Ms Clinton's Wild Ride: A US "Grand Strategy" on Israel-Palestine-Iran?

Related Post: Iran, Missile Defense, and a Clinton Power Play?
Related Post: Ms Clinton’s Wild Ride: Is Dennis Ross in the Saddle on Iran?


"What is the broader strategy for the Obama Administration if it is re-engaging with the Israel-Palestinian process and the region beyond? There are three issues to consider: 1. The pursuit of a "two-state" Israel-Palestine settlement; 2. The contest between Hamas and Fatah for political leadership in Gaza and the West Bank; 3. The US relationship with Iran."

The easy part first: the significant development at the Gaza Donors Conference this week was not the declaration of $5.2 billion in aid for the area. It might have been a feel-good measure and good PR for some of the countries putting up their symbolic numbers, but it means nothing unless 1) Israel relents on its choke-hold on any aid to Gaza; 2) Hamas agrees to let the Palestinian Authority carry the aid and the credit. The first condition is doubtful with the current interregnum in the Israeli Government and the prospect of a Netanyahu Administration; the second is a non-starter.

Nope, if you wanted a meaningful headline, it's this: "US Promises $300 Million to Gaza; $600 Million to Palestinian Authority and West Bank". That's right: at a conference which was supposedly to arrange relief for Gazans suffering from long-term deprivation and the short-term assault by Israeli forces, two-thirds of the American commitment went elsewhere.

Which, of course, is no accident: Washington's clear priority is to prop up the PA and Fatah Party of Mahmoud Abbas as the proper faction to lead the Palestinian cause. But there's more....

Yesterday's New York Times, that US newspaper of record, did not lead with the aid announcement. Instead, it chose another pronouncement by the Secretary of State, this one made "privately" to an Arab foreign minister: "Clinton Pessimistic on Iran Outreach". So, at a conference supposedly devoted to the immediate problems of Gaza, the American delegation --- which immediately fed Clinton's Iran statement to the press --- was not solely concentrated on Israel and Palestine but looking hundreds of miles away to Tehran.

This all begs the question: what is the broader strategy for the Obama Administration if it is re-engaging with the Israel-Palestinian process and the region beyond? There are three issues to consider:

1. The pursuit of a "two-state" Israel-Palestine settlement;
2. The contest between Hamas and Fatah for political leadership in Gaza and the West Bank;
3. The US relationship with Iran.

Let's assume that the first issue is the long-term priority for the Obama Administration. That is the declared purpose of the President's designation of an envoy, George Mitchell, and it was restated in Clinton's speech at the Donors Conference and after her meetings with Israeli leaders yesterday.

That doesn't mean, however, that this is the immediate objective of US officials. Instead, their focus is on getting the right answer on Issue 2 --- that "proper" Palestinian leadership --- before proceeding with the negotiations for the two-state settlement.

And this is where Washington lowered the boom this week. It's not just a question of repeating the preconditions for Hamas to be "acceptable" in the political process: renunciation of violence, recognition of Israel, and adherence to 2005 agreements on border crossings. The US just handed out a $200 million lifeline to the Palestinian Authority so it can pay its employees and promised another $400 for unspecified "projects", but presumably ones where Abbas and Fatah will take credit. And, beyond that, there's the small matter of Washington funding the PA's security forces, as a New York Times puff piece illustrated this week:

One year ago, this 18-acre campus built with $10 million of American taxpayer money was another piece of Jordan Valley desert, and Palestinian guardsmen slept on flea-bitten mattresses and took meals on their laps. Along with a 35-acre, $11 million operations camp a few miles away, also American-financed, it is a real step forward in an otherwise moribund process of Palestinian state-building.

“These guys now feel like they’re on a winning team, that they are building a Palestinian state,” said Lt. Gen. Keith W. Dayton, the American who has been overseeing the training of Palestinian forces, as he watched exercises on Thursday. “And I wouldn’t stay if I didn’t think they were going to do it. I have complete confidence in the Palestinian leadership, and I’m convinced the new administration is serious about this.”

That's the nice spin on the US effort. The not-so-nice possibilities are that these security forces may be more concerned about stopping political dissent in the West Bank than they are about stopping attacks on Israel. And, oh yes, those forces could always be used --- as occurred in 2007 --- in a de facto civil war with Hamas.

This US support of the Palestinian Authority, and its corresponding effort to isolate and undermine Hamas, is far from new. Indeed, it was part of the December war in Gaza. However, when the effort to re-install the PA failed, there was a window of possibility --- through private talks or communications via a third party --- for Washington to "engage" Hamas with a view to bringing it into the peace process.

Clinton and the US money this week signalled that this is no longer on the table. It may be that the possibility never existed. Or it may be that the Obama Administration has calculated that, with visions of Benjamin Netanyahu, promotion of the PA is the only way to get the next Israeli Prime Minister to accept any two-state possibility.

That, however, is only the first part of the story. The second is the apparent decision of Washington to bring the Iran variable back into the Israel-Palestine calculation. Clinton's statement of her pessimism on engagement with Tehran was accompanied by the leak to the New York Times of the US offer to Russia to trade missile defence for Moscow's abandonment of the Iranian nuclear programme.

So, only six weeks after the Obama Inaugural prospect of engagement with an unclenched fist and four after his Vice-President's speech at Munich further pointed to a possible dialogue (as well as meetings behind the scenes), US officials have chosen to highlight their get-tough stance.

One explanation for this shift is the long-awaited entry of Dennis Ross, who has long advocated "Diplomacy Then Pressure", into the State Department. Another is that the Obama Administration is in a muddle, with different folks putting out different positions on the Iran question.

However, the conjunction of the setting of the Donors Conference and Clinton's declaration raises a grander possibility: the US relationship with Tehran is now a bargaining chip in the US manoeuvres on Israel-Palestine. So does Clinton's statement yesterday after talking to the Israelis that Hamas is "a client of Iran".

Put bluntly, the US may anticipate that Netanyahu will be insisting on a withdrawal from engagement with Iran if there is to be an engagement with the Palestinian Authority and the two-state process; indeed, he may have already make that clear to the Americans.

The folly of the Obama Administration sacrificing any thought of an opening with Iran is clear. Even if Israel-Palestine is a "core" issue, it's not the only one in town. Indeed, you could argue that Afghanistan has also become a "core" issue for the future of US foreign policy and Iran, which is as focused on Central Asia as the Middle East, is a key player which could assist the American efforts. By throwing up a wall to Tehran, the US Government protects its position in one vital area only to give it away on another.

Unfortunately, that is an easy sacrifice to make, at least with respect to the US relationship with Israel and American domestic politics. And the long-term costs remain, well, long-term.

So the Obama team will press on, possibly oblivious to other consequences of their shift. Consider, for example, another piece of the puzzle: the US relationship with Syria. In the vision of a two-state Israel-Palestine process in which the Palestinian Authority would be promoted, Damascus can and should be brought in from the cold. No coincidence, then, that Clinton announced that two US envoys, Jeffrey Feltman and Daniel Shapiro, would visit Syria this week --- the highest-level US contacts with Damascus since January 2005.

Of course, that US approach will be seeking a Syrian detachment from Iran and a commitment to let Hamas dangle in the wind. So what happens if the Syrians refuse or simply stall on giving an answer to Washington? Does Washington shake a fist, possibly threatening the consequences of the tribunal on the assassination of Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq al-Hariri? Or does it accept that other countries may not follow the American script?

I fear we are on the verge of witnessing yet another huge strategic choice --- and error --- to accompany the choice/error that has been in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The Latest on Israel-Palestine (4 March): US Keeps Hamas on Outside

Related Post: Ms Clinton’s Wild Ride - A US “Grand Strategy” on Israel-Palestine-Iran?



Evening Update (7 p.m.): US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (pictured), at a news conference after her meeting with Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas, has described Israeli plans to demolish dozens of Palestinian homes in East Jerusalem as "unhelpful".

Clinton sent out another unsubtle signal regarding the West Bank and Gaza: "The US supports the Palestinian Authority as the only legitimate government of the Palestinian people."

Afternoon Update (11:30 a.m.): US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has met the Palestinian Authority's Salam Fayyad, who pressed for a halt to extension of Israeli settlements and an opening of Gazan border crossings.

Morning Update (6:20 a.m. GMT): Speaking after her meetings with high-ranking Israeli officials on Tuesday, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton  restated the long-standing preconditions on any engagement with Hamas in the Israel-Palestine process: recognition of Israel, renunciation of violence, and adherence to agreements from 2005 on issues such as border crossings. Clinton said, referring to the points set out by the Quartet of the US-European Union-United Nations-Russia, "In the absence of Hamas agreeing to the principles that have been adopted by such a broad range of international actors, I don't see that we or they -- or anyone -- could deal with Hamas."

Clinton went further, however, in his denunciation of Hamas, indicating a link of US policy on Israel-Palestine to a shift in Washington's approach to Tehran. Asked if Hamas had to make a public statement, rather than a private commitment, she answered, "Well, the PLO did that, and I think no less can be expected of Hamas which is, obviously, not only a terrorist group but is increasingly a client of Iran."

Ms Clinton's Wild Ride: Iran's Supreme Leader Says US on "Wrong Path"

Related Post: Ms Clinton’s Wild Ride - A US “Grand Strategy” on Israel-Palestine-Iran?

In a mirror image of Hillary Clinton's tough comments on Iran and the revelation of the US offer to Russia to swap missile defense for Tehran's nuclear programme,  Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei told a Tehran conference on Palestine that President Obama was following the "wrong path" of his predecessor, George W. Bush: "Even the new president of America, who has come to power with slogans about changing Bush's policies, is defending state terrorism by talking about unconditional commitment to Israel's security."

Question: is Khamenei responding to Clinton or is Clinton responding to Khamenei? Or are the two running in parallel paths, with Palestine as the symbolic issue of division?

Mr Obama's Doctrine: Josh Mull on US Grand Strategy in Pakistan and Beyond

Related Post: Mr Obama's War - Pakistan Insurgency "Unites" (You Heard It Here First)

"The 'Obama Doctrine' looks something like this: the United States will continue to use its military power as its premier tool in international affairs and may even act preemptively. However, it will not  do so on issues it deems outside of reasonable American national security concerns, and it will act only with support and cooperation from the international community. To put it frankly, this is something like a cross between 'walk softly and carry a big stick' and the Buddy System. While still violent, imperial, and aggressive, it is a marked departure from the so-called Bush Doctrine and even the Global War on Terror."

Yesterday Scott Lucas, in “Mr. Obama's War: The Fantasy of the Pakistan Sanctuaries”, analysed US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates' appearance on Meet the Press, pointing out the cognitive dissonance in Gates' assertion that the US understands safe havens in Pakistan because it has previously used those same Pakistani safe havens so effectively. Lucas also raises some very interesting questions, particularly over Gates' apparent non-answer to the question of the consequences for Pakistan of the US campaign. This is my attempt to answer those questions, as well as a proposal to parse out a broader US “grand strategy” from Gates' appearance.

Host David Gregory asked Gates on Sunday, “The trouble and consequences of jihadists making significant gains in either Afghanistan or Pakistan is perhaps more acute in Pakistan given its nuclear potential. True?” In reply, Gates' offered this:

Well, as long as we’re in Afghanistan and as long as the Afghan government has the support of dozens and dozens of countries who are providing military support, civilian support in addition to us, we are providing a level of stability in Afghanistan that at least prevents it from being a safe haven from which plots against the United States and the Europeans and others can be, can be put together.

The key is this: Gates isn't answering the question about Pakistan to David Gregory. He's answering the question about Pakistan directly to the Pakistanis.

I decoded Gates' reply as: "Well, as long as I can go on a Sunday morning Prime Time talk show and say 9/11, Taliban, and Osama bin Laden and as long as my Commander-in-Chief can draw crowds of 200,000 screaming Europeans, Pakistan can suck it up and deal with whatever we want to do, including destabilizing or overthrowing their corrupt government and/or stealing or destroying their illegal nuclear weapons, which by the way, I already have the authority to do from a little thing called the Lugar-Obama bill to secure weapons of mass destruction."

In short, it's not the responsibility of the Secretary of Defense to keep Pakistan stable, it is his responsibility to attack extremist safe havens in Pakistan in order to prevent a catastrophic terrorist attack against the US, Canada, or the European Union. President Obama, and by extension the plans of his Secretary of Defense, enjoys bipartisan political support as well as stable international credibility. Accordingly the US will act, as Lucas said in his article, as if “there are no consequences whatsoever for the internal Pakistani situation" or, more appropriately, without regard to these consequences.

But there is more we can glean from Secretary Gates' interview than it appears. Beyond the purposes Lucas pointed out --- pitching Obama's Iraq withdrawal plan and articulating US Afghanistan policy --- it's possible Gates was offering us, and the international audience, insight into the broader strategic calculations of the United States, particularly the role of the Department of Defense and US military power abroad.

President Obama has shown himself to be somewhat of a Centrist, if only in regard to his desire to hear from all sides of an argument or debate. One thing all foreign policy and national security analysts, from the Conservative "Fall of Rome" crowd to the Realist "Second World" types all the way to the Neoconservative "Team America" folks, can agree on is this: the United States of America is now and will continue to be Earth's preeminent military force, at least for the foreseeable future.

There is a saying amongst foreign policy elites:  "Who has the world's largest air force after the US Air Force? The US Army."

With Pakistan, Gates is essentially saying that, as long as the US, Canada, and Europe are threatened by extremist attacks from Afghanistan and Pakistan, the US will continue to act aggressively with its military force. It will do so in any manner and on any territory of its choosing, provided it has the support and cooperation of Europe and NATO (whose members will suffer from terrorism long before the US).

What's absent is any mention of India, which implies the support of India in Afghanistan and protection from Pakistan-launched, "Mumbai-style" attacks are not part of the US calculation. ("Your problem, not ours.")

It may seem like Gates casually forgot to mention India and Mumbai in his response on Pakistan. After all, "AfPak" is an extremely complicated subject, and it's easy to leave things out or get things mixed up. At least, that will be the talking point if this becomes an issue. However, we know two things: first, India and Pakistan are inextricably linked together in any strategic calculus, and second, that this wasn't just a casual visit to Meet the Press by Bob Gates. It was the public coming-out ceremony for George W. Bush's former and now President Obama's current Secretary of Defense, civilian leader of the United States Military.

The importance of this public appearance can't be understated. It was not necessarily designed for the domestic audience of NBC viewers, but rather was aimed at a more global audience and, directly, to the Pakistanis. This is what makes the apparently deliberate absence of India from the “AfPak” equation so significant. The absence, the answer, and the entire interview together could lead us to presume that Gates is articulating the prototype for what will later be called “the Obama Doctrine”.

The “Obama Doctrine” looks something like this: the United States will continue to use its military power as its premier tool in international affairs and may even act preemptively. However, it will not  do so on issues it deems outside of reasonable American national security concerns, and it will act only with support and cooperation from the international community. To put it frankly, this is something like a cross between “walk softly and carry a big stick” and the Buddy System. While still violent, imperial, and aggressive, it is a marked departure from the so-called Bush Doctrine and even the Global War on Terror.

The India-Pakistan and Kashmir and Bangladesh) conflict is the perfect illustration. Under the old rules of the Bush Doctrine, the response to something like the Mumbai attacks might be airstrikes, special forces, or some other combination of clandestine military force. Under the “Obama Doctrine”, the Defense Department under Gates, and thus the US military, are not responsible for the India-Pakistan conflict. Rather this would fall under the portfolios of US Attorney General Eric Holder and his FBI as well US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and her cadres of ambassadors and envoys,with support and cooperation from that throbbing heart of diplomacy in Brussels (the European Union), law enforcement agents with Interpol and NATO, and the mediation and oversight of the United Nations.

Obviously it's an extreme departure from George W Bush's radical Napoleonic-cum-Bolshevik strategy of the Global War on Terror, but that doesn't necessarily mean the “Obama Doctrine” will turn out any more successfully than the Bush Doctrine. In fact, the strategy is brimming with vulnerabilities.

The US may be the most powerful military, it is not the only military on the planet. In the fall of 2007 as civil unrest was broiling in Pakistan under General Pervez Musharraf, then-Senator now Vice President Joe Biden campaigned in the Democratic Party primaries on a promise to pull strategic military aid from Pakistan, that is weapons used against India, to pressure Pakistan to focus on the insurgency rather than more ethereal, strategic conflicts. In response, however, the Chinese offered to sell Pakistan a new fleet of MiG fighter jets, similar to the American planes Biden was threatening to withdraw. Now, as then, there is a constant danger that any diplomatic “sticks” threatened by the US can simply be neutralized by other international actors willing to take its place.

Furthermore there is the problem caused by the global financial meltdown and the massive economic depressions it is causing. While Secretary Gates may have it in his authority to bomb Pakistani safe havens as well as police the Straits of Malacca, the United States may not ultimately be able to afford the high price of imperialism. And if the US is forced to cut back on its imperalist designs, it will create some extremely uncomfortable strategic questions for policy makers. For example, what is the higher priority between preventing a bus bombing in London or preventing a missile exchange between Korea and Japan when you can't afford both?

So we don't end on such a morbid tone, let me point out that this prototypical “Obama Doctrine” has some very powerful advantages over the Bush Doctrine, the Global War on Terror, and the so-called Long War/Great Game theories. The most important advantage is that it is absolutely conscious of and constructed on the idea of a “Multi-Polar” world. Even though the US seeks to dominate international affairs, it acknowledges and plans for the participation of other actors, states, or non-states. By allowing for participation, it allows for competition, and as President Obama displays with his choice of Hillary Clinton for Secretary of State, competition has both winners and losers who can still join together for a common purpose. There is no absolute victory or defeat of good and evil, but rather a competition among partners.

Obama to Russia: We Drop Missile Defence, You Stop Iran's Nuclear Programme

Today's New York Times reveals the flip side of the Obama Administration's "engagement" with Iran:

President Obama sent a secret letter to Russia’s president last month suggesting that he would back off deploying a new missile defense system in Eastern Europe if Moscow would help stop Iran from developing long-range weapons, American officials said Monday.

The letter to President Dmitri A. Medvedev was hand-delivered in Moscow by top administration officials three weeks ago. It said the United States would not need to proceed with the interceptor system, which has been vehemently opposed by Russia since it was proposed by the Bush administration, if Iran halted any efforts to build nuclear warheads and ballistic missiles.

The letter was delivered by Undersecretary of State William J. Burns and followed similar messages from Secretary of Defense Robert Gates last year, "“I told the Russians a year ago that if there were no Iranian missile program, there would be no need for the missile sites.” A "senior administration official" commented about the latest manoeuvre, “It’s almost saying to them, put up or shut up. It’s not that the Russians get to say, ‘We’ll try and therefore you have to suspend.’ It says the threat has to go away.”

News of the proposal accompanies the revelation, in The Los Angeles Times, that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told the foreign minister of the United Arab Emirates at the Gaza Donors Conference that it was "very unlikely" American engagement will persuade Iran to give up its nuclear programme. However,"an Iranian rebuff could strengthen America's diplomatic position", as the US would have shown that it had exhausted all possible efforts at diplomacy before seeking further pressure on Tehran.

Taken together, the stories indicate that the Obama Administration is on the verge of a serious mis-step in its approach to Iran. Either out of naivete or --- more likely --- the quest for a non-military campaign against Iran, key US officials are conflating the pursuit of nuclear energy with the pursuit of a nuclear weapon.

That might work with the US public and, to an extent, with European allies who do not want to break with Washington, but it is unlikely to work with Moscow. The Russians have no desire to link their relations with the US to a change in their position on Iran, and they have plenty of other cards --- remember their manoeuvring over the US supply line to Afghanistan? --- to play if the Americans are seeking "linkage".

Would you like a clue? Russian spokesman said on Monday that Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov will discuss missile defence with Clinton on Friday in Geneva, before Obama and Medvedev meet on 2 April in London. However, the Russian spokesman said nothing about Iran.