Redstate

Warning: Compared To Me, Tolstoy May Have Been The Epitome Of Brevity

By Pejman Yousefzadeh Posted in Featured Stories | Foreign Affairs — Comments (14) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »

Having had some time to digest the news stories concerning the ISG report and to think about my take on the issue, I wanted to write this post. The first one is here and I stand by it. But there is more to say; and in this post, I want to cover (a) negotiating with Iran and Syria; (b) the future outline of Iraq and (c) more on the linkage between the fate of Iraq and the Arab-Israeli conflict. Let us take these issues in turn.

Read on below by clicking on the permalink.

Negotiating with Iran and Syria

The ISG participants argue that you have to talk with your enemies and that at the end of the day, the people with whom you make peace are your enemies. Fair enough. As I have said many a time, I can deal with negotiating with Iran and Syria so long as (a) we know what our bottom line is; (b) we know what Iran's and Syria's bottom lines are; (c) we are prepared to leave negotiations if our bottom line is breached; (d) we have a Best Alternative to a Negotiated Agreement prepared to resort to either as an actual alternative to negotiations or as a tool by which to gain concessions from Iran and/or Syria by presenting our Best Alternative as a credible incentive to leave negotiations that are not going well. In addition to all of this, we should be prepared to ratchet up the pressure on the regimes in Iran and Syria by introducing the principles of the Helsinki Final Act as part and parcel of our negotiations to deny the regimes in Iran and Syria credibility and to hasten the day when reform can reach Iran and Syria as it did the Soviet Union (American negotiators were able to use the Helsinki Final Act as a lever by which American influence and power was augmented and Soviet power was diminished by revealing the acts of the Soviet state as illegitimate).

The ISG report says the following about negotiating with Iran and Syria:

Dealing with Iran and Syria is controversial. Nevertheless, it is our view that in diplomacy, a nation can and should engage its adversaries and enemies to try to resolve conflicts and differences consistent with its own interests. Accordingly, the Support Group should actively engage Iran and Syria in its diplomatic dialogue, without preconditions.

The Study Group recognizes that U.S. relationships with Iran and Syria involve difficult issues that must be resolved. Diplomatic talks should be extensive and substantive, and they will require a balancing of interests. The United States has diplomatic, economic, and military disincentives available in approaches to both Iran and Syria. However, the United States should also consider incentives to try to engage them constructively, much as it did successfully with Libya.

Some of the possible incentives to Iran, Syria, or both include:

i. An Iraq that does not disintegrate and destabilize its neighbors and the region.

ii. The continuing role of the United States in preventing the Taliban from destabilizing

Afghanistan.

iii. Accession to international organizations, including the World Trade Organization.

iv. Prospects for enhanced diplomatic relations with the United States.

v. The prospect of a U.S. policy that emphasizes political and economic reforms instead of (as

Iran now perceives it) advocating regime change.

vi. Prospects for a real, complete, and secure peace to be negotiated between Israel and Syria,

with U.S. involvement as part of a broader initiative on Arab-Israeli peace as outlined

below.

Well, let us see. If Iran and Syria have an interest in a stable and secure Iraq, one cannot help but wonder why, as the ISG report points out, "Iran backs Shia claims and supports various Shia militias in Iraq, but it also supports other groups in order to enhance its influence and hedge its bets on possible outcomes," and Syria "[facilitates] support for Iraqi insurgent groups" despite being "threatened by the impact that the breakup of Iraq would have on its own multiethnic and multiconfessional-society." Quite clearly, Iran and Syria see it in their interest--at least for now--to continue to foment chaos and violence in Iraq. The ISG is doubtless right that by destabilizing the region, Iran and Syria stand poised to reap the whirlwind, but for now, the Iranians and Syrians just don't see it that way. And even if they come around, they can do so without negotiations with the United States. All the Iranians and Syrians would have to do is to reduce their support for the insurgency and allow Iraq to stabilize. Negotiations with the United States are not a precondition or a prerequisite for this activity taking place.

For many of the reasons above, the Iranians and Syrians would be more than happy and content to allow us to continue to work in stabilizing Afghanistan. We are committed to this activity with or without negotiations with the Iranians or Syrians and our offer to stabilize Afghanistan in exchange for negotiations and cooperation in stabilizing Iraq is an empty one since even if the Iranians and Syrians reject our offer, we will go ahead and continue to work in stabilizing Afghanistan. As such, this supposed bit of common ground also falls by the wayside.

Accession to international organizations like the WTO is certainly an attractive carrot since it holds out the promise of economic prosperity for both Iran and Syria. But accession to international organizations will not be enough to jump start the Iranian and Syrian economies. Internal reform of those economies will be needed more than the beneficial effects of joining any international organization before dreams of economic prosperity can be realized. Absent such reforms, membership in the WTO amounts to rather little, or at least, less than what could be realized if vibrant market reforms took place. Does anyone believe that the current leadership structures in fundamentalist Iran or Ba'athist Syria are prepared to implement such reforms?

Even if Iran and Syria are willing to cooperate in stabilizing Iraq, we will continue to have stark and serious differences with them, including conflicts over (a) Iran's desire to attain nuclear power; (b) Iran's and Syria's support for terrorism; (c) Syria's hegemonic activities in Lebanon. Relations with the United States will likely not be improved until these knotty problems are resolved. Does anyone believe that they will be solved anytime soon, or that any cooperation offered by Iran and Syria on Iraq will necessarily serve as a harbinger of cooperation to come on the above three remaining issues of contention?

We have done rather little indeed to foment or encourage regime change in Iran. Our outlays for alternative and dissident media in Iran are paltry at best and we have taken few measures to ally ourselves with the dissidents in Iran. Moreoever, even if we confine ourselves to emphasizing "political and economic reforms," as the ISG report calls for, the Iranians will likely claim that we are advocating regime change. This negotiating dog seems liable not to hunt in the way the ISG would like it to.

Syria knows that we will involve ourselves in the Arab-Israeli peace process even absent negotiations with it over Iraq. As such, the prospect of peace with Israel will likely not serve as an incentive until and unless Syria perceives that independent of what is going on with Iraq, there is an incentive to peace with Israel.

Moreover, did you know that we already negotiate with Iran and Syria? C'est vrai, mes amis. C'est vrai:

As Washington waits breathlessly for luminaries like Jim Baker, Lee Hamilton, Vernon Jordan, Sandra Day O'Connor and the rest of the Iraq Study Group to tell us what to do about Iraq, it's past time to knock down a myth that appears to be driving the panel's deliberations: the notion that the Bush administration's refusal to talk with Iran and Syria is the reason for our inability to stabilize Iraq.

The premise--pushed by Democratic politicians and others--is absolutely false. The people pushing this, among them Jimmy Carter and Zbigniew Brzezinski, and Sen. Chuck Hagel, seem intent on sandbagging President Bush into negotiating from a position of weakness over some form of "grand bargain" with some of our most deadly enemies. But the fact is that plenty of engagement has already been taking place. For one thing, Syria retains an embassy in Washington; and the United States has one in Damascus. As for Iran, there are plenty of opportunities for the United States to talk with it in forums such as the United Nations and the International Atomic Energy Agency, where both states are represented. And America has been trying for decades to resolve differences diplomatically with both regimes. Since the September 11 attacks, Washington has held discussions with Tehran and Damascus on a wide array of issues, including matters such as Afghanistan; al Qaeda's international terror networks; Iraq; Lebanon and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The real issue today is that the Bush administration, which has been repeatedly burned in recent years when it tried to engage these governments, prefers discretion and holding lower-level talks. These regimes insist on holding well-publicized summits that yield them P.R. windfalls without forcing them to substantively change their policies. The fact is that, since the Carter's presidency, U.S. administrations of both parties have tried unsuccessfully to persuade these governments to end their support for terrorism and their efforts to sabotage Washington's efforts to facilitate peace between Israel and its Arab neighbors. Following Egyptian President Anwar Sadat's historic November 1977 peace mission to Israel, for example, the Carter administration attempted to persuade Syrian President Hafez Assad (father of the current Syrian strongman Bashar Assad) to join the Middle East peace process. Assad responded by making Damascus the headquarters of a rejection front dominated by the pro-Soviet terrorist groups like George Habash's Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and Ahmed Jibril's Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command.

In 1982 and 1983, veteran U.S. diplomats Philip Habib and Morris Draper conducted months of arduous shuttle diplomacy in an effort to end the violence in Lebanon--a civil war that began in 1975, followed by Israel's 1982 military campaign to uproot Palestinian terrorist groups based there. Syria did everything it could to sabotage efforts to stabilize Lebanon: It likely facilitated the September 1982 assassination of Lebanese leader Pierre Gemayel and undoubtedly assisted the rise of the Iranian-backed Shi'ite terror organization Hezbollah, whose "credits" included the October 23, 1983 bombing of the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut which killed 241 U.S. servicemen. And for good measure, Syria waged an intimidation campaign that forced the Lebanese government to abrogate the U.S.-brokered May 1983 peace treaty it signed with Israel less than a year later.

Read it all. Again, I am not saying that we can never talk to the Iranians and Syrians. I don't like to rule anything out in the course of negotiations. But the ISG has not put forth the best arguments for negotiations with the Iranians and Syrians, and its rationales are either undermined or diminished by the facts on the ground.

The ISG members did a lot today to diminish their arguments as well. In a press conference held to announce and discuss their findings, much of the ISG's time was spent answering questions about negotiating with Iran and Syria. Consider the following exchange:

QUESTION: One of the aspects of your report is outreach to Iran and Syria. What indications do you have from the discussions that you had in preparing the report that these two countries are prepared to be at all helpful?

And I notice that you've taken the nuclear issue out of the equation. You say that should not be discussed in connection with Iraq. Why would the Iranians agree to come to a table and talk about Iraq unless the nuclear question and other questions were addressed?

[Former Secretary of State and ISG Co-Chairman James] BAKER: Why did they agree to come to the table and talk about Afghanistan without talking about the nuclear issue? They did, and they helped us, and it was important.

In our discussions with them -- and the report points this out -- we didn't get the feeling that Iran is champing at the bit to come to the table with us to talk about Iraq. And in fact, we say we think they very well might not.

But we also say we ought to put it to them, though, so that the world will see the rejectionist attitude that they are projecting by that action.

With respect to Syria, there's some strong indications that they would be in a position, if we were able to enter into a constructive dialogue with them, that they would be in a position to help us and might want to help us.

But we're specific in the report, there must be 10 or 11 or 12 things we say there that we will be asking of Syria. The suggestion that somehow we're going to sacrifice the investigations of Pierre Gemayel and the assassinations of Gemayel and Hariri or others is just ridiculous.

So we're talking not about talking to be talking. We're talking about tough diplomacy.

Note, if you will be so kind, the nature of the "tough diplomacy" being advocated by Secretary Baker. It is fine and good to link the issues of the Gemayel and Hariri assassinations to discussions with Syria over Iraq, but we cannot link the issue of Iran's quest for nuclear power with negotiations between the United States and Iran over Iraq. Why? With all due respect to those who want to solve the Gemayel and Hariri assassinations and bring about a just resolution regarding those issues, isn't the question about whether Iran has or is seeking nuclear weapons technology a wee bit more important? If you think not, I guess you are fine with the ISG's decision not to link the nuclear issue with negotiations between the United States and Iran, but you would still be a rather strange bird if you took the public (or private) position that the Gemayel and Hariri assassinations will have a greater long-term impact on American security interests than will the question of whether Iran has or will have nuclear weapons. And if you think that the Iranian nuclear question is more important, then you are as likely as I am to be confused about the ISG's decision to delink it from negotiations with Iran, while linking the Gemayel and Hariri assassinations with negotiations between the United States and Syria.

To enter into negotiations, a clear head and a clear articulation of rationales and interests is necessary. Such is not provided by the ISG. Again, I stress my recognition that one must talk to one's enemies to make peace and to engender a just form of stability. But the argument won't make itself. Advocates must make and advance it in the course of forming and presenting an honest rundown of the security interests involved in such negotiations. On this score, the ISG fails.

The Future Outline of Iraq.

Quoth the ISG report:

The costs associated with devolving Iraq into three semiautonomous regions with loose central control would be too high. Because Iraq's population is not neatly separated, regional boundaries cannot be easily drawn. All eighteen Iraqi provinces have mixed populations, as do Baghdad and most other major cities in Iraq. A rapid devolution could result in mass population movements, collapse of the Iraqi security forces, strengthening of militias, ethnic cleansing, destabilization of neighboring states, or attempts by neighboring states to dominate Iraqi regions. Iraqis, particularly Sunni Arabs, told us that such a division would confirm wider fears across the Arab world that the United States invaded Iraq to weaken a strong Arab state.

While such devolution is a possible consequence of continued instability in Iraq, we do not believe the United States should support this course as a policy goal or impose this outcome on the Iraqi state. If events were to move irreversibly in this direction, the United States should manage the situation to ameliorate humanitarian consequences, contain the spread of violence, and minimize regional instability. The United States should support as much as possible central control by governmental authorities in Baghdad, particularly on the question of oil revenues.

As expected, then, the ISG continues to grasp at the mirage of a unified Iraq. But note the qualification above: "If events were to move irreversibly in this direction, the United States should manage the situation to ameliorate humanitarian consequences, contain the spread of violence, and minimize regional instability."

Quite so. And guess what? "Events" are indeed "mov[ing] irreversibly" towards "devolution":

. . . As this NPR news report points out, sectarian violence is already causing demographic divisions in Baghdad. Such divisions may very well spread to other cities. Indeed, there is nothing to suggest that the phenomenon of sectarian violence will be restricted to Iraq.

The danger for American policymaking in Iraq may stem not from the drawing of lines between sectarian groups in Iraq, but rather from the refusal to draw lines. Whether America wills it or not, sectarian divisions are already taking place and they will result in violence that is more frequent and unmanageable unless the United States brings the situation under control. To do that, the U.S. may continue to try to work against any kind of planned division of Iraq. Or it may come to grips with the fact that the various Iraqi sects are finding it close to impossible to live with one another and accordingly, craft a viable partition/federalization plan.

So . . . how much more "irreversible" must the trends towards "devolution" be before the ISG concludes that partition/federalization must be an option, or that it is the only option remaining to cool down sectarian violence? How much more is to be endured before we remember that partition/federalization is not the bugaboo that the ISG makes it out to be? Perhaps a full and fair hearing for the partition/federalization option would have revealed flaws in the plan that would make it utterly unworkable at least in the near term. Fine. In that event, honest advocates of partition/federalization would be willing to drop that option for the near term if our minds were changed and if in good conscience we could no longer support the option after a fair hearing had been afforded to it. But a fair hearing has not been afforded to it by the ISG. Quite the contrary; no public hearing has been afforded. And yet, we are to swallow this rejection, take the ISG's word as gospel, ignore the whole "If events were to move irreversibly . . ." line that seems to indicate the ISG's recognition (but unwillingness to admit publicly) that de facto divisions already exist in Iraq and put the partition/federalization option in the rubbish bin until inevitably and "irreversibly" we are forced to retrieve it from the trash, dust it off and try to implement it--hoping that we are not too late and hoping that the time for implementation has not passed.

I feel warm and fuzzy about this prospect. How about you?

Linking the Arab-Israeli Peace Process With the Fate of Iraq.

I stand by what I wrote here:

Other than the fact that Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, Israel and the Palestinians are all located in the Middle East, it is difficult, if not impossible, to understand what the Arab-Israeli peace process has to do with the situation in Iraq. Even if we snapped our fingers and magically solved one problem, that would not lead automatically to the solution of the other problem. The insurgents in Iraq do not fight because they are aggrieved over the treatment of the Palestinians. They fight because they want to achieve political and military power in Iraq, power with which they could dominate Iraq and use it as a terrorist sanctuary and base. Solving the Arab-Israeli conflict will not encourage the insurgents to put aside this goal and there is no effort made to tie the Arab-Israeli conflict to the situation in Iraq except via an argument by assertion.

The irony of it all is that in the buildup to the first Gulf War, Saddam Hussein tried to use the Arab-Israeli conflict as a way of uniting the Arab world behind him. The first Bush Administration--assisted mightily by its Secretary of State--prevented this linkage from gaining legitimacy.

That Secretary of State was, of course, James Baker. He should have taken a lesson from the days of his youth and resisted making a linkage between Iraq and the Arab-Israeli conflict in the presentation of the ISG report.

How soon the news cycle updates itself! Since this morning, when I wrote those words, two new articles have come to my attention.

Here's the first. I know not what to make of this magazine because I know not its public reputation. I hope it is a trashy publication because if not, the scoop it offers us is frightening and disgusting to contemplate:

The White House has been examining a proposal by James Baker to launch a Middle East peace effort without Israel.

The peace effort would begin with a U.S.-organized conference, dubbed Madrid-2, and contain such U.S. adversaries as Iran and Syria. Officials said Madrid-2 would be promoted as a forum to discuss Iraq's future, but actually focus on Arab demands for Israel to withdraw from territories captured in the 1967 war. They said Israel would not be invited to the conference.

"As Baker sees this, the conference would provide a unique opportunity for the United States to strike a deal without Jewish pressure," an official said. "This has become the most hottest proposal examined by the foreign policy people over the last month."

Officials said Mr. Baker's proposal, reflected in the recommendations of the Iraq Study Group, has been supported by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns and National Intelligence Director John Negroponte. The most controversial element in the proposal, they said, was Mr. Baker's recommendation for the United States to woo Iran and Syria.

"Here is Syria, which is clearly putting pressure on the Lebanese democracy, is a supporter of terror, is both provisioning and supporting Hezbollah and facilitating Iran in its efforts to support Hezbollah, is supporting the activities of Hamas," National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley told a briefing last week. "This is not a Syria that is on an agenda to bring peace and stability to the region."

Officials said the Baker proposal to exclude Israel from a Middle East peace conference garnered support in the wake of Vice President Dick Cheney's visit to Saudi Arabia on Nov. 25. They said Mr. Cheney spent most of his meetings listening to Saudi warnings that Israel, rather than Iran, is the leading cause of instability in the Middle East.

"He [Cheney] didn't even get the opportunity to seriously discuss the purpose of his visit--that the Saudis help the Iraqi government and persuade the Sunnis to stop their attacks," another official familiar with Mr. Cheney's visit said. "Instead, the Saudis kept saying that they wanted a U.S. initiative to stop the Israelis' attack in Gaza and Cheney just agreed."

Under the Baker proposal, the Bush administration would arrange a Middle East conference that would discuss the future of Iraq and other Middle East issues. Officials said the conference would seek to win Arab support on Iraq in exchange for a U.S. pledge to renew efforts to press Israel to withdraw from the West Bank and Golan Heights.

"Baker sees his plan as containing something for everybody, except perhaps the Israelis," the official said. "The Syrians would get back the Golan, the Iranians would get U.S. recognition and the Saudis would regain their influence, particularly with the Palestinians."

This story seems to contain exceedingly poor sourcing and it would be astonishing to think that someone with the political antenna of Secretary Baker actually thinks that a Middle East peace conference sans Israel can be called to jump start a process leading to the resolution of all final status issues affecting the implementation of a comprehensive peace agreement between the Arabs and Israelis. And as shoddy as the Bush Administration's political operation is nowadays (nice job with the midterms, guys. What do you do for an encore?), I can't believe the Administration would go for the proposal either.

But this is far more credible and as such, far more worrisome:

A reference to Palestinians' "right of return" in the report issued by the high-level Iraq Study Group broke a diplomatic taboo which sparked immediate concern in Israel and surprise among Middle East policy experts.

The reference was buried deep inside a 160-page report that urged US President George W. Bush to renew efforts to revive Israel-Palestinian peace talks as part of a region-wide bid to end the chaos in Iraq.

"This report is worrisome for Israel particularly because, for the first time, it mentions the question of the 'right of return' for the Palestinian refugees of 1948," said a senior Israeli official, who was reacting to the US policy report on condition he not be identified.

A Middle East analyst who was involved in the Iraq Study Group discussions but did not participate in drafting the report expressed surprise when the reference was pointed out to him by a reporter.

"It's hard to know whether that language got in there because of carelessness -- I know there were many revisions up to the very last minute -- or whether it was a deliberate attempt to fuse something to the Bush rhetoric which wasn't there before," the analyst said.

Query: How many people think that someone as careful and as politically attuned as Secretary Baker "carelessly" threw "taboo" language into the ISG report?

The 1993 Oslo peace accords between Israel and the Palestinians calls for a resolution of the issue of Israeli and Palestinian "refugees" as part of a final status agreement that would include the creation of a Palestinian state.

But they do not use the term "right of return", which is a long-standing Palestinian demand -- rejected by Israel -- that Palestinians who fled or were driven out of what was to become the Jewish state in 1948, as well as their descendants, be allowed to return home.

Bush, in a 2002 speech in the White House Rose Garden, became the first US president to formally back the creation of an independent Palestinian state alongside Israel, but he also did not mention a right of Palestinian 'return'.

The story may have added that--as longtime Middle East peace negotiator Dennis Ross (who worked for the Reagan, Bush the Elder and Clinton Administrations) pointed out--in his "last, best offer" to the Israelis and Palestinians just before leaving office, President Clinton made the resolution of final status issues and the implementation of a comprehensive and lasting peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians dependent in part on the Palestinian decision to give up the right of return. President Clinton's action was entirely in line with longstanding American policy. Now, longstanding American policy is being junked?

"'Right of return' is not in Oslo I or Oslo II, it's not in the Bush Rose Garden speech, it's not even in UN 181, the original partition resolution -- it's part of the Palestinian discourse," said the US analyst.

Er . . . why are we doing this? What possible linkage is there between Iraq and an Arab-Israeli peace agreement? Why do the Palestinians get the right of return that deviates from longstanding American policy? What kind of Bizarro-diplomacy is this?

No one knows. No one can say.

I don't want to dump on the ISG because it is filled with people I believe to be fundamentally patriotic and concerned about national security. I am willing to give every member of the panel the benefit of the doubt regarding their motives and intentions. And I am willing to call publicly for the Bush Administration to continue to use the ISG as an advisory panel on the issue of Iraq--if only to try to maintain a bipartisan consensus on one of the most pressing and important national security issues to face us since the end of the Cold War.

But let no one turn a blind eye to the many flaws of the ISG report. It fails to lay out a comprehensive and convincing case regarding negotiations between Iran and Syria on the one side and the United States on the other. It fails to dismiss the partition/federalization option with anything approaching convincing arguments. And its advocacy concerning the linking of the Arab-Israeli peace process with the reconstruction effort in Iraq and the shape of a future Arab-Israeli peace agreement make no sense whatsoever. Let us credit the ISG with concentrating minds and generating debate. But the debate over how best to resolve the problems will continue beyond the presentation of the ISG report. And well it should, for the report itself is fundamentally flawed in three of its key particulars.