WarSclerotic

The Middle East realists: Old and new, Israel Hayom, Richard Baehr, December 14, 2014

America, according to Friedman and the Israel Lobby professors ‎should also ignore Israeli concerns and push forward with a nuclear ‎deal with Iran. A successful negotiation, even one which leaves Iran ‎with nuclear breakout capability in a few months, is certain to ‎change Iran’s pattern of international behavior, as it becomes a ‎regular member of the “community of nations” and gets back to ‎enjoying more robust economic relations with many other nations. ‎Iranian aid to Hezbollah, Hamas, Assad in Syria, Yemeni Shiite ‎rebel groups, Iraqi Shiites, all of these aggressive efforts will soften ‎or go away once Iran becomes America’s latest and greatest strategic ‎partner.‎

Friedman has been one of the great lap dogs for the Obama ‎administration, and his loyalty cost the president very little.

A touch of realism would be welcome in the White House at this ‎point. But it won’t happen because the self-styled realists are ‎wearing the blinkers, and think they know all there is to know.‎

*********************

Professor Stephen Walt of Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of ‎Government and Professor John Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago like to ‎call themselves foreign policy realists. Realists are, in their minds, people who can ‎assess international situations without any ideological blinders or bias. Walt and ‎Mearsheimer co-authored “The Israel Lobby,” originally as a lengthy article in the ‎London Review of Books in 2006, and then as a much longer book version in 2007. In both ‎the article and book, the professors argued that America’s very tight relationship ‎with Israel was strategically unsound for the United States. The authors claimed ‎that the closeness between the two countries was a product of the behavior of the ‎Congress of the United States, which they believe had been unduly influenced by ‎the political power of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and ‎other supporters of the Jewish state, such as evangelical Christians. ‎

In less academic, and blunter terms, New York Times columnist Tom Friedman ‎welcomed Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to his address to a joint session ‎of Congress in 2011, writing that the applause for Netanyahu reflected the fact that the ‎Congress was “bought and paid for by the Israel lobby.”‎

Of course, Friedman had been out ahead of Walt and Mearsheimer, with a similar ‎themed comment in a column in The New York Times in February 5, 2004:‎

‎”Israel’s prime minister has had George Bush under ‎house arrest in the Oval Office. Mr. Sharon has Mr. ‎Arafat surrounded by tanks, and Mr. Bush surrounded ‎by Jewish and Christian pro-Israel lobbyists, by a vice ‎president, Dick Cheney, who’s ready to do whatever Mr. ‎Sharon dictates, and by political handlers telling the ‎president not to put any pressure on Israel in an election ‎year all conspiring to make sure the president does ‎nothing.”

Friedman styles himself as an “eminence grise,” sitting high up in ‎New York Times land, a platform from where he can speak as an ‎equal with the likes of academic intellectuals such as Mearsheimer ‎and Walt, but also foreign leaders too numerous to name, and ‎American presidents, all of whom understand the significance of ‎receiving a favorable column from Tom Friedman. As a presumably ‎great strategic thinker and realist like Walt and Mearsheimer, ‎Friedman has come to the same conclusions as the professors on ‎where America’s strategic interests lie in the Middle East. America ‎must challenge Israel and force a two-state solution with the ‎Palestinians. This is in Israel’s interests as well, of course, since the ‎absence of peace creates so much ill will for both Israel and its ally ‎America among other nations in the region and around the world. ‎Friedman always claims he has Israel’s real interests at heart, while ‎their elected government digs deeper holes. Clearly, if Israel were ‎only to be more forthcoming, the deal with the Palestinians could ‎finally get done this time (next time, some time, whenever…). ‎

America, according to Friedman and the Israel Lobby professors ‎should also ignore Israeli concerns and push forward with a nuclear ‎deal with Iran. A successful negotiation, even one which leaves Iran ‎with nuclear breakout capability in a few months, is certain to ‎change Iran’s pattern of international behavior, as it becomes a ‎regular member of the “community of nations” and gets back to ‎enjoying more robust economic relations with many other nations. ‎Iranian aid to Hezbollah, Hamas, Assad in Syria, Yemeni Shiite ‎rebel groups, Iraqi Shiites, all of these aggressive efforts will soften ‎or go away once Iran becomes America’s latest and greatest strategic ‎partner.‎

Friedman has been one of the great lap dogs for the Obama ‎administration, and his loyalty cost the president very little. In his ‎case, the president revealed that he reads Friedman’s columns, and ‎then followed it up by inviting Friedman into the Oval Office to ‎offer up his invaluable insights. With all that respect and notoriety, ‎nothing could possibly stop the love coming from the Times ‎columnist for everything Obama. Friedman’s latest service to President Barack ‎Obama was to trash the critics of the president’s Iran policy:‎

‎ ‎‎”Never have I seen Israel and America’s core Arab allies ‎working more in concert to stymie a major foreign policy ‎initiative of a sitting U.S. president, and never have I seen ‎more lawmakers — Democrats and Republicans — more ‎willing to take Israel’s side against their own president’s. ‎I’m certain this comes less from any careful consideration ‎of the facts and more from a growing tendency by many ‎American lawmakers to do whatever the Israel lobby asks ‎them to do in order to garner Jewish votes and campaign ‎donations. “‎

Friedman and Walt and Mearsheimer are locked into an old and ‎predictable thesis that America’s real strategic interest in the region ‎is securing its oil supplies, and cozying up with the oil-rich nations ‎of the Gulf and Saudi Arabia. Improving relations with Iran fosters ‎a new climate where American is not so isolated as a result of its ‎support for Israel. And if Israel and the Palestinians make peace, ‎there will be a warm glow everywhere, improving the atmospherics ‎to address other regional issues.‎

There is however a new realism which has overtaken some of those ‎countries who have been patronized by the American realists for ‎decades. For years, many oil rich nations subsidized the efforts of ‎Islamists in schools, universities, mosques, and in politics. They ‎believed they had bought them off to a large extent in their own ‎countries, but could tip the scales against Israel by aiding Hamas ‎and could satisfy the aggressive demands for Islamist expansion in ‎other places. ‎

The new realism, demonstrated most prominently by Egypt, but ‎also by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, all Sunni Arab states, is that ‎Iran, in particular a nuclear Iran, will become more assertive, not ‎less, and represents the biggest threat to their own regimes. Sunni ‎Islamists are also a threat to stability — witness Iraq, Libya, Syria, the ‎Sinai in Egypt. Increasingly, Turkey and Qatar are now grouped ‎with Iran as advancing an agenda that is unhelpful to the Saudis, ‎Egypt, and the UAE. Saudi Arabia and Egypt will not vote with ‎Israel at the United Nations, and they will continue to sign onto the ‎usual collection of resolutions condemning Israeli human rights ‎violations against the Palestinians. But it is Egypt that has gone to ‎war with jihadists in Sinai, and effectively shut its border with ‎Gaza. Egyptian soldiers and civilians are being murdered by Hamas ‎and other allies of the Muslim Brotherhood. Defeating this threat is ‎as important to Egypt, as defeating Hamas is for Israel.‎

Caroline Glick makes the argument this way:‎

‎”But the alliance that emerged this summer between Israel and ‎Egypt, with the participation of Saudi Arabia and the UAE, is ‎also a highly significant strategic development. For the first time, ‎a major regional power is basing its strategic posture on its ‎understanding that the threats against itself and against Israel ‎stem from the same sources and as a consequence, that the ‎war against Israel is a war against it.‎

“Israelis have argued this case for years to their Arab neighbors ‎as well as to the Americans and other Western states. But for ‎multiple reasons, no one has ever been willing to accept this ‎basic, obvious reality.‎

“As a consequence, everyone from the Americans to the ‎Europeans to the Saudis long supported policies that empower ‎jihadist forces against Israel.‎

‎‎ ‎“[Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah] Sissi is the first major leader to break with this consensus, as a ‎result of actions Hamas took before and since his rise to power. ‎He has brought Saudi Arabia and the UAE along on his ‎intellectual journey.‎

‎ ‎“Sissi’s reassessment of the relationship between the war against ‎Israel and the war against Egypt has had a profound impact on ‎regional realities generally and on Israel’s strategic posture ‎specifically.‎

‎”From Israel’s perspective, this is a watershed event.‎

‎ ‎“The government must take every possible action, in economic ‎and military spheres, to ensure that Sissi benefits from his ‎actions.”‎

Of course, the Obama administration seemed enthralled with the ‎Muslim Brotherhood government in Egypt, and both threatened ‎and for a time carried out an aid suspension when Sissi and his supporters engineered the ‎overthrow. There have been rumors, denied of course, that the White House has entertained similar notions for Israel due to its ‎‎”unconstructive” policy on settlement construction. More likely, ‎the administration may be trying to intervene in a none too ‎subtle fashion with the upcoming Israeli elections, to signal how ‎much better relations would be between Israel and America if ‎only Netanyahu were gone. If that is the White House strategy, it is not, ‎to use a word, realistic. Most Israelis expect nothing but the ‎back of the hand from Obama at this point, and Obama’s ‎blessing will not enhance the candidates of the Left in the ‎election.

A touch of realism would be welcome in the White House at this ‎point. But it won’t happen because the self-styled realists are ‎wearing the blinkers, and think they know all there is to know.‎