EFTA Document EFTA01804134

From: Office of Tana Rod-Larsen Sent: Thursday, March 28, 2013 5:38 PM Subject: March 28 update Articl= 2. <https://mail.google.com/mail/./0/html/compose/static_filesiblank_quirks.htmlflb> The Washington Post Obama's pragmatic approach to Mi=east David Ignat=us <http://www.washingtonpost.com=david-ignatius/2011/02/17/ABXXcal_page.html> Articl= 4. <https://mailgoogle.com/mail/a10/html/compose/static_filesiblank_quirks.htmIttd> The Wall Street Journal Stopping an Undetectable Iranian B=mb David Albrigh., Mark Dubowitz and Orde Kittrie chttp://onl ine.wsj.com/searchherm.html?KEYWOR DS= DAVI D+ALBRIGHT%2C+MARK+DU BOWITZ+AN =;ORDE+KITTRI E&byl i nesearch=true> Articl= 6. <httpslimail.google.com/mail/=/0/html/compose/static_files/blank_quirks.htmItlf> Los Angeles Times <http://www.latimes.com/> 'Star Wars' today: What would Reag=n do? Graham Allison Article 7. The Economist Can India become a great power? EFTA_R1_00149103 EFTA01804134 Ar=icle 1. The Washington Post=/span> Obama appeals=to Israel's conscience Fareed Zakaria chttp://w=w.washingtonpost.com/fareed-zakaria/2011/02/24/ABhDZWN_page.html> March 27, 2013 -- A= a piece of rhetoric, Barack Obama's speech to college students in Jerusalem <http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/president-obamas-address-=o-the-israeli-people-in-jerusalem- transcript/2013/03/21/febb408e-9269-11e2=9abd-e4c5c9dc5e90_story.html> was a triumph.=He finally convinced Israel <http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/obama-ends-israe=-visit-by-honoring-historic- figures/2013/03/22/7a489fc4-92e9-11e2-ba5b-550=7abf6384_story.html> and its supporters that "HE GETS US," as one of them e-maile= me. "In his Kishkas (gut], he gets us!" But Obama also spoke more blu=tly about Israel's occupation and the case for a Palestinian state than =ny U.S. president has in the past. Oratory aside, Obama has recognized and employed the strongest — and perhaps onl= — path toward peace and a Palestinian state: an appeal to Israel's co=science. For 40 years, those=who have tried to push Israel toward making concessions have pointed to da=gers and threats. Israel is surrounded by enemies, the argument goes, and =he only way to ease that hostility is to give the Palestinians a state. Palestinian terrorism will make daily=life in Israel unbearable, another variant explained, and Israel will have=to settle this problem politically. These assumptions undergirded the peac= process and Obama's approach in his first term. The argument reflec=ed reality in the 1980s and 1990s, when Israel faced an array of powerful =rab states with large armies — Iraq, Syria — formally dedicated to its=destruction. The Soviet Union backed these regimes with cash and arms and ceaselessly drummed up international opposi=ion to the Jewish state. Israelis lived with constant Palestinian terror, =hich created a siege mentality within the country. The situation today= however, is transformed in every sense. The Soviet Union is dead. Iraq an= Syria have been sidelined as foes. The Arab world is in upheaval, which p=oduces great uncertainty but has also weakened every Arab country. They all are focused on internal issues of po=er, legitimacy and survival. The last thing any of them can afford is a co=frontation with the country that has become the region's dominant power. The data underscore=this. Israel's per capita gross domestic product is now nine times that =f Egypt, according to the International Monetary Fund's most recent figu=es; six times that of Jordan; and nearly three times that of Turkey. It is almost 50 percentgreater than Saudi Arab=a's per capita GDP. Israeli military expenditures are larger than those =f all its neighbors combined, and then there are its technological and qua=itative superiorities and its alliance with the world's dominant military power. Israel's highly effective co=nterterrorism methods, including the wall separating Palestinians and Isra=lis and the "iron dome," which increasingly shields Israelis from miss=les, have largely made Palestinian terrorism something that is worried about and planned against but not actually exper=enced by most Israelis. Even the much-discu=sed "demographic threat" is a threat only if Israel sees it as such =97 something the country's new breed of politicians, such as Naftali Bennett chttp://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2013/01/21/130121fa_fact_remn=ck> , have cynically grasped. After all, Israel has ruled mi=lions of Palestinians without offering them citizenship or a state for 40 =ears. There is no tipping point at 2 EFTA_R1_00149104 EFTA01804135 which this becomes logistically or tech=ically unsustainable. Walls, roads and checkpoints would work for 4 million Palestinians just as they do for = million. In a sense, both ha=d-line supporters of Israel and advocates of peace have clung to the notio= of the Jewish state as deeply vulnerable. For Likudniks, this demonstrate= that Israel was at risk and needed constant support. For peaceniks, it proved that peace was a vital necessit=. But Israel's stre=gth and security are changing the country's outlook. Don't look only a= the tough talk coming from the new right. As columnist and author <http://www.amazon.com/dp/0385521707/ref=as_li_tf_til?tag=wasrpost-opinions- 20&campr0&creative=0&linkCode=asl&creariveASIN=0385521707&adid=0H48BSQNWH9J02EBENXP> Ari Shavit notes, the country has turned its attention from surv=val to social, political and economic justice. (January's election results <http://globalpurlicsquare.blogs.cnn.com/2013/01/23/israels-elections-confound-criticsk confirmed this trend.) And while these seem, at first, domestic affairs, t=ey will ultimately lead to a concern for justice in a broader sense and fo= the rights of Palestinians. Obama's speech <http://wrw.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2013/03/21/remarks-president-barack-obam=-people- Israel> appealed to this as=ect of Israel's psyche and grounded it deeply in Jewish values: "Israel is rooted not just in history and tradition bu= also in the idea that a people deserve to be free in a land of their own.=94 Then, applying that idea to Israel's longtime adversaries, he said: =93Look at the world through (Palestinian( eyes. It is not fair that a Palestinian child cannot grow up in a state of=their own. Living their entire lives with the presence of a foreign army t=at controls the movements not just of those young people but their parents= their grandparents, every single day." Having tried pressu=e, threats and tough talk, Obama has settled on a new strategy: appealing =o Israel as a liberal democracy and to its people's sense of conscience =nd character. In the long run, this is the most likely path to peace and a Palestinian state. Articl= 2. The Washington Post=/span> Obama's pra=matic approach to Mideast David Ignatius chttp://www.washingtonpost.com/david-ignat=us/2011/02/17/ABXXcal_page.html> March 27, 2013 -- H=re's the coldblooded calculation at work as President Obama shapes his f=reign-policy agenda: If he took "full ownership" of the Syria problem =hrough direct military intervention, that's probably all he could accomplish during his second term — and even then,=he might fail in reconciling that country's feuding sects. So Obama is moving =nstead toward a more pragmatic approach in Syria, with the CIA playing a c=ntral role, supplemented by the State Department and the U.S. military. Th= United States will train Syrian rebels and help build governance in areas liberated from the regime of President =/span> Bashar al-Assad <http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2013/02/21/fiv=-most-bizarre-quotes-from-bashar-al-assads- new-interviewh . Washington will work harder to coordinate policy with the key regional powers — Turkey, Qatar= 3 EFTA_R1_00149105 EFTA01804136 Saudi Arabia and Jordan — whose conflicting agendas have threatened in =ecent days to pull the Syrian opposition apart. But Obama won't m=ke the all-encompassing commitment in Syria that some want because he fear= it would devour the remaining years of his presidency. This pragmatic line=on foreign policy was evident during Obama's trip to the Middle East chttp://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/obamas-mi=east-trips-leaves-behind-a-mix-of-hope-and- skepticism/2013/03/23/e6ee8a08-=389-11e2-a3le-14700e2724e4_story.html> this month. Though the president is often criticized for his passive, "I=ading from behind" style, he made some notable advances on the trip. The=challenge, as always for Obama, will be to follow through with coherent =93from the front" leadership. Here are three stra=egic gains that emerged from the trip: Obama breathed a li=tle life back into an Israeli-Palestinian peace process that had all but e=pired. He did this largely by the force of his March 21 speech chttp://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2013/03=21/how-obama- just-reframed-the-israel-palestine-conflictk in Israel. What he accomplished was the diplomat's trick of riding two horses at once: The =peech was a love letter to Israel, as one commentator noted, and it was al=o a passionate evocation of the Palestinians' plight, and the need to =93Iook at the world through their eyes." Obama pulled Israel= Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu toward the U.S. position on military ac=ion against Iran. Netanyahu saidg=pan> <http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/obama-arrives-in-isra=l-for-three-day- visit/2013/03/20/a01774aa-914f-11e2-9abd-e4c5c9dc5e90_stor..html> that "if Iran decides to go for a nuclear weapon — that is, to actuall= manufacture the weapon — then . . . it will take them about a year." =e said the United States and Israel share "a common assessment" of Ira=. This sounded close to agreement with Obama's position that the trigger for a military strike would be an Iranian breako=t toward a bomb; that's quite different from the "zone of immunity" =rguments Netanyahu was making last =ear <http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/benjamin- =etanyahu-invokes-holocaust-in-push-against-iran/2012/02/23/gIQAFKdkhR_stor=.html> , which viewed Iran's very position of enrichment technology as the threat= These exchanges demonstrated that Obama is stronger politically than he w=s a year ago and Netanyahu is weaker. The Israeli prime minister is now tr=ing to associate himself with Obama's Iran policy, rather than pressuring him. Obama brokered an i=portant reconciliation between Netanyahu and Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan <http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/obama-end=-israel-visit-by-honoring-historic- figures/2013/03/22/7a489fc4-92e9-11e2-b=Sb-SS0c7abf6384_story.html> .=With the region in turmoil, this was a matter of vital national interest f=r both Israel and Turkey, but it took Obama to provide the personal link t=at made it happen. This was a payoff for Obama's cultivation of Erdogan since 2010, and for his "reset" w=th Netanyahu. Syria remains the t=st of whether Obama can, forgive the term, "lean in" more during his s=cond term. Obama has been slow to see the dangers of U.S. passivity there:=For months he let things drift in Syria; the United States had a nominal commitment to strengthening command-and-co=trol within the opposition but no real policy on the ground to accomplish =t. Obama is now said t= understand the risk that Syria's sectarian conflict will spread to Leba=on, Iraq and Jordan if the United States doesn't take stronger action. T=e White House is eager to work with Brig. Gen. Salim Idriss, the commander of the Free Syrian Army, on training, log=stics and other priorities. The administration recognizes that it may need="safe zones," perhaps protected by air defenses, to train Syrian rebel= inside the country rather than in Jordan and Turkey. The president is st=ll said to resist the simple formula of "arm the rebels," but he seems=close to partnering with friendly intelligence services in the region on w=at would be a major covert action program, reminiscent of Afghanistan in the 1980s <http://belfercenter.ksg.harvard.edu/publi=ation/19149/covert_action.html> , with all the attendant risks. 4 EFTA_R1_00149106 EFTA01804137 In framing this project, he'd be wise to bring in some CIA veterans who have experi=nce running similar programs, pronto. Obama hasn't had = personality transplant. He's still likely to be slow and deliberate. Bu= the Middle East trip showed that he has built some political and diplomat=c capital and is starting to use it wisely. Articl= 3. The National Intere=t Why Stay in t=e Middle East? Leon Hadar <http://n=tionalinterest.oreprofile/leon-hadar> March 27, 2013 -- B=shing the critics of their foreign-policy agenda as "isolationists" ha= become the last refuge of military interventionists and global crusaders.=The tactic helps sidetrack the debate by putting the onus on their opponents—those skeptical of regime change her=, there and everywhere—to disprove the charge that they want Americans t= shun the rest of the world. And now proponents =f maintaining American military hegemony in the Middle East have been appl=ing a similar technique, accusing those who call for a debate on U.S. inte=ests and policies in that region of advocating retreat and appeasement. Like the accusation of "isolat=onism," the suggestion that a reassessment of current U.S. policies in t=e Middle East amounts to geostrategic retrenchment is part of an effort to=shut down debate and maintain the status quo. But questioning the dominant U.S. Middle East paradigm, which assumes=that Americans have the interest and the obligation to secure a dominant p=litical-military status in the region, now goes beyond strategic and econo=ic calculations being debated by foreign-policy wonks in Washington. Most Americans have only b=sic knowledge about the Middle East and U.S. interests there, beyond words=that trigger a visceral fear ("oil" and "Israel" and "terrorism=94). But most of them are now telling pollsters that they want to see U.S. troops withdraw from Iraq and Afghanistan as soon as poss=ble, are opposed to new U.S.-led regime change and nation building in the =iddle East, and are skeptical about the utility of Washington taking charg= of the Israeli-Palestinian "peace process." Indeed, you don't have to be a deep strategi= thinker to conclude that the U.S. invasion of Iraq was a major military a=d diplomatic fiasco (no more Iraqs, please); that Washington exerts very l=ttle influence on the political weather (where it's "spring" or "winter") in the Arab World, a place where they lost t=at loving feeling for America a long time ago; or that Israelis and Palest=nians are not going to live in peace and harmony anytime soon, even if Pre=ident Obama would spend the rest of his term engaged in diplomatic psychotherapy sessions with them at Camp David.=/span> It is becoming quit= obvious to most Americans that sustaining the foundations of the Pax Amer=cana in the Middle East is no longer cost-effective. Especially at a time =hen many members of the middle class have yet to recover from the economic devastation of the Great Recession a=d their representatives in Washington cannot agree on how to manage the ba=looning federal deficit. 5 EFTA_R1_00149107 EFTA01804138