Netanyahu in Washington

Robert Hunter gives a rundown on what he expects to be the concerns on each side of the US/Israel governmental meeting today between President Obama and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (Bibi Comes Calling: What President Obama Needs to Say LobeLog Foreign Policy; accessed 11/09/2015):

When Benjamin Netanyahu, prime minister of Israel, visits the Oval Office on Monday, both he and President Barack Obama have a domestic political interest in “making nice” with one another. Netanyahu has to show Israelis back home that his efforts to derail the conclusion of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) with Iran, following his outrageous speech to a joint session of Congress last spring, have not seriously damaged his country’s relations with the United States, Israel’s only firm supporter in the world. Obama also wants to show the American Jewish community that he bears no grudge, as he seeks its support for other elements of his foreign and domestic policies and as he paves the way for his successor in January 2017.

He notes that there won't be pretense of near-term progress on the endless peace process, as it is still politely called:

The ghost at the banquet on Monday will be the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. Both Netanyahu and Obama will pay lip service, but that is about it. Although US interests and efforts in the Middle East as a whole would be immensely aided by serious progress on this front—a proposition that no serious observer rejects—nothing will happen for the balance of this administration and well into the next. Obama made this clear last week, presumably to keep it off the agenda with Netanyahu.

Despite the distinctly unfriendly, even hostile attitude that Netanyahu's government has taken toward Obama, Netanyahu is pressing for a substantial increase in US military aid to Israel, which is easily the strongest military power in the Middle East and the only one with nuclear weapons:

Israel will also want to complete work on a 10-year extension of its security agreement with the US, which runs out in 2017. This will certainly be agreed to, at least in principle. At about $3 billion a year in military aid, Israel wants this figure to be bounced up to $5 billion. Obama may not be willing to go that far. And Israel will want to intensify the agreements, some tacit, some explicit, under which the US is supposed to “coordinate” its overall Middle East approaches with Jerusalem.

Hunter also suggests that Obama wants Netanyahu to intervene with AIPAC, the largest group in the Israel lobby in the US, to tell them to moderate their criticism:

Obama also has items on his agenda. Beyond a shared interest in presenting a calm and mutually supportive relationship, he wants to get Netanyahu to “call off the dogs” in the continuing US debate about the JCPOA and its implementation. Groups like the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), which is a politically potent and reliable reflection of Israeli government thinking, continue to try limiting the pacing of the agreement, especially in terms of sanctions relief. These groups also have consistently portrayed Iranian behavior, both under the agreement and in general, in the worst light possible. Netanyahu could have a good deal of influence in Washington, but whether he will be responsive is another matter (Obama is unlikely to raise this sensitive issue, himself, but rather to relegate it to subordinates).

It is indeed a "sensitive" issue. For the President to ask a foreign leader to intervene on his behalf with a domestic political group like AIPAC would be a high-level admission of what is actually common knowledge about the lobbying power of AIPAC and its arguably uncomfortable closeness to the Israeli government.

Hunter also points out that the US needs to be more clear generally in Middle East policy that we are pursuing a sensible policy for American interests and less to satisfy the preferences of client states that may have divergent interests from the US on important issues:

In the final analysis, in the Obama-Netanyahu meetings and in other US diplomacy regarding the Middle East, the United States needs to make clear a general policy that applies to Saudi Arabia and other Sunni states as much as to Israel: America’s strategic partnerships with friends in the region must become a genuine two-way street not just a one-way provision by Washington of military goods and services and security commitments. If Obama adopts this position and gives it teeth, he will greatly improve the chances that the United States can succeed with its overall objectives in the Middle East, which would also benefit Israel and other regional states. In any event, “American interests first” is always a good approach.

Diane Feinstein takes a sensible position on Congressional war powers - at least for the moment

I'm not in the habit of particularly praising my California Sen. Diane Feinstein. She's a liberal Democrat and has a decent voting record on many domestic issues.

But as Chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, she's had a terrible record on oversight of the intelligence agencies. She's been more of an advocate for expansive powers for intelligence agencies at the expense of democratic and Constitutional rights.

This is one of the major problems in the US right now. One of the major democratic deficits right now, to borrow a term rightly applied the EU in its current form. Congress has virtually ceded its war powers to the Executive. Elizabeth Beavers of the Friends Committee on National Legislation writes in Bring the War on Terror to an End 01/10/2014, a piece appearing on the website of US News and World Report (!), focuses on the expansive authority claimed by the Executive Branch - and so far largely unchallenged by Congress - under the open-ended 2001 Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF):

How can the National Security Agency maintain its sweeping, invasive spying program? The only justification is the AUMF. Where did the president get the authority to indefinitely detain people for over a decade without charge or explanation? The AUMF provides that power, of course. Can U.S. citizens be targeted by drones for assassination without due process? Sure, says the AUMF.

It is doubtful that members of Congress envisioned the future they were creating when they voted "yes" for the AUMF in 2001. But now that future is the present world we live in, and it is time to re-examine it. Is it safer? Is it more secure? As Americans, do we have more liberty? As global citizens, are we leading by example to bring about justice and the rule of law? There is a strong case to be made that the answer to each of those questions is a resounding no, and it is directly because of the AUMF.

It is impossible to discuss the issues of warrantless wiretapping, the war in Afghanistan, the detention facility at Guantanamo or targeted drone strikes without discussing the AUMF. These troubling practices are only possible because they are considered "incidents of war" that are covered by the sweep of the AUMF's authority.

So it's a surprise to see Feinstein's speech, Feinstein on Iran: Give Diplomacy a Chance, Oppose Additional Sanctions 01/15/2014. In it, she's taking her usual stance of defending the Obama Administration's foreign policy, in this case the current negotiations with Iran over nuclear capabilities. And she's opposing a Congressional resolution backed by the Israel lobby that would likely make those negotiations impossible.

Thanks to Administration pressure, the public popularity of the negotiation efforts and backing from Congressional supporters of the negotiations like Feinstein, the effort to pass the anti-negotiation bill seems to be stymied for the moment, as Jim Lobe reports in Israel Lobby Thwarted in Iran Sanctions Bid For Now Inter Press Service 01/15/2014.

Feinstein's speech is interesting as part of a debate on how the Congress should assert its power in foreign policy. No one is questioning that Congress has the power to restrict the Executive's options in a negotiation; they clearly do. But they exercise it so infrequently in opposition to the Executive Branch and have lately been more interested in promoting a warlike foreign policy and especially to cover up, validate and even legalize dangerous practices by intelligence agencies that in restraining the already heavy temptation for the Executive to be reckless in foreign policy.

What's particularly notable about the dispute in which Feinstein is participating is that the anti-negotiations legislation (the Nuclear Weapon Free Iran Act of 2013) shows an appalling willingness of its sponsors - 59 Senators are co-sponsors - to waive their own Constitutional responsibility under their Constitutional war powers. The proposed legislation includes this provision:

if the Government of Israel is compelled to take military action in legitimate self-defense against Iran’s nuclear weapon program, the United States Government should stand with Israel and provide, in accordance with the law of the United States and the constitutional responsibility of Congress to authorize the use of military force, diplomatic, military, and economic support to the Government of Israel in its defense of its territory, people, and existence

Since Israel has repeatedly threaten to launch a preventive military attack on Iran over the nuclear weapons issue, the Congressional sponsors surely must realize this is a green light from Congress to encourage Israel to launch such an attack.

Which is pretty much what Feinstein says in her speech near the end says:

Let me acknowledge Israel's real, well-founded concerns that a nuclear-armed Iran would threaten its very existence. I don't disagree with that. I agree with it, but they are not there yet.

While I recognize and share Israel's concern, we cannot let Israel determine when and where the United States goes to war. By stating that the United States should provide military support to Israel in a formal resolution should it attack Iran, I fear that is how this bill is going to be interpreted.

Let me conclude. The interim agreement with Iran is strong, it is tough, and it is realistic. It represents the first significant opportunity to change a three-decade course in Iran and an opening to improve one of our most poisonous bilateral relationships. It could open the door to a new future which not only considers Israel's national security, but protects our own. [my emphasis]

We'll be hearing quite a bit of commentary this year about the beginning of the First World War. We can at least hope most of it will be less frivolous than that of Bill Kristol, which is after all a very low bar to meet.

But one major factor in the immediate chain of decision-making that led to the all-out war in 1914 was Germany's assurance to the Austro-Hungarian Emperor Franz Joseph II's government that Germany would back them in a war against Serbia. It wasn't a German Archduke that Gavrilo Princip assassinated in Sarajevo. And a less reckless government than Kaiser Bill's might have reasoned that giving a green light to the Habsburg Empire for a war on Serbia might not be something to agree to without more careful consideration.

Just as a more responsible Congress in 2002 could have and should have been less willing to give President Cheney an authorization to launch a preventive war on Iraq based on false claims. More importantly, a more responsible Congress would have tried to impeach a President and Vice President who violated the Congressional resolution they did pass in October 2002 when they did invade Iraq.

The problem is not that Congress isn't willing to exercise its authority in foreign affairs. The problem is that in doing so, they are far too deferential to the Executive Branch in general and, even more importantly, lacking in a sense of responsibly exercising their Congressional duties in foreign affairs and especially in the use and enforcement of their war powers.

Diane Feinstein has been a textbook case for that lack in a sense of responsibility on intelligence oversight. But in telling the Senate it would be irresponsible for give Israel a green light for a war that would not be in America's interests, she asserted a sensible approach toward Congressional war powers and responsibilities.

Tags: diane feinstein, iran, israel, israel lobby, nuclear proliferation

Chuck Hagel and the Israel lobby

Last week's quarrelsome Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on former Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel's nomination as Secretary of Defense highlighted the real existing effect of the Israel lobby and its outsize effects on American politics and foreign policy. I've listed below several pieces discussing this issue.

I'm still bothered by the fact that President Obama picked another Republican for his third Secretary of Defense, following Bill Clinton's example with Bill Cohen, his third Defense Secretary. Obama kept George W. Bush's Secretary of Defense, Bill Gates, on as his first SecDef. This works against the success that Obama has had in diminishing the Republicans' perceived advantage on national defense in public opinion polls. It's another symptom of Obama's near-compulsive pursuit of an illusory bipartisan harmony.

But for this nomination, that ship has sailed. And now the Republican nominee for SecDef has become a partisan flashpoint, with his own Party for whom he served in the Senate bitterly opposing him and the Democrats supporting him. And so the game has to be evaluated for what it is. But Israel and the closely related issue of Iran got the most attention.

Here are two video news reports on the hearings, which ran for eight hours.

The Hagel Hearings The Real News 02/01/2013, with commentary by Jim Lobe:

Chuck Hagel Defends Record at Confirmation Hearing PBS Newshour 01/31/2013:

The main issue in whether Chuck Hagel is qualified to be the US Secretary of Defense has become whether he's rabid enough in his support for anything and everything the government of Israel might want to do themselves or might want the United States to do. Obviously in the reports above, John McCain's seemingly theological concept of the value of The Surge in Iraq, also made a newsworthy moment in the hearing.

As Gideon Levy writes in Israel does as it pleases Haaretz 02/03/2013, Israel's foreign and military policies are increasingly heedless of their extreme unpopularity and even their blowback potential for Israel. Their policies are often reckless, and their allies, including the United States, need to take full account of that fact.

The public discussion of US-Israeli policies still largely proceeds on the polite assumption that a two-state solution with the Palestinians is still a viable option. In reality, Israel has succeeded in closing it down as a realistic possibility. Stephen Walt in Some inconvenient truths Foreign Policy 01/28/2013 listed this as one of the practical realities he wishes that the Washington foreign policy establishment would openly acknowledge:

#3: "There's not going to be a two-state solution." For official Washington insiders, the politically-correct answer to any question about the Israel-Palestine conflict is that we favor a two-state solution based on negotiations between the two parties, preferably done under U.S. auspices. Never mind that there's not much support for creating a viable Palestinian state in Israel (surveys in Israel sometimes show slim majorities in favor of a 2SS, but support drops sharply when you spell out the details of what a viable state would mean). Never mind that the Palestinians are too weak and divided to negotiate properly, and the failure of the long Oslo process has diminished Fatah's legitimacy and strengthened the more hardline Hamas. Never mind that the latest Israeli election, while it weakened Netanyahu, did not strengthen the peace camp at all. And never mind that the United States has had twenty-plus years to pull of the deal and has blown it every time, mostly because it never acted like a genuine mediator. But nobody in official-dom is going to say this out loud, because they have no idea what U.S. policy would be once the 2SS was kaput.

But, as Levy notes:

Even more troublesome are the questions about the settlements. Again, Israel's conduct is based on the assumption that, as far as West Bank settlements are concerned, anything is allowed. A committee set up by the UN − by the power of whose decision the State of Israel was established and won world recognition − published a document on Thursday castigating Israel's policy. The committee ruled that the settlements are a violation of international law − or, in other words, a war crime.

Israel, the report's composers established, will be susceptible to lawsuits in the International Criminal Court in The Hague and sanctions. So what? The Foreign Ministry has already called it a one-sided report. A commentator in Israel Hayom, like all Israel's commentators, has already consigned it to "the garbage heap of history." ...

I appeared before this investigation committee’s members − impressive, well-known jurists − at their request. Their committee was set up by the same council that wrote the Goldstone Report into Operation Cast Lead in Gaza − which penetrated so deeply into Israeli consciousness that the Israel Defense Forces acted differently in last November’s Operation Pillar of Defense. That report was not thrown into the garbage heap, but went into history. This settlement report, too, will resonate − at least in the outside world.

See also:

Phyllis Bennis, Will Chuck Hagel's Appointment Actually Help the Anti-War Left? The Nation 01/08/2013

Juan Cole, Why the Senate should Confirm Chuck Hagel as SecDef Informed Comment 01/31/2013

Juan Cole, Chuck Hagel Mauled in Bizarro World of US Senate Informed Comment 02/01/2013

Robert Dreyfuss, The Hagel Disaster The Nation 02/01/2103

Howie Klein, Will The GOP Slap Down Obama By Torpedoing Chuck Hagel? Down With Tyranny 02/02/2013

Jim Lobe, It’s All About Israel Inter Press Service 02/01/2013

Jim Rutenberg, Secret Donors Finance Fight Against Hagel New York Times 01/26/2013

Stephen Walt, I'd like to thank the Senate Armed Services Committee Foreign Policy 02/01/2013

Tags: chuck hagel, israel, israel lobby, us foreign policy