The Pakistani Spectator

Dennis Ross’ redeployment from the State Department to a more prominent position at the NSC in the White House raises two sets of interrelated questions.  Why, and with what consequences?   Competing answers to the former include the following.  (1) Ross was relieved of his Iran policy coordinator brief so as to remove a possible obstacle to an opening with Tehran. (2) Ross was brought closer to the center of Middle East decision-making so as to enable Obama and General Jones to benefit fully from his unmatched experience in negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians, close ties with senior officials and supposed diplomatic skills. (3) Ross was brought in to provide additional political cover as the White House plots moves likely to antagonize the Netanyahu government and its backers in the United States.  There is reason to believe that a combination of motives (2) and (3) offers the most persuasive explanation.  The Palestinian issue was put at the top of the administration’s foreign policy agenda by the President in his Cairo speech.   Whether Iran is seen as less compelling or not, Ross’ assets there are outweighed by his liabilities.

The White Houses’ approach to the combustible Palestinian issue seems predicated on four assumptions.  Each is dubious.  The key assumption is belief in the President’s ability to wrest from the Israeli leadership concessions of sufficient importance and scope as to lay the foundations for a durable settlement - that is one.  Obama seems prepared to invest considerable political capital and personal prestige in the effort.  Success, as he sees it, will require making his demands on the Israelis credible – that is two.  Credibility, in turn, means neutralizing the powerful Israeli lobby and its supporters in Congress – that is three.  Ross’ involvement, along with that of Rahm Emanuel, becomes a crucial political shock absorber for the White House. Another critical assumption concerns the Palestinians.  It is the conviction that the commitments extracted from Netanyahu et al will prove adequate to win their acceptance by the Palestinians – that is four.  A complementary premise is that Ross, and Emanuel, share the value that Obama attaches to a resolution of the conflict – that is five.

All these suppositions are likely to prove illusory.  The current Israeli government is even more resistant to proposals for a viable two state solution than its recalcitrant predecessors.  It will bend but not break unless Obama threatens a rupture of Washington’s all purpose commitment to the Jewish state.  There is nothing in his performance to date that suggests he has either the necessary conviction or courage to do that. On issue after issue, he has shown a strong reluctance to challenge established thinking and to confront powerful interests.  Just the opposite.  He instinctively tips his hat to every establishment he encounters - be it Wall Street, the military, the intelligence community, or the health care industry.  He is little more aggressive in pressing Congress.  Obama is demonstratively someone whose loud bark is not followed but much bite.  Retreat from positions boldly declared has become the hallmark of his administration.  At times, the retreat follows brief skirmishes.  At other times, it is preemptive – prompted by skirmishes in the President’s own mind.  This is the singular Obama style evident on major domestic issues.  The process begins with a firm statement of the problem, a clarion call for action, and a pledge to force change.  Then, there is the period of eerie calm – no plan is unveiled, no campaign strategy executed.  There ensues an opaque, slow-motion free-for-all involving a fractured Congress, advocates, lobbies and the media with the White House staff operating in the shadows behind the scenes. Among the protagonists are the very parties that are the cause of the problem.  The very idea of a compelling national interest gets lost in the melee. Obama makes brief public appearances punctuated by further proclamations of the imperative to act, still without any specifics or sustained effort. Whatever comes out of this muddle is declared historic and promising. Thus the ramshackle approach taken toward the financial crisis.

What does this mean for a possible initiative on Palestine?  Several consequences jump to mind.  First, the goal will be stated in general terms so as no to set a clear marker of success.   Second, Obama is likely to overestimate his personal powers of persuasion as reinforced by the might and authority of the United States.  That is to say, he will expect to bring the parties into line with only slight resort to coercion.  Accordingly, his instinctive avoidance of head-on confrontations will leave him unprepared, psychologically and politically, for the requisite arm twisting with its inescapable political reaction from the Israeli lobby at home.  Third, the expectation that the Ross/Emanuel tandem can protect his flank will prove ill-founded  – even if the two of them do genuinely share his commitment and interest in a settlement.  Fourth, he is likely to underestimate what terms and conditions will be acceptable to the Palestinians.  There is no sign that he or his advisors appreciate how constrained Abbas is by the reality of Hamas’ popularity eclipsing that of Fatah.  They may well be under the further illusion that the Hamas issue can be finessed by extracting from the Israelis such generous concessions that Hamas will have no choice but to go along with an outlined accord that meets with an overwhelmingly favorable response on the part of all Palestinians.

The ultimate outcome in all probability will be failure. There is a real possibility of it ending in a tragic disaster for all parties embroiled in the conflict.  In either event, the ripple effects will spread widely across the region to the detriment of America’s other parlous engagements.  The one thing that we can say with some certainty is that the White House will declare any result, short of a return to widespread violence, to be a breakthrough and will call on all parties to keep a positive attitude – going forward.

Michael Brenner

June 23, 2009

Note:  I am writing this from North Africa where conversations lead to a few revealing conclusions.  First, the Palestinian issue cuts much deeper here than do any of the other American actions in the Middle East.  Second, the political class on the whole is waiting to see whether Obama’s actions are a clear break from the past.  His rhetorical flourishes in Cairo have been pleasing to hear but judgment on the man remains suspended.  No one mentions his protests of the French ban on headscarves in schools as tantamount to a lifting of the ban on the delivery of necessities to the people of Gaza – those with or those without headscarves. Finally, people here are no less savvy than their Washington counterparts – lest we forget.