Roger Cohen's Fantasy of Air Power and Influence

Come on, Roger -- you know better than this.

There was a moment in the Syrian conflict when decisive military aid to the opposition could have changed Assad’s calculation. President Obama mouthed vague promises of arms and allowed Assad to regroup.

First, you're awfully mealy-mouthed in your claim.... "decisive military aid" (whatever that is) could have (but might not have) changed Assad's "calculation" (presumably not to sue for peace, and broker some sort of imagined, long-term peace deal that made nice with some of the dissident groups, disarmed other factions like ISIS and stabilized his country). The conceit here seems to be that there's a magical point that the U.S. could have caused the warring parties to reach where the opposition factions would not have been quite strong enough to topple Assad, but where he would have been sufficiently weakened to be convinced to give them enough of what they wanted to lay down their arms and unite behind his reformed government. It's an interesting fantasy, but not one I think could have been turned into reality. Assad and his military would not want to relinquish power to their blood enemies, nor would those enemies happily again subject themselves to his rule (or that of his hand-picked successor, if part of the fantasy is that he agrees to step down).

Cohen buys very strongly into the notion that, as a bombing campaign appears to have tipped the balance in the Bosnian conflict, it's a tool that can magically change the balance favorably to U.S. interests in pretty much any conflict. Drop enough bombs from a safe altitude and the facts on the ground inexorably change in your favor. Cohen is apparently unaware of the basic facts of the conflict in Bosnia. That was not a conflict that ended based on air strikes alone, no boots on the ground, but was a conflict that involved a significant deployment of ground forces to cement and maintain the peace. The initial troops were NATO forces, and those troops were eventually replaced by E.U. forces. Where does Cohen believe that the troops will come from to secure a post-bombing peace accord in Syria, even if we assume that the fantasy scenario would be achievable? Is there a single western nation that is interested in committing troops to such a venture?

Further, even during the bombing campaign, it was key that Bosnian and Croatian ground forces were able to go on the offensive. While Cohen seems to believe that various Syrian opposition groups might fill that role, he doesn't identify which ones or how we could be sure that the ones who ended up in the leadership of a theoretical alliance of opposition groups would be the factions we would want to prevail. You don't have to look past what is presently happening in Iraq to recognize that some of the groups operating out of Syria are hostile to U.S. interests, nor what happens when you arm a weak group and a stronger, anti-western faction steamrolls them and takes their U.S.-provided arms. The lesson of Bosnia may be that a western air campaign can help achieve balance between two armed factions fighting on the ground below, but it should be recalled that victory still required the two warring sides on the ground to be roughly equivalent in strength.

More than that, we have a fantasy of finding huge numbers of trustworthy, U.S.-friendly factions that the U.S. can arm, that can be trusted to work together against the government, to hold onto those arms, and to ultimately either so threaten the Assad government as to force it to become more inclusive and progressive (and friendly to the west) or to topple it and impose a more progressive, pro-west government. I'm reminded of G.W. Bush's joke, where he pretended to search for Iraqi WMDs in the Oval Office -- where are we supposed to find these factions, and in those numbers?

And that's not where the silliness ends,

Force in the absence of a sustained political and diplomatic strategy leads nowhere. This has been Obama’s failure in Afghanistan, where the United States never invested much capital in a diplomatic solution involving negotiation with the Taliban; and in Iraq, where the president allowed American forces to withdraw without leveraging the massive U.S. investment there into ensuring that the sectarian Shiite government of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki reached out to the Sunnis and Kurds.

What does Cohen believe would happen if the Obama Administration openly declared that it was in negotiations with the Taliban, and hoped to integrate the Taliban into the Iraqi government? Was Cohen asleep during the Bowe Bergdahl foofaraw, in which Republicans couldn't shove themselves before cameras quickly enough to declare that the Taliban is a terrorist organization with which we should have no dealings at all? Did he miss the dire warnings that five Talibani prisoners, having been released, were going to pose a grave and continuing threat to the safety of the United States? Did he miss that, behind the release of Bergdahl, it is inescapable that negotiations did involve the Taliban? We should be able to infer from those facts that, at least at some level, the U.S. is negotiating with the Taliban and that the negotiations likely do involve trying to keep it from attempting to destabilize or overthrow the Afghan government, but that it would be ridiculously stupid for the Obama Administration to publicly announce that any such negotiations are occurring.

As for the president "allowing" U.S. forces to withdraw from Iraq, Cohen seems to have scrubbed from his memory banks the fact that George W. Bush negotiated the withdrawal date for combat forces, and that the Iraqi government was not willing to enter into a new status of forces agreement with the immunity clauses required by the United States for a continued military presence. What would Cohen have had Obama do? Disregard the concerns of the military, ignore the wishes of the sovereign government of Iraq, and keep the forces in place? I'm also reminded of Tom Ricks' concession that, although he initially wished that the U.S. could have kept forces in Iraq, in hindsight it's a good thing that the U.S. did not as it would presently be in the position of having to massively reinforce that deployment or withdrawing -- neither of which are good outcomes. Cohen seems to disagree -- so he would have us send tens of thousands of combat troops into Iraq to secure the Sunni areas were ISIS operates, even as Iraq's own army chooses to turn and run?

The past months have constituted a low point in American foreign policy: the rampage by the Sunni fanatics of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria through wide swathes of Iraq; President Vladimir Putin’s annexation of Crimea and successful troublemaking in eastern Ukraine; Syria’s descent into ever further horror; China’s growing assertiveness in the South China Sea; the failure of U.S.-brokered Israeli-Palestinian talks.

Sure, but it's a bit much to imagine that the president could have done much on any of those fronts. The problems in Iraq are borne of the final status of forces agreement, negotiated by G.W. Bush, and the poor governance of the Shiite leadership of Iraq, the leadership of a government that formed and came to power under G.W. Bush. It was entirely predictable that Maliki's actions would eventually create a crisis -- it was much less a question of "if" than "when". As for Putin's actions in Crimea, what use of forced does Cohen imagine would have deterred him? The same sort of chest-thumping machismo that didn't deter Putin from taking military action in Georgia when G.W. Bush was President? Does Cohen believe that the U.S. can credibly threaten China with military reprisals? Does Cohen believe that the "Israeli-Palestinian talks" had any chance of success under Prime Minister Netanyahu, or that there was some magical reason to believe that this was the one time that doing the same thing over and over again would achieve a different outcome? And if it's a show of military force that makes the difference, how did G.W. Bush's "roadmap" work out, back when he was eagerly starting wars in the Middle East?

Even leaving aside the fact that Cohen's imagined outcome of a bombing campaign is fantastical, the notion that all of these events can be pinned on Obama because he didn't bomb Syria is absurd. One could make a similar list of bad events under G.W. Bush -- North Korea and Pakistan going nuclear, the abject failure of his Israel-Palestine peace initiative, the catastrophic failure of his policies in Libya, China's actions in the South China Sea to assert sovereignty over those waters (no, they're not new), Putin carving territories out of Georgia.... Should we mention the incompetence that led Iraq into civil war, or the failure to stabilize Afghanistan? The list goes on.

Fundamentally, Cohen seems to have lost track both of history and of the limits of what happens when you apply force (particularly when you do so in a half-hearted manner, such as "Let's do airstrikes and see what happens, but make abundantly clear we're never going to have boots on the ground") in parts of the world -- in this case, parts of the world that are not exactly sympathetic to U.S. foreign policy interests. He falls into a long line of armchair commentators who seem to believe that people on the ground don't mind being bombed, as long as those bombs are delivered by the U.S. Air Force or NATO. Were he to pay better attention to his history, it's difficult to believe that he would have written that column.

Foreign Policy? What's That?

David Ignatius presents what on one hand is a fair criticism of the President for his failure to articulate clear policies on foreign policy issues, and is on the other hand an unfair implication that this failure is both unique to President Obama and not a predictable consequence of our political system with its rigidly scheduled elections, presidential term limits, shallow political commentary and larger public disinterest in foreign policy.

Let's be blunt, our nation's Middle East policy has been a disaster for pretty much as long as the Middle East has had geopolitical significance. For much of that history, the United States has backed dictators and monarchs, even if that meant suppressing secular democratic movements and turning a blind eye to the rise of Islamic radicalism and the impact our policies have on popular opinion. We have been consistent in our support for Israel, but that's a one-off, not a coherent regional policy. The most articulate Middle East policy I can recall is the Carter Doctrine, "An attempt by any outside force to gain control of the Persian Gulf region will be regarded as an assault on the vital interests of the United States of America, and such an assault will be repelled by any means necessary, including military force." But that's more about hegemony than about creating a Middle East that, if not aligned with our interests, is at least not in large part openly hostile.

I have commented for years on what is obvious, that Presidents shy away from doing anything important prior to elections. And I'm not just speaking about the months or year leading up to an election. I'm talking about any major policy proposal or change that is expected to be difficult or potentially unpopular. To the maximum extent possible many of those issues are postponed until after the President is elected to his second term, or are implemented on a time table that delays important policies and benchmarks from being implicated until a year or two after the election.

Ignatius complains that a comment by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is a "laugh line" that reflects "President Obama’s risk-averse refusal to engage on foreign policy issues", but I find it to be neither a laugh line nor even about Obama.

“I do believe that some conversations and key issues must be talked about again once we come out of the other end of the political election atmosphere in the United States.”

It's a candid statement of the reality faced by any nation hoping to effect foreign policy change in the United States. If it's controversial, the President is likely to put it off until after the election. If it's both difficult and controversial, there's a good chance any given President will punt, or take late action that leaves his successor to deal with any problems or to clean up the mess.

Ignatius complains,

The “come back after Nov. 6” sign is most obvious with Iran. The other members of the “P5+1” negotiating group understand that the United States doesn’t want serious bargaining until after the election, lest Obama have to consider compromises that might make him look weak.

It's fair to ask, what does Ignatius believe that the nation will gain by pushing ahead with negotiations right now, and trying to come to some form of deal with Iran in advance of the election? Will we suddenly be able to breathe a collective sigh of relief, end all sanctions against Iran, and live forever as a big happy family? Of course not. If and when an agreement is reached, things will continue to carry on pretty much as they are.

Ahmadinejad and some of his aides let slip during their visit to New York that they may be willing to offer a deal that would halt enrichment of uranium above 5 percent. Is this a good deal or not, in terms of U.S. and Israeli security? Sorry, come back later.

Why does Ignatius pose that as a rhetorical question rather than sharing his opinion, or the opinion of any of the other nations in "" who aren't burdened by pending elections? In case he needs the reminder, Netanyahu, bomb chart in hand, just gave the U.N. a somewhat condescending lecture about Iran. I missed the part when he said, "But if Iran says they won't enrich past 5%, peace will break out all over." If, consistent with the consensus view of their plan, Iran hopes to be the turn of a key away from becoming a nuclear state, does it matter if they "only" enrich uranium to 5% if with a few taps on a keyboard the very same centrifuges can enrich uranium to 20%?

This is pretty amazing:

Will Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu keep his gun in the holster until after the polls close? The White House certainly hopes so. But someone should check the odds with Sheldon Adelson, the casino magnate who is one of Mitt Romney’s biggest financial backers.

What we saw over a period of months was Netanyahu's open effort to influence the outcome of U.S. elections, despite a growing criticism of his tactics by other political and military leaders, right to the point he flew to the U.S. to grouse about being snubbed by the President and to appear on Meet the Press, but then... oh, those polls. Time to be contrite, stay out of U.S. election politics, distance himself from any claim that he hopes for a Romney victory. Looking at Adelson's bet on Romney and their joint visit to Israel earlier this year, it isn't the President who looks like the loser in that round of high stakes gambling.

Ignatius then complains that, although the President has implemented programs in Egypt and Syria that Ignatius seems to regard as promising, the President isn't talking about those programs. So the problem isn't that the President is failing to form good policy, or is making bad bets, it's that he's not flashing his cards? How would public attention improve Obama's policies? How might Republican demagoguery affect their implementation? Given Romney's embarrassing demagoguery on Russia and New START, it's difficult to believe that it would be helpful.

Ignatius proceeds to complain, not about Obama Administration policies as such, but about the fact that the Obama Administration isn't discussing its policies.

I’m told that the talk in the Libyan underground is about a “global intifada,” like what the new al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri has been preaching for the past five years. But ask U.S. officials about that subject, and you get a “no comment.”

I expect that pretty much every al-Qaeda sympathizer on the planet talks about a "global intifada" and a resurgent al-Qaeda, but politics aside, that doesn't mean it's good policy for the Obama Administration to talk about those groups and their goals, to give those groups publicity and attention that they may not merit in order to vindicate Ignatius's sources. Ignatius complains, "The administration has a lot invested in the public impression that al-Qaeda was vanquished when Osama bin Laden was killed", but I think it's more accurate to say that the media has chosen to treat al-Qaeda as an old story, perhaps even a non-story, and the Obama Administration sees no benefit in trying to inspire the media to again cover the story. It's not just the media - it's also the Republican Party.

The same is true with the war in Afghanistan. Ignatius may wish that the President were giving him a play by play on troop levels, but when you hear Romney talk about Afghanistan - if he even remembers to bring it up - he'll flip between criticizing the President for setting a firm date for withdrawal and giving the enemy too much information, and insisting that he'll have Afghanistan be fully responsible for its own security by the end of 2014. Why no mention of that incoherence?

Ignatius complains about the President's off-the-cuff candor with Dmitry Medvedev that, on certain issues, he would have more flexibility after being reelected. Well, no kidding. To those who pay even slight attention to U.S. politics, the story was that the comment was caught on microphone, not that the President stated something that is blindingly obvious. So why is Ignatius trying to turn that comment into something more than it is? Into something that makes Obama's putting off issues until after the election any different than Bush's pushing off his plan for Palestinian statehood until his second term, claiming a mandate to privatize Social Security after forgetting to mention it during his reelection campaign, having his tax cuts expire two years after he was out of office....

This strategy of avoiding major foreign policy risks or decisions may help get Obama reelected. But he is robbing the country of a debate it needs to have — and denying himself the public understanding and support he will need to be an effective foreign policy president in a second term, if the “rope-a-dope” campaign should prove successful.

That's the wishful thinking of somebody who places a high priority on foreign policy. As Ignatius knows, the average American has little interest in foreign policy and even less knowledge. Has he forgotten Bush's embarrassing lack of knowledge during the lead-up to the 2000 election, "but it's okay, because he'll surround himself with really good advisers." And the public, buying into that argument, bought into the conceit that nations like Pakistan aren't really relevant to our interests, so why should they care if the President can name their leaders or even find them on a map.

I don't disagree with Ignatius that timing foreign policy actions around elections is unhelpful, and that our nation would benefit from finding a way to avoid the problem, but unlike Ignatius I'm not willing to pretend that the phenomenon is new or unique to Obama. I also find Ignatius's comments to be, in large part, style over susbstance. I am perfectly happy to have the Obama Administration refrain from commenting on every hyperbolic claim of every group that sympathizes with al-Qaeda, even if it means that Ignatius can't win confirmation for whispered rumors form his sources.

Let me take you back roughly a year to when elections weren't on Ignatius's mind.

Barack Obama got elected president in part because he promised to change the foreign policy priorities of a Bush administration that was unpopular abroad, had strained relations with key allies and was facing a growing Iranian challenge and a continuing menace from al-Qaeda.

So what’s happened over the past 32 months? There have been a lot of bumps and bruises, especially in the global economy. But if you step back from the daily squawk box, some trends are clear: Alliances are stronger, the United States is (somewhat) less bogged down in foreign wars, Iran is weaker, the Arab world is less hostile and al-Qaeda is on the run.

Back then, Ignatius concluded, "Obviously, it will take awhile to accept that quiet American leadership is still leadership." I hardly dare ask whether Ignatius's change of position on the Obama Administration's successes and "quiet leadership" is itself a creature of this being an election year. David Frum quotes Ignatius,

David Ignatius of the Washington Post described Mitt Romney as a man having "no grasp of foreign affairs" whose approach to the subject amounts to a "series of sound bites" all of which portray a candidate who knows little about a subject of the utmost importance.

I'll be interested to see whether those thoughts percolate through to his pre-election commentary, as so far, he's pulling his punches.

Can You Win Elections With Easy to Understand Policy Proposals

My daughter was recently in a summer camp that concluded with the campers performing a clever little musical comprises of songs from Schoolhouse Rock. Those songs demonstrate how you can present concepts, some of which are rather complicated, in a cute and catchy manner and... well, leave most of the listeners able to sing along with various parts of the songs but still, by way of example, unclear on how bills become laws.

In his latest column, Roger Cohen¹ shares a fair observation about the President. President Obama has given a huge number of speeches, some of which have received considerable praise for their substance, but he rarely includes a take-away. Cohen brings up Bill Clinton, and refers to a simple homily Clinton used in conversation to explain why you need to explain policy in understandable terms ("You’ve got to put the corn where the hogs can get to it").

Like Brooks, Cohen argues that the President needs to explain why we should reelect him:

[T]he big opportunity that has opened up for the president as the Democratic National Convention begins is to do something he has not been very good at: explain in plain language how the United States came to its present pass and how he plans to set the country on a path to growth and jobs again. That in turn will explain why a second term would differ from the first.

Cohen offers an unflattering reaction to the President's budget policy, "Obama’s plan is so long-winded nobody really gets it", but... if I were to call that unfair it would be because it's difficult to find something that I would actually describe as a "plan". Cohen is also fair in observing that many of Obama's stated policies need to be translated into "ideas that pass the policy-wonk test", with the concept being, "If only a policy wonk can understand, forget it."

I have to say that I like Cohen's proposal - to encourage the candidates to lay out their policies in clear, simple terms. Sure, you would have to have a lot of footnotes, more detailed versions for the wonks and analysts, etc., but give the voters something that they can reasonably understand and compare to the other party's proposals. It appeals to my preference to focus on policy, not politics. And, alas, it's not going to happen. At least not directly from the candidates or their campaigns. And if a third party were to scrupulously analyze the candidates' statements, prepare a careful and accurate, understandable point-by-point summary, and publish it, the candidates would probably take issue with at least half of the clarified points - because obfuscation can help you win elections. You can't be everything to everyone if your positions are easily located and easily understood.

Clinton, as Cohen notes, can help, but Clinton's more apt to help with homilies and take-aways than with the translation of complicated issues into simple policy points. One of the most famous lines associated with Clinton? James Carville's "[It's t]he economy, stupid." The line resonated and worked for him, but it did not illuminate.

That said, President Obama's speech at the Democratic Convention provides him with an opportunity to do more than lay out applause lines. He can heed Cohen's advice, and can attempt some amount of public education on the economy. Not just "The other side's ideas are garbage," but a bit of "This is why we're still struggling, this is why Romney's budget ideas are harmful, this is my plan to improve things, and this is why I think it will work." I think Cohen is also correct that the failure of Romney and Ryan to discuss foreign policy - something that they, alas correctly, have determined that most voters don't care about - gives Obama the opportunity to speak clearly of the role of our nation and military in the world, to honor the military, and to articulate a vision for America's future role.

The Republican campaign still largely boils down to, "Vote for us because we're not Obama". If the President makes a strong case for his reelection, Romney will face pressure to do the same thing - and assuming it's not too late, I'm not sure that he has much more to say than, "I'm not Obama".

Update: Dean Baker writes,

[I]t's hard to those who write for major news outlets to notice an $8 trillion housing bubble. This is the story of the downturn and the current "fiscal woes."... In reality, the U.S. has no fiscal woes right now (the interest rate remains near post-war lows), we just have inadequate demand.

I am more sympathetic to Cohen's argument because I did not read it as situational, but as a commentary upon what he would like to see from government in general, much less a "we need austerity in a recession" and much more, "if the government implements sound fiscal policy, we will be better off in good times and bad." The fact that we can presently easily borrow money at a negative effective interest rate is a basis for arguing against forming policy based upon confidence fairies and bond vigilantes, but it's not an excuse for ignoring the long-term. Borrowing will become less affordable, the debt will still need to be serviced, and Medicare is on an unsustainable path.

A comment adds, "he's flat wrong about the necessity of a decade to recover." The comment is true in the sense that it might have been possible to foster a speedier recovery, or that the recovery might accelerate, but given the "facts on the ground", putting a ten year recovery period on the 2008 recession does not, to me, seem unrealistic. The hole Bush's policies dug for the nation made us fall farther and harder than necessary - Cohen seems to be arguing, "Government shouldn't dig us into holes like that, and an illusion of prosperity driven by a bubble is no excuse for bad policy."
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1. A brief note about Roger Cohen - when I saw that I had an unusual amount of traffic going to my last post, in which I was very critical of a Cohen column, I tracked it back to a Blogrunner link on Cohen's page on the Times website. As of this moment, it's still there. I don't want to read too much into automatically generated links but I do know that the Times can manually pull the plug on any link or site that they don't want to include in that section - and the fact that I haven't seen that type of traffic to a link critical of the Times' right-wing columnists suggests (not proves, but suggests) that Cohen has a much higher tolerance for criticism than a lot of his peers. That he's interested in ideas and in being challenged, even by us mean old bloggers. If so, good for him.

Thomas Friedman's No-Win Approach to Israel-Palestine

It's not just the Israelis and Palestinians who can't win by listening to Thomas Friedman, the response to his pontifications seems to be that advocates on both sides - those who cheer and jeer from the sidelines - are scornful. Before 9/11, Friedman was frequently criticized by anti-peace zealots because he was pretty consistent in suggesting that both sides in the Israel-Palestine conflict played a role in its perpetuation. It was never enough that his sympathies were unambiguously with Israel, or that his principal motive in arguing for the two state solution that "everybody knows" is the inevitable outcome of the conflict was that it would be in Israel's best interest. If I recall correctly, he even made the villains list on the reproachable "Masada 2000" website.

Following 9/11 Friedman appeared happy to take a break from advocating for a negotiated end to the conflict, perhaps as a part of an embrace of "suck on this", "impose democracy at gunpoint" approach to Middle Eastern politics. But after a decade of seeing how well that has turned out, Friedman has increasingly returned his focus to the Israel-Palestine conflict.

Within that context, Friedman frequently makes observations that are astonishingly naive, divorced from reality. It is difficult to imagine how somebody with even a passing knowledge of the region and conflict would make a statement like,

The trust deficit is exacerbated by the fact that after Israel quit the Gaza Strip in 2005, Palestinians, instead of building Singapore there, built Somalia and focused not on how to make microchips, but on how to make rockets to hit Israel.

The statement is foolish on a number of levels. First, Israel did not "quit" Gaza, but continued to impose a full blockade on its borders and ports, control its airspace, control travel in and out, block trade, and limit its access to its own tax revenues, as well as much of its power and already-inadequate water supply. Beyond that, even in the best of times it would be absurdly difficult to turn one of the most densely populated, poor, uneducated territories in the world into a "Singapore". It's not even remotely possible in a territory that has had its infrastructure repeatedly bombed into oblivion and is blocked from even obtaining the materials necessary to effect repairs, even if we pretend that outside investors would pour billions into a territory that could again be militarily razed at any time. There's the practical reality that even if it were possible to create a Singapore out of abject poverty in the space of a few years, the world seems to have all of the Singapores it needs - for example, why isn't New Dehli a "Singapore"? Why isn't Detroit? Why isn't Tel Aviv? (And how's Dubai doing these days?) I suspect, though, that in making this type of statement Friedman has no intention of addressing the realities, but simply wants to send his readers the message that "Any misery suffered by the Palestinians is their own fault." (But it earns him no love from those who most strongly endorse that sentiment.)

In his most recent effort to present a (not-so-balanced) "balanced take", Friedman opens by invoking one of my pet peeves - treating Israel as a child. His attitude is far from new - he's long argued the U.S. must intervene and do... something to make the parties reach a peace deal. But he's much more explicit this time around:

And here’s another stubborn fact: Israel today really is behaving like a spoiled child.

Needless to say, that comment has raised the hackles of any number of pro-Israel partisans. But if you believe as I do, that Israel is not a child and is fully capable of taking ownership of its own interests and future, it moves the conflict away from that reality and back into Friedman's narrative of "only the United States can fix this". Worse, at a time when the Obama Administration is working very hard to convince the Palestinians that it is approaching peace negotiations in good faith, Friedman is implicitly depicting the U.S. as Israel's doting parent, unable to ever say "no". Even if you believe that to be true, there are less inflammatory ways to raise the question of partisanship. Moreover, as appears to be the case with Thomas Friedman, if you want the United States to continue to favor Israel it's a poor way to characterize the relationship.

First — I know this is a crazy, radical idea — when America asks Israel to do something that in no way touches on its vital security but would actually enhance it, there is only one right answer: “Yes.” It is a measure of how spoiled Israel has become that after billions and billions of dollars in U.S. aid and 300,000 settlers already ensconced in the West Bank, Israel feels no compunction about spurning an American request for a longer settlement freeze — the only purpose of which is to help the United States help Israel reach a secure peace with the Palestinians.

Sure, a parent who supported a child generously through high school, paid his tuition, room and board for college, bought him a car, and gives him a generous allowance should be able to say, "You're a grown-up now, please move out of our basement." But if that's how Friedman perceives the existing dynamic, he should already know that telling a "spoiled child" in that position how much he "owes" his parents will do nothing to resolve the situation. Perhaps Friedman should have found a bit of space in his column to lecture Congress for its refusal to even consider limiting "Junior's" allowance.

But again, I think Friedman is missing the boat. The periodic peace negotiations that occur between the sides suggest that a peace deal could be reached, and that its foundation could be reached quickly. It appears that Netanyahu agreed to a settlement freeze with the goal not of working toward peace, but of getting to engage in unrestricted expansion in every single Israeli settlement. You don't have to spend much time struggling over the details of Netanyahu's biography to recognize that he has no appreciable interest in achieving a peace deal. The biggest difference between the leaders who have been willing to work for peace and those who have not has been their party affiliation.

Friedman offers an unhelpful comment about Mahmoud Abbas, a man generally credited with making incredible strides toward establishing a peace-oriented, functional government for the West Bank,

Second, I have no idea whether the Palestinian Authority president, Mahmoud Abbas, has the will and the guts to make peace with Israel.

Dare I ask, who cares what Friedman thinks? If Abbas signs onto a peace deal and is unable to deliver, the region will deal with that unfortunate outcome. But really, how many international conflicts are resolved due to the deep, abiding trust between the leaders who broker the peace deal?

Friedman then turns to something pretty close to fiction:

In fact, when you go back and look at what Ehud Olmert, Netanyahu’s predecessor, offered Abbas — a real two-state compromise, including a deal on Jerusalem — and you think that Abbas spurned that offer, and you think that Netanyahu already gave Abbas a 10-month settlement freeze and Abbas only entered serious talks in the ninth month, you have to wonder how committed he is.

As Friedman should know, the settlement freeze offered by Netanyahu was pretty much in name only, as construction projects that had already been approved were permitted to continue, and there was a mad rush to approve new projects before the "freeze" took effect. Second, the largest impediment to the commencement of negotiations was Netanyahu's refusal to agree to some of the terms previously offered by Olmert. It doesn't seem particularly bizarre to me that a Palestinian leader would opt not to restart talks from scratch each time negotiations end, and it seems to me to be a reasonable test of Netanyahu's sincerity to ask that he agree to terms that are essential to any negotiated outcome.

But stepping back a bit further, it probably came as a surprise to Friedman's readers that Olmert offered Abbas a wonderful deal, guaranteed to pass in the Knesset, and couldn't even get a return phone call. Particularly if you read Ha'aretz, in which you'll find a different story. The initial offer was rejected - no ambiguity there. Further negotiations occurred and showed promise, with Abbas stating, "I negotiated with [Olmert] and felt we could have reached an agreement", but "the start of Israel's offensive in Gaza effectively ended negotiations".

It may be true that Abbas didn't pick up the phone, call Olmert and say, "I recognize that you're engaging in war on Gaza, that your government is likely to fall due to corruption scandals, and there's no way under these circumstances you can get a peace deal through the Knesset, but do you want to try to reach a final agreement anyway?" By the same token, Olmert didn't phone Abbas and ask, "You haven't talked to me about the peace deal since I started military actions against Gaza, what's up with that?" To some degree both men benefited from failing to pick up the phone - they can put onus for the failure of talks on the other, on circumstances, or both. But it's not unreasonable to believe that the unspoken assumptions that led both sides to end negotiations would have prevented the negotiations from amounting to anything.

But this brings us back to a fundamental requirement for effective negotiations: A final deal, or something approaching a final deal, on settlements and borders. I believe that is what President Obama wants to achieve in the next round of talks, and it's in no way unreasonable to believe that an agreement could be reached. Once reached, the issue of a settlement freeze would become moot - Israel would have agreed to phase out settlements on the Palestinian side of the agreed border, but would be free to expand those settlements that both sides agreed would remain part of the Israeli state.

Seriously, although official maps aren't available, we have a history of unofficial maps we can look at - and those maps have been around for a long time without serious challenge. We have the offer made by Ehud Barak toward the end of the Clinton Administration, and the much better offer he reportedly made during subsequent negotiations at Taba, aborted due to Ariel Sharon's election to office. Compare the Taba map to the offer reportedly made by Olmert a couple of years ago. The differences are pretty modest. The tendril-like intrusions of Israeli territory into the West Bank, and the odd pockets to be transferred to Gaza as part of a land swap, cast a significant shadow over the claim that Olmert had serious security concerns; but then the notion of a Palestinian state as an existential threat to Israel is absurd on its face.

If we are to assume that the weak Ehud Olmert could have convinced the Knesset to approve his plan, why can't we similarly assume that Binyamin Netanyahu could agree to a similar plan and obtain Knesset approval? If he cannot, there's not much point to engaging in peace talks until there's a change of government. If he can, his refusal to agree to a short-term settlement freeze would appear to be out of fear of that outcome. It must have occurred to Thomas Friedman that Ariel Sharon could have picked up negotiations where they ended in Taba. It must have occurred to him that, with a minimum of intrusion from Washington, Olmert was doing pretty well negotiating a solution and, like Sharon, Netanyahu could easily have resumed negotiations after taking office. But he has yet to ask, "Why didn't they resume peace talks?" Doesn't he believe that the answer to that question is important, and might shed some light on the perpetuation of this conflict?

Update: Roger Cohen shares some observations about the peace process that largely ring true. He's cynical about its chances but, given that Netanyahu won't agree to a settlement freeze despite overwhelming concessions from the U.S., perhaps he's right to be cynical. I think he overstates the case against success, and the amount of courage involved in agreeing to a peace deal - that is, if we're going to define "courage" as something more than "running a chance of losing the next election". I don't think Abbas would be in danger if the essence of the Olmert proposal were preserved, and I suspect that Netanyahu's security detail is significantly more diligent and much more attuned to domestic dangers than that of Yitzhak Rabin.

Diplomacy as Speed Chess?

Roger Cohen's impatience is bringing out his inner (and outer) Kissinger:

I found myself seated next to Henry Kissinger at a New York dinner and asked him how he thought President Barack Obama was doing.

"He reminds me of a chess grandmaster who has played his opening in six simultaneous games," Kissinger said. "But he hasn’t completed a single game and I’d like to see him finish one."

Cohen bought into Kissinger's analogy without asking the appropriate follow-up questions, "How many chess games did you finish during your first ten months, whether as National Security Advisor or Secretary of State? And how many key matches did you and Nixon win?" In one particularly memorable multi-year game, the Vietnam War, the Kissinger team pulled an "illegal war in Cambodia and Laos" gambit, attempted an end-game that revolved around the Paris Peace Accords and "peace with honor", and shortly thereafter was checkmated. Maybe Kissinger there's a reason Kissinger chose the word "finish" instead of "win".

Kissinger could respond that these issues are hard, many will take years to wrap up, and it may take many more years before it's clear who won or lost a particular match. And that would be a fair response, but for the fact that it undermines his analogy. It's fun to drop bon mots, but it's hard to imagine that Kissinger didn't know he was pushing for an impatient response to problems that can only be resolved through care and patience - and perhaps not even then. (How well did Kissinger's policies work to unify Cyprus? Does he still want Cyprus under Turkish control?)

Cohen eagerly accepts the role of the impatient American:

I thought that wasn’t a bad image for Obama’s international gambits, and then here, at the first Halifax International Security Forum, I heard a similar observation from one participant: "We’ve had the set-up, but is there a middle game?" Or, put another way, can this probing, intelligent president close anything?

Cohen should know better, and probably does. Most likely, though, he doesn't care about the half-dozen high stakes games President Obama is working through. Most likely he cares about one, maybe two, and he's less concerned that Obama can't "close" than he is that Obama will choose to close in a manner inconsistent with his own preconceptions of how the matter should be handled.

Cohen also misses the boat with his comment on Obama's talk of a world without nuclear weapons,

It’s an idea with resonance, and may provide some moral suasion over countries contemplating pursuit of a bomb, but I can’t help recalling that the worlds of 1914 and 1939 were worlds without nukes. No thanks to that.

To bring up the subject is something of a red herring, given that even if Obama makes progress toward reducing the number of nuclear weapons in the world, I know of nobody with the slightest sense that he will eliminate nuclear weapons during his Presidency - at best it would take decades. But he should consider also that the present world is nothing like 1914 or 1939. Now granted, should Russia or China start acting in a militarily threatening manner to the United States or each other, possession of nuclear weapons by all parties does deter transforming a cold war into a hot war. But the U.S. can presently militarily crush any nation it chooses... except for those with nuclear weapons.

Does Cohen believes that détente can be achieved between any two nuclear-armed nations? Clearly not. The present danger is that an otherwise militarily weak nuclear-armed state might use its weapons in a war with a neighbor, might lose control of its nuclear arsenal in a coup, or might sell or trade its knowledge, components, or even a nuclear device in exchange for cash or weapons. That's the danger Obama is attempting to address.

On Russia, Cohen offers a conclusion that sounds like it was lifted from a corporation's annual report: "I don’t believe Obama has yet shifted the basic confrontational optic of a resurgent Russia emerging from the humiliation of imperial collapse." Cohen sees Russia as having two conflicting approaches to the world: one comes from Dmitri Medvedev, and "The other perspective is called Vladimir Putin." (Ah, memories.) Is Cohen arguing that Obama needs to take a hard line with Russia and somehow force it to act against its perceived best interest on foreign national policies, such as its relations with Iran - with the probability that Russia will respond by saying no? Is he arguing that the U.S. should give up on diplomacy with Russia, and just let Russia do what it wants? Seriously, what's his point? As Cohen knows, we have no military option against Russia.

On Afghanistan, Cohen is critical that while Obama showed "clarity" in March by sending a lot more troops, he is presently showing "uncertainty" because he didn't immediately agree to send tens of thousands of troops to Afghanistan seven months later. I'm not going to dig through Cohen's past writings to try to determine if he wrote something similar about Bush during the former administration's seven years of malign neglect of the Afghan war, but it's worth noting that by way of comparison Obama is running laps around the mediocre record of his predecessor. No, the real fear isn't that Obama's indecisive - it's that he won't commit to endless war:

I worry now that Obama’s quest for perfect calibration will yield a less than resounding fudge where the tenacious message of a troop increase is undermined by talk of exit timing. That’s not how you break the will of an enemy.

How many times in its history has Afghanistan been the subject of an invasion attempt, invasion, or occupation? How many times in its history has it been successfully pacified, even when occupied by a superpower? Cohen truly believes that if Obama doesn't remind the Afghan people that we'll eventually pack up and go home, they somehow won't remember centuries of history - that the foreign occupier always packs up and goes home? Or that they have failed to notice that the same holds true in regard to any modern military engagement involving a long-term occupation in which the occupying power didn't engage in a massive population transfer into the occupied territory? Come on.

Cohen also seems to believe that every leader in the world wants to be Obama's best friend, and that they're all stinging at perceived slights:

In Europe, a more modest reset attempt has been compromised with political leaders (if not the public) by a perception of cool distance, underscored when Obama did not show at 20th-anniversary celebrations of the Berlin Wall’s fall. Feelings are particularly strong in Paris, where mutterings about Obama’s “Carterization” are heard. President Nicolas Sarkozy, who ushered France back to NATO’s integrated military command structure, and shattered political taboos dictating coolness toward America, has seen his hopes for a special relationship evaporate.

(Ah, memories.) It sounds like he's describing junior high school. "Angela threw a big party but Barack said he was too busy to come. All of Angela's friends are mad at him. Nicolas offered Barack a BFF bracelet, and Barack told him 'I don't want to be your best friend,' and now Nicolas doesn't like him any more and called him a loser." Again, come on.

Anne Applebaum has a better take on what's involved in Europe, noting that there's nothing close to a European consensus or European decision-maker with whom Obama can work on the key issues of the day, and she correctly notes that nations like China are going to pursue their own foreign policy interests, although her conclusion (while suitable for an editorial) seems overblown:

Europe might have a new phone number, but when Obama calls, the person on the other end of the line will still be unable to act. "Europe" will not be a unified entity capable of coordinating a unified policy in Iran, North Korea, Afghanistan, the Middle East or anywhere else anytime soon. Europe cannot, in short, become America's full partner in foreign policy....

This does mean that the Obama administration has a problem, however: Having come to office promising to work with allies, it may soon discover that there are no allies with which to work. Europe is still our best hope, because Europeans share most of our values. But organizing sanctions with a divided Europe - never mind a military operation - will continue to be a major chore. China, meanwhile, is acquiring vast foreign interests, trading in Africa and South America as well as Asia, along with a vast army to match. But China appears uninterested in joining an international campaign against terrorism, nuclear proliferation or anything else.

Global military and security thus look set to remain in the hands of the United States, whether the United States wants it or not. Halfway through his presidency, George W. Bush found he had to drop unilateralism in favor of diplomacy. Now one wonders: At some point in his presidency, will Obama find he has to drop diplomacy in favor of unilateralism, too?

Cohen seems to be operating under the conceit that U.S. foreign policy interests are everybody's interests, and thus that it's absurd that Obama can't handshake his way to consensus - that it's somehow Obama's failure. He underestimates the effect of Bush's unilateralism, which if anything caused our traditional allies to become quite accustomed to saying "no". He disregards the fact that foreign nations have their own issues to worry about, and their most pressing issues may not be the same as ours. He also overlooks the fact that there can sometimes be a political gain to a politician, even in an allied nation, for standing up to U.S. pressure.

I also like this one:

In Israel-Palestine, Obama underestimated the damage of the past decade and has been outmaneuvered by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

No, what happened was that Obama overestimated the resiliency of the U.S. economy, and severely underestimated his own party's willingness to address serious domestic issues such as stimulating economic recovery or passing a healthcare reform bill, and has had to expend significant political capital on those issues. Netanyahu, ever an opportunist, recognized that he could say "no" to the Obama Administration without consequence, as the Obama Administration is not presently positioned to impose a consequence. Is it a great shame that a Democratically controlled Congress doesn't have the President's back on key domestic and foreign policy issues? Absolutely. But what does Cohen expect President Obama to do about that?

Cohen has a sense of how skewed perspectives are in Israel, but compare and contrast Benny Morris who describes Obama as "a man who has, in the international arena, shown a proclivity for indecision (except when it comes to Israeli settlements in the West Bank)." Even with the retreat from his earlier demands for a mere freeze on new construction within those settlements, developed in knowing violation of international law, Morris sees Obama as having taken a hard line against Israel. (Meanwhile, Morris argues that an Israeli attack on Iran could bring chaos to the region, then turns around and suggests that it's the responsibility of the U.S. to bomb Iran so Israel doesn't have to, or at least to give it a green light and a massive infusion of high tech weaponry. Morris is definitely a person who brings to mind the phrase, "With friends like these....") It's also worth observing that Cohen sounds an awful lot like Pat Buchanan.¹

It's worth remembering that Cohen very recently argued that the time for achieving a bona fide peace, with a two state solution, started to vanish under President Clinton and was squandered under Bush.²

Obama, who has his Nobel already, should ratchet expectations downward. Stop talking about peace. Banish the word. Start talking about détente. That’s what Lieberman wants; that’s what Hamas says it wants; that’s the end point of Netanyahu’s evasions.

Peace is unattainable, Netanyahu's evasive, and all of this arose before Obama took office, yet it's somehow Obama's fault that his proposal for peace talks isn't working out. Or perhaps Cohen is now of the position that U.S. Presidents should pretend that the Israel-Palestine conflict is irrelevant to U.S. foreign policy interests, and give neither time nor effort to resolving it. Even a grandmaster will have difficulty ending a match, at least in a positive way, if Cohen is correct that he inherited a board where his only pieces are a king and a pawn while his opponent has retained most of his pieces.

The only thing Cohen offers that could approximate as a proposed solution is that Obama spend more time talking about "human rights and freedom". Does Cohen believe that in the prism of junior high school through which he views Europe, that will dissuade Nicolas Sarcozy from comparing Obama to Carter?

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1. Dan Larison offers a response to Pat Buchanan's arguments here.

2. You want to talk ineffectual? Or "dithering"? How about G.W. and his "road map" to nowhere?

The Perils of Democracy

When I watch the Obama Administration forming its policy on Afghanistan, I'm reminded of the Bush Administration (and, well, every administration I've seen in my lifetime) - Push back the date for decisions that may cause blowback such that any negative consequence, that is anything that might hurt the incumbent President in the polls, occurs after reelection (or after his successor takes office).

I suspect that Obama will order an approach that he believes will improve the situation in Afghanistan, but with the idea of wrapping up major military operations by mid-2011. At that time he can begin withdrawing troops without fear of a Najibullah-type collapse of the Karzai government before the election. His Republican opponent will have to decide if he wants to run on a platform of re-escalating and perpetuating the war, or effectively endorsing Obama's policies - and I suspect that in a national election there's a lot more danger to a politician who does the former.

This is hardly unique to the U.S. - there are issues around the globe that could be resolved if elected leaders spent less time worrying about getting reelected and more time worrying about what's truly in the best interest of their country and countrymen. And no, I'm not calling for the abolition of democracy - a cure far worse than the disease. And I would probably be arguing against human nature if I were to ask politicians to treat the public as if it has the knowledge, respect and maturity to accept that it can take years to see the benefits of good policy choices, and that a significant short-term price tag (figurative or literal) can be a small price to pay for those benefits.

Alas, I'm dreaming of a world without lobbyists, and in which people would treat the notion of "Sarah Palin, 2012" as a joke, and where it would be laughable to conceive of people like Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck as thought or opinion leaders. I don't mean to single out the political right, but it's difficult to think of a current "thought leader" or "political leader" on the left who offers so little substance yet is taken seriously by the media and the majority of the members of a major political party. People are people, and history tells us that the political left is far from immune from the dubious charms of similar "leaders".

In the Washington Post's tepid "America's Next Great Pundit" contest, a Nobel Prize winning scientist asked why our nation doesn't make an effort to separate science from partisanship, recreating the Office of Technology Assessment to try to "help Congress arrive at a common starting point for complicated legislation". Why not? Because the facts, or scientific consensus, frequently aren't politically convenient. Consider, for example, the British Government's decision to appoint a genuine scientist to advise it on drug issues, only to be embarrassed when he pointed out that much of the hysteria surrounding ecstasy and marijuana were exactly that. So he was fired.

Armed conflicts pose a similar problem, with proponents of war eagerly declaring any action with which they disagree to be a sign of weakness, empowering the enemy. We of course see that in pretty much every pro-war analysis of the War in Afghanistan. And, as Roger Cohen's column on Israel-Palestine implies, it's an argument that can lead to self-destructive behaviors that drag out a problem to the point that the best and easiest solutions may no longer be viable. When things are going well, the politicians respond to the popular sentiment that "Things are going well so why do we need to make any sacrifice," and when things aren't going well they respond to the sentiment, "Why do they deserve anything?" And the problem drags on for years, decades, potentially even for centuries.

As the experience of Britain in the Republic of Ireland indicates, the form of government can change dramatically without any significant impact on how the government responds to a serious issue, problem or conflict. Perhaps it's true that we get the government that we deserve - small-minded, foolish, vengeful, irrational, selfish, short-sighted... just like all of the people some of the time, and some of the people all of the time.

Don't Diminish the Value of Education

Roger Cohen shares a "rags to riches" story:

Fazal Fazlin has an American story. Raised in Karachi, Pakistan, he came to the United States in 1969 with an engineering degree and little else. Now he lives on a five-acre estate in the waterfront mansion that once belonged to Nelson Poynter, luminary of the newspaper business.

This reminds me of when I was in law school, and a classmate from a well-off family shared that the carpet in his dorm room was from his parent's first apartment in the U.S., the one-room apartment where he had also spent his earliest years. I didn't know anything about his background, save for it being pretty obvious that his parents were now quite wealthy, and I asked, "You mean your parents started out here with nothing? He laughed, "Yeah, if you count their Ph.D.'s in the hard sciences as 'nothing'".

I Knew I Forgot Something....

Roger Cohen fills us in on his recent travel and shoulder-rubbing,

I dropped by the Élysée Palace to get a fix on things. The food was shockingly awful — tired crudités, desiccated hake, pasty potato purée — but the Château Batailley 2001 was a beauty. Seems President Nicolas Sarkozy’s too busy for solids.

I guess I forgot to enter "snacks with 'Sarko'"¹ on my travel calendar.... Maybe next time. Apparently Cohen sipped a bit too much of the wine, hence his conclusion for Obama:

My advice to him is: sobriety, sobriety, sobriety.

Is it just me, or is Cohen's editorial as lacking in substance as Sarkozy's described assortment of hors d'oeuvres for the foreign media?
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1. Yes, in his column, Cohen refers to President Sarkozy as "Sarko". I guess it shows that you're hip and cool?