations engaged in proxy war with Israel and others would be to reward aggression. It would furnish an additional argument in the armory of Iran and its supporters who maintain, not without reason, that the camp facing them is weak and responds to pressure by making concessions.

This consequence seems not to matter to the French, for whom relevance on the international stage is the name-of-the-game. But it should matter to the Israelis whose primary concern must be survival in the face of the growing threat from Iran, its allies, and its proxies..

Power Line

The Big Israel Lie

By Daniel Greenfield

There are two interconnected lies that reside at the heart of any American discussion about Israel. The first lie is that the road to peace in the Middle East lies through Israel.

The second lie is that Israel controls American policy toward itself. Those lies are not the product of ignorance or misunderstanding, they are the product of an effective propaganda campaign by the unofficial suit and tie spokesmen of the Saudi lobby who dominate American policy in the Middle East.

The goal of that campaign has been to make Israel seem like the axis on which the Middle East and America turn, in order to put Israel on the firing line. And it is a campaign that has been wickedly successful up until now.

Let's take a moment to examine those lies now.

Within the Middle East, Israel is physically insignificant. At 8500 square miles, Israel could not just fit comfortably into Pennsylvania, it is 1/5th the size of Jordan, 1/8th the size of Syria and 1/12th the size of Egypt. Simply put, Israel is smaller in land and population than every country that borders it. If you looked at the Middle East from space, you could easily put a fingernail across all of Israel.

Israel has beaten all of these countries in wars and has the best military in the region, but that is because if it didn't, it wouldn't exist.

Israel's military is not the product of a will to conquer, but of an attempt to maintain its own territorial integrity and protect its citizens from attack. Israel's neighbors have never needed to work as hard or spend as much to maintain their own armed forces, because they don't truly need them. For them a strong army is not a survival strategy, it is optional.

All those who rant endlessly about Israel's settlements in the West Bank and Gaza as proof of Israel's desire to seize land, forget that Jordan annexed the West Bank only two years after its forces captured it in the 1948 War of Independence.

Israel has not annexed the West Bank even after more than 40 years, and has continued to offer it in peace negotiations year after year. That is not the policy of an aggressive land hungry regime. It is not the behavior of a country that keeps its neighbors up late at night. While Israel's leaders have spent over half a century staying up late at night worrying about a war, Israel's neighbors know that war is their choice.

But what this means in practice is that Israel has very little influence beyond its own borders. With a small size, no expansionist program beyond its own territory, and as one of only two non-Arab states and the only non-Muslim state in the region... Israel's impact on the rest of the Middle East is surprisingly limited.

To get a proper picture of Israel's role in the Middle East, imagine plopping Singapore in the middle of a wartorn part of Africa. It can be attacked, it can fight back, but it cannot have any real local influence.

That is why Israel remains an outsider in the political trends and turmoil of the region. Read more here ...

Source: CFP

Middle East: appeasing Radicals drives to Confusion

Saudis Make Fun of Obama Middle East Policy; Administration, Media, Pretend Not to Notice
Saturday, August 1, 2009

By Barry RubinSaudi foreign minister Prince Saud al-Faisal is visiting Washington. He praised the Obama administration and then hammered nails into the coffin of its Middle East policy. There was nothing subtle about the Saudi response.For the first time, a non-radical Arab regime—that is, one nominally allied with the United States—has openly ridiculed the U.S. government’s new policy. Naturally, the prince was full of praise for the Obama administration, in general. In specific, he did the opposite.Consider this statement by the foreign minister-prince: "Today, Israel is trying to distract by shifting attention from the core issue -- an end to the occupation that began in 1967 and the establishment of a Palestinian state-- to incidental issues such as academic concerns and civil aviation methods. This is not the way to peace."But wait a minute! These weren’t Israeli ideas, this was the American plan. So the Saudis point 1 was: Forget about it, Obama.Point 2 was, of course, the very trap the administration set for itself. The Arabs want Israel to agree to withdraw from the entire West Bank, Golan Heights, and east Jerusalem. Then they want it to accept a Palestinian state. Then they want it to agree to take in millions of Palestinian refugees.At that point, they’ll talk about what they’ll do in exchange. This is, after all, the Saudi peace plan that everyone tries to make sound more moderate by leaving out all of the details.Point 3 is that the parties should go to an immediate comprehensive agreement based on those prior Israeli concessions. This last point has its amusing side. In 2000, Arab states and the Palestinian Authority pushed for a total, comprehensive agreement as fast as possible. So the U.S. president held a meeting in Switzerland with his Saudi counterpart, and a negotiating conference with the Palestinians and Israelis at Camp David. In both cases, the Arab side refused to give any ground whatsoever. [Oh, and prediction: Even if Israel withdrew from all the West Bank, east Jerusalem, and Golan Heights; agreed to a Palestinian state; and accepted back any Palestinian who wanted to live there, the Saudis still wouldn't permit Israeli airliners to overfly their kingdom and foster academic exchanges.]The Bush administration, advised by President Bill Clinton who was a victim of that 1990s' peace process, learned something: the Arabs are not so eager to make peace. The Obama administration thought this was just more Bush evil mischief. Now it is starting to learn otherwise.But what about Saudi help on pressing Iran? Predictable, privately they will demand the United States save them, practically and publicly they will do nothing constructive.What about Saudi help in stabilizing Iraq? The regime will continue to look the other way as wealthy, well-connected Saudis send money and dispatch Sunni men to fight against the Shia-Kurdish regime there. All of this was obvious on January 20, 2009. More than six months have been wasted. Claiming to have hit the ground running, the Obama administration hit the ground fumbling.

Source: http://rubinreports.blogspot.com/2009/08/saudis-make-fun-of-obama-middle-east.html
H/T: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/31/AR2009073103764.html

The Western (dumb) Habit to believe in moderate Extremism

Hamas and the House of (No) Commons(ense)
July 27, 2009

The House of Commons Foreign Affairs Select Committee has just issued a 100-page report on the Middle East. Here is the main conclusion as expressed by Mike Gapes, the committee chair:

“We see few signs that the current policy of non-engagement with Hamas is achieving the Quartet’s stated objectives....We therefore reiterate our recommendation from 2007, that the government should urgently consider engaging with moderate elements within Hamas.”

In those few words are expressed five of the main and most harmful Western myths about the Middle East.

First, make the problem go away. Anything other than that is failure. Containing Hamas, weakening it over time, showing that radicalism doesn’t pay, or other such goals are not worth pursuing. Only if there is no more problem can the objective be considered achieved. This assumes that peace, quiet, and the existence of no problems is the normal state of politics and international relations. It isn’t.

Thus, follows the conclusion that policy has failed, but it can succeed, and something must be done.

Second, problems can and should be made to go away fast. Patience is a failure, not a virtue. So something must be done immediately. Naturally, this is not the rule the Middle Eastern factors play by. They believe in attrition, wearing the other side down, in the belief that God and history is on their side, while the West is cowardly and weak. They are half-right.

Third, that something which has to be done must be Western and Israeli concessions. If the other side is intransigent, that means its intended victims cannot be. Why is this so? Because things have to move, issues must be resolved, so defeat is preferable to steadfastness.

Fourth, the nature of your opponent is irrelevant. Ideology is unimportant. We all believe in the same things, don't we? So just because a group, Hamas in this case, says that Jews are sub-humans, that Israel must be wiped off the map, that Western power must be broken, that Islam must triumph over everything, doesn't really mean anything, does it? We all "want the same things" supposedly. So you deal with Hamas or Hizballah or Iran or Syria the same way you manage, for example, an environmental group from Surrey or a local housing authority in Kent.

Fourth, there’s got to be a moderate in there somewhere. President Ronald Reagan once joked that an optimist is someone who sees a room full of manure and concludes that there must be a pony in there somewhere. A modern European (and often American nowadays) statesman is someone who sees a terrorist movement or aggressive radical regime and is certain there's a moderate in there somewhere. And naturally if the West gives enough concessions to these "moderates" the "naturally" moderate character of the movement's members will take over and lead to a compromise settlement that will make the problem go away quickly.

Fifth, if anyone stands in the way of this grand design--like Czechoslovakia in 1938 or Israel in 2009--that foolish little country which actually thinks its own survival, much less interests, are of any importance becomes the villain. Why if only it sacrificed itself the problem could be solved and peace in our time established! There's an appropriate Yiddish proverb here: When a man is dead his problems cease.

One can only gape at the wisdom of Gapes. In the hands of such ignoramuses--not only ignorant of facts (which could be forgiven) but also on the most fundamental principles of politics and diplomacy--does the Western world's fate lie. Why not Israel's fate? Because it won't heed such counsels. But of course they can also do a great deal of damage to it as well.

This reminds me of something. In 1969, according to declassified British documents, the British government decided to open a dialogue with Fatah, which was daily carrying out terrorist operitions against Israel, portraying the PFLP as the radicals and Fatah as the moderates.

Basically, in the meetings the British government is begging Fatah not to attack the UK and to discourage the PFLP from attacking.The next year, in the war between King Hussein of Jordan--one of the closest British clients--and Fatah/PLO, the British government threw King Hussein under the bus and was ready to accept Arafat as Jordan's ruler. Fortunately, the US and Israel saved the king. If UK policy had had its way then, the results would have been horrifying.

Oh, and so the House of Lords doesn't feel left out here's something about UK policy toward Hizballah, which has been along similar lines.

*

Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His latest books are Lebanon: Liberation, Conflict, and Crisis (Palgrave Macmillan), Conflict and Insurgency in the Contemporary Middle East (Routledge), The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition) (Viking-Penguin), the paperback edition of The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan), A Chronological History of Terrorism (Sharpe), and The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley). His Blog: http://rubinreports.blogspot.com/

Source: http://www.gloria-center.org/blog/2009/07/hamas-and-the-house.html

Obama switches line on Mid-East

Geoff Elliott, Washington correspondent | March 09

BARACK Obama has embarked on a radical reversal of Washington's approach to the Middle East in a series of developments over the weekend that add to the ambitious reach of policy changes for the US President.

Following Washington's new stance in Iraq and the decision to withdraw forces from the country by the end of August next year, Mr Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced in the space of 48 hours a series of diplomatic shifts to unwind years of the Bush administration's policies towards the region:

*The US military said last night that 12,000 American troops would leave Iraq by September, marking an acceleration of the timetable for US withdrawal.

* Mr Obama flagged negotiations with some of the Taliban tribes in Afghanistan;

* Ms Clinton invited Iran to participate in a regional conference as part of a strategic review of the situation in Afghanistan;

* The White House dispatched two envoys to hold talks with Syria yesterday;

* Ms Clinton opened a broad diplomatic engagement with Russia at a meeting with her counterpart in Geneva as part of Washington's push to try to end Moscow's support for Iran.

The regional diplomatic effort, which will involve Mr Obama travelling to Turkey early next month -- Ankara has offered some qualified support for Iran's nuclear program -- makes good on his campaign promises.

But it worries Arab and Israeli leaders, who already question whether Mr Obama is making too many concessions to Iran, while eastern Europeans feel the same about the dramatic reversal in tone of the relations between Washington and Moscow.

"We are being extremely vigorous in our outreach because we are testing the waters, we are determining what is possible, we're turning new pages and resetting buttons, and we are doing all kinds of efforts to try to create more partners and fewer adversaries," Ms Clinton said of her talks and travels through the region last week.

Mr Obama told The New York Times yesterday he was open to a reconciliation process in which the US military would reach out to moderate elements of the Taliban, in a similar way to the engagement of US forces with the Sunni militias in Iraq.

Declaring that the US was not winning in Afghanistan, and noting Washington's successful strategy in Iraq to win the support of insurgents there, Mr Obama said: "There may be some comparable opportunities in Afghanistan and in the Pakistani region."

He acknowledged the approach might not yield the same success. "The situation in Afghanistan is, if anything, more complex," he said. "You have a less-governed region, a history of fierce independence among tribes. Those tribes are multiple and sometimes operate at cross-purposes, and so figuring all that out is going to be much more of a challenge."

Iran yesterday responded positively to Ms Clinton's plans to invite Tehran to a likely March 31 meeting on Afghanistan -- the first overture of this kind to Iran from the US in years.

"The US and global powers have realised that the issues in Afghanistan cannot be solved without the presence of the Islamic republic," said Gholam Hossein Elham, a spokesman for the Iranian Government.

Ms Clinton made much at the weekend of hitting the "reset" button with Moscow during meetings with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.

The two discussed a new arms treaty and how to deal with Iran's nuclear program. While Tehran says this is for civilian purposes, Washington and its allies believe the program is a front for nuclear weapons technology. It remains a foreign policy problem for the Obama administration, as it was for George W.Bush.

Signs of renewed diplomacy were also seen in Damascus yesterday at the first high-level talks between US and Syrian officials in more than four years.

Senior State Department official Jeffrey Feltman and White House national security official Dan Shapiro met Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moualem.

Mr Feltman said the US wanted to see "forward momentum" on peace talks between Syria and Israel, and said Syria could help Middle East stability.

"We found a lot of common ground," Mr Feltman said.

Source: The Australian