Tuesday, December 23, 2008 at 8:56 am
Obama Mideast Watch: Ross vs. Kurtzer
Middle East watchers are trying to follow a behind the scenes contest for Barack Obama's ear when it comes to the region. The winner could become the incoming administration's single most influential advisor on the area--perhaps Obama's Middle East czar. Obama has properly emphasized that as president he will set the policy, and his subordinates will be tasked with implementing it. Yet his choice of Middle East guru-- a special envoy, or whatever the title may be-- will be an important signal of his inclinations. And given the complexities of the Middle East, and the complex intersection of those complexities with American politics nowadays, it's hard to exaggerate the influence such a position could have as the question of war and peace hangs in the balance in Israel, Palestine, Iraq, Lebanon and Iran.
Judging from press reports such as here, here and here, the contest includes among others two Obama campaign advisors with very different perspectives: Dennis Ross, Bill Clinton's Arab-Israeli negotiator, and Daniel Kurtzer, former U.S. ambassador to Egypt and Israel. Ross and Kurtzer are both Jewish; during the campaign, they sought to rally American Jewish voters wary of indications that Obama was lukewarm toward Israel. Each has influential supporters in the Beltway's foreign policy establishment.
My take is that Ross would be a significant disappointment, Kurtzer an excellent choice. The contest, in fact, is more a tussle between two approaches to Middle East policy making than between individuals. The selection of a Dennis Ross would represent the past, which is to say the failure of U.S. policy in the region; Kurtzer would represent a change--a subtle change perhaps, but change nonetheless--given his frank acknowledgment of what has gone wrong with U.S. policy and a common sense prescription for getting it right.
Ross' s deep personal role in past failed policy ought to be enough to disqualify him from any supremo role. You can read an exhaustive, self-serving account of Ross's statecraft in his 815-page memoir, The Missing Peace: The Inside Story of the Fight for Middle East Peace but here's my critical, very abbreviated version. He's already held the job of chief U.S. Middle East envoy for 12 years, through the Bush 41 and Clinton administrations, and wasn't very good at it. After the landmark Madrid peace conference, he and his bosses proved unable to coax Israelis and Palestinians toward an agreement; the Norwegians stepped in and secretly mediated the Oslo Accords between Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat in 1993. By then, Ross's task was to implement the Oslo framework agreement, which envisioned a comprehensive and final peace deal by 1999. But Ross should take a large part of the responsibility for the mismanagement of the subsequent negotiations, which gradually dissolved into another Palestinian intifada, the worst spasm of violence in the conflict in 50 years, and the rise of the anti-negotiations Islamist Hamas group against Arafat's party.
Certainly, Arafat, Ehud Barak, Benjamin Netanyahu and Rabin's assassin, as well as Bill Clinton and other U.S. officials, deserve their proportional share of the blame. Yet, Ross's insistence on putting all the fault on Yasser Arafat--blaming himself and the Clinton administration only for trusting the Palestinian too much--is a testimony that is either disingenuous or breathtakingly self-absorbed. His palpable one-sidedness is why he remains completely distrusted by the Arabs he has negotiated with. Arabs always expected an American tilt toward Israel because of the strong U.S.-Israeli relationship; from bitter experience, they regard Ross as far too biased to be acceptable or successful as the "honest broker" for ending the conflict. "For far too long, many American officials involved in Arab-Israeli peacemaking, myself included, have acted as Israel's attorney, catering and coordinating with the Israelis at the expense of successful peace negotiations," Ross's longtime former deupty, Aaron David Miller, wrote in a devastating critique in the Washington Post in 2005.
Ross's past errors could be forgiven if they were not so deeply rooted in the flawed American policy for the Middle East that Ross has so helped perpetuate. Put simply, the failed U.S. approach holds that Israel's military dominance gives it ultimate leverage in negotiations, and that the U.S. should not use its considerable influence to pressure Israel too much on key issues like Israel's occupation of Arab territories, activities of Jewish settlers, rights of Palestinian refugees and future sovereignty over Jerusalem. Locked in this outlook, Ross proved too tolerant of Israeli overreaching, too ambivalent about the rights and legitimate interests of Palestinians and too tone deaf to the impending collapse of the peace process with all its grave consequences. As Aaron David Miller wrote of U.S. diplomacy on Ross's watch: "Far too often, particularly when it came to Israeli-Palestinian diplomacy, our departure point was not what was needed to reach an agreement acceptable to both sides but what would pass with only one -- Israel."
American policy has also more or less held that holding peace negotiations is effectively conditional on the cessation of violence and threats of violence against Israel. Accordingly, Ross seems to suggest in his recent writings that the U.S. confront and defeat Iran's growing power and ambitions in the Middle East--including Tehran's support for Hamas and Hizballah--before seriously tackling the vexing core issues of the Israeli-Palestinian dispute again. Ross's thinking echoes the failed neo-conservative logic that says reforming the Middle East will bring peace instead of the other way around. That's an approach sure to keep professional peace negotiators like Ross in business for ever--endlessly negotiating rather than actually achieving peace. When it comes to Iran, the U.S. has fought yet failed to extinguish the Islamic revolution in a winner-take-all strategy for 30 years, with the result that Iran has repeatedly won strategic gains all over the Middle East-- at the expense of both Israel and the U.S.
Kurtzer, in contrast, has recognized and written about the failure of U.S. policy over the years. He understands that brokering Arab-Israeli peace should be a signal priority, that U.S. peacemaking is not solely to assist allies but is the pursuit of America's own national strategic interests, that peace is a key to achieving other crucial goals like defeating Islamic radicalism, that Israel's strategic advantage doesn't remove the necessity of fulfilling Palestinian needs and that ultimately to be successful the U.S. must engage in demonstrably even-handed diplomacy.
In their 2008 book, Negotiating Arab-Israeli Peace: American Leadership in the Middle East, Kurtzer and co-author Scott Lasensky cite America's "alarming pattern of mismanaged diplomacy" in the region since the end of the Cold War. "Flaws in U.S. diplomacy stretching back to the Clinton administration have contributed to the worst crisis in Arab-Israeli relations in a generation," they write. "This devastating failure has hurt U.S. interests and damaged our ability to gain cooperation from allies and key regional players. At the popular level, it has weakened the U.S. position in the region and on the world stage. It has also jeopardized our long-term investment in Arab-Israeli peace."
Make no mistake, Kurtzer-Lasensky warn, "Arab-Israeli peacemaking is crucial to our own national security interests." They argue that the lack of peace has undermined the U.S. effort to combat Islamic radicalism and terrorism and to promote democracy and stability in the Arab world. At the same time, they say, America's commitment to Israel's security and well-being "is best served by moving toward, rather than away from, a comprehensive Arab-Israeli peace settlement."
Kurtzer-Lasensky are particularly dismissive of the Bush administration's tragic neglect of Arab-Israeli peace negotiations. But they are nonetheless damning of the Clinton administration's Ross-managed approach to Israeli-Palestinian talks, which they say was "hands off" for two years even after Oslo. "Early inaction by the president and his team, together with the administration's failure to hold Israelis and Palestinians accountable to the agreements they signed, were to have far-reaching consequences for the peace process and U.S. policy."
As for the failure of the 2000 Camp David summit that Ross blames on Arafat, Kurtzer-Lasensky find fault all around. They say that Clinton's summit was "ill-conceived" and constituted the "most glaring failure" of Clinton's last-ditch diplomatic efforts in the Middle East. They describe a policy-making process that was "too insular and inhibited the development of U.S. positions on the core issues... the United States was unprepared, and our negotiators scrambled at the last minute to put together U.S. positions on complex issues such as Jerusalem and borders."
Kurtzer-Lasensky write that their Institute of Peace study group was repeatedly told that, at the Camp David summit, "the United States gave the Palestinians proposals that originated with Israel. In the words of a senior U.S. policymaker, the Clinton team allowed itself to be manipulated and relinquished too much control over U.S. policy." The book quotes a former Clinton official saying, "when it came to dealing with Jerusalem, there's some very embarrassing episodes that betrayed our lack of knowledge or bias." After the talks collapsed, Kurtzer-Lasensky write, "Clinton acceded to Barak's request to blame Arafat publicly...because of Barak's domestic political needs."
A problem with such a reflexively pro-Israel approach, as Kurtzer-Lasensky indicate elsewhere, is that a strong third-party mediating role is essential in order to overcome the Israeli strategic superiority that puts Palestinians at a negotiating disadvantage and therefore makes them warier of deal making. "Power dynamics in the Israeli-Palestininan conflict are deeply unbalanced," they explain. "Israel is an established sovereign state with a robust, thriving economy and a world-class military; Palestinians remain under occupation, bereft of effective public institutions, highly dependent on international economic assistance, lacking basic security, and incapable of providing the full measure of security to which Israelis are entitled... Left on their own, the parties cannot address the deep, structural impediments to peace."
In Kurtzer-Lasensky's conclusion, they emphasize the importance of being seen as an honest broker if the U.S. is to achieve success in the Middle East. "The next president will need to ensure that the manner in which we conduct our diplomacy results in the peoples of the region sharing this perception." That's Statecraft 101, but it's been tragically lacking in the U.S.'s Middle East diplomacy.
--By Scott MacLeod/Cairo
16 Comments and Trackbacks to “Obama Mideast Watch: Ross vs. Kurtzer”
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
RSS Feed |
Tim McGirk, TIME's Jerusalem Bureau Chief, arrived in the Middle East after covering Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. Read more
Scott MacLeod, TIME's Cairo Bureau Chief since 1998, has covered the Middle East and Africa for the magazine for 22 years. Read more
Andrew Lee Butters moved to Beirut in 2003, and began working for TIME in Iraq during the Fallujah uprising of 2004. Read more
December 2008
Choose a day to view headlines.
< Previous Month
> Next Month
- Why Obama's Afghan War is Different
- U.S. and Russia: The Talk Starts Here
- How Medicated Was Michael Jackson?
- When Benedict Meets Barack
- The Bigger Issue Behind North Korea's Missile Launch
- Why Sarah Palin Quit
- The Making of America: The Legacy of F.D.R.
- Honduras Braces for a Protracted Fight
- POTUS TV: Paging Dr. Obama
- How California's Fiscal Woes Began: A Crisis 30 Years in the Making
- Inside Michael Jackson's Neverland Ranch
- U.S. Marines Open a New Offensive in Afghanistan
- The History of the Bikini
- Photos: India's Contraband Wildlife
- Photos: A Madoff Family Album
- Michael Jackson: The Last Photos
- Public Enemy: The Extremely Brief and Violent Life of John Dillinger
- Photos: Sacha Baron Cohen's Outrageous BrÜno Promotions
- The World's Ugliest Dog Show
- Party On with the G-8!
Tuesday, December 23, 2008 at 9:15 am
Translation:
Kurtzer has a semi-radical past as a peace now memeber and opposed Ariel Sharon's defensive shield operation which ended the wave of Palestinian suicide bombers. He had a history of clashes with Israel's government during the early days of the Intifada.
Ross largely blames Arafat (though he also has plenty of criticism for Israeli settlements) for the failure of camp David, Totally supports Israels opposition to the wrong of return and currently seems to believe that containing and managing the conflict is more realistic than solving it. Arabs hate him beacuase of what he said (the truth) about Arafat.
So even though Scottt would prefer Obama would appoint someone like Khalid for his Middle East ambassador he would prefer a semi-radical idealist like Kurtzer to handle things rather than Ross.
In fact the differences between Kurtzers and Ross's approaches TODAY are insignificant. So it does not realy matter.
Tuesday, December 23, 2008 at 9:26 am
Message to Media, Hillary and USA Christians re: THE WALL and Israel is only a democracy if you are a Jew.
"Israel is a not a democracy but is an Ethnocracy, meaning a country run and controlled by a national group with some democratic elements but set up with Jews in control and structured to keep them in control.”-Jeff Halper, Founder and Coordinator of ICAHD/Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions and a Noble Peace Prize Nominee for 2006.
.........On July 8, 2008, Israel convicted Vanunu on 14 counts-from over a hundred interviews he gave foreign journalists in 2004. His Supreme Court appeal has been put off until 2009..........
In March 2006, just a few weeks after the beginning of his freedom of speech trial, Vanunu sent Senator Clinton and USA Christians the following message regarding The Wall which costs USDA taxpayers over $1.25 million per mile:
http://www.facebook.com/ext/share.php?sid=47537156583&h=EtyE0&u=pPp4v
Tuesday, December 23, 2008 at 9:34 am
ops typo: USA taxpayers
Also, Learn More:
American Media Miss the Boat: For USA Today, Freedom of the Press Means the Right to Report It Wrong
http://www.ifamericansknew.org/media/misslib.html
.........The Times They Are a'Changin'- FREE Vanunu Mordechai! Now! Began on Face Book on November 15, 2008 by an Italian with a vision for a Global V Day...
The groups objective is "to help VANUNU enjoy in full his human right and to promote confrontation and a new mental approach toward the Palestine tragedy. Open your minds, stop hate."
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=798919682#/group.php?gid=52776865024
Tuesday, December 23, 2008 at 12:37 pm
[...] however, have not yet been settled. Scott Macleod, Time’s Burea Chief in Cairo has a long post analyzing the positives and negatives that each brings to the negotiating [...]
Wednesday, December 24, 2008 at 1:01 am
Geeee at last a fresh piece of article, I thought you writers were fired or your blogs were shut down by AIPAC and their lackeys.
It's just unbelievable, United States are made of more than 200 different nationalities and every administration picks a Jewish person as referee for Israel and rest of Middle-East as if there are no other qualifying person out of 300 million poor souls is available for that task, no matter how qualify Kurtzer is, there is always a perception of favoritism and that's not right for either Israel or US or the rest of Middle-East, certainly I don't want to see a retired Cowboys player acting as a referee between Cowboys and Redskins game, would you!
Wednesday, December 24, 2008 at 1:25 am
I recommend, if Obama administration follow the same containment nonsense policy towards Iran, Iran should follow USSR/China/Israel/India/Pakistan/N. Korea path toward independence and become westerners friend after several years as the essential regional pole of power because of her geography and culture and resources in Middle-east, it'll be much easier for Iranians since they're and have been living under worst the westerner can do to them for last 30 years, come on, it can't be worst than chemical/biological stuff they through at you!
Been there, experienced it, now what.
Friday, December 26, 2008 at 12:38 am
With all the international burning issues confronting the new US president in early 2009, the Middle-east saga will be the most challenging if not the most urgent and profound.
Israel's Foreign Minister has just warned Palestinian that “enough is enough”. Make no mistake, these are the strong words from a likely would-be prime minister, and she means it. Such antagonism from both parties could only foreshadow any chances of further peaceful negotiations in the near future.
The intolerance, hatred and mistrust between the Israelis and Palestinians have been too deep rooted to be resolved overnight. For the past six decades, plan after plan for peaceful coexistence had been agreed upon only to be torn or dishonored one after another, often unilaterally.
Nobody wants any more unnecessary bloodshed. No matter how, talks must resume and prevail under all circumstances. Would the new administration in Washington be aware of that? Let's pray so. CHANGE shall it be.
(Tan Boon Tee)
Friday, December 26, 2008 at 8:56 pm
[...] (and possibly -Arab) portfolio in the Obama administration and the case against Ross in his Dec 23 blog post here. (He fails to mention the possible candidacy of Brookings’ Martin Indyk.) I would add that, [...]
Sunday, December 28, 2008 at 5:26 pm
Why no comment on yesterday's violence?
Tuesday, December 30, 2008 at 12:11 am
[...] are critical differences. As Time’s veteran Middle East correspondent Scott MacLeod concisely puts it, “Ross would be a significant disappointment, Kurtzer an excellent [...]
Thursday, January 8, 2009 at 2:32 pm
[...] artikel over de keuze voor Midden-Oosten gezant van de VS die Obama moet maken: The Middle East Blog - TIME.com Blog Archive Obama Mideast Watch: Ross vs. Kurtzer Gaat ook over dit conflict. __________________ LRRP http://www.lrrp.be "Our armies do not [...]
Friday, January 9, 2009 at 5:02 pm
I do hope Mr. Obama takes this last slaughter of Palestinians by Israel as a signal to be firm with the leadership of the Israeli state.
What kind of beings are we that we just watch how women and children are massacred with planes and bombs and soldiers and still give the murderers the right to commit such horrors? The Democratic party's idea of a House resolution in favor of Israel's attack is a travesty of justice. Have the democrats gone mad? Are the lives of helpless Palestinian women and children worth nothing? Do these so called "Democrats" know that the Israeli army put over 100 women and children in a house and that afterward they proceeded to bomb the house? Is Ms. Pelossi aware of the message she and her colleagues are sending to the world? Do Americans in need of help deserve any kind of mercy after this crazy idea of supporting the horrors committed against helpless human beings?
I trust that Mr. Obama is going to have the strength of character to stop giving a blank check to Israel, not only because it is the right thing to do but also because neglecting to do so is giving a green light to the continuation of violence and terrorism in the region and everywhere else. Blindness to the horrors committed by the Israelis is not in the interest of the US any more.
It was a very cynical move on the part of the Israeli leadership to use Mr. Obama's words about protecting his daughters if his home was attacked. He was campaigning at the time and he must regret his words then, because he did not explain how he would react if he and his family were living under occupation, in extreme poverty, without the security of a job, education for his children or even knowledge of where their next meal would come from. What would he do if he where living with the anguish that at any moment he and his family would be driven from their home by force under the threat of death?
The Israeli leaders obviously want to create multiple problems for the Obama administration. They want it entangled trying to fix outbreaks of violence everywhere to keep from concentrating on fixing the Palestinian/Israeli question. The Israeli leadership never approved of Mr. Obama's candidacy and they approve even less of his election.
Unfortunately the Israeli tactic of embarrassing and hurting Mr. Obama by using his words as acceptance of the present slaughter in Gaza seems to have worked, at least with Al Qaeda. One of the Al Qaeda's leaders has put the blame of this last Israeli atrocity squarely on Mr. Obama.
No wonder the new American President has not said much about the current conflict. He has learned the hard way that the words of a powerful but controversial man can come back to hunt him in the most terrible way.
If Mr. Obama does not force Israel to respect international law and work towards a two state solution he will go down in history not only as the first Black American President but also as another failed, biased and unjust leader that chose to continue with the same misguided policies. He should have a talk with another man that could have been great but who traded his good name and the respect he personally commanded for the misguided policies of the Bush administration. That man is General Powell.
Friday, January 9, 2009 at 5:05 pm
I do hope Mr. Obama takes this last slaughter of Palestinians by Israel as a signal to be firm with the leadership of the Israeli state.
What kind of beings are we that we just watch how women and children are massacred with planes and bombs and soldiers and still give the murderers the right to commit such horrors? The Democratic party's idea of a House resolution in favor of Israel's attack is a travesty of justice. Have the democrats gone mad? Are the lives of helpless Palestinian women and children worth nothing? Do these so called "Democrats" know that the Israeli army put over 100 women and children in a house and that afterward they proceeded to bomb the house? Is Ms. Pelossi aware of the message she and her colleagues are sending to the world? Do Americans in need of help deserve any kind of mercy after this crazy idea of supporting the horrors committed against helpless human beings?
I trust that Mr. Obama is going to have the strength of character to stop giving a blank check to Israel, not only because it is the right thing to do but also because neglecting to do so is giving a green light to the continuation of violence and terrorism in the region and everywhere else. Blindness to the horrors committed by the Israelis is not in the interest of the US any more.
It was a very cynical move on the part of the Israeli leadership to use Mr. Obama's words about protecting his daughters if his home was attacked. He was campaigning at the time and he must regret his words then, because he did not explain how he would react if he and his family were living under occupation, in extreme poverty, without the security of a job, education for his children or even knowledge of where their next meal would come from. What would he do if he where living with the anguish that at any moment he and his family would be driven from their home by force under the threat of death?
The Israeli leaders obviously want to create multiple problems for the Obama administration. They want it entangled trying to fix outbreaks of violence everywhere to keep from concentrating on fixing the Palestinian/Israeli question. The Israeli leadership never approved of Mr. Obama's candidacy and they approve even less of his election.
Unfortunately the Israeli tactic of embarrassing and hurting Mr. Obama by using his words as acceptance of the present slaughter in Gaza seems to have worked, at least with Al Qaeda. One of the Al Qaeda's leaders has put the blame of this last Israeli atrocity squarely on Mr. Obama.
No wonder the new American President has not said much about the current conflict. He has learned the hard way that the words of a powerful but controversial man can come back to hunt him in the most terrible way.
If Mr. Obama does not force Israel to respect international law and work towards a two state solution he will go down in history not only as the first Black American President but also as another failed, biased and unjust leader that chose to continue with the same misguided policies. He should have a talk with another man that could have been great but who traded his good name and the respect he personally commanded for the misguided policies of the Bush administration. That man is General Powell.
Dina Bern
Sunday, January 11, 2009 at 11:32 am
[...] is making it clear the Middle East will be a top priority from day one. A big question remains who he's going to tap to be his most trusted Middle East advisor/envoy/whatever. Here's what he told [...]
Sunday, January 11, 2009 at 7:51 pm
[...] is making it clear the Middle East will be a top priority from day one. A big question remains who he’s going to tap to be his most trusted Middle East advisor/envoy/whatever. Here’s [...]
Tuesday, February 3, 2009 at 6:38 pm
[...] to be his Arab-Israeli mediator: Obama, the thinking goes, has decided to employ a more distinctly even-handed approach to the Middle East conflict, and Ross is widely seen as having favored an approach that tilted [...]