Israel was a sideshow in the latest WikiLeaks document dump, but the leaked cables did include one noteworthy nugget from Jerusalem: in January 2007, Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, who today is leader of the opposition, told two U.S. senators that following some exploratory talks with the Palestinians, she didn’t believe a final-status agreement could be reached with Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas.
This is significant because publicly, Livni always says a peace deal is achievable and lambastes Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for his failure to produce one. Even yesterday, confronted with the WikiLeaks cable, she continued this line, insisting that a deal wasn’t achievable in 2007, but in 2010 “a peace agreement is possible and it needs to done.”
She didn’t explain this about-face, for the very good reason that no convincing explanation exists: Abbas is no more willing to recognize Israel as a Jewish state, agree to defensible borders, or cede the “right of return” than he ever was. But this mantra has paid off for her politically, making her the West’s favorite Israeli.
A politician being hypocritical for political gain is nothing new. But in this case, Livni’s personal gain has come at the price of grave damage to her country. If a leading Israeli politician — the woman whose party won the most seats in the last election — claims that Abbas is ready to make a deal, that obviously carries weight overseas. But if Abbas is indeed ready to deal, then it’s clearly Israel’s fault that no deal has ever been signed. And so Israel is painted worldwide as the obstacle to peace, with all the opprobrium that entails.
Livni’s hypocrisy, however, is merely one facet of a much larger problem: virtually the entire Israeli governing class adopts the same tactic. Despite privately believing that Abbas isn’t ready for peace, it publicly insists that he is — and thereby implicitly paints Israel as the party responsible for the ongoing lack of peace. And it does so not only for political gain but also at its own political cost.
Netanyahu, for instance, repeatedly claims that Abbas is his “partner for peace,” with whom he could reach a deal in a year (if only Abbas would agree to negotiate with him). But having insisted that Abbas isn’t the obstacle, the obvious conclusion is that Netanyahu himself must be the problem. After all, some obstacle must exist, since peace clearly hasn’t broken out.
The Palestinians suffer no such pathology: Palestinian leaders blame Israel nonstop for the lack of peace. And since Israel never offers a competing narrative — namely, that Palestinian rejectionism is the real reason for the absence of peace — the Palestinian narrative has inevitably gained worldwide currency.
Thus if Israel is ever to extricate itself from the global dock, its leaders must start telling the truth: that Palestinians aren’t ready to make the compromises peace requires, that they still don’t accept the Jewish state’s right to exist, and that this is why they have rejected every single Israeli offer to date. You can’t win a public relations war by refusing to fight it.
What a crock of horse pee.
Time to revise history.
Paraphrasing Don Corleone:
‘Keep your friends close, but keep your enemies closer.’
Gordon,
I’m fairly sure North Korea conducted the bulk of its push to acquire nuclear weapons before the war on terror even began. Isn’t this so?
I think the War On Terror should remain, if not the first focus of our foreign policy, at least in the top two or three priorities. It goes hand in hand with the agenda of promoting democracy, and that is the most important thing (aside from protecting American lives) that American power can do abroad.
The War on Terror (formerly the Global War on Terror) was a terrible description for the policy of seeking out and dealing with violent Muslim fanatics who want to kill Americans. It is an important and necessary function, like garbage removal, but it hardly suffices as the principal focus of a rational foreign policy. It is not exactly up there with no entangling alliances, big stick, containment, etc.
The ridiculous and pompous phrase should be retired immediately. It has earned a place in history just below Gerald Ford’s Whip inflation Now and just above Henry Kissinger’s Detente.
Gordon Chang says,
“President Bush deserves credit for preventing terrorist incidents on American soil after September 11″
Maybe/maybe not—It could have been their strategy to not hit us again to prevent us from reunifying. Also, I have read that when they do hit us again,they want it to be bigger & badder than 9-11.
Bush said right at the beginning that most of our efforts would not be seen. He has built a network of cooperation among intelligence and security forces that people don’t realize. It has taken a long time for other countries to recognize the threat and put in place laws and policies to confront it, but believe me, they have. What you hear from the general population is quite different from what you hear from ministers responsible for intelligence, police, and inland security.
Dr. Chang: “…attacks on American military assets”? Do you mean April Fool’s over Hainan? Or PLA hacking? Or has the space war started already? I think you understand the seriousness of a casus belli, and the sloppy use of language does no one any good.
Graham, North Korea began its bomb program sometime from the mid-1960s to the mid-1970s. Yet Pyongyang would not have accelerated its development of the bomb if China had not given it the green light. China gave the green light for actual testing because Beijing realized the Bush administration would not do anything in response.
RCAR, you wrote: “Also, I have read that when they do hit us again,they want it to be bigger & badder than 9-11.” This is certainly correct.
Alexander Almasov, I am referring primarily to the lasering of our satellites in 2006 and secondarily to the hacking. The first, a direct attack on the United States, is an act of war. I meant exactly what I wrote.
I was not referring to the EP-3 incident, which was reckless but accidental.
There hasnt been a coherent overall international strategy since Bush took office. The real threat lie with the countries that have the nukes. With countries with enough economic oomph to be a viable enemy. With countries with the ideology to be threatening. Russia, China, Iran, Pakistan and now N. Korea. Afghanistan was necessary as a response to 9/11. The manner in which we handled Iraq has never made sense as an overall international strategy. Saddam was a thug with an economic wreck of a country. Iran was the issue of concern in the ME. By extension that also meant Russia and China. Some misguided souls thought we could use Iraq as a base against Iran. Some probably still do. I think if you travel through the ME, you will probably realize how unrealistic that plan is/was.
Steve
Steve, you make an important point about the lack of coherence. I agree that Iraq should never have been considered a priority.
Gordon – “China gave the green light for actual testing because Beijing realized the Bush administration would not do anything in response.”
What would you have had the Bush administration do?
That actually pertains to your entire post. Sometimes there just aren’t good options. Easy to say the Iraq was a bad idea five years in. Did you oppose the emphasis on Iraq forcefully at the beginning?
Also – Easy to say too much emphasis on the WOT after we’ve enjoyed seven years without a serious attack especially since it’s altogether possible that there hasn’t been a second attack because they (or rather the governments that tolerate them and fail to aggressively repress them) didn’t want to provoke another muscular response, a perhaps even more sweeping response. The other muslim regimes surely noticed that two apparently well entrenched regimes were made to disappear relatively quickly, and the various supreme leaders can’t have liked the idea of following the Taliban into caves and hovels and following Saddam to a scaffold or worse.
I’m not exactly with you on this one, Gordon. I think it’s fallacious to advance an argument that assumes we can only have one “focus” at a time. You essentially argue that we ought not to focus on the “war on terror” because we ought instead to focus on national threats such as China, Russia and Iran. I do think that Bush has been too trusting of Putin (this much is obvious, I take it), but the extent of the threat from Russia has only become clear in recent years. China has become more and more belligerent the more that American military and financial strength has attenuated. I don’t know that Bush could have made these the “focus” of his global policy 8 years ago, or even 4, and made much of a case for it. I also think it’s easy to forget what a threat the terrorist network, and its possible collusion with a terrorist-sponsoring state that could provide WMD’s, presented at the time.
Should Russia, China etc. be our highest priorities now? Yes, but we have a military and diplomatic structure that is capable of pursuing multiple “highest priorities” at once. The Russian and Chinese threats do not require military responses at this time, and only a military response would really require the kind of singular “focus” you’re talking about. Rather, Bush should presently set up several interlinked offices at State, CIA and Defense that are focused on Russia, China, Iran, North Korea and al Qaeda.
I think the “focus” (if we really have to speak of one) should be twofold: nuclear and WMD non-proliferation and containment of belligerent nations. One could include al Qaeda in the former category, since it is mostly (though not only–there were no WMD’s used on 9/11) with the acquisition of WMD that they become a major threat. And responses to Russia and China can be included in the latter. We certainly have ceded too much ground to them, and they become stronger every time we flinch.
Those responsible for 9/11 should have been treated as criminals -that’s what they were. By militarizing the struggle against Al-Qaeda, we only helped them to gain the status they wanted.
From day #1, the War on ‘Terror’ was a ‘phoney’ war. A hoax. Deep down, most Americans knew it all along, but out of jingoism, intimidation, or simple respect for the troops, they looked the other way, until they were forced to choose between guns and butter.
Last week, they chose the later, and this choice proves that our nation long stopped to pretend that Al-Qaeda was even close to represent a real military threat.
“A nuclear North Korea is the result of the ‘war on terror,’ and, in all probability, so will a nuclear Iran. “
I doubt North Korea has nuclear weapons.
Their sole test – purportedly
of a nuclear device (which would still not be a nuclear bomb) – was,
apparently, either a fizzle or a fake.
I also doubt Iran is going to have nuclear weapons in the
near future. Iran has been working on them for 20 years…
Regimes like that never tell the truth: either they
exaggerate or they conceal. At present, Iranians are trying to create
a puffed-up image of their WMD readiness (as with their missile test photo)
- which suggests that in the nuclear field, also, there must be less
- and there may be very much less – than meets the eye.
As has proved to be the case with Iraq…
A good way to prevent the nuclearization of such a corrupt
country as Iran would be sabotage.
How much of that is done, by whom, with what success,
is obviously unknowable. But there have been
some hopeful signs.
What part of GWOT don’t you understand??
It is not simply a terrorist chase, it is a full court press against sources. Why do you think we are in Iraq, the Central Front?
Right! Pasha G. Right! Iraq was “worth it”. Think of the strategic advantage we have being there should a push against Iran become inevitable.
“These days, terrorists without weapons of mass destruction are essentially nuisances.”
This line alone reveals the Mr. Chang’s inability to grasp the situation. Tell the victims of the WTC, Cole, Lebanon, Tanzania and Kenya that being vaporized by conventional explosions is different or even preferable than by nuclear.
I guess this is just another example of the view of some educated “elite” running the country rather than a regular Joe who has the foolish concept that we should avoid ALL attacks if possible.
Honestly, this is the same bull policy that leaders of cities tried throughout the seventies to address crime. It wasn’t until the “broken windows” theory became popular that we in law enforcement could get a grip on crime. Before we finally put our foot down, dealing with crime in the cities was an exercise of stepping backward steadily as crime grew, and claiming each retreat the “final” line in the sand. Criminals, despots, tyrants and such all think alike, if you give them an inch, they’ll cut your throat and think it was OK because you “let” them.
What you are saying, in essence, is that we cannot walk and chew gum at the same time in foreign policy. Trust me when I say that our responses over the last eight year ARE the reason for no other attacks. Let me help you out here, come closer and try-this time- to pay attention. It is a fact that if you kill 40,000 bad guys in another country, kill three fourths of their leadership and send the rest scattering into caves and villages, you tend to SCREW UP their planning! I realize this isn’t rocket science and doesn’t lend to “think tank papers” but for once, just once try put the brandy sniffer down and try to keep your eye on the ball!
How do I know? I did this on a small scale for years combatting gangs and crime. It worked here, it will work worldwide. This is a matter a will, theirs vs ours. You have to ask yourself, as we did on a local level, “Who owns the street? Us or them.” The problem is that when you decide you own it, it takes long term effort and sacrfice to obtain success. Many people do not have the fortitude.
If Obama doesn’t get this, we will cede the control and the hard won territory back to the bad guys. Which means, when an adult gets back in charge, we’ll have to fight for it all over again.
God help us.
Soon to retire Detective Raymond Wisher
Raymond, you portray Gordon in too negative a light. But I fundamentally agree with your point. Thanks for your service in law enforcement of the years, and may you enjoy a long and well-deserved retirement.
Sully, you wrote: “What would you have had the Bush administration do?” I wrote a book on this topic. Here is a link to my current advice: http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/disarming-north-korea-once-in-a-generation-opportunity/
You wrote: “Did you oppose the emphasis on Iraq forcefully at the beginning?” I wasn’t writing on Iraq at that time. Before the invasion I thought it was a bad idea even though there was a justification for the forcible removal of Saddam (because he was stiffing U.N. weapons inspections).
Ahithophel, you wrote: “I think it’s fallacious to advance an argument that assumes we can only have one “focus” at a time.” I agree, but you can’t have two goals that undercut each other. That’s our problem.
You wrote: “Bush should presently set up several interlinked offices at State, CIA and Defense that are focused on Russia, China, Iran, North Korea and al Qaeda.” Good idea. As you note, we need to stop flinching, and your idea will help us work out sensible policies that prevent us from making the same mistakes. Thanks.
first-hand opinion, North Korea’s test was a fizzle. Yet we should expect that they will learn from their mistake. We know they have the fissile material, so we should assume they have more weapons somewhere.
With regard to Iran, sabotage will be an important component of the military response. It is the part that we often forget about. Thanks for reminding everyone.
PashaG, Iraq is the “central front”? What about Afghanistan? Pakistan?
Raymond Wisher, there’s nothing you wrote here that I disagree with.
I agree, for example, we should try to avoid all attacks. But terrorists employing conventional means do not pose existential threats to the United States, and, in the name of the war on terror, we have let our new allies create the conditions under which a terrorist can destroy this country. I don’t think that’s terribly smart.
Yes, I am saying, in essence, that the Bush administration “cannot walk and chew gum at the same time in foreign policy.” I believe that we must do everything well. We must, to use your analogy, take back the streets from terrorists and their sponsors. And what I am saying is that we have handed over the roads to those who can really do us harm. I do worry about another 3,000 dead. I worry more about 3 million.
And thank you for cleaning up the streets wherever you work.
Gordon
Thanks for the link re North Korea. I found it informative and persuasive (perhaps not 100% persuasive).
Re Iraq – perhaps I shouldn’t have questioned where you stood before; but I have many friends who are newly found opponents of that war “from the beginning.” They seem to truly believe they never expressed different views.
While I don’t agree that prosecuting the GWOT has been to blame for the unfavorable developments elsewhere (Russia, China, North Korea, Iran), and I agree with others here that it was necessary, the charge of incoherence in our foreign policy is, in my view, valid.
I would call it something beyond incoherent, though. A combination of the adjectives defensive, reactive, shortsighted, and narrow of vision seems to characterize it pretty well, I think.
Bush has actually had a pretty comprehensive vision for the GWOT, as those things go. Only Reagan and Nixon have had similar scope of vision in the last 100 years, at least in terms of one major dimension of foreign policy.
The problem has been that in prosecuting the GWOT, Bush and his advisors saw themselves as reacting to one problem, in a geopolitical vacuum. Americans have been prone to this failure of vision throughout our history, largely because we are basically a great island, with all the access to the sea we could possibly want, and quiescent borders. The entire rest of the world realizes 24/7 that it never operates in a vacuum, but we always seem to think we do.
The US occupying Afganistan and Iraq, when we did not before, was bound to affect the policy climate in the Kremlin and Beijing. It seems incredible that almost no one thinks of this, given Russia’s loudly expressed agony over US involvement in the Balkans, and Moscow’s long history of aspiring to a determinative influence in the Middle East, and of acting as a patron there — and one that unabashedly takes sides.
(China’s interest is less visible in terms of political posturing, but is easily parsed by China’s commercial and military trade ties in the region. The press and foreign policy pundits from Taiwan to Singapore to India to South Africa have no trouble at all discerning the trend of Chinese policy in the Middle East.)
The inevitable reaction from Russia doesn’t mean we should not have sought to stabilize the sources of terrorism sponsorship in the Middle East. It does mean we should have understood in advance that doing so would be seen by Russia AND China as a highly unfavorable development. Their support for our GWOT would always be tepid and opportunistic, and they would seek ways to “flank” us in our approach on the Middle East, and exploit any weaknesses we showed.
That’s what they are doing now. Gordon rightly identifies China’s green light to Pyongyang on a nuclear test as a challenge to the US, a way of muddying the US-dominated security situation of the Far East and potentially undercutting our alliances there. Russia’s saber-rattling on land and sea is a very Russian campaign to set the conditions for a similar objective, between eastern North America and the Middle East.
It is not because we look weak and bogged down that they are mounting these challenges. It is because we expanded our presence in the big prize of the Eastern hemisphere — the world’s crossroads, the Middle East — which is just what Russia and China are also after.
If we apply our brains, we realize that neither Russia nor China has the slightest pretext for being sanctimonious about the US presence in the Middle East. Access to and through the region is free and (except for the pirates in the Gulf of Aden) relatively safe for the whole world because it is the US that exercises hegemony over the Middle East’s tradeways. It is demonstrably the case that US hegemony is not used to exclude either Russia or China from trade in the region. Moreover, the patterns of Russia and China indicate that, if either of them were the hegemon of the Middle East, they WOULD seek to exclude other trade interests, and/or exact tribute from them for their participation.
All of this is to point out that we have other interests in the Middle East than suppressing the generation of jihadism. Our interest there is even larger than simply “oil,” since hegemony of the Middle East affects the security of Europe, the Mediterranean, northern Africa, and south Asia. Everything about Russian and Chinese history — everything — points to the probability that either of them would wield such hegemony to extort the Americas, Europe, and Japan for access to the great series of trade chokepoints that runs from the Strait of Gibraltar to the Strait of Malacca. They would also seek to control the region’s oil and gas, along with the oil and gas resources they are already laboring so diligently to claim exclusively, and use to extort customers.
The one-dimensionality of the Bush administration’s foreign policy is actually in line with the American tradition. Bush just focused on a different dimension. The most enduring focus of American foreign policy, since the earliest days of the Republic, has been the security of tradeways against regional extortion and hegemonic schemes; and a key failure for both Clinton and Bush II has been in nurturing the regional security arrangements — cornerstone alliances, alertness for threats to them, maritime presence in areas that don’t patrol themselves — that serve our longest-standing national security interest.
It turns out you really can’t wage an extracurricular war — not in terms of national engagement, and not in terms of its effect on other dimensions of national security. That doesn’t mean you don’t wage the war when it’s necessary. (If we can manage to maintain political ties with and substantial military and commercial connections to Iraq, it will be one the best strategic moves we ever made.) It does mean you wage the war as an element of a comprehensive policy. Understanding that you’re not operating in a vacuum, and the other players have motives and intentions of their own, is the indispensable starting point for that.
J.E. Dyer, thanks, as always, for the rich context and the analysis.
Sully, it is important that you continue to challenge Iraq critics and hold them accountable. I don’t mind the questioning at all.
Mr Chang,
I read your response. I agree that no President has a total grasp of foreign policy. At best they surround themselves with competent help. At worst, they surround themselves with likeminded neophytes who screw it up beyond belief (Madeline “I’m JEWISH?? Albright comes to mind, I mean, wearing a cowboy hat? In the Middle East?). Again, I rely on my own experience. We have college educated, supposedly intelligent individuals in our line of work. Most are hopelessly inept. Overall nice people, just clueless. While I and others worked the streets saving lives and taking out bad guys, they went to college, studied on duty and rose in the ranks, away from the very world they sought to have knowledge of. They tend to use theories taught in a school by others equally inept (the old adage those who can do, those who can’t teach) or those who are, like most old Generals, “fighting the last war”. Regardless, how they get their ideas, once executed in the real world most fail. I think at the national and international level we see the same thing happening.
This is one of the issues I have with “foreign policy” experts- they often convince themselves and anyone who listen that they have “the new way” of turning foes into allies. But as history as taught us, we cannot change attitude with mere words alone. It takes other events to change a foe into an ally. (Death of the leader, internal revolt, total collapse of the military, or the old stand by-invasion) I laugh at those who criticize the effort with N Korea.
Honestly, what chance do we have, at this time in history, to change Kim Jong-il’s mind? He is the quintessential “crazy aunt in the attic”. Nor do we have a chance changing the minds of the poor trapped souls in N Korea. To see how fruitless this is, just view a nighttime satellite image of the country. For the love of God, what is that? Three flashlights and a couple of candles burning after dark?? What do they have to give, and what are they willing to take in return for an honest agreement? All they have left is threats and the occasional giggle they get from tweaking our noses. They will lie, cheat and continue their nuclear program, regardless of whether or not we are dropping bombs on Bin Laden or upsetting the Russians.
Diplomacy has its place; however, it takes both parties having a willingness to talk to make it work. I laugh when I see former diplomats talk about how GW has screwed up negotiations with countries, which are intentionally either lying or baiting us. Iran for example, do you think you can talk to a man who believes he will be a part of the return of the 12th inman? Riiight! He’ll shake your hand and steal your wallet because he BELIEVES it is the right thing to do it. In Russia, what do we have they want? Money. What do they really want, a return of the USSR? Maybe USSR lite. Regardless, unless they understand that invading Ukraine or Georgia will not prompt anything less than a military bloody nose, we have little to talk about. If they believe we will sting them, economically and militarily, they will seek another option.
Thus, they will want to talk. See – simple.
I do not want to ramble on. You all are the experts. But just remember, negotiations from a point of weakness is much like a unarmed man being robbed by an armed man. Even if the victim falls to his knees and gives his best Shakespearean effort, it is still going to sound a lot like begging…
RW/Fla
Raymond Wisher, thanks for the explanation. You are right about the dynamics of negotiation. The issue is how we use our power to put ourselves into the strongest position. And figuring out what we should be negotiating for.
There are, to continue your analogy, many ways to clean up the streets. All of them end up with the need to use force if the criminals act–everyone would agree with you on this–but it helps if we can keep them at home in front of their televisions in the first place. They way to do that is to convince them that capture is certain if they act.
Gordon – “They way to do that is to convince them that capture is certain if they act.”
And yet you oppose deposing Saddam? After he had the chutzpah to attempt the assassination of Bush poppa – assuming that’s true. What sort of world is it when little countries think they can bump off leaders and former leaders of big countries? Morality aside, as it is anyway in most cases between nations, that way lies a world in complete chaos.
For that reason alone his elimination and killing was both justified and prudent. Bush younger somehow coming to the mad conclusion that it would be worthwhile and cost effective to make Iraq into a functioning democracy when we have consistently failed at that in tiny Haiti is another thing.
Sully, I agree there was justification for deposing Saddam, but that does not mean doing so should have been the highest priority of American foreign policy for a half decade. There were greater dangers then–and now.