Confusion in the Obama administration

Yesterday the New York Times ran an article reporting that there was disagreement within the upper ranks of the Obama administration about its Middle East policy regarding Israel/Palestine. It was reported that both President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton favored the former making a presidential speech to the nation on the Middle East that would address policy issues raised by both the Arab Spring revolutions and the stagnant peace process. J Street, the liberal pro-Israel pro-peace lobby, is lobbying Obama and Clinton to publicly set out their own terms for an Arab-Israeli peace settlement.  Senior National Security Council advisor for the Middle East Dennis Ross, who was the lead Mideast peace negotiator in the Clinton administration, is opposed to Obama making such a speech. Ross opposes such a speech because he fears that it will lead to a confrontation with Israel and is opposed to any American-Israeli confrontation. The New York Times's Israeli equivalent, Ha'Aretz, also ran an article on the subject. I agree with Ross, but for reasons that are slightly--but very significantly different.

Like Ross I believe that the situation at present is not ripe for peace. Neither Jerusalem nor Ramallah is willing to take the steps and make the sacrifices that would be necessary for concluding a peace agreement. This was demonstrated in 2010 when the PA refused to take advantage of the Israeli settlement construction freeze to return to negotiations. It was also demonstrated by PM Netanyahu's failure to renew the freeze and his manipulating of settlement construction starts as to render the freeze largely meaningless. Should Washington, at a time when it is busy fighting three wars in the region, want peace more than the parties to the conflict? 

I do not fear an American conflict with Jerusalem--I just don't want it wasted. Obama is in no position to take advantage of a confrontation. His domestic political position is too tenuous. He should wait either until he is safely reelected or until the PA gives him more leverage by declaring independence at the United Nations in September.  

Let's review the record of presidents who made major peace efforts in the Middle East. Nixon supported Kissinger's shuttle diplomacy in the winter and spring of 1974 leading to two Arab-Israeli separation of forces agreements. Nixon was forced to resign that August to avoid impeachment. Gerald Ford supported Kissinger's shuttle diplomacy in 1975 between Egypt and Israel that resulted in the Sinai II separation of forces agreement. Ford lost the presidential election to Jimmy Carter a year later. Carter spent much of his first two years in office negotiating a peace treaty between Egypt and Israel. He remained a single term president. Reagan did not do any peacemaking during his first term in office and was reelected by a landslide. George H.W. Bush convened the Madrid Peace Conference in October 1991 that eventually led to the Oslo process. Like Carter he remained a one-term president. Bill Clinton used the Oslo accords signing on the White House lawn as a photo op. But he didn't engage in heavy-duty peacemaking during his first term. He was easily reelected. He did make a serious effort at Camp David in July 2000 and Vice President Al Gore narrowly lost the election to George W. Bush in November 2000 (but won more popular votes). Bush didn't engage in serious peacemaking in his first term (or in his second) and was reelected.

The clear empirical law is that chances of being elected or reelected are inversely proportional to one's efforts to secure Middle East peace. While many other factors come into presidential elections including the economy, Middle East peacemaking does play a role. If the president invests serious efforts and energy and fails, he appears incompetent. If he succeeds, it is because he pressured Israel. For this he is punished by conservative single issue Jewish voters. Most Jewish voters are not single issue pro-Israel voters and will vote based on party identification. About two-thirds of Jewish voters are Democrats or vote Democratic. Obama risks losing the votes of independent voters who are pro-Israel, both Jews and non-Jews. Why take the risk now when the chance of success is very low?

Here is a post for Gershom Gorenberg backing up my analysis of Jewish voting patterns.

Arab Revolution shuts down peace process until 2013

The spreading Arab Revolution of the Winter of 2011 has effectively shut down whatever chances there are of an effective peace process in the remainder of Obama's first term. There are two tracks to the peace process, the Palestinian and the Syrian, let us examine in turn how each is affected by the Revolution.

The split between Fatah and Hamas has effectively blocked the Palestinian track from the Palestinian side since the summer of 2007, if not before. The two groups have been in competition for the leadership of the Palestinian people since the founding of Hamas in early 1988. Hamas helped to ensure that Arafat did not make the type of concessions on refugees and Jerusalem to Barak at Camp David in July 2000 that would have been necessary for a peace deal. Hamas, partly as the beneficiary of a protest vote, won the Palestinian internal elections in January 2006. This and the fighting in the summer of 2006 in Gaza and Lebanon prevented any resumption of the peace process that year. In summer 2007 Hamas carried out an anti-PA coup d'etat in Gaza splitting the Palestinian territories. Until this split is ended by either a sufficient political weakening of one of the two parties or a unified leadership, the Palestinians will be unable to negotiate effectively with Israel.  Israel will simply be unwilling to make the far-reaching concessions necessary to match Palestinian concessions in the areas of Jerusalem and borders.

The Likud coalition elected to power in the winter of 2009 was also a stumbling block to peace. Netanyahu is simply unable to conclude an agreement that ends the conflict with the Palestinians. This is because of Likud ideology, the eminence grise of his own 101-year old father who hovers over him mentally like a Dickensian ghost, and the threat of Avigdor Leiberman seizing control of the leadership of the Israeli Right from the Likud.

Netanyahu possibly could have been able to conclude a historic agreement with Syria, if both Damascus and Washington been willing. But the Jewish peace lobby in the U.S. led by J Street is fixated on the Palestinian track. Obama had his hands very full during his first term with domestic matters like the economy and health care and two wars in the Middle East. (Go to Realistic Dove for a early 2009 guest post by me arguing precisely this.) So he made a half-hearted effort at the Palestinian track in 2010 and left it at that. 

Egypt has scheduled elections for six months from now. Until those elections have been held and Jerusalem has a sense of the new leadership in Cairo, it will be unwilling to enter into any serious negotiations entailing the prospect of further territorial concessions. Syria this week became the latest victim or beneficiary of the Arab Revolution that like a slow plague is killing off the region's dictatorships. Bashar al-Assad will not enter into any negotiations until he has put down the revolution in his country or it has put him down. His father ended a perceived threat to the regime by the Muslim Brotherhood in 1982 with a massacre in Hama that killed between 10,000 and 20,000. The apple doesn't fall far from the tree!

In 1980 former National Security Council Middle East advisor William Quandt published his account of the Carter administration's Middle East diplomacy, Camp David (the Brookings Institution/UC Press). The introductory chapter laid out the timetable for presidential diplomacy in the Middle East based on a combination of the experience of the Nixon, Ford, and Carter administrations and a knowledge of the political cycle in Washington. Quandt claimed that a president spends his first year learning the ropes. The next two years he has available for diplomacy and by the final year he is obsessed with reelection and unwilling to risk offending the Jewish community. If reelected, he then has his first three years available for diplomacy before he becomes a lame duck. Clinton, George H.W. Bush, and George W. Bush all proved the validity of this analysis. George Bush sr. convened the Madrid Conference at the end of October 1991 that inaugurated the Washington Talks. But he was too weak in 1992 and Arafat too strong for these talks to go anywhere. Clinton then did not devote himself to Middle East diplomacy until his final year in office, by which time it was too late and he had too little leverage with the various parties. Bush jr. then made a half-hearted effort at diplomacy to appease Tony Blair and King Hussein in 2003, before making another half-hearted attempt in 2007 to satisfy Condi Rice.

Expect the Arab Revolution to prevent any real movement on the peace process in 2011 and the reelection campaign to prevent any real progress in 2012. Lately, Israeli government coalitions have had about a three year lifespan, so Netanyahu's time will probably run out in late 2011 or early 2012. By the time a new Israeli government is up and running the 2012 election will be well underway. This is why presidents must seize their opportunities when presented with them! As Nixon did in October 1973, and Bush sr. did in 1991.