Just Foreign Policy News
August 12, 2010
Obama: Prioritize Pakistan Flood Relief Over Afghan War
The government of Pakistan has urgently asked the U.S. and other supplies to rescue victims of the catastrophic floods in Pakistan. U.S. military officials say there is a trade-off: we have helicopters, but they are busy fighting the war in Afghanistan. Urge President Obama to prioritize Pakistan flood relief over escalating the war in Afghanistan.
https://www.justforeignpolicy.org/act/pakistanfloods
Background: Helicopters for War, But Not Flood Relief?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-naiman/obamas-pakistan-katrina-h_b_678755.html
National Education Association Protests IMF Pressure on Teachers in Jamaica
The National Education Association (3.2 million members) sent a letter of protest to the U.S. Treasury Department over reports pressure from the International Monetary Fund was causing the Jamaican government to violate contracts with Jamaican teachers.
https://www.justforeignpolicy.org/node/671
Bacevich: Washington Rules
Andrew Bacevich’s new book, "Washington Rules: America’s Path to Permanent War," is a call for Americans to reject the Washington consensus for permanent war, and to demand instead that America "come home."
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September 24th: JFP "Virtual Brown Bag" with Andrew Bacevich
https://www.justforeignpolicy.org/bacevichtalk
Oliver Stone’s "South of the Border," scheduled screenings:
http://southoftheborderdoc.com/in-theatres/
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Summary:
U.S./Top News
1) Pakistani officials say they have been disappointed by the relatively small amount of international assistance that has been offered in response to the flood disaster, the Washington Post reports. "If you look at the scale of the damage and compare that to the pledges we have received, so far there’s a big asymmetry," said the government’s principal economic adviser. The UN said that less than $45 million in international aid has been committed, with an additional $91 million pledged. Within the first 10 days after the 2005 earthquake in the Pakistani region of Kashmir, nearly $300 million had been pledged or committed. Ten days after the Haitian earthquake this year, the amount surpassed $1.6 billion, the Post reports.
2) U.S. military officials are building a case to minimize the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan starting next summer, to counter growing pressure on President Obama from inside his own party to begin winding the war down quickly, the New York Times reports. Obama will make an assessment of progress in December. But officials said they did not expect major changes in the Afghan strategy to emerge from the review, suggesting that the White House would not move swiftly to resolve the tension between the military’s pleas for patience and the demands from Democrats for substantial troop withdrawals starting next summer. "The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have come at tremendous cost to the American people," said Speaker Pelosi, who is pressing for substantial troop reductions beginning in July 2011. Some House Democrats are demanding that Obama spell out a much more detailed timetable for withdrawal and narrow the strategy to combating Al Qaeda, in both Afghanistan and Pakistan. "There’s a lack of a clear endgame," said Representative Gerald Connolly, a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
3) Iran, reacting to the cutoff of U.S. aid to the Lebanese military, told Lebanese officials it would make up the potential $100-million loss, the Los Angeles Times reports. The promise came after disclosures that Rep. Berman, chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and Rep. Lowey, chair of the Appropriations subcommittee on foreign operations, decided to freeze the money because of concerns that the U.S. aid might be buying arms that could be turned against Israel. A State Dept. spokesman acknowledged U.S. concern about the growing influence of Iran in Lebanon. "The statements of Iran are expressly the reason why we believe that continuing support to the Lebanese government and the Lebanese military is in our interest," he said.
4) Hezbollah did not take part in the most recent fighting at the border, and the confrontation showed a rare willingness by the Lebanese military to assert itself in a region long considered Hezbollah territory, AP notes. The Lebanese army drew praise in the country for standing up to Israel’s powerful military – a role the army has more or less deferred to Hezbollah in the past. Some analysts believe cutting U.S. aid could actually empower Hezbollah. "It would facilitate Hezbollah reasserting itself along the line of demarcation with Israel," Aram Nerguizian of CSIS said.
5) Many US and Iraqi officials agree on their desire for U.S. military forces to remain in Iraq after 2011, Tim Arango reports in the New York Times. "The decision will bear directly on the payoff America could yet reap for all its spent blood … and treasure, in the form of a democratic ally in a combustible region that would be a check on Iranian power and offer American access to Iraq’s vast oil reserves," the NYT says. The NYT article notes without citation that "hundreds of thousands of Iraqis died in the war with Iran in the 1980s," which is striking because a similar statement about the number of Iraqis who have died as a result of the 2003 US invasion has never appeared in the New York Times, even though the evidence for such an assertion is at least as strong.
6) The State Department is struggling to implement an expanded mission in Iraq it has belatedly realized it might not be able to afford, the Washington Post reports. The State Department has signaled in recent weeks that it will need up to $400 million more than initially requested to cover mushrooming security costs, but lawmakers seem in no mood to acquiesce. "They need a dose of fiscal reality," a Senate aide said. "If they miscalculated by hundreds of millions of dollars, they need to tell us where they propose to find the money," the aide said. "It’s not going to come from [funds allotted to] Afghanistan or Haiti." The Administration warned appropriators that if there was no more money for State’s operations budget, it would have to be taken out of development assistance programs in Iraq and elsewhere.
7) Defense Secretary Gates gets only partial credit for his war on bloat, because instead of turning the savings back, Gates intends to recycle it all inside the Pentagon to beef up fighting forces and produce future weapons. Cutting overhead to sharpen the point of the spear makes sense in wartime. But Gates made it clear that’s not what this is. "This isn’t about finding money for the wars we’re in today," he said. "We’ve got that money. It’s about protecting the money for the future." The Obama administration has ordered a freeze on the nation’s non-security spending, but exempted the Pentagon. Gates said "modest but steady growth" is the "minimum" the Pentagon needs to fight two wars and prepare for the future. But wars end. One is ending already, and savings are needed. There’s no reason why the Pentagon can’t live with a freeze, if not now then in the near future.
Iran
8) In an important and controversial piece in the Atlantic, Jeffrey Goldberg argues that next spring, if there has not been significant progress in addressing Iran’s nuclear program, and if the Obama Administration will not attack Iran, it is likely that Israel will try to do so even without U.S. permission. Goldberg claims that based on many interviews with Israeli, American, and Arab leaders, that "a consensus emerged that there is a better than 50 percent chance that Israel will launch a strike by next July." Goldberg acknowledges that such an attack "stand[s] a good chance" of "sparking lethal reprisals, and even a full-blown regional war that could lead to the deaths of thousands of Israelis and Iranians, and possibly Arabs and Americans as well…of rupturing relations between Jerusalem and Washington…of inadvertently solidifying the somewhat tenuous rule of the mullahs in Tehran; of causing the price of oil to spike to cataclysmic highs, launching the world economy into a period of turbulence not experienced since the autumn of 2008, or possibly since the oil shock of 1973; of placing communities across the Jewish diaspora in mortal danger…and of accelerating Israel’s conversion…into a leper among nations." But he argues that Israeli leaders would see it as justified nonetheless. But Goldberg also notes that Admiral Mullen recently made a stop in Israel that had one main purpose, according to an Israeli source: "to make sure we didn’t do anything in Iran before they thought we might do something in Iran"; that the US would be blamed for an Israeli attack, even if the US did not explicitly approve it; and that Israeli officials acknowledge that if the US learned of Israeli plans to attack Iran and ordered them to stop, they might have to stop. "A decision has been made that we can’t lie to the Americans about our plans," one official said.
9) Responding to Goldberg’s piece, Flynt Leverett and Hillary Mann Leverett write for Foreign Policy, the campaign for war against Iran is now arguing that the US should attack so Israel won’t have to. Goldberg’s reporting reveals that the case for attacking Iran – especially for America to attack so Israel won’t – is even flimsier than the case Goldberg helped make for invading Iraq in 2002, in a New Yorker article alleging that "the relationship between Saddam’s regime and Al Qaeda is far closer than previously thought." Goldberg’s reporting makes clear that those at the top of Israel’s political order understand Iran’s nuclear program is not an "existential threat." His interlocutors recognize Iran is unlikely to invite its own destruction by attacking Israel directly. Israeli elites want to preserve a regional balance of power strongly tilted in Israel’s favor and what an Israeli general described to Goldberg as "freedom of action" – the freedom to use force unilaterally, anytime, for whatever purpose Israel wants. The problem with Iranian nuclear capability – not just weapons, but capability – is that it might begin constraining Israel’s currently unconstrained "freedom of action." In May, retired Israeli military officers, diplomats, and intelligence officials conducted a war game that assumed Iran had acquired "nuclear weapons capability." Participants subsequently told Reuters that such capability does not pose an "existential threat" to Israel – but "would blunt Israel’s military autonomy." Maximizing Israel’s freedom of unilateral military initiative is not a valid rationale for the US to start a war with Iran. Just imagine how Obama would explain such reasoning to the American people.
Israel/Palestine
10) A ship bearing aid for Gaza from Lebanon has only women on board, the Guardian reported. The Saint Mariam, or Virgin Mary, has a multi-faith international passenger list, including the Lebanese singer May Hariri and a group of nuns from the US. At least 10 Americans will be on board. The co-ordinator of the voyage, Samar al-Haj, said organizers were going out of their way not to provoke Israel. "We will not even bring cooking knives," she said. Asked how they would react to an Israeli military assault, one activist said: "We are not planning to fight or attack – but we will not leave the St Mariam."
Contents:
U.S./Top News
1) Pakistan Says International Aid Falling Short
As Pakistanis flee flood zone, officials decry shortage of international aid
Griff Witte, Washington Post, Wednesday, August 11, 2010; A08
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/08/10/AR2010081003183.html
Islamabad, Pakistan – Hundreds of thousands of people fled an ever-expanding flood zone Tuesday as Pakistan’s leaders called for a greater international response to what they say is the worst natural disaster in the country’s history.
With rain continuing and rivers surging, authorities were closely watching several key dams that are at or near capacity. The Sukkur dam in the southern province of Sindh was considered especially vulnerable; a breach could unleash a torrent that would wipe out towns and villages.
[…] Already, 14 million people have been affected by the flooding, and the Pakistani government has conceded that it does not have the resources to tackle the crisis. But officials say they have been disappointed by the relatively small amount of international assistance that has been offered.
"If you look at the scale of the damage and compare that to the pledges we have received, so far there’s a big asymmetry," said Sakib Sherani, the government’s principal economic adviser. "Several billion dollars will be required just to feed and house the population temporarily. So clearly, the international community needs to step up."
In Washington, U.S. officials said they would provide an additional $20 million in aid, bringing the total U.S. contribution to $55 million. They also said that in response to Pakistan’s need for more airlift capacity, the USS Peleliu, with about 16 heavy-lift helicopters, was awaiting final approval from the Pakistani government and Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates to dock in Karachi. The aircraft are expected to take over from four Chinook and two Black Hawk helicopters that were diverted from Afghanistan early last week.
[…] The United Nations says that less than $45 million in international aid has been committed, with an additional $91 million pledged. Within the first 10 days after the 2005 earthquake in the Pakistani region of Kashmir, nearly $300 million had been pledged or committed. Ten days after the Haitian earthquake this year, the amount surpassed $1.6 billion.
2) U.S. Military to Press for Slower Afghan Drawdown
Eric Schmitt, Helene Cooper and David E. Sanger, New York Times, August 11, 2010 http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/12/world/asia/12policy.html
Washington – American military officials are building a case to minimize the planned withdrawal of some troops from Afghanistan starting next summer, in an effort to counter growing pressure on President Obama from inside his own party to begin winding the war down quickly.
With the administration unable yet to point to much tangible evidence of progress, Gen. David H. Petraeus, who assumed command in Afghanistan last month from Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, is taking several steps to emphasize hopeful signs on the ground that, he will argue, would make a rapid withdrawal unwise. Meanwhile, a rising generation of young officers, who have become experts over the past nine years in the art of counterinsurgency, have begun quietly telling administration officials that they need time to get their work done.
[…] Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates signaled the military’s position recently when he said that the initial troop withdrawals next summer "will be of fairly limited numbers." General Petraeus, who has kept a low profile for the past six weeks while conducting a countrywide assessment, is expected to amplify the message during the media offensive he will begin on Sunday, when he is to appear on the NBC News program "Meet the Press." He is expected to say that the last of the 30,000 additional troops Mr. Obama ordered to Afghanistan last December will not arrive until later this month, and that the counterinsurgency strategy has not been given enough time to succeed.
Administration officials said they were hopeful that General Petraeus’s stature in Congress and in allied capitals in Europe and the Middle East would buy him the time and flexibility to try to make the counterinsurgency strategy he devised – and carried out in Iraq – work in Afghanistan.
[…] Mr. Obama will make a formal assessment of progress in Afghanistan in December. But administration officials said they did not expect major changes in the Afghan strategy to emerge from the review, suggesting that the White House would not move swiftly to resolve the tension between the military’s pleas for patience and the demands from Democrats for substantial troop withdrawals starting next summer.
Mr. Obama has been vague about how rapidly he might reduce the American presence starting in July, the target date he set when he decided late last year to send more troops. But at the time, White House officials say, he made it clear to the military that he planned to take the July 2011 date seriously – and that while he had no plans to "turn out the lights" in Afghanistan, he would not allow what one of his senior aides recently called "an open-ended commitment."
At the core of the timetables, they say, is what White House officials call the "two-year rule." During the review of Afghanistan and Pakistan strategy, Mr. Gates made the argument, according to one participant in the White House Situation Room discussions, that "in any particular location you should be able to clear, build, hold and transfer" to the Afghan forces within two years. Military officials said two years was roughly how long it took to make headway in difficult places, once troops were in place. "If it takes longer than that," the official said, "there’s a problem, and you have the temptation to drift."
Obama administration officials said that in their first review of Afghan policy during the Bush years, the conclusion was that a failure to provide adequate resources was worsened by a failure to set deadlines for results.
The two-year clock, officials say, started in June 2009 when the first additional forces, more than 20,000 troops long requested by American commanders, arrived in Afghanistan. Those troops will have been in place for two years by next summer, the deadline for the beginning of the withdrawal under Mr. Obama’s plan.
In areas where operations began this year – like Marja, where results have been disappointing, and Kandahar, where American Special Operations forces are now conducting night raids to diminish the middle ranks of the Taliban – the two-year clock started later, and the work there could continue well into 2012.
Democrats in Congress are in no mood to hear about two-year clocks. In a vote last month to continue financing the war, those in the House were deeply split, with 102 – more than a third of the caucus – voting against the measure.
"The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have come at tremendous cost to the American people," said the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, who is pressing for substantial troop reductions beginning in July 2011. "Members of Congress and the administration will have to assess whether the sacrifices of our men and women in uniform, and the resources we must invest to continue these efforts, are the best way to protect our national security."
Some House Democrats are demanding that Mr. Obama and his national security advisers spell out a much more detailed timetable for withdrawal – something the military has steadfastly opposed, saying it aids the enemy – and narrow the strategy to combating Al Qaeda, in both Afghanistan and Pakistan. "There’s a lack of a clear endgame," said Representative Gerald E. Connolly, Democrat of Virginia and a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
[…]
3) Iran says it will make up for the cutoff of U.S. aid to Lebanon
The promise comes the day after disclosures that Reps. Berman and Lowey decided to freeze the money because of concerns that it might be buying arms that could be turned against Israel.
Paul Richter and Alexandra Sandels, Los Angeles Times, August 11, 2010
http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-fg-us-lebanon-20100811,0,5580903.story
Washington and Beirut – Iran, reacting to the cutoff of U.S. aid to the Lebanese military, told Lebanese officials Tuesday that it would make up the potential $100-million loss.
The promise came one day after disclosures that Rep. Howard L. Berman (D-Valley Village), chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and Rep. Nita M. Lowey (D-N.Y.), chairwoman of the Appropriations subcommittee on foreign operations, decided to freeze the money because of concerns that the U.S. aid might be buying arms that could be turned against Israel.
Congress has spent about $720 million since 2006 to try to strengthen the weak national army, hoping that it could offset the growing power of the Shiite militia Hezbollah and halt arms smuggling through Lebanon’s eastern border.
Such hopes have been fading in Congress as fears increase that Hezbollah has infiltrated the national force. Those concerns were intensified after a firefight between the Lebanese army and Israeli forces on Lebanon’s southern border Aug. 3 resulted in the deaths of an Israeli officer and two Lebanese soldiers, as well as a Lebanese journalist.
Berman said in a statement this week that the border incident "simply reinforces the critical need for the United States to conduct an in-depth policy review of its relationship with the Lebanese military." He said that, until the administration can provide assurances that the army "is a responsible actor, I cannot in good conscience allow the United States to continue sending weapons to Lebanon."
The Obama administration, which on Monday insisted that the program must be continued, on Tuesday showed a new willingness to discuss with the lawmakers how it could provide reassurance that the money would be properly spent.
Philip J. Crowley, the chief State Department spokesman, acknowledged that the border incident has "raised questions" about U.S. aid and "whether any of our assistance was in some way implicated."
[…] He also acknowledged U.S. concern about the growing influence of Iran in Lebanon. "The statements of Iran are expressly the reason why we believe that continuing support to the Lebanese government and the Lebanese military is in our interest," he said.
Iran’s ambassador to Lebanon, Ghazanfar Abadi, told Lebanese army chief Jean Kahwaji in a meeting in Beirut that Tehran was willing to offset the losses, renewing an offer it has made before, the Iranian Embassy said in a statement.
Mohammed Shatah, an advisor to Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri, said in an interview that the U.S. aid cutoff was "unjustified and regrettable," but he expressed hope that conversations between Lebanese officials and Congress would persuade lawmakers to resume the assistance. The freeze "sends a bad signal domestically and a bad signal on U.S. policy," Shatah said. He declined to comment on Iran’s offer.
Aram Nerguizian, an analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said the aid cutoff would undermine the U.S. effort to remain a player in an unstable country.
[…]
4) Lebanon: US military aid halt is ‘unwarranted’
Zeina Karam, AP, August 11, 2010
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5i5ggkb0W3EnItElUblFtK6XnIOOAD9HGQV8G0
Beirut –
[…] Hezbollah did not take part in the most recent fighting, and the confrontation showed a rare willingness by the Lebanese military to assert itself in a region long considered Hezbollah territory.
The Lebanese army drew praise in the country for standing up to Israel’s powerful military – a role the army has more or less deferred to Hezbollah in the past. But politicians in Israel and the United States charge that Hezbollah might have infiltrated the army or are trying to influence it.
It is a paradox that Lebanese military aid presents to the U.S. administration, which wants to a see a stronger army to counter Hezbollah’s formidable arsenal but now faces the possibility that the army may end up trading fire with Israeli soldiers.
"In essence, the U.S. administration and U.S. military aid to Lebanon are caught between an Israeli rock and a Hezbollah hard place," said Aram Nerguizian, a resident scholar at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.
Nerguizian said that while the clash seems to be an isolated incident, it shows the army wants to play an increasingly meaningful role in safeguarding Lebanese sovereignty.
[…] Lebanon described the U.S. suspension of aid as "regrettable and unwarranted."
"The last thing that the U.S. or any other friend of Lebanon should do is to weaken the effort to build up our national army," Mohamed Chatah, an adviser to Prime Minister Hariri, told The Associated Press.
Some analysts believe cutting U.S. aid could actually empower Hezbollah. "It would facilitate Hezbollah reasserting itself along the line of demarcation with Israel," Nerguizian said.
[…]
5) U.S. And Iraqi Interests May Work Against Pullout
Tim Arango, New York Times, August 10, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/11/world/middleeast/11iraq.html
Baghdad – In a recent speech President Obama took credit for delivering on his promise to end the official combat mission on schedule, and vowed to meet America’s next deadline of moving all American forces off Iraqi soil by the end of 2011. "As agreed to with the Iraqi government, we will maintain a transitional force until we remove all our troops from Iraq by the end of next year," the president said.
The reality in Iraq may defy that deadline, because many American and Iraqi officials deem the American presence to be in each nation’s interest. "For a very long period of time we’re going to be on the ground, even if it’s solely in support of its U.S. weapons systems," said Ryan C. Crocker, who was the American ambassador in Baghdad until 2009 and helped to negotiate the agreement that tethers the two countries and mandates that all American troops leave Iraq by the end of 2011.
Even as that deadline was negotiated, he said, a longer-lasting, though significantly smaller, presence of American forces had always been considered to be likely.
At the moment, five months after national elections, there is still no Iraqi government to begin talking about what any post-2011 arrangement might entail. But many Iraqi officials deem it quietly necessary on a number of fronts: Iraq is buying more and more sophisticated American weapons, like tanks and warplanes, and will need Americans here for training and maintenance. At the same time, training is intensifying for the Iraq Army to learn not only how to battle internal insurgents, but also how to protect its national borders – a project that will take many years.
[…] The decision will bear directly on the payoff America could yet reap for all its spent blood – more than 4,000 American lives – and treasure, in the form of a democratic ally in a combustible region that would be a check on Iranian power and offer American access to Iraq’s vast oil reserves.
[…] But the decision could be politically perilous for both sides. For Mr. Obama, a deepening commitment to a conflict he opposed could alienate his supporters who helped win him the presidency, especially as his party slowly abandons him on the war in Afghanistan. Iraq’s leaders face a public that wishes to be free of the American military’s grip, but the deficiencies of the country’s armed forces are obvious.
[…] Even though Iraqi soldiers and policemen are still dying at the hands of insurgents, the focus of the American advisory mission will shift toward preparing Iraq’s national defenses. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis died in the war with Iran in the 1980s.
[…]
6) State Dept. faces skyrocketing costs as it prepares to expand role in Iraq
Karen DeYoung and Ernesto Londoño, Washington Post, August 11, 2010; A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/08/10/AR2010081006407.html
As the last U.S. combat troops prepare to leave Iraq this month, the State Department is struggling to implement an expanded mission that it has belatedly realized it might not be able to afford. Beginning in September, the State Department will take over all police training in Iraq from coalition military forces, and it has proposed replacing its current 16 provincial reconstruction teams spread across the country with five consular offices outside Baghdad.
But since planning for the transition began more than two years ago, costs have skyrocketed and the money to pay for them has become increasingly tight. Congress cut the State Department’s Iraq request in the 2010 supplemental appropriation that President Obama signed late last month; the Senate Appropriations Committee and a House subcommittee have already slashed the administration’s $1.8 billion request for fiscal 2011 operations in Iraq.
[…] The State Department has signaled in recent weeks that it will need up to $400 million more than initially requested to cover mushrooming security costs, but lawmakers seem in no mood to acquiesce.
"They need a dose of fiscal reality," a senior Senate aide said, speaking on the condition of anonymity amid ongoing negotiations over the State Department funding. "If they miscalculated by hundreds of millions of dollars, they need to tell us where they propose to find the money," the aide said. "It’s not going to come from [funds allotted to] Afghanistan or Haiti."
Lew, at the Center for Strategic and International Studies last week, indicated that State might be forced to revise its plans, including limiting the number of police-training facilities to fortified, central locations in major population areas. "That means there will be other places that we don’t have a police-training capacity," he said, although "anyone who has done police training in difficult environments knows that it’s much better to be out in the field, working one-on-one, than to do classroom training."
Other officials have said that at least one of the "embassy branch" offices, or consulates, will have to be eliminated, most likely in Diyala province, and that at least two others will have to be scaled back.
To undertake unprecedented tasks in what is still a highly dangerous environment, the State Department plan calls for replacing protection for civilians that the U.S. military now provides with what amounts to its own armed force. It proposes to triple the current 2,700 security contractors and reinforce facilities where diplomats and police trainers will work to specifications beyond what the military considers safe for its own personnel.
[…] The administration and Congress disagree over whether the State Department is asking for additional funds or for a reallocation of what it has already requested. To some extent, the question is irrelevant, because Lew, now Obama’s nominee to head the Office of Management and Budget, warned appropriators that if there was no more money for State’s operations budget, it would have to be taken out of development assistance programs in Iraq and elsewhere.
[…] Congress hasn’t bought the argument, first articulated by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton when she introduced the budget in February, that State’s Iraq proposal is a bargain compared with the $16 billion overall the U.S. government will save in reduced military costs after a reduction to 50,000 U.S. troops at the end of this month.
While defense appropriators are used to such funding levels, they are astronomical to lawmakers overseeing the State Department, whose global operations budget request totals about $16 billion for 2011. An additional $36 billion has been requested for worldwide foreign assistance programs.
But even the defense committees are balking at what Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates has called an unsustainably bloated Pentagon budget and continued expenditures for Iraq. The military’s request for $2 billion to equip and bolster the Iraqi armed forces next year – on top of $18 billion spent since 2003 – was cut in half by the Senate Armed Services Committee this summer. Defense officials have asked for the decision to be reconsidered.
"They’ve got a surplus of oil revenue," Sen. Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.), whose Armed Services Committee halved to $1 billion the Iraq military equipment request, said in an interview last week. "And we’ve got a tight budget here. Connect that with the fact that we’ve got a damned big budget deficit of our own. A billion dollars seems to me to be a very generous contribution."
[…]
7) Our view on defense spending: Gates cuts Pentagon fat, but plenty of flab remains
Editorial, USA Today, August 11, 2010
http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/editorials/2010-08-11-editorial11_ST_N.htm
Defense Secretary Robert Gates’ ongoing campaign to swing a scythe through Pentagon bloat and excess is overdue and entirely welcome. The Pentagon budget has more than doubled in just the past decade, and core defense spending is now bigger in real terms than it was at the height of President Reagan’s enormous defense buildup in the 1980s.
[…] But here’s why Gates gets only partial credit for his war on bloat. Instead of turning the savings back to fight the out-of-control national debt, Gates intends to recycle it all inside the Pentagon to beef up fighting forces and produce future weapons. "This is not about cutting the defense budget, this is about a reallocation internally," he said. "The services get to keep the savings they identify and invest them in higher priority things."
Cutting overhead to sharpen the point of the spear makes sense in wartime. But Gates made it clear that’s not what this is. "This isn’t about finding money for the wars we’re in today," he said. "We’ve got that money. It’s about protecting the money for the future."
Hmm. The Obama administration has ordered a freeze on the nation’s non-security spending, but exempted the Pentagon. Gates said "modest but steady growth" is the "minimum" the Pentagon needs to fight two wars and prepare for the future. But wars end. One is ending already, and savings are needed. There’s no reason why the Pentagon can’t live with a freeze, if not now then in the near future. Gates has shown the way.
Iran
8) The Point of No Return
For the Obama Administration, the prospect of a nuclearized Iran is dismal to contemplate- it would create major new national-security challenges and crush the president’s dream of ending nuclear proliferation. But the view from Jerusalem is still more dire: a nuclearized Iran represents, among other things, a threat to Israel’s very existence. In the gap between Washington’s and Jerusalem’s views of Iran lies the question: who, if anyone, will stop Iran before it goes nuclear, and how? As Washington and Jerusalem study each other intensely, here’s an inside look at the strategic calculations on both sides-and at how, if things remain on the current course, an Israeli air strike will unfold.
Jeffrey Goldberg, The Atlantic, August 11, 2010
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1969/12/the-point-of-no-return/8186/
[…] But none of these things-least of all the notion that Barack Obama, for whom initiating new wars in the Middle East is not a foreign-policy goal, will soon order the American military into action against Iran-seems, at this moment, terribly likely. What is more likely, then, is that one day next spring, the Israeli national-security adviser, Uzi Arad, and the Israeli defense minister, Ehud Barak, will simultaneously telephone their counterparts at the White House and the Pentagon, to inform them that their prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has just ordered roughly one hundred F-15Es, F-16Is, F-16Cs, and other aircraft of the Israeli air force to fly east toward Iran-possibly by crossing Saudi Arabia, possibly by threading the border between Syria and Turkey, and possibly by traveling directly through Iraq’s airspace, though it is crowded with American aircraft. (It’s so crowded, in fact, that the United States Central Command, whose area of responsibility is the greater Middle East, has already asked the Pentagon what to do should Israeli aircraft invade its airspace. According to multiple sources, the answer came back: do not shoot them down.)
[…] When the Israelis begin to bomb the uranium-enrichment facility at Natanz, the formerly secret enrichment site at Qom, the nuclear-research center at Esfahan, and possibly even the Bushehr reactor, along with the other main sites of the Iranian nuclear program, a short while after they depart en masse from their bases across Israel-regardless of whether they succeed in destroying Iran’s centrifuges and warhead and missile plants, or whether they fail miserably to even make a dent in Iran’s nuclear program-they stand a good chance of changing the Middle East forever; of sparking lethal reprisals, and even a full-blown regional war that could lead to the deaths of thousands of Israelis and Iranians, and possibly Arabs and Americans as well; of creating a crisis for Barack Obama that will dwarf Afghanistan in significance and complexity; of rupturing relations between Jerusalem and Washington, which is Israel’s only meaningful ally; of inadvertently solidifying the somewhat tenuous rule of the mullahs in Tehran; of causing the price of oil to spike to cataclysmic highs, launching the world economy into a period of turbulence not experienced since the autumn of 2008, or possibly since the oil shock of 1973; of placing communities across the Jewish diaspora in mortal danger, by making them targets of Iranian-sponsored terror attacks, as they have been in the past, in a limited though already lethal way; and of accelerating Israel’s conversion from a once-admired refuge for a persecuted people into a leper among nations.
[…] I have been exploring the possibility that such a strike will eventually occur for more than seven years, since my first visit to Tehran, where I attempted to understand both the Iranian desire for nuclear weapons and the regime’s theologically motivated desire to see the Jewish state purged from the Middle East, and especially since March of 2009, when I had an extended discussion about the Iranian nuclear program with Benjamin Netanyahu, hours before he was sworn in as Israel’s prime minister. In the months since then, I have interviewed roughly 40 current and past Israeli decision makers about a military strike, as well as many American and Arab officials. In most of these interviews, I have asked a simple question: what is the percentage chance that Israel will attack the Iranian nuclear program in the near future? Not everyone would answer this question, but a consensus emerged that there is a better than 50 percent chance that Israel will launch a strike by next July. (Of course, it is in the Israeli interest to let it be known that the country is considering military action, if for no other reason than to concentrate the attention of the Obama administration. But I tested the consensus by speaking to multiple sources both in and out of government, and of different political parties. Citing the extraordinary sensitivity of the subject, most spoke only reluctantly, and on condition of anonymity. They were not part of some public-relations campaign.) The reasoning offered by Israeli decision makers was uncomplicated: Iran is, at most, one to three years away from having a breakout nuclear capability (often understood to be the capacity to assemble more than one missile-ready nuclear device within about three months of deciding to do so).
[…] But, based on my conversations with Israeli decision-makers, this period of forbearance, in which Netanyahu waits to see if the West’s nonmilitary methods can stop Iran, will come to an end this December. Robert Gates, the American defense secretary, said in June at a meeting of NATO defense ministers that most intelligence estimates predict that Iran is one to three years away from building a nuclear weapon. "In Israel, we heard this as nine months from June-in other words, March of 2011," one Israeli policy maker told me. "If we assume that nothing changes in these estimates, this means that we will have to begin thinking about our next step beginning at the turn of the year."
[…] The Israelis argue that Iran demands the urgent attention of the entire international community, and in particular the United States, with its unparalleled ability to project military force. This is the position of many moderate Arab leaders as well. A few weeks ago, in uncommonly direct remarks, the ambassador of the United Arab Emirates to the United States, Yousef al-Otaiba, told me-in a public forum at the Aspen Ideas Festival-that his country would support a military strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities. He also said that if America allowed Iran to cross the nuclear threshold, the small Arab countries of the Gulf would have no choice but to leave the American orbit and ally themselves with Iran, out of self-protection. "There are many countries in the region who, if they lack the assurance the U.S. is willing to confront Iran, they will start running for cover towards Iran," he said. "Small, rich, vulnerable countries in the region do not want to be the ones who stick their finger in the big bully’s eye, if nobody’s going to come to their support."
Several Arab leaders have suggested that America’s standing in the Middle East depends on its willingness to confront Iran. They argue self-interestedly that an aerial attack on a handful of Iranian facilities would not be as complicated or as messy as, say, invading Iraq. "This is not a discussion about the invasion of Iran," one Arab foreign minister told me. "We are hoping for the pinpoint striking of several dangerous facilities. America could do this very easily."
[…] But the Israelis are doubtful that a man who positioned himself as the antithesis of George W. Bush, author of invasions of both Afghanistan and Iraq, would launch a preemptive attack on a Muslim nation. "We all watched his speech in Cairo," a senior Israeli official told me, referring to the June 2009 speech in which Obama attempted to reset relations with Muslims by stressing American cooperativeness and respect for Islam. "We don’t believe that he is the sort of person who would launch a daring strike on Iran. We are afraid he would see a policy of containing a nuclear Iran rather than attacking it."
This official noted that even Bush balked at attacking Iran’s nuclear facilities, and discouraged the Israelis from carrying out the attack on their own. (Bush would sometimes mock those aides and commentators who advocated an attack on Iran, even referring to the conservative columnists Charles Krauthammer and William Kristol as "the bomber boys," according to two people I spoke with who overheard this.)
"Bush was two years ago, but the Iranian program was the same and the intent was the same," the Israeli official told me. "So I don’t personally expect Obama to be more Bush than Bush."
If the Israelis reach the firm conclusion that Obama will not, under any circumstances, launch a strike on Iran, then the countdown will begin for a unilateral Israeli attack. "If the choice is between allowing Iran to go nuclear, or trying for ourselves what Obama won’t try, then we probably have to try," the official told me.
Which brings us to a second question, one having to do with the nature of the man considering military action: would Netanyahu, a prime minister with an acute understanding of the essential role America plays in securing the existence of Israel (Netanyahu is a graduate of both Cheltenham High School, outside Philadelphia, and MIT, and is the most Americanized prime minister in Israel’s history, more so even than the Milwaukee-raised Golda Meir), actually take a chance on permanently alienating American affection in order to make a high-risk attempt at stopping Iran? If Iran retaliates against American troops in Iraq or Afghanistan, the consequences for Israel’s relationship with America’s military leadership could be catastrophic. (Of course, Netanyahu would be risking more than his relationship with the United States: a strike on Iran, Israeli intelligence officials believe, could provoke all-out retaliation by Iran’s Lebanese subsidiary, Hezbollah, which now possesses, by most intelligence estimates, as many as 45,000 rockets-at least three times as many as it had in the summer of 2006, during the last round of fighting between the group and Israel.)
[…] The increased tempo of these visits is only one sign of deepening contacts between Israel and America, as Iran moves closer to nuclear breakout: the chief of staff of the Israeli army, Lieutenant General Gabi Ashkenazi, is said to speak now with his American counterpart, Admiral Mullen, regularly. Mullen recently made a stop in Israel that had one main purpose, according to an Israeli source: "to make sure we didn’t do anything in Iran before they thought we might do something in Iran."
[…] On my last visit to Israel, I was asked almost a dozen times by senior officials and retired generals if I could explain Barack Obama and his feelings about Israel. Several officials even asked if I considered Obama to be an anti-Semite. I answered this question by quoting Abner Mikva, the former congressman, federal judge, and mentor to Obama, who famously said in 2008, "I think when this is all over, people are going to say that Barack Obama is the first Jewish president." I explained that Obama has been saturated with the work of Jewish writers, legal scholars, and thinkers, and that a large number of his friends, supporters, and aides are Jewish. But philo-Semitism does not necessarily equal sympathy for Netanyahu’s Likud Party-certainly not among American Jews, who are, like the president they voted for in overwhelming numbers, generally supportive of a two-state solution, and dubious about Jewish settlement of the West Bank.
When I made these points to one senior Israeli official, he said: "This is the problem. If he is a J Street Jew, we are in trouble." J Street is the liberal pro-Israel organization established to counter the influence of AIPAC and other groups. "We’re worried that he thinks like the liberal American Jews who say, ‘If we remove some settlements, then the extremist problem and the Iran problem go away.’"
[…] America, too, would look complicit in an Israeli attack, even if it had not been forewarned. The assumption-often, but not always, correct-that Israel acts only with the approval of the United States is a feature of life in the Middle East, and it is one the Israelis say they are taking into account. I spoke with several Israeli officials who are grappling with this question, among others: what if American intelligence learns about Israeli intentions hours before the scheduled launch of an attack? "It is a nightmare for us," one of these officials told me. "What if President Obama calls up Bibi and says, ‘We know what you’re doing. Stop immediately.’ Do we stop? We might have to. A decision has been made that we can’t lie to the Americans about our plans. We don’t want to inform them beforehand. This is for their sake and for ours. So what do we do? These are the hard questions." (Two officials suggested that Israel may go on pre-attack alert a number of times before actually striking: "After the fifth or sixth time, maybe no one would believe that we’re really going," one official said.)
[…]
9) The Weak Case for War with Iran,
Jeffrey Goldberg’s new article in the Atlantic is deeply reported – and deeply wrong about the Middle East. But it’s his misunderstanding of America that is most dangerous of all.
Flynt Leverett and Hillary Mann Leverett, Foreign Policy, August 11, 2010
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/08/11/the_weak_case_for_war_with_iran
[…] With the publication of Jeffrey Goldberg’s "The Point of No Return" in the Atlantic, the campaign for war against Iran is now arguing that the United States should attack so Israel won’t have to.
To be sure, Goldberg never explicitly writes that "the United States should bomb Iran." But he argues that, unless Israel is persuaded that Obama will order an attack, "there is a better than 50 percent chance that Israel will launch a strike by next July." And Goldberg’s Israeli interlocutors readily acknowledge that the United States could mount a far more robust air campaign against Iranian nuclear targets than Israel could. A much more limited Israeli strike "may cause Iran to redouble its efforts-this time with a measure of international sympathy-to create a nuclear arsenal [and] cause chaos for America in the Middle East," he acknowledges. Goldberg believes the Obama administration understands that "perhaps the best way to obviate a military strike on Iran is to make the threat of a strike by the Americans seem real." But there is a clear implication that, if threat alone does not work, better for the United States to pull the trigger than Israel.
Goldberg’s reporting on Israeli thinking about Iran – reflecting interviews with "roughly 40 current and past Israeli decision makers" – including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu – is exemplary. Unlike Gerecht, Goldberg does not skirt the potentially negative consequences of war. But Goldberg’s reporting also reveals that the case for attacking Iran – especially for America to attack so Israel won’t – is even flimsier than the case Goldberg helped make for invading Iraq in 2002, in a New Yorker article alleging that "the relationship between Saddam’s regime and Al Qaeda is far closer than previously thought."
[…] Fixating on Ahmadinejad’s rhetoric obscures the fact that normalized U.S.-Iranian relations would profoundly benefit Israel – just as Henry Kissinger’s engagement with Egyptian President Anwar Sadat in the 1970s decisively changed regional dynamics to preclude any possibility of another generalized Arab-Israeli war. It is only in retrospect that Sadat – an open admirer of Hitler who worked with Germany against Britain during World War II and not only made vicious anti-Israeli and anti-Semitic statements but launched a war that killed and injured thousands of Israelis – is depicted as a "man of peace."
[…] But Goldberg’s reporting on his conversations with Israeli generals, national-security policymakers, and politicians makes clear that, in fact, those at the top of Israel’s political order understand Iran’s nuclear program is not an "existential threat." His interlocutors recognize Iran is unlikely to invite its own destruction by attacking Israel directly. Rather, they say, a nuclear Iran "will progressively undermine [Israel’s] ability to retain its most creative and productive citizens," according to Defense Minister Ehud Barak.
"The real threat to Zionism is the dilution of quality," Barak tells Goldberg. "Jews know that they can land on their feet in any corner of the world. The real test for us is to make Israel such an attractive place, such a cutting-edge place in human society, education, culture, science, quality of life, that even American Jewish young people want to come here … Our young people can consciously decide to go other places [and] stay out of here by choice."
Ephraim Sneh, retired general and former deputy defense minister, also describes the non-existential nature of the Iranian "threat": "[Israelis] are good citizens, and brave citizens, but the dynamics of life are such that if … someone finishes a Ph.D. and they are offered a job in America, they might stay there … The bottom line is that we would have an accelerated brain drain."
In other words, Israeli elites want the United States to attack Iran’s nuclear program – with the potentially negative repercussions that Goldberg acknowledges – so that Israel will not experience "a dilution of quality" or "an accelerated brain drain." Sneh argues that "if Israel is no longer understood by its 6 million Jewish citizens, and by the roughly 7 million Jews who live outside of Israel, to be a ‘natural safe haven’, then its raison d’être will have been subverted."
To be sure, the United States has an abiding commitment to Israel’s security. But, just as surely, preventing "dilution of quality" or bolstering Israelis’ perceptions regarding their country’s raison d’être can never give an American president a just or strategically sound cause for initiating war. And make no mistake: Bombing Iran’s nuclear facilities would mean war.
Netanyahu himself admits that the challenges posed by a nuclear Iran "are more subtle than a direct attack," noting that "you’d create a sea change in the balance of power in our area." This is another major point in the Israeli case for war that deserves unpacking – and debunking. Goldberg points out that "Persian and Jewish civilizations have not forever been enemies." In fact, the Islamic Republic and Israel have not forever been enemies. During the Iran-Iraq war, Israel – over Washington’s objections – sold weapons to Iran, and was involved in U.S. President Ronald Reagan’s subsequent outreach to Tehran (which imploded in the Iran-Contra scandal).
However, Israeli-Iranian geopolitical dynamics changed with the Cold War’s end, the Soviet Union’s collapse, and the removal of Iraq’s military as a factor in the regional balance of power through the first Gulf War. Since then, Israel has deemed Iran its principal rival for regional hegemony – and the Islamic Republic views what it sees as Israel’s hegemonic ambitions as threatening its vital interests.
Israeli elites want to preserve a regional balance of power strongly tilted in Israel’s favor and what an Israeli general described to Goldberg as "freedom of action" -the freedom to use force unilaterally, anytime, for whatever purpose Israel wants. The problem with Iranian nuclear capability – not just weapons, but capability – is that it might begin constraining Israel’s currently unconstrained "freedom of action." In May, retired Israeli military officers, diplomats, and intelligence officials conducted a war game that assumed Iran had acquired "nuclear weapons capability." Participants subsequently told Reuters that such capability does not pose an "existential threat" to Israel – but "would blunt Israel’s military autonomy."
One may appreciate Israel’s desire to maximize its military autonomy. But, in an already conflicted region, Israel’s assertion of military hegemony is itself a significant contributor to instability and the risk of conflict. Certainly, maximizing Israel’s freedom of unilateral military initiative is not a valid rationale for the United States to start a war with Iran. Just imagine how Obama would explain such reasoning to the American people.
[…] Regarding Iran, what constitutes "greatness" for Obama? Clearly, Obama will not achieve greatness by acquiescing to another fraudulently advocated and strategically damaging war in the Middle East. He could, however, achieve greatness by doing with Iran what Richard Nixon did with Egypt and China – realigning previously antagonistic relations with important countries in ways that continue serving the interests of America and its allies more than three decades later.
Israel/Palestine
10) Gaza aid flotilla to set sail from Lebanon with all-women crew
Arabic singer joins crew of nuns, doctors, lawyers and journalists for humanitarian mission despite Israeli warning
Ruth Sherlock, Guardian.co.uk, Friday 6 August 2010 19.20 BST http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/aug/06/gaza-aid-flotilla-lebanon-women
Beirut – A ship bearing aid for Gaza is preparing to leave Tripoli in Lebanon this weekend in the latest attempt to defy the Israeli blockade – with only women on board.
The Saint Mariam, or Virgin Mary, has a multi-faith international passenger list, including the Lebanese singer May Hariri and a group of nuns from the US. "They are nuns, doctors, lawyers, journalists, Christians and Muslims," said Mona, one of the participants who, along with the other women, has adopted the ship’s name, Mariam.
The Mariam and its sister ship, Naji Alali, had hoped to set off several weeks ago but faced several delays after Israel launched a diplomatic mission to pressure Lebanon to stop the mission.
The co-ordinator of the voyage, Samar al-Haj, told the Guardian this week the Lebanese government had given permission for the boats to leave for Cyprus, the first leg of the journey, this weekend.
Israel says it is concerned a flotilla from Lebanon, with whom it has ongoing hostility, will smuggle weapons to Gaza. Israel’s ambassador to the UN, Gabriela Shalev, has warned that Israel reserves the right to use "necessary measures" in line with international law to stop the ship.
But al-Haj says the mission is purely humanitarian. "Our goal is to arrive in Gaza," she said. "It is the responsibility of the government to deal with the politics. We are not political." She said that once news of the flotilla was out organisers were inundated with requests to join the voyage, with more than 400 from the US alone. At least 10 Americans will be on board.
The boat has been stocked with medical instruments and medicines to take to the Palestinians.
[…] Al-Haj reminded the women to be prepared for a confrontation. "Have blood tests in case we come under attack from Israel and you need a blood transfusion," she said. She added that organisers were going out of their way not to provoke Israel. "We will not even bring cooking knives," she said.
Serena Shim, who is heavily pregnant, decided to join the voyage because of her belief that the blockade is unjust. "These people need aid," she said.
Asked how they would react to an Israeli military assault, one activist, Tania al Kayyalisaid: "We are not planning to fight or attack – but we will not leave the St Mariam."
–
Robert Naiman
Just Foreign Policy
www.justforeignpolicy.org
Just Foreign Policy is a membership organization devoted to reforming US foreign policy so it reflects the values and interests of the majority of Americans.