The Bush Letter" is U.S. Policy

JINSA
Report #: 1,003
05 July '10

As Prime Minister Netanyahu arrives for his 5th set of meetings with President Obama, the headline in one newspaper is, "Obama mum on Bush's borders for Israel," noting, "The White House has declined to publicly affirm commitments made by President Bush to Israel in 2004 on the final borders of the Jewish state."

Two points: In the April 2004 letter President Bush defines no borders for Israel; and the House and Senate passed concurrent resolutions adopting the President's formulation of the requirements of security for both Israel and the Palestinians.

The "borders" paragraph in the Bush letter reads:

As part of a final peace settlement, Israel must have secure and recognized borders, which should emerge from negotiations between the parties in accordance with UNSC Resolutions 242 and 338. In light of new realities on the ground, including already existing major Israeli populations centers, it is unrealistic to expect that the outcome of final status negotiations will be a full and complete return to the armistice lines of 1949, and all previous efforts to negotiate a two-state solution have reached the same conclusion.

This puts a lie to the idea floating in the current administration that "everyone knows" what a "two-state solution" would look like and therefore the missing ingredient must be presidential pressure to make it happen - pressure on Israel, as it happens.

The Bush Administration clearly understood that the borders of the two states would NOT look like the 1949 armistice lines (the so-called "Green line" and never the "1967 borders"), and referred back to UNSC Resolution 242 which called for Israel to receive, "Secure and recognized boundaries free from threats or acts of force."

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The Middle East in May 2010: An Assessment

Barry Rubin
The Rubin Report
22 May '10

Why am I writing so much about U.S. policy lately and less about developments within the region itself lately? Because in a real sense not that much is happening right now in the region. A colleague remarked to me today that the world's political weather is set by the U.S. president. This seems very true right now.

Recently, there was a bit of a war scare regarding the Israel-Lebanon border. Yet there was never any chance of a shooting conflict. Syria and Hizballah don't want one at present. They are too busy taking over Lebanon and are holding their fire for the possibility in future of an Israeli attack on Iranian nuclear facilities.

There's also a lot of noise about Israel-Palestinian Authority indirect negotiations. But nothing is happening or going to happen there either. The closer you get to the two sides--and the further from the discussion in the Western media and capitals--the more obvious is that reality.

Regrading Israeli politics, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's coalition is solid. The Kadima-led opposition is very quiet and not making any strong points. Netanyahu's government is going to continue for quite a while.

Nor have there been any big changes in the internal stability of Arabic-speaking countries, though we are all waiting for the coming transition in Egypt. Turkey's regime continues to march it in the direction of greater Islamism, though the outside world seems to take little notice. Lebanon's "progress" in the direction of Syria-Iran control is clearer. And it is now clear that the Iranian regime has defeated the opposition for the forseeable future, which probably means a bundle of years.

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U.S. Government Rewards Syria; Syria's Client Threatens to Kill Americans

Barry Rubin
The Rubin Report
28 February '10

Forgive me for writing so much about U.S.-Syria events but it is such a remarkable story that it deserves a lot of attention and it really does reveal a great deal about the problems of current U.S. foreign policy. And read on to the end because there’s been a shocking new development.

Imagine: the United States gives concessions to Syria, most recently the announced return of its ambassador to Damascus. The ambassador was removed after the assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafiq Hariri. Syria has not cooperated fully in the investigation; it is suspect number one in the murder. Meanwhile, Syria continues to finance, train, arm, and transport terrorists going into Iraq to kill Americans (as well as Iraqis, of course). So nothing has changed but the United States is acting as if the matter has been resolved.

Of course the administration has reasons for behaving the way it does—though not always good ones. It wants to pretend there’s an easy way out over Iran by pulling Syria away from Tehran (despite Syria confirming and strengthening the alliance every day); hoping Syria won't escalate during Iraq pull-out (and ignoring it every time Damascus sponsors a major terror attack there); trying to prove that engagement works and avoiding conflicts.

Of course the problem is that this feeds Syrian arrogance and bad behavior. If you’ve never followed the speeches of Syrian leaders and the media there, you can’t imagine how they think: We are the center of the earth! America needs us and we don’t need them! Long live the resistance to destroy Israel and kick the United States out of the Middle East.

But, as I noted here and here, the latest American concession was met by a Syrian punch in the teeth: the summit of Iran, Syria, and Hizballah, the renewed threats and Syrian President Bashar al-Asad openly ridiculing the U.S. effort to moderate his policy.

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Two Big Developments: Hillary Announces Start of Sanctions Push, Arab Poll Says Iran is Bigger Threat than Israel

Barry Rubin
The Rubin Report
16 December 09

It may well be that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has given the signal for the new phase of U.S. policy toward Iran. On December 14, she said that the engagement policy with Tehran hadn’t worked and now it needs to press for additional sanctions.

Either this is her attempt to lobby for a tougher line against other administration officials or it's the long-awaited start of the sanctions made necessary by the looming of the administration’s own end-of-the-year deadline to get a deal with Iran or impose more sanctions.

Trying to negotiate, she said, has "produced very little" so "additional pressure is going to be called for."

Her phrasing was interesting, almost as if she was taking a poke at rivals in the administration who are reluctant to take action. "I don't think anyone can doubt that our outreach has produced very little in terms of any kind of a positive response from the Iranians," Clinton said, as if daring someone in the White House to disagree?

So what is the administration going to do? Try to get the UN and EU to support more sanctions. Here the administration likes to claim that its popularity and patient (arguably too patient) coalition-building will bring broad support.

(Continue reading)

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Clinton Speaks About Iran: Shows How Slowly U.S. Policy is Changing Gears from Engagement to Sanctions

Barry Rubin
The Rubin Report
13 December 09

In a December 10 al-Jazira interview, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton explains U.S. policy toward Iran, showing the administration has still not really started turning from engaging Iran to slapping on high sanctions.

A lot of what she said revealed the administration’s almost pathological desire to avoid conflict:

“What we have tried to do is engage in diplomacy in a very vigorous way in order to reassure the international community, including all states, that Iran’s nuclear program was for peaceful purposes. Unfortunately, we haven’t had the kind of response we were hoping for from the Iranians.”

This is a rather shocking formulation and though I know it isn’t as bad as it sounds, after all Clinton is the one choosing her words. She basically is saying: We want to show the world that Iran has a peaceful intent so Tehran should help us do so.

It is a bit late in the game to take Tehran’s claim that it is only seeking the peaceful use of nuclear energy at face value. Of course, this isn’t what Clinton really thinks. She's just being too clever by half, hinting that if Iran wants to prove it isn’t seeking nuclear weapons it must agree to some kind of deal. She's giving Tehran a face-saving way out.

But really isn’t this coyness out of date? Al-Jazira’s audience, millions of Arabs, is likely to interpret this as meaning the United States isn’t insisting there’s a big threat or doesn’t have proof that Iran is developing nuclear weapons. They are more likely to ask what’s all the fuss about, making it seem that Iran is being framed by extremist Muslim-haters and is actually not building weapons of mass destruction? This is a dangerous miscalculation.

But Clinton goes further to make Iran seem sort of innocent:

“President Obama made it absolutely clear [despite] lots of political opposition that if he reached out his hand and if Iran reciprocated, we could talk about anything and everything. Then came the [Iranian] election, then came the crackdown on peaceful dissent, then came demonstrations, and the turmoil inside Iran is continuing until today.”

The implication here is that if not for all this disruption, Iran might have agreed. Now obviously if the United States is in the mode of persuading the Iranian regime to make a deal it can put the emphasis on not offending Tehran. But it isn’t March or April any more but mid-December 2009. Isn’t it time to lay the basis for getting tough and applying sanctions? If Clinton hasn’t switched gears yet when will she do so?

When it comes to covering for the Iranian regime, Clinton goes even further. After explaining that the United States supports the proposal for Iran shipping out enriched uranium to be turned into something relatively harmless she adds:

“They had first agreed in principle, and then I think because of internal disputes, they backed off from that, raising a lot of questions about what their true intentions are.”

This makes it sound like they came really close but then got sidetracked by internal bickering. Perhaps, an observer might think, they'll change their mind after a few more internal debates. This also gives credence to Iran’s latest efforts to confuse the situation and stall for time by pretending they might agree to a deal.

(Full article)
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The Syrian Illusion Revisited

Tony Badran
Across the Bay
22 November 09

Here are two excellent recent pieces by Emile Hokayem and Jonathan Spyer on the stale old illusion of a Syrian "peace track," and assessing the whole enterprise of engagement with Syria more generally.

Spyer explains why the so-called "Syria track" -- that most absurd leftover from the delusional 1990s "peace process" -- will, once again, lead nowhere. There are structural reasons, as I've argued repeatedly here and elsewhere, why this is so, and they have to do with the regional system overall and Syria's position as a second tier regional actor (its over-inflated self-image and role-conception notwithstanding) with no other assets to remain relevant save for its sponsorship of violence and alliance with other violent actors:

Why would such talks almost certainly fail? 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.

The 30-year old (and counting) illusion of distancing Syria from Iran, as well as the desire to counter Iranian influence in Iraq is the driver behind Saudi Arabia's recent and ridiculously inept political moves. Both Spyer and Hokayem correctly identify the shared interest (which, ironically, is also shared by Iran!) in undermining Nouri al-Maliki in Iraq, something that I've written about at the time of the August bombings in Iraq, responsibility for which Iraq has, correctly in my view, laid at Syria's doorstep. General Odierno also agrees with the Iraqi accusation.

(Continue reading...)

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