from Ian Bremmer:
The truth about Israel’s rumored strike on Iran
At a time when President Obama has moved troops out of Iraq and is moving them out of Afghanistan, it’s looking increasingly like our worries in the Middle East are far from over. Maybe it’s not unprecedented, but it’s highly unusual for a sitting secretary of defense to worry in print (to Washington Post columnist David Ignatius) that Israel could launch a strike against Iran as early as this spring. The point of the Israeli attack, according to Ignatius and Panetta, would be to stop Iran before it begins building a nuclear bomb. The U.S. is saying that it would find such a move foolhardy, and yet also reassuring both the Israeli and American publics that it is committed to Israel’s security.
But it’s probably not Israel’s true intention to strike Iran anyway.
According to Ignatius and many others, the Israelis, led by Prime Minister Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak, believe that waiting for the U.S. to strike Iran is an unwise stance. That’s because the U.S.'s threshold for sufficient proof of a nearly finished or completed Iranian nuclear weapon is likely much higher than that of Israel. If such proof came to light, only the U.S. at that point would have the capacity to take out the leadership in Tehran singlehandedly. But such an operation would create a leadership vacuum and leave whoever was running Iran with the bomb. Right now, Israel feels that it can make a dent with its own operation, heading off Iran’s bomb-making before it becomes an issue only the U.S. can deal with. But the window for that option is rapidly closing.
Despite Panetta’s public warnings, and despite Israel’s sudden silence (which many are taking as a sign that it’s gearing up internally for such a mission as this one), an attack on Iran isn’t as likely to occur in the spring as Washington or Tel Aviv would have us believe. That’s because even though new U.S. sanctions on the country went into effect this week, the real test of Iran’s economic fortitude will come around July 1, when the European Union's gradual introduction of a ban on oil from the country takes full effect. Unfortunately, even those sanctions are unlikely to do much to deter Iran, as India, China and African nations will likely continue to buy much of Iran’s oil production, and they will gain some concessions on price due to the artificially limited market. Nevertheless, Israel will presumably wait to see what happens.
Any smaller strikes that Israel makes against Iran before the economic sanctions would bring down on Israel the ire of the international community, along with that of the Obama administration. Not to mention that Israel certainly wouldn’t want to risk a counterattack if it didn’t have to. So it won’t.
If all of this is true, why would the Israelis telegraph an attack on Iran that is unlikely to happen quite so fast? Well, it’s in their best interests to talk the talk. By using coordinated speaking points they’re bringing Iran front and center on the global stage, while the international community still has time to deal with it. Since the last thing the Israelis want to do is rely on the U.S. to fight their battles for them, they have to press on the Iran issue now, and threaten to act unilaterally, to get the U.S. and EU to act with alacrity. In fact, sources close to the Israeli decision-making process have told me that no final decision has been reached about when or whether to strike Iran. Simply put, it would be premature for Netanyahu and Barak to have made up their minds already. But why would they tell this to the rest of the world when they are convinced the Iranian nuclear threat will soon be very, very real?
The UNESCO meltdown
By Alan Elsner The opinions expressed are his own.
On Monday, unless the Palestinians can be persuaded to back down, the U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) will vote to accept Palestine as a full member state, triggering an automatic cutoff of U.S. funding and wreaking havoc with many of the agency’s programs.
Under legislation adopted by Congress over 15 years ago, the United States is mandated to withdraw from any U.N. agency that accepts Palestine as a full member state in the absence of a peace treaty with Israel.
The U.S.’s withdrawal means that it would no longer fund about 22 percent of the UNESCO budget – around $70 million a year. According to the website of the U.S. mission to UNESCO, some of the programs it funds that presumably will be affected include:
- Systems to provide early warning on tsunamis including special coastal hazards affecting Haiti.
- The study of earthquake threats in the Eastern Mediterranean, including Turkey, which was hit by a major deadly quake last weekend.
- Literacy training throughout the world.
- Vocational schools in Afghanistan.
- General support for World Heritage sites, including the Borobudur Buddhist Temple in Indonesia.
- Programs to study and preserve the health of the world’s oceans … And the list goes on.
A senior U.S. official says Washington has mounted a massive diplomatic effort to try to get friendly countries to put pressure on the Palestinians not to move forward with a vote. This official says there is widespread international dismay at the prospect of the United States being forced to pull out of an agency that does so much valuable work around the world.
“Within a few short months, without discussion at the White House or debate in Congress, the U.S. could find itself shut out of a great many international decisions that have a direct impact on American jobs, lives, safety and security,” former U.S. Senator Timothy Wirth, now President of the United Nations Foundation, wrote in the Los Angeles Times this week.
Is it not the time for the Palestinian people to enjoy such a membership? Who’s been the manufacture of the sophisticated High-Tech and mass destruction weapons in the Middle East and the world and who used it first? It is funny when you talk about peace while producing deadly weapons… Congratulations to all Palestinian people and Long Life Palestine.
Young Israelis, Palestinians converge on entrepreneurship
By Ted Grossman The opinions expressed are his own.
Today at the United Nations, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas will speak for their peoples on the world stage in front of the General Assembly. Several hundred miles farther south on Capitol Hill, House Republicans have introduced legislation requiring the UN to adopt a voluntary budget model ending funding for Palestinian refugees, allowing Congress to control and allot the distribution of funds to Palestine, and cutting contributions to peacekeeping operations until management changes are made. And six thousand miles – half a world – beyond that, 44 Palestinian and Israeli students are working as business partners in the Middle East to run two entrepreneurial ventures. This summer, I witnessed an example of their cooperative spirit when the group – 20 Palestinians, 17 Israeli Jews, and 7 Israeli Arabs – came together at Babson College in Wellesley, MA for an intensive program in entrepreneurship.
The revolutions sparked during the Arab Spring show that social and political change can take root with just a handful of people. Here at Babson this summer, I have been overwhelmed by the commitment of both Palestinian and Israeli students to do what previous generations have failed to do: bring about peace in their homelands.
Despite the violence and hateful rhetoric they have endured and the deep political and cultural divides that permeate their daily existence, these 44 undergraduates agreed to participate in a seven-week program focused on developing an entrepreneurial mindset and the business skills necessary to cooperatively launch two new businesses under challenging circumstances. Studying together, learning together and living together, they initially found it challenging to establish trust and overcome apprehensions. But in a matter of days, these students were so busy with market research, supply chain dilemmas and writing business plans that they had little choice but to move beyond their emotions.
They were working toward a common goal and, in the process, they found more commonality than they had imagined. There was no “kumbaya” moment, no Disney magic, that’s certain. But through this process, I witnessed the power of entrepreneurship to serve as a bridge between disparate groups and its ability to create economic opportunity and prosperity through an integrated economy.
Entrepreneurship is forward-looking to the core. In any start-up, all involved must rise above personal differences and face the hard work success requires; the Darwinian rigors of the market don’t permit dwelling on grievances. Now, as the Israeli and Palestinian students embark on their journey as business owners, their political leaders are engaged in discussions at the UN that could have seismic ramifications on their everyday lives. The students understand that, in and of itself, this program will not create a two-state solution, nor will it bring down the fences that separate them physically or politically. They do however recognize that when a political settlement is reached and a Palestinian state is created, they will be in a privileged position to conduct business across the border because they have already developed mutually trusting and respectful relationships.
Escalating violence in Israel and Gaza, Congresswoman Ros-Lehtinen’s controversial proposal and Palestine’s UN bid remind us of the fragility of the political and military situation in the Middle East. It is against this backdrop that these students launch their businesses and confront the challenges and obstacles their environment presents.
Absolutely RIGHT! What the Palestinians should be doing both on the Gaza strip and in the West Bank is cultivating hotels and farms and other opportunities to attract money and tourists and GOOD WILL! Firing missiles indiscriminately does not lead to peace. Changing their curriculums in their schools to remind their kids that Israelis are not the enemy is priority number one. This is what leads to peace – not hatred. Lets help encourage young minds from both sides to delve into the business of living vs. the business of killing.
from Ian Bremmer:
Turkey ascendant, Palestine in tow. Whither Israel and the U.S.?
By Ian Bremmer The opinions expressed are his own.
If President Obama thinks he's having a tough month, he's got nothing on Israel's Bibi Netanyahu. In Tel Aviv, hundreds of thousands of Israelis are protesting the cost of living. In New York, the Palestinians are readying a statehood resolution at the United Nations. In Ankara, the Turkish government has expelled the Israeli ambassador from the country. And in Cairo, an Egyptian crowd is taking the job on themselves, attacking the Israeli embassy.
Of all of these events, though, Turkey is the biggest worry. Prime Minister Recep Erdogan has steadily escalated an anti-Israel tack for over a year now, most recently by accusing Israel of behaving like a "spoiled child." More directly, Erdogan has also proclaimed that the Turkish navy will stop the planned start of gas drilling explorations off the Cyprus coast by an Israel-Cypriot consortium. That's tantamount to threatening armed conflict. Why is Turkey so ascendant in Middle East politics, to Israel’s dismay? There are three very good reasons:
1. The U.S. is playing less of a role in the Middle East.
Under President Obama, the U.S. has become a “taker” not a “maker” of foreign policy there. Simply put, this Administration has spent less time on the Middle East peace question than any other since the creation of the Israeli state. With all the issues facing Obama at home -- joblessness, a tanking economy and his own re-election, to name a few -- and all the more pressing international issues, like winding down the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and dealing with the euro zone and China -- Israel has taken a political backseat. As NATO allies like Turkey fill the void and create their own regional strategies, Israel, being in the most unnatural geopolitical position there, has had the hardest time establishing its own power center.
2. A newfound sense of Islamic populism.
It’s been almost a year since the first rumblings of the Arab spring. With the Middle East very much still unstable -- albeit a different kind of instability than has usually been evident -- it’s been necessary for governments of all stripes to start listening and acceding to the demands of their people. Turkey’s prime minister is far from clinging to power, but it’s safe to say that taking a hard line on Israel is low hanging fruit for any leader in the Islamic world, even in a country with a longstanding secular tradition.
I think the problem is that Turkey is descendant, not ascendant. The AKP won the latest elections with a reduced majority even thoough they passed a law expanding the voters base, and the economy has been deteriorating rapidly. Erdogan’s key domestic accomplishment is subjecting the military to civilian control, which is also the biggest risk externally as now he can order this military around in the region.
from MacroScope:
Emerging markets: Soft patch or recession?
Could the dreaded R word come back to haunt the developing world? A study by Goldman Sachs shows how differently financial markets and surveys are assessing the possibility of a recession in emerging markets. One part of the Goldman study comprising survey-based leading indicators saw the probability of recession as very low across central and eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa. These give a picture of where each economy currently stands in the cycle. This model found risks to be highest in Turkey and South Africa, with a 38-40 percent possibility of recession in these countries. On the other hand, financial markets, which have sold off sharply over the past month, signalled a more pessimistic outcome. Goldman says these indicators forecast a 67 percent probability of recession in the Czech Republic and 58 percent in Israel, followed by Poland and Turkey. Unlike the survey, financial data were more positive on South Africa than the others, seeing a relatively low 32 percent recession risk. Goldman analysts say the recession probabilities signalled by the survey-based indicator jell with its own forecasts of a soft patch followed by a broad sustained recovery for CEEMEA economies. "The slowdown signalled by the financial indicators appears to go beyond the ‘soft patch’ that we are currently forecasting," Goldman says, adding: "The key question now is whether or not the market has gone too far in pricing in a more serious economic downturn."
from Ian Bremmer:
The coming Palestinian statehood
By Ian Bremmer The opinons expressed are his own.
As violent protests rock the Arab world, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Israeli government has tried to keep a low profile. It has largely succeeded. That’s about to change.
This year’s upheaval in North Africa and the Middle East is not quite finished. As President Saleh recovers from injuries suffered during an attack on Yemen’s presidential palace, the country remains plagued with protests and crackdowns. Libya’s Qaddafi clings to power, Syria’s Assad copes with surges of public anger, and Egypt’s zigzag path toward democracy reminds us how hard it is to fill the hole left behind by a castoff autocrat.
Israelis have watched closely from the sidelines to better understand what all this turmoil means for their future. As the dust begins to settle, it has become clear that they have plenty to worry about. Populism is taking root in the Middle East, a region where ordinary people have been forced for years to scream in unison to make themselves heard. Now they find that they have the power to bring about change. In response, Arab leaders—the newly elevated, those clinging to power, and even those simply facing a more uncertain future—are now listening to public opinion much more closely.
That’s bad news for Israel, because one of the most popular causes across the Middle East is a more genuine and vigorous defense of Palestinians. The Arab world’s uprisings have had virtually nothing to do with Israel. They are spontaneous expressions of public outrage that governments are corrupt, that average citizens have no power to do anything about it, that living standards aren’t rising, and that nothing ever changes. But the protests have now empowered large numbers of people who also want to see Israel face enormous political pressure.
Bremmer writes: “one of the most popular causes across the Middle East is a more genuine and vigorous defense of Palestinians”.
If this were true, the Palestinians would be warmly welcomed as equals in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Kuwait and the other Arab countries. Instead, they live in squalid refugee camps, discriminated against by the locals, unable to obtain citizenship or jobs. The dirty little secret in the Middle East is that the Arabs care less for the Palestinians than do the Israelis. Kuwait expelled half a million of them following the Gulf War for their support of Saddam Hussein.
The other Arab tribes are only interested in the Palestinians to the extent that they can be put to use in the relentless effort to rid the region of Jews.
from Bernd Debusmann:
Who is the superpower, America or Israel?
On February 18, the United States vetoed a U.N. Security Council resolution on Israeli settlements in occupied Palestinian territories. The vote raises a question: Who dominates in the alliance between America and Israel?
Judging from the extent to which one partner defies the will of the other, decade after decade, the world's only superpower is the weaker partner. When push comes to shove, American presidents tend to bow to Israeli wishes. Barack Obama is no exception, or he would not have instructed his ambassador at the United Nations to vote against a policy he himself stated clearly in the summer of 2009.
"The United States does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements. This construction violates previous agreements and undermines efforts to achieve peace. It is time for these settlements to stop," he said in a much-lauded speech in Cairo.
Compare this with the text of the resolution that drew 14 votes in favor and died with the U.S. veto: "Israeli settlements established in the Palestinian Territory occupied since 1967, including East Jerusalem, are illegal and constitute a major obstacle to the achievement of a just, lasting and comprehensive peace."
Linguists may quibble over the difference between "illegal" and "illegitimate" but the substance of the two statements is pretty much the same. So why the veto? It followed an energetic campaign by the Israeli government and its allies in the United States to keep the issue out of the United Nations, seen by Israel as a reflexively anti-Israeli body.
Washington's ambassador at the U.N., Susan Rice, had a different explanation. Though the U.S. opposed settlements, she said, adopting that resolution would have risked hardening the positions of both sides in future negotiations. In other words, let's return to the parallel universe of the "peace process."
In that universe, American presidents make optimistic predictions detached from the realities on the ground. George W. Bush, early in 2009: "The peace agreement should happen and can happen by the end of the year." Obama, last September, held out the prospect of an agreement that would, by next year," lead to a new member of the United Nations - an independent state of Palestine, living in peace with Israel."
I really loved the Lawyer analogy; it fits. But nothing will change. Hillary is still owned by the NYC crowd, and is beholden to AIPAC. Obama needs all the domestic friends he can get, including and especially the NYC crowd. The GOP can’t antagonize its religious conservatives.
It’s not that the Israelis play good Real Politik, it’s that we play it very poorly. They haven’t had a Talleyrand in a long time, and Liberman (both ours and theirs, but in this reference theirs) is simply a corrupt old pol. Really, the problems with the U.S./Israel thing expose the real dangers of democracy. This is like some historical reading of debate in Athens.
Nuclear bombs and the Israeli elephant
-The views expressed are the author’s own-
For the past four decades, there has been an elephant in the room whenever experts and government officials met to discuss nuclear weapons. The elephant is Israel’s sizeable nuclear arsenal, undeclared under a U.S.-blessed policy of “nuclear opacity.”
It means neither confirming nor denying the existence of nuclear weapons. “Deterrence by uncertainty,” as Israeli President Shimon Peres has called it. The United States became a silent partner in Israeli opacity with a one-on-one meeting between President Richard Nixon and Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir on Sept. 26, 1969.
That policy made strategic and political sense 40 years ago but it has outlived its usefulness, conflicts with Israel’s democratic values, is counter-productive and should be abandoned. So argues Avner Cohen, one of the world’s leading experts on Israel’s bomb, in a new book “The Worst-Kept Secret”, which delves deeply into the history and strategic and political implications of the policy.
The book’s publication coincided with a rising chorus of warnings by U.S. and Israeli hawks over the dire consequences of Iran obtaining a nuclear bomb, an aim Iran firmly denies. In several essays over the summer, American neo-conservatives pounded the drums of war against Iran. On a visit to the U.S. last week, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said a “credible threat of military action” from the West was necessary to stop Iran from making a nuclear bomb.
In his book, Cohen says it is almost impossible to predict the outcome of the current battle of wills between Iran and the West. But if Iran were willing to negotiate seriously, it might agree to substantial concessions only on a regional basis, as a step towards establishing a nuclear-free zone.
“In such a case, Israel could be pressed to make its own nuclear contribution, possibly even to shut down the Dimona reactor as part of the price for halting Iran’s (uranium) enrichment activities at Natanz.”
If there is one nation that is entitled to have nuclear weapons-it’s Israel. Tiny territory, surrounded on all sides
by hostile populations, with genocidal intentions;
It would be shear insanity for Israel to even consider
giving up nuclear weapons.
The U.S. war in Iraq is over. Who won?
The end of America’s combat mission, after seven and a half costly years, has raised questions that will provide fodder for argument for a long time to come: Was it worth it? And who, if anyone, won?
It’s too early to answer the first question, according to U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, a man of sober judgment. “It really requires a historian’s perspective in terms of what happens here in the long run … How it all weighs in the balance over time remains to be seen.”
For a sizeable group of Middle East experts, the second question is easier to answer than the first. “So, who won the war in Iraq? Iran,” says the headline over an analysis by scholar Mohammed Bazzi for the Council on Foreign relations, a New York-based think-tank. His argument: “The U.S. ousted Tehran’s sworn enemy, Saddam Hussein, from power. Then Washington helped install a Shi’ite government for the first time in Iraq’s modern history.
“As U.S. troops became mired in fighting an insurgency and containing a civil war, Iran extended its influence over all of Iraq’s Shi’ite factions.” As a consequence, U.S. influence has been waning, Iran’s has been rising, and there are predictions that Iran will fill the vacuum created by the drawdown of U.S. troops to 50,000 who will “advise and assist” the Iraqis.
When President Barack Obama announced the completion of the drawdown in a somber speech on August 31, he made no reference to Iran – a curious omission – but said that “in an age without surrender ceremonies, we must earn victory through the success of our partners.” In the case of Iraq, only optimists find it easy to see shining success.
Six months after national elections, there is still no Iraqi government, with Sunnis, Shi’ites and Kurds unable to agree on how to share power and, as importantly, the country’s enormous oil wealth. A squabbling, deadlocked parliament is not much to show for more than 4,000 American, up to 100,000 Iraqi deaths and $1 trillion in war spending.
Obama’s predecessor, George W. Bush, and the neoconservative war hawks who agitated for an attack on Iraq, predicted that the country would become a model of democracy that would inspire the rest of the Arab world, largely run by autocratic regimes, to follow suit. That proved a pipedream. Instead, in the words of Wathiq al-Hashemi, a political analyst in Baghdad, Iraq has become a theatre for settling foreign disputes.
our goals were met. therefore the United States of America, NATO, and the International Security Assistance Force have meta victory in the no man’s land out there in the east. Israel is sure happy about all the dead iraqis. iran is surely happy about all of the dead americans. so desicevly the US wo. get over it, liberals.
Why the Israeli-Palestinian peace talks will go nowhere
The following are excerpts from STRATFOR’s geopolitical weekly column by George Friedman, chief executive officer of STRATFOR, a global intelligence company. He is the author of numerous books and articles on international affairs, warfare and intelligence. His most recent book is “The Next 100 Years: A Forecast for the 21st Century.” The opinions expressed are the author’s own.
The Israeli government and the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) have agreed to engage in direct peace talks September 2 in Washington. Neither side has expressed any enthusiasm about the talks. In part, this comes from the fact that entering any negotiations with enthusiasm weakens your bargaining position. But the deeper reason is simply that there have been so many peace talks between the two sides and so many failures that it is difficult for a rational person to see much hope in them. Moreover, the failures have not occurred for trivial reasons. They have occurred because of profound divergences in the interests and outlooks of each side.
These particular talks are further flawed because of their origin. Neither side was eager for the talks. They are taking place because the United States wanted them. Indeed, in a certain sense, both sides are talking because they do not want to alienate the United States and because it is easier to talk and fail than it is to refuse to talk.
It should be understood that many Muslim governments would be appalled if the United States broke with Israel and Israel fell. For example, Egypt and Jordan, facing demographic and security issues of their own, are deeply hostile to at least some Palestinian factions. The vast majority of Jordan’s population is actually Palestinian. Egypt struggles with an Islamist movement called the Muslim Brotherhood, which has collaborated with like-minded Islamists among the Palestinians for decades. The countries of the Arabian Peninsula are infinitely more interested in the threat from Iran than in the existence of Israel and, indeed, see Israel as one of the buttresses against Iran. Even Iran is less interested in the destruction of Israel than it is in using the issue as a tool in building its own credibility and influence in the region.
In the Islamic world, public opinion, government rhetoric and government policy have long had a distant kinship. If the United States were actually to do what these countries publicly demand, the private response would be deep concern both about the reliability of the United States and about the consequences of a Palestinian state. A wave of euphoric radicalism could threaten all of these regimes. They quite like the status quo, including the part where they get to condemn the United States for maintaining it.
From the point of view of any Israeli foreign minister, the danger of peace talks is that the United States might actually engineer a solution. Any such solution would by definition involve Israeli concessions that would be opposed by a substantial Israeli bloc — and nearly any Israeli faction could derail any agreement. Israeli prime ministers go to the peace talks terrified that the Palestinians might actually get their house in order and be reasonable — leaving it to Israel to stand against an American solution. Had Ariel Sharon not had his stroke, there might have been a strong leader who could wrestle the Israeli political system to the ground and impose a settlement. But at this point, there has not been an Israeli leader since Menachem Begin who could negotiate with confidence in his position. Benjamin Netanyahu finds himself caught between the United States and his severely fractured Cabinet by peace talks.
Have you not ever heard the “old saying” that the reason you people hate each other is because you are so much alike?
In order to bluff, you have to state it. You hope it will work and won’t have to back it up if it doesn’t.