Failed Israeli-Palestinian Peace Talks May Sink Obama’s Middle East Strategy

President Obama’s failure to restart Israeli-Palestinian peace talks has severely diminished his administration’s hopes of achieving a Two-State Solution. Persuading Israel and the Palestinians to reach an accord lay at the center of President Obama’s strategy to renew American power in the Middle East. By removing the Israel-Palestinian conflict as the destabilizing accelerant fueling anti-American sentiment, radical sympathies with salafi causes and potential wars between Israel, Lebanon and Syria, President Obama sought to usher in a political re-alignment in the region. Obama’s “New Middle East” envisaged in his Cairo speech embodied the majority of Sunni Arab governments accepting a Two-State Solution, recognizing Israel’s right to exist and working in partnership with the U.S. to curb Iranian influence.

President Obama’s plan hinged on securing two critical concessions; first Israel would be convinced to freeze settlements in the “occupied territories;” then Saudi King Abdullah would be persuaded to support the talks and win approval from the Arab world to bring the Palestinian Authority to the negotiating table. But President Obama miscalculated badly. When Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu refused to freeze settlement activity King Abdullah was forced to reject Obama’s request to support the talks and “normalize” relations with Israel. Left out in the cold, Mahmoud Abbas announced his resignation as Palestinian Authority President. A mere ten months after taking office, President Obama’s Middle East initiative had crashed and burned.    

Since early November the Obama administration has scrambled to revive the peace process with little success. Secretary of State Clinton announced that talks between Israel and the Palestinians could resume as soon as possible without preconditions. But the Palestinian Authority’s immediate rejection of Secretary Clinton’s offer underscores how wide the chasm has grown in the search for peace. Israeli support for Prime Minister Netanyahu’s position to expand settlements in the West Bank has increased. Israeli jets continue to bomb targets in Gaza suspected of being transit points for weapons smuggling and his center-right coalition with Avigdor Lieberman has grown stronger.

On the other side of the divide, the Palestinian Authority is in disarray. Having demanded a total ban on Israel settlements as a condition to resume talks, Mahmoud Abbas is in no position to offer more concessions. Many speculate that Abbas’s threat to resign as Palestinian Authority President is a bluff to force the U.S. to adopt a firmer position with Israel on the settlement issue. But Secretary Clinton’s November endorsement of Netanyahu’s offer to restrict settlement activities with exemptions for Jerusalem and the 3,000 settlement projects already under construction could hardly be considered getting tough with Israel.       

Increasingly, Mahmoud Abbas is viewed throughout the Palestinian Diaspora as a spent force. Abbas and the Fatah’s corruption, inability to deliver vital social services to its constituents and the failure to win anything meaningful after five years of negotiations with Israel and the U.S. has led to the P. A.’s disintegration on the West Bank. Notwithstanding his threats to resign, Mahmoud Abbas will likely cancel the January elections and remain the PA President by default. Calls by Egyptian President Mubarak, Jordan’s King Hussien II, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak, and President Shimon Peres for Abbas to remain as President reflect growing concerns that the absence of a credible “moderate” PA President will result in the West Bank falling under HAMAS’s control. Nor can the prospects of another destructive civil war between Fatah and HAMAS be ruled out.  

Irrespective of whatever short-term maneuvers Mahmoud Abbas makes, momentum in the West Bank is passing over to HAMAS and more radical Palestinian forces. Similarly, Iran’s influence in the West Bank is likely to grow, even if Abbas maintains some semblance of power with the Palestinian Authority. With Israel moving further to the right and tension mounting in Gaza and the West Bank the prospects for renewed violence may be greater than the prospects of restarting peace talks.

Many will question why President Obama demanded that Israel halt settlement activities as a condition to open talks with the Palestinian Authority when it wasn’t necessary. That the President made such a demand without thoroughly discussing the issue with the Israelis first is even more baffling, as was his expectation that Saudi King Abdullah would support renewed peace talks with no commitment from Israel to stop settlement construction.  Whether President Obama was misled by Tel Aviv, underestimated the Israelis and the Saudis or overestimated his ability to transfer his substantial popularity into a foreign policy breakthrough remains unclear.  What we do know is that President Obama’s Israeli-Palestinian gambit failed miserably, and failure has consequences. President Obama is not the first, nor is he likely to be the last American president to be seduced by the dream of forging an Israeli-Palestinian peace. In the end, peace can only be made when the warring parties are ready for peace. Unfortunately, that day is still a long way off.

China Walks the Middle Path Around Obama

American President Obama and Chinese President Hu Jintao

by Collin A. Spears

In the aftermath of Barack Obama’s first presidential trip to Asia, many of his more ardent critics and fervent supporters are left to ponder the same question – what did he accomplish?  This is especially the case in regard to his much anticipated visit to China.  Maybe it is more appropriate to ask why Obama’s foreign policy objectives were met with a lukewarm response from Beijing.  Further, were there any other possible outcomes considering the divergent interests of America and China?  So, what were the issues that Obama felt were most important to address on his tour?

Southeast Asia

One of Obama’s stops was at the APEC Summit in Singapore; the main purpose was which was to shore up relations with the Association of Southeast Asia (ASEAN) member states.  After a decade of neglect by the Bush Administration, China’s power in the region has grown immensely to the point where it has gained control of large sectors of the Laotian, Cambodian, and Myanmar economies.  It has also made significant political and economic gains with traditional U.S. allies, such as the Philippines and Thailand.  On the other hand, it has also engendered some level of fear and suspicion with many in the region, especially Philippines, Vietnam, and Malaysia.   This fear is not just due to China’s growing economic might, but also its military strength and territorial claims in the South China Sea.

Al Maliki’s Defeat in 2010 Parliamentary Elections Will Be a Setback for President Obama in Iraq

Al Maliki’s Defeat in 2010 Parliamentary Elections Will Be a Setback for President Obama in Iraq

BFPR ANALYSIS

 

By Webster Brooks      

Washington, D.C. — The Iraqi legislature’s November 8 approval of a new election law and agreement to hold parliamentary elections before January 31, 2010 are bringing all the major problems in Baghdad to a head. Although President Obama praised Iraq’s parliament saying its action will keep U.S. troop withdrawals on track for completion by August 2011, the outcome of the election is fraught with danger for his administration. Iraq’s Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s re-election bid is in deep trouble. Renewed sectarian violence hangs over Iraq as two deadly al Queda bombings on October 25 of government ministry buildings in Baghdad has unsettled the country. Pro-Iranian Shiia forces have re-organized their election campaigns and are gaining momentum. Tension between Kurdish, Sunni Arab and Turkmen forces over the status of oil-rich Kirkuk are also intensifying as the Parliament’s new election law backed Kurdish demands that voter eligibility in Kirkuk (Tamim Province) will be based on the 2009 voting list. With the stakes and the political temperature rising, U.S. armed forces in Iraq are prepared to redeploy to Kirkuk as Iraq braces for outbreaks of violence in the run up to the election.

 

At the center of the electoral firestorm is Iraqi Prime Minister al-Maliki. In August al-Maliki announced his Dawa Party’s break with the major Shiia groups (Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq (ISCI) and Sadrist forces led by Muqtada al Sadr) to form a secular “State of the Law List” with his “Sunni allies.” After directing the Iraqi Army’s offensive to smash the Sadrists in Basrah in 2008, al-Maliki distanced himself from the ruling Shiia coalition in Iraq’s January 2009 provincial elections. Al-Maliki’s list won a plurality of 31% of the vote carrying most of the Shiia majority provinces by campaigning on a platform of nationalism, political secularism, restoring law and order, building a strong central government and supporting a Status of Forces Agreement to expel U.S. troops by 2011. After his strong 2009 campaign al-Maliki negotiated with Shiia groups for months, demanding 50% of the parliamentary seats for the DAWA Party to join the new Shiia-led “United Iraqi Alliance List.” Fearful that al-Maliki is attempting to consolidate power for himself and DAWA, the Shiia groups balked at his demand but left the door open for al-Maliki’s possible return. On November 4, Iranian Parliamentary leader Ali Larijani arrived in Baghdad for talks with Iraq’s Shiia parties, urging them to settle their differences and bring al-Maliki into the fold to maximize Shiia control over Iraq’s government in the upcoming elections. But rapprochement between al-Maliki and the new United Iraqi Alliance is not likely. Over the past year al-Maliki’s missteps have alienated key forces and developments have conspired to further undermine his power base.

 

In August, former Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari led a press conference announcing the creation of a new Shiia majority electoral list; the United Iraqi Alliance (UIA). After losing the 2009 provincial elections, the Sadrists, the Fadhila Party and the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq (ISCI) patched up their differences and formed the UIA. Shiia forces hold 128 of the 275 seats in parliament, but in the 2009 provincial elections the ISCI won only 12% of the vote, the Sadrist 9% and former Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaffari won 5%. Forced to adjust its platform, the dominant ISCI dropped its call to create a Shiia controlled autonomous region (Shiiastan) in southern Iraq to appease Muqtada al Sadr’s forces in Baghdad and central Iraq who opposed Shiia regional autonomy. To appeal to more mainstream voters and secularists, the Sadrist and ISCI jettisoned their rhetoric to establish Iraq as a theocratic (read Shiia) Islamic state, choosing instead to run as a secular list. To broaden their base, the UIA invited Sunni groups, independents and influential Shiia secularist politicians like Ahmed al Chalabi and former DAWA Prime Minister al-Jaafari to join their list. When powerful Shiia cleric Ayatollah Sistani endorsed an open ballot process allowing Iraqis to vote for individuals, parties or lists, instead of just coalitions, UIA backers supported the measure in parliament although it will narrow their advantage at the ballot box.

 

While the UIA is expanding its base, al-Maliki’s “State of Law List” efforts to widen its influence beyond its DAWA base have met with little success. Prominent Sunni and secularist leaders publicly courted by al-Maliki are refusing to support his bloc. Former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, Sunni leader Saleh Mutlak and Vice-President Tarik al Hashemi formed the anti-Iranian “Iraqi National Movement List,” advocating re-integration of former Baathist leaders. Sheikh Ahmad Abu Risha, a force in Anbar and Interior Minister Jawad Bolani of the Constitution Party decided to create their own “Unity Alliance.” Similarly, al-Maliki’s efforts to recruit Ninewa Province’s ruling al-Hadbaa Party and Sunni tribal leaders from Anbar, Tamim and Salahaddin met with failure.

 

The Sunni lack of support for al-Maliki is not surprising. Al-Maliki promised to pay salaries for former Sunni Awakening forces and integrate them into Iraq’s national army, but half of the Awakening soldiers were never paid. Recently, al-Maliki announced the armed forces payroll would be cut as government salaries and expenditures were absorbing 74% of the nation’s $58 billion budget, thus the Iraqi National Army will likely remain a predominantly Shiia military. Moreover, reconciliation efforts to reintegrate Baathist forces into the wellsprings of Iraq’s government still has not occurred and no agreement has been reached on distribution of oil revenues. Despite his break with the Sadrists and the Iraqi Supreme Islamic Council, the Sunni still view al-Maliki as an agent of Iranian ambition. Sunni dissatisfaction with al-Maliki was underscored by the twin al Queda bombings in October of government complexes in the middle of Baghdad. The blasts that killed hundreds seriously undermined al-Maliki’s claim that he has restored security to Iraq. As the attacks were directed against major government buildings it appears the bombings were a direct warning to al-Maliki that the Sunni can visit chaos on Iraq if their demands are not addressed.

 

With the passage of the new 2010 election law allowing the 2009 voter list to be used in Kirkuk’s elections the Kurds are poised to gain control of oil-rich Tamim Province and exercise virtual independence from Iraq. Sunni Arab and Turkmen groups argued for using the 2004 voting list to eliminate voter eligibility for thousands of Kurds that returned to Kirkuk after Saddam Hussein was toppled in 2003. How the new election law would be applied to Kirkuk was the most contentious issue delaying the passage of the new bill and it remains the most volatile flashpoint that could lead to mass sectarian violence between the Kurds, the Sunni and Turkmen. The Kurds are now positioned to increase its 53 seat voting bloc in Iraq’s Parliament and strike a deal with the Shiia UAI List to incorporate oil rich Kirkuk into Kurdistan’s autonomous region. The two major Kurdish groups (PUK and KDP) will not enter into an alliance with Nouri al-Maliki, who opposed Kurdish enlargement and dispatched Iraqi Army forces to attack the Kurdish peshmerga in 2008. Instead, the Kurds will support UIA control of parliament and have a major voice in naming a new Prime Minister to replace al-Maliki if the “State of Law List falters.”

 

While Prime Minister al-Maliki’s chances of being re-elected are growing dimmer, shifting alliances and unforeseen events could tip the scales back in his direction the next sixty days. Iraq is a very unpredictable place. Prime Minister al-Maliki’s emphasis on secularism, law and order and building a unitary Iraq rather than ceding more autonomy to the Kurds and Shiia has been viewed with great favor by the Obama administration. And while his outreach to the Sunni may fall short of winning allies for the election, it has altered the political dynamic in Iraq. For the moment, the revamped Shiia led United Iraq Alliance has the momentum to win a working Parliamentary majority and name a new Prime Minister.  Among al-Maliki’s potential successors are Adel Abdul Mehdi, the Vice-President and a senior leader of the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, and Ibrahim al-Jaafari, Iraq’s first elected prime minister. A pro-Iran leaning UIA victory will mean Tehran will strengthen its position in Iraq as the United States prepares to accelerate troop withdrawals at the end of March. The referendum on the Status of Forces Agreement scheduled for approval during the 2010 parliamentary has been withdrawn and will proceed on schedule for all U.S. forces to be withdrawn by August 31, 2011. If American forces can avoid being drawn into the maelstrom of Iraqi politics and sectarian violence President Obama may have the good fortune to exit U.S. troops without significant losses and augment his forces in Afghanistan. While an orderly U.S. withdrawal from Iraq will be viewed by many in the United States as a victory, in the larger strategic sense Iran’s ability to gain the upper hand in Iraq and solidify its control over the Persian Gulf would mark a major strategic setback for the U.S. Iraq’s 2010 elections and the fate of Prime Minister al-Maliki will significantly impact the future of American power in Gulf region as democratic elections continue to cast a large footprint across the Middle East.              

 

WHY OBAMA WILL ADOPT “McCRYSTAL LIGHT” STRATEGY IN AFGHANISTAN

 

BROOKS FOREIGN POLICY REVIEW

www.foreignpolicyreview.org

Analysis:  November 3, 2009    

by Webster Brooks 

 

 

With Hamid Karzai’s re-election as President of Afghanistan guaranteed by Abdullah Abdullah’s withdrawal from the race, President Obama is  moving U.S. policy towards the end-game of America’s occupation in Afghanistan. To reverse the Taliban’s momentum, protect Afghanistan’s major population centers and allow more time for President Karzai’s embattled government to be stabilized, President Obama will deploy up to 20,000 additional U.S. troops. By steering a “middle course” with a scaled down version of General McCrystal’s counterinsurgency plan, the President hopes to tilt the battlefield in favor of U.S./NATO forces without launching a forward-based offensive in the Pashtun Belt that will result in heavy U.S. troop losses.  The “McCrystal Light” strategy will place more emphasis on containing the Taliban, rather than the U.S. taking aggressive actions to significantly degrade Taliban forces. President Obama’s overarching strategic consideration will be re-setting the battlefield to give Afghanistan’s indigenous anti-Taliban oppostion forces the leverage to militarily engage and nuetralize the Taliban over time as the U.S. starts drawing down forces in 2011.   

President Obama’s decision to surge more U.S. troops to Afghanistan was never in question for several reasons. The Taliban’s growing momentum and influence cannot be allowed to expand without a challenge. Troop increases will also forestall a revolt by the U.S. military establishment and the Republican Party that have solidly backing the McCrystal plan. At the same time, a more robust presence of U.S. troops on the ground will send a message to America’s allies (NATO, India and Pakistan) and regional adversaries (Russia, Iran and China) that Afghanistan will not be abandoned. 

President Obama’s adoption of the “McCrystal Light” counterinsurgency plan is clearly a gamble to play for more time–more time for fresh U.S. forces to get postioned during the winter lull in fighting; more time to coordinate a new strategic orientation with NATO, and more time for new power sharing arrangements to be forged between Karzai, Abdullah Abdullah and the warlord powers. Afghanistan’s fraudulent elections have further undermined President Karzai’s despised government, increased ethnic tension and could still lead to violence between competing warlords if a post-election power sharing arrangement is not reached. 

By maintaining control of Afghanistan’s major population centers and key highways between Kandahar, Jalalabad, Mazar e Sharif, Herat and Kabul, U.S. /NATO forces may be able to bludgeon the Taliban’s advance while containing its presence in Eastern and Southeastern Afghanistan. To disrupt the Taliban and al Queda operations, the U.S. will certainly continue its Drone attacks and Special Forces missions along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.

In the meanwhile, the Obama administration will be forced to rapidly buildup the criminal warlord forces and their militias along with Afghanistan’s National Army as a bulwark against a Taliban takeover. As the warlord forces outside the Pashtun Belt represent Afghanistan’s Tajik, Uzbek, Hazara and Turkmen ethnic groups (60% of the total population), it’s possible that America’s eventual withdrawal could lead to a civil war between Afghanistan’s ethnic groups and the Pashtun dominated Taliban. These non-Pashtun communities that  coalesced under the banner of the Northern Alliance to help topple the Taliban in 2001 have no desire to live under Taliban rule again. Thus, to the extent that these forces could re-unite to form an effective anti-Taliban united front, preventing a Taliban takeover of all Afghanistan can be averted even if the Taliban is not completely dislodged from its Pashtun Belt strongholds.

President Obama is also gambling that as U.S. forces begin to draw down troop levels, Iran, Russia and India–three countries that supported the Northern Alliance and have a significant stake in preventing the Taliban’s return to power –may increase support for their various proxy forces within Afghanistan. Thus far Russia and Iran have benefitted strategically from America being pre-occupied and weakened by the conflict in Afghanistan. However, a Taliban takeover would spell trouble for Moscow and Tehran. Indeed, there are realistic scenarios in which the United States can withdraw the majority of its armed forces from Afghanistan and still prevent a Taliban takeover while denying al Queda a safe haven.

Under any of these scenarios, the real tragedy will be the horrible violence and deprevation the majority of Afghan people will continue to endure. The hardship they have suffered since the Taliban was deposed in 2001 has not significantly changed under the corrupt Karzai government. Moreover, the criminal warlords who have privatized the nation’s resources, stolen its mineral wealth, established their own tax collections system, profited from Afghanistan’s booming narcotics industry and crushed the Afghan peoples’ democratic rights have rivaled the Taliban in the art of brutal repression. The much discussed need for a counterinsurgency strategy and increasing U.S. troops to defeat the Taliban while doing nothing to curb the warlords power will leave millions of Afghans defenseless against these henchmen, many of which hold top level positions in the Karzai government today.

President Obama has come under heavy criticism for being indecisive and taking too much time to respond to General McCrystal’s assessment and recommendations on Afghanistan. What may be closer to the truth is that President Obama did not particularly like the options he was presented with. Vice-President Biden’s counterterrorism stategy emphasizing Drone attacks and Special Forces operations to subdue the Taliban was nothing more than a quick and dirty withdrawal strategy by another name. Obama will conclude that the situation on the ground does not yet warrant committing 40,000 additional troops. Given the current strain on U.S. armed forces Obama is also clearly concerned about getting bogged down in a long war in Afghanistan when America has other challenges it must prepare for. The situation in Iraq where 130,000 U.S. troops are still deployed remains a fluid and dangerous thearte of war. In steering the “middle course” President Obama will seek to balance all the competing internal forces on the ground in Afghanistan to achieve an outcome that prevents the Taliban from returning to power. This strategy calls for reshaping alliances and weakening forces in some cases, while strengthening forces and even provoking rivalries in others instances. With public support in America waning for the war in Afghanistan, President Obama’s “McCrystal Light” strategy to achieve the same objective of pushing back the Taliban and al Queda with minimal U.S. troop fatalities may also strike an acceptable balance.

Subduing insurgencies in foreign countries is sometimes the burden policing  empire. These unpopular conflicts can be lost by the lack of polictical support at home, just as easily as by being defeated by adversaries on the battlefield abroad. President Obama didn’t create American empire or start the war in Afghanistan, but he is now fully immersed in the search for an elegant solution to a very thorny crises in the Central Asian Great Game.