Diplomacy

President Obama didn't get any concessions during his recent visit to the People's Republic of China, and no one should be surprised. One of the most important lessons in life is that if you make a series of big mistakes, you should expect to pay a price for them. Back in 2000, the United States was running a budget surplus, our military was second-to-none, our image in most parts of the world was quite positive, and our economy had been growing steadily for nearly a decade. Some of that growth may have been illusory, however, and the next eight years featured a daunting combination of misfortunes (9/11, Hurricane Katrina), and self-inflicted wounds (e.g., the financial crisis, the invasion of Iraq, the endless war in Afghanistan, the abandonment of any sense of fiscal responsibility, etc.). There's no magic button or clever diplomatic sleight of hand that will allow the United States to retrieve its former position without some real sacrifices, and so far, nobody seems eager to make the changes that might be necessary.

Hence Obama's modest demeanor in Beijing. No president is going to be able to lay down the law on human rights, exchange rates, or sanctions on Iran when China owns over a trillion dollars in U.S. assets, when the U.S. economy is on life support, and when the American military Is mired in two losing wars. Until we get our house in order over here, nobody should expect China to be especially responsive to our wishes or expect its leaders to view the "American model" as especially appealing. An wide-open marketplace of ideas hardly looks attractive when the result is the intellectual ascendancy of Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh.  

The follies of the past eight years were the greatest gift the United States could have given Beijing, and Obama's conduct in Beijing was the inevitable result. And if we keep doing what we've been doing (see under: Afghanistan, Middle East, etc.), I wouldn't expect things to change.

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I'm still preoccupied with finishing a conference paper (the topic: Why it is so hard for states to "cut their losses" in wars of choice, and how they can do so more effectively?), and so I can't do a lengthy blog post today. But in addition to the excellent commentary provided by FP's Marc Lynch, I recently came across two short pieces that are well worth reading and I wanted to alert you to them.

The first is Tony ("Rootless Cosmopolitan") Karon's analysis of Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas's announcement that he is not going to run for re-election. Karon suggests that this is partly "political theater," but makes it clear that it is a setback for Obama's increasingly incoherent Middle East "peace effort." 

The second is by Robert Dreyfuss on The Nation's blog, right here. It is, to say the least, a rather damning indictment of U.S. Middle East policy since Obama took office. And the obvious question is: Why has Obama's team caved so fast and so quickly, after its promising start? 

I never thought I'd write the following words, but is it possible that Obama's handling of the I-P peace process might actually end up being worse than George Bush's? It's still too soon to go there, but the fact that the question even occurred to me ain't exactly encouraging.

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Today is the 30th anniversary of the Iranian seizure of the U.S. embassy in Tehran, an event that did as much as any other to seal Iranian-American acrimony over the past three decades. In a rather new development, however, the "Green Movement" chose to commemorate "Pupil's Day" (the Iranian name for this anniversary) with various anti-government demonstrations. You can follow some of the action on Andrew Sullivan’s blog here.

As one would expect, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khameini gave a combative speech commemorating the anniversary, specifically condemning the United States for its "arrogant" interference in Iranian affairs and casting doubt on Obama’s recent efforts to start a dialogue. He acknowledged that Obama "has said nice things," but went to criticize the Administration’s overall approach. Money quote:

On the face of things they say let us negotiate. But alongside this they threaten us and say that if these negotiations do no reach a desirable result they will do this and that. Do you call this negotiation? This is like the relationship between a wolf and a lamb ...

I'd question the characterization of Iran as a "lamb," but I think this statement (and indeed, the whole speech) demonstrates how hard it is to unwind the spiral of suspicion between Washington and Iran. Given the long record of enmity, and each side’s tendency to view the other’s behavior as both hostile and duplicitous, even well-intended gestures of accommodation are likely to be seen as insincere or even deceitful, as a trick intended to take advantage. Any diplomatic misstep merely confirms the sense of suspicion and resentment on both sides, and missteps are probably unavoidable. If this effort is going to succeed, it will take at least as much patience as we are being asked to exhibit vis-à-vis Afghanistan.

Unfortunately, Obama's own remarks on this occasion aren’t going to help, at least not in the short term. Although he reiterated his desire “to move beyond the past,” some of his comments are bound to reinforce Iranian suspicions instead of mollifying them. He said that "we do not interfere in Iran’s internal affairs," which most Iranians would regard as a bald-faced lie.  And they would be right, given recent revelations of covert U.S. programs to destabilize the Iranian regime. He also said "we have recognized Iran’s international right to peaceful nuclear power." He’s technically correct, insofar as the Western powers have offered to supply Iran's reactors with fuel produced outside the country. But to Iran, our insistence that Iran give up enrichment looks like an attempt to keep them dependent on U.S. benevolence and as a denial of Iran's rights under the NPT.

Obama also reiterated America’s "great respect for the people of Iran" and said “the world continues to bear witness to their powerful calls for justice, and their courageous pursuit of universal rights” (my emphasis). These statements can only be interpreted as an appeal to the Iranian people over the heads of the clerical regime, and as a statement of solidarity with the Green Movement. As such, it is bound to make the government of Iran -- with whom the United States is trying to negotiate -- even more suspicious of U.S. intentions.

One could argue that Obama is playing the long game here; that he is betting that the regime is unsteady, that the Green Movement is the wave of the future, and that the United States wouldn't be able to cut a deal with the clerics in any case. In this interpretation, he's willing to jeopardize or even scuttle a possible short-term deal in order to cultivate support among the forces he thinks will eventually triumph.

If that is what he’s doing, it is a huge gamble. Authoritarian regimes do not normally collapse according to a timetable convenient to those in Washington; instead, they show an annoying tendency to hang on far longer than outsiders hope or expect. If statements like this help derail the broader international effort to convince Iran to forego nuclear weapons and the clerics remain in charge, then Obama will have done no better than Bush and will face growing pressure for military action. And perhaps it is worth remembering that Mir Hossein Moussavi supports the nuclear program too, and has been condemning Ahmadinejad for being too forthcoming in the provisional nuclear deal whose fate is now uncertain.

Of course, these glitches in Obama's statement could also be a sign of muddled thinking in the White House or the State Department, which would hardly be surprising in light of some other recent stumbles.

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I'm crashing to finish a conference paper on why "wars of choice" last so long (and how to end them), so blogging will be fairly light this week. In the meantime, you might want to take a look at the CSPAN broadcast of a conference on Capitol Hill last week on Afghanistan policy, sponsored by the RAND Corporation's Center for Middle East Public Policy. Most of the speakers were thoughtful and worth a listen, although I was struck by how even the advocates of "staying the course" did not seem very confident of success. The "outside the box" perspective (in other words, disengagement) was represented by Chris Preble of CATO and yours truly. If you're interested in what we had to say, my presentation begins at about 2:35.00 into the broadcast, and Chris is right after me.

Building on Robert Farley, Matt Yglesias has a smart post about the value of playing "hard to get" in American diplomacy. The basic idea is simple: the United States is very powerful and fairly secure, and so our allies usually need our support more than we need theirs. If we understand that fact, we gain a lot of leverage over their conduct by making it clear that our support depends on their cooperation. If we forget that fact, or we start obsessing about our own credibility and need to demonstrate "toughness," we lose that leverage and others start taking advantage of us.

Of course, I think this point is smart because I made the same argument in the conclusion of Taming American Power. Check out pp. 240-243. And I'm glad Robert and Matt are resurrecting this line of argument, because new ideas don't catch on unless people repeating them over and over and over ...

One of the many dubious arguments now being invoked to justify an open-ended U.S. commitment in Afghanistan is the idea that withdrawal will damage U.S. credibility and cause other U.S. clients to doubt our staying power. It's possible that getting out would cause a few weak and vulnerable leaders to reconsider their reliance on the United States, but is that necessarily a bad thing? The United States has been obsessed with maintaining "credibility" for decades, but we tend to forget that our credibility is more our clients' problem than it is ours. That's one of the nice things about being a superpower: even when our interests are partly tied up with the fates of others, most U.S. allies need our support a lot more than we need theirs.

In the case of Afghanistan, we are fighting on behalf of a corrupt and ineffective government that has resisted repeated calls for reform. If we were to stop throwing resources at it and it subsequently collapsed, we would be sending a powerful signal to other U.S. clients around the world. The message? Don't expect Uncle Sucker to back you forever if you can't or won’t shape up. Among other things, it might have a salutary effect on the government of Pakistan, and relieve us of the burden of constantly meddling in their affairs, which only makes us less popular there. (On that front, I'm beginning to think someone ought to filch Richard Holbrooke's passport; the more he visits the region, the more the Pakistani people seem to hate us). 

Instead of signaling a loss of American will, getting out of Afghanistan would remind other governments that the United States is not a philanthropic organization. Americans are willing to support competent and effective leaders whose interests are compatible with ours, but we are not in the business of endlessly subsidizing incompetence. In other words, we would telling friends and foes that we back winners, and we aren't inclined to waste resources on losers. So if you want our help, get your act together.  What's wrong with sending that message?

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Secretary of State Hillary Clinton went to Moscow earlier this week, seeking Russian support for tighter sanctions on Iran. And what did she get for his efforts? A few nice photo ops, plus an unambiguous "nyet" from Russian Foreign Minister, Sergey Lavrov.

I have a couple of questions.

Did she go there believing that she really would get a meaningful commitment for tighter sanctions from the Russians? Or did she know beforehand that she wasn't going to get anywhere, but felt she had to go through the motions anyway?

Frankly, I don't know which answer would worry me more. If it's the former, she's getting very bad advice from her Russia experts, who clearly have no idea how Russia's leaders perceive their own interests. If the latter, she has no business wasting time and effort on a lost cause and giving Lavrov the opportunity to score points by stiffing her in public. The Secretary of State of a great power shouldn't be flying off to foreign capitals with the diplomatic equivalent of a tin cup, pleading with them to comply with our wishes. You're supposed to wait until your assistants have got the deal more-or-less in place, and then you show up to make the final push and iron out the last sticky details. Either way, this just wasn't very smart diplomacy.

And let's not overlook the obvious possibility that Lavrov was right: right now isn't an opportune time to threaten Iran with more sanctions. The initial round of talks were encouraging (though there's still a long way to go), and brandishing threats is probably the best way to derail them before any additional progress is made. There are undoubtedly people in the United States (and Iran) who would like to see that happen, but I didn't think Hillary was one of them.

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If you ever questioned whether Israel's occupation of the West Bank and Gaza was bad for the United States and for Israel too, you ought to ponder Turkey's decision to suspend a multinational air-force exercise last weekend. Why? Because it's a prime example of how pursuing the goal of "greater Israel" -- which means retaining control of the West Bank and Gaza and preventing a true two-state solution -- is undermining U.S. and Israeli interests.

Here's the background: For the past decade or more, Turkey has been Israel's closest ally in the Muslim world. It has bought a lot of weapons from Israeli defense manufacturers, permitted the Israeli Air Force to conduct military exercises over Turkish airspace (which is especially valuable given Israel's small size), and been an effective mediator between Israel and some of its adversaries. It was by all accounts a very valuable relationship.

Unfortunately, Israel's assault on Gaza back in December and January appalled many Turks and embarrassed the Turkish government, which had been helping facilitate back-channel negotiations between Israel, Syria, and Hamas. Turkish anger at Israel's behavior led to the infamous spat between Prime Minister Recip Erdogan and Israeli President Shimon Peres at Davos in January, and opposition to the proposed air exercise -- which would have involved U.S., Israeli, Turkish, and other NATO forces -- had been growing in recent months. In particular, critics argued that Turkey's armed forces should not be collaborating with the same air force that had pummeled the defenseless Gazans last winter.

Last weekend, Turkey announced that it would not permit Israel to participate in the planned exercise, with the Foreign Ministry explicitly invoking the situation in Gaza as justification. (There's a story in Ha'aretz today suggesting it was really a dispute over arms shipments, but that's frankly pretty hard to believe). The announcement led Israel's ever-compliant U.S. patron to declare that it would not participate either, which in turn led other NATO states to withdraw too. So the exercise was "postponed," and it remains to be seen whether the dispute will be resolved and the maneuvers rescheduled. Meanwhile, Turkey and Syria held a successful diplomatic meeting earlier this week and announced a wide-ranging series of agreements, publicly pledging to "build a common future." Ha'aretz reports that the two countries will conduct military exercises in the near future as well.

Now step back and consider how we got here. A good relationship with Turkey has been a major asset for Israel and strong Israeli-Turkish relations are good for the United States (which is an ally of both countries). The United States, Turkey, Israel, and other NATO countries benefit from joint military exercises. But because Israel continues to occupy the West Bank and Gaza and refuses to allow the Palestinians to have a state of their own, it faces continued resistance from groups like Hamas, including the firing of rockets at Israeli towns. And because Israel's leaders believe that disproportionate force is the only way to deal with that resistance, the result is Operation Cast Lead, where the IDF lays waste to Gaza and kills a lot of innocent civilians. And this inflames public opinion in Turkey (and elsewhere), thereby placing a valuable strategic relationship at risk.

Israel's defenders often claim that it is a major strategic asset for the United States, but Israel's pariah status within the region reduces its strategic value significantly. It explains why Israel could not participate in the 1991 or 2003 wars with Iraq, and why it is difficult for Arab governments who share Israel's concerns about Iran to openly collaborate with Israel or United States to address that issue. And make no mistake: The occupation is now the main barrier to Israel's full acceptance within the region, as the 2007 Arab League peace plan makes clear. If the Israeli-Palestinian conflict were resolved and Israel had normal relations with the Arab world, then the United States would not pay a diplomatic price for backing Israel so strongly and Israel could join forces with us (and with other regional powers) when common challenges arose. Ending the occupation would also safeguard Israel's relations with countries like Turkey, instead of undermining them. In addition to its obvious human costs, in short, the occupation is a strategic liability for Israel and the United States.

Barack Obama spoke the truth when he said that a "two-state solution is in Israel's interest, the Palestinians' interest, America's interest, and the world's interest." Unfortunately, the U.S. president's actions to date have not brought that goal any closer. In the meantime, those who continue to oppose any effort to use U.S. leverage to bring about a two-state solution are unwittingly harming the two countries they care about most.

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