Persian Detente

The National Interest, published by the former Nixon Center, endorses the view that the U.S. should be open to permitting Iran to have nuclear power without nuclear weapons.

Why Bibi Waits And Sees

Let's look at this strictly from Israel's perspective. Say it chose to annex the West Bank, arguing, as sovereign nations will, that it won the land from Jordan in 1967 with its blood and treasure. While dealing with the bloodcurdling global outcry, Israel would have to decide whether to grant citizenship to the region's two million Arabs. Israel's population would then be about 5.8 million Jewish and 3.5 million Arab (compared to 20% Arab today). If Arab growth rates continued to outstrip non-haredim Jews', voters would probably soon put an end to Israel's status as a Jewish state.

If Israel annexed the West Bank but didn't let its Arabs vote, it would deserve being called an apartheid state. Many Israelis put security above democracy. But such a grave violation of Israel's democratic principles would be unthinkable to tens of millions of its citizens and international friends.

Instead, say Israel and the Palestinians finally made a deal on two states. Then your problem would be strategic unpredictability instead of the iron law of demographics. The main question is whether Palestine would go in the direction of secular Muslim Turkey or fanatical Iran. You'll be able to make a better guess when you see where Egypt goes with its Muslim Brotherhood president. The two-state deal would be freighted with massive security guarantees. For the foreseeable future, Israel's armed forces would outmatch anything Palestine could muster. But Tel Aviv and Haifa would be easy targets for missiles fired or bombs smuggled from just a few miles away.

So if you were a relatively enlightened Israeli leader, sworn to protect your country at all costs, what would you do? Friends and enemies will tell you that your responsibilities include justice for those living under occupation for over 40 years. You understand that, but you still keep coming back to job one. Besides, you don't have to say yes to a two-state settlement if Palestinians keep saying no.

My guess is that your preference would be to keep watching and waiting, not taking any action you're not compelled to take on the strict grounds of national interest. Writing in the aptly named National Interest, published by the former Nixon Center, Israeli journalist Akiva Eldar seems to have put his finger on it:

Israel never overtly spurned a two-state solution involving land partition and a Palestinian state. But it never acknowledged that West Bank developments had rendered such a solution impossible. Facing a default reality in which a one-state solution seemed the only option, Israel chose a third way—the continuation of the status quo. This unspoken strategic decision has dictated its polices and tactics for the past decade, simultaneously safeguarding political negotiations as a framework for the future and tightening Israel’s control over the West Bank. In essence, a “peace process” that allegedly is meant to bring the occupation to an end and achieve a two-state solution has become a mechanism to perpetuate the conflict and preserve the status quo.

What makes the status quo tenable for Israel is the dramatic decline in the conflict, namely Palestinian violence since the end of the second intifada in 2004. Traveling with a group of St. John's Episcopal Church pilgrims, I've just finished my fourth visit to the region since 2007. Each time the atmosphere has been less tense. Palestinians are less hassled at Israeli check points and border crossings. Thanks to injections of foreign aid, the West Bank economy is doing well, though fiscal problems are brewing. Perhaps it's a little like China, where the availability of jobs and opportunity makes people less frantic about being deprived of political self-determination. The West Bank's Fatah leaders are being good citizens, focusing on economic development and diplomacy instead of violence -- though there are signs that some Palestinians are angrier about the lack of progress toward a Palestinian state. People we met even complained less about Israeli settlements. All in all, shrugged shoulders seem more common than balled fists.

So again, you're an Israeli leader. What do you do? Justice and fairness for Palestinians -- of course, of course, you get all that. But give them all a vote in Israel? No way. Your country's founders died to create a sanctuary for Jews. Annex Palestinian land but make them second-class citizens? Your founders died for freedom, too. Risk Hamas having the deciding vote in Palestinian foreign policy? Not on your watch.

Sure, things could go south again on the West Bank -- renewed terrorism, even civil war. Maybe a U.S. president will finally threaten to cut off some or all of your $3 billion in annual security aid. But you'll decide how to react to those developments when they occur. You'll see how things look in the morning, and the morning after that, and next year. All in all, amorally but understandably, maybe you really would just wait and see.

When Netanyanhu's Colleagues Say Nyet

So what's with the current and former Israeli officials whose recent comments on Iran and Palestine run contrary to the views of Prime Minister Netanyahu? At the National Interest, published by the former Nixon Center, Paul Pillar says the statements are evidence of the exceptional vigor of Israel's democracy. He also warns that supporting a country isn't always the same as supporting its government:

If it were, it would be the same— Republicans in particular ought to get this comparison—as saying that a foreign government endorsing any of Barack Obama's policies was equivalent to support for the United States. Passionate attachment to any foreign country has a bad enough effect on the security and interests of the United States. The effect is even worse when the attachment is to a particular foreign leadership that isn't even acting in the best interests of its own country.

"Accepting A Legitimate Islamism"

In "Nixon goes to China" spirit, the editors of the National Interest, published by the former Nixon Center, promote Middle East realpolitik:

Without ceding any ground to al-Qaeda or other militant groups, the United States will either have to deal constructively with organizations like the Muslim Brotherhood, or it will find itself increasingly marginalized and irrelevant in the region.

Russia's Our Foe, Except For That NATO Base

Writing at the National Interest, published by the former Nixon Center, Doug Bandow critiques Mitt Romney's reckless rhetoric on Russia.

From Bombs To Potholes

At the National Interest, published by the former Nixon Center, Paul Pillar writes that it's time for Israel and the U.S. to reconsider its refusal to talk to Hamas, now preoccupied with the mundane responsibilities of a ruling party:

The Israeli posture and, in lockstep with it, the American posture toward Hamas are stuck in an unhelpful time warp. It is a posture that simply applies the label “terrorist” to the group and assumes that an unchanging refusal to have anything to do with it is the only appropriate implication. A label is no substitute for a policy or for a strategy. And in this case, it is no substitute for understanding the current character and objectives of Hamas, which are not captured by the label.

"Give Talks With Iran A Chance"

As Richard Nixon would have as well, Malou Innocent, writing at the former Nixon Center's National Interest, advocates negotiations instead of war to stop Iran from developing a nuclear weapon:

Negotiating with Iranian leaders will not resolve the nuclear issue in the next few months. What’s needed is a process that encourages Tehran to make tactical concessions, such as persuading it to forestall uranium enrichment at higher levels and allowing for more intrusive inspections. Next month, when Turkey hosts talks between Iran and the “5+1 group”—the United States, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany—American officials should move toward adopting a long-term policy that incorporates Iran into the community of nations. Diplomacy remains the best means of containing Tehran’s nuclear ambitions. Unfortunately, diplomacy is unpopular with those who see war as the answer to most international problems.

Uzbekistanism

Dov Zakeim, writing in the former Nixon Center's National Interest, warns that if the U.S. leaves Afghanistan too hastily a dangerous civil war might commence between India's and Pakistan's proxies. He writes:

It was precisely such an alignment of forces that led to the Taliban’s triumph in the late 1990s, followed by its sponsorship of al-Qaeda and the trauma of 9/11.

Indeed, [Afghan] President Karzai’s seemingly erratic relations with the United States can best be understood in terms of his concern about the future cohesion of his country once American forces depart. Should anything remotely like this civil-war scenario manifest itself again, America’s decade-long war will have been for naught.

The difference between then and now is that any president would make clear through words and action that the hint of renewed Taliban-al-Qaeda collaboration, or any threat to the homeland emanating from Afghanistan, would be intolerable. As for the regional interests Zakheim mentions, especially the possibility that Pakistan itself, a nuclear power, could fracture, they're obviously important. But before Sept. 11, none would've justified U.S. and NATO intervention in Afghanistan.

To some extent the U.S. deserves to be held accountable for whatever it's done to alter the regional landscape, including by raising hopes in some circles that, having stayed ten years, we might stay 20. But the Obama administration's critics should remember that there was no mystery about the limited and highly focused motive for our intervention. The American people supported the war because the Afghan government was a Sept. 11 conspirator, not because we were concerned about Pakistan, Uzbekistan, or Tajikistan. The president will always be responsible for making sure it doesn't happen again. Polls and common sense make clear he or she will have to do so without having troops on the ground.

You Can Always Count On The Nixon Guy

My former colleagues at the National Interest, published by the former Nixon Center, tiptoe into the Trayvon Martin-George Zimmerman story.

More Free Advice For Israel

Writing at The National Interest, published by the former Nixon Center, Paul Pillar applauds the Muslim Brotherhood's newly balanced stance toward the Palestinian parties and says it's time for Israel get over Hamas' support for terrorism:

In private discussion with the Israelis, the United States should point out that if Israel is genuinely interested in a peace settlement with the Palestinians, what the Egyptian Brotherhood is doing is as good as it gets, especially coming from the biggest political actor in the biggest Arab state. If the Israelis are not genuinely interest in a settlement, a negative posture toward the Egyptian initiative will serve only to underscore to the world Israel's responsibility for the impasse. And if Mr. Netanyahu raises issues of Hamas's past involvement in terrorism, he should be reminded that if the United States applied a once-a-terrorist-always-a-terrorist standard, it never would have had any dealings with some who have occupied the positions he does now of Israeli prime minister and leader of Likud.

Bin There, Done That

At the National Interest, published by the former Nixon Center, Paul Pillar discusses documents seized in the Abbottabad raid that reveal Osama bin Laden's Palestine preoccupation:

The Palestinian issue has the power it does not because individual terrorist leaders like bin Laden necessarily make it their first personal priority but instead because it has tremendous resonance among the Muslim populations to which they appeal. The reason that supporters and rank-and-file practitioners of anti-U.S. terrorism cite most frequently for their hatred of the United States is U.S. condoning of Israeli occupation of Palestinian-inhabited land and of other Israeli actions that involve the killing or subjugation of Muslims.

There are many good reasons not to let the Israeli-Palestinian issue fester. Its role as a readily exploitable extremist cause is one of them.

Pillar and others believe this is why Israel and the U.S. should do more. It's probably also one of the reasons the Palestinians keep doing less, because they think the support of fellow Muslims (not that all Palestinians are Muslim) will leverage a better settlement with Israel. But they're wrong. With each passing year, and each Israeli offer Palestinians spurn, the Israelis build more settlements, and the parameters of a future Palestine get smaller. Bin Laden was a tactical and political adviser the Palestinians are infinitely better off without, especially if it increases the chances they'll just say yes.

Another Reagan-Era Scandal

Invoking Checkers, as any writer naturally would at a blog owned by the former Nixon Center, the National Interest's Jacob Heilbrunn insists that Seamus' wild ride is an issue for Mitt Romney -- though Heilbrunn gets the date wrong. The Romneymobile rolled north in 1983, not 2004. Unless he was using dog years.

Good News For Nixon And Bush In Iraq

Describing Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki's consolidation of power at the expense of the country's Sunni minority (as well as an encouraging reduction in sectarian violence), Tim Arango quotes the journal published by the former Nixon Center:

After the crisis erupted in December, analysts warned the country was on the edge of a civil war. “There has been a rapid and widespread deterioration of security in Iraq since the mid-December end of the U.S. military mission there,” Michael Knights, an analyst at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy in Washington, wrote this month in The National Interest.

After a bloody January — by some accounts a deadlier month than any last year — February had been on pace to be one of the least violent months since the American-led invasion nine years ago, until a series of car bomb attacks in Baghdad and around the country on Thursday left more than 40 people dead.

Arango finishes with also-encouraging comments by an al-Maliki ally which suggest that someday George W. Bush may be remembered more fondly in Iraq and U.S. history than he is today:

Ahmed al-Khafaji, the deputy interior minister, a Shiite whose life, like many Iraqi leaders, was shaped by years in exile in Iran, dismissed criticisms that the Iraqi state had shut out Sunnis from power.

“Freedom is the most important thing,” he said.

“Here is an Islamic newspaper,” he said, waving it about. He pointed to his laptop, and his cellphone. “Now we have 600 satellite channels.”

He echoed the familiar refrain here that it will take generations to achieve a durable sectarian co-existence.

“With time, democracy will continue, and one day we will be like Switzerland, or France or the Italians,” he said. “In the United States in the 1960s, a black man couldn’t get on a bus, and now Obama is president."

You Can Always Count On The Nixon Guy

At The National Interest, published by the former Nixon Center in the spirit of 37's hermeneutic of hard-headed, clear-eyed realism, Jacob Heilbrunn surfaces the alarming prospect of a Santorum presidency. The ingredients would be the politically inept Mitt Romney continuing to wane with the improving economy, Santorium's nomination, and an October surprise:

So far, this has not been an ordinary election year. It may be about to get a lot more extraordinary before it ends. War, the collapse of Greece, a stock market meltdown—anything might derail Obama, whose prospects appear much sunnier than they did a few months ago. Nothing could be more improbable than Rick Santorum swearing the oath of office in January 2013. But then who thought Barack Obama could become president when he first set out on his crusade?

Nixon's Thorough Thought Process

Writing at The National Interest, which is published by the former Nixon Center, Paul Pillar disputes David Ignatius's suggestion that the most remarkable thing about Richard Nixon's opening to communist China was that it was undertaken by a staunch anti-communist:

Nixon's initiative had its roots in his cogitation while out of power about great power politics and how it could be reshaped to America's advantage. When he entered the White House in 1969 it was with one of the most fully formed strategic outlooks about foreign affairs of any incoming U.S. president. A fundamental aspect of the China initiative that Ignatius does not mention is that it was one leg of triangular diplomacy in which Nixon intended to use the relationship with Beijing to gain leverage in his dealings with the Soviet Union. On the China part of his strategy, Nixon was even ahead of his geostrategic partner Henry Kissinger.

Nixon personally planned the negotiating approach toward China, inventorying on his yellow legal pad the objectives of each state and where they might find common ground. It was a thorough thought process that—especially in taking account of the perspectives and interests of the other side—is sorely missing from much of what passes for public debate about foreign policy today. Nixon and Kissinger's super-close-hold manner of handling the initiative, in which even Secretary of State William Rogers was kept in the dark, had its disadvantages. Some signals from the Chinese were missed, and there were some avoidable stumbles in the drafting of what became known as the Shanghai Communiqué. But to the extent the result was a positive accomplishment, which it was, the credit was all Nixon's.

TNI's new editor, Robert W. Merry, missed an opportunity to devote the January-February 2012 print edition to a look back and forward at Sino-U.S. relations through the prism of the Nixon initiative. I was glad to learn that the center itself has some programming planned.

Number 1 And Number 1.5

Paul Pillar at The National Interest:

In a portion of the [NBC] interview about the danger of Israel touching off a war with Iran, the president said, “My number one priority continues to be the security of the United States, but also the security of Israel.” Wait a minute—shouldn't the security of the United States be the number one priority of the president of the United States? Rather than merely sharing the top spot on the priority list with some foreign country's security? This comment was part of an unscripted interview, and perhaps the language of a prepared speech would have come out differently. But the president said what he said.

Middle Eastern Medievalism

Surveying the struggle over women's rights between Israel's ultra-orthodox Jews and secularists, Benny Morris writes that on this issue, Israel has more in common with its Arab neighbors than you might think:

Israeli Jewish society continues to advance, paradoxically, in two contrary directions: The majority is moving toward a more open, secular, Western lifestyle and polity; and the (growing) minority is moving backward, toward a medieval, obscurantist life, attentive to what are perceived as God's wishes and commands. This ambivalence mirrors the development of the region's Arab societies—except, of course, that in Egypt, Tunisia, Morocco and the rest—in which it is the backward-looking fundamentalists who are in the majority and increasingly in the saddle.

The photo shows a woman standing the area reserved for men at the Western Wall in Jerusalem in January 2011.

The Endless War With Iran

As pressure mounts for a U.S. attack against Iran's nuclear capability, bloggers at the National Interest, published by the Center Previously Known As Nixon, wonder when the war would end:

How do attack advocates propose to stop the Iranian nuclear program if Tehran refuses to roll over after one round of attacks? There are two logical responses to this question. One is regime change, presumably through invasion. But there are significant downsides to invasion, not least that such a war would likely prove protracted and costly... The other is that the United States should be prepared to conduct repeated strikes over a long period of time to ensure the Iranian nuclear program is kept down.

Does She Have To Wait Five More Years?

Dismissing half-measures proposed by longtime Middle East negotiator Dennis Ross, Paul Pillar at The National Interest says it will take a president with nothing to lose to make a Palestinian state a reality, which is to say a reelected president:

The slim hope for [a fundamentally changed U.S. approach] would require a president winning a second term and thus having four more years knowing he will never run for office again. The alternative election result in the United States certainly gives no hope for an end to the stalemate. Front-runner Mitt Romney, with his stand-with-Israel-no-matter-what approach, almost sounds like the moderate on this issue compared to his principal opponents, Newt (“We have invented the Palestinian people”) Gingrich and Rick (“All the people that live in the West Bank are Israelis”) Santorum.

The Nixon Line Is Not Pauline

Ron Paul's odious newsletters notwithstanding, Andrew Sullivan likes the GOP candidate's George McGovern-like foreign policy isolationism opposition to the U.S.'s tendency toward global hegemony -- and so does Jacob Heilbrunn, writing at "The National Interest," published by the Center Previously Known As Nixon. Pretty ironic, since in today's Iowa caucuses 37 would be supporting the candidate most susceptible to his favorite post-presidential talking point: If the U.S. won't lead in the world, who will? It's a good guess it would be someone proclaiming a world view somewhere between Rick Santorum's reckless militancy and Paul's whole-scale retreatancy. Anyway, Heilbrunn writes:

[T]he dominant foreign-policy wing of the Republican party...is focusing on a new war with Iran--as though any attempt to stop Iran short of bombing constitutes a new Munich. Sen. Rick Santorum, for example, has flatly said he would bomb Iran. Paul, by contrast, says that's nuts. The result is that the Republican debates have, at least when it comes to foreign affairs, actually seen the candidates debating with each other, or, to put it more precisely, with Ron Paul. It's Paul who blows the raspberry at everyone else in the debates. Say what you will about the man, the Iowa caucus would have been a lot more boring if he weren't around to enliven it.

More fundamentally, Paul, in all his crankiness, represents a budding debate inside the GOP that the party pooh-bahs will not be able to defer much longer. The truth is that the GOP has been peddling a schizophrenic approach to the federal government. On the one hand we are told that the growing size of the federal government is a very bad thing; on the other hand we are told that the very part of the government that is growing most quickly—the Pentagon, the intelligence agencies, Homeland Security—cannot be touched at all when it comes to budget cutting. Indeed, they are to be pampered and showered with even greater funding.