- Two Cheers For Wikileaks!
- Wikileaks Confirm Our Analysis of U.S. Policy and Middle East Politics
- Has the Obama Administration Failed Again?: No Freeze, No Talks, No Competence
Posted: 29 Nov 2010 09:30 AM PST By Barry Rubin The Wikileaks could be a beneficial revelation, a turning point, changing Western perceptions of the Middle East. After all, only the leak of U.S. secret documents is forcing--finally!--the mass media to recognize that its entire model of the Middle East has been wrong. For years, we have been told that the region revolves around the Arab-Israeli conflict. And that was to some extent true up through the end of the 1980s. But now the Middle East revolves around the battle between Islamists and nationalists, and especially between the Iran-led bloc (Iran, Syria, Hizballah, Hamas, Iraqi insurgents, the government that rules Turkey) and most of the other countries. Here's how the New York Times put it in an article: "The cables reveal how Iran’s ascent has unified Israel and many longtime Arab adversaries — notably the Saudis — in a common cause. Publicly, these Arab states held their tongues, for fear of a domestic uproar and the retributions of a powerful neighbor. Privately, they clamored for strong action — by someone else. "If they seemed obsessed with Iran, though, they also seemed deeply conflicted about how to deal with it — with diplomacy, covert action or force. In one typical cable, a senior Omani military officer is described as unable to decide what is worse: `A strike against Iran’s nuclear capability and the resulting turmoil it would cause in the Gulf, or inaction and having to live with a nuclear-capable Iran.'” Could this possibly be a turning point in persuading Western governments, the media, and academia to deal with reality? Now, if you want to understand this Middle East-- and the tasks for the U.S. government in dealing with this kind of Middle East--I plead with you to read my article "U.S. Middle East Policy: Too Many Challenges and yet a Single Theme." Note 1: Please keep in mind that the leaks consist of two totally different parts. --Intelligence materials are direct from sources and may be totally inaccurate. A report saying that an Iranian leader has cancer, for example, doesn't mean it is true but merely what some sources are saying. --Reports on meetings and discussions are accurate, reflecting policy positions of officials. Note 2: The concept of two cheers--instead of three--means that something has done some good even though one doesn't approve of it completely. PS: Historical note: I haven't heard anyone denouncing Wikileaks mention The Pentagon Papers, which was regarded as a heroic action. I have no opinion on that but failing to refer to what seems to me to be a parallel situation reflects the general lack of historical perspective.   |
Posted: 29 Nov 2010 08:49 AM PST By Barry Rubin Please forgive me for saying this, but what really amazed me in reading the Wikileaks was how thoroughly they proved points I’ve been making for years. I wouldn’t have had the nerve to say that except that readers have been telling me the same thing. 1. Iran steadily smuggled arms to Hizballah using various means including in ambulances and medical vehicles during the 2006 war. This violates the laws of war. At times, the media has condemned Israel for attacking ambulances though it showed Hamas was also using such vehicles for military and arms-smuggling operations. Moreover, the postwar UN force proved consistently ineffective in stopping smuggling while the U.S. government did not denounce Iran, Syria, and Hizballah for breaking the ceasefire arrangements. 2. Israeli leaders have repeatedly made clear in diplomatic discussions their acceptance of a two-state solution but warned that the Palestinian leadership sought Israel’s destruction. 3. Arab states have constantly been warning the United States about the threat from Iran as their highest priority, even urging the United States to attack Iran itself. Note that Arab leaders did not condition their oppositon to Iran or call for a U.S. attack on settling the Arab-Israeli or Israel-Palestinian conflicts. This is contrary to what Administration officials, academia, and parts of the mass media who argue these issues are basically linked and that is why the conflicts must be "solved" before doing much else. As I've told you, the Arab regimes worry first and foremost about Iran and have greatly downgraded their interest in the conflict or antagonism toward Israel. 4. Iran and North Korea cooperated to provide Tehran with long-rang missiles that were shipped to Hizballah. 5. One week after President Bashar al-Asad promised a top State Department official that he would not send “new” arms to Hizballah, the United States complained that it had information that Syria was providing increasingly sophisticated weapons to the group. Yet the U.S. government did not take strong action. (Reminds me of how Bashar promised the Bush Administration that he would stop buying oil from Iran in violation of UN sanctions but continued doing so; and how Yasir Arafat promised that he had nothing to do with terrorism and arms smuggling from Iran and then was shown to have lied. Is there a pattern here?) 6. Israel has been warning the United States about how Iran obtaining nuclear weapons would destabilize the region, not just create a danger of an Iranian attack on Israel. 7. U.S. Officials in Turkey think that the current government is in fact an Islamist one, though the U.S. government (and media) keeps insisting it is some kind of democratic-reform-minded centrist regime. 8. The U.S. government ignored repeated pleas from Israel to press Egypt to block smuggling of military equipment into the Gaza Strip. Here are some sources for the raw materials: http://www.guardian.co.uk/ http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/ http://www.guardian.co.uk/ http://yidwithlid.blogspot. http://www.israellycool.com/ http://cablegate.wikileaks. US Cables on Iran: http://www.guardian.co.uk/ Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His latest books are The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley), and The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan). The website of the GLORIA Center is athttp://www.gloria-center.org and of his blog, Rubin Reports, http://www.rubinreports.   |
Posted: 28 Nov 2010 02:04 PM PST By Barry Rubin While the outcome still isn’t clear, it seems that a new example of failure and humiliation is unfolding for the Obama Administration’s Middle East policy. It appears increasingly unlikely that the president’s high-profile effort to restart Israel-Palestinian talks will succeed during the remainder of 2010 or even well beyond that time. This Administration has had a very clear idea of what it wanted to achieve: 1. A comprehensive Israel-Palestinian and Arab-Israeli peace. 2. Getting rid of the Arab-Israeli conflict in the belief that this will reduce terrorism and strengthen US power in region and US interests. 3. Getting rid of the conflict to get Arab support on Iraq, Iran, and Aghanistan. The embarrassment is taking place due to faulty assumptions about these goals and how to achieve them: --That a high-profile effort would serve U.S. interests. By showing American engagement on the issue, the Administration thought it would please Arab and Muslim-majority countries so as to gain their support on other issues. This didn’t work. --That, at best, a high-profile campaign would be likely to succeed in bringing rapid progress toward comprehensive peace. That obviously isn’t working. --That , at minimum, they could at least get the two sides to sit down to pretend talks where nothing actually happened but at least it could be portrayed as a diplomatic achievement. Even that isn’t working and that's really embarrassing. Part of the problem is due to the Administration’s additional wrong assumption that the Palestinians are eager to negotiate and get a state plus the belief that the current Palestinian Authority (PA) leadership could deliver a deal. In fact, both of these ideas are wrong, too. The PA leadership can't--and doesn't want to--deliver even on holding talks that go nowhere. Most of the Palestinian leadership and the masses, too, are still locked into the belief that a combination of struggle and intransigence will bring them total victory some day in wiping Israel off the map. And even though they are more moderate than this, neither “President” Mahmoud Abbas nor Prime Minister Salam Fayyad are strong or determined enough even to attempt to change that orientation. Another part of the problem is the Administration’s mistaken view that it could pressure or bribe Israel and the PA into doing what it wants. Yet since neither side has faith in the Obama Administration, both know that it’s weak, and Israel has seen that Washington doesn’t keep commitments, their incentive for cooperation is reduced. In the PA’s case at least, the United States doesn’t even put on any pressure or criticism. In Israel's case the Administration has not put on the level of pressure that its more extreme officials (and outside supporters) would like to see, though that wouldn't work either. But even that’s not all. There’s every indication that the Administration has incompetently handled the actual negotiations about holding negotiations. It focused on getting Israeli concessions without firming up the PA side, thus allowing the PA to demand more. The offer to Israel was presented in a confused manner and it still isn’t clear what precisely is to be given in exchange for a three-month construction freeze. Moreover, part of the package that led people to say that it was so "generous" that Israel was being “bribed” seems to consist of things that the United States has always provided, like support in the UN or maintaining Israel’s strategic advantage over its enemies. The whole thing has turned into a mess and this isn’t the first time that’s happened in Obama policy on the issue. To cite just four examples, there was: --The raising of the construction freeze idea in the first place; --The position that promises made by the Bush Administration would not be fulfilled by his successor; --Praising Israel for a construction freeze that didn’t include Jerusalem and then screaming when Israel fulfilled the agreed conditions; --And announcing last year that intensive Israel-PA negotiations would begin in two months when no such agreement had been made by the PA. Yet even that’s not all. Why did the administration seek a three-month freeze (originally a two-month freeze) at all? What was the purpose of this clearly useless goal? After all, even if the Administration obtained the freeze there would have been twelve weeks of stagnant conversation—purchased by the United States at a high price—followed by the break-down of the talks. As an election ploy the idea at least made sense but if that was the motive the whole frantic exercise is now useless. So far the Obama Administration has achieved a remarkable record of failure on this issue. It is, of course, understandable that the U.S. government was unable to solve the long-standing conflict--though making over-optimistic claims over what might be achieved was a self-inflicted wound--but it actually succeeding in moving the diplomatic process backwards. Has the Obama done much harm regarding Israel-Palestinian issues? Directly, not so much since there was never much chance for dramatic progress. Yet for the Obama Administration's own reputation and credibility in the region this has been disastrous. Finally and worst of all, it isn’t clear that the current government has learned anything from the experience. The above article could be taken as a highly critical bashing of the Obama Administration. But the sad thing is that it is totally accurate albeit not--in order to save time and to promote clarity--cloaked in bland language. Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His latest books are The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley), and The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan). The website of the GLORIA Center is athttp://www.gloria-center.org and of his blog, Rubin Reports, http://www.rubinreports. Please be subscriber 17,956 (and daily reader 19,956.). Put your email address in the upper right-hand box of the page athttp://www.rubinreports. We rely on your contributions. Tax-deductible donation via PayPal or credit card: click Donate button, top right corner of this page:http://www.rubinreports. |
