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Hawks, Doves Could Spar On Mideast Policy
Obama’s emerging foreign affairs team, which includes Brent Scowcroft, left, and could include Hillary Clinton and Gen. James Jones, brings a range of views, and a challenge for the new president, to the White House. getty images by James D. Besser A Barack Obama administration that some feared would move in lockstep with the Democratic left is showing early signs of taking a much more centrist tack — even as the president-elect assembles an inner circle with widely diverse views. And nowhere is that more evident than in his early foreign policy appointments and in the voices that apparently have his ear on Middle East issues.
“Early appointments to the foreign policy team are reflective of what we’re seeing overall: they are bringing in top people with strong credentials, without regard to ideology,” said Hadar Susskind, Washington director for the Jewish Council for Public Affairs. “Making that work will depend on strong and confident leadership from Obama himself.” This week there were stirrings from pro-Israel activists unhappy about some of the voices being heard in the new corridors of power. “The fact he is listening to Scowcroft and [Zbigniew] Brzezinski is troubling,” said Shoshana Bryen, senior director for security policy of the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA), who said the views of the two former national security advisers reflect the outmoded thinking of the Oslo and Madrid era. The two published a Washington Post op-ed last week that revived the idea that creating Israeli-Palestinian peace is the key to solving a wide range of Mideast crises, including Iraq and Iran — the concept of “linkage” that major pro-Israel leaders vehemently dispute. But, reflecting the contradictions in a nascent administration that values diverse perspectives, Bryen also sees pluses in the expected appointment of Clinton as secretary of state, including her husband’s experiences in the failed 2000 Camp David peace talks. “There are no wallflowers, yes-men or sycophants here,” said David Harris, executive director of the American Jewish Committee. “So far, these are all people who come to the table with a lot to say. This is an administration that will not intimidate the intellectual dissidents in its midst to remain silent in the decision making process.” Not surprisingly, the Obama transition team has focused heavily on assembling the team that will confront the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, but the contours of the new administration’s top foreign policy leadership were also taking shape. This week there were numerous reports that Defense Secretary Robert Gates has agreed to stay on for at least a year, a bipartisan move rare in modern times. Obama and Clinton, bitter rivals in the Democratic primaries, have reportedly reached an agreement that will be formally announced soon after the Thanksgiving holiday. Clinton emerged during her 2000 Senate campaign as a pro-Israel hawk, and she has spent the past eight years toughening her positions on Israel’s security and on the need for a muscular policy in dealing with Iran. Robert Lieber, a professor of government at Georgetown University, said Clinton helps offset Obama’s “striking lack of experience, especially in foreign policy, and his idealistic and somewhat unrealistic notions of foreign policy, as expressed in his very earliest campaign rhetoric.” Those concerns, he said, have been “largely alleviated by the serious way in which he’s gone about the transition, and about the appointments he has made — and not just in the area of foreign policy. They are experienced, pragmatic, open minded and not identified with the left wing of the party.” Clinton, he said, would bring to the State Department job strong foreign policy experience, worldwide name recognition — and the experiences of her husband, former President Bill Clinton, who, according to his memoirs, was disillusioned by Palestinian performance at the failed Camp David peace talks in 2000. An Obama-Clinton foreign policy, Lieber said, will strive to “appear engaged” in the ongoing effort to hammer out an Israeli-Palestinian peace, but may actually focus on more attainable goals, including pressuring Arab states to become more actively involved, training Palestinian security forces and possibly moving forward on the Syria-Israel front. “I’m guessing that they will recognize that an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement is not reachable now, but that there are things they can and will do that are symbolic as well as substantive,” he said. Steven Spiegel, a UCLA political scientist and official with the pro-peace process Israel Policy Forum (IPF), called Clinton an “inspired, challenging and potentially risky appointment. As an early supporter of the Iraq war, she will provide reassurance to those in the region who don’t want us to leave Iraq prematurely. She is a very strong supporter of Israel; that’s why the Arab parties are so nervous. The Iranians probably don’t know what to make of this appointment; she’s less interested in dialogue than Obama, but not uninterested.” Even some ardent hawks had some positive things to say about Clinton’s expected job change. But Ganchrow argued that Obama’s Mideast policies will also be shaped by the numerous lower level appointees yet to be named. “You can come up with so many permutations that it is difficult to predict the future,” he wrote. Another appointment at the top — national security adviser — is stirring up low-grade controversy. This week it appeared that the post will go to Gen. James Jones, a retired career Marine officer who served as the Bush administration’s special envoy for Middle East security. In that role, he reportedly helped prepare a report that slammed Israel for its policies on the West Bank and for not cooperating more actively in beefing up Palestinian security forces — a report the Bush administration quashed. Jones also called for NATO forces to replace the Israel Defense Forces on the West Bank, which has prompted strong opposition from right-of-center bloggers — including former AIPAC staffer Steve Rosen, whose trial on charges of improperly possessing sensitive government information remains on hold. JINSA’s Bryen said Jones is “pragmatic; he is a Marine, after all. He is a very good soldier. He was given a mission by [Secretary of State Condoleezza] Rice to create Palestinian security architecture. He went to do the mission he was given.” The real question, she said, is how Jones will prioritize national security issues since “helping a president determine foreign policy priorities” is a key part of the role of a national security adviser. Another intriguing element in the still-brewing Obama administration mix is the informal role of Brent Scowcroft, a national security adviser during the Ford and George H. W. Bush years. Scowcroft, 83, won’t get any major job, but it has become clearer in recent weeks that Obama has sought his advice on Mideast matters. Scowcroft has long been a red flag for major pro-Israel groups because of his role as part of a late-1990s foreign policy team including former Secretary of State James Baker III that clashed repeatedly with the government in Jerusalem. The Washington Post op-ed he co-authored with Zbigniew Brzezinski last week confirmed for some critics their view that the new administration was already tilting toward brute-force peacemaking. “It’s as if they were writing in a vacuum, because the Palestinian side is just not there for serious peace negotiations,” said Lenny Ben-David, a former Israeli diplomat in Washington and onetime AIPAC official. “It tilts to the Carteresque,” a reference to former President Jimmy Carter. But MJ Rosenberg a progressive blogger and IPF official, praised Scowcroft’s status as an informal adviser to the new administration. “Take everything you hate about the neocons and think ‘exact opposite’ and you have Scowcroft,” he wrote this week. “He was against the Iraq war. Opposes confrontation with Iran. And wants to use every resource at our command to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and implement the two-state solution now, which is best for both Israel and the United States. Although numerous positions remain to be filled, most analysts see emerging a strongly pro-Israel administration that will press forward with a more active U.S. peace role, but in close coordination with Israel and possibly without the conflict of past peace pushes. But predicting how that broad policy will play out in policy is difficult because Israel is going through its own dramatic democratic transition and because so many key Washington players are not yet in place. “It’s looking like it will be a very standard administration, in terms of foreign policy,” said Edward Walker, a former State Department official and onetime U.S. ambassador in Tel Aviv. “It is not going to be radical or seek to make headlines, especially in the Middle East.” |
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