a well rounded blog.
by the end of the day, i hope i leave a marc.
Crisis in Gaza and U.N. vote show it’s time for Obama administration to get to work on negotiations
by Marc Sabbagh
Renewed violence between Israel and Hamas in Gaza should not come as a surprise given the lack of U.S. attention on the Israeli-Palestinian peace process in recent years. While a fragile ceasefire agreement is now in effect, this short-term band aid should not overshadow the urgent need for the United States to facilitate renewed dialogue and a comprehensive peace agreement between the Israelis and Palestinians. Combined with the Palestinian vote for U.N. recognition expected to pass this afternoon, the window of opportunity to make any progress on the issue is narrowing.
President Obama’s first term started out with a firm demand that the Israeli government halt settlement building in the West Bank, but the administration proved unwilling to challenge Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu after his government’s intransigence. Every year thereafter, the administration’s policies and public statements backtracked and shied away from serious involvement: in 2010 President Obama tried to regain ground by calling the U.S.-Israeli bond “unbreakable”; in his 2011 U.N. address he criticized the Palestinian Authority’s bid for U.N. recognition; and in 2012 controversy erupted when he did not meet with any world leaders at the U.N. summit. Even now, after the election, the State Department said they were not looking to engage on the issue anytime soon.
The recent violence between Israel and Hamas in Gaza shows the fallout that occurs when the U.S. disengages. The presidential election put numerous important issues involving our country on hold as the world kept spinning – particularly in the Arab world. Now, with the election over, it is time for the Obama administration to truly reengage and take charge on the peace process.
The administration should put a proposal on the table that can be examined, discussed and redeveloped to keep negotiations going and at least create small, productive steps that could lead to lasting peace in the region. There are numerous studies that can serve as a framework for a territorial agreement. The regional goals of the Madrid Peace Conference in 1991 can also provide important lessons for multilateral negotiations on concerns facing the broader Arab world.
There is great value in supporting direct Israeli-Palestinian negotiations if both sides’ preconditions for such talks are managed effectively to ensure security cooperation and the promotion of Palestinian institution-building and economic development. Serious peace talks would limit the negative effects of power-sharing between Fatah and Hamas in the Palestinian territories, create an alternative for the Palestinian push for U.N. recognition (a move that may potentially lead to war crime suits against Israel at the International Criminal Court), and provide a legitimate path for Palestinian territorial integrity after the vote.
A resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict constitutes a fundamental American national security interest and prospects for peace diminish every day negotiations are put on hold. President Morsi’s recent power grab in Egypt demonstrates the country’s unpredictable new government, one which could someday revive tensions over the Sinai Peninsula. Despite the humanitarian tragedy in Syria, regime change does not appear to be desired by the Israeli government, which fears another power vacuum in the north. New protests in Jordan, the recent assassination of a top intelligence minister in Lebanon, and Hezbollah’s leader’s comments on destroying Israel in the event of an attack on Lebanon prove that Israel’s neighbors, and the actors within them, lack stability.
It is in both the Israelis and the Palestinians interests to resume negotiations for a two-state solution. The value of a lasting peace goes beyond the small, historic strip of land on the Mediterranean.
Lack of political will of the Israeli and Palestinian governments as well as the current realities of the Arab uprisings and Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons make the environment for substantive negotiations very difficult. The conflict has been manipulated through heightened rhetoric from U.S. candidates during the election, ineffectual policies and safeguards by U.S. incumbents in the past, and provocations and violence by Israeli and Palestinian governments and authorities. To overcome the impasse, it takes political will, risk, and boldness for leaders on all sides to commit to concrete policymaking.
The recent violence shows that it’s time to get to work. President Obama does not have to campaign anymore. There is no need for political posturing or election strategies aimed at gathering enough support to win another round. The U.S. can revive its position as the “honest broker” in the region if the administration turns its attention back to the peace process. A U.N. vote will not be enough to change the realities on the ground. Only direct negotiations and a comprehensive solution can do that.
(Source: leaveamarc)
Syria After the Fall
by Vali Nasr
THE conflict in Syria has reached a tipping point, but not one that promises a quick end to the fighting. With or without Bashar al-Assad as its leader, Syria now has all the makings of a grim and drawn-out civil war: evenly matched protagonists who are not ready for a cease-fire, and outside powers preoccupied with their own agendas and unable to find common ground.
U.S. intervention in Syria: Damned if they do, damned if they don't?
They are questions asked many times since the Syria violence began: When will it stop? What can the U.S. and international community do? What options are left?
Stephen Hadley, former White House national security adviser for George W. Bush and now a senior adviser for the U.S. Institute of Peace, weighs in.
The Libyan precedent is not a hopeful one for Syria
by Peter Feaver
Was the Libya mission a model for an Obama doctrine on the use of force or was it just a one-off pick-up game? It appears it may have been both.
After Qaddafi’s fall, the White House was keen to tout the Libya operation as a perfect exemplar of how the Obama administration could wield U.S. power more effectively than previous administrations, something an advisor subsequently branded as a “lead from behind” approach. Even though Libya is still an unfinished project, if you talk to enough Obamaphiles as I do, sooner or later the Libya model will be touted again, especially the dramatic comparison of how low cost Libya was compared to Iraq.
It was low cost, at least for the United States, but as for a model, it may be a precedent for doing nothing in the future — at least that is the impression one gets from the latest reporting on Syria. Apparently, the White House has told Syrian rebels that they are on their own, that the United States will not be assisting them further, and so Assad may be on track to accomplish what Qaddafi could not: kill enough of his own citizens fast enough to defeat the rebellion before outsiders can intervene to tip the balance in favor of the “right side of history.”
In this, the Obama administration may be following the Libyan precedent to the letter. The problem with “leading from behind” is that it really means “following another leader.” In the Libyan case, the real leaders were the Europeans, especially the French and British. They led, Obama followed, and Qaddafi fell.
On Syria, no one is leading, not yet anyway. Perhaps the cross-border violence will finally prod Turkey into leading and, if so, perhaps the “Libyan model” will lead the Obama administration into acting. But until then, the Libyan lesson may simply be this: When no one leads, no one follows, and when no one follows, the international community does not act.
(Source: foreignpolicy.com)
When all else fails, blame the U.S.
by Frida Ghitis
The first refuge of tyrants and buffoons is to blame someone else for the messes they make. On the world stage, that usually means blaming America when things do not go their way.
What Obama really thinks of Netanyahu
by Aaron David Miller
Washington (CNN) — The open mike I-wish-I-hadn’t-said-that moment when French President Nicolas Sarkozy called Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a “liar” and Barack Obama didn’t disagree is a tale as old as the hills for American presidents and secretaries of state.
10 Great Opinion Reads on Palestine’s Statehood Bid
“As Palestinians prepare for a showdown vote at the U.N., catch up [with this list of op-eds compiled by The Daily Beast] on the history of the tangled debate, from Obama’s precarious position to the reaction across Israel’s political spectrum.”
- Israel Doesn’t Want a Palestinian State, Period
By Gideon Levy, Haaretz - Palestine Statehood Vote a Predicament for Obama
By Joel Brinkley, San Francisco Chronicle - Palestinians May Win a Vote, But Not a State
Jeffrey Goldberg, Bloomberg - Yes to Palestine
By Reza Aslan, The Los Angeles Times - What if Israel Shocks the World and Votes ‘Yes’?
By Isaac Herzog, Foreign Affairs - Peace Is Urgent
By Philip Stephens, The Financial Times - Is Israel Over?
By Benny Morris, Newsweek - Obama’s Conditions Are Unacceptable
By Shlomo Slonim, The Jerusalem Post - There Is No Palestinian State
By Efraim Karsh, The Daily Beast - Why Palestinian Leaders Are Doing Obama a Favor By Taking Their U.N. Bid to the Security Council
By Tony Karon, Time
His Anger Is a Start
by The New York Times
Faced with a divided Congress and an economy in desperate straits, President Obama tried bargaining with Republicans, he tried adopting some of their ideas and he pleaded with them for reasonable policies to help stave off disaster. For his efforts, he got nothing but a cold shoulder and the country got a credit downgrade.
Now, on a bus tour in the Midwest, he is bitterly pointing the finger at his opponents for their refusal to consider any new revenues to tackle the deficit and their insistence on deep near-term spending cuts that will only cause more economic pain. His anger is long overdue. But it would be much more effective if he combined it with strong ideas of his own for how to fix the economy, rather than the thin agenda he is now promoting.
(Source: The New York Times)
Why Turkey Holds the Key to the Regional Power Game on Syria
by Tony Karon
As the Assad regime on Sunday escalated its brutal crackdown by sending gunboats to shell the coastal city of Latakia, yet the rebellion shows no sign of abating despite at least 1,700 deaths so far, Syria’s fate may come to rest less in the hands of its own people, than in the corridors of power in neighboring and more distant capitals.
one year from now
the united states’ economy will still be in horrible condition. the country will be on the verge of a presidential election, and the candidates will be debating the important issues for the upcoming four years. president obama, when discussing the state of the economy, will blame the republicans for refusing to raise taxes and negotiate a full compromise during the debt ceiling debates of the previous summer, which he will say did not allow the economy to fully recover. his supporters will nod their heads in agreement, blindly believing his eloquent words that the republicans (those uneducated, uninformed fanatics) are at fault.
meanwhile, i will be shaking my head, because i know that while both sides may be to blame, it was not the republicans, but obama himself who failed to be a good negotiator, a good leader, and a good president at the time his party needed him most.
one year from now. we’ll see.
(Source: leaveamarc)
Maybe Washington Needs More Craziness
by Nassir Ghaemi
IF President Obama stumbled in his handling of the debt crisis, in my view, it was because he is too normal: too rational, willing to compromise, a rule-follower, conventionally wise. In contrast, Franklin D. Roosevelt, who succeeded with a worse debt crisis, had a mentally abnormal personality, characterized by mild manic symptoms. The difference between the two leaders may exemplify a general rule, the inverse law of sanity: mentally healthy leaders, successful in quiet and prosperous times, often fail in times of crisis; in contrast, our greatest crisis leaders frequently are mentally abnormal, even mentally ill.
(Source: The New York Times)
Escalating Violence in Syria Paralyzes the West
by Michael Young
Washington and NATO rationalized its bombing of Libya on humanitarian grounds. Then why can’t anyone muster a threat against Syria?
this indictment’s an important milestone, and we call on the government of lebanon to continue to meet its obligations under international law to support the special tribunal.
—mark c. toner, deputy spokesperson for the united states state department
(Source: leaveamarc)
Obama Should Stop Being Reasonable
by Michael Tomasky
With the U.S. government on the edge of default, Michael Tomasky asks why President Obama won’t do what he needs to do and raise the debt ceiling unilaterally.
America’s attempted Quartet sophistry
by Daniel Levy
As more information seeps out from the Quartet principals meeting held in Washington on July 11, it becomes harder not to reach the conclusion that American policy on Israel-Palestine is now being driven almost exclusively by a desire to prevent any possible U.N. vote on the matter in the Autumn.
(Source: foreignpolicy.com)
NIGHTNIGHT by DEDDY
