President Hussein Obama finally has a diplomatic achievement to which he can point. But it's not the one he was hoping for. The picture at the top is a photo of a handshake between incoming Director General of Israel's Foreign Ministry, Dore Gold (who has a kipa on his head and is at left) and Anwar Majed Eshki, a retired Saudi general and ex-adviser to Prince Bandar bin Sultan, the former Saudi ambassador to the U.S. And there's much more to it than a handshake, and it's been going on for a year and a half.Eli Lake reports.
Since the beginning of 2014, representatives from Israel and Saudi
Arabia have had five secret meetings to discuss a common foe, Iran. On
Thursday, the two countries came out of the closet by revealing this
covert diplomacy at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington.
...
It was not a typical Washington think-tank event. No questions were
taken from the audience. After an introduction, there was a speech in
Arabic from Anwar Majed Eshki, a retired Saudi general and ex-adviser to
Prince Bandar bin Sultan, the former Saudi ambassador to the U.S. Then
Dore Gold, a former Israeli ambassador to the United Nations who is
slotted to be the next director general of Israel's foreign ministry,
gave a speech in English.
While these men represent countries that have been historic enemies,
their message was identical: Iran is trying to take over the Middle East
and it must be stopped.
Eshki was particularly alarming. He laid out a brief history of Iran
since the 1979 revolution, highlighting the regime's acts of terrorism,
hostage-taking and aggression. He ended his remarks with a seven-point
plan for the Middle East. Atop the list was achieving peace between
Israel and the Arabs. Second came regime-change in Iran. Also on the
list were greater Arab unity, the establishment of an Arab regional
military force, and a call for an independent Kurdistan to be made up of
territory now belonging to Iraq, Turkey and Iran.
We only have five of the seven points here, but notice what's missing: 'Peace between Israel the Arabs' is not the same as 'Palestinian state.' Well, maybe not.
Eshki told me that no real cooperation would be possible until Israel's
prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, accepted what's known as the Arab
Peace Initiative to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The plan was
first shared with New York Times columnist Tom Friedman in 2002 by Saudi
Arabia's late King Abdullah, then the kingdom's crown prince.
In any event, these ties go back a long time - all the way to the beginning of the Obama administration.
These ties became more focused on Iran over the last decade, as shown by
documents released by WikiLeaks in 2010. A March 19, 2009, cable
quoted Israel's then-deputy director general of the foreign minister,
Yacov Hadas, saying one reason for the warming of relations was that
the Arabs felt Israel could advance their interests vis-a-vis Iran in
Washington. "Gulf Arabs believe in Israel's role because of their
perception of Israel's close relationship with the U.S. but also due to
their sense that they can count on Israel against Iran," the cable
said.
Note - that was two months after Obama was inaugurated, and Netanyahu had already been elected by then and was forming a government (he was sworn in on March 31, 2009).
Obama finally has a diplomatic achievement: A burgeoning reconciliation between Israel and Saudi Arabia.
Rich Lowry has a scathing summary of why John Kerry's mission to get a cease fire in Gaza failed. It can be summed up in a few words: The United States has no influence.
After six years of resetting, leading from behind, ending wars,
nation building at home, and pivoting to Asia, the U.S. has reduced
itself to a husk of its former influence. When Kerry showed up in Cairo
to meet with the president of Egypt, he was wanded by the guards, as if
he had just wandered in from the airport security line.
Kerry
underlined his dubious relevance by his inability to secure a ceasefire,
and his dubious wisdom by making it his overarching goal. At this
point, after Israel has committed itself on the ground, the U.S. should
be seeking to give it the time it needs to do as much damage as possible
to Hamas’s military infrastructure, instead of effectively bailing out
the terror group.
Kerry held an ill-advised confab in Paris with
Qatar and Turkey, the patrons of Hamas. Even the Palestinian Authority
blasted this as the “friends of Hamas” meeting. With the Egyptians, the
Saudis, the Emiratis, the Jordanians, and the Palestinian Authority all
functionally on Israel’s side in the Gaza War, it should be in a
superior diplomatic position, but its superpower patron evidently didn’t
get the memo.
By the time Kerry returned home, he had been
showered with so much criticism by the Israelis that the U.S. government
was saying it could endanger our relationship. The question raised by
Obama-administration foreign policy again and again is, How can
self-styled “smart power” be so dumb and toothless?
For all
of Kerry’s failings, he is a relative giant among a foreign-policy team
composed largely of political hacks and post-American declinists. At
least Kerry retains some of the old Democratic-party belief in America’s
importance in the world. His condemnation of Syria’s use of chemical
weapons last year was a stirring moral indictment of the Assad regime
– although President Obama immediately undercut him when he abandoned
his own “red lines.”
So far, Kerry’s tenure as secretary of state
is making Hillary Clinton’s undistinguished stint look impressive by
comparison. But that’s mostly a matter of timing. It is his misfortune
to be present at the unraveling, as crisis after crisis unfolds, with
the administration lacking the interest or the tough-mindedness to
effectively respond.
Smart diplomacy: Poll names US the greatest threat to world peace
He was going to remake US foreign relations and boy has he ever done that. A newly released Gallup poll finds that the United States under Obama is deemed the greatest threat to world peace by other countries in the world. And the country in second place trails by a factor of 3:1.
Not
only did the U.S. top the list with an aggregate of 24 percent, but
the runner-up threat country, Pakistan, was way behind at eight
percent. China was third at six percent, followed by North Korea, Iran
and Israel at five percent each.
The survey of opinions across 65 countries by pollster Win/Gallup
International recorded some of the strongest anti-American sentiment,
predictably, in countries widely regarded as rivals, led by Russia
(where 54 percent of respondents said the U.S. was the greatest threat
to peace) and China (49 percent).
But the view that the U.S. poses the greatest threat to peace was
also strongly held in some purported U.S. allies – such as NATO partners
Greece and Turkey (45 percent each), and Pakistan (44 percent), which
is also a top recipient of U.S. aid.
Two other countries where strongly negative opinion of the U.S. was
found were Bosnia, a candidate for European Union membership (49
percent), and, closer to home, Argentina (46 percent).
Elsewhere in Latin America the U.S. topped the list of threats to
peace for a significant number of respondents in Mexico (37 percent),
Brazil (26 percent) and Peru (24 percent).
I guess that smart diplomacy is really going well, isn't it?
As I noted in a previous post, just one day after winning lavish praise from President Obama for his role in negotiating a truce between Israel and Hamas, Egyptian President Mohammed Morsy declared himself a dictator.
That led to strong reactions on Friday from, among others, former IAEA chief Mohammed El-Baradei, and riots across Egypt.
[A]nti-Morsi
demonstrators set fire to Muslim Brotherhood offices in cities across
Egypt on Friday. As enraged demonstrators torched Muslim Brotherhood
offices in several Egyptian cities, a defiant Egyptian President Mohamed
Morsi defended his recent decree granting himself sweeping powers
before a crowd of supporters outside the presidential palace in Cairo
Friday. …
Reacting to the decree, thousands of
demonstrators gathered in Cairo’s Tahrir Square on Friday, responding to
calls by Egyptian opposition leaders for a “million-man march” to
protest against what they called a “coup” by the Islamist president.
You can see Tahrir Square in the picture above. The 'democratically elected' Morsy had his troops respond to the demonstrators with teargas, just like the 'dictator' Hosni Mubarak did a year and nine months ago. You all remember Mubarak, right? Mubarak was the guy who was forced out due to the Obama administration's 'smart diplomacy.' John Hinderaker has some more delicious irony in this situation that's really got him confused (Hat Tip: Memeorandum).
But never mind that–I am still really, really
confused! Mubarak was our friend, but a bad guy. So he had to go, and
Obama denounced him and helped force him out. Morsi is our enemy, and
also is a bad guy. So Obama thinks he’s A-OK, and helped Morsi take
power. That’s called “smart diplomacy.” You probably wouldn’t
understand.
Other things are confusing, too. Did Obama know
that Morsi was about to claim dictatorial powers when he made Morsi the
“hero” of the Israel-Gaza cease fire? If so, did he mind? If Obama
didn’t know–which seems more likely–does he now think that Morsi
double-crossed him by capitalizing on his faux
diplomatic mission to proclaim himself a dictator? Or is that one more
thing that is A-OK with Obama? If Obama doesn’t like the fact that Morsi
has cut “Arab Spring” democracy off at the knees, does he intend to do
anything about it? Or, when bad things happen, is it “smart diplomacy”
to do nothing and pretend you don’t mind?
So,
those of us who said Morsi was an Islamist extremist who would quickly
reestablish authoritarianism in Egypt – with a sharia flavor – were
right. Those who said Morsi was a moderate were wrong.
And his Napoleonic self-crowning event changes the calculus for Gaza and Hamas, among other things. The universal interpretation of the ceasefire brokered by Egypt
this week puts the responsibility for preventing attacks by Hamas
against Israel squarely on the Morsi government. (Not all analyses
refer to “frantic” diplomacy on the part of the United States.) Far
from making Egypt anyone’s partner in repressing Hamas, this move effectively hands Hamas over to Morsi – and with Hamas, the Gaza Strip.
Hamas
is a terrorist group whose independence of him is an inconvenience for
Morsi. Hamas is the finger of Iran in the Levantine “pie” situated on
Morsi’s northeastern border. Hamas lies between Morsi and Jerusalem.
Morsi is not going to “work with” Hamas; he is going to give Hamas the
choice to work with him, or be rendered insignificant.
Hamas
can be useful to Morsi, if that’s what its leaders choose to do. There
may or may not be a “break” with Iran; it would probably be better from
Morsi’s perspective to keep Iran on a string with Hamas, and prevent a
divergence of objectives – i.e., between Egypt and Iran – for as long as
possible.
But
do not be deceived. Iran has just taken a big strategic hit from the
terms of the Egyptian-brokered ceasefire. Iran may still have Qods
Force operatives in the area, but Morsi has established a veto over
Iran’s activities there. There may be a few more attempts by Hamas at
independence from Morsi – although frankly, I doubt it – but the die is
cast: what happens from now on will happen on Morsi’s timeline and his
say-so.
That, at least, is what he intends. He has been rather transparent in the last few days. Immediately
upon getting the ceasefire on terms advantageous for his intentions, he
declared himself all-powerful in Egypt. This was not a coincidence.
His pursuit of the ceasefire was part and parcel of his overall
planning. He was happy to accept the vaguest of commitments on Israel’s
side, as long as the understanding was that Egypt would guarantee
Hamas’s behavior. That was the prize Morsi sought.
Dyer goes on to argue that botched US diplomacy has brought all this about, and that Egypt has turned itself into a player as important as Iran and Turkey over the last week. Read the whole thing.
So why did Netanyahu sign onto this situation? Here are his calculations as I see them.
1. Egypt has an interest in controlling Hamas, because as noted above, controlling Hamas makes it a player in the Middle East. Netanyahu has just purchased quiet on the Gaza border which he could not have purchased in any other way short of a Dresden-like bombing.
2. Egypt will never be able to become a nuclear power anyway. Its economy is a bigger basket case than Iran's or Turkey's, and besides, Iran financed most of its nuclear development while selling oil at high prices while the world looked the other way. Egypt has almost no oil to sell and nothing else of value. No one else is going to give it money to finance a nuclear program.
3. Egypt will not abrogate its treaty with Israel. It cannot take the risk that the US will respond by cutting off aid. So between those three items, Netanyahu is free to attack Iran without worrying about Egypt or Gaza.
Of course, there's one small catch. Morsy could lose power as quickly as he gained it - we are seeing rumblings in that direction already - and Israel could find itself with an Islamist anarchy on our southeastern border.
Better neutralize Hezbullah soon and then go after Iran before Syria can get its act together.
More 'smart diplomacy': Obama's Syria policy a confirmed failure
Jennifer Rubin reports that President Obama's attempt to reach a unified policy on Syria with Russia and China are now officially a failure. But don't expect that to change the policy.
President Barack Obama admitted late Tuesday that, despite his fervent in-person appeals, leaders of Russia and China had not “signed on” to his diplomatic campaign for the ouster of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad as part of a plan to end the country’s bloody violence.
Obama described his meetings Monday with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Tuesday with Chinese President Hu Jintao as “very candid” and “intensive” on the issue of Syria and the question of Assad’s removal.
“If you’re asking me whether they signed on to that proposition, I don’t think it would be fair to say that they are there yet,” Obama said at a press conference in Mexico, where he was attending a summit of the Group of 20 nations
Rather than do something else (such as lead a coalition excluding Russia and China), Obama will obsessively stick with the fruitless option. (“I’m going to keep on making the argument. And my expectation is, is that at some point there’s a recognition that it’s hard to envision a better future for Syria while Assad is still there.”) Sigh. He really doesn’t have a clue what to do — or doesn’t want to do anything.
Smart diplomacy: Syria gloating over US failure at UN
Here's some more smart diplomacy from the Obama administration: Syria is gloating over the failure of the Obama administration to get sanctions enacted and a condemnation of Syria at the United Nations.
I am an Orthodox Jew - some would even call me 'ultra-Orthodox.' Born in Boston, I was a corporate and securities attorney in New York City for seven years before making aliya to Israel in 1991 (I don't look it but I really am that old :-). I have been happily married to the same woman for thirty-five years, and we have eight children (bli ayin hara) ranging in age from 13 to 33 years and nine grandchildren. Four of our children are married! Before I started blogging I was a heavy contributor on a number of email lists and ran an email list called the Matzav from 2000-2004. You can contact me at: IsraelMatzav at gmail dot com
