Coming Next in the Intelligence-Policy Battle: Iran's Uranium

Related Post: How Israel Limits US Foreign Policy
Related Post: Charles Freeman’s Letter Withdrawing His Nomination
Related Post: Charles Freeman’s Speech on the Middle East and Israel


The Director of National Intelligence, Dennis Blair (pictured) ---- on the same day that the Obama Administration had to withdraw the nomination of Charles Freeman as Chair of the National Intelligence Council --- has just set the scene for another political battle in Washington.

Blair told the Senate Armed Services Committee yesterday:

The overall situation -- and the intelligence community agrees on this -- [is] that Iran has not decided to press forward . . . to have a nuclear weapon on top of a ballistic missile. Our current estimate is that the minimum time at which Iran could technically produce the amount of highly enriched uranium for a single weapon is 2010 to 2015.

Blair's assertion that Israel was envisaging a "worst-case scenario" about Iranian plans for nuclear energy was echoed by the Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, Lieutenant General Michael Maples, "The Israelis are far more concerned about [the Iranian programme]."

With his testimony, Blair is both reinforcing and clarifying his statements, made to Congress in January, about Iran's nuclear capabilities. On that occasion, he hedged on the clear statement by the US intelligence services that it had no evidence that Iran had resumed an nuclear weapons programme, which Washington claimed had been started but suspended in 2003.

This time, Blair made no qualifications. So don't be surprised if, after the forced withdrawal of Charles Freeman's nomination, there is another battle between between Congress and the US intelligence services.

The Obama Administration lost Round One (some would say "caved in"). Does it dare lose Round Two?

Text: Charles Freeman's Speech on the Middle East and Israel (October 2006)

Related Post: How Israel Limits US Foreign Policy - The Not-so-Curious Case of Charles Freeman
Related Post: Charles Freeman’s Letter Withdrawing His Nomination
Related Post: Coming Next in the Intelligence-Policy Battle - Iran’s Uranium

This morning we evaluated the significance of the withdrawal of Charles Freeman's nomination to head the National Intelligence Council, including the place of Israel in US foreign policy.

Those scouring the Internet to document Freeman's alleged anti-Israel position have focused on a speech he gave in October 2006 to a conference on co-operation between the US and the Gulf Cooperation Council. To ensure the full context for Freeman's remark, we reprint the speech in full below. This, however, is the key extract:

Finally, let me allude briefly to the issue of Israel, a country that has yet to be accepted as part of the Middle East and whose inability to find peace with the Palestinians and other Arabs is the driving factor in the region's radicalization and anti-Americanism.

The talented European settlers who formed the state of Israel endowed it with substantial intellectual and technological superiority over any other society in the Middle East. The dynamism of Israel's immigrant culture and the generous help of the Jewish Diaspora rapidly gave Israel a standard of living equivalent to that of European countries. For fifty years Israel has enjoyed military superiority in its region. Demonstrably, Israel excels at war; sadly, it has shown no talent for peace.

For almost forty years, Israel has had land beyond its previously established borders to trade for peace. It has been unable to make this exchange except when a deal was crafted for it by the United States, imposed on it by American pressure, and sustained at American taxpayer expense. For the past half decade Israel has enjoyed carte blanche from the United States to experiment with any policy it favored to stabilize its relations with the Palestinians and its other Arab neighbors, including most recently its efforts to bomb Lebanon into peaceful coexistence with it and to smother Palestinian democracy in its cradle.

The suspension of the independent exercise of American judgment about what best serves our interests as well as those of Israelis and Arabs has caused the Arabs to lose confidence in the United States as a peace partner. To their credit, they have therefore stepped forward with their own plan for a comprehensive peace. By sad contrast, the American decision to let Israel call the shots in the Middle East has revealed how frightened Israelis now are of their Arab neighbors and how reluctant this fear has made them to risk respectful coexistence with the other peoples of their region. The results of the experiment are in: left to its own devices, the Israeli establishment will make decisions that harm Israelis, threaten all associated with them, and enrage those who are not.

Tragically, despite all the advantages and opportunities Israel has had over the fifty-nine years of its existence, it has failed to achieve concord and reconciliation with anyone in its region, still less to gain their admiration or affection. Instead, with each decade, Israel's behavior has deviated farther from the humane ideals of its founders and the high ethical standards of the religion that most of its inhabitants profess. Israel and the Palestinians, in particular, are caught up in an endless cycle of reprisal and retaliation that guarantees the perpetuation of conflict in which levels of mutual atrocities continue to escalate. As a result, each generation of Israelis and Palestinians has accumulated new reasons to loathe the behavior of the other, and each generation of Arabs has detested Israel with more passion than its predecessor. This is not how peace is made. Here, too, a break with the past and a change in course are clearly in order.

The framework proposed by Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah at Beirut in 2002 offers Israel an opportunity to accomplish both. It has the support of all Arab governments. It would exchange Arab acceptance of Israel and a secure place for the Jewish state in the region for Israeli recognition of Palestinians as human beings with equal weight in the eyes of God, entitled to the same rights of democratic self-determination and domestic tranquility within secure borders that Israelis wish to enjoy. The proposal proceeds from self-interest. It recognizes how much the Arabs would gain from normal relations with Israel if the necessary conditions for mutual respect and reconciliation could be created.

Despite the fact that such a peace is so obviously also in Israel's vital and moral interests, history and the Israeli response to date both strongly suggest that without some tough love from Americans, including especially Israel's American coreligionists, Israel will not risk the uncertainties of peace. Instead, it will persist in the belief, despite all the evidence to the contrary, that it can gain safety through the officially sanctioned assassination of potential opponents, the terrorization of Arab civilians, and the cluster bombing of neighbors rather than negotiation with them. These policies have not worked; they will not work. But unless they are changed, the Arab peace plan will exceed its shelf life, and Arabs will revert to their previous views that Israel is an ethnomaniacal society with which it is impossible for others to coexist and that peace can be achieved only by Israel's eventual annihilation, much as the Crusader kingdoms that once occupied Palestine were eventually destroyed.

Americans need to be clear about the consequences of continuing our current counterproductive approaches to security in the Middle East. We have paid heavily and often in treasure in the past for our unflinching support and unstinting subsidies of Israel's approach to managing its relations with the Arabs. Five years ago we began to pay with the blood of our citizens here at home. We are now paying with the lives of our soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines on battlefields in several regions of the realm of Islam, with more said by our government's neoconservative mentors to be in prospect. Our policies in Afghanistan and Iraq are adding to the threats to our security and well-being, not reducing them. They have added and are adding to our difficulties and those of allies and partners, including Israel. They are not advancing the resolution of these problems or making anyone more secure. They degrade our moral standing and diminish our value as an ally. They delight our enemies and dismay our friends.

In the interest of all, it is therefore time for a change of course.

“American-GCC Relations: An Assessment of Reforms, Elections, Challenges and the Prospects for Regional Peace and Stability”
Charles Freeman
31 October 2006

It is an honor once again to make the concluding remarks at the annual US-Arab Policymakers Conference. I do so, of course, as an individual and as an American concerned with the implications of events in the Gulf region, not on behalf of any organization or group with which I am affiliated. Speaking only for oneself enables one to call it like it is. I shall.

The Gulf Cooperation Council began in a time of crisis 25 years ago. Since then the GCC has passed through many stressful strategic environments. It was, after all, formed to cope with the challenges that caused Americans first to declare the Gulf a region of vital interest to the United States - the Islamic revolution in Iran, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, and the outbreak of the Iran-Iraq war. The GCC was also, of course, created to provide a means of dealing with the sudden rise in US interest and military activity in the Gulf in the wake of these events, the oil boom, and the Camp David accords between Egypt and Israel.

The GCC functioned as a coherent alliance during the US-led war to liberate Kuwait from Iraqi occupation that followed the end of the Iran-Iraq war. Its members separately provided essential staging areas and support bases for the US invasion and occupation of Iraq a dozen years later. Some have since deepened their reliance on the United States, while others have hedged their previous dependency.

Now the GCC member states may be facing their greatest challenge: the changes brought about by the progressive collapse of American policies in the region, including US efforts to transform Iraq, to block Iran's acquisition of nuclear weapons, and to achieve security for Israel by persuading it to respect the right of Palestinians to democratic self-determination in a secure homeland.

The US military have developed the useful concept of "consequence management." The idea is to set aside for later study the questions of why and how widespread devastation followed the use of weapons of mass destruction or a large-scale natural disaster, and instead to acknowledge the damage while focusing on actions to mitigate it and prevent it from worsening. It is time to apply consequence management to the mounting wreckage of our policies in the Middle East.

Only true believers in the neo-conservative dream can now fail to recognize that it has wrought a deepening nightmare in Iraq. The shattered Iraqi state has been succeeded (outside Kurdish areas) by near-universal resistance to the foreign occupation that supplanted it. The aggravation of secular and ethnic divisions by ill-conceived constitutional bargaining and elections has created a new political culture in Iraq in which theocratic feudalism, militia-building, and terrorist violence are the principal modes of self-expression.

The attempt to cure the resulting anarchy by building a strong army and police force for the Iraqi central government misses the point. The Baghdad government is itself a key participant in all of the pathologies of contemporary Iraq. In practice, it is more a vengeful tyranny of the majority in a temporary marriage of convenience with Kurdish separatists than a government of all the people. It is hard to disprove the thesis that it seeks a monopoly on the use of force only to consolidate either a Shiite version of Saddam's dictatorship or an Iraqi version of the Iranian theocracy. The sad fact is that, to many Iraqis, these outcomes now seem to offer the most realistic hope for renewed domestic tranquility in their country.

All but a small minority of Iraqi Arabs now reject the legitimacy of any continuing US military presence on Iraqi soil. On the one hand, the occupation has become the indispensable prop of the current order in Iraq, such as it is; on the other, the prolongation of the occupation is the main reason Iraqis wage an insurgent war against that order. The occupation thus supplies its own opposition; its continuation feeds the violence that makes its eventual curtailment inevitable.

The unpopularity of the occupation continues to provide a rewarding opening for outside agitators. Al Qa`ida now openly acknowledges a major stake in the US staying in Iraq for as long as possible. Our military presence is not just a potent motivator of anti-Americanism and a source of volunteers for terrorism, it has put us in the position of providing instructors to "Jihad U," the graduate school we have inadvertently created in Iraq for terrorists with global reach - an advanced curriculum, where failure is punished by death at our hands, but course completion is rewarded by a chance to take part in future terrorist operations in Europe, Asia, and North America. The costs of the occupation must be measured in much more than the hundreds of billions of dollars we continue to spend on it.

No one can predict how US forces will withdraw from Iraq, but no one now doubts that their departure is only a matter of time. While some wish to soldier on, few see any prospect that the United States will leave behind an Iraq at peace with itself, a united Iraq capable of playing a constructive role in regional affairs, or a strong Iraq willing and able to balance Iran as it once did. The United States invaded Iraq against the counsel of our allies and friends, drunk with our own self-importance, convinced by our own delusions, apparently invincible in our ignorance, and utterly unprepared for the quasi-colonial mission we assumed. Contemporary Iraq is a monument to American martial prowess and civil ineptitude.

It now seems likely our withdrawal will be undertaken for domestic American political reasons, again without much attention to Iraqi and regional realities. But withdrawal risks escalating the conflict inside Iraq, infecting other parts of the region with Iraq's sectarian strife, and providing an early graduation ceremony for terrorists bent on applying elsewhere what they have learned in Iraq. Unless diplomacy has first crafted a regional context that limits the damage, a politically-dictated withdrawal will crown our incompetence with disgrace and devaluation as a security partner. What kind of country is it that invades another, trashes it, sets it on fire, and then walks away to let inhabitants and neighbors alike die in the flames or perish of smoke inhalation? Who will wish to associate themselves with such a country, still less entrust their security to cooperation with it?

We did not consult the GCC countries or others in the region about the strategy or tactics of our invasion of Iraq. We would do well to seek their advice, counsel, and support - and they would do well to insist on our consulting them - as we make our next moves, whether these are within Iraq or away from it. Techniques of asymmetric warfare pioneered in Iraq now find their way within weeks to Afghanistan and elsewhere. The targeting of GCC rulers and oil and gas facilities by terrorists with connections to the mayhem in Iraq underscores our common interest in countering spillover from the jihadi intervention in that country. Similarly, the well-founded concern that areas in the Gulf with mixed Sunna and Sh`ia populations might suffer contagion from the religious struggles in Iraq emphasizes the imperative of containing them.

These are closely connected and clearly anticipatable problems that affect many countries in the region. They must not be left to be addressed ad hoc and at the last minute.

Then, there are the problems presented by Iranian ambitions, not just for nuclear weaponry but for preponderant influence in the Gulf. These go well beyond the issues of whether bombing Iran would not provoke it to attempt regime change in the countries from whose bases the attack had been launched, or simply confirm it and others in their judgment that the only effective protection against preemptive attack by the United States is the possession of a nuclear deterrent.

Assuming, as we must, in light of the results similar US policies toward north Korea have produced, that Iran will eventually acquire a nuclear deterrent, how do the GCC countries plan to deal with Iran as a nuclear power? Will each respond separately or will the response be collective? Will there be piecemeal appeasement or defiant reaffirmations of sovereign independence? If a nuclear umbrella or deterrent to the nuclear threat from Iran is deemed necessary, will this be collectively managed or will each country seek its own protection? In either context, what role, if any, do the Gulf Arabs desire for the United States or other nuclear powers? Is the role they envisage for us one that Americans can or will undertake?

Then, too, having destroyed Iraq's utility in balancing Iran, we and the GCC have yet to concert a strategy for a new and sustainable balance of power. Such a balance cannot be sustained if, as was the case in Saudi Arabia, the American military presence becomes not an asset to national security but its principal liability, thanks to the provocation it offers to political extremists. How do we propose to manage the contradiction between our desire to assure the stability of the Gulf and the fact that our presence in it is inherently destabilizing? If we are to avoid a strategic debacle, we cannot leave Iraq without agreeing on answers to these questions with our Gulf Arab partners.

Iran is emerging as yet another proof that diplomacy-free foreign policy does not work. Neither do lack of planning or the refusal to talk to interested allies and adversaries. It's not hard to anticipate the questions that will arise from the probable future course of events in Iran itself and in Iranian relationships with Iraq and other countries in the region. These too must not be left to tactical responses, improvised on the spot in the absence of strategy, sprung with no warning upon those whose cooperation or forbearance is essential to enable them to succeed.

Finally, let me allude briefly to the issue of Israel, a country that has yet to be accepted as part of the Middle East and whose inability to find peace with the Palestinians and other Arabs is the driving factor in the region's radicalization and anti-Americanism.

The talented European settlers who formed the state of Israel endowed it with substantial intellectual and technological superiority over any other society in the Middle East. The dynamism of Israel's immigrant culture and the generous help of the Jewish Diaspora rapidly gave Israel a standard of living equivalent to that of European countries. For fifty years Israel has enjoyed military superiority in its region. Demonstrably, Israel excels at war; sadly, it has shown no talent for peace.

For almost forty years, Israel has had land beyond its previously established borders to trade for peace. It has been unable to make this exchange except when a deal was crafted for it by the United States, imposed on it by American pressure, and sustained at American taxpayer expense. For the past half decade Israel has enjoyed carte blanche from the United States to experiment with any policy it favored to stabilize its relations with the Palestinians and its other Arab neighbors, including most recently its efforts to bomb Lebanon into peaceful coexistence with it and to smother Palestinian democracy in its cradle.

The suspension of the independent exercise of American judgment about what best serves our interests as well as those of Israelis and Arabs has caused the Arabs to lose confidence in the United States as a peace partner. To their credit, they have therefore stepped forward with their own plan for a comprehensive peace. By sad contrast, the American decision to let Israel call the shots in the Middle East has revealed how frightened Israelis now are of their Arab neighbors and how reluctant this fear has made them to risk respectful coexistence with the other peoples of their region. The results of the experiment are in: left to its own devices, the Israeli establishment will make decisions that harm Israelis, threaten all associated with them, and enrage those who are not.

Tragically, despite all the advantages and opportunities Israel has had over the fifty-nine years of its existence, it has failed to achieve concord and reconciliation with anyone in its region, still less to gain their admiration or affection. Instead, with each decade, Israel's behavior has deviated farther from the humane ideals of its founders and the high ethical standards of the religion that most of its inhabitants profess. Israel and the Palestinians, in particular, are caught up in an endless cycle of reprisal and retaliation that guarantees the perpetuation of conflict in which levels of mutual atrocities continue to escalate. As a result, each generation of Israelis and Palestinians has accumulated new reasons to loathe the behavior of the other, and each generation of Arabs has detested Israel with more passion than its predecessor. This is not how peace is made. Here, too, a break with the past and a change in course are clearly in order.

The framework proposed by Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah at Beirut in 2002 offers Israel an opportunity to accomplish both. It has the support of all Arab governments. It would exchange Arab acceptance of Israel and a secure place for the Jewish state in the region for Israeli recognition of Palestinians as human beings with equal weight in the eyes of God, entitled to the same rights of democratic self-determination and domestic tranquility within secure borders that Israelis wish to enjoy. The proposal proceeds from self-interest. It recognizes how much the Arabs would gain from normal relations with Israel if the necessary conditions for mutual respect and reconciliation could be created.

Despite the fact that such a peace is so obviously also in Israel's vital and moral interests, history and the Israeli response to date both strongly suggest that without some tough love from Americans, including especially Israel's American coreligionists, Israel will not risk the uncertainties of peace. Instead, it will persist in the belief, despite all the evidence to the contrary, that it can gain safety through the officially sanctioned assassination of potential opponents, the terrorization of Arab civilians, and the cluster bombing of neighbors rather than negotiation with them. These policies have not worked; they will not work. But unless they are changed, the Arab peace plan will exceed its shelf life, and Arabs will revert to their previous views that Israel is an ethnomaniacal society with which it is impossible for others to coexist and that peace can be achieved only by Israel's eventual annihilation, much as the Crusader kingdoms that once occupied Palestine were eventually destroyed.

Americans need to be clear about the consequences of continuing our current counterproductive approaches to security in the Middle East. We have paid heavily and often in treasure in the past for our unflinching support and unstinting subsidies of Israel's approach to managing its relations with the Arabs. Five years ago we began to pay with the blood of our citizens here at home. We are now paying with the lives of our soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines on battlefields in several regions of the realm of Islam, with more said by our government's neoconservative mentors to be in prospect. Our policies in Afghanistan and Iraq are adding to the threats to our security and well-being, not reducing them. They have added and are adding to our difficulties and those of allies and partners, including Israel. They are not advancing the resolution of these problems or making anyone more secure. They degrade our moral standing and diminish our value as an ally. They delight our enemies and dismay our friends.

In the interest of all, it is therefore time for a change of course. But, as Seneca remarked almost 2,000 years ago, "If a man does not know to what port he is steering, no wind is favorable." It is past time that we agreed on our destination and devised a strategy for reaching it. As events belatedly force us to come up with a workable approach to consequence management and lay a course to take us beyond it, Americans will need the advice of our partners in the GCC and others in the region.

If we pay no attention to the opinions and interests of these partners, we should not be surprised to discover that we have forfeited their friendship and cooperation. Without both, we cannot hope to manage and overcome the consequences of the series of policy disasters we have contrived or to devise new and effective policies. And we here, like our friends in the region and elsewhere, will all pay again for this failure, and pay heavily. We must not allow that to come to pass.

Engaging Iran: The Obama Administration, A Think Tank, and An Israel-First Policy?

Last week the Washington Institute for Near East Policy released its latest report on Iran, "Preventing a Cascade of Instability: U.S. Engagement to Check Iranian Nuclear Progress" . At its heart is a wonderful if dangerous (and unacknowledeged) tension. The influential think-tank thunders:

An Iran on the brink of possessing, or actually possessing, nuclear weapons would create a multitude of problems in the Middle East. Not only would the United States have to deter and contain an emboldened Iran, it could also have to forestall a cascade of destabilizing reactions by other states, whether they were to accommodate Iran, attack it, or match its capabilities. Preventing Iran’s acquisition or development of a military nuclear capability is therefore a vital national priority.

Yet, in the next breath, WINEP declares that the purpose of blocking Iran's "nuclear progress" (not "nuclear weapons" but "progress" towards any nuclear energy capability) is not defensive but ensure Washington remakes the region in its desired image:

Confronting the Iran nuclear program also offers other opportunities to advance U.S. interests: to demonstrate U.S. commitment to multilateral diplomacy, to deepen U.S. relationships with its Middle East friends, and to strengthen the global nonproliferation regime.

To do this, the report advocates a two-stage process. The Obama Administration can initially pursue diplomacy, but "time is short if diplomatic engagement is to have a chance of success":

If the international community appears unable to stop Iran’s nuclear progress, Israel may decide to act unilaterally. Whatever Americans may think, Israeli leaders seem convinced that at least for now, they have a military option....Israel...may feel compelled to act before the option disappears.

Thus, the US has to "use deterrence as an instrument of dissuasion", in other words, give a lot of weapons to Arab states and Tel Aviv: "The enhancement of the modern missile defenses already being deployed in Israel and purchased by several GCC states may introduce uncertainty into the minds of Iranian leaders about the military utility of Iran’s nuclear and missile programs." It also should "use the risk of cascading instability to produce more action now", which is none-too-subtle coding for more aggressive economic sanctions.

So, does this have any significance for policy inside the Obama Administration, rather than advice outside it? WINEP has received attention because, up to early 2009, its leadership and task forces included Obama officials such as Dennis Ross (now envoy for Southwest Asia and "the Gulf") and Susan Rice (Ambassador to the United Nations). This current report draws upon a June 2008 predecessor, signed by Ross and Rice, "Strengthening the Partnership: How to Deepen U.S.-Israel Cooperation on the Iranian Nuclear Challenge".

Yet, in that context, there is an important between the 2008 and 2009 WINEP approaches, one which may or may not point to the rapid-fire diplomacy of Obama's "engagement" and Hillary Clinton's wild ride across the Middle East last week. The earlier report advocated many of the measures in its 2009 successor, but this was founded on an important starting premise:

"That the president initiate, with the prime minister of Israel, a high-level dialogue on the most urgent security matters on our strategic agenda so as to ensure that common threat perceptions and
common interests translate into policies that are as coordinated as possible."

This dialogue would not be begun by the leaders of the US and Israel or their highest-level representatives --- this might be politically sensitive --- but by "one or two...aides...among the most trusted advisors to the president and prime minister --- officials or emissaries empowered to engage in all manner of discussion with the utmost creativity and maximum discretion."

"Preventing a Cascade of Instability" offers no such recommendation. So, has the starting point of an Iran policy based on discussions with Tel Aviv been dropped, by WINEP or --- more importantly --- the Obama Administration? Or, through an official such as Dennis Ross, has it simply been smuggled in quietly, pending the arrival of a new Israeli Government?

New US, New Middle East? The Syria Initiative

The major follow-up to US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's Middle Eastern trip has come not in Israel and Palestine, where there is too much uncertainty for any American move, but in Damascus. On Saturday two US envoys, Jeffrey Feltman of the State Department and Daniel Shapiro of the National Security Council, sat down with Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem. They were accompanied by the senior American official in Damascus and two other Syrian advisors for 3 1/2 hours before Feltman and al-Moallem had a private discussion.

The meeting on its own is significant, as the US has no Ambassador in Syria. Expectations are even higher, however, because Damascus could be the lynchpin for an Obama strategy. The core success of Israeli-Syrian talks would be complemented by Syria's distancing from Iran, Hezbollah, and Hamas, giving the US greater room for manoeuvre on the Israel-Palestine negotiations and an advantage over Tehran in Washington's conception of the new battle for the Middle East.

After the meeting, Feltman was kind in tone toward Syria, “The Syrians have concerns with us as well. I’m sure the Syrians will be looking at choices we will be making in the future just as we will be looking at choices Syria is making,”. However, he was non-committal on specifics beyond the platitude, “We found a lot of common ground today."

The Syrians also gave nothing away. In particular, there is no sign that Damascus, in return for economic aid and an American "balance" on direct discussions with Tel Aviv over issues such as the Golan Heights, offered up the concessions that Washington wants on the bad guys in Gaza, southern Lebanon, and Tehran. So the most that can be said is that yesterday's event, while of symbolic importance, is only the opener in a long process.

There has been surprisingly low-key coverage of the meeting in the US press. CNN has a report, but The New York Times recycles a downbeat Associated Press story, "Amid Low Expectations, American Officials Hold Talks in Syria", and The Washington Post overlooks the event altogether.

Syrian specialist Josh Landis offers excellent coverage on his blog, featuring Rami Khouri's upbeat (overly upbeat, in my opinion) assessment of a fundamental shift in US policy:

What we have going on, I suspect, is that the two leading proponents of Western arrogance in the form of colonialism and neocolonialism - the United States and the United Kingdom - have recognized that their approach has failed, and that they are better off having normal diplomatic talks and negotiations with the three leading centers of resistance to them, namely Iran, Syria and Hizbullah.

Obama: Finding the Right Word for Russia

Related Post: Space War - Russia and US in Satellite Shoot-out?

The media are going ga-ga over an incident at yesterday's showpiece meeting between US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and her Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov. Before their working dinner, Clinton handed Lavrov "a small green box with a ribbon. Inside was a red button with the Russian word peregruzka printed on it."

For many of us older than 35, it was a jaw-dropper in post-Cold War humour. Ohmygosh, Clinton just handed the erstwhile Soviet Commies the nuclear button! Go on, Sergei, push it. Push it with a smile and blow us to oblivion.

All right, it was meant to be a reassurance that Dr Strangelove and Mutual Assured Destruction is so yesterday. But the media, who must be younger than 35, were focused on some inadvertent humour.
l
With the gift, the Americans meant to indicate unsubtly that they wanted to "reset" relations with Russia. However, when Clinton asked if peregruzka was the right word, Lavrov --- obviously not just laughing about annihilation comedy --- replied, "You got it wrong. It should be perezagruzka. This says peregruzka which means overcharged."

Great. We'll now have days of bad political gloss upon the jokes --- Clinton already started it with, "We are resetting, and because we are resetting, the minister and I have an overload of work." Are we screwing the Russians by giving them the wrong change from the relationship? Will the US-Russia talks get too electric over issues like Georgia (the country, not the US state), Iran, and missile defence?

The right word, in fact, is the very boring realpolitik. Clinton's visit with Lavrov yesterday, and Obama's forthcoming meeting with Russian President Dmitri Medvedev at the start of April, fulfil the long-expected Administration approach. The Bush policy, trying to ensure Russian co-operation by putting Moscow in a corner, is scrapped. The white elephant of Missile Defense is gone, although Washington will try to get some Russian reward for the "concession". NATO will not be pushed further onto Russia's doorstep with the entry of Georgia and Ukraine; indeed, the separation of South Ossetia and Abkhazia from Georgia will be quietly accepted.

Instead, Washington will be looking for Russia's assistance on a number of issues. Immediately, there will be hope that Moscow will help the US get supplies into Afghanistan. The bonus of Russia pull political, economic, and technological support from Iran is still envisaged, even if was not in the Obama letter to Medvedev sent last month. And the US will look for Russia to cause no problems over political and economic development in Eastern Europe.

All very sensible, but all obscuring the realism of realpolitik. Russia holds most of the political cards at the moment. Indeed, Moscow has been showing one of those cards on Afghanistan over recent weeks: no, you can't have your airbase in Kyrgyzstan, yes, you can have our support for non-military supply lines in Afghanistan, maybe you can have assured military routes if there are clear limits on the American bases in the region.

Vladimir Putin, the former Russian leader and still more than a political shadow, even had the cheek this week to point to the card up his sleeve. You know, he said quite loudly, we could hold up energy supplies to the Ukraine.

But you don't even have to look that far to see Moscow's smiling manoeuvres in the new relationship with the US. Hey, Mr Lavrov, now that we gave you that joke gift, how about cutting off Russian supplies for Iran's nuclear programme? The unfunny answer: The decision "will be made exclusively on the basis of law in accordance with Russian law, and will be under expert control, which is one of the strictest in the world and of course in accordance with international agreements."

That would be a No then. And, by the way, Sergei added, "We want our partners to act the same way and show restraint in military supplies to those countries where, including very recently, those weapons have been used very close to our borders."

That was the statement which led to the real comedy moment of the day --- watching State Department staffers burble that in no way was Lavrov thinking of Georgia. Nope, nope, nope.

There will be some screeching from Washington babble-ocracy today --- from some Congressmen, shout sheets like the Wall Street Journal and the Weekly Standard, think tanks like the American Enterprise Institute --- that the Obama Administration has sold out to the Russians, handing them our new Eastern European partners, letting them off the hook on Iran. And some of those folks will pull out the argument that the Russian economy is in no shape to withstand a US kick-back against Moscow's intrigues.

Sorry, folks. The Russian economy may be shaky, but it's a very large shaky economy. There's no way that the world, including the US, can afford for it to collapse, especially when Russia --- with its control of key resources --- can take some folks with it.

Welcome to the Reset of the New Realism. Somewhere Henry Kissinger is giving a chuckle, and not just because it's 21st-century leaders who have to deal with charges of war crimes.